News Blog for social, fiscal & national security conservatives who believe in God, family & the USA. Upholding the rights granted by God & guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, traditional family values, "republican" principles / ideals, transparent & limited "smaller" government, free markets, lower taxes, due process of law, liberty & individual freedom. Content approval rests with the ARRA News Service Editor. Opinions are those of the authors. While varied positions are reported, beliefs & principles remain fixed. No revenue is generated for or by this "Blog" - no paid ads - no payments for articles.Fair Use Doctrine is posted & used. Blogger/Editor/Founder: Bill Smith, Ph.D. [aka: OzarkGuru & 2010 AFP National Blogger of the Year] Contact: editor@arranewsservice.com (Pub. Since July, 2006)Home PageFollow @arra
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics
is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. -- Plato
(429-347 BC)
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Border Security Under President Obama
by Glenn Foden, The Daily Signal: Despite statements from past and present Obama Administration officials that the U.S. border is secure, the recent influx of thousands of illegal aliens from Central America proves otherwise.
Tags:border security, illegal aliens, Central America, under Obama administration, editorial cartoon, Glenn Foden, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Patrick L Booth, Contributing Author: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is refusing to stand down or apologize for defending his people against murderous terrorists as the Muslim rockets continue to rain down on Israel from Gaza. Good. He said, “No international pressure will prevent us from acting with ALL our strength against a terrorist organization that calls for our destruction.” I wonder of they will go so far as to attack Iran which is developing an atomic weapon to kill Israelis.
Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, and the Lebanese Liberation Front, all Islamic terrorist organizations every bit as bad as Al Qaeda and Isis, have refused to agree that Israel is a legitimate country and should be allowed to exist. Of course, they would have a lot more difficulty buying and shooting rockets to kill Jews if the USA were to curtail its payments to them and Egypt (the source of the rockets) but so long as we have such poor political leadership which sympathizes with Islam we can expect continued terrorist support.
Israel has begun an aerial campaign to suppress Hamas rockets in Gaza even to blowing up mosques where the militants hide rockets and has mobilized some 20,000 reservists to watch the border areas preparing for an invasion of Gaza. As the Old Testament tells us, the enmity between the Arabs and Jews is traditional and has lasted thousands of years.
Since Islam arose and became the Arab religion, it has been responsible for a great number of attacks upon Christian and Jew throughout the world, not just the middle East. To be a moderate Muslim is quite simply to be a BAD Muslim that GOOD Muslims should kill just as they are called to subjugate all kefir (non-muslims). Moderate (non-militant) GOOD Muslims cannot exist since their Quran calls for the murder or subjugation of ALL people who will not profess Islam according to the dictates of Sharia Law.
There are Christians in Syria, Egypt, and the Sudan. They have allied themselves with the Syrian and Egyptian governments because Muslims have been attacking, raping, killing, and destroying their towns for the past several years. Recall the hundreds of Sudanese Christian girls abducted by Muslims? We are not supporting them with monies nor weapons, just their enemies. Is that even moral, much less legal?
The war in the Middle East between the Jews and Muslims (Arabs) was extended into the USA because we have treaties with and Support Israel. Shall we abandon our only democratic friends in the Middle East and continue to support the murderous Islamic regimes which also support the Militant Muslims and murderers which were responsible for our 9/11 and thousands of American dead over the past 50 years?
Or shall we we rid ourselves of the socialist dregs who support our enemies within and without our own country? The sieve of our Southern Border allows more and more murderous Muslims to enter unnoticed.
------------------- Patrick L Booth is conservative writer and retired from the FAA. He blogs at The Blue Eye View. He is a contributing author at ARRA News Service. Tags:Never Ending Battle, Begina Again, Israel, Hamas, Palestinian Authority, Lebanese Liberation Front, MuslimsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Natalie Webb, BankruptingAmerica.org: While most of the country spent the week recovering after a beautiful Fourth of July weekend, Washington went right back to their overspending ways and political games. It was reported that the government wasted billions of taxpayer dollars on improper payments – not to mention the fact that Obamacare is still suffering from its fair share of issues. Read on to find out what else happened in Washington over the past week:
Another Government Bummer Story. The Associated Press reported that the government made approximately $100 billion worth of improper payments last year. To make matters worse, the people on the receiving end of those payments may not have been entitled to receive anything to begin with! Here's the best news of all: the vast majority of the $100 billion was spent on behalf of already troubled healthcare programs.
Premiums Keep Going Up. Residents in certain states such as Colorado and New York can expect major sticker shock after their health insurance premium rates start increasing next year. According to The New York Times, “Over all, including plans inside or outside the exchange, insurance companies asked for average rate increases of 13 percent in 2015.”
Obamacare “Glitches” Are Still A Thing. According to The Wall Street Journal, thousands of Americans who purchased health insurance through Healthcare.gov STILL don’t have coverage, due to glitches in the enrollment system. As a result, some people are being forced to put off important medical treatments, or pay for them out-of-pocket.
40% Of Unemployed Are Millennials. Are you a young person who wants to pay off your student loans? Well, good luck. Market Watch reported that millennials are suffering more in the job market than any other age group. Not only could having their careers delayed impact the potential of young Americans, but it could leave their generation disillusioned. Tags:Bankrupting America, Government Spending, improper payments, Obamacare, premiums going up, Glitches, unemployed, millennialsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
The Bad Neighbor Policy: Playing Americans for Fools
Newt Gingrich, Newt Productions: Guatemala and Mexico agreed this week to make it even easier for people to show up at the American border.
That's right: EASIER.
After all the public outcry against thousands of foreigners crossing our border, you might have thought the Mexican government would help stop the wave of people traversing Mexico to get to Texas. That would be a good neighbor policy.
On Monday, however, the presidents of Guatemala and Mexico met to announce a new policy of making it easier and more orderly for citizens of Belize, Guatemala and Honduras to travel through Mexico to the United States. This "Safe Passage" program will create a 72 hour window for Central Americans to transit Mexico to try to get into the United States. This is clearly a bad neighbor policy.
It is hard for most Americans to understand how the president of a country can openly encourage people to flee his country and try to move into another country. For most nations that would be a sign of enormous failure. The president of Guatemala, however, seems eager to facilitate the thousands of people fleeing his country.
On June 20, Vice President Biden visited Guatemala and warned the Guatemalan president that the U.S. would enforce deportation of Guatemalans who sought to enter this country.
Biden was apparently as believable in Guatemala as Obama has been in Syria, Iraq, Crimea, Ukraine and a dozen other foreign policy failures.
The contempt foreign governments display toward the Obama administration (and therefore toward the United States) is breathtaking.
This week, of course, President Obama was busy shooting pool, ordering pizza, and shaking hands with a man in a horse mask. How could we ask him to pay attention to the alliance of Guatemala and Mexico against the United States?
The flood of foreigners is going to accelerate.
The costs are going to rise dramatically.
The contempt for the Obama administration is going to continue to grow.
This is a recipe for disaster.
---------------- Newt Gingrich is a former Georgia Congressman and Speaker of the U.S. House. He co-authored and was the chief architect of the "Contract with America" and a major leader in the Republican victory in the 1994 congressional elections. He is noted speaker and writer. Newt and his wife, Callista, host and produce historical and public policy documentaries. The above commentary was shared via his daily email via Gingrich Productions. Tags:bad neighbor policy, play americans for fools, illegal immigrants, Guatemala, Mexico, safe passage, Newt Gingrich, Gingrich ProductionsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
IHT Staffing’s Billie Baggett said, “I would say 90 percent of our employers, businesses today, are hiring part-time as opposed to full-time, because" of health care law.
Under the health care law’s employer mandate, employers with 50 or more full-time equivalent employees must offer affordable health coverage or potentially pay a penalty. The penalty is calculated based on the number of full-time employees, which has been redefined as those working 30 hours or more per week.
Even Obamacare proponents at the Urban Institute think the employer mandate is not necessary. Eliminating it “will remove labor market distortions that have troubled employer groups and which would harm some workers."
The number of people working in part-time jobs jumped by 800,000 in June. That could be statistical noise, or it could be indicative of Obamacare’s perverse incentives.
Ditching the employer mandate would remove a significant barrier keeping employers from hiring. But a next-best improvement would be to return the definition of full-time work to 40 hours per week. Bipartisan legislation to do that has passed the House, and is awaiting action in the Senate.
------------ Sean Hackbarth is a policy advocate and blogger at U.S Chamber of Commerce. He twitters at @seanhackbarth and is a contributing author at the ARRA News Service. Tags:Obamacare, small businesses, hiring part-time workers, Sean Hackbarth, U.S. Chamber of CommerceTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Border Blame Game | IRS Scandal | The Left's War On Religion
Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Border Blame Game - Steel yourselves, my friends. As the backlash grows to the massive wave of illegal immigration that is taking place along our porous southern border, Barack Obama and his pro-amnesty allies are desperately trying to pin the blame on someone else. And guess who that is?
There is nothing that Obama won't blame on conservatives. Even as his so-called solutions created this crisis, Obama is already laying the ground work to spin this as a GOP catastrophe.
One line of attack is to say "Well, we wouldn't have this problem if we had a comprehensive policy in place." As I discussed yesterday, there is nothing in Obama's comprehensive immigration reform bill that would stop this. Now he's arguing that unless House Republicans rubberstamp his demand for an additional $4 billion, it's all their fault.
Obama said in Texas this week:
"Are folks more interested in politics, or are they more interested in solving the problem? …The challenge is: Is Congress prepared to act to put the resources in place to get this done? …There's a very simple question here, and that is Congress just needs to pass the supplemental."But just look at a few recent developments. A Mexican "death train" derailed Wednesday, leaving 1,300 people stranded. These were not paying riders, but illegal immigrants who jumped on top of the cargo train bound for the U.S. border.
On his show today, Rush Limbaugh noted that Mexico and Guatemala, where many of the unaccompanied minors are coming from, have negotiated an agreement -- the Southern Border Program to Improve Passage -- making it easier for migrants to travel between the two countries. Of course, many of those migrants are headed to the U.S., and Mexico knows Obama isn't doing anything to secure the border, which would keep them in Mexico. So it's just making it easier for them to get through its territory.
For years, all we have heard from Obama, and many Republicans, is that illegal immigrant children can stay in the U.S., "The Dreamers, the Dreamers, the Dreamers." So why are we shocked that tens of thousands of women and children are streaming across our border?
Here's some good news: The left's arguments aren't working. A new poll finds that 60% of Americans, including 40% of Democrats, want these illegal immigrants sent home. Just 28% agreed that the children "should be allowed to stay in the U.S. and eventually become citizens."
IRS Scandal Heats Up - This week we got a better understanding of why Lois Lerner is refusing to testify about her role in the IRS Tea Party targeting scandal. At a hearing Wednesday, it was revealed Lerner sent the following message to an IRS information technology specialist: "I had a question today about [internal instant messages]. I was cautioning folks about email and how we have had several occasions where Congress has asked for emails and there has been an electronic search for responsive emails -- so we need to be cautious about what we say in emails. Someone asked if [instant message] conversations were also searchable -- I don't know but told them I would get back to them. Do you know?"The IT specialist responded that instant messages were not stored. Lerner's reply: "Perfect."
This exchange took place in April 2013 -- one month before the scandal broke into the headlines.
First, why would Lois Lerner feel compelled to warn her colleagues to "be cautious about what we say in emails" if she wasn't doing anything wrong? Second, why was she seemingly pleased that internal instant messages were not stored?
In a separate development, a federal judge yesterday gave the IRS 30 days in which to explain under oath how it lost so many of Lerner's emails. According to the Associated Press, the judge "is also appointing a federal magistrate to see whether the lost emails can be obtained from other sources."
Fox News reports today that a second judge is also demanding answers from IRS officials who handled Lois Lerner's crashed hard drive. Stay tuned!
The Left's War On Religion - Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) introduced legislation this week to effectively undo the Supreme Court's ruling in the Hobby Lobby case. The left is so unhinged in its pro-abortion radicalism that it will stop at nothing to force men and women of faith to pay for abortions. That is exactly the issue at stake here, and it is so important to Senate Democrats that Harry Reid has promised to fast-track the legislation, bypassing the committee process.
Talk about misplaced priorities! Rather than debate border security, Harry Reid is working overtime to make sure people of faith are forced to subsidize abortions.
The left is very good at distorting the Constitution. But there are parts of the Constitution that are as clear as can be. Here's one: " Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…" That sentence is appropriately found in the First Amendment.
While many on the left would like to interpret the First Amendment to mean freedom from religion, that is not what it means. It means you are free to live your life in accordance with your religious beliefs.
In the Hobby Lobby case, Christians were coming forward to say, "My faith teaches that the taking of innocent life is wrong. While we generally think contraception is acceptable, we do not want to be forced to pay for drugs that kill a baby already conceived."
The left insists that the Hobby Lobby decision allows business owners to force their religious beliefs on women. That's absurd. Hobby Lobby was not forcing its employees to attend a specific church. The issue of "force" in this case was big government forcing men and women of faith to pay for abortion-inducing drugs.
And, yes, the Obama Administration actually tried to argue before the Supreme Court that it had the authority to force Christians to pay for abortions. Thankfully, the Supreme Court rejected that radical position when it found that Obamacare's abortion mandate violated the First Amendment.
But Senate Democrats evidently believe that abortion trumps religious liberty. Forty-two of them are co-sponsoring this outrageous legislation.
Obamacare and Senator Murray's legislation is a sad reflection of just how far one of the major parties has gone in signaling its hostility toward the fundamental rights guaranteed in the First Amendment of our Constitution. Tags:Gary Bauer, Campaign for working families, Border Blame Game, IRS Scandal, Left's War On ReligionTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
President Obama says he doesn't want to go to the
southern border because he's not interested in photo ops.
Since when? ~ Gary Varvel (editorial cartoonist)
by Rick Manning: The invasion of America's southern border, and our federal government's unwillingness to defend our nation's territorial integrity, is the greatest crisis facing our nation.
The crisis created by President Obama and his predecessors is being exacerbated by the current administration that has decided that it is in their interests to erase the southern border rather than deport and block invaders from crossing into our nation.
The crisis is being spread by the federal government around the country to formerly little-known places like Murrietta, Calif., where the illegals are being shipped for resettlement rather than being returned to their countries of origin as the law requires.
And the Obama administration is preparing for the illegal immigrant surge to continue indefinitely, conceding that they have no desire or inclination to stop it. In fact, rather than stop it, his resettlement policies are designed to encourage the flow. Further, Obama's emergency funding request will continue resettlement and allocate U.S. taxpayer funds to provide lawyers for those who illegally crossed our border — conferring upon these lawbreakers rights that are reserved for citizens.
The resulting humanitarian crisis cuts to the heart of the American compassionate character. Everyone feels for a child who has been kidnapped or shipped north, little more than a pawn to play on our national sympathy. But Guatemalan 3-year-olds are not packing up their knapsacks and walking through jungles, cities and deserts to reach the Rio Grande unabetted. Unsavory cartels are transporting these unfortunates along with much older, less innocent invaders, knowing that Obama will refuse to take action to stop them.
When a nation's government refuses or cannot protect its own territorial integrity, that government loses its moral right to exist. Protecting a nation's borders is foundational for any government. That is the real crisis facing the United States of America as it goes to the heart of Washington's right to govern, and here is what Congress and the states should do about it.
Congress needs to use its power to set up federal courts to immediately establish federal magistrates to handle all illegal immigrant cases at the border. These magistrates should be funded sufficiently to have their own transport capabilities to return illegals back to their homes. Congressional members can no longer pretend that Obama will follow the law; they need to cut him out of the process to uphold their oath to defend the U.S. Constitution.
Border state governors should immediately deploy their National Guard units to the border, and if those are nationalized by the president, then utilize their powers under Article I of the Constitution to call up their citizen militias. These call-ups should focus on two functions — protecting the integrity of their state borders and providing immediate humanitarian relief with an emphasis on helping those illegals who are ill or carrying diseases to get well, prior to sending them home.
The framers of the Constitution anticipated this type of crisis and empowered governors to deal with it; now governors need to act.
---------------- Rick Manning (@rmanning957) is the vice president of public policy and communications for Americans for Limited Government. This article was also shared on the ALG blog: NetRightDaily. Tags:border crisis, ceding American territorial integrity, state governors, National Guard, Rick Manning, Americans for Limited GovernmentTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Today in Washington, D.C. - July 11, 2014
The House reconvened today at 9 AM. They adjourned at 1:09 PM. The next meeting is scheduled for 12PM on Monday.
Today they took up and passed 258 to 160 H.R. 4718 — "To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify and make permanent bonus depreciation."
The House also passed by voice vote H. Res. 657 — "Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding United States support for the State of Israel as it defends itself against unprovoked rocket attacks from the Hamas terrorist organization."
Yesterday, the House passed H.R. 4923 (253-170) — "Making appropriations for energy and water development and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2015, and for other purposes."
The Senate is not in session today and will reconvene at 2 PM Monday. Yesterday, after blocking all amendments yet again, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) failed to get the 60 votes needed to advance S. 2363, the sportsmen’s bill, by a vote of 41-56. Also yesterday, the Senate voted 75-22 to confirm Shaun Donovan to be Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
The Washington Times writes today, “The Senate Judiciary Committee took the first step Thursday toward repealing part of the First Amendment, giving an early OK to a new amendment that would give government the power to put strict limits on all political campaign spending. The 10-8 party-line vote sends the amendment to the full Senate, where Democrats are likely to try to force a vote this month, as one of a number of politically charged issues they want to hold votes on before Congress takes a month-long summer vacation in August. . . . If ratified, the new amendment would give Congress the power to ban campaign spending altogether, and would specifically target the 2010 Citizens United decision that freed interest groups to run ads. ‘We can’t fail to act,’ said Sen. Chris Coons, Delaware Democrat and an author of the new proposal. ‘I want to restore the previous balance.’ He acknowledged that amending the First Amendment was ‘arguably extreme’ but said the court decisions have forced Congress to this point. . . . The amendment Democrats are pursuing is broad. If ratified, the amendment would let federal and state governments set limits on how much money could be contributed to campaigns, spent by candidates or raised and spent by outside interest groups such as the National Rifle Association or the Sierra Club.”
Amazingly, even Democrats acknowledge that their drive to gut part of the Bill of Rights is “arguably extreme,” as Sen. Coons said. Yet, none of them have shown any restraint or a hint of embarrassment in suggesting they know better than our Founders did about how the Constitution should treat political speech.
How absurd has this obsession of Democrats with the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which reaffirmed the protections of political speech in the First Amendment, gotten? During the markup in the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) offered the text of the First Amendment as substitute for the Democrats’ proposal. The Democrats on the committee all voted against it.
After Democrats rejected Sen. Cruz’ amendment, they passed their proposed constitutional amendment on a party line vote. Following the vote, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell blasted Democrats for their radical proposal: “Washington Democrats have shown time and again how determined they are to shut down the voices of anyone who has a different point of view. Today, this determination extended to voting against the text of the First Amendment itself. Washington Democrats seem to forget that the First Amendment is about empowering the people, not the government, but the proposed Democrat amendment has it backwards. It says that Congress and the states can abridge political speech—the speech that is at the very core of the First Amendment. But when it comes to free speech, we shouldn’t substitute the incumbent-protection desires of politicians for the protection the Constitution guarantees to all Americans.”
Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA, provides a chilling analysis of what the amendment would mean for organizations like the ACLU, the Sierra Club, the NRA and Planned Parenthood: The proposed amendment would authorize Congress, states, and local governments to, for instance, (1) restrict what most newspapers publish, (2) restrict what most advocacy groups, such as the ACLU, the Sierra Club, and the NRA, say, (3) restrict what is said and done by most churches, and (4) seize the property of corporations without just compensation. (It might also allow restrictions on the speech of unions, depending on whether they are seen as “corporate entities.”)------------------- Tags:Senate, Democrats, vote, to amend constitution, limit free speech To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Laura Rambeau Lee, Guest Column: In another case where the Obama Administration claims to have been caught off guard, the onslaught of illegal immigrant children coming across our southern border appears to have been expected as early as the beginning of this year. An advertisement posted on the site Federal Business Opportunities back on January 29, 2014 by the Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement requested bids from contractors to provide Escort Services for Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC). The request cited an anticipated 65,000 children ranging in age from infants to seventeen years old who will require assistance in being transferred from: “DHS to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) care via ground or air methods of transportation (charter or commercial carrier), property inventory, providing juveniles with meals, drafting reports, generating transport documents, maintaining/stocking daily supplies, providing and issuing clothing as needed, coordinating with DHS and HHS staff, travel coordination, limited stationary guard services to accommodate for trip disruptions due to inclement weather, faulty equipment, or other exigent circumstances. In emergency situations, the Contractor shall be called on to provide temporary shelter locations (such as trailers) with shower facilities for juveniles who are pending placement with HHS when bed space is unavailable nationwide for extended periods of time. The Contractor shall provide temporary guard services and other support as necessary during these emergencies.”The Obama administration is taking action to deal with this “surprising” influx of minor alien children, the majority coming from the Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. House Speaker John Boehner called for the deployment of the National Guard to protect our borders but the administration has denied his request. What the Administration has committed to do is provide the Central American countries with $9.6 million dollars to help them with their citizens who are sent back to their home countries. In addition, according to a report from CBS News, the State Department, through USAID, has committed to a five-year $40 million dollar program for Guatemala, a five-year, $25 million crime and violence prevention program in El Salvador, and in Honduras the U.S. will provide $18.5 million to support law enforcement in that country. Our current and future tax dollars have been promised to these countries in exchange for us taking in their abandoned, sick, and often times abused children.
Unaccompanied alien children are crossing our borders by the thousands every day. An article on Breitbart reports 300 children are being flown from Texas to San Diego, California. Protests from citizens in Lawrenceville, Virginia against housing 500 of these children on the campus of St Paul’s College, a college that closed last year, has forced the Administration to shelve their plans according to a report on Fox News. It appears the plans are to ship these children by the hundreds to cities all across the country. Already badly in need of revenue for vital services due to the continuing stagnant economy, this influx could collapse the already stretched schools, medical facilities, state, city and county public services, and law enforcement personnel.
Those of us who have researched President Obama’s background are aware of his intentions to create chaos in our country. An article by James Simpson in American Thinker titled Cloward-Piven Government from November of 2009 describes President Obama’s intent to use this strategy to destroy our economy and fundamentally transform America. Simpson quotes David Horowitz, who described this method as: The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The “Cloward-Piven Strategy” seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.Former Obama Administration Chief of Staff and current Mayor of Chicago Rahm Emanuel was quoted as saying “never let a crisis go to waste.” It appears President Obama and his willing cohorts have upped the game now to actually creating crises.
They are forcing Americans, and Congress, to plead for comprehensive immigration reform. They will say this is a humanitarian crisis and we have to do this for the children. These children are being sent by parents or grandparents to America, not because of the promise of freedom which brought immigrants here in the past, but because they are escaping the hell hole of a country they live in where Marxism and socialist policies have failed miserably and the people are suffering from unrelenting poverty, escalating crime, and no hope for their future.
The video below is from the Fox News Kelly File, where Megyn Kelly speaks with film maker Dennis Michael Lynch, who filmed the activity on the border between the United States and Mexico. Lynch believes the tens of thousands of children coming across our border are a diversion for what is really happening. The drug cartel scouts are over on the Mexican side and are getting criminals and drugs into this country with relative ease. Criminals are hooking up with pregnant women pretending to be family just to get into the United States. When they do get turned back by Border Patrol they come back hours later. Lynch believes “our country and the future of our children have officially fallen off the cliff” based on what he has seen.
We must not allow our representatives to cave to the pressure of those pleading to help the children when we are struggling to help ourselves. We cannot even provide health care to our wounded veterans who earned it through their sacrifice in service to this country. We cannot save the children of the world, no matter how much we might want to.
We do need to deal with immigration in America. Our elected officials must insist our borders are secured and all of these children returned to their homelands. In the long run it will cost far less to return them than to provide the housing, food, education, and health care to support them until they reach the age of majority. But more importantly, we need to prevent the drug cartels from sending criminals and illegal drugs into our country, and assure that no terrorists can cross our borders to commit violent acts and bring terror to our cities and citizens.
President Obama’s policies have made him the #King Coyote; “coyote” being the name used for those who sneak illegal immigrants into our country for personal gain. President Obama is doing this for an ideological gain. He sees America and the world as a Marxist utopia where there are no borders or countries, only people coexisting with one another in perfect harmony. This is a very dangerous, bone chilling policy, which threatens our very existence as a sovereign nation.
------------ Laura Rambeau Lee is an active member in the conservative movement in the Tampa Bay area. She writes on political issues locally, nationally and globally, with particular concentration on energy, education, housing and mortgage, Shari’ah in the United States, transportation, and the U. N. Agenda 21 move to implement its programs in local governments across the nation. She contributes to numerous sites and Her articles on Right Reason are disseminated on numerous sites. Tags:Laura Rambeau Lee, #king Coyote, President Obama, illegal immigrant childrenTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Tags:religious freedom, Congress, bipartisan support, image, quotes, The Daily Signal, Heritage FoundationTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
If government can't run health care for 8 million veterans, how can ObamaCare possibly work for the entire country?
Murphy, Bob, Keith, Dick, and Amy all stepped up to serve their country, and in return, have been burdened with a failing, inefficient, and outright dangerous health care system.
Government-run health care for 8 million veterans has led to negligence, disrespect, and in some cases, even death.
If the federal government can't handle health care for 8 million veterans, how can we possibly expect it to run a safe and effective health care system for 300 million Americans?
Government-run health care has proven to be a bad deal for veterans, and will undoubtedly be a bad deal for all Americans if we don't stop ObamaCare in its tracks right away.
Please watch and share this short video. These veterans risked their lives to serve our country, and their stories deserve to be heard.
By ensuring that our vets have a voice in the health care debate, you are playing a critical role in the fight for quality, accessible health care for all Americans.
Thank you, and keep fighting! Tags:veterans,Speak out, against, Obamacare, video, AFP, Americans for Prosperity, Tim PhillipsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Tags:scratch and Shift, democrats, removing, Obama 2012, bumper stickersTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
A few weeks ago, bureaucrats in the FCC drafted crushing new regulations that are the first steps in a full federal takeover of the greatest bastion of American free enterprise: the Internet.
A government takeover of the Internet sounds more like a story coming out of China or Russia - but, believe me, it's about to happen right here in America if the FCC and Obama get their way with these unprecedented regulations.
But here's the good news: these regulations aren't final yet - so there's still time a little bit of time to stop them before the current comment period closes on July 15.
But we can only do that if I can count on you to make your voice heard right now, and help us show the FCC and liberals in Washington that the American people want to keep the Internet free.
Believe me: this FCC assault on Internet freedom is one of the biggest attacks on our free market economy, and our freedom, today.
Here's what happens just in the short-term, if the FCC gets their way on the plans for a federal Internet takeover:
The government will make it nearly impossible for Internet providers to upgrade infrastructure - meaning that bringing down cost and speeding up service simply won't happen.
Due to the massive new regulation and government orders, new competition will be virtually eliminated - just like the bad old days of the heavily-regulated "Ma Bell" telephone system.
The Internet's incredible capacity for innovation will disappear - because all decisions, big and small, will have to be approved by federal bureaucrats.
Broadband Internet, the best infrastructure system in America today, will be "reclassified" as a "public utility," like poorly-managed, government-controlled water, sewer, and electricity systems.
Internet free speech and free enterprise will be placed directly in the hands of Washington bureaucrats, instead of in the free market.
And let me tell you: if these outrageous restrictions were around in the '90s when the Internet was just gaining steam, the Internet as we know it today wouldn't exist.
If you think the short-term plans are bad, believe me: the FCC's long-term plans are even more sinister.
Take Nancy Pelosi, who has "serious concerns" that even these draconian measures from the FCC don't go far enough.
And Harry Reid, who wants to go "strong" on the government takeover of the Internet - by turning the Internet directly into a slow-moving, badly-managed public utility.
Or take Robert McChesney, a self-avowed Marxist and the founder of "Free Press," the far-Left group leading the war on Internet freedom, who is actively bragging that these crippling new regulations will start a "revolution" that will "take apart capitalism brick-by-brick."
If that doesn't scare you, I don't know what will.
That the biggest supporter Obama and the FCC can count on in their war on Internet freedom is actively using this as a first step in the fight to destroy American capitalism altogether - and that liberal leaders in Congress think the new unprecedented regulations don't even go far enough.
Simply put, if the federal government takes over the Internet today - the best example we've ever had of American free enterprise and capitalism - anything and everything else will be fair game.
Even, as Robert McChesney hopes, the very heart of American capitalism itself.
We simply can't let that happen. That's why I'm counting on your help today.
I'm Phil Kerpen, and I founded American Commitment specifically to restore and protect our nation's commitment to free markets, economic growth, and individual freedom.
And, by bridging the gap between think tanks and grassroots organizations, we're one of the most effective research centers fighting for economic freedom and limited government in America today.
Right now, there's no bigger fight than the fight to keep the Internet free. America isn't China or Russia - we shouldn't have to worry about a government takeover that cripples our free speech and free enterprise online.
Liberal groups are pouring comments into the FCC urging them to move even faster to turn the Internet into a federally controlled public utility. We cannot let them pretend to speak for the American people.
As I said, there's still time to stop the FCC and Obama from killing Internet freedom - but only if I can count on you today.
Thank you so much for your help!
------------------------
American Commitment
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW #190-406 | Washington, D.C. 20004
Office: (202) 656-2193 Tags:stop, Federal Takeover, Internet, petition to FCC, comment period, Phil Kerpen, American CommitmentTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Alan Caruba, Contributing Author: The segments when Jay Leno would take to the street to ask Americans questions about things that one would expect them to know and those when Jesse Watters of the O’Reilly Factor on Fox News does the same thing invariably suggest that those interviewed are appallingly stupid. But how representative are they of the population?
The voters who reelected President Obama despite a first term that included all his policies that put the nation at jeopardy apparently made no connection between those facts and his competence. Voters who stayed home demonstrated indifference.
On July 3, following the latest U.S. Department of Labor June unemployment report, the Job Creators Network responded by noting that “We have more than 3.5 million young adults between 20-24 who don’t have a job, don’t attend school, and don’t have any degree better than a high school diploma—and astonishingly low literacy rates.” The official rate of unemployment was cited at 6.1%, but the Network calculated the real unemployment rate for June at 12.1%. Suffice to say that government data is so politically skewed that it is useless.
In contrast to the view that Americans don’t understand what is actually occurring Rasmussen Reports on July 3rd released the results of its latest poll. “Optimism in the future job market in America is down this month, as fewer Americans believe the unemployment rate will go down over the next year.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 23% of American Adults think, a year from today, unemployment will be lower than it is today. That’s the lowest level of optimism since December 2011. Thirty-two percent (32%) think unemployment will be higher in a year, a new high for the 2014. Just as many (35%) think it will stay about the same. Ten percent (10%) are not sure.” The reality has not escaped just under a quarter of the likely voters polled and two-thirds have a dim view of the year ahead.
A new Reason-Rupe study and survey of 2,000 Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 finds 66 percent of millennials believe government is inefficient and wasteful - a substantial increase since 2009, when just 42 percent of millennials said government was inefficient and wasteful.
This suggests that there is a difference between the kind of intelligence measured in IQ tests and the kind Americans apply to the world around them and to their own lives. I was the director of publications for the New Jersey Institute of Technology in the 1970s and it was evident to me that having a PhD degree was no guarantee of the latter kind of intelligence, often called common sense.
We have seen this in the way so many “experts” with degrees continue to assert that the Earth is warming (now called climate change) when it has been in a cooling cycle of some seventeen years. Recent polls indicate the public no longer assigns any credit to global warming/climate change. Then why do we continue to read about this in the nation’s media? Perhaps because so many who decide what we read and see are the product of the nation’s schools that continue to indoctrinate students to believe the warming lies and the way “climate change” is now being blamed for everything.
There is evidence, too, that our schools have been short-changing Americans for decades. America is now ranked below many other nations with IQ scores are compared. This is documented in Charlotte Thompson Iserbyt’s book, “The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America.” In March 2013 Joshua Holland noted that “In 2011, Newsweek asked one thousand Americans to take the standard U.S. Citizenship test and thirty-eight percent of them failed. One in three couldn’t name the Vice President.”
Those of my generation that attended school in the 1940s and 50s have little doubt that we received a far better education than those entering in the 1960s and since. Global intelligence quotients (IQs) ratings based on universal tests routinely rank the U.S. as just barely in the top twenty, outranked by nations that include Japan, South Korea, Germany, the United Kingdom and Mongolia! U.S. competence in mathematics and science lags too often and too much.
What is at stake is how prepared and how competent Americans are in order to select the political leadership the nation requires in order to be competitive and to respond to its domestic and foreign relations problems. At this writing, the low esteem in which Americans hold the President and Congress suggests they “have gotten the government they deserve” because that’s how democracy works.
Is that stupidity or indifference? I suspect it speaks more to a variety of factors that include education, the news and entertainment media culture, and the way modern communication technologies may be causing Americans to focus only on their personal circle of family, friends and coworkers to the exclusion of the larger issues and trends around them.
It might also reflect the incredible patience Americans show their elected leadership, often taking years before demanding and getting the changes needed to improve the economy and tend to other national priorities. As illegal immigration demonstrates, nothing has been done to address it since the last amnesty in the 1980s and, clearly, Americans do not want to repeat that mistake again.
Are Americans stupid? Some are. To my mind they number among the 30% of the extreme left that can always be depended upon to support Obama and liberal legislation such as Obamacare and other measures to expand the federal government. Add to them those who have currently grant him 47% approval. That number is beginning to decline.
Overall, however, I believe that most Americans are intelligent enough to know that something has been terribly wrong in a nation that permitted the 2008 financial crisis to occur (the government played a major role) and in the present White House that has failed for six and a half years to take the right steps to put the economy back on the road to recovery.
To that extent, I wait impatiently for the results of the forthcoming November midterm elections. Stupid Americans will vote for more of the same. Intelligent ones will vote for change.
------------ Alan Caruba is a writer by profession; has authored several books, and writes a daily column, Warning Signs disseminated on many Internet news and opinion websites and blogs. He is a contributing author at ARRA News Service. Tags:intelligence, Americans, Alan Carubam warning signsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Tags:editorial cartoon, William Warren, Messiah-MessTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Obama Wants "Blank Check" On The Border Crisis "To Sustain His Current Failed Policy
Today in Washington, D.C. - July 10, 2014
The House reconvened at Noon. The House is expected to take up the following bills: H.R. 5016 - "Making appropriations for financial services and general government for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2015, and for other purposes" H.R. 4718 - "To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify and make permanent bonus depreciation." H.R. 4923 — "Making appropriations for energy and water development and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2015, and for other purposes."
Yesterday the House passed H.R. 803 (415-6) - Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act
The Senate reconvened at 10 AM today. Following two hours of morning business, the Senate voted 41-56 against invoking cloture on S. 2363, the sportsmen’s bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) once again filled the amendment tree to block any amendments from either party and so could not get the 60 votes needed to advance the bill to a final vote.
At 2 PM, the Senate is scheduled to vote on confirmation of Shaun Donovan to be Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Following that vote, there will be voice votes on the nominations of Douglas Silliman to be Ambassador to Kuwait and Dana Smith to be Ambassador to Qatar.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said in the Senate today, “The ongoing humanitarian crisis at the border seems to be getting worse by the day. Large numbers of foreign nationals are unlawfully entering our country, and it’s mainly due to the Administration’s failure to enforce immigration laws and secure the border. This is a real crisis. So we’re taking a hard look at the proposal the President sent over. But we want to make sure we actually get the right tools to help fix the problem. And that’s not what we’ve seen so far from the President. What he appears to be asking for is a blank check—one that would allow him to sustain his current failed policy. Last night, in a speech that attempted to shift blame from his failed approach, he doubled down on the blank check. He led Americans to believe that the problem could be solved if only Congress would pass his last-minute request. But it’s not that simple – much more needs to be done, and the President knows it. His original letter to Congress called for reforms we all know are needed to address this crisis. Under pressure from the Left, he has since backed away from those critical reforms, but lawmakers in both parties have not. So he needs to work with us to get the right policy into effect. And he needs to halt his endless campaigning.”
Many in the press also picked up on the president’s focus on campaigning and blame-shifting.
In the National Journal, James Oliphant observed, “President Obama was 500 miles from the Mexican border when he spoke about the child-migrant crisis Wednesday evening, but he seemed to be even farther away than that. . . . [T]he president defended his record, dismissing the notion that his executive actions on immigration might have contributed to the problem, while seeming to suggest that his administration could not be looked to for a solution. . . . All of it was an exercise in Washington's favorite activity: preemptive blame assignment. . . . The president's statement came on a trip while he's fully engaged in partisan politics, headlining Democratic fundraisers in Dallas and Austin—and he again resisted calls to go downstate and see the border crisis for himself.”
The AP noted, “Faced with a potentially awkward scene at the Texas-Mexico border, President Barack Obama sought to recast the political debate over a flood of young migrants as a question of Republican willingness to tackle the problem, not his decision to skip a chance to view the crisis first-hand.”
Politico added, “Most of Obama’s remarks were a direct hammering of Republicans, using this as an opportunity to emphasize again and again the message that he’s been trying to push all year: he’s interested in finding solutions to problems, but the Republicans are only interested in politics, saying no to him and attacking him for whatever he is doing.”
Leader McConnell continued, “At least for a moment. With the President actually in the region right now, you’d think he’d be able to carve out a few minutes to view the situation on the border for himself. Apparently, though, he’s decided that there are more important things to do. Like campaigning with Gary Hart, and practicing his bank shot. All this continues to make the President look detached from the ongoing crisis on the border. Even a Democrat Congressman has called it ‘bizarre.’ And honestly, this is just the latest example of a much broader pattern he’s displayed – a pattern that makes him appear disconnected from the day-to-day concerns of most Americans.” Tags:President Obama, blank check, illegals, border crisis, failed poiliciesTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
The Vicious Cycle: Government Warps Markets Until Government Stops Warping Markets
A Market After Government Gets a Hold of It
Seton Motley, Contributing Author: The pernicious effect of government warping markets is absolute - and the evidence is obvious and everywhere.
When 300+ million Americans (and when 8+ billion worldwide are able to) make their own decisions, markets constantly morph to accommodate those decisions - and the maximum amount of success and happiness is achieved.
When government sticks its prodigious proboscis into the private sector, things quickly go sideways and upside down. When government makes decisions for us - the market is mutated into a grossly less efficient government-accomodation model. The examples are myriad.
Green energy - which is neither green nor energy - is a fabulously terrible one. “Sustainable” energy isn’t sustainable unless and until it no longer requires government rafts of cash and policy favoritism to stay afloat. It must - all on its own - produce energy at least as prodigiously and cheaply as traditional sources. You know, the actually sustainable ones.
When the government acts, it doesn’t do so in a vacuum - actions always have reactions. And when the actions are government-level bad - so too are the reactions. 75,000 Protest Tortilla Prices in Mexico
Cosan, which controls top producer Raizen Energia in a joint venture with Royal Dutch Shell, is cutting investments in sugar cane amid a global glut of the sweetener and Brazilian government policies that hold down the price of ethanol, Chief Financial Officer Marcelo Martins said….
“Reinvestment in the sector will be made only if returns become satisfactory, and we don’t see it happening now,” Martins said at Bloomberg’s office in Sao Paulo…. Government-induced over-production and under-pricing making the market…unsustainable. When there’s been this much government for this long – even the biggest private companies bail.
Unintended government consequences. The Leviathan crowding out the private sector. Anyone still surprised by any of this is willfully ignorant – or has been really, really sleepy the past century-plus.
------------- Seton Motley is the President of Less Government and he contributes to ARRA News Service. Please feel free to follow him on Twitter / Facebook Tags:Budget, debt ceiling, default, Department of Agriculture, EBT, Economy, fair trade, farm bill, farm law, farm policy, food stamps, Free Trade, News, obamacare, Shutdown, slowdown, tax day, taxes, welfare, Seton Mptley, Less GovernmentTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Mr. President, Where Are Our 5 Million Missing Jobs?
by Stephen Moore: The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that the economy contracted by nearly 3 percent from January through March. This dismal shrinkage in output has many Americans worrying about a dreaded double dip recession.
On the jobs front, it feels to many Americans that the recession never ended. One of the misleading headlines from last month's employment report was that all the jobs lost during the recession have finally been won back.
Well, not really.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in 2007 on the eve of the recession, there were 146.6 million Americans working. Today, there are 145.8 million Americans in jobs. So nearly 7 years later, we are still 800,000 jobs below the previous peak. That’s some jobs recovery.
But the missing jobs in this economic recovery are much higher than that. A new analysis of the labor force numbers by Heritage Foundation economists places the real jobs deficit in America closer to 5.5 million, even after accounting for changes in population and demographics.
This jobs deficit results from two unfavorable developments in the labor market. First, the unemployment rate is far higher than expected at this stage of a recovery. Mr. Obama promised an unemployment rate of 5 percent after he passed his $830 billion "stimulus" plan in 2009. The difference between the expected 5% jobless rate we were supposed to have by now and the actual 6.3% rate (as of May 2014) is 1.3%.The math here is straightforward. The shortfall in jobs comes to just about 2 million, based on the number of those officially in the “labor force.”
But that’s only half the story. Nearly everyone knows the real unemployment rate is far above the "official” 6.3 percent rate because of the disappearance of Americans over the age of 16 from the workforce. Since the peak of the last recovery in 2007, the labor force participation rate (the percentage of the population either employed or actively seeking employment) has fallen by more than three percentage points (7.9 million people) to 62.8%.
Some of this drop in labor force participation is due to the changing age profile of workers over the last six years. Since 2008, the ranks of the 65+ plus demographic have swelled by about 8 million Americans. On average, the older population is less likely to be part of the workforce than the younger population. As the older population grows proportionally larger, this does tend to lower the overall participation rate.
However, our analysis reveals that the increased numbers of those aged 60+ only accounts for only a bit more of one-third of the decline in the participation rate. More than 5 million additional people age 16-50 would be in the labor force today had the rate remained unchanged for those demographics. The drop in labor force participation for the younger population (under 60) is responsible for 63% of the drop!
A summary of these statistics reveals a startling pattern. Of 9 age demographics analyzed, labor force participation declined in the 7 youngest brackets and increased in the 2 oldest brackets.
-------------- Stephen Moore is a Fox News contributor. He is the chief economist at the Heritage Foundationwhere this article was shared. Hat Tip the NFRA brought his article to our attention. Tags:Jobs, 5 million missing jobs, economy, unemployment, Stephen Moore, Heritage Foundation, NFRATo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Theft of Oil affects the market price and cost of oil products including gas at the pump. For example, in February, 2014, Shell Oil Company closed a 6,000-kilometer (3,700-mile) oil pipeline to repair leaks from oil theft. The below article addresses the 5 Countries most plagued by oil theft from pipelines.
by Chris Dalby: Nigeria- As much as 400,000 barrels of oil a day are stolen in Nigeria. This equates to losses of $1.7 billion a month for Africa's new largest economy. This represents 7.7 percent of its GDP vanishing, or more than the country spends on education and healthcare. These numbers paint a harsh picture about the inability of the Nigerian government, and the multinational oil companies in the Niger Delta, to do anything about this rampant theft.
Shell executives have railed against the futility of trying to remove illegal taps from the hundreds of miles of pipelines they have in Nigeria. Philip Mshelbila, Shell's head of communications in Nigeria, pointed to a sophisticated organization of people that have been working for years to steal oil from official pipelines. The company is now divesting its portfolio of assets in Nigeria. (Given this striking news, it seems odd that Nigerian oil producer Seplat says it sees no theft in its operations whatsoever.)
With oil theft hitting record levels in 2013, the G8 has been reminded of its 2000 pledge to help Nigeria solve this crippling problem. However, as the Global Financial Initiative points out, "stolen Nigerian crude oil is transported on internationally registered vessels, sold to international buyers, processed by international oil refineries and paid for using international bank accounts." With one group of thieves admitting to profits of nearly $7,000 a day from their illicit activities, it will take some doing to stop them.
Mexico - In the notoriously secretive government of President Enrique Peña Nieto, it is rare to see a senior official publicly admit that a particular crime is up. Last summer, Carlos Morales, the then head of Pemex's Exploration and Production subsidiary admitted that fuel theft was growing 30 percent annually in Mexico, for a total theft of 5,000 to 10,000 barrels per day. Given that authorities found 2,614 illegal taps in 2013, including close to 600 in November and December alone – compared to around 1,500 in 2012 -- Morales might have underestimated the situation.
The staggering 1,548 percent jump in these illicit siphons from 2000 to 2013 has been attributed to powerful drug cartels like the Zetas realizing the potential of the black gold being pumped through territory they control. Fleets of tankers are now being stolen as they rumble across states like Tamaulipas, where Mexican press report the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel have distribution operations that rival those of Pemex itself
Iraq - Even if we set aside the attractive claim that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was the biggest oil heist of all time, Baghdad has a problem on its hands. Oil smuggling was institutionalized in the days of Saddam Hussein; one U.S. Senate estimate is that the Baath regime pocketed $21.3 billion from the UN Food For Oil program.
Today, it is difficult to estimate just how much oil is being smuggled out of Iraq, as the country's metering system is behind by a number of years.
However, there have been substantiated reports of complex networks taking thousands of barrels right from the refineries and selling them illegally to Iran and Syria. In the chaos left over by the Iraq War, smugglers and terrorist elements have swooped in.
Russia - Vladimir Putin is an ambitious man. He is seeking to secure Russia's energy future through landmark deals with China and Central Asia. To meet the export requirements of those deals, he has ordered Russia's oil producers to reach an annual production of 535 million tons of oil by 2020. For that to happen, he will have to better secure Transneft's pipeline network of over 50,000 kilometers.
This past April, Transneft threatened to shut down the oil supply to Ukraine, saying that oil worth $63 million dollars had been stolen from its PrikarpatZapadtrans pipeline system heading to the beleaguered country. However, Transneft has been facing more serious threats from organized crime in fractious regions like Dagestan where 27,000 tons of oil was stolen in 2009.
Indonesia - The state of oil smuggling in Indonesia might seem insignificant when compared to Nigeria, at just 2,000-3,000 barrels per day. However, the government seems to have only awoken to the issue after a South Sumatra pipeline explosion in October 2012 killed at least eight people, and injured dozens. The explosion was caused by one of the hundreds of taps that proliferate in the district of Bayung Lencir alone.
Since then, Jakarta says it has cracked down but oil firms remain unimpressed. National oil giant PT Pertamina shut down one of its main pipelines, Tempino-Plaju, in July 2013. It reported losses of 17,500 barrels of oil within the first week of the pipeline's exploration.
Chevron has also had to take matters into its own hands, running off teams of thieves in Jambi Province. The South Sumatra chief for Indonesia's Special Task Force for Upstream Oil and Gas Business Activities has lambasted the government, saying that its inaction has allowed oil thieves to act with more confidence.
----------------------- James Stafford, Editor, OilPrice.com contributed this article to the ARRA News Service. OilPrice.com, the leading online energy news site. Tags:Oil Theft, 5 Countries, Nigeria, Mexico, Iraq, Russia, Indonesia, theft, pipelines, taps, oil smuggling, increased cost, OilPrice To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
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by Glenn Foden, The Daily Signal: Despite statements from past and present Obama Administration officials that the U.S. border is secure, the recent influx of thousands of illegal aliens from Central America proves otherwise.
