Here is the waste and fraud that your tax dollars are put to, America. Senator Tom Coburn has alerted the nation to a 30-year-old man in California named Stanley Thornton, Jr., who is paid by Social Security to lay about his house and pretend he is a baby replete with diapers, baby bottles for nourishment and a 300 pound "nurse" to take care of him.

No kidding. This guy pretends to be a baby and we, the people, send him Supplemental Security Income benefits to do it.

Of course, this California nut claims that he is mentally unable to cope with life and that his SSI benefits are needed because he is "disabled" by his mental state of thinking he is a baby. But Coburn thinks this guy is just scamming the government.

“Given that Mr. Thornton is able to determine what is appropriate attire and actions in public, drive himself to complete errands, design and custom-make baby furniture to support a 350-pound adult and run an Internet support group, it is possible that he has been improperly collecting disability benefits for a period of time,” Mr. Coburn wrote in a letter Monday to Inspector General Patrick P. O'Carroll Jr.

Amusingly, the Washington Times reached out to little Mr. Thornton to ask his response to Coburn's charges. In reply, Thornton threatened to kill himself if the government cut off his freeloading.

“You wanna test how damn serious I am about leaving this world, screw with my check that pays for this apartment and food. Try it. See how serious I am. I don’t care,” the California man said. “I have no problem killing myself. Take away the last thing keeping me here, and see what happens. Next time you see me on the news, it will be me in a body bag.”

Be careful what you wish for, Mr. Thornton!

Still, I find Thornton's reply proof of Coburn's charges. After all, I've yet to se a real baby that can reply cogently -- even with threats -- to an email. Heck, I've never seen a baby yet even able to type "goo-goo-ga-ga."

Thornton certainly seems to be a great example of the sort of fraud and abuse from which our social system suffers.

(H/T The PJ Tattler) -->

-By Warner Todd Huston

Bill Clinton wants the government to "correct" what you say on the Internet, folks. Should the government listen to the former panderer-in-chief, we'll go from Big Brother to Big Bubba on the ol' Internet tubes.

Bubba is not happy with what he claims is the “misinformation” on the Internet and he wants the force of government to stop it all. Politico is reporting that Clinton makes the proposal in an upcoming CNBC interview saying, "It would be a legitimate thing to do."

No, Bubba, it would not.

Clinton says that the idea of having a government agency that "corrects" the "misinformation" on the Internet would be "independent" of government so it isn't a traditional government agency. This, he feels would make it all A-OK with those fearing Big Brother government ministries of propaganda.

Again, Bubba, it would not.

How it is even possible to have an "independent federal agency," is anyone's guess. After all, the second such an agency came into being it would be controlled by the political body of Congress or a presidential administration. There is no way such an agency could ever be "independent." In fact, even the appearance of impropriety is enough to discredit such an effort.

But Bubba insists.

"That is, it would be like, I don't know, National Public Radio or BBC or something like that, except it would have to be really independent and they would not express opinions, and their mandate would be narrowly confined to identifying relevant factual errors" he said. "And also, they would also have to have citations so that they could be checked in case they made a mistake. Somebody needs to be doing it, and maybe it's a worthy expenditure of taxpayer money."

But isn't that the rub? Whose "facts" will be presented? Will those facts be administered under the thumb of a fact-master like Clinton, Mr. "I did not have sex with that woman, Monica," himself?

Veracity would be a word hard to associate with the BMF, the Bubba Ministry of Facts.

I am not saying there are no such things as facts. Certainly facts are facts, but what people think they can lead to is often ideological, philosophical, or driven by an agenda. There can be several ways to look at a fact and then extrapolate what that fact will "do" once put into play and that, after all, is the nub of politics -- it's even a root of human nature, for that matter. People's perception of what facts mean will differ.

So, if we have this "independent federal agency" deciding what is the right and proper way to view the facts, what do we have? No less than a ministry of right-thinking. This amounts to propaganda. Period.

There is no official role for government to correct what people write on the Internet. Administrations, presidents, parties, individual politicians, they certainly have the role -- no the responsibility -- to let people know what facts and policies they think are best, but there is no role in government for any official fact-master.

This whole idea, however, is quite normal for liberals. Their fascist desire to shut people down, to use the mechanism of government to quash ideas liberals are not fond of, is a core belief motivating liberal thinking.

The fact is, it is up to we, the people, to learn the facts. As Benjamin Franklin is reputed to have said exiting the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, we have a republic "if we can keep it." We are responsible to discerning the facts. It isn't government's role to lead us by the nose so.

Big Bubba is not an idea whose time has come. But it isn't surprising that the anti-liberty left might propose such a thing.

… and Why Liberals are Our Weak Spot

-By Warner Todd Huston

For the online, left-wing magazine Slate, William Saletan thinks he's found something that will damage Osama bin Ladden's reputation in the Islamic world. But what he thinks is such a big deal proves that he doesn't understand radical Islam or even the Muslim world. Worse, it proves why liberals are our soft spot and why they could be the death of us.

Saletan is all excited over the fact that the U.S. found a large cache of pornography in bin Ladden's living quarters. This, Saleton is happy to say, will undermine bin Ladden's reputation as a strictly holy man. This hurts bin Ladden, says Saleton, because, "they're more upset by porn and hiding behind women than by suicide bombing"

Saleton contends that in our fight against bin Ladden, we've found the right "argument" to level against our opponent.

Why is porn such a big idea?

After discussing some polls in Europe, Saleton cites the findings on how Muslims felt about pornography.

On pornography, the pattern was reversed. In France, 43 percent of the general public said viewing pornography was morally acceptable, but only 16 percent of Muslims agreed. In Germany, 58 percent of the general public, but only 18 percent of Muslims, said it was acceptable. And while 35 percent of Brits said it was acceptable, only 1 percent of British Muslims shared that view.

"In sum," Saleton says, "if you're looking for an argument in Western Europe that's more likely to appeal to Muslims than to the general population, pornography is a better bet than civilian casualties."

Saleton goes on to further explore how badly porn is looked upon by devout Muslims and concludes that this is the magic bullet that will undermine the bin Ladden mystique.

Oh, but would it be that simple.

You see, Saleton's problem is that he takes the whole blather about how negatively Muslims feel about porn and accepts prima facia that if Muslims come to believe that bin Ladden was a heavy user of porn that they will turn away in shame from his legacy.

It is simply foolish to believe that radical Islamists will bow to this supposed religious principle. They will not. Worse, it is even absurd to think regular Muslims will turn away from bin Ladden because of this.

We must remember that Muslims are some of the most conspiracy minded people in human history. To believe the lies they swallow whole about Jews and Israel alone takes a Herculean effort to avoid truth. Their nearly universal disbelief in the Holocaust, their penchant to think that the USA and the Jews are behind every bad thing that happens to them, even their belief in the existence of Muhammad himself are all exercises in high fantasy.

Instead of seeing Muslims turn away from bin Ladden because of a porn stash, a million conspiracy theories will be born to excuse it away. Muslims will simply claim that the porn was planted by the great Statan, the USA. They absolutely won't believe that bin Ladden had anything to do with the pornography.

In fact, any violation of religious principle is explained away as ultimately useful for "the cause" of destroying the big and little Satan. If Binnie need a little porn to beat the USA and Israel, well no Muslim will deny him that.

That Saleton was foolish enough to imagine that there are any real religious principles behind the beliefs of radical Islam makes him dangerous. It leads him and liberals like him to the mistaken notion that appealing to Muslims’s religious tenets will help us "understand" Islam and will, in turn, help us figure out a way to turn them to our side -- or at least defuse them enough for this whole thing to fade away.

What Saleton refuses to come to grips with is that religion is only a veneer for radical Islam. Any violation of their religion is acceptable if it leads to killing Jews and Americans. They accept the generally violent leanings of their religion and culture, of course. Violent Jihad is the only principle they won't turn away from. But the little things, like treating women well, accepting others, staying away from drink or pornography, all this is easily ignored for the greater goal of dealing death and destruction in an effort to control the world.

As the saying goes, they "don't sweat the little stuff" in order to achieve success on the "big stuff."

That Saleton thinks that telling Muslims (that won't believe him anyway) that bin Ladden violated some of the little stuff of Islam won't in the least dissuade them from thinking Binnie is the big stuff for his 9/11 success. That Saleton thinks it will shows why folks of his ilk on our side give the enemy the upper hand and puts us all in danger.

Everyone's jaws are jamming about the fact that ten years ago Arnold Schwarzenegger fathered a child out of wedlock with some hussey or another. The follow up shocker is that his wife of 25 years, Maria Shriver -- a member of the Kennedy clan -- has left him. It all makes me wonder what is wrong with Maria Shriver? What sort of Kennedy IS she, anyway.

I was recently on Political Vindication Radio and we came to several conclusions about this whole Shriver woman business.

Maria Shriver simply can't be a Kennedy. I am convinced she was adopted or something.

Shriver stood up for herself here. She refused to allow her husband to sleep around without consequences. She's left him and apparently wants a divorce! This is very good and right for her to do, of course, but it is very unKennedy-like.

Kennedy women don't stand up for themselves. Kennedy women don't scold husbands in public for sleeping around. Kennedy women are meek, weak of will, subservient. Kennedy women let their men sleep around all they want.

In fact, for standing up for herself, holding her husband accountable, and in essence saying he was an immoral lout, she has proved to be as different as can be from the other Kennedy woman throughout history.

Oh, Maria Shriver shows shades of Kennedyism by having a husband that sleeps around. Heck, they ALL have that. But what is with this whole standing up for herself business?

Yep. Very un-Kennedy.

I want to see Maria Shriver's birth certificate to prove she's a Kennedy.

Anyway, at least all of Arnold's mistresses are still alive. Most other Kennedy's kill theirs.

I just finished with a blogger conference call held by Speaker Gingrich in which he tried to further explain where he stands on Paul Ryan, the budget, and Obamacare.

Newt has have been characterized as "trashing Paul Ryan," and Ryan himself took a swipe at him on a Chicago radio show (Ryan said something like, "with conservative like him who needs enemies?"), and of course many see his purported attack on Ryan as a violation of Reagan's famed 11th Commandment. So Newt has a lot to answer for, for sure.

He's badly confused the situation and some are calling for him to drop out and give it all up. Even Rush Limbaugh is claiming that Newt knows he can't win the nomination and this whole thing is just an effort at positioning himself for other things in the future (Rush says Newt might just be angling for a position at the Aspen Institute)

Newt, however, insists that his comments were entirely consistent, that he was taken out of context, and that he wasn't in any way attacking Paul Ryan.

Newt's Comments

Newt was asked directly if he supported Ryan's budget principles, the Path to Prosperity.

"I do support the Ryan plan," Newt said. "When it came out I wrote a piece titled, 'From Paul Revere to Paul Ryan' in support."

Newt was also asked why he seemed to support an individual mandate in the video clip that was used by David Gregory on last weekend's Meet The Press appearance. How could he have been for one then but not now?

"I don't regard a statement made 18 years ago concerning Hillarycare as having anything to do with today and Obamacare," the Speaker said.

"Conservatives in general in 1993 trying to defeat Hillarycare were saying exactly what I had said in that clip. It was a different world then as we were not in a situation of how far Obama has taken the government toward a [socialist] direction. The Democrats have reversed FDR and they have nothing to offer but fear itself," Newt added.

Gingrich went on to say that he was not necessarily against Ryan's plan but is against the sort of "coercion" that radical change in healthcare would force on the public.

"The scale of change we are proposing is very, very large and affects people's lives in a very personal way. We should not try to impose on the people a plan they don't understand."

One of those invited onto the call asked, "Would you still vote for Paul Ryan's plan?"

"Yes," Newt said. "But coming out of the proposal we have to write a bill and that is a vastly more difficult process. The budget statement is not the final bill. We are at the very beginning of an important national discussion. Does anyone think this plan will be signed by this president? This plan is only the first step of setting up the argument for 2012."

Still, some callers were confused as to why Newt seemed to be dissing the Republican plan as "radical change from the right."

Newt said that he felt that healthcare was too difficult to change in radical ways.

"I am worried about compelling the people to accept a radical change that hasn't been tested. Healthcare is ten times more complicated than national security. We were gaining ground with health savings accounts and medicare advantage that were a direct threat to the way that liberals want to do things. But these programs didn't require coercion."

Whatever Newt really meant, he most certainly caused himself some troubles right at the outset of his campaign. Some are saying that this is "Newt being Newt." This has a ring of truth to it. Like Mitch Daniels, Newt spends an awful lot of time re-explaining himself.

The Washington Post had a recent piece saying that it looks like Washington is finally coming to the stark realization that the benefits and pensions of federal workers are wildly over promised and even Democrats are finally contemplating cuts in federal pensions.

The GOP has already targeted these pensions by proposing that federal workers contribute more toward their own pension benefits. As the Post slantedly puts it, this policy plan would "effectively impose an immediate 5 percent pay cut on more than 2 million federal employees"

Of course, it would not be cutting their pay at all, sadly. It would merely be deferring until retirement when they get the cash. Sure their pay should be cut -- heck thousands need to be simply fired outright -- but there is no pay cut being proposed.

In any case, the Post reports that now Democrats are coming to a similar conclusion on these overly generous pension benefits promised to federal workers. Naturally, Democrats are weak on their own proposal.

Now, administration officials have expressed interest in raising the amount that employees contribute to their pensions -- though probably not as high as the GOP proposal, definitely not as fast and possibly not for all workers, according to people in both parties familiar with the discussions.

Of course, even the weak tea that the Democrats are offering to curb the rich bennies and pensions that federal employees get brings the unions to their feet in alarm. Even a few Republicans are not thrilled at the idea of cutting federal pensions.

Even some Republicans are not happy with the House pension proposal. As he cast a vote for the GOP budget blueprint, Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) said, I regret that the... proposal seeks to make government service an unattractive career choice, in part by changing retirement plans.

This is exactly what we need, though. We need to make working for all governments less attractive. Why? Because right now we have no real jobs, no useful jobs, no jobs that actually do anything for America while governments are hiring more and more. This is wholly unsustainable. It would be good to see government jobs become less attractive so that the private sector can grow without competition by unproductive, unnecessary government jobs.

You see, government makes nothing. Government expenses are just a drag on this nation. Government jobs need to be eliminated by the thousands, not beefed up with such employees getting undeserved and overly generous benefits and pensions.

Government programs and offices and agencies need to be shut down and the workers given the boot. Period.

-By Warner Todd Huston

In an odd turn of events, former GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz thinks that anyone that criticizes GM is not only "mis-informed" but insists that those "foaming ideologues" that criticize the car giant are "damaging the Republican Party."

It is interesting that an executive in the company derided as "Government Motors" is trying to direct attention away from his minders in the Obama administration and toward the opposing party, and just before a general election at that.

It is also interesting to see Lutz defending GM as the "future" of the car business. Lately GM has not been turning out the sort of products that puts the company at the head of much of anything.

For one thing, value seems to be an area where GM is in the back of the pack. James B. Stewart of the Wall Street Journal's SmartMoney.com found late in April that car shoppers don't find GM to have much value to its products.

"Indeed, value was a theme I heard over and over," Stewart wrote, "a reminder that high gas prices and malaise about the economy are having a profound effect on consumers, even the auto buffs who tend to populate car shows. This struck me as a marketing challenge for GM. Much as many shoppers seemed to like the GM offerings, nearly all of them cited models they deemed better values elsewhere at the show."

If GM is the future of the auto industry as Lutz claims, its products are going to have to give customers the value they are looking for. Thus far they aren’t.

Speaking of the high cost of fuel, GM did seem to lead the field in one area. As Reuters recently reported, it led in inaccurate fuel gages.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on its website it opened a preliminary investigation covering Chevrolet Trailblazers, GMC Envoys, Buick Rainiers and Saab 9-7s from model years 2005-2007 after receiving 668 complaints alleging inaccurate fuel gauge readings.

In fact, there is yet another area where GM leads: in some of the industry's worst cars. Last month GM found nine of its models in the bottom eleven cars.

Those models ranked as some of the worst in value, safety, and/or reliability, and gas mileage. As David Freddoso quipped, "Thank goodness we put up $80 billion to bail out GM and Chrysler. They are now building such wonderful cars that they have achieved total dominance of the Forbes "Worst Cars on the Road" list…"

Still, Vice Chairman Lutz wants to label anyone that sleights GM as a "foaming ideologue" for doubting the company. One wonders if his spin is merely bluff or something else?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Columbia University announced last week that its Graduate School of Journalism is awarding its highest award to America's enemies, Al-Jazeera TV.

The university is awarding Al-Jazeera with its journalism award for the Arab-centric mid eastern "news" it has produced. Al-Jazeera is apparently being recognized for "singular journalism in the public interest."

"Al Jazeera English has performed a great service in bringing the English-speaking world in-depth coverage of the turmoil in the Middle East," said Nicholas Lemann, dean of Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism.

So, once again we have a leftist American university turning its back on America this time to award its top honors to a foreign TV service whose goal includes the daily denunciation of the United States of America.

One has to wonder if there were awards given by American universities for the Nazi Party's newspapers or radio broadcasts during WWII? Were there great American awards given the U.S.S.R.'s Pravda or Izvestia during the Cold War, even? Yet here we are in the middle of a war between freedom, liberty, and democracy and the backwards, oppressive forces of radical Islam that Al-Jazeera represents and our publicly supported university is giving great awards to supporters of our enemy.

This is typical of the vapid thinking of the Democrat Party and America's liberals. To them we are the evil that plagues the world. To them we are the monsters. To liberals our enemies need to be awarded and recognized as the better side of the argument.

Last week, Bill O'Reilly tackled this topic and made some great points.

-By Warner Todd Huston

At the Detroit Economic Club today, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner tried to claim the auto bailout is a success.

It certainly doesn’t seem like a success for the taxpayers. GM stock is about $30 today, and unless it gets up to $54, the taxpayers lose money on the deal. Why would it go up? You want to fight high gas prices by buying a Volt? How does $41 grand a pop sound? And still GM loses money on every one it sells even at that price. Not only that but we are seeing that government subsides for electric cars is good tax money wasted in any case.

It doesn’t get any better. Worldwide, U.S. cars aren’t selling worth beans and domestically, GM is lagging because people who hate the bailouts won’t support it with their car-buying dollars any more than they did with their votes last year when they kicked out every incumbent they could find who’d been for it. And GM still has all its old problems, too, like those big fat union pension obligations. Sadly, nothing that caused GM’s financial trouble has been fixed.

But the spin continues. Last December, Geithner said the auto bailouts were “investments,” which “will show a positive return, not a negative return.”

As the 2010 midterms proved, the people know better. They know government can’t run an automobile company and they know the deal was mostly political payback to the UAW, the biggest culprit in why GM and Chrysler were in trouble in the first place -- not that company execs did themselves proud, either.

People didn’t believe Geithner when he said we’d make money on the deal, and they were right. Today’s speech was more of the same, and it still won’t fly.

Geithner, Obama and the rest of the gang that brought us this monstrosity may or may not actually still think they kept the economy from chaos by the bailout, but they’re just believing their own scare tactics if they do.

As George Mason University Professor Todd Zywicki pointed out in depth, a normal bankruptcy would have worked just as well. Sorry, Timmy. Your spinning wheel is getting us nowhere.

You may remember last year, when union-backed Democrats nearly passed the so-called DISCLOSE Act, imposing financial disclosure for companies, while excluding unions.

Well, the DISCLOSE Act is back...Sort of.

Based on pretty solid reporting by Pajamas Media and confirmed by Huffington Post, it appears that the Obama Administration is preparing an Executive Order to force portions of the DISCLOSE Act on all federal contractors.

As drafted, the Executive Order would only affect government contractors -- not unions-and would require the contractor, as well as its directors or officers, to disclose any contribution or expenditures.

(a) All contributions or expenditures to or on behalf of federal candidates, parties or party committees made by the bidding entity, its directors or officers, or any affiliates or subsidiaries within its control.

(b) Any contributions made to third party entities with the intention or reasonable expectation that parties would use those contributions to make independent expenditures or electioneering communications.

You can view the entire draft Executive Order here.

Doug Ibendahl of RepublicanNewsWatch.com has been a leading advocate of the current iteration of a bill that would give Illinois' Republican voters the opportunity to actually vote in the leaders of their own party. It is currently called SB35 but has been for sometime identified as SB600.

SB35 would reverse the way the members of the Illinois Republican State Central Committee are placed on the governing body of the state party. Currently these folks are appointed to their positions by the affirmation of all the state's local committeemen. The actual voters have no direct say. Curiously enough, the Democrats do have direct elections of their central committeemen but Republicans do not.

Recently a state representative contacted Mr. Ibendahl for some info about the bill. This is Ibendahl's letter, which can be seen HERE.

I’m sure you must be as amazed as I am regarding the lengths a few selfish players will go to protect a corrupted system that’s been a disaster for Republicans and for our Party. It’s sad that a few are so obsessed with trying to make sure Republican voters have inferior rights compared to every Illinois Democrat.

Here is the additional information you requested regarding the State GOP and SB35.

The IL GOP’s State Central Committee (the “SCC”) held its last quarterly meeting on March 9th in Springfield.

Here is the bylaw amendment the SCC passed in closed executive session:

“Proxy voting at county conventions shall not be permitted except that the newly-elected County Chairman of any county shall cast the vote for any precinct (in the case of Cook County – any ward or township) not represented at such county convention in the same proportion that the elected Precinct Committeeman, City of Chicago Ward Committeeman, or Cook County Township Committeeman shall have cast their votes.”

Incredibly, while some are shamelessly claiming they “took care of” the so-called “vacant precinct problem” – in reality the SCC locked in the destructive practice in their bylaws on March 9th.

Read the new bylaw language again if necessary – but note that it clearly directs County Chairmen to vote vacant precincts. In fact it now says County Chairmen have no choice. The bylaws now say that County Chairmen shall cast the votes for vacant precincts.

I wrote a story about that meeting, based on my interviews with 2 tea party friends who attended (I wasn’t there myself) – IL GOP officials make desperate attempt to keep their title.

Even more shameless, the voting of vacant precincts by Republican County Chairmen is already prohibited under Illinois law – even under the bad system our party currently follows. Any reasonable reading of the following provision of the Illinois Election Code makes it clear that only elected committeemen should be voting for SCC members at the county conventions: In other words, any attempted bylaw change is irrelevant. As any first year law student knows, when a statute is clearly on point regarding an issue – no internal rule or policy can override. Statute always trumps an internal rule or bylaw.

10 ILCS 5/7-8(a). At the county convention held by such political party . . . Each elected ward, township or precinct committeeman shall cast as his vote one vote for each ballot voted in his ward, township, part of a township or precinct in the last preceding primary election of his political party. [Emphasis is mine.]

And frankly even if the above referenced statute didn’t exist – simple common sense and decency would demand that no one official (a County Chairman) be allowed to swamp the weighted vote of an individual elected committeeman. But our SCC just endorsed the impermissible practice.

This latest dishonesty and nonsense is just one more argument for passage of SB35. We’ve got a State GOP now that won’t level with Republican voters about even the simplest things.

With SB35 and the return of direct elections, most of the silly games and attempts to rig the system all go away. Proper incentives replace the horribly destructive ones inherent in our current system for picking the SCC.

Perhaps most shameful of all, under the statutory alternative our party currently follows (the bad law Democrat and Republican lawmakers forced on us over two decades ago without notice) – the game’s already incredibly rigged in favor of the SCC incumbents and a failed status quo. This whole scam about voting vacant precincts was invented years ago when some incumbents feared the system still wasn’t rigged ENOUGH. They looked for extra help. And that’s typically done by working in cahoots with certain County Chairman pals. In some cases the County Chairman and the SCC member have been one and the same.

The point is, we’ve got a bad system now – but our party can’t even follow the statute governing that bad system. They’ve had to go further – and they are doing it in violation of Illinois law.

SB35 simply reverses that bad law that shouldn’t have been forced on Republicans in the first place – and which the SCC won’t even comply with when they decide it still doesn’t satisfy their purpose.

I would also note that the issue of “vacant precincts” is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what’s wrong with our current system. The overriding problem could be summarized as lack of accountability. An SCC that decides on its own not to follow a law simply because they feel it’s not already rigged enough in their favor – is just one example. An SCC that allows its Chairman to endorse in a primary without saying a peep - as Pat Brady was allowed to do for Mark Kirk last year – is just one other example.

Direct elections means that the SCC members will know they will have to face Republican voters in a real election on a date certain. Just that knowledge will make even our current group of 19 marginally better SCC members overnight.

Don’t hesitate to call me if you have any questions or would like to discuss more. But let’s get it done. I urge you to sign-on as a co-sponsor of SB35 this week.

Doug Ibendahl

-By Warner Todd Huston

GM, Obama's favorite federally owned car company, was thrilled to report in March that sales figures for the Chevy Cruze helped put the company on the fast track to success but it wasn't the best news when the wheels began to literally fall off the Cruze causing a recall of GM's "success" story.

As we will remember, last November Obama proclaimed GM a great success story, one that justified his raging fever for bailouts. This March GM buttressed Obama's glowing account by reporting rosy sales figures in which the Chevy Cruze made a big appearance. Then GM reported that the Cruze and the Malibu accounted for "98,950 sales – roughly one of every four Chevrolets sold in the first quarter."

But let's not break out the champagne too soon because only weeks after GM celebrated sales of the Cruze, at least one steering wheel popped off in transit. It's a literal case of the wheels coming off GMs success story.

In one case, a Chevy Cruze owner was driving 65 MPH on a highway when her steering wheel broke right off. With her in the car were her young son and her own elderly mother. None were hurt fortunately.

Now GM is recalling 2,100 cars in hopes of preventing another such unfortunate accident.

GM reported that it had traced the defect to a relatively small number of cars that had initially had the wrong steering wheel installed. When the error was discovered, at least in the case of the one car noted above, the replacement wheel was not installed properly. Regardless a recall was initiated.

None of this is good news for GM as the company's market share has been experiencing a steady decline over the last few years.

It all seems to amount to being a bad deal for the American taxpayers who, through the Department of the Treasury, still own 26% of GM. Right after the recall announcement, GM's stock is down another 1.3%.

With "success stories" like this, Obama doesn't need failures.

-By Warner Todd Huston @font-face { font-family: "Geneva"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Geneva; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }

A few days ago I wrote about how the Obama administration has stuffed the upper echelons of management at General Motors with government lackeys who have no experience in the auto industry and how Obama's government will lead GM to ultimate failure. Today we see yet one more step toward GMs ruin with government plans for subsidies that the taxpayers will end up paying for. @font-face { font-family: "Geneva"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Geneva; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }

The Washington Times' Kerry Picket reports that some Democrats and the geniuses Obama put at the top of GM, much derided as "Government Motors," are proposing that taxpayers be tapped to foot the bill for tax credits and rebates for customers that buy the failed Chevy Volt. @font-face { font-family: "Geneva"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Geneva; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }

Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow has proposed legislation known as the Charging America Forward Act (S.298) that will give federal cash rebates of $7,500 to anyone that buys the Chevy Volt. @font-face { font-family: "Geneva"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Geneva; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }

The Department of Energy claims that this rebate program idea is somehow just like the Cash For Clunkers program. But this couldn't be more different. @font-face { font-family: "Geneva"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Geneva; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }

First of all, this program is only for one car model, the Volt, not just any car model. It isn't likely that the program will stimulate the greater economy. Secondly, the Chevy Volt is a failing model. thus far in 2011 GM only sold 602 Chevy Volts. The Volt's month-to-month sales were down between January and February, too. Sales went from 321 in January to 281 in February. @font-face { font-family: "Geneva"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Geneva; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }

The fact is that these thousands of dollars of rebates will not do much good and will cost far more in administrative costs than it is worth doing. Not to mention that it will keep GM manufacturing a car that no one seems to want. The latter is the worst part of this as GM will continue putting resources to a failed model to sustain Obama's green initiatives despite poor sales. @font-face { font-family: "Geneva"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Geneva; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }

This is further evidence that GM is now a political body and not a car manufacturer. It is also further evidence of the seeds of failure being deeply planted in one of the nation's largest corporations.

-By Warner Todd Huston

I am here in sunny Houston, Texas attending the opening night of the True The Vote Summit and what a night it has been. We heard some inspiring speeches for this sold out event, saw some interesting attendees, and met an awful lot of great folks.

It has been thrilling to see several hundred handpicked Tea Partiers and local concerned citizens from 27 states here to learn how they, too, can stop vote fraud in their own districts using the methods learned the hard way in 2010 by the King Street Patriots here in Harris County, Texas.

You might recall back in Sept. of 2010 when the KSPers discovered an ACORN guy that had registered over 23,000 fake voters for the 2010 elections here in Texas. That was only the beginning of their efforts to root out vote fraud in one of the most corrupt Democrat controlled areas in the state.

Tonight we heard from True The Vote Chief Catherine Engelbrecht, former Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman, the Heritage Foundation's Hans Von Spakovsky, ACORN Whistle blower and American Majority Rep Anita MonCreif. All gave us spellbinding tales of vote fraud and how important it is to stop. Also in attendance was former Senate candidate from Alaska Joe Miller, RNC Chair candidate Saul Anuzis, and many others.

Tomorrow we'll hear from John Fund of the Wall Street Journal, J. Christian Adams who blew the whistle on the Obama administration's refusal to prosecute the Black Panthers in Philadelphia, and the boss himself Andrew Breitbart -- and I even get some podium time to speak on using new media.

What follows is the encapsulated thrust of the messages we heard tonight.

Catherine Engelbrecht

Head of The King Street Patriots and True The Vote Catherine Engelbrecht

The night began with a few words from the chief cook and bottle washer of the King Street Patriots and the True The Vote effort, the Texas dynamo Catherine Englebrecht.

She warned us that, "across the country we have an epidemic low level of Americans participating at the polls." This is one thing that TTV is aimed at solving. To get Americans interested in the process is their goal.

"The underpinning of True The Vote is not the 'sizzle' of vote fraud," Engelbrecht said, "but it's the integrity of our voting process and that is the key focus."

The one thing that concerned me most was the fact that so many people have said that they just accept fraud as a part of the system. The underpinning of our system is the integrity of the vote, that our voices are heard.

Engelbrecht told us that those that the King Street Patriots invited to speak at this summit of concerned citizens were chosen, "because they each represent a small piece of the troubles that vote fraud and the system is facing."

The next speaker was ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief, herself a tireless advocate for a fair, balanced, and free election process. And she knows exactly how crooked the left is in its efforts to initiate vote fraud, too. She used to work for ACORN and saw it all first hand.

Anita MonCrief

MonCrief spoke and told us of her history with ACORN where she discovered that they spent $28 million in 2004 from people like George Soros to register voters yet it was all fraud. "It was all smoke and mirrors," she said. ACORN was picking up fake ballots from fraudulent voters numbering in the thousands in hopes of pushing John Kerry over the top. When that didn't work they ramped it up even bigger for 2008.

In 2008 that effort worked. "ACORN is not just one organization," she warned us. "There are over 300 organizations that came together to put Obama into the White House in 2008.

Some of the things Anita saw would have violated the RICO statutes if anyone bothered to prosecute ACORN for its fraud.

ACORN also doesn’t really care about “the little people” and that is one of the main reasons she turned against the crooked organization. Each and every year ACORN employees are going to jail for vote fraud but ACORN would always successfully pawn this fact off as the fault of "rogue employees," MonCrief marveled. ACORN never backed up the people they hired and always threw them to the wolves. And all these lower level employees were lied to, told that they deserved things from the government because of slavery or evil white oppressors. Then if they didn't buy that line, ACORN just paid them off to do the left’s bidding.

MonCrief told us that the machinery of our system is such that when it is close it only takes a few votes here and there to pull the election in the left's direction. And we need to stop this left-wing, vote-stealing engine.

But MonCrief had a ray of hope for us. "They are terrified of what we are doing with True The Vote because this is the first time they have faced this sort of opposition. What you are doing here is something the left never thought the right could get done."

Hans Von Spakovsky

Next up was Hans Von Spakovsky, a former member of the Federal Elections Commission and the Justice Dept., a man who saw mounting fraud first hand. He's also seen the Clinton and Obama administrations refuse to prosecute it.

Von Spakovsky told us some hair-raising tales of Democrat administrations that ignored endemic fraud throughout the country. But he also warned us that courts and prosecution can't "fix" the system.

It is important not just to vote but to protect the integrity of the whole system. Criminal prosecution is simply not enough stop vote fraud it takes us all to get involved.

Like Anita, Von Spakovsky told us that it is in close elections when voter fraud is most useful for the left. And they flood the field with fraud in hopes of being ready for those close elections.

He also spoke on how successful voter ID laws have been. They are just common sense. But he also told us that the left's argument against these laws is built on outright lies.

The claim that photo ID would depress the minority vote is unproven by the facts on the ground. In Georgia and Indiana -- the two states with the toughest ID laws -- the voter photo ID laws showed record turnouts were not prevented in the 2008 primary when Obama ran for president. Voting doubled for minorities in many of these areas. Indiana has the strictest voter ID law in the nation, yet in 2008 the voters quadrupled in the sate in 2008 with the photo ID law in place.

"The most important thing you can do to stop this," Von Spakovsky said, "is to work as an election judge in elections. If you are an election judge you can stop this fraud at the source. If you do that you are doing the best thing to protect the integrity of our election system."

We want to make sure that EVERYONE who is eligible to vote gets to vote. But was also want to make sure that the votes of those eligible voters don't have their vote stolen by fraud and that their votes count.

Finally we heard from former Senator from Minnesota Norm Coleman, a man who understands vote fraud intimately because he lost his seat in the senate by endemic Democrat vote fraud.

Norm Coleman

First of all, Coleman was very pleased with the efforts of TTV.

True The Vote is moving in the right direction. You are helping decide what is happening at the polls and this may seem a small thing but it is a great thing. The political games played with our elections should be of concern to every American.

Coleman gave us two examples where a single vote made a history changing difference, both involving himself. When he was elected as a Senator George W. Bush was able to put through the candidacy of John Roberts as Supreme Court Chief Justice. Previous to Coleman's election, Robert's nomination died in committee. Roberts got in because Coleman became the one Republican Senator at the time that encouraged Bush to push the nomination again. One vote put John Roberts at the Supreme Court. Not but a few years later when Coleman lost to Al Franken due to massive vote fraud, Obamacare was passed with the one vote of Franken, the 60th supermajority vote. That one vote gave us Obamacare.

"One vote counts and we need to make sure the votes are legitimate," he said.

Coleman told us the horror story of Minneapolis. In 19 districts in Minneapolis there were more votes than actual voters and that sort of vote fraud elected Franken to the Senate.

He wrapped up with some recommendations on how we can fix this system.

What can you do to make sure that the vote has integrity. Number one, pass a voter ID law. Voting is the most important part of the underpinning of our nation. Folks died to insure that all Americans could vote. Aren't we making a mockery of those that died to insure a legal, fair election by allowing massive vote fraud?

Coleman reminded us of a stark reality. In some places, he said, in order to use a credit card at a McDonald's you need a photo ID. “If you need a photo ID to buy a Big Mac you should need a photo ID to vote,” he insisted.

Another way to ensure the integrity of the vote is to get more of us to the polls as election judges. Election judges "are on the front line making sure that the elections are true and fair," Coleman said. "That is why I am humbled at what True The Vote is doing. You will put these judges on the front lines."

Whatever you do, do something. More directly do your part! I'm asking you to sacrifice just some of your time on election day. NOW is the time to start this because 2012 is coming soon. Do your part to keep this great republic vibrant.

Senator Coleman finished up by saying we should live our lives as if the world is in a balance and our own actions will tip the scales. As patriots we should do our part to make sure our system is a fair and free process.

More reports tomorrow evening after the training sessions and other speakers.

Senator Norm Coleman and Warner Todd Huston

SFormer GOP Senate Candidate for Alaska Senate Joe Miller picking the drawing winner

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Obama Administration has proclaimed TARP and the subsequent bailout for General Motors a great success. US Treasury Deputy Timothy Massad recently said, "Where we are today shows that the program, by any reasonably objective measure, was a success." But is GM, now much derided as "Government Motors" the success that Obama says it is? Facts don't argue in Obama's favor.

First of all, we must dispense with the whole idea that a benevolent Obama played sugar daddy to "save" GM and did so without too much meddling with the company. Despite the claims that it is "back" and back in private hands, We The People still own 33% of GM. But government ownership is deeper than the a mere calculated percentage. You see, GM’s Board and its CEO were all placed in their positions by Obama, his czars and advisers. Worse, none of them have any experience at all in the auto industry.

Obama’s GM CEO, Dan Akerson, is not a "car guy" -- as he himself admitted. Akerson's experience is as a Wall Street hedge fund operator not an auto industry exec. He was also a player at the politically connected Carlyle Group and was the firm's Managing Director.

Being a hedge fund guy, Akerson is much more familiar with short term, high risk investing practices as opposed to the long term thinking needed to run a car company.

Worse, Akerson has a history of running failing companies. Akerson was CEO of at least two companies that went into bankruptcy.

[Akerson] was until May of 2008 Chairman of the Board of Hawaiian Telecom - the company declared bankruptcy just seven months after his departure. He was also the CEO of XO Communications when it went bankrupt in December 2002.

Akerson isn't the only non-car guy placed inside GM at Obama's behest. By 2010, the federal government had sowed the seeds for the next disaster.

The government's efforts inside and outside of TARP have sown the seeds for the next crisis and, unfortunately, last year's 2,319-page Dodd-Frank Act does nothing to fix these problems. Treasury must be more transparent regarding TARP. The real myth that the Treasury secretary should dispel is that TARP is a big win for the taxpayer.

These failures are the same sort of endemic problems that the administration has instilled in GM.

As Seton Motley noted in his Washington Examiner piece, none of the people running GM placed there by governments have experience in the sort of long term thinking that a car company needs.

Running a car company requires LONG-term thinking. Determining the right cars to design, make and bring to market is chess, not checkers. You don’t plan quarter-to-quarter or even year-to-year – you plan YEARS out in advance.

Just so. Yet none of the people Obama placed at GM have any of this expertise. Just as the bailout mentality has merely sowed the seeds for the next collapse, Obama's GM appointees are just setting up the company for a fall later and all at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer.