Cnn News

Lots of news this morning on the automaker front: GM is officially filing for bankruptcy, and Chrysler seems set to exit its restructuring process after a Judge issued approval for the car company's sale to Fiat. The latter news gives some reassurance to the former -- while these negotiations have been complex and uncertain affairs, it seems that the combined forces of the president's auto task force, the company's management, unions and bondholders have been able to successfully execute their plans.

The real issue for many is cost; the government is going to have to add another $30 billion (on top of $20 billion already spent) to keep GM afloat while it executes its restructuring plans, including firing some 21,000 workers. Is this deal worth it? The administration argues that the the only other option would be a liquidation of the company, which have left 60,000 workers jobless and visited collateral damage on the economy, hurting both the numerous suppliers and other industries that depend on their and their employees spending and hurting recovery by ending a huge chunk of our industrial base; Jon Cohn and Dean Baker both offer cogent defenses of the agreement. This arrangement isn't perfect, it's damage control, but it's necessary.

Last night, the administration briefed reporters on its guidelines for investing in private companies; it's an issue since the government will hold a majority stake in New GM and also substantial holdings in Chrysler as well. Essentially, the administration expects companies to adhere to set of up-front guidelines in exchange for the investment; from that point forward, the government will only use its shareholder rights to choose members of the board of directors and other major decisions, leaving day-to-day business to the management. All this comes with an attitude that the government should maintain this stake for as short time as feasible, but government officials recognize that the longer the government owns a chunk of GM, the more profitable it is likely to be for the taxpayer. That tension will be one to watch as the automaker gets put back together, likely on a longer timetable than the sixty to ninety days that is currently being bandied around.

This comprehensive Times run-down tales time to romanticize the GM's heritage as once (and future?) King of the American Auto Market. Hard to resist the nostalgia, but the only thing worth feeling sentimental about are the lost jobs. The sentimentality about the company is one of the reasons that American automakers didn't do a great job transitioning into the modern era. Another meme I'd throw some water on is the idea, expressed here by Marc Ambinder, that the administration's negotiating strategies represent some kind of "new capitalism"; in fact, the government has been relatively circumspect in restricting its actions to standard market tools, whatever folks on the Right (and specifically, disgruntled bondholders) have to say.

-- Tim Fernholz

Interesting point from First Read: "We've wondered what Obama's election would do to other senators. For years, senators were told they'd never get to the White House, and the stats proved it. Now, with governors in general less popular now than before, having a well-rounded issue experience that a senator gets may mean more to voters than so-called executive experience."

My full post out of the first day of the America's Future Now! conference in DC is below. But I wanted to highlight Howard Dean's strong push for a public option, which I wrapped into the story:

During a lunchtime press conference, Howard Dean, recent past chair of the DNC and a doctor, said that it's more important to have a public plan than a bipartisan plan. "Bipartisan," he said, "is not an end in and of itself."

He said that Republicans haven't helped Obama with the stimulus package nor do they seem poised to offer an assist with approving his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the nation's highest court.

"If they're in there to shill for the insurance companies, I think we should do it with 51 votes," Dean said, suggesting that it be accomplished via budget reconciliation.

Dean added: "The American people voted for real change. They knew exactly what he was proposing when he was on the campaign trail."

(JENNIFER SKALKA)

by Mark Silva

Who kills an abortion provider?

Police in Wichita, Kan., say Scott P. Roeder did.

They have arrested the 51-year-old from Merriam, Kan., a suburb of Kansas City, in the Sunday church-hall slaying of Dr. George Tiller of Wichita.

In the rear window of the 1993 Ford Taurus that Roeder was driving: a red rose, a symbol favored by abortion opponents. On the rear of the car: a Christian fish bearing the name of Jesus.

The Kansas City Star's Judy L. Thomas offers a picture of the alleged assailant of the 67-year-old physician who was one of the few in the nation willing to perform late-term abortions, who had been shot before and whose clinic had been bombed. Kansas City, Roeder allegedly wrote, is "the nation's abortion capital'' -- and it was time that "some attention'' be brought to Tiller's work, a Scott Roeder allegedly posted on the Internet.

Those who know Roeder say he viewed the killng of abortion doctors as an act of justifiable homicide, the Star reports:

"I know that he believed in justifiable homicide," said Regina Dinwiddie, a Kansas City anti-abortion activist who made headlines in 1995 when she was ordered by a federal judge to stop using a bullhorn within 500 feet of any abortion clinic. "I know he very strongly believed that abortion was murder and that you ought to defend the little ones, both born and unborn."

See the profile of the alleged murderer from Merriam, Kan., in the Star.