A Descent Into Corruption & Abuse Of Power Is Not The Change For Which We Had Hoped

Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it; and this I know, my lords, that where laws end, tyranny begins."

William Pitt The Elder, Speech to the House of Lords, 1770

The Democrats have achieved what amounts to complete power in America. And the far left wing of the Democratic Party, led by Obama, are skirting if not violating the law in order to get their way. Numerous acts of intimidation and abuse of power are showing up everywhere you look. That includes at least two egregious acts that have come to light just this day - the intimidation of a witnesses and Obama's unilateral decision to fire the Inspector General (IG) for Americorps who had recently investigated and received a judgment against a major Obama supporter.

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In the Chrysler and GM bankruptcies, we have seen extortion and strong arming from Obama and his "car czar" to trample on statutory and constitutional rights of secured creditors. With the nations major banks, we have seen the Obama administration refuse to allow repayment of loans and then use their control to influence bank decisions as regards Chrysler and GM. Even now, though allowing repayment, the government is maintaining warrants that they could exercise at any time to take over the effective ownership of every major banking institution in America. We have seen the White House take direct control of the 2010 census and insert the deeply corrupt ACORN into the counting process. We have seen the Obama DOJ make the inexplicable decision not to prosecute voter intimidation by the New Black Panthers. And we have the Obama DOJ ignoring a recent Supreme Court case and making decisions that can only further promote voter fraud.

In the House, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats repeatedly refused to allow ethics investigations of numerous Democratic lawmakers who are reeking with the stench of corruption. Indeed, even the NYT editorial board is starting to choke on that one. Tax fraud Charlie Rangel and "friend of Angelo" Chris Dodd still not only retain their seats in Congress, but their chairmanships. And we have the left protecting ACORN at every turn, cancelling hearings to investigate their corruption and insuring that all attempts to block robust funding of ACORN on the taxpayer's dime are rebuffed.

And today, there is more. First up are charges of witness intimidation. Democratic Rep. Ed Markey, co-author of the Waxman Cap and Trade bill, sent a letter to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission asking FERC to investigate MidAmerican Energy Holdings on the same day that company’s CEO was set to testify before the energy panel on the dangers of a carbon cap and trade system. In another instance, health care lobbyists were warned by two senior democratic staffers not to meet with the Republican leadership to discuss the proposed health care plan. As they reportedly said, doing so would be a "hostile act."

But by far the worst act is Obama's unilateral decision to fire Gerald Walpin, the Inspector General of AmeriCorps. An inspector generals job is to investigate for waste, fraud or abuse of federal funds. Walpin had recently investigated Kevin Johnson, an Obama supporter, and the nonprofit St. HOPE Academy that Johnson headed. Walpin found six instances of funds being diverted or wrongly used, none of which were disputed by Johnson. Walpin handed his findings over to the DOJ. The DOJ then found sufficient cause to order St. Hope to repay about half of nearly $847,000 in federal grants they had received from AmeriCorps. On the heels of that, not only did Obama act to fire Walpin, but Obama failed to comply with an act he voted for last year meant to protect Inspector Generals from political pressure. That law requires Obama to allow allow thirty days to pass after informing Congress of the intent to fire an IG, and to provide specific reasons for the firing. Obama did neither. Byron York has the definitive postings on this one. He also adds that this situation with Walpin may be the tip of the iceberg, stating that a "number of inspectors general around the government have been expressing concerns to Congress recently about threats to their independence."

On a final note, not included in the bill of particulars above are the highly questionable procedural games that the Democratic majority is playing in Congress. Major bills are not being written in committee. Instead, they are being written in secret by the far left wing of the Democratic party then pushed out with calls for an immediate vote. Nancy Pelosi virtually wrote the porkulus bill behind closed doors, and then referred to Republican complaints about the lack of bipartisanship in drafting the bill as mere "process arguments." And it is not just Republicans. The NYT reported last month "[f]orty-five House Democrats in the party’s moderate-to-conservative wing have protested the secretive process by which party leaders in their chamber are developing legislation to remake the health care system." Then there is Obama's proposal for ramming socialized medicine legislation through by grossly misusing the "budget reconciliation" procedure in the Senate.

Obama and the far left are drunk with power and vastly overreaching. Indeed, any number of Obama's acts to date would have, had they been done by Bush, resulted in substantive calls for impeachment. There is a reason Dafydd ab Hugh of Big Lizards tagged Obama as "Lucky Lefty." But with a press corps that more resembles a smitten school girl - indeed, so much so that one of the editors of the left wing SF Examiner is complaining - utterly none of these tyrannical acts designed to skirt law and democracy are being followed up by the MSM. This is not the hope and change Obama promised - but it is the reality his background clearly foreshadowed.

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A Very Good Day At The Supreme Court

Hats off to the Supreme Court. They had a really good day. They stopped, at least temporarily, the sale of Chrysler to Fiat in bankruptcy court. They refused to hear a constitutional challenge to the military's "don't ask, don't tell policy." And they decided that Judges who take sizable campaign contributions shouldn't later sit in judgment of their benefactors.

First up, the challenge of some Indiana secured creditors to the Chrysler bankruptcy. Justice Ginsburg refused to rule on the merits of the challenge and, instead, issued an order halting the sale of Chrysler assets to Fiat pending further hearing on the matter. This from the Washington Post:

The decision buys the court time to consider objections filed over the weekend, and it comes as the clock is ticking. Fiat can back out of the deal if it is not finalized by Monday, and the government has warned that the only alternative would be to force the nation's third-largest automaker into liquidation, throwing the industry in turmoil and leaving tens of thousands of people without jobs.

The stakes may be higher for the Obama administration: If the court backs some of the claims, it could disrupt plans to rescue General Motors and weaken the government's hand in stabilizing the troubled economy.

"Every day that Chrysler remains in bankruptcy without consummating the sale threatens to postpone the resumption of production even further and to prolong the period of $100-million-per-day losses" financed by taxpayers, Elena Kagan, the U.S. solicitor general, said in a 26-page filing with the high court.

To be absolutely clear, the reason this matter has reached the Supreme Court is because the Obama administration has walked all over the constitutional and statutory rights of those people who invested in Chrysler. If the Obama administration had tried to come up with a fair plan to begin with, one that didn't favor the unions over Chrysler's secured creditors, they wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. And now, they are trying to strong arm Justice Ginsburg with the same crisis like atmosphere that arm twisted Congress into passing the largest spending bill in history without ever having read what they had voted on. A tip of the hat to Justice Ginsburg for refusing to cave in to this crisis mongering.

In other big news from the Supreme Court, they knocked out a challenge to the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding gays in the military. They refused a petition for cert. This is in fact an issue of both social policy and defense policy - two areas were the Court should always defer to the Executive and Congress. The Court has no enumerated powers as to defense, and as to social policy, that is the whole purpose behind the legislature. Whether to allow gays in the military was clearly not at issue when the Equal Protection clause was passed, and therefore this question should not fall under the sphere of issues amenable to Supreme Court decision making.

Lastly, the Court decided, in a 5-4 decision, that Judges who are the recipients of substantial campaign contributions from a party should not sit on cases where that party is a litigant. The conflict of interest and appearance of impropriety are so obvious one would think that this one would be a no-brainer. And for five of the justices, it was. The liberal five. I can mark my calendar as the last time I found myself in agreement with the left of the Supreme Court was in the 1990's. It's a once in a decade type of thing. Alas, this is one of those rare occasions when I think Justices Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas got it wrong.

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Dealergate . . . Its Better Than Watergate

It is an ancient custom for kings to confiscate the property of disfavored subjects and distribute it among their supporters to cement the king's power. Indeed, it is a tradition as old as non-democratic government itself. In the modern era, it has been a particular hallmark of communist governments. It is clealry unconstitutional for our government to do this under the 5th Amendment which reads, in pertinent part,:

. . . nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

In fact, until a few days ago, it was impossible to envision something like this even being attempted in the U.S. That was until people started shining a light on what has been happening with dealerships as part of the reorganization by Chryseler and GM pursuant to plans of Obama's "auto czar." A clear pattern is developing, though it is still awaiting more data. It appears that, among the many dealerships being cancelled by those organizations - all seem to be Republicans or dealers who did not affirmatively support Obama. If you supported Obama, you not only keep your dealership, but you get the huge benefit of your nearby competition getting axed.

It is clear that many of the dealerships getting axed were quite profitable - thus negating any claim that the decision to kill them was based on economic considerations. If the decision of which dealships to axe is being directed by the Car Czar, with GM and Chrysler merely acting as intermediaries, then this act would be as unconstitutional as if done directly by the White House itself. If all of this in fact holds up to further scrutiny, then it is an unconstitutional act whose illegality dwarfs Watergate, where the only illegal acts were spying and coverup.

Doug Ross broke this story several days ago. He has since updated his post. Here are some of the things we know now, based on review of partial data:

- The initial pass at the list of shuttered dealers showed they had donated, in the aggregate, millions to Republican candidates and PACs and a total of $200 to Barack Obama.

- Dealer Jim Anderer told Fox News' Neil Cavuto he can't comprehend how his dealership can be among those killed: he stated that his sales volume ranking is in the top 2 percent of all dealers.

Then there is this from Rick Moran, writing at the American Thinker:

Now comes more evidence that these dealer closings were politically motivated.

Through Reliapundit at Astute Bloggers, we learn that the lawyer for the dealers being torpedoed believes that the closings were ordered not by Chrysler, but by the White House: (via Reuters )

A lawyer for Chrysler dealers facing closure as part of the automaker's bankruptcy reorganization said on Tuesday he believes Chrysler executives do not support a plan to eliminate a quarter of its retail outlets.

Lawyer Leonard Bellavia, of Bellavia Gentile & Associates, who represents some of the terminated dealers, said he deposed Chrysler President Jim Press on Tuesday and came away with the impression that Press did not support the plan.

"It became clear to us that Chrysler does not see the wisdom of terminating 25 percent of its dealers," Bellavia said. "It really wasn't Chrysler's decision. They are under enormous pressure from the President's automotive task force."

The dealer closings were not ordered by the bankruptcy judge but by the White House. This puts a whole new light on how the dealers to be closed were chosen and, more importantly, who did it.

And do see the post from Gateway Pundit:

Now there's this...

RLJ-McLarty-Landers is owned by three men. One was the former Chief of Staff for President Clinton.One is the founder of Black Entertainment Television and a huge Obama supporter.

All 6 of their Chrysler dealerships will remain open. And, get this... Their local competitors have been eliminated!

Doug Ross calculates the odds of all six of these dealerships remaining open while all of their competition has been axed as being to be about "one ten-millionth of one percent." Do see his calculations.

Bottom line. This is starting to stink more and more. This has the potentail to be a huge scandal. Any bets on whether the MSM will take notice?

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From Rick Moran - Not Socialism: Gangsterism

Rick Moran at Rightwing Nuthouse has just an eye-popping post up about how Team Obama is putting the screws to dealers contracted with Chrysler in order to salvage as many jobs as possible for the UAW. Here is a snippet:

. . . This “Letter from a Dodge Dealer” brings home in stark, human terms the cost of Obama’s power grabs . . .

That gun is being held by Obama’s auto team as it struggles to keep as many UAW jobs at Chrysler as possible regardless of whether the businesses involved get hurt. Case in point; George C. Joseph, sole owner of Sunshine Dodge-Isuzu in Melbourne Florida, a business that had been in his family for 35 years, who received the bad news that Chrysler was yanking his dealership agreement as part of their restructuring under the forced bankruptcy of the company ordered by the Obama auto team.

Mr. Joseph says that his dealership was “financially strong” and was seen as having “great respect in the market place and community.” He added, “We have strong local presence and stability.”

This was not enough to save Mr. Joseph or any of the other 788 dealers who are being dropped by the automaker. Beyond that, the “terms” of the break with Chrysler would no doubt have made Al Capone proud. . . .

Do read the entire post. I am not an expert in Bankruptcy Law, though I know that the Bankruptcy Courts can break contracts. This though, given the government involvement, goes into the realm of a government taking. It is scandalous, and just another example that "Lucky Leftie" Obama's moral preening is simply a rhetorical device.

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Will On Obama, Fantasies & Our Auto Industry

George Will has a great article today pointing out the demagoguery of Obama and the problems of Obama's decision to become the director of our auto industry.

George Will begins his article referring to a fantasy land where people pursue utopian ideas with ever more fanatical focus as all crumbles about them. He then analogizes this to Obama's foray into the auto industry:

At the Academy of Obama, professors and others devise plans for extracting a new and improved automobile industry from a semi-sort-of-bankruptcy arrangement that -- if it survives judicial scrutiny; that is not certain -- will give the United Auto Workers 39 percent of General Motors, with the government owning 50 percent. During future contract negotiations, will the union's adversary be an administration that the union helped to put in power?

The UAW will own 55 percent of Chrysler, . . .

. . . The president's "surgical" bankruptcy plan for Chrysler requires some of the company's lenders, mostly non-banks, to receive less than they would as secured creditors under bankruptcy law.

The law may still make itself heard over the political thunder. Meanwhile, the president faults these "speculators" for not being as cooperative as are most of the banks that have lent to Chrysler. But the banks are compliant because they are mendicants: Having taken the government's money, they are the government's minions.

. . . It is Demagoguery 101 to identify an unpopular minority to blame for problems. The president has chosen to blame "speculators" -- a.k.a. investors; anyone who buys a share of a company's stock is speculating about the company's future -- for Chrysler's bankruptcy and the dubious legality of his proposal. Yet he simultaneously says he hopes that private investors will begin supplanting government as a source of capital for the companies. Breathes there an investor/speculator with such a stunted sense of risk that he or she would go into business with this capricious government?

Its chief executive says: "If the Japanese can design [an] affordable, well-designed hybrid, then, doggone it, the American people should be able to do the same." Yes they can -- if the American manufacturer can do what Toyota does with the Prius: Sell its hybrid without significant, if any, profit and sustain this practice, as Toyota does, by selling about twice as many of the gas-thirsty pickup trucks that the president thinks are destroying the planet.

Obama overflows with advice for Americans who he thinks need admonitions . . . He also advises that this is a good time for Americans to put their hygienic hands on the steering wheel of a new car. He hopes buyers will choose American cars. A sensible person might add: Buyers should choose cars made by the Ford Motor Co.

This is so because Ford has, so far, avoided becoming an appendage of the government. And because the national interest will not be served by GM and Chrysler flourishing. It might cost taxpayers more in the short run, but in the long run it will be less costly for the country if the government finds its confident plunge into industrial policy so unpleasant that, sadder but wiser, the incumbent professors and others will flee from such adventures in extracting sunbeams from cucumbers.

Read the entire article. Its clear Obama wants to force his vision of vast fleets of fuel efficient, small cars on the American public. My own opinion is that he is setting up GM and Chrysler to be moribund corporations that will be, whether wanted or unwanted, long parasites on the American taxpayer, and thus at his beck and call.

It is an utter atrocity that Obama is being allowed to pursue both his payoff to big Labor and his strong-arming of "speculators" who have every right to the protection of the law, all unremarked by a press corps that is now, seemingly, an arm of the government. Indeed, there is no need to create a Ministry of Propaganda, that is one executive department that was already formed and fully staffed on day one.

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WaPo's Hard Hitting Journalism On Bush & Obama (UPDATED)

There are two major stories in the Washington Post today regarding arguably unethical efforts to influence decisions. As to Bush, there is this front page story:

Bush Officials Try to Alter Ethics Report

Focus Is Approval of Harsh Interrogations

Former Bush administration officials have launched a behind-the-scenes campaign to urge Justice Department leaders to soften an ethics report criticizing lawyers who blessed harsh detainee interrogation tactics, according to two sources familiar with the efforts. . . .

Read the entire article. An equally informative article, also on the front page, takes the Obama administration to task for their unethical and outrageous attempts to intimidate Chrysler's secured creditors into forgoing their rights in favor of the UAW:

Obama Officials Threaten Chrysler Creditors

Obama Administration Strong Arms Secured Creditors To Favor UAW

Obama officials negotiating the reorganization of Chrysler have been accused by attorney's for Chrysler's secured creditors of making extortionate threats in order to force an agreement with the Obama plan. While bankruptcy law would recognize the claims of the secured creditors as senior to other claims, the plan put forth by the Obama administration would favor the UAW at the expense of the secured creditors. When these charges were first made by attorney Thomas Lauria, the White House issued a blanket denial, but new information . . .

Read the entire . . . . nah, I'm just kidding. Only the first article is real. The second concerns an event apparently not deemed newsworthy by our MSM.

Update: This is moving into the realm of the Orewllian. The Washington Post now in fact has an article on its web page concerning the Chrysler bankruptcy proceeding. They studiously ignore the charges of abuse of power and extortionate threats by the Obama administration while highlighting Obama's message that those opposed to his massive give away to Big Labour at their expense are merely greedy:

Document Reveals Hedge Funds Opposed to Chrysler Sale

A small group of hedge funds revealed their identities today as the force behind the battle to stop the government-orchestrated sale of Chrysler, according to a court document. . . .

The lenders were sharply criticized by President Obama last week, who blamed them for forcing the third-largest U.S. automaker into bankruptcy. Obama had characterized the group as selfish "speculators." . . .

Read the entire article. This really is surreal. I can recall no point in the history of the U.S. where the MSM as a whole has been so corrupted as to play an active role in covering for an administration.

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The Constitution - - The Last Refuge Against A Scoundrel

We have been witness over the past several weeks to White House strong arming of businesses the likes of which have previously been unknown in this country. And now if appears Obama has crossed a threshold that the Constitution forbids.

First there are the TARP loans. The government has refused banks the ability to repay them. Instead, the Obama administration floated a plan, still under consideration, of de facto nationalizing the banks by converting bank TARP loans to common stock. One would think it could not get worse than that, but one would be wrong.

Obama, in proposing to reorganize the auto manufacturers, wants to place his major constituency, big Labour, at the front of the line when it comes to an ownership stake in GM and Chrysler. The end result of such a move is that secured creditors of the two companies would suffer a relative loss far in excess of that which would be suffered by the unions. Not only has the Obama plan been set up to show blatant favortism in contravention of the commercial code, but Obama and his crew were publicly criticizing - and privately threatening - the secured creditors holding out against this plan. Powerline, refering to this as banana republic capitalism, has the whole story. And indeed, there is nothing to distinguish this act of Obama from similar extortions of property by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela or . . . well, pick your favorite dictator.

Fortunately, it seems that the creditors are fighting back. At least one attorney, Thomas Lauria, has gone public about the threat to the entities he represents made by the Obama administration - to use the White House Press Corps to destroy them in the eyes of the public. Today, Lauria has filed a brief challenging the proposed acts of Obama based on the Fifth Amendment. Specifically, he cites to a 1935 case, Louisville Joint Stock Land Bank v. Radford, that dealt with a provision of the New Deal that would have acted to strip a secured creditor of the value of his security by government fiat. The Supreme Court held that, regardless of the government's compelling interest in responding to the economic chaos of the depression, such an act violated the 5th Amendment prohibition against taking private property without just compensation. It is a case dead on point. Hot Air has the story.

I will assume, without looking it up, that this case is still good law. It's interesting to note that this case fell two years prior to FDR's "court packing" scheme. FDR was tired of being stymied by a Supreme Court that found much of his "New Deal" legislation unconstitutional. In 1937, FDR proposed to expand the number of Justices on the Supreme Court and pack the Court in his favor. FDR lost the battle and the legislation failed. That said, FDR won the war. The Supreme Court got the message and began regularly defering to FDR's wishes and taking congressional findings at face value.

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