Another illegal alien who entered the country under President Joe Biden has taken lives.
30-year-old Bekzhan Beishekeev, a Kyrgyzstani national, killed four Amish men when he drove the wrong way into oncoming traffic in Indiana on Tuesday. The victims were identified as Henry Eicher, 50 and his sons Menno, 25, and Paul, 19; and Simon Girod, 23.
The driver of the struck vehicle, 55-year-old Donald Stipp, remains in the hospital. Stipp’s daughter-in-law launched a GoFundMe to cover Stipp’s medical expenses and recovery.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed reports that Beishekeev entered the U.S. illegally in December 2023 at the Nogales port of entry. Beishekeev used the CBP One app, which effectively allowed illegal aliens to enter the country and work for two years without vetting.
As with millions of others before him, the Biden administration exercised their “catch-and-release” policy on Beishekeev, freeing him on parole.
The White House issued a statement calling the deaths a “preventable tragedy” that illustrated the need to continue mass deportations and end sanctuary city policies.
THIS IS OUR WHY ⬇️
Illegal alien Beishekeev swerved into oncoming traffic, tragically killing four Americans. He entered the U.S. illegally via the Biden-era CBP One app & obtained a commercial driver's license in Pennsylvania.
The Trump administration revoked legal status for illegal aliens who relied on the CBP One app to delay their immigration proceedings. Over 900,000 illegal aliens entered the country using the app.
The state of Pennsylvania awarded Beishekeev a non-domiciled CDL last July, with an expiration date of June 2029. Beishekeev’s license reflected a home address in Philadelphia.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro declined to directly address the incident.
A spokesperson for Shapiro said that Beishekeev provided proof of identity and legal presence verified by the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, as per Pennsylvania law. Shapiro’s office said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was to blame for not catching Beishekeev’s legal status upon assuming the agency.
“The individual in question had legal status in Kristi Noem’s database when the license was issued in July 2025 and still shows as eligible to receive a license as of today,” said Shapiro spokesman Alex Peterson. “Kristi Noem should focus on minding the shop in her own agency, as her incompetence and operational failures seem to be matching the scale of her moral failures as the Secretary of Homeland Security.”
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin responded that Shapiro’s administration bore responsibility for granting CDLs to CBP One parolees.
“Not only was Bekzhan Beishekeev released into our country by the Biden administration using the CBP One app, but he was also given a commercial driver’s license by Governor Shapiro’s Pennsylvania,” said McLaughlin. “It is incredibly dangerous for illegal aliens, who often don’t know our traffic laws or even English, to be operating semi-trucks on America’s roads. These sanctuary governors must stop giving illegal aliens commercial driver’s licenses before another American gets killed.”
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun said the blame was with Democratic leaders rejecting immigration law.
“Hoosiers should be able to get to work in the morning without fear of needlessly losing their lives because of Democrats’ refusal to enforce the law,” said Braun. “With open and unchecked borders, millions of illegal immigrants flooded our communities, making every state a border state. Complicit democrats have put our safety at risk—and that has come at the price of innocent lives.”
My thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of those who were tragically killed yesterday in Jay County. Hoosiers should be able to get to work in the morning without fear of needlessly losing their lives because of democrats’ refusal to enforce the law. With open and…
Per reporting from Freight Waves, Beishekeev drove for a “chameleon carrier network” with officers bearing Kyrgyzstani names.
Chameleon carrier networks operate as separate-on-paper using different Department of Transportation (DOT) vehicle identification numbers, yet they rely on the same drivers, equipment, and management so as to continue operations when one or more within their network gets shut down.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
Writing at Axios, energy writer Amy Harder says “The climate agenda’s fall from grace over the past year has been stunning — in speed, scale and scope.” Harder quotes oil historian and S&P Global vice-chairman Dan Yergin as saying, “There’s no handwaving about how ‘We want to cooperate on climate.’ It’s, ‘We’re slamming the door on that issue.’ We’ve gone from over-indexing it to zero-indexing it.”
Polling has never shown climate change as being an issue of primary concern to American voters. Americans have consistently been more worried about issues that impact their daily lives today than about warnings from modern-day P.T. Barnums like U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres about some nebulous “highway to hell” and “the age of global boiling. The issue had been slowly losing its effectiveness during the Biden years even as that administration tried to memorialize the movement’s objectives in policy.
Even Democrat politicians have quit talking about the so-called “climate emergency” which used to be a central plank in their talking points list. When was the last time you heard New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, co-author with Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of the “Green New Deal” introduced in 2019, talk about the supposed need to force ordinary citizens to give up their cars, flying, and vacations and spend trillions on a nationwide network of high-speed rails to save the planet? When was the last time you heard any Democrat utter the phrase “Green New Deal,” for that matter? It simply doesn’t happen anymore.
One of the motivators for the political abandonment of the climate scam by Democrats came from a pre-election analysis from the center-left Searchlight Institute last November. That memo advised Democrat candidates to avoid using the term “climate change” entirely, and to focus on the supposed cost savings to be obtained by switching to green energy solutions. Never mind that such cost savings are a myth: The truth doesn’t matter. What matters is the ability to influence voters with the message.
Therein lies the central existential threat to the movement’s survival in the coming years.
For decades, liberal politicians and climate advocates were able to advance the climate alarm agenda by creating, well, alarm among the public that the world is going to end if we don’t stop putting too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Always the messaging had a deadline claiming, “We only have X number of years to stop burning fossil fuels before it’s too late!” Over the past 40 years, that deadline to act has given the term “moving the goalposts” a new green meaning.
AOC claimed the drop-dead date was only 12 years in the future as she rolled out her ambition to control everyone’s daily lives in the name of climate alarm in 2019. But the very next year, in 2020, child activist Greta Thunberg moved the goalposts to a mere five years. But wait: Just a year later, Joe Biden read a script from his teleprompter that set the deadline at 10 years. It’s all so darn confusing.
No doubt, these politicians and activists wish they could erase their past claims from everyone’s memory. Their trouble is, the Internet is forever.
Advocates were even successful in convincing Barack Obama’s EPA to dummy up an Endangerment Finding declaring that carbon dioxide is in fact a “pollutant” that must be regulated under the Clean Air Act in order to save the planet. Never mind that CO2, otherwise known as plant food, the foundational basis for all life on Planet Earth: The truth doesn’t matter.
Now, it appears that the movement is inheriting the wages of decades of deception with a sudden and stunning fall from grace. It could not happen to a more deserving bunch of people.
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.
For years, Arizona was governed by Republican majorities in the state legislature—with Republicans also holding the Governor’s and Attorney General’s offices. During that time, we transformed Arizona into one of the most enviable and prosperous states in the nation: a booming economy, a hot jobs market, a flat income tax, strong support for law and order, and universal school choice.
That all changed in 2023 when Katie Hobbs and Kris Mayes—both Democrats—took over the Governor’s and Attorney General’s offices. Since then, they’ve worked to impose a radical agenda and remake Arizona in the image of California. If not for the slim Republican majorities in both chambers of the Arizona Legislature, Hobbs and Mayes would have quickly succeeded.
As the leader of the Senate Republicans, it has been my honor to work with my colleagues to defend Arizona values and push forward conservative priorities. Despite divided government, we’ve used every tool in our toolbox to not only stop the radical left’s agendas, but to also lead. In doing so, we have set the standard for other states dealing with divided government. Here are just a few of the top victories we’ve secured on behalf of Arizonans.
Fully Funded and Protected Universal School Choice
Over the past two decades, Arizona has led the nation in enacting school choice, giving all families the freedom to choose the education that best fits their children. We dramatically increased K-12 funding (now approximately $13,000 per student) during this time, investing heavily in and safeguarding all forms of education across the state—district, charter, home school, online, and empowerment scholarship accounts. The left only wants to give you one choice to educate your child. Both Hobbs and Mayes have prioritized the dismantling of the apparatuses that let parents decide where their children go to school.
I believe educational freedom is a foundation of the American Dream. Families shouldn’t be trapped in failing schools based on their zip code; rather, they should have the right to choose the educational institutions that work best for their sons and daughters. Unfortunately, Hobbs and Mayes have repeatedly rejected this belief to the detriment of our state’s future.
Under my leadership at the legislature, we stopped them. School choice remains fully funded and protected—even in this divided government. Fighting for parental empowerment and school choice has been one of the most consequential and rewarding endeavors of my time as Senate President. I believe that we are rescuing an entire generation of Arizonans from the grip of a broken education system.
Tax Cuts for Arizonans
One of our top priorities has been to return money to Arizona taxpayers. Despite repeated attempts by Hobbs to block us, we’ve delivered real tax relief. We eliminated the rental tax in Arizona, saving families and renters hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Charging a rental tax is bad policy, and now these revenues will stay in the pockets of the people who need them the most.
Republican lawmakers forced the governor to sign additional bills that cut taxes for hard-working Arizonans. We raised the state’s business personal property tax exemption, reducing burdens on small business owners. We banned municipal excise taxes on residential leases, relieving tenants of additional tax liability and helping lower housing costs. And we passed the Arizona Families Tax Rebate to return funds directly to eligible families.
At a time when families are feeling squeezed, we’re doing what government should—getting out of the way and letting our hardworking taxpayers keep more of what they earn. These tax cuts are the result of smart, conservative leadership that puts everyday Arizonans first. This is the same pro-growth, American First approach that President Trump is delivering for our nation, and we’re proud to carry that torch here in the Grand Canyon State.
Fully Vetted Agency Directors
One of the most consequential powers of any governor is the ability to nominate and install agency directors, who do the bidding of their chief executive. These individuals wield enormous influence over how state government functions, and under Hobbs, many of her nominees have been extreme, unqualified, or relatively unknown to the public. That’s why one of my first actions as Senate President was to create accountability through a formal vetting process for the governor’s nominees. The purpose was to ensure the individuals chosen to lead integral government agencies were competent and aligned with Arizona values. Despite resistance from the governor, we succeeded. We held her nominees to high standards and protected Arizona from the consequences of unchecked political appointments.
End of DOJ Investigation into Phoenix Police Department
Over the past several years, the Phoenix Police Department was the target of a blatantly politicized witch hunt by President Biden’s Department of Justice. They twisted facts and law in a backhanded attempt to hijack another police department and bring it under the control of the federal government. After I contacted the Trump administration and met with several of the President’s top officials, the White House and DOJ ended this rampage against the men and women in blue from the Phoenix Police Department. The announcement from the Trump administration was complete vindication, and it removed the handcuffs off our law enforcement so that they may do their jobs to keep the City of Phoenix and our citizens safe from criminals seeking to cause harm.
Divided government is messy. The path forward isn’t always easy or clear. But through consensus building, unity, discipline, determination, and bold conservative leadership, we’ve proven in Arizona that progress is possible—even in the toughest of times. The rewards of this hard work are immense for those entrusted with leaving our state and nation in a better place for future generations of Americans. I hope that our efforts in Arizona have not only preserved our rich heritage of conservative values, but inspired other warriors around the country to follow in our footsteps.
Warren Petersen is the President of the Arizona State Senate and represents Legislative District 14.
Guess what! Inflation, growth, jobs: Conventional wisdom from America’s economic punditry was across-the-board wrong. Again.
At the year’s start the punditry predicted that Trump’s tariffs would cause a surge of inflation and would likely trigger recession. Well, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released Consumer Price Index (CPI) numbers on Thursday. Reuters’ polling of private economists predicted inflation would accelerate to 3.1% year-over-year, the fastest pace since 2023. The actual BLS figure came in at 2.7%, with core inflation even lower at 2.6%.
But the news gets better. Year-over-year inflation means it includes inflationary pressures from the end of Biden’s presidency. It’s a very lagging figure.
To understand what inflation’s doing now, and to filter out some of the data’s noise, a better gauge is to look at inflation over the last two months, which came in at 1.2% annualized, well below the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.
There is a small caveat to this good news. Due to the Schumer government shutdown, BLS was unable to collect all the usual data for the CPI report, so some items were left out. The economists who predicted accelerating inflation are thus arguing that inflation would, with all the data, have been much higher and thus excusing their bad forecasts.
However, as New York Fed President John Williams points out, the missing data “pushed down the CPI reading, probably by a tenth or so.” OK, so topline inflation was 2.8% while the annualized two-month figure goes to 1.8%, still well below consensus forecast and still below the Fed’s target rate.
What about Trump’s tariffs? To be sure, they pushed some prices up faster than they otherwise would have. But the tariffs only applied to a small fraction of all the goods and services sold in America. So, when it comes to overall inflation, the net effect could never be more than a one-time rounding error.
Further, inflation is fundamentally a monetary phenomenon. These tariff-induced price bumps occurred against a background of the underlying inflationary impulse from money supply interacting with money demand. The Fed has run a moderately restrictive policy for years, so naturally inflation is falling.
Assuming at least one of the Fed’s legion of economists can do this two-month calculation and has the temerity to show it to Chair Powell and the rest of the Fed’s leadership, then further Fed rate cuts should be assured and imminent on the road to neutral.
And what about that predicted recession? After inflation, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) soared 3.8% in the second quarter of this year, while the Atlanta Fed’s “Nowcast” of third quarter GDP is a still-impressive 3.5%.
Some of Reuters’ economists will likely portray this slight slowdown in growth as “scary” and a sign of pending recession. Nonsense. The economy is ripping, with the only recession pending threatening the salaries of those economists making silly forecasts.
Finally, those still desperate to argue economic weakness might turn to the labor market. The economy generated about 166,000 jobs a month during Biden’s last year in office. So far under Trump the economy has generated about 50,000 jobs a month. Sounds scary, but much of that decline occurred because federal employment fell by 27,000 jobs a month.
The even bigger jobs story is that employment by foreign-born workers has fallen by about 100,000 a month under Trump. This is what happens when immigration laws are enforced and the border is secured. Put it all together and private-sector native-born employment is doing very well.
And the cherry on top is that after stagnating for the four years of the Biden presidency, median real wages are now rising at a 1.6% annualized rate. Rising wages and plentiful private-sector jobs, not gimmicks like Obamacare subsidies and rent controls, are how you prosper American workers or, in today’s parlance, address “affordability.”
Just don’t be surprised if you don’t hear that from the legacy media.
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.
President Trump has certainly shaken up, if not severely damaged, the climate hoax and Green New Scam in just 10 short months. Here’s a list of his 10 top climate-related accomplishments for which we should all be thankful this holiday season:
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed to end the government’s “scientific” basis for the climate hoax by rescinding the Obama EPA’s 2009 illegal and incorrect determination that emissions of greenhouse gases endanger the public welfare. As part of this effort, the Department of Energy issued a report by top climate scientists concluding that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions will have no detectable effect on global climate change.
President Trump, again, pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, an unconstitutional effort by Presidents Obama and Biden to adopt a United Nations treaty without ratification by the Senate.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act terminated hundreds of billions of dollars of the climate-related “Green New Scam” spending of the (so-called) Inflation Reduction Act, including all subsidies for electric vehicle purchases.
President Trump has directed his administration to reduce Green New Scam spending that survived the One Big Beautiful Bill by means of bureaucratic review, red tape and delay. The rent-seeking and piratical thieves who want to steal from taxpayers played hardball to save some of their ill-gotten gains. The President is now showing, rather impressively, that he can play hardball right back.
President Trump signed into law a bill terminating California’s electric vehicle mandate. Greens had tried to mandate EVs in California to force carmakers to only make EVs for the entire nation. Thanks to the President, that will not happen in the foreseeable future.
The EPA scored an appellate court victory in its effort to reclaim $20 billion in Biden EPA Green New Scam panic spending made infamous by the Project Veritas video, “We’re Throwing Gold Bars Off the Titanic.”
President Trump halted a number of offshore wind projects and cut funding for many others. There are other projects that deserve to be terminated, such as the largest U.S. offshore wind farm being built by Virginia’s Dominion Energy, but a great start has been made so far.
Stunningly, President Trump stopped cold a U.N. treaty to implement a global tax on shipping emissions by threatening would-be signatories with tariffs. This treaty would have been the first global climate tax.
President Trump boycotted and sent no delegation to the United Nations climate conference (COP-30) in Brazil, rendering the annual meeting even more confused and meaningless than it usually is.
President Trump delivered a blistering speech to the United Nations blasting the climate hoax for about 15 minutes or so. The President summed up his views on climate in this one memorable sentence: “The carbon footprint is a hoax, made up by people with evil intentions and they’re heading down a path of total destruction.”
That’s quite a list. But much is left to be done. Some of the big items are as follows:
The EPA must finalize its rescission of the endangerment finding and then successfully defend the rescission in the Supreme Court.
All the Green New Scam spending must be terminated as soon as possible. Every dollar spent is a dollar stolen from taxpayers and invested in making us more energy dependent on Communist China.
It is not enough to withdraw only from the Paris Climate Accord. President Trump must withdraw the United States from the 1992 parent treaty, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
And it would be really awesome if President Trump also withdrew the U.S. from the 1987 Montreal Protocol, the bogus treaty allegedly addressing the imaginary “ozone hole.” That treaty, the follow-on Kigali Amendment ratified during the Biden administration, and language in the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020 signed by President Trump, has only been used to make refrigeration and air conditioning pointlessly more expensive.
I heard Al Gore tell a group of conservatives in January 2006 that the real purpose of the Montreal Protocol was to demonstrate that a global environmental treaty could be implemented. That “success” was then subsequently used as precedent for the UNFCCC and its spinoff climate treaties, the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Climate Accord. The ozone hole hoax paved the way for the climate hoax and Green New Scam. It’s all been a multi-trillion-dollar fraud on American consumers and taxpayers.
America became great before these pointless environmental treaties. It has been greatly harmed and dangerously hamstrung by them since their ratification. If MAGA means anything, it means exiting international efforts to cripple the U.S. with junk science-based environmental treaties. And it would make a great Christmas present to the nation. Just a suggestion.