Toyota – known far and wide for its excellent quality – suddenly has a spate of alleged quality break downs. Then the executives get hauled before a Congressional committee to be grilled by…well, paid tools of the United Auto Workers, which has never been able to unionize Toyota’s factories:

Thirty-one House Dems quizzing Toyota execs got UAW campaign cash

Two committees in the U.S. House of Representatives are holding hearings this week concerning allegations of sudden acceleration problems in Toyota cars and trucks sold in this country.

Among the witnesses appearing today at the hearing of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was Toyota CEO Akido Toyoda, grandson of the company founder. On Tuesday, James E. Lentz, Toyota USA’s top sales executive, appeared before the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

There is a combined total of 59 Democrats serving on these two panels, which hold potentially life-and-death power over Toyota’s ability to continue offering its products to American consumers. So far this year, 31 of the 59 have received re-election campaign contributions ranging from as low as $500 to as high as $10,000 from the United Auto Workers union.

And, of course, the stories of Toyota failing in quality is making that company out to be as bad in quality as General Motors – now partly owned by the UAW.

Anyone else smell a democRAT here?

It really does look like the child of the Obama campaign logo and the Islamic flag. In fact, the Obama logo was the first thing I thought of.

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From Rasmussen:

For the second straight week, Republican candidates lead Democrats by nine points in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot.

The new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 44% would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate while 35% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent.

Democrats haven’t led the “generic ballot” at Rasmussen since June 21st, 2009. If this holds true though November, then it will be a very fun and interesting election night.

Democrats still can turn this around – at least to the point where GOP gains are kept to the “first midterm” norm, which would not be enough for the GOP to capture either house. To turn it around, however, would require an abandonment of ObamaCare as well as a clear move on the part of Democrats to clean up government.

You see, its not just ObamaCare and the economy driving this. What is turning the usual weakness of the “in” party in to a potential meltdown is the perception among the populace that the government is corrupt and only out for itself and the well-connected. Pelosi promised the most ethical Congress in history while Obama promised transparency and a new bi-partisanship. Not only have they not delivered on their promises, but they’ve actually made corruption and partisanship worse than before.

Trouble is, they can’t really do it – as Pelosi and Reid are hip deep in the corruption and influence peddling of DC, while Obama simply doesn’t recognize that there is actually another party out there he has to work with (Chicago has been under one-party rule for many decades, and that is where Obama learned politics). To do the things necessary to save the Democrat’s day is beyond the capability of the Democrat leadership – and thus the hocus-pocus about “party of no” and other such political tricks. They can’t change and thus earn renewed power, so they are hoping to bamboozle the people.

It won’t work – the people are awake.

Because for them, abortion is more important than anything else:

New undercover footage shows staff at a Milwaukee, Wisc. Planned Parenthood abortion clinic apparently breaking the law by counseling a purportedly 14-year-old statutory rape victim not to tell anyone about her 31-year-old boyfriend, and coaching her how to obtain an abortion without her parents’ consent.

The new video, the seventh in a series from Live Action documenting similar behavior in 5 other states, comes amid recent controversy about Planned Parenthood’s compliance with state laws regarding minors and abortion.

After hearing that the girl is 14 and her boyfriend is “much older,” the counselor in the video says that whether or not the situation will be reported by clinic workers “depends on the person you’re disclosing that information to.” When the girl says that her boyfriend is 31, the counselor tells her, “You don’t have to say anything” about the statutory rape and instructs her, “Just give them the information that’s needed.” The counselor also confirms that the 31-year-old “boyfriend” will be paying for the abortion.

In Wisconsin, sex between an adult and a minor under age 16 is a felony, and health care professionals are required to report such cases to law enforcement immediately. The law specifically includes abortion providers in this requirement.

When you get in to dispensing death for pay, there isn’t any lower down the moral scale you can do. And so we see this again and again – and, remember, this is just the investigation of the practice. The reason this is being done is because of all the real cases of child abusers disposing of the strongest evidence against them via abortion.

Planned Parenthood still gets federal funding – what should be happening is prosecution as precursor to the dissolution of this criminal, anti-human organization.

As I’ve said, it is endemic to the Democrat party:

Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D-Texas) has accepted tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of trips to China from a development corporation in his hometown that he aided by securing earmarks and other federal assistance worth millions of dollars.

Ortiz has also traveled on at least one of these trips with his former chief of staff, Lencho Rendon, who was working for Ortiz when he secured a $5 million earmark for the Robstown Improvement Development Corp. The corporation has now hired Rendon as a consultant. Robstown Improvement is a nonprofit, city-chartered corporation that uses sales tax revenue to try to spur economic development in the city.

Just more of the usual back-and-forth. Ortiz claims he’s just being helpful – in which case, he wouldn’t have had money spent on himself to go to China. But, hey, a vacation is a vacation and who could pass up the opportunity to have one paid for by the organization you lavished taxpayer funds on? This more fun than a traditional bribe as you’re essentially bribing yourself – and with taxpayer money!

In an era of growing public anger over earmarks and lavish travel for Congressmen, that Ortiz would even think of doing this sort of thing indicates both how out of touch Democrats are as well as their supreme confidence that the rank-and-file Democrats will not punish them for it. Is there to be a primary challenger to Ortiz? Extraordinarily doubtful. The almost-certain outcome of this is that Ortiz will be re-elected and continue to do this sort of thing – and provide an example for all other Democrats on just what you can get away with if you have a “D” after your name and will make noises about social justice and such nonsense from time to time.

Its a taxpayer funded bonanza and the Democrats are living it up. We do, of course, have a chance to change this in November.

Before Democrats and Obamabots start claiming that the latest CBO Report, which claims as many as 2.1 million jobs were “created” because of the stimulus, one has to look beyond the headlines and at the actual text of the report.

p. 1

First, some of the reported jobs might have existed in the absence of the stimulus package.

p. 3

One factor that could make the reported figure too high is that recipients’ reports may include some employment that would have occurred without ARRA.

Perhaps the most telling thing is a footnote  on page one.

The number of jobs and other information compiled from recipients’ reports are shown at http://www.recovery.gov. A year of full-time-equivalent employment is 40 hours of employment per week for one year.

Oh really? Recovery.gov? The same site that has been criticized for being full of inaccurate data? The same site that reports on phantom jobs in phantom districts? Back in November, ABC NEws reported the following:

The White House’s Web site claims that more than 640,000 jobs have already been saved and created by the ” $787 billion stimulus program.

The reports used to come up with that number are riddled with errors. In addition to the jobs in non-existent congressional districts reported Monday by ABC News, in real congressional districts, there are also problems, lots of them.

Moore’s Shoes in Campbellsville, Ky., claims nine jobs were created from an $890 grant for nine pairs of work boots for the Army Corps of Engineers.

Head Start of Augusta, Ga., claimed 317 jobs with a $790,000 grant, but it was really just a one-time raise to its 317 employees.

So it’s no wonder the CBO Report doesn’t exactly reflect any confidence in the accuracy of it’s findings.  By it’s own admission data was limited, and there’s no way to tell how the economy would have performed without the stimulus. Of course, the biggest factor, I think, is that the source of their data, recovery.gov, is full of false figures designed to make the stimulus appear to be producing positive effects on the economy.

Which isn’t anything new, but this is rather brazen:

Perhaps the most widely repeated Democratic talking point in advance of tomorrow’s health-care summit is that the Republicans have yet to offer an alternative plan of their own…

Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters that if the Republicans posted an alternative to Obama’s plan, he’d be happy to post it on the White House web site:

“The president posted ideas of his on the White House website today. We hope Republicans will post their ideas either on their website, or we’d be happy to post them on ours, so that the American people could come to one location and find out the parameters of what will largely be discussed on Thursday,” Gibbs said.

But as Politico quickly discovered, Gibbs “may need to read the White House website more closely.”

Turns out the House Republicans’ plan has been online since October and already has its own link on the White House website. The White House encourages readers to “read more about House and Senate ideas from both parties on their websites.” The link sends readers to a House GOP website that includes a one-page summary sheet and the legislative text of their proposals.

Congressional Republicans were also quick to answer with a post of their own: “Where is the Republican health-care plan? Right here, CBO scored.” …

Why are Democrats advancing this lie? Because they know they’ve got a dog of a bill on their hands and may not be able to pass it – so the program now revolves around an attempt to run against a “do nothing”, Republican Congress which won’t even put up its own plan. The level of absurdity here is astounding – with massive majorities, Democrats are planning on running as if they were in the minority and if only the people will put Democrats in charge, progress can be made. Look for ads joining House and Senate GOP candidates to George Bush to complete this effort.

For Democrats, it is forever 2006-08.

Will it work? It will with the Democrat rank-and file, but I think that Independents are eyes open on all this sort of thing. It might have worked back in the pre-New Media days, but it won’t work, now.

That good, old Obama “Recovery” just keeps chugging along:

The number of “problem” U.S. banks jumped 27 percent during the fourth quarter of 2009 to 702, the highest level since 1993 and a sign the industry’s recovery is still shaky, regulators reported on Tuesday.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said the industry overall eked out a profit of $914 million for the quarter, benefiting from a healing economy, but said the improvement was concentrated in the largest banks.

The largest banks, of course, got the taxpayer money – and the printed money. Everything is great for the Banksters thanks to their men at Treasury and the Fed. For the mid- and small-sized banks, not so good. A lot of reasons for this, but one which will be crushing – indeed, already is becoming crushing – is noted by Mish:

Over the next few years, a wave of commercial real estate loan failures could threaten America’s already-weakened financial system. The Congressional Oversight Panel is deeply concerned that commercial loan losses could jeopardize the stability of many banks, particularly the nation’s mid-size and smaller banks, and that as the damage spreads beyond individual banks that it will contribute to prolonged weakness throughout the economy.

One key take away is the huge numbers of banks at risk of failure…. There are 358 banks in the size of $1 to $10 billion with excessive CRE (Commercial Real Estate loan) concentrations. There are an additional 2,115 banks in the size of $100 million to $1 billion with excessive CRE concentrations. Only 1 of the top 20 banks (greater than $100 billion) has excessive CRE concentrations. However, because of size, that 1 is important as well.

Certainly not all of those banks will fail, but hundreds of them will. Moreover, of all the banks, a whopping 2,988 out of 8,108 have excessive CRE concentrations. With inadequate loan loss provisions…

As I’ve said – the “recovery” is all smoke and mirrors. Its a bunch of money printed up out of nowhere or borrowed from the Chinese and shoved through the largest financial institutions, thus making it appear they have returned to profitability. It isn’t happening. The actual economy – the part which makes, mines and grows things – continues to contract. Unemployment continues to spread – both in numbers and duration.

How long can the Powers That Be keep the ball in the air? I don’t know – could even be another year or two. But next week, next month or next year, the crash is coming. There is no way to avoid it – policy can only make it a bit better, or worse, than its already set to be. The party is over – the time of printing fake money and borrowing against the future is finished. It doesn’t work. It never worked. It was an idiot idea put together by people who never understood that the real economy is make up of tens of millions individual actions which are collectively smarter than even 1,000 gathered Nobel Prize winners in Economics.

If we balance our budget right away and cut taxes on wealth creation, we can avoid the worst of what is coming. Or we can continue to try and borrow and print our way out of this – and have a 20 year long recession, which at times will look like the Great Depression. The choice is ours – and our best means of affecting the outcome is this November.

Excellent description of Obama’s “new” health care plan:

House Minority Leader John Boehner swiftly dismissed a revised White House plan on reforming health care, assailing it as “the same massive government takeover of health care’’ approved late last year by the Senate and House.

The West Chester Republican said the plan outlined Monday, Feb. 22, by President Barack Obama “crippled the credibility’’ of a scheduled televised bipartisan meeting Thursday between Obama and congressional leaders at Blair House, just across the street from the White House…

…Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, criticized the Obama plan as “repackaged,’’ and complained that “rather than integrating common-sense solutions into a plan that all Americans can support, the White House is doubling down on their effort to create a government takeover of healthcare.”

My guess is that they are really believing their talking points about how Americans really do support it, or would if it wasn’t for that dastardly “Party of No” which has prevented the Democrats from benefiting from their overwhelming majority…hey, I didn’t say it had to make sense. Most liberal ideas don’t, ya know?

Anyways, we’ll see how this plays out – maybe I’m wrong and the majority really thinks that Obama and Co can figure out what’s best for everyone else. And maybe I’m wrong and you can borrow and print your way to prosperity. I may be wrong about a lot of things – if I am, then I and my party will be utterly crushed in November and beyond.

I’m not, however, making any plans on being crushed…

UPDATE: Are Democrats heading for the exits on ObamaCare?

Normally, IMAO is just for laughs (although very, very good laughs…and instructions on what to do with hippies) – but this is a bit serious:

Let’s propose an amendment to the Constitution:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

How many Democrats, RINOs, newscasters, liberal bloggers, Constitutional scholars, U.S. presidents, etc, would recognize it for what it is.

And how many would criticize it as dangerous? Or racist? Or something.

It would be a lot of fun and exceptionally instructive, if we did this.