Strange as this may seem, the Republican Party has successfully instituted part of their jobs plan. Since they stood so unequivocally against Obama’s support for the US auto industry, they consider anything that marginalizes that effort a success. Since they are so gung-ho for fossil fuels, they consider anything that that hurts green energy a success. Since the more people are out of work, the better their chances are to retake power in November, they consider anything that costs US workers, especially union workers, jobs a success. Sadly this part of the the Republican Jobs Plan was successful in all three areas.

Yesterday, General Motors told 1,300 Detroit employees “they will be temporarily laid off for five weeks ” due to lower than expected demand for its Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle.

No doubt there are many contributing factors, but in January, GM CEO Dan Akerson explained :

We did not design the Volt to become a political punching bag and that’s what it’s become .

He had been called in to testify by the Tea-Party crowd running the U.S. House in a hearing witch-hunt titled, “Volt Vehicle Fire: What Did NHTSA Know and When Did They Know It?” Yes, that’s a reference to Nixon and Watergate!

In fact, NHSTA concluded it does not believe the Volt and other electric vehicles “pose a greater risk of fire than gasoline-powered vehicles.”

Media Matters put together this video of the conservative media misrepresentations: