Shoot, he’s only talking about pulling $8 billion in state-controlled money because a bank won’t go easy on a business borrower who can’t pay. What’s the big deal?

Well, the story involves the company that makes suits for President Barack Obama (pictured at right). Beyond that, the union at that company is citing the US Treasury Department’s Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) as a reason that company’s bank should in essence bail it out.

You might think that these two factors, combined with what I’m characterizing as a loyalty oath all financial institutions who do business with the State of Illinois must soon agree to (covered later), might make the Treasurer’s and union’s threats a national story. You would be wrong.

Here is most of the very short AP item, carried at the Springfield (IL) State Journal-Register, and referred to me by a NewsBusters commenter:

Giannoulias threatens bank over Obama suit-maker

Posted May 08, 2009 @ 06:06 AM
DES PLAINES —

Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias is threatening to pull state business from Wells Fargo & Co. unless the bank stops trying to liquidate a company that makes suits for President Barack Obama.

….. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Jan. 23. It employs about 3,000 workers represented by the Service Employees International Union.

Giannoulias spokesman Scott Burnham says Wells Fargo is custodian of an $8 billion state portfolio. Bank spokeswoman Jessica Walstrom says Wells Fargo empathizes with Hartmarx’s employees.

Union officials say the bank should help since it received a $25 billion federal bailout.

In a free media bias bonus, the AP item did not name the Illinois Treasurer’s party.

This would appear to be a replay of sorts of the Republic Window company situation last December, when union workers occupied their employer’s closed plant and demanded that the company’s lenders make them whole for lost vacation pay and other items. Under considerable public pressure, including that of a grandstanding, soon to be indicted, impeached, and removed Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich, Bank of America and Chase Bank did just that, though they were under no legal obligation to do so, after Republic filed for bankruptcy. The banks’ decisions were surely influenced by President-elect Obama’s statement supporting the occupiers: “they’re absolutely right and understand that what’s happening to them is reflective of what’s happening across this economy.”

In a free media bias bonus, the AP item did not name the Illinois Treasurer’s party.

In related underplayed news yesterday, Giannoulias also introduced the near-equivalent to a loyalty oath that he expects banks to agree to if they expect to continue to do business with the State of Illinois (excerpt is from the Treasurer’s press release; bolds are mine):

State to deny banks that refuse community investment pledge

Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias is demanding that Illinois financial institutions reinvest in the communities they serve if they expect future state money.

Beginning June 1, Giannoulias will require all financial institutions to sign a three-point community reinvestment pledge before receiving or renewing state deposits.

Currently, Illinois has deposits worth $1.4 billion in 205 banks, 26 credit unions and 20 savings and loans. The new pledge goes further than what’s required under current state and federal laws.

“This is the anti bailout,” Giannoulias said. “We are going to hold financial institutions” ‘feet to the fire” and ensure that state deposits go to good corporate citizens.”

Giannoulias worked in conjunction with the Monroe Foundation to develop the pledge that will specifically benefit traditionally underserved, low- to moderate-income and rural areas.

A Google News search on Giannoulias’s unique last name, with a grand total of 51 results (a very low number for almost any story of significance) shows that The Giannoulias-Wells Fargo story has not gained significant national coverage outside of Illinois, and that his “community investment pledge” intimidation campaign is virtually invisible.

As of 10:10 a.m. this morning, this preserved copy of AP’s raw national news feed containing stories that go back to early Thursday evening does not have a story related to either item listed, meaning that local readers ordinarily be the ones to catch wind of what Giannoulias is up to. The raw national feed as of 3:25 p.m. (also preserved is similarly barren.

It would appear that we’re beginning to get a handle on the real reasons why the Treasury Department won’t accept TARP repayments. They want to give a club to any and every activist and politician who wishes to use it to impose their will on any financial institution that might get in their way.

And this isn’t of interest to anyone outside of Illinois?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

(Yes, this was carried to the top for a bit in an act of shameless self-promotion. :–>)

The Wall Street Journal published the NewsBusters version of this BizzyBlog post (“The Non-TARP Lenders Aren’t Making Stories of White House Pressure Up; That Means Establishment Media Will Investigate, Right? Not So Far”) in its Opinion Journal Federation (OJF) section.

Thanks to Doug Ross for alerting me of its existence yesterday (though it carries today’s date).

The list of recent OJF articles indicates that the Journal typically puts up about 6-7 items per month.

That’s pretty cool.

Earlier in the week, my establishment media e-mail alerts were telling me how “positive” it was that ADP’s Employment Report came in showing that “only” 491,000 private-sector jobs were lost in April.

Today’s official news from the Bureau of Labor Statistics must be absolutely thrilling:

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in April (-539,000), and the unemployment rate rose from 8.5 to 8.9 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. …. In April, job losses were large and widespread across nearly all major private-sector industries. Overall, private-sector employment fell by 611,000.

Great. That means government employment grew. That’ll add to GDP (/sarc).

So the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy (aka The POR Recession As Normal People Define It), which Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Harry Reid initiated last June, marches on. The Terrible Triumvirate has done nothing substantive to deal with their monstrous creation (the stimulus package certainly hasn’t been yet, and likely won’t be for quite a while, if at all). The demoralization of businesspeople, investors, and entrepreneurs that started last summer isn’t letting up.

___________________________________________________

UPDATE, 1:00 p.m.: Well, there’s good news and bad news.

First, the good news: For the first time since October, the real economy finally added (not seasonally adjusted) jobs on the ground in April. The November 2008-March 2009 time period, which “just happens” to coincide with the first five months following the election of President Prompter, was the first time ever that the real, on-the-ground economy lost jobs for five months in a row.

The bad news? The number of jobs actually added during April is the lowest since 1958, which had an increase of 59,000 jobs:

From a jobs standpoint, The POR Economy, aka the POR Recession As Normal People Define It, is the worst economy since Eishenhower, if not earlier.

Noteworthy Net-worthies:

Hilariously pathetic lefty argument — We should accept Gitmo terrorists into our regular prison systems because if we don’t, we’ll be showing corrections officers across the land that we don’t have confidence that they will do their jobs, thereby disparaging them (the officers, not the terrorists). Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard (HT Red State) has more.

From Francis Cianfrocca at Red State — “Tim Geithner went to market today to sell 30-year bonds, and he got plastered. The interest rate shot up past 4.28%, and it pulled up the rest of the right side of the yield curve. The auction went unexpectedly bad as there were relatively fewer bids than in the past.” I wonder why?

Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey proved once and for all, forever and ever that he is not prolife when he voted to confirm the nomination of radical pro-abort Kathleen Sebelius for Secretary of Health and Human Services. This was a direct vote of support for a person who will have a direct, negative impact on life-related issues. Accordingly (HT Carol McKinley), “Diocese of Scranton Bishop Joseph F. Martino made it clear Wednesday that he might eventually bar U.S. Sen. Bob Casey from receiving communion.” This is one step beyond telling someone they should not receive communion, which the bishop has done a couple of times already; it’s saying that if that person tries, he might be refused. Casey should be refused. We should not be surprised to someday learn that Bishop Martino’s name has been added to the Janet Napolitano’s DHS potential terrorist watch list.

Related — Ted Turner, father of five, believes that China’s one-child policy has not been “draconian” (HT Ken Shepherd at NewsBusters). Why would he? He thinks the world’s population needs to come down to about 3 billion, and that everyone should adopt a one-child policy. That China is not being “draconian” according to Ted shows that he is okay with forcing any woman who resists to go the one-child route. How “pro-choice.”

Econ catch-up — The Institute for Supply Management’s Manufacturing and Non-Manufacturing April indices came in at 40.1% (up from 36.3%) and 43.7% (up from 40.8%), respectively. Anything above 50% indicates expansion. The news is an improvement, but just think how much better things would be if:
- First, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Harry Reid hadn’t inflicted the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy on us beginning in June of last year, and
- Second, if Pelosi, Obama, and Reid had opted for supply-side tax cuts, the much more positive effects of which would have certainly kicked in by now, instead of the (very, very, very, delayed) “stimulus.”

Totally related to the previous item — Unlike Ben Bernanke and others who are predicting a recovery by the end of the year, the ISM’s Semi-Annual Economic Forecast expects “Economic decline to continue in the United States throughout the remainder of 2009. …. an overall revenue decrease of 14.7 percent is expected for manufacturing …. (non-manufacturing) respondents currently expect a 5.1 percent net decrease in overall revenues.” Yikes.

President Obama today announced $17 billion in “spending cuts” Thursday.

Here are the substantive early paragraphs of the the Associated Press’s coverage of what the President had to say:

Obama sent Congress a detailed budget Thursday proposing to eliminate or trim 121 programs and save $17 billion next year — not a trifle, for sure, but only about half of one percent of the $3.4 trillion in federal spending for the fiscal year begining in October.

The size of the savings clearly was a sore subject at the White House.

“It is important … for all of you, as you’re writing up these stories, to recognize that $17 billion taken out of our discretionary, non-defense budget, as well as portions of our defense budget, are significant,” Obama told reporters. “They mean something.”

Still, Obama’s hit list was smaller than the one President George W. Bush included in his budget last year targeting 151 programs for $34 billion in savings.

These alleged cuts mean almost nothing, according to the Heritage Foundation’s Brian Riedl, who cut through the misdirection earlier today at The Corner (bolds are mine):

….. Virtually every dollar “saved” would automatically go towards new spending instead of deficit reduction.

Here’s why: The president already proposed a specific discretionary spending level (which included these proposals), and Congress has already approved a budget that would spend $1,086 billion on regular discretionary spending in FY 2010. The discretionary savings proposals affect only the composition of such spending. Thus, even if the entire $12.5 billion in discretionary spending cuts are enacted, the savings would automatically be plowed into other programs to maintain discretionary spending at that pre-set $1,086 billion level. So this exercise is about reorganizing — not reducing — government.

Even on the entitlement side, $3.6 billion of the $4.6 billion in 2010 savings comes from phasing out the subsidized student-loan program, with all savings redirected into expanded Pell grants. There is virtually no deficit reduction from these reforms.

To be fair, Bush’s cuts may have meant just as little, for the reasons Reidl outlined.

But as to the media coverage of the current alleged reductions, Reidl is right. If anyone in the establishment media caught what Reidl did, I haven’t seen evidence of it. Among many others, it’s not this LA Times story; it’s not at this piece at the Caucus blog at the New York Times; a Poltico story fails to even mention the total size of the federal budget.

The sleight-of-hand certainly isn’t in evidence at the AP item I referred to above.

AP reporters Tom Raum and Andrew Taylor, despite being supposedly wily news veterans — or perhaps because they are supposedly wily news veterans — also let Obama get away with this propaganda howler:

If there was a theme to Obama’s cuts and spending initiatives, it was to continue to provide generous increases to domestic programs that had been squeezed during the eight years of the Bush administration while reviving oft-rejected Bush-era proposals to cut programs that critics say have outlived their usefulness but still have important support on Capitol Hill.

“What we’re trying to do is reorient government activity toward things that work,” said White House Budget Director Peter Orszag.

Orszag’s use of the word “reorient” is a red flag that there really is no spending reduction going on here.

Sadly, the Obama administration’s claim that the Bush administration put any kind of meaningful squeeze on spending during its first seven years of budget responsibility is clearly a load of rubbish, as the following list of annual federal spending during those years shows:

The only year that had anything even resembling control on the spending side was 2006-2007, the last budget for which the Republican majority can claim credit.

Bush’s eighth year of budget and spending responsibility would ordinarily have been the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, and he surely still bears responsibility for some spending increases, especially those relating to the initial bank and auto bailouts. But the fact is that most of the spending increases that will push this year’s federal spending to $4 trillion, including the $800 billion or so-called stimulus package, were pursued by Barack Obama and enacted after Obama took office.

Obama’s spending increases are real. As shown earlier, the spending “cuts” are just a mirage.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

For the first time in over 80 years, the Ford Motor Company has beaten General Motors in worldwide revenues (excluding special items).

In the first quarter of 2009, GM’s top line was $22.4 billion:

Ford’s was $24.8 billion (from a PDF obtainable at this link — see “Full Financial Release”; a larger JPG with more data is here):

“Somehow,” the Associated Press missed it (as of 9:24 a.m.; that version is saved here in case AP updates). So did the New York Times. Yours truly didn’t.

How’s that bailout de facto nationalization going, Barry?

____________________________________________________

UPDATE: Actually, Ford was pretty close to GM in the fourth quarter of last year. GM’s 4Q08 top line was $30.4 billion; Ford’s was $29.2 bil. Ford went from being 4% behind GM to 11% ahead of it — in one quarter. Wow.

UPDATE 2: It will never happen, but Ford management should send a thank-you card to Don Wildmon and the American Family Association. The AFA’s two-year boycott that ended in early 2008 probably cost the company at least $1 billion in operating profit. But ultimately it appears to have shaken the company out of its political-correctness distractions into concentrating on its business. Maybe additional cards should go to the vast majority of the 463 commenters at my Pajamas Media column in January 2008 (comment posting was shut down, or the comment count could easily have gone to 1,000 or more) who let the company know in no uncertain terms that its PC obsessions were alienating many long-time loyal customers.

Ford was probably in a worse position than GM in early 2008. But by late 2008, as noted, it nearly caught its bigger rival, putting it in a position to leapfrog it during the most recent quarter. I wonder why?

UPDATE 2A: Further perspective from the above — A year ago, Ford trailed before special items by 7.6%, so there was already some ground-gaining on GM that took place in the 2nd and 3rd quarters of 2008. What was done during that time was perceived pretty favorably by the financial press. So how does a 4% or so improvement against its rival get ink, and a 15% swing in one quarter (from behind 4% to ahead by 11%) get the (so far) silent treatment?

UPDATE 3: Internal UAW politics, anyone? –

United Auto Workers Vice President Bob King criticized General Motors Corp (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) on Wednesday for a restructuring that would eliminate more than 20,000 union factory jobs while adding production overseas.

King, the union’s vice president overseeing Ford Motor Co (F.N: Quote, Profile, Research), lauded that automaker for a truck plant conversion plan that would save some jobs in Michigan, while questioning the restructuring of rivals to Ford that he did not name.

….. “Across the country, (Ford Executive Chairman) Bill Ford and (Chief Executive) Alan Mulally are committed to manufacturing in the United States of America,” King said in a news conference announcing the plant conversion.

King, seen as a potential successor when UAW President Ron Gettelfinger retires in 2010 at the conclusion of his current term, questioned the commitments of other automakers.

“There are some companies that want to sell cars here that they are not going to build here,” King said. “There are some restructuring plans that are saying they want to take the jobs out of America and they want to build (cars) in China and Korea and Mexico rather than building them in the United States of America.”

It would appear that King has the inside track to succeed Ron “Give American the Finger” Gettelfinger. King’s distinct advantage is that he is involved with a company that we can be pretty sure will still be around at the end of the year.

UPDATE 4: From Ed Morrissey at Hot Air –

Ford wasn’t all that far behind GM last year, but the marketplace has shifted in Ford’s favor.  While a number of factors may play into that, could buyers have more confidence in Ford and its staying power for having opted out of the bailout?  And could this also be a signal from consumers that they will punish GM and potentially Chrysler as well for taking taxpayer money, especially since bankruptcy will occur anyway?

Based on what we’ve seen since the bailouts began, it would seem that the answer is, “Enough of them to matter already have, and more will.”

It’s here.

It will go up here at BizzyBlog on Saturday morning (link won’t work until then) after the blackout expires.

___________________________________________________

There are others making similar points to those made in the column.

Over at Human Events, the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s John Berlau has a nice roundup of many of them.

Berlau also correctly throws the President’s words back at him (parenthetical and all links added by me; aside – hey John, it wouldn’t have killed you to put in the links yourself):

…. forget these contracts (giving the holdout lenders first-lien rights), Obama says, because these creditors were “a group of investment firms and hedge funds” and “I stand with Chrysler’s employees and their families and communities.”

But even if it is now permissible in Obama’s America to ignore valid contracts if they only benefit rich folks, the president’s logic still fails in this situation, because many of these investment firms and hedge funds manage money on behalf of other ordinary “families and communities.” As Financial Times columnist John Gapper explains, “[S]ome of these “speculators” inconveniently manage money on behalf of pension plans and endowments, rather than rapacious rich people.”

Indeed, one of the holdout creditors is Colorado-based Oppenheimer Funds, which manages 401(k)s, IRAs, and colleges savings vehicles such as 529 plans. In a statement, Oppenheimer explains that it “rejected the Government’s offers because they unfairly asked our fund shareholders to make financial sacrifices greater than those being made by unsecured creditors.”

Finally, the President claims that — careful guardian of taxpayer dollars that he is — he just couldn’t give in to creditors who would “hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout.”

Another rhetorical slight of hand. According to the Wall Street Journal (in its news section, not its editorials), “The most compliant of Chrysler’s big creditors — among them J.P. Morgan & Co. and Citigroup — have received hundreds of billions of dollars in TARP aid.” For these big banks, the auto bailout is just a game of Whack-a-Mole in which they cave to the Obama administration here, but make up for it by getting second helpings at the bank bailout trough.

…. If Chrysler’s lenders can’t get their contracts respected, other lenders will notice, and will be much less likely to fund big or small U.S. businesses, knowing that contracts can be so easily ripped apart by politicians. As an editorial in USA Today, a newspaper not known as a bastion of conservative or libertarian though, puts it, Chrysler’s creditors fighting the Obama administration “are not only defending their own interests, they are standing up for the principles vital to functioning credit markets.”

But utlimately, it would appear that President ‘Prompter doesn’t want functioning credit markets, or capital markets for that matter — unless they “function” under the government’s heavy, whimsical, political hand.

Here is how the daily statement came in for April 30, 2009 vs. April 30, 2008:

Last Friday, I said that “it appears that April 2009 POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy receipts might just get to $260 – $265 billion instead of the $250 billion I thought more likely earlier in the week.” It looks like $265 billion or a bit less will be the result, if other receipts trail last year’s by about 12%; it appears from a cursory review they are on track to do just that.

A 3.3% contraction in the economy during the previous three quarters (not annualized) doesn’t lead, and never has led, to a 35%-plus contraction in receipts — unless there’s more going on, as there has been, than the contraction itself.

Treasury’s Monthly Statement will come out next Tuesday.

From Thursday’s Cincinnati Enquirer, updating a previous item Matt at Weapons of Mass Discussion brought up on Saturday:

Charges against youths dismissed

UPDATE: The robbery case against three teenagers accused of attacking a woman outside the Westwood library in January was dismissed Friday morning.

Prosecutors dismissed the charge against one boy, admitting they did not have enough evidence to go forward.

When the 18-year-old victim failed to show up for the boys’ trial in Hamilton County Juvenile Court, Magistrate Elizabeth Igoe dismissed the case against his co-defendants, who also faced robbery charges. Igoe said charges could be re-filed if the witness decides to go forward with the case.

Police say the boys are part of a Westwood gang called the McFarland boys in which boys roamed in packs randomly attacking victims to gain status in the gang. In all, 10 juveniles were arrested.

Two others, including the group’s ringleader, were sent to juvenile prison on robbery charges. But the cases have proved difficult to prosecute. Three other boys had cased against them dismissed when victims in those cases failed to show up for court. Another got probation and another wasn’t formally charged.

That would make six juveniles (three in the current story and three others noted in the final excerpted paragraph) who have not been tried because of victim no-shows. In the absence of contrary evidence, one would have to believe that the no-shows are occurring because of fears of retaliation.

As to the bolded description of the gang — Uh, excuse me, the previous in-depth story on the McFarland Boys, carried immediately below the Update, told us that the attacks have been anything but “random,” and included a couple of useful facts about the most recent victim who didn’t appear in court:

The boys roamed in a pack, drawing power from their numbers.

They targeted white victims because they believed white people would only call police after being attacked. Black victims, they reasoned, would gather family members and retaliate.

Their victims included a 5-foot-1, 130-pound deaf woman they followed out the Westwood library, a Harrison Avenue businessman who came to the aid of a teenager under attack and a man who had a concealed carry permit and scared them off with his gun.

So what we have here is a situation where a criminal gang of pre-teen and teen-aged punks runs rampant with near impunity in a situation so out of control that victims won’t come forward.

As a result of this, if you happen to live in the formerly nearly crime-free Cincinnati neighborhood known as Westwood, and decide that it would be a good idea for you and your family to leave for a safer area outside of the city (and safer/better schools, given that this gang did much of their planning while in school), and one that probably has lower taxes to boot, that would seem pretty rational, wouldn’t it? Especially if you have kids or a physically weaker spouse you have promised to protect, it would also seem to be pretty responsible.

But it would appear, according to at least one pathetic Ohio blogger on the far left, that by deciding based on your circumstances that moving out would be the rational and responsible thing to do, and carrying through with it — especially, in this case, if you and your family happen to be white and aren’t relishing the thought of becoming the McFarland Gang’s next “random” targets — you’re all just a bunch of racists.

How sad. And how typical.

As described in last week’s PJM/BizzyBlog column, high crime, lousy schools, and high taxes have led hundreds of thousands of Ohioans from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds to leave Ohio’s largest cities — which is why all but one of them have populations much smaller than they were several decades ago. Asserting that it’s all about racism is itself a racist smear on those who have voted with their feet for the reasons just stated. Hundreds of thousands of apologies are owed, and will surely never arrive.

Voting with your feet also has a positive side-effect: It puts some distance between you, your family, and many such poisonous attitudes, which sadly seem to dominate urban politics, further accelerating the affected cities’ declines.

Noteworthy Net-Worthies:

Last Friday, the National Review’s Andrew McCarthy publicly let it be known that he wouldn’t let himself get used as window-dressing by Eric Holder’s Task Force on Detention Policy. That decision looks even smarter today, in light of the fact that the ever-benevolent Obama administration “only” wants to go after the law licenses of the lawyers who “played key roles in crafting the legal justification for techniques critics call torture” by referring complaints to their state bar associations. No one has yet addressed how they can be torture if we subject our own servicemen to many of the same techniques as part of their training.

Michael Barone, in a read-the-whole-thing column (HT Instapundit), on who is credible in the Chrysler bankruptcy battle, and more — “Lauria is a reputable lawyer and a contributor to Democratic candidates. He has no motive to lie. The White House does. …. The White House, presumably car czar Steven Rattner and deputy Ron Bloom, is seeking to transfer the property of one group of people to another group that is politically favored. In the process, it is setting aside basic property rights in favor of rewarding the United Auto Workers for the support the union has given the Democratic Party. The only possible limit on the White House’s power is the bankruptcy judge, who might not go along.” That’s not looking good.

The New York Times “forgets” (HT PJ Gladnick at NewsBusters) that very unpopular New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is a Democrat.

Historical revisionism refuted — Bill Whittle at PJTV rips Jon Stewart’s claim that Harry Truman was a war criminal for dropping the atomic bombs on Japan to shreds, and incinerates the shreds (Update, May 21 — The print version is here). Yes, Stewart has apologized for the claim, but IMO he did it to save his career, not because he has any legitimate remorse.

Anyone else catch the wicked irony in the name of Chrysler’s corporate savior?

(Originally posted just after midnight; moved to the top because of the matter’s importance.)

_______________________________

As of early Tuesday evening, according to a report by Liz Moyer at Forbes, the latest news on the Chrysler bankruptcy filing is that:

• The recalcitrant non-TARP lenders who would not agree to the deal the government attempted to force on are now attempting to challenge the deal the government and Chrysler have proposed in bankruptcy court.
• These lenders want to keep their identities hidden.
• In court documents, they have said that “intensifying pressure and name calling by the government threatened to harm them if their identities became public.”
• Bankruptcy judge Arthur Gonzalez “isn’t buying it,” and has given the lenders until 10 a.m. tomorrow morning to identify themselves or (though not specifically stated) they will apparently lose their standing in court.

Meanwhile, John Carney at The Business Insider today expanded on what the lenders’ lawyer Tom Lauria first brought out on WJR Radio on Friday, when Lauria told talk-show host Frank Beckmann that “One of my clients was directly threatened by the White House.”

Carney’s read-the-whole-thing report (HT Hot Air) goes further:

….. Although the focus has so been on allegations that the White House threatened Perella Weinberg, sources familiar with the matter say that other firms felt they were threatened as well. None of the sources would agree to speak except on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of political repercussions.

The sources, who represent creditors to Chrysler, say they were taken aback by the hardball tactics that the Obama administration employed to cajole them into acquiescing to plans to restructure Chrysler. One person described the administration as the most shocking “end justifies the means” group they have ever encountered.  Another characterized Obama was “the most dangerous smooth talker on the planet- and I knew Kissinger.” Both were voters for Obama in the last election.

One participant in negotiations said that the administration’s tactic was to present what one described as a  “madman theory of the presidency” in which the President is someone to be feared because he was willing to do anything to get his way. The person said this threat was taken very seriously by his firm.

….. These allegations add to the picture of an administration willing to use intimidation to win over support for its Chrysler plans–and then categorically deny it.

Clifford S. Asness, who in a public letter at the Business Insider, rips the administration’s tactics, and expresses an understanding that “one by one the managers and banks are said to be caving to the President’s wishes out of justifiable fear.”

So …. the national press is all over this outrage of executive overreach, right?

Uh, not exactly.

The AP had nothing to say about the alleged threats to non-TARP lenders as of an 11:11 p.m. report, submitting this bland recital (saved here for future reference):

Judge Arthur Gonzales says the procedures proposed by Chrysler’s lawyers represent a “clear and orderly process.”

Attorneys for Auburn Hills, Mich.-based Chrysler LLC argued that the automaker had essentially been up for sale for most of the last two years and a speedy sale was needed in order to preserve the value of the company’s assets.

But those representing a dissident group of Chrysler lenders said more time was needed for other potential buyers to do the research they needed to make an appropriate offer.

A 5:43 p.m. AP story is about how some elements of Chrysler’s latest concessions agreement with the United Auto Workers union might be helpful to General Motors as it enters the financial netherworld.

Zzzzz, ….. Zzzzz. Oh, I’m sorry.

The New York Times, in a report by Michael J. de la Merced and Jonathan D. Glater, does note the threats and Gonzales’s ruling, and has the following at its second-last paragraph.

When the debtholders, calling themselves the Committee of Non-TARP Lenders, made their first public statement last Thursday, they said their group consisted of about 20 investment firms holding about $1 billion. According to their motion to file under seal, the group now claims about $300 million in holdings.

de la Merced and Glater were apparently not curious about the possible reasons why the amount involved, and presumably the number of holders, is significantly lower than it was just a few days ago.

Maybe it’s because the threats are real, guys.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From Las Vegas, Nevada and Cathedral City, California:

May 1, 2009

Like any modern-day hero, Rick West can instantly put aside whatever he’s doing to help someone in need — even on his wedding anniversary.

During a recent celebration with his wife in a Las Vegas restaurant, the Cathedral City firefighter/paramedic noticed a fellow diner clutching at his throat and darted from his chair.

“It was instinctive, I guess,” West said.

He started performing “rescue breathing” and remained by the diner’s side until emergency paramedics arrived.

West’s desire to help others is one of the reasons he was recently recognized as the Cathedral City Firefighter of the Year.

“When you are off duty, you look like just everybody else. There’s nothing that says firefighter over your head,” said Cathedral City Fire Chief William Soqui. “West could have sat there, ate his dinner and not (done) anything.”

West was also instrumental in standardizing the self-contained breathing apparatus firefighters use. Soqui recalled that when he first came on board as chief in 2006, Cathedral City firefighters were using outdated models not compatible with the Palm Springs or Riverside County fire departments.

“We took an old, beat-up Volkswagon and bought a brand new Porsche,” West said about the change.

Through West’s help, the department was able to get the apparatus needed, Soqui said. Getting the apparatus involved more than just buying the equipment.

It was a long process that also included training firefighters and testing the equipment to fit each individual’s body.

West was nominated by his peers for the yearly award. ….

Go here for the rest of the story.