Simple Question for the GM Cheerleaders in the MSM

GM selling at a loss should tell you something | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment: "If the federal government wanted to recoup its investment in GM, then the GM stock price should be much higher than the $33 initial price. In order to break even, as the Deal Journal reports, the stock price would have to rise to around $50 per share. So why is the Treasury Department selling off the company at a loss?"

Yes, how is this $33 IPO in the taxpayer's best interest if GM is such a successful turnaround story? Don't tell me the answer is that the government wants to allow GM to return expeditiously to private control. Post-IPO, GM is still the statists' automotive hobby horse.

Good Crises Make For Good Shake-downs

Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.: Meet the New-Old GM - WSJ.com: "What would the pre-crash GM have been worth if relieved of $80 billion in IOUs? Assume a 5% yield on GM debt and nine-to-one price-earnings ratio on the stock. The answer (for sake of argument) is $61 billion. This shouldn't be surprising. GM's progress on labor costs, quality and new models were all in the pipeline before its Chapter 11 filing. The main achievement of bankruptcy was a redistribution of rights from GM's creditors to a worrisome and conflicted new set of equity owners, namely the U.S. and Canadian governments and the United Auto Workers."

This shouldn't be surprising. GM's progress on labor costs, quality and new models were all in the pipeline before its Chapter 11 filing. The main achievement of bankruptcy was a redistribution of rights from GM's creditors to a worrisome and conflicted new set of equity owners, namely the U.S. and Canadian governments and the United Auto Workers

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Great article. Explains how, at the end of the day, the GM bailout, via government-orchestrated bankruptcy, had only one distinguishing feature from a traditional bankruptcy - it allowed the Dems to steal billions of dollars in equity from private parties and hand it to the UAW. Crony capitalism. Kleptocracy. Did I mention that the orchestrator, Rattner, has pled no contest and agreed to pay a multi-million dollar fine related to an influence peddling charge from the SEC?

This Scandal Will Be Investigated

Findings from the Inspector General (IG) inquiry into the administration's handling of the Gulf oil drilling ban:

Review & Outlook: Science and the Drilling Ban - WSJ.com: "The IG findings include no evidence the decision to shut down an entire industry—at a huge cost to jobs and long-term drilling safety—was done with input from engineers, scientists, economists or anyone with day-to-day oversight of U.S. drilling. S. Elizabeth Birnbaum, former head of the Minerals Management Service, which oversees offshore drilling, said she learned about the ban from a deputy, and only after the fact. Preparation for the Interior drilling report was tasked to Steve Black, a lawyer who is officially the Counselor to Mr. Salazar. Yet Mr. Black told the IG the ban was 'a policy decision made by Secretary Salazar and President Obama.' Though Mr. Salazar issued the report, the IG says final edits to the summary were done by Ms. Browner's office."

Callous, reckless, ideological, indefensible. Injurious to our energy security. But who cares? The area impacted didn't vote for Obama. Browner is going to finally have to answer some questions when the new Congress is in session.

Obama's Singular Focus - Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

Offshore drilling still on hold - Nov. 12, 2010: "NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- President Obama lifted his moratorium on deepwater oil drilling nearly a month ago, but the government still hasn't issued any new permits in the Gulf of Mexico.

And most analysts say permits will be slow in coming through 2011."

Thank goodness the "special interests" aren't getting in the way of employment and energy security in the Gulf!

This Is An Ingenious Plan

Jenkins, Jr.: The GOP Can Outsmart ObamaCare - WSJ.com

I think this plan really has promise for "infecting" Obamacare with free market innovations. Read it. Send it to your representatives with your endorsement.

In battle for Senate control, could GOP win by losing? - Washington Times

In battle for Senate control, could GOP win by losing? - Washington Times

This is exactly what I have been saying. "winning" the Senate by a one vote margin buys you virtually nothing, except expectations that are impossible to meet.

Obama the Thinker? - WSJ.com

Obama the Thinker? - WSJ.com: "Occam's razor suggests that Obama is a mere conformist--someone who absorbed every left-wing platitude he encountered in college and never seems to have seriously questioned any of them. Kloppenberg characterizes Obama as a skeptic, not a true believer. We're not sure he has an active enough mind to be either one."

Debt Has Increased $5 Trillion Since Speaker Pelosi Vowed, ‘No New Deficit Spending’ | CNSnews.com

Debt Has Increased $5 Trillion Since Speaker Pelosi Vowed, ‘No New Deficit Spending’ | CNSnews.com

'Nuff said.

One Year After Obama Wins Nobel, World Looks for Signs of Peace - ABC News

One Year After Obama Wins Nobel, World Looks for Signs of Peace - ABC News: "One year after the Nobel prize jury made its controversial decision to award President Obama the prize for world peace, a larger jury is still waiting for the president to live up to those lofty expectations. 

Even some of Obama's allies -- like former Nobel laureates Al Gore and Jimmy Carter -- declined to assess his performance in fulfilling what the peace prize citation said was his 'vision' of world harmony.

The one year anniversary of Obama's prize comes as fighting is escalating in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq continues to smolder and Obama struggles to keep fledgling Middle East peace talks from collapsing. Drones are firing missiles in unprecedened numbers and confrontations with Iran and North Korea are hotter than ever.

In addition, wars rage in Somalia, Africa, Asia and South America, fueled by religion, tribal hatreds, poverty and piracy."

'nuff said

The Pot Calls the Kettle Black

Obama backs off charge that foreign money is funding Chamber ads | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment: "President Obama on Sunday stepped back from categorical charges he made earlier this week that foreign money was funding conservative TV campaign ads, telling a rally in Philadelphia only that such a scenario was possible.

The softening of Obama’s language reflects the impact of a Saturday report on the issue by the New York Times, which concluded that charges originally made by a blog run by a Democratic-aligned think tank were baseless."

While Obama's charges were baseless, it is a fact that the Obama campaign made no effort to identify or exclude illegal foreign contributions during the 2008 campaign. More Alinksy-style "accuse your opponents of your own transgressions" propaganda.

Enviro-Hysteria? Unheard of...

One third of 'extinct' animals turn up again | Mail Online: "Conservationists are overestimating the number of species that have been driven to extinction, scientists have said.

A study has found that a third of all mammal species declared extinct in the past few centuries have turned up alive and well."

UNDERSTATEMENT ALERT!!! Bloomberg: Obama ‘not particularly interested in business’ |

Bloomberg: Obama ‘not particularly interested in business’ | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment: "New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Thursday gave a mixed but decidedly negative review of President Obama’s economic policies, saying that the reason for joblessness is uncertainty in the private sector caused by government and that the president is uninterested in business."

You can say that again, and again, and again.

OK, I Didn't Expect to Be Saying This...

I wish the President would heed Leonid Breznev's advice when it comes to the economy:

"'The fundamental problem we face is that we can only distribute and consume what is actually produced.' Leonid Breznev, Communist Party Congress, 1972."

Inspiring the Country, One Voter at a Time

Check out the guy behind him, too.

Remember Those Quaint Old Nixon Days When Presidents Just Sponsored "Dirty Tricks?"

Obama Linked To Houston Voter Fraud Scandal (Wizbang): "Oh, my. The voter fraud situation in Houston -- which may have started with the burning of voting machines, but now has developed into a full-fledged ACORN-esque mess of fraudulent voter registrations -- and it looks like it goes all the way up to President Obama himself.

The fraudulent voter registrations were the product of a group called Houston Votes, an ACORN Lite. Houston Votes volunteers were recruited through President Obama's web site, www.barackobama.com. (He doesn't actively run it, but turned it over to his campaign staff after the election, now operating as 'Organizing For America.') And one of the chief recruiters was a local Democratic activist (a very active one) named Maria Isabel.

To call Isabel 'active' would be like describing Jeffrey Dahmer as 'a man of interesting appetites.' She once brought a friend and fellow organizer for www.barackobama.com to a health care town hall hosted by crazy whackjob Representative Sheila Jackson Lee. The friend stood up and said that she, as a doctor, backed ObamaCare. But the friend was about as much of a doctor as I am"

I am missing Nixon's high integrity in the Oval Office

Lying About Lying

Obama: GOP hasn't been honest with Americans - Yahoo! News: "Arguing doggedly against returning Republicans to power, President Barack Obama told Iowa voters Wednesday that the GOP has been dishonest about what needs to be done to revive the economy and restore middle-class dreams.
'We can't pretend that there are shortcuts,' the president said, addressing about 70 voters in a grassy backyard.
'When you look at the choice we face in this election coming up,' Obama said, 'the other side, what it's really offering is the same policies that from 2001 to 2009 put off hard problems and didn't really speak honestly to the American people about how we're gonna get this country on track over the long term.'"

Right out of Alinsky - accuse your opponent of doing what you yourself in fact are doing. This guys is so not serious.

Warm Words From the Great Uniter

Review & Outlook: Blaming the Voters - WSJ.com: "This week President Obama chimed in with another uplifting message about the American electorate. Mr. Obama told Rolling Stone that the tea party movement is financed and directed by 'powerful, special-interest lobbies.' But this doesn't mean that tea party groups are composed entirely of corporate puppets. Mr. Obama graciously implied that a small subset of the movement is simply motivated by bigotry.

The President said 'there are probably some aspects of the Tea Party that are a little darker, that have to do with anti-immigrant sentiment or are troubled by what I represent as the President.' The tea party is now supported by a third of the country in some polls."

So which are you, a corporate puppet or a knuckle-dragging bigot? Or both?

Let the Mudslinging Begin!

Democrats Unleash Ads Focusing on Rivals’ Pasts - NYTimes.com: "Democratic candidates across the country are opening a fierce offensive of negative advertisements against Republicans, using lawsuits, tax filings, reports from the Better Business Bureau and even divorce proceedings to try to discredit their opponents and save their Congressional majority."

When you can't defend your policies, your record or your ideas, all you have left are ad hominem attacks.

Study: Obama adminstration underestimated moratorium job loss | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment

Study: Obama adminstration underestimated moratorium job loss | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment: "An interagency report released last week by the Obama administration underestimated the number of jobs lost because of the deepwater drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico by about half, according to a study released Tuesday by the American Energy Alliance.

The study, conducted by Dr. Joseph Mason, endowed chair of banking at Louisiana State University, found that the moratorium has cost the Gulf region 19,536 jobs, not the 8,000 to 12,000 jobs estimated by the Department of Commerce report."

Thank goodness Obama is not beholden to any "special interests," like the environmental lobby. I think it's better to be safe (i.e. put 19,000 people out of work) than sorry (risk another oil spill).

Hats Off to the Washington Post for at Least Noticing...

President Obama picks Elizabeth Warren ... and thumbs his nose at the Senate: "President Obama picks Elizabeth Warren ... and thumbs his nose at the Senate"