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One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics
is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. -- Plato
(429-347 BC)
He was going door to door, which I’ve had occasion to do, and he was nice and well-spoken. Glad to give.
And it was only five bucks — that’s what I had in my pocket. It was like buying a Starbucks venti-something.
No big deal.
But something does bug me.
What is it?
The fact that the school system sends kids around to pull on our heart-strings but when our homeschooled kids could benefit by taking part in sports or band or debate or other extra-curricular activities through the public schools, without enrolling as a full-time student, they’re told to “go play in traffic.”*
So, why did I give that screwed-up system anything that wasn’t taken at gunpoint?
For starters, a young person stood before me, not the governor or the school superintendent. I don’t want to approach their level of cold-heartedness.
Next, there is something I really do want: Community. My desire, as a committed individualist, is to grow and strengthen and be part of the community of folks who live close to my family.
There’s no contradiction here.
I want civilization. And five dollars is an awfully cheap price for a smidgen of it. I want that kid to receive a good education. I want our community to succeed, including him and all the other kids.
Why call yourself an individualist or libertarian and not work for voluntary community? Free individuals form better, more sustainable communities than those built on state power or authoritarianism.
Hey, maybe I should go door to door.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* For two straight legislative sessions, Gov. Terry McAuliffe has vetoed legislation allowing homeschoolers to participate in sports, band, debate and other such activities. On a county by county basis, Virginia public schools are free to permit or to block homeschoolers from taking academic classes and joining after-school clubs — with roughly half of counties deciding to accommodate homeschoolers.
------------------ Paul Jacobs is author of Common Sense which provides daily commentary about the issues impacting America and about the citizens who are doing something about them. He is also President of the Liberty Initiative Fund (LIFe) as well as Citizens in Charge Foundation. Jacobs is a contributing author on the ARRA News Service. Tags:Paul Jacob, Common Sense, Half a Sawbuck, Civilization, schools, #schoolchoice To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
“Unsung Heroes” Help Poor and Minorities – Hillary Calls Them “Deplorables”
by Tom Balek, Contributing Author: I was visiting with my young HVAC guy after he installed a new air conditioner in one of my rental houses. Actually, it was more like negotiating than visiting. He said he gave me a good deal, and I chuckled, "I know you did, but I have to go through the routine." I was happy to write the check - he more than earned it.
Then he said something that gave me pause. "I know you guys can afford to pay me, but you know a lot of the people I work for can't."
We live in South Carolina. It's hot. Air conditioning is not a luxury, it is a necessity of life. I know people lived in the South before air conditioning, but honest to God, I don't know how. We moved here from Montana where we built a new log home and didn't even consider putting in air conditioning. This is different. In South Carolina I would put air conditioning right up there with food and shelter.
He told me about a service call he made last month to repair an air conditioner for an African American grandmother with five kids in her house that belong to her daughter, who is a heroin addict. "She told me about her utility bills, and other bills, and taking care of the kids, and doing it all on $500 a month from the county plus food stamps. It was 96 degrees. I knew she couldn't afford to pay me, so I just 'ate' the bill. "
I have not felt very good about my country lately. There's a lot of ugly stuff going on. But this young man did a lot to restore my confidence in our future.
"I usually don't charge somebody like that," he said. "I mean, you see what's going on, and you just have to do what you can, you know? I don't mind giving up my labor, I can always just work harder. But the cost of parts keeps going up and up. I have hundreds of dollars in parts in these repair jobs."
My HVAC guy is your average American small business owner. He works long, hard hours. He invests most of his profits in tools, a truck, paying his help, and keeping up his education and certification. In the hot summer he works around the clock. If somebody needs help at 9:00 pm, he answers the phone. He didn't go to college. He goes to church every Sunday, but half the time he is on a service call that afternoon. His kids don't have fancy tennis shoes, and he can't afford the time or cost of a Disney cruise. Yet he is one of the "Deplorables" Hillary Clinton looks down on. Even worse, he owns a business - which, to Democrats, makes him a greedy, selfish racist who got rich on the backs of the poor. He's the guy Obama sneered at: "You didn't build that business."
The truth is, he DID build that business, and he cares a hell of a lot more for the poor, and minorities, than Hillary Clinton does, or Barack Obama, or anybody who votes for them and their Democrat friends.
And yes, he said, "I am going to vote for Donald Trump." He told me he had not voted for years, but this time he has to. "The first thing I heard Trump say was, 'I am paying for my own campaign, nobody bought me, and I can't be bribed.' That was all I needed to hear." And that certifies his status as one of Hillary's "Deplorables".
The sad thing is, the grandmother whose air conditioning repair bill he 'ate', and the addicted mother, and most of their friends and relatives, and all of the liberals who pretend to care about them but never do anything about it, are going to vote for Hillary and the Democrats.
The Deplorables out there doing real acts of charity and love every day, and not asking for anything in return - they are the unsung heroes.
--------------- 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 Tags:Tom Balek, Rockin' On The Right Side, Unsung Heroes, Help Poor and Minorities, Hillary, Calls Them “Deplorables”To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Newt Gingrich: We finally know why Hillary Clinton refused to release the transcripts of her paid speeches to bankers and special interests: When her staff assembled a list of the most damaging comments in those transcripts, they must have seen immediately that they could not afford for the material ever to be made public.
In one speech, Hillary described how politicians often “need both a public and a private position.” She elaborated that at times, Abraham Lincoln had a public position that was different from the private, secret goal he was actually pursuing.
The list of speech excerpts, in emails made public this month by Wikileaks, didn’t require us to look far to discover Hillary Clinton’s own secret goal.
In a secret, $225,000 speech to Brazilian bankers in 2013, she let her mask down revealed the goal she truly wants to pursue.
“My dream,” she said, “is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders.”
In other words, open borders and open trade for the entire hemisphere — all of the countries in North and South America.
Not just her hope. Not just her wish. Her dream.
Let’s consider the implications of Hillary’s dream.
Hillary wants an open border with Canada and an open border with Mexico, our two closest neighbors.
She also wants open borders with and among all of the countries in Central America and South America.
In addition to open borders with all of those countries, she us to have open trade with them, so that all of their people can choose to live and work in the United States if they please.
There are about 210 million people in North America outside the United States, including the entire populations of Mexico and Canada.
There are 42 million people in Central America—the seven countries from Guatemala to Panama, some of which are among the most violent places on Earth.
There are 422 million people in South America—more than the entire population of the United States.
How many of those roughly 675 million people do you think would like to come and work in the U.S.?
Hillary’s dream of open borders would send the wages and incomes of millions of Americans into a free fall. At the same time, it would mean an explosion of welfare costs for the states and federal government.
Hillary’s dream would literally drive Americans, and America, bankrupt.
But it’s not just our jobs and our economy that Hillary’s dream would destroy.
Consider what else this radical vision of open borders would mean.
It would mean we’d have no capacity to stop terrorists from entering the United States. ISIS, Al Qaeda, and other terrorists could come in through any one of more than two dozen countries, and make their way freely to the U.S.
We’d have no capacity to stop Mexican heroin and Columbian cocaine, or gangs, like the violent and vicious MS-13 from El Salvador.
And it would mean no capacity to stop the spread of diseases from around the world into the United States.
For most Americans, this isn’t a dream. It’s a warning of a future that could be all too real. Because if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, she’d have the power to make these ambitions a reality. She would only have to continue and expand President Obama’s policies of deliberate non-enforcement of our immigration laws.
There would be no check on Hillary’s power to realize her dream of open borders—and for millions of families, that would mean the destruction of the American dream.
---------------------- Newt Gingrich is a former Georgia Congressman and Speaker of the U.S. House. He co-authored and was the chief architect of the "Contract with America" and a major leader in the Republican victory in the 1994 congressional elections. He is noted speaker and writer. The above commentary was shared via Gingrich Productions. Tags:Newt Gingrich, commentary, Hillary Clinton, Dangerous DreamTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Rabbi's Wife; He's Vulgar, Lewd and Getting My Vote
by Susan Lapin: If you’ve known me for a while, you know that I have a visceral, negative reaction to vulgarity. Guests to our home have been on the receiving end of a withering stare for saying something judged as ‘not refined,’ an anemic, weak distant relative of Donald Trump’s words. I expect my daughters to be treated with respect and I reject ‘locker room’ banter as immature and boorish.
I’m also voting for Donald Trump. I have nothing to say to anyone voting for Hillary Clinton because of Trump’s leaked words. That is simply hypocritical. Not only does she possess her own potty mouth, she colluded with her husband to degrade the moral level of America. On this issue, she and Trump are two sides of a coin.
The other option is one that many public Republican figures are taking—to leave the president option blank on their ballot. I admit to feeling a pull towards that choice. Donald Trump is not only vulgar, but he is also a braggart and possessor of other poor character traits that I despise. While I thought that his statement apologizing for his disgusting words was classy, I think it would be naive to assume he is actually a changed man. As a private individual, I can give him the benefit of the doubt, but I need to vote for him acknowledging that his repentance might be transient or even expedient rather than sincere.
Despite all of the above, I am planning to cast my ballot for Mr. Trump. Neither he nor Hillary is someone I want to be a role model for my children. I do not want to sit down to dinner with either of them. But there are plenty of other role models and dinner guests from whom I can choose. They are the only two choices for President of the United States.
Little boys used to be told never to hit a girl. It is still gentlemanly advice. However, if a Palestinian girl, raised from infancy to hate and kill, approaches the boys in my life with a knife, I hope they strike at and kill her if necessary. One doesn’t have to die in order to keep up one’s gentleman credentials. The early colonists fought in an ungentlemanly way, shooting from behind trees and fences rather than approaching the British as an open army. America was born. I am putting my “lady credentials” to the side in this election.
Where I differ from never-Trumpers is that I do not believe there will be another opportunity to fight. Already, after eight year of Obama the IRS, Justice Department and FBI work for their lords and masters rather than for the American people. The Supreme Court justice picks can cement America’s demise. I am not at all sure that Jefferson and Madison would not be urging a revolution at this point. If Trump’s election begins a bloodless revolution, I support that. Then I can pray and work to encourage a restoration of morality and ethics in this country. It is the only way forward that I see. There is not an option of supporting America with my ‘sacred honor,’ only a choice of sacrificing her to that honor, and that is a choice I reject.
---------------- Susan Lapin is a Rabbi's wife and blogs at Susan's Musing. Tags:Susan Lapin, Rabbi's Wife, Donald Trump, He's Vulgar, Lewd, Getting My VoteTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Just a few (25) of the scandals, lies, and criminal activity of Hillary Clinton.
Both Bill Clinton & Hillary Clinton were despicable! To quote Mark Twain, “The best money can buy.” In other words, "The WORST money could influence." Why Vote for Hillary?
Tags:Hillary Clinton, Hillary Care, Whitewater Development, Criminal Career, Filegate, Travelgate, Cattlegate, Benghazi, baggageTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
The Politics Of Destruction, Christians & Trump, Catholic Leaders Blast Clinton, Clinton Lied
by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: The Politics Of Destruction - Yesterday I referred to the "Anita Hills" coming out and making accusations against Donald Trump. Some readers replied that while they knew who she was, their children and grandchildren may not know. So, I think it is worth taking the time to remind you that what is happening now is not new.
On July 1, 1991, President George H.W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Immediately the left-wing complex declared war against him. They could not allow a conservative, pro-life black man on the highest court no matter what had to be done to destroy him.
The battle went on for weeks, but Thomas finally appeared to be on the path to confirmation. Then on October 6th, National Public Radio broke a story that a former aide to Thomas, Anita Hill, was going public with charges of sexual harassment.
I was chairman of the Citizens Committee to Confirm Clarence Thomas, and I was in the hearing room when Anita Hill, left-wing senators and the media tried to destroy him.
What followed was hell for Thomas and his family. There were days of hearings during which Hill, in great detail, accused Thomas of disgusting actions.
Before it was over there was testimony about porn, various body parts and sizes, and pubic hairs. Christian pastors began to waver in their support for Thomas. Republican senators wobbled. There were rumors that the White House was considering withdrawing his name.
But Thomas fought back, and I and other conservatives closed ranks behind him. Clarence Thomas was his own best defender. He berated senators, telling them:"This is a circus. It's a national disgrace. And from my standpoint as a black American . . . it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate rather than hung from a tree.
"No job is worth what I've been through -- no job. No horror in my life has been so debilitating. Confirm me if you want. Don't confirm me if you are so led. . . I will not provide the rope for my own lynching. These are the most intimate parts of my privacy, and they will remain just that, private."Thomas was eventually confirmed, and for 25 years he has faithfully defended the Constitution, the sanctity of life, normal marriage and religious liberty. That is why the left tried to destroy him ahead of time.
Justice Thomas is one of the finest men I have ever met. I do not know Donald Trump well enough to vouch for his history simply because I have not worked with him as extensively as I had with Thomas. I am not comparing their characters, but only pointing out the left -- which has driven the cultural changes that have broken down values and sexualized our culture -- has used this tactic before.
The left has a long history of raising charges of sexual harassment and mistreatment of women in order to radicalize female voters and suppress Christian support for the person they are attacking. That is what they tried to do with Clarence Thomas and they are doing it now with Donald Trump.
"Should Christians Vote For Trump" - Eric Metaxas is an acclaimed Christian author who produced definitive biographies of William Wilberforce and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He also worked closely Chuck Colson. Metaxas is highly respected by young Christians and evangelical intellectuals.
He wrote an excellent op-ed in yesterday's Wall Street Journal imploring Christians to vote for Donald Trump. I urge you to read it and to share it with friends and family. Here are a few excerpts:"It's a fact that if Hillary Clinton is elected, the country's chance to have a Supreme Court that values the Constitution . . . is gone. Not for four years, or eight, but forever. Many say Mr. Trump can't be trusted to deliver on this score, but Mrs. Clinton certainly can be trusted in the opposite direction. For our kids and grandkids, are we not obliged to take our best shot at this? . . .
"If imperiously flouting the rules by having a private server endangered American lives and secrets and may lead to more deaths, if she cynically deleted thousands of emails, and if her foreign-policy judgment led to the rise of Islamic State, won't refusing to vote make me responsible for those suffering as a result of these things? How do I squirm out of this horrific conundrum? . . .
"We would be responsible for passively electing someone who champions the abomination of partial-birth abortion, someone who is celebrated by an organization that sells baby parts. We already live in a country where judges force bakers, florists and photographers to violate their consciences and faith -- and Mrs. Clinton has zealously ratified this. If we believe this ends with bakers and photographers, we are horribly mistaken. . . God will not hold us guiltless."Catholic Leaders Blast Clinton - We have reported to you about the email exchanges in which top Clinton aides, including campaign chairman John Podesta, mock Christians and plotted to subvert the teachings of the Catholic Church. Catholic leaders are publicly condemning their remarks as threats to religious liberty.
In a statement yesterday, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, president to the Conference of Catholic Bishops, said:"There have been recent reports that some may have sought to interfere in the internal life of the Church for short-term political gain. If true, this is troubling both for the well-being of faith communities and the good of our country. . . As Catholics, we hold onto our beliefs because they come to us from Jesus, not a consensus forged by contemporary norms. . . We also expect public officials to respect the rights of people to live their faith without interference from the state. When faith communities lose this right, the very idea of what it means to be an American is lost."Clinton Lied -- Again - Okay, not exactly news, but I think it is worth pointing out that Hillary Clinton has lied repeatedly about her mishandling of national security secrets stored on her private server. That alone should disqualify her from the presidency.
Yesterday she turned over to a court answers to a series of questions posed to her by Judicial Watch. She claimed to "not recall" her actions on most of them. But one response jumped out.
Hillary has repeatedly claimed that her use of a private server was "allowed" by the State Department. It was not.
In fact, the State Department sent a memo to all employees under her signature warning against the use of private email accounts for official government business.
Judicial Watch asked Mrs. Clinton who "allowed" the use of her private server or advised her that is was okay. According to the Washington Times, Hillary "admitted under oath this week that she doesn't recall asking anyone for permission."
Of course, she didn't. She knew it wasn't allowed, but the Clintons don't believe the laws and rules apply to them!
"Season of our Rejoicing!" - Carol and I wish all of our Jewish friends and supporters a blessed Sukkot as they celebrate God's providence.
------------- Gary Bauer is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the ;Campaign for Working Families Tags:Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, The Politics Of Destruction, Christians & Trump, Catholic Leaders Blast Clinton, Clinton LiedTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
NORTH CAROLINA:“As major insurers jilt their ACA customers, nowhere in the country will more people be left with only a single insurer when the marketplaces open for a fourth year of business. These defections are causing turbulence for a quarter-million North Carolinians whose insurance companies are leaving the state — and for the main insurer that will remain.” (“In North Carolina, ACA Insurer Defections Leave Little Choice For Many Consumers,” The Washington Post, 10/14/2016)
“In North Carolina, for example, a BlueCross BlueShield insurer will be the only option in 95 of the state’s 100 counties after Aetna and UnitedHealth said this year that they would leave. That will leave 284,000 people looking for a new plan, according to the state.” (“More Than 1 Million In Obamacare To Lose Plans As Insurers Quit,” Bloomberg, 10/14/16)
SOUTH CAROLINA:“Prices for Obamacare health plans will skyrocket in South Carolina next year, and only one company will sell them, the state Department of Insurance announced Tuesday.... More than 200,000 Obamacare shoppers in South Carolina face fewer choices for coverage next year. They should also expect sticker prices for their premiums to increase an average 27 percent.”(“Obamacare Customers In South Carolina Face Fewer Choices, Higher Prices Next Year,” The Post and Courier, 10/04/2016)
“A valley hair stylist is self-insured with Blue Cross Blue Shield. She just received a letter from the insurer, saying they'd no longer cover her in 2017. ‘I was shocked that I only have two months to find out what I'm gonna do. Like, what is it exactly that I should do?’ ‘Angela,’ as we'll call her, is one of 60,000 Maricopa residents receiving the same letter. . . In a marketplace turned monopoly, Angela is still deciding on what she'll do. ‘People are going to be scrambling. They're not going to know what to do and this is our government that is doing this,’ she said.”(“60K Self-Insured In Maricopa County Lose Coverage, Left With 1 Healthcare Provider,” Fox 10 Phoenix KSAZ, 10/04/2016)
by Patrick Buchanan: Will Hillary Clinton clean out the nest of anti-Catholic bigots in her inner circle? Or is anti-Catholicism acceptable in her crowd?
In a 2011 email on which Clinton campaign chief John Podesta was copied, John Halpin, a fellow at the Center for American Progress that Podesta founded, trashed Rupert Murdoch for raising his kids in a misogynist religion.
The most “powerful elements” in the conservative movement are Catholic, railed Halpin: “It’s an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backward gender relations…”
Clinton spokesperson Jennifer Palmieri agreed: “I imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion. Their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they become evangelical.”
“Excellent point,” replied Halpin. “They can throw around ‘Thomistic’ thought and ‘subsidiarity’ and sound sophisticated because no one knows what the hell they are talking about.”
What the pair is mocking here are both the faith decisions of the Murdoch family and traditional Catholic beliefs and social teaching.
This is a pristine example of the anti-Catholicism that historian Arthur Schlesinger Sr., called “the deepest-held bias in the history of the American people.”
In another email in this latest document dump from WikiLeaks, writes Ben Wolfgang of The Washington Times, Podesta and Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress, mocked the Miss America pageant, because so many finalists are Southern girls and young women.
Said Podesta, “Do you think it’s weird that of the 15 finalists in the Miss America, 10 came from the 11 states of the CSA?”
The CSA would be the Confederate States of America.
“Not at all,” says Tanden, “I would imagine the only people who watch it are from the confederacy and by now they know that so they’ve rigged the thing in their honor.”
In another email, Podesta himself uses the sort of language liberals once said disqualified Nixon from staying on as president — regarding former Governor Bill Richardson. Podesta refers to him and other Hispanics whom he is trying to court for Clinton as “needy Latinos.”
What these emails reveal is the sneering contempt of liberal elites for Catholics, Evangelical Christians, Southerners, and even Hispanics loyal to them. And the contents of these emails correlate with the revealed bigotries of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
In September, Clinton told a gathering of rich contributors at a gay rights fundraiser in New York City:
“[Y]ou could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the ‘basket of deplorables.’ Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it.”
Responding to the cheers and laughter, Clinton went on, “Now, some of those folks — they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.”
What Clinton said to the LGBT partisans echoed what Obama told rich contributors in San Francisco in 2008, who wondered why he was not doing better in Pennsylvania.
“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and … the jobs have been gone now for 25 years. … And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Obama was saying that when small-town Pennsylvanians fall behind, they blame others and revert to their bibles, bigotries and guns.
Yet Obama has never explained what caused him to sit content for 20 years — and be married and have his daughters baptized — in the church of a ranting racist like Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who, at the time of 9/11, roared from his pulpit “God Damn America!”
What so attracted Barack Obama to Rev. Wright’s bigotry?
These latest emails confirm what we already knew.
Our elites, who are forever charging others with “racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia,” are steeped in their own bigotries — toward Southerners, conservatives, Middle Americans, Evangelical Christians, and traditionalist Catholics — the “irredeemables.”
Though the election is still a month off, the campaign of 2016 has already done irreparable damage to the American establishment.
Its roots in the nation it purports to lead have been attenuated if not severed. It has shown the world a portrait of American democracy at its apex that approaches the repellent.
Through the savagery of its attacks on those who have risen up against it, the establishment has stripped itself of all claim to be the moral leader of American society. Its moral authority is gone.
Even if Clinton wins, it can no longer credibly speak for America.
As for the national press corps — the Fourth Estate — it has been compromised, its credibility crippled, as some of the greatest of the press institutions have nakedly shilled for the regime candidate, while others have been exposed as propagandists or corrupt collaborators posturing as objective reporters.
What institution in America today, besides the military, enjoys national respect? And if people do not respect the regime, if they believe it acts in its own cold interest rather than the nation’s, why should they respect or follow its leadership?
We have entered uncharted waters.
-------------------- 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. Tags:Patrick Buchanan, conservative, commentary, Anti-Catholics, Elitist BigotsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Tags:Bait and Switched, Hillary Clinton, doesn't respect, Americans, editorial cartoon, AF Branco To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Kerby Anderson, Contributing Author: The fastest growing religious group of our time is the group of young people who check “none” or “none of the above” on religious survey questions. Social scientists therefore refer to them as “the nones.” A few years ago, I did some commentaries about the “nones” but wanted to revisit this topic because we now have more survey statistics that illustrate their growth.
From the 1930s to the 1990s, the percentage of “nones” in America was less than 8 percent. By 2012, the percentage had grown to 20 percent and is still increasing. Even more dramatic has been the increase in the percentage of “nones” among the millennial generation, especially the group called emerging adults (18-29 year olds).
The Pew Religious Landscape survey estimated that about 35 percent of these emerging adults could be identified as “nones.” When you add in everyone who does not identify as either Protestant or Catholic (in other words, adding in Islam and Hinduism) the percentage of emerging adults who do not identify as Christian increased to 43 percent of the population. If this growth continues, we will see over half of American emerging adults will not identify as Christians by 2020.
Some commentators have suggested that perhaps some of the “nones” are actually Christians who simply don’t want to identify with a particular religious tradition. If you look at the surveys, it is difficult to justify that suggestion. If you separate out the “nones” and see if they hold orthodox beliefs (believe in God, believe the Bible is the inspired word of God) and also attend church at least once a month, you find that only 1 out of a hundred emerging adults could be identified as a practicing Christian.
The challenge we face today is how to reach a generation that is quickly becoming post-Christian. These young people embrace a secular view not so much because they are rejecting religion but because they rarely if ever think about religion and Christianity.
----------- Kerby Anderson is a radio talk show host heard on numerous stations via the Point of View Network endorsed by Dr. Bill Smith, Editor, ARRA News Service Tags:Kerby Anderson, Viewpoints, Point of View, The NonesTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
New Study Confirms Marijuana Use Up Drastically in Workforce
by Cully Stimson: This November, there are a record number of ballot initiatives in at least nine states regarding so-called medical marijuana or outright legalization of the Schedule I drug. The pot pushers, both small businesses and large, want more people smoking, eating, and consuming more pot because it is good for their bottom line.
Before voting yes, voters—and, in particular, employers—should take a look at more disturbing data that was released two weeks ago at a national conference.
At the annual Substance Abuse Program Administrators Association conference, Quest Diagnostics—one of the nation’s largest drug-testing companies—unveiled the results of its Drug Testing Index. The index examines illicit drug use by workers in America each year.
In 2015, Quest examined more than 9.5 million urine, 900,000 oral fluid, and 200,000 hair drug samples. Following years of decline in overall illegal drug usage, the results showed that the percentage of employees testing positive for illicit drugs has steadily increased over the last three years to a 10-year high.
Law enforcement hopes that THC (the active ingredient in marijuana) testing using saliva will enable officers to test drivers in a safe, relatively noninvasive manner, and several manufacturers have developed such test devices. There are questions whether oral THC testing can serve as a valid testing device, but no court has forbidden their use.
The Drug Testing Index is an analysis of test results from three categories of workers—including federally mandated, safety-sensitive workers, the general workforce, and the combined U.S. workforce
Oral fluid drug testing results—best at detecting recent drug usage—showed an overall positivity rate increase of 47 percent over the last three years in the general workforce to 9.1 percent in 2015 from 6.7 percent in 2013.
According to Quest, the increase was “largely driven by double-digit increases in marijuana positivity.” In fact, according to the report, in 2015 there was a “25 percent relative increase in marijuana detection as compared to 2014.” The report also showed a significant increase in heroin positivity in urine tests for federally mandated safety-sensitive employees.
Another disturbing trend is the rising positivity rate for post-accident urine drug testing in both the general U.S. and the federal mandated, safety-sensitive workforces. According to the index, post-accident positivity increased 6.2 percent in 2015, compared to 2014, and increased a whopping 30 percent since 2011.
To those of us who have warned about the growing liberalization of the use of marijuana, from so-called “medical marijuana” to recreational abuse of the Schedule I drug, the results of the index are all too predictable.
It is also not surprising that none of the major organizations that push for pot legalization and decriminalization of marijuana have written major stories about the Quest Diagnostics report.
The more people use marijuana, the more likely it is that those who work and are subject to testing will pop positive for marijuana, even in safety-sensitive jobs. Think about that next time you hop on an airplane, ride Amtrak, or go about your daily life thinking everyone is focused on their job and your safety.
-------------- Charles “Cully” Stimson is a leading expert in national security, homeland security, crime control, immigration and drug policy at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and the Center for National Defense. Tags:Study Confirms, Marijuana Use, Up Drastically, Workforce, medical marijuana, recreational abuse To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Dr. Chuck Baldwin: As debates go, it was a thrashing: Donald Trump totally dominated the second presidential debate, as Hillary Clinton was reeling on the ropes from the very beginning. Trump did very poorly in the first debate, as I noted in this column. But he was obviously much better prepared for this second debate, and it showed. Hillary was beaten so badly, a majority of the major news media actually STOPPED polling shortly after Hillary’s embarrassing performance because respondents were giving Trump a landslide victory, and they didn’t want to be forced to report it.
Trump finally brought up Benghazi and did a much better job of talking about Hillary’s criminality in destroying emails after she had been subpoenaed by Congress to produce them. He also courageously made a commitment to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary’s obvious criminal conduct if he is elected President. That was a bold move and must have sent shock waves throughout the political establishments of both major parties. I hope it also put a little bit of the fear of God in FBI Director James Comey, as he has become party to the Clinton cover-up with his refusal to press charges against her.
Trump boldly stated his support for the Second Amendment, which forced Hillary to publicly defend her support for more gun control. He reiterated his support for the right to life of unborn babies, which forced Hillary to defend her pro-abortion position. And for the first time, I heard Donald Trump actually make a statement in support of the U.S. Constitution. And, of course, he continued pushing his economic positions of reduced taxes and less government regulation. He also continued hammering the so-called free trade deals like NAFTA and TPP.
Donald also did a great job of pointing out that Russia, Syria, and Iran are the ones that are truly fighting ISIS and that we should acknowledge it and support them in it. I don’t know that any other presidential candidate, Republican or Democrat, has or would ever admit that (except for Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan, of course). I give Trump big kudos for that one.
But the thing that sent Hillary reeling against the ropes was Trump’s courageous statement regarding Bill Clinton’s long history of abuse against women (including several alleged rapes) and Hillary’s culpability in providing cover for her husband’s abuse. Along with pressing the criminal cover-up in her deleted emails--and her culpability in the deaths of American soldiers and the American ambassador in Benghazi--the subject of both Clintons’ long history of abuse of women knocked Hillary for a loop. She never recovered.
The thing I continue to dislike about Trump, however, is his emphatic and continual support for what, in essence, is a burgeoning Police State in this country. His “stop and frisk” proposals and his repeated calls for religious profiling and increased police intrusions into privacy are a direct violation of the Fourth Amendment and portends further police abuse under a Trump administration. Unfortunately, this plays WELL to most conservatives and Christians.
People on the “right” have a HUGE blind spot when it comes to Fourth Amendment issues and all things “law and order.” On this issue, the Republican nominee could have been ANY of the contenders (excepting Rand Paul), and it would not have changed a thing. Republicans are notoriously anemic on the Fourth Amendment. If Republicans understood the Fourth amendment like they do the Second Amendment, America wouldn’t be staring a Police State in the face the way we are. And while the late Supreme Court justice, Antonin Scalia (the man Trump uses as the model for his future Supreme Court picks), was terrific on the Second Amendment and life issues, he was very inconsistent (sometimes even terrible) on Fourth Amendment issues.
Without a doubt, however, this was Donald Trump’s finest public showing.
BUT…
There is a much larger issue that I am compelled to address. And, unfortunately, it is an issue that hardly anyone else is willing to talk about. So, what I say from this point on is probably going to make me very unpopular in many circles. So be it. It MUST be said.
What Donald Trump was recorded as saying eleven years ago is disgustingly repulsive to anyone who has a moral compass. And there should be NO defending it. Yes, Trump was willing to publicly apologize for what he said; and I give him credit for that. None of us is perfect. Certainly not me, and not you either. Regardless, that does nothing to change the seriousness of the situation. (And, no, I’m not overlooking the fact that the release of this recording was timed by the establishment to do optimum damage to Trump’s campaign; and it is also a fact that the establishment has damaging evidence against a variety of politicians--including the Clintons--that it withholds from the public. The hypocrisy of the establishment class is massive.)
And the seriousness of the situation completely transcends this election and even what Trump was recorded saying. Sadly, the ONLY thing people can focus on or talk about is the election. What Donald Trump’s behavior implies is never brought up--except by people who merely want to use it as a political ploy to help Hillary get elected.
Please bear with me, and let me explain.
Both sides of the political aisle are equally culpable in the destruction of our national character. Even “Christians” are caught up with political partisanship and are unwilling to address the underlying principles that are being sacrificed on the altar of an election.
I constantly hear conservative and Christian personalities excusing Donald Trump’s immoral lifestyle with a flippant comparison to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s immoral lifestyles. To be sure, it would be difficult for anyone to get any lower in the moral sewer than the Clintons. But is that our standard?
Let’s face the truth: Donald Trump has lived most of his adult life indulging in rampant narcissistic behavior. It is no wonder Donald has had so many marriages and divorces. In fact, if Trump is elected, he will be the first President in U.S. history who has had multiple failed marriages. The only other President to have had a divorce (one) was Ronald Reagan. Obviously, Trump would not be the only President to have bedded other women: including the obvious Bill Clinton, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Woodrow Wilson, James Garfield, Grover Cleveland, Warren G. Harding, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
But, to me, the current crisis is NOT Trump’s admitted immoralities; it is the lack of a moral conscience by society itself--including and especially by our “Christian” society.
I’ll say it straight out: our culture is in the toilet.
Granted, people are frail creatures: ALL OF US. We often come up short. The Bible itself is replete with examples of how even some of God’s finest men and women fell short. And pride, arrogance, and judgmentalism are things that surely sicken God. The Pharisees prided themselves in being moral puritans, but Jesus condemned them FAR WORSE than those who had been guilty of fleshly sins. So, God forbid that what I am saying here be taken in such a light.
That being said, the glaring problem uncovered by the serial adulteries of both Donald Trump and Bill Clinton is the way our culture has come to promote and accept the sexual objectification of women. Our society is eaten up with it.
Hugh Hefner’s playboy revolution of the sixties and forward has caused women to be seen as little more than sex objects. Everywhere one looks, women are treated as sex objects by our culture. Television commercials, television programs, billboards, sporting events, magazines, Hollywood movies, and even many “churches” are guilty of promoting such a culture. FOX News has turned news casting into the flaunting exploitation of women. I dare say that the modern feminist movement would never have come into existence without the flagrant and repeated sexual exploitation of women by narcissistic men. No, what Donald Trump did was not “just talk.” It was part of an entire culture dominated by the sexual exploitation of women.
What Donald Trump and Bill Clinton have done is bad enough. But what is worse is the way people make excuses for them. People on the left (including the media) completely ignore Bill’s exploitation of women, and people on the right (including Christians) completely ignore Donald’s exploitation of women. (Yes, I understand the difference between forced sex and complicit sex, and in this regard, the sins of Bill Clinton are far greater.) The only thing either side is concerned about is winning an election. Neither side is the least bit concerned about what the sexual objectification of women has done to women and to our country as a whole.
Neither does either side seem to be concerned about what this continual sexual exploitation of women is doing to the young women and girls of our country. These young women and girls see the constant promotion of nudity or semi-nudity of women and grow up with the impression that the only way for them to be popular or liked is to join in. Other young women and girls wrongly compare themselves to what they see being flaunted before them, which causes them to develop deep inferiority complexes--all being predicated on a phony, manufactured and degraded cultural standard of what “beauty” should look like. The damage being caused our young women and girls by our culture’s sexual objectification of women is incalculable.
And let me hasten to add: I see a BIG difference in the playboy lifestyle of a Trump or Clinton and the way others have had to endure separation for reasons known and understood only by God. No matter what the Pharisees among us say, not every divorce is created equal. Some people have a tendency to judgmentally lump every act of divorce into the same category; and that is very unfair. The Scriptures make a big distinction between those who fall into an act of immorality or those who must make decisions about love and marriage due to uncontrollable circumstances (I Corinthians 7) and those who are sexual predators. For example, there is a big difference in Holy Writ between the woman taken in adultery in Jesus’ time and the sexual predator sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, or the blessings of God upon Job with a second wife and family.
In reality, Donald Trump and the Clintons are mostly a reflection of what our society has become.
All of that said, however, if Donald Trump should be elected President (and at this point I think he will be unless the powers that be are able to somehow rig the elections, which is certainly possible), I pray that early on in his administration he will use the Bully Pulpit of his office to recall his past debauchery and use it as an example (and he has done this for other things such as the bankruptcy laws and tax laws that allow the wealthy to evade taxes) of how degraded our culture has become and then subsequently launch a national campaign to lead the men of America to stop the sexual exploitation of our women and give them back lives that are free of a societal condition that, in effect, has made them unwitting slaves to a double standard that no one should be forced to live under. If he would do that, he could possibly become the greatest President since Thomas Jefferson--providing he also casts off his seeming infatuation with a Police State, of course.
------------- Dr. Chuck Baldwin is the Pastor of Liberty Fellowship in Kalispell, Montana. Dr. Baldwin is Talk Radio Show Host for Chuck Baldwin Live.” He addresses current event topics from a conservative Christian point of view.and is a writer/columnist whose articles and political commentaries are carried by a host of Internet sites, newspapers, news magazines and the ARRA News Service. Tags:Chuck Baldwin, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Second Debate, Biblical Standards for GovernmentTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Michael Medved: I’ve always wanted to see a star-studded, big-screen treatment of the life of Franklin Pierce, arguably the worst president in American history. With movie star good looks before movies even existed, Pierce ranks with JFK as the chief executive whose striking appearance most impressed his contemporaries. Pierce looked splendid in his uniform as a general in the Mexican War, though his problems with alcohol led critics to dismiss him as “hero of many a well-fought bottle.” The hopelessly deadlocked 1852 Democratic convention produced his surprise nomination, but before moving into the White House he saw his only surviving son perish in a gruesome train wreck. This experience left his wife a half-mad recluse while President Pierce drank heavily and made disastrous decisions that led inexorably toward Civil War.
Okay, that movie probably won’t happen. But plenty of films about presidents have been made. Here are the five best.
1. Lincoln (2012) - Fortunately, Honest Abe took over the White House just four years after Pierce left, and Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln counts as the most satisfying film ever made about any U.S. president. In his Oscar-winning performance, Daniel Day Lewis transforms the familiar, marble-monument figure into a character of unfamiliar passion, depth, and even vulnerability. Sally Field is so well cast as Mary Todd Lincoln and David Strathairn so persuasive as Secretary of State William Henry Seward that they make these two major figures of Lincoln’s life more sympathetic than they’ve ever appeared in history that’s merely written. Above all, Spielberg’s rich, lyrical masterpiece counts as a love letter to American politics, in all its shabbiness and grandeur, as the president wheels and deals to pass the Thirteenth Amendment to end slavery.
2. John Adams (2008) - No rating of chief executives would place John Adams at Lincoln’s level, but the second president nonetheless received epic treatment in HBO’s eight-hour miniseries. John Adams covers its subject’s incalculable contributions to revolution and independence, without undue focus on his single, turbulent, and mostly frustrating term as president. Paul Giamatti captures the hero’s truculence, brilliance, and stubborn nobility, while Laura Linney as Abigail drives home the point that you don’t have to qualify as the greatest president to have experienced the greatest American love story.
3. Give ’em Hell, Harry! (1975) - This film can’t compare to Lincoln or John Adams in terms of epic sweep or historical recreations, but it stands in a class of its own as a riveting character study and display of transcendent acting ability. James Whitmore toured the country in a triumphant one-man stage show, and producers Bill Sargent and Joseph E. Bluth filmed a Seattle performance of that unforgettable theatrical event. The resulting movie won an Oscar nomination for Whitmore and left audiences feeling all the immediacy of live theater or, even better, of a private visit to the White House for an intimate chat with President Truman. Whitmore speaks directly to the audience and to other historical characters who never appear on stage. All the controversies of an embattled, eventful administration (including the dropping of the A-bomb, McCarthyism, recognition of Israel, and the allegedly doomed campaign against Thomas Dewey) present the main character as a decent, unshakable example of down-to-earth Americanism.
4. The Missiles of October (1974) - The year before Give ’em Hell, Harry! earned well-deserved Academy Award attention, a stunningly effective docudrama electrified audiences on ABC-TV. The Missiles of October offered two-and-a-half hours of masterful storytelling in covering the thirteen days of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, in which the United States and the Soviet Union came closer than ever before (or ever since) to thermonuclear annihilation. With William Devane as President John F. Kennedy and the young Martin Sheen as Attorney General Robert Kennedy, the television play shows the leaders of the Camelot era agonizing to defend America’s place in the world while still avoiding war. The focus on high-level strategy meetings inside the White House never becomes claustrophobic thanks to the quality of the acting and the brilliance of the script (by Stanley R. Greenberg, based on a book by RFK).
5. Sunrise at Campobello (1960) - Ralph Bellamy, another member of the Missiles of October cast (he played UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson), had a prior brush with presidential greatness when he starred as Franklin Roosevelt in Sunrise at Campobello. This sentimental if irresistible story of FDR’s struggle to overcome the paralysis that suddenly afflicted him on a family vacation in 1921 also stars the luminous Greer Garson as Eleanor. The real Mrs. Roosevelt actually visited the set, no doubt pleased to see the glamorous actress bringing more elegance and serenity to her role in the movie than the actual First Lady could muster for her role in the White House. Franz Waxman wrote the stirring, and suitably soupy, musical score.
If Ralph Bellamy served as an effective FDR, it’s worth noting that Bill Murray emphatically did not: his role as a randy Roosevelt in Hyde Park on Hudson (2012) stands as one of the worst examples of presidential miscasting. Another instance thrust the fleshy, gravel-voiced Nick Nolte into the part of the sleek, slender aristocrat Thomas Jefferson in the well-intentioned but disappointing Jefferson in Paris in 1995. As I commented at the time, casting Nolte as Jefferson because they both had vaguely southern accents would be the equivalent of asking Pee Wee Herman to play James Madison because they shared small stature.
At times, however, asking contemporary entertainers to fill presidential shoes can work better than expected. Even the strange notion of a blustery TV reality star credibly occupying the Oval Office can, on occasion, win more than its share of positive reviews.
--------------- Michael Medved is a film critic and historian. He hosts a daily, nationally syndicated radio talk show. His latest book, The American Miracle: Divine Providence in the Rise of the Republic, will be published in November. H/T Intercollegiate Review (IR) who shared this article with the editor. IR is published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) and is dedicated to advancing the principles that make America free, virtuous, and prosperous. Tags:Michael Medved, 5 Best Movie Presidents, Intercollegiate Review, Intercollegiate, Studies InstituteTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Judicial Watch -- Reported on APRIL 07, 2014: In abillions vanished from the U.S. State Department mostly while Hillary Clinton ran it, according to a new alert issued by the agency’s inspector general.
mind-boggling example of how the government blows—or perhaps steals—our tax dollars,
Could the former Secretary of State be using the cash to fund an upcoming presidential campaign? In all, $6 billion are missing and it’s highly unlikely any of the money will ever be recovered. The cash was supposed to be used to pay contractors but it just disappeared and documents that could help track the dough cannot be located. How convenient! The paper trail, which federal law says must be maintained in the case of government contracts, has been destroyed or was never created to begin with.
How could this possibly happen? Like a lot of government agencies, outside contracts are a free-for-all at the State Department with virtually no oversight. Hundreds of millions of dollars are doled out annually for a variety of services and no one bothers to follow up on the deals. This “exposes the department to significant financial risk,” according to the State Department Inspector General, which issued a special management alert this month outlining the lost $6 billion. The watchdog further writes that “it creates conditions conducive to fraud, as corrupt individuals may attempt to conceal evidence of illicit behavior by omitting key documents from the contract file.”
Among the examples listed in the memo is a recent investigation of the closeout process for contracts involving the U.S. mission in Iraq. Investigators could not locate 33 of the 115 contract files totaling approximately $2.1 billion. Even of the files they found, more than half contained insufficient documents required by federal law. In one billion-dollar deal involving the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement in Afghanistan, the actual contract was determined to be “incomplete.”
In one alarming case a contract file conveniently omitted that a $52 million deal was awarded to a company owned by the spouse of another State Department contractor employee performing as a specialist. In other cited cases a contracting officer actually falsified government technical review information in a $100 million deal and a contracting officer’s representative allowed nearly $800,000 to be paid on a deal with no official documents to support the payment. It’s the free-flow of public funds under extremely suspicious circumstances.
At the very least the State Department is violating its own policy, according to the inspector general, which divulges that it’s found “repeated examples of poor contract file administration over the years.” The watchdog confirms that “it is the Department’s policy that all contracts, regardless of dollar value, be properly documented so as to provide complete record of: pre-solicitation activities; the solicitation, evaluation, and award process; and [sic] the administration of the contract through closeout.”
This unbelievable report documenting the mysterious disappearance of $6 billion from the coffers of a major government agency brings to mind a similar and equally enraging story reported by Judicial Watch a few years ago. The Pentagon somehow lost $6.6 billion sent to Iraq for post-invasion “reconstruction.”
The money was bundled in chunks of $100 bills and transported in turboprop military cargo planes known as C-130 Hercules. About $2.4 billion fit in each aircraft and 21 flights made trips, transporting a total of $12 billion in American currency to Iraq. More than half the money has never been recovered, according to the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.
A year later nearly half a billion dollars in oil destined for the Afghan National Army vanished. We will never know what happened because the Pentagon improperly shredded records that could have solved the mystery, according to a federal audit that exposed the fraud. The oil was part of a $1 billion fuel program largely funded by the U.S. government, which of course, means it was mostly Americans who saw their tax dollars blown in yet another government corruption scheme.
Waste and fraud are par for the course in most bloated government agencies and JW has exposed a number of alarming examples over the years, both domestically and internationally. They involve practically all agencies, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) scandal-plagued food-stamp program, Medicare and Medicaid, the famously corrupt U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and President Obama’s fraud-infested $787 billion stimulus boondoggle, to name a few. Tags:Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, State Department, $6 billion, vanished, GOA Report, Judicial WatchTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Sources: FBI, DOJ Furious that Comey, Lynch Decided to Let Clinton off the Hook
by Debra Heine: Three months after FBI Director James Comey's dramatic press conference announcing his decision not to recommend an indictment in the Clinton email case, disgusted FBI agents who worked on the investigation are finally beginning to speak out anonymously about the decision.
Comey told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on July 7 that the decision was unanimous among the investigative team, but a person who was closely involved in the year-long probe told Fox News it was the other way around. According to the source, "career agents and attorneys on the case unanimously believed the Democratic presidential nominee should have been charged."The source, who spoke to FoxNews.com on the condition of anonymity, said FBI Director James Comey’s dramatic July 5 announcement that he would not recommend to the Attorney General’s office that the former secretary of state be charged left members of the investigative team dismayed and disgusted. More than 100 FBI agents and analysts worked around the clock with six attorneys from the DOJ’s National Security Division, Counter Espionage Section, to investigate the case.
“No trial level attorney agreed, no agent working the case agreed, with the decision not to prosecute -- it was a top-down decision,” said the source, whose identity and role in the case has been verified by FoxNews.com.Another source -- a high-ranking FBI official -- told Fox News that it may not have been a unanimous decision, but “it was unanimous that we all wanted her [Clinton’s] security clearance yanked.” He also said, contra James Comey, that a the majority of the agents who worked on the case did want to see her indicted.
“It is safe to say the vast majority felt she should be prosecuted,” the senior FBI official said. “We were floored while listening to the FBI briefing because Comey laid it all out, and then said ‘but we are doing nothing,’ which made no sense to us.”
It made no sense to the public, either.
Comey tried to quash dissension in the ranks with an internal memo to FBI employees last month, explaining that the decision to forgo criminal charges in the investigation was not even a close call.
"At the end of the day, the case itself was not a cliff-hanger; despite all the chest-beating by people no longer in government, there really wasn't a prosecutable case," Comey wrote in the memo. "The hard part was whether to offer unprecedented transparency about our thinking."
Andrew Napolitano, a former judge and senior judicial analyst for Fox News, says that the law enforcement agents he talks to regarding the case are furious.“It is well known that the FBI agents on the ground, the human beings who did the investigative work, had built an extremely strong case against Hillary Clinton and were furious when the case did not move forward,” said Napolitano. “They believe the decision not to prosecute came from The White House.”
The claim also is backed up by a report in the New York Post this week, which quotes a number of veteran FBI agents saying FBI Director James Comey “has permanently damaged the bureau’s reputation for uncompromising investigations with his cowardly whitewash of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information using an unauthorized private email server.”
“The FBI has politicized itself, and its reputation will suffer for a long time. I hold Director Comey responsible,” Dennis V. Hughes, the first chief of the FBI’s computer investigations unit, told the Post. Retired FBI agent Michael M. Biasello added to the report, saying, “Comey has singlehandedly ruined the reputation of the organization.”
Especially angering the team, which painstakingly pieced together deleted emails and interviewed witnesses to prove that sensitive information was left unprotected, was the fact that Comey based his decision on a conclusion that a recommendation to charge would not be followed by DOJ prosecutors, even though the bureau’s role was merely to advise, Fox News was told.
“Basically, James Comey hijacked the DOJ’s role by saying ‘no reasonable prosecutor would bring this case,’” the Fox News source said. “The FBI does not decide who to prosecute and when, that is the sole province of a prosecutor -- that never happens.
“I know zero prosecutors in the DOJ’s National Security Division who would not have taken the case to a grand jury,” the source added. “One was never even convened.”
Napolitano agreed, saying the FBI investigation was hampered from the beginning, because there was no grand jury, and no search warrants or subpoenas issued.
“The FBI could not seize anything related to the investigation, only request things. As an example, in order to get the laptop, they had to agree to grant immunity,” Napolitano said.Fox News's source said it became clear that the investigation would go nowhere when the FBI forced the agents and analysts involved in the case to sign non-disclosure agreements.
“This is unheard of, because of the stifling nature it has on the investigative process,” the source said. Also unheard of were the five immunity agreements granted to Clinton’s State Department aides and IT experts.Cheryl Mills, Clinton's former chief of staff, along with two other State Department staffers, John Bentel and Heather Samuelson, were afforded immunity agreements, as was Bryan Pagliano, Clinton's former IT aide, and Paul Combetta, an employee at Platte River networks, the firm hired to manage her server after she left the State Department."No one should have been granted immunity if no charges were being brought," the source said.
Then there was Mills’ dual role as Clinton’s attorney and a witness in the case which should never have been tolerated.“Mills was allowed to sit in on the interview of Clinton as her lawyer. That's absurd. Someone who is supposedly cooperating against the target of an investigation [being] permitted to sit by the target as counsel violates any semblance of ethical responsibility,” the source said.
“Every agent and attorney I have spoken to is embarrassed and has lost total respect for James Comey and Loretta Lynch,” the source said. “The bar for DOJ is whether the evidence supports a case for charges -- it did here. It should have been taken to the grand jury.”
Also infuriating agents, the New York Post reported, was the fact that Clinton’s interview spanned just 3½ hours with no follow-up questioning, despite her “40 bouts of amnesia,” and then, three days later, Comey cleared her of criminal wrongdoing.Many FBI and DOJ staffers have concluded that Comey and Lynch were motivated by ambition and not justice, according to the source.
“Loretta Lynch simply wants to stay on as attorney general under Clinton, so there is no way she would indict,” the source said. “James Comey thought his position [excoriating Clinton even as he let her off the hook] gave himself cover to remain on as director regardless of who wins.”
Early in the year, former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova and other conservative politicos predicted that members of the FBI would "revolt" if charges were not brought against Mrs. Clinton.
DiGenova said in January of 2016 that “vitriol of an intense amount” was developing among the intelligence community and they would “fight to the death” to make sure Hillary and her staff faced justice for mishandling classified information. According to two of his sources in the FBI, they were already in the process of "gearing themselves to basically revolt if she refuses to bring charges.”
Talk is cheap. Especially anonymous talk to reporters less than a month before an election. The country is still waiting for this vaunted FBI revolt to take place.
Maybe Comey and Lynch aren't the only ones motivated by ambition.
--------------- Debra Heine is a Catholic, mom of six and long time political pundit. She has written for PJ Media and several blogs including her own, Nice Deb! Tags:FBI, DOJ, Furious, Jamest Comey, Loretta Lynch, Hillary Clinton, off the Hook, >Debra Heine. PJ MediaTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
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by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: Just gave a fiver to a sixth grader . . . to help the public schools.
