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The House passed a Treasury appropriations bill last week that includes an amendment reversing President Obama on the closure of nearly 800 Chrysler car dealerships and more than 2,000 GM dealerships.
The amendment sponsor was Republican Steve LaTourette of Ohio. 215 Democrats and 4 Republicans voted for the overall package. Bipartisanship!
The most snort-worthy reaction from the [...]

The WSJ broke the news on Friday about Obama’s new “pay czar,” Kenneth Feinberg.
His official title as executive-pay-limiter-in-chief: Special Master of Compensation.
Can’t wait to see his logo.
Next up: Obama appoints the…
…Distinguished Overlord of Oxygen Intake (to limit individual human carbon emissions);
…Royal Captain of Calorie Consumption (to limit weight gain and end obesity);
…Exalted Diva [...]

Zero Hedge covers a court hearing involving terminated Chrysler dealers with some follow-up on its previous analysis of Dealergate and possible Clinton-tied cronyism in Arkansas.
Tyler Durden points to one very interesting declaration from Ethel L. Cook, a Chrysler dealer based in Little Rock. Click on his post for the PDF link to the [...]

(Photoshop credit: Reader Joe N.)
It’s official. General Motors has filed for bankruptcy. Government Motors is now in business, with a perpetual taxpayer lifeline:
General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday as part of the Obama administration’s plan to shrink the automaker to a sustainable size and give a majority ownership stake to the federal [...]

Photoshop credit: George at Elegant Memories
The statistical gurus at financial blog Zero Hedge have taken a hard, long look at the question of Dealergate and cronyism. They’ve made their preliminary findings available here. Using regression analysis, they tackled the relationship between dealership survival and Clinton donor status – and found a significant correlation:
This puzzled us. [...]

I talked about Dealergate on Fox and Friends this morning. Will try and get the video clip up later today. I made sure to credit bloggers Doug Ross and Joey Smith, who took the lead in probing the relationship between political considerations and Chrysler dealerships targeted for closure, also Hot Air, which is where the [...]

Photoshop credit: George at Elegant Memories
Bloggers are doing excellent work digging into the Chrysler dealership closure list. Yesterday, I cautioned against making sweeping claims that all the dealerships targeted for closure were partisan victims. On the flip side, bloggers are examining the protected dealerships that were spared by the Obama administration.
Joey Smith reports:
In my [...]

Photoshop credit: George at Elegant Memories
There have been several interesting and informative blog posts published recently on the Chrysler dealership closure “hit list.”
Posts by Joey Smith, Doug Ross, and on Free Republic shed light on the campaign contributions of the targeted dealers — who happen to lean Republican.
Is Obama capable of such Chicagoland thug tactics? [...]

My column today looks at the abusive relationship between Barack Obama and the hedge fund industry. He keeps taking their money. They keep getting publicly tongue-lashed. Looks like the cycle has ended. Last week, non-TARP lenders objected to the UAW-pandering Chrysler deal. This week, AQR Capital Management LLC hedge fund manager Cliff Asness — at [...]

Over the weekend, news broke about the Obama administration’s reported threats against an investment firm that opposed its union-friendly Chrysler bankruptcy plan.
Tom Lauria represents a few of the non-TARP Chrysler creditors. He reported the threats on WJR radio host Frank Beckmann’s radio show in Detroit:

Zero Hedge summarizes and surmises:
In an interview of momentous importance, [...]

Terminate this.

I’m shocked, shocked. Failing auto maker Chrysler needs more of our money to stay afloat. And they need it now. On top of that, Chrysler Financial is negotiating a separate request for its own massive cash infusion a la the GMAC deal.
And on top of that, the automakers are still grubbing for $25 billion from [...]