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Republican Ownerships as Potential Scandal Emerges



            Yes, Virginia, Santa Obama does know who’s “naughty and nice” and does pick the winners and losers! Naughty Republicans get coal in their stockings and Nice Progressive Democrats (forget those “Blue Dog moderate Dems, young lady) get to hold onto their part of the American Dream, ho, ho, ho!



            As most Americans are aware, “GM” now might as well stand for “Government Motors.” Both General Motors and Chrysler as official corporate “wards of the state” are government-controlled entities run by the Obama administration . . . run, it seems with quite a bit of partisanship and crony-capitalism in mind.     



            Let’s put this apparent partisan scandal in personal terms, imagine yourself a businessman or businesswomen whose family has owned a car dealerships for the last 80-90 years. Imagine yourself being told that your well-respected and highly profitable GM dealership is ordered closed while nearby dealerships less profitable or even ones actually losing money are allowed to stay open. Would you be shocked? Would you be outraged?   Imagine further that GM comes to you and orders you to turn over your list of car customers and service-department customers (presumably to help your less-profitable competitors) . . . would you like the idea that your $15 million business was made worthless overnight so that an Obama campaign contributor competing with you might now find the playing field “more level?”



            Well you don’t have to imagine any of this after all:   after the auto bailouts were first announced, a second announcement was almost immediately made stating the intention of Chrysler and General Motors to close roughly 2,100 dealerships across the nation.   Later it became known that some of the proposed closures involved highly profitable dealerships in the same vicinity as less profitable or even UNprofitable ones which were to remain open . . . why the citizen-voter asked himself would you close any profitable dealerships, much less the MOST profitable ones?   If you’re closing dealerships why would you leave any UNprofitable opens at all? Apparently politics may have played a big part since the numbers of McCain campaign contributors dramatically outnumbered the numbers of Obama donors among those to be closed down. No wonder surveys show 42% of Americans say they won’t buy Chrysler or GM cars because of the bailouts . . . .



            To top matters off, an additional 2,800 dealerships have recently been notified that they’ll be closed down this year.   Yes, including some profitable and highly-profitable ones located near other UNprofitable or barely profitable ones allowed to stay open once again. These issues are now being contested bitterly by about 22% of the notified dealerships, but rest easy there’s hope;  it seems after all, if Barney Frank or other Democratic representatives or senators like your politics, dealers protesting the closures are far more likely to win the right to stay open after all.



            Given the scenario shown above, how much confidence would you place in a “Car Czar” named by President Obama whose integrity, qualifications and past history had never been investigated by Congress or the FBI (as customarily occurs with real presidential appointees)? Would you be surprised to find that said Czar (one of 40+ Czar appointments made by Obama to run the country like a personal empire without Congressional oversight), a fellow named Steve Rattner, was a very close personal friend of Barack Obama and one of the most successful Democratic political-fund raisers in history. Besides Czar Steve Rattner being himself a powerful Democratic fund-raiser; his wife Maureen White was formerly the finance chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Rattner was himself also formerly a reporter for the New York Times, among the most progressive newspapers in the country.   One might expect the tendency toward favoring Democratic contributors over conservative businessmen must have been difficult for Rattner to overcome . . . .



            But, but, but, would you be surprised to then find Mr. Rattner only a few months later quietly giving up his Car Czar position and, to avoid criminal punishment, paying out $10 million in settlement fees to the State of New York for his part in a kickback and influence-peddling scandal pulled off four years earlier. Would it surprise you that such a crucial player in the Obama administration was now hawking a book on his extensive experience in the auto industry despite having virtually none?   The extensive Imperial Obama czardoms are full of such stories and it’s not likely we’ll find fairness and free-market values well-protected by their ilk.



http://teapartyorg.ning.com/video/is-anyone-minding-the-store-at



            Supposedly the American Arbitration Association is now handling the 600+ claims from among the 2,800 revoked dealerships, but in actual fact numerous documented instances show that dealers who visited Democratic representatives and senators found themselves immediately granted face-to-face interviews and eventual successful retention of dealerships while dealers who’ve relied on merely filling out the required arbitration paperwork get no such preferential treatment . . . one can only imagine the huge amount of Democratic-butts that are kissed and the eventual campaign donations involved in this fair and unbiased process.   Of course  Republican congressman Buchanan who found his Chrysler dealership slated for closure (while a competing dealership chain in Missouri and Arkansas partly owned by former Clinton White House chief of staff Mack McLarty and partly owned by a huge Democratic fund-raiser who have magically seen numerous nasty conservative competitors eliminated) has not had much luck appealing his case to the powers that be . . . it’s probably just a coincidence that while hundreds of G.O.P. contributors are being closed down, so far just one Obama 2008 contributor among all the hundreds of closures so far has surfaced.



            The Republican representative in question, (who has a Nissan dealership as well in Venice, Florida), called the proposed closures an outrage, “It’s no problem for me, it’s not about me, I’m going to be fine; but we’re talking about 100,000 jobs around the country . . . we’re supposed to be creating jobs.” Were these Chrysler and GM ownerships closed down for voting or donating to Republican candidates?



http://www.businessinsider.com/internet-trying-to-figure-out-if-chrysler-dealerships-were-politically-motivated-2009-5



            A  lawyer representing a group of  Chrysler dealers who are on the “hit list” deposed senior Chrysler executives and later told Reuters News Agency that 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," according to attorney Leonard Bellavia.



            Government making economic decisions is bad, bad news . . . but government intervening in the free market (car dealerships are just small businesses after all) can be ultra-political at worst and just plain stupid at best. Since a significant amount of the closures were of profitable dealerships and since the Obama administration’s auto task force is doing the deciding on whose business lives or dies, on the face of it this looks very ugly. The “criteria” for these decisions MUST BE RELEASED to the public. 



            In fairness, we must say that since car dealerships are small businesses and often family-owned small businesses . . . any educated guess would have to put the political propensities of dealership owners at anywhere from 75% to 90% conservative. Since conservatives overwhelming favor low taxes, low government spending and operating government in a businesslike fashion without deficits and debt . . . one would expect donations from dealership owners to be overwhelmingly Republican. However, contrast the treatment of teachers (union members 90%; Democrats 86% and well-documented Obama supporters) with that of their handling of small businessmen in general, not to mention this potentially scandalous treatment of GM and Chrysler dealership owners . . . would we expect to see Mr. Obama’s people closing down school teacher positions in the rather brusque and unintelligent, indeed counter-intelligent fashion they’ve used on car dealers? Even IF no actual scandal emerges . . . surely all of  this points out the evil inherent in letting government pick and choose winners and losers in the free market?



            Let us be even more pointed in criticizing the egregious corruption we see here . . . Even the New York Times as well as hundreds of other liberal newspapers recently criticized Mr. Obama’s lackluster budget attempt. Your blogger Rajjpuut would say that in this "Obama-Motors Scandal" Mr. Obama willfully used a frayed toothpick when it came to cutting out parts of the bloated federal budget but chose a bulldozer when dealing with the GM and Chrysler dealerships.

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut