No respect for Parliament. No respect for judges. No respect for the constitution. December gave us a taste of what’s coming in 2011.

Obama’s administration grabs the power to regulate the Internet. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has a board of five people who are selected and nominated by the President. The FCC declared herself authorized to define rules about how and what can be done on the Internet. With this decision she brings the American Internet under the control of the US government. Three people, all selected by Obama, two women and one man, approved the decision against the two men, chosen by Bush during his presidency. The FCC took her decision although over 300 of the federal senators and House representatives of the 535 in total, a clear majority, had written a statement opposing such power grab. The aversion will certainly be even larger in the new 2011 Congress. The FCC action, with full support of Obama, is also in direct violation of the decision of a federal judge, who in April 2010 decided the FCC has no power to regulate the Internet.

The Internet is working just fine: an explosion of new applications with a tsunami of new users all using faster and faster technology. Never before existed a medium whereon the people were able to express themselves so openly and freely. The Internet knocks the control of the information flow out of the hands of the political, economical, social, and media elites.

Do you know anything functioning better after the government starts meddling with it? Absolutely not, on the contrary! Growth and renewal are stifled, cause every authority tends to like the status quo. New rules are designed to punish certain players and to favor other regime friendly actors. It is inevitable the content will be controlled somehow, since here lays the real challenge for the government.

Responding to the opposition, the chairman of the FCC, Julius Genachowski, said, he will only intervene with a ‘soft hand’. How naive do they think we are? Once a foot through the door, the government always forces itself fast and completely inside to rule with a ‘hard fist’.

Because Obama doesn’t respect the judge, and since he goes against the will of the people, the new Congress must try to recapture liberty. This is possible by abolishing the FCC and all its regulations. It would mean a fantastic boost for the US economy, and serious savings for taxpayers, consumers and businesses. But of course, Obama will veto such new law. The next best thing for Congress is to starve the FCC for cash, by not budgeting any money for this prehistoric commission to stop her activities.

To refresh our memory:

1. The FCC is the same organization that obliged everybody to use the monopoly telephone system of Bell. (Reagan forced the split up in 1984).
2. The FCC is an unelected group who needed over 20 years to allow wireless technology in telephony.
3. This elitist club controlled with a ‘fairness doctrine’ what could be said on the radio, until Reagan abolished the doctrine in 1987. Fairness? Typically leftist: pack your intentions under a name defining just the opposite.

Leftist organizations in the US, as for example ‘Free Press’, ‘SocialistProject’, ‘Pew Trust’, ‘MoveOn.org’, with deep connections into this Obama Administration, are openly dreaming about the reintroduction of the ‘Fairness Doctrine’ on radio, TV and the Internet. As John Fund wrote in his eye-opening article in the Wall Street Journal of December 20, 2010:

"The FCC's "National Broadband Plan," released last spring, included only five citations of respected think tanks such as the International Technology and Innovation Foundation or the Brookings Institution. But the report cited research from liberal groups such as Free Press, Public Knowledge, Pew and the New America Foundation more than 50 times. So the "media reform" movement paid for research that backed its views, paid activists to promote the research, saw its allies installed in the FCC and other key agencies, and paid for the FCC research that evaluated the research they had already paid for. Now they have their policy. That's quite a coup."

The control of all news organizations and their products is what these groups are after. Their dream would be an attack on free speech, and unconstitutional. But, does Obama consider the constitution as something more valuable than a scrap of paper?

Obama’s EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, publishes very soon a new set of rules and taxes to limit the production of CO2. Congress, controlled by Democrats, refused to do so in 2010. The new Congress, with the Republican majority, will certainly not limit the production of CO2. No worries: Obama again circumvents Parliament, Congress. The new EPA rules will limit the emission of CO2 by power plants, among other industries. The moment the existing plants do their maintenance and upgrades of their production facilities, something done every year, they will be subject to the new rules. About half of the electricity consumption is produced in the USA using coal. The USA has the world’s biggest proven reserves of coal. Obama’s policy may shut down 1/3 of all coal using power plants, and that in the near future! Access to electricity by the people and by businesses will very probably be hampered. Black outs as in Third World countries can be expected. The cost of electricity will rise dramatically in the USA.

Again, the only option for Congress is to vote to abolish the EPA, or at least cut her funding. Obama knows he still has enough support in Congress to let his veto stand, since only a 2/3 majority in both Chambers can overrule a veto. In the mean time, Obama is free to continue to hamper the growth of the US economy. In the press he will feign surprise about the flight of US industries out of the country, and the persistence of high unemployment. In the same breath he will call CEO’s Benedict Arnolds, traitors of our country.

Obama’s National Labor Relations Board announces a new rule: private companies will be forced to inform their workforce about the right to be represented by Unions in the company. Posters must be hung in strategic places on company property. In the first days of his administration Obama ordered exactly the same rule on all companies doing business with the government. Now he goes after all companies.

Unions are losing members in the private sector since decades (2009: only 7.2% of the workforce is a union member – US Dep. Of Labor). Even the Democratic Congress was not willing to give Unions in the private sector more rights during their majority rule in 2009 and 2010. Since years, the Unions dream of abolishing the secret ballot during Union elections. This would allow them to pressure individual workers. The blocked law in Congress was named ‘Card-Check’. It would have been enough for Unions to collect a signed card by 50% + 1 employee, to oblige management of the company to discuss everything with the Union instead of with the individual employee.

A new idea launched recently is to allow all employees to vote on the Internet during a few weeks. To allow them to make the correct decision I suppose. We do not need a secret voting booth on a defined election day any longer. This new proposal opens the door as well for the Unions to intimidate employees, since secret voting is out of the window.

Starting 2011 the New Congress will have to explicitly forbid several of the Obama bureaucracies from inventing new rules. Obama starts a clever tactic to overwhelm Republicans in Congress with time consuming discussions and decisions on second-string problems. We can be sure he will plead emotionally and untruthfully about the necessity of these new authorities in the establishment press. It is Obama’s aim to delay or avoid all major strategic decisions in Congress. Picture the Republicans trying to fill a multitude of breaches in the dike, robbing them from the time to think about diverting the river. In the mean time Obama continues to handicap the economy, and erode the freedom of the people. His veto will not be overturned.

The real question is: will the Republicans in Congress be encapsulated, or will they push bold fundamental changes, by, if necessary, closing down Obama’s government, by not voting any spending budget to force Obama into compromises.

Obama knows the wheels of the judicial systems turn very slowly, that it will take many years before eventually the Supreme Court decides on Obama’s policies.

How far from tyranny is the Head of the Republic removed with his disdain for Congress and the Judicial System?