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The Internal Revenue Service said it will start regulating tax preparation companies for the first time. Tax preparers will have to register with the federal government and company employees will have to pass competency tests and stay up to date on tax laws by taking 15 hours of classes every year, the IRS announced Monday.

(CNSNews.com) – The House health-care reform plan unveiled last week by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) would do more than regulate insurance companies – it would even regulate vending machines. The bill, which is posted online, would require that vending machine operators either create new machines that allow the customer to view nutrition facts or post nutritional information for each product near “each article of food or the selection button.

The New Government One Line Policy Guidelines Copyrighted by FaceFwd.com If it moves, regulate it If it works, tax it If it opposes, squash it If it underperforms, subsidize it If it thinks, threaten it If it prays, outlaw it If it produces, destabilize it If it reports, subvert it If it cares, ridicule it If it governs, corrupt it If it votes, buy it If it questions, ridicule it If it organizes, illegalize it If it protests, destroy it If it teaches, propagandize it

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led us into this economic crisis, but one of the biggest was that our economy was left exposed by regulations that were out of date and regulators who weren't minding the store.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...

Canadian actors made a case for new media funding at a hearing today before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. The performers helped kick off the first day of hearings on regulating online content by urging the CRTC to make Internet service providers follow the same rules as television and radio broadcasters and protect Canadian content online. "This is a battle for the future. What we want is a place for Canadian storytellers and our stories," said Richard Hardacre national president of ACTRA, the union representing 21,000 English-speaking artists across all media platforms. "We want to share our talents with...

A jury sentenced a Lakeview man to 10 years in prison for growing nearly 7,500 marijuana plants. Andrew Stever, 40, was sentenced on Monday after a three-day trial in the Federal District Court in Medford.Ten years is the mandatory minimum sentence for anyone convicted of growing 1,000 or more pot plants. In July 2007, officers from several local, state and federal agencies found 7,459 plants growing on Stever's Lakeview property, which bordered Forest Service land. Two men fled the scene, leaving behind personal property and three firearms, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Portland. Physical evidence and testimony linked...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama on Monday said that if elected he would establish an economy-wide cap-and-trade program that would sharply cut greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050. In a speech prepared for delivery in Portsmouth, N.H., the Illinois senator said the cap-and-trade plan would be the centerpiece of a wide-ranging set of measures designed to cut emissions of gases tied to global warming and weaning the United States off of dependence on oil. Under a cap-and-trade plan, companies that produce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases receive or buy credits that give them the right to emit a...

Clinton: FDA should regulate tobacco CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa, Aug. 27 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton called for U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulation of tobacco and a national war on cancer. The New York Democrat and presidential candidate made the remarks Monday at the Livestrong Presidential Cancer Form in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Clinton urged "a much more aggressive outreach. That's why I favor the FDA being able to regulate advertising about nicotine and tobacco products. And we're going to push through, I hope, a bill to get that done." Such regulation would require an amendment to an old law....

Sacramento -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation Friday that will make California the first state in the country to adopt comprehensive controls on fish farming, a growing industry that ocean advocates say is a threat to the marine environment. The state Fish and Game Commission will issue permits and regulate businesses that want to raise penned fish off the coast under the legislation authored by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto. The new law is aimed at a new industry, dubbed aquaculture, which has sprung up in coastal states. California, which does not currently have any coastal fish farms, will...

Remember the Big Bad Wolf? He dressed up as Grandma, hoping to fool Little Red Riding Hood long enough to eat her. Well, that's the same tactic some liberal groups and Democrats are using these days in Washington, D.C., to get government control over the Internet: Dress up a bad idea in familiar and comforting words and hope the American public will be fooled. This very bad scheme is dressed up in the oh-so-sweet sounding notion of "net neutrality." Those who coined the "net neutrality" term are hoping the words will make the public, and especially lawmakers, believe it's a...

WASHINGTON - The Federal Election Commission proposed new rules Friday that would leave almost all Internet political activity unregulated. The proposal would, however, require paid advertisements for federal candidates on the Internet to be paid for with money regulated by federal campaign law. There has been an explosion of political activity on the Internet and political bloggers who offer diverse views say they should be free of government regulation. In a summary of the proposal, the FEC said the rules "are intended to ensure that political committees properly finance and disclose their Internet communications, without impeding individual citizens from using...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - State air regulators on Thursday approved new regulations to curb pollution from cargo ships, cruise liners and other large vessels that enter state ports, making California one of the first states to regulate emissions from oceangoing ships. The California Air Resources Board also passed new rules to reduce emissions from the cranes, fork lifts, tractors and trucks that move cargo at state ports. Both sets of regulations are scheduled to take effect in 2007. Environmental groups praised the board's actions, but ship operators questioned whether California had the right to regulate ships beyond state waters. The...

AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE 12-05-04 To those who support our constitutionally limited “Republican Form of Government“, Raich v. Ashcroft is not about “medical Marijuana” but rather, the case presents a chance to correct a despotic decision made by the SCOTUS in 1942 concerning Congress’ power to regulate commerce in which the Court gave a new meaning to the word “commerce” in order to allow part of FDR’s NEW DEAL socialism [price controls] to pass as being constitutional, when it was not. The following article is worth reading, and can be found at findlaw.com.The Supreme Court Hears Oral Argument on a...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

FEC May Regulate Web Political Activity Email this Story Oct 13, 7:55 AM (ET) By SHARON THEIMER (AP) President Bush and and first lady Laura Bush leave "Richardson's Cuisine of New Mexico" restaurant... Full Image WASHINGTON (AP) - With political fund raising, campaign advertising and organizing taking place in full swing over the Internet, it may just be a matter of time before the Federal Election Commission joins the action. Well, that time may be now. A recent federal court ruling says the FEC must extend some of the nation's new campaign finance and spending limits to political activity on...

WASHINGTON (AP) - With political fund raising, campaign advertising and organizing taking place in full swing over the Internet, it may just be a matter of time before the Federal Election Commission joins the action. Well, that time may be now. A recent federal court ruling says the FEC must extend some of the nation's new campaign finance and spending limits to political activity on the Internet. Long reluctant to step into online political activity, the agency is considering whether to appeal. But vice chairwoman Ellen Weintraub said the Internet may prove to be an unavoidable area for the six-member...

Do bullets tell tales? By Nell Boyce The ballistics expert left no room for doubt. Testifying November 6 in the trial of accused sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad, he asserted that bullets from victims' bodies matched the rifle found in Muhammad's Chevrolet Caprice "to the exclusion of all other firearms." But the same day, in a Baltimore courtroom, ballistics itself was on trial. There, a federal judge agreed to examine the scientific foundations of bullet matching before deciding whether an expert's assertion of a "match" could be admitted in an upcoming murder trial. That hearing is just the most recent...

Bustamante Wants to Regulate Big Oil By TOM CHORNEAU Associated Press Writer SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- Lt. Gov Cruz Bustamante on Thursday accused the big oil companies of ripping off Californians and vowed to bring them under state regulatory control as he began what shaped up as a frenetic day of campaigning by gubernatorial candidates around the state. "Californians are being gouged, and under current law we are powerless to do anything about it," said Bustamante, standing in front of a Sacramento gas station. He announced he would press the Legislature to amend the state constitution to bring the oil...

<p>WASHINGTON(AP) - Supreme Court justices found themselves Tuesday in the "guck" - in one justice's word - of trying to determine whether a farmer's plowing can be regulated.</p> <p>Legal arguments shared court time with a discussion of farming implements in the case of a California farmer who is challenging $500,000 in fines and an order to restore four acres of wetlands.</p>