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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, March 19, 2021
Chair Force One
Biden falling while climbing the stairs is no laughing matter he needs an Easy Climber.
Tags:Chair Force One, Biden falling, while climbing the stairs, no laughing matter, needs, Easy ClimberTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Eating Joe's Lunch, Killer Instincts, Fighting Back
Gary Bauer
by Gary Bauer: Eating Joe's Lunch
A little over a year ago, top Chinese officials came to Washington, D.C., hat in hand to sign a trade deal they hated. They did so because Donald Trump made it clear that the days of America being taken for suckers were over.
Contrast that to how the Chinese communists walked into yesterday's negotiations on our territory. They claimed that communist China speaks for the world, not America.
When U.S. officials raised concerns about the communist regime's crackdown on Hong Kong and its genocide against ethnic Muslim Uyghurs, Beijing's lead diplomat shot back:
"China is firmly opposed to U.S. interference in China's internal affairs. . . On human rights, we hope the United States will do better. . . There are many problems within the United States regarding human rights. . . The challenges facing the United States in human rights are deep-seated. They did not just emerge over the past four years, such as 'Black Lives Matter.'"
He went on to claim that American blacks were being "slaughtered." Well, at least the Chinese communists and the Biden Administration found one thing they could agree on. They both cite the Black Lives Matter movement as proof that America is evil.
But I wonder why we never hear about the "Uyghur Lives Matter" movement in communist China. Of course, no such movement exists. It isn't allowed to exist. And if the communist dictators in Beijing get their way, the Uyghurs may not exist for much longer!
I don't know where this is going, but I wouldn't be surprised if communist China and the Biden Administration announced some agreement to help both sides save face, likely pledges to fight COVID-19 and climate change. That's really all President Biden wants our relationship with communist China to be about. And that's also what communist China wants.
It doesn't want to address "internal matters" of Hong Kong, Taiwan, religious persecution or genocide. It doesn't want to talk about national security threats, cyberwarfare, espionage and intellectual property theft. But communist China is happy to talk about climate change.
What Didn't Come Up
In the litany of things we raised with the communist Chinese, I saw no mention of COVID. That alone tells you that the Biden Administration has no courage and no logical policy.
Let me repeat what we do know. The virus began in Wuhan, China. China's communist officials knew early on it was deadly. They lied to the world about the danger of human-to-human transmission, and they got the World Health Organization to lie too.
And while communist China was lying to us, it was cornering the market on medical supplies that they knew everyone would need once the world understood the danger.
While they knew how dangerous the virus was, they locked down Wuhan and stopped travel inside China, but allowed international travel to celebrate the Chinese New Year. (Here and here.) They seeded the world with the coronavirus.
They wrecked Western economies, and caused us to go dangerously into debt. While they did all this, they had the extra bonus of contributing to Donald Trump's defeat and the election of their preferred candidate, Joe Biden.
Killer Instincts
I know Joe Biden likes to think of himself as a foreign policy expert. Well, let me remind you what Robert Gates, Barack Obama's defense secretary, said about Joe Biden's foreign policy: "I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades."
It seems we're about to find out.
In a predictably softball interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Biden said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is "a killer." He does that in the same week we're sitting down with communist China, when we should be trying to play one of them off the other.
When Trump met the threats of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by mocking him, the entire media complex and every leading Democrat immediately set their hair on fire. They screamed that the ignorant Trump, who didn't appreciate the nuances of diplomacy, was going to get us into a war with a dictator who has a dozen nuclear warheads.
Joe Biden just called the head of Russia, who commands thousands of nuclear warheads, "a killer." Other than a few conservative commentators, there is virtual silence in the media about just how irresponsible that was.
Putin's response was very telling. First, Russia recalled its ambassador to the United States. But Putin also wished Joe Biden "good health." Of course, that was sarcasm. Putin and the leaders of the world know that Joe Biden is a failing man.
That's why after wishing Biden good health, Putin threw down a challenge. Putin said he wanted to debate Joe Biden "on the condition that we actually do it live, without any delays, directly in an open, live discussion." Putin added, "I think it would be interesting for the people of Russia and the people of the United States and many other countries," and said he was free today or Monday.
Of course, Putin knows Biden would never agree to such a "discussion." His handlers would never let him do it because he can't handle it. Every day we all see -- the whole world sees -- the evidence of Biden's cognitive decline.
Yesterday, for example, while speaking about a vaccination center in Arizona, Biden referred to "President Harris and I." At no point did he correct himself. And today, sadly, the president fell multiple times while attempting to board Air Force One.
Fighting Back
While the Biden Administration struggles for a strategy to handle communist China, I am pleased to report that a number of conservative senators are stepping up to the plate.
Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR), Rick Scott (R-FL) and Jim Inhofe (R-OK) introduced legislation yesterday to repeal "most-favored nation" trade status for communist China.
Referring to the urgent need for this legislation, Senator Inhofe said:
"I said it 20 years ago and I will say it again: We cannot allow the pursuit of trade to blind us to certain realities about the ruling communist regime in China. To continue to ignore these actions as if they can be separated from what we do in our trading relationship is dangerously misguided."
Senator Cotton noted:
"For twenty years, China has held permanent most-favored-nation status, which has supercharged the loss of American manufacturing jobs. It's time to protect American jobs and hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for their forced labor camps and egregious human rights violations."
I agree completely! Communist China never deserved this special trade status in the first place. But we were assured at the time by our political and corporate elites that trade with communist China would change communist China. That was a lie. It changed us!
American multinational corporations became apologists for the Chinese Communist Party, while heartland communities were gutted by closed factories and shattered dreams.
While American corporations enriched communist China, the regime's behavior got worse year after year. Communist China hasn't stopped its military buildup. To the contrary, it now has a larger navy than we do.
And while China's communist party bosses complain about our "meddling" in their internal affairs, they installed propaganda centers, knows as Confucius Institutes, at dozens of American universities and colleges.
Why we have tolerated communist China's behavior for so long and continued to reward it with most-favored nation trade status is incomprehensible. Revoking that status is the bare minimum we should do considering the regime stands accused of genocide!
------------------------ Gary Bauer (@GaryLBauer) is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working FamiliesTags:Gary Bauer, Eating Joe's Lunch, Killer Instincts, Fighting BackTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Biden’s Disastrous Border Policy Shows Zero Planning
by Armstrong Williams: Can you spell “hypocrite”? I’m starting to think that it begins with the letter “B” and rhymes with “widen.”
Democrats were scathing critics of the Trump administration’s border policies. They were quick to lambaste former President Donald Trump for “caging children” in squalid conditions and tearing babies from their mothers’ arms.
Democrats held up these bleak examples as proof of Trump’s lack of humanity, painting him as a heartless leader who was unconcerned about housing children in horrible conditions that put their health, and even their lives, at risk.
In fact, prolonged mistreatment of illegal children at the border and the separation of families became a talking point for then-candidate Joe Biden during the presidential debates.
Now, two months into his administration, President Joe Biden is allowing unaccompanied children to cross the border, exempting them from a public health law that allows Border Patrol agents to turn people away because of the pandemic.
The result? The largest surge of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in five years, with authorities scrambling to figure out ways to provide them appropriate housing.
Biden is quickly learning that it is very different to oppose a policy and complain about it from the back benches than to sit in the Oval Office and actually deal with it. In fact, Biden is now being blasted for the same situation for which he attacked Trump.
What’s more, Biden has made a bad situation on the border much worse by adopting a lax border-crossing policy that is akin to hanging a sign that says, “Free food, free shelter, and free medical care for those who illegally enter America.”
Unfortunately, the situation that greets these young travelers once they enter the United States is far from welcoming. We are hearing reports and seeing images of children being kept in lockup facilities made for adults. Make no mistake: These are prisons, plain and simple. People are locked behind bars, unable to leave.
In Biden’s America, children who cross the border illegally and alone arrive to find themselves in a locked jail cell with no clear plan for resolution.
We have seen a huge influx of children crossing the border because they know the immigration policy has changed and their chance of obtaining citizenship is greatly improved. Cynical parents from across Central America are willing to risk sending their children by themselves specifically to take advantage of the Biden policy.
Those children ultimately may be able to skip the citizenship line and become Americans if they make it through the labyrinth.
What is especially egregious is that Biden reversed Trump’s “inhumane” border policy without providing an alternative, and he is completely unprepared for the ramp-up that predictably followed.
What did he think would happen, and where did he think these unaccompanied children would go? The mayhem at the border right now is completely his fault.
Why should Trump be vilified and painted with the mark of Cain as a Republican when the situation is no different for our current Democratic president?
At its core, the same thing that Trump experienced is happening with Biden. The fact that it is happening in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic makes it worse because the migrant children are being housed in close quarters with few alternatives.
Crowding at the Border Patrol facilities is so dire that at least 3,000 youths are being moved to the convention center in Dallas and may end up staying there for months until they can be reunited with relatives or placed with sponsor families. The federal government is footing the bill—which means you and I are.
The bottom line? Actions have consequences. It is not enough to carp and complain. In their rush to dismantle Trump-era policies, the Democrats thoughtlessly threw open the floodgates and created a monster of a problem that is infinitely worse than it was before.
This shows that the deterrence policy the United States had under Trump was actually effective. It worked because migrants knew they would be turned away at the border. But the Biden administration ripped up the Trump policy with glee, and now it is experiencing the fallout.
It’s a shame, and it is going to hurt Biden politically. But we shouldn’t be surprised.
Despite all the positive focus the new administration is placing on coronavirus vaccinations, it is imprisoning children at the border and putting them at even greater risk of getting sick because of overcrowding. It’s not right, and it smacks of hypocrisy.
------------------------- Armstrong Williams is a columnist for The Daily Signal and host of "The Armstrong Williams Show," a nationally syndicated TV program.Tags:Armstrong Williams, The Daily signal, Biden’s Disastrous Border Policy, Shows Zero PlanningTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Biden Establishes White House Gender Policy Council
by Dr. Rebecca Oas (C-Fam): U.S. President Joe Biden has issued an executive order establishing a new White House Gender Policy Council that will promote abortion and gender ideology throughout all government agencies. Abortion groups applauded the decision.
The Biden gender council will cover an ambitious—and expansive—set of issues, many of which provide an opening for abortion in its policy recommendations. Among these is its plan to coordinate a “comprehensive, interagency response to gender-based violence at home and abroad,” which has become closely linked with abortion in both the domestic and international context.
It also takes an expansive view of gender similar to what was instituted under the Obama administration. During Obama’s tenure an elaborate suite of gender policies was adopted by the US Agency for International Development to streamline “gender integration” and “gender analysis” at the agency at all stages of the USAID program cycle.
Because reproductive health and LGBT components are included in the overarching policies that guide gender analysis, USAID staff can create mandates on the subject of abortion, contraception, and LGBT issues for any organization wishing to partner with USAID. Without conscience protection faith-based organizations may find it difficult to qualify for grants.
Despite the announcement of the council on March 8, International Women’s Day, the executive order repeatedly mentions “equity and equality,” where “equity” is defined as including “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons.”
The executive order states that the administration’s policy is to “advance equal rights and opportunities, regardless of gender or gender identity” throughout the entire government and proposes to improve “the collection of data related to gender and gender identity.”
This whole-of-government approach is reflected in the council’s inclusion of the heads of all agencies, including the departments of state, defense, and international development. It also aligns with Biden’s recent memorandum calling on agency heads to advance LGBTQ+ rights around the world—a call which was enthusiastically taken up by Biden’s defense secretary.
One of the council’s co-chairwomen is Jennifer Klein, a longtime advisor to Hillary Clinton and <board member of the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), which has been leading the campaign to establish a “feminist foreign policy” at the White House. Countries that have done so include Sweden, France, and Canada, which use the term to promote abortion internationally.
Just a week after the council’s creation, its co-chairs Klein and former ambassador to Uruguay Julissa Reynosa have been announced as members of the U.S. delegation to the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) at the UN. Other delegates include Klein’s ICRW colleague and “feminist foreign policy” champion Lyric Thompson and Lourdes Ashley Hunter, an activist and organizer described as a “Black, disabled, non-binary transgender woman.”
Besides setting up a gender council, Biden’s executive order terminated the White House working group on women’s and girls’ economic empowerment that had been established by his predecessor, Donald Trump. The new gender council has been characterized as “a reformulation of the Obama administration’s White House Council on Women and Girls.”
Senate Democrats are calling on Biden to go even further to establish a White House office dedicated to “Sexual and Reproductive Health and Wellbeing.” The letter urges Biden to create a “permanent infrastructure” to build upon his prior efforts to “secur[e] reproductive rights—including the right to access contraception and abortion.”
------------------------ Dr. Rebecca Oas writes for the Center for Families and Human Rrights (C-Fam).Tags:Dr. Rebecca Oas, C-Fam, Biden Establishes, White House, Gender Policy CouncilTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Tags:AF Branco, editorial cartoon, The ForgottenTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
When Cultural Appropriation and Historical Revisionism Are Acts of War
Caroline Glick: Two weeks ago, a bus filled with veteran Israeli generals from the Bithonistim, a grassroots national security organization, slowly made its way up the slopes of Mt. Ebal in Northern Samaria to visit a biblical-era site that was severely damaged by a Palestinian Authority contractor in late January.
They came to draw the public’s attention to the strategic implications of the war the Palestinians are waging against Jewish history.
The site was excavated between 1980 and 1989 by the late Professor Adam Zertal, who identified it as Joshua’s Altar as described in the Books of Deuteronomy, (27; 1-9) and Joshua (8; 30-35). The animal remains at the site contained thousands of burnt bones of year-old male, exclusively kosher, animals. They were burned in an open flame 3,250 years ago—the time generally identified as the period of ancient Jewish settlement of the Land of Israel under Joshua. Other remains found at the site included earrings and scarabs made in Egypt at the time of Ramses II, the Egyptian pharaoh often associated with the story of the Exodus from Egypt.
As Zertal explained in a lecture in 2013, the altar was buried under a layer of rocks, in keeping with Jewish prescriptions for preventing the desecration of abandoned holy sites. In keeping with the biblical narrative, the altar is made of unhewn stones; instead of steps, there are two ramps for the priests to alight to the platform—blocks of plaster were found nearby. The altar at Mt. Ebal also matches a Talmudic description of an altar from the Second Temple period, around 900 years later, indicating a continuity of Jewish practices throughout the biblical period.
Although initially controversial, Zertal’s general finding that the site is around 3,300 years old and is a Jewish historical site, where sacrifices were carried out in keeping with biblical guidelines, has become widely accepted—although many continue to dispute the specific identification with Joshua.
In late January, the Palestinian Authority (PA) posted a video on its website of 60 meters of the ancient wall surrounding the altar being destroyed to pave a road connecting the Palestinian village of Asira ash-Shamaliya to Nablus. Nablus, built on the ruins of the biblical city of Shechem, is located in northern Samaria between Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerizim.
Zertal was a fiercely secular son of hardcore socialists. Yet, he explained in a 2013 lecture, his scientific work compelled him to accept that the biblical narrative “from Deuteronomy through the Books of Kings was historically accurate.”
“There are people who refuse to acknowledge that the damage done here was deliberate,” Major General Gershon Hacohen explained to Newsweek. “That since it was the surrounding wall—rather than the altar itself—that was destroyed, the altar wasn’t harmed. That’s like saying that if someone destroys the steps to the Acropolis, they aren’t harming the Acropolis. It’s the same complex.”
“They also say the Palestinians weren’t trying to damage the site—they just needed stones for their road. But look at this place,” he said and waved his hand across the landscape.
The slopes of Mt. Ebal are strewn with loose rocks.
“If they needed rocks for the road, all the Palestinians had to do was bring up a truck and take as many as they needed. Instead, they brought a bulldozer all the way up here and deliberately destroyed 60 meters of a 3,250-year-old wall.”
As if to prove Hacohen’s point, this week, a group of Palestinians was filmed barbecuing on the altar itself.
The Palestinian effort to destroy the site is of a piece with the PA’s long-standing efforts to destroy the physical record of millennia-old Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel. That effort is now focused on destroying and appropriating the artifacts of Jewish history in Samaria.
Just across the valley from Mt. Ebal is Tel Samaria, which contains the remains of the city of Samaria—the capital built by King Omri of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, where both Omri and King Ahab ruled.
During the Roman period, Herod built the city of Sebastia at Tel Samaria and turned it into one of the most important cities in ancient Israel.
In November 2020, the PA held a ceremony at Sebastia in which Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh proclaimed it a “Palestinian heritage site” and foisted a massive Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) flag up a 15-meter flagpole.
The Palestinians claim Herod, known as “the King of the Jews”—the ruler who expanded the Jewish Second Temple complex in Jerusalem in the first century B.C.E.—was actually “the King of Palestine.”
The PA is also destroying the nearby archaeological site of Tel Aroma, a center of Jewish settlement for more than a millennium.
Since the PLO founded the PA in 1994 in the framework of its peace process with Israel, destroying and appropriating Jewish historical sites—with the enthusiastic support of international organizations like UNESCO—has been a constant effort.
Immediately after Israel transferred control over the city of Jericho to the PA in 1994, then-PLO leader Yasser Arafat directed the destruction of the ancient Shalom al Yisrael synagogue in Jericho.
But the central focus of its destructive activities has been the Temple Mount.
In 1999, the PA carried out a massive renovation project to transform ancient underground Temple Mount chambers into a new mosque, removing 9,000 tons of antiquities and debris from the complex and dumping them around Jerusalem. Alarmed archaeologists collected the debris and transferred it to Mt. Scopus, where the Temple Mount Sifting Project was inaugurated. Over the next 20 years, thousands of artifacts were discovered by volunteers who sifted through the garbage to salvage them.
Last year, the PA plundered Hasmonean graves at the Hasmonean palace outside Jericho and scattered 2,000-year-old bones.
UNESCO, the UN agency charged with preserving international heritage sites, has supported the Palestinian efforts, denied the Jewish ties to the Temple Mount—Judaism’s most sacred site—and declared the Cave of Machpela in Hebron—where the biblical patriarchs and matriarchs are buried—an Islamic heritage site, along with Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem.
The PLO and the PA have never agreed to recognize that Israel is the Jewish state. Since the PLO published its charter in 1964, the consistent Palestinian position has been to deny that the Jews have any history at all in the Land of Israel. An internal memo from the PLO’s negotiations support unit explained why. Published in 2011 by The Guardian and Al Jazeera, it warned, “Recognition of the Jewish people and their right to self-determination may lend credence to the Jewish people’s claim to all of Historic Palestine.”
In other words, the obliteration of the historical record is a fundamental feature of the Palestinian war to destroy Israel. Any acknowledgement of Jewish history in the Land of Israel risks revealing the otherwise-undeniable truth that the Jewish people are indigenous to the Land of Israel.
Arafat’s successor, PLO and PA chief Mahmoud Abbas, as well as all of his colleagues, live by these lies. Abbas has rewritten thousands of years of history to claim a 5,000-year history in the Land of Israel for the Palestinians. He alternates between claiming lineage from the Jebusites and Canaanites, while denying that there was ever a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.
Benny Katzover, who served as Samaria Regional Council chairman during Zertal’s excavation, became close friends with Zertal during his long years of work. Speaking to the generals, Katzover said, “No nation would allow anyone to destroy its roots in this fashion. We, the Jewish people, have the deepest, most significant roots in our land of all of humanity. It isn’t a surprise that the entire world is trying to deny these ties, by turning a blind eye to the destruction and claiming that the Cave of Machpela is a Palestinian heritage site.”
Hacohen responded by recalling an interview from 2009 with Abbas Zaki, the PLO’s ambassador to Lebanon, in which Zaki revealed the PLO’s true purpose when it calls for a so-called “two-state solution” that would require Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria and northern, eastern and southern Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount.
“With the two-state solution,” Zaki said, “Israel will collapse, because if they get out of Jerusalem, what will become of all the talk about the Promised Land and the Chosen People? What will become of all the sacrifices they made—just to be told to leave? They consider Jerusalem to have a spiritual status. The Jews consider Judea and Samaria to be their historic dream. If the Jews leave those places, the Zionist idea will begin to collapse. It will regress of its own accord. Then we will move forward.”
In other words, the purpose of the Palestinian war against, and appropriation of, Jewish history in the Land of Israel is to set the conditions for Israel’s ultimate physical destruction. Where better to strike than the site where, in Moses’s words, the Jews became “the nation of the Lord your God?”
-------------------------- Caroline Glick writes for Newsweek. Tags:Caroline Glick, When Cultural Appropriation, Historical Revisionism, Are Acts of WarTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Biden’s One-Two Punch on Taxes Will Destroy Free Markets and Any Hope of Economic Recovery
If Democrats are successful in hiking taxes on the “wealthy,” and the courts allow them to set state and international corporate tax rates, Biden and Congressional Democrats will have delivered a one-two-punch to our economy that we may never recover from. by Catherine Mortensen: Democrats snuck a provision into their nearly $2 trillion Covid bailout bill prohibiting states from cutting taxes for 4 years if they accept Covid money. In addition to setting state tax policies, Democrats want to set international corporate tax rates, all while calling for a massive new federal tax hike. This attempt to impose a command-and-control economy will destroy the free-markets and any hope of an economic recovery.
The provision, Section 9901 of H.R. 1319, tells states they “shall not use the funds provided under this section or transferred pursuant to section 603(c)(4) to either directly or indirectly offset a reduction in the net tax revenue of such State or territory resulting from a change in law, regulation, or administrative interpretation during the covered period that reduces any tax (by providing for a reduction in a rate, a rebate, a deduction, a credit, or otherwise) or delays the imposition of any tax or tax increase.”
Americans for Limited Government Vice President of Public Policy Robert Romano believes this attempt to dictate state taxation policies is unconstitutional. “The provision blocking changes in tax law at the state level as a condition for receiving federal assistance most certainly violates states’ powers under the Tenth Amendment, as Congress here is impermissibly attempting to micromanage state fiscal policy. When this was attempted in Obamacare, which attempted to force Medicaid expansion on states via similar means, the Supreme Court rightly found it unconstitutional. President Biden and the Democratic Congress are attempting to prevent states from implementing their own stimulus package by lowering taxes in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression. It’s unbelievable.”
Steve Moore, co-chairman of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity and a former economic adviser for the Trump administration, told the Wall Street Journal’s Paul Gigot in an interview this week that many states have budget surpluses and want to return that money to taxpayers.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in a piece of legislation,” Moore said. “I don’t think it’s constitutional. I’m not a constitutional scholar, but how can the federal government tell the states how they spend their money, what they can do with their tax codes, again it gets back to this point that the Democrats don’t want these red states to be cutting their taxes and using that as an incentive for people to leave states like New York and Illinois and going to places like Florida, Texas.”
Moore said Nebraska, West Virginia, Mississippi, and Utah are all looking at eliminating their income tax to become more competitive, but the Covid bailout slams the brakes on that saying, “You cannot cut your taxes.”
Gigot, editorial page editor at the Wall Street Journal, added, “On the legal point, the Supreme Court has the anti-commandeering doctrine which essentially says that the federal government can’t coerce the states to do certain things. There’s a debate over what and how that that that works, because under the Constitution, states are co-sovereigns. And I would think that basically being able to set your fiscal policy is pretty core to sovereignty.”
In addition to dictating state tax rates, Democrats in Washington are making a push to set international corporate tax rates. According to a story in Business Insider this week, Treasury Secretary Janett Yellin is in active talks with other countries about setting a global minimum rate for corporate taxes.
The US was long an outlier, with a corporate tax rate of 35% versus the international average of 24%, until former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cut slashed the corporate rate to 21%. But even that hasn’t stopped other countries from lowering their rates to attract multinationals. The Washington Post noted that nine countries lowered their corporate tax rate just last year.
Yellen has been clear since her confirmation hearing and subsequent press appearances that the Biden administration needs to raise new tax revenues. At the same time, she’s warned of the difficulties of implementing a wealth tax, which is favored by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
Part of Yellin’s “solution” is reforming the corporate tax rate — not just in the US but far beyond its borders. In addition, Yellin’s proposal would seek to eliminate the ability of any future Congress to lower corporate tax rates.
The Biden administration announced this week it will seek to fund a massive new infrastructure spending spree by raising federal taxes. Biden want to expand the estate tax’s reach, as well as taxing capital gains and dividends at an ordinary income tax rate of 39.6% for those making more than $1 million. Income tax rates would edge up to 39.6% from 37% for those making above $400,000, who would also face a 12.4% Social Security payroll tax.
While it appears the middle class will be spared from a direct tax increase, Andrew Silverman, a tax analyst from Bloomberg Intelligence said Biden’s plan to raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% might have an effect on middle- and lower-income individuals.
“Raising the corporate tax rate has, in many ways, a broad economic impact,” Silverman said. “It doesn’t distinguish between large and small corporations. Taxes on corporations might reduce the amount that they can contribute to mutual funds, pension fund holders and employee stock plans, as well as how much they pay employees.”
According to Bloomberg news, the tax hikes are likely to include repealing portions of President Donald Trump’s 2017 Tax and Jobs Act that largely benefit corporations and wealthy individuals. Democrats representing New York and New Jersey are also pushing for Congress to repeal the $10,000 cap on state and local tax, or SALT, write-offs. The issue has divided Democrats because it would help high-income taxpayers, though lawmakers representing high-tax states say middle-class constituents have been harmed by the limits on the deduction.
If Democrats are successful in hiking taxes on the “wealthy,” and the courts allow them to set state and international corporate tax rates, Biden and Congressional Democrats will have delivered a one-two-punch to our economy that we may never recover from.
-------------------------- Catherine Mortensen is Vice President of Communications at Americans for Limited Government.Tags:Catherine Mortensen, Americans for Limited Government, Joe Biden, One-Two Punch on Taxes, Will Destroy Free Markets, and Any Hope, of Economic RecoveryTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
by Loyd Pettegrew and Jim McCoy: It is bad enough that Democrats are in the majority, owning the White House, the House, and the Senate with Kamala Harris being the majority vote on all legislation before this third governmental body.
Adding insult to conservative injury is the resolute behavior of those Republicans in Name Only (RINOs) to rid any remembrance of what our nation benefitted from during the past four years.
After various departments of the federal government turned their backs on President Trump’s calls for investigations into the 2020 Election, it is ironic that Nancy Pelosi would call for a 9/11-type investigation of the fake conservative January 6th Capitol riot. The editors of the American Mind have argued,“When the old guard goes out of its way to crush a new endeavor, you have to wonder what’s at stake. Nick Solheim and Saurabh Sharma of American Moment are young, devoted, and driven to ‘forge a cadre of aligned and dedicated young people to serve in government and public policy organizations to support strong families, a sovereign nation, and prosperity for all. Why should an editor of National Review -- a publication whose very reason for being is ostensibly to energize and guide the conservative movement -- want to undermine and discredit this exciting new endeavor in the eyes of his conservative audience?”Why indeed?
I would guess their disquiet is rooted in things themselves above all the political machinations allegedly caused by the sometimes unseemly 45th President. Conservative William F. Buckley created the National Review Institute to build a network of talented conservatives who would assist each other professionally and personally and supported by institutions such as the Claremont Institute and Hillsdale College in order to rein in an illiberal media and educational establishment. Sadly, in the street brawl that was the 2020 election, the NR group has remained well above the fray and thereby betrayed the only hope for keeping our government out of the hands of woke progressives and their totalitarian policies.
It is imperative that we immediately endeavor to right our sinking conservative ship by fully embracing the new conservative generation and its efforts to stop the Harris/Pelosi/Schumer triumvirate from remaking America into the progressive cesspit it is becoming. We must now regard our open borders as a funnel for new COVID infestation, legislative threats to our Second Amendment rights, an educational system that from kindergarten through graduate and professional schools is fully committed to indoctrinating students with woke socialism instead of teaching job-earning skills. They have institutionalized racism with the white fragility doctrine and promoted wholesale abortion not only in the United States but around the world with U.S. taxpayer dollars. In the face of this all-out progressive blitzkrieg on traditional American values and ethics, we seem to be shellshocked into a state of abashment while sitting on our hands and cogitating about being nice and gentile while progressive Democrats are fully committed to transforming America into an oligarchical state.
During Biden’s first months in office, faithful Republicans and most Red state voters, have had their fill of spineless RINOs. Some are household names like Cheney and Romney. Evan Sayet’s response to RINOs is quite pertinent: “So, to my friends on the Left – and the #NeverTrumpers as well -- do I wish we lived in a time when our president could be ‘collegial’ and ‘dignified’ and ‘proper’? Of course, I do. These aren’t those times. This is war. And it’s a war that the Left has been fighting without opposition for the past 50 years.”
Sadly, the RINOs have allied themselves with Democrats, if only by their resolute silence, abetting a socialist state and facilitating the Harris-Biden presidential efforts to exert power and wreak havoc on the many political, social, and economic blessings the Trump years bestowed on America. Biden can’t even acknowledge that President Trump gave him the vaccines and the framework for defeating the virus. What a small man indeed! Some of the usual Conservative Inc. stalwarts, like Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal, ignore conservative principles while virtue-signaling their #NeverTrumper status. Long ago she was a special assistant and speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan. In the following decades, she was given the Award for Media Excellence and chosen as Columnist of the Year by The Week, the stepchild of National Review. She now mirrors the left-leaning journalism produced by the Journal.
Through a flurry of executive orders in his first week in office, President Biden discredited his promise of a “bipartisan” administration. He has now forced America to live with the Green New Bad Deal, open borders welcoming Mexico and Central America’s finest citizens, taxpayer abortion, destruction of the fossil fuel industry, a new and largely opaque relationship with China and an emboldened Iran already producing more heavy uranium metal for their nuclear program.
The House recently passed HR1 and the 2021 Equality Act with Representative Jerry Nadler(D-NY) claiming “what any religious tradition describes as God’s will, is no concern of this House.” Greg Steube (R-Fla) pointed out that the inscription, “In God We Trust” is imprinted in the House Chamber! This piece of legislation is very dangerous to many traditional values in America and would make holding traditional beliefs punishable by law. The RINOs will again be in the spotlight as they have now moved on to the Senate.
To regain America’s prominence at home and in the world, conservatives must create a largely new political slate by putting RINOs out to pasture in 2022 for the House and 2024 for the Senate.
They also need to begin grooming presidential candidates who can stand up to a left-leaning American infrastructure. RINOs like Utah’s Mitt Romney exhibit only fair-weather qualities and have betrayed the Republican voters who elected him. He expressed his support for the original and new impeachment of Trump and has, along with other RINOs attempted to rebrand themselves. He just proposed a $15,000 family income stipend moving toward the Left’s dream of a universal income. Not surprisingly, Romney has an overwhelming 84% approval rating… among Utah Democrats, while slightly more than a quarter of Utah Republicans approve his senatorial performance. Mitt proclaims sanctimoniously that he can’t betray his conscience when he votes and sponsors bills (and Trump’s impeachment), but he can easily betray his electorate with a straight face. Romney has even proposed preserving some of the damage from the Capitol riot for future generations to observe.
After the Senate’s rush to impeachment judgment, seven other RINOs also voted to convict the former President. Richard Burr showed no cognitive dissonance about his earlier vote that the trial was unconstitutional, then voting for conviction. He was immediately condemned by the North Carolina Republican Party. They must find an alternative. Senators Collins (Me), Murkowski (Al), Sasse (Neb), Toomey (Pa), and Cassidy (La) also populate the No-No-RINO list and must go.
Add to these the ten RINO House members who voted to impeach President Trump after he left office, led by Liz Cheney (WY), Tom Rice (SC), Dan Newhouse (WA), Adam Kinzinger (IL), Anthony Gonzalez (OH), Fred Upton (MI), Tim Ryan (OH), Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA), Peter Meijer (MI), John Katko (NY), and David Valadao (CA). Kinzinger, Katko, and Upton more recently voted to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from her House committee post, for sharing conspiracy theories on social media.
Republicans in every state deserve elected officials who represent our conservativism and patriotic values. RINOs betray this trust.
Conservatives must demand candidates who will faithfully represent them in Congress -- not the bonfire of vanity from self-serving politicians who turn their backs on their electorate.
Keeping RINOs in office only promotes the liberal agenda. We must help them find another line of work!
-------------------------- Loyd Pettegrew & Jim McCoy writes at American Thinker.Tags:Loyd Pettegrew, Jim McCoy, American Thinker, Conservatives, Stop Whining, Take ActionTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Leftist administrations see the military foremost as a tool for accelerating their own progressive domestic changes.
Victor Davis Hanson
by Victor Davis Hanson: The U.S. military has now turned its wrath inward on Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
The new secretary of defense relayed his “revulsion” for Carlson’s questioning the role of women in combat—a position that had been the military’s centuries-long orthodoxy until about seven years ago.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby even compared Carlson to the Communist Chinese military: “What we absolutely won’t do is take personnel advice from a talk show host, or the Chinese military.”
The now-cocky Department of Defense website further boasted, “Press Secretary Smites Fox Host.”
So what was the biblically “smitten” Carlson’s crime?
He objected to the military’s fixation on race and gender in high-profile appointments—and questioned whether standards were relaxed to permit women in combat units.
Carlson objected that the Capitol is currently domestically militarized. More troops are on guard against purported American “insurrectionists” than are currently serving in war zones in Afghanistan.
He noted far too many defense secretaries—he singled out the current secretary, retired General Lloyd Austin—revolve in and out from corporate defense contractor boards and billets.
His subtext is that too many of our retired top brass virtue signal their wokeness, while otherwise seeking to make a great deal of corporate money from their prior and often future government service and contacts.
Aside from the fact that the military usually does not use its top officials to react to journalists, the Pentagon should try to refute Carlson rather than comparing him to the hostile Communist Chinese.
The Pentagon might instead seek to reassure the public that no physical standards for combat troops have been lowered to accommodate front-line soldiers of any sex.
Kirby also could attempt to reassure the public that defense secretaries and top-ranking Pentagon officials have not recently served on defense contractor boards before or after their tenures. He might object that defense budgets are not soaring in part due to administrative bloat and social welfare costs.
The Pentagon might also explain the ubiquitous barbed wire and troop presence in Washington—the greatest militarization of the nation’s capital since Confederate general Jubal Early marched on Washington in July 1864.
No one arrested in the January 6 violent Capitol assault was found to have possessed or used a firearm. No ringleaders were discovered planning a coup. Instead, the dangerous riot was more likely a one-time assault than an ongoing “armed insurrection.”
Last summer during the nationwide Antifa and Black Lives Matter civil unrest, more than 280 retired top-ranking officers and security officials signed a letter blasting President Trump’s consideration of sending in federal troops to restore calm. They claimed the mere idea “risks sullying the reputation of our men and women in uniform in the eyes of their fellow Americans and of the world.”
OK—yet none of those signees voiced objections when the Pentagon recently oversaw 30,000National Guard troops within the borders of our capital.
The military has announced it is now conducting internal audits to root out American soldiers suspected of harboring supposedly dangerous ideas. What is going on?
One, the Left now dotes on what it envisions will soon be a woke military. It believes the chain of command can green-light progressive social changes—from women in combat units to subsidies for transgender transition surgeries to timely displays of massive force on the streets of Washington—without bureaucratic red tape or opposition from Congress.
Two, federal agencies in therapeutic fashion often dilute their traditional missions to accommodate social awareness agendas.
Under Barack Obama, NASA director Charles Bolden, a retired Air Force major general, sought to reset the space agency: “Perhaps foremost, he [Obama] wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering.”
“Feel good” does not ensure rockets reach outer space.
Three, there grows a new class rift between the rank-and-file military and the Pentagon’s top current and retired brass.
Increasingly, some brass spend extended tenures inside the Pentagon or within the beltway attached to the White House or Congress. They master the contours of the military-industrial complex, and profit from them upon retirement. Many acquiesce to now-orthodox progressive ideology omnipresent among federal bureaucracies and much of the Congress.
Whereas all administrations used to prioritize traditional military preparedness, now leftist administrations see the military foremost as a tool for accelerating their own progressive domestic changes.
The elite military echelon adjusts—given that careers and promotions are either enhanced or sidetracked accordingly.
As a result, many of our top brass often are far more politicized than in the past and can grow more ideologically distant from their own lower-ranking officer corps and enlisted personnel.
This recent extraordinary, thin-skinned Pentagon effort to lump Tucker Carlson in with critics like the Communist Chinese military is one more illustration of this far larger—and increasingly dangerous—pathology.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby even compared Carlson to the Communist Chinese military: “What we absolutely won’t do is take personnel advice from a talk show host, or the Chinese military.”
The now-cocky Department of Defense website further boasted, “Press Secretary Smites Fox Host.”
So what was the biblically “smitten” Carlson’s crime?
He objected to the military’s fixation on race and gender in high-profile appointments—and questioned whether standards were relaxed to permit women in combat units.
Carlson objected that the Capitol is currently domestically militarized. More troops are on guard against purported American “insurrectionists” than are currently serving in war zones in Afghanistan.
He noted far too many defense secretaries—he singled out the current secretary, retired General Lloyd Austin—revolve in and out from corporate defense contractor boards and billets.
His subtext is that too many of our retired top brass virtue signal their wokeness, while otherwise seeking to make a great deal of corporate money from their prior and often future government service and contacts.
Aside from the fact that the military usually does not use its top officials to react to journalists, the Pentagon should try to refute Carlson rather than comparing him to the hostile Communist Chinese.
The Pentagon might instead seek to reassure the public that no physical standards for combat troops have been lowered to accommodate front-line soldiers of any sex.
Kirby also could attempt to reassure the public that defense secretaries and top-ranking Pentagon officials have not recently served on defense contractor boards before or after their tenures. He might object that defense budgets are not soaring in part due to administrative bloat and social welfare costs.
The Pentagon might also explain the ubiquitous barbed wire and troop presence in Washington—the greatest militarization of the nation’s capital since Confederate general Jubal Early marched on Washington in July 1864.
No one arrested in the January 6 violent Capitol assault was found to have possessed or used a firearm. No ringleaders were discovered planning a coup. Instead, the dangerous riot was more likely a one-time assault than an ongoing “armed insurrection.”
Last summer during the nationwide Antifa and Black Lives Matter civil unrest, more than 280 retired top-ranking officers and security officials signed a letter blasting President Trump’s consideration of sending in federal troops to restore calm. They claimed the mere idea “risks sullying the reputation of our men and women in uniform in the eyes of their fellow Americans and of the world.”
OK—yet none of those signees voiced objections when the Pentagon recently oversaw 30,000 National Guard troops within the borders of our capital.
The military has announced it is now conducting internal audits to root out American soldiers suspected of harboring supposedly dangerous ideas. What is going on?
One, the Left now dotes on what it envisions will soon be a woke military. It believes the chain of command can green-light progressive social changes—from women in combat units to subsidies for transgender transition surgeries to timely displays of massive force on the streets of Washington—without bureaucratic red tape or opposition from Congress.
Two, federal agencies in therapeutic fashion often dilute their traditional missions to accommodate social awareness agendas.
Under Barack Obama, NASA director Charles Bolden, a retired Air Force major general, sought to reset the space agency: “Perhaps foremost, he [Obama] wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering.”
“Feel good” does not ensure rockets reach outer space.
Three, there grows a new class rift between the rank-and-file military and the Pentagon’s top current and retired brass.
Increasingly, some brass spend extended tenures inside the Pentagon or within the beltway attached to the White House or Congress. They master the contours of the military-industrial complex, and profit from them upon retirement. Many acquiesce to now-orthodox progressive ideology omnipresent among federal bureaucracies and much of the Congress.
Whereas all administrations used to prioritize traditional military preparedness, now leftist administrations see the military foremost as a tool for accelerating their own progressive domestic changes.
The elite military echelon adjusts—given that careers and promotions are either enhanced or sidetracked accordingly.
As a result, many of our top brass often are far more politicized than in the past and can grow more ideologically distant from their own lower-ranking officer corps and enlisted personnel.
This recent extraordinary, thin-skinned Pentagon effort to lump Tucker Carlson in with critics like the Communist Chinese military is one more illustration of this far larger—and increasingly dangerous—pathology.
----------------------------- Victor Davis Hanson (@VDHanson) is a senior fellow, classicist and historian and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution where many of his articles are found; his focus is classics and military history. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush.Tags:Victor Davis Hanson, Who Is, Our Military’s Enemy?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 Left's Big Plan, Exploiting Another Tragedy, Fighting Back
Gary Bauer
by Gary Bauer : The Left's Big Plan
We've been telling you about all the things the Biden Administration is saying that are encouraging illegal immigrants to head to the border. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki did it again yesterday.
She was confronted by a reporter who asked if there was a limit to the number of children showing up at the border that we would take in. Psaki's answer was essentially, "No." She said:
"We are taking steps to ensure that when kids come to the border, we look and see if they have a phone number in their pocket so we can call the family member [in the U.S.] and get them to those family members as quickly as possible. Our policy continues to be, we are not going to send a 10-year-old back across the border."
So, there you have it -- yet another huge green light for migrants to quickly rush their children to the border.
Once that illegal migrant child is in Omaha, Nebraska, the legal process to bring in their parents is set in motion because the child is the "legal" anchor to bring in other family members.
By the way, President Biden conceded the other day that most of these "children" showing up at the border are not young kids. They are in fact 16 and 17-year-olds. Even worse, some are adults claiming they are 17.
Biden's election and his executive orders repealing President Trump's border security policies predictably created a crisis at the border. And now we're all arguing about the word "crisis." But we're not even talking about the same thing.
To conservatives, who believe that border security is national security, the crisis is that hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens are pouring into our country, largely unvetted. The crisis is that our borders are not secure, and are, effectively, meaningless.
But many on our side seem to be falling into the trap of thinking that Biden stupidly made an error when he repealed Trump policies, and is compounding it by using the wrong rhetoric.
My friends, this was not an error. Biden and the progressives know exactly what they are doing. They know exactly what they are doing when they say things like Psaki said yesterday. None of that is a crisis to the left. It is their intended public policy.
Many progressives proudly proclaim that "demography is destiny," and they want to demographically transform the United States. By doing so, they can politically flip state after state, as we have seen in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and now even in Texas.
That's not a crisis for the left. Massive immigration into the country, whether legal or illegal, is the goal. Again, you don't have to take my word for it.
That's the whole reason the left is all in for open borders policies.
And that's why Speaker Nancy Pelosi is ramming through two amnesty bills in the House of Representatives today.
The Left's PR Crisis
The crisis for the left is that none of this is popular with the American people, but it is happening so rapidly that the average American is noticing it. In other words, for the left this is merely a public relations crisis that needs to be quickly contained.
But make no mistake about it: Joe Biden and other administration officials are not incompetent. They're not saying, "Don't come now so we can build more border wall and hire more Border Patrol agents." They're saying, "Don't come now because we can't welcome you and process you fast enough."
The only unintended consequence is that the illegal immigration is happening too fast and is too obvious.
The bottom line is that Democrats are putting the demands of non-citizens and their political self-interest ahead of the American people. They are bringing in massive numbers of people who will compete for American jobs and burden taxpayers, all with the goal of securing political power.
McConnell's Warning
I am glad Senator Mitch McConnell made his speech Tuesday warning Democrats against eliminating the filibuster. But I think one of his arguments is a dead end.
He said that majorities are "never permanent" and that someday Republicans will be "back in the saddle." He then rattled off an agenda that would please every conservative that could be passed with just 51 votes the next time the GOP takes the Senate.
I hope Sen. McConnell doesn't actually believe that. If Democrats get rid of the filibuster, they will ram through things like H.R. 1, which would nationalize election laws and make permanent all the things that enable widespread voter fraud.
They will severely restrict religious liberty and Second Amendment rights. They will pack the courts and pass a massive amnesty.
If Democrats can pass these bills, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, for conservatives to win another election. And that's exactly why they want to eliminate the filibuster. This isn't about policy. It's about raw partisan power politics.
Exploiting Another Tragedy
As you know, there were terrible murders Tuesday at several Georgia spas or massage parlors. Eight people, including six Asian Americans, were killed.
Many on the left attempted to exploit the tragedy by blaming Donald Trump. Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer immediately planted the idea that this was another example of white supremacy and racial hate crimes against Asian Americans.
The Atlanta police have said that there is no indication – none – that this had anything to do with the fact that the victims were Asian. The perpetrator was mentally disturbed. He had been visiting these parlors and claimed that he was addicted to sex. When he cracked, he brutally murdered the women he felt were causing him to sin.
So, why would the president and the Senate majority leader not wait even one day before blaming it all on America's "systemic racism"? Well, that's just part of the left's general narrative now. They want to drive home the idea that we are a racist country and that white supremacists are the danger.
By the way, the data does suggest that there is an increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans. It's occurring mostly in urban areas that are liberal bastions of Trump haters.
Most big city mayors won't release the data on who is committing hate crimes in cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco. But periodically surveillance video is released, and those videos show that the attackers of Asians are often other minorities.
Sadly, there's a history of such attacks that goes back many years. (Here and here.) That's not Donald Trump's fault. Nor is it evidence of America's "systemic racism." It is evidence of sin that has no skin color.
Fighting Back
More than 20 state attorneys general are suing the Biden Administration for canceling the Keystone XL pipeline. Their lawsuit claims that Biden exceeded his constitutional authority in canceling the project, which had approval from Congress.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen blasted Biden's order canceling the pipeline as "empty virtue signaling," adding, "It shows Biden's contempt for rural communities in Montana and other states along the pipeline's path that would benefit from and support the project."
And kudos to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis! The governor is proposing to revamp the Sunshine State's civics curricula, and he drew a hard line against the radical left, saying:
"Let me be clear: There is no room in our classrooms for things like critical race theory. Teaching kids to hate their country and to hate each other is not worth one red cent of taxpayer money."
------------------------- Gary Bauer (@GaryLBauer) is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working FamiliesTags:Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, The Left's Big Plan, Exploiting Another Tragedy, Fighting BackTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
Tags:editorial cartoon, AF Branco, What CrisisTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
House Republicans Demand Immediate End to Biden’s Disastrous Border Policies
At least four individuals on the FBI’s terrorist screening database have come across our border illegally in recent months. Apprehensions at the border jumped 28 percent last month compared to January. by Catherine Mortensen: Democrats are blaming the massive new surge of illegal aliens at the border on former President Donald Trump. But the facts tell a different story. This week House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy led a 10-member GOP House delegation to the U.S.-Mexico border on a fact-finding mission.
Apprehensions at the border jumped 28 percent last month compared to January. Of the more than 100,000 people apprehended, nearly a third were unaccompanied minors. McCarthy said this is clearly Biden’s border crisis and blamed the president’s catch-and-release policies for inviting migrants to make a dangerous trek to the U.S.
“Every part of what we sat and talked to, we learned more of how it was created,” McCarthy said at a news conference at the border this week. “Congressman Jimenez talked to a family from Honduras and asked how long they’d been traveling, 22 days, just a coincidence of the actions taken by President Biden of why people think they can come here and break the law.”
McCarthy also said people on the FBI’s terrorist screening database watch list had come across the border in recent months.
“I just left a few border agents and I asked them, ‘Who are the individuals you’re catching?’ Yeah, they’re from Central America. But you know who else? Iran, Yemen, Sri Lanka,” explained McCarthy. “When I walked through the facility, there was more Haitians than any other nationality I saw. And why were they coming now? You asked the border agents, they were shocked themselves because they’re being released into the country.”
Democrats immediately questioned McCarthy’s claims, The Washington Post reported. Representative Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) described McCarthy’s words in a tweet as “weird.” Given his role as chairman of the House Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations, Gallego said it was odd that he hadn’t heard anything of terrorists arriving at the border.
Weird as the Chairman of the subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations and a border state member of Congress haven’t heard anything about this. Gonna ask for a briefing. Pretty sure he is either wrong or lying. https://t.co/retrzeUPxV
But Axios news has since confirmed with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection that in fact, since October, four people on the FBI watch list have come into our country over our southern border.
McCarthy also expressed concerns about the spread of Covid from illegals coming across the border.
“More than 10% are testing positive, while they’re being stored together,” McCarthy shared. “In a time when the president will keep our country closed, when maybe we have hope for a 4th of July to get together just with our family, how much spread of COVID is he creating every single day by his policies along this border? It’s wrong, and it has to end and it needs to end now.”
When Donald Trump was President, Democrat members of Congress couldn’t run to the border fast enough for photoshoots condemning his border security policies.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) introduced the Protect America First Act to end Biden’s border crisis by halting all immigration for four years, funding and building the wall, expediting the deportation of illegal aliens, rescinding DACA & DAPA, and other measures protecting our national sovereignty.
In a press release, Greene said, “The ‘Protect America First Act is the most comprehensive and thorough piece of border security legislation to be introduced in the 117th Congress. When enacted into law, the Protect America First Act will end the flood of illegal border crossings unleashed during the first 50 days of the Biden administration.
“Joe Biden is rewarding human traffickers and coyotes who smuggle illegal aliens across the border. My bill will end these Democrat-created incentives by stopping all immigration during the Biden administration. The ‘Protect America First Act’ will fund and finish the wall, defund sanctuary cities, expedite removal of illegal aliens, repeals Biden’s radical executive orders, and so much more.”
The bill would continue building the southern border wall and name it after Trump, defund sanctuary cities, among other issues including, according to Greene’s website:
Enact a four-year moratorium on immigration and accelerate the time between apprehension and deportation.
Ensure the safe return of unaccompanied alien children, reduces human trafficking, increases deportation for criminal aliens, and ends chain migration.
Expedite removal of illegal aliens from three months to 30 days.
Support local law Enforcement in their execution of immigration policy
Empower ICE to detain and deport violent criminal aliens
Revive Trump’s Zero Tolerance Immigration Policy
Rescind Biden’s immigration executive orders
Revoke Deferred Action on Child Aliens (DACA) and Deferred Action on Parental Accountability (DAPA)
Remove funding for Central and South American Countries whose citizens violate the Act by migrating here illegally.
“We have got to put a halt to everything happening to our country,” Greene told Newsmax TV earlier this week. You see, the Democrats are radically changing America, and they’re doing that right now on our southern border. There’s so many people coming across they can’t even keep up with it. Look at all these thousands of children. They’re actually overcrowding.
By eliminating all of Trump’s strong border security executive orders, Biden is putting American lives at risk. It will be difficult for Republicans to pass tough border security measures in Congress, but they may be able to add language in House and Senate appropriation bills to address aspects of the crisis.
----------------------- Catherine Mortensen is Vice President of Communications at Americans for Limited Government.Tags:Catherine Mortensen, House Republicans, Demand Immediate End, Biden, Disastrous Border PoliciesTo 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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