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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, September 04, 2010
Tea Partiers: Do You Still Beat Your Wife?
Mike Landry
By Mike Landry, Contributing Author: Here’s The Narrative of the leftist establishment: Tea Partiers oppose Barack Obama because he is black. Also, they embrace white supremacy, they use racial epithets, and they hoist signs dripping with the vilest racial hate.
That’s The Narrative promoted by the mainstream media, by the NAACP, and by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Narrative paints the Tea Party as racist. But the leftist establishment is careful not to directly come out and say such harsh things – the falsity is just too obvious. They just want to nudge The Narrative along.
In so many words leftists soothingly say, “Well, Tea Partiers are not racist, but they have racist elements within them and they need to address that.” Clever. There’s deniability (“We didn’t actually say the Tea Party is racist”) and there’s the call to do the impossible: keep every nut, weirdo or covert leftist from identifying somehow with the Tea Party. It’s the old “Do you still beat your wife?” gambit.
In a loosely allied grassroots movement composed of millions, everyone knows some crazies will surface, that there will be things that are inappropriate, and words that make all decent people cringe. Are Tea Partiers able to control all such nonsense? No way, although there was quick response by the Federation of Tea Parties to eject Mark Williams for racist satire he wrote.
But Big Leftists really don’t care about Tea Partiers cleaning up the fringes. Rather, they use propaganda techniques to sell the public on The Narrative. Because the Tea Parties represent what the left cannot stand: dissent.
Note what CNN sometimes does when they claim racism on the part of Tea Partiers: CNN’s audio speaks of racism, while the video portion shows Tea Partiers holding signs critical of Barack Obama. What they’re in effect doing is making a connection: criticism of President Obama is racist. Television’s propaganda effect is powerful and this production technique drills home the idea that dissent is wrong, especially against our historic first black president. And that’s what this besmirching of the Tea Party is all about: an attempt to crush dissent. But what about reports of those awful signs?
I recently Googled “Tea Party signs.” I went through several pages and found one sign that would be what I consider to be marginally racist. It said “Obama’s Plan: White Slavery.” Later, I visited the NAACP web site.
It showed that same sign along with three others into which some could read racist intent. Also, there was one sign in really bad taste: “The American Tax Payers Are the Jews for Obama’s Ovens.” And there was one sign – one – that used a vile racial epithet. And although the guy holding the sign couldn’t even correctly spell the word, his sign was not a reference to the President, but to how Congress was treating the American people.
I have no intention to mitigate any evil or wrongheadedness or poor judgment or perhaps just plain ignorance on the part of people depicted on the NAACP web site. However, given the power of Google and the resources of the leftist establishment, why do we not see Tea Party signs personally attacking President Obama on the blatantly racist grounds that The Narrative claims are always out there? You know the reason why.
For the same reason there’s been an inability for anyone to claim a $100,000 reward for recorded evidence of Tea Party racial taunts against Reps. Andre Carson, John Lewis, and Emanuel Cleaver. This was supposed to have occurred in a public event with presumably all kinds of recorded devices present. There’s no evidence it happened, but The Narrative regularly repeats it as fact.
Back to the NAACP page. It contains one more sign: a portrayal of Obama as Hitler. Again, The Narrative: on a page alleging Tea Party racism is a picture which, in effect, satirizes the President. To be sure, “satire” is too mild a word for the depiction. It is a serious charge. Some would say it is an accusation that is over the top. I hope it is, but honestly some days I’m not so sure. But the sign has nothing to do with race. Any more than representations of the President as Stalin or the Joker do. But it is a picture of dissent, and, again, that’s what the attack on the Tea Party is about.
When Tea Partiers first gained presence on the national stage, leftists sniffed and smirked at what they saw as uneducated lowlifes. But they discovered that Tea Partiers tended to be higher than average in education and income, so the criticism switched to Tea Partiers being self-centered people who want to preserve their privilege. Then there were allegations that Tea Partiers were really about violence. Right. Have you seen these people? It’s hard to keep a straight face and consider the image of old ladies as potential threats to menacing riot police. Accusations failed to stop the growth and influence of the Tea Party, so leftists were required to resort to the one tactic they can always rely on when things go badly for them: pull the pin on the racism grenade and throw it into the crowd.
Boom!
When the smoke cleared, some Tea Partiers were taken aback. As novices to the steely world of politics, they felt personally hurt. They didn’t realize this pain is part of their strength, that it is the essential uprightness of the Tea Partiers and their cause that is underscored when its people take to heart accusations that attempt to describe them as having evil motives. Would white supremacists get their feelings hurt when called racist? Not likely.
The racism grenade is part of the arsenal. Given the charge of racism, we in the Tea Party should not go on the defense. Resolve issues, a la Mark Williams, point out the public infiltrators attempting to draw cameras to themselves, but don’t play into the hands of the opposition by being defensive or demoralized. Recognize that we often are not dealing with people of honor, but rather with those who use innuendo, lies and intimidation.
Note their accusations, watch their sleights of hand. Continue your defense of Constitution and country, but don’t worry too much about defending yourselves. In spite of current cynical efforts to divide us, by God’s grace Americans of all races and identities will remember that we are One People. And we and the truth will prevail. ------------- Mike Landry is a university business professor, a former minister, journalist, radio talk show host, He is actively involved with Arkansas' Washington County Tea Party and he blogs the Wildcat Creek Review. This article also appeared in American Thinker. Tags:>Mike Landry, Arkansas, TEA party, false accusations, politcisTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
When You're Holding a Hammer (Everything Looks Like a Nail)
A Tennessee middle school football coach is looking to the future after his termination for alleged political incorrectness. Twenty-six-year-old Bryan Glover is a Christian who co-wrote a song called "When You're Holding a Hammer, Everything Looks Like a Nail," which takes a dig at the current administration and what he believes to be the wrong moves for the U.S. He sent a link to his song to everyone in his personal e-mail inbox, which included parents from Grassland Middle School, where he coached football. . . . [Read More][Below Video]
Tags:video, music, Tea party, Bryan Glover, When Your Holding a HammerTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
By Michelle Malkin GOPUSA: To mark Labor Day 2010, President Obama will join hands with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in Milwaukee and pose as champions of the working class. Bad move. Trumka's organizing record is a shameful reminder of the union movement's violent and corrupt foundations.
The new Obama/AFL-CIO power alliance -- underwritten with $40 million in hard-earned worker dues -- is a midterm shotgun marriage of Beltway brass knuckles and Big Labor brawn. Trumka warmed up his rhetorical muscles this past week with full-frontal attacks on former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. He indignantly accused her of "getting close to calling for violence" and suggested that her criticism of Tea Party-bashing labor bosses amounted to "terrorizing" workers.
Trumka and Obama will cast Big Labor as an unassailable force for good in American history. But when it comes to terrorizing workers, Trumka knows whereof he speaks.
Meet Eddie York. He was a workingman whose story will never scroll across Obama's teleprompter. A nonunion contractor who operated heavy equipment, York was shot to death during a strike called by the United Mine Workers 17 years ago. Workmates who tried to come to his rescue were beaten in an ensuing melee. The head of the UMW spearheading the wave of strikes at that time? Richard Trumka. Responding to concerns about violence, he shrugged to the Virginian-Pilot in September 1993: "I'm saying if you strike a match and you put your finger in it, you're likely to get burned." Incendiary rhetoric, anyone?
A federal jury convicted one of Trumka's UMW captains on conspiracy and weapons charges in York's death. According to the Washington, D.C.-based National Legal and Policy Center, which tracks Big Labor abuse, Trumka's legal team quickly settled a $27 million wrongful death suit filed by York's widow just days after a judge admitted evidence in the criminal trial. An investigative report by Reader's Digest disclosed that Trumka "did not publicly discipline or reprimand a single striker present when York was killed. In fact, all eight were helped out financially by the local."
In Illinois, Trumka told UMW members to "kick the s**t out of every last" worker who crossed his picket lines, according to the Nashville (Ill.) News. And as the National Right to Work Foundation, the leading anti-forced unionism organization in the country, pointed out, other UMW coalfield strikes resulted in what one judge determined were "violent activities ... organized, orchestrated and encouraged by the leadership of this union."
Trumka washed off the figurative bloodstains and moved up the ranks. As AFL-CIO secretary, he notoriously refused to testify in a sordid 1999 embezzlement trial involving his labor boss brethren at the Teamsters Union. No surprise. Thugs of a feather: Trumka's violence-promoting record echoes the riotous Teamsters strikes dating back to the 1950s, when the union organized taxicab companies to target workers with gas bombs, bottles and fists.
And now, Trumka is spearheading a Democratic Party get-out-the-vote campaign by far-left groups -- publicized in the revolutionary Marxist People's World -- to "energize an army of tens of thousands who will return to their neighborhoods, churches, schools and voting booths to prevent a Republican takeover of Congress in November and begin building a new permanent coalition to fight for a progressive agenda."
Take those as literal fighting words. The bloody consequences of compulsory unionism cannot be ignored.
------------ Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2010). Tags:Michelle Malkin, Barack Obama, unions, big labor, Labor Day, AFL, CIO, Richard TrumkaTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Barack Obama & Dmitry Medvedev
shake hands as they exchange the signed new
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II)
by Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum: Among the dangers lurking in Congress's fall session and Lame Duck Session will be Obama's demand that the Senate rush to ratify the treaty called New START, which he signed with the Russians in Prague last April. This treaty is not only a bad idea; it's downright dangerous to U.S. national security.
For the first time in the long record of U.S.-Russian treaties, New START links offensive and defensive weapons. Obama's advocates of ratification say that doesn't matter because the link is only in the preamble and that doesn't bind us. But this interpretation hasn't been cleared with the Russians, who assert that the preamble puts a binding limit on the U.S. missile defense program. The Russian government issued a statement that the New START treaty "can operate and be viable only if the United States refrains from developing its missile defense capabilities quantitatively or qualitatively."
The Russians are salivating at the thought that the New START proclaims their victory in their long-running battle to kill U.S. missile defenses. For decades, Russia's primary goal was to stop the United States from building any anti-missile capability. Ronald Reagan's adamant refusal to give up his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was the principal reason he won the Cold War (without firing a shot, as Margaret Thatcher said). But now Barack Obama is casually willing to abandon our right to build defensive weapons.
Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) accurately warns that New START revives the Cold War policy known as MAD, a label that famously served as a double entendre. The acronym stands for Mutual Assured Destruction, the policy that was supposed to deter nuclear attack because of the threat that the United States was committed to retaliate and dump massive destruction on the Soviet Union.
In the years of the Cold War, we assumed we were dealing with a rational enemy who, even though dedicated to world conquest, dared not risk such devastating retaliation. That may not be true of today's potential adversaries, who have trained their younger generation to believe that suicide is noble and their key to Heaven. New START doesn't make nukes obsolete; it just tries to ensure that the U.S. and Russia have an equal capacity to destroy each other. Most important, New START does nothing whatever to protect us from a nuclear Iran or North Korea or Syria or even China.
The U.S. Constitution gives the Senate "advice and consent" power over treaties. But the Obama administration refuses to let Senators review the treaty's negotiating documents. Whatever happened to transparency? Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserts that it's not customary to allow Senators to see the records, but Senator DeMint cited the precedent of two previous U.S.-U.S.S.R. treaties that disprove her claim, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the 1972 ABM Treaty.
New START bars the U.S. and Russia from deploying more than 1,550 strategic warheads and 700 launchers. To achieve that goal, we will have to destroy some of our missiles and not modernize the ones we keep because the treaty locks us into a permanent comprehensive nuclear test ban.
The State Department admits that Russia has consistently cheated on all its arms-control treaties including the 1991 START I treaty right up until it expired last December. Russia admits that it cheated on the famous 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, from which President George W. Bush finally (and thankfully) withdrew the United States.
U.S. intelligence analysts have raised questions about whether Russian cheating can even be detected. But a State Department report to Congress claims that potential Russian cheating on the New START nuclear-arms treaty would not be significant because the benefits of cheating would be "questionable."
Senator John McCain (R-AZ) said we're all wasting a lot of time if the State Department admits that Russia has consistently cheated on all arms-control treaties as a matter of course and that cheating doesn't matter anyway. McCain believes that cheating does matter.
Another provision where the New START treaty favors Russia is that it fails to limit Russia's massive tactical nuclear weapons for use on the battlefield. They outnumber U.S. tactical nukes by a ratio of 10 to 1, and can be launched from rockets, submarines and bomber planes.
The New START treaty is based on Obama's foolish notion that the United States can create "a world without nuclear weapons." We have power only to create a world without American nuclear weapons, a condition that would make us a sitting duck for countries that have evil nuclear objectives. The New START treaty is a big victory for Russia and defeat for the United States. The Senate should reject it.
-------------------- Further reading:
Tags:Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum, Russia, United States, Barack Obama, Start Treaty, US Senate, Lame Duck,To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Obama's "Recovery Summer" Ends With 283,000 Fewer Jobs
With summer drawing to an end, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced the August employment numbers today, showing that the jobless situation is little changed from June and in some aspects is worse. According to BLS, 54,000 jobs were lost in August, while the unemployment rate ticked up to 9.6%. Sadly, 14.9 million Americans remain out of work.
Back in June, the White House dubbed this “Recovery Summer.” CNN wrote at the time, “Vice President Joe Biden . . . helps kick off what the White House calls ‘Recovery Summer,’ a six week long push to highlight what the administration says will be jobs created this summer and fall by a surge in federal stimulus spending across the country.” Just a month ago, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner wrote in The New York Times, “Welcome to the Recovery.”
Unfortunately, it’s been a summer of dismal economic news. There are 283,000 fewer jobs now than when “Recovery Summer” was declared. Just last week, the AP reported, “The economy turns out to be weaker than we thought, and the outlook for the rest of the year is now looking dimmer. New figures issued Friday show the economy struggled this spring, growing at a meager 1.6 percent annual pace. The initial estimate was 2.4 percent, and even that was anemic.” Also last week, The Wall Street Journal reported, “Existing-home sales plunged to their lowest level in 15 years in July as inventories soared, painting a grim picture for the housing market absent government support in a stubbornly sluggish economy.” A month ago, Bloomberg News reported, “The number of Americans who are receiving food stamps rose to a record 40.8 million in May as the jobless rate hovered near a 27-year high . . . .” In July, the Los Angeles Times reported that American home foreclosures “hit a record high in the second quarter.”
This is why so few Americans are inclined to take President Obama’s assurance this morning that “[W]e are moving forward because of the steps that we’ve taken.” A recent Gallup poll found 59% disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy. And CBS News pointed out last week, “Americans are more pessimistic about the country’s economy than they were last month . . . . Thirty-four percent now say the economy is getting worse, up from 26 percent [in July]. Only 20 percent now say the economy is getting better, according to the poll, conducted Aug. 20 - 24.”
Clearly there’s been little to no “recovery” during this summer and Americans are frustrated. Obama's "Recovery Summer" Ends With 283,000 Fewer Jobs!
Tags:jobs, less jobs, unemployment, Obama administration, recovery summerTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
. . . on 10 C17 Which the Air Force, the Pentagon and even President Obama didn't want!
What Did She Get?
by Bill Smith, Editor: Thanks Blanche, we could all use that $2.5 BILLION.
ICYMI: last year on October 17, 2009, Sen Blanche Lincoln joined her incumbent cronies "to spend $2.5 billion on 10 new airplanes [Boeing C-17 Globemaster III ] that the Pentagon says it doesn't want or need." She "opposed last-minute efforts to eliminate funding for the mammoth aircraft from the $626 billion Senate defense budget, which passed . . ."
"Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says the 205 aircraft currently in use or on order are plenty to do the job. President Barack Obama agrees. He didn't include funding for more of the planes in his budget proposal, and his former presidential rival, Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, has been trying to eliminate the project for years. . . . The spending goes on. The beat goes on, and sometime the American people are going to say, `Enough.'"
Note that the C17 is not built in Arkansas and "zip" few parts for it are manufactured here. "According to Boeing, only five people directly employed by the aerospace giant work in Arkansas. The multi-billion dollar company makes just $6,723 in charitable contributions statewide, according to its own Web site." So, why would Lincoln and Pryor support spending $2.5 Billion over the objections of the Secretary of Defense and even President Barack Obama? Good question! The major person who gained was their California democrat colleague Ma'am Barbara [Disrespect Generals] Boxer who lives in the state where the planes are built.
Lincoln did not have to vote in favor of this wasteful spending, Did she expect or get some benefit or trade-off from Ma'am Boxer or from others. Since Sen Mark Pryor gets a pass in this November (but we will be watching Mark), let's ask Sen Blanche Lincoln to explain why she voted "to spend $2.5 billion we don't actually have on planes we don't actually need."
It is time that the wasteful spenders like Boxer, Lincoln, and Reid are held accountable at the ballot box. Our grandchildren are in debt another $2.5 billion for planes that neither the Air Force, nor the Pentagon, nor the Commander-in Chief wanted. And it it pains me to be giving Obama any credit for agreeing with the Pentagon and John McCain that we didn't need to spend this $2.5 BILLION for 10 more C17s. But then again, President Obama did not veto the bill. After all it was only "OPM" - "Other People's Money." And, Lincoln and her other elitist cronies might not even be around when the borrowed money has to be repaid.
How many other billions has Blanche Lincoln costs us? I recall that she and her fellow Democrats gave us even far worse: bailouts, Obamacare, stimulus bills, $13 Trillion dollar national debt and more. She is even position to potentially shift in the upcoming Lame Duck session to support Cap and Tax. Blanche - what were you thinking? Voting to waste $2.5 BILLION was Stinkin' Thinkin' - Mrs. Lincoln! Tags:Blanche Lincoln, Stinkin Thinkin, C-17, wasteful spending, fraud, waste, abuse, national debt, bailouts, stimulus bills, Obamacare, Cap and taxTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
by Tony Perkins, Washington Update: If the polls are any indication, congressional Liberals might be joining the Ailao Spiny Toad and the Three-toed Jacamar on the endangered species list. The reason Liberals find themselves in this position is the radical votes they cast on everything from wasteful spending on stimulus bills to the pro-abortion health care law they passed last spring. The thing is, due to infighting and near solid Republican opposition to their plans, President Obama and his party leaders in Congress haven't been able to complete their whole radical agenda, despite holding solid majorities in both chambers.
Now that those Democratic majorities are on the brink of disappearing, the Democratic Leadership is talking of finishing their agenda in a lame-duck session after projected losses in the November elections and prior to the new Congress being sworn in. TheHill newspaper even obtained a memo from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) which sets a lame-duck schedule that would begin the week of November 15th and then continue after the lame ducks take a break to have their Thanksgiving turkeys.
To make sure any lame-duck session joins the endangered species list, please sign our [the FRC] petition. Tags:Tony Perkins, Washington Update, US Congress, Lame Duck, session, activism, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
The American people deserve the chance to hear from and talk to their elected officials directly. It’s appalling that Members of Congress won’t meet with their constituents. Citizens need to hold Congress accountable. It’s time to tell Congress to show up at home. Watch “August Recess Excuses”
Concerned, Check out Heritage Action For America - an exclusive activist platform. Tags:Congress, congressman, excuses, Heritage Action For AmericaTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
by William Warren: Tags: Elections 2010, Iraq War, Midterm Elections, Military, Barack Obama, Political Cartoons, William WarrenTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Obama's Outgoing Failed Economic Advisor: Gov't Must Spend More! And Tax Less!
Economic Mafia: Timothy Geithner, Christina Romer, economist,
Lawrence Summers, the top economics adviser.
Spend More and Tax Less is the prescription from departing Christina Romer, the Obama administration's chief economist. She called for more stimulus projects in her farewell speech. Heather Wilhelm, Illinois Policy Institute responded: "We shouldn’t worry about massive deficits, she argued—despite unprecedented outlays of funds, she explained, 'most actions should be paid for over time.' Hmmm." As she prepares to leave the Obama administration, Romer shared her inane remarks at the he National Press Club yesterday. [Real Clear Politics has the video]
The Washington Post reports on her urging Congress to spend even more money on more economic stimulus: “Romer did not say how much more she thinks Congress should spend. But in a farewell speech before returning to academia, she said election-year anxiety about the deficit that has blocked much of the president’s jobs agenda this year ‘cannot be an excuse for leaving unemployed workers to suffer.’ . . . Romer . . . has made no secret of her opinion that more federal spending is needed to prevent high unemployment from becoming a permanent condition. Although acknowledging concerns about rising deficits, she has persistently pressed for more spending than most lawmakers - and some administration officials - have been willing to stomach.”
Romer is now apparently urging Congress to spend even more than the failed $862 billion stimulus she championed. Recall that it was Romer who, along with Jared Bernstein, Vice President Joe Biden’s chief economic adviser, wrote in January 2009 that the “unemployment rate with … the recovery plan,” would not exceed 8%. After the bill was signed, Romer said, “I’ve run the numbers. We firmly believe it is going to create about 3.5 million jobs.”
Dana Milbank attended the lunchtime National Press Club speech, and Romer’s speech and record were enough to do in his appetite: “It wasn’t the food; it was the entertainment. Christina Romer . . . was giving what was billed as her ‘valedictory’ before she returns to teach at Berkeley, and she used the swan song to establish four points, each more unnerving than the last: She had no idea how bad the economic collapse would be. She still doesn’t understand exactly why it was so bad. The response to the collapse was inadequate. And she doesn’t have much of an idea about how to fix things.”
Milbank also points to Romer’s less-than-stellar predictive capabilities, writing, “Romer had predicted that Obama’s stimulus package would keep the unemployment rate at 8 percent or less; it is now 9.5 percent. One of her bosses, Vice President Biden, told Democrats in January that ‘you’re going to see, come the spring, net increase in jobs every month.’ The economy lost 350,000 jobs in June and July.” On her unemployment prediction, Milbank adds, “Without the policy, she had predicted, unemployment would soar to 9.5 percent. The plan passed, and unemployment went to 10 percent.” And The Washington Post notes that few expect things to improve much. “An array of economic data indicate that the recovery is rapidly deteriorating despite last year’s massive economic stimulus package, now estimated to cost $814 billion. The latest jobs report, due out Friday, is expected to extend that streak by showing the jobless rate inching up to 9.6 percent in August as the private sector created only about 42,000 new jobs.”
“No wonder most Americans think the effort failed,” Milbank writes. “But Romer argued, a bit too defensively, against the majority perception. ‘As the Council of Economic Advisers has documented in a series of reports to Congress, there is widespread agreement that the act is broadly on track,’ she declared. Further, she argued, ‘I will never regret trying to put analysis and quantitative estimates behind our policy recommendations.’ But the problem is not that Romer did a quantitative analysis; the problem is that the quantitative analysis was wrong.”
As Milbank explains, “This is why nearly two-thirds of Americans think the country is on the wrong track - and why Obama’s efforts to highlight the end of U.S. combat in Iraq and the resumption of Middle East peace talks have little chance of piercing the gloom as voters consider handing control of Congress back to the Republicans.”
Given the failure of the massive stimulus bill to live up to the Obama administration’s predictions about how it “literally drop-kicks us out of this recession,” it’s remarkable that Romer is calling for even more government spending in the same vein as the stimulus bill. As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said last month, “The trillion dollar Stimulus bill was supposed to be timely, targeted and temporary. Yet here we are, a year and a half later, and they’re already coming back for more.” Indeed, Democrats already tried passing another spending bill that they claimed would save jobs, a $26 billion bailout for spendthrift states and teachers’ unions. Sen. McConnell said at the time, “Once again, Democrats are showering money on their favored constituencies and asking the American people to pay for it with higher taxes, more government, and fewer private sector jobs.” And now Romer is calling for even more stimulus spending while acknowledging that we need to tax less. She obviously has forgotten where the Government takes its money from -- the working people -- and then redistributes it to the -- the non working people! We need business, especially small business, to be freed of continued government threats so that they can proceed in confidence to invest their money and to create the jobs. It’s long past time for a different approach to the economy. It is time to stop strangling the "golden goose" that fuels the economy. Tags:Christina Romer, Obama Administration, Chief economist, more spending, more stimulus, White House, Washington, D.C.To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Bill Smith, Editor: Yesterday, Joe Miller accepted the nomination of the Alaskan Republican Party for the U.S. Senate. He defeated the incumbent, Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Many are focused on the defeat of Murkowski, a perceived RINO who walked outside of the GOP Big Tent on too many occasions because she believed she knew more than the common people back home in Alaska. Well, the Alaskan conservatives have recalled Murkowski via the ballot box.
Others are focusing on the fact that Miller was endorsed by Sarah Palin. Obviously, to the chagrin of the lame stream media pundits, Palin again proved to be a force in her home state just as she continues to be a force in the lower 48 states. Some are trying to claim victory for the TEA Party especially certain national TEA Party advocates. Well, I thank all people who awakened and elected Joe Miller regardless of their label. But, please note Miller was and is still running as a Republican. While the debates continue and empty meaningless cans are kick down the road by media pundits who had no part at all in the election process in Alaska, let's consider a new refrain sounded by the elected candidate.
Below are Joe Miller's acceptance remarks from yesterday:
Fairbanks, Alaska. August 31, 2010 — Earlier this evening, I received a call from Senator Murkowski honorably conceding the race. I want to thank her for a hard fought contest.
Tomorrow, the general election begins.
But tonight I’d like to reflect back on the amazing feat we accomplished together. We started from a handful of people knowing who we were and what we stood for to now being the Republican Party nominee.
I want to thank the many people that made it all possible. First the people of the Great State of Alaska. As I traveled throughout the state, I met and spoke with more and more people who shared the same concern that our nation has reached a critical point, and we needed to change course.
I would like to especially thank my wife and children who have sacrificed quite a bit during this primary campaign. I love you all, and you are the most important reason I decided to enter this race.
I need to thank others who provided vital support to this campaign including Governor Sarah Palin, Governor Mike Huckabee, and the Tea Party movement. I’d also like to thank current and former state officials including Lt. Governor Loren Leman, Senators Fred Dyson and John Coghill, and Representatives Wes Keller and Tammy Wilson. Additionally, I’d also like to thank national conservative leaders and our local voices here in Alaska, Dan Fagan, Glenn Biegel, and Michael Dukes. But without our incredible volunteer network, this victory could not have been possible. They worked day and night to ensure success in this race. Thank you!
Now is the time for all Alaskans to come together and reach out with our core message of taking power from the federal government and bringing it back home to the people. If we continue to allow the federal government to live beyond its means, we will all soon have to live below ours.
I look forward to the challenge of the general election ahead. I intend to continue to travel to every corner of Alaska talking to folks about the answers needed to get our nation back on track and keep the American dream alive for ourselves and our children.
Thank you once again to the great people of this wonderful state. I look forward to the campaign ahead. God bless you and God bless Alaska!
Miller was direct and to the point. He spoke only 386 words. And in the middle of those words and his many niceties for other people, Miller made a declaration which was noted by "mdd1956":
Now is the time for all Alaskans [let's make that -- Americans] to come together and reach out with our core message of taking power from the federal government and bringing it back home to the people. If we continue to allow the federal [state and county] government to live beyond its means, we will all soon have to live below ours.
Mdd1956 responded, "this should be a refrain in our campaign song [for] 2010." I agree! The above should be a clarion refrain within the Republican (GOP) message. It is time to take back the power usurped by the Federal Government from the states and the people. If we do not do this, then the objectives of progressive elites will be achieved and government at all levels will continue to live beyond its means and "we will soon have to live below ours."
November is indeed coming. Let us add Joe Miller's refrain to our message. Let's repeat it again and again until it becomes a natural part of both our character and and actions. For it is indeed the will of most Americans not to be enslaved to the government. Government at all levels should not be representing the will of foreign powers, the desires of the lazy or socially inebriated, or the agendas of the progressive elites who desire to rob both us and our future generations of our heritage, freedoms, wealth, resources, and the our vision of keeping American the "shinning city on the hill." Tags:Alaska, Joe Miller, GOP, Republican, conservative, refrain, new refrain, message, limited government, individual freedomTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Americans Turned Off By Democrats' Record Spending & Debt
Stop Spending My Money
The Washington Post reports today, “Federal domestic spending increased a record 16 percent, to $3.2 trillion, in 2009, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday, largely because of a boost in aid to the unemployed and the huge economic stimulus package enacted to rescue the sinking economy. The rise in spending was the largest since the Census Bureau began compiling the data in 1983. The Washington region was among the biggest beneficiaries of the government's spending.”
Because so little of it has been paid for, the record spending has been accompanied by record debt and deficits. Back in May, the national debt surpassed $13 trillion for the first time, a staggering sum. It was boosted by the record deficits run up by the Obama administration, $1.4 trillion for 2009, and a projected $1.34 trillion for 2010. The Congressional Budget Office pointed out in August, “Relative to the size of the economy, this year's deficit is expected to be the second largest shortfall in the past 65 years: At 9.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), it is exceeded only by last year's deficit of 9.9 percent of GDP.”
According to the CBO, “As was the case last year, this year's deficit is attributable in large part to a combination of weak revenues and elevated spending associated with the economic downturn and the policies implemented in response to it.” Indeed, the $862 billion stimulus bill was financed entirely with borrowed money, and added right to the deficit. And yet after spending all this money, the bill still hasn’t lived up to the Obama administration promises that 3.5 million jobs would be created in 18 months (actually, 3.3 million were lost) and that unemployment wouldn’t exceed 8 percent (it remains at 9.5%).
Yet, Democrats continue to push even more spending. President Obama has urged the Senate again and again to pass a bill that includes a $30 billion lending fund for small businesses. Earlier this year, Democrats repeatedly refused to pass unemployment benefit extensions that didn’t increase the deficit. In April, USA Today reported, “[U]nder Obama's tax and spending proposals, annual deficits would push the public debt to 90% of the economy by 2020, a level unseen since the years after World War II.”
With all of this in mind, it shouldn’t be surprising that Americans are associating Democrats with ever more spending and debt. A new Gallup poll today finds that 50% of respondents think Republicans in Congress would do a better job than Democrats in Congress in dealing with the problem of federal spending. Only 35% think Democrats would handle it better.
As Sen. Mitch McConnell said recently on ‘Meet the Press’, “We're going to have the third year in a row under this administration of an annual deficit of more than $1 trillion. That is not because we are taxing too little… it's because we're spending too much. . . . [T]he American public has taken a look at this administration. They think it's spending too much, borrowing too much, taking over too much of the private sector and now raising taxes on top of it.” Tags:Democrats, Obama administration, spending, borrowing, taxing, taking over businessTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
The liberal New York Times indicates as of 8/31/10 that Arkansas is going "red" (Republican) in the November elections. However, conservatives are not resting but are out there on all fronts in Arkansas working to see that this occurs. The latest NYT status report for Congress:
Lincoln avoided being swept up by the anti-incumbent mood in the primary election, she remains one of the most vulnerable Democratic senators. Republicans view the race in Arkansas as one of their best opportunities to pick up a Democratic seat. The Republican candidate in the race, Representative John Boozman, has the benefit of the political environment on his side.
Tags:Arkansas, US Congress, political races, US Senate, US House, AR-01, AR-02, AR-03, AR-04, Republicans, Democrats, Painting Arkansas Red, Election 2010To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
H/T An Ol’ Broad’s Ramblings and The Founding Patriots Tags:Glen Beck, Restoring Honor, Washington, D.C., Lincoln Memorial, videos, 8/28 day after, summary, videosTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
THE DEMOCRATS MUST KEEP THE RACIAL ISSUE ALIVE AND WELL,
AFTER ALL IT'S THEIR BIG VOTE GETTER IN THE LARGE URBAN CENTERS
WHERE THEY HAVE LARGE VOTING BLOCS! THEY ARE THE PARTY OF
RACIAL DIVISION AND CLASS WARFARE!
VOTE THE BUMS OUT THIS FALL! H/T to Draw for Truth Authority and Patriotism
Tags:class warfare, racism, POTUS, TOTUS, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Want some more bad news? Average wages today are lower than a decade ago when adjusted for inflation, according to an analysis earlier this year by the Economic Policy Institute.
For high school graduates, median inflation-adjusted wages were $626 per week in 2009, compared with $629 in 2000. If you assume a worker gets paid for a full year that totals $32,552 in 2009, down from $32,708 in 2000.
For college graduates, weekly wages were $1,025 in 2009, compared with $1,030 in 2000, according to EPI. Over one year, that works out to $53,300 last year, down from $53,560 in 2000.
Additionally, the official unemployment rate was just 4.0% back in 2000. Today, it stands at 9.5%. So not only are working Americans earning less, many more are unemployed and earning nothing.
The American dream is dying. But why? I again return to this chart, first posted here.
As is clearly evident in that chart, the government’s intrusion in our economy is at historically high levels. In this recent recession, government spending has hit all new unforeseen levels. But even prior to that, the 90s and 2000s, a period under both Republican and Democratic Presidents and Congresses, saw government spending excluding defense bouncing around the 30% level. Even that much-lauded decline in government spending under President Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress, only saw non-defense government spending decline from 31.87% in 1991 to 28.95% in 2000, a 2.92% decline. By comparison, non-defense government spending rose a 4.86% in 2009 alone. A supposedly major accomplishment that took ten years to achieve was obliterated in less than a year.
While non-defense government spending at 28.95% may look appealing now that the figure is about nine percentage point higher, non-defense government spending had never exceeded that level prior to 1982. While many talk about the small government days of Bill Clinton and the Republican Revolution of 1994, remember that FDR, LBJ, and Jimmy Carter all spent less excluding defense (which is wildly volatile depending largely on external affairs) than the U.S.’s recent best.
Our experiment with government intervention in society is failing. Government control over a third of the economy has produced high unemployment and stagnant wages. For decades, the United States enjoyed small government and prospered as a results. It is no coincidence that our recent weakness is the result of an overly large and burdensome government. Tags:Michael E. Newton, The Path to Tyranny, Capitalism, Economics, Government spending, Jobs, Redistribution, Socialism, Unemployment, big government, government spending, economics, unemployment, United States, Inflation, wages, economyTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Where Would Iraq Be Today If We Had Listened To Democrats In 2007?
According to today’s New York Times, “For only the second time since he took office, President Obama will speak to the nation from the Oval Office on Tuesday night, in an address meant to convey that he has kept one of the central promises of his campaign: withdrawing American combat troops from Iraq.” But, The Times notes, “Mr. Obama will still strike a promises-kept theme, aides said, even as he seeks to reconcile his opposition to the Iraq war — and his opposition to the so-called troop surge, which Republicans and many military officials credit for the decrease in violence in Iraq — with his role as a wartime commander in chief seeking to credit his troops with carrying out a difficult mission.”
Politicoreports that both House Republican Leader John Boehner and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell will have comments on President Obama’s speech today, pointing out the success of the surge, our troops, and General David Petreaus, and noting how many Democrats opposed this plan. “‘Some leaders who opposed, criticized, and fought tooth-and-nail to stop the surge strategy now proudly claim credit for the results,’ Boehner says in remarks prepared for delivery to the American Legion’s 92nd national convention, in Milwaukee. ‘[T]oday we mark not the defeat those voices anticipated – but progress.’ . . . “McConnell underscores the contribution of President George W. Bush's troop ‘surge’ in Iraq: ‘By adopting the Bush administration's plan for winding down the war and transitioning security responsibilities to the Iraqi military over time, the president has enabled us and the Iraqis to build on the gains our troops have made. … Thankfully, we can say today that our troops, the surge, and the Petraeus plan all succeeded where many in Washington thought they would fail.’”
Indeed, Democrats continually branded the surge a “failure.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) famously declared, “[T]his war is lost and … the surge is not accomplishing anything.” Then-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) said, “It has failed.” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) said, “President Bush promised us his troop surge was going to improve security and allow Iraqis to stabilize their own country, but that is not working.” Then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) vented, “This whole notion that the surge is working is fantasy.” And a year after the surge was announced, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) said, “ Tonight we heard President Bush ay that the surge in Iraq is working, when we know that's just not true.”
Many Democrats even attempted to stop the surge before it could get underway. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) announced early on, “The surge has to be stopped. It is a reckless, almost mindless approach to a desperately difficult situation.” And he proceeded to introduce multiple bills and amendments that would have cut off funding for troops in the field.
In fact, beginning in 2007, Congressional Democrats forced more than 40 votes to either require troops to withdraw, to micromanage forces instead of letting the generals adapt to conditions on the ground, or to outright condemn the surge strategy.
Where would our troops, where would Iraqis, and where would the United States be today if we had listened to the democrats In 2007?
Fact Checking Our Leaders: In 2007, Then-Senators Barack Obama and Joe Biden Joined Fellow Dems and Voted Four Times To Cut Funding For Troops Deployed In Iraq
SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD (D-WI): “And What The Feingold-Reid Amendment Was -- Started With Was A Proposal To Use The Power Of The Purse To Try To Use Congress' Power To Bring This Mistake To An End.” (Sen. Feingold, Press Conference, 5/16/07)
Boehner Video Highlights Progress in Iraq, Thanks Our Men & Women in Uniform Titled “Victory is the Only Option,” Video Highlights Success of the Surge Despite Opposition from Then-Senator Obama & Other Key Democrats
While President Obama and Vice President Biden continue to seek credit for "ending the combat mission" in Iraq, this video praises the contributions of our troops for helping bring greater stability and security there -- significant progress that was only made possible through a surge strategy most Democrats like the President and Vice President opposed. As the drawdown of troops in Iraq continues, House Republicans are grateful to all the men and women in uniform, as well as their families, for the courage and sacrifices they have made, and continue to make, to advance freedom abroad and strengthen our security here at home. [Video]
Sen. Mitch McConnell Statement on Iraq “By adopting the Bush administration's plan for winding down the war and transitioning security responsibilities to the Iraqi military over time the President has enabled us and the Iraqis to build on the gains our troops have made.”
August 31, 2010 - Lexington, K.Y – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell delivered the following remarks at the Commerce Lexington Public Policy Luncheon Tuesday on Iraq and the success of our troops:
“As some of you may know, the President tonight is expected to declare the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq. As the Senator from a state that has carried a very heavy burden in this war, I think we can all say this is very welcome news. This is a time to be grateful for the incredible sacrifices the men and women in the armed forces have made, are making, and will continue to make on our behalf in the struggle against terrorism.
“But I think we should also be thankful that another President had the determination and the will to carry out the plan that made tonight's announcement possible. You might recall that the surge wasn't very popular when it was announced. You might also recall that one of its biggest critics was the current President. One of his colleagues said the war was already a lost cause, implying, of course, that any further efforts on the part of our troops would be in vain.
“So it makes it easier to talk about fulfilling a campaign promise to wind down our operations in Iraq when the previous administration signs the security agreement with Iraq to end our overall presence there.
“It sure makes things easier when you reject your own campaign rhetoric about how the surge—the Petraeus plan—shouldn’t happen and wouldn’t work.
“It makes things easier when you reject the left-wing calls for defunding our troops in the field and instead continue the policies put in place by the previous administration and keep the same Secretary of Defense and until recently Gen. Petraeus to help guide our efforts there.
“By adopting the Bush administration's plan for winding down the war and transitioning security responsibilities to the Iraqi military over time the President has enabled us and the Iraqis to build on the gains our troops have made.
“This bilateral relationship must also be managed realistically, and based on conditions on the ground as we move forward. Much hard work remains in Iraq. And this President could very well find himself negotiating a new security agreement next year.
“But thankfully we can say today that our troops, the Surge, and the Petraeus Plan all succeeded where many in Washington thought they would fail.” Tags:Iraq War, remembering, Democrat opposition, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Republican support, military troops, funding, John Bohner, Mitch McConnellTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Ken Blackwell, Contributing Author and Ken Klukowski: Same-sex marriage is back as a front-burner issue in American politics. On August 4, a federal judge in San Francisco held that there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, striking down part of the California Constitution defining marriage as one man and one woman. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ordered an expedited schedule to consider this case, with arguments to be held in December.
Now former RNC chairman and 2004 Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman came out this week, announcing he’s homosexual, and pushing the Republican Party to support the homosexual-rights agenda. Republicans leaders are beginning to weigh in on where they stand, including on the agenda’s centerpiece: Redefining marriage. The Republican Party has an official position on same-sex marriage. It’s found in the 2008 GOP platform, which is the clear and uncontestable Republican position until the 2012 convention. When one of your authors (Blackwell) was serving as vice chairman of the GOP Platform Committee, there was a singular focus on producing a party platform that fully reflects the vast majority of Republican Party members.
The GOP platform could not be more explicit: Marriage is the union of one man and one woman. The fundamental institution of human civilization should be preserved as it has been known through the entirety of American history and Western civilization. Supporters of same-sex marriage had the full opportunity to make their case to the party. They made it, and they lost. But whether same-sex marriage should be legal is a completely separate issue from whether there’s a right to same-sex marriage in the U.S. Constitution. A person can support same sex marriage, but admit that it’s a state issue to be decided locally, not a right that can be imposed on a state—or the nation—by federal judges.
That’s where supporters of same-sex marriage cannot have it both ways. Central to the Republican agenda is that the U.S. Constitution must be interpreted according to its original meaning. If the Constitution must be changed, then we do so democratically through the amendment process. Republicans demand that judges interpret the Constitution as written, not rewrite it from the bench.
The same judicial activism that Judge Walker in San Francisco displayed in declaring a constitutional right to same-sex marriage is the same activism that Republicans decry on every other front. It’s the same activism found in Roe v. Wade, declaring a right to abortion. It’s also the same activism that would uphold Obamacare as constitutional. It’s the same activism that declares foreign terrorists are protected by the Bill of Rights and habeas corpus.
You cannot have it both ways. Do you want to see Obamacare struck down as unconstitutional? Then you can’t have a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. Republican leadership is working hard to prevent a party split. Millions of Tea Party people are justifiably fed up with the GOP, and threatening to abandon the GOP in favor of a third party if Republicans do not fully attack out-of-control federal spending and power with a commitment to constitutional government.
That danger cuts both ways. Social conservatives cannot be played as fools by the Republican Party. They are not “useful idiots.” If Republican leaders abandon social conservatives and the party platform, then they will face the same disaster as if Tea Partiers abandon the GOP. Millions of social conservatives will either stay home, or will vote for a third-party candidate who takes up the mantle of marriage, life, faith and family.
As we discuss in the introduction of our book, The Blueprint, this is exactly what President Obama wants to see. If a majority of Americans reject the agenda of President Obama and his Democratic Party—as they do today—the only way that Obama and the Dems can hold on to power is to split the opposition vote. If the GOP splits either over economic issues or over social issues, then President Obama could be reelected with as little as 40% of the vote. It’s happened before in American politics, with 1912 as a perfect example. The year 2012 will be the 100-year anniversary of when a Republican split gave America a Democratic president.
If Republicans flinch on marriage, America could have eight years of President Obama. ----------------- Mr. Ken Blackwell is a conservative family values advocate. This article also appeared in The Patriot Post. 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. Mr. Ken Klukowski is a fellow and senior legal analyst with the American Civil Rights Union. Tags:Ken Blackwell, Ken Klukowski, GOP, Republican platform, traditional values, same-sex, marriage, social issues, economics, Barrack Obama, Democratic PartyTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Restoring Honor Rally A Homerun! Kudos to Glenn Beck. His Restoring Honor Rally at the Lincoln Memorial Saturday drew hundreds of thousands of Americans. They honored U.S. troops and called on our country to turn back to God. The crowd, which came to D.C. from all over the country, was patriotic, faith-based and deeply concerned about the direction of America.
The rally had many highlights, but one of the most moving occurred when Beck told the story of John Newton, the British slave trader. On a voyage in 1748, Newton, in the middle of a storm at sea, converted to Christianity. He came to realize the evil of slavery and eventually wrote the famous hymn “Amazing Grace.” After the story was recounted, bagpipes began to play and hundreds of thousands of people began to sing the words, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see. T’was Grace that taught my heart to fear, and Grace, my fears relieved. How precious did that Grace appear the hour I first believed.”
I have no doubt that Martin Luther King would have felt right at home there at the Lincoln Memorial. His whole civil rights message was based on his conviction that our rights come from God and that they flow to us regardless of the color of our skin.
But today’s leftwing elites continue to see the crowd this weekend on the mall as a bunch of haters, racists and fascists. Media coverage tried to downplay the number of attendees. Columnists at the Washington Post this morning attacked the gathering and accused those who attended of wanting to take America back to the days of lynchings and Jim Crow laws. Bill Press, a liberal TV commentator, even suggested that it was inappropriate to talk about God at the Lincoln Memorial. Apparently Press is ignorant of the fact that Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, a powerful plea to God, is inscribed inside the Memorial.
President Obama told NBC’s Brian Williams that he did not watch the rally but that he wasn’t surprised that Glenn Beck can “stir-up” people. Sadly, the president is clueless about what is moving in the hearts of millions of Americans. They are not being “stirred up” by Glenn Beck. Rather, what is stirring is a spontaneous rebirth of family, faith and freedom.
Beyond The Pale The Left has always had trouble arguing against conservatives positions on their merits. That’s why liberals resort to scurrilous attacks so often and so quickly. And when a particularly effective conservative spokesman appears, they will stop at nothing to bring him or her down.
When Sarah Palin burst onto the political scene in 2008 as Senator John McCain’s running mate, the Left was so stunned by her popularity and charisma that it groped at anything it could to try and destroy her image. Some liberals stooped so low as to mock Trig Palin, Sarah’s youngest son, who has Down syndrome. And at least one “respected” D.C. journalist repeatedly claimed that Trig was in fact Sarah’s grandson and that they faked the pregnancy for political gain.
Given all this, it is not surprising what one liberal writer is doing to Glenn Beck. Beau Friedlander, a contributing writer at the Huffington Post offered a large sum of money for a non-existent sex tape of Beck. In his column today Friedlander wrote, “I hereby offer to negotiate a $100,000 payday to the person who will come forward with a sex tape or phone records or anything else that succeeds in removing Glenn Beck from the public eye forever.” Though the Huffington Post, which is the Left’s most influential blog, deleted Friedlander’s post after conservative outrage, conservatives should brace themselves for more of these sorts of attacks as Election Day approaches. ------------- Gary Bauer is is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families. He submitted the above in an email to the ARRA News Service Editor. Bauer was a former Republican presidential candidate and served as President Ronald Reagan’s domestic policy adviser. Tags: Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, Glenn Beck, Restoring Honor Rally, Huffington PostTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
The Washington Post writes today, “On Thursday, some of the country’s most respected environmental groups - in the midst of their biggest political fight in two decades - sent a group of activists to Milwaukee with a message. We’re losing. . . . A year ago, these groups seemed to be at the peak of their influence, needing only the Senate’s approval for a landmark climate-change bill. But they lost that fight, done in by the sluggish economy and opposition from business and fossil-fuel interests. Now the groups are wondering how they can keep this loss from becoming a rout as their opponents press their advantage and try to undo the Obama administration’s climate efforts.”
The Post continues, “Before, green groups had wanted so much more than this - they wanted a ‘cap and trade’ bill that would set emissions limits nationwide. The House passed a bill like that, but - after industry groups said it would kill jobs and slow the economy - the Senate decided last month to not even take the issue up. The bill’s chances, already bad, will get worse if Republicans gain seats, as is widely predicted, in the midterm elections. ‘If it’s not addressed in a lame-duck session of Congress, it will have been punted to the next generation,’ said David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report.”
Earlier this year, after Democrats jammed through their unpopular health care law, they turned their efforts toward moving their climate bill featuring a carbon cap-and-trade system, which amounts to a national energy tax. In May, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), who was leading the charge for Democrats on a cap-and-tax bill, said, “Now is the time to take action. The path to progress has been long, but despite Washington conventional wisdom, we are closer than we’ve ever been to a breakthrough. . . . We want to make this the Senate that finishes the job.” In June, President Obama actually went so far as use his first address to the nation from the Oval Office to call for passage of Democrats’ energy bill. The Washington Post reported, “President Obama urged the nation Tuesday to rally behind legislation that would begin changing the way the country consumes and generates energy . . . . He called for fast Senate action on an energy bill that has already passed the House.” As late as July, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was promising to bring an energy bill to the floor before the August recess, even if it was a slimmed down version.
But all along, Republicans and many Democrats opposed the idea of a cap-and-trade plan. Indeed, just after Obama’s June speech, Democrats reacted skeptically, with Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) telling Bloomberg News, “There’s not a great call for it in the Democratic caucus,” and other Democrats admitting there weren’t 60 votes for a bill.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell warned that the Obama administration not to use the oil spill crisis as an opportunity to push the far left agenda of a carbon cap-and-tax bill. He said, “I wish the President would have used this opportunity to focus entirely on stopping the spill and to cleaning it up instead of using this crisis as an opportunity to push for a new national energy tax. . . . [I]n the midst of the worst environmental catastrophe in American history, they’re talking about a new national energy tax to achieve their ideological goal of passing global warming legislation.”
But with little enthusiasm among Democrats and recognition that such legislation would do nothing to address the oil spill in the Gulf, Democrats’ climate bill slipped and slipped, until USA Today reported, “Senate Democratic leaders said Tuesday they don’t have the 60 votes necessary to pass a scaled-back energy bill . . . . Majority Leader Harry Reid, D- Nev., said he was unable to find a handful of Republicans to vote for a bill. Reid’s decision to delay until at least September is the latest setback for Democrats trying to pass energy legislation this summer in response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.”
And now with the bill looking all but dead, the coalition of liberal groups pushing for an energy tax is left to lament that “[e]ven in the hottest year on record, even with a historic oil spill polluting the Gulf of Mexico, even with a Democratic Congress and a friendly White House, it couldn’t win the fight it had picked. In fact, in the Senate it couldn’t even start it.”
A national energy tax resulting from a carbon cap-and-trade scheme was never a good idea to begin with, and as a response to the oil spill, it was essentially a non-sequitur. The last thing Americans need in the midst of a recession with stubbornly high unemployment was is a new energy tax. Environmental groups may be disappointed in the rapidly diminishing prospects for such a bill, but few ordinary Americans are. Tags:cap-and-tax, cap-and-trade, greenies, greens, lame-duck session, energy use tax, energy production tax, taxes, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
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