Free Republic

A Congressional Research Service report commissioned by the House Judiciary Committee says ACORN hasn't violated any federal regulations the past five years. The report, released by Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers's, D-Mich., staff Tuesday evening, also reports that the undercover filmmakers that allegedly caught employees of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now breaking the law may have violated state law in their filming operation.

Leadership: Alaska's ex-governor asks a question we'd like answered: Why is California's current governor pushing the same policies in Copenhagen that helped drive his state into record deficits and unemployment? The movie series that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a household name involved cyborgs traveling through time to alternately try to destroy or save one John Connor, who would grow up to be the leader of the resistance against a race of machines that ruled the planet. Prominent in the series was his tough cookie of a mom, Sarah Connor. Another Sarah has taken the lead in another resistance against another group...

More and more focus is being placed by MSM on the thinking of Paul Volcker, despite President Obama's attempt (Read: Larry Summer's attempt) to isolate him as the chairman of Obama's burial ground, the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, for heavensake Obama even put know-nothing, moneybags Penny Pritzker on the do nothing board . But one should never ignore a key Rockefeller operative. Here's Simon Johnson on what Volcker is up to: The guiding myth underpinning the reconstruction of our dangerous banking system is: Financial innovation as-we-know-it is valuable and must be preserved. Anyone opposed to this approach is a populist,...

Even if the Federal Reserve gets around to strengthening the dollar--which would do wonders to get the economy really moving again--we still face a mammoth and growing problem: the government's increasing domination and distortion of the capital markets. It's not only the need to finance Uncle Sam's deficits that crowds out other credit seekers in the marketplace. It's also the proliferation of government entities (think Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), government loan guarantees, tax credits and the government's growing sway over the banking sector. Even if Washington's red ink were back to the levels of a couple of years ago,...

USAA, GE and Others Gain Exceptions to Full Impact of Regulatory Overhaul. Buried in a 239-page amendment to the U.S. House of Representatives' financial regulatory overhaul is a provision that appears to do just one thing: exempts financial-services company USAA from some of the bill's tougher provisions. The carve-out is one of a number of exceptions that allow companies to avoid fresh scrutiny envisioned by the White House, which is aiming to overhaul the nation's financial-regulatory apparatus. The beneficiaries run from corporations such as General Electric Co. and Pitney Bowes Inc. to USAA, which caters to members of the military...

November 02, 2009 9:18 PM Tom McLaughlin and Tina Harbuck More than 100 fishermen, family and friends showed up Monday morning at the corner of U.S. 98 and Perry Avenue carrying signs in protest of the recent fish closures by the National Marine Fisheries Service. “It’s terrible what they’re trying to do to this fishery,” said Capt. Kenny Aziz, who bay fishes from his pontoon boat, The Toonpang. The idea of bringing the Destin charter boat fishermen’s beef with the federal government to the corner of Perry Avenue and U.S. Highway 98 started out as kind of a joke. That...

The top of the frozen apple juice can was stamped with the date, then the word "China." I could not believe it. China? I live in the Shenandoah Valley, at one time the biggest apple producer in the world, and my apple juice comes from China? Maybe it's just this store brand, I thought. But a visit to another grocery store confirmed it. They stocked a name brand, the top of it stamped with the date and the words "from China." I googled "China and apples." Stories and reports came up confirming my ... yes, fear. I hadn't been paying...

To begin know it is said amongst the knowledgeable North Carolina is sprinkled with a number of “sweet spots” where a fellow can stand in an open field and box the compass in four opposite directions (North,East,South and West) for a few hundred yards and find himself under four conflicting sets of hunting regulations........... The leading (current) contender for complete Alice-In-Wonderland-Mad-Hatter “the law is ours to know and yours to find out” bureaucracy is DUPLIN COUNTY.......

This year, in 2009, Cost of Government Day fell on August 12, 26 days later than in 2008, when it fell on July 16 and came later in the year than at anytime going back to 1977, the first year for which the date is calculated. In simple terms, this means the average taxpayer has to work 224 days out of the year to earn enough in gross income just to meet the cost imposed by all levels of government.

ABSTRACT: "This study measures and reports the cost of regulation to small business in the State of California. It uses original analyses and a general equilibrium framework to identify and measure the cost of regulation as measured by the loss of economic output to the State’s gross product, after controlling for variables known to influence output. It also measures second order costs resulting from regulatory activity by studying the total impact – direct, indirect, and induced. The study finds that the total cost of regulation to the State of California is $492.994 billion which is almost five times the State’s...

Sacramento - -- Regulations on small businesses in California have cost the state's economy $492 billion and 3.8 million jobs, according to a report quietly released by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office this week. Republicans in the Legislature have pounced on the findings and on Thursday called the report the "smoking gun" that proves lawmakers are killing the state's economy through burdensome government mandates. But Democrats and at least one capital think tank are highly skeptical of the accuracy of the findings. The 84-page report does not specify which regulations were studied and relies on data collected largely by Forbes. Citing...

That appears to be an idea that Congressman Barney Frank might be in favor of. An Obama administration proposal to create a government watchdog for financial consumers inched forward in Congress Wednesday, with House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank calling for "death panels" to close down troubled financial firms. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, at a hearing chaired by Frank, urged lawmakers to approve the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

There was a time, not so long ago, when the term "Internet Freedom" actually meant what it implied: a cyberspace free from over-zealous legislators and bureaucrats.... Those days are now gone; the presumption of online liberty is giving way to a presumption of regulation. A massive assault on real Internet freedom has been gathering steam for years and has finally come to a head. Ironically, victory for those who carry the banner of "Internet Freedom" would mean nothing less than the death of that freedom.... Here is the reality: Because of the steps being taken in Washington right now, real...

Following Bernanke's remarks yesterday that in his opinion the recession is over, the market indices all moved up about a half percent yesterday. Technically, we need two straight quarters of economic growth as measured by GDP. Yet, Bernanke is using the new economic math as I described yesterday. Back when I first learned economics, recessions and other economic measures had objective measures. In this case, a recession ends when there are two straight quarters of growth. Yet, now, economists like Bernanke come up with their own dubious measures that have no objectivity.

US president to use his Lehman anniversary speech in Wall Street to call for more governance of the financial sector. Barack Obama will mark the first anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers by demanding tighter financial regulation to avoid a repeat of the crisis. Obama will use a 30-minute speech in Wall Street today to reiterate the need for a fundamental shakeup of the banking sector, three months after he announced proposals for reform. White House insiders indicated over the weekend that the US president will also declare victory in the battle to rescue America's banks, and explain how...

Childhood Obesity Report Calls For Government Regulations to Limit Access to ‘Unhealthy’ Restaurant Chains Wednesday, September 02, 2009 By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer (CNSNews.com) - A newly released report by the Institute for Medicine and the National Research Council details strategies for local governments to combat what it calls an epidemic of childhood obesity, including enacting zoning and land-use regulations that would “restrict fast food establishments near school grounds and public playgrounds.” The report, “Local Government Actions to Prevent Childhood Obesity,” was compiled by the Committee on Childhood Obesity Prevention Actions for Local Governments, a committee of health care...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Millions of Americans have already seen their credit card limits shrink, and millions more face the same fate as lenders prepare for tougher U.S. consumer protection rules. Since the financial crisis deepened a year ago, credit card companies have been closing millions of inactive accounts, cutting credit limits and raising interest rates to cushion themselves from record loan losses. This is just the beginning of the biggest shake-up in the credit card industry in at least 20 years, analysts said. . . . . . Going forward, credit card companies will purge customers rather than risk...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. banking regulators partially retreated from a much-criticized proposal to impose new rules on private equity investment in troubled banks, aiming to encourage responsible investment in distressed banks. The 4-1 vote by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp board was a partial victory for potential investors and some regulators who had warned that an initial proposal unveiled in July threatened to scare away much-needed capital. The regulators lowered capital requirements and dropped or modified measures that could have required investors to kick in more capital after their initial investment. The rules will be further reviewed in six months....

Egad, hasn’t he done enough damage already? Apparently not. Via the Boston Globe, Rep. Barney Frank can’t wait to meddle even more in the marketplace. Keep an eye on the grabby hands:

“Homeschooling is the sleeping giant of the American education system,” is the opening line of a recent article by Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews. He’s right. He’s also right when he says, “All surveys of home-schooled students so far indicate they have higher achievement rates on average than regular students,” and when he dismisses the claim that homeschoolers might not be properly socialized by saying, “Homeschoolers go outside often and get just as big a dose of pain and joy and ignorance and wisdom as regular school kids.” Where Mathews goes wrong is his support for a recommendation by...

Tougher antitrust scrutiny from Washington is slowing deal making even as some early signs of improvement have started to appear in the mergers and acquisitions market. Bankers and lawyers said antitrust officials appointed by President Obama have broadened and lengthened investigations and they expect more vigorous enforcement in years to come, writes Michael Erman at Reuters. Lawyers expect health care, high technology, oil and gas and financial services deals to receive especially close looks from regulators, says Erman. It's really bad, all the details are here.

And Obama saith unto you, "Insurance companies will be prohibited from denying insurance coverage based on a pre-existing medical condition. Period." And there was a health care famine in the land...

ExpressJet Airlines says it's sorry 47 passengers aboard a flight to Minneapolis were forced to spend a night trapped in a grounded plane during the weekend. Airline spokeswoman Kristy Nicholas told Monday's (Minneapolis) Star Tribune that weather problems at Twin Cities International Airport Friday night forced the pilot of a Houston-to-Minneapolis flight to land in Rochester, Minn., where the regional jet sat on the tarmac for nine hours. ExpressJet was operating the plane as a Continental Express flight, the newspaper said. ExpressJet's Web site says it flies more than 200 50-passenger Brazilian-made Embraer ERJ145 aircraft for Continental Airlines. Nicholas told...

It is illegal to ride in the trunk of the car. It is also illegal to ride in the trunk while under the influence of alcohol. This also applies to being under the influence of other toxins and riding in the trunk. If you are found to have been riding in the trunk while under the influence, the penalties for riding in the trunk while under the influence increase the violation of riding in the trunk. It is illegal to drive a car with a live deer in the trunk. If you hit a deer while driving your car, and...

A turf war among some of the most powerful regulators in Washington, which has played out largely behind the scenes in the last few months, burst into the open at a House hearing. It featured disagreements over two cornerstones of the administration’s financial regulation plan — a new consumer protection agency to take over the functions now performed by the Federal Reserve, and a greater role for the Fed in overseeing large institutions that could pose systemic risks if they become troubled. Those disagreeing were the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner; Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve;...

Right after the mortgage crisis occurred, I bet most of the layman in the country got a quick lesson in the complicated nature that is our mortgage market. For instance, I'm sure that most folks thought that the banks that approved your loans also were the ones that kept them and made money on them. That's not so in the majority of cases because of a process known as mortgage securitization. In this process, a financial firm bundles hundreds, thousands, and even tens of thousands of loans together turn them into bonds and sell them on trading markets. We've learned...

Online advertising's biggest players to government: Please stay out of our business. Google, AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft, along with a host of other advertising, agency and marketer associations, took another step in pressing their case that the government doesn't need to regulate the collecting of data for ad-targeting purposes by search engines, websites, advertisers and ad networks. They've crafted their own set of rules in the hope of heading off potential regulation in Congress. For months, a wide-ranging group of marketers, portals, publishers and ad networks represented by industry groups -- such as the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the American Association...

As part of the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, President Obama wants to focus on regulating the so called "fine print". The Consumer Financial Protection Agency would be in charge of regulating those products in the same way other government agencies regulate the safety of drugs, food and toys Obama said Americans are demanding it. "Those ridiculous contracts with pages of fine print that no one can figure out—those things will be a thing of the past," the president said in a statement accompanying the 152-page draft bill. "And enforcement will be the rule, not the exception."

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama asked Congress on Tuesday to create a new agency to police the fine print on consumer products like credit cards and mortgages and determine what fees, penalties and interest rates are fair. The Consumer Financial Protection Agency would be in charge of regulating those products in the same way other government agencies regulate the safety of drugs, food and toys. Obama said Americans are demanding it

One of the biggest mortgage frauds over the last ten years was appraisal fraud. Unscrupulous mortgage brokers would get together with unscrupulous appraisers and the appraisers would create values that were simply not there. Other times, unscrupulous mortgage brokers would pressure appraisers to inflate values. In any case, it created an epidemic and lead in part to the place we are in now.

Last week I wrote that about the suppression of an EPA report identifying the locations of “high hazard” coal sludge sites. I questioned whether the federal government was giving another government entity favored treatment, in this case the TVA -- which was the source of the original massive spill. It appears this may have been so the case of the fatal subway crash in Washington DC. In a report in the Washington Post today, a NTSB Board member says Metro failed to heed the advice of federal regulators to either strengthen the cars or take them out of service. They...

Last week, there was a fairly obscure story that was treated mostly with amusement. President Obama isn't just rewriting rules regulating the environment and the financial markets -- he is also going after the food industry. Target and example No. 1: Cheerios. "Based on claims made on your product's label," the FDA said in a letter to manufacturer General Mills, "we have determined (Cheerios) is promoted for conditions that cause it to be a drug because the product is intended for use in the prevention, mitigation and treatment of disease." If the government's enforcement action against Cheerios were to hold...

n a major speech last week in which he rolled out his vision for financial regulatory reform, President Barack Obama said he has "always been a strong believer in the power of free markets." Nice rhetoric for sure, particularly given a series of proposals meant to hamstring natural market activity while surely driving other forms of finance overseas. As he sees it, "one of the most significant contributors to our economic downturn was an unraveling of our major financial institutions." No doubt that's the conventional wisdom of late, but it's hard to see how it could be completely true. Indeed,...

President Obama isn't just rewriting rules regulating the environment and the financial markets -- he is also going after the food industry. Target and example No. 1: Cheerios. "Based on claims made on your product's label," the FDA said in a letter to manufacturer General Mills, "we have determined (Cheerios) is promoted for conditions that cause it to be a drug because the product is intended for use in the prevention, mitigation and treatment of disease."

Wednesday, President Obama rolled out a proposal for the most sweeping changes in financial market regulation since the New Deal, reaching every corner of banking and finance. Obama's proposed reforms come on the heels of the federal government's billion-dollar bailout of Citigroup and AIG. And Obama has included in his proposed changes more regulatory power for the federal government over financial institutions. The idea is to give the federal government the power to head off risky investing before our biggest financial institutions reach the verge of collapse. The new regulatory powers would even give the government the ability to reorganize...

Reporting from Washington -- President Obama today unveiled what he described as a "sweeping overhaul" of the rules governing the financial system, saying bold action was needed to repair the regulatory failures that were a major factor in the nation's economic collapse. "It is an indisputable fact that one of the most significant contributors to our economic downturn was an unraveling of major financial institutions and the lack of adequate regulatory structures to prevent abuse and excess," Obama said during a White House speech. "A culture of irresponsibility took root from Wall Street to Washington to Main Street. And a...

More importantly, how will we measure it? Tomorrow, the president will unveil his regulatory reform framework in detail. The most important part of that reform, by far, will be exactly what new power he will give the Federal Reserve as systemic risk manager and what limits will be placed on that power. That's because systemic risk is ultimately very subjective. We live in a globalized society and so the failure of one company can lead to the failure of others in a domino effect. How much of a domino effect must there be before it is "systemic"? Will this be...

Asked if the president still smoked, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama has "a struggle with nicotine addiction" every day. Obama has a long history of smoking and a photo emerged of him during the campaign trail smoking as far back as college. During the presidential campaign, he chewed nicorette chewing gum in an effort to kick the habit. Gibbs said he "assumed" the president still chewed the nicorette. The president dodged questions at the start of his administration about whether he was still lighting up. The struggle to quit is one millions of Americans face, and Obama praised...

This week, the House Energy Committee will begin mark-up of the Waxman-Markey energy proposal with over $600 billion dollars in additional, new taxes that every American family will have to pay. This bill includes those lofty save the world ideas of Cap-and-Trade, CAFE and Renewable Electricity Standards.

Obama makes union corruption easierThe Obama administration is rolling back rules on union finance and compensation reporting. Apparently, their desire to increase regulations on businesses does not extend to unions. The Obama administration does not think holding union leaders to reporting standards for compensation and finances is a good use of resources. Perhaps, this will make it easier to hide those large donations to Democrats and their PAC's. A few campaign contributions have make democrats forget about Jimmy Hoffa.

Are you ready for your electricity bill to double? Are you ready for your Natural Gas bill to double? This is what the Democrat policy of “Cap and Trade” will do to you, and all that money is going to go to the Federal Government. This week Al Gore lied to congress. In his testimony he said at one point, "It's going to save you money, and it's going to make the economy stronger,". Please remember this statement when in some not so distant January you read stories about children wearing two coats inside their homes because their average Middle...

What better source could you have than N.A.S.A. about a significant cause of "global warming" on the eve of "Earth Day 2009"? It is now official - clean air regulations have prevented sulfates (from coal and oil), which have a cooling effect, from entering the atmosphere. The sulfates are antagonists to the effects of black carbon from diesel and biofuel, which contribute to warming. Read below: Aerosols May Drive a Significant Portion of Arctic Warming - 04.08.09 http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_aerosols.html Synopsis: Over the past three decades, the United States and European countries have passed a series of laws that have reduced sulfate...

Land of the free...home of the brave. Really? How long will many of us fool ourselves into believing that we are KEEPING that course? Recent political efforts prove that we lose more than we gain from our very own government. While it is reasonable to expect regulation that enhances our nation and our people and even our security it is getting less and less so. This is a research effort...what is desired is for those on Free Republic to reply with what you used to be free to do in your lifetime that you can no longer do either at...

The Obama administration will call for increased oversight of executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies as part of a plan to overhaul financial regulation, the New York Times reported.

EPA says farmers must keep dust down DES MOINES — Nothing says summer in Iowa like a cloud of dust behind a combine. But what may be a fact of life for farmers is a cause for concern to federal regulators, who are refusing to exempt growers from new environmental regulations. It's left some farmers feeling bemused and more than a little frustrated. "It's such a non-commonsense idea that you can keep dust within a property line when the wind blows," said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee who still farms in New Hartford. Under...

The European Commission on Tuesday sought to reassure anxious German bakers that their favourite salt-rich bread and pretzels were not under threat from new nutritional information requirements for consumers. Last week Bavarian bakers protested that planned European food-labelling rules would endanger the traditional pretzel. Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper on Tuesday relayed concerns of German bakers that their wholebread would find itself ranked with products designated as bad for one's health, due to its relatively high salt content. "The commission is not prohibiting any bread and has no intention to regulate the salt levels in bread," assured EU spokeswoman Nina...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/02/25/Overhaul/ THE BRIEFING ROOM • THE BLOG Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 at 7:18 pm Overhaul White House photo 2/25/09 by Pete Souza It's clear that a lot of factors led us into this economic crisis, but one of the biggest was that our economy was left exposed by regulations that were out of date and regulators who weren't minding the store. President Obama today took that problem head on by laying out 7 key principles for transforming the nation's regulatory system. We must: Enforce strict oversight of financial institutions that pose systemic risks...

Lisa Jackson, the Environmental Protection Agency’s new administrator, confirmed that her agency is working on regulations to try to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions. “Carbon dioxide has been linked to global warming,” Jackson asserted. “It must be controlled and, ultimately, eliminated if we are to save the planet.” Jackson was adamant that no source of emissions would be overlooked. “Even small emissions from a single source can amount to a major problem if multiplied,” she said. “Every breathing being emits carbon dioxide. This adds up when 300 million inhabitants of the United States all do it.” The EPA is reportedly drafting...

Excerpts from a 4 part New York Times article intended to lay the total blame for the financial collapse on Alan Greenspan, Phil Gramm and deregulation, but what it really does is show that the government is filled with crooks and is totally incompetent regarding running the economy. The sooner control is wrested from government's corrupt hands the better. Taking Hard New Look at a Greenspan Legacy Excerpt from part 3: In 1997, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a federal agency that regulates options and futures trading, began exploring derivatives regulation. The commission, then led by a lawyer named Brooksley...

In the long run, when we are all dead, historians will be debating the root causes behind the global financial meltdown of 2008. They will join up multiple dots, just as they did after the September 11 terror attacks. Among the precipitating factors, toxic mortgage debt securities grossly inflated banks’ balance sheets and investors’ portfolios. Credit rating agencies blessed those assets’ illusory values. Real estate tumbled in a vicious downward spiral, while steep oil prices helped reverse the business cycle. Inadequate regulation, in America and elsewhere, clearly exacerbated all the other drivers. Specifically, when regulators permitted major American investment banks...