Spiking the Osama Football

AF "Tony Branco:

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Tags: Barack Obama, spikinhg the ball, Osama Bin Laden, Mitt Romney, the economy, AF Branco, political cartoon To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Region 6 EPA administrator Al Armednariz resigned

EPA Region 6 Director Al Armendariz
on video advocating abusing
businesses and people using the
Roman crucifixion approach

Today, Region 6 EPA administrator Al Armednariz resigned today, days after his comments comparing his enforcement philosophy to crucifixions surfaced in a since-deleted YouTube video.

Armednariz apologized last week, calling his comments “an offensive and inaccurate way to portray our efforts to address potential violations of our nation’s environmental laws.”

In a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson sent Sunday, Al Armendariz says he regrets his words and stresses that they do not reflect his work as administrator of the five-state region including Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

For prior comments with link to video visit: Obama administration official apologizing

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Tags: EPA, Region 6, Al Armendariz, resigns, video, abusing businesses, people, Roman crucifixion To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Entitlement Spending Will Nearly Double by 2050

by Alison Meyer, Harrison Investigates: President Obama has called Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget “an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country,” but as this week’s chart illustrates, if something radical doesn’t happen, entitlement spending will nearly double by 2050. The amount of spending on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Obamacare subsidies will soar over the next 38 years, leaving future generations with an alarming debt burden.

Congressional Budget Office predictions show that in 2010 entitlement spending attributes 10.3 percent of GDP, then jumps to 19 percent of GDP by 2050. David John, Heritage’s senior research fellow in retirement Security and financial institutions, explains why in the context of last week’s Social Security trustees report:

The April 23 report shows that all people who receive Social Security benefits face about a 25 percent benefit cut as soon as 2033—three years earlier than predicted in last year’s report. The program’s long-term deficit is now larger than it was before the 1983 reforms. In order to pay all of its promised benefits, Social Security would require massive annual injections of general revenue tax money in addition to what the program receives from payroll taxes.

Starting in 2010, Social Security began to permanently spend more than it takes in. From now on, Social Security will require large and growing amounts of general revenue money in order to pay all of its promised benefits. Even though this money will come technically from cashing in the special-issue bonds in the trust fund, the money to repay those bonds will come from other tax collections or borrowing. The billions that go to Social Security each year will make it harder to find money for other government programs or will require large and growing tax increases.

The expansion of these entitlement programs translates to higher taxes. “Unless Congress acts soon,” John writes, “younger workers can look forward to paying full Social Security taxes throughout their careers but receiving only about 75 percent or less of the benefits that have been promised to them.”

The problem extends to Medicare as well. Like other entitlement programs, it’s also on an unsustainable path, a situation made even more dire by Obamacare. That’s why Heritage has offered a plan that would reduce the debt and fix the entitlement crisis. It’s called Saving the American Dream, and like Ryan’s budget proposal, it actually solves problems rather than punting them to a future generation.

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Tags: Chart of the Week, congressional budget office, entitlement spending, medicaid, medicare, Obamacare, Paul Ryan, Saving the American Dream, social security, Heritage Investigates To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Enough Talk, Grow up, Do Your Job!

Bankrupting America: In our latest video for Bankrupting America, we urge you to get involved. Contact your senator at 1-888-760-7997 and let them know that you are tired of the finger pointing and want them to do their job. Urge the Senate to pass a budget after nearly 3 years! Make sure to tell your family, friends and contacts to call in as we kick off our online advocacy campaign!


When you are finished with viewing our web video, take a look at the 30 second version that ran on TV this week! Click here to view.

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Tags: Budget, Budget pass, Debt, Deficit, fiscal, fiscal policy, economics, economy, jobs, unemployment, Washington, wasteful spending, no budget, no pay To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Remarks on CyberSecurity and More Bad News From Solyndra . . .

. . . Is It Fair For Americans To Pay More For Obama's Failed Energy Policies?

Today in Washington, D.C. - April 30, 2012:
The Senate and House are both in recess until Monday May 7th.

On May 7, the Senate will take up 3 district court nominees. On May 8, the Senate is scheduled to vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 2343, a bill dealing with federal student loan interest rates.

Before leaving for recess last week, the House passed the following bills on April 27:
H.R.4849 by unanimous consent - Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks Backcountry Access Act - directs the Secretary of the Interior to issue commercial use authorizations to commercial stock operators for operations in designated wilderness within the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, and for other purposes.
H.R.3834  by unanimous consent - Advancing America's Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Act of 2012
H.R. 4628  (215 - 195) "To extend student loan interest rates for undergraduate Federal Direct Stafford Loans."

Cybersecurity Bills:
Also, H.R. 2096 was passed 395 - 10) -- Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2011 (really 2012). The bill was to "advance cybersecurity research, development, and technical standards, and for other purposes." The Cybersecurity Enhancement Act would mandate the creation of security automation standards and checklists by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which would be guidelines for agencies rather than requirements. NIST also would cooperate on the development of international security standards, as well as the standards for cloud computing. There is no companion bill in the Senate which is considering its own series of cybersecurity bills. This bill may well die in the Senate if the Senate does not take up the bill.

Obviously the passage of this bill was not as controversial as the bill passed the day before and detailed next.

On Thursday, April 26, the House also passed (248 - 168) H.R. 3523: Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) - To provide for the sharing of certain cyber threat intelligence and cyber threat information between the intelligence community and cybersecurity entities, and for other purposes. Most of the Republicans voting in favor and most of the Democrats voting against. Regardless of how people voted; the arguments surround who gets what and who can do what to whom. The goal of the bill was to make it easier for corporations and the government to share information about potential cybersecurity issues. However, it appears the bill will also allow web companies to share virtually any information about their users with the government, without a court order. Ouch - privacy laws appear not to apply.

The sponsor of the bill Representative Mike Rogers (R-MI) said, “We can’t stand by and do nothing as U.S. companies are hemorrhaging from the cyber looting coming from nation states like China and Russia.” Bloomberk BusinessWeek reported that "Hackers and illicit programmers in China and Russia are aggressively pursuing American technology and industrial secrets, jeopardizing an estimated $398 billion in U.S. research spending, the National Counterintelligence Executive, the agency responsible for countering foreign spying on the U.S. government, said in a November report."

Bloomberg also identified the opposition from the White House who is threatening a veto if the bill makes it through the Senate. “As we’ve seen repeatedly, once the government gets expansive national security authorities, there’s no going back,” Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said in an e-mailed statement after the House vote. “We encourage the Senate to let this horrible bill fade into obscurity.”

It does appears there is a problem which needs to be addressed! But it is strange to find the Republicans on the opposite side of protecting individual's privacy. I expect we will see the death of this bill and a "do over" in the new Congress next year.

More on Solyndra:
Politico reports today, “Republicans are hoping to keep Solyndra alive this summer with a series of hearings and legislation to reform the Energy Department loan guarantee program. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), an Energy and Commerce subcommittee chairman, said a bill is being drafted, and he expects it could be on the House floor in July. ‘We’ve got an outline,’ Stearns told POLITICO. The intent is to ‘make sure the Department of Energy can’t give money out to companies where the marketing information is clear that it’s going to go bankrupt,’ he said. This includes ‘better tools of management and accountability.’ Stearns wants to add punitive measures to the 2005 Energy Policy Act, which Republicans say the Obama administration violated when it restructured the $535 million Solyndra loan guarantee. ‘Right now, it’s not clear. So a lot of people say, “Well, even if we broke the law, the administration will say, ‘So what, there’s no punishment.’” So we want to tighten that up.’

“To that end, Stearns is planning three additional hearings. The first hearing could come in late May or early June and involve administration officials from the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Energy and Treasury departments, he said. A second hearing would follow shortly and would include the committee’s final report on Solyndra. A third hearing, he said, would probably be held on the legislation being drafted. Stearns said the Republicans are taking a skeptical look at the administration’s job creation numbers. ‘We’re also looking at the impact of all these loan guarantees and what jobs they created,’ Stearns said. ‘We found that a number of jobs created by these have been negligible for the amount of money, and we want to make the point that this green energy has not produced the jobs that the president has continued to talk about.’”

Meanwhile, according to CBS San Francisco, “Three months ago, CBS 5 caught Solyndra tossing millions of dollars worth of brand new glass tubes used to make solar panels. Now the bankrupt solar firm, once touted as a symbol of green technology, may be trying to abandon toxic waste. . . . Solyndra leased a building on California Circle for the final assembly of its solar panels. But the cleanup at the leased building in Milpitas is in limbo, because Solyndra doesn’t want to pay. CBS 5 found the building locked up, with no one around. At the back, a hazardous storage area was found. There were discarded buckets half filled with liquids and barrels labeled ‘hazardous waste.’ . . . “Essentially it looks like they left a pretty big mess behind,” San Jose State Assistant Professor Dustin Mulvaney told CBS 5. Mulvaney has written a white paper on solar industry waste for the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. Looking at CBS 5’s video, Mulvaney said it’s hard to tell how much hazardous waste is at the Milpitas facility. But he said one thing is for sure. ‘Materials labeled hazardous waste require a lot more protocol, so it’s actually a lot more expensive to clean,’ Mulvaney said. ‘It’s very sad looking at this facility taken apart like this, because a lot of money went into building this.’”

And despite the Solyndra mess President Obama is still going around the country touting his administration’s spending on the type of programs that led to this $500 million debacle. He’s been demanding “fairness,” embodied in tax hikes like the Buffett Tax and a new tax on American energy producers, so he and fellow Democrats can spend ever more taxpayer money on “investments” like Solyndra and other bankrupt “green energy” companies. Yet he still refuses to approve the Keystone XL pipeline or other commonsense energy policies that could lower energy prices.

As Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has said, “That’s this President’s notion of fairness: that struggling Americans pay more at the pump while their tax dollars go to prop up solar companies like Solyndra and the executives who run them into the ground. Well, I don’t think it’s particularly fair for people who are out there trying to scrape a living together to subsidize bonuses for folks who wouldn’t even have a business card without a taxpayer hand-out. But that’s the economy this President wants. That’s what his policies lead to. That’s his vision.”

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Tags: Washington, D.C., Congress, CyberSecurity, More Bad News, Solyndra, Obama Administration, Failed Energy Policies To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Barack Obama's Unfulfilled Promise

Jim Mullen

by Jim Mullen, Contributing Author: In the storied history of our nation, in times of crises, the cream of the American populace blessed our country by rising to the top. When great leadership was required, honorable men stepped forward out of a sense of duty and service to lead our Republic with strength, honor, bravery, and wisdom.

Unfortunately, however, there were times it seemed we picked our leaders from the squalid backwaters of society and discovered that pond scum also rises to the top.

Most Americans recoil in disgust when shameful, corrupt, politicians use the sacred trust of the people for their own self-gratifying ideology or enrichment. Inversely, the nation reveres the heroes who answer the clarion call of leadership when we face hardship or peril. Since the birth of our republic, men were always there to lead the country to extraordinary victories in times of the most trying adversities.

Likewise, when the nation was afflicted with thieves, crooks, liars, and wannabe tyrants, good men repaired much of the damage inflicted by political scumbags and restored the country to reasonable health.

The leftwing media and Democrats foisted Barack Obama upon America, promising a President to make Lincoln proud. As it turned out, we got a charlatan masterfully trained in the art of misdirection and deception by the words of Saul Alinsky and Karl Marx. A man with a personal agenda so radically anti-American, that he surely would not be President if properly vetted.

Just when the country needed a man trained and skilled in economics to lead us to a proven and self-sustaining, free enterprise system, we got a Marxist that believes in a redistributive economy controlled by an all-powerful, centralized federal government. We needed a man to create an atmosphere conducive to job creation by private business, but we got a sworn enemy of capitalism and the free enterprise system who believes in the failed premise that government must create jobs and control commerce.

When Americans needed a CEO, we got a community-organizing activist. When we needed a General, we got an apologist. Promised a Statesman, we got a President who alienated our friends, encouraged and gave comfort to our enemies from his first day in office. We need a Churchill we got Neville Chamberlain.

The media assured us he was a President who would heal and unite the country. We got a man who looks under every rock for racism and turns up every corner of every issue looking for insensitivity and political correctness. Obama fans the flames of divisiveness like none other in the history of the presidency. He fails in all that is important to a free people and blames his failures on others. Dividing everyone by class, race, gender, religion, and national origin is his only hope for reelection. He offers excuses, blame, and bravado, none of which solves problems, creates jobs or furthers the national interest.

When we needed straight talk, we chose a man who parses every word and speaks in riddles and talking points driven by daily polling. Obama is a man who reinvents the language and can’t call anything by its proper name. “War on terror" is now "overseas contingency operations," "terrorist attacks" became “man caused disasters, “war is now defined as “kinetic military action,” and of course, “illegal alien” is “undocumented immigrant.” He commits gaffe after gaffe when unable to use his prompter or textbook talking points from Alinsky and his leftists. When asked a simple question he often rambles on and on with incoherent, babble.

They promised a man who would show the country, especially its young people, thrift and “hope” for the future. We elected a man who will pile an unimaginable additional debt on the nation and its youth by the end of his first term of nearly 5 trillion dollars. The same young people to whom he preaches conservation will find crushing obligations to enable Obama and his idealistic dictatorship.

Welfare rolls skyrocketed over 40 percent and reached numbers never before witnessed in America. Obama changed the old middle class into the new welfare class. The more he implements his Marxist ideas the greater numbers he adds to permanent government dependency.

We needed a President to surround himself with knowledgeable, ethical experts, and true American Patriots. We got Barack Obama, a wholly owned subsidiary of the radical left-wing of this country. His list of friends, acquaintances, cabinet members, tsars, and White House staff reads like the who’s who of radical 60’s terrorists, and modern-day revolutionaries. Bombers, rioters, Communists, Marxists, Maoists, socialists and myriads of other misfits, permeate not only his inner circle, but unfortunately work tirelessly pulling the strings of government and remaking the country into Obama’s perverted delusion of what America really is.

He appointed an Attorney General with a racial agenda, a Treasury Secretary that had problems paying his own taxes, and a Secretary of State who believes in One World Government and works with the United Nations to usurp constitutional rights of Americans.

When we needed a man who had overcome the experiences and trials of life, we got a dysfunctional product of a Nanny state government, obsessed with “fairness” and “social Justice”. He believes in a system where hammocks and feather-beds of big government softens failures and is always there to protect people from themselves and from life. Leftists never understand the need for failure in providing guidance in the pursuit of life’s goals and the building of character. Protected from real-life experiences like meeting payrolls, and disappointing failure, they never build quality leadership abilities. Neither can they develop the proper circuitry in their brains for critical thinking.

Barack Obama is a cold, calculating, Marxist, consumed by bitterness. He spends every waking moment ranting about the unfairness of America and disparaging American exceptionalism. He is hitched to the rail of progressive group thinking and incapable of offering unbridled leadership in a free republic. In all of his arrogance, he consistently compares himself to the strong, individualistic pioneer, Abraham Lincoln; while he’s more aptly an ideologically driven, more deadly version of Jimmy Carter.

In Obama’s latest class warfare jab at Mitt Romney, he smirked that he wasn’t born with a “silver spoon” in his mouth. He has grown and thrived, however, with a “golden-government spoon” in his mouth and a feeding tube connected directly to taxpayers. He rails against the rich jet setters flying around the world, while he and his family’s intricate, massive spider webs of contrails fill the sky. He crisscrosses the country running his progressive-Marxist flag up the “elect Obama” pole trying to find the political winds to make it fly. He knows the winds increase as the welfare roles swell.

Disillusionment, turmoil, fear, and discontent are prevalent at times within any group of people or country. Politicians feed and thrive on these facts of life just as all predators feed on the fear of their prey. With Barack Obama in the White House, the federal government is a predator, and the American people are the prey. If Americans scatter, out of fear and helplessness, we will surely become victims and the nation that our founders gave us will fall. Freedom lovers in this country must unite and stand to fight this tyrant before he devours all of our liberty!
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Jim Mullen of Parkersburg, West Virginia is a Republican conservative activist. He is a contributing author  for the ARRA News Service, Conservative Voices, Parkersburg Conservative Examiner and his personal site, Freedom For Us Now.

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Obama Establishes Political Hit List

Kimberly Strassel, Wall Street Journal : . . . You decide to donate money to Mitt Romney. You want change in the Oval Office, so you engage in your democratic right to send a check.

Several days later, President Barack Obama, the most powerful man on the planet, singles you out by name. His campaign brands you a Romney donor, shames you for "betting against America," and accuses you of having a "less-than-reputable" record. The message from the man who controls the Justice Department (which can indict you), the SEC (which can fine you), and the IRS (which can audit you), is clear: You made a mistake donating that money. . . .

Unlike senators or congressmen, presidents alone represent all Americans. Their powers—to jail, to fine, to bankrupt—are also so vast as to require restraint. Any president who targets a private citizen for his politics is de facto engaged in government intimidation and threats. This is why presidents since Nixon have carefully avoided the practice.

Save Mr. Obama, who acknowledges no rules. This past week, one of his campaign websites posted an item entitled "Behind the curtain: A brief history of Romney's donors." In the post, the Obama campaign named and shamed eight private citizens who had donated to his opponent. Describing the givers as all having "less-than-reputable records," the post went on to make the extraordinary accusations that "quite a few" have also been "on the wrong side of the law" and profiting at "the expense of so many Americans."

These are people like Paul Schorr and Sam and Jeffrey Fox, investors who the site outed for the crime of having "outsourced" jobs. T. Martin Fiorentino is scored for his work for a firm that forecloses on homes. Louis Bacon (a hedge-fund manager), Kent Burton (a "lobbyist") and Thomas O'Malley (an energy CEO) stand accused of profiting from oil. Frank VanderSloot, the CEO of a home-products firm, is slimed as a "bitter foe of the gay rights movement."

These are wealthy individuals, to be sure, but private citizens nonetheless. Not one holds elected office. Not one is a criminal. Not one has the barest fraction of the position or the power of the U.S. leader who is publicly assaulting them. . . .

The real crime of the men, as the website tacitly acknowledges, is that they have given money to Mr. Romney. This fundraiser of a president has shown an acute appreciation for the power of money to win elections, and a cutthroat approach to intimidating those who might give to his opponents.

He's targeted insurers, oil firms and Wall Street—letting it be known that those who oppose his policies might face political or legislative retribution. He lectured the Supreme Court for giving companies more free speech and (falsely) accused the Chamber of Commerce of using foreign money to bankroll U.S. elections. The White House even ginned up an executive order (yet to be released) to require companies to list political donations as a condition of bidding for government contracts. Companies could bid but lose out for donating to Republicans. Or they could quit donating to the GOP—Mr. Obama's real aim. . . .

The Obama campaign has justified any action on the grounds that it has a right to "hold the eventual Republican nominee accountable," but this is a dodge. Politics is rough, but a president has obligations that transcend those of a candidate. He swore an oath to protect and defend a Constitution that gives every American the right to partake in democracy, free of fear of government intimidation or disfavored treatment. If Mr. Obama isn't going to act like a president, he bolsters the argument that he doesn't deserve to be one. [Read Full Article]
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Shared for "education purposes" under the Fair Use Doctrine. Also shared because Kimberly Strassel article is worth reading and not everyone reads the WSJ.

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Tags: President Obama, Hit list To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Senate Democrats “Celebrate” - Three Years Without A Budget

by Andrew Stiles, Washington Free Beacon: Sunday, April 29, 2012, is an anniversary unprecedented in the history of American politics, marking three years since the Democratic-led Senate last complied with federal law by passing a budget.

The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 stipulates that Congress must approve a budget resolution by April 15 of each year. In the Senate, only 51 votes are needed to pass a budget, as budgets are one of the few pieces of legislation invulnerable to a filibuster. Democrats currently control 53 seats.

Democratic lawmakers have offered myriad excuses for their refusal to offer a budget, none of which hold up to scrutiny, critics say.

Most recently, Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad (D., N.D.) has suggested it would be politically unfeasible to present a budget during a presidential election year.

“If one is interested in really getting a result, the time is not yet right,” he told reporters earlier this month. “I don’t rule out being able to act more quickly. But I think the greater likelihood is it won’t come until the election.”

Few doubt that campaign politics are a motivating factor in the Democrats’ decision. More than 20 Senate Democrats are up for reelection in November, and many Republicans suspect that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) axed Conrad’s intention to propose a budget, hold a formal “mark-up” hearing, and attempt to pass it out of committee in order to spare vulnerable members from casting politically difficult votes on tax hikes, energy policy, health care, and government waste.

But, as National Review’s Rich Lowry has pointed out, Senate Democrats have failed to propose a budget in “every kind of year there is in Washington,” whether during a presidential election (2012), off year (2011), or midterm election (2010).

“By this standard,” Lowry wrote, “the Senate will have an annual excuse not to pass a budget resolution for the rest of time.”

Democrats also contend that the post-election “lame duck” session – the last chance for the current Congress to pass legislation before new members are sworn in – presents an ideal opportunity for a comprehensive budget deal to ward off what leading experts have described as “the most predictable economic crisis in history.”

“I believe people of good faith working together—I think it’s going to be after the election—are going to have an opportunity because all the tax cuts are about to expire,” Conrad said on Fox News.

Congress must act before year’s end to address a number of key policy issues, such as the expiration of the so-called “Bush tax cuts” and the scheduled implementation of $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts that would disproportionately affect the defense budget. Treasury Sec. Timothy Geithner and others have described this as a “fiscal cliff” that will spur lawmakers to compromise.

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, dismissed the idea of a “lame duck” budget deal. “I think the chances of anything happening in the lame duck are zero,” he told the Washington Free Beacon. This is especially true, he argued, in the event that Republicans hold the House and regain control of the Senate, as many election analysts are projecting.

“If Republicans hold the House and win the Senate—even if they don’t win the presidency—why in the world would they negotiate?” Norquist said. “Whichever party does better in the election is going to want to wait until after the lame duck.”

Democrats made a similar argument last year following the bipartisan deal to raise the debt ceiling. Many predicted that the so-called “super committee” established in the deal would reach an agreement because if it did not the aforementioned $1.2 trillion spending would go into effect. The committee failed.

The 2011 debt ceiling deal—known as the Budget Control Act (BCA)—is often invoked by Senate Democrats to explain their decision not to offer a budget this year.

“It is important to remember that we already have a budget for this year and next,” Conrad said in a statement. “The Budget Control Act provided us with spending limits and enforcement measures for 2012 and 2013. It is the law of the land.”

Reid implored the Senate’s chief rule-keeper to determine that the BCA precluded the Senate from voting on any other budget resolutions, such as those proposed by President Obama and House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.). Reid’s contention was rejected.

While it is true that bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress ultimately supported the BCA, every leading Democrat, including Reid, Obama, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), initially opposed attaching any spending cuts to the president’s request for a $2.4 trillion increase to the federal borrowing limit.
In an effort to duck responsibility for not passing a budget, Norquist said, Democrats are seeking cover behind a law they fought every step of the way.

Furthermore, though Democrats criticized House Republicans for passing a budget that would spend slightly less than the maximum amount allowed under the BCA, they voted overwhelmingly in favor of a postal service reform bill that increased spending by $34 billion above the BCA spending cap.

“What’s interesting about Democrats not doing a budget for three years is that they don’t believe their plans for the future on spending and taxes are popular,” Norquist said. “If they believed their plan was coherent and would generate popular support, they would rush to put it out in front of everybody.”

Conrad has proposed a “long-term plan”—not a budget, he insists—in the form of the 2010 Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission report, a series of recommendations presented in non-legislative language.

Obama authorized the report by executive order but has not endorsed it. Senate Democrats are no more eager to embrace it.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.) said she “[doesn’t] agree with everything” in Bowles-Simpson, but praised its “balanced approach,” referring to its sizable tax increases. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) expressed “deep concerns” with the report.

In addition to neglecting to pass a budget in three years, Senate Democrats have yet to cast a single affirmative vote on any budget resolution. When Obama’s budget came to a vote last year, every single Democrat voted against it.

They have also savaged the proposals offered in Ryan’s House budgets.

“Obama has been attempting to run against a do-nothing Congress,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) told the Washington Free Beacon. “What we have is a do-nothing Harry Reid Senate. House Republicans have fulfilled their responsibility and put forward a serious proposal. Senate Democrats have done virtually nothing.”
“They simply don’t want to be held accountable,” Johnson added. “Either they don’t have a plan, or they are totally unwilling tell the American people what their plan is.”

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said he thought the latter statement was true. “I actually think they do have a plan,” he told the Free Beacon. “Their goal is to increase spending and increase taxes. But that plan will be rejected by the American people.”

Even left-wing political commentator Chris Matthews has suggested this was the case. “Would Democrats deal with debt if they had complete control of the government?” he asked on his MSNBC show “Hardball.” “I wonder if the public would put up with the tax level they might impose, don’t you?”

Analysts at the Senate Budget Committee have calculated that the Bowles-Simpson report, as proposed by Conrad, contains no spending cuts as compared to current law, and would raise taxes by $600 billion more than Obama has proposed.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office calculated last week that Obama’s budget would have a detrimental effect on long-term economic growth and would add an additional $3.5 trillion to the federal budget deficit, as compared to current law.

Neither plan proposes to meaningfully reform the federal entitlement programs that are the leading drivers of the debt and deficit. “It’s not as if I have to say their plan is no stinking good,” Norquist said. “They think that. That’s why they’re hiding it.”

In the meantime, the longer the country goes without a credible solution to the coming fiscal crisis, the more debt the federal government continues to accumulate. The national debt was $11.2 trillion when the Senate Democrats last passed a budget. Today, three years later, it is $15.6 trillion and counting.

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Tags: Democrats, US Senate, Harry Reid, no budget, three years. 3 yrs, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

How Was Your Vacation?

Gary Bauer

Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: How many vacations have you taken to Hawaii or Spain in the past three years? What's that -- you didn't get one, much less to two such exotic locations? I know the economy has been tough, but you certainly paid for them!

Barack and Michelle Obama are taking a lot of heat today for their lavish lifestyle. While millions of Americans are struggling in the wake of the Great Recession, reports that the Obamas have enjoyed so many lavish vacations since moving into the White House have many taxpayers steaming mad.

According to recent focus group surveys, blue collar Democrats are "resentful" that the Obamas are taking so many vacations at taxpayer expense. One such trip to Spain by Michelle Obama in 2010 cost taxpayers nearly $470,000. According to one report, the Obama's 17-day Christmas vacation to Hawaii cost us $4 million!

It's interesting that while Obama's main attack against Mitt Romney is based on class warfare, he's regularly hosting outlandish parties at the White House, taking really expensive vacations and playing more than 90 rounds of golf! One commentator remarked that Obama wants us to be more upset about how Mitt Romney spends his own money than we are about how Obama is spending our money!

By the way, the first lady said recently that it was her fantasy to "walk right out the front door [of the White House] and just keep walking." Millions of Americans share that same fantasy -- just so long as she takes Barack with her. And in 193 days, we'll get to make that dream come true!

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Tags: vacations, vacation trips, BarackObama, Michelle Obama To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Celebrity In Chief And His Record

Readers may wish to comment on meaning or type of presidential record that political cartoonist A.F. Branco was detailing in the below cartoon. Please Leave your comments.

A.F. "Tony" Branco:

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Tags: A.F. Branco, political cartoon, Barack Obama, Celebrity in Chief, performace record To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Who's Out Of Touch??

Clearly, someone who wastes tax dollars like they're worth less is less out of touch than somebody who successfully earned his own fortune.by William Warren:

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Tags: William Warren, political cartoon, Barack Obama, big spender, OPM, other people's money, Mitt Romney, earned his money, spends his money To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

EPA Roman Crucifixions

Today in Washington, D.C. - April 27, 2011:
The Senate is in recess until Monday, May 7, when it will take up 3 district court nominees

Yesterday, the Senate voted 68-31 to pass S. 1925, Democrats’ bill reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. Prior to passage, the Senate rejected a substitute amendment from Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), which would have kept the bill closer to current law and require more mandatory minimum sentences for sex crimes. Alsorejected was an amendment from Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), which would have required the DoJ to reduce a backlog of DNA tests in open rape investigations. Senators rejected a watered-down version of this amendment offered by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) as well.

Presently the House is set to pass the aka"cybersecurity" bill: HR 3523, the "Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011" (CISPA).  More on this bill will be reported in a seperate article.

Yesterday members of the Sen John Boozman and other members Agriculture committee and American responded to the push back by American Family farmers to the Obama administration  seeking to "dramatically changed the manner in which children could work on farms owned by family members prohibiting them from operating machinery, performing regular livestock tasks and working with raw farm materials."  More about this issue is already posted by ARRA News.

In the Heritage Foundation’s blog today,Lachlan Markay reports, “Explosive video of a top official at the Environmental Protection Agency comparing his enforcement philosophy against oil and gas companies to Roman crucifixions was removed on Thursday by the environmental activist who had uploaded it. ‘This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by David McFatridge,’ reads a message on the video’s YouTube page. . . . The YouTube video’s owner appears to be the same David McFatridge listed as an activist for the radical environmental group the Sierra Club. McFatridge has been active in a number of anti-hydraulic fracturing campaigns. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), who spotlighted the video on Wednesday in a speech on the Senate floor, drew connections from Armendariz’s comments to the EPA’s campaign against hydraulic fracturing, and branded the agency’s efforts a ‘war on fossil fuels.’

In an editorial today, The Wall Street Journal blasts the EPA for these comments: “It's no secret that the bosses at the Environmental Protection Agency hate fossil fuels. But few are as candid as Al Armendariz, the regional administrator who says the agency's ‘general philosophy’ is to ‘crucify’ oil and gas producers. That's how EPA chief Lisa Jackson's point man for Texas, Oklahoma and other south-central states put it in 2010 lecture. Mr. Armendariz explains that his staff's ‘philosophy of enforcement’ is ‘like how the Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean. They'd go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they'd find the first five guys they saw and they would crucify them. And then you know that town was really easy to manage for the next few years.’ The point is to ‘make examples’ of alleged lawbreakers. Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe released video of the speech on Wednesday as part of his investigation into the EPA's now-discredited claims of water contamination due to hydraulic fracturing, including in Parker County, Texas. In that case Mr. Armendariz's shop targeted Range Resources, a driller that has since been exonerated, and his remarks about executions raise questions not only about his own work but the EPA's larger impartiality and judgment."

 As Senate GOP Leader McConnell has addressed this issue, “[T]he President’s ideological outlook and the policies that have grown out of it will only continue to drive up the cost of gasoline at the pump. . . . [H]ere are the facts. This President continues to limit offshore areas to energy production and is granting fewer leases on public land for oil drilling. At the same time, he has encouraged other countries, like Brazil, to move forward with their own offshore drilling projects. The Obama administration continues to impose burdensome regulations on the domestic energy sector that will further drive up the cost of gasoline for the consumer. He’s proposed raising taxes on the energy sector, a move that the Congressional Research Service has said would drive up costs. And, as we all know, he flatly rejected the Keystone XL Pipeline — a potentially game-changing domestic energy project that promises not only greater independence from Middle Eastern oil, but tens of thousands of private sector jobs. All these policies help drive up the cost of gasoline and increase our dependence on foreign sources of oil.”

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Tags: U.S. Senate, Violence Against Women Act, EPA, Roman Crucifixions To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Boozman: Pushback from Family Farmers, Congress Leads to Withdraw of Proposed Farm Child Labor Rule

Bill Smith, Editor: The following was just received and is welcome news.  Although the battle is not over to protect the American culture of family farming!  The abondonment of the proposed rule to apply child labor  laws to work performed by youth on family owned farms is at most temporary.  The Obama administration is simply tamping out the flames before they become critical to the current president's campaign for re-election.  If re-elected, family farming will be further attacked by bureucrats, their oeprations stangled andthey may potentially cease to exist.  The present administration is following the same plans established by more radical governments that swallowed up the control of their country's food supply. 

I was big enough and strong enough to play varsity football from my freshman year and one of the things that kept me in shape was working on farms.  By the time, I was 15 until age 18, I was employed full time on school breaks:  plowing fields, mowing and  bailing hay, milking cows, feeding and cleaning up after cattle and hogs, and much more.  I loved it!  I learned valuable lessons and was kept physically fit.  It it had not been for the Vietnam War and draft, my wife and I may well have become farmers.

Unfortunately, most Americans have no idea of the iportance of the American farmers to both their welfare and that of the world.  The actions by Senator Boozman and others standing against the tide of the government desire to control every aspect of our lives are appreciated.

Withdrawal comes on heels of Boozman Amendment to prevent rule

WASHINGTON D.C. – U.S. Senator John Boozman, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, today applauded the Obama Administration’s abandonment of a proposed rule that would have applied child labor laws to the work performed by youths on their family’s farm.

“Family farming is a core American value. Generations of Americans have earned their livelihood and learned important life lessons safely working their family’s land,” Boozman said. “Therefore, I am pleased to see that the President has ditched this onerous proposed rule. There was no commonsense, science or reason behind this proposal and it seemed to be written by bureaucrats who lack a full understanding of farm operations. This proposed rule was merely another attempt by the federal government to control every aspect of our lives.”

The proposed rule, drafted by the Department of Labor (DOL), would have dramatically changed the manner in which children could work on farms owned by family members prohibiting them from operating machinery, performing regular livestock tasks and working with raw farm materials.

“The Department was under no obligation to issue new regulations and opted not to disclose any information about the process that was used to determine how they arrived at this heavy-handed proposal. They seemed to have embarked on it with the attitude of ‘we know better than you’, which is dangerous when the authors clearly have a limited understanding of how family farms operate,” Boozman said.

The 85-pages of the proposed rule would have gone as far as to strip groups like 4-H and Future Farmers of America (FFA) of the ability to offer agriculture safety training and certification to young Americans, transferring that authority over to the federal government. 

“My daughters are among the millions of Americans who have participated in 4-H and greatly benefitted from that experience. It is absurd to think the government could teach our young people about farm safety better than these groups or their own family members,” Boozman said.

During yesterday’s Farm Bill markup, Boozman offered an amendment to block DOL from issuing the onerous farm child labor regulations by transferring authority over those regulations to the Secretary of Agriculture. While the amendment was withdrawn, it continued the pressure Boozman and his colleagues have been putting on the Obama Administration for months as part of a campaign to stop this proposed rule from moving forward.

“The idea behind the amendment is the need to bring a common-sense perspective to the issue, instead of the far-reaching response proposed by people who don’t have any concept at all about what it is like to be on a family farm. Fortunately, the pressure the agricultural community and Congress put on the Administration was enough to force them to abandon it,” Boozman said.

Along with offering an amendment, Boozman cosponsored the Preserving America's Family Farms Act (S.2221) to prevent DOL from enacting its controversial proposed restrictions on youth working on family farms. He also joined over 30 of his colleagues on a letter to DOL requesting it abandon the proposed rule.

It was great to see some elected officials getting fired up over protecting both the culture of America farming and the farm family.  The above statement was received on the heals of the following message from the "gentle giant" received late yesterday from his staff:

Farm Bill Lacks Protections for Southern Farmers

WASHINGTON D.C. –U.S.Senator John Boozman, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee expressed strong concerns about new commodity programs and lack of protection for southern farmers during today’s Farm Bill markup.

“This nation has a diverse fabric of agriculture with a variety of risks, and we must write a Farm Bill that serves as a safety net for all crops and regions,” said Boozman. “The commodity title, as it is currently written, will have a devastating impact on southern agriculture which relies heavily on irrigation and, therefore, benefits less from Crop Insurance.”

Although the Farm Bill includes important reforms, exceeds required committee spending reductions and eliminates duplicative or obsolete government programs, Boozman is very concerned that the untested, one-size-fits-all revenue plan will not work for southern producers.

“A safety net that works for all our nation’s producers of food and fiber must include producer choices that cover their risk. Although there are choices in this revenue plan to meet the needs of several other crops and regions, this proposal falls short of the protection southern farmers need against multi-year price declines,” Boozman said.

Boozman expressed concerns that a revenue plan may work for some people when prices are high, but a multi-year price decline could expose the gaps in coverage.

“I am very concerned that this proposal is couched in the assumption that we will continue to have these high commodity prices. A revenue plan is attractive when prices are high, but I am not sure there is anything in this plan that protects producers from a multi-year price decline and an untested, one-size-fits-all program, with no producer choice could leave many producers vulnerable,” Boozman said during the markup.

Boozman also expressed concerns about the ability for producers to demonstrate a level of coverage sufficient to get operating loans.

“Even with a reference price, this revenue plan may not even be strong enough for our farmers to get operating loans,” Boozman said during the markup.

Boozman believes that the bill does not do enough to end waste and abuse in the nutrition program and reinvest those savings in ways that fight hunger and encourage nutrition. For this reason, he introduced an amendment to fully close the LIHEAP loophole, saving $13.9 billion. The amendment would reinvest some of the savings by increasing reimbursement rates for the School Breakfast and Lunch programs to help states and municipalities cope with higher costs resulting from unfunded increases in federal nutrition standards.

Boozman opposed final passage of the bill, but expressed his commitment to working with his colleagues to get a Farm Bill done that protects all crops and regions this year.

“With all of the members of this committee working together to give up their fair share and get back what they need, we can build the consensus necessary to usher a Farm Bill through the legislative process and see it signed into law this year. We can do this while preserving the safety net, making reforms, and achieving deficit reduction. I am confident that we can craft a bill that we are all proud of, and I look forward to continuing to work with the Chair, Ranking Member, and all the members of this Committee and seeing this through”

Boozman also proposed amendments to:

- Address the Department of Labor’s onerous on farm child labor regulations by transferring authority over those regulations to the Secretary of Agriculture. Boozman said “this would bring a common-sense perspective to the issue instead of the heavy-handed response proposed now by people who don’t have any concept at all about what it is like to be in a farm family.”

- Clarify language from the 2008 Farm Bill relating to FSA office closures by specifying criteria as 20 “road” miles and ensure that office could not be closed under the criteria of 2 or fewer employees if that number was achieved as a result of USDA action; such as offering early retirement or transferring employees

- Reign in onerous regulations that increase the cost of food.

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Tags: America farming, American farmers, farming, farm families, government abuse, overregulation, U.S. Senate, Senator John Boozman, amendment, protecting farmers, Arkansas, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

The Secularization of the MLK, Jr.

By Ken Blackwell, Contributing Author: This month at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, the faithful met to worship the Almighty and discuss the latest battles for religious liberty in an increasingly secular culture

When the Knights of Columbus’ Supreme Knight Carl Anderson spoke, he made a startling observation about the new Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. monument which has not been widely reported and is quite unique among monuments throughout our nation’s capital. Even though Dr. King was a Baptist minister and his history-altering speeches about civil liberties are saturated with references to natural rights and profound theological constructs, all 14 quotes carefully etched into his stone monument completely eschew references to God!

Mr. Anderson mocked those in authority who were given the difficult task of carefully combing through Rev. King’s archives trying to finding a few secular quotations.

In Dr. King’s famous letter from the Birmingham jail, which is full of religious references, he relied on the Catholic natural law tradition by citing Saint Augustine of Hippo, who said in On Free Choice of the Will that "an unjust law is no law at all." King went onto proclaim he and his peaceful supporters were “in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution .”

There is no question about Rev. King’s adherence to scripture, and it was his fidelity to religious principles which lead him to a higher calling on this Earth. Instead of excusing injustice, King was in the front lines against oppression and inequality. And while Dr. King is no longer with us, his ability to look evil in the face and defend the inherent rights of all men is a model which all true Christians must follow.

So, with Rev. King and religion are inseparable, why are they so quick to hide Dr. King’s religiosity? We would expect this type of careful ideological manipulation of history in tyrannical states of the former Soviet Union, North Korea, or in the reeducation camps during the Vietnam War. But how does this happen in America?

Sadly, I believe this another example of how the secular left is winning the culture war. By driving religion out of the public square and re-writing the history books, the invaluable role religion has played in our country is being erased.

As G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Once abolish the God, and the Government becomes the God." And ironically, by eliminating religion, the secular left is using the force of law to build its own type of warped, unholy church which is highly dogmatic and mandates participation under the threat of force.

Two generations have passed since the Great Society programs of the 1960s chipped away at the traditional family, setting government dependency where social ties and the empowerment of the market once stood. And now, with the Obama Administration’s openly hostile approach to religion, we have a government forcing institutions of faith to participate in acts against their own conscious, such as proving contraception and abortion services. All churches in Obama’s America are subservient to the whims of government bureaucrats which are exercising power far outside the limits of our Constitution.

It was his Christian religion which animated and informed Dr. King. If alive today, he would not approve of efforts to change the core of his moral message, nor would he accept the secular forces which have reshaped his image for political reasons.
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J. Ken Blackwell is a conservative family values advocate. He is a visiting professor at Liberty University School of Law. He was a vice president at Xavier University from 1981-1989. Blackwell is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council. He is a contributing author to the ARRA News Service.

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Tags: Ken Blackwell, MLK, Martin Luther King Jr., National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, religion, the culture war, secularization, MLK monument, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Crucify Them!

Gary Bauer

Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Since President Obama took office, conservatives, business executives and industry leaders have complained that he has an anti-business, anti-free market, anti-energy agenda. Remember Obama's constant bashing of Wall Street and the financial industry? Remember Obama's outrageous statement that doctors were cutting off people's feet for profit? Remember top White House officials repeatedly saying they were going to put a "boot on the neck of BP?"

Well if we needed more evidence of this administration's mindset, we got it yesterday. Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK), the ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, announced that he was launching an investigation into the comments of Al Armendariz, an EPA regional administrator.

Here's how Armendariz during a speech described his approach to regulating America's oil and natural gas companies:
"I was in a meeting once and I gave an analogy to my staff about my philosophy of enforcement… I'll go ahead and tell you what I said: It was kind of like how the Romans used to … conquer villages in the Mediterranean.  They'd go in to a little Turkish town somewhere, they'd find the first five guys they saw and they'd crucify them. Then, you know, that town was really easy to manage for the next few years. It's a deterrent factor."Inhofe is not only investigating these outrageous comments, but he is also demanding answers from EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson regarding a series of equally outrageous public statements and emergency orders aimed at restricting new high tech drilling efforts. The U.S. has made tremendous gains in domestic energy exploration in recent years, thanks entirely to the work of our private energy industry and some remarkable technological breakthroughs, including hydraulic fracturing. But the Obama Administration is aggressively trying to limit the practice.

On Fox News this morning, Inhofe blasted Obama for speaking out of both sides of his mouth. The senator said, "Let's keep in mind, this is all a part of Obama's war on domestic energy. He's the one who said that we have good natural gas and it's plentiful and all of that but we've got to stop hydraulic fracturing. This is the war on hydraulic fracturing. …So it's an attempt to try to satisfy both sides. He's whispering to the left … then he's saying to the public at the same time that we are for natural gas and all that."

Senator Inhofe is right. This administration is driven by hostility toward America's most successful industries and businesses. And, of course, it is filled with haters of fossil fuel.

Let me remind folks again -- ignore Obama's rhetoric and focus on his record. Forget about Obama's claim that "We're drilling all over the place." Look at what he has done:

• The first thing Obama's Interior Secretary did when he took office was cancel scores of drilling leases. This is the same man, by the way, who as a senator filibustered a bill to allow more domestic drilling -- even if gasoline reached $10 a gallon!
  
• The number of operational rigs in the Gulf of Mexico was cut in half after the 2010 BP spill. Why? Because of an Obama drilling ban that held up scores of permits.
  
• Since Obama took office, drilling has declined on federal lands. A March 14th report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration noted, "Total sales of all fossil fuels produced on Federal and Indian lands … dropped by about 6 percent between FY 2010 and FY 2011." [Emphasis added.]
  
• Obama's Energy Secretary once advocated $8.00-a-gallon gasoline.
  
• A Harvard study estimated that Obama's cap and trade scheme could have resulted in $7.00-a-gallon gasoline.
  
• Barack Obama blocked the Keystone XL pipeline that would bring in more oil from friendly Canada.
  
• He said he wants to bankrupt the coal industry, which he admits will cause electricity rates to "necessarily skyrocket."

My friends, if you haven't yet seen the video "If I Wanted America To Fail," please watch it now and then share it with your friends and family members. America can't afford four more years of Barack Obama!

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Tags: Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, Obama Administration, EPA, Crucify Them! To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

American Crossroads: "Cool"

American Crossroads: "Cool" : After four years of a celebrity president, is your life any better?

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Tags: Obama, Barack Obama, Cool, Election 2012, Jimmy Fallon, Democrats, US President To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

If I Wanted America To Fail

If I Wanted America To Fail

Free Market America: The environmental agenda has been infected by extremism—it's become an economic suicide pact. And we're here to challenge it. Visit: http://freemarketamerica.org/.

Gary Bauer, Campaign For Working Families: "If you haven't yet seen the video "If I Wanted America To Fail," please watch it now and then share it with your friends and family members. America can't afford four more years of Barack Obama!"

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Tags: Free Market America, ALG, Americans for Limited Government, video, If I Wanted America To Fail To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Democrat Comments On Energy Highlight Obama Admin's Do-Nothing Energy Policy

Update April 30, 2012: Region 6 EPA administrator Al Armednariz resigned today, days after his comments comparing his enforcement philosophy to crucifixions surfaced in a since-deleted YouTube video.

Armednariz apologized last week, calling his comments “an offensive and inaccurate way to portray our efforts to address potential violations of our nation’s environmental laws.”

In a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson sent Sunday, Al Armendariz says he regrets his words and stresses that they do not reflect his work as administrator of the five-state region including Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.
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Today in Washington, D.C. - April 26, 2012:
Senate resumed consideration of S. 1925, the bill reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act.  The Senate will also consider and vote on ation of two Texas district court nominees.

Yesterday, the Senate voted 62-37 to pass S. 1789, the postal reform bill, with the Lieberman-Collins substitute amendment. Prior to final passage the Senate voted down 5 amendments to the bill.

Yesterday the House passed (312 - 111)  H.R. 3336 — "To ensure the exclusion of small lenders from certain regulations of the Dodd-Frank Act."  The also passed by voice vote, H.R. 2146 — "To amend title 31, United States Code, to require accountability and transparency in Federal spending, and for other purposes." They passed (421 - 1) H.R. 1038 — "To authorize the conveyance of two small parcels of land within the boundaries of the Coconino National Forest containing private improvements that were developed based upon the reliance of the landowners in an erroneous survey conducted in May 1960."

EPA Region 6 Director Al Armendariz
on video advocating abusing
businesses and people using the
Roman crucifixion approach

The Hill reported today about am Obama administration official apologizing after a video was  released showing the official comparing their enforcement of environmental laws to using Roman crucifixion to scare the people into align to their agenda. "‘I apologize to those I have offended and regret my poor choice of words. It was an offensive and inaccurate way to portray our efforts to address potential violations of our nation’s environmental laws,’ Environmental Protection Agency Region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz said in a statement that the Daily Caller obtained Wednesday night. ‘I am and have always been committed to fair and vigorous enforcement of those laws.’

“The apology came several hours after Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a vocal critic of the EPA, released a 2010 video in which Armendariz stressed the importance of ‘making examples’ out of companies that violate environmental laws. He compared his enforcement philosophy to that of Roman soldiers who crucified villagers in towns they wanted to conquer. ‘I was in a meeting once and I gave an analogy to my staff about my philosophy of enforcement. And I think it was probably a little crude, and maybe not appropriate for the meeting, but I’m going to tell you what I said,’ Armendariz says in the video. ‘It is kind of like how the Romans used to conquer the villages in the Mediterranean, they’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere and they’d find the first five guys they saw and they’d crucify them. Then that town was really easy to manage for the next few years.’ . . .”

“Inhofe highlighted the comments Wednesday during a Senate floor speech. ‘His comments give us a rare glimpse into the Obama administration's true agenda; no matter how much President Obama may pretend to be a friend of oil and natural gas, his green team constantly betrays the truth that the Obama administration is fully engaged in an all out war on hydraulic fracturing, and indeed all fossil fuels,’ Inhofe said.”

Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said of the Keystone XL oil pipeline and the tens of thousands of jobs it would create, “I am not going to help in any way I can,” adding, “The president feels that way. I do, too.” And on Tuesday Interior Secretary Ken Salazar accused Republicans of supporting “fairy tale” energy policies.

It’s amazing the extent to which the Obama administration and Democrat leaders in Congress are impeding American energy development. As said recently by Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnel, “For years, Washington Democrats have had the same rigid opposition to expanding domestic energy exploration. The only people they seem to listen to are extremists. . . . [W]ith gas prices at about $4 a gallon, it’s time somebody called them out on it. Ten years ago . . . Democrats voted down a bill to open up a tiny area in Alaska known as ANWR to drilling. They relied on the non-argument that it would ‘take too long’ to get the oil to market. Every Democrat who was asked about it said the same thing; that it would take too long to get the oil to market. I’ve got two pages of quotes from Democrats saying it would take at least seven to 10 years to get the oil to market. Well, here we are, 10 years later. In some places gas now costs three times what it did in April of 2002. The U.S. still imports half its oil. ANWR is still off-limits. And if you ask Democrats why they oppose more domestic exploration, they’ll tell you the same thing they did 10 years ago.”

The revealing comments from Obama’s EPA official, his Interior Secretary, and his ally in the Senate, Harry Reid tell an important part of the story as to why Washington still can’t approve a commonsense project like the Keystone pipeline, even with Americans paying ever-higher gas prices. It’s long past time for the Democrat status quo on energy to change. America needs both the jobs and the oil!

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Tags: Washington, D.C., Obama administration, energy policy, US Senate, postal reform bill, U.S. House, EPA, Region 6, Al Armendariz, video, abusing businesses, people, Roman crucifixion To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!