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Thursday, January 03, 2013
The Debt Problem
‘Either We Tackle Our Nation’s Spending Problem, Or It Tackles Us.’ ~ Sen Mitch McConnell
SEN. MITCH McCONNELL (R-KY): “Four straight years of trillion-dollar deficits and projected spending that no realistic amount of tax revenue could cover have put us at a crossroads: either we tackle our nation’s spending problem, or it tackles us. It’s that simple. And there is no better time to do the work we need to do than now… the only way we’re going to address the spending that’s at the root of our nation’s fiscal problems is if the President is willing to bring the members of his party to the table, and get them to rise above the partisan voices on the Left who treat every penny of government spending as sacred.” (Sen. Mitch McConnell, Floor Remarks, 1/3/12)
The ‘Buck Stops’ With President Obama Who Has ‘Built Up The Debt’
THEN-SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL): “Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.” (Sen. Obama, Congressional Record, S.2237-8, 3/16/06)
JACK LEW: “…we have just put it on the national credit card. And we have built up the debt...”(PBS, 2/14/11)
‘The Most Rapid Increase In The Debt Under Any U.S. President’
THE DETROIT NEWS: “President Barack Obama's 2013 budget proposal should be dismissed … the spending plan would lock America on an auto-pilot course for Greece.”(Editorial, “Obama Budget Shirks Off Any Pretense To Fiscal Responsibility,” The Detroit News, 2/14/12)
Tags:debt problem, Mitch mcConnell, President barack ObamaTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
by Ken Blackwell: Most of us would be honored to have our name become a verb. Especially those of us in public life. But that is not how Judge Robert H. Bork got into the dictionary. He was "borked" when President Reagan nominated him to the U.S. Supreme Court. No sooner had the announcement been made by the White House on July 1, 1987, than Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) raced to the Senate floor to denounce the distinguished judge and former Yale Law Professor.
In Robert Bork's America, Kennedy roared, blacks would once again sit in the back of the bus, rogue police would break in our doors, and women would be forced to go to back alley butchers for abortions. On and on, Kennedy ranted, using every extreme and exaggerated charge he could employ, to tarnish the judge's reputation.
It was undoubtedly one of the most outrageous tirades ever seen in the Senate. It ranked with the notorious Sen. Bilbo. The Mississippi lawmaker once threatened to lynch a thousand blacks because Teddy Roosevelt had invited Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House.
But on that sultry July afternoon, Ted Kennedy was just warming up. His rant was the opening salvo in a well-orchestrated national media campaign to drag a good man's name through the mud. Every article Prof. Bork had ever written had been dredged for a statement, sometimes a sentence fragment, that could be twisted to make him look like a demon, a hater of women and minorities, of working Americans.
Every liberal and far-left group in Washington had a role in bringing down Judge Bork. Each one had an assignment, doled out in almost daily strategy sessions. All had one purpose in mind: Make Robert Bork appear so evil that not only would he be rejected by the U.S. Senate, but any future Republican president would be deterred from naming a conservative jurist to the high court for fear of another borking.
Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) was then the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Many hoped that Biden, who cultivated a reputation as a reasonable liberal, would rein in some of the wilder antics of his committee members. Their conduct was said to have been the model for the bar scene in Star Wars.
Biden had said he thought any nominee who was objectively qualified, and who was not guilty of moral turpitude, should be approved. But he quickly got the message. Instead of reining in his obstreperous colleagues, he egged them on.
For example, Sen. Howell Heflin (D-Ala.) asked Judge Bork, who was under oath, to describe for the committee his religious beliefs. Judge Bork patiently explained his life's spiritual journey. Neither Biden, nor any other committee member chose to object.
Every member of the committee that met to consider Robert Bork's nomination had taken an oath to support the Constitution. That Constitution was just two hundred years old in that summer of 1987. From the earliest drafts that venerable document had this to say about religious tests for federal office:...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.If asking a nominee for federal office to state his religious beliefs, under oath, is not a religious test, what would one look like? The oafish Sen. Heflin would go on to vote against Judge Bork and to tell his credulous constituents he voted no because he thought the judge was "not a Christian."
Of course, the real reason liberals were determined to bring down Judge Bork was because he had criticized the reasoning in Roe v. Wade (1973). That infamous ruling brought abortion-on-demand to America. The reasoning in Roe had been criticized by liberal Archibald Cox, former Solicitor General under President Kennedy. It had been criticized by Justice Byron "Whizzer" White, a Kennedy appointee. It had even been criticized by John Hart Ely, a pro-abortion law professor in the Ivy League. Ely sharply criticized Roe "because it is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be."
It did not matter what anyone else had said. This was for keeps. Bork had to be brought down. And liberals were willing to do anything to achieve that end.
The heart of Roe is the constitutional right to privacy. That right, of course, is mentioned in the Fourth Amendment. No argument there. Liberals believed so strongly in "a right of privacy" that it can even encompass a lethal act that fifty state laws had limited or proscribed in their homicide codes.
So what did they do about Judge Bork's right of privacy? They bribed local video store clerks to give them a list of Judge Bork's rentals. They were searching for pornography. They found the judge had a penchant for Broadway musicals.
Perhaps the high point--or low point--of the borking occurred on September 17, 1987, the actual Bicentennial of the Constitution. Sen. Kennedy grilled Judge Bork about his ruling in an interstate van line case. Kennedy thought Judge Bork had been insufficiently attuned to workplace safety.
Not a few observers noted the extreme irony. Ted Kennedy notoriously left a young woman in his car after driving off a bridge at Chappaquiddick in 1969. Fearing damage to his political career, he had failed to report the accident at a time when her life might still have been saved.
Soon after Judge Bork was beaten down, then Chief Justice Rehnquist published a history of the U.S. Supreme Court. In it, Rehnquist emphasized the 1805 impeachment trial of Justice Samuel Chase.
Chase was a high Federalist who ran afoul of the triumphant Jeffersonians. Vice President Aaron Burr, soon to leave office, presided over the Senate trial. Burr had only recently killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. But he ran the Chase trial with the elderly Supreme Court justice, a Maryland Signer of the Declaration of Independence, in the dock like an accused criminal.
Rehnquist's history lesson noted that a Federalist senator in 1805 urged his friends to hurry to Washington City: You are used to seeing criminals arraigned before the judge. If you come quickly, you can see the judge arraigned before the criminal.
Few readers who had lived through Ted Kennedy's borking of an honorable judge and distinguished figure in the law missed the point of Chief Justice Rehnquist's story.
Robert Bork passed away over the Christmas holidays. He was honored in death as he was in life by those who love their country, honor justice, and who remember what civility used to be.
------------- Ken Blackwell is a senior fellow at the American Civil Rights Union and a member the ACRU Policy Board. He is a visiting professor at the Liberty University School of Law. He is a contributing author to the ARRA News Service. Tags:Ken Blackwell, Robert Bork, Borked, borking, Ted Kennedy, historyTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Today in Washington, D.C. - Jan 3, 2013
Some may of noticed that we did not report on any of the bills passed in the final two days of Congress which were not going to be passed by the houses of Congress and presented to the President. Reason: these bills are dead with the ending of the 112th Session of Congress. All former unsigned bills, if considered worthy, will have to be reintroduced, debated, and voted on in the new 113th Session of Congress which begins today.
Speaker John Boehner
The House just completed their voting on the Speaker position. With only one round of voting, Speaker John Boehner was re-elected with 220 votes as speaker of the U.S. house easily defeating the the democrat nominee Nancy Pelosi.Pelosi will have to again pass the gavel to Speaker Boehner.
Today, U.S. Senate Republicans announced committee assignments for the 113th Congress were made. These assignments are pending ratification by the Conference and the Senate. Members of each committee will meet to elect their Ranking Members.
Appropriations
Thad Cochran, Miss.
Mitch McConnell, Ky.
Richard Shelby, Ala.
Lamar Alexander, Tenn.
Susan Collins, Maine
Lisa Murkowski, Alaska
Lindsey Graham, S.C.
Mark Kirk, Ill.
Dan Coats, Ind.
Roy Blunt, Mo.
Jerry Moran, Kan.
John Hoeven, N.D.
Mike Johanns, Neb.
John Boozman, Ark.
Armed Services
John McCain, Ariz.
Jim Inhofe, Okla.
Jeff Sessions, Ala.
Saxby Chambliss, Ga.
Roger Wicker, Miss.
Kelly Ayotte, N.H.
Deb Fischer, Neb.
Lindsey Graham, S.C.
David Vitter, La.
Roy Blunt, Mo.
Mike Lee, Utah
Ted Cruz, Texas
Finance
Orrin Hatch, Utah
Chuck Grassley, Iowa
Mike Crapo, Idaho
Pat Roberts, Kan.
Mike Enzi, Wyo.
John Cornyn, Texas
John Thune, S.D.
Richard Burr, N.C.
Johnny Isakson, Ga.
Rob Portman, Ohio
Pat Toomey, Penn.
Foreign Relations
Bob Corker, Tenn.
Jim Risch, Idaho
Marco Rubio, Fla.
Ron Johnson, Wis.
Jeff Flake, Ariz.
John McCain, Ariz.
John Barrasso, Wyo.
Rand Paul, Ky.
Agriculture, Nutrition,
and Forestry
Pat Roberts, Kan.
Thad Cochran, Miss.
Mitch McConnell, Ky.
Saxby Chambliss, Ga.
John Boozman, Ark.
John Hoeven, N.D.
Mike Johanns, Neb.
Chuck Grassley, Iowa
John Thune, S.D.
Banking, Housing,
and Urban Affairs
Richard Shelby, Ala.
Mike Crapo, Idaho
Bob Corker, Tenn.
David Vitter, La.
Mike Johanns, Neb.
Pat Toomey, Penn.
Mark Kirk, Ill.
Jerry Moran, Kan.
Tom Coburn, Okla.
Dean Heller, Nev.
Commerce, Science,
and Transportation
John Thune, S.D.
Roger Wicker, Miss.
Roy Blunt, Mo.
Marco Rubio, Fla.
Kelly Ayotte, N.H.
Dean Heller, Nev.
Dan Coats, Ind.
Tim Scott, S.C.
Ted Cruz, Texas
Deb Fischer, Neb.
Ron Johnson, Wis.
Energy and Natural Resources
Lisa Murkowski, Alaska
John Barrasso, Wyo.
Jim Risch, Idaho
Mike Lee, Utah
Dean Heller, Nev.
Jeff Flake, Ariz.
Tim Scott, S.C.
Lamar Alexander, Tenn.
Rob Portman, Ohio
John Hoeven, N.D.
Environment
and Public Works
Jim Inhofe, Okla.
David Vitter, La.
John Barrasso, Wyo.
Jeff Sessions, Ala.
Mike Crapo, Idaho
Roger Wicker, Miss.
John Boozman, Ark.
Deb Fischer, Neb.
Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs
Tom Coburn, Okla.
John McCain, Ariz.
Ron Johnson, Wis.
Rob Portman, Ohio
Rand Paul, Ky.
Mike Enzi, Wyo.
Kelly Ayotte, N.H.
Judiciary
Chuck Grassley, Iowa
Orrin Hatch, Utah
Jeff Sessions, Ala.
Lindsey Graham, S.C.
John Cornyn, Texas
Mike Lee, Utah
Ted Cruz, Texas
Jeff Flake, Ariz.
Health, Education,
Labor and Pensions
Mike Enzi, Wyo.
Lamar Alexander, Tenn.
Richard Burr, N.C.
Johnny Isakson, Ga.
Rand Paul, Ky.
Orrin Hatch, Utah
Pat Roberts, Kan.
Lisa Murkowski, Alaska
Mark Kirk, Ill.
Tim Scott, S.C.
Aging
Bob Corker, Tenn.
Susan Collins, Maine
Orrin Hatch, Utah
Mark Kirk, Ill.
Dean Heller, Nev.
Jeff Flake, Ariz.
Kelly Ayotte, N.H.
Tim Scott, S.C.
Ted Cruz, Texas
Budget
Jeff Sessions, Ala.
Chuck Grassley, Iowa
Mike Enzi, Wyo.
Mike Crapo, Idaho
Lindsey Graham, S.C.
Rob Portman, Ohio
Pat Toomey, Penn.
Ron Johnson, Wis.
Kelly Ayotte, N.H.
Roger Wicker, Miss.
Ethics
Johnny Isakson, Ga.
Pat Roberts, Kan.
Jim Risch, Idaho Indian Affairs
John Barrasso, Wyo.
John McCain, Ariz.
Lisa Murkowski, Alaska
John Hoeven, N.D.
Mike Crapo, Idaho
Deb Fischer, Neb
Intelligence
Saxby Chambliss, Ga.
Richard Burr, N.C.
Jim Risch, Idaho
Dan Coats, Ind.
Marco Rubio, Fla.
Susan Collins, Maine
Tom Coburn, Okla.
Joint Economic Committee
Dan Coats, Ind.
Mike Lee, Utah
Roger Wicker, Miss.
Pat Toomey, Penn.
Rules and Administration
Lamar Alexander, Tenn.
Mitch McConnell, Ky.
Thad Cochran, Miss.
Saxby Chambliss, Ga.
Pat Roberts, Kan.
Richard Shelby, Ala.
Roy Blunt, Mo.
Ted Cruz, Texas
Small Business
David Vitter, La.
Jim Risch, Idaho
Marco Rubio, Fla.
Rand Paul, Ky.
Tim Scott, S.C.
Deb Fischer, Neb.
Mike Enzi, Wyo.
Ron Johnson, Wis.
Veterans Affairs
Richard Burr, N.C.
Johnny Isakson, Ga.
Mike Johanns, Neb.
Jerry Moran, Kan.
John Boozman, Ark.
Speaking on the Senate floor today, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said, “Four straight years of trillion-dollar deficits and projected spending that no realistic amount of tax revenue could cover have put us at a crossroads: either we tackle our nation’s spending problem, or it tackles us. It’s that simple. And there is no better time to do the work we need to do than now. The bipartisan agreement we reached earlier this week was imperfect. I’m the first to admit it, especially the process. But aside from shielding 99 percent of my constituents and many of yours from the painful effects of a middle-class tax hike the President seemed all too willing to impose, it gave us something else: it settled the revenue debate for good.”
He continued, “So it’s time to move on. The President got his revenue, now it’s time to turn squarely to the real problem, which is spending. We all knew that the tax hikes the President campaigned on were never going to solve the problem. . . . The President knows as well as I do what needs to be done. He can either engage now to significantly cut government spending or force a crisis later. It’s his call. But for the sake of the country, we must have this debate, now.”
writes today, “The staggering national debt — up about 60 percent from the $10 trillion Obama inherited when he took office in January 2009 — is the single biggest blemish on Obama’s record, even if the rapid descent into red began under President George W. Bush. Obama has long emphasized Bush’s role in digging the immense hole. But he owns it now, and it’s a significant political liability as he girds for a fast-approaching brawl with the GOP over how to deal with converging deadlines of a new debt ceiling fight and the need to come up with $1 trillion in deficit reduction mandated by the so-called ‘sequester.’ . . . Obama and his team has said they won’t negotiate over the debt ceiling again after last year’s fiasco, which led to a national credit downgrade. But by extending the sequester for a scant two months, they have guaranteed that fight will happen, several White House allies said. ‘I think that a lot of his leverage is gone,’ said a top aide to a senior Hill Democrat involved in the negotiations over the fiscal cliff. ‘By agreeing to a short-term deal, he’s set up a flashpoint with Democrats.’”
In an op-ed for Yahoo News today, Leader McConnell writes, "Predictably, the President is already claiming that his tax hike on the ‘rich’ isn’t enough. I have news for him: the moment that he and virtually every elected Democrat in Washington signed off on the terms of the current arrangement, it was the last word on taxes. That debate is over. Now the conversation turns to cutting spending on the government programs that are the real source of the nation’s fiscal imbalance. And the upcoming debate on the debt limit is the perfect time to have that discussion. We simply cannot increase the nation’s borrowing limit without committing to long overdue reforms to spending programs that are the very cause of our debt. The only way to achieve the balance the President claims to want is by cutting spending.”
As he concluded, “The President claims to want a balanced approach. Now that he has the tax rates he wants, his calls for ‘balance’ mean he needs to join us in the effort to achieve meaningful spending reform. The President may not want to have this debate, but it’s the one he’s going to have, because the country needs it. Republicans are ready to tackle the spending problem, and we start today.” Tags:The Senate, Republican committee assignments, The House, House Speaker, John Boehner, Congress, 113th Congress, U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Tags:expanded welfare state, fatherless households, big government, editorial cartoon, William WarrenTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Update: 5:30 PM - Additional comments by Gary Bauer have been included at the end of the original article.
---------- The House, Senate, and White House reached an agreement regarding the fiscal cliff. While the agreement does extend the Bush tax cuts for all but the wealthiest Americans, all of us will face higher taxes in 2013 than we did in 2012.
Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: As you have probably heard by now, the House of Representatives passed [257 to 167 with 151 Republicans and 16 Democrats voting against the bill] a compromise bill last night to avert the worst effects of the fiscal cliff. [The Senate passed the bill by an overwhelming 89-8 vote]
Suffice it to say that people on the right and the left are unhappy with it. A lot of conservatives are upset because there are tax increases with virtually no spending cuts. Other cuts included in last year's sequester deal were delayed.
A lot of liberals are angry because it extends 98% of the Bush tax cuts, and mitigates onerous estate taxes that were set to take effect. Lefties like Paul Krugman, Howard Dean and Robert Reich are no doubt furious that the Bush tax cuts have been largely preserved.
Here is a quick summary of what is in the deal.
The top tax rate increases from 35% to 39.6% for individuals making $400,000 and married couples making $450,000.
Under this compromise, dividend and capital gains tax rates go up to 20% for those at the $400,000/$450,000 income levels.
In addition to these higher tax rates, personal exemptions will be limited for individuals making $250,000 and for families making $300,000. And the "Pease limitation" on deductions will be reimposed for individuals making $250,000 and families making $300,000.
The death tax (estate tax) will be 40% for estates valued at $5 million, and will be adjusted for inflation. Without this deal, the death tax would have been 55% on estates valued at $1 million.
The alternative minimum tax will be permanently adjusted for inflation, so Congress will no longer have to vote on a yearly AMT "patch."
In spite of all the media reporting, every worker and family will see a tax increase as their Social Security payroll taxes go up 2%. For many two-income middle class families, that means $2,000 less a year.
Don't Forget About Obamacare Taxes
While the media are fixated on this compromise bill, they have barely mentioned the trillion-dollar tax hike that is part of Obamacare. These huge tax increases on families and businesses are kicking in right now. Here is a partial list:
A new tax on medical devices ($20 billion)
Caps on Flexible Spending Accounts ($13 billion) -- This tax will hit families with children with special needs particularly hard.
A 3.8% tax on investment income ($113 billion)
Reduced Medical Itemized Deductions ($15 billion)
A 31% increase in Medicare Payroll Tax ($87 billion)
------------ Update: 5:30 PM Higher Taxes; More Debt?
There are conflicting headlines from the fiscal cliff deal that are causing considerable confusion and consternation. Many conservatives are outraged that Senate Republicans approved a plan that raises taxes at all. But it is important to remember that taxes would have gone up automatically across-the-board as of yesterday even without a deal. Other conservatives are seizing on a report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that the deal increases the national debt by nearly $4 trillion over the next 10 years.
That figure is hokum. The Congressional Budget Office report assumed that all of the Bush tax cuts would expire, and that the government would reap a windfall in higher revenues as a result of these massive tax increases. By renewing 98% of the Bush tax cuts, the deal denied the government trillions of additional revenue. That is how the numbers crunchers come up with the $4 trillion increase in the debt.
Keep in mind that this is the same outfit that just six weeks ago predicted another recession and skyrocketing unemployment if Congress did nothing and allowed the Bush tax cuts to expire.
That's because higher taxes hurt economic growth, and that's why conservatives generally oppose tax increases. Taking money out of the pockets of small business owners and American families and sending it to Washington bureaucrats does nothing for the economy.
There are all kinds of reasons to oppose this compromise. But do not fall for the left-wing logic that considers tax cuts a form of government spending. That assumption begins with the belief that all money belongs to the government. The history of pro-growth tax reform measures is clear: Lower tax rates result in more economic growth, which in turn produces more revenue.
What's Next
The stock market celebrated the news of a fiscal cliff deal that preserved the overwhelming majority of the Bush tax cuts. The Dow has been up more than 200 points for most of the day. But the fiscal cliff fight is far from over.
It is worth pointing out that this deal raises only about $60 billion a year in additional revenue. That's less than half of what Obama originally demanded. Not surprisingly, he's demanding even more of your hard-earned money.
Congressional Republicans don't want the Pentagon to get hit by another wave of cuts from the sequestration deal. But according to a Los Angeles Times report, "As the price for lifting those defense cuts, White House officials have said, the president will demand another round of revenue (tax) increases."
So after holding the economy hostage to his demand for higher taxes, Obama is now going hold our national security hostage too.
Having conceded to higher taxes on the successful, most Republicans are saying "No more." Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) is one of the strongest fiscal conservatives in Congress. He grudgingly supported the compromise deal, as did other conservatives like Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK), Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Ron Johnson (R-WI).
Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Rand Paul (R-KY), Charles Grassley (R-IA), Richard Shelby (R-AL) and Mike Lee (R-UT) voted against the deal, along with three Senate liberals. In the House, nearly two-thirds of Republicans opposed the deal, while 90% of Democrats supported it.
Explaining his vote this morning, Senator Toomey said, "We spared as many Americans as we possibly could from a tax increase." But he also said this: "We're totally done. You can't solve this problem -- I don't care how much you raise taxes. … We will only solve this problem when we finally get the spending under control. And the debt ceiling, and after that, the continuing resolution expiration, those are the vehicles that give us the opportunity to insist on making progress on the real problem."Spending is the issue, as this chart shows. Savings of $60 billion a year in additional revenue is virtually meaningless when Obama is running deficits in excess of $1,000 billion a year.
But Obama has no solution beyond raising taxes again and again and again. Even as he celebrated this compromise deal and higher taxes on the "rich," he warned members of Congress that he would not negotiate on the debt ceiling, saying, "[W]hile I will negotiate over many things, I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether or not they should pay the bills that they’ve already racked up through the laws that they passed."
That's an odd statement to make when it seems obvious he's going to have to negotiate with Congress over the obvious problem -- debt and spending. Unless he's prepared to issue an executive order unilaterally raising the debt limit and creating a constitutional crisis in the process. It's also very hypocritical coming from a man who voted against raising the debt limit in 2006.
Back then Obama said, "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. …America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better." When Obama made that statement, Congress was debating raising the debt limit to $9 trillion. It is above $16 trillion today, and he is demanding more.
------------- Gary Bauer is is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families where his articles are also shared. Tags:fiscal cliff, bill, Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working FamliesTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
by Warner Todd Huston: Joshua Boston, a retired Corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps, has a message for Senator Dianne Feinstein (D, CA) concerning her newest gun banning bill. Corporal Boston says, "No Ma'Am."
Boston posted an open letter to Senator Feinstein at CNN's ireport site on December 27 to let DiFi know that he, at least, would not submit to the government denuding him of his Second Amendment rights.
Boston informed Sen. Feinstein that he will not register his weapons nor does he believe the Senator or anyone else in government has the right to require him to do so. Boston also scoffed at someone proclaiming "the evil of an inanimate object" even as she bestows upon herself the ability to carry a gun in contravention to her own proclamations.
"I am not your subject," Boston insists. "I am the man who keeps you free. I am not your servant. I am the person whom you serve. I am not your peasant. I am the flesh and blood of America."
I will not be disarmed to suit the fear that has been established by the media and your misinformation campaign against the American public.
Mr. Boston's message intrigues and he has even more to say than his open letter reveals. I took the occasion of his open letter to reach out to this brave member of our military. Here is our conversation:
Warner Todd Huston: What drove you to post this reply to Senator Feinstein?
Joshua Boston: I've been seeing this nonsense about gun control in the news since forever. Senator Feinstein regularly touts the effectiveness of the first Assault Weapons Ban while pointing out the "loopholes." So she proposes this new ban legislation. Given the tragedy that happened recently it has considerably more traction with folks, most who rely in some major way on emotions and what they're being told by the media about these "Weapons of Mass Destruction." My Windham Weaponry SRC sits in my home loaded and ready to be used should the need ever arise. It does not make me a criminal.
I'm sick of being told by people in Washington D.C. what is okay for me to own for my own personal defense while they enjoy the safety of many armed guards with better firearms than I have access to. It's hypocritical.
WTH: In your opinion, what do you think the Second Amendment is for?
JB: Looking at the founder's times and what they had just gone through, it was something they put in there for us should we ever find ourselves in their shoes and have to reassert, because of whatever manifestation of tyranny, our inherent right to freedom and liberty.
WTH: Do you support concealed carry laws?
JB: I hold a CHL with the state of Texas. I would prefer there not be a bureaucratic apparatus whose hoops I have to jump through so that I may defend myself should the need ever arise outside of my home. Who are these legislators to tell me that I may not defend myself outside of my home because they don't have my fingerprints on file?
WTH: Do you believe in any sort of gun restrictions?
JB: The only gun restriction I would favor is one in which only VIOLENT felons are prevented from purchasing or possessing a firearm. Other than that, why does the government or the police need them if I am not allowed to have one?
WTH: Some liberals say regular Americans shouldn't be allowed to have guns because they aren't trained. As a trained member of the military yourself, do you think average citizens have the ability to use guns correctly?
JB: Despite the training I received while in the Marines, I am a regular American. I am not exceptional. I am not superior. I am an American just like any other citizen. I've seen "average citizens" use guns extraordinarily efficiently when I go to the range. This is because they are responsible people who seek knowledge when they don't know something. So yes they have the ability, and they should be able to purchase whatever weapons they deem sufficient for their needs.
WTH: Some people fear that government will use the military to forcibly disarm the public if gun banning laws get passed. What is your sense of your fellows in the armed forces. Do you think they'd follow orders to forcibly disarm the public?
JB: In my 8 years of service I could probably count on one hand the number of people that I met who would forcibly disarm the American public. The vast majority of American service members that I know and that I served with recognize that the Constitution is what we pledge to obey.
WTH: Do you feel that there will be any retaliation by the Marines for having posted your reply?
JB: I was honorably discharged on July 31st of this year. I'd certainly hope they wouldn't "retaliate" in any way because I am doing my civic duty and keeping myself informed. I think that would go against our motto: "Honor Courage and Commitment"
WTH: Any other thoughts?
JB: I just hope that our elected representatives do not vote for this heinous attempt to make me and my fellow Americans defenseless against predators and criminals.
We at Breitbart salute Joshua Boston and hope that he is not uncommon among the members of our illustrious armed forces.
Below is the full text of Corporal Boston's original open letter:
Senator Dianne Feinstein,
I will not register my weapons should this bill be passed, as I do not believe it is the government's right to know what I own. Nor do I think it prudent to tell you what I own so that it may be taken from me by a group of people who enjoy armed protection yet decry me having the same a crime. You ma'am have overstepped a line that is not your domain. I am a Marine Corps Veteran of 8 years, and I will not have some woman who proclaims the evil of an inanimate object, yet carries one, tell me I may not have one.
I am not your subject. I am the man who keeps you free. I am not your servant. I am the person whom you serve. I am not your peasant. I am the flesh and blood of America.
I am the man who fought for my country. I am the man who learned. I am an American. You will not tell me that I must register my semi-automatic AR-15 because of the actions of some evil man.
I will not be disarmed to suit the fear that has been established by the media and your misinformation campaign against the American public.
We, the people, deserve better than you.
Respectfully Submitted,
Joshua Boston, Cpl, United States Marine Corps, 2004-2012
--------------- Bill Smith, Editor's Comment: Warner Todd Huston is one of the top ten bloggers that I respect in the U.S. He is a freelance writer for BigGovernment.com, RightWingNews, RedCounty.com, RenewAmerica.us and numerous conservative publications. Tags:Warner Todd Huston, Gun-grabber, Dian Feinstein, interview, Joshua Boston, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
How to Resolve the Fiscal Cliff? Elementary, My Dear Watson!
by Ralph Benko, Contributing Author: As this column is being written America is preparing to head down the, theatrically styled, “Fiscal Cliff.” That “cliff” really is the chicken roost of 40 years of mostly disappointing — and more than a decade of catastrophic — economic growth. Lousy growth leads to a diminished tax base, capable of producing only anemic tax revenues.
Washington, DC is emulating Sherlock Holmes locked in mortal combat with its own Moriarity-style criminal mastermind: the Deficit. In its own re-enactment of The Final Problem Washington disappears — whether by rappelling in a mini-deal, or hurtling — over its own Reichenbach Falls: The Fiscal Cliff. Holmes later is found to have survived. So will Washington.
Spoiler Alert: Here’s how we actually will climb out. It will have nothing to do with what happens in the next few days. The solution revolves around this Sherlock Holmes axiom: “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth,” as Holmes observed in A Scandal in Bohemia.
The 113th Congress is preparing to forsake the 112th’s fixation on the impossible. All but unnoticed by a Washington press corps obsessed by celebrities and melodrama the GOP has generated an impressive new set of leaders. These leaders will make the House turn its power toward creating an economic climate to sustain growth. The media’s focus on politicos associated with impossible budget policy will wane. The national focus will shift to officials committed to generating real equitable prosperity through healthy free markets, a climate that will melt the deficit.
This almost certainly will begin with monetary reform. A “Monetary Policy Reform Express” already is barreling down the tracks. This legislative locomotive — HR 4180 — takes the form of Rep. Kevin Brady’s Sound Dollar Act. It already has gained 49 House co-sponsors. Sen. Mike Lee has introduced companion legislation in the Senate, recently cosponsored by the Senate’s number two Republican, Sen. John Cornyn, and the GOP’s 2016 presidential favorite, Sen. Marco Rubio. Incoming Senator Ted Cruz also places sound money as one of his key four agenda items for economic growth. Rep. Brady, also, is incoming chairman of the Joint Economic — a very bully pulpit — and has sophistication about economic growth rarely seen since Kemp left the House.
In another major, underreported, development Rep. Jeb Hensarling is taking the chairmanship of the powerful House Financial Services Committee. Hensarling already is reportedly making monetary reform one of his very top agenda items. Chairman Hensarling is perfectly positioned to play a major role in pushing economic growth through monetary reform onto the GOP marquee. Furthermore, the savvy Rep. Jim Jordan (term limited out, and thus unencumbered by the duties, of the chairmanship of the Republican Study Committee) now is at liberty to continue his efforts to bring monetary reform to the fore of economic growth policy.
Why does all this point to an authentic solution — for job creation and deficit reduction — in process? The American Enterprise Institute’s James Pethokoukis recently published, in The 7 most illuminating economic charts of 2012, perhaps the most striking presentation of the real problem, a growth gap.
For over a decade, notwithstanding frequent empty bromides about growth, neither party has been tackling seriously the relevant, really interesting, and delightful, opportunity: setting policies to help grow the economy. Both parties have been reverting to reprising their last Hurrah: Republicans fighting to cut tax rates, Democrats fighting to increase social spending. Both are complicit in causing, and colluding in polices of, stagnation.
Both parties are guilty of using Mad Hatter logic to rationalize their base motives. These motives are not to create “a rising tide lifts all boats” growth. Their motivation is to deliver goodies to their own donor and voter base. Their proposed solutions have proven impossible. So the new GOP leadership will turn from the impossible to the merely improbable. The way out of our predicament, improbably but not impossibly, comes from polices fostering sustained economic growth.
Democrats demand higher taxes. Higher taxes further stifle economic growth, promoting a vicious downward cycle. Republicans demand non-defense spending and entitlement cuts. These are politically foredoomed by the GOP demand to exempt defense spending. By fixating on the impossible, Washington has built itself a Fiscal Cliff.
Washington has taken the economy to Hell before. The worst of contemporary times was called “the 70’s.” It manifested as “stagflation.” Inflation climbed to double digits, unemployment headed to the scandalous rate of … 7.7% (slightly lower than today). Sometimes, things have to get really bad before that somnolent pachyderm, the GOP, not for nothing nicknamed “Dumbo,” rouses itself. Back in the 70’s the House of Representatives, under the visionary political leadership of Rep. Jack Kemp, took up economic growth.
As commentator Peter Roff, one of the decorated veterans of the Supply Side Wars, writes in a recent column in US News and World Report:"Washington indeed has a problem, but it’s not really a spending problem: It’s a growth problem.
"Back in the late ’70s, when the economy was flat on its back because of high unemployment, high interest rates, and a lack of productivity, a group of young conservatives led by former Rep. Jack Kemp decided to focus on getting the economy growing again. Using a form of economic theory known as “supply side,” Kemp and others proposed a massive cut in marginal income tax rates that would free up income for savings and investment in the private sector. When put into place, these ideas became the foundation of a long boom that critics derided as “Reaganomics” but which ultimately proved more successful than even most of those behind it hoped."And let us add to Mr. Roff’s formulation, of equally essential importance as tax rate cutting, the reversal of Carter’s inane dollar policy. As former Kemp presidential campaign aide Frank Cannon, president of the American Principles Project (with which this columnist is professionally associated) observes, “Today’s Republican leaders mostly are overlooking the fact that Kemp, in stages, felled the top tax bracket from 70% to 28%. That’s a dramatic change that had a dramatic impact on growth. Today’s dramatic opportunity comes from reversing current inane dollar policy, ideally through the gold standard which Jack Kemp also championed.”
The dramatic successes associated with tax rate cutting engendered a Republican Cargo Cult-like obsession with tax cuts, akin to the Democratic Cargo Cult-like obsession (derived from FDR) with public works spending. But restoring integrity to the dollar was an equal partner in the Kemp (and Reagan… and FDR!) growth recipe. Dollar policy reform is the key, overlooked, opportunity today.
Forbes.com’s own (and my friend) Charles Kadlec recently, stunningly, pinpointed the potency of economic growth for cutting the deficit. Kadlec was one of the Kemp’s inner circle advisors. Kadlec here observed:"[I]n Appendix B of The [CBO’s] Budget and Economic Outlook : Fiscal Years 2012 to 2022: every one-tenth of one percent increase in the growth rate will reduce the federal budget deficit over the next 10 years by $314 billion. [Emphasis added.] … Just getting back to the average of 3.1% would reduce projected deficits by more than $900 billion.
"In other words, what the Democrats and the Republicans should be debating is how to achieve a minimum 4% real growth over the next 10 years in order to reduce projected deficits by $4 trillion.
"Such an inquiry would inevitably lead to the observation that restoring a rules based monetary system is the linchpin to budget balance. About half of the 10-year periods when the U.S. has been on a gold standard saw real growth average 4% or more. However, since 1973 – two years after severing the final link between the dollar and gold – there has not been one, not even one 10-year period of 4% or better growth."“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” The solution is economic growth. Growth through good money sounds improbable to conventional-wisdom-bound elites. Yet, unlike what they have been trying to date, good money is not impossible.
The incoming GOP leaders get this. Quite possibly, however improbable it may sound to the Defenders of the Status Quo, robust growth will be established through the expedient of a tried-and-true gold standard as championed by Kemp, duly modernized from Holmes’s day. Growth through monetary reform as the solution both to joblessness and the deficit? Elementary, my dear Watson.
------------ Ralph Benko is senior advisor, economics, to American Principles in Action’s Gold Standard 2012 Initiative, and a contributor to the ARRA News Service. The article which first appeared with a different title in Forbes was submitted for reprint by the author. Tags:Ralph Benko, the economy, fiscal cliff, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Library of Congress: The first reading of the
Emancipation Proclamation before the cabinet. Painted by F.B. Carpenter;
engraved by A.H. Ritchie, c1866.
This is the day, January 1, 1863, one hundred fifty years ago, that changed America forever. From that date onward, Father Abraham’s armies, the armies of the United States, became armies of liberation. Those soldiers, black and white, carried freedom in their haversacks. One hundred and fifty years ago, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation!
Ken Blackwell and Bob Morrison, Contributing Authors: President Abraham Lincoln had been warned by Gen. George B. McClellan not to interfere with the institution of slavery. McClellan was a “War Democrat,” willing to fight to preserve the Union, but unwilling to do anything about the root cause of the rebellion that threatened the life of the nation.
Ironically, it was McClellan’s victory at the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, that had given Lincoln the opportunity he needed to issue his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. In that document, the President warned rebellious states in the South that they would have their slaves freed if they did not cease their insurrection against the federal government and once again obey the laws of the Union.
That hundred-day period had been a difficult one for President Lincoln. There would be political reverses in the mid-term congressional elections that fall. Democrats campaigned on the slogan “The Union as it was and the Constitution as it is.” That meant slavery would be secure in all the states where it then existed. They picked up congressional seats and won key state governorships.
And then, there was the disastrous Union defeat at Fredericksburg, Virginia. Thousands of Union soldiers died in thirteen fruitless charges against Marye’s Heights. An extraordinary appearance of the Northern Lights on the night of that battle led people to say the very heavens were draped in mourning.
Now, on January 1, 1863, Lincoln proved true to his word on Emancipation. But, as he sat down to sign the engrossed copy of the historic document, he noted an error in the text. Lincoln knew that the U.S. Supreme Court was hostile to Emancipation. If there was a single error, Lincoln knew the pro-slavery Chief Justice Roger B. Taney would strike down the Emancipation Proclamation. So he ordered it re-copied for signature later that same day.
Meanwhile, President Lincoln had to stand for hours shaking thousands of hands in the traditional New Year’s Day reception at the White House. When he came back to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, his hand was shaking. As his puzzled colleagues looked on,he exercised his weary arm.
He explained: “If I am remembered for anything, it will be for this act and my whole soul is in it.” He did not want future generations to see a feeble signature and say he hesitated. So he signed it “Abraham Lincoln.” He wrote out his full name, not signing it as he usually did, “A. Lincoln.”
January 1, 2013, the National Archives places the Emancipation Proclamation on rare public display, the text is hardly legible, the victim of age and light. But Abraham Lincoln stands out clearly.
Some cynics today say Lincoln freed no slaves where he had power and all the slaves where he did not. Then, too, the London newspapers adopted a snarky tone: “The high principle of Mr. Lincoln’s proclamation is that a man may not own a man unless he is loyal to Mr. Lincoln’s government.”
That criticism was as ignorant as it was unfair. Lincoln was no despot. He knew that he could not constitutionally deprive loyal citizens of their slaves so long as they obeyed the laws. He pleaded and cajoled the congressmen from the loyal slave states of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware. They stubbornly refused his offers of compensated emancipation.
Lincoln was an able lawyer who new his brief. He had been a reader of Richmond newspapers for years. When secessionist editors boasted that the South could outlast the North because they could send all their young men into the army, while slaves would work the farms and factories, Lincoln took note.
Because the rebels themselves claimed slavery was a military asset, Lincoln knew he was on solid ground in freeing those slaves. His Emancipation Proclamation was a constitutional exercise of his powers as commander-in-chief of the army and navy. He justified it as an act of military necessity.
Abraham Lincoln is remembered as the Great Emancipator. He knew that the advance of the Union armies would bring freedom to millions.
Lincoln’s bold black signature had done this. And he would do more. As the movie, Lincoln, so clearly shows, the president was the prime mover behind the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. That measure ended slavery in every state. It’s a shame that the able writers and directors of this new movie did not show Lincoln signing that amendment, too. A president’s signature is not necessary for a constitutional amendment, but Lincoln once again had his whole heart and soul in it.
This is the day, January 1, 1863, one hundred fifty years ago, that changed America forever. From that date onward, Father Abraham’s armies, the armies of the United States, became armies of liberation. Those soldiers, black and white, carried freedom in their haversacks.
------------------------- Ken Blackwell is a conservative family values advocate. Blackwell is a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council and a visiting professor at Liberty University School of Law. Bob Morrison is a Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at the Family Research Council. He has served at the U.S. Department of Education with Gary Bauer under then-Secretary William Bennett. Both are contributing authors to the ARRA News Service. Tags:Abraham Lincoln, Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1963, 150 years ago, freedom, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Forgetting the disappointments of 2012 and setting aside the hardships experienced by many in 2012,
the ARRA News Service editor and writers wish our readers and friends a very Happy New Year for 2013!
Tags:2012, Happy New Years, ARRA News ServiceTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Increase Pay For Members of Congress Is ‘Misguided’
Griffin Cosponsors Bill to Reject Obama's Executive Order Pay Raise for Congress
Calls President Obama’s plan to increase pay for Members of Congress ‘misguided’
U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin
WASHINGTON – Congressman Tim Griffin (AR-02) issued the following statement after cosponsoring legislation to block President Obama’s Executive Order that gives a pay raise to Members of Congress: “Just as I’ve refused my Congressional pension, I’ve never accepted a pay raise since becoming a Member of Congress, and I won’t accept one now. This is simply another one of President Obama’s misguided Executive Orders, and I urge my colleagues to pass this legislation that will continue Congress’s self-imposed salary freeze.”On December 27, 2012, President Obama signed an Executive Order rescinding the federal pay freeze effective March 27, 2013. Griffin is an original cosponsor of legislation introduced by Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick (PA-08) that would prevent Congress from receiving the pay raise ordered by President Obama. The House is likely to hold a vote on the bill this week.
Griffin has voted repeatedly to keep Congressional salaries frozen. Griffin supported H.R. 3835, which passed the House in February 2012, and would freeze congressional and federal civilian salaries through 2013. It awaits a vote in the Senate.
H.Con.Res. 112, which passed the House in March 2012 with Griffin’s support, extended the freeze through 2015. It also awaits action in the Senate.
In August, The Washington Post reported: “In a letter to House and Senate leaders, the president reiterated his support for ending the pay freeze [for federal employees] with a 0.5 percent raise, to take effect Jan. 1, 2013, that he proposed early this year…. Under a law passed in 2010, salary rates are frozen for 2011 and 2012, although employees still can get raises upon promotion, as a performance reward or as they advance up the steps of their pay grades.”
According to National Journal, “The 1990 Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act allows the president through an executive order to set a pay raise for government employees if Congress doesn’t specify one and doesn’t pass legislation prohibiting it.” Tags:Barack Obama, pay raises, members of Congress, Congress, Tim Griffin, H.R. 3835, stopping the pay raiseTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Government Gone Wild!:Watch this SHOCK video about our government's "cradle to the grave" entitlement society!
Tags:United States, government, freebies, land of freebies, enslaved, home of enslaved, Government Gone Wild, education, video, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
In light of the shooting tragedy at Newtown, Connecticut, many reactions have been speculated on. Some reactions being proposed actually violate the freedoms of Americans protected by the U.S. Constitution. Setting aside this discussion, today we share an article about successful program that was created in the aftermath of a previous school shooting in Jonesboro, Arkansas in 1998. tragedy.
Following the tragic school shootings in Jonesboro in 1998, a concerned father from Springdale, AR founded an incredibly successful program that’s put dads and grandfathers in more than 2,600 schools in 42 states.
WATCH D.O.G.S. has two main purposes: To provide positive male role models for the students, and to provide extra sets of eyes and ears to enhance school security and reduce bullying. Because of its phenomenal effectiveness, the program has been adopted by more than 2,600 schools in 42 states plus the District of Columbia.
The program invites fathers, grandfathers or uncles to volunteer at least one day all day at their student’s school during the school year. Volunteers perform a variety of tasks during their volunteer day including monitoring the school entrance, assisting with unloading and loading of buses and cars, monitoring the lunch room, or helping in the classroom with a teacher’s guidance by working with small groups of students on homework, flashcards, or spelling.
And students and schools aren’t the only ones to benefit. Fathers get a glimpse of their students’ everyday world and learn about the increasingly complex challenges and decisions today’s youth are facing. They gain a greater awareness of the positive impact they can have on their student’s life in the critical areas of academic performance, self-esteem and social behavior.
There’s everything right about this program.
-------------- Curtis Coleman is the President, Curtis Coleman's Institute for Constitutional Policy and contributing author to the ARRA News Service. Tags:bullying, Jim Moore, Jonesboro AR, male role model, school security, school shooting, Springdale, Arkansas, WATCH D.O.G.S., Curtis Coleman, Coleman Commentary, Second AmendmentTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
The Second Amendment is about protecting ourselves from the state.
By Kevin D. Williamson, NRO: My friend Brett Joshpe has published an uncharacteristically soft-headed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle arguing that in the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook, conservatives and Republicans should support what he calls “sensible” gun-control laws. It begins with a subtext of self-congratulation (“As a conservative and a Republican, I can no longer remain silent. Some will consider it heresy,” etc.), casts aspersions of intellectual dishonesty (arguments for preserving our traditional rights are “disingenuous”), advances into ex homine (noting he has family in Sandy Hook, as though that confers special status on his preferences), fundamentally misunderstands the argument for the right to keep and bear arms, deputizes the electorate, and cites the presence of teddy bears as evidence for his case.
Brett, like practically every other person seeking to diminish our constitutional rights, either does not understand the purpose of the Second Amendment or refuses to address it, writing, “Gun advocates will be hard-pressed to explain why the average American citizen needs an assault weapon with a high-capacity magazine other than for recreational purposes.” The answer to this question is straightforward: The purpose of having citizens armed with paramilitary weapons is to allow them to engage in paramilitary actions. The Second Amendment is not about Bambi and burglars — whatever a well-regulated militia is, it is not a hunting party or a sport-clays club. It is remarkable to me that any educated person — let alone a Harvard Law graduate — believes that the second item on the Bill of Rights is a constitutional guarantee of enjoying a recreational activity.
There is no legitimate exception to the Second Amendment for military-style weapons, because military-style weapons are precisely what the Second Amendment guarantees our right to keep and bear. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to secure our ability to oppose enemies foreign and domestic, a guarantee against disorder and tyranny. Consider the words of Supreme Court justice Joseph Story — who was, it bears noting, appointed to the Court by the guy who wrote the Constitution: The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.“Usurpation and arbitrary power of the rulers” — not Bambi, not burglars. While your granddad’s .30-06 is a good deal more powerful than the .223 rifles that give blue-state types the howling fantods, that is not what we have a constitutional provision to protect. Liberals are forever asking: “Why would anybody need a gun like that?” And the answer is: because we are not serfs. We are a free people living under a republic of our own construction. We may consent to be governed, but we will not be ruled.
The right to keep and bear arms is a civil right. If you doubt that, consider the history of arms control in England, where members of the Catholic minority (and non-Protestants generally) were prohibited from bearing arms as part of the campaign of general political oppression against them. The Act of Disenfranchisement was still in effect when our Constitution was being written, a fact that surely was on the mind of such Founding Fathers as Daniel Carroll, to say nothing of his brother, Archbishop John Carroll.
The Second Amendment speaks to the nature of the relationship between citizen and state. Brett may think that such a notion is an antiquated relic of the 18th century, but then he should be arguing for wholesale repeal of the Second Amendment rather than presenting — what’s the word? — disingenuous arguments about what it means and the purpose behind it.
If we want to reduce the level of criminal violence in our society, we should start by demanding that the police and criminal-justice bureaucracies do their job. Massacres such as Sandy Hook catch our attention because they are so unusual. But a great deal of the commonplace violence in our society is preventable. Brett here might look to his hometown: There were 1,662 murders in New York City from 2003 to 2005, and a New York Times analysis of the data found that in 90 percent of the cases, the killer had a prior criminal record. (About half the victims did, too.) Events such as Sandy Hook may come out of nowhere, but the great majority of murders do not. The police function in essence as a janitorial service, cleaning up the mess created in part by our dysfunctional criminal-justice system.
We probably would get more out of our criminal-justice system if it were not so heavily populated by criminals. As I note in my upcoming book, The End Is Near and It’s Going to Be Awesome, it can be hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys: For more than twenty years, NYPD detectives worked as enforcers and assassins for the Gambino crime family; in 2006 two detectives were convicted not only of murder and conspiracy to commit murder but also on charges related to such traditional mob activity as labor racketeering, running illegal gambling rings, extortion, narcotics trafficking, obstruction of justice, and the like. This was hardly an isolated incident; only a few years prior to the NYPD convictions more than 70 LAPD officers associated with the city’s anti-gang unit were found to have been deeply involved in gang-affiliated criminal enterprises connected to the Bloods street gang. Their crimes ranged from the familiar police transgressions of falsifying evidence, obstructing justice, and selling drugs seized in arrests to such traditional outlaw fare as bank robbery — they were cops and robbers. More than 100 criminal convictions were overturned because of evidence planted or falsified by officers of the LAPD. One scholarly account of the scandal concluded that such activity is not atypical but rather systemic — and largely immune to attempts at reform: “The current institution of law enforcement in America does appear to reproduce itself according [to] counter-legal norms . . . attempts to counteract this reproduction via the training one receives in police academies, the imposition of citizen review boards, departments of Internal Affairs, etc. do not appear to mitigate against this structural continuity between law enforcement and crime.”
The Department of Homeland Security has existed for only a few years but it already has been partly transformed into an organized-crime syndicate. According to a federal report, in 2011 alone more than 300 DHS employees and contractors were charged with crimes ranging from smuggling drugs and child pornography to selling sensitive intelligence to drug cartels. That’s not a few bad apples — that’s an arrest every weekday and many weekends. Given the usual low ratio of arrests to crimes committed, it is probable that DHS employees are responsible for not hundreds but thousands of crimes. And these are not minor infractions: Agents in the department’s immigration division were caught selling forged immigrant documents, and DHS vehicles have been used to transport hundreds (and possibly thousands) of pounds of illegal drugs. A “standover” crew — that is, a criminal enterprise that specializes in robbing other criminals — was found being run by a DHS agent in Arizona, who was apprehended while hijacking a truckload of cocaine.Power corrupts. Madison knew that, and the other Founders did, too, which is why we have a Second Amendment.
-------------- Kevin D. Williamson is a deputy managing editor of National Review and also writes for National Review Online. He is the author of the 2011 book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism. ARRA News Service editor's comment: This article has been shared in whole because Williams' summation of the situation which can not be summarized any furher and is shared for "educational purposes" under the Fair Use Doctrine. Tags:Regulating, militia, 2nd Amendment, gun rights, Kevin D. Williamson, National ReviewTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
By Dr. Chuck Baldwin: I candidly confess that I am not very superstitious. I don’t care how many cracks I step on on a sidewalk; I don’t care how many cracked mirrors I look at; I’ve never thrown salt over my shoulder; I’ve never rubbed a red-headed boy’s head for luck; I don’t carry four-leaf clovers or rabbit’s feet in my pocket; and the number 13 doesn’t scare me a bit. All of that notwithstanding, however, I can’t help but believe that 2013 is going to be a rough year.
One thing is certainly clear: the last year that ended in 13 was a horrific year for the people of the United States. In fact, 1913 was one of the worst years of the Twentieth Century. Consider the following:
February 3, 1913
This is the date when the 16th Amendment was ratified, and the direct income tax and IRS were instituted. This was a flagrant repudiation of freedom principles. What began as a temporary measure to support the War of Northern Aggression became a permanent income revenue stream for an unconstitutional--and ever-growing--central government.
April 8, 1913
This is the date when the 17th Amendment was ratified. This amendment overturned the power of the State legislatures to elect their own senators and replaced it with a direct, popular vote. This was another serious blow against State sovereignty. The framers of the Constitution desired that the influence and power in Washington, D.C., be kept as close to the people and states as possible. For example, the number of representatives in the House of Representatives was to be decided by a limited number of voters. In the original Constitution, the ratio of “people of the several States” deciding their House member could not exceed “one for every thirty thousand.” (Article. I. Section. 2. Paragraph. 3.) And when it came to the US Senate, the framers also recognized the authority of each State legislature to select its own senators, thereby keeping power and influence from aggregating in Washington, D.C. The 17th Amendment seriously damaged the influence and power of the states by forcing them to elect their US senators by popular vote. The bigger the State, the less influence the State legislature has in determining its US senator. Senators who answered to State legislators, each answering to a limited number of voters, were much more accountable to the “citizens of the several States” than those who were elected by a large number (many times numbering into the millions) of people. For all intents and purposes (at least in the larger states), US Senators are more like “mini-Presidents” than they are representatives of sovereign states.
December 23, 1913
This is the date when the Federal Reserve Act was passed. This Act placed oversight of America’s financial matters into the hands of a cabal of private international bankers, who have completely destroyed the constitutional principles of sound money and (for the most part) free enterprise. No longer would the marketplace (private consumption, thrift, growth, etc.) be the determinant of the US economy (which is what freedom is all about), but now a private, unaccountable international banking cartel would have total power and authority to micromanage (for their own private, parochial purposes) America’s financial sector. Virtually every recession, depression, and downturn (including the one we are now experiencing) has been the direct result of the Fed’s manipulation (again, for its own purposes and with Washington’s cooperation) of the market.
Already, 2013 is shaping up to rival the monstrous year of 1913. Here are some of the reasons why:
Health Care
The elements of Obamacare will begin to be felt this year in earnest. The American people can expect the cost of everything associated with health care to quadruple or more. Physicians will begin leaving their practices or significantly scaling back their services. Hospitals will start dispensing assembly line-type care. The quality of health care will plummet. But, of course, welfare recipients (including illegal aliens) will see a dramatic increase in benefits.
Taxes
Don’t expect the Republican-led House of Representatives to hold the line on taxes. John Boehner and the RINOs in the GOP will give Obama the vast majority of what he wants on taxes. The result is our taxes are going up. Big time! This also means that the cost of everything else is going up. Real inflation is on its way, folks.
Gun Control
This is the big issue! Barack Obama and his gun-control fanatics in the Democrat Party have already declared war on the Second Amendment. They are going to attempt to outlaw semi-automatic rifles, high capacity magazines in both rifles and handguns, and make the private sale of firearms illegal. It will be the biggest assault on the Second Amendment since 1968--and maybe in US history!
If gun owners, and freedom lovers of all types, expect to pass any freedom on to their posterity, they are going to have to fight, AND FIGHT HARD, to preserve their liberties. The same GOP-led House that is going to cave-in on taxes will also have a propensity to cave-in on more gun control. Only the biggest outcry of opposition that they have ever seen from their constituents will come close to helping them stay the line. Freedomists all over America had better take the gloves off come January and rally support against these assaults against the Second Amendment or our liberties will be gone FOREVER!
In addition, State legislators, governors, etc., must also rise up in massive opposition to this tyrannical assault against the Second Amendment by Washington, D.C. In short, states need to tell Washington to go to hell! That they are not going to comply with Washington’s attempt to outlaw the most fundamental right in American history: the right to keep and bear arms.
Thomas Jefferson correctly stated, “The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”
George Washington said, “Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence... From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to ensure peace, security, and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable... The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference. When firearms go, all goes.”
Remember, too, semi-automatic rifles are not “assault rifles,” no matter what media propagandists say. Assault rifles are capable of fully automatic fire. These guns are already illegal without jumping through a myriad bureaucratic hoops in order to obtain a special permit to possess them. That assault rifles are illegal is bad enough. To take away the citizen’s right to bear a semi-automatic rifle is to, in effect, completely disarm him. Such an act must be regarded as an act of war against the life and liberties of the American people!
The semi-automatic rifle is the backbone of freedom; it is the single most significant protection against tyranny and oppression in modern times. Is it mere coincidence that the Bloody Butchers of Beijing are calling for the American citizenry to surrender their semi-automatic rifles? US troops won World War II because of the semi-automatic rifle. Switzerland maintained its peaceful neutrality even when the entire continent was soaked in war because of the semi-automatic rifle. The only reason that would-be tyrants in the US government have been kept at bay is because of an American citizenry fully armed with semi-automatic rifles. Foreign enemy-states such as Communist China are more intimidated by an American nation filled with citizens who bear semi-automatic rifles than they are our nuclear arsenal--and that is a fact!
Furthermore, semi-automatic rifles have been around since before World War II, and they are used by millions of hunters every year. Predator hunters, especially, need a semi-automatic rifle. In 1990, one hundred thousand police officers delivered a report to Congress that only 2-3% of crimes were committed using semi-automatic rifles. In 1993, a Bureau of Justice report noted that, nationwide, “military-type” guns are only used in about 1% of crimes. These statistics would not vary much today.
In fact, a person is much more likely to be killed with a knife than with a gun. According to FBI reports, a person in Chicago (for example) is 67 times more likely to be knifed or beaten to death than killed with a so called “assault weapon,” meaning a military-looking semi-automatic rifle.
To view a fully-documented gun control fact sheet containing these facts and much more, go to: GunOwnersOf America.org.
Beyond that, high capacity magazines are essential to self-defense. Bad guys who commit violent crimes are normally “high” on chemicals, drugs, alcohol, etc. Such people are often impervious to pain. Throw in a high level of adrenaline, and many violent attackers cannot be stopped with one or two bullets. Plus, such miscreants often attack like wolves: in packs.
Police Captain Massad Ayoob: “The likelihood of multiple opponents who move fast, often wear body armor, know how to take cover, and tend to ingest chemicals that make them resistant to pain and shock, are all good reasons for carrying guns that throw a whole lot more bullets than six-shooters do.”
Ladies and gentlemen, the semi-automatic rifle is the vanguard of our liberty; it is the surest and most trustworthy means of our self-defense; and it is the primary companion of any man who would both protect and feed his family.
Make no mistake about it: to take away an American’s right to a semi-automatic rifle is to FULLY DISARM HIM. There is no Second Amendment; there is no right to keep and bear arms; there is no citizen militia; there is no liberty without the semi-automatic rifle! This is a line in the sand that is so important that no man or woman who believes in liberty should be willing to comply with any attempt by government to take away his or her semi-automatic rifle. There are some 50-75 million (a very conservative number) owners of semi-automatic rifles all across America. Each of us needs to make up our minds about this RIGHT NOW! What say you?
Original cover of John Kerry's book THE NEW SOLDIER.
Kerry Liked by Liberal WaPo, but
Despised by Vets / Others who know him.
Ken Blackwell and Bob Morrison, Contributing Authors: The editorial staff of the Washington Post, surely meant well. They wanted readers to think that Sen. John Kerry’s vast experience in foreign policy over four decades equips him to serve as Secretary of State in the second Obama administration.
As to his qualifications for that role, we’re reminded of Frederick the Great’s response when he was urged to make a less than stellar general a field marshal. Reminded the only occasionally victorious general had been in every battle for years, Frederick pointed to his mount: “So has my mule. Must I make him a field marshal, too?”
The Post editorial lists offer a tour d’horizon of world hot spots and suggests Kerry has already been helpful in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt and Sudan.
Can anyone point to improvements in U.S. policy toward any of those benighted lands under this administration? Do we really need Kerry’s help to persuade Hamid Karzai take more U.S. gold to hold more dubious elections?
The millions of Christian refugees who have fled Sudan will find cold comfort in the thought that John Kerry has helped smooth their flight.
The Post editorial helpfully reminds us that Kerry was “convinced by” Syria’s cynical Bashir al-Assad that the Damascus butcher was actually a reformer. And this is evidence of his fitness for office?
Perhaps the most curious part of the Post endorsement of Kerry is the notion that defeated presidential candidates have something special to offer as Secretary of State. Nice thought, if it doesn’t collide with the test of history.
Consider William Seward, Lincoln’s defeated rival and hand-picked Sec. of State. Seward gave Lincoln shrewd advice on the Emancipation Proclamation, to be sure, and on shepherding the Thirteenth Amendment that abolished slavery through a lame-duck Congress (as the movie Lincoln memorably records).
But Seward’s foreign policy ideas were positively dangerous. In the midst of Civil War, he welcomed a war with Great Britain. That could have proven fatal for the embattled Union. Lincoln wisely leashed the wily New Yorker, saying: “One war at a time, Seward.”
Another presidential loser, William Jennings Bryan, was Democrat Woodrow Wilson’s disastrous choice for Sec. of State. Pacifist Bryan busied himself concluding binding arbitration treaties with scores of foreign states — like Uruguay and Switzerland.
When Germany sank the Lusitania in 1915, killing thousands of civilians, Bryan quit in a huff. Despite the deaths of hundreds of Americans, including infants, Bryan thought Wilson’s stiff note—typed on his own typewriter--was too “one-sided” against the Germans. It seems Bryan thought the doomed Lusitania had put herself right in the path of those German torpedoes.
Republican Charles Evans Hughes lost to President Wilson by a whisker in 1916. Former President Theodore Roosevelt, frustrated with Hughes, who hailed from T.R.’s native New York. He dismissed the wishy-washy Hughes as “Wilson with whiskers.”
Speaking of New Yorkers who failed to catch the presidential gold ring, we come to former senator, now Sec. of State, Hillary Clinton. We sincerely hope Madame Secretary recovers from her concussion soon. But while her widely anticipated congressional testimony on the Benghazi debacle will grab headlines, the totality of her tenure should not be passed over.
She badgered Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper,most diplomatically in public, in Ottawa for not pushing abortion in pro-life East African nations. She helped Vice President Biden force abortion into the new Kenya constitution, threatening these African Christians with a cutoff of U.S. aid. This, from a Secretary of State who once admitted abortion is "wrong."[Newsweek, Oct. 31, 1994]
While claiming to champion women worldwide, Hillary Clinton has been mum about the global war on unborn baby girls. Estimates range in the hundreds of millions of unborn children killed because they were female.
But, we digress!
Given the record of defeated presidential candidates trying to make a comeback as Secretary of State, the Post’s endorsement becomes curious and curiouser. Senators should press Sen. Kerry hard before taking the Post’s advice on this nomination.
------------------------- Ken Blackwell is a conservative family values advocate. Blackwell is a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council and a visiting professor at Liberty University School of Law. Bob Morrison is a Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at the Family Research Council. He has served at the U.S. Department of Education with Gary Bauer under then-Secretary William Bennett. Both are contributing authors to the ARRA News Service. ------------------------- Editor's Note: Image added by editor. Suggested additional articles:
1. Kerry and the Paris Peace Talksby Jerome R. Corsi, Ph.D., Oct 24, 2004
2. John Kerry meeting North Vietnamese in Parisby Marc Morano, CNSNews, May 20, 2004
3. Obama Picks Anti-Vietnam War Activist John Kerry To Run State Departmentby GINGPAC, Dec 21, 2012
4. Question John Kerry Long and Hard!by Ken Blackwell and Bob Morrison, Dec 22, 2012 Tags:Washington Post, WaPo, John Kerry, endorsement, Ken Blackwell, Bob MorrisonTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
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