New Poll: Right Direction Triples

WaPo: The number of Americans who believe that the nation is headed in the right direction has roughly tripled since Barack Obama's election, and the public overwhelmingly blames the excesses of the financial industry, rather than the new president, for turmoil in the economy, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
At this early stage in his presidency, Obama continues to benefit from a broadly held perception that others should bear the bulk of responsibility for the severe economic problems that confront his administration. Americans see plenty of offenders, but only about a quarter blame the president and his team for an economy that's in the ditch.

Obama Takes Off For Britain

The Obamas climb aboard Air Force One:

On Tuesday morning, President Obama will travel to London, arriving in the evening. He will attend the G-20 summit and other meetings Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday morning, he will depart for Strasbourg, France where he will attend the NATO summit. On Saturday, he will depart Strasbourg to Prague, Czech Republic. On Sunday, he will depart to Ankara, Turkey. On Monday, he will travel to Istanbul, Turkey. On Tuesday, April 7, he will return to Washington. Lynn SweetRead about his plans in Turkey here.

Read more details about his five days abroad here.
Video of what might await him here.

Gibbs Press Briefing March 30

Michael Steele Has Obama Envy

Steele had said the same thing in GQ mag:

Good GM Good Chrysler

Obama's auto task force hired a bankruptcy attorney about 2 weeks ago, but bankruptcy doesn't mean dead. Ford must be feeling relatively good these days:

WSJ: The Obama's administration's leading plan to fix General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC would use bankruptcy filings to purge the ailing companies of their biggest problems, including bondholder debt and retiree health-care costs, according to people familiar with the matter.

The move would in essence split both companies into their "good" and "bad" components. The government would like to see the "good" GM to be a standalone company, according to an administration official. The "good" Chrysler would be sold to Fiat SpA, assuming that deal is completed, this person said.

GM and Chrysler have had bankruptcy attorneys devising plans for such a move in recent months.

President Barack Obama's task force has told both companies that the administration prefers this route as a way to reorganize the two auto makers, rather than the prolonged out-of-court process that has thus far frustrated administration officials.

GM looks increasingly like it will be forced into filing for bankruptcy protection, sometime in mid-to-late May, in a plan where the automaker breaks into two companies, the surviving entity a "new GM" that maintains key brands such as Chevy and Cadillac and some international units, say several people familiar with the situation.

Japanese Students Learning English From Obama

Apart from steering the US economy through difficult times, fine-tuning strategy on two wars and resetting geopolitical equations, US President Barack Obama is also helping many Japanese students learn English. In Japan, students practice reciting Obama’s speeches, noted the Wall Street Journal in a report from Tokyo, with the headline: “Learning to Speak Better English: Yes, We Can!”

The report described a gray-haired Japanese student struggling with a line from Obama’s famous 2004 speech to the Democratic National Convention that catapulted him into the national spotlight.

The student read on: “They … would … give me an … African name, Barack, … or ‘blessed’. ” English teacher Makoto Ishiwata corrected the student, “Not ‘blessed,’ “bless-ed’.”

The Obama speeches have become the latest fad fueling Japan’s long, and oft-frustrated, passion for mastering English, the Journal said. Read more.

Inside Guantanamo - Video

National Geographic goes inside of Guantanamo.
A prisoner asks for a book, the guard says there is a Stephen King book called "It." What's it about? asked the prisoner. The guard: It's about a big bad clown. The prisoner: What's that?

Obama Signs Super Bill To Save Wilderness and Paralysis Research

Also in the bill:

Also included in the legislation signed by Obama is a provision named for "Superman" actor Christopher Reeve that provides for paralysis research and care for persons with disabilities. MSNBC

Read Obama's statement on the act here.

Read the bill's text here. 

Laura Ling and Euna Lee to Be Tried in North Korea

Journalists Laura Ling, sister of Lisa Ling, and Euna Lee were captured earlier this month. Read about that here. North Korea accused them of illegal entry and hostile acts.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Bill O'Reilly on The View March 30

O'Reilly doesn't Twitter because he says he has to think. No comment. O'Reilly, like many, still think people on Twitter are telling others what they're eating for lunch. If they are, they might be sharing a recipe. You can't understand Twitter until you actually get on and actively participate. You have to add a photo as step No. 1 and you have to find your thing. You have to figure out -- what is your Twitter voice? Mine is easy - what's going on in the Obama administration.
Twitter is like a community, one that you create. As in any community, you get to know who's who and who cares about what.
He calls the BlackBerry a blueberry.

Part 2. Joy asks if O'Reilly is jealous of Limbaugh. O'Reilly shuts Elisabeth down. That was pretty sweet.

Biden and Vilsack Visit North Carolina April 1

Biden and Vilsack will be showing how the stimulus is affecting rural America. They'll also make an announcement on rural housing funding. For more on how the stimulus is being used, check in at Recovery.gov.

Vice President Joe Biden and Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will travel to North Carolina on Wednesday, April 1st to highlight how the Recovery Act is helping rural America.

They will travel to Faison, North Carolina to visit the Goshen Medical Center, which is a rural area clinic receiving Recovery Act funds and serves Duplin, Eastern Sampson and Southern Wayne Counties.

They will then travel to Pikeville, North Carolina to visit the area’s Rural Fire Department’s main station, which is receiving Recovery Act funds to help build a new facility, because the current station cannot accommodate the necessary ladder trucks required to adequately and safely fight fires.

The Vice President and Secretary Vilsack will also make a major announcement regarding rural housing funding. WH

Joe the Articulator

Joe's talent is he can articulate what's on people's minds. He's a pot stirrer:

Mr. Biden has settled into a role of what Mr. Obama compares to a basketball player “who does a bunch of things that don’t show up in the stat sheet,” the president said in an interview Friday. “He gets that extra rebound, takes the charge, makes that extra pass.”

Mr. Biden’s reputation for windiness, self-regard and unrestrained ambition have long prompted some degree of eye-rolling around him and probably always will. But what has been striking to many in the administration has been how strenuously the president has worked to include him and, perhaps most notably, the influence Mr. Biden appears to be wielding.

Top aides say it has become customary for Mr. Obama to solicit Mr. Biden’s opinion at the end of meetings. But his views by no means always carry the day. At one January meeting to discuss the budget, Mr. Biden railed that the government was in no fiscal shape to pursue a health care overhaul this year — to the dismay of many present and others who heard about it.

The vice president later backed off, but Mr. Obama — who disagreed strongly with the view — has come to see Mr. Biden as a useful contrarian in the course of decision-making.

Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said that “when there’s group-think going on, the vice president tends to push the envelope in the other direction.” Read more at the NYT

Failure of Leadership Yet Wagoner Gets $23 Million

This is the kind of thing that has to change.

MSNBC: When General Motors Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner leaves the automaker, he'll take with him a financial package worth an estimated $23 million.

The terms of General Motors Corp.'s government loans prevent it from giving executives severance pay, but they don't affect earned pensions.

Obama tells auto workers: "I will fight for you. You're the reason I'm here today." Obama appointed Edward Montgomery, director of recovery for auto workers and communities, to cut through the red tape to use stimulus funding to create new manufacturing jobs. Here is the announcement that Chrysler and GM just aren't cutting it: 

White House's Auto Task Force findings:

Viability of Existing Plans: The plans submitted by GM and Chrysler on February 17, 2009 did
not establish a credible path to viability. In their current form, they are not sufficient to justify a
substantial new investment of taxpayer resources. Each will have a set period of time and an adequate amount of working capital to establish a new strategy for long-term economic viability.
• General Motors: While GM’s current plan is not viable, the Administration is confident that with a more fundamental restructuring, GM will emerge from this process as a stronger more competitive business. This process will include leadership changes at GM and an increased effort by the U.S.
Treasury and outside advisors to assist with the company’s restructuring effort. Rick Wagoner is
stepping aside as Chairman and CEO. In this context, the Administration will provide GM with working capital for 60 days to develop a more aggressive restructuring plan and a credible strategy to implement such a plan. The Administration will stand behind GM’s restructuring effort.
• Chrysler: After extensive consultation with financial and industry experts, the Administration has reluctantly concluded that Chrysler is not viable as a stand-alone company. However, Chrysler has reached an understanding with Fiat that could be the basis of a path to viability. Fiat is prepared to transfer valuable technology to Chrysler and, after extensive consultation with the Administration,
has committed to building new fuel efficient cars and engines in U.S. factories. At the same time, however, there are substantial hurdles to overcome before this deal can become a reality.
Therefore, the Administration will provide Chrysler with working capital for 30 days to conclude a definitive agreement with Fiat and secure the support of necessary stakeholders. If successful, the government will consider investing up to the additional $6 billion requested by Chrysler to help this
partnership succeed. If an agreement is not reached, the government will not invest any additional taxpayer funds in Chrysler.
• A Fresh Start to Implement Aggressive Restructurings: While Chrysler and GM are different companies with different paths forward, both have unsustainable liabilities and both need a fresh start. Their best chance at success may well require utilizing the bankruptcy code in a quick and surgical way. Unlike a liquidation, where a company is broken up and sold off, or a conventional bankruptcy, where a company can get mired in litigation for several years, a structured bankruptcy
process – if needed here – would be a tool to make it easier for General Motors and Chrysler to clear away old liabilities so they can get on a path to success while they keep making cars and
providing jobs in our economy. Read more here.

Read more about Chrysler and GM viability and warranties for those GMs and Chryslers you own here.
Americans say let 'em die. Those would be the Americans who don't live in Detroit.

No More Money for Chrysler and GM

Obama will make an announcement this morning about the fate of the automakers at 11 am.
The question everyone seems to be asking now is: why isn't Obama firing banking execs? I suspect the Obama administration isn't firing banking execs because while they're greedy they're not incompetent. But the automaker execs seem to be clearly incompetent.
The car companies are going to get extra time to come up with better plans. For Chrysler it's merge with Fiat or else.

NYT: The White House on Sunday pushed out the chairman of General Motors and instructed Chrysler to form a partnership with the Italian automaker Fiat within 30 days as conditions for receiving another much-needed round of government aid.

The decision to ask G.M.’s chairman and chief executive, Rick Wagoner, to resign caught Detroit and Washington by surprise, and it underscored the Obama administration’s determination to keep a tight rein on the companies it is bailing out — a level of government involvement in business perhaps not seen since the Great Depression.

President Obama is scheduled to announce details of the auto package at the White House on Monday, but two senior officials, offering a preview on condition of anonymity, made clear that some form of bankruptcy — a quick, court-supervised restructuring, as they described it — could still be an option for one or both companies.

Mr. Obama’s auto industry task force, in a report released Sunday night assessing the viability of both companies and detailing the administration’s new plans for them, concluded that Chrysler could not survive as a stand-alone company.
The report said the company would get no more help from the government unless it can finalize a proposed alliance with the Italian automaker Fiat by April 30. It must also reduce its debt and health-care obligations.

If a deal is reached between Chrysler and Fiat, the administration says it would consider another loan of $6 billion to Chrysler.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Jennifer Granholm is mad, calls Rick Wagoner a "sacrificial lamb:"

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Fritz Henderson To Take Over GM

Henderson, who is COO, will take over, at least in the interim.

An administration official confirmed that Mr. Wagoner was asked to step down to make way for ongoing restructuring within the company. Mr. Wagoner will be replaced, at least on an interim basis, by Frederick "Fritz" Henderson, the company's chief operating officer.

Mr. Wagoner was asked to step down on Friday by Steven Rattner, the investment banker picked last month by the administration to lead the Treasury Department's auto-industry task force. Mr. Rattner broke the news to Mr. Wagoner in person at his office at Treasury, according to an administration official. Afterward, Mr. Rattner met one-on-one with Mr. Henderson, who will fill in as GM's CEO.

GM didn't immediately return calls for comment. One longtime GM board member, Kent Kresa, declined to comment when reached by phone Sunday night. WSJ

Tomorrow:

In remarks Sunday, Mr. Obama said that he intends to extract "a set of sacrifices from all parties involved -- management, labor, shareholders, creditors, suppliers, dealers." The industry, he said on CBS's "Face the Nation," must "take serious restructuring steps now in order to preserve a brighter future down the road." The two companies "are not there yet," he added.

Mr. Wagoner's removal shows that the sacrifices could cut deep. The departure of the company's top executive promises to further shake up a company that has already been through considerable change over the past six months. The 56-year-old executive had been scrambling to craft a global strategy aimed at maintaining leadership in the global sales chase with Toyota Motor Corp., and making big profits in emerging markets.

But Mr. Wagoner's plans came crashing down in the second half of 2008 as the company ran short of cash and was forced to ask the federal government for tens of billions of dollars in aid. At the same time, his executive team started dismantling several parts of the company, including a plan to shed several U.S. brands, slow the pace of new-product introductions and sell off stakes in international operations. WSJ

Katie interviews Fritz:

Watch CBS Videos Online

Good Riddance to the Hummer

Talk about symbolism of excess.

By Tuesday, General Motors Corp. will have to decide whether its struggling Hummer brand will die a quiet death or live on with a new owner.

The wounded automaker has told the federal government that it will make the decision to jettison or sell Hummer by the end of the first quarter as part of a plan to justify the government loans on which it is living.

GM says it's still talking to several possible buyers, and many of Hummer's dealers nationwide are hoping that someone, perhaps a Chinese automaker, will come to their rescue and buy the brand, which traces its roots to rugged vehicles used for transporting soldiers. MSNBC

Taliban Abducts 12 Police in Pakistan

A sampling of what's going on in Pakistan-Afghanistan. Read how Radio Taliban communicates who it's going to kill. 

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) — Taliban militants abducted 12 police officers in a pre-dawn attack Sunday in a tribal region where a suicide attack on a mosque this week killed around 50 worshippers, officials said.
The insurgents surrounded a tribal police check post 35 kilometres southeast of Peshawar city in the lawless Khyber region before driving the captured officers away, local government official Rahat Gul said.
No one has claimed responsibility, but another official blamed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) for the abduction.
The kidnapping came after Pakistani security forces on Saturday arrested four Taliban insurgents and destroyed two suspected compounds in the nearby town of Bara after Friday's bombing, one of the bloodiest recent attacks in Pakistan.
US officials say Pakistan's lawless tribal areas have become a safe haven for Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants who fled the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan and have regrouped to launch attacks on foreign troops across the border.

Obama said the Taliban have killed mostly Muslims. The Taliban are busy blowing up mosques:

Al Jazeera: Dozens of fighters have fired rockets at a transport terminal in northwest Pakistan used to ship supplies to Nato soldiers in neighbouring Afghanistan, police have said.

At least 12 shipping containers were damaged in the attack early on Saturday at the Farhad terminal in Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province, Zahur Khan, a local police official, said.

Police opened fire at the fighters but they managed to flee, he said.

Afghan-based US and Nato forces get up to 75 per cent of their supplies via routes that pass through Pakistan's Khyber tribal region and a southwestern Chaman border crossing - areas where Taliban fighters are believed to be operating.

Mosque bombing

The attack came less than a day after a suicide bomber blew up in a mosque in Jamrud in the nearby Khyber agency, killing 48 people and wounding scores more.

Pro-Taliban fighters were suspected of carrying out the attack to avenge recent military operations in the area aimed at protecting the Nato supply route, authorities said.

GM Chief Is Outta There

Most excellent:

Politico: The Obama administration asked Rick Wagoner, the chairman and CEO of General Motors, to step down and he agreed, a White House official said.

On Monday, President Obama is to unveil his plans for the auto industry, including a response to a request for additional funds by GM and Chrysler.

Wagoner’s resignation was one of the remarkable strings attached to the new aid package the administration is offering GM, based on recommendations from the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry, headed by the Treasury Department.

The White House confirmed Wagoner was leaving at the government's behest after The Associated Press reported his immediate departure, without giving a reason.

The surprise announcement about the classically iconic American corporation is perhaps the most vivid sign yet of the tectonic change in the relationship between business and government in this era of subsidies and bailouts.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Obama To Give Automakers New Deadlines

The Obama administration doesn't seem to want to let the automakers tank but they don't appear to be getting the work done, or they just haven't had enough time. Obama is expected to talk about the automakers first thing in the morning.

WSJ: The administration is not expected on Monday to deliver a comprehensive blueprint for where the industry needs to go in the months and years ahead. Instead, administration officials said, the announcement will lay out the parameters of an overall deal, including some firm deadlines. The administration is expected to hold out the threat of having the companies enter into Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring if certain tough compromises are not made over the next month.

The original December loans were given under the agreement that all sides would strike a compromise deal by March 31, but the administration is taking advantage of a clause allowing all sides another month to negotiate.

"It was unrealistic to renegotiate a new labor agreement and the unsecured debt in so short a time," said Sean McAlinden, chief economist with the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Center for Automotive Research. "That has never happened before."

GM and Chrysler are meant to submit by Tuesday assessments of where their restructuring efforts are heading. In February, both companies put forward plans for paring back their operations, reducing their workforces and eliminating vehicle models. Chrysler is mulling a potential alliance with Italy's Fiat SpA.

Americans Suffer a Financial Savvy Deficit

Veracifier was supportive of Obama during the campaign but this guy hasn't a clue of what he's talking about. He's being a knee jerk, unthinking person on the left. That's what we had from the right during the Bush administration. Wake up people. Learn some finances and economics. I highly recommend Planet Money, which is doing a great job at explaining some of the basics of the financial crisis.
Businesses and banks depend and thrive on credit. We need banks. Stop painting Geithner as the bad guy just because his plan isn't Paul Krugman's.
We can't afford to be ignorant or ideological anymore.