Ray LaHood: Obama's Power-Mad Cell Phone Czar

Just when you think the lunacy of the Obama czars can't get any worse. Now we have LaHood trying to be the cell phone czar.


By Michelle Malkin (Archive) · Friday, November 19, 2010
 
America is in debt past its eyeballs. Unemployment remains stuck near double digits. Small and large businesses, unions and insurers are clamoring for Obamacare waivers in droves. Jihadists are making a mockery of homeland security. And border chaos reigns. So, what's one of the Obama administration's top domestic policy agenda items this month? Combating distracted drivers.
What? You missed the Million Anti-Distracted Drivers Protest March on Washington and the Great Grassroots Groundswell for federal intervention on our highways and byways? Don't worry. You weren't the only one.
Making the cable TV rounds to unveil a public service announcement campaign against "epidemic" cell phone use and texting on the road, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood revealed bizarre and alarming plans on Wednesday to install devices in cars that would block a driver's ability to communicate.
"There's a lot of technology out there now that can disable phones, and we're looking at that," he threatened. LaHood -- a liberal Republican and pork-addicted Chicago crony who embodies Obama "bipartisanship" -- envisions centralized government mechanisms to shut off commuters' BlackBerries and iPhones.
And that's just the start. "We need to do a lot more if we're going to save lives," LaHood vowed, while paying obligatory lip service to encouraging "personal responsibility." Will the cell phone banners ban radios, GPS devices, makeup and fast food in cars next? All are also listed as causes of distracted driver-induced accidents.
Any death due to such reckless behavior is tragic. But by "saving lives," what cell phone czar LaHood really means is "controlling lives." There are already 30 states with laws in place regulating drivers' cell phone and/or texting habits. The District of Columbia and Guam also passed bans. The safety benefits of such laws are in dispute.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety examined insurance claims and driving habits in Louisiana, Washington, Minnesota and California, which all passed texting bans two years ago. Its study found that when compared to neighboring states that had not yet banned texting while driving (Arkansas, Texas and Mississippi), the no-texting states actually reported higher accident rates among young drivers -- while the states with no bans maintained constant accident rates. Safety officials theorized that drivers in no-texting states may have adjusted their habits to hide their cell phone use from visual detection by police -- incentivizing even riskier behavior.
LaHood and his fellow social meddlers have lashed out at the study and any other evidence that state enforcement of these bans is futile. But there's a long history of government safety regulations backfiring on central planners. Back in the 1970s, the federal drive to require child safety-caps on aspirin bottles resulted in no reduction in child poisoning deaths. In fact, renowned risk analyst Kip Viscusi at Harvard Law School found that the regulations induced many parents to leave the caps off altogether because they were inconvenient and difficult to remove.
Moreover, the push for federal policing of our driving habits comes just as the federal government itself reports that the rate of teenage-related car accidents has fallen. Yes, fallen. Despite increased cell phone use, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that when the years 2004 through 2008 were compared, there was a 38 percent reduction in the number of car accidents involving 16 and 17 year olds.
So what's really driving LaHood? He's pursued an anti-car ideological zeal from Day One -- from entertaining proposals to impose mileage taxes on drivers and to track drivers' routes, to redistributing tax dollars to pie-in-the-sky high-rail projects that no private business will touch, to peddling a "livability initiative" that would discourage suburban growth and corral residents in high-density areas dependent on public transportation.
Like the rest of Obama's radicals, the Transportation Department's self-appointed cell phone czar is a power-hungry busybody hiding behind children to expand government's reach. If only federal agencies came equipped with anti-big government ignition breathalyzer locks.
COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM

Rabid anti-gunner to head ATF?

Obama could appoint Traver to head ATF without Senate approval

http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/obama-could-appoint-traver-to-head-atf-without-senate-approval

 President Obama could exploit his power to make temporary appointments during the end of year adjournment of Congress and bypass Senate approval of Andrew Traver to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/atf-testimony-admits-many-unregistered-machine-guns-allowed-by-ruling

A bit of background: Traver (not "Taver") considers himself a “partner” with licensed firearms dealers and the National Shooting Sports Foundation evidently just eats that up. The fact that he made a name for himself enforcing citizen disarmament edicts after swearing an oath to the Constitution surely must count for something…as does the fact that he did it in Chi-Town.

David says it best; 
Here and now is the time to let NRA and other gun groups know in no uncertain terms:  A confirmation vote must be scored against any Senator who approves this nominee.
There damn well had better be a confirmation fight.

Traver nomination to lead BATFE sparks hot opposition

http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-seattle/traver-nomination-to-lead-batfe-sparks-hot-opposition

The President has announced his choice to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to be Chicago Special Agent in Charge Andrew Traver.
Traver is no stranger to gun prohibitionists. Indeed, he appears to be their good buddy, having worked as an advisor with several of them on the decidedly anti-gun “Gun Violence Reduction Project” back in 2007. That was a little joint cooperative effort by the anti-gun Joyce Foundation and the equally anti-gun International Association for Chiefs of Police.

Obama names anti-gun extremist as next BATFE head

http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-st-louis/obama-names-anti-gun-extremist-as-next-batfe-head

Well, it's official (if misspelled, in the New York Times)--Andrew Traver is President Obama's choice to be the BATFE's next Supreme Leader:

In August, sources in the ATF said Andy Traver, a special agent in charge of the ATF in Chicago, was being considered for the job. Gun-lobby representatives immediately said they would oppose his nomination because they thought he was too close to gun-control activists. 

Hmm . . . "too close to gun control activists" is one way to put it, but a more accurate way might be to say that he has been an activist for forcible citizen disarmament.

All of the nay-sayers keep telling us Obama doesn't want to take our guns. Yeah, right. His Attorney General and head of Homeland Security are both known anti-gunners. Now he's wanting this tool to head the ATF. The agency that is in complete control of every aspect of firearms in this country.  The agency that murdered innocent women and children at Waco.

Before the anti's start with, but he signed the bill to allow concealed weapons in National Parks. Yeah he did. Only because it was attached to the credit card bill that he so desperately wanted. If the park carry bill would have been submitted alone, it would have been vetoed.

His two SCOTUS justices are both anti-gun. Sotomayor declared that Heller was settled law. Then when McDonald came up she said it wasn't settled law and went against the Constitution. Kagen will do the same thing if another similar case comes up.

The evidence is there for those that open their eyes and look. But the anti's will say, oh no, That can't be true. If it's not true, why does the Brady Bunch love this nominee? They have one purpose, the complete civilian disarmament of the U.S. Their idea of "reasonable" gun control is complete control.

Everyone that belives in the Constitution and the right to bear arms needs to contact their Senators and demand a hearing on Traver. He needs to be thrown out of the ATF altogether.This is one government agency that has entirely too much power.
Apply for a FFL and they will tell you that you just signed away your 4th Amendment rights. They can come in here any time and look at my records. They don't have to call ahead, they don't need a warrant. They have done this to me a couple times. They have even called me on the phone and had me research my records for them. And there is no saying no. They will show up in person and then I could lose my license.

Don't try and tell me how Obama is all for gun rights. I've done the research. I've seen where he has stood over the years. And it is NOT for the 2nd Amendment.

Leave my "junk" alone

 This was just too good not to pass on. The Government is out of control. We the people need to put our foot down. Searching Granny and 3 year old blond blue eyed children has never uncovered a bomb.

Don't Touch My Junk

By Charles Krauthammer (Archive) · Friday, November 19, 2010
WASHINGTON -- Ah, the airport, where modern folk heroes are made. The airport, where that inspired flight attendant did what everyone who's ever been in the spam-in-a-can crush of a flying aluminum tube -- where we collectively pretend that a clutch of peanuts is a meal and a seat cushion is a "flotation device" -- has always dreamed of doing: pull the lever, blow the door, explode the chute, grab a beer, slide to the tarmac and walk through the gates to the sanity that lies beyond. Not since Rick and Louis disappeared into the Casablanca fog headed for the Free French garrison in Brazzaville has a stroll on the tarmac thrilled so many.
Who cares that the crazed steward got arrested, pleaded guilty to sundry charges, and probably was a rude, unpleasant SOB to begin with? Bonnie and Clyde were psychopaths, yet what child of the '60s did not fall in love with Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty?
And now three months later, the newest airport hero arrives. His genius was not innovation in getting out, but deconstructing the entire process of getting in. John Tyner, cleverly armed with an iPhone to give YouTube immortality to the encounter, took exception to the TSA guard about to give him the benefit of Homeland Security's newest brainstorm -- the upgraded, full-palm, up the groin, all-body pat-down. In a stroke, the young man ascended to myth, or at least the next edition of Bartlett's, warning the agent not to "touch my junk."
Not quite the 18th-century elegance of "Don't Tread on Me," but the age of Twitter has a different cadence from the age of the musket. What the modern battle cry lacks in archaic charm, it makes up for in full-body syllabic punch.
Don't touch my junk is the anthem of the modern man, the tea party patriot, the late-life libertarian, the midterm election voter. Don't touch my junk, Obamacare -- get out of my doctor's examining room, I'm wearing a paper-thin gown slit down the back. Don't touch my junk, Google -- Street View is cool, but get off my street. Don't touch my junk, you airport security goon -- my package belongs to no one but me, and do you really think I'm a Nigerian nut job preparing for my 72-virgin orgy by blowing my johnson to kingdom come?
In "Up in the Air," that ironic take on the cramped freneticism of airport life, George Clooney explains why he always follows Asians in the security line:
"They pack light, travel efficiently, and they got a thing for slip-on shoes, God love ‘em."
"That's racist!"
"I'm like my mother. I stereotype. It's faster."
That riff is a crowd-pleaser because everyone knows that the entire apparatus of the security line is a national homage to political correctness. Nowhere do more people meekly acquiesce to more useless inconvenience and needless indignity for less purpose. Wizened seniors strain to untie their shoes; beltless salesmen struggle comically to hold up their pants; 3-year-olds scream while being searched insanely for explosives -- when everyone, everyone, knows that none of these people is a threat to anyone.
We pretend that we go through this nonsense as a small price paid to assure the safety of air travel. Rubbish. This has nothing to do with safety -- 95 percent of these inspections, searches, shoe removals and pat-downs are ridiculously unnecessary. The only reason we continue to do this is that people are too cowed to even question the absurd taboo against profiling -- when the profile of the airline attacker is narrow, concrete, uniquely definable and universally known. So instead of seeking out terrorists, we seek out tubes of gel in stroller pouches.
The junk man's revolt marks the point at which a docile public declares that it will tolerate only so much idiocy. Metal detector? Back-of-the-hand pat? OK. We will swallow hard and pretend airline attackers are randomly distributed in the population.
But now you insist on a full-body scan, a fairly accurate representation of my naked image to be viewed by a total stranger? Or alternatively, the full-body pat-down, which, as the junk man correctly noted, would be sexual assault if performed by anyone else?
This time you have gone too far, Big Bro'. The sleeping giant awakes. Take my shoes, remove my belt, waste my time and try my patience. But don't touch my junk.
(c) 2010, The Washington Post Writers Group