The New American

William F. Jasper 

Get set for the Obama administration’s post-election tsunami of business-killing, job-killing, economy-killing federal regulations. It’s already begun. Take a look at www.regulations.gov, the administration’s regulatory website. The home page informs us that in the last 90 days, the administration has posted 5,934 new regulations.

Yes, our federal bureaucrats have been very diligent. The above-mentioned website informs us of their daily productivity of regulations over the past 90 days:

Today (121)

Last 3 Days (274)

Last 7 Days (371)

Last 15 Days (826)

Last 30 Days (1,915) 

Last 90 Days (5,934)

How will these regulations affect you, your family, your job, business, ranch, or farm? You may not have federal SWAT teams descend upon you, as has happened to dairy farmers and natural food store operators who dared to sell raw milk products not approved by the federal Food & Drug Administration (see here and here) or the hundreds of other Americans subjected to Gestapo-type treatment for running afoul of the volumes of murky and convoluted regulations that fill the 169,301 pages of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) published in the Federal Register. However, even if your home, farm or business is not personally “visited” by agents of the FDA, EPA, OSHA, SEC, or any of the myriad other federal agencies, you will pay a huge price nonetheless, both in economic costs and in loss of freedoms.

A cost analysis by the Small Business Administration in 2008 found that the cost to our national economy of compliance with federal regulations was an astronomical $1.75 trillion!

That was in 2008. The cost, of course, has escalated dramatically in the four years since that study was conducted. We should note also that the 169,301 pages of federal regulations referenced above covers only those promulgated through 2011; it does not include thousands of pages added in 2012. Nor does it include the thousands of pages that are expected to soon be dumped into the pipeline by bureaucrats who had been instructed to hold off until after the election. 

According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, between Jan. 1, 2009 and Dec. 31, 2011 the Code of Federal Regulations increased by 11,327 pages — a 7.4-percent increase. The regulatory burden is now a crushing weight on the entire economy, a hidden tax which is equivalent to roughly half the current federal spending and equal to the entire federal budget of the late 1990s. 

A study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce entitled Project No Project found that a broad range of energy projects “are being stalled, stopped, or outright killed nationwide due to a broken permitting process and a system that allows nearly limitless opportunities for opponents of development to raise challenge after challenge.”

The impact has been truly mind-boggling. The Chamber of Commerce study reported: 

In total, the 351 projects identified in the Project No Project inventory could have produced a $1.1-trillion boost to the economy and created 1.9 million jobs annually during the projected seven years of construction. Moreover, these facilities, once constructed, would have continued to generate jobs, because they would have operated for years or even decades. 

That’s nearly two million jobs annually, just in the energy sector, that are being killed by the federal regulatory straitjacket. 

In an op-ed in the Washington Post on November 13, attorney Keith A. Ashmus noted that the regulatory cliff rivals the fiscal cliff among small business owners’ biggest concerns. And it is almost certain to get worse, if Team Obama has its way. 

“Following [Alleged] President Obama’s reelection and the continuation of the current majorities in the House and Senate, we can expect continued difficulty moving initiatives forward legislatively in Washington,” noted Mr. Ashmus. “That means more regulatory activity, unrestrained by the any concerns about the president’s reelection. The Department of Labor, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the National Labor Relations Board are likely to go after employers, large and small, with regulations that make it more difficult to manage workforces and obtain outside help understanding the legal requirements concerning unions.”

Obama Regulatory Plan: Sly, Not Shy

Not that [Alleged] President Obama has been shy about using executive branch regulations to get the Big Government programs he has been unable to get passed legislatively. In fact, following the 2010 congressional elections, in which the Democrats suffered historic losses in the House of Representatives, the Obama White House indicated it was going to move ahead with its agenda by executive fiat. The New American reported on this unconstitutional regulatory usurpation plan at the time. (See Obama Eyes "Executive Orders" to Circumvent Congress.)

However, with the economy imploding, unemployment skyrocketing, and with eyes fixed firmly on the 2012 presidential election, President Obama began a major effort, in 2011, to make it appear he was sensitive to the needs of job producers, especially stressing his administration’s commitment to easing the regulatory red tape that is so fatal to small and medium businesses that create most of our jobs.

Amid great fanfare, on January 18, 2011, [Alleged] President Obama signed “Executive Order 13563 — Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review.”

Read this story at thenewamerican.com ... 

"This is how great republics die"

TomHoefling.com

Tom Hoefling

"Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths?"

-- George Washington

The Constitution of the United States, which all officers of government, in every branch, must swear to support, is crystal clear that Congress has the exclusive constitutional grant of power to establish immigration and naturalization standards.

Article 1, Section 8:

"The Congress shall have Power...To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization..."

Also, the Constitution absolutely requires that the United States protect each of the States from Invasion.

Article 4, Section 4:

"The United States...shall protect each of them [the States] against Invasion..."

Barack Obama's actions this week in, by executive decree, granting certain classes of illegal invaders of our country a de facto amnesty are an obvious usurpation of that exclusive congressional power, AND they are a gross dereliction of one of the primary imperative duties of the Commander-in-Chief.

If a president were acting to check a lawless law passed by a lawless Congress; in other words, if he was standing firmly against a Congress or Court that had clearly breached their own constitutional limits; I would support actions by the chief executive to stop them. His oath would require that he do so.

But that is obviously not the case here.

I applaud the actions of my congressman, Steve King, in launching a court challenge to this illegitimate Obama policy. The third branch of government, the judiciary, should immediately join with the legislative branch to check the executive's lawlessness.

However, this is a perfect case to illustrate why Congress was also given the impeachment power. If they cared at all for their own oaths to support the Constitution; if they cared about the survival of the rule of law in this country, if they cared for our territorial integrity and sovereignty, they would immediately impeach this usurper and remove him from office at once.

To be frank though, experience tells me that they will not do so. Obama Democrats have no regard for the Constitution or their oaths, and Romney Republicans have no principles or spine.

This is how great republics die.

Provided courtesy of the Peace Through Strength Institute

Big Peace

Ben Shapiro

Today, the National Journal reported that a senior State Department official has announced, “The war on terror is over.”

“Now that we have killed most of al Qaida,” the source said, “now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al Qaida see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism.”

The article itself describes the Obama administration’s new vision of foreign policy, which admits no enemies. Everyone, in this view, is a friend. Islamism, says the Obama administration, is just fine, so long as it does not openly support terrorism.

This, of course, is utter foolishness. Islamism is a religious ideological movement that brooks no real alternatives – so while the State Department proclaims “a legitimate Islamism,” it fails to acknowledge that Islamism, “legitimate” or not, is deeply intolerant of any other modes of expression. Not only that, but Islamism works hand-in-glove with terror groups around the world. Simply because a regime does not openly house al Qaida does not mean that the regime doesn’t support al Qaida; just because a regime pretends at democracy doesn’t mean that it has real democratic values.

Obama has created the brave new Middle East – a Middle East that assumes that every human heart has the desire to vote, but not to be truly free; a Middle East that oppresses women and gays and minorities, but pretends at liberalism; a Middle East that despises America but hides that hate behind a façade of multiculturalism, even as it disposes of its internal dissenters.

Read this story at breitbart.com ...

TomHoefling.com

J.D. Ellis,
Vice Presidential Nominee,
America's Party

Conservative voters don't vote for liberal politicians. Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are liberal politicians. As Mr. Hoefling has said many times, Republicans may be conservatives, or they may support Mitt Romney--but they may not do both.

Principled patriotic American voters don't vote for candidates who are opposed to America's foundational principles. Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney hold a number of positions that are directly opposed to America's foundational principles. Republicans may be principled patriotic Americans, or they may support Mitt Romney--they may not do both.

Pro-life voters don't vote for pro-abortion candidates. Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are pro-abortion candidates. Republicans may be pro-life, or they may support Mitt Romney--they may not do both.

With the impending Republican nomination of Mitt Romney for president, it is becoming increasingly difficult to deny that patriotic, pro-life conservatives are no longer allowed any real voice in the Republican Party. But patriotic, pro-life, conservative Republicans are welcome in America's Party.

http://www.selfgovernment.us/affiliate.html

LifeSiteNews.com

By Patrick B. Craine

PEORIA, Illinois – After a fiery homily last weekend urging the faithful to oppose [Alleged] President Obama’s “radical pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda” at the ballot box in November, Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria has been hit with an IRS complaint from a national secularist lobby group.

At a gathering of Catholic men on Saturday, the Illinois prelate had slammed Obama’s mandate forcing religious employers to cover contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortion-inducing drugs. The unprecedented attack on religious freedom, he said, signaled that the president “seems intent on following a similar path” as past dictators such as Hitler, Stalin, and Otto von Bismarck.

“This fall, every practicing Catholic must vote, and must vote their Catholic consciences, or by the following fall our Catholic schools, our Catholic hospitals, our Catholic Newman Centers, all our public ministries - only excepting our church buildings – could easily be shut down,” he said.

On Thursday, the Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State claimed the homily violated federal law by taking sides in a political campaign.

Read more at LifeSiteNews ...