Day: January 5, 2023

(Natural News) The Democrat-induced inflationary cycle the country has been enduring for most of Joe Biden’s term, worsened by the party’s massive spending, poor monetary policies during the two years they controlled Congress under Biden, and insistence on keeping much of the country shut down during the pandemic, is only going to get worse, according to new data.

Food inflation especially, which has been at near-record highs, will not ease off, either.

According to Reuters, other factors are responsible as well, such as drought conditions, too much rain in some cases, and the continuing war between Ukraine and Russia, two countries that produce much of the world’s grain.

“Rice and wheat stores likely won’t be replenished in the first half of 2023. Edible oil supplies are down because of adverse weather in Latin America and Southeast Asia,” the report said, adding:

Food prices climbed to record peaks in 2022. Import costs rose to hover around a $2 trillion record high. That hit millions of people worldwide, especially those already struggling with hunger and poverty.

Wheat jumped to an all-time high in March after Russia’s invasion of key grain exporter Ukraine. The same was true of palm oil – while corn and soybeans climbed to a decade high.

Inflation earlier last year was hitting 9 percent and has since eased off somewhat but remained high at 7.1 percent last month. For the year, inflation averaged about 7.7 percent, taking massive bites out of family budgets. It was “a staggering 14% in the 20 months since President Biden was inaugurated,” noted the New York Post in November, shortly after the midterm election results indicated that Republicans were going to take control of the House. “Real wages have fallen approximately 4%. And the stock market — even with a strong week — remains down 16% for the year.”

“The Federal Reserve is doing the heavy-lifting on inflation, and has already hiked the federal funds rate from near-zero to nearly 4%. This has pushed up mortgage rates from 2.6% to 7.1%, and combined with rising house prices to double the monthly mortgage on a new median-priced home, from $1,148 to $2,445,” the report continued.

That the GOP won partial control of Congress — Democrats still control the Senate and Biden remains in the White House — will be a good thing for inflation (and, indirectly, Biden as well), The Post noted further.

The outlet noted that the answer isn’t to let the Fed clamp down so hard on lending that the economy tanks (which is actually happening already). A better solution, the report argues, is for the GOP-controlled House and Democrats in the Senate to work with Biden on the adoption of policies that will bring it down naturally.

“Yes, much of the inflation reflects an economic hangover from the pandemic. Yet President Biden and Democrats have actively driven prices higher through energy regulations, tariffs, Buy America rules, tightened ethanol mandates, Davis-Bacon rules raising construction costs, and restrictions on new building,” the report noted.

The worst contributor to higher prices has been the historic spending spree by Biden and his party over the past couple of years, which added $4.8 trillion to the national debt. Spending at a time of heightened demand flooded the economy with dollars, thereby raising the prices on a diminished supply of goods and food. The result was easy for economists to predict: Higher prices.

“Republicans may not have produced a comprehensive anti-inflation agenda, but their most valuable weapon will be gridlock. While Biden has already enacted $4.8 trillion in new spending, he had proposed a staggering $11 trillion during his 2020 campaign. Any chance of enacting the final $6.2 trillion in remaining promises — digging the inflation and deficit ditch even deeper — is almost surely dead with a GOP House,” The Post’s report continued, adding that, “ironically,” that outcome is probably the best for Biden.

Republicans may not be able to elect a Speaker — embarrassing in and of itself — but by denying Biden and Democrats their checkbook, inflation isn’t likely to get worse, even if it doesn’t improve.

Sources include:

NYPost.com

Reuters.com

(Natural News) Once again, the lefties running Joe Biden’s regime are demonstrating that the Democratic Party is the party of authoritarianism, tyranny, and downright lunacy.

During the Obama regime, busy body bureaucrats in the Environmental Protection Agency attempted to impose a rule that would give the federal government authority to literally lord over mud puddles and ditches that contained water, a massive overreach that essentially gave the EPA the power to govern over all private property, effectively demoting owners to taxpaying advisers on their own land.

That rule was tanked by President Donald Trump when he took office, but shortly before the first of the year, the Biden regime revived it, per Resist the Mainstream:

The EPA signed off on the revised definition of “Waters of the United States” on Dec. 29 while the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers signed off on the revised definitions on Dec. 28.

The revised rules define what types of water bodies are protected under the Clean Water Act and were based on definitions that were put in place before 2015 during the Obama administration.

The Trump administration reversed course from the Obama administration, which looked for ways to expand federal protections of waterways.

Except, the purpose was never to “protect waterways” — you don’t designate mud puddles and creeks on private land as “waters of the United States.” No, the objective was and remains to exert federal control over private property, which is about as unconstitutional as it gets.

“The Trump administration’s rule benefited property owners, including farmers, builders, and oil producers, who were concerned about feds regulating ravines and creeks on private property, like farms,” the report stated. “The Trump-era rule was thrown out by U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Marquez, who said the regulations ignored that smaller waterways could affect the health of waterways they flow into.”

When it comes to bad ideas from Democrats, they never really go away, they go dormant for a while, as Natural News reported in 2019:

The Obama Administration used both the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as weapons to steal property from individuals and to convert state land over to the ownership of an all-powerful federal government. Many would argue that this plot was influenced by the United Nation’s (U.N.) Agenda 21, which was sold under the guise of “sustainable development” of natural resources – an idea that Obama sympathized with.

Nearly a dozen states sued the Obama regime at the time, and a federal court found that they not only had grounds to sue, but that the rule was an unconstitutional land grab.

U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood ruled at the time that Obama arrogantly disregarded the constitutional balance of powers between the states and the federal government.

“The court finds that both because of its combination with tributaries and the selection of over-broad geographic limits without showing a significant nexus, the adjacent waters definition in the WOTUS rule is unlawful under Justice Kennedy’s Rapanos opinion,” she wrote.

“Most importantly,” Wood stated, “that significant increase in jurisdiction takes land and water falling traditionally under the states’ authority and transfers them to federal authority.”

She adds, “In light of this significant intrusion on traditional state authority, the CWA still contains the policy language of recognizing traditional state power in this area, and Congress has not made any clear or manifest statement to authorize intrusion into that traditional state power since Rapanos,” she noted further.

It seems likely that Biden’s implementation of the rule will meet similar resistance and a similar fate.

“Rural America doesn’t need yet another rule giving the federal government more power over farming and private property,” Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.) said in a statement last week, according to Fox Business. “The federal government shouldn’t have jurisdiction to regulate puddles, ditches, seasonal creeks or culverts. All this rule does is make it more difficult to grow food or build anything.”

“This is a step in the wrong direction from the Biden administration and it infringes on the rights of Montana farmers, ranchers and landowners,” added Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) said in a statement last week. “This overreaching rule threatens Montana ag and natural resources and is unacceptable. I will continue to vigorously fight to protect Montanans from out-of-touch rules handed down from D.C. bureaucrats.”

Sources include:

FoxBusiness.com

NaturalNews.com

ResistTheMainstream.com

(Natural News) Because they don’t apparently think there are any other problems in the country, like high food prices, an out-of-control border, falling 401(k) accounts, or woke curriculum in our public schools, a group of lawmakers are once again looking to ban health supplements.

“If this proposed legislation passes, more than 41,000 nutritional supplements could vanish from store and internet shelves. Crafted and ramrodded by … two senators, this act would cripple small companies and turn nutritional supplements into near-worthless pharmaceutical products,” The Epoch Times reported this week.

“In April 2022, Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Mike Braun, R-Ind., introduced the Dietary Supplement Listing Act of 2022. The Act would require supplement makers to provide information about their products to the FDA,” the outlet added.

According to the report, here is a sampling of what the legislation would create if it passes:

— A federal database for dietary supplements, requiring manufacturers to submit reams of information to the Food and Drug Administration (which would no doubt be used to shut them down over ‘false claims’ at some point);

— Mandatory Product Listing, or MPL, for all dietary supplements as a means of allowing the FDA to know which products are currently on the market and the ingredients in them;

— A redundancy in regulatory control that is problematic and burdensome, especially for smaller companies;

— It would give the FDA the power to ban supplements from the market altogether;

— The MPL requirement could make it easier for the FDA to acquire premarket approval authority, which would fundamentally change consumer access to supplements;

— Concentrate the industry into fewer companies, as multinationals including Nestle, Bayer, Unilever, Proctor & Gamble, and Clorox have been snatching up supplement companies at an increasingly fast pace (in 2018 there were 83 transactions but that rose to 137 by 2021).

The Epoch Times noted further:

The U.S. supplement market was valued at $48.4 billion in 2021, with an expected compounded annual growth rate of 8.9%. In the U.S., where 80% of Americans use dietary supplements, the industry is viewed as trustworthy by the majority of adults (79%). However, access to high-quality supplements is continually being threatened by legislation, along with corporate mergers and acquisitions.

Proposed legislation is calling for a federal database for dietary supplements, which could pave the way for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to gain premarket approval power — changing access to supplements as we know it.

Much of what the legislation would require is already being done, making this bill not just redundant but unnecessary — another hint that there is a nefarious purpose behind it (think big government nanny state).

“The information that MPL would require is already available via existing sources, including facility registrations and product labels, which include ingredients and dosing information readily available for the public to see. The National Institutes of Health Dietary Supplement Label Database also contains some supplement label information,” the outlet’s report continued.

According to Michael McGuffin, president of the American Herbal Products Association (AHPA), in an interview with Nutritional Outlook, “We keep … wonder[ing] why the reporting requirement is so redundant. It requires submission of not just the label but also a whole bunch of information that’s already on the label … You gotta ask this question: Should American taxpayers pay for two databases?”

The answer, of course, is no.

Daniel Fabricant, president and CEO of the Natural Products Association (NPA), also told Nutritional Outlook: “The thing is, if the safeguards were there” — meaning language built into the bill to clearly state that the law doesn’t let FDA reject any database submissions — “they would be specifically spelled out. They would say, ‘Hey, nothing in this act would allow the Secretary to remove an ingredient that isn’t the subject of final agency action.’”

He added: “Now, if the goal is something else, well then people need to be honest about what that goal is.”

Sources include:

TheEpochTimes.com

SupplementReport.com