History is More Important Than Hysteria

by Newt Gingrich: Americans have once again been subjected to a dishonest, one-sided elite media frenzy.

In what is becoming an all too common occurrence, the media covers an event, distorts it, and then builds on its own distortion, condemning anyone who refuses to blindly accept their falsehoods.

All of this is done in a tone of hysteria, designed to both distract us from the serious problems the Left can’t solve and to isolate conservatives on emotionally hateful grounds.

Let me be clear: The conflict in Charlottesville last Saturday was terrible. An American was killed in an act of domestic terrorism by a hateful fanatic. Every American should condemn neo-Nazis, the KKK, and racism in all its hateful forms.

However, for leftwing fanatics and the elite media, bringing the country together and refusing to tolerate any group or individual that promotes racism and violence is not enough.

Instead, they believe that we should support eliminating large parts of American history.

If a person defends a historic monument or statue, the Left and the elite media immediately claim it is a sign of racism, anti-Semitism, and any other harsh emotional condemnation they can throw.

Never mind the words of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a Republican who was the first African American woman to serve as Secretary of State and who witnessed the atrocities of racism first-hand when members of the KKK bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, killing one of her close friends and three other young girls.

When asked earlier this year about removing Confederate memorials, Rice said, “When you start wiping out your history, sanitizing your history to make you feel better, it’s a bad thing.”

However, engaging in rational debates about this issue is impossible in this media frenzy because only the Left’s views are tolerated.

Consider Bill Kristol’s vicious attack on Tucker Carlson earlier this week.

During the opening monologue of his Fox News show, Carlson raised concern about discrediting every historical figure who was a slave owner, saying that in doing so, we risk undermining our founding documents. In response, Kristol tweeted, “They started by rationalizing Trump. They ended by rationalizing slavery.” Kristol then went on to infer that Carlson was anti-Semitic.

This is a perfect example of the current hysteria. Carlson was raising a valid question about whether it is reasonable to start whitewashing our history and denigrating every American historical figure who owned slaves. Do Kristol and others in the elite media think that we should tear down the monuments of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, both of whom owned slaves?

The surprising thing about Kristol’s unexpected attack on Carlson was that Carlson had worked under Kristol for years at the Weekly Standard. According to Carlson, “I knew him well. He was a genuinely smart guy. He’s a good boss, too. He was humane and fair-minded. He was the kind of person I never would imagine would write something that nasty and dishonest about an enemy much less an old friend. What happened?”

But Kristol’s rash tweetstorm against Carlson is exactly the kind of impulsive reaction the frenzy produces.

However, the media will soon learn that the clear majority of Americans repudiate this kind of hysteria.

A recent poll conducted by NPR, PBS News Hour, and the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion indicated that 62 percent of voters nationally think monuments of Confederate leaders should remain up as historical symbols, while only 28 percent of those polled said they should be removed because they are offensive and 10 percent of people were unsure.

Commenting on the poll in his Lunchtime Politics newsletter, political analyst Ron Faucheux went into further detail on the Marist poll, noting that 44% of Democrats, 86% of Republicans, and 61% of independents say the monuments should remain as historical symbols. By region: 53% in the Northeast, 61% in the Midwest, 66% in the South, and 61% in the West say the statues should remain.

Also, 67% of Caucasians, 44% of African Americans, and 65% of Latinos say the statues should remain.

So, in the Left’s and elite media’s view are 44 percent of African Americans secretly racist since they accept the historic role of old statues?

Of course not.

This is just further proof of the dishonest, hysteria-driven smear campaign being run by the Left and the elite media.

But don’t be fooled. The Left is not motivated by their desire to defend morality. Their actions are fueled by their desperation to focus our attention on symbolic emotional fights to detract from their failed policies.

The day after the tragedy in Charlottesville, six people were shot and killed in Chicago and five more have been killed since. In Baltimore, eight people have died of gunshot wounds in the past week. And on Thursday, at least 13 were killed and approximately 120 wounded in an ISIS terrorist attack in Barcelona, Spain.

The fanatics of the Left have no answers for these problems.

All they can do is attempt to arouse hysteria by focusing the debate on symbolic issues.

However, if the Left and the media continue their hysteria, fanaticism, and attacks on America, it could pose a serious threat to our nation and our future.

It is time the rest of us defended America as aggressively as the Left attacks it.
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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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President Trump Moves to Investigate China for Discriminatory Policies against U.S. Intellectual Property

by Ryan Hite: This week, President Donald Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum instructing the United States Trade Representative to examine whether China should be investigated for "unreasonable or discriminatory policies" against American intellectual property owners.

This year, the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property (IP Commission Report) updated a 2013 report to show that Chinese government policies lead directly to the theft and abuse of United States intellectual property. China has too-often gained unauthorized access to U.S. business network, even, at times, stealing commercial information.

"China plays by only one set of rules - whatever profits them," said Ed Martin, president of Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund. "Time and again China has directly harmed American workers and our economy, through the theft of American business and intellectual property. President Trump campaigned against this gross violation of fair trade, and we are happy to see him following through on yet another campaign promise."

The 2017 updated IP Commission Report estimates that these Chinese infringements cost the United States as much as $600 billion annually. The updated Report also indicates that China is responsible for an estimated 50 to 80 percent of all the IP theft costs to the American Economy. View the full statement from the White House here.

The Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund has long been a staunch advocate for intellectual property rights and the freedom for inventors to invent. Our founder, Phyllis Schlafly, was known throughout the inventor and IP community as a long-time voice in defense of the American inventor. For more information on this organization and other affiliated Eagle groups, visit PhyllisSchlafly.com.
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Ryan Hite is Communications Director, Schlafly Eagles Press Office

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Tags: President Trump, Moves to Investigate, China, Discriminatory Policies, against, U.S. Intellectual Property To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Praise For President Trump & AG Sessions Ending Operation Choke Point

ARRA News Service: Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning praised President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions for putting an end to Operation Choke Point, an Obama Administration initiative to "choke off" politically disfavored industries, like firearms manufacturers and payday lenders, from access to the banking system, announced by Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd in a letter to Capitol Hill:

"Operation Choke Point was one of the most underhanded tools of the Obama-Holder Justice Department to kill off legal, legitimate businesses — and that says something. Under Choke Point, these legitimate industries were lumped together with online pornography, 'get rich' products, and Ponzi schemes, on a list of businesses considered a 'high risk' for fraud, thereby intimidating banks into abandoning them. Bullying banks into choking off the financial lifeblood of any business enterprise under the guise of fraud prevention was a prime example of the Obama Administration's flagrant disrespect for the rule of law. President Trump and Attorney General Sessions did the right thing by terminating this affront to justice and restoring integrity to the Justice Department and the federal financial regulators. Hopefully, this marks the first step toward restoring the good name of these legitimate, law-abiding enterprises."

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Concerned Citizens Demand Removal of Offensive Statue That Glorifies an Alleged Rapist

by Benny Johnson: There has been a wave of mob protests across the country demanding the removal of controversial statues from coast to coast.

Sometimes, those protesters become violent and sometimes the protesters forcibly remove the statues themselves. In one instance in North Carolina, protesters were arrested for vandalizing and tearing down a Confederate statue. The statues targeted for removal are typically offensive to some and politically incorrect to others. They range from slave-owning generals to America's founding fathers.

One group of concerned citizens is taking direct action against a statue of a well-known, controversial figure in American history. His name is Bill Clinton. Clinton was president of the United States from 1992 to 2000. He is the only modern president to be impeached for lying under oath.

He also has a long and sad history as an alleged sexual predator. His many affairs and accusations are detailed at length here. They include, but are not limited to:

1. Juanita Broaddrick
2. Kathleen Willey
3. Paula Jones
4. Monica Lewinsky
5. Sandra Allen James
6. Eileen Wellstone
7. Carolyn Moffet
8. Carolyn Zercher
9. Gennifer Flowers
10. Helen Dowdy

While many of the above cases were settled in different ways, all the women have come forward as sexual assault victims and accused Clinton of being, at the very least, a “sexual predator.” The behavior and sordid past has led to some activists and concerned citizens to criticize a statue honoring Clinton which proudly stands in South Dakota city of Rapid City.

This statue of Bill Clinton in Rapid City should be destroyed immediately
He is a rapist
It offends me

Said not one liberal hypocrite ever pic.twitter.com/zwrSb5EvWK

— SparkleMAGA🇺🇸 (@SparkleSoup45) August 17, 2017

I'm offended by this statue of rapist Bill Clinton in Rapid City, South Dakota. It must come down. Rapist have no right to be memorialized. pic.twitter.com/QcSOIPWKWC

— MADAME (@TheRoyalPosts) August 17, 2017

The calls are not just limited to commenters online. One of Clinton's former accusers, Juanita Broaddrick, told the American Mirror:Speaking exclusively to The American Mirror, Broaddrick denounced the lack of efforts to uproot a monument to Bill Clinton in South Dakota, the man she says raped her in a Little Rock, Arkansas hotel room in 1978.

“I would like to ‘personally’ use a sledgehammer on it, with the help of Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones,” Broaddrick says.The Mirror piece added that the statue stands at the street corner of 7th and Saint Joseph Street.------------------------
Benny Johnson writes for the Independent Journal Review. Opinions are those of the authors.

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Tags: Benny Johnson. independent Jouranl Review, Bill Clinton, Arkansas, Concerned citizens, demand removal, offensive statues, glorifies, alledged rapist To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Barcelona Bloodbath, The American Taliban

Gary Bauer

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author:  Barcelona Bloodbath -  Once again, the world is being subjected to images of dead and dying people on the streets of Europe. Yet another vicious attack has been carried out by a committed enemy. Fourteen people in Barcelona, Spain, were killed and more than 100 were injured when jihadists turned vehicles into weapons of mass destruction. (As I write, there are breaking reports of a massive fire at the Barcelona airport.)

In spite of Western leaders who insist it has nothing to do with Islam, this enemy believes with all its heart and soul that Allah is pleased every time it beheads, blows up or runs down an infidel.

This morning we were also being treated to other images we have seen before: Citizens of the nation under attack standing in a public square observing "a moment of silence." They stand by silently because they lack the courage to pray to our God for victory over this barbaric enemy.

There will be flowers. There will be singing. There will be everything other than actual policies that could help the West survive.

If anybody in Europe today says, "We need to stop the Islamization of our continent," media elites will denounce them as a bigot.

If President Trump says, "This is why we need extreme vetting," there will be "social justice warriors" and politicians shouting, "Fascism!"

Incredibly, our media and political elites and the "social justice warriors" are not yelling at the real fascists who are killing innocent people and seeking a second Holocaust. No, their outrage is reserved for the populist conservatives who are desperately trying to bring Western Civilization back to its senses.

Many commentators reflecting on the scene in Spain this morning said, "Look at the crowd in that plaza. The people of Spain are saying, 'This won't change the way we live.'"

Well, that is the problem. We're telling the enemy that we won't change, that we won't do what is necessary to defeat them.

We will continue shopping. We will continue going to the movies. We will continue pretending that this terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. And the Islamic supremacists will continue to kill us.

One of the arguments open borders advocates frequently make is this: "Most Muslims are not terrorists." Fair enough and obviously true.

But do they really not understand that as Muslim communities grow in the West, they provide a "sea" the jihadists can "swim" in as they plot their murderous attacks?

After each security failure, the experts tell us that trying to find the jihadi is like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. Maybe so. But can't we at least stop bringing in more haystacks?

Consider this: We already told you about the Davis, California, imam who prayed last month that Allah would "annihilate" the Jews. Well, there is another radical imam preaching in Riverside, California.

He prayed that Allah would "liberate" Israel from "unjust tyrants and the occupiers" and that Allah would turn the Muslims' enemies into slaves. This is the same mosque that 2015 San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook attended. It seems like nothing has changed.

In many cases, it's not hard to find the needle in the haystack. As we have pointed out many times before, these attackers often are not lone wolves, but "known wolves."

But progressives willing to shut down the speech of those on the right suddenly get all "constitutional" on us when it comes to protecting the speech of Islamic supremacists.

The American Taliban -  President Trump is often ahead of the curve when it comes to various cultural issues. Yesterday morning and during his ill-advised press conference, the president said, "First it's Robert E. Lee. Then it's George Washington and Thomas Jefferson."

He's right. In spite of their contributions to our founding, Washington and Jefferson were slave owners, and there are growing calls for monuments to both men to be destroyed. But this was one of the times when Donald Trump was behind the curve.

He left out Abraham Lincoln, a bust of whom was destroyed in Chicago last night. It was also spray painted with the words "F-ck law." The same phrase was painted on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., earlier this week. This is the hate-filled anarchy the left has unleashed.

Earlier this week, we shared a Vice video that captured the imagery of the Neo-Nazis who marched in the Charlottesville horror show. Vice might want to look in the mirror because it has come down on the side of the book burners and their equivalent.

Yesterday, Vice ran a story originally entitled, "Let's Blow Up Mount Rushmore." It eventually apologized and retitled the story, but the headline was the least of the problem.

In the column, senior editor Wilbert Cooper makes it clear that America is evil and must be torn down and rebuilt. And that cannot be done unless we knock down the evil foundation of America. Consider these excerpts:
"It's hard to be critical of a system when that system becomes an article of faith, filled with myths (the cherry tree), deities (Founding Fathers), and notions of salvation (the City on a Hill). It's going to be impossible to improve America if we can't be honest about its origins and its past. . . it seems unthinkable that we will ever see a day when there is a serious push to blow up Rushmore and other monuments like it. But if that moment ever arrives, I suspect I'd be onboard."So until monuments to the men who crafted the greatest constitutional republic in the world are destroyed, and until the concept of American exceptionalism is destroyed, Cooper and other members of the American Taliban will continue to press their attacks on America and the West.

There are deep divisions within the GOP and the conservative movement regarding Donald Trump. But by all measurements, the grassroots remains overwhelmingly on his side.

To my fellow conservatives and "#NeverTrumpers" in our movement: Can you direct some of your energy used to bash Trump and start calling out the leftists whose stated goal is to completely destroy America and who are telling our children and grandchildren that they are living in an evil country?

For those liberals who are legitimately concerned about Putin and Russia: It is time to start asking why members of various radical communist groups are leading the mobs we have seen in places like Durham, North Carolina.

To Senator John McCain: Did I miss your speech condemning the radical leftists who are trying to destroy the country you defended in Vietnam? You do remember, I assume, that the mobs today attacking American memorials are cut from the same cloth as the people who spat on you and the brave men who served with you in Vietnam.

If Donald Trump is for making American great again, does that really mean that everyone who doesn't care for him must be non-combatants in the culture war to destroy America?
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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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Arkansas Lt. Gov. Griffin Advocates More School Choice

by Caleb Taylor: Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin yesterday spoke in favor of expanding school choice options for low-income students in Little Rock.

Griffin spoke to the Charter Authorizing Panel at the Arkansas Department of Education in support of an open-enrollment public charter school application for Einstein Charter School in Little Rock. Einstein operates four charter schools in New Orleans that predominantly serves low-income children.

Griffin said:Some of the things I hear from opponents of this school or charter schools in general: First of all, in this particular case, you hear a lot about “Well, they take the best students, they take the upper income, they take the whatever.” Completely untrue. The focus of Einstein will be lower-income folks who can’t afford a private school, who can’t move to somewhere else. They want more choice too. My kids go to public school, but I have been blessed. I have some other options. Not everybody has those options. I want everybody to have those options. What if you could only have one store that you could shop because you were districted? You had to shop where you live. You couldn’t drive out somewhere and go to another store. That’d be ridiculous. The same thing applies to schools.Conservatives know that competition improves outcomes in private business. Sometimes, lawmakers in Arkansas seem not to comprehend that competition is also good for K-12 public education.

Too many lawmakers in Arkansas are eager to protect existing, traditional public schools at the expense of school choice options for Arkansas students. Based on his testimony yesterday, Griffin doesn’t make this mistake.

Griffin continued: And let me say one final thing. A foundational problem with the anti-choice, anti-charter argument is this: It requires, it asks of parents that they set aside the best interest of their child who is living today in the hopes that decades down the road, the system might get its act together and provide for a child yet born–the education that parent would want for that child not yet born – maybe the parent’s not yet born. But it’s basically saying to parents, “Hey, I know you got a kid now, I know your kid needs the best education now, but if you give your kid the best education now, in twenty years, in ten years, when we might get our act together, you’re putting that at risk.” Well, let me tell you. I know it’s not just me, we all feel the sentiment I’m going to express, and that is that we are concerned about our child today. That is my obligation from God, that is my responsibility as a parent under the law, and that is what the love in my heart first and foremost would have me do. Take care of my child who lives today. Not some opaque argument about if you take your child away today from the education that may not be ideal, you will somehow put at risk the chance that we have in twenty years to get our act together and provide the education for somebody that’s not yet born. That’s a ridiculous argument. That argument underpins all of the opposition to choice today. It hinges on the future, with a recognition that things aren’t where they ought to be.Little Rock School District Superintendent Michael Poore basically proved Griffin’s point when he argued against approving the schools.

Poore urged the board to disallow the new charter school plans. Poore said approval of new charter schools would “cause greater turmoil in this community” and make it “more challenging for us to move forward” in improving the Little Rock School District.

While it’s true that new competition can be challenging in any industry, education policy should be based on allowing parents to give their students the education that best fits their needs.

Ultimately, the panel voted unanimously to give initial approval to two new Little Rock charter schools, Einstein and ScholarMade Achievement Place.
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Caleb Taylor writes for The Arkansas Project an outreach of the Advance Arkansas Institute.

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Charlottesville, Race, And Republican Virtue-Signaling

. . . Why Trump’s condemnation of “all sides” was scorned.

by Bruce Thornton: The blood on the ground in Charlottesville hadn’t dried before the race industry was fulminating full blast, and anxious Republicans were furiously virtue-signaling. Once more we see the toxic wages of our incoherent and politicized racial discourse.

Trump’s general condemnations of the white supremacists and their rally at which a woman was run-over and killed by a loser with a Hitler fetish was insufficient for both sides. Republicans and progressives alike demanded that he call out by name the various fringe-groups that organized the rally. All were outbidding one another to display their righteous indignation and complete freedom from the slightest taint of racism. Ted Cruz’s statement is typical: “The Nazis, the KKK, and white supremacists are repulsive and evil, and all of us have a moral obligation to speak out against the lies, bigotry, anti-Semitism, and hatred that they propagate.” It doesn’t take much bravery to make a statement so obviously true and widely approved outside a tiny fringe movement.

Then followed demands to call the murder “domestic terrorism”; the opening of a DOJ investigation; three days of NeverTrump dudgeon over Trump’s gaffe; and endless progressive analyses of the alt-right and racist moles that have burrowed into Trump’s administration. Long before Charlottesville, the anti-Trump “resistance” had decided he was a crypto-racist issuing “dog whistles” to his knuckle-dragging, gap-toothed base which in Bill Clinton’s day Dems called “angry white men.”

Thus the narrative was set, and any questioning of it considered bad form or even a sign that the critic is a minion of the Imperial Wizard or Grand Cyclops. The endless Two-Minute Hate Whitey was on, and it doesn’t do to interrupt it ritual.

But conclusions should be drawn. First, the eagerness and zeal of many Republicans to put themselves on the side of the angels demonstrate once again how thoroughly they have endorsed the race-hacks’ preposterous and self-serving rules for racial discourse, no matter how incoherent or distorting they are of today’s reality.

For example, both sides agree that “white supremacism” targeted specifically at blacks is a unique evil transcending all others, including anti-Semitism, the on-going jihadist genocide against Christians in the Middle East, or the jihadist terror that slaughtered people in Boston, Orlando, and San Bernardino. Assent to this demand that racism against blacks is the supreme evil––as are all, by the way, reductions of humans to any materialist determinism––is not enough. White racism is America’s original sin from which all other sins derive. But unlike Christianity’s doctrine of the Fall, there is no possibility for redemption. The taint is forever.

No matter that the concrete manifestations of this sin have been mostly reduced to subjective “microagressions” that only the victim can perceive, or statistical “disparities” the numerous causes of which are reduced to one––racism––despite the absence of any evidence that people have consciously or even unconsciously constructed “institutional racism.” The nasty, brutal, widespread racism that once engendered night-riders, lynching, legal segregation, and casual daily violence and humiliation may be gone, but like Jimmy Carter’s adultery, every day all whites sin against blacks “in their hearts,” and enjoy the social order that perpetuates their racism and protects their “white privilege.” Questioning this assumption reveals a stiff-necked indulgence of sin, and a need for public confession and verbal self-flagellation. Hence the heated condemnations of Trump issued by the Republicans, which signaled their acceptance of the narrative and their personal righteousness.

But conservatives who accept that preposterous narrative will never be redeemed. No amount of groveling or rhetorical hair-shirts or preemptive cringing will save them from their endemic racism. They are always and forever racists, because they are ideological opponents of the political aims that the purveyors of the narrative are pursuing––more power to the left, more redistribution of wealth to its clients, more and bigger government to create more socialist cronyism of the sort on which the progressives feed.

The narrative, in other words, is an instrument of political leverage and power, not a description of reality. Identity politics based on grievance and victimization requires that there always be grievances and victims. Progress cannot be admitted, no more than any of us can be born free from Original Sin. The permanence of racial sin, and the need for whites to act in ways that advantage the “victims,” forbid such reconciliation.

Thus the reflexive and hyperbolic condemnations of white racism are instruments of power. If a faction can make people do what it wants them to do to benefit itself, that is power. Campus protestors coercing from the president or administration scholarship money, programs, research centers, and more black-studies faculty hires, is power. Making public officials passionately and anxiously demonstrate their absence of racism is power. Getting the president to issue the specific condemnation that the faction demands is power.

Moreover, success in achieving one demand breeds more demands. So even though Trump specifically called out the alt-right, the KKK, and the neo-Nazis, Nancy Pelosi is now demanding that the president fire advisor Steve Bannon, and thus tacitly confess the important role the racist alt-right played in his election. This is the essence of political correctness: requiring public obeisance to interpretations of political and social disagreements that benefit the left. Political correctness is power.

The wide-spread acceptance of this ideologically skewed racial logic makes justified complaints about a double standard useless. The fringe groups that assembled in Charlottesville are nationally negligible. They are universally despised and shunned. Their national profile is the result of the progressives and the media weaponizing them against Trump. They have no chance whatsoever of amassing enough of a following to win any national public office. As a threat to blacks they are nothing compared to the thousands of black men murdered by other black men every year. But again, the practical consequences of their despised ideology don’t matter. It’s the political use to which their lunatic beliefs can be put.

That is why Trump’s condemnation of “all sides” was scorned. We all know that Black Lives Matter has played a role in the war on cops that contributed to assassinations of police in Texas, Baton Rouge and elsewhere. Some of the assailants said they were “influenced” by BLM rallies, at which chants like “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon” or “Dead cops now” are heard. We know that the Antifa bunch are notorious for using violence to shut down talks or protests they don’t like. As the videos show, they came to Charlottesville armed and ready to rumble, as did the supremacists.

But when have we heard Republicans with similar intensity demand that Obama, Loretta Lynch, the NAACP, the Black Congressional Caucus, or any Democrat leaders call out by name these “domestic terrorists”? Indeed, a BLM official was welcomed to Obama’s White House and fulsomely praised. Obama and his AG Eric Holder serially reinforced the despicable lie that the police target innocent black men for murder, the pretext for BLM’s protests. A few Republicans commented on this abuse of public office, but we heard nothing like last week’s vehemence.

And how do the media get away with calling the Antifa protestors vague “counterprotestors,” when video footage shows them fighting with gusto and wielding weapons like staffs or even ignited aerosol spray-cans? How are the supremacists, who had legal permits to hold a rally and exercise of their First Amendment rights, the sole “cause” of the mayhem? Would that woman have died if the Antifa thugs, masters of the old anarchist “propaganda of the deed,” hadn’t infiltrated the protest and fueled the violence, as they have done numerous times across the country?

This isn’t “whataboutism,” the latest rationalization of NeverTrump apologists hiding their double standards. This is about using a consistent standard based on consistent principle, such as violence or murder should never be used to violate any group’s First Amendment rights, a principle that should be applied consistently without exception or rationalization or making some people’s rights or deaths more equal than others’.

Trump and his advisors need to understand how pervasive the left's racial narrative is, and anticipate it when commenting on events like the Charlottesville killing. Once he has thrown a bone to the identity politics tribunes and fearful Republicans, then he should call out the leftist thugs and demand that their Democrat enablers condemn them by name. And don’t buy into the narrative that historical crimes give the victims’ descendants, no matter how free and privileged, a perpetual weapon to use against their political enemies. That claim is not about justice or morality. It is simply an instrument of political power.
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Bruce Thornton is Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Research Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, and a Professor of Classics and Humanities at the California State University. He writes articles for FrontPage Mag and is the author of nine books and numerous essays on classical culture and its influence on Western Civilization. His most recent book, Democracy's Dangers and Discontents (Hoover Institution Press), is now available for purchase. David Horowitz is a Contributing Author of the ARRA News Service

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Tags: Bruce Thornton, Charlottesville, Race, And Republican Virtue-Signaling To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

America’s Second Civil War

by Patrick Buchanan: “They had found a leader, Robert E. Lee — and what a leader! … No military leader since Napoleon has aroused such enthusiastic devotion among troops as did Lee when he reviewed them on his horse Traveller.”

So wrote Samuel Eliot Morison in his magisterial “The Oxford History of the American People” in 1965.

First in his class at West Point, hero of the Mexican War, Lee was the man to whom President Lincoln turned to lead his army. But when Virginia seceded, Lee would not lift up his sword against his own people, and chose to defend his home state rather than wage war upon her.

This veneration of Lee, wrote Richard Weaver, “appears in the saying attributed to a Confederate soldier, ‘The rest of us may have … descended from monkeys, but it took a God to make Marse Robert.'”

Growing up after World War II, this was accepted history.

Yet, on the militant left today, the name Lee evokes raw hatred and howls of “racist and traitor.” A clamor has arisen to have all statues of him and all Confederate soldiers and statesmen pulled down from their pedestals and put in museums or tossed onto trash piles.

What has changed since 1965?

It is not history. There have been no great new discoveries about Lee.

What has changed is America herself. She is not the same country. We have passed through a great social, cultural and moral revolution that has left us irretrievably divided on separate shores.

And the politicians are in panic.

Two years ago, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe called the giant statues of Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson on Richmond’s Monument Avenue “parts of our heritage.” After Charlottesville, New York-born-and-bred McAuliffe, entertaining higher ambitions, went full scalawag, demanding the statues be pulled down as “flashpoints for hatred, division, and violence.”

Who hates the statues, Terry? Who’s going to cause the violence? Answer: The Democratic left whom Terry must now appease.

McAuliffe is echoed by Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, the Democratic candidate in November to succeed McAuliffe. GOP nominee Ed Gillespie wants Monument Avenue left alone.

The election is the place to decide this, but the left will not wait.

In Durham, North Carolina, our Taliban smashed the statue of a Confederate soldier. Near the entrance of Duke University Chapel, a statue of Lee has been defaced, the nose broken off.

Wednesday at dawn, Baltimore carried out a cultural cleansing by taking down statues of Lee and Maryland Chief Justice Roger Taney who wrote the Dred Scott decision and opposed Lincoln’s suspension of the right of habeas corpus.

Like ISIS, which smashed the storied ruins of Palmyra, and the al-Qaida rebels who ravaged the fabled Saharan city of Timbuktu, the new barbarism has come to America. This is going to become a blazing issue, not only between but within the parties.

For there are 10 Confederates in Statuary Hall in the Capitol, among them Lee, Georgia’s Alexander Stephens, vice president to Jefferson Davis, and Davis himself. The Black Caucus wants them gone.

Mount Rushmore-sized carvings of Lee, Jackson and Davis are on Stone Mountain, Georgia. Are they to be blasted off?

There are countless universities, colleges and high schools like Washington & Lee named for Confederate statesmen and soldiers. Across the Potomac from D.C. are Jefferson Davis Highway and Leesburg Pike to Leesburg itself, 25 miles north. Are all highways, streets, towns and counties named for Confederates to be renamed? What about Fort Bragg?

On every Civil War battlefield, there are monuments to the Southern fallen. Gettysburg has hundreds of memorials, statues and markers. But if, as the left insists we accept, the Confederates were traitors trying to tear America apart to preserve an evil system, upon what ground do Democrats stand to resist the radical left’s demands?

What do we do with those battlefields where Confederates were victorious: Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville?

“Where does this all end?” President Trump asked.

It doesn’t. Not until America’s histories and biographies are burned and new texts written to Nazify Lee, Jackson, Davis and all the rest, will a newly indoctrinated generation of Americans accede to this demand to tear down and destroy what their fathers cherished.

And once all the Confederates are gone, one must begin with the explorers, and then the slave owners like Presidents Washington, Jefferson and Madison, who seceded from slave-free Britain. White supremacists all.

Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay of Kentucky and John Calhoun must swiftly follow.

Then there are all those segregationists. From 1865 to 1965, virtually all of the great Southern senators were white supremacists.

In the first half of the 20th century, Woodrow Wilson and FDR carried all 11 states of a rigidly segregationist South all six times they ran, and FDR rewarded Dixie by putting a Klansman on the Supreme Court.

While easy for Republicans to wash their hands of such odious elements as Nazis in Charlottesville, will they take up the defense of the monuments and statues that have defined our history, or capitulate to the icon-smashers?

In this Second American Civil War, whose side are you on?
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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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Socialism or Bust . . .

. . . Today confederate statues – tomorrow Thomas Jefferson and George Washington?

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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Tags: Af Branco. Editorial Cartoon, Socialism or Bust, attacking history To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Statues and Limitations

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: “Should they take down the Jefferson Memorial?”

That is what PBS’s Charlie Rose asked Al Sharpton. Now, the “Reverend” is not my go-to source for political insight, but his answer* caught my attention.

“I think that people need to understand that, when people that were enslaved and robbed of even the right to marry and had forced sex with their slave masters, this is personal to us,” replied Rev. Sharpton. “My great-grandfather was a slave in South Carolina . . . Our families were victims of this.”

Asked if this precluded “public monuments” for “everyone associated with slavery,” Sharpton argued: “When you look at the fact that public monuments are supported by public funds, you are asking me to subsidize the insult to my family.”

One can attack the messenger, Sharpton, sure. But what if we instead think of him as our neighbor? I certainly wouldn’t want to insult a neighbor, much less make him pay for the privilege.

Notably, the Reverend embraced privatization, suggesting, “You have private museums.” Privatizing controversial monuments would certainly solve Sharpton’s stated problem.

Of course, the logic behind taking down statues or dismantling the Jefferson Memorial — or merely privatizing them — might also lead to changing the names of cities, counties and states, rivers and mountains. And it’s not just Washington and Jefferson — twelve presidents were slave owners, including Union General U.S. Grant.

Who knows how many are undeservedly memorialized?

Frankly, I’ve never liked the name of my Virginia county: Prince William. A liberty-loving people ought not be stuck with such a monarchial brand.

Let the people decide.

But by vote, not street brawl.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* This exchange begins at the 15:22 mark in the interview.
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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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Big Business Loves Big Government

by Peter Hong: While the 115th Congress remains at a standstill on overhauling Obamacare, there is a much lesser known, yet important, ongoing fight in health care: the battle pitting open competition against monopolization of the contact lens market.

For years, health care giant Johnson & Johnson had the contact lens manufacturing market cornered, due in large part to the benefits of a government-created monopoly and the substantial kickbacks it gave optometrists on sales of its Acuvue brand lenses.

Until 2004, optometrists were not obligated to give patients a copy of their prescriptions, stripping from contact lens wearers control about where to shop. As a result, consumers generally obtained their lenses directly from eye doctors at higher prices. This pattern favored large, established lens manufacturers like Johnson & Johnson and their cozy backroom deals with optometrists.

To level the playing field, Congress enacted the “Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act” (FCLCA), which included, among other reforms, a requirement that doctors automatically provide their patients with their prescription free of charge following a contact lens fitting. It also prevents them from delaying third-party sales for indefinite amounts of time. Because doctors could no longer steer their patients to favored lens brands, new entrants, including Walmart and online retailers, began raising the level of competition into the marketplace.

Even with the entry of new competition, Johnson & Johnson still controls a 40% share of the contact lens market. Much of this is due to the fact that the FCLCA reforms have not been fully enforced. A poll commissioned this year by Consumer Action reveals that nearly one-third (31%) of contact lens consumers still do not receive their prescription from their doctor following an exam. Not surprisingly, 72% of contact lens consumers surveyed purchase contact lenses at their eye doctors’ offices, while only 24% of surveyed consumers purchase lenses from online sites.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the federal agency tasked with breaking up unfair and anti-competitive monopolies, is currently in the process of finalizing its rule for ensuring greater market competition. In addition to ensuring that prescribers provide patients with complete prescriptions, it also requires doctors to verify or provide prescription information to third-party contact lens sellers, like 1-800-CONTACTS or Lens.com.

Just this week, Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) sent a letter to Acting FTC Chairwoman Maureen Ohlhausen asking the agency to finalize its rule. “Federal law correctly bars contact lens consumers from obtaining their lenses without a prescription,” the senators wrote. “Yet, at the same time, eye care providers that issue prescriptions can also dispense the contact lenses they prescribe, creating an inherent conflict of interest.”

The Washington professionals representing the optometrists and big manufacturers are fighting back. They persuaded Congressmen Leonard Lance (R-NJ) and Bobby Rush (D-IL) to lead the effort urging the FTC to withdraw the rule. Not surprisingly, Johnson & Johnson and another contact lens manufacturing giant, Allergan, were the second and third largest contributors to Lance’s campaign in the 2016 cycle.

The lobbies for the optometrists and contact lens power players are also pursuing legislative options to further restrict competition. Last year, they persuaded members of the House and Senate to introduce the “Contact Lens Consumer Health Protection Act” (CLCHPA). While the measure failed to pass in the 114th Congress, you can bet its proponents are hard at work to revive it this year.

The measure would have required all contact lens sellers to provide methods of communications like fax numbers and landline numbers — points of contact which many online vendors don’t have. Under the bill, doctors would have been reinstated their indefinite approval cushion for third-party orders, meaning that eye doctors could again block the sale of lenses from any disfavored vendors simply by stalling. In other words, all the progress made toward establishing free and open competition in the contact lens marketplace would be for naught.

The arguments against open competition are misleading at best. Most center around contrived notions about alleged health dangers posed by purchasing contact lenses from alternative retailers. These claims have been debunked thoroughly and repeatedly by a number of different expert sources, including the FTC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the optometrist’s own research arm.

For instance, in its rule proposal, the FTC concluded there was no increased risk of buying contact lenses from alternative retailers, stating: “the Commission has not seen reliable empirical evidence to support a finding that such sales are contributing to an increased incidence, or increased risk, of contact lens-related eye problems.

Even the optometrists’ own research organization can’t back up its specious claims. According to a study published by the American Academy of Optometry (AAO), “the purchase location of soft contact lens wearers had limited impact on known risk factors for soft contact lens-related complications.” Notably, this study, using data from the CDC, was conducted by an optometry research organization formed by the AAO and funded by a grant from Alcon, a leading contact lens manufacturer.

Free markets only work efficiently when they are open to free and fair competition. Monopolies, particularly those created or fueled by misguided public policy, are bad news for the economy, potential new entrants, and especially consumers. When Congress returns in September, it should focus on overhauling the country’s biggest failing health care monopoly – Obamacare – and avoid interfering with the efforts of the FTC to ensure free and open competition in the contact lens market.
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Peter Hong is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government

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Tags: Peter Hong, Americans for Limited Government, Big Business, Loves, Big Government To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

How the Mainstream Media Gets Hate Wrong

by Dr. Ryan T. Anderson: We have a problem in the United States with hate.

We saw this last week in Charlottesville, whether it be racism or anti-Semitism, whether it be the KKK or neo-Nazi. Those are hate groups, and they have no place in the United States and they should be condemned without mincing words without any equivocation.

But we have a problem when organizations label good groups as hate groups. We see this with the Southern Poverty Law Center. It’s labeling good groups that it disagrees with as hate groups.

So, it labeled the Alliance Defending Freedom, a public interest law firm that just this year won a Supreme Court case 7-2 defending religious liberty. It labeled that group as a hate group because it disagrees. It labeled the Family Research Council, a think tank here in D.C. that defends marriage and the family. It labeled that group as a hate group.

Five years ago, a shooter walked in the Family Research Council and started shooting because he found it listed as a hate group on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s website. CNN itself reported this fact four years ago when the shooter was convicted of domestic terrorism.

It’s irresponsible for CNN today to be simply reprinting the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hate map as if it’s fact. It destroys the label of hate and it trivializes the real evil that is out there. This isn’t news. This is simply lefty propaganda.
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Dr. Ryan T. Anderson (@RyanT_Anderson) researches and writes about marriage and religious liberty as the William E. Simon Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. He also focuses on justice and moral principles in economic thought, health care and education, and has expertise in bioethics and natural law theory.

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Hystorical Revisionism

Ken Blackwell

by Ken Blackwell, Contributing Author: Look back on the great men and women of history. Most of them fare poorly when subjected to modern scrutiny. They launched wars, murdered rivals, enslaved enemies, enriched allies and violated most every moral norm valued by people today.

Yet their tombs are venerated, their distinctions are celebrated and their successes are lauded. Their memories are enshrined through statues, paintings and photos. Their names are affixed to buildings, streets and universities. Should we adopt the old Soviet technique of airbrushing out those who fall from favor? If the Left has its way, few Americans of note would survive the resulting historical jihad.

Of course, the role of some significant figures should not be celebrated. Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong are among the monsters of history. These are not men of their time with mixed legacies. They epitomize evil, the very depths of human depravity.

But then you have the typical British king. Or German prince, Italian cleric, Prussian general, French knight, and even Roman emperor. Or American Founder, Confederate general and pro-slavery Unionist. None of these people would be invited to a Washington cocktail party, New York salon or Hollywood preview today. However, one shaped the modern world, while another helped make America the world’s greatest nation.

Of course, the focus of today’s hysteria are Southerners who led the Confederate States of America. Given the centrality of slavery to the Civil War, history has rightly judged the Confederacy harshly. Yet even its leading figures were complex. Robert E. Lee opposed slavery and secession before the Civil War and promoted reconciliation afterwards.

Moreover, when the City of Baltimore recently removed several Civil War era statues, it took down one of Roger Taney, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He remained loyal to the United States. His earlier opinion in the Dred Scott case deserves to be reviled, but at the time seven other justices agreed with him. And his career was much more than one case.

Taney served almost 30 years as the nation’s most important jurist. He freed the slaves he inherited from his father and supported those too aged to work. During the Civil War, he defended civil liberties, including the Doctrine of Habeas Corpus, a bulwark against unjust imprisonment. Before joining the high court he served as Secretary of War, Secretary of the Treasury and Attorney General. But now, because of that one opinion, he is an historical persona non-grata.

One wonders if even Abraham Lincoln is safe from the Left. He spent much of his career favoring colonization, that is, sending freed slaves back to Africa. Worse, as he famously wrote Horace Greeley, “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.” Why honor a man who really didn’t want to free the slaves?

Perhaps America’s Founders also should be dumped into history’s wastebasket. Many were slave owners. Their attitudes toward women and Native Americans were unenlightened. After just a couple of generations, U.S. leaders conducted brutal campaigns against the continent’s original occupants and an aggressive war against America’s neighbor, Mexico.

More recently elected officials fail new tests centered around social liberalism too. Measured by the Left’s standards, even President Barack Obama was dilatory in backing same-sex marriage. So why build any monuments to him?

We need a statute of limitations on expecting historical figures to be perfect and prosecuting them for thought crimes.

Great Britain recognized slavery and indentured servitude in its American colonies. These practices continued to be widely accepted when the country was founded. Few who lived then recognized what we see clearly today – that human bondage is a great evil that contradicts America’s founding ideals.

Even those who understood the full implications of declaring all men to be equal, such as Thomas Jefferson, saw no political escape from the practice of African slavery, since no one, in the South or North, was willing to accept millions of freedmen as equals. This failure made the Civil War inevitable.

Yet most of those involved were decent people struggling with their natural imperfections, limited understanding, and deeply-established social constraints. Americans today make their own ugly moral compromises—with abortion, for instance.

It is appropriate to reassess history and address practices now recognized as unjust. So is changing how we recognize and commemorate figures and causes now understood more clearly.

However, that doesn’t mean eradicating the past, even those parts that most challenge us. Instead, we should seek to understand and place in context those who did great deeds while simultaneously tolerating and sometimes supporting what we now see as great evil. In the future, our descendants will likely judge us by the same standards we apply to those who came before us.

Or, perhaps even more harshly.
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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, and former Ohio State Treasurer and mayor of Cincinnati and currently serves as a Policy Board member and Senior Fellow for the American Civil Rights Union and on the board of numerous conservative policy organizations. He is a contributing author to the ARRA News Service

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Liberals: I Don't Need Your Protection From A Statue

C. Mason Weaver

by Mason Weaver: “I resign!” This is the only thing President Trump could say to please the press. There are no words to soothe them, no debates to sway them, because they are dishonest. We do not have a racial problem in America. This is multiculturalism, which separates us, and “diversity,” which divides us. This is the old “separate but equal” crowd.

Everyone relax. We are not heading for a civil war unless you mean true Americans getting tired of being manipulated and bullied. Black folks are killing each other in the streets every night, and you want to take down a Confederate monument? “Symbolism over Substance” is getting psychotic.

Let’s back up a step for a reality check. Why should it be illegal to be a racist? What can a racist do to me? Why should it be my business if a racist wanted to walk down the street and express hatred for me? And why on earth should the government make them stop?

Hey, liberals, black folks are NOT the pets of America. You cannot make us sit up and bark by pulling our chains. We are NOT The White Man’s Burden, and you are NOT responsible for us. I know you liberals think you are superior but nice, and just want to help the underprivileged slaves be more comfortable in their misery. I know how much you hate me and other independent, free-thinking black men who arrogantly reject your care. It’s OK, white liberals, you need not protect me from a statue. I can handle being in the shadow of a monument.

The real racists are those Americans, white and black, who believe I am helpless, defenseless and incapable to stand in the presence of racist white people unless I have my white handlers and black tribal chiefs protecting me. To believe I cannot stand the pressure of being spoken to with hate, to think I cannot survive competing or standing up to mean white people, is condescending, racist and arrogant. Who determines what’s mean, hateful, harmful or intolerant? This unnatural fear of others has given us safe spaces, the “thought” police and weak citizens.

I know what a racist is. One tried to kill me 47 years ago. That attack left me permanently disabled and in constant pain. I have seen the face of real racism, and I know how dangerous racists are. But a racist being a racist is no threat to me. If the racist tries to burn a cross on my lawn, I would not need police protection … he would. I am not a helpless man requiring my government mandate you treat me nicely. That would only result in all of us being treated harshly by our government.

I did not protest, demonstrate or write the book “It’s OK to Leave the Plantation” to bring more Americans under the government slave-management system. We should not be better managed; we should be free to hurt each other’s feelings.

Most of us go about our daily lives around each other with no racial problems. We work together, shop, have lunch, ride the bus and live with each other. All day long we see each other and witness no racial tension. So why, after a full day of seeing the opposite, do we go home, turn in the television and witness a nation we have not recognized all day? Why would we believe the news instead of our own eyes?

Racial tensions only exist on the evening news. You will see reality tomorrow as you go about your day. They want us afraid to speak to each other, distrust the motives of each other and prejudge the character of each other based on the news, instead of our personal experiences with each other.

I know the Confederacy is part of the “Southern Culture,” and I admit not knowing what that really means. Why would poor white men fight for a system that kept them broke and unemployed? The Civil War was the North against poor white people trying to save the lifestyle of rich white people. With slaves doing most of the work, having most of the jobs, skills and expertise, it seems strange to get so many hard-working white Southerners to support their own poverty. But not understanding it does not make me want to restrict it.

So, Trump has not used media-approved language? It is obviously a hyped-up attempt to continue branding Trump. It is frustrating, but not effective. The general public is not concerned that Trump did not please the press. The general public is upset about the organized attacks on our culture and the “make believe issues” fueling them.

Mob rule will NOT dictate policy. Gang violence will NOT silence speech! The corrosive, bullying media will NOT shame us. However, you do NOT have freedom of speech at my doorstep. There is no right for you to protest me as a citizen. It is illegal for you to conspire to close down a freeway in protest, keeping me from getting to work. You should be arrested for planning to attack citizens with clubs. Paying someone to burn State and private property is criminal.

The police are hired to protect, enforce and guard over society. Any order to “stand down” for political reasons should be dealt with as a criminal manner. I call on President Trump to withhold federal funds from municipalities that order police to retreat or simply stand by and watch as citizens are being attack and property is being destroyed. Rioters and looters should be arrested, covicted and sentenced to jail. Civilians should be able to sue organizers for damages, and the funding sources of these groups should be investigated as a criminal organizations.

Fly your Confederate flag, salute your Nazi heroes, and honor your past slave holders. It has no effect on me because we won. “WE THE PEOPLE” defeated every foe with ideas, principles and force, not by taking down symbols.
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Mason Weaver is an entrepreneur, speaker, author and commentator. He is a Navy veteran and former contract specialist with the Department of Energy. Weaver's latest book is "Tribalism: Truth, Right Between the Lies." H/T WorldNetDaily

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Sessions vs. Sanctuary Cities, Trump vs. Flake, NARAL's Disgusting Attack

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Sessions vs. Sanctuary Cities -  The hate we saw in Charlottesville over the weekend overshadowed another weekend of death in the city of Chicago. Thirty people were shot and nine were killed.

Many of these deaths are the result of drug gangs fighting each other. Tragically, all too often innocent victims get caught in the crossfire. Sunday, two worshippers at a black church were gunned down.

There is a complete breakdown of the rule of law and respect for life in Chicago, and the victims overwhelmingly are minorities. Attorney General Jeff Sessions yesterday condemned that breakdown of the rule of law, and he reminded Chicago's leaders that their first obligation is to protect their citizens and to obey the law. Instead, these left-wing politicians have put politically correct dogma first.

During a speech in Miami, Florida, Sessions blasted Chicago's lawlessness and contrasted Chicago's soaring murder rate to that of Miami's, which rescinded its sanctuary city policies. Here are some excerpts of the attorney general's remarks:

"In Chicago -- a city with almost exactly the same . . . population as Miami-Dade -- more than 433 people have been murdered since the beginning of the year. More than three times as many as Miami-Dade. Last year, Chicago's 2.7 million residents experienced more murders than the 12.5 million people who live in New York and Los Angeles -- combined. . .

"The most fundamental duty of government is to ensure the safety and liberty of its people. Respect for the rule of law has broken down. In Chicago, their so-called 'sanctuary' policies are just one sad example. . .

"Rather than acknowledge soaring murder counts . . . Chicago's mayor has chosen to sue the federal government. He complains that our focus on enforcing the law would require a 'reordering of law enforcement practice in [the city].'

"But that's exactly the point! For the sake of their city, Chicago's leaders need to recommit to policies that punish criminals instead of protecting them. They need to protect their citizens and not the criminals. . .

"The Department of Justice will not concede a single block or street corner in the United States to lawlessness or crime. Nor will we tolerate the loss of innocent life because a handful of jurisdictions believe that they are above the law."Trump vs. Flake -  Arizona Senator Jeff Flake is one of the most endangered incumbents in the country. His approval rating is a "whopping" 18%.

It's no mystery why. He has supported amnesty for illegal immigrants. He almost voted for Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, but the intervention of Christians United For Israel and other groups made him reconsider.

He recently came out with a new book in which he embraced globalism and trade policies that have gutted the American heartland.

In interviews, Flake has regularly attacked President Trump, saying that the future of the Republican Party is not the coalition that prevailed in 2016. Really? As the saying goes, it is hard to argue with success.

I guess Sen. Flake is one of those Republicans who seem to prefer being in the minority, following the lead of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.

Many insiders in Washington feel that Flake cannot win the general election. It seems the White House has concluded the same thing.

After Dr. Kelli Ward, a former Arizona state senator, entered the GOP primary against Flake, major conservative donors stepped up to support her campaign. In an effort to save the seat, President Trump this morning tweeted: "Great to see that Dr. Kelli Ward is running against Flake Jeff Flake, who is WEAK on borders, crime and a non-factor in Senate. He's toxic!"

This is a stunning development. That Donald Trump would have tough words for an opponent is not surprising. That a sitting president would oppose the reelection of a senator from his own party is unheard of.

Once again, we are seeing conventional wisdom thrown out the window, and I suspect many frustrated conservatives find that very refreshing!

NARAL's Disgusting Attack -  The left's attempt to exploit the violence in Charlottesville continues. The radical pro-abortion group NARAL is desperately trying to link some of the white supremacists who organized Saturday's protest with the pro-life movement and the March for Life.

That is a disgusting smear of the men and women of faith who stand up for the most innocent and defenseless in our society -- unborn babies in the womb.

Sadly, this character assassination is typical of the left today. I know the good people who lead the March for Life, and I am proud to stand with them.

Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life, tweeted in response to NARAL's attack, "The foundation of the #prolife movement is respect 4 the inherent dignity of every person regardless of race, creed, disability, politics, etc."

The foundation of the #prolife movement is respect 4 the inherent dignity of every person regardless of race,creed,disability, politics,etc. https://t.co/6X8oQVvGiD

— Jeanne F. Mancini (@jeannemfl) August 16, 2017

Of course, she is absolutely right. The pro-life movement rejects racism because we believe all life is sacred, created in the image of God. It is the left that cannot name one abortion it would prohibit, not even abortions performed solely on the basis of the race or gender of the baby. Now that is extremism.
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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, Sessions vs. Sanctuary Cities, Trump vs. Flake, NARAL's Disgusting Attack To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!