Free Republic

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump stepped up his pressure on General Motors to reopen an Ohio manufacturing plant that recently closed and put 1,700 people out of work. Trump's arm-twisting came in a series of separate tweets on Saturday and Sunday . He capped his weekend rant against the GM with a tweetdisclosing that he had vented his frustrations during a conversation with the company's CEO, Mary Barra. "I am not happy that it is closed when everything else in our Country is BOOMING," Trump wrote. "I asked her to sell it or do something quickly. She blamed the UAW...

The perception that only elite schools produce elite leaders needs to die. The No. 1 company in last year’s Fortune 500 was Walmart Inc., with $500 billion in revenue. That would make its chief executive, Douglas McMillon, a pretty important and powerful executive, don’t you think? Can you guess where he went to college? The University of Arkansas. He has an MBA, too. From the University of Tulsa. Second on the list was Exxon Mobil Corp. Its CEO, Darren Woods, went to Texas A&M. Third was Berkshire Hathaway Inc., run by the man many consider the greatest investor who ever...

General Motors plans to lay off 4,000 salaried works beginning Monday, CNN reported. This is part of the company's previously announced 15 percent workforce reduction that was announced back in November. Along with letting workers go, GM is also closing four manufacturing plants in the United States and another in Canada. The company made the decision as part of a strategic move to free up $6 billion annually. That money will then be used to invest in new technology, including electric and self-driving cars as well as a ride sharing service. By making these cuts, GM believes they can save...

The speedometer climbs as we race down a straightaway in Humble, Texas. As the needle edges to 60, 70, then 80 miles per hour, the 36-year-old automobile rattles and the wind whistles through the windows. Finally the DeLorean zooms up to 88 miles per hour and we feel, just for a moment, like we've gone back to the future. Then, a series of loud honks from the other side of the road, followed by animated waving, awaken us out of our speed spell. “We get that all the time," says DeLorean Motor Company CEO Stephen Wynne, sitting shotgun. “That doesn’t...

It took 14 months for the noose to show up. Fourteen months where Marcus Boyd says he endured racist comments, slights, even threats in a hostile workplace run by General Motors. A workplace where people declared bathrooms were for "whites only," where black supervisors were denounced as "boy" and ignored by their subordinates, where black employees were called "monkey," or told to "go back to Africa." A workplace where black employees were warned a white colleague's "daddy" was in the Ku Klux Klan. Where white workers wore shirts with Nazi symbols underneath their coveralls. In Ohio. In 2018. All those...

Nancy Pelosi said it looks as if Trump just wants to abolish Congress and that a border wall is immoral. Elizabeth Warren says the Republican Party is corrupt and caters to the rich and powerful .... Here is just a small sample of what Pelosi, Warren, Obama, the Clintons, and other Democrats have done over the years where the media and other Democrats not only didn't care, but supported the moves wholeheartedly. Obama, the authoritarian, couldn't get DACA through Congress, so he dictatorially and unconstitutionally implemented it. Pelosi didn't care about Obama usurping congressional authority. ... The immoral and corrupt...

There’s a sign outside the General Motors assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio, that reads: “GM, We Invested in You. Now It’s Your Turn to Invest in US.” Ever since the US’s largest car company’s immense assembly plant opened here 52 years ago, it has dominated this blue-collar town. Now GM workers here are furious that the automaker plans to idle – and perhaps permanently close – the plant. GM stunned its workforce on 26 November, the Monday after Thanksgiving, by announcing it would cut roughly 14,000 jobs and idle five factories in North America, including the Lordstown plant, which employs...

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Monday the Trump administration will end subsidies for electric cars and renewable energy sources, Reuters reports. Kudlow said he expected subsidies for electric cars would end by 2020 or 2021, according to the report. The remarks were made in response to a question about what the administration would do about General Motors' plans to layoff 15,000 people and shutter five plants across North America. The company's plans have sparked outrage in Washington from both parties. Trump last week floated cutting GM's subsidies for electric vehicles and raising auto tariffs to punish the...

Hundreds of General Motors workers and their families have gathered in Ohio for an emotional prayer vigil over the closure of their plant and the loss of 15,000 jobs across the company. The solemn prayer vigil took place outside the General Motors plant in Lordstown on Thursday. It is among the five GM plants across North America that are set to close next year. Emotional co-workers hugged each other and wiped away tears as they prayed together.

Back in 2012, the Obama reelection team reminded us that they got Osama bin Laden an d saved GM.  It probably gave Obama Ohio at less than 200,000 votes out of 5 plus million cast.  It did not hurt in Michigan.  It certainly energized the unions to cast ballots for the man who "saved" their jobs. Yes, they got Osama bin Laden.  But they didn't really save GM or do the workers any favor on a long-term basis. Looking back, the GM bailout was a partisan band aid.  I like what Kevin D. Williamson wrote about this:      What did U.S....

General Motors Co on Monday pulled the plug on the Chevrolet Volt hybrid and the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant that builds it, both examples of a costly gamble that is not paying off. GM’s widely touted factory of the future, forced on a town desperate for jobs and hailed decades later by former resident Barack Obama, is set to wind down over the next few years, leaving beleaguered Hamtramck wondering what happened. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said at a news conference Monday that he told GM chief executive Mary Barra Monday that “we moved thousands of people out of that neighborhood...

Bankruptcy Is Option to GM Board By JOHN D. STOLL DETROIT -- Members of General Motors Corp.'s board of directors are willing to consider "all options" for the ailing auto maker, including an eventual filing for bankruptcy protection, a stance that puts them in rare disagreement with Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner, people familiar with the matter said. As part of his push to win a federal bailout for the company, Mr. Wagoner told Congress this week that GM management believes bankruptcy protection is not a viable option for the company. Instead, GM is focusing on persuading lawmakers to...

The day after the 2016 election for president, General Motors announced it was laying off another 2,000 workers in plants in Ohio and Michigan, two states that gave President-elect Donald Trump a major victory on Tuesday. GM said the layoffs will affect the third shifts in the plants in Lordstown, Ohio, and Lansing, Michigan, which build the low-selling cars sold under the Chevrolet and Cadillac brand names. “The Lordstown plant builds the compact Chevrolet Cruze, whose U.S. sales through October were down 20%,” Fortune magazine reported. “The Lansing Grand River plant builds the Cadillac ATS and CTS, whose sales were...

CE car sales are down and EV sales are up. Most people know this much. Also, EV sales are not up by as much as ICE car sales are down. The two metrics are believed to be independent of one another. I believe they are related. When someone purchases a Tesla Model 3, that car sale is an EV and not a new ICE vehicle. So that is a first sale the ICE industry loses. Next, the new EV owner often trades in a used ICE car and someone else will purchase that car. Some number of car buyers will...

Florida Congressman Carlos Curbelo is getting ready to introduce a bill repealing the gas tax in exchange for a carbon tax. It seems rather odd the Miami Republican wants to chart this path, especially after the House GOP overwhelmingly denounced the notion of a carbon tax last week, but Curbelo isn’t backing down from his proposal. He told Miami Herald his proposal is just a “first step” in the discussion. When you ask this question in a vacuum, is any tax detrimental to economic growth? It’s usually going to be yes…But when you put it in context and you...

WASHINGTON - Exxon Mobil Corp. and other large oil companies are backing a carbon tax proposal put forward earlier this year by a group of former Republican leaders including James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state and a Houston attorney. The Climate Leadership Coalition, a group that includes Baker, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and former Secretary of State George Shultz, announced a list of "founding members" Tuesday that includes Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell, Total, General Motors and Johnson & Johnson. "We support @TheCLCouncil as a founding member and are working to support its policy development process," Exxon...

After nearly a century of building vehicles powered by fossil fuels, General Motors — one of the world’s largest automakers — announced Monday that the end of GM producing internal combustion engines is fast approaching. The acceleration to an all-electric future will begin almost immediately, with GM releasing two new electric models next year and an additional 18 by 2023. At a media event at GM’s technical campus in Warren, Mich., on Monday, Mark Reuss, the company’s chief of global product development, said the transition will take time, but the course has been set. “General Motors believes in an all-electric...

General Motors has put six of its cars under review, including its once breakthrough Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid, and is evaluating whether to cancel them in the coming years, according to a report from Reuters. The news comes as sales of cars continue to plummet in the U.S. and as consumers increasingly turn to SUVs and pickups. Besides the Chevrolet Volt hybrid, other vehicles believed to be under consideration for elimination iinclude the Buick LaCrosse, Cadillac CT6, Cadillac XTS, Chevrolet Impala and Chevrolet Sonic, according to Reuters. GM spokesman Jim Cain declined to comment on the report. UAW President Dennis...

Built in China, sold in the U.S.: It's a first for GM and any U.S. automaker. GM said it will sell the Chinese-built Buick Envision, a crossover SUV, in the U.S. market starting next year. The UAW attacked the plan, saying it was "a slap in the face." It said GM should reconsider its plans and instead build a version for the U.S. market at a U.S. plant. "The men and women of GM and the American taxpayers who invested so much in GM's future deserve better," said the union. GM agreed in its latest labor deal to invest $8.3...

Daniel Akerson, former CEO and chairman of General Motors, says that he has always voted Republican. That is, until Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, came along anyway. In an op-ed article for the Washington Post, Akerson explains why he will vote Democrat for his first time ever this year: