Final Rules Disclosed for How Social Security Admin. Plans to Disarm Its Beneficiaries

(Hat tip: KimR) - Final rules on how the Social Security Administration (SSA) plans to prohibit its beneficiaries from owning firearms were published in early May, but it took several weeks for observers parsing the 41-page document to realize its implications for the Second and Fifth Amendments.
Read more at the New American Read More......

You Need 300 Hours Of Training And A License To Shampoo Hair?

(Hat tip: KimR) - Occupational licensure is so damaging to the upward mobility of poor people and does so little to protect the public that even the Obama administration, with its reflexive pro-government inclinations, has criticized it. Read more at Forbes Read More......

Federal Regulations Now Cost Almost $1.9 Trillion, Study Finds

(Hat tip: KimR) - Do we live in a democracy, or a regulatory dictatorship? It’s hard to tell sometimes, especially after reading the latest annual report on the regulatory state issued by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Read more at Investor's Business Daily Read More......

Study: GDP Would Be 25% Bigger If Government Regulations Had Been Capped In 1980

(Hat tip: KimR) - Red Tape: Economists scratch their heads when asked to explain the economy’s tepid growth over the past several years. A new study gives a possible answer: the growing, cumulative burden of federal regulations. Read more at Investor's Business Daily Read More......

Commentary: A chilling regulatory Climate

Late last year a second major oil company was forced to abandon plans to drill in the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Alaska – and irresponsible, high-fiving anti-development activists, most of whom live thousands of miles away and will not be affected, could not be more thrilled. --But for those who live close by, the ones who will be most affected, the news is devastating.

Read more at Fuel Fix
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Federal Rules Shutting Down Work Centers for the Disabled

Work centers for the disabled provide a useful service for businesses while allowing individuals with special needs to gain work skills and autonomy. But new federal regulations would make life difficult for these charitable operations, potentially causing some to close their doors.
Read more at Michigan Capitol Confidential
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Millennial member of Congress says outdated regulations are crushing her generation

The dire economic situation of millennials was front and center on Capitol Hill Wednesday, and a committee chairman said the executive and legislative branches were worsening it. The political failure to tackle the national debt and unfunded liabilities of entitlement programs are going to set back the generation born between 1980 and 2000 even further, Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., said at the Joint Economic Committee hearing.

Read more at The College Fix
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Great news: the EPA’s new smog rules will only cost 40 times as much as they said

We recently discovered that EPA chief Gina McCarthy is coming for your air conditioners because she’s pretty worried about ozone. (We’ll leave aside for now the fact that the chemicals used in modern air conditioners don’t affect that particular issue.) It’s still on her mind and the agency already put forward some new rules to cut down on smog.

Read more at Hotair.com
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

EPA Ignores Science to Propose Most Expensive Regulation in History

Next month, the Obama administration may roll out the most expensive regulation in history, ignoring scientific data that cutting ozone rates will not improve public health. --In the name of fighting asthma, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requested permission to decrease the ozone standard — the amount of ozone allowed in the atmosphere — to a level some scientists say is physically impossible to achieve. One organization estimates the cost to implement these new rules will be $1.1 trillion. Even worse, data shows that as ozone levels in the U.S. have decreased, asthma cases have increased.

Read more at PJ Media
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

How Tom Steyer, the White House, and a Scandal-Plagued Operative [Kitzhaber] Paved the Way for EPA Regulations

The White House, statehouses, and nonprofits backed by the billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer worked behind the scenes to create a state-level advocacy network to support controversial new Environmental Protection Agency regulations, newly released emails reveal. ---Involved in the strategy was a top aide to John Kitzhaber, the former Democratic governor of Oregon, according to emails obtained by the Energy and Environment Legal Institute. Kitzhaber resigned this year in the midst of a scandal involving his fiancée.

Read more at the Washington Free Beacon
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Gov’t to creamery: Your milk is entirely too natural to not be labeled “imitation”

Sometimes government’s dishonesty, incompetence, wastefulness, and misguided nannyism combine to make a perfectly ridiculous story. Today’s comes to us from Florida, where the Ocheesee Creamery is being forced to dump gallons upon gallons of good, natural skim milk because the state is requiring the business to label its good, natural skim milk “imitation” because they haven’t added anything to it. --Paul and Mary Lou Wesselhoeft have been fighting this in federal court with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs, which had formerly allowed them to sell their skim milk while calling it skim milk. No one seemed confused by this except the state government, which changed its requirements.

Read more at Hotair.com
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

The Economic Illiteracy Of Obama's Overtime Rule

Regulations: With the flick of his magic pen, President Obama will soon grant millions of workers overtime play. At least, that's the fantasy being peddled by the White House and regurgitated by a credulous press.

Read more at Investor's Business Daily
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Net Neutrality to Face Lawsuits, Congressional Investigations

Fight over Internet regulation not over - The Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday in favor of a proposal that will expand its influence over the Internet, but lawsuits from major Internet service providers (ISPs) as well as several congressional investigations mean the fight over Internet regulation is far from over. ✧ In a 3-2 vote on Thursday, the FCC passed a proposal, the details of which have not been disclosed, to regulate Internet providers under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, which was developed for telephone networks during the Great Depression.

Read more at Free Beacon Read More......

OMB: 13-year high for new and costly federal regulations

The number of complicated federal regulations with an economic impact of $100 million or more has hit a 13-year high for the “spring” season, according to the Office of Management and Budget.  The group that tracks regulations, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Secrets that Obama has issued far more big dollar regs in his first six years than former President Bush: 376 for Obama to 287 for Bush.  “And,” said CEI's Clyde Wayne Crews Jr., “this is not even counting the ‘pen' and ‘phone' rulemaking happening off the books.”

Read more at the Washington Examiner
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Heartland Blog: A Short Guide to Obamacare

By Matt Faharty - It’s not a national healthcare system. It’s not the free market. It isn’t what we’ve had for the last forty years. So what is Obamacare?

Maybe I am too late to write about this topic since the Affordable Care Act has already been passed and is in the process of implementation. Then again, the bill is infamously opaque, and I believe very few people, either in Washington, the media, or the general public understand what Obamacare is, or how it will make healthcare more affordable. A study in the Journal of Health Economics published this month claims that only 14% of Americans between ages 25 and 64 have a basic understanding of how insurance works, let alone how Obamacare will effect it. Nobody even seems to know how long the bill is with estimates ranging from 10,000 to 33,000 pages of mind-numbing bureaucratic documents.

According to Nancy Pelosi we should start to know what is in the bill at this point, so I will take a crack at it. Read more at Somewhat Reasonable, a Heartland.org/blog ... Read More......

We are only as free as the government says we are

Would the US government let Jesus cure cancer? (Hat tip: Kristie H.)
In the 1990s, I watched a federal trial in a Los Angeles courtroom. The defendant was charged with selling medical drugs without a license to practice medicine. The defendant was prepared to argue that a) the substance he was selling was naturally produced in the body and b) it was effective. The prosecution moved to exclude such testimony, on the grounds that it was irrelevant. The judge agreed. Therefore, the trial was nasty, brutish, and short. The defendant was found guilty and sentenced to prison for several years. This is how the federal bureaucracy operates. “Do you have a government-issued license to heal? No? You’re a criminal.” ✧ I believe that if Jesus of Nazareth were walking the Earth today, in the United States, he would be arrested on the same grounds. This would be particularly so if he were curing cancer. Jesus wouldn’t be granted a license. No license? Guilty. More importantly, the trillion-dollar cancer industry survives and makes its money by treating cancer, so curing it would be a major threat.

Imagine this extreme case: in a stadium packed with 50,000 people who have been diagnosed with cancer, Jesus of Nazareth waves his hand and cures all of them in a few seconds. Read more at Activist Post...

Feds forced churches to get baptism permits
For as far back as anyone can remember, Missouri Baptists have gathered on river banks for Sunday afternoon baptisms. ✧ The preacher leads the new believers into the water, draped in white robes as a choir sings, “Shall We Gather at the River.” ✧ It’s the way it’s been done for generations – baptizing in creeks, lakes, and rivers “in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” ✧ But now the long-cherished tradition of “taking the plunge” has been drawn into a controversy with the federal government. Read more at Todd's American Dispatch...

Really? --bc Read More......

Obama's Second Term Transformation Plans

By Steve McCann - The most significant accomplishment of Obama's first term is to make Congress irrelevant. Under the myopic and blindly loyal leadership of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats have succeeded in creating an imperial and, in a second term, a potential dictatorial presidency. Read more at American Thinker...

(Hat tip: Carolyn Webb and others)  Read More......

WT: Feds bow to pressure, kill child farm-labor rules

[...] While labor officials said their goal was to reduce the fatality rate for child farmworkers, the proposal had become a popular political target for Republicans, who called it an impractical, heavy-handed regulation that ignored the reality of small farms. ✧ “It’s good the Labor Department rethought the ridiculous regulations it was going to stick on farmers and their families,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican. “To even propose such regulations defies common sense, and shows a real lack of understanding as to how the family farm works.” Read more at the Washington Times... Read More......

Obama refused EPA's plan to strengthen ozone regulations - Gore upset

Former Vice President Al Gore is blasting President Obama for his refusal to strengthen environmental regulations governing ground-level ozone. ✧ In a short, 179-word blog post Wednesday, the renowned climate activist joined a chorus of other environmentalists who have expressed bitter opposition to Obama's action last week. Read more at the National Journal... Read More......

FARMAGEDDON

From the FARMAGEDDON website: Filmmaker Kristin Canty’s quest to find healthy food for her four children turned into an educational journey to discover why access to these foods was being threatened. What she found were policies that favor agribusiness and factory farms over small family operated farms selling fresh foods to their communities. Instead of focusing on the source of food safety problems – most often the industrial food chain – policymakers and regulators implement and enforce solutions that target and often drive out of business small farms that have proven themselves more than capable of producing safe, healthy food, but buckle under the crushing weight of government regulations and excessive enforcement actions.

See the FARMAGEDDON movie trailer
(Hat tip: Cascade Policy Institute) Read More......