Category Archives: Republicans

Toyota Shakedown Continues

Business, Government, Republicans, Technology, The State

Torquemada’s onslaught against Toyota has signaled to others in the business of shakedown to try their luck. That was what James Sikes, in his unstoppable Prius, was up to, as the malfunctioning media broadcast a blow-by-blow account of his Prius gone wild, while network bimbos looked on, shaking empty heads and tsk-tsking loudly.

Sikes was trying out the trick Rhonda Smith of Sevierville, Tenn., pioneered, and with which she won the Congressional inquisitors to her side. Smith’s run-away “Herbie” was a Lexus 350 ES sedan. You don’t want to get into one of those death traps.

Toyota Motor Corp. dismissed the story of a man [Sikes] who claimed his Prius sped out of control on the California freeway, saying Monday that its own tests found the car’s gas pedal and backup safety system were working just fine.

The automaker stopped short of saying James Sikes had staged a hoax last week but said his account did not square with a series of tests it conducted on the gas-electric hybrid.

The Regulator in the person of U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif) was looking over Toyota’s shoulder during the testing. We’re safe! He follows the proud tradition of the Floridian Republican, John Mica and Jason Chaffetz.

During the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform inquisition, last month, “in florid language,” Mica blasted a Toyota official: “‘I’m embarrassed for you, sir,’ Mica shrieked, clutching his smoldering toupee. Not much better was Chaffetz. This Republican admonished Mr. Inaba for an internal Toyota brief that called ‘the American government safety agency under the Obama administration less ‘industry friendly.'”

This revelatory reality—at least to Republicans—had pushed the Toyota team into a dalliance with the regulators. Any serious student of economics knows that regulation forces an entrepreneur to substitute viable, voluntary trades and transactions with politicized decision making. But what does Chaffetz [and his fellow Republicans] know?

The Pigs Outnumber The Productive

Debt, Democrats, Elections, Labor, Republicans, Socialism, The State, Welfare

The Wall Street Journal called it his finest hour. When Jim Bunning “dared to put a hold on a $10 billion spending bill to extend jobless insurance and fund transportation projects,” the a Republican from Kentucky was pilloried.

Read the emotional histrionics from the mindless mainstreamers here:

JON STEWART, HOST, “THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART”: Talking about Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning`s ongoing effort to single-handedly (EXPLETIVE DELETED) the extension of unemployment benefits for 1.1 million Americans.

ALI VELSHI, CNN REPORTER: I bet you Senator Jim Bunning has someplace warm to sleep tonight. But the Republican from Kentucky is almost single- handedly responsible for cutting a vital financial lifeline to more than a million down-and-out Americans.

ED SCHULTZ, HOST, “THE ED SHOW”: Is this the most heartless thing you have seen the Republicans do?

The whole affair is not even about the fact the “the president of the United States and the Democratic majority in the Senate” lied about their intention to abide by the new pay-go bill that they passed, … which “says specifically … that we should pay for everything that we spend on the floor of the U.S. Senate.”

Anyone with a brain cell knows that the pay-go promise is a lie, plain and simple, whether Democrats or Republicans commit to it. They all lie.

The lesson from Jim Bunning’s relatively minor, days-long standoff—a position not even the crooked Chris Matthews could condemn in its entirety —is this:

The welfare state is intractable. The pigs outnumber—or are stronger electorally than—the productive. The first are feeding off the second and will not let up. Try to put distance between the state’s dependents and their Big Teat, and they’ll tear you to pieces.

Updated: Here Comes Healthcare (Beating Back The Beast)

Barack Obama, Constitution, Democrats, Healthcare, Regulation, Republicans

How interesting that among the health-care-overall “ideas” coming from the Right, Obama is eager to consider the use of “undercover investigators” “to fight waste and fraud in federal health programs.” [WSJ]

Looking to push the “long and wrenching debate” over health care into its final stages, President Barack Obama asked lawmakers to schedule a vote on overhaul legislation “in the next few weeks.”

“No matter which approach you favor, I believe the United States Congress owes the American people a final vote on health-care reform,” Mr. Obama said Wednesday in remarks at the White House. “We have debated this issue thoroughly, not just for a year, but for decades.”
President Obama outlines his three-part proposal for health care reform in an address at the White House.
The president called for an “up-or-down vote,” likely opening the way for Democrats to use the budget reconciliation process to pass the legislation without Republican support.

The White House’s plan purports to expand health insurance to about 31 million Americans and is estimated to cost $950 billion over a decade. [For a realistic appraisal of the uninsured read “Destroying Healthcare For The Few Uninsured.”]

Curious too is BO’s support for reconciliation in passing his hulking health care bill. Reconciliation “is a procedure that allows the Senate to pass a bill with a simple majority, without needing 60 votes to override a filibuster.”

Both Republicans and Democrats have abused the procedure originated by a man I have great respect for: the elderly, ailing Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV). Last year Byrd issued this warning:

“I oppose using the budget reconciliation process to pass health care reform and climate change legislation…. As one of the authors of the reconciliation process, I can tell you that the ironclad parliamentary procedures it authorizes were never intended for this purpose.”

“But there is a big catch: Anything that is in a budget bill has to have a budget purpose. If not, the provision can be challenged under the ‘Byrd rule,’ named for Sen. Robert Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat.” [WSJ]

The president, as has been observed, is avoiding the use of the term reconciliation, instead calling for a simple ‘up or down vote.'” Big Daddy has emphasized his urge to come between Americans and the horrible health care insurance industry.

For their part, the Republicans did not want their ideas incorporated into the Bill. “Instead of passing a sweeping bill, Republicans say Congress should pass incremental legislation to curb medical malpractice lawsuits, allow insurers to sell policies across state lines and create high-risk pools for sick consumers to obtain coverage. They point to a House bill they unveiled last year with these provisions.” [WSJ]

Updated (March 4): Via the Campaign For Liberty:

“In the Virginia House of Delegates with a bipartisan vote of 70–29 (and currently advocating for its passage in the Senate), VA C4L has been closely working with state legislators to pass legislation nullifying any federal health insurance mandate and shielding Virginians from paying any penalties for not purchasing federally-approved health care.

SB 417, the Virginia Healthcare Freedom Act, passed in February with wide bipartisan support, and Governor McDonnell is expected to sign the legislation soon. Meanwhile, newly-elected pro-liberty Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is reportedly chomping at the bit to litigate Virginia’s sovereign rights should Washington pass some form of ObamaCare.

In Arizona, HCR 2014, the Health Care Freedom Act, passed the Arizona Legislature in 2009 and will be on the November 2010 ballot.

On February 17, C4L Vice President of Programs Matt Hawes appeared before the Maryland State Senate Finance Committee to testify on behalf of SB 397, the Health Care Freedom Act of 2010.

As Matt told the Committee, ‘SB 397 will help contribute to this renewed national discussion over the proper role of government in our lives and, more directly, it may help keep the federal government from continuing to expand its unconstitutional health care agenda. It is not only within the power of the sovereign state of Maryland, but it is its duty to stand between its people and an overreaching federal government.”’

Updated: ‘Conservatives’ Pine For Post Office

Affirmative Action, Debt, Free Markets, Labor, Multiculturalism, Republicans, The State

Chuckie Krauthammer hasn’t visited a United States Postal Service office lately. As a regular on Bret Baier’s Special Report, he was asked to prognosticate about the future of the USPS monopoly I described thus:

Having used the Canadian, South African and European equivalent services, I can safely say that there is no viler or more inhospitable dump than the United States Postal Service. The latter is far and away inferior to the aforementioned rival monopolies. Enviously I eye the items my mother posts from the Netherlands. Whereas mine are festooned with at least two labels per package; hers are form-free, care free, shipped with ease.

The Postal Service is in the red, for a change, “could lose a staggering $7 billion this year,” and “posted $3.8 billion in losses last year.”

The fattened Postmaster General John Potter is seeking some kind of mandate (and funding presumably … from China) to “move the Service forward.” He wants to “reinvest, redefine and reinvigorate the value of mail to business and households.”

Fighting for the USPS, its “$70 billion in unfunded liabilities, and the parasitical existence of 800,000 postal workers who live off the Federal Financing Bank (read: the taxpayer),” is Republican Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

“If you cut back services, you’re going to lose customers,” she stammered, as if the USPS has “customers”; it has captives, pinned down like butterflies by grotesque “service providers.”

In the name of tradition, Chuckie Krauthammer expressed nostalgic sentiments for the postman who came no matter the weather, and recommended rehabilitating this institution.

As I said, he clearly has not frequented a post office in a while. It’s a monument to the multicultural Managerial State and is packed with sour, affirmative action hires who speak in tongues. Grandma in a remote hamlet is unlikely to get her mail delivered by a friendly old timer. Oh no, those government jobs are reserved for “minorities.”

Update (March 3): A reminder: this post is about conservatives supporting the continued nationalization of a service delivered magnificently and morally by the free market. I’m sorry liberty lovers feel it is unworthy of their attention.