I attended Wednesday’s 8:00am (8am?!?) House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing entitled:

Volt Vehicle Fire: What Did NHTSA Know And When Did They Know It?

The witnesses were killer:

National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), Barack Obama-appointee Administrator David Strickland.

And General Motors (GM), Barack Obama-appointee CEO Dan Akerson.

The scope of the hearing was a bit too narrow – leaving out some fairly important attending facts.  Like, say, the (at least) five other Chevy Volt fires that have occurred besides the one being discussed.

This hearing was all about a single June Volt blaze.  The battery burst into flames about three weeks after a test crash at and by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA).

A fire about which Obama’s NHTSA did tell the Obama White House.

But a fire about which neither Obama’s NHTSA, the Obama Administration nor Obama’s GM told the American people for nearly six months – and then did so only when forced by a looming Bloomberg news story.

But:

The White House had no role in the decision to delay disclosure of a fire that broke out in a crash-tested Chevrolet Volt, the Obama administration told Congress on Friday.

Of COURSE not.

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President Barack Obama is in full 2012 reelection mode.  Part of that process is preparing to possibly take on Mitt Romney – whom (it appears) he thinks has the strongest chance to be his Republican opponent.  Which he and many Democrats think is very good news.

Romney fits right into the Left’s absurd anti-capitalism, “robber baron,” Occupy Wall Street anti-1%-er, scorched earth storyline.

Romney is very wealthy, which for Obama and his Democrats is the height of eee-vill (except – these Donkeys are mostly rich…).  Never mind that Romney’s wealth is right in line with many past Presidents and candidates – including 2004 Democrat nominee John Kerry.  (The difference?  Romney earned it, Kerry married it.)

And as Romney recently told us, he these days pays the 15% capital gains tax rate – rather than the (absurdly) higher income tax rates those of us receiving salaries do.  Never mind that this is perfectly legal (and good fiscal policy, and “fair”) – it is culled right from the Leftist, Warren Buffett “I pay less in taxes than my secretary” fraudulent script.

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How did Romney make his coin?  Via the epitome of eeeee-villll free market entities – the venture capital firm.  His was, of course, Bain Capital.

Yes, Bain sometimes invests in failing companies.  Some of which they determine to be not worth saving, so down they go.  Welcome to Reality, Boys and Girls.

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What’s an absurd Leftist policy without an agitprop song to accompany the inanity?

The attempted spoonful-of-sugar to help force down the bad Progressive medicine they are pushing.

Which brings us to General Motors (GM) and one of the Leftist ideological windmills at which they tilt – the Chevy Volt.

We the Taxpayers have spent billions subsidizing the Volt.  And continue subsidizing it still.

We bailed out GM ($50 billion) and Chrysler to the tune of $83 billion.  On which the Obama Administration now admits we’ll lose (at least) $23.6 billion.  (President Obama once upon a time promised us we’d actually make money on the deal.)

We the Taxpayers are still stuck holding 500 million shares of GM stock – on which we are poised to lose tens of billions of dollars more.

But you know what makes all of this terrible-ness so much less worse?  GM spent some of our money on – the Chevy Volt official song and music video:

Don’t you feel better?

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What’s a Barack Obama Administration multi-billion dollar boondoggle without a Czar to oversee it?

For the automobile industry bailout, the Lord Overseer was Car Czar Steven Rattner.

This is the same Steven Rattner who late last year reportedly paid a $6.2 million Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) fine and accepted a two-year ban from associating with broker-dealers or investment advisers.  For an alleged “pay-to-play” New York state pension fund kickbacks scheme he orchestrated after leaving Washington and his Czar-ship.

DC-Wall Street nexis, anyone?  Crony Socialism, anyone?

His current gig – besides being a (shocker) MSNBC Morning Joe “Economic Analyst”?  Managing New York Mayor – and 1%-er billionaire – Michael Bloomberg’s personal and philanthropic assets.

DC-Wall Street nexis, anyone?  Crony Socialism, anyone?

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We have oft spoken of how ridiculous Government General Motors (GM) has continued to become since receiving $50 billion of our bailout money.

And of the Barack Obama Administration’s puffing up for political and campaign purposes GM’s alleged “recovery” from its bankruptcy.

(A bankruptcy, by the way, that could have just as easily transpired without our $50 billion.  But I digress….)

It’s not really much of a recovery when one considers the fact that GM’s thus far $7.4 billion in 2011 profits is greatly fostered and augmented by the Obama Administration’s years-on-end GM federal tax exemption.

A Crony Socialist boon to the tune of as much as $45.4 billion.

(How’s that for federal deficit reduction?  Is absolutely nothing at all GM’s “fair share?”)

GM’s is an even less impressive “recovery” when we remember that We the People still own just over 500 million shares of GM stock.  On which to break even we need to sell at $53 per – and it is currently trading at around $23.

Which sets up We the Taxpayers for a more than $15 billion loss.

Not quite the GM “success” President Obama is repeatedly touting on the Trail to 2012.

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The Barack Obama Administration has been absolutely atrocious in signing off on terrible legislation and policy prescriptions.

ObamaCare.  The $878 billion alleged “stimulus.” The $30 billion bump (to $50 billion) of the General Motors bailout.  Cash for Clunkers.  Cash for Caulkers.  Dodd-Frank.  Lilly Ledbetter.  And on, and on, and on…

Then there’s the stuff the Obama Administration tried–and failed–to rush through the Donkey Congress (2009-2011).  But because these things were also so heinous and because the Administration and Congressional Democrats had already reached their Heinous Maximus quotient, they were unable to pile them on We the People. There was Cap and Trade.  And Card Check.  And Net Neutrality.  And…

Being stopped in Congress didn’t stop the Administration.  It didn’t even slow them down.  As President Obama said, there’s more than one way to skin these cats. These ways aren’t Constitutional.  They are, in fact, dictatorial.  But this from all appearances doesn’t bother Obama a whit. He is using his every Department, Commission, Agency and Board to jam through these terrible ideas–and more–via executive branch regulatory fiat. All of this goes a very long way towards explaining why we remain mired in plus-9% unemployment and less-than-1% economic growth.

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There has been news aplenty about the Solyndra solar power company.

The chock-full-of-Barack-Obama-Administration-cronies-and-donors corporation that received more than half a billion dollars in government-guaranteed loans to build the alleged future of energy.

Which President Obama hailed as such after the government-backed checks had cleared.

Which turned out to be totally untrue, and Solyndra’s solar folly an abject failure.  In fact, a bankrupt one.

Which anyone who knows anything at all about “green” energy knew would be the result long before it was even a glint in Obama’s Crony Socialist eye.

(This is Crony Socialism.  It has very little to do with – and is even less successful than – Crony Capitalism.)

And as it turns out, the those-in-the-know included the Obama Administration.  Who were repeatedly warned that the company was in hay-yuge trouble before the first check was cut, but pushed through the loan guarantees anyway.

And now the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has raided the joint, walking out with boxes and boxes of documents.  (We don’t yet know if this is the beginnings of a real inquiry, or a Clinton-esque move where the paperwork vanishes, only to turn up years from now in the White House residence wing.)

Was the Administration so hurriedly adamant – despite all the evidence screaming “Stop” – because of the company’s Obama cronies and their campaign cash?

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You’ve heard the expression “building on success.”

Where you identify something that’s working – and work to maximize and further broaden its fruition.  In large part by determining what’s working – and seeking to replicate it.

The Left has always remained blissfully unfamiliar with this concept.

Probably at least in part because they are perpetually too busy building instead on failure.

Take the Barack Obama Administration and their D.C. Leftist cohorts.

They in 2009 spent nearly $1 trillion on an alleged economic stimulus.  Which would, we were told, keep unemployment below 8%.

Oops.

That having failed miserably, the D.C. Leftists built upon their failure by spending more “stimulus” coin on Cash for Clunkers, Cash for Caulkers and a whole host of other pitifully failed attempts at publicly invigorating the private sector.

Oops.

Building on failure.

We all now anxiously await September’s latest-in-a-long-line of famous President Obama problem-solving speeches.  In which, we are told, he will focus like a laser on creating the jobs they have thus far failed miserably at creating with their top-down, centrally-planned borrowing and spending.

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The transformation of General Motors (GM) to Government Motors (GM) has cost a lot of Americans a lot of money.

Many, many of them under questionable and in fact illegal circumstances.

Let us begin with the $50 billion ‘We the People’ were forced to “invest” in General Motors – including a $30 billion Barack Obama bump so as to give his Administration greater sway in how things would subsequently go down.

We were originally told – by Obama himself – that we would make money on the bailout.  Now we’re told we’ll lose somewhere between $11 and $14 billion (and given the stock price’s long, slow slide, maybe even more).

And about which we were lied to by the Administration.  Which said this titanic loss of coin is less than they were expecting – just seven months after Obama his own self said we’d turn a profit.

Then there was the 2009 GM bankruptcy filing (which we were told our $50 billion would forestall – oops).

Through which the Obama Administration’s new toy car company eviscerated existing law to benefit their union, campaign-funding cronies at the illegal expense of GM bond holders – who should have by law received preferred treatment.

The ripped off didn’t take too kindly to being the Administration’s latest dupes:

We believe the offer to be a blatant disregard of fairness for the bondholders who have funded this company and amounts to using taxpayer money to show political favoritism of one creditor over another….

No kidding.

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If you are the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a company that has received $50 billion in federal bailout coin, there are certain things that you realistically shouldn’t say or do.

Both from a substantive policy and an optics perspective, you should walk a pretty straight line until We the People are made whole.

Behold General Motors (GM) CEO Dan Akerson – a man who obviously doesn’t adhere to this philosophy.

As we said back in March, Akerson is a foundational part of the Washington, D.C.-Wall Street crony capitalism nexus.

Akerson is not – and never has been – a car guy.  He himself said so.  What is he?  He is a DC-connected, Wall Street hedge fund big coin guy.

Akerson’s immediately preceding gig was Managing Director and head of Global Buyout for the incredibly inside-the-Beltway-connected Carlyle Group.

This hip-joined relationship with the federal Leviathan means Akerson’s a cardboard cutout for the real CEO of Government Motors – U.S. Treasury Secretary (and yet another fellow DC-Wall Streeter) Tim Geithner.

And from all we have since seen, Akerson is one giant toe on the Huge Government, Obama Administration line.

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In this, the third Age of Bailout, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)’s $50 billion General Motors (GM) bailout (upped from $20 billion by President Barack Obama) is yet another unmitigated disaster.

But a few of the many failures:

• GM had to file for bankruptcy anyway.

• President Obama originally claimed we’d make money on our $50 billion.  Seven months later, the Administration admitted we’d lose more than $16 billion – and dishonestly claimed the loss they had said would be a profit was “less than the(y) originally expected.”

• GM last year claimed in a television ad campaign to have “repaid (their) government loan in full, with interest, five years ahead of the original schedule.”  Which was another total lie.  They had in fact paid back only a tiny fraction thereof – and had done so so with other government TARP money.

• So fraudulent was GM’s media-buy proclamation that there has been a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaint filed against them.

• As of November 16, 2010 – more than half a year after the “paid in full with interest” ad – GM had only paid back $361 million.

• GM and Chrysler has been dominating the Forbes Worst Cars of the Year list.

• With the exception of the 2011 Mercedes-Benz S-Class, the 2011 Smart For Two and the 2011 Nissan Titan, the cars on the list are all American-made. Worse than that, they all come from two manufacturers: General Motors and Chrysler. Ford managed to avoid the list completely…. (GM) offerings from Chevrolet and Cadillac crowded the picture…

• GM has some work to do before it can regain a good reputation fleet-wide. Four GM-made vehicles–the Cadillac Escalade, Chevy Tahoe Hybrid, Chevrolet Colorado, and Chevrolet Aveo/Aveo 5–are ranked as among the worst on the market today. All but the Tahoe Hybrid qualified for the Worst Cars list last year as well.

• Probably also due at least in part to these distractions, GM has had to recall their cars – again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and….

As horrendous as all of this is, it can at least perhaps be written-off as the utterly predictable, yet unintentional, ruinous outcome of government involvement in the private sector.

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President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats face in 2012 running for reelection into the stiff headwind of a terrible economy – largely of their own making.

In just the last four years, the federal government – run by a Democrat Congress since 2007, and adding a Democrat President in 2009 – has increased spending by 29%.

2007 Federal Budget: $2.73 trillion.

Note: This was the last all Republican budget – the House, Senate and White House were at the time all run by the Rs.

2011 Federal Budget: $3.82 trillion.

Note: This is an estimated total.  Because the Democrats that were at the time running the House, Senate and White House didn’t write a budget – because they were afraid to go on the record with how much they actually wanted to spend in advance of the 2010 election.

Meaning – it could have been WORSE.

That is a $1.09 trillion increase – in just the last four years.

Behold the nation’s third Age of Bailout.

And the resulting Age of Bailout economy has been – atrocious.

Thusly, Democrats are seeking to rewrite recent history – and the present – in terms far more favorable to them than Reality to assist them in their re-electoral pursuits.

Much as our entire Left-Liberal cultural nexus -  our government (i.e. public) schools, the Leftist PlayLand colleges and universities and the Hollywood-Media Corridor – have rewritten the histories of the first two Ages of Bailout.

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I agree with the liberal blogosphere- Obama’s State of the Union was “Reaganesque.” Well written and well delivered. Awe-inspiring. Except that it was all distortions, false promises, and bait and switch. Don’t believe a word. It was pure sales and marketing, with zero substance. It was the same old “Cash for Flunkers.” Failed programs renamed “investments” in order to sell the con.

Obama’s State of the Union reminds me of the Taco Bell lawsuit in the news this same week. California consumers are suing Taco Bell for calling an item on their menu a “beef taco.” The class-action lawsuit claims that the “beef taco” barely has any beef in it — less than 35% to be exact. Instead, the lawsuit claims it contains isolated oat product, binders and extenders.

Well, that beef taco would make Obama proud. There’s no meat in Obama’s product either. Obama knows his audience likes meat, so he mixes in a spoonful of meat, along with isolated oat product, binders, extenders and other assorted artificial rubbish that tastes a little like meat. He wins your support with the bait and switch. But there is no substance. Where’s the beef? When Obama is done with the Presidency, he has the perfect skills to serve as CEO of Taco Bell.

Obama’s real State of the Union is just more campaign payola. Can you imagine if we played a game of “What does he really mean?” Just substitute “wasted government spending and debt for the same old failed programs” every time Obama used the word “investment” in the State of the Union speech. That’s the unvarnished truth — without the sales and marketing, without the bait and switch.

Why call it “Cash for Flunkers?” Because spending billions of extra dollars on education is not an “investment.” It’s just more money down the drain for the same programs and ideas that have already led to the disastrous catastrophic failure of the U.S. education system. We already spend the most in the world for the worst results. Why would we reward failure with extra billions of dollars?

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“[Politicians and the Federal Reserve] rigged the market,” says financial author and filmmaker Michael Covel. “They rigged the market through interest rate manipulation and we’re still paying for it today.” In his documentary, Broke: The New American Dream, Covel explores the roots of the financial crisis, which he traces back to Netscape going public in 1995.

Covel sat down with Reason.tv’s Ted Balaker to discuss the role politicians, the Federal Reserve, Wall Street, and media figures like CNBC’s Jim Cramer played in the financial meltdown. Topics include: why Covel is down on “buy and hold” as an investment strategy and the differences between state lotteries and poker.

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This past week I gave a speech to a group of investors. The organizer of the event e-mailed me the night before, asking that I please try to be optimistic. Well, that’s my usual habitat. But optimism has been hard for me this year. Our muddle-through economy and lackluster stock market, challenged by so many taxing, spending, and regulating problems coming out of Washington, are the reasons why.

In fact, until recently, I’ve been advising people to take profits in the stock market, rather than buy-and-hold. You should keep your money before the Obama IRS takes it from you.

But following the tea-party primary victories in Delaware, New York, and New Hampshire this week, I’m once again getting energized.

Free-market capitalism is on the comeback trail. That’s one of the key tea-party messages. And make no mistake about it: The free-market power of the tea-party political revolt is totally bullish for stocks and the economy.

In short, this is a revolution.

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Our nation is in trouble and it goes far deeper than the current economic crisis of the past few years.  Nor, despite all the rancor and the loud shouting back and forth, is the problem attributable to any single controversial issue . . . albeit the important issues that are dividing us are clearly a symptom of our woes.

Since we are a nation of immigrants, there have always been tensions within our vibrant democracy from divisions along obvious fault lines:  race, religion, class, geography, national origin and even age.  But what has, from the beginning, distinguished our collective ethnic citizenry and made America wonderfully unique among the nations of the world was that, unlike virtually all of the countries from which we came, once we attained citizenship we were accepted, truly accepted, as Americans.   We have overcome many crises because, with the obvious exception of the stain of slavery, our constitutional system of division of power between the states and the federal government and the separation of federal authority among these distinct branches of government, has depended on, indeed even demanded, political compromise to advance policies with any semblance of shared goals.  But over the last two decades the notion of shared goals and the ability to fashion compromises have all but disappeared, widening the fault lines and leaving the nation polarized and government often paralyzed.

There is irony in this increased polarization given our preoccupation, sometimes to the point of absurdity, with political correctness.  Either we have become unbelievably thin-skinned as a people or our preoccupation with political correctness has led to a process of balkanization as each ethnic group sees the “national pie” as a zero sum game:  “we win, you lose.” This comes at the expense of putting America first.  The price has been high.

When our president feels that apologies are necessary to improve our relationships with long- time allies and to reset our relationships with others, including those who have, for many years, been hostile to the United States; when an American ambassador, by his mere presence, implies an American apology for the awful devastation visited upon the victims at Hiroshima, without any acknowledgement by the Japanese government, after more than 60 years, that it was an imperialist Japanese government that was responsible for bringing war to the Pacific with their unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor, we diminish the noble cause for which over one-half million Americans gave their lives. The Japanese are certainly entitled to convene in memory of those who lost their lives at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it is their national day of remembrance. Our presence was neither called for nor appropriate. They and we have gotten past that dark and deadly time.  We are, today close allies and trade partners.  The last war-related joint ceremony in which we participated with the Japanese was in 1945 on the deck of the US Missouri in Tokyo Bay.   We should have left it there.

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In the fight to retain his Congressional House seat, North Carolina U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge (NC-2) emailed and mailed letters and newsletters from his House account last week. Observant voters noted that Etheridge used taxpayers dollars to underwrite the mailings, sending the pieces just ahead of the franking 90-day deadline before the election. Etheridge is the politician who pushed a student journalist when he was queried by the young man on a D.C. street.

Challenger Renee Ellmers, clinical director of a wound care center in Dunn, NC, is calling him on it. In an August 10th letter sent to Etheridge, Ellmers wrote:

“In every way these mailings resembled typical campaign ads, except they were paid for by taxpayers and not by your campaign.

In the text of one pamphlet you mailed you told voters you are “reducing the deficit and restoring budget discipline” in Washington. How much did this mailing (and your emailings) cost taxpayers? How many people received the mailings and emails? How can you explain writing taxpayers that you are “reducing the deficit” when you are wasting thousands of dollars of their money on political mailings to help you get reelected?”

Rep. Etheridge has more than a million dollars in his campaign account.

According to a poll of Second District voters done in June by Survey USA , 55% to 38% voting in Etheridge’s district disapprove of the job Barack Obama is doing as president. Yet Etheridge voted with Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama 97% of the time, voting for every major item of the Obama agenda, including ObamaCare.

A majority of voters – 53% — in his district disapprove of the Healthcare reform legislation. Etheridge also voted for the Wall Street bailout, despite voter disapproval of 61%.

Etheridge supported Obama’s so called “stimulus” bill and trillion dollar deficit. The result: North Carolina’s employment figures are some of the bleakest in the country. Last February North Carolina’s unemployment hit a record high 11.2%, ranking 10th among States in unemployment.

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Charlie Gasparino breaks down the “financial reform” bill at FoxNews:

Goldman executives say they have conducted an internal study of the various proposals in the financial-reform legislation, which while still incomplete, is likely to pass in some semblance of its current form and signed into law by President Obama by the end of the year.

The areas that are likely to be in any final package will include cutbacks in proprietary trading, or trading with the bank’s own money, a new consumer-watchdog agency and forcing firms to give up positions in hedge funds.

But, dig deeper inside the bill and there are plenty of new rules and regulations that will be squeezing commercial banks, and that will directly impact JPMorgan’s bottom line. These regulations include capping fees on debit cards and limits on how many bank branches can be owned in a particular geographic area.

Even the so-called Volcker Rule, named after presidential economic adviser Paul Volcker, with its limitations on prop trading and hedge fund ownership, will likely hit JPMorgan hard.

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Remember all of those bold statements that the so called “Troubled Assets Relief Program” (TARP), the Bailout of Wall Street Bill, was a one time deal and our federal government should and will never do it again.  Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner testified in January of this year before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform:

Many Americans look at what happened with AIG, and the rest of the financial rescue, and simply ask:  Why was it necessary?  Why was it fair for the government to take taxpayer money and put it into an institution that had mismanaged itself to the edge of collapse?  The answer is that it was not fair, and it was not something our government should ever have to do.  But those Americans, those families and business owners who played by the rules and played no role in giving rise to this recession, should understand that if the government had failed to act, that failure would have unleashed substantially greater damage upon them.

If TARP “was not fair” and not “something our government should ever have to do,” then why is Congress trying to impose the TARP model on small business?  Congress will consider legislation this week to establish TARP, Jr. for small businesses to be administered and run by none other than Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner. The House is considering H.R. 5297, the Small Business Lending Fund Act that provides “temporary authority to the Secretary of the Treasury to make capital investments to eligible institutions in order to increase the availability of credit for small businesses.”

The legislation creates a federally run new bureaucracy called the “Small Business Lending Fund. ”  To qualify a financial institution has to have less than $10 billion in assets and the new creation would have up to $30 billion in new investment authority.  This allegedly temporary program is set up “without further appropriation of fiscal year limitation,” i.e. not temporary, to purchase “preferred stock and other financial instruments” from small business as a means to infuse money into local banks with the condition that they lend to failing small business.  Local banks will be lending in exchange for equity small business, therefore these banks will be using federal monies to buy equity in companies.  This is an idea born from socialism and one that will harm the free market for small business, because failure will be rewarded by federal subsidies while success will be punished.

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