Governor Katie Hobbs has had a change of heart over the immigration crisis on Arizona’s southern border. She recently reversed an earlier decision against deploying the National Guard, now sending over 200 Tucson sector troops and committing up to $5 million in Arizona taxpayer money to send troops to the Lukeville Port of Entry.
Hobbs also demanded the federal government reimburse Arizona $512.5 million for “migrant transportation, drug interdiction and law enforcement” expenses incurred under the Biden administration. She also promised to seek reimbursement “regularly” from the feds for Arizona’s border crisis mitigation.
What sparked the flurry of activity from our heretofore passive chief? Finally, the direct expenses to Arizona could no longer be ignored. They’re affecting Arizona’s budget and future financial viability.
For Hobbs and scores of other Democrat mayors and governors, compassionate sympathy with the plight of illegal immigrants was a good image so long as the expense was borne elsewhere. Hundreds of sanctuary cities were formed. Mayors from New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and other cities basked in assuring that theirs was an open, caring place.
Like Biden himself, they welcomed illegal immigrants to our shores. Sure, they heard the reports of complaints from border communities suffering from growing hordes of needy illegal immigrants, but those were mostly just red state conservatives anyway.
However, when the influx of visitors became so overwhelming that they had to be exported around the country, perspectives changed. Too late, Hobbs and the others realized the growth was out of control and the fiscal demands truly unsustainable. Their pleas for help from the feds were ignored.
It’s a good thing that our governor now acknowledges there is a problem, but she whiffed on her response. In fact, we don’t need more money, we don’t need more troops, we need to have the resolve to enforce the law against unauthorized entries into our country.
Instead, we advertise to the world that America welcomes all migrants and those who make it here will be admitted under the clever scheme of supposedly seeking asylum. They will be provided with transportation into the country, food, shelter, medical care, education, and social services.
We are then shocked when millions from the third world’s underclass stream in. Hobbs claimed the additional funds were necessary to “manage the influx of migrants” thereby unwittingly admitting the mistake. New money flowing to the border has been used not to stem the flow but to expedite the process of admitting even more invaders.
We desperately need a policy of admitting only those who are legally qualified for admission and turning away the rest. It’s not that complicated nor costly. It would save money and possibly the future of our nation.
The downsides of unlimited entry go far beyond the expenses borne by local governments faced with accommodating the immigrants’ short-term needs. We have had an estimated 15 to 20 million people illegally enter our country this century, 6.6 million processed through in Biden’s three years alone.
These are mostly undereducated, untrained people who are unlikely to attain self-sufficiency anytime soon. Most don’t mean us any harm, but others are terrorists, criminals, and foreign agents. Immigration errors, unlike some other policy areas, can’t be reversed. Our new residents are not going to leave – ever.
America is facing some daunting challenges. Most of our schools are failing to improve the education of underprivileged children. Public spending and our crushing debt load cast a black cloud over our future. Waves of lawlessness and organized criminal behavior plague us. The influence of Marxist-inspired social theories threatens to drive Americans, once believers in e pluribus unum, into warring identity enclaves.
Simply put, America is not in a position to spend more money or take on more problems, let alone accommodate a tsunami of 20 million illegal immigrants who will exacerbate every one of them.
America is famously a nation defined not by “blood and soil” but by the values on which we were founded – equality of all before the law, representative government, rule of law, limited government, and individual rights. The illegal immigration of tens of millions who don’t know or love America will change forever who we are and what America means to the world.
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
Three of Arizona’s Democratic state lawmakers convened for a strategy session on gun control with Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday.
State Reps. Jennifer Longdon (D-LD05), Analise Ortiz (D-LD24), and Stephanie Stahl Hamilton (D-LD21) were invited to participate in the Biden administration’s inaugural Office of Gun Violence Prevention (OGVP) and Safer States Agenda. The trio declared in a press release that gun violence constituted a public health crisis that required immediate intervention.
“Despite overwhelming public support to act, Republicans in the legislative majority have consistently refused to hear any efforts to reduce gun violence,” said the trio. “Reps. Ortiz, Longdon and Stahl Hamilton said now is the time to redouble efforts to overcome Republican intransigence, not step back from a public health crisis.”
The Safer States Agenda proposed a series of progressive, state-led initiatives: establishing an office of gun violence prevention in every state; investing in community violence intervention programs; funding community policing initiatives; implementing lethal means safety measures such as off-site storage sites and Extreme Risk Protection Orders (also called “red flag laws”); establishing victims services and trauma recovery centers for gun violence survivors; establishing a gun violence crisis response team; implementing stricter firearm storage laws; requiring reporting of lost and stolen firearms; confiscating firearms from domestic abusers; requiring universal and enhanced background checks; banning assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, and ghost guns; requiring gun dealer licensing, recordkeeping, information sharing, and physical security; and end gun manufacturer’s immunity from liability.
President Joe Biden established OGVP in September and appointed Harris to oversee it. Ortiz, Longdon, and Stahl Hamilton were three among 100 state lawmakers from across the nation invited to strategize with OGVP.
Today, I met with more than 100 state legislators and gun safety advocates to share policy solutions in our continued work to prevent gun violence.
We have the answers. We must continue to lead with courage and act to save lives. pic.twitter.com/sEpYj0DRCj
After Wednesday’s meeting, Harris said that the proposed gun control measures wouldn’t conflict with the Second Amendment.
“It is a false choice to suggest that we have to choose between either upholding the Second Amendment or passing commonsense gun safety legislation,” said Harris. “Congress must have the courage to act, but until they do, the states must lead the way.”
It is a false choice to suggest that we have to choose between either upholding the Second Amendment or passing commonsense gun safety legislation.
I am for the Second Amendment. I am also for an assault weapons ban, universal background checks, and red flag laws.
The Department of Justice also published two model pieces of legislation to require stricter firearms storage and mandatory reporting of lost or stolen firearms.
The director of OGVP, Stefanie Feldman, was Biden’s longtime policy director dating back to the president’s first term as vice president under former President Barack Obama. While Donald Trump was president, Feldman served as the policy director for the Biden Institute.
One of the deputy directors of OGVP, Gregory Jackson, formerly directed the Community Justice Action Fund: a nonprofit focused on gun control and criminal justice reform, and a project of the dark money network offshoot, Tides Advocacy. The other deputy director, Rob Wilcox, formerly led federal policy for Everytown For Gun Safety, the gun control organization founded by major Democratic donor Michael Bloomberg.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
The Chinese general Sun Tzu 2,500 years ago wrote, “If you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of 100 battles.”
That’s good advice. Unfortunately, America’s media and military leadership feign ignorance of their current enemies. They never use the words “Muslim” or “Islamist” to identity our foes, terms which actually denote who they are and what inspires them. Instead, they use descriptions like “insurgents,” “militants,” or other euphemisms to avoid hurting the feelings of the enemy.
Hamas, who our leaders would like to believe is their ultimate enemy, is nothing more than the representative-du-jour of a vast network established 1,300 years ago with the never relinquished mission of subjugating the West.
Israel, after decades of repeated atrocities, has no choice but to exterminate Hamas if they ever hope to live in relative security. Even if Hamas is destroyed, there are legions of other terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, a more formidable foe than Hamas, ready and willing to step in and carry on the fight.
For the West, knowing our enemy means recognizing how savage and implacable Islamists are, how outside the mainstream of modern humanity. For many Americans it was shocking to read of terrorists laughing as their October 7 victims were raped, burned, or beheaded, often in front of their families.
Yet the same incomprehensible behavior is common in the hundreds of lightly reported Islamist attacks perpetrated annually worldwide. School children in the madrasas are taught Allah is pleased by fanatical hatred and brutality directed at infidels.
It’s hard for Westerners to comprehend this medieval mindset. Negotiations are fruitless because lying to the enemy is explicitly condoned in traditional Islam. Wars of containment are futile, and appeasement is seen only as weakness. Their ultimate goal is conquest, not peace.
Yet the oblivious Biden administration dodders on as if our relations with the terrorists were governed by the Treaty of Utrecht. Our naïveté was on full display in the recent cease-fire/hostage swap which we foisted upon our Israeli allies.
Mentally sound humans feel deep sympathy for the loved ones of a hostage held by Islamists. Because we value human life more than they do, hostage exchanges are vastly one-sided, typically involving from three up to as many as 1,000 Muslim terrorists exchanged for each civilian.
One of those thousand terrorists recently exchanged for one Israeli is now a Hamas leader who warned that “October 7 was just a rehearsal.” Fifty-five percent of the first 117 terrorists released during the current swaps had been held for murder and other violent crimes, while 21 percent were confirmed jihadists.
The hostages we see are quite visible pictures of utter despair. But for each one we can visualize, there are more at risk of being captured when terrorists realize gains from hostage taking. Each of these potential hostages is also a human being with families and lives of their own. They’re just not visible and don’t know who they are yet.
The hard fact is that when we lavishly reward hostage takers, we are condemning others to the same fate. There is no great solution to the hostage conundrum. It’s worth considering, though, that if we had a policy of not negotiating but instead consistently killing or capturing all hostage takers, the practice would eventually cease.
The Biden administration isn’t into hard choices. Sometimes they even seem confused about which side they are on.
In 2021, for example, the Biden administration restarted funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Hundreds of millions of dollars, which had been frozen by the Trump administration, were distributed to Palestinians in spite of State Department concerns that the funds would almost certainly be used for terrorism.
More broadly, Biden has worked assiduously to appease the Iranian regime and its proxies with billions of dollars. This makes as much sense as slipping money to Nazis during World War II.
The cycle of Islamist violence will never end if we continue to subsidize it and prop it up. Instead of timidity and vacillation toward those who want to kill us, knowing our enemy means understanding that we must focus on destroying and defeating this mortal foe.
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ-02) says that President Joe Biden’s energy policies are to blame for the burgeoning energy and national security crises.
Crane linked the crises to “idiotic” actions by the Biden administration, citing the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline, ban on drilling on federal lands, and the resulting depletion of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).
“The Biden Admin has sabotaged American energy & compromised our national security,” said Crane. “Not to mention, these idiotic moves impose crippling costs on Americans.”
👉🏻 Canceled the Keystone XL pipeline. 👉🏻 Banned drilling on federal lands. 👉🏻 Depleted our Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
The Biden Admin has sabotaged American energy & compromised our national security.
Not to mention, these idiotic moves impose crippling costs on Americans.
Gas prices in Arizona average about $3.40, a decline from last year’s average of $3.90. The national average was lower as of the latest federal data, at about $3.20. Arizona’s average gas price reached a record high last March, surpassing the previous high set in June 2008.
Biden canceled the Keystone XL pipeline on his first day in office by revoking the permit necessary for the pipeline’s completion through executive order. About a week later, Biden issued another executive order paving the way for a ban on new oil and gas leases on public lands and waters. That ban has not come to fruition, though the administration has added other burdens to the oil industry.
In July, the Biden administration announced new rules that would increase the cost that oil companies must pay to drill on public lands by over 16 percent — ending a century-long rate of about 12 percent — and end the renewal of unused permits.
When the Russo-Ukrainian conflict escalated last year with Russia’s invasion into Ukraine, the Biden administration began tapping into the SPR to mitigate the resulting rise in oil prices.
The strategy resulted in a 40-year record depletion of the reserve, at 180 million barrels. Last week, the Department of Energy (DOE) reported that it bought back nearly nine million barrels.
Today, I'm authorizing the release of 1 million barrels of oil per day for the next six months—over 180 million barrels—from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This is a wartime bridge to increase oil supply until production ramps up later this year.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) monthly data, domestic crude oil production increased at a greater rate under Trump than the past two years under Biden.
Under Trump (thousand barrels):
2017 produced 3.4 million; by September produced 2.5 million
2018 produced 3.9 million; by September produced 2.9 million
2019 produced 4.4 million; by September produced 3.3 million
2020 produced 4.1 million; by September produced 3.1 million
From 2017 to 2018, there were over 581,000 more barrels produced. From 2018 to 2019, there were over 496,000 more barrels produced. 2020 marked a decline, with about 351,000 less barrels produced. The first three months of 2020, prior to the pandemic’s likely impact, reflected record productions of crude oil that were higher than the first three months of this year’s production levels.
Under Biden (thousand barrels):
2021 produced 4.1 million; by September produced 3 million
2022 produced 4.3 million; by September produced 3.2 million
Amount in 2023 produced so far (as of September): nearly 3.5 million
From 2021 to 2022, there were 234,000 more barrels produced. So far this year, there have been about 281,000 more barrels produced.
The Biden administration has made clear its commitment to swapping oil for total electrification. Their goal aligns with a globalist commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
Over the weekend, the Biden administration announced a new rule to reduce methane emissions from oil producers.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
The latest read on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 5.2% real growth suggests the US economy soared in the third quarter. As momentum matters, this suggests the next quarter and the next will also be strong. One can hope, but a great downshift is far more likely.
For starters, it’s likely the economy was nowhere near as strong as the headline suggests. GDP gets all the love in the press, but Gross Domestic Income (GDI) is an equally valid measure. If we could measure these things precisely, they would always equate. GDI came in at 1.5%, much lower than GDP’s 5.2%.
Much the same data conflict arises in the jobs figures. According to the press fave employers’ survey, the economy created about 200 thousand jobs monthly since May. But the equally valid household survey has been flat over the same period. Again, that’s a big difference over an extended period between equally valid measures of the labor market.
One measure strong; one weak. Secret sauce clue: When major economic indicators send very different signals, it usually means the economy is at a turning point.
Why now? First, because the American consumer, that great engine representing about two-thirds of GDP, is running low on gas. The hoard of excess saving built up in years past is now mostly gone. LendingClub reports 60% of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck, which means they’ve little to fall back on and little room for error or bad luck.
The New York Fed confirms the consumer’s stretched thin, reporting that credit card debt last year displayed “the largest such increase since the beginning of our time series in 1999.” Credit card balances shoot up when savings go down and the checking account’s running dry. The Fed also reports the share of newly delinquent credit card users is the highest in about a decade and on an upward trend.
Going into the pandemic the Fed threw the sink at sustaining the economy, one consequence of which was high inflation. Coming out of the pandemic, the Fed finally woke up to inflation’s gathering momentum. The consequent good news is that inflation is trending downward.
The problem for the American consumer is the damage that inflation has already done. When inflation shot up in 2021 and 2022, nominal wages didn’t. Families took a huge hit in what they could afford and the gap remains. To preserve their standard of living, they resorted to spending down their past savings and spending up their credit card balances.
The natural consequence of stressed consumers is a downshift in spending. The National Retail Federation reports that core retail sales have been essentially flat for two months straight. Retailers report consumers are resisting price increases, hesitating to pay full price, and are increasingly looking for discounts and promotions. The obvious reaction to financial insecurity is to cut back; think cutting out the Rib-Eye at Whole Foods for hamburger from Aldi.
A weakening of consumer spending would occur against a shaky background elsewhere. Housing has been flat or down for two years now. Shipments and new orders both suggest the manufacturing sector is weak. If the consumer really is about out of gas, then the economy could see a marked downshift. And now we come full circle back to the Fed, which put us on this rollercoaster with its kitchen sink response to the pandemic.
The Fed is standing pat with its restrictive policies even as inflation slows and will likely do so for many months. Quite reasonably, before relaxing the Fed wants to be sure inflation continues toward its 2% goal rather than re-igniting. But standing pat while inflation slows means Fed policy is actually becoming steadily more restrictive. Today’s tapping becomes tomorrow’s stomping on the brakes, and thus is likely to generate the great 2024 downshift.
J.D. Foster is a contributor to the Daily Caller News Foundation. He is the former chief economist at the Office of Management and Budget and former chief economist and senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He now resides in relative freedom in the hills of Idaho.
