Chris Horner on the White House Energy Summit

Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Christopher C. Horner discusses the White House's plan to push for cap and trade legislation on Fox News.

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Tags: Barack Obama, cap-and-trade, carbon tax, CEI, Christopher Horner, Democrats, energy tax, environmental tax, gasoline prices, global warming, higher prices, increased taxes, White House To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

David Souter's Departure

by Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum: On his 100th day in office, President Barack Obama started campaigning for reelection in 2012. He went to a small town in Missouri, a red state he didn't carry last year, and boasted that "we've begun the work of remaking America." Indeed, he has begun to do exactly that with trillions of dollars turned over to the executive branch of government by the legislative branch. A few days later, the announced resignation of Supreme Court Justice David Souter gave Obama the additional power to use the judicial branch to remake America into Obama-nation.

When asked what sort of a justice he will be looking for to fill Souter's seat, Obama replied that his major criteria will be the candidate's "empathy" for the poor, the gays, and other minorities. This embellished Obama's previously proclaimed view of the judiciary's mission: to engage in socio-economic redistribution rather than to enforce the U.S. Constitution as written.

Obama revealed his long-term goals for the judiciary in a radio interview on Chicago's WBEZ-FM in 2001 when he complained that the very activist Earl Warren court had limited itself to changing some of our laws but had failed to order "redistributive change" of our economic system by breaking "free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution." Students of the judiciary know that it was the Earl Warren court that started the long lines of activist decisions in many areas, including religion, elections, property rights, immigration, and criminal law.

David Souter, who was President George H.W. Bush's mistake, flipped from presumed conservative to liberal as soon as the media began ridiculing him for tardiness in completing opinions. The same month that Souter voted for the only time with conservatives on the abortion issue, in Rust v. Sullivan (1991), Linda Greenhouse of the New York Times declared, "Lawyers who watch the Court closely have taken to referring to Justice Souter's chambers as a black hole, from which nothing emerges."

Then, in rapid-fire attack, ABC World News Tonight and even Souter's close-to-home Boston Globe wrote scathing criticisms of Souter. They were angry that he voted against abortion, but their criticisms humiliated his slow writing abilities. Souter got the message and rarely voted again with conservatives in high-profile cases. The liberal media, in gratitude, never criticized him again.

At the oral argument before the Supreme Court in the 2004 Pledge of Allegiance case, when plaintiff Newdow was trying to get the Court to remove the words "under God," Souter came up with the novel argument that "under God" doesn't really mean under God. He suggested that the phrase is so "diluted" that it should be "beneath the constitutional radar." Under the radar is exactly where the secularists want to conceal all mention of God and religion.

Confirmation hearings should ascertain how much Souter's successor will rely on foreign law. This has become a live issue because of recent remarks by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. For example, does Obama's nominee agree with Souter who joined in the Roper v. Simmons (2005) decision, in which the Court cited foreign laws, "international opinion," and even an unratified treaty to rationalize overturning the death penalty for a 17-year-old who had committed a particularly brutal and premeditated murder? This decision overturned more than 200 years of U.S. law and history, rewrote the Eighth Amendment, and knocked out the laws of 20 states.

Since Barack Obama calls himself a "citizen of the world," he may agree with incorporating foreign law into Supreme Court decisions. He chose a committed globalist as his State Department legal adviser, former Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh. Koh calls himself a trans-nationalist, which means believing that the "living" Constitution allows us to import the fiction of what is called international law into U.S. law, thereby putting the United States under a global legal system. The Senate should require all judicial nominees to proclaim their adherence to the U.S. Constitution as written, and their rejection of the use of any foreign laws.

We would also like to know if Obama's Supreme Court nominee is cut from the same cloth as his first judicial nomination, David F. Hamilton. He's a former fundraiser for ACORN and a former leader of the Indiana chapter of the ACLU. Hamilton made national news in 2005 when, as District Judge, he enjoined the Speaker of Indiana's House of Representatives from permitting "sectarian" prayers. In Hamilton's ruling, using "Christ's name or title" is "sectarian," but it is not sectarian for a Muslim imam to offer a prayer to "Allah." The Seventh Circuit overturned Hamilton's peculiar parsing of the liberal dogma of separation of church and state. However, in seeking to elevate him to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, White House officials praised Hamilton as a judge who has shown "empathy with real people." [See also: Judges]

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Tags: Barack Obama, David Souter, Eagle Forum, Phyllis Schlafly, SCOTUS, US Supreme Court To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Brigitte Gabriel on Terrorism

The Thomas More Law Center, a national nonprofit law firm, hosted renowned international terrorism expert and bestselling author Brigitte Gabriel at an annual event last year in November 2008. The facts and truth remain the same today.

Part 1 - Brigitte Gabriel

Part 2 - Brigitte Gabriel

Part 3 - Brigitte Gabriel

Part 4 - Brigitte Gabriel

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Tags: Brigitte Gabriel, Islamic terrorist, Lebanon, national security, Taliban, terrorism, Thomas More Law Center To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Marion Berry No Blue Dog - The Video

Bill Smith, ARRA Editor: After previously posting the advance copy of a new audio political ad from the NRCC titled Marion Berry - No Blue Dog - Lap Dog for Speaker Pelosi, I heard from many people in Arkansas' 1st District. They liked the ad. Now some more good news: John Allison, III, a fellow Arkansas blogger at America, You Asked For It! has cleverly designed the following video for the NRCC ad. Enjoy!
Allison also shares, "This page on Berry’s website will lead you to believe he stands for a balanced budget, is against excessive borrowing by the federal government, and fights against “reckless spending.” That certainly sounds like a fiscally conservative Democrat, but an inspection of Berry’s votes on the Bank Bailout, the Auto Industry Bailout, Obama’s $787 billion Stimulus Spending Bill, and the latest Bloated Budget tells a different story. Berry voted for all of these, supporting all of those things a “Blue Dog” Democrat supposedly opposes. Score one for the NRCC. Berry’s obviously conning his constituent with false claims of fiscal conservatism."

The citizens of the Arkansas 1st Congressional District don't need a Pelosi "Lap Dog" or even a "Blue Dog" representing the 1st District. They need a real "Bull Dog" Conservative standing for Arkansas values, limited government and individual liberty.

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Tags: 1st Congressional District, AR-01, America You Asked for It, Arkansas, Bill Smith, Blogburst video, John Allison III, Marion Berry, Nancy Pelosi, NRCC, political video To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Today in Washington D. C. - May 8, 2009

The Senate is in recess until Monday. When it returns it will begin consideration of a bill to place restrictions on credit card companies, H.R. 627. Yesterday, the Senate passed S. 494, a bill to overhaul Pentagon procurement and confirmed Gil Kerlikowske to be drug czar.

The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza wrote yesterday about Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s months-long efforts to draw attention to the issue of the administration’s hasty plan to close Guantanamo without a clear alternative. Cillizza noted that yesterday’s speech on the floor “was McConnell’s 11th on the subject of Gitmo since mid-March, a drumbeat that the Kentucky senator has supplemented with an op-ed in the Washington Post on the subject and a series of television appearances and speeches -- including one at the CPAC conference in late February in which McConnell said the Obama administration ‘needs to show it’s more concerned with safety than with symbolism.’”

Cillizza went on to explain, “So much focus on the issue by one of the most powerful men in the party is not an accident but rather a concerted campaign to rally the party’s base behind an idea -- protecting the homeland -- rather than around any one individual. ‘McConnell’s consistent and persistent messaging on Guantanamo has divided Congressional Democrats and put President Obama on defense,’ argued GOP consultant Alex Conant. ‘The Leader’s efforts show that the minority’s message can break through even in the middle of Obama’s honeymoon.’”

It’s clear today that this focus by Republicans in the House and Senate is paying dividends by forcing Democrats to ask serious questions of the Obama administration about their plans for detainees at Guantanamo. Politico reports, “Now Democrats are ganging up on President Barack Obama’s plans to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison. Or rather, the president’s lack of planning for how to shutter the prison and how to handle the detainees.” Politico points to “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who supports the Obama plan, admits that there’s no clear answer yet on Guantanamo: ‘The issue is, how are we going to close it?’ And House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.) has told the White House that ‘when they have a plan, they’re welcome to come back and talk to us.’”

The Washington Post has a story today, “Lawmakers Balk at Holding Guantanamo Detainees in U.S” that notes that “several Democrats have joined Republicans in saying they do not want Guantanamo prisoners in their states or districts. When officials in Hardin, Mont., a city that has a prison with no inmates, said they would accept detainees from Guantanamo Bay, the state’s Democratic senators shot down the idea.” The Post story includes these telling quotes: “‘You cannot close Guantanamo unless you have a plan,’ said Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.). ‘I wouldn’t want them, and I wouldn’t take them,’ said Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). ‘I don’t see a solution.’”

The result of these questions was that Guantanamo “dominated a congressional debate on war spending Thursday,” according to the AP. And the House Appropriations Committee “refused to give Obama the $50 million he had requested to relocate Guantanamo prisoners and it demanded a detailed plan from the White House by Oct. 1 on the future of the facility.”

We posted the Senate Republican video yesterday. Below is a House Repulican Caucus video that has made it way onto the news network. These videos are keeping a focus on the release and transfer of GITMO detainees and asking Americans to consider where these dangerous detainees will be housed and whether closing the facility will make the U.S. safer.
< As Sen. McConnell said yesterday, “These concerns are rooted in the fact that Americans like the fact that we haven’t been attacked at home since 9/11, and they don’t want the terrorists at Guantanamo back on the battlefield or in their backyards. These concerns are real … and yet all we’ve gotten from the administration on this issue is silence.”

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Tags: Chris Cillizza, GITMO, US Congress, US House, US Senate, videos, Washington D.C. To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Mark Levin: Obama's Destructive Vision

CNSNEWS.COM — Mark Levin's "Liberty & Tyranny" debuted as No. 1 on the New York Times Bestseller list and has retained that position for five straight weeks. In the book, Levin explains his understanding of American conservatism.

In an interview with Terry Jeffrey of CNSNews.com, he discussed why he believes President Obama’s vision of “change” is destructive and contrary to America’s founding principles and why conservatives must reacquaint themselves with those principles and recommit themselves to the cause of individual liberty. Full Video of Interview Below or Read Full Article.

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Tags: Barack Obama, CNS, conservatism, interview, liberty, Mark Levin, tyranny, video To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Empathy verses Law - Repealed of the 14th Amendment

by Thomas Sowell: Justice David Souter's retirement from the Supreme Court presents Pres. Barack Obama with his first opportunity to appoint someone to the High Court. People who are speculating about whether the next nominee will be a woman, a Hispanic, or whatever, are missing the point. That we are discussing the next Supreme Court justice in terms of group “representation” is a sign of how far we have already strayed from the purpose of law and the weighty responsibility of appointing someone to sit for life on the highest court in the land.

That President Obama has made “empathy” with certain groups one of his criteria for choosing a Supreme Court nominee is a dangerous sign of how much farther the Supreme Court may be pushed away from the rule of law and toward even more arbitrary judicial edicts to advance the agenda of the Left and set it in legal concrete, immune from the democratic process.

Would you want to go into court to appear before a judge with “empathy” for groups A, B, and C, if you were a member of groups X, Y, or Z? Nothing could be farther from the rule of law. That would be bad news, even in a traffic court, much less in a court that has the last word on your rights under the Constitution of the United States.

Appoint enough Supreme Court justices with “empathy” for particular groups and you would have, for all practical purposes, repealed the 14th Amendment, which guarantees “equal protection of the laws” for all Americans. We would have entered a strange new world, where everybody is equal but some are more equal than others. The very idea of the rule of law becomes meaningless when it is replaced by the empathies of judges.

Barack Obama solves this contradiction, as he solves so many other problems, with rhetoric. . . . [Read Full Story]
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

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Tags: 14th Amendment, Barack Obama, empathy, equal protection, judicial appointments, law, SCOTUS, Thomas Sowell, US Supreme Court To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

China Has Canceled America's 'Credit Card'

China, wary of the troubled US economy, has already "canceled America's credit card" by cutting down purchases of debt, a U.S. congressman said. China has the world's largest foreign reserves, believed to be mostly in dollars, along with around 800 billion dollars in US Treasury bonds, more than any other country. But Treasury Department data shows that investors in China have sharply curtailed their purchases of bonds in January and February.... [Full Story]

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Tags: China, credit, Treasury bonds, U.S. Treasury, United States To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Today in Washington D. C. - May 7, 2009

Senate: Resumes consideration of S. 494, a bill to overhaul Pentagon procurement. Votes on up to five amendments to the bill are expected today and a vote on final passage could occur as early as tonight. Last night, Sen. Harry Reid filed cloture on the motion to proceed to a bill to place restrictions on credit card companies, H.R. 627. Yesterday, the Senate passed S. 896, a housing bill which is designed to help with foreclosure issued and will also provide more money and borrowing authority to the FDIC.

President Barack Obama is announcing his plans for $17 billion in budget cuts today, claiming to have gone through the budget “program by program” and “line by line.” Yet these cuts amount to “a tiny amount for such a big budget,” as McClatchy describes them. The Chicago Tribune’s The Swamp blog - Mark Silva explains what’s going on: “While serving up a record new budget, with record deficits, portraying the image of fiscal prudence is essential to selling it all to the public.”

Indeed, “[c]ompared with the total $3.6 trillion spending plan for 2010, the proposed trims amount to one-half of 1%,” according to The Wall Street Journal. The AP also sees them as a drop in the proverbial bucket, “Those savings are far exceeded by a phone-book-sized volume detailing Obama’s generous increases for domestic programs that will accompany the call for cuts.”

Politico can see through the smoke-and-mirrors, writing, “[A]fter promising voters he would go through the budget line by line, Obama can’t mask what remains a steady, even historic, rise in spending under his administration. The twin volumes released Thursday morning capture the moment: 131 pages to describe his proposed savings, more than 1300 pages to spell out annual appropriations requests that will exceed $1.2 trillion once the added costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are added to the total.”

Further, CQ notes, “Obama is far from the first president to go ‘line-by-line’ through the budget in an attempt to find savings. President George W. Bush would annually send Congress such a list, with mixed results.” In fact, in President Bush’s last four budgets, he submitted budget cuts of $17.2 billion, $15 billion, $12 billion, and $18 billion. In that context, Obama’s cuts seem rather ordinary. The Washington Post has the kicker, though: “The proposed cuts, if adopted by Congress, would not actually reduce government spending. Obama’s budget would increase overall spending; any savings from the program terminations and reductions would be shifted to the president’s priorities.”

Given the almost phantom nature of these cuts, it appears that the administration is looking for headlines about budget cuts in order to mask the massive amounts of spending and debt being racked up by the White House and Democrats in Congress. Quoting Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell , “[W]ith Democrats in Congress adding to the national debt at a rate of more than $100 billion every month already this year, and with a budget that triples the already unsustainable public debt over the next decade, it’s clear that there is much more that we can do to protect our children and grandchildren from the unprecedented trillions in additional debt proposed by the administration.”

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Tags: Barack Obama, federal budget, US Congress, US Senate, Washington D.C. To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Guantanamo Bay Terrorists: Coming to a Neighborhood Near You?

Senate Republican Conference: The Obama administration has a plan to close the terrorist detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a plan for what to do with the terrorists -- which means terrorists may soon be taking up residence in a neighborhood near you.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Democrats, detainees, Gitmo, Guantanamo Bay, national security, Oklahoma, SRC, terrorists, Virginia To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Democrats Protect Pedophiles But Not Veterans

Let's Look at the Evidence: Protecting Pedophiles Okay; Protecting Veterans Not Okay! In a Judiciary Committee hearing Democrats voted against excluding pedophiles from protection in the new crime bill bill. In the same hearing Debbie Wasserman Schultz verbally attacked Republicans for trying to add protections for Veterans in the same bill.

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Tags: Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Hate Crime Bill, pedophile, veterans To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Marion Berry - No Blue Dog - Lap Dog for Speaker Pelosi

Update 5/6: Click for mp3 Radio Ad by the NRCC
Bill Smith, ARRA Editor: Rep. Marion Berry tries to cover his tracks when he is back home in Arkansas claiming that he is a farmer interested in agriculture in the 1st District. But as evidence has proven in the past, the only interest Berry has in agriculture is lining his own pockets with farm subsidy money. When he is home, he knows his district did not vote for Barack Obama. Sources have advised that Berry takes a few liberties and casts dispersions against Obama. But when he returns to Congress, he drops the agriculture label and is identified as a pharmacist. He doesn't want to be considered a "hay seed" in Congress with his liberal colleagues. He also turns tail and praises Barack Obama and rejoins the fold not as a Blue Dog but as a lap dog of Speaker Pelosi.

A contact at the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC) has advised that they have noted Berry's antics in Washington and also the growing conservative base in Arkansas 1st Congressional District. Tomorrow, the NRCC will be releasing an ad addressing Congressman Berry. Berry will definitely have competition in 2010 from the republicans. One candidate, Rick Crawford, has already announced he will challenge Berry. I will report more about Rick Crawford in the near future.

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Tags: 1st Congressional District, AR-01, Arkansas, Marion Berry, Nancy Pelosi, NRCC, Rick Crawford To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Today in Washington D. C. - May 6, 2009 - Do you want a GITMO Detainee in Your State?

Again the Senate resumes consideration of S. 896, a housing bill, which will also provide more money and borrowing authority to the FDIC. This morning, there will be a series of roll call votes on amendments to the housing bill, followed by a vote on final passage. Yesterday, the Senate rejected three amendments to the bill, but adopted amendments from Sens. John Ensign (R-NV) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) outlining oversight plans for the Treasury’s public-private asset purchase program.

GITMO remains an issue: Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), now ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, sent a follow-up letter to Holder today, asking why he has not yet answered his letter from a month ago seeking a legal rationale for administration plans to release detainees trained at terrorist camps into the United States. Sen. Sessions wrote in the letter, “It would be both dangerous and contrary to our immigration laws to admit trained foreign militants into our civilian population. . . . It is the job of the Attorney General to uphold and defend the rule of law and to defend this Nation against terrorist influences. . . . Nonetheless you appear to be pressing for the release of trained militants who are inadmissible under our immigration laws and who have demonstrated hostility toward Western culture and even basic women’s rights.”

Democrats are also looking for answers from the administration on Guantanamo. Politico reports, “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is now demanding specifics on where the prisoners will go and what will be done with them. Reid’s concerns, laid out Tuesday afternoon at a news conference, come a day after House appropriators yanked $81 million requested to help close the facility in Cuba.”

Meanwhile, everywhere the administration looks to send detainees, it is running into problems or outright resistance. Local communities are beginning to announce their opposition to having detainees either housed nearby or outright released into their communities. Last week, officials in Stafford County, Virginia, expressed concerns about detainees possibly being held at the Marine Corps base in Quantico. The Miami Herald reported over the weekend that people and officials in the towns surrounding the U.S. Naval Brig in Charleston, South Carolina, are opposed to having detainees moved there. And a state senator in Louisiana is moving a resolution asking Congress to keep detainees out of the Bayou State.

Yesterday, we reported the negative response by Germany to accept between 10 and 20 detainees and Deutsche Welle reports today that there is resistance to this request among lawmakers there in several different areas of the country. The AP reports that the administration hopes that Saudi Arabia will accept Yemeni detainees into its terrorist rehabilitation centers. But, according to the AP story, “In an embarrassing episode for the kingdom, Saudi officials announced in February that 11 former Guantanamo detainees who went through the rehab program are now on its government’s most wanted terrorist list for their connections to al-Qaida.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said today, “Americans want to know that on the issue of Guantanamo the administration is as concerned about safety as it is about symbolism. They’re concerned about the administration’s plans for releasing or transferring some of the most dangerous terrorists alive. They want to know that these terrorists won’t end up back on the battlefield or in their backyards. At the very least, they should know as much about the administration’s plans for these men as our European critics do.”

So, the question of the day is - Do YOU want a GITMO detainee housed or released in Your State?

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Tags: GITMO, housing bill, FDIC, US Congress, US Senate, Washington D.C. To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Obama - Gitmo - What Americans Think!

by Gary Bauer: Does Obama Worry You? A few recent Rasmussen polls on national security issues have attracted my attention. It seems President Obama’s actions are beginning to worry the American people.

Last week, pollster Scott Rasmussen reported that public support for the war on terror – or “overseas contingency operations” as the Obama White House calls them – has fallen significantly in recent weeks. In fact, under President Obama’s leadership, support for the war on terror is down to its lowest level in nearly a year at just 42%.

Meanwhile, 28% of likely voters say that the “terrorists are winning.” According to Rasmussen, “That’s the highest number offering that pessimistic assessment since October of 2007.” What has happened in recent weeks to give folks such a pessimistic outlook? Let’s review.

Immediately after taking office, President Obama issued an executive order closing the terrorist

detention facility at Guantanamo Bay – without any plan as to where those thugs would be put after GITMO was shut. Then the administration dropped charges against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, suspected of masterminding the 2000 suicide bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, which killed 17 U.S. sailors. Diane McDaniels, mother of one of those 17 sailors, expressed regret for voting for Obama.

In mid-March, Attorney General Eric Holder suggested that some of the GITMO detainees might actually be released in the United States. How many? Secretary of Defense Robert Gates suggested as many as 100 might end up in the U.S. Even worse, National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said we might have to give them welfare.

Next, Obama goes overseas and apologies for America before European and Turkish audiences, and bows before the Muslim king of Saudi Arabia. His Secretary of Homeland Security drops the phrase “terrorism” in favor of “man-made disasters” and then releases a report that seems more worried about pro-life activists and veterans than Islamic terrorists. Whoops! I mean “sponsors of man-made disasters.”

Then, against the advice of his CIA director and four former CIA directors, President Obama releases classified CIA memos regarding our interrogation methods. Even worse, he bans methods that the CIA said produced information that prevented a “second wave attack” on Los Angeles after 9/11.

Last, but certainly not least, the president indicates his openness to prosecuting the people who, and criminalizing the policies which, kept us safe after 9/11.

How do the people feel about all this? According to Rasmussen:

Only 36% of voters support closing GITMO;

75% of voters do not want GITMO detainees released into the United States;

64% of Democrats and 76% of independent voters do not want GITMO detainees released here.

74% oppose giving them taxpayer money if they are released into the United States;

Only 28% of voters thought releasing the CIA memos was the right thing to do;

Only 28% of voters want more investigations of Bush-era security policies; and

A Gallup poll found that 61% of Americans who have closely followed the interrogation story felt that the “harsh techniques” were justified.

Given what the Obama Administration is doing, and how concerned the American people are about it, it’s not surprising that a Rasmussen poll released yesterday finds that Americans are increasingly interested in “national security/war on terror” issues. According to Rasmussen, 70% of Americans now say that those issues are very important to them – up ten points from February and “the highest level found since September 2007.”

The people are paying attention, and when it comes to national security, they don’t like the “change” Obama and the liberal Democrats are making. If voters don’t like the policies being made in Washington, there is only one solution: Change the politicians making those policies!

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Tags: Americans, Barack Obama, Gallup Poll, Gary Bauer, Gitmo, Rasmussen Poll, Rasmussen Reports, video To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Free Speech Case: Citizens United (Hillary: the Movie) v. Federal Election Commission

Bill Smith, ARRA Editor: The Cato Institute has been following the Citizens United v. FEC case, in which the Supreme Court is set to rule on whether an organization can use speech about a political candidate in the days leading up to an election. The Federal Election Commission banned Citizen United from showing a film against Hillary Clinton on a pay-per-view basis shortly before the last year’s election.

The so-called Citizens United case offers the Supreme Court a chance to severely curtail the free speech abuses of the Federal Election Commission. If the government can ban broadcasts under federal law, that else can they ban? Books? Commercials? In the following CATO video, campaign finance law and free speech experts discuss the case, and what it means for the future of free speech. The Supreme Court is set to rule on it in the next few weeks. John Samples, Director of the Cato Institute's Center for Representative Government, Institute for Justice Senior Attorney Steve Simpson and George Mason University law professor Allison Hayward weigh in.

The infringement on free speech is troubling. We will be sure to let you know when the Supreme Court makes their ruling. While we cannot predict the outcome, the very thought that the government could eventually ban books, news print, this blog, and any other form of political commentary is nothing more than overturning the 1st amendment. What part of "Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press . . ." does Congress and the Federal Election Commission not understand?

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Tags: banning free speech, Cato Institute, Citizens United, FEC, Federal Election Commission, free speech, Hillary the Movie, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, US Congress, video To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Banking on Becoming President

OpenSecrets.org provides a website that will give you time to reflect and analyze a few facts related to the fun raising of candidates for the presidency. For the first time ever in U.S. history, the candidates for president raised more than $1 billion. To find out where all this money came from, click on the candidates' names and explore the options. You can consider from the data who may have "bought" the presidency. You can even search the campaign funding sources and expenditures for members of Congress. If you are going to run for office, the major donors and PACs are identified.

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Tags: church funding, Congressional candidates, contributions, government transparency, Open Secrets, presidential candidates, Representative, Senator To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Today in Washington D. C. - May 5, 2009 - Manic Depressives & Constitutional Concerns

The Senate resumed consideration of S. 896, a housing bill, which will also provide more money and borrowing authority to the FDIC. Votes on amendments to the bill are expected throughout the day. Yesterday, the Senate rejected two amendments to the bill from Sen. David Vitter (R-LA). Isn't it interesting that the Democrat Senate leadership spends lots of time on some bills and certain issues but then rams through (expited) spending, bailouts and budgets without taking time to read the bills or to allow the minority party and America citizens to read the bills. The Democrat leadership appears to operate like a bunch of manic depressives displaying "mixed bipolar episodes."

The House members under Democrat Pelosi's leadership continues to come up with various bills seeking to limit individual freedoms, rights and access to one's own money. The crazy ideas are too long to list. This statement while true does not ignore the fact that Republican leadership has failed as well in the past in protecting individual liberty. Regardelss of one's individual's persepective on an issue -- get out your Constitution -- remember when anyone rights set forth in The Bill of Rights are infringed, then we are all infringed upon. In summary (not listing all items), The Bill of Rights prohibits Congress from making any law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise therof or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances; forbids infringement of "...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms...", and prohibits the federal government from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. In federal criminal cases, it requires indictment by grand jury for any capital or "infamous crime", guarantees a speedy public trial with an impartial jury composed of members of the state or judicial district in which the crime occurred, and prohibits double jeopardy. In addition, the Bill of Rights states that "the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people," and reserves all powers not granted to the federal government to the citizenry or States.

The Obama Administration's White House failing to get things through Congress is seeking ways of using the Constitution against the people by seeking treaty agreements that limit American citizens. Our forfathers never envisioned by Article VI, paragraph 2 which stipulates "...all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution [of any State] or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding." However, Article VI, paragraph 3 requires all Federal and State officers to also swear:"...to support this [U.S.] Constitution..." In summary, Curtis W. Caine, MD in his position paper said, "A treaty may not do or exceed what the Congress is charged to do or what it is forbidden to do. Constitutional authority supersedes, overrules, and precludes any contrary treaty authority." Yesterday, we posted on "Obama Pushes Anti-Gun Treaty."

Politico's Huddle briefing today: “This whole second 100 days thing is already proving to be tougher for the Obama team – and their biggest problem seems to be Democrats in Congress. Just yesterday Democratic appropriators took away Obama’s Guantanamo prison closure money, added money he didn’t want and then warned that Afghanistan money wouldn’t last past next year unless real progress is made. And then Democrats began picking at what should be a slam dunk: closing offshore tax loopholes. But folks like Max Baucus, the Finance chairman and Rep. Joe Crowley, worried about his multinational banks in New York, were a bit cool on the tax crackdown. These Dem squabbles come as the party remains divided over a sweeping global warming bill.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, “Top House Democrats raised tensions with the White House on a key foreign policy goal, rebuffing a request for funding to begin closing the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.” It sounds like Democrats in the House have realized that “the administration lacks a plan and a safe alternative for closing Guantanamo. . . . [The administration] it should reconsider its arbitrary deadline on Guantanamo just as it reconsidered its commitment to arbitrary withdrawal deadlines on Iraq. (Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell)”

The House has moved to prevent the Obama administration from using emergency government funding from the military appropriation to close GITMO. McClatchey reported that "The Obama administration's bid for $50 million to move prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility was left out of the Democratic-authored emergency war-spending bill unveiled Monday." Internationally, Germany rebuffed AG Eric Holder's and has refused to take any GITMO detainees.

The other major area where administration plans ran into resistance yesterday was a proposal to tax deferred overseas income, thus penalizing companies for brining money back into the U.S. and putting them at a competitive disadvantage. According to Bloomberg, the plan “drew a skeptical response from fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill, indicating that his plan may face obstacles on its path through Congress. . . . Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, called for ‘further study’ of Obama’s proposals within minutes of the president’s announcement yesterday. Representative Joseph Crowley, a Democrat on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said he’s wary because the tax changes would hurt Citigroup Inc., his New York district’s largest private-sector employer. Natalie Ravitz, a spokeswoman for Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, said that any tax overhaul should not lead to “unintended consequences.”

From the appearance of the problems the Obama administration is seeing from fellow Democrats, as well as from Republicans, on funding for closing Guantanamo and tax hikes on globally competitive American companies, "maybe" some sanity is finally returning to Congress in being a watchdog over the White House.

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Tags: Eric Holder, FDIC, Germany, GITMO, manic depressives, The Bill of Rights, US Congress, US Constitution, US House, US Senate, Washington D.C. To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

White House Gives the Go Ahead to Waterboard Bondholders

by David Cribbin, President of the Tailwind Capital Group, NetRight Nation: If water-boarding of terrorists is torture and as a result criminal, why is it that the financial equivalent of water-boarding is now routinely practiced not by the CIA on terrorists, but by the White House, Treasury and The Fed on bondholders, investors and CEO's. Water-boarding was part of the enhanced interrogation techniques the CIA used to extract information from enemies of the United States. Enhanced interrogation techniques are performed outside of the normal interrogation process that is used on enemy combatants. When the government chose to restructure the failing automakers outside of the normal process (a bankruptcy proceeding is the normal process when you are insolvent) they did so for a reason, and last week that reason became crystal clear.

Keeping the automakers out of bankruptcy, and thereby removing the necessity that the restructuring move forward based on "The Rule of Law", was paramount if the Unions were to have any hope of securing the payment of their unsecured VEBA health care trust claim. A big win for the politically savvy and well connected UAW, but a terrible loss for the bondholders and taxpayers who will foot the bill. Only in the political arena could two unsecured creditors receive vastly different treatment, as have the Bondholders and the Unions. The UAW, whose unsecured VEBA is owed $10 Billion by GM, will receive 39 percent of the GM stock; the Bondholders, who are owed $28 Billion, will receive 10 percent of GM stock . Do the math: the Union has received 10 times what the government expects the bondholders to take in this restructuring.

In the Chrysler deal, the Union fared even better, as they were unsecured creditors and the Chrysler bondholders were secured creditors. The bondholders received 28 percent of the value of their $6.9 billion in bonds in cash; the Union will receive stock worth approximately $4.2 billion, and a note for an additional $4.58 billion, which represents 82 percent of the value of their claim. Either the government negotiators have dyslexia and have made a terrible mistake in their paperwork, or this is political payoff WRIT LARGE. Is this not the equivalent of financial water-boarding?

And thus we enter a brazen new era of government, when the White House is openly complicit in the theft of - as a matter of fact is directing the looting of - private property from investors. Welcome to the Rule of Man, or as the President calls it, change we can believe in! Where campaign contributions mean everything and the rule of law, not so much. Exactly what did he mean when the President of the United States said, "Let me be clear. The United States government has no interest in running GM. We have no intention of running GM." Apparently he meant it's not an interesting job, but we are going to do it anyway!

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Tags: bankruptcy, Barack Obama, bond holders, Chrysler, CIA, General Motors, GM, grand theft, labor unions, looting, NetRight Nation, Obama administration, UAW, waterboarding To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Obama Pushes Anti-Gun Treaty

President Obama supports an international Inter-American Treaty (CIFTA) creating sweeping gun control efforts. The other 29 countries do not have 2nd Amendment to protect their rights. No treaty should be valid if it violates any of our Bill of Rights!

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Tags: Barack Obama, CIFTA, CNN, gun control, gun rights, Inter-American Treaty, Lou Dobbs, second amendment, UN Treaty To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Obama Administration's Gathering Storm Over Guns

by Wayne LaPierre: Barely 100 days into the new Obama-Biden administration, ominous storm clouds are already gathering over your most fundamental right as a free citizen: Your right to own a gun to protect yourself, your family and your freedom. Betraying all their campaign promises to protect your right to keep and bear arms or your freedom to hunt, the Obama administration has put its chess pieces in place and set in motion its strategy to do just the opposite. Throughout the West Wing, they’ve appointed a cabinet composed of some of the most experienced and politically effective gun grabbers Washington, D.C. has ever seen.

Meanwhile, powerful members of the U.S. Senate and House have admitted that gun bans remain a top objective . . . Obama-Biden transition team posted an Internet web page outlining its ambitious anti-gun agenda. Its legislative goals included permanently reinstating the Clinton gun bans, banning sale or transfer of firearms between private citizens (at gun shows and presumably anywhere else), and requiring that handguns be “childproofed” through nonexistent technology that, even if developed, would make them prohibitively expensive and far less reliable.

American voters immediately and rightfully cried foul. That’s when Obama and Biden -- who’d bragged, “I’m the guy who originally wrote the assault weapons ban” -- quickly deleted that web page from the Internet. But they swiftly set about assembling an anti-gun all-star cabinet to achieve all that and more. . . . Like all anti-gun strategists, they’re waiting for the perfect tragedy to exploit. As of press time, the drug-fueled violence devastating Mexico appears to be it.

At a February news conference, Attorney General Holder plainly blamed Americans’ Second Amendment rights for mayhem in Mexico: “[T]here are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make,” Holder said, “and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton followed suit at a news conference in Mexico City, claiming, “We know very well that the drug traffickers are armed by the transport of weapons from the United States.” U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D–Ill.), the senate’s second most powerful Democrat, lamented that “an iron river of guns from the United States arms Mexican drug cartels to the teeth,” and he blamed American gun shows for the violence.

Make no mistake: New gun bans and restrictions are very much at the top of the agenda in the White House and Congress -- even if they don’t admit it yet. . . . We must stand united and ready for this fight. Considering the players, their power, their promoters and their war chest, this will be the toughest and most definitive contest to preserve firearm freedoms in America for generations to come. [Full Article: The Gathering Storm Over Guns]

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Tags: anti-guns, Dick Durbin, Eric Holder, gun rights, Hillary Clinton, NRA, Obama administration, Wayne Lapierre To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Reagan on Specter Warns Obama

by Michael Reagan: Sen. Arlen Specter hasn't really switched parties; he's simply realized he cannot win the Pennsylvania Republican primary election. And he cannot win the Republican primary because he has become a tax and spender -- characteristics Republicans have tired of. He started off as a Democrat, switched to the Republican Party, and has now simply confirmed his loyalty to the Democratic Party he never really left. . . .

What the mainstream media overlooked -- they actually cheered Specter when he announced his defection -- was his naked admission that his decision to return to the Democratic Party was based not on principle, but merely because he knew his days in the Senate as a Republican were all but over. Polls showed that he had no chance of surviving a GOP primary challenge next year. His political calculation is simple -- he figures that a Democrat can win next year in a state that almost always votes Democratic these days.

The media also failed to recognize the demonstrable fact that Specter has certainly not been a dependable vote during his convenient stint as a Republican senator -- and could never be counted upon to stick with the GOP on issues central to its core. His decision to support President Barack Obama's shockingly extravagant $800 billion "monstrosity package," which will be on the backs of our children far into the future, was the latest proof. It was a prime indication that his views were becoming increasingly aligned with the wild-spending left wing of the Democratic Party. . . .

President Obama: Don't let your happiness over picking up a vote in the Senate lull you into forgetting that having Arlen Specter in your ranks is like having Benedict Arnold in your army. He may be with you today but the chances are whenever he finds it's convenient, he'll turn on you. . .. [Full Article: Republicans Tired of Specter's Tax and Spend]

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Tags: Arlen Specter, Barack Obama, Michael Reagan, news, Politics To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Today in Washington D. C. - May 4, 2009

Senate will resume consideration of S. 896, a housing bill, which will also provide more money and borrowing authority to the FDIC. At 5:30, senators will vote on two amendments to the bill.

The New York Times has a must-read article today about concerns over the country’s ability to sustain the record levels of borrowing and spending that Democrats in Congress and this administration have approved. The Times writes, “As the Obama administration racks up an unprecedented spending bill for bank bailouts, Detroit rescues, health care overhauls and stimulus plans, the bond market is starting to push up the cost of trillions of dollars in borrowing for the government. . . . The rising tab has prompted warnings from the Treasury that the Congressionally mandated debt ceiling of $12.1 trillion will most likely be breached in the second half of this year.”

Further, there is “concern that the interest the government must pay on its debt obligations may become unsustainable or weigh on future generations. The Congressional Budget Office expects interest payments to more than quadruple in the next decade as Washington borrows and spends, to $806 billion by 2019 from $172 billion next year. ‘You’re just paying more and more interest and having to borrow more and more money to pay the interest,’ said Charles S. Konigsberg, chief budget counsel for the Concord Coalition, which advocates lower deficits. ‘It diverts a tremendous amount of resources, of taxpayer dollars.’” Have we put ourselves in the position of someone taking a cash advance to make a minimum credit card payment?

Unsustainable debt isn’t the only financial concern getting noticed today. Professor Allen H. Meltzer of Carnegie Mellon University has an op-ed in The New York Times today warning that the administration’s borrow-and-spend policies could lead to inflation problems. Meltzer writes, “If President Obama and the Fed continue down their current path, we could see a repeat of those dreadful inflationary years [of the 1970s].”

And yet The Washington Post reports today that President Obama plans to expand the federal role in student lending to an unprecedented level “expand[ing] the Pell Grant program, making it an entitlement akin to Medicare and Social Security.” Understating things slightly, The Post writes, “Creating another mandatory spending program during a recession, with a record high federal deficit, leaves many lawmakers uneasy.”

Republicans have been warning that there are consequences to the record levels of spending, borrowing, and taxing coming from this administration and Congress. It’s good to see the press beginning to call attention to these issues. The question, though, is whether the White House and Democrat leaders are listening.

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Tags: U.S., Congress, US Senate, Washington D.C. To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Schumer Ignores 13 Million Jobless Americans to Promote Amnesty

by Roy Beck, Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA: Did you think Senators might be too smart this year -- or too moral or at least too embarrassed -- to push for more foreign workers while millions of Americans are losing their jobs? Such modest faith in U.S. Senators was dashed by the Senate Judiciary Committee in a first hearing of its immigration panel. Senators made it clear that they are hopeful that the American people will let them pass the amnesty this year that was blocked in 2007.

And the Senators made it clear that the only thing that will stop the Senate from passing an amnesty for illegal foreign workers this year is if regular citizens like you mount immediate and sustained protests. They said they really think Americans have become resigned to an amnesty.

Perhaps the saddest part of the hearing yesterday was that the Senators didn't even acknowledge that 13 million unemployed U.S. workers should be part of the consideration of what to do about immigration. All but one of the witnesses spoke of immigration without any reference to America's jobless. We could have expected as much from the new immigration chairman -- Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY). He helped pass the first amnesty in 1986 and has never stopped working against the interests of vulnerable U.S. workers. But especially disheartening was the mostly agreement from the ranking Republican on the immigration panel, Sen. Cornyn of Texas. He and Schumer said they are agreed on most aspects of what needs to be done. . . .

The hearing was a depressing spectacle: a labor leader with no regard for unemployed U.S. workers; a religious leader with no regard for obedience to the law or for suffering unemployed American families; a black civil rights leader with no regard for the incredible unemployment suffered by black Americans because of skyrocketed immigration numbers; a business leader with no regard for all the businesses in dire straits because of competitors who break immigration laws. . . . [Full Story: Schumer Can't See 13 Million Jobless Americans In His Political Rush To Pass Amnesty]

Action: "What every Senator needs to hear is that it would be politically stupid and morally bankrupt for the Senate to even consider giving permanent work permits to 8 million illegal foreign workers this year while 13 million jobless American workers would like to have their jobs." (Roy Beck)

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Tags: amnesty, Charles Schumer, illegal aliens, immigrants, John Cornyn, NumbersUSA, Roy Beck To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Growing the Economy: Separating the Myths from the Facts

"Government policies can have a huge effect on the U.S. economy—and on the family bank account. Policies that try to transfer income from one group to another are based on myths, not reality. They do far more harm than good. In contrast, if public officials will pay attention to the lessons of history and common sense, avoid short-term “stimulus” gimmicks, and instead enact reality-based economic reforms, they can put the country back on the road to sustained prosperity." So end the concluding author remarks of a new Heritage Foundation booklet: "The Economy Hits Home: What Makes the Economy Grow?".

The authors for the booklet are Leslie Carbone [author of Slaying Leviathan: The Moral Case for Tax Reform (Potomac, June 2009)] and Jay Richards [author of Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem (HarperOne, May 2009)]. You won’t need a degree in economics to follow these authors. And the graphs and supporting material are great! The authors present a common sense approach to help expose some popular but mistaken myths about the economy. You will want to download, save, read and share this information with others in the coming days as we hear the false myths repeated by the government buracracy. As detailed in the report:

[E]conomic growth is not the consequence of government policies or of some master economic plan. It results from millions of people individually seeking what is in their own interests by providing what is in the interests of others, and the collective consequence of their actions is to increase the number of jobs in the economy, the wages earned by workers, and the income and wealth of the nation. But lawmakers rarely admit these realities. The idea of transferring income from families and businesses to government gets repackaged in all sorts of creative but deceptive ways. We hear talk about stimulating the economy, creating jobs, putting people back to work, bailing out allegedly critical industries, and making the rich pay their “fair share.”

The following myths, all variations on the same theme, are exposed by the authors:

MYTH #1: Government spending grows the economy by pumping new money into it. FACT: Every dollar that government “injects” into the economy must first be taxed or borrowed from families, businesses, or other nations.

MYTH #2: Government spending makes people more productive. FACT: Government spending often encourages behavior that has bad economic consequences.

MYTH #3: The federal government should bail out faltering industries and states to revive the economy. FACT: Bailouts harm the economy because they reward reckless private and state spending, leaving it unchecked and effectively encouraging more of the same in the future.

MYTH #4: Public works projects stimulate the economy by creating new jobs. FACT: In the short run, public works projects have no real effect on overall unemployment. They simply displace resources that could be used to create jobs in the private sector and move those resources to the government payroll.

MYTH #5: Tax cuts simply pad the pockets of the rich without helping a weak economy. FACT: Smart tax cuts encourage work, savings, and investment to help stimulate economic growth that benefits people across the board.

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Tags: economic development, Heritage Foundation, Jay Richards, Leslie Carbone, Myths, the economy To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

How Young Engineers and Our Economy Are Betrayed

by Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum: The Georgia Dome, home of the Atlanta Falcons football team, was recently crowded with cheering fans and adrenaline-filled competitors. A thrilling competition crowned new champions. But this was not a football game. It was a robotics competition for high school students interested in engineering, a program that now attracts about 200,000 student-competitors and nearly 100,000 volunteers.

Known as FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), this program demonstrates that there is no shortage of American engineering minds. Started nearly 20 years ago by Dean Kamen, the inventor of the clever Segway that officials scoot around on, this competition develops future American engineers. The students are extraordinarily diverse, coming from public and private schools and homeschools, rich and poor, urban and rural, athletic and disabled. Colleges provide up to $10 million in scholarships.

Obviously, there is no shortage of teenage interest and aptitude in engineering. But their prospects for good American jobs are very limited. Large corporations prefer to use H-1B visas to hire foreign engineers and computer technicians. H-1B workers increased threefold during the Clinton Administration, and CEOs are constantly demanding that the number be increased or even unlimited.

Large corporations prefer H-1B foreigners because they work for lower wages with fewer rights. A recent study by researchers at top business schools reported that H-1B visas depress wages for software engineers and programmers by as much as 6 percent. The cumulative effect, as described by another study, depresses wages even more. Many U.S. engineers even lost their jobs just after they were required to train their foreign replacements.

"In this paper, we simply sought to dispel the myth that globalization generates no losers," wrote the researchers of this latest study. Their credentials are impeccable: one author, Lorin Hitt, is a Wharton professor of operations and information management, and the other, Prasanna Tambe, is an assistant professor at New York University's Stern School. Their study meticulously reviewed worker data from nearly 7,500 U.S. companies. The researchers studied how job hiring practices in companies that use H-1B visas, and also offshore other jobs, are different from companies that do not.

The Americans hardest hit by H-1B visas, according to these researchers, are recent college graduates and those who want to change jobs. One of the reasons why big corporations prefer to hire H-1Bers is that foreign workers are restrained, almost like indentured servants, from changing jobs and competing with their original employer. Americans used indentured services in the 1600s when plantation workers were brought to Virginia to work for seven years in exchange for a free voyage to the New World. Later, this practice was supplanted by African slavery. That's certainly not a model to imitate today. H-1B visas disrupt the free enterprise system that has yielded tremendous wealth to America and the world.

It is estimated that more than 400,000 foreigners are working in our country on H-1Bs, because there is no accountability for the requirement to seek U.S. workers first, and thousands of H-1B workers are exempt from the so-called cap. At least 100,000 American programmers are unemployed, and it is probable that many times that number are underemployed (driving trucks or bagging groceries) rather than using their technical skills. President Obama has already named Indian Americans to two positions that will make decisions about which government jobs are filled by H-1Bs and outsourced to India: Aneesh Chopra as Chief Technology Officer and Vivek Kundra as Chief Information Officer.

The major factor in American economic leadership of the world has been our primacy in innovation, which has always produced far more benefits than the rest of the world combined. Thomas Edison, named the most influential man of the last thousand years by Life Magazine, personified Yankee ingenuity and its prodigious benefits. The large corporations that demand H-1B visas do not really want future Thomas Edisons or Wright Brothers because they will bring competition. Microsoft, for example, has every incentive to discourage innovation by young minds that might compete and challenge its profitable status quo.

The argument that foreigners brought here under H-1B visas are smarter or more productive than Americans is simply false. The prestigious ACM Software System Award recognizes innovation, but Professor Norm Matloff showed that only two out of 54 of its awards through 2001 were to foreign-born recipients. Our military superiority depends heavily on technological advances, and we cannot rely on foreign engineers for that. Advanced robots are essential for saving lives of servicemen as we combat terrorism.

The 200,000 bright minds who competed in the FIRST robotics program could take our economy to new heights just as did American inventors of the past. But if they continue to be displaced by H-1B visas and end up in non-engineering jobs, the result will be disappointing to them and devastating to our economy. See also: Amnesty/Guest Worker

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Tags: American workers, Engineers, H-1B, Phyllis Schlafly, robotics, robots, visa To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Is Capitalism Moral? - Defend Free Enterprise -- 5/1/09

by Gary Bauer: Is Capitalism Moral? The religious Left increasingly is providing “cover” for the political Left’s attack on free enterprise and capitalism. They argue that free enterprise is immoral because some people will do very well financially while others will fail. Sadly some young Christians are falling for this class warfare dressed up in religious garb.

As a Christian, I am called personally and through my church to help the poor. I am not called to use the power of Big Government to take someone else’s earnings and redistribute them to those who did not earn it. Arthur C. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, made this point in an editorial this week. Here is an excerpt:

“Advocates of free enterprise must learn from the growing grass-roots protests, and make the moral case for freedom and entrepreneurship. They have to declare that it is a moral issue to confiscate more income from the minority simply because the government can. It’s also a moral issue to lower the rewards for entrepreneurial success, and to spend what we don’t have without regard for our children’s future.”

If you have high school or college-age children, I encourage you to look for opportunities to talk to them about this fundamental issue.

President Attacks Bond Holders Our class warfare president was at it again this week. In his press conference on the Chrysler bankruptcy, President Obama singled out a group of bond holders who weren’t willing to settle for 30 cents on the dollar. These are people who lent money to Chrysler for buying their bonds in the belief that, under our bankruptcy laws, they would be first in line to be paid back. Under our system we have built a credit market – a bond market – based on that assumption, and the viability of that bond market is essential if American companies are going to be able to find funding to expand, hire, etc.

But in Barack Obama’s America, bond holders are apparently evil. Here is how he described them at his press conference:

“While many stakeholders made sacrifices and worked constructively, I have to tell you some did not. In particular, a group of investment firms and hedge funds decided to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout. They were hoping that everybody else would make sacrifices, and they would have to make none. Some demanded twice the return other lenders were getting. I don’t stand with them.”

This is an amazing attack on a group of law abiding Americans. Bond holders often are retired persons living on fixed incomes. The president was harsher in his words about them than he has been in describing Iran’s fanatical, Holocaust-denying dictator, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Must See Video: In case you have any doubts about the anti-business, anti-free enterprise mindset that has infected Washington today, click here to watch a video of one member of Congress vowing to shut down private insurance companies.

Obama vs. Small Business: If you want a real world example of how Barack Obama’s proposed tax hikes would affect small business, read a very informative article by Lori Montgomery and V. Dion Haynes in The Washington Post titled: Small Businesses Brace for Tax Battle in which they detail that "Under Obama Plan, Some Entrepreneurs' Bills Would Soar." Please share it with like-minded friends and family members.
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Tags: capitalism, Defend Free Enterprise, Gary Bauer, President Obama, private insurance, small business, taxes, the economy To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!