The Paradigm Shift - Looters

Duane Lester, The Missouri Torch: Looters are violent, opportunistic thieves, capitalizing on a crisis to steal. The use force to take the property of others because they think it's right or just.

But who exactly do I mean when I say "looter?"
[Hat Tip: The View From Blue Eye, MO]

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Tags: Paradigm Shift, looters, big government, Video, Duane Lester. The Missouri Touch To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Mementos Reveal Civil Rights Icon's Exposure to Armed Self-Defense

by NRA-ILA: On Wednesday, the Library of Congress made the Rosa Parks Collection available to researchers. The compilation includes 2,500 photos and 7,500 manuscripts pertaining to the civil rights icon. Among these documents is a short autobiographical piece highlighting some of Parks’ early experiences with armed self-defense.

A February 3 Washington Post article details the “biographical sketch.” According to the Post, Parks explains how her grandfather used a shotgun to protect the family home in Pine Level, Ala., from potential attack by the Ku Klux Klan. One excerpt states that her grandfather “would stay up to wait for [the Klansmen] to come to our house… He kept his shotgun within hand reach at all times.” Another portion notes that Parks’ grandfather “declared that the first to invade our home would surely die.”

Stories like Parks’, where firearms were used to protect against racially motivated violence before and during the Civil Rights Era, are common. At a time when law enforcement officials were sometimes indifferent to acts of violence perpetrated against African-Americans (or in some cases even complicit in them), those seeking any protection at all had few other options.

History could certainly have been altered in dramatic fashion had the Parks home been left undefended against the depredations of the Klan. Thankfully, Parks’ family had access to an effective means of self-defense, even as they strove to obtain other basic human rights.

Examples abound of the beneficial role arms have played in the struggle for civil rights in the U.S. Local NAACP leader Rob Williams, author of Negroes with Guns, notably chartered a National Rifle Association affiliated club in order to train and arm members of his Monroe, N.C., community to combat the Klan. Chapters of the heavily armed Deacons for Defense and Justice formed throughout the Deep South to protect their communities from racial violence. According to UCLA Professor Adam Winkler, Martin Luther King Jr. unsuccessfully applied for concealed carry permit in Alabama after his home was bombed, and lived surrounded by what was described as “an arsenal.” In his book, Restricting Handguns: The Liberal Skeptics Speak Out, Don B. Kates Jr. recalls his time spent as a civil rights worker in the early 1960s South, stating, "The black lawyer for whom I principally worked did not carry a gun all the time, but he attributed the relative quiescence of the Klan to the fact that the black community was so heavily armed.”

The story of armed self-defense revealed in the Rosa Parks Collection is a welcome and important addition to the already well-established history of the use of arms to deter and defend against racially-motivated violence.

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Tags: Rosa Parks, civil rights, mementos, family self-defense, guns, KKK, Rob Williams, Negroes with guns, Deacons for Defense, NRA-ILA, second amendment To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Key Obstruction . . .

. . . Obama blocking Keystone XL Pipeline while labeling the GOP as Obstructionist.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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Tags: President Obama, blocking, Keystone XL Pipeline, editorial cartoon, AF Branco To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Why Does the Obama Administration and the Media Downplay Boko Haram?

by New Gingrich: The Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram killed as many as 2,000 people last month in an attack that destroyed several villages there. Although the scale of the massacre places it among the most deadly attacks by radical Islamists since 9/11, President Obama chose not to mention it in his State of the Union address two weeks later.

The relatively little attention the White House and the news media has paid Boko Haram is extraordinary. The group killed more people last year in Nigeria alone than Ebola killed in all of Africa. The London Telegraph estimated in June 2014 that Boko Haram has more than 9,000 fighters. (By comparison, they estimated ISIS has just over 12,000 fighters.) Nigeria, where the group is based, is the most populous country in Africa, and its oil resources also make it among the wealthiest countries in Africa. If Boko Haram ever gains enough momentum to destabilize Nigeria, it will be in a formidable position.

Given this situation, you would think there would be some curiosity about where the group came from and what motivates its fighters. The press and the Obama administration, however, have shown only the shallowest interest.

Mohammed Yusuf, a Muslim sect leader, founded Boko Haram in 2002, according to the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. Yusuf’s goal was to form a militant Radical Islamist group in Nigeria to identify with the international Islamist movement.

His first base camp was called “Afghanistan” in honor of the Taliban, whose dedication to a strict interpretation of sharia law had impressed Yusuf. The Taliban had recently proven its devotion to Allah by destroying two massive sixth-century Buddhist statues carved into the mountainside. The Taliban had considered them “idolatrous.”

Yusuf’s new movement chose a name that embodied its goals and its Islamist roots. As the BBC reported, “The official name of the Boko Haram group is actually Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, which in Arabic means ‘People of the Sunnah (the practice and examples of the Prophet Muhammad’s life) for Preaching and Jihad Group’.”

Of course, the group is better known as “Boko Haram”, which translates to the much more direct “Western education is a sin”.

Given that its name condemns Western education, it should come as no surprise that the organization is known for attacking schools and murdering students.

Boko Haram began as a small group that conducted infrequent attacks. Over time, however, the group took root in northern Nigeria and began to grow. By early 2014, it had become a frightening force that was terrorizing a significant portion of northern Nigeria. Yet the news media and the U.S. government mostly ignored it.

This changed on April 14, 2014 when Boko Haram attacked a school for girls and kidnapped 234 students. The incident was horrific enough to finally gain our attention.

Yet the response of the most powerful nation in the world was underwhelming. Faced with a real “war on women,” Washington jumped onto a Twitter campaign called #BringBackOurGirls.

President Obama, speaking as though he were a passive observer, expressed on Good Morning America that he hoped the event would help “mobilize the entire international community to finally do something against this horrendous organization that’s perpetrated such a terrible crime.”

The White House announced it would send a team of military and law enforcement officials to assist the Nigerian government.
Not surprisingly, none of this worked. The Twitter campaign failed to impress Boko Haram. In fact, it actually prompted radical Islamist leaders to send out videos mocking the West’s toothless gestures.

While America tweeted, the Nigerian girls were being given an ultimatum. They could either convert to Islam and be forced into underage marriages, or be sold as sex slaves.

With the exception of a few girls who managed to escape on their own, the kidnapped girls remained in the hands of Boko Haram. News media coverage of the story lasted two or three weeks. And while Boko Haram became even bloodier and more destructive in the months that followed, ISIS soon replaced it as the terror group of the moment.

Since a geographic analysis of the radical Islamist threat is the current mode of choice, the news media (and therefore the governing establishment) can only focus on one front at a time without becoming confused. So instead of treating Boko Haram and ISIS as two parts of the same problem–the worldwide radical Islamists movement–they treat the groups as regional concerns, challenges for the Middle East or for Nigeria.

Such analysis makes sense only if you believe, as Secretary Kerry put it at Davos recently, that Islamist terrorism is a problem not of sincere fanatics but of “marginalized youth,” with “poverty…in many cases” being “the root cause.”

This profoundly mistaken view of what motivates our enemies obscures the larger threat, as our leaders hopscotch from incident to incident without a strategy to address the true root cause. So the recent attack at Charlie Hebdo in Paris replaced ISIS as the story of the week. Then, as the President gave his State of the Union address–declaring victory over ISIS in his own mind–radical Islamists were overrunning the capital of Yemen and threatening its pro-American government.

This confusion among our elites has certainly hindered our response to Boko Haram and perhaps given the group the opportunity to grow stronger. The longer Boko Haram is able to expand and develop cadres of trained fighters, the greater the danger that it will metastasize into a threat to all of sub-Saharan Africa.

We urgently need to develop a global strategy for fighting the radical Islamist movement. A plan to defeat Boko Haram will have to be an integral part of that larger war–whether we choose to ignore it for now or not.
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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. The above commentary was shared via Gingrich Productions.

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Tags: Newt Gingrich, Obama Administration, media, downplay, Boko Haram To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Luetkemeyer Reintroduces Legislation to Protect More Americans from Operation Choke Point

U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-MO-03.
(Photo: Roll Call/Newscom)

Washington, D. C. - Following steps by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to implement components of legislation he introduced last Congress, U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO-03) reintroduced the Financial Institution Customer Protection Act to ensure the changes are codified into law and applied to all federal banking regulators.

Last week, Luetkemeyer met with FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg and Vice Chairman Tom Hoenig and the senior officials told Luetkemeyer they accepted many of the policies contained in his legislation and agreed to implement them.

“While steps have been made in the case against Operation Choke Point, there is still a need for my legislation to be reintroduced this Congress,” Luetkemeyer said. “While I am pleased the FDIC is implementing parts of my legislation, it is not enough. I am reintroducing the Financial Institution Customer Protection Act because this legislation needs to be codified into law so that other agencies don’t ever fall into this illegal and abusive practice. Now that the FDIC has made it clear the agency has been involved in Operation Choke Point, I hope members on both sides of the aisle see the importance of my legislation because all of my colleagues have constituents at home who could be impacted by this program.”

The Financial Institution Customer Protection Act would dictate that agencies such as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Reserve cannot request or order a financial institution to terminate a banking relationship unless the regulator has material reason. In addition, the legislation would require the federal banking agencies to issue a rule defining the term “reputation risk” and strikes the word “affecting” in the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act (FIRREA), replacing it with “by” or “against.” This is to ensure that the Department of Justice’s broad interpretation of the law is limited and the original intent of the statute is restored.
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Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer is a lifelong farmer who is the fourth generation of his family to own their farm, Luetkemeyer has also owned several small businesses, as well as running a bank and serving as an insurance agent. (Wiki)

Links to ARRA News Service articles on Operation Choke Point

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Tags: Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-MO-03, legislation, protect American, Operation Choke Point To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

The Big Lie: 5.6% Unemployment

by Jim Clifton, Gallup: Here's something that many Americans -- including some of the smartest and most educated among us -- don't know: The official unemployment rate, as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, is extremely misleading.

Right now, we're hearing much celebrating from the media, the White House and Wall Street about how unemployment is "down" to 5.6%. The cheerleading for this number is deafening. The media loves a comeback story, the White House wants to score political points and Wall Street would like you to stay in the market.

None of them will tell you this: If you, a family member or anyone is unemployed and has subsequently given up on finding a job -- if you are so hopelessly out of work that you've stopped looking over the past four weeks -- the Department of Labor doesn't count you as unemployed. That's right. While you are as unemployed as one can possibly be, and tragically may never find work again, you are not counted in the figure we see relentlessly in the news -- currently 5.6%. Right now, as many as 30 million Americans are either out of work or severely underemployed. Trust me, the vast majority of them aren't throwing parties to toast "falling" unemployment.

There's another reason why the official rate is misleading. Say you're an out-of-work engineer or healthcare worker or construction worker or retail manager: If you perform a minimum of one hour of work in a week and are paid at least $20 -- maybe someone pays you to mow their lawn -- you're not officially counted as unemployed in the much-reported 5.6%. Few Americans know this.

Yet another figure of importance that doesn't get much press: those working part time but wanting full-time work. If you have a degree in chemistry or math and are working 10 hours part time because it is all you can find -- in other words, you are severely underemployed -- the government doesn't count you in the 5.6%. Few Americans know this.

There's no other way to say this. The official unemployment rate, which cruelly overlooks the suffering of the long-term and often permanently unemployed as well as the depressingly underemployed, amounts to a Big Lie.

And it's a lie that has consequences, because the great American dream is to have a good job, and in recent years, America has failed to deliver that dream more than it has at any time in recent memory. A good job is an individual's primary identity, their very self-worth, their dignity -- it establishes the relationship they have with their friends, community and country. When we fail to deliver a good job that fits a citizen's talents, training and experience, we are failing the great American dream.

Gallup defines a good job as 30+ hours per week for an organization that provides a regular paycheck. Right now, the U.S. is delivering at a staggeringly low rate of 44%, which is the number of full-time jobs as a percent of the adult population, 18 years and older. We need that to be 50% and a bare minimum of 10 million new, good jobs to replenish America's middle class.

I hear all the time that "unemployment is greatly reduced, but the people aren't feeling it." When the media, talking heads, the White House and Wall Street start reporting the truth -- the percent of Americans in good jobs; jobs that are full time and real -- then we will quit wondering why Americans aren't "feeling" something that doesn't remotely reflect the reality in their lives. And we will also quit wondering what hollowed out the middle class.
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Jim Clifton is Chairman and CEO at Gallup.

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Tags: Jim Clifton Gallup, unemployment, big lie, job, job number,  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

IG Report: IRS Rehired Hundreds Of Ex-Employees With Troubled Records

Stop the IRS Hiring More Abusers
Defund IRS - Implement FairTax

Today In Washington, D.C. - Feb. 6, 2015:
The House is not in session today. It will reconvene on Monday, Feb 9 at 1 PM.

The Senate is not in session today. It will reconvene on Monday at 3 PM.

On Monday at 5:30 PM, the Senate will vote on confirmation of the nomination of Michael P. Botticelli to be Director of National Drug Control Policy.

Yesterday, Senate Democrats for the third day in a row filibustered the motion to proceed to H.R. 240, the House-passed Homeland Security Appropriations bill, meaning the Senate can not even take up the bill to debate it.

Former presidential candidate and conservative spokesman Gary Bauer remarked, "And each time, not one Democrat was willing to put the Constitution and the rule of law ahead of party loyalty. Not even those who had previously expressed opposition to Obama's amnesty. I hope Senator McConnell keeps it up, and I hope these senators are hearing from their constituents!"

IRS Problems and Mismanagement under the Obama administration are well known, yet instead of improvements, there seem to be regular reports of new troubles at the agency.

The Washington Post reports, “The Internal Revenue Service rehired four ex-employees in recent years who left the agency amid serious conduct and performance problems, placing each of them the same positions they had before. The employees were among hundreds that the IRS hired for a second time despite past troubles ranging from off-duty misconduct to accessing taxpayer records without authorization.

“A review by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found that the IRS overlooked past performance or conduct problems for 323 ex-staffers whom the agency rehired between January 2010 and July 2013. Among the four workers who returned to their previous positions, two were ‘failing critical job elements at the time they had separated from their prior employment with the IRS,’ according to a report on the audit, released Thursday.”

CNNMoney has more details: “Of the more than 7,000 former employees the IRS hired between January 2010 and September 2013, 824 of them were found to have prior performance and conduct issues, a new oversight report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found. TIGTA reviewed a random sample of more than 300 employees who had conduct or performance issues in the past and found that 20% had developed new issues during their second go-round.

“Problem behaviors have included employees who willfully failed to file their taxes, gained unauthorized access to taxpayer information, abused the agency's leave policy, misused IRS property, falsified official forms, did a bad job or had behavioral or legal problems off-duty, such as alcoholism or bankruptcy.

"Based on the types of prior performance and conduct issues we identified, rehiring certain employees presents increased risk to the IRS and taxpayers," said J. Russell George, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. . . .

“[The report] cited one instance in which the file for a former problem employee was explicitly marked ‘Do Not Rehire’ because the person was ‘absent without leave for 312 hours.’ Yet the person was rehired anyway.”

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Tags: IRS, ex-employees, troubled records, not filing tax returns, unauthorized access of taxpayer information, abuse of leave, misusing IRS property, falsified forms, bid work, behavioral problems, legal problems, alcoholism, bankruptcy To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Terrorists Ahoy . . .

. . . Obama’s Policy for confronting radical Islam is ineffective.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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Tags: Editorial Cartoon, AF Branco, President Obama, Obama policy, terrorists ahoy, radical Islam, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Lukewarm About Climate Change

by Alan Caruba, Contributing Author: “In short, climate change is not worse than we thought,” wrote Bjorn Lomborg in a recent issue of The Wall Street Journal. He is best known as the author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist” and his skepticism is welcome, but insufficient.

First of all, climate change is a very long-term process and always has been. The climate takes decades and centuries to change, largely based on well-known warming and cooling cycles. During the course of these cycles, both related to comparable cycles on the Sun, all manner of climate-related events occur, from hurricanes to blizzards. Nothing new here.

The problem with Lomborg’s commentary is that he confuses climate change with global warming, the hoax concocted in the late 1980s by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in order to have an international tax imposed on “greenhouse gas emissions”, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2), that the IPCC guaranteed was going to heat up the Earth in a few decades unless greatly reduced. Lomborg even cites the IPCC which has grown notorious for its lies.

The predictions about when the heat would become lethal ranged from ten to fifty years as the amount of CO2 increased. The problem for Lomborg and others is that CO2 has been increasing in the Earth’s atmosphere without any evidence of the predicted heating. That explains why Lomborg and other “Warmists” don’t refer to global warming anymore. As for the increase, the latest, best science points to the fact that CO2 has no affect whatever on the climate.

Lomborg wrote, “A well-meaning environmentalist might argue that, because climate change is a reality, why not ramp up the rhetoric and focus on the bad news to make sure the public understands its importance.” Even Lomborg acknowledged that is exactly what the environmentalists have been doing for the past twenty years.

“The public has been bombarded with dramatic headlines and apocalyptic photos of climate change and its consequences. Yet despite endless successions of climate summits, carbon emissions continue to rise, especially in rapidly developing countries like India, China, and many African nations.” That’s called development and that requires electricity and other means of powering manufacturing and transportation.

One thing Lomborg got right is that “Alarmism has encouraged the pursuit of a one-sided climate policy of trying to cut carbon emissions by subsidizing wind farms and solar panels.” These are two of the most costly and worthless forms of energy generation and Lomborg notes that even the International Energy Agency doesn’t expect them to provide any more than “a minuscule 2.2% of the world’s energy by 2040.”

Lomborg continues to do his best to be on both sides of the issue of “climate change” when, in fact, it is not an issue because there is nothing humans anywhere on planet Earth can do to have any impact on it. What we can do, however, is encourage the development which he points to. “This is important because if we want to help the poor people who are most threatened by natural disasters, we have to recognize that it is less about cutting carbon emissions than it is about pulling them out of poverty.”

It has nothing about cutting carbon emissions because that is not a threat. Indeed, without CO2 all life on Earth would cease to be. It is the gas on which all vegetation depends, just as mammals and other creatures depend on oxygen.

“In short, climate change is not worse than we thought. Some indicators are worse, but some are better. That doesn’t mean global warming is not a reality or a problem. It definitely is,” says Lomborg.

No, despite his science credentials and the two books he has written, Lomborg is just dead wrong. Global warming is neither a reality nor a problem because the Earth has been in A COOLING CYCLE for nineteen years at this point and one might think Lomborg would know this; particularly since his views are being published in an eminent U.S. newspaper that should also know this.

H. Sterling Burnett, the Managing Editor of Environment & Climate News, took note of the current weather, saying “Despite the cold, temperatures in the U.S. at present are closer to the normal winter range than they were in 2014 during the depth of the polar vortex," adding a tweak to the Warmists, saying "Seems like a good time to protest global warming.”

The real issue for Americans is an Obama administration that is imposing regulations based on the utterly false assertion that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced because of global warming.

In June 2014, James Delinpole, wrote: “Here is the Obama administration’s green strategy reduced to one damning equation: 19 million jobs lost plus $4.335 trillion spent = a reduction in global mean temperature of 0.018 degrees C (0.032 degrees F). These are the costs to the U.S. economy by 2100 of the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory war on carbon dioxide, whereby all states must reduce emissions from coal-fired generating plants by 30% below 2005 levels.”

If you still wonder why the U.S. economy has just barely begun to pull itself out of the Great Recession triggered by the 2008 financial crisis, the answer is the Obama administration’s spectacular failures typified by massive wasteful spending, ObamaCare’s impact on the healthcare sector, and its continuing attack on the energy sector.

Only Congress and the courts stand between us and Obama as he pursues the destruction of the nation while claiming he is acting to “combat climate change.”
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Alan Caruba is a writer by profession; has authored several books, and writes a daily column, Warning Signs  He is a contribution author on the  ARRA News Service.

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Tags: Alan Caruba, Warning Signs, Lukewarm, climate change, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Congress Stop the FCC’s Obama-Ordered Regulatory Attack on the Internet

Washington, D.C. — American Commitment is urging Congress to take immediate action to stop the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from implementing a federal takeover of the Internet. The renewed call for Congressional action follows FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s announcement of draconian new regulations that would transform the Internet into a public utility. A new report in today’s Wall Street Journal confirms that Wheeler opposed the order he is now set to issue on the merits but caved to political pressure from the White House. The FCC is supposed to be an independent agency.

“Congress must use its powers and act immediately to stop President Obama’s radical ‘public utility’ Internet plan—or completely shut the FCC, a supposedly independent agency that has embarrassingly become an appendage of White House political staff,” said Phil Kerpen, president of American Commitment. “Despite November’s landslide election results rejecting larger and more intrusive government, President Obama moved even further to the Left and openly demanded that the FCC take the most radical action imaginable: reducing the Internet to a ‘public utility,’ imposing sweeping new taxes and destroying private investment, competition, and innovation while putting bureaucrats firmly in control.”

“Congress must not allow President Obama to bully the FCC into seizing control over the Internet. Even the New York Times had to acknowledge that President Obama issued a ‘surprising public admonition to an independent agency.’ We urge Americans to support our petition to block this rogue action or shut down the FCC entirely.”

Americans can support the petition HERE

American Commitment delivered 808,363 citizen comments opposing any regulation of the Internet to the FCC. The Sunlight Foundation later confirmed in a report that these comments represented the majority of all public comments in the FCC’s reply-comment period.
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Phil Kerpen is president of American Commitment. Follow him at (@kerpen) and on Facebook. He is also a contributing author at the ARRA News Service.

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Tags: American Commitment, Congress, FCC, regulatory attack Internet To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Why Net Neutrality is a Terrible Idea

Groundhog Day Terrible Policy

by Seton Motley, Contributing Author: We wrote and recorded the following in December 2010 - the last time the Barack Obama Administration’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was on the verge of imposing really awful Network Neutrality policy.

Since, the D.C. Circuit Court has unanimously rejected said imposition - because the FCC lacks the authority under the law.

But why should that stop them?

This looming power grab is even worse. The FCC is (again) pretending to be Congress - rewriting the law and reclassifying the Internet to regulate it under 1934 and 1887 law (because that makes perfect sense for the 21st Century World Wide Web).

So as to then justify the re-imposition of Net Neutrality.

Which makes all of the following just as pathetically pertinent today as it was almost five years ago.

Flashback horrendous policy and (even more) government overreach.

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Network Neutrality is a metaphysically bad idea.

But it remains a Leftist wish list item. So Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Don Quixote – I mean Julius Genachowski – is set to ram it down our throats on December 21st, tilting at ideological windmills to the egregious detriment of the American people. And commandeering vast new unconstitutional authority over the Internet in a pathetically transparent attempt to justify Net Neutrality’s emplacement – a power grab to justify another power grab.
This is a last minute, behind closed doors, unreviewed, un-Public Commented upon, under cover of Christmas government takeover of 1/6 of our nation’s economy. The only portion of the economy that is actually still functioning in the midst of what is otherwise is a doldrum-laden Obama Recession.

Not coincidentally, the Internet remains perhaps the only major portion of the economy President Barack Obama has not yet assaulted with oppressive legislation and/or regulation. A fact that will remain true – for another eight days.

At which point three unelected Democrat FCC bureaucrats will vote themselves Internet Overlords – with no authority at all to do so. As so explained by 302 members of this (now-lame duck) Congress – including 80+ Democrats – and a unanimous D.C. Circuit Court.

Chairman Genachowski and his fellow Leftists want Net Neutrality, and they will have it – the ends in their minds justifying any means necessary.

To best delineate why Net Neutrality is so terribly bad, behold the following video. In which is laid out the worst portions of Net Neutrality – and the Marxist reasons why the Left wants it done.

Please, enjoy – aside from the growing anger that will incept and ensue as you watch, I mean.

Many thanks to Mike Wendy and MediaFreedom.org for shooting the reel.
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Seton Motley is the President of Less Government and he contributes to ARRA News Service. Please feel free to follow him him on Twitter   /   Facebook.

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Tags:  video, Net Neutrality, terrible, Seton Motley, Less Government To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

What’s Really Happening: Democrats Are Blocking Homeland Security Funding

by Genevieve Wood: The headline in one Washington newspaper read: “Senate Dems block legislation reversing immigration actions.”

That’s one way to see it.

A more accurate headline would have been: “Senate Democrats block debate over legislation funding the Department of Homeland Security.”

The latter is exactly what all 44 Senate Democrats (and two Independents) did Tuesday and again Wednesday when they voted against “the motion to proceed” on a House bill that would fully fund the Department of Homeland Security once its current short-term budget runs out on Feb. 27.

Democrats have clearly decided their only hope of winning this battle is to frame the GOP as the obstructionist party as long as the media will let them get away with it. And so far they have.

In reality, Democrats don’t want to discuss the bill, consider the bill, debate the bill or vote on the bill because in addition to funding Homeland Security, the House legislation also “defunds” President Obama’s executive “go it alone” actions on immigration.

There is absolutely no disagreement about funding the day-to-day operations of Homeland Security. The House bill does that.

The disagreement is over whether to fund immigration directives from the White House that were never debated or voted on by Congress—one in 2012 that called for delaying the deportation of millions of illegal immigrants and another late last year, conveniently after the mid-term election, that called for giving worker permits and Social Security cards to millions more here illegally.

It’s not just a majority of Republicans in Congress who oppose Obama’s actions. Several sitting senators of the president’s own party have said he wrongly bypassed Congress, and 26 states — that’s right, more than half the union—have filed a lawsuit against his amnesty plans.

One would think that when the president takes actions that is considered by more than just a few to be unconstitutional and that though done without their approval requires lawmakers to give a government agency, in this case Homeland Security, the dollars to implement those questionable actions, Congress would want to at the very least discuss and debate the matter.

Yet when it came down to it, a number of Democrats who had publicly questioned Obama’s moves and who all represent states that are part of the lawsuit, apparently decided that protecting Obama’s agenda was more important than funding Homeland Security and more important than any concerns they previously had about the legitimacy of his actions.

Sens. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D. and Angus King, I-Maine, who caucuses with Democrats, all voted with Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and company to block debate on the Homeland Security legislation.

A Gallup poll taken shortly after Obama announced his plan to issue worker permits to millions of illegal immigrants last fall found that 51 percent of Americans disapproved while 41 percent approved.

Dig a little deeper and you’ll see where the passion is—of those who disapproved, 23 percent strongly disapproved. Among those who approved, only 9 percent strongly supported Obama’s plans. The same poll found that 68 percent of respondents were following the news about this issue somewhat or very closely.

Republicans should take note of that last finding. In addition to stopping Obama’s executive actions on immigration being the right policy, such numbers suggest it could also be good politics.

That means Republicans must be willing to wage this battle in the public square and not just behind closed doors on Capitol Hill, which is exactly where Democrats would like to keep it.
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Genevieve Wood advances policy priorities of The Heritage Foundation as senior contributor to The Daily Signal.

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Tags: Genevieve Wood, democrats, blocking, Homeland Security, DHS, funding To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Dems Block Homeland Security Bill For 3rd Day In A Row | Hot Air Sums Up The Situation

Today in Washington, D.C. - Feb.  5, 2015:
The House reconvened at 9 AM today. The House considered amendments to and passed (260-163) H.R. 527 — "To amend chapter 6 of title 5, United States Code (commonly known as the Regulatory Flexibility Act), to ensure complete analysis of potential impacts on small entities of rules, and for other purposes."

The House has recessed and will reconvene on Monday, Feb 9 at 1:00 PM.

The Senate reconvened at 10:30 AM today and resumed consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 240, the House-passed Homeland Security Appropriations bill.

At 11:30, Democrats filibustered the motion to proceed to the bill for a third time, meaning the Senate could not even take up the bill to debate it. Yesterday, Democrats made their second filibuster of the motion to take up the bill with a 53-47 vote.

Speaking on the Senate floor this morning, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called on Democrats to stop blocking the Senate from debating the Homeland Security Appropriations bill.

“Yesterday,” he said, “Democrats voted once again to protect politicians by blocking Homeland Security funding. I don’t understand why they’d want to block the Senate from even debating a bill to fund Homeland Security. It just doesn’t make sense. You’d think Democrats would at least want to give the Senate an opportunity to make improvements to the bill, if it needs them.

“Why would Democrats want to stand tall for the ability of politicians to do things President Obama himself has described as ‘unwise and unfair’? Why would Democrats go to the mat to protect the political class from the consequences of overreach President Obama has referred to as ‘ignoring the law’?

“Well, here’s the good news. There’s a way forward. There’s a way to end this Democrat filibuster. All it requires is a little common sense and a little Democrat courage.

“Remember: Several Democrats previously indicated unease with the idea of politicians overreaching in ways President Obama has seemed to imply would ‘violate the law.’ So now is the time to back those words up.”

But of course, for the third time in three days, Democrats again filibustered a motion to proceed to the bill. As Politico writes, “Senate Democrats again on Thursday rejected a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security over their opposition to riders that would block President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration. The failed 52-47 vote was the third time this week that Democrats have refused to even debate the House GOP’s proposal.”

Prior to the vote, Leader McConnell offered to move immediately to the bill and start considering amendments to the bill immediately. But Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) objected.

Even when a compromise idea was floated by Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), to ensure that Congress rebuked the president for an action he himself said over 20 times he did not have the authority to take, while leaving other programs favored by Democrats alone, it was still dismissed out of hand by Senate Democrats. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), attacked it as “hostage-taking.”

As Leader McConnell said yesterday, “Today’s Democrat Party seems willing to go to any extreme to protect the kind of executive overreach President Obama once described as ‘not how our democracy functions’ – even to block Homeland Security funding to get its way.”

Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today urged Senate Democrats to cease their filibuster of Department of Homeland Security funding: "For the third time, Senate Democrats are jeopardizing homeland security to protect President Obama's unconstitutional action granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants. With all the threats facing the homeland, now is not the time to allow politics to interfere with our nation's security. Let the bill come to the floor as is.

"If Senate Democrats wish to offer an amendment to the Department of Homeland Security funding, they can do that, but they need to allow the bill to be acted upon. If they can muster the votes to change it, it will be changed. As it stands, funding expires at the end of the month, and the world is not getting any safer.

"In the meantime, we urge the Senate majority to continue holding cloture votes on this important piece of legislation so that the process can move forward, and members have an opportunity to make their voices heard. The House has done its job. Now it's time for the Senate to get to work."

Hot Air has summed up the DHS situation:[N]ow let’s take a look at the actual bill which is already a sure thing in the House and the matching measure currently being held up by your party in the Senate, as well as the complaints you listed above:

Wages for border patrol and customs agents? Paid for.

Wages for immigration officers and Coast Guard employees? Got it covered.

TSA screeners? There may be a lot of gritting of teeth over that one, but it’s paid for as well.

It’s all there, President Obama, with the money ready to flow and the paychecks waiting to be covered. All it requires is your party to put it through to your desk and for you to sign it.

What’s that you say? There isn’t money for your executive amnesty program? Well, we’re sorry to inform you, but the people who elected the current majority were promised that funding for that would not be supported. If you would really like to see it happen I’m sure we could draft up a separate bill funding just those activities and see how many votes it attracts. (But I’m sorry to say, your prospects are not good.)

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Tags: Senate, Homeland Security, Democrats, blocking bill, seeking to fun Obama's Executive Amnesty  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Obama's Really Bad Deal | Jordan Responds To Brutal Murder

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Obama's Really Bad Deal - U.S. and Iranian diplomats may be on the verge of a breakthrough in talks over Iran's nuclear program. According to the Associated Press, this "breakthrough" would reportedly "let Iran keep much of its uranium-enriching technology but reduce its potential to make nuclear weapons. . . .the proposal could leave most of Iran's nearly 10,000 centrifuges in place but reconfigure them to reduce the amount of enriched uranium they produce."

If accurate, it would be a really bad deal. The point of these negotiations should be to prevent Iran from going nuclear and threatening the United States, our allies and particularly Israel.

This deal could make Iran a "threshold nuclear power." As the AP acknowledges, "Experts warn that any reduction in centrifuge efficiency is reversible more quickly than a straight decrease in the number of machines."

This AP report explains why Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu jumped at the opportunity to address Congress. It also explains why Barack Obama and his left-wing allies in Congress are doing everything they can to prevent Netanyahu from speaking.

Sadly, anti-Israel sentiment on the political left is spreading quickly. Politico reports that "dozens" of Democrats, seeking to "balance publicly supporting Israel with backing Obama," are siding with Obama and threatening to boycott Netanyahu's address. Even Vice President Joe Biden won't say whether he will attend the speech.

Meanwhile, Obama and Kerry have been negotiating with themselves, making concessions to the mullahs day after day after day. A year ago, experts said that a serious deal would require Tehran to reduce the number of its operational centrifuges to 2,000. After months of negotiations, it appears we're getting next to nothing and that Iran has prevailed.

For the United States, a nuclear-armed Iran significantly complicates our relations in the Middle East. Sunni Arab nations like Egypt and Saudi Arabia will undoubtedly feel the need to develop their own nuclear weapons programs. But for Israel, a nuclear-armed Iran is an immediate existential threat.

2015 Map: ISIS in Middle East - Source: TBD

Jordan Responds To Brutal Murder - Jordan responded yesterday to the brutal murder of its pilot who was burned alive by ISIS jihadists. As promised, the kingdom executed two Al Qaeda-linked terrorists this morning, including Sajida al-Rishawi.

Rishawi, a female suicide bomber, participated in a 2005 attack in Amman, Jordan, that targeted hotels frequented by Israelis and Westerners. She and her husband walked into a hotel ballroom during a wedding, but her suicide vest didn't work. Her husband's did and 38 people were killed.

I doubt the release of yesterday's video was a coincidence. King Abdullah II was in Washington meeting with President Obama. The video was likely meant to embarrass the king. Instead it enraged him.

While speaking to members of Congress, King Abdullah reportedly quoted Clint Eastwood's character in "Unforgiven." According to Representative Duncan Hunter, Jr., the king vowed to launch more airstrikes than ever before, saying, "The only problem we are going to have is running out of fuel and bullets."

Good for him! If only our president could muster the same outrage and conviction to fight back.

That is how we defeated Hitler's Germany and Hirohito's Japan. You cannot negotiate with an evil like ISIS. (Or Hamas or Hezbollah or Boko Haram for that matter.) ISIS intends to murder hundreds of millions of "infidels." No concessions by the West will satisfy its murderous intentions.
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Gary Bauer is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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Tags: Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, President Obama, Iran, really bad deal, nuclear program, anti-Israel sentiment, political left, Jordan, responds to ISIS To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Bureaucrats Tampering with Choke Point Witnesses

by Newt Gingrich: Last month the U.S. Consumer Coalition revealed audio tapes proving what small business owners have been reporting for years: the Obama administration is throwing around threats of regulation to try to squeeze out of existence industries the bureaucrats don’t like.

As I wrote last month, in an Obama administration initiative known as “Operation Choke Point,” regulators from the CFPB, FDIC and the Justice Department collaborate to threaten banks, payment processors, and other financial institutions with regulatory consequences unless they cut off service to businesses in any of 30 industries on the administration’s target list.

That list, revealed in a 2011 document from the FDIC, includes gun and ammunition dealers, coin dealers, payday lenders, and sellers of “racist materials,” among other categories of perfectly legal (if not necessarily beloved) businesses. The result is that companies operating in these industries have found it increasingly difficult to do business, because the financial services they rely on for their day-to-day transactions are increasingly dropping them as clients.

Many of the banks and payment processors have told the people they’ve dropped that the decision didn’t reflect their behavior as clients. Instead, business owners have reported, banks and payment processors say the feds are forcing them to drop clients in targeted industries.

In one typical notice, obtained by the Washington Post, a banker wrote a business that “based on your performance, there’s no way we shouldn’t be a credit provider. Our only issue is, and it has always been, the space in which you operate. It is the scrutiny that you, and now that we, are under.”

The USCC tapes, provided by Wisconsin firearms dealer Mike Schuetz, were even more explicit about the administration’s abuse. As Breitbart reports:
“[Federal] examiners…came in and looked at our accounts…looked at our books,” one official of Heritage Credit Union is heard telling Schuetz on one of the tapes. “Here’s some accounts that we feel that we’re going to regulate you on…and kinda put the screws to us as far as what we could and couldn’t do. The regulatory and compliance issues that we said earlier are true. We never used to have to do that stuff…and our hands are tied by it.”

Other audio recordings are equally chilling. “You wouldn’t believe the regulations we have and when they came in and nailed us on that [accounts] there were about a dozen of them crawling around the building,” a Heritage Credit Union official is heard on the tapes telling Schuetz.This is pretty chilling behavior when you consider that these regulators are targeting small, legal businesses like Mike’s firearms dealership in Wisconsin.

And those bureaucrats evidently don’t appreciate their tactics being exposed so publicly. Following the disclosure of the tapes, the CFPB distributed a bulletin last week, telling financial services companies they aren’t allowed to talk to “third parties” about federal “supervisory” activities. The bulletin, which was obtained the by Daily Caller, states:The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [CFPB] issues this compliance bulletin as a reminder that, with limited exceptions, persons in possession of confidential information, including confidential supervisory information [CSI], may not disclose such information to third parties…

‘Confidential information’ means ‘confidential consumer complaint information, confidential investigative information, and confidential supervisory information, as well as any other CFPB information that may be exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act pursuant.In other words, the feds are telling the banks and payment processors to shut up about Operation Choke Point. They don’t want them disclosing to businesses like Mike’s that federal regulators ordered the service terminations. So they’re offering a “reminder” that regulators “may not” release that information to “third parties”–the affected businesses.

This is a bureaucracy behaving more like the Soviet dictatorship than like a group of civil servants. The administration’s veiled threat is tantamount to witness tampering.

Operation Choke Point–and the bureaucratic attempt to cover up its existence–are a sobering reminder of the dangers of centralized power. It’s a genuine threat to freedom when federal bureaucrats have it in their power to ruin the lives and destroy the livelihoods of ordinary, law-abiding Americans.

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Tags: Newt Gingrich, U.S. Consumer Coalition, tapes, Obama administration, executive actions, Operation Choke Point, Bureaucrats, CFPB, FDIC, Justice Department Tampering, Choke Point Witnesses To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

What Do Jews and Muslims Have in Common?

by Tom Balek, Contributing Author: These are trying times.

I know every generation thinks their time in history is the most challenging, the most significant, the most "historic". I will not claim that today's challenges rise to the level of World War II, or the fall of the Roman Empire, or the bubonic plague of the Middle Ages.

Still, these are trying times. And the issue of our day is the rapid advance of extremist Muslims across the globe.

What baffles non-Muslims is how moderate (non-violent) Muslims seem to tolerate the horrendous violence of their radical brethren.

Our own president, who attended a Muslim elementary school, gives moderate Muslims a pass. In a CNN interview with Fareed Zakaria, President Obama said, "I don't quibble with labels. I think we all recognize that this is a particular problem that has roots in Muslim communities. But I think we do ourselves a disservice in this fight if we are not taking into account the fact that the overwhelming majority of Muslims reject this ideology."

If an "overwhelming majority of Muslims" reject terrorism, why don't they do something about it? Have you heard anything about moderate Muslims speaking up against the beheadings, murders, and abuse of children and women?

They don't. I'm pretty sure that's because they are AFRAID. Extremist Muslims murder moderate Muslims all over the world with glee and abandon. Would you be willing to make yourself a target of these maniacs?

European Jews were abused and murdered by the millions during World War II. Weighing heavy on the minds of Gentiles who weren't there is the question: Why didn't they put up a fight?

Of course, many Jews did. But many more left their homes, boarded the trains, and followed the orders of the Nazi murderers because . . . they were AFRAID.

Who wouldn't be? It's so easy for those of us who are not a target to diminish those who are, but who don't put up a fight. And it's so easy to disengage from the conflict and mind our own business.

If history teaches us anything, it is this: we must fight evil, wherever it surfaces. Not some of us, all of us. Tyranny, violence, and oppression is wrong, in any language and in any true religion. And while it's hard for an individual to fight the power, it is much easier and more effective if we bring our numbers to the battle.

The Jews in World War II and all those who face extremist Islam today - Christians, Jews, moderate Muslims, and any unlucky soul who strays into the path of the evil Muslim mayhem - share the need to stay alive. Pity those who shrink from the task at hand.
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Tom Balek – Rockin' On the Right Side is a fellow conservative activist, blogger and musician. Tom and the ARRA News Service Editor left part of their hearts in Montana. Tom resides in South Carolina and between playing in weekend bands, he seeks to educate those too busy with their work and families to notice how close to the precipice our economy has come."

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Keep yourself alive, keep yourself alive.
It'll take you all your time and money, honey you'll survive
Keep yourself alive
Queen - Keep Yourself Alive

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Tags: Jews, Muslims, Christians, common enemy, face extremist Islam, Tom Balek, Rockin' On The Right Side To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Immigration Handbook for Congressional Republicans

by Phyllis Schlafly: Republicans in 2014 won the biggest majority in Congress they've had since the 1930s, so the grassroots expect them to deliver the fruits of victory. The best guide for action is the “Immigration Handbook for the New Republican Majority” by Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) issued a couple of weeks ago.

Sessions’ report asks the fundamental question: “What sense does it make to continue legally importing millions of low-wage workers to fill jobs while sustaining millions of current residents on welfare?” Republicans can’t win in 2016 without tapping into that unrepresented American constituency.

President Obama has issued orders granting work permits to five million illegal aliens, along with Social Security, Medicare, and free tax credits, all of which take jobs and benefits from struggling Americans. Obama simply ignored or voided existing immigration laws in order to implement his own policies by measures that Congress has repeatedly and explicitly rejected.

Obama knew very well that he was directly opposing the wishes of the big majority of Americans. Polls were unequivocal; more than 3 in 4 voters cited immigration as an important factor in their 2014 vote; they opposed his plans for amnesty and demanded that U.S. workers be given priority for jobs.

Obama several times admitted that only an emperor could issue such edicts. Nevertheless we are now living under imperial decrees that defy the will of the people, the Constitution that Obama swore an oath to obey, and the laws that Congress passed.

Congressional Republicans seem to have forgotten that they won the last election because they promised to defeat Obama’s amnesty. Obama seems to have forgotten that he promised on Feb. 21, 2013, “I’m not the emperor of the United States. My job is to execute laws that are passed.”

Senator Sessions’ Handbook declares emphatically that Congress has the power to stop Obama’s amnesty by denying funds for its implementation. The U.S. House has already passed a bill that would do this and forwarded it to the Senate.

There are many other bills that Congress should pass to checkmate Obama’s imperial, unauthorized and illegal actions to give preference to illegal aliens rather than to American citizens regarding jobs and taxpayer-paid benefits.

Here are a few examples of laws Congress should immediately pass: require all employers to use E-Verify, end catch-and-release, enforce mandatory repatriation for unaccompanied alien minors (instead of loading them into our public schools), end asylum forgeries (remember: the Boston bombers were dishonest asylum seekers, yet were admitted and given welfare handouts), and stop giving generous welfare to illegal aliens. Any immigration “reform” that fails to include these elements will create a slush fund for the Obama Administration to resettle illegals throughout the U.S.

Obama’s attitude toward immigration was summed up by his former ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Director John Sandweg: “If you’re a run-of-the-mill immigrant here illegally, your odds of getting deported are close to zero.” Senator Session commented, “anyone in the world who manages to get into the interior of the United States – by any means, including overstaying a visa – is free to live, work, and claim benefits in the United States at American expense.”

Meanwhile, two more states have joined the coalition of states (now totaling 26) that are suing over Obama’s executive actions on immigration. This lawsuit was filed by Greg Abbott, then Texas Attorney General and now Governor of Texas.

The Sessions Handbook quotes U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services union president Kenneth Palinkas as warning us: “The 9/11 hijackers got into the U.S. on visas and now, 13 years later, we have around 5 million immigrants in the United States who overstayed their visas, many from high-risk regions in the Middle East.” Congress should protect Americans from some of these problems by suspending visas to countries with high overstay rates or those that won’t accept back their own criminals.

The Sessions Handbook makes another scary point that is not generally known. “Each year, the U.S. admits one million largely lesser-skilled permanent immigrants to the United States, who receive green cards, lifetime work authorization, all federal benefits, access to most federal welfare, and the ability to apply for citizenship and vote.”

And here’s the kicker. “From 2000 to 2014, when 14 million new permanent legal immigrants were admitted to the U.S. in addition to the illegal immigration flow, all net employment gains went to immigrant workers. The total number of working age U.S.-born Americans without jobs now stands at 58 million.”

Senator Sessions’ Handbook ends with a couple of important questions: “Should American immigration laws serve the just interests of our country and our citizens? And do those citizens have the right to expect and demand that the laws passed by their elected representatives be enforced? If we believe the answers to these questions are Yes, then we have no choice but to fight, and to win.”
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Phyllis Schlafly has been a national leader of the conservative movement since 1964. She founded and is president of Eagle Forum. She has testified before more than 50 Congressional and State Legislative committees on constitutional, national defense, and family issues.

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Tags:  Senator Jeff Sessions, immigration handbook, no amnesty, employ Americans, Congressional Republicans, Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Terrorists and Our ** President

by Alan Caruba, Contributing Author: You know something is terribly wrong when three former Secretaries of State, Henry Kissinger, George Schultz and Madeleine Albright tell a Senate Armed Services Committee that the President of the United States is an idiot with no idea how to conduct foreign affairs. Well, they didn’t say it in those words, but that was pretty much the message. That was January 29.

Two days earlier retired 4-Star General James Matthis, former head of U.S. Central Command, former Army Vice Chief of Staff and 4-Star General Jack Keane, and Navy Admiral William Fallon, also a former CentCom chief, had also testified before the Committee. They had a similar message as the diplomats. Obama and the other idiots in the White House are completely clueless regarding the threat of radical Islam in general and a potential nuclear Iran in particular.

This is, after all, a White House that is trying to call those intent on taking over the entire Middle East and, after that, the rest of the world anything other than “terrorists.” They have used terms such as “insurgents”, “activists” and “militants.” Here at home, they are still referring to the killings at Fort Hood as “workplace violence.” Don’t any of these idiots understand that the terrorists, whether they call themselves al Qaeda or the Islamic State, Hezbollah, Hamas or any other name all constitute the same threat?

That’s what the generals addressed. They told the Senate committee that absence of a White House strategy makes the ISIS, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan wars “unwinnable.” I have been around since the end of World War II and that stretch of U.S. history is one in which we fought to a stalemate in Korea and a loss in Vietnam. After we won the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, Obama pulled out and now they are lost too. There was a time when Americans and their leaders knew how to win wars.

Indeed, there was a time when Americans preferred to elect generals to be their President, starting with George Washington. Among those with that rank were Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Ruther P. Hayes, James A. Garfield. Chester A. Arthur. Benjamin Harrison, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. All the others had also served in the military in some capacity…except Barack Hussein Obama.

Obama not only doesn’t have experience in the military, he doesn’t seem to like them much. He has done everything he can to reduce our military capacity to fight a war anywhere or to show any genuine respect for the troops on active duty. The only uniform he ever wore was as an Indonesian Boy Scout.

Retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis told the Congress “America needs a refresh national security strategy. We need to come out from our reactive crouch and take a firm, strategic stance in defense of our values.” Apparently those values don’t matter to the White House or to those left-wingers who wet their pants over the popularity of “Sniper”, a film that pays tribute to our troops who fought the war in Iraq.

Under Obama’s term in office, radical Islam has increased four-fold in the past five years, ISIS ten times since 2012 and Iran has masterminded control of the capitols in Beirut, Lebanon, Damascus, Syria, Baghdad, Iraq, and now in Sanaa, Yemen. It has been the power behind Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

Gen. Keane described Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan as an “absolute strategic failure.” He called radical Islam “the major security challenge of our generation.”

Regarding Iran, Gen. Keane said, “In 1980, Iran declared the United States as a strategic enemy and its goal is to drive the United State out of the region, achieve regional hegemony, and destroy the state of Israel.”

“Is there any doubt that Iran is on the march and is systematically moving toward their regional hegemonic objective?” asked Gen. Keane. “Iran has been on a 20-year journey to acquire nuclear weapons, simply because they know it guarantees preservation of the regime and makes them, along with their partners, the dominant power in the region, thereby capable of expanding their control and influence. Add to this their ballistic missile delivery system and Iran is not only a threat to the region, but to Europe, as well.” The U.S. in time will be in missile range.

“We have no comprehensive strategy to stop it or defeat it,” said Gen. Keane.

Thanks to Barack Obama, the United States of America can no longer be seen as the world leader, opposing the forces that seek to impose control. Former allies, particularly in the Middle East, no longer have any confidence that we would come to their defense if they were attacked.

Thanks to Barack Obama, our enemies have been emboldened and our allies confused, but it is not that confusing. He is an idiot who lacks any grasp of history’s lessons and he is a coward who cannot be expected to seriously respond to our own and our allies’ enemies.
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Alan Caruba is a writer by profession; has authored several books, and writes a daily column, Warning Signs  He is a contribution author on the  ARRA News Service.

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Tags: Alan Caruba, Warning Signs, terrorist, our enemies, President Obama, policies, actions, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!