Thursday, January 2, 2014

No respect for the law...

No respect for the law...  I'm talking about That One's administration, of course.  All through the ObamaCare rollout, we've watched as the administration simply disregards extant law whenever it's not convenient to them.  This outrageous violation of the U.S. Constitution has gone largely unremarked by the lamestream media, and unpunished by either the legislative or judicial branches.  We shouldn't be surprised when they do it again and again.  In at least one case, the lawless shenanigans of That One's bureaucratic minions has caught the attention of The Wall Street Journal:
Since the 1970s, annual federal appropriations bills have explicitly prohibited the federal workplace overseer from descending on small family farms. Specifically, OSHA does not have jurisdiction over "farming operations" with 10 or fewer employees.

But OSHA officials have found a novel way to circumvent this statutory restraint. The regulators have simply claimed the authority to rewrite the definition of farming. A remarkable 2011 memo from OSHA's enforcement chief to regional administrators at first acknowledges that the law prevents the agency from regulating small farms engaged in growing and harvesting crops and any "related activities." But then the memo proceeds to instruct employees on how to re-categorize small farms as commercial grain handlers. So OSHA inspectors have recently begun to descend on family farms, claiming the authority to regulate their grain storage bins.
This time, the bureaucrats seem to have tugged on a bigger tiger's tail than they had imagined.  When this outrage got the attention of The Wall Street Journal and a bunch of senators, OSHA suddenly backed off.  For now, at least.  But I have no doubt that That One and his fellows will be back at it again...

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