by Corinne Murdock | Dec 1, 2021 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
On Tuesday, a federal court issued a preliminary injunction against President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) vaccine mandate for health care workers. Arizona health care workers under CMS jurisdiction via Medicare and Medicaid programs don’t have to adhere to the vaccine mandate. Louisiana Western District Judge Terry Doughty, an appointee of previous President Donald Trump, issued the order.
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced the injunction Tuesday afternoon.
“NATIONWIDE INJUNCTION Great news – a federal judge just granted our coalition’s request to STOP the Biden Administration’s overreaching ‘job or jab’ COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers. We will continue to take action to protect Arizona’s health care heroes,” wrote Brnovich.
Brnovich joined a coalition of 13 other states led by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican, in response to an emergency order issued by CMS on November 4. Under the CMS mandate, health care workers would’ve had to be fully vaccinated by January 4. That would’ve required individuals receiving vaccines requiring two doses to receive their first injection by December 6 to be fully compliant.
In a memorandum, Doughty wrote that Biden’s attempt to bypass Congress posed a grave threat to our Constitutional order. He emphasized the importance of safeguarding American liberties more so during the pandemic than at any other time.
“If the separation of powers meant anything to the Constitutional framers, it meant that the three necessary ingredients to deprive a person of liberty or property – the power to make rules, to enforce them, and to judge their violations – could never fall into the same hands,” wrote Doughty. “The executive branch is allowed to usurp the power of the legislative branch to make laws, two of the three powers conferred by our Constitution would be in the same hands. If human nature and history teach anything, it is that civil liberties face grave risks when governments proclaim indefinite states of emergency.”
Although Press Secretary Jen Psaki issued a statement on Tuesday emphasizing the importance of vaccinations to combating COVID-19 and the latest variant, Omicron, she didn’t address the ruling as of press time.
Neither did President Joe Biden. Instead, Biden’s remarks for most of Tuesday concerned bills his administration worked to pass such as the infrastructure law, with the school shooting in Oxford, Michigan occupying the remainder of that day.
Reuters noted in their coverage that the White House declined to comment on these legal losses.
This is the latest in a series of legal battles over COVID-19 vaccine mandates that the president has lost. Courts also temporarily halted the federal contractor vaccine mandate, as well as a rule through the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) requiring businesses with 100 or more employees to either be vaccinated or tested weekly.
Kentucky Eastern District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove, a Bush appointee, also issued his order halting the Biden Administration’s requirement that new government contracts require contractor employees to be vaccinated for COVID-19 on Tuesday. Tatenhove’s rationale for imposing the injunction was similar to Doughty’s, citing “serious Constitutional concerns.” Tatenhove didn’t dispute that the COVID-19 vaccine worked, or that the federal government could mandate vaccinations within certain circumstances. Rather, Tatenhove said that the legal question at hand concerned what authorities the president and federal government had.
“Can the president use congressionally delegated authority to manage the federal procurement of goods and services to impose vaccines on the employees of federal contractors and subcontractors? In all likelihood, the answer to that question is no,” wrote Tatenhove. “[T]here is a serious concern that Defendants have stepped into an area traditionally reserved to the States, and this provides an additional reason to temporarily enjoin the vaccine mandate.”
Read Doughty’s full opinion ordering an injunction against the CMS mandate here.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Terri Jo Neff | Nov 5, 2021 | News
By Terri Jo Neff |
Criticism continues to grow against a sweeping new federal mandate supported by the Biden Administration which requires private employers of 100 or more employees to develop and enforce a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy.
The mandate, outlined in a 490-page document, is referred to as an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS). It establishes a Jan. 4, 2022 deadline for compliance, and requires employees of those companies to be vaccinated or be forced to wear a face covering at work while undergoing regular COVID-19 testing at the employee’s expense.
The Industrial Commission of Arizona (ICA) and the Arizona Attorney General’s Office are pushing back on the mandate which is estimated to cover more than 84 million employees, or about two-thirds of America’s private-sector workforce. OSHA estimates that about 23 million Americans will choose to undergo the vaccination to preserve their jobs.
On Thursday, the ICA issued a statement that Arizona businesses are not bound by OSHA’s mandate unless the commissioners vote to formally adopt a similar policy. Arizona is one of 22 states previously granted federal approval to operate a state plan to address issues typically under the purview of OSHA.
Then on Friday morning, Arizona was one of 11 state plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit filed in the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals against President Joe Biden and OSHA to stop the COVID-19 ETS. The petition contends the vaccination mandate “is unconstitutional, unlawful, and unwise” and an attempt to infringe on the States’ powers expressly reserved by the Tenth Amendment.
In addition to Arizona, the attorneys general from Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming are plaintiffs.
Also on Friday, State Rep. Steve Kaiser criticized the White House’s support of the workplace vaccine mandate, calling it “an onerous and overreaching policy that will hurt businesses and the people who they employ.”
Kaiser, a Republican who represents LD15 covering north Phoenix and Cave Creek, owns Junk King, a Phoenix area franchise providing removal and hauling services.
“As a small business owner, it’s clear to me that Biden’s policy would force employees to choose between being vaccinated against their will, completing weekly COVID-19 testing (at their own expense), or losing their jobs. That’s wrong,” he said. “It’s more critical than ever that Arizona defend businesses and their employees and ensure their ability to continue making decisions for themselves – instead of liberal politicians in Washington.”
According to Kaiser, state officials are doing the right thing by trying to protect Arizonans who would be harmed by implementation of what he calls a “terrible” mandate. He supports ICA’s position that Arizona -and not OSHA- has had the exclusive responsibility for nearly 50 years for developing and enforcing any occupational safety and health standards within the state.
“Under Arizona’s long-approved state-plan procedures, the Industrial Commission has exclusive authority to decide if, when, and to what extent the State of Arizona will adopt the OSHA vaccination ETS,” the ICA statement reads. “Arizona has a 47-year track record of protecting the safety and health of Arizona’s workers and remains fully committed to this mission.”
The ETS requires employers to determine the vaccination status of each employee, obtain acceptable proof of vaccination, maintain records of each employee’s vaccination status, and maintain a roster of each employee’s vaccination status. It also requires employers to provide employees with a variety of information and literature about COVID-19 and to provide an employee “reasonable time and paid sick leave to recover from side effects experienced following each dose.”
In addition, employers are now mandated to report work-related COVID-19 fatalities to OSHA within 8 hours of learning about them, and work-related COVID-19 in-patient hospitalizations within 24 hours of the employer learning about the hospitalization.
For now, OSHA officials are less confident that smaller employers can implement a mandatory vaccination policy “without undue disruption.” But it appears those smaller businesses could be facing a similar mandate in the future.
“OSHA needs additional time to assess the capacity of smaller employers, and is seeking comment to help the agency make that determination,” it says.
by AZ Free News | Oct 4, 2021 | News
By AZ Free News |
Credit unions in Arizona have joined the Arizona Treasurer’s Office in opposition to a proposal requiring financial institutions to give the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) citizens’ personal account information if the account exceeds $600 of deposits or withdrawals. In a letter, they urged Senator Kyrsten Sinema and Senator Mark Kelly to oppose this measure being considered in Congress as part of the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill. This proposal would threaten the financial security of more than 100 million Americans from all demographics.
“Being forced to hand over your personal household or small business financial records to the government as a law-abiding citizen is as intrusive as it gets. There are no guardrails in the bill for how the government can leverage this highly private information,” said Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee. “As Arizona’s Chief Banking and Investment Officer, I cannot stay silent while Arizonan’s sensitive financial data is at risk of unprecedented government surveillance.”
“There is simply no scenario in which this is a good idea for credit union members, or customers at any financial institution for that matter,” said Scott Earl, President and CEO of Mountain West Credit Union Association. “Between the exposure risk of data privacy, and the
significant resources and associated costs that would need be required to comply with this measure, it is a bad idea all around.”
The letter states, “As State Treasurer and credit unions in Arizona, we join with the many voices and groups from across the nation who strongly oppose this intrusive proposal.
Congress should not approve the IRS to have access to law-abiding Arizonan’s personal financial transactions in a blatant attempt to tax them unnecessarily.”
by Corinne Murdock | Sep 27, 2021 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
Over the past week, Tucson has begun to receive a number of Haitians transported from the Texas border. It is unclear how many Haitians will be brought in; AZ Free News requested those numbers from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Pima County, and the various organizations that assist refugees under the Arizona Refugee Resettlement Program. In various reports, Tucson City Councilmember Steve Kozachik indicated that the numbers were large.
AZ Free News also inquired about the vetting procedures for these refugees, if any, and how the government was determining who qualified for refugee status. The entities we questioned either didn’t respond to any of our inquiries by press time or said they couldn’t offer information to the press.
The Biden Administration is resettling Haitians after determining that their number has become a burden to border patrol in Texas. Over 15,000 were estimated to be under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas as of the past week. Tucson officials claim their intake of Haitians is temporary – one to two days, at most according to Kozachik.
The Haitian refugees are either being bussed or flown into Tucson. Once there, they are processed by immigration services and either taken to hotels or Casa Alitas, a shelter run by Catholic Community Services (CCS). Within several days, officials will contact the alien’s next-of-kin or sponsor.
CCS and Casa Alitas told AZ Free News that they aren’t answering press inquiries at this time. We also attempted to contact Pima County – they own the building where CCS operates Casa Alitas. They didn’t respond by press time.
The refugee arrivals report from the Arizona Refugee Resettlement Program didn’t document any Haitian refugees, per its updated numbers last Thursday.
Congressman Paul Gosar (R-AZ-04) questioned how these Haitians were reaching American soil. He noted that Haitians weren’t just coming into Texas – they’d been coming into Yuma as far back as May. Haiti to Arizona is a journey of nearly 2,800 miles.
“Many Haitians are crossing into Yuma as well. In [sic] met dozens in May 2021. All well fed. Clean,” wrote Gosar. “They did not “journey” to our border by foot. They were flown. Who is paying?
https://twitter.com/DrPaulGosar/status/1440802471522144263
Rather than addressing the crisis-level surge of illegal immigrants at the border, leaving Haitians to crowd together as squatters under a bridge with minimal resources, Vice President Kamala Harris focused her concern on the allegations of poor treatment of the Haitians. She said she was “outraged” by claims that border patrol agents on horseback were whipping the Haitians. The vice president called it “horrible” and claimed it resembled slavery. She said there should be “consequences and accountability” for the border patrol agents.
“And as we all know, it also evoked images of some of the worst moments of our history, where that kind of behavior has been used against the indigenous people of our country, has been used against African-Americans during times of slavery,” stated Harris.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71lOzx6mWqE
The National Border Patrol Council, among many others, debunked claims that border patrol were whipping illegal immigrants. They shared a corrective post from the Border Patrol Horse Patrol.
“Those are split reins; not whips, they are 6 feet long. They are split for when we go into the brush. If we go through thick brush and a tree branch gets caught, it will just slip right through. The reins are connected to the bit. The bit is in their mouth and the last thing we want to do is hurt our partners by tearing up their mouths,” read the post. “You have seen the video of the agent spinning the rein when illegals get close to the horse. It’s to create distance between the horse and the person on the ground. Our horses easily weigh 1200 pounds, they can step on someone and break a bone or kill a small child [if] a person gets too close. We also spin them if someone attempts to grab the reins because the last thing you want is someone who doesn’t know a thing about horses, to have control of the horse you are on. (If an illegal attempts to gain control of our reins it is considered deadly.) The horse can freak out, jump up and roll with you on them. Us as riders can be killed if a horse lands on us. Hope this helps those who have never seen a horse or split reins before… we will continue to support our brothers and sisters in Del Río.”
https://www.facebook.com/bpunion/photos/a.114664391886455/4751246794894835/
Even the photographer who captured the viral images of border patrol holding reins near the Haitians clarified that no agents were “whipping” the illegal immigrants.
Regardless of the fact that these claims were false, the Biden Administration immediately ordered border patrol to cease using horses while handling the border crisis. President Joe Biden even threatened that law enforcement “would pay” for doing their job.
Horses are advantageous in patrolling the border due to their stature and ability to traverse rough, uneven terrain, and due to the animals’ natural gifts: their herding instinct for guiding and corralling illegal immigrants, and their heightened sense of sight and hearing for scoping out illegal immigrants.
Harris was designated to handle the border by Biden at the outbreak of his border crisis earlier this year.
Members of the Biden Administration are also displeased with the Haiti mix to the border crisis – but for different reasons, apparently. Biden’s Special Envoy for Haiti, Daniel Foote, resigned on Wednesday. He claimed that the Biden Administration had ignored or dismissed his recommendations for handling the issues in Haiti that led to the border crisis. Foote said that the forced deportation of thousands of Haitians wasn’t proper protocol, and that the Haitians would suffer or die because of it.
Foote indicated that the Biden Administration’s forthcoming decision to install their pick of leadership for the Haitians would only result in failure again.
“[W]hat our Haitian friends really want, and need, is the opportunity to chart their own course, without international puppeteering and favored candidates but with genuine support for that course. I do not believe that Haiti can enjoy stability until her citizens have the dignity of truly choosing their own leaders fairly and acceptably,” wrote Foote. “Last week, the U.S. and other embassies in Port-au-Prince issued another public statement of support for the unelected, de facto Prime Minister Dr. Ariel Henry as interim leader of Haiti, and have continued to tout his ‘political agreement’ over another broader, earlier accord shepherded by civil society. The hubris that makes us believe we should pick the winner – again – is impressive. This cycle of international political interventions in Haiti has consistently produced catastrophic results. More negative impacts to Haiti will have calamitous consequences not only in Haiti, but in the U.S. and our neighbors in the hemisphere.”
By federal law, refugees are those unable or unwilling to return to their native country due to “well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.”
Haiti is currently facing political turmoil. In July their president, Jovenel Moise, was assassinated by gunmen claiming to be U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents. His murder incited more chaos in Haiti, on top of the over 90 gangs that hold much of the power in the country.
Then last month, the country was hit with an earthquake, causing 2,200 deaths, an estimated 12,000 injuries, and damaging or destroying around 12,000 homes.
Nearly 28,000 Haitians have been intercepted at the border this year.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Sep 21, 2021 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
Following Governor Doug Ducey’s announcement last week that the Biden Administration failed to award bids for forest and wildfire management, the Arizona House announced Monday a new ad hoc committee to undertake that task themselves. Members of the committee include State Representatives Gail Griffin (R-Hereford), Tim Dunn (R-Yuma), Andres Cano (D-Tucson), and Stephanie Stahl Hamilton (D-Tucson), with House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R-Mesa) serving as the chairman.
Ducey’s statement came a day after the Biden Administration suddenly canceled solicitations for the Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI). The 4FRI aimed to restore fire-adaptive ecosystems in the Southwestern Region. The Biden Administration decided that the requirement for the restoration objectives weren’t “reasonably aligned to industry needs.”
In response, Ducey said that the Biden Administration’s decision put Arizonans at risk.
“The federal government’s lack of action is frustrating. The federal mismanagement of our forests poses an ongoing risk,” stated Ducey. “But Arizonans should know that we remain proactive in our pursuit of forest health and disaster prevention. We will continue to work with federal and community partners and safety personnel to protect people, pets and property.”
With this new ad hoc committee, the state government will be able to take action where the federal government won’t at present.
Wildfires have long been a plague for the Grand Canyon State. Arizona contains the key elements for one of these natural disasters to begin: high temperatures and drought that dry out vegetation, combined with low humidity and high winds. With those conditions in place, many things can ignite a wildfire: the sun’s heat, lightning strikes, discarded cigarettes or matches, unattended campfires, or fireworks, for example.
The worst wildfire in recent memory was the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire, which claimed the lives of 19 firefighters. The high winds caused the fire to shift suddenly, intensifying the fire and cutting off the firefighters’ only escape route.
The tragedy of those Granite Mountain Hotshot firefighters inspired “Hotshots 19,” an annual memorial workout completed nationwide in May consisting of 6 rounds of 30 air squats, 19 power cleans at either 135 pounds for men or 95 pounds for women, 7 strict pull-ups, and a 400 meter run. The firefighters were known as “hotshots” because they were part of a “hotshot crew”: a team of 20 individuals assigned to handle the hottest part of wildfires.
This year, wildfires have occurred near the Juniper Mountains, the Verde River, and the Bradshaw Mountains in Yavapai County (Rock Butte Fires, Rafael Fire, and Tiger Fire); the Gila River and Pinal Mountains in Graham County (Bottom Fire and Pinnacle Fire, respectively); the Santa Rita Mountains in Pima County (Heavy Fire); and the southern border in Pima County (Alamo Fire).
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
