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.

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Wilmette Beacon published a very startling article that reveals so much of what is wrong with the state of Illinois. Roger Keats, a former state senator and a recent candidate for Cook County Board President has announced that he is leaving the state and moving to Texas.

Keats has a long history of fighting corruption in Cook County, but he's realized that there is no longer any political will to continue that fight in the state of Illinois. It is hopelessly corrupt and Roger Keats feels he's done his duty, but that duty is finished.

The full text of the Keats' letter was published in Illinois Review:

GOOD BYE AND GOOD LUCK

As we leave Illinois for good, I wanted to say goodbye to my friends and wish all of you well. I am a lifelong son of the heartland and proud of it. After 60 years, I leave Illinois with a heavy heart. BUT enough is enough! The leaders of Illinois refuse to see we can t continue going in the direction we are and expect people who have options to stay here. I remember when Illinois had 25 congressmen. In 2012 we will have 18. Compared to the rest of the country we have lost 1/4rd of our population. Don t blame the weather, because I love 4 seasons.

Illinois just sold still more bonds and our credit rating is so bad we pay higher interest rates than junk bonds! Junk Bonds! Illinois is ranked 50th for fiscal policy; 47th in job creation; 1st in unfunded pension liabilities; 2nd largest budget deficit; 1st in failing schools; 1st in bonded indebtedness; highest sales tax in the nation; most judges indicted (Operations Greylord and Gambat); and 5 of our last 9 elected governors have been indicted. That is more than the other 49 states added together! Then add 32 Chicago Aldermen and (according to the Chicago Tribune) over 1000 state and municipal employees indicted. The corruption tax is a real cost of doing business. We are the butt of jokes for stand up comics.

We live in the most corrupt big city, in the most corrupt big county in the most corrupt state in America. I am sick and tired of subsidizing crooks. A day rarely passes without an article about the corruption and incompetence. Chicago even got caught rigging the tests to hire police and fire! Our Crook County CORPORATE property tax system is intentionally corrupt. The Democrat State Chairman who is also the Speaker of the Illinois House and the most senior alderman in Chicago each make well over a million dollars a year putting the fix in for their client s tax assessments.

We are moving to Texas where there is no income tax while Illinois just went up 67%. Texas sales tax is ? of ours, which is the highest in the nation. Southern states are supportive of job producers, tax payers and folks who offer opportunities to their residents. Illinois shakes them down for every penny that can be extorted from them.

In The Hill Country of Texas (near Austin and San Antonio) we bought a gracious home on almost 2 acres with a swimming pool. It is new, will cost us around 40% of what our home in Wilmette just sold for and the property taxes are 1/3rd of what they are here. Crook County s property tax system is a disaster: Wilmette homes near ours sell for 50% more and their property taxes are ? of ours. Our assessed home value was 50% higher than the sales price. The system is unfair and incompetent.

Our home value is down 40%, our property taxes are up 20% and our local schools have still another referendum on the ballot to increase taxes over 20% in one year. I could go on, but enough is enough. I feel as if we are standing on the deck of the Titanic and I can see the icebergs right in front of us. I will miss our friends a great deal. I have called Illinois home for essentially my entire life. But it is time to go where there is honest, competent and cost effective government. We have chosen to vote with our feet and our wallets. My best to all of you and Good luck!

Patriots and activists from 23 states are about to gather together on March 25 and 26 in Houston, Texas to attend the True The Vote Summit, an effort to make "true" the electoral system in every polling place in the country, to stop voter fraud, and to quash the intimidation of voters. Organizers hope to make sure that we again have free and fair elections.

A local Harris County activist group named The The King Street Patriots built the True The Vote Summit upon their experiences of attempting to “true” the 2010 election in Harris County, Texas.

Back before the recent election, the KSP got together to try and find out what sort of shape the voting rolls were in Harris County, Texas were. What they found was shocking. Due to its investigation, an ACORN organizer was exposed for having registered over 23,000 fake voters in the county. The story made national news.

With that success under their belts the KSPers and their chief Catherine Engelbrecht decided to step it up a notch. And so, during the 2010 midterm election, the group set out to organize citizen poll watchers to monitor every polling place in Harris County. The goal was to make sure that what went on in each polling place followed the letter of the law, was free of cheating and fraud, and was open and welcoming for every voter.

Naturally the floodgates of hate were opened upon them. Leftist agitators let loose a smear campaign against these patriotic folks calling them haters, racists, and worse. The Black Panthers even came out in force to intimidate both the KSP and the voters they were observing.

The attacks on the True The Vote Summit have also continued unabated by the left today. So we know how the left is worried about this movement. Vote fraud is almost exclusively practiced by Democrats and left-wing activists in this country, so an effort like this threatens their operations.

Despite all the attacks they underwent, the King Street Patriots were buoyed by their success in stopping vote fraud during the 2010 elections and with that experience to guide them they now want to offer their assistance and to relay the tools they’ve developed to stop vote fraud to any and every state in the union. The result is the True The Vote Summit to be held March 25 and 26 in Houston, Texas.

According to the event website:

Election fraud attacks the heart of our political system and threatens our rights as citizens.

When True the Vote began monitoring elections last fall in Houston, we were shocked at the fraud we discovered. Precinct judges often failed to check voters IDs, and some even filled out ballots to “help” people vote. These violations are just the tip of a very large and ugly iceberg.

If you are one of the millions of Americans outraged by corruption at the highest levels of our nation’s government, then you can help us stop fraud where it begins – at the polling place, in the precinct where you live, in the streets of your city.

If you care enough to help, contact us today to become part of our action plan. A commitment of just a few hours is all it takes to help restore truth and integrity to our elections.

Appearing to speak at the True The Vote National Summit will be New Media Mogul Andrew Breitbart, Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund, former Dept. of Justice attorney and Philadelphia Black Panthers whistleblower J. Christian Adams, ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCreif, former FEC commissioner Hans Von Spakovsky and others.

If you are ready to do your duty as an American to, as in Ben Franklin’s warning, “have our Republic and keep it” make haste to sign up to join the True The Vote Summit this month.

One of the issues that many conservatives have focused on is our out of control court system and the constant judicial overreach that occurs therein. Here we have yet another case of a court insinuating itself into an area in which it previously never had purview and if this decision stands it will open our courts to a flood of court shopping that will turn our legal system further down the wrong road.

At least since the forced busing case of 1971 and the Roe v Wade abortion case, conservatives have been complaining about judges taking undue powers unto themselves. For decades these power mad judges have been expanding their reach to control our lives until even our state and federal legislatures have seemed to give up their rightful role as lawmakers. Once again we have a judge that has reached beyond his proper role.

The case in question is Marshall v. Marshall and, yes, once again Anna Nicole Smith is going before the U.S. Supreme Court -- and from beyond the grave at that. The reason a Smith matter is again before the SCOTUS four years after her death is because one of her cases was decided by a federal bankruptcy court in California on reasons that had nothing at all to do with technical bankruptcy rules. The case before the SCOTUS would determine if the bankruptcy court acted properly.

If you'll recall, Anna Nicole Smith took her wealthy, departed husband's estate to court claiming that he'd made a verbal promise to give her millions of dollars and part of his estate upon his passing. But Marshall's extensive, detailed estate plan did not mention her at all so when she initially brought her case before a Texas Probate court, she lost. Not surprisingly when Smith realized she would not be satisfied with the outcome in Texas she and her legal team began shopping for courts that would give a favorable decision. She found that in a federal bankruptcy court in California.

Despite that the Marshall estate plan made no mention of Smith and despite that the plan was letter perfect to the law, California bankruptcy Judge Samuel L. Bufford had sympathy for Anna Nicole Smith and ruled in her favor. Essentially this bankruptcy judge based his decision on personal injury to Smith as opposed to using technical bankruptcy laws to make his decision.

Bufford was accused of breaking two rules. First, he took a case despite that the “probate exception” rule required that the case stay in Texas and second he took the case even though it wasn’t a “core matter” for a bankruptcy proceeding.

California's Ninth Circuit Court, a court much derided as the "Ninth Circus" for finding "penumbras" at every turn, ruled that the bankruptcy judge was wrong agreeing that the California case shouldn’t have been called because the case was a Texas matter.

The “probate exception” part of this case already went before the SCOTUS and the high court sided with the bankruptcy judge. But the Ninth Circuit did not rule on the “core matter” part of the case and that is the part that is going back before the Supremes.

This year the highest court in the land will be tasked with deciding if Judge Bufford had a right to hear the case even though it was not a “core matter” for his court, even though he basically had no proper jurisdiction. This case will rule on whether or not bankruptcy judges can stray from the closely delineated rules of bankruptcy law and take cases tangential to traditional bankruptcy.

Of course bankruptcy courts have nothing to do with personal injury issues. Further they shouldn't. But if the California bankruptcy judge is upheld this will open our legal system to a spate of court shopping that will undermine bankruptcy laws all across the land.

Imagine how hard it will be to plan your estate if a federal bankruptcy judge can give your money away to someone you don't want to reward simply because the judge feels he has the right to wander from the technical aspects of the law and instead enter into territory that has nothing at all to do with the rules he's supposed to be observing. Worse, imagine that someone looking to steal away your estate can take his meritless case to any court in the country, any court that is sympathetic to his case.

It would be a disaster, for sure.

So, we as conservatives should want something we almost never want. That would be for California's Ninth Circuit Court decision to reverse Bufford to be upheld. Bankruptcy Judge Samuel L. Bufford's ruling must be affirmed as wrongly decided.

If Bufford is upheld our courts will spin even further out of control. That is something that none of us should want.

Resources:

Amicus Brief

Anna Nicole Smith Returns to the Supreme Court, by Robert Alt

SCOTUS to Hear Anna Nicole Smith Case, by Todd Zywicki, the Volokh Conspiracy blog

Anna Nicole Smith Goes Shopping: The New Forum Shopping Problem in Bankruptcy , Working Paper by by Todd Zywicki

Marshall v Marshall, Wikipedia

It isn't just national issues that the Old Media misreports. As we focus on the "big" stories of the day, we often overlook the local scene and the left-wing excuse for "reporting," therefrom. This is a perfect example of that.

Imagine you are a sophomore in high school and your sex ed teacher forces you to prance about your classroom singing and dancing to "The Vagina Dance" in a puerile attempt to teach the parts and functions of the female sex organ. Worse, imagine you are a male student in a classroom of such an unhinged teacher? Well, we don't have to imagine it too hard because this exact situation has happened in a classroom in the Chicago, Illinois suburbs. But don't worry. Chicago's Old Media is all about reporting this incident honestly. Well, if honestly means to ignore relevant facts and shore up support for the out of control teacher and smooth things over for the school, that is.

Early this month, parent Robert King, whose son goes to Crystal Lake's Prairie Ridge High School, complained to school authorities over the inappropriate teaching methods of health teacher Jacqulyn Levin. As a teaching tool Levin used "The Vagina Dance," a song replete with dance steps and arm movements, and required her entire co-ed class to participate in it – all to the tune of The Hokey Pokey, no less. As it happens King's son was uncomfortable being required to prance about the room, arms emulating fallopian tubes, and singing about vaginas, so the parents complained.

In response the teacher claimed that her song was nothing but a harmless "kinesthetic device" meant to help the kids learn through "fun." The Illinois Family Institute, however, begs to differ and called the claim, "a rationalization, an obvious and foolish attempt to conceal the inappropriateness and silliness of the activity with a patina of pedagogical legitimacy" (I love how they used edu-speak against the teacher, too. Kudos to that.)

Fittingly, McHenry County's Northwest Herald Newspaper dutifully reported on this incident. Unsurprisingly, the paper ignored relevant facts and merely took the word of the school district as fact as the school circled its wagons to protect itself and its teacher. The paper made matters worse by publishing an editorial by Cyndi Wyss, the paper's Community Editor, that downplayed the father's concerns and further supported the school. Wyss also ignored relevant facts.

The paper held that "The Vagina Dance" was not really a dance and was not really called "The Vagina Dance." The paper also did not reveal that other teachers in the past had used this as a vehicle for teaching the female anatomy and had been doing so for several years.

For her part, Wyss proclaimed the whole incident overblown and said that the teacher was "using an educationally appropriate, ease-the-tension tool in her teaching repertoire."

It is clear that the Northwest Herald took sides in this debate.

But parent Robert King disagrees with the Herald's position and excoriated its penchant to ignore relevant facts.

The paper says that no one calls the song "The Vagina Dance" except the kids, insisting that the teachers and officials have never called it that. Yet, in emails back and forth between Mr. King and the school's representatives, the thing was, indeed, called "The Vagina Dance," and no effort to dissuade anyone form considering it thus was attempted. In fact, the IFI reprinted one of Principal Paul Humpa's replies and in it he calls it that himself.

Not only that, but the paper also tried to make this song seem isolated to this one teacher's efforts to find an "ease-the-tension tool" in her class, but King asserts that several teachers have used this "song" and have been doing so for several years -- all of them calling it "The Vagina Dance," by the way.

King's reply to the skewed editorial can be seen at the Illinois Review.

The issue here is, of course, one of modesty. It is outlandish to force teenagers to dance around pretending to be vaginas, whether they are boys or girls. It is a lack of propriety that we are discussing here. It makes kids uncomfortable and trivializes both the act of education as well as the female reproductive system.

But whatever it is or isn't the fact is the local newspaper did its level best to create public opinion in order to back up this teacher and the school instead of reporting the actual facts of the case and allowing readers to decide. The Northwest Herald invented the news. It did not report it. This sort of shabby reporting is happening in nearly every state of the union and not just on the big national stories.

(Originally posted at Big Journalism.)

Everyone loves Girl Scout cookies, right? What could be more American? It's a right of passage for many young girls to set up a folding table in front of a local business and sell their little cookies and what American doesn't get a warm feeling in their heart when they see those peppy little ones chirping out, "would you like to buy some cookies?" Who could be against that? Who would want to set up a situation where Girl Scouts would be turned away from their traditional cookie-selling outposts?

Apparently the Obama administration.

At least one sector of America isn't so fond of the ability of Girl Scouts to sell their wares unhindered, it seems. When the Obama administration's Department of Labor and his National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) look at Girl Scouts, they don't see cute little children taking their first steps toward adulthood, they see opportunity for a union powergrab.

Obama's NLRB is trying to push a new rule that would force any business that allows Girl Scouts or any other local groups like baseball or football teams, school bands, charity groups etc. to sell their fundraiser items or solicit donations in front of or inside of their businesses to also allow unions into their businesses to cajole employees to organize.

Even when the purpose of many union actions are meant to drive customers away from the business in order to force the employer to accede to union demands, this rule would prevent a business owner from turning disruptive union activists away from their businesses.

A broad coalition of business owners have filed a brief with the NLRB in protest.

Today, the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW) filed an amicus brief with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on the crucial question of whether the federal government will demand that a business allow organized labor union representatives to trespass at the workplace in order to harass customers and employees and otherwise harm an employer’s business.

The case before the NLRB is Roundy’s vs. Milwaukee Building and Construction Trades (Case No. 30-CA-17185). At issue is whether the government can force any employer that allows charitable, well-meaning groups onto the premises to also allow union organizers whose purpose in many cases is to turn away customers through boycotts and similar actions. Such activity is often part of a larger strategy to pressure employers to accede to demands such as the nationally unpopular “card check” scheme that bypasses federally supervised private ballot votes.

The decision also would allow unions to go on the business owner’s property with the intent of running the company out of business – a real threat to many small businesses and entrepreneurs. Should the NLRB curtail employers’ property rights, the result could be a significant disincentive for employers to allow charities and community groups onto their premises, as well as subjecting customers and employees to harassment and labor strife. CDW’s brief argues strongly in favor of protecting customers, employees, and employers and advocates that the Board “should allow employers to refuse non-employee union access to private property, particularly where such labor organizations seek to engage in harmful boycott activities.”

Imagine. If a business allows the Girl Scouts to sell cookies, then the owner would also be forced to allow union thugs to harass employees and customers.

If this rule is passed by the NLRB the result will not be that businesses will open themselves up to union harassment. No, what will happen instead is that businesses will be forced to tell the Girl Scouts that they aren't welcome any more. Businesses will stop allowing charities to solicit donations. Businesses will cease the practice of having schools sell candy at their doorstep.

It's just one more example of the Obama administration giving unions a payoff. Little girls and charities hardest hit.

Resources:

Halt The Assault

Coalition for a Democratic Workplace

Union Bosses Scheme to Be Girl Scouts’ Next ‘Tagalong’