In 2022, the Arizona legislature passed—and then-Governor Ducey signed into law—a landmark election integrity bill: HB 2492. Authored by the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, the law bolsters safeguards to our election process by requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, ensuring that only U.S. citizens are voting in our elections.
It’s commonsense legislation that is popular with the public and a blueprint for other states looking to adopt nearly identical bills. And why wouldn’t it be? U.S. citizens cannot go into France, Australia, or any other country throughout the world and vote in their elections, so why should citizens from other countries be allowed to vote in our elections?
Yet immediately after HB 2492 was passed, a consortium of liberal organizations and the Biden Justice department sued to stop the law from going into effect. Now, after multiple trips to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, one of which included a bizarre ruling that required an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to let Arizona enforce our proof of citizenship requirements for the 2024 election (which we won), the entire law will now be going to the nation’s highest court.
We are confident that the Supreme Court will uphold the law in its entirety, but one issue about the litigation has been simmering beneath the surface: Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes…
Congressman Abe Hamadeh (AZ-08) expressed his gratitude to Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, for his tireless efforts to uncover the misuse of the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) Quiet Skies Program.
The program, intended as a security measure, has been revealed to target Americans, including Hamadeh, in what Senator Paul described as “an unconstitutional dystopian nightmare masquerading as a security tool.”
Congressman Hamadeh, a former U.S. Army Reserve Intelligence Officer with Top-Secret clearance and a former Maricopa County prosecutor, was shocked to learn he was among those targeted by the Biden administration through this program.
“I am disappointed but not surprised that the Biden Administration used TSA’s Quiet Skies rules to target me while I was serving this nation in the U.S. Army Reserves and as a prosecutor in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office”, said Hamadeh. “My dedication to this nation and its security has never been questioned.”
According to a flash report released by Senator Paul prior to the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Tuesday, September 30th, the Quiet Skies program and related watchlists were used to surveil Americans, including three Republican lawmakers, shortly after they engaged in political activities such as opposing the Biden administration’s policies.
The report further revealed that at least two dozen Americans were placed on watchlists for actions like protesting mask mandates or removing masks on flights.
Following January 6, 2021, TSA issued directives authorizing watchlists based solely on suspected travel to Washington, D.C., without evidence of unlawful conduct. Hamadeh, who questioned the integrity of Arizona’s 2022 General Election during his candidacy, noted the personal impact of this surveillance: “Because I naturally questioned the validity of the election in 2022, Democrats hurled epithets and implied that I was a threat to our democracy. When in fact, I have done and will continue to do all I can to protect and defend our Republic.”
The congressman also noted that he was targeted alongside Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, a fellow veteran and former congresswoman.
“The corrupt system targets those whom they fear the most,” stated Hamadeh. “It is clear evidence that this program was used to target critics of Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats, who have demonstrated a blatant disregard for our civil liberties and spit on our cherished Constitution.”
The Department of Homeland Security has acknowledged that the Quiet Skies program has failed to prevent a single terrorist attack since its start, raising further questions about its effectiveness and purpose.
Ethan Faverino is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Arizona’s top Republican lawmakers are asking the Trump administration to reimburse the state for more than $700 million spent on border security initiatives over the past several years.
Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Steve Montenegro sent a letter this week to U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, requesting repayment under the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill, which provides $10 billion for states to recover border-related expenses incurred during the Biden administration.
According to the letter, Arizona appropriated $599 million in 2021 and 2022 through the Border Security Fund, in addition to $145 million over five years for law enforcement and other enforcement efforts tied to the southern border. The funds were used to support sheriffs, the Department of Public Safety, and construction tied to border barriers.
“For four years, the Biden Administration failed to defend our border, leaving Arizona to shoulder the burden,” Petersen said in a statement. He argued that the investments made by the Legislature were necessary to protect residents and that taxpayers deserve reimbursement.
Earlier this year, Petersen joined a group of attorneys general on a border tour reviewing state and federal enforcement operations. He praised former President Donald Trump’s policies, calling them effective in reducing illegal crossings without additional legislation.
Montenegro also underscored the legislature’s commitment to border security, contrasting it with the approach taken by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs. He pointed to the voter-approved Secure the Border Act as evidence of public support for stricter enforcement.
“Arizona voters made their voices clear when they overwhelmingly passed the Secure the Border Act that Democrats tried to block,” Montenegro said. “Thanks to President Trump and his administration, Washington is finally treating border security as a priority again, and Arizona taxpayers deserve to be reimbursed.”
If the state receives federal funds, legislative leaders said the money will be directed into Arizona’s General Fund and overseen by the legislature to ensure proper use.
Jonathan Eberle is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
President Donald Trump has done an admirable job at defanging the IRS, which was converted into a weaponized agency targeting their political enemies.
Chief Justice John Marshall famously pronounced early in our nation’s history that “the power to tax is the power to destroy.”
The Democrats inside the Biden IRS took that to heart. They hired thousands of new IRS agents to harass businesses, rich people, and, in some cases, Republican donors. Some of the lieutenants to the infamous IRS enforcer Lois Lerner, the woman who aimed her agency’s auditing guns at conservative groups, are still active at the tax agency.
One of the most noxious of Biden’s left-over regulatory rules applies to partnerships – an increasingly common form of business organization and expansion. Microsoft’s revenues/profits flow down through its business partners.
Business partnerships are vital contributors to the U.S. economy. A 2024 study by Ernst and Young for the Small Business Entrepreneur Council found that 10 million Americans work for these partnerships, and they generate $1.3 trillion in GDP.
The IRS evidently thinks they are TOO successful.
A gang of holdovers from the Biden administration and the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, Ron Wyden of Oregon, are trying to administratively change the taxation of pass-throughs and partnerships and subject these entities to “guilty until proven innocent” audits. The changes would alter the “economic substance doctrine” which determines how the taxes on a business’s profits are applied to the partners. If the entities are found liable for increased tax assessments, they could face a giant tax bill AND a confiscatory 60% strict liability penalty.
These partnership rules are admittedly murky and may need updated protections against potential tax evasion abuses. But this rewrite of the tax laws would be applied WITHOUT CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL. The Trump admin promised to end this illegal rewrite of the tax laws, but because of the turmoil at the IRS – with a revolving door of IRS Commissioners – the Biden-era rules still stand.
Meanwhile, Wyden has introduced legislation to codify these new rules into law. Get this: the Joint Committee on Taxation scores these IRS “reforms” as a potential $730 billion business tax increase over the next decade.
If the IRS isn’t told to cease and desist, they could be the perpetrators of the largest non-congressionally approved tax increase in American history.
The Trump administration is supposed to be easing the tax burden on our businesses and employers to make them more globally competitive, not handing them a three-quarter trillion-dollar tax INCREASE.
Trump or Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent should fix this tax raid on business before it reverses some of the job-creating benefits of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill.
Stephen Moore is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, a visiting senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a co-founder of Unleash Prosperity.
It was Biden’s biggest “accomplishment.” The so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which he later admitted had nothing to do with inflation (it actually did, just not in the direction the name suggested) but was really about dumping billions (really trillions) into subsidizing the green new scam. It was the biggest acceleration towards the “Net Zero” climate scam resulting in utilities across the country, especially here in Arizona, spamming the grid with unreliable energy generation such as solar, wind, and battery storage, driving up rates for utility customers while shattering reliability.
What finally made it through Congress and was signed into law on July 4th terminated tax credits for electric vehicles, “energy efficient” home improvements, and residential solar this year. As for the much larger credits, those subsidizing grid scale solar and wind farms, it’s much more complicated.
