Minnesota Pastor: Mall Shook Up

by Tony Perkins: For Christian Pastor Ramin Parsa, a trip to the Mall of America ended up being a lot more than he bargained for. When two Muslim women asked him to answer some questions about his faith, the conversation seemed harmless. That all changed when mall security arrived, convinced the police to book him for trespassing, and locked him up.

Now, after seven months of fighting the charges, Parsa had good news. “Praise the Lord! The prosecution is suspended, no more criminal charges, pleaded not guilty! Thank you so much for your prayers. We have resolved the criminal case and the city is not going to prosecute me further, so the city is out of it. The mall’s conduct still needs to be addressed. There are many options available that we are considering. Stay tuned! And please continue praying for more victories ahead!”

With the help of his attorneys, Parsa is considering his legal options, especially since there was no basis for putting him in “mall jail” for hours on end – without food, water, or access to a restroom. Intolerant people, he believes, have to be held accountable. Especially, he told PJ Media’s Tyler O’Neil, here – in America – where our liberties are our most sacred possessions.

“When I became a Christian,” he explained, “‘I was stabbed [and] ran away from Iran. I went to Turkey for two years as a refugee. We had a church and we were passing out Bibles. I was arrested [there].’ When at last he came to America, he was relieved. ‘With tears in my eyes, I was so thankful to be in America, where I can express myself, nobody can stop me or oppress me for my faith... and then this happened to me.’”

There comes a time, and Pastor Parsa agrees, when fighting injustice like this isn’t just about standing up for yourself. It’s about defending the rights that affect other people. “If we don’t wake up, our cities, states, country will be lost,” he warned. Talking to two shoppers about Christ isn’t a crime, no matter how offended someone else may be by his religious expression.

This pastor and Christians like him have a responsibility to share the gospel, especially when they’re asked to explain the faith they have. “As Christians, we must lay aside lukewarmness, and foolish arguments and shake the dust of religion and legalism and get on fire for Jesus and share the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ with boldness.”

That’s what he did -- and he’s determined to pave the way for everyone else in Minnesota to do the same. If Christians don’t make it clear that we won’t tolerate this kind of discrimination, what will stop these activists from coming after other people of faith? We have to use the law as a deterrent for this kind of religious hostility – especially since it’s on our side!
--------------
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: Minnesota Pastor, Mall of America, Shook Up To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Next Up: Democrats Want Children to Vote

by J. Christian Adams: Oregon legislation to allow children to vote should bring to an end our first reaction to crazy ideas involving our elections -- namely laughter. It’s dangerous to laugh at proposals like child-voting when the advocates are deadly serious.

Oregon Senator Shemia Fagan introduced legislation at a press conference to allow sixteen-year-olds to vote. She was flanked by teens wearing homemade T-shirts criticizing firearms. "Sixteen-year-olds are couch surfing with friends while their families are experiencing homelessness, and begging us to take action to protect their future and planet," Fagan said.

As long as democracies have existed, and as long as this democratic republic has existed, voters must be adults.

This, the latest in a long march of transformational rules over our elections, is a loud alarm that these efforts to change election process rules are really an effort to change America.

Press conference for child voting bill, Sen. Fagan at podium.
(via Oregon Senate video)

This week, the House is pushing H.R. 1 -- a radically transformative bill that would federalize control over state elections.

In the 1960s, Left-wing visionaries realized that instead of elections simply serving as a way to gauge the consent of the governed, tinkering with rules could encourage specific policy outcomes. This is now an open view among Democrats. When I recently testified to the House Judiciary Committee about a massive federal takeover of state election rules known as H.R. 1, Democrats unabashedly said the new rules would help usher in a "green" utopia, and lead to reproductive justice and racial redistribution.

To them, changing how elections are run changes how the country is run.

Oregon’s consideration of allowing 16-year-olds to vote is the next phase. The Left understands the difference between winning elections versus winning debates. When a few states began allowing teens to pre-register to vote in 2005, many snickered at the idea of a slippery slope to minors casting ballots. Today, 14 states plus D.C. do the same, while Oregon pushes the envelope further.

Democrats supporting child-voting are counting on Republicans to respond as they often have in the past to crazy election process changes -- ineffectively.

They will reflexively argue that teen minors are, generally speaking, know-nothings about politics and policy. They will also brush back $15 minimum wage hike laws using economic arguments based on sound theories and practice. We will argue policy -- while the Left changes process. We treat child-voting as a good-faith stupid idea, when it is another in a long line of bad ideas that are raw power grabs meant to move the narrative hard in their favor.

Conservatives are not woke enough to the fact that election law extends beyond what to do in case of a recount and voter ID (or lack thereof). These process rules define us more than we realize.

Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven’s dream of political transformation through an election system overload was set into reality when Bill Clinton signed the National Voter Registration Act, aka “Motor Voter” -- his first primary executive act. States like California have since transformed because of sloppy election administration, and a process that deliberately fails to verify citizenship of new voters.

Expansion of no-fault, early voting has also changed us as a nation. While there are other reasons why we became so polarized, early voting expansion continues to play a substantial part. National cultures as young as ours require group traditions to bind us with unbreakable cords. Modern America benefited from cultural touchstones -- even seemingly insignificant ones -- like immovable family dinners, religious services, baseball, evening television programming, the Super Bowl (and the commercials), and many more to make the unum on our money work.

Voting on Election Day sat at the top.

Nowhere else would you find all walks of life piling into converted community spaces to perform a single function. Once we stopped voting in unison, our elections became separated affairs.

Now, our politics have devolved into a cold civil war. Senator Fagan now wants children to join her march.

Since the late 1970s when California and Texas started offering expanded voting dates, turnout flatlined. Here again, we saw that removing urgency will ultimately reduce action. Voting became something you could do another day -- just like educating yourself and caring about the issues of the election.

Citizens with regular working lives -- particularly in flyover country -- became collateral damage. Want further proof? Take a guess at who gets hurt worst in an Electoral College dissolution scenario -- another agenda item of Senator Fagan and her transformational allies across the land.

The core danger of H.R. 1 becomes even clearer to the surviving parts of American elections, namely state control. Universal automatic voter registration may sound utopian, but it carries with it a major cultural shift. American greatness requires volunteerism. We are simply better off when citizens opt in.

Registering to vote is a key step in "adulting," and bookmarks a point for any citizen that they really have skin in the game. It’s also a way to put people in the right statehouse district or county council seat ahead of time.

Voter registration is itself a choice so we can preserve the concept of choice. Socialism and manifestations of it, like the Green New Deal, will continue to be laughable as long as Americans are not broadly born into federal programs -- even a seemingly simple voter registry. But with the proposal from Oregon to legalize child-voting, it’s time to stop laughing and start resisting.
-------------------
J. Christian Adams (@electionlawctr) is an election lawyer who served in the Voting Rights Section at the U.S. Department of Justice. His New York Times bestselling book is Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department (Regnery). His website is electionlawcenter.com. H/T PJMedia

---

Tags: J. Christian Adams, PJMedia, Democrats, Want Children, to Vote To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Young Dems Throwing a Party & the Grandparents Not Invited

by Newt Gingrich: Speaker Nancy Pelosi – and the old guard Democrats at large – are in a very difficult position.

The radical young voters the Democrats have been courting for years have finally elected like-minded radical young representatives – and Pelosi and her leadership team has no control over them.

A big reason why, as I mentioned on Hannity this week, is that there is a wide generational gap between Democratic House leadership and freshmen Democrats, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and others.

The median year of birth for the 59 Democrats who assumed office this year is 1973. Sixteen of these members were born on or after 1980. Nancy Pelosi was born in 1940. The average age of Democratic leadership as a whole is 71. To the new Democrats, the members of leadership are like the grandparents. I don’t mean this in a positive way that could foster an opportunity for maternal or paternal mentorships. To the new Democrats, Pelosi’s team represents an outdated, backward way of thinking about government. How many 30-somethings do you know who share the same point of view as their 80-year-old grandparents?

The result is, these new Democrats are throwing a party – and the grandparents aren’t invited. Pelosi and members of Democratic leadership are simply trapped in a cycle of responding to headlines. This is how you end up with the so-called Green New Deal, which is a work of complete legislative fantasy that would utterly bankrupt the country. It’s also how the House got to a second forced public condemnation of the new Democrats’ flagrant anti-Semitism. Pelosi simply can’t control the young, radical, progressive wing, which is ardently socialist, anti-Israel, and contemptuous of America and its history.

This gap will continue to create massive cross-pressure in the party. For the Democrats who represent moderate districts – perhaps districts that voted for President Trump – the radical left-wing of the party is terrifying. Meanwhile, those who represent radical districts are going to continue having their party and continue to ignore the old guard.

This is not at aberration. The new class of Democrats despise Pelosi and the grandparents. The old guard has failed to create the radically progressive, socialist America that the new guard wants. This phenomenon has some similarities with conservative voters who widely rejected establishment Republicans and the liberal voters who rejected Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary.

Already, because of Pelosi’s inability to control her caucus, the Democrats can’t do anything positive. It’s making them desperate. The most they can do is focus their efforts on their shared vendetta against President Trump and everyone in his orbit.

The 81 subpoenas that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler levied against Trump allies – many of whom are private citizens who never intended or wanted to become public figures – is a perfect example of this desperation. Democrats are slowly realizing – with dawning horror – that Robert Mueller is not likely to provide them anything close to a smoking gun in their crusade against the President, so they are resorting to punishing his political campaign, family members, and longtime private sector employees in a vindictive public display. They are seeking to hurt anyone and everyone who has helped President Trump in any way. At best, it’s a gross political circus. At worst, it’s callous abuse of power.

These divides in the Democratic Party are only going to become more pronounced as Pelosi’s grip slips further. The new Democrats’ private party will become increasingly raucous until it has lost all touch with normal Americans. Moderate Democrats will have to continue answering for their colleague’s radicalism. Pelosi and the grandparents will not be invited along, but they will still be left cleaning up the mess.
----------------------
Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) 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. This commentary was shared via Gingrich Productions.

---

Tags: Newt Gingrich, commentary, Young Dems, Throwing a Party, Grandparents Not Invited To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Dems Protect The Worst Of The Democrat Politician Protection Act

Democrats Voted Along Partisan Lines To Retain The Most Outrageous Provisions Of The Democrat Politician Protection Act

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MITCH McCONNELL (R-KY): “This bill is a target-rich environment … I would give you some of the highlights that I think are particularly offensive to average voters. Number one, using government money to subsidize campaigns. In effect, money collected from all of us … and given, in effect, to candidates, to finance campaigns, that we may not agree with…. [T]he recent North Carolina [U.S.] House election just set aside because of election fraud. The reason it was set aside is because of something called ballot harvesting, which is illegal in North Carolina, but is legal in California…. Ballot harvesting, mysteriously, is not a part of this parade of horribles. Somehow overlooked in all of this. Another point I would emphasize is the Federal Election Commission has been 3-3 since the post-Watergate period.… [T]he FEC has been 3 Democrats and 3 Republicans for all of these years to prevent either side from taking partisan advantage of the other. Well, in H.R. 1 it’s no longer dead even. The party of the president will have a majority on the FEC and thereby further able to terrorize and intimidate the opposition with impunity.” (Sen. McConnell, Press Conference, 3/06/2019)

“Republicans on the [House Administration C]ommittee, led by ranking member Rodney Davis of Illinois, offered 28 amendments; the panel rejected all of them along party lines.” (“Panel Approves Campaign Overhaul Bill,” CQ Committee Coverage, 2/26/2019)

Democrats Voted To Keep A Provision Letting People Hand Out Taxpayer Money To Campaigns

SEN. McCONNELL: “This is how out of touch with taxpayers the modern Democratic Party has become. They saw these proposals to take the American people’s tax dollars and funnel them straight into more attack ads, yard signs, and telephone calls and thought, What a great idea! Let’s put it in. The Democrat Politician Protection Act would do this in several ways…. There’d be a new Washington D.C.-run voucher program so that would-be political donors could simply ask for chunks of taxpayer money and then hand it out to the campaigns they favor.” (Sen. McConnell, Remarks, 2/12/2019)

REP. RODNEY DAVIS (R-IL), House Administration Committee Ranking Member: “This amendment strikes a section that creates the … voucher pilot program. It provides citizens vouchers which they can then give taxpayer dollars financed vouchers to political candidates as contributions. This is simply a money grab for politicians…. This is not a serious attempt at getting money out of politics as a serious attempt to invest taxpayer dollars to supercharge the amount of money that’s being spent in congressional campaigns throughout this country.” (U.S. House of Representatives Administration Committee, Markup, 2/26/2019)

• The amendment was rejected with five Democrats voting no and one abstention. (“Panel Approves Campaign Overhaul Bill,” CQ Committee Coverage, 2/26/2019)

Democrats Voted To Keep A Provision Granting Public Money To The Campaigns Of Politicians Taxpayers Might Oppose

SEN. McCONNELL: “There’d also be a brand-new six-fold ‘matching’ program for certain donations. The federal government would literally come in … and use the American people’s money to ‘match’ certain campaign contributions six-fold. In other words, millions of dollars are available for each candidate that comes along asking for his or her share of the taxpayer loot. Keep in mind, this puts each taxpayer on the hook for financing the candidates and campaigns they personally disagree with. They’d take our money, and give it to people we are not for.” (Sen. McConnell, Remarks, 2/12/2019)

REP. BARRY LOUDERMILK (R-GA): “And now we’re going to ask the taxpayers … to fund elections of people they possibly disagree with…. As I look at this … this government subsidy for politicians is the most unbelievable thing that that I think I’ve encountered since I’ve been here in Congress.” (U.S. House of Representatives Administration Committee, Markup, 2/26/2019)

• REP. DAVIS: “[T]his amendment—this one, of any other, should pass. Nobody should codify lining the campaign coffers of people sitting around this dais, which this portion of the bill does. No one, no one, should be OK with this. Not us. Not taxpayers. No one.” (U.S. House of Representatives Administration Committee, Markup, 2/26/2019)

• The amendment was rejected with five Democrats voting no and one abstention. (“Panel Approves Campaign Overhaul Bill,” CQ Committee Coverage, 2/26/2019)

Democrats Voted To Turn The FEC ‘Into A Partisan Weapon’

SEN. McCONNELL: “[A]mong the many fairly blatant power plays built into this legislation is a naked attempt to turn our neutral Federal Election Commission into a partisan weapon…. [T]he Democrat Politician Protection Act would take the FEC down to a five-member body and give sitting presidents the power to appoint the chairperson -- who holds the keys to determine who to investigate and what enforcement to pursue. The evenness of the FEC is a vital way to ensuring Americans’ political speech — and campaigns for public office — are regulated fairly and evenhandedly. Of course that needs to be done on a bipartisan basis. But the Democrats want to throw that right out the window and carve out a partisan majority on this crucial commission.” (Sen. McConnell, Remarks, 2/13/2019)

REP. DAVIS: “This one, I certainly hope we can get some agreement on. In Amendment 29, what we do is we strike Section 6002 in this provision in H.R. 1 [that] changes the current six member commission of the FEC to a five member commission…. [T]his provision will take away the bipartisan nature of the FEC right now. The FEC shouldn’t be weaponized by any administration, Republican or Democrat…. Even our congressional ethics committee does not have a partisan leaning…. No. Let’s not make the FEC partisan either.” (U.S. House of Representatives Administration Committee, Markup, 2/26/2019)

• The amendment was rejected with all six Democrats voting no. (“Panel Approves Campaign Overhaul Bill,” CQ Committee Coverage, 2/26/2019)

The One Thing Democrats Voted To Keep Out Of The Bill? A Provision To Prohibit Ballot Harvesting

SEN. McCONNELL: “What about the murky ‘ballot harvesting’ process that invites misbehavior? It was already illegal in North Carolina, where a congressional election result was thrown out due to fraud. But the practice remains perfectly legal in places like California, where it seems to benefit Democrat politicians. And somehow, for all the other top-down changes that H.R. 1 would force on the country, addressing ballot harvesting didn’t make the cut. Imagine that.” (Sen. McConnell, Remarks, 3/05/2019)

REP. MARK WALKER (R-NC): “This amendment would add a new subtitle to the bill prohibiting the practice of ballot harvesting.”(U.S. House of Representatives Administration Committee, Markup, 2/26/2019)

• REP. DAVIS: “We are addressing a process that is legal in the state of California right now for anybody to go and pick up ballots and then be trusted to bring them back to the election official’s office without any bipartisanship.” (U.S. House of Representatives Administration Committee, Markup, 2/26/2019)

• The amendment was rejected with all six Democrats voting no. (“Panel Approves Campaign Overhaul Bill,” CQ Committee Coverage, 2/26/2019)

---

Tags: Dems Protect, The Worst, Democrat Politician Protection Act, Campaigns & Elections, First Amendment To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Eric Holder: Democrats Should Consider Packing Supreme Court

by Peter Hasson: Former Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday said Democrats should consider packing the Supreme Court when they regain political power.

Holder said he would “seriously consider” adding two seats to the court if he were president, as revenge for the two seats on the court that President Donald Trump has filled since taking office. Holder wants other Democrats to follow suit.

“In response to a question, Attorney General Holder said that given the unfairness, unprecedented obstruction, and disregard of historical precedent by Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans, when Democrats retake the majority they should consider expanding the Supreme Court to restore adherence to previously accepted norms for judicial nominations,” a Holder spokesman said in a statement.

The idea of packing the court has gained steam among liberal activists since Trump took office.

New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democratic candidate for president in 2020, previously signaled her openness to expanding the court, which she described as “an interesting idea.”

Brian Fallon, executive director of left-wing group Demand Justice, is among the left-wing activists pushing Democrats to embrace the radical change.

“More and more Democrats are becoming convinced that we cannot resign ourselves to the third branch of government being captive to partisan Republican forces for the next 30 years,” Fallon, a former Hillary Clinton campaign spokesman, told The Daily Beast Thursday.

Case study in how an idea goes mainstream ... https://t.co/rJY2w8iobL

— Alex Burns (@alexburnsNYT) March 7, 2019

“Any progressive reforms that a Democratic president would pursue in 2021 would come under threat from the Supreme Court. Accepting the status quo on this issue is not going to fly and there is becoming a consensus that some type of reform needs to happen,” Fallon said.
-------------------------
Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) is a reporter for The Daily Caller. Article shared by The Daily Signal.

---

Tags: Peter J. Hasson, The Daily Signal, The Daily Caller, Eric Holder, Democrats Should Consider,, Packing Supreme Court To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

A Worthless Resolution, What Was Missing, The Brave 23

Gary Bauer

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: A Worthless Resolution - After repeated fumbles, the House Democrat leadership finally got their resolution against bigotry across the goal the line yesterday evening. The vote was 407-to-23. I am not going to applaud those who supported this resolution. It was worthless.

It should not have taken Democrats who control the House of Representatives eight days to condemn anti-Semitic statements about Jews having too much influence over U.S. foreign policy or being disloyal to America. And the resolution should not have omitted the offending party, Rep. Ilhan Omar.

This controversy was caused by her disgusting anti-Semitic remarks. Period. Full stop. Yet anyone unfamiliar with the controversy would have no clue as to why the resolution was necessary based on its text.

Not only is she not mentioned, there are numerous references to white nationalism and white supremacy. And there is an entire page devoted to condemnations of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim bigotry -- in this resolution that was necessary because of anti-Semitic statements from a Muslim congresswoman.

Most of the so-called "progressive" left will not confront the growing anti-Semitism within its own ranks.

Needless to say, the resolution left many members of Congress dissatisfied, including some Democrats. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said, "I was very disappointed we weren't able to have a separate resolution that condemns anti-Semitism."

As Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) put it:

"We are having this debate because of the language one of our colleagues, language that suggests Jews like me who serve in the United States in Congress . . . that we are not loyal Americans? Why are we unable to singularly condemn anti-Semitism? . . . This shouldn't be so hard."

Proving just how worthless the resolution truly was, Omar evidently felt vindicated after it passed! She issued a joint celebratory statement with fellow Muslims Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Andre Carson (D-IN), saying:

"Today is historic on many fronts. It's the first time we have ever voted on a resolution condemning Anti-Muslim bigotry in our nation's history. . . We are tremendously proud to be part of a body that has put forth a condemnation of all forms of bigotry including anti-Semitism, racism, and white supremacy."

While it might have been the first time she ever voted on such a resolution, the House passed a resolution condemning anti-Muslim bigotry just four days after the 9/11 attacks.

The resolution at its core was actually a progressive condemnation of the American people rather than the anti-Semites in the House. The thrust of the document is that we are a nation full of haters. We are not.

What Was Missing - Since Democrats decided to expand the subjects covered in the resolution, there was one glaring omission. There was no condemnation of anti-Christian bigotry. I guess the Democrat leadership doesn't care about that.

We have seen judicial nominees attacked by liberal senators worried that their faith would affect their rulings.

There is a whole "industry" established to bash Christian schools, labeling them as "educating for hate" because they are teaching traditional Christian views on the sanctity of life and the definition of marriage.

Numerous left-wing politicians have called conservative pro-life Christians "the American Taliban," which is ironic because progressives frequently claim that extremism has nothing to do with Islam.

Christian, pro-family organizations are regularly smeared as the equivalent of the KKK by progressive groups.

If you speak with any elected Christian official serving at the national level, they will tell you that if they publicly refer to Christ or pray at a public event, the atheist lobby and radical secularists will harass them, and in some cases even threaten them.

The issue before us this week was anti-Semitism. But the left's response to the dilemma it had, which was that a lot of progressives supported Omar, was to list a bunch of hate in order to avoid dealing with anti-Semitism as a special kind of evil.

In other words, they set out to bury anti-Semitism in a long list of things that are wrong and they conveniently left out anti-Christian bigotry.

Once again, Christians and Jews are reminded of just how much we have in common -- we're at the bottom of the progressive pecking order.

The Brave 23 - I'm sure some of you may be wondering about the 23 votes against the resolution. After all, what politician would want to go on the record against a resolution opposing hate?

Twenty-three Republicans had the courage to oppose the resolution because it was so watered down and meaningless. It is important that you understand this because the left is already trying to smear these good men and women.

Here's how Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) explained his vote:

"If a Republican Member was pushing the antisemitism that Rep. Omar keeps peddling, this resolution would name names, and be solely, emphatically focused on anti-Semitism and that member would be removed from their committee assignments.

"The double standard motivating this decision by the Speaker and the moral equivalency filling this watered down text is spineless and disgusting."

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) was equally blunt, saying:

"Today's resolution vote was a sham put forward by Democrats to avoid condemning one of their own and denouncing vile anti-Semitism. While I stand whole heartedly against discrimination outlined in this resolution, the language before the House today did not address the issue that is front and center.

"Rep. Omar's comments were wrong and she has proven multiple times that she embodies a vile, hate-filled, anti-Semitic, anti-Israel bigotry. She deserves to be rebuked, by name, and removed from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. . .

"For Democratic leadership to kowtow to their radical members and refuse to offer legislative language that criticizes Rep. Omar's statements in the strongest possible manner confirms what we already knew: that their party is controlled by far-left extremists who can't even muster the courage to stand up to blatant anti-Semitism.

"This is a sad day for the House and Democrats' lack of action is fully responsible for bringing us to this unfortunate moment."
-------------------
Gary Bauer (@GaryLBauer)  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, A Worthless Resolution, What Was Missing, The Brave 23 To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Dems Want To Lower Voting Age Due To Student Anti-Gun Activism

by Tom Knighton: If you’re a political party who didn’t get the gains you expected during the midterm elections, what can you do?

Well, you could probably stop pushing a radical agenda and recognize that most Americans aren’t all that interested in embracing socialism. Or, you could do what some Democrats seem to be doing and find ways to grow the voter base in demographics you believe are sympathetic to your policies.

Normally, Democrats try to pretend that they’re doing that for noble reasons, but a couple of legislators haven’t been as circumspect. You see, they pretty much admit they want to lower the voting age to 16 because student activists are so anti-gun.

H.R. 1, a massive voting rights/election security/campaign finance/ethics bill now making its way through the House of Representatives, would make “significant changes to the operation of federal elections by states,” according to a summary produced by the Congressional Budget Office.

The bill does not allow 16-year-olds to vote, but Democrats are offering amendments that would do just that.

Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) introduced their amendments Tuesday night before the House Rules Committee. Both lawmakers pointed to the activism of young gun control advocates as one of the reasons for lowering the voting age:

“I am here tonight…because across this nation, young people are leading the way, which has been the case for every social movement throughout our history,” Rep. Pressley told the Rules Committee:

“They are organizing and mobilizing and calling us to action, making plain the high stakes the next generation faces — from gun violence, to climate change, to the future of work, to the solvency of Social Security.”

Pressley pointed to one of her young constituents who “has been at the forefront of the March for Our Lives Movement to stem the tide of gun violence.”Pressley isn’t the only one who seems to want 16-year-olds to vote because of the student-led activism.

However, I can’t help but wonder how these lawmakers would feel if it turned out that most in the 16- to 18-year-old age bracket opposed abortion or illegal immigration.

The truth is, people in this age category are typically liberal, but why wouldn’t they be. They’re used to someone else paying for everything anyway. Some may have jobs, but that’s spending money for most of them, rather than an essential. That can give one a very different perspective than someone who has to earn their way.

But Democrats want to capitalize on this, and they’re surprisingly transparent about it.

Especially since this falls on the heels of the Parkland kids’ ascendency to national prominence, these lawmakers want to stack the deck with anti-gun voters in a blatant attempt to skew the electorate. They’re not hiding it, either. Why? Because they don’t care what you think about it. Elections have consequences, and part of this is making gun owners take it good and hard without ever bothering to ask for consent.

That’s only wrong when you don’t vote the right way in their minds.

But, if you’re someone who just learned how to drive, can’t enlist in the military, and can’t make any legal decisions without mom and dad, don’t worry. Some want you to help choose the direction of our entire nation.
----------------
Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger at Bearing Arms. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia.

---

Tags: Tom Knighton, Bearing Arms, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

UN Secretary General Wants to Curtail Free Speech

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres 

by Austin Ruse: In a speech to the UN Human Rights Council last month, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced that the UN system is going after what he calls “hate speech.”

In a February 25th speech in Geneva, Guterres said the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights “belong to everyone, everywhere. They are independent of nationality, gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, belief, or any other status.” It should be pointed out that UN member states have never agreed that “sexual orientation” is a protected category of nondiscrimination. This is an invention of the UN Secretariat and various UN committees.

Guterres said he is alarmed, however, “by the shrinking civic space in every region—and every corner of the internet.” He said activists and journalists are targeted by “campaigns of misinformation,” posing a danger to their lives. This and much else in the speech seems to point to his disapproval of President Donald Trump who, along with the president’s supporters, have sharply criticized what they see as the partisan nature of the mainstream media.

The Secretary-General said he is alarmed by “a groundswell of xenophobia, racism, and intolerance – including rising anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim hatred,” and that “hate speech is a menace to democratic values, social stability, and peace.” He said hate speech “spreads like wildfire through social media, the internet, and conspiracy theories.”

In an apparent reference to Trump and to leaders like Victor Orban of Hungary, Guterres is concerned with speech that “stigmatizes women, minorities, migrants, refugees, and any so-called ‘other.’” He says, “hate is moving into the mainstream—in liberal democracies and authoritarian states alike.”

Under the guise of “human rights,” Guterres wants speech stopped that he says presents false information about policy differences. He specifically mentioned policy claims made by opponents to the Global Compact on Migration. He said opponents to the Compact initiated a “flood of lies about the nature and scope of the agreement.” What this suggests is Guterres proposes speech he and others on the left disagree with.

The United States has a long history of accepting even vile speech. Many years ago, outright Nazis were allowed to march through a mostly Jewish town of Skokie, Illinois. This was protected by the leftwing ACLU and ultimately by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In recent years, however, conservative speakers deemed “hateful” have been hounded off of taxpayer-supported colleges and universities. Large tech companies now routinely “de-platform” those voices they disagree with, voices that tend to be conservative on public policy issues. Some governments in the European Union have banned certain types of speech. Evangelical preachers have been hassled for preaching on public streets in certain parts of Great Britain. Two years ago, France made certain pro-life speech illegal. In the Colorado baker’s case, pro-gay speech has been compelled by the government. Polls in the United States show that young people on the left are willing to limit speech they disagree with.

Experts are concerned that Guterres seems to agree that certain speech that he deems wrong must be stamped out, and that he sees it as the role of the United Nations apparatus to silence it.
------------------
Austin Ruse is the head of the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam) which was founded to monitor and affect the social policy debate at the United Nations and other international institutions.

---

Tags: Austin Ruse, C-Fam, Center for Family & Human Rights,  UN Secretary, wants to curtail, free speech To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

As The Democrats Go Socialist, They Go Anti-Semitic . . .

. . . Jew-hate and socialism have always gone hand in hand.

by Daniel Greenfield: "Every government having regard to good morals ought to repress the Jews," opined Pierre Leroux, the leftist credited with coining the term 'Socialism'. "When we speak of Jews, we mean the Jewish spirit, the spirit of profit, of lucre, of gain, the spirit of commerce."

"What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money," Karl Marx ranted.

American socialism traces its ideological ancestry to Charles Fourier, a French socialist bigot who declared that Jews were the embodiment of capitalism, “parasites, merchants, usurers”, and the "incarnation of commerce: parasitical, deceitful, traitorous and unproductive".

Even the term ‘anti-Semite’ was popularized by Wilhelm Marr, the socialist founder of the League of Antisemites. The inventor of anti-Semitism’s arguments were the same ones put forward by Marx, Fourier, H.G. Wells, Lenin and countless other socialists. The Jews were all about the ‘Benjamins’. They started wars. They were disloyal and manipulated society. They were a dangerous foreign element.

These are the same tropes that were put forward by Rep. Ilhan Omar and defended by her socialist allies in the House Progressive Caucus and across the media. Anti-Semitism is one of the meeting points between socialists and Islamists. The more anti-Semitism she spews, the more Rep. Omar unites the identity politics caucus of minority group racial nationalists and Islamists, with the traditional Left.

Anti-Semitism isn’t just a historical relic and Rep. Omar isn’t an outlier. The Democratic Socialists of America are rotten with anti-Semitism. Before she was defending Omar, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez was chatting with Jeremy Corbyn. The British Labour leader has been widely condemned for his anti-Semitic remarks and for backing anti-Semitic allies whose hatred has been even more open than Omar’s.

The DSA endorsed Maria Estrada, a California State Assembly candidate, who had praised Farrakhan, accused Jews of exploiting the Holocaust, and attacked a Jewish Democrat for not keeping “your party, your religion and your people in check.” It’s unsurprising that the DSA announced that it “stands” with Omar. Socialism doesn’t just have a history of anti-Semitism, but a burning problem right now.

The DSA loudly cheered a Corbyn representative at its 2017 convention even while British Jews and non-Jews were condemning Labour’s descent into anti-Semitism. Jewish Labour members have been forced out or have since announced that they were leaving on their own. One of them was MP Ian Austin, the son of a Holocaust survivor, who condemned its “culture of extremism, anti-Semitism and intolerance”.

In response, Labour’s Marcus Barnett, the DSA 2017 speaker, tweeted, “Good riddance.”

Also at the DSA convention was a representative from Melenchon's France Insoumise.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, an ally of the Communist Party, responded to anti-Semitic violence accompanied by cries of, "Death to the Jews", by claiming that they embodied French values while accusing Jews of dual loyalty for protesting in support of Israel. Then he attacked CRIF, the umbrella group of Jewish organizations in France for accusing leftists of anti-Semitism. There was no room in France, he bloviated, for “aggressive communities that lecture the rest of the country."

Corbyn and Melenchon come by their anti-Semitism honestly. They’re the vanguard of socialist political movements that were anti-Semitic from their very origin.

Labour’s anti-Semitism problem dates back to Henry Hyndman, the founder of England's first socialist party, and then of the National Socialist Party, which eventually became part of the Labour Party.

Hyndman was refreshingly blunt when explaining the necessity of melding anti-Semitism and socialism, "the attack upon the Jews is a convenient cover for a more direct attack at an early date upon the great landlords and Christian capitalists."

The, “first we come for the Jews” approach is an innate strategy of extremist political movements.

Rep. Omar would much rather tap into anti-Semitism and turn the conversation to Israel, then discuss her past sympathy for Islamic terrorists. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez would rather turn the conversation away from why she believed we shouldn’t have gone after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan with a defense of Omar. Jews are a small and controversial minority. That makes them a good target for socialists, national and international, to make it seem as if their extremism only threatens the Jews.

Not the general public.

The division between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is a scam. Anti-Zionism is just a means of attacking American foreign policy by exploiting anti-Semitic stereotypes. Attacking Israel in support of Islamic terrorism allows leftists to use bigotry to shift the argument from our national security to Jewish conspiracies. Much as Hyndman rallied opposition to the Boer War by calling it a “Jew War”.

Anti-Zionists believe that the terrorists are right and that America, Israel and any nation that resists them deserves to lose. This toxic point of view goes over better with a spoonful of anti-Semitism.

Rep. Omar isn’t just mainstreaming anti-Semitism. She’s mainstreaming anti-Americanism.

The 20th century was rich with examples of socialists not named Adolf using Jews as scapegoats for the failures of their economic programs. After denouncing Stalin’s crimes, Khrushchev set out to improve his popularity by executing Jews for “economic crimes”. This was a continuation of a Stalinist program that attempted to blame the USSR’s food shortages on Jews with show trials and brutal killings.

The Jews put on trial were accused of not just selling food on the black market, but of colluding with Rabbis, Zionists and the entire spectrum of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Between 1962 and 1964, Khrushchev had over 70 Jews executed through these show trials even as the food shortages continued.

But we don’t have to turn to the Soviet Union to see examples of socialist anti-Semitic scapegoating.

FDR’s New Deal test cases focused in on Jews or Italians: two unpopular immigrant minority groups at the time. A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, the case that helped break the New Deal, targeted Kosher butchers for following Jewish religious law. The media played on every anti-Semitic stereotype, and while it won public opinion, socialist anti-Semitism lost in the Supreme Court.

August Bebel famously dismissed Anti-Semitism as "the socialism of fools". But it’s hard to have socialism without anti-Semitism. Successful socialist movements unite different economic classes. Socialists from Marx to Hitler turned to anti-Semitism because traditional anti-Semitic stereotypes made their attacks on capitalism and the free market connect with a populist audience uninterested in theory.

As the Democrats embrace the socialist dog, the anti-Semitic flea comes with it. Political extremism brings with it a host of fringe theories and beliefs. A Democrat Party that moves leftward will open the doors to anti-Semites, but also to people who believe in UFOs and that lizard people walk among us.

But anti-Semitism is also deeply linked to socialism and its ideological stereotypes, the greedy capitalist and the warmongering businessman, inescapably express themselves in the language of anti-Semitism. Rep. Omar didn’t utter new ideas about Jews, but very old ones. And these ideas have nothing to do with Israel. They predate the Jewish State and even an organized Zionist political movement.

The Jew was the classic socialist villain because he showed that free markets can empower individuals. Socialists were obliged to disprove the legitimacy of Jewish entry into the middle class by employing classic anti-Semitic stereotypes. The same problem bedevils today’s socialists who have replaced class with race, but still have to contend with the economic successes of Jews and Asians despite racism.

Jewish success disproves socialism and identity politics. It can only be met with anti-Semitism. And then the very element that disproves socialism instead becomes proof that we desperately need big government to protect us from the Jews. The same rhetoric at the heart of National Socialism is lurking there in the bowels of all socialism, from the New Deal to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

In the realm of foreign policy, Israel’s successful resistance to Islamic terrorism must also be disproven so that the United States and other countries do not decide to adopt it as a model. The same anti-Semitic stereotypes that socialists used to inveigh against the Boer War, WW1 and any conflict in the last century, are once again deployed, this time using anti-Semitism to stigmatize counterterrorism.

Socialist anti-Semitism isn’t new. Rep. Omar’s controversy is a variation on an old theme. Variations on it are currently burning through the UK and France as they have for over a hundred years.
---------------
Daniel Greenfield (@Sultanknish) is Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an investigative journalist and writer focusing on radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

---

Tags: Daniel Greenfield, FrontPage Mag, Democrats, Go Socialist, Go Anti-Semitic, Jew-hate, socialism To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Can Trump Stop the Invasion?

With 328 million people here now,
approaching twice the number as in
1960, how many more can we take in
before government sinks under
the weight of its beneficiaries?

by Patrick Buchanan: In its lead editorial Wednesday, The New York Times called upon Congress to amend the National Emergency Act to “erect a wall against any President, not just Mr. Trump, who insists on creating emergencies where none exist.”

Trump “took advantage” of a “loophole” in the NEA, said The Times, to declare “a crisis at the border, contrary to all evidence.”

The Times news desk, however, apparently failed to alert the editorial page on what the top story would be that day.

“Record Numbers Crossing to U.S., Deluging Agents” was the page-one headline. The Times quoted Kevin K. McAleenan, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection: “The system is well beyond capacity, and remains at the breaking point. … This is … a border security and a humanitarian crisis.”

Reporter Caitlin Dickerson explained what is behind CPB’s alarm: “The number of migrant families crossing the Southwest border has once again broken records, with unauthorized entries nearly double what they were a year ago.”

She continued, “More than 76,000 migrants crossed the border without authorization in February, an 11-year high … newcomers continue to arrive, sometimes by the busload, at the rate of 2,200 a day.”

Only if one believes in open borders is this not an emergency, not a crisis. Consider the budgetary impact alone of this invasion.

The majority of migrants breaching the border are from Mexico and Central and South America. Most do not read, write or speak our English language, are not college graduates and arrive with few skills.

Almost all will enter the half of the U.S. population that consumes more in social benefits during their lifetime than they will ever pay in taxes.

With the U.S. debt over 100 percent of gross domestic product and the deficit running at nearly 5 percent of GDP, at full employment, the burden the migrant millions are imposing upon our social welfare state will one day collapse the system. For these folks are coming to a country where education K-12 is free and where, if the Democrats take over, pre-K through college will be free.

These folks will be eligible for city, county, state and federal programs that provide free or subsidized food, rent, housing and health care.

All were enacted for the benefit of U.S. citizens. Uninvited, the Third World is coming to partake of and enjoy them.

With 328 million people here now, approaching twice the number as in 1960, how many more can we take in before government sinks under the weight of its beneficiaries?

And there is a larger issue.

If, as appears probable, President Trump is not going to be able to build his wall and all the security measures taken in this century have proved inadequate to stanch the invasion of America, how does the invasion end?

Or is this the endless invasion, where the future is decided on our 1,900-mile border with Mexico and we, as the last superpower, are a pitiful, helpless giant too morally paralyzed to stop it?

The resolution and determination of Third World peoples to come to America, even if they have to break our laws to get in and stay, is proven.

And if there is no matching national will to halt the invasion, and no truly effective means that would be acceptable to our elites, the migrants are never going to stop coming. And why should they?

Politically, this invasion means the inevitable death of the national Republican Party, as peoples of color, who vote 70-90 percent Democratic in presidential elections, become the new majority of 21st-century America.

The bell will toll for the Grand Old Party when Texas votes like California in some presidential election. That is game, set, match.

What is remarkable is how our cultural elites are giddily embracing what most of the advanced world is recoiling from.

The Times that berates Trump for trying to secure the border with his wall constantly bewails the rise of ethnic nationalism, populism, tribalism and “illiberal democracies” in Europe. But the rising “isms” of the new Europe are driven by popular fear and loathing of the very future The Times cannot wait to embrace.

Japan’s population of 127 million, the second oldest on Earth, has begun to shrink. But there seems to be no desire in Japan to import millions of East or South Asians or Africans to replace the vanishing Japanese.

Does China look upon its diversity as its greatest strength?

Hardly. Beijing is repopulating Tibet with Han Chinese, and has set up “re-education camps” to de-program Uighur Muslims and Kazakhs in the west so they sever their birth attachments to their ethnicity and faith and convert into good communists.

In the U.S., the ball is now in Trump’s court.

If he cannot get a Democratic House to fund his wall and the forces now on the border are being overwhelmed by the migrants, as CPB reports, how does he propose to halt the invasion?

And if he does not stop it, who will? And what does failure mean for America’s future as one nation and one people?
--------------------
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, Can Trump, Stop the Invasion? To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Impeachment Quest Lets AOC Types Set Democrats' Agenda

Michael Barone

by Michael Barone: Has the Democratic Party reduced its chances of denying President Trump a second term by continuing to concentrate on throwing him out before the end of his first? You can make a good case that it has.

Democrats have been itching to oust Trump since the days before he took the oath of office. Obama administration law enforcement and intelligence agencies launched investigations into candidate Trump's campaign, contrary to the general rule that such agencies should avoid interfering with electoral politics.

Astonishingly, they relied primarily, if not exclusively, on information bought and paid for by the Clinton campaign, in the Steele dossier. Then-FBI Director James Comey briefed the dossier's most salacious allegation to the incoming president, an act he presumably considered a form of blackmail.

The supposition, breathlessly reported almost daily by certain cable news channels, is that candidate Trump was in criminal collusion with Vladimir Putin's Russia. But the air has fizzled out of this balloon. Special counsel Robert Mueller, after nearly two years, has produced no indictments pointing to such collusion.

The only collusion that has had a political effect is the belief, held by many Democratic voters, that the Russians somehow switched hundreds of thousands of votes through computer hacking or a handful of diabolically clever Facebook ads. Many such people bitterly cling to their belief that Trump's impeachment and removal from office is imminent.

Democratic politicians evidently feel compelled to cater to these delusions, even as it becomes apparent that the Mueller investigation will soon end without any recommendation or basis for that.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff promises that he will conduct extensive hearings. There is "abundant evidence of collusion," Schiff has said, but he has either not set it out or said it's already public.

Not much more forthcoming was House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler on ABC News last weekend. "We do not have the evidence all sorted out and everything to do -- to do an impeachment," he said. "Before you impeach somebody, you have to persuade the American public that it ought to happen. You have to persuade enough of the -- of the opposition party voters, Trump voters, that you're not just trying to ... steal the last -- to reverse the results of the last election."

My Washington Examiner colleague Byron York takes that as "Democrats have decided to impeach Trump and are now simply doing the legwork involved." The Federalist's Mollie Hemingway reached the same conclusion when listening to Nadler chat on his cellphone on the Acela train just after last November's election.

If so, they'd be moving on shaky ground. Nadler says it's "very clear" Trump has obstructed justice, but the first sign he points to -- Trump's referring to the Mueller investigation as a "witch hunt" -- is unpersuasive. That's probably not an impeachable offense to many of the 35 percent who told Quinnipiac this month that Congress should start impeachment proceedings now.

Now, it's 28 months since the last presidential election and only 20 months until the next one. In April 2007, after Democrats had just won congressional majorities, Nadler brushed aside calls to impeach then-President George W. Bush. "The timing is all wrong," he told the Washington Times. "If this were the first two years of his administration I would advocate impeachment. A lot of people at home say impeachment, and I'm sure he committed a lot of impeachable offenses, but think about it practically."

"At home" for Nadler is upscale parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn, areas thick with the urban white college graduates who, along with blacks and Hispanics, are Democrats' strongest constituencies. On many issues these days -- even on racial issues -- they're the party's most left-wing bloc, and probably the voters most determined to oust and humiliate the vulgar arriviste Donald Trump.

Urban white college grads had the highest turnout rates in mayoral elections in New York two years ago and in Chicago this year. Blacks and Hispanics, in contrast to past decades, were less interested. Urban whites were also the chief group surging Democratic in 2018 elections in Florida and Texas, according to Republican analyst Patrick Ruffini.

It was young white college grads and gentrifiers who elected Rep. Alexandria Occasion-Cortez in her Queens/Bronx upset last June. And her Green New Deal proposal, including things like moving toward eliminating beef and private cars, appeals more to that group than to blacks and Hispanics.

Pursuing impeachment looks like one more example of Democrats letting AOC types set their agenda -- and distract them from developing policies that will enthuse minorities and appeal to suburbanites whose votes they'll need next year.
--------------------------
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, impeachment quest, lets AOC types, set democrats, agenda To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Hung Up . . .

. . . Communism / Socialism is Killing the Democrat Party. Many feel the party has moved too far to the tyrannical left for the American people.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

---

Tags: Hung Up, Communism, Socialism, Killing, Democrat Party, moved too far, tyrannical left, American people. To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Government Does Not Create Jobs

by Rick Manning: Government does not create jobs, the private sector creates jobs. This is the basic rule that gets obscured in the political back and forth over the economy.

 And truthfully, it is very tempting to forget when you work for the government focused upon trying to increase opportunities for Americans in a changing workforce.

What government policies can do is create or undermine the conditions upon which the private sector operates in the hopes that the overall net of the millions of decisions made each month on whether to increase or reduce the payroll will be a net plus, but apart from directly hiring new employees, government has very little immediate direct impact on the unemployment numbers.

This is why President Obama’s shovel ready jobs stimulus package was such an abysmal failure. The presumption that if you pump almost a trillion dollars into the economy you are going to jump start the work force simply did not work because government, particularly the federal government, is anguishingly slow in action. From the identification of target sectors and the grant application preparation to the evaluation of thousands of requests to the awarding of the money by the government takes months, if not years, and by the time the money is spent, the market has shifted as has the need.

During the early to mid-2000s in the George W. Bush administration, the financial services sector was hot, and after consulting with local community leaders, the decision was made to provide training through community colleges for these burgeoning financial services jobs, grants were let, money was spent and people were trained.

Unfortunately, unanticipated market events were occurring that would change everything, eventually leading to the popping of the financial bubble and the collapse of the housing market. A flood of people who were working in the very financial services industry that was so robust a year before were now unemployed and local and state grant requests flowed into the Department of Labor seeking to retrain them for other jobs.

While the hubris created by being in government can be alluring, it is important for policy makers to recognize that markets move rapidly. The millions of decisions each month that make up the jobs reports are not centrally planned, but in most parts are the results of conversations with small business owners’ spouses on whether to expand, contract or stay the course.

Decisions on whether to buy new equipment to increase productivity on the shop floor, which creates jobs for those who sell, manufacture and deliver the new machinery or make do with the old. And indeed the decision on whether to start a new venture or close down an existing one are all private decisions driven by the market.

So what does the federal government do?

It creates tax, regulatory, immigration and trade policies which inform the dining room table and indeed corporate board room decisions which drive job growth. The government also can create a sense of ease or unease which shows up in consumer confidence rankings which are part of the underlying assumptions for the expand or contract private employment decision.

If the employer feels that the situation moving forward is bright, they show it by expanding to meet that future. If their guts tell them that rough waters are ahead, they trim their sails, don’t replace a worker who has left and try to get their underlying debt reduced. Both decisions are rational, and both are happening simultaneously for different employers every day as they evaluate their circumstances.

And every month the U.S. Department of Labor releases an unemployment report which attempts to provide policymakers a monthly snap shot of the results of these decisions.

Today, the unemployment rate is 3.8 percent.

We know that 2.2 million more people amongst the critical working group ages 16-64 years old are participating in the labor force today — that is, working or looking for work — than would have been if the participation levels had remained the same as before President Trump took office.

We know that 4.8 million jobs have been created since President Trump took office with 466,000 of these newly created jobs in the manufacturing sector. And we know that the wages employers are paying have gone up overall by 6.4 percent with blue collar workers getting larger increases than white collar workers since President Trump took office.

We also know that the Trump administration’s policies designed to end punishing business taxes and provide overall lower taxes for individuals, along with ending economic growth stifling regulatory burdens as well as reworking trade agreements around the world are having the effect of tipping the scales in those individual decisions toward growth, as well as emboldening the lending of capital to allow this growth to happen.

And finally, we know that the result is that the unemployment rate for blacks, Hispanics and disabled persons have hit historic lows during the Trump presidency.

Government doesn’t create jobs, but government policies can determine if the private sector will create them. After two years of the Trump administration, it is clear that his policies have unleashed a pent up economic growth tide that crosses all ethnic and self-identified hyphenated boundaries.

While these economic tides roll in and roll out, over time, they end up leaving the nation’s citizens wealthier than before, and that is not a monthly snap shot report, it is a 200 year historical fact.
---------------
Rick Manning (@rmanning957) served on the Trump transition team for the Labor Department and is President of Americans for Limited Government.

---

Tags: Rick Manning, Americans for Limited Government, Government, Does Not Create, Jobs To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!