Fiat CEO On Gov’t Mandated Electric Cars: Please Don’t Buy Our Electric Vehicle, “Every Time I Sell One It Costs Me $14,000″…

May 21 (Reuters) - Fiat Chrysler Automobiles Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne has a request for potential buyers of the automaker's Fiat 500e electric car: Don't buy it. He's tired of losing money.

Speaking at a conference in Washington on Wednesday, Marchionne said Tesla Motors Inc was the only company making money on electric cars and that was because of the higher price point for its Model S sedan. Decrying the federal and state mandates that push manufacturers to build electric cars, Marchionne said he hoped to sell the minimum number of 500e cars possible.

"I hope you don't buy it because every time I sell one it costs me $14,000," he said to the audience at the Brookings Institution about the 500e. "I'm honest enough to tell you that."

The gasoline-powered Fiat 500 starts at almost $17,300 including delivery charges, while the 500e starts at $32,650 before federal tax credits. Consumers are not willing to pay a price that covers Fiat's costs so it loses money on the 500e.

Through April, the automaker sold 11,514 of the 500 cars in the United States this year, down about 15 percent from the same period last year. The company does not break out 500e sales.

"I will sell the (minimum) of what I need to sell and not one more," Marchionne said of the 500e.

 

Chrysler filed for bankruptcy in 2009 and received a U.S taxpayer-funded bailout. Italy's Fiat took over the U.S. automaker at the time and completed the buyout earlier this year.

Via: Reuters

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Democrat-Led Colorado Backs Lawsuit Calling Obamacare Unconstitutional

Colorado has become the 20th state to support a federal lawsuit filed last week by a Texas doctor to overturn the Affordable Care Act.

It’s only the third state with a Democratic governor to do so.

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, a Republican, signed onto an amicus brief last week, showing support for the effort to overturn the law based on the U.S. Constitution’s Origination Clause, which says that all bills that raise revenue must begin in the Senate.

Obamacare, the suit contends, began in the House of Representatives.

“If the Origination Clause means anything, it must mean that the ACA is unconstitutional,” the brief reads, as reported by the Colorado Observer.

But exactly where the controversial law began is itself a point of controversy. The Observer notes that the U.S. Justice Department contends that it did indeed begin in the House, originally as H.R. 3590, which was concerned with housing tax credits for veterans. Once in the Senate, however, Obamacare opponents say its language was entirely stripped and replaced with what became the ACA.

“By a voice vote of 416-0, the House passed the bill on October 8, 2009, and the enrolled version was eight pages long,” the brief reads. “About one month later, on November 19, 2009, the Senate struck every single word of H.R. 3590, deleted any reference to members of the military or home-ownership tax breaks, and substituted a 2,074-page ‘amendment’ that we now know as the ACA.”

Pacific Legal Foundation is also challenging the law based on an Origination Clause argument in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the penalty for not signing up for health care under the new law is considered to be a tax.

Via: The Daily Caller

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Dem Mayor of One of Massachusetts Largest Cities Declares They Will Now Be A Sanctuary City For Illegal Aliens…

Under an executive order from Mayor Joe Curtatone, Somerville will no longer fully participate in a federal immigrant detention program.

• Page 2 of 3 - In an email statement, he told the Journal ending ICE detainers that happen without probable cause is moral, responsible and just common sense.

  “These are our neighbors and they should not be afraid to report a crime or afraid that they could be separated from their families and deported simply because they get stopped for having a broken tail light,” Curtatone said. He added, “We can’t keep our communities safe unless we have the full cooperation of the full community.”

  Acting Police Chief Charles Femino agreed.

  “In essence, what Secure Communities has done is built a wall between police and the community,” Femino said. He added, “We want to continue to partner with the federal government, but we want to do it in a fair way that’s equal to all citizens.

  Centro Presente Director Patricia Montes said the same.

  Via: Wicked Local Woburn
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The Insiders: More Obamacare enrollees doesn’t mean more success for the Democrats

The problems with Obamacare have moved off the front page recently, which is exactly what the Democrats have wanted to happen. They want to celebrate the “victory” of Obamacare by championing the alleged 8 million sign-ups, answering few questions and moving on.

But the political infection that is Obamacare is thriving in the body politic.

A new Politico poll shows that 48 percent of Americans support a full repeal of the law, 35 percent want to at least modify the law – and only 16 percent think it should be left as it is.

I have always said that the Democrats would get the headline enrollment numbers they wanted. They have the IRS for enforcement, and people need to buy insurance anyway – especially when their plans are canceled thanks to Obamacare. But this doesn’t mean that Americans are happy about what they are being forced to buy. Byron York reminds us that “Democrats, in their euphoria over the ‘8 million’ sign-ups to Obamacare, made a mistake in concluding that signups equal approval.” Signing up for Obamacare is only the beginning of a host of problems that will end up costing the Democrats at the ballot box in November.

Americans will face three big problems with Obamacare in the months to come:

First, voters will find that their provider networks are severely restricted. They won’t be able to keep their doctors, because Obamacare limits choices. Second, voters will find that the convenient provider facilities they want to visit for their health care may also be outside their network. They may not be able to visit the hospital down the street or the one they have used all their lives because again, Obamacare forces limits to be placed on what facilities you can use. And third, voters will find that their premiums are higher, and in many cases, that their deductibles are much higher than they were before Obamacare.

In other words, Americans are paying more and getting less under Obamacare. This is classic Democratic governance. Part of the reason that Democrats can’t govern effectively is because they over-promise and under-deliver.

Anyway, as we get closer to the midterm elections, the problems with the law are only going to get worse, for the reasons I have listed above. More Obamacare enrollees doesn’t mean more success for Democrats; it means the opposite because there will be more dissatisfied voters.  Democrats will try to tell voters to move on, but Republicans need to continue talking about the disaster that is Obamacare and about what they would do differently. Obamacare is still what will anchor the GOP case in the fall.

Via: Washington Post

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Treasury Outlays to VA Department Up 92.2% in One Decade

(CNSNews.com) -- In inflation-adjusted dollars, Treasury Department outlays to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) have increased 92.2% in the last 10 years, according to the Financial Management Service’s latest monthly Treasury statement, climbing from $73.3 billion to $140.9 billion since 2003.

As of the end of fiscal year 2013 (on Sept. 30,2013), outlays to the VA were $140,909,860,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars and included things such as medical services, medical support and compliance, medical facilities, housing accounts, compensation and pensions, and  insurance funds, to name a few.

As of September 2009, nine months after President Obama took office, outlays to the VA were $105,520,280,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars. This means that since September 2009, Treasury outlays have increased 33.5%.

Via: CNS News

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Al Sharpton Defends Anti-Jewish Remarks

Remember Al Sharpton’s history of racist and anti-Semitic comments? One reporter at The Daily Surge did and asked the civil rights leader and MSNBC host about them in an interview captured on video.

“In the spirit of Donald Sterling do you think you should be banned from TV for all the racist stuff you’ve said over the years?” asked the interviewer, who questioned Sharpton at outside of the White House Correspondent’s Dinner held earlier this month.

“What racist stuff?” Sharpton responded.

“When you referred to Jews as white interlopers,” the interviewer said.

Sharpton cautioned the reporter against misquoting him and clarified that he was only talking about one Jewish person.

“You went from one guy who paid people off the books and was wrong,” Sharpton responded.

The remarks that the interviewer referenced were uttered by Sharpton in 1995.

Sharpton had sided with a black record store owner against the Jewish owner of Freddie’s Fashion Mart. The owner of the fashion store was a landlord to he record store owner.

Via: Daily Caller

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Chris Matthews: Unlike IRS, VA Scandal Is Real, Except When He Compared IRS to ‘Profiling’ Innocent Arabs

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews seems determined to kill the idea that unlike the Veterans Administration scandal, past Obama scandals such as the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups are not in fact legitimate issues to investigate. 

Appearing on his nightly Hardball program on Wednesday, May 21, Matthews declared “For the first time, President Obama speaks out about the VA scandal and this is no phony IRS or Benghazi nonsense, this is the real deal.” [See video below.] 

While Matthews is correct that the VA scandal is in fact serious, his dismissal of the IRS scandal contradicts his past statements on the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups. On May 22, 2013, the Hardball host proclaimed that “profiling” by the IRS was akin to targeting innocent Arabs: 

I go to the airport and I'm running TSA. Instead of deciding based upon people's movements around the world that might be suspicious, going to countries that cause us trouble, I just look for everybody that looks Arab and I put them in one line. The American people would say that's outrageous.

While Matthews insisted that in 2013 “The IRS scandal is like profiling” he maintained on Wednesday May 22, 2014 that it was not a scandal. Speaking to the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson and former Senator Bob Kerrey (D-NE), Matthews cheered “President Obama today, as you saw, addressed a growing scandal that unlike the phony, if you will, scandals like Fast and Furious and Benghazi, has the potential, the real potential, to cause some real political damage.”

The MSNBC host went on to promote Robinson’s recent article entitled “Heads Need to Roll at the VA” and swooned that “I loved the way you said this is a real one, not like the other ones.” The Washington Post columnist reiterated Matthews’ argument and maintained “It’s not like the phony ones. Bad stuff happened, right?” 

Despite Matthews’ decision to change his tune on the legitimacy of the IRS scandal, he was not the only MSNBC host who in 2013 held this same viewpoint. On May 16, 2013, Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski lamented that “Unfortunately the information and the guts of the story are there and it's an opportunity.” On May 10, 2013, MSNBC contributors Chris Cilizza and Ruth Marcus, who both write for the Washington Post, were stunned by the “outrageous dumbness” of the IRS.  

Via: Newsbusters

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Grimes & Nunn Dodge ObamaCare Questions

President Barack Obama and Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid have publicly told their caucus to run on ObamaCare.  Yet it’s becoming more and more clear that the party bosses within the Democrat Party are telling red-state Democrats who weren’t in office to avoid any and all questions about ObamaCare.

In Georgia, Democrat Michelle Nunn has painfully gone out of her way to tell voters she doesn’t know how she would’ve vote on ObamaCare.  While in Kentucky, anti-coal Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes remains mum on if she would’ve vote for ObamaCare.  Yet they have no problem telling voters that they do not want to repeal this job-killing law.     

Below is a Tumblr post and statement from the RNC:

“Despite the happy face Democrats put on, it’s evident the liberal bigwigs in Washington are telling Alison Lundergan Grimes and Michelle Nunn that they shouldn’t discuss ObamaCare.  Sooner or later, Grimes, Nunn and the rest of the Democrats’ liberal recruits will need to explain why they’re stonewalling voters about their support for ObamaCare.”  Jahan Wilcox, RNC Spokesman        

• http://rncresearch.tumblr.com/post/86500890410/duck-duck-dodge-on-obamacare

Via: GOP.com

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Warren to Raise Money for Merkley in Oregon

Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren is bringing her name and fundraising prowess to Oregon next week to help her fellow Democrat, Jeff Merkley. Politico Playbook reports:

Elizabeth Warren heading to Oregon to help Sen. Jeff Merkley fend off an unexpectedly tough challenge: The senator is flying to Portland next Wednesday for a "grassroots fundraiser." Republicans nominated pediatric neurosurgeon Monica Wehby in Tuesday's primary, who they think can put the state on the map. Democrats have sent Andrew Zucker to be Merkley's deputy campaign manager, reassigning him from Louisiana - where he's been assisting Sen. Mary Landrieu's reelect. He ran communications for Ed Markey in the Massachusetts special election last June to fill the seat opened by John Kerry's elevation to State.

Merkley appears weaker than expected for reelection. One recent NPR poll found a third of registered voters in Oregon had no opinion or did not know of him, while other polls showed him below 50 percent support. The new Republican nominee, Monica Wehby, is considered even by GOP strategists to be a dark horse to win. Oregon remains a strongly Democratic state, but two factors give Republicans some hope in pulling off a surprise win.

The first is that Merkley might be considered an "accidental" senator. In 2008, incumbent Republican Gordon Smith had a moderately conservative record with some libertarian tendencies, but his party affiliation cost him in a year dominated by George W. Bush fatigue and high Democratic turnout to support Barack Obama for president. Still, Merkley, then the speaker of the state house, only beat Smith by three percentage points. Merkley was also didn't win a majority, winning just under 49 percent of the vote. Oregon may look and feel like a Democratic lock, but in 2008, that Senate race was one of the most watched and competitive of the cycle.

The second is that the politics of Obamacare in Oregon do not favor anyone who supports it. The implementation of the law has been a disaster, with the state-run health insurance exchange having so many problems that the program's been shut down and rolled into the federal exchange. (The FBI has been investigating the exchange, called Cover Oregon, for malfeasance, and just yesterday the state's U.S. attorney subpoenaed records from Cover Oregon.) Merkley voted for Obamacare in 2010 and continues to support the law, saying as recently as this month that it has "a lot that's going right in Oregon." As a medical doctor and former board member at the American Medical Association, Wehby has an added benefit of authority on the subject of health care, which may dominate the campaign.

Via: Weekly Standard

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