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“All Toyota vehicles bear my name,” the president and grandson of the founder writes. “When cars are damaged, it is as though I am as well…I, more than anyone, want Toyota’s cars to be safe.” A heartfelt OpEd, written by the best hired gun money can buy, and in testimony before Congress, Akio Toyoda amplifies his regret and sincerity. Yet a criminal investigation of the car...

Of all the professions in America, the one I consider the most important for an inquisitive, enlightened citizenry is the role our teachers play in private and public schools. Think about it. No other person, hopefully with the help and support of parents, has such an important impact on the development of a child than a teacher. I consider myself among the fortunate to have learned at the feet of Harold Ambuel,...

Can technology lower health care costs? George Pantos, Executive Director, Healthcare Performance Management Institute, former deputy undersecretary of Commerce, and former general counsel to the Self-Insurance Institute of America, raises the issue in a must-read op-ed in The Orange County Register. Here’s a small part of it: With his health care overhaul stalled, President Barack Obama has challenged...

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) is not someone I usually agree with, but he’s right about this:

That would be what most of us know as “the stimulus.” Republican leaders claim it hasn’t created a single job (while hastening to take credit for the jobs it’s provided at ribbon-cutting ceremonies across the nation).

This is one of those no, but, stories. I’m no great fan of polls. Too often the questions are rigged to prove a point. Often, the methodology is flawed or the demographics selected biased. I take polls for what they are: A flashpoint that may or not reflect a trend. And now the proverbial but. The Economist, published by our Brit friends across the pond, publishes a poll that indicates 34% Americans believe...

Senate Republicans have the Democrats so spooked with the threat of filibusters that a scaled down $15 billion jobs bill from an original $85 billion to help get thousands of Americans back to work while millions remain on the dole is being spun by both sides as a major victory. That’s like shooting beebees at a tank. And, wouldn’t you know the new kid on the block, Republican Sen. Scott Brown of...

RJ Matson, The St. Louis Post Dispatch This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to appear on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

Marketplace looks at one impact of the new rules for credit cards that went into effect today — a profit shift from penalties to perks. Banks used to make money on interest-rate increases and fees. With those (loosely) regulated now… RON SHEVLIN [a banking products analyst for the Aite Group]: The best customers for the credit card issuers are going to be people who pay the balances off every month...

Today brings a sharp contrast in political philosophies and economic reality. As Paul Krugman discourses on three decades of Republican attempts to shrink government and “drown it in the bathtub,” President Obama discloses his intention to stop feeding the free-market monster that has devoured American health care. In advance of Thursday’s summit, the White House leaks a proposal to oversee...

Michael Pettis is by far the best trade theorist I’ve come across and is supremely prescient and logical. He has changed my thinking a ton since I’ve started reading him, but his latest post is perhaps the most world altering for me. It explains what China’s currency peg really means, and why their massive reserves won’t protect them from a financial crisis.

Ayn Rand and the World She Made Reviewed by Ron Beasley The picture on the left may represent the beginning of the deregulation frenzy that resulted in the current world wide economic disaster. It was taken in 1974 by David Hume Kennerly and pictured are President Gerald Ford, Alan Greenspan, Ayn Rand, Rand’s husband Frank Conner and Greenspan’s mother Rose Goldsmith. The occasion was Alan Greenspan...

Newsweek has what we called a thumbsucker posing what if the Republicans were in control of Congress and the White House. I don’t mean to put words in their mouth, but the answer is: Not much. The article divides the issues confronting our federal executive and legislative branches albeit I must observe that health reform and gays in the military would never see the light of day in a nation run by Republicans. I...

Adele Stan at AlterNet unpacks Glenn Beck’s keynote speech at CPAC. Via Heather at Crooks and Liars and Digby at Hullabaloo. Complete video set at YouTube.

President Barack Obama’s support among Iowa independent voters is taking a nosedive, a new Iowa Poll shows. Mark Halperin reports on his lively The Page site: On Obama approval among Iowa independents: Currently: 38% November: 48% On Obama’s handling of his job: Currently: 46% approve November: 49% approve There is considerable analysis and speculation about why Obama is taking a hit among independent...

Obama’s Healthcare Summit Scam by Floyd and Mary Beth Brown “The proposal to televise a February 25 health-care summit with Republicans grew out of a conclusion by top White House advisers that Obama had bested House GOP leaders during a 90-minute televised discussion in Baltimore last month,” according to the Washington Post. We thought ObamaCare was pronounced dead with the election of Scott Brown, so...

Deng Coy Miel, Singapore This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

Harry Reid is now saying that health care reform will be passed by April, using reconciliation:

In researching data as fodder for a column touting the much ballyhooed televised summit on health care legislation next Thursday between President Obama and members of both parties in the House and Senate, I was dumbstruck by urban legends that usually get in the way of a good story. It involves cost containment. For-profit insurance carriers apply a model using premiums, share-of-costs and caps to balance income...

Ouch. America has done this to herself. The US rose throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries by protecting liberty, and especially economic liberty. Now, by many measures, there is more economic freedom in China than there is in the USA, where on the one hand, we have socialism for the rich with the bailouts and on the other, a situation in which 53% of Americans pay no tax on earnings, such that...

On the first anniversary of the stimulus bill, the Washington of absolutes is on display–Obama’s “Yes We Can” vs. the GOP’s “No You Don’t” with little space for the reality of mixed results and mixed feelings about a huge enterprise to save a crashing economy. “Anniversary of Stimulus Met with Praise and Scorn” is the headline of ProPublica, noting...

It was high comedy if not so tragic that zillions of readers responded to a Gail Collins column in the New York Times pitching their states as the worst in the nation. Illinois, New York and New Jersey were the top contenders. May I offer California? We on the Left Coast may lack in crooks in our state government but not in futility. Exhibit A: Have you noticed the U.S. Senate can’t get much done because...

Now the net neutrality debate is spreading across the pond to Europe, even as it continues to be batted around in Congress. Personally I’ve been wrestling with the net neutrality question for some time now and it’s not an easy one for me to nail down. On the one hand, there’s a certain libertarian, “Fight The Man” side of me that immediately gravitates toward it. We want the little...

WASHINGTON — If you want to be honest, face these facts: At this moment, President Obama is losing, Democrats are losing, and liberals are losing. Who’s winning? Republicans, conservatives, the practitioners of obstruction, and the Tea Party. The two immediate causes for this state of affairs are a single election result in Massachusetts, and the way the United States Senate operates....