GM Shreveport Plant to Close

We got word in Shreveport this week that our GM plant will be closing by mid-2012 if not sooner. The plant employs about 1,100 people at this time. It has been as high as 3,200. The Shreveport plant produces the Colorado, the GMC Canyon and the Hummer H3 and H3T.

U.S. Rep. John Fleming (R.) said the state's congressional delegation "will also aggressively work with Tengzhong, the Chinese buyer of the Hummer brand, to show the benefits of not only keeping the existing Hummer manufacturing at this plant, but also the possibilities for expanding their U.S. operations at this facility." Of course, that sale hasn't gone through yet. If it does go through, Shreveport would continue to produce the H3 and H3T until 2010 but anything after that is uncertain.

The Shreveport Times has the full story.

Gretchen Carlson Has Questions for Car Czar

Bride of Rove wrote about this interview yesterday and I couldn't believe what I was reading; then Snaggletoothie had the video. H/T to both! Bride linked to this transcript of the radio program which goes into more detail.

There is something seriously wrong if this is allowed to happen. Seriously.



From the radio program - not the video above, this is Beck talking to the Carlsons and to Gretchen:

GLENN: Okay. Now, Gretchen tells me that you guys made the first round of cuts.

CALLER: That's right.

GLENN: And then you didn't make the second round.

CALLER: No. We got the registered letter and the FedEx and the first sentence says we are not renewing your Chevrolet or your Cadillac franchise. And then went on to explain.

GLENN: You've been in business for 90 years?

CALLER: Yep.

GLENN: 103% of goal last year?

CALLER: Yep.

CALLER: And we haven't had a losing month since the Eighties when there was 21% interest rate, you know, on anyone that bought a car. And even through all this, and the interesting thing is that we know for sure that some dealers who were kept are losing money. And the other kind of upsetting thing is the one that was given the dealership back, it seems somewhat political because it's very hard to determine. I don't think any of the big conglomerates, i.e., the dealers who owned six, seven, eight, nine, ten franchises in around the Minneapolis area, this particular person that was cut and was reinstated is one of those. Otherwise it's hard to tell if any of them have lost a dealership. But they have a gag order on you. You are not supposed to tell. And Mr. Henderson said, well, he is not going to tell because he doesn't want to ruin your business. Well, when you get a letter, FedEx on a day that they determine you are going to get the letter, it's only fair to your employees to let them know what it says. We can't go around pretending. Because you can't appeal if you done tell, either. So that's what happened to us.

------------------------------------------------

GLENN: If you didn't sign the gag order, which means that you're talking now, if you don't sign the gag order, you won't they are saying to you that you can't sell the cars. They're yours, right? You bought them from them.

CALLER: Uh huh.

GLENN: And you won't get any warranties on these cars.

CALLER: What will happen, as I understand it, it's very confusing. I'd have to ask a Chrysler dealer, I suppose, because they are in the middle of it. But I think what you have to do is you have to sell those cars to another dealer or something like that at a loss so that they can then retail the car and cover it with warranties. Once we're terminated, we can no longer do any warranty work, you see. So if we don't sign this thing and send it in, what happens is they will put us in the bankruptcy court and the judge has the authority to probably terminate us within a week, you know.

CALLER: But Glenn, here's the deal. They got a gun to their head because they have to sign this thing by Friday. Keep in mind that they filed an appeal which General Motors, by the way, never even informed them that they could file an appeal. They just happened to find out. They got that in by Monday night. Now you are telling me that of all the GM dealers who have been cut and all the ones that possibly are filing appeals that somebody was actually looking at those appeals on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and giving them an answer back and by Friday they have to sign this agreement or they're dead.

CALLER: Well, and we don't even know to whom we are appealing. That's, we just said to the review committee we don't know if it's the government, we don't know if it's General Motors. We have absolutely no idea. And then at the end when you're all done, you have you're forced to give them your customer, all your customer base and your customer service base and then you have to say, well, that's good; now you've cut us. And if you want to put up someone else three miles from us, we have to agree to that. So it's ...

It's fascism is what it is. It breaks your heart listening to these people. Doug Ross has done an excellent job in covering this DealerGate story; check his site for more info and links. It sure doesn't sound like capitalism in America, that's for sure.


Update - Welcome Doug Ross readers! Thanks for stopping by!)

Glenn Beck Dismisses Brian Deese

Glenn Beck summarily dismisses Obama's handpicked GM guru, George Soros product Brian Deese. Good grief - we're doomed!



H/T: Gateway Pundit

Government Motors

The whole GM business just stinks.

We, of course, learned over the weekend that GM CEO Rick Wagoner would be stepping down. Then we learn that it was at the behest of The White House. Now I don't care WHO the president is, this is just wrong.

I know that Bush opened the door for this with the initial bailout of the auto makers. I'm referring to the December bailout, the one AFTER the election, the one he consulted with Obama on during that smoothest transition EVAH, and the one approved by the Democratic congress. Most conservatives, myself included, were against the bailout from the git-go, as my mother would say, but again, water under the bridge at this point.

So here we are with Barack Obama guaranteeing your warranty.

" If you buy a car from Chrysler or General Motors, you will be able to get your car serviced and repaired just like always. Your warranty will be safe. In fact, it will be safer than it's ever been because starting today the United States government will stand behind your warranty."

Well don't we all feel better!

Obama has never run anything more complicated than a pencil sharpener; how are we to take solace in the fact that he is now de facto CEO for GM? Because he feels your pain.

"I’d like to speak directly to all those men and women who work in the auto industry or live in countless communities that depend on them. Many of you have been going through tough times for longer than you care to remember, and I won’t pretend that the tough times are over. I can’t promise you there isn’t more difficulty to come.

But what I can promise you is this: I will fight for you. You are the reason I’m here today. I got my start fighting for working families in the shadows of a shuttered steel plant. I wake up every single day asking myself, what can I do to give you and working people all across this country a fair shot at the American dream?"

Were those violins in the background?

Rush Limbaugh asked today, "Where are the unions in all of this?" Well yeah. Hello? Can somebody please hold the unions accountable? Or is BHO just paying them back now by handing GM to them on a silver platter?

And remember, according to BHO, this whole move is not a condemnation of Wagoner - it's just that Wagoner didn't have the right vision. The "right" vision? And who, pray tell, does have the "right" vision? Tim-Turbo-Tax Geithner? And what actually makes him qualified to decide that? His vast experience in business? Hmmm, probably not.

It doesn't matter WHO was behind this debacle at this point. It's just wrong. In fact, now we even have Obama telling Chrysler that they HAVE to reach a merger agreement with Fiat or consider themselves SOL. The bottom line is that this is not how capitalism works. We are a free market society. We do NOT have the White House telling companies with whom they must merge.

Oh but wait. Now we do.

One day you will look at your grandchildren and tell them about the free country that America used to be.