Stop the Presses!

Ken Blackwell

by Ken Blackwell, Contributing Author: There are moments when you almost feel the Earth’s axis shift. That happened the other day when Sen. Chuck Schumer blamed someone for something, and it wasn’t Donald Trump.

There may be no greater partisan than the Democrats’ Senate leader. He’s spent months arguing that every bad event—except perhaps the weather, is the fault of President Trump.

Hillary Clinton has been the Blamer-in-Chief. Yes, she said, she took responsibility for her own decisions. But they certainly are not why she lost, she explained. It was everyone else’s fault.

Obviously, the Russians and Donald Trump were to blame. Also at fault were the Republicans and the Deplorables. To them one could add the Trump-Democrats and all those other people bitterly clinging to their Bibles and guns. Then there were all the people who had the unfortunate experience of dealing with the Clintons over the years.

Blaming everyone else has been the meme for the Clinton machine. It is the official view of those who want her to run again. Two presidential races and two losses so far, but they couldn’t possibly be her fault. The third time would be the charm!

Surprisingly, Sen. Schumer won’t have it. He and Hillary Clinton served together. Last fall, each relied on the other to deliver the votes to give Democrats control of the White House and Congress. But the American people got in the way.

The other day, Sen. Schumer didn’t blame the people. He blamed Hillary Clinton.

When asked about the election by a couple of Washington Post reporters, Sen. Schumer responded: “When you lost to somebody who has 40 percent popularity, you don’t blame other things—Comey, Russia—you blame yourself.” What went wrong, he asked? “People didn’t know what we stood for, just that we were against Trump. And still believe that.”

Perhaps for the first time in his career Sen. Schumer chose fact over fiction and engaged in a bit of honest introspection. Hillary Clinton lost the election. The Democratic congressional candidates lost the election. Where Mr. Schumer is wrong is that the American people did understand what they stood for and rejected it. And the Democrats are still doing the same things, which will lose them the next election.

Schumer’s admission is important. Not, however, because I like saying, “I told you so.” America’s troubles are too great to waste time engaging in schadenfreude, that great pastime of enjoying the misfortune of others. We need to work together to solve the nation’s problems.

The starting point is to stop blaming President Trump for everything.

He didn’t spend America blind and send deficits careening upward. The Congressional Budget Office warns that without emergency action we’ll be back over $1 trillion annually in red ink in just a few years.

The president didn’t nationalize the health care system, destroy the insurance plans that so many people relied on, and trigger massive premium increases for those who could least afford them. President Trump didn’t impose a tsunami of new regulations on American business, raising costs and hurting competitiveness.

The president didn’t weaken America’s military, stage a retreat from around the world, and treat the country’s enemies better than its allies. He didn’t call “strategic patience” a policy, during which North Korea continued to develop both nuclear weapons and ICBMs.

He didn’t appoint judges who believe the Constitution means what they want it to mean. And President Trump didn’t give up defending our borders, allowing illegal aliens to take Americans’ jobs and potential Islamists to put Americans’ lives at risk.

None of these problems are Donald Trump’s fault. And Democrats, from Sen. Schumer on down, should stop acting as if they were. They certainly shouldn’t blame the president for trying to solve the many problems left on his Oval Office desk by Barack Obama on his way out of town.

Sen. Schumer’s admission is a start. At least the Senate Minority Leader realizes that the Democrats lost, fair and square, because of their own actions. The next step—it isn’t quite a “12-step” program, but it’s a start—is for Schumer and other Democrats to acknowledge that the Obama administration left a big mess in Washington.

While they still might not like the president’s solutions, they should offer proposals of their own, not act like everything is fine. President Trump isn’t perfect and he doesn’t have everything right. But he is dealing with the reality facing America today, not the fantasy imagined by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and their supporters.
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Ken Blackwell (@kenblackwell) is a former ambassador to the U.N., a former Domestic Policy Advisor to the Trump Presidential Transition Team, former Ohio State Treasurer and mayor of Cincinnati, and a Policy Board member and Senior Fellow for the American Civil Rights Union as well as numerous conservative policy organizations. He is a contributing author to the ARRA News Service

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Tags: Ken Blackwell, Stop the Presses, Sen. Chuck Schumer, President Trump To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Deregulation is Driving Success

by Newt Gingrich: Democrats and their friends in the media will do anything they can to distract and discredit President Donald Trump and Republicans, but not one of them can reasonably deny the massive success of the Trump-led deregulatory agenda – or the huge stock market gains that have come as a result.

Since the start of President Trump’s term, he and Congressional Republicans, led by Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, have revoked 14 job-killing federal regulations through the Congressional Review Act. This includes 1,114 pages of needlessly expensive labor rules, arduous environmental regulations, destructive financial guidelines, and other economy-hampering bureaucratic decrees.

Research by the American Action Forum based on impact analysis created by federal agencies shows that repealing these regulations “will save $3.7 billion in total regulatory costs ($1.1 billion annually) and eliminate 4.2 million hours of paperwork.” Non-government estimates suggest cutting these harmful rules will save more than $36.2 billion, according to the AAF.

Investors have welcomed President Trump’s red tape cutting rally.

At market close Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 21,796 points, the Nasdaq was at 6,382 points, and the S&P 500 Index at 2,475 points. These are all near record high ranges – and are especially remarkable when you look at where they were when President Trump won election. On November 8, 2016 – Election Day – the DJIA was 3,464 points lower, at 18,332; the Nasdaq was 1,189 points lower, at 5193; and the S&P 500 was 336 points lower at 2,139.

The good news is that investor enthusiasm can and should continue because the regulatory cuts are here to stay.

The CRA, which was part of the Contract with America that we passed when I was Speaker of the House, doesn’t just allow Congress to claw back regulations that were enacted at the end of a previous president’s term -- it also requires an act of Congress to re-impose such rules or those similar. After only six months, this115th Congress has used the CRA more than any other in history.

And Republicans aren’t stopping. House members are moving to repeal another backwards regulation through the CRA, which was made by the unaccountable Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The bad rule puts the interest of trial lawyers over the American people, represents 225 pages in the Code of Federal Regulations, and costs $76 million a year.

While President Trump and Congress are aggressively repealing burdensome regulations from the Obama era, the President’s cabinet members are also cutting down the number of rules made by the government.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the number of rules put forward by the Trump administration is at a 17-year low, and many of the rules the administration has passed actually reverse previous rules. Sofie Miller of George Washington University’s Regulatory Studies Center told the WSJ that, for example, one third of the 66 regulatory actions taken so far by the Environmental Protection Agency have been rule withdrawals.

Instead of acknowledging (and being happy) that investors are responding positively to aggressive deregulation, pro-business policy, and the promise of tax cuts this year, some in the media are making hay about what Trump is tweeting about the bull market. CNN Money wrote on July 20 that Trump is taking a great risk by publicly commenting so much on market success because, “every president over the past 70 years has eventually encountered a stock market storm.”

This perfectly illustrates what the media still doesn’t get. As I explain in my new #1 New York Times bestselling book, Understanding Trump, our President is a billionaire businessman, not a politician. We haven’t had a commander-in-chief like him in American history – much less the last 70 years. He isn’t afraid of risk, and he knows how to get the government out of the way of American productivity, jobs, and growth.

The Left and the media will no doubt continue to harp about tweets, Washington gossip, and other distractions, but Republicans and the Trump administration are going to continue cutting costly regulations – and Americans will notice.
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Newt Gingrich is a former Georgia Congressman and Speaker of the U.S. House. He co-authored and was the chief architect of the "Contract with America" and a major leader in the Republican victory in the 1994 congressional elections. He is noted speaker and writer. The above commentary was shared via Gingrich Productions.

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Tags: Newt Gingrich, commentary, Deregulation, Driving Success To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Is Your “Hometown” Conspiring Against You to Raise Your Taxes?

by Conduit for Action: City governments in Arkansas are now conspiring AGAINST taxpayers to get more money! At the insistence and direction of their own lobbyists (the Municipal League) cities are now lobbying the governor and state legislators to pass an Internet Sales Tax.

Reports show that Arkansas sales tax revenue has increases over the last two months. It is reported that the increase is the result of new sales taxes voluntarily collected by Amazon from Arkansas internet purchasers…leaving in the minds of local governments, an untapped gold mine of new tax revenue ($100’s of millions annually) yet to be collected from “unwilling” out of state sellers.

As a result, cities around the state are now considering resolutions begging Governor Asa Hutchinson to call the 91st General Assembly back into its second special session of 2017 to pass the once failed Internet Sales Tax on all purchases made by Arkansans from out of state sellers. Thankfully, the governor said he is not going to do so. Let us hope he will keep his promise and not attempt to override the will of the people!

As mentioned, this new tax increase is not new to your 2017 state legislators. The same measure was the most debated topic of the legislative session only three months ago. After several votes, SB140 (internet sales tax bill) failed on the last day of the regular legislative session in the House of Representatives by a vote of 43 to 50.

In its efforts to override the will of its own voter-tax base, Springdale, Russellville, Batesville, and Jonesboro (pending) have already passed resolutions lobbying the governor for a special session to re-consider this new tax increase.

Conduit for Action has covered in depth this unconstitutional, new internet sales tax bill. We have discussed how this bill would suck hundreds of millions of dollars out of Arkansans’ pocketbooks and place them into the government coffers — growing Arkansas government by $100-$200 million per year (according to its supporters.) See below for a list of articles on the topic.

Now, you must take action at the local level. Call and email your mayor and city council members and tell them NOT to adopt any resolutions which encourage a special session or any other action to pass an Internet Sales Tax. A list of cities and their websites for contact information can be found HERE.

Also, call (501-682-2345) and thank Governor Asa Hutchinson for not calling a special session to re-consider an internet sales tax and encourage him to keep his promise.

The only thing that will stop your local government from raising your taxes with a new Internet Sales Tax is making sure a special session doesn’t happen ... and being mindful that primaries are only months away!

Other Internet Sales Tax Articles:

Internet Sales Tax Fails, Taxpayers Win……. For Now

11 Reasons to Vote NO on SB140, the Internet Sales Tax

Last chance to stop SB140 – $100 million tax increase on AR consumers

POLL: Arkansans OPPOSE Internet Sales Tax

SB140, Internet Sales Tax, Violates Republican Party Platform

Passing a new Arkansas tax and saying, “It’s not a new tax.”

ACTION ALERT – SB140 – Internet Sales Tax – Goes to Full Senate Vote

SB140 – Internet Sales Tax
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Conduit for Action promotes freedom and free enterprise policies by effective action that will create a better life for all Arkansas citizens.

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Tags: Conduit for Action, Arkansas, 91st General Assembly, Asa Hutchinson, Government Growth, internet sales tax, municipal league, Taxes, taxpayer funded lobbyist, raise our taxes  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 Economy Isn't Everything

by Wilhelm Röpke: The questionable things of this world come to grief on their nature, the good ones on their own excesses.

Conservative respect for the past and its preservation are indispensable conditions of a sound society, but to cling exclusively to tradition, history, and established customs is an exaggeration leading to intolerable rigidity. The liberal predilection for movement and progress is an equally indispensable counterweight, but if it sets no limits and recognizes nothing as lasting and worth preserving, it ends in disintegration and destruction. The rights of the community are no less imperative than those of the individual, but exaggeration of the rights of the community in the form of collectivism is just as dangerous as exaggerated individualism and its extreme form, anarchism. Ownership ends up in plutocracy, authority in bondage and despotism, democracy in arbitrariness and demagogy.

Whatever political tendencies or currents we choose as examples, it will be found that they always sow the seed of their own destruction when they lose their sense of proportion and overstep their limits. In this field, suicide is the normal cause of death.

The market economy is no exception to the rule. Indeed, its advocates, in so far as they are at all intellectually fastidious, have always recognized that the sphere of the market, of competition, of the system where supply and demand move prices and thereby govem production, may be regarded and defended only as part of a wider general order encompassing ethics, law, the natural conditions of life and happiness, the state, politics, and power. Society as a whole cannot be ruled by the laws of supply and demand, and the state is more than a sort of business company, as has been the conviction of the best conservative opinion since the time of Burke.

Individuals who compete on the market and there pursue their own advantage stand all the more in need of the social and moral bonds of community, without which competition degenerates most grievously. As we have said before, the market economy is not everything. It must find its place in a higher order of things which is not ruled by supply and demand, free prices, and competition. It must be firmly contained within an all-embracing order of society in which the imperfections and harshness of economic freedom are corrected by law and in which man is not denied conditions of life appropriate to his nature. Man can wholly fulfill his nature only by freely becoming part of a community and having a sense of solidarity with it. Otherwise he leads a miserable existence and he knows it.

The truth is that a society may have a market economy and, at one and the same time, perilously unsound foundations and conditions, for which the market economy is not responsible but which its advocates have every reason to improve or wish to see improved so that the market economy will remain politically and socially feasible in the long run. There is no other way of fulfilling our wish to possess both a market economy and a sound society and a nation where people are, for the most part, happy.

Economists have their typical deformation professionelle, their own occupational disease of the mind. Each of us speaks from personal experience when he admits that he does not find it easy to look beyond the circumscribed field of his own discipline and to acknowledge humbly that the sphere of the market, which it is his profession to explore, neither exhausts nor determines society as a whole. The market is only one section of society. It is a very important section, it is true, but still one whose existence is justifiable and possible only because it is part of a larger whole which concerns not economics but philosophy, history, and theology. We may be forgiven for misquoting Lichtenberg and saying: To know economics only is to know not even that. Man, in the words of the Gospel, does not live by bread alone.

Let us beware of that caricature of an economist who, watching people cheerfully disporting themselves in their suburban allotments, thinks he has said everything there is to say when he observes that this is not a rational way of producing vegetables-forgetting that it may be an eminently rational way of producing happiness, which alone matters in the last resort. Adam Smith, whose fame rests not only on his Wealth of Nations but also on his Theory of Moral Sentiments, would have known better.
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Wilhelm Röpke (1899-1966) was one of the most influential economists of the twentieth century. A key architect of Germany's post-World War II "economic miracle," he wrote Economics of the Free Society, The Moral Foundation of Civil Society, The Social Crisis of Our Time, and other books. 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.

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Tags: Wilhelm Röpke, The Economy, Isn't Everything, Intercollegiate Review, Intercollegiate, Studies Institute To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Is This Oil Price Rally Sustainable?

by Tom Cool:  Oil prices are on track for the biggest weekly gain so far this year, with Brent solidly above $50 per barrel and WTI not far behind.

Shell’s CEO: Oil prices “lower forever.” Royal Dutch Shell’s (NYSE: RDS.A) CEO Ben van Beurden said this week that oil prices will likely remain “lower forever,” not just because of too much supply, but also because the coming wave of EV adoption will lead to peak demand, possibly as soon as the late-2020s. His company now produces more natural gas than oil and will continue to diversify. Meanwhile, the company posted better-than-expected profits for the second quarter at $3.6 billion, or more than three times larger than the year before.

JBC Energy: Oil to drop below $40 in 2018. Unless OPEC makes deeper production cuts, oil prices are in danger of falling below $40 per barrel in the first quarter of next year, according to JBC Energy GmbH. The consultancy sees oil prices trading between $45 and $47 later this year, but then it gets “very tricky,” as demand slows. “If OPEC stays the same and we have the same output restrictions even in the first quarter, we’re looking at a lot of surplus in the market,” Richard Gorry, managing director at JBC Asia, told Bloomberg. “To really tighten the market, OPEC will have to cut more, and I don’t know if they want to do that.”

Saudi Aramco IPO leaning towards London. Financial advisors for Saudi Aramco have recommended the company list its shares on the London Stock Exchange, rather than Yew York, citing tougher disclosure rules in the U.S. The final decision for the estimated $100 billion IPO is not expected until later this year.

Oil majors see profits improve. So far, the largest oil companies are posting much better financials in the second quarter. Shell’s profits tripled, but it wasn’t the only one enjoying profits on the upswing. Total (NYSE: TOT) saw adjusted profit of $2.5 billion, a 14 percent increase from a year earlier. Statoil (NYSE: STO) said profits jumped to $3 billion, or triple the level from a year ago. And ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) said its earnings doubled to $3.35 billion in the second quarter, year-on-year. Still, most of the majors feel pressure to remain cautious with oil prices not showing any signs of a rebound.

UAE: We will increase compliance. The UAE said that it would cut production deeper in the near future in order to boost compliance with the OPEC cuts. “The U.A.E. is committed to its share in the OPEC production cut,” the UAE’s Minister of Energy Suhail Al Mazrouei said in a tweet on Tuesday. The IEA estimates that the UAE has only achieved a 54 percent compliance rate.

UK to ban gasoline and diesel cars by 2040. The announcement from the UK this week that it would ban sales of gasoline and diesel vehicles by 2040 is the clearest sign yet of the coming energy transition. The move is a signal to the oil industry that while the fears of peak supply are long gone, the industry could be legislated out of existence. Of course, the world will still need oil for years and decades to come, but the fears of peak demand are more real than ever.

New oil and gas projects get green light. The oil industry has given the greenlight to more oil and gas projects in the first half of 2017 than all of last year, according data from Wood Mackenzie, cited by the FT. Also, average development costs are down 40 percent since 2014, making now a good time to invest. “The industry took a while to get its collective mind around the idea of ‘lower for longer’ and now people are getting used to lower for even longer,” Readul Islam, analyst at Rystad Energy, told the FT. There were 15 large conventional oil and gas projects that moved forward in the first six months of 2017, encompassing 8 billion barrels of oil equivalent, compared to just 12 projects in all of last year, which covered 8.8 billion barrels.

U.S. sanctions Venezuelan officials; Venezuelan labor unions stage general strike; U.S. evacuates embassy families. The U.S. decided to sanction more than a dozen top Venezuelan officials as the government proceeds with a July 30 effort to rewrite the constitution and consolidate power. The move from Washington was one of the more mild options on the table, and it appears that an effort to ban Venezuelan oil imports won’t be taken up right now. Still, the troubles for the South American OPEC member are not going away. More than 300 Venezuelan labor unions launched a two-day general strike to put pressure on the government of President Nicolas Maduro. Several people were killed in clashes between protestors and security forces this week. The violence and turmoil has escalated ahead of Sunday’s vote and the U.S. government has ordered family members of embassy staff in Venezuela to leave the country.

More shale drillers cut spending. In addition to the decision by Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC) to cut spending this week, other shale drillers began to follow suit. Whiting Petroleum (NYSE: WLL), the largest producer in the Bakken, said it would slash its 2017 spending by 14 percent. Hess (NYSE: HES) also lowered its capex for the year. Others are cutting spending, a sign that the recent downturn in prices are erasing any hopes of higher prices this year. The lower spending is also a sign that the shale boom is bumping up against its limits with oil at or below $50 per barrel.

Total to cut off funding for oil sands. Total (NYSE: TOT) decided to cut off funds for the major oil sands project it is working on with Suncor Energy (NYSE: SU). The Fort Hills project is still expected to start up later this year. The companies played down the dispute, but it highlights the waning interest in Canada’s high-cost oil sands.

Petronas cancels major LNG export project in Canada. Malaysian-owned Petronas announced that it was shelving its proposed $29 billion Pacific Northwest LNG terminal in British Columbia, a major blow for Canadian gas exports. The company cited low prices for LNG globally.
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Tom Cool 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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Special Prosecutor Needed To Investigate Obama Administration Gross Malfeasance

House Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and committee Republicans said Attorney General Jeff Sessions should call for another independent prosecutor to be appointed. . . .

by Rick Manning: Attorney General Jeff Sessions was handed two important lifelines by the Senate and House Judiciary Committee’s respectively in the last two days.

On the Senate side, Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley made it clear that there would not be room on the calendar for consideration of a replacement for General Sessions until 2018, a direct message to the President that he might go a full year without an AG if he acts against Sessions.

On the House side, things got really interesting as the House Judiciary Committee majority issued a letter to Sessions urging the appointment of a second special counsel to investigate the actions of James Comey, Loretta Lynch, the Clinton email scandal, as well as the unmasking of Trump campaign officials in what appears to have been the political use of our nation’s intelligence resources.

As a strong supporter of Attorney General Sessions, I strongly urge him to accept the House Judiciary Committee’s recommendation and appoint a second special prosecutor to investigate the gross malfeasance that occurred during the Obama Administration. America needs to know, once and for all, if our nation’s intelligence services were commandeered for political purposes and whether Hillary Clinton’s offsite housing and subsequent destruction of more than 30,000 emails constituted a criminal act.

Lady Justice is supposed to be blind, and in our current hyper-partisan environment, Attorney General Sessions would be taking a huge step toward re-establishing the credo that no one is above the law, no matter how powerful, through appointing a second special counsel.
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Rick Manning (@rmanning957) is President of Americans for Limited Government.

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Tags: Rick Manning, Americans for Limited Government, special prosecutor, investigate, Obama Administration, gross malfeasance, actions of, James Comey, Loretta Lynch, Clinton email scandal, unmasking Trump campaign officials To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Every Democrat & Three Renegades, McCain's Legacy

McCain Votes with Democrats
To Keep Obamacare

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author:  Every Democrat & Three Renegades -  That's who dealt a terrible blow last night to millions of Americans who have been shafted by Obamacare. The media, the entire Democrat Party and three renegade Republican senators -- McCain, Murkowski and Collins -- once again demonstrated why it is virtually impossible to get rid of entitlement programs.

This debate has been dominated by talk about those potentially uninsured and those with pre-existing conditions. Forgotten in all the sturm und drang were the millions of Americans whose lives were turned upside down by Obama's quasi-socialized healthcare scheme. The entire law was built on lies.

Obama said you could keep your insurance. That was the "Lie of the Year."

Obama said you could keep your doctor. Millions couldn't.

Obama said premiums would go down. They skyrocketed.

Countless small business owners, hanging by a thread after the Great Recession, were pushed over the edge. One reason Obama never achieved 3% economic growth during his presidency was because of the crushing weight of Obamacare's taxes and regulations on job creators.

I know it is tempting to be angry at the Republican Party. I confess that I am not very happy with the GOP right now. That said, another circular firing squad would cause even more cheering from the left.

Forty-nine Republican senators -- 94% of GOP Senate caucus -- did the right thing. All of the Democrats did the wrong thing. Unfortunately, it only took three GOP renegades to kill our chances.

The solution in my view is obvious: We must elect more conservatives!

McCain's Legacy - Senator John McCain said that the worst thing about Obamacare was the way it was passed -- "rammed through Congress . . . on a strict-party line basis." He's wrong. The worst thing about Obamacare is the way it hurt so many people.

McCain went on to say that Obamacare should not be repealed in the same way it was passed -- on a strict-party line basis. He added that the Senate must return to "regular order."

This is why Republicans have not been able to stop the constant drift toward bigger government. The left changes the rules to accomplish its goals, while our party gets hung up on the process.

I don't know if any Republican could have won in 2008. But John McCain surrendered any chance he had when he decided it would be too divisive to make an issue out of Barack Obama's attendance at a church led by an America-hating, bigoted pastor. That decision guaranteed Obama's election and the senator has now guaranteed that Obama's legacy will survive.

I will continue to pray for Senator McCain's victory over brain cancer, but his illness does not change the reality that his vote last night was a major victory for the big government left.

Is Top FBI Lawyer A Leaker? Circa reports that the FBI's general counsel, James Baker, is the subject of a criminal investigation for leaking classified information to the media. Baker is reportedly a "close confidant" of James Comey.

We will see where this investigation goes. But I was amused by the fact that not one of the major left-wing media outlets reported this news. I guess they were too busy obsessing over Russia and reporting fake news.

Another Hero Falls - Lt. Aaron Allen responded to a car crash yesterday afternoon. As he approached the vehicle, which had flipped over, someone inside the car opened fire. Allen, 38, was hit multiple times and killed.

Nicknamed "Teddy Bear," Allen was a beloved figure in the community. He had 20 years of law enforcement experience and had wanted to be a police officer since he was five years old. In 2015, Allen was recognized as the "Officer of the Year" by the Southport Indiana Police Department.

Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett praised Lt. Allen, saying he "was doing what officers do each day: responding to the scene of an accident to help someone in their time of need."

Once again, a community has lost a dedicated public servant and a family has lost a loved one who devoted his life to protecting us. This is what the sick, anti-law enforcement atmosphere generated by left-wing academics, organizations and politicians has led to. Our police officers deserve so much better
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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, McCain's Legacy, Every Democrat, Three Renegades, obamacare repeal, McCain's Legacy, Is Top FBI Lawyer, Leaker, 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 Left’s War On The First Amendment . . .

. . . and the Crisis of an Illiberal Media.

by Daniel Greenfield: Once upon a time there was a liberal media. Like most left-leaning institutions it worked hard to prove its progressive premises. Democrats were good and Republicans bad. The police and the military were bad. Social welfare spending and diplomacy were good. Israel was bad and the PLO was good.

This was the thing we used to nostalgically call media bias.

We aren’t dealing with a liberal media anymore, but an illiberal media. The liberal media was content to use its institutional power as a megaphone to broadcast its views. But you could debate those views. Actual conservatives were allowed to write columns, and not just as a strategic attack on some element of the GOP the way it is now, and appear on television to offer opinions, and not just as punching bags.

The liberal media was convinced it would win the argument because it was right.

The illiberal media isn’t interested in winning an argument, but in silencing the opposition. It doesn’t just want to shout louder than you. It wants to use its institutional power to shut you up.

This isn’t just a media phenomenon. It’s what happened across the social spectrum when the people we used to call liberals became illiberal leftists. It’s why colleges censor controversial speakers and punish dissenting faculty. It’s why the environmental debate went from scientific discussions to calls to punish, fine and even jail those who question the left’s Luddite alarmism on Global Warming.

It’s why the debate over gay marriage shifted to punishing Christian bakers and florists, the arguments about Israel tilted to preventing musicians from performing in Tel Aviv and civil rights turned into a call to create “safe spaces” that ban everyone else. Diversity is no longer dressed up as an expansion, but is now explicitly a contraction. Don’t read books by white authors. Don’t hire more men. Kick Jews out of the gay rights rally. Send the IRS after conservative groups. Punch a Trump supporter in the face.

Nearly every leftist cause these days is expressed by punishing someone. Arguments are won by force. The illiberal totalitarian lurking inside the liberal, as David Horowitz described it, is out of the closet.

It’s a lot easier to spot illiberalism in the press and academia because they depend on the free exchange of ideas. It’s hard to spot creeping totalitarianism at the DMV or in any government bureaucracy. But it’s really easy to see the change on a college campus or in the pages of your local newspaper.

And that’s where the iron curtain truly falls on the First Amendment.

The modern campus is mired in trigger warnings and safe spaces. Faculty and administrators are lynched, buildings are burned, students are assaulted and dissent is ruthlessly silenced.

After the election, the media launched a purge of conservative voices from social media and the internet under the guise of fighting “fake news”. The meme quickly rebounded against it, but it succeeded in embedding partisan media “fact checkers” into Google and Facebook. Many of the pitched battles fought by the press corps against the White House were about closing access to conservative media.

The media was using its institutional power to impose a monopoly on the press even while wrapping its struggles with the White House in the tattered shreds of the First Amendment. The liberal media disdained conservative voices. The illiberal media had set out to silence them. Its pretext was that an unregulated press was a danger to democracy. Fake News was an emergency that justified censorship.

Stripped of all the niceties, the media responded to losing a democratic election by censoring the press. It launched this attack on the First Amendment under the guise of an institutional monopoly on the press. Only the media gets to decide who is a journalist. Or which outlets have the right to operate.

Within a few short years, leftist illiberalism had tossed out support for Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion. Freedom of Assembly came under fire from the Mayor of Portland who attempted to shut down a rally. The assault on Freedom of the Press knocks out the entire First Amendment.

The liberal media was biased. The illiberal media is totalitarian.

These days you can find a New York Times op-ed piece arguing that offensive speech is a form of violence and should be banned. Who decides what offensive speech is? The illiberal left.

The leftward tilt of the Democrats doesn’t just mean policy differences like embracing socialized medicine and free college. The left is a totalitarian movement. And that means a whole new set of rules. The goal of leftist institutions is to consolidate authority and eliminate dissent. They will do so procedurally if they can and by force if they can’t. If they can’t ban it, they will beat it to death.

The media is no longer just in the messaging business. Instead its mission is to consolidate control over messaging by banning or eliminating sites that don’t share its political agenda. Its larger agenda is to help the other arms of the left consolidate control over their arenas, whether it’s politics, academia or corporate boards, by pushing the same totalitarian controls that would eliminate dissent.

The liberal media was an illegitimate institutional trust. It benefited from monopolistic power, but it was not actively trying to win the argument by destroying the opposition. Instead it assumed that it would gradually influence people and discredit its opponents. The illiberal media doesn’t set out to argue, it denounces, it calls for urgent action and swift measures to resolve an endless series of crises. These crises, ranging from Islamophobia to the destruction of the planet, must be solved yesterday. Constitutional niceties, whether it be democracy or freedom of speech, can’t be allowed to interfere.

This Reichstag fire political tone is ominously totalitarian. It justifies and advocates for tyranny. It ignores opposing points of view where it can and demands their criminalization where it can’t. Its native tongue is xenophobic contempt. Its editorials demand the eradication of opposition to proper progressive goals.

The liberal media undermined freedom. The illiberal media is openly at war with it.

Trump’s victory drove the left into a state of permanent emergency. This state of emergency has justified unconstitutional judicial coups, state secessionism, street violence and political censorship.

Free societies turn totalitarian when civic institutions seize power to protect certain values which become reducible to themselves. Federal judges usurp the President of the United States and claim that they are protecting the Constitution by flagrantly abusing it. Unelected institutions claiming to safeguard the country from the danger of free elections is a classic form of the totalitarian takeover.

But the media’s insistence that it is the institution that embodies the First Amendment is even more dangerous. The media claims that any criticism of it endangers the First Amendment. This is a perverse reversal of the First Amendment which protects the freedom to criticize politicians and institutions.

The media treats the First Amendment as an exclusive institutional power whose role is not to open dialogue, but to close it. As the guardians of the First, the media has the authority to decide who should and should not be allowed to speak. And that way lies the end of the First Amendment.

The totalitarian left isn’t protecting the First Amendment. It’s destroying it.
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Daniel Greenfield is Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. David Horowitz is a Contributing Author of the ARRA News Service

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Is Trump Entering a Kill Box?

by Patrick Buchanan: Given the bravery he showed in stepping out front as the first senator to endorse Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions deserves better from his boss than the Twitter-trashing he has lately received.

The attorney general has not only been loyal to Trump and his agenda, he has the respect and affection of ex-colleagues in Congress and, more broadly, of populists and conservatives nationally.

Trump’s tweets about Sessions are only demoralizing his base.

Yet the president is not wrong to be exasperated and enraged.

A yearlong FBI investigation into Russian hacking has failed to produce a single indictment. Yet the president watches impotently as a special counsel pulls together a lethal force, inside his own administration, whose undeclared ambition is to bring him down.

Trump’s behavior suggests that he sees the Mueller threat as potentially mortal.

How did we get to this peril point when there is no evidence that Trump or any senior aide colluded in the hacking? As for the June 2016 meeting with the Russians, called by Donald Trump Jr. when told by a friend that Moscow had dirt on Hillary Clinton, even that was no crime.

Foolish, yes; criminal, no. So, again, how did we get to where talk of impeachment and presidential pardons fills the air?

First, Attorney General Sessions, as a campaign adviser and surrogate for Trump who had met with the Russian ambassador, had to recuse himself from the investigation. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein then assumed oversight authority.

Trump then fired FBI Director James Comey and boasted to Russia’s foreign minister about having gotten the “crazy nut job” off his case. His Oval Office comments leaked. Comey then leaked notes of his meeting with Trump. Rosenstein then washed his hands of the mess by naming a special counsel.

And he chose a bulldog, ex-FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Hence, where are we? Despite zero evidence of Trump or his aides colluding in the hacking, a counterintelligence investigation is evolving into a criminal investigation. Mueller is now hiring veteran investigators and prosecutors specializing in white-collar crime.

This is not a witch hunt. It is an Easter egg hunt on the White House lawn, where the most colorful eggs are likely to be the tax returns and the financial records of Trump, who built a real estate empire in a town where winners brag about how they gutted the losers.

Every enemy of Trump is going to be dropping the dime on him to Mueller. Moreover, there is no history of special counsels being appointed and applauded by the press, who went home without taking scalps.

Trump understands this. Reports of his frustration and rage suggest that he knows he has been maneuvered, partly by his own mistakes, into a kill box from which there may be no bloodless exit.

What Trump needs is a leader at Justice who will confine the Mueller investigation to the Russian hacking, and keep Mueller’s men from roaming until they hit prosecutorial pay dirt.

Consider now Trump’s narrowing options.

He can fire Jeff Sessions. But that will enrage Trump’s base to whom the senator is a loyal soldier. And anyone Trump nominates as AG would not be confirmed unless he or she pledged not to interfere with Mueller.

He could direct Rosenstein to fire Mueller. But Rosenstein would assume the Elliot Richardson role in the Saturday Night Massacre, when that AG refused to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, resigned, and was canonized as a martyr by the Never-Nixon media.

Even if Trump finds a Justice Department loyalist to play the role of Solicitor General Robert Bork, who carried out Nixon’s orders and fired Cox, this would only mean Mueller’s departure. Mueller’s staff of prosecutors and investigators would still be there, beavering away.

When Archibald Cox was fired, Nixon ordered his entire office shut down. Yet, within days of the firestorm, it was up and running again with a new special prosecutor. And impeachment resolutions were blossoming in the House.

Another Trump option would be to leave Mueller alone and hope for a benign outcome. But from reports of his rage at the recusal of Sessions and unwillingness of Rosenstein to restrict Mueller to the Russian hacking scandal, Trump seems to sense that an unrestricted investigation represents a mortal threat to his presidency.

And all the talk of impeachment and pardons suggests that this city can also see what lies over the next hill. After all, we have been here before.

From his history, Mueller is not a man to be intimidated by charges of bias. These will only steel his resolve to pursue with his subpoena power every document he wants, including tax returns, until he has satisfied himself.

The president is unlikely to view this process with indulgence, and patience does not appear to rank high among his virtues.

We are headed for a collision between President Trump and Director Mueller.
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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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Be Prepared . . .

. . . Liberals have a long history of showing disdain for the Boy Scouts recently calling them the Hitler Youth when Trump spoke at their jamboree.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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Sessions Should Clarify Scope Of Recusal by Hiring More Special Prosecutors

Sen. Jeff Sessions

by Robert Romano: On March 2, Attorney General Jeff Sessions broadly recused himself from “any existing or future investigations of any matters related in any way to the campaigns for President of the United States.”

This left then-Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente ostensibly in charge of the supposed Russian 2016 election interference investigation, which passed to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who then handed it off to Special Counsel Robert Mueller in May.

Since that time, Mueller’s investigation has reportedly veered into matters unrelated to the 2016 election campaign — Trump’s real estate dealings, the Miss Universe pageant, and other unconnected business deals as well as targeting the President’s children — and therefore far beyond the scope of Sessions’ original recusal.

As a result, the investigation has gained the appearance of an unconstitutional general warrant — a blank check for Mueller to perpetually probe Trump associates until he finds some criminality somewhere, even if it is completely unrelated to the original charge of Russian interference in the 2016 election. A runaway investigation desperately in search of a crime.

This led Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning to call for Sessions to “bind the Special Counsel to only pursuing matters for which Sessions has recused himself from overseeing as the nation’s top cop.”

But how? One tactic Sessions might consider is clarifying the scope of his original recusal on “any matters related in any way to the campaigns for President of the United States” — by appointing more special prosecutors to cover other matters that would be beyond the scope of Mueller’s mandate on the Russia investigation, but still invariably involve presidential campaigns.

A similar call was made by the House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and committee Republicans in a July 27 letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, calling for a second special counsel to be appointed to look at issues separate from the Russia investigation yet still tied to the presidential campaigns and thus to Attorney General Sessions’ recusal. They wrote, “The unbalanced, uncertain, and seemingly unlimited focus of the special counsel’s investigation has led many of our constituents to see a dual standard of justice that benefits only the powerful and politically well-connected. For this reason, we call on you to appoint a second special counsel to investigate a plethora of matters connected to the 2016 election and its aftermath, including actions taken by previously public figures like Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.”

Here, I’ll take a slightly different tact, and suggest that there should be a separate special counsel for each one of these investigations.

Specifically, a separate special prosecutor should be named by Sessions to look at former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s handling of the Hillary Clinton private email server containing classified information scandal during the election campaign. Lynch urged then-FBI Director James Comey to call the Clinton investigation a “matter” instead of what it was, a criminal investigation, and Comey complied with the request. Comey also confronted Lynch about her June 2016 meeting with former President Bill Clinton days before his wife was to be interviewed by the FBI, and three days prior to Comey clearing Clinton of any wrongdoing. Finally, Comey brought an email to Lynch’s attention obtained by the FBI involving U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schulz that purported to show that Lynch wouldn’t let the Clinton investigation “go too far.”

Additionally, another special counsel is needed to look into the former National Security Rice Susan Rice and other former Obama administration officials who were responsible for unmasking U.S. citizens from intelligence intercepts, including members of the 2016 Trump campaign and then transition. The investigation would also look at why the FBI was relying on third parties, including the slanderous Christopher Steele dossier and who paid for it via Fusion GPS. Then there is also the Crowdstrike analysis of the Democratic National Committee’s to facilitate its witch hunt into all things Russia. It would also look into the leaking of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s name to the Washington Post from an intelligence intercept from December when Flynn had a conversation with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Overall, investigators should be looking at who had a political interest in pushing the Trump-Russia narrative and was in a position to leak the bad intelligence.

Yet another special counsel could be appointed to look at the Clinton Foundation’s pay for play racket when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. As the Associated Press reported in August 2016, more than half of Clinton’s non-governmental visitors as Secretary of State were Clinton Foundation donors. Were there any quid pro quos? Might it have had something to do with Clinton’s years-long campaign to become President? There’s only one way to find out. There should be an investigation led by a special counsel.

Of course, there is the IRS scandal targeting tea party and other 501(c)(4) organizations that were applying for tax exempt status. Starting in 2010, the IRS slow-walked these applications, asking invasive questions and discriminating solely on the basis of ideology. Then-managing director at the D.C.-based technical office Holly Paz has since testified that in Feb. 2010 “a case was identified where there was potential for political campaign activity, and that was when they reached out to Washington and the case was transferred to Washington.” Paz said she then forwarded it to agency tax specialist and attorney Carter Hull, who developed many of the invasive follow-up questions that attempted to probe just how political groups intended to be. Michael Seto, the head of Hull’s unit said it was Exempt Organization head Lois Lerner who ordered that the tea party applications be subjected to special scrutiny. In 2013, Lerner pleaded the Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself. Perhaps a fresh look at this scandal is needed to root out any potential criminal wrongdoing. Was this a part of the Obama administration’s push to suppress tea party groups for his own reelection campaign? There should have been a special counsel then, so why not one now?

Then was the Fast and Furious gun-running scandal from 2009 to 2011 by Justice Department officials whose actions got a Border Patrol agent and hundreds of Mexicans killed. The White House was so concerned that it claimed executive privilege over documents related to the operation, whose guns were turning up at crime scenes on both sides of the border. This might not have had anything to do with presidential campaigns, per se, but surely the cover-up was intended to help Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012 and was certainly politically motivated. Either way, this was another where there should have been a special prosecutor, but Obama’s then-Attorney General Eric Holder did not appoint one.

Finally, there is Ukraine’s alleged interference in the 2016 election to attempt to help the Hillary Clinton campaign win, broken by Politico in January. If the Russia interference gets a special prosecutor, why not Ukraine, whose civil war threatens to destabilize the entire region? We need to know what ties Ukraine had to the Clintons and if any U.S. officials were involved during Obama’s term of office. Were they all working together? Who knows? It might shed more light on other aspects of the Russia investigation, which we all want to get to the bottom of, right?

That should be enough to keep the Justice Department busy for quite a while, and politically might create a mutually assured destruction scenario for both Democrats and Republicans. If the standard now is we need special prosecutors to investigate politically charged allegations — where merely the allegations are enough to get the special counsel appointed — to see if any crimes were committed, let’s have at it. You don’t even need a warrant. Just an Attorney General or his designee who is willing to create the prosecuting offices to pursue criminal charges even if you don’t initially know what the crime was.

Sure that’s not what the regulations say, as noted by the National Review’s Andrew McCarthy.

But if we’re going to pervert the Justice Department to becoming a political animal to destroy political enemies such as via the Mueller investigation with general warrants in search of crimes, it might as well become a bipartisan affair.
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Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy of Americans for Limited Government.

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The Minimal Use of a Finger

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: Drivers in Washington State have a new law to . . . swerve from?

“New distracted driving law starts Sunday, July 23,” the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) tweeted last week. “The law forbids,” Washingtonians were told, “virtually all use of handheld gadgets such as phones, tablets, laptop computers and gaming devices while driving.”

The idea is to prevent accidents. Though distracted driving’s danger has been contested, texting while driving certainly seems a kind of crazy.

Thankfully, it’s possible to talk “hands free.”

Which, it turns out, the new law does allow. Drivers may activate and de-activate hands-free devices (and apps) with the “minimal use of a finger.”

Eating and drinking while driving are also disallowed, but those are “secondary offenses,” which police are not allowed to pull you over for.

At this point, another meaning of “minimal use of a finger” may occur to some readers. What starts out as secondary offenses have been known to be upgraded, legally and practically, to primary offense status.

Does a shiver runs down your back?

Yet another rule! More fines!

More interactions with police.

And if all this doesn’t feel “police state-y” enough for you, there is argument in Seattle about whether pedestrians should be prohibited from “distracted walking.”

Yes, some are actually considering that.

I’m reminded of an argument against socialism: government-run enterprises tend to be run “ruthlessly and with special attention to prosecution (and overburdening) of the poor.” Why would anyone want such techniques writ society-wide, in every sector?

Meanwhile, we apparently must live and drive with more rules and more fines and more harassment.

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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Hysterical Rhetoric

Stephen Hawking

by Kerby Anderson, Contributing Author: arlier this month, Jonah Goldberg wrote a column and other writers are still quoting one of his lines. He said: “The more you sound like some cowbell-wielding street preacher wearing a sandwich board that says, ‘The End is Nigh!’ the more likely people will ignore you.”

It’s a vivid image of a street preacher but he uses it to criticize the hysterical rhetoric being used by environmentalists these days. He says that one of the hallmarks of the “Ugly American” is a habit of thinking foreigners will understand what you’re saying if you just shout it louder and louder. The Ugly Environmentalist, he says, is doing the same thing by grossly exaggerating doomsday predictions with more and more hysterical rhetoric.

Here is just one example of this rhetoric. Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking predicted the consequences of Donald Trump withdrawing from the Paris climate accord. He warned that, “Trump’s action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of 240 degrees and raining sulfuric acid.” He may be a brilliant scientist, but this is certainly crazy talk.

This hysterical rhetoric creates two significant problems. First, people who hear it constantly begin to close their ears and minds to it. When we were children, we heard the story of the boy who cried wolf one too many times.

Second, there are the people who do believe it and are absolutely convinced that climate change will hasten the end of civilization and the end of life on this earth. In order to prevent this dystopia they are willing to endorse any policy and punish anyone who appears to be standing in the way of saving the planet. That is why you sometimes hear environmentalists say that climate change deniers should be put in jail. A few have even suggested the climate skeptics should be prosecuted as war criminals.

That is why all of this hysterical rhetoric is really very dangerous.
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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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Senate Majority Leader McConnell - On Obamacare Repeal Vote

ARRA News Service: Senate Republicans attempted to pass a pared-down "skinny" Obamacare repeal bill in the early hours of today. The wasvote of 49-51. Three Republican senators — John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski abondedned the Republicans and joined all Democrats in voting against the bill. President Trump commented on the vote:

3 Republicans and 48 Democrats let the American people down. As I said from the beginning, let ObamaCare implode, then deal. Watch!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 28, 2017

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) made the following remarks on the Senate floor early today regarding the Senate Republican effort to repeal and replace Obamacare:

“This is clearly a disappointing moment. From skyrocketing costs to plummeting choices and collapsing markets, our constituents have suffered through an awful lot under Obamacare. We thought they deserved better. It’s why I, and many of my colleagues, did as we promised and voted to repeal this failed law. We told our constituents we would vote that way. When the moment came, most of us did. We kept our commitments. We worked hard — and everybody on this side can certainly attest to the fact that we worked really hard — to try to develop a consensus for a better way forward. And I want to thank everybody in this Conference for the endless amount of time that they spent trying to achieve a consensus to go forward. I also want to thank the president and the vice president who couldn’t have been more involved or more helpful.

“So yes, this is a disappointment. A disappointment indeed. Our friends over in the House, we thank them as well. I regret that our efforts were simply not enough this time.

“I imagine many of our colleagues on the other side are celebrating, probably pretty happy about all of this. But the American people are hurting and they need relief. Our friends on the other side decided early on that they did not want to engage with us in a serious way to help those suffering under Obamacare. They did everything they could to prevent the Senate from providing a better way forward including such things as reading amendments for endless amounts of time. Such things as holding up nominations for key positions in the administration because they were unhappy that we were trying to find a way to something better than Obamacare. So I expect that they are pretty satisfied tonight. I regret to say that they succeeded in that effort.

“Now I think it’s appropriate to ask, what are their ideas? It’ll be interesting to see what they suggest as the way forward. For myself I can say — and I bet I’m pretty safe in saying for most on this side of the aisle — that bailing out insurance companies with no thought of any kind of reform, is not something I want to be part of. And I suspect there are not many folks over here that are interested in that. But it’ll be interesting to see what they have in mind.

“Quadrupling down on the failures of Obamacare with ‘single payer’ — we had vote a little earlier thanks to the Senator from Montana— almost everybody voted present. Apparently, they didn't want to make a decision about whether they were for or against socialized medicine. A government takeover of everything. European health care. Only four of them weren’t afraid to say they didn’t think that was a good idea. Maybe that’s what they want to offer. We will be happy to have that debate with the American people. So, it’s time for our friends on the other side to tell us what they have in mind. And we’ll see how the American people feel about their ideas.

“So, I regret that we’re here, but I want to say again that I’m proud of the vote I cast tonight. It’s consistent with what we told the American people we’d try to accomplish in four straight elections if they gave us the chance. I want to thank all of my colleagues on this side of the aisle for everything they did to try and keep that commitment. What we tried to accomplish for the American people was the right thing for the country. And our only regret tonight is that we didn’t achieve what we had hoped to accomplish. I think the American people are going to regret that we couldn’t find a better way forward. And as I said, we look forward to our colleagues on the other side suggesting what they have in mind.”

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For Russia With Love, Trump Is Right & Congress Is Wrong About Sanctions

President Trump salutes after disembarking
Marine One as he returns to the White House.

by Ralph Benko, Contributing Author: There is a lot of stray voltage pouring out of the mass media about alleged collusion between some members of the Trump campaign and Russians. And much harrumphing about how Presidents Trump and Putin had not one but two extended private conversations while at the G-20.

Enter the United States Congress grandstanding on Russia and overwhelmingly passing, by veto-proof majorities, legislation to inhibit the president from lifting sanctions if he deems it appropriate. The Democrats, and some Washington Insiders, are using claims of collusion between Trump campaign operatives and Russian operatives to undermine Trump’s legitimacy. Some Republicans are using Russia to demonstrate their toughness.

Some say Russia is acting like a thug. I say it's acting like a cornered bear. . . .

As H.L. Mencken pointed out in 1918, “the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” Our practical politicians, intent on keeping the populace alarmed, are intent on making Russia the “imaginary hobgoblin” du jour.

This is badly misplaced and prejudices American interests and values.

. . . A few words for Russia. With Love.

Trump wants to normalize relations with Russia. He campaigned on that and has a mandate for it. Trump is on the side of the angels on this one. Much better to have our old ally from what we call World War II and they call the Great Patriotic War as a friend than an enemy.

Our old ally’s infractions should not be tolerated. That said, they should be treated with proportionality. . . .

Yes, Russians can be mystifying. As Churchill said in his famous broadcast of October 1, 1939:

I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest. It cannot be in accordance with the interest of the safety of Russia that Germany should plant itself upon the shores of the Black Sea, or that it should overrun the Balkan States and subjugate the Slavonic peoples of south eastern Europe. That would be contrary to the historic life-interests of Russia.

Russians have some foibles. They can be overbearing, suspicious, and have a proclivity for the covert. These, currently, are modest enough. Trigger warning: We Americans have a few foibles of our own. I find the Russians -- from Moscow to the farthest reaches of Siberia -- I encounter consistently charming, lugubriously sentimental, romantically heroic, and sublimely cultured.

Russia is the Grand Opera of nations.

Less poetically, Russia does not represent a clear and present danger to America. Yet total war can be blundered into, as evidenced by World War I, and so it behooves us to explore an opportunity for a friendship here. For profit and pleasure and, yes, all the better to occasionally whisper into Russian ears blandishments to help them modulate their excesses. Maybe these romantically heroic people can help us modulate our own excesses.

Russia ardently wishes to be seated at the Cool Kids Lunch Table, where I have a place of honor reserved for them. I contend that it will, if not made to feel bullied, behave so as to be welcome. It is in our own self-interest to stop Hippie-Punching Russia.

As I wrote here, 60% of Republican primary voters voted for one of the three Reaganesque “tough dove” candidates -- Trump, Cruz and Paul. Trump was the toughest-doviest of them all and got the nomination, based, in part, on that stance.

As nominee, Tough Dove Trump went on to beat the tough talking Hillary Clinton, who, as Democratic nominee, showed a horrifying propensity to rekindle the Forever War in the Middle East and reinsert America back into that quagmire. Mrs. Clinton also took a rhetorically bellicose stance toward Russia, gratuitously antagonizing Putin by, while Secretary of State, comparing him to Hitler, the worst insult imaginable. Some diplomat!

Clinton lost, lost on the demerits of her positions on peace, prosperity, and social policy.

Not because of election tampering.

Inline image 1Trump was and is right that NATO’s main mission is obsolete and that it deserves to be largely repurposed to fight against the revanchists -- Daesh, a/k/a ISIS -- who use terror in a tormented effort to restore the Caliphate. . . .

The West won the Cold War. The hideous Berlin Wall fell. Germany reunified. This is the most powerful symbol of the liberation of captive nations of Eastern Europe, once called Soviet satellites. Then, 25 years ago last Christmas, the USSR peacefully dissolved itself into fifteen independent nations.

It was as if the United States had split itself into 50 independent states, each far less formidable than the United States. Times change. The USSR is long gone. Let's get with it.

The Russian Federation is the geographically largest of those constituent republics. It, the geographically largest country in the world, is almost twice the physical size of the USA with a population of less than half that of ours. This provides far more territory to defend with only half of the population to defend it. The Russian Federation now has around 1M active duty troops, costing it about $70B a year. Those armed forces are stretched terribly thin protecting the homeland.

America has about 1.3M in active military service, without having to protect its homeland due to oceans and docile neighbors, costing about $600B year. NATO members, including the US, have around 3.5 million military personnel (at a cost of $900B). Encircled, outnumbered, vastly outspent and sanctioned the Russians feel vulnerable and defensive.

The Russians have other reasons for feeling vulnerable. This is not just a mathematical exercise in correlation of forces. The Russian "suspicion foible" is well grounded in history. It’s not just that the Russian Federation is vastly outnumbered and outspent. Russia has been invaded by Western European powers three times in contemporary history: once by Sweden, in 1707, once by France, in 1812, and once by Germany, in 1941.

That is on top of the invasion of the Rus by the Mongols, in the 13th century, leading to a brutal exploitation that lasted nearly three centuries. That's longer than the United States has been a nation. That's a long time. . . .

Imagine how we might feel if America had been invaded four times in 800 years and dominated by a foreign conqueror for a more than quarter of that. This history, of which too few Americans are aware, might help grasp the Russian perspective... without exonerating their overreactions.

So, at least for our own sake, let's grasp the shrewd Churchill’s key: "Russian national interest.” This is not a counsel of connivance at authoritarianism. Rather the opposite.

When a nation feels threatened it has a propensity to turn to the Strong Man and to cede him latitude. Consider America turning to George W. Bush in the wake of 9/11 and the latitude we gave him, based on false pretenses or flimsy misinformation, to wage a war that had catastrophic humanitarian consequences and squandered trillions of dollars that would have been better spent on rebuilding our roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, aqueducts and pipelines and supporting our own economy.

Trump, love him or hate him, has been outspoken on this, clearly and unflinchingly. As reported by The American Conservative opining on Trump’s speech before a Joint Session of Congress:“America has spent approximately six trillion dollars in the Middle East,” Trump observed. As media personalities like to say, that’s trillion with a T. The sums expended pursuant to U.S. military misadventures in that part of the world are so gargantuan, Trump continued, that “we could have rebuilt our country—twice. And maybe even three times….” . . . The more America makes foreign nations feel squeezed, insecure, belittled and even bullied the more they are likely to turn to a “strong man,” authoritarian, figure. The more latitude the people will give him to get tough both at home and abroad. This principle applies, if less strongly, even to authoritarian governments.

People are similar the world around. By-and-large we prefer butter to guns. That said, we will choose guns if we feel threatened. All things being equal, national leaders prefer to keep their people happy or at least mollified. Let's, Trump seems to say and I believe, tip Russia toward butter.

The forward path to spreading classical liberalism -- Jefferson’s “empire of Liberty” -- is through soft power: ideas, culture, and the example of free-market-based prosperity. America has something like 800 military bases in 70 countries.

. . . That's a lot of military for an era with a long time since the last war between industrialized nations. Some folks might find us . . . intimidating. Is intimidation really that which America wishes to project?

An expensive hobby. Enter Trump, who said: No!

. . . America never sought world domination and has not demonstrated imperialistic ambitions, not for over a century. We reluctantly engaged in the “Great War,” World War I, in the context of the fall of the five Empires that then governed most of the world's population: Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, Chinese, Russian, and British.

We won. Instead of "making the world safe for (representative) democracy" we then encountered tyrants breeding in the ruins of Empire. So, we reluctantly entered WWII -- “the Great Patriotic War” -- to defeat the tyrants of the West and of imperial Japan: Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo. We won and implanted classical liberal republicanism in Western Europe and Japan. And dismantled the British empire.

We diffidently fought the tyrants of the East in WWIII, the “Cold War,” breaking heroically hot in Korea, Vietnam, and with American support but not troops, at last fatally to the USSR: Afghanistan. We won, then mostly implanted classical liberal republicanism in the former satellites and constituent republics. In victory we moved the metropoles, Moscow and Beijing, from totalitarian to authoritarian.

That’s a very big deal indeed. Hooray, us! But when the USSR dissolved itself we kind of got left holding the bag of world hegemony, a bag we never sought (and very expensive to own). Trump gets that America does not desire World Domination.

Americans just want to make money. World Domination, Brain, is a really expensive hobby.

We liberty-minded Americans built up our own Big Government to take down even bigger, sometimes monstrous, governments. It was a heroic epoch and we should respect ourselves, and the leaders we anointed, for undertaking a heroic fight against tyranny.

Game over! Now we can build down the government to the just right size for peace. Big Government served its purpose of taking down Bigger Government. It did so, heroically.

Now that we've won, thank you very much, we-the-people will take our power and money back. That epoch is over and the election of Trump is one of the markers of that.

. . . Then let's spend most of that dividend on butter: marginal tax rate cuts, infrastructure, health care, whatnot.

Except... our current politicos are propagating the imaginary hobgoblin of a long-gone adversary. Pshaw.

Trump hasn’t fallen for the vilification of Russia. Neither should we.

The imaginary hobgoblin of Russia is the subtext behind the Congress’s effort to handcuff Trump on the matter of lifting sanctions. Trump, who does not present as particularly mellow and is vividly intolerant of being played for a chump, is unlikely to be tolerant of Russian shenanigans. In this matter, at least, we are in good hands.

Trump has shown himself something of a political Houdini. Still, Congress attempting to shackle him on sanctions is just wrong. It's against American interests -- making money -- and values -- peace.

One treats the sins of a friend differently than those of a foe. Russia is a great candidate for friend and its infractions should be treated with due proportionality. Also, let's not imagine sins not in evidence. "Imaginary hobgoblins" and all that.

In fact, let’s get on -- as this last election showed America yearns to do -- with the political consequences of the peace.

Where to begin?

How about Russia?

With love.
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Ralph Benko is an advisor to nonprofit and advocacy organizations, is a member of the Conservative Action Project, a contributor to the contributor to the ARRA News Service. Founder of The Prosperity Caucus, he was a member of the Jack Kemp supply-side team, served in an unrelated area as a deputy general counsel in the Reagan White House. The full rticle first appeared in Forbes.

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Tags: Ralph Benko, For Russia With Love, Trump Is Right, Congress Is Wrong, About Sanctions, Forbes To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!