Morning Must Reads

The Russians acted first in the concessional ballet, allowing a corridor through their airspace for supplies heading to Afghanistan. Obama will now be expected to reciprocate by nixing a missile defense program designed to protect Europe from the soon-to-be nuclear powered Islamist dictators in Iran.

Not mentioned will be the Russian invasion of Georgia less than a year ago or any of the other funny business going on in and around other former Soviet satellites. Fortunately for Medvedev, he finds the new American leader much easier to do business with.
“Under a Bush administration plan, the system would be based in Poland and the Czech Republic, and American officials say it is intended to ward off attacks from countries like Iran. But the Kremlin views the system as a threat to Russia.

‘These topics are interrelated, and for understandable reasons,’ Mr. Medvedev said over the weekend. ‘While the previous administration of the United States took a very ‘hard-headed’ position on this issue, the current administration is ready to discuss this topic. I think that we are fully able to find a reasonable solution here.’

While President Obama does not appear to be a strong a proponent of the antimissile system, he has not publicly stated a willingness to abandon it.”
 
Wall Street Journal – Honduras Standoff Heats Up
 
Everything is going bananas down in Honduras as the former president, ousted after an unsuccessful power grab, can’t get home to lead the rioters who are clamoring for his return.

But now that two of his supporters have been shot – maybe by soldiers – Manuel Zelaya will have extra cause to alarm his friends Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega into taking action to kick out the president picked by the country’s legislature after Zeleya’s outser. The U.N. remains on Zeleya’s side in hopes of avoiding a military resolution, as does the Obama administration. Meanwhile, most educated Hondurans and the leader of the Catholic Church in the country seem to be out against Zeleya.

Writers Jose de Cordoba and David Luhnow desribe the scene on board Zeleya’s plane when it was turned back from lan
When told of the deadly violence below, Mr. Zelaya blasted the provisional government. ‘This is a barbarity what is happening in Honduras,’ he said, calling on President Barack Obama to take more drastic measures against the interim government, including economic measures, to show that the coup couldn’t stand. “Otherwise, it’s the death of democracy in the Americas,’ he said.

Mr. Zelaya, who was forced by soldiers at gunpoint to leave the country last Sunday, flew from Washington to Tegucigalpa along with U.N. General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, Nicaragua’s former minister for foreign affairs. Traveling in another plane was Argentine President Cristina Kirchner, Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa and Paraguayan leader Fernando Lugo, followed by yet another plane carrying journalists.’”
 
Financial Times — Judge approves plan to sell GM assets
 
Congratulations. If you’re an American taxpayer, you just got your share of a 61 percent stake in the biggest corporate failure in the history of capitalism.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Gerber gave the go-ahead late Sunday to a plan for GM to dump most of its assets into a new Treasury-capitalized company that will own and operate the struggling carmaker – stakeholders include the UAW, the governments of Canada and Ontario and a 10 percent share held by the corporate corpse of General Motors left behind after the asset transfer.

This is not surprising, the test nationalization of Chrysler having cleared the way. Plus, the government has been substantially running GM for months – ever since President Obama sacked the company’s CEO and tapped his replacement.

But the move does begin the politically consequential phase in which the government has to start making some big decisions about who to fire, what to sell, how to convince consumers, how to keep Ford and Toyota from running away with the market, etc.
Writer John Reed explains the breakdown:

“The US government will own 60.8 per cent of GM’s shares, a United Auto Workers’ Union health-care trust will own 17.5 per cent, and the Canadian and Ontario governments will get 11.7 per cent of the new GM’s shares, while the “old GM” will own 10 per cent of them.

Fritz Henderson, GM’s chief executive, thanked the US, Canadian and Ontario governments and taxpayers for the ‘sacrifices’ they made on behalf of GM.

‘This has been an especially challenging period, and we’ve had to make very difficult decisions to address some of the issues that have plagued our business for decades,’ Mr Henderson said.”
 
Wall Street Journal — Governor’s Move Highlights GOP Divide
 
Sarah Palin has an army of supporters who are enthused about her decision to quit her job and become a full-time national figure. They’re very accepting of Palin’s argument that the attacks of her adversaries in Alaska and elsewhere forced her hand and that now she can do battle with Barack Obama head on.

But as writers Laura Meckler and Deborah Solomon explain, most prominent Republicans reacted with befuddlement and skepticism about Palin’s plan to walk out on her term.

If she’s looking to take on Glenn Beck, maybe it will work. If she’s looking to win over those unconvinced from 2008, probably not.
“But many Republican Party veterans reacted to her Friday announcement with befuddlement. “This move last week reinforced in many people’s minds the weirdness, the odd decision making that comes from the governor and her camp,” said Republican strategist John Weaver.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), whose state typically hosts the opening caucuses in the presidential campaign, called the move ‘astounding.’ And Karl Rove, a top adviser to former President George W. Bush, said on “Fox News Sunday” that Ms. Palin is ‘putting herself on a national stage that she might not be quite ready to operate on.’”
 
Washington Post — Familiar Players in Health Bill Lobbying
 
Writers Dan Eggen and Kimberly Kindy found 350 former members of Congress and congressional staffers on the rolls of health care lobbyists as the industry spends $1.4 million a day on trying to shape the outcome of the legislation being worked on this week.
Almost half of the lobbyists worked for either Sen. Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat now trying to whip up support for a compromise bill for universal coverage on his Senate Finance Committee, or Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Iowa Republican looking for a way to be agreeable for a price of less than $1.6 billion or without fully socializing medicine.

With so much lobbying, it raises the possibility of another monstrosity like the House global warming bill: expensive, ineffective at addressing the problems liberals are worried about and hugely profitable for preferred corporations:

“A June 10 meeting between aides to Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and health-care lobbyists included two former Baucus chiefs of staff: David Castagnetti, whose clients include PhRMA and America’s Health Insurance Plans, and Jeffrey A. Forbes, who represents PhRMA, Amgen, Genentech, Merck and others. Castagnetti did not return a telephone call; Forbes declined to comment.

Also inside the closed committee hearing room that day was Richard Tarplin, a veteran of both the Department of Health and Human Services and the Senate, where he worked for Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), one of the leaders in fashioning reform legislation this year. Tarplin now represents the American Medical Association as head of his own lobbying firm, Tarplin Strategies.
‘For people like me who are on the outside and used to be on the inside, this is great, because there is a level of trust in these relationships, and I know the policy rationale that is required,’ Tarplin said in explaining the benefits of having government experience.”