From the Associated Press’ John Rogers (who is a man);
He was tall and stunningly good looking, a guy who could appear pensive and serious one moment and then, with smoke from an unfiltered cigarette swirling around his face, morph into the hippest looking dude this side of James Dean.
h/t OttRob
The axe swings politically at Obama Motors – the Washington Examiner has picked up on questions raised in the American rightosphere over past days;
Evidence appears to be mounting that the Obama administration has systematically targeted for closing Chrysler dealers who contributed to Repubicans. What started earlier this week as mainly a rumbling on the Right side of the Blogosphere has gathered some steam today with revelations that among the dealers being shut down are a GOP congressman and closing of competitors to a dealership chain partly owned by former Clinton White House chief of staff Mack McLarty.
[…]
Also fueling the controversy is the fact the RLJ-McCarty-Landers chain of Arkansas and Missouri dealerships aren’t being closed, but many of their local competitors are being eliminated. Go here for a detailed look at this situation. McClarty is the former Clinton senior aide. The “J” is Robert Johnson, founder of the Black Entertainment Television, a heavy Democratic contributor.
A lawyer representing a group of Chrysler dealers who are on the hit list deposed senior Chrysler executives and later told Reuters that he believes the closings have been forced on the company by the White House.
“It became clear to us that Chrysler does not see the wisdom of terminating 25 percent of its dealers. It really wasn’t Chrysler’s decision. They are under enormous pressure from the President’s automotive task force,” said attorney Leonard Bellavia.
Glenn Reynolds – “A reader notes something about “car czar” Steven Rattner: “Rattner is married to Maureen White, the former National Finance Chair for the Democratic Party.”
Rick Moran has much more, at American Thinker.
Previous.
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Toronto Star, March 2008: “Obama would win in Canada: Poll”
Montreal Gazette, May 2009: “…you don’t have the excuse Bush did: He was dim and you’re brilliant. So why blame us?”
Moron.
The axe swings wide at Obama Motors;
A car dealer in Outlook is wondering what to do after being told by General Motors they were terminating his franchise. GM is chopping 40 percent of its dealerships in Canada with most of the closures happening out east. Bob Reid found out the hard way rural Saskatchewan is not immune. Reid Motors first opened in Broderick in 1912 and has been in Outlook since 1949.
In keeping with the new hopey-changey spirit rising in America, profitability is no defense;
On Thursday, May 14, 2009 I was notified that my Dodge franchise, that we purchased, will be taken away from my family on June 9, 2009 without compensation and given to another dealer at no cost to them. My new vehicle inventory consists of 125 vehicles with a financed balance of 3 million dollars. This inventory becomes impossible to sell with no factory incentives beyond June 9, 2009. Without the Dodge franchise we can no longer sell a new Dodge as “new,” nor will we be able to do any warranty service work. Additionally, my Dodge parts inventory, (approximately $300,000.) is virtually worthless without the ability to perform warranty service. There is no offer from Chrysler to buy back the vehicles or parts inventory.
Our facility was recently totally renovated at Chrysler’s insistence, incurring a multi-million dollar debt in the form of a mortgage at Sun Trust Bank.
HOW IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CAN THIS HAPPEN?
THIS IS A PRIVATE BUSINESS NOT A GOVERNMENT ENTITY
This is beyond imagination! My business is being stolen from me through NO FAULT OF OUR OWN. We did NOTHING wrong.
This atrocity will most likely force my family into bankruptcy. This will also cause our 50+ employees to be unemployed. How will they provide for their families? This is a total economic disaster.
I wonder how many still have Obama-Biden stickers on their back bumpers?
h/t Brent Weston
h/t Paul T.
…and 150,000 manufacturing jobs get vapourized…
Imagine if the President had instead said today, “This new fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions rule will slow the increase in future global temperature seven thousandths of a degree Celsius by the end of this century, and it means the sea will rise six tenths of a millimeter less than it otherwise would over the same timeframe.” It loses some of its punch, no?
h/t
More: “At the same time that the president was announcing the Californication of the country’s automobile fleet, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) was working to push through an anti-energy bill designed to export the Golden State’s failed energy model to the rest of the country. “
Good times!
Previous: “To boldly go where no consumer demand has gone before”
With debate looming on Obama’s spending request to cover military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the official says Democrats will deny the Pentagon and Justice Department $80 million to relocate Guantanamo’s 241 detainees.
Via Shaken, who writes “What’s that you say? Insuring your own debt with your own debt?“
The National League of Cities says it will ask the U.S. Treasury today for a $5 billion interest-free loan to capitalize a new municipal bond insurer it plans to create.
The Issuers Mutual Bond Assurance Co. would be the first publicly owned U.S. financial guarantor. The $5 billion capitalization would make it the biggest in the industry, eclipsing MBIA Inc.’s capital base of $3.8 billion and the $1.1 billion of current market leader Assured Guaranty Inc.
The scheme has received the Barney Frank Seal Of Approval. What could possibly go wrong?
In a dramatic and high-profile reversal for his young administration, President Barack Obama is seeking to block the release of 44 photographs depicting abuse of detainees in U.S. military custody in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
“The federal government ran a deficit in April for the first time in 26 years, pushing the red ink so far this budget year to a record $802.3 billion.”
“…it is indeed a good time to work for the Feds. Through the magic of compounding, my pay has increased by nearly 15% since my start date! No promotions or “step increases”, just the annual cost of living adjustment.”
Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias is threatening to pull state business from Wells Fargo & Co. unless the bank stops trying to liquidate a company that makes suits for President Barack Obama.
Giannoulias made the ultimatum outside a Hartmarx Corp. factory in Des Plaines Thursday. Chicago-based Hartmarx is the nation’s largest maker of men’s tailored clothing.
The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Jan. 23. It employs about 3,000 workers represented by the Service Employees International Union.
Is there nothing that Obama can’t do?
More here –
Alexi Giannoulias is another key Obama ally and a banking scion. He was elected Illinois State Treasurer in 2006, when Obama was one of the few officeholders backing him. For once, Obama did not back the favored candidate of the machine — that was Paul Mangieri, who had been endorsed by the Illinois Democratic Party, the state party chairman, forty-one state lawmakers, and most statewide officeholders. Instead, Obama endorsed the candidate whose family institution, Broadway Bank, had been loaning money to mafia figures.
You can take the politician out of Chicago, but ….
Stay classy there, Mr. New Kind Of Politics.
April 23: – “The Obama administration, in an agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union, said Thursday it will release photos of alleged abusive interrogations.”
May 5: – The $328,835 snapshots of an Air Force One backup plane buzzing lower Manhattan last week will not be shown to the public, the White House said yesterday.”
… it’s a 27 point drop in 100 days.
h/t
” … $100 million here, pretty soon, even in Washington, it adds up to real money…”
Via Megan McCardle
They said that if you voted for McCain, dissenters would be targeted by the White House – and they were right!
“A group of investment firms and hedge funds decided to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout. They were hoping that everybody else would make sacrifices and they would have to make none,” Obama said.
“I don’t stand with them,” Obama said. “I stand with Chrysler’s employees and their families and communities. I stand with Chrysler’s management, its dealers and its suppliers. I stand with the millions of Americans who own and want to buy Chrysler cars.”
I heard this over the car radio yesterday, so didn’t blog about it then, but my thoughts were similar to Stephen Spruiell’s;
Does that mean he doesn’t stand with the thousands of Americans who have retirement plans with Oppenheimer Funds? […] Not everyone showed this kind of backbone. I don’t know about you, but knowing that Oppenheimer’s managers were willing to stand up to immense political pressure on behalf of their investors kind of makes me want to open an account there.
Politico – “It’s clear that the White House thinks the politics of battling unnamed “speculators” works in its favor.”
Last month he sparked the Great National Rile-Up over AIG bonuses, now this.
The hopey-changy agenda becomes clearer by the day – what Bush did for terrorism, Obama will do for witches.
Wait. He who would heal the planet can’t heal Detroit?
Chrysler, one of the three pillars of the American auto industry, will file for bankruptcy today after last-minute negotiations between the government and the automaker’s creditors broke down last night, an Obama administration official said.
U.S. officials had offered Chrysler’s secured lenders $2.25 billion in cash if they would agree to writedown the $6.9 billion in secured debt that the company owed. But a small group of hedge funds refused the 11th-hour deal, forcing an imminent bankruptcy.
But not to worry. It’s just so they can get more money from us.
Margaret Wente channels SDA;
Don’t worry, people. There’s no need for panic. Swine flu has reached the phase 5 alert level, which is bad but not disastrous. Barack Obama is on top of it. He has gone on TV to reassure us we don’t need to close the schools yet, just some of them. He’s banker-in-chief and car salesman-in-chief, and now he’s the public health officer-in-chief. Is there nothing this man can’t do?
h/t Arnav
Is there nothing that Obama don’t know?
Federal officials knew that sending two fighter jets and Air Force One to buzz ground zero and Lady Liberty might set off nightmarish fears of a 9/11 replay, but they still ordered the photo-op kept secret from the public.
In a memo obtained by CBS 2 HD the Federal Aviation Administration’s James Johnston said the agency was aware of “the possibility of public concern regarding DOD (Department of Defense) aircraft flying at low altitudes” in an around New York City. But they demanded total secrecy from the NYPD, the Secret Service, the FBI and even the mayor’s office and threatened federal sanctions if the secret got out.
The people who populate the Obama administration really don’t believe in 9/11. They may have read about it, They may know intellectually that it happened. But they view it the same way we may view a lightning strike that hits an isolated golfer: a billion-in-one shot that “just happened.” That’s why the Obama team is renaming the attacks of 9/11 as “man-caused disasters” putting it on the same moral plane as an auto wreck. That’s why the Obama team is not really concerned about revealing what we do to interrogate prisoners with vital information. They don’t believe we haven anything to worry about. Unlike the people who evacuated their buildings during the fly-bys and who ran for their lives, believing that they were under another attack. For Team Obama, it’s always 9/10.
Plus, who was holding the camera?
h/t Drudge