Free Republic

The Obama administration has launched a new battle over water rights that threatens not only the the economies of arid Western states, which largely voted against him in the 2008 election, but their very existence. WND reported last month that the federal government was creating obstacles for Tombstone, Ariz., to restore its water supplies following last year’s forest fire and monsoon-triggered floods in the nearby mountains. The federal government said crews could not use machinery to rebuild pipelines and spring-water collection systems. Now, a letter contradicting longstanding federal practice asserts a claim to water in arid Western states, such as...

Marlene Stasinos believes the best food is local food. “It’s more healthy. It’s less processed,” she says as she walks from her farm stand toward her home in Haverhill, Mass. “It’s just better for you when you eat it.” Stasinos’ family has been farming in and around Haverhill for three generations, but she says backyard farming is under attack.

A proposal from the Obama administration to prevent children from doing farm chores has drawn plenty of criticism from rural-district members of Congress. But now it’s attracting barbs from farm kids themselves. The Department of Labor is poised to put the finishing touches on a rule that would apply child-labor laws to children working on family farms, prohibiting them from performing a list of jobs on their own families’ land. Under the rules, children under 18 could no longer work “in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials.” “Prohibited places of employment,” a Department press release read,...

In today’s NYT, Charlie Savage reports on how President Obama evolved from a fierce critic of unilateral exercise of executive power to a proponent. As a senator and presidential candidate, he had criticized George W. Bush for flouting the role of Congress. And during his first two years in the White House, when Democrats controlled Congress, Mr. Obama largely worked through the legislative process to achieve his domestic policy goals. But increasingly in recent months, the administration has been seeking ways to act without Congress.

For many months, Republicans have fought the Obama-directed attempt by the FCC to expand it's control over the internet. Many pundits argue that the FCC has no compelling interest in the internet, and that the FCC has a long history of chilling debate in the various media venues it has asserted control over.In November of 2010, the FCC and their accomplices in Congress again tried to let 'the camel's nose in the tent', by allowing the FCC to regulate the internet in the guise of 'Net Neutrality'. This effort was defeated.Obviously, the Democrats will not be allowed to squelch the...

Obama seizes control over food, farms, livestock, fertilizer and farm equipment across America. http://www.naturalnews.com/035301_Obama_executive_orders_food_supply.html

Did you know that the federal government claims that it can take away your constitutional rights any time that it wants to? Over the past several decades, there have been an endless parade of laws and executive orders that have been slowly and methodically carving up our rights under the U.S. Constitution. Most Americans are not even aware of the "creeping totalitarianism" that is happening. Most Americans just trust the "authorities" when they tell us that certain things "must be done" in order to keep us all safe.  But even if we gave up all of our privacy, even if...

[...] These are just a few samples from the arsenal of degrading language Limbaugh deploys on women, people of color, lesbians and gays, immigrants, the disabled, the elderly, Muslims, Jews, veterans, environmentalists and so forth. Limbaugh doesn't just call people names. He promotes language that deliberately dehumanizes his targets. Like the sophisticated propagandist Josef Goebbels, he creates rhetorical frames -- and the bigger the lie the more effective -- inciting listeners to view people they disagree with as sub-humans. His longtime favorite term for women, "femi-nazi," doesn't even raise eyebrows anymore, an example of how rhetoric spreads when unchallenged by...

Mission Creep: DHS Agency Abandons Fighting Terrorism, Shifts to Hiring Police, Taking Over AmericaA new white paper presented to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence carves out an ‘evolving mission’ for Homeland Security that moves away from fighting terrorism and towards growing a vast domestic intelligence apparatus that would expand integration with local/state agencies and private-public partnerships already underway via regional fusion centers. Crafted by the Aspen Institute Homeland Security Group, co-chaired by former DHS chief Michael Chertoff and composed of a who’s who of national security figures, the report outlines a total mission creep, as the title “Homeland...

After reading Andrew Sullivan's Newsweek essay about President Obama, his critics, and his re-election bid, I implore him to ponder just one question. How would you have reacted in 2008 if any Republican ran promising to do the following?

President Barack Obama will ask Congress on Friday for greater power to shrink the federal government, and his first idea is merging six sprawling trade and commerce agencies whose overlapping programs can be baffling to businesses, a senior administration official told The Associated Press. Obama will call on Congress to give him a type of reorganizational power last held by a president when Ronald Reagan was in office. The Obama version would be a so-called consolidation authority allowing him to propose mergers that promise to save money and help consumers. The deal would entitle him to an up-or-down vote from...

President Barack Obama will ask Congress on Friday for authority to close the Commerce Department and create a new export agency, an overhaul that could save $3 billion and help inoculate him against Republican election-year charges that he is a big-government liberal. White House budget official Jeffrey Zients told reporters the reorganization would fold together the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and other trade bodies now spread across Washington, giving businesses a single point of contact and ensuring federal spending goes further to boost exports.

I am trying to work and listen at the same time, but is anybody else hearing this?? Obama is asking Congress to reinstate his Executive authority to streamline six agencies into one, so he could "help businesses grow, save businesses time, save businesses money." He's making it sound like the best thing since sliced bread. News media is eating it up. "Reform and remake our government so that it works. This should not be a partisan issue."

President Obama wants the power to shrink the size of the federal government. His first idea is to merge six trade and commerce agencies. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/01/13/should-congress-give-president-obama-more-power/#ixzz1jMWrtsV3

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama will ask Congress on Friday for greater power to shrink the federal government, and his first idea is merging six sprawling trade and commerce agencies whose overlapping programs can be baffling to businesses, a senior administration official told The Associated Press. Obama will call on Congress to give him a type of reorganizational power last held by a president when Ronald Reagan was in office. The Obama version would be a so-called consolidation authority allowing him to propose mergers that promise to save money and help consumers. The deal would entitle him to an...

Leadership: A spokesman says the president "can't wait for Congress to act" and promised that he's "going to take action." This is the president who was "ready to rule" in 2008. Is he an elected chief executive or an emperor? In November 2008, shortly after Barack Obama was elected president, Valerie Jarrett, co-chair of his transition team, appeared on "Meet the Press." She told host Tom Brokaw that "Obama is prepared to really take power and begin to rule day one." Shouldn't someone who had reached the political heights that Jarrett had reached know that kings rule but presidents are...

President Obama today made an unprecedented “recess” appointment even though the Senate is not in recess – “a sharp departure from a long-standing precedent that has limited the President to recess appointments only when the Senate is in a recess of 10 days or longer,” according to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). It turns out that the action not only contradicts long-standing practice, but also the view of the administration itself. In 2010, Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal explained to the Supreme Court the Obama administration’s view that recess appointments are only permissible when Congress is in recess for...

President Obama, introducing his controversial recess appointment to a crowd of Pennsylvania supporters, explained that he would not "take no for an answer" from the U.S. Senate -- especially the Republicans, that refused to confirm his nominee to the Consumer Financial Protections Bureau. "I refuse to take no for an answer," Obama said at a campaign-style event. "I'm not going to stand by while a minority in the senate puts party ideology ahead of the people that we were elected to serve." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., opposes the nomination because the CFPB "is subject to none of the...

President Obama will challenge Senate Republican foes of the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by naming Richard Cordray as its director while Congress is out of town, according to a senior administration official. Testifying before Congress in September, Mr. Cordray said he would make judicious use of lawsuits to enforce financial regulations. That would allow the agency to establish new regulations over financial institutions, putting into effect elements of the financial regulatory overhaul that was one of the administration’s main achievements in Congress. Mr. Obama’s exercise of constitutional powers to name top officials without Senate confirmation while Congress is...

Congressional officials said President Obama has used his recess appointment powers Wednesday to name a head for the controversial new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in a move Republican lawmakers said amounted to an unconstitutional power grab. Mr. Obama made the appointment of former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray even though the Senate, which has the power to confirm nominees, considers itself still in session. But the White House argues Republican senators stonewalled the nominee for so long that Mr. Obama had no choice but to circumvent them. In making the appointment, Mr. Obama rejected the precedent set by former President...