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To: doesnt suffer fools gladly, wolf24, deagle, doc11355, Canadian Outrage, xsmommy, others, etc.

You have asked me to amplify on my comment that, "Virtually everything Beck and Gulifoyle said during the recent cars.gov segment was a lie." Here ya go...

Disclaimers:

I am 100% opposed to the "Cash for Clunkers" program. It's another ill thought out, "something for nothing" program from nobama, spreading the wealth around.
I do not watch TV. I saw this Glenn Beck segment via You Tube. But friends have verified this segment did, in fact air on the Glen Beck show.
This is written based on the condition of the cars.gov web site the day this Glen Beck segment aired. The government has changed to "look" of the web site since then. But not, for purposes of this discussion, in a meaningful way.

This is not a one sided refutation where I spout off and you just read. You have some work to do if you really want to understand this.

First, follow this link to watch this segment of the Glenn Beck program as recorded on You Tube. If you've seen it before, I'd suggest you watch it again to refresh your memory. If you've not seen it before, I suggest you watch it twice. If you don't want to take the time to do this, I'd suggest you stop reading here as you don't really want to understand this.

Second, notice how Glenn tells you that if you go to cars.gov that the Federal Government can take over your computer. He makes this sound very ominous.

Third, visit cars.gov for yourself and look around. Don't worry about the infamous "warning." It's a lie.

Now to the refutation...

When I first saw this Glenn Beck segment I came away with lots of skepticism. I had serious questions about the claims Beck was making. I had a hard time believing the government would impose that warning on the public at large for just visiting a government web site.

I did some research by visiting cars.gov and by visiting a local car dealership and talking to the sales manager about his experiences with cars.gov and the "Cash for Clunkers" program. After this research my doubts about Beck's claims were increased considerably. It just didn't make sense.

You have to understand that there's two sides to cars.gov. One side is for us consumers for information. On this side of cars.gov, the screens have a green background. The other side of cars.gov is for the dealers where they can submit the payment request, etc. On the dealer side of cars.gov, the screens have a blue background.

Notice very carefully which part of cars.gov Glen is accessing in the video. He even says, "The dealer goes to cars.gov and then they hit submit transaction." Notice that the screen background color is blue. He is accessing the dealer side of cars.gov, not the consumer side.

He then goes into a rant about the horrible, intrusive agreement the government makes the user agree to. During the rant he refers repeatedly to "you" as if this is something you're going to see if you go to cars.gov. He should be referring to "the dealer," not the private citizen.

The important point, one that Beck completely overlooks and purposely fails to report, is that it is the dealer that is subjected to the onerous restrictions by the govt, not the private citizen. I double dog dare you to go to cars.gov and find a screen that looks like the one Glen demonstrates with. You can't unless you're a dealer and have access to the dealer side of cars.gov.

Kimberly Gulifoyle, the lady with Glen, really takes it off the deep end when she says (emphasis mine), "Could it be any more broad and frightening? Here you are, trying to be a good citizen and make a charitable contribution, do something that's good, and guess what? They are jumping right inside of you, seizing all of your personal and private information. And it's absolutely legal, Glen, they can do it!"

I'm sorry but that is TOTAL BULLSHIT. It is the dealer that has to agree to a possible intrusion, NOT the private citizen. Plus, her claim that this is a charitable contribution is hogwash. You can't take this on your taxes. This is exactly like the dealer saying, "We'll guarantee you $4,500.00 for your trade, no matter it's age or condition."

I've watched this segement several times. As far as I can tell, every point Glen and Kim make is a lie. Except for the brief time that Glen says, "The dealer goes to cars.gov and then they hit submit transaction." That is certainly true. And that makes everything else they say a lie.

IMHO, Glen really blew it on this one. He tried to make a mountain out of a molehill. They say Glen Beck is an entertainer. And he does entertain with all the phony baloney at the beginning of this piece about how dangerous this is and how you shouldn't try this at home and how he's using a borrowed computer. Too bad he has to entertain you with lies. A real entertainer wouldn't have to stoop to that.

There is so much disinformation out there. It really pisses me off when conservatives do something like this. It makes us look like fools, dumbasses and idiots.