Free Republic

Bypassing Congress, the Obama administration has issued a proposed administrative rule, which if adopted, would mandate the installation of “black boxes” in all automobiles and light trucks beginning in 2014. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) proposed the regulation on Dec. 7, which it said “would capture valuable safety-related data in the seconds before and during a motor vehicle crash.” The proposed standard would require automakers to install event data recorders (EDRs)—so-called “black box devices”—to collect specific safety-related data in all light passenger vehicles beginning Sept. 1, 2014. …

News that the Boston Globe could shutter its doors any day now, leaving the city without its most famous paper, prompted some reporter to ask White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs whether there would be a bailout for the newspaper industry. Gibbs said no: "I don’t know what, in all honesty, government can do about it.” But then he added that, "(Obama) believes there has to be a strong free press" and that the President has expressed "concern and sadness" over the state of the industry. Ding-Ding-Ding. Folks, a newspaper bailout is coming. Maybe not in time to save the...

In Washington these days, an 11-figure expenditure barely attracts notice. With Congress preoccupied with the massive, $700 billion bailout plan for the financial industry, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler have finally secured Part One of their own federal rescue plan. A bill set to be passed by Congress and signed by President Bush as early as this weekend—separate from the controversial Wall Street bailout plan—includes $25 billion in loans for the beleaguered Detroit automakers and several of their suppliers. "It seemed like a lot when we first started pushing this," says Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, one of the...