Happy Thanksgiving 2015

Happy Thanksgiving and God Bless!
The ARRA News Service is not expected to publish articles on Thursday.  There is minimum expectations for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It is time for some R and R and catching up with family and friends!

Below is a Thanksgiving Quiz developed by Kirby Anderson in 2001. Facts and truth remain timeless. Good thing to share with your family.  ~ Dr. Bill Smith, Editor

---

A Thanksgiving Quiz by Kerby Anderson, Contributing Author: This nation was founded by Christians, and Thanksgiving is a time when we can reflect upon this rich, Christian heritage. But many of us are often ignorant of our country’s origins, so we have put together a Thanksgiving quiz to test your knowledge about this nation’s biblical foundations. We hope that you will not only take this test and pass it on to others, but we also hope that you will be encouraged to study more about the Christian foundations of this country.

1. What group began the tradition of Thanksgiving?
A day of thanksgiving was set aside by the Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony. This colony was the first permanent settlement in New England. The Pilgrims were originally known as the Forefathers or Founders. The term Pilgrim was first used in the writings of colonist William Bradford and is now used to designate them.

2. Why did they celebrate Thanksgiving?
Life was hard in the New World. Out of 103 Pilgrims, 51 of these died in the first terrible winter. After the first harvest was completed, Governor William Bradford proclaimed a day of thanksgiving and prayer. By 1623, a day of fasting and prayer during a period of drought was changed to one of thanksgiving because the rain came during their prayers. The custom prevailed in New England and eventually became a national holiday.

3. When did Thanksgiving become a national holiday?
The state of New York adopted Thanksgiving Day as an annual custom in 1817. By the time of the Civil War, many other states had done the same. In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln appointed a day of thanksgiving. Since then, each president has issued a Thanksgiving Day proclamation for the fourth Thursday of November.

4. Why did the Pilgrims leave Europe?
Among the early Pilgrims was a group of Separatists who were members of a religious movement that broke from the Church of England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In 1606 William Brewster led a group of Separatists to Leiden (in the Netherlands) to escape religious persecution in England. After living in Leiden for more than ten years, some members of the group voted to emigrate to America. The voyage was financed by a group of London investors who were promised produce from America in exchange for their assistance.

5. How did the Pilgrims emigrate to the New World?
On September 16, 1620, a group numbering 102 men, women, and children left Plymouth, England, for America on the Mayflower. Having been blown off course from their intended landing in Virginia by a terrible storm, the Pilgrims landed at Cape Cod on November 11. On December 21, they landed on the site of Plymouth Colony. While still on the ship, the Pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact.

6. What is the Mayflower Compact?
On November 11, 1620, Governor William Bradford and the leaders on the Mayflower signed the Mayflower Compact before setting foot on land. They wanted to acknowledge God’s sovereignty in their lives and their need to obey Him. The Mayflower Compact was America’s first great constitutional document and is often called “The American Covenant.”

7. What is the significance of the Mayflower Compact?
After suffering years of persecution in England and spending difficult years of exile in the Netherlands, the Pilgrims wanted to establish their colony on the biblical principles they suffered for in Europe. Before they set foot on land, they drew up this covenant with God. They feared launching their colony until there was a recognition of God’s sovereignty and their collective need to obey Him.

8. What does the Mayflower Compact say?
“In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland king, defender of the faith, etc., Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these present solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends foresaid, and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have here under subscribed our names at Cape Cod the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our sovereign Lord, King James, of England, France, and Ireland.”

9. Why didn’t the pilgrims sail to the original destination in Virginia?
The Pilgrims were blown off course and landed at Cape Cod in what now appears to be God’s providence. Because their patent did not include this territory, they consulted with the Captain of the Mayflower and resolved to sail southward. But the weather and geography did not allow them to do so. They encountered “dangerous shoals and roaring breakers” and were quickly forced to return to Cape Cod. From there they began scouting expeditions and finally discovered what is now Plymouth. Had they arrived just a few years earlier, they would have been attacked and destroyed by one of the fiercest tribes in the region. However, three years earlier (in 1617), the Patuxet tribe had been wiped out by a plague. The Pilgrims thus landed in one of the few places where they could survive.

10. What role did the lone surviving Indian play in the lives of the Pilgrims?
There was one survivor of the Patuxet tribe: Squanto. He was kidnapped in 1605 by Captain Weymouth and taken to England where he learned English and was eventually able to return to New England. When he found his tribe had been wiped out by the plague, he lived with a neighboring tribe. When Squanto learned that the Pilgrims were at Plymouth, he came to them and showed them how to plant corn and fertilize with fish. He later converted to Christianity. William Bradford said that Squanto “was a special instrument sent of God for their good beyond their expectation.”

11. What was William Bradford’s proclamation for Thanksgiving?
Three years after their arrival, and two years after the first Thanksgiving, Governor Bradford made an official proclamation of a day of Thanksgiving:

Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as he has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience; now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all Pilgrims, with your wives and little ones, do gather at the meeting house, on the hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November the 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three, and the third year since Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to the pastor and render thanksgiving to Almighty God for all His blessings.

12. Were the colonists dedicated to Christian principles in their lives on days other than Thanksgiving?
The Pilgrims were, and so were the other colonists. Consider this sermon by John Winthrop given while aboard the Arabella in 1630. This is what he said about the Puritans who formed the Massachusetts Bay Colony: “For the persons, we are a Company professing ourselves fellow members of Christ. . . . For the work we have in hand, it is by a mutual consent through a special overruling providence, and a more than an ordinary approbation of the Churches of Christ to seek out a place of Cohabitation and Consortship under a due form of Government both civil and ecclesiastical.” They established a Christian Commonwealth in which every area of their lives both civil and ecclesiastical fell under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

13. How did the Puritans organize their economic activities?
After the first year, the colony foundered because of the collective economic system forced upon them by the merchants in London. All the settlers worked only for the joint partnership and were fed out of the common stores. The land and the houses built on it were the joint property of the merchants and colonists for seven years and then divided equally.

When Deacon Carver died, William Bradford became governor. Seeing the failure of communal farming, he instituted what today would be called free enterprise innovations. Bradford assigned plots of land to each family to work, and the colony began to flourish. Each colonist was challenged to better themselves and their land by working to their fullest capacity. Many Christian historians and economists today point to this fundamental economic change as one of the key reasons for the success of the Pilgrims at Plymouth.

14. What has been the significance of the Pilgrims and their legacy of Thanksgiving?
On the bicentennial celebration of the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, Daniel Webster on December 22, 1820, declared the following: “Let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political, or literary.”

The legacy of the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving is the legacy of godly men and women who sought to bring Christian principles to this nation. These spread throughout the nation for centuries.

15. How were Christian principles brought to the founding of this republic?
Most historians will acknowledge that America was born in the midst of a revival. This occurred from approximately 1740-1770 and was known as the First Great Awakening. Two prominent preachers during that time were Jonathan Edwards (best known for his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”) and George Whitfield. They preached up and down the East Coast and saw revival break out. Churches were planted, schools were built, and lives were changed.

16. How influential were Christian ideas in the Constitution?
While the Constitution does not specifically mention God or the Bible, the influence of Christianity can plainly be seen. Professor M.E. Bradford shows in his book A Worthy Company, that fifty of the fifty-five men who signed the Constitution were church members who endorsed the Christian faith.

17. Weren’t many of the founders non-Christians?
Yes, some were. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin are good examples of men involved in the drafting of the Declaration of Independence who were influenced by ideas from the Enlightenment. Yet revisionists have attempted to make these men more secular than they really were. Jefferson, for example, wrote to Benjamin Rush that “I am a Christian . . . sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others.” Franklin called for prayer at the Constitutional Convention saying, “God governs the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his notice?” While they were hardly examples of biblical Christianity, they nevertheless believed in God and believed in absolute standards which should be a part of the civil order.

18. How important was Christianity in colonial education in America?
Young colonists’ education usually came from the Bible, the Hornbook, and the New England Primer. The Hornbook consisted of a single piece of parchment attached to a paddle of wood. Usually the alphabet, the Lord’s Prayer, and religious doctrines were written on it. The New England Primer taught a number of lessons and included such things as the names of the Old and New Testament books, the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Westminster Shorter Catechism, and John Cotton’s “Spiritual Milk for American Babies.” Even when teaching the alphabet, biblical themes were used: “A is for Adam’s fall, we sinned all. B is for Heaven to find, the Bible mind. C is for Christ crucified, for sinners died.”

19. How important was Christianity in colonial higher education?
Most of the major universities were established by Christian denominations. Harvard was a Puritan school. William and Mary was an Anglican school. Yale was Congregational, Princeton was Presbyterian, and Brown was Baptist. The first motto for Harvard was Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae (Truth for Christ and the Church). Students gathered for prayer and readings from the Scriptures every day. Yale was established by Increase Mather and Cotton Mather because Harvard was moving away from its original Calvinist philosophy and eventually drifted to Unitarianism. The founders of Yale said that “every student shall consider the main end of his study to wit to know God in Jesus Christ and answerable to lead a Godly, sober life.”

20. If Christianity was so important in colonial America, why does the Constitution establish a wall of separation between church and state?
Contrary to what many Americans may think, the phrase “separation of church and state” does not appear anywhere in the Constitution. In fact, there is no mention of the words church, state, or separation in the First Amendment or anywhere within the Constitution. The First Amendment does guarantee freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion.

The phrase is found in a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to Baptist pastors in Danbry, Connecticut in 1802 in which he gave his opinion of the establishment clause of the First Amendment and then felt that this was “building a wall of separation between church and state.” At best this was a commentary on the First Amendment, from an individual who was in France when the Constitution and Bill of Rights were drafted.
-----------
Kerby Anderson is a radio talk show host heard on numerous stations via the Point of View Network endorsed by Dr. Bill Smith, Editor, ARRA News Service

---

Tags: Thanksgiving, 2015, Bill Smith, ARRA News Service, Kerby Anderson, Point of View, A Thanksgiving Quiz To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Be Thankful

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Being thankful in the midst of adversity is often hard to do. Many Americans are still struggling in the wake of the Great Recession. The headlines of the past week highlight the tremendous challenges we face at home and abroad.

Yet we still have much to be thankful for, and we still need God's blessing and hand of protection upon our nation. For these reasons, I pray this year's Thanksgiving truly lives up to its name -- a time when we give thanks to God (not government) for the blessings we enjoy.


Thanksgiving traces its origins back to the Pilgrims -- those hardy pioneers who arrived on the shores of North America and, against difficult odds, carved a nation out of the wilderness. They came to the New World not seeking fortune, but freedom -- especially the freedom to worship God as they wished.

Thanking God for His blessings was a routine experience in our early years. The first official National Proclamation of Thanksgiving was issued by the Continental Congress on November 1, 1777 in celebration for the victory against the British at the Battle of Saratoga.

In 1789, George Washington issued a National Day of Thanksgiving proclamation, in which he wrote:
"I do recommend and assign Thursday, the twenty-sixth day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these United States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.

"That we then may all unite unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection. . . for the . . . plenty which we have since enjoyed . . . for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed. . ."In October of 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling on the country to observe the last Thursday of November "as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens." And as America confronted a world at war in 1941, Congress voted to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday.

In his 1985 Thanksgiving proclamation 30 years ago, President Ronald Reagan wrote:
"Let us thank God for our families, friends, and neighbors, and for the joy of this very festival we celebrate in His name. Let every house of worship in the land and every home and every heart be filled with the spirit of gratitude and praise and love on this Thanksgiving Day. . .

"I call upon every citizen of this great Nation to gather together in homes and places of worship and offer prayers of praise and gratitude for the many blessings Almighty God has bestowed upon our beloved country."I believe all of us can be thankful that we are Americans. We are the descendants of the patriots who declared that "All men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
-------------
Gary Bauer is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

---

Tags: Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, be thankful,  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Governors: Not in My State!

by Phyllis Schlafly: Defying the wishes of the American people, President Obama remains determined to import tens of thousands of poorly screened Muslims as refugees from the civil war in Syria, and scatter them in communities across America. Taxpayer-funded agencies are ready to help the refugees gain access to welfare programs and enroll their children in local public schools.

After FBI Director James Comey told Congress on Oct. 22 that his agency is unable to vet Syrians adequately, the House of Representatives voted by over two-thirds (289 to 137) to add an extra layer of screening to the refugee resettlement process.

Almost two-thirds of the nation's governors (31 out of 50) have told the president not to send Syrian refugees to their states without assurances that the influx would not become a Trojan Horse. Even New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who helped re-elect Obama in 2012 with a well-timed gesture of support during Hurricane Sandy, told the president: "I will not accept any refugees from Syria."

Obama's response to this groundswell of public opinion was to lash out with peevish petulance. Speaking in Turkey, which is 98 percent Muslim, Obama said: "When I hear folks say that maybe we should just admit the Christians but not the Muslims, that's shameful. That's not American. That's not who we are." A few days later in Malaysia, where Islam is the official state religion, Obama said that a preference for Christian refugees would constitute "prejudice and discrimination" that "helps ISIL and undermines our national security."

Since Christians are the most widely persecuted group in the Middle East, you'd expect that Christians would be more likely to qualify as refugees, which requires demonstrating a "well-founded fear of being persecuted." Yet of the 2,184 Syrian refugees Obama has already allowed to come here during the past four years, only 53 (or 2 percent) are Christian and 2,098 (96 percent) are Muslim, according to State Department statistics.

After Donald Trump called for a "database" of Muslim immigrants, Dr. Ben Carson said "we should have a database on everybody who comes into this country. I want to know where they came from, I want to know where they're going and why they're here."

Databases do exist, but, as Trump says, our government lacks "good management procedures" to insure that visitors to our country follow the law. It's estimated that half of the 11-plus million illegal aliens failed to leave when their time was up, even though they are on a government database.

It's ludicrous to think that our government can effectively screen refugees from Syria or from any Muslim country. Consider the following security breaches that were reported in just one week since the Paris attacks on Friday, Nov. 13:

On Saturday, Nov. 14, three Syrian men were stopped in the Caribbean island of St. Maarten after arriving on a flight from Haiti. Using fake Greek passports, they had already flown from Europe to Brazil, then to the Dominican Republic, then Haiti.

On Monday, Nov. 16, eight Syrians in two family units (two men, two women, and four children) were caught illegally entering the United States from Mexico as they crossed the Juarez Lincoln Bridge in Laredo, Texas.

On Monday, Nov. 16, six young men (five from Pakistan and one from Afghanistan) crossed illegally from Mexico into Arizona near Tucson. They were captured 16 miles inside our border, and Sheriff Paul Babeu warns that "terrorists are using well-established smuggling routes to come across the border."

On Tuesday, Nov. 17, five young men from Syria were detained in Honduras after arriving from Costa Rica on their way to Guatemala and onward through Mexico to the United States. They were using stolen Greek passports, which had been doctored to replace the original photos with photos of the Syrians.

On Wednesday, Nov. 18, a Syrian woman was stopped in Honduras and sent back to El Salvador after flying on a Greek passport. On Thursday, Nov. 19, another Syrian woman was arrested in Costa Rica after flying there from Peru with a fake Greek passport.

On Thursday, Nov. 19, eight tough-looking young men from Morocco were arrested at the airport in Istanbul claiming to be tourists, but carrying maps and directions to Germany. Turkish authorities believe the men were being smuggled by ISIS to join the fight in Europe on behalf of the Muslim caliphate.

On Friday, Nov. 20, five Syrians, consisting of one family unit and two additional males, crossed the international bridge from Mexico into the United States at Laredo, Texas. On Saturday, Nov. 21, a Syrian woman and two Pakistani young men without passports were detained by officials in Honduras after they entered that country by bus from Nicaragua, presumably bound for the United States.

As a fitting conclusion to a week of broken borders, on Friday, Nov. 20, the Obama administration petitioned the Supreme Court to overrule the lower federal judges who blocked his executive amnesty of five million illegal aliens. Tell your elected public officials to just say no to Syrian refugees.
--------------------
Phyllis Schlafly has been a national leader of the conservative movement since 1964. She founded and is CEO and Chairman of Eagle Forum. She has testified before more than 50 Congressional and State Legislative committees on constitutional, national defense, and family issues.

---

Tags: Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum, Syrian refugees, refugees, ISIS, Governors, not in my state, broken borders, President Obama, executive amnesty, five million, illegal aliens  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

President Obama, Meet Hasna Aitboulahcen

by Newt Gingrich: “Apparently, they’re scared of widows and orphans coming into the United States of America as part of our tradition of compassion.” That was President Obama speaking in the Philippines this week, criticizing Republican presidential candidates for their concerns about the program resettling Syrian refugees in the United States.

It’s hard to think of a comment that more perfectly captures the willful blindness of our elites toward the threat of Islamist terrorism.

The President made the remarks just days after the attacks in Paris were carried out by at least one person who infiltrated the country pretending to be a refugee from the conflict in Syria. And Obama’s comment came just hours before Turkey announced it had arrested 8 ISIS terrorists who were planning to travel to Germany posing as Syrian refugees.

Clearly the concern President Obama was mocking is far from a laughing matter. On the contrary, it’s his flippant dismissal of the threat that is delusional.

His intended point was misguided enough. But the specific examples he chose were even more revealing of his lack of understanding–intended as they were to accuse Republicans of being afraid of women and children.
Unfortunately for the President’s alternative version of reality, not long after he made his crack, French police launched a raid on an apartment associated with the Paris attacks, resulting in the death of a female jihadist inside the flat.
Her name was Hasna Aitboulahcen, and what we know about her so far illustrates exactly what is so dangerous about the virulent ideology that is attacking Western civilization.

Hasna was not exactly your stereotypical portrait of a terrorist. Her friends and family described her as a “party girl” who drank alcohol and had multiple boyfriends. As the Washington Post reports:


“We saw her quite often and we called her ‘The Cowgirl’ because she was always wearing a large hat,” one neighbor said. Aitboulahcen rarely visited the mosque, and her brother told authorities that he had not once seen her open up a Koran, CNN reports…

Lately, she had taken to calling herself a jihad fanatic. Last June, she posted a photo of herself in a niqab with the caption (using French shorthand): “I will soon go to syria [sic] inchallah [God willing] soon I will leave for turkey.”That an “outgoing French girl” can turn quickly into a violent jihadist who apparently aided in the Paris attacks tells us how powerful and unpredictable the ideology can be–drawing in not just angry, young and underprivileged Middle Eastern men, but also Parisian girls who were thought to have “loved life.”

President Obama was hardly on stronger ground when he mocked Americans for concerns about even children coming from Syria. The perpetrators of one of the most famous recent terror attacks on U.S. soil, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev–Islamist terrorists who set off bombs at the Boston Marathon in 2013–came to the United States child asylum seekers. A relatively normal childhood in America did not prevent them from being radicalized.

That President Obama dismisses the potential threat from terrorists posing as Syrian refugees is alarming enough. But that he managed to do so in a way that betrayed a fundamental misunderstanding of the Islamist threat is almost disqualifying. Clearly he has learned nothing from these attacks. Thankfully, most of America has.
----------------------
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.

---

Tags: Newt Gingrich, President Obama, Hasna Aitboulahcen, terrorist, Syrian refugees, Islamist threat, President 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!

Syrian Refugee Roulette . . .

. . . A dangerous game when playing with ISIS.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

---

Tags: Editorial Cartoon, AF , Branco, Syrian Refugee prgram, roulette, ISIS, dangerous game 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 Administration Announces 144 Big Regulations Right Before Thanksgiving

by James Gattuso : President Obama is nothing if not predictable. Required by law to release plans for new regulations twice a year, the administration has consistently done so just before major holidays, when few are paying attention.

Thus, it was no surprise to see his Fall 2015 regulatory agenda released last Friday, as many Americans focused on Thanksgiving week with family and friends.

Obama’s Politically Timed Agenda Releases

Agend – Release Date

Fall 2012 – December 21 (Friday before Christmas)

Spring 2013 – July 3 (day before Independence Day)

Fall 2013 – November 27 (day before Thanksgiving)

Spring 2014 – May 23 (Friday before Memorial Day weekend)

Fall 2014 – December 22 (three days before Christmas)

Spring 2015 – May 21 (Thursday before Memorial Day weekend)

Fall 2015 – November 23 (one week before Thanksgiving)

A look at the agenda shows why the White House didn’t want it publicized. Over 2,000 regulations are now being written. Of these, 144 are deemed “economically significant”—that is, expected to cost Americans $100 million or more each.

This is a new record, beating the previous high of 136 set by President Obama this spring. The regulations span the full scope of American life, ranging from labeling requirements for pet food, new test procedures for battery chargers, mandated paid sick leave for contractors, and automatic speed limiters for trucks to a dozen new rules limiting energy use (and increasing the price) of everything from furnaces and dishwashers to dehumidifiers.

One of these new rules may be of special interest to Americans sitting down to their Thanksgiving dinner: mandated labeling of serving sizes for food that “can reasonably be consumed at one eating occasion.”

Although none of the rules have been adopted yet, the intent is clear. The agenda is a list of what’s on the drawing board, and with barely a year left in office, the Obama administration is planning to add even more to the already unprecedented burdens it has placed on the America’s economy and society.

Americans—and the Congress they elect—should put a stop to it.
-----------------
James Gattuso (@Jamesgattuso) handles regulatory and telecommunications issues for The Heritage Foundation as a Senior Research Fellow in its Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies.

---

Tags: Obama administration, announces, 144 big regulation, before Thanksgiving, other holidays, James Gattuso, 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!

Thank Liberals For Today's Chaotic And Dangerous World

Liberals reject Judeo-Christian values that transmit the right values and principles and tools to individuals to take personal responsibility to perfect this broken world.

by Star Parker: We're in a world today increasingly defined by chaos. At home it's on our college campuses. Abroad it's spreading across the Middle East and spilling over into Europe.

Who do we have to thank for it all? Liberals and moral relativists in power in our country and Europe.

Liberals have led the way to destroy all sense of moral clarity in our nation, all objective sense of right and wrong and all sense of authority.

What's the common ground of these distant and seemingly totally disconnected worlds -- American college campuses and a chaotic Islamic Middle East? In both places, those who claim to have all the answers are the very ones who should be humbly asking questions and seeking knowledge.

Aren't universities allegedly where youths go to learn?

The students causing problems do not arrive on campus to seek knowledge. They arrive already knowing it all, looking to instruct professors rather than to learn from them. And the weak-kneed liberal faculties and administrators at universities agree!

Today's upside-down world can be directly traced to the purge of the values and principles of our country's Judeo-Christian heritage. Milestones of this process are the purge of school prayer in 1962, legalization of abortion-on-demand in 1973 and redefinition of marriage by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015.

Once the Bible goes out the window, reality gets invented by politicians.

Ironically, the tradition of higher learning in America is rooted in the church.

Look at the website of Yale, where there is student unrest, and discover the clerical roots of the university.

Yale University "traces its roots to the 1640s when colonial clergymen led an effort to establish a local college to preserve the tradition of European liberal education in the New World. This vision was fulfilled in 1701, when a charter was granted for the school 'wherein Youth may be instructed in the Arts and Sciences (and) through the blessing of Almighty God may be fitted for Public employment both in Church and Civil State.'"

Regarding campus unrest tied to allegations of racism, we have the same problem.

Despite the fact that the civil rights movement succeeded because of its Christian roots and Christian leadership, today, thanks to liberals, it is all about politics.
It is no secret that slavery and racism are shameful blots on America's history. But Judeo-Christian values are not about claiming the world is perfect. They are about transmitting the right values, principles and tools to individuals to take personal responsibility to perfect this broken world. This is in contrast to liberals, who invent their own illusions about the world and blame everyone else for their problems.

What about the Middle East?

The world of Islam is horribly broken. By some estimates illiteracy rates average 40 percent. As I wrote a few weeks ago, of 31 nations with populations more than 90 percent Muslim, two are free by the measurement of Freedom House in Washington, D.C.

According to "100 Years of Nobel Prizes," published in 2003, between the years 1901 and 2000 65.4 percent of Nobel laureates were Christians and 20 percent were Jews (who make up just .2 percent of the world's population). Muslims, despite being 20 percent of the world's population, achieved just .8 percent of Nobel prizes in that time. A world of 1.2 billion Muslims produced just 5 Nobel laureates over a century.

Instead of this broken Islamic world hearing from the West that they need to fix themselves, they hear from President Obama that our values are "tolerance and diversity and equality" and that the problem is a handful of terrorists and not the world of Islam itself.

Look no further than liberals holding positions of leadership in the West to understand why we live in an increasingly chaotic and dangerous world. If we want to fix the world, we must fix ourselves and restore the kind of values and leadership we need.
------------
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.

---

Tags: Star Parker, Center for Urban Renewal and Education, CURE, Liberals, Chaotic, Dangerous World To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

The “Leading From Behind” Failure

by John C. Velisek, Contributing Author: The United States under the leadership of President Barack Hussein Obama has not been allowed to flex its will to win. Instead, we note the administration bowing to political correctness, and Islamic terrorism spreading and gaining footholds in many different areas of the world including our own country. This administration has ignored this spread, making us vulnerability to attacks here in our country.

Mr. Obama’s unwillingness to take on the Islamic State and other organizations promoting radical Islamic terrorism has lead to the expansion of radical Jihad, and allowed its recruiting to expand because they know that the United States, who should be a world leader, is “leading from behind” which means no leadership at all. Under this president, we are condoning the premise that Islamic Terrorism as a form of political expression and continue to make excuses for the deaths of innocent citizens. Terrorism has and will continue to come to our country because of the ideological shortcomings of President Obama and his Administration.

We have a leader who is more concerned about global warming that the threat to national security by radical Islam. The only way to secure our national security is to be on the attack and to overwhelm the bastions of terrorism that are spreading throughout the world. We need to remove rules of engagement that preclude strikes that may involve casualties of civilians. Islamic terrorists are hiding among the civilian population as Hamas does in its attacks on Israel. We need to let the generals on the ground to make decisions for force protection.

Border security is important. This administration must be made to understand that our borders are the first line of defense for protection of this country. Mr. Obama claims that he will do everything in his power to maintain security of this country, but he will not close the borders.

He wants the American people to believe ISIS will never come here even though it has been proven that there are Islamic training centers in this country and there over 1000 ongoing FBI investigations. They are here, this administration knows they are here, and it has done nothing to stop the influx of terrorists into this country.

Contrary to the opinion of Mr. Obama and some politicians, there is no moral obligation to take in Syrian refugees who are not vetted. Their moral obligation is to the security of this nation; something this administration has been proven to ignore. Obama has even increased the number of screening outposts in Iraq, Lebanon, and the Middle East to further the influx of refugees before the American people demand a stop to the flow of unvetted refugees, many of whom are men of fighting age to this country. And who is in charge of this vetting process that Obama speaks so highly of? They are clerks of the DHS even though they have already stated that there is no way to vet these refugees.

What can we expect from a President that has alienated our allies and treated our adversaries as equals? We have President who is willing to negotiate with the Taliban, and is floating the idea of diplomatic talks with the Islamic State. Almost everyone outside of the Obama administration understands that ISIS will not be defeated diplomatically. ISIS only desire is world domination and a new Caliphate.

This is the same President who abandoned the gains made by our country’s blood and treasure previously in Iraq. President Obama left Iraq at risk solely to make the point that he was not GW Bush. Iraq was on the path to a democratic way of life until Obama abandoned Iraq. And, now we have the Islamic State in Iraq who threatens all. Afghanistan may fall as well, most likely will occur after Obama leaves office, and the next President who is blamed.

Obama has no coherent foreign policy for the protection of this country, nor does he evidence the leadership skills required to do anything but capitulate to the goals of others. Obama’s foreign policy has appeared to be forcing America to be and to look more like Europe. Our foreign policy is adrift and is being damaged worldwide by its show of weakness. This vacuum of leadership has turned the world into a cauldron of fiery attacks with no response from this administration except excuses.

There is no follow through on policy. The “red line” for Syria’s use of chemical weapons was ignored to the point of Obama saying he never said it. This allowed Putin and other world leaders to discount the word of Obama and once again showed his weakness. The opportunities for Russia, China and Iran to change the world to meet their expectations remain unchallenged.

Rather than change his foreign policy as needed Obama spends his time touting his policies that have been proven failures, both foreign and domestic.

Obama appeared as a candidate as an articulate man and was elected our President also on a campaign promise that he could bring people together. He was even awarded a Noble Peace prize before he actually did anything but promise to do something. That campaign promise has been shattered. Race relations have turned ugly, and more and more of the people in this country are choosing to tune out of the challenges that this administration has forced upon us.

There is no substance to Obama; he is nothing more than a community organizer who gives things away for votes. Obama hasn’t proven he can’t do the hard work required of a President of the largest free nation in the world. Obama is more comfortable in dictating what the country and world at large should do. He feels that no one should dispute any of his proclamations, the proclamations of a narcissistic dictator. He is so enthralled with the progressive agendas of the UN and these agenda being forced on the people of America, it appears he would rather be the leader of the UN than of the USA.

The Islamic State is expanding throughout the world including within the United States because they understand that “political correctness” has stolen from the western world the preparedness to win a global struggle. They understand that the progressives worldwide have fallen back into an isolationist mode that attempts to use diplomacy in all circumstances, and with appeasement has lost the will to use force to protect the own citizens.

In the minds of the progressives, this battle is a legal issue, where we should attempt to hold terrorists criminally liable for their actions. They fail to understand that this is a global war, a war of submission, a conflict that will only end in the destruction of one side or the other.

We have a President who sees no conflict in bringing in more refugees. He uses the global refugee situation created by ISIS to attempt to denigrate Republicans by saying they are scared of “widows and orphans.” He doesn’t accept the data that women have been used as suicide bombers and children as young as three are using teddy bears to learn how to slice infidel’s throats.

In closing, let’s look to some of these refugees that had been vetted previous to this mass exodus of refugees we are facing now. There were the Boston Bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Ramzi Yousef was allowed through JFK Airport without documentation and he plotted the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. There was the refugee Mir Aimal Kansi who committed the CIA headquarters shooting in 1993. Nuradin Abdi was convicted of planning a shopping mall bombing after entering the United States twice. These are but a few of the terrorists that we know of and they were supposedly vetted. How many more are lying in wait? And, with the advent of sanctuary cities, the illegal alien and refugees challenges have been compounded.

Our country is under siege from both threats both outside our borders and within. With a President who evidences little love for this country and prefers for others do the heavy lifting while “leading from behind,” it will be a tumultuous year until Obama is out of the White House. Hopefully, our next President will be one who loves America and respects the Constitution and will lead the new administration in restoring our national security and pride in our country!
------------
John C. Velisek, retired Navy is a California conservative activist writing articles for various publication and is a contributing author to the ARRA News Service. You can follow John's work on @sjspecialist on Twitter and One Patriots Opinion on Facebook.

---

Tags: John C. Velisek, President Obama, leading from behind, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Post Dated - The Unsustainability Of The U.S. Postal Service

by Paul Jacob: What does a business do whose market share is decreasing, is billions of dollars in debt, and which incurred one-third of that debt just last year?

Realistically, it cannot be sustained. Not as a normal business.

Of course, the business in question has been struggling to reform, has been cutting costs. But can’t cut enough.

I’m referring to the United States Postal Service. Not a “normal business,” either: no “normal business” is authorized in the U.S. Constitution — or must suffer with the 535 members of Congress as its board of directors.

Kevin Kosar, writing at the Foundation for Economic Education, says the “existential crisis is already happening.”

And by this he doesn’t mean that the organization is going through a bout of anxiety leading to Nausea, or is so estranged from humanity that on a beach the company will kill an Arab — though that may be indeed true, “going postal” and all. He means, simply, what his title says: “USPS Is Going Down, and It’s Taking Billions with It."

Many on the left say the problem is Congress’s insistence that the enterprise fund its employee retirement program. Kosar quotes an economist who figures that, even without current (and still inadequate) levels of pension contributions, the post office would have “lost $10 billion over the past seven years.”

Besides, those pensions must be paid for at some time — postponing them just delays the inevitable, making a future bust that much bigger, less manageable. (Current level of unfunded liability? $54 billion — which is not accounted for in its official debt.)

The Internet is more important than the post, now. Could it be time to junk mail?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
------------------
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.

---

Tags: Paul Jacob, Common Sense, USPS, U.S. Postal Service, going under, unsustainable, pension funds  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

America At Risk -- ISIS / Terrorism / The Economy / Failing Government . . .

. . . -- under President Obama puts a damper over Thanksgiving 2015.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

---

Tags: Editorial Cartoon, AF Branco, America at Risk, ISIS, Terrorism , The Economy, Failing Government, President Obama, damper over, Thanksgiving To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Talking Turkey: National Security - and Growing Our Own Food

Home is Where the Heart Is

by Seton Motley, Contributing Author: Turkey: Thursday is, of course, Thanksgiving. A holiday which celebrates our inconceivable good fortune and tremendous bounty. Most of us celebrate our good fortune – by joining with family and friends to consume massive amounts of bounty.

We (should) do so in large part in remembrance of how hard it was for the Pilgrims to scrape together enough food on any day – let alone the fourth Thursday of November. And to commemorate their perseverance – they eventually began to make it work. Leading to now, when we whenever we wish merely head to any abundance-laden grocery store.

Turkey: Monday night-Tuesday morning, the nation of Turkey shot down a Russian jet. The latest globally destabilizing incident in a giant heap of them. Our State Department early Tuesday morning issued a worldwide travel alert.Current information suggests that ISIL (aka Da’esh), al-Qa’ida, Boko Haram, and other terrorist groups continue to plan terrorist attacks in multiple regions. These attacks may employ a wide variety of tactics, using conventional and non-conventional weapons and targeting both official and private interests. This Travel Alert expires on February 24, 2016.Meaning the entire planet is for Americans basically off-limits – for (at least) the next three months.

The world is always a dangerous place. When the United States President unilaterally withdraws from any role in making it less so – while making ridiculous assertions like “No challenge  poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change” – things get demonstrably worse.

This heightened danger makes all things global much more difficult. Including trade – which is less free and more expensive in times like these. Whenever it is possible, we trade very freely – but we must be smart when choosing which products we should outsource.

Turkey: I’m about as big a free trader as anyone on the now increasingly dangerous planet. I love as many countries as possible freely trading goods and services in as many directions as possible. But there are trade goods – and then there are life vitals.

Outsourcing iPhone and television production is absolutely fine. Letting other nations nigh-exclusively produce our food – can be highly dicey. Especially so when the global security situation – looks like this global security situation.

So to say that continued domestic food production is a national security imperative isn’t silly – it’s serious business. At which the House of Representatives recently began looking.(T)he House Agriculture Committee held its first in a new series of hearings to examine the relationship between agriculture and national security. In the opening hearing, members and witnesses examined the threats and vulnerabilities to agricultural security as well as the economic significance associated with such threats….

“The bottom line is that a nation that can feed and provide for itself is inherently safer than a nation that cannot….” said Agriculture Committee Chairman K. Michael Conaway.All things are not self-evident. This is.

Global free trade is, of course, not a two-way street – it’s a superhighway cloverleaf. If one or more participants insist on tariffing, regulating and subsidizing – it’s much-less-freer-trade. So when people like us say unilaterally disarming our admittedly-very-dumb government food programs is a really bad idea, it’s not because we aren’t free traders – it’s because we are.

And because we realize that food ain’t phones. We can get by without the latest Samsung Galaxy – but we can’t get too far if our tables start emptying. So we must unravel our very-dumb-food-programs – by getting other nations to unravel theirs. That way their government-assisted food imports don’t wipe out our domestic production – and leave us with the very real potential to go hungry when things globally go bad.

Times like – right now.

So let us revel in our Thanksgiving. Knowing we have so much for which to be thankful – and to consume – in large part because we continue to produce so much domestic bounty. And let us remember that it is a big, bad world out there – and that leaving our food production nigh-exclusively to it would be a recipe for perpetual Pilgrim-esque shortages.
----------------
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.

---

Tags: Seton Motley, Less Government, Talking Turkey, National Security, Growing our own food, food To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Reconciliation Should Unite, Not Divide Conservatives

by Michael Needham: In May, Republicans voted for a budget agreement that “affirmed the use of reconciliation for the sole purpose of repealing the President’s job-killing health care law.” It was a position that united an all-too-often fractured party. The promise to repeal Obamacare in its entirety delivered Republicans the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014.

As we explained back in May, the case for full repeal via reconciliation is straightforward.

The process of drafting and passing a reconciliation measure through both chambers would serve as a trial run. And as we’ve seen in recent months, a trial run is certainly needed. There is ample evidence that a one-provision repeal of all of Obamacare would be allowed by Senate rules, but proving that case should not wait until 2017.

Equally as important, the effort would reassure voters of the Republican-controlled Congress’s commitment to sending a bill repealing all of Obamacare to the president’s desk in 2017 — when it would be signed into law.

And it would remind every insurance company, hospital, industry group and boutique lobbying firm with a vested interest in Obamacare that the law remains unsettled. As insurance companies contemplate leaving the Obamacare market, the continued uncertainty surrounding the law would ensure it did not calcify.

Unfortunately, the reconciliation bill passed by the House earlier this year falls far short of Republicans’ promise to their constituents. A new Congressional Research Services memo found the bill would leave 82-percent of Obamacare’s tax burden in place. Obamacare’s main two entitlement expansions – the Medicaid expansion and the exchange subsidies – would remain in place and unchanged. And Obamacare’s new insurance rules and regulations would remain intact.

This bill would NOT repeal major portions of Obamacare, as some suggest. Not even close.

Yet, most Republicans went along with this approach because many in the pro-life community were eager for a way to avoid a fight on the September or December government funding bills. Planned Parenthood is a wretched, immoral organization that should not receive another dime. But the fake fight on reconciliation would not accomplish such a goal.

Republican leaders used this opportunity to turn two important conservative policy priorities into competing agendas and divide the conservative movement. This is leadership-orchestrated conservative sectarianism at its very worst.

Party leaders split the conservative movement, pitting the Obamacare repeal coalition against pro-life activists, by offering a fig leaf. They pretend they could accomplish both goals through reconciliation, and by co-opting some in the pro-life movement eager for victories they were able to undermine the party’s long-held public commitment to fully repealing Obamacare.

As The Hill’s Alexander Bolton observed last week, there is a growing sense that GOP leaders are not “fully committed to a wholesale repeal of the law.” The reconciliation measure passed through the House is exhibit A. Bolton continues:

“It would be embarrassing, to say the least, if most of the Senate GOP conference voted for a repeal package that the party’s future nominee rejected as too weak.”

No conservative can sit on the sidelines as party elites content with managing the status quo divide us, and force us to fight for scraps on our respective issues. Right now, pro-life leaders are attacking the likes of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) for their commitment to “fully repeal[ing] Obamacare pursuant to Senate rules.”

The elites eager to avoid fully repealing Obamacare and completely defunding Planned Parenthood are smiling. And laughing.

If pro-life leaders want to “pass strongest [reconciliation] bill possible with 51 Republican votes” they should join, not disparage, the Cruz-Lee-Rubio alliance. They should praise the likes of North Carolina’s Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC), not gin up primary threats. If they are genuine, pro-life leaders must tell Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) that they will not support any reconciliation bill unless it “fully repeals Obamacare pursuant to Senate rules.” And we will continue to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with leading pro-life groups in demanding the GOP leadership do everything they can to defund Planned Parenthood.

This is how conservatives win, by standing firm against leadership’s desire to divide and fragment the conservative base of the Republican Party. If we want 2017 to be as successful for conservatives as 2009 was for Barack Obama, we must get off the sidelines and unite around serious conservative policies.

Reconciliation isn’t a test for President Rubio or President Cruz – it is a test for the conservative movement, and one our nation cannot afford for us to fail.
-------------
Mike Needham is the Chief Executive Officer for Heritage Action for America. He is responsible for setting the strategy and vision of Heritage Action, ensuring it advances the mission of The Heritage Foundation while building it into a permanent presence in Washington. He also oversees all policy decisions that hold Members of Congress accountable. Article was previously shared on BREITBART

---

Tags: Michael Needham, Heritage Action, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, pro-life, Obamacare, Abortion, health care, reconciliation To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Considering Global Facts: We Are Less Safe, Muslim Celebrations, Terrorist Sympathies

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: We Are Less Safe - There is little doubt that the world has become a more dangerous place since Barack Obama became president. The Nobel Committee should demand its Peace Prize back. As America retreats, our enemies fill the void.

There is news today that a Russian jet was shot down by Turkish fighters. Turkey is a member of NATO, and it claims that the Russian jet repeatedly violated Turkish airspace. Today's action reportedly marks the first time NATO has shot down a Russian aircraft since the 1950s.

Complicating the situation are reports that U.S.-backed Syrian rebels shot down a Russian rescue helicopter as it was searching for the pilots. Russian President Vladimir Putin angrily denounced the incident as "a stab in the back, carried out by the accomplices of terrorists."

The potential for a catastrophic mistake in the Middle East grows by the hour.

But greater evidence for how things have unraveled was provided by the Obama Administration itself. Last night, the State Department issued a travel alert for Americans abroad.

Travel alerts are not unusual. The State Department often warns Americans in various areas when there are concerns of unrest or potential terrorist plots.

But last night's alert was worldwide and remains in effect until February. According to the State Department, there is enough evidence of plots against Americans that it cannot narrow the danger down to one geographic region.

Meanwhile, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security issued a joint bulletin to all law enforcement agencies yesterday, warning of the risk of radicalized Islamists here in America attempting copycat Paris-style attacks against soft targets.

Muslim Celebrations - Donald Trump is being lambasted by the left-wing media for comments he made about Muslims in New Jersey celebrating as the 9/11 attacks unfolded. Trump is perfectly capable of defending himself. But his claim of seeing "thousands" does not square with anything that I recall. Here's an excerpt from our "End of Day" report from September 19, 2001:


"In Jersey City, New Jersey where there has been a great deal of activity by followers of radical Islam, people were reportedly on the roofs of their apartment buildings, celebrating the attacks in New York. The FBI is following up on these leads."Certainly there were videos of large groups of people celebrating in the Middle East, including in the Palestinian territories.

But what is most telling about the Trump controversy is the effort of big media to create the impression that there is virtually no evidence of radicalism among American Muslims and that Trump simply pulled this out of thin air.

While the Washington Post fact checker says it couldn't find anything to confirm Trump's recollection of events, there were articles similar to my report in the fact checker's own Washington Post. Other reports referencing Muslim celebrations during the 9/11 attacks appeared in the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Regardless, that's all ancient history now. The left-wing media are totally committed to the theme that terrorism has nothing to do with Islam and they are constantly doubling down on this denial.

But I'll concede this: One of the most notorious reactions to 9/11 wasn't in a mosque, but in a church in Chicago that just happened to be the church that Barack Obama attended for 20 years.

It was from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ that Jeremiah Wright stood the Sunday after 9/11 and condemned the United States for supporting terrorism against the Palestinians. He then shouted, "America's chickens are coming home to roost," meaning that the attack was something we caused.

Terrorist Sympathies - As the debate continues to rage over America's refugee policy, the media continue to portray conservatives as hysterical bigots afraid of "widows and orphans" as Obama put it. But what do the Muslim refugees really believe?

One survey of Syrian refugees, conducted by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, found that 13% of them have a positive view of the Islamic State. Keep in mind that these aren't Syrians fighting the Assad regime, but refugees attempting to relocate to another country.

A new Pew survey finds that ISIS enjoys double-digit support in some large Muslim nations. Running the numbers on these figures suggests that nearly 60 million Muslims support ISIS.

Now why would these Muslims possibly support the Islamic State? I'll revisit this issue in the days ahead.
-------------
Gary Bauer is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

---

Tags: Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, ISIS, Global facts, we are less safe, Muslim celebrations, terrorist sympathies To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Hillary Has Imploded In Colorado & Other Important Political Facts

by Rod Martin, Contributing Author:: Most important political fact of the prior week: Hillary has imploded in Colorado.

Colorado is a formerly-reliable red state that the Democrats turned blue late last decade, in part due to massive expenditures by software magnate and LGBT activist Tim Gill. Whole books have been written on the carefully-executed strategy that brought this about, with the general theme that the left knows how to flip a red state, can do it anywhere anytime, and conservatives are surely doomed. And even if that’s a bit much, liberal pundits assure us that Colorado is lost to Republicans forever.

Well, maybe. But on Wednesday, Quinnipiac released a poll that may be even worse for Hillary if they’re right.

In match-ups with the leading Republican candidates, Hillary Clinton lost to all four by double-digits: 37-48 against Donald Trump, 38-51 against Ted Cruz, 36-52 against Marco Rubio, and 38-52 versus Ben Carson.

Note that these are supposedly the most polarizing Republican candidates, the ones officially deemed “unelectable.”

It’s a solid poll: sample size 1,262 likely voters with a margin of error of 2.8%. Maybe its an outlier, but I doubt it.
If Hillary is getting crushed in Colorado, Democrats have serious problems. It’s hard to see how Colorado has shifted so dramatically back red without other states moving toward the R column also: there are a lot of factors in play in so large a move, and few of them are local.

But boiling things down to hard math, assuming Republicans can keep everything they won in 2012 and also win Florida and Ohio (which they must), Colorado puts them at 262 electoral votes, or just eight shy of the 270 needed to win. That means that all they have to do is bring Virginia (13) home to take the White House. And failing that, Iowa (6), Wisconsin (10), New Mexico (5), Nevada (6), New Hampshire (4) and Maine (4) all look winnable.

Altogether that could be a total of 310, without contesting Michigan (16), Pennsylvania (20) or New Jersey (14), two of which have a Republican governor and one a Republican Senator, all of whom were elected since Barack Obama.

All of this will play out in light of the second most important political fact last week: Democrats’ over-the-top tone-deafness on security.

As I detail elsewhere, there are a lot of very reasonable questions post-Paris regarding the refugee crisis. Obama and Clinton dismiss these – and anyone who asks them – as ignorant bigots. Their irritation – particularly Obama’s at the Antalya summit – is palpable.

This is not a good way to persuade people to do what – again, post-Paris – seems reckless at best. It is, however, a good way to convince people you aren’t concerned for their security, or at the very least, don’t care what they think. Over the last week, Donald Trump has surged another 17 points to a whopping 42%. Marine Le Pen now leads the French presidential field, with 28% to Sarkozy’s 23% and Hollande’s 21%. 76% of UK voters want to scrap automatic entry for EU migrants. There is serious talk of an end to the Schengen Zone. And across the West, voters are doubting that their leaders actually represent them.

I should add that, of all people, Hillary Clinton should know better: her husband was unceremoniously dumped after his first term as Governor of Arkansas largely because of a similar tone-deafness regarding Cuban refugees (none of whom, by the way, were thought to pose a terror risk). Yet she seems to have learned nothing from this, and indeed, when asked in the first debate whom she was proud to count as an “enemy,” two of the three she named were domestic, which is unseemly in a Presidential candidate under the best of circumstances.

There are real questions about the refugees; there are even more about how best to protect America and the West from the terrorists who may be among them. An impatient “trust me” is already not playing well. It will play worse should (God forbid) a few of the 10,000 Syrians just offloaded at New Orleans blow up an American city in the next several months.

Even if the Democrats are right about this issue, they need to adjust their tone or this is likely to become their albatross.

By the way, an important side note: did you happen to see the video of a stadium full of Turkish soccer fans booing the suggestion of a moment of silence for the Paris victims, and then chanting “Allah Akbar”? As discussed previously, Turkey’s re-election of would-be Sultan Recep Erdogan represents the consolidation of Islamist power in our NATO ally and prospective EU and Schengen Zone member. No one seems to be taking this very seriously either. Except perhaps Marine Le Pen.

All of which brings us to our third most important political fact, which is that a realignment is very possible.

That may sound like crazy talk, I know. But it always does, right before it happens. No one believed the South would ever vote Republican, or that Virginia would ever shift back Democrat. No one believed Colorado would shift left, or shift back right. California voted for the Republican in every election but one from 1952 until Bill Clinton, and banned gay marriage with a popular vote of 52-47 as late as 2008. The main constant in politics is its fluidity.

That last example is instructive. Prop 8 passed in a state that has been equated with gayness my entire life, not because Republicans wanted it – there aren’t enough of them – but because of a coalition of blacks, Hispanics and conservatives who shared a common belief. Had it not been for those newcomers, Prop 8 probably would have gotten something like 37%.

Are there any other issues on which Republicans could build a coalition? Security, for instance?

Or how about this one. Immigration and trade treaties such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership are widely believed to destroy American jobs and hold down American wages. We can debate the fine points of those arguments, but what is certain is that the people most affected – and most aware of being affected – are poor blacks and Hispanics.

I know many will instantly dismiss that entire paragraph: blacks will never vote Republican (because obviously they never have before), Hispanics all want amnesty, and so forth.

But Ben Carson is polling 19% among blacks (Republicans usually get 10%, and black Republicans frequently do worse), and incidentally, running even with Hillary among women. A couple of polls have shown Trump as high as 24% among blacks. If any of those statistics carried through to Election Day, Hillary would lose.

Likewise Hispanics. Nearly half of U.S.-born Hispanics oppose Obama’s amnesty, and indeed, Hispanics generally poll conservative on more issues than not, particularly the social issues that are under renewed attack from the left. Effectively tapping that would stop the Democrats’ demographic freight train in its tracks.

So how to do so?

The first and most important point is that the overwhelming majority of both these groups think Republicans just don’t like them. That’s a case GOP insider candidates probably can’t overcome. But Cruz, Rubio, Carson and even Trump might be able to bridge the gap, again remembering that they don’t have to win a majority of either to earn a landslide.

The second and third points are the ones made by Prop 8: Republicans have to dump “outreach” – the very word sounds like us vs. them – and start recruiting, just as they would in any other part of the country. They need to make common cause with black and Hispanic leaders on issues of shared concern, not talk at them (halfheartedly) about, whatever.

There are plenty of common concerns. Take education. Ten years ago in Washington, D.C. a black Democrat mayor adopted Republican ideas on school choice; today, 46% of Washington’s poorest kids are in charter schools, dramatically outperforming their traditional public school peers. In post-Katrina New Orleans, 94% are in charters, and are beating the statewide mean on standardized tests for the first time ever. Yet most Democrat leaders are still virulently opposed to these real-world successes.

Likewise immigration and the refugees. Security affects everyone, and one side seems aloof, dismissive and unconcerned. But job security and wage growth are even more immediate, and it is easy to make the case that Democrats favor illegals who jump to the head of the line over their own core constituencies. And this may even be more true for labor unions whose interests have been jettisoned by two consecutive Democrat presidents. We once called these folks “Reagan Democrats,” but it’s awfully easy to seem them voting Trump.

Am I arguing for a compromise of core principles? Certainly not. But there’s a lot of opportunity here, if someone creative would just think outside the old box.

And that’s really my point. Republicans’ four outsider candidates are definitionally out of that box. To different degrees on different issues, they can carry new messages stated in new ways to new people their predecessors wrote off for decades. If conservative solutions really are better – and we strongly believe that they are – those messages will resonate with at least some who haven’t heard us before. And a lot of that will be because we actually go to them, above and around their normal, universally-leftist information sources.

That effort is not, as most GOP consultants have believed for two generations, futile. Indeed, the combination of these candidates, new technology, and the almost universal disenchantment with both parties creates a rare moment in history in which a genuine realignment could take place.

Will this happen? I don’t know. But it can. And we should work to make it so.
------------------
Rod D. Martin, writes at RodMartn.org, and is founder and CEO of The Martin Organization, a technology entrepreneur, venture capitalist, author and conservative activist. He is a member of the Board of Governors of the Council for National Policy, a Past President of the National Federation Republican Assemblies. and a contributing author to the ARRA News Service.

---

Tags: Rod Martin, RodMartin.org, Hillary Clinton, Imploded in Colorado, other political facts To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!