Category Archives: The State

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?

Updated: Fascism Rising: Demanding Your Data

Constitution, Fascism, Government, Individual Rights, Regulation, The State

The Constitution allows the state to count people once every ten years; it does not authorize name or information taking. The Census Bureau counts and collects information about us EVERY YEAR, all year round. There is no constitutional warrant for this intrusion, yet we accept and submit to it.
Jerry Day of the Matrix News Network advises that you ask the snots where did they derive the authority to demand your private data; show them a copy of the Constitution and request that they point to the part that authorizes their intrusion. His YouTube has had 1,237,101 views.
Did you know that virtually every government data base has either been lost, hacked or compromised? Mr. Day’s questions to the fascists who’re in violation of our 4th, and a lot more, are devastating. The bureaucrats don’t have to answer to anyone.

Update: IT HAS ARRIVED. Robert M. Groves, Director, US Census Bureau, informs this household in advance that “About one week from now, you will receive a 2010 Census form. … Please fill it out and mail it in promptly.” And in case you doubt that the welfare and the fascist arms of the state work in tandem: “Without a complete, accurate census, your community may not receive its fair share.”

For those who’ve compared resistance to the Census to tax objectors, there is no reference in the notice to a law enforcing this extraction of information. Taxation, by the way, is legal, if immoral—you flout the law at tremendous risk. But if there is no law behind the Census, perhaps the Constitution can prevail and resistance is worthwhile. Since I must both write a WND column for tomorrow and compete a book, I will leave the research to the clever posters of BAB.

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: ‘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.