Weekend Review: Reality Strikes Back, Left-wing Fascism, Immigration Issues, Splits On The Left

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Reality Strikes Back
Two days ago, Barack Obama was bragging about how good the economy supposedly was and blaming right-wing media for talking it down. Based on today's jobs report, Obama might order drone strikes on Fox News and Rush Limbaugh's EIB headquarters!

Experts expected that at least 160,000 new jobs were created last month. Reality struck back with a vengeance this morning. According to the Labor Department's report, only 38,000 new jobs were created last month -- the worst level of job creation in at least five years.

There's even more bad news. Jobs figures for March and April were revised downward dramatically, representing a loss of nearly 60,000 jobs.

Remember when Hillary said that she was going to put Bill in charge of the economy because he knows how to create jobs? Perhaps she should have asked him while she was still in Obama's cabinet. Clearly, our community organizer-in-chief needs a few pointers on job creation.

Left-wing Fascism
Violence erupted at a Donald Trump rally in San Jose, California, last night. Once again, left-wing demonstrators waved Mexican flags and burned Trump hats and the American flag. When the event ended, Trump supporters were assaulted as they tried to leave.

One woman was pelted in the face with eggs. A man was hit in the head from behind and left bleeding from the wound. Another, according to a local news report, was "chased down like prey."

Let's be absolutely clear about this: These were Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders supporters engaging in the tactics of fascism, literally beating up attendees at a political rally as they attempted to go home.

CNN reported that some were holding signs reading, "We Need Socialism." One man had a sign that read, "This is Mexico! You are not welcome on Native/Mexican Soil." For the record, San Jose is about 430 miles north of the Mexican border.

To its credit, MSNBC broadcast the violence live on the air. It appears some on the left were embarrassed and shamed as a result.

John Podesta, Hillary's campaign chairman, was forced to condemn the attacks. Liberal reporter John Harwood tweeted, "It is repulsive that anti-Trump protestors are beating up Trump supporters. Those responsible should be locked up."

The radical left-wing outfit Mother Jones couldn't deny the truth, reporting with this headline, "Donald Trump Supporters Violently Attacked in San Jose." Even Cher was appalled.

Predictably, some progressives blamed Donald Trump for the violence. San Jose Mayor Tom Liccardo, a Democrat and Hillary Clinton supporter, said to the Associated Press, "At some point Donald Trump needs to take responsibility for the irresponsible behavior of his campaign."

What exactly would that irresponsible behavior be? He is running for president on a platform that includes making sure our borders are secured. Apparently, that now constitutes actions which, in the fevered minds of some leftists, justify violence.

Friends, I do not believe it is hyperbole to say that we are on the verge of losing our country when asking for secured borders justifies mob violence by those who have come across the border legally or otherwise. It is like warning of undefended borders in ancient Rome and getting attacked by the Huns.

Meanwhile, In the Real World. . .
I could go on at length about these next few items, but I think the headlines speak for themselves, especially in the context of the urgent need for border security and immigration reform.

• "German Police Arrest 3 Syrians Over Alleged ISIS Terror Plot" -- CNN
• "State Dept. Official on Syrian Refugees: 'We're Going to Bring in 10,000 This Year'" -- CNSNews
• "1,037 Syrian Refugees Admitted in May: Two Christians, 1,035 Muslims" -- CNSNews
• "U.S. Military Eyes 'Extremist Islamic Movement' In Latin America" -- The Hill
• "Smuggling Network Guided Illegals From Middle East Terror Hotbeds To U.S. Border" -- The Washington Times>/b>
• "Accused War Criminal Found Working At Dulles Airport" -- WTOP
• "Obama Admin Withholding Info About 86,000 Criminal Illegal Immigrants" -- Washington Free Beacon

Splits On The Left
Maya Dillard Smith, a black woman, quit her job last week. Was bigotry and harassment to blame for her quitting? Sort of. I'll let her explain what happened:

"I have shared my personal experience of having taken my elementary school age daughters into a women's restroom when shortly after three transgender young adults, over six feet [tall] with deep voices, entered. My children were visibly frightened, concerned about their safety and left asking lots of questions for which I, like many parents, was ill-prepared to answer."

So she began asking questions about President Obama's transgender mandate forcing schools to allow boys who think they are girls to use the girls' restrooms. But her employer had no tolerance for her commonsense values.

So, Dillard Smith, who has degrees from Berkeley and Harvard, quit her job. . . as executive director of the Georgia ACLU. She was reportedly one of only three black ACLU state directors.

She blasted the ACLU for being intolerant and refusing to "engage in dialogue." She said the radical group is "a special interest organization that promotes" only "certain progressive rights . . . based on who is funding the organization's lobbying activities."

Dillard Smith's experience is another reminder that black Americans supported traditional marriage in greater percentages than white Americans.

Conservatives need to be reaching out to the black community on values issues. But, first, the Republican Party has to find the will to actually fight for these issues and make the case for traditional values.
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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, Week in Review, Barrack Obama, Reality Strikes Back, decline in jobs, Left-wing Fascism, Real World, news stories, border security, immigration reform, Splits On The Left To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

‘Payrolls Weaken Dramatically’

‘Jaw-Dropping,’ ‘Boy, This Is Ugly,’ ‘Huge Disappointment’
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “Now, look, I’m the first to admit my presidency hasn’t fixed everything. … if what you’re concerned about is who will look out for the interests of working people and grow the middle class, if that’s what you’re concerned about, then the debate -- then if that’s that you’re concerned about -- the economy -- the debate is not even close.” (President Obama, Remarks, 6/1/16)

• THE WHITE HOUSE: “…disappointingly low number.” (“The Employment Situation In May,” The White House, 6/3/16)

‘Near-Paralysis In Hiring Was Widespread’
WALL STREET JOURNAL: “The number is out and it doesn’t look good. … Global stocks fall after headline figures on the U.S. jobs report…” (“May Jobs Report: Everything You Need to Know,” The Wall Street Journal, 6/3/16)

• USA TODAY: “May's disheartening retreat, however, was jaw-dropping… the near-paralysis in hiring was widespread.” (“Payrolls Weaken Dramatically: 38,000 New Jobs In May,” USA Today, 6/3/16)
• CNBC: “Job creation tumbled in May…” (“US Created 38,000 Jobs In May Vs. 162,000 Expected,” CNBC, 6/3/16)
• AP: “U.S. employers drastically slowed their hiring in May… much weaker than expected jobs report… dismal jobs report was a surprise…” (“U.S. Economy Creates A Scant 38,000 Jobs In May,” AP, 6/3/16)
• DAVID KOTOK, chief investment officer of Cumberland Advisors: report “a huge disappointment.” (“May Jobs Report: Everything You Need to Know,” The Wall Street Journal, 6/3/16)
• DIANE SWONK, independent economist in Chicago: “Boy, this is ugly … The losses were deeper and more broad-based than we expected…” (“Sharp Fall in U.S. Hiring Lowers Chance of Rate Increase by Fed,” The New York Times, 6/3/16)

‘Labor Market Slowed Dramatically In May’
“The labor market slowed dramatically in May as employers added 38,000 jobs, raising concerns that a sluggish economy is taking a bigger toll on employment…” (“Payrolls Weaken Dramatically: 38,000 New Jobs In May,” USA Today, 6/3/16)

• “Businesses added just 25,000 jobs, led by health care. Federal, state and local governments added 13,000.” (“Payrolls Weaken Dramatically: 38,000 New Jobs In May,” USA Today, 6/3/16)
• 
  
• “Also discouraging: Job growth for March and April was revised down by a total 59,000. March's tally was revised 286,000 from 208,000, and April's, to 223,000 [from] 460,000.” (“Payrolls Weaken Dramatically: 38,000 New Jobs In May,” USA Today, 6/3/16)


• “Most industries cut jobs last month, the first time that’s happened in several years. The increase in hiring was also the smallest since the fall of 2010.” (“U.S. Jobs Growth In May Slowest Since 2010,” Marketwatch, 6/3/16)

‘Unemployment Rate … Decline Owed Almost Entirely To 458,000 People Leaving The Labor Force’ “The unemployment rate, in a surprising twist, fell to 4.7% from 5% to mark the lowest level since the month before the Great Recession began in December 2007. Yet the decline owed almost entirely to 458,000 people leaving the labor force.” (“U.S. Jobs Growth In May Slowest Since 2010,” Marketwatch, 6/3/16)

• “…the share of Americans participating in the workforce fell to 62.6%, the lowest level of the year.” (“May Jobs Report: Everything You Need to Know,” The Wall Street Journal, 6/3/16)

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Tags: payrolls weaken dramatically, unemployment rate, paralysis in hiring To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Record 94,708,000 Americans Not in Labor Force; Participation Rate Drops in May

Editorial Cartoon by Rick McKee

by Susan Jones (CNS News) : A record 94,708,000 Americans were not in the labor force in May -- 664,000 more than in April -- and the labor force participation rate dropped two-tenths of a point to 62.6 percent, near its 38-year low, the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday.

When President Obama took office in January 2009, 80,529,000 Americans were not participating in the labor force; since then, 14,179,000 Americans have left the workforce -- some of them retiring and some just quitting because they can't find work.

"By almost every economic measure, America is better off than when I came here at the beginning of my presidency," President Obama told the people of Elkhart, Indiana three days ago. "We cut unemployment in half, years before a lot of economists thought we would."

The unemployment rate in May dropped to 4.7 percent, BLS reported, less than half of its Obama-era high of 10 percent in October 2009.

But the labor force participation rate has deteriorated over Obama's two terms.

When Obama took office in January 2009, shortly before the recession hit, the labor force participation rate was 65.7 percent. The following month, it reached an Obama-era high of 65.8 percent, and then it began its seven-year downward spiral, hitting 62.4 percent in September 2015, its lowest point since 1977.

The 62.6 percent participation rate in May 2015 compares with 62.8 in April and 63.0 in March. (BLS noted that the rate has declined by 0.4 percentage point over the past two months, offsetting gains in the first quarter.)

In May, according to the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics, the nation’s civilian noninstitutional population, consisting of all people 16 or older who were not in the military or an institution, reached 253,174,000. Of those, 158,466,000 participated in the labor force by either holding a job or actively seeking one.

The 158,466,000 who participated in the labor force equaled 62.6 percent of the 253,174,000 civilian noninstitutional population.

BLS points to retirements among the aging baby boom generation as a key factor affecting the labor force participation rate. But the weak job market has caused other Americans to give up job-hunting in favor of staying home or going back to school.

BLS said the economy added a disappointing 38,000 jobs in May, well below analysts' estimates of 158,000. Over the past three months, job gains have averaged 116,000 per month.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 5,923,000 people in May as "persons who currently want a job," up 130,000 from 5,793,000 in April.

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (4.3 percent), adult women (4.2 percent), Whites (4.1 percent), and Hispanics (5.6 percent) declined in May. The rates for teenagers (16.0 percent), Blacks (8.2 percent), and Asians (4.1 percent) showed little or no change.

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) declined by 178,000 to 1.9 million in May. These individuals accounted for 25.1 percent of the unemployed.

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (also referred to as involuntary part-time workers) increased by 468,000 to 6.4 million in May, after showing little movement since November. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

Job growth occurred in health care. Mining continued to lose jobs (-10,000), and a Verizon strike resulted in job losses in information.

Health care added 46,000 jobs in May, with increases occurring in ambulatory health care services (+24,000), hospitals (+17,000), and nursing care facilities (+5,000). Over the year, health care employment has increased by 487,000.

Within manufacturing, employment in durable goods declined by 18,000 in May, with job losses of 7,000 in machinery and 3,000 in furniture and related products.

Employment in professional and business services changed little in May (+10,000), after increasing by 55,000 in April.

Employment in other major industries, including construction, wholesale trade, retail trade, transportation and warehousing, financial activities, leisure and hospitality, and government, changed little over the month.

In May, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls increased by 5 cents to $25.59, following an increase of 9 cents in April. Over the year, average hourly earnings have risen by 2.5 percent. Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees increased by 3 cents to $21.49 in May.

The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for March was revised from +208,000 to +186,000, and the change for April was revised from +160,000 to +123,000. With these revisions, employment gains in March and April combined were 59,000 less than previously reported. Over the past 3 months, job gains have averaged 116,000 per month.

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Tags: unemployed, underemployed, labor participation drops, Susan Jones, CNS News, editorial Cartoon, Rick McKee  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Bias Media Well Done . . .

. . . Donald Trump blasts the media for their bias reporting and misrepresenting the facts, and the people seem to love it.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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Tags: Editorial Cartoon, AF Branco, Donald Trump, blasts, Bias Media, reporting, misrepresenting, the facts To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Berned If They Do, Berned If They Don’t

by Robert Romano: After June 7, no matter what happens or who wins California, it appears Hillary Clinton will have amassed more than the 2,382 delegates she needs to clinch the Democrat nomination for president in 2016.

Although it may be a victory by superdelegates. Assuming Clinton wins about half of the remaining 781 delegates through the June 14 Washington, D.C. primary, she will still be short of 2,382 pledged delegates — she’d have about 2,160.

To get past the majority needed to be nominated may still require the use superdelegates. So far, Clinton has 543 of the 712 superdelegates allotted so far, with 149 still remaining to be allocated.

In the popular vote, Clinton still leads by a comfortable 3 million votes, an advantage highly unlikely to shift on Tuesday.

Still, the lack of an outright victory with the pledged delegates could still offer a glimmer of hope for Bernie Sanders supporters headed to the Democrats’ July 25 to 28 national convention. What if Clinton’s email scandal gets her busted by the FBI? Won’t the Democrats need another nominee?

Which brings up a dilemma. With the superdelegates, Clinton is likely to win the nomination. But never before in U.S. history has a party nominee for president been deposed by law enforcement and compelled not to run. It is almost unthinkable.

Chances are, many Clinton supporters would feel disenfranchised, and perhaps stay home in November if Clinton is knocked out as the nominee. Would they back Sanders if Clinton is denied the nomination even though she got the most votes?

Then again, the same thing might happen with Sanders supporters if Clinton — or somebody else like Vice President Joe Biden — is the nominee. What if Clinton is knocked out, and then Sanders is denied the nomination, even though he got the second most votes? Won’t his supporters stay home?

Even if nothing happens and Clinton wins the nomination, many Sanders voters may wind up staying home — or even voting for Donald Trump — if Naked Capitalism’s Yves Smith is to be believed, writing for Politico, “Why Some of the Smartest Progressives I Know Will Vote for Trump over Hillary.”

After citing several examples of readers that would back Trump over Clinton, Smith writes, “not all of my Sanders-supporting readers would vote for Trump. But only a minority would ever vote for Clinton, and I’d guess that a lot of them would just stay home if she were the nominee.”

Meaning, for all of the hubbub about how Republicans were going to have a hard time uniting, the real story of 2016 could be the break-up of the traditional Democrat coalition.

Go with Hillary, lose the Bernie voters who hate her. Go with Bernie, lose the disenfranchised Hillary voters. Go with Joe Biden, potentially lose them both. These scenarios must be giving Democrat party brass nightmares.

They could be Berned if they do, or Berned if they don’t.

In the meantime, national and battleground state polls have tightened considerably for the general election race between Trump and Clinton, a pretty bad sign for the incumbent Democrats.

As the race develops, and momentum by Trump could prove to be self-fulfilling, who was never supposed to have a chance, but now appears to benefit from the Democrats’ civil war. Who would have thought this is where we’d be in the process a year ago?
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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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Tags: Robert Romano, Americans For Limited Government, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, democrats, socialists  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Hillary Rejects ‘America First’

by Patrick Buchanan: “Clinton to Paint Trump as a Risk to World Order.”

Thus did page one of Thursday’s New York Times tee up Hillary Clinton’s big San Diego speech on foreign policy.

Inside the Times, the headline was edited to underline the point:

“Clinton to Portray Trump as Risk to the World.”

The Times promoted the speech as “scorching,” a “sweeping and fearsome portrayal of Mr. Trump, one that the Clinton campaign will deliver like a drumbeat to voters in the coming months.”

What is happening here?

As Donald Trump is splitting off blue-collar Democrats on issues like America’s broken borders and Bill Clinton’s trade debacles like NAFTA, Hillary Clinton is trying to peel off independents and Republicans by painting Trump as “temperamentally unfit” to be commander in chief.

Clinton contends that a Trump presidency would be a national embarrassment, that his ideas are outside the bipartisan mainstream of U.S. foreign policy, and that he is as contemptuous of our democratic allies as he is solicitous of our antidemocratic adversaries.

In portraying Trump as an intolerable alternative, Clinton will find echoes in the GOP establishment and among the Kristol-Kagan neocons, many of whom have already signed an open letter rejecting Trump.

William Kristol has recruited one David French to run on a National Review-Weekly Standard line to siphon off just enough votes from the GOP nominee to tip a couple of swing states to Clinton.

Robert Kagan contributed an op-ed to a welcoming Washington Post saying the Trump campaign is “how fascism comes to America.”

Yet, if Clinton means to engage on foreign policy, this is not a battle Trump should avoid. For the lady has an abysmal record on foreign policy and a report card replete with failures.

As senator, Clinton voted to authorize President Bush to attack and invade a nation, Iraq, that had not attacked us and did not want war with us.

Clinton calls it her biggest mistake, another way of saying that the most important vote she ever cast proved disastrous for her country, costing 4,500 U.S. dead and a trillion dollars.

That invasion was the worst blunder in U.S. history and a contributing factor to the deepening disaster of the Middle East, from which, it appears, we will not soon be able to extricate ourselves.

As secretary of state, Clinton supported the unprovoked U.S.-NATO attack on Libya and joked of the lynching of Moammar Gadhafi, “We came. We saw. He died.”

Yet, even Barack Obama now agrees the Libyan war was started without advance planning for what would happen when Gadhafi fell. And that lack of planning, that failure in which Clinton was directly involved, Obama now calls the worst mistake of his presidency.

Is Clinton’s role in pushing for two wars, both of which resulted in disasters for her country and the entire Middle East, something to commend her for the presidency of the United States?

Is the slogan to be, “Let Hillary clean up the mess she helped to make?”

Whether or not Clinton was complicit in the debacle in Benghazi, can anyone defend her deceiving the families of the fallen by talking about finding the evildoer who supposedly made the videotape that caused it all?

Even then, she knew better.

How many other secretaries of state have been condemned by their own inspector general for violating the rules for handling state secrets, for deceiving investigators, and for engaging, along with that cabal she brought into her secretary’s office, in a systematic stonewall to keep the department from learning the truth?

Where in all of this is there the slightest qualification, other than a honed instinct for political survival, for Clinton to lead America out of the morass into which she, and the failed foreign policy elite nesting around her, plunged the United States?

If Trump will stay true to his message, he can win the foreign policy debate, and the election, because what he is arguing for is what Americans want.

They do not want any more Middle East wars. They do not want to fight Russians in the Baltic or Ukraine, or the Chinese over some rocks in the South China Sea.

They understand that, as Truman had to deal with Stalin, and Ike with Khrushchev, and Nixon with Brezhnev, and Reagan with Gorbachev, a U.S. president should sit down with a Vladimir Putin to avoid a clash neither country wants, and from which neither country would benefit.

The coming Clinton-neocon nuptials have long been predicted in this space. They have so much in common. They belong with each other.

But this country will not survive as the last superpower if we do not shed this self-anointed role as the “indispensable nation” that makes and enforces the rules for the “rules-based world order,” and that acts as first responder in every major firefight on earth.

What Trump has hit upon, what the country wants, is a foreign policy designed to protect the vital interests of the United States, and a president who will — ever and always — put America first.
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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, Hillary Clinton, Rejects, 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!

Dangerous, Incoherent

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: Hillary Clinton came out swinging against Donald Trump yesterday. She said electing the man would be an “historic mistake.”

As opposed to her past career in politics, which I would call an historical mistake.

Mrs. Clinton focused in on Mr. Trump’s foreign policy pronouncements. “She ran through Mr Trump’s foreign policy points and rejected each one,” reported the BBC, “calling him thin-skinned, irrational and unprepared.”

Funny, though: I wouldn’t exactly call Mrs. Clinton the opposite: thick-skinned, rational, or prepared.

Take her main charges, then look at the obvious demerit of each:

“Mrs Clinton said a Trump presidency could start overseas wars and ruin the US economy.” Don’t vote Trump — starting wars and ruining the economy is Clinton’s job!

Trump’s “proposals were vague and often nonsensical.” Unlike Clinton’s, whose murky specifics speak of evasion from a to z — and whose policies in Libya and elsewhere made no sense whatsoever, breeding more conflict and opposition in place of the regimes she helped undermine and remove.

“Questioning his relationship with Russian president Vladmir Putin, she said: ‘I’ll leave it to a psychiatrist to explain his affection for tyrants.’” And speaking of perverse affection, her and her husband’s Clinton Foundation has been milking foreign tyrants for years. All very above-board, I’m sure.

“‘This isn’t reality television, this is actual reality,’ she said.” If you ask me, her reality is just as irreal as Trump’s.

We can do better, America.

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, Hillary Clinton, Dangerous, Incoherent To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Joe Walsh Donates All Of His Profit to the ACLU! REALLY! We Believe You, Joe!

by Tom Balek, Contributing Author: I’m a rock guitar player. I grew up riffing to “Funk 49“. I lived in the Rocky Mountains and reveled in singing along with Joe Walsh’s irreverent “Rocky Mountain Way.” I always LOVED guitar god Joe Walsh, the goofy leader of the James Gang and the only member of the Eagles who would make sure you got your $50 worth of entertainment from your $150 row 175 ticket.

So now Joe Walsh is coming to Charlotte for a gig! Woo hoo! But wait. I’m not sure his heart is in it.

You see, ever since Charlotte passed a law saying anybody can use any bathroom or locker room or dorm room or sports team or single-sex school they want to at any time regardless of their personal plumbing, and then the state of North Carolina passed a law called HB2 saying, “Wait a minute! There could be some big problems there!”, concerts in the Tar Heel State have been cancelled left and right. Bruce Springsteen was first, cancelling his show in Greensboro. Bruce questioned Governor McCrory’s objection to junior high co-ed showers, saying, “To my mind, it’s an attempt by people who cannot stand the progress our country has made in recognizing the human rights of all of our citizens to overturn that progress.”

Adam Levine, famed judge from the hit TV show “The Voice” and lead singer of Maroon 5, was next to put his ticket sales where his mouth is, saying, “WE FEEL EVERYONE SHOULD BE TREATED EQUALLY.”

That started a “me-too” tsunami of cancellations that included Demi Lovato, Nick Jonas, Pearl Jam, Jimmy Buffett, and even my childhood hero Ringo Starr (arrow in my heart!). The NBA has threatened to pull the 2017 All-Star Game from Charlotte due to the raw injustice of HB2. PayPal decided to not build an office in North Carolina, that horrible place that refuses to let transgendered people pee. Never mind that PayPal does business in nations all over the world that routinely execute gays.

And then there’s Joe. “My shows are a place where all are welcome and all can feel safe. This is why I have chosen to proceed with concert dates as planned in North Carolina and will be donating my net profits to Equality NC and the ACLU.”

Um, Joe, can we audit the books? I mean, I don’t doubt your accounting integrity or anything like that. I’m sure you wouldn’t overstate your expenses. Heck, you will probably give the ACLU every single penny of profit you earn from those $150 seats. I don’t doubt your sincerity at all. Shoot, you just want to make sure that both transgendered people in Charlotte are treated fairly. I trust you!

Sheesh.
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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, Joe Walsh, ACLU, donations, Charlotte, passed law, anybody can use any bathroom, locker room, dorm room, sports team, single-sex school, North Carolina. passed a law, HB2 saying, “Wait a minute, Bruce Springsteen, questioned Governor McCrory, objection to junior high co-ed showers, North Carolina To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

6 Examples Highlight Serious Problems With Obama’s Bathroom Rule

The risk to the privacy and safety of
women and girls is very real!
 As it is also for men and boys.

by Melody Wood: With the departments of Justice and Education’s new announcement on transgender access to showers, locker rooms, bathrooms, and other sex-specific facilities in schools, there is reason for concern.

The Obama administration has unlawfully rewritten law, meddling in state and local matters, and imposing bad policy on the entire nation.

Americans agree that while we should be sensitive to transgender individuals, others also have rights of privacy, safety, and their own beliefs that deserve respect and should not simply be pushed aside, especially when transgender persons can be accommodated in other ways.

The risk to the privacy and safety of women and girls is real. There have been numerous cases in recent years of men either cross-dressing or claiming to be transgender in order to access women’s bathrooms and locker rooms for inappropriate purposes. Here are six examples:

1. In 2009, a sex offender named Richard Rendler was arrested for wearing fake breasts and a wig while loitering in a women’s restroom in a Campbell, California shopping center. Rendler had previously been arrested on charges of child molestation and indecent exposure.
2. In 2010, Berkeley police arrested Gregorio Hernandez. Hernandez had disguised himself as a woman on two separate occasions to get inside a UC Berkeley locker room. Once in the locker room, Hernandez allegedly used his cell phone to photograph women.
3. In 2013, Jason Pomare was arrested for cross-dressing in order to gain access to the women’s restroom at a Macy’s department store in Palmdale, California. Pomare snuck a video camera in to secretly videotape women while they used the restroom.
4. In 2014, Christopher Hambrook—who faked being a transgender person named Jessica—was jailed in Toronto, Canada. Hambrook preyed on women at two Toronto shelters, had previously preyed on other women and girls as young as five years old to as old as 53. Hambrook’s case in particular shows the importance of protecting the privacy and safety of some of our most vulnerable citizens: The homeless and others seek emergency shelter. And yet, the Obama administration recently proposed a rule that would impose a “gender identity” mandate here as well.
5. In 2015, two spying instances were recorded in Virginia — one at a mall and one at a Walmart. Both instances involved a man in women’s clothing who used a mirror and camera to take pictures of a mother and her five-year old daughter and a 53 year-old woman while they were in a neighboring restroom stalls. The suspect wore a pink shirt and a long wig to present himself as a woman.
6. In 2016, a man used a women’s locker room at a public swimming pool in Washington state to undress in front of young girls who were changing for swim practice. When Seattle Parks and Recreation staff asked him to leave, the man claimed that “the law has changed and I have a right to be here.” The man was apparently referring to a Washington state rule that allows individuals to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. However, the man made no attempt to present as a woman.

As these examples illustrate, there are people who will abuse transgender policies. Although the Obama administration want to keep its focus on bathrooms its transgender directive goes much farther and actually requires biological male students who identify as female be granted unfettered access to womens’ and girls’ showers at school gyms.

So what are women and girls to do when a biological male wearing a wig and makeup walks in to an open shower next to them and they are shocked by the intrusion? According to the administration’s directive, “the desire to accommodate others’ discomfort” is no reason at all to prevent transgender people from accessing the intimate facilities of their choice.

Moreover, the directive prevents schools from requiring transgender people to have surgery, take hormones, have a medical diagnosis, or even act or dress in any particular way before having the “right” to be treated exactly like a person of the opposite sex.

The logical effect would be to silence women and girls who might otherwise speak out to prevent serious crimes from happening for fear that they would be accused of bigotry if they make the wrong call.

The interests and desires of transgender persons, especially adults, shouldn’t be placed over the privacy and safety of women and girls. There are ways of accommodating transgender people with private facilities without endangering and silencing women who could be hurt by policies allowing anyone unfettered access to their lockers, showers, and bathrooms.
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Melody Wood (@melodywwood) is a research assistant at the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation.

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Paul Ryan Endorses Trump: Donald Trump Can Help Bold House Policy Agenda

House Speaker Paul Ryan today formally endorsed Donald Trump for president.

In a column for his hometown newspaper, the GazetteXtr, Ryan wrote that the choice facing voters wasn't between two people, but two starkly different visions for America. "House Republicans are helping shape that Republican vision by offering a bold policy agenda, by offering a better way ahead," Ryan wrote. "Donald Trump can help us make it a reality."

Speaker Ryan's full endorsement follow:

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI-2 ) of
Janesville and
Speaker of the House. 

by Speaker Paul Ryan: When Donald Trump became the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee for president one month ago, many Republicans like me faced a big question.

Six months earlier, in October, as I was taking the job as House speaker, my colleagues and I were discussing an equally important question: What could House Republicans do to give Americans a clear choice about the future of the country?

Sure, count us among the majority of Americans upset with the direction our country is headed. But that’s not enough. We agreed that we must focus less on what we’re against and more on what we’re for. So, long before we knew who our nominee would be, we decided we would present the country a policy agenda that offers a better way forward. We know what we believe in, so let’s bring it to the country.

That’s how I’ve always looked at it. I’ve spent most of my adult life pursuing ways to help protect the “American Idea”—the notion that the condition of one’s birth does not determine the outcome of one’s life. The first step is always putting it on paper and having a real debate. And with the Obama presidency nearing an end, we have a real opportunity to get big things done the next four years.

That’s why next week my colleagues and I will start introducing a series of policy proposals that address the American people’s top priorities. These plans are the result of months of work by House Republicans.

The concept from the start was simple: If we had a Republican president ready to sign bills into law, what would we do?

This month, we’ll show the country what a better tax code looks like. We’ll outline a plan not just for repealing Obamacare but replacing it with a better system, more focused on patients, choices and lower costs. We’ll offer a plan to restore the Constitution and the separation of powers that decades of executive overreach have eroded. We’ll present the ideal national security and foreign policy to keep Americans safe. We’ll show how we can reform rules and regulations so they’re spurring the economy and creating jobs, not destroying them. And we’ll offer a better way to help lift people out of poverty and into lives of self-determination.

It will be a positive, optimistic vision for a more confident America.

It’s short of all that’s required to save the country, but the goal was to focus on issues that unite Republicans. It’s a bold agenda but one that can bring together all wings of the Republican Party as well as appeal to most Americans.

One person who we know won’t support it is Hillary Clinton. A Clinton White House would mean four more years of liberal cronyism and a government more out for itself than the people it serves. Quite simply, she represents all that our agenda aims to fix.

To enact these ideas, we need a Republican president willing to sign them into law. That’s why, when he sealed the nomination, I could not offer my support for Donald Trump before discussing policies and basic principles.

As I said from the start, my goal has been to unite the party so we can win in the fall. And if we’re going to unite, it has to be over ideas.

Donald Trump and I have talked at great length about things such as the proper role of the executive and fundamental principles such as the protection of life. The list of potential Supreme Court nominees he released after our first meeting was very encouraging.

But the House policy agenda has been the main focus of our dialogue. We’ve talked about the common ground this agenda can represent. We’ve discussed how the House can be a driver of policy ideas. We’ve talked about how important these reforms are to saving our country. And we’ve talked about how, by focusing on issues that unite Republicans, we can work together to heal the fissures developed through the primary.

Through these conversations, I feel confident he would help us turn the ideas in this agenda into laws to help improve people’s lives. That’s why I’ll be voting for him this fall.

It’s no secret that he and I have our differences. I won’t pretend otherwise. And when I feel the need to, I’ll continue to speak my mind. But the reality is, on the issues that make up our agenda, we have more common ground than disagreement.

For me, it’s a question of how to move ahead on the ideas that I—and my House colleagues—have invested so much in through the years. It’s not just a choice of two people, but of two visions for America. And House Republicans are helping shape that Republican vision by offering a bold policy agenda, by offering a better way ahead.

Donald Trump can help us make it a reality.

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Tags: House Speaker, Paul Ryan, endorses, Donald Trump, for President To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Obama On Tilt, Still Dividing America & Distorting The Bible

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Obama On Tilt
Like so many on the left, Barack Obama seems to be struggling with the reality that Donald Trump is making a serious run for the presidency, threatening to undo his past seven years of fundamental transformation.

Yet another poll shows Trump and Clinton are neck-and-neck. This is not how it was supposed to be.

Hillary Clinton was supposed to waltz into the White House. Instead, she's struggling in the primary against an aging socialist and fighting to avoid an indictment.

By the way, Bryan Pagliano, Hillary's former IT aide who set up her private email server, is pleading the Fifth again. Hillary insists nothing was illegal, but I have to ask the obvious question: What laws does Pagliano believe he violated that require him to avoid self-incrimination in these legal proceedings?

Yesterday, Obama held a town hall event in Elkhart, Indiana, to tout his economic accomplishments. (Seriously. I'm not making this up.) At one point, he appeared to be on tilt.

Obama's speech was full of contradictions and inconsistencies. For example, he blamed conservative media for people believing the economy is in bad shape.

Obama said, "It is the story that is broadcast every day on some cable news stations, on right wing radio. It is pumped into cars and bars and VFW halls all across America. . ."

What is he talking about?

The media are overwhelmingly left-of-center. The great majority of Americans get their news from the major networks -- ABC, CBS and NBC. When you include social media, left-wing newspapers and the liberal comedy shows that too many young people believe deliver real news, there is no comparison.

It is delusional to suggest that Fox News and a handful of commentators are brainwashing the American people, making them ignore reality.

Now here are some hard facts on the economy:

• Incomes fell during the Obama years.
• Obama has doubled the national debt.
• According to one analysis, Obama has one of the worst economic records in American history, failing to deliver even "a single year of 3.0%+ economic growth."

Still Dividing America
During his speech, Obama warned against dividing people by race and religion. But that is what he has been doing from day one.

Obama bemoaned the fact that black unemployment was twice that of whites. But that has nothing to do with discrimination and everything to do with massive illegal immigration, the breakdown of the family and left-wing policies in major cities that have been run by liberal Democrats for decades.

He complained that Hispanic women make 55 cents for every dollar earned by white men. What is the point of that comparison? Does a Hispanic doctor make less than a white doctor? Do Hispanic women make less than black women? Once again, Obama is doing a good job of dividing us by race and class. (I'll get to religion in the next item.)

The president did not hesitate to try to turn the public against the police -- the men and women who defend us every day. Many incidents involving police officers were exploited to fan the flames of racism, leading some thugs to declare open season on the police. Some people even went looking to assassinate cops.

There has been a major transformation over the past seven years in the atmosphere for law enforcement, and I doubt few officers would say it has been for the better.

Obama Distorts The Bible
When it came time for questions from the audience, Obama was asked why, given all the other pressing issues out there, he decided to make an issue of which bathroom a person uses.

Obama initially tried to downplay the question, suggesting that he wasn't spending a lot of time on it. Really?

His Justice Department just issued threats to 14,000 school districts across the country, telling them what they must do or risk losing funds for disadvantaged children. His Justice Department has already pulled some school districts into federal court. I shudder to think what it would look like if he actually started spending time on something!

But Obama's follow-up was even more offensive and theologically twisted. He justified this new federal mandate based on the Bible, saying, "My reading of scripture tells me that [the] Golden Rule is pretty high up there in terms of my Christian belief."

In other words, treat people as you would want to be treated. So if a man thinks he is a woman, Obama expects other people to treat him like a woman.

Here's the flaw in Obama's reasoning: If you see somebody who is hungry, you would ask yourself, "If I was hungry, would I want someone to help me?" The answer obviously is, "Yes." There is no conflict here. There is a hungry person who needs food.

But with the transgender issue, there are millions of boys and girls who have a normal sense of modesty. They have a right to expect that they can go to a bathroom or locker room in their school and not experience a severe violation of their privacy.

On the other hand you have an incredibly small group of young people suffering from a deep mental/emotional syndrome that leads a boy to believe in his mind that he is a girl. Reputable scientists and doctors have said there is some evidence this is similar to the extremely emaciated young woman who looks in the mirror and thinks she is fat.

In other words, there is a lot of evidence that this is a psychological disorder.

But in order to apply Obama's reading of the Golden Rule to these troubled young people, he has to deny the truth and beauty of the Golden Rule to millions of normal adolescents. You are not treating a girl like a girl if you force her to undress in front of boys. That is a violation of the Golden Rule.

It would be like seeing that hungry person next to a man with a sandwich, taking his sandwich and giving it to the hungry person. That is what Obama is doing. He is taking away the privacy expectations of normal children in order to accommodate troubled youth.

And how is it that Obama can see transgenderism in the Golden Rule but can't see anything in the Golden Rule that might apply to the abortion issue? The Bible is clear. In Deuteronomy 30:19, God says, "Choose life."

Yet Obama refuses to ask, "If I were a vulnerable little baby what would I want to happen to me?" Obviously, the baby would want her mother to choose life.

Obama takes political risks all the time, but he should be careful when it comes to distorting God's words for dubious social engineering. There are punishments worse than falling polling numbers.
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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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John Kerry, The Islamic Republic’s New Lobbyist . . .

. . . The administration urges foreign financial institutions to fund the Iranian terror machine.

by Ari Lieberman: Iran, the nation that has built a well-deserved reputation as the world’s premier state-sponsor of terrorism has a new lobbyist and he is none other than U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Since the Obama administration inked the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in January, Kerry has been busying himself with ensuring that European banks start doing business with the Iranians. Yes, you read that correctly. Not only has the United States and its European allies agreed to lift sanctions against the Islamic Republic, the administration is now encouraging the private banking sector to do the same. It appears however, that their intense lobbying efforts are being received with a healthy dose of skepticism.

HSBC’s chief legal officer, Stuart Levey confirmed that Kerry had requested that HSBC start opening its banking doors to the Iranians and transact business with them. Levey criticized Kerry’s misguided initiative noting that the U.S. still maintains other non-nuclear related sanctions against the Islamic Republic and that doing business with Iran runs the risk of running afoul of those sanctions. HSBC has had prior negative experience with the U.S. Treasury and Justice departments. In 2012, the bank was forced to fork over $1.9 billion to U.S. authorities to settle allegations involving money laundering for Mexican drug barons.

Levey also noted that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which controls large swaths of the Iranian economy, has been slapped with sanctions by both the U.S. and Europe because of the central role it plays in illicit regional and international activities. Doing business with Iran will almost certainly result in facilitating IRGC operations. Adding to the uncertainty, Iran has over the years developed a penchant for hiding money, engaging in shady deals and money laundering thus making it difficult, if not impossible for banking institutions to engage the Iranians in legitimate business transactions without being complicit in their illegal dealings.

Kerry has assured the banks that they have nothing to fear if they perform their due diligence but banking representatives have expressed other legitimate concerns. Iran is one of the most corrupt nations on the planet and ranks poorly in the categories of transparency and ease of doing business. Banking institutions and large businesses are naturally reluctant to deal with such an opaque entity.

Practical matters and banking concerns aside, it is disturbing to witness the zeal in which Kerry is conducting his lobbying campaign on behalf of an enemy country whose national pastime involves chants of “Death to America" and “Down, Down U.S.A.” Even more disturbing is the fact that despite signing the JCPOA, Iran continues to act in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolution 2231 which calls on Iran to cease all research and testing activities relating to its ballistic missile program.

Since the conclusion of the Iran deal, the Islamic Republic has test-fired eight ballistic missiles. The Iranians boasted that some of their missiles were capable of reaching targets 1,200 miles away. Israel is only 1,000 miles away from Iran placing it well within the target radius. Emblazoned on the side of at least one test-fired missile was an ominous threat; “Israel must be wiped out from the face of the earth.”

The Iranians are continuously attempting to increase the range and accuracy of their ballistic missiles. Iran’s illicit ballistic missile program has only one aim, to deliver weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). That apocalyptic prospect does not seem to worry Kerry who seems more interested in propping up the Islamic Republic rather than ensuring that it lives up to its international obligations and stops behaving like a pariah state. Indeed, in an effort to prevent derailment of the JCPOA, the administration asked the Iranians not to publicize their launches. Iran’s illicit ballistic missile program doesn’t seem to bother the Obama administration so long as the Iranians keep their activities below the radar.

Iran’s nefarious undertakings extend far beyond its illicit ballistic missile program. The IRGC, the group that runs Iran in partnership with the ayatollahs, represents the life-blood of Hezbollah. Both Hezbollah and the IRGC are engaged in a full-fledged operation to destabilize the region. From Syria to Yemen, Iranian and Hezbollah operatives are fomenting chaos and bloodshed with the aim of establishing a Shiite arc extending from Iran through Syria and Lebanon as well as securing control of two of the region’s most important chokepoints, the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.

Hezbollah’s main source of funding comes from Iran, which trains, arms and pays the salaries of its operatives. Its other sources, though minor in comparison to Iranian assistance, include drug trafficking and extortion. Last week, Adam Szubin, the acting Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, noted that Hezbollah was “in its worst financial shape in decades.” It’s hard to take that near-comical boast seriously in light of the $150 billion cash infusion the Obama administration injected into the anemic Iranian economy. It’s hard to imagine that Iran will spend any of that money on improving the quality of life of its citizens and promoting human rights. Iran will almost certainly channel a large portion of those funds to its proxy stooges in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere.

Kerry’s lobbying efforts on behalf of Iran in connection with the banking industry will make Iran’s ability to transfer funds to these terrorist groups less difficult. The lengths to which the Obama administration will go to indulge the Iranians is beyond shocking, it’s frightening. But we should expect no more from an administration that expressed gratitude to the Islamic Republic after its naval pirates kidnapped and humiliated 10 American sailors when their craft encountered mechanical difficulties in the Arabian Gulf. Sadly, the Obama administration continues to lose the trust of its allies, while emboldening its enemies and has given new meaning to the term appeasement.
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Ari Lieberman is an attorney and former prosecutor who has authored numerous articles and publications on matters concerning the Middle East and is considered an authority on geo-political and military developments affecting the region. He is an author at FrontPage Mag an outreach of the the David Horowitz Freedom Center. David Horowitz is a Contributing Author of the ARRA News Service

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Tags: John Kerry, New Lobbyist, The Islamic Republic, Iran, Iran Sanctions, nuclear deal, Treasury, United States, appeasement, FrontPage Mag, Ari Lieberman . To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Atheist Who Didn’t Exist

by Kerby Anderson, Contributing Author: Atheism is on the rise, which is why Christians need to know how to respond to many of the arguments put forward by the so-called New Atheists. There is energy and confidence in their presentations. But Dr. Andy Bannister (Canadian Director of Ravi Zacharias Ministries) says we shouldn’t be cowed by these atheist arguments.

He responds to these arguments in this new book, The Atheist Who Didn’t Exist: Or the Dreadful Consequences of Bad Arguments. He was on my radio program recently to explain how many of the arguments quickly unravel. His book uses logic and lots of humor to expose some of the loose threads on the cardigan of atheism.

Atheist, Richard Dawkins talks about a young child who believes that Thomas the Tank Train really exists, and she also believes in Father Christmas. From there he (and other atheists) argues that belief in God is like belief in Santa Claus. There are lots of problems with the argument, but an obvious one can be seen in the belief systems of young adults. None of them believe in Santa Claus. Millions of them believe in God.

Atheists also like to argue that their atheism isn’t a claim: it’s a non-belief. Religious people have a belief system. Atheists do not. That means atheists are free to sit back and throw stones at religious ideas. The trouble with that assertion is it proves too much. Andy Bannister says that would mean his cat is an atheist because she does not believe in God. Moreover, atheists claim their belief is true, and that is a positive claim. They really do have a belief system, and that causes all sorts of action. Internet-dwelling atheists spend hundreds of hours trolling, posting, and arguing. They buy books, T-shirts, and bumper stickers. That’s a whole lot of activity for a non-belief.

I know you will enjoy reading Andy Bannister as he blends humor with serious thought while showing the fallacies of atheist arguments.
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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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Tags: Kerby Anderson, Viewpoints, Point of View, Andy Bannister, Atheists, who don't exist To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Key To Trump’s Victory: Math

by Ann Coulter: With the California primary fast approaching, the media are rolling out their favorite fairy tale about how Republican Pete Wilson's support for Proposition 187 in 1994 was a historic, game-changing error for the GOP, driving Hispanics from the party for good!

Both CNN and MSNBC retold this completely bogus narrative this week. NPR rolls it out once every two weeks.

I -- along with other people capable of reading election returns -- have written about this forever. I did most recently inAdios, America," in a chapter titled, "I Wrote This Chapter After Noticing How Stupid Rich People Are," inspired by a dinner party I went to in Palm Beach, Florida, the day after I'd already turned in my book.

I'm writing an emergency book on Trump right now, due today, and liberals won't stop lying about Prop 187 -- so for this week's column, I'm telling the real story of that initiative, again. Maybe the 700th time is the charm!

In 1994, Gov. Pete Wilson of California was headed for defeat in his re-election bid. He had an abysmal 15 percent approval rating -- syphilis had a higher approval rating. He ended up pulling out an amazing come-from-behind victory by tying himself to Proposition 187, a ballot initiative that would deny illegal immigrants non-emergency government services.

In the lead-up to the election, the media freely dispensed advice to Wilson, nearly identical to the advice they're giving Donald Trump today.

Proposition 187, was, in the words of The New York Times, a "nativist abomination," "xenophobic," and a "platform of bigotry, racism and scapegoating." Republicans faced an epic loss unless they repudiated Prop 187 and leapt on the Hispandering bandwagon -- and pronto.

Unaware that the Times' political advice was a gag, Wilson's Democratic opponent, Kathleen Brown, was convinced opposition to Proposition 187 would propel her to victory. She campaigned against the proposition, urging voters to "send a message that says we understand that in diversity is our strength!"

Pete "Prop 187" Wilson won the election with 55 percent of the vote. That included 21 percent of the black vote -- nearly three times the 8 percent average for Republicans in House races nationwide the same year.

Wilson's 1994 victory on the back of Proposition 187 also happens to be the biggest margin for any Republican running statewide in California in the last 30 years, except for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger who won his 2006 re-election by one point more (after effectively becoming a Democrat).

Proposition 187 was even more popular than Wilson, winning 59 percent to 41 percent. It was supported by a majority of white voters, a majority of black voters, a majority of Asian voters -- and a third of Hispanic voters, i.e., more of the Hispanic vote than Mitt Romney got.

Proposition 187 was twice as popular with Hispanic voters in California as George H.W. Bush had been two years earlier. In 1992, Bill Clinton won 71 percent of the Hispanic vote in California to Bush's 14 percent. Texas Hispanics chose Clinton over Bush by nearly the identical percentage, 70 percent to 15 percent.

Maybe there's something else Hispanics don't like about Republicans.

In 1992, Proposition 187 wasn't even a twinkle in California's eye. Hispanics had no idea they were supposed to hate Republicans yet. Nonetheless, they voted in a landslide for the Democratic presidential candidate, and also for two Democrats running for the U.S. Senate that year.

The reason California can't elect a Republican statewide isn't that Hispanics got even madder at Republicans since Proposition 187. It's that they're a much larger part of the electorate, thanks to: (1) Reagan's amnesty; and (2) the ACLU running to a Jimmy Carter-appointed judge to get Proposition 187 overturned.

As with gay marriage, abortion and any number of other legal absurdities, whenever liberals lose by allowing people to vote, they dash to the courts to give them whatever they want. Judge Mariana Pfaelzer's ruling declaring the popularly enacted Proposition 187 "unconstitutional" was on appeal when Gray Davis became governor of California, and dropped the appeal.

The combination of amnestied illegals and their kids, and illegal aliens coming for the free government services and their kids, has resulted in a state where whites are only about 40 percent of the population and 60 percent of the electorate.

Pete Wilson's victory with Proposition 187 ought to be studied by today's GOP like General Eisenhower's Operation Overlord. Today's America has nearly the same demographics as California did in 1994 -- aka "the California Republicans Swept With an Anti–Illegal Alien Initiative." In 1994, California's voting population was 75 percent white, 12 percent Hispanic, 7 percent African-American and 6 percent Asian. Today, the American electorate is 72 percent white, 10 percent Hispanic, 13 percent African-American and 3 percent Asian.

I understand why the left doesn't want the GOP to try anything like Prop 187 again. But why can't Republicans do the math?
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Ann Coulter is a conservative author of ten New York Times bestsellers, writes numerous columns and is a frequent guest on numerous radio and TV shows. Her web site is AnnCoulter.com. She is the author of Adios America which she signed and gave to the ARRA News Service editor at the 2015 Eagle Council.

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Tags: Ann Coulter, Adios America California, Pete Wilson, Proposition 197, victory, demographics, Key to Trump's Victory, math, 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 Trump Equals Fascism Charge Is Wrong, Reckless & Dangerous

by Robert Romano:  “This is how fascism comes to America.”

So reads the alarmist, provocative headline from the Brookings Institution’s Robert Kagan writing for the Washington Post that the Republican nomination of Donald Trump is essentially the modern equivalent of Hitler and Mussolini’s rise to power.

It’s the 1930s all over again, wouldn’t you know. Besides being fallacious, Kagan’s charge — and that of many, many other commentators — is reckless and irresponsible. Even dangerous.

Let’s leave aside the facts that Trump’s son-in-law is Jewish, and that his daughter converted to Judaism, both of whom Trump fully embraces. Or that he opened up the Palm Beach mansion and golf course Mar-a-Lago to Jews and blacks at a time when segregation at all-white country clubs in the south was still a thing, long before he ever set foot in the political arena. So, gee, what the heck does Trump running for president have to do with the racist, anti-Semitic ideology of the Nazis? Those examples are too easy.

Getting to the heart of Kagan’s case, he writes, “Fascist movements, too, [like Trump] had no coherent ideology, no clear set of prescriptions for what ailed society.”

In reality, fascism is the textbook example of an abominable, antidemocratic ideology run amuck, that believed one ruler could embody the entire will of the nation. But there was more to it than that. Combined with its national destiny mythos, racist doctrines and corporatist economic programs — war is profitable! — its coherence and rigid execution was directly responsible for the deaths of 60 million people, many through mass genocide, in the war the fascists and militarists started in the 1930s and 1940s.

As Michael Ledeen, a noted, actual expert on fascist movements, notes in Forbes magazine in response to Kagan, “It’s fanciful to call Nazism a bundle of contradictions when, a decade before coming to power, it had a detailed diagnosis of what ailed Germany, and how to fix it. It was called Mein Kampf, and it provided the basis for the Third Reich. Kagan apparently doesn’t consider the Nazis’ racist doctrines to be explicit either, even though they were the basis for very detailed legislation, indoctrination in all the schools and universities, military operations, and eventually the Holocaust. Nazism was a great deal more than one-man rule by a charismatic leader.”

In the meantime, Trump does not believe it is America’s destiny to rule the world — quite the opposite — as he critiques episodes such as the Iraq war in the 2000s. Agree or disagree with his position on the war, opposing the war, even after the fact, is definitely not the ideology of militarism and war under fascism — which mobilized the war industry as an expression of state power, to settle historical scores and to impose rule upon those deemed inferior.

Instead, Trump’s articulated caution on the foreign policy stage, if anything, is actually an expression of realism over idealism in international affairs.

Trump openly rails against corporate cronyism, the real culprit behind the modern destruction of representative government in the U.S., where national legislation and policy is crafted by the highest bidder. Examples abound, whether under the Export-Import Bank, the bank and auto bailouts, the widely backed 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, the green energy scam or health care lobbyists writing Obamacare.

Trump did not create the corporate state, and to the extent he speaks out against it positions him as an anti-corporatist, rather than as one of its champions. Agree or disagree with his solutions, he’s calling attention to a real problem of collaboration between certain industries and the federal government to achieve national objectives, the very definition of corporatism once envisioned by the fascists
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Trump also speaks out against threats like radical Islam, which really is a fascist-like ideology bent on the domination of Islam over the entire world, the extermination of non-believers and the oppression of women. Isn’t Trump’s condemnation an expression of anti-fascism? Standing up to barbarians — such as with calls to halt immigration from where radical Islam thrives — is no vice. Agree or disagree with that far-reaching prescription, there is no question radical Islam threatens Western, liberal democracies.

Trump stands opposed to illegal immigration, not because, as Kagan charges, Trump wants “to get tough with foreigners and people of nonwhite complexion,” but because simply they came illegally. That is not a racist attitude, since it does not distinguish between countries of origin. Come here legally, whether from Mexico City or Beijing, no problem, says Trump. Having enforceable borders or immigration laws generally is not even a tenant of fascism, it is a reality of every single country in the world that checks passports upon entry.

Trump says he wants to work with Congress rather than through the unaccountable executive actions of Barack Obama and George W. Bush that have governed the past 15 years. Wouldn’t that be the opposite of the all-powerful executive envisioned under fascism?

Today, Washington, D.C. is really a marvel of modern statism, where Congress has outsourced much of its Article I law-making powers to an alphabet soup of departments and agencies that regulate almost every aspect of life. Two-thirds of the budget runs on auto-pilot beyond the annual appropriations process, racking up trillions of dollars in debt. Classified surveillance programs such as conducted by the National Security Agency was conceived and run without any basis in law, framers of the original Patriot Act warned after the Edward Snowden revelations like Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Calif.) who authored the bill.

Now, Trump may not stop each of these encroachments by the executive branch and abdications by the legislative branch, but he hardly created them. The administrative state has taken more than a century to reach its current state of maturity, and it will hardly be undone in a single administration — if ever — as the obstacles to untangling it could prove to be insurmountable. But through signaling his intention to work with elected leaders in Congress, rather than via executive dictates, Trump at least articulates a preference for lower-case republicanism and representative government. Which is definitely not fascism.

In short, Robert Kagan should know better, although that doesn’t stop him and others from laying the fascist charge against Trump. But it is not merely wrong in an academic sense and ignores all the real fascism that exists in the world around us — it also a dangerous line of rhetoric.

As Dilbert creator Scott Adams presciently warned on March 13 as the Trump equals fascism meme was becoming commonplace in our discourse, “we see the media priming the public to try to kill Trump, or at least create some photogenic mayhem at a public event. Again, no one is sitting in a room plotting Trump’s death, but — let’s be honest — at least half of the media believes Trump is the next Hitler, and a Hitler assassination would be morally justified.”

Almost on cue, just a week ago, best-selling fiction author Brad Thor on the Glenn Beck Show openly discussed the assassination of Trump on the air with millions of listeners. Said Thor, “He is a danger to America and I got to ask you a question and this is serious and this could ring down incredible heat on me because I’m about to suggest something very bad. It is a hypothetical I am going to ask as a thriller writer. With the feckless, spineless Congress we have, who will stand in the way of Donald Trump overstepping his constitutional authority as President? If Congress won’t remove him from office, what patriot will step up and do that if, if, he oversteps his mandate as president, his constitutional-granted authority, I should say, as president. If he oversteps that, how do we get him out of office? And I don’t think there is a legal means available. I think it will be a terrible, terrible position the American people will be in to get Trump out of office because you won’t be able to do it through Congress.”

In other words, you’d have to kill him. Thor all but say it aloud. Responded Beck, “I would agree with you on that…” Really? Which part?

Sirius XM has since suspended Beck’s show based on the segment — because according a company statement it “may be reasonably construed by some to have been advocating harm against an individual currently running for office, which we cannot and will not condone.”

Thor attempted to walk back his statement, suggesting he was actually calling for armed revolution against a dictatorial Trump — saying, “If we had to unseat a president without the backing of the Congress, we would need a patriot along the lines of George Washington to lead the country from tyranny back to liberty.” We’ll leave it to readers to decide whether civil war would be a preferable alternative.

But the damage could already be done.

Just as Adams noted, “Collectively — the media, the public, and the other candidates — are creating a situation that is deeply dangerous for Trump.” Specifically, someone could take a shot at him, and it will likely be directly related to the number of charges of fascism that have been leveled at him. As if the U.S. was on the brink of committing mass extermination of undesirables — which is basically implied by pervasive use of the Nazi charge — and that the only way to stop it is for patriots to take matters into their own hands.

This is becoming an incitement to mass hysteria, and it is wrong, irresponsible and, yes, dangerous. It’s not even remotely true, but here we are.

In effect, Robert Kagan, Brad Thor and others are playing with fire. For cooler heads to prevail will require careful, rational discourse about what fascism actually was — something that is clearly lacking today. Take a deep breath, people.

This is getting out of hand.
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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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