Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Economy, Freedom, Politics, Statism, The Constitution | Tags: big government, Excessive Regulation, Power Grab
Regulations have flowed out of the Obama administration like trickles of water that make gushing streams and become mighty rivers. The economy is drowning in them. The rules imposed by the government have little to do with health and safety, and much to do with power and whether the government or private individuals get to make basic pocketbook and lifestyle decisions that affect their lives.
Unfortunately, it’s not just the regulators that are to blame. Congress increasingly writes laws that pass off power to unelected bureaucrats to wield broad powers to which they are not entitled. It is Congress’ job to write the bills and determine the regulation for which they are ultimately responsible, not pass it on. Each regulation has big costs for the economy in both economic growth and increased unemployment.
Here are ten of the very worst regulations from 2012, courtesy of the Heritage Foundation:
1. HHS’s Contraception Mandate
The Department of Health and Human Services on Feb. 15 finalized its mandate that all health insurance plans include coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization procedures, and contraceptives. To date 42 cases with more than 110 plaintiffs are challenging the restriction on religious liberty.
2. EPA Emissions Standards
In February, the EPA finalized strict new emission standards for coal- and oil-fired electric utilities. The benefits are questionable, the majority unrelated to the emissions targeted by the regulation. Science is determining that CO2 is not the cause of climate change. The costs are an estimated $9.6 billion annually.
3. Fuel Efficiency Standards
In August, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration with the EPA finalized the fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks, for model years 2017-2025. The rules require 54.5 mpg by 2025. Sticker prices will jump by hundreds of dollars. The climate will not change because of the standards.
4. New York’s 16-Ounce Soda Limit
NY Mayor Bloomberg pushed the NY City Board of Health to ban the sale of soda and other sweetened drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces. Those who are thirsty can just buy two smaller size.
5. Dishwasher Efficiency Standards
Even the regulators admit that these DOE rules will do little (nothing) for the environment. Proponents claim they will save consumers money, cutting back on water and energy. Big increase in cost of a dishwasher, few customers will keep the dishwasher long enough to recoup the cost. Please get out of my kitchen.
6. School Lunch Standards
The Dept. of Agriculture in January published stringent nutrition standards for school lunch and breakfast programs. More than 98,000 elementary and secondary schools are affected—at a cost exceeding $3.4 billion over the next 4 years. Students are in open revolt, they hate the food.
7. Quickie Union Election Rules
The NLRB in April, issued new rules that shorten the time allowed for union-organizing elections to between 10 and 21 days. This leaves little time for employees to make a fully informed choice on unionizing. but President Obama advances the union cause at every opportunity.
8. Essential Benefits Rule
Under ObamaCare, insurers in the individual and small group markets are forced to cover services that the government deems to be essential, whether your doctor deems them essential or not. Under ObamaCare, directions will come from unaccountable bureaucrats, not your own physician.
9. Electronic Data Recorder Mandate
The National Highway Safety Administration in December issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to mandate installation of electronic data recorders (“black boxes”) in most light vehicles starting in 2014. Raises the cost of a vehicle, and invades your privacy.
10. “Simplified” Mortgage Disclosure and Servicing Rules
The New Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (unneeded agency created in phony Congressional recess) released their proposal for a more “consumer-friendly” mortgage process to simplify home loans. The simplifying rules run an astonishing 1,099 pages which were followed a month later with 560 more pages for rules of mortgage servicing. That’s what bureaucracy does.
Follow the fascination progress of government moving to control your every move. See Heritage’s funny but sad Tales of the Red Tape series on The Foundry.
Filed under: Entertainment, Movies, Politics, Pop Culture, Television | Tags: Celebrity is Not Fame, Hypocrites, Violence in Movies
I don’t know, maybe you are so impressed with “celebrity” that you welcome advice from those who are modestly well known because they were once in a movie or got their picture in the paper. Somebody must be, because so many magazines feature “celebrities” on their covers. I am not, and find them tiresome. Their movies are increasingly uninteresting, and dominated by the same old special effects, and nobody in Hollywood seems to remember how to tell a good story.
Anyway, these tiresome pretty people, inspired by the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary decided to tell the rest of us that we should dump the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Somebody else, who also found them tiresome, took the trouble to juxtapose the violent scenes from their very own movies with their preachiness. Delicious. Love seeing hypocrites exposed.
Because we occasionally spend money to see a movie, and their agents tell them how wonderful they are, doesn’t mean that said minor celebrities have any expertise in politics that might influence the rest of us. I only recognized a couple of them. If you care so much, stop making such violent movies. You are a bad example. Please — just shut up.
Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Politics, Taxes, The Constitution | Tags: Presidential Arrogance, The Constitution, The Fiscal Cliff
I wish you a Happy New Year in spite of an upcoming year that is not promising.
We dropped over the fiscal cliff at Midnight, and then the Senate passed their 157 page fiscal cliff bill which everybody passed without reading it. Didn’t anyone learn a lesson about passing unread bills? Obama is triumphal because he accomplished his two main goals. He stuck it to the Republicans and can now call it ‘a tax cut’ that he delivered to the middle class (Don’t fall for that pathetic meme), and he forced Republicans to forgo their insistence on not raising taxes.
Republicans want to keep taxes low for everyone, because low taxes will help the economy to grow. New layoffs have been coming at a furious rate as more small businesses let workers go, or shift more of their workforce to part-time to avoid the massive fines imposed by ObamaCare on those companies who have more than 50 workers. People and businesses respond to incentives. The rich will rearrange their finances, or move to a location more friendly to capital. Businesses will invest in more labor-saving devices — more telephone trees, robotic voices, more automated check-out stands, more factory innovations that save the cost of labor and it’s benefits. And although taxes will go up, the revenue will not yield as much as expected.
Republicans recognize government jobs as just another expense that will require increased taxes from the public, and yes, the middle class. They believe in smaller, less complicated government that regards its tasks as those enumerated in the Constitution, rather than one that feels it’s role is regulating our showers, our lightbulbs, our appliances. (Did you know there are new regulations for dishwashers that reduce energy and reduce the amount of water used from 6.5 gallons down to 5 gallons. This will, of course dramatically raise the cost of a dishwasher, and you will not have it long enough to realize any savings in either water or electricity).
Republicans don’t believe that it is the government’s task to control health care, nor to tell the healthcare industry just what care they may give to a patient. Republicans believe a lot of stuff that is very hard to explain in short slogans or clever bumper stickers. They think deeply about their philosophy, the meaning of the Constitution, and the maintenance of liberty.
Democrats believe in the maintenance of power. Theirs. They want to win.
Their fondest desire is to end the Republican party and all its influences. Including the U.S. Constitution, singularly restrictive on what powers are granted to the government by the American people. Democrats don’t like those restrictions that Republicans are always nattering about.
Obama has not the slightest intention of cutting back on spending in any way. He doesn’t see any reason for doing so. Economist Alan Reynolds remarked that “Barack Obama does not understand economics and refuses to listen to anyone who does.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office puts it this way:
“With the population aging and health care costs per person likely to keep growing faster than the economy (gross domestic product), the United States cannot sustain the federal spending programs that are now in place with the federal taxes (as a share of GDP) that it has been accustomed to paying.” $1 in spending cuts ($15 billion) for every $41 billion in tax increases ($620 billion).
The compliant (suck-up) media has accepted the Obama narrative that it it’s only Republican rigidity that makes negotiations so difficult and leads to deadlock, because Republicans want to protect the rich. This means that there is even less incentive for Obama and Congressional Democrats to engage in genuine bargaining. But the media has not performed their job as government watchdog for many years.
We are not getting a genuine debate that we deserve. The president is lying about having cut a trillion dollars from the budget. He increased it by a trillion. The President is playing ugly Chicago politics in the national arena. And Chicago, the murder capital of the country, is the nation’s most dysfunctional city. Obama’s already overbearing arrogance will swell even more. No leadership. No understanding.
You can’t have Big Government and low taxes. Doesn’t work. The president will have to come after the middle class, because that’s where the money is. The payroll tax returns. They’re already talking about your 401-ks as a source of revenue. More to come.
From all us elephants to all of you, we thank you for being part of our herd, making our year so bright, and may God bless you and yours with an exceedingly happy, healthy, and very prosperous new year!
Filed under: Law, National Security, Pop Culture | Tags: No Common Sense, Public Paranoia, The Do-Something Disease
When there is a horrendous incident, such as the terrible shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, CT., the do-something disease strikes with devastating effect. A boy, described as odd, or disturbed?— did anyone describe him as disturbed or only in retrospect? — shot his mother in the face and proceeding to the elementary school, shot teachers and many little children and then himself. Devastating.
The immediate assumption is that we must do something to prevent a repetition, any repetition anywhere, any time. But going back over other shootings, the perpetrators were not singled out, no one recognized their delusions or their danger. None cold have been prevented by any of the new laws being proposed. If we are unable to recognize mental illness in any of these people prior to their act, new laws about not selling guns to the mentally disturbed are not going to help. None of them purchased their guns at gun dealers. We have tried a ban on “assault weapons” to little effect because the banners have no understanding of what an assault weapon is. So you end up with all sorts of incidents like this one, that Reason headlined this way:
“Boy, Not Making Bombs, Arrested for Having Things Cops Think Could Blow Up (And For Drawings That Spooked a Teacher).”
When a 16-year-old New Jersey boy doodled in his notebook on Tuesday, December 18, he probably didn’t expect to be arrested by the end of the day. However, when school officials saw the sketches, which they state appeared to be of weapons, and the boy “demonstrated behavior that caused them to be concerned,” the police were called. ( The drawing was apparently of a glove spouting flames).
The school is a magnet school with programs focusing on engineering and environmental science and specializing in hands-on learning.
A subsequent search of the boy’s home led to his arrest because they found several electronic parts and chemicals. He was charged with the possession of an explosive device and put in juvenile detention. His mother said her son had “a passion for collecting old stuff, taking it apart and rebuilding thing.”
No threats to anyone, no bomb, no making a bomb, no using a bomb, no detonating a bomb. Only a drawing of a flaming glove. No indication that there was any danger to anyone or any school property. Hope the kid got out of the Juvenile Detention facility in time for Christmas.
Filed under: Freedom, History, National Security, Politics, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: No Self-Defense in England, Obama Forgets His Oath, The Second Amendment
In 1953, British law banned carrying anything for the purpose of self-defense.
In England, self-defense is not considered a “good reason” to carry a knife, much less a gun, as an “offensive weapon” is “defined as any weapon designed or adapted to cause injury, or intended by the person possessing them to do so.”
The BBC offers this advice for anyone in Britain who is attacked on the street: “You are permitted to protect yourself with a briefcase, a handbag, or keys. You should shout “call the Police’ rather than ‘Help.’ Bystanders are not to help. They have been taught to leave such matters to the professionals. If you manage to knock your attacker down, you must not hit him again or you risk being charged with assault.“
A report from the Cato Institute points out that self-defense is an endangered right.
The withdrawal of a basic right of Englishmen is having dire consequences in Great Britain, and should serve as an object lesson for Americans. Today, in the name of public safety, the British government has practically eliminated the citizens’ right to self-defense. That did not happen all at once. The people were weaned from their fundamental right to protect themselves through a series of policies implemented over some 80 years. Those include the strictest gun regulations of any democracy, legislation that makes it illegal for individuals to carry any article that could be used for personal protection, and restrictive limits on the use of force in self-defense. Britons have been taught, in the words of a 1992 Economist article, that such policies are “a restraint on personal liberty that seems, in most civilized countries, essential to the happiness of others.” The author contrasted those policies with “America’s vigilante values.”
The result of that tradeoff of rights for security has been disastrous for both. Many Americans, either unaware of, or unconcerned with, the perverse impact of British policy, insist that our public safety demands a similar sacrifice. But an examination of the experience of the British people offers a cautionary tale. A few examples underscore the situation in Britain today.
A homeowner discovered two robbers in his home, and held them at bay with a toy gun, while he telephoned the police. When the police arrived, they arrested the two burglars and also the homeowner, who was charged with putting someone in fear with a toy gun.
An elderly woman who scared off a gang of youths by firing a cap pistol was charged with the same offense. The government is now planning to make toy guns illegal.
In 1999, a 55-year-old farmer, Tony Martin, living alone in a dilapidated house, was awakened by the sound of breaking glass as two burglars broke in. Martin had been robbed six times previously. Like 70 percent of rural villages, his had no police presence. He crept downstairs in the dark, shot at the burglars, killing one and wounding the second. Both had many prior convictions. Martin was sentenced to life in prison for killing one burglar, 10 years for wounding the second, and 12 months for owning an unregistered shotgun. The prosecutor claimed that Martin had lain in wait, and caught the burglars “like rats in a trap.”
The wounded burglar was released after serving 18 months of a three-year sentence. He then sued Martin for the injury to his leg, claiming it prevented him from working and interfered with his martial arts training and sex life. He was awarded £5,000 of taxpayer money to prosecute the suit. Martin’s sentence was reduced on a finding that he had an abusive childhood, but he was denied parole because he had expressed no remorse for killing one so young, and posed a danger to other burglars.
A trend of 500 years of declining interpersonal violence reversed abruptly in 1954 as violence began to increase dramatically. In 2001 England ranked highest in the level of homicides in Western Europe, and violent crimes were three times worse than the next worst country, and climbing. It is far higher than the United States.
The safety of the public has taken second place behind the government’s political preference for order and power. It is an alarming lesson for us.
In the meantime, President Obama on Sunday pledged to put his “full weight” behind a legislative package next year aimed at containing gun violence. He voiced skepticism about armed guards at schools. He said he intended to press the issue with the public. “Will there be resistance? Absolutely there will be resistance.”
In California, the number of guns sold in the state has risen sharply, doubling since 2002. Oddly enough, gun injuries and deaths have fallen. Across the country many teachers are signing up for firearms training on their own.
Like this:
Filed under: Europe, Freedom, Heartwarming, History | Tags: European Bison, Free to Roam in the Woods, Wisent
Walter Russell Mead always has interesting essays at The American Interest and today’s was no exception.”For the first time since 1746, a herd of wild European bison, close cousins of the American variety, will be roaming free in a German forest owned by Prince Richard of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg.” Now how could you resist an introductory sentence like that?
Since he hit upon the idea almost a decade ago, Prince Richard has been at the center of Germany’s most interesting experiment in species conservation. Now the project, which receives about €1.5 million ($2 million) in government subsidies, is about to enter its critical phase.
The state Environment Ministry in Düsseldorf issued its approval shortly before Christmas, and over the next few days several men will drive into the forest and remove the fence around an acclimation enclosure in place since 2010. When that happens, a herd of eight European bison, or wisent, will be free to roam in the woods. It consists of an enormous bull, five cows and two calves.
The last wild European bison was killed in 1927 in the Caucasus, but the few specimens that lived on in zoos now have 3,000 descendants. Some Europeans are nervous worrying about dangers to hikers or the environment. Others worry about the wild West nature of the animals. Goodness, they’re talking about one bull, five cows and two calves. Hardly the thundering stampede of Western history. It is interesting that these bison are woodland creatures, unlike American bison who roamed free on the Great Plains. The picture above is a bigger herd than the one now free in the forest. It is encouraging to see a species preserved in zoos, once again being released to thrive in the wild. A nice story for the New Year.
