The Hill’s A.B Stoddard took her questions about taxes, energy and gay marriage to Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) Thursday in a The Hill Policy Conversation.
It was a Super Bowl ad that told a super-truth about the revival of the American auto industry because of the successful policies of President Obama. No doubt Ron Paul can dig up some Austrian economists to disagree, Mitt Romney can say he would have preferred his approach of massive layoffs and a wave of bankruptcy filings throughout the auto sectors, and Newt Gingrich can claim it was about black people on food stamps.
In my last column, “A tale of two Romneys,” I suggested that George Romney, a great governor and auto-industry CEO, would have supported President Obama's successful policy and deplored the vulture-capitalist alternative offered by his son, Mitt.
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." — Lord Acton, 1887
Have you traveled by air recently? Have you been one of the many lucky enough to be groped by the Transportation Security Administration? Every week there is a report of some TSA agent at some airport in what I still like to believe is our great nation clearly overstepping boundaries, and every subsequent report is worse than the last.
There is one story that has gotten a lot of publicity recently, and rightly so. Apparently a 95-year-old leukemia patient on her way to an assisted-living facility required further screening because there was something "wet" in her diaper. Something wet? In a diaper!? Heavens, no!
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) presented legislation for consideration this week in the ongoing 82nd Texas Legislature, First Called Session that would ban intrusive TSA pat-downs.
"We applaud Gov. Perry for presenting this legislation," 10th Amendment Center communications director Mike Maharrey said. "James Madison said states are duty bound to interpose when the federal government overreaches its constitutional limits. Nobody can argue that requiring citizens to get groped by a badged agent in order to get on an airplane doesn't step way over the line."
Remember when, from CNBC to Rush Limbaugh, the chant from the right was how evil the General Motors policy was? They called it Government Motors. They called it socialism. They called it liberal big government.
And then: They gobbled IPO shares in the new GM stock. They applauded GM sales and earnings. They praised the new jobs GM created. They appeared on CNBC to discuss the great GM comeback.
Cowboy movies are making a big comeback. We spent 40-some years in the sky with
Han Solo, Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Ripley; now we come back to Earth and to the
epic journey we were born to: the journey West, starring Fess Parker and John Wayne.
In that regard, the excellent new Coen Brothers movie, “True Grit,” might be considered
a reenactment. Like all reenactments, it is a return to original principles. Make
no mistake: The journey across the Western desert is as essential a transformation
to American consciousness as the pilgrim’s progress was to Plymouth Rock. Possibly
why Jon Huntsman Jr., former governor of Utah, causes such a stir. He has made that
journey on our behalf. Maybe he is the one, the one who would bring us forward with
him. Bad news for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
I stand with groups representing heroic troops, patriotic veterans and America's military families and oppose exempting auto dealers from the consumer-protection provisions of the financial bill.
This is a new low, even by the low standards of what money can buy in Washington. On Monday the United States Senate voted to exempt auto dealers from the consumer protection provision of the bill. As supporters of our troops, military families and veterans know well, there have been cases of auto dealers ripping off military families and active-duty troops.
About that proposed Continental-United Airlines merger: My latest struggles as a passenger on another airline, American, offer evidence that while the players are congratulating themselves for their humongous financial deal, we need to make sure this really isn't another raw deal for the passengers.
American is not up there at the top of my favorites right now. Going to Miami last week, I got in 11 hours late. Coming back, eight hours. In both cases, the reasons were mechanical breakdowns, which raises questions, in my mind, about the quality of maintenance and/or the condition of the fleet.
Congress has finally worked itself into a full-throated frenzy over the recent
series of recalls by the world’s No. 1 auto producer.
I use the word “finally” because any time Americans are dying as a result of
businesses cutting corners, it’s our government’s job to step in quickly and
address the problem.
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