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One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics
is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. -- Plato
(429-347 BC)
Friday, July 27, 2018
Ninth Circuit Stunner: Second Amendment Protects Public Open Carry!
by NRA-ILA: Gun control advocates undoubtedly awoke with a piercing headache Wednesday morning as the news sunk in that the U.S. appellate court for America’s largest circuit has recognized that the Second Amendment protects a right to openly carry loaded firearms in public for self-defense. The ruling came Tuesday in the case of Young v. State of Hawaii.
George Young is a veteran infantryman, law enforcement officer, and Hawaii native who was turned down for both concealed and open carry licenses in Hawaii County, at which point he filed his own federal lawsuit challenging the county’s administration of the state’s licensing laws for firearms carry. Young’s primary claim was that the county’s denial of his applications violated his Second Amendment right to carry a loaded firearm in public for self-defense. The trial court initially dismissed his complaint, ruling that the Second Amendment “establishes only a narrow individual right to keep an operable handgun at home for self-defense,” and does not implicate the public carrying of firearms at all.
Young appealed with the help of California attorney Alan Beck, who took on his case for free. The case was heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, a longstanding battlefield for attempts to vindicate the right to “bear” arms under the Second Amendment, with the challenges primarily arising from California’s notoriously strict gun control laws.
Most recently, an en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit had dodged the question of whether various California counties could effectively limit carrying in public for self-defense to those who could show an extraordinary “need” to do so. By the time that case was heard, California had banned the open carrying of firearms in public for self-defense outright, but concealed carry licenses for this purpose remained theoretically available.
Nevertheless, California counties have considerable discretion in implementing the state licensing laws, and some local licensing officials require applicants to show an extraordinary need for self-protection that distinguishes them from the general population. This requirement by design eliminates the vast majority of otherwise qualified applicants.
Yet rather than answer the essential question of whether the Second Amendment protects a right of public carry, the en banc Ninth Circuit simply decreed that concealed carry was not protected and that the plaintiffs therefore could not make a Second Amendment complaint for denial of a license to do so. The upshot is that California residents in the affected counties have no legal option for exercising their right to bear firearms in public.
That case, however, left undecided whether open carry of loaded firearms in public for self-defense might still be protected, and that was the claim that Mr. Young pressed before the appellate court. Two out of three judges answered this question in the affirmative. “The right to bear arms must include, at the least, the right to carry a firearm openly for self-defense,” Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain wrote for the majority. The court therefore remanded the case to the lower court for further proceedings, presumably so it could order Hawaii County to reevaluate Mr. Young’s application for an open carry license without regard to local regulations that effectively limit such licenses to carrying for professional purposes.
What this decision means for the other jurisdictions in the Ninth Circuit – which includes Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington State, Guam, and the Northern Marianas Islands – remains to be seen. The court hinted, but did not decide, that a concealed carry licensing regime might be sufficient to protect the right to bear arms by offering an “alternative channel” for lawful public carry. It also made clear, however, that access to the right cannot be limited to “a small and insulated subset” but must include, as a rule, “the typical, law-abiding citizen.” It additionally went on to clarify that “nothing in our opinion … would prevent the State from regulating the right to bear arms,” provided the regulations did not render the right a mere “illusory promise.”
That obviously leaves many questions left unanswered. The court’s decision therefore should not embolden residents in restrictive jurisdictions to immediately ignore local laws and expect to open carry with impunity. How far states and localities can go in regulating the right will undoubtedly take additional litigation to determine.
Needless to say, moreover, the split panel decision might not represent the final word in the case. It could still be reversed by the en banc court, as was a previous pro-carry panel decision written by Judge O’Scannlain. And, of course, Hawaii officials could also petition to have the case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, the anti-gun wing of the Ninth Circuit has few maneuvers left to continue to deny the constitutional right to bear firearms in public. It would either have to be the first circuit to declare there was no such right at all or decide that a right the Constitution ascribes to “the people” applies only to a hand-selected few. So far, even the dominant liberal contingent of the Ninth Circuit has been unable to muster a majority opinion for either proposition.
Stay tuned. We will monitor developments carefully and report on them as they occur.
--------------------- NRA-ILA article. Tags:NRA-ILA, Ninth Circuit, Stunner, Second Amendment, Protects, Public Open Carry, California, Hawaii, federal legislation, legal, Second AmendmentTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Newt Gingrich: Early in his presidency, when Donald Trump said U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) would exceed 3 percent growth, the supposed experts in the mainstream media claimed such growth would most likely be impossible.
In fact, they claimed unemployment would have to reach zero percent and immigration would have to double to meet such a high growth rate (despite the fact that 3.22 percent has been the average GDP growth rate over the last 71 years).
It seems President Trump has once again achieved the impossible.
As it turns out, despite refrains from the elites in the media and establishment, the self-made billionaire who now leads our country knows quite a bit about creating a healthy economy. As I explained Friday during a Facebook Live, his massive deregulation effort, his determination to cut taxes on individuals and businesses, and his plan to renegotiate our international trade agreements has started to pay dividends.
Since is first days in office, President Trump has been dogged about cutting red tape and making it easier for American businessowners (small and large) to work, hire people, and ply their trades without having to devote time, money, and attention to government regulators at every turn.
The historic Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was a tremendous accomplishment by the White House and the Republican-led Congress, has helped to encourage investments in the United States, allowed American families to keep more of their money, and incentivized American businesses to bring money they earn overseas back to our borders. This is a big part of why our country is becoming twice as productive under President Trump than it was under President Obama.
Finally, despite outcry from virtually every corner of the academic-political-media elite world, President Trump’s tough positions on trade and his willingness to push through criticism to achieve results has started to pay off. For months, the elites have howled as the President has dared to insist that all U.S. trade agreements should be fair and reciprocal (even when they are with our traditional allies). It was anathema for the elites when Trump called out European countries for taking advantage of the United States’ decades-long generosity. They warned his strong stances would cause economic turmoil. Now, the European Union has come out with the President to announce they were working to reach a zero tariff, zero trade barrier agreement with the United States.
Clearly, President Trump’s toughness is paying off and his economic agenda is working. We are creating jobs, the economy is growing, unemployment is at a record low, and the world is starting to accept that it can no longer take advantage of the United States.
However, Republicans can’t get too comfortable. The strong economy alone will not secure the 2018 midterm elections. Democrats will bend over backwards to focus on anything but Republican achievements – and the so-called experts will be more than happy to avoid talking about how wrong they have been.
So, talking about the record-low unemployment rate (including the record-low rates for African Americans and Latinos), the tremendous GDP growth, and the tax cuts should become reflexive for all Republican candidates.
The central question of the 2018 election should be simple, “do you want Americans to continue to be more prosperous, more able to invest in their businesses and families, and have more control over their futures – or do you want to elect Democrats?”
---------------------- Newt Gingrich is a former Georgia Congressman and Speaker of the U.S. House. He co-authored and was the chief architect of the "Contract with America" and a major leader in the Republican victory in the 1994 congressional elections. He is noted speaker and writer. The above commentary was shared via Gingrich Productions. Tags:Newt Gingrich, commentary, President Trump, “Impossible” EconomyTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Obama Admin Knowingly Gave U.S. Taxpayer Money to Al-Qaeda Affiliate
Sudanese men chanting slogans in Khartoum.
by Debra Heine: The Obama administration knowingly gave U.S. taxpayer money to an Al-Qaeda affiliate in Sudan, a Middle East think tank has reported.
In February 2014, according to the Middle East Forum (MEF), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) gave $200,000 total to the Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA) as part of a USAID-authorized grant of $723,405 to World Vision -- an evangelical international charity working in Sudan. The funds were intended to “improve water, sanitation and hygiene and to increase food security in Sudan’s Blue Nile state.”
Stunningly, more than half of the money was transferred to ISRA after USAID had been told that it was a designated global terror entity on the U.S. sanctions list. At the time, ISRA's enormous international terror network was even known to the public, as it was often in the headlines.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated the Khartoum-based agency as a terror-financing organization in September of 2004 because of its links to Osama bin Laden, his organization Maktab al-Khidamat (MK), and other terrorist groups including Hamas.
Independent sources confirmed to i24NEWS that USAID discontinued the funds "as soon as it became clear that ISRA was a proscribed group."
But shockingly, the U.S. Treasury "issued a special license permitting a one-time $125,000 transfer to ISRA" after the issue was brought to their attention.
A USAID official told MEF that World Vision had alerted it in November 2014 to ISRA's possible inclusion on the terror list. USAID reportedly then instructed World Vision to “suspend all activities with ISRA,” and gave the State Department, OFAC, and USAID’s Office of the Inspector General a heads-up. USAID and World Vision then waited to hear back from OFAC on whether ISRA was a designated terror organization or not:USAID emails obtained by the Middle East Forum reveal that in January 2015, World Vision was growing unhappy while waiting for OFAC’s assessment. Mark Smith, World Vision’s senior director of humanitarian and emergency affairs, wrote to USAID, stating that the Islamic Relief Agency “had performed excellent work” for World Vision in the past, and that “putting contractual relationships in limbo for such a long period is putting a significant strain” on World Vision’s relationship with the Sudanese regime. Smith also revealed that World Vision had submitted a notice to OFAC indicating its “intention to restart work with [ISRA] and to transact with [ISRA]” if OFAC did not respond within a week.
World Vision’s statement stunned USAID officials, who complained that World Vision’s behavior “doesn’t make sense.” USAID official Daniel Holmberg emailed a colleague: “If they actually said that they wanted to resume work with ISRA, while knowing that it was 99% likely that ISRA was on the list then I am concerned about our partnership with them, and whether it should continue.”
On January 23, OFAC confirmed that ISRA was a sanctioned entity and denied World Vision “a license to engage in transactions with [ISRA].” Mark Smith and World Vision’s country program director in Sudan expressed their disappointment, stating that they were in discussions with ISRA as well as the Sudanese regime’s Humanitarian Aid Commission, which regulates the activities of international charities in Sudan.Despite this ruling, World Vision wrote to OFAC and Obama administration USAID official Jeremy Konyndyk in February of 2015 to apply to OFAC for a new license to pay ISRA “monies owed for work performed.” USAID’s mission director for Sudan told MEF that World Vision argued that if they did not pay ISRA, “their whole program will be jeopardized.”
World Vision waited on pins and needles until May 7, 2015, when after “close collaboration and consultations with the Department of State,” OFAC issued a license to World Vision International authorizing “a one-time transfer of approximately $125,000 to ISRA,” of which “$115,000 was for services performed under the sub-award with USAID” and $10,000 was “for an unrelated funding arrangement between Irish Aid and World Vision”:An unnamed World Vision official described the decision as a “great relief as ISRA had become restive and had threatened legal action, which would have damaged our reputation and standing in Sudan.” Senior USAID official Charles Wanjue wrote to colleagues: “Good news and a great relief, really!” In August 2015, USAID official Daniel Holmberg even told a State Department official that he had been approached by the executive director of ISRA, and requested guidance on helping ISRA remove itself from the U.S. government’s terror list.MEF's Sam Westrop reported at National Review:It is no secret that the Obama administration sought to downplay the threat of Islamism, and even to coopt some Islamist movements to promote its agenda. In its foreign policy, the administration expressed support for Mohamed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt, while domestically, the White House invited Islamists to design the government’s Countering Violent Extremism program. It is difficult to argue that these efforts were the product of anything but great naivete and political dogma. Is it possible that this combination extended to deliberately funding an al-Qaeda affiliate?"At that point it's difficult to say this is merely naivete. At that point it seems like complicity," Westrop told i24News:
'Not mere naivete but apparent complicity': @samwestrop joins @MichelleMakori to discuss #Obama officials' continued funding of an al-Qaeda affiliate even after they learned the group was on US terror list pic.twitter.com/aMlRSk9jq5
------------------ Debra Heine is a Catholic, mom of six and long time political pundit. She has written for PJ Media and several blogs including her own, Nice Deb! Tags:Debra Heine, PJ Media, Obama Admin, Knowingly Gave, U.S. Taxpayer Money, Al-Qaeda AffiliateTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Tony Perkins: There was only one way the State Department's religious freedom ministerial could have ended on a higher note -- and that's if U.S. Pastor Andrew Brunson had been freed. Clearly, that was the administration's hope, after weeks of behind-the-scenes negotiations and haggling across several agencies of government. And while the news that Pastor Brunson had been moved from his dank prison cell to house arrest was some comfort, the president and his vice president agreed: it was not enough.
After what's been described as a "rancorous" phone call with Turkish President Erdogan, Donald Trump unleashed a stern warning on Twitter -- release the American or heavy sanctions are next. Vice President Mike Pence echoed that message at yesterday's ministerial on religious freedom in the presence of leaders from 84 countries. Twenty-four hours later, Brunson remains in custody and the wheels of retribution are starting to churn. Already, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) threatens to take away one valuable piece of the Turkish arsenal: 100 F-35 fighter jets, which Lockheed produced to sell to our NATO ally. Now, that deal seems at least temporarily on hold -- thanks to conference language that would stop the transfer.
Then, there was the bipartisan letter of 66 senators to President Erdogan in April, calling on him to free Brunson or pay the price in this year's State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs spending bill. As part of the legislation, both parties would move ahead with restrictions on everything from visas for Turkish officials to a restriction on funds for the sale of certain defense articles to the Turkish military. As if that weren't enough, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is taking steps to crackdown on loans from international financial institutions to Turkey, which would put a huge dent in the country's already shaky financial situation.
From the White House to the administration and Congress, every lever of government is sending an unequivocal message that it's time to let Pastor Brunson go. Secretary Mike Pompeo tweeted that he's been in constant contact with leaders across the Turkish government. "I spoke yesterday with Turkey's Foreign Minister @MevlutCavusoglu and underscored that it is well past time for this innocent Pastor Andrew Brunson to come home." Let's hope Turkey is listening -- or it could be a painful lesson in President Trump's resolve.
To hear more about the Trump administration's commitment to religious freedom, listen to my interview with Mick Mulvaney, the White House Director of the Office of Budget and Management.
-------------- Tony Perkins is President of the Family Research Council . This article was on Tony Perkin's Washington Update and written with the aid of FRC senior writers. Tags:Tony Perkins, Family Research Center, FRC, Family Research Council, Trump, Congress, Play Hardball on BrunsonTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Making America Great Again, Social Media Bias, A New Right, Left-Wing Extremism
Gary Bauer
by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Making America Great Again - The U.S. economy grew at a strong rate of 4.1% in the second quarter of the year. That's the strongest economic growth in four years and one of the best quarters in the past decade. Gee, I wonder what changed?
Barack Obama's policies helped produce one of the worst economic records in American history. He is the only president since World War II to never experience a single full year of 3% economic growth.
Under Obama, economic growth peaked at 2.6% and averaged around 2% per year. And we were told over and over again that this was the new normal, that a roaring economy was a thing of the past.
Yet Trump came into office and did the exact opposite of what Obama did.
Obama raised taxes. Trump and the Republican Congress cut them.
Obama imposed massive regulations on businesses and the economy. Trump has been rolling back red tape at a record level.
Obama gave us eight years of bigger and bigger government (Obamacare) and more and more pessimism. He apologized for America and attacked small business owners, telling them, "You didn't build that."
Trump came into office promising to make America great again. And just as he has done on so many other issues, Donald Trump is delivering on that promise.
Social Media Bias - Conservative leaders have been warning for some time that the social media giants are biased against their right-leaning users. Twitter seems to be the latest offender.
Several leading Republicans, including RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel and outspoken conservatives like Rep. Mark Meadows, have accused the social media platform of "shadow banning" them. In other words, if you see them on TV or read an article about them and try to search for them, Twitter is deliberately making it hard to find them.
Of course, the liberal media initially mocked conservatives for complaining about it. But this week, the left-wing outlet Vice News confirmed the censorship was real.
President Trump publicly attacked Twitter yesterday -- of course, in a tweet. He wrote:
"Twitter 'SHADOW BANNING' prominent Republicans. Not good. We will look into this discriminatory and illegal practice at once! Many complaints."
Guess what? Overnight, Twitter discovered that an algorithm meant to promote "healthy conversation" by targeting "bad-faith actors" was causing the problem, and it should be resolved soon.
It is strange how only conservatives were affected by a supposedly neutral algorithm.
Even if it is a random program, someone had to program it. I suspect that just like so much of Silicon Valley, many Twitter techies are intolerant lefties straight out of our left-wing colleges who don't think conservatives are capable of contributing to "healthy conversations."
A New Right? Check out this Associated Press headline: "Wisconsin Ordered to Pay for Gender Reassignment Surgeries."
That's your tax dollars we're talking about.
Guess who "ordered" it? An Obama-appointed federal judge who apparently thinks there is a constitutional right to sex change surgeries.
My friends, this is why we need more conservative judges!
The Senate must confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
Click here to send a message to your senators supporting Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation.
Left-wing Extremism - A recent Gallup poll found that immigration was the number one issue on the minds of voters. And with good reason. The left is all in on its radical open borders agenda.
But elections have consequences. And those consequences can be extreme. Just consider these two headlines from left-wing "sanctuary" Montgomery County, Maryland:
My friends, if the left prevails this November, Democrats have been very clear about the extreme agenda they will push -- from abortion on demand to open borders and the impeachment of President Trump.
------------------- Gary Bauer is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families Tags:Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, Making America Great Again, Social Media Bias, A New Right, Left-Wing ExtremismTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Lloyd Billingsley: Way back in 1919, the Russians established the Communist International, the Comintern, to control the foreign political parties they funded. As insiders explained, the Party was like the Brooklyn Bridge, “suspended by cables.” By 1924 the Russian Communists were intervening in American elections by running their own candidates.
Ben Gitlow, their candidate for vice-president in 1924 and 1928, wrote of the quest to place the world “country by country,” under the sway of the government in Moscow. William Z. Foster author of Toward Soviet America, was the Communist candidate for president in 1924, 1928, and 1932. None of these election efforts prompted a special investigation by the federal government, which had not yet recognized Communist Russia.
In 1932, Stalin deployed the world’s first man-made famine to killed millions of Ukrainians. Walter Duranty of the New York Times wrote that no such famine took place and that fake news helped the USSR gain official U.S. recognition in 1933. That opened up other possibilities for intervention.
Earl Browder was the Russians’ choice for president in 1936 and 1940, and that year the Party backed the Stalin-Hitler Pact, defended the Nazi and Soviet invasion of Poland, and strove to block U.S. aid to embattled Britain. Still, the federal government launched no official investigation of Russian meddling.
In 1948 the Russian Communists backed Henry Wallace of the Progressive Party. Wallace lost to Harry Truman, who defeated Republican Thomas Dewey. Despite the Cold War escalation of the time, the U.S. federal government mounted no official investigation of the 1948 election. In 1952, the Russian Communists backed Progressive Party candidate Vincent Hallinan for president.
In 1968 the Russians returned to Communist Party candidate Charlene Mitchell, an African American who since 1946 backed the all-white, all-male dictatorship of the Soviet Union. In 1968 Mitchell touted a “revolutionary transformation of this society.” The poor people and black people, she said “must have the right to defend themselves, and that means with arms if necessary.” That call to violence, and open support for a foreign dictatorship, prompted no federal investigation.
In 1972 the Russian Communists backed old-line Stalinist Gus Hall for President of the United States. Hall was also the Russians’ candidate in 1976, 20 years after Khrushchev revealed Stalin’s massive atrocities and long after Russian invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, still under Russian control. With that record, and the campaign against dissidents such as Yuri Glazov at its height, it took a special kind of person to vote for Communist candidate Gus Hall. College student John Brennan was up to the task
In 1979 African American Communist Angela Davis won the Lenin Peace Prize and the following year she ran for vice president on the ticket with Gus Hall. The same pair ran again in 1984, at a time when the Russians were on the march in Africa, Central America and Afghanistan. Even so, the federal government did not empower any special counsel to investigate Russian election meddling. After 1988, one Marxist site notes, “voters urged to support the Democratic Party.”
Democrat candidates were for the most part liberals until 2008. The former Barry Soetoro’s beloved “Frank” from Dreams from My Father was the Communist Frank Marshall Davis, a faithful agent of Russia’s all-white Communist dictatorship. So it made sense that early in his first term POTUS 44 canceled the European missile defense that so troubled Russia.
In 2012, POTUS 44 (Obama) told Russian president Dimitry Medvedev that he would have “more flexibility” on the missile shield after the election. That open example of collusion prompted no investigation and no special counsel. That only happened after upstart Donald Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016.
America’s own intelligence and law-enforcement agencies tasked FBI counterintelligence boss Peter Strzok to launch a “MidYear Exam” operation to clear Hillary Clinton from criminal charges. Then the deep-state axis shifted to “Crossfire Hurricane,” the Russia collusion investigation designed to discredit Trump and drive him from office.
After the president’s summit with Putin last week, John Brennan tweeted, “Donald Trump's press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of 'high crimes & misdemeanors.’ It was nothing short of treasonous.” Sen. Steny Hoyer agreed and Democrat Steve Cohen, who wanted a Purple Heart for Peter Strzok, was calling for a military coup.
This is what happens when the nation allows a Gus Hall voter to become head of the CIA. This is what happens when the nation neglects actual Russian spying and instead manufactures fake collusion. This is what happens when a president deploys the deep state to install his designated successor, all part of the fundamental transformation of America the Democrats’ candidate spoke of in 2008.
Is U.S. Withdrawal from UN Human Rights Council Good for Unborn Babies?
UN Ambassador Nikki Haley
by Dr. Susan Yoshihara: U.S. withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council has long been on the wish list of some conservative organizations like the Heritage Foundation that hosted a masterful apologia by U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley last week. Social conservatives should pay close attention to the administration’s next steps.
The changes in practice announced this week—moving human rights issues into the UN Security Council among them—may make it harder to contain the redefinition of human rights with harmful new meanings, something that the administration is trying to do.
Haley and her colleagues from the State Department signaled that leaving Geneva was part of a broader strategy. They seek to refocus international human rights back to civil and political violations, like getting “beaten up,” and away from social change, such as “speech codes” that make people “feel better” they said. The political vs. social rights debate in human rights is a legacy of the Cold War.
The human rights debate is more a labyrinth than any time since 1948. The administration is not immune from the confusion this can cause. For example, it has taken a stand against false claims to an international right to abortion; yet it continues the promotion of new rights based on gender identity repeatedly rejected by the UN General Assembly. The administration will have to clarify the mixed messages it is sending other member states if it is to be successful in its new approach.
That raises the question of how quitting Geneva will affect that endeavor.
Haley called the Human Rights Council “the United Nation’s greatest failure. Haley noted that the council has become one of many politicized UN committees. But this is not just because of its illiberal makeup and its hatred for Israel. Human rights are weakened by the explosion human rights and of the groups promoting them.
At least a part of the problem is the shift away from the council and from UN member states and to the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights. The office’s enormous bureaucracy controls an even larger UN rights apparatus of treaty bodies and special mandate holders who have often pushed social rights to the extreme.
By moving to New York, Haley and her colleagues say they can better “keep an eye” on the process and that they plan to raise in the UN General Assembly’s third committee those issues that they formerly would have brought to the council. Yet that committee’s agenda that is largely set by the council and by the office of the high commissioner in Geneva. The retreat to New York moves U.S. diplomats farther from the source of the problem.
Likewise, Haley said she will raise human rights in the Security Council because, “When we act to protect human rights we act to prevent conflict.”
Bringing Geneva’s contentious rights debates to the Security Council may just usher the fox into the henhouse. Just this week the notorious Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women signed a pact with a Security Council-mandated office, the first time this has been done. This committee has long asserted, without authority, a human right to abortion. The new pact puts the committee one step closer to its goal of having authority over the UN Security Council on women’s issues.
An additional problem is the U.S. will have to horse trade with socially liberal European countries on the Security Council. Will the U.S. trade away life and family issues in order to gain support from Europe on issues in Syria and Korea?
The administration proposes trying to reform illiberal states through USAID funding of civil society groups and imposing sanctions on elites.
To restore the UN to a traditional understanding of human rights it will also have to engage with these same states in New York. Beltway conservatives will turn up their noses, but they should be realistic. These nations often pursue goals aligned with U.S. foreign policy because of the goodness and aspirations of their people, which despots have not destroyed.
They will further have to convince delegates to rehash debates their colleagues in Geneva already settled at the Human Rights Council—unless and until other countries follow America’s lead and abandon it.
------------ Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D., is Senior Vice President for Research and Director of the International Organizations Research Group at the Center for Family & Human Rights where she advises UN delegations and U.S. policy makers on women, peace and security, maternal and child health policy, population, and human rights. Tags:Susan Yoshihara, C-Fam, U.S., Withdrawal, UN Human Rights Council, Unborn BabiesTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Michael Barone: Sometimes a society's values change sharply with almost no one noticing, much less anticipating the consequences. In 1968, according to a Gallup survey, 70 percent of American adults said that a family of three or more children was "ideal" -- about the same number as Gallup surveys starting in 1938. That number helps explain the explosive baby boom after Americans were no longer constrained by depression and world war.
Those values and numbers didn't last. By 1978, Gallup reported that only 39 percent considered three or more children "ideal." The numbers have hovered around there ever since, spiking to just 41 percent in the late-1990s tech boom.
The change in values and behavior took time to register. Just before the 1972 presidential election, then-President Richard Nixon and a Democratic Congress goosed up Social Security benefits. They figured the baby-boom generation was just delaying producing a baby boom of its own. Wrong. Social Security has needed patching up ever since.
Similarly, the 1970s showed sharp increases in female workforce participation, divorce and singe-parent households, as well as decreased participation in voluntary organizations -- all unanticipated.
Is a similar values shift happening now? Maybe so, suggest George Mason University associate professor Philip Auerswald and Palo Alto hedge fund manager Joon Yun in an article in The New York Times. They point out that the American fertility rate -- the number of children per woman age 15 to 44 -- has hit a post-1970s low. Birth rates typically drop during recessions and rise a bit during booms. They did drop notably from 2007 to 2009. But the latest data don't show a rebound, despite significant growth and record-low unemployment.
The trend varies among demographic groups. Native-born Hispanics and blacks used to have birth rates above the replacement rate (2.1 births per woman). Now they're below replacement, almost as low that of as native-born whites and Asians, which are down only a bit. The immigrant birth rate remains above replacement level among blacks, but only barely above among Hispanics, and below among whites and Asians.
One possible consequence: Those often-gleeful predictions that whites will soon be a minority will not be realized so soon, or maybe ever. Nor is it clear, as sociologist Richard Alba has suggested, whether often-intermarrying Hispanics and Asians will see themselves as aggrieved minorities. They might just blend in, like Italians and Poles.
Also, the sharp drop in the Hispanic birth rate combined with the sharp drop of Hispanic (especially Mexican) immigration post-2007 means a lower proportion of low-skill immigrants competing for jobs with low-skill Americans. Asian immigrants may outnumber Hispanics and arrive with significantly higher skill levels. So may immigrants from African countries like Nigeria and Ghana. Their capacity for expanding the economy rather than competing for low-skill jobs may point to unexpected growth. And neither group arrives with grievances rooted in slavery and American racial segregation.
Other familiar trends may be reversed. Demographer and Institute for Family Studies research fellow Lyman Stone, citing various data, argues, "The decline in fertility is mostly due to declining marriage," as downscale women have had difficulty finding suitable spouses. They might have more success if the recent increase in downscale wages continues.
Similarly, fewer young people would get caught in the trap of incurring huge college debt for worthless degrees or none at all if, as the Manhattan Institute's Aaron Renn suggests, enrollment in higher education, already declining, starts plunging precipitously around 2025. Might young people bypass college and find constructive jobs and marry and raise families as their counterparts did in the postwar years?
That's suggested by a recent trend reversal. During the sluggish 2008-2013 economy, young Americans stayed put in tiny child-unfriendly apartments in hip central-coastal cities like New York and San Francisco, and paid high rents resulting from stringent environmental restrictions. This was hailed as a move toward progressive attitudes. But evidently not. As Newgeography proprietor Joel Kotkin has noted, since growth returned, young people have been heading to child-friendly suburbs and exurbs, ditching subway cards for SUV fobs.
All of which raises the possibility of current stubbornly low birth rates being on the verge of a rise, away from the economically and culturally divided low-birth-rate society described in Charles Murray's "Coming Apart," and toward something suggested by Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again."
For the moment, these countertrends are just possibilities. But since persistently low birth rates lead to population loss, economic stagnation and low creativity, let's hope some of them come true.
-------------- Michael Barone is a Senior Political Analyst for the Washington Examiner and a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics Shared by Rasmussen Reports. Tags:Michael Barone, editorial, Rasmussen Reports, Trend. Low Birth RatesTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
. . . The Media and the Democrats continue with the narrative that Trump is “Putin’s puppet” although he’s been tougher on Putin than any previous President.
Tags:cditorial cartoon, AF Branco, to Russia with love, media, democrats, President Trump, President PutinTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Kerby Anderson, Contributing Author: Media critics have for years decried the proliferation of “fake news” and have been especially critical when quotes and comments were ripped out of context. J.J. McCullough recently wrote about another related issue that isn’t given enough coverage. A liberal press often runs photos that are “obviously ripped out of context.”
Since he is a Canadian, McCullough begins his piece by talking about a deceptive photo of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Donald Trump. They are seated in those two famous chairs in the Oval Office. Trump is extending his hand for a handshake, and Trudeau is merely looking at his hand. The photo went viral because it showed Trudeau’s dislike of Trump and his unwillingness to shake the president’s hand.
But that’s not what happened. “The damning photo was surgically extracted from the split second in which the Trump’s hand extended just before Trudeau’s rose to meet it.” Of course, that’s not what the photo showed.
Which brings us to the worst editorial photograph of the year. John Moore accompanied the US Border Patrol to the bank of the Rio Grande to get a photograph that he believed would convey “the emotional impact of family separation.” He took a picture of a toddler crying as her mother from Honduras was patted down by border agents.
The picture went viral because it showed the pain of separating children from their parents at the border. There was just one problem. The mother and daughter were not separated. They were detained since she is seeking asylum. The photo not only went viral, but Time magazine put the same image of the child on the cover with President Donald Trump under the caption “Welcome to America.”
We are told that a picture is worth a thousand words. Unfortunately, we are also seeing that a photo ripped out of context can be as erroneous as fake news.
------------ Kerby Anderson is a radio talk show host heard on numerous stations via the Point of View Network endorsed by Dr. Bill Smith, Editor, ARRA News Service Tags:Kerby Anderson, Viewpoints, Point of View, Editorial PhotographsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Radical Left-Wing Activists Make Abolishing The Immigration Enforcement Agency ‘A Litmus Test For Democrats’
SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MITCH McCONNELL (R-KY): “[I]t seems these socialist groups are adding new and dangerous immigration proposals to their already terrible economic policies. In particular, they are calling to abolish the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICE was established after 9/11 to protect our homeland…. If these self-described socialists had their way, we would have no immigration laws and our borders would be meaningless. The result would effectively erase our national boundaries and destroy the principles of law and order…. Perhaps even more alarming is that what was once a fringe idea has become mainstream in the modern Democratic Party.”(Sen. McConnell, Op-Ed, “If Socialists Had Their Way, We'd Have No Borders And No Security,” The Courier-Journal, 7/19/2018)
Given The Opportunity To Support ICE Agents And Their Mission, Democrats ‘Object’
“A GOP Senate resolution supporting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — and knocking progressives’ call to ‘abolish’ it — was blocked by Democrats on Wednesday shortly after a similar measure was approved by the House. Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) asked for unanimous consent to pass the resolution, introduced by Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), offering Senate support for ICE officials, members of the military and law enforcement…. But Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) objected …”(“Senate Democrats Block Resolution Supporting ICE,” The Hill, 7/18/2018)
‘The Intellectual Forefather Of The Abolish-ICE Movement,’ Sean McElwee, Wants ‘The Democratic Party To Begin Seriously Resisting An Unbridled White-Supremacist Surveillance State’
McELWEE: ‘ICE Has Become A Genuine Threat To Democracy,’ ‘An Unaccountable Strike Force Executing A Campaign Of Ethnic Cleansing’
“The intellectual forefather of the abolish-ICE movement is Sean McElwee, a New York City–based co-founder of the think tank Data Progress…. Beginning with a March column in The Nation titled simply ‘It’s Time to Abolish ICE,’ McElwee … has leveraged his large and influential Twitter following to raise #AbolishICE’s profile…. He modeled the abolish-ICE campaign along the lines of Occupy Wall Street …”(“Abolishing ICE Isn’t Very Popular (Yet),” Huffington Post, 7/02/2018)
“‘ICE has become a genuine threat to democracy, and it is destroying thousands of lives,’ McElwee wrote…. ‘The call to abolish ICE is, above all, a demand for the Democratic Party to begin seriously resisting an unbridled white-supremacist surveillance state that it had a hand in creating,’ he said.”(“How ‘Abolish ICE’ Became The Left’s New Rallying Cry,” MinnPost, 7/03/2018)
SEAN McELWEE: ICE is “an apparatus that has a lot of people in it who are pretty committed to the idea of what I would call ethnic cleansing.”
“Supporters of ‘abolish ICE,’ which grew quickly from a hashtag to the chant that followed Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen out of a D.C. restaurant this past week, want more…. Ideally, they want ICE to be shut down …”(The Washington Post, 6/24/2018)
Prominent Senate Democrats Rush To Embrace Abolishing ICE
‘The List Of Democrats Calling To Abolish ICE Keeps Growing,’ One Dem Congresswoman Even Calls ICE Building ‘The Headquarters For The Gestapo Of The United States Of America’
“More Democrats have joined the growing list of names who want to abolish US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, more commonly known as ICE. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who beat Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley of New York in the primary last week, ran on a platform of abolishing the agency, and so far, more lawmakers have echoed her call.”(“These Democrats Want To Abolish ICE,” CNN, 7/03/2018)
“Two Democratic members of the U.S. House, Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin and Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, have introduced legislation to abolish ICE …”(“How ‘Abolish ICE’ Became The Left’s New Rallying Cry,” MinnPost, 7/03/2018)
“Kaniela Ing, a millennial democratic socialist and state lawmaker seeking the Democratic nomination for Hawaii’s 1st Congressional District, has also embraced the call to abolish ICE. He sported an ‘Abolish ICE’ T-shirt at a recent protest outside an ICE branch office in Honolulu.”(“Abolishing ICE Isn’t Very Popular (Yet),” Huffington Post, 7/02/2018)
For Good Measure, Some Activists Are Demanding ICE Be Defunded, Too
“The spotlight on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is about to become brighter as Congress weighs the Trump administration’s request for a huge spending boost even as a growing number of Democrats want the agency abolished.”(“Clash Looms Over ICE Funding,” The Hill, 7/08/2018)
“Call your MoCs today and let them know that no budget that includes increases to Trump’s deportation force or any funding for Trump’s mass deportation agenda should get their support, even if that means withholding the votes needed to avert a government shutdown.” (“Defund Trump’s Mass Deportation Machine,” Indivisible Website, Accessed 7/17/2018)
Study: Liberal Big Cities Most Corrupt In The U.S.
by Natalia Castro: Democrats have spent the entirety of the Trump Presidency claiming he is a corrupt agent in bed with Russia and while there is a presence of corruption in our system, it is not coming from the presidency. Across the U.S. there are corrupt local officials, deeply harming the efficiency of those state and local governments. These cities tend to be overwhelmingly blue, and as international systems show this should not be surprising.
A University of Chicago May 2018 report chronicling corruption on the county and state level over a 30-year period from 1976 to 2016 found the most corrupt areas of the country to be: D.C., Louisiana, Illinois, Tennessee, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, New Jersey, and Florida in order.
Fair to say, these states are roughly divided between Democrat and Republican governors.
But a corrupt system is not necessarily the fault of a single governor; the list most corrupt cities in America presents a much clearer image of how corruption exists within our system.
The most corrupt city in America is none other than Chicago, following the windy city are Los Angeles, Manhattan, D.C., Miami, Newark, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Richmond, and Brooklyn.
Chicago has been run by Democrats since 1933.
Los Angeles has seen one Republican mayor since 1961.
New York City has had two Republicans mayors since 1973, although it is worth noting one mayor became an independent after his first term.
D.C. has had a Democratic mayor every term since 1975.
Newark has had Democratic mayors every term since 1962.
Cleveland has seen two Republican mayors since 1972.
Philadelphia has had Democratic mayors since 1952.
Richmond, perhaps most shocking, has only had one Republican mayor since 1868.
New Orleans for its part has only had two Republican mayors since 1866, and both of those were during Reconstruction.
Miami is the only city on the list with an even split of five Republicans and five Democrats since 1973.
Democrats are known for big government policies that inflate the power and wealth of the state; so, while being a Democrat does not inherently make one corrupt, consistent single-party control over some of Americas poorest cities can breed corrupt environments.
Big government policies have left cities particularly susceptible to fraud and abuse. The University of Chicago report explains, “In March 2016, Chicago businessman, George E. Smith, admitted in U.S. District Court to defrauding the state of Illinois when he managed to convince two state agencies to grant him separate six-figure government contracts for the same service. His not-for-profit agency, Diversified Behavioral Comprehensive Care, provided drug and alcohol treatment services to residents in Illinois. Smith received two grants from the state — one, totaling $400,000 and the other totaling $550,000 — for the same program.”
While any businessman could perhaps pull off this scheme, large government projects rather fuel these environments.
Policies which inflate the governments control over individual lives allow the government to take advantage of those lives. The corruption of one-party rule is no more evident than in Venezuela, a country in which full socialism has allowed the government to defraud the people. As resources became scarce, only the friends of the establishment received them.
If the left truly wants to root out corruption, it must stop looking at President Trump and begin looking in the city strongholds of its own party.
------------------ Natalia Castro is the Public Outreach Coordinator for Americans for Limited Government. Tags:Natalia Castro, Americans for Limited Government, Study, Liberal Big Cities, Most CorruptTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: Republicans are very reliable. When given our system’s “Mandate of Heaven” — majorities in both houses of Congress and the Presidency — they can be relied upon to do one thing: add debt by piling up huge deficits.
It happened under George W. Bush, and it is happening under Donald J. Trump: “The Trump administration expects annual budget deficits to rise nearly $100 billion more than previously forecast in each of the next three years,” the Wall Street Journaltells us, “pushing the federal deficit above $1 trillion starting next year.”
Republicans should ask themselves why. And while they ask themselves that, everyone else should ask the next question: why do politicians who say they want one thing so often deliver its opposite?
This is not a mere “right-wing” phenomenon. Leftists say they want “democratic socialism,” but, as Irving Kristol noted, at some point not far down their road to Utopia, “democratic socialists” must choose between democracy and socialism.* By promising everybody everything, too quickly everybody gets shanghaied into service to produce that “everything,” finding themselves conscripts in socialism’s army.
The equation of socialism with regimentation and general un-freedom has been clear for over a century, explained carefully by sociologists, economists and even politicians.* And yet, increasingly, today’s Democrats are embracing a philosophy with proven anti-democratic features.
Could some deep principle be at play?
Probably. It is built into the very nature of state governance, of politics itself. It may be why republics metamorphose into empires, conservatives go radical and liberals become serviles.
Which is why effective democracy requires limited government. To minimize that boomerang effect.
We might start by limiting spending.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Herbert Spencer’s writings on socialism include The Man versus the State (1884) and Industrial Institutions (1896, Principles of Sociology, Vol. III, Part VIII); German politician Eugene Richter’s satire Pictures of the Socialist Future (1896) is well worth reading; and economist Yves Guyot preceded Ludwig von Mises’ classic Die Gemeinwirtschaft (1922, translated as Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, 1950) with several books, including The Tyranny of Socialism (1893) and Socialistic Fallacies (1910).
------------------ Paul Jacob 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. Jacob is a contributing author on the ARRA News Service. Tags:Paul Jacob, Common Sense, Ask, Next QuestionTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Patrick Buchanan: “Make America Great Again!” will, given the astonishing victory it produced for Donald Trump, be recorded among the most successful slogans in political history.
Yet it raises a question: How did America first become the world’s greatest economic power?
In 1998, in “The Great Betrayal: How American Sovereignty and Social Justice Are Being Sacrificed to the Gods of the Global Economy,” this writer sought to explain.
However, as the blazing issue of that day was Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton, it was no easy task to steer interviewers around to the McKinley Tariff.
Free trade propaganda aside, what is the historical truth?
As our Revolution was about political independence, the first words and acts of our constitutional republic were about ensuring America’s economic independence.
“A free people should promote such manufactures as tend to render them independent on others for essentials, especially military supplies,” said President Washington in his first message to Congress.
The first major bill passed by Congress was the Tariff Act of 1789.
Weeks later, Washington imposed tonnage taxes all foreign shipping. The U.S. Merchant Marine was born.
In 1791, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton wrote in his famous Report on Manufactures:
“The wealth … independence, and security of a Country, appear to be materially connected with the prosperity of manufactures. Every nation … ought to endeavor to possess within itself all the essentials of national supply. These compromise the means of subsistence, habitation, clothing, and defence.”
During the War of 1812, British merchants lost their American markets. When peace came, flotillas of British ships arrived at U.S. ports to dump underpriced goods and to recapture the markets the Brits had lost.
Henry Clay and John Calhoun backed James Madison’s Tariff of 1816, as did ex-free traders Jefferson and John Adams. It worked.
In 1816, the U.S. produced 840 thousand yards of cloth. By 1820, it was 13,874 thousand yards. America had become self-sufficient.
Financing “internal improvements” with tariffs on foreign goods would become known abroad as “The American System.”
Said Daniel Webster, “Protection of our own labor against the cheaper, ill-paid, half-fed, and pauper labor of Europe, is … a duty which the country owes to its own citizens.”
This is economic patriotism, a conservatism of the heart. Globalists, cosmopolites and one-worlders recoil at phrases like “America First.”
Campaigning for Henry Clay, “The Father of the American System,” in 1844, Abe Lincoln issued an impassioned plea, “Give us a protective tariff and we will have the greatest nation on earth.”
Battling free trade in the Polk presidency, Congressman Lincoln said, “Abandonment of the protective policy by the American Government must result in the increase of both useless labor and idleness and … must produce want and ruin among our people.”
In our time, the abandonment of economic patriotism produced in Middle America what Lincoln predicted, and what got Trump elected.
From the Civil War to the 20th century, U.S. economic policy was grounded in the Morrill Tariffs, named for Vermont Congressman and Senator Justin Morrill who, as early as 1857, had declared: “I am for ruling America for the benefit, first, of Americans, and, for the ‘rest of mankind’ afterwards.”
To Morrill, free trade was treason:
“Free trade abjures patriotism and boasts of cosmopolitanism. It regards the labor of our own people with no more favor than that of the barbarian on the Danube or the cooly on the Ganges.”
William McKinley, the veteran of Antietam who gave his name to the McKinley Tariff, declared, four years before being elected president:
“Free trade results in our giving our money … our manufactures and our markets to other nations. … It will bring widespread discontent. It will revolutionize our values.”
Campaigning in 1892, McKinley said, “Open competition between high-paid American labor and poorly paid European labor will either drive out of existence American industry or lower American wages.”
Substitute “Asian labor” for “European labor” and is this not a fair description of what free trade did to U.S. manufacturing these last 25 years? Some $12 trillion in trade deficits, arrested wages for our workers, six million manufacturing jobs lost, 55,000 factories and plants shut down.
McKinley’s future Vice President Teddy Roosevelt agreed with him, “Thank God I am not a free trader.”
What did the Protectionists produce?
From 1869 to 1900, GDP quadrupled. Budget surpluses were run for 27 straight years. The U.S. debt was cut two-thirds to 7 percent of GDP. Commodity prices fell 58 percent. U.S. population doubled, but real wages rose 53 percent. Economic growth averaged 4 percent a year.
And the United States, which began this era with half of Britain’s production, ended it with twice Britain’s production.
Under Warren Harding, Cal Coolidge and the Fordney-McCumber Tariff, GDP growth from 1922 to 1927 hit 7 percent, an all-time record.
Economic patriotism put America first, and made America first.
Of GOP free traders, the steel magnate Joseph Wharton, whose name graces the college Trump attended, said it well:
“Republicans who are shaky on protection are shaky all over.”
-------------------- Patrick Buchanan is currently a conservative columnist, political analyst, chairman of The American Cause foundation and an editor of The American Conservative. He has been a senior advisor to three Presidents, a two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and was the presidential nominee of the Reform Party in 2000. He blogs at the Patrick J. Buchanan. Tags:Patrick Buchanan, conservative, commentary, Tariffs, Donald Trump, Make America GreatTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
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