Global Oil Supply More Fragile Than You Think

Bill Smith, ARRA News Service: The following article addresses projected short fall in oil production. It does not address the consequences of  global conflicts or all-out war affecting various oil producing regions of the world. U.S. consumers may face trying times in the 'relative' near future as oil and gas companies continue to reduce their production capacity. Future costs of fuel oil and natural gas could become prohibitive or at least injurious to the lifestyles of many Americans. With these anticipated increased fuel costs,  U.S businesses and American families cannot also "afford" Presidents Obama and the EPA's "war on oil, gas and coal."
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by Nick Cunningham: Many oil companies had trimmed their budgets heading into 2015 to deal with lower oil prices. But the rebound in April and May to $60 per barrel from the mid-$40s suggested that the severe drop was merely temporary.

But the collapse of prices in July – owing to the Iran nuclear deal, an ongoing production surplus, and economic and financial concerns in Greece and China – have darkened the mood. Now a prevailing sense that oil prices may stay lower for longer has hit the markets.

Oil futures for delivery in December 2020 are currently trading $8 lower than they were at the beginning of this year even while immediate spot prices are $4 higher today. In other words, oil traders are now feeling much gloomier about oil prices several years out than they were at the beginning of 2015.

The growing acceptance that oil prices could stay lower for longer will kick off a fresh round of cuts in spending and workforces for the oil industry.

"It's a monumental challenge to offset the impact of a 50% drop in oil price," Fadel Gheit, an analyst with Oppenheimer & Co., told the WSJ. "The priorities have shifted completely. The priority now is to discontinue budget spending. The priority is to live within your means. Forget about growth. They are now in survival mode."

And many companies are also recalculating the oil price needed for new drilling projects to make financial sense. For example, according to the Wall Street Journal, BP is assuming an oil price of $60 per barrel moving forward. Royal Dutch Shell is a little more pessimistic, using $50 per barrel as their projection. For now, projects that need $100+ per barrel will be put on ice indefinitely. The oil majors have cancelled or delayed a combined $200 billion in new projects as they seek to rein in costs, according to Wood Mackenzie.

But the delay of 46 major oil and gas projects that have 20 billion barrels of oil equivalent in reserves mean that global production several years from now could be much lower than anticipated. Due to long lead times, decisions made today will impact the world's production profile towards the end of this decade and into the 2020s. It makes sense for companies to cut today, but collectively that could lead to much lower supplies in the future.

That is a problem because the oil majors were struggling to boost oil production even when oil prices were high. 2014 was one of the worst in over six decades for major new oil discoveries, even though oil prices were high for most of the year. Despite high levels of spending, exploration companies are simply finding fewer and fewer reserves of oil.

Shale production has surged in recent years, but it could be a fleeting phenomenon. Precipitous decline rates from shale wells mean that much of a well's lifetime production occurs within the first year or two. Moreover, after the best spots are drilled, the shale revolution could start to come to a close. The IEA predicts that U.S. shale will plateau and begin to decline in the 2020s. That means it would not be able to keep up with rising demand. Add in the fact that oil wells around the world suffer from natural decline rates on the order of 5 percent per year (with very wide variation), and it becomes clear that major new sources of oil will need to come online.

One other factor that could tighten oil markets over the long-term is the fact that Saudi Arabia has churned through much of its spare capacity. As one of the only countries that can ramp up latent oil capacity within just a few weeks, Saudi Arabia's spare capacity is crucial to world oil market stability.

Many energy analysts like to compare the current oil bust to the one that occurred in the 1980s. But one of the major differences between the two events is that, in addition to the glut of oil supplies in the 1980s, was the fact that Saudi Arabia dramatically reduced its output from 10 million barrels per day (mb/d) down to less than 4 mb/d in response. As a result, on top of the fact that the world was awash in oil throughout the 1980s and 1990s, there were also several million barrels per day of spare capacity sitting on the sidelines, meaning there was virtually no chance of a price spike for more than a decade.

That is no longer the case. Today OPEC has only 1.6 mb/d of spare capacity, the lowest level since before the 2008 financial crisis. So while Saudi Arabia is currently flooding the market with crude, it has exhausted its spare capacity, leaving few tools to come to the rescue in a pinch.

That brings us back to the large spending cuts the oil majors are undertaking. With spare capacity shot and major new sources of oil not coming online in a few years, the world may end up struggling to meet rising oil demand. That could cause oil prices to spike.
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James Stafford is Editor, OilPrice.com contributed this article to the ARRA News Service. OilPrice.com, the leading online energy news site. Nick Cunningham is a Washington DC-based writer on energy and environmental issues. You can follow him on twitter at @nickcunningham1

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Tags: Global Oil Supply, Fragile, future, global oil shortage, Nick Cunningham, OilPrice.com To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Bipartisan Report Confirms IRS Mistreatment of Conservative Groups

by Hans von Spakovsky: The U.S. Senate Committee on Finance has released an extensive bipartisan report on the IRS targeting scandal that makes it clear, according to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, “that the agency mistreated conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.”

In fact, “political biases and poor management went hand in hand to let politically motivated behavior continue unchecked.”

The bipartisan executive summary concludes that that from “2010 to 2013, IRS management was delinquent in its responsibility to provide effective control, guidance, and direction over the processing of applications for tax-exempt status filed by Tea Party and other political advocacy organizations.”

Lerner initiated the use of a “Be On the Lookout (BOLO) list, which improperly identified the Tea Party and other organizations by name and policy position.

“The IRS used the BOLO list to subject applications received from Tea Party groups to heightened scrutiny, even when that scrutiny was unwarranted because the applications gave no indication that the organizations would engage in political campaign intervention.”

As the chairman of the committee, Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, added his “additional” views in the report that “the IRS systematically selected Tea Party and other conservative organizations for heightened scrutiny, in a manner wholly different from how the IRS processed applications submitted by left-leaning and nonpartisan organizations.”

It was Lois Lerner and other senior managers at the IRS who “made decisions that directly resulted in increased scrutiny, long delays, and requests for inappropriate information.”

In fact, Hatch found evidence that “Lerner’s personal political views directly resulted in disparate treatment for applicants affiliated with Tea Party and other conservative causes.”

This even extended to Lerner asking whether the IRS could open an audit of Candie’s Foundation, a charity concerned about teenage pregnancy, because it had hired Bristol Palin as its spokesperson.

Hatch’s review of IRS emails and other documents showed that “Lerner was a Democrat who consistently supported Democratic politicians, particularly President Obama, during her tenure at the IRS. Her communications also suggest that she felt animus toward the views of the Republican Party.”

Her bias was “particularly evident when comparing her inaction on Tea Party applications to her quick responses to inquiries from Democratic politicians.”

This bias led to “audits of some conservative organizations, which imposed even greater burdens and further stifled their political speech.”

Lerner, according to Hatch, “favored campaign finance reform efforts and had deep disdain for the Supreme Court’s loosening of these restrictions in the Citizens United decision.”

In fact, she referred to that decision as “by far the worst thing that has ever happened to this country” and feared it would lead to “the end of America.”

Thus, she and other IRS officials responded almost immediately to Obama’s criticism of Citizens United by making the “pivotal decision to set aside all incoming Tea Party applications for special processing.”

This was at the same time that Lerner met with staff at the Federal Election Commission and the Justice Department to urge them to open criminal investigations of these conservative organizations.

Hatch concludes that top IRS management, including Lerner, made “numerous misrepresentations to Congress” and showed “a pattern of continually misleading Congress about its handling of applications submitted by Tea Party organizations.”

The IRS not only failed to preserve its internal records on what it was doing, but concealed the destruction of those records “from the Committee for months.”

The personal bias of Lerner and other IRS officials and their politicization of their IRS responsibilities were combined with poor management and dysfunctional supervision, all of which allowed Lerner and her cohorts to operate without check.

The IRS management “lacked an appreciation for the sensitivity and volatility of the political advocacy applications and allowed employees to use inappropriate screening criteria.” The committee as a whole also found something that all taxpayers know to be true from their own personal experience: the IRS “lacked any sense of customer service for organizations that applied for tax-exempt service.”

The evidence examined by the entire committee showed that the IRS “improperly disclosed taxpayer information of numerous conservative organizations.”

Yet it failed to disclose relevant information pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by a freelance reporter in 2010 that would have revealed its mishandling of Tea Party applicants.

The IRS “identified responsive documents, but elected not to produce them, thereby precluding early public scrutiny of its treatment” of the Tea Party and conservative organizations.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the ranking Democrat on the committee, added his views to the report. While he acknowledged the “bureaucratic mismanagement” in how the IRS handled applications for tax-exempt status, he claims that “groups on both sides of the political spectrum” were treated equally badly by the IRS “in their efforts to secure tax-exempt status.”

Wyden, however, agrees with a series of legal and management recommendations made in the bipartisan report “to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”

These include, for example, amending the Hatch Act, which restricts political activity by federal employees, to impose stricter rules on all IRS and Treasury Department employees who handle tax-exempt organization matters.

The bottom line here is that, despite the denials of Obama, what we have suspected all along is absolutely true: Lois Lerner and other liberal activists who were masquerading as nonpartisan government civil service employees of the IRS were targeting conservative organizations in order to delay or prevent them from being able to get their tax-exempt status.

The obvious intent was to discourage their advocacy, reduce their ability to raise money and deter and chill any speech that was critical of the president, his policies and his unilateral actions prior to the 2012 re-election efforts.

Lerner even tried to get criminal prosecutions initiated, similar to the actions of abusive prosecutors and the state ethics board in Wisconsin that went after conservative advocacy groups because of their vocal support and advocacy for Governor Scott Walker’s policies. (The head of the state ethics board in Wisconsin was a friend of Lerner, with whom she exchanged emails.)

When Congress and some reporters started making inquiries because they realized that something odd was going on, the IRS misled everyone, including by not responding to Freedom of Information Act requests, in order to ensure that this conspiracy stayed under wraps.

Worst of all is the fact that everyone involved has gotten away with it.

Lois Lerner retired on a full pension, and there has been no disciplining of anyone at the IRS who helped her.

The Justice Department has refused to prosecute anyone criminally for this abuse and has even refused to enforce the contempt citation of the House of Representatives against Lerner for refusing to answer any questions about what she did.

This report confirms all of the worst fears that Americans have about the IRS—that it is an abusive agency that is contemptuous of Congress, the public and the statutory limits on its authority, and that it should be feared by all Americans—except those whose liberal, progressive views meet with the approval of IRS employees.
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Hans von Spakovsky (@HvonSpakovsky) is an authority on a wide range of issues—including civil rights, civil justice, the First Amendment, immigration, the rule of law and government reform—as a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and manager of the think tank’s Election Law Reform Initiative. More ARRA News Service articles by or about Hans con Spakovsky

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Tags: Bipartisan report, confirms, IRS Mistreatment, Conservative Groups, Justice Department, refused to prosecute, IRs abuse, Washington, D.C., Hans von Spakovsky, Heritage Foundation To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Who Will Stop The Sanctuary Madness?

Death, rape, injury, theft by illegals aliens
are 100% Preventable by stopping the
Illegals from being in the United States.
Stop The Sanctuary Madness?
Protect our Country!

by Ken Blackwell, Contributing Author: Republican candidates for president came fittingly to Ohio to debate, among other things, immigration policy. In late July, the United States House and Senate heard testimonies from families of Americans murdered by illegal aliens who had been shielded from deportation by sanctuary policies.

The consequences of these policies hit home in Ohio just a few days later when Margaret Kostelnik was shot and killed in her home by an illegal alien who later confessed to her murder in addition to the attempted rape of a 14-year old girl, the shooting of another woman (who thankfully survived) in front of her two young children, and for firing at police officers, all on the same day.

With sadness, but not surprise, Ohio soon learned that the perpetrator had been picked up by Sheriff deputies just a couple of weeks before, but was let go in spite of his being in the country illegally.

Unlike some other high-profile sanctuary murders, Kostelnik's killer was put back on the streets not by a rogue Sheriff's department, but by the very federal agencies whose jobs used to include removing illegal aliens. The federal agents who ordered him released were acting on directives from the White House and Department of Homeland Security that order agents to ignore immigration violations unless the perpetrator meets the Obama administration's priorities.

And what are those priorities? As has been reported in the New York Times and Washington Post, the priority of the Obama administration is to allow as many illegal aliens to stay in the country as possible. Obama himself threatened "consequences" for any agent who didn't follow the new directives.

As one DHS insider put it, before Obama, "everyone in the country unlawfully was fair game." But now the admin is going through the detainee population looking for illegal aliens to release into the U.S. with the intention of letting them stay permanently. Primarily, the administration's policies are aimed at protecting and rewarding citizens of other nations who want to work illegally in the U.S., many of whom commit additional crimes like identity theft to do so. That in itself is an abrogation of the president's duty to American workers and families. But the policies do more than carve out exceptions to the law for economic migrants seeking illegal employment. They inevitably shield violent criminals from the law as well.

These sanctuary murders are not isolated cases. Their victims are not anecdotes. According to the head of Immigration and Customs enforcement, the criminal aliens released by the Obama administration over the past four years went on to kill someone at a rate of once every 12 days. And that doesn't count the crimes committed by illegal aliens like Kostelnik's murderer, who are routinely released because they don't meet the administration's priorities.

I want the Republican candidates to state unequivocally that the priority in immigration policy and enforcement should be the citizens of the United States.

Open-borders advocates who support the idea of a sanctuary nation argue that illegal aliens are less prone to violence than legal immigrants or citizens. That obfuscates the point: these are lives that should not have been lost and would not have been lost if federal immigration agencies were allowed to do their jobs.

DHS now says they will deport Kostelnik's killer after he has served his sentence.

Too little too late for too many.
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Ken Blackwell is a former ambassador to the U.N., Ohio Secretary of State, and mayor of Cincinnati. He is a contributing author to the ARRA News Service.

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Tags: Ken Blackwell, sanctuary madness, illegals, murdering, American Citizens  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Are Democrats Socialists?

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: Does it matter that the chair of the Democratic National Committee doesn't know if her party is socialist?

MSNBC's Chris Matthews was grilling Debbie Wasserman-Schultz on the meaning of Sen. Bernie Sanders's popularity within the Democratic Party. Mrs. Wasserman-Schultz responded by boasting that the Democrats "really are a Big Tent Party." Then Matthews veered out her comfort zone of horse-race politics and self-congratulatory posturing.

"What is the difference between a Democrat and a Socialist?" he asked.

Mrs. W-S chuckled. Uncomfortably.

"I used to think there was a big difference," Matthews went on. "What do you think it is?" Mrs. W-S evaded, blathering on how it is that the difference between Democrats and Republicans is what will really count in the upcoming election.

Karl Dickey, at the Examiner, holds that Democrats, today, are socialists: "one only needs to look at the Democratic Party's platform to understand that it is a socialistic political party."

Meanwhile, Juan Williams, discussing the issue on Fox News's The Five, argues that there is a big difference between Democrats and socialists: Dems just like regulation and redistributing wealth; socialists want to nationalize industry and run everything through a central bureau.

And that is the definition that anti-socialist economists Yves Guyot and Ludwig von Mises settled on. Technically, Williams is right.

But the fact that the head of the Democratic Party waffled on the distinction says more about the party than a definitive answer would have.

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 also President of the Liberty Initiative Fund (LIFe) as well as Citizens in Charge Foundation. Jacobs is a contributing author on the ARRA News Service.

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Tags: Paul Jacob, Common Sense, Democrats, socialists, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Democrat Party To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

13.4% of Young People Out of Work in July

Generation Opportunity Releases Monthly Millennial Jobs Report

Washington – Generation Opportunity, a national, nonpartisan youth advocacy organization, is announcing its Millennial Jobs Report for July 2015. The data is non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) and is specific to 18-29 year olds:

• The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds, which adjusts for labor force participation by including those who have given up looking for work, is 13.4 percent (NSA). The (U-3) unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds is 9.0 percent (NSA).
• The declining labor force participation rate has created an additional 1.779 million young adults that are not counted as “unemployed” by the U.S. Department of Labor because they are not in the labor force, meaning that those young people have given up looking for work due to the lack of jobs.
• The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year old African-Americans is 18.2 percent (NSA); the (U-3) unemployment rate is 16.3 percent (NSA).
• The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year old Hispanics is 13.7 percent (NSA); the (U-3) unemployment rate is 9.6 percent (NSA).
• The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year old women is 11.2 percent (NSA); the (U-3) unemployment rate is 8.9 percent (NSA).

Generation Opportunity Spokeswoman Patrice Lee issued the following statement:

“Don’t call them job numbers, call them dropout numbers. Unemployment rates have fallen—especially for Millennials—because American workers are discouraged and have dropped out the job market entirely. And many of those who are able to find work are settling for part-time jobs.

“Policymakers should be thankful for the sharing economy—room sharing companies like AirBnB, ride shares like Uber and Lyft, and food trucks—which is helping entrepreneurs find and create jobs. Instead of cracking down on innovation and competition, state and local governments should release the constraints on cutting-edge businesses that allow people the freedom to work hard and pursue success on their own terms.”
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Generation Opportunity is a national, nonpartisan organization advocating for economic opportunity for young people through less government and more freedom.

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Tags:  18-29 yrs old, Millennial Jobs Report, young people, Unemployment, Generation Opportunity To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

U.S. House Committee Expands Planned Parenthood Investigation

On the Heels of Additional “Abhorrent” Videos, E&C Leaders Request More Information, Briefings from Key Individuals and Organizations

House Energy and Commerce Committee

WASHINGTON, DC – House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders today sent letters to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc. (ABR), Novogenix Laboratories, and StemExpress requesting briefings and information regarding each organization’s practices relating to human fetal tissue collection, sale, and/or donation. These letters build on the committee’s investigation into the shocking Planned Parenthood videos released in recent weeks.

The letters were signed by full committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Tim Murphy (R-PA), Health Subcommittee Chairman Joe Pitts (R-PA), full committee Vice Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and full committee Chairman Emeritus Joe Barton (R-TX).

In the letter to Planned Parenthood, committee leaders are seeking informal interviews with Dr. Mary Gatter, president of PPFA’s Medical Director’s Council, Ms. Melissa Farrell, director of research for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, and Savita Ginde, M.D., vice president and medical director of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. The leaders write, “As you know, in several recent videotapes made public, these individuals have made statements concerning the manner in which fetal tissue is procured. We are examining whether these statements accurately reflect PPFA’s position on the acquisition and disposition of fetal tissue, and whether their statements, if accurate, are consistent with existing laws.”

The leaders also requested Planned Parenthood to, “(I)dentify the appropriate representatives from PPFA affiliates, other than those referenced above, who are currently engaged in the donation and disposition of fetal tissue.”

In the letters to ABR, Novogenix Laboratories, and StemExpress, the committee leaders outline six questions seeking information:

1. Your organization’s procedures to assure proper informed consent for fetal tissue donation.
2. Your organization’s practices for collecting fetal tissue, including guidance to, and training for, agents or representatives involved in the acquisition of fetal tissue.
3. Your organization’s practices and/or policies relating to the quality or quality control of fetal tissue, and how your organization decides what types of fetal tissue to collect.
4. The prices or fees that ABR/Novogenix/StemExpress pays for each type of fetal tissue, and how much ABR/Novogenix/StemExpress paid in 2014 for fetal tissue.
5. The prices or fees that ABR/Novogenix/StemExpress sets for each type of fetal tissue provided to researchers, including what guidance or criteria, if any, ABR/Novogenix/StemExpress provides to researchers on prices and fees, and the total amount of fees collected and costs expended by ABR/Novogenix/StemExpress relating to fetal tissue.
6. The number of years House Energy and Commerce Committee has engaged in fetal tissue collection and whether and how ABR/Novogenix/StemExpress assures that the collection, sale and/or donation of fetal tissue is in compliance with federal and state legal requirements, or is in accordance with rules made by ethics boards by institutions buying fetal tissue from ABR/Novogenix/StemExpress.
   
   In the letter to ABR, the committee leaders posed one additional request:
7. For the last ten years, any contracts and/or other arrangements with the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and/or any other Federal government agency or department, including date(s) of each contract, amount(s) of each contract, and nature of deliverables or services.

To read the letters online, click HERE.

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Tags: U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, expands investigation, Planned Parenthood, House Energy and Commerce Committee To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

21 Policy Highlights From the First 2016 Republican Debate

by Melissa Quinn & Natalie Johnson: The 2016 primaries are in full momentum following months of build-up, officially kicking off on Thursday night in prime-time as the ten leading Republican candidates squared off for the first time.

The 10 highest-polling candidates in the Republican 2016 presidential field took the stage tonight at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, for the first debate of the election.

The candidates participating in the forum were former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, neurosurgeon Ben Carson, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, businessman Donald Trump and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

The candidates addressed a number of policy issues such as the Iran deal, illegal immigration and the economy, which remains one of the most important issues among American voters.

Here’s what the 10 GOP presidential candidates had to say on the issues:

ISIS
Paul: “ISIS rides around in a billion dollars worth of U.S. Humvees … We didn’t create ISIS—ISIS created themselves, but we will stop them, and one of the ways we stop them is by not funding them, and not arming them.”

Cruz: “We need a commander-in-chief that speaks the truth. We will not defeat radical Islamic terrorism so long as we have a president unwilling the utter the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism.’ … If you join ISIS, if you wage jihad on America, then you are signing your death warrant.”

Criminal Justice
Kasich: “I had an opportunity to bring resources [from Medicaid] back to Ohio to do what? To treat the mentally ill. Ten thousand of them sit in our prisons. It costs $22,500 a year to keep them in prison. I’d rather get them their medication so they can lead a decent life. Secondly, we are rehabbing the drug addicted. Eighty percent of the people in our prisons have addictions or problems. We now treat them in the prisons, release them in the community and the recidivism rate is 10 percent and everybody across this country knows that the tsunami of drugs is threatening their very families.”

Illegal Immigration
Bush: “I believe the people coming here illegally have no other option. They want to provide for their family, but we need to control our border. … There’s much to do, and I think rather than talking about this as a wedge issue … the next president will fix this once and for all so we can turn this into a driver for high-sustained economic growth. … There should be a path to earned legal status for those who are here, not amnesty.”

Trump: “We need to build a wall, and it has to be built quickly. And I don’t mind having a big, beautiful door in that wall so that people to come into this country legally.”

Rubio: “This is the most generous country in the world when it comes to immigration. There are a million people a year who legally immigrate to the United States, and people feel like we’re being taken advantage of. … Let me tell you who never gets talked about in these debates—the people that call my office who have been waiting for 15 years to come to the United States, and they’ve paid their fees, and they’ve hired a lawyer and they can’t get in. They’re wondering if they should come illegally.”

Obamacare
Trump: “[A single-payer system] works in Canada, it works incredibly well in Scotland. It could’ve worked in a different age… What I’d like to see is a private system without the artificial lines around every state.”

Common Core
Rubio: “The Department of Education, like every agency, will never be satisfied. They will not stop with it being a suggestion. They will turn it into a mandate.”

Bush: “I don’t think the government should be involved in the creation of standards directly or indirectly, the creation of curriculum or content. … If we are going to compete in the world we’re in today, there’s no possible way we can do it with lowering expectations and dumbing down everything.”

Economy
Kasich: “Economic growth is the key. Economic growth is the key to everything. But once you have economic growth, it’s important we reach out to people who live in the shadows. It means reaching out to people who don’t feel they have a fair deal. … America is a miracle country and we have to restore the sense that the miracle will apply to you.”

Christie: “If we don’t deal with [entitlement reform], it will bankrupt our country or lead to massive tax increases—neither one that we want in this country.”

Huckabee: “If Congress wants to mess with the retirement program, why don’t we let them start by changing their retirement program and not have one, instead of talking about getting rid of Social Security and Medicare that was robbed $700 billion to pay for Obamacare.”

Bush: “I think we need to lift our spirits and have high, lofty expectations for this great country of ours. … The new normal of 2 percent that the left is saying you can’t do anything about is so dangerous for our country. There are 6 million people living in poverty today … We’ve created rules and taxes on top of every aspiration of people, and the net result is we’re not growing fast. Income is not growing.”

Iran Nuclear Deal
Walker: “This is not just bad with Iran, this is bad with ISIS. It is tied together, and once and for all, we need a leader who’s gonna stand up and do something about it.”

Paul: “I would’ve never released the sanctions before there was consistent evidence of compliance.”

Abortion
Rubio: “Future generations will look back at this history of our country and call us barbarians for murdering millions of babies who we never gave the chance to live.”

Walker: “I’ve always been pro-life. I’ve got a position that’s consistent with many Americans out there, in that I believe that that is an unborn child that’s in need of protection out there, and I’ve said many times that that unborn child can be protected, and there are many other alternatives that would protect the life of the mother. That’s been consistently proven.”

Gay Marriage
Kasich: “If one of my daughters happened to be that [gay] then of course I would love them and accept them because you know what? That’s what we were taught when we have strong faith. … We need to give everybody a chance, treat everybody with respect, and let them share in this great American dream that we have.”

Paul: “I don’t want my marriage or my guns registered in Washington. If people have an opinion, it’s a religious opinion that is heartly felt, obviously they should be allowed to practice that, and no government should be allowed to interfere with that. … When the government tries to invade the church to enforce its own opinion on marriage, that’s when it’s time to resist.”

Foreign Policy and National Security
Paul: “Each one of my budgets has taken a meat ax to foreign aid because I think we ought to quit sending it to countries that hate us. I think we ought to quit sending it to countries who burn our flag. Israel is not one of those.”

Carson: “We’ve gotten into this mindset of fighting politically correct wars. There’s no such thing as a politically correct war. The left, of course, will say … Carson doesn’t believe in fighting stupid wars. And what we have to remember is we want to utilize the tremendous intellect we have in the military to win wars.”
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Melissa Quinn (@MelissaQuinn97) & Natalie Johnson (@nataliejohnsonn)are news reporters for Heritage Action's The Daily Signal.

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Tags: Republican, presidential debates, FoxNews, 2015, policy highlights, Heritage Foundation, Melissa Quinn, Natalie Johnson 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 Dems Schumer, Engel Oppose Iran Deal; Obama Doubles Down On Outrageous Rhetoric

The AP reports, “New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the No. 3 Senate Democrat and next-in-line party leader, said late Thursday that he is breaking with President Barack Obama and will oppose the Iran nuclear deal.

“‘After deep study, careful thought and considerable soul-searching, I have decided I must oppose the agreement and will vote yes on a motion of disapproval,’ Schumer said in a statement weeks before he will cast a vote.

"Schumer, a leading Jewish Democrat, is the first senator of Obama's party to step forward to oppose the deal. . . . Schumer's split with Obama is remarkable for a senior leader in line to replace Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., after he retires at the end of next year.”

In his statement announcing his opposition to the Iran deal, Schumer explained, “In the first ten years of the deal, there are serious weaknesses in the agreement. First, inspections are not ‘anywhere, anytime’; the 24-day delay before we can inspect is troubling. While inspectors would likely be able to detect radioactive isotopes at a site after 24 days, that delay would enable Iran to escape detection of any illicit building and improving of possible military dimensions (PMD) – the tools that go into building a bomb but don’t emit radioactivity.

“Furthermore, even when we detect radioactivity at a site where Iran is illicitly advancing its bomb-making capability, the 24-day delay would hinder our ability to determine precisely what was being done at that site.

“Even more troubling is the fact that the U.S. cannot demand inspections unilaterally. By requiring the majority of the 8-member Joint Commission, and assuming that China, Russia, and Iran will not cooperate, inspections would require the votes of all three European members of the P5+1 as well as the EU representative. It is reasonable to fear that, once the Europeans become entangled in lucrative economic relations with Iran, they may well be inclined not to rock the boat by voting to allow inspections.”

Schumer further wrote, “Supporters argue that after ten years, a future President would be in no weaker a position than we are today to prevent Iran from racing to the bomb. That argument discounts the current sanctions regime. After fifteen years of relief from sanctions, Iran would be stronger financially and better able to advance a robust nuclear program. Even more importantly, the agreement would allow Iran, after ten to fifteen years, to be a nuclear threshold state with the blessing of the world community. Iran would have a green light to be as close, if not closer to possessing a nuclear weapon than it is today.

“If Iran’s true intent is to get a nuclear weapon, under this agreement, it must simply exercise patience. After ten years, it can be very close to achieving that goal, and, unlike its current unsanctioned pursuit of a nuclear weapon, Iran’s nuclear program will be codified in an agreement signed by the United States and other nations. To me, after ten years, if Iran is the same nation as it is today, we will be worse off with this agreement than without it.”

Critically, Schumer points out, “[W]e must consider the non-nuclear elements of the agreement. This aspect of the deal gives me the most pause. For years, Iran has used military force and terrorism to expand its influence in the Middle East, actively supporting military or terrorist actions in Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, and Gaza. That is why the U.S. has labeled Iran as one of only three nations in the world who are ‘state sponsors of terrorism.’ Under this agreement, Iran would receive at least $50 billion dollars in the near future and would undoubtedly use some of that money to redouble its efforts to create even more trouble in the Middle East, and, perhaps, beyond. . . .

“[T]he hardliners can use the freed-up funds to build an ICBM on their own as soon as sanctions are lifted (and then augment their ICBM capabilities in 8 years after the ban on importing ballistic weaponry is lifted), threatening the United States. Restrictions should have been put in place limiting how Iran could use its new resources. When it comes to the non-nuclear aspects of the deal, I think there is a strong case that we are better off without an agreement than with one.”

Schumer concludes, “Using the proponents’ overall standard – which is not whether the agreement is ideal, but whether we are better with or without it – it seems to me, when it comes to the nuclear aspects of the agreement within ten years, we might be slightly better off with it. However, when it comes to the nuclear aspects after ten years and the non-nuclear aspects, we would be better off without it.”

Following Schumer’s announcement, Reuters reported, “U.S. Representative Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, said on Thursday he has decided to vote to reject the nuclear deal with Iran.

“In a statement obtained by Reuters, Engel said he had raised questions about his concerns about the deal during the negotiations and since the deal was announced on July 1. ‘The answers I’ve received simply don’t convince me that this deal will keep a nuclear weapon out of Iran’s hands, and may in fact strengthen Iran’s position as a destabilizing and destructive influence across the Middle East,’ Engel said.

“A congressional aide said Engel would support a resolution of disapproval of the deal, and, if such a resolution were passed by Congress, would vote to override a veto by Democratic President Barack Obama.”

A Schumer aide told NBC’s Frank Thorp that the New York senator would also vote that way.

Meanwhile, President Obama doubled down on his “crass political rhetoric,” outrageously attacking opponents of the administration’s Iran deal as making “common cause” with Iranian hardliners.

According to CNN, “President Barack Obama is standing by his comparison between Iranian hardliners and Republicans who he says are dead set on derailing any nuclear deal.

“‘What I said is absolutely true, factually,’ Obama told CNN's Fareed Zakaria in an interview that will air in full Sunday. ‘The truth of the matter is, inside of Iran, the people most opposed to the deal are the Revolutionary Guard, the Quds Force, hardliners who are implacably opposed to any cooperation with the international community,’ Obama said. . . . Obama said the Republicans' unwillingness to consider any deal put them in league with Iranian factions opposed to the deal.”

Is President Obama saying all these Democrats, such as Reps. Steve Israel, Nita Lowey, and Ted Deutch, plus Sen. Bob Menendez, and now Chuck Schumer, the future Democrat Senate leader, and Elliot Engel, the ranking member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, are making “common cause” with Iraninan hardliners who chant “Death to America”?

Obama did land two Democrat senators, however. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (NH) was not a surprise. More significant was Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), who many thought would oppose the deal. Apparently, Senator Schumer made no serious effort to convince her to join him in opposing the pact.

Gary Bauer, President, Campaign for Working Families presented the following ACTION ITEM: If enough of people act, we can stop this deal. Your elected members of Congress are evaluating President Obama's nuclear deal right now. They need to know that their votes have consequences and that this issue will influence how you vote in the next election. Click Here to contact your elected representatives right now!

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Tags: Democrats, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Rep, Eliot Engel, Rep. Steve Israel, Rep. Nita Lowey, Rep. Ted Deutch, Sen. Bob Menendez, Oppose Iran Deal, President Obama, attacks democrats, Iran Deal, Action Item To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Mega-Rich Hillary Cares Oh So Much for Nation’s Poor

by Star Parker: Hillary Clinton just spoke, along with Republican presidential contender and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, at the National Urban League Conference.

She preceded Bush on stage and used the moment to seize his campaign slogan, "Right to Rise," and give it her own spin to attack the governor before he could speak.

According to Clinton, "I don't think you can credibly say everyone has a right to rise and then say you're for ... repealing Obamacare. People can't rise if they can't afford health care. They can't rise if the minimum wage is too low to live on. They can't rise if their governor makes it harder for them to get a college education. And you cannot seriously talk about the right to rise and support laws that deny the right to vote."

She topped it all off by saying, "The opportunity gap that America is facing is not just about economic inequality, it is about racial inequality."

The AFL-CIO publishes an annual report called Executive PayWatch. According to the most recent report, in 2014 the average pay for a CEO at a Standard & Poor's 500 company was $13.5 million. At the same time, average take-home pay of nonsupervisory workers was $36,134. So on average, per the AFL-CIO, CEO earnings were 373 times greater than worker income.

Anyone can email companies and the Securities Exchange Commission through the AFL-CIO website to express their outrage at this presumed unfairness.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton's newly released tax returns show that she and Bill earned $139.1 million between 2007 and 2014, an average of $17.4 million per year. In 2014, the power couple earned $20 million in speaker fees — 553 times that aforementioned average worker salary, 50 percent greater than the CEO ratio.

Though some might believe that the Clintons' speeches are more valuable to the U.S. economy than the management of our largest corporations, it seems that even the AFL-CIO (which has poured millions into the Clinton Foundation) might be having second thoughts. So far Clinton hasn't won the endorsement of the huge and powerful union.

Clearly, Mrs. Clinton knows something about rising in America. But is there anything in her path to wealth that's relevant to the minority Americans whose interests the National Urban League allegedly represent?

Her message to the Urban League: No minority has a prayer without Clinton controlling your health care, your school, deciding what you should be paid, and protecting you from racism.

You, too, can have a career in politics and rake in $20 million in speaking fees by convincing half the country that their only path to a decent life is through you.

Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution notes four trends impeding upward mobility in America: family breakdown, declining work rates among males, failing public schools and increasing demand for higher education and skills.

These problems are uniformly made worse by the political world Hillary Clinton loves and gets rich in. The teachers unions that support her promote moral relativism in public schools and fight school choice. The work rate for young black males is under 50 percent, largely due to the minimum wage Hillary Clinton loves. The gross inefficiencies of government health care are emerging, and reports of increased premiums under Obamacare are widespread — CBS Moneywatch reports several insurers proposing rate increases of 51 percent in 2016.

Despite left-wing rhetoric about voting discrimination, black voter turnout in the last presidential election exceeded white turnout.

And then there's Clinton's love affair with the nation's largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, which receives $500 million in taxpayer funds and performs around 330,000 abortions annually. According to ProtectingBlackLife.org, which pulled data from the 2010 census, 78 percent of Planned Parenthood abortion factories are in minority neighborhoods. This speaks to Clinton's particular concern for black lives and black families.

Political power may have made Hillary Clinton rich. But it is making America, particularly minority America, poorer.

Here's a news flash for Republicans. Black America is not monolithic. The left-wing National Urban League may still buy Clinton's failed big-government utopia. But there are millions of churchgoing conservative black Christian Americans looking for real change.
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Star Parker is an author and president of CURE, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. CURE is a non-profit think tank that addresses issues of race and poverty through principles of faith, freedom and personal responsibility.

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Stop Obama's Clean Power Grab

by Phil Kerpen, Contributing Author: In President Obama’s first big speech to Congress, just a month after he took office, he said: “I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon.”

They didn’t. Indeed, largely because of Obama’s own words on the campaign trail, it became clear that under his plan for a cap-and-trade system, “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket” and that if “somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them.”

These facts became well known and contributed directly to the smashing defeat of his proposed cap-and-trade legislation during his first term, when it barely squeaked the through the House and was dead-on-arrival in the Senate even though Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were running the places.

Yet this week, the president had his EPA issue the Clean Power Grab, a 1,560 page rule coercing states to adopt precisely the cap-and-trade policies he previously admitted required legislation from Congress. They did it with wildly creative lawyering to twist the Clean Air Act of 1970 into a global warming law.

Longtime liberal Congressman John Dingell said: “This is not what was intended by the Congress and by those of who wrote that legislation.… So we are beginning to look at a wonderfully complex world which has the potential for shutting down or slowing down virtually all industry and all economic activity and growth.”

The failed 2009 cap-and-trade bill called for a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over 11 years and 42 percent reduction over 21 years. The Clean Power Grab splits the difference, requiring a 32 percent reduction over 15 years. Otherwise it is nearly identical. The administration is simply acting as if the law they wanted passed.

If they succeed, it would mean steeply higher electric bills and major manufacturing job losses for what, according to conventional climate models, would avert less than 0.02 degrees Celsius of global warming by the year 2100.

Can they get away with it? There will certainly be litigation, and President Obama’s own Harvard law professor, liberal legal giant Laurence Tribe, has said of the Clean Power Grab: “Burning the Constitution should not become part of our national energy policy.”

But the recent history of a related rule, and the insidious structure of the Clean Power Grab, suggest that President Obama and the EPA may succeed even if they ultimately lose in court.

In June, the Supreme Court caught the EPA failing to even consider billions of dollars in costs, and struck down another expensive anti-coal rule. The EPA’s response was a smug press release saying the illegal rule had already accomplished its purpose: “EPA is disappointed that the Court did not uphold the rule, but this rule was issued more than three years ago, investments have been made and most plants are already well on their way to compliance.”

In those three years , the value of the country’s three largest publicly traded coal companies was crushed from $25 billion to just $1 billion. That’s 96% of the wealth of a vital American industry already wiped out.

The Clean Power Grab similarly seeks to lock itself in permanently, even if eventually found illegal, by coercing states to do most of the dirty work of enacting draconian caps on fossil fuel use into state law. Those laws would continue in effect after the EPA rule is struck down, and would create permanent rent-seeking corporate cronies who benefit from emissions trading and renewables mandates that would make the laws almost impossible to repeal.

All state leaders should protect their citizens from higher electricity prices and job losses by rejecting the Obama administration’s call to submit a state plan. And they should join the effort to defeat the Clean Power Grab in court, in Congress, and at the ballot box.
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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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Tags: Phil Kerpen, American Commitment, Stop, President Obama. Clean Power Grab, EPA, 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 Compares Nuke Deal Critics To The Ayatollah

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Can he sink any lower with demagoguery? Probably not. In a speech at American University defending his disastrous Iranian nuclear deal, President Obama said this:"Just because Iranian hardliners chant 'Death to America!' does not mean that's what all Iranians believe. In fact, it's those hardliners who are most comfortable with the status quo. It's those hardliners who are chanting 'Death to America!' who are most opposed to the deal. They are making common cause with the Republican Caucus."The leftists in training at American University laughed and applauded. But most insiders on Capitol Hill and in the media were astonished by this smear. They shouldn't have been - this is Obama's default position. When in doubt, demonize your opposition.

• Of course not "all Iranians" chant "death to America." But the ones who do chant it happen to run the country.
• The leader of the chant is the Ayatollah Khamenei who will reap the benefits of this deal and have billions of additional dollars to spend on terrorism and killing Americans and Israelis.
• The deal Obama is selling not only lifts sanctions on Iran, it specifically lifts sanctions on the very "hardliners" Obama says don't represent the Iranian people. The Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is the center of Iran's ideological commitment to destroying the U.S. and Israel, will receive billions. Sanctions are also removed on Iran's Cruise Missile Industry Group whose missiles could sink a U.S. aircraft carrier.

Finally, it is worth asking this question. Why does Obama always talk tougher, meaner and more aggressively when he is dealing with his domestic political opposition than when he talks about Iran, whose leaders promise to kill all of us?
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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, compares,  American critics, Iran Deal, The Ayatollah To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

More John Kerry Scuffle: 'You will NOT BELIEVE who was best man at John Kerry’s daughter’s wedding'

by Michele Hickford: You not might be aware that in 2009, the daughter of Secretary of State John Kerry, Dr. Vanessa Bradford Kerry, John Kerry’s younger daughter by his first wife, married an Iranian-American physician named Dr. Brian (Behrooz) Vala Nahed.

Of course you’re not aware of it.

Brian (Behrooz) Nahed is son of Nooshin and Reza Vala Nahid of Los Angeles. Brian’s Persian birth name is “Behrooz Vala Nahid” but it is now shortened and Americanized in the media to “Brian Nahed.” At the time his engagement to Bradford Kerry, there was rarely any mention of Nahed’s Persian/Iranian ancestry, and even the official wedding announcement in the October 2009 issue of New York Times carefully avoids any reference to Dr. Nahed (Nahid)’s birthplace (which is uncommon in wedding announcements) and starts his biography from his college years.

Gosh, I wonder why??

Gee, do you think Secretary Kerry should have recused himself from the negotiations with Iran at the very outset because of his long-standing relationship to his Iranian counter-part, Mohammad Javad Zarif? Let me explain.

Zarif is the current minister of foreign affairs in the Rouhani administration and has held various significant diplomatic and cabinet posts since the 1990s. He was Kerry’s chief counterpart in the nuclear deal negotiations.

Secretary Kerry and Zarif first met over a decade ago at a dinner party hosted by George Soros at his Manhattan penthouse. What a surprise. I have to say, connecting the dots gets more and more frightening.

But it gets even worse. Guess who was the best man at the 2009 wedding between Kerry’s daughter Vanessa and Behrouz Vala Nahed? Javad Zarif’s son.

Does this bother anyone at all?

Apparently Kerry only revealed his daughter’s marriage to an Iranian-American once he had taken over as Secretary of State. But the subject never came up in his Senate confirmation hearing, either because Kerry never disclosed it, or because his former colleagues were “too polite” to bring it up.

As Front Page Magazine pointed out several months ago, the nuclear talks with Iran were a tragic farce, choreographed and orchestrated by Iran.

And unfortunately, we’re going to have to live with the consequences. At least, I hope we live.
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Michele Hickford is a communications strategist and award-winning advertising copywriter. She served in Congressman West’s congressional office and as Press Secretary for his 2012 campaign. She is Editor-in-Chief of Allenbwest.com - the source of this article

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Tags: John Kerry, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Kerry daughter's wedding,Iranian connection, Michele Hickford, allenbwest.com/ To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Iran: ‘Common Cause’?

‘Common Cause’?
President Obama’s Extreme Rhetoric Is Masking A Weak Case For His Iran Deal
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “In fact, it's those hardliners who are most comfortable with the status quo. It's those hardliners chanting ‘Death to America’ who have been most opposed to the deal. They're making common cause with the Republican Caucus.” (President Obama, Remarks At American University, 8/5/15)

Does The President Think These Dems Are ‘Making Common Cause’ With Iranians Chanting ‘Death To America’?
DENNIS ROSS, Former Special Assistant To President Obama: “The bad news is that the vulnerabilities of the deal — and some of its more worrisome implications — remain as well. First, because the Iranians are not required to dismantle their enrichment infrastructure, are allowed to continue at least limited research and development on their five advanced models of centrifuges and will be permitted to build as large an industrial nuclear program as they want after year 15, the deal, at that point, will legitimize the Islamic republic as a threshold nuclear state. The gap between threshold status and weapons capability will necessarily become small, and not difficult for the Iranians to bridge.” (“Iran Deal Leaves U.S. With Tough Questions,” Washington Post, 7/14/15)

REP. JUAN VARGAS (D-CA): “I intend to stand up and vote against this deal. This is not a partisan issue. This is an issue of our national security, and the security of our allies and< I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing this deal and press for a better deal that will truly end Iran’s nuclear weapons program and make the world safer.” (“Why I Oppose The President’s Nuclear Deal With Iran,” San Diego Union-Tribune, 7/24/15)

REP. STEVE ISRAEL (D-NY): “‘I tried very hard to get to 'yes.' But at the end of the day, despite some positive elements in the deal, the totality compelled me to oppose it,’ Israel said in a telephone interview.” (“Rep. Steve Israel Opposes Iran Deal,” Newsday, 8/4/15)

REP. NITA LOWEY (D-NY): ‘I cannot support this agreement before Congress’ “Congress’s role has been invaluable, in partnership with the Administration, in implementing the crippling sanctions that brought Iran to the table.  I remain hopeful that the Administration and Congress, in concert with our P5+1 and regional allies, can prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. However, I cannot support this agreement before Congress.” (Rep. Lowey, Press Release, 8/4/15)

• “In my judgment, sufficient safeguards are not in place to address the risks associated with the agreement.  Relieving UN sanctions on conventional arms and ballistic missiles and releasing billions of dollars to the Iranian regime could lead to a dangerous regional weapons race and enable Iran to bolster its funding of terrorists. The deal does not explicitly require Iran to fully disclose its previous military work to the IAEA’s satisfaction before sanctions relief is provided, and inspectors will not have immediate access to the most suspicious facilities. There are no clear accountability measures regarding punishment for minor violations, which could encourage Iran to cheat.” (Rep. Lowey, Press Release, 8/4/15)

REP. GRACE MENG (D-NY): “I strongly believe the world could and should have a better deal than that set forth in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which I will therefore oppose… the deal before us now is simply too dangerous for the American people. I have every confidence a better deal can be realized.” (Rep. Meng, Press Release, 7/29/15)

REP. TED DEUTCH (D-FL): “‘After a decade in public life working to stop Iran from ever acquiring nuclear weapons, I cannot support a deal giving Iran billions of dollars in sanctions relief — in return for letting it maintain an advanced nuclear program and the infrastructure of a threshold nuclear state,’ Mr. Deutch, the senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Middle East, wrote in The Sun Sentinel.” (“Obama Begins Campaign In Congress For Iran Nuclear Deal,” New York Times, 8/5/15)

REP. ALBIO SIRES (D-NJ): “I am opposed to the current proposed nuclear agreement with Iran, I do not feel the agreement will prevent them from acquiring a nuclear weapon.” (Rep. Sires, Press Release, 7/31/15)

SEN. BOB MENENDEZ (D-NJ): ‘The bottom line is: The deal doesn’t end Iran’s nuclear program – it preserves it’ “I’m concerned the redlines we drew have turned into green-lights; that Iran will be required only to limit rather than eliminate its nuclear program, while the international community will be required to lift the sanctions, and that it doesn’t provide for anytime-any-place inspections of suspected sites. The bottom line is: The deal doesn’t end Iran’s nuclear program – it preserves it.” (Sen. Menendez, Press Release, 7/14/15)

• MENENDEZ: “You know, I have to be honest with you. The more I hear from the administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Tehran. And it feeds to the Iranian narrative of victimization, when they are the ones with the original sin. An illicit nuclear weapons program going back over the course of 20 years, that they are unwilling to come clean on.” (U.S. Senate, Foreign Relations Committee, Hearing, 1/21/15)

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): “With the security of the United States, Israel, and our allies on the line in the P5+1 negotiations over Iran's nuclear program, I believe that no deal is better than a bad deal. In any agreement, Iran must fully submit to intrusive inspections of its illicit nuclear program, fully disclose its past military work, and dismantle any capacity to develop and build a nuclear weapon in the future. If Iran and the P5+1 reach a comprehensive agreement, it must definitively close all pathways toward an Iranian nuclear weapon.” (Sen. Coons, Press Release, 11/20/14)

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Tags: Iran, President Obama, Common Cause, Iran Nuke Deal, Senate Democrats, response To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Poll Numbers On The Planned Parenthood Scandal That CNN Left Out

by Genevieve Wood : Regardless of one’s point of view on an issue, you can usually find a poll that shows that a majority of people agree with you.

I’d suggest that is exactly what we saw happen on CNN Wednesday, when anchor Alisyn Camerota interviewed Sen. James Lankford, R-Ok, about the debate surrounding Planned Parenthood.
A May 2015 Gallup poll asked, “Should abortion be legal?” Here’s how the numbers broke down:

Twenty-nine percent said abortion should be legal under any circumstances.

Fifty-one percent said abortion should be legal only under certain circumstances.

Nineteen percent said abortion should be illegal in all circumstances.

Here’s what Camerota said:“That’s 80 percent of respondents who believe abortion should be kept legal.” (She added together the 29 percent who said abortion should be legal in any circumstance and 51 percent who said it should be allowed only in certain circumstances.)Here’s what Camerota could have said:“That’s 70 percent of Americans who believe there should be limits on abortion.” (Adding together the 51 percent who said it should be legal only in certain circumstances and the 19 percent who said it should not be legal under any circumstances.)Those who identify as pro-choice are more inclined to report the poll the way CNN did, and those who identify as pro-life are likely to use the latter number—the point being, in this particular poll and many others, you can “interpret the data” to get the spin you want.

I also found interesting that while CNN chose to show questions from a Monmouth University Poll showing that a majority of respondents favored the use of fetal tissue for research and that 49 percent opposed cutting off federal funds to Planned Parenthood, they conveniently left out the response to this question:“Have you seen or heard recent news about videos that supposedly show Planned Parenthood employees discussing the sale of aborted fetus tissue, or not?”Here were the responses:

Only 27 percent said they had heard a lot.

Only 21 percent said they had heard a little.

But 53 percent of respondents said they had not heard about the story at all.

I wonder how different the other answers in the poll about fetal tissue research and defunding Planned Parenthood would have been if the 74 percent of people who had heard or seen little to nothing had indeed seen the videos.

Of course, as the Media Research Center points out, the death of Cecil the lion has received more than four times the coverage in one week by the network news media than the five undercover videos released over the past three weeks showing Planned Parenthood committing potentially criminal acts.

CNN didn’t mention those numbers, either.
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Genevieve Wood (@genevievewood) advances policy priorities of The Heritage Foundation as senior contributor to The Daily Signal.

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