News Blog for social, fiscal & national security conservatives who believe in God, family & the USA. Upholding the rights granted by God & guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, traditional family values, "republican" principles / ideals, transparent & limited "smaller" government, free markets, lower taxes, due process of law, liberty & individual freedom. Content approval rests with the ARRA News Service Editor. Opinions are those of the authors. While varied positions are reported, beliefs & principles remain fixed. No revenue is generated for or by this "Blog" - no paid ads - no payments for articles.Fair Use Doctrine is posted & used. Blogger/Editor/Founder: Bill Smith, Ph.D. [aka: OzarkGuru & 2010 AFP National Blogger of the Year] Contact: editor@arranewsservice.com (Pub. Since July, 2006)Home PageFollow @arra
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics
is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. -- Plato
(429-347 BC)
Saturday, May 23, 2009
It is About the Warrior - "Till the Last Shot's Fired"
With Memorial Day Weekend upon us, the following video provides a chilling reminder of the price of war but presented in a most patriotic way. "Remember, it is about the warrior and not the war." The song is presented by the Trace Adkins & the West Point Cadet Glee Club! God Bless our military and our veterans! Wounded Warrior Project!
Tags:military, Trace Adkins, veterans, video, West Point, Wounded WarriorTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
by William Warren: Tags:Barack Obama, change, detainees, Dick Cheney, Gitmo, political cartoon, William WarrenTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
by Phyllis Schlafly: Several prominent non-Republicans and ex-Republicans have been all over the media giving advice to Republicans about how they should re-brand themselves and which issues they should talk about. Among this unsolicited advice is that Republicans should stop criticizing ACORN. Au contraire; Republicans should loudly demand that ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) be cut off from all further handouts of taxpayers' money. After all, didn't Barack Obama promise us an ethical administration and an end to the influence of lobbyists and special interests?
ACORN is one of the most successful lobbyists for taxpayers' money, which ACORN uses for very partisan special-interest activities. ACORN and its affiliated organizations (estimated at 270 related corporations and so-called non-profits) are under investigation in more than a dozen states for voter registration fraud, and there's no question about which party and which candidate ACORN supports.
Nevertheless, ACORN and its affiliated organizations (disguised as nongovernmental "neighborhood stabilization" organizations) could receive $3 billion (with a B) from Obama's stimulus package and another $5.5 billion from his 2010 federal budget. That is after receiving $53 million of taxpayers' money over the last 15 years.
Nevada charged ACORN groups with submitting thousands of fraudulent voter registration forms in 2008, and illegally setting quotas for its canvassers and paying them bonuses for signing up more than 21 new voters a day. The Las Vegas registrar of voters believes 48 percent of registrations turned in by ACORN were fraudulent.
Nevada's Democratic Attorney General said that ACORN's training manuals "clearly detail, condone and ... require illegal acts" such as requiring workers to meet voter-registration targets in order to keep their jobs.
Pennsylvania authorities charged seven ACORN workers with falsifying voter registration forms. The voter registrar said that ACORN submitted at least 1,500 fraudulent registrations during last year's presidential campaign.
Washington State fined ACORN $25,000 after several employees were convicted of voter registration fraud in 2007.
Last year, eight national ACORN board members demanded an audit of ACORN's books. The result was that the eight were removed.
ACORN's blatantly partisan activities with taxpayers' and other non-profit funds make it an appropriate target for a congressional hearing. After first agreeing to hold a hearing, the Democrats then reneged and refused to hold one.
Barack Obama has for years had a close working relationship with ACORN, as a community organizer, as the head of a registration effort for Project Vote (one of ACORN's partners), as attorney for a very important lawsuit, and for get-out-the-vote assistance in his 2008 presidential campaign. When he met with ACORN leaders last year, Obama bragged that he "ran the Project Vote voter registrations drive in Illinois."
In 1995, Obama represented ACORN in a case upholding the Motor Voter Act. That law authorized postcard registration, which proved so useful to ACORN workers in filing false registrations. In 2008, Obama's presidential campaign reported paying $832,000 to Citizens Consulting Inc., the umbrella group controlling ACORN, for get-out-the-vote efforts in key primary states. ACORN and its affiliated groups put thousands of get-out-the-vote workers in battleground states during the presidential campaign last year.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) successfully persuaded the House Financial Services Committee to unanimously pass an amendment to the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act prohibiting any organization indicted for voter fraud from receiving federal housing grants. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) then had a tantrum and got the Democrats to remove it. Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) tried to prohibit ACORN from getting federal funds through the new Serve America Act. But Harry Reid's Senate killed that constructive idea.
It's not just taxpayers' money that ACORN has had at its disposal; ACORN also has received generous grants from top recipients of federal bailout money. Bank of America (almost $3 million), Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase made big grants to ACORN Housing Corp., one of ACORN's many affiliated organizations.
It is particularly important to expose ACORN's political activities because of its new relationship with the Census Bureau, the agency tasked with compiling the 2010 census. The count of the U.S. population will determine which states gain or lose votes in both the U.S. House and the Electoral College, and which districts get more federal handouts.
American constitutional government cannot survive if the population count is managed and manipulated by organizations with partisan bias. The importance of a fair and accurate count cannot be overestimated because the count can give one party an unfair advantage and control over America for the next decade. Yet the Obama Administration chose ACORN to recruit counters for the 2010 Census, and they are already canvassing neighborhoods. Rep. Patrick McHenry's (R-NC)effort to sever the Census Bureau-ACORN partnership should be supported by all who want honest elections. Further reading:
Tags:ACORN, Barack Obama, federal funding, grants, U.S. Census, U.S. Census Bureau, voter fraud, voter registrationTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
H/T One Marines View: . . . I know who the real American Idols are, do you? Army Sgt. Levi Bradstream, an infantryman with pulls security as Spc. Anthony Janda comes up an ancient trail over a mountain in Afghanistan's northeastern province of Kunar April 10. Bradstream, and infantryman, and Janda, a medic, both serve with C. Troop, 6th Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division. The troop was patrolling the area to search for caves and enemy passages on the mountain, from which they had been receiving enemy contact.(Photo by Staff Sgt. David Hopkins : 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division) Tags:Afghanistan, American Idol, Marine Corps, MarinesTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Congress in recess until Monday, June 1st. Yesterday, the Senate voted 86-3 to pass a $91.3 billion supplemental funding bill for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, H.R. 2346. Prior to final passage, senators rejected an amendment from Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) to strip a funding increase for the International Monetary Fund.
We already reported yesterday about President Obama 6,000 word speech on Guantanamo and on the GITMO terrorist detainees. But what was lacking was a plan about what to do with the detainees if he moves forward with his hasty decision to close the facility. As many have clearly identified, what was needed was not a speech but a plan which was not presented. It was definitely clear by the President's speech that he had missed the point of the 90-6 vote "barring any federal funds (not new funds - but any federal funds) to “transfer, release or incarcerate” Guantanamo detainees “to or within the United States.”This means that neither the Department of Justice, the FBI, the CIA the Dept of Defense or any other agencies may participate in using their resources to do the above actions. However, Obama speech ignored the actions by the Senate as if it was not an issue and proceed to detail that he would move detainees to the U.S. and in some cases turn jurisdiction for trials over to civilian courts and may even releasing detainees into the U.S. Unfortunately, his speech appeared to be more like the actions of a teenager arrogantly defying his parents rather than a President appropriately responding to the fact that he is not a dictator and that that Congress controls funding and determins restrictions on how the executive branch may spend money.
Obama signaled his interest in was bring some detainees to the United States to try them in civilian court. He mentioned that 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui were convicted in US courts, saying, “If we can try those terrorists in our courts and hold them in our prisons, then we can do the same with detainees from Guantanamo.”
However, Sen. McConnell pointed out, “We’ve had an experience of trying detainees in civilian court. And in many of the past trials against terrorists in the U.S., sensitive information leaked out, which potentially endangered the security of the country.” Yousef’s trial tipped off terrorists that one of their communication links had been compromised. Sensitive material was inadvertently leaked at Moussaoui’s trial. Osama bin Laden was able to learn that his organizations cell phones were being monitored in the course of trying the East African embassy bombings. And as former Attorney General Michael Mukasey wrote last year, “In the course of prosecuting Omar Abdel Rahman … the government was compelled--as it is in all cases that charge conspiracy--to turn over a list of unindicted co-conspirators to the defendants. … Within 10 days a copy of that list reached bin Laden in Khartoum.”
As Sen. McConnell said, “We don’t have to take all of those risks. Most of these trials ought to be conducted at Guantanamo, a $200 million, state-of-the-art facility with courtrooms for exactly this purpose.” And, The Wall Street Journal notes, Democrat Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) seemed to agree last weekend when he said, “We spend hundreds of millions of dollars building an appropriate facility with all security precautions in Guantanamo to try these cases. There are cases against international law.”
There have been suggestions, from Democrats in Congress and the administration of moving detainees to the Supermax prison facility in Florence, Colorado. But The Denver Post reports today that there’s no room at the facility: “Only one bed was not filled Thursday at Supermax, U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Tracy Billingsley said.”
Today, The Wall Street Journalsummed up the problems with President Obama’s approach to Guantanamo. “Mr. Obama called all of this a ‘mess’ that he had inherited, but in truth the mess is of his own haphazard design. He’s the one who announced the end of Guantanamo without any plan for what to do with, or where to put, KSM and other killers. Now he’s found that his erstwhile allies in Congress and Europe want nothing to do with them. Tell us again why Gitmo should be closed?” Tags:Barack Obama, detainees, GITMO, military funding, US Congress, 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!
by William Warren: Tags:cap-and-trade, Democrats, Nancy Pelosi, video, waterboarding, William WarrenTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
SEN. DEMINT: If over the next six months $50 billion comes back, will $50 billion go into the general fund of the United States?
SEC. GEITHNER: The way the TARP is designed -- and I didn't design this -- but the way it's designed is every dollar that comes back goes into the general fund but that does still create additional head room under the $700 billion authority for us to make capital investments -- make investments. So we have the ability to still use the $700 billion if we think there's a strong case for doing that, but the way the program works is a dollar comes in and goes to the general fund but still creates additional room for us to make a new --
SEN. DEMINT: So your understanding of what we did is that the Treasury now has $700 billion that it can use permanently, rotating in and out of the capital markets as you see fit?
SEC. GEITHNER: Well, I'm not quite sure permanent, but you're right.
. . . SEN. DEMINT: Are you working on a plan to show us of how you are going to move out of all this market, the ownership of General Motors, the ownership of AIG, all the money in the private banking? I mean, you've got a plan?
SEC. GEITHNER: Senator, as I said to Ranking Member Shelby at the beginning, this is a very important issue to me. We think about this a lot and there will be a time when we will be able to come to you and say here's how the unwinding process will work. But it's too early to do that now.
Tags:bailouts, Jim DeMint, Secretary of Treasury, Timothy GeithnerTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Former Vice President Richard B. Cheney, now a member of American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Board of Trustees. He spoke today at AEI on National Security and he serious and ongoing threat terrorism poses to the United States. [Full Printed Speech] Tags:Blogburst, video, civilian national security force, Dick Cheney, Gitmo, speech, vice presidentTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Today, the Senate resumed consideration of H.R. 2346, the fiscal 2009 war supplemental appropriations bill. Cloture is expected to be invoked, and a few post-cloture amendments could be considered. Work on the bill could be completed as early as this evening.
Today, in the wake of yesterday’s overwhelming Senate vote to deny the Obama administration funds to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, President Obama decided to deliver a speech this morning discussing Guantanamo and national security. This is interesting that Former Vice President Cheney was already scheduled to give a speech on national security at the American Enterprise Institute. Is this a preemptive action because Cheney was speaking on the topic and Congress had just rebuffed Obama's planned action?
Yesterday, the Senate voted90-6 to deny funding to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and prohibit funds from being used to transport detainees to the United States. Later in the day, the Senate voted overwhelmingly, 92-3, to adopt an amendment from Sen. McConnell, which requires the administration to prepare classified reports for Congress on the likelihood that detainees released from the facility will return to terrorist activity. The Senate also voted unanimously to adopt an amendment from Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) to express the sense of the Senate that the Secretary of Defense should consult with state and local officials before transferring any detainees from Guantanamo.
SenateGOP Leader Mitch McConnell said, “It’s clear to both Republicans and Democrats in Congress that the administration does not currently have a plan for closing Guantanamo, and that closing it without a plan is unacceptable. So I hope the President uses his remarks this morning to present a concrete plan that demonstrates how closing Guantanamo will keep Americans as safe as Guantanamo has.”
The AP notes, “Democrats lined up with Republicans in the 90-6 vote that came on the heels of a similar move a week ago in the House, underscoring widespread apprehension among Obama's congressional allies over voters' strong feelings about bringing detainees to the U.S. from the prison in Cuba.”
But it’s not just members of Congress raising concerns about what to do with detainees if Guantanamo is closed. Politico pointed out yesterday, “FBI Director Robert Mueller warned Congress that releasing some of the Gitmo prisoners in the United States would raise concerns that they might radicalize others, raise money for terrorist groups, or carry out attacks. . . . Mueller also raised concerns about bringing prisoners to the U.S. and holding them in maximum security prisons, noting that in some gang leaders have run their organizations while in prison.”
The administration also wants to send detainees to other countries, but that may be just as problematic. In an editorial today, The Wall Street Journal notes that “a U.S. court and the Obama Administration may send a batch of potential terrorists” to Yemen. But, The Journal explains, “The U.S. is reluctant to repatriate [detainees] to a country where al Qaeda suspects regularly ‘escape’ from jail. Only Pakistan’s tribal regions rival Yemen as a terrorist Shangri-La.”
At the same time, new evidence is coming to light that there is an even greater problem with recidivism among former Guantanamo detainees. The New York Times reports, “An unreleased Pentagon report concludes that about one in seven of the 534 prisoners already transferred abroad from the detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has returned to terrorism or militant activity, according to administration officials.” Senate sources are advising that the Times reports, the report has been held up by Pentagon officials “fearful of upsetting the White House.” It’s unfortunate that the White House seems to put so much emphasis on politics and symbolism when the safety and security of the American people is at stake.
Tags:Barack Obama, detainees, Dick Cheney, GITMO, 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!
Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families: After weeks of rumors, Jake Tapper of ABC News has confirmed that Bibles sent to U.S. troops in Afghanistan were confiscated and destroyed. The Bibles were translated into the predominate Afghan languages and were intended as gifts U.S. soldiers could give to the people. The Pentagon said the Bibles were a violation of regulations prohibiting proselytizing and could endanger the lives of our forces in the overwhelmingly Muslim nation.
But even if that argument is compelling, it is outrageous that the Bibles were burned or destroyed in some other way. The U.S. military has been ordered to go to extraordinary lengths not to “defile” a Koran. At GITMO our soldiers are required to wear gloves when handling that book so as not to offend Muslims. Is it too much to ask that orders be issued that Bibles be handled with as much respect?
When a Koran is mishandled Muslims riot all over the world. In contrast, when the Bible is defaced there are no riots in the Bible Belt, because we tend to remember the teachings of Christ that urge us to “turn the other cheek.” Frankly, I am running out of cheeks. Tags:Afghanistan, Bible, burning Bibles, Gary Bauer, Koran, militaryTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
by William Warren: Tags:auto emission standards, auto industry, Barack Obama, political cartoon, Timothy Geithner, US Congress, William WarrenTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Empathy Verses Law - The Real Job of a U.S. Supreme Court Justice
We posted previously an article by Thomas Sowell, "Empathy verses Law - Repealed of the 14th Amendment." Today, we here more on this topic by Dr. Walter E. Williams.
----------------------- Patriot Post Guest Essay-by Walter E. Williams: President Obama's articulated criteria for his nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court is: "We need somebody who's got the heart to recognize -- the empathy to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."
What is the role of a U.S. Supreme Court justice? A reasonable start for an answer is the recognition that our Constitution represents the rules of the game. A Supreme Court justice has one job and one job only namely; he is a referee. There is nothing complicated about this. A referee's job, whether he is a football referee or a Supreme Court justice, is to know the rules of the game and make sure that they are evenly applied without bias. Do we want referees to allow empathy to influence their decisions? Let's look at it using this year's Super Bowl as an example.
The Pittsburgh Steelers have won six Super Bowl titles, seven AFC championships and hosted 10 conference games. No other AFC or NFC team can match this record. By contrast, the Arizona Cardinals' last championship victory was in 1947 when they were based in Chicago. In anyone's book, this is a gross disparity. Should the referees have the empathy to understand what it's like to be a perennial loser and what would you think of a referee whose decisions were guided by his empathy? Suppose a referee, in the name of compensatory justice, stringently applied pass interference or roughing the passer violations against the Steelers and less stringently against the Cardinals. Or, would you support a referee who refused to make offensive pass interference calls because he thought it was a silly rule? You'd probably remind him that the league makes the rules, not referees.
I'm betting that most people would agree that football justice requires that referees apply the rules blindly and independent of the records or any other characteristic of the two teams. Moreover, I believe that most people would agree that referees should evenly apply the rules of the games even if they personally disagreed with some of the rules.
The relationship between Supreme Court justices and the U.S. Constitution should be identical to that of referees and football rules. The status of a person appearing before the court should have absolutely nothing to do with the rendering of decisions. That's why Lady Justice, often appearing on court buildings, is shown wearing a blindfold. It is to indicate that justice should be meted out impartially, regardless of identity, power or weakness. Also, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Men should know the rules by which the game is played. Doubt as to the value of some of those rules is no sufficient reason why they should not be followed by the courts." The legislative branch makes the rules, not judges.
Interventionists often make their case for bending the rules based on the unfairness of outcomes such as differences in income, education and wealth. After all, how can the game of life possibly be fair when some people's yearly income totals in the hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars, while many others scarcely earn twenty or thirty thousand dollars? Some people find that argument persuasive but it's nonsense. Income distribution is an outcome and fairness cannot be determined by outcomes. It's the same with football. The Steelers winning six Super Bowl titles and Arizona winning none is an outcome and cannot be used to determine football fairness. Fairness in either case must be settled by process questions such as: Were the rules unbiased and evenly applied? If so, any outcome is just and actions based on empathy would make it unjust. Dr. Williams serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and is the author of More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well. Tags:empathy, law, referee, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, The Patriot Post, US Constitution, Walter E. WilliamsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
RNC Chairman Steele Sets Forth Plan for the Republican Party
Chairman Steele addressed the 2009 State Chairman's Meeting on May 19, 2009. He focused primarily on the fact that the Republican Party has "turned the corner." Link to Video
Michael Steele, Chairman of the Republican National Committee: . . . America needs the Republican Party now more than ever before. We may be America’s minority party at the moment, but Republicans represent the views and concerns of a majority of Americans. Republicans across America – from our national and state leaders down to our local activists and grassroots supporters – have to get about the business of telling families how Republican principles of less spending, lower taxes, responsive and responsible government, personal freedom and strong national defense stand in stark contrast to the reckless policies we’ve seen from the president and Congressional Democrats in four short months.
Republicans will not be afraid to agree with the president when we believe he is doing what is best for America, but neither will be afraid to disagree with him when we believe his actions are wrong for America. To accomplish this goal Republicans are turning a corner in three important ways:
First, the Republican Party will be forward-looking – it is time to stop looking backward. Republicans have spent ample time re-examining the past. It has been a healthy and necessary task. But I believe it is now time for Republicans to focus all of our energies on winning the future by emerging as the party of new ideas. Republicans are emerging once again with the energy, the focus, and the determination to turn our timeless principles into new solutions for the future.
Second, the Republican Party will not shy away from voicing our opposition to the president’s policies. His honeymoon is over. As a candidate, President Obama sounded moderate in his views. But as president, he is presiding over the most massive top-down expansion of government bureaucracy and spending our country has ever seen.
Candidate Obama talked about fiscal responsibility, about government living within its means. But President Obama is spending with reckless abandon and saddling our children and grandchildren with mountains of debt. Candidate Obama boasted about cutting taxes. But President Obama will have to raise taxes to pay for his massive top-down government explosion. Candidate Obama talked a lot about being bipartisan, but he has yielded his legislative agenda almost entirely to Nancy Pelosi who has repeatedly shut Republicans out of negotiations on important legislation, from economic stimulus to the budget to health care.
Let me make one point clear – Republicans will not make our opposition to the president personal. Republicans will challenge policies of the president that we believe are wrong, but our opposition will be done in very sharp contrast to the classless way that the Democrats and the far left spoke of President Bush.
Third, the Republican Party will seize upon momentum for a GOP resurgence that is already under way in states and local communities. I have traveled extensively since being elected RNC chairman, meeting with state party leaders and grassroots activists alike. There is genuine enthusiasm for a Republican balance to the reckless excesses of the president and congressional Democrats. I believe the Republican Party can ride that wave of local enthusiasm to victory in upcoming elections. . . .
Republicans are getting about the business of America’s future, because our vision for America is far different than what the president and Congressional Democrats have shown thus far. And I fear the Democrats are just getting started. Tags:Michael Steele, Republican National Committee, Republican Party, RNCTo 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 20, 2009 - Senate Bars Funds to "Transfer, Release or Incarcerate" GITMO Detainees Within the U.S.
Yesterday, the Senate passed H.R. 627, a bill to place restrictions on credit card companies and confirmed Gary Gensler as a Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Today the Senate resumed consideration of H.R. 2346, the fiscal 2009 war supplemental appropriations bill. The Senate did vote 90-6 on an amendment to bar the use of federal funds to “transfer, release or incarcerate” Guantanamo detainees “to or within the United States.” All the “no” votes came from Democrats: Dick Durbin (IL), Tom Harkin (IA), Pat Leahy (VT), Carl Levin (MI), Jack Reed (RI), and Sheldon Whitehouse (RI). Three Democrats did not vote: Byrd (WV), Kennedy (MA), and Rockefeller (WV). Other amendments expected to the bill include ones from Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) concerning prosecutions over interrogation techniques and from Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) concerning IMF funding.
Yesterday, The AP writes, “President Barack Obama's promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison suffered a blow Tuesday when his allies in the Senate said they would refuse to finance the move until the administration delivers a satisfactory plan for what to do with the detainees there.” CNN’s Dana Bash reported last night that closing Guantanamo “is such a high priority for President Obama” that he signed the order to do so on his second day in office. Bash called the announcement to strip the funding yesterday “an about-face for Senate Democrats and a rare slap at President Obama.” Well, I guess then the slap has now happened!
And The Washington Post’sChris Cillizza writes, “The practical execution of [closing Guantanamo], however, has run into a number of political hurdles. Republicans . . . have used the Gitmo closure as evidence that Obama is not fundamentally serious about the defense of the homeland.”
“FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress on Wednesday that bringing Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States would pose a number of possible risks, even if they were kept in maximum-security prisons,” according to the AP. · Asked by Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) if detainees could safely be kept in maximum security prisons in the U.S., “Mueller balked at Nadler's suggestion, noting that in some instances imprisoned gang leaders have run their gangs from inside prisons.” · AP: “‘The concerns we have about individuals who may support terrorism being in the United States run from concerns about providing financing, radicalizing others,’ Mueller said, as well as ‘the potential for individuals undertaking attacks in the United States.’”
The former commander of the USS Cole, Kirk Lippold, put out a statement on Mueller’s testimony, saying, “FBI Director Mueller knows the complexity of the detainee problem and comprehends the dangers that the GITMO detainees pose to America if they are brought onto our soil.”
And there’s was more confusion about what the administration plans to do with the Uighur detainees. It had been reported that they were to be released into the United States, possibly in Virginia. Sen Jim Webb (D_VA) has previously said "NO!" Today, theFinancial Times writes, “The White House originally intended to implement the recommendation [to release Uighur detainees into the U.S.] in spite of objections from the homeland security department and Federal Bureau of Investigation. One official said the administration had over-ruled the department and FBI, who had ‘screamed bloody murder’, but was now wavering in the face of intense pressure from Congress. Dean Boyd, a justice department spokesman, said: ‘We have no announcements on whether any final decision has been made with respect to the disposition of the Uighurs or other detainees at Guantánamo, or on the claim of interagency -disagreements.’”
Despite all of this, Michele Flournoy, President Obama’s Pentagon policy chief “says it's unrealistic to think that no detainees will come to the U.S., and that the U.S. can't ask allies to take detainees while refusing to take on the same burden,” according to an AP report. She told reporters this morning “I think there will be some that need to end up in the United States.” Maybe, she needs one released to live in her own home.
Sen. McConnell said on the floor this morning, “In my view, these men are exactly where they belong: locked up in a safe and secure prison, and isolated many miles away from the American people. Guantanamo is a secure state-of-the-art facility. It’s got courtrooms for military commissions. Everyone who visits is impressed with it. Even the administration acknowledges that Guantanamo is humane and well-run. Americans want these men kept out of their backyards and off the battlefield. Guantanamo guarantees it.”Tags:credit cards, detainees, GITMO, 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!
Charlie Butts, OneNewsNow: A surprising revelation from a homosexual activist over the purpose of the "hate crimes" bill is drawing kudos from at least one pro-family spokesman.
The activist is Andrew Sullivan, one of the movers and shakers in the international homosexual movement. "The real reason for hate crime laws is not the defense of human beings from crime. There are already laws against that," Sullivan writes on his blog, "and Matthew Shepard's murderers were successfully prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law in a state with no hate crimes law at the time."
Sullivan continues: "The real reason for the invention of hate crimes was a hard-left critique of conventional liberal justice and the emergence of special interest groups which need boutique legislation to raise funds for their large staffs and luxurious buildings. Just imagine how many direct mail pieces have gone out explaining that without more money for [Human Rights Campaign], more gay human beings will be crucified on fences. It's very, very powerful as a money-making tool -- which may explain why the largely symbolic federal bill still hasn't passed." . . . [Read More] Tags:hate crimes, Hate Crimes ActTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Jennifer Mesko, Editor CitizenLink: President Barack Obama was greeted with a mix of protests and cheers as he gave the commencement address Sunday at the University of Notre Dame. Twenty-six of the graduates skipped the ceremony altogether, gathering on a corner of campus for a prayer vigil.
Catholics around the world were outraged when the pro-abortion Obama was invited to speak. Longtime Notre Dame philosophy professor Ralph McInerny was among them. "Abortion is an essentially evil act, both from the viewpoint of natural morality and from the explicit teaching the Church," he wrote. "There is no way in which an individual, a politician or an institution can finesse that fact. By inviting Barack Obama as commencement speaker, Notre Dame is telling the nation that the teaching of the Catholic Church on this fundamental matter can be ignored."
. . . Obama said Americans need to "work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions." His policies, however, suggest a far different agenda. In his first 100 days in office, Obama:
Signed an executive order allowing taxpayer funding to go to international groups that promote or provide abortions.
Opened the door for more human embryos to be destroyed for unethical stem-cell research.
Began the process of rescinding the Bush health care provider conscience regulations.
Lifted a seven-year ban on taxpayer funding of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which is linked to forced abortion programs.
Chuck Donovan, Family Research Counsel & 1974 graduate of Notre Dame: "From the moment Obama arrived on stage, with a clearly exhilarated Notre Dame administration behind him in every sense of the word, the day was visually his. Commentators on CNN, MSNBC and Fox only had to echo the speech of Notre Dame's president, Fr. John Jenkins, that the commencement was all about 'dialogue' and this extraordinary President's ability to engage respectfully with those who disagree with him. Fortunately, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago gave us another view of the President's empathy after the two met in March. Cardinal George said, 'It's hard to disagree with [President Obama] because he'll always tell you he agrees with you. Maybe that's political. I think he sincerely wants to agree with you. You have to say, again and again, "No, Mr. President, we don't agree." The Cardinal is right. A conversation is not an echo. The only valid measure of Obama's 'open heart' on issues of life will be changes in his sweeping policies against it." Read: Chuck Donovan's Obama at Notre Dame Tags:abortion, Barack Obama, CitizenLink, Notre Dame, pro-life, Right to Life, videoTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Impeach Nancy Pelosiis not related to the excerpted article or its source. It is growing statement of opposition on FaceBook. We know it is not really possible to"impeach" Nancy Pelosi but she has Impeached herself. Join Usfor fun, conversation and a way to learn about actions you can take to help other face the fact that Pelosi should not be Speaker of the House.
by Frank Salvato, Family Security Matters: “I think this is the most despicable, dishonest and vicious political effort I have seen in my lifetime...She is a trivial politician, viciously using partisanship for the narrowest of purposes...She dishonors the Congress by her behavior.” – Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich
Well, well, well...it would seem that Nancy Pelosi has outed herself as a liar...a disingenuous, political opportunist, hell-bent on making sure that her ideology is placed above the importance of honesty and good government. It is stunning that the White House and the Democrat leadership haven't counseled her to limit her media liability. With each session at the podium, Pelosi either changes her story, creates another firestorm or both. Had she been a Republican her resignation would have already been filed. . . .
Now that Nancy Pelosi has demonstrated that she is willing to lie – bald-faced and in a grotesque manner – to achieve her goals, how can Democrats in the US House of Representatives allow her to remain as Speaker of the House? Every single word that comes out of her mouth from this point on must and will be questioned.
Now, I have always questioned Ms. Pelosi's actions, but I have done so because I believe she simply isn't smart. I believe her to be intellectually stunted and an ideological pawn for the neo-Marxist movement that has been making incremental inroads into our society ever since the 1920s. I can understand why she was elected to office. You only have to look at the electorate of San Francisco and their icons, the faculty at Berkeley, to understand why...they're straight from the Frankfurt School of Marxist ideology. But how people like Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Jim Clyburn (D-SC), John Larson (D-CT), Jan Schakowski (D-IL) and Maxine Waters (D-CA) allowed this intellectual midget to ascend to the speakership...well, I suppose it stands as testimony to the intellect of the Democrat leadership.
Nancy Pelosi is compromised beyond repair. Even the most disingenuous politician has come to understand that. The question now is whether the agenda-driven media will continue to hound her, ala Watergate, and whether the American people will apply enough pressure to their elected officials to get the Democrats in the House super-majority to remove Pelosi as speaker. No doubt she will remain a Congresswoman from San Francisco; she has no pride, no ethic, no honor. But will We the People allow her to spew her lies, her hate and her disingenuous politics, will We the People allow her to further damage our country and remain in such an influential position; third in succession to the presidency? . . . [Full Story] Tags:Family Security Matters, Impeachment, Nancy PelosiTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
The Senate reconvened and resumed consideration of H.R. 627, a bill to place restrictions on credit card companies. They will first vote on a cloture on the Dodd-Shelby substitute amendment to the bill. A vote on final passage of the bill is expected before noon.
Following the credit card bill, the Senate will debate the nomination of Gary Gensler for Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. There is little debate expected as the vote on his nomination is expected this afternoon. Then they will begin consideration of the fiscal 2009 supplemental $91.3 billion war time spending bill for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Didn't Barack Obama during his campaign promise left winged supporters there would be no more money for "war" and to bring the troops home?
The more Americans and members of Congress consider the prospect of Guantanamo detainees coming to the United States, the less they like the idea. A new Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll finds that Americans don’t think detainees should be transferred to prisons in the U.S. by a margin of 55%-37%. Opposition to transferring detainees to the U.S. has increased Fox’s January’s poll with the biggest shift coming from Independents who were evenly split (46-46) while a majority (53-39) of Independents now oppose moving detainees to the United States. 46%of Democrats, a plurality, now oppose this as well.
At the same time, opposition in Congress is also increasing - Senate Democrats have expressed skepticism about bringing Guantanamo detainees into the country. And Sens. Jim Webb (D-VA), Max Baucus (D-MT), Jon Tester (D-VA), and Ben Nelson (D-NE) have said they don’t want detainees coming to their states. The AP reports today that President Obama “is running into trouble in his own backyard. Rep. Frank Wolf, a Republican lawmaker who represents some of the Virginia suburbs outside Washington, is fighting Obama's effort to resettle 17 Uighurs — Turkic Muslims from western China — in or near his district.” And last week, the House stripped funding to close Guantanamo from the supplemental war spending bill.
Politico reports that Senate Republicans settled Monday decided that in regard to the closing the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay: "No detainees can come to American soil. With the blessing of his party leaders, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) is expected to offer the language as an amendment to a wartime spending bill" mentioned previously. Politico also noted the division among Democrats on the issue. “Democrats, under pressure from voters at home, are already wavering, as seen in the House and in statements by Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) over the weekend. And Obama, who is slated to address the Guantanamo issue in a speech Thursday, has sent mixed signals himself as he sorts through the complexities of how to bring to trial the remaining prisoners. ‘Obama hasn’t done us any favors on this,’ said one Democratic leadership aide. ‘He’s a little of this, a little of that. The Republicans have one compelling message.’”
Fox News noted that Sen. McConnell “has given 14 Senate floor speeches already this year on the topic.” Sen. McConnell (R-KY) said, “Some have argued that the existence of the Guantanamo prison serves as a recruiting tool for terrorists. But it’s hard to imagine that moving this facility somewhere else and giving it a different name will somehow satisfy our critics in European capitals. Even less likely is the notion that by moving detainees from the coast of Cuba to Colorado, terrorists overseas will turn their swords into ploughshares. The global terror network that we’re fighting targeted and killed Americans long before 9/11 and long before we opened the gates at Guantanamo. Shuttering this facility now could only serve one end: and that’s to make Americans less safe than Guantanamo has.”
Americans realize this and members of Congress are beginning to realize it as well. The question is when the administration will get the message. Tags:credit cards, detainees, Gitmo, military funding, US Congress, 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!
The administration is vetting President Barack Obama's list of potential nominees for his appointment to the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. Here is your chance to view information on the top three potential nominees to determine which is the best of the worst. You can vote on the worst liberal judicial activist atObama'sFrontrunners.com. [Warning: conservative traditional values Americans viewing the following videos may expereince sleeplessness, depression, anger, and / or extended periods of prayer.]
Elena Kagan
As Dean of Harvard University, she supported kicking military recruiters off campus. In a remarkable e-mail that she sent to the entire Harvard law school community, Kagan stated, I abhor the militarys discriminatory recruitment policy, and she condemned it as a profound wrong—a moral injustice of the first order.
Diane Wood
The country may be equally divided on the issue of abortion, but not Wood. She wrote an opinion applying RICO, a statute designed for mob prosecutions, to prevent pro-life activists from engaging in peaceful protests. The Supreme Court reversed her; even Justices Ginsburg and Justice Breyer agreed that Wood was wrong.
Sonia Sotomayor
Her views are decidedly outside the mainstream. Sotomayor recently approved a city's racial quota system and its decision based on their skin color - to deny 18 firefighters earned promotions. Even the liberal Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen and her own colleague, Judge Jose Cabranes, a Clinton appointee, expressed shock and disappointment at Sotomayor's irresponsible attempt to reject the firefighters' important legal claims without even fairly analyzing them in her opinion approving racial discrimination.
Tags:Barack Obama, Diane Wood, Elena Kagan, nominations, SCOTUS, Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court Judges, US Supreme CourtTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Taxpayer Fund Training for Chinese Prostitutes - $2.6 Million! Are You Upset With Gov't Spending?
Are You Upset With Government Spending? If not, hopefully you will be after reading the below article. "If you don't take part in the game, you can't complain about the rules." Consider getting involved in an upcoming Tea Party near you or in some practical actions to help change your local, state and federal government. There are many people, groups and organizations ready to help you speak out.
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As promised news that makes the Taxpayer's blood boil.
The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAA), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will pay $2.6 million in U.S. tax dollars to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly on the job. Dr. Xiaoming Li, the researcher conducting the program, is director of the Prevention Research Center at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit. The grant, made last November, refers to prostitutes as "female sex workers"--or FSW--and their handlers as "gatekeepers."
"Previous studies in Asia and Africa and our own data from FSWs [female sex workers] in China suggest that the social norms and institutional policy within commercial sex venues as well as agents overseeing the FSWs (i.e., the 'gatekeepers', defined as persons who manage the establishments and/or sex workers) are potentially of great importance in influencing alcohol use and sexual behavior among establishment-based FSWs," says the NIH grant abstract submitted by Dr. Li." Therefore, in this application, we propose to develop, implement, and evaluate a venue-based alcohol use and HIV risk reduction intervention focusing on both environmental and individual factors among venue-based FSWs in China," says the abstract.
Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Personally, I'm opposed to government funding such studies in the first place, but if they're going to do so, can they please actually do them in the U.S. if the problem is present here, rather than fund extended vacations for researchers in exotic locales?
Tags:China, Chinese, government spending, government waste, Maggie Thurber, National Institutes for Health, NIH, prostitutionTo 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 18, 2009 - Sen. Jim Webb Stands Up!
Having recessed last Thrusday, the Senate will reconvene at 2 pm No votes a scheduled for Monday. It is amazing how the Senate Democrat Leadership rushes through spending, bailouts and budget bills without even enough time for Senators to read them and then they drag along the rest of the time. Not that we even want them to meet and cause more problems for Americans, but this evidences that they had available time to study issues and political appointments before unleashing them on the American citizens.
On Tuesday, the Senate will resume consideration of a bill to place restrictions on credit card companies, H.R. 627. Senators will then vote on cloture on the Dodd-Shelby substitute amendment to the bill. A vote on final passage of the bill is expected before noon.
Over the weekend, a key Democrat senator finally stood up and broke with President Obama on his decision to close Guantanamo by next year and to bring terror detainees to the United States. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Sen. Jim Webb, (D-VA), a Marine veteran and former Secretary of the Navy, said on ABC’s This Week that he now "disagrees with President Barack Obama’s timetable to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in January 2010.” Asked by George Stephanopoulos if he could accept the release into Virginia of the 17 Uighurs trained in terrorist camps, Webb flatly said, “No.” Webb went on to say that he did not think other Guantanamo detinees should be tried in the US. “We spent hundreds of millions of dollars building an appropriate facility with all security precautions at Guantanamo to try these cases,” he said. “I do not believe they should be tried in the United States.”
Interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell agreed, saying, “I think we ought to leave Guantanamo open. It's a $200 million state-of-the-art facility. No one has ever escaped from there. It has courtrooms for the military commissions trials which the president has now correctly, in my view, decided, you know, maybe that's a good way to try some of these terrorists after all. My view is it's the perfect place for them.”
Stephanopoulos pointed out to Webb that in January, he’d supported the Obama administration plan to close Guantanamo within a year but Webb replied that he no longer thinks such a timeline is reasonable. The president might want to consider Sen. Webb’s line of thinking and reevaluate the hasty decision to declare that the facility will be closed by January 22, 2010. As Sen. McConnell said, “The president made a mistake by picking a date certain to close Guantanamo. He's changed his mind about a number of things. This is one, I think, that requires an adjustment in his position because I think he's going to have a very difficult time figuring out what to do with these terrorists.”
Stephanopoulos wrote yesterday, “If Sen. Webb’s any indication, the president is running into more trouble with his own party on his plans to close down Guantanamo.” Americans will have an opportunity to find out later this week when the Senate takes up the supplemental war funding bill. There will almost certainly be a vote on some aspect of the administration’s plan to close the facility and bring terror detainees to the US. Sen. McConnell reminded Chris Wallace on Sunday, “Two years ago, I offered an amendment on the floor of the Senate giving the Senate an opportunity to express itself on the question of whether or not terrorists should come to the United States. It was 94-3 against.” Tags:detainees, GITMO, Jim Webb, 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!
Vic Snyder’s Support of John Murtha's "Private" Airport
The National Republican Congressional Committee put together a commercial linking Rep. Vic Snyder (D-AR) to Rep. Nancy Pelosi and highlighting his vote for $800,000 to repave a runway a what is essentially John Murtha's (D-PA) private rural airport used by only around 20 passengers. Though Arkansas' conservative values are apparent to anyone who opens their eyes, Vic Snyder votes with ultra-liberals Nancy Pelosi and John Murtha 97% of the time in Congress. Is this who Arkansans need representing us in DC?
Jason Tolbert, The Tolbert Report: This could mean trouble for Snyder. The fact that the NRCC is starting to spend money seems to indicate that Snyder could face a challenge in 2010. This could be a result of the poll from The Political Firm showing Snyder’s reelection at virtual toss-up at 43% to 41%. My sources also tell me several individuals are looking at running, including Conway businessman David Meeks. Tags:airport, Arkansas, Congressional Pork, federal spending, John Murtha, liberals, Nancy Pelosi, news, NRCC, Pennsylvania, Politics, pork, The Tolbert Report, Vic Snyder, videoTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Mark Williams, Our Country Deserves Better: There's been a lot of press coverage about Barack Obama's speech at Notre Dame and the controversy surrounding the honorary degree bestowed upon Obama despite his pro-abortion stance.
But there was more to the story about Obama's actions of the day. Before he returned to Washington, D.C. Obama headlined two fundraisers that netted more than $500,000 for Democratic congressional candidates who face tough re-election campaigns. Here's the report from the Associated Press: "Before returning to Washington, Obama started in Indianapolis for two fund raisers. About 40 people attended a $15,000 per couple Democratic National Committee event which raised between $300,000 and $400,000. About 650 people attended a second fundraiser for four Indiana Democratic congressmen. That dinner cost $250 - $500 per person."
The message is clear, folks: Obama and the Democrats have already begun the campaign for the upcoming 2010 congressional elections and are determined to defeat you and I, and the conservative candidates we support.
Wonder if the American taxpayer paid for this trip for Obama to get his honorary degree and to conduct these fund raisers? Tags:Barack Obama, pro-abortion. abortion, campaigning, fundraiser, Notre DameTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Bill Smith, ARRA Editor: There is another ARRA out there and it isn't supportive of limited government or free enterprise. This new ARRA is the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" which is the official name of the stimulus package. I had an inquiry form a western state that was concerned what we meant by ARRA in our title. The ARRA News Service is an outreach project of the Arkansas Republican Assembly (ARRA) which has been around for a lot longer than this new ARRA. While we do not spend any of your hard earned money or support expanded government or funding of of projects using your money, this can not be said for the American Recovery and Investment Act which is also abbreviated ARRA.
I believe just four percent of the $768 billion stimulus package, formally known as American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, has been spent. Well, I found what some of that stimulus money is going for--signs like these that I encountered this morning on Skokie Boulevard in Skokie, Illinois.
Sheesh, it's bad enough that I have to pay for the stimulus bill, but why do I have to kick in for Obama's 2012 reelection campaign?
I'm wondering if these ARRA signs will be as ubiquitous as the NRA eagle was during the the early days of the Franklin Roosevelt presidency.
Tags:American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Arkansas Republican Assembly, ARRA, ARRA News Service, Bill Smith, federal spending, Marathon Pundit, stimulus, US DebtTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Tags:ABC News, government waste, liberal, National Debt, news, Obama administration, Obama Card, PoliticsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
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