Free Republic

Last night’s debate in Florida was, to give credit where due, one of the more explosive ones of the season. I rarely get the opportunity to shower praise on Univision anchor Jorge Ramos, but he popped open quite a few cans of worms which hadn’t gotten much oxygen in the previous outings between these two candidates. I can also offer a tip of the hat to Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post, who tore apart some of the flatly false statements which the candidates offered in response. It was a stunning display of denial of reality at times, but there’s...

Another touching story from the American heartland crosses our desk this morning, dealing with the dedicated efforts of labor unions to care for their workers and ensure the prosperity of the working class. The United Auto Workers have been in a long series of negotiations with the nation’s auto manufacturers in the latest round of contract wrangling. The result was a deal which should make everyone happy, if by “everyone” you mean the people running the unions. At the heart of the debate was the issue of outsourcing, where American companies ship their facilities (and all of the associated jobs)...

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I see the loyal Opposition re-elected their illustrious leaders yesterday; they are beginning to act more like Democrats every day. ‘Nuf said.So as the next do-nothing Congress convenes Big Guy will travel to Detroit today to take another victory lap (this will make what, a thousand?) for the auto bailout. In an exclusive interview ahead of today’s speech BO warned that cheap gas can’t last:I don’t know about you, butt when Big Guy warns about the price of energy going up, I pay attention:“Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”As the Detroit News reported, Big...

As a result of the latest recalls, GM GM -1.83% expects to take $200 million more in recall-related charges in the second quarter, bringing the period’s total to $400 million. The latest recalled cars include: --1,339,355 Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse, GMC Acadia full-size crossovers. --1,075,102 of the previous generation 4-speed automatic transmission Chevrolet Malibu from the 2004-2008 model years and Pontiac G6. --1,402 Cadillac Escalades and Escalade ESVs .

Two members of Congress are asking if the Treasury Department disproportionately targeted more Republican or conservative owned auto dealerships during the government-lead restructuring of General Motors in 2009. Breitbart.com reported today that Mike Kelly (R-PA) and Jim Renacci (R-OH) released a letter asking Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to release documents regarding the process and methodology that determined which GM dealerships were closed. GM was loaned $50 million by Congress as part of the restructuring included consolidating dealerships and closing some of the under-performing GM dealerships. In 2009 and 2010 there were several reports in the press raising the question whether...

The government’s bailout of the automobile industry was rife with cronyism that bagged Obama bundlers and Administration insiders millions and left taxpayers holding the bill. That’s the conclusion Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer reached when he investigated little-known details surrounding the Obama Administration’s auto bailout, an action President Barack Obama touts as one of his most sterling presidential achievements. The government’s actions involving Chrysler resulted in a net loss to taxpayers of $2.9 billion, and the government is currently sitting on a $14.5 billion loss for its actions involving General Motors. But Mr. Schweizer says few Americans realize the...

Were you upset by Mitt Romney's auto-bailout stance? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Yes No I don't find it important compared to his other stances/policies

Barack Obama is LYING about Mitt Romney's position on the automobile industry. Hear THE TRUTH for yourself on CNN

DAVE LETTERMAN, HOST: Here's what upset me last night … this playing fast and loose with facts. And President Obama cites the op-ed piece that Romney wrote about Detroit, 'Let them go bankrupt, let them go bankrupt.' And last night he brings it up again, 'Oh no, Governor, you said let them go bankrupt, blah blah blah, let them go bankrupt, blah.' And Mitt said, 'No, no, check the thing, check the thing, check the thing.' Now, I don't care whether you're Republican or Democrat, you want your president to be telling the truth, you want the contender to be...

Obama Benefited Financially from the Auto Bailout OCT 19, 2012 • BY DANIEL HALPER Earlier today, the Obama campaign pushed around a story that they claimed proved Mitt Romney "was against the auto bailout...but personally [benefited] from it." "Today, [deputy campaign manger Stephanie] Cutter and the Obama campaign were pushing an article in The Nation saying that Romney - who opposed bailing out the auto industry as carried out by Obama - actually made $15.3 million from the bailout through a $1 million investment with a hedge fund firm that put cash into GM supplier Delphi," the Columbus Dispatch reports....

DAYTON, Ohio — From the bed of a Ford pickup truck outside a now-dilapidated former Delphi auto parts plant here, Mary Miller called for transparency from President Barack Obama over the “theft of our pensions.” Miller, a self-described “divorced mother of four young adults,” and about 200 Delphi salaried retirees gathered at the shuttered auto plant in Dayton last Thursday morning to ask President Obama to right the wrongs they believe his administration inflicted upon them during the 2009 auto industry bailout. The Obama administration terminated the pensions, health care and life insurance of more than 20,000 Delphi retirees during...

As the Obama campaign continues to tout the GM bailout as an industrial policy success, the Treasury Department continues to revise upward the staggering losses inflicted on U.S. taxpayers. On the day Government Motors, aka GM, announced it was recalling at least 38,000 of its vehicles — Impalas used by police nationwide and in Canada — due to a crash risk, a new Treasury report said it now expects to lose $25 billion on the bailout, $3.3 billion more than forecast earlier. As the Detroit News reported, this loss was based on GM's stock price at the time of the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department has said the auto industry bailout will cost taxpayers $3.4 billion more than previously thought. Treasury now estimates the 2009 bailout will eventually cost the government $25.1 billion, according to a report sent to Congress on Friday. That is up from the last quarterly estimate of $21.7 billion. Since the $80 billion bailout of the auto industry, Detroit's big automakers have moved from crisis to profit. GM and Chrysler were put through government-funded bankruptcies that slashed costs and debt. Treasury has so far recouped about half of what was extended in grants and...

Emails obtained by The Daily Caller show that the U.S. Treasury Department, led by Timothy Geithner, was the driving force behind terminating the pensions of 20,000 salaried retirees at the Delphi auto parts manufacturing company. The move, made in 2009 while the Obama administration implemented its auto bailout plan, appears to have been made solely because those retirees were not members of labor unions. The internal government emails contradict sworn testimony, in federal court and before Congress, given by several Obama administration figures. They also indicate that the administration misled lawmakers and the courts about the sequence of events surrounding...

General Motors [GM 22.44 0.40 (+1.81%) ] has released an SEC filing disclosing a contract between the automaker and an ad agency that employs the wife of GM CFO Dan Ammann. The disclosure comes a month after GM filed its annual proxy statement listing potential conflicts of interest involving GM executives. In this case, Ammann says he was unaware of the contract with his wife’s ad agency until GM’s corporate governance team asked him about it just a few days ago. GM says the transaction has since been ratified under the automakers Related Party Transaction Policy. The contract in question...

Ford Motor Co. got its logo out of hock Tuesday after Moody's upgraded the automaker's credit rating to investment grade. The decision by Moody's to raise the credit rating means that Ford can now take back control of assets -- including the Blue Oval logo and trademarks like Mustang and F-150 -- that Ford put up as collateral in 2006 when it used virtually all its North American assets to open a $23.5 billion line of credit. "The Ford Blue Oval is back where it belongs with the Ford family of 166,000 employees around the world," said Ford Motor Co....

Matt Negrin of ABC reports that "A new ad by Obama tells the story of Brian Slagle, an autoworker in Ohio who says he was laid off and 'scared to death' until the president swooped in to save the industry." In the spot, Slagle says, "Obama stuck his neck out for us, the auto industry. ... He wasn’t going to let it just die, and I’m driving in this morning because of that, because of him." The ad is meant to praise Obama's auto bailout for saving jobs. Watch here: VideoIndeed, it appears, via Facebook, that Slagle is an employee...

General Motors told 1,300 employees at its Detroit-Hamtramck factory that they were being “temporarily laid off” for five weeks as the company halts production of the Chevrolet Volt, the Detroit Free Press reports. “Even with sales up in February over January, we are still seeking to align our production with demand,” said GM spokesman Chris Lee. “We needed to maintain proper inventory and make sure that we continued to meet market demand,” he told The Hill in a phone interview.

Detroit - Factory workers at Chrysler are getting $1,500 profit-sharing checks next month, a sign the automaker’s turnaround is succeeding. About 26,000 union-represented workers in the U.S. should get the payments, according to Chrysler’s contract with the United Auto Workers union. The profit-sharing figure is based on an Associated Press analysis of company earnings, and the labor contract formula for profit-sharing. Chrysler would not say how much the workers will get. But the formula in its new four-year contract with the UAW shows that the checks will be about $1,500. The checks are based on Chrysler’s $2 billion operating profit