Arizona Lawmakers React to Court Decision

Philip Bunnell - Talk Radio News Service

Arizona lawmakers from both parties released statements in response to Judge Susan Bolton’s decision to curtail some of the more controversial provisions in the Arizona immigration bill, SB 1070.

Republican senators John McCain and Jon Kyl released a joint statement condemning the court’s decision. 

“We are deeply disappointed in the court’s ruling and disagree with the court’s opinion that the Arizona’s law will unduly ‘burden’ the enforcement of federal immigration law,” the two senators said, “Instead of wasting taxpayer resources filing a lawsuit against Arizona…Obama Administration should have focused its efforts on working with Congress to provide the necessary resources to support the state”

Rep. Ed Pastor (D-4th), on the other hand, was satisfied with the decision. 

“I am pleased with U.S. District Court Judge Bolton’s decision to issue a preliminary injunction that will prevent the core provisions of Senate Bill 1070 from taking effect,” said Pastor in a statement. “The implementation of these provisions would have seriously interfered with federal immigration enforcement causing irreparable harm to the people of Arizona.”

Congressman Jeff Flake (R-6th) said that it was “frustrating to have the federal government actively preventing states from addressing immigration enforcement, when the federal government has shown that it’s unwilling to address immigration reform on its own,” and that it is “going to take comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level to successfully address this issue.”

Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-1st), while opposed to SB 1070, supported the attention that it brought to illegal immigration.  Kirkpatrick was rather pessimistic in her statement, concluding that, “there are no winners here – no matter what the courts ultimately decide, we will still have wasted millions of dollars and our borders will still not be secure.”

Congressman Harry Mitchell (D-5th) joined his collegues in harshly criticizing the Obama administration for suing Arizona, saying that “today’s ruling should not provide Washington any kind of excuse not to address the issue.  Arizonans are justifiably fed up with the federal government’s failure to secure the border and fix our broken immigration system, and are fed up with of all the political posturing and grandstanding on this issue.”

Arizona Duo Introduces Bill Aimed At Decreasing America's Debt

By Brandon Kosters
Talk Radio News Service

On Thursday, Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) and Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Arizona) introduced the Debt-Buy Down Act, a bill that will allow taxpayers to put 10% of their federal income tax liability toward reducing the national debt.

The bill would have the IRS include a checkbox on the annual tax returns taxpayers receive. "It then will require that the Congress cut a commensurate amount of spending in the following year," said Flake. "If Congress fails to do that, then there will be a sequester of funds."

McCain has backed some of the previous iterations of this bill that have been proposed since 1992, and he anticipates that taxpayers will embrace it, given the nation's record-breaking debt level of over $13 trillion, not to mention growing concerns among Americans over federal spending.

'We've finally found an earmark that we can both support," said Flake, "allowing individuals to earmark a portion of their taxes to pay off the debt."

Congressman: “A sanction not on Cubans but Americans”

By Candyce Torres, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service. Congressional support for lifting the long-held ban prohibiting Americans to travel to Cuba is gaining momentum. Today on the Hill, Rep. Bill Delaunt (D-MA) and Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) announced bipartisan legislation to ease travel restrictions, and earlier in the week Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) said that Congressional Democrats have enough votes to push the legislation forward.The bill is known as HR 874, or the freedom to Travel to Cuba Act.

Since 1962, the U.S. has imposed an embargo against Cuba which is fundamentally a commercial, economic and financial ban on the Castro government. As relations between Cuba and the U.S. further deteriorated after the Cuban Revolution the island became completely cut off from all U.S. citizen visitations.

At a press conference Thursday morning, Delaunt phoned Miriam Leiva, an independent journalist and human rights activist in Cuba and her husband Oscar Espinosa-Chepe, an independent economist and former political prisoner. Leiva gave an opening statement via telephone in which she expressed that she fully supports lifting the ban on travel.

Lifting the ban “would continue to better knowing and understanding the realities in our country. Even by a simple conversation, sharing everyday experiences Americans would be demonstrating how your society is capable of constantly deepening and improving democracy and could help our own efforts for democracy,” she said.

Leiva concluded that U.S. restrictions, specifically the embargo, have been used by the Cuban government as an excuse to justify and continue the use of a Totalitarian regime and repression. She spoke of no improvements by the Raul Castro Administration but expressed that for the first time in 50 years there is a possibility to open a pathway for changes.