Telecommunications Giant Announces Expansion in Arizona, Will Add 1,500 Jobs

Viasat, a global telecommunications giant, announced an expansion in Arizona that will add 1,500 jobs in the state.

The new construction will include “a 135,000-square-foot building, an outdoor atrium, open space for events and employee recreation, and a parking structure,” according to a report from Community Impact. 

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Arizona Border Patrol Arrests Previously Convicted Sex Offender

Police/ICE Arrest

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in Arizona says it has apprehended a convicted sex offender attempting to reenter the United States illegally. 

“Three Points Station agents encountered seven adults and two unaccompanied children west of San Miguel, AZ,” said Chief Patrol Agent John Modlin of CBP’s Tucson Sector. “A Guatemalan citizen in the group, Minor Chingo-Grave, is a registered sex offender.”

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Commentary: The 2023 Congress’ Opportunity to Stop the FBI’s Spying on Americans

The 18-member U.S. intelligence community (IC) has released the Annual Statistical Transparency Report Regarding the Intelligence Community’s Use of National Security Surveillance Authorities. One of the few to pay attention was historian Matthew Guariglia, a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and an affiliated scholar at the University of California’s Hastings School of Law.

This government document, the ninth such report to be made public, “provides statistics and contextual information concerning how the Intelligence Community uses the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and certain other national security authorities to accomplish its mission.”

The law authorizes the U.S. government to engage in mass surveillance of foreign targets. As Guariglia discovered, FISA is “still being abused by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to spy on Americans without a warrant.” This abuse takes place under Section 702, an amendment to FISA.

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Arizona Attorney General’s Office Warns That Cartels Use Social Media to Recruit Teenagers in Smuggling Operations

Monday, the Arizona Attorney General’s Office (AGO) released a press release stating the cartel recruits American Citizens, including teenagers, to smuggle undocumented immigrants into the country through social media.

“Ads on social media intercepted by law enforcement are now offering load drivers up to $2,000 for each passenger picked up at the border and driven north to a specified location. The lucrative deal is not only attracting people as young as 14 years old from the greater Phoenix area but also men and women of all ages and even drivers from out of state, who come to Arizona to cash in on the commute for the cartel. Nearly all of the drivers stopped are U.S. citizens,” according to a press release from the AGO.

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Americans Flocked to Arizona Cities amid COVID-19 Pandemic

Whether it was following new opportunities or taking advantage of the untethering of remote work, Arizona’s cities saw significant population growth in 15 months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The U.S. Census released its annual population estimates for cities and counties Thursday, reflecting changes in municipal populations as of July 1, 2021. Four Arizona cities – Queen Creek, Buckeye, Casa Grande and Maricopa – were among the top 10 in terms of largest percentage of growth in the 12 months ending July 2021.

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New Arizona Law Prohibits Mask Mandates on Government Property

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey (R) signed a bill recently banning mask mandates on Arizona government property.

“Citizens should not be required to wear a mask to access government services,” said the State Representative Neal Carter (R-Phoenix), who sponsored the measure.” This law prevents policy setting by unelected bureaucrats which, in my own experience, led to the public being denied entry to some county buildings that continued to impose mask requirements long after such mandates had been widely dispensed with or prohibited around the state.”

House Bill (HB) 2453 received “unanimous support from House and Senate Republicans.”

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Property Is Racist, Boston University Professor Says

A Boston University assistant professor deemed property racist while defending riots in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in a Wednesday video.

Boston University assistant professor Saida Grundy compared looting in the aftermath of George Floyd‘s death to black people “looting themselves” from slavery, according to a video posted by the university. Grundy also urged people not to judge communities’ reactions and to listen to them to address their needs.

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Democrats Worry About Spike in Obamacare Premiums Ahead of Midterms

Obamacare

As Democrats head into the November midterms with historically low approval ratings, another major factor could arise that will further contribute to the shrinking of their already-slim majorities.

As reported by The Hill, the Affordable Care Act – known colloquially as “Obamacare” – could face a significant increase in premiums due to a lapse in special funding provided by the coronavirus aid bill passed last year. That bill, known as the American Rescue Plan, temporarily increased financial assistance for Americans seeking healthcare through Obamacare; the increase was set to expire just one year after the bill’s passage.

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Biden Admin Blocks Yet Another Massive Mining Project, Hobbling Its Own Climate Agenda

The Biden administration proposed stringent clean water restrictions on a watershed in southwest Alaska Wednesday, a potential fatal blow to a planned critical mineral development project.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it would review a proposal to prohibit the use of the Bristol Bay watershed as a discharge site for the Pebble Project, a mining project that would produce about 1.5 billion tons of critical minerals, including copper and molybdenum, over 20 years. The rule, which the agency will publish Thursday, would protect Bristol Bay rivers, streams and wetlands that support the largest sockeye salmon fishery in the world, according to the announcement.

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Congressional Budget Office: Debt to Surpass GDP at Record Level over Next Decade

The Congressional Budget Office released its economic outlook for the next decade and projected record high debt levels compared to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product.

The CBO projected a decrease in the deficit compared to the major COVID-era spending spree that helped fuel inflation to its current high levels.

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Republicans Launch Counteroffensive Against Latest Woke Corporate Push: ESG Investing

From Congress to the statehouse, Republicans are fighting a growing movement to force investments into funds that make decisions based on environmental, social, governance, or political criteria.

The Environmental Social Governance (ESG) movement has prompted the Securities and Exchange Commission to propose a rule requiring companies to report emissions and other climate risk data, while public pension funds like the Thrift Savings Plan are discussing using ESG metrics to govern investment decisions.

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Green Berets Launch PAC to Put ‘Warrior-Diplomats’ in Congress

Veterans who served in special operations units announced the formation of a new political-action committee (PAC) to elect fellow “warrior-diplomats” to Congress in the wake of last year’s Monday, Fox News reported Monday.

“It is no coincidence that we are launching on Memorial Day, less than a year after we witnessed the Biden administration’s failed leadership contribute to the loss of American lives in Afghanistan,” Jason Bacon, a former Green Beret and previous congressional candidate said, according to Fox News. “It is imperative that we elect real leaders to Congress with the knowledge and experience to prevent this kind of travesty.”

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Larry Sand Commentary: American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten Needs to Get a Grip

My Dearest Randi,

What is going on! It has been a year since my last missive, and I have not heard a peep from you. This is not the first time you have snubbed me, however. When I tried to say hi to you outside the Supreme Court after the Janus oral arguments in 2018, you refused to even look at me, and then turned to a newsman and launched into a kooky rant, insisting that unions “actually make communities safer and…the right-wing is threatened by that.”

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Elite High School Ends Merit-Based Admissions

Students at San Francisco’s Lowell High School received significantly more failing grades at the end of the fall 2021 semester following the school board’s decision to end merit-based admissions.

The San Francisco Board of Education voted to end merit-based admissions in February 2021 and switched to a lottery-based admission system at the beginning of the fall 2021 semester. Lowell High freshmen admitted through the lottery program received three times the amount of Ds and Fs than those of the previous two years, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.

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State Lawmaker Alleges House Speaker Bowers Is ‘Playing Games’ with Election Integrity as Key Bills Fall Short

State House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R-Mesa) considered sending armed Department of Public Safety (DPS) officers after two conservative legislators during remarks on the State House floor, despite State Representative Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek) telling multiple members of House leadership and their staff that there would not be enough legislators present for a vote on Tuesday to hear election integrity bills.

“This is sadly just another in a long list of examples of systematically failed leadership and near-total dysfunction in the House under Rusty Bowers,” Hoffman told The Arizona Sun Times. “Leadership knew full well they would not have the votes to pass partisan bills, yet they chose to play games with one of the most important issues facing our state – election integrity. Any claim that leadership was unaware they would be missing votes is at best pure fiction, and at worst intentionally misleading.”

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