The Enemy Within

The Wall around the Capital building in D.C. is only there as a political prop to use against conservatives.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

---

Tags: AF Branco, editorial cartoon, The enemy within To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

COVID Bill Is Asymptomatic of Relief

by Tony Perkins: Joe Biden said he wanted to meet Republicans halfway on COVID relief. If that's the case, Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) fired back, he's a darn poor judge of distance. "This bill is dreadful," he vented. "It's an orgy of pork... The only way I know how to improve it is with a shredder."

Of course, the American people wouldn't know how awful the $1.9 trillion dollar money pit is because it's had no hearings, no committee debate, no "overt party discussions," Senator Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) reminded everyone on "Washington Watch" Wednesday. The media friends of Biden would have covered it favorable as it was, but now, they're not even covering much at all. Our job, Republicans have said, is to expose the bill for what it is.

On Thursday and into Friday morning, the GOP's Ron Johnson (Wisc.) made sure the country knew what was in this miserable excuse for "virus relief" by ordering the Senate clerks to read the 628 pages out loud, word for word. It took until 2:04 a.m. Friday morning, but for most senators, it was the first chance they had to hear for themselves what was stuffed into the fine print. Turns out, a lot. "It's not even a coronavirus bill," Kennedy barked. "Calling this a coronavirus bill is like calling Harvey Weinstein a feminist." It funds illegal immigrants, abortion, liberal teachers' unions, schools that won't open, blue states, the arts, and transportation kickbacks for districts like Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)

"It's like Nancy Pelosi is saying, 'I have to have a pacifier for all of the leftists in my conference," Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) explained. "I have to payoff all of these lobbyists and these Left-leaning groups that helped win the White House in the House and the Senate. So this is what you're getting: something that takes care of the people that supported [Democrats] and their pursuit to have control of Washington, D.C. Earmarks are coming back. You have out of control spending money for the arts. You have a blue state bailout [that goes to] this mountain of debt that these poorly managed states have run up..." It's like California, New York, Illinois, and others are saying, "Hey, print some more money. We've got our hand out. We'll take it."

The reality is, Republicans had bills on the table in July, August, September, October that would have been "targeted, timely, and temporary," Blackburn reminded people. "And what did the Democrats do? Every single one of them voted against it. What did they do in the House? They voted against everything that we pushed forward, because they wanted people to suffer. Why did they want people to suffer? Because it was to their political advantage. And Nancy Pelosi even admitted that. How terrible to use people as pawns to win an election. And then once you win, you use them as pawns again to pass $2 trillion dollars in spending. Then you say, 'Oh, yeah, we've got this a little tiny bit over here in the corner of this bill... for COVID relief. That's going to go help people that lost their job... But, hey, the rest of this, this is our money. We're going to bail out our buddies with this.'"

And if the COVID situation is so dire that we need to spend another $2 trillion dollars we've already spent, why on earth wouldn't you pick a better person to manage it? Joe Biden has picked a man to head up our health care agency, the department that's overseeing this massive pandemic response, who has zero health experience. The only thing Xavier Becerra has ever done that's even remotely related to health care is sue Catholic hospitals and nuns as attorney general of California. "You're right," Blackburn said. "He knows nothing about this. He's a liberal activist. He's somebody that can be counted on to go as far Left as Joe Biden wants to push."

Absolutely nothing about Joe Biden's plan to address the COVID crisis has anything to do with helping this country recover. Not his "relief bill," not his anointed leaders, not even his attacks on thriving red states. What does it say about the Biden administration that their virus bill is the first one without bipartisan support? It says that this is not a new era of "healing leadership." Or, frankly, any kind of leadership at all.

Contact your senators and ask them to oppose the Blue State Bailout/Payoff posing as a relief bill and Xavier Becerra's nomination. America doesn't need a pro-abortion attack dog at the helm of HHS -- it needs a health expert.
-------------------------------
Tony Perkins writes for Family Research Council.

---

Tags: Tony Perkins, Family Research Council, COVID Bill, Is Asymptomatic of Relief To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

The Guard Is Staying, Biden's Border Crisis, Cuomo Gets Busted

Gary Bauer

by Gary Bauer: The Guard Is Staying
As you know, thousands of National Guard troops poured into Washington, D.C., to help secure the Capitol Building on January 6th. They stayed to help secure Washington during the inauguration. And then they stayed throughout February and into March over theories that there could be violence at the Capitol yesterday.

Well, March 4th came and went, and nothing happened. So, the troops are leaving, right? Wrong.

The Pentagon is reviewing a request to keep thousands of National Guard troops deployed on Capitol Hill for at least another two months.

What is going on?!

Well, it's obviously all part of the left's narrative that the government is under threat from conservatives. Joe Biden was quick to condemn the people who entered the Capitol Building as "domestic terrorists," a charge FBI Director Christopher Wray repeated this week.

I don't mean to minimize what happened inside the Capitol Building on January 6th. It was wrong. Period.

But FBI officials also conceded that no guns were found on any of the rioters on Capitol Hill that day. The only weapon that was fired was fired by Capitol Hill security and resulted in the death of Air Force veteran Ashli Babbit.

So, again, the question must be asked, what is going on here?

I believe the left is trying to weaponize the events of January 6th in its ongoing effort to demonize and smear half the country. Usually the preferred epithet is "racist," "bigot" or "homophobe." But it seems that "domestic terrorist" is increasingly becoming part of the left's vocabulary when referring to conservatives.

But while we're on the subject of domestic terrorism, the Biden Justice Department (if you can call it that) has so far dropped one-third of all the charges against the violent Antifa rioters who terrorized Portland last year.

So, the government is throwing the book at the Capitol Hill protestors, while left-wing Antifa thugs get off scot-free.

That doesn't seem fair to me or most Americans. A recent poll found that 71% of Americans consider Antifa to be a domestic terrorist group, and they are absolutely right.

Don't Be Intimidated
Don't be intimidated by the left!

Stand with me right now as we work to defeat left-wing politicians who are trying to crush our values and muzzle our voices!

Faith, family and freedom are under assault like never before.

Biden's Border Crisis
The border crashers heading north smell weakness, and they are taking full advantage of it. One cartel human smuggler told investigate journalist Lara Logan he would be "a millionaire in six months" thanks to Biden's open border policies.

But just so you can fully comprehend how much Joe Biden owns this crisis, consider this: Migrants are showing up at the border wearing t-shirts that read, "Biden Please Let Us In!"

I suspect a lot of Americans would probably be interested in a t-shirt that read, "Biden Please Let Us Out" . . . out of our homes and back into our schools, businesses and churches.

While the Biden Administration refuses to acknowledge the crisis, the numbers don't lie.

In the closing days of the Trump Administration, Border Patrol agents were picking up an average of 47 unaccompanied minors at the border every day. Recently, it has surged to 321 every single day, with some reports suggesting the number is approaching 400.

Just how bad is it? The New York Post reported this week:

"Members of the Domestic Policy Council were set to tell President Biden Tuesday that the number of migrant children who cross the southern border this year is on pace to exceed an all-time record — by 45 percent."

And, of course, every unaccompanied minor in the U.S. becomes a legal magnet to allow parents and other family members to come in.

Internal memos from the Department of Health and Human Services note that child detention facilities are at 94% capacity, and will exceed capacity by the end of the month.

Desperate to avoid any visuals of "kids in cages," the Biden Administration is now scrambling to speed up the release of children from these detention facilities.

But it has reportedly waived strict rules that the Trump Administration put into place for vetting relatives and sponsors. Among other things, Biden Administration officials are no longer asking for the Social Security number of anyone who attempts to claim a child.

Encouraging News
Just to be clear, this border surge is happening because everyone knows – including people in Mexico and Central America – that Democrats are weak on border security. But they also know that Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are promising a massive amnesty for anyone who manages to get in.

Now here's some encouraging news: According to Politico, Democrats know their amnesty agenda is extremely unpopular.

Nancy Pelosi is reportedly delaying action on Biden's amnesty bill after, "A dismal whip count came back this week showing House leaders don't yet have the votes to pass the bill on the floor."

We are working hard at CWF to make sure they don't get the votes!

Cuomo Gets Busted
This is not a good day for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have reports today that top members of his staff pressured state health officials to hide the true extent of nursing home deaths in the Empire State.

The Times writes that Cuomo's "extraordinary intervention" came "just as Mr. Cuomo was starting to write a book on his pandemic achievements." Gee, I guess we can't let the facts get in the way of a good narrative.

While some Cuomo aides have said that they hid the numbers because they were afraid that Donald Trump would demand a federal investigation, which he did, both papers note that Cuomo's office had been fighting state health officials for months.

And the Times slammed Cuomo, declaring that the effort "reflected the lengths to which [he] has gone in the middle of a deadly pandemic to control data, brush aside public health expertise and bolster his position as a national leader in the fight against the coronavirus."

In other words, it was all about him. He didn't care about the people dying, often alone and blocked from seeing their loved ones, in nursing homes. He cared only about his image, and his book sales.
--------------------------
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 Guard Is Staying, Biden's Border Crisis, Cuomo Gets Busted To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Vive la révolution

The Democrats and the left will never stop with their woke cancel culture attacks on America.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

---

Tags: Editorial Cartoon, AF Branco, Vive la révolution To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Is There Any Reason to Think This Time Will Be Different?

Michael Barone

by Michael Barone: When public policies have produced disastrous results, and when alternative policies have resulted in immediate, seemingly miraculous improvement, why would anyone want to go back to the earlier policies? Is there any reason to suppose that this time will be different?

Not that I can see. The earlier policies -- a pullback from active policing and certain punishment, an open-handed welfare system providing income for single mothers -- were put in place in the 1960s, within living memory of some of us. The intentions were good. It was a time of high hopefulness that America's shameful history of racial discrimination and mistreatment were over.

The public accommodations and employment sections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, controversial when passed, were more successful than even their most enthusiastic advocates dared to expect. The justifiably draconian measures of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 resulted almost immediately in full enfranchisement of black Americans.

Some sought more advances. As violent crime rates rose alarmingly among the blacks who had been streaming into cities for 25 years, prison populations actually declined, and police in major cities were reined in. As national unemployment rates fell, births to unwed mothers and welfare dependency rose. In the decade from 1965 to 1975, violent crime and welfare dependency, both heavily concentrated among blacks, nearly tripled -- tripled.

For two more decades, crime and welfare dependency remained at the same high levels, sometimes zooming higher. Only with the work-required welfare reform of Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin and the active policing pioneered by Rudy Giuliani in New York in the 1990s did the numbers come sharply down.

Left behind were central-city neighborhoods with burnt-out houses and empty lots; empty and bombed-out storefronts; downtowns and entertainment districts abandoned and boarded up.

Now it looks like we're starting the same cycle again. The death of a suspect in Minneapolis last May led to a resurgence of Black Lives Matter protests "mostly peaceful" in cities across the country ("mostly peaceful" means "often violent") and an even sharper rise in murders than after the BLM movement emerged following the 2014 Ferguson, Missouri incident.

Murders were up about 30% in 2020, far above the previous record of a 13% increase in 1968. Police departments are being defunded, effective crime-stopping procedures banned, criminal penalties reduced and low-dollar burglaries left unprosecuted.

We know where such policies led before. Is there any reason this time will be different?

Soft-on-crime policies were exacerbated by a surge in the number of children raised without fathers by mothers on welfare in the decades from 1965 to 1995. Reform, first by Thompson in Wisconsin and then by Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton in the 1996 welfare bill, required mothers to work.

Social workers' focus was changed from handing out more checks to helping moms get and hold jobs. The results: Welfare rolls plummeted; teen births plunged; kids raised by working moms did better in school and in life.

Liberals have tried to stealthily roll back the reforms. They've been joined by some cultural conservatives, worried about population decline and eager to encourage potential parents with modest educational credentials and skills.

These include Sen. Mitt Romney, who supports a child allowance that is fully refundable -- which is to say that government will send a check to parents, married or unmarried, who have no income tax liability to offset. His and other proposals have a high cutoff, so affluent parents wouldn't get anything.

Conservative supporters worry about the nation's birth rates, sharply down since the 2007-08 financial crisis and even lower in 2020, and point out that many young people tell pollsters they'd like more children than they end up having. The fear is that America would end up like Japan, with an elderly population, a stagnant economy and stunted innovation.

Soft-on-crime policies were exacerbated by a surge in the number of children raised without fathers by mothers on welfare in the decades from 1965 to 1995. Reform, first by Thompson in Wisconsin and then by Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton in the 1996 welfare bill, required mothers to work.

Social workers' focus was changed from handing out more checks to helping moms get and hold jobs. The results: Welfare rolls plummeted; teen births plunged; kids raised by working moms did better in school and in life.

Liberals have tried to stealthily roll back the reforms. They've been joined by some cultural conservatives, worried about population decline and eager to encourage potential parents with modest educational credentials and skills.

These include Sen. Mitt Romney, who supports a child allowance that is fully refundable -- which is to say that government will send a check to parents, married or unmarried, who have no income tax liability to offset. His and other proposals have a high cutoff, so affluent parents wouldn't get anything.

Conservative supporters worry about the nation's birth rates, sharply down since the 2007-08 financial crisis and even lower in 2020, and point out that many young people tell pollsters they'd like more children than they end up having. The fear is that America would end up like Japan, with an elderly population, a stagnant economy and stunted innovation.

A version of this, limited to one year, has been inserted in the "COVID relief" bill of President Joe Biden's administration. A single parent with two kids, working or not, could qualify for $7,200 a year plus $6,400 in food stamps. Advocates argue recipients would keep working because benefits wouldn't be reduced by wages earned.

Mickey Kaus, renegade liberal blogger, argues that that's nonsense. "(A) large subset of recipients will go from one worker to zero workers." That means "millions of kids growing up in fatherless homes, where nobody goes into the labor force, where the mainstream world of employment is a foreign country."

Past experience says he's right and that, as with high crime, the people most hurt will be black Americans. I can't see any reason this time will be different, and I look ahead with dread.
--------------------------
Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.

---

Tags: Michael Barone, Is There Any Reason, to Think This Time, Will Be Different? To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Who Really Imperils the Republic?

by Patrick J. Buchanan: In the “domestic terrorism” at the Capitol, no protester set off a bomb, toppled a statue, or fired a weapon. Of the four who died that day, all were protesters. Ashli Babbitt, 35, a 14-year Air Force veteran, was shot to death by a Capitol cop as she tried to force her way into the Senate chamber. A rioter and law-breaker, yes, but a terrorist who deserved to die?

“That attack, that siege” of the Capitol, FBI Director Chris Wray told Congress, “was criminal behavior, plain and simple, and it was behavior we at the FBI view as domestic terrorism.”

“Domestic terrorism,” said Wray, echoing his boss.

For what had been President-elect Joe Biden’s reaction to the Capitol riot?

“Don’t dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob. Insurrectionists. Domestic terrorists. It’s that basic. It’s that simple,” said Biden.

Yet, the phrase domestic terrorism conjures up events from our past far graver than a four-hours occupation of the Capitol. Nat Turner’s rebellion. John Brown’s 1859 raid on Harper’s Ferry. Timothy McVeigh and Oklahoma City.

The near assassination of Harry Truman at Blair House by Puerto Rican nationalists, Nov.1, 1950. The shooting and wounding of five congressmen from the House gallery on March 1, 1954.

The 1974 bombing of New York’s Fraunces Tavern — where Gen. George Washington said farewell to his officers — also the work of Puerto Ricans demanding independence. Four died there and 50 were injured.

Yet, in the “domestic terrorism” at the Capitol, no protester set off a bomb, toppled a statue, or fired a weapon. Of the four who died that day, all were protesters. Ashli Babbitt, 35, a 14-year Air Force veteran, was shot to death by a Capitol cop as she tried to force her way into the Senate chamber.

A rioter and law-breaker, yes, but a terrorist who deserved to die?

Benjamin Phillips, 50, died of a stroke; Kevin Greeson, 55, of a heart attack. Rosanne Boyland, 34, was apparently crushed in the melee.

Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick died of a stroke the next day. Media reports that he had been hit with a fire extinguisher proved false. In the two months since Jan. 6, no one has been charged in his death.

Was Wray’s FBI alerted in advance of this impending act of domestic terrorism? Apparently, it was.

Writes The Washington Post: “A… report, prepared by the FBI’s Norfolk field office a day before the riot, … warned of specific appeals for violence, including a call for ‘war’ at the Capitol.”

The report quoted a source urging Donald Trump supporters to go to D.C. “ready to fight.”

“Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors kicked in, and blood from their BLM and Pantifa slave soldiers being spilled. Get violent, stop calling this a march or rally or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die. NOTHING else will achieve this goal.”

What did Wray do with this hair-raising warning? Did he call the D.C. police or Speaker Nancy Pelosi to alert her to what might be coming her way?

No. Wray never saw the Norfolk report. It was not passed up the chain of command to his office until after the riot. It was sent by email to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, which includes the D.C. and Capitol Police, posted on a website and mentioned in a command center briefing in D.C.

Nonchalance seems to have been the FBI’s order of the day.

As acting D.C. police chief Robert J. Contee III told Congress, “I would certainly think that something as violent as an insurrection would warrant a phone call.”

One would think so. Explanations are needed.

How can Wray call a breach of the Capitol by a Trump crowd, an “act of domestic terrorism,” when his own subordinates did not regard it as sufficiently serious enough to give him a heads-up?

And is it not hyperbole to use terms like “domestic terrorism,” “armed insurrection,” “coup d’etat,” and “treason” to describe protesters pushing through police lines into the Capitol to disrupt a proceeding?

What is going on here?

The left will not let this go. It is exaggerating and exploiting what happened at the Capitol to paint the right as an ominous threat to American democracy — and itself as the savior of the republic. It seeks to demonize the populist right, cancel its voice, expel it from the public square and redefine it as a conspiracy against America, calling forth new government authority and power to monitor, expose and destroy it.

If assaulting cops and besieging public buildings amounts to domestic terrorism, the rioting, looting, arson and assaults on cops we saw all last summer in Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, Kenosha and Louisville from antifa and Black Lives Matter protestors would more than qualify.

Today, Capitol Hill is encircled with high fencing topped by razor wire and patrolled by National Guard troops. It looks like the Green Zone in Baghdad. Apparently, the physical barriers and troops are there to protect against attacks by QAnon and white supremacists.

Minneapolis is taking similar precautions to protect the courthouse where ex-cop Derek Chauvin is to be tried for second-degree murder in the death of George Floyd.

My guess, Minneapolis, not Capitol Hill, is where the action will be this spring, and it will not be Proud Boys keeping the cops busy, but folks who, if they did vote in 2020, voted Democratic.
-------------------------
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, Who Really Imperils, the Republic? To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Rep. Ralph Norman Says China Paramount Threat

Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., and members of the House Freedom Caucus conduct
news conference to call on then-Atty General William Barr to release findings
of an investigation into allegations of 2020 election fraud outside the Capitol..

by Rachel del Guidice: Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., says that China will only continue to be a growing threat as President Joe Biden’s administration continues. With regard to what China has “done to this country with the coronavirus, there’s no repercussions under this administration … to hold them accountable,” Norman says.

What is the proper framework to combat China?

Norman joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss that and how school closures in South Carolina have impacted the children and families of South Carolina.

We also cover these stories:

• Biden praises the House of Representatives for passing HR 1.
• The National Guard may be staying at the U.S. Capitol longer.
• Biden says it was “Neanderthal thinking” for some states to lift mask mandates.

Rachel del Guidice: I’m joined today on “The Daily Signal Podcast” by Congressman Ralph Norman of South Carolina. Congressman Norman, it’s great to have you on “The Daily Signal Podcast.”

Rep. Ralph Norman: Glad to be here, Rachel. Thank you for having me.

Del Guidice: Well, something that you’ve been vocal on Twitter about is how China’s exploiting American innovation. And you said that we need the proper framework to protect our homeland from such adversaries. What do you think this proper framework should look like?

Norman: Rachel, what China is doing, that started back under the Trump administration. [Former President Donald Trump] held them accountable. He did it with the tariffs. He stopped, as example, the dumping of steel. He encouraged companies to come back to America, and he did it through tax incentives, he did it through less regulations.

But we’ve got to be independent, we have to be so that our supply chains are made in America, and as part of the theme that he had, “Make America Great Again.” And it’s changing now that this president is doing just the opposite, just to be opposed to what this president stands for.

Del Guidice: Something else you’ve been vocal about on Twitter, especially, is why it’s so important for schools to reopen it. Why is it so important?

Norman: First of all, look at [what] the Democrats said, “Follow the science.” Well, the science will tell you that children are not as susceptible to getting the virus. If they do, it’s a quick recovery.

[Jan. 20], over a year ago is when we first became aware of this. We’ve got a vaccine now, we’ve learned more about the prevention, look at the masks that are there. And for the unions to basically control the education of our children is unacceptable. It’s outrageous for them to do that.

I’m encouraging everybody, every person in every city, to get with their local school boards and say, “Open up.”

The teachers are still getting a paycheck. The labor union bosses are still getting a paycheck. That mom and dad who [are] having to either stay at home or to hire a nanny to keep the children while they’re trying to make a living, they ought to be outraged.

But you can’t recover the year from a child that is not in a classroom. Look at the social benefits of it. Suicides are up, mental illness is up. And we’ve got to simply demand better.

Del Guidice: More specifically, when it comes to the children of South Carolina, you’ve talked about some of the repercussions of these schools being closed. But more specifically, how have these school closures impacted the children and families of South Carolina?

Norman: It’s impacted the child because it has been shown the Zoom meetings have not worked. A lot of children are not doing their schoolwork. And how is it accountable?

The ones I feel the most pain for is those who are disabled. Those children who depend on [interaction] with other children. And the abuse that’s taken place now that is documented. And it’s not just limited to South Carolina, look at any state in this country.

Now, I think … the private schools, [for] those that can afford it, are … getting their children educated. But how about those that can’t afford it?

Virtual learning is good for some, but not for others. And to have one-size-fits-all and to keep them out of school is not right. And then they’re getting stimulus money when they’ve been closed and they’re still getting a paycheck. How does that work?

Del Guidice: Moving on to the agenda of President Joe Biden’s administration.

You had talked on Twitter about how, and this was a little while ago, but you had said, “One month in and Dems have already stripped the rights of the minority party, and the House kicked a Republican off her committees for words she said before holding office, and are rushing the impeachment of a private citizen without due process.” Which they, again, impeached former President Trump.

What are your concerns about the Democrats’ agenda long term?

Norman: The Democrats [have] this radical agenda … that’s being led by [Rep. Ilhan] Omar, it’s led by [Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez], Rashida Tlaib. It’s intent on one thing: power. They want power to control everything they do.

And they’re dismantling our Constitution. They’re dismantling our way of life, our government. And it’s such a double standard.

You mentioned Marjorie Taylor Greene, took her off all the committees. She was voted in by a larger majority than I was, 75% of the people voted her in office. The words they claimed she said was well before the election, so her people in her district have confidence in her. And they kicked her off committees.

Now, as an example, [Rep.] Eric Swalwell purported to have interactions with a foreign spy, and he’s on the intel committee. Intel committee gets information that we don’t get. And it’s a outrage that he’s still on the committee, and the press has no interest in pursuing.

Take … Biden, the money that came to his son, Hunter Biden. And the big guy for the president. Where’s the media on that? You can’t make those allegations without backing them up. The money trail can be spotted, they’re not doing it.

So it’s up to we, the people, to get back involved and shout it from the roof tops. It’s because of people that are willing to do that, we’re willing to have a [Conservative Political Action Conference] and have the many people here. This could be five times bigger if the COVID virus hadn’t stopped the numbers.

Del Guidice: You mentioned the situation with Eric Swalwell. Would you say, given what is happening there and the fact that he’s still on the committee and people have been kicked off Republican committees, do you think there’s a double standard that is becoming more and more prevalent right now in politics?

Norman: It is. But what we’ve got the disadvantage. The media, they’ve got every media outlet that chooses to suppress it. Look at … [New York Gov.] Andrew Cuomo, … that involved lives, they’re not reporting it.

Now, we’ve got to change that and use whatever means we can, but we’re being banned. Look at what Big Tech’s doing. I was banned with the Frontline Doctors on hydroxychloroquine, and it just shouldn’t happen. But we got to get loud. We’ve got to have our voice back. And we’ve got to, we the people, get involved.

Del Guidice: Another agenda of the Biden administration that I know you’ve talked about and have concerns over is the Biden administration’s plan to give amnesty to 11 million illegal immigrants. Why is this a problem? Can you unpack this for us?

Norman: Amnesty to—and it’s more than 11 million, it’s probably 15 to 20 [million].

We’ve got the worst pandemic in this country. And I want Homeland Security to ask the question of the Biden administration: What, with those who are illegally coming across the country, [coming] across the border into our country, what are you doing about COVID? Are you testing them? Are you giving them a mask? They’re going to be in our society, are you vaccinating them?

They want to circle back with us, which means they don’t have a plan. How safe is that for you and I? Not very safe. So President Trump had the right plan. That is, we want immigration, but legal immigration, and that’s not happening. He’s doing it for power to get votes. Because they want to register these people, give them driver’s licenses, and let them vote, which will secure their power. It’s un-American, it’s not right. And it should be stopped.

Del Guidice: Well, the House just passed the Equality Act. And among many things in this legislation, it’s going to allow things [like] biological men being allowed in women’s restrooms, biological boys being allowed in locker rooms to undress with girls.

What are your concerns about this piece of legislation and how do you foresee it impacting the country on a whole?

Norman: I ask that mom, that mom or father, when your daughter or granddaughter goes in a restroom, is it fair for a man to pretend to be a woman and go in? And I guess it’s going to take the rapes and the murders to maybe wake this country up, but that’s what they’re intending to do.

Look at sports, they want men claiming to be women to compete against women in sports. How many scholarships is that deserving young lady going to lose?

I mean, it’s ludicrous. It’s outlandish, and we ought to be in an outrage over it. And we are, but again, they’ve got the outlets, they got the news media predominantly. And it’s up to us to use whatever we can and try to change that narrative.

Del Guidice: Circling back to immigration briefly, how do you think the immigration system should be reformed? I mean, there’s a lot to do. And there is a Democrat House, Senate, and White House. But where do you see places where reform could happen when there’s the opportunity for it?

Norman: First of all, we got to finish the wall. This president built over 400 walls. And the very Democrats that tell you walls don’t work, look what they put up around the Capitol. A wall. If it doesn’t work, how does it work for them? We got to build a wall. We got to have merit-based immigration. We can’t take everybody anytime they want to come over here.

Look at the drug cartels, which are controlling a lot of the groups that are coming into this country. I just had a sheriff last night at CPAC mention the fentanyl that’s coming unfettered across this country. It can kill. It’s potent, it could kill. It’s 100 times more potent than heroin.

So all of it just doesn’t make sense. All of it is, again, an attempt to get power. They don’t want to do it legitimately through elections, they want to force it on us. And that’s what we got to fight.

Del Guidice: Big picture, what are some of the biggest challenges and also opportunities you see in Congress? We talked about some of the opportunities with immigration, but big picture, what are some opportunities and challenges you see despite the Democrat House, Senate, and White House?

Norman: Well, as your listeners know, [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi controls all the committees. They have a five-vote margin for us. And to give you some perspective, when I came into Congress in 2016, the Democrats were 227, we were at 196. Now it’s five-vote difference. So we’ve got to use that.

We’ve got to have involvement at every level. We’ve got to circumvent media that will not report the horrible things that are going on. …

The Equality Act, HR 1, is going to control elections through the federal government. We have to express outrage on that. And we’re going to vote against it, but they’ve got the votes now. And hope and pray the Senate will stop it. And now’s not the time for the Senate to cross the aisle. You say no and send it back. And hopefully the Joe Manchins and others will come through.

Del Guidice: [Before] we wrap up, I did want to ask you about this concept of cancel culture we’ve seen really rampant lately in society, that most people will know of.

For example, President Trump being banned off of Twitter. And then more recently there’s been a bunch of different organizations, some even nonpartisan, that have [been] banned from Twitter.

What’s your perspective of cancel culture and how do you think it should be combated?

Norman: Well, you combat it, is what I’m doing, as an example. I’m a developer, we built Marriotts for years, Marriott has taken the opposite view of we, the people, and free enterprise. And they’re part of the woke culture. I’m writing the president and I’m writing the board of directors.

They turned down our Freedom Caucus at their hotel, and that’s income, because we were conservative. If that’s not outlandish—but, we’re going to let the directors know. And as a customer, I’m letting them know that we do not accept that.

And that’s fine if that’s what they want to do, I’m just not going to be a part of it, both from building of the Marriotts and going to their hotels. Because if they’re going to turn us down because of our views—we didn’t go there to tear the hotel up, we went there to give them business, and their stockholders ought to know that. That’s how we combat it. And I just give you one example.

Woke culture, sports, the NBA siding with communist China. I’m not going to an NBA game. I’m only one person, but I’m not going to their games. The NFL not standing for the American flag, I’m not going to football games.

Now, it’s small, but it’s something that I can do. And I urge everybody to examine what is important to them because we’re going to lose our republic if it keeps going the way it is.

Del Guidice: Well, sober note, but wise words. Good notes to end on. Congressman Norman, thank you for joining us on “The Daily Signal Podcast.”

Norman: My pleasure. Thank you so much.
--------------------------
Rachel del Guidice is a congressional reporter for The Daily Signal.

---

Tags: Rachel del Guidice, Rep. Ralph Norman, Says, China, Paramount Threat To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Biden Abandons Middle East Peace

by Caroline Glick: The Trump administration was on the verge of securing a peace agreement between Israel and Indonesia in its final weeks in office, according to a former senior Trump administration official involved in the efforts. The official divulged that the negotiations between Israel and the world’s most populous Muslim state were run by then-President Donald Trump’s senior adviser Jared Kushner and Adam Boehler, then-head of the US’s International Development Finance Corporation.

Israel was represented by then-Ambassador Ron Dermer and Indonesia by Minister Mohamed Lutfi. To secure peace, Boehler told Bloomberg News last December, the US would be willing to provide Indonesia with an additional “one or two billion dollars” in aid.

Indonesia was interested in Israeli technology and even wanted the Technion to open a campus in Jakarta. It wanted visa-free travel to Israel and Arab and US investment in its sovereign wealth fund. Israel wanted Indonesia to end its economic boycott of the Jewish state. Direct flights from Tel Aviv to Bali were on the table.

The advantages of peace between Israel and Indonesia for both sides are self-evident. But such a peace would also pay a huge dividend to the US in its burgeoning cold war with China. An expanded strategic and economic partnership with the archipelago and ASEAN member would be a setback for China’s efforts to dominate the South China Sea, particularly with Indonesia playing a role in an Islamic-Israeli alliance led by the US.

“We got the ball on Indonesia and Israel to the first-yard line,” the official explained. Unfortunately, the Biden administration has dropped the ball on the ground and walked off the field.

On the surface, the Biden administration is interested in promoting peace. President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have praised the Abraham Accords, as well they should.

For 26 years, the Arab conflict with Israel was ignored and left to fester. Then suddenly, in Trump’s last year in office, the situation was reversed as four Arab states rapidly normalized their ties with Israel. Expanding the accords to Indonesia, with its massive population and strategic location outside the Middle East would transform a strategic regional shift into a game-changer throughout Asia.

But despite the strategic logic of expanding the Abraham Accords and the praise Biden and Blinken have given them, starting in its first week in office, the new administration’s actions have served to undermine the accords by removing their American foundations.

A week into the Biden administration, the State Department announced it was “placing a hold” on the $23 billion sale of F-35s to the United Arab Emirates. The move was presented as “a routine administrative action typical to most any transition.”

But suspending the sale was a strategic move, not an “administrative action.” The normalization deal between Israel and the UAE was a three-sided agreement. The Americans were full participants. The F-35 sale was America’s way to solidify the UAE’s membership in an American-led regional alliance of which the Abraham Accords were an expression. Suspending the deal indicated that unlike its predecessor, the Biden administration will not work to strengthen the US alliance with the Sunni Arabs and Israel, and will not fulfill the commitments that the Trump administration took on to develop and maintain that alliance through Arab-Israeli peace.

Biden’s abandonment of the Abraham Accords can be understood in the context of US politics. In keeping with the expectations of Democrat voters, Biden and his team are making efforts in domestic and foreign policy to erase the entirety of Trump’s record in office. Although remaining a party to the Abraham Accords and expanding them to Indonesia and beyond would probably win Biden the Nobel Peace Prize, it would put him in the partisan doghouse for the crime of failing to kill something Trump created.

But while political logic exists, not everything is political. For Biden and his administration, ideology trumps politics.

The Biden administration is the most ideologically rigid and radical administration in US history. Hyper-partisan politics are a function of the administration’s ideological radicalism. As far as the Middle East is concerned, its ideological commitments drive it to empower the PLO-controlled Palestinian Authority and Iran.

From their first days in office, senior Biden administration officials have pledged to restore US funding of the PA. There are significant legal roadblocks to implementing that pledge because so long as the PA continues to pay the salaries of terrorists and advances war crimes allegations against Israel before the International Criminal Court, the US is barred from funding it or reopening the PLO representative office in Washington. But all the same, the administration is intent on moving forward.

The administration’s intense desire to empower the PA despite the legal roadblocks indicates one aspect of its opposition to the Abraham Accords. The accords weaken the PA by removing its power to block Arab and Islamic states from making peace with Israel.

For decades, as Israel’s Palestinian “peace partner” spurned peace and waged terror and political war against Israel, the Arab states accepted that peace between themselves and Israel had to wait. By ignoring the US obligations to Abraham Accords partners and pushing to restore US support to the PA despite its illegality, the administration signals its desire to restore the Palestinian veto.

The Abraham Accords represent an even greater problem for the administration’s efforts to empower Iran. In a speech on Monday, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo said, “The Abraham Accords would not have happened … without the United States changing its policy with respect to Iran 180 degrees from how the previous administration had addressed the issue.”

Now that the Biden administration wishes to move US policy 180-degrees backward to reinstate the Obama administration’s Iran policies, the Abraham Accords are a nuisance.

Hours before Biden and his advisers accused Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) of approving Jamal Khashoggi’s murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, i24News reported that Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain were forming a military alliance against Iran. While the events may or may not be related, both make clear why the Biden administration doesn’t want Arab-Israeli or Muslim-Israeli peace deals. The deals impede the administration’s efforts to empower Iran.

Biden’s declared goal vis-à-vis Iran is to restore Iranian compliance and US participation in the 2015 nuclear deal forged by the Obama administration. The so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action places temporary limitations on Iranian nuclear activities in exchange for a massive inflow of capital. To convince Iranian leader Ali Khamenei to get on board, the new administration has provided a near-continuous stream of concessions to Iran and its Yemeni proxy, the Houthis.

It removed the Houthis from the State Department’s list of foreign terror organizations and suspended arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The administration’s campaign against MBS is an obvious effort to unseat him and replace him with a less stridently anti-Iran leader. This week the administration’s green-lighted South Korea’s agreement to pay Iran some $7 billion in exchange for the release of a South Korean ship and its crew that Iran unlawfully seized and has held captive since early January.

Not only has Iran rejected America’s gestures it has escalated its rogue behavior. Iran is expanding its regional aggression and sprinting to the nuclear finish line. In recent weeks the Iranians attacked the Israeli embassy in New Delhi. They damaged an Israeli-owned ship in the Persian Gulf. And there is growing suspicion that the massive oil spill off Israel’s coast last month which caused massive ecological damage to marine life and to Israel’s coastline may have been an act of environmental terrorism carried out by a Libyan ship smuggling crude oil from Iran to Syria.

Iran’s Houthi proxies have expanded their missile strikes against Saudi Arabia since coming off the US. terror list. And while the US uses MBS’s alleged role in killing Khashoggi to justify downgrading its relations with Saudi Arabia, the Iranians are killing scores of democracy protesters in its Baluchistan province. Whereas Khashoggi was a former Saudi intelligence officer and ally of Osama bin Laden who was working with Qatar to undermine the Saudi regime at the time he was killed; the Baluchis are innocent civilians whose sole crime is opposing the repressive regime.

As far as Iran’s nuclear program is concerned, in recent days, the Iranians canceled snap inspections of their nuclear sites by UN nuclear inspectors. The International Atomic Energy Agency released a report accusing Iran of carrying out prohibited nuclear work at four undeclared nuclear sites. Khamenei has threatened to escalate Iran’s uranium enrichment levels to 60%. And rather than respond by escalating sanctions against Iran, the EU – presumably with US approval – has scrapped plans to condemn Iran for its illegal behavior at the IAEA’s Board of Governors’ meeting this week.

In a press briefing Monday, State Department Spokesman Ned Price said, “We seek to accomplish a great deal with the Saudis: To end the war in Yemen and ease Yemen’s humanitarian crisis; to use our leadership to forge ties across the region’s most bitter divide, whether that’s finding the way back from the brink of war with Iran into a meaningful regional dialogue or forging a historic peace with Israel.”

In other words, the administration holds the Saudis solely responsible for the war in Yemen. It also blames Saudi Arabia (and presumably, Israel, the UAE and Bahrain) for being at “the brink of war with Iran,” rather than blaming Iran for bringing the region to the “brink of war” through its terrorist aggression and illicit nuclear activities.

The order of Price’s “to-do” list made clear that reaching “a historic peace” between Israel and Saudi Arabia is the administration’s lowest priority.

Price served as National Security Council spokesman during the Obama administration. There he played a key role in marketing the JCPOA and developing what his colleague, then deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes referred to as the information “echo chamber” for selling the deal to ignorant reporters in Washington. Last year, in a speech before the National Iranian-American Council, (a group widely viewed as the Iranian regime’s unofficial lobby in Washington), Price said that a Biden administration would remove the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps from the State Department list of foreign terror groups.

Taken together, the administration’s moves make clear that beyond paying occasional lip service to the Abraham Accords, ending the Arab and Islamic world’s conflict with Israel and forging a wider peace between them is not a goal it wishes to pursue. Indeed, for Biden and his advisers, Arab-Israel peace is an impediment to their ideologically motivated efforts to empower the PLO and Iran.
-----------------------------
Caroline Glick is contributes to numerous publications including Israel Havon and the Director of the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Israel Security Project. For more information on Ms. Glick's work, visit carolineglick.com.

---

Tags: Caroline Glick, Israel Havon, Joe Biden, Abandons, Middle East Peace To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Peak Absurdity

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: We have gone on beyond nonsense. Theodore Geisel — Dr. Seuss — whimsically drew and rhymed his way into our hearts. But owners of his copyrights and trademarks have announced that they will no longer keep in print a handful of Seussiana, including And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo, and On Beyond Zebra!

“These books portray people,” says a press release from “Seussville,” “in ways that are hurtful and wrong.”

The objection appears to be that caricatures of Chinese and Africans and others are based on stereotypes and, therefore, “hurtful.”

After retrieving your rolled eyes from deep within their sockets, recognize that cartoons and caricatures rely upon stereotypes. Which is why I still own copies of the first two books on the list and will not hesitate to read them and show the pictures to any child of any race or ethnicity who might be interested.

While the woke guardians of the Seuss brand have every right to cease publication — just as eBay, the trading platform, possesses the right to prohibit sale of used copies — this is historic. The woke social justice crowd have pushed their mania past absurdity.

Not, alas, a funny, Seussian absurdity.

His very liberal voice, favoring individuality, diversity and just being nice, was utterly at odds with the implied calumny from the corporation that bears his pen name.

But I do hear chanting in the background: “boil that dust speck!” (A great line from Horton Hears a Who.) Seuss developed his case against intolerance and mob mania in a number of works, most of them not deprecated by his heirs, thankfully.

Kids who read them possess the tools to understand the whys of woke nonsense.

Pity that the adults in charge do not.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
----------------------------
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: Paul Jacob, Common Sense, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

The Case Against Reparations: Part 2

by Larry Elder: With reparations, there is the issue of who pays. Do African countries owe reparations to Black Americans? After all, Harvard’s director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, Henry Louis Gates, wrote that 90% of those enslaved and shipped to the New World were sold by Africans to European slavers. All whites? Only whites? Nonwhites? Are payments owed before the United States became a country?

Former University of California, Los Angeles, historian Roger McGrath writes:

“The reparationists claim that the United States must compensate the descendants of slaves for 400 years of slavery. Since the United States was not established until 1788 (when the required three-fourths majority of the states approved the Constitution), slavery existed for only 77 years before the 13th Amendment abolished it.” McGrath also writes about the number of whites who owned slaves in the January issue of Chronicle Magazine:

“While the cotton economy enriched the owners of the large plantations and insured that millions of Blacks would live as slaves, it didn’t do much for most Southern whites, who saw the most fertile bottom lands owned by a small number of powerful families. Depending on the era, only 25 percent or so of Southern whites owned slaves or belonged to a family who did.”

On former President Barack Obama’s maternal side, there were slave owners. Obama’s father came from Kenya, a slave-trading area. Does Obama get a check, or does he cut a check? Similarly, Vice President Kamala Harris’ Jamaican father has acknowledged slave owners in his family. Does Harris, whose mother is from India, get a check or cut a check?

Slavery, sadly, has been part of human history since the beginning. Muslim slave traders took whites out of the Mediterranean area and enslaved them in Northern Africa. European slavers took Blacks out of Africa and shipped them to the New World. Europeans enslaved Europeans. Asians enslaved Asians. Africans enslaved Africans. Even Native Americans enslaved other Native Americans.

Again, who pays whom? When and where does the pursuit of reparations stop, if ever?

The Arab & Slavery,” John Dewar Gleissner writes: “The Arabs’ treatment of Black Africans can aptly be termed an African Holocaust. Arabs killed more Africans in transit, especially when crossing the Sahara Desert, than Europeans and Americans, and over more centuries, both before and after the years of the Atlantic slave trade. … African slaves transported by Arabs across the Sahara Desert died more often than slaves making the Middle Passage to the New World by ship.”

As to the trans-Atlantic slave trade, historian Gates says:

“Between 1525 and 1866, in the entire history of the slave trade to the New World, according to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World. 10.7 million survived the dreaded Middle Passage, disembarking in North America, the Caribbean and South America.

“And how many of these 10.7 million Africans were shipped directly to North America? Only about 388,000. That’s right: a tiny percentage.”

And that tiny percentage has prospered to a far greater degree than did those who went to the Caribbean, Central and South America, and, in some cases, Mexico.

In 1940, 87% of American Blacks lived below the federally defined level of poverty. By 1960, that number had fallen to 47%, the greatest 20-year period of economic expansion for Blacks in American history.

Who receives reparations? How is this determined?

Since slavery ended nearly 156 years ago, determining legal heirs to the stolen slave labor would be impossible.

When assessing the amount of reparations to be paid, is it relevant that the descendants of slaves here have prospered to a far greater degree than have the descendants of slaves shipped to Central and South America? If Black America were a separate country, its gross GDP would make it the 17th wealthiest country in the world. Economist Walter Williams said Blacks have come further ahead from further behind — and over a shorter period of time — than any people in the history of the world.
---------------------------
Larry Elder (@larryelder) is a best-selling author and radio talk-show host, an American lawyer, writer and radio and television personality who is also known as the "Sage From South Central." To find out more about Larry Elder. Visit his website at LarryElder.com for list of other articles.

---

Tags: Larry Elder, The Case Against Reparations, Part 2 To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

The Serial Killer Known As The China Virus

Cliff Kincaid

by Cliff Kincaid: John Lennon of the Beatles said in 1966 that his musical band was more popular than Jesus. His song “Imagine" proclaims, “Imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if you try. No hell below us. Above us only sky.” Lennon found the answer to whether any of that flowery gibberish was true when he was assassinated by a deranged fan in 1980.

Lennon is dead, and his killer, Mark David Chapman, is waiting for parole.

Like those who sang “Imagine,” many people believe communism is “social justice.”

Eventually, they believe, the Marxists will get it right. Perhaps the death toll has to reach several billion. We are on the way to their heaven on earth. Just give them time. Perhaps the Red Chinese will unleash another killer virus on top of the one still causing death and destruction in America. That will bring us closer to pure communism.

The most popular figure today, more popular than Jesus, is Karl Marx. He is probably in Hell, a real place, the result of inspiring more than 100 million deaths. But that hasn’t diminished his appeal.

Back on earth, as I noted in a review of Paul Kengor’s book The Devil and Karl Marx, the result, so far, is more than 100 million dead, with Communist China claiming “credit” for 65 million of those deaths and an additional 400 million dead in China through the abortion genocide (as documented in the Global Life Campaign report about the death toll of aborted babies having reached one billion worldwide). In China, women could be forcibly aborted.

The slaughter goes on.

There are reportedly more than 2.5 million dead from the China virus worldwide. More than 515,000 people in the United States are believed to have died from what is also called COVID-19. One of the victims was Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking official ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc to the United States. He was an old man, 92, but it was the virus that killed him.

This is not a hoax. In fact, it’s dangerous to believe it’s a hoax.

There are some who think the China virus is as “harmless” as the ordinary flu. But the flu kills, too, and the death rate from flu is lower than that of the China virus. People dispute whether the virus is “the” cause for some deaths, but it has to be considered at least a major contributing factor. The China virus is a real disease that has put people I know in the hospital for many weeks, near death. Some end up in a coma. Others can’t breathe. It attacks your vulnerable organs, especially your lungs, and weakens your senses.

I understand some people dispute the “official” figures and don’t like masks. They have a right to think that way. But stay away from me. I believe that anything that comes out of Communist China, especially a virus, has to be assumed to be dangerous and deadly. This is the country whose military authorities have devised “unrestricted warfare” against its enemies. As the Soviets used to say, America is their “main enemy.”

They don’t mind sacrificing millions of their own people to inflict death and damage on the rest of the world.

Although we have problems detecting and treating it, and the vaccines are questionable, I think the virus is far more deadly than anything we have encountered in the past. That’s why its origin in China is so important to note and understand. And that’s why I have taken precautions when going outside and among other people. Frankly, I don’t necessarily believe those who say the virus is more dangerous than any other virus in history, but I also don’t believe those who say we have nothing to worry about, and that the crisis over the release of the virus is completely manufactured for ulterior purposes.

I do think U.S. medical authorities financially subsidized biological (and military) research in China that they didn’t even fully understand. It was risky. But they had to at least know it was dangerous in the hands of communists. And that’s why they don’t want the full truth to come out.

These authorities do not understand communists and their methods.

I believe the China virus was unleashed to kill people and economies and take President Trump out of office. It was a brilliant strategy that has paid off for the Chinese communists. Here, politicians used the virus to isolate people, close down economic activity, and spend more money. On the eve of passage of a $1.9 trillion bill, only part of which is devoted to China virus relief, there are economic warning signs, as higher inflation is on the horizon.

Many of our fellow citizens are still scared, as they should be, not only of the China virus, but national bankruptcy.

They don’t know who’s telling the truth about the nature of the virus and so they stay on guard. Many are taking the vaccines, despite questions about their nature, effectiveness, and side-effects, out of concern for others, and because it might just provide some protection against a virus that is said to be producing variants on a regular basis. They are willing to take a chance on a vaccine rather than risk exposure to more people with the virus, They believe that doing nothing is reckless and irresponsible. As the old saying goes, better to be safe than sorry.

The Biden administration, in a bow to its Chinese masters, will not use the term “China virus,” and has resumed funding to several United Nations agencies, including the misnamed World Health Organization. This is suicidal. But China Joe has always been a fan of the United Nations, having declared in a Wall Street Journal piece years ago that he learned to “love” the New World Order.

All of this is easy to understand. Biden is a globalist front-man for an assortment of socialists and communists, some of whom, according to Trevor Loudon, orchestrated the nomination of Green New Deal adherent Deb Haaland as Secretary of the Interior. What is not so comprehensible is the tendency of conservatives to whitewash the communist threat by masking Marxist doctrines behind such phrases as political correctness, cancel culture, and wokism. They accept these terms because to acknowledge Marxism is a threat is to follow the trail all the way to Karl Marx and his satanic background and beliefs. Then, you might be accused of being a “religious nut.”
-------------------------------
Cliff Kincaid is president of Cliff Kincaid

---

Tags: Cliff Kincaid, Cliff Kincaid, The Serial Killer, Known As, The China Virus To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Angry at Trump, Liberals Propose Unconstitutional Bill to Punish Him

by GianCarlo Canaparo: Democrats have twice impeached Donald Trump in the House and twice failed to convict him in the Senate. They’re angry about failing, and double angry about failing twice. That’s understandable. Nobody likes to fail.

But they’ve now fallen into the trap of letting their anger get the better of their reason and their oaths to uphold the Constitution. The result is a legislative temper tantrum in a bill dubbed the No Glory for Hate Act.

The act is petty and petulant, and it inspires a strong temptation to laugh and mock. It is, however, an unconstitutional abuse of power, and that transforms an amusing little fit into a worrisome precedent.

The bill targets “any former President that has been twice impeached”—excuse me while I take a moment to figure out all the presidents that it applies to—and says that no federal funds may be used to commemorate all those presidents.

he name of any of those former presidents (of whom I’m sure there are many).

Ironically, the bill fails to include an exception to the naming provision for outhouses, privies, latrines, water closets, or hazardous waste disposal sites. If you’re going to be petty, I ask only that you be clever about it.

The tantrum continues. All of those twice-impeached presidents will have their pensions and all other federal benefits taken away except Secret Service protection. Likewise, none of them may be buried in Arlington National Cemetery (I’m sure that will save a lot of space there).

The bill calls to mind a child throwing a public fit. Unlike a grumpy child exercising his First Amendment right to free speech, however, the bill manages to violate the Constitution in two ways.

First, it violates the Punishment for Impeachment Clause, which, as the name suggests, specifies the punishments that may be doled out when someone gets impeached. It says: “Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.”

If you noticed the phrase “shall not extend further,” you’re doing better than House Democrats who either missed it or have a different copy of the Constitution than you and I do.

No matter how hard I stare at that comma between “removal from office” and “disqualification,” I simply cannot find “shall have his name barred from all federal properties, his benefits revoked, and his plot at Arlington taken away.”

The bill also misses the requirement that a president be found guilty by the Senate before he can be punished. Judgement follows conviction.

The No Glory for Hate Act also runs into trouble with the Bill of Attainder Clause. That clause says: “No bill of attainder … shall be passed.” A bill of attainder, as the Supreme Court explained in United States v. Brown (1965), is a “legislative punishment, of any form or severity, of specifically designated persons or groups.”

In that case, the court struck down a law that barred Communist Party members from serving as leaders in labor organizations. In other cases, the Supreme Court has struck down a law that stopped salaries for people dubbed “subversives,” and a law that barred people from practicing law in federal courts if they had given “encouragement” to the Confederacy.

Arguably the Supreme Court’s inclusion of civil penalties within the ambit of bills of attainder is incorrect—historically only laws imposing death or imprisonment counted—but we apply the law we’ve got.

The law we’ve got says that legislation is a bill of attainder if three conditions are satisfied: (1) it targets specific people or a group of people; (2) it includes punishment; and (3) it lacks a judicial trial.

In President Richard Nixon’s case, Nixon v. Administrator of General Services (1977), the Supreme Court held that the second requirement was missing from a law that ordered the administrator of general services to take custody of Nixon’s papers and tape recordings.

That law was not “designed to inflict punishment” but rather served the legitimate purpose of “guarantee[ing] the availability of evidence for use at criminal trials.”

In Trump’s case, or rather, the case of all twice-impeached presidents, all three elements are satisfied. This bill targets a group of affected persons: all those surely numerous presidents who have been twice impeached. It includes punishment: loss of federal pension and other benefits. And it lacks a judicial trial: those presidents are punished as soon as a majority of the House votes twice to impeach them.

That’s two constitutional violations for this legislative tantrum.

Look, we all get angry when we fail. And we innately understand the temptation to use what power we have to punish our political foes. Giving into that temptation, however, is bad governance, and it sets a precedent that cuts both ways.

No matter how angry you get about the current state of politics, it’s just not acceptable to torch the Constitution. Especially if you’ve taken an oath to uphold it.
GianCarlo Canaparo is a legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

---

Tags: GianCarlo Canaparo, Heritage Foundation, Angry at Trump, Liberals Propose, Unconstitutional Bill, to Punish Trump To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

What Does It Take To Turn Around A Generation That Has Been Subject To Disregard For The U.S. Constitution?

Dr. Virginia Merchant: Most but not all-American citizens knew the Trump 2nd Impeachment would fail—The United States Constitution was on his side. It was quite evident when John Roberts, The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, would not attend. It is mandatory in an actual real impeachment for the Chief Justice to be present. This was “theater” by the Democrats. The Trump attorneys had only 8 days to prepare, but they did a first-rate job if you happened to watch.

The leadership Democrats in this country of 2021 are vindictive, nasty, and smart. Actually, I don’t think they are happy individuals.

After the impeachment, the two attorneys were subject to retaliation by the left for just representing the retired President. David Schoen, major civil rights attorney, had his law course canceled and, the gentlemen that he is, would not mention which college that was. Michael Vander Veen, the second attorney, had his home attacked—windows broken, graffiti in his driveway, etc. He has now hired 24-hour security at his home. The left wants to destroy our way of life and replace our democracy with their own type of government called “socialism”.

I could not believe the latest craziness is to “ban” Dr. Seuss's children’s books. The reason--they treat everyone “equally” and that does not go with “racism”. Censoring and banning sound like Nazi Germany in World War II. They want to divide us and then conquer us. We cannot let this happen and need to starting fighting back.

Our forefathers were very smart and the best thing they did for our Democratic country was give us the United States Constitution, which includes the first 10 Amendments called the Bill of Rights. The most important of the ten is the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

I was asked many years ago to teach a Government course at the high school and college level. I incorporated the Constitution and the students loved the course. How many schools in our 50 states have a course that includes the Constitution? I would bet most private schools do but what percent of public? Then what about colleges and universities? Fortunately, the Catholic Universities, do but others have become so radical and preach leftist ideas to our young.

What does it take to renew a generation who has gotten a left slant on almost everything around them? Well, it is up to each and every individual that wants to save our Constitution and our Republic to get involved. Have you ever thought of discussing the Constitution within your family, children, grandchildren? Sounds boring right? However, we may have to get involved in this way to rejuvenate our democracy. Especially when the current administration and radical groups are banning culture books, spreading false lies, pushing diversity that is one-sided, attacking our values and our way of life.

The government in the State of Virginia is now passing a law that impedes citizens to fly the United States flag and how many you can fly. I kid you not, they are coming at us from all directions and now with Biden in the White House, they feel they can do whatever it takes.

It is up to each of us to get serious about what is going on.
-----------------------------
Dr. Virginia Merchant, Ph.D. Educational Leadership. Article shared by TurningPoint USA.

---

Tags: Virginia Merchant, What Does It Take. To Turn Around. A Generation That Has Been Subject To Disregard, For The U.S. Constitution? To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!