The recent Supreme Court decision to allow corporations unlimited spending on political ads was the right decision in the case. It is not something we should be cheering for in the larger sense of what it means for American politics.
 
One good thing about this decision is that it levels the playing field by granting corporations the same advantages Unions and other organizations have when it comes to political campaigns and support of candidates. Another positive twist is that the level of awareness and debate could increase significantly; specifically by exposing a segment of the population who would otherwise be ill-informed in general about politics because what they know is only what they see in TV advertisements in their respective markets.
 
But this case is an isolated one, which does not address the real problem…the fact that too much money in politics not only adds to corruption but also makes it virtually impossible for the average citizen to campaign and compete in elections.
 
Many people on the right argue that this is about the First Amendment right to free speech. I don’t agree with that. The corporation is not an individual that can participate in rights. For example, does a corporation (remember it’s a piece of paper) have the right to keep and bear arms? How about the right to a speedy trial, why would it need that if it is never put in a jail cell? How about the right to the pursuit of happiness? Is a piece of paper capable of being happy or sad?
 
We have structures in place to allow individuals of a political opinion or ideology to band together and fund the propagation of their ideas. That is a healthy way of getting the opinion of the people into the public view. But I doubt very seriously that Nike will be concerned with individual tax rates if they can find a politician who will grant them special privileges for their business.
 
I think most Americans would agree that special interests, corporations and lobbyists already have way too much influence over politics and the legislative process. The Court’s decision opens the floodgates for corporations to increase their influence without limits. How does that serve the people? How does that help the people make their voices heard? Will this ratchet up the polarization of debate, further fueling the divisions in the electorate?
 
Insurance companies are corporations. How on earth will letting them spend freely on politics increase competition in the marketplace allowing us to negotiate lower prices and policies that fit our lifestyles and budgets. What about multinational corporations, which have no allegiance to America but will now have the opportunity to influence our political process through unlimited funding to promote ideologies that serve their particular interests? Think about the potential hazards this could lead to…special interests on steroids. Corporations will be able to fund the people who are friendly to them regardless of what it means to this society and our freedom.
 
The case I would like the Supreme Court to decide is if the current campaign finance laws are constitutional and actually serve the people. I would argue that we need significant limits on campaign financing activities. We should have a system that encourages average individuals to serve in public office. Today we have a system that encourages wealthy lawyers who can rarely avoid scandal as their power and influence is auctioned to the highest bidder(s).
 
In short, the money should be funneled through individuals, have low limits and be tax-free. Corporate profits should be directed to equity growth, dividends and R&D; allowing individual investors the opportunity to participate in the wealth generating machine that corporations are capable of being.

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George Soros, one of the wealthiest men in the world, as well as one of the largest hedge fund owners, is behind Obamacare.

Health Care for America Now (HCAN), endorsed by President Obama as the coalition pushing his health-care (euthanasia) reform, is a project of billionaire British-agent speculator George Soros, his Tides Foundation, and the Saul Alinsky counter-insurgency networks Soros used to ramp up the Obama Presidential candidacy.

Though labor unionists will come into Washington on June 25 to rally and lobby for the Obama “reform,” the HCAN organization sponsoring the D.C. events explicitly opposes the single-payer health-care plan favored by labor and by most Americans.

The group was established in July 2008 as an adjunct to the Soros operations supporting the Obama candidacy. At the outset, HCAN National Campaign Director Richard Kirsch wrote (July 16, 2008, Huffingtonpost) under the headline, “Why Not Single-Payer?” “I want to take a moment and address those of you who have been asking why Health Care for America Now is not focusing on creating a single-payer health insurance system.” Kirsch explains that he used to believe in that sort of thing, but came to realize it would scare people.

Here’s a little more about HCAN from an op-ed by Michelle Malkin:

HCAN has a $40 million budget, with $10 million pitched in by The Atlantic Philanthropies — a Bermuda-based organization fronted by Soros acolyte Gara LaMarche. Also in the money mix: notorious Democratic donors Herb and Marion Sandler, the left-wing moguls who made billions selling subprime mortgages and helped Soros fund his vast network of left-wing activist satellites. By their side is billionaire Peter Lewis of Progressive Insurance, whose “Progressive Future” youth group has dispatched clueless volunteers armed with clip-boards and literature bashing Rush Limbaugh and Fox News to scare up support for Obamacare.

And two more left-wing heavyweights joining the HCAN parade: the corruption-plagued SEIU (which has battled numerous embezzlement scandals among its chapters across the country while crusading for consumer and patients’ rights) and Obama’s old chums at fraud-riddled ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

Oh the tangled web we weave.  The tentacles of all the progressive organizations are intertwined as much as the sub-prime market was woven throughout the stock market.  These progressive groups with their new super majority finally feel as though they can pass through their agenda.

It doesn’t cease to amaze me how connected all of these groups are.  This begs the question – who is the head of the snake?  Is it George Soros?  There was a lot of speculation and perhaps a lot of fact, of his attempting to bring down the United Kingdom.  Many of these radical left wing groups are funded and run by the same individuals.  I hope that somebody can someday figure out the exact tree/web/links in the chain, and make a movie out of it.  It could be called The Twilight Zone – never mind that movie already exists… but perhaps something similar!

George Soros is also involved in another scheme that has not received much attention at all.  He has received over $300K of taxpayer dollars to open a restaurant in a very run-down, poor area of New York where, on average, people only make about $30K per year and pay their taxes like law-abiding citizens.  Mind you, this man made millions, if not billions, last year during the collapse so please keep that in mind as you read about his ties to progressive groups, his encouragement for government run health care and cap & trade, etc.

George Soros is opening up another Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in the old rust belt of up-state New York; Troy.  His company, Soros Strategic Partners, owns over 70% of the famous rib joint among other things like moveon.org, factcheck.org, hedge funds, not to mention he is also the single largest contributor to the DNC.

When Soros found the right building to create an additional franchise, the building came with a gift of approximately $218K of back taxes.  Normally, the back taxes on a building would be tacked on to the purchase price of the property but, because it’s Soros and as we’ve seen with ACORN and his other groups, he can just bully his way into welfare for the rich and additional perks that men like him could afford on their own.

Further, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que is getting a five-year deferment on the property tax that improvements on its property would have otherwise obligated it to. That five-year lag will continue for 20 years.

Meaning that Dinosaur Bar-B-Que will spend the next two decades paying less than its fair share of property taxes – while the locally owned businesses against which it competes will have to pay their full obligation.

Dinosaur Bar-B-Que is also being given exemption from $60,000 in sales tax for materials used to improve its building, and the $53,000 fee for recording its mortgage is being waived.

These are just further examples of progressive policies and individuals becoming cancers on our society.

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Just when you thought cronyism couldn’t stoop any lower, Congress sticks a clause into the health-care bill that will allow unions and their members to remain tax exempt from the proposed public Obamacare legislation.  And who would have thunk it?  Unions are majority Democrat…

To add insult to injury Congress, with their lovely perks, and inside the beltway lifestyle, would obviously keep their benefits and would not be required to participate in the plan.  If Congress, the very people who are proposing this rubbish, are unwilling to use it themselves, that should set off alarms for every American.

Union workers enjoy some of the most extensive and costliest health benefits, and union officials complained their members would be unfairly burdened by a health care tax because their contracts cannot be changed quickly enough to avoid it.

Union members also represent one of the biggest and most powerful Democratic constituencies and their support of any health care reform proposal is viewed as essential to getting a bill passed in Congress.

Baucus has proposed the tax threshold on health care benefits be set higher than the cost of policies available to federal employees and he has proposed exempting until 2013 those plans negotiated as part of union contracts.

Isn’t there some type of law that states all men and women are created equal?  Doesn’t singling out one or two groups go against that entirely?

If Obamacare is passed, this will be used as a backdoor method for Card Check because more will be enticed to join unions, where they still have a choice of their own health-care - ”mark my words!”

Oh, and next time I hear somebody bring up crony capitalism, I’ll be sure to wave several examples of “crony Capitol Hillism” in their face to make my point that corruption and greed go hand in hand and it’s no different whether you are in DC or NYC.

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Cash for clunkers sounds like a great idea.  It seems so simplistic:  I get money for turning in my old car.  However, there is much more to this than meets the eye.

Cash for clunkers is another brilliant liberal idea, and by brilliant, I mean brain dead.

Liberals say that if you trade in your old used car, you will receive $4.5K for a new one.  It can’t be the basic if it comes out of D.C., so why isn’t the media challenging this piece of legislation?  We all know the answer to that one…ask ABC.

There are numerous downsides to this bill:

- If dealers anticipate a rebate for a trade in, they will only increase their base price for the car to make up for it.

-People drive old cars because they cannot afford new ones so how will $4.5K actually help?  The down payments that many banks are asking for are much higher due to risk and tighter lending practices.  The monthly payments are also tough to meet if you are of low income status.  I just bought a new Mini Cooper and have a great credit/beacon score… but because I couldn’t put down $15K on the spot, I couldn’t get a bank loan.  I had to settle for the higher rate at the BMW dealership.

-This will also increase the cost of used cars.  If more people are trying to purchase new cars, then used car dealerships will suffer and will be forced to raise their prices to make a profit, rather than make a profit from volume of sales.  In essence, this will hurt the lower middle class and the poor – the very people he professes to help.

-Charities will be negatively affected by this law.  There are over 350K charities that are used car donors.  These charities will see a direct decrease in donations if people believe they are getting a kick-back.  These charities will have to cut staff and operations, causing more unemployment and fewer used cars for those who really need them.

-The proposed cost of this law would be $4B.  This is another “government pays” bill.  Therefore, one would think that maybe this is another bill that is circular… The Government will tax you to help pay for your car… why not just pay for it yourself then?  All estimates that come out of the government are conservative at best; therefore, you can and should always take on another 50% to the original value.

-Other industries may suffer if there are consumer shifts.  Priorities of consumers will shift based on whether they think they are getting a better deal.  If cars go up something else will inevitably go down.

-The fact that the Democrats are global warming alarmists happens to be another excuse they will use.  They will exclaim that used cars cause more pollution… I don’t believe that in the slightest, so I won’t even touch on it.  There is still plenty we do not know about hybrids and whether or not they truly are as effective as people would like to believe.  I also do not believe in the hoax or the hype – ’nuff said.  Personally, my Mini Cooper’s gas mileage goes up as it gets older…just sayin’

-This is another pay-to-play scheme to pay off the $400M campaign donations given to Democrats and Obama by the UAW.  If old cars are scrapped, new cars will have to be manufactured and purchased and more money into the pockets of the UAW.

This type of legislation has been tried before, in another country no less:

Germany has used a similar program for a few months, and of course it has actually cost at least three times more than government “estimates.” More than this, studies of the German experience have shown it has largely led to a mere shift of spending priorities. Consumer electronics sales fell in ratio to automobile spending meaning there has been no net gain for Germany’s economy.

It is so interesting and disturbing how Obama and the Democrats have gone after charities and small business.  Charities have been attacked on both the stimulus front, the taxable deductions front, and now this idea for clunkers.  A study showed that conservatives give more to charity than any other ideological group, because they do so through their churches.  These churches are involved in many charities across the nation and it’s quite disheartening to see the Liberals be so antipathetic towards religious movements.

Obama and the Democrats are hell-bent on making people so dependent on the government, and only the government, that they will soon need to get their diapers changed by them too.  This is insanity!

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It comes as no surprise to anyone who has been following the auto industry news, that GM will be filing for bankruptcy this week and their first action was filing for bankruptcy protection this morning. 

On Friday, GM’s stock was well below the $1 mark and continued to fall throughout the day. 

The bankruptcy filing, made in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, marks the climax of a lengthy debate over the auto maker’s future after it sought a bailout from the U.S. government in December to stay alive. In the end, GM couldn’t complete its restructuring out of court and filed for bankruptcy-court protection to get billions more in aid from U.S. taxpayers.

The question now facing 56,000 auto workers, 3,600 GM dealers and the Obama administration: Will it work?

The U.S. government has agreed to provide GM with another $30 billion in aid, in addition to the $20 billion the auto maker has already borrowed, to see it through its restructuring and exit from bankruptcy protection. In return, the government will get a controlling stake in the company. The Canadian and Ontario governments are putting in $9.5 billion for a 12.5% stake.

I thought that Obama didn’t want to be in the car business?  It seems like the government is becoming fascist, as Thomas Sowell recently noted: 

We’re not a socialist country, because the socialists believe in government ownership in the means of production, but the fascists believe that the government should have private ownership and the politicians should tell people how to run the businesses. So that’s the route we seem to be going.

I’m sorry, but this really is getting insane and it only proves the most recent article coming out of the Russian Pravda paper, no less, entitled, “American Capitalism Gone With a Whimper.”

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their “right” to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our “democracy”. Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different “branches and denominations” were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the “winning” side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the “winning” side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

The government has never been able to run any type of business well, mainly due to the fact that the majority of politicians have never worked in the business world, they are either lawyers or just came straight out of college with a BS in political science – and BS is extremely apropos.  The government tried running Amtrak and how well did that go?  The government tried running the Mustang Ranch, and couldn’t manage to make a profit from sex of all things! 

Obama wants control of the auto industry because of his voting bloc, the unions (namely the UAW), who contributed over $400M to his campaign and so he can pass his green agenda via vehicles.  We can all drive around some solar powered tin cans that need to be recharged every 40 miles and get nowhere!

Peter Schiff also had an interesting take on where our economy is headed and some final words regarding GM that he posted on youtube, Friday: 

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Thank you Captain Obvious… err… I mean Obama!

Ironically enough the debt and the borrowing that Obama is concerned about will mostly come from his irresponsible spending habits within his first 100 days.  When Dick Morris mentioned that Obama’s first 100 days would come back to haunt him, he was right!

President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.

“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”

Holders of U.S. debt will eventually “get tired” of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, Obama said. “It will have a dampening effect on our economy.”

That calls for a big “DUH!” but that is simple common sense, something that is much like an endangered species in the halls of D.C.

The amusing part of all of this is the fact that Obama is just simply unwilling to look in the mirror and realize that he has quadrupled the debt and increased our deficit more than any other president in history.  He has spent more in his first 100 days than all presidents throughout history combined – and that includes Bush to all you liberals.

Obama continuously uses the blame Bush rhetoric for having to take “drastic” measures, but as any intelligent human being should realize, when the government and politicians make things out to be a crisis, yet you don’t really feel that way (unlike a physical attack against your country), you should be incredibly wary.  Politicians lie, they lie to pass an agenda, and Obama is a genius when it comes to manipulation, deceit, and drama.

Earlier this week, the Obama administration revised its own budget estimates and raised the projected deficit for this year to a record $1.84 trillion, up 5 percent from the February estimate. The revision for the 2010 fiscal year estimated the deficit at $1.26 trillion, up 7.4 percent from the February figure. The White House Office of Management and Budget also projected next year’s budget will end up at $3.59 trillion, compared with the $3.55 trillion it estimated previously.

Two weeks ago, the president proposed $17 billion in budget cuts, with plans to eliminate or reduce 121 federal programs. Republicans ridiculed the amount, saying that it represented one-half of 1 percent of the entire budget. They noted that Obama is seeking an $81 billion increase in other spending.

We are now learning that the supplemental spending for war funding and emergency funding that is sitting in the House and Senate are both over $90 billion at this point.  There will most likely be a compromise of some sort between the House and Senate but I believe that the real amount of additional appropriations will most likely stay above the $90 billion threshold.

Let’s not forget that under the Obama administration and this radical left Congress that government is growing and the private sector is shrinking.  Entitlement programs are growing because liberals know that the more you can put your thumb over people and oppress them by getting them “hooked” on entitlements and the government, the more they will win votes… that’s just cruel.

The issue is that we are going to go bankrupt quicker by upping the ante on entitlements.  Entitlements themselves are already unsustainable.

Baby boomers — that 70-million-strong population lump — begin officially retiring this year. That means the government’s bill for retirees’ pensions and health care has no where to go but up, for decades to come.

Everyone knew this day would come. And virtually every economist and actuary who had run the numbers could tell you, within a few years’ certainty, the system was going bankrupt.

But all this seemed to happen in the distant future. Last year, both political parties virtually ignored the topic during their presidential campaigns. It became a non-issue issue.

Well, thanks to a profligate federal government, which will double the national debt to $11.5 trillion in just four years, and a recession that has weakened federal tax revenues, we can no longer ignore the problem. The day of reckoning is at hand.

The Social Security Board of Trustees reported Tuesday that costs will exceed revenues in 2016 — a full year sooner than expected just last year. And total assets — including more than 70 years of “surpluses” built up in the “trust fund” — will be completely gone by 2037 — four years earlier than in last year’s report.

The deficit over the next 50 years is expected to be about 2% of taxable payrolls — up from 1.7% last year. By the way, changes in the last year alone have added $5.3 trillion in costs to the program.

Long-term, unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare top $53 trillion — about four times the size of current GDP. Taxes must either rise or benefits shrink by that amount to close that gap.

Maybe we could try to work on some issues that really matter, those that could possibly destroy people’s lives?  Instead of criticizing private social security accounts, maybe we should revisit the idea and work from there.  Many economists argue that private accounts of some sort would be more cost effective and better for everyone.

We also cannot forget that Obama and his lefty contemporaries want to reform health care and create a possible single payer system.  Many do not believe that the single payer legislation will get passed, but something that makes the private sector compete with the public sector by providing a choice.  The issue that I have/see with this “competition” is how the government can become so forceful and, as it has done in the past, force out of business anything competing with it.  Either way, any additional programs provided by the government must come out of taxpayers’ pockets, so medical care will never technically be free – it will only be free to those who don’t work or pay taxes.  This is the crux of the problem.  Health care provided by the government will just increase our debt to China even more…

Obama is concerned with China?  He’s concerned with owing the Chinese more and more?  Well, maybe if we took a look at the recent auto industry news regarding GM it would be evident that all we do is take China’s money, give China jobs, and all in all are in the pocket of China.

As thousands of General Motors workers await word on more U.S. plant closures, reports that the company plans to import Chinese-made vehicles to the U.S. have created a political problem for the automaker and the White House.

The reports, which GM will neither confirm nor deny, could mean trouble because GM is supported by $15.4 billion in U.S. government loans, largely due to the Obama administration’s desire to preserve the company’s 90,000 U.S. jobs.

The United Auto Workers charged last week that the Detroit automaker intends to almost double over the next five years the number of vehicles it imports to the U.S. from Mexico, South Korea, China and Japan.

“GM should not be taking taxpayers’ money simply to finance the outsourcing of jobs to other countries,” Alan Reuther, the union’s Washington lobbyist, wrote in a letter to U.S. lawmakers.

Maybe if the Unions were not allowed to lobby on Capitol Hill to force the hands of Democrats and completely crush the auto industry, this would not have been a problem and the outsourcing of jobs would not have been so enticing to the ailing auto giants.  But why would Democrats ever put the good of the country or an industry over that of a big donor?

I have an idea for all who read this – let’s attempt to elect someone who is for the people, by the people – not bought and paid for.  Let’s elect somebody who is honest and integrity means more to them than politics and agenda… Stop electing these corrupt, pathological liars and maybe we can get our country back on track.

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Moron Alert!  Joe Biden thinks unions will help the middle class and possibly cure the ailing economy.

Vice President Joe Biden, making a renewed pitch for a major change in labor law, told union leaders Tuesday that the best way to rebuild the middle class is to help labor unions grow.

Biden said it’s time to “level the playing field” for unions by passing a bill that would make it easier for workers to organize.

“You’ve got to climb up a hill with so many roadblocks on the way to organize that it’s just out of whack,” Biden told a conference of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which has about 1.6 million members.

“If a union is what you want, then a union is what you should get,” Biden said.

The Employee Free Choice Act — also known as “card check” — is organized labor’s top priority this year, but business groups are adamantly opposed. It would allow a majority of workplace employees to sign cards to join a union instead of holding secret ballot elections.

This is just idiotic.  We are supposed to believe that unions, one of the major causes of the auto industry downfall, will actually help the economy and put more money into the hands of the middle class?  Unions have been incredibly corrupt once they came to power and held more sway up on Capitol Hill.  Even employees that are supposedly protected by unions get used and abused in order for the union leaders to gain more power and control.  Unions suck money out of companies because of strict contractual agreements, huge benefit packages, protection from getting fired, major pay rates, etc.  If private companies are forced to accept union labor, they will move to other countries to conduct business.  The United States, IIRC, is the only country that has unions.  When auto industries conduct business in other countries they are actually profitable because there are no unions in those factories.  Other companies will escape overseas, so if Biden wants to level the playing field, as he puts it, and not completely demolish the U.S. economy, then he will have to figure out a way to enforce union labor on places like India, China, Brazil, etc. FAT CHANCE – Good one Joe… But then again, we already know that you and your Democrat cronies are all in the pockets of the Unions.

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We all know that Obama is bought and paid for by the unions and he once again proves that he is in their pocket.  He makes these grandiose overtures to try and pass off budget cuts of historical proportions or market himself to appear to be improving the national debt.

Those who research and do our homework know that those overtures fall flat, especially when one of the largest cuts from the federal budget is the 9% budget cut of the union regulations department.  This comes from the Department of Labor via American Spectator:

…buried in the budget documents released by the White House today is a 9 percent cut in the unit of the Department of Labor that is in charge of regulating unions.

Under the leadership of Elaine Chao during the Bush administration, the Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards took its job of policing unions seriously. Its actions led to 929 convictions of corrupt union officials and to the recovery of more than $93 million on behalf of union members. Yet the Obama administration has proposed slashing its budget from $45 million in 2009 to $41 million in 2010, citing an insufficient “workload” for the office.

Instead of using the money to make sure unions play by the rules, the Obama administration proposes shifting resources to the department’s Wage and Hour Division, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration — all areas of the agency focused on regulating businesses.

Not like union regulation matters anymore when the Department of Education is growing at a rapid clip and the UAW owns GM and Chrysler.  I guess the unions can all manage themselves – no corruption there/sarc.

Half of the budget cuts under Obama will actually come from the defense budget:

About half of the cuts are in the Defense Department’s budget, and the White House readily concedes that Defense Secretary Robert Gates already had proposed much of this as part of a new, and bigger, Defense budget that he is seeking. Defense is growing, not shrinking.

Funny how a recent Rasumussen Report just showed the majority of Americans do not believe the unions or the government will manage the auto industry well.

Another funny side note:  Bush actually cut more from the budget than Obama.

President Obama announced fewer budget cuts and for a lesser dollar amount than President George W. Bush did in his final budget – and is counting on being able to eliminate some programs that his predecessor repeatedly tried, but failed, to slash.

Obama administration officials said they’re convinced they’ll have more luck eliminating programs such as Even Start, an early childhood education program that Mr. Bush put on the chopping block year after year but which both Democrats and Republicans in Congress refused to cut.

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The left-wing blogosphere is all a-twitter, no pun intended, regarding the allegations brought forth by Tom Lauria, the lawyer for Perella Weinberg.  The allegations stated that several bondholders of Chrysler were threatened by members of the Obama administration and more specifically the car czar, Rattner.   I reported earlier on what was said at the meeting, in Tom’s words, to his client.

Progressives are now making this into a “trumped up” charge put on by conservative political activists.  In the hypocritical realm of the liberals, they now believe the fat-cats and greedy corporations over regular investors of a fund.  The issue with liberals is:  “If they didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have standards at all.”

It boggles the mind to see progressives deciding that because the White House and a corporation deny a charge, that the charge must be false. Imagine, for instance, these folks accepting a version of events simply because it had been put forth by the Bush White House and Halliburton. But this is exactly what Think Progress and Media Matters are doing. It’s as if their cognitive critical apparatus had simply stopped functioning sometime in January.

We think this is an important story, one that deserves further investigation. Critical questions raised by a credible professional about the conduct of those in high offices of the US government remain unresolved. Excoriating reporters who follow up on these questions doesn’t strike us as very progressive or thoughtful. It seems, rather, evidence of a kind of political mania that we’d all be better off putting aside.

Here’s the full statement by Perella Weinberg:

Suggestions have been made that the Perella Weinberg Partners Xerion Fund changed its stance on the Chrysler restructuring due to pressure from White House officials. This is incorrect. The decision to accept and support the proposed deal was made by the Xerion Fund after reflecting carefully on the statement of the President when announcing Chrysler’s bankruptcy filing. In considering the President’s words and exercising our best investment judgment, we concluded that the risks of potentially severe capital loss that could arise from fighting this in bankruptcy court far outweighed any realistic potential upside.

We have a very specific mandate from our investors, and that is to carefully weigh investment risks and rewards. It is not our investment mandate to pursue political or risky legal campaigns with our investors’ money. This was our assessment of investment risk and reward, nothing else.

While we did and still do believe that the lenders would be justified in pressing their objections under conventional bankruptcy law principles, we believe a settlement would now be in the best interests of all parties in the context of avoiding a drawn out contested bankruptcy litigation proceeding, and we encourage our colleagues in the loan syndicate to pursue this immediately.

This is just another example of favoritism, pay-to-play politics, and sheer cronyism.  The UAW is one of the favored groups of the democrats and especially Obama, due to the donations he received from the UAW and other union groups for last year’s election.

Think carefully about what’s happening here. The White House, presumably car czar Steven Rattner and deputy Ron Bloom, is seeking to transfer the property of one group of people to another group that is politically favored. In the process, it is setting aside basic property rights in favor of rewarding the United Auto Workers for the support the union has given the Democratic Party. The only possible limit on the White House’s power is the bankruptcy judge, who might not go along.

Michigan politicians of both parties joined Obama in denouncing the holdout bondholders. They point to the sad plight of UAW retirees not getting full payment of the health care benefits the union negotiated with Chrysler. But the plight of the beneficiaries of the pension funds represented by the bondholders is sad too. Ordinarily you would expect these claims to be weighed and determined by the rule of law. But not apparently in this administration.

Obama’s attitude toward the rule of law is apparent in the words he used to describe what he is looking for in a nominee to replace Justice David Souter. He wants “someone who understands justice is not just about some abstract legal theory,” he said, but someone who has “empathy.” In other words, judges should decide cases so that the right people win, not according to the rule of law.

The Chrysler negotiations will not be the last occasion for this administration to engage in bailout favoritism and crony capitalism. There’s a May 31 deadline to come up with a settlement for General Motors. And there will be others. In the meantime, who is going to buy bonds from unionized companies if the government is going to take their money away and give it to the union? We have just seen an episode of Gangster Government. It is likely to be part of a continuing series.

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UPDATE:

Unionized employees at the New York Times newspaper on Monday ratified a 5 percent pay cut, according to a memo obtained by Reuters.

New York Times newspaper employees who are members of the New York Newspaper Guild voted 377 to 36 to ratify the pay cut agreement, which includes 10 additional paid days off, while Guild members at the Times’ digital unit ratified the agreement by a 50-0 vote, according to the memo.

The Guild members signed off on an agreement with New York Times management last week designed to save the newspaper $4.5 million.

It has been reported that the New York Times will rid themselves of their subsidiary, The Boston Globe.

Both papers are having trouble making ends meet and the New York Times must dump another paper line if it is to save some money.

Unions have a significant presence at newspaper companies and talks were underway to negotiate before making the final decision on the future of the paper.

Earlier today the Union representatives walked out during the talks.  However, it appears that the negotiations may resume a little later today or tomorrow.

The Boston Globe and its biggest union are “taking a break” until later Monday or Tuesday on talks about concessions that parent company The New York Times Co says are crucial to save the newspaper.

The union and management suspended discussions early Monday morning. They have not set a time or location for the next round of talks, a source familiar with the matter, but unauthorized to discuss it, told Reuters.

The Times Co had set midnight Sunday as the deadline to extract $20 million in cost cuts from its unions to avoid closing the Globe, which it said could lose up to $85 million this year.

The Times stepped up pressure on the unions, saying it planned to file notice with the U.S. government that warns it could shut the paper down in 60 days. Negotiations on cost cuts could continue even after that filing.

I personally think that if the paper cannot sell in this market and model its reports to be middle of the road, rather than liberal and biased, then it deserves to go under.  Free markets dictate that those companies who make poor business decisions will not stay in business.

Thankfully, at this moment in time, the Obama administration does not plan on bailing out the newspapers:

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