I can feel the pain of my home state of Michigan (and no, I'm not referring to the bitter cold temperatures we're experiencing here along the Front Range). The angst coming from the Motor City and its environs is palpable. One of the most poignant examples, at least from my perspective, relates to a scheduled weekend appearance by Kentucky's U.S. Senator (and former Detroit Tigers pitcher) Jim Bunning. Detroit Free Press columnist Brian Dickerson ripped Bunning a new one after the Republican Senator voted against the UAW's federal government bailout deal. Dickerson wrote:He may be losing his marbles, but U.S. senator and ex-Tiger pitching great Jim Bunning still has big brass cojones. After all, most of the GOP senators … [Read more...]
Have You Seen Just How Big a United Auto Workers Contract Is?
(Via Michelle Malkin) The Labor Pains blog has a great visual and links to the huge labor contracts negotiated between the United Auto Workers (UAW) and Detroit's Big Three:Ever wondered what a UAW contract looks like? Here is all 22 pounds of it (in this case, Ford’s 2,215 page 2007 master contract; Coke can is for scale and because I was thirsty). I’ll tell you this much, those 2,215 pages don’t include much regarding efficiency and competitiveness. What you’ll find are hundreds of rules, regulations, and letters of understanding that have hamstrung the auto companies for years. One of my claims to distinction (certainly not fame) is I have read all 45 or so collective bargaining agreements between Colorado school districts … [Read more...]
Chesser Gives Climate Change Alarmism a Well-Deserved Slap in the Face
A great read for this Friday is Paul Chesser's well-documented rant in the American Spectator. He gets it rolling as follows:Someone please tell me it's about to end. That it's O-V-A-H in New England. That's it's D-U-N in Rio Linda. That it's fini in France and finito in Italy. I've experienced a build-up of evidence that undermines climate change alarmism, and I'm at the tipping point. My head has formed a canopy of truth-trapping that can only contain so much before my circuits overheat, blood pressure elevates, and my faith in broad-based common sense melts away. So please: polish it off in Poznan -- wishful thinking, you might think, but signs point to the beginning of that end. Read on. As global warming pathologists insist that … [Read more...]
Auto Bailout Dead for Now: GOP, UAW Won’t Strike Last-Minute Deal
Update: Colorado's own Ken Salazar voted for the bailout. John Hawkins at Right Wing News reports within the past hour that the automotive bailout deal is dead in the U.S. Senate for this year. Confirmed by the Associated Press:A $14 billion emergency bailout for U.S. automakers has collapsed in the Senate after the United Auto Workers refused to accede to Republican demands for swift wage cuts. Michelle Malkin reports only 52 votes in the U.S. Senate, eight short of the 60 needed for cloture to move the auto bailout forward. Good news. If this economic disaster ends up going forward, the Democrats and their UAW sugar-daddies will own it. … [Read more...]
Associated Press Notices Barack Obama’s “Questionable Associations”
About 5 weeks after the election. (H/T Gene Kinsey) At the top of the list? Fellow Democrat Gov. Rod "Pay-for-Play" Blagojevich, of whom the AP writes:Obama's circle of major Illinois political allies and supporters is largely separate from Blagojevich's, with two major exceptions. Both Obama and Blagojevich got extensive money and support from Chicago businessman Antoin "Tony" Rezko. At least one top aide to Obama, Michael Strautmanis, previously worked for Blagojevich. But Blagojevich's disdain for Obama was clear in court documents released Tuesday after the Illinois governor was arrested. Blagojevich, accused by federal prosecutors of conspiring to sell or trade for personal benefits the Senate seat left vacant by Obama, was … [Read more...]
Would Ed Perlmutter Vote our Taxpayer Dollars to Bail Out the Big Three?
From The Hill (via Rocky Mountain Right):Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) sat on an exercise bicycle at the Wheat Ridge Recreation center this weekend, hearing unvarnished advice from constituents about the auto bailout. “It was one after another,†Perlmutter recounted. “One guy would come up and say, ‘You can’t let them fail.’ The next guy would say, ‘Let them go bankrupt.’ †Perlmutter said he was leaning in favor of the bailout, but couldn’t say for certain until he sees final language. As a constituent of Ed Perlmutter who is paying very close attention to these developments, count me among the latter: Let them go bankrupt. It's the bitter medicine needed, certainly not a vast government takeover at the … [Read more...]
And on the 12th Day of Christmas…
So now that I've become famous enough to make the title of a post concerning my "eleven Christmas wishes", I feel impelled to respond. Seriously, though, a watcher's post - somewhat more thoughtful and reasonable than previous endeavors of post-election analysis - requires some significant clarifications. It is because I believe this debate about the future of conservatism and the GOP is important that I wade in so thoroughly in this post that so few of you will actually read from beginning to end. Here are the overarching problems I see with a watcher's declarations. First, he has a strong tendency to lump all "social conservatives" into a box without distinction, shake them up, and spill them out with one accusation after another. How … [Read more...]
Please Pray for Dong Yun Yoon
Update: Michelle Malkin posts an address where you can send Mr. Yoon an encouraging note, as well as pictures of the beautiful family lost. The story of San Diego's Dong Yun Yoon really moved me to write. Why? Because of the amazing character he showed in his response to the horrific tragedy -- the crash of a Marine fighter jet, caused by engine failure, into his home that killed his wife, 2 young daughters, and mother-in-law:Yoon, 37, pressed a handkerchief to his face and seemed to stagger upon viewing what little remained: a charred garage wall, piles of blackened beams, the family's Toyota Corolla -- miraculously undamaged -- parked on the street, and flowers placed nearby in memory of his family. "I believe my wife and two babies … [Read more...]
What if Blagojevich Had Put Barack’s Senate Seat for Sale on eBay?
Hats off to the creative guys at the Illinois Policy Institute, a sister think tank of my own Independence Institute, for a clever response to the Rod Blagojevich scandal: A "Senate Seat for Sale" eBay page. Definitely good for a laugh. … [Read more...]
Jared Polis: A Better Idea than the Government Auto Bailout Proposal
Newly-elected Congressman Jared Polis shows he has a lot more sense than your average Democrat - at least on one great issue of importance in our day. From the opinion page of today's Wall Street Journal, Polis writes about the proposed automotive bailouts:Most members of Congress and staffers on the Hill are smart people, but we should not pretend that we are better at what are so clearly other people's jobs. One of the tremendously difficult tasks that we are ill-equipped to successfully orchestrate is restoring these three failing companies to health. As one of the members of Congress with a strong business background, I know what I don't know in business. While I hold my colleagues in great esteem, I doubt their abilities as turnaround … [Read more...]
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