Obama shutting down car dealerships. Why?

President Obama and his Auto Task Force troopers have ordered GM and Chrysler to close down dealerships. I don't think it's a political move to hurt dealerships owned by Republicans, though apparently the majority of the dealerships being closed are in fact owned by Republicans. No, it seems to me that this is a move to drive the price of GM and Chrysler products up. Less dealers equals less cars available equals more expensive cars. If this move had been contemplated by a President Bush task force there would be a nationwide call for investigations and a special prosecutor. All we hear now is....NOTHING! Honest, hard working folks are being driven out of business, forced to lay off employees and dump products at liquidation prices and there is not a peep from anyone. Amazing.

In this ... http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/03/gm-chrysler-say-slashing-dealerships-key-survival/?test=latestnews ...fair and balanced news report from FOX GM and Chrysler executives say "We must slash dealerships if we are to survive...". How's that work? Well GM pays billions of dollars a year to the dealerships. Or not! Dealers pay the auto manufacturers for the products they sell. Not one dime of GM's money goes to the dealerships.

So how is this going to help them "survive"? "that there are too many dealers and the networks date from the 1940s and 1950s when motorists lived farther apart and Detroit automakers led the world in sales." says the head of GM. Do you suppose he is trying to say that the problem is that the dealerships are not paying for the cars they buy? Ask Peter Lopez, who owns dealerships that sell both GM and Chrysler (bet he wishes he'd gone with First On Race Day FORD). "I have met every financial obligation put forth by Chrysler and GM... Now ... they want to shut me down. What gives the government the right to do that? I'm a taxpayer and they're getting taxpayer dollars. It just doesn't add up." He's right, it doesn't add up. Maybe the problem is how "old" the dealerships are. Let's hear from Russell Whatley, "a Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep dealer in Mineral Wells, Texas". Russell said "his grandfather opened the business in 1919. 'A 90-year investment is just gone, and neither my family nor my employees have any say about it'."

If these two Dealers don't "get it", and the Obama supporting free American press does not get it, who does? I do.

You see friends, there were less Dealerships (when you had to drive farther to buy a car) it was better for the manufacturers because they could charge you more. It's called "Supply and Demand". GM and Chrysler are selling less cars at more dealerships. They need to sell more cars, and really don't care how many dealerships it takes to do it. But Obama knows that when the new GM's and the Fiat/Chrysler cars hit the market, the fewer places one can go to buy one the more they can charge. They are manipulating the free market to increase their sales. Don't be surprised if the next thing you see Obama doing is creating rules that hurt Ford (as well as Toyota and others) and help GM/Chrysler. Oh wait, he already did. He has raised the CAFE standards to 30mpg or something like that, and ordered Chrysler to use Fiat small car designs, putting Ford behind the 8 ball from the get go. That's not a problem though because the only reason he did it is to save the environment, and we all want that...right?

Isn't conspiring to drive up prices is illegal?

But this is not Obama's first illegal act as President, nor will (I assume) be his last. He coerced the auto manufacturers Bondholders to take less than they deserve through Bankruptcy and gave it to the UAW. That sort of coercion is called "Extortion" when the Mafia does it. But when Obama does it it's called "The smartest economic move ever by the smartest most elegant, not to mention handsome and cool, man who ever walked......."

This world is upside down and things will get worse. But that doesn't mean we should all lay down and let these folks break our knee caps. These closed dealerships should fight back. They should open other dealerships and their advertising should be along the lines of "GM and Chrysler STOLE FROM US AND OUR EMPLOYEES. Show them it matters. Buy a car from us"

I'd buy one.

Bonuses

The post below was intended to point out the absurdity of the outrage against the AIG bonuses. Yesterday an AIG executive had his resignation letter posted in the New York Times. I hope all the self righteous taxpayers who berated the AIG execs. read it and feel good about stealing the man's compensation.

Then today it comes out that Rahm Emmanuel was on the board of Fanny Mae. He apparently sat in on 6 board meetings, for which he was compensated over $350,000....a nice gig if you can get one.

Coincidentally, over the last couple of days the dems and their allies in the media have been silent on the AIG bonus issue. You don't suppose they are trying to keep their chickens from roosting do you?

The U.S.ofA. is currently run by the biggest bunch of hypicrites ever to walk the earth.

Investing in punishment

The first time I remember hearing Democrats use the term "Investment" to describe increased taxes was during the G. H. W. Bush administration. He promised "No new taxes" but under pressure from a Democratic Congress he broke that promise. The Dems claimed "Investment" was needed to end the tiny recession, but what they meant was..."We need to raise taxes so we can increase government programs". Bush bought it and the rest is history. Since then the Dems pretty much use the term non stop in their push for higher taxes.

Of course the historical Republican response is "We don't want to punish hard work by increasing taxes", and "The people know better how to invest their money than the Congress does", and "It's NOT the congresses money!" We've always known that higher taxes are really a punishment for success. Well finally the Dems have admitted it.

The hard work needed of A.I.G. executives in liquidating their bad assets and closing down unprofitable divisions led the insurance and financial company to offer "Retention bonuses" to executives who stayed on to work themselves out of a job. But because the government bailed the company out with 170 billion dollars congress got mad and demanded that those executives be punished. The governor of New York threatened to publish the names and addresses of the executives, even after death threats were made. Nancy Pelosi pushed through a bill to tax the bonuses of the executives at a 90% rate (does the term "ex post facto" mean anything to any of you self righteous people?) and was backed up by most of the congress, many Republicans included. They made no bones about this tax being a punishment for the hard work and commitment made by these executives.

So, now that it's out in the open that higher taxes are a punishment, I say we go for broke. Let's tax any elected official who earns any money other than his Government paycheck at a 90% rate. Heck, let's go for 95%. By the time the State gets their 10 or 15% they'll owe more than they earn. We all know they are using their powerful positions for profit. How else does Joe Biden become a millionaire? Or Barack Obama for that matter. President Obama got a 500 thousand dollar bonus, just before he took the oath of office, just to let his publisher turn his biography into a children's book (I sure hope they leave out the part of him smoking pot...and inhaling....after all "that's the point"....and snorting cocaine). He made 2.5 million on book sales last year, that's after he began running for President. Who can possibly deny that it's the fact that he is an elected official that is earning him that money? And who can deny that he owes somebody something for that money?

And while we're at it lets tax Hollywood stars who do political ads 1000% on any money they make in any year them make a political advertisement (or talk politics on Oprah for that matter....and let's tax Oprah for endorsing Obama). Heck, let's tax them for 5 years either side of any year they publicly talk politics. That might shut them up.

Morningstar Children's Home

Morning Star Children's Home is a wonderful orphanage in Nairobi Kenya. Please read about it here.....

http://www.morningstarch.org/msch/Main_Page

You can also read more about the home and the children on this blog...........

http://zastoupil.org/zblog/

.........set up by a wonderful missionary family from El Cajon CA.

Back to blogging?

I quit blogging when I found myself too consumed by politics. I don't know if I'll resume posting on a regular basis or not, or whether I'll include politics or not, but today, after reading that Hamas terrorists have fired over 100 rockets into Israel since Israel decided to let them live, a question came to mind and I decided to post it.

Where are the Human Shields? It would be so easy for them to pitch tents near the schools that Hamas is targeting. Why are they not protecting Israeli innocents from Palestinian murderers?

It can't be as simple as it seems...that of course the leftists who act as human shields only protect anti US and anti Israeli targets. Can it?

The Angry Republicans

The tone of the "Immigration Reform" debate has been as ugly as any debate I remember (ok.....maybe not as ugly as the Florida recount debate...........or the Elian Gonzalez debate........or the.......Iraq War debate...or the.....you get the point). The problem is that most of the ugliness is coming from radical anti-immigration activists within the Republican party.

Elected representatives like Tom Tancredo, Steve King, Dana Rohrabacher, and J.D. Hayworth, people with whom I agree with 95% of the time, along with radio talk show hosts like Hugh Hewitt (who I greatly admire), Laura Ingrham (who I have lost all respect for) and Bill Savage (who is as an ignorant, obnoxious loudmouth all the time, but worse over this issue) have called the people who disagree with them "stupid", un-American, greedy, evil, and just about every other name they can muster up. Why? What is it that has them so riled up?

I'll tell you what it is. They believe that it would be good for America to round up 12 million illegal workers and deport them, make it a felony for them to ever return, make it a felony to employ one of them, raise wages for the jobs they do so Americans will do those jobs (but they are against increases in the minimum wage....as am I), and build a "Wall" on the southern border. The fact that a lot of Americans (most, according to a recent poll) want workers who are in this country illegally the opportunity to become legal workers has these normally sane right wing activists acting just like left wing Democrat nutcases. They are as crazy over this issue as Democrats are over anything "Bush", and they are responsible for dividing the Republican party to the point where we may lose majorities in one or both houses of congress.

It seems to me that an issue that has been with us for 40 years or more, since the end of the "Bracero" programs, would be an issue where open and honest debate takes place. The right wing anti-immigration activists do not want open debate. They label any "immigrant worker" proposals as "Amnesty". They brand as "Greedy Wall Street Moguls" those who speak honestly about the lack of American workers to fill certain types of jobs. And they hide behind their red, white and blue patriotic credentials when others speak of the impracticality of building a "Wall" along the border.

Hidden behind their rants are the facts.

Fact......Most workers who cross the border illegally are not "lawbreakers" by nature, but are doing what they have to do to support their families. They have been working here un-harassed and un-vilified for many years, and would be willing to do whatever it takes to work here legally. Mexico is our neighbor, yet we allow less Mexican workers to immigrate than we do Ethiopian

Tancredo and his allies in Congress say "No person who violated the law to enter this country should ever become a citizen.........." and "If they broke the law they need to go home". I suppose they have never driven faster than the posted speed limit or had an alcoholic drink before the legal age. I guess it's the type of deal where the type of law is what matters. When U.S. Senator Pete Domenici told of how his mother was an "illegal immigrant" and how being "rounded up" tramatized him as a boy (making the point that not all illegal immigration yields bad results......in his case it yielded a Senator), the radicals made fun of him, religating him to the status of a crazy old uncle who everybody hears but nobody listens to.

Laura Ingraham asked a guest "what other laws are OK to break?". The guest answered that Rosa Parks broke the law when she refused to give up her seat, and blacks all over the south broke the law when they entered "White Only" institutions. Ingraham came back with........"why do you resort to branding us racist?" Right, I see how she got here from there.

Fact........There are jobs that most Americans won't do, even if wages were doubled. The agriculture industry relies heavily on immigrant workers. The low skilled but very hard working people who plant, pick, and package our food are necessary if we are to continue having a stable food supply.

Laura Ingraham and a guest on her radio program recently ranted against this fact with these stunningly deep arguments.........."My mother was a waitress for 30 years so don't tell me Americans wont serve our food......." and "When I grew up we mowed our own lawns". The depth of their arguments was underwhelming.

Fact......People can and will find a way around, through, over or under any barrier in their path if their survival depends on it.

Hugh Hewitt says that as a matter of national security we "must build the wall first, then later we can talk about the status of illegal workers". He goes on and on about how "terrorists" are infiltrating our country and the "open" border poses a great threat to America. But he only wants to build the wall on the Mexican border. I guess he thinks that radical Islamists, many who live in Canada, will only enter through Mexico. That though there is no record of (but rumors abound) terrorists entering the U.S. through Mexico. Canada is another story, and terrorists are currently in U.S. custody after crossing from Canada with plans of doing us harm.

Why are these issues above debate? What makes the other side so right (in their own minds)?

Representative Steve King (of Iowa......big illegal alien problem there I reckon) said that anyone who is for allowing illegal workers to obtain legal status should be branded with a "scarlet A" on their foreheads. President Bush says "We have differences in our ideas and should have an open debate....". Who makes more sense?

You may have figured out by now that I support the legalization of immigrant worker status for workers who are here now, doing jobs and not violating other laws. I do not see the drain on our economy that Lou Dobbs thinks he sees (I bet his bank account has really been hurt by illegal immigrants). I think that we can learn a lot about hard work and dedication to family from Mexican (Central and South American workers too) migrant workers. I also believe we need to tighten up our border security, and do not think a "Wall" is the best way to do it.

I think President Bush has been right on this issue since he first brought it up 4 years ago (yes, he was talking about it before the radicals)

I think the "Protesters" in Los Angeles and New York and other cites are wrong in their approach, which basically amounts to "Open Borders" and more Democrat voters (since the birth rate of Democrats is almost zero).

If you read this entire post you are my hero.

"Bush Was Right"

I assume that most people who read this blog also read Powerline Blog, so you've probably already seen this, but just in case you haven't, check out this music video by The Right Brothers. It's guaranteed to put a smile on your face and set your feet to tapping.........unless of course you are a leftist, then it will probably make you add more pepper to your stew.

Military Deaths in Iraq WAY Down in March

You haven't seen this on the TV news, nor in most of the MSM, but Coalition military deaths in Iraq dropped drastically in March. Total number of military personnel killed in March was 31 (29 American), down from 58 in February, 64 in January, and 68 in December. In fact, the number of troops killed this month is the second lowest number since the invasion began (23 were killed in February '04). The average number of troops killed per month over the last year was 62, so this month was half the average of the past year.

These numbers do not include Iraqi troops, who clearly are being killed in greater numbers as the number of American deaths drops. That may seem to some as a gruesome tradeoff, yet the goal of the U.S. all along has been to have the Iraqi's do the fighting

This could be a fluke, and the number will rise, or it could be the beginning of a trend. I'm hoping the latter is the case. As the Iraqi military takes control of certain violent sectors of their nation, the U.S. and other Coalition troops will move to the background. Operation Swarmer was a great example of this, as are operations in the Qaim area near the Syrian border.

This is Great news. It was reported earlier this month by USA today, and again today by NPR, but why isn't it being reported by every news outlet? I'll tell you why. The MSM has too much invested in their anti-war, anti-Bush agendas to publish good news that may end up pointing out that Bush was right after all.

Incoherent Leftist Propaganda

The Independent On Line ran this commentary today (it was listed as "News"). It claims to show how the U.S. military ran a propaganda campaign designed to put out news stories about the Iraq war that are more favorable to the Coalition, and how the positive claims made were false. The problem is that the commentary does not disprove a single one of the Military's claims, but does prove the anti-war bias of the leftist Main Stream Media. Heaven forbid that positive stories get reported.

Here is an example...........Supposedly the "pro military" press ran this headline on 26 October 2005....Iraqi army defeats terrorism. The story put forth by the Bush propagandist Lincoln Group went like this......."With the people's approval of the constitution, Iraq is well on its way to forming a permanent government. Meanwhile, the underhanded forces of al-Qa'ida remain bent on halting progress and inciting civil war. The honest citizens of Iraq, however, need not fear these criminals and terrorists. The brave warriors of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) are hard at work stopping al-Qa'ida's attacks before they occur.
On 24 October, soldiers near Taji received a report that terrorists were stockpiling dangerous weapons. The soldiers found over 150 tank and artillery rounds. These munitions are similar to the ones that al-Qa'ida bomb-makers often use to construct their deadly bombs. The troops destroyed every last round, ensuring they will never be used against the Iraqi people.
Three al-Qa'ida mercenaries in Baqubah were planning to conduct a suicide vest attack. Officers of the Iraqi Police Service (IPS) spotted them as they drove towards their target. But then something happened. The would-be murderer lost his faith and leapt from the moving vehicle. One of the other suicide bombers panicked and detonated his vest while still inside the car, instantly killing himself and another accomplice."

Did you pay attention to the facts......dates, places, very specific incidents?

The Independent then claims this as "The reality check"......
"At least five Iraqis killed by suicide bomber on bus in Baqubah, north-east of Baghdad. Bodies of nine Iraqi border guards, who were shot dead, found previous day. Joint US-Iraqi convoy targeted by car bomb in al-Ma'mun area of Baghdad."

Is there a single fact in the Independent's claim that refutes anything stated in the "pro-military" report? What date did this "bus" bomber event occur? Does the "fact" that one suicide bombing occurred mean that others were not prevented? But the last sentence actually corroborates the "pro-military" version......."Joint US-Iraqi convoy targeted by car bomb......". Exactly...........targeted, but unsuccessful.

The MSM is running out of negative facts to report about this war, so they are making things up.

By the way...........The number of U.S. military personnel killed in action in Iraq has dropped DRASTICALLY. Has anyone seen or heard that reported anywhere?

Senior Ditch Day?

High School students around San Diego County have been cutting classes to "protest" against proposed immigration reforms being debated in the U.S. Senate, such reforms having already been passed by the House of Representatives.

A news report came out a few minutes ago claiming that "Students went from one school to another trying to get others to join them". A "Principal" was interviews and made the statement that "We want our students to take an active role in debating issues........". Oh Really? I think not.

Isn't this called "Ditching" school, and aren't these students really just having a fun time cutting classes? Does it make one bit of difference to us what students think about immigration policies? If your answer is yes, then why don't we let them vote before they are 18? What age is the cutoff for "having a voice" in policy making.....17, or 15, how about 12, or 10?

This is a perfect example of what's gone wrong in America. Freedom is taken for granted and responsibility is becoming non-existent.