Toyota, meet Ray Donavan:
(In 1985) Reagan administration labor secretary Ray Donavan and six others were indicted in Bronx County, New York, and accused of fraud and larceny in connection with a construction project for a New York City Subway tunnel. Donovan was forced to resign from his post, but when the trial concluded more than two years later, he and his co-defendants had been acquitted of every last one of the hundred counts against them. Having endured the expense and emotional upheaval of this ordeal, Donovan famously asked, “Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?”
If such an office existed, Toyota’s U.S. operations would lining up at the window today. From the Associated Press:
Electronic Flaws Did Not Cause Toyota Problems, U.S. Says
The Obama administration’s investigation into Toyota safety problems found no electronic flaws to account for reports of sudden, unintentional acceleration and other safety problems. Government investigators said Tuesday the only known cause of the problems are mechanical defects that were fixed in previous recalls.
Recall that the Associated Press’s Ken Thomas was a willing participant in what was from all appearances an orchestrated media, government, and trial lawyer pile-on a year ago. Anyone with the most basic understanding of Japanese culture could tell that assertions that the company “bragged” and “boasted” about saving money on recalls were bogus. Bragging is a strict cultural taboo; anyone who engages in it in a business setting can kiss their career good-bye. News reports gleefully quoted NHTSA official Olivia Alair, who “just so happened” to be a former Obama campaign Regional Director in Ohio who narrowly avoided a felony prosecution for illegal voting-related activity in Ohio in 2008.
So where does Toyota go to get its media-enabled Obama administration-smeared reputation back?
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At PalWatch.org: “The Muslim Brotherhood – in its own words” (HT JPost):
National goal: Islamic world domination
Means: Jihad – a mandatory religious duty … “The symbol of the [Muslim] Brotherhood is the book of Allah [the Quran] between two swords. The swords symbolize Jihad and the force that protects the truth represented in Allah’s book.”
Timing: Don’t rush, prepare carefully for Jihad
Personal goal: Aspire to Shahada – Death for Allah
Jihad against Israel
At the LA Times (HT Hot Air), January 31 (note that the browser window title is “U.S. Sees a Role for Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt”):
U.S. open to a role for Islamists in new Egypt government
But the Muslim Brotherhood must renounce violence and support democracy, the White House says.
That’s like asking Christians to renounce their Bible. It’s not going to happen.
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Temple of Mut did a word-use count on President Obama’s State of the Union speech a couple of weeks ago:
from the advanced script of the State of the Union — I = 46; me = 4; my = 5
Okay, let’s build on that a bit. I reviewed the ABC transcript and came up with: I = 47; me = 4; my (referring to himself, not quoting others) = 3.
Compare that to Ronald Reagan’s January 1983 State of the Union speech: I = 31; me = 8; my = 1; myself = 1.
And this is where Obama was trying to mimic Reagan.
Let’s look at the 2010 SOTU, from the White House web site: I = 72; me = 10; my = 10; myself = 0; forms of “America” = 74.
Whether or not he’s trying to be someone he isn’t, the Punk President personifies the type of person pilloried in this Beatle Song.
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“Home-Price Drop Leaves 27% of U.S. Owners Underwater on Loans, Zillow Says”
The home price drop has continued because the economy has, on net, gone nowhere since the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy began in roughly June of 2008.
The economy has, on net, gone nowhere (that’s right, nowhere) because Pelosi, Obama, and Reid chose bogus, historically-disproven economic “stimulus” to revive the economy (this assumes that they really wanted it to revive, which remains an open question) instead of historically proven tax cuts (which, properly targeted, probably only needed to be about 1/3 of the size of the failed “stimulus”), regulatory relief, and other freedom-enhancing measures. Additionally, the administration’s HAMP (Home Affordable Modification Program) has done nothing but HAMPer what would have been a rough but preferable pullout from the Democrat-driven housing debacle.
Home prices would have bottomed out long ago and would now be in the midst of recovering nicely if the administration had employed the historically proven economic strategies.