Climate activists are crowdfunding bail to free those arrested for trespassing a Phoenix campaign field office for Donald Trump on Monday.
The activists were with the Sunrise Movement, a national organization dedicated to initiating a “climate revolution” by popularizing and implementing the Green New Deal. Among those arrested were out-of-state activists: 20-year-old Nate Scofield and 21-year-old Riya Kumar.
Scofield is a University of North Carolina student and substitute teacher for the Central Park School for Children in Durham, North Carolina. Scofield serves as a campus organizer and hub delegate with the Sunrise Movement.
Kumar is a University of Idaho student; she posted asking for bail money after her arrest.
“I was arrested at a Trump office because I am fighting for a just and liveable future for all beings,” said Kumar.
Must-watch video of a Trump staffer responding to young people sitting in at Trump's Phoenix campaign office to protest his loyalty to the oil billionaires destroying our planet.
An organizer for Monday’s event and founder of the Sunrise Movement’s Phoenix hub, 17-year-old Ashton Dolce, participates in FEMA’s Youth Preparedness Council and attends BASIS Scottsdale.
As of this report, nearly 200 individuals have contributed over $7,000 of the $10,000 goal. Simren Kaur, a California-based activist and farming nonprofit coordinator, organized the fundraiser.
“A Donald Trump Presidency would put us in danger. He will do the bidding of Big Oil, revoke protections for millions of immigrants, and take away access to abortion and gender-affirming care for people in red states,” read the GoFundMe page. “Trump is radical and extreme right-wing Republicans have detailed plans to strip our rights away. That is why these young activists took the sacrifice of risking arrest to expose Trump for who he is, and fight for a livable future for all of us.”
The Green New Deal, like its namesake instituted by former President Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression, seeks to completely overhaul American society through public programs and projects. Unlike the New Deal’s focus on job creation, however, the Green New Deal focuses on power: 100 percent replacement of current energy sources with “clean,” or “green,” renewables supported by “green” jobs and crackdowns on emissions.
Donors include Dhakshinamurthy Suppusamy, Hannah Amick, Mazie Drummond, Xiuhua Miao, Sage Clausen, Michael Koob, Dana Johnson, Evan Blue, Honora Wolfe, Sean Cohen, Danielle Mayahi, Daniel Warner, Arabella Garcia, Emilia Anders, Bryan Chu, Ellen Tucker, Yoram Tereleth, Emma Ramalingam, Rebekah MillerMacPhee, Josie Cohen-Rodriguez, Eva Cohen, Maelynn Oudjit, Mars Cantrell, MacKenzie Mae MacFarland, Rebecca Davis, Kai Uehara, Mary Collier, Aaryaman Singhal, Jenifer Miller, Keanu Arpels-Josiah, Lilian Montagne, Abigail McIver, Maddie Goldstein, Parker Abell, Brian Giacoppo, Lynn Handlin, Markus Ceniceros, Chloe Qin, Simon Aron, Dylan Mitlehner, Stacy Steinberg, Nicole Green, Sean Haskett, Ariela Lara, Pamela McInnes, Maia Cuddy, Logan Madden, Mayuri Nagpal, Richard Cho, Isabel Marlens, Violet Pearcy, Sarah Shahinpour, Lisa Hyman, Kiersten Hackman, Rose Cheyette, Celestina Garcia, Carla Diehl, Jessy Lloyd, Kaitlin White, Aum Davé, Stacy Miller, Sarah Borokowski, Olivia Campbell, Leontina Hormel, Ian Gentry, Mary King, Kailee Ford, Yeishka Montalvo, Christina King, Christian Keeve, Paola Sanchez, Katerina Leedy, George Bergan, Robert Accardo, Derek Miranda, Alexander Tinker, Patrick Harper, Leif Running, Jessica Barranco, Jacob W. Apenes, Julie Volpenhein, Lindsay Volpenhein, Luis Mirianda, Sarah Shahinpour, Caroline Lindy, Vianni Ledesma, Ashna Shah, Yesenia Garza, CJ Janssen, Caitlyn Carpenter, Tasia North, John Ramos, Avi Horwitz, Adina Gitomer, Audrey M., Hugo Aponte, Jeremy Liskar, Joseph Markus, Harita Iswara, Yong Zhou, Alisa Bennett, Jacob Glass, Indigo Lemke, Victoria Garcia, Genna Kieper, Eric Fishman, Adah Crandall, Jennifer Pierce, Mekala Kumar, Katherine Campion, Thomas Blackwell, Yara Levin, Terri Pickens, Aly Bean, Lillian Saperston, Ajit Rajbhandari, Michael Field, Abraham Layon, Jordan Reif, John Paul Mejia, Ian Sippel, Rosemary McInnes, Ryan Dickey, Laela Zaidi, Ling Xiong, Hannah Hayes, Ella Weber, Paul Campion, Adin Alem, Alyssa Harrison, Victoria Plant, Anton Cedergrund, Sawyer Pappas, Dylan Mitlehner, and Shiva Rajbhandari.
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A radical Democrat state representative is attempting to return to her middle-of-the-road legislative district for a new term in office.
State Representative Lorena Austin is running for reelection in Arizona Legislative District 9, which covers the city of Mesa. According to the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, the district is likely one of the most competitive in the state, with a 2.6% vote spread in the Commission’s nine focus elections. Democrats are slightly favored in the district, having won in five of those nine focus elections.
Despite her district being more moderate in its political makeup, Austin has demonstrated a propensity to become one of the most extreme leftist members of the Arizona Legislature on almost every issue.
In a struggling state and national economy, where many families are struggling to get by in life, keep their jobs, and save for their children’s futures, Austin showed no mercy with her votes. This year, she was one of a handful of members to vote against HCR 2002, which stated that the legislature recognizes, encourages, and continues to support Arizona’s beef producing farmers, ranchers, and families. Last year (2023), she voted no on SB 1131, which would have prohibited a county, city, or town from levying a tax on rental property.
Austin is also opposed to individual property rights, as her votes have indicated. In 2023, she was one of 14 members to vote against final passage of a bill prohibiting protestors from targeting people in their own homes by protesting on their residential property (SB 1023).
This latest legislative session (2024), Austin voted no on SB 1129, which would have allowed a property owner or the owners’ agent to request from law enforcement the immediate removal of a person who is unlawfully occupying a residential dwelling. She also opposed SB 1073, which would have established a new form of the existing offense of obstructing a highway or other public thoroughfare and classified this new form of the offense as a class 6 felony (which was introduced in response to protestors blocking traffic).
Austin’s legislative record extends, too, into bouts of radical socialism. In 2023, she co-sponsored HB 2610, which would have created a state-owned bank. Additionally, she co-sponsored HB 2653, which would have established that “restaurants and other food service establishments in this state may only serve water and disposable straws to customers on request.” Earlier this year, Austin voted no on HB 2629, which would have established November 7 of each year as Victims of Communism Day and required the State Board of Education to create a list of recommended resources for mandatory instruction on the topic in certain public school courses.
The Democrat lawmaker has refused to support solutions to help her state end the border crisis affecting almost every community in Arizona – not to mention elsewhere in the nation. In 2023, Austin co-sponsored HB 2604, which would have permitted the Arizona Department of Transportation to issue a driver’s license or nonoperating ID to a person without legal status in the United States. And in this most recent legislative session, she voted no on HB 2621, which would have deemed that the trafficking of fentanyl across Arizona’s border is a public health crisis and directed the Arizona Department of Health Services to do everything within its power to address the crisis. She also opposed SCR 1042, which proclaimed the legislature’s support for the people and government of the state of Texas in its efforts to secure our nation’s southern border.
Austin has an awful record in office on crimes against children. In 2023, she voted against SB 1028, which would have prohibited a person or business from engaging in an adult cabaret performance on public property or in a location where the performance could be viewed by a minor. She also voted no on SB 1583, which would have mandated that a level one sex offender who commits specified sexual offenses is required to register on the internet sex offender website if the offender was sentenced for a dangerous crime against children.
This most recent legislative session (2024), Austin continued her spree of opposing legislation that would have protected more Arizona children from horrific crimes committed against them. She voted no on SB 1236, which would have specified that any offender who was convicted of or adjudicated guilty except insane for sexual crimes against children, whether completed or preparatory, and was 18 years of age or older at the time of the offense, must be included on the internet sex offender website. She also opposed HB 2835, which would have established knowingly observing a nude minor for the purpose of engaging in sexual conduct for a person’s sexual gratification as a form of criminal sexual exploitation of a minor. And Austin voted no on a ballot referral (SCR 1021), which would statutorily require an adult who is convicted of a class 2 felony for any child sex trafficking offense to be sentenced to natural life imprisonment.
As with many of her fellow Democrats running for the state legislature, Austin promotes endorsements from left-leaning organizations for her campaign for the Arizona House of Representatives, including Moms Demand Action, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona, Save Our Schools Arizona, Progressive Turnout Project, HRC in Arizona, AEA Fund for Public Education, NARAL Pro-Choice Arizona, Stonewall Democrats of Arizona, Arizona Education Association, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Emily’s List, and Human Rights Campaign PAC.
There is one endorsement for Austin that appears to be absent from her website, from the Jane Fonda Climate PAC. Austin’s support from this PAC may be one of the most concerning for voters researching her record and determining which direction they want to see for their district. This PAC asserts that “major solutions are stopped cold: the Green New Deal, Build Back Better, clean energy investments, ending billions in tax subsidies to the fossil fuel industry – all because of politicians backed by Big Oil.”
The Green New Deal pushed by the Jane Fonda Climate PAC is the same championed by New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is one of the most progressive lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The district is currently represented by two Democrats in the state House of Representatives. Austin and her fellow Democrat incumbent, Seth Blattman, ran unopposed in the recent primary election. Austin received 10,353 votes, and Blattman obtained 8,741 votes. They will face off against Republicans Mary Ann Mendoza and Kylie Barber, who also ran unopposed in the primary election. Mendoza garnered 10,429 votes, and Barber received 10,136 votes.
November’s General Election will be the second time that Mendoza has been pitted against Austin and Blattman. In 2022, Austin and Blattman defeated Mendoza and her running mate, Kathy Pearce, to assume their offices for the 2023 Arizona legislative session.
Correction: A previous version of this article listed the incorrect vote totals for the candidates. The totals have now been updated with the latest results from the Arizona Secretary of State website.
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A middle-of-the-road legislative district in the Phoenix-metro area will be key to deciding the future political makeup of the Arizona State Legislature.
State Representative Seth Blattman, a Democrat, is running for reelection in Arizona Legislative District 9.
The Democrat lawmaker has been endorsed by liberal groups in his reelection bid, including National Organization for Women Arizona, AEA Fund for Public Education, the Progressive Turnout Project, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Jane Fonda Climate PAC, Save Our Schools Arizona, and Stonewall Democrats of Arizona.
Blattman’s support from the Fonda PAC may be one of the most concerning for voters researching his record and determining which direction they want to see for their district. On August 7, Blattman boasted of this endorsement, saying, “I am incredibly honored to announce the endorsement by the Jane Fonda Climate PAC! Their tireless efforts in combating climate change and advocating for sustainable policies are crucial for our planet’s future. Together, let’s create a healthier and sustainable Arizona for generations to come.”
I am incredibly honored to announce the endorsement by the Jane Fonda Climate PAC! Their tireless efforts in combating climate change and advocating for sustainable policies are crucial for our planet's future. Together, let's create a healthier and sustainable Arizona for… pic.twitter.com/qXZVxxZDJs
The mission of the PAC, however, is not as agreeable to a wide swath of constituents. On her website, Fonda writes, “Our planet is on fire and our leaders are failing us, so if we can’t change the minds of the people in power, we need to change the people in power. It is for that reason that I started Jane Fonda Climate PAC, which is laser-focused on one goal: Do what it takes to defeat fossil fuel supporters and elect climate champions at all levels of government.”
This PAC asserts that “major solutions are stopped cold: the Green New Deal, Build Back Better, clean energy investments, ending billions in tax subsidies to the fossil fuel industry – all because of politicians backed by Big Oil.”
The Green New Deal pushed by the Jane Fonda Climate PAC is the same championed by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who is one of the most progressive lawmakers in the U.S. Congress. On Sanders’ presidential campaign website, he wrote about the deal, that “the climate crisis is not only the single greatest challenge facing our country; it is also our single greatest opportunity to build a more just and equitable future, but we must act immediately.”
Sanders added that as president he would “launch the decade of the Green New Deal, a ten-year, nationwide mobilization centered around justice and equity during which climate change will be factored into virtually every area of policy, from immigration to trade to foreign policy and beyond. Part of the details of the Green New Deal, according to Sanders, includes, “declaring climate change a national emergency, commit[ing] to reducing emissions throughout the world, [and] expanding the climate justice movement.”
Though Arizona has so far resisted an extreme move to the globalist agenda of the climate change lobby – thanks, in large part, to its previous Republican governors (Brewer and Ducey) and a Republican-led legislature – Blattman’s recent votes indicate that he might help usher in more of the Green New Deal policies should Democrats retake the legislature alongside Governor Katie Hobbs. He voted against HCR 2050, which would have “constitutionally prohibit[ed] Arizona or any political subdivision or public body of Arizona from restricting the manufacture, use or sale or a device based on the energy sources used to power the device.”
Additionally, Blattman voted against HCR 2018, which would have “prohibit[ed] this state and any city, town, county, municipal corporation or other political subdivision of this state from imposing a fee or tax based on vehicle miles traveled by a person in a motor vehicle or enacting any rule or law to monitor or limit the vehicle miles traveled by a person in a motor vehicle.”
Another of Blattman’s endorsements, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, also highlights its efforts to fight for the Green New Deal. The organization promotes itself as “a proud supporter of Elizabeth Warren since her first run for Senate and was the first national political organization to endorse her for president in the 2020 election.”
Warren, also one of the most liberal and progressive members of the U.S. Congress, presents herself as a top supporter of the Green New Deal. On her campaign website, Warren writes, “This is a crisis. We need bold, aggressive action. We need a Green New Deal – and we need it now. Elizabeth is proud to be an original cosponsor of Senator Ed Markey and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal resolution, which commits the United States to a ten-year mobilization to achieve domestic net-zero emissions by 2030. It provides the framework for an ambitious effort to transform our economy and save our planet.”
According to the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, Legislative District 9 is one of the most competitive in the entire state, with a 2.6% vote spread between Democrats and Republicans in the past nine statewide elections. In those contests, Democrats have emerged victorious five times, compared to four for Republicans.
Blattman will attempt to return to the Arizona House of Representatives alongside his seatmate, Lorena Austin. The two Democrats are facing off against Republicans Mary Ann Mendoza and Kylie Barber for the right to represent the district in its two slots.
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The catalog of Vice President Kamala Harris’s history on energy policy is as thin as the listing of her accomplishments as President Joe Biden’s “Border Czar,” which is to say it is bereft of anything of real substance.
But the queen of word salads and newly minted presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has publicly endorsed many of her party’s most radical and disastrous energy-related ideas while serving in various elected offices — both in her energy basket-case home state of California and in Washington, D.C.
What Harris’s statements add up to is a potential disaster for America’s future energy security.
“The vice president’s approach to energy has been sophomorically dilettantish, grasping not only at shiny things such as AOC’sGreen New Deal but also at the straws Americans use to suck down the drinks they need when she starts talking like a Valley Girl,” Dan Kish, a senior research fellow at Institute for Energy Research, told me in an email this week. “To be honest, she’s no worse than many of her former Senate colleagues who have helped cheer on rising energy costs and the fleeing American jobs that accompany them. She doesn’t seem to understand the importance of reliable and affordable domestic energy, good skilled jobs or the national security implications of domestically produced energy, but maybe she will go back to school on the matter. No doubt on her electric school bus.”
During her first run for the Senate in 2016, Harris said she would love to expand her state’s economically ruinous cap-and-trade program to the national level. She also endorsed then-Gov. Jerry Brown’s harebrained scheme to ban plastic straws as a means of fighting climate change.
Tim Stewart, president of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association, told me proposals like that one would lead during a Harris presidency to the “Californication of the entire U.S. energy policy.” “Historically,” he added, “the transition of power from a president to a vice president is designed to signal continuity. This won’t be the case, because a Harris administration will be much worse.”
But how much worse could it be than the set of Biden policies that Harris has roundly endorsed over the last three and a half years? How much worse can it be than having laughed through a presidency that:
As Biden’s successor for the nomination, Harris becomes the proud owner of all these policies, and more.
But Harris’ history shows it could indeed get worse. Much worse, in fact.
While mounting her own disastrous campaign for her party’s presidential nomination in 2020, Harris endorsed a complete ban on hydraulic fracturing, i.e., fracking. She later conformed that position to Biden’s own, slightly less insane view, but only after being picked as his running mate.
Consider also that while serving in the Senate in early 2019, Harris chose to sign up as a co-sponsor of the ultra-radical Green New Deal proposed by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. It is not enough that the Biden regulators appeared to be using that nutty proposal and climate alarmism as the impetus to transform America’s entire economy and social structure: Harris favors enacting the whole thing.
As I have detailed here many times, every element of climate-alarm-based energy policies adopted by the Biden administration will inevitably lead the United State to become increasingly reliant on China for its energy needs, in the process decimating our country’s energy security. By her own words and actions, Harris has made it abundantly clear she wants to shift the process of getting there into a higher gear.
David Blackmon is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, an energy writer, and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
People in states that have signed on to the EPA/ State Climate Action Plan program can no longer say, “it’s only happening in California” because California is the United Nations blueprint for the entire United States.
On September 20, 2023, the Biden administration met at the Sustainable Development Summit in New York with the goal of recommitting to the [United Nations] 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals—SDGs. A White House fact sheet stated, “The United States is committed to the full implementation of 2030 Agenda and the SDGs, at home and abroad. At their core, the SDGs seek to:
Expand economic opportunity – This means public-private partnerships, which is crony capitalism. In this scheme there are winners and losers, where profits are privatized, and losses are socialized on the backs of middle-class Americans.
Advance social justice – This means placating and advancing people based on their skin color. At its core it is discriminatory.
Promote good governance – This skirts our elected form of government and injects unelected special interest initiatives into our lives, where no one gets to vote.
Ensure no one is left behind – This means catering to protected classes and minorities in order to create “capacity building” for initiatives and redistributive wealth schemes. Under Diversity and Inclusion (DEI), these classes are awarded “equity” and “inclusion” based on their skin color.
The Biden administration hired people from California and put them into positions in all federal agencies relating to climate change in order to fulfill his Green New Deal plan. Therefore, the plan mirrors what California has done at the national level.
The EPA/State Climate Action Plan program are through cooperative grants, (Climate Pollution Reduction Grants, CPRG) which have “take it or leave it” terms and conditions. These agreements bind states and local jurisdictions into creating GHG inventories to reduce GHG emissions, which eventually wind their way into administrative law, constraining property and individual rights. These grants force United Nations style Sustainable Communities Strategies (SCS) that addresses the U.N. 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which the Biden administration has committed to.
The EPA pitches climate action plans as voluntary. This is not true. Once a state agrees to take grant money, they sign on to mandatory elements in the grant terms and conditions contract — They are now in the United Nations/California club.
The EPA/State Climate Action Plan program is between the federal EPA, a “Partner” and unelected state agencies, boards, bodies, or commissions. Therefore, the entire process is being implemented without the consent of citizens and oversight of state legislatures – no one gets to vote. In essence, most states, including so-called conservative states, are selling out for bribes, aka grant money.
According to the EPA, states submitted Priority Climate Action Plans (PCAPs) under President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. The EPA/State Climate Action Plan program was hurried into place because there was concern that there could be a Republican change in the November 2024 election, which could jeopardize the program; hence, the name “priority” climate action plan in the first phase of the plan.
In 2023, under the first phase of the $5 billion program, the EPA made a total of $250 million in grants available to states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, 80 MSAs, four territories, and over 200 Tribes and Tribal consortia to develop ambitious climate action plans that address greenhouse gas emissions. 45 states are now covered by a climate action plan. 5 states: Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, South Dakota and Wyoming decided not to participate.
The program is a two-phase federal grant program that allows the state to develop and implement ongoing community-driven projects that reduce ambient air pollution.
Phase I provided $250 million for noncompetitive planning grants, of which states were eligible for $3 million each to support the development of a climate action plan.
Phase II includes $4.6 billion in competitive implementation grants to execute the projects identified in the climate action plan.
The deadlines for submission of PCAPs are:
Priority Climate Action Plan – Creates an inventory of the state’s primary GHG generators. Due March 1, 2024 (states and Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) and due April 1, 2024 (tribes, tribal consortia, and territories)
Comprehensive Climate Action Plan – A plan to cut that pollution statewide. Due two years after planning grant award, or approximately mid-2025 (states and MSAs) and due at the close of the grant period (tribes, tribal consortia, and territories)
The EPA/State Climate Action Plan program seeks to create arbitrary greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions in order to install unconstitutional hidden fees and taxes on hard working Americans. This is accomplished by doing a greenhouse gas inventory for carbon (CO2) and methane.
Once inventories for GHGs have been established, reduction goals can be set by States and local jurisdictions. Taxes and fees follow: GHG pricing mechanisms like cap and trade programs for energy producers; congestion pricing and vehicle mileage taxes for cars and trucks; mandatory retrofitting of commercial and existing residential homes to “green” building standards; zero emission vehicle requirements; increased gasoline, natural gas, and heating oil prices. For example, categories for emission controls include:
Transportation
Electricity Generation
Industry
Agriculture
Commercial and Residential Buildings
Waste and Materials Management
Wastewater
Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry
The EPA provided states with an outline template to follow in the development of their PCAPs called the, Priority Climate Action Plan Guidance: An Outline for States and MSAs. Therefore, the State PCAPs are very similar in their presentation. For example, PCAP lists required elements:
GHG Emissions Inventory,
Priority Measures and Reduction Estimates,
Benefits Analysis,
Low-Income and Disadvantaged Communities (LIDAC) Benefits Analysis,
Review of Authority to Implement,
Intersection with Other Funding Availability, and
Coordination and Engagement.
State legislatures did not pass PCAPs. It all happened through interagency coordination: EPA and state agencies, which are under the control of Governors.
Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University for the Arizona Governor’s Office of Resiliency were the lead players in The Clean Arizona Plan: Priority Climate Action Plan State of Arizona. They coordinated the obligatory public outreach required by EPA grants, which included feedback from numerous special interest stakeholders who directly benefit from environmental initiatives, while hard working residents are relegated to answering simple questions on outcome-based online surveys — All of this is at the detriment to Arizona’s residents.
People need to contact their state’s Governor and condemn them for signing on and creating commissions and task forces while utilizing faux stakeholder consensus to justify existing PCAPs and Comprehensive Climate Action Plans already in the works. They need to notify their state legislatures that this is happening and ask them if they know about this EPA program.
Also, people need to remind elected officials of their constitutional oaths to protect individual property rights, as evidenced in a Paramount Network’s “Yellowstone” season one episode: Patriarch John Dutton is confronted by a group of Communist Chinese tourists who are trespassing on his land. He demands that they leave and when he explains that he owns the land, one trespasser states, “It is wrong for one man to own all this.” Dutton responds, “This is America, we don’t share land here!”
People in states that have signed on to the EPA/State Climate Action Plan program can no longer say, “it’s only happening in California” because California is the United Nations blueprint for the entire United States.
Dan Titus is affiliated with the American Coalition for Sustainable Communities (ACSC). Their mission is sustaining representative government; not governance, by collectivist-oriented unelected agencies and commissions.
