Arizona Judge Strikes Down Prop 208 Tax Hike

A Maricopa County Superior Court judge has struck down a tax placed on high-earning Arizona residents to fund public education.

Proposition 208, which was approved by 51.7% of voters in the November 2020 election, added a 3.5% tax on single filers earning more than $250,000 per year and joint filers earning more than $500,000 per year, with the revenue going towards public education.

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Commentary: Democrats’ Green Dream Will Fuel GOP Red Wave

President Biden and other White House officials dramatically changed their tune this week in defending their green agenda in the face of skyrocketing gas prices and Russia’s energy supply stranglehold over Europe.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden for months blamed increasing gas prices on supply-chain issues and pent-up post-pandemic demand for travel, deflecting questions on whether his push to move the country off fossil fuels was a factor.

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Two U.S. House Races to Watch: New Hampshire’s 1st and New Mexico’s 3rd Congressional Districts

The campaigns for New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District and New Mexico’s 3rd Congressional District are two races that are important to the GOP’s chances at taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

U.S. Representatives Chris Pappas of NH-1 and Teresa Leger-Fernández of NM-3 are two Democrat incumbents that could find themselves out of a job in November if their Republican challengers have their way.

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Texas Supreme Court Strikes Major Blow to Abortion Providers’ Lawsuit Against Heartbeat Abortion Ban

Infant with stuffed animal

The Supreme Court of Texas recommended Friday a lawsuit challenging the state’s “heartbeat” abortion ban should be dismissed since it is enforced by “private civil action,” and not state officials.

Justice Jeffrey S. Boyd concluded in the decision regarding the case of Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, that state officials, such as medical licensing boards, cannot enforce the law that bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected

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Commentary: Joe Biden’s Electric Car Plans Support the World’s Worst Humanitarian Abuses

Joe Biden

In his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, President Joe Biden promoted electric vehicles (EVs), trumpeting his plans to establish “a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations.” In so doing, Biden is unwittingly supporting the worst humanitarian abuses in the world. This is because of the way in which the materials used in manufacturing the batteries that power today’s EVs are obtained.

To obtain a reasonable amount of power per pound of battery weight, EV manufacturers generally use various forms of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, so named because the battery’s positive electrode, called the cathode, is largely made up of the highly reactive metal lithium (Li). To keep the cathode stable when a battery is not in use, the lithium is combined in a metal oxide matrix, with different manufacturers using different combinations of metals.

Most EV manufacturers combine lithium with nickel, cobalt and manganese to create a Li-Ni-Mn-Co oxide matrix to form the cathode. Tesla substitutes aluminum (Al) for the manganese, yielding a Li-Ni-Co-Al oxide matrix for the cathode on their batteries. Tesla maintains that their formulae is more cost-effective as less cobalt is required.

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Former President Barack Obama Tests Positive for COVID-19

Former President Barack Obama has tested positive for COVID-19, despite being vaccinated and receiving a booster, according to a Sunday statement from his official Twitter account.

“I’ve had a scratchy throat for a couple days, but am feeling fine otherwise,” he wrote.

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Farmers Hit Hard by Price Increases as Food Price Spike Looms

Man in white shirt and jeans planting seeds in the ground of a garden

Goods and services around the country are becoming increasingly more expensive, but farmers may be among the hardest hit as inflation, supply chain issues, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are expected to send food prices soaring even higher.

That impact is being felt by farmers around the country.

“The cost of fertilizer is up as much as 500% in some areas,” said Indiana Farm Bureau President Randy Kron. “It would be unbelievable if I hadn’t seen it for myself as I priced fertilizer for our farm in southern Indiana. Fertilizer is a global commodity and can be influenced by multiple market factors, including the situation in Ukraine, and all of these are helping to drive up costs.”

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Kari Lake Releases TV Ad During Her Former TV Show Instructing Viewers to Turn It Off

Coming from a 30-year career in the mainstream media as a local broadcaster, Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has naturally been able to spotlight many of the biases of the media while campaigning. The Trump-endorsed candidate’s second TV ad launched this weekend, including on Monday during the former show she co-anchored on Fox 10 News. It instructs viewers to turn the show off. 

She began in the ad, “The media isn’t just corrupt, they are anti-American.” A clip of her walking next to 12 News reporter Brahm Resnik is shown, with Lake telling him, “I noticed that you would not say the Pledge of Allegiance and that’s really despicable. Why can’t you put your hand on your heart? When these Media Hacks show you how much they hate America, believe them.”

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