DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—America First Legal (AFL) is suing Maricopa County, Arizona, for allegedly disregarding state law requiring officials to purge voter rolls of any noncitizens. The Washington, D.C.,-based organization, led by former Trump administration senior advisor Stephen Miller, filed the lawsuit against Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer on Tuesday, according to court documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The lawsuit comes after AFL demanded Richer’s office to remove foreign nationals from the county’s voter rolls—demands that Richer rebuffed. “America First Legal is leading the charge to keep illegal aliens from voting in 2024,” Miller said in a statement provided to the DCNF. “Maricopa County, in direct violation of state law, is refusing to remove illegal alien voters from the rolls.” “We are taking decisive action: suing Maricopa County for unlawfully permitting illegal aliens and foreign citizens to interfere in the 2024 election,” Miller continued. The lawsuit follows demand letters AFL sent to all fifteen counties in Arizona last month. Those letters demanded county election officials to follow state law by preventing noncitizens from voting in elections, and warning them that they would face legal action if they failed to do so. Richer — responding via his attorney — stated that his office would not take action because his office was already verifying the citizenship of voters, according to AFL. However, AFL claims that Richer’s response isn’t accurate, and that the number of registered voters in Maricopa County Recorder’s Office without confirmed citizenship “continues to rise,” according to the press release. There were more than 35,000 registered voters in Arizona who failed to provide proof of their citizenship as of April 1, making them ineligible to vote in state and local elections, according to a July press release announcing AFL’s demand letters to Arizona county recorders. The 2020 Arizona presidential election was decided by a margin of less than 11,000 votes. Under Arizona law, proof of citizenship is required in order to register to vote. A Supreme Court ruling found that state governments cannot mandate additional voter registration requirements beyond what federal registration forms already impose, which only ask registrants to check a box affirming they are a U.S. citizen—ultimately meaning Arizonans who do not provide proof of citizenship can vote in federal elections in Arizona, but not in state or local elections. County recorders are required by Arizona law to perform monthly voter roll maintenance to confirm the citizenship of federal-only registered voters, according to AFL. The lawsuit claims Richer is not properly doing so. “How can Arizonans have confidence in the integrity of their State’s elections when the government officials in charge of administering that election are not even following the law?” James Rogers, AFL legal senior counsel, said in a statement provided to the DCNF. “It is reasonable for Arizonans to be concerned,” Rogers continued. “This lawsuit is about helping to restore the public’s trust by making sure that election officials follow the law and that foreigners are not able to influence the outcome of our elections.” The lawsuit follows growing tensions between Republicans and Democrats over the issue of noncitizens, including illegal immigrants, allegedly participating in U.S. elections. President Joe Biden made public in July his opposition against legislation aiming to strengthen election integrity, releasing a White House statement opposing Texas GOP Rep. Chip Roy’s Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act. The AFL lawsuit is on behalf of the Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona and Yvonne Cahill, a naturalized citizen and a registered voter. The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the DCNF. Originally published by The Daily Caller News Foundation. The post Major Swing County Slapped With Lawsuit, Accused Of Not Removing Noncitizens From Voter Rolls appeared first on The Daily Signal.

For the past four years, inflation has rattled local small businesses across the country. The inflation rate peaked in 2022, but of course the cost of goods never went back down. In fact, the prices just kept rising, just not at the same clip they had been rising at the peak. In short, gas prices, food prices, housing prices, energy prices and insurance costs are still blowing away everyday people’s budgets, making them cut costs on essentials or drive up credit card debt despite the Biden-Harris administration consistently dismissing their plight for two years. On Friday, things just became worse for middle America’s economic concerns when the latest jobs report for July showed that not only has job growth slowed to an alarming number, only adding 114,000 jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis when experts had been expecting 176,00 new jobs, but the June and May jobs reports were revised lower by 29,000 jobs. This means 10 of the last 14 reports have now been revised lower. Which means all those jobs report headlines that we’ve read for the past year, suggesting the economy is booming, were mistaken. The truth is that jobs numbers in this country are weak, and the new unemployment rate of 4.3% is now the highest it has been since 2021. The reality has been what small businesses and consumers have been warning about for a while: The trends on the ground in real life show a very different world than the headlines. By midafternoon Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down by more than 1,500 points since its high on Wednesday, and market experts at The Kobeissi Letter say the volatility index is up officially more than 100%. At the same moment, the Sahm Rule, a widely accepted economic rule that maintains if the unemployment rate rises by half a percentage point quickly enough, then the economy is in recession, was triggered by the data. In April, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ presumptive nominee for president, kickstarted an “Economic Opportunity Tour” across the country, touting the Biden-Harris administration’s record on job creation and erasing student loan debt. Harris said launching the tour that “our economic approach has delivered great progress, and we will continue to invest in you, your family, and your future.” In that same month of April, the Labor Department noted that hiring had fallen short of expectations and was one of many indicators that the labor market was cooling. Yet in her role as the vice president, Harris was spinning a very different story. News coverage of her kickoff of the Economic Opportunity Tour in Atlanta in April focused solely on her galvanizing and mobilizing black voters. The Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers below the headline showed some disturbing trends for middle Americans still struggling under the weight of inflation. People without college degrees saw the biggest rise in unemployment, jumping to 4.6% in July (up from 3.3% in July 2023). For perspective, as of 2021, Pew Research shows 37.9% of adults over the age of 25 have bachelor’s degrees, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population survey. The economy is always the No. 1 concern for people when they go to the voting booth. The latest Brookings Report, released before the weak jobs market came to light and inflation was the overriding economic issue, showed a whopping 65% of voters rate the economy as good during former President Donald Trump’s term, compared to 38% under the Biden-Harris administration. Paul Sracic, political science professor at Youngstown State University, said political strategist James Carville was right when he said, “It’s the economy stupid,” when he centered former President Bill Clinton’s campaign on economic issues. “As it was then and now, it is how people feel about the economy and if their lives are better that is driving this election,” Sracic said. “The word ‘recession’ is powerful. A lot of economics is psychological. The numbers that came out on Friday is very bad news for the Harris campaign. They were touting a soft landing last week, and that is not going to happen now.” Sracic said President Joe Biden and Harris both got the messaging wrong from the onset on the economy: “It began with inflation. They woefully underestimated inflation from the start, dismissing it as transitory. Maybe if they had reacted sooner, not understanding would not have become an overarching theme for them.” How Trump handles this is critically important for him, Sracic said. “We always thought this election was about the economy. Still is, but now it is even bigger.” COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM The post Middle America Rattled by Jobs Report appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Sen. Josh Hawley is urging the Secret Service to suspend the agent in charge of the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally where former President Donald Trump was shot. The agent was “inexperienced, ineffective and not up to the job,” a whistleblower told the Missouri Republican lawmaker. Though the Secret Service agent “failed to implement basic security protocols,” the individual has not been fired, the whistleblower said. Hawley sent a letter to acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. on Tuesday calling for the agent’s suspension while the agent is investigated. ?? NEW – Whistleblowers tell me the lead site agent in charge of the Butler rally was known to be inexperienced, ineffective and not up to the job – and on the day failed to implement basic security protocols – yet this person is STILL on active duty. Why? ? pic.twitter.com/EhfUSCvnJ0— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) August 6, 2024 The agent in charge of the July 13 rally was “new” and had “relatively little experience,” the whistleblower told Hawley. “These allegations raise serious questions about the lead site agent’s conduct—an individual you have so far refused to hold accountable,” the senator wrote. “On July 30, you said that you will not ‘put your thumb on the scale,’ but by continuing to assign this agent to protective visits in light of serious allegations of incompetence, you are doing exactly that. You are also jeopardizing the security of protectees by allowing this individual to continue working.” A whistleblower told Hawley the Secret Service allowed usually forbidden campaign decorations, like flags, which hinder the line-of-sight of agents responsible for identifying threats. The Secret Service did not check IDs when issuing credentials, according to the whistleblower. Homeland Security Investigations agents told campaign officials that they had never staffed a rally before and did not know proper procedure, the whistleblower alleged. “These staffing decisions—such as what personnel to deploy and where—were the responsibility of this lead agent, according to the whistleblower,” Hawley’s letter says. Hawley asked Rowe to respond to the following questions within a week. “Who specifically made the decision to assign this lead site agent to the July 13 rally? On what basis was this decision made?” “Were obstructions on the stage and catwalk permitted to be used without evaluating the impact on the line-of-sight for agents responsible for the president’s protection?” “Why were credential pins given out without asking for identification?” “How specifically do you plan to hold the lead site agent accountable?” The post Hawley Calls for Suspension of ‘Inexperienced, Ineffective’ Lead Agent at July 13 Trump Rally appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of the accompanying video from professor Peter St. Onge. Two new surveys say most Americans think the recession has already begun. This must come as a shock to our mendacious media sacrificing fresh mountains of newsprint to gaslight Kackles over the 50-yard line come November. Meanwhile, nearly 70% of Americans report that inflation—which that same media told us was long gone —continues making life a struggle, with little prospect of saving for the future or getting out of debt. The numbers come from two surveys by left-wing Guardian-Harris polling, and another from payment network Affirm, who sampled 2,000 Americans.  Nearly 60% say we’re already in recession, and on average, they say it started 15 months ago.  Keep in mind the last normal recession in 2008 they didn’t announce the recession until fully one year after it began. The previous two recessions in 2001 and 1991 both waited eight to nine months before admitting the obvious. In other words, the people always see the recession before it’s officially announced, raising the question: Are they hiding it or are they just stupid? Indeed, the numbers are now saying that winter is already here.  Yesterday, I talked about the jobs collapse. I’ve mentioned in recent videos the dismal numbers on consumer confidence and business confidence—especially small business, which just hit an 11-year low in confidence with nearly half of small businesses unable to make rent.  80% of Americans now see McDonald’s as a luxury, millions are buying groceries on credit cards, and the number of young Americans living at home just hit the highest rate since the 1940s.  Manufacturing just turned in recession-level numbers. Then, throw in after-inflation wages that are down 5% since pre-COVID-19, along with exploding debt costs between $300,000 starter homes, 7% mortgages, and 25% credit card interest rates. In short, inflation never went anywhere, while the economy’s been running on fumes—trillions in stimulus checks, trillion-dollar deficits, and soaring personal debt that’s turning from a temporary lifeline into a permanent albatross. At this point, the trillions in duct tape and bubble gum isn’t holding it together: Delinquencies are soaring: They recently passed 9% in credit cards, which matches 2008 levels—and we’re seeing them jump in car and house loans that were both inflated by the Fed.  Most concerning for an economy running on the Fed‘s magic money printer, fully three-quarters of income taxes now go to interest on the national debt, while inflation remains stuck going on four years now. A couple more years and all our taxes will go to interest, and the government will run on pure money printing. I’ve previously mentioned the Fed is positioning for recession.  All the dire economic data we’re seeing now—the jobs, the delinquencies, the $35 trillion in debt—get much worse when the recession hits in full. If we’re headed for a repeat of 2008, expect 10% unemployment, millions of bankruptcies, and $3 trillion plus deficits taking us toward $50 trillion in debt and 100% of income taxes going to debt service. On the other hand, if we are repeating the 1970s—as I’ve long feared—we could be looking at a much worse catastrophe that could take a decade to dig out of. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Most Americans Think Recession Has Already Begun. They’re Right. appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Vance: We All Know Why Harris Didn't Pick Shapiro

Tim Walz and Kamala Harris Are the Pro-Rioter Ticket

Recently, the mission team behind NASA’s Perseverance announced the detection of an exciting rock formation. Nicknamed Cheyava Falls, the arrowhead-shaped rock is the most promising find in the search for ancient life on Mars yet. There are structures visible in the rock that are consistent with being modified by microorganisms – it doesn’t mean that this is a discovery of life, but there is plenty to be excited about.Before we get into the intriguing details of the discovery, it is important to consider two things. First is NASA’s Confidence of Life Detection (CoLD) scale, which has seven steps. The first one is detecting a possible signal, followed by ruling out contamination, making sure that the biology is possible, and ruling out a non-biological explanation. The final three are the discovery of an additional independent signal, ruling out other hypotheses, and finally an independent confirmation. Cheyava Falls is a detection of a possible signal, so step 1 – but a good step 1.The CoLD scale, worth keeping in mind any time there are claims of alien life.Image Credit: NASA/Aaron GronstalThere are chemical changes happening making the minerals go from red to white, this often happens due to microbial activity. Often, not always!Professor Sanjeev GuptaAnalysis from Perseverance immediately showed there was something to be excited about, and that the weird structures in the rocks were going to raise eyebrows the moment they were made available to the general public. The rock sample was collected on July 21, and the press release was shared on July 25. It was important to immediately contextualize what was visible in these images but also provide plenty of reasons to be excited about them.“We looked at this rock, pinkish in color, which had lots of veins running through it and we saw these little spots. The spots are white with a black rim. We call them leopard spots because they look like the spots on a leopard,” Professor Sanjeev Gupta, part of the Perseverance team from Imperial College London, told IFLScience.The main color of the rock is due to hematite, a common iron mineral. The leopard spots are also made up of iron minerals, but minerals that have undergone chemical reactions. This was the first intriguing find followed by more contextual evidence for a possible biosignature.“Basically there are chemical changes happening making the minerals go from red to white, this often happens due to microbial activity. Often, not always,” Professor Gupta continued. “Then we saw the black halos containing iron and phosphate, which are important minerals and elements for life. Also, the SHERLOC instrument detected organics in these rocks.”This is why this rock is so exciting, and got on the first step of the CoLD scale. While there is no guarantee that what was seen was created by living organisms, the rock is potentially the most important rock investigated by Perseverance yet.“The fact that we had two things, we had organics present and these spots which on Earth are related to chemical changes in the rock, led us to suggest that this was what we call a potential biosignature,” Professor Gupta told IFLScience.                 We could find compelling evidence for biological processes, that's possible. It's also possible that even after we bring the rocks back, we still have questions. Professor David FlanneryThe question now is can we move this detection higher on the CoLD scale? The answer we are getting is a solid maybe. Based on the rover's capabilities and mission plan, what has been observed and is being analyzed won’t dramatically change the announced findings. However, the sample has been collected and placed in a canister for future analysis.Everything going well, that analysis won’t be performed on Mars, but rather on Earth. The samples will be collected by the troubled Mars Sample Return mission (troubled because it has experienced severe delays and spiraling costs). The project to collect the samples taken or dropped by Perseverance is certainly ambitious.The discovery of this rock certainly shows the importance of a sample return mission. To find out more about this sample, we need Earth’s laboratories. That doesn’t mean we would know if life was at work here, or if there is (or was) life on Mars.“There are no guarantees and there are many possibilities. One thing I think we can be certain about is that we need to get these rocks back to study in our laboratories on Earth before we can start to answer some of these questions,” Professor David Flannery, also a member of the Perseverance team from the Queensland University of Technology, told IFLScience. “We could find compelling evidence for biological processes, that's possible. It's also possible that even after we bring the rocks back, we still have questions. And one of the reasons that's a significant possibility, I think, is that we don't have much experience with this particular type of biosignature on Earth.”On Earth, the focus has been on seeing structures that ancient microbes formed on the surface, such as stromatolites. There have been plenty of controversies when it comes to evidence of life in ancient rock samples. A single rock sample from Mars might not suddenly show beyond any doubt that life existed there, but this is sample 23 out of 43 canisters. Together, they can paint a picture of what ancient Mars was like and if life above or below the surface existed. Perseverance will continue to study the edge of Jezero Crater, and is going to approach rocks that settled there more than 3.5 billion years ago. There are only a handful of regions older than that on Earth, so the industrious rover is not only on a quest to understand the possibilities of life beyond Earth but also to understand what rocky planets were like in infancy. These questions have implications for how our world and the creatures that live in it came to be. 

An uncontacted tribe has attacked loggers using bows and arrows in a contested part of the Peruvian Amazon, according to a local Indigenous coalition. The organization is sharing news of the incident to highlight how the government hasn't done enough to protect the territory of the Mashco Piro from the extraction of forest resources.FENAMAD, a federation of tribes that live around the Madre de Dios River, claims that at least one logger was seriously injured by an arrow fired by a member of the Mashco Piro tribe on July 27 in the basin of the Pariamanu River in Peru.The violence reportedly occurred inside part of the rainforest that's acknowledged by the government to be Mashco Piro territory, but has not received formal protection, according to Survival International.FENAMAD has asked the Peruvian Ministry of Culture, which is responsible for the protection of Indigenous peoples, to coordinate “urgent intervention” to ensure the safety of the Mashco Piro people and prevent future clashes. “The attack provides further evidence of just how important – and urgent – it is for the whole Mashco Piro territory to be properly protected. It reinforces the need for all the logging licenses in the Mashco Piro territory to be revoked, as it is impossible to protect the lives of either the Mashco Piro or the logging workers,” Survival International, an NGO supporting Indigenous and tribal peoples' rights, said in a statement sent to IFLScience.                The Mashco Piro people are a community of nomadic hunter-gatherers who live in the rainforests of southeast Peru, thought to be one of the largest uncontacted tribes in the world with an estimated 750 members.The reclusive tribe has good reason to be dubious of outsiders. In the late 19th century, the tribe endured huge suffering at the hands of colonial rubber barons in the western Amazon. Thousands were enslaved, while countless others were hunted down, beaten, chained, robbed, raped, and murdered. Many of these horrors are documented in the book The Putumayo, the Devil's Paradise by Walter Ernest Hardenburg, first published in 1912. It reads: “They are flogged inhumanly until their bones are laid bare, and great raw sores cover them. They are given no medical treatment, but are left to die, eaten by maggots, when they serve as food for the chiefs’ dogs. They are castrated and mutilated, and their ears, fingers, arms, and legs are cut off. They are tortured by means of fire and water, and by tying them up, crucified head down. Their houses and crops are burned and destroyed wantonly and for amusement.”Today, the tribe is facing a new threat: deforestation and illegal logging. Just last month, Survival released photographs showing how members of the Mashco Piro tribe were living “dangerously close” to parts of the forest being eyed up by logging companies.“This is a humanitarian disaster in the making – it’s absolutely vital that the loggers are thrown out, and the Mashco Piro’s territory is properly protected at last,” Caroline Pearce, Survival International Director, said in a statement in July.

On Tuesday's CNN Newsroom Jim Acosta hosted Van Jones who commented on Governor Tim Walz (D-MN) being announced as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate for president. Shockingly, he called out the pick as an appeal to "the darker parts in the party" in terms of "anti-Jewish bigots" and claimed they will vote for Walz regardless. Acosta teed up Jones's take on the pick by noting that some doubt that Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) would "offer his full support" behind Waltz. He asked Jones if he thought it was a “little risky” that Harris didn’t go with Shapiro. Jones responded “hey listen the Conservatives, the right-wing Republicans, they were chewing their fingernails down to the knuckle because they were afraid of a Josh Shapiro.”     Pivoting to Walz, Jones then went on to say that Muslims and Arabs have not “felt seen by the Biden administration” as reason Harris picked him. Clearly understanding that he was going to ruffle a lot of feathers with what he was about to admit, Jones lamented: "People don't want to talk about it -- we got to talk about it." He then proceeded to call out the Walz pick as blatant appeasement of "anti-Semitism": On the one hand, you have a lot of young people who are concerned about Gaza. You have a lot of Muslims and Arabs and others, they have not felt seen by the Biden administration. You started hearing that genocide joke, that was building that was building and so those folks needed to have a candidate that they could feel comfortable with. This helps him in that regard. But you also have anti-Semitism that has gotten marbled into this party. You can be for the Palestinians without being an anti-Jewish bigot. But there are some anti-Jewish bigots out there and there's some disquiet now and there has to be. How much of what just happened is caving into some of these darker parts in the party? So that's going to have to get worked out. It’s going to have to get talked through. Jones concluded that these things will need to be “worked out.” He praised Shapiro a little more by saying he has a “magnificent future in this party.” Click "Expand" to view the transcript: CNN Newsroom with Jim Acosta 8/6/2024 10:27:01 – 10:29:26 AM JIM ACOSTA: I suppose we might – VAN JONES: That’s that. ACOSTA: Yeah we might see the governor out there in Philadelphia later today. Maybe we won't, we'll find out about that. But I mean, it seems to be -- to be a stretch that there would be sour grapes here and that Shapiro is not going to offer his full support. JONES: Look, Josh Shapiro is a class act from beginning to end. He’s a rising star in this party. He's done an extraordinary job. He gets Republican votes, independent voters, moderate votes, smurfs vote for him, muppets vote for him, I mean, the guy is a vote magnet and there's a reason for that. He is a class act. He's a -- he's a true American, and he's going to show up and he's gonna – ACOSTA: Do you think it was a little risky though, Van, that she didn't go with Shapiro to kind of lock down Pennsylvania? I mean yes, David Chalian you were saying earlier just because you pick him as your running mate, doesn't mean you automatically win Pennsylvania. But I got to think it would have helped just a little bit. JONES: Hey listen that – the -- the Conservatives, the right-wing Republicans, they were chewing their fingernails down to the knuckle because they were afraid of a Josh Shapiro, they were afraid of a mark Kelly, they're not as afraid of this new governor because they think they can define him but so here's the challenge you've got in this party, and you know, people don't want to talk about it -- we got to talk about it. On the one hand, you have a lot of young people who are concerned about Gaza. You have a lot of Muslims and Arabs and others, they have not felt seen by the Biden administration. You started hearing that genocide joke, that was building that was building and so those folks needed to have a candidate that they could feel comfortable with. This helps him in that regard. But you also have anti-Semitism that has gotten marbled into this party. You can be for the Palestinians without being an anti-Jewish bigot. But there are some anti-Jewish bigots out there and there's some disquiet now and there has to be. How much of what just happened is caving into some of these darker parts in the party? So that's going to have to get worked out. It’s going to have to get talked through. But I tell you what, if you have a Josh Shapiro who says, you know what I give this my stamp. I give this my support. I believe in this ticket that's going to help a great deal. And Josh Shapiro has a magnificent future in this party regardless. But this is -- it's mostly positive. You’re seeing mostly enthusiasm, but there is some disquiet and conversation we got to have inside this party. ACOSTA: Interesting. All right Van Jones I know that conversation will continue I'm sure there are a lot of folks in the Harris campaign who will push back on some of those notions there. But we'll keep that conversation going, Van Jones.

What Biden Is Doing WRONG with AI | Kara Frederick | Zero Hour | Ep 29 www.youtube.com Over the past decade, China has emerged as an economic superpower, threatening the claim of the United States to global leadership. In the age of digital technology and artificial intelligence, China is expanding its influence by leveraging these tools. Meanwhile, the United States is lagging behind. Many in the U.S., regardless of ideology, are cautious and suspicious of AI, worried the technology may be dangerous and harmful to society. But others view the threat of China and America’s waning global leadership position as a crisis pre-eminent over AI’s risks, however large. On "Zero Hour with James Poulos," Kara Frederick, director of tech policy for the Heritage Foundation, discussed the technology challenges that America faces. Frederick contends that innovative technology is not inherently at odds with America’s form of government and way of life. “If we can design these products with our values, then that is our strategic advantage,” she said. As people across the world grow wary about the privacy concerns with modern technology, Frederick sees a window of opportunity for America to take the lead. “If … the United States and our allies solve that privacy solution, imbuing these products with our values of transparency and openness,” Frederick argued, the West can “dictate the design of these products that the rest of the world wants to use.” Unfortunately, America has not fully capitalized on this opportunity, leaving Communist China to dominate. “We've ceded a lot of that power to China. … We haven’t been as active,” she said. To hear more from Kara Frederick on China, automation, crypto, privacy, and more, watch the full episode of "Zero Hour with James Poulos." America was convinced tech would complete our mastery of the world. Instead, we got catastrophe — constant crises from politics and the economy down to the spiritual fiber of our being. Time’s up for the era we grew up in. How do we pick ourselves up and begin again? To find out, visionary author and media theorist James Poulos cracks open the minds — and hearts — of today’s top figures in politics, tech, ideas, and culture on "Zero Hour" on BlazeTV.