“The government is still formulating financial projections and a capital structure for the new GM, which would be slimmed down to just a few brands—most likely Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and possibly GMC, as a niche truck brand, these people say. They say documents circulating in Washington show a radically smaller GM…

Economists point to the government’s intervention in the U.S. railroad industry in the 1970s as the best corollary to what may now happen at GM. In that case, the government created the Consolidated Rail Corp. in 1976 to absorb rail lines from two bankruptcy carriers. The company was sold to private investors 11 years later.”

 

Washington Post — Key Posts Remain Vacant as Untested Pandemic Response Plan Implemented

Writers Michael Shear and Spence Hsu explain how having so few health and security positions filled is complicating the swine flu response for the Obama administration.

While DHHS nominee Kathleen Sebelius is expected to be confirmed today, the administration has had to turn to Bush holdovers and civil servants to execute what could be the largest public health effort in more than a generation.

“At the Department of Homeland Security, only two of 21 top political appointees have been confirmed by the Senate — Secretary Janet Napolitano and her deputy, Jane Holl Lute.

Vacant positions include the department’s assistant secretary for health affairs and chief medical officer, and the leaders of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Transportation Security Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, all of which would play significant roles in battling a pandemic.”

 

Politico — Liberals push Bybee impeachment

 

Liberal members of Congres are kind of bummed out after learning that the president, House speaker and Senate majority leader all pooh-poohed the idea for truth commissions and special prosecutors to find and punish transgressions by George W. Bush’s anti-terror team.

But writer Josh Gerstein explains that forward-looking Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid may not be able to stop Rep. John Conyers and others from moving to impeach U.S. Appeals Judge Jay Bybee, who drafted interrogation memos at the Bush Justice Department before ascending to the bench.

“Bybee was confirmed the next month on a 74-19 vote. Reid and the current chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), were among those voting in his favor. Then-senator Hillary Clinton voted against Bybee, as did California Democratic senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.

‘If the Bush administration and Mr. Bybee had told the truth, he never would have been confirmed,’ Leahy said last week.”

 

Entertainment Weekly – Fox drops Obama, but is that a big deal?

 

Writer Alynda Wheat provides some useful perspective on who carries what presidential addresses and pressers as FOX is chastised by Obama backers for opting out on Wednesday’s 100 days presser.

“For one thing, Obama is not the first president snubbed by Fox. The network didn’t air a 2001 speech by Pres. Bush, then took the same tack three years later, joining all networks in declining to air Bush’s May 2004 speech on Iraq. What aired instead? Fear Factor…on NBC. Plus, if we’re really getting specific, Fox didn’t air two of the 2000 presidential debates, and ABC was the only network that didn’t air then-candidate Obama’s campaign infomercial.”

 

New York Times — Clinton Says U.S. Is Ready to Lead on Climate

Talking to leaders from around the world at the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate in Washington Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made it clear that the U.S. was “back in he game” on global warming.

What sets writer John Broder’s story apart, though, is that Clinton shows where the negotiations are heading – trying to get developing nations on board. It had been resistance in the Senate to the idea that poor countries could pollute while the U.S. hampered its own economy that killed the Kyoto Protocols when her husband was president. A variation on that theme seems likely to emerge this winter.

“Speaking directly to representatives of developing nations, who are skeptical of the motives of the United States and other industrialized countries on the issue, Mrs. Clinton that the United States would not seek to limit the use of energy in the developing world but would help make it cleaner.

‘We want your economies to grow,’ she said as representatives of Brazil, China, India and Indonesia listened. ‘We want your people to have a higher standard of living.’”