Climate Change Prosecutors

The AG Harris official page detailing her leadership
in California's efforts to fight global warming and
promote a clean, lower-carbon economy.

by Kerby Anderson, Contributing Author: Debate about climate change has moved into a new and dangerous phase. Earlier this month, seventeen state Attorneys General and Al Gore got together to plan how they will use the prosecutorial power of their state offices to investigate groups that question the claims of climate change.

This should concern all of us. The editors of National Review said that aggressively using these prosecutorial powers “should raise an entire May Day parade’s worth of red flags: Prosecutors are in the business of enforcing the law, not rewriting it, and the open, naked, promise to use prosecutorial powers as a political weapon is a prima facie abuse of office.” In a previous age, many of these state Attorneys General would now be facing impeachment hearings.

The target at the moment is the Competitive Enterprise Institute, but it is clear that Exxon is also in the sights of these prosecutors. The subpoena against CEI is a fishing expedition with the hopes of finding something that can be used against other groups and can become fodder for a full public relations campaign.

It is worth mentioning, that no one is arguing that any laws have been broken. I believe we still have a First Amendment that allows people and organizations to question the scientific claims being made about climate change.

Meanwhile, there is case in Oregon brought by children (ages 8 to 19) concerning climate change. The suit claims that the government is violating their constitutional rights “by permitting, encouraging, and otherwise enabling continued exploitation, production, and combustion of fossil fuels.”

Regardless of your view on climate change, you should at least agree that the proper debate about policy should happen at the legislative level. These Attorneys General should not be using their office in this way. Moreover, the rule of law is at stake, which these Attorneys General are supposed to uphold.
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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

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Trump’s Foreign Policy of Putting America First

by Newt Gingrich: he day after Trump carried every county in five states (a remarkable achievement), he gave his first major foreign policy and national security speech to the Center for the National Interest.

It was a substantive speech to a serious foreign policy and national security organization.

Senator Bob Corker, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, commented afterward that he “really did think [Trump] did a good job on the speech. And there are some details that need to be filled in. But it was a big step forward.” He continued, “I do like the fact that it does challenge the foreign policy establishment in Washington, which has really gotten it wrong for a long time.”

I had been calling for an overhaul of the foreign policy establishment at the State Department since at least April 2003, when I gave a speech at the American Enterprise Institute calling for completely transforming the Department. And I first warned that America had “gone off a cliff” in Iraq in December 2003.

So I appreciated Trump’s calls for rethinking our foreign policy and national security assumptions.

Some analysts said it put Trump to the left of Hillary.

Others asked if Trump or Clinton was more hawkish.

This completely misunderstands the depth of change inherent in the Trump foreign policy speech.

The traditional analysts want to place Trump’s foreign and national security ideas somewhere on a traditional right-left continuum.

Trump is repudiating the establishment consensus. He is part of neither its right wing nor its left wing.
Traditional establishment analysts want to use hawk versus dove models. But Trump is neither a hawk nor a dove.
He is trying to describe a new model as an owl. He wants to be vastly more powerful militarily and more aggressive diplomatically than any dove. However, he also wants to be more cautious and more selective in using military power than a traditional hawk.

This model is not really new, of course. Great strength used cautiously is the heart of Sun Tzu’s Art of War which is 2,500 years old. But Trump’s core critique, that American interests, not ideological hopes, should define American foreign policy, would be very new to the foreign policy establishment that currently dominates Washington.

Trump’s was a long speech but some parts deserve special emphasis.

He is clear about his biggest shift in policy: “America First will be the major and overriding theme of my administration.”
Some critics suggest this is a reference to the isolationism of the 1930s (which included an “America First” theme), but how anyone could believe this is hard to understand. The entire context of the Trump speech repudiates isolationism.

In fact, the phrase was first used by Woodrow Wilson, the consummate internationalist, who said, “I am not speaking in a selfish spirit when I say that our whole duty, for the present, at any rate, is summed up in this motto, ‘America first.’ Let us think of America before we think of Europe, in order that America may be fit to be Europe’s friend when the day of tested friendship comes.”

Trump is seeking to develop an American-focused internationalism.

This emphasis on American interests is long overdue. It is a reminder in part of Palmerston’s approach to defending Britain’s interests in the 19th century.

This, Trump says, is his difference with the elites who have dominated foreign policy for the last generation: “We will no longer surrender this country, or its people, to the false song of globalism.”

It is such a break with the current orthodoxy that 90 percent of the Foreign Service would have to be retrained or replaced to implement it. No wonder the establishment won’t like it.

Trump makes clear the difference between putting globalism first and putting American interests first: “The world must know that we do not go abroad in search of enemies, that we are always happy when old enemies become friends, and when old friends become allies.”

He continues:
To achieve these goals, Americans must have confidence in their country and its leadership again.

Many Americans must wonder why our politicians seem more interested in defending the borders of foreign countries than their own.

Americans must know that we are putting the American people first again. On trade, on immigration, on foreign policy – the jobs, incomes and security of the American worker will always be my first priority.

No country has ever prospered that failed to put its own interests first. Both our friends and enemies put their countries above ours and we, while being fair to them, must do the same.

We will no longer surrender this country, or its people, to the false song of globalism.

The nation-state remains the true foundation for happiness and harmony. I am skeptical of international unions that tie us up and bring America down, and will never enter America into any agreement that reduces our ability to control our own affairs.Trump went on to expand his vision of how different his policies will be:Under a Trump Administration, no American citizen will ever again feel that their needs come second to the citizens of foreign countries.

I will view the world through the clear lens of American interests.

I will be America’s greatest defender and most loyal champion. We will not apologize for becoming successful again, but will instead embrace the unique heritage that makes us who we are.

The world is most peaceful, and most prosperous, when America is strongest.

America will continually play the role of peacemaker.

We will always help to save lives and, indeed, humanity itself. But to play that role, we must make America strong again.

We must make America respected again. And we must make America great again.

If we do that, perhaps this century can be the most peaceful and prosperous the world has ever known.This is a vision of a very different, but very active, American leadership in the world.

It is a robust, energetic vision but it is a profound departure from the goals that have preoccupied our elites for the last quarter century.

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

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Tags: Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump, Trump’s Foreign Policy, Putting America First To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Mixed Emotions When Mexican Driver Kills Mexican Child And Flees Back to Mexico

by Tom Balek, Contributing Author: I have been following a story in the Charlotte, NC news for several days now which still grips my attention for a variety of reasons. I find myself wrestling with my reactions to each development, and trying to sort out the implications of the profound change Charlotte, and much of America, has gone through in recent years.

I write this post not to make any particular point, but rather to illustrate how our emotions are manipulated by the politically-correct news media.

The tragedy began when a mother was crossing a street in East Charlotte with her young son and daughter in hand. The girl let go and darted across the street, and her six-year old brother followed. He was hit by a beat-up white work van. The driver, identified by witnesses as "a Hispanic man in his mid-thirties with curly black hair," stopped briefly, saw the child lying gravely injured on the street, and then sped away.

Like any parent, my first reaction was horror at the sudden death of a child, and sympathy. Immediately following that was my suspicion and anger that the driver is probably an illegal immigrant.

A year ago Charlotte's political leaders chose to declare it a "sanctuary city", one of hundreds of cities across the country that refuses to turn illegal immigrants, including criminals, over to federal authorities for processing and deportation. Since then Charlotte has attracted growing numbers of Hispanic illegals, and the crime statistics have tilted heavily in their direction.

In support of the sanctuary city stance, Charlotte news outlets do not identify illegal immigrant criminals as such. A respected African-American business owner was recently murdered in my Charlotte suburb by a Honduran laborer, and the fact that the killer was here illegally was never reported by the Charlotte press. But since the murder occurred on the South Carolina side of the lake, the Rock Hill (SC) Herald reported that federal immigration and customs officials were involved.

Here's where the bouncing emotions and questions come in. My "I'll bet the driver is an illegal" reaction to the hit-and-run incident probably matches the vast majority of my neighbors. If he is here illegally, the driver likely has no insurance, perhaps no driver's license. Even though it was clearly an accident, and the driver is doubtless torn with guilt, his entire life in the USA is clandestine, so he had to run. I feel sorry for him. Wait, no I don't, he fled the scene of a fatal accident. I noticed that the child's family is also Hispanic, and I can't help but wonder if they are also here illegally. But so what? The child's death is no less tragic. The boy's family told reporters they want the driver found and prosecuted. Would the Charlotte police have turned him over to ICE if they had caught him?

The driver has now been identified as Juan Antonio Quintanilla-Garza, and the press will only report that Charlotte police believe he is "out of state." The words "out of the country" would be too revealing. Quintanilla-Garza probably left corrupt, backwards Mexico to try to help his own family. He became a criminal in the process.

The accident was not caused by illegal immigration. It could have happened to anyone, by anyone, anywhere. But it became more than an accident when the driver took off. And the flood of illegal immigrants to our country, plus the disproportionate incidence of crimes by illegals, plus the inexplicable "sanctuary city" policies that enable and protect illegal immigrant criminals all combine to scramble our emotions into an omelette of anger, fear and frustration.

It's not about racism. It's about borders, and security, and economics and enforcing the laws. And in the middle of it all is a dead kid.

What a mess.
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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: Tom Balek, Rockin' On The Right Side, Mixed Emotions, Mexican Driver, Kills Mexican Child, Flees Back to Mexico To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

NRA Gun Gurus: Roy Rogers’ Colt Single Action Army Revolver

by Jenn Jacques:  NRA Gun Gurus Co-host Phil Schreier highlights an important air rifle from the Lewis & Clark expedition, Jim Supica evaluates a bizarre little .22 and, at Rock Island auction house, the boys encounter a Colt revolver owned by Roy Rogers himself.

ARRA News Service Editor's comment:  Before viewing video which includes an auction for Roy's Colt revolver, have some fun and write on a piece of paper the dollar amount you would have bid for Roy's  gun (hey, assume you had the funds).  When I was a young boy (eon's ago), I was fascinated by Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and other  western heroes.

Original air date: February 17, 2016 on Outdoor Channel
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Jenn Jacques (@JennJacques)is a conservative blogger and blogs at Guns and Curves. H/T BearingArms.com for sharing this article.

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Tags: Jenn Jacques, NRA Gun Gurus, Roy Rogers, Colt, 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 Obama Economy: Failure To Launch

When Did Americans Decide … That We Should All Merely Shrug And Get Used To The Country’s Diminished Expectations?’

“Obama will be the only U.S. president in history that did not deliver a single year of 3.0%+ economic growth. …Obama will leave office having produced an average of 1.55% growth. This would place his presidency fourth from the bottom of the list of 39, above only those of Herbert Hoover (-5.65%), Andrew Johnson (-0.70%) and Theodore Roosevelt (1.41%).” (“Barack Obama's Sad Record on Economic Growth,” RealClearMarkets, 2/1/16)

• FORMER PRESIDENT CLINTON: “The problem is, 80 percent of the American people are still living on what they were living on the day before the [2008 financial] crash.” (President Clinton, Remarks, 3/21/16)

Obama Economy ‘The Weakest Economic Expansion In The Postwar Era,’ ‘Barely Ducked’ A Recession Over The Past Six Months
BUREAU OF ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: “Real gross domestic product … increased at an annual rate of 0.5 percent in the first quarter of 2016…” (Bureau Of Economic Analysis, “Gross Domestic Product: First Quarter 2016,” 4/28/16)

• “The U.S. economy sputtered in the first quarter, expanding at the slowest pace in two years....” (“GDP Report Shows Economy Grew In First Quarter At Slowest Pace In Two Years,” Marketwatch, 4/28/16)
• “The American economy edged further into the slow lane last quarter…” (“U.S. Economy Grew 0.5% in First Quarter, Slowest Pace in 2 Years,” The New York Times, 4/28/16)
• “US economic growth stumbled in this year's first quarter…” (“U.S. Q1 GDP Growth Rate Weakened To 2-Year Low,” Seeking Alpha, 4/28/16)

“When did Americans decide that 1% or 2% economic growth is acceptable, that puny wage increases are inevitable, and that we should all merely shrug and get used to the country’s diminished expectations?” (Editorial, “Make America Grow Again,” Wall Street Journal, 4/29/16)

• “The reality is that the first quarter is further evidence of what has been the weakest economic expansion in the postwar era. The 0.5% growth is subject to revision but it follows 1.4% in the fourth quarter. Growth over the last six months has averaged about 1%, and under 2% over the last 12 months. The usual definition of recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth, which we barely ducked.” (Editorial, “Make America Grow Again,” Wall Street Journal, 4/29/16)
• “All of this continues the slow-or-slower pace of this entire expansion that began nearly seven years ago. Each year has had a similar GDP dip, and growth has never exceeded 2.5% (2010). The American economy hasn’t grown by more than 3% since 2005 (3.3%), the longest such stretch of malaise that we can find in the Bureau of Economic analysis tables going back to 1930. Even the Great Depression saw a snap back to rapid growth from 1934-1936.” (Editorial, “Make America Grow Again,” Wall Street Journal, 4/29/16)

style="color: red; font-size: 14pt;">‘Middle Class Is No Longer The Majority In America’
“The middle class is no longer the majority in America.” (“America’s Middle Class Is No Longer the Majority,” The Wall Street Journal, 12/09/2015)

• “The nation's middle class, long a pillar of the U.S. economy and foundation of the American dream, has shrunk to the point where it no longer constitutes the majority of the adult population, according to a new major study.” (“Middle-Class Families, Pillar Of The American Dream, Are No Longer In The Majority, Study Finds,” Los Angeles Times, 12/09/2015)

Obama Economy: For Young Adults ‘The Race To The Basement Is On’
“The race to the basement is on. The coming graduation season will probably add to the rolls of so-called boomerang kids—young adults tethered to their supportive families. The percentage of millennials living with their parents is higher today than it has been in decades…” (“This Year’s Boomerang Kids Set to Return,” Barron’s 4/23/16)

• ST. LOUIS FED: “Nationally, nearly half of 25-year-olds lived with their parents in 2012-2013, up from just over a quarter in 1999.” (“Why Are More Young Adults Still Living At Home?” Federal Reserve Bank Of St. Louis, 10/26/15)
• PEW: “…the nation’s 18- to 34-year-olds are less likely to be living independently of their families and establishing their own households today than they were in the depths of the Great Recession. … the number of young adults heading their own households is no higher in 2015 (25 million) than it was before the recession began in 2007 (25.2 million).” (“More Millennials Living With Family…” Pew Research Center, 7/29/15)

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Tags:  2016, Obama Economy, Failure, Country’s Diminished Expectations 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 Biggest Election Deception . . .

. . . Why current polling tells us nothing about who will win the presidential race in November.

by David Horowitz, Contributing Author: We hear a lot of talk about the November election especially from John Kasich who has lost 45 of 46 primary contests but stays in the race because he’s the only Republican who beats Hillary head on in the polls. “Remember this,” Kasich told Fox, “I’m beating Hillary Clinton in every single poll… I’m the only one with the positive ratings so we ought to be focusing on what happens in the fall not just who wins the nomination.”

But as Kasich knows - and everyone else should - polls are merely snapshots of the way people think when they are taken. Polls taken before the actual campaigns, whose purpose is to influence people’s opinions, are meaningless. They are also meaningless because events like the Iranian hostage crisis in the Reagan-Carter election of 1980 can change everything.

There have already been campaigns in the primaries. On the Republican side this is a good part of the reason why the negatives for Trump and Cruz are so high. Republicans have spent more than 100 million dollars to convince voters to never vote for Trump, and Trump has fought back by flooding the TV airwaves with character attacks on “Lyin’ Ted” that have driven his negatives almost as high. Perhaps in the next election cycle Republicans will have learned to design their primary advertising and debates so that they don’t destroy their potential candidates before the Democrats even get a crack at them. But don’t bet on it.

Fortunately for Republicans, Hillary has raised her own negatives high enough by her own efforts that the two may cancel each other out. No one knows what the effects of such negatives on both sides will be, because no one knows what the electorate’s opinion in November will be.

In any case a simple glance at the facts is enough to show why all polls about the November elections taken in April are virtually meaningless, especially when the spread is 10 or 11 points as most of those polls are now.

In April 1980 Carter led Reagan 40% to 34%. In November, Reagan beat Carter by 50.7% to 41%

In May 1988 Dukakis led Bush 54% to 38%. In November Bush beat Dukakis by 53.4% to 45.6%

In April 1992, Bush led Clinton 44% to 25%. Clinton won in November 43% to 37.4%.

That’s three important elections. But one need look no further than this year’s Republican primaries to see how campaigns can change the numbers. At first it was said that Trump would be toast in September, then that he couldn’t break a 20% ceiling in winning Republican support. Then the ceiling became 30%, then 40%, then 50%. In the latest primaries, Trump won 60% of the Republican vote. Obviously he has overcome a lot of negatives and a lot of hostile political ads to reach those figures. Could he do the same in a general campaign? At this point nobody knows.

One thing we do know, however, because Republican primary voters have already spoken: The political landscape is changing before our eyes, and the Republican Party will never be the same. This is true whether the GOP falls apart at the convention in August and cedes the election to Hillary Clinton, or whether its standard-bearer is an anti-establishment Republican like Trump or Cruz.
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David Horowitz is founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center (formerly the Center for the Study of Popular Culture) and author of many books and pamphlets published over the last twenty years. Horowitz was a left-minded radical who transitioned over his life into a conservative. Yet despite the effort of the left "to deprecate and diminish him, Horowitz has succeeded in his main task of exposing the left's agenda and decoding the way it seeks to control American culture and politics." (The Life and Work of David Horowitz) He is a Contributing Author of the ARRA News Service.

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Tags: David Horowitz, Freedom Center, 2016 Presidential Election, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Sports Update . . .

. . . ESPN Fires Schilling for his social media post regarding North Carolina’s Bathroom law, yet ESPN overlooks actual crimes by others such as Ray Lewis.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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Tags: Editorial Cartoon, AF Branco, sports update, ESPN, Fires Schilling, social media post, North Carolina’s Bathroom law, ESPN overlooks, actual crimes, by others, Ray Lewis To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Trump Change: 89% of GOP Voters Now Say Trump Is Likely Nominee

Rassmussen Reports today: Belief that Donald Trump is the likely Republican presidential nominee has soared to its highest level ever and matches perceptions that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic standard-bearer in the fall.

The latest Rasmussen Reports weekly Trump Change survey, taken following Trump’s five state primary wins on Tuesday, finds that 89% of Likely Republican Voters now think the billionaire businessman is likely to win the GOP nomination. Two-out-of-three (67%) say Trump’s nomination is Very Likely, up 18 points from 49% last week and up from 38% two weeks ago before Trump’s fortunes turned around with his mega-win in New York State. . . .

Among all likely voters, 80% view Trump as the likely Republican nominee, with 55% who say it is Very Likely. This is up from 71% and 39% respectively a week ago and also are new highs for both numbers. In mid-March, a previous high of 46% said Trump was Very Likely to win the nomination.

To show how far Trump has come in a presidential bid that most considered highly improbable at the time, just 25% of Republicans – and 17% of all voters – said he was Very Likely to be the nominee when Rasmussen Reports first began the Trump Change survey last August.

Just seven percent (7%) of Republicans and 13% of all voters say Trump is unlikely or Not At All Likely to be the Republican presidential candidate this fall. . . . [Read More]

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Tags: Rassmussen Reports, Trump Change, 89% GOP Voters, Donald Trump, Likely nominee To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

At Last, America First!

by Patrick Buchanan: Whether the establishment likes it or not, and it evidently does not, there is a revolution going on in America.

The old order in this capital city is on the way out, America is crossing a great divide, and there is no going back.

Donald Trump’s triumphant march to the nomination in Cleveland, virtually assured by his five-state sweep Tuesday, confirms it, as does his foreign policy address of Wednesday.

Two minutes into his speech before the Center for the National Interest, Trump declared that the “major and overriding theme” of his administration will be — “America first.” Right down the smokestack!

Gutsy and brazen it was to use that phrase, considering the demonization of the great anti-war movement of 1940-41, which was backed by the young patriots John F. Kennedy and his brother Joe, Gerald Ford and Sargent Shriver, and President Hoover and Alice Roosevelt.

Whether the issue is trade, immigration or foreign policy, says Trump, “we are putting the American people first again.” U.S. policy will be dictated by U.S. national interests.

By what he castigated, and what he promised, Trump is repudiating both the fruits of the Obama-Clinton foreign policy, and the legacy of Bush Republicanism and neoconservatism.

When Ronald Reagan went home, says Trump, “our foreign policy began to make less and less sense. Logic was replaced with foolishness and arrogance, which ended in one foreign policy disaster after another.”

He lists the results of 15 years of Bush-Obama wars in the Middle East: civil war, religious fanaticism, thousands of Americans killed, trillions of dollars lost, a vacuum created that ISIS has filled.

Is he wrong here? How have all of these wars availed us? Where is the “New World Order” of which Bush I rhapsodized at the U.N.?

Can anyone argue that our interventions to overthrow regimes and erect democratic states in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen have succeeded and been worth the price we have paid in blood and treasure, and the devastation we have left in our wake?

George W. Bush declared that America’s goal would become “to end tyranny in our world.” An utterly utopian delusion, to which Trump retorts by recalling John Quincy Adams’ views on America: “She goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.”

To the neocons’ worldwide crusade for democracy, Trump’s retort is that it was always a “dangerous idea” to think “we could make Western democracies out of countries that had no experience or interest in becoming Western democracies.”

We are “overextended,” he declared, “We must rebuild our military.” Our NATO allies have been freeloading for half a century.

NAFTA was a lousy deal. In running up $4 trillion in trade surpluses since Bush I, the Chinese have been eating our lunch.

This may be rankest heresy to America’s elites, but Trump outlines a foreign policy past generations would have recognized as common sense: Look out for your own country and your own people first.

Instead of calling President Putin names, Trump says he would talk to the Russians to “end the cycle of hostility,” if he can.

“Ronald Reagan must be rolling over in his grave,” sputtered Sen. Lindsey Graham, who quit the race to avoid a thrashing by the Donald in his home state of South Carolina.

But this writer served in Reagan’s White House, and the Gipper was always seeking a way to get the Russians to negotiate. He leapt at the chance for a summit with Mikhail Gorbachev in Geneva and Reykjavik.

“Our goal is peace and prosperity, not war,” says Trump, “unlike other candidates, war and aggression will not be my first instinct.”

Is that not an old and good Republican tradition?

Dwight Eisenhower ended the war in Korea and kept us out of any other. Richard Nixon ended the war in Vietnam, negotiated arms agreements with Moscow, and made an historic journey to open up Mao’s China.

Reagan used force three times in eight years. He put Marines in Lebanon, liberated Grenada and sent FB-111s over Tripoli to pay Col. Gadhafi back for bombing a Berlin discotheque full of U.S. troops.

Reagan later believed putting those Marines in Lebanon, where 241 were massacred, to be the worst mistake of his presidency.

Military intervention for reasons of ideology or nation building is not an Eisenhower or Nixon or Reagan tradition. It is not a Republican tradition. It is a Bush II-neocon deformity, an aberration that proved disastrous for the United States and the Middle East.

The New York Times headline declared that Trump’s speech was full of “Paradoxes,” adding, “Calls to Fortify Military and to Use It Less.”

But isn’t that what Reagan did? Conduct the greatest military buildup since Ike, then, from a position of strength, negotiate with Moscow a radical reduction in nuclear arms?

“We’re getting out of the nation-building business,” says Trump.

“The nation-state remains the true foundation for happiness and harmony.” No more surrenders of sovereignty on the altars of “globalism.”

Is that not a definition of a patriotism that too many among our arrogant elites believe belongs to yesterday?
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Patrick Buchanan is currently a conservative columnist, political analyst, chairman of The American Cause foundation and an editor of The American Conservative. He has been a senior advisor to three Presidents, a two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and was the presidential nominee of the Reform Party in 2000. He blogs at the Patrick J. Buchanan.

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Tags: Patrick Buchanan, conservative, commentary, At Last, America First, Donald Trump, Foreign Policy Speech,  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 Cornyn Fails To Fix Mass Prison Break Bill . . .

. . . Violent Felons Will Still Go Free Under Senate Plan

by Rick Manning: “Because of the objections we’ve heard from some of our colleagues, we introduced in this amended version of the bill a categorical exclusion of those who have committed a serious crime as defined by federal law at any point in their life.”

That was Sen. John Cornyn claiming, with a straight face, that legislation he supports, which will release thousands of federal prison inmates, won’t in the process wind up result in violent criminals also being released early.

But it’s a lie.

To be clear. The Senate mass prison break bill will allow thousands of violent felons who committed assault to be eligible to leave jail early. It’s right there in the bill. Those who commit assault are only barred from leaving prison early if it was a “serious violent felony” under federal law, just as Cornyn said.

And that’s the problem. A “serious violent felony” assault only means sentences that carried a maximum of 10 years or more. Everybody who committed assault that carried a maximum of less than 10 years, including under state laws, will remain eligible for early release.

Including Wendell Callahan, the suspect in the Columbus, Ohio brutal triple murder of a mother and her two young daughters, who was deemed eligible for early release for his drug release under the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act that was retroactively applied by the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Callahan had committed felonious assault in Ohio in 1999, but because it only carried a maximum five-year minimum at the time, it is not a “serious violent felony” under federal law, and he still would have been eligible for early release under the new bill.

This is not surprising. After all, the new bill is neither designed to revisit the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act nor the Commission’s retroactive application of it, it is only supposed to build upon it, letting additional classes of criminals go free beyond those already freed under the prior law.

In fact, the new bill will affirm the Commission’s retroactive sentence reductions under the 2010 law. Meaning, it will affirm Callahan’s early release.

Which is something members should know. If they vote for this bill, they are in effect affirming that releasing Callahan early was the right thing to do. No matter what Cornyn says, the unmistakable result of this “revised” legislation is that more people will become victims of early released criminals, and anyone who votes for the bill will be directly responsible for all their pain and suffering.
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Rick Manning (@rmanning957) is President of Americans for Limited Government. This article was also shared on The Hill.

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Tags: Rick Manning, Americans for Limited Government,  John Cornyn, Fails To Fix, Mass Prison Break Bill, Violent Felons, Go Free, Senate PlanTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

If Congress Is to Rescue Puerto Rico, Key Conservative Has These Conditions

Rep. Raúl Labrador, R-ID,
beleives that any solution to
Puerto Rico’s fiscal problems
“cannot affect our states.” 

by Josh Siegel: As the House struggles to find consensus on a plan to rescue Puerto Rico from its debt crisis, an influential conservative lawmaker today laid out his expectations for what legislation should look like.

Rep. Raúl Labrador, who is Puerto Rican, has been quiet about the plan being crafted by the Natural Resources Committee since he is a member of the panel and a direct participant in the negotiations.

But Labrador broke his silence before Capitol Hill reporters at the monthly Conversations with Conservatives event, declaring that any solution to Puerto Rico’s fiscal problems “cannot affect our states.”

“To me it’s pretty simple: Whatever we do on Puerto Rico cannot affect our states and cannot affect the way we are going to respond to any fiscal crisis in the future for any of the states,” said Labrador, R-Idaho, a founding member of a group of conservatives called the House Freedom Caucus.

Before he can endorse the bill, Labrador said, he wants assurances that it treats different classes of creditors fairly and doesn’t open the door for Congress to give authority to struggling states to restructure their debts.

Earlier this month, the Natural Resources Committee released a draft bill that would create an outside fiscal oversight board to manage a process by which Puerto Rico could restructure its $72 billion debt load.

The committee is revising the bill due to opposition from Republicans, the Treasury Department, and Democrats, and the legislation is not expected to be ready before May 1, when a $422 million debt payment by Puerto Rico is due. House leaders hope to act before a $2 billion payment comes due July 1.

Some holders of general obligation bonds whose debt payments are guaranteed by the Puerto Rican constitution have said they want to be exempted from the restructuring process facilitated by the proposed seven-member board.

Labrador said he doesn’t believe it’s “right” for those bondholders to get that exemption, but he also thinks pensioners should not be given higher priority than bondholders.

The Treasury Department, at one point, was planning to put pension payments to retired public employees in Puerto Rico ahead of payments to bondholders, according to The New York Times. Labrador said he wants the committee’s bill to include language ensuring that “pensions are not getting any priority over the secure debt.”

“I have spent a lot of time talking to a bit more objective bond companies that don’t have debt in Puerto Rico, and that’s their main concern,” Labrador said, adding that their “main concern” was that when Detroit filed for bankruptcy in 2013, it gave priority to pensions. He added:
That was an anomaly, so the bond market was not affected in any way. If we do that with Puerto Rico [give pensioners priority], what’s going to happen in the bond market is they will see a pattern and when they see that pattern, they are going to be concerned the same thing is going to happen in Illinois, the same thing is going to happen in California. And when they see that, all of a sudden the bond markets are going to react and that is going to affect every one of our states’ bonds. And it will affect the interest we pay on our bonds.House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has promised to act on a solution for Puerto Rico and its 3.5 million American citizens, with the hope he would be supported by a majority of Republicans.

Labrador’s endorsement would go a long way to ensuring that, considering his sway in the Freedom Caucus.

The Idaho Republican said he can get there, and that “conservatives can support a bill that gives debt restructuring to Puerto Rico,” but only under certain conditions:
The fight I am having right now with the people who drafted this bill is that they want language to be loose enough that can get votes from the Democrats. Well, guess what, if the language is loose enough, then you are going to be able to get around the language. So what we have to do is be explicit in deciding what this oversight board should be doing and what the parameters are for judging the debt in Puerto Rico. Unless we do that, I think we are doing a disservice to the people in the United States.A major question is whether the writers of the bill can satisfy enough conservatives without scaring away too many Democrats.

Rep. Jim Jordan, the Freedom Caucus chairman, told reporters today that it shouldn’t matter which party carries the legislation to passage, as long as lawmakers work together to solve a problem.

“We should do the right thing,” said Jordan, R-Ohio. “Whether that means you will have Democrats who vote for it, I don’t know. I think if you do the right thing, then people will vote for it. So that’s what should drive this—that you are doing the right thing.”
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Josh Siegel (@SiegelScribe) is the news editor for The Daily Signal

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Trump’s Promise to Put “America First” – End of the World?

by Tom Balek, Contributing Author: I watched Clarence Mason's interview on Lou Dobbs. Mason's enthusiastic support for preserving our traditional values and way of life was stimulating and inspirational.

Dobbs was reporting on Donald Trump's foreign policy speech, in which Trump said his priority would be to put "America First" in any foreign policy decisions. Dobbs asked Mason what he thought of Trump's pro-America stance, and it was like lighting a fuse under a bank of July Fourth fireworks.

"Of course we should put America first!" Mason cheered, explaining that he is tired of everybody blaming America for every problem in the world. He proclaimed his pride in the USA and his desire to rebuild our economy by taking a fresh look at foreign trade, mass immigration, and one-sided military agreements. He clearly reveled in what he sees as Trump's common-sense mix of protectionism and patriotism.

Trump's proclamation drew immediate scathing rebuke from all directions. "Trump's 'America First' Has Ugly Echoes From U.S. History", was the headline slam from CNN. Reuters piled on with "Trump's 'America First' Speech Alarms U.S. Allies". Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of 15 wanna-be presidential candidates who took a butt-whoopin' by Trump, tweeted “Trump's speech is pathetic in terms of understanding the role America plays in the world, how to win the War on Terror, and the threats we face.” (Full disclosure: I voted for Cruz over Trump in the South Carolina primary, but an enemy of my senator Graham is absolutely a friend of mine!)

But back to Clarence Mason.

I have been listening to pundits from Glenn Beck to Meghan McCain to Steve Deace wailing that Donald Trump's popularity and ascent to the top of the presidential ticket is the end of the world as we know it. They insist that Trump will lose to Hillary Clinton because ALL women hate him and ALL Hispanics hate him and ALL blacks hate him.

Here's a news flash. Clarence Mason - black guy. And there are many, many more like him attending Trump rallies and talking politics after church and on coffee break. Women too. And Hispanics. People of every race, gender, and income bracket. They are tired of the big-promises-no-results Republicans. They have learned the truth about the we're-from-the-big-government-and-we're-here-to-help-you Democrats. Just like the angry white males that the media claims are Trump's only supporters, they are not going to get fooled again.

The pundits and the insiders are apoplectic. They can't understand how, and they won't admit, that Donald Trump is very likely to be our next president. But it's really so simple. After years of being told that we are the scum of the Earth, we Americans - white, black, Hispanic, male and female - want a president who puts America first for a change.
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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: Tom Balek, Rockin' On The Right Side, 2016 presidential election, America First, Clarence Mason, Donald Trump, Glenn Beck, Hillary Clinton, Lou Dobbs, Meghan McCain, R.E.M., REM, Steve Deace To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Sec. Kerry: You Don't Have To Be Religious To Be An Islamic Terrorist

by Daniel Greenfield: Ladies and gentlemen, the Secretary of State of the United States.

John Kerry stopped by the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University to address the role of religion and terrorism offering groundbreaking ideas such as, "The more we understand religion and the better able we are as a result to be able to engage religious actors, the more effective our diplomacy will be in advancing the interests and values of our people."

But Kerry warned, "Disclaimer: It is absolutely true the State Department is a secular institution and that, from its founding, the United States has maintained a formal separation, obviously, between church and state, and nothing that we’re doing seeks to or does cross any of those lines. This means that in our foreign policy, we don’t advocate on behalf of any particular set of religious beliefs or express a preference for one faith over another – or even for religious belief over non-belief."

That must be why the entire administration is constantly promoting Islam to the point of Obama telling the head of NASA that his main mission is Muslim self-esteem. But this is followed by boilerplate screeds about how wonderful Islam is, how wrong it is to criticize many Muslims for the actions of a tiny minority and how we're beating ISIS. Which he insists on calling Daesh.

"We have learned that terrorists can emerge from anywhere, including the United States of America and Western Europe," Kerry declares. "You don’t have to be poor or repressed or receive special training to go be one of those recruits. You don’t even have to be religious."

That explains all those secular types joining Islamic terrorist groups and dying to go to Islamic paradise and build an Islamic state.

But Kerry pivots right back to the tired old narrative that not allowing Islamists to take over, causes Islamic terrorism. "For example, multiple studies show a correlation between political repression and the rise of violent extremist organizations."

Is that why Islamic terrorism is growing in America and Europe?

"Witness that fruit vendor in Tunisia who was slapped around trying to sell his goods and slapped by a police officer and in protest went and burned himself in front of the police station, and that is what ignited the Arab Spring – not religion."That explains why Islamists then took over in Tunisia... and Egypt... and Morocco and Yemen, Syria, etc. Not to mention the repeated polls showing widespread support for Islamic law. It's why the Arab Spring climaxed with ISIS.
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Daniel Greenfield is Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. David Horowitz is a Contributing Author of the ARRA News Service

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Tags: Daniel Greenfield, FrontPage Mag, John Kerry, Secretary of State,
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Subsidizing Iran's Nuclear Program

More Money for Iran - More Debt for America

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Late last week, the Obama Administration quietly announced that it was going to purchase heavy water from Iran. Heavy water can be used to produce nuclear weapons, and the Obama Administration is buying it from Iran at the same time that the regime is in the process of developing its missile arsenal.

The nuclear deal requires Iran to dispose of its heavy water. Fine. So dispose of it. Why do we have to buy it?

Once again, the Obama Administration is going out of its way to accommodate the Iranians, while the mullahs in Tehran are doing everything they can to frustrate and insult us. Many now believe we are directly subsidizing Iran's nuclear program.

That has led to widespread anger on Capitol Hill. But there is not enough anger to convince Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid to allow a vote on the issue.

Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas proposed an amendment to the Department of Energy appropriations bill that would prohibit the administration from spending any money to purchase Iranian heavy water.

But rather than go on the record for or against Sen. Cotton's amendment to prevent the United States from directly subsidizing Iran's nuclear program with heavy water purchases, Harry Reid and Senate Democrats are filibustering the entire energy bill.

By the way, after Democrats shut down the important business of government, they nevertheless found the time to pass a resolution by Senators Al Franken (D-MN) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) honoring deceased pop icon Prince. And Washington wonders why so many Americans are angry!

Not to be outdone, the White House's response to Senator Cotton's amendment was dismissive and disrespectful. Press Secretary Josh Earnest said yesterday, "Sen. Cotton is certainly no expert when it comes to heavy water. I'm confident that he couldn't differentiate heavy water from sparkling water."

Earnest should be fired. Sen. Cotton is a Harvard educated lawyer who volunteered to serve in the Army. He declined an automatic commission as a captain in the Judge Advocate General's Corps, eventually earning that rank by serving two tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan with the 101st Airborne Division.

But I won't hold my breath waiting for Earnest to be disciplined. This administration's contempt for the military is well-established.
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Gary Bauer is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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Tags: Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families,President Obama, Iran, Nuclear program, buying, Iran's Heavy Water, more money for Iran, More debt for America  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

ICYMI: Trump's Foreign Policy Speech

Donald Trump Presents His Foreign Policy

Bill Smith, Editor: Yesterday, Donald J. Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for President, presented a Foreign Policy Speech. For those who do not have CNN or found his speech interrupted and not finished on Fox News yesterday, or even missed it, below is a transcript of his speech minus the unique Trump delivery nuances and emphasis that motivate those who support him and have or will vote for him.

Matthew Vadum noted today:A one-man wrecking crew who has been demolishing politically-correct pieties since he launched his campaign last year with a call to arms against illegal immigration, Trump announced that the foreign policy administered by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry that has emboldened Islamic terror has been catastrophic not just for America but for the whole world.... "I will view as president the world through the clear lens of American interests," Trump affirmed. "I will be America's greatest defender and most loyal champion. We will not apologize for becoming successful again, but will instead embrace the unique heritage that makes us who we are."

Central in Trump's speech was criticizing what has become the modus operandi of the Obama foreign policy era: extending aid and comfort to our enemies while treating our friends with enmity. As a result, America's enemies don't fear us and our allies don't trust us.

"Our friends are beginning to think they can't depend on us," Trump said. "We've had a president who dislikes our friends and bows to our enemies, something that we've never seen before in the history of our country."

For example, Obama has allowed Communist China "to steal government secrets with cyber attacks and engage in industrial espionage against the United States and its companies."

Most notably, Obama has treated Iran "with tender love and care" that has made it "a great power ... in just a very short period of time," while at the same time snubbing and criticizing Israel, "our great friend and the one true democracy in the Middle East.". . .David Horowitz offered a quick response to the Trump Speech:If Mitt Romney had given the speech that Donald Trump did today, and if he had followed its strategy during the third presidential debate with Obama on foreign policy, he would have won the 2012 election. Trump’s themes were straightforward: Make America strong again, put America’s interests first. The Obama-Clinton-Kerry foreign policy has strengthened our enemies, disparaged our allies, and earned us global disrespect. It has led to disasters that include the rise of ISIS and the destabilization of the Middle East. The theme of the Obama-Clinton-Kerry years has been the weakening of America – point Trump with maximum bite: “If President Obama’s goal had been to weaken America, he could not have done a better job.” And of course the Jeremiah Wright-Billy-Ayers-radical-Barack Obama did set out deliberately to do just that. Obama’s agenda is American weakness, which leads to losing. Trump’s agenda: we must start winning. . . .

For me the most reassuring aspect of the speech was its political toughness, an indication of what is waiting for Hillary in November should Trump win the nomination:“After Secretary Clinton’s failed intervention in Libya, Islamic terrorists in Benghazi took down our consulate and killed our ambassador and three brave Americans. Then, instead of taking charge that night, Hillary Clinton decided to go home and sleep! Incredible. Clinton blames it all on a video, an excuse that was a total lie…. And now ISIS is making millions of dollars a week selling Libyan oil.”Can’t wait for those Trump-Hillary debates.DONALD J. TRUMP FOREIGN POLICY SPEECHThank you for the opportunity to speak to you, and thank you to the Center for the National Interest for honoring me with this invitation.

I would like to talk today about how to develop a new foreign policy direction for our country – one that replaces randomness with purpose, ideology with strategy, and chaos with peace.

It is time to shake the rust off of America’s foreign policy. It's time to invite new voices and new visions into the fold.

The direction I will outline today will also return us to a timeless principle. My foreign policy will always put the interests of the American people, and American security, above all else. That will be the foundation of every decision that I will make.

America First will be the major and overriding theme of my administration.

But to chart our path forward, we must first briefly look back.

We have a lot to be proud of. In the 1940s we saved the world. The Greatest Generation beat back the Nazis and the Japanese Imperialists.

Then we saved the world again, this time from totalitarian Communism. The Cold War lasted for decades, but we won.

Democrats and Republicans working together got Mr. Gorbachev to heed the words of President Reagan when he said: “tear down this wall.”

History will not forget what we did.

Unfortunately, after the Cold War, our foreign policy veered badly off course. We failed to develop a new vision for a new time. In fact, as time went on, our foreign policy began to make less and less sense.

Logic was replaced with foolishness and arrogance, and this led to one foreign policy disaster after another.

We went from mistakes in Iraq to Egypt to Libya, to President Obama’s line in the sand in Syria. Each of these actions have helped to throw the region into chaos, and gave ISIS the space it needs to grow and prosper.

It all began with the dangerous idea that we could make Western democracies out of countries that had no experience or interest in becoming a Western Democracy.

We tore up what institutions they had and then were surprised at what we unleashed. Civil war, religious fanaticism; thousands of American lives, and many trillions of dollars, were lost as a result. The vacuum was created that ISIS would fill. Iran, too, would rush in and fill the void, much to their unjust enrichment.

Our foreign policy is a complete and total disaster.

No vision, no purpose, no direction, no strategy.

Today, I want to identify five main weaknesses in our foreign policy.

First, Our Resources Are Overextended
President Obama has weakened our military by weakening our economy. He’s crippled us with wasteful spending, massive debt, low growth, a huge trade deficit and open borders.

Our manufacturing trade deficit with the world is now approaching $1 trillion a year. We’re rebuilding other countries while weakening our own.

Ending the theft of American jobs will give us the resources we need to rebuild our military and regain our financial independence and strength.

I am the only person running for the Presidency who understands this problem and knows how to fix it.

Secondly, our allies are not paying their fair share.
Our allies must contribute toward the financial, political and human costs of our tremendous security burden. But many of them are simply not doing so. They look at the United States as weak and forgiving and feel no obligation to honor their agreements with us.

In NATO, for instance, only 4 of 28 other member countries, besides America, are spending the minimum required 2% of GDP on defense.

We have spent trillions of dollars over time – on planes, missiles, ships, equipment – building up our military to provide a strong defense for Europe and Asia. The countries we are defending must pay for the cost of this defense – and, if not, the U.S. must be prepared to let these countries defend themselves.

The whole world will be safer if our allies do their part to support our common defense and security.

A Trump Administration will lead a free world that is properly armed and funded.

Thirdly, our friends are beginning to think they can’t depend on us.
We’ve had a president who dislikes our friends and bows to our enemies.

He negotiated a disastrous deal with Iran, and then we watched them ignore its terms, even before the ink was dry.

Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon and, under a Trump Administration, will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.

All of this without even mentioning the humiliation of the United States with Iran’s treatment of our ten captured sailors.

In negotiation, you must be willing to walk. The Iran deal, like so many of our worst agreements, is the result of not being willing to leave the table. When the other side knows you’re not going to walk, it becomes absolutely impossible to win.

At the same time, your friends need to know that you will stick by the agreements that you have with them.

President Obama gutted our missile defense program, then abandoned our missile defense plans with Poland and the Czech Republic.

He supported the ouster of a friendly regime in Egypt that had a longstanding peace treaty with Israel – and then helped bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power in its place.

Israel, our great friend and the one true Democracy in the Middle East, has been snubbed and criticized by an Administration that lacks moral clarity. Just a few days ago, Vice President Biden again criticized Israel – a force for justice and peace – for acting as an impediment to peace in the region.

President Obama has not been a friend to Israel. He has treated Iran with tender love and care and made it a great power in the Middle East – all at the expense of Israel, our other allies in the region and, critically, the United States.

We’ve picked fights with our oldest friends, and now they’re starting to look elsewhere for help.

Fourth, our rivals no longer respect us.
In fact, they are just as confused as our allies, but an even bigger problem is that they don’t take us seriously any more.

When President Obama landed in Cuba on Air Force One, no leader was there to meet or greet him – perhaps an incident without precedent in the long and prestigious history of Air Force One.

Then, amazingly, the same thing happened in Saudi Arabia -- it's called no respect.

Do you remember when the President made a long and expensive trip to Copenhagen, Denmark to get the Olympics for our country, and, after this unprecedented effort, it was announced that the United States came in fourth place?

He should have known the result before making such an embarrassing commitment.

The list of humiliations goes on and on.

President Obama watches helplessly as North Korea increases its aggression and expands even further with its nuclear reach.

Our president has allowed China to continue its economic assault on American jobs and wealth, refusing to enforce trade rules – or apply the leverage on China necessary to rein in North Korea.

He has even allowed China to steal government secrets with cyber attacks and engage in industrial espionage against the United States and its companies.

We’ve let our rivals and challengers think they can get away with anything.

If President Obama’s goal had been to weaken America, he could not have done a better job.

Finally, America no longer has a clear understanding of our foreign policy goals.
Since the end of the Cold War and the break-up of the Soviet Union, we’ve lacked a coherent foreign policy.

One day we’re bombing Libya and getting rid of a dictator to foster democracy for civilians, the next day we are watching the same civilians suffer while that country falls apart.

We're a humanitarian nation. But the legacy of the Obama-Clinton interventions will be weakness, confusion, and disarray.

We have made the Middle East more unstable and chaotic than ever before.

We left Christians subject to intense persecution and even genocide.

Our actions in Iraq, Libya and Syria have helped unleash ISIS.

And we’re in a war against radical Islam, but President Obama won’t even name the enemy!

Hillary Clinton also refuses to say the words “radical Islam,” even as she pushes for a massive increase in refugees.

After Secretary Clinton’s failed intervention in Libya, Islamic terrorists in Benghazi took down our consulate and killed our ambassador and three brave Americans. Then, instead of taking charge that night, Hillary Clinton decided to go home and sleep! Incredible.

Clinton blames it all on a video, an excuse that was a total lie. Our Ambassador was murdered and our Secretary of State misled the nation – and by the way, she was not awake to take that call at 3 o'clock in the morning.

And now ISIS is making millions of dollars a week selling Libyan oil.

This will change when I am president.
To all our friends and allies, I say America is going to be strong again. America is going to be a reliable friend and ally again.

We’re going to finally have a coherent foreign policy based upon American interests, and the shared interests of our allies.

We are getting out of the nation-building business, and instead focusing on creating stability in the world.

Our moments of greatest strength came when politics ended at the water’s edge.

We need a new, rational American foreign policy, informed by the best minds and supported by both parties, as well as by our close allies.

This is how we won the Cold War, and it’s how we will win our new and future struggles.

First, we need a long-term plan to halt the spread and reach of radical Islam.
Containing the spread of radical Islam must be a major foreign policy goal of the United States.

Events may require the use of military force. But it’s also a philosophical struggle, like our long struggle in the Cold War.

In this we’re going to be working very closely with our allies in the Muslim world, all of which are at risk from radical Islamic violence.

We should work together with any nation in the region that is threatened by the rise of radical Islam. But this has to be a two-way street – they must also be good to us and remember us and all we are doing for them.

The struggle against radical Islam also takes place in our homeland. There are scores of recent migrants inside our borders charged with terrorism. For every case known to the public, there are dozens more.

We must stop importing extremism through senseless immigration policies.

A pause for reassessment will help us to prevent the next San Bernardino or worse -- all you have to do is look at the World Trade Center and September 11th.

And then there’s ISIS. I have a simple message for them. Their days are numbered. I won’t tell them where and I won’t tell them how. We must as, a nation, be more unpredictable. But they’re going to be gone. And soon.

Secondly, we have to rebuild our military and our economy.
The Russians and Chinese have rapidly expanded their military capability, but look what’s happened to us!

Our nuclear weapons arsenal – our ultimate deterrent – has been allowed to atrophy and is desperately in need of modernization and renewal.

Our active duty armed forces have shrunk from 2 million in 1991 to about 1.3 million today.

The Navy has shrunk from over 500 ships to 272 ships during that time.

The Air Force is about 1/3 smaller than 1991. Pilots are flying B-52s in combat missions today which are older than most people in this room.

And what are we doing about this? President Obama has proposed a 2017 defense budget that, in real dollars, cuts nearly 25% from what we were spending in 2011.

Our military is depleted, and we’re asking our generals and military leaders to worry about global warming.

We will spend what we need to rebuild our military. It is the cheapest investment we can make. We will develop, build and purchase the best equipment known to mankind. Our military dominance must be unquestioned.

But we will look for savings and spend our money wisely. In this time of mounting debt, not one dollar can be wasted.

We are also going to have to change our trade, immigration and economic policies to make our economy strong again – and to put Americans first again. This will ensure that our own workers, right here in America, get the jobs and higher pay that will grow our tax revenue and increase our economic might as a nation.

We need to think smarter about areas where our technological superiority gives us an edge. This includes 3-D printing, artificial intelligence and cyberwarfare.

A great country also takes care of its warriors. Our commitment to them is absolute. A Trump Administration will give our service men and women the best equipment and support in the world when they serve, and the best care in the world when they return as veterans to civilian life.

Finally, we must develop a foreign policy based on American interests.
Businesses do not succeed when they lose sight of their core interests and neither do countries.

Look at what happened in the 1990s. Our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were attacked and seventeen brave sailors were killed on the USS Cole. And what did we do? It seemed we put more effort into adding China to the World Trade Organization – which has been a disaster for the United States – than into stopping Al Qaeda.

We even had an opportunity to take out Osama Bin Laden, and didn’t do it. And then, we got hit at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the worst attack on our country in its history.

Our foreign policy goals must be based on America’s core national security interests, and the following will be my priorities.

In the Middle East, our goals must be to defeat terrorists and promote regional stability, not radical change. We need to be clear-sighted about the groups that will never be anything other than enemies.

And we must only be generous to those that prove they are our friends.

We desire to live peacefully and in friendship with Russia and China. We have serious differences with these two nations, and must regard them with open eyes. But we are not bound to be adversaries. We should seek common ground based on shared interests. Russia, for instance, has also seen the horror of Islamic terrorism.

I believe an easing of tensions and improved relations with Russia – from a position of strength – is possible. Common sense says this cycle of hostility must end. Some say the Russians won’t be reasonable. I intend to find out. If we can’t make a good deal for America, then we will quickly walk from the table.

Fixing our relations with China is another important step towards a prosperous century. China respects strength, and by letting them take advantage of us economically, we have lost all of their respect. We have a massive trade deficit with China, a deficit we must find a way, quickly, to balance.

A strong and smart America is an America that will find a better friend in China. We can both benefit or we can both go our separate ways.

After I am elected President, I will also call for a summit with our NATO allies, and a separate summit with our Asian allies. In these summits, we will not only discuss a rebalancing of financial commitments, but take a fresh look at how we can adopt new strategies for tackling our common challenges.

For instance, we will discuss how we can upgrade NATO’s outdated mission and structure – grown out of the Cold War – to confront our shared challenges, including migration and Islamic terrorism.

I will not hesitate to deploy military force when there is no alternative. But if America fights, it must fight to win. I will never send our finest into battle unless necessary – and will only do so if we have a plan for victory.

Our goal is peace and prosperity, not war and destruction.

The best way to achieve those goals is through a disciplined, deliberate and consistent foreign policy.

With President Obama and Secretary Clinton we’ve had the exact opposite: a reckless, rudderless and aimless foreign policy – one that has blazed a path of destruction in its wake.

After losing thousands of lives and spending trillions of dollars, we are in far worse shape now in the Middle East than ever before.

I challenge anyone to explain the strategic foreign policy vision of Obama-Clinton – it has been a complete and total disaster.

I will also be prepared to deploy America’s economic resources. Financial leverage and sanctions can be very persuasive – but we need to use them selectively and with determination. Our power will be used if others do not play by the rules.

Our friends and enemies must know that if I draw a line in the sand, I will enforce it.

However, unlike other candidates for the presidency, war and aggression will not be my first instinct. You cannot have a foreign policy without diplomacy. A superpower understands that caution and restraint are signs of strength.

Although not in government service, I was totally against the War in Iraq, saying for many years that it would destabilize the Middle East. Sadly, I was correct, and the biggest beneficiary was Iran, who is systematically taking over Iraq and gaining access to their rich oil reserves – something it has wanted to do for decades. And now, to top it all off, we have ISIS.

My goal is to establish a foreign policy that will endure for several generations.

That is why I will also look for talented experts with new approaches, and practical ideas, rather than surrounding myself with those who have perfect resumes but very little to brag about except responsibility for a long history of failed policies and continued losses at war.

Finally, I will work with our allies to reinvigorate Western values and institutions. Instead of trying to spread “universal values” that not everyone shares, we should understand that strengthening and promoting Western civilization and its accomplishments will do more to inspire positive reforms around the world than military interventions.

These are my goals, as president.
I will seek a foreign policy that all Americans, whatever their party, can support, and which our friends and allies will respect and welcome.

The world must know that we do not go abroad in search of enemies, that we are always happy when old enemies become friends, and when old friends become allies.

To achieve these goals, Americans must have confidence in their country and its leadership again.

Many Americans must wonder why our politicians seem more interested in defending the borders of foreign countries than their own.

Americans must know that we are putting the American people first again. On trade, on immigration, on foreign policy – the jobs, incomes and security of the American worker will always be my first priority.

No country has ever prospered that failed to put its own interests first. Both our friends and enemies put their countries above ours and we, while being fair to them, must do the same.

We will no longer surrender this country, or its people, to the false song of globalism.

The nation-state remains the true foundation for happiness and harmony. I am skeptical of international unions that tie us up and bring America down, and will never enter America into any agreement that reduces our ability to control our own affairs.

NAFTA, as an example, has been a total disaster for the U.S. and has emptied our states of our manufacturing and our jobs. Never again. Only the reverse will happen. We will keep our jobs and bring in new ones. Their will be consequences for companies that leave the U.S. only to exploit it later.

Under a Trump Administration, no American citizen will ever again feel that their needs come second to the citizens of foreign countries.

I will view the world through the clear lens of American interests.

I will be America’s greatest defender and most loyal champion. We will not apologize for becoming successful again, but will instead embrace the unique heritage that makes us who we are.

The world is most peaceful, and most prosperous, when America is strongest.

America will continually play the role of peacemaker.

We will always help to save lives and, indeed, humanity itself. But to play that role, we must make America strong again.

We must make America respected again. And we must make America great again.

If we do that, perhaps this century can be the most peaceful and prosperous the world has ever known. Thank you.

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