There’s more bad news in the continuing saga of the Chevy Volt. The Associated Press is reporting today that General Motors will recall 8,000 Volts in order to make modifications to keep them safe during crashes, all on the eve of the North American International Auto Show kicking off in the Motor City next week. (Bear in mind that only about 8,000 Volts were sold last year.) Guess who’s headed to the auto show, likely to bask in the glory of the industry they claim to have saved? The Obama …
Catching you up on clips, commentary and news of the day. Sign up for the daily email update from Scribe. The Politicized Hiring of Eric Holder’s Employment Section – Hans A. von Spakovsky, Pajamas Media Energy States Lead in Job Creation, Financial States Struggle – Dennis Jacobe, Gallup Did health law bring economic doldrums? – James Sherk, McClatchy Ag. Secretary Says Food Stamp Program Is Stimulus – Stephanie Samuel, Christian Post Seattle’s ‘green jobs’ program a bust – Vanessa Ho, Post-Intelligencer No Child Left Behind by Executive Overreach – Lindsey Burke, …
What happens when a city buys the liberal dream hook, line and sinker? Just take a look at the City of Detroit. The once-great city lost 237,493 residents over the last decade according to the 2010 Census, bringing it to 713,777 – a population plunge of 25%. That’s its lowest population since 1910, and it marks the city’s fall from a 1950s peak of two million, over 60%. And that’s just the people who can afford to leave. Detroit, once known as “the great arsenal of democracy,” has made headlines …
Would you like a $14-billion taxpayer-funded tunnel in your town? How about a $500 million light rail train to nowhere? As state and local governments are under crushing budget constraints, mega-sized infrastructure boondoggles are cropping up all over the country. With the promise of “free money” from the federal government, these projects are proving too tempting for state governments to turn down. In the City of Detroit, a $500 million light rail train is being built to connect the downtown area with outlying suburbs. Critics say that the train is …
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) today swung hard against a public-relations campaign by the Obama Administration to clean up its tattered image over its handling of the war on terrorists, and especially Nigerian terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. In a major address at The Heritage Foundation, McConnell gave a point-by-point refutation of all of the administration’s failures in this area, from the decision to close the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay to the botched attempt to try some terrorists in New York. But McConnell took special aim at the administration …
This past weekend a brouhaha developed across the nation over remarks Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) made in 2008 about then-candidate Barack Obama, as reported in the book “Game Change” by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. Putting aside whether his vocabulary was appropriate for a senator, in private or public, there is an interesting case being made in his defense. It essentially goes like this: Harry Reid’s rhetoric is excusable because of his voting record. As Harold Ford said on the Today program on Monday: “If his voting record raised …
Today, TSA announced a new round of security checks for international flights. Extra security in the wake of the failed underwear bound bomb for Detroit made sense as a measure of over abundance of caution. A rash of new permanent procedures, however, appears more like a knee-jerk response than anything else. Requiring one hundred percent inspections on travelers from 14 “terrorist” countries is a kind of feel good, but useless idea. Terrorists route their attacks through the international air hubs that are not the most suspicious. Nor is geography an indicator …
Pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), the explosive Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to detonate aboard Northwest Airlines flight 253, is among the most powerful of explosives in the world and was widely used to blow up airplanes in the 1970s and 1980s. The only reason the passengers of Flight 253 are still alive today is because Mr. Abdulmutallab’s syringe detonator failed for still unknown reasons. Yet despite the facts that PETN is easily detected and Mr. Abdulmutallab’s father warned the U.S. embassy in Nigeria about his son this November, Homeland Security Secretary Janet …
On December 25, 2009, a Nigerian student attempted to ignite a mixture of powder and liquid on a Northwest Airlines flight landing in Detroit, Michigan. Passengers helped to stop the suspect from carrying out his mission after the device failed to fully detonate, marking the 28th foiled terror plot against the United States since 9/11. This attempted plot is an example of how terrorists continue in their attempts to harm Americans. But it also illustrates the need to work with international partners on countering terrorism, while defending the intelligence and …
Have an idea but strapped for cash? Not sure if the idea is going to pan out? That’s all right, just ask the government for a few billion dollars. That’s what the automakers did. USA Today reports: If you believed all the talk from Chrysler about how our tax dollars would help finance its fast-track electric-vehicle future, you’re in for a big disappointment. Chrysler has disbanded the engineering team that was trying to bring three electric models to market as a rush job, Automotive News reports today. Chrysler cited its …
