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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, May 03, 2019
Prosperity Cycle Versus Socialism: A Test of Republican Competence
by Newt Gingrich: British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said, “First you win the argument. Then you win the vote.”
Friday’s report that the United States created 263,000 jobs in April—about 33 percent more than expected—should be a devastating blow to socialism if Republicans can force the argument.
However, there is no reason to believe Republicans have anything like the skills necessary to defeat the Left – even when all the facts are on the Republican side. David Winston’s analysis in Roll Call should sober ever Republican.
Winston piece is rightfully titled: “Gleeful Democrats pulled off the perfect tax scam. Trafficking in disinformation, the party managed to poison Trump’s tax cuts.”
Winston began his analysis quoting Matthew Yglesias of Vox, who tweeted on April 8, “Nobody likes to give themselves credit for this kind of messaging success, but progressive groups did a really good job of convincing people that Trump raised their taxes when the facts say a clear majority got a tax cut.”
There is a lot to learn from the Left’s amazing job of convincing the American people that they were not getting a tax cut – even while they were getting a tax cut.
Republicans now have a chance to learn from this failure and develop a strategy for destroying socialism as an ideology.
The first step toward making it absurd to be for socialism is to drive home the principles of the Trump economy (remarkably like the principles of the Reagan economy) and how they translate into real jobs and real income.
Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, served with Reagan and now is helping direct the same long cycle of prosperity that Reagan’s policies created.
Kudlow explained the process clearly on Bloomberg TV. He said, “people respond to incentives. That is exactly what is happening right now. The economy is freer than it has been in 20 years plus.”
President Trump’s economic policies are even more pro-growth than the Reagan program. Trump is more aggressive on cutting red tape and deregulating. He is more aggressive on selling American products overseas. He is tougher in trade negotiations, his tax cut was even bigger, and it hasn’t been undermined by follow-on tax increases.
The result is what Kudlow calls a “prosperity cycle.”
The concept of a prosperity cycle is important because it is the exact opposite of the stop-and-go Keynesian policies which have cycles driven by the Federal Reserve’s fear of too much growth in a static economy.
The supply-side approach (which Kudlow and I worked with Jack Kemp, Jude Wanniski, Art Laffer, and others to popularize) argues that if you increase productivity and capital investment, you produce so many more goods and services that you mop up inflation with a steady increase of things to buy. Furthermore, lower taxes and greater incentives to be productive enable you to create even more wealth without a threat of inflation. The latest report of 3.2 percent productivity growth is exactly what supply siders would focus on as a sign we will not need interest rate increases.
I like the term “prosperity cycle” because it captures the cyclical nature of good policies leading to growth, which then reinforces good policies.
By contrast, socialists and Democrats favor a “poverty cycle” in which the economy decays, taxes are high, people lose their jobs and are forced onto food stamps.
Consider the agony socialists are experiencing as they see a huge, 263,000-job increase in one month. This represents a quarter million people who do not need food stamps, do not need to be dependent on government, do not need “help” from left-wing politicians seeking power over their lives.
This collapse of dependency can be seen in the fact that the unemployment rate fell to 3.6 percent – the lowest rate since 1969. Today, there are more job openings than job seekers. The decline in unemployment is leading to rising wages as companies are forced to scramble to find and keep workers.
As Philip Klein noted in the Washington Examiner, 64 percent of Americans were not even born in 1969 when the national unemployment rate was last this low. It is a number unimaginable to most Americans, but it is real.
Consider the following:
Since the election, the economy has added 669,000 construction jobs and 479,000 manufacturing jobs. April marked the 14th consecutive month where the unemployment rate was at or below 4 percent.
The unemployment rate for women is at its lowest rate since 1953.
The unemployment rate for Hispanic Americans fell to a 4.2 percent record low. During the recession Hispanic unemployment had jumped to 13 percent.
The unemployment rate for Americans with high school diplomas and no college education fell to 3.5 percent (a record low since 2000).
The veterans’ unemployment rate is also at a record low at 2.3 percent.
Finally, the unemployment rate for Americans with a disability fell to its lowest rate on record.
What makes all this even better is that the percentage increase of wages for low-income workers is rising at almost twice the rate of wages for higher-paid workers.
That is the effect of a resurgence in manufacturing and construction as opposed to finance and other white-collar jobs.
It makes you wonder what problem the socialists are trying to solve.
However, as Winston pointed out over taxes, having the facts is not enough.
We need a strategy for winning the argument that is as powerful as our strategy for economic growth.
That is the biggest challenge for Republicans in 2019 and 2020.
---------------------- 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, Prosperity Cycle, Versus Socialism, A Test, Republican CompetenceTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Top Aide Admits That Clinton Used Personal Email for Official Business
by Judicial Watch: Jacob “Jake” Sullivan, Hillary Clinton’s senior advisor and deputy chief of staff when she was secretary of state, has now answered our questions under oath.
We have released the transcript of this court-ordered deposition in which he admits that both he and Clinton used her unsecure non-government email system to conduct official State Department business. A full transcript of the deposition is available here.
Our court-ordered discovery centered upon whether Clinton intentionally attempted to evade the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by using a non-government email system and whether the State Department adequately searched for records responsive to our FOIA request.
In the questioning, Sullivan admitted that he had used his personal Gmail account at times for State Department business but denied that he had sent classified information to Secretary Clinton’s unsecured personal system.
After we pointed out that on January 26, 2010, Sullivan sent a classified email with the subject line “call sheet,” Sullivan testified: “When I sent this email, my best judgment was that none of the material in it was classified, and I felt comfortable sending the email on an unclassified system. The material has subsequently been upclassified but at the time that I sent it, I did not believe that it was classified.”
Sullivan said in the deposition that he had not been concerned about Clinton’s use of a non-government email account, because it was not part of his job:Like Secretary Clinton has said herself, I wish she had used a State Department account. It wasn’t really part of my job to be thinking about Secretary Clinton’s emails so I don’t think I sort of fell down directly in my job, but do I wish I had thought of it during the time we were at State. Of course. I mean, what human being at this point wouldn’t have thought of that?Sullivan’s deposition is part of United States District Judge Royce C. Lamberth’s order for senior officials — including Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes, Jacob Sullivan, and FBI official E.W. Priestap – to respond under oath to our questions.
A video of the Sullivan deposition exists but is under seal after the Justice Department and State Department, which opposed any discovery, objected to their public release. The court denied release of the video depositions for now and left the door open for reconsideration.[T]he Court does not foreclose future releases of audiovisual recordings – in this or other cases. Judicial Watch may move to unseal portions of these recordings relied upon in future court filings. So too may it use the video recordings at trial, consistent with the Federal Rules of Evidence.Judge Lamberth made the ruling in our July 2014 FOIA lawsuit filed after the U.S. Department of State failed to respond to a May 13, 2014 FOIA request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01242)). We are seeking:Copies of any updates and/or talking points given to Ambassador Rice by the White House or any federal agency concerning, regarding, or related to the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Any and all records or communications concerning, regarding, or relating to talking points or updates on the Benghazi attack given to Ambassador Rice by the White House or any federal agency.What this means is that a federal court wants answers on the Clinton email scandal, and Sullivan is just one of many witnesses we will question under oath. It is shameful that the Justice and State Departments continue to try to protect Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration on the email scandal.
You will recall that U.S District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ordered Obama administration senior State Department officials, lawyers, and Clinton aides, as well as E.W. Priestap, to be deposed or answer written questions under oath. The court ruled that the Clinton email system was “one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency.”
Previously we released interrogatory responses given under oath by E.W. (Bill) Priestap, assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division, in which he stated that agency found Clinton email records in the Obama White House, specifically, the Executive Office of the President. Tags:Judicial Watch, Top Aide Admits, Clinton Used, Personal Email, for Official BusinessTo 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: It's been nine years since Barack Obama and the liberals in Congress began their decade-long march of radical sexual experimentation in the military. While the dust from their forced march has yet to settle, a troubling image of their "new" military is emerging. After a horrifying new survey on sexual abuse in the ranks, Democrats like Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) want the House and Senate to take a "more aggressive approach." But, as far as military leaders are concerned, Congress has done quite enough, thankyouverymuch.
The "current programs are simply not working," Speier argued. Of course they aren't. As Marine General James Amos foreshadowed back in 2010, adding "any element of sexuality" into the ranks wouldn't just prevent military bonds -- it would "destroy [them]." Nine years later, liberals still seem surprised by just how right he was. According to Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine personnel, "there were an estimated 20,500 instances of unwanted sexual contact" (which the Pentagon defines as anything from groping to rape) in 2018 -- a 38 percent increase over 2016.
Acting Defense Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan said Thursday that these are "persistent challenges" for the Pentagon. "To put it bluntly, we are not performing to the standards and expectations we have for ourselves or for each other. This is unacceptable." As much as military leaders are trying to crack down on the problem, the reality is, there's only so much they can do. Unfortunately, most of these men and women aren't just victims of assault -- but of the sexually-charged environment that's been forced on them. Jackie Speier can complain all she wants, but in the end, she's blaming the military for a problem her party helped create. She voted to overturn "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" too, so it's a little late to be grumbling about the consequences.
Back then, Democrats like her shrugged off the possibility that repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" would have any impact on the ranks and are even now trying to resurrect Obama's Operation Transgender, which President Trump has moved to overturn. It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to understand that when Congress introduced even more sexual tension into the troops, it put thousands of men and women in defenseless and compromising positions. To the relief of most Americans, President Trump has done everything he can to roll back the social engineering of the Obama years. We continue to be grateful that he had the backbone to roll back the gender confusion the last administration tried to inject into the military in 2016. But on some issues -- like this one -- it's tough to put the genie back in the bottle.
The Left spent Barack Obama's entire presidency sexualizing the military, beginning with the repeal of DADT -- and continuing with the push for open transgenderism. Almost a decade later, I guess "we told you so" isn't a message his party wants to hear.
------------------ Tony Perkins (@tperkins) 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, The War Against, Military, Sexual AssaultTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Jobs Boom
The Trump economy is chugging along -- 263,000 new jobs were created last month, well above economists' expectations of 190,000 new jobs. The unemployment rate fell to 3.6%, a 49-year low!
But wait. . . There's more!
Job growth for March and February was revised upward by an additional 17,000 new jobs, and wages also continue to grow. In fact, wages in the manufacturing sector are growing at their fastest rate in ten years.
Trump's stewardship of the economy may have something to do with a sudden burst of optimism among the American people. A Rasmussen poll finds that 54% of Americans believe America's best days are still ahead of us. That is the first time a majority has expressed optimism about the future since 2006!
2020 Update
Yet another Democrat jumped into the 2020 fray this week. Colorado Senator Michael Bennet threw his hat into the ring. Colorado will be well represented in the Democrat primary as former Governor John Hickenlooper is also running.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden really stepped in it during a campaign stop in Iowa this week. Biden likes to portray himself as a friend of working class Americans and an expert on foreign policy. But he raised a lot of eyebrows when he said this about China:
"China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man. . . I mean, you know, they're not bad folks. But guess what? They're not competition for us."
The statement is breathtaking in its ignorance. China is more than just "competition." China is aggressively attempting to supplant the United States as the premier power in Asia.
This is only Biden's most recent "China gaffe." A few years ago, he told Chinese college students that he "fully understand[s]" the communist regime's brutal one-child policy.
Biden has been wrong on the most consequential foreign policy matters for his entire 40-year career.
He opposed the Reagan defense build-up, the First Gulf War and Bush surge in the Second Gulf War.
He wanted to divide Iraq into three separate countries. Can you image the occupying force needed to impose that map on the Middle East?
He supported the disastrous Iranian nuclear deal and the pallets of cash the Obama Administration flew to Iran in the dark of night.
And this is the guy Democrats are suggesting is the "wise man" of the party, the candidate with experience and gravitas?
Standing With Israel
I joined Pastor John Hagee, founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel, at the Israeli Embassy today for the annual Christian solidarity with Israel event.
I was the first speaker at this event, which began in 2002. Pastor Hagee spoke today and gave a stirring defense of the U.S.-Israel alliance. In addition, he zeroed in on the danger of growing anti-Semitism around the world and here in the U.S.
Israel's Ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer, was effusive in his praise of the Christian community's strong stand in support of the Jewish people.
This is an important alliance, not only for Israel, but also in defense of Judeo-Christian values, the founding pillars of Western Civilization.
As I noted in yesterday's special message, there was an especially powerful moment during the National Day of Prayer service when President Trump invited Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein of the Chabad of Poway synagogue to address the audience.
Sadly, President Trump is often smeared as an "anti-Semite," which is an obscene slur. It couldn't be a bigger lie considering everything Trump has done for Israel, not to mention his Jewish family members.
Trump said that he called Rabbi Goldstein after the shooting at his synagogue and spoke with him for 25 minutes. Rabbi Goldstein said that when the president called he was at home weeping but that his call with Trump "began my healing."
The rabbi went on to suggest that secularism has advanced too far in our society. He called for a moment of silence in schools so that every child could say a prayer privately.
If you missed yesterday's National Day of Prayer service at the White House, you can watch it here.
Other Headlines
Kudos to President Trump and Senate Republicans! An important milestone was achieved this week with the confirmation of President Trump's 100th judicial nominee, Rodolfo Armando Ruiz to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. And there's more good news. Two more Trump nominees were confirmed after Ruiz, so the count is now 102 confirmed Trump judges!
Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined the left-wing attack against Attorney General William Barr yesterday, accusing him of committing perjury by lying to Congress. The deep state is all in on taking Barr down because he is determined to expose the deep state.
Yesterday, selective leaks appeared in the New York Times, noting that the FBI had deployed yet another undercover operative, Azra Turk, to assist in its spying on the Trump campaign. The Times report is nothing more than deep state damage control before the next damning inspector general's report is released.
In an interview with Fox News, President Trump vowed to declassify "everything" he could related to "Spygate," which this morning he said was "bigger than Watergate."
A new CNN poll finds that 69% of the public wants an investigation into the "origins of the Justice Department's inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election." In other words, the overwhelming majority of the public wants answers about the deep state's spying on the Trump campaign.
Vice President Mike Pence is demanding answer too. Pence is furious about reports that the FBI may have been spying on his office during the transition.
And speaking of foreign collusion. . . we're learning more about efforts by the Democrat National Committee to collude with Ukrainian officials to assist Hillary Clinton's campaign. A Ukrainian court recently ruled that two officials violated the law and interfered in the 2016 election when they illegally released financial records related to Paul Manafort.
The British government has just released a shocking report finding that Christians represent the most persecuted religious group around the world. In some corners of the globe, they are subject to "genocide," and Christianity is on the verge of being "wiped out" in the Middle East.
Our friends at Focus on the Family are putting the humanity of the unborn child on full display tomorrow. They will be broadcasting live 4D ultrasounds on a massive jumbotron screen in Times Square. Register here to watch livestream video of their "Alive From New York" event.
------------------- 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, Jobs Boom, 2020 Update, Standing With IsraelTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Golden Fleece to Federal Housing Finance Agency for Breaking CEO Pay Caps
ARRA News Sevice: Congressman French Hill (AR-02) named the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) as the latest recipient of the Golden Fleece Award for its failure, as the regulator of the Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSE), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to uphold the congressionally mandated pay cap of $600,000 in compensation for chief executive officers.
"It is unconscionable that GSEs would seek to circumvent the reasonable limits that Congress has imposed after they needed to be bailed out and consequently be placed under government conservatorship," said Congressman Hill. "Arkansans, and all tax-paying Americans, lose when their money is not spent wisely by our government agencies. Our banks should especially be good stewards with the money that they are entrusted with."
In a letter to the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Mark Calabria, Congressman Hill wrote:Dear Director Calabria:
I write today to inform you that I am awarding this month’s Golden Fleece to the Federal Housing Agency (FHFA) as the regulator of the Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSE), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, for their chief executive officers’ receiving compensation in excess of the $600,000 congressionally mandated cap.
According to two March 26, 2019, FHFA Office of Inspector General (OIG) reports, the GSEs created a new job, “President,” and, in doing so, “acted to circumvent the congressionally manded cap of $600,000 on CEO compensation.” Additionally, according to the OIG reports, “Fannie Mae is now compensating its Interim CEO and President a total of $4.2 million to execute the same responsibilities for which it had previously paid $600,000,” and Freddie Mac, “is paying a total of $3.85 million in compensation for the same set of responsibilities for which it previously paid $600,000.”
When the GSEs were put into conservatorship in 2008, FHFA was given regulatory oversight over executive compensation. According to a November 16, 2015 U.S. House of Representatives Committee report, between 2009 and 2011, FHFA approved tens of millions of dollars in compensation pay for the GSEs’ top 12 executives. Further, according to the same House Committee Report:In 2012, then-FHFA Director Ed DeMarco capped compensation at $600,000. In early 2015, however, FHFA Director Mel Watt allowed the GSEs to raise their CEO pay to as much as the twenty-fifth percentile of comparable companies.This ultimately allowed both GSEs to increase their CEO pay from the previous cap of $600,000 to $4 million annually.Following that action by Director Watt, the House and Senate passed The Equity in Government Compensation Act of 2015 (P.L. 114-93), which prevented FHFA from approving raises for the GSE CEOs from $600,000 to $4 million.
It is stunning that GSE and FHFA leadership would blatantly skirt this congressionally mandated cap after having received nearly $200 billion in bailouts since going under government conservatorship in 2008. As long as the GSEs are in conservatorship, the taxpayers, through the Treasury Department, are on the hook for a $250 billion line of credit. I believe the first obligation of FHFA should be repaying the taxpayers, not violating congressional intent by allowing more than $8 million in compensation for four people doing the same jobs that two people are authorized to undertake for $1.2 million.
I recognize that this decision occurred before your time at FHFA, but while Congress still must work to enact necessary reforms to our GSEs, FHFA must be accountable and responsible for ensuring the protection of our hardworking taxpayers’ dollars. I am committed to eradicating this type of inefficient and ineffective policy by our federal agencies. Should you require any additional authority from Congress to address these concerns, I urge you to notify us as soon as possible. I invite your immediate attention to these concerns, and I look forward to working with you to address this important issue.
Sincerely,
French Hill
Member of CongressAbout the Golden Fleece Award
Every year, Congress appropriates trillions of dollars to fund the federal government, and every year the federal government wastes portions of these funds in unconscionable ways. As a Member of Congress, and as a taxpayer, this frustrates me to no end. In an attempt to increase accountability for every single government program, Congressman Hill decided to bring back the Golden Fleece Award.
Originally introduced by Democratic U.S. Senator from Wisconsin William Proxmire in March 1975, the Golden Fleece Award was a monthly bulletin on the most frivolous and wasteful uses of hardworking taxpayers’ dollars. The Golden Fleece Award became a staple in the U.S. Senate during this time, and Senator Robert Byrd once stated that the awards were “as much a part of the Senate as quorum calls and filibusters.”
Having revived this idea, the Golden Fleece Award will again have the opportunity to serve as an important reminder to taxpayers about the need for necessary, commonsense reforms to our federal spending. Tags:Rep. French Hill, R-AR, awards, January, 2018, Golden Fleece Award, May 2019, Federal Housing Finance Agency, Breaking CEO Pay CapsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
No Denying This Is A Strong Jobs Report’: ‘U.S. Labor Market Is Still Red-Hot,’ ‘The Unemployment Rate Fell To A Fresh Half-Century Low,’ There Are ‘Real Gains In The Paychecks Of Average Workers’
SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MITCH McCONNELL: (R-KY): “The last two years have been a case study in how much American families benefit when Republican policies get the government out of the way. Helped along by tax reform, regulatory reform, and other efforts, the country is seeing historically low unemployment, faster wage growth — more opportunities for more families to get ahead and build their lives.”(Sen. McConnell, Remarks, 5/02/2019)
‘The U.S. Jobs Machine Kept Humming Along In April’ ‘And The Unemployment Rate Fell To A Fresh Half-Century Low, Adding To Signs Of A Healthy U.S. Economy’
“The United States has more job openings than unemployed people, a situation some economists call ‘full employment’ since most job seekers are able to land a job. Hispanic unemployment dropped to 4.2 percent, a record low since the Labor Department started measuring it in the 1970s.”(“U.S. Unemployment Fell To 3.6 Percent, Lowest Since 1969,” The Washington Post, 5/03/2019)
“Low unemployment is forcing employers to raise pay and become more aggressive about hiring and training workers. Average hourly earnings rose 3.2 percent in the past year, well above inflation, and lower wage workers enjoyed some of the largest gains as companies scrambled to fill jobs …”(“U.S. Unemployment Fell To 3.6 Percent, Lowest Since 1969,” The Washington Post, 5/03/2019)
“In the years after the Great Recession there was deep concern that wages weren’t rising and Americans who had lost jobs had lost hope of getting one again. There’s been mostly good news on both fronts in recent months … [E]conomists see encouraging trends as people who weren’t even actively looking for jobs are suddenly getting hired.”(“U.S. Unemployment Fell To 3.6 Percent, Lowest Since 1969,” The Washington Post, 5/03/2019)>/li>
‘Torrent Of Job Offers, Bigger Salaries Offer More Proof U.S. Labor Market Is Still Red-Hot’
“Business leaders increasingly say their number one challenge is finding enough people to fill job openings. McClane Company is a large trucking and warehouse firm that specializes in moving food and grocery items around the country. They are advertising truck driving jobs for $70,000 a year and a $6,000 sign on bonus in Jessup, Pennsylvania …” (“U.S. Unemployment Fell To 3.6 Percent, Lowest Since 1969,” The Washington Post, 5/03/2019)
‘The U.S. Economy Started 2019 With A Pop, Growing Rapidly’ With 3.2% GDP Growth In The First Quarter
“The U.S. economy started 2019 with a pop, growing rapidly despite multiple headwinds … Gross domestic product—the value of all goods and services produced in the U.S., adjusted for inflation and seasonality—rose at a 3.2% annual rate from January through March, the strongest rate of first-quarter growth in four years, the Commerce Department reported …”(“U.S. Economy Grew at 3.2% Rate in First Quarter,” The Wall Street Journal, 4/26/2019)
“‘The economy is in a sweet spot for now with not enough inflation to cause the Fed to raise rates, and with inflation not low enough to worry Fed officials that economic demand is weakening, which could require rate cuts,’ said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG in New York.”
Other Key Economic Indicators Show Americans ‘Feeling Confident About Their Economic Prospects,’ ‘Laying Groundwork For Stronger Wage Growth And Continued Economic Expansion’
“U.S. consumer spending increased by the most in more than 9-1/2 years in March as households stepped up purchases of motor vehicles, but price pressures remained muted, with a key inflation measure posting its smallest annual gain in 14 months.” (“U.S. Consumer Spending Roars Back, But Inflation Tame,” Reuters, 4/29/2019)
“U.S. workers’ efficiency improved during the past year at the best pace in nearly a decade, laying groundwork for stronger wage growth and continued economic expansion. The productivity of nonfarm workers, measured as the output of goods and services for each hour on the job, increased at a 3.6% seasonally adjusted annual rate in the first quarter from the prior three months, the Labor Department said Thursday. From a year earlier, productivity rose 2.4%. That was the best gain year-over-year since the third quarter of 2010, when the economy was just emerging from a deep recession.”(“U.S. Worker Productivity Advances at Best Rate Since 2010,” The Wall Street Journal, 5/02/2019)
“Productivity tends to be strong in the early days of an economic cycle. Accelerating improvement nearly 10 years after the recession ended raises hopes that a combination of more efficient workers and Americans rejoining the labor force could provide necessary fuel to extend one of the longest expansions in the post-World War II era.”(“U.S. Worker Productivity Advances at Best Rate Since 2010,” The Wall Street Journal, 5/02/2019)
“The recent gains could be a sign that an uptick in investment following tax-law changes passed in 2017 means businesses are spending on the technology and tools necessary to increase output…. ‘The machines people bought last year, they are turning them on this year,’ Kevin Hassett, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said last week.”(“U.S. Worker Productivity Advances at Best Rate Since 2010,” The Wall Street Journal, 5/02/2019)
‘[T]he U.S. Economy Is Remarkably Resilient When Government Doesn’t Get In The Way’
“The Trump Administration lifted the threat of new regulation and harassment of business in 2017, which liberated long-stifled animal spirits. Then came the Trump tax reform with its sharp reduction in business tax rates and immediate 100% expensing of new investment. This was targeted precisely to stimulate the weak capital investment that had stymied growth in the Obama years.”(Editorial, “The Tide Keeps Rising,” The Wall Street Journal, 4/26/2019)
Tags:Lowest Unemployment, In 50 YearsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Speaker Pelosi Maliciously Defames Atty General Barr & Accuses Him of Lying to Congress
Speaker Nancy Pelosi
by Joseph Klein: Speaker Nancy Pelosi has accused Attorney General William Barr of lying to Congress about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report and the Special Counsel’s concerns with how Attorney General Barr characterized the report’s findings. “What is deadly serious about it is the attorney general of the United States of America is not telling the truth to the Congress of the United States. That’s a crime,” Speaker Pelosi told reporters. “He lied to Congress. If anybody else did that, it would be considered a crime. Nobody is above the law.”
Frustrated that their Russian-Trump conspiracy narrative has gone up in smoke, Democrats are looking to hang an obstruction of justice charge around President Trump’s neck and are targeting Attorney General Barr as a convenient scapegoat for getting in their way. Speaker Pelosi’s accusation of criminal conduct against Mr. Barr is a desperate act that crosses the line into malicious falsehood of her own.
Speaker Pelosi followed the example of such lightweights on the Senate Judiciary Committee as Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, who made the same charge Wednesday during Mr. Barr’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on which she sits. Senator Hirono followed up her baseless accusation with this bit of self-praise: "Please, Mr. Attorney General, give us some credit for knowing what the hell is going on around here with you." The only thing that Senator Hirono deserves “credit” for after her disgraceful performance during Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing and during Mr. Barr’s Wednesday appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee is how easily she embarrasses herself.
Pelosi and Hirono were apparently in a lather over testimony that Attorney General Barr gave to the House Appropriations Committee last month that his accusers claim was perjurious. They contend that Mr. Barr misrepresented his knowledge of the Mueller team’s displeasure over how he characterized the Mueller report's findings in his 4-page letter summary of the report’s bottom line conclusions that he presented to Congress and the public on March 24th. A letter that Mr. Mueller had sent to Mr. Barr before Mr. Barr’s April 9th testimony to the House committee had voiced Mr. Mueller’s concern that Mr. Barr had not fully captured “the context, nature, and substance” of the Special Counsel Office’s “work and conclusions.” In responding to a question by Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla) about press reports claiming that the Mueller team was unhappy with what Mr. Barr had written in his short summary of conclusions to Congress, Mr. Barr did not elude to the Mueller letter.
Here is the supposedly infamous exchange: Rep. Charlie Crist, D-Fla.: “Reports have emerged recently, general, that members of the special counsel’s team are frustrated at some level with the limited information included in your March 24 letter. ... Do you know what they are referencing with that?”
Barr: “No, I don’t. I think I think, I suspect that they probably wanted more put out, but in my view I was not interested in putting out summaries.”There is absolutely nothing misleading in Mr. Barr’s response. As the attorney general told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, his dealings were directly with Special Counsel Mueller, not members of his staff. Therefore, he could not be certain what was in their minds. Nevertheless, Mr. Barr correctly surmised that staff members were frustrated for the same reason that Mr. Mueller had expressed in his letter to Mr. Barr and his subsequent phone conversation. They wanted more information “put out” into the public domain, including the detailed summaries prepared by the Mueller team. However, Mr. Barr thought it was not wise to release portions of the Mueller report, including the detailed summaries, in a piecemeal fashion, especially before the review process for possible necessary redactions was completed. In any event, according to Mr. Barr, Special Counsel Mueller did not refute the accuracy of Mr. Barr’s March 24th letter during a telephone conversation subsequent to Mr. Mueller’s letter to Mr. Barr. And as Attorney General Barr testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, the objective of his March 24th letter was simply to “notify the people as to the bottom line conclusion. We were not trying to summarize the 410-page report. So I offered Bob Mueller the opportunity to review that letter before it went out and he declined."
Moreover, the whole matter involving how Mr. Barr characterized the Mueller report is now moot. More than 90 percent of the Mueller report was made publicly available within 10 days after Attorney General Barr’s testimony to the House Appropriations Committee. Congress and the public were soon able to read the report for themselves and draw their own conclusions.
There is also absolutely nothing misleading in Mr. Barr’s original March 24th letter to Congress in how he described the bottom-line conclusions of the Mueller report. Regarding the allegation of conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russians to interfere with the 2016 presidential election, the attorney general quoted from the Mueller report: “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” That was the verdict, to which the attorney general added some information from the Mueller report on the principal means by which Russia sought to influence the election. He also referenced the fact that there were multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign.
Regarding obstruction of justice, Attorney General Barr accurately reported that “The Special Counsel…did not draw a conclusion - one way or the other – as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction. Instead, for each of the relevant actions investigated, the report sets out evidence on both sides of the question and leaves unresolved what the Special Counsel views as ‘difficult issues’ of law and fact concerning whether the President's actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction. The Special Counsel states that ‘while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.’”
Again, Mr. Barr accurately communicated the bottom-line verdict – or, in this case, the lack of one – in the Mueller report. Mr. Barr did not summarize each of the incidents described in the Mueller report that might or might not give rise to a finding of obstruction of justice. He did not have to do so since the Special Counsel decided not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment as to criminal liability regarding those incidents. Besides, the mostly unredacted report, with a full description of the incidents, would be made available to the public shortly thereafter.
Mr. Mueller left the decision up to the attorney general as to whether the conduct described in the Mueller report constitutes the crime of obstruction of justice. Attorney General Barr, along with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, concluded that “the evidence developed during the Special Counsel's investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.” For reasons far stronger than former FBI Director James Comey’s determination that Hillary Clinton had lacked the requisite intent to commit a crime in connection with her handling of government e-mails on her private server, the evidence described in the Mueller report comes nowhere close to proving corrupt intent beyond a reasonable doubt.
Speaker Pelosi owes Attorney General Barr an apology for her slanderous ad hominem attack on the attorney general’s character and veracity. Of course, this self-righteous Trump hater and her cohorts would never apologize. She is also a hypocrite of the first order. When Republicans in the House called for a contempt-of-Congress vote against then-Attorney General Eric Holder for allegedly failing to cooperate in their probe of the Operation Fast and Furious scandal, then-House Minority Leader Pelosi claimed that the Republicans were targeting Mr. Holder because his Department of Justice was cracking down on state voter ID laws. When the attorney general was a Democrat, Ms. Pelosi defended his obstruction of a congressional oversight investigation on nonsensical grounds. When the attorney general is a Republican, she distorts what the attorney general actually said and wrote to Congress just to score cheap political points, even if it means defaming his character with maliciously false charges. We should not be surprised.
------------------------ Joseph Klein is a Harvard-trained lawyer and the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom and Lethal Engagement: Barack Hussein Obama, the United Nations & Radical Islam. His article was in FrontPage.Mag, a project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Tags:oseph Klein, FrontPage Mag, Speaker Pelosi, Maliciously Defames, Atty General Barr, Accuses Him. Lying to CongressTo 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: Joe Biden has been around a long time. He was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972, at age 29 (he reached the Constitution's required age of 30 before taking office in January 1973). No one in the current Senate was there then; the current senior-most House member only arrived there after a special election two months later. Few other Americans have had such long-lasting prominent political careers: John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay in the 19th century, arguably; Claude Pepper and Strom Thurmond in the 20th.
Biden's poll numbers shot up after his announcement, by video and in person in Pittsburgh. The three most recent polls show him averaging 33 percent, way ahead of Sen. Bernie Sanders (16 percent), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (10 percent), Mayor Pete Buttigieg (8 percent) and Sen. Kamala Harris (7 percent). Biden seems to run strongest among those over 45 (who turn out more regularly than those younger) and in the Midwest (where Hillary Clinton lost 50 critical electoral votes, which the Obama-Biden ticket won twice).
Is Biden's long career a help or hindrance? His 36 years in the Senate gave him experience dealing with multiple issues and seeing how positions he's taken have fared over the years. His eight years as vice president gave him the personal exposure to the White House and executive branch that few candidates, in our often dysfunctional presidential nominating system, possess.
His earlier presidential runs, in 1988 and 2008, went nowhere. But he's much better known now, more than any other Democrat. On the other hand, his past stands and votes could be politically hazardous in a Democratic Party whose tweeters demand absolute political correctness according to standards that can change by the hour.
I first interviewed Biden, by phone, in May 1972, when he was a long-shot Democratic nominee against a Republican senator who had held statewide office for 26 years, in the year when George McGovern ended up losing to Richard Nixon by a 61-to-38 percent margin. Biden was a long-shot candidate who got some favorable press after hiring the late Pat Caddell, McGovern's pollster, some weeks later.
But it was clear to me that Biden, then a New Castle County Council member, had perfect political pitch. He argued that the 63-year-old incumbent, who was reluctant to run, should be given an honorable retirement, while he was young and eager to do the job.
Delaware is a small state geographically, with only 550,000 people then and 960,000 now, where citizens expect to meet their officeholders, not just at rallies but at the supermarket and the mall, in local restaurants and movie theaters. It's a state where campaign winners and losers together appear at a small town Return Day parade two days after the election. Biden's touchy-feely campaigning, his obviously genuine friendliness, worked for him in 1972 -- when he won by 3,162 votes -- and in multiple elections afterward.
Delaware was then a political bellwether, resembling the nation as a whole, up through the year 2000. Its Democratic percentage for president was within 4 points of the national average from 1968 to 1996, and its percentage for third-party candidates even closer. It voted 13 percent for George Wallace in 1968, within a point of his national average, with the two downstate counties giving him 18 percent.
So Biden, who regularly rode the Amtrak to Wilmington, got constant in-person tutoring in national politics from his constituents in Delaware. That accounts for some stands Democrats are attacking him for now but that were popular nationally then -- opposition to school busing in the 1970s, tough anti-crime laws in the 1980s and 1990s, his vote for the Iraq war in 2002.
Delaware is no longer a national bellwether. Affluent suburbanites across the country started trending Democratic in the late 1990s, and with most Delaware votes cast in affluent New Castle County suburbs, the state has been safely Democratic since 2000. This may help account for Biden's announcement video that features the 2017 violence in Charlottesville and (a distorted version of) President Donald Trump's comments on it.
That leaves conspicuously open the questions of how Biden will try to clinch the Democratic nomination and how he would govern as president; whether his long history will prove an asset or a liability; and whether he will cruise to nomination and election or stumble from a not-uncharacteristic gaffe. Will he end up like Andrew Jackson, who ran three times and won twice, or like Henry Clay, who ran three times and lost all three?
----------------------- 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 b Rasmussen Reports. Tags:Michael Barone, Will Joe Biden, Long Career, Help or HurtTo 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: This week, when Guaido called out the crowds again to bring the strongman down, the White House went all in.
“Who would be free themselves must strike the blow…
“By their right arms the conquest must be wrought.”
So wrote Lord Byron of Greece’s war of independence against the Turks, though the famed British poet would ignore his own counsel and die just days after arriving in Greece to join the struggle.
Yet Byron’s advice is the wise course for the United States, and for the people of Venezuela who seek to free their country of the grip of the incompetent and dictatorial regime of Nicolas Maduro.
Let the Venezuelans decide their own destiny, as did we.
As of today, Caracas seems to be in something of a standoff.
Opposition leader Juan Guaido, recognized by the U.S. and 50 other nations as president, has failed to persuade the army to abandon Maduro.
Yet he can still muster larger crowds in the streets of Caracas to demand the ouster of Maduro than Maduro can call out to stand by his regime.
Tuesday and Wednesday, Guaido announced that the regime’s final hour was at hand. But by midweek, the army’s leaders, including the minister of defense, still stood with Maduro.
Guaido’s opportunity seems to have passed by, at least for the moment. Maduro remains in power, though his generals, weighing the odds, have apparently been negotiating in secret with Guaido.
The Trump administration has backed Guaido, only to see him fail twice now at taking power.
The White House backed the plan in February to breach Venezuela’s borders with truckloads of food and medicine, counting on the army not to use force to block the trucks.
Vice President Mike Pence traveled to the border.
But Guaido and the Americans miscalculated. The army stood by Maduro. The trucks were kept out.
This week, when Guaido called out the crowds again to bring the strongman down, the White House went all in. President Donald Trump, Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and John Bolton all tweeted support for the uprising.
But by Thursday, it was again clear that no matter what Washington had been told and anticipated, the army remained loyal to Maduro.
Frustrated, exasperated, appearing at once bellicose and impotent, Washington has now begun to bluster about military intervention.
“All options are on the table,” says Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford. Presumably that includes the 82nd Airborne.
“While a peaceful solution is desirable, military action is possible,” said Pompeo. “If that’s what required, that’s what the United States will do.”
“All options are open,” says Bolton. “We want a peaceful transfer of power. But we are not going to see Guaido mistreated by this regime.”
Clearly, Juan Guaido is our man in Caracas.
Bolton also had strong words for Vladimir Putin: “(T)his is our hemisphere. It’s not where the Russians should be interfering. This was a mistake on their part.”
“The brutal repression of the Venezuelan people must end, and it must end soon,” said Trump. “People are starving. They have no food; they have no water. And this was once one of the wealthiest countries in the world.”
Yet Trump is reportedly reluctant to intervene. Let us hope that his anti-interventionist impulses guide his decisions. Venezuela’s future is not ours to decide.
This civil conflict is not our war. We have not been attacked. Not only is there no justification for U.S. military intervention, but also any arrival of U.S. troops on Venezuelan soil could turn into yet another 21st-century strategic debacle.
There could be again Americans killing and dying in a country where no vital interest was imperiled, no matter how obnoxious the regime.
There is no Tiananmen Square slaughter, no massive human rights violations going on in Venezuela to justify military intervention. Indeed, there appears to be a conscious effort on the part of Maduro to minimize casualties and bloodshed, and the consequences they could bring.
Troops are not firing indiscriminately on protestors, though rock-throwers in the streets are provoking the soldiers. Planeloads of Russian or Cuban troops are not pouring into the country.
U.S. intervention in a nation of 30 million people, with an army of scores of thousands of troops, would enable Maduro to cast himself in the role of martyr of Yankee imperialism.
Finally, time is on our side, not Maduro’s.
The Venezuelan economy, one of the richest in the hemisphere owing to the world’s largest oil resources, is now in shambles. Some 3 million people, 1 in every 10 Venezuelans, have fled the disaster that Maduro and his mentor Hugo Chavez created.
The currency is sinking to Weimar levels. Oil exports are falling. Shortages of food and medicine are spreading. Power blackouts have been reported. It is difficult to foresee any turnaround the Maduro regime can execute to revive the economy or prevent the continued exodus of its people. Most of the nations of Latin America are with us and against Maduro.
Venezuela’s situation is not sustainable. Let the fate of the Marxist Socialist regime of Nicolas Maduro be decided by the people of Venezuela.
-------------------- Patrick Buchanan (@PatrickBuchanan) 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 adviser 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, Let Venezuela, Decide Its Own DestinyTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
FBI Report Shows Biden's "Courageous Americans" in Antifa Planned an "Armed Rebellion" at U.S. Border
C. Mitchell Shaw: As federal agents investigated the illegal activities of American citizens assisting the “migrant caravan” of illegal aliens breaching America’s borders last year, the FBI discovered a plot for Antifa to purchase guns from a “Mexico-based cartel associate” and use them to “stage an armed rebellion at the border,” according to an unclassified report from the bureau.
The unclassified FBI report was leaked to San Diego Union-Tribune “on the condition the person providing it would not be named, and with the request that the entire document not be shared online because of the ongoing nature of the investigation,” according to a report by the Union-Tribune.
The report — circulated to dozens of federal law enforcement agencies in America and Mexico — warns those agencies that “anti-fascist activists” had plans “to disrupt U.S. law enforcement and military security operations at the US/Mexican border” using weapons they planned to purchase from ““Mexico-based cartel associate known as Cobra Commander.” Cobra Commander’s real name is listed in the report as Ivan Riebeling.
Riebeling has been passing himself off as a “human rights advocate” in Mexico, but is in reality, just another violent criminal thug. In July of 2018, he was arrested for making public threats of violence against a journalist, Odilon Garcia, who had published Riebeling’s criminal record. That record includes arrests for drug smuggling, carrying a concealed stolen gun, kidnapping, and robbery. In March 2008, he was convicted for the kidnapping and robbery charges and received a four year sentence, but was inexplicably given clemency, allowing him to avoid serving his term.
For reporting that, Riebeling publicly told Garcia “Don’t you mess around with me,” adding that if he wanted to have Garcia killed, “it costs me nothing.” He also threatened — in graphic terms — anal rape against Garcia.
Riebeling’s July 2018 arrest was also connected to threats he made against Raul Reynoso, director general of communication of the government of Baja California, saying he would behead him. Again, somehow, he remains free.
As The New American has reported previously, Antifa is a communist umbrella organization modeled on a one-to-one ratio with “anti-Fascist” groups of communists in 1930’s Europe. In fact, as this magazine’s William F. Jasper wrote, “Red Guards Austin, the masked “Antifa” thugs of Austin, Texas, who march about displaying the communist hammer & sickle symbol, and who also openly display banners emblazoned with images of Karl Marx and mass-murderers Mao Zedong and Vladimir Lenin” are unapologetic about their communism. They declared:
When we fight, we fight for communism, and all our constructive and destructive activity is geared toward building our party, which will wage a protracted people’s war, establishing socialism and continuing the revolution under the rule of the working class.It is also not surprising that the plot that formed the alliance between Antifa and Riebeling was one of an armed assault on the border of America — a country that Antifa hates with a Red passion. After all, what could be better to further Antifa’s goal of taking down a bastion of capitalism than to “stage an armed rebellion at the border” and kill a few American border agents in the process? And notice that Red Guards Austin does not distinguish between communism and socialism. That is because — ideologically — the two are the same thing. The only difference is tactical. That is the chief reason that the battle between Neo-Nazis and Antifa is a fraud on its face. Nazis are national socialists. Since socialism and communism are ideological twins, this is not a battle between the Right and the Left as Americans are constantly being told by the media; it is a battle between two arms of the Left, with the rest of America caught in the crossfire.
The unclassified FBI report detailing the Antifa plot was sent with “priority” to a litany of federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Drug Enforcement Agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Administration.
Riebeling dismissed the report’s claims as “absurd,” saying, “It doesn’t make any sense that someone from the United States would purchase guns in Mexico. And the Hondurans certainly didn’t bring money to buy guns. It doesn’t make any sense; in fact it’s extremely absurd to say the Hondurans wanted to attack the United States at the border.”
But is it “absurd” that “ someone from the United States would purchase guns in Mexico”? No. No more than that drug cartels in Mexico would buy guns from federal agents in an ill-conceived government program such as Fast and Furious. Guns are guns, after all, and buying them from a gun-running drug cartel in Mexico would mean that Antifa would be ready to storm the border from the Mexican side of the line, giving them a tactical advantage. Furthermore, the report makes it clear that a group of activists in Tijuana supporting the migrant caravan “were encouraged to bring personally owned weapons to the border and the group also intended to purchase weapons from a Mexico-based cartel associate known as Cobra Commander, AKA the Mexican Rambo, and smuggle the weapons into the United States.”
So, another purpose of the Antifa plot to secure weapons — likely some of the same types of weapons the cartels acquired in Fast and Furious — was to wage war in America. The report also states that Antifa was helping to create training camps for “community defense militias, also known as autodensas,” adding, “Organizers planned for the camps to be used as staging platforms from which five person units would form to train anarchists in fighting, combat, and conducting reconnaissance, and then launch to disrupt U.S. government operations along the border.”
What is absurd is that liberal mainstream media outlets have continued over the past couple of years to paint Antifa as heroes and that Joe Biden — keeping a straight face — called them “a group of courageous Americans” who have “the courage to stand against [hate].” Because the unclassified FBI report — which has been verified as genuine — makes it clear that Antifa radicals are not “courageous” — they are merely bloodthirsty. They are not “Americans” in any sense of the word that matters — they are seeking the communist overthrow of America. And they are not standing “against” hate — they are hate personified. They are no better than their Nazi counterparts. They are the enemy and they mean to continue attacking America any way they can.
Federal officials say the investigation into the Antifa plot is ongoing.
------------------ C. Mitchell Shaw (@CMitchellShaw) writes for The New American Tags:C. Mitchell Shaw, The New Americanm FBI Report, Joe Biden, called, Antifa, courageous Americans, Armed Rebellion, U.S. BorderTo 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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by Kerby Anderson, Contributing Author: Columnist David Brooks has a new book coming out, so he wrote a New York Times column about the “Five Lies Our Culture Tells Us.” He believes we have created a culture based on lies. Columnist Robert Samuelson responds to David Brooks in a Washington Post column by telling him to “lighten up.”
Let’s look at the five lies. They are that we believe that “career success is fulfilling” and that “I can make myself happy.” They also include the belief that “life is an individual journey” and that “you have to find your own truth” and the “rich and successful people are worth more than poorer and less successful people.”
If you are a Christian and look at that list of lies, you will probably reject every one of them and agree with Brooks. We shouldn’t get our significance from work and career. We are part of the body of Christ and should reject the lie of self-sufficiency. We certainly should not try to “find our own truth” but instead seek truth in Scripture.
Why then would Samuelson advise Brooks to “lighten up?” He begins by acknowledging these insights are true, but “they’re also utopian.” We haven’t arrived “in some Garden of Eden paradise where almost everyone is happy, fulfilled, responsible, and respected.”
He points out, for example, that ambition can be both a blessing and a curse. It encourages people to try new things and to stretch their abilities. But people obsessed with their projects and with themselves mistreat others and cause problems.
I applaud both of them. Brooks focuses on some of the major problems that have surfaced in our society, like spiking suicide rates and a coarsening culture. Samuelson reminds us that most Americans have jobs and we live in a time of relative peace. Both are true and deserve our attention.
------------ Kerby Anderson (@kerbyanderson) 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, Five LiesTo 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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