Fellow Patriot: The voluntary financial generosity of supporters like you keeps our hard-hitting analysis coming. Please support the 2024 Patriots' Day Campaign today. Thank you for your support! —Nate Jackson, Managing Editor

September 24, 2009

Too Big to Fail?

“There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily.”

—George Washington

“An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself… A murderer is less to fear.”

—Marcus Tullius Cicero

As reported two weeks ago in The Patriot Post (and practically nowhere else), Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking review of the legality of the Obama-forced bankruptcy of Chrysler, LLC.

Mourdock is petitioning the Court to rule on Barack Obama’s blatant disregard of the U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, which explicitly authorizes Congress, and not the president, to determine bankruptcy laws. In particular, Mourdock is challenging the president’s unashamed indifference to more than 220 years of bankruptcy precedent, which puts senior, or secured, creditors ahead of junior, or unsecured, creditors during bankruptcy proceedings.

With regard to the latter, BO unilaterally declared a 55 percent ownership stake for the UAW, a junior creditor, and he donated a 20 percent ownership stake to non-creditor and non-investor Italian automobile maker Fiat, which was also given options for an additional 15 percent. (Fiat exchanged not even one penny for its ownership stake or options, and the jury is still out as to the politics behind that unsavory deal.)

Adding insult to injury, BO announced that he would bestow senior creditors only 29 cents on the dollar for their bond holdings. From the onset of this fiasco, the largest senior creditors, representing $6.6 billion, calculated Chrysler’s value to be at least 90 cents on the dollar. Other private and public senior creditors, representing $300 million, along with private analysts, concurred. Even Chrysler itself argued that it was worth more than 29 cents per dollar.

But, when BO and his Treasury thugs held firm, everyone prepared to do battle in bankruptcy court. Then, one morning, the largest senior creditors withdrew their opposition. In an act of cowardice, California and Michigan public funds decided to play along with Obama’s scheme, so as not to jeopardize potential federal bailout moneys.

Only Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock, fiduciary of three relatively small Indiana public funds ($45 million total invested in Chrysler bonds), stood firm.

During the discovery phase, under threats and intimidation from the “tolerant” Left, Mourdock documented how the largest senior creditors had changed position because Obama officials had assured them overnight, Chicago-style, that they were “too big to fail,” and that their substantial losses as Chrysler bondholders would be recovered through other government programs.

While a stay to prevent the Obama-forced bankruptcy was eventually rejected by the full Supreme Court, no ruling was ever made based upon the legal merits of the case. Hence, the appeal.

Of course, this is not the only instance where BO (and George W. Bush before him) has, with a Democrat-controlled Congress, used the “too big to fail” ploy. Banking, investing, insurance and mutual funds are other economic sectors that have also been usurped over the last 12 months by Big Brother.

While each of these events, in and of itself, has been devastating to our liberty and our pursuit of happiness, they have been mere tactics in an end-game strategy — that of engendering Democrats themselves as too big to fail.

Obama’s disregard of the Constitution is also evident in his naming of some 30 so-called czars, policy coordinators who usurp even Democrat-controlled congressional constitutional authority, bypassing the budgetary responsibilities of the House of Representatives and the advice-and-consent responsibilities of the Senate.

With Leftist Democrats in control of the House and with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate (and an occasionally traitorous Republican), Democrats are ramming through legislation unwanted by the American public (Card Check, Cap-and-Tax, government-run health care). In addition, they are stonewalling certain investigations and pursuing others so as to suit their immediate political needs.

More egregiously, Leftist Democrats are surreptitiously scheming to legalize 30 million illegal aliens and to force same-day voter registration across the country, thereby allowing them to convert these freshly minted “citizens” into millions of new Democrat votes.

Another dire consequence of this veto-proof Senate majority is that Democrats are packing our courts with “living Constitution” judges. Unlike Democrat hero Franklin D. Roosevelt’s efforts to pack the Supreme Court directly, this modern Democrat tactic seeks to stock the appellate court level. After all, little attention is paid to appellate nominees, and appellate courts can be altered more stealthily than can the Supreme Court.

Significantly, packing the appellate level furnishes Democrats with a layer of insulation between their election-stealing shenanigans and the Supreme Court. If, for example, informed and patriotic voters were able to file suit over a rigged election (quite challenging and expensive, in and of itself), these “living documenters” could stymie or accelerate appeals, depending upon which rulings would support the desired outcome.

The fulcrum of this too-big-to-fail strategy is Obama’s coercion of his own party members, especially those vulnerable in the 2010 elections. First, consider the frustration and outrage displayed during the August congressional recess. Then, consider Democrat incumbents’ disdain and mockery of constituents who dared to challenge their Leftist agenda. Under “normal” circumstances, the prognosis for such an incumbent would be very dark. Alas, these are not normal days.

Be it by persuasion or coercion, every vulnerable Democrat is being forced to march in Leftist lock-step, to walk the plank on each and every piece of legislation, and, ultimately, to vote in favor of immigrant legalization and same-day voter registration to garner the ensuing millions of voters.

Couple these tactics and advantages with ACORN’s illegal get-out-the-vote efforts, BO’s hundreds of millions in campaign fund dollars, and the Democrat shakedown of industries and companies around the world, and the 2010 Democrat congressional candidates would appear to be positioned as “too big to fail.”

Team Obama, however, lacks one major element in their nefarious conniving — the truth. Indeed, it is their brazen lying, half-truths and obfuscations, which have awakened the sleeping giant of American Patriotism.

We are a generous and tolerant nation, the greatest in the history of mankind. We have freed other nations and peoples from tyrannies and oppressions, and we have done so at great cost of our blood and treasure. But, we have reached the limit with Obamanism, this nascent American Communism.

While The Patriot Post’s motto, Veritas Vos Liberabit, takes its inspiration from John 8:32, “The truth shall set you free,” as Ronald Reagan noted, “There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.”

As, Edmund Burke wrote, “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”

George Washington urged, “We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times.”

Are Obama and his Democrat minions too big to fail? I say, emphatically, NO! Indeed, they already are failures.

Still, there is much to be done to save our Republic. To paraphrase Thomas Paine, freedom is being hunted, reason is considered as rebellion and the slavery of fear makes men afraid to think. Fortunately, as Paine further observed, “[S]uch is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.”

If we continue to shine the light of Truth, we may yet force these Leftist cockroaches to scurry for cover. Let us pray for Almighty God’s guidance. Let us roll up our sleeves and extend to our posterity proof that we were worthy of the title “American.”

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.