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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, November 08, 2019
Make No Mistake: Mexican Cartel Murders are Funded by Americans
by Newt Gingrich: The massacre of nine Americans – including six children – in Northern Mexico this week was the latest shocking reminder of a stark reality: Our next-door neighbor has a huge, dangerous organized crime problem.
In response, President Trump was understandably angry, saying: “This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth.”
The President’s goal is right, but the target is wrong.
The key to destroying the Mexican cartels is in America not Mexico.
As long as Americans send an estimated $19 billion to $29 billion in drug money a year to Mexico (as estimated by ICE) there will be cartels willing to take it. Kill one generation of cartel leaders, and a new generation will emerge.
The Cartels have so much money and so much organized power that they are virtually a state within a state.
I spoke this week with journalist Sara Carter, who covered the border for years, about how dangerous these cartels truly are. Originally, I was going to reserve the conversation for my Inner Circle subscription service, which I want to invite you to join. But I thought this was so important – and such a timely topic and so central to the future of the United States – that I wanted to share it with everybody here.
According to the CRS, reporters get killed routinely. In 2018 there were 16 journalists killed. Local government officials are equally vulnerable. In 2018 there were 37 local officials and candidates killed.
The Sinaloa Cartel earns more than $3 billion a year, according to the CRS report. As long as that remains true, the cartel’s capacity to kill potential opponents and intimidate Mexicans who would like to live in a safe, law abiding society is massive.
For example, in a recent confrontation in Culiacan, Sinaloa Cartel gunmen overwhelmed a patrol of police and forced them to release their prisoner — the son of the Sinaloa drug lord El Chapo’s son, Ovidio Guzmán López. About the same time, some 55 prisoners were escaping from prison across town, and there was another prison break in another part of the country.
Let me be clear: This lawlessness and violence isn’t being fueled by Mexico. American money and American drug addiction have paid for the growth of huge criminal organizations of extraordinary violence and cruelty.
In the case of heroin, the Drug Enforcement Administration estimates 91 percent of heroin in the US comes from Mexico. Sam Quinones’s remarkable book Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic is an astonishingly clear story of the rise of sophisticated modern marketing and organizing by the Mexican pioneers of heroin importation.
The tragic reality is we have been fighting a “war on drugs” since President Richard Nixon declared it in June 1971. For 48 years, the official American position has been to stop addictive drugs. Yet, many of our policies undermine that war and, in fact, guarantee defeat.
Let me share a few examples.
When San Francisco gave out 5.8 million needles in 2018 the city was undermining any effort to stop drugs coming from Mexico. No one considered how much money went to the cartels from the substance that filled those 5.8 million needles.
Everyone who advocates for open borders is advocating for easier access and greater profits for the drug cartels. Everyone who opposes controlling the border is actively making life easier for violent cartels. A controlled border could stop most of the drugs coming north and most of the guns flowing south. So called “sanctuary cities” are in effect “drug trafficker sanctuary cities.”
Anti-police leftists like Mayor Bill De Blasio of New York make life easier for the drug cartels. A demoralized, intimidated police force has no hope of stopping the type of arrogant murderers and torturers who are challenging the Mexican government for control of the country.
Reforming our criminal justice system, which I strongly support, does not mean we have to accept the legalization of heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, and other deadly drugs. It means we must find economic sanctions – and effective treatment – for drug users while retaining much tougher punishment for those making money while enriching the drug cartels.
We have a deep interest in helping the Mexican government defeat the drug cartels and regaining control over all of Mexico.
We also have a deep interest in starving out the drug cartels before they bring their corruption and their violence further into the United States.
If we are serious about wiping the drug cartels off the face of the earth, the place to start is the United States not Mexico.
If American illegal drug purchases fell radically – even to less than a billion a year – the cartels would collapse because they would not have the money to pay their troops and to support their infrastructure.
Follow the money is a good rule, and in this case, the money is made in America, spent by Americans, and needs to be cut off by Americans. Then, we will have defeated the drug cartels.
The central battlefront in this war is dollars in America – not violence in Mexico.
---------------------- 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, Make No Mistake, Mexican Cartel Murders, Funded by AmericansTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
When Erdogan Visits the U.S., He Has Some Explaining to Do
by Arielle Del Turco: As accusations swirl about ongoing Turkish war crimes being committed in Syria, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan solidified plans to visit the Oval Office. This came after Erdogan threatened to cancel the meeting over the House of Representatives' passage of a bill recognizing the Armenian Genocide as "genocide" in addition to a bill that would allow for Turkey to be sanctioned. The truth is that Erdogan has no moral standing to cancel a visit to the U.S. because the House moved to formally recognize a century-old Turkish atrocity. Yet, President Trump has every reason to use the upcoming meeting with Erdogan on November 13 to confront him about abuses currently being committed by the Turkish military and Turkish-backed forces.
Dave Eubank, founder of the Free Burma Rangers (FBR), a Christian humanitarian organization used to serving in combat zones, is shocked by the high toll the Turkish incursion into Northeast Syria is having on civilians, despite on-again, off-again claims of a ceasefire. Eubank insists, "There's never been a cease-fire, not one day. Airstrikes by drones, regular airstrikes, artillery, mortars, Turkish tanks. I mean shooting right at us."
The Free Burma Rangers know the imminent danger that civilians face there; that's why they stay to help. Just last week, an FBR volunteer medic and camera person Zhao Sang was killed by Turkish shelling -- during the so-called "ceasefire." Eubank accuses Turkish-backed forces of committing war crimes. "You know we've seen them mutilate girls, torture civilians, yell 'Allah Akbar' just like we saw ISIS do against us. So, I would say they're a wicked scourge being used by Erdogan to torment the people here. And they've got to be stopped." Eubank says the war crimes of Turkish-backed forces include "killing prisoners, killing civilians, chasing people out of their homes, torture."
Religious minorities have specifically suffered from Turkish military aggression in the last month. Turkish air strikes hit Yazidi civilian villages in Sinjar, Iraq just within the last few days. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) pointed out that Turkey has "repeatedly carried out such operations with disregard for vulnerable religious and ethnic minorities." Yazidis were a primary victim of ISIS's attempted genocide of religious minorities in Iraq and Syria -- they shouldn't have to worry about being killed by the government of Turkey today.
It shouldn't surprise us that Turkey has no respect for religious freedom or for the treatment of religious minorities. Last month marked the one-year anniversary of American pastor Andrew Brunson's release from prison in Turkey, where he spent over two years detained on false charges of terrorism. USCIRF has designated Turkey as a "Tier 2" violator of religious freedom over their treatment of religious minorities within their own border.
In Northeast Syria, Christians have been among the first victims of Turkey's military campaign. Turkey has a history (including recently) of "ethnically cleansing" areas of religious minorities, including Christians, and there's reason to believe Turkey will be doing more of the same in Northeast Syria. The historic Assyrian Christian town of Tel Tamer is the latest to be targeted for Turkish aggression. Christians in Tel Tamer are afraid they will be eliminated. Believers there are crying out for help to Christians around the world. As Christians, it is our responsibility to pray for our fellow believers in the persecuted church. As Americans who value religious freedom, it is our responsibility to advocate against genocide and for the protection of all religious minorities everywhere.
That's why President Trump must raise accusations of war crimes to Erdogan when they talk on November 13. This meeting should not be a friendly photo op to imply that the United States is okay with Turkey's actions in Syria and Iraq. Rather, it's an opportunity to set our NATO ally straight, and send home the message that Turkey's abuses against religious minorities aren't acceptable.
--------------------------- Arielle Del Turco writes for the Family Research Center. Tags:Arielle Del Turco, Family Research Center, Turkey, When Erdogan Visits the U.S., Has Some Explaining to DoTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Cal Thomas: Shortly after Jim Bakker’s release from prison in July 1994, I invited the disgraced TV evangelist to my home. There was an important question I wanted to ask him.
Some background: Bakker and his “Praise the Lord” associates sold $1,000 “lifetime memberships” to people who were promised annual three-night stays at his Heritage USA luxury hotel complex in Fort Mill, South Carolina.
According to what prosecutors revealed at his trial on fraud charges, Bakker sold tens of thousands of these memberships for a hotel that had only 500 rooms planned and was never completed. It was alleged Bakker kept $3.4 million of the money for himself and the rest paid for Heritage USA’s operating expenses.
“When did you start to go wrong?” I asked Bakker.
His answer was instructive: “When I began to surround myself with people who told me only what I wanted to hear.”
I thought of that statement when I read what former White House chief of staff John Kelly told a gathering in Sea Island, Georgia, sponsored by the Washington Examiner. He told President Donald Trump before leaving his position: “I said whatever you do, don’t hire a ‘yes man,’ someone who won’t tell you the truth–don’t do that, because if you do, I believe you will be impeached.”
The latest White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, sounded like a “yes-woman” when she responded to Kelly: “I worked with John Kelly, and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great president.”
The key to great leadership is to not overly regard yourself, to understand you don’t know everything, realize that, like everyone else, you are flawed and can make bad judgments, and to surround yourself with people who think well enough of you to tell you the truth from their perspective, even when it disagrees with yours.
As long as the objective is to help you succeed with your agenda, such advice can be valuable and even humbling, humility being one of humanity’s better characteristics and a grace that appears in short supply in Washington.
Another story along these lines was told to me by one of the late Billy Graham’s associates. After a particularly successful evening during which thousands came forward in response to an invitation to receive Christ as Savior, Graham and his team went back to their hotel room.
The aide said he told Graham, “You’re not as great as they think you are.”
He said Graham responded, “Don’t I know it.”
Some of those evangelical “advisers” to Trump might consider a verse with which they must be familiar. It is from Proverbs 15:22: “Plans go wrong for lack of advice; many advisers bring success.”
Israel’s King Solomon is said to have written that and most of the Proverbs, which are as good a guidebook for living (and leading) as has ever been written, even for nonbelievers.
Generals require committed privates in order to achieve success in warfare. Presidents need the same, along with staff who don’t always tell them what they want to hear, but sometimes what they need to hear.
--------------------------- Cal Thomas (@CalThomas) is a syndicated columnist, author, broadcaster, and speaker with access to world leaders, U.S. presidents, celebrities, educators, and countless other notables. He has authored 12 books, including his latest, “What Works: Common Sense Solutions for a Stronger America.” Visit his site at CalThomas.com. Tags:Cal Thomas, No "Yes Men." The Importance of ‘No-Men’, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
‘Anti-Trump Spreadsheet’: Mike Huckabee Slams Drudge Report for Misleading Polls
by Dominic Mancini: Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is fed up with conservative-leaning news outlets displaying polls with President Trump several points behind the various Democrat presidential candidates.
“I see these polls every day, particularly on Drudge,” Huckabee told Todd Starnes during a recent broadcast of the Todd Starnes Show. “I don’t know what Drudge’s problem with President Trump is, but [Drudge] clearly does not care for him.”
“The Drudge Report has become almost an anti-Trump spreadsheet,” Huckabee said. “I just don’t believe the polls. They were terribly inaccurate in 2016.”
As a former Republican presidential candidate, Huckabee believes pollsters largely ignore Independent voters. “They are all just sampling Democrats.”
“I said Trump is going to win” in 2016, and conservative news anchors told me “there’s no way,” Huckabee continued. And “with all due respect to Fox,” I don’t think their polls are very accurate either, he said.
The former Baptist minister believes Trump voters are reluctant to reveal their political identity because “they don’t want to be called a racist or xenophobe.”
“They don’t want to have someone screaming and yelling at them and throwing them out of a restaurant,” he told Starnes. “A lot of people just will go quietly and vote for President Trump” without announcing it.
Despite polls showing little support for President Trump among minorities, Huckabee believes “they’d be voting against their own interests” by supporting the Democrat nominee in 2020.
“The lowest unemployment numbers ever in the history of the United States for African Americans is under [President Trump].”
Huckabee said the bipartisan First Step Act is a Trump Administration accomplishment that drew support across the political spectrum to uplift racial minorities.
Under President Trump’s leadership, they’re seeing “more jobs created, more prosperity, more money in their pockets.”
------------------ Dominic Mancini wrote Todd Starnes column (@toddstarnes) is A Christian Conservative, the host of Fox News & Commentary and heard daily on 250+ radio stations and on his iTune podcasts. Tags:Dominic Mancini, Todd Starnes, commentary, ‘Anti-Trump Spreadsheet’, Mike Huckabee, Slams Drudge Report, for Misleading PollsTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Arkansas A.G. Continues Fighting for Human Life in Court
AR Atty General Leslie Rutledge
by Jerry Cox: According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge’s office recently asked the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals to let the state enforce some pro-life laws the legislature passed earlier this year.
In June abortionists sued the state over three new pro-life laws:
Act 493 of 2019, prohibiting abortion after the eighteenth week of pregnancy, except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother.
Act 619 of 2019, prohibiting abortion of an unborn baby solely because the child has Down Syndrome.
Act 700 of 2019, requiring abortion doctors to be board certified or board eligible OB/GYNs.
These laws are designed to do things like ensure abortion doctors are properly certified in obstetrics and gynecology and protect babies from being aborted simply because they have Down Syndrome.
Arkansas abortionists are challenging laws that hold abortion doctors to reasonable standards and prohibit abortion after the eighteenth week of pregnancy.
Over the summer U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker blocked the laws, preventing the state from enforcing them. Now the A.G. is appealing to a higher court.
U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker has consistently ruled in favor of abortionists like Planned Parenthood, and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has a history of overturning her bad rulings.
With that in mind, there’s a good possibility the Eighth Circuit could unblock all or most of the provisions in these pro-life laws.
There’s also the possibility that these laws could be appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which would offer us an opportunity for a good, pro-life ruling that would help undermine Roe v. Wade and shape pro-life laws nationwide.
As I have said before, I don’t know of any attorney general in America who is doing more to fight for the right to life than Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge. Her team has won some major pro-life victories in the past, and I believe we will see others in the future.
-------------- Jerry Cox is the founder and president of Family Council and the Education Alliance and a contributing author to the ARRA News Service. Tags:Jerry Cox, Family Council, Arkansas A.G., Leslie Rutledge, Continues Fighting, for Human Life, in CourtTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Tomorrow marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I'll never forget the emotion I felt watching that stark symbol of communism come tumbling down.
Young Germans poured out of their homes and overwhelmed the security guarding the piece of concrete that physically and psychologically separated East and West Berlin. They quickly began demolishing it piece by piece.
The seeds of the wall's destruction were planted a couple of years earlier in 1987 when President Ronald Reagan delivered one of his most famous speeches.
Standing before the historic Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, Reagan spoke directly to the leader of the Soviet Union and forcefully declared:
"General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
While reflecting on this anniversary, I couldn't help but think of a recent poll of millennials. It found that nearly 70% of millennials are willing to vote for a socialist candidate. Even more frightening, a third said they approve of communism.
How is that possible? How can the most highly educated generation of Americans, with Google literally at their fingertips, be so clueless about what life was like under communism?
This is beyond shocking. It's scandalous. It is a damning indictment of our modern educational establishment and the elected politicians who failed to prevent that establishment from becoming an indoctrination enterprise.
Either we haven't taught our children what the Berlin Wall was and why it came down or we have taught them a lie. Sadly, I fear it is the latter.
I suspect most young Americans are being indoctrinated to believe that capitalism and free markets are evil, that America is evil. So evil, that they're willing to embrace economic and political ideas that have resulted in tremendous death and suffering.
My friends, 30 years ago I thought America had won the Cold War. Apparently, the fight against communism still continues. Only today the battlefield isn't West Berlin. The fight is on our high school and college campuses.
The Culture War
The Supreme Court is hearing several cases this term with tremendous implications for religious liberty. Not surprisingly, at least one far-left group is attempting to rig the result by demanding that Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh recuse themselves from these critical cases.
Why? Because they had the audacity to pose for a picture with the president of the National Organization for Marriage, which advocates for the "radical idea" that marriage should be the union of one man and one woman.
This is further evidence of just how extreme the left has become. Not content with having won the battle over the civil definition of marriage, it is now trying to restrict religious liberty across the board.
It has launched an aggressive campaign called "Beyond I Do." The success of this effort could be seriously impacted by the outcome of these pending Supreme Court decisions. Thus the attempt to intimidate Alito and Kavanaugh.
The left lost the fight over Kavanaugh's confirmation, but it never gives up. It wants to disqualify him over a picture. And impeach him if possible.
More Impeachment Lies
Yesterday we noted that the alleged CIA "whistleblower" may have committed perjury by failing to disclose his contacts with Democrat congressional staffers prior to filing his complaint. It seems he isn't the only one.
Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and an Obama holdover, is widely seen as a star witness in the Democrat impeachment effort. President Trump removed Yovanovitch in May.
Ambassador Yovanovitch testified before Rep. Adam Schiff's kangaroo court last month. Under questioning from Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), Yovanovitch said she had ignored messages sent in August from a Democrat staffer on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who wanted to speak with her about "quite delicate/time-sensitive" matters.
The timing of the staffers email to Yovanovitch is suspicious as it was sent just two days after the CIA "whistleblower" filed his complaint.
Yovanovitch told Zeldin that she referred the message to the State Department so that someone in the Legislative Affairs Office could "handle the correspondence."
You can appreciate why State Department officials would be sensitive about handling official business through the proper channels after Hillary Clinton's private server scandal. In fact, Hillary warned State Department employees against using personal email accounts for official business and she even fired an ambassador for doing so.
So kudos to Yovanovitch for following proper protocol. Except she didn't.
Fox News has obtained emails indicating that Yovanovitch did in fact reply to the Democrat staffer using a private email account. It seems that her response to Rep. Zeldin was not entirely truthful.
Responding to this revelation, Rep. Zeldin said, "It is greatly concerning that Ambassador Yovanovitch didn't answer my question as honestly as she should have, especially while under oath."
In related news, Republican senators are stepping up their efforts to expose Hunter Biden's dealings with the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma. It turns out that the company was aggressively lobbying the State Department and using Biden's name to gain access and favor.
2020 Update
The Democrat presidential primary took a bizarre turn today. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg filed paperwork to have his name appear on the Alabama primary ballot, the state with the earliest filing deadline.
Bloomberg's move was motivated by growing angst among establishment Democrats that Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders just can't cut it. In fact, Bloomberg's spokesman said as much, telling reporters that, "Mike is increasingly concerned that the current field of candidates is not well positioned" to defeat Donald Trump.
It is widely reported that Bloomberg is particularly concerned about the rise of the progressive left and the possibility that Sanders or Warren could win the nomination due to Biden's weakness.
But it's not at all clear to me that Bloomberg has any support in today's Democrat Party. In spite of his well-known liberal positions on social issues and anti-Second Amendment activism, 75% of Democrat voters said they would vote for a socialist for president. It seems that Bloomberg lost this fight a long time ago.
Bloomberg may not be the last candidate to jump in. There are reports that former Attorney General Eric Holder may get into the race too.
Meanwhile, President Trump and Vice President Pence are heading to Georgia today, kicking off a major push to attract black voters to the Republican Party.
------------------- 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, The Fall & Our Future, The Culture War, More Impeachment Lies, 2020 UpdateTo 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: The three white males are denigrating and piling on the woman who is the front-runner with attacks on her personality for which conservatives, if they used such tactics, would be charged with “dog-whistling” the white working class.
After celebrating Tuesday’s takeover of Virginia’s legislature and the Kentucky governorship, the liberal establishment appears poised to crush its biggest threat: the surging candidacy of Elizabeth Warren.
From the tempo and tenor of the attacks, establishment fears of Warren’s success are real — and understandably so.
Two Wednesday polls show Warren running even with Joe Biden nationally. And a new Iowa poll shows Warren in front of the field with 20%, and Biden falling into fourth place with 15%.
The danger for Democrats: While Warren is now the party’s front-runner, they fear she’s a sure loser to Donald Trump in 2020.
And, again, with reason. A recent poll of six battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan, showed Trump beating or tying Warren in all of them except for Arizona.
Nightmare scenario: Warren wins the nomination, but when her neo-Marxist agenda is exposed, Middle America recoils in horror.
The economic elite is already sounding the alarm.
Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase says Warren “vilifies successful people.” Microsoft founder Bill Gates says her proposals would imperil “innovation” and “capital formation.”
Writing in The New York Times, Obama adviser Steven Rattner describes a Warren presidency as “a terrifying prospect.”
Warren would “extend the reach and weight of the federal government far further into the economy than anything even Franklin Roosevelt dreamed of (and) … turn America’s uniquely successful public-private relationship into a dirigiste European-style system.”
“If you want to live in France” — where half the GDP is controlled by the regime — says Rattner, “Warren should be your candidate.”
What finally shocked anti-Warren liberals into action was her recent revelation of how she intends to pay for her “Medicare for all” plan.
Warren’s plan would require at least $23 trillion more in federal spending over a decade. Other experts say the added costs could run to $32 trillion, raising the U.S. government’s share of the GDP by one-half and abolishing the private health insurance plans of 156 million Americans.
“Many of America’s global champions, like banks and tech giants, would be dismembered,” writes Rattner, “Shale fracking would be banned, which would send oil and natural gas prices soaring and cost millions of Americans their jobs.”
Beyond “Medicare for All,” Warren has other plans. Universal child care and free schooling from pre-kindergarten through college and the cancelation of student loans, plus a new look at reparations for slavery.
How would President Warren pay for all her “plans”?
She would raise the corporate rate to 35% from 21%, and slam a 40% tax on the profits of companies that try to flee the country.
She would raise the capital gains tax, impose new estate taxes, raise Social Security taxes on folks with higher incomes, and confiscate 2% of the wealth of those with $50 million in assets and 3% of the wealth of those with $1 billion, every year.
Writes Politifact: “All told, we counted $7 trillion in new spending over a 10-year period, and that’s without Medicare for All. On the flip side, Warren offered specific tax proposals that came to $4.55 trillion.”
Still, Warren’s socialism is not what her main rivals, all white men, are zeroing in on. They’ve decided to play hardball.
Thursday, under a headline, “Warren Faces Accusations that She’s ‘Angry,’ Which Supporters Say is Sexist,” The Washington Post reported:
“Two of the leading male candidates in the Democratic presidential primary race — Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg — have escalated separate lines of attack as they attempt to counter the field’s most prominent woman: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is antagonistic and angry.”
Warren has a “my way or the highway” approach, said Buttigieg, she is “so absorbed in the fighting that it is as though fighting were the purpose.”
Biden says Warren, who has a real shot at taking the nomination, reflects “an angry unyielding viewpoint that has crept into our politics.”
This is “treacherous,” warns the Post, “given that many Democrats remain upset over what they view as the sexist treatment of Hillary Clinton, the party’s last nominee.”
The Democratic Party today defines itself as an inclusive party of women, gays, Hispanics, African Americans and other people of color.
Yet three months out from the decisive early contests of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, the party is going into the semifinals of its contest for a leader and future president without a single person of color in the final four.
Moreover, the three white males are denigrating and piling on the woman who is the front-runner with attacks on her personality for which conservatives, if they used such tactics, would be charged with “dog-whistling” the white working class.
When one looks at the approval-disapproval rating of the president, re-election appears problematic. When one looks at the Democrats’ agenda and field of candidates, the odds of Trump’s re-election seem a good deal better.
This thing is by no means over.
-------------------- Patrick Buchanan (@PatrickBuchanan) is currently a blogger, 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. Tags:Patrick Buchanan, conservative, commentary, Will ‘Sexist’ White Males Derail Warren?To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
One Of Every Four Circuit Judges In The Country Has Been Nominated By President Trump And Confirmed By The Republican Senate
SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MITCH McCONNELL (R-KY): “This president and this Senate have prioritized confirming impressive men and women to these lifetime appointments. Talented individuals who believe in the quaint notion that the job of a judge is to apply our nation’s laws and Constitution as they are actually written, not as they might wish they were written. At the close of business today, it so happens, one in every four judges on the federal courts of appeals will have been nominated by President Trump and confirmed by us here in the Senate.”(Sen. McConnell, Remarks, 11/07/2019)
SEN. McCONNELL:“Every American should be proud of this. Citizens deserve a judiciary of fair-minded men and women who don’t confuse their jobs with the job of a legislator. Every member of this body should be proud to confirm federal judges who understand that our job is to make the laws, and their job is to apply them fairly. If the concept of faithful judges fulfilling their proper role strikes anyone as a partisan development, or a threat to their political agenda, I would suggest it is their agenda that needs modifying and not the judicial branch that our founders intended.”(Sen. McConnell, Remarks, 11/07/2019)
‘With Another Flurry Of Senate Judicial Confirmations This Week, The Trump Administration Will Have Placed …
‘Trump Chips Away At Liberal U.S. Appeals Court Majorities’
“Aided by fellow Republicans in the Senate, President Donald Trump is rapidly filling vacancies on U.S. appeals courts, moving some that had liberal majorities closer to conservative control in an ideological shift … These 13 courts wield considerable power, usually providing the last word on rulings appealed from lower courts on disputes involving federal law.”(‘Trump Chips Away At Liberal U.S. Appeals Court Majorities,” Reuters, 9/20/2018)
“[O]ne federal appellate circuit has been flipped from a majority of judges nominated by Democratic presidents to a majority selected by Republicans. A second is about to become majority Republican nominees. The partisan divide has also been significantly narrowed on other circuits, including the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on the West Coast …”(“Trump And Senate Republicans Celebrate Making The Courts More Conservative,” The New York Times, 11/06/2019)
11th CIRCUIT:Working with President Trump, Senate Republicans have taken the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals from a majority appointed by Democratic presidents to an even split between appointees of Democratic and Republican presidents.(The Washington Post’s Seung Min Kim, @seungminkim, Twitter, 11/06/2019)
“[T]he Eleventh Circuit is currently divided 6-6 between appointees of Republican presidents and appointees of Democratic presidents. So when President Trump fills [Judge Stanley] Marcus’s seat, the Eleventh Circuit will flip to a 7-5 majority of Republican appointees. At the outset of the Trump administration, it had an 8-3 Democratic majority (with one vacancy). So that’s an impressive swing.”(Ed Whelan, “New Vacancy Sets Up Eleventh Circuit Flip,” National Review’s Bench Memos Blog, 9/06/2019)
“And with McConnell’s help, Trump is making his mark on the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit, the longtime liberal bastion that has drawn the president’s repeated ire. The 9th Circuit now has 16 Democratic appointees and 12 Republican appointees, compared with 18 and 7 when Trump took office. Another term for Trump could let him transform that court.”(“McConnell, Eyeing Legacy, Turns Senate Into Machine for Conservative Judges,” Bloomberg News, 8/12/2019)
‘President Trump And Senate Republicans Are Leaving An Ever-Expanding Imprint On The Judiciary’
“With another judge confirmed Tuesday by the Senate, President Trump and Senate Republicans are leaving an ever-expanding imprint on the judiciary, nudging powerful appeals courts rightward through a determined effort to nominate and confirm a steady procession of young conservative jurists.”(“Trump Is Putting Indelible Conservative Stamp On Judiciary,” The New York Times, 7/31/2018)
‘McConnell And Trump Are Having Their Biggest Impact On The 13 U.S. Appeals Courts, Which Have Tremendous Influence’
“McConnell and Trump are having their biggest impact on the 13 U.S. appeals courts, which have tremendous influence. While the Supreme Court decides fewer than 70 cases a year, appellate courts ruled on or dismissed 48,515 cases for the year ending March 31, 2019, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts in Washington.”(“McConnell, Eyeing Legacy, Turns Senate Into Machine for Conservative Judges,” Bloomberg News, 8/12/2019)
“‘The Supreme Court gets the bulk of the attention, but the circuit courts decide the bulk of the cases,’ said Arthur D. Hellman, a University of Pittsburgh law professor who studies the federal judiciary. ‘Because the Supreme Court these days is taking so few cases, the law of the circuit is, on many, many issues, the final law for the people who live in that circuit.’”(“With Little Fanfare, Trump And McConnell Reshape The Nation’s Circuit Courts,” The Washington Post, 8/14/2018)
“Aided by fellow Republicans in the Senate, President Donald Trump is rapidly filling vacancies on U.S. appeals courts, moving some that had liberal majorities closer to conservative control in an ideological shift … These 13 courts wield considerable power, usually providing the last word on rulings appealed from lower courts on disputes involving federal law.”(‘Trump Chips Away At Liberal U.S. Appeals Court Majorities,” Reuters, 9/20/2018)
‘The Trump Administration’s Indispensable Partner In Seating Two Supreme Court Justices And [Numerous] Lower-Court Judges,’ ‘McConnell Is Giving The Nation’s Federal Courts A Facelift’
“The judicial renaissance, led by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, has energized a party wowed by the number of judges placed on the federal bench … Mr. McConnell has come to define his legacy by his ability to transform the judiciary, calling the confirmations ‘the most significant, long-term contribution we are making to the country’ in an interview with a Kentucky radio station last week.” (“Trump’s Judicial Nominees Take Heat but Largely Keep Marching Through Senate,” The New York Times, 12/11/2018)
“[McConnell] was the Trump administration’s indispensable partner in seating two Supreme Court justices and [numerous] lower-court judges: a generational remaking of the courts that has made McConnell, ‘in my view, the most consequential majority leader, certainly, in modern history,’ says Leonard Leo, the conservative legal activist who serves as executive vice president of the Federalist Society and as an adviser to the Trump administration on the court appointments.” (The New York Times Magazine, 1/22/2019)
Tags:One in Four, Circuit Judges judicial appointments, President Trump, Mitch Mcconnell, U.S SenateTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Washington Examiner Editorial: Somehow, Sen. Elizabeth Warren has managed to pass herself off as a serious policy wonk. We could examine media failures that allowed this farce to carry on for so long, but more important than the bias that tolerates her grift is the cruelty behind it.
Warren’s racket, as Washington Examiner Executive Editor Philip Klein lays out in our magazine feature this week, is to identify a serious problem, such as the high cost of healthcare, the crippling load of household debt, or climate change, and then offer an easy cure.
Warren is the doctor who promises she can fix your chronic back pain right away, for cheap, without any physical therapy.
Our economic and social problems are difficult. Addressing them will involve trade-offs. Warren’s method is to tell voters that someone else will bear the costs. She denies the obvious truth that our problems are inherently tough to solve and instead declares that they persist only because other politicians are bought and paid for.
The real problem with Warren’s tale isn’t that this is class warfare, although it certainly is that. The real problem is, rather, that it is a lie.
Warren has championed “Medicare for all” as a way to cater to her party’s left-wing base, but she’s also trying to sell it to ordinary people. She offers freedom from the injustice of insurance companies and the fear of being uninsured. She tells us we’ll never have to worry about another medical bill again.
But in selling this plan, Warren has tried furiously to hide the costs. She has ludicrous “pay-fors,” claiming that rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse and driving tougher bargains with drug companies will produce massive savings. She pretends that cutting payments to doctors won’t result in less available care. When fellow Democrats pointed out that the Medicare for All bill she has co-sponsored outlaws all private health insurance, the senator dismissed this as a “Republican talking point.” It's a talking point because it is true.
Warren tries to pretend that all costs for her healthcare plan will be borne by “ultramillionaires,” but that requires make-believe about her wealth tax.
She also tries to hide the middle-class tax hike involved in raising the payroll tax paid by employers. This would, of course, result in lower wages, but Warren doesn’t admit this.
This is all a cruel lie to those people who will lose their private insurance, pay more in taxes, and find it harder to get seen by a doctor.
On education, Warren's plan says, "We should stop the diversion of public dollars from traditional public schools through vouchers or tuition tax credits.” She presents this policy as if it would simply result in more money in traditional public schools. Who wouldn’t want that?
Would she tell Congress to pass a law overriding the 29 states with vouchers or tax-credit scholarship programs? Or is she less ambitious, focusing her anti-choice efforts on the federally funded D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program in which more than 95% of parents are happy with their child's school?
In other words, there’s a trade-off she's hiding: more money in some public schools and less money in the charter schools that serve the most needy.
Behind it all is Warren’s cheap populism. Her pitch involves denying economic reality and ignoring trade-offs. It is all based on the dishonest assertion that the only reason you don’t have everything you need is that special interests are taking more than their fair share. Warren builds this myth with a misleading and a simplistic account of how special interests work.
She proposes an “excessive lobbying tax,” which is a blatant violation of the First Amendment. But also, she’s not really an opponent of the biggest lobbyists. Notably, General Electric decided during the Obama administration to move its headquarters to Boston because Massachusetts' senators, including Warren, supported the policies that padded GE’s bottom line.
It's an easy story Warren tells: Washington can cure what ails you simply by taking from others. It isn't true. Never has been. Never will be.
-------------------- Washington Examiner editorial. Tags:Washington Examiner, editorial, Elizabeth Warren, CrueltyTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: Corey Feldman, former child actor and defender of Hollywood children from sexual abuse by entertainment industry movers and shakers, had given many clues about who his particular abuser was. On the Dr. Oz show, recently, Feldman still wouldn’t name the name, because, he said, he lacked legal representation on this matter.
Feldman looked awfully uncomfortable for the rest of the interview.
Meanwhile, the corporate press has been very “conscientious” to protect the name of the “whistleblower” on Donald Trump’s call to Ukraine that has spurred impeachment inquiries. The name has been known for a long time, but was recently and at long-last revealed by Donald Trump., Jr..
The man in question appears to be a Democratic partisan, had worked for Vice President Biden, had been sacked from the White House for being a suspected leaker, and had waited until after he had talked with Impeacher-in-Chief Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Cal.) before filing his whistleblowing paperwork.*Special legislation protects him from being fired from his current government job. But not from being named. Yet the mainstream news outlets “valiantly” protected the man’s identity from the public.
Then there’s the Amy Robach story. Ms. Robach had been caught on tape complaining about how ABC had squelched her Jeffrey Epstein story, years ago, robbing her of a scoop. An ABC employee had leaked the tape, and it became news. ABC figured out who had leaked it, and realized they couldn’t fire her because she had moved on to CBS. So ABC asked CBS to fire her.**
Courteously, CBS complied.
The press seems awfully inconsistent in protecting whistleblowers.
* Amazingly, Mark S. Zaid, the whistleblower’s lawyer, had been talking “coup” in 2017 (see discussion by Ben Shapiro).
** I see no reports naming the worker.
------------------ Paul Jacob (@Common_Sense_PJ ) is author of Common Sense which provides daily commentary about the issues impacting America and about the citizens who are doing something about them. He is also President of the Liberty Initiative Fund (LIFe) as well as Citizens in Charge Foundation. Jacob is a contributing author on the ARRA News Service. Tags:Whistles Blown, Paul Jacob, Common SenseTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
. . . The same media going out of their way to protect Hunter Biden are the same ones who are Triggered over Donald Trump Jr. and the entire Trump family.
Tags:Editorial Cartoon, AF Branco, Triggered, same media, going out of their way, to protect, Hunter Biden, same ones who,Triggered over Donald Trump Jr., entire Trump familyTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Caroline Glick: There’s an old Jewish joke where a young man walks up to his grandfather man and asks him how he’s doing.
The grandfather answers, “In a word, good.”
“And in two words?” the grandson presses.
“Not good,” his grandfather replies.
The events of the week call the joke to mind in relation to Iran and its war against Israel and the United States.
Sunday, a crowd of thousands gathered outside the US embassy building in Tehran and chanted, “Death to America, Death to Israel.” The Iranians sounded their customary death chants to mark the 40th anniversary of the seizure of the US embassy and the hostage crisis it precipitated.
Sunday’s demonstration was the opening shot in a week of hostile actions by Iran. On Monday and Tuesday, senior Iranian officials announced they are abandoning key limitations set on their nuclear activities by the nuclear deal they concluded with the Obama administration, the EU, Russia and France in 2015. Monday Iran announced it expanding its uranium enrichment at the Natanz nuclear installation with advanced IR-6 centrifuges, and that it is doubling the number of IR-6 centrifuges presently being used.
Tuesday Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced that Iran is renewing enrichment activities at its Fordo nuclear installation, built inside of a mountain outside Qom. According to Rouhani, beginning Wednesday Iran would begin enriching uranium at Fordo to five percent by injecting its centrifuges with uranium gas.
Many commentators responded to Iran’s announcements by declaring that the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” strategy for scaling back Iranian aggression and thwarting its nuclear program has failed. President Donald Trump’s maximum pressure campaign, which is enthusiastically supported by Israel and the Sunni Arab states is comprised of continuously escalating US economic sanctions against Iran. Those sanctions are reinforced by US-supported military operations by US allies – primarily Israel and Saudi Arabia — against Iranian forces and Iranian proxy forces in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
There are three legs to the claim that the maximum pressure campaign has failed. First, its critics note, the US sanctions have failed to destroy Iran’s economy. This week Foreign Affairs proclaimed that Iran has survived its sanction-induced recession. Its economy, now at zero growth, is no longer shrinking. Iran’s economic survival, Henry Rome insisted, is proof that economic pressure is insufficient to bring down the regime.
The second basis of the claim that the maximum pressure campaign has failed is the Trump ordered removal of US forces from the Syrian border with Turkey. Trump’s action, his critics say, gave Iran and Russia control over the border with Syria, which has allowed them to consolidate their control over Syria. This in turn emboldened Iran to rachet up its nuclear operations.
Third, the critics say, the Iranian regime’s willingness to openly intervene in quelling the mass anti-government protests in Iraq and Lebanon, as exemplified by General Qassem Suleimani, commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force direct involvement in attempts to repress the protests in Iraq, and by Hezbollah’s open efforts to stymie the protesters in Lebanon. These shameless moves by Iran and its foreign legion to dictate the outcome of political unrest in foreign countries, it is argued, means that Iran has consolidated its power and has no compunctions about flaunting it.
There are a few problems with these claims.
First, the fact that the Iranian economy hasn’t collapsed doesn’t mean that the Iranians aren’t constrained by the sanctions. According to the World Bank data, Iranian military expenditures increased from year to year between 2014 and 2017, but dropped in 2018. This week US Ambassador in Germany Richard Grenell said that Iran’s military budget shrunk by 28 percent last year. Grenell said that outlays to the Revolutionary Guard Corps decreased by 17 percent last year.
So while it is true that the regime has survived, it is far from true that the sanctions have had no significant impact on Iran. Moreover, even Foreign Affairs acknowledged that it is likely that Iran’s ability to survive under the sanctions is limited.
Second, there is reason to doubt that Iran’s announcements regarding its stepped-up uranium enrichment describe new activity.
In 2015, Barack Obama and his advisors insisted that the nuclear deal’s inspection regime was unprecedented in its invasiveness. But this not true.
Under the agreement, Iran had the right to bar UN nuclear inspectors from entering “military sites.” And under the agreement, Iran can label any facility a “military site.”
The “invasive” inspections that have taken place have also been far from exhaustive.
For instance, as the Los Angeles Times reported in late 2017, the nuclear reactor at Natanz is monitored around the clock through closed circuit video cameras. The problem is that the feed does not go directly to the IAEA in Vienna. It goes to the Iranian regime which then sends it on to Vienna. Consequently, there is no way to determine whether the footage the UN receives reflects what is actually occurring at the nuclear site.
The same article pointed out that IAEA inspectors did not seek access to the most sinister nuclear installations, including the nuclear installation in Parchin where Iran was suspected of having carried out nuclear explosive testing.
“Nearly all of the inspections,” the paper reported “were of less sensitive facilities such as universities and manufacturing plants.”
Diplomatic sources told the LA Times that the IAEA was “careful not to provoke a confrontation by demanding access without evidence to sites that Iranian officials have said are off-limits to foreign inspectors.”
In other words, we don’t really know what Iran has been doing in its nuclear facilities. The IAEA defined its job as looking for keys under the lamppost and declaring, every six months that it found no keys under the lamppost.
Perhaps Iran was moved to announce its breaches of the nuclear deal at Natanz and Fordo because the US forces have Syria’s border with Turkey. But it is more likely that Iran’s action was a distress signal.
In his statement Monday, Rouhani made clear the move is an attempt to extort the Europeans into giving Iran money.
In his words, “When they, [i.e., Europe] fulfill their commitments, [i.e., give us money], we will stop the gas injection.”
The US withdrawal from Syria’s border with Turkey did lead to Iran and Russia asserting control over the border. But it also put Iran in open confrontation with Turkey. For a decade, Iran and Turkey have been working together in busting US sanctions and in undermining US operations in Syria and Iraq. Now that they stand opposite one another at the Syrian border with Turkey, the future of that cooperation is in doubt.
On Tuesday, Elizabeh Tsurkov from the Foreign Policy Research Institute posted footage of Syrian protesters in Sharjah, a town in Daraa province in southern Syria, an area under full control of the Assad regime, (which is controlled by Iran).
The protesters were chanting “Free, free Syria. Iran get out.”
The protesters in Sharjah were echoing the sentiments of millions of Lebanese and Iraqi protesters who have been out on the streets of their respective countries calling for the overthrow of their governments, which are controlled by Iran, and for a complete reordering of their political systems.
This then brings us to the third argument for the failure of the maximum pressure campaign.
Far from demonstrating that Iran is fully in charge of Iraq and Lebanon, the central role Soleimani is taking in quelling the protests in Iraq, and the central role Hezbollah is playing in Lebanon in undermining the protests is an indication of Iranian weakness.
According to media reports, Soleimani has travelled to Iraq twice over the past month to oversee the repression of the protests, and Iranian-controlled Shiite militias have so far reportedly killed 250 protesters and wounded thousands more.
In Iraq, the protests are concentrated not in Sunni areas, but in the Shiite south. And they are distinctly anti-Iranian.
At the same time the Iranian demonstrators in Tehran were shouting “Death to America,” and “Death to Israel,” thousands of Iraqi protesters in Karbala were throwing firebombs at the Iranian consulate in the city. They replaced the Iranian flag at the site with an Iraqi flag.
Throughout Iraq’s Shiite south, protesters are throwing shoes and burning pictures of Iranian leader Ali Khamenei and calling for Iran to get out of their country. The Shiite clerics in Najaf, the religious capital of Shiite Islam have green lighted the protests against Iran. In other words, the Iranians are losing their own backyard.
The sanctions are one of the causes of the protests in both Lebanon and Iraq. Due to the economic constraints Iran is facing, it has reportedly scaled back its payments to its proxies – particularly Hezbollah and the Shiite militias in Iraq. These proxies in turn, have had to expand their use of public funds and extortion to fund their operations.
The protesters in Lebanon are reacting to the economic failure of their country, a failure which owes primarily to government corruption and incompetence. Hezbollah controls the Lebanese government both through its own political representatives and through its proxies. Consequently, it is the protesters’ main target.
In Iraq, the Iranian run Shiite militias have also been feeding off the public trough. They have commandeered public funds and institutions to pay for their operations. And, according to a recent report in Tablet online magazine, they supplement their income by making people travelling on roads under their control pay “tolls.”
If Iran had more money to pay its proxy governments, presumably they would be stealing less money from their respective publics.
In other words, far from having nothing to do with the protests, the sanctions against Iran have everything to do with the protests.
The Lebanese and Iraqis protesting their governments and the Iranian regime which controls them represent a profoundly negative development for Iran and its 40 year war against Israel and America. Together with Syria, Lebanon and Iraq play key roles in Iran’s strategy for fighting Israel. The more unstable they are, the less use Iran will be able to make of them in a future offensive against Israel.
Today, at least publicly, Israel is focusing its attention on Iran’s nuclear operations, and this makes sense. But actions to decrease Iran’s regional power and to destabilize the regime’s grip on power at home are essential components of any strategy for diminishing Iran’s capacity to attack Israel.
To date, the Trump administration’s maximum pressure strategy has not managed to bring the regime down. And it is unlikely that on their own, US economic sanctions will suffice to ever bring it down.
Yet as the mass demonstrations against Iran and its proxies in Lebanon and Iraq make clear, the American strategy can and is undermining Iranian domestic and regional power and stability. It is Israel’s responsibility to ensure that this process is expanded and exploited to the greatest degree possible to diminish the prospects of a direct Iranian assault on the Jewish state.
----------------------- Caroline Glick is the Senior Contributing Editor of The Jerusalem Post and the Director of the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Israel Security Project. Tags:Caroline Glick, Iran, winning or losingTo 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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