Obama's (Un)American Auto Bailout 

By: Michelle Malkin  / Townhall Daily

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Cue "Fanfare for the Common Man" and rev up the Government Motors engines. Wednesday is Great American Auto Bailout Day at the Democratic National Convention. Party propagandists have prepared a prime-time-ready film touting the "rescue's" benefits for American workers. UAW President Bob King will sing the savior-in-chief's praises.

But like all of the economic success stories manufactured by the White House, the $85 billion government handout is a big fat farce.

"I said I believe in American workers, I believe in this American industry, and now the American auto industry has come roaring back," Obama bragged on the campaign trail. Here's the inconvenient story they won't tell you:

GM is once again flirting with bankruptcy despite massive government purchases propping up its sales figures. GM stock is rock-bottom. Losses continue to be revised in the wrong direction. According to The Detroit News, "The Treasury Department says in a new report the government expects to lose more than $25 billion on the $85 billion auto bailout. That's 15 percent higher than its previous forecast."

The claims that GM paid back its taxpayer-funded loans "in full" -- a story peddled in campaign ads narrated by Hollywood actor Tom Hanks -- were debunked by the Treasury Department's TARP watchdog this summer. GM still owes nearly $30 billion of the $50 billion it received, and its lending arm still owes nearly $15 billion of the more than $17 billion it received. Bailout watchdog Mark Modica of the National Legal and Policy Center adds: "In addition to U.S. taxpayers anteing up, Canada put in over $10 billion, and GM was relieved of about $28 billion of bondholder obligations as UAW claims were protected. That's an improvement of almost $90 billion to the balance sheet, and the company still lags the competition."

While the Obama administration wraps the auto bailout in red, white and blue, it's foreign workers and overseas plants that are reaping redistributive rewards.

GM has increased its manufacturing capacity in China by an estimated 55 percent after the bailout, according to industry watchers. GM's Dan Akerson crowed at the Beijing auto show earlier this year: "One of our aims is to help grow a new generation of automotive engineers, designers and leaders right here in China." The U.S. auto giant's ventures with the Communist regime include Shanghai OnStar Telematics Co., Ltd.; GM China Advanced Technical Center; FAW-GM Light Duty Commercial Vehicle Co., Ltd., in Harbin, Heilongjiang; FAW-GM's Changchun plant in Changchun, Jilin; FAW-GM Hongta Yunnan Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd., in Qujing, Yunnan; and Shanghai Chengxin Used Car Operation and Management Co., Ltd.

In Europe, the UAW's appointee to the Government Motors Board of Directors, Steve Girsky, recklessly pushed the feds to hold onto GM's failing German-based Opel AG. The Great American Auto Bailout has been subsidizing this hemorrhaging enterprise while Obama failed to deliver on his 2008 campaign promise to salvage plants like the one in GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan's hometown of Janesville, Wis.

According to Forbes magazine, "GM Europe, comprised mostly of Opel and its sister brand, Vauxhall, lost $617 million in the first half of 2012, on top of a $747 million loss in 2011 and a $1.8 billion loss in 2010. In all, GM has lost almost $17 billion in Europe since 1999."

While Team Obama lambastes GOP rival Mitt Romney for outsourcing, Government Motors is now planning to invest $1 billion over the next five years -- not in America, but in Russia. That's on top of $7 billion total in China, close to $1 billion in Mexico, and $600 million for a shirt sponsorship deal with Manchester United, the British soccer club.

The DNC will put a rank-and-file U.S. autoworker on stage to back up Big Labor's cheerleading of the deal. Rest assured, this human shield will not tell viewers how Obama and the union bosses colluded to pervert bankruptcy law and shaft some 20,000 nonunion Delphi auto parts workers. The forgotten victims saw their pensions erode by up to 70 percent; their health benefits disappeared. The first lady is radio silent. Obama consigliere Valerie Jarrett ducked questions about the Delphi injustice from The Washington Times here in Charlotte.

Only in a fantasyland where America has 57 states, "JOBS" is a three-letter word and bailouts are "achievements" does Obama's rescue math add up. "Now I want to do the same thing with manufacturing jobs, not just in the auto industry, but in every industry," Obama vows. God help the American worker.

Op-ed:
The DNC circus came to town

By: Diane Sori

 

And the 3 ring circus has begun!

And what a circus freak show night one was.  In ring one a DEAD Ted Kennedy attacked very much alive Mitt Romney, but is that really such a surprise in an election cycle where the dead really do vote!

And the ring master leading off the so-called ‘festivities’ was none other than 'Debbie-Downer' herself...Debbie Wasserman Schultz...queen of the clueless who must have paid Nancy’s botox doctor a visit before her ‘nails on a blackboard voice’ declared the convention open.

Hey Debbie, while you bloviated about how wonderful Obama is (gag, gag) our country’s national debt hit a number no one ever thought possible...16 TRILLION DOLLARS!!! The ramifications of this are mind-boggling.

The actual Outstanding Public Debt is now...drumroll please... $16,031,316,417,910.96 and growing!  And with the population of the United States currently at 313,444,895, that means each and every man, women, and child’s share of this debt is a whopping $51,145.57.

And who can we thank for this...Barack Hussein Obama for spending like there’s NO tomorrow, and ‘Prince’ Harry Reid and his Democratic controlled Senate who still haven’t passed a budget in over 3-1/2 years or in simpler numbers 1,225 days.

Sadly, continuing government deficits and Obama’s fiscal failures mean that lawmakers, in order to keep the government afloat, just might have to raise the debt ceiling yet again in the waning months of this year before it can be brought down under a new Romney administration.  And let’s just hope that the nation's credit rating won’t suffer again because of this.

And here’s a shocker concerning that very debt... just under $5 trillion of it is owed to the Social Security Trust Fund and the federal pension system.  A little more than $11 trillion is owed to foreign and domestic investors and to the Federal Reserve (which buys up treasuries so they can bring down interest rates through quantitative easing, which is nothing but a temporary fix).  While we owe China many billions, in reality they hold less than 8% of the money owed to foreign governments.   

Bottom line...most of the debt is owed by us thanks to Barack Hussein Obama.

And while Obama continues to blame George W. Bush for this ever increasing debt, and for ALL our woes as a matter of fact, the reality is we owed $10.6 trillion on January 20, 2009, the day Obama was sworn in, and in under four years in office this man has added another $5.4 trillion to it...more than Bush did in his two terms in office.

So while Obama says he needs a second term to clean-up the economic mess we’re in, I for one am NOT willing to give this miserable excuse of a president four more years to totally implode our economy from within.

Nor am I willing to buy the bloviating spewed last night by his favorite suck-ups who all patterned their speeches after Ann Romney’s and Marco Rubio’s.   Gee, isn’t it a surprise that suddenly Michelle Obama’s father had MS, the same disease Mrs. Romney suffers from.  And wasn’t it some performance she put on...really nothing but a poorly adapted version of Ann's speech but having just enough of the details changed to avoid being accused of plagiarism...which she screeched into the mike while pleading and begging for her husband to be given a second term to finish what he started.  

What Michelle (hey, she wants us to call her Michelle so as to appear like she’s one of us), didn’t say was what her husband really started was the beginning of not only the downfall of the economy but of our beloved America itself.

But at the bottom of it all is that her speech was all about big government, government jobs and government handouts...with NOTHING about the private sector, the very thing that fuels our economy.  And no one is buying her crap about how much Obama cares about ‘We the People’ as he’ll sell us all out faster than you can say ‘traitor’ to gain the title of ‘Dictator for Life.’

As for Julian Castro, mayor of San Antonio, Texas, all I can say is that he parroted Marco Rubio’s speech content for content but in NO way was he has powerful, as believable, or as sincere as Marco was.  And while the msm is trying to ‘anoint’ him as the next Obama, there's something quite ‘not right’ about him and I think others felt that too.  Lack of charisma, lack of sincerity, lack of true passion or a combination of all three, this man just does NOT have what it takes to compete with or overshadow Marco Rubio, which is what he was trying to do.

So tonight the circus continues in ring two with Bubba himself...Billy-Boy Clinton, the ultimate publicity whore, a man who still thinks of himself as president.  Will Bubba upstage Obama...will Bubba seek revenge for Obama stealing it all from Hillary in ’08...will Bubba say he’s voting for Romney...only a few more hours and we’ll find out, but whatever he does I don’t think Barack Hussein Obama will be a totally happy camper.

Come on November 6^th...let’s end this freak show once and for all.

U.S. informs Iran that it will not back Israeli strike; Obama working to curb Israeli offensive against Iran

From Jihad Watch

Aiding an enemy, stabbing an ally in the back. "'Iran must steer clear of US interests in Gulf,'" by Shimon Shiffer for Ynet News, September 3:

The United States has indirectly informed Iran, via two European nations, that it would not back an Israeli strike against the country's nuclear facilities, as long as Tehran refrains from attacking American interests in the Persian Gulf, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Monday. 

According to the report, Washington used covert back-channels in Europe to clarify that the US does not intend to back Israel in a strike that may spark a regional conflict.

In return, Washington reportedly expects Iran to steer clear of strategic American assets in the Persian Gulf, such as military bases and aircraft carriers.

Israeli officials reported an unprecedented low in the two nations' defense ties, which stems from the Obama administration's desire to warn Israel against mounting an uncoordinated attack on Iran.

The New York Times reported Monday that US President Barack Obama is promoting a series of steps meant to curb an Israeli offensive against Iran, while forcing the Islamic Republic to take the nuclear negotiations more seriously.

One of the steps considered is "an official declaration by Obama about what might bring about American military action, as well as covert activities that have been previously considered and rejected," the report said.

Several of Obama's top advisors believe that Jerusalem is seeking an unequivocal American statement regarding a US strike on Iran – should it actively pursue a nuclear bomb.

Israel hopes such a statement is made during Obama's address before the UN General Assembly on September 25.

Others in the White House said Israel is trying to drag the US into an unnecessary conflict in the Gulf.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that "There is absolutely no daylight between the United States and Israel when it comes to preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon."

Carney said that all options remain on the table for Iran. He said the "window for diplomacy remains open," adding that the diplomatic process remains the best way to deal with the Islamic Republic, though "that window will not remain open indefinitely."

Cyber war a go?

According to the New York Times, Washington has also sent Iran a back-channel deal suggesting they curb their nuclear ambitions, but Tehran rejected the deal, saying no agreement is possible sans lifting all West-imposed sanctions.

According to the report, the Obama administration is exploring the possibility of mounting a covert operation, as well as waging a "quiet" cyber war against Iran.

President Obama had previously rejected the notion, fearing such cyber assaults would wreak havoc on Iranian civilian life....

Ten Of Barack Obama’s Worst Lies

September 4, 2012 By Derrick Hollenbeck 1 Comment

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Attempting to select THE ten worst lies told by a pathological liar like Barack Obama is a difficult task. There are so many lies that it is hard to know where to start – a good case can be made for so many of his lies as top ten material. For this reason, there is no claim here to a TOP ten of his lies: ten of his most egregious ones.

During his last State of the Union speech, Barack Obama claimed “American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years.”

In fact, the Congressional Research Service reports that 96% of the increase comes from oil fields out of Obama’s control. By contrast, the production from federally-owned oil fields he does control has dropped by 275,000 barrels a day. It is worth noting that privately-owned fields have increased by 395,000 barrels a day.

Obama has told the world there has never been a better friend of Israel in the White House.

On Sunday, an Israeli newspaper reported that senior Obama Administration officials have told Tehran that Barack Obama does not intend to join Israel in any attack on Iran’s nuclear installations. In May 2011, Obama asked G8 member nations to fund the Arab Spring counties who are clearly on their way to planning an all-out attack on Israel.

In May 2011, Obama said the fence between America and Mexico was “basically complete”; yet the Department of Homeland Security admits just 36.3 miles or 5% of the border is fenced.

Obama lied and said abortions would not be publicly funded under Obamacare.

Despite Obama’s empty lies about no public funding for abortions, a March 2012 edict from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) unequivocally ruled Obamacare will use our tax dollars to fund abortion.

In April 2009, Obama claimed he “saved or created over 150,000 jobs.”

In an odd burst of veracity, his friends at the AP called him on this lie, pointing out that at that point since Obama came to office, the United States lost more than 1.2 million jobs as per his own Bureau of Labor Statistics. The report continued by pointing out that any jobs “saved or created” by Obama’s stimulus bill were “dwarfed by the number of recent job losses.”

He claimed that by the end of his first term, he would cut the deficit in half.

The truth is that he has given us more new debt than all previous presidents combined.

Remember Obama telling us there would be no earmarks in his 2009 stimulus package? He lied. The bill had over 9,000 earmarks in it, and of course, it failed to deliver even a small improvement for our economy.

Obama told us that without his 2009 stimulus package unemployment would grow to 8.5%. We got the stimulus, and it gave us 44 straight months of unemployment at or above 8%.

Obama lied about his position on Gay “marriage” multiple times, moving from “I am not one to support gay marriage” to his “evolution” in May.   That was all a convenient pack of lies.

Last Recourse of Failed Presidents
By: Pat Buchanan  / Townhall.com

Both the 20th and 21st centuries have seen failed presidencies.

William Howard Taft lost in 1912, though he might have retained office had not his old friend and former leader Theodore Roosevelt run as a third party Bull Moose candidate and won more votes than Taft.

Herbert Hoover failed through no fault of his own. The Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression were beyond his control, and every remedy he tried failed adequately to work.
 
Had the popular Cal Coolidge sought a second full term in 1928 instead of declaring, "I do not choose to run," he would have been in the White House when the crash came and cast by history in the role assigned to Hoover.

But, as one wag said, Silent Cal's career seems to have been a product of repeated celestial interventions.

By 1952, Harry Truman was a failed president. His approval rating was below 25 percent. Chiang Kai-shek's China had fallen to communism. Josef Stalin had stolen the secret of the atom bomb through espionage against the United States. Truman had fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur and was in the third year of a Korean War he could neither win nor end.

The administration had been exposed as shot through with corruption and treason in the persons of Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White and the Rosenberg atomic spy ring, among others.

Rejected in New Hampshire, Harry wisely chose to pack it in.

Lyndon Johnson, his 44-state landslide in 1964 and Great Society notwithstanding, was by 1968 a failed president being repudiated in the primaries of his own party.

Truman and Johnson quit rather than run again and risk defeat.

But Jimmy Carter, whose poll numbers fell as low as Truman's and who was widely seen as a failed president, chose to fight Teddy Kennedy in the primaries and Ronald Reagan in the general election.

Carter had one signal achievement: the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty.

But by 1980, he was presiding over an economy with 21 percent interest rates, 13 percent inflation and zero growth. The Soviet Empire had annexed Afghanistan and was on the move in Africa, the Caribbean and Central America. Iran had fallen to the mullahs. Fifty American embassy personnel were being held hostage in Tehran.

What makes that 1980 election relevant is that it was the last national election and the only postwar election where a Democratic president widely perceived to have failed chose to run for re-election.

And what strategy did the Carter campaign adopt?

They sought to demonize Reagan as a tool of the rich, a cold-hearted wretch who would savage the safety net, a crazed anti-communist Cold Warrior whom it would be dangerous to entrust with nuclear weapons.

Ronald Reagan was Barry Goldwater redux.

Yet, looking back, what else could Carter do? Looking forward, what else can Barack Obama do?

By 1984, Reagan could credibly run for re-election on the slogan, "Stay the Course." Let us continue on this path that is leading us to the sunny uplands of a new prosperity and a stronger, more respected America.

Carter could not do that in 1980. Hoover could not do that in 1932. And Obama cannot do that today.

With the nation believing Carter had failed by the fall of 1980, and prepared to remove and replace him, Carter had one lane left to victory. He and the liberal media had to define Reagan for the electorate as an uncaring extremist and dangerous man.

Lest we forget, this Carter strategy was working.

Not until the late debate with Carter did the electorate take a closer look at Reagan and decide that this genial, principled conservative was no threat, but an acceptable alternative and far preferable to four more years of Carter.

After that debate, the undecideds came down hard for Reagan, millions of Democrats switched to him, and he buried Carter.

Again, that election is relevant because it is the election most similar to this one. We have a Democratic president who has presided over a huge loss of jobs, four straight trillion-dollar deficits and 42 months of unemployment over 8 percent. With Obama's approval in the 40s, it is clear that America is ready for a change.

One difference between 2012 and 1980? President Obama retains a reservoir of goodwill President Carter never acquired.

If this analysis is correct, the Democratic convention and the next nine weeks will witness one sustained slander of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan as Ayn Randian agents of a plutocracy hell-bent on seeing its taxes reduced and the tax cuts paid for by eviscerating programs on which America's poor and the working and middle class depend for survival.

The one sure way Obama can win is to convince a nation ready for change -- to fear, loathe and recoil from the proposed agents of change.

Obama aides and media auxiliary have already painted the Republican convention in Tampa, Fla., as permeated with lies and dog whistles to racists.

Yet, one wonders: After such a campaign, how does Obama unite and lead the country should he win.

25 Questions about What the Hell has Happened to America 

By: John Hawkins / Townhall Daily

When did...
1) ....Educated people become so unfamiliar with small business that they began to believe that a company will practically build itself as long as the government provides roads, street signs, and police?

2) ...Freedom change from something we should all be seeking to something we're supposed to be terrified to face without the government holding our hands?

3) ...We stop asking, "Can we afford this?" along with "Is this a good idea?" when it comes to government programs?

4) ...Demanding that people come to this country legally if they want to stay here and become citizens become too much to ask?

5) ....We start rewarding victims so richly for victimhood that we have to wonder if every unseen hate crime is real or a staged charade to receive public sympathy?

6) ...Sticking to the Constitution and living within our means become "extremism?"

7) ...The job of the press change from reporting the news to doing everything it can to help the Democratic Party?

8) ...It become okay to sue a company because some moron knowingly did something dangerous with the company’s product and hurt himself? That's not negligence; it's Darwinism at work.

9) ...Protecting some barren tundra in Alaska become worth more than thousands of jobs, billions of dollars in wealth created, and lower prices at the pump for the American people?

10) ....Hollywood change from supporting the troops in foreign wars to undercutting the war and smearing the troops as dangerous, mentally unstable drones?

11) ...We stop caring if government programs worked or not as long as they sound compassionate?

12) ...Virginity, chastity, and believing marriage should be for life become "old fashioned?"

13) ...Witty sound bites start becoming more important than wise words?

14) ...We come to believe that we would never have to pay off our debt?

15) ...The comfort of Americans today start to become more important than giving future generations an opportunity to have a better and brighter future?

16) ....People stop becoming ashamed of taking welfare, school lunches, food stamps, receiving handouts, and living in their parents’ basements?

17) ...Our first priorities in wars become not hurting enemy civilians and getting good press instead of protecting the lives of our troops and winning the war?

18) ...."tolerance" start to mean approval and disapproval become tantamount to hate?

19) ....Our immigration policies become centered on what's most convenient for illegal immigrants instead of what's best for the American people and those who want to come here legally?

20) ...It become okay for the Democrat Party -- which was behind slavery, segregation, lynchings, poll taxes, and Jim Crow laws -- to accuse Republicans of wanting to do those things? It must have been after most people forgot Democrats were behind all of those things and Republicans have always opposed them.

21) ...Debates about politics stop being about whether certain policies work or not and start centering on the intentions, motives, and personal characteristics of the person on the other side of the issue?

22) ...God's definition of marriage, the same definition that has been around for millennia, become discriminatory?

23) ..."Racism" change from an expression of hatred towards another race to an expression of disagreement with Democrats?

24) ...The "not" get removed from the first part of John F. Kennedy's famous quote, "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."

25) ...Borrowing money from the Chinese to spend on useless government programs that produce nothing become an "investment?"

Op-ed:
Drumroll please...the DNC circus is set to begin

By: Diane Sori

The wait is finally over as the official start of the Democratic National Circus...ummm...I mean Convention, in Charlotte, North Carolina, is upon us.

All the players are in place...or are they.  Uncle Joe ‘Bite-Me’ Biden is on his way and I can’t wait to see what guffaw he’ll make this week.  ’Prince’ Harry Reid will be there doing nothing just like he does nothing in the Senate.  ‘Botox’ Nancy Pelosi, fresh from another face touch-up, will be there repeating her mantra, ‘we needed to pass the bill before we could see what was in it.’  The infamous DNC Chair, Congresswomen ‘Debbie-Downer’ Wasserman Schultz will be there parroting the party line as she squawks the Obama rhetoric with her annoying nails on a chalkboard voice.  

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be there...oh wait...Hillary has chosen NOT to be there for the freak show as she is trying to put as much distance between herself and Barack Hussein Obama as possible. While I have NO love for Hillary I do give her credit for staying away from this lie-fest, because if she is considering a 2016 run she needs to cut all ties to our current traitor-in-chief.

Yeah, yeah...I know Secretary of States usually do NOT attend these conventions but you forget Hillary is a glory hog who relishes and basks in all the publicity and camera time she can get, and who hasn’t missed a DNC convention with its heralded camera time since 1968.  And together with hubby Billy-Boy, you have the King and Queen of the photo-op.  Yet this convention she has chosen to pass up as even she knows NOT to go down with a sinking ship.

And down the Obama ship is going as Mr. Hope and Change’s campaign is desperately passing out free tickets to students and volunteers in a last ditch attempt to fill the many, many empty seats that must be filled for Obama’s Thursday night accepting the nomination speech.

What a far cry from four years ago when the excitement of the DNC Convention could be felt even by those of us on the other side of the political spectrum, as it pulsed with a hope for a new tomorrow.  With Barack Hussein Obama being billed as the ‘messiah of the people’ and as he descended through Corinthian columns to accept his party’s nomination, you knew the anointing of our savior by the media was complete.

But this time things are different.  Obama has NO record of success, NO record of achievement, NO positive record to speak of at all.  We still do NOT have a budget passed, we still do NOT have jobs for 23.5 million Americans out of work, we still do NOT have our national debt under control and we’re still recovering from the ridiculousness of a stimulus package that just didn’t work. 

What have we gotten from Obama...we have a middle class that’s been financially crushed under his administration.  We have gas prices that have doubled, we have a stalled housing market, we have incomes that have dropped, and we have poverty levels that are reaching fifty-year highs.   We have unemployment levels that have been above 8% for 42 straight months.

And we have the monstrosity known as ObamaCare, complete with death panels and rationed medicine.  ObamaCare...the program that will force ‘We the People’ to pay a whopping 28% tax for a medical program forced upon us against our wishes.  ObamaCare...a program that will give even more freebies and handouts to those who pay NO taxes but who rape the system while we pick up the tab for it.  ObamaCare...the pot of gold delivered in exchange for votes.

And we still have Barack Hussein Obama blaming George W. Bush for all his woes.

And yet, Obama wants you to believe you are better off now than you were four years ago, ignoring the fact that this is just NOT so.  And while he will try and trumpet his so-called success on the jobs front, he wants us to forget that the jobs he’s actually created are nothing but 150,000 new unionized government jobs, included thousands of new workers to manage ObamaCare at the IRS and the Department of Health and Human Services.  

What an out and out insult to the unemployed in this country when the jobs created are just more bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo while ‘We the People’ continue to suffer under the stewardship of a man ill-equipped to handle the job of president of the United States.

And this man wants four more years to lead us...four more years to finish the job of destroying the economy, destroying the moral of our military, destroying all we hold dear...four more years of Barack Hussein Obama...NO, I don’t think so.

So sit back, enjoy this week’s DNC circus for the laugh it is (remember, the ultimate political whore Sandra Fluke is a featured speaker), and like always, November 6^th can’t come soon enough.