July 14, 2015, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement condemning the Iran nuclear deal:

“Congressional Republicans tied their own hands in any upcoming attempt to stop the Iran nuclear deal earlier this year when they chose to pass legislation by Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) that turned the normal treaty ratification process on its head by requiring a veto override of two-thirds votes in both houses in order to stop the deal rather than the Constitutionally required two-thirds majority in the Senate for ratification.  By creating this much more difficult bar for rejection, Congress inadvertently allowed President Obama to negotiate away any real pretense that Iran will be stopped from getting the bomb, because he no longer feared Senate rejection.

“This concern is being realized around the world as nobody believes that this deal will stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Saudi diplomats are already saying that the deal green lights initiating their own nuclear programs, not for peaceful energy, but for military weapons. Israel has condemned the deal. What does it say when our top allies in the region think this is a bad deal, and that there is now a nuclear arms race in the Middle East?

“The Obama Iranian deal makes proliferation in the region inevitable and, as a result, war more likely, not less. Nuclear non-proliferation, U.S. interests, and our allies’ interests have all suffered a severe setback today. It makes it much more likely that we will have a nuclear terrorist attack on U.S. soil, and that we will face a new reality as Iranian allies like Venezuela become nuclear threats. The world is less safe, and if Congress fails to defeat this deal, they will have nobody but themselves to blame.  After all, with the Corker bill, they ignored warnings from Senator Tom Cotton and effectively made disapproving the deal a near impossibility.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Rick Manning.

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July 10, 2015, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging the House of Representatives to get back to work on the appropriations bills:

“If the appropriations process is going to be held up over an amendment defunding the placement of Democrat-created Confederate flags at Confederate grave sites at national cemeteries, and we’re not going to get any work done until this business is settled, then it should all be tied to a single vote including renaming the Richard Russell Senate Office Building, who was a pro-segregationist, removing every hammer and sickle symbol — a symbol which tens of millions have died under — from every gravestone in Chicago’s Haymarket National Cemetery, renaming the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, named after the President who resegregated the entire government including the military and hosted a showing of ‘The Birth of a Nation’ at the White House and praised it, renaming all federal courthouses and corrections facilities in West Virginia named after the late Senator Robert Byrd, a former leader of the KKK and Democrats in the Senate, and renaming the Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Grove on the Potomac, due to LBJ’s fondness for using the N-word.

“It is ridiculous for Congress to relinquish the power of the purse that the appropriations process enables, due to this symbolic idiocy of the left, so let’s just get rid of all of it. If purging the cruel, racist history of the Democrat Party is their goal, let’s just help Democrats expunge their shame for all time — and get back to the urgent business of Congress.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Rick Manning.

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July 8, 2015, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement praising Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) for successfully fighting for key amendments to the Interior and Environment appropriations bill:

“Representative Paul Gosar has proven, once again, that he is a true fighter for limiting the size and scope of government. Gosar successfully led the charge to stop the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from providing any funds to the radical United Nations Environment Programme, blocked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from listing the Sonoran Desert Tortoise as an endangered or threatened species, and helped stop President Obama’s abuse of the Antiquities and Monuments Act by defunding its implementation in targeted areas around the western United States.

“Congress has the power of the purse, and Representative Gosar’s hard work to use that power to rein in Obama’s radical agenda stands as an example for all of his colleagues.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Rick Manning.

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July 8, 2015, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement praising the House of Representatives for adopting an amendment by Cresent Hardy (R-Nev.) defunding implementation of the Antiquities Act of 1906 in the counties of Mohave and Coconino in the State of Arizona, in the counties of Modoc and Siskiyou in the State of California, in the counties of Chaffee, Moffat, and Park in the State of Colorado, in the counties of Lincoln, Clark, and Nye in the State of Nevada, in the county of Otero in the State of New Mexico, in the counties of Jackson, Josephine and, Malheur in the State of Oregon, or in the counties of Wayne, Garfield, and Kane in the State of Utah:

“Although this amendment does not defund the entire Antiquities Act, it will get at the administration’s recent implementation of that law, which attempts to force communities in California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, and Utah to declare national monuments, preventing lands from being developed. With the Obama administration’s track record, it cannot be allowed to wield the Antiquities Act as a weapon. With the economy still struggling, we need to be freeing up American resources, not locking them up.

“We praise Representatives Cresent Hardy (R-Nev.), Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.) Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), Steve Pearce (R-N.M.), Chris Stewart (R-Utah), Scott Tipton (R-Colo.), and Greg Walden (R-Oreg.) for their leadership in fighting Obama’s radical environmentalist agenda and defending local communities from federal intrusion.”

Attachments:

AMENDMENT TO H.R. 2822

OFFERED BY MR. HARDY OF NEVADA

At the end of the bill, before the short title, insert the following:

SEC. 441. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to make a Presidential declaration by public proclamation of a national monument under chapter 3203 of title 54, United States Code in the counties of Mohave and Coconino in the State of Arizona, in the counties of Modoc and Siskiyou in the State of California, in the counties of Chaffee, Moffat, and Park in the State of Colorado, in the counties of Lincoln, Clark, and Nye in the State of Nevada, in the county of Otero in the State of New Mexico, in the counties of Jackson, Josephine and, Malheur in the State of Oregon, or in the counties of Wayne, Garfield, and Kane in the State of Utah.

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Rick Manning.

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July 8, 2015, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement blasting the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s finalization of the “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” rule that empowers the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to condition eligibility for community development block grants on redrawing zoning maps to achieve racial and income integration by building high density, low-income housing in well-to-do neighborhoods:

“Once again, the Obama Administration thinks it knows best for local communities, and is attempting to usurp the most basic zoning authority in a misguided attempt to create equal outcomes rather than equal opportunities.  It is particularly stunning that Obama is continuing on this path of outcome based discrimination findings given the Supreme Court’s barely dry ruling that held that this disparate impact theory can only be applied if there are many other proof points that de facto discrimination exists.  Yet, Obama, through this HUD rule throws the Court’s finding under the bus by basing housing policy upon this very same legally discredited idea.

“Let me make this clear.  Local zoning decisions should be left to local government where the people most affected make the decisions, and not by some pointy headed bureaucrat looking at a census map from Washington, D.C.  Laws against racial discrimination in housing have been on the books for almost fifty years, and this latest Obama Administration housing rule is nothing more than a power grab where the federal government tells America that they know best where to put a high rise apartment complex in your community.  Representative Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) has already led the House to defund implementation of this rule, now it is up to the Senate to take action and then hold firm and insist that this blatant federal takeover of local zoning authority be stopped.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Rick Manning.

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July 6, 2015, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging the House of Representatives to defund key Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other Interior Department actions in the upcoming Interior appropriations bill that have been stifling energy and extraction industries:

“The upcoming Interior appropriations bill provides an opportunity for the House to defund key EPA and other Interior actions that have had a stranglehold on our economy. Congress should deny funds to carry out the carbon endangerment finding, the new and existing power plant rules, and any other man-made-global-warming-hysteria-inspired regulation. The agency’s general counsel’s office could be cut by 30 percent. The Interior Department’s contemplated expansion of the Northern Spotted Owl’s protected habitat should also be halted. These are but a few examples of how Congress’ power of the purse can be used to stop the EPA’s assault on our economy.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Rick Manning.

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July 1, 2015, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in response to Greece’s default on $1.7 billion of International Monetary Fund (IMF) debt, a U.S. taxpayer funded institution:

“The IMF was never supposed to fund developed countries like Greece, Ireland, or Portugal, yet in the financial crisis these three countries have borrowed a whopping $54 billion from it, accounting for 55 percent of all its current outstanding loans. All that time the American people were assured that there was zero risk of default, a façade that has now been exposed as pure vapor with Greece’s $1.7 billion missed payment to the IMF.

“Not one more penny should go to bailing out European socialist governments and the banks that lent them the money. Congress should prohibit the use of any funds created by the $100 billion New Arrangements to Borrow credit line, a 2009 expansion initiated by the Obama administration from being used for any purpose. In addition, it is the duty of Congress to prohibit the use of quota funds to cover any obligations owed by Greece to the IMF—now totaling $23.6 billion.

“If the Obama administration wants to support Greece or any other bankrupt government financially, the President should have to go to Congress to request the funds as the Constitution mandates.”

Attachments:

“U.S-backed IMF loans prolong Greece’s agony,” By Robert Romano, June 10, 2015 at http://netrightdaily.com/2015/06/u-s-backed-imf-loans-prolong-greeces-agony/

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Rick Manning.

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June 26, 2015, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging Congress to defund implementation of the Antiquities Act:

“President Obama has bragged about his use of his pen and phone to impose changes that he wants whether Congress agrees or not. This threat combined with the President’s climate obsession makes it particularly important that Congress take action by defunding any future use of the Antiquities Act for Fiscal Year 2016 to prevent the unilateral taking of land for the purpose of removing it from legitimate resource development usage.

“It is incumbent upon Congress to prevent this President from continuing to take millions of acres of land off the public rolls in order to block energy development.

“Our nation is enjoying an energy renaissance due to efforts of entrepreneurs leasing private and state government lands, while energy development on federal lands has been in a decline due to Obama’s extremist agenda.   Defunding the President’s capacity to extend and expand his anti-energy independence penchant in the House Interior Appropriation bill is a common sense approach to use the power of the purse to protect America’s energy future.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Rick Manning.

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