Chinese Trucks to be Built in the U.s

Car companies have been investing in China, but Tiger Truck refuses to go with the flow. Recently, the truck manufacturer announced that they will be producing Chinese trucks in the U.S. The assembly plant will be located in Jasper, Texas.

In a ceremony to announce the construction of the assembly plant, the owners of Tiger Trucks, Texas Congressman Kevin Brady, and other state officials were present. They jointly announced that Tiger Trucks will be the manufacturing trucks that are designed by the ChangAn Automobile Group and this is China’s third largest truck manufacturer.

“With so many U.S. manufacturers investing in China, I am particularly pleased to be investing in the U.S., hiring skilled U.S. workers and delivering superior products made here for our market in the Americas,” says Mike Ward, the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Tiger Trucks. “While others are trying to buy cheap parts from China, we are seeking important OEM and sourcing agreements with key U.S. suppliers. I couldn’t be more pleased with our long-standing partnership with ChangAn that leads to this historic first. In our off-road vehicle class, Tiger has been first to build an automatic transmission, 4WD, limited slip differential, electric drive, hybrid drive, and now, we will be the first to deliver true ‘Made in U.S.’ vehicles with a Chinese heritage. Our strong dealer network and fast-growing number of users seem to like what we are doing and now we can do it even better,” Ward added further.

The assembly plant to be constructed in Jasper will produce vehicles in early 2008. About 80 percent of the vehicles to be assembled at the Jasper plant will be for export. Tiger Trucks announced that they have initially planned the production of two truck platforms.

The first platform will support the Champ – a full-size pickup truck which will be available in either 2-door or 4-door configuration. The Leopard will also be built around the same platform as the Champ. The Leopard will be only for export and will be fitted with a diesel engine, dual rear-wheels and other features which will make it an efficient on-road vehicle.

The second platform is still to be named, but it is made for medium-duty truck. The vehicles to be built around the second platform will not only be built for export but will also be available in the U.S. market.

Congressman Brady expressed the sentiments of the community in his speech at the announcement ceremony: “With all the choices in North America available to Tiger Truck for the location of this important plant serving a large section of the international marketplace, we are particularly pleased that this remarkable facility was now available surrounded by an eager and skilled workforce positioned as it is to meet so many of your strategic objectives. All of Texas is celebrating this historic first with Tiger and we look forward to many good things to come.”

Just like the way a Toyota bumper protects the engine, the construction of the assembly plant will also protect the interest of skilled American auto workers.

KatieJones
http://www.articlesbase.com/automotive-articles/chinese-trucks-to-be-built-in-the-us-116241.html

Decision 2006 – Is The Republican ‘cut, Run And Scare’ Strategy Running On Fumes?

Over the course of George Bush’s six years in office it has become abundantly clear that Mr. Bush and his cronies are in a state of “willful denial” about the worsening situation in Iraq….and so is a large chunk of the American public, willingly or due to misleading partisan information.

As the temperature rises and with less than 5 weeks left to the mid-term elections, some of the most zealous backers of this administration in the Republican Party are running scared leaving Mr. Bush trapped holding the “hot plate.”

With the on-going “Sex & Pedophilia” scandal involving now resigned Republican Congressman, Mark Foley (R – FL), the focus on this administration has switched gears mid-stream—from a wanton catastrophe to a circus of “Catastrophilia.”

A homosexual Republican Congressman with Pedophilic tendencies is like “manna from heaven” for the Democrats. They can’t ask for a better gift so close to the elections—an opportunity to expose Republican hypocrisy. You can bet that mothers of all political persuasions will get an earful of this.

These revelations of the activities of Mr. Foley has prompted an all out “Circular Panic Shootout” amongst Republicans, with each and every one facing the electorate this November distancing himself/herself from Foley.

This “October Surprise” could be the final nail in the coffin for the Republican Party. The “chickens have come home to roost,” and the “Values” and “Faith” Party is in deep trouble.

“I will not withdraw even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me,”—George Bush, speaking to a group of Republicans in the White House, according to Bob Woodward (Award Winning Journalist) in his new book: State of Denial. Barney is one of the Bush’s two dogs.

In May 2003, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld while speaking to a cheering congregation of U.S. troops in Qatar said, “So when people are writing the history books, you’re going to be in it. Thank you very much.”

The Vice President Mr. Dick Cheney in an appearance on September 14, 2003 in a “Meet the Press” weekly show with NBC’s Tim Russert said, “My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.”

House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) recently, sounding much like CNN’s Lou Dobbs, linked immigrants to terrorist and criminal gangs by saying: “Illegal’s crossing our borders are gang members who cross to injure our citizens. This is a daily struggle in some towns.”

These four statements and many others I have not listed here sum up the dysfunctional, hypocritical and deceitful “Republican Mentality” that readily permeates the party from top to bottom.

If you read in between the lines, the intimation is that Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney have been fighting this war for the sake of “history,” ….and that “illegal immigrants” and by extension “legal immigrants” are just a bunch of criminals and terrorists—dangerous and deceitful rhetoric expressly intended drive an “immigration wedge” to divide America, and instill fear all the way to the November ballot box.

Like seasoned predators Republicans have in the last couple of years skillfully capitalized on a basic human instinct of “fear of the unknown” to weave a national security policy of “fear” into the psyche of the American public, with incredible effectiveness.

A few weeks to the mid-term elections, the “Kings” of “Wedge Issues” and partisan smears are at it again, even though they are clearly on the ropes this time around.

While Bush has been choreographing the “Terrorist Fear Branch,” the right wing of the Republican party led by xenophobes like Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, George Allen and James Sensenbrenner among many others have been “stroking” the locals by holding anti-immigrant town-hall style hate meetings to “rally the base” of the Republican party, a base comprising of maniacal extremists still hanging on to America’s bloody and racially intolerant past.

The so called “House Republican Immigration Field Hearings” conducted in the recent months supposedly explored the “societal and governmental costs of illegal immigrants,” use of health-care facilities, welfare and “the criminal consequences of illegal immigration.” These meetings turned out to be “Distortion Dens” in which immigrants were mercilessly vilified. Manufactured videos of immigrants crossing in from Mexico superimposed with images of Osama bin Laden and Zacharias Moussaoui were played to “fearful” Town-Hall congregants, and are still appearing on TV screens in numerous family living rooms across America.

Needless to say that the “positive” contributions of immigrants (illegal & legal) have been totally blanked out in favor of blood-letting, high-stakes demonizing, irrational and rampant xenophobia aimed at “the disease carrying homeland invaders.” Also, totally swept aside is the Senate bill that would have been a workable starting point from which to work on this complex issue, in order to reach a rational and comprehensive solution.

In order to placate their “base,” the Republican dominated U.S. government has been conducting sweeping immigration raids across the country, inhumanely separating children born in The United States, who are constitutionally American citizens, from their immigrant mothers and fathers …. well meaning “Economic Refugees,” from third world nations racked with incompetent and thieving governments…..some with the assistance of greedy U.S. multi-national corporations whose “colonial” and corrupt profit motive is legendary.

Even Tom Kean, former Republican Governor of New Jersey and a respected ex-911 commissioner has joined the fray for the sake of “Dear Party,” pulling a “Michael Moorer” on Democrats. Sources indicate that Mr. Kean was hired as a pre-production consultant for the movie “The path to 9-11″ a TV miniseries which grossly misrepresents the facts in the 9/11 Commission report and portrays the Clinton administration in bad light.

Clearly, a desperate attempt by Republican operatives in collaboration with a “ratings hungry” media powerhouse (ABC/Disney) to influence the electorate.

If this movie were not a sneaky political move why was an advance copy of the film given to right wing extremist radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh – a self-serving demagogue who has a penchant for monstrous distortions and extremist hyperbole.

Other reports from Washington indicate that the Republicans are planning to unload their significantly superior financial war chest on Democrats in the form of negative TV and Radio ads over personal issues and local controversies. According to these reports, the Republican Congressional committee has dispatched operatives to comb through personal records to find damaging information on their Democratic opponents.

Even though mud-flinging is a political staple for both parties and in-fact almost everywhere else in the world, the Republicans are masters at this game and can ratchet it up to ludicrous levels.

Look out for Republican candidates to become meaner and more twisted in the coming few weeks.

But will the moderate “swing” voters in both parties buy into this charade this time around?

According to a CNN Poll conducted on September 6, 57% of Americans without a high school education believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 911 attacks (a fact most recently denied in a news conference August 21, when President Bush said Hussein had “nothing” to do with the attacks), 54% of High School graduates believe likewise. Only 39% of college graduates believe the same. The number dwindles dramatically to 19% for postgraduates.

Are Americans that ill informed? If so then we should expect another Republican win this November.

Will red baiting terror, using politics of deceit, fear and hate work this time?

Will the Republican party successfully energize their “intolerant” right wing base and also scare the pants off moderate Republicans, Independents and even some Democrats….again?

Is the Republican Party running on fumes?

Cheap political scores that violate the core of internationally revered American values like hurriedly establishing military commissions that will utilize “alternative forms of torture” in order to claim the mantle as the “toughest in the war on terror” are very troubling, notwithstanding the fact that these measures have been implemented in other countries before with little or no success.

Piecemeal measures that are politically targeted and principally bankrupt, without any long-term solutions is not the way to govern this great nation.

Coercion, “bribery,” and scare tactics have destroyed the good standing of America in the eyes of the rest of the world during this administration’s tenure.

On moral, political and pragmatic grounds the Democratic Party or even better non-aligned independents should wake up and right the American ship, for the Republicans have failed miserably….they have bamboozled the citizenry, betrayed their trust and misappropriated their hard earned tax money in an unnecessary “imperialist” war.

Another Republican majority in both houses will be a disaster. America’s standing as measuring rod for the rest of the world has been severely compromised and stands to diminish even further if Republicans are given a blank check to continue with their “pillaging sham.”

The American people need to wake up too and send a strong message to both Parties, that partisan politicking without principle is damaging to all and sundry, party faithful or no party.

Perhaps we need a “rational” third party?

James Opiko
http://www.articlesbase.com/advertising-articles/decision-2006-is-the-republican-cut-run-and-scare-strategy-running-on-fumes-62372.html

This Is Not Your Dad’s Republican Party Anymore

Stock markets are strange because they reflect the sum total of all our hopes, fears and prejudices at the end of each day. Every so often something big comes along that can have very strong influence on the stock market, and the direction the market is going to take. Bear markets when they do come, come out of nowhere. Everybody is surprised by them, but once they happen, the pundits have what seem to be perfectly reasonable explanations for why they happen.

I submit to you that next week’s Congressional midterm elections will be seen retrospectively as a so-called WATERSHED election whereby dramatic change will be brought about. You will only know this in hindsight over time. If the Republicans are trounced in the House, and lose heavily in the Senate, there will be a tidal wave type change in the direction that the country is going.

During the course of the modern Presidency which is considered to be 1932 onward with FDR’s election, our leaders have always been influenced by polls. This is true for all Presidents except for our current President, George Bush. It is absolutely amazing to consider that our President won the White House by 557 votes in Florida in 2000 and 85,000 votes in Ohio in 2004, and nevertheless governs like he had a 40 state landslide.

He has adopted the notion that all he had to do is win by one vote, and the power was his to effectuate and do whatever he wanted to. For six years, he has been right. The Congress has essentially rubber-stamped everything the President has asked for, and he has not been held accountable for the false assumptions under which the war in Iraq was initially waged. Next week will be the first time to hold the President accountable for the mismanagement of the war over the last three years.

What kind of conservative is the President? He has outspent any liberal Democratic President in history, mounting up deficits at a rate that a drunken sailor would envy. He gave tax cuts to the rich, and financed the cuts through deficit spending by borrowing the money from Japan, China, and Europe, and leaving the unpaid burden to our children to worry about. Does this make sense to you? If you are going to give tax cuts, shouldn’t your budget be in surplus first.

He has chosen to cut all spending for stem cell research to protect the rights of the unborn, yet doesn’t believe in programs for the poor. A third of this country is running around without even the most basic health insurance, and he’s protecting the rights of the unborn.

He doesn’t want the government to fund abortions. Okay, but think about this. Without abortions over the last generation, there would have been 20 million unloved, uncared for additional children born in America. It would not have affected the rich; they always had access to abortions, and always will, regardless of the law. Where would we be today with such a policy? If you want to argue that these unborn children would have been adopted and cared for, I have one word for you, SURE. There are already hundreds of thousands of abused children going through our foster care system that nobody wants. The President would have added 20 million more.

Iraq is bleeding this country financially, and is in the very beginning of destroying our social fabric. You can count the children serving in Iraq of our Senators and Congressmen, and White House staff on the fingers of a mutilated left hand. Why is it that the so called folks who run the government never seem to have their children’s blood spilled on these foreign adventures? They are always willing to send somebody else to die.

By the way, just so you know, I consider myserlf a conservative Republican that is appalled at the actions of the leaders I participated in putting into office. This is not the party of Barry Goldwater who believed that abortion is a personal right, who believed that you don’t wage wars, unless you bring overwhelming force to the objective. This party has turned into a party of elitists, who were elected by average citizens just trying to do the right thing.

At the same time, these elected leaders are not responsive to us. Strange as it may seem, we elect our leaders, and after the election, the lobbyists OWN them. How can you possibly spend a hundred billion dollars on drugs for senior citizens, a program I support, and NOT write into the law that the government has the right to negotiate lower prices for these drugs? Wow, the drug companies give the Republicans over $10 million to fund the election, and the Republicans give the drug companies another $20 to $40 billion dollars in excess payments for their drugs. Frankly, the payoff wasn’t big enough.

How did it come to this point? The Republicans always stood for the rights of the individuals, and fiscal responsibility. Now we have thrown fiscal responsibility out the window. The leaders argue as long as the rate of growth, of the deficit is lower than the rate of growth of the economy, its okay to have deficits. This is the same line the Democrats used for 40 years, only now it’s coming out of the mouths of the Republicans.

Here’s the bottom line, and read it carefully. You and I as citizens of the greatest country in 10,000 years of civilization are at the crossroads. We have to choose and choose now. Our freedoms are being usurped by corporate and institutional interests. Once we elect officials, it seems they are at the mercy of lobbyists who have what seems like infinite amounts of money to influence our democratically chosen leaders. The laws and programs that you, and I as liberal, and conservative thinkers would choose are not getting done. Instead, it seems that special interests are having their needs met to the detriment of 300 million Americans.

We can not survive very long as a viable society, and meet the growing economic and military threat posed by China’s emergence, as well as other nation states unless we are all aligned in the same direction. The waste and mismanaged programs we are seeing are going to generate a drag on our system that will make us far less competitive in the next ten years to deal with the rest of the world. Farming is gone, it’s a non factor. Manufacturing is heading the same way, with globalization. We are headed towards a post-industrial society. We are almost there. We will move towards a fully service oriented society shortly. Will we have the jobs for our people to replace those jobs going overseas? Maybe, maybe not, but next week we have an election, you must choose, choose wisely.

Goodbye and Good Luck

Richard Stoyeck

PS:

The biggest joke is that if the Democrats get elected, we are going to trade one set of lobbyists for another, one set of special interests for another, one party devoid of ideas for another. Somehow, the people need to be back in control again, and voting for the default party isn’t the right answer either.

Richard Stoyeck
http://www.articlesbase.com/advertising-articles/this-is-not-your-dads-republican-party-anymore-71749.html