Oct. 26, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement praising Attorney General Jeff Sessions for clearing the Uranium One whistleblower to be able to testify before Congress:

“Jeff Sessions has stood up to the FBI and the career attorneys at the Justice Department to allow the truth on Uranium One to be told. The Attorney General has once again proven that he will stand up for the rule of law even if creates difficulties for himself internally. Some may complain that the actions are too slow, but the I’s will be dotted and the T’s will be crossed, because it will done right under the law, which is what the American people expect from the Justice Department after eight years of lawlessness. To restore the rule of law and prevent there being two tiers of justice in America, nothing less will be required to get to the bottom of the alleged corruption of the Uranium One deal and the Clinton Foundation that the whistleblower is now said to testify to. There has to be a legitimate process.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 100 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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Oct. 25, 2017, Fairfax, Va.–Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement praising House Select Committee on Intelligence U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) for subpoenaing Fusion GPS to reveal who funded the now-discredited Christopher Steele dossier, which the Washington Post reports was the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee:

“The nation should be grateful to Devin Nunes, who had the courage to continue pursuing the truth related to who was behind fake Steele dossier that contended Trump-Russia collusion. It was Nunes’ doggedness in pursuing the political funders of the opposition research effort that relied on misinformation that has compelled even the pro-Clinton Washington Post to report on the direct funding ties between Hillary Clinton, the DNC and the Steele dossier. It is particularly troubling that Fusion GPS, which produced the Steele dossier, has chosen to take the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination rather than honestly dealing the issues at hand. In light of the leaking of Fusion GPS funding by the Clinton campaign and the DNC to the Washington Post, it is very difficult to maintain that Fusion should not provide the House Intelligence Committee their full and complete funding records.

“Our nation has been subjected to over a year’s worth of baseless speculation about Russia collusion and the election. Chairman Nunes has finally broken through to get near the truth, and he cannot back down now.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 100 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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Oct. 24, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement blasting Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) for unilaterally taking E-Verify out of the discussion over Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA), when he told Politico in an interview, “if we start adding too much stuff to the DACA-border security approach, then we get back into comprehensive immigration reform and nothing happens”:

“Once again, Senate rules are being used as an excuse for not doing what’s in the country’s best interest. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn’s declaration that a common-sense way to determine if someone is legally able to be employed, E-Verify, would torpedo efforts to give amnesty to a large number of illegal aliens is clearly operating in a Senate world where it takes 60 votes to get a majority in a body of 100 members. Once again, the American people are expected to accept that the minority party has veto power over any provisions, and that the majority is helpless in the face of their opposition.

“President Trump needs to clearly state that Cornyn’s bad deal is no deal at all. DACA is the leverage, not the deal. The top priorities of any immigration legislation need to be building the wall, getting national E-Verify and ending chain migration in addition to bolstered border security and enforcement. Absent the filibuster, the Democrats would have no power to demand anything, let alone amnesty designed to increase the ranks of Democrat voters. Once again, the Senate majority needs to decide if they will allow the Democrats to hold the nation hostage using Senate rules or if they’re going to govern instead. No deal is better than a bad deal that neglects the real priorities on immigration enforcement, and we’ve had too many years like that already. We cannot afford to continue down that path of refusing to enforce the law.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 100 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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Oct. 20, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today in the following statement blasted former President George W. Bush’s attack on President Donald Trump and his supporters:

“Former President George W. Bush remained eerily silent during the Barack Obama administration as his successor drove racial tensions to new heights by demonizing law enforcement. Incredibly, the same President Bush, who I gratefully served as one of his appointees at the Labor Department, seems to not feel as constrained in attacking his Republican successor in the White House.  President Bush is wrong on both trade and immigration.  He should know better than anyone that the granting of permanent normal trade relations to China in 2000 as well as entering the WTO has had disastrous effects in hollowing out our nation’s manufacturing sector as currency manipulation by the Chinese was a major issue between the two countries during his presidency.  He should also know that failure to enforce our nation’s immigration laws has led to the current impasse on how to proceed.  Unfortunately, the border wall was authorized prior to President George W. Bush’s administration, and in spite of our heightened national security needs after 9/11, it was never prioritized and completed. This failure by the 43rd President is at least partially responsible for the flood of illegal immigrants who crossed our border at the seeming urging of his immediate successor.

“The sad fact is that President Bush really was attacking the American people who have grown weary of the new normal brought about by the Clinton, Bush, Obama trio.  Americans know that our nation can grow and thrive, but only if the economic playing field is not deliberately tipped against them by the very politicians they entrusted to lead America. I am saddened that former President Bush apparently cannot see that putting America First is the President’s job. This seems unfathomable from the man who took the mound at Yankee Stadium shortly after 9/11 to show that America will not be afraid of Islamists or anyone else, an image that does not jibe with his current iteration.

“On a personal level, I am saddened by the choice by President Bush to attack President Trump at a time when the current President is fighting for cutting taxes, rolling back regulations that are strangling our economy, replacing Obamacare, and facing unprecedented nuclear threats from small nation dictators intent on extorting the world.  Rather than being a positive, constructive influence, President Bush instead made the case that until Donald Trump came on the scene, the differences between the two political parties were more semantic than real.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 100 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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Oct. 19, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging the Justice Department to clear the FBI informant now alleging corruption in the Uranium One deal to be cleared to testify:

“The FBI informant must be allowed to testify. The initial reports of a delay of the investigation of the Russian bribery nuclear fuels transfer scandal involving former FBI directors Robert Mueller and James Comey, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and former Attorney General Eric Holder to help grease the wheels of the Uranium One deal during the Obama administration could irreparably shake the confidence of the American people in the entire Justice Department. The first step Attorney General Jeff Sessions must take is to clear the whistleblower to testify about the corruption that he or she is alleging. Only through that testimony and subsequent thorough investigation led by Sessions, not involving any of the accused, can the interests of the U.S. government and its people be served. If the Russians exerted influence at the highest levels of the Justice Department and the FBI in order to obtain approval of the takeover of 20 percent of the U.S. uranium reserves, then that sale should be nullified and the people who facilitated it should be imprisoned.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 100 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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Oct. 17, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement on the idea of reinstating the $7 billion a year cost-sharing program under Obamacare bailing out insurers in exchange for very little:

“President Trump’s original decision to withhold the $7 billion a year health insurer cost-sharing should provide the necessary leverage to pass real, structural reforms of Obamacare, along the lines of Graham-Cassidy. President Trump and Speaker Ryan hold the keys to making this a reality and given their most recent statements there is reason for hope that the Republicans in Congress will finally find the votes to keep their Obamacare repeal and replace promise. Both the President and the Speaker seem to recognize that bailing out the health insurers via cost-sharing reinstatement was never part of anyone’s campaign pledge. However, if some short-term subsidization is needed to politically cross the finish line on repeal and replace, while nauseating, that is the art of the deal that might be necessary to lift the Obamacare burden off of the American public and our national economy.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 100 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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Oct. 16, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in response to Sen. Joe Manchin’s call for Rep. Tom Marino (R-Pa.) to step aside from consideration as President Donald Trump’s appointment to the Office of Drug Control Policy over legislation that Manchin supported when it came up in the Senate:

“Joe Manchin’s political grandstanding calling for Rep. Tom Marino to step aside from consideration as head of the Office of Drug Control Policy could be taken seriously if Manchin himself resigned, due to his supporting the Marino bill in 2016, which passed both the House and Senate unanimously. Manchin either supported the legislation or was too incompetent to know that it was on the floor of the Senate. Either way, under his own standard, Manchin should step down because he is clearly not up to the task of representing the people of West Virginia in the U.S. Senate.

“Joe Manchin had an opportunity to stop the legislation featured on 60 Minutes that gives the Attorney General a role in suspending drug distributor licenses in 2016. He failed. His failure wasn’t due to putting up a good fight and losing. Instead, it was in allowing the passage of the bipartisan legislation — unanimously. The truth is, the bipartisan legislation merely protected the due process rights of pharmacies against arbitrary license suspensions without senior Department of Justice oversight. The suspensions are still allowed under law. And there is no correlation between the license suspensions and the opioid crisis.

“The insanity of the politicization of everything in Washington, D.C. will be demonstrated as politicians who allowed the legislation to become law seek to score political points against their colleagues. We are in a new era of faux outrage based on fake news and everything is about the narrative with truth rarely interceding. President Donald Trump needs to stand firm with Marino and just say no to this shameless and baseless demagoguery.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 100 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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Oct. 16, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in response to a 60 Minutes and Washington Post report linking the opioid crisis to a bill passed unanimously by Congress in 2016:

“60 Minutes and the Washington Post once again have proven an unwillingness to let facts get in the way of a good headline. The opioid crisis began more than a decade prior to the 2016 passage of the law by Congress governing DEA license suspensions, which merely puts in place a 30-day process for the Attorney General to approve license suspensions of drug distributors recommended by the DEA in a considered manner.

“The 60 Minutes segment contends DEA immediate license suspensions are the ‘most potent tool in fighting the spread of dangerous narcotics.’ Yet, according to Centers for Disease Control data, opioid related deaths caused by commonly prescribed opioids peaked in 2011 and has remained relatively constant since that point. That covers the very period the original Washington Post story notes the slowdown of license suspensions by the Obama Justice Department. Apparently, the Justice Department’s new approach to enforcement away from immediate license suspensions had no bearing on the overall crisis. The same amount of deaths related to prescription overdoses occurred with the immediate license suspensions as without.

“Given these basic facts, the 60 Minutes and Washington Post report appears as nothing more than a political hit job on Tom Marino and Marsha Blackburn. Why weren’t the Democrat cosponsors in the House, Peter Welch and Judy Chu, mentioned? Or the Senate sponsors for that matter, Republican Orrin Hatch and Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse? This bipartisan law was passed unanimously in 2016 without objection by both the House and Senate and promptly signed into law by then-President Obama. It is despicable that 60 Minutes and the Washington Post are so cynical as to want to politicize the pain and suffering of so many Americans, as if this was a partisan issue, and they should be ashamed of themselves.

“The opioid crisis is serious. Families are being ripped apart as their sons and daughters fall in to this private hell. The 60 Minutes and Washington Post do a grave disservice to everyone when they engage in the trivialization and political misrepresentation when discussing this issue.”

Attachments:

Overdose Deaths Involving Opioids, United States, 2000-2015 at https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/index.html

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 100 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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