Conservative pundit Mark Levin accused Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05) of being a “fraud” and “phony conservative” over opposition to Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-23) as House Speaker.
Biggs responded with the claim that Levin’s support was merely opportunism. The representative showed evidence that Levin has long opposed McCarthy.
“Levin is the biggest fraud in politics right now. For years, this guy castigated McCarthy publicly (with no shame),” tweeted Biggs. “Now, he is all in for him and wants his audience to turn a blind eye. Total fraud.”
Levin is the biggest fraud in politics right now.
For years, this guy castigated McCarthy publicly (with no shame).
Now, he is all in for him and wants his audience to turn a blind eye.
Levin made Biggs the subject of his Tuesday radio show. The pundit noted Biggs’ long opposition to the Convention of States, and recent vote for Tom Emmer (R-MN-06), who Levin called a “RINO” (Republican In Name Only), over Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN-03) for a House leadership position.
Levin responded to Biggs’ flip-flopping accusation without addressing any of his prior opposition to McCarthy.
Biggs is a political hack and his Arizona constituents have been misled by him along enough. He tried but failed to do grave damage to patriotic constitutionalists all across the country. He can’t hide behind his asinine tweets. https://t.co/xz5RZodn5e
In a Daily Caller column, Biggs painted McCarthy as a feckless leader for over six years. Biggs declared McCarthy was the establishment’s pick because he has a track record of maintaining the status quo for Democrats. He cited a forthcoming spending package from Biden that he said will worsen national debt, noting that McCarthy supports it.
Biggs also criticized McCarthy for circulating a censure resolution for former President Donald Trump and protecting outgoing Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) until Cheney personally embarrassed McCarthy.
He disclosed that McCarthy thwarted efforts to challenge Democrats by requiring a vote on every bill, reportedly calling it “inconvenient.”
McCarthy teased a bid for the speakership in 2015, but withdrew amid rumors of an affair with former North Carolina Rep. Renee Ellmers. McCarthy failed to secure the speakership again in 2018 after Democrats took over the majority.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
While boarding his flight to Arizona on Tuesday, President Joe Biden shared that he wasn’t visiting the border because it wasn’t important.
Biden told Fox News reporter Peter Doocy that focusing on American manufacturing was a bigger priority for him. He visited the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) plant as part of his visit.
“[T]here are more important things going on,” stated Biden. “They’re going to invest billions of dollars in a new enterprise.”
AZ Free News noted earlier this week that Tuesday’s visit marked the president’s first to Arizona since assuming office. The president has overlooked the state despite being an epicenter for the ongoing border crisis.
Biden never misses an opportunity to perform his duties. Biden defends skipping border visit while in Arizona, says there are 'more important things' https://t.co/yKr5dFItyf#FoxNews
Biden’s disinterest in the southern border is further evident in his public messaging. Over this past year, he’s expressed more concern for Ukraine’s border than our own.
Watch live as I give an update on our continued efforts to pursue deterrence and diplomacy – and an update on Russia’s buildup of military troops on the border of Ukraine. https://t.co/Xt6EQUNltF
The last time the president tweeted about the southern border was to condemn border agents’ handling of illegal Haitian immigrants.
I'm heartbroken by the treatment of Haitian migrants at our border — and I acknowledge it is only the latest of many historic indignities that Haitians have faced. We will continue to offer assistance and investigate wrongdoing. I remain committed, as ever, to Haiti's future. pic.twitter.com/Cu1TlqF4EA
Biden isn’t the only Democrat who believes domestic microchip manufacturing outweighs other issues. Sens. Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema both ignored controversies over the FBI raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. Instead, the pair focused on the passage of the CHIPS and Science Act.
In a few minutes, I’ll be speaking from TSMC where President Biden is here to see how Arizona is leading the way in bringing microchip manufacturing back to America. Tune-in here: https://t.co/4iWIs0eZ3R
The border crisis only continues to worsen, with leadership shirking responsibility or jumping ship entirely. Chris Magnus, Tucson’s former police chief, resigned from his position as commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) last month.
Vice President Kamala Harris came close to visiting the site of the border crisis once, last June, after much resistance.
Since Biden took office, there have been over 4.1 million encounters with illegal immigrants (this total excludes “gotaways,” those who weren’t apprehended, for which no accurate data exists). That’s more than the total encounters under Trump and former President Barack Obama’s second term combined (about 3.9 million).
Based on average encounters at this rate, there will be over 8.8 million illegal immigrants encountered throughout Biden’s first term. That’s more than Trump, Obama, and the last two years of former President George Bush combined (about 7.9 million).
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
The task force charged with recommending special ethics rules for attorneys who work for the Arizona Attorney General’s Office and other public entities across the state will miss its December 2022 report deadline, according to Arizona Supreme Court records.
The Task Force on Ethics Rules Governing the State Attorney General, County Attorneys, and Other Public Lawyers was established by Chief Justice Robert Brutinel in February following high profile ethics complaints filed by the Arizona Board of Regents and Secretary of State Katie Hobbs against Attorney General Mark Brnovich.
Although the task force has met eight times, members requested additional time to prepare its ethics recommendations. As a result, Brutinel recently signed an order setting a new deadline of June 2023.
In Arizona, the attorney general is mandated by statute to provide certain legal advice as well as representation to various state agencies, state officials, and state employees. The same principle applies to the state’s fifteen county attorneys.
Brutinel’s creation of the Public Lawyers Task Force acknowledged there are particular ethical concerns a government lawyer may face when representing a public body, elected official, or even a government employee that other attorneys do not have to address. Similar considerations can arise for private practice attorneys who are retained to provide legal counsel to a government client.
Many of those considerations came to a head in 2020 when Brnovich and his staff attorneys were accused by Hobbs of failing to abide by the Arizona Supreme Court’s Rules of Professional Conduct. In another instance, Brnovich actually sued his own client, the Arizona Board of Regents, who in turn contacted the Arizona State Bar.
The ethics complaints against Brnovich’s staff were dismissed by the State Bar, although the attorney general himself agreed to a diversion resolution. The situation, however, drew renewed attention to the dual ethical obligations government lawyers have, particularly when required by state law to represent a specific client.
Former Maricopa County Attorney and current Justice Bill Montgomery was appointed by Brutinel to chair the task force. Among the issues the members are expected to address are:
the process to follow if a government or public lawyer believes there is a conflict of interest in representing a public client;
how to handle situations in which the government lawyer does not approve of, or cannot ethically fulfill, a specific course of action desired by a client;
how the terms and conditions of legal representation should be documented between an attorney and a government client, and who calls the shots if the client is more than one person.
The operative whose political action committee (PAC) received $27 million from fallen crypto giant FTX also received over $1 million from committees for Senator Mark Kelly and governor-elect Katie Hobbs.
The operative, Dacey Montoya, also served as the treasurer for these committees. Montoya has been behind numerous other political committees and PACs in Arizona and across at least 16 other states. Usually, those committees also pay her consulting firm, The Money Wheel (TMW).
Montoya serves as the treasurer for the Mark Kelly Victory Fund and Mark Kelly For Senate. TMW received over $832,000 from the two committees over the past two years.
Katie Hobbs’ secretary of state and gubernatorial committees paid TMW about $188,500 over the past four years, with the greatest payouts occurring over the last year. Although Montoya wasn’t listed as the treasurer for either of Hobbs’ campaigns, her firm’s email was listed in the contact information.
That combined $1 million doesn’t include payouts from other political action committees (PACs) and political candidates. (Note: AZ Free News discovered that Montoya’s PACs didn’t always file timely reports, so funds like expenditures, income, and TMW funding may be underreported).
Arizona-based PACs or campaign committees that paid TMW: Outlaw Dirty Money, $61,900; Arizona Pipe Trades 469, $54,000; Invest in Phx, $10,700; Rural Arizonans For Accountability, $10,500; Arizonans For a Just Democracy, $5,500; No On Proposition 126 Committee, $1,200; Solutions for Arizona, $500.
Arizona-based PACs that Montoya ran, and how much they paid TMW: Invest in Education, $504,400; Protect Our Future PAC, $134,500; Way to Lead PAC, $67,800; Moms Fed Up, $52,000; Way to Lead State Power Committee, $49,600; Invest in Education Committee, $40,700; Arizonans For Fair Elections, $40,000; Arizona Families First, $38,900; Change for Arizona 2024 PAC, $31,000; Arizonans For Fair Lending, $27,000; Arizona Future Fund, $25,000; Invest in Arizona, $25,000; Guarding Against Pandemics PAC, $16,000; Families United For Freedom, $15,000; Opportunity For Tomorrow, $11,000; Lead the Way 2022, $9,800; Not Our Faith, $9,200; Liftoff PAC, $3,500; E Pluribus PAC, $9,100; Win the West 2020, $3,100; Win Blue 2020, $2,600; Restore Hope, $2,500; Arizona Washington Victory Fund, $1,800; Arizona Maine Victory Fund, $1,800; Arizona New Jersey Victory Fund, $1,800; Kelly, Cisneros, Rouda, Smith Victory Fund, $1,700; Yes For Phx, $1,400; Saguaro Victory Fund, $1,100; and Arizona New Mexico Victory Fund, $800.
Political candidates for whom Montoya served as treasurer, and how much they paid TMW: Mayor Kate Gallego, $76,300; Reginald Bolding, $51,800; and Jevin Hodge, $42,000.
Political candidates whose campaigns paid TMW: Kirsten Engel, $46,900; Judy Stahl, $11,500; Ann Kirkpatrick, $118,500; and Heather Ross, $36,000.
At minimum, Montoya’s firm has made over $2.7 million over the past few years through Arizona political candidates, committees, and PACs.
Montoya also founded and ran an influential PAC that didn’t pay TMW: Will of the People Arizona, a PAC dedicated to defeating Propositions 128, 129, and 132. In their tweets, the PAC tags multiple progressive organizations in their effort, including Pro-Choice Arizona, LUCHA Arizona, Mass Liberation Arizona, Black Lives Matter Phoenix Metro, Poder in Action, CASE, AZ Coalition 4 Change, Healthcare Rising Arizona, All Voting is Local – AZ, ACLU of Arizona, and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona.
The PAC identified The Arizona Republic as an endorser of their efforts.
Prop 128, allowing the state legislature to amend, divert funds from, or supersede an initiative or referendum found to contain illegal or unconstitutional language, failed; Prop 129, limiting ballot initiatives to a single subject, succeeded; and Prop 132, requiring initiatives and referendums seeking a tax change to receive at least 60 percent of votes, succeeded.
As AZ Free News reported in October, outside funding accounted for 99 percent of the PACs funds. However, the PAC claims on its website that outside funds only amount to 20 percent, and their mailers claimed that number was 43 percent.
The PAC received over $2.1 million from the Service Employees International Union United Healthcare Workers (SEIU-UHW): the California union that largely financed the dark money-fueled Predatory Debt Collection Act, Proposition 209, which voters just approved. Prop 209 essentially makes all debt collection futile. That PAC also received $250,000 from the National Education Association (NEA); nearly $258,600 from the Fairness Project, established by SEIU-UHW; $60,000 from Every Single Vote; and over $51,000 from the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center (BISC). Nearly all of these funds derive from organizations dedicated to influencing the outcome of state-level ballot referendums in favor of progressive policy.
Will of the People Arizona spent over $1.6 million on communications like ads and mailers, and over $66,500 on polling and consulting.
Montoya also runs one of the most powerful leftist dark money organizations: Opportunity Arizona, which receives much of its funding from the Arabella Advisors’ Hopewell Fund.
As of this report, AZ Free News uncovered Montoya’s influence as campaign committee or PAC treasurer, or TMW payee, in at least 16 other states: California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
President Joe Biden will make his first visit to Arizona, after nearly two years in office.
The president will come to north Phoenix to celebrate the development of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) plant. The foreign company is scheduled to begin its Phoenix operations in 2024.
The Biden administration has a keen interest in domestic semiconductor manufacturing — the president signed the CHIPS and Science Act in August, the day after the FBI raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. Senators Mark Kelly and Krysten Sinema focused on the act’s passage rather than the raid. The pair championed the legislation as means of improving the flagging economy.
The closest Biden came to visiting was last February. Biden, along with Vice President Kamala Harris, engaged in a virtual tour of an Arizona State University (ASU) vaccination site at State Farm.
Earlier this week, Vice President Harris and I took a virtual tour of a vaccination site in Arizona. Because of the hard work of these folks — and countless others across the country — we’re going to beat this virus once and for all. pic.twitter.com/xekXB967h5
Former President Donald Trump first visited Arizona as president in August 2017, several weeks after the Charlottesville, Virginia “Unite the Right” protest after which several counter-protesters were run over and killed. He visited again in October 2018.
Harris has yet to visit the state, either. Apart from the virtual ASU tour, the closest the vice president came to visiting Arizona was a trip to the Arizona-Nevada border along Lake Mead.
Yesterday, I visited Lake Mead, which is a crucial source of water for 25 million people, including those living in Nevada, California, and Arizona. Due to the climate crisis, Lake Mead has dropped to its lowest level ever–causing water shortages for some of these communities. pic.twitter.com/EAQgl4m8n7
The last time the vice president came to the state was in October 2020 on her campaign trail. Harris visited Tucson and Phoenix.
Harris remains absent from the state, despite designation as border czar and Arizona being one of the states hardest hit by the border crisis under their administration. To date, the vice president has only made one border trip to Texas, after much resistance. Legislators and pundits criticized that visit, however, contending that Harris made a brief stop at a Border Patrol station miles from the site of the border crisis.
A detailed record of Biden’s public calendar is available here. The LA Times maintains an open-source data archive of Harris’ public calendar.
Although no border crisis existed at the time, Vice President Mike Pence visited Arizona multiple times in 2019. In April of that year, he addressed a controversial razor wire topping the border wall in Nogales. He came in March to speak with the National Association of Manufacturers and tour the Drug Enforcement Agency facility and returned in October to visit the Caterpillar manufacturing site.
Prior to that, Pence visited Arizona several other times to visit with Governor Doug Ducey and other lawmakers, including his stumping for former Republican Senator Martha McSally.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
