Free Republic

- No one snatches defeat from the jaws of victory like congressional Republicans.: As he prepares to adjourn the House of Representatives for its completely unearned two week vacation, Speaker Paul Ryan announced that his GOP majority – which somehow managed to vote to repeal Obamacare dozens of times while it knew Barack Obama would veto any such bill – just cannot find a way to agree on a bill to modify the healthcare atrocity now that there is a Republican sitting in the White House anxiously awaiting to sign a bill – any bill – that comes his way....

Essentially, Too Big to Fail has been solved — taxpayers will not pay if a bank fails. The American public has the right to demand that if a major bank fails, they, as taxpayers, would not have to pay for it, and the failure wouldn’t unduly harm the U.S. economy. In my view, these demands have now both been met. On the first count, if a bank fails, taxpayers do not pay. Shareholders and debtholders, now due to total loss absorbing capacity (TLAC) rules, are at risk for all losses. To add belts and suspenders, if all that capital is...

President Trump’s appointment of former GOP congressman John Fleming, M.D., to newly created health technology post could portend ONC downsizing and MACRA changes. The new HHS healthcare technology top official's plans are still unknown, but signs point to possible changes to ONC that could weaken the agency's regulatory authority. The new HHS healthcare technology chief -- a longtime associate of HHS secretary, fellow physician and former GOP congressman Tom Price -- nonetheless also mentioned that ONC "may be reorganizing." Few in the capitol, other than his fans, want to comment publicly about what Fleming's ascension to the top HHS healthcare...

President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday proposed a 31 percent cut to the Environmental Protection Agency's budget, as the White House seeks to eliminate climate change programs and trim initiatives to protect air and water quality. The White House's proposed 2018 EPA budget, with the biggest proposed cut for any federal agency, comes as Trump seeks to clear away regulations he claims are hobbling U.S. oil drillers, coal miners and farmers. The proposed cuts are a starting point in negotiations with Congress, and could be tempered. The proposal would eliminate 3,200 EPA employees, or 19 percent of the current workforce....

March 2, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) -- Population controllers told the Vatican at a conference this week that the Catholic teaching of “responsible parenthood” in determining family size has “result[ed] in collective failure” in reducing the world’s population. They suggested that the only way to stop the exhaustion of “humanity’s natural capital” is by imposing a system of “taxes and regulations” that would help modify “social norms of behaviour.” This week’s Vatican symposium on Biological Extinction, sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences was a closed-door event. Speaking at the event were two controversial figures,...

Trump's executive order: remove at least two previously implemented regulations for every new one.The order could have major ramifications for healthcare, one of the most regulated industries in the U.S. Providers and vendors face a myriad of rules drafted by numerous agencies and departments, including CMS, Health Resources and Services Administration, Food and Drug Administration and Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. Dozens of regulations leveled against the healthcare industry every year include licensing requirements; quality and safety inspections; and standards to adhere to payment policies. . . major ones last year: a rule that mandated the medical...

This petition on WhiteHouse.gov was started by some heroic American by the name of A.Z. looking to repeal the National Firearms Act of 1934. While the president has no ability to repeal laws, he sure as heck can push congress to repeal them. This petition needs 100k signatures by February 19th to get attention from the White House. Everyone who owns a firearms or enjoys freedom should sign this immediately! https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/repeal-nfa

The Cost Of Regulatory Compliance: $20,000 For Every American Worker by Tyler Durden Jan 23, 2017 3:19 PM 0 SHARES As JPM writes in its intraday update, the "Trump/Ryan enthusiasm is starting to quietly fade as investors appreciate the enormous logistical and mathematical hurdles associated w/realization of their agenda. The nature of the Trump White House is such that investors should get used to avalanches of headlines, tweets, etc. on a daily basis but very little of this stream of consciousness barrage is likely to be incremental – platitudinous promises about slashing taxes “massively” or cutting regulations “by 75% or...

The World Economic Forum recently published its annual Global Competiveness Report. Our continual slide from first in 2008 to fifth worldwide has received some coverage by the press, but no one has written about the underlying causes for the drop or given any meaningful insight into who the WEF is and how the rankings are compiled. The mainstream press has completely missed the story. The WEF describes itself as an independent international organization committed to “improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.” The rankings...

A new French law establishing workers’ “right to disconnect” goes into effect today. The law requires companies with more than 50 employees to establish hours when staff should not send or answer emails. The goals of the law include making sure employees are fairly paid for work, and preventing burnout by protecting private time. French legislator Benoit Hamon, speaking to the BBC, described the law as an answer to the travails of employees who “leave the office, but they do not leave their work. They remain attached by a kind of electronic leash—like a dog.”

California’s desire to combat so-called global warming has led it to attack what it believes is deadly even if it is often silent – cow flatulence. According to an AP report, the self-proclaimed leading agricultural state is now focusing on what it calls “greenhouse gases” produced by dairy cows. In spite of opposition from farmers, California Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation that regulates heat-trapping gases from livestock businesses for the first time. Cattle and other farm animals produce methane, a gas that is referred to as a greenhouse gas and alleged to be more potent than carbon dioxide as a...

Regulation: One of the biggest myths standing in the way of dismantling the Dodd-Frank law is that it somehow reversed the Republicans' "deregulation" of the financial sector in the late 1990s. This is entirely false. Lawmakers are in a desperate tizzy... ...Democrats' narrative about the financial crisis, which goes as follows: In the late 1990s, mean Republicans took advantage of an impeachment-weakened President Clinton and passed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, deregulating the banks and setting off a massive, speculative boom in real estate lending fueled by unbridled Wall Street greed. By 2008, the excesses of these eight years of greed exploded,...

Obama sets new record for regulations, 527 pages in just one day By @SecretsBedard) • 11/17/16 12:14 PM President Obama has just set a new record for rules and regulations, his administration spitting out 527 pages worth in just one day, as he races to put his fingerprint on virtually every corner of American life and business. According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the administration has just shattered the old record for pages of regulations and rules published by the in-house journal, the Federal Register. At 81,640 total pages for 2016, it ranks first and 235 pages more than all...

Repeal them all.

Last Friday Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York signed a new bill seeking to crackdown on citizens offering their homes for short term rental through Airbnb. The law would impose fines of up to $7,500 simply for listing a rental on the popular site for travelers. Why would the state of New York pass this law attacking people seeking to earn some extra money to help afford living in one of the most expensive cities in the country? The answer lies with the hotel companies, one of whose CEOs openly celebrated that his company would be able to raise prices...

Lawmakers across Nebraska are celebrating a US Court of Appeals ruling involving anhydrous ammonia fertilizer. Federal regulators with OSHA had issued new requirements for storage of anhydrous ammonia which would impact smaller retailers like those many Nebraska farmers go to. The court threw out that move saying they did it without offering a public comment period. Senator Ben Sasse issued the following statement: “Nebraska farmers and ranchers didn’t elect any of the bureaucrats at OSHA. That’s why this ruling is an encouraging step to restore common sense and the separation of powers.”

Fewer than half of physicians are aware of the Medicare Access & CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), and most of those who do know about it probably wish it would go away. Nevertheless, this law will determine how Medicare reimburses doctors, starting in 2019. ... CMS won’t release its final MACRA rule ... CMS recenty changed the timeline ...

Commercial fishing boat owners and groups are reacting to the executive action taken by President Obama that created a marine national preserve in the North Atlantic on Sept. 15. They say that banning commercial fishing there is unnecessary, since the fishing industry has already been working with government agencies on conservation measures.

Brace yourselves from now til Jan 2017! -> "To be sure, there are 1,500 proposed rules and regulations in the pipeline, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget. That includes over 700 dubbed “economically significant” in the key final stage, and Katz said those are the ones to watch." <- GOP Mostly Powerless in Stopping Obama 'Midnight' Regulations http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/gop-mostly-powerless-stopping-obama-midnight-regulations John T. Bennett @John T. Bennett Posted Sep 19, 2016 3:33 PM Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Chairman Richard Shelby is watching banking and consumer finance regulations that come under his panel's purview. “We don’t know what...

In Medieval times, Kings and Queens interested in maintaining control over small, outlying geographical areas arranged a complex system of fiefdoms, vesting feudal lords with their imprimatur to tell the local serfs and vassals what to do, and granting them the “power” to extract taxes – a portion of which would be given to the royals. Despite Constitutional strictures created to insure the contrary, the United States federal government has followed pretty much the same template, albeit on a bureaucratic, rather than monarchical, level. Case in point, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which is showing once more that it is...