Ben Carson Suspends His Campaign for President, Will Help Group Mobilizing Christian Voters

by Steven Ertelt: Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson officially suspended his campaign for president today during a speech at the CPAC conservative political event in Washington. Carson said he would continue fighting for the betterment of the nation in other ways.

“I did the math, I looked at the delegate count, looked at the states, looked at the requirements,” he said. “I realized it simply wasn’t going to happen and if that’s the case, I didn’t want to interfere with the process.”

“Even though I might be leaving the campaign trail, you know there’s a lot of people who love me, they just won’t vote for me. But I will still continue to be heavily involved in trying to save our nation,” he said.

Earlier on Friday, it was announced that Carson will serve as national chairman of My Faith Votes, a group focused on Christian voter turnout.

“I’ll be involved in a lot of different things including My Faith Votes, an organization that is going to try to help the faith community recognize how important their vote is,” he told CPAC.

“Nothing is more important to me than my personal faith, and it is my faith that motivated me to be involved in the political process to begin with,” Carson said in a video statement posted to the group’s website Friday.

“I believe Christians in this country can easily determine the next president of the United States and all other national and local leaders, should they simply show up at the polls,” he said.

After poor showings in the most recent primary and caucus states, pro-life voters wondered when Carson would exit the campaign. Those pro-life voters who support pro-life candidates Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio over Donald Trump have specifically said they think Carson is drawing votes from the two senators and making it easier for Trump to gain the nomination.

However, some political observers say the contingent of Republicans who have supported Carson may back Trump because they view Carson as a political outsider in the same vein.

In February, Carson said he is possibly interested in becoming Donald Trump’s running mate should the businessman secure the GOP nomination.

“I certainly would sit down and discuss it with him,” he told Fox Business host Neil Cavuto today. But he added that he would only take the running mate spot if he determined that he and Trump share a “philosophical alignment.”

“I would have to have major philosophical alignment with whoever it was,” he said. “I would have to have guarantees that I could do some substantial things.”

During the interview Carson would not say if thee are any candidates he would decline to run with as the vice presidential nominee.

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The Return Of The Clinton Semi-Auto Ban

by Marshall Lewin, America’s 1st Freedom: It’s now unanimous: All three Democratic presidential contenders—led by front-runner Hillary Clinton—are officially on public record calling for a federal ban on a broad class of semi-automatic firearms that they call “assault weapons.”

Meanwhile, last December, U.S Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) introduced H.R. 4269, the Assault Weapons Ban of 2015, which would ban the manufacture of AR-15s and similar firearms. At press time, 123 Democrats, including House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) had signed onto the legislation as co-sponsors.

The questions that every gun owner—and everyone who cares about the Second Amendment-protected right to keep and bear arms—must confront right now are these:

- Why do these anti-gun politicians want to ban firearms that are used in only a tiny percentage of murders or other violent crimes?

- Why do these anti-gun politicians seek to deceive the American people about “assault weapons,” their capabilities and their exceedingly rare use in violent crimes?

- If they’re willing to ban an entire class of firearms that they know will have no detectable impact on violent crime, what are these gun-haters’ true motives and objectives? Just what do they have in mind?

Whatever the answers to these questions might be, one fact is chillingly clear:

Whether or not you own a semi-automatic firearm of any kind, if you want to own any firearm for any lawful reason—or even if you just want to protect that freedom for future generations—the agenda of these anti-gun politicians should make you think, very clearly and very carefully, about what it is they seek to achieve, and what you and future generations stand to lose in the bargain.

Because this entire “assault weapons” hysteria is based on lies.

Let’s go through them.

First, since semi-automatic so-called “assault weapons” are used in such a tiny portion of crime, banning those firearms wouldn’t affect violent crime rates—even if criminals did obey gun bans.

According to the FBI, less than 2.4 percent of all murders are committed with rifles of any kind—and so-called “assault weapons” are a subset of that number.

So it’s not surprising that even the Justice Department had to admit that Bill Clinton’s 1994 gun ban didn’t accomplish a thing. As even The New York Times had to acknowledge, that government study concluded, “Should [the assault weapons ban] be renewed, the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best, and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.”

That’s why, after a decade of accomplishing nothing that made us safer, that ban was allowed to “sunset” in September 2004.

It is important to note that H.R. 4269, like other federal “assault weapon” bills introduced over the last decade, would not simply “reinstate” the Clinton Gun Ban of 1994-2004. Gun control supporters have been using the word “reinstate” to mislead the American people into thinking they are proposing to renew the same ban that expired in 2004. However, nothing could be further from the truth.

The 1994 ban allowed manufacturers to produce AR-15 type firearms without flash suppressors and one or two other external features, and to make similar adjustments to other firearms. As a result, the number of AR-15s made and sold during the 10 years the ban was in effect was a quarter of a million greater than the number produced and sold during the preceding 10 years. Additionally, 50 million magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds were allowed to be imported while the ban was in effect.

The proposed ban is much worse. It would prohibit the manufacture of most detachable-magazine semi-automatic rifles, numerous semi-automatic shotguns configured for defensive purposes, any semi-automatic rifle with a fixed magazine over 10 rounds (except for a tubular magazine .22LR), any semi-automatic pistol like the HK SP-89, any semi-automatic pistol with a fixed magazine over 10 rounds, revolving cylinder shotguns, various other named and described firearms, frames and receivers of banned guns, and ammunition magazines over 10 rounds, except those for tubular magazine .22 rimfire rifles.

It’s a shame we have to hear the same lies today from the media and political class that we heard 11 years ago—and a decade before that—about America’s best-selling rifle. And it’s an outrage that we have to keep exposing their lies about semi-automatic firearms, decade after decade. But as it’s been said, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

So let’s set the record straight for the umpteenth time: The firearms that these anti-gunners want to ban are not more powerful than other firearms. They’re not machine guns. They can’t “spray bullets.” They’re not the “weapons of choice for criminals.” They’re not used in the majority of crimes—in fact, they’re rarely used in crimes. And regardless of what they look like, the firearms they want to ban are no different from any other firearm in America.

“Assault weapons” are not more deadly than any other firearms. In fact, the cartridges they typically shoot—the .223 Rem. or 5.56x45 mm, for example—are less powerful than those used in deer rifles that millions of hunters use every year. Indeed, some states ban the .223 for deer hunting because it’s not considered to be powerful enough.

So why do Hillary Clinton and company try to demonize and outlaw semi-automatic so-called “assault weapons”? In a word, the answer is cosmetics. To people who don’t know much about firearms, semi-automatic so-called “assault weapons” look scary. The AR-15, the semi-automatic Kalashnikov and the rest of the firearms they display for the cameras at their misleading and dishonest press events look like machine guns.

And that, in fact, is the whole point.

Ask Josh Sugarmann, who founded the anti-gun Violence Policy Center and invented the term “assault weapon.” As Sugarmann wrote in 1988:

“The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.”

But here’s the whole truth: Whether they’re gas-operated, like most AR-15 rifles ... or recoil-operated, like the Browning Auto-5 shotgun ... or blowback-operated, like the Ruger rimfire pistols or 10/22 rifle ... they all fire one shot—and only one shot—each time the trigger is pulled. So they can’t “spray bullets” as Clinton and the others like to claim.

Regardless of what they look like, they are not, and never will be, machine guns.

What’s more, after the original Clinton gun ban expired in 2004, AR-15s and similar semi-automatics became the hottest-selling rifles in America. According to the congressional newspaper The Hill, there are currently an estimated 8 to 9 million of these guns in the United States.

So ask yourself: Will Hillary Clinton and company be satisfied with a simple ban on the manufacture or sale of new semi-automatic rifles? Or once their ban proves fruitless, will they seek to eradicate the rifles already in private ownership?

On Oct. 16, 2015, Clinton gave us a glimpse of the brave new world she envisions for America, when she compared our nation to Australia, which banned, confiscated and destroyed at least 640,000 semi-automatic and pump-action rifles and shotguns in 1996. “I think it would be worth considering doing it on the national level if that could be arranged,” Clinton said of the forced confiscation and destruction program Down Under.

And it’s exceedingly clear, from her statements on the campaign trail, that Clinton doesn’t plan to let Congress stop her from pursuing her gun-ban agenda. She publicly admitted that to achieve her gun bans, she would go even further than Barack Obama in sidestepping Congress and short-circuiting the legislative process by using unilateral executive orders.

Think about what all this means in context.

The gun-banners are not doing it for pragmatic reasons, because as the FBI’s statistics show (and the Justice Department’s study proves), banning so-called “assault weapons” won’t make anyone safer.

And they’re not doing it for political reasons, because as history shows, it won’t help them win elections—just the opposite. An ABC News/Washington Post poll released in December found that public support for banning these guns had dropped to the lowest level in 20 years, with a majority of Americans opposed to such a measure. So they’re not idiots—they’re ideologues. And they’re not only dishonest, they’re also deluded.

They’re apparently so consumed by their hatred of firearms and the freedom to own them that they’re willing to sacrifice the American people’s ability to defend themselves, and they believe doing so will enhance their own political careers, on the radical and frankly superstitious belief that “guns are bad.”

They don’t care if their gun bans don’t work to reduce crime. They don’t care if their gun bans end up disarming good people and leaving them defenseless against criminals or even terrorists. In fact, it is increasingly apparent that that is the actual goal.

In other words, in the final analysis, they want to wage an ideological war against the Second Amendment and our right to keep and bear arms, and they believe the American people will reward them for it.

And that might be the most frightening delusion of all.

Think about where it leads: If Clinton and her fellow Democrats succeed in banning an entire class of firearms that are neither more powerful, nor more dangerous, nor more prevalent in the commission of crimes than any other firearm—what’s to prevent them from banning all firearms under equally empty and insidious means?

What’s to prevent them from banning shotguns as terrifying “hand cannons whose projectiles are untraceable to investigators”?

What’s to prevent them from banning deer rifles as “ultra-powerful sniper weapons based on military rifles and capable of killing from a mile away”?

What’s to stop them from simply banning all firearms based on any invented criteria?

Once they’ve banned firearms for no good reason, finding better “reasons” to ban guns gets easier and easier as the slippery slope steepens. And once they get groups of gun owners fighting amongst themselves over whose guns are “legitimate,” whose guns are constitutionally protected and whose guns go over the transom—they’ve got us right where they want us in their divide-and-conquer strategy.

Join The Fight. Use Your Power!

Word-of-mouth information from a trusted individual is an extremely powerful tool, and nobody is better at it than the loyal members of the National Rifle Association. The work accomplished by grassroots members throughout the country in explaining so-called “assault weapons” to their families, friends and co-workers has resulted in a far greater understanding of semi-automatic firearms by everyday Americans than ever before.

In fact, a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll revealed that support for an “assault weapons” ban has dropped to its lowest level in two decades. According to the results, 53 percent are opposed to such a ban, while 45 percent support a ban. The poll was conducted shortly after husband-and-wife jihadists killed 14 people in a San Bernardino terror attack using exactly the same type of rifle targeted by the proposed ban.

If you want to help defend your rights and defeat these anti-gun zealots, continue spreading the word. Explain the fallacy of a new semi-auto ban to everyone who will listen. Share this magazine feature with those who don’t understand the issue. And direct friends and family members toward NRAILA.org and this website, where they can get updated information from the front lines of the battle for the Second Amendment on a daily basis.

Just as important as stopping the semi-automatic ban is making sure Hillary Clinton never becomes president of the United States. Her propensity for half-truths and outright lies, combined with her disdain for the Second Amendment and law-abiding American gun owners, would prove disastrous for our right to keep and bear arms.

Explain to every gun owner you know the danger their constitutional right would face under a second Clinton presidency. And note that freedoms are far harder to regain once they are lost.

We must all get informed and get involved now, because our freedom needs your help. To find out how you can fight back as a part of NRA’s Grassroots Network, visit NRAILA.org/Grassroots.

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Tags: Marshall Lewin, NRA, America’s 1st Freedom, Marshall Lewin, Semi-Auto Ban, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Clinton Gun Ban, 1994 Ban, AR-15, HB 4269 To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

John Kasich's Moment

by Newt Gingrich: Last night’s debate in Detroit became Ohio Governor John Kasich’s moment.

In Frank Luntz’s focus group 18 of 24 picked Governor Kasich as the winner.

Even the news media, which has ignored Kasich’s calm, positive, policy-focused campaign while lavishing attention on childish attacks, conceded that Kasich had a good night.

Kasich’s long, persistent, and at times quiet campaign has begun to pay off.

Early in the campaign, the Governor did not seem to be building any momentum, clogged somewhere in the muddle of 17 candidates.

Trump’s sheer energy and noise dominated.

Media coverage became a function of fighting the Donald. Governor Kasich refused to be petty and negative. The news media refused to cover substance or positive ideas.

But Kasich calmly continued to hold town hall meetings where he listened to people, answered their questions and learned from them.

Then other candidates began dropping out.

Jeb Bush spent more than $100 million, to almost no effect, and disappeared.

Chris Christie brilliantly challenged Rubio in a debate, but his campaign failed to catch on.

Kasich skipped Iowa and focused on New Hampshire. He held more than 100 town hall meetings in the state, and came in second to Trump (better than almost anyone in the news media expected).

On Super Tuesday, Governor Kasich split Vermont’s delegates in a tie with Donald Trump. He then finished second in Massachusetts.

Callista and I went to see a John Kasich town hall meeting near our office in Virginia on Super Tuesday.

There was a nice but not overwhelming crowd. John’s wife Karen introduced him. I was at their wedding 19 years ago and she is lovelier than ever. Their twin daughters, Emma and Reese, were there, too.

John was his old self. Engaging, funny, eager to listen, very willing to have people disagree with him or bring him new ideas and new information.

Callista noted how deeply emotional John was in listening to people who had experienced pain in their lives. The small town boy from western Pennsylvania whose father was a mailman comes through in these conversations with citizens from all walks of life.

In terms of experience, Governor Kasich is by far the best prepared of the final four candidates for the Republican nomination.

He was elected to the State Senate in Ohio in 1978 as its youngest member ever. As a freshman, he wrote his own budget. Then he became the only Republican to defeat a Democratic incumbent for Congress in 1982.

In his 18 years in Congress, John became a genuine expert on national security. He served on the House Armed Services Committee for all 18 years.

When I became Speaker in 1994, Kasich became chairman of the Budget Committee. Thanks to his intelligence, energy, drive and persistence, we balanced the federal budget for four straight years–the only time that has happened in our lifetimes.

Kasich then spent a decade in business and learned the principles of free enterprise firsthand.

He was drawn back to Ohio by a state government that was out of control. It was running up huge deficits, killing jobs and raising taxes. John decided to run for governor, and defeated the Democrat incumbent Governor in a remarkable upset.

In four years, he balanced the budget, cut taxes, led to job growth, developed a surplus and launched a wave of reforms that helped the poor, the mentally ill, and Ohioans with disabilities.

In 2010, running for reelection, Kasich carried 86 of 88 counties–an unheard of majority in what is always a swing state in presidential elections.

Last night, for the first time, Americans began to hear Kasich’s ideas.

He won the debate and took a solid step toward winning Ohio in two weeks.

He has earned it.
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Newt Gingrich is a former Georgia Congressman and Speaker of the U.S. House. He co-authored and was the chief architect of the "Contract with America" and a major leader in the Republican victory in the 1994 congressional elections. He is noted speaker and writer. The above commentary was shared via Gingrich Productions.

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Will The GOP Establishment Try To Steal The Nomination At The Convention In July?

by Robert Romano: As the Donald Trump presidential campaign continues to gather momentum and delegates toward the July 18 through 21 Republican nominating convention in Cleveland, Ohio, there is an emerging theme in GOP establishment circles.

And that is the idea of a brokered or even stolen convention in which the candidate with the most delegates or even a majority of the delegates still somehow does not emerge as the party’s nominee.

Normally, such speculation might be consigned as unadulterated nonsense, the fantasies of losing campaigns desperate to justify continued fundraising and public support amid mounting defeats. After all, it has not succeeded before in modern history. It is a hope, but not much of a strategy.

Yet here we are, with a Feb. 27 story in the New York Times, “Inside the Republican Party’s Desperate Mission to Stop Donald Trump,” by reporters Alexander Burns, Maggie Maberman and Jonathan Martin, where the writing is clearly beginning to appear on the wall.

The odds in favor of a Trump nomination are going up as the calendar proceeds beyond Super Tuesday. And Washington, D.C. insiders will do almost anything to stop it.

“At least two campaigns have drafted plans to overtake Mr. Trump in a brokered convention, and the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has laid out a plan that would have lawmakers break with Mr. Trump explicitly in a general election,” report messengers Burns, Maberman and Martin.

On one hand, it is easy to appreciate just how wrong all of the experts were about Trump, as he was consistently underestimated last year. He was a clown. Couldn’t win anything. Would disappear in a week or a month. Wasn’t really running. In the meantime, ever since he rose in the polls, he has been winning. And even that was supposed to be an illusion, because his supporters would never show up at the polls and the ground game would fail to identify them if he even had one.

Maybe he’s that good at this. Or perhaps his competition was never up to the task in the first place, in which case, is that really who should be taking on Hillary? In that context, talk of a brokered convention is just a Hail Mary, a last-minute play with low percentage odds of success.

On the other hand, it is hard to fault campaigns for strategizing on taking the convention. When you’re trying to win, you consider every possibility — even long shots.

The last time such an endeavor came close to happening was in 1976 when sitting President Gerald Ford showed up at the nominating convention short of the majority of delegates he needed, thanks to the insurgency by Ronald Reagan.
Even then, although it was close, Ford won the nomination on the first ballot after the states that lacked a primary process at the time had weighed in.

Of course, it is theoretically possible no candidate gets a clear majority going into the convention, but now with every state with some form of a primary or caucus process for allocating delegates — in 1976 that was not the case with only 28 primaries and caucuses — the fact it has never happened before looms large.

So, perhaps this is just all the final death throes of a Washington, D.C. political establishment after it was unable to get its preferred candidate. In other words, pure desperation not to be taken seriously.

To his credit, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has discounted such a possibility on Feb. 24 on CNN, “My job is to put forward the fairest process that we can put forward, to not put my hand on the scale, to allow our delegates to make the choices that they want to make and then accept the decision that the delegates make, unlike on the Democratic side where they have superdelegates and could give a darn about what the grassroots are telling the party. That’s not how we operate our party on our side.”

But, still, what if there is something more to this?

What antidemocratic lengths would the party go to in order to deny the people’s choice of a candidate? Say, a bid to take the convention fails. What’s next? Trying to rig the electoral college with third party, regional bids to somehow force the election into the House of Representatives? If no candidate emerges with a majority of the electoral college, presidential elections go to the House of Representatives per Article II of the Constitution.

In many ways this is the same type of thinking that goes into a lame duck session of Congress, where many Republican leaders and some retiring politicians are already preparing to get one more bite at the legislative apple during the Obama administration.

One key item that may be considered during a lame duck would be the controversial, 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which might not otherwise pass if the vote occurred before the election. Also of note, it is very much opposed by the current Republican frontrunner, Trump.

Would a Republican Congress push the unpopular trade deal opposed by its own nominee across the finish line for fear that a Trump administration might go back to the drawing board?

For obvious reasons, a lame duck Congress is the wrong approach, as it defies the people’s express will, all in the pursuit of outgoing Congressmen and their staffs’ next jobs on K Street.

Yet, again, here we are, with talk of brokered conventions and last minute back-room deals cementing the Obama legacy — all as an antidemocratic stench permeates the rotten GOP establishment. And folks wonder why voters are so upset?
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Robert Romano is the Senior Editor of Americans for Limited Government. His article was first shared on the ALG's NetRight Daily blog.

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Davy Crockett: Hero of Liberty

by Rod Martin, Contributing Author: Sunday, marks the 180th anniversary of the martyrdom of the heroes of the Alamo, who died to delay the dictator Santa Anna’s army long enough so that Texian troops could rally and defend their homes. Singular among those heroes was Colonel and Congressman David S. Crockett, “King of the Wild Frontier.”

Born in 1786 in that part of North Carolina which was then the renegade “State of Franklin” but not yet the State of Tennessee, “Davy” Crockett was a legend even in his own time, and long before the Texas Revolution.

The son of John Crockett, one of the “overmountain men” unleashed by Joseph Martin to turn the tide of the Revolutionary War at Kings Mountain, the future legend in his teenage years repeatedly traveled on foot from eastern Tennessee to Virginia across the Appalachian mountains, developing skills and achieving feats for which he’d become so well known later. He served under General Andrew Jackson in the Creek War and in Jackson’s campaign, late in the War of 1812, to drive the British out of Florida. By the age of 32 he’d been appointed a justice of the peace, elected lieutenant colonel of the Tennessee Militia, and started several successful business enterprises.

In the Tennessee legislature and in the U.S. House during Jackson’s presidency, he fought untiringly against Congress’s overspending and unconstitutional expansion of its powers. He also vociferously opposed Jackson’s 1830 Indian Removal Act, the only member of the Tennessee delegation to do so. For this, the voters of Tennessee sent Crockett home. Undaunted, he ran again two years later and returned to the House, resuming his previous crusades and also collaborating with Kentucky Congressman Thomas Chilton to produce his autobiography, A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett, Written by Himself.


Video Presentation on Davy Crockett by Rod Martin
Crockett embarked upon an extensive book tour which, combined with larger-than-life stage productions such as Lion of the West and mythologized biographies like Sketches and Eccentricities of Colonel David Crockett of West Tennessee, cemented in the national mind his legend as a pioneer and frontiersman. Everywhere he went, from New York to Little Rock, adoring fans swarmed him. More and more, he took the opportunity they afforded him to speak against the military threat and growing tyranny of Mexican dictator Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and the need to support an American-style revolution in Texas.

By the time the voters dumped him again in August 1835, Crockett’s heart was consumed with the Texian cause. No longer seeing Washington or the pettiness of politics as worthwhile, he famously told his erstwhile constituents, “You all can go to Hell, I’m going to Texas.” And he went.

He arrived in Nacodoches with a company of volunteers just five months later in January 1836, swearing an oath to the Provisional Government of Texas. Barely a month later he and his group were in San Antonio de Bexar, with fellow Texian heroes Jim Bowie, Antonio Menchaca and Don Erasmo Seguin, a Founding Father of the Mexican republic who helped feed and finance the Texas Revolution (Don Erasmo was also the father of Juan Seguin, a defender of the Alamo who survived to become a hero of San Jacinto and a Senator of the Republic of Texas).

Less than a month later, Crockett died defending the Alamo.

Moderns appreciate little of the importance of this. Some (outside Texas at least) see the Alamo as a minor incident at most. Many today view the Texas Revolution as an Anglo brutalization of a victimized Mexico: they ignore, willfully or otherwise, the multilingual, multi-ethnic nature of the affair, the many prominent Mexican statesmen who, loyal to the principles of their lost republic, took up arms in favor of the revolution: men such as Erasmo Seguin and his friend Lorenzo de Zavala, the first vice president of Texas, who was born in Yucatan and had previously served as Mexico’s minister of finance.

The revisionists also ignore the widespread opposition throughout Mexico to Santa Anna’s dictatorship and scrapping of the 1824 Constitution. In addition to Texas, both Yucatan and the Mexican states immediately across the Rio Grande from Texas formed republics and seceded from Mexico, albeit unsuccessfully.

But beyond the unquestionable rightness of the Texian cause, the successful Revolution served to answer the burning geopolitical question of that era, namely, would America or Mexico — and would liberty or tyranny — dominate the New World?
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Rod D. Martin, authored this article last year for RodMartn.org and it was updated for 2016. He 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.

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Favored Son . . .

. . . GOPe favors third place Rubio over 2nd place Cruz in the Super Tuesday outcome. [Editor's comment: Rather sick -- facts used to mean something: Rubio missing 35 percent, or 120 of the 339 roll votes, during the past year, according to GovTrack. Graham, who suspended his campaign, missed 28 percent of roll call votes during 2015, and Cruz missed 24 percent.]

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony Branco

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Tags: establishment, Republicans, GOPe, favored son, Marco Rubio, missed 35% of Senate roll call votes,editorial cartoon, AF Branco To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

The Age of Clinton & The Rule of Law After Teflon

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: We could call our time The Age of Teflon, but that conjures up memory of Ronald Reagan — “the Teflon President” is what Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.) called the 40th Commander in Chief — and, please recall, Reagan had nothing on Bill Clinton.

Nicknamed “Slick Willie,” Clinton was the politician who really demonstrated what slipperiness is all about. Prez 42 had what it takes to get out of any scandal whatsoever, even criminal:

1. Bluster (never admit anything);
2. Lexical tomfoolery (convolve the epistemics with feints to metaphysics, say, about the meaning of “is”);
3. Distraction (bomb a foreign country to deflect attention):
4. Ad hominem (deny the charges because of the nefarious conspiracy of opponents); and
5. Relying upon followers, especially in the media, to deny all substance outright.

We have lived in the Age of Clinton ever since. Even the grossest enormities fail to fall heavily upon a politician who is, somehow (usually because of partisanship, but not always), impervious to the blemish of a crime. The accusations (even charges) don’t stick.

Now that American voters have the chance to anoint another Clinton to office, making a dynasty out of a done deal, we sort of just assume — by political inertia — that the Age of Clinton will continue, with invulnerability the only thing adhering to the most corrupt politician of our time, the Mrs. of the Age.

Yet, the FBI is investigating former Secretary of State Hillary “Smart Power” Clinton’s email server scandal. One of her subordinates, a tech guy, has been given immunity after extensive pleadings of the Fifth Amendment.

Could the Age of Clinton end with her prosecution?

Unlikely, given how partisanship now routinely trumps the rule of law.

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, Age of Clinton, Rule of Law, Teflon,  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Gov. Scott Walker on How Obama Helped Conservative Movement Thrive

Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) at CPAC 2016

by Natalie Johnson: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, said Thursday that President Barack Obama has helped the conservative movement expand during the past seven years.

Since Obama took office in 2009, Walker noted, the number of Democratic governors across the United States has fallen from 28 to 18.

“The only nice thing I can say about this president is he’s been an incredible recruiter for conservative candidates,” Walker said during the 2016 Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, at Maryland’s National Harbor near Washington, D.C.

He cited Matt Bevin’s unlikely win in Kentucky’s gubernatorial race in November as evidence that the grassroots conservative movement has gained momentum under the Obama administration.

Bevin’s defeat of Jack Conway, Kentucky’s former Democratic attorney general, made him the state’s third Republican governor since World War II and one of 31 GOP governors who currently hold office across the United States.

“The reason why we see that kind of change is because Americans are looking for leadership that counters the failed policies of Barack Obama,” Walker said.

Republicans also have seen their party grow in state legislatures. Since 2009, Walker said, roughly 1,000 new GOP lawmakers have been elected to state legislatures throughout the nation.

Walker noted that 27 state legislatures were controlled entirely by Democrats when Obama took office, and eight were evenly split between the parties.

Today, Democrats control 11 state legislatures. Eight remain split.

“The conservative movement is alive and well in states all across America,” Walker said. “Why? Because our policies are working.”

The Wisconsin governor pointed to Indiana Gov. Mike Pence’s success in bringing the unemployment rate down to the lowest it has been since March 2011. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, meanwhile, has added 30,000 state residents to the workforce who previously were on welfare.

“Positive, commonsense, conservative reforms work on economic policy, they work on fiscal policy, they work on social policy,” Walker said.

Running through Saturday, CPAC offers conservatives across the country an opportunity to gather with fellow activists and leaders for speeches, panels, exhibits, and other activities at Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, just outside Washington, D.C.
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Natalie Johnson is a news reporter for The Daily Signal

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Tags: CPAC 2016, Wisconsin, Governor, Scott Walker, President Obama, helped, Conservative movement To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Mitt Gets Tough, Servergate Immunity, Terrorists Streaming In

Gary Bauer

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Mitt Gets Tough -- 4 Years Too Late - I am not happy with the prospect of Donald Trump as the Republican presidential nominee. But if you are hoping for someone else to be the nominee, I think what happened this morning hurts rather than helps.

Former Massachusetts Governor and 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney delivered a major speech this morning at the University of Utah attacking Donald Trump. Parts of Romney's speech were conveniently leaked to major news organizations in advance.

Romney called the 2016 front-runner "a phony" and "a fraud." He said Trump's "promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University," adding that he is "playing the American public for suckers."

But Mitt was just getting warmed up. Here's more:


"[Trump's] domestic policies would lead to recession. His foreign policies would make America and the world less safe. He has neither the temperament nor the judgment to be president. And his personal qualities would mean that America would cease to be a shining city on a hill."I have said many times that Mitt Romney is a wonderful family man and a decent fellow. But in what world is this speech from a two-time loser a good idea?

From a practical standpoint, it makes it more difficult for Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio to make their case about why they are a better alternative than Donald Trump. What are the media talking about today? Mitt Romney. Not Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio. If Mitt wanted to run for president, he should have thrown his hat into the ring!

More importantly, where was this aggressive and forceful Mitt Romney in 2012 when he was facing Barack Obama? Obama's policies made it a lot harder to say that America is still a shining city on a hill.

By the way, the same Mitt Romney who attacked Trump as a flip-flopping fraud gladly accepted Trump's endorsement in 2012 and sang his praises then. Romney has also pledged to support the Republican nominee this year. This is the kind of hypocrisy that makes people cynical about politics.

Romney was really good at tearing down conservatives like Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum in 2012. His speech today exemplifies the worst aspects of the GOP establishment. It attacks conservative, populist candidates with zeal, but turns to Jell-O when confronting left-wing socialists.

Where has this Mitt Romney been the past three years? Why has he not been giving major speeches going after Obama or softening up Hillary Clinton? He attacked her today for the first time that I can recall. Will he do it again?

I shouldn't be surprised. The GOP establishment did this to Ronald Reagan, too. (And, no, I am not comparing Donald Trump to Ronald Reagan.) That faction of the party has little respect for the blue collar voters who were drawn to Reagan and Trump, and it has no clue as to why they are so upset today.

Mitt Romney left millions of Republican votes on the table in 2012. Cruz, Rubio and Trump have brought record numbers of Republicans into the primaries so far. I suspect that the only thing Mitt Romney accomplished today was to harden the resolve of the working class voters who already support Donald Trump. In that sense, his speech was counterproductive.

Servergate Immunity - The news that broke last night would be a dagger in the heart of the Clinton campaign on any other day. But thanks to the chaos in the GOP, it is not getting nearly as much attention as it deserves.

Late yesterday evening, it was reported that the FBI granted immunity to Bryan Pagliano, the former State Department employee who set up Hillary Clinton's private email server that she used for official government business. According to the latest release of her emails, more than 2,000 messages on her private server contained classified information.

You may recall that Mr. Pagliano refused to testify before a congressional hearing last year. When asked to tell members of Congress what he knew about the private email server, Pagliano invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Mrs. Clinton insists that she has done nothing wrong. If that is the case, I'd love to know why Mr. Pagliano wouldn't talk to Congress and what laws he thinks he broke on her behalf that necessitate a grant of immunity. Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey suggested this morning that Clinton may have broken four laws. But now that Pagliano is immune from prosecution, perhaps we are closer to getting the truth.

While the news is significant, indicating a new phase in the criminal investigation of Mrs. Clinton, I still remain skeptical that Obama's so-called "Justice Department" will actually do anything about it.

Terrorists Streaming In - Earlier this week, I told you how hard it was for Syrian Christians to get into the United States through the refugee program. Just three Syrian Christians have been admitted since the Paris and San Bernardino attacks, compared to 647 Muslims. Meanwhile, the Obama Administration is working hard to bring in even more refugees, meaning even more Syrian Muslims.

But while Christians struggle to get out of Syria, the terrorists are evidently finding it quite easy to get out. NATO's Supreme Allied commander, Gen. Philip Breedlove, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday. He told senators that the daily flow of refugees into Europe was "masking the movement" of ISIS terrorists.

Gen. Breedlove warned that intelligence agencies believe at least 1,500 foreign fighters have reentered Europe after fighting for ISIS in Iraq and Syria. He added that ISIS was "spreading like cancer," threatening Europe and the United States. Gen. Breedlove also said that Russia was "deliberately weaponizing migration in an attempt to overwhelm European structures and break European resolve."

That's what happens when nations do not or cannot control their borders.

With that in mind, it is worth noting that our southern border is experiencing another wave of mass migration. According to Rep. Trey Gowdy, current trends suggest that we could experience a "30 percent increase in the record high numbers we witnessed in 2014." If that is correct, well more than 325,000 illegal immigrants, including many unaccompanied minors, will walk across our southern border this year.

And if children can simply walk across, it would be foolish to assume that terrorists are not coming in. Border security is national security.
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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, Mitt Gets Tough, 4 Years Too Late, Servergate Immunity, Hillary Clinton, emails, Terrorists Streaming In, border security, national security  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 Big Oil & European Immigration

Dr. Chuck Balwin

by Dr. Chuck Baldwin: To the globalists pulling the strings of the Western axis (aka New World Order), it's all about BIG OIL. The petrodollar is the god of the globalists who control the big banks, big oil companies, and big governments of the Western axis. And the axle of the axis is the Sunni Muslim nation of Saudi Arabia.

And it appears that regime change is coming soon to Saudi Arabia. And, by all accounts, the new king is anything but stable. Folks, this portends rough waters ahead.

BIG OIL is taking advantage of the global oil glut (and thus low oil prices) to run U.S. “cowboys” (independent, mid-sized oil companies in the shale business) out of business. The U.S., Israel, Great Britain, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, etc., have been using terrorist groups such as ISIS and al Nusra to attack Shiite Muslim nations for the express purpose of giving Western axis-controlled Saudi Arabia as much monopoly over the Middle East oil market as possible. In short, the NWO wants to eliminate the oil competition in Iran.

King Salman’s decision to hand the throne to his hot-headed son Mohammed (instead of a lateral exchange of the crown) could be the petrodollar globalists paving the way for a Saudi war with Iran--which would send oil prices through the ceiling (what the globalists want). And most of the “cowboys” would not be around to compete, either.

Iranians and Shiites everywhere are still fuming-mad over Saudi Arabia’s execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a highly respected and renowned Shiite religious leader. What was his crime? Calling for more leniencies for Shiites living in Saudi Arabia. That’s Washington, D.C.’s “great ally” for you, folks.

Plus, everyone in the Shiite world knows that the U.S., Israel, Great Britain, Saudi Arabia, etc., are the ones behind the terror groups ISIS and al Nusra. They know that Saudi Arabia is the proxy front man for the petrodollar globalists. They know that ISIS is shipping stolen Shiite oil to Sunni-friendly countries such as Turkey and Israel. Only the Western world (especially America) is oblivious to what is really going on in the Middle East--and that’s because the mainstream media in the U.S. is nothing but a propaganda ministry for the globalists.

The monkey wrench in the whole thing is Vladimir Putin. It does appear he is not going to sit back and let the globalists take down Syria as a stepping stone to taking down Iran--which might help explain why King Salman is getting ready to pass the torch NOW. The globalists in the West might be trying to outmaneuver Putin with a Saudi/Iran war.

But know this: in the minds of the globalist gamemakers, the name of the game is NOT freedom, or liberty, or fighting terrorism, or America’s security, or Islamic Jihad, etc. The name of the game is BIG OIL.

See this report: What’s Really Going On With Oil?

On another front, the immigrant invasion of Europe is in full swing. For Europe, this is the perfect storm. Thousands of disenfranchised, homeless, irresponsible, violence-prone malcontents from the Middle East and Northern Africa are descending on a passive, disarmed, and politically naïve continent. The countries from which these marauders came are glad to be rid of them, and the countries to which they have come are just beginning to feel the consequences of their arrival.

These twenty-something year old, single, immigrant males flooding Europe have no attachment to anything: not home, not country, not religion, not principles, not law, not decency, NOTHING. They are like roving beasts prowling the land in search of prey. These two-legged predators must be distinguished from true refugees: persecuted families forced from their homes by terrorists. I must add: terrorists who are the product of nearly three decades of U.S. wars of aggression. And even more, terrorists who were created by the Western axis: NWO globalists that are controlling foreign policy in the United States, Great Britain, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.

In many respects, these Middle Eastern miscreants are to Europe what the Mexican gangs are to America. The difference is, for the last half-century or more, Europe has bred several generations of passive, socialist slaves who have absolutely no idea how to defend themselves. They have been brainwashed into accepting personal disarmament. The only thing most Europeans know to do is to call the local equivalent of 911. They are perfect fodder for these beasts of prey now prowling their streets.

Civilized societies are foolish to allow uncivilized people to have internal access to their communities. However, to target religion, race, ethnicity, etc., is to miss the point entirely. That’s where Donald Trump blew it. He was doing fine when he talked about illegal immigration. But he blew it when he discriminated against one religion. Our immigration problem transcends any one race or religion. The fact is, if we had a president who would simply enforce the immigration laws that are already on the books (before the current changes to our immigration laws began under Barack Obama and Paul Ryan, of course), most of our immigration problems would go away. But we haven’t had a president do that in over three decades at least.

I can’t speak for America’s big cities and disarmed states in New England and California, of course. But I know for a fact that the vast majority of red-blooded Americans in “flyover country” are NOT going to passively sit back and let a group of lawless thugs (regardless of race or religion) rape their wives and daughters, destroy their property, and threaten their lives. They just won’t tolerate it. That’s a MAJOR distinction from the European mindset. Americans are not pacifists; and they are not disarmed.

And a final note: last Friday marked the 43rd anniversary of the infamous Roe vs. Wade and Doe vs. Bolton Supreme Court decisions that, in effect, legalized abortion-on-demand nationwide.

These two decisions expunged the Jeffersonian principle that all men are endowed by their Creator with the unalienable right to life ensconced in America’s birth certificate: the Declaration of Independence.

Since the Roe and Doe decisions, more than 50 million unborn babies have lost their lives in what should be the safest place on earth: their mothers’ wombs. And once again, another Jeffersonian principle was eviscerated. Jefferson said, “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” The Roe and Doe decisions violate this principle in the most egregious manner possible.

Furthermore, the national acceptance of legalized abortion has opened the door to a host of big-government programs and policies that have resulted in the wanton destruction of human life both in the United States and overseas. It has created entire industries whose express purpose for existing is the destruction of human life. It has desensitized the conscience and soul of America.

America’s calloused heart to the deaths of defenseless unborn babies has led to the desensitizing of our hearts to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children at the hands of the U.S. military-industrial complex. If we are desensitized to the deaths of the most innocent and defenseless children in our own country, it is but a short step to becoming desensitized to the deaths of nameless, faceless strangers a half a world away. It is estimated that no less than a million innocent people (not terrorists, not militants, not soldiers or fighting men) have been killed in these copious U.S. wars of aggression.

See this report: Playing Games With War Deaths. How Many People Have Been Killed In US Wars?
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Dr. Chuck Baldwin is the Pastor of Liberty Fellowship in Kalispell, Montana. Dr. Baldwin is Talk Radio Show Host for Chuck Baldwin Live.” He addresses current event topics from a conservative Christian point of view.and is a writer/columnist whose articles and political commentaries are carried by a host of Internet sites, newspapers, news magazines and the ARRA News Service.

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The Insider GOP 'CrapBurgers' Have Finally Hit the Fan

by Tom Balek, Contributing Author: How long have we been trying to wake up the Republican party? Even before emergence of the Tea Party, the mainstream "real" Americans who go to work, pay their taxes, mow their own lawns and worry about their kids' futures were trying to express that we are fed up with the political correctness, the deceit, the secularization, the corruption, and the failed domestic and foreign policies of our government officials. We're sick of not being heard. We're tired of being lied to. We're sick and tired of the condescension.

Year after year we worked for candidates, contributed to campaigns and causes, studied and wrote and taught conservative principles. It only got worse. "They just don't get it," we complained to each other. We sent officials to Washington who we thought were conservatives, only to see them melt into the cushy lap of the DC Cartel, rendered incapable of standing up to the leftist leadership, who ran roughshod over our values and our wallets.

They offered us loser McCain. They put up loser Romney. They gave us Speaker Boehner, and Justice Roberts and Leader McConnell and Speaker Ryan. They refused to stop funding for Planned Parenthood and to keep nukes away from Iran. They funded opposition to conservative candidates. They stood by and silently watched the president abandon our allies, and condoned his military "shrinkage". They would not defend our constitution or our borders. They signed off on one porky CrapBurger budget after another, ballooning our debt.

Now, finally, the CrapBurgers have hit the fan. We actually have two presidential candidates, Cruz and Trump, who are not in the pockets of the Cartel. And the Insider Republicans are FREAKING OUT.

It's a pathetic sight. Today the Insider Republicans trotted out Romney, the guy who couldn't even match up against the worst president in our nation's history, to try to bully the outsider candidates who now threaten their DC cocktail party invitations.

Listen to Romney and the Insider Republicans bashing the challengers: "You're a RAAAACIST! You're a nasty rich guy taking advantage of little old ladies! You hate women and the handicapped! You are an intolerant Christian! You hate the poor and the immigrants! You hate gay people! Racist! Racist! Racist!"

Sound familiar?

When Hillary Clinton was asked, "What is the difference between a socialist and a Democrat?" she had no answer. I'd like to ask the Insider Republicans, "What is the difference between you and the Democrats?."wimpy.-King-Features1

They still don't get it. They know their very existence is threatened, but they don't know why, and it looks like they are incapable of understanding or change.

It's time to start over. And it's way past time for the Insider Republicans to stop asking me for money every five minutes. I will NOT pay you Tuesday for another CrapBurger today!
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Tom Balek is a fellow conservative activist, blogger, musician and contributes to the ARRA News Service. Tom resides in South Carolina and seeks to educate those too busy with their work and families to notice how close to the precipice our economy has come. He blogs at Rockin' On the Right Side

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Tags: Insider, GOP, 'CrapBurgers', hit the fan, Tom Balek, Rockin' On The Right Side To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Poll: 64% Supreme Court Vacancy Important Factor in Voting

Poll: 64% Supreme Court Vacancy Important Factor in Voting 

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, Family Research Council (FRC) released the results of a commissioned national survey conducted by WPA Opinion Research showing that 64 percent of likely voters agree the Supreme Court will be "an important factor in determining who you vote for in November's elections." 71% of Republican voters and 63% of Democratic voters rank the Supreme Court as an important factor.

The survey also found that 71 percent of those who frequently attend worship services (once a week or more) say the Supreme Court is an important factor in determining their vote. Even 59 percent of those who never attend worship services consider the Supreme Court important to their vote.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins made the following comments in response:

"This survey tells us that the American people have a sobering perspective following the passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Reality is sinking in for voters in both parties that the next president will likely appoint two or three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will impact our nation for decades to come.

"By an 8 point margin, Republican voters are more concerned than Democrats about the future of the Supreme Court. I believe this is in part due to previous Republican presidents who have either been unable to identify liberal jurists in conservative clothing or have been unwilling to fight for nominees who were true constitutionalists.

"The survey also shows that frequent churchgoers are even more concerned than non-churchgoers about the direction of the Court. This higher level of concern is no doubt due to the Supreme Court preempting social consensus by imposing its abortion and marriage views on all 50 states.

"While the country is divided over whether the Supreme Court vacancy should be filled now or after the November elections, it's clear that the Court is a greater motivating factor for Republican voters and frequent churchgoers than it is for Democrats and those who attend worship services less frequently.

"Justice Scalia's replacement may very well be the deciding vote on major cases involving religious liberty, state abortion laws, gun control, and immigration. With so much at stake, the American people should be allowed to decide in November who picks the next Supreme Court justice," concluded Perkins.

Download the full survey results!

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Breaking the Safe

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: As we tromp repeatedly to the polling booth this year, we should wonder: are we being played?

The answer: yes . . . at least on the issue of Apple's iPhone security.

I've written about this before. Our politicians and government officials are playing demagogue, trying to convert (too successfully?) the electorate into a mob bent on destroying privacy and private property -- out of unwarranted fear.

The case for terrorist worries in this case is not even plausible: the FBI waited too long to be convincing, and the NSA supposedly has the metadata anyway. The government doesn't need the info. It's after something else.

As former congressman Bob Barr put it, the government's case is "pure applesauce . . . simply the latest chapter in a decades-long push by Uncle Sam to gain access to Americans' digital technology and place this booming sector of our economy under its thumb." He goes on:[T]he government is for the first time demanding that a company actually invent a way to defeat the very encryption safeguards it builds into the devices it sells. Attorney General Lynch has taken to citing an obscure law, the All Writs Act of 1789, to justify this unprecedented exercise of power to compel companies to do the government's work for it.To my knowledge, the government has never demanded that Allied Safe and Vault, or any of its competitors, go out of its way to cook up "a way in" to its security systems.

Government is just trying to retain its old relevance. Folks in power see it slipping. And it is, as Americans outsource their privacy and security not to governments, but, increasingly, to private providers.

That's a good thing.

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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The Most Shameful Injustice

by Bill Whittle, TruthRevolt.org: The below video is part of the new FIREWALL series. it shows what four, five, six, seven or more decades of Death by Democrats has done to our nation's cities.

Video Transcript:
Hi everybody. I’m Bill Whittle and this is the Firewall.

This tidy little structure was by all accounts the community anchor of a safe, friendly, booming little corner of muscular, dynamic, Motor City USA: Detroit, the crown jewel in the Arsenal of Democracy where cars and trucks, and later tanks and planes, rolled off assembly lines manned by workers who lived across the street or down the road from libraries like this one.

This is the interior of the Mark Twain library as it looked in the early 1940’s: airy, ordered, quiet, spotlessly clean.

This is the interior of the Mark Twain library in 2011. For decades, the librarians and the public complained about the deterioration of the library, and for decades the Detroit municipal government allocated funds for its repair, and for decades those funds somehow never arrived at the Mark Twain library… but mold did, and trespassers, and looters, and just before they tore it down just about everything of any value had been stolen: furniture, light fixtures, the copper wire from the walls.

They only thing they didn’t steal were the books.

Author John Perazzo has compiled a remarkable booklet called “The New Shame of the Cities,” which contains an exhaustive, amazing and depressing army of statistics that outline The Detroit Pattern that has killed those American cities ruled by unbroken lines of Democrats and Democratic Party policies. So if we want to understand the Detroit Pattern, maybe we should start in Detroit.  (Transcript continued below video)
Through the 1940’s, 50’s and into the 60’s, Detroit was not the blasted ruin you see today, but the thriving, pulsating center of American business enterprise. By 1960, Detroit… yeah, Detroit..! had the highest per capita income of any city in the United States. Factories were humming, Motown records was spinning out blues and soul and Detroit’s school system – called by New Republic “One of the finest in the world” was turning out world-class students of every race. Up until 1960, Detroit could boast a large and prosperous black middle class, black congressmen, and wages for unskilled were higher than the national average. That was the last year Detroit had a Republican mayor.

So, what happened?

The first of the Democratic Dynasty, white liberal Jerome Cavanagh, greatly expanded the role of the city government in the city’s business, and, to his credit, made a serious effort to appoint Blacks to prominent positions in his administration.

This was preamble. The wave that eventually destroyed Detroit and so many other American cities came from Washington DC, and Democratic President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and War on Poverty programs.

$490 million in Federal money – an enormous sum in the mid sixties – poured in through the Model City program. It went to housing projects and social programs, dispersed by City Hall, and not to help small business and entrepreneurs keep the city economically viable. By 1990, Detroit’s Model City area had lost 63% of it’s population, 45% of its housing units, and were unimaginably violent and dangerous.

34% of Detroit’s citizens were on the welfare rolls by 1987 – four times what it was twenty years earlier.

Sociologist Walter E. Williams looked out over the financial ruin of Detroit and said, “The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery couldn’t do, what Jim Crow couldn’t do, what the harshest racism couldn’t do. And that is to destroy the black family.”

In 1976 the Democratic mayor cut the police force by 20%; by 1987 the homicide rate was three times higher than it had been twenty years earlier. When locals complained about the skyrocketing crime, the mayor openly stated that calls for law and order were simply code words for white racism.

So where did all the money for law enforcement go? Into the same pockets that the money for education went. Today, the Detroit Public School system spends $15,500 PER STUDENT per year; that’s half again more than the national average. It’s not that there wasn’t enough money. It’s where the money went.

In 2009 forensic accountants discovered 257 “ghost” employees on the payroll. Another 500 people were illegally drawing millions of dollars in benefits from the public school fund, and after a few months of this seven additional public officials were charged with felony embezzlement, having pulled tens of thousands of dollars from the school system. In 2009, Detroit’s children had math scores lower than any ever recorded in the history of the city and they now read at a level 73% below the national average. One in five fourth graders can write with fourth grade proficiency.

Economically, 55 years of Democratic corruption in Detroit means the city now has the highest property tax rates in America, and yet, in 2012 city revenues were 40% LOWER – in constant dollars – than they were in 1962. In terms of economic freedom – the ability to start new businesses without acres of government red tape, Detroit ranks 345th out of 384 regions measured. When facing this ocean of fees and regulations, most people trying to start new businesses simply give up. Their dreams simply die.

What never dies, of course, is the City’s vast bureaucracy with forty-some individual labor unions, each with high salaries and lavish retirement benefits. Their schools are the worst in the country, and their Murder rate is either first or second, but Detroit can proudly state that fully one-third of all the money it spends every year is paid to some 21,000 public-sector retirees and their families.

This is what 55 years of Death by Democrats has done to Detroit: 911 police calls average 58 minutes response time – the national average is eleven minutes. There are 12,000 fires every year in Detroit – Fire Department money goes the way of the Twain Library repairs. Half of the city parks have closed due to lack of funds since 2008. About 100,000 housing units – nearly thirty percent of the city – are vacant. And 40% of the population hopes to escape the Detroit Pattern of Democratic Destruction within 5 years.

And it is precisely the same pattern for other major cities like Baltimore, where the city government awarded the family of a deceased drug dealer named Freddie Grey 6 million dollars and indicted six police officers on trumped up charges for having the temerity to arrest him. As in Detroit, millions and millions of dollars of taxpayer funds are regularly funneled not into law enforcement or education, but rather into contracts for friends and political supporters.

By the end of the 1990’s the murder rate in Baltimore six times higher than New York’s. In Baltimore, Maryland, some 54,000 open arrest warrants, including 250 for murder or attempted murder, are being worked by four police officers. Four.

In 2010 Democratic Mayor Sheila Dixon was convicted of embezzlement and perjury; 14% of the city’s fourth graders can read proficiently. The Baltimore Teachers Union successfully opposed a desperate plea from city residents for a voucher program to allow them to find schools that would, you know, actually educate their children; the $15,483 per student, per year is paid to abysmal union teachers then paid, via Union dues, directly to the Democratic party to run candidates that keep the heist in motion.

That’s how it’s done. That’s how it’s done in Washington DC, where by 1992, 52,000 people – one in twelve! – were on the city payroll. Los Angeles is five times the size of DC but has 14,000 fewer taxpayer-funded workers. Washington DC has an unbroken succession of Democratic mayors and city councils for the last 43 years.

Like Detroit, and Baltimore, Washington DC constantly vies for the title of the nation’s murder capital; when Democrat Marion Barry, videotaped by the FBI and shown smoking crack on national television, was tried for 14 counts of cocaine possession, he called the prosecution “a political lynching;” NAACP executive director Benjamin Hooks said that “overzealous, hostile—if not openly racist—district and U.S. attorneys will bring a black official to trial on the flimsiest of evidence.” Ten blacks and two whites found him guilty of 1 count of possession. A few years later he ran again as Mayor and was handily elected; he ran for a seat on the DC council in 2004, got 95% of the vote, and still serves on the council today.

Eighty-three percent of DC eighth graders cannot read proficiently, but in 2011 – with a deficit of $400 million dollars – DC taxpayers were making lease payments on two luxury automobiles – around two grand per month per car – for council chairman Kwame Brown. Why two cars? Well, Brown had asked for a fully loaded, extended wheelbase Lincoln Navigator with a black interior; when the car came with a grey interior, he ordered the second vehicle at city expense and had DC schoolchildren pay the additional $1,500 for expedited shipping.

I could do this all day but I can’t bear it anymore.

Here’s a list of failed cities, and beside them, the number of years of uninterrupted Democratic control.

It’s not that these officials are corrupt because they are Democrats or because they are black. THEY GET AWAY WITH IT because they are Democrats, or because they’re black.

And while civil servants pay the expedited shipping on their second Lincoln Navigators, the overwhelmingly black kids keep failing in school and killing each other by the thousands, and their overwhelmingly black mothers and fathers keep electing the overwhelmingly black liars, thieves and con artists who fail to protect them, and who pocket the money for the jobs and schools that would set them free.

And by continuing to elect these heartless, greedy, Democratic swindlers, the prisoners of these cities are inflicting upon themselves the most shameful injustice to befall Black America since slavery.
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Tags: Bill Whittle, TruthRevolt, democrats, shameful injustice, cities, Left, Poor, Motor City USA, Detroit,  failed cities, democratic swindlers, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!