CBS Plays Crank It Up!

"What is it about Tesla and its ability to make major media outlets look like fools?"

The latest example came a week ago today when CBS' 60 Minutes aired a report on Tesla and its amazing electric car. It was basically the kind of coverage that any automaker would kill to have (and must have left flummoxed General Motors executives wondering why they never got it for the plug-in Chevrolet Volt).

Just one problem: As the Associated Press reported, a CBS editor made what is being called an "audio error" in dubbing the sound of a loud traditional car engine over footage of the much quieter Tesla electric car. The Model is whisper quiet, no matter how hard you push it.

Apparently, CBS loves to... Crank it Up ;)

Auto website Jalopnik broke the story of the fake sound and CBS was in retreat all week.

Cut and Paste: Cobalt Lemons and Released Illegals

"Long before the Chevrolet Cobalt became known for having a deadly ignition defect, it was already seen as a lemon. Owners complained about power steering failures, locks inexplicably opening and closing, doors jamming shut in the rain — even windows falling out."

 



The report, provided to Breitbart News ahead of its late Sunday evening release, reviews internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) metrics to conclude that the Obama administration released 35 percent—or 68,000—convicted criminal aliens back into the U.S. general population when they could have been deported. “The criminal alien releases typically occur without formal notice to local law enforcement agencies and victims,” CIS’s Jessica Vaughan, the report’s author, added.

“There were transmission issues, issues with the clutch, engine issues, air-conditioning issues,” James Gonzales of Riverview, Fla., said of his 2006 Cobalt, which G.M. repurchased under Florida’s lemon law. “Everything went wrong with that car, and everything that went wrong needed a big fix. Mechanically, it was a huge nuisance.”

By “criminal,” ICE means people who have been convicted of a misdemeanor or felony that is not a traffic violation. For instance, traffic violations like Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol or even vehicular manslaughter do not count toward this description of “criminal alien.” As for the definition of “alien,” ICE mostly means illegal aliens, though some are legal aliens when they are considered deportable legal aliens—which is possible for legal immigrants who have committed a serious crime, like a felony.

'Osama Bin Laden is Dead and GM is Recalling', would not have sounded right.

"The Justice Department has begun a criminal investigation into General Motors’ decade-long failure to address deadly safety problems before announcing a huge vehicle recall last month, according to people briefed on the matter."

Right off the bat, the NY Times sees fit to put some distance between the Obama takeover of G.M. and the failure to "address deadly safety problems".

The preliminary inquiry by federal prosecutors in New York is focused on whether G.M., the nation’s largest automaker, failed to comply with laws requiring timely disclosure of vehicle defects. The prosecutors, one of the people said, are questioning whether G.M. misled federal regulators about the extent of the problems.

It's one thing to use the IRS to make it harder for tea parties to get off the ground, quite another, to possibly threaten the safety millions of Americans take for granted, when they get behind the wheel of their presumably safe automobiles.

The investigation is the latest in a widening series of threats to G.M. over its handling of faulty ignition switches in its Chevrolet Cobalt sedan and other cars that the company says are linked to 31 accidents and 13 deaths. READ MORE

I started reading this story last night, but I didn't quite make the connections back to the administration, possibly micromanaging G.M., to make the company a re-election prop. Although, I did remember the Joe Biden Democratic Party Convention "Osama Bin Laden is Dead and General Motors is Alive" mantra. It was politically powerful.

Here is Liz Peek, of The Fiscal Times, asking some pertinent questions about the possible White House interference...

Did the Obama administration purposefully hide problems with GM cars? Were they panicked that a massive recall of GM products would undermine one of President Obama’s most self-congratulatory campaign themes – that he “saved” Detroit’s auto industry? This is a tale of two car companies: GM, shining star in President Obama’s reelection galaxy, and Toyota, which became political fodder...

Skipping down...

By 2011 there had been 204 complaints lodged. In 2010 then-Congressman Barney Frank inquired on behalf of a constituent about the multiple accidents apparently brought on by the random deceleration issue. He was told by NHTSA that it had “insufficient evidence to warrant opening a safety defect investigation.” By that time, there had been several fatalities related to Cobalts’ stalling. Still, NHTSA did nothing.

At the same time, after the Obama administration had orchestrated a government takeover of General Motors, NHTSA hit Toyota with its largest-ever fine and demanded a recall of some 9 million cars and trucks. Over several years, NHTSA had received more than 3,000 reports of sudden acceleration in Toyotas; there had been some 75 fatal crashes. Though the incidents of problems continued to mount, it was not clear at the time of the recall what exactly accounted for the mishaps. The Wall Street Journal announced that a report attributing most of the accidents to driver error had been “temporarily blocked” by safety officials, acting under the direction of Secretary of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. READ MORE

Yes, Ray LaHood was/is a republican politician, precisely why I would like to hear what he has to say under oath.

Editorial: GM got bailout, now ships jobs to China

"Saving General Motors from bankruptcy was among President Obama’s most frequently cited achievements when he ran for re-election last year. Democrats everywhere touted the company’s revival as proof of the 2009 bailout’s wisdom. That was then. Now, Obama has quietly released the auto manufacturer from a bailout requirement that it increase its production in the U.S. Instead, GM is spending billions of dollars building up its production capacity in ... China."

This is happening despite the fact that the Treasury Department has to date recovered just $36 billion of its original $51 billion loan to GM. By most analysts’ predictions, American taxpayers will be out approximately $10 billion when the remaining stock is sold off. Which is a long way of saying that it now appears that taxpayers paid $10 billion to make it easier for GM to accelerate its foreign outsourcing and send more manufacturing jobs to China."

It is yet more proof that Mitt Romney was right in the 2012 presidential campaign: GM should have gone through a traditional bankruptcy instead of the politicized farce of a taxpayer-funded bailout and government managed “bankruptcy.” The TARP funds involved could have instead been used to provide liquidity for a managed sale to a private buyer that minimized the opportunities for political interference in the new GM’s operations."

Washington Examiner