Time for Thorns

A lot of people were surprised yesterday when Justice Ginsberg issued a stay of the Chrysler bankruptcy,  but I am quite sure she would not have done so had not at least three of her colleagues expressed an interest in the matter.

Keep your fingers crossed that the Supreme Court,  having totally botched its job in the matter of eminent domain,   returns to sound jurisprudence and enforces contract law,  which will NOT permit His Oneness to stiff the Chrysler and GM bondholders,  who are by contract to be paid first.

This matters,  because if the High Court fails,  Obama will have wiped out two centuries of contract law.    If the government can ignore or remake contracts,   they aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.  Who of sound mind and minimum fiscal prudence will agree to invest in anything?

Since Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings are set to begin on July 13,  this may provide for an additional avenue of awkward questions for the nominee.

UPDATE:  You can straighten out your fingers -  the Supreme Court wimped out,  and the Chrysler sale to Fiat can proceed.

Is the Obama team closing GOP-supporting car dealers?    There has been some chatter on the net about which ones are being closed,  and how many seem to have been given no specific reason or a formula by which status was determined.

I had assumed that more supporters of Obama opponents would be in the car business,  so more of them would be closed.  Then I read a Reuters report that a lawyer for some dealers said closing 25% of the dealerships wasn’t Chrysler’s idea,  but the government’s  (which the White House is denying in carefully parsed language).

Josh Painter at Redstate  has posted  a corral of pertinent links.

But this Washington Examiner piece suggests I may have to rethink the matter.    And now the Wall Street Journal is wondering if the Obama administration is turning Chrysler into a patronage machine.

With Fiat waffling,  and so many of the GM bondholders still resisting their assigned role as doormats,   this column by Michael Barone on gangster government is a  must-read.

I’m with Rick Newman — hooray for creditors who didn’t take TARP money standing up for their rights as investors!

And another example of the thinness of Obama’s skin,  and his petulance at being thwarted,  not to mention his trying to manage everything by covering all sides of every issue.    As President, he had no business taking issue with any creditor,  especially now that the matter is before a bankruptcy judge.

Nor does he appear very presidential taking retribution on FOX News because the FOX broadcast channel chose not to carry his presser.  Watch Major Garrett here.

I came inside for some cold water to drink and a comfy chair to rest my back in, and FOX News is reporting that Chrysler has filed for bankruptcy.   In retaliation,  the White House has issued a statement saying this in “not in the best interests of the country.”

Translation:  How dare you interfere with my plans to nationalize automakers and rescue the labor unions from the predictable consequences of their greed?!!

UPDATE:    His Oneness is now making a formal statement on Chrysler, and blaming a “small group of speculators”,   some hedge funds, to be more precise,  for refusing to take the haircut that everybody but the labor unions are taking on GM.    Of course, nobody is mentioning that the GM takeover would leave stockholders with only 1% of company ownership,  or that he’ll be placing labor union picks on the corporate board,  which means GM will probably cease to exist within two years,   no matter how much additional taxpayer money Obama pours in.

Now, the backstory is that senior administration officials speaking on condition of anonymity  said the government would provide up to $8 billion more to carry the company through bankruptcy,  and will help appoint a new board of directors.

Now we know that the relaxation of the reporting rules for the labor unions wasn’t merely a sop against the possible failure of the card check bill.

Yesterday the White House pushed out the chairman of General Motors and told Chrysler to form a partnership with Italian automaker Fiat within 30 days as a condition for receiving another round of government aid.

With the C.E.O. gone,  GM is now run by the Chief Operating Officer.  What reporters need to ask at the daily briefing from the White House is what the COO agreed to do that the CEO would not.    That ought to give Press Secretary Robert Gibbs a whale of a deer-in-the-headlights moment,  but I won’t hold my breath that any reporter will oblige me with what should be the most obvious question of all.

There is no mention, of course, of the new mileage standards the government just mandated.    Thank God I bought my big diesel truck before all this nonsense started.    Pretty soon we’ll all have vehicles that will tote about 2 bags of groceries,  and nobody in cities will be able to afford anything larger than a bicycle,  which is what the liberal urban planners consider Nirvana.

Let’s see, the financial sector is already run by White House dictates, now the auto industry.    Who’s next?    And there will be a next,  even if Congress manages to resist Geithner’s call for more regulatory power.    His Oneness isn’t concerned,  since they’ve taken the power without its being granted — so what if Congress doesn’t catch up.