CORRECTED - UPDATE 1-GM Bankruptcy Plan Eyes Quick Sale To Gov't

You really have to have not only a dangerously large ego, but a dangerously large need for power in order to pull off this kind of a charade.

If you're like me, you can't handle too many minutes of Barry's reading or, worse yet, extemporaneous speaking. At the 7:00 minute mark of this above clip, you will see Barry try to fool the American people. He is acting as if his "leadership" has fostered this meeting of auto executives and union bosses.

How hard is it to "lead" when you can threaten the players with the long arm of the law to "come together"? How about threatening to fire an auto company ceo because you're the big, bad president of the United States Of America?

Anything's possible when you're a Marxist. As Saul Alinsky said, breaking the rules is justified for the ends of communism. Who has respect for something like a self-made corporation 100 years old? When you're a punk ass kid who's never had a real job in your 47 years, there's nothing respectable in getting up every day and going to a job for a living.

NEW YORK, May 19 (Reuters) - General Motors Corp's (GM.N) plan for a bankruptcy filing involves a quick sale of the company's healthy assets to a new company initially owned by the U.S. government, a source familiar with the situation said on Tuesday.

The source, who would not be named because he was not cleared to speak with the media, did not specify a purchase price. The new company is expected to honor the claims of secured lenders, possibly in full, according to the source.

The remaining assets of GM would stay in bankruptcy protection to satisfy other outstanding claims.

GM has about $6 billion in secured debt, including a secured revolving credit and bank debt.

The government's plans include giving stakes in the new company to GM's union and bondholders, although the ownership structure of the company is still being negotiated, said the source who is familiar with the company's plans.

In addition, the government would extend a credit line to the new company and forgive the bulk of the $15.4 billion in emergency loans that the U.S. has already provided to GM, the source said.

The government has given GM until June 1 to restructure its operations to lower its debt burden and employee costs.

If those talks failed, the company has said it would follow rival Chrysler LLC into bankruptcy.

Setting up a new company to buy the healthy assets is aimed at reassuring consumers who might not be willing to make a major purchase from a bankrupt company, fearing it would not honor warranties or provide service.

The board of the new company would be established with the tacit approval of the government. Fritz Henderson, who took the helm of GM earlier this year after the government pushed out Rick Wagoner, would likely head the new company, the source said.

GM could not be immediately reached for comment.

GM shares were up about 9 percent at $1.29. (Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)[source]

Barry In Charge: "Just Words"?

Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons

Carson City - The Office of Governor Jim Gibbons was notified today that President Barack Obama has refused to meet with the Governor and key business leaders from Nevada. Governor Gibbons requested the meeting in a letter to President Obama so the President could address statements he made that were critical to Nevada and have caused economic damage to convention business and tourism business in the Silver State. Earlier this year, the President told an audience in Elkhart, Indiana, "You can't get corporate jets. You can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer's dime." That quote was seen by many as an insult to Las Vegas and as a message to companies across the Nation to stay away from Las Vegas for corporate meetings and conventions.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reports over 400 conventions and business meetings scheduled to take place in Las Vegas recently have cancelled. These cancelled events translate into 111,800 guests in Las Vegas and over 250,000 "room-nights". The cancelled conventions and meetings have cost the Las Vegas economy over $100-million, not including gaming revenue.

"I am disappointed at the hypocrisy shown by this Administration," Gibbons said, "President Obama is coming to Las Vegas later this month for a political fundraiser, but he will not help the struggling families in Las Vegas and Nevada who are out of work because of his reckless comments." Governor Gibbons noted, "President Obama is coming to Las Vegas to raise campaign cash for Senator Harry Reid, apparently our money is good enough for the President, but our tourism, jobs, and economic future are not." Gibbons added, "This is politics, pure and simple, President Obama stood for change, but all he has done is brought negative economic change to Nevada."

Governor Gibbons is calling upon Senator Reid to use any influence he might have to ask President Obama to encourage Americans to visit America during their summer vacations this year. "Sometimes Washington politicians forget that the people of Nevada are Americans," Governor Gibbons said, "This President needs to repair the damage he has done."(source)

The Obamas Were In Debt -- And Now So Are We

This is a great article. For me, it conjurs up 2 thoughts:

1) Barry is a reincarnation of the despotic Soviet commisars who secretly kept beautiful summer homes and other treasures while inflicting the socialist nightmare on the Russian masses that weren’t sent to the gulags or executed;

2) The smug self-righteous quality of all liberals who insist on YOUR kids being sent to public schools while they grace their own kids with private education. His sickening personality is on display here:

Richard Henry Lee

An examination of the Obama’s finances show that they were living off lines of credit along with their salaries until 2005, when the book royalties came through and Michelle received her astonishing 260% pay raise at the University of Chicago.

This reexamination of the Obama’s finances was triggered by a Chicago Tribune story on whether the Obama’s should refinance their home in Chicago. In addition, it is tax time with tea parties and that is another good reason to take another look.

As we first reported here last year, the Obamas received a better mortgage rate from Northern Trust than the market rate when they bought their mansion in the upscale Kenwood area of Chicago with the aid of now-convicted felon, Tony Rezko. The Tribune story asked mortgage experts if the Obama’s should refinance and the answer is “no”.

But the public record of their spending shows that they had to regularly take out lines of credit to pay their bills. As reported during the campaign, Michelle Obama complained in hard hit Ohio:
I know we’re spending — I added it up for the first time — we spend between the two kids, on extracurriculars outside the classroom, we’re spending about $10,000 a year on piano and dance and sports supplements and so on and so forth,”

The Obamas were living beyond their means for several years according to an examination of their tax records and their mortgage documents.

In 2000, the first year that we have tax records, the Obamas had an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $240,505 and yet reported only a paltry $38 in interest, which indicates either a small savings account or interest on a checking account. In 2002 they reported $33 in interest and no interest in 2001, 2002 and 2004. This means there was virtually no savings account for those years. They were spending their entire income, plus whatever they had from lines of credit. During the five year period from 2000 to 2004, their combined AGI was $1,217,482.

In 2005, the year the book royalties came in and Michelle received her remarkable raise (coincident with Obama’s swearing-in to the US Senate), they reported a total of $13,285 in interest along with an AGI of $1,665,106. This is also the year they bought their Hyde Park mansion.

Acording to Cook County property records, the Obama’s purchased a condo on South East View Park in Chicago in 1999. They took out a 30 year adjustable rate mortgage of $159,250 with an initial rate of 6.6% on April 6, 1999. One month later on May 7, 1999, they took out a line of credit for $20,750.

On September 25, 2002, they refinanced their condo with a $210,000 30 year mortgage. This means they took out at least $60,000 of equity from their home. But that was not enough. On May 3, 2004, they took out another line of credit for $100,000 with a variable interest rate. Interest rates are not given for these mortgages, but they paid $14,395 in mortgage interest deductions in 2004. It is hard to estimate total debt outstanding since this deduction could include points. Mortgage interest deductions in 2003 were $12,241 by comparison.

In 2003, they reported almost $24,000 in child care expenses and in 2004, about $23,000. They also paid about $3400 in household employment taxes each year. They did receive a $700 child care credit each year.

Their AGI for these two years was $238,237 in 2003 and $207,647 in 2004. This drop in income was probably the reason for the refinanced mortgage.

In 2005, their AGI jumped to $1,217,482 due to the aforementioned book deal and Michelle’s pay raise. At this time, the Obama’s purchased their mansion for $1,650,000 and obtained a $1,320,000 mortgage from Northern Trust. But once again, six months later, they took out a $250,000 line of credit also from Northern Trust.


It is apparent from these numbers that the Obama’s were living beyond their means. They had to borrow again and again to make ends meet. And now President Obama is spending our nation's treasury at a profligate rate, far beyond previous presidents. But maybe Obama has a plan: perhaps he will write another best-selling book and donate the proceeds to the US to get us out of debt. One possible title might be: "The Decline and Fall of the American Republic". (source)

Obama Revives Terror Tribunals, Dismaying Liberals

One only has to read between the lines to see that Barry will say one thing while doing another. My guess: he will hold tribunals for a select few of these combatants at Gitmo, but, being the Harvard-trained lawyer he is, he will stack the court in a sure-fire way that will render any “justice” meaningless.

His preoccupation with the military courts being “properly structured and administered”, lest they perform as “sloppy”, shows this little boy’s disdain for military discipline and lack of lawyerly wiggle room to free guilty defendants.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said Friday he would reform and restart the military tribunals he once reviled for Guantanamo Bay detainees, jeopardizing his timetable for closing the prison by January and dismaying many supporters who suggested he was going back on campaign promises.

Now, after the detainees are given stronger legal protections — a ban on evidence obtained under cruel duress, for example — the trials of 13 defendants in nine cases will be restarted no sooner than September. Five of the 13 are charged with helping orchestrate the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The rest of the 241 Guantanamo detainees will either be released, transferred to other countries, tried in civilian U.S. federal courts or, potentially, held indefinitely as prisoners of war with full Geneva Conventions rights.

"This is the best way to protect our country, while upholding our deeply held values," Obama said, announcing his decision to renew the tribunals in a three-paragraph White House statement. The administration said he was not embracing the Bush-era system because it would be so significantly changed.

However, his action was almost instantly denounced by a host of liberal-leaning groups that championed his presidential campaign last year.

"In one swift move, Obama both backtracks on a major campaign promise to change the way the United States fights terrorism and undermines the nation's core respect for the rule of law," said Amnesty International executive director Larry Cox.

"There is no such thing as 'due process light,'" said American Civil Liberties Union executive director Anthony D. Romero.

"As a constitutional lawyer, Obama must know that he can put lipstick on this pig — but it will always be a pig," said Zachary Katznelson, legal director of Reprieve, a London-based legal action charity that represents 33 Guantanamo detainees.

Obama's announcement was greeted more warmly on Capitol Hill, where he will need broad support to quickly push through tribunal changes. The White House hopes to do so before mid-September, when a new 120-day freeze the president put on the cases Friday runs out.

The Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, D-Mich., called the changes "essential in order to address the serious deficiencies in existing procedures." Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell said the announcement was an "encouraging development."

"By taking this action, President Obama has reinforced that we are at war, and that the laws of war should apply to these prisoners," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.

The tribunal system was established after the military began taking detainees from the battlefields of Afghanistan in late 2001. But the process immediately and repeatedly was challenged by human rights and legal organizations for denying defendants rights they would be granted in most other courts.

As a senator, Obama voted for one version of the tribunal law that gave detainees additional rights, but then voted against the more limited 2006 legislation that ultimately became law. Friday's changes restore some of those rights, including:

_Restrictions on hearsay evidence that can be used in court against the detainees.

_A ban on all evidence obtained through cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. This would include statements given from detainees who were subjected to waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning, although a U.S. official said no evidence of that kind had been allowed anyway.

_Giving detainees greater leeway in choosing their own military counsel.

_Protecting detainees who refuse to testify from legal sanctions or other court prejudices.

The latest delay, however, means Obama could face an uncomfortable choice as the clock runs out on his self-imposed January 2010 deadline to close Guantanamo.

His administration will have only four months to finish the nine trials before then, or risk moving the cases to the United States if they are still under way. If that happens, the detainees would be given even greater legal rights than they have at Guantanamo — and more than Obama wants to give.

Asking Congress to change the 2006 commissions law could create longer delays. Lawmakers, leery that the detainees could be brought to the U.S., already have held up funding for closing the prison until the White House outlines details of how it would happen.

Obama could roll back the January 2010 deadline, which he imposed on his second day in office. That could throw in doubt his campaign promise to shut down the prison and, at the least, highlight his struggle to reverse Bush-era national security policies that damaged America's image worldwide and stoked recruitment among insurgents.

Clive Stafford Smith, who represents several current and former detainees, was surprised that the Obama administration plans to restart the trials at Guantanamo instead of elsewhere. "There is zero chance that the military commissions could be over by January, so that cannot possibly be the plan," he said.

Navy Lt. Richard Federico, who represents two Guantanamo detainees charged before the military commissions, including alleged 9/11 plotter Ramzi bin al Shibh, also doubted cases could be completed by January. Litigation over the legality of the new rules "will certainly incur additional delay," Federico told The Associated Press.
(source)

Nancy Pelosi: "Dangerous", Says Newt

Nancy Pelosi: "Save Me From My Own Stupidity"

WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi bluntly accused the CIA on Thursday of misleading her and other lawmakers about its use of waterboarding during the Bush administration, escalating a controversy grown to include both political parties, the spy agency and the White House.

"It is not the policy of this agency to mislead the United States Congress," responded CIA spokesman George Little, although he refused to answer directly when asked whether Pelosi's accusation was accurate.

But the House's top Democrat, speaking at a news conference in the Capitol, was unequivocal about a CIA briefing she received in the fall of 2002.

"We were told that waterboarding was not being used," the speaker said. "That's the only mention, that they were not using it. And we now know that earlier they were." She suggested the CIA release the briefing material.

Pelosi also vehemently disputed Republican charges that she was complicit in the use of waterboarding, and she suggested the GOP was trying to shift the focus of public attention away from the Bush administration's use of techniques that she and President Barack Obama have described as torture.

Coincidentally, Pelosi spoke as the CIA rejected former Vice President Dick Cheney's request to release secret memos judging whether waterboarding and other harsh techniques had succeeded in securing valuable intelligence information.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said the request was turned down because the documents are the subject of pending litigation, which makes them not subject to declassification.

Pelosi has been the target of a campaign orchestrated in recent days by the House Republican leadership, which is eager to undercut her statements as well as stick Democrats with partial responsibility for the use of waterboarding — a kind of simulated drowning — in the Bush administration.

GOP officials secured the release of an unclassified chart by the CIA that describes a total of 40 briefings for lawmakers over a period of several years. Pelosi's name appears once, as having attended a session on Sept. 4, 2002, when she was the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Former Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., who at the time was the chairman of the committee and later became CIA director, also was present.

The notation says the briefing was on "enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah ... and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed."

Little, responding to Pelosi for the CIA, said the chart "is true to the language in the agency's records." But he did not say whether the information was accurate.

Instead, he pointed to a recent letter from CIA Director Leon Panetta to lawmakers saying it would be up to Congress to determine whether notes made by agency personnel at the time they briefed lawmakers were accurate.

The CIA has said it could allow congressional staff to review the notes made by briefers who spoke with lawmakers.

The chart specifically notes a discussion of waterboarding in 13 briefings between February 2003 and March 2009, most attended by Democrats as well as Republicans. Two Democrats, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and former Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, have challenged the accuracy of some of the CIA's chart.

Pelosi's decision to respond to her critics was something of a surprise, since most polls show Obama and his policies are popular, and Republicans have exhibited virtually nonstop political disarray in the six months since last fall's elections.

Pelosi renewed her call for a so-called truth commission to investigate the events in the Bush administration that led to the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques. While President Barack Obama has banned waterboarding, calling it torture, he has been notably cool toward an independent inquiry that might distract attention from his domestic agenda.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., also has expressed opposition, as have congressional Republicans.

Pelosi was unusually harsh in describing the CIA.

"They mislead us all the time," she said. Asked whether the agency had lied, Pelosi said yes.

Pelosi contended that Democrats did what they could to stop the use of waterboarding. The senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, who received the 2003 briefing on the practice, sent the CIA a formal letter of protest, she said. That was a reference to Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif.

But Pelosi said her focus at the time was on winning control of Congress from the Republicans so her party could change course.

"No letter could change the policy. It was clear we had to change the leadership in Congress and in the White House. That was my job — the Congress part," Pelosi said.

Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, the minority leader, said during the day that Democrats "want to have it both ways" on waterboarding by claiming they did not oppose it even though they criticize it.

Boehner also asked Obama in a recent White House meeting to release the CIA memos that describe the information gained through the use of waterboarding.

Cheney says the documents show that the tactics prevented terrorist attacks and saved lives.

In an embarrassment for the administration, the director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, told employees in a recent memo that interrogations that included waterboarding had secured useful intelligence. He later issued a public statement that said it was not known whether the same information could have been obtained without harsh techniques — the same position Obama has taken. (source)

Barack Obama, the Quintessential Liberal Fascist

"They fear that the development and building of People's (community) Organizations is the building of a vast power group which may fall prey to a fascistic demagogue who will seize leadership and control and turn an organization into a Frankenstein's monster against democracy."
- Saul Alinsky responding to his critics, Reveille for Radicals; p. 199

When Saul Alinsky began building his community-organization movement in 1930s Chicago, observers were watching Alinsky with one eye, while with the other eye observing the building of communist and fascist movements in Europe. It wasn't hard then to see in Alinsky's programs at home, elements of the people's revolution from Russia, as well as some of the same "in your face" tactics being employed by Hitler's Brownshirts.

What Alinsky's critics saw was the burgeoning of a national movement, the carefully manipulated construction of people's organizations, which all had two elements in common: (1) a collectivist creed, which denied the existence of personal responsibility; and (2) an amoral dogma, in which all means were justified by an imaginary utopian end.

While most modern Americans remember well Hitler's Holocaust and the Cold War waged by a solid U.S.S.R., many of these same Americans have swallowed some false history regarding the movements that spawned such widespread, horrendous results. In what may be regarded as the most triumphant propaganda victory of our time, fascism has been scrubbed of all its Marxist roots, while communism has been scrubbed of its millions of callous murders.

This post-WWII propaganda coup undeniably set the stage for the early Alinsky critics' most feared eventuality, that the massive organizations could be shrewdly adopted by a fascist demagogue, someone who could "seize leadership and control" and turn them into a "Frankenstein's monster against democracy."

But perhaps the most cunning propaganda feat in history has been undertaken for the past 8 years. As Jonah Goldberg expertly expounds in his book, Liberal Fascism, American left-wing ideologues have managed to dissociate themselves from all the horrors of fascism with a "brilliant rhetorical maneuver." They've done it by "claiming that their opponents are the fascists."

Alinsky himself employed this method, quite deviously. Alinsky biographer, Sanford D. Horwitt provides an anecdote using precisely this diabolical tactic to deceive the people. From Horwitt's Let Them Call Me Rebel:

"...in the spring of 1972, at Tulane University...students asked Alinsky to help plan a protest of a scheduled speech by George H. W. Bush, then U.S. representative to the United Nations - a speech likely to include a defense of the Nixon administration's Vietnam War policies. The students told Alinsky they were thinking about picketing or disrupting Bush's address. That's the wrong approach, he rejoined, not very creative - and besides causing a disruption might get them thrown out of school. He told them, instead, to go to hear the speech dressed as members of the Ku Klux Klan, and whenever Bush said something in defense of the Vietnam War, they should cheer and wave placards reading, ‘The KKK supports Bush.' And that is what they did, with very successful, attention-getting results."

In what may eventually prove to be a devious rhetorical feat of monstrous proportions, while the left has been indulging and fostering the "Bush Is Hitler" meme, they may have just put a genuine ideological fascist heir in the White House.

There is inherent danger in making scurrilous comparisons (as were perpetrated unceasingly against George W. Bush), but there seem to be some very worrisome signs in the rise of Barack Obama that we Americans would be foolish to ignore.

Obama, the Closer

As I put forth last year in "Obama, the Closer", Barack Obama, did not start his movement; Alinsky did.

Nor did Obama amass the organizations that propelled him. As detailed by Heidi J. Swarts, in her book, Organizing Urban America, the movement begun by Saul Alinsky in the 1930s has morphed into thousands of secular and faith-based leftist political organizations. ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) has perhaps the highest public profile, is most reputed for radicalism, and is the organization with which Barack Obama was first aligned. But ACORN is the mere tip of a veritable iceberg of Alinsky-styled community organizations that sweep across the entire United States and make up the backbone of faith-based progressive movements as well.

These euphemistically called "community" organizations have next to nothing to do with improving the communities and everything to do with politics, primarily strong-arming government money to advance their political aims. Prior to Reagan's election, these groups worked independently for the most part, each seeking to effect local change towards leftist ends.

But with Reagan's victory, ACORN founding member Wade Rathke sent out a memo (published by Swarts; Organizing Urban America; p. 29) that would reverberate all the way to Barack Obama's moment. ACORN had been behaving as a sort of "Lone Ranger of the Left" for too long, wrote Rathke. Ronald Reagan had formed a coalition among the middle-class that threatened to bring greater prosperity without left-wing Statists calling the shots. Rathke put out the call to the ACORN troops to stop antagonizing those who would be allies, especially unions and church organizations, once shunned by ACORN as too placid for the real fight for power. For the next 25 years, the community organization network built, proliferated and formed a solid, nation-wide base of political strength, purely according to Alinsky's original vision, and all just waiting for the right candidate to tap into it and lead it.

When folks from all corners of America proclaimed, seemingly with one voice, Barack is the "One we've been waiting for," they were speaking out of the vast Alinsky-originated network.

Neither did Barack Obama invent the political "ideology of change," nor design its carefully crafted propaganda. While media folks talked of the tingles up their legs and the brilliant rhetoric of Barack Obama, they were heralding the speaker only, not the creator of the movement and its slogans. That would have been Saul Alinsky, the man who took fascism and cunningly made it appear to casual observers every bit as American as apple pie.

Barack Obama is merely the movement's closer, the quintessential liberal fascist with a teleprompter.

Alinsky's Ideology of Change: The Third Way

Goldberg fastidiously notes the comparison between Alinsky's "in your face" rules for radicals, studied and perfected by Barack Obama, and shows them to have profoundly fascist roots:

"...there's no disputing that vast swaths of his (Alinsky's) writings are indistinguishable from the fascist rhetoric of the 1920s and 1930s...His worldview is distinctly fascistic. Life is defined by war, contests of power, the imposition of will. Moreover, Alinsky shares with the fascists and pragmatists of yore a bedrock hostility to dogma. All he believes in are the desired ends of the movement, which he regards as the source of life's meaning...But what comes through most is his unbridled love of power. Power is a good in its own right for Alinsky. Ours ‘is a world not of angels but of angles,' he proclaims in Rules for Radicals, ‘where men speak of moral principles but act on power principles."

Saul Alinsky was the man who transformed politics in America into all-out war mode. Alinsky's tenth rule of the ethics of means: "You do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments." All's fair in love and war, and politics, to Alinsky, was war.

"A People's (community) Organization is not a philanthropic plaything or a social service's ameliorative gesture. It is a deep, hard-driving force, striking and cutting at the very roots of all the evils which beset the people. It thinks and acts in terms of social surgery and not cosmetic cover-ups.


A People's Organization is dedicated to an eternal war. A war is not an intellectual debate, and in the war against social evils there are no rules of fair play."
Saul Alinsky; Reveille for Radicals; p. 133

Alinsky includes an entire section in Rules for Radicals on "The Ideology of Change." The watchword of the Obama campaign was "change." Just as Hitler mobilized the masses with a calculatingly undefined demand for "change," so did Alinsky disciple, Barack Obama.

"Everything must be different!" or "Alles muss anders sein!," Hitler's own campaign slogan, morphed into "Unite for Change," and the Obama transition team's change.gov. Even the idea of a vast "movement" was borrowed from Hitler. As Goldberg states, Hitler used the phrase, "the Movement," more than 200 times in Mein Kampf.

The word ‘movement' itself is instructive. Movement, unlike progress, doesn't imply a fixed destination. Rather, it takes it as a given that any change is better.
(Goldberg; Liberal Fascism; p. 176)
Perhaps the most intoxicating allure to the fascist demagogue and his movement for undefined change is its misleadingly conciliatory flavor. Barack Obama continually, throughout his campaign and even now, portrays himself as the Third Way between the cantankerous factions that have polarized America for the past 80 years, since liberal fascism took root as the Progressive Movement.

Obama claimed that Bush was too much the ideologue, that his policies were driven by the Christian right, involved "false choices" between all-out war on the one hand and diplomacy on the other, between the welfare state and cold-hearted, do-nothing conservatism, between absolute sovereignty and cowardly submission to the global community, between doing all and doing nothing. And if any of this gibberish were a true reflection of our political disagreements, Obama would be somewhat correct. But as any sentient person knows, this radical presentation of Obama's is absolutely false. That gets lost, though, in the leader's conciliatory tone.

What must not get lost, however, is the very real fact that this Third Way movement for change is as fascist as anything we have ever seen in the USA. As Alinsky described his own "Ideology of Change," the lure is in the claim that the leader has no ideology that would confine his outlook to hard choices between what is moral or immoral, that there are no boundaries set by either religion or politics, that everything can change and the only thing that matters is one's end intention to do something good.

As Hitler, before Alinsky, proclaimed, "Our program is to govern," not delve into theory and dogma. This is in itself very appealing, especially to an electorate sick of the contentiousness of the past decade. This undefined "ideology of change" for the sake of change, for some action that will break through the roadblocks of polarization, has tremendous allure.

But Goldberg bursts that bubble:

The ‘middle way' sounds moderate and un-radical. Its appeal is that it sounds unideological and freethinking. But philosophically the Third Way is not mere difference splitting; it is utopian and authoritarian. Its utopian aspect becomes manifest in its antagonism to the idea that politics is about trade-offs. The Third Wayer says that there are no false choices -‘I refuse to accept that X should come at the expense of Y.' The Third Way holds that we can have capitalism and socialism, individual liberty and absolute unity. Fascist movements are implicitly utopian because they - like communist and heretical Christian movements -- assume that with just the right arrangement of policies, all contradictions can be rectified.
(Goldberg; Liberal Fascism; p. 130)

Of course, thinking people -- when they are indeed thinking -- know this is an utterly false promise. Life will never be made perfect because all human beings are imperfect.

Unity, the Diabolical Lure

What of this longed-for unity then? Barack Obama proclaimed he was leading a movement of people "united for change." What is the appeal of unity?

The modern liberal fascist seeks that state between mother and child which exists early on before the child seeks his own independence, before mother must set herself at odds with him. It is the perfectly secure state of childhood where all is lovely and peaceful and nurturing, but cannot continue indefinitely if the child is to be prepared to face a world of difficulty and hard choices. Nevertheless, the yearning continues. It is this primordial yearning which sets itself in the crosshairs of the fascist demagogue.

But in adult life, this type of unity is anything but desirable, anything but virtuous. As Goldberg states, however, "elevation of unity as the highest social value is a core tenet of fascism and all leftist ideologies."

The allure of this mystical unity is so great that its demand to sacrifice reason and thought on the false altar of infantile security is seemingly lost to many. But as Goldberg also reminds us, "unity is, at best, morally neutral and often a source of irrationality and groupthink."

Rampaging mobs are unified. The Mafia is unified. Marauding barbarians bent on rape and pillage are unified. Meanwhile, civilized people have disagreements, and small-d democrats have arguments. Classical liberalism is based on this fundamental insight, which is why fascism was always anti-liberal.

Liberalism rejected the idea that unity is more valuable than individuality. For fascists and other leftists, meaning and authenticity are found in collective enterprises - of class, nation, or race - and the state is there to enforce that meaning on everyone without the hindrance of debate.
(Goldberg; Liberal Fascism; p. 172)

Just as the healthy relationship between parent and developing child demands friction, so does the healthy relationship between truly liberal citizens. Unity is the siren song of tyranny, not the call to genuine progress.

Fascism: The Two Birds with One Stone Approach

I think of Obama's liberal fascism as a cancer that attempts to kill the two birds of American exceptionalism with one stone. It is a deviously appealing Third Way that in the end, if allowed to triumph completely, kills both individual liberty and Judeo/Christian religion with its single stone.

And, indeed this was the precise goal of Adolph Hitler. Unlike the outspoken hatred of private property and religion espoused by communists under Lenin and Stalin, Hitler preferred the more moderate-seeming incremental takeover of private enterprise in the interest of the "common good," and the slow-death of Judeo/Christian religion by chipping away at it and replacing the people's dependence upon God gradually with reliance on the state (Hitler).

[Note: Hitler's Holocaust was based on the Progressive Eugenics principles set forth by Social Darwinist scientists and social engineers of the 1920s, widely accepted both in Europe and in the United States. Religion was not at the core of the Holocaust; race was. However, Hitler's other chief aim was to destroy the Judeo/Christian religions, which he believed had ruined the Germanic race's world predominance.]

Of course, as the German people were duped into giving Hitler totalitarian powers to work his magic "change," he took off the kid gloves and accelerated the program.

In the end, however slow the process, however seemingly benign the growth of the state may seem, liberal fascism has the same result of all tyrannies before it: hell on earth for most and a self-indulgent feast for the Statists in power.

As Barack Obama speaks, thinking Americans ought to hear the echoes of past fascist demagogues and remember. Remember.

When Barack Obama promises "collective redemption" through his profligate spending programs and vast overtures to a new world order built on love for our fellow man, we ought to shudder not swoon.

We ought to remember that healthy global relationships are built upon respect, not all-encompassing love, and that redemption for one's soul is a commodity the state is not empowered to offer.

As Pope Benedict XVI has so presciently warned:

Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes, not divine, but demonic.

Be not fooled, America. The movement, which appears most benign is instead the most malignant growth ever seen on our soil. It's a cancer that will kill, and however slowly it grows or however nice it may look on the surface, doesn't change a thing.
(source)

Barry In Charge: New Tone Of Civility = Laughing At Death Wishes On Americans

Barry In Charge: Who Cares If More People In Iraq Die?

BAGHDAD -- Violence is on the rise in Iraq as American troops withdraw. A ground-level look at the handover provides one explanation: The Iraqi government is neglecting many of the successful counterinsurgency initiatives it is inheriting from the U.S. military.

In the Adhamiya neighborhood of Baghdad, once an al Qaeda stronghold, contractor Hossam Hadi used to send 1,000 military-aged men out on U.S.-funded jobs to pick up trash and repair bullet-riddled store fronts. That work pacified potential troublemakers, but now he's down to 60 workers.

In Baghdad's Shaab district, residents say that when the constant patrols of U.S. troops gave way recently to Iraqis who manned static posts, kidnappings and robberies rose. And just south of the capital, a former Sunni insurgent hired by the U.S. to keep the peace says his 145 militiamen are angry because they've received only a month's pay since Baghdad took over their program in January.

Many Iraqis fear a security gap just as the U.S. military hands the reins to the Iraqi government. American soldiers are already fading from Iraq's streets ahead of this summer's deadline for the withdrawal of forces from Iraqi cities. The Iraqi government, meanwhile, has been slammed by dwindling oil receipts -- leaving it tens of billions of dollars short in its budget for security and other bills.

All that has coincided uncomfortably with a wave of attacks since late March. Iraqis worry that insurgents and sectarian militias may be regrouping and appraising an Iraqi force that lacks the money and will to replicate tactics the U.S. used to quell violence.

The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has promised recent budget cuts won't affect security. "The militias and the criminals believe there will be a security vacuum as the U.S. withdraws, and they're testing the Iraqi forces," said government spokesman Tahseen Sheikhly. "But we will show them."

The U.S. counterinsurgency strategy, implemented by Gen. David H. Petraeus in early 2007, called for soldiers to live in bases among the population and run constant foot patrols. It also called for reconciliation with enemies who were willing to negotiate, and encouraged buttressing the economy with jobs for locals.

U.S. officials say job-creation programs like the one Mr. Hadi oversaw in Adhamiya yielded big counterinsurgency gains. Many are now being abandoned.

Mr. Hadi's Iraqi contracting firm, Rosco Co., got its first U.S. contract in 2005, clearing the hulks of bombed-out cars from the streets. It won more U.S. jobs, becoming one of Adhamiya's largest employers. Neighborhood elders erected a billboard thanking Mr. Hadi for the work.

"We bought a lot of security with these jobs," says Army Maj. J.P. Hart, a civil-affairs officer in Baghdad. "Now the city just can't afford to pay these guys."

The U.S. military is trying to persuade the government to take over such projects. But Mr. Hadi, 32 years old, says he hasn't signed a new contract since October. "There are no contracts, no work and no money," he says.

Ashraf Amin, a quiet 26-year-old, says he supported his sick father for the past year and a half on the $12 a day he earned from one of Mr. Hadi's contracts. Driving down Adhamiya's main drag, he pointed to dozens of apartment blocks, store fronts and single-family homes that he painted in pastels. When U.S. funding on his contract ran out late last month, Mr. Amin lost his job.

"Every family I know in this neighborhood has at least one person working on these U.S. contracts," Mr. Amin says. "They don't realize yet that there is no more work coming."

Such programs looked affordable last summer, when U.S. and Iraqi officials started haggling in earnest over the bilateral security pact that serves as the basis for American troop withdrawal. Baghdad pays for about 90% of its budget with oil revenues, and back then, oil prices were around $140 a barrel.

With Iraq's oil selling for about $40 a barrel, Iraqi finance officials have slashed this year's budget from $80 billion to less than $60 billion. They project a $30 billion deficit. U.S. aid, which still pays for a sizeable chunk of Iraq's security forces, is also decreasing.

Iraq is negotiating for a standby loan from the International Monetary Fund. If Baghdad can't get an international lifeline, Finance Minister Baker al-Zubaidy says, "we have a true crisis in the beginning of 2010."

Iraqi security officials are feeling the squeeze. The government says it has frozen security-services hiring. The country's finance ministry has backtracked on promises to boost police salaries across Iraq, says deputy interior minister Adnan Asadi. "Morale is starting to suffer," he says.

The budget woes come as American withdrawal plans kick into high gear. U.S. commanders are required to pull out entirely from Iraqi cities by June 30, though some will stay in Baghdad and Mosul with Iraqi permission.

Meanwhile, violence is increasing. In January, 275 civilians died, followed by 343 in February, 408 in March and 485 in April, according to Iraq Body Count, an independent group that tracks civilian casualties via media reports.

Fatalities are still down sharply from May 2006 to August 2007, when between 2,000 and 3,000 civilians died each month. U.S. and Iraqi officials are encouraged that recent attacks haven't been followed by sectarian reprisals, as they often were in the past.

Even so, the handover to Iraqi control is sparking conflicting feelings in places like Shaab, a poor district next to the Baghdad slum of Sadr City. In recent years, Shaab was overrun by Shiite militias who drove out much of its Sunni minority.

In February 2007, U.S. soldiers turned an abandoned shopping center in the heart of Shaab into a combat outpost, one of 77 bases established throughout Baghdad as part of the surge strategy.

Osama Qaisi, the 52-year-old owner of the Moon ice-cream shop across the street, says U.S. soldiers blocked streets with concrete walls, and the area became a target for insurgents. When the outpost closed in December, he says he cheered. "Praise God, the Americans are gone," he says.

But now, residents here say, criminal gangs have stepped up robberies. Many here describe a wave of kidnappings. Stores close earlier. Mr. Qaisi, pausing to run his fingers through his gray hair, quietly conceded that the district was safer when the Americans were in charge.

Ahmed Haanoun, a member of the Shaab neighborhood council, recalls stepping into his garden before bed many nights last year. At three or four in the morning, he says, he'd often see U.S. soldiers on foot patrols strolling by in the moonlight.

Now, Mr. Haanoun says, Iraqi troops man checkpoints instead of patrolling on foot or in cars. In March, Mr. Haanoun's neighborhood was shaken by a wave of burglaries. Kidnappers with machine guns stormed his neighbors' home at night and snatched their six-year-old daughter, he says, returning her after the family paid a $30,000 ransom. "There is space now for criminals and militias to operate," he says.

Col. Toby Green, the U.S. brigade commander responsible for Shaab, worries that criminals could in some cases be providing funding for insurgents. But he also dismisses Iraqi fears that recent violence is related to the U.S. withdrawal. Shaab has always had above-average crime rates, Col. Green says. "People are nervous, understandably, but it's not borne out by the facts on the ground," he says.

In one of the more controversial and successful programs of the counterinsurgency, the U.S. paid onetime insurgents, predominantly Sunnis, to fight Sunni extremists. Now, the Shiite-dominated government apparently lacks the will to maintain thousands of armed Sunns and the money to find them promised civilian jobs with the government.

The area around Iskandriya, a farm-belt town about a 30-minute drive south of Baghdad, was once dubbed the "triangle of death." The U.S. military has long maintained that insurgents have used this and other difficult-to-reach villages surrounding Baghdad to assemble car bombs before funneling them into the capital.

In 2007, Uday Karim says he grew disillusioned with Al Qaeda's violent tactics and led his 145 insurgents to join forces with the Americans. His so-called Awakening fighters began safeguarding the villages around Iskandriya, and the area grew calm.

The U.S. military has passed off the responsibility for Awakening forces, which have numbered more than 100,000 fighters across Iraq, but Baghdad hasn't paid them in full. Since the government took over Mr. Karim's group in January, it has provided just one month's pay.

Iraq's government says it has addressed bureaucratic snags in the program's transition and that the fighters will be paid. Even so, the budget for Awakening salaries runs out at year's end.

U.S. commanders worry that if Baghdad doesn't foot the bill, group members could become a threat again. The U.S. military believes that recent car bombings in Baghdad were hatched somewhere in this belt of rugged farming villages.

Mr. Karim confirms that earlier this year, his fighters torched a police checkpoint to protest the unpaid salaries. Other fighters, the charismatic 31-year-old says, have stopped working.

On a recent visit to Iskandriya, his once-ubiquitous Awakening forces have largely vanished. A handful of fighters milled about in dun-colored camouflage. As for the rest, Mr. Karim shrugs.

"Who knows what they're doing with their time," he says. "If some individuals decide to fight the government again, no one is going to interfere." (source)

Dick Cheney's Advice: Don't Give In, Republicans

Cheney to GOP: 'It would be a mistake for us to moderate'

Dick Cheney did an interview today with Scott Hennen, a North Dakota radio host, whose staff sent over a transcript (after the jump), defending the Bush administration and advising the Republican Party to stay with its roots.

“I think it would be a mistake for us to moderate," Cheney said. "This is about fundamental beliefs and values and ideas … what the role of government should be in our society, and our commitment to the Constitution and constitutional principles. You know, when you add all those things up, the idea that we ought to moderate basically means we ought to fundamentally change our philosophy. I for one am not prepared to do that, and I think most of us aren’t. Most Republicans have a pretty good idea of values, and aren’t eager to have someone come along and say, 'Well, the only way you can win is if you start to act more like a Democrat.'"

Cheney did, however, say it was probably time for his fellow Republicans to shove him off the stage.

"I think periodically we have to go through one these sessions. It helps clear away some of the underbrush ... some of the older folks who’ve been around a long time — like yours truly — need to move on and make room for that young talent that’s coming along," he said.

Cheney also defended the Bush administration's national security policies, and advised President Obama to fight any effort to prosecute Bush officials.

He responded to a question about interrogation by saying harsh means were a last resort.

"That assumes that we didn’t try other ways, and in fact we did. We resorted, for example, to waterboarding, which is the source of much of the controversy ... with only three individuals," Cheney said. "In those cases, it was only after we’d gone through all the other steps of the process. The way the whole program was set up was very careful to use other methods and only to resort to the enhanced techniques in those special circumstances."

Full transcript after the jump.


» Continue reading Cheney to GOP: 'It would be a mistake for us to moderate'

Hennen: Let’s talk a little bit about the state of the Republican Party these days. Arlen Specter obviously has created a big fuss with his defection over the last week. Does that surprise you?

Cheney: Not really. You know, we’d gone through the exercise here right after we got elected in 2000, and controlled the Senate just by virtue of my ability to cast a tie vote. It was 50-50, and then my vote gave us control of the Senate. They worked hard to switch Jeffords then — and they did — they promised him a committee chairmanship and so he went over to the other side and changed control of the Congress. I always had the feeling though that people looked at that and didn’t really like it. One of the things I thought it did was to build support for the Republican side in the next election in ’02, and we had an extraordinary outcome there where the Administration actually gained seats in the Senate in an off-year election (which almost never happens). So there are often times lasting consequences from these kinds of switches…and they’re not always positive from the side that receives the individual doing the switching.

Hennen: Some people are wringing their hands saying, “This is an example of why the party needs to change, to hear the message of Specter,” that, as Colin Powell said, the Republican Party needs to moderate. Do you think the Republican Party needs to moderate? Is that the message of the Specter defection, or the state of the party these days?

Cheney: No I don’t. I think it would be a mistake for us to moderate. This is about fundamental beliefs and values and ideas ... what the role of government should be in our society, and our commitment to the Constitution and Constitutional principles. You know, when you add all those things up the idea that we ought to moderate basically means we ought to fundamentally change our philosophy. I for one am not prepared to do that, and I think most us aren’t. Most Republicans have a pretty good idea of values, and aren’t eager to have someone come along and say, “Well, the only way you can win is if you start to act more like a Democrat.” I really think we go through these cycles periodically Scott, and I’ve been through them before. I remember campaigning across the country with Gerald Ford in 1974 when I was his Chief of Staff. This was the Watergate Election, the first one since Nixon had to resign. It was a train wreck; I mean, we got blown away in every part of the country. In 1976 we lost the presidency. By 1980 Ronald Reagan was president, we’d had a major resurgence in the party and we’d captured control of the Senate, and obviously embarked upon the Reagan Era in American politics. So I think periodically we have to go through one these sessions. It helps clear away some of the underbrush…some of the older folks who’ve been around a long time (like yours truly) need to move on, and make room for that young talent that’s coming along. But I think it’s basically healthy. I don’t spend a lot of time or lose a lot of sleep over it. I just think now is the time for people who are committed to get out there and find candidates they like and go to work for them.

Hennen: Is the Obama administration helping the resurgence or the “renaissance” of the conservative cause by overreaching very early on?

Cheney: I think it will. I watch what he is doing, especially in the National Security area which is sort of my first interest. This whole question of detainees and interrogation of detainees and the Terrorist Surveillance Program and so forth, closing Guantanamo…I don’t think the vast majority of Americans support what he wants to do. I think in fact most Americans are pleased — when they think about it — that we were able to go nearly eight years without another major attack on the United States. They think we handled that pretty well. We were not a perfect administration (none ever is), but I think what we did in the counter-terrorist area was extremely effective. I think Obama needs to be careful because he appears to want to cancel out some of those most important policies. Then you get into this whole thing of closing Guantanamo and of course the bottom line there is “What are you going to do with all these terrorists that are in Guantanamo?”

Hennen: Do you believe the President, the Vice President, this current administration — really believes those things did not work and have not worked, or this is all political? Is this basically pandering to the far left?

Cheney: Well, I think what’s motivated them from the outset has been — as you say — trying to appeal to the far-left in their party. I think that was an issue for them in the primaries on the Democratic side during the last election. I think the situation is that if anybody (who obviously has to have clearances) takes a look at the record, they’ll find that we had significant success as a result of these policies. One way to nail that down is that there are two documents in particular that I personally have read and know about that are still classified in that National Archives. I’d ask that they be de-classified, I made that request over a month ago on March 31st. What those documents show is the success, especially of the interrogation program in terms of what it produced by way of intelligence that let us track down members of Al-Qaeda and disrupt their plans and plots to strike the United States. It’s all there in black and white. It is work that was done by the Central Intelligence Agency after several years of experience with these programs. It demonstrates conclusively the worth of those programs. As I say, I’ve asked the Administration to de-classify them and so far they have not.

Hennen: Yeah, they have selectively have released these memos (which is very interesting, given their past criticisms as well about politicizing intelligence) because clearly, that is what they are doing here. Now they have said, “the President was asked about this during the 100 Day Press Conference the other day, and he said that basically he had read the memos, and basically that he believes we could have gotten this information in other ways, in ways that were consistent with our values and ways that were consistent with who we are.” What is your response to that?

Cheney: Well, I don’t believe that’s true. That assumes that we didn’t try other ways, and in fact we did. We resorted, for example, to waterboarding, which is the source of much of the controversy ... with only three individuals. In those cases, it was only after we’d gone through all the other steps of the process. The way the whole program was set up was very careful, to use other methods and only to resort to the enhanced techniques in those special circumstances.

Hennen: Three individuals, right?

Cheney: In the waterboarding in particular — which has been the most controversial — was a total of three individuals. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed being the number one. Of course he was the guy who planned and carried out the attacks on 9/11, which killed 3,000 Americans.

Hennen: I’m sure this is driving the media crazy today, but a CNN story today suggests half the public in a new poll approves of the Bush administration decision to use those techniques during the questioning of suspected terrorists. It also indicates that most Americans don’t want to see an investigation of Bush Administration officials who authorized the interrogation techniques on these suspected terrorists. That can’t be doing the Obama folks any good, because they seem to kind of want to perpetuate this.

Cheney: Well, and they are especially sensitive to polls, I think. Just think about it for a minute: the idea that one administration is going to come in and take power — and then they’re going to turn around and prosecute, (or if not prosecute sanction, lawyers who gave advice that they disagreed with) — to their predecessors. I’ve never heard of such a thing. And talk about putting a wet blanket on anybody in government’s willingness to be bold in their recommendations and so forth. Just forget that. Anybody who sees that kind of thing happen is going to pull their head in and they’ll be reluctant to take responsibility for anything. They’ll be reluctant to recommend the kind of actions that were necessary to defend the country over the last eight years. I hear this talk that there is going to be some kind of foreign prosecution of our guys, and I think they ought to do everything they can to fight that.

Hennen: Our guest, former Vice President Dick Cheney on the Scott Hennen Show and The Common Sense Club today. By the way, there is an incredible double standard here in the media coverage. Is that frustrating to you at all? I look at the recent flap over the photo opportunity for Air Force One above New York City, and I imagine had that happened — not that it ever would — in the Bush administration, how the media would have hyperventilated over that forever! And it’s been forgotten. We’re led to believe somehow the President was mad about it. Is it possible for the White House Military Office now under a political appointee, different from your administration when it was a military officer that held that post, that the White House or some high-level staff didn’t know about that?

Cheney: I would assume that some senior staffer signed off on that. Especially a mission with, with in effect what is the backup for Air Force One, there are two of those planes, big 747’s. Either one can function as Air Force One anytime the President is on it. I used them a couple of times during our administration for special trips. You know, they don’t turn a wheel without a lot of people knowing about it and signing off and approving it. A pilot can’t just go out there and get on board and take it for a spin.

Hennen: These are the kind of things that I think worry people, that essentially you have an ”amateur hour” going on at the White House. There is a lot of angst amongst our audience, amongst our listeners about all of these things ... about the apology tour that’s happening all across the world ... what’s happening politicizing intelligence ... all the way down to Air Force One. Are you worried?

Cheney: Well I think people need to be engaged and making their points as you know them, and talking to their members of Congress. For a while there was this talk out there that we ought to cut these guys some slack and that they shouldn’t be criticized in the early days of their administration. I haven’t spent a lot of time operating according to that proposition. The fact is that I think these are very important issues and it’s vital they be debated and I think they need to be held to account just like any other administration.

Hennen: One example, we got this reach out effort to Iran and these rogue dictators — Ahmadinejad and these individuals like that. We’ve got Roxana Saberi — happens to be a Fargo North grad, a Concordia College graduate — so she’s a hometown gal who’s been a journalist over there, imprisoned right now. The Administration, after all their touchy-feely reach out effort has said, “no success” on getting her released. It doesn’t work to talk nice to these guys does it?

Cheney: It doesn’t seem to.

Hennen: I also wanted to ask you about the economic situation a little bit. Do you look back at all and regret the waning days of the administration and following Hank Paulson’s lead on some of the bailouts that, (now as we look at them) do not seem to be performing in the way we’d hoped?

Cheney: Well I think the jury is still out on where the economy is going to go over the next year or two, but clearly those were some tough decisions. As somebody who’s got a conservative record as I do, and for example worked in the wage price control program back in the '70s, and not exactly a fan of expanding the size and role of government in our society. What we ended up with that last year of the Bush Administration was a situation in which the experts were telling us that the financial system is near collapse, and that was very worrisome, because the ultimate responsibility for our financial institutions resides with the federal government. It’s been the role of the Federal Reserve Board, the Treasury, the FDIC, all of those regulatory bodies. If the financial system is broken, the government’s got to fix it. There isn’t anybody else that can do that. So that’s why I think a lot of us with a more conservative bent were willing to support or go along with the proposition that set up the programs that were used during the last few months we were in office — in effect to try and shore up the financial system — to get the credit markets working again and so forth. The thing I worry about is when that rationale is used in other parts of the economy that aren’t central to the functioning of our economy. If you’re in agriculture, you need access to financial institutions that work. If you’ve got a car dealership or you’re a babysitter or a homeowner — whatever it is — all of us rely on that financial system for whatever we’re doing. When we get over, for example, into the industrial side and automobiles, and the debate about the future of General Motors and Chrysler in particular, then I think government’s role there is different, and that you don’t automatically think that somehow the government needs to step in or should step in. Maybe Chapter 11 Bankruptcy is exactly the right response to restructure the company and make the changes that are needed so it becomes a viable enterprise ... but government doesn’t need to be on that stand set to bail them out.(source)