Link blag

Hot Air: Obama’s new GM CEO: You know, bankruptcy looks really good now...

[We never should have given money to GM; it wasted billions of dollars and months of restructuring]

David Brooks: Car Dealer in Chief...

… if you are in the restructuring business, you can’t let these stray thoughts get in the way of your restructuring. After all, restructuring is your life. Restructuring is forever. Restructuring is like what dieting is for many of us: You think about it every day. You believe it’s about to work. Nothing really changes.

When the economy cratered last fall, the professionals at G.M. went into Super-Duper Restructuring Overdrive. In October, they warned the Bush administration of a possible bankruptcy filing and started restructuring. In December, they came back asking for a loan while they … (wait for it) … restructured.

The Bush advisers decided in December that bankruptcy without preparation would be a disaster. They decided what all administrations decide — that the best time for a bankruptcy filing is a few months from now, and it always will be. In the meantime, restructuring would continue, federally subsidized.

Today, G.M. and Chrysler have once again come up with restructuring plans. By an amazing coincidence, the plans are again insufficient. In an extremely precedented move, the Obama administration has decided that the best time for possible bankruptcy is — a few months from now. The restructuring will continue.

POST SCRIPTS: Women's Right to Vote, the Beginning of the End for America?...

The result of the 19th amendment has been the ascension to power by the same kind of Marxists Ronald Reagen defeated from the Soviet Union. The weapon of destruction was not a nuclear warhead though, it was an emotional outburst that melted the brains of logic.

Not enough irony in his wingnuttery diet? But for funnies, roll tape.

Yglesias: How Important Are "Safe Havens" ?...

The head of the Pakistani Taliban, Beitullah Massoud, has threatened to strike Washington, DC with a terrorist attack. But while everyone takes Massoud’s threat to the stability of the Greater Hindu Kush area seriously, nobody seems to take his threat to do this very seriously. As Spencer Ackerman says “It’s difficult to see how Beitullah Massoud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, has the capability to launch attacks against the U.S.”

So that’s the good news. The bad news is that this points to what I think is a serious conceptual flaw in the administration’s thinking—this heavy emphasis on the idea that we need to deny al-Qaeda a “safe haven” in Afghanistan or Pakistan. As Andrew Exum observes, it’s not at all clear that a “safe haven” is necessary to carry out a terrorist attack: [....]

TMV: Change In Cuba Policy Long Over Due...

lawmakers, business and trade representatives held a press conference in Washington announcing bipartisan legislation ending the travel embargo. The travel embargo, said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., is a “failed policy that has failed for 50 years.”

[The bill] would prevent the president from stopping travel to Cuba except in cases of war, imminent danger to public health or threats to the physical safety of U.S. travelers. Reps. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., have an identical bill in the House with 120 co-sponsors.

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., the son of Cuban immigrants, slowed confirmation of several administration officials and passage of a major spending bill because that bill contained the changes in rules on Cuban-American travel.

Cuban-born Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., said he would continue to oppose the legislation. “This is the time to support pro-democracy activists in Cuba, not provide the Castro regime with a resource windfall.”