(Overdue) “Controlled” Bankruptcy for GM

Couldn’t we have just let them go into bankruptcy in the first place and saved American taxpayers BILLIONS of dollars?

In the Obama-nation, the government picks the winners and losers.  If the government is bailing out, subsidizing, and otherwise propping up a FAILING business when it is unprofitable and poorly run, how can those who are being run smartly run hope to compete?  This is just one part in the destruction of capitalism that has provided the most advances in technology and standard of living of any system or nation in the history of the world.

April 1, 2009 11:23 AM

White House May Seek “Controlled Bankruptcy” For GM

Posted by Daniel Carty | Comment On This Post

(AP)

The Obama administration is weighing a “controlled bankruptcy” for General Motors Corp. if the floundering auto giant cannot meet government standards for viability by June 1, The New York Times reports Wednesday.

The move would fall somewhere between a prepackaged bankruptcy and a potentially chaotic legal battle between the company and creditors. It would involve persuading only some creditors to agree to a plan that would split the company into two pieces, sources familiar with the discussions told the Times.

In most prepackaged bankruptcies, all the creditors must agree terms, but the White House may circumvent that by financing the sales using taxpayer money, reports the paper.

Fritz Henderson, GM’s new CEO, indicated Tuesday that tougher government standards have made bankruptcy “more probable” than in the past.

Henderson said GM management was rushing to find ways to stave off that fate. It must slash billions in costs and debt in time for the Obama administration’s deadline.

The plan appears to resemble parts of the bank rescue plan – separating the company’s liabilities and bad assets from its profitable elements. Some specifics, according to the Times, include:

GM filing for prearranged bankruptcy.

Selling off valuable assets, such as Cadillac or Chevrolet, to a new company using government financing. This would apparently become GM’s new corporate face.

Leaving less desirable elements, like Hummer, with the old company.

Using revenue from the sales to pay off creditors.

The White House would hope to get support from the United Auto Workers union, which would likely be asked to make further concessions, but the law allows a judge to approve a sale over creditor objections, according to the Times.

HR 1388 GIVE Act Aimed at “Re-Educating” and Indoctrinating Your Children

I started reading (yes, actually reading) the WHOLE bill last night. I’ve gotten about half way through it so far, and what I’ve seen so far SCARES THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF ME!

Here are some of things that scare me about what I’ve read so far:

• “Service Learning”: Thinly veiled wording for indoctrination. This follows the model of Soviet Russia with their “re-education camps.” Though the original language of this bill called the re-education/indoctrination centers “camps,” they have since changed the names to “campuses.”
• “Service Corps”: The more I read, the more these look like the basis for the mobs/militias that Obama mentioned in his campaign, but quickly covered up. He said he would form a security force funded as well as the military. Every dictator and despot ruler has had the same thing: a paramilitary force to “persuade” citizens to bend to the will of the despot.
• Backdoor attack on home schooling: The more I read, the more it becomes apparent that Obama intends to make attendance in public, government run schools mandatory. In recent years there have been increasing attacks on those who wish to home school their children in order to teach more conservative values to them. The communists/socialists have known for a long time that if you control the children, you will eventually bypass the parents and control the society.
• Prohibition on any display or exercise of religion: Sect 125 (a)(7) reads thusly…
  

  ‘(a) Prohibited Activities- A participant in an approved national service position under this subtitle may not engage in the following activities:
  (7) Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization.

The only way they’ll take my kids to these camps is over my cold, dead body.

I’m uncovering more and more bad stuff in this bill. Please read as much of this, and every other bill, as you have the opportunity to read. Expose what our corrupt politicians are trying to keep in the dark.

Read HR1388 here:
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1388/text

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Media shield bill a double-edged sword

Responsibility. Media responsibility. That is really what the issue here should be. There was a time when most of the media would take responsibility for what they reported by THOROUGHLY checking their sources, not reporting potentially classified material without checking it with the proper authorities, and not reporting slanderous material without multiple corroborating sources. Today objectivity and responsibility have been replace by ideology driven agenda. So what if I print a lie about someone, as long as it suits my beliefs. Responsibility. Media responsibility. Or lack thereof.

Media shield bill approved by House panel

By LARRY MARGASAK
Associated Press
March 26, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) — Counting on Senate and White House support, lawmakers seeking limited court protection of reporters’ confidential sources renewed an effort Wednesday to win passage of legislation that failed last year.

The bill cleared the House Judiciary Committee on a voice vote and should pass in the House soon. But the test will come later this year in the Senate, where the bill died last year after then-President George W. Bush threatened a veto.

The Bush administration warned the bill would encourage leaks of classified information. (It will also foster slander and character attacks, which the left is so fond of.)

Chief sponsor Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., said he’s confident of passage “with the addition of a substantial number of (Senate) Democrats who I believe will be supportive.” Senate supporters could only muster 51 votes last year to get past a filibuster, when 60 were needed.

President Barack Obama was a sponsor of a shield bill as an Illinois senator and presidential candidate.

The House passed a similar bill in 2007 by a 398-21 vote.

The House bill, which would protect confidentiality in most federal court cases, was rewritten this year to meet some of the objections. The revisions enhanced the federal government’s ability to obtain information that is needed to protect national security; and investigate and prevent acts of terrorism.

The bill only allows a court to compel a journalist to reveal confidential sources in these circumstances:

–To prevent an act of terrorism against the United States or its allies, prevent significant harm to national security or to identify a perpetrator of a terrorist act.

–To stop an imminent death or significant bodily harm.

–To identify someone who disclosed a trade secret, health information on individuals, or financial information that is confidential under federal laws.

–To identify, in a criminal investigation, someone who disclosed properly classified information that caused or will cause significant harm to national security.

Even if those requirements are met, the party seeking information must establish that the public interest in compelling disclosure outweighs the public interest in gathering or disseminating information.

Thirty-six states and the District of Columbia have shield laws.

Boucher said the law is needed, because a reporter’s source is “only going to pick up the phone … if the reporter can promise confidentiality.”

An opponent of the bill, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said that “Protecting anonymous sources should never be more important than protecting the American people or solving crimes that can help save lives.

“Unfortunately, this bill raises serious law enforcement and national security concerns.”

Smith added that media outlets are lobbying for the bill, even though the media criticizes lobbyists who represent other special interests.

Dozens of news outlets, including The Associated Press, have supported a shield law.

Supporters of media shield legislation have pointed to news reports — based on confidentiality — on mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, clandestine CIA prisons and substandard conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller was imprisoned for 85 days in 2005 for refusing to identify the Bush administration officials who spoke with her about CIA employee Valerie Plame. The public revelation of her name led to the perjury and obstructing justice conviction of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who was chief of staff to Dick Cheney when he was vice president.