Allison Bricker

During the remaining weeks of 2008 amidst the front page news about the worsening economic situation and the ever growing line of companies looking to stick their faux-Capitalist hands into the T.A.R.P. money, what seemed to be a sudden rash of violent crimes perpetrated against the queer community, commonly abbreviated as LGBT, began to make headlines.

• In San Francisco on December 12th, a woman was brutally gang raped by four men and left naked in the street. News reports stated, that the two adults and two teens began approaching her shouting anti-gay epithets after spotting the rainbow flag sticker on her car.¹




• In Memphis on December 23rd, a transsexual prostitute was shot at point bank range in the face and critically wounded as she attempted to exit the vehicle of her john. She is currently in critical condition.²




• In Indianapolis on December 26th, a transwoman and her partner were shot to death in their home while they slept. Police reports indicate that after several internet chats with the suspect in custody, he was invited over to the couple’s home for an as of yet undisclosed reason.³




• In New Orleans on December 29th, two men and a transgendered individual all originally from Mississippi were gunned down in their 7th Ward home by several suspects which police have thus far been unable to apprehend.⁴

The aforementioned crimes are each horrific for the utter disregard for human life and liberty. Moreover, these perpetrators all need to be held accountable for their crimes, and thus brought to justice by law enforcement. However, adding insult to injury of these horrific crimes, are those charlatans, hacks, and shills who claim to be LGBT activists and allies solely seeking to push their political agenda and their own self-aggrandizing interest by calling for additional “Hate” crime legislation.

It has been ten years since Matthew Shepard was beaten, tied to a fence, and left to die in rural Wyoming. Since then thirty-two states have added penalties for crimes motivated by sexual orientation and eleven of the thirty-two have also added criminal penalties for crimes motivated by a person’s gender-identity. Yet in California alone which has had a statute regarding crimes motivated by a sexual-orientation since 1989, crimes against homosexuals have increased 680% over the last ten years.⁵

It is obvious, that these legislatively granted protections do little to nothing in keeping us safer from those biased against us anymore so than the death penalty has prevented murder in general. Furthermore, as a lesbian, can someone please tell me how the gang rape of of a straight woman would be somehow less traumatic to her simply due to her sexuality not being a factor? It is a brutal crime regardless of motivation as are all crimes committed against another person.

Additionally, words on paper offer absolutely no protection to the victim during the actual commission of the crime. While concurrently, our over worked and underpaid law enforcement officers more often show up after the fact to begin the investigation, take statements, and pursue the suspect or suspects.

This violence is indeed a hateful act, but it is a hateful act regardless of motivation. Victims of crimes are individuals, they have a name, a family, a life. The crime is committed against them, not the loose collective of which they share some character trait. Furthermore, and most importantly, Americans already have the best defense against becoming a victim of a violent crime. This ability is not granted by law, it is ours from the moment we are born; our inherent right to self-defense. There is an immutable truth to the statement, “Armed Gays Don’t Get Bashed”. Moreover, armed individuals don’t get bashed.

Yet socialists and the media have done their best to make us fear guns and to label self-defense as an untenable option, again solely for their political agenda. A study conducted by the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy subsequently published in the New York Times⁶, showed that higher gun ownership in European countries equated to far lower rates of violent crimes. Secondly, ask yourself this, when was the last time you heard of someone attempting to shoot up a gun show. Fact is random mass shootings are always perpetrated against populations known to be completely disarmed such as in a school.

It baffles my mind, why those of us who do indeed find kinship within the LGBT community would turn to the state for our protection? The state; the same entity with such a long history of egregious crimes against us that after years of beatings, imprisonment, harassment, and draconian confinement in mental institutions led to the community rising up in the Stonewall⁷ and Compton Cafeteria Riots⁸. Yet now we turn to this same entity and beg like chattle for protection from their snake-oil pens and empty promises?

Source(s): ¹Daily News “Arrests made in gang rape of San Francisco lesbian” • ² ABC News 27 - Memphis “Transgendered Woman Shot in the Face” • ³ Bilerico “Transwoman and Her Boyfriend Murdered in Indianapolis” • ⁴ Out In New Orleans “Three Black Gay Men Murdered in New Orleans, Police Hunt for Suspects” • ⁵ Hate Crimes in California - 2007 • ⁶ Harvard Journal of Law and Public Police/New York Times “Murder and Guns” • ⁷ Stonewall and Byond: Lesbian and Gay Culture • ⁸ Screaming Queens - The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria

Joseph Marohl

Six days after the inauguration—six days after Pastor Rick Warren, looking like a reupholstered Jerry Falwell, bestows his blessings on America and Barack Obama’s Presidency—the Chinese New Year begins.

It will be the Year of the Ox. Oxen, as you probably know, are castrated bulls.

Lacking a true gift for superstition, I assign little real importance to this fact. But as horoscopy goes, Chinese astrology has always served me better than the Western version. Under the latter, I am an Aries, therefore, stubborn, egoistic, combative, impulsive to the point of foolhardiness, all moral sense subjugated to raging lust. Fair enough. Under the former, I am a Snake, therefore, carnal, sensuous, intellectual, artistic, unforgiving with a preternaturally long memory for grudges. Bull’s eye.

The United States is in deeper debt to China—$585 billion—than to any other nation, only another reason to believe our collective futures lie in Chinese hands. So let me peer into my weathered, brittle paperbound edition of Theodora Lau’s The Handbook of Chinese Horoscopes, copyright 1980, to see what the new year holds in store.

Lau opens her section on The Year of the Ox with the statement: “We will feel the yoke of responsibility coming down on us this year.” Okay, so after 2008, we could all see this one coming, though Lau pegged it 28 years ago. She follows with “The trials and tribulations the Ox year brings will be mainly on the home front. It is a good time to settle domestic affairs and put your house in order.” Henry Paulson should only have been this prescient.

After stating that the Ox views politics and diplomacy, along with frivolities of every sort, with indifference, Lau begins to sound like my dad: “No work, no pay! … The Spartan influence of the Ox will be a constantly cracking whip over our heads. [T]he year of the Ox favors discipline. … This is no time for tricky shortcuts.”

Just so I get her point, Lau aims a closing shot directly at me: “For the rebels, it may be worthwhile to point out that although the stoical Ox is soft-spoken, he carries a big stick, and this is his year.”

In particular, the year 2009 will be the year of the “Earth” Ox—not a nod to environmentalism, though no doubt cleaning up the mess we’ve made of the planet is part of the work cut out for us. The Earth Ox favors duty over creativity, practicality over idealism, stability over progress, sense over sensibility, endurance over complaint, and determination over cynicism.

On a happier note, children born next year can be expected to whine less (“This child will not be a crybaby”), value privacy more, and exhibit patience, perseverance, and responsibility. Ox-people thrive on discipline and order (Richard Nixon, the Emperor Hirohito and Adolph Hitler were all Ox-people, but, happily, so were Walt Disney, Vincent Van Gogh, and Charlie Chaplin).

Astrology aside, it seems clear to me that we have work to do in the coming year. Given the work’s immense importance—to our pocketbooks, to peace, to justice, to life, to the preservation of what it means to be human—it’s important that we look at the tasks ahead with all the optimism we can humanly muster. We must persevere to survive.

We must not panic, and we must contain our worries and sense of dread. We need to gain or regain a sense of the common good—set aside our private interests, if necessary, even perhaps our high ideals (at least the ones so high we can’t actually see the tops of)—and pitch in to make things better than they are.

Even without lunar insights, I can pretty well assure you that we will not entirely solve the mess we’re in—and are about to slip into deeper—even with God’s and Obama’s help. But we can take a point or two from the stoical Ox, and whine and moan a little less, however Mad Max the world becomes, and temper the cynicism we’ve so carefully cultivated since our freshmen years at college with a little kindness and humane understanding.

One certainty I subscribe to, which all forms of astrology support: Things will change.

Allison Bricker

Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) discussing the auto bailout given to the Big 3 by President Bush.

Joseph Marohl

I’m hard pressed to find much to distinguish what director Gus Van Sant accomplishes in his biopic Milk that was not already accomplished in the Academy Award-winning 1984 documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, directed by Rob Epstein.

Both are excellent films. Both use archival footage to chronicle the life and times of America’s first openly gay public official. Both use Milk’s taped last will—recorded in the event of his assassination—as the thread upon which to construct the plot. Both regard their central figure as both a devious politician and a true American idealist.

What most obviously distinguishes the more recent film is the bravura performance (another one) by Sean Penn as Milk. Penn breaks my heart in this. Not just because of his character’s fate, which, like the Epstein documentary, opens the film, so that the imminence of death is felt at every step, but mostly because Penn captures Milk’s magnetism and mannerisms, along with, more profoundly, merely human moments—like the thrill of falling in love or fighting for a great, just cause.

Van Sant’s film covers Milk’s life from 1970 to his death in 1978 and appropriately reduces the events subsequent to Dan White’s assassination of Milk and Mayor George Moscone to a brief captioned epilogue.

Instead, it provides deeper insight to Milk’s loving relationships with Scott Smith (James Franco) and Jack Lira (Diego Luna). Van Sant is able to use these relationships to portray a more complex picture of gay life—not pleading for tolerance and equality, as did the documentary—but showing how the personal and the political can converge and clash and presenting us the audience with a fuller panoply of gay characters than we usually get to see at the movies.

Josh Brolin’s nuanced performance as Dan White is also remarkable. Whereas Epstein’s film mainly presents White as the iceberg that would eventually sink Milk’s Titanic, Van Sant’s film shows the pressures of maintaining and upholding hetero-normativity as a political issue and the toll of staking too much of one’s self-identity on one’s being “normal.”

What makes the new film in many ways a more (or differently) elegant film than its predecessor is its attempt to show how, over and over, Milk and White attempt and fail to reach out to each other—especially in a realistic scene of White’s drunkenly pathetic exchange with Milk at the latter’s birthday party—and this is the tragic heart of the film.

Joseph Marohl

Perhaps it would be easy to overestimate the importance of Barack Obama’s invitation to Rick Warren to speak at the 2009 Inauguration. Warren is the bestselling author of The Purpose Driven® Life, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, and outspoken critic of gay rights and same-sex marriage,.

It’s not as if Warren’s been asked to join the President’s Cabinet, after all. And, besides, the Lesbian and Gay Band Association is invited to march in the Presidential Inaugural Parade, having played only on the sidelines for the two Clinton Inaugurations.

Warren compares homosexuality to incest, polygamy, and adultery. He makes false claims, such as that marriage between one man and one woman has been the model of all religions for five thousand years (polygamy, for instance, has routinely reoccurred as an element of religious observance, and revered patriarchs such as Jacob, Moses, and Solomon practiced it, and even today a number of religious groups and Christian denominations accept same-sex marriage).

Still, Rick Warren is not Fred Phelps—Warren, like former governor and current Fox News commentator Mike Huckabee, presents a friendlier, even-tempered, and apple-cheeked face to bigotry.

It’s fairly clear to me what Obama is trying to do—reach out to social conservatives and evangelical Christians who have, as Warren supposedly has, expressed an interest in dialogue with those who do not share their views.

But Warren has not been open to such dialogue, particularly with gays. What Warren wants, like many evangelicals and conservatives, is a platform for criticizing other people’s lifestyles, while claiming to be persecuted if his own life choices and opinions are criticized or even questioned.

What Obama fails to recognize is that sitting down to dialogue is one thing, but it’s something else entirely to give a platform to a man who calls for the continued political disenfranchisement of a small but significant part of Obama’s base. Obama did the same thing back in October 2007, when he led a “gospel tour” on the South Carolina leg of his Presidential campaign, fronted by Donnie McClurkin, who wrapped up every show with a 15-minute “prayer” thanking God for delivering him from the debasement of homosexuality. When GLBT activists objected, Obama’s people used the “dialogue” defense and then told the GLBTs to pipe down and stop being “divisive.” Some dialogue.

Undoubtedly one reason gay people don’t get much respect from political candidates or representatives in government is that we’re a minority—representing perhaps less than the proverbial 10 percent of the total population. On top of that, we are one of the merely two or three minorities (off the top of my head, I can’t think of another one, though) one can safely ridicule and denounce in sweeping blanket generalizations—not to mention find defenders for physically assaulting, even killing. In fact, when gay people simply complain that they are mistreated, they are accused of being politically divisive and small minded, endangering children, and persecuting Christians.

Part of the problem, too, has been sloppy strategizing by gay rights activists. The whole issue of whether gays are born gay or choose to be gay is irrelevant to whether gays deserve the same rights as any other citizen or human being. Did biological determinism do anything really to speed up women’s and blacks’ struggles for justice and equality? If one could choose to be black, would such a choice justify discriminatory practices against that person? Even if God can and does “cure” the habit of gossip or the desire to eat shellfish (both condemned in the Bible), would such miracles justify passing laws and amendments that forbid basic legal privileges to shrimp-loving blabbermouths?

It’s also a bit insensitive for Obama to ask a vocal supporter of California’s Proposition 8 to speak, since, for many lesbians and gays, it rehashes and confirms the conflicted feelings of elation and insult that the November victories of Obama and 8 evoked. If Obama sympathizes with gay people’s struggle for equal treatment under the law, as he claims, why is he insensitive and/or indifferent to their concerns and interests?

Sometimes I have to wonder whether Democrats choose to be hypocrites or whether they’re just born that way.

Allison Bricker

At the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 18th, 1787, as Mr. Benjamin Franklin emerged from “Independence Hall”, a Mrs. Powell approached and asked, “Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Dr. Franklin quickly replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

Unfortunately fellow readers, we did not heed Dr. Franklin’s warning, and in the distracted haste of modern life, we lost our beloved Republic to the plutocratic oligarchs and their brand of corporatist democracy.

It is not difficult to look around and conclude that we are living through some very strange and troubling times. We have become a nation that allowed President Bush & Company to successfully legalize torture¹. A nation which gave little to no pause as the Federal government expanded the surveillance apparatus, wholly gutting the remnants of the 4th Amendment². Moreover, by abdicating our responsibility to demand both a Declaration of War, and justification thereof, we have become a nation willing to embrace the perverse notion of preemptive war vis-a-vi, the Bush Doctrine³.

With every opening bell on Wall Street, we see a continuous line of failed pseudo-capitalists all too eager to stick their corrupt slime ridden hands into the T.A.R.P. bailout money. Money coerced from the paychecks of ‘We the People’, doled out as corporate welfare to the politically connected. We are bearing witness to the dawn of another economic depression, caused wholly by mismanagement of monetary policy and governance by the central planners of state.

However, even with the hand of oppression attempting to asphyxiate the natural sustenance of liberty, the answer my fellow readers is not anarchy. Both tyranny and anarchy are extreme belief structures residing on opposite ends of the political spectrum. Whereby tyrannical oligarchs demand absolute rule and control over every aspect of the people, anarchy proves to be no less tyrannical in its end result. Throughout history the ensuing chaos brought on by revolutionary anarchists always leads to the emergence of a new tyrant.

For example, immediately following the French Revolution, the lawlessness that ensued birthed what became to be known as “The Reign of Terror”. During this time between 20,000 and 40,000 French citizens were executed as “enemies of the revolution”. The bulk of the executions were exacted upon the working class, with many found guilty of hoarding food and supplies.⁴

As a secondary example, we can look to the Russian Revolutions of 1917. The first began in March of 1917, which saw Czar Nicolas the II resign after massive civil unrest. Shortly thereafter anarchy ensued, but by Summer the anarchists had formed factions and in turn set up a provisional government. However being self-appointed, power struggles between the factions led to continued violence. By October of the same year, the Bolshevik faction called for an open revolt, and again violence spread across Russia. The Bolsheviks emerged as the successful faction and with Lenin as their leader, immediately began implementing their philosophy of socialist communism on all of the people of Russia.⁵

It could also be said, that our own Republic, had it not been under the wise guidance of the Founding Fathers, could have easily disintegrated into anarchy following the Revolution. The debate which took place in Philadelphia during the sweltering Summer of 1787 resulted in the creation of a system of delicate checks and balances. A system of governance divided amongst a weak central authority and the constituent political units, i.e. the several states. The Founders knew all too well the natural tendency of government was to gain and encroach upon liberty, but they also knew that leaving the tenuous union under the sole guidance of the Articles of Confederation, would lead to disparate factions. Which in the end stood the good chance of wholly squandering the principles of the American Revolution.

We need not reinvent the wheel to save our country. We need not jettison the sacrifices of the Founding generation for utter lawlessness, only to then teeter-totter back into tyrannical despotism.  We need only restore the Constitution to its foundation upon Federalism, in order to set our Republic back onto the path towards a more perfect union.

Thus in conclusion, it can be said that anarchy is simply an antithetic knee jerk reaction to tyrannical oppression; or perhaps a transitional bridge from one dictator to another, but it cannot and should not be said to be a legitimate solution.

Source(s): ¹Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogations in the Global War on Terrorism: Assessment of Legal, Historical, Policy, and Operational Considerations • ² Washington Post “Obama Defends Compromise on New FISA Bill” • ³ New York Times “Editorial Observer; President Bush and the Middle East Axis of Ambiguity” • ⁴ “Reign of Terror - 1793-1794″ by: Wilfred Brenton Kerr (1985) London: Porcupine Press • ⁵ “The Class Struggle” Vol.I, No.4, November-December 1917

Allison Bricker

During a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister al-Malaki in Baghdad, an Iraqi journalist throws his shoes at the President.

Joseph Marohl

Previous epochs had their axioms: “Know thyself” and “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” The motto of the twenty-first century is “Do something.” A variant on Nike’s “Just do it.”

With astonishing vagueness, leaders and populace alike seem to believe that doing something, anything whatever, about the events that distress us is always and in every way preferable to doing nothing at all. Such is modern faith—not simply leaping into darkness, as Kierkegaard once described it, but leaping in any direction.

Thank God we are not beings capable of reason, which would only complicate matters.

To date, the “something” we have done includes invading Afghanistan, giving the President unimpeded war powers, invading Iraq, renaming French fries “freedom fries,” justifying torture, relinquishing civil liberties in travel and communications, selecting Sarah Palin as a running mate, bailing out lending agencies (with no or few strings attached), taking bids on seats on the U.S. Senate, and now bailing out the American automobile industry.

Recently, December 10th, queers were asked to “disappear” for the day as a protest (!) against the limitations on gay rights and legal privileges in states like California, Florida, and Arizona—a purely symbolic gesture (but “something” still) that, as a tactic, seems more in line with Fred Phelps than Harvey Milk.*

I fully understand the potential destructiveness of immovable idealism—certainly I wouldn’t say that we should wait on the best or perfect solution—or even a “sure thing”—before taking any action at all.

And I understand the concept of “analysis paralysis.” Only I don’t see much analysis at all—just a lot of hand-wringing—“To do nothing … would be irresponsible” (PM Gordon Brown, 11/24/2008)—and empty gestures which, as even the folks who propose them admit, do little or nothing to solve our problems in the long run.

***

*And same-sex marriage itself sometimes appears to be just “something” to struggle for in opposition to general discriminatory practices still in effect five years after the Supreme Court threw out states’ unconstitutional sodomy laws—not to mention the disturbing upsurge in anti-gay violence (which Governor Mike Huckabee, on The View, had the nerve to equate with some gays’ busting some pro-8 woman’s tacky Styrofoam cross during an anti-8 protest—after, reportedly, she had pushed a disabled guy down to the ground in her push to get up close to the speakers—yeah, Mike, clubbing to death and damaging a tsotski, pretty much the same thing).

Allison Bricker

A Declassified March 1962 memo, titled “OPERATION NORTHWOODS”, indicates that the Joint Chiefs of Staff outlined multiple possible scenarios to justify military invasion of Cuba. The 15 page memo approved by the entire Chiefs of Staff including Chairman Lemnitzer, received a TOP SECRET - SPECIAL HANDLING - NO FORWARDING designation. Not only does the memo contain highly immoral and despicable acts to be perpetrated by the United States Military in order to incite a war, the war-mongering scoundrels inside the Pentagon sought to keep this from as many of their colleagues as possible.

The memo specifically states that no U.S. officers involved in NATO nor the staff or chairman of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations should be in receipt or view this memo. The Joint Chiefs knew that they would need world opinion on their side in order to secure resolutions authorizing a unilateral invasion of Cuba. Thus, these traitors to the Republic needed to keep their treasonous acts under tight wrap, stating:

World opinion, and the United Nations forum should be favorably affected by developing the international image of the Cuban government as rash and irresponsible, and as an alarming and unpredictable threat to the peace of the Western Hemisphere.

The memo then goes on to list numerous scenarios for false flag terror attacks to be perpetrated by C.I.A. and U.S. Military within the United States and its military installation in order to rally the American people to a war footing thereby justifying an invasion. Specifically the memo suggests:

For those unfamiliar with the phrase “Remember the Maine”, it is a reference to the explosion and subsequent sinking of the U.S.S. Maine which propelled America into “Spanish-American War of 1898″. However unlike the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine which remains suspect to both historians and academics, due to a lack of substantiated evidence, here the Joint Chiefs of Staff specifically put on paper a desire to sink one of our own ships in order to further their lust for Cuban blood.

Further, the memo was not confined solely to military target as the memo goes on to suggest sinking a raft full of Cubans attempting to land in Florida. However the most eerie suggestion for a phony incident is as follows:

The fact that this memo even exists should give Americans full pause as the war-mongers such as Defense Secretary Gates who has been retained in his post by President-Elect Obama continue their macho saber rattling against Iran. While Iran is a disgusting theocracy, it is not a threat to America nor have they provoked us by attack. Let us remember this when the drumbeats begin again.

Our own C.I.A. postulates that their interference in toppling foreign governments coupled with the Plutocratic Oligarchs perverse blood-thirsty version of an interventionist foreign policy is prime causation for the September 11th attacks.

Fortunately when this memo was sent to then Secretary of Defense, Robert MacNamara he never acted upon it. Shortly their after President Kennedy removed the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Lemnitzer. Nevertheless, if we the people who are tasked with both keeping a watchful eye on government and as the guardians of our liberties, must be aware of the sickening depths of propaganda our government will go to in order to pull this nation into another costly, bloody war.

Source(s): Joint Chiefs of Staff - MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY of DEFENSE

Allison Bricker

Update: The 2nd video of Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) speaking out against FEDERAL RESERVE and monetary policy is now available. Sadly, the House passed the auto bailout bill Wednesday evening. The only hope to stop the auto bailout now rests with the Senate. Every Dollar given to the Corportacracy, is another Dollar borrowed from foreign creditors and thus one more Dollar mortgaged against our future generations.

In a capitalism with a free market, companies who make poor choices fail. They then go into bankruptcy and either change their flawed business models or are absorbed by competitors or cease operations. By bailing out these incompetent automotive industry executives, it further substantiates two very important points:

1. We in America do not have a Capitalist Free Market, we have allowed our Republic to become a Corporatism, where business failures are not an option as long as you grease the hands of politicians and special interests. Thereby causing motivation for additional mismanaged companies to seek bailouts.




2. The current crop of plutocratic oligarchs are determined to cushion their own unearned wealth and lifestyles while caring not one iota for us, our children or our grandchildren who will suffer from a declining standard of living.

These reckless spending policies must cease or our Republic will fail, it is not an opinion, it is not speculation, it is fact. The era of buy now, pay later is over. Please if you are taking the time to read this post and have thus read this far, then please phone your Senators and demand that they vote NO on the automotive industry bailout.

Let us give them this chance to show that they understand their job descriptions and oaths of office.

Today on the House floor, Representative Ron Paul lambasted his colleagues in Congress for the endless bailouts they have issued over the last 6 months. He mentioned sarcastically during his speech that he ran the risk of being dismissed for referencing the Constitution, but stressed that Congress must learn to restrain itself to its Constitutional bounds or run the risk of the recession worsening.

The House is scheduled to vote on another $15 Billion Dollars for the Big 3 automakers. The AP is reporting:

The proposal would attach an array of conditions to the auto bailout money, including some of the same restrictions imposed on banks as part of the Wall Street rescue. Among them are limits on executive compensation, a prohibition on paying dividends, and requirements that the government share in future profits and taxpayers be repaid before any other shareholders.

The proposal gives the car czar say-so over any major business decisions by the automakers while they’re taking advantage of federal aid. The companies would have to open their books to the government, including informing the overseer of any transaction of $25 million or more.

Source(s): C-SPAN • Associated Press, “Top Senate Democrat sees auto bailout by Wednesday”