A series of federal regulatory measures has finally woken up the conservative movement to the dangers of Obama’s plan to rule by executive fiat. New regulations from the FCC, EPA, and HHS have tightened the feds’ grip around the internet, health insurance, and the energy industry. Net Neutrality, price fixing, and oversight of carbon dioxide as a “pollutant” — surely the only pollutant necessary for the continuation of life on earth — have forced them to face the reality that Barack Obama plans to force his far-Left agenda on the American people. In typical inside-the-Beltway Republican fashion, they present half-measures and temporary solutions that will leave our Constitution open to continual assault, because they lack the solution understood by everyone from our Founding Fathers to Ronald Reagan.
Obama Begins Government by Regulation and Fiat
Since at least June Barack Obama “has used the threat of EPA regulations to goad lawmakers into action.” Lawmakers bet that he was bluffing. They bet wrong.
Last week, the Obama administration decided to greet the incoming conservative Congress by rolling out the red tape. Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, announced new price controls requiring insurance providers to get the administration’s permission to race rates more than 10 percent. The FCC passed Net Neutrality, although it lacks Congressional authorization to do so. The EPA began regulating power plants and refineries for carbon dioxide emissions, although an EPA spokeswoman admitted, “I can’t tell you what types of reductions we hope to achieve.”
The Obama administration reinstated “end-of-life” counseling for ObamaCare recipients by federal regulation early this month, but it only caught notice this week after the federal onslaught.
These actions brought some conservatives a “moment of clarity.”
“The First Step is Admitting You Have a Problem….”
In October, most conservatives were too busy enthusing about the coming midterm elections to notice when the Los Angeles Times reported, “As President Obama remakes his senior staff, he is also shaping a new approach for the second half of his term: to advance his agenda through executive actions he can take on his own, rather than pushing plans through an increasingly hostile Congress.” This author was alone in reporting Obama’s plan to rule by executive order in 2011. In the coming weeks, liberal media outlets and Soros-funded think tanks including The Huffington Post, the Institute for Policy Studies, and the Center for American Progress encouraged the president to govern through executive force; CAP even produced a lengthy report containing the precise agenda Obama is to enact. Just last week Politico featured an article by John F. Harris and James Hohmann which concluded, “Republican gains in Congress make it essential for [Obama] to use new avenues of power,” including regulations and executive orders.
Now other conservatives have realized the dangers. The Heritage Foundation’s Foundry blog noted that although Democrats tried to make the lame duck session of Congress a last ditch power grab:
Congress was not where the real action was. While the media was distracted by the last breaths of a defeated leftist majority in Congress, it was the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that gave true picture of how the Obama Administration will advance their agenda in 2011.
Seton Motley at BigGovernment.com wrote:
Every Commission, every Agency, every Board in the federal pantheon will ratchet up their orders, rules and directives. To impose via executive branch regulatory fiat what President Obama can no longer get done in Congress. In other words, bypass the obviously expressed will of the American people for smaller, more accountable government – so as to continue jamming through his on-all-fronts Titanic Government plan. And do so without the People’s representatives at all involved in the process. [sic.]
In a follow-up on BigGovernment.com yesterday, Robert Allen Bonelli wrote, “the Obama administration is poised to use the regulation-writing process to advance its own agenda regardless of what the American people want. The administration is also acting in open defiance to our form of representative government. “
The not-so-conservative Rep. Fred Upton — the Michigan Republican behind the incandescent light bulb ban — has written a Wall Street Journal op-ed branding the EPA move “an unconstitutional power grab that will kill millions of jobs.”
Even the mainstream media have owned up to the strategy. The Christian Science Monitor is asking, “‘Death Panels’ Controvery: Is Obama Avoiding Congress?” Meanwhile, the New York Times confessed last Thursday, “The president is studying how to maximize the power of the executive branch, advisers said.”
While free market organizations such as Americans for Prosperity are calling on Republicans to roll back these measures, Democrats are asking for more regulations.
Finally, the sleeping giant has awakened. After premature partying and futile fantasizing that Obama would spend two years at their mercy, conservatives realized what they actually possess: one-half of their own political party (the leadership of which is hostile to them) and some of the majority seats in one house of Congress. They have work to do in reining in their own party, let alone assuming Obama will defer to their will simply because the overwhelming majority of Americans want him to.
“By Any Means Necessary”
Obama and the progressive “liberals” have followed precisely the outline I laid out more than a month ago:
Look for an aggressive agenda in the lame duck session of Congress, focused especially on passing the DREAM Act and repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”…After January, Cabinet agencies will issue regulations at a faster clip. His most visible target will be the EPA’s regulation of carbon dioxide as a “pollutant.”…However, every agency will roll out reams of red tape, a process that has already begun…Stealth amnesty will continue apace…Obama will rule increasingly through executive orders and appeals to the United Nations.
If conservatives now agree on the problem, then to quote Lenin, “what is to be done”?
The Congressional Review Act: A Temporary Solution
Some Republicans in D..C. are serious about Constitutional government. Sen. Jim DeMint, who risked his political capital to support Tea Party candidates across the country has said the Obama administration is “out of control.” He added, “They’re pushing through a lot of bad policy at the executive level. We need to figure out how to rein it in.”
The instrument Republicans have come up with is the Congressional Review Act. Conservatives from the Heritage Foundation, to the Hot Air blog, to the Motley crew over at BigGovernment.com have discovered the 1996 law, which allows a majority vote in Congress to kill federal regulations by issuing a “resolution of disapproval.”
The tactic is one of the few tools Congressional Republicans have at their disposal against runaway executive branch power. However, it is at best an imperfect and temporary solution, even if the entire party were committed to its rigorous application.
It requires a Congressional majority, which even after the midterms Republicans do not have. Democrats still narrowly control the Senate. Republicans may be able to cobble together an ad hoc coalition around the most egregious regulations with vulnerable incumbents up for re-election, or the delegates from coal states, but it seems unlikely vast numbers of Democrats will oppose government regulations in any meaningful way. After all, each of them hope to be running this bureaucracy someday, churning out his own version of federal regs. And no Democrat seems terribly concerned about the constitutional niceties involved in the issue, since the death of Robert Byrd (who only cared when it was politically expedient). The president still has valuable favors and federal projects which he can use as bargaining chips for wavering Democrats. (Just ask Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson.)
Provided a majority could be reached, Barack Obama can simply veto the disapproval. A two-thirds majority is well out of reach for virtually any bill.
If per chance one bureaucratic rule were to be struck down, the feds could pursue the same goal by another avenue. Although the CRA provides a rule struck down “may not be reissued in substantially the same form,” the same goal may be approached through a number of means or proffered rationales.
Should Congressional Republicans somehow get control of the ever-growing Federal Register, Obama still has the power to issue executive orders or insist he is acting in compliance with orders of the United Nations. Even the UN documents the United States has already adopted offer him tremendous lienway.
“Destined to Fail”?
Should the Republicans in both houses somehow overturn every one of these measures over the next two years in addition to their regularly scheduled legislative agenda, the Obama administration has shown it is not above ignoring the law and doing as it pleases.
That is not to say CRA could not provide meaningful victories over outrageous regulations. But it at best a half-measure that will allow many unconstitutional regulations to slip through the cracks.
AllahPundit at HotAir.com downgraded the CRA strategy to a “gesture,” mere “symbolic paces” which he likened to voting for bills that are “destined to fail.” That fails to instill confidence in this as a real solution.
The Conservative Solution, from Washington to Reagan
May I humbly suggest another? Abolish the EPA.
In fact, abolish as many federal agencies as possible and return regulation to the states and municipalities, which are closer to the people. If there were fewer federal Cabinet agencies, there would be fewer dictatorial, top-down federal regulations. This would render the CRA unnecessary. If a regulation were needed at a national level, it would have to show its Constitutional basis and gain the support of a majority of Congressmen. Measures that lacked either would never see the light of day.
That sounds radical today, but Ronald Reagan pledged to abolish the Departments of Energy and Education in 1980. (He never had the votes to pursue it.) He hoped the EPA would follow suit.
Reagan understood, with our Founding Fathers, the dangers of concentrating power in the hands of the federal government, most especially among its unelected elite.
While they are at it, Republicans should abolish America’s Ministry of Culture. Conservatives have rediscovered the joys of axing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in the wake of the Juan Williams firing. The National Endowment for the Arts has slipped off the conservative radar since certain former Democrats (or radicals) convinced Republicans to spare the organization, since abolishing it was not “politically feasible.” In light of a $13 trillion national debt and “mandatory spending” exceeds tax revenues, such frivolous, offensive, and unconstitutional discretionary spending is indefensible.
Our liberties will never be secure until Washington is drained of the power to regulate, tax, spend, oversee, compel, or control whole segments of our lives. That is why Thomas Jefferson defined the government envisioned by the Founding Fathers as:
A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.
As Ronald Reagan left office in 1989, he told the nation:
And I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: “As government expands, liberty contracts.”
Twenty years later, we still have to complete the Reagan Revolution.
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"surely the only pollutant necessary for the continuation of life on earth". Far from it. Arsenic, chlorine, and selenium are among the many substances necessary for life and yet toxic and pollutant in high doses. The dose makes the poison.
If this doesn’t rally us to action, nothing will & all is lost. Is this who
we are? If necessary, shut down the government and defund all programs.
We all, in a unified voice must tell this Usurper Chavez wannabe that he
has gone too far and, NO!, this will not continue! First, prove Obummer’s
eligibility – not natural born, remove from office! This is NOT racism, folks!
If he’s eligible – highly doubtful – impeach, impeach & impeach. Let US
start harassing this fucker until he’s gone! And, if necessary, then we all
must resort to force. It may come to that! We’re ready!
From the looks and sounds of it, Bill, force is the only thing that is going to work on these bastards and liars and thieves in that hellhole. We Americans are going to have to take our country back, one way or another. And since we tried the voting thing, and so far, it hasn’t worked, as the Republicans are not doing as promised………..what next? more votes? I don’t know anymore, votes don’t seem to have waked them up the way we had hoped. Force seems to be the only option that’s going to be left to us Americans, who want our country back, and for our LEADERS to be AMERICAN AND STAND FOR AMERICA AND AMERICA”S INTERESTS! Americn interests being we, the people! This POS in office does not want to be PRESIDENT, IT WANTS TO BE EMPEROR, and RULE AS A MONARCH RULES! AND, “OFF WITH THEIR HEADS” is what he wants for the American people. If we don’t agree with him, (IT) then it’s to prison or beheading. So far, he has “beheaded” the American people by not listening to us, and forcing IT’S agenda down our throats. Americans need to get UNSTUPID IMMEDIATELY! AND GET RID OF THIS HORROR SHOW WE SEE NOW IN WASHINGTON! IT is a NIGHTMARE, the dream act is going to be even worse than a NIGHTMARE if we allow this to pass! Rise up and fight this ABORTION/OBORTION WITH EVERYTHING WE HAVE! That or be doomed to a nation that we do not recognize as our once GREAT AMERICA! Let’s take her back from these evil creatures!
TO PEE OR NOT TO PEE . . .
I have a job.
I work, they pay me.
I pay my taxes & the government
distributes my taxes as it sees fit.
In order to get that paycheck, in my case,
I am required to pass a random urine test
(with which I have no problem).
What I do have a problem with is the distribution
of my taxes to people who don't have to pass a urine test.
So, here is my question:
Shouldn't one have to pass a urine test to get a welfare check
because I have to pass one to earn it for them?
Please understand, I have no problem with
helping people get back on their feet.
I do, on the other hand, have a problem with helping someone sitting
on their butt – doing drugs while I work.
Can you imagine how much money each state
would save if people had to pass a urine test
to get a public assistance check?
I guess we could call the program
"URINE OR YOU'RE OUT"!
Pass this along if you agree or simply delete if you don't.
Hope you all will pass it along, though.
Something has to change in this country – AND SOON!
Once this is done then the next step is the Nationalize the Federal Reserve System. Remove it from the hands of the International Banking Cartel. This will severly hinder the money making ability of these folks. The Fed is the most profitable corporation in the world, some $700B in 2008. Not bad for a corporation with no products and no risk. All they do is print money, do International loans through the Import Export Bank, the IMF, the World Bank and fund whatever the United Nations wants funded. All of the money funded or loaned by the FED is garunteed by the U.S. Taxpayer, hell of a deal. No wonder the politicians and bankers spent so much time slipping the FED upourbutts.
The follow on to these moves is to withdraw from the IMF, World Bank, Import Export Bank and the UN. Now we will be free and on our own to make our own mistakes and fortune.
Patriots,
A new year, a new challenge. DEFUND, DEFUND, DEFUND. It is becoming more and more obvious that Obama is making Congress IRRELEVANT!
Do you see that light on the horizon? What is that, you ask! It is the light of MILLIONS of TORCHES and PITCHFORKS, and they are coming for OBAMA and his ILK!
You have a target on your back, Congressional members…and only by comlying with your Oath of Office, and the Constitution of the United States of America can you make the target any smaller!
Let Freedom Ring
This is where Obama and the Globalists are taking us: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-CrNlilZho
Please help Ron Paul out!
This is what Obama and his Globalists are doing to us: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VebOTc-7shU
Please help Ron Paul out!
This is how Obama and the Globalists, Democrats and RINO conned us <a href="http:// :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw“ rel=”nofollow”> <a href="http://:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw” target=”_blank”>:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw
Please help Ron Paul out!
Ron Paul only has one problem, He wants to audit the Fed. This is a waste of time.
We need to Nationalize the Fed, lock, stock and barrel. Now the Fed will be under the Treasury and will be audited each year. Also the profits that now go to the International Banking Cartel will be placed into the U.S. Treasury. Doesn't that make a lot more sense. Since we the tax payers are on the hook for all of the mistakes of the Fed, shouldn't we also get any profit from the Fed?? BTW the Fed made over $700B in 2008.
From: Ron Paul
Fellow Patriot,
The message could not have been clearer from the American people. They are ready and waiting for us in Washington to stand up for Liberty, to fight against statist power grabs, to end deficit spending, and to adhere to our Constitution.
Good men and women were sent here to join me in this battle, and I'm grateful. I'm ready to once again lead the fight to Audit the Fed, End the ObamaCare Mandate, stop Cap and Trade, and repeal the PATRIOT Act.
And legalize hemp, a produce that will replace oil.
We gave you a lot of help in the last election and we will give you more in 2012. But wake up – auditing is no good. Nationalize the Fed. We nationalized other banks, we nationalized Chrysler, We nationalized GM. So lets Revoke the Fed Charter and Nationalize the Fed as it is. Place it under the U.S. Treasury so we can audit it all the time.
Get us the hell out of the IMF, World Bank and United Nations. They are all thieves, we do not belong in their company.
I want to stop our spending spree overseas and help forge a more constitutional and rational foreign policy. And I want to fight REAL ID and the TSA's jackbooted thuggery and help Senator Rand Paul (my son) pass a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution to end the insanity of spending money we do not have.
But I can't do any of that alone. I need the reinforcements I was sent this month, including my son Rand in the Senate.
But I especially need you. I need you to help Campaign for Liberty lead the fight from the OUTSIDE, while Rand and I and other new liberty congressmen help lead it from the INSIDE.
Keep fighting the good fight, with God's help we will turn this country around! We must all band together to fight for what we believe in. Abraham Lincoln once said "A house devided against itself cannot stand." How true that is! We must put our political differences aside and come together for the common good. There is too much division in the Republican Party.
I don't usually contribute to campaigns but I received the email from Rand with his mission statement and was so impressed I sent a donation. I truly think you and your son have our country's best interest at heart.
Good luck and may the Lord bless you in all of your endeavors!
I would consider it a personal favor if you would read the enclosed letter from my friend John Tate, President of Campaign for Liberty. Campaign for Liberty has done an outstanding job in the short time it has been providing grassroots muscle for our Liberty agenda. But they've succeeded because they pick the right battles – and because they can count on Patriots like you to ride to the sound of the gunfire!
So please, take a look at the enclosed letter and once again join with Campaign for Liberty in our fight for freedom.
In Liberty,
Congressman Ron Paul
Re: http://www.chooseliberty.org/memberdirective.aspx…
It seems that Ben has finally caught up with those of us that screamed from our rooftops our warnings of this communist during the election. I, and my friends, researched Barry Soetoro Barack Mohamed Hussein Obama and saw most of this coming. We knew his family history from Kansas to an island off the coast of Washington, to Hawaii, his. parentage, and his affiliation with Frank Marshall Davis, Bill Ayers, Saul Alinsky to name a few. We knew about his trip to Pakistan when the US didn’t allow people with a US passport to fly there. We questioned how he was able to take an around the world trip when he was a poor student. We questioned quotes from his books.
All of this to no avail.
“These actions brought some conservatives a “moment of clarity.”
I am glad that somebody finally woke up!
I must admit, what he has done to this country is more devastating than we imagined.
I can’t help but be angry to read this now. If Ben and his ilk had researched this fraud in 2008 and taken a stand he seems to be taking now, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in.
We are fast approaching our political 911 with devastating consequences. We may be forced to fight to survive – and to what end? Learn to pray. Prayer may prove to be your only solace.
For those who voted for Obama….look what he is going to do to the American people, which will include those of you who thinks Obama walks on water! Obama is the most devious, arrogant, self-centered, self-serving and self-adulating liar I have ever known as President of the United States and I have been a registered and voting democrat (no, I did not vote for Obama) for almost sixty years now. If you are a senior citizen or if you have parents who are senior citizens…wake up the sleeping giant within you and let us take our America back!!!!!!
The only thing you did not say is that you now see the folly of your younger thinking. I was born a Constitutional Conservative and I have never wavered on degree from the path. I have never, ever voted duumborat in my life and God willilng I will die a happy and constant conservative.
Please tell me that you now see that all men must support themselves with their own work.
Congress has the power to defund these agenciesand Executive orders and it isn't a matter of maybe, but must. The will of the people is being ignored and yet it is us that will bear the burden if Obama is allowed to lead us into this destructive path more deeply. Can we return? I just don't know.
Ron Paul in, Obama out. We still have some cleaning up to do in Congress and the Senate.
Ding nabit-you guys-don't make me come down there….
Just do the job we gave you to do, and don't dilly around — as far as that goes you too bama!
Forget about spreading the wealth, new world order ideas, printing money, big government, political correctness, since when is the truth rudeness, obama going around the Congress, czars, demeaning our Christain nation, giving terrorists American rights. Why are we giving in to the minority groups. Speak up AMERICA. Don’t be afraid! Forget global warming and climate control. It’s all a ponzi scheme.
Republicans need to stand strong. Hasn’t obama done enough to be impeached? I know he has! Why haven’t members of the WH been brought up on charges either? Dems need to wake up too, they can’t all want to destroy free America.
I agree, do away with the EPA as it stands right now. It’s killing America and it killed most of our industries with the help of too many regulations and taxes. We need to produce our own goods, which are superior to other countries. I am tired of having to buy inferior products and supporting other countries’ economy when we need our own economy to soar. We need to drill our own oil, mine our natural resources. We can do this and still research alternative energies for the future. We are not there yet. The Government is training for new jobs that don’t even exist. I’m tired of hearing create jobs, let’s bring back some of the old ones. Text tiles, toys, regular light bulbs (that’s a scam now china will make them and we will buy them), farming, etc. I could go on and on. We are far too dependant on other countries, it’s dangerous and the downfall to our independant republic. Wake Up!____
That's about it, don't make me come down there. Don't mess with my internet clown face.
The Republican incumbants, except for a few of them, are as bad as the Democrats. They are corrupt liars & don’t care what is good for the USA. And if they can’t figure out what to do to put a STOP to Obama, Reid, Pelosi, & the rest of his ilk, then remind them. The SOB is an Illegal in the Presidents Office & needs to be kicked out. And don’t forget, there is another election in2012. Vote out as many incumbants as possible.