News for social, fiscal & national security conservatives who believe in God, family & the USA. We seek to uphold the rights granted by God & guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, traditional family values, "republican" principles / ideals, transparent & limited government, free markets, liberty & individual freedom. The ARRA News Service is an outreach of the Arkansas Republican Assembly. However, all content approval rests with the Editor. While varied positions are reported, our beliefs & principles remain fixed. No revenue is generated by this blog, no paid ads accepted and no payments for articles. Note the posted Fair Use doctrine. -- Editor: Dr. Bill Smith [OzarkGuru] - editor/arranewsservice.com (Published Since July, 2006)
Can You Imagine the Lame Stream Media's Reaction had this Maniac been a TEA Party member? The lame street media and the government have been giving Eco Terrorists a break for years. Maybe the left leaning elitists in their heart concur with these eco nuts.
----------- by William Warren: Tags:William Warren, political cartoon, Al Gore, Discovery Channel Terrorist, Eco Terrorist, Mainstream Media, TEA Party MovementTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: If you think today is just the day after Labor Day, you’re wrong. This also marks the first day of the campaign season – the day when most Americans historically begin tuning into elections. First, the good news. The polling is tremendously encouraging for Republicans, as this Politico column notes. But the bad news is that Democrats won’t be caught off guard like they were in 1994.
It is difficult to overstate the resource advantage Democrats have. While conservatives were demoralized after 2006 and 2008, the Left experienced a fundraising bonanza. As a result, Democrat incumbents in many of the most critical races have huge bank accounts. They will use this cash to dominate the airwaves, “carpet bombing” their conservative challengers with negative ads from now until November 2nd.
Moreover, it was recently reported that two labor unions – the AFL-CIO and the SIEU – will spend “a combined $88 million or more” in the elections. That’s just two organizations among the myriad of left-wing groups! The Left’s strategy is clear.
Liberals can’t campaign on their own record. From the stimulus to healthcare “reform,” they have failed miserably. In fact, one analysis of campaign ads found “it appears that no Democratic incumbent — in the House or in the Senate — has run a pro-[ObamaCare] TV ad since April, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) ran one.”
Democrats are going to do to every conservative candidate what they have done to Sarah Palin – they want voters to forget about all the failures of the liberal agenda, and they will try to convince you that conservatives are stupid, extremists, wacky, racist, etc. Don’t fall for it. Our country can’t afford two more years of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid regime.
ACTION ITEM: In the days ahead, we will be asking for additional financial support. But here’s something that won’t cost you a dime. Talk to your friends and family members, especially younger voters.
The evidence is overwhelming that many young people who voted for Obama are rethinking that choice, as the New York Times reports. If you’ve got a young person in your family who can’t get a job, who thinks unborn babies deserve to be protected by the law, who wants to see America free, strong and prosperous, approach him or her about those issues.
Talk about how high taxes and government regulation kill jobs. (Even Obama’s former budget director now says all the Bush tax cuts should be extended.) Explain how Obama’s record deficit spending threatens their future standard of living. Remind them that America is a force for good in the world and that our values are worth defending.
This is important, friends. The Democrat National Committee is spending $50 million to re-connect with first-time votes who backed Obama in 2008. In many cases, they are college graduates now entering the work force and facing a future that is less hopeful than the one they were promised two years ago. We can win their votes in 56 days. ------------- 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:2010 election, campaign season, elections, Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working FamiliesTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
New Polls Find Americans Fed Up With The Democrats Economic Policies
In a must-read editorial this morning, The Wall Street Journal writes, “[T]wo months before an election, and 19 months after the mother of all spending programs, President Obama said yesterday he's rolling out one more plan to stimulate the economy. . . . [T]he effort itself is a tacit admission that his earlier proposals have flopped.”
Discussing the Obama administration’s previous $814 billion stimulus bill, the WSJ points out, “[Obama economic adviser Larry] Summers promised this would have a 1.5 ‘multiplier’ effect on GDP growth, and White House economists Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein famously predicted the spending would keep the jobless rate below 8%.” The editors explain, “[N]ever before has government spent so much and intervened so directly in credit allocation to spur growth, yet the results have been mediocre at best. In return for adding nearly $3 trillion in federal debt in two years, we still have 14.9 million unemployed.”
However, President Obama used a Labor Day speech in Wisconsin to call for even more stimulus spending. According to The New York Times, “President Obama, looking to stimulate a sluggish economy and create jobs, called Monday for Congress to approve major upgrades to the nation’s roads, rail lines and runways — part of a six-year plan that would cost tens of billions of dollars and create a government-run bank to finance innovative transportation projects. With Democrats facing an increasingly bleak midterm election season, Mr. Obama used a speech at a union gathering on Labor Day . . . to outline his plan. It calls for a quick infusion of $50 billion in government spending that White House officials said could spur job growth as early as next year — if Congress approves.”
Obama declared, “[T]he bottom line is this, Milwaukee — this will not only create jobs immediately, it’s also going to make our economy hum over the long haul.” And “Labor Secretary Hilda Solis told NBC’s Today program the proposal ‘will put people back to work immediately,’” writes McClatchy. But Obama and Solis seem to be the only people in the administration under that impression. As McClatchy notes, “White House aides conceded, however, that the proposal, which still would have to be approved by Congress and then implemented, is not likely to start creating jobs until next year. “We’re not like trying to put out an idea today that, in October 2010, this is going to create a lot of jobs,” said a senior administration official . . . . ‘This is not what this is.’” And the AP writes, “Even if he can get the plan through Congress, at a time when lawmakers and voters are worried about federal deficits, the transportation spending plan envisioned by President Barack Obama wouldn't create jobs right away. Senior administration officials say the initial projects would lead to new jobs over the course of next year.”
As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said yesterday, “After the administration pledged that a trillion dollars in borrowed stimulus money would create 4 million jobs and keep the unemployment rate under 8 percent, their latest plan for another stimulus should be met with justifiable skepticism. After failing to deliver on their economic promises for more than 18 months, the administration wants to do it again--this time with higher taxes for even more new spending. . . . A last-minute, cobbled-together stimulus bill with more than $50 billion in new tax hikes will not reverse the complete lack of confidence Americans have in Washington Democrats' ability to help this economy.”
Abysmal new polls for Democrats released today bear that out. The Washington Post/ABC News poll shows 57% disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy and more now say the President’s economic policies are making things worse, 33%, than better, 30%. And NBC News writes that the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll “puts Obama’s approval rating at 45 percent, which is down two points from the last poll in early August. What’s more, only 39 percent approve of his handling of the economy — his lowest mark on this question.” These numbers follow a Saturday CNN poll showing 59% disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy, while only 40% approve, “a new low for the president in CNN polling.”
Describing its poll, NBC writes, “Americans are deeply pessimistic about the state of the economy. Only 26 percent think the economy will improve in the next 12 months . . . and just 26 percent believe their wages will increase in the next year.” And Politico’s Mike Allen points out, “In the ABC/Washington Post poll, an astonishing 92 percent of respondents described the state of the nation’s economy as bad, compared with 8 percent who said it was good.”
In the face of all this President Obama’s solution is more government spending and more tax increases! Now it is his own administration admitting his proposal won’t put people back to work quickly. Do You trust the Washington Democrats asking for more of their money? Where are those ‘shovel-ready’ jobs they were promised more than a year ago? Tags:democrats, economic policies, unemployment, no jobs, stimulus failure, Obama Administration, pollsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
There’s the actions of union thugs at town hall meetings, beating and intimidating average citizens who want to be heard or just sell a flag.
There’s the amazing amount of waste in the Stimulus bill, including money for “coked-up stimulus monkeys.”
There’s Jersey Shore.
But without a doubt, the most outrageous thing in America right now is the fact that American land in under control by foreign drug smugglers and human traffickers and the federal government has done nothing about it but put up signs telling Americans to stay out.
I know I have written about this before. But it is so amazing to me that this is going on and no one in Washington is outraged about it that I feel it has to be brought up again.
Consider how outrageous this is.
Mexican drug cartels have set up base in the mountains of Arizona, which are, as much as liberals hate it, still part of the United States of America. They are controlling those mountains with weapons that are certainly illegal, and no member of the House of Representatives or Senate is standing on the floor of Congress demanding that something be done about it.
“What’s very troubling is the fact that at a time when we in law enforcement and our state need help from the federal government, instead of sending help they put up billboard-size signs warning our citizens to stay out of the desert in my county because of dangerous drug and human smuggling and weapons and bandits and all these other things and then, behind that, they drag us into court with the ACLU,” Babeu said.
The sheriff was referring to the law suits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. Department of Justice challenging the state’s new immigration law.
“So who has partnered with the ACLU?” Babeu said in a telephone interview with CNSNews.com. “It’s the president and (Attorney General) Eric Holder himself. And that’s simply outrageous.” . . .
“Our own government has become our enemy and is taking us to court at a time when we need help,” Babeu said.
While law enforcement is busy dealing with lawsuits and paranoid that some legitimate action they take will be warped and spun into an act of overt racism by the ACLU, the bad guys are running the border.
“Mexican drug cartels literally do control parts of Arizona,” he said. “They literally have scouts on the high points in the mountains and in the hills and they literally control movement. They have radios, they have optics, they have night-vision goggles as good as anything law enforcement has.
“This is going on here in Arizona,” he said. “This is 70 to 80 miles from the border – 30 miles from the fifth-largest city in the United States.”
For two and a half days after Andrade’s abduction, the kidnappers — including a man whom Andrade later said had been a friend — deprived their victim of food and water. Through the door of the closet where he was held, Andrade could hear the cries of other victims being tortured in the house, the report said.Meanwhile, Valencia had defied the kidnappers and called police, who listened to Andrade “scream and howl in pain” over the phone as the kidnappers tried to cut off his ear and a finger. The torture would continue until Valencia came up with the ransom, the kidnappers told her.
They were true to their word.
Andrade was pistol-whipped and beaten with a baseball bat and the butt of a rifle. The kidnappers tried to gouge out his eye and slashed open his left eyebrow. They burned his back as well — presumably, police said, with a blowtorch found at the scene. Read how the next door neighbors knew nothing of this
The blindfolded Andrade “could feel his pants and underwear being cut open by an unknown person,” he told police. He was told to bend over and was beaten when he refused.
“Jaime felt his legs being forced apart and heard Aldo say he was going to get his money,” the report said. The kidnappers then sodomized him with a broomstick, a pair of scissors and a wooden dowel used to hang clothes in a closet.
Where is the outrage?
Do we need to redefine the problem in terms that might actaully raise the hackles on the back of a liberals neck?
Ok, fine.
They have guns, liberals. Big ones. Perhaps we should send the ATF into take them.
They are destroying the environment. Maybe some members of the EPA and Greenpeace need to go up there and check out the damage being done the natural beauty of the American southwest.
And honestly, why is there no concern from this president or the liberal dominated Congress about human rights violations? There is human trafficking going on in these areas and they know it. They put it on the signs!
Why is nothing being done to end it? Why is it being allowed to continue? Politics?
You know that’s what it is.
Drug smugglers are being allowed to control parts of America, human beings are being trafficked into and out of those areas and people are being kidnapped and tortured and nothing is being done because we don’t want to alienate a protected class of voters who might choose to vote for the other guy.
This, my friends, is the most outrageous thing in America right now. What are you going to do about it?
Are you going to call your Congressman and tell him that he or she needs to do something about this? Are you going to call you Senator and demand they take some kind of action? Are you going to attend a town hall and bring this to the attention of everyone there?
What are you going to do? Because if we don’t do something, no one will. Tags:invasion, border control, crime, illegal immigration, securityTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
H/T Expose ObamaTags:Labor Day, economic crisis, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
POTUS New Negative Polling Record - Ouch Americans Not Happy With Obama
Rasmussen Reports in its Daily Presidential Tracking Poll (9/5/2010) gave President Obama his lowest Negative Approval rating ever; a -23 (24% of nation strongly approve; 47% Strongly Disapprove of Obama Performance as President. On a full-month basis, the Presidential Approval Index has stayed between -14 and -17 for eight of the past nine months.
National Voter Rating of Obama Performance as President:
Strongly Disapprove 47%
Strongly Approve 24%
Difference -23
Overall, all Voters on President's Performance:
42% of voters at least Somewhat Approve
57% Disapprove.
The Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 Balance of Power shows Democrats with a 48-45 advantage for the US Senate while seven races remain Toss-Ups (California, Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, Ohio, Washington, and Wisconsin).
The Rasmussen Reports Gubernatorial Scorecard projects 27 Governorships for the GOP, 16 for the Democrats, and seven Toss-Ups (Florida, Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Wisconsin). Tags:Rasmussen Reports, President Barack Obama, September 5, 2010, approval index, approval, disapproval, Congress, economy, repeal ObamacareTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
November 2010 is Coming, but the work begins
January 2011 and the picture won't be pretty.
Tags:cartoon, November is Coming, 2010 elections, January 2011, Democrats, RepublicansTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Bill Smith, Editor: Tomorrow is Labor Day on which we do not labor unless you are pregnant and delivering your baby - then you are in real labor. Today, many people went to Church. While the liberals want Christians to reshape the Church and their Christianity, they are not asking Buddhists to stop being Buddhists or the Muslims to not to be Muslims, etc. But, liberal progressives do want Christians to be "not too" Christian. After, all they don't want the Truth standing in their way. Compromise is want they want from those pesky traditional values Christians.
The following video produced by the Steve & Kathy Show is both funny and insightful . Discover a church that's all about you! Progressive-church.com is a hilarious spoof off Progressive Insurance Company that will leave you rolling in laughter! That is unless the truth hurts! [Video follows]
Tags:satire, confronting truth, Sunday, traditional values, progressive, Church, Progressive Church, TV commercial, Christian, Christianity,To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
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!
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