
Restoring your right to fix your car
In today's landscape, automakers are locking you out of fixing your own vehicles. They hoard the tools, software and know-how needed for repairs, in effort to establish a monopoly over auto repair.
That's not just un-American — it's a threat to our liberty and security.
Take this story from an active-duty logistics officer, knee-deep in South Korean mud, stunned to hear her Marine mechanic couldn't fix a broken generator.
Why? 'Because of the warranty, ma'am.'
A civilian corporate policy paralyzing our military? That's a SNAFU we cannot tolerate. Imagine MASH's Radar O'Reilly telling Colonel Potter his World War II Willys Jeep is down because the manufacturer says so. Absurd!
Thankfully, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gets it. He's demanding right-to-repair rules for all Army contracts, new and old, so our troops can keep equipment running in war zones without waiting on a corporate help desk. This saves taxpayer dollars, boosts readiness and cuts bureaucratic nonsense.
And what's good for our military is good for every American.
In Congress, I'm backing the bipartisan REPAIR Act. This bill forces automakers to share the tools, data and information needed for you, your local mechanic or independent shops to fix your car. No more gatekeeping. No more monopolies.
Right now, 63 percent of repair shops struggle with routine fixes because automakers withhold data. Half send cars to dealerships, jacking up costs by $3.1 billion annually.
Independent shops, employing nearly 5 million Americans and generating $500 billion a year, are the backbone of our communities. They're often the only option for families miles from a dealership. The National Federation of Independent Business says 90 percent of its members support right-to-repair. It's a no-brainer.
With car prices soaring and the average vehicle now 12.6 years old, families rely on trusted local garages charging 36 percent less than dealerships. These shops earn loyalty through honesty, skill and fair prices.
But modern cars aren't your granddad's Chevy. They're packed with computer systems — 1,000 to 3,000 chips in even basic models. Hybrids and EVs? Even more. Without access to diagnostic codes and repair manuals, mechanics are blindfolded.
Automakers claim they're protecting proprietary tech and warranties. Fine. The REPAIR Act ensures transparency without compromising cybersecurity, safety or intellectual property. It's about your right to fix what you own — not handing over trade secrets.
This bill unites Republicans and Democrats because it's common sense. It's about freedom, competition and fairness. Congress needs to quit stalling and pass the REPAIR Act. Let's put Americans back in the driver's seat — literally.
Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) represents Ohio's 8th congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. He spent 15 years starting, acquiring and growing manufacturing companies before replacing former Speaker John Boehner in the United States House.
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New York Post
21 minutes ago
- New York Post
How the Hunter Biden cover-up continues to this day
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That's why IRS Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley and Special Agent Joseph Ziegler blew up their successful careers and became whistleblowers. Hunter's business model during his father's vice presidency and beyond revolved around foreign lobbying — including for the corrupt Ukrainian energy company Burisma that was paying him a million dollars a year, Chinese government-linked firms BHR and CEFC, and an oligarch client in Romania. Advertisement In fact, the very first email this newspaper published from Hunter's infamous laptop was from a Burisma executive, thanking him for arranging a meeting with his father the previous night. It wasn't just any old meeting, either. Hunter had invited VP Biden to a private dinner at Georgetown restaurant Cafe Milano in April 2015 to meet his partners from Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan, as his former 'best friend in business' Devon Archer told Congress. 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There should be nothing about Political Figure 1 in here,' Wolf wrote in an August 2020 email, according to their whistleblower testimony to Congress. Advertisement Every morning, the NY POSTcast offers a deep dive into the headlines with the Post's signature mix of politics, business, pop culture, true crime and everything in between. Subscribe here! Whenever their investigations might lead to Joe Biden they found subpoenas were denied, interviews were canceled or not allowed, and Hunter's lawyers were tipped off before search warrants could be executed. Prosecutors cited bad 'optics' or questioned whether the 'juice was worth the squeeze' For instance, Shapley testified that Wolf refused to approve a search warrant for a guest house Hunter had been staying in on Joe's palatial Delaware estate as part of FARA-related evidence collection. When they discovered incriminating WhatsApp messages Hunter wrote to a business partner at Chinese energy company CEFC on July 30, 2017, citing his father, the investigators were blocked from using phone location data to confirm that Joe really was in the room. 'I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,' Hunter wrote, demanding $10 million. 'I am very concerned that the Chairman has either changed his mind and broken our deal without telling me or that he is unaware of the promises and assurances that have been made have not been kept.' Advertisement Hunter also threatened that his father would retaliate if the Chinese did not do as he commanded: 'I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction.' Here was Hunter explicitly claiming his father was involved in his business negotiations. Apart from the fact that Joe claimed that he knew nothing about his son's overseas business dealings, Shapley and Ziegler decided there were serious tax implications to the conversation, but they were blocked from pursuing them. They weren't even allowed to find out if Hunter had sent the message from Joe's house. 'The message was clear,' Shapley and Ziegler write in 'The Whistleblowers v. the Big Guy.' 'Although we were investigating Joe Biden's son — who, it seemed, had often involved his father in his shady overseas business dealings — none of our materials were supposed to mention Joe Biden. Advertisement 'Even when we needed material that might be in one of Joe Biden's homes or storage units, we couldn't mention him. The document might leak to the press, and that would make the Biden campaign look bad. 'And in the summer of 2020, there was nothing that the leadership of the FBI wanted less than to make Joe Biden look bad. Doing so might help elect Donald Trump for a second time.' 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Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Why banks hold the key to the Genius Act's breakthrough for stablecoins
A version of this story appeared in The Guidance newsletter on July 21. Sign up here. Last week, Congress and President Donald Trump passed first US crypto law of its kind. Now come the questions. Right at the top of the list: How will the Genius Act change the digital assets market, and for that matter, finance in general? At first glance, it's safe to say that Washington's newly minted stablecoin regime will reshape the crypto industry by opening the door to banks and other financial firms that wanted regulatory clarity before plying customers with blockchain-related products. This means payments, the lifeblood of the global economy, is ready for change. Turning point There is a lot of excitement around this prospect. Over the weekend Mastercard said the US had reached a 'turning point' in its adoption of blockchain technology for payments processing. As DL News has reported, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup are poised to integrate US dollar-backed stablecoins into their product offerings and payment systems. If stablecoins are to be a game changer in payments they have to be largely invisible. In other words, stablecoins should be as seamless in our daily lives as Apple Pay or Venmo or Revolut — utility-like applications we barely think about. This isn't just a technical challenge. It's also a regulatory and consumer behaviour project as well. For starters, stablecoin issuers will have to win over ordinary consumers. That may be challenging considering that stablecoin issuers, unlike banks, are barred from paying interest to accountholders, according to analysis by Gibson Dunn, a global law firm. Enter the banks So why would ordinary US consumers bother with a stablecoin at all? What's the advantage? The answer is fuzzy unless consumers can use them with no fuss. This is where the banks come in. As much as consumers complain about their lenders, they do trust them. If a bank integrates a stablecoin-based payments app, chances are accountholders will respond. While the US banking industry has been wary about the potential instability stablecoins may pose to the financial system, they're sitting in a very strong position to popularise the issuance of these instruments, at least as far as payments are concerned. That's because every stablecoin in the US must now be offered by a 'permitted payment stablecoin issuer' supervised by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. For crypto startups, getting regulatory approval, even in the Trump era, is a time consuming, costly task. For banks, it's easy — they are already regulated by the OCC and other agencies. The upshot: banks, the bête noire of the crypto world, are ready to write the next act of the Genius Act. Edward Robinson is the story editor for DL News. Contact the author at ed@ Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
What's Trump's approval rating? Latest polls on job performance, immigration
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