More than 2500 religious leaders released a letter yesterday condemning the Obama administration’s healthcare mandate as ““a severe blow” to religious liberty.
“Government by presidential fiat.”
The president of the United States has just ordered private companies to give away for free a service that his own health and human services secretary has repeatedly called a major financial burden.
On what authority? Where does it say that the president can unilaterally order a private company to provide an allegedly free-standing service at no cost to certain select beneficiaries?
Repeal this damn law (Obamacare), and fire the goddamn politicians that had the hubris to force it on us.
Surprise, surprise! A new study in China has found that electric cars are more harmful to public health per kilometer traveled than conventional vehicles.
The problem here isn’t the effort to develop electric cars in the hope they can reduce pollution. The problem is that our government is imposing its preference, prior to anyone finding out if this technology can actually do the job.
Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist and Jewish leaders all testified at a Congressional hearing today that they would go to prison rather than obey the Obamacare mandates being imposed by the Obama administration. Key reaction from one Congressman:
“Well, just so everybody understands what is going to happen: These guys are either going to go to jail because they won’t violate their religious beliefs, or the hospitals and the schools are going to close, which means governemnt is going to get bigger, because they’re going to have to fill the void that is left when you guys quit doing it. And maybe that’s what [the Obama administration] wanted all along.”
When did we become a nation where government officials can order anyone to do anything, even if that order contradicts a person’s personal religious beliefs? And if you are a Democrat and don’t mind Obama’s orders because you agree with them, just remember that the Democrats are not going to be in power forever. Do you want a conservative Republican to have that same power?
In a free society, no politician should ever have such power. It is essential that everyone stand up against this attack on freedom. And it is even more important that these thugs be removed from office as soon as possible.
Detroit: the triumph of progressive public policy.
Imagine a city where all the major economic planks of the statist or “progressive” platform have been enacted:
- A “living wage” ordinance, far above the federal minimum wage, for all public employees and private contractors.
- A school system that spends significantly more per pupil than the national average.
- A powerful school employee union that militantly defends the exceptional pay, benefits and job security it has won for its members.
- Other government employee unions that do the same for their members.
- A tax system that aggressively redistributes income from businesses and the wealthy to the poor and to government bureaucracies.
Would this be a shining city on a hill, exciting the admiration of all? We don’t have to guess, because there is such a city right here in our state: Detroit.
Read the above article and then compare it to this essay: A thought experiment: Imagining the Republican majority in the House in complete control of Washington.
The contrasts are most illuminating.
Finally doing its job: The FCC moved Tuesday to kill LightSquared’s broadband service license request.
We’re here to help you: FAA regulations have forced a volunteer pilot program in Alaska to cancel its support of the Yukon Quest International Dog Race.
The rules prohibit private pilots from accepting cost deferments such as fuel, accommodations and food. According to the agency’s regulations, allowing private pilots to accept compensation for costs is commercial activity, and commercial aviation is heavily regulated.
In other words, because these volunteers are simply getting reimbursed for their expenses the FAA forbids them from volunteering. Isn’t it great how the government is so helpful?
The correct response: Two Christian leaders said today that they’d go to jail rather than comply with the new Obamacare regulations.
HHS is Health and Human Services, the federal department tasked with running Obamacare.
The important thing to note about this story is how completely normal it seems for a government agency like HHS to have significant problems keeping track of its money and operations. No one is ever surprised when a government agency is found incompetent in this manner, and in fact, it happens frequently. And yet, the President and the Democrats in Congress thought it perfectly reasonable to hand over control of healthcare to that same government.
Not only is this story further evidence that Obamacare should be repealed, it illustrates again how clueless the Democrats were who voted for it.
Jeff Foust reports today that the long delayed final FAA reauthorization bill also includes language that will extend until 2015 the restrictions on the FAA’s ability to regulate commercial space.
How nice of them.
When the Commercial Space Law Amendments Act (CSLAA) passed in 2004 I wrote in my UPI column Space Watch that I thought it was a bad idea and would cause great harm to the commercial space industry. All the law accomplished was hand power to the FAA and Congress to restrict commercial activities in space, without providing the industry any real benefit. Even with this extension space commercial companies remain at the mercy of Congressional action or FAA regulation, neither of which is really interested in helping this new industry.
The bad elements of the bill are finally beginning to come to light.
» Read more
More House action: By a significant majority the House has voted to repeal part of Obamacare.
Once again, that a significant number of Democrats joined the Republicans in this vote illustrates where the political power lies. The Democratic leadership and President Obama are fighting a losing battle trying to support this turkey, especially since this section of Obamacare has already been abandoned as unworkable by the White House.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius effectively suspended the program last fall, conceding she couldn’t find a way to make it pay for itself. And the Congressional Budget Office took the program off the books, releasing lawmakers from budget rules that would have otherwise required them to replace the lost savings.
Since the rest of Obamacare is unworkable as well, expect more action to repeal it after the November election. And I expect that effort to succeed.
Better go while you can: The National Park Service is considering several plans to limit the number of hikers per day on the Half Dome hike in Yosemite.
I’m so relieved: The TSA has admitted that its agents made a mistake when they strip-searched two elderly women last fall.
And when are we going to admit our own mistake of creating the TSA and get around to abolishing it?
Repeal it: Obamacare’s 34 pilot programs, designed to save money, will have no effect or will increase costs, according to a Congressional Budget Office report yesterday.
I guarantee that they will increase costs, and actually hinder the work of doctors. The number one task of the new Congress after 2012 should be to repeal this abomination of a law as fast as possible.
Good news! Congress has just ended its least-productive year in modern history, passing only 80 bills, less than any other session since these records began being kept in 1947.
The Obama State Department made it known today that it has rejected the European code of conduct for space.
“Too restrictive,” Ellen Tauscher, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said of the 12-page document that seeks to promote the peaceful, safe and “transparent” use of outer space. Tauscher, speaking to a gathering of Washington, D.C.-based defense reporters on Jan. 12, let slip at the end of her talk that the State Department had rejected the document as it was written. While answering an unrelated question, she mentioned that, “we’re not going to be joining with the Europeans on their [space] treaty.” She did not share any further details as to what parts of the code were “too restrictive.”
Though I applaud the decision of the Obama administration to say no now, the article notes that Tauscher later admitted that the administration is still willing to negotiate this thing.
Why has Western civilization decided in recent decades that the solution to all problems is to lay down restrictions on what people can do? This authoritarianism goes against every ideal and principle that made our culture a success. Worse, it never works. Like gun control, the only people the rules harm are those who follow the rules.
Touching our lives every day: More on the EPA’s decision to punish refineries for not using a non-existent fuel.
Touching our lives every day: In 2011 the EPA fined companies millions because they didn’t use a fuel that doesn’t exist.
Obama today: “The EPA touches on the lives of every single American every single day.”
Truer words were never spoken, but not in the way the President intended. He was speaking to a gathering of EPA employees in Washington, DC, and was praising them for their work. To the rest of the nation, however, the EPA’s effort is increasingly seen as a terrible burden that is squelching both the economy and the freedom of Americans.
The Supreme Court looks hard at the EPA and doesn’t like what it sees.
This case is about the EPA’s ongoing effort to steal property from private landowners.
The Sacketts wanted to build a home on a 0.63-acre lot near Priest Lake in the Idaho panhandle that they bought for $23,000. But after three days of bringing in fill dirt and preparing for construction in 2007, officials from the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ordered the activity stopped and said they suspected the land contained wetlands.
Months later, the agency sent the Sacketts a “compliance order” that said the land must be restored as a wetlands before the couple could apply for a building permit. The government acknowledged Monday that fines for failure to comply with the orders could be as much as $75,000 a day.
Gee, isn’t that nice of them: The FAA has granted a one time waiver, allowing an ultra-light plane to resume this year’s whooping crane escort flight.
This infuriates me. What business is it of the FAA whether the ultra-light plane pilots make money on this or not?
This is a perfect example of “mission creep.” The FAA was originally chartered to manage airports, install required landing and navigational equipment, and monitor the designs of aircraft for safety hazards. Somehow, this mission now includes regulating who and what aviation groups are allowed to make money. Disgusting.
The Obama administration announced a federal ban Monday on new mining claims affecting a million acres near the Grand Canyon.
As much as I love the Grand Canyon and want to protect it, this ban has little to do with the canyon itself. The land involved surrounds the canyon, and is in remote areas that tourists never see. And though the Obama administration claims this is to protect the waters of the Colorado River, none of the mining would take place anywhere near the river.
What this ruling illustrates is the left’s fear of doing anything. They prefer to shut everything down, on the remote chance that something might go wrong, even if that wrong might be very temporary and fixable. Following this philosophy, it is not surprising that the economy has been in the doldrums for the past three years.
We’re here to help you! A U.S.-Canadian partnership to re-establish migrating cranes using human-powered ultralights has been halted by the FAA because it doesn’t meet its regulations.
FAA regulations say only pilots with commercial pilot licenses can fly for hire. The pilots of Operation Migration’s plane are instead licensed to fly sport aircraft because that’s the category of aircraft that the group’s small, open plane with its rear propeller and bird-like wings falls under. FAA regulations also prohibit sport aircraft – which are sometimes of exotic design – from being flown to benefit a business or charity. The rules are aimed, in part, at preventing businesses or charities from taking passengers for joyrides in sometimes risky planes.
What goddamn business is it of the FAA to “prohibit sport aircraft … from being flown to benefit a business or charity”? Isn’t that exactly how the aviation industry got started, taking passengers on short flights during the barnstorming era?
The EPA’s war on a couple’s dream house has now reached the Supreme Court.
Democrats regulating the dead.
Democrats believe their personal preferences are so noteworthy and have such a significant bearing on the future of society that it’s only fair these indispensible preferences be imposed on the public by force of law.
Which brings us to Democrat Alvin Tillman, a third–term member of the council in Terrebonne Parish, LA, who evidently does not have enough to occupy his time. Tillman is personally offended by the chroma culprits who paint their family tombs anything but white, which is Tillman’s preferred color. “We want to stop this before it gets out of hand,” Tillman was quoted by the Associated Press. “Before you know it you’ll go out there and the cemetery will look like Mardi Gras.”
Since this is Louisiana — where being dead is no bar to exercising the franchise in favor of Democrats on election day — it could be that Tillman is simply responding to the wishes of his electoral base.
Congress has ended the corn ethanol tax subsidy.
That the taxpayer will no longer be shelling out billions to support this industry is a good thing. However, the news isn’t all good for the free market, as the mandates forcing an increase in ethanol use remain in effect.
