Congress Must Stop the Trial in New York City

by Phyllis Schlafly: The U.S. Constitution can rescue us from the Obama Administration's latest push toward "remaking America." Our Constitution is on the people's side to stop Obama from turning the judiciary into a platform for America's sworn enemies to spread their propaganda and even use our own laws against us. Our Constitution's framers foresaw the probability that power-hungry men would try to take over the judiciary. So, they gave us the tools to maintain a government based on the separation of powers.

Obama's Attorney General, Eric Holder, has announced that he will move the trial of the confessed 9/11 terrorist mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, known as KSM, from a military court (where he ought to be tried) to a civilian court in New York City. Even worse, Holder plans to reward this terrorist with all the constitutional rights of any ordinary U.S. citizen defendant accused of an ordinary crime. KSM fits the statutory definition of a terrorist: an "unlawful enemy combatant" who engaged in premeditated, politically motivated violence against noncombatant targets. He's not a U.S. citizen, and he was arrested outside the United States.

The Constitution gives Congress the power to override this Obama-Holder outrage. Congress can and should prevent this travesty, and the sooner the better. We don't need any 2,000 page legislation; a single sentence will suffice. "Federal District Courts shall have no jurisdiction over any case involving unlawful enemy combatants, as that term is defined in the United States Code (title 10,  section 948a)."

Constitutional authority is clear. Article III, Section 1, states: "The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." Nothing is new or irregular about Congress prescribing or limiting the kinds of cases that federal courts are permitted to hear. A long historical record conclusively proves that Congress has the power to regulate and limit court jurisdiction, that Congress has used this power repeatedly, and that the courts have accepted it.

The great Chief Justice John Marshall asserted in an 1807 Supreme Court case that "courts which are created by written law, and whose jurisdiction is defined by written law, cannot transcend that jurisdiction."

In 2002, for example, Congress passed a law (at Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's urging) to prohibit federal courts from hearing cases about brush clearing in his home state of South Dakota. Public Law 107-206, Section 706(j). Pending environmental lawsuits were immediately halted, and a court order that was already issued became null and void.  Biodiversity Associates v. Cables, 357 F.3d 1152 (10th Cir. 2004).

There are many bad consequences to staging the trial of KSM in New York City. If he is given all civilian constitutional rights, the government will be required to turn over to him vast amounts of U.S. intelligence and information that will imperil national security and put us in danger of future acts of terrorism. The chief issue in the trial could become waterboarding rather than the 9/11 terrorist act that killed some 3,000 people. The Obama Administration is infested with transnationalists, i.e., lawyers who want to integrate foreign law or so-called international law into U.S. domestic law and impose it on Americans.

We wonder if the real purpose of moving this trial to New York is to put the George W. Bush Administration on trial in a foreign court, as the far Left has been demanding. The dangerous publicity and classified information emanating from the trial could give the opportunity to anti-Bush lawyers to take some of this material to the International Criminal Court (to which the United States does not even belong) or some other foreign court (such as Spain, which illegally tried Pinochet of Chile) and urge a trial against George W. Bush for war crimes.

Before Eric Holder became Attorney General, he and other Justice Department lawyers were in law firms that represented detainees at Guantanamo. Those lawyers should all be disqualified; they shouldn't have ever been hired by the Justice Department.

The trial of KSM would be a media circus for many months, much like the O.J. Simpson trial, only ten times as compelling. Defense lawyers will be eager to display their histrionics modeled on Johnnie Cochran's famous argument, "If the glove don't fit, you must acquit!" What if KSM is acquitted? And released onto the streets of New York? Holder was pathetic in defending his New York decision at a congressional hearing, even assuring the Congressmen that KSM would not be acquitted. Is Holder planning a show trial where the verdict is planned in advance?

Congress should act promptly to stop this dangerous move of KSM's trial from a military court to a federal court in New York. The Democratic Congress is loath to overrule Obama, but the longer this outrage festers in the public consciousness, the more it will damage the Obama Administration.

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Tags: constitution, Eric Holder, Islamic terrorism, Phyllis Schlafly, KSM trial To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Presidential Decision on Afghanistan

by Ken Catalino

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Tags: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Ken Catalino, political cartoon, Taliban To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

President Zero Doesn't Like America

Colonel BJ Brown, USAF - Retired, Contributing Author: I have a deepening lack of faith in the leadership of the present administration - for a number of reasons. Primary among those reasons is this: I don't think President Zero likes America. (Allow me to call him Zero because that is the sum total of what he is accomplishing for America)

I saw a photo of Zero, our supposedly commander-in-chief, standing at Arlington National Cemetery on November 11, 2009, with his hands clasped at his crotch as the National Anthem is being played. Dignitaries on the podium had their right hand over their heart while the military men stood at attention and saluted. He has absolutely no respect for our core American values.

President Zero did not grow up in the America we all grew up in. He has no background of "Mom, apple pie and baseball." His ancestry is not rooted in American values. He doesn't have a reference for the depression or a respect for our accomplishments in World War II (even though he cites his "grandfathers service" when necessary).

President Zero is neither smart nor articulate. Without a teleprompter he is prone to foolish talk and nonsense - much as is his Vice-President. A lot of President Zero's background is fabricated and fuzzy in content. There are no records for us to check so we rely on his narrative. I could make a human character out of cardboard that would be as close to real as his background.

President Zero is failing in his attempt to lead our country. He's failing in domestic and foreign policy, and he is not keeping in touch with the America people. He is just not one of us!

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Tags: Barack Obama, BJ Brown, President To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

“The Broken Door” – Lack of Enforcement of Immigration Law Threatens National Security

Jennifer Magyari, Assistant to the President at NumbersUSA: For many of us, the recent announcement that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - the alleged mastermind of the September 11th attacks - will be tried in Manhattan has brought back painful memories of the worst attack on United States soil in history. These memories are a reminder of how vulnerable our country can be to its enemies. What many failed to address in the wake of the 9/11 attacks was how closely tied immigration is to our national security.

An immigration policy that allows so many to enter the United States illegally, or fails to provide the means to track those who overstay visas, only encourages groups who desire to come to our country and harm us. This video, “The Broken Door,” addresses how groups like Al Qaeda are able to operate within our country under the radar of the United States government, often due to lack of enforcement of immigration laws.

Five of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were in violation of our immigration laws. They were illegally present in our country, and could have been detained or removed. Four of those hijackers had been pulled over for traffic violations and were in contact with police who did not check their immigration status with the federal government.

Nawaf al Hazmi, one of the Flight 77 hijackers, was in the United States on a short-term business visa that he overstayed. As of 1/16/01 he was unlawfully present in the United States- yet he was able to obtain a driver’s license from the state of Florida and an ID card from the state of Virginia in June and August of that year.

Hani Hanjour, the pilot of Flight 77, entered the United States in December of 2000 on a student visa - though he never enrolled in school - making his entire presence in our country unlawful. He was still able to obtain ID cards from the state of Virginia and Maryland in August and September of 2001.

Our government needs to enforce its immigration laws. We need to know who is coming into our country and monitor where they are once present.

The Visa Waiver program provides another major terrorist loophole- for many years allowing anyone from a select number of countries to enter the United States without obtaining a visa. Once inside, many are able to continue to live in our country, knowing it is unlikely their immigration status will be checked.

The real question is, why does our government choose not to fully enforce such important laws? Why do we allow so many, whose backgrounds we do not know, to enter our country and reside in it illegally?

According to the Immigration and Nationality Act, “Failure of an alien intending to remain in the United States for thirty days or longer to apply for registration and fingerprinting during that thirty-day period is a deportable offense.” Why are we not following through on laws in place to protect our national security?

The question we need to ask is, what fear do those who come to our country with the intent to do us harm face? Fear that it’s likely they will be found to be illegally residing in the United States? Not likely. Fear that if caught to be in violation of our immigration laws, it will be reported to the federal government and they will face deportation? Probably not. Our government needs to wake up and realize that the safety of American citizens and legal immigrants should be our top priority, and an important part of ensuring that safety is enforcing our immigration laws.

Please watch this teaser videoabove , or the full version of the video for more information on how our National Security is at risk due to uncontrolled immigration.
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Blogs for Borders

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Tags: border control, illegal aliens, illegal immigrants, illegal immigration, Islamic terrorism, national security, NumbersUSA, terrorism, terrorist, videos To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Competitive Enterprise Institute Sues NASA in Wake of Climategate Scandal

Christine Hall, CEI: In the wake of the ClimateGate scandal that erupted last week, the Competitive Enterprise Institute took legal action against several government agencies to force disclosure of public documents. In a post to Pajamasmedia, CEI Senior Fellow Christopher Horner, author of Red Hot Lies, explains:

The Competitive Enterprise Institute filed three Notices of Intent to File Suit against NASA and its Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), for those bodies’ refusal — for nearly three years — to provide documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act.

The information sought is directly relevant to the exploding “Climategate” scandal revealing document destruction, coordinated efforts in the U.S. and UK to avoid complying with both countries’ freedom of information laws, and apparent and widespread intent to defraud at the highest levels of international climate science bodies. Numerous informed commenters had alleged such behavior for years, all of which appears to be affirmed by leaked emails, computer code, and other data from the Climatic Research Unit of the UK’s East Anglia University.

All of that material, and that sought for years by CEI, goes to the heart of the scientific claims and campaign underpinning the Kyoto Protocol, its planned successor treaty, “cap-and-trade” legislation, and the EPA’s threatened regulatory campaign to impose similar measures through the back door.


CEI sought the following documents, among others. NASA’s failure to provide them within thirty days will prompt CEI to file suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia:
- Internal discussions about NASA’s quiet correction of its false historical U.S. temperature records after two Canadian researchers discovered a key statistical error, specifically: discussion about whether and why to correct certain records, how to do so, the impact, or wisdom, or potential (or real) fallout there from or reaction to doing so (requested August 2007).
– Internal discussions relating to the email sent to James Hansen and/or Reto A. Ruedy from a Stephen (Steve) McIntyre calling their attention to the errors in NASA/GISS online temperature data (August 2007).
– Those relating to the content, importance, or propriety of workday-hour posts or entries by GISS/NASA employee Gavin A. Schmidt on the weblog or “blog” RealClimate, which is owned by the advocacy Environmental Media Services and was started as an effort to defend the debunked “Hockey Stick” that is so central to the CRU files. RealClimate.org is implicated in the leaked files and expressly offered as a tool to be used “in any way you think would be helpful” to a certain advocacy campaign, including an assertion of Schmidt’s active involvement in, e.g., delaying and/or screening out unhelpful input by “skeptics” attempting to comment on claims made on the website.

This, and the related political activism engaged in, are inappropriate behavior for a taxpayer-funded employee, particularly on taxpayer time. These documents were requested in January 2007 and NASA/GISS have refused to date to comply with their legal obligation to produce responsive documents.
Christopher Horner is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute CEI). CEI submitted a

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Tags: CEI, climate change, climategate, Competitive Enterprise Institute, global warming hoax, lawsuit, NASA To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Leftwing Lies - Global Warming Fraud - Climategate

Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families: In past reports, I’ve expressed skepticism about the so-called global warming consensus. Not only did the science seem suspect, often contradicting common sense, but it was clearly ideologically driven. Like the promise that more government programs would save money, the radical environmental movement has a terrible track record of making hysterical predictions that never materialize. And its solutions are always the same – bigger government and higher taxes.

In recent days, there have been shocking revelations that the science behind the global warming scare may well be a total scam. E-mails have been leaked from key scientists that appear to expose blatant data manipulation and efforts to suppress dissent. Science and academia are supposed to be all about free inquiry. But these scientists are acting more like petty liberal ideologues determined to pursue their left-wing agenda regardless of the facts.

I won’t go into all of the details about the emails in this report. You can read more here and here. But this is not just a scientific scandal. “Climategate” is a huge political scandal as well, encompassing leading leftwing luminaries like Al Gore, who have been working for years to impose various socialist schemes aimed at undermining our sovereignty, crippling our economy and redistributing our wealth, all under the guise of combating global warming.

I’m pleased to report that conservative stalwart Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma is demanding an investigation, and rightly so, because the stakes are tremendous. The entire premise of cap and trade – massive new energy taxes and vastly expanded government power – rests on this apparent scam. It’s worth reminding everyone that 82% of House Democrats voted for it, while 94% of House Republicans opposed it.

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Tags: climategate, email, Gary Bauer, Global Warming Fraud, redistribution of wealth To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Counting the Cost

by Kerby Anderson, Point of View: How much will health care reform cost the American people? You get very different answers depending upon who you ask. The establishment media has been eager to publish the numbers generated by the Democratic proponents of health care reform but less interested in publishing the dollar estimates from others. Now that the House has passed a health care reform bill, analysts have been taking stock of many of the last-minute amendments that were added to the bill. Stephen Moore concludes that "it may turn out to be one of the most expensive bills in the history of Congress."

According to a re-scoring that the Republican staff of the Senate Budget Committee (based on Congressional Budget Office data), the ten-year price tag of the House bill would be nearly $3 trillion when the benefit provisions of the bill are phased in 2013-2014. This is almost twice the original estimates provided for this bill. Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire almost joined President Obama's cabinet. Nevertheless, he was quite critical of the health care bill and felt this new report "sheds light on the blue smoke and mirrors" the House Democrats have been playing. In his interview with Stephen Moore he said: "I am shocked at how fiscally irresponsible this bill is. I've never seen anything like it."

Over in the House of Representatives, a similar analysis has taken place. Paul Ryan of the House Budget Committee says the bill saves money in the short term "by frontloading the tax increases and backloading the new spending." He points out that the ten-year cost estimates are "only" $1.7 trillion, but that's because the spending doesn't start until 2013. And Representative Ryan reminds us that: "There has almost never been a new entitlement program that has come under cost." If these budget committee estimates are correct, then the American taxpayers should pay attention. At the time when our economy is in such bad shape, we cannot afford an additional $3 trillion. I'm Kerby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

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Tags: cost, government healthcare, Kerby Anderson, Point of View, US House To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Bo-Tax? Reid's New Nip/Tuck Tariff

President Obama campaigned on the promise that he wouldn't raise income tax on anyone earning more than $250,000 a year. Since his election, the President has even repeated his pledge. While some say he has already broken that promise by raising taxes on cigarettes by over 200 percent, anyone getting a nose job will feel like they are getting a snow job as well. Section 9017 of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) ill-named " Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" adds a tax on cosmetic surgery procedures: There is hereby imposed on any cosmetic surgery and medical procedure a tax equal to 5 percent of the amount paid for such procedure (determined without regard to this section), whether paid by insurance or otherwise. There's no income limit or floor that would exempt people from this tax. Not surprisingly, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Vice President Joe Biden have been silent on the new levy.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Harry Reid, tax increases, Bo-Tax, Nip/Tuck Tariff To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Weapons of Math Destruction

Tony Perkins, FRC Update: President Obama has introduced his latest initiative: Educate to Innovate. With the help of Big Bird and Elmo, the White House will be pushing math and science proficiency--something his own administration could desperately use. Last week, ABC News broke the story that the stimulus spending didn't add up, pointing to a serious breakdown in calculations by the Recovery Board. For starters, the website that monitors the stimulus dollars, www.recovery.gov, was bragging about job creation in places like Arizona's 15^th Congressional District. The only problem is the 15^th District doesn't exist! Nor does Puerto Rico's 99^th District, which is said to have received $47 million, and countless others. Apparently, the Recovery Board created to track the stimulus needs help keeping itself on track. 

Hundreds of millions of dollars are either missing or misidentified. In dozens of fake districts, the website claims millions of dollars were spent to create a handful of jobs. Take Oklahoma, for instance. Recovery.gov says it took the Sooners $19 million to create 15 jobs! Still, Ed Pound, a spokesman for the Recovery Board, announced yesterday that the agency has no intention of correcting its math. "Unless we find significant errors causing public confusion, we are not planning further corrections," said Pound. "Significant errors" like inflating the number of jobs created by 20,000? "Humans make mistakes," Pound told reporters. They sure do--like agreeing to bills like this one. 

If the administration is planning new lessons in science, sign the White House up for those too! Last week's Climategate showed how misguided the President's environmental policies--like cap-and-trade policies--have been. By cracking into the servers of the Climatic Research Units, hackers exposed the fraud of global warming in dozens of emails written by the world's environmental experts. According to the messages, scientists were manipulating the facts to hide their own inconvenient truth, which is that global temperatures have actually been on the decline. Of course, plenty of scientists had debunked those theories before the controversy, but President Obama insisted on moving forward with his agenda in direct contradiction to the facts.

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Tags: climate change, fraud, FRC, government, math, stimulus bill, Tony Perkins, Washington Update To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Happy Thanksgiving 2009

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From Our Archives: The Meaning of Thanksgiving:
The documents below clearly show the meaning of Thanksgiving as intended by the nation's Founders. Today in most public schools God is not mentioned and Thanksgiving becomes a historical event rather than a Christian celebration of thanks to God. Please pass the document links on to others or print them out for distribution.

• The First Thanksgiving Proclamation
• Continental Congress 1782 Thanksgiving Proclamation
• George Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation
• Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation
• Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamation for 2008

President Obama's 2009 Thanksgiving Day Proclamation
Observation: Although he historically recalls "President George Washington, who proclaimed our first national day of public thanksgiving to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God,” our new "politically correct" "post-American" President, unlike former Presidents, does not mention being that we should be grateful to God!

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Tags: 2009, ARRA News Service, Thanksgiving To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

USAF to Jettison 3,700 Military

Even the military is not safe from losing jobs and U.S. already faces unemployment exceeding 10%.
Stars and Stripes: The Air Force announced plans on Monday to cut 3,700 Airmen, saying the mix of a poor economy and good retention has swelled its ranks beyond manageability. The service will cut 2,074 officers and 1,633 enlisted Airmen through “voluntary and involuntary early separation and retirement programs,” an Air Force news release said. The reduction process to last into the next fiscal year . . .

A few years ago, the Air Force cut Airmen to draw down to 316,000 in order to free up money for more aircraft, such as the F-22. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates halted the personnel cuts after he fired the Air Force top civilian and military leadership in 2008.

The service then decided it needed to grow to 330,000 because it needed Airmen in areas such as the nuclear mission and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. As recently as January, the Air Force was seeking to bolster its officer corps by calling on retired or separated officers up to 60 years old.

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Tags: Air Force, American jobs, employment, USAF To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Say No to Cap and Trade

Americans for Prosperity is launching a new television ad campaign called "Say No to Cap and Trade"

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Tags: ad, AFP, video, cap-and-trade To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Obama's Horn of Plenty

by William Warren:

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Tags: America, Barack Obama, no jobs, political cartoon, William Warren To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Global Threat: Obama & Cabinet Secretaries Attending Climate Talks in Copenhagen

The Washington Post reports that President Obama will attend international climate talks next month in Copenhagen and commit the U.S. to a short-term emission reduction target "in the range of 17 percent" below 2005 levels, providing new momentum for negotiations that had been faltering. Obama will travel to the Danish capital Dec. 9, one day before he visits nearby Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.

In a further signal of the administration's commitment to the talks, the White House announced that it will dispatch an array of cabinet secretaries to Copenhagen. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson are all slated to attend, along with Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley, Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren, and Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change Carol Browner.
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From ALG News Press Release: This interesting quick response by the Obama administration comes on the heels of news about Climate Change being a hoax. Amid the growing "Climategate" scandal over data manipulation and suppression by the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU), Senator Jim Inhofe in calling for Congressional probes into the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) twhich "used CRU's data as the primary foundation for 'man-made' climate change science."

The scandal began after computer hackers broke into the servers of the University of East Anglia's (UEA) Climatic Research Unit. There, they found and published emails showing that researchers deliberately manipulated climate "change" data to hide the actual decline of the Earth's temperatures. According to the UK Telegraph, "Around 1,000 emails and 3,000 documents were stolen from UEA computers by hackers last week and uploaded on to a Russian server before circulating on websites run by climate change sceptics. Some of the correspondence indicates that the manipulation of data was widespread among global warming researchers."

One particular email from CRU director Phil Jones in 1999 stated, "I've just completed Mike's Nature [the science journal] trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline." [More information on Climategate]

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Tags: Barack Obama, climate change, Copenhagen, Global Warming Fraud, Obama administration To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Ken Blackwell Calls for Dismissal of Army Chief of Staff General George Casey

Bill Smith, ARRA Editor - Reflects on Ken Blackwell and General Casey: First, just think - the Republican National Committee could have had Ken Blackwell (a life long conservative activist, public servant and author - credentials below) as its Chairman. Ken walks boldly in the triad of conservatism as a social, economic, or national defense conservative. Ken Blackwell developed and made public a detailed plan to put the RNC on a solid foundation. The plan was endorsed by Morton Blackwell (a life long conservative activist and president of the Leadership Institute). Ken would have been an exceptionally strong conservative voice for the RNC addressing ACORN, Czars, the Obama Administration, and the deficit producing actions by the Democrat controlled Congress. Ken continues to be on the ARRA Editor's favorites list of conservative writers.

Second, as a retired career military officer, I believe General Casey should immediately retire! When Casey placed "political correctness" as his preferred foundation verses Duty, Honor, Country, and loyalty and the protection of the troops, their families, and civilians under his command, he fulfilled the "Peter principle" and is no longer fit to command.
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by Ken Blackwell, Contributing Author: We don't yet know how bad the Ft. Hood shooter's case was. We do not know -- and we must find out -- how it was possible for an Army medical officer to openly express treasonous statements and not be court-martialed. We do not know if the shooter or his family members were under surveillance by the FBI or other federal law enforcement agencies. We must soon find out.

But we do know this much: Gen. George Casey, the Army Chief of Staff, raced to the Sunday morning talk shows to express his deep concern. Gen. Casey's concern was not for American victory in the war on terror, nor for the safety of the American people, nor for the safety of U.S. military personnel. Gen. Casey's greatest concern was for diversity.

He said that if diversity were a "casualty," then it would be an even greater tragedy than the murders of fourteen innocent Americans. If we want to know how such an obvious terror threat was ignored, how such a mass killer was enabled, we need look no further than the command climate created by Gen. Casey and his politically correct subordinates.

If you are serving in a forward unit of the Army today, can you have confidence that your fellow soldier can be trusted to "have your back"? Can you sleep soundly in an Army barracks wondering whether your bunkmate might be a jihadist?  Unit cohesion is essential to any effective fighting force. Troops must trust one another when their lives are on the line. By winking at treason, Gen. Casey and his subordinates allowed Major Nidal Hasan's conduct to taint every Muslim currently serving in the U.S. military.

No one has a right to serve. Service is an honor and a privilege, but it is not a right. Colorblind people and people with heart murmurs are perfectly loyal Americans. It casts no aspersion on them or their families to be excluded from military service.  All military personnel in the U.S. Armed Forces must demonstrate their loyalty to the United States of America. When they raise their right hand and take that oath before God to protect the Constitution of the United States "from all enemies foreign and domestic," Americans have a right to expect that that oath will be enforced. No one gets a pass.

Gen. Casey has clearly failed to do this. No action could reassure our troops more in the wake of the worst case of domestic terrorism since 9/11 that national security and loyalty to the United States is the first requirement for military service than the dismissal of Gen. Casey.  Our all-volunteer military should know that even a four-star general is held to the same high standard that we expect of the lowest-ranking enlisted man or woman. From now on, it should be understood by all our serving men and women that you can report disloyal, insubordinate, and treasonous statements by anyone in the military and that that report will be acted upon promptly.

Only if this lesson is forcefully taught by the prompt, public dismissal for cause of Gen. Casey will the troops have renewed confidence that they can trust all their fellow soldiers. They must know that the United States will be loyal to them as they are loyal to the United States.  In this, as in so many things, George Washington said it best. In his historic letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport in 1790, he wrote:

[The] Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

Notice this strong pledge of respect for rights of religious minorities comes with a stern requirement: All good citizens must give their "effectual support." Can anyone say that Major Hasan -- after more than a decade of taxpayer-funded education and special treatment -- gave the United States his effectual support? Of course not.  There were warning signs aplenty. Many of the shooter's classmates and fellow officers raise concerns about this man's loyalty and reliability. The command climate created by Gen. Casey stifled those warning cries. The result is the death of innocents. Gen. Casey must be replaced as Army chief of staff.
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Mr. Ken Blackwell is a conservative family values advocate. He submitted this article to the ARRA News Service Editor which also appears in his American Thinker. Blackwell is a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council and American Civil Rights Union.

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Tags: Bill Smith, Ft Hood, General George Casey, Ken Blackwell, political correctness, US Army To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

American Voters Tired of Obama False Hope & Destructive Changes

Bill Smith, Editor: The latest numbers show that Barack Obama's popularity is falling almost as fast as former Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa fell after being outfitted with cement shoes and tossed into  Lake Michigan. Oops, may now have to update the Jimmy Hoffa Wiki. I like what John Allison at "America, You Asked for It!" says about this change in Obama's popularity, "Hope and Change. That’s what President Obama promised on the campaign trail last year and voters lapped it up. Our President, who had less executive experience than most hot dog vendors at the time of his election, has pressed hard to fulfill the second half of his slogan but obviously missed the mark on the first part. Since January, he’s fed American citizens a steady diet of radical Change that’s left them feeling more Despair than Hope."

Let's look at today's Rasmussen Report numbers:

Nation's Voters View of Obama's Performance as President:
 27% trongly Approve
 42% Strongly Disapprove
 -15 Presidential Approval Index
 52% of Democrats Strongly Approve
 68% of Republicans Strongly Disapprove
 16% of Independents Strongly Approve
 51% of Independents Strongly Disapprove
 54% of ALL voters Now Disapprove
 53% of voters worry that the federal government will do too much when it comes to reacting to the nation’s financial problems. That’s up seven points since President Obama took office.
 38% (a new low) support for health care plan by the Democrats.
 60% of voters believe passage of the bill will lead to higher health care costs.

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Tags: American, American Indian Health, appropriations, Barack Obama, Rasmussen Reports, voters To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Blue Dogs - Including Berry, Lincoln & Pryor - Pee on Constituents

by Lisa Benson

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Boot Berry

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Tags: Blanche Lincoln, Blue Dog, Lisa Benson, Marion Berry, Mark Pryor, politcial cartoon, taxpayers To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

ACORN Puts Sensitive Documents in Dumpster

Fox News: A private investigator says he found tens of thousands of sensitive documents dumped outside a California ACORN office just days after the state attorney general announced an inquiry into the community organizing group.  Derrick Roach, a licensed investigator based in San Diego, told FoxNews.com he paid an impromptu visit to the city's ACORN branch on Oct. 9 and watched from his car as a man tossed bags of files into a Dumpster outside the building.

After ACORN staff left for the day, he says, he searched the trash bin and discovered more than 20,000 documents he believes point to illicit relationships between ACORN and a bank and a labor union — as well as confidential information that could put thousands at risk for identity theft. "We're talking people's driver's license numbers, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, tax returns, credit reports" — all tossed in public view in the Dumpster, he said.

In one document shared with FoxNews.com, an ACORN employee's name, address, date of birth, Social Security number and driver's license number were revealed, and photocopies of the employee's license and Social Security card were also included. Another document showed bank account information for a woman paying an ACORN membership fee by check.  "It was just a careless disregard for the people that ACORN claimed to be helping," Roach told FoxNews.com. "They put these people at risk."  Roach said that data breach laws bar dumping like the kind he uncovered at ACORN's office. Tossing the documents into a Dumpster, he said, constitutes a crime in California. "So if someone wanted to, they could bring legal action against ACORN for doing this," he said. 

A top ACORN official in California apologized for the lapse Monday, saying that some confidential information might have been thrown away during a massive clean-up of their offices last month. "In early October, when our San Diego staff were doing an office clean-up in preparation for a major 10-station phone bank program being set up in our offices, it appears that included in the piles of garbage being thrown out may have been some documents containing private information," said Amy Schur, state head organizer for California ACORN, in an e-mailed statement.

Schur implied that "this guy" Roach, a former Republican candidate for statewide office, may have had political motivations for unearthing the documents. She said ACORN would seek the return of the documents "so that we may give proper notice of the compromising of the information as required by law."

Roach told FoxNews.com he has been going over the trove of ACORN files and has found connections to the California Teachers Association and to Citibank. "ACORN was acting as an agent" for Citibank, Roach charged. "They had mortgage information for homeowners ... who were in foreclosure, who were in default."
Roach says that the documents suggest that ACORN staffers would go out on "assignments" to take pictures of some residences or even to "go out and actually make contact" with people living in homes financed by Citibank loans. He said he believes Citibank will have to report to its customers that their information may have been at risk when ACORN threw it away. "They took information and they just dumped it in the garbage," he said.

Citibank ran an outreach program through ACORN that utilized the group's local staff to encourage homeowners at risk of defaulting on their mortgages to contact the bank and work on avoiding defaults. That relationship has since been severed, a spokesman for Citigroup told FoxNews.com in an e-mail.

"Over time, Citi has worked with a variety of not-for-profit partners, including ACORN, to provide financial education, meet affordable lending needs, promote stable homeownership for low- to moderate- income consumers and help in foreclosure prevention," the spokesman said. "We are deeply concerned about the recent media reports regarding ACORN. We recently suspended our charitable financial support and program relationships with ACORN, and we are waiting for the results of the independent audit of ACORN's activities now underway."

Roach also charged that the California Teachers Association, the state's largest teachers' union, was "funneling information to ACORN for political activity" — a relationship that he said would not be illegal but would require ACORN and the CTA to disclose fully. "I've done some checking into the reports that have been filed for the CTA, for ACORN, and I'm not finding any of this information being disclosed," he said. He did not provide any documents illustrating the relationship to FoxNews.com.

CTA spokesman Mike Myslinksi said the union had no comment on documents it had not seen. "That's out of left field," he said.

Roach's accusation comes in the wake of a national scandal for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now Staffers were caught on tape this summer in six cities offering to help a pair of filmmakers posing as a pimp and prostitute to lie to the IRS and acquire illegal home loans. ACORN fired an employee in its San Diego office, Juan Carlos Vera, after video surfaced of him offering to help the "pimp" and "prostitute" smuggle in girls from Tijuana, Mexico, noting that he had many contacts in the city who could assist in smuggling them across the border.

The group is now under investigation by a number of city, state and federal agencies, and Congress has cut off funding for the group. On Oct. 1, California Attorney General Jerry Brown launched a state investigation of ACORN. It was just eight days later that Roach says he retrieved the sensitive files — timing he says he finds fishy. "I think if you look at the timeline [Sic] of events when the attorney general made the announcement, when the documents were dumped, I think that it's highly suspicious."

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StopAcorn.org

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Without American Support - Obama Demands ObamaCare

by William Warren:

Text:
Obama: Oh, so they want to be difficult, Huh? FINE THEN! We'll pass this health care bill with or without their support.
Rasmussen Pollster: Republicans?
Obama: No, the American people.  [Holding Rasmussen Report dated 11/23/09 - reads: "Only 38% in Favor."]

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Tags: Barack Obama, health care, Obamacare, political cartoon, polls, Rasmussen Reports, William Warren To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Palin's 'Going Rogue' Has Huge Book Sales

NewsMax — "Going Rogue" is going big. Publisher HarperCollins said Friday that Sarah Palin's memoir sold 300,000 copies its first day, among the best openings ever for a nonfiction book. In 2004, Bill Clinton's "My Life" debuted with sales of 400,000 copies. The year before, Hillary Rodham Clinton's "Living History" started at 200,000... [Read More]
 Gunning for Sarah Palin
 Bill O'Reilly: Hammering Sarah
 Palinophobes hate first, ask questions later
 David Limbaugh: Sally Quinn on Sarah Palin -- versus reality
 Cal Thomas: Sarah Palin and the future of conservatism
 Palin gives Oprah biggest audience in two years
 Cal Thomas: Sarah Palin and the future of conservatism
 Poll: Most Iowa Republicans like Palin for 2012
 Sarah Palin vs Barack Obama: The approval gap silently shrinks to a few points

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Tags: book tour, Sarah Palin To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

$800 Billion Gorilla

by Paul Jacob: It somehow didn't come up. Last week, when President Barack Obama met with Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, there was reportedly no discussion of the fact that our country owes China over $800 billion.

Just suppose you owed someone $800 bucks . . . or $800,000. Do you think it could affect the relationship? What about nearly a trillion dollars?

The Obama Administration just announced that American-Chinese relations are "at an all-time high." But a story in the Washington Post compared our relationship with China to the nuclear stalemate of the Cold War, known as "mutually assured destruction," or MAD. We're dependent on them for future loans; they're dependent on us to pay back old loans and new.

Kenneth Lieberthal of the Brookings Institution explained that "the Chinese can pull the rug out from under our economy only if they want to pull the rug out from under themselves." Reassuring? Not very. Why have we allowed a foreign power to gain such leverage over us? Because our politicians cannot -- will not -- limit their yearly spending to the trillion-plus dollars in revenue from American taxpayers.

When it comes to debt, China's tyrants have taken better care of their country than our politicians have of ours. But we needn't cede them control. Far better simply to stop borrowing billions from Beijing.

How? Slash spending. If our politicians can't do it for us, maybe they can do it for their Chinese allies. This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.

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Tags: Barack Obama, China, Chinese flag, RPC, The White House, U.S. Property To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Lincoln’s Saturday Vote was Theatrical Hypocrisy

LITTLE ROCK, AR (11/23/09)- U.S. Senate Republican candidate Curtis Coleman said today that Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s vote for the motion to proceed on debate on the Reid health care bill last Saturday evening was theatrical hypocrisy. “It was a moment of high political theatre as Sen. Lincoln appeared to single-handedly keep alive the future of the Obama/Pelosi Administration’s hallmark project. In what other deliberative or legislative body on the planet can someone vote for something while saying they’re voting against it? It was theatrical hypocrisy,” Coleman said.

“Arkansans are much more politically savvy than Sen. Lincoln seems to give them credit. They understand that her dramatic vote on Saturday evening was much more than a procedural vote. It was the vote for the federal bureaucracy’s takeover of our everyday personal and private medical decisions, an incalculable further erosion of the basic liberties and freedoms of the American people. The fact is when Sen. Lincoln voted for the motion to proceed, she created an eventual scenario where only 51 votes will be required to pass legislation for the government’s takeover of our personal healthcare decisions. When only 51 votes are needed, Sen. Lincoln can ‘safely’ vote against the bill when her vote won’t be needed to guarantee passage,” Coleman warned.

“Tragically, Sen. Lincoln’s vote was a clear and unmitigated betrayal of Arkansans – reflecting her disturbing disconnection from and her distressing disrespect for her employers. A recent poll by a reputable firm showed that almost 70% of Arkansans opposed the health care bill for which Sen. Lincoln voted. Reportedly, calls coming into her office late last week were 15-1 against her voting as she did,” Coleman stressed.

“Senator Lincoln had an opportunity to be a goodwill guardian for the people of our state. In siding with the national Democratic team, she failed to protect the best interests of the people who entrusted her with the office. I am deeply disappointed that, when all is said and done, Sen. Lincoln decided to vote for the Senate Democratic leadership over the interests of the hard-working people of Arkansas,” Coleman said.

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Tags: Arkansas, Blanche Lincoln, Curtis Coleman, government healthcare, Senate 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. - Nov 23, 2009 - Congress in Recess Playing at Home

Updated recess schedule: Congress is in recess. The House will reconvene at 6:30 PM on Tuesday, December 1, 2009; the Senate will reconvene Monday, November 30th. At that time the Senate will resume consideration of the Reid substitute amendment to H.R. 3590, the vehicle for Democrats’ health care reform bill. As previously reported, the Senate voted 60-39 along party lines to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to the Democrats’ 2,074-page health care bill.

Comment from Sam Adams MMIV: Now that Senate Majority Reader Harry Reid and the White House have convinced 60 Democrat senators to vote to proceed to the Senate health care bill which raises taxes, raises premiums, and cuts Medicare, a full debate with a significant amendment process will begin next week. One of the key problems Americans will be pointing out is the massive expansion of government spending and debt that will come if this bill is passed.  As Senate Budget Committee Judd Gregg (R) has explained, when fully implemented the Democrats’ bill will cost $2.5 trillion in its first decade. Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell told senators before Saturday’s vote, “At a moment when more than one out of ten working Americans is looking for a job, at a time when the Chinese are lecturing us about our debt . . . this bill right here costs $2.5 trillion government doesn’t have. And cannot afford.”

Today’s New York Times has an alarming report that confirms this. The Times reports, “Treasury officials now face a trifecta of headaches: a mountain of new debt, a balloon of short-term borrowings that come due in the months ahead, and interest rates that are sure to climb back to normal as soon as the Federal Reserve decides that the emergency has passed.

“With the national debt now topping $12 trillion, the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher. In concrete terms, an additional $500 billion a year in interest expense would total more than the combined federal budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The potential for rapidly escalating interest payouts is just one of the wrenching challenges facing the United States after decades of living beyond its means.”

And few things would add to this burden more than a multi-trillion-dollar experience in government-run health care. According to the NYT, “The problem, many analysts say, is that record government deficits have arrived just as the long-feared explosion begins in spending on benefits under Medicare and Social Security. The nation’s oldest baby boomers are approaching 65, setting off what experts have warned for years will be a fiscal nightmare for the government.” And yet Democrats are pushing to pass a bill that cuts nearly half a trillion dollars from Medicare to spend on a new entitlement, instead of fixing the fiscal mess Medicare is in.

The American people are well aware of the problem. In his column yesterday, The Washington Post’s David Broder pointed to the last week’s Quinnipiac poll which asked Americans if they thought Obama and the Congress would uphold the president’s promise that any health care bill won’t add to the budget deficit. Broder wrote, “The answer: Less than one-fifth of the voters -- 19 percent of the sample -- think he will keep his word. Nine of 10 Republicans and eight of 10 independents said that whatever passes will add to the torrent of red ink. By a margin of four to three, even Democrats agreed this is likely. That fear contributed directly to the fact that, by a 16-point margin, the majority in this poll said they oppose the legislation moving through Congress.”

Even some Senate Democrats claim to understand the problem here. The Wall Street Journal pointed out yesterday, “‘We simply cannot ignore the growth in the federal government since the year 2000. I can assure you that the American people have not ignored it,’ [Sen. Blanche] Lincoln [D-AR] declared in her Senate floor speech—moments before she said she would vote to proceed with the biggest expansion of government in living memory.”

As. Sen. McConnell explained Saturday, “[A] vote in favor of this bill is a vote in favor of the spending binge that’s leading to a massive and unsustainable long-term debt that will shackle our children to a future they can’t afford.” But Lincoln and her Democrat colleagues voted to advance the bill anyway. Adding a $2.5 trillion entitlement that raises health care costs to the sea of red ink drowning the United States is not reform. [Sam Adams MMIV is a pen name for an un-named beltway source.]

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Tags: government run, health care, 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!

Den of Thieves?

Just How much do you get ? See what the new Barack Hussein Obama Helpers get! Remember: This all happened in just the FIRST QUARTER, folks!

$34,000: The amount of federal taxes that Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner (D) failed to pay during his employment at the International Monetary Fund despite receiving extra compensation and explanatory brochures that described his tax liabilities. [Source]

$75,000: The amount of money that the head of the powerful tax-writing committee, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), was forced to report on his taxes after the discovery that he had not reported income from a Dominican Republic rental property. His excuses for the failure started with blaming his wife, then his accountant and fin ally the fact that he didn't speak Spanish. [Source]

$93,000: The INCREASE in the amount of petty cash each of our Congressional representatives voted to give themselves in January 2009 during the height of an economic meltdown. That's a $40 + million INCREASE! [Source]

$133,900: The amount Fannie Mae "invested" in Chris Dodd (D-CT), head of the powerful Senate Banking Committee, presumably to repel oversight of the GSE prior to its meltdown. Said meltdown helped touch off the current economic crisis. In only a few years time, Fannie also "invested" over $105,000 in then-Senator Barack Obama. [Source]

$140,000: The amount of back taxes and interest that Cabinet nominee Tom Daschle (D) was forced to cough up after the vetting process revealed significant, unexplained tax liabilities. [Source]

$356,000: The approximate amount of income and deductions that Daschle (D) was forced to report on his amended 2005 and 2007 tax returns after being caught cheating on his taxes. This includes $255,256 for the use of a car service, $83,333 in unreported income, and $14,963 in charitable contributions. [Source]

$800,000: The amount of "sweetheart" mortgages Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) received from Countrywide Financial, the details for which he has refused to release details despite months of promises to do so. Countrywide was once the nation's largest mortgage lender and linked to Government-Sponsored Entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Their meltdown precipitated the current financial crisis. Just days ago in Pennsylvania, Countrywide was forced to pay $150,000,000 in mortgage assistance following "a state investigation that concluded that Countrywide relaxed its underwriting standards to sell risky loans to consumers who did not understand them and could not afford them." [Source]

$1,000,000: The estimated amount of donations by Denise Rich, wife of fugitive Marc Rich, to Democrat interests and the William J. Clinton Foundation in an apparent quid pro quo deal that resulted in a pardon for Mr. Rich. The pardon was reviewed and blessed by Obama Attorney General and then Deputy AG Eric Holder, despite numerous requests by government officials to turn it down. [Source]

$12,000,000: The amount of TARP money provided to community bank OneUnited despite the fact that it did not qualify for funds, and was "under attack from its regulators for allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay abuses." It turns out that Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), a key contributor to the Fannie Mae meltdown, just happens to be married to one of the bank's former directors. [Source]

$23,500,000: The upper range of net worth Rep. Allan Mollohan (D-WV) accumulated in four years time according to The Washington Post through earmarks of "tens of millions of dollars to groups associated with his own business partners." [Source]

$2,000,000,000: $2 billion - The approximate amount of money that House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-WI) is earmarking related to his son's lobbying efforts. The son, Craig Obey, is "a top lobbyist for the nonprofit group" that would receive a roughly $2 billion component of the "Stimulus" package. [Source] and [Source]

$3,700,000,000: $3.7 billion - the estimated value of various defense contracts awarded to a company controlled by the husband of Rep. Diane Feinstein (D-CA). Despite an obvious conflict-of-interest as "a member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, Sen. Feinstein voted for appropriations worth billions to her husband's firms?." [Source]

$4,190,000,000: $4.19 billion - the amount of money in the so-called "Stimulus" package devoted to fraudulent voter registration ACORN group under the auspices of "Community Stabilization Activities". ACORN is currently the subject of a RICO suit in Ohio. [Source]

$1,646,000,000,000 $1.646 trillion - The approximate amount of annual United States exports endangered by the "Stimulus" package, which provides a "Buy American" stricture. According to international trade experts, a "US-EU trade war looms": which could result in a worldwide economic depression reminiscent of that touched off by the protectionist Smoot-Hawley Act. [Source]

It's becoming a culture of corruption and stupidity. In addition, these folks appear to be above the law. All of the aforementioned are still in office, living like the royalty they think they are.

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Tags: Charlie Rangel, Chris Dodd, thieves, Timothy Geithner, Tom Daschle, Washington D.C. To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Maxine on Universal Health Care

Here is the solution:
     While discussing the upcoming Universal Health Care Program with my sister-in-law the other day, I think we have found the solution. I am sure you have heard the ideas that if you're a senior you need to suck it up and give up the idea that you need any health care. A new hip? Unheard of. We simply can't afford to take care of you anymore. You don't need any medications for your high blood pressure, diabetes, heart problems, etc. Let's take care of the young people. After all, they will be ruling the world very soon.

 So here is the solution. When you turn 70, you get a gun and 3 bullets. You are allowed to shoot one senator and 2 representatives.. Of course, you will be sent to prison where you will get 3 meals a day, a roof over your head and all the health care you need! New teeth, great! Need glasses, no problem! New hip, knee, kidney, lung, heart? Well, bring it on. And who will be paying for all of this?  The same government that just told you that you are too old for health care. And, since you are a prisoner, you don't have to pay any income tax.

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Tags: government healthcare, government run, Maxine, political humor To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!