Monday, September 10, 2012

GM Loses $49,000 Per Volt Sold

Diogenes


The official car of the Obama administration is a failure
and tax burden upon the taxpayers.......
Reuters - Nearly two years after the introduction of the path-breaking plug-in hybrid, GM is still losing as much as $49,000 on each Volt it builds, according to estimates provided to Reuters by industry analysts and manufacturing experts. GM on Monday issued a statement disputing the estimates.
Cheap Volt lease offers meant to drive more customers to Chevy showrooms this summer may have pushed that loss even higher. There are some Americans paying just $5,050 to drive around for two years in a vehicle that cost as much as $89,000 to produce.
And while the loss per vehicle will shrink as more are built and sold, GM is still years away from making money on the Volt, which will soon face new competitors from Ford, Honda and others.
GM's basic problem is that "the Volt is over-engineered and over-priced," said Dennis Virag, president of the Michigan-based Automotive Consulting Group.
Keep Reading
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F.E.C. Raises Gaffe Threat Level to Orange

Diogenes

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Federal Election Commission today warned Americans of what it termed “an increased possibility of major verbal gaffes taking place on U.S. soil within the coming days.” The F.E.C. issued its warning after the White House announced Joe Biden had commenced campaigning after the DNC convention. 

The commission immediately raised the nation’s gaffe threat level to orange (“high”). It had been at yellow (“elevated”) since President Obama’s inopportune use of the phase "You didn't Build it"  during a campaign appearance last month.

Americans were advised to prepare themselves for the potential gaffes by taking a range of precautions while listening to the media in the coming days and weeks leading up to the debates. Obama supporters were told to expect the possibility of his giving a masterfully crafted 500-word speech, and due to teleprompter failure or going off script could possibly say something really stupid or a single five-word phrase could be extracted to make him sound totally dumb, especially when shown repeatedly at high speed and accompanied by comical music.

Residents of the campaign advertising-saturated “swing states” – Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada – especially those with weak stomachs or nervous conditions, were advised to avoid all forms of media, find their special place, and think happy thoughts.

Voters across the country were advised to take measures to ready themselves for a gaffe made by either the candidate they support or the one they oppose, with a combined daily 5-minute routine of shaking their heads in disbelief while simultaneously rubbing their hands in gleeful anticipation.



Joe Biden takes a page from the Clinton playbook at friendly campaign stop in Ohio
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Saturday, September 8, 2012

Friday, September 7, 2012

What We Saw At The DNC...

Matthew N.

Matthew's Week End Commentary
 The Lunatic's Asylum

It's finally over. The great big jamboree for the preternaturally stupid, the aging hippies, the Welfare Pimps, and the Professional Poor and Aggrieved is done. The City of Charlotte can now relax, even if it will take several days from the cloud of pot smoke and the aroma of bullshit to dissipate upon the eight winds. The moans and groans that I have heard over the last few days from those friends who live in my adopted Second City were the sort one usually only associates with someone dying of a very painful, and terminal, disease.

The people of Charlotte are damned happy this morning to have this three-ring circus, this travelling bordello of politics, this concentration of the worst elements of American society, finally gone.

I watched a great deal of the coverage of the DNC, mostly because I was interested to see what new form of as-yet-unidentified mental disorder they managed to invent, and then turn into a campaign rally cry. I was quite disappointed, to tell the truth, for the most obvious mental deficiencies on display were plain, old, garden-variety denial and pathological lying.





These people do not inhabit the same reality as the rest of us, and you get the distinct impression that some of them actually realize that their comrades are in this state of hallucination, but they must -- probably because there's a paycheck in it for them -- pretend to play along, and if the pretenders are at least halfway decent folks to begin with, the deceit shows all too readily on their faces. The faces they have to glue on before the television cameras while their mouths tell you complete lies, and their eyes betray the fact that even they don't believe a word they're saying..

The only thing that came out this confab of douchebags in Charlotte was more of the same, only with lessened expectations. I guess a certain someone has learned his lesson about making promises he either couldn't, wouldn't, or had the foggiest idea of how, keep.

 Here's a synopsis of the last couple of days of the DNC:

Fishnet Friday


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Thursday, September 6, 2012

Bill Clinton Apologizes for Speech

Borowitz


Former President Bill Clinton apologized last night for reading what he called “a severely abbreviated” version of his Convention speech, saying that he had planned to read a “very educational and interesting” nine-hour version but lost his nerve.

“I don’t know what happens to me when I get up in front of a crowd like that,” he said. “I kind of tighten up and feel the need to rush through things.”

Mr. Clinton said that the longer version of his speech “was packed with good stuff,” including a detailed proposal to fix the United States Postal Service, an elaborate discussion of America’s fisheries and waterways, and a complete recitation of the Fleetwood Mac back catalogue.

As it was, the shortened version of his speech was interrupted by standing ovations many times, including for his reading of a section of the Manhattan phone book.

Mr. Clinton acknowledged that his speech went over well with its intended audience of diehard Democrats, who responded with many congratulatory e-mails and over twenty thousand proposals to get laid.
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Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Dog Eats Biden's Speech, Campaign Says He May Just Wing It

Diogenes


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Democrats Push Platform Filled with Misinformation

Diogenes

The Democrats party platform is filled with misinformation. This misinformation is worth examining:
The Republican Party has turned its back on the middle class Americans who built this country.

President Obama shut down the Keystone XL pipeline, preventing the creation of thousands of high paying jobs at a time when unemployment in the construction industry is near 15%.  Meanwhile, Mitt Romney is fighting to prevent the Obama administration from shutting down the coal industry. He’s promised that one of his first actions as president will be to approve the Keystone XL pipeline project.

The Democrats talk a great game. Unfortunately, the Democrats’ actions fall far short of their words.

This part of their platform is BS, too:


They think that if we simply eliminate protections for families and consumers, let Wall Street write its own rules again, and cut taxes for the wealthiest, the market will solve all our problems on its own.  

Over 980,000 small businesses file their taxes as individuals. If President Obama’s tax policies were implemented, these entrepreneurs would get hit with one of the biggest tax increases in US history.

What’s more intellectually dishonest is the fact that the Romney-Ryan tax plan calls for eliminating lobbyist-inspired deductions while lowering tax rates. Middle class families don’t hire lobbyists to get preferential treatment. Corporations do. That means that the Romney-Ryan tax reform plan will shut down preferential treatment for corporations.

The ACA piles tons of compliance costs on small businesses. That’s on top of the massive tax increase President Obama wants.

Is it any wonder why jobs aren’t getting created?

This isn’t pure rhetoric but it’s close:

They would repeal health reform, turn Medicare into a voucher program, and follow the same path of fiscal irresponsibility of the past administration, giving trillions of dollars in tax cuts weighted towards millionaires and billionaires while sticking the middle class with the bill.
Democrats are right. Republicans won’t ignore the people who didn’t want the ACA in the first place. These are the same people who want it repealed. As for the part about “giving trillions of dollars in tax cuts” to “millionaires and billionaires”, corporations will be the ones who will have their deductions removed in exchange for lower marginal rates.

As for “sticking the middle class with the bill”, that’s supposition. There isn’t proof of that supposition anywhere. Saying Paul Ryan will “follow the same path of fiscal irresponsibility” that President Bush took isn’t credible. It’s as foolish as claiming that President Obama created as many jobs as President Reagan.

This paragraph is almost devoid of facts:

 They’re why we rescued the auto industry and revived our manufacturing supply chain. They’re why we helped American families who are working multiple jobs and struggling to pay the bills save a little extra money through tax cuts, lower health care costs, and affordable student loans.

First, it’s almost guaranteed that GM will return for another bailout. So much for rescuing the auto industry. Second, people aren’t saving money through lower health care costs. In fact, having government dictate how much money clinics, doctors and hospitals can make is creating a doctor shortage.

Finally, if there’s a choice between less expensive schools and less expensive loans to more expensive schools, I’ll take the former, not the latter. Student loans don’t automatically make for a more skilled workforce. They just make it easier to make decisions based on projection rather than on what’s best for the HS graduate.

I don’t see the usefulness in that.

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Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Night 1: Pandering, Bullsh*t and Wookie Love


...and Joe Biden hasn't even taking the stage yet!
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Three Strikes You're Out



via babalu
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Sunday, September 2, 2012

Democrats Ready Their Launch of Commander Zero Lovefest

Diogenes


The air is full of anticipation.....

We shall hear triumphantly of greatly improving economic numbers, falling unemployment, millions of jobs saved and created,  of revitalizing the  industrial base  and of their respect for the job creators of America. Of plans for shrinking the national debt and tax cuts for families. Of lower numbers of home forecloses and an ever improving housing market. They will speak of saving the American Dream for all and a continuing forward movement. They will speak of saving the country from ruin, a job yet unfinished. 

There will be a lot spoken of their tolerance and valiant defense of the constitution, of protecting American's civil liberties and the first amendment. They will parade out smiling grandmotherly feminist speakers to remind America of the massive Republican open warfare on women. 

They will speak of a compassion candidate who represents all America as uniter, not a divider, who has tirelessly worked across the political isle to bring about an historically abundant legislative record. 


There will be high praise of prominent administration officials and democrat politicians conspicuously absent from the proceedings only because of their immediate important hard work for the people and to bring peace to the world, and of the growing respect by world leaders they bring back to America after years of disdain. There will be talk of their deep respect for our military and their families, and of the world's growing respect of our polices overseas and at home.

And there will be talk of the right wing extremist swinging the Sword of Damocles above the head of the next generation, and their fight on behalf of the stupid and brain dead of society.

They will loving speak of FDR, Truman, JFK, LBJ and Carter.

We will witness the rousing words of the grand tellers of truths of the party, Debbie Wasserman Shitts, Bill Clinton and Nancy Pelosi. And we shall see a gracious and modestly dressed First Lady, showing the country she is indeed a man of the people.

We shall witness the nation's great orator, Joe Biden.

And then there will be the candidate, smiling and wowing the crowd and a skeptical media with his  masterful use of the pronoun I, and his amazing teleprompter skills.

I'm excited. I for one can't hardly wait........

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