Obama twists the knife in Toyota

The president won't cease in his relentless persecution of Toyota. Yesterday the government announced that they were fining the Japanese automaker $16.4 million, a new record that dwarfs any previous fines imposed by the Department of Transportation.

The proposed fine, announced Monday by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, is the most the government could levy for the sticking gas pedals that have led Toyota to recall millions of vehicles. There could be further penalties under continuing federal investigations. The Japanese automaker faces private lawsuits seeking many millions more.

Toyota Motor Corp. has recalled more than 6 million vehicles in the U.S., and more than 8 million worldwide, because of acceleration problems in multiple models and braking issues in the Prius hybrid.

Documents obtained from the automaker show that Toyota knew of the problem with the sticking gas pedals in late September but did not issue a recall until late January, LaHood said. The sticking pedals involved 2.3 million vehicles.

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For those reasons, LaHood said, the government is seeking a fine of $16.375 million, the maximum penalty possible. That dwarfs the previous record: In 2004, General Motors paid a $1 million fine for responding too slowly on a recall of nearly 600,000 vehicles over windshield wiper failure.

Meanwhile, Toyota is facing more than 200 lawsuits from alleged victims of sudden acceleration and their sales have plummeted. All this is to the advantage of GM and Chrysler, both government-owned car companies and competitors of Toyota. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has crusaded against Toyota for months now, a conflict of interest to say the least.

All the government-fueled outrage obscures the fact that this has happened before. In the 1980s, Audi spent five years recalling their Audi 5000 models after allegations of sudden acceleration surfaced. Audi faced lawsuits from more than 7,500 Audi owners and their sales plummeted. The media piled on: 60 Minutes went so far as to air an alleged demonstration of sudden acceleration in an Audi car, which was later discovered to have been staged. It took almost 20 years and a couple name changes of the Audi 5000 for sales to finally recover. All this was without a massive government fine and a showboating secretary of transportation.

Meanwhile, most people are perfectly content with their Toyota cars. The company remains the most popular and successful automaker in the world. Of the top five most popular car brands in the United States, two are Toyotas. Toyota also remains one of the last automakers in the United States without unionized workers.

The president's newest power player

At a recent speech in Peoria, Joe Biden said something very revealing.

During the annual Partners in Peace Celebration on Tuesday, Biden said [Transportation Secretary Ray] LaHood was Barack Obama's first choice for an appointment out of all the Cabinet positions he needed to fill.

"I remember my saying, 'Isn't he Republican?'" Biden said. "Which goes to show you, this is an all-Illinois team."

"He is the star of the Cabinet and he is the reason, he is the reason more than anyone else, why this Recovery Act is actually working, saving people's jobs, rebuilding infrastructure," Biden said. "He's a hands-on guy. There isn't anything, any detail, too small to attend to. And that's the way it gets done.

BIden has been known to exaggerate, but on this he's completely accurate. Ray LaHood's name seems everywhere lately. Most recently, he led the government's crusade against Toyota for allegedly dangerous defects and worked with the EPA to issue new greenhouse gas emission standards for cars. Prior to LaHood, the Department of Transportation was viewed as relatively unimportant, especially compared to the Pentagon or State Department. But this administration has made going green one of its top priorities, and that means getting people out of their cars. As LaHood forthrightly said of his collaboration with the EPA, "It is a way to coerce people out of their cars."

LaHood is a Republican, as Obama never tires of mentioning, but a very moderate one. A former congressman from Illinois, he refused to support George W. Bush's tax cuts and led a crusade against the death penalty. He also gained a reputation as one of the worst porkers and patronage men in Congress. The Club for Growth gave him a 0% rating for 2007 and Citizens Against Government Waste awarded him an 11% rating. Tellingly, LaHood was one of three congressional Republican candidates who didn't sign the Contract for America in 1994, one of the main designs of which was to curb excessive spending in government.

This wasteful fiscal liberal is now presiding over stimulus grants, which he's awarding largely to clean energy projects and bike paths. There's a reason the Amtrak-loving Biden praised LaHood so lavishly. LaHood's aim has been to promote and fund public transportation, particularly rail projects, at the expense of private car ownership. His campaign against Toyota led Rush Limbaugh to remark that LaHood was behaving like "one of the brand managers" for GM, which is now owned by the government.

Indeed, in a cabinet dominated by big names like Hillary Clinton and Tim Geithner, LaHood has probably been the biggest showboater. He's also been one of the most dangerous radicals.

Stimulus grants reveal Obama's plans for transportation

More on Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood's admission that he wants to coerce people out of their cars. The most powerful weapon in the arsenal of the Partnership for Sustainable Development is the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant. $1.5 billion was allotted in the stimulus for these grants, which are supposed to be awarded "on a competitive basis for capital investments in surface transportation projects that will have a significant impact on the Nation, a metropolitan area or a region."

In reality, the grants were used to pump money into so-called "green" transportation projects, particularly those that emphasized bicycling and public transportation. Within hours of the data being released, the Sierra Club was crowing about how walking and cycling were "big winners" on their website.

We took a closer look at the more than 50 TIGER grants that were awarded by LaHood's Department of Transportation. Of these, three funded projects exclusively focused on cycling and walking, including a $23 million bike path through Philadelphia and southern New Jersey. A further 14 of these grants went to projects that encouraged multiple forms of transportation. Most of these were so-called "multimodal" initiatives, which were usually projects that did some fixing up of existing roads while retrofitting or connecting them with bike paths and rail lines. The DOT says these projects were intended to "encourage transportation options" -- in other words, get people out of their cars and onto a train, bus, or path. Rail service cleaned up under TIGER with 11 new grants. Six more went to ports and five to buses. The remaining 12 were spent on highways and roads.

Some of the funding went to green bugaboos that had little to do with transportation. One $14 million grant went to make Maine's ports more environmentally-friendly. Another $22.3 million went to a business park in Rhode Island that is home to several wind power companies.

Of the TIGER grants, which were supposed to be awarded on the basis of effectiveness, less than a quarter went to road and highway projects. This is despite the fact that 91% of commuters drive to work in their cars. This is the future of transportation according to Obama: railroads, bicycles, and running shoes. LaHood's Department of Transportation has been kicking money to other forms of transportation at the expense of the good old-fashioned American car.

Obama's transportation policy to force people out of their cars

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has announced a new manifesto for the Obama Administration's transportation policy. Needless to say, automobiles don't play into it very prominently.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has announced that federal transportation policies will no longer favor “motorized” transportation, such as cars and trucks, over “non-motorized” transportation, such as walking and bicycling.

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“Today, I want to announce a sea change,” LaHood wrote. “People across America who value bicycling should have a voice when it comes to transportation planning. This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized.”

LaHood's vision is one where Americans commute to work partway on foot or bicycle and partway on public transportation. “Walking and bicycling are efficient transportation modes for most short trips and, where convenient intermodal systems exist, these nonmotorized trips can easily be linked with transit to significantly increase trip distance," he said. In other words, get people out of their gas-guzzling cars so they can commute to work without polluting.

LaHood's Department of Transportation has teamed up with the EPA and the HUD to form the Partnership for Sustainable Communities. This alliance was supposedly set up to search for ways to make transportation more environmentally-friendly, specifically through the use of stimulus grants to green projects. But at a recent talk at the National Press Club, LaHood revealed the real aim of the partnership.

“Some in the highway-supporters motorist groups have been concerned by your livability initiative,” said the moderator at the National Press Club event. “Is this an effort to make driving more torturous and to coerce people out of their cars?”

“It is a way to coerce people out of their cars,” said LaHood.

The moderator later asked: “Some conservative groups are wary of the livable communities program, saying it's an example of government intrusion into people's lives. How do you respond?”

“About everything we do around here is government intrusion in people's lives,” said LaHood. “So have at it.”

LaHood recently made a splash crusading against Toyota for accusations of unsafe vehicles. Those accusations were later revealed to be exaggerated. Many wondered at the time if LaHood was attacking Toyota to enrich GM and Chrysler, which are currently owned by the federal government. Now it seems the real goal of the Obama Administration is to force people out of their cars altogether in the name of the environment.

The Obama administration's outrageous Toyota fearmongering

Barack Obama's administration continues its disgusting war on Toyota. Last week the auto giant recalled millions of cars after being pressured by Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. The excuse was that too many complaints had been filed about Toyotas suddenly accelerating and crashing. Of course, there had also been complaints about government-owned GM and Chrysler cars, but strangely enough only Toyota was singled out.

Today, LaHood went a step further, urging drivers of affected Toyota models to return their cars to their dealership. Yes, during the worst recession since the Great Depression, a presidential administration actually asked people to send back their cars...even though the vast majority of Toyotas run wonderfully. Predictably, Toyota's stock plummeted.

Previously, Toyota had been the most successful competitor against GM and Chrysler. Its workforce also wasn't unionized, the Original Sin in the minds of liberals. Now Toyota's business has taken a severe hit and its executives are taking orders from the government. Welcome to Barack Obama's America.

Obama plays dirty with Toyota

Toyota has announced plans to recall and fix 7.5 million cars around the world -- all thanks to Barack Obama's administration. After reports of sudden acceleration in seven Toyota models came to its attention, Obama's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration put out a "consumer alert". When Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood got wind of this, he demanded that Toyota do a massive international recall of all these cars.

So why is the Obama Administration suddenly so interested in Toyota's acceleration problem. Let's look at the facts:

-- Barack Obama's government now owns GM and Chrysler which compete with Toyota.

-- Toyota has remained comparatively unaffected by the recession and gives GM and Chrysler the stiffest competition.

-- Toyota's plants, located in five states, are not unionized, a major liberal sin. They stand in stark contrast to GM and Chrysler where auto unions have huge ownership stakes thanks to Obama.

-- Will they bleat it's for public safety?? Well, GM and Chrysler have also had complaints filed about sudden acceleration problems, but they haven't received edicts from the government.

Obama's finally getting a head for business -- now that GM and Chrysler are under his control, it looks like he's trying to kneecap the remaining private car companies left in America.