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House Republicans passed a resolution that would repeal a Biden administration rule tightening federal regulations on stabilizing braces for firearms, an accessory that has been used in several mass shootings in the U.S. over the last decade. The resolution passed 219-210 nearly on party lines and after a contentious floor debate where Republicans accused the administration of “executive overreach” and Democrats condemned a bill they said would “help kill people.” Two Democrats voted in support and two Republicans voted against it. The resolution, which was introduced by Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., will now go to the Senate, which could take...

In a pre-dawn raid Wednesday, armed federal law enforcement agents searched the home of Jeffrey Clark, a former Trump Justice Department official who has emerged as a central figure in the partisan House Select Committee’s investigation into the January 6 riot. Clark’s name was expected to come up in the Jan. 6 Committee hearing on Thursday. He served as acting assistant attorney general for the Civil Division during President Trump’s final months in office, where he was the only official willing to investigate credible allegations of fraud. In a tweet back in March, Clark explained why he has been targeted...

Russ Vought, former President Donald Trump’s White House budget director president of the Center for Renewing America (CRA), and Tom Jones, American Accountability Foundation (AAF) President, will launch the “Congressional Pork Map” accountability project on Thursday, Breitbart News has learned exclusively. Vought and Jones’ goal is to expose Republican and Democrats’ most “corruptive” earmarks and hold lawmakers accountable for their lobbying for pork in various bills. The AAF and CRA project aims to hold Republicans and Democrats accountable for stuffing legislation with special interest projects. The Congressional Pork Map project serves as an interactive map so that Americans can see...

The Trump administration is under fire for daring to touch a third rail of liberal financial regulation: the 1978 Community Reinvestment Act, or CRA. The proposed new regulations would affect 70 percent of banks by replacing requirements that bank lending target specific geographies or borrowers, such as low-income minorities. Instead, banks would set total dollar goals for lending to low-income borrowers, with the aim of helping poor communities broadly, rather than focusing on specific neighborhoods. Some of these loans might have occurred anyway, and critics (which include the Federal Reserve) oppose the idea that banks could get “CRA credit” for...

Democrats are expecting a landslide in the midterm elections, and it’s lulled them to sleep on Capitol Hill. A case in point: Republicans have been using the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to wipe out Obama-era regulations since the Trump presidency began. And Democrats, responding groggily, have just gotten around to doing something about it. What they’re doing doesn’t amount to much. In mid-May, senators Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) introduced a bill to kill the CRA. There was no fanfare or excitement, and no angry vows of resistance. As important as it is, the CRA doesn’t command media...

It sounds benign and looks good on the outside, but net neutrality is as deceiving inside as the Trojan horse. If proponents of net neutrality achieve their objective of passing a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to overturn the 2017 Restoring Internet Freedom Order (RIFO), the result will not be a fair and open internet; it will be a restrictive, innovation-killing, government-run internet.Americans could end up like the Chinese and the Russians, with limited access to information that only the government wants them to see. There will not be free and open access to information. Internet service providers will be...

Accountability is sorely lacking in the administrative state. Unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats make decisions significantly affecting our daily lives with too little involvement from our elected officials. The Congressional Review Act was intended to restore at least some degree of democratic accountability to the administrative process. It requires agencies to submit to Congress every rule they wish to impose on you, giving the people you elected an opportunity to oversee what federal bureaucrats are up to. That’s the theory, at least. In practice, agencies have failed to comply with their obligations under the statute, withholding rules from Congress and thereby avoiding...

(CRA)The Congressional Review Act (CRA) was passed in 1996 to give Congress the right to review and rescind regulations, yet it was only used once in its first 20 years. Since January, it has been one of the most effective weapons of our new government, allowing Congress to reverse 14 midnight regulations passed in the waning days of the Obama administration. With the window for CRA action on Obama-era rules now closed, we should look back on the strides made and gear up for the next phase in the regulatory reform fight. Leaders in Congress and the administration deserve great...

Subtitle: How to Neuter the Administrative State. Newt Gingrich’s 1996 Congressional Review Act (CRA) is a Constitutional counterthrust to an unconstitutional fact of life. Presented in the form of regulations, the executive branch writes most of the laws we live under, in violation of Article I § 1. Loathing the CRA. In this inverted reality of legislative power, unelected bureaucrats write the laws for the nation. Agencies do not submit proposed regulations for congressional approval. Instead, in our corrupted system, regulations go into effect unless congress and the president stop them! I loathe the CRA because, without saying, it elevates...

On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump promised to roll back federal regulations. And at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February, chief strategist Steve Bannon said that the goal of the administration was the “deconstruction of the administrative state.” Trump has delivered on those pledges, signing over a dozen laws reversing Obama-era regulations, marking the most substantial legislative achievement of his first 100 days in office. Politico has downplayed Trump’s slew of repeal laws, describing them as “the only substantive bills Trump has signed so far.” And, in keeping with a media-wide effort to separate Trump from his...

President Trump has promised to eliminate regulations and rebuild the nation’s aging infrastructure. Federal agencies are awash with regulations and provisions based on the presumption that government is, and should be, the sole provider of infrastructure. But now that we understand the merits of public-private partnerships, which can provide more accountable public-purpose infrastructure, these numerous regulations and provisions serve as major obstacles preventing the improvement of highways and other infrastructure. Back in 1995, Reason Foundation published a policy study itemizing a number of these regulatory barriers. Sadly, most of them still exist today. If a state or municipal facility has...

THE BIG STORY House Republicans unveiled their plan of attack against Obama-era regulations Wednesday, highlighting the top rules they plan to roll back. The Labor Department's blacklisting rule, Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) stream protection rule, Interior Department's methane emissions rule, a disclosure rule from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and an obscure gun regulation from the Social Security Administration (SSA) top the list of regulations Republicans are targeting. GOP lawmakers will turn to the Congressional Review Act to strike down these rules.

After a pompous, liberal agenda was crammed down the throats of the American people during his first two years in office, President Obama suffered staggering losses in Congress for the next six years that cost Democrats control of both houses. But, heavy Democrat losses, courtesy of an electorate that vehemently rejected a far-left agenda, didn't stop Obama from continuing to push through countless new rules and regulations from the White House all while pushing his authority to the brink of every Constitutional boundary known to man. Of course, the problem with "legislating from the White House" is that all those...

On the debate stage Monday night, Hillary Clinton smugly repeated the big lie that Democrats have been telling with something close to impunity since 2008. “We had the worst financial crisis, the Great Recession, the worst since the 1930s,” said Hillary. “That was in large part because of tax policies that slashed taxes on the wealthy, failed to invest in the middle class, took their eyes off of Wall Street, and created a perfect storm.”

Democrats and the media insist the Community Reinvestment Act, the anti-redlining law beefed up by President Clinton, had nothing to do with the subprime mortgage crisis and recession. But a new study by the respected National Bureau of Economic Research finds, "Yes, it did. We find that adherence to that act led to riskier lending by banks." Added NBER: "There is a clear pattern of increased defaults for loans made by these banks in quarters around the (CRA) exam. Moreover, the effects are larger for loans made within CRA tracts," or predominantly low-income and minority areas. To satisfy CRA examiners,...

Subprime Scandal: We've long suspected the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission wasn't honest in examining events before the meltdown. But an ex-commissioner says the probe was actually a full-blown political cover-up. In a just-released book, former FCIC member Peter Wallison says that a Democratic Congress worked with the commission's Democratic chairman to whitewash the government's central role in the mortgage debacle. The conspiracy helped protect some of the Democrats' biggest stars from scrutiny and accountability while helping justify the biggest government takeover of the financial sector since the New Deal. Wallison's sobering, trenchantly written "Hidden in Plain Sight: What Really Caused...

The GOP is preparing to mount a full-scale assault on President Obama’s regulatory agenda, using the party’s strengthened hand in Congress to delay, soften or block contentious administration rules at every turn. As long as Obama sits atop the executive branch, Republicans’ power to derail scores of rulemaking efforts now under way is limited. But control of both the House and Senate in the next Congress will enable GOP lawmakers to ratchet up their attacks on what they view as overzealous regulation. “So long as we have this president the federal agencies can go around Congress," said Sen. Jim Inhofe...

Government coercion of the financial sector to make irresponsible loans was the primary driver of the 2007-08 financial meltdown. Now we learn that Eric Holder, the Tom Hagen of this racketeering enterprise of an administration, is using the vig that DOJ muscle is extorting from the banks to pour tens of millions of dollars into the coffers of the radical Left’s top rabble-rousers – in addition to diverting what should be public funds to pay off delinquent debts in cities that Democrats have destroyed.

LINK ONLY PER POSTING RULE? http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-05-01/clinton-officials-missed-chance-to-avert-2008-financial-crisis?google_editors_picks=true

Subprime Scandal: Newly released memos from the Clinton presidential library reveal evidence the government had a big hand in the housing crisis. The worst actors were in the White House, not on Wall Street. During the 1990s, former Clinton aides bragged that more aggressive enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act pressured banks to issue riskier mortgages, lending more proof the anti-redlining law fueled the crisis. A 2012 National Bureau of Economic Research study found "that adherence to that act led to riskier lending by banks," with "a clear pattern of increased defaults for loans made by these banks in quarters...