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2015-10-31T11:15:00.000-05:00

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Tags: ARRA News Service, Conservative Voices

Collapse of our Industrial/manufacturing base, and cyber security

2015-10-07T13:49:00.000-05:00

by Jim Mullen: We are trapped in a time of our nation's history when misfortunes, mismanagement, corruption, and leftwing ideology come together in a powerful concurrence of circumstances that leave our once dynamic nation at risk for disaster.

Americans are a people dependent upon a meddling, incompetent government with its foot on the necks of its citizens. As incredible as it seems, our representatives allowed dictators and corrupt regimes around the world to control nearly everything we need for survival. Moreover, this administration is weak and incapacitated on the world stage, making us dependent upon the very people who wish to annihilate us.

Dozens of pressing problems challenge America today. Unquestionably, however, the two most urgent problems facing us are the loss of our Industrial complex/manufacturing base, and a crucial lack of cyber security.

Power grids, water supplies, and other utilities are the lifelines sustaining our nation, and experts have warned for decades of onrushing disasters. Computer hacking or other sabotage could leave our entire nation a rudderless, powerless ship drifting defenselessly in a violent and hostile world.

In an age when computers run our military, infrastructure, governmental agencies, financial networks, and nearly everything upon which Americans depend for comfort and survival, we stand defenseless. Countries attack, probe, and steal information with brazen impunity knowing Obama has no stomach for confrontation or retaliation with other countries.

There was a time when America rightfully boasted the greatest and most envied industrial complex and manufacturing base in the history of mankind. However, that was before politicians decided to over regulate, overtax, and enact never-ending destructive legislation motivating business and manufacturing to surrender and move to foreign countries offering more welcoming laws.

Further, national politicians signed unwise trade agreements with countries which placed the United States in a subservient position on trade. Mega-international corporation lobbyists became the driving force for trade policy, and national security steadily suffered. Fair trade became a victim of an ill-conceived national scheme and withered in the heat of backroom deals between money brokers and politicians. The false narrative of free trade left our nation impotent in a world offering depressed wages, fewer benefits, insignificant regulations, and lower taxes. Obviously, good-paying jobs with benefits vanished as we became less competitive.

International trade is an absolute necessity to a healthy U. S. economy. Unfortunately, big-time money speaks louder and more forcefully than common sense and fair economic practice. Democrats and Republicans joined at the wallet with special interests, tragically left our national security rusting away in hundreds of silent, inactive, and useless factories from coast to coast.

History reminds us when one door closes because of trade, others open when an economy is freewheeling and operating as intended in a free enterprise, capitalistic system. However, we have a Marxist President who believes business and business decisions must be filtered through an all-powerful government. This stifling of the once powerful engine of industry, leaves us even more vulnerable.

Jobs created in Obama’s collectivist economy are low wage, service oriented positions gobbled up by illegal and legal aliens. Economic growth is consistently slower than at any time in the last several decades, and a crushing national debt threatens all future growth when interest rates return to sustainable numbers.

If war visits our shores the glaring, unmistakable truth will expose a nation suffering from neglect and decline, caused largely by political chicanery and malfeasance at the highest levels of government.

Circumstances will uncover a corrupt and incompetent educational system, and an Ill-educated populace indoctrinated into an ideology of dependence on the government. Unfortunately, most of the country’s engineers come from other countries, and we rest in a state of denial and lethargy, at the mercy of the world’s despots. Worse yet, our political leaders have us tightly bound by contrived measures to our mortal enemies China and Russia. Yes, they’ve placed our manufacturing, jobs, national security, economy, and a massive national debt in the hands of foreign dictators.

Once upon a time, this nation stood tall flexing a mighty industrial complex, manufacturing base, and skilled labor force. Coincidentally, it all remained largely unfettered by government. Undoubtedly, the next war will find a nation rife with the greatest fast-food workers in the world.

Our industrial complex is as valuable as the Army, Navy, Marines, ships, aircraft, missiles, and bombs. Our national Political leaders destroyed our once awe-inspiring manufacturing and industrial complex and at the same time Obama reduced our military. We remain at risk until these greedy, shortsighted men get their hands out of big-money pockets and introduce policies bringing back to our shores the manufacturing once so coveted by the world.

In 1921, we initiated the Washington Disarmament Conference in which we cosigned with several countries, two treaties. The first was to reduce the size of the US Navy fleet; along with the British, French, Japanese, and Italian fleets. The other was a treaty to guarantee China’s integrity. Japan was one of the signees!

In 1929, we naively signed a treaty that was supposed to abolish war to resolve International disputes. Forty seven nations signed the treaty, including Germany and Japan.

We scrapped more than 60% of our Navy, and the army was reduced to a total force of 136,000 men. That was less than the army of Romania at that time! While the United States and most of the world disarmed, the Axis powers audaciously prepared for war. If the world did not learn a powerful, painful lesson from the causes of WWII, then we are doomed to repeat another agonizing war.

Then, Neville Chamberlain, who said peace at any cost even if it meant surrendering, helped throw Europe into full-out war. Today Barack Obama says peace at any cost, even if it means surrendering or arming with nuclear weapons a country sworn to our annihilation. While he makes the world unsafe for all people, he drastically reduces our military, appeases our enemies, and weakens the economy. We are in similar circumstances as was the world and our nation in the 1930s.

The difference being, Roosevelt and Congress did not disassemble our industrial might and send our manufacturing jobs to our enemies. In fact, they fired up our manufacturing to assist Europe and Asia to such a peak, that when we entered the war, much of our country’s economy was quickly changed to support a full war effort for us and our allies.

While the federal government, media, Hollywood, and the lunatic-left keep the country’s attention on fabricated crises and political correctness, the country sinks under the weight of its own negligence and inattention. America’s greatest tragedy 9-11, could have easily been prevented by simply placing locks on cockpit doors, enforcing our Visa laws, and not allowing foreigners access to flight training of commercial aircraft. Repeated warnings of the dire consequences of these laxities went unheeded and disaster ensued.

A weak nation is a vulnerable nation, and we have never been more vulnerable. Government is reactive and overactive but seldom proactive. Barack Obama, his leftwing comrades, and Congress have us teetering on a precipice of disaster. From where will the next Lincolnesque commander-in-chief or never-give-up, Churchillian pitbull come? Let us hope we don’t have another war to find out!

Jim Mullen

http://freedomforusnow.com

https://twitter.com/freedomforusnow

Collapse of our industrial complex, cyber security,

Dollars and sense, common sense, and no sense-at-all, liberals

2014-06-02T13:56:00.002-05:00

How liberals can make everything in the world hunky-dory

By Jim Mullen

For purposes of expediency this writer will use an all-inclusive word, liberal, for communists, Marxists, socialists, liberals, and progressives. They differ only in variations of the methods they use to carry out their tyranny. They universally believe in all-powerful centralized government and limited or no rights for people.

Few middle-of-the-road liberals are professional liars, but they lie to promote a feel-good ideology they actually conjure up in some obscure part of a maldeveloped, warped mind. Others simply have been indoctrinated and sequestered in a system that teaches theoretical gibberish that inhibits their ability to reason. They are victims of what this writer describes as human inertia and like Newton’s Law of Inertia in physics; objects tend to "keep on doing what they're doing." In fact, it is the natural tendency of objects and lazy liberals to resist changes in their state of motion. This begets “group-think” and the herd mentality.

Using twisted logic only a liberal could justify, they frequently get caught in ridiculous scenarios of defending the indefensible. Devoid of any facts, they contort and squeeze words until they are meaningless, in a wrongheaded attempt to prove some of their outlandish theories. Conservatives have a problem with liberals who staunchly believe they need no proof of anything they proclaim. There are no other arguments, you see, because proof was already settled by other liberals.

Nearly every young person has the liberal mindset, but outgrows the disability as they mature. Some of the greatest conservatives of our time caught some gale force of maturity in their sails that changed their state of human inertia (liberalism). Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley, and Charles Krauthammer, lead a long list of conservatives who grew to reject the liberal orthodoxy in which they floundered.

We could greatly expedite the return of freedom to our county if every new piece of legislation, presidential decree, and bureaucratic regulation was preceded by the repeal of five present laws. More importantly, however, is that politicians, bureaucrats, and especially liberals be held to the same standards they demand of everyone else. Requiring all big-government advocates to obey every law, regulation, politically-correct lunacy, and liberal ideology, would strike a massive blow against tyranny.

People would respect more of what liberals want in the world if they first put their lives on the line and plunge headlong into that shallow pool of foolishness. Poetic justice dictates they reap what they so richly deserve. As a trial run, the first thousand pages of every liberal law they find necessary to foist upon the sweaty masses, should apply to only liberals for the first year. If they are still convinced of its viability after a year, maybe others would join them in flushing commonsense and liberty down the government sewer.

Hypothetically speaking, liberals could perfect their skills by considering the following:

Anti-gun?

Let everyone know. Wear “I’m unarmed” shirts, place signs in your yard, stickers on your car, and pass out cards. Then register your feelings in the public record at the court house, and of course in the media akin to your demands of gun owners. It’s obvious to any thinking, sane human these courses of action will quickly contribute to an increase in overall crime and murder rate. Consequently, liberals are a menace to public health and their own, as well. They must, therefore, be heavily taxed for this threat to society. The increase costs for law enforcement, courts, and the prison systems would force officials to take this into account when calculating fees and taxes. Obviously, taxes would skyrocket.

It’s also evident that liberals would notice a dramatic decrease in their numbers for a simple reason; they would be targeted by criminals, and millions would promptly be annihilated or would abandon their folly and find some modicum of gray matter in that unusually small part of their immense brains typically reserved for common sense. Perhaps all Americans can finally come to the conclusion that self-defense is a natural, as well as, a constitutional right.

Along this line, everyone must use the police department for protection; even politicians and movie stars. Individual, armed private security should never be available to anyone unless it’s provided for everyone.

Favor legitimizing 20 to 30 million illegal aliens and their extended families?

Support a law mandating that every liberal desirous of alien legalization must adopt a family of illegals; be responsible for their healthcare, education, food, housing, and all other expenses. Additionally, liberals presently argue that we cannot break up the extended family, so they would be accountable for bringing all members of the illegal aliens’ family to America and providing for them.

Think public schools are where children receive the best education?

Prove it by demanding that Congress pass legislation requiring all American children attend public schools from prekindergarten through graduate school.

One of Obama’s first acts was to shutter the incredibly successful voucher school program in Washington, D.C., which caused havoc in the black and Hispanic population. The President’s children, however, do not attend the violent, nation-leading failing schools of D.C., where barely ten percent learn to read adequately.

Teachers’ unions will be ecstatic and soon liberals will have their long-sought-after Social Justice. Everyone will then be equally misinformed, ill-informed, and indoctrinated into a state of blissful, ignorant, oblivion. Similar to a new day dawning, only in reverse.

Think public healthcare is the “final solution” for all Americans?

Obama and the New Democratic Party disrupted and destroyed the best healthcare system in the world to insure 2% of 330 million people at a cost of our freedom to choose doctors, hospitals, coverage, and inserting government between Americans and their healthcare providers.

Soon, costs will crush the American economy, and rationing will cause massive casualties and death.

Liberals and their families should lead the way by insisting every American use the same healthcare providers as Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare patients must. No exceptions.

This is what the Obama administration wants for commoners, but not the elites. When liberals start dying like they are under the VA healthcare system, ask yourself, are liberals and their families more important that Veterans?

Believe we need to redistribute all income and wealth in this country and in the world?

Be first in line. Voluntarily shrink your income to just above the poverty line, and give the rest of your wealth, property, and income to the government. The IRS gladly accepts your donations.

Next, read and understand the United Nation’s Agenda 21 and do your part by adhering to its dictates.

Do your liberal best to convince Americans about the benefits of being active participants in the United Nations and relinquishing our sovereignty to 192 other (the majorities are dictatorships) nations. Continue your work to disarm American citizens and unilaterally disarm the United States.

Believe in man-made global warming and that the U.S. is a major contributor? Take Public transportation everywhere you journey, if possible. If not, procure a solar-powered or electric automobile. By all means, fight your best fight to scuttle all power plants using carbon-based fuels. Nuclear, likewise, is out of the question for eco-Nazis. Sooo, brace yourself for Obama’s promise to necessarily cause electric costs to skyrocket. When you plug your car in, you’ll be mesmerized by that spinning wheel on the electric meter.

Dismantle your dwelling and build one with 400 sq feet of living space for a family of four, and be sure to use only recyclable materials. If your family size varies, use this simple equation (i.e. before Common Core math) 100 sq ft per each family member. That’s plenty of living space for nearly everyone in third-world countries, and since you strive to change America into a third-world country, it’s certainly enough room for you.

Think we’re too tough on criminals?

Load up the Prius or hop aboard your choice of public transportation, and visit your favorite penal institution. The uber-liberal American Bar Association will be delighted to provide you with the proper paperwork to adopt a felon or two. You can then procure them jobs, let them live with you in your world until they can stand on their own. You could possibly talk them into protecting your home or sitting with the children while you work.

Likewise, if you think the U.S. Justice Department under the radical racist and Marxist, Eric Holder, is legally justified in suing businesses for using criminal background checks when hiring their employees, then you should urge all the companies with whom you do business to hire ex-convicts.

Are you one who cries yourself to sleep at night about the overcrowding of jails and prisons? Then, by all means, round up your liberal friends and launch a program with your penal system of choice whereby you can all share in the simple joys of providing a warm bed, great food, and exceptional healthcare for a needy convict. Visualize the taxpayer money you could save, and how that warm-and-fuzzy feeling would enrich the lives of you and your family. The entire liberal community will positively radiate euphoric vibrations.

Speaking of healthcare, you’ll be the talk of the town and one of the highest regarded and beloved philanthropists in town when they notice the positive results of those hormone treatments and sex change operations that changed good-old Bernie into Bernice. I’m sure all of your neighbors will want to join in your rapture. Commit this to memory; it takes a village!

Think taxes are too low?

Again, don’t forget, the IRS will gladly accept your check for any amount. I would think you would want to offer more than what you envision is fair for others to pay. Make this a learning opportunity and exhibit your leadership skills; organize your lib friends. They’ll love writing that check.

Believe in affirmative action?

Take it to the limit. Hire only people who fit your description of those who need help. Qualifications are unimportant. Submit your name to universities, colleges, and trade school and financially adopt every minority wishing to attend these institutions. Bear in mind, qualifications are unimportant. Work directly with your local police, fire departments to hire certain quotas (numbers) of minorities to help protect you and your family. Again, qualifications are inconsequential.

Don’t forget medical schools, law schools, and the like. Quotas are more important than having a skilled brain surgeon perform your operation. Also, we know lawyers and Judges are at the bottom of importance, so what does talent and skill mean anyway?

Trade schools are no exception. After all, what prerequisite must plumbers, electricians or mechanics possess? If they just happen to burn your house down or leave you stranded in your car, think forgiveness. After all, you are tolerant, understanding, and caring. Ideology is of the essence, and the need for aptitude is highly exaggerated.

By doing all the above, liberals will, as the Little Rascals said, take care of “important business” and thereby, save the world from mean, racist, homophobic, sexist, and Islamophobic, white-guy conservatives. Now that you’ve surfeited your overwhelming desire for acceptance, it’s time to put on your favorite anti-gun shirt, climb up on that soapbox at the public square, put your arms firmly around yourself, squeeze tightly in a loving embrace, and repeat the moron’s mantra, “I’m just so wonderful, yes! I’m such a high-quality person, yes I am! Would everyone please look at me? I’m a perfect liberal because I care so deeply! Plus, I walk the walk.”

One caution, however. Perhaps you should take along a law-abiding, armed conservative (put away your penchant for affirmative action in this scenario, only a conservative will measure up to the job) just for the off-chance that a deranged gun-toter spots your shirt and thinks he or she (no sexism here – but wait, should it read he/she/it?) has a covey of defenseless doves gathered for his or her convenience. As a liberal, you will soon learn that your entire species would be extinct if not for the protection of conservatives’ guns, guts, and common sense.

There are dozens of other great ideas on how liberals can “make a difference.” Ask any conservative for additional information. Can’t find a conservative? You’ll find the lion’s share of them far-flung from large metropolitan areas. They are especially plentiful in American’s heartland. The best of luck to ya!

Meanwhile, back to freedom-loving Americans:

Common sense comprises an incredibly minute segment of the typical gigantic liberal brain. Conversely, the dominant part is ego. One other distinguishing trait is that liberal’s gray matter all floats around in a brine of political correctness. Charlton Heston famously said, “Political correctness is tyranny with manners.” Unfortunately, nearly all the vocal, active liberals of today are ill-mannered, nasty, hate-filled, venom-spewing, and dreadfully unhappy people. All pretexts of manners are lacking in today’s liberals.

Are these and the rest of their coven just escapees from the idiot farm or cold, calculating, demonic, anti-Americans hell-bent on destroying American culture and our constitutional Republic? They screech “social justice” but show profound ignorance about issues of real justice. Their receptors just aren’t tuned to that wavelength. Let’s give them a lesson in real justice and diversity; make them live by their own perverted creed.

Jim Mullen

http://freedomforusnow.com

https://twitter.com/freedomforusnow

Tags: Liberals should live by their own rules, liberals whould show us the way to Eden,

Common Core Standards; federal government tyranny

2013-05-02T14:53:00.001-05:00

By Jim Mullen

Despite its lack of constitutional authority, the federal government relentlessly treads on the educational system with one giant bureaucratic boot after another.

The very essence of every federal program is to encourage dependency, dissuade initiative, stifle competition, and raise prices. Additionally, they appoint panels, boards, and ruling commissions to regulate liberty into submission. Innovation and flexibility fall victim to one giant bureaucracy after another and they insert themselves into every cranny and crevice of American life. Justifying their existence requires formulating more rules, regulations, paperwork, and demanding more money. Politicians calculate and design everything to establish a self-perpetuating monster that drives enterprising thought and action into a progressive hell-on-earth.

Just as every other federal interference, takeover, or “comprehensive” legislation has failed, Washington-style education reforms have, likewise, failed miserably.

Acronyms by the thousands and volumes of complicated legalese or “government-speak” permeate the U.S. Department of Education. In what can only be described as deliberate obfuscation the department works feverously to make prying eyes bleed and inquiring minds turn to pulp at any attempt to decipher their leftwing, progressive gibberish.

Over the last several decades, progressives’ call for education reform centered around their desire to federalize the system and disembowel state and local constitutional authority. The driving force behind the leftists’ effort has involved throwing federal tax dollars at states and local school districts. This largesse accompanied disinformation and coded ideological claptrap formulated to open the arms of educators, politicians, and bureaucrats to embrace and accept any condition or program for “free” money.

Every new federal “program” including “No Child Left Behind” resulted in the same outcome; lower test scores, more dependency, billions of dollars wasted, and another generation trapped in an ever-expanding cycle of poverty, ignorance, and indoctrination.

The latest, and perhaps the most bizarre and diabolical of all federal takeovers of education has a most unassuming and non-threatening title of “Common Core State Standards Initiative” (CCSSI). Once implemented, the federal government will control assessment tools, textbooks, and computer programming used in education. A national data collection system called State Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS)will work in tandem with Common Core to determine a child’s educational opportunities.

All school-choice programs will quickly turn into federally approved programs, and the educational system will, in all practicality, be federalized. In other words, centralized in Washington, DC where great schemes hatch and monumental malfeasance and breathtaking failures grow like weeds in rich bureaucratic meadows.

Once touted as “international bench-marked,” Common Core standards focus on changing the social and political values of American children. They are rooted in standards shaped by United Nation treaties and beliefs of the UN universal Declaration of Human Rights. Few goals address academics; math standards actually lower expectations.

The national data collection system (SLDS) will follow a child from Kindergarten to adulthood. IQ scores, test scores, disciplinary, and medical records are just a few of the data with which students’ educational and job opportunities will be afforded. Over 400 data points collected by schools and teachers will include personal, financial, and family information.

Thanks to the weakening by the Obama administration of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) these data can be shared. Hundreds of data points on every student will be given or sold to outside corporations, researchers, and government. This is a tracking and informational system of Orwellian proportions never imagined even by Soviet Bloc nations.

As Libertywatch.org/ explains, “The attitude is that all of this data on our children belongs to the government, and if we, their benighted parents scream and beg, maybe they will protect it or say they are going to do so. The questions never get asked, “Why are you collecting so much data on our children without consent?” and “By what authority do you do so?”

When these systems are in place, every student in every educational setting must meet federal standards. Textbooks are being written that meet the goals of CCSS. The government is funding organizations that create testing tools to assess student’s progress in accepting the social and political ideologies being taught in the classroom. The expected implementation date of CCSS is within the next two to three years.

Stealthily, and without public or legislative notice, this initiative, usurping state and local control of school curriculum passed in 46 states and began in 2009. The Common Core Standards Initiative sets curriculum in every participating state at the same level. States, by adopting this “common core,” are relinquishing their constitutionally guaranteed right to control education.

This clandestine project bypassed the state and federal legislative processes and went unnoticed and unreported to Congress and state legislators. State boards of education bureaucracies approved most of the measures. Not surprisingly, promises of billions of dollars from the federal government and from liberal, private foundations, seduced the boards. Amazingly, they signed on to the Standards before they were even written.

The National Governor’s Association and the Chief Council of State School Officers signed-off on CCSS and gave the appearance that they were state-led, but make no mistake; the federal government leads and drives Common Core.

The Obama administration poured billions of dollars into the bribes for states from “Stimulus” money, “No Child Left Behind” wavers (the unfunded mandate from the Bush-era), more Title I funding, and Race to the Top inducements.

States and local boards are depending on a windfall of federal tax money in exchange for their capitulation. Once fully implemented, that pledge for support will collapse like all political and bureaucratic promises that end as unfunded mandates. Funding and cost information on this boondoggle are being kept under the same rug where Obamacare, and every other federal government failures were swept.

Most states are now rife with grass-roots organizations fighting this most vile federal invasion that violates three federal education laws: the General Provisions Act, the Department of Education Organization Act, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. As we have learned, obeying the law is unimportant to government; control is everything.

Loss of dignity comes largely from an educational system that indoctrinates, not educates, and is responsible for the lack of free spirit and determination, and low expectations sweeping our nation. From age 4 through graduate schools, the system teaches dependency and that government is there to take care of everyone’s needs. Gaining common sense and wisdom from an education became lost in the fog of liberal ideology.

When one understands the federal government’s penchant for, and indeed, their record of, heavy-handed control and underperforming results, one can see this Common Core thrust is but the initial salvo for complete and total domination of education at every level. Government never raises the bar for performance or results; rather it lowers everything and everyone to the lowest common denominator. In this case, it’s the lowest “Common Core” standards to which our youth will be subjected, and by which they will be judged.

Just one absurd example of the lowest common denominator is that literary works like the classics draw dust; replaced by informational texts. Two recommended spellbinding reads are “The Evolution of the Grocery Bag,” and “Health Care Costs in McAllen, Texas.”

Disinformation and subterfuge are the means by which government expands oppression. States around this nation are in a life-struggle to bare the truth about this federal government’s oppressive invasion. In weeks to come Americans must join local, state, and national groups engaging in opposition to this outrage. Be prepared for the progressives to launch their usual barrage using Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” to lie, ridicule, and intimidate.

One must, likewise, remember that progressives use the current deplorable state of our educational system as justification for nationalization. What they will not say, however, is that the progressive movement is responsible for nearly every disastrous problem found in the US educational system. Every crisis to a liberal is an opportunity for a never-ending cycle of more government power, which exacerbates one disaster by creating another.

Tyranny lurks in the shadows of government like deadly predators lying in wait for their prey. The weak, unprepared, untrained, and the lazy, are the first to fall. Allowing the federal government at the throats of our young people is to disallow children the opportunity to know the unique American experience of liberty in a freewill republic. Our youth must learn that there is more to the American dream than living a comfortable, monotone existence with a lifetime of dependency upon government.

Jim Mullen

Http://freedomforusnow.com

https://twitter.com/freedomforusnow

Taking guns away from lawful citizens

2013-03-21T12:33:00.002-05:00

By Jim Mullen, West Virginia Writer: U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) still doesn’t get it. He can’t fathom the reality that the freedom-loving Mountaineers of West Virginia are livid about his unwavering support of Barack Obama and his left-wing Democrats in their unconstitutional quest at further restricting the free exercise of Americans’ Second Amendment rights. Both are shamefully taking a tragic event and using it to further their political agendas by grandstanding and self-aggrandizing.

Manchin continues to reassure West Virginians that nobody is after their guns, while doggedly working with the anti-gun extremists to limit the size of clips and expand background checks. He and the Obamaites preach that we must have ‘reasonable’ rules.

The battle now is to ban so-called “assault weapons” and high-capacity clips. The radical left obviously believes lawful Americans cannot be trusted.

Weapons are only “assault weapons” when in the hands of criminals. When in the hands of law-abiding American citizens, they are “defensive weapons.” These are some of the weapons Manchin said we must look at to stop the killing of innocents. We all know what he meant by the term “look at.”

It is obvious to even the densest anti-gun zealot, that criminals will pay no heed to ANY gun-control law. Therefore, it’s apparent that the quest for more anti-gun legislation is aimed at disarming lawful citizens and does nothing to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. The facts are irrefutable; gun-control legislation disarms or makes criminals of lawful Americans, but does nothing to disarm criminals or reduce violence or murders of innocent people.

Criminals depend on government to disarm the public, thus allowing thugs and gangs unrestricted domination in our streets, neighborhoods, and cities. U.S. cities with the strictest gun laws have the highest crime and murder rates. Witness the cities of Chicago, Washington, DC, Detroit, Baltimore, and on, and on.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted to ban 157 different models of defensive weapons, as well as magazines containing more than 10 rounds. However, the liberals and the media, including the Senator from the Mountain State, claim that nobody is trying to take away our guns. Every Democrat on the committee voted for the ban, while every Republican voted against the ban.

Americans must face facts, it’s apparent over the last several years that the New Democratic Party is a mortal enemy of gun owners and the Second Amendment. The NRA should also take heed when they endorse a Democrat for office when there is another candidate with an excellent record on gun rights. Endorsing candidates like Harry Reid and the Senator from West Virginia is shortsighted and the NRA actually undermines the very rights that they otherwise so feverishly defend because they add to the Democratic majority.

The West Virginia Senator supports backdoor registration of guns through background checks at gun shows and private sales or purchases.

Background checks at gun shows are little more than background checks for private sales and trading of guns and ammunition, which he favors. He knows none of these laws will reduce gun violence or murder rates in this country. Yet, under Manchin’s plan, if one wants to purchase a gun from a neighbor, one must pay for a background check and get approval from the federal government. These extended background checks are another back door, roundabout attempt at registration that allows government to know who owns guns, what type they are, and where to find them.

Not a word emanates from the mouths of Manchin, Obama, Feinstein, or any other left-wing anti-gunners about the real causes of crime and murder rates in this country. Most violence comes directly from inaction and misguided programs by federal, state, and local governments.

The free exercise of American rights under the Second Amendment does not cause violence.

Here are just a few of the shortcomings, incompetence, and corrupt bureaucracies of government that do result in lawless, senseless violence.
· The failure of the liberal courts and the justice system in general to PUNISH criminals.
· The failure to build more jails and prisons.
· Early release and catch-and-release of criminals; including violent felons.
· Plea-bargaining and reductions of sentences.
· Left-wing lawmakers, state and federal, who consistently and shamefully go out of their way to twist, manipulate, and distort, every societal issue to bestow the victimhood label on criminals, and not on the real victims; law-abiding citizens of our country.
· Failure to address criminal, illegal aliens pouring over our border with drugs, guns, and human cargo.
· Overcrowding, then release from jails of illegals to reduce the excess numbers.
· A corrupt government-controlled educational system that, especially in the inner cities, fails to give young people even a rudimentary education and then dumps them out on the streets without sufficient skills to compete in the world.

Much of the debate for years in this country has centered on handguns. For decades, nobody talked about long guns of any kind. To the leftists, handguns represented everything that was evil about the Second Amendment. The unvarnished truth is that the left-wingers believe the very existence of the Second Amendment is evil.

Concealed permits are under constant attack. By declaring gun-free zones and limiting where one can legally carry a weapon, the tyrants hope to make it so restrictive as to make concealed permits worthless. One such limit in declaring schools as "gun-free zones" to prevent shootings, could only be imagined, and implemented by the most naive and ignorant of liberal minds.

Some notable quotes by Obama, the anti self-defense chief, should tell everyone where the leftist-in-chief stands:
· “I am consistently on record and will continue to be on record as opposing concealed carry.”
· “I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities.”
· “It’s a scandal that Bush didn’t renew the ‘assault weapon' ban.”
· If you need 19 rounds to shoot a deer, you probably shouldn’t be hunting.”

Here are some notable votes by Obama:
· Voted to uphold civil actions and lawsuits against gun manufacturers, distributors, dealers, and importers of guns and ammunition.
· Voted to ban hundreds of common rifles and shotguns.
· Voted to uphold local gun bans in Illinois.
· Voted to uphold prosecution of people using guns in self-defense.

Now, let’s examine some Joe Manchin quotes and excerpts from the Senator’s own writings:
· “I’ve never had more than three shells in a clip. Sometimes you don’t get more than one shot anyway at a deer. It’s common sense. It’s time to move beyond rhetoric. We need to sit down and have a common-sense discussion and move in a reasonable way.”
· “We must look at the use of high-capacity ammunition magazines and military-style assault weapons.”
· “I truly appreciate President Obama’s intentions to ‘push without delay’ a set of recommendations to address the kind of madness we witnessed in Newtown.”
· “I don’t know anyone in the hunting or sporting arena that goes out with an assault rifle. I don’t know anybody that needs 30 rounds in the clip to go hunting. I mean, these are things that need to be talked about.”
· “I think everything should be on the table.” “I think everything should be looked at.” In response to MSNBC’s question of do you think the gun laws should be changed?

One will notice Sen. Manchin never once points out that the Second Amendment never mentions hunting and not one word crosses his lips about self-defense. He obviously thinks the Second Amendment should be on the table for discussion, and it’s all about hunting.

It’s always easier for lazy, corrupt, and ideological politicians to take the easy path. They use manipulative hyperbole, and emotional rhetoric to push for legislation that has proven repeatedly to be ineffective, and destructive. Like vultures, these zealots circle after every despicable shooting by an outlaw or insane person and then use the tragedy and suffering of others to gain an upper hand to implement their anti-gun tyranny.

They know they cannot ban all gun rights at once any more than a boa can instantly kill and devour its prey. They do it slowing, one contraction at a time.

Little-by-little, Obama, Manchin, Feinstein, and their left-wing ilk formulate their “reasonable rules” which are, in reality, slow narrowings and constrictions designed to squeeze the life from our Second Amendment and devour our guns.

Knowing what Obama and this West Virginia liberal hunter have said publicly, and knowing the history of the anti-gun radicals, does anyone believe them when they say, “Nobody is coming after your guns?”

Disarming America is not a solution for violence; rather it is one of the chief determining factors for the violence raging through the streets of this country. An unarmed nation is a nation on its knees, and that is exactly where the leftist tyrants want Americans. The free exercise of American rights under the Second Amendment does not cause violence.

For one to see the tragic results of liberal politics and gun control that disarms lawful people, one needs to look to the cities in the control of the New Democratic Party. Here, guns are banned outright from lawful Americans or restricted to such a point as to make their right to own guns and defend themselves, a cruel joke. They are microcosms of what liberals want for the rest of the country.

When liberal-progressive government is in control of peoples’ lives, they keep citizens disarmed, uneducated, indoctrinated, and dependent. When will we cease to allow our government to cast their tyrannical, liberal, magic spell over this great land?
---------------
Jim Mullen
Parkersburg, WV
FreedomforUSNow.com
Twitter: @freedomforusnow
Parkersburg Conservative Examiner

Tags: Anti-gun radicals, gun control, President Obama, anti-gun agenda, loss of liberty To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Jimmy Carter’s Libel Israel Week

2013-03-19T22:15:00.000-05:00

Ken Blackwell, ARRA News Service: Some politically correct colleges in America and Western Europe observe something they call “Israel Apartheid Week.” It’s another opportunity to libel Israel for building a defensive perimeter to keep out Arab suicide bombers. These misguided young people who libel the only democracy in the Mideast look to former President Jimmy Carter for their inspiration. Carter was the most prominent person in the world to apply the hated term apartheid to Israel’s purely defensive barrier. Carter’s book, Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, has served as a text for the libelers of Israel.

The French have an apt expression for what Israel is doing: “This animal is very vicious; when you attack it, it defends itself.” What Israel did in building a barrier between them and those territories that were staging areas for suicide bombers is entirely understandable. Americans are clamoring for more effective borders — north and south — and we have not yet, thank goodness, experienced suicide bombers in our pizza parlors.

There is no doubt that many Arabs in Palestine are suffering because of the barriers. They used to move freely in and out of jobs in the Jewish majority sections. Now, they must endure checkpoints. But whose fault is this? If they protest that they are not terrorists, our sympathy naturally goes with them. But if they try to finger the terrorists who dominate their towns, they will of course be attacked and in many cases killed. And their families punisned, as well.

Former President Jimmy Carter is working on his humility. It’s hard when you are so prominent. Speaking on NPR of his role as Mideast peacemaker, Carter said this:I doubt that any other prominent human being has been blessed with such a great opportunity, as I have, to actually know what's going on there.Now, Winston Churchill traveled throughout the region and created two Arab kingdoms as Britain’s Colonial Secretary, Iraq and Trans-Jordan. But he never won a Nobel Peace Prize, as Carter did. And Churchill’s contemporary, T.E. Lawrence, the famed “Lawrence of Arabia, just might be considered a prominent human being. He led the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire. Without his efforts there would probably be no Arab states.

It should be noted that Chaim Weitzman, founder of the Jewish State, David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, and Golda Meir, Israel’s longtime chief diplomat, might also have been considered prominent human beings. And they, too, might have actually known something about the Arab-Israeli Dispute.

Carter’s humility doesn’t extend to precision in writing. He boasts that he wrote every word of his book himself. And then had this to say about his choice of words:NPR: The sentence [in your book] said that Palestinians and Arabs in general should end suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism, when international laws and the ultimate goals of the roadmap are accepted by Israel?

Carter: The "when" was obviously a crazy and stupid word. My publishers have been informed about that and have changed the sentence in all future editions of the book.
He said it. You read it. It’s not just a slip of the tongue, or the fingertips. This “stupid and crazy” sentence went around the world and gave legitimacy to the idea that terror attacks on Israel would cease only when Israel agreed to yield up more territory to her enemies according to an internationally-agreed upon “roadmap” for peace.Has any other country ever allowed a “Quartet” of foreign powers to decide its fate? Actually, one did: Czechoslovakia in 1938 was not even invited to the Munich conference at which British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, France’s Premier Edouard Daladier, Italy’s Duce Benito Mussolini and Germany’s Fürer Adolf Hitler deprived Central Europe’s only democracy of its vitally needed border defenses. That infamous conference bought no peace and precious little time for the shamed democracies.

On too many U.S. campuses, liberal activists are inspired by Carter’s condemnation of Israel’s self-defense. They shout down Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, and promise to bring to the U.S. the kind of intimidation and libel the PLO has brought bring to all international forums. The late Yasser Arafat even wore a holster and pistol at the UN General Assembly in 1974. This was just months after he ordered the murder of U.S. Ambassador to Sudan, Cleo Noel.

We pay Jimmy Carter some $199,000 a year as a former president. He also gets office expenses and Secret Service protection. He has been protected by us for thirty-two years.

With all this protection, he is safe to jet around the world, meeting such worthies as the leaders of Hamas — the openly terrorist faction that rules in Gaza. On one of these taxpayer-supported trips, Mr. Carter proudly related how he met with the late Syrian dictator:On one occasion [Hafez al-Assad] invited me to meet with him and his entire family, and I met all his children and got to know them. One of them was a college student who is now the president of Syria.Hafez al-Assad murdered some 20,000 Syrians at Hama in 1982. His son, the one Jimmy was so proud to meet, has topped his father. Bashar al-Assad has reportedly killed 60,000 of his Syrian people.

Jimmy Carter’s single term was distinguished by utter ineffectiveness. Americans in forty-four states booted him out unceremoniously. But even that electoral drubbing was not enough to humble his pride. Americans are generous. We thought Jimmy Carter was a good man, but just one over his head.

Now, we see increasingly that he can be mendacious and malicious, and seems determined to intrude himself where he never has to worry about the voters’ wrath again.
----------------------
Ken Blackwell is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. Blackwell is a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council. He is a contributing author to the ARRA News Service.

Tags: IJimmy Carter, libel, Israel, Kim Blackwell To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Carbon Tax Fight Looms

2013-03-17T15:13:00.000-05:00

Phil Kerpen - ARRA News Service: The White House continues to inch closer to a carbon tax. In Obama's first post-election press conference, he dodged the question. The next day his spokesman Jay Carney said: "We would never propose a carbon tax, and have no intention of proposing one." Great, but they don't have to propose it. The proposals have now been made by Obama's key allies. Senator Barbara Boxer, the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee introduced a carbon tax bill with Vermont's Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist. On the House side, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, Henry Waxman, has introduced a carbon tax discussion draft. This week Obama indicated he's quietly preparing to back these proposals.

"If we move aggressively on an issue like climate change -- that's not an easy issue for a lot of folks," Obama said to the first meeting of the operatives of Organizing for Action — his supposedly non-partisan continuation of his presidential campaign. "I want to make sure that a congressman, senator feels as if they've got the information and the grassroots network that's going to support them in that effort."

So the bills have been introduced and Obama is readying his grassroots army. This is looking increasingly real, and the economic stakes are enormous.

Let's start with the pain at the pump. The Boxer-Sanders bill taxes carbon dioxide at $20 per metric ton, which works out to 17.8 cents a gallon of gasoline. So it basically would double the existing federal gas tax. (Which of course begs the question — don't we already tax carbon enough?) It gets much worse; Boxer-Sanders automatically raises the tax 5.6 percent per year for 10 years, enough to double the tax to 30 cents. And the tax would also hit your electric bill, of course, and industrial energy users would be hit hard.

A study by the National Association of Manufacturers found that a carbon tax similar to Boxer-Sanders would knock an immediate half a percent off of GDP and threaten millions of jobs.

The Waxman discussion draft is potentially much worse. It proposes a range of starting prices and automatic increases up to $35 per metric ton and 8 percent. That would mean about 31 cents a gallon gas tax to start, automatically jumping to 67 cents by year 10 and $1.34 by year 20. Of course electricity generation, manufacturers, and every product grown, shipped, or manufactured would also be hit.

But perhaps the biggest danger is that despite the widespread economic damage, these proposals could become politically viable by incorporating large scale income redistribution. Even one supposedly conservative advocate of carbon taxes recently suggested 11 percent of the revenue should be used to increase social welfare spending to alleviate the impact of higher energy prices on the poor. We can safely assume the liberals will push for a much larger piece than that, perhaps issuing free gas cards much like existing food stamp cards so hardworking taxpayers can pick up the (fast-rising!) gas tab not just for themselves but for others, too.

Fortunately, some leaders in Congress are not waiting for the Democrats to spring this trap. Congressmen Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Joe Barton of Texas have introduced a resolution of disapproval making clear that a carbon tax would be economically destructive and should be rejected. Such "Sense of Congress" resolutions are usually just political statements, but given the marshaling of Democratic forces, it could serve as a vital prevention strategy to put the House firmly on the record in opposition now and prevent any risk of a carbon tax emerging as a real possibility. House leadership would be wise to bring the resolution to the floor and put the House on record against this terrible idea.
----------------
© Copyright 2012 Phil Kerpen. He is the president of American Commitment where he first shared this article; a contributing author for the ARRA News Service and the author of Democracy Denied: How Obama is Bypassing Congress to Radically Transform America – and How to Stop Him.

Tags: Phil Kerpen, Carbon Tax, Boxer-Sanders bill, Barbara Boxer, Bernie Sanders, Carbon Tax, impact on families and businesses, higher energy costs, higher tax To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

1.6 Billion Rounds Of Ammo, Homeland Security? Time For A National Conversation

2013-03-14T09:40:00.000-05:00

Armored Personnel Carriers in
Baghdad. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by Ralph Benko, ARRA News Service: The Denver Post, on February 15^th, ran an Associated Press article entitled Homeland Security aims to buy 1.6b rounds of ammo, to far too little notice. It confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security has issued an open purchase order for 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition. As elsewhere reported, some of this purchase order is for rounds forbidden by international law for use in war plus a frightening amount specialized for snipers. Also reported elsewhere, at the height of the Iraq War the Army was expending fewer than 6 million rounds a month. 1.6 billion rounds, therefore, would be enough to sustain a hot war for 20+ years. In America.

Add to this perplexingly outré purchase of ammo, DHS now is showing off its acquisition of heavily armored personnel carriers, repatriated from the Iraqi and Afghani theaters of operation. As observed by “paramilblogger” Ken Jorgustin last September:
“[T]he Department of Homeland Security is apparently taking delivery (apparently through the Marine Corps Systems Command, Quantico VA, via the manufacturer – Navistar Defense LLC) of an undetermined number of the recently retrofitted 2,717 ‘Mine Resistant Protected’ MaxxPro MRAP vehicles for service on the streets of the United States.” …

“These MRAP’s ARE BEING SEEN ON U.S. STREETS all across America by verified observers with photos, videos, and descriptions.

“Regardless of the exact number of MRAP’s being delivered to DHS (and evidently some to POLICE via DHS, as has been observed), why would they need such over-the-top vehicles on U.S. streets to withstand IEDs, mine blasts, and 50 caliber hits to bullet-proof glass? In a war zone… yes, definitely. Let’s protect our men and women. On the streets of America… ?

… “They all have gun ports… Gun Ports? In the theater of war, yes. On the streets of America…? “Seriously, why would DHS need such a vehicle on our streets?”Why indeed? It is utterly inconceivable that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is planning a coup d’etat against President Obama, and the Congress, to install herself as Supreme Ruler of the United States of America. There, however, are real signs that the Department bureaucrats are running amok. About 20 years ago this columnist worked, for two years, in the U.S. Department of Energy’s general counsel’s office in its procurement and finance division. And is wise to the ways. The answer to “why would DHS need such a vehicle?” almost certainly is this: it’s a cool toy and these (reportedly) million dollar toys are being recycled, without much of a impact on the DHS budget. So… why not?

Why, indeed, should the federal government not be deploying armored personnel carriers and stockpiling enough ammo for a 20-year war in the homeland? Because it’s wrong in every way. President Obama has an opportunity, now, to live up to some of his rhetoric by helping the federal government set a noble example in a matter very close to his heart (and that of his Progressive base), one not inimical to the Bill of Rights: gun control. The federal government can (for a nice change) begin practicing what it preaches by controlling itself.

And … remember the … Sequester? The president is claiming its budget cuts will inconvenience travelers by squeezing essential services provided by the (opulently armed and stylishly uniformed) DHS. Quality ammunition is not cheap. (Of course, news reports that DHS is about to spend $50 million on new uniforms suggests a certain cavalier attitude toward government frugality.)

Spending money this way is beyond absurd well into perverse. According to the AP story a DHS spokesperson justifies this acquisition to “help the government get a low price for a big purchase.” Peggy Dixon, spokeswoman for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center: “The training center and others like it run by the Homeland Security Department use as many as 15 million rounds every year, mostly on shooting ranges and in training exercises.”

At 15 million rounds (which, in itself, is pretty extraordinary and sounds more like fun target-shooting-at-taxpayer-expense than a sensible training exercise) … that’s a stockpile that would last DHS over a century. To claim that it’s to “get a low price” for a ridiculously wasteful amount is an argument that could only fool a career civil servant.

Meanwhile, Senator Diane Feinstein, with the support of President Obama, is attempting to ban 100 capacity magazine clips. Doing a little apples-to-oranges comparison, here, 1.6 billion rounds is … 16 million times more objectionable.

Mr. Obama has a long history of disdain toward gun ownership. According to Prof. John Lott, in Debacle, a book he co-authored with iconic conservative strategist Grover Norquist,
“When I was first introduced to Obama (when both worked at the University of Chicago Law School, where Lott was famous for his analysis of firearms possession), he said, ‘Oh, you’re the gun guy.’

“I responded: ‘Yes, I guess so.’

“’I don’t believe that people should own guns,’ Obama replied.

“I then replied that it might be fun to have lunch and talk about that statement some time.
“He simply grimaced and turned away. …

“Unlike other liberal academics who usually enjoyed discussing opposing ideas, Obama showed disdain.”Mr. Obama? Where’s the disdain now? Cancelling, or at minimum, drastically scaling back — by 90% or even 99%, the DHS order for ammo, and its receipt and deployment of armored personnel carriers, would be a “fourfer.”

The federal government would set an example of restraint in the matter of weaponry.
It would reduce the deficit without squeezing essential services.
It would do both in a way that was palatable to liberals and conservatives, slightly depolarizing America.
It would somewhat defuse, by the government making itself less armed-to-the-teeth, the anxiety of those who mistrust the benevolence of the federales.

If Obama doesn’t show any leadership on this matter it’s an opportunity for. Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, to summon Secretary Napolitano over for a little … national conversation. Madame Secretary? Buying 1.6 billion rounds of ammo and deploying armored personnel carriers runs contrary, in every way, to what “homeland security” really means. Discuss.
------------
Ralph Benko is senior advisor, economics, to American Principles in Action’s Gold Standard 2012 Initiative, and a contributor to he ARRA News Service. The article which first appeared in Forbes was submitted for reprint by the author.

Tags: 1.6 Billion Rounds, Ammo, Homeland Security, Time For, A National Conversation, Why?, Ralph Benko To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Conservative Black American Leaders Speakout On The Second Amendment

2013-03-11T09:33:00.000-05:00

Black conservative leaders discuss how the NRA was created to protect freed slaves and how gun control is an effort to control people.Short Version Link:

Man's rights rest in three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box and the cartridge box. ~ Fredrick DouglasLong Version Link:

The Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE) hosted a group of prominent figures from the African American community at 9:45A.M. on Friday, February 22nd at the National Press Club to speak out against gun control legislation currently being considered on Capitol Hill.

CURE is the largest black conservative think tank in the nation and is headquartered in Washington, D.C.

CURE organized the news conference in response to concerns shared by black conservatives that the Senate proposed laws will restrict their ability to defend themselves, their property and their families. They are also concerned that the proposed gun control legislation puts too much power in the hands of politicians.

"I believe that it is our duty to stand together and challenge the proposals currently on the table in the Senate, which invoke painful memories of Jim Crow laws and black codes," said CURE president and founder, Star Parker. "Black history is rife with government demands for background checks in order to qualify for constitutional rights. All Americans should be concerned."

Star Parker, a nationally syndicated columnist and other noted thought leaders, authors and speakers will make the case against the type of gun control measures President Obama and his liberal allies are proposing. While the group believes that Sandy Hook was a national tragedy, they oppose its use as an opportunity to advance government control and strip any American citizens of their constitutional rights. In the middle of Black History Month, CURE is calling for a serious national dialogue about the impact of gun control on the black community.

A bad man with a gun can only be stopped by a good man with a gun." ~ Rev Ken Hutcherson

Tags: Black history, black leaders, Star Parker, CURE, Center for Urban Renewal and Education, gun rights, second amendment, U.S. Constitution, NRA, guns, protections of blacks, Ken Blackwell, Rev. Ken Hutcherson, pastor, Harry Alford, business owners, Black Chamber of Commerce, Rev. Kenneth Blanchard, former Marine, Urban Shooter Podcast Producer, Niger Iniss, CORE, Congress of Racial Equality, gun control is people control, Dr. Deborah Honeycutt, MD, Clayton State University, Health Clinic Medical Director, Do No Harm, Uphold your pledge, the Constitution of the United States, Rev. William Owens, Jr., Gun, God, and the Constitution, Warrior Arise Ministries, attacking 2nd Amendment is anti-American, Bruce Rivers, gang member murders, evil in man's heart, criminals don't obey the law, deal with the criminal, God set the penalty for murder as death, Lonnie Poindexter To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Liberal Insanity | War on Middle America

2013-03-07T09:28:00.000-06:00

by Gary Bauer - ARRA News Service: I am becoming increasingly convinced that the worldview of many on the left is simply insane. There is no other word to describe it. I was reminded of this in the last couple of days by some recent events that have taken place in our schools. These incidents speak volumes about the bizarre set of values that direct leftist thinking. But I am most concerned about the effect it has on normal little American boys and girls.

From the city of Fountain, Colorado, comes news of liberal parents who believe their little boy is actually a little girl on the "inside." They are insisting that their six-year old son be allowed to attend classes dressed as a girl and that he be allowed to use the girls' bathroom.

Eagle Elementary School was initially willing to accommodate this young transvestite/ transgender. But in December the school changed its policy and informed the parents that their son could no longer use the girls' restrooms. Last week, with the help of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, the parents filed a discrimination complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division.

Meanwhile in Maryland, a state dominated by the left, there has been another incident demonstrating just how dangerous food can be. On the morning of Friday, March 1st, a seven year-old boy in the D.C. suburbs of Anne Arundel County was eating a breakfast pastry. (Apparently Michelle Obama's food police were on vacation that day.) After taking a few bites, the boy noticed that his pastry looked like a gun, and he said, "Bang, bang."

In my world, this should have gone unnoticed as the normal imagination of a little boy. But in the left's world, the boy was suspended for two days. School officials were so shaken by the incident that they sent a letter home to every parent, warning them that food was used by a child for an inappropriate gesture and that child was removed from class. The letter went on to say that school counselors would be available to talk to any children who were troubled by the incident.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Was the pastry a "pop" tart?

On a more serious note, it is impossible to deny the cultural left's grip on our public education system: explicit sex education, American history that is all too often anti-American revisionism; introducing the radical homosexual agenda at the earliest ages; blocking Judeo-Christian values at the schoolhouse door; and gun-free zones that will never stop a killer.

Now hard-left political correctness has made a criminal out of a seven year-old playing with a pastry, while turning a six year-old cross-dresser into the latest civil rights hero.

If while watching the November election returns, you found yourself, like many of us, wondering what has happened to this country, you need to look no further than to the indoctrination that is happening daily in classrooms all across America.

Obama's War On Middle America
Last week we warned that President Obama seemed determined to make the sequester cuts as painful for the American people as possible in order to justify his tax and spend, big government agenda. Yesterday we got more proof.

An agricultural official in North Carolina recently asked his superiors in Washington for flexibility in managing the sequester cuts so that vital inspections would not be affected. Here is the response he got back:

"We have gone on record with a notification to Congress and whoever else that [your agency] would eliminate assistance to producers in 24 states in managing wildlife damage to the aquaculture industry, unless they provide funding to cover the costs. So it is our opinion that however you manage that reduction, you need to make sure you are not contradicting what we said the impact would be."In other words, there is flexibility to "manage that reduction," but because the administration has said it would be painful, you better make sure it is!

Meanwhile the White House has taken a look at where they can find some savings. Did they cut back parties? No. How about Barack and Michelle's separate vacations requiring twice as much taxpayer money or the largest White House staff in history? No. In the end, they decided to find savings by cancelling White House tours, for you, the American taxpayer.

Who goes on White House tours? By and large, it's working class folks from all over the country, many of whom save for years to take their kids on a once-in-a-lifetime visit to the nation's capital.

A big highlight of the trip is the chance to see the White House -- which represents America and all its greatness, where leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan once lived. These are the folks Obama is punishing in yet another cynical attempt to turn the public against the GOP and its "cruel" budget cuts.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, a strong Texas conservative, introduced legislation to prohibit the use of federal tax dollars to pay for any trip Obama takes to play golf until the White House tours are reinstated. Obama's golf outing with Tiger Woods cost taxpayers nearly $1 million -- enough money to prevent the furloughs of hundreds of federal employees. I doubt Mr. Obama even thought about that.

But let me remind our readers that if the House passes Rep. Gohmert's bill, Obama's allies in the Senate will never allow it to get a vote, and the left-wing media will never report it. Once again, conservative Republicans are doing the right thing, but most Americans will never know.

This is yet another reminder of the importance of winning elections, including the critical contests coming up in 2014.

Benghazigate Continues
Yesterday the Senate Intelligence Committee voted 12-to-3 to approve the nomination of John Brennan to be director of the CIA. But the vote came with a price. The Obama Administration was forced to turn over documents related to the Benghazi attacks and the infamous talking points used by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice.

According to CBS News, references to Al Qaeda were stripped out of Ambassador Rice's talking points by a press officer either at the White House, the FBI or the Defense Intelligence Agency. Ambassador Rice refused to blame the attacks on jihadists, and insisted that they were the result of spontaneous demonstrations over an anti-Islam film.

But the idea that a press shop would make that kind of a major edit to a CIA memo is laughable. If it did so, it was very likely done only with permission from someone higher up the chain of command.

Moreover, the documents indicate that the administration had specific warnings of "an imminent attack" within days, and virtually all messages from Libyan officials to Washington blamed Al Qaeda or its affiliated cells for the attacks.

My friends, the handling of the Benghazi attacks is scandalous. But we should not lose sight of the bigger issue, which is that Obama's entire Middle East policy is an utter disaster -- for the people in the Middle East and for the United States and our allies.

Egypt is on the verge of economic collapse. The pro-democracy demonstrators in Cairo's Tahrir Square were betrayed. They traded the authoritarian Mubarak regime for the theocratic dictatorship of the radical Muslim Brotherhood.
Libya is an ungovernable state. It is now a distribution center for weapons and jihadists.
Iran is accelerating its nuclear weapons program.
Syria is in a chaotic civil war. Tens of thousands have been killed and one million people have fled the country. The future of the country looks bleak as the main forces battling for control are Shiite extremists and Sunni extremists.
The smaller Gulf states are all facing radical Islamic uprisings of varying degrees.
And insiders tell me that it is only a matter of time before the pro-Western king of Jordan is overthrown and another anti-Israel regime is installed.

So the president, whose middle name is Hussein, who assured us that he understood the Middle East far better than the "cowboy" Bush, who gave his first television interview as president to an Arabic language TV network, and who made his first major foreign policy speech in Cairo, has presided over a foreign policy disaster the extent of which has still yet to be fully revealed.

Liberals Mourn Brutal Dictator
Somebody had better break the news to Michael Moore -- Hugo Chavez is dead. Moore once claimed that Cuba had the best healthcare system in the world, and Chavez chose Cuba's "outstanding" healthcare system for his cancer treatments.

No sane person will miss Mr. Chavez. He was a brutal thug and a dictator. Sadly it appears his cronies will try to maintain their grip on power.

But what jumped out at me is that so many of our liberal media and political elites are mourning his passing. Larry king described Chavez as "fascinating" and "huggable." I doubt if many of his political prisoners in jail or those whose assets he stole would feel that way.

Jimmy Carter released a statement praising Chavez for his "vision to bring profound changes to his country." It went on to note that as Venezuelans mourn his death, they will "recall his positive legacies."

Actor Sean Penn said in a statement, "Today the people of the United States lost a friend it never knew it had. And poor people around the world lost a champion. I lost a friend I was blessed to have." Director Oliver Stone said, "I mourn a great hero to the majority of his people and those who struggle throughout the world for a place."

And what in the world was Representative Jose Serrano (D-NY) thinking when he tweeted, "Hugo Chavez was a leader that understood the needs of the poor. He was committed to empowering the powerless. R.I.P. Mr. President"?

This kind of mindless adulation reminds me of the praise that many world leaders heaped upon Hitler for rebuilding Germany's economy during the 1930s. Many leaders at the time thought his Nazism -- national socialism -- was the wave of the future.

Chavez was a thug who suspended constitutional liberties, shut down critical media outlets, had no understanding of economics and stole from his own people. It is estimated that Chavez and his family amassed a fortune well into the billions of dollars!

As the Miami Herald notes, his socialist policies destroyed the country economically. Venezuelans have suffered repeated currency devaluations. It is an energy-rich nation with frequent blackouts. And it has a murder rate today that is four times higher than the year before he assumed power.

It speaks volumes that Iran's oppressive regime has declared a day of national mourning in Chavez' memory. Sadly, many of America's left-wing elites will be joining in.
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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: liberal insanity, Brutal Dictator, Hugo Chavez, Benghazigate, Benghazi, Barack Obama, War On Middle America, Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

70% of Americans Support Building the Keystone Energy Pipeline

2013-03-05T21:23:00.000-06:00

by AF Branco

by Don Seymour: After yet another government review found no reason to keep delaying the Keystone XL pipeline – a project that holds the promise of new jobs and more affordable energy for America’s middle-class families – the Obama administration said it’s “really looking for the public debate at this point” over whether to allow the pipeline to be built. Well, a new Fox News survey shows the public has spoken – and a bipartisan majority wants the Keystone pipeline built. Here’s the breakdown:

“By a wide 70-23 percent margin,” Americans support building the Keystone XL pipeline that’s been blocked and delayed by the Obama administration for four years.

A majority of Democrats (57 percent, “up from 50 percent a year ago”), Republicans (87 percent), and independents (66 percent) all back the Keystone project.

As the Wall Street Journal put it yesterday, “[T]he White House has run out of excuses to keep delaying approval” of the Keystone XL project. The pipeline not only allows Canadian oil to “flow south to America via the Keystone XL” instead of “west to China via other pipelines or rail.” It provides “space for about 250,000 barrels a day of oil produced in the U.S., which means a new and environmentally safer outlet for oil from the booming Bakken fields of North Dakota.”

According to the House Energy & Commerce Committee, analysis shows the Keystone project “will create over 20,000 direct jobs and 100,000 indirect jobs and carry nearly a million additional barrels per day of secure North American oil supplies to U.S. refineries.”

“After four years of needless delays,” Speaker Boehner says “it is time for President Obama to stand up for middle-class jobs and energy security and approve the Keystone pipeline.”
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Don Seymour is Digital Communications Director for House Speaker John Boehner and Tweets at @DonSeymour

Tags: Keystone XL, Jobs, Spending, Economy, Energy, Speaker John Boehner, Don Seymour To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Adverse Economic Impacts of a Carbon Tax (Example: Arkansas)

2013-03-03T21:11:00.000-06:00

Bill Smith, Editor: The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) has prepared a report on the impact of Barbara Boxer and Bernie Sanders' proposed carbon tax (scam) bill, which the White House is playing coy about, fueling suspicions that Obama may be preparing to back a carbon tax as political cover for approving the Keystone XL pipeline.

Hot Air's Jazz Shaw wrote on Saturday:
"[T]here are apparently some bad ideas which never die, no matter how many stakes you drive through them. One of these is the carbon tax, not so subtly invoked during the State of the Union address, and now making a comeback with some of the usual list of suspects in Congress. But this time it may be coming with a twist. You want your Keystone XL pipeline and all of the jobs, opportunity and energy advantages it offers? Well show us the money."Other states as well as Arkansas had best watch out for the proposed con job about to be perpetrated on the people of America. However, Arkansas is one of the states predicted to be hit hardest if the carbon tax bill were to become law. The East and West coast liberals have little love for Arkansas even though it gave them Bill Clinton. NAM reports the following for Arkansas.If a carbon tax is levied, residents of Arkansas will pay more for natural gas, electricity, gasoline and other energy commodities, according to a study by NERA Economic Consulting and the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). The increased costs of these critical fuels will impact every person and business in Arkansas. This is bad news for manufacturers, which consume one-third of our nation’s energy supply, and for families struggling to get by as the national unemployment rate hovers just under 8 percent. To make matters worse, many Arkansas companies that compete internationally will be placed at a disadvantage as their foreign competitors operate without similar costs.Here are some of the bad news statistics for Arkansas if the carbon tax is approved by Congress:

Natural gas cost to increase by over 40% in 2013; thus adding to household energy bills and increasing operation costs for many Arkansas businesses
Gasoline prices: Increase by over 20 cents per gallon in 2013
Household Utilities: Electricity rates to increase an average of 13% in 2013
Employment Loss: 18,000-19,000 jobs impacted in 2013, 29,000-34,000 by 2023
Hardest hit economic sectors: Agriculture loses 1.3-1.6% economic output, energy-intensive manufacturing loses 2.5%, non-energy-intensive loses 0.8-1.2% by 2023

The Hot Air article concluded with the following excellent argument which readers should consider passing on to their Republican members of Congress.The GOP has managed to get kicked around in the polls pretty badly lately on issues from gun control to the sequester. It might be time to shift the conversation a bit and get back the high ground by focusing on something where there’s a clear majority in favor of their positions. The pipeline and opposition to any form of national carbon tax could be a couple of good places to start.

Tags: Democrats, Barbara Boxer, Bernie Sanders, Carbon Tax, impact on families and businesses, Arkansas, NAM, National Association of Manufacturers To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Government Spending Hurts People

2013-02-26T10:01:00.000-06:00

by Phil Kerpen, - ARRA News Service: We should not accept the statist premise that most government spending helps people. Government spending is not just wasteful or inefficient, but all too often serves to crush the private economy and individual freedom.

In the coming days the media will provide a constant stream of purported victims of spending cuts. But for every victim of cuts there are victims of government spending itself. There are people who lost their businesses because of overzealous federal bureaucrats, who were trapped in dependency and despair by welfare programs, who were forced to pay higher bills to enrich the crony friends of politicians, and who lost their jobs because the government favored a competitor.

Consider Mike and Chantell Sackett, who purchased three quarters of an acre in Idaho to build a home, only to be told by federal bureaucrats that they would be fined $75,000 a day if they proceeded and were entitled to no due process. "Bullying — that's what the EPA does," said Mrs. Sackett. "They came into our lives, took our property, put us in limbo, told us we can't do anything with it, and then threatened us with fines." They had to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court just for the right to appeal the arbitrary decision by federal bureaucrats.

Or Dan and Rachel Allgyer, the Amish couple who were forced to close their small Pennsylvania dairy, Rainbow Acres Farm. The Allgyers sold unpasteurized milk, which is apparently such a serious crime that federal agents at the Food and Drug Administration conducted a sting operation, then an armed raid, and eventually sued the Allgyers into oblivion after they tried to reorganize as a cooperative.

Or consider all the farmers suffering in California's Central Valley because just a few weeks into the year, federal bureaucrats at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided that too many Delta Smelt have been pulled into water pumps. The current water restriction was enough to grow about $1 billion of fresh fruits and vegetables. This year is already shaping up to be a lot like 2009, when Delta Smelt-related water restrictions devastated the fertile region economically and drove up produce prices nationally.

Every day Americans from all walks of life deal with petty tyrannies and worse from federal bureaucrats. And the economic costs of complying with all the rules and regulations are staggering. Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute estimated than in 2012 federal regulation imposed economic costs on the U.S. economy in excess of $1.8 trillion.

An econometric analysis conducted by the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies found that the average employee in a federal regulatory agency destroys about 98 private sector jobs per year. So furloughs or layoffs of federal workers as spending is cut are almost certainly saving a much larger number of private sector jobs from regulatory mischief.

It's not just spending on the regulatory bureaucracy that hurts people. For decades prior to the landmark 1996 welfare reform the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children entitlement served to prevent economic mobility and foster a culture of dependency. That landmark reform did cut spending, but its greatest benefit went not to the taxpayers who saved money but to the citizens given opportunities to move off of welfare, into the workforce, and onto the ladder of upward economic and social mobility.

But AFDC was just one of 80 federal means-tested welfare programs, which now cost federal taxpayers about a trillion dollars per year while deepening the dependency trap. For too many Americans, living on the public dole indefinitely is tragically a way of life. They are victims, not beneficiaries, of government spending.

Properly conceived, spending cuts are not just about saving taxpayers and future generations from the burden of financing big government. They are also about protecting the American people from the predations of a federal government whose expansion into every aspect of our lives is causing direct economic and personal damage.
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Phil Kerpen is president of American Commitment and the author of Democracy Denied: How Obama is Bypassing Congress to Radically Transform America – and How to Stop Him. Phil Kerpen is a contributing author for the ARRA News Service.

Tags: government spending, government waste, hurts, people, family, small business, U.S. economy, the economy, Phil Kerpen, American Commitment To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Chinese Cyber-attacks | Presidential Executive Order

2013-02-21T11:48:00.000-06:00

Editor, ARRA News Service: A wave of cyber-attacks originating from China have been revealed and a new Presidential executive order pertaining to network security standards is in the works. What does that mean to you? TechRepublic's Patrick Lambert provides a perspective not shared on FoxNews or the Lame Stream media.

By Patrick Lambert, TechRepublic: At the beginning of the month, the New York Times revealed that it had been under a systematic and sophisticated attack by hackers for the past four months, and that they believed it was coming from China. Then, just a day later, the Wall Street Journal came out saying that they, too, were under constant attack by very similar hackers, again coming from China. Of course the Chinese government denied the allegations, but this is hardly the first time that U.S. corporations have suspected Chinese hackers from breaching in their systems. In 2010 Google had the first high profile attack, and more companies came out in the following years also claiming having been attacked or breached.

In this case the attack was fairly typical. After finding a hole in one of the NYT’s edge servers in mid-September, they went in and snooped around until the hackers found a domain controller. From there, they could gain access to the usernames and passwords of every employee, and they then proceeded to infiltrate the personal computers of over 50 different employees. According to their investigation, the security experts realized that the hackers were after very specific information, namely the sources used in the investigation that the Times did of Wen Jiabao, China’s prime minister, and how he managed to accumulate a large amount of money. It seems likely that the hackers were motivated by this story and wanted to get back at the Times.

Presidential executive order
This report obviously made the news worldwide, and even President Obama spoke last week of the increasing need for cybersecurity protection. In his State of the Union address, he told Congress that the time had come to pass legislation giving the government a greater capacity to secure networks and deter attacks. This is not just a symbolic statement; he was actually referring to a project that has been progressing for several months now. This new Executive Order issues a mandate to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to create a set of standards that would guide organizations considered to be part of the country’s “critical infrastructure” to secure their networks, along with incentives for them to meet these standards.

What does this mean for you?
These voluntary standards and best practices might mean that, if a company does not meet these standards, they may find themselves barred from getting government contracts, for example. The targeted organizations include public utilities and companies in the financial and defense sectors. So what does this mean for businesses, or even for IT pros who may be looking at this? Well in the immediate future, not much. Like any legislation, this will not happen overnight. It will take months, if not years, before this new set of standards is drafted. However, once the process starts, it will likely be in your interest to keep a close eye on what gets included.

Just like standards created by the W3C for web developers, or IANA for network engineers, security professionals will likely have to start working with these upcoming NIST standards soon enough, and you can thank China for it. But with that said, security should not be something that is forced upon you. Any network that lacks basic security measures is a potential target, and these attacks prove that the risks are too high to be ignored. There are many standard practices everyone should take without having to wait on government standards.

Phishing emails remain one of the most popular way for hackers to start targeted attacks. While basic malware will look at known vulnerabilities in an unsophisticated way, someone who wants to get into your organization can go to great lengths to do it. There are countless examples of a secretary receiving a payroll document that seems to be coming from a colleague, but instead contains a specially crafted document with malware in it. Or a phone call sent to an employee claiming to be from the helpdesk and requesting the user’s password. Or simply a server getting scanned repeatedly until a hole can be found, even if you were late by just a day in applying a critical patch.

The point is that targeted attacks are very effective, and standards are not going to change that. Vigilance is needed, along with several layers of protection. . . . Despite all the standards and security measures in the world, networks will still get hacked . . . [Read Full Article]

Tags: cyber attacks, Chinese, attackers, Presidential Executive Order, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

We Have An Idiot Problem . . .

2013-02-18T09:40:00.000-06:00

by William Warren:

Tags: William Warren, editorial cartoon, idiot problem, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Obama v. JFK: What a Difference 50 Years Makes

2013-02-14T14:34:00.000-06:00

John F. Kennedy

by Phil Kerpen - ARRA News Service: President Obama opened his State of the Union address with a quote from President John F. Kennedy: “the Constitution makes us not rivals for power but partners for progress.” But Obama’s speech that followed and the agenda it advocated indicate he failed to study JFK’s famous 1963 State of the Union and its ambitious program of tax cuts and tax reform that successfully shifted the U.S. economy into high gear.
“The mere absence of recession is not growth,” Kennedy said. Words that ring even more true now, with the U.S. economy mired in the weakest recovery of the post-war era. Obama’s response to the challenge of slow growth? More taxes and more spending. A replay of the first term agenda that so spectacularly failed. “Broad-based economic growth requires a balanced approach to deficit reduction, with spending cuts and revenue, Obama said, with “revenue” being Washington-code for another round of tax hikes.

Kennedy knew better. “One step, above all, is essential--the enactment this year of a substantial reduction and revision in Federal income taxes,” he said. “Our obsolete tax system exerts too heavy a drag on private purchasing power, profits, and employment.” He went on to highlight a program of genuine tax reform, lowering rates across the board “with selected structural changes, beginning in 1964, which will broaden the tax base, end unfair or unnecessary preferences, remove or lighten certain hardships.”

Kennedy knew that to spur economic growth, tax reform would cause a short-term drop in tax revenue to the government, but that “increasing the amount of our national income, will in time result in still higher Federal revenues. It is a fiscally responsible program--the surest and the soundest way of achieving in time a balanced budget in a balanced full employment economy.”

Obama, in stark contrast, uses the words “tax reform,” but what he really means is simply a massive tax hike. “To hit the rest of our deficit reduction target,” i.e., to collect more tax revenue for government, Obama advocated what we “save hundreds of billions of dollars by getting rid of tax loopholes and deductions for the well-off and well-connected.” Real tax reform uses simplification to offset some of the short-term revenue losses from lower rates. Obama’s plan is a tax hike, which will damage the economy and make genuine reform more difficult by using simplification to pay for more spending instead of lower tax rates.

There is no question that the tax system is holding us back economically, especially the 35 percent corporate income tax which is the highest in the developed world. The average state corporate tax brings the rate up to 39.2 percent, versus an average in other developed countries of just 25 percent. Obama committed to bringing more manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., but his government research centers will do far less to encourage that than making our tax system more competitive.

President Obama was absolutely right when he said “It’s not a bigger government we need, but a smarter government that sets priorities and invests in broad-based growth.” One of the top priorities, therefore, should be real tax reform – not as Obama described it, but as Kennedy did – designed to boost the long-term growth path of the economy.
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Phil Kerpen is president of American Commitment and a Fox News contributor where he first shared this article, and the author of Democracy Denied: How Obama is Bypassing Congress to Radically Transform America – and How to Stop Him. Phil Kerpen is a contributing author for the ARRA News Service.

Tags: 50 years, JFK, John F. Kennedy, State of the Union, SOTU, Barack H, Obama, tax reform, Phil Kerpen, American Commitment To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Unbelievable - Rouge NRLB Illegal Appointees

2013-02-11T08:19:00.000-06:00

by Phil Kerpen, ARRA News Service: Two weeks ago, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals emphatically smacked down the crazy idea that the president has the power to make "recess appointments" while the Senate is not in recess.

"An interpretation of 'the Recess' that permits the President to decide when the Senate is in recess would demolish the checks and balances inherent in the advice-and-consent requirement, giving the President free rein to appoint his desired nominees at any time he pleases, whether that time be a weekend, lunch, or even when the Senate is in session and he is merely displeased with its inaction," Chief Judge Judge David B. Sentelle wrote. "This cannot be the law."

Clear enough? Not for Obama. His Press Secretary Jay Carney insisted the decision "does not have any impact, as I think the NLRB has already put out, on their operations or functions, or on the board itself."

Congress has only funded the NLRB through March 27. They should not send a single penny in additional funding until the NLRB's members are appointed in a legally and constitutionally valid manner. If you agree, please sign our petition to Congress now.
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Phil Kerpen is president of American Commitment where he shared this article, and the author of Democracy Denied: How Obama is Bypassing Congress to Radically Transform America – and How to Stop Him. Phil Kerpen is a contributing author for the ARRA News Service.

Tags: NLRB, illegal appointees, court decisions, NLRB, action item, Congress, defund NLRB, Stop the NLRB To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Reminder: Sequester ‘Originated In The White House’

2013-02-06T12:11:00.000-06:00

White House Operatives Are Hoping You’ll Forget That They Were Actually For The Sequester Before They Were Against It

PRESIDENT OBAMA: “Already, some in Congress are trying to undo these automatic spending cuts. My message to them is simple: No. I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending. There will be no easy off ramps on this one. We need to keep the pressure up to compromise -- not turn off the pressure.” (President Obama, Remarks, 11/21/11)

‘Idea For The Draconian Spending Cuts Originated In The White House’

“The book ‘The Price of Politics,’ by Washington Post Associate Editor Bob Woodward, makes it clear the idea for the draconian spending cuts originated in the White House – and not in Congress … Woodward describes the behind-the-scenes haggling last year that laid the groundwork for sequestration.” (“Bob Woodward Book Could Bolster Republican Attack On W.H.,” Politico, 9/7/12)

WOODWARD: “Lew, Nabors, Sperling and Bruce Reed, Biden’s chief of staff, had finally decided to propose using language from the 1985 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit reduction law as the model for the trigger.” (Bob Woodward, “The Price Of Politics,” Pgs. 339-340, 2012)
WOODWARD: “At 2:30 p.m. [on July 27] Lew and Nabors went to the Senate to meet with Reid and his chief of staff, David Krone. ‘We have an idea for the trigger,’ Lew said. ‘What’s the idea?’ Reid asked skeptically. ‘Sequestration.’ … Well, it could work, Lew and Nabors explained.” (Bob Woodward, “The Price Of Politics," Pg. 326, 2012)

WH Plan: Cut Half From The Defense Department

WOODWARD: “Well, it could work, Lew and Nabors explained. What would the impact be? They would design it so that half the threatened cuts would be from the Defense Department. ‘I like that,’ Reid said. ‘That’s good.’” (Bob Woodward, “The Price Of Politics,” Pg. 326, 2012)

“Big cuts would hit the military.” (“White House Report Details Effects Of Automatic Budget Cuts,” The New York Times, 9/14/12)

“Top defense officials have warned that further cuts to defense could hurt national security. And defense contractors have been saying for months that the cuts could result in significant layoffs in their industry.” (“White House Details Fiscal Cliff Spending Cuts,” CNN Money, 9/14/12)

Tags: Washington, D.C. Sequester, Originated In The White House, The White House, President Obama, Bob Woodward As shared on the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

2013-02-05T10:06:00.000-06:00

by Glenn Gallas, Op-Ed: If you have ever experienced the feelings that come with being lost you know just how strange being lost makes you feel. A whole gamut of emotions swirl around you, fear, doubt, apprehension, as you try to find your way, and nothing feels better than the moment you recognize a familiar place or landmark. It is at the point when you no longer feel lost that you can begin the process of finding your way back home.

We have become lost as a nation. We have lost our way and many Americans right now are feeling the same emotions that come with being lost in the forest and they are looking for a way to get back home. Finding our way back home is not difficult if we follow some of the simple principles of land navigation. A principle of land navigation is that you must have at least one known point in order to find a destination. The known point can be either where you are, where you are going or direction. In land navigation there is one certainty that never changes and that is direction. Finding direction on the ground requires finding True North. True North is north as it actually exists on earth. It never changes and knowing it guarantees we will find our way home. Once you find True North you then need to have a map so you can orient it to True North. We used to do this all the time when maps were used instead of GPS Systems to find our way. I can still remember when drivers would unfold their maps and turn it every which way until it was properly oriented then they could followed the map to get to their destination.

So the first step in finding our way as a nation is to recapture our True North. True North for the American is the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence is the True North our founders charted for our country, it doesn’t change. Once they chose our nations direction they then created the map called the US Constitution, so we could never get lost as so many other civilizations have done over the course of history. If we are ever to find our way again as a nation we must first find and follow our True North.
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Glenn Gallas is a former Republican candidate for US Congress. Gallas is noted for inspiring excellence in leadership. As a conservative he has become active in many venues including being on the Dave Elswick Show Little Rock - KARN 102.9 FM and his On The Right Road Internet Radio Show where he fist shared the op-ed.

Tags: Glenn Galas, On the right Road, True North, Declaration of Independence, map, US Constitution To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Leon Panetta’s Cowardly Decision

2013-02-01T12:00:00.000-06:00

Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum: In a newsworthy act of political cowardice, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta ran through the Pentagon’s exit door as he announced he is striking down the 1994 Combat Exclusion Law. His timing means his successor, presumably Chuck Hagel, will inherit the task of defending the order to assign women to front-line military combat.

Of course, Panetta doesn’t want to be grilled about his order. It’s lacking in common sense and it is toadying to the feminist officers who yearn to be 3- and 4-star generals based on the feminist dogma of gender interchangeability and on their desire to force men into situations to be commanded by feminists.

Panetta’s order may be illegal or even unconstitutional because the authority to make such a radical change was specifically granted to Congress, according to former Defense Department Inspector General Joseph E. Schmitz. A constitutional expert, Schmitz held the position of the Defense Department’s top investigator from 2002 to 2005 after 27 years of service in the U.S. Navy, including 5 years of active duty.

Schmitz said the order will surely lead to a “degradation of good order and discipline.” Here are some of the questions Panetta can now avoid being asked.

Will the new policy of women in combat assignments be based on gender norming? That means giving women and men the same tests but scoring them differently; i.e., grading women “A” for the same performance that would give a man a “C,” but clearing both as passing the test on the pretense that equal effort equals equal results.

Please explain how your new women-in-combat policy will be impacted by your policy of “diversity metrics,” which is a fancy name for quotas. In order to create the illusion that your new feminist policy is a success, will men be required to pretend that women are qualified and entitled to career promotions?

Do you really believe that the assignment of women to combat infantry will improve combat readiness? What is your plan for non-deployability rates of women due to pregnancy and complications of sexual misconduct ranging from assault to fraternization?

In order to make the weight-lifting requirement for combat assignments gender neutral, how many pounds will be taken off the test? The gender differences in weight-lifting ability and upper-body strength are well documented.

Will men be expected to conceal female physical deficiencies in order to make the new policy “work”? Will men’s careers be harmed if they report the truth about women’s inability to do the “heavy lifting”?

Military women are already complaining about increased sexual assaults, and of course those problems will skyrocket. Only men will be deemed at fault because it is feminist ideology that men are innately batterers and women are victims.

The military is already plagued with reports of large sex scandals in our current coed army. At the Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, 32 instructors allegedly took advantage of their power over 59 recruits, and at least two instructors allegedly had sexual encounters with 10 different recruits.

Do you recognize that the demand for the change in combat exclusion comes only from female officers who want higher rank and pay but not from enlisted women who will bear the burden of the really tough and dangerous work? Where are your surveys of enlisted women’s opinions?

Will assignment to combat jobs be voluntary for women but involuntary for men? Will the military ask women “do you want to go to combat?” but just assign men wherever bloody, fatal fighting is needed?

Will promotions for field commanders depend on their attainment of “diversity metrics” that can be achieved only by creating a “critical mass” of women in infantry battalions? Explain the test of Marines in last year’s tryouts for the Infantry Officer Course, where only two women volunteered, one washed out the first day, the other after one week?

How do you answer the fact that women do not have an equal opportunity to survive in combat situations, and did you consider the fact that women in the military get injured at least twice the rate of men? Please explain why the National Football League does not seek diversity or gender equality with female players.

Canada dealt with the problem of creating new standards for the gender integration of combat forces by renaming the process. Canada didn’t create “lower” or even “equal” standards, they just adopted “appropriate” standards. Will the U.S. play word games like that?

Retired Army Major General Robert H. Scales explained in the Washington Post that we know from experience with war that the intimate, deliberate, brutal killing of our country’s enemies is best done by small units or teams of men. Four solid buddy pairings of men led by a sergeant compose a nine-man battle-ready combat squad.

These squads are bound together by the “band of brothers” effect, a phrase borrowed from Shakespeare’s Henry V. Centuries of battlefield experience have taught us that this brotherhood is what causes a young man to risk and even sacrifice his life willingly so his buddies can survive, and that cohesion is a male-only relationship that would be irreparably compromised by including women in the squad.

Combat doesn’t mean merely firing a gun; of course women can do that. Combat doesn’t mean merely getting wounded and dying; of course women can do that. Combat means aggressively seeking out and killing the enemy.

A lot of people have a very sanitized view of what battlefield fighting is all about. They seem to think it means a quick gun fight and then returning to the base with separate shower and toilet facilities and a ready mess hall.

Let’s hear from men who have actually fought in close-combat situations. Ryan Smith, a Marine infantry squad leader in our 2003 invasion of Iraq, described the reality of spending 48 hours in scorching Middle Eastern heat, with 25 Marines stuffed in the back of a vehicle designed for 15, dressed in full gear, sitting on each other, without exiting the vehicles for any toilet needs.

I’ll spare you his description of the unsanitary conditions. They went a month without a shower and finally all stood naked to be sprayed off with pressure washers. What kind of men would put women through this?

Panetta won’t have to deal with any of these questions. He left them for his successor and more particularly for the field commanders whose careers will depend on compliance.
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Phyllis Schlafly has been a national leader of the conservative movement since 1964. She founded and is president of Eagle Forum. She has testified before more than 50 Congressional and State Legislative committees on constitutional, national defense, and family issues.

Tags: Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum, political cowardice, Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, unconstitutional action, combat, battlefield fighting, 1994 Combat Exclusion Law, women in combat, feminist dogma, gender interchangeability To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Hillary and Your Family

2013-01-31T12:30:00.000-06:00

Hillary On the Hill

Ken Blackwell, ARRA News Service: Hillary Clinton finally faced down her critics on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week. She fired back at Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) when he tried to get her to acknowledge that the entire story of an anti-Islamic video inflaming mobs who then murdered Amb. Chris Stevens and three other brave Americans in Libya had been, to put it charitably, wholly unsubstantiated. All along, Hillary had acted as if this was someone else’s issue. She was, after all, the Secretary of State who gets “1.43 million cables come into my office” a week. They’re all addressed to me, she petulantly shot back.

Now, just for a moment, let’s consider that statement. Can she really mean she has put in place no system for determining what she must see? She describes a process she allowed to stay in place for four long years that apparently is like drinking from a fire hose. No, that would be 1.43 fire hoses. The military has a standard protocol for distinguishing routine cables from those that deserve higher priority and those that are urgent. An imminent threat to American lives would seem to justify an urgent category, wouldn’t you think?

That she was allowed to dance through this hearing with the press corps audibly swooning in the aisles is a national disgrace. “The Clintons have no shame,” their man George Stephanopoulos told us, “and that’s a great advantage in politics.”

And the Hillary press corps that exclaimed: “Memorable!” “A vivid impression!’” “A riveting performance”? They can gush. They can’t blush.

Maybe she’ll reprise it as a one-woman show on Broadway. Already, they are talking her up for 2016. Why not? With her incredible lightness of being, what could stop her?

Recall that famous political ad she ran in 2008. It’s the spot they called “3 AM.” It shows a red telephone ringing urgently. The announcer talks about the call that might come into the White House at that hour. You and your family need to have a tested leader there when a crisis erupts somewhere in the world.

Like a crisis in Libya? With all due respect, Madame Secretary, those in mortal danger who called you at 3 AM, who sent more than one of those “1.43 million cables” you complained of, got no answer. They got a busy signal.

But this total avoidance of responsibility, is one of the longest running acts in Washington. As First Lady, Hillary presided over the collapse of health care negotiations. She has seemingly swum away from that shipwreck without ever admitting that she was at the helm when the liner struck the rocks.

Worried about losing the liberal lock on Congress in 1994, she told Newsweek (Oct. 31, 1994) that abortion was “wrong.” She has spent the rest of her career pushing this “wrong” thing throughout the world.

Let’s not forget about her outrageous show of temper in Ottawa. Her open and tactless attack on Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Government was unprecedented in all of Canadian-American relations. Even the liberal Toronto Globe and Mail was surprised by her “hot under the collar” choler.

Was she planning to celebrate the bicentennial of the War of 1812 by starting another? Hillary denounced Harper for what? For trying to help save the lives of African mothers—without offering them abortions. Call the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.

FOX News’s senior analyst Brit Hume reviewed her tenure at Foggy Bottom. There’s no treaty, no doctrine, no breakthrough, no resolution of any intractable international problem. There’s no one thing for which she can credibly claim responsibility—except the skillful avoidance of responsibility.

Don’t worry, though. If your family members come under attack, if God forbid, you lose a loved one overseas, you can be sure Hillary will be there to pat the casket, to caress the flag, and to go on TV to offer an emotion-filled testimony about them. Here’s a phone card. Save it for that 3 AM call.
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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. He is a contributing author to the ARRA News Service.

Tags: Hillary Clinton, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, hearings, Benghazi, no solutions, Your Family To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Gun Control for Dummies - It's Common Sense

2013-01-28T14:49:00.000-06:00

This video gives a further explanation of the Second Amendment to the Constitution in the context of the why the Bill of Rights was included along with the establishment of the Federal Government. Please share this with your friends so that they can help educate America.
Now, do you see the relationship between the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Amendment?

Tags: U.S Constitution, Bill of Rights, 1st Amendment, 2nd Amendment, 3rd Amendment right to bear arms, Gun Control for Dummies, common sense To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

President Obama: New Term, New Slogan . . .

2013-01-26T12:45:00.000-06:00

. . . What Difference Does It Make?

by William Warren:

Tags: New term, new slogan,what difference does it make?, Obama administration, editorial cartoon, William Warren To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Acts of madmen must never result in loss of liberty for freemen

2013-01-12T19:17:00.000-06:00

Jim Mullen

By Jim Mullen: Predictably, after the last appalling act of an evil lunatic on children and unarmed citizens, the media and left-wing politicians have been ablaze with emotional fear mongering, anti-gun, anti-Second Amendment rhetoric designed to divert attention from the facts.

Every tragic shooting brings the radical left and their media minions swooping in and circling the scene like vultures laying siege to the latest unfortunates. They never miss an opportunity to gain an advantage by picking the bones of victims and furthering their cause for total disarmament of Americans.

Rather than eliciting a responsible reaction of providing more protection for the defenseless, liberals’ knee-jerk response is always to disarm the innocent and make them more vulnerable to lunatics.

Joe Manchin, Senate Democrat from West Virginia was just one of the politicians circling the latest mass murders by an evil or mentally ill man. He needed a 1468 word nonsensical diatribe full of hyperbole to espouse his politicization of this tragedy. Being from a pro-gun state, he submitted this political hypothesis to Newspapers in West Virginia in an obvious attempt to cleanse his previous anti-gun statements to the national media. Baffling people with BS is a longtime ploy used by the former governor.

Mr. Manchin joined many of his ilk making it sound as if the Second Amendment of the Constitution grants Americans the right to hunt. One of his ill-conceived statements was concerning large-capacity magazines, opining that they were unnecessary because he only needed two or three shells for hunting.

This Senator was one of the Democrats about whom this writer warned the NRA of its shortsightedness and gross error in judgment when they endorsed and funded him for U.S. Senate; another was Harry Reid. As I explained, the New Democratic Party is the American gun owner’s worst enemy. When the NRA contributes money and support to Democrats, they add to their ranks in Congress, and further compromise our Second Amendment rights.

Additionally, the New Democratic Party’s inherent belief is that the Second Amendment - like the rest of the Constitution - is an outmoded, living, changing document subject to progressive-liberal interpretation and alteration.

Politicians like Joe Manchin who profess a staunch defense of the First Amendment are the most dangerous politicians to gun-rights’ advocates because they’re like the traitor who stands among the patriots and speechifies magnificently for the cause while secretly working with the enemy. As usual, the enemy from within will deliver the final blow to every liberty this country holds dear.

The Founding Fathers intended that government never infringe upon a citizen's natural right to self-defense by bearing arms. Having the ability to defend themselves against all enemies and predators - including their own government - was paramount, and their intentions were unmistakably clear in other writings and letters on the meaning of the Second amendment.

One never hears a word from the anti-gun crowd about the revolving-door “injustice” system, liberal courts, building more prisons, early release, soft sentencing, or plea bargains. Likewise, liberals are mute about self-defense rights, but rail against “Stand-Your-Ground” laws and conceal permits that allow people to repel or stop brutal attacks on innocent citizens.

Liberals believing in disarming Americans are the same liberals flooding our streets with scum-of-the-earth, lawless hoodlums and hardened criminals who make life in this country perilous at best, and in some places, death-defying, which necessitates a populace of heavily armed citizens.

There are very good reasons why the wicked attack, rape, assault, and murder the defenseless. That’s where they find the easy victims and where they encounter the least resistance. They will continue to attack children in schools, people in theaters, malls and other soft targets because government disarms the citizens and then turns the criminals out on the streets to stalk their prey. As government disarms the citizenry, more faultless Americans will perish. More guns in the hands of the American people, makes for a safer society. Most villains are unlikely to confront armed people in the streets or in homes.

Anti-gun fanatics believe they can cleanse demons from the hearts and minds of the evil by attacking the rights of the good and the lawful. Their tactics only increase lawlessness by encouraging the criminal element and assuring them that malevolence will have no foe in this country.

The media blame the Second Amendment for mass murderers, but never make the same assumptions for the First Amendment when they hype up the wicked minds in society. They sensationalize violence by keeping score of body counts and use that as a rating system. They give the greatest attention to mass-murderers with dazzling, gruesome, grisly details filling the airways and splashing newspaper headlines after every murderous outrage. They correctly point out that It’s all part of the freedom of the First Amendment. If it inspires copycat killers, that’s the cost of freedom. Nevertheless, media never make the same argument for the Second Amendment.

Regardless of what they write, or what they say, liberals do NOT want a debate on guns; they want a monologue! They never win any debate on merits or on facts. They use diffusion, emotions, lies, hyperbole, ridicule, and scorn. Their “commonsense, reasonable solutions” will dissolve American gun rights. The media repeat the same anti-constitutional arguments tirelessly while dismissing Second Amendment rights as antiquated and then threatening gun owners with violence, imprisonment, fines, punishing taxes, and weapon confiscation.

The anti-gun zealots try to make the case for disarming Americans with the ludicrous claim that it’s the job of police to carry guns and defend the people, making private ownership unnecessary. Tens of thousands of Americans and tens of millions of people around the world are dead because they bought into this nonsense. Most of the mental giants ascribing to this theory are wealthy enough to afford armed guards for their own protection, or are politicians protected by armed guards at taxpayers’ expense. If Barack Obama really believed this, he could put it to the test by dismissing his Secret Service protection and simply using his phone to call the police if needed.

We must fight these people at every turn. Every small inroad erodes our constitutionally protected rights to bear arms. This process played out in countries around the world, and they found themselves unarmed and defenseless - even in their own homes.

The founders wanted us to have the ability to defend ourselves against the standard weapons of the day. They knew the weapons of choice would not remain the same. Whatever weapons criminals use, Americans have the right to possess equal or superior firepower to defend our homes.

Foes of gun rights say people don’t need an AK-47 or an AR-15 to target shoot, hunt or defend themselves and/or their family. They completely ignore the thousands of home invasions involving armed-to-the-teeth violent, drug-addled criminals with enough firepower to fight a small war. They totally ignore the fact that the Second Amendment mentions nothing about hunting. If people hunting with Ak-47’s and AR-15’s become a problem, write finely tuned legislation to amend that situation and leave lawful Americans in peace to enjoy their constitutional liberties and protect themselves and their families.

The anti-constitutionalists argue that guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans make the country less safe. To the idiots who believe this, let them place signs in their yards announcing their home is undefended by firearms.

To those who believe weapons are unnecessary for protection from the government, they obviously weren’t paying attention to Ruby Ridge, Waco, the Fast and Furious gun running operation, and dozens of other government power plays leaving American victims in the wake of out-of-control, tyrannical big government. Obama is still stonewalling Congress on Fast and Furious. Likewise, remember that returning U.S. Veterans are on Obama’s watch list for possible terrorist activity.

Americans should keep in mind the ominous testimony in 1995, by the FBI’s Director, Louis J. Freeh. He underwhelmed the obvious when he said, ''Ruby Ridge was a series of terribly flawed law-enforcement operations in which the F.B.I. did not perform at the level which the American people expect or deserve.'' That’s government-speak for “we took our agency out for a power walk, and it got a little out of hand; we didn’t mean to kill anybody.”

Disarming this nation is the stated goal of Barack Obama and most of the New Democratic Party. It has been the goal of the left-wing for decades, and they have admitted it cannot be accomplished all at once. One law, one regulation, and one court ruling at a time will finally shred the most important of our Bill of Rights. Without the Second Amendment, no other constitutional right is secure.

Armchair liberalism works perfectly in the theoretical, immature, progressive mind. They sit safely at their computers or behind their camera lens spewing hatred toward gun owners, but when reality comes-a-knocking at their door with the slightest threat, they reach for the checkbook and hire armed men to protect their sorry butts. Witness the reaction of The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News. They’re the brave souls that published and mapped the names and addresses of local citizens who hold legal gun permits, and when they began receiving angry responses, it was a bonanza for a group of armed guards.

Pity we all can’t afford to hire personal protectors. Perhaps Obama and his left-wingers will allow us tax deductions for the purchase of our personal security in the form of Smith & Wesson, Colt, or North American Arms.

Peddling fear is the mother’s milk of liberalism. Without fear of the rich, the Constitutionalists, Republicans, gun owners, and indeed, freedom, liberal-progressives would vanish into rancid, billows of smoke. We must not allow them to reap the fruits of their hatred and fear. The despicable acts of madmen must never result in loss of liberty for freemen.

We never know what future tyranny lies in our government, but when our guns are gone, the evidence is clear; as Jefferson said, "When government fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."
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Jim Mullen, Parkersburg, WV
Article on Freedom For Us Now
Twitters @freedomforusnow

Tags: Anti-gun radicals, gun control, President Obama, anti-gun agenda, acts of madmen, loss of liberty To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Another View: Conservatives Fractured Response to Romney Defeat

2012-11-26T11:07:00.000-06:00

Fighting Republicans

Bill Smith, Editor, ARRA News Service & Conservative Voices: While I normally do not share article from the Washington Post. In the following article by Paul Kane and Rosalind Helderman, they have flushed out the battle shaping up in the GOP. Indeed, there will be major conflict between those seeking to win at any cost and those desiring to stand on conservative principles and values. Mitt Romney did not lose because of conservative values and positions offered by other Republicans. He lost because he was himself and not the person that encompassed and connected even with everyone under the GOP tent. Many wished for more from Romney while others feared or cold not commit to Romney for varied reasons. This situation does not mean that Republicans and conservatives attracted to Republicans principles, voted instead for Mr. Obama or another candidate. But this does address why some conservatives did not vote in the Presidential race.

While the old political GOP political guard attacks what they call "bad nominees," as identified in the below article, they also evidence a failure to fully accept that it is the people who select their nominees and not them. If "we the people" wanted centralized control, we would be in the democrat party and not addressing the issues holding back the republican party.

It is also becoming clear to the grassroots that political operatives, be they Republican or Democrat, measure winning as a victory even if that victory compromises values and principles and or leads our country further into socialism or off a fiscal cliff. When glass replaces a diamond in a ring, the value is diminished. When the GOP operatives compromise principles and a conservative platform, their efforts become of little or no value. It is time to "run" towards principles and values verses running towards destructive values and beliefs.

By Paul Kane and Rosalind S. Helderman, WP Politics: Evangelical leaders and conservative activists have a simple message for establishment Republicans about Mitt Romney’s failed presidential bid: We told you so.

After nearly two weeks of listening to GOP officials pledge to assert greater control over the party and its most strident voices in the wake of Romney’s loss, grass-roots activists have begun to fight back, saying that they are not to blame for the party’s losses in November.

“The moderates have had their candidate in 2008 and they had their candidate in 2012. And they got crushed in both elections. Now they tell us we have to keep moderating. If we do that, will we win?” said Bob Vander Plaats, president of the Family Leader. Vander Plaats is an influential Christian conservative who opposed Romney in the Iowa caucuses 10 months ago and opposed Sen. John McCain’s candidacy four years ago.

The conservative backlash sets up an internal fight for the direction of the Republican Party, as many top leaders in Washington have proposed moderating their views on citizenship for illegal immigrants, to appeal to Latino voters. In addition, many top GOP officials have called for softening the party’s rhetoric on social issues, following the embarrassing showing by Senate candidates who were routed after publicly musing about denying abortion services to women who had been raped.

Ted Cruz, a tea party favorite, trounced Texas’s establishment candidate in a primary on his way to becoming the second Hispanic Republican in the Senate, and the battle he waged in the Lone Star State epitomizes the fight between the two sides. Although he is considered a rising star with a personal biography that GOP leaders wish to promote, Cruz falls squarely in the camp that thinks Romney was not conservative enough and did not fully articulate a conservative contrast to President Obama, except during the first presidential debate.

“It was the one time we actually contested ideas, presented two viewpoints and directions for the country,” he said at the Federalist Society’s annual dinner in Washington. “And then, inevitably, there are these mandarins of politics, who give the voice: ‘Don’t show any contrasts. Don’t rock the boat.’ So by the third debate, I’m pretty certain Mitt Romney actually French-kissed Barack Obama.”

Rick Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania who finished second to Romney in the GOP primary, lampooned Romney’s assertion that Obama’s victory was fueled by “gifts” to core liberal constituencies in the form of legislative favors.

“The American people do not want ‘gifts’ from their leaders, particularly when these gifts leave a steep bill for our children to pay, but they do want us to be on their side,” Santorum wrote in a USA Today op-ed published Monday. He placed the blame on the national party, saying it lacked an appealing agenda: “We as a party, the party of Ronald Reagan and ‘Morning in America,’ failed to provide an agenda that shows we care.”

The dispute began to take shape soon after Obama was declared the winner and Republicans, who had hoped to claim the Senate majority, lost two seats. Two days after the election, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told ABC News that the Republicans’ mission was to appeal to nonwhite voters: “How do we speak to all Americans? You know, not just to people who look like us and act like us, but how do we speak to all Americans?”

The fight ahead will come in two phases, the first being legislative debates on taxes, entitlements and immigration, and the second in the GOP primary battles in the 2014 midterm elections.

Congressional Republican leaders have rejected Obama’s call for higher tax rates on the wealthiest Americans, but they have opened the door to more revenue streaming into the Treasury by limiting exemptions and closing loopholes as part of a broad tax-code overhaul. The president says those measures would not produce enough revenue.

More problematic for Republicans is the drift of Hispanic voters into the Democratic fold. Obama won among Hispanic voters by 44 percentage points this year, up eight points from 2008.

“Hispanics are an ever-important part of the electorate that can’t be ignored. The scope of the challenge is broad, but there is opportunity ahead for conservatives to engage,” Jennifer S. Korn of the Hispanic Leadership Network, a Republican-funded group designed to do outreach, wrote in a memo circulated over the weekend.

Korn warned that two reliably Republican states worth 49 electoral votes combined could become swing states if demographic trendlines continue. In 2004, George W. Bush tied in the Hispanic vote in Texas and lost in Arizona by 13 percentage points. Romney lost the Hispanic vote by more than 40 points in both states.

After several years of focusing on border security as the centerpiece of their immigration proposals, many senior party officials have reversed course and suggested that they should at least support the DREAM Act, which would allow the children of illegal immigrants to avoid deportation.

Such a move would spark a huge internal fight with some conservatives. Dan Stein, president of the hard-line Federation for American Immigration Reform, insisted that the 2012 election was decided on issues other than immigration and that the push for the party to change its position represents opportunism by those who have always favored a more accommodating approach. He said the party’s elite is captive to business interests who favor increased immigration to reduce labor costs.

“There’s no evidence, none, that amnesty will bond Hispanics to the Republican Party,” he said. “This post-election chatter is coming from people who, for the most part, have generally disagreed with the need for stronger border control or less immigration. . . . This is going to be a long, protracted debate.”

The 2014 Senate races will serve as a test for establishment control of the political process. For the third consecutive cycle, Republicans will begin as heavy favorites to gain a large bloc of seats, and some party leaders want a bigger role in choosing those nominees. In 2010 and 2012, Republicans say, bad nominees in Colorado, Delaware, Indiana, Missouri and Nevada cost them what should have been easy victories. If those seats were in GOP hands today, the Senate would be deadlocked at 50-50.

Some outside groups, however, stand ready to fight for the most conservative nominee, pointing to Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) as examples of rising stars who won Senate races without establishment support.

“The party is rarely in a position to determine the best candidate,” said Chris Chocola, president of the Club for Growth. “When you have someone who can articulate a clear, convincing, conservative message, they win.”

Tags: conservatives, republicans, fighting, re-analysis, post election, 2012 election To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!