End of Week: Sandals Update

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Lernergate Update - Lois Lerner is back in the news. You will recall that Lerner was the IRS official who led the targeting of Tea Party groups. When her inquisition was exposed, her hard drive mysteriously crashed, her Blackberry was destroyed and all her emails just disappeared.

The IRS did everything it could to recover her data, but, tragically, it was all lost. Or so we were told. No one believed that and for good reason -- it wasn't true.

The IRS Inspector General's office has in fact discovered thousands of Lerner's emails on backup tapes -- tapes we were told had been disposed of and recycled.

Deputy Inspector General Timothy Camus told members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he discovered the backup tapes were being stored at a facility in West Virginia. Contrary to the testimony of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, no one from the IRS had ever asked for them. In addition, investigators discovered at least 400 more backup tapes just two weeks ago. Those tapes were discovered after investigators realized the IRS was withholding documents from them.

Technicians are still reviewing the tapes, and they don't yet know exactly what is on them. Nevertheless, Camus said, "There is potential criminal activity."

Benghazigate Update - Newly revealed State Department emails prove that Hillary Clinton's closest advisors knew within minutes that the assault on our consulate in Benghazi was in fact a terrorist attack. The emails were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought against the State Department by Judicial Watch. Here's what they show:

• Minutes after the attack began, former Secretary of State Clinton's chief-of-staff, Cheryl Mills, and Clinton's executive assistant, Joseph McManus, received a message entitled, "U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi is Under Attack."
• They received another email 30 minutes later noting: "15 armed individuals were attacking the compound and trying to gain entrance. The Ambassador is present in Benghazi and currently is barricaded within the compound. . . . [REDACTED] is responding and taking fire."
• Two hours later a third message was received reporting that an Al Qaeda-linked group was taking credit for the attack: "Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack (SBU): "(SBU) Embassy Tripoli reports the group claimed responsibility on Facebook and Twitter and call for an attack on Embassy Tripoli."

Yet in spite of these real time details, Clinton's State Department and Obama's White House -- contrary to advice from the Pentagon -- concocted a story about a spontaneous demonstration in response to a movie.

Just weeks before the 2012 election and after saying over and over again that "Al Qaeda was decimated and on the run," the Obama/Clinton team couldn't tell the truth and admit that Al Qaeda had just attacked our consulate, killing our ambassador and three other Americans.

This scandal is relevant because Hillary Clinton wants to be the next president of the United States. We cannot let the country suffer from collective amnesia about Clinton's role in misleading the public about the attack in Benghazi on September 11, 2012.

 Clinton Ethical Lapses - The Washington Post reported this week that the Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars from foreign governments while Hillary served as Obama's secretary of state. At least one donation "violated [the foundation's] ethics agreement."

One of the more problematic donations to the Clinton Foundation came from the government of Qatar, which also spent more than $5 million lobbying the State Department while Hillary was secretary of state.

Qatar has a scandalous human rights record. When Hamas fled the Syrian civil war in January 2012, it moved its headquarters from Damascus to Qatar.

I wonder how young women who are so "ready for Hillary" will feel about her foundation taking money from a government that treats women like cattle. According to Amnesty International, "Women who report rape or sexual violence in Qatar are at risk of being charged with 'illicit relations' and face prison sentences if convicted."

The Clintons, fundraising scandals, ethical lapses. . . This sounds all too familiar. American can do better in 2016.
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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: End of Week, Scandals Update, Lernergate, Lois Learner, emails lost, emails found, IRS, IRS Inspector General, investigation, Benghazigate Update, Benghazi, Hillary Clinton, Clinton Foundation, Clintons, fundraising scandals, ethical lapses, millions of dollars, foreign governments Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Common Core is Losing Ground

The Heartland Institute: Throughout the nation, state legislators are debating whether to pass, reject, or even repeal Common Core State Standards. Legislation to repeal Common Core is being considered in Arizona, Kansas, Montana, and South Dakota. Four states – Alaska, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia – never adopted the standards. Another four states – Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, and South Carolina – originally adopted the standards and have since successfully repealed them.

Common Core establishes a significant centralization of government control over curricula used in public school districts across the country. The standards are not “world class” and do not improve the quality of education for the nation’s children; their sole purpose rather is to expand the reach of the federal government into every school in America.

Heartland Research Fellow Joy Pullmann says Common Core creates a number of problems. “[There are myriad] concerns [regarding these standards that] include lack of public input, costs, lost teacher autonomy, crony capitalism, academic quality, and experimental testing,” said Pullmann.

Pullmann says in her Heartland Policy Tip Sheet on Common Core that states need to regain control of their public schools’ destiny if they really want to improve education results. “States should replace Common Core with higher-quality, state-controlled academic standards and tests not funded by the federal government,” Pullmann said. “They should secure student data privacy and ensure national testing mandates do not affect instruction in private and home schools”Point 1: Common Core is of mediocre academic quality, according to nationally known experts, and research shows education standards do not improve student achievement.

Point 2: Common Core was not created by states in any meaningful sense. It was written behind closed doors by unelected committees inside organizations funded largely by the federal government.

Point 3: Most states have agreed to subject their laws to federally funded and monitored Common Core testing groups, largely through contracts legislatures have not reviewed.

Point 4: Many states promised the federal government they would trade their standards for Common Core before a draft or final version of the standards was published.

Point 5: The national Common Core testing groups have not specified what data they will require of states within their student assessments, but they have promised the federal government will receive full access. The Obama administration has removed federal protections that in the past limited student data-sharing and required schools to inform parents of it.

Point 6: Common Core threatens school choice, private schools, and home schools by creating a national market for education in which all tests—including the SAT, ACT, Iowa Basic, and Stanford 10—and most curricula are structured according to one system.

Point 7: Common Core is entirely experimental. No state or school has ever tested it.

Point 8: Education standards are not curriculum, but they determine what children will and will not learn. They define curriculum. And the federally funded testing consortia are creating a model Common Core curriculum, although federal curriculum creation is illegal.

Point 9: Almost no state has analyzed how much retraining teachers, new curriculum, and upgrading technology by 2016 for online-only Common Core tests will cost taxpayers.

Point 10: There is no process for parents, teachers, and school boards to provide feedback or gain flexibility on all or part of Common Core as students begin encountering it.

Point 11: Common Core assumes one schedule of learning fits all children, and a small group of paid experts know what it is. It also rests on the premise, rejected by many communities and parents, that the sole purpose of public education is workforce training.

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Tags: The Heartland Institute, Common Core, loosing ground, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Giuliani Versus Obama

by Dr. Thomas Sowell: The firestorm of denunciation of former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, for having said that he did not think Barack Obama loved America, is in one sense out of all proportion to that remark — especially at a time when there are much bigger issues, including wars raging, terrorist atrocities and a nuclear Iran on the horizon.

Against that background of strife and dangers on the world stage, it may seem as if Barack Obama's feelings, or Rudolph Giuliani's opinion about those feelings, should not matter so much, especially when it is hard to know with certainty how anyone feels. Yet when someone is the leader of a great nation at a historic juncture, it is more than idle curiosity to know what drives him.

It is not clear what the basis was for so much outrage at Mayor Giuliani's opinion about President Obama. Was it that what Giuliani said was demonstrably false? Was it that Barack Obama is supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty?

Anyone who simply looks at the factual evidence as to whether Obama loves America, or does not, will find remarkably little to suggest love and a large amount of evidence, over a long period of years, showing his constant close association with people fiercely hostile to this country. Jeremiah Wright was just one in a long series of such people.

Barack Obama's campaign promise to "fundamentally change the United States of America" hardly suggests love. Nor did his international speaking tour in 2009, telling foreign audiences that America was to blame for problems on the world stage.

President Obama's record in the White House has been more of the same. Among his earliest acts were offending our oldest and closest allies, Britain and Israel, and betraying the country's previous commitments to provide anti-missile defenses to Poland and the Czech Republic.

Obama's refusal to let Ukraine have weapons with which to defend itself from Russian invasion was consistent with this pattern, and consistent with his whispered statement — picked up by a microphone that was still on — to tell "Vladimir" that, after the 2012 election was over, he would be able to "have more 'flexibility.'"

Conceivably, these might all have been simply blunders. But such a string of blunders would require someone very stupid, and Barack Obama is by no means stupid. The net effect is that in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, America's allies and America's interests face far more setbacks and dangers today than when Obama took office.

His policies have been publicly criticized by two of his own former Secretaries of Defense, by two retired four-star generals who served during his administration, and a retired four-star admiral who also served in the Middle East during the Obama administration has called his policies "anti-American."

Some people who are denouncing former mayor Rudolph Giuliani seem to be saying that it is just not right to accuse a President of the United States of being unpatriotic. But when Barack Obama was a Senator, that is precisely what he said about President George W. Bush. Where was the outrage then?

If all else fails, critics of Mayor Giuliani can say that a man is entitled to be considered "innocent until proven guilty." But that principle applies in a court of law. Outside a court of law, there is no reason to presume anyone innocent until proven guilty. It is especially dangerous to presume a President of the United States — any president — innocent until proven guilty.

Whoever is president has the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans, and the fate of a nation, in his hands. It is those millions of people and that nation who deserve the benefit of the doubt. We need to err on the side of safety for the people and the country. Squeamish politeness to an individual cannot outweigh that.

We need to keep that in mind for the next president, and for all future presidents. We might have been better off if the question of Obama's patriotism had been raised before he was first elected. Never should we ignore so many red flag warnings again.

There is little that can be done about President Obama now, no matter what he does. Impeachment, even if it succeeded, would mean Joe Biden as president and riots across the country. It is hard to know which would be worse.
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Thomas Sowell is an American economist, social commentator, and author of dozens of books. He has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago and degrees from Columbia University and Harvard University. He is a retired professor of Economic and presently is a Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Visit his website with list of other articles.

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Tags: Thomas Sowell, commentary, New York City, mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, President Barrack Obama, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Robert Reich, Mythed Up

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: Consumer sovereignty is the idea that in markets consumers call the shots. In capitalism, most mass production is indeed for the masses, and the masses have a big say in what gets done. All profits and wages of successful businesses come from conumers.

But don't take this too far.

Consumers don't "create jobs," for example.

Recently, Clinton-era Labor Secretary Robert Reich has been floating this bizarre notion. To his Facebook audience, last month, he wrote that it is a myth that "the 'job creators' are CEOs, corporations, and the rich, whose taxes must be low in order to induce them to create more jobs.

Rubbish. The real job creators are the vast middle class and the poor, whose spending induces businesses to create jobs. That is why raising the minimum wage, extending overtime protection, enlarging the Earned Income Tax Credit, and reducing middle-class taxes are all necessary."So, we have people in roles of "producers" and "consumers," and it is the
consumers who "create jobs"? And they do this by "inducing" businesses to, wait, uh, "create jobs"?

Face it: businesses create jobs - out of capital from somebody's invested savings. Entrepreneurs brace themselves to take big risks, fronting workers' wages as well as hiring and purchasing capital goods and material.

Before a penny is spent by consumers.

Only when entrepreneurs guess right does the flow of money come full circle.

Reich repeated his quasi-Keynesian rap: it's spending consumers who "get businesses to expand and hire."

Truth is, Reich doesn't "get" basic economics. But he does understand political equations, which is why folks on the Democratic left think he's a genius.

This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.
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Paul Jacobs is author of Common Sense which provides daily commentary about the issues impacting America — and about the citizens who are doing something about them. He is a contributing author on the ARRA News Service.

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Tags: Paul Jacob, Common Sense, Robert Reich, Mythed Up, quais-Keynesian, consumption equals creation To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Jobless Violence . . .

. . . President Obama feels ISIS jobs are the answer to ending their evil rampage in the middle east. A dangerous lunacy position - Give US a Break!

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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Tags: President Obama, ISIS, jobs, answer, ending their evil, 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!

February 2015: Porker of the Month - HUD Secretary Julián Castro

HUD Sec. Julian Castro
Porker of the Month

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julián Castro its February Porker of the Month for putting the taxpayers at risk for yet another housing-related bailout. On February 11, 2015, Secretary Castro testified before the House Financial Services Committee at an oversight hearing on the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). The hearing was convened two weeks after FHA, in response to President Obama’s January 7 directive, reduced its mortgage insurance premiums by 50 basis points, from 1.35 percent to 0.85 percent.

The FHA runs a $1 trillion mortgage insurance program that traditionally provided coverage for low and middle-income first-time homebuyers. The agency is the largest single provider of mortgage insurance and has a 100 percent taxpayer-backed repayment guarantee should the homeowner default. In 2008, Congress “temporarily” increased loan limits for FHA insurance from $360,000 to $625,000 (where it remains today), which in turn raised the eligible income from about $64,000 to $110,000, hardly the low and middle-income homebuyers originally intended to be covered.

While the FHA website states that it is “the only government agency that operates entirely from its self-generated income and costs the taxpayers nothing,” that is not true. According to the Congressional Budget Office, FHA estimated that between 1992 and 2012, its mortgage guarantees would save taxpayers $45 billion, but instead they cost $15 billion. FHA also received a $1.7 billion bailout on September 30, 2013. In addition, FHA is required to maintain 2 percent in capital reserves, which would be between $18 and $20 billion, but it only has $4.7 billion, or .41 percent.

Ironically, on the same day that Secretary Castro testified, FHA was once again included on the Government Accountability Office’s High Risk List due to the agency’s “substantial growth in its insurance portfolio and significant financial difficulties.” FHA has been on the list since 2009.

When queried by members of the committee about the premium reduction and FHA’s precarious financial status, Sec. Castro was at pains to provide even basic information about the current value of the FHA portfolio, refused to admit that the FHA was operating outside of the law, could not say when it would achieve the 2 percent capital reserve benchmark, and repeatedly delivered a series of meaningless platitudes about the benefits of homeownership. Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) pointed out that FHA has offered “pricing gimmicks” while lowering its credit standards, down payment requirements, and premiums, which are tactics that have been criticized elsewhere as “predatory lending.”

“It’s déjà vu all over again,” opined CAGW President Tom Schatz. “When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac engaged in increasingly risky lending activities and dragged the entire economy into a deep trough, they were only implicitly backed by the taxpayers. Now, the fiscal travails of an agency that is fully backed by taxpayers may lead to another catastrophe. Thanks to its capitulation to President Obama’s idea to lower premiums, FHA insurance is going to be cheaper and preferred for a lot of borrowers who would otherwise have used private mortgage insurance. FHA should return to its original purpose: insuring loans for individuals of modest means, either through income limits or limits on the size of the mortgage. The private sector and private capital should take care of everything else.”

For planting the seeds for the next major housing bailout and failing the most basic financial transparency test about FHA finances, CAGW names HUD Secretary Julián Castro is February Porker of the Month.
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Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.

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Tags: Citizens Against Government Waste, CAGW, porker of the month, HUD, Secretary, Julián Castro, putting the taxpayers at risk, housing-related bailout 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 Demands Amnesty Funding or Goodnight DHS

Today in Washington, D.C - Feb 27, 2014:   The U.S Senate convened at 9:30 AM today.
The Senate voted this morning to to fund Homeland Security through Sept. 30, providing the agency with full funding. The final tally was 68-31.

The Senate is expected to take up the House's stopgap measure later today if it passes.

The House convened at 9 AM today.
H.J. Res. 35 - Making further continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2015, and for other purposes."
H.R. 5 — "To support State and local accountability for public education, protect State and local authority, inform parents of the performance of their children's schools, and for other purposes."

Yesterday, the House passed:
H.R. 5 (Voice Vote) — "To support State and local accountability for public education, protect State and local authority, inform parents of the performance of their children's schools, and for other purposes."

Also, yesterday, House Republican leaders advanced the idea (no legislation): to fund DHS for just three weeks to give the two chambers of Congress time to work out a compromise measure.

The Washington Times reports, "Senate Republican leaders retreated on the homeland security spending fight Friday morning, voting with Democrats to delete provisions that would have stopped President Obama’s deportation amnesty in order to avoid a partial shutdown of the Homeland Security Department at midnight.

"But the 66-33 vote only heightens the tension, as House Republicans remain adamant that the president’s amnesty be stopped, and say they’ll pass a short-term spending bill to keep the Homeland Security Department open for a few more weeks in the hope of working out a final agreement.

"Democratic leaders, meanwhile, say they’re having none of it, insisting that the House GOP drop its objections and accept the Senate’s bill as-is. 'It must pass the Senate bill. We will not go to conference,' Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said, shortly before he led the Senate in passing the “clean” spending bill that funds the Homeland Security Department through the rest of fiscal year 2015.

Without an agreement by midnight, the Homeland Security Department will go into a partial shutdown. . . .

Liberty News Now noted, "Right now, Republicans have some leverage with Democrats and President Obama on DHS funding. If Republicans pass a bill that funds DHS and includes money for Executive Amnesty, the Republican majority will have zero advantage to force the president’s hand on legislation to repeal."

ARRA News Service editor: Recall that it is the House that initiates appropriations bills and not the Senate and especially not the Senate minority. Harry Reid with the assistance of the President is bullying Congress over the threat that DHS will be shut down. House Republicans who are on the side of National Security and who took action to fund NDHS and thus National Security are faced with a moral conflict. They never wished DHS to be unfunded thus advanced full funding bill early enough to the Senate where the Democrats failed to vote to allow discussion on the House bill. The House also stands in opposition to providing the President funding to advance Amnesty of Illegal aliens.

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'Cap and Trade' Is Alive and Well - Despite Having Never Passed Congress

They’re Here to Help

by Seton Motley, Contributing Author: Remember “Cap and Trade?” The anti-market allegedly “market-based” “solution” to man-faked global warming climate change?
A central authority (usually a governmental body) sets a limit or cap on the amount of a pollutant that may be emitted.

The limit or cap is allocated and/or sold by the central authority to firms in the form of emissions permits which represent the right to emit or discharge a specific volume of the specified pollutant.

Permits (and possibly also derivatives of permits) can then be traded on secondary markets.Except:Cap-and-Trade Schemes Are Not Markets

Only if (you) want government to raise energy prices, make coal uneconomical as an electricity fuel, or restrict Americans’ access to carbon-based energy.…“Cap and trade” is a policy so disastrous it couldn't pass a Democrat-majority Congress - with Democrat President Barack Obama eagerly waiting with pen at the ready.(Democrat) Ben Nelson: Cap-and-Trade Will Not Pass This Congress

Cap and Trade is Dead (Really, Truly, I’m Not Kidding)Except with this President, no terrible idea dies just because the Constitutional process demands it.(Environmental Protection Agency) EPA: If Congress Doesn’t Pass Cap-and-Trade, We WillAnd so they have. Here’s the EPA’s “Cap and Trade” page.

And in government, terrible ideas are like kudzu – they rapidly, illegally spread everywhere.

USDA, EPA Partnership Supports Water Quality Trading

The U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have announced an expanded partnership to support water quality trading.… Oh look – the government is assaulting our farmers’ water supply. Where else have we seen that?The EPA is Turning Water on Farms Into a Weapon Against FarmersThe EPA exists to assault the private sector. And it is teaming up with other government departments to maximize the damage.

The USDA is a complete waste of money, time and space. Humans have engaged in agriculture for 10,000 years – we did so for 9,900 of those years without a government department. I think we've got this.

And, of course, there is zero Constitutional authority granted to the federal government to have a USDA.

Having no useful purpose, the Department of Agriculture works day and night to make private agriculture more difficult and expensive. Which raises our food prices – and makes our farmers less competitive on the now-global market.

These government-inflicted regulations and costs – by a department that shouldn't exist – foster other government programs that shouldn’t exist.

Like the horrendous Farm Bill. Government makes it nearly impossible for farmers to turn a profit – then subsidizes them.

Like Food Stamps. Government jacks the price of food – then buys tens of millions of people food at the government-inflated prices because they can no longer afford it.

The Obama Administration is assaulting the private sector with every department, agency, commission and board at its $4-trillion-a-year disposal. Including unilaterally imposing “Cap and Trade” across multiple agencies. And what has transpired during the Obama Administration’s tenure?
14 Million More on Food Stamps Under Obama

Food Stamp Growth 75X Greater than Job CreationIt would seem there is a correlation there.
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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: Seton Motley, Less Government, Cap and Trade, Never passed, Congress, Government takeovers, Big Government, kudzu To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Benghazi Scandal: New Pentagon Documents Show Military Knew It Was Islamic Terrorism

by Helle Dale: Close to 500 pages of Pentagon Benghazi-related documents obtained last week by the non-profit group Judicial Watch prove the U.S. military was operating on the assumption terrorists killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans on the night of Sept. 11, 2012.

The papers confirm statements about the nature of the attack to congressional committees made by both then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and then-AFRICOM Commander Gen. Carter Ham.

Judicial Watch has spent two years in dogged legal pursuit of the heavily redacted papers. The lawsuit to obtain the previously classified “secret” documents was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Sept. 4, 2014, (Judicial Watch v. Department of Defense (No. 1:14-cv-01508)).

Even with the heavy redactions, the documents show the White House-State Department narrative of the Benghazi attack—as a demonstration over a video run amok—to be completely out of sync with the Pentagon. The anti-Muslim video alleged at the root of all the trouble is not mentioned in the Pentagon documents.

The Pentagon papers show knowledge obtained on Sept. 12, 2012, that al-Qaeda-linked terrorists were attempting to establish an Islamic state in Libya and had been responsible for the previous attack on the American compound on June 6, which blew a wide hole in the perimeter wall. This attack “came in response to the 5 June (2012) drone strike on senior al-Qaida leader Abu Yahya al-libi.”

The newly released papers also contain a draft cable to the Joint Chiefs. The cable, dated Sept. 13, 2012, requested additional forces for an “immediate” military response to the Sept. 11 attack, “to protect military and naval assets.” The code name for the operation would have been “Jukebox Lotus.”

As we know, though certain military assets were placed on high alert and repositioned, the order was never executed. No attempt was made at a rescue or a retaliation for the lives of loyal public servants.

Instead, the White House chose to handle Benghazi as a law enforcement matter and gave the investigation to the FBI, which took more than a month to even get personnel on the ground to collect evidence and two years to make an arrest. And today the Middle East is afflicted with a new aggressive brand of terrorism branding itself the Islamic State.
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Helle C. Dale (@Helledale)is the Heritage Foundation's senior fellow in public diplomacy. Her work focuses on the U.S. government’s institutions and programs for strategic outreach to the public of foreign countries, as well as more traditional diplomacy.

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Tags: Benghazi. attack 2012, scandal, Hillary Clinton, White House, Pentagon documents, Military, Islamic Terrorism, Heritage foundation, Helle Dale  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

ISIS In All 50 States? John Kerry's Priorities

Minneapolis Father Joins ISIS - Img via Daily Mail (20/8/14)

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: The FBI arrested three men in Brooklyn yesterday who were attempting to join ISIS. They ranged in ages from 19 to 30. Two were citizens of Uzbekistan and one is a citizen of Kazakhstan. One is reportedly an illegal immigrant. But all three share one thing -- they are Muslims who hate America.

According to the New York Post, court documents reveal that one of the men came into contact with an FBI informant at a mosque. No doubt that revelation will lead to a new round of protests by CAIR and other Muslim grievance groups.

One man wanted to plant a bomb on Coney Island and threatened to kill President Obama. Another reportedly expressed interest in joining the military so he could act as a spy or commit another Fort Hood-style massacre.

While addressing the National Association of Attorneys General yesterday, FBI Director James Comey made this startling statement: "We have investigations of people in various stages of radicalizing in all 50 states. . . . This isn't a New York phenomenon or a Washington phenomenon. This is all 50 states and in ways that are very hard to see."

It is certainly a lot harder to see when your politically correct superiors insist on wearing blinders and refuse to identify the enemy, even when that enemy identifies itself as the ISLAMIC State.

ISIS militants have reportedly seized control of 11 Christian villages in Syria and have taken more than 200 of Assyrian Christians captive.

But don't worry -- Secretary of State John Kerry is on it. In fact, he's just appointed a Special Envoy for Christian persecution. . . Whoops, that's not right.

No, in the face of all that is going wrong in the world today, Secretary Kerry announced this week the first ever Special Envoy for the Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual and Transgender Persons. He moved quickly on that -- the State Department only announced the creation of the job earlier this month.

In contrast, the position of ambassador for international religious freedom was vacant for 43 out of the last 73 months!

If the Assyrian Christians hope to attract the attention of this administration, perhaps they should claim to come out of the closet.
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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: ISIS, Americas, Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Barack Obama’s Hatred Of America And A Free Society

by Jim Mullen, Contributing Author:  Our Republic has suffered from nearly every form of scallywag, thief, liar, and wannabe dictator serving or disserving in the Oval Office. On the other hand, we’ve had honest, dedicated, and patriotic men rise decidedly above what mortal men could reasonably be expected to achieve, who saved, protected, and healed our nation during periods of extreme peril and upheaval.

Since leaders come from the imperfect human race, not all of those rising to the top find themselves listed in the crème de la crème. Pond scum, likewise, rises to the top.

Barack Hussein Obama is a one-of-a-kind U.S. President. Never before has an American chief executive persecuted Americans for being uniquely American. At no time, has a President had such vitriol against, and been as dismissive of, American culture, religion, and the principles of economic free enterprise. No U.S. President in history toured the world apologizing for America’s sins, and absolving Islamic terrorists.

The majority little understood on that inauspicious day when Obama made his infamous promise to ‘fundamentally change America,’ that it would lead to an all-out war on the institutions and citizenry of our country. Few knew of the rage at the Western World instilled in him by his Muslim father. Even fewer questioned the influence that his Communist mentor or his radical, racist minister of twenty years, had on this community organizer from the corrupt underbelly of Chicago politics.

Each dawning day manifests more clearly the radical direction in which his promise takes us. Obama knows that liberty interferes with his designs for an ideal dictatorship; therefore, he abhors freedom. He’s dangerously ensnared in ideological “fairness, social justice, and equal results,” and his dogma doesn’t comprehend that the only fair society, is a free society.

Obama’s redistributionist, collectivist philosophy of unqualified politicians and bureaucrats running the economy is a Marxist scheme that invariably fails miserably. Additionally, taking money from the builders, the creators, the entrepreneurs, and the industrious, and then bestowing it to the takers, whiners, and ‘gimme crowd,’ always leads to further poverty and generations of dependency. In his collectivist, fantasy world, individualism is outmoded; truth ridiculed, and self-sufficiency scorned.

As long as parasites can leech blood from the producers of society, most think America is a grand country. They have a greedy, selfish, destructive, and choking love. Obama and all leftists cater and cling to this low-hanging fruit in that they have the power to vote. Freeloaders furnish the grist for his evil, Maoist mill.

When this U.S. President repeatedly gushes that, he is “working for the people,” one should remember; Chairman Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Castro, and dozens of other dictators echoed this identical self-aggrandizing rant. He’s effectively destroying the Constitution’s promise of limited government, liberty, and equal opportunity for all Americans.

Our community-organizer-in-chief determined at the jump to emulate the failed policies of the European Socialist States where Europe’s immigration, economic, and political correctness policies have them crashing and burning.

Obama liberals and radical Islamists have at least two traits in common; believing they tower above the law, and enacting policies to enforce their evil views upon America. Obama is committing crimes against liberty, the Constitution, and against the moral core of this illustrious land.

Lying is common political fare for presidents and a number of politicians; however, Obama turned blatant dishonesty into an art form. His boldfaced, brazen lies roll off his lips as easily as his ensuing breath. Truth is not in his vocabulary.

We might never find out if Obama, like his father, is a Muslim, however, one fact remains clear; he is a Muslim apologist and refuses to recognize, verbalize, or condemn the butchery they execute in the name of Allah. We might never ascertain if Obama, like his mentor, is a Communist, although we recognize he operates using the same deceit, lawlessness, and class divisions. We might never confirm whether Obama, like his long-time spiritual adviser, is a racist, other than knowing that he preaches the same racial hatred, division, and distrust.

He regards with criminal indifference, the United States Constitution, and considers the laws of the land as annoyances that he summarily and contemptuously disregards.

Rudi Giuliani’s criticism of Obama came down much too softly. Barack Obama created a wound in America that may never heal. His hatred for a country that elected the first black president is renowned and endless. That revulsion manifests itself in his words, actions, edicts, and trespasses..

The voices for liberty in America must rise to a fevered pitch to have any success at drowning out the loud, verbose, shrill voices of tyranny coming from this criminal administration, his bureaucrats, and the Main-Stream Media.

Barack Obama’s idea of America is not the idea of America’s heroes who left their blood and their lives in and on the beaches, jungles, countries, and oceans of the world. They sacrificed for OUR FREEDOM; shall we sit back and let their sacrifices be nothing more than ink stains in discarded, untaught, history books in Barack Obama’s America? Will we allow the worst-of-the-worst President of the U.S. to sully everything for which men have fought, bled and died?
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Jim Mullen is a West Virginia conservative Republican activist writing articles at Freedom For US Now and a contributing author to the ARRA News Service

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The Word from Brazil

by Alan Caruba, Contributing Author: The carnival in Rio de Janeiro from February 13 through the 17th was one heck of a party. It was celebrated by the locals, plus an estimated one million visitors, complete with fabulous parades, street parties and balls. Brazil is blessed with some great beaches, the most famous of which is Ipanema, thanks to the 1962 bossa nova classic “Girl from Ipanema”.

Brazil shares borders every other nation in South America except Ecuador and Chile, and has a range of geographic features from the Amazon rain forest to jungles, towering mountains, rivers and rolling plains. In 2016 Brazil will host the Summer Olympics.

I suspect that’s about the only knowledge of Brazil that most Americans have. Brazil is the largest nation in South America. Its most densely populated parts are in the south-central regions that include major cities like San Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The only Portuguese-speaking nation in both North and South America, it has enjoyed economic growth, but that has slowed.

A friend from Brazil shared news that was not likely to show up except on the business pages because U.S. media tend to ignore Brazil and South America unless its bad news. Brazil’s national oil company, Petrobras, has been caught up in a huge scandal that will lead to criminal proceedings. In early February, its CEO, Gracas Foster, and five other top executives resigned.

It’s a kickback scandal and what makes Brazil a place to watch is the fact that its president, Dilma Rousseff, served on Petrobras board of directors from 2003 to 2010 when the prosecutors allege that the kickbacks were occurring. Her political party is alleged to have received billions in money skimmed from the company.

In October 2014, she was reelected in what The Telegraph described as a “dramatic run-off and a tense campaign” which she won “by a whisker”, just 51.6% of the vote. She was the candidate of the Worker’s Party. The months leading up to the election included mass protests, the corruption scandal, and a stalling economy, slipping back into recession for the first time in five years.

Petrobras is the perfect example of why a government-run enterprise, socialism, is never a good idea. Worth $310 billion in 2008 and valued as the world’s fifth-largest company, today it is worth just $48 billion. There is a definite sense of crisis in Brazil as its government is posting record budget deficits after a collapse in prices for the soy, oil, and iron that the country exports. Its currency, the real, has seen a drop in value for the past six months.

One observer suggests a possible military intervention to remove the president and others involved in the Petrobras scandal.

All that is bad news, but on top of it San Paulo, Brazil’s commercial capital, is running out of water as the reservoirs that supply the nearly twenty million people in the metropolitan area are close to running dry. The water literally goes off around 1 PM until the next day for a few hours but the state water utility denies it is rationing it. The water problem is estimated to last for four to five more years.

America has a long history of isolationism. Early Americans came here to get away from the problems in their home countries, but those problems have ways of affecting our lives as we have seen with the turmoil of Islamic fascism in the Middle East.

We would be well advised to keep an eye on Brazil (and Argentina and Venezuela) and hope it can resolve its current problems, but we can also give thanks that the U.S. is enjoying a boom in energy reserves, particularly oil and natural gas, that protects us against potential upheaval elsewhere in the world.

If we replace the current U.S. administration with one that understands and supports the growth of our energy sector, we will be on our way to a brighter future.
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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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If You Like Your Internet … Net Regs To Be Unveiled

. . . Net neutrality regulations will do for the internet what Obama has done to healthcare. Fears that once the government is involved it won’t be so free.  There will be a limiting of free speech and limiting the ability ordinary Americans to oppose Big Government agenda and express their positions on the Internet regardless of where they are on the political spectrum.

Editorial Cartoon by AF Branco

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Tags: Editorial Cartoon, AF Branco, FCC, Net Nuetrality, Regulations, Internet takeover, Big Government, trampling the 1st 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!

Congress Must Investigate Islamist Influence-Buying

by Newt Gingrich: Friday morning at CPAC, I will outline the urgent need for a thorough Congressional investigation into efforts by our enemies to buy influence in the American political and governmental system.

We now have more than enough evidence that our political and intellectual communities are being penetrated by cash from foreign regimes in ways that are potentially very dangerous to the future of our free society.

Congress has an obligation to establish how big the problem is and to consider new laws to protect American politics and government from being undermined and distorted by foreign opponents buying their way into positions of influence.

We faced this problem in the 1940s and 1950s, when the Soviet Union was financing efforts to penetrate American society and government. A series of congressional hearings, laws, and landmark cases led to a dramatic decline in Soviet influence in our system.

Now we have new efforts to influence us by foreign dictatorships buying influence.

The amount of money the Clintons have collected from dictatorships in the Middle East through their foundation raises profound questions. Americans deserve to know about the process by which a potential future president accepts money from people who, at best, have values totally unacceptable to most Americans and who at worst are funding the very terrorists who want to kill us and destroy our civilization.

As the Wall Street Journal reported this month, the Clinton Foundation recently resumed accepting money from foreign governments, a practice it had stopped in 2009 when Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State. Now among the Foundation’s recent donors, according to the report, are the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Qatar.

The amount of money is as startling as the sources. According to the Journal's analysis, the UAE gave the Clinton Foundation between $1 and $5 million last year. Saudi Arabia has given between $10 million and $25 million since 1999. Qatar, widely known also to fund Hamas (a designated terrorist group), has given the Clinton Foundation up to $5 million. Oman has given a similar amount.

Countries better-aligned with American values, including Germany and Australia, have given millions more but still pose important conflicts of interest.

Yet to be fair to the Clintons, the purchase of influence by foreign countries through donations to American institutions is widespread.

Many of America’s leading think tanks and universities now take money from the very countries they are supposedly studying. So-called scholars show up on television without informing the audience of how much they are making from the countries they are analyzing.

A New York Times investigation last fall concluded that “more than a dozen prominent Washington research groups have received tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments in recent years while pushing United States government officials to adopt policies that often reflect the donors’ priorities.” Significantly, the Times found, “policy makers who rely on think tanks are often unaware of the role of foreign governments in funding the research.”

Qatar, for instance, recently committed nearly $15 million to one of Washington’s top think tanks. The money funded an “affiliate in Qatar and a project on United States relations with the Islamic world,” according to the Times.

Leading American universities are taking money from an assortment of Middle Eastern nations as well. In 2008, Jay P. Greene, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, published a list of 14 major universities that had received more than $88 million combined from “Arabian Gulf countries” in the previous 13 years. Greene points out that while these contributions are small compared to the schools’ total endowments, they’re significant boosts to the Middle Eastern and Islamic studies programs they are often intended to support.

Clarice Feldman, writing for PJ Media, dug into Department of Education reports and found, for instance, that “Georgetown University received a gift of $6,000,000 from Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal of Saudi Arabia ‘to support a chair in the Center for Muslim and Christian Understanding.’ He is one of the richest men in the world and previously made $20 million gifts to Harvard and Georgetown for Islamic studies.”

Certainly not all of the gifts to think tanks and universities are inappropriate or dangerous. But the degree to which foreign donors–many ideologically opposed to Western values and civilization–are funding our leading academic and intellectual institutions merits much greater scrutiny and recognition than it has received.

Many of these same countries have ended up enriching prominent political figures as well. Former Vice President Al Gore earned an estimated $100 million when he sold his left-wing television network to Al Jazeera. That network is owned by the ruling family of Qatar. Still other former officials work for lobbying offices in Washington on behalf of foreign governments.

The threat of foreign governments’ growing sophistication at influence-buying is very real and is as old as the history of war itself. As Sun Tzu wrote 2,500 years ago, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” This ancient Chinese classic emphasizes the importance of undermining opponents by subversion.

The traditions of Islamist expansion offer a similar pattern. As Andrew McCarthy points out in his book The Grand Jihad, cultural and political jihad can be as effective as violent jihad because they are harder to oppose and even to detect.

While Americans have been focused on ISIS and other foreign centers of horrifying violence, people who would, if they had the chance, replace Western civilization with submission to Islam have been working on many other fronts. It is evident that one of those fronts has been funding sympathy at our elite institutions.

Congress has an obligation to thoroughly explore the efforts of our opponents to penetrate, undermine and weaken American society and government.

Congress then will have an obligation to propose laws which at a minimum require total transparency about the flow of foreign money. (The New York Times investigation suggested that some agreements between the American institutions and foreign governments may already be violating existing laws.) More aggressive laws may be necessary with regard to elected officials and government officials.

Our national security is at stake.
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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, Congress, investigate, Influence-Buying, payments, terrorists, 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!

FCC Progressive Takeover of Internet Has Awakened A Sleeping Giant; The Battle Is Not Over

by Phil Kerpen, Contributing Author: Dear Professor McChesney*:

I didn't think you could do it. Even with an obscene $196 million in funding from the Ford Foundation and George Soros, I never thought a small cadre of unreconstructed Marxists could execute a strategy to reduce the Internet to a public utility. But here we are.

Congratulations to your group Free Press and to you, their founder, chief strategist, board member, and ideological leader.

You did it Bob, even though you laid it all out like a Bond villain back in 2009 when you said:“One of the reasons we’ve been able to win this fight is that most of the new digital capital community is not supportive of the telephone and cable monopolies either. We have been in bed with some media companies that on other issues we are mortal enemies with. For a lot of people on the political Left who practice their politics on a barstool, we’ve committed a high-crime and misdemeanour for building a short-term alliance.

“You will never ever, in any circumstance, win any struggle at any time. That being said, we have a long way to go. At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies. We are not at that point yet. But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.”You recruited useful idiot tech CEOs, organized the true-believers and the rent-seeking corporations, and brought FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to heel (against his own expert judgment) by exerting bare-knuckled political pressure through the White House.

Even Hillary Clinton, after ducking the issue for months, has embraced your goal. No matter that her husband’s favorite think tank said it would destroy the Clinton-Gore legacy.

The unthinkable has become thinkable, and the free-market Internet – one of freedom’s greatest triumphs – is set to be reduced to a public utility, subject to pervasive economic regulation and, in turn, to content control.

Your friend, current Free Press board member, and former ally on the FCC Michael Copps told us what comes next back in 2010, when he said:“Can you tell me that minority and women’s voices on the Internet are getting through to major audiences—really being heard—like the big corporate sites? Should we just take it for granted that the small ‘d’ democratic potential of new information technologies will somehow be magically realized without questions being raised about how they are designed and managed?”Now the FCC is poised to design and manage the networks that comprise the Internet.

So again, congratulations. You won this round -- but understand this: you’ve also awakened a sleeping giant. Millions of ordinary Americans who think the free-market Internet has been a wonderful thing. Who understand freedom as the absence of government interference, not the active “designing and managing” by bureaucrats.

We are going to fight. We already won the most recent comment-period, sending your activist ally embedded at the FCC, Gigi Sohn, into an embarrassing “recount.”

Now we are going to fight back in Congress, demanding legislators do their job and overturn this FCC public utility order.

We are going to fight back in the public sphere, battling for every heart and mind.

We are going to fight back in elections, until we have a Congress and president who don’t think their job is to bend to your will.

And we will win. Because you simply cannot be allowed to achieve your ultimate goal.
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* Robert Waterman McChesney, PhD
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Phil Kerpen is president of American Commitment. Follow him at (@kerpen) and on Facebook. He is a contributing author at the ARRA News Service.

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Boehner and McConnell Condemns FCC’s Move to Put Internet Under Control of Federal Bureaucrats

Today in Washington, D.C. - Feb. 26, 2015:
Yesterday, the FCC Commission, non-elected bureaucrats, voted 3-2 in favor of Net Neutrality with the authority too regulate internet service providers. Democrats Wheeler, Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel voting for the takeover and Republicans Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly vote no.

House Speaker Boehner responded, "Overzealous government bureaucrats should keep their hands off the Internet. Today, three appointed by President Obama approved a secret plan to put the federal government in control of the Internet. The text of the proposal is being kept hidden from the American people and their elected representatives in Congress, and the FCC’s chairman has so far refused to testify about it. This total lack of transparency and accountability does not bode well for the future of a free and open Internet, not to mention the millions of Americans who use it every day."

“The FCC is supposed to be an independent agency, but the White House has once again meddled where it shouldn’t in order to advance what one commissioner has described as ‘a solution that won't work to a problem that doesn't exist.’ And like ObamaCare, the Obama administration’s plan for the Internet may not work, but it will create years of uncertainty and lead to expensive legal fights. More mandates and regulations on American innovation and entrepreneurship are not the answer, and that’s why Republicans will continue our efforts to stop this misguided scheme.”

NOTE: Nearly a year ago, House Republican leaders sent a letter to the FCC’s chairman urging him to drop consideration of federal net neutrality regulations. In November, Speaker Boehner warned that they would hurt our economy.

The House reconvened at 10 AM today.
Bills that may be considered today:
H.R. 5 - "To support State and local accountability for public education, protect State and local authority, inform parents of the performance of their children's schools, and for other purposes."

Bills Passed Yesterday:
H.R. 1020 (412-8) — "To define STEM education to include computer science, and to support existing STEM education programs at the National Science Foundation."
H.R. 529 (401-20) — "To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to improve 529 plans."

The Senate reconvened at 11 AM today and resumed post-cloture consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 240, the House-passed Homeland Security appropriations bill.

Yesterday, cloture was finally invoked on the motion to proceed to H.R. 240 by a vote of 98-2.

On the FCC takeover of the Internet:
The New York Times notes, “The Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to regulate broadband Internet service as a public utility, a milestone in regulating high-speed Internet service into American homes. . . . Mobile data service for smartphones and tablets is being placed under the new rules. . . . The F.C.C. is taking this big regulatory step by reclassifying high-speed Internet service as a telecommunications service, instead of an information service, under Title II of the Telecommunications Act. The Title II classification comes from the phone company era, treating service as a public utility.”

“Since the plan was announced earlier this month, The Daily Caller writes, “Republicans on Capitol Hill and in the FCC have criticized it as a massive government overreach, which they allege threatens to destroy market competition and slow Internet infrastructure investment into network growth and innovation by ISPs.

“The plan has faced equal criticism for its identical nature to the one President Obama called on the independent agency to adopt in November, prompting several congressional committees — including the House Oversight Committee — to launch investigations into how much influence the White House exerted over the FCC in the drafting of Wheeler’s proposal.”

The Hill reports, “Republican members of Congress are roundly condemning the new net neutrality rules advanced on Thursday by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). . . . The rules are a ‘317-page power grab over the Internet,’ [said] Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the head of the Senate Commerce Committee. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), meanwhile, said in a speech on the chamber floor that the rules would “strike a blow to the future of innovation in our country.”

Speaking on the floor this morning, Leader McConnell warned, <“The growth of the Internet and the rapid adoption of mobile technology have been great American success stories. And they were made possible by a light regulatory touch. In fact, it's this bipartisan ‘light touch’ consensus that allowed innovators to develop and sell the products people want — and to create the kind of high-quality jobs Americans need — without waiting around for government permission. “The Obama Administration needs to get beyond its 1930s rotary-telephone mindset and embrace the future. That means encouraging innovation, not suffocating it under the weight of an outdated bureaucracy and poorly named regulations like this one.”

Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning issued the following statement on FCC Vote in favor of new so-called "net neutrality" regulations, "The FCC has voted to do that which Congress has denied — and that's essentially to rewrite the 1934 Communications Act to treat broadband Internet as a utility under Title II. Whatever the merits of 'net neutrality,' the fact is that this entire process has been designed to avert the traditional, constitutional lawmaking process. It also creates much regulatory uncertainty, since broadband was previously treated as exempt 'information services' providers by the FCC in 2002. This is a dysfunctional regulatory precedent where an agency can simply change its interpretation of law depending on the partisan composition of the board. That is not the rule of law, it is rule by executive decree. Why even have a Congress?

"This new rule, when it is finally published, as anyone familiar with public utilities knows, will guarantee higher rates, less competition, and a regulatory burden that stifles innovation. It is nothing more than authoritarian overreach, an extra-legal assault on our system of government.  The Obama regime continues its track record of disregard and disdain for precedent, the Constitution and simple fairness."

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Giuliani: "It Hit a Nerve"

Phyllis Schlafly is the
"First Lady of Conservatism"
~ Pat Buchanan

Dr. Bill Smith, Editor: Tonight (2-25-2015), Phyllis Schlafly, age 90, will be honored at the Paul Weyrich Awards dinner that precedes the start of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) for her tireless advocacy for the nuclear family, for traditional values, and for common-sense conservatism. She is indeed a saintly warrior whom I both admire and appreciate. Unlike many, she was not to busy to answer questions on issues and encourage this writer to continue promoting the conservative cause. Congratulations Mrs Schlafly.

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by Phyllis Schlafly: “It hit a nerve,” Rudy Giuliani observed about his widely reported insight that President Obama does not love America. Amid the uproar from the liberal media that anyone would dare question a liberal’s patriotism, the former mayor of New York City is not backing away from his candid comment, telling the New York Times that “I said exactly what I wanted to say. I conveyed exactly the message that I wanted to convey.”

Giuliani’s on-target comments hit the same nerve that has produced an uproar over the new Advanced Placement U.S. History (APUSH) Framework, which is teaching 500,000 of our brightest college-bound high school seniors to be ashamed instead of proud of our country. A half dozen states have introduced legislation demanding changes in the APUSH Framework, which minimizes the American Revolution, the Founding Fathers and the exceptional greatness of our country, in order to give disproportionate emphasis to the grievances of minorities.

The former mayor observed that Obama criticizes our country “much more often than other American presidents,” both Republican and Democrat. He added that Obama “was educated by people who were critics of the U.S. And he has not been able to overcome those influences.”

“From the time he was 9 years old, he was influenced by Frank Marshall Davis, who was a communist,” Giuliani pointed out. As a young “community organizer,” Obama was influenced by the radical socialist Saul Alinsky, who was also the subject of Hillary Rodham’s 92-page senior thesis at Wellesley College.

Giuliani continued: “He spent 17 years in the church of Jeremiah Wright, and this is the guy who said ‘God damn America, not God bless America.'”

Giuliani has, in fact, been making many comments like these, without much media attention. But this time the comment was made in the presence of a leading presidential candidate, Scott Walker, who refused to criticize Giuliani’s remark despite pressure to do so.

“The mayor can speak for himself,” Walker told a reporter who demanded to know if Walker agrees with the mayor that Obama does not love America. “You should ask the president what he thinks about America.”

Another prospective presidential candidate, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, reportedly telephoned Giuliani to congratulate him for his comments. Publicly, Jindal said, “The gist of what Mayor Giuliani said . . . is true,” adding, “If you are looking for someone to condemn the mayor, look elsewhere.”

Jindal also stood by his own remarks that criticized “non-assimilation” by immigrants to our country. He described as “dangerous” the “people who want to come to our country but not adopt our values,” including our English language, adding that “it is absolutely correct to insist on assimilation” by immigrants to America.

Responses by other Republican presidential candidates to Giuliani’s insight have been less impressive. Jeb Bush and Rand Paul were quick to run from Giuliani’s remarks by insisting they would not question Obama’s “motives,” while Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham both said they have “no doubt” that President Obama loves America. And 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s chief foreign policy adviser, Dan Senor, told CNBC that it is “insane” to question “whether or not Barack Obama loves America.”

While running for president in 2008, Obama criticized Americans in rural Pennsylvania and in small towns in the Midwest by saying that “they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” That offensive comment was not long after Michelle Obama declared, “Let me tell you something. For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m proud of my country.”

Obama refers to our Nation as “this” country, as though it is some other country and not “our” country, as when he said, “There’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped disproportionately by the police, and that’s a fact.” Obama once told a European audience that “there have been times where America has shown arrogance.”

When Obama has expressed admiration for our country, it is often in a backhanded manner. “I realize that America’s critics will be quick to point out that at times we too have failed to live up to our ideals; that America has plenty of problems within its own borders. This is true,” Obama declared to the United Nations General Assembly last year.

By contrast, Mayor Giuliani said, “with all our flaws we’re the most exceptional country in the world. I’m looking for a presidential candidate who can express that, do that and carry it out.”

“I want a president who is not embarrassed to say America is the strongest power on earth,” the mayor continued. “And I want our enemies to be afraid of our president.”
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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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