“I don’t know anything about cars.” – Edward E. Whitacre, Jr., Newly Annointed Chairman Of GM

I

really can’t believe I’m in America, reading in American media what an American president is doing to an American enterprise.  But I am.  It is true.  The government has named a new chairman for General Motors.  Not the GM board of directors, not the shareholders, but Steven Rattner, Obama’s car czar, who knows about as much about cars as the new chairman, Edward Whitacre.

This is far more radical than anything I thought Obama would be able to pull off, even in eight years, let alone 14 weeks.  Following on yesterday’s SCOTUS decision which said, basically, a contract is no longer a contract so investors can expect no protections, the critical condition of glorious American capitalism could not be more apparent.  I worry that it will not survive until 2010′s mid-term elections.

Whitacre was picked for two reasons.  The published one is that he guided AT&T through the transition from land-based wire telephone carrier to a leader in the wireless industry.  The Obamaites see a similar future for GM, with it transforming from a market-driven car company to a government-driven car company, manufacturing cars Big Brother wants us to drive, whether we want to or not.

The unspoken reason for his selection is because Whitacre can be counted on to do what government tells him to do, as was evident when he quickly (and rightly) acquiesced to government pressure to open AT&T’s hardware to the feds for post-9/11 surveillance purposes.  Not all telcom CEOs folded so quickly to government pressure, and since folding to government pressure is what’s in store for GM, Whitacre will make an ideal Obama-era chairman for the company.

The appointment should infuriate the Left.  Besides being a lackey to George Bush’s gestapo security machine, Whitacre received a peon-snubbing $158.8 million retirement package from AT&T and was involved in some pretty brutal corporate downsizings (probably in no small part due to shifting jobs overseas).  Oh, and let’s not forget that under his tenure AT&T censored (oops!) a Pearl Jam concert right when the band was blasting George Bush.

But Daily Kos has nothing posted on him as of his hour.  Democratic Underground? Mum.  [By the way, I typed "democraticunderground" instead of "democraticunderground.com," and was redirected to one of those stupid sponsored-link pages.  Guess who came out on top?  Barbara Boxer!] As for Huffington Post, which as I predicted in a tweet earlier today leads with how Homeland Security foresaw today’s attack on the Holocaust Museum in its report on right-wing radicalism, it also couldn’t find a reason to cover – let alone criticize – Whitacre’s appointment.

Of course not.  They know what’s going on.  Their long-awaited revolution is happening and they don’t want to crow about it too early because suddenly they’re very concerned about the enemy getting wind of our intentions.  Not al-Qaeda – tell them anything - they don’t want their enemy, normal Americans, to wake up to what’s going on.  No, they want to be much further down the road to economic ruin in the name of wealth redistribution before they haul out the red flags and have a victory parade.

No Comments yet »

L

ittle children, gather around and hear the sad story about the poor, sad people who thought the federal government was here to help them and actually, foolishly, accepted its help.  A tale of woe, for sure.

The story is told today in a joint press release issued by the four bears, Secretary of the Treasury Tim (“Tax Cheat”) Geithner, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair (yes, her title is officially chairman), and Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan. Buried down in all their fed-speak about banks and stress tests, is this:

In addition, as part of the 30-day planning process, firms will need to review their existing management and Board in order to assure that the leadership of the firm has sufficient expertise and ability to manage the risks presented by the current economic environment and maintain balance sheet capacity sufficient to continue prudent lending to meet the credit needs of the economy.

Uh-oh.  Writing at Clusterstock, Joe Weisenthal reads right between those lines:

In other words, if you’re on the least-favored CEO list – we’re looking at you Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit and Bank of America (BAC) CEO Ken Lewis – it’s time to start talking about succession, planning for the future and resignation.

Gosh, and to think that Pandit (rhymes with “bandit,” by the way) probably personally approved much of Citigroup’s $393,899 in Obama campaign contributions, as did Lewis with BofA’s $274,493. I guess that pretty much makes the case for Pandit and Lewis being clueless how to invest the bank’s money wisely.

No Comments yet »

It took AP five paragraphs to get around to reporting this little tidbit about the latest GM restructuring program:  When the dust settles, the government will own 50 percent of the company and private sector shareholders will own … one percent.

Terrific! We can now expect GM to turn out such excellent automotive excellence as the Lada (pictured) and Zil from Russia, or the much unloved Trabant from East Germany. There are just so many examples of the excellence that comes from government in the marketplace it’s no wonder the Obama admin is rushing headlong into the car biz.

Car buffs will note a marked similarity between the Lada and the Fiat 124, first introduced in 1966.  Well, that’s because the Soviets had Fiat build a plant in the Soviet Union to crank out 124s under the Lada ВАЗ-2101 and Lada 2101 name from all the way up to 1984.

Admittedly, by 1984 the Lada was getting a bit behind the times technologically.  The Itialians had stopped manufacturing it 10 years earlier – but never changing models is a great way to keep R&D and retooling costs down, so this just could be in the future for GM.

And why, at this time of government ownership of car companies, is Fiat suddenly looking to buy up about a third of Chrysler?  Hmmmm.

Also in the offing for GM under the plan:  nearly 50 percent ownership by the unions, 21,000 fewer jobs, 13 fewer factories, 45 percent fewer dealerships and one less brand (Pontiac).  Do you get the sense that GM came into this recession fat and ill-prepared?

GM CEO Fritz Henderson made it clear where the direction for Uncle Sam Motors came from:

“The Viability Plan reflects the direction of President Obama and the U.S. Treasury that GM should go further and faster on our restructuring.”

Well, one thing you can say about Obama and Geithner – they know the car biz, with just dripping oodles of experience and lots of great ideas formed over a lifetime of learing the ins and outs.  This should be interesting.

No Comments yet »

D

avid Axelrod and James Carville – the bitter cream that has risen to the top of Dem-think – have chosen the safe haven of CBS to say what they think of one million Americans taking to the streets to complain about Obama’s expensive expansion of government.

Axelrod led off the discussion on “Face the Nation” by sounding like he was channeling the recent DHS report on rightwing terrorism:

I think any time you have severe economic conditions there is always an element of disaffection that can mutate into something that’s unhealthy.

Protest taxes and government expansion today, blow up innocent children tomorrow, eh David? No, not exactly.  In true liberal fashion, when confronted with the outrageousness of his beliefs, he didn’t stand up for them, but backtracked:

Well, this is a country where we value our liberties and our ability to express ourselves, and so far these are expressions.

So far?

Carville, when asked by John King if it’s unhealthy – Axelrod’s word – for “an American to go out and hold a sign and say ‘I think my taxes are too high,’” answered correctly, with a “No.” But he wasn’t content to stay there and went on to call the tea party movement “damaging to Republicans.”

Really?  One million people go out and exercise their rights of protest, don’t break any windows, don’t yell obscenities at the police, and pick up their trash afterwards and somehow it’s damaging to Republicans?  I’d like someone to explain that to me … but not someone dumb enough to say that Obama is cutting taxes for 95 percent of Americans.

Obama lied. Taxpayers cried.

No Comments yet »

It couldn’t have been a prettier day in Santa Ana’s Plaza of Flags today, as well over 1,000 people gathered, appropriately close to the Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse, which you see in the background, to protest the actions of the very un-Reaganesque Barack Obama. Here’s a photo scrapbook of the event, which featured no broken bank windows and no confrontation with police.

Best sign of the day:

And a very powerful runner-up:

Best use of the word Obama:

Current events prize:

Citizen Incredible Daughter #1:

Strict Constitutionalist Prize:

Those were the days!

Here are some shots to give you a sense of the size of the crowd:

And finally, here’s how the Left and the mainly marginalized media will view the entire event:

This event was grassroots all the way – no MoveOn.org or ACORN lurking in the shadows, making it into just a display of astroturf. It was of the people, by the people, for the people. And the White House has the temerity to say the president is unaware of today’s tea parties. That’s the best his brilliant message strategists could come up with? There is hope for us yet!

but if that’s his position, I say, “Mr. President, rest assured that we are very well aware of you, and what you’re doing to our country.”

7 Comments »

I

t’s as if the last eight years never happened. There was no George W. Bush. There were no deranged liberals making all sorts of hysterical claims about what was happening or would happen under W’s watch. We just went from Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America to today’s tea parties.

At least that’s the fantasy Paul Krugman is promoting this morning as he takes a look at the tea party movement.  He professes that he doesn’t want to “make fun of crazy people,” but then goes on to say of anyone who doesn’t skip and sing merrily under the smile of the Great Obama is “the subject of considerable mockery, and rightly so,” that they represent “standard practice” in the GOP, which is wont to make “bizarre claims about what liberals are up to.”

The rallys themselves are not spontaneous, grassroots campaigns in Krugman’s eyes, but rather, “AstroTurf (fake grass roots) events, manufactured by the usual suspects,” in this case, Dick Armey and “the usual group of rightwing billionaires.”

It must be wonderful to live Krugman’s life, blind to the excesses of his own and hypercritical of anyone who has the timerity to think thoughts that are not his.

How nice to be able to ignore George Soros and Peter Lewis, leftwing billionaires who funded human waves of crazed anti-Bushies who relentlessly attacked the GOP while the Dems were out of power.  But they do exist, they have names, they have track records, they leave bodies in their wake – more so than any “rightwing billionaires” Krugman can conjure but not name.

How nice to be able to ignore current events, like how citizens like Keli Carender and Amanda Grosserode spontaneously organized tea parties following Rick Santelli’s unscripted rant, and how TCOT and Twitter and Craig’s List and Facebook are the tools of this movement – yes, new media used by gasp! conservatives – and how Armey’s tagging along, not leading.

How nice to be able to ignore the wrongs of your own party, with its ad hominem attacks and crazed policies, by just poking fun at the sincere and concerned opposition.  Here, for example, is Krugman explaining how silly it is to call Obama a socialist:

Thus, President Obama is being called a “socialist” who seeks to destroy capitalism. Why? Because he wants to raise the tax rate on the highest-income Americans back to, um, about 10 percentage points less than it was for most of the Reagan administration. Bizarre.

Bizarre is reducing the now-rich Obama record to the tired canard about tax rates on the wealthy.  Krugman’s coddled world will not allow him to mention massive government intervention into the private sector, like Obama’s firing of GM’s CEO, or the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, or cap and trade, or the Omnibus Public Land bill’s stripping of property rights, or the planting of the seeds of nationalized health care, or the massive new national debt or the power grabs by every branch of the federal government that have been going on since Obama took office.

How nice to live in a world where living, and writing, the lie gives one the fame of a New York Times column and the adoration of leagues of liberals who share Krugman’s psychotic fear of the real world that surrounds them.

If you’re not sure you’re going to attend a tea party this Wednesday, do it for Krugman.  Make us impossible to ignore.

No Comments yet »

W

ith a surprise trip to Iraq, unless there are further surprises, Barry’s Big Adventure is winding down.  G20, NATO, speech to the Muslim world, visit to Iraq – as presidential jaunts go, this one was as ambitious as they come.  But was it successful?

Absolutely, at least from his perspective.  Let’s start with the high point: He wasn’t at home, so for a week the focus of the American voter wasn’t on the economy, which was a blessed relief for Dem strategist.

Now, the low point:

Don’t believe the CNN headline at the top, which is just media bias at its worst.  You saw it right.  At about 30 seconds in, our slim, good lookin’ president had a chance to give France’s too-hot first lady Carla Bruni, who’s leaning in for a little cheek-nuzzle, a little of his lips brushing her skin … but he backs off, sticks out his hand like a halfback stiff-arming, and she shifts to a handshake.  And see in back?  See Michelle’s long, withering hawkeyed check?  What’s with that?  As Red State called it, Henpecked in Chief.  Is this the image we want for our president?  You know Bush would have gone in for it, and Laura, sure of her husband’s fidelity, wouldn’t even have noticed.  But Obama held back and every straight man on the planet said, “You idiot!”

On now to less important measures. You (and I) can henpeck this trip apart as well as Michelle does Barry, but from a liberal perspective, the trip was a stunner.

At the G20, we saw an American president who let other nations lead and agenda-set, and we were not happy.  But Obama and his posse saw an American president who was properly differential and not, by any stretch of the imagination, arrogant – a word, by the way, that is much in the Lib lexicon nowadays, as in Obama isn’t, Bush was.  That, of course, is a pure fabrication; Obama is the height of arogance.  But they live in a fabricated world.  And in their world, Barry’s world, the G20 was ideal.

Off to NATO, where we saw a president not get much support for Afghanistan, but they saw a president who was not particularly militarily oriented and got lip service support for a war he, and they, must grudgingly give lip service to for appearances sake.  An upleasant but perfect stop.

In Prague, Obama outlined his vision for a nuclear free world, with a respected international agency watching over all of us, ensuring our safety.  We saw Li’l Kim Jong Il fire off a missile and blow the whole kumbayah moment, but the Libs couldn’t believe their ears.  I mean, man, it was like he was like wearing a peace sign or something.

Then to Istambul where he spent far too much time from our perspective bad-rapping America and its history, but on  this score, I’m going to give him some leeway. As much as I don’t like the message, I can concede that it may well have been the correct message for the audience he was speaking to. He has given the Muslim world his best shot.  He has laid out America as a flawed but great nation that’s ready to be a friend.  He’s said we think Islam’s just fine even if some of your folks periodically fly planes into our skyscrapers.  That’s what the Muslim world wanted to hear, so for that purpose, it was a well delivered speech.  And since he talked about American weaknesses in front of a foreign audience, the Libs were experiencing an unadulterated Dixie Chick moment.

And finally this morning the mandatory “secret” trip to Iraq, where he met with Gen Ray Odierno, said perfectly fine things about our wonderful troops and will meet with Iraq’s leadership.  Libs may squirm a bit at this, but they’ll probably concede that he did well with it, just as I did for his stop in Turkey.

So, he’s given it his best shot.  He’s rolled out the Obama mystique, the Obama vision, the Obama pixie dust, at every major venue that matters.  He did it cooly, without significant gaffe and with integrity, in the sense that whatever you may think, he was true to himself in this trip.  (Yeah, yeah, I know … what “self” does he have to be true to? But c’mon, try to see it through other eyes.)

Now he’s got nowhere to go but the White House. 

The market’s down 150 points, unemployment’s up, the Dem leadership is uncontrollable, his constituents have tasted blood and want more, the Tea Parties are spooling up … and overseas, the Europeans are going about being European and whatever good feelings he engendered among Muslims, I guarantee you, has not stopped the plotting, bomb-making jihadists. Those who bought the promise of the Obama campaign are still thinking that after all this, the pixie dust will hold strong, that change will come by the mere magic of His Presence and the power of His Words. 

We’ll see about that.  He did indeed give it his very best; now we’ll see what his very best can accomplish in a world that doesn’t curry much to pixie dust.

2 Comments »

L

et’s say, just hypothetically, that every single Republican in the House and Senate voted against Obama’s Orwellian [oops; Tweet-corrected by Shoq] newspeak-ian “A New Era of Responsibility” budget – even Specter, Snowe and Collins.  That seems like it would be a little bit newsworthy, doesn’t it?

Not to Lori Montgomery, who apparently is a well respected journalist, since WaPo tagged her to write this important story.  The significance of the complete GOP rejection of Obama’s budget seems to have passed her by completely, however.  I mean, c’mon, Lori, this is journalism 101: Obama promise to be the post-partisan president who would seek consensus and end petty party bickering, but he can’t get a single GOP vote for his budget.  Back in the day, they called that “news.”

But we learn from Montgomer’s lead only that the House Dems “overwhelmingly supported” the budget.  In paragraph eight, we learn that 20 Dems weren’t overwhelmed with joy about the budget and voted with the GOP, and that two Dem senators voted against it.

But nowhere in the 15-graf story does Montgomery actually say every single GOP representative in both houses of Congress voted against the budget. Every. Single. One.  She relies on you to do the math, instead, subtracting the wayward Dems from the “nay” total and remembering that the number you get by that process equals the number of Republicans in the two houses.

(Even the NYT got it right: Budgets Approved, With No G.O.P. Votes said their headline.)

OK, I can do the math, but wouldn’t it be easier to say in the lead that once again the Dems were so blinded by power, so resistant to compromise, so committed to endangering the future of our country that they couldn’t find one – not even one – RINO Republican to go along with their fiscal and policy insanity?  Instead, Montgomery and her editors turned their backs on history and tried to pretend it just didn’t happen.

No Comments yet »

T

his delightful clip details efforts by George Bush, John McCain and Alan Greenspan to reign in and regulate Freddy and Fannie in the name of protecting the economy from serious repercussions.  Defending Freddy and Fannie and saying there’s no problem, no risk are Barney Frank and Chuck Schumer.

How ironic is it that today, Frank and Schumer are in control and those who raised the concerns aren’t?

One nice thing about this:  The video clip has over 3.7 million hits on YouTube – just in this iteration.  There are no doubt clones around that are also picking up viewers.  Even if the mainly marginalized media downplay the story, the people are getting around them and getting the truth.

No Comments yet »

Y

ou may recall hearing our president mention in passing one or two or a thousand times that the economic mess was inherited from George Bush, that it wasn’t his government that passed the first bailout without sufficient oversight.  (That would be the bailout he voted for while still a relatively harmless senator.)

Yeah?  If that’s so, what’s with this testimony from the the Troubled Asset Relief Program’s oversight watchdog Elizabeth Warren? She told GOP senator Chuck Grassley at a hearing yesterday:

“We have sent letters. We have requested that there be someone named so that we can get technical information. And so far, we have not been a first priority.

“We use what you give us, and we will exercise the leverage given to us by Congress. In part, that’s why I’m here today. I’m here to talk to you about what’s happened so far, what we have discovered so far, the inquiries that we have in mid-stream and for which we continue to await responses.” (ABC)

If you watch the clip linked above, pay attention to her body language and facial expressions.  This woman is frustrated and really, really ticked off.  It’s not the kind of emotion you’d see if a couple little efforts had gone badly; no, she looks distressed at a deep level, like Geithner is keeping her from doing her job, and she fears that when the oversight fails and new, vast problems blow up, it will be she who’s thrown under the bus.

Obamarx and his Central Committee assure us they’re in control, that mistakes like, oh, approving AIG bonuses won’t happen again.  Really? 

No Comments yet »