The Trump Transition

by Newt Gingrich: The same media that misrepresented and lied about Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is now misrepresenting and lying about his presidential transition.

The press would have Americans believe that the project is in disarray because Vice President-elect Mike Pence has taken charge, replacing Governor Chris Christie, who shepherded the project through the campaign.

This should not be surprising to anyone, however. The President-elect and the Vice President-elect have finished campaigning, and it is natural that they shift their focus to governing. The immediate task of governing is the transition.

In naming his running mate to manage the effort, President-elect Trump follows the same path as George W. Bush, who put Dick Cheney in charge of the transition after winning in 2000.

The media also suggests, absurdly, that the transition is behind schedule because President-elect Trump has not yet announced his major cabinet picks. Yet, as Fox News reports, Trump appears set to name his key cabinet nominees earlier than most of his predecessors.

President Obama did not announce his first cabinet pick until three weeks after his election, and he announced most names more than a month after his election.

President George W. Bush did not announce his first cabinet pick until six weeks after his election. Neither did Bill Clinton. Nor Ronald Reagan.

On Wednesday I had the honor to meet with Vice President-elect Pence at the transition headquarters in Washington. We had a great conversation, and I can report that they are making real and steady progress, not just in selecting cabinet officials but also in developing a plan for the administration’s first 100 days and beyond.

And the Vice President-elect is the perfect person to oversee this effort. He has served as a member of the senior leadership team in Congress and as governor of Indiana—a position which required him to direct a similar, if much smaller, transition of executive power.

It was clear from our conversation that President-elect Trump is deeply engaged in the process—just as Americans would expect from a CEO who has taken a hands-on approach to running his international business empire.

I was encouraged by the seriousness and energy of the entire transition team. Americans should expect an administration ready to hit the ground running with aggressive reforms in January 2017—which is exactly what they voted for.
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Newt Gingrich is a former Georgia Congressman and Speaker of the U.S. House. He co-authored and was the chief architect of the "Contract with America" and a major leader in the Republican victory in the 1994 congressional elections. He is noted speaker and writer. The above commentary was shared via Gingrich Productions.

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Trump's First Picks, Obama Encourages Demonstrators, Bannon Backfire, Real Anti-Semitism

Andrew Breitbart and Steve Bannon
Jewish and Irish Catholic
Colleagues and Hollywood Friends
The left hated Brietbart
The left hates Bannon

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Trump's First Picks - The Trump Transition team announced its first cabinet picks this morning.

• Senator Jeff Sessions, a stalwart conservative from Alabama, has been selected to be attorney general.
  
  Sessions has been a leading critic of Barack Obama's "pen and phone" governing style and his barrage of executive orders. Trump's selection of Sen. Sessions is further evidence of his intention to secure the border.
  
  Jeff Sessions was the first member of the Senate to endorse Donald Trump for president. When many Republicans were abandoning Trump, Sessions stood by him and encouraged him.
  
  I have known Sen. Sessions for many years. While I will miss his leadership in the Senate, especially on border security issues, Sessions is an incredible choice for attorney general and he will have considerable input in the selection of federal judges. Conservatives could not hope for a stronger advocate at the Department of Justice.
• Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn will serve as National Security Advisor. Flynn may be a registered Democrat, but he understands the threat America faces from radical Islam. CAIR and other groups on the left are fuming over his appointment.
• Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) has been selected to lead the CIA. Pompeo is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and Harvard Law School, and currently serves on the House Intelligence Committee. He is one of the leading critics of the Iranian nuclear deal.

Obama Encourages Demonstrators - Speaking at a press conference in Berlin, Germany, yesterday, President Obama addressed the ongoing demonstrations against the election results. Obama said:"I've been the subject of protests during the course of my eight years. . . So, I would not advise people who feel strongly or who are concerned about some of the issues that have been raised during the course of the campaign, I wouldn't advise them to be silent."Why is it always about him?!  It is outrageous for a sitting president, during a transition of power, to encourage continued protesting. Can you imagine John McCain or Mitt Romney encouraging demonstrations after 2008 or 2012 in which protestors were refusing to accept Obama as president?
The mob's favorite slogan is "Not My President." They aren't protesting over issues because most of those arrested didn't bother to register to vote!

Much to my frustration, I don't recall George W. Bush ever criticizing Obama publicly. I wish he would have spoken up on various occasions, especially when Obama surrendered our hard-won gains in Iraq and capitulated to Iran's nuclear ambitions.

That said, former President Bush has a certain set of values he strongly believes in when it comes to how former presidents should conduct themselves. This president has no such constraints. I give Obama a week after he leaves office before he starts stoking controversy.

Bannon Backfire - The left's efforts to destroy Steve Bannon, the former CEO of the influential Breitbart news outlet, are beginning to backfire. As we have told you before, the politics of personal destruction is a favorite weapon of the left. The acolytes of Saul Alinsky pick a target, polarize it and paralyze it. The left has been smearing conservatives since Ronald Reagan.

In Bannon's case, the charge was anti-Semitism, and the Anti-Defamation League, which is now lead by a former Obama appointee, led the attack. Thankfully, it failed because it was so obviously false.

• Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz condemned the attack on Bannon, saying, "I haven't seen any evidence of personal anti-Semitism on the part of Bannon. . . It is not legitimate to call somebody an anti-Semite because you might disagree with their policies."
• Jewish philanthropist Bernie Marcus defended Bannon, calling the attacks against him scandalous. Marcus added, "I have known Steve to be a passionate Zionist and supporter of Israel who felt so strongly about this that he opened a Breitbart office in Israel to ensure that the true pro-Israel story would get out."
• I noted that Bannon had been a frequent guest on my radio show, which is dedicated to defending Israel and Judeo-Christian values. We have routinely addressed the topic of anti-Semitism and Bannon was always on the right side with me and my co-host, Tom Rose, the former publisher and CEO of the Jerusalem Post.

By the way, the man who founded Breitbart -- Andrew Breitbart -- was a Jew. And would Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's Orthodox Jewish son-in-law, really allow an anti-Semite in the White House?

A few years ago, Bannon delivered a speech at the Vatican in which he attacked the excesses of capitalism while nevertheless offering a robust defense of Western Civilization. He repeatedly referred to "Judeo-Christian" civilization in his remarks.

In the past 24 hours, the Anti-Defamation League has backpedaled somewhat in its attack, conceding that "We are not aware of any anti-Semitic statements made by Bannon himself."

Yesterday, Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer stopped by Trump Tower. When he left, he told reporters, "We look forward to working with . . . all of the members of the Trump Administration, including Steve Bannon, and making the U.S.-Israel alliance stronger than ever."

I hope everyone on the Trump team and all conservatives reading this report understand that the attacks on Bannon aren't about him. They are attacks on Donald Trump.

The people attacking Bannon lost the election and they were the same people attacking Trump before the election. They are still trying to damage Trump as he prepares to take office by taking out one of his most aggressive advocates.

Real Anti-Semitism - Among the many issues we will be pressing hard in the new year is convincing the new administration to stop funding international bodies that undermine Israel. One example is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Dr. Moshe Kantor, president of the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation, has an informative article in Newsweek that I encourage you to read. He notes that UNESCO is supposed to "promote international cooperation and understanding." Instead it is being used "as a weapon . . . to wage a cultural war."

That international body recently passed a resolution that referred to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall solely by their Islamic names. As Dr. Kantor explains, "This is not just an affront to millions of Jews around the world, it is also a denial of Christian history and is deeply offensive to over a billion Christians worldwide."

Why would we support this attack on the West with our tax dollars? Every dollar saved can be better used to fight radical Islam or secure our borders. There is no reason to support U.N. bureaucrats who want to see the entire nation of Israel wiped off the map.
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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, Trump's First Picks, Obama Encourages Demonstrators, Bannon Backfire, Real Anti-Semitism To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Steve Bannon, #School Choice - Civil Rights Hero . . .

. . . School choice is now a presidential priority. It could never have happened without Steve Bannon.

by David Horowitz, Contributing Author: Many have called school choice – the movement to liberate African American youngsters from the failed schools that don’t teach them – the “civil rights movement of the 21st Century. Donald Trump is one of those who do, but it was Steve Bannon, the CEO of Trump’s presidential campaign, who put it on Trump’s radar and made it a centerpiece of Trumps “New Deal for Black America.”

I happen to know this because I was responsible for drawing Bannon’s attention to it in the first place. I bring this up now, not to draw attention to anything I have done, but to defend a man who has been viciously and baselessly portrayed as a “white nationalist” and “racist,” who has put himself on the line for black America in a way that few others have.

The attempt by desperate, hysterical and malicious voices on the left to isolate, stigmatize and silence Steve Bannon as a “white nationalist,” is despicable, not least because that is the very last thing he is.

“School choice” is a term to describe the provision of scholarships to poor children who are trapped in inner city public schools where year in and year out nearly half of them fail to graduate and the half who do are functionally illiterate and unable to function in a modern economy. These scholarships or “vouchers” would allow poor children to take the tuition that taxpayers already provide, and use it in a school, private or religious, that would actually teach them.

Vouchers are absolutely vital to opening the doors of opportunity to millions of poor black and Hispanic children – and poor white children as well. Democrats are fiercely opposed to vouchers because giving parents the power to choose would break the Democrats’ monopoly, undermine the lock that teacher unions have on the public schools, and threaten the slush fund that the unions provide to the Democratic Party. At the same time, Democrats – the Obamas and Clintons prominent among them – send their own children to private schools where they know they will get a decent education.

Republicans have long proposed voucher systems. But their proposals have failed because of the myopia and timidity that characterizes the Republican establishment. The voucher amounts they propose are too small – far less than an actual tuition – and the programs too modest to gain public attention and therefore support. Sixteen years ago, to get around this deficiency, I proposed to the top advisors of the Bush presidential campaign that they announce a $100 billion voucher program for inner city children. They passed on it. I also got my friend Congressman James Rogan to draw up a bill to do the same. It went nowhere.

Then Donald Trump came along and made my friend Steve Miller his chief policy advisor and my friend Steve Bannon the CEO of his presidential campaign. So I put a voucher proposal on their desks, stressing that it had to be more than $100 billion so the press couldn’t ignore it, and that it had to provide a tuition equivalent to what taxpayers were already paying to the public schools for not teaching their students.

Steve Bannon gave it the green light and Steve Miller went to work on the details. Under Bannon’s guidance, it soon appeared in a Trump speech in Cleveland as a $130 billion scholarship program for inner city youth. “As your president,” Trump announced, “I will become the nation’s biggest cheerleader for school choice.” Under Bannon’s guidance again it became the centerpiece of Donald Trump’s “New Deal for Black America,” which also included making black neighborhoods safe and bringing jobs to the inner city.

I can’t say enough about Donald Trump and his general, Steve Bannon, for getting behind a plan to liberate the children of the inner cities.

I had spent the last sixteen years banging my head against the stone wall of the Republican Party trying to persuade congressmen, senators, and the Bush White House of the importance and urgency of such a plan. But my pleas fell on deaf ears.

The school choice movement had been wandering in the wilderness for want of national leadership even longer. Millions of inner city children had been lost in those years for want of a decent education. Now the wall had come down, and there was a real prospect for something to be done.

School choice is now a presidential priority. It could never have happened without Steve Bannon. It could never have happened without someone in a position like Steve’s who cared about what happened to inner city children and who was willing to put his weight behind a program this ambitious, which no other Republican would touch.

When the history of the 21st Century civil rights movement is written Steve Bannon’s name will have a special place in its pantheon of heroes.
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David Horowitz is founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center (formerly the Center for the Study of Popular Culture), FrontPage Mag, and author of many books and pamphlets published over the last twenty years. Horowitz was a left-minded radical who transitioned over his life into a conservative. Yet despite the effort of the left "to deprecate and diminish him, Horowitz has succeeded in his main task of exposing the left's agenda and decoding the way it seeks to control American culture and politics." (The Life and Work of David Horowitz) He is a Contributing Author of the ARRA News Service and also shared article on Breitbart.com.

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Some Labor Regulations Trump Can Cut Right Away

The Federal Register now amounts to nearly 80,000 pages of rules.
But new President Donald Trump can make a dent in the mountain
 of rules as soon as he enters office. ~ Nathan Mehrens

by Nathan Mehrens: Donald Trump's election to be the 45th president of the United States means that many of President Obama's regulatory actions in the labor and employment field will likely be slated for reform or complete rescission.

Trump campaigned on regulatory reform and specifically stated that he would "require each federal agency to prepare a list of all of the regulations they impose on American business, and rank them from most critical to health and safety to least critical. Least critical regulations will receive priority consideration for repeal."

Here are a few actions that have recently been imposed on business, are in the "least critical" category above, and should be considered for immediate rescission.

The U.S. Department of Labor's "persuader" regulation should be high on the list. This regulation requires public reporting of many types of services that lawyers provide to employers. The regulation makes it much harder for employers to obtain legal advice and to stay out of legal trouble.

This regulation is the subject of a permanent nationwide injunction that was issued by a U.S. District Court in Texas on Nov. 16. An appeal of this injunction by the Obama administration is likely as they have already appealed the preliminary injunction in the case. A final resolution of appeals is not likely to occur before the end of the Obama administration. The Trump administration should end any appeals in process after the inauguration on Jan. 20 and abide by the holding of the district court.

Another Labor Department action, the "blacklisting" regulation, adds an estimated $454 million to the cost of doing business for federal contractors. The regulation requires federal contractors to compile and report on a range of enforcement activity against them. The department all but said that the regulation was unnecessary, but pushed ahead regardless. This regulation and a guidance document come as a result of Executive Order 13673 that was issued by President Obama on July 31, 2014. Upon taking office, President Trump could rescind the order.

This regulation is also in litigation in another U.S. District Court in Texas and is also currently the subject of a preliminary injunction.

Other actions affecting employers, and that have caused them problems, could be reversed with an executive order or a change in enforcement policy. Among these are many actions taken by the Labor Department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance (OFCCP).

The OFCCP has pursued actions against federal contractors for having too many or too few employees with a particular skin color or ethnicity. In many of these cases, the OFCCP has not alleged any wrongdoing, but instead claims discrimination because they believe the racial composition of the employer's workforce does not match that of the surrounding geographic area or applicant pool.

In some instances, the OFCCP has alleged that the employer discriminated by giving preference to Asians and Pacific Islanders, and in other instances they have alleged the employer was discriminating against Asians.

These allegations, while publicly described as wrongdoing, are actually built on statistical models. Due to the high cost of defending against such allegations, many companies simply settle to make the matter go away.

One such company was FedEx. In their statement they stated, "While we admitted no wrongdoing and believe the DOL's position was not supported by the law, we agreed to pay $3 million to avoid what would have been certainly a prolonged and much more expensive resolution process." This, to fend off allegations that "were based on computer statistical analysis rather than on individual complaints or investigations."

These are just a sampling of the many regulatory challenges that will face the Trump Administration. In order to fulfill the president-elect's vision to remove strangling regulations, these and many other areas should be carefully examined with an eye toward rescinding the harmful regulatory activity of the last several years.
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Nathan Mehrens is ALG General Counsel and President of Americans for Limited Government Foundation. His article was first shared on Investor's Business Daily.

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Is Obama’s World a Utopian Myth?

Myth Vs Reality

by Patrick Buchanan: Speaking in Greece on his valedictory trip to Europe as president, Barack Obama struck a familiar theme: “(W)e are going to have to guard against a rise in a crude form of nationalism, or ethnic identity, or tribalism that is built around an ‘us’ and a ‘them’ …

“(T)he future of humanity and the future of the world is going to be defined by what we have in common, as opposed to those things that separate us and ultimately lead us into conflict.”

That the world’s great celebrant of “diversity” envisions an even more multicultural, multiethnic, multiracial America and Europe is not news. This dream has animated his presidency.

But in this day of Brexit and president-elect Donald Trump new questions arise. Is Obama’s vision a utopian myth? Have leaders like him and Angela Merkel lost touch with reality? Are not they the ones who belong to yesterday, not tomorrow?

“Crude nationalism,” as Obama said, did mark that “bloodiest” of centuries, the 20th. But nationalism has also proven to be among mankind’s most powerful, beneficial and enduring forces.

You cannot wish it away. To do that is to deny history, human nature and the transparent evidence of one’s own eyes.

A sense of nationhood — “I am not a Virginian, but an American,” said Patrick Henry — ignited our revolution.

Nationalism tore apart the “evil empire” of Ronald Reagan’s depiction, liberating Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Romanians and Bulgarians, and breaking apart the Soviet Union into 15 nations.

Was that so terrible for mankind?

Nationalism brought down the Berlin Wall and led to reunification of the German people after 45 years of separation and Cold War.

President George H.W. Bush may have railed against “suicidal nationalism” in Kiev in 1991. But Ukrainians ignored him and voted to secede. Now the Russified minorities of the southeast and the Crimea wish to secede from Ukraine and rejoin the Mother Country.

This is the way of the world.

Out of the carcass of Yugoslavia came Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo. As nationalism called into existence Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, it impelled South Ossetians and Abkhazians to secede from Georgia.

Was it not a sense of peoplehood, of nationhood, that drove the Jews to create Israel in 1948, which today insists that it be recognized as “a Jewish State”?

All over the world, regimes are marshaling the mighty force of ethnonationalism to strengthen and sustain themselves.

With economic troubles looming, Xi Jinping is stirring up Chinese nationalism by territorial disputes with neighbors — to hold together a people who have ceased to believe in the secularist faith of Marxism-Leninism.

With Communism dead, Vladimir Putin invokes the greatness and glory of the Russian past and seeks to revive the Orthodox faith.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan invokes nationalism, Attaturk, the Ottoman Empire, and the Islamic faith of his people, against the Kurds, who dream of a new nation carved out of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.

“So my vision … may not always win the day in the short run,” Obama said in Greece, “but I am confident it will win the day in the long run. Because societies which are able to unify ourselves around values and ideals and character and how we treat each other, and cooperation and innovation, ultimately are going to be more successful than societies that don’t.”

What is wrong with this statement?

It is a utilitarian argument that does not touch the heart. It sounds like a commune, a cooperative, a corporation, as much as it does a country. Moreover, not only most of the world, but even the American people seem to be moving the other way.

Indeed, what values and ideals do we Americans hold in common when Obama spoke in Germany of “darker forces” opposing his trade policies, and Hillary Clinton calls Trump supporters “racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic … bigots.”

Did not the Democrats just run “an us and a them” campaign?

Less and less do we Americans seem to be one country and one people. More and more do we seem to be separating along religious, racial, cultural, political, ideological, social and economic lines.

If a more multicultural, multiethnic America produces greater unity and comity, why have American politics become so poisonous?

Trump’s victory is due in part to his stand for securing the U.S. border against foreigners walking in. Merkel is in trouble in Germany because she brought in almost a million Muslim refugees from Syria.

The nationalist parties that have arisen across Europe are propelled by hostility to more immigration from the Third World.

Outside the cosmopolitan elites of Europe and North America, where in the West is the enthusiasm Obama detects for a greater diversity of races, tribes, religions, cultures and beliefs?

“Who owns the future?” is ever the question.

In 2008, Obama talked of Middle Pennsylvanians as poor losers clinging to their bibles, bigotries and guns as they passed from the scene.

Yet, now, it’s looking like it may be Obama’s world headed for the proverbial ash heap of history.
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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, Obama’s World, Utopian Myth, Myth vs Reality To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

National Debt and Liability

by Kerby Anderson, Contributing Author: During the presidential campaign, we didn’t hear too much from the two candidates about our nation’s debt and liabilities. But we cannot ignore all of this debt and our liabilities. So, let me try to put some of this in perspective.

Our current national debt is around $20 trillion. But you get quite different estimates when you begin to talk about our liabilities. I have seen all sorts of numbers depending on how much you count. Even just adding the liabilities from Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security you end up with an estimate of at least $75 trillion. This is five times America’s GDP.

Other economists put the entitlement liabilities at more than $100 trillion. As large as that number is, it doesn’t include all the state and municipal debt. If you include that debt as well, then the final number is more than $150 trillion. This is twice the total worth of the United States and more than seven times the $20 trillion figure we usually hear from politicians.

How can you put that number into any context? It is difficult to understand this number (150,000,000,000,000) because it is the kind of number we usually find only in a book about astronomy. Even then the number is beyond what we humans can really imagine. It is beyond what we experience on this planet.

Here is one analogy. Imagine you could spend a thousand dollars every second from now going backwards in time. You would run out of money in 2500 BC. That is five centuries before Abraham was even born.

I think we can learn two things from this thought experiment. First, an enormous amount of money is currently kept “off the books.” We owe much more than $20 trillion. Second, the true amount we owe is really beyond our comprehension.
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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, National Debt, Liability To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Reawakening . . .

The Silent Majority, once thought to be long gone or dead, have awaken to vote for Donald Trump.

Editorial Cartoon By AF "Tony" Branco

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Tags: Reawakening, The Silent Majority, awake, vote, Donald Trump, 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!

President-ElectTrump Selects Attorney General, National Security Advisor & CIA Director

Sen, Jeff Sessions, Gen. Michael Flynn & Rep. Mike Pompeo

ARRA News Service: President-elect Donald J. Trump today announced that he intends to nominate U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions to serve as Attorney General and U.S. Rep. Mike Pompeo as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has been selected to be the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions has dedicated his life to public service. He has a distinguished legal career and has served as both the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama and Alabama Attorney General prior to his service in the U.S. Senate. He has been one of President-elect Trump’s trusted advisors on the campaign and will now continue his service as our nation’s chief law enforcement officer.

“It is an honor to nominate U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions to serve as Attorney General of the United States,” said President-elect Trump. “Jeff has been a highly respected member of the U.S. Senate for 20 years. He is a world-class legal mind and considered a truly great Attorney General and U.S. Attorney in the state of Alabama. Jeff is greatly admired by legal scholars and virtually everyone who knows him.”

"I am humbled to have been asked by President-elect Trump to serve as Attorney General of the United States,” said U.S. Senator Sessions. “My previous 15 years working in the Department of Justice were extraordinarily fulfilling. I love the Department, its people and its mission. I can think of no greater honor than to lead them. With the support of my Senate colleagues, I will give all my strength to advance the Department's highest ideals. I enthusiastically embrace President-elect Trump's vision for ‘one America,’ and his commitment to equal justice under law. I look forward to fulfilling my duties with an unwavering dedication to fairness and impartiality."

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, a retired United States Army Lieutenant General and former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, assumes the position of National Security Advisor with a decorated career of more than 35 years in service to our nation. He served as President-elect Trump’s top military advisor during the campaign and will now continue providing expert advice and support to the President-elect as his National Security Advisor.

“I am pleased that Lieutenant General Michael Flynn will be by my side as we work to defeat radical Islamic terrorism, navigate geopolitical challenges and keep Americans safe at home and abroad,” said President-elect Trump. “General Flynn is one of the country’s foremost experts on military and intelligence matters and he will be an invaluable asset to me and my administration.”

"I am deeply humbled and honored to accept the position as National Security Advisor to serve both our country and our nation's next President, Donald J. Trump,” said Lieutenant General Flynn.  Flynn's appointment doesn't require confirmation by the Senate.

Congressman Mike Pompeo, representing Kansas’ Fourth Congressional District, is a former active duty cavalry officer in the U.S. Army, graduated first in his class from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, received his J.D. from Harvard Law School and was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He currently serves on the House Intelligence Committee, which oversees America’s intelligence-gathering efforts.

“I am proud to nominate Congressman Mike Pompeo as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency,” said President-elect Trump. “He has served our country with honor and spent his life fighting for the security of our citizens. Mike graduated number one in his class at West Point and is a graduate of Harvard Law School where he served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He will be a brilliant and unrelenting leader for our intelligence community to ensure the safety of Americans and our allies.”

“I am honored to have been given this opportunity to serve and to work alongside President-elect Donald J. Trump to keep America safe. I also look forward to working with America’s intelligence warriors, who do so much to protect Americans each and every day,” said Congressman Pompeo.

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Tags: President-Elect, Donald Trump, Selects Attorney General, U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions, National Security Advisor, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, CIA Director, Congressman Mike Pompeo 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 Venezuela Chaos

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: I have friends who call themselves anarchists. Their theory? Government is always merely an open conspiracy of some to live at the expense of others.

Republicanism, on the other hand, proposes that if we limit government, we can hone it down to the level where there is no conspiracy, and everything the government does can plausibly help everybody.

Not just a few insiders.

Socialism is the opposite notion. Socialists seek to grow government so far that it “naturally” serves everybody, not only the few. It’s all about “equality,” you see.

Here’s what we know for sure: socialism, when really tried, is so awful that it makes anarchy-as-chaos sound good.

The latest socialist horror is Venezuela, which is getting worse every day. Now hospitals place newborns in cardboard boxes. There are no other supplies.

But that’s not all. The special program for feeding everybody? It’s now mainly for feeding just those close to the government — precisely as my anarchist friends say all government is:

Six months after the creation of the Local Committees of Supply and Production (Clap) that is designed to “distribute food directly to the people,” the government has decided to change its approach by threatening those using the program.

The Venezuelan government announced that it will suspend delivery of food packages to those who criticize its policies.Are socialist out to prove anarchists right?

I bet most of my readers still put some hope in limiting government to serve all. Venezuelan socialism demonstrates how badly the opposite idea is, showing us that serving everybody by total government just decays into the folks allied closely with government warring against everybody else . . . who starve in plain sight.

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, Venezuela Chaos, socialism, decays To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Are The Saudis About To Reveal The Best Kept Secret In Oil?

by Nick Cunningham: One of the oil world's longest and best kept secrets may finally be revealed. Saudi Arabia is preparing to unveil how much oil it holds, a closely guarded state secret that has been kept quiet for decades.

The decision to bring such important data to light comes as Saudi Aramco is preparing to partially privatize its assets, an IPO that could bring in some $100 billion. The IPO will be a monumental event, one that the Wall Street Journal says could offer Wall Street some of the largest fees in history.

Saudi Arabia often trades off with Russia – and more recently, with the U.S. – as the world's largest oil producer. But while it produces at similar levels as Russia and the U.S., it is long been a vastly more influential player in the oil world. That is because of two reasons – the size of its reserves, and the ability to use latent spare capacity to quickly adjust supply, affording it an outsized influence on crude oil prices.

But while everyone believes Saudi Arabia has some of the largest oil reserves in the world, perhaps rivaled only by Venezuela, there has been a lot of uncertainty and skepticism over exactly how much sits beneath the Saudi desert. The world's largest oil field, Ghawar, has been producing since the 1950s, raising speculation about the longevity of the supergiant oilfield. It alone is thought to hold around 75 billion barrels, and it churns out more than 5 million barrels every single day. Surely, it cannot continue like this indefinitely, but the Kingdom has not revised its official reserves for years, which have stood at 260 billion barrels since the 1980s. It is hard to overstate how valuable this information is, and how fiercely Saudi leadership protected it.

However, the collapse of oil prices since 2014 has pushed the Saudi budget deep into the red. The Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is undergoing an historic transformation of the Saudi economy, a multi-decade plan to diversify the country's economic base and create new sources of revenue. At the heart of the plan is spinning off roughly 5 percent of Saudi Aramco, the most valuable oil company in the world. Saudi officials believe that the company is worth between $2 and $3 trillion.

But in order to settled on a valuation and launch an IPO of some of Aramco's assets, investors need to get a look beneath the hood. That is why Saudi Arabia is now prepared to unveil not just its financials, but also the long sought after data surrounding its oil reserves. “Everything that Saudi Aramco has, that will be shared, that will be verified by independent third parties,” Khalid al-Falih, Saudi Arabia's energy minister, told the Financial Times in an interview. That would include, “reserves... costs [and] profitability indicators.” He went to lengths to emphasize Saudi Arabia's seriousness about the IPO, in an effort to dampen skepticism. “This is going to be the most transparent national oil company listing of all time,” he said.

There is a great deal of suspicion regarding Saudi Arabia's insistence that its reserves still stand at 260 billion barrels. After all, how could such a figure stay constant when it is producing 9 to 10 million barrels every day, which adds up to a few billion barrels each year? Aramco would have to add billions of barrels of newly discovered reserves on an annual basis in order to prevent its reserve base from declining. It is doubtful that it has done that consistently since the 1980s. But nobody knows except the Saudis.

As the FT notes, this figure will have massive ramifications for both Saudi Arabia and the global oil market. Right now, everyone is operating under the assumption that Saudi Arabia can continue to pump at its current pace for another seven decades. Long-term oil forecasts are predicated, in part, on Aramco's ability to do that. More important for Saudi Arabia itself, its credit rating as well as the fortunes of its economy over the coming decades is also predicated on that assumption. A sharply lower reserve estimate could send oil futures up if fears over supply surface, and it might also affect Saudi Arabia's credit rating.

Aramco is preparing to launch the IPO in 2018, which means that it will need to publish data on its oil reserves before then. The oil world's biggest secret could soon be publicly released.
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Nick Cunningham authored this article contributed by James Stafford the editor of OilPrice.com, the leading online energy news site, to the ARRA News Service.

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No Friendship Between The United States and Iran

ARRA News Service - Yesterday, the House passed H.R. 5711, to prohibit the Secretary of the Treasury from authorizing certain transactions by a U.S. financial institution in connection with the export or re-export of a commercial passenger aircraft to the Islamic Republic of Iran, by a vote of 243-174. Prior to the vote, Congressman French Hill (AR-02) spoke on the House Floor, urging his colleagues to support passage of the bill.

Watch Congressman Hill’s Floor Speech on H.R. 5711

Hill said: “I was proud to be a member of the Financial Services Committee’s Task Force to Investigate Terrorism Financing. During our hearings, we heard numerous witnesses describe Iran’s support for terrorism and other evil activities. It is staggering to hear as we sit here tonight that we have a member of the other party suggest that Iran is a friend to the United States, there is no friendship between the United States and Iran….

“This legislation is about the belief that the United States should not directly support terrorism and the killing of innocent civilians. It is the mission of Iran to use these aircraft for nefarious purposes. We are already have that guilt on our hands by the release of $100 billion and $1.7 billion in cash, let’s not compound the errors of the past by opposing this bill which will [result in limited] taxpayers’ risk and our financial sector’s risk by financing aircraft to Iran.”

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VP-Elect Mike Pence’s Addressed U.S. House Republican Conference

ARRA News Service: Yesterday, Vice President-elect Mike Pence addressed a meeting of the House Republican Conference. During the meeting, the Vice President-elect shared greetings and expressed a desire for unity between the Trump Administration and both chambers of Congress to move America forward during the first 100 days of the Administration and beyond.

Vice President-elect Pence shared an update on the Presidential Transition, which he is chairing, stating that substantial progress is being made with decisions on key appointments. He also solicited feedback and suggestions from Conference members on additional appointments and communicated a desire to receive additional input in the weeks ahead.

In his address, Vice President-elect Pence reaffirmed the commitment of the Trump Administration to pursue a legislative strategy focused on tax reform and tax relief, in addition to repealing and replacing Obamacare, securing our border, rebuilding our infrastructure, and other priority items to create jobs and increase security. The Vice President-elect took questions from Conference members where he reiterated his commitment to work together with legislative leaders and the commitment of the Trump Administration to evaluate and repeal unconstitutional Obama Administration executive orders.

Vice President-elect Pence concluded by thanking Speaker Paul Ryan, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Majority Whip Steve Scalise and Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Conference members for their continued support and was complimentary of the new Conference leadership team they have nominated.

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Trump Supporters Must Not Go To Sleep!

Editorial Cartoon by AF  Branco

by Dr. Chuck Baldwin: Now that Donald Trump has won the presidential election, most of the people who voted for him (along with most of the rest of the world) are breathing a huge sigh of relief. As I wrote earlier, a Hillary Clinton presidency was not only a threat to whatever liberties the American people have left, it was a threat to the peace and stability of the entire planet. Except for the radical protesters (most of whom did not even vote in the election and many of whom were paid to riot) who are making royal jackasses out of themselves in Portland, Oregon, and California, the perverts in Hollywood, and the presstitutes in the mainstream media, most of the nation (and the world with maybe the exception of China and Saudi Arabia) is feeling REALLY GOOD about the election.

However, I want to caution Trump supporters that the last thing they can afford to do right now is what conservatives normally do after a Republican wins the White House: go into a deep state of complacency. With the exception of stopping another Clinton from obtaining the White House (yes, that is HUGE), a Trump election accomplishes nothing. It is not the candidate, Donald Trump, that is going to govern from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It is the president, Donald Trump, that will govern. And what kind of president Trump will make is yet to be seen.

I well remember when George W. Bush was elected President. The entire conservative, Christian, and Republican worlds fell into a state of extended hibernation. And G.W. Bush went on to trample more of our constitutional liberties than Bill Clinton and Barack Obama combined. This could only happen because he faced no resistance from the Republican Party or Christians and conservatives in general. They were sound asleep.

If the people who supported Donald Trump go to sleep now, there will be no going back. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the course of a nation. Frankly, if this opportunity is squandered, there likely will not be another one in most of our lifetimes.

Now, before getting to the meat of this column, let me digress and say this: as much as I despise the whole left-right, conservative-liberal paradigms, there is no question that the globalists are currently going all out to manipulate radical leftists into trying to undermine the will of the American people and institute their socialist, anti-freedom agenda by any means necessary.

For example, when Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were elected, conservative, constitutionalist, “right wing” people did not riot in the streets, burn down buildings, attack police officers, and threaten to sabotage the Electoral College or call for Clinton or Obama’s assassination. Yet that is exactly what the radical left (inspired by ultra-America haters such as George Soros, many university faculties, and many in the mainstream media) are now doing. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is constantly telling the media and police agencies across the country that it is conservative, right-wing, Christian people who pose America’s biggest threat. But in fact, the opposite is true. Look at how the radical left is behaving: Soros and the mainstream media are fueling the fires of prejudice, hatred, and violence--and the SPLC is saying ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

The only thing I will say in response to all of these attempts at intimidation, coercion, and violence being perpetrated by these radical leftists is, if they truly want to see what would happen when conservative, God-fearing, patriotic Americans are brought to a state of righteous indignation, just let them attempt to stop the Electoral College from confirming Donald Trump as President on December 19.

At no time in American history has the Electoral College ever failed to confirm a presidential candidate who won the required electoral votes in the general election. These delegates take an oath to confirm the vote of the people of their states in the general election in the Electoral College. And if scumbags such as George Soros or the media elite are allowed to pull off a coup and somehow manipulate the delegates of the Electoral College into doing otherwise in 2016 (and thereby destroy our constitutional form of government), the people (along with citizens within law enforcement [federal and State], National Guard, etc.) of this country would be morally, spiritually, and ethically justified in demanding that the respective states whose electoral votes went to Trump count the unconstitutional vote of a faithless Electoral College as null and void and enforce the results of the November 8 elections by any means necessary--including leaving the Union if this breach of constitutional government was allowed to stand. If liberals and socialists want to start another civil war, that’s a good way to do it.

And while I’m on this subject, since Donald Trump was elected, many people in the states of California, Oregon, Nevada, and Washington are proceeding with citizen initiatives to secede from the United States and become part of Canada. Imagine a country without California! Hallelujah! I always envisioned liberty-minded states seceding, but if the socialists in California, Portland, Las Vegas, and Seattle want to take the initiative, I AM ALL FOR THEM. And while they are at it, I wish they would take Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York City, Baltimore, and Chicago with them. Those places have been a thorn in the side of liberty long enough.

But back to my point: this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the course of a nation. And the people who turned the political and media establishments on their ear on November 8 just CANNOT afford to become lethargic and complacent because Trump won.

After my post-election column last week, a lady wrote to me and said, “I have confidence he [Trump] plans to do what is best for the country.” With all due respect, I don’t! I agree wholeheartedly with Thomas Jefferson. He said, “In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

If Donald Trump is going to be anything more than just another say-anything-to-get-elected phony, he is going to have to put raw elbow grease to his rhetoric. His talk got him elected, but it is going to be his walk that is going to prove his worth.

And, as I wrote last week, the biggest indicator as to whether or not he is truly going to follow through with his rhetoric is who he selects for his cabinet and top-level government positions. So far, he has picked Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff and Stephen Bannon as White House chief strategist.

Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until toward the very end of the campaign. He is the current chairman of the Republican National Committee. If that doesn’t tell you what he is, nothing will. Trump probably picked him because he is in so tight with House Speaker Paul Ryan (a globalist neocon of the highest order) and the GOP establishment, thinking Priebus will help him get his agenda through the GOP Congress. But ideologically, Priebus does NOT share Trump’s anti-establishment agenda. So, this appointment is a risk at best and a sell-out at worst.

On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which is one of the premier “alt-right” media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Albeit, Bannon is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naïve about the New World Order. I don’t believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the role that Zionism plays in it.

To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and especially Newt Gingrich are MORE than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is “Mr. Police State,” and if he is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State in this country will go into hyperdrive. (ARRA News Service Editor Update: Sen. Jeff Sessions has been identified as Trump's appointment as Attorney General)  NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is a typical New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist, and establishment hack.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the globalist elite gave Newt Gingrich the assignment of cozying up to (and “supporting”) Trump during his campaign with the sole intention of being in a position for Trump to think he owes Gingrich something so as to appoint him to a key cabinet post in the event that he won. Gingrich could then weave his evil magic during a Donald Trump presidential administration.

Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. (ARRA News Service Editor Update:  Newt Gingrich has made it clear he will NOT serve in the Trump cabinet although he supports Donald Trump) He is the consummate neocon. And he has a brilliant mind (NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure). If Donald Trump does not see through this man, and if he appoints him as a cabinet head in his administration, I will be forced to believe that Donald Trump is clueless about “draining the swamp.” You cannot drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that’s exactly what Trump would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration.

Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on repealing Obamacare, on investigating and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. Granted, he hasn’t even been sworn in yet, and it’s still way too early to make a true judgment of his presidency. But for a fact, his cabinet appointments and his first one hundred days in office will tell us most of what we need to know.

What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy and complacency and just assume that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because at least then we would be forever on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties.

There is a reason we have lost more liberties under Republican administrations than Democratic ones over the past few decades. And that reason is the conservative, constitutionalist, Christian, pro-freedom people who should be resisting government’s assaults against our liberties are sound asleep because they trust a Republican President and Congress to do the right thing--and they give the GOP a pass as our liberties are expunged piece by piece. A pass they would NEVER give to a Democrat.

The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn’t run against the Democrats; he ran against the entire Washington establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will NOT be inclined to go into political hibernation now that Trump is elected.

I tell you again: this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the course of a nation. Frankly, if this opportunity is squandered, there likely will not be another one in most of our lifetimes.

Stay awake! Pay attention! And hold Donald Trump’s feet to the fire! Because at the end of the day--and after our liberties are demolished and our posterity is languishing in oppression and tyranny--no one will remember if it was a Democrat or a Republican that took our liberties from us. All we will remember is that WE LET IT HAPPEN.

P.S. Here are two excellent articles that augment what I am saying in this column. I urge readers to look closely at both of them:

• Why Trump Must Slay The Beast Of Neoconservatism by John Wight
• Trump Should Resist Neocon & Shadow Gov’t Influence To Justify People’s Hopes – Ron Paul To RT

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Dr. Chuck Baldwin is the Pastor of Liberty Fellowship in Kalispell, Montana. Dr. Baldwin is Talk Radio Show Host for Chuck Baldwin Live.” He addresses current event topics from a conservative Christian point of view.and is a writer/columnist whose articles and political commentaries are carried by a host of Internet sites, newspapers, news magazines and the ARRA News Service.

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Tags: Chuck Baldwin, Trump Supporters, Must Not Go To Sleep, cabinet nominees, 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!

Tom Hanks Breaks from Hollywood Pack and Says He Hopes Trump Does Well

by Stephen Kruiser: In what is certainly sure to draw ire from some, if not many, in the Hollywood community, two-time Academy Award winner Tom Hanks opted for grace and class when speaking about President-elect Donald Trump. After a week of hysteria-laden open letters and Twitter rants from entertainment industry liberals like Aaron Sorkin and Joss Whedon, Hanks' calm demeanor and response really stood out. The actor was being honored at the Museum of Modern Art in New York when he offered a refreshing dose of perspective.We are going to be all right because we constantly get to tell the world who we are. We constantly get to define ourselves as American. We do have the greatest country in the world. We move at a slow pace. We have the greatest country in the world because we are always moving towards a more perfect union. That journey never ceases, it never stops. Sometimes, to quote a Springsteen song, it’s “one step forward, two steps back,” but we still aggregately move forward. We, who are a week into wondering what the hell just happened, will continue to move forward. We have to choose to do so, but we will move forward because if we do not move forward, what is to be said of us?Then Hanks said something that would probably be career suicide for a less established actor:"This is the United States of America. We'll go on. There's great like-minded people out there who are Americans first and Republicans or Democrats second," Hanks told THR. "I hope the president-elect does such a great job that I vote for his re-election in four years."While it is sad that kind, patriotic words like this stand out so much because vitriol is the norm, it's also comforting to know that not everyone has lost his or her mind. Many of Hanks' contemporaries truly believe that America is now in the midst of a possibly apocalyptic existential crisis. That's largely based on a reality that's prone to hysteria because it doesn't get much exposure to people who think differently.

Hanks' real world is a bit more...real. He lives in the same place and works in the same industry as Sorkin and the others, but has somehow managed to notice the America beyond the Hollywood bubble. He is also one of the most accomplished and respected actors of his generation. Maybe, just maybe, others will pause and take his words to heart.

Maybe.
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Stephen Kruiser is a professional comedian and writer who has also been a conservative political activist for over two decades. A co-founder of the first Los Angeles Tea Party, Kruiser often speaks to grassroots groups around America and has had the great honor of traveling around the world entertaining U.S. troops. PJ Media shared this article.

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Draining The Swamp, Buckle Up, Rediscovering Federalism, Left Coast Insanity

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: BREAKING NEWS - Sources at NBC News say that Mitt Romney will meet this weekend with President-elect Trump to discuss serving as Secretary of State. This is a surprising development given Romney's actions and statements in the past year. If the reports are accurate, it would be a very magnanimous gesture on Trump's part that could go a long way toward healing divisions in the Republican Party.

Draining The Swamp - The Trump/Pence team made a major announcement yesterday. After it was discovered that lobbyists had been brought into the transition team, Vice President-elect Mike Pence moved quickly to remove them.

In addition, it was also announced that anyone planning to serve in the Trump Administration will be banned from lobbying the government for five years.

Fair reporting of these events should have most talking heads saying: "Wow! These guys are serious. Trump announced that he won't take a salary, Pence is kicking lobbyists out of the transition team and now they are preventing staffers from getting rich off their public service, like Bill and Hillary Clinton did. They really are draining the D.C. swamp!"

If this had been Obama, the commentary would be glowing. Instead, we are getting stories about chaos and disarray.

"Buckle Up" - Vice President-elect Mike Pence was on Capitol Hill today, meeting with House Republicans. He reportedly told them to "buckle up" because "Donald Trump is a man of action and we're counting on you." Pence told House Republicans that the new administration was determined "to move an agenda."

Sources in the meeting said Pence promised that the new administration would act quickly to repeal many of Obama's executive orders. Just rolling back regulations would be a huge boost to the economy.

Vice President-elect Pence ended his remarks to House Republicans by asking for their prayers, saying, "Pray for the president, pray for his family, pray for our conference and pray for the country."

I believe this last election was a big answer to prayer. And I know millions of Americans will continue to pray for God's protection in the days ahead, that He would bless America as we honor Him.

Rediscovering Federalism - The separation of powers between the states and the federal government is one of the central checks and balances of our republic. In fact, the founding fathers felt so strongly about it that they wrote it into the Constitution in the Tenth Amendment.

But Democrats and their left-wing allies have been waging war against the concept of federalism for decades. The left has repeatedly assaulted this concept, using the brute force of the federal government to force every state in the country to legalize abortion, redefine marriage or upend common sense when it comes to school bathrooms.

Suddenly, with the election of Donald Trump and Mike Pence, many Democrats are declaring themselves champions of states' rights, telling the federal government to butt out.

Yesterday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio stopped by Trump Tower and met with President-elect Donald Trump for more than hour. Speaking to reporters afterwards, de Blasio said he told Trump that "so many New Yorkers [i.e., illegal immigrants] were fearful." De Blasio added, "I would be swift to react anytime an action is taken that will undermine the people of New York City."

De Blasio is a radical leftist. He was a staunch admirer of the communist Sandinistas in Nicaragua and he even honeymooned in Fidel Castro's Cuba.

Other left-wing Democrats around the country have echoed similar comments in recent days, vowing to maintain "sanctuary policies" that hide illegal immigrants from law enforcement.

Now just imagine if this situation were reversed. Imagine a Republican governor from a conservative state saying to President-elect Clinton, "We will protect all of our people in Idaho, including defenseless unborn children. We will react any time an action is taken that undermines the rights of unborn children in Idaho."

Every liberal reporter would make sure we understood that threat, and every Republican around the country would be forced to condemn or defend that statement on the record.

Republicans should not be afraid of a fight over sanctuary cities. A poll last year found that 62% of voters favored penalizing cities that refused to cooperate with federal immigration policies. Only 26% of voters opposed penalizing sanctuary cities.

Left Coast Insanity - A San Francisco teacher has decided to do her part to promote healing and understanding in the wake of the election. Well, not exactly.

Fakrah Shah has developed a lesson plan that tells students who may be upset by the election results that they are right to be outraged. In Shah's view, America elected a racist and sexist president because Trump succeeded in "pandering to a huge racist and sexist base."

Among other things, her lesson plan encourages children to "speak your truth," as if truth were relative, and suggests to teachers that "you can ask for them to limit or not use profanity here as well if that is important to you." When did profanity in the classroom become optional?

Needless to say, there is some pushback. Shah was confronted with the obvious fact that her lesson plan condemns half the country as "deplorable" and "irredeemable."

It was also noted that she is humiliating a lot of kids whose parents voted for Trump. But Shah was completely oblivious, responding, "They absolutely will be given safe space. . . they will be asked to explain how [Trump] is not racist." In other words, her idea of a "safe space" is put those kids "on the spot."

So far, Shah's curriculum is voluntary, but it may be coming to a school near you. A local CBS affiliate reports that it "has been published in the San Francisco teachers' union newsletter and on the National Education Association website."

Hillary Speaks - Hillary Clinton made her first public appearance yesterday since her post-election concession speech on November 9th. She spoke at a gala for the Children's Defense Fund. The group also presented Clinton with an award for her "lifetime of service."

During her remarks, Hillary acknowledged that her defeat was hard to take, and that there were plenty of times when she wanted to do nothing more than curl up with a good book or the dogs.

Wow! I guess we know where Bill stands. If the dogs are in the house with her, perhaps Bill is in the dog house!
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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, Draining The Swamp, Buckle Up, Rediscovering Federalism, Left Coast Insanity To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Trump Should Let The Senate Kill Obama’s Climate Treaty

Phil Kerpen

by Phil Kerpen, Contributing Author: When is a treaty not a treaty? According to the Obama administration, whenever the president says so. This claim is especially dubious with respect to the Paris agreement on global warming, which Marlo Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute has shown, is more ambitious than predecessor agreements that were universally accepted to be treaties.

Surely if President Obama possesses an asserted authority to declare an agreement identical in form and more ambitious in substance than previous treaties to be a non-treaty then President Trump will have the authority to reach the opposite, more plausible conclusion.

There is little doubt that the Trump administration will reject the Paris agreement, but the option of properly recognizing it as a treaty and allowing the Senate to formally reject it has several advantages.

First, it prevents the dangerous precedent of a president binding the country and his successor to international commitments without the broad support that the Constitution requires through the advice and consent process. Secondly, it sidesteps the question of whether the withdrawal provision of the Paris treaty itself forces us to wait four years before withdrawal is effective. Finally, it exposes as false the talking point that skepticism of the Paris agreement is outside the political mainstream.

John Kerry, who infamously declared global warming a greater threat to the United States than terrorism, gave his final speech on the subject this week to the UN functionaries in Marrakech, Morocco. He offered a soothing fantasy.

“No one should doubt the overwhelming majority of the citizens of the United States who know climate change is happening and who are determined to keep our commitments that were made in Paris,” Kerry said to applause.

Last week’s election emphatically showed the opposite. The Midwest delivered the White House to Trump, who dominated among the working class voters who care far more about how much they are paying to fill up the gas tank and keep their lights on than they do about what United Nations computer models predict about the climate in decades or centuries – the results of which show minimal change anyway. Appalachian voters in particular preferred Trump in a stunning 469 of 490 counties.

The Paris treaty is a magnificent example of the bad deals made for America that ultimately paved Donald Trump’s path to the White House.

Specifically, the Paris treaty effectively bans coal-fired power plants in the United States while China has 368 coal plants under construction and over 800 in the planning stage. India's coal production under the deal is projected to double by 2020. Even Europe is allowed to build coal plants. It forces Americans to endure painful cuts while the rest of the world continues with business as usual.

Even worse, American taxpayers will be forced to cough up $100 billion in climate-related foreign aid by 2020, with the promise of much more to follow.

Which brings us to the Senate.

Trump can submit the Paris treaty in full confidence that it will not pass with the required 67 votes in a body that has just 48 Democrats. The interesting question: how low can the vote total for this rotten deal go?

With ten Senate Democrats sitting in states Trump carried, many senators will be forced to choose between their green billionaire donors out in San Francisco and the voters they need to survive in 2018. And when the Senate votes the Paris treaty down, it will send an emphatic message to the world that – despite what John Kerry told his friends in Marrakech – the American people are with Trump on this, not Obama.
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Phil Kerpen is president of American Commitment. Follow him at (@kerpen) and on Facebook. He is a contributing author at the ARRA News Service.

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Tags: Phil Kerpen, American Commitment, Trump, The Senate, Kill, Climate Treaty To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!