Free Republic

The massive invasion of Americans' privacy by the federal government isn't the exclusive turf of the National Security Agency (NSA). Information released in response to a Freedom of Information Act filing indicates that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has been conducting warrant-less surveillance of the financial transactions of five million consumers. CFPB Director Richard Cordray defended what he insisted was “mere data mining of an anonymous nature. There is no intent at this time to single out any individual. We're only gathering statistics to help us craft the appropriate regulations to control how credit is used in our economy.”...

Frustrated by the lack of jobs and middle-class progress? Dispirited by the fading American Dream? Don't blame capitalism. Blame regulation and politicians who push it. Some people, it seems, live to rail against free markets and free enterprise, holding them responsible for flat wages, lack of opportunity, income gaps, middle-class stagnation, poverty and economic listlessness. They're convinced private greed holds back the government's ability to improve conditions. But it's the government that's done the most damage to economic growth, new research shows. America is now more of a regulatory state than a haven of free enterprise — a development that...

Obama’s recently released climate change initiative calls for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to unleash yet another energy regulation aimed at reducing greenhouse gases from existing power plants, severely threatening the generation of affordable and reliable energy. This is only one piece of an unprecedented EPA regulatory assault unleashed in the past few years as detailed by ALEC’s latest report, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Assault on State Sovereignty.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has started waging war on the American standard of living. During the past few years, the agency has undertaken the most expansive regulatory assault in history on the production and distribution of affordable and reliable energy. Numerous regulations, all proposed within a short timeframe, have created chaos and uncertainty, stagnating investment as the economy attempts to recover from recession. These regulations are causing the shutdown of power plants across the nation, forcing electricity generation off of coal, destroying jobs, raising energy costs, and decreasing reliability. In addition, the EPA has radically shifted the balance...

Both houses of the North Carolina legislature are currently considering competing bills that lower taxes by $1 billion or more over the next five years, move the state to a pro-growth flat rate income tax system, and slash tax rates on businesses and North Carolina families. Both proposals have incredible potential to supercharge economic growth in North Carolina, leading to higher job creation and higher income growth across the income spectrum. ALEC’s Rich States, Poor States Economic Outlook Index measures a state’s future growth prospects given the state’s current public policy environment. The 6th Edition of Rich States, Poor States...

The Supreme Court is giving California raisin producers a new day in court to object to a government program that aims to stabilize prices by regulating the market. … The farmers say the program unfairly prevents them from selling their entire crop when the government determines that there otherwise would be a glut of raisins that would drive prices down. They say the program unconstitutionally takes their private property without compensation. …

It is getting ever harder to do business in the United States, argues Niall Ferguson, and more stimulus won't help: Our institutions need fixing. Not everyone is an entrepreneur. Still, everyone should try—if only once—to start a business. After all, it is small and medium enterprises that are the key to job creation. There is also something uniquely educational about sitting at the desk where the buck stops, in a dreary office you've just rented, working day and night with a handful of employees just to break even. As an academic, I'm just an amateur capitalist. Still, over the past...

A nationwide drug shortage that's dogging the food and drug administration is hitting home with first responders. For emergency medical technicians, shortages can mean the difference between life and death. Nationwide, anti-seizure drugs including intravenous Valium, Versed, and Ativan are among the dozens of drugs - including cancer treatments - that are in short supply.

The news has sucked this week. From the bombings at the Boston Marathon on Monday, to poison ricin discovered in the President's mail, and the explosion of a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, has any stretch of five days better epitomized life in post 9/11 America? Fear, violence, explosions, and chemicals. As I write this, my Twitter feed buzzes in the background; the city of Boston remains on lockdown as police engage the surviving suspect of the bombing. Yet as Dennis Lehane wrote in an Op-Ed in The New York Times on Tuesday, we'll recover from acts of terror like...

The two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings were not licensed to have the firearms they used in several shootouts with police on Friday, Reuters reported Sunday night. The news that the suspects were not authorized to own firearms will likely add fuel to calls for tougher gun laws – an issue that was put on the back-burner last week after the Senate blocked the central elements of a gun-control package backed by President Obama. Because Massachusetts state law bars handgun ownership for those younger than 21, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, age 26, was the only brother who could have obtained a...

Got into a discussion with a libtard family member recently. Here is the gist of what I was trying to drill into his dense liberal head. The more laws one has the harder it is to enforce all the laws equally therefore laws will not be enforced and this will lead to selective enforcement, selective enforcement leads to tyranny, tyranny will lead to revolution which most often leads to even more tyranny... As he was trying to tell me that all the Tea Party wants to do is "Get rid of all laws"... I kept trying to re-iterate that if...

THE Supreme Court has frequently handed down judgments that have shaken America to its core. Now, it has turned its attention to the raisin. A group of farmers has brought a complaint about the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937, under which the government confiscates part of the annual national raisin crop. The Court is considering whether the arrangement is constitutional. But why is a country that generally celebrates red-blooded capitalism regulating the raisin trade in the first place?Since the 1940s a government agency called the Raisin Administrative Committee has confiscated a portion of the annual raisin crop: 47% in 2003 and...

Nearly four years after it began regulating cigarettes, the Food and Drug Administration is poised to extend its reach to a broader range of tobacco products. At the top of that list: cigars, which have experienced a boom in recent years even as cigarette sales have declined, in part because of growing popularity among young people. Anti-tobacco advocates and industry representatives widely expect the agency to require changes in the marketing and manufacturing of cigars. But the central question remains: What kind of cigars will the FDA target, and how? On one end of the spectrum are the hand-rolled Cohibas...

Thanks to the Founding Fathers, in 2013 the United States has built the wealthiest nation in history on free markets and the rule of law. (And thanks to their more recent successors, we’re simultaneously the poorest… but that’s another discussion.) While the Founding Fathers were remarkable for much, what is perhaps their greatest legacy is their recognition that Americans, like all men, are imperfect. In 1787 after almost a decade of the greatly flawed Articles of Confederation, the 2nd Continental Congress was formed and would eventually produce the Constitution we have today. What was so amazing about the document was...

Fred Deluca, the founder of privately-held Subway Restaurants, said government regulations are hurting small businesses and that this environment has prevented entrepreneurs from creating value in the market. "If I started Subway today, Subway would not exist," Deluca told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" Wednesday. (VIDEO AT LINK) Deluca said the environment for entrepreneurs in the U.S. has "continuously gotten worse because there are more and more regulations. It's tough for people to get into business, especially a small business." Effects of Obamacare The Subway founder pointed to a number of government regulations that are degrading the business environment for...

Hunters and homeless people in Louisiana are righteously outraged after state health officials forced a homeless shelter to throw out nearly a ton of perfectly good venison. The meat that had been donated to the Shreveport-Bossier Rescue Mission could have fed more than 3,000 people. Instead, it was tossed in trash bins by officials from the Department of Health and Hospitals who say that state law prohibits the serving of venison in homeless shelters. Not only did the officials toss the meat, they doused it with Clorox to make sure it couldn’t be eaten by animals or, presumably, people. “Deer...

President Barack Obama is tired of waiting for Congress to move on legislation to reduce carbon emissions, and his administration is poised to move forward on actions to do just that—including a move that will effectively eliminate the possibility of any new coal plant opening in the United States, experts say. "We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence," Obama said during his State of the Union address. "Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment...

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is fighting to protect her “brainchild”, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). She also wants to support the nominated of Richard Cordray, the former Attorney General of Ohio, better known as “Robocop” for his attacks on banks and servicers over robosigning. True, robosigning foreclosures is sloppy, but there were apparently no economic harm to borrowers (that is, 100% of borrowers defaulted on their loans and the banks/servicers were trying to claim the house to mitigate losses). Yet the Attorneys’ General settlement went ahead despite no economic harm to borrowers. The settlement provides as much as $25...

A 15-year-old Icelandic girl has won the right to keep her first name, despite it being "unapproved" by the state. Why do some countries restrict baby names? Parents-to-be often find it hard enough to find a name they both like, let alone one the state might also be in favour of. Bjork Eidsdottir had no idea when, in naming her newborn girl Blaer 15 years ago, she was breaking the law. In the eyes of the authorities Blaer, which means "light breeze", was a male name and therefore not approved. It meant that for her entire childhood, Blaer was known...

In a stunning blow to the Internal Revenue Service’s efforts to regulate the tax preparation profession, a federal judge struck down the IRS’s licensing requirements for tax preparers on Friday, including testing and continuing education. U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg ruled against the IRS and in favor of the tax preparers in enjoining the agency against enforcing its Registered Tax Return Preparer requirements. “Today’s ruling is a victory for hundreds of thousands of tax preparers across the country and the tens of millions of taxpayers who rely on them to prepare their taxes,” said lead attorney Dan Alban....