18 Oct 2019

Why I Now Support Trump

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Guys like George Will and Bill Kristol ought to read this USAToday article and wake up.

All Andy Johnson wanted to do was build a pond.

Andy, a welder, and his wife, Katie, have four girls and a small farm in Wyoming, and they needed a place for their horses and cattle to drink and graze.

Working with state engineers, Andy and Katie spent hours, as well as most of their savings, constructing the pond, filling it with filtered water, providing a habitat for trout, ducks, herons, moose and bald eagles.

Approximately two years later, the project came to a screeching halt when bureaucrats from the Environmental Protection Agency knocked on Johnson’s door, informing him that, by building a pond on his own property without their permission, he had violated the Clean Water Act.

And so began a years-long back and forth between Johnson and the EPA, with Johnson presenting documentation from the state showing that his stock pond was exempt from the Clean Water Act and studies that showed his pond provided positive environmental benefits. The EPA, however, claimed that the rocks, sand and concrete Johnson used to create the dam and spillway were pollutants.

And the EPA — an agency in possession of armed enforcement — was not about to let Johnson live peacefully with his pond. He had 90 days to rip out the pond and fill it in or be subject to $16 million in fines.

Though he likely didn’t know it, Johnson was in good company.

In 2007, Mike and Chantell Sackett were threatened by the EPA with $75,000 a day in fines for trying to build a house on their own property, across the road and 500 feet away from Priest Lake in Idaho.

Charles Johnson, a Massachusetts cranberry farmer, spent millions of dollars fighting the agency for 22 years for the right to farm his own land. He finally settled in 2012, at the age of 80.

Kevin Lunny lost his family’s oyster company in California when the Department of the Interior granted itself limitless discretion to reissue the required permit and argued that Lunny didn’t have the right to sue.

In Alaska, the Army Corps of Engineers denied Richard Schok the ability to expand his pipe fabrication business when they claimed that permafrost — the subsurface layer of soil that remains frozen throughout the year — was actually a wetland.

All of these cases share a common feature: They arose from unelected bureaucrats making completely selective decisions about how a law should be interpreted and enforced, without the oversight or input of Congress or the public.

In bureaucrat-speak, these decisions are often referred to as “guidance documents” or “advisory opinions” and represent an agency’s way of “interpreting” regulations and statutes.

But unlike formal regulations, guidance documents simply arise from an agency’s whim. There is no transparent process with statutory requirements for ample legal justifications, cost benefit analysis and a process for public comment and assessment.

Rather, agency bureaucrats simply decide that a policy will exist, and then will it to life. They are then free to enforce it on unsuspecting Americans, who often have little clue that such a document or policy even exists.

The subjective, secretive nature of the process has led one critic to deem it “regulatory dark matter.”

This “government by memo” is how the Obama administration effectively mandated that colleges lower the burden of proof in sexual assault tribunals on their campuses in 2011.

Two years later, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a bulletin informing that auto lenders would be liable for racial discrimination based on the makeup of their lending portfolios.

In 2015, the Department of Labor upended the entire labor market with a blog post announcing it was now classifying some independent contractors as full-time employees.

This type of murky, unclear, bureaucrat-driven style of regulating is exactly what Americans fear from the administrative state. It is, essentially, bullying by the government. Indeed, in the Sackett case, the EPA claimed the couple did not even have the right to challenge the agency’s finding in court. (The Supreme Court unanimously reversed the agency in 2012.)

The Trump administration is taking welcome steps to stop the bureaucratic bullying. With the signing of two executive orders last week, the administration is requiring that these guidance documents be subject to transparent formulation and notice before enforcement. Critically, these orders also make sure ordinary Americans have the ability to challenge the government’s determination against them.

RTWT

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5 Feedbacks on "Why I Now Support Trump"

OneGuy

This is why the swamp is desperate and will likely win. There is a lot of wealth and power at risk. That is the swamp wants your wealth and your power and Trump is the clinker in their plans.

My prediction is: in 2020 Trump will win. He will win the popular vote and the electoral college vote. BUT it won’t show up in the actual count. By this I mean like the election in Florida in 2000 the left will try to steal the election but unlike in Florida they will not try to do it on TV. It WILL happen but it will be in the old fashioned way like they used to do in the 19th and early 20th century where they stuffed the ballot box, paid street people to vote, bought unions and other special interest groups etc.

It “seems” formidable to actually steal the national election but it isn’t. Most states are a given; that is California, Oregon, NY, etc. will go to the Dems and some states will go to the Republicans. There are about 5 states that decide the presidency AND within these five states their are one or two at most counties that decide the state. So all the Dems have to do is steal the election in 8 counties. AND by bad luck these 8 counties are already controlled by Dems and contain huge numbers of illiterate and easily controlled groups. This is happening right now; that is right now NGOs and unions are setting up the process of stealing the election. By November of 2020 it will happen and the Republicans/Trump will be scammed and the election will be stolen and the media will go along with it.



Mike-SMO

Geee! Just like the EU.

Rule by memo, safe in the reality that it is/was virtually impossible to get a majority of elected officials in the EU to oppose the action. A significant reason for the Brexit vote.



Nori

The Media will go along with it?
Seriously?
The Media ARE IT.

They’ve embraced EPA’s horrorshows ever since its inception.

Rule of Law?
Smirk*glass clink*smirk some more*



JK Brown

There was a similar situation a bit over 800 years ago that prompted a watershed document. But in the US, at least in 2015, the American universities’ Liberal Arts departments completely ignored this 800th anniversary, which tells us a lot about the state of American Liberal Arts education.

==============

“John comes to power in 1199 and England is more or less bankrupt. In order to raise money for the crown he has to get creative. At the time, as a result of William the Conqueror a century earlier, there’s a concept called the Royal Forest. A Royal Forest doesn’t necessarily have trees. It’s just a parcel of land. It could be heath or swamp or hills or forest. You’re not allowed to cause any damage to the animals or greenery of the Royal Forest unless you pay for the privilege.

“That’s a nice little moneymaker, so what do you do if you’re John? That’s right. You expand the Royal Forest. By the time of the Magna Carta the Royal Forest is up to something like 20% of the land in England. What this means, essentially, is that if you own land that has been afforested by the crown, you now have to pay for the privilege to use your own land. If you own a bit of fenland that’s no good for anything but pigs, you have to pay pannage even though there’s no other use for it. If you want to heat your hovel in the winter, you’re paying estover for firewood and turbary for turf. If you want to keep a cow and that cow is going to eat grass, that’s agistment. That’s on land you theoretically own, mind.

“There are instances of entire villages being burned out in advance of afforestation amounting essentially to seizure of land. The law of the forest was enforced somewhat arbitrarily and without due process. You could be blinded or mutilated or killed for poaching a deer. You could be severely fined for just about anything.

The Magna Carta and the companion document the Charter of the Forest are a rare example of what happens when you push Monarchic rights too far. ”

http://www.magnacartacanada.ca/the-magna-carta-and-beer/



Nori

Environmentalism,done Royally.
Lackwits don’t change much over time.

And here we are.



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