Auto Industry spanked by Obama

In what Yahoo news describes as an "unprecedented move", Obama flat our rejected the turnaround plans submitted by GE and Chrysler, "demanding fresh concessions for long-term federal aid and raising the possibility of quick bankruptcy for either ailing auto giant".

Automaker CEO Barrack Obama...Wait...No...I'm sorry, I got confused. Obama already fired GM's CEO...So I guess that would make it...Got it. Automaker CEO Super-Ultra-MEGA-CEO Obama said today that "our auto industry is not moving in the right direction fast enough to succeed". Drawing on his many decades years weeks minutes of experience in the auto industry, Obama gave GM 60 days worth of operational cash, and Chrysler 30 days.

Remember folks: We are NOT moving towards Socialism. Don't let those right wing crazies fool you. Comrade...I mean...President Obama wouldn't do that to us, the people! After all, we've only moved from injecting a little cash into a business (which we've been doing for years, after all) to hiring and firing CEOs and dictating business plans. No big deal.

In a completely unrelated story, this was written shortly after Obama was anointed leader of the galaxy: "A friend of labor and its allies sit in the White House...He's expressed support for higher fuel efficiency standards for motor vehicles...The only answer is through massive injections of money from the federal government into the economy, into the hands of people who will spend it."

Who wrote it, you ask? That would be Samuel Webb, National Chairperson for the Communist Party of America.

UPDATE: GM is going to replace a majority of the members of their Board of Directors. The Administration is going to play a "key role" in choosing these new members. Call me crazy, but that sounds just a tiny bit frightening to me.

Archie Bunker on Gun Control

Remember that show "All in the Family"? The main character, Archie Bunker, was a right wing bigot. He believed he treated everyone fairly...Which he did, in his own way. Despite his failings, though, he did occasionally have some good old fashioned common sense to give out to his liberal bum son-in-law. Here's one memorable scene where Archie is shown on TV, giving his opinion on gun control.




"What's the first thing the Communists done when they take over Russia? Gun Control."

Absolutely true. Check out this article by Dave Kopel.

"If it was up to me, I could end the skyjackings tomorrow. All you gotta do is arm all your passengers...Skyjacker ain't got no superiority there, he ain't gonna dare pull out no rod....Just pass out the pistols at the beginning of the trip, and get them back on the way out. Case closed."

Priceless.

Exit question: Why are there drive-bys in London? Answer: Criminal = Law breaker. Gun Control = Law. Therefore, Gun Control + Criminal = Armed criminals. Armed Criminals + disarmed populace = Bad News Bears.

AIG VP To AIG CEO: Go *$&# yourself.

The NY Times (you know, that non-profit newspaper) reported on a letter sent "by Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president of the American International Group’s financial products unit, to Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G." While the title of my post deftly sums it up as only I can, there is a little bit more to it. Follow the link to read it in its entirety. Its not too terribly long. Here's some excerpts:

"I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in — or responsible for — the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G. Nor were more than a handful of the 400 current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage.

After 12 months of hard work dismantling the company — during which A.I.G. reassured us many times we would be rewarded in March 2009 — we in the financial products unit have been betrayed by A.I.G. and are being unfairly persecuted by elected officials. In response to this, I will now leave the company and donate my entire post-tax retention payment to those suffering from the global economic downturn. My intent is to keep none of the money myself."

He then cuts to the mistake the CEO made, namely throwing his employees under the bus.

"At no time during the past six months that you have been leading A.I.G. did you ask us to revise, renegotiate or break these contracts — until several hours before your appearance last week before Congress.

I think your initial decision to honor the contracts was both ethical and financially astute, but it seems to have been politically unwise. It’s now apparent that you either misunderstood the agreements that you had made — tacit or otherwise — with the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, various members of Congress and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo of New York, or were not strong enough to withstand the shifting political winds.

You’ve now asked the current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. to repay these earnings. As you can imagine, there has been a tremendous amount of serious thought and heated discussion about how we should respond to this breach of trust.

As most of us have done nothing wrong, guilt is not a motivation to surrender our earnings. We have worked 12 long months under these contracts and now deserve to be paid as promised. None of us should be cheated of our payments any more than a plumber should be cheated after he has fixed the pipes but a careless electrician causes a fire that burns down the house. "

He couldn't be more right. Regardless of how the company has performed, there is no reason to vilify these employees.

"So what am I to do? There’s no easy answer. I know that because of hard work I have benefited more than most during the economic boom and have saved enough that my family is unlikely to suffer devastating losses during the current bust. Some might argue that members of my profession have been overpaid, and I wouldn’t disagree."

Let's stop and remember this is one of those ultra-greedy Capitalists, the elite who can only rise by crushing those below them. So, he's going to decide to increase his financial empire using these ill-gotten gains...Isn't he?

"That is why I have decided to donate 100 percent of the effective after-tax proceeds of my retention payment directly to organizations that are helping people who are suffering from the global downturn. This is not a tax-deduction gimmick; I simply believe that I at least deserve to dictate how my earnings are spent, and do not want to see them disappear back into the obscurity of A.I.G.’s or the federal government’s budget. Our earnings have caused such a distraction for so many from the more pressing issues our country faces, and I would like to see my share of it benefit those truly in need.

On March 16 I received a payment from A.I.G. amounting to $742,006.40, after taxes. In light of the uncertainty over the ultimate taxation and legal status of this payment, the actual amount I donate may be less — in fact, it may end up being far less if the recent House bill raising the tax on the retention payments to 90 percent stands. Once all the money is donated, you will immediately receive a list of all recipients. "

I get the impression this guy is saying what the other 70 employees are all thinking. "Why should I have to give my money back? I followed the contract. I did my job." He then follows all that up by doing something good: Donating the cash to charity.

Before we whip ourselves into a populist frenzy, we should read this and remember: Being rich doesn't make you good, or evil. It just makes you rich.

Weekly approval rating: 37%

It seems that, despite my best efforts, a pattern has emerged with these rating posts. Since they are naturally gravitating towards Fridays, I'm going to cave in and start making that the day of the post from here on out...Until I forget. Or get busy. Or bored. Or whatever.

So, on to the rating! Let's start things off positive...

#1: Obama comes out against 90% executive tax. During a 60 minutes interview the President was asked if he believed the House Bill (which I discussed in a previous blog) was constitutional. (Side note: Here's an interesting WSJ article about this very question.) His response:

"Well, I think that as a general proposition, you don't wanna be passing laws that are just targeting a handful of individuals. You wanna pass laws that have some broad applicability. And as a general proposition, I think you certainly don't wanna use the tax code to punish people. I think that you've got an pretty egregious situation here that people are understandably upset about. And so let's see if there are ways of doing this that are both legal, that are constitutional, that upholds our basic principles of fairness, but don't hamper us from getting the banking system back on track." (emphasis mine)

While the statement against was not terribly strong, it was definitely against it. Okay, so he did tell Secretary Geithner to take the bonus money out of the next installment of bailouts to go to AIG. Okay, so he still thinks the situation is 'egregious'. Nevertheless, he does realize that in this one instance the tax code should not be used as a bludgeon (belief in the other facets of our punitive tax code notwithstanding). For this tentative position, he will go up 2% in my book. (If the House bill should ever make it to his desk, which I doubt, he stands to gain a bit more if he veto's it.)

#2: Hey you! It's not a GWOT anymore! It appears the administration is trying to move away from the label "Global War on Terror", and instead prefers the term "Overseas Contingency Operation", according to Fox news. Don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly in love with GWOT. Really, it wouldn't have mattered to me what they called it (Though OCO doesn't roll off the toungue so well). Its been fine till now, what's the big deal?

But if you have to change it, if you absolutely must move away from that term, can you go with something a bit more manly? "Overseas Contingency" sounds less like "Let's go overseas and blow those bastards up!" and more like "If we happen to be traveling overseas, and we lose our man purse, what's our contingency plan?" Why don't we go ahead and make our mascot a bunch of frolicking kittens while we're at it?

Come on, fellas. Let's at least try to pretend we've got some cajones. He loses 1% for not being able to cowboy up.

So, these two things leave Obama with a net gain of 1%, leaving him at 37% for the week. Not a big news week for the guy, but hey, apparently laying low works well for him.

At this rate, he'll be back at 100% in no time!

Avon exposed: Coverup for Umbrella?

We knew this was coming. They called us crazy. They said that zombies didn't exist. They said we were nuts for reading the Survival Guide, for studying educational films (Dawn of the Dead, Zombie Diaries, etc.). They said we were looney while we discussed assault rifles vs. sniper rifles, bats vs. swords. The time for them to eat their words is now.

We have proof positive that Avon, popular cosmetics company, is actually a front organization for the notorious Umbrella Corporation. First, check out Umbrella's advertisement for the T-virus. (Thanks to i09 for the story.)



Now look at Avon's advertisement for their new "Derma-Full" product.



Side effects: Nausea, headaches, and an unquenchable lust for human flesh!

Obama backs down, & a new rating (36%)

The Washington Post reports that Obama has agreed to drop the issue of Veteran's paying for their own combat related injuries with private insurance. This is a story that has caused a tremendous amount of anger among the people I know, yet has made almost no ripple in the mass media that I can find.

I'm glad that our Commander in Chief has decided that forcing veterans to pay for injuries sustained in combat would be bad. What I'm not glad about is that it took this much effort to make him see that. Here's a few facts that I would have thought would've been obvious from the get go.

1) It would destroy retention. As it stands now, if you walk into MEPs and raise your right hand you are essentially agreeing to be sent into combat. That is the reality as it stands now. Thanks to the mistreatment of the armed forces that has been going on for years, recruitment and retention is very low. How many people will be lining up to join if they know that when they get sent to combat they could come back with healthcare costs that will haunt them for the rest of their lives?

2) Morale and order in the forces would be destroyed. If this measure had passed it would have caused chaos, both here and abroad. You'd have troops refusing to serve when called to deploy. You would have deployed soldiers refusing to leave the wire, not confident they will be taken care of if they were hurt. My mind cannot even begin to grasp the damage this would do to our fighting capabilities.

3) It's a political NIGHTMARE. Even if you don't care one bit about troop welfare or our ability to win a war. Even if you think the money we'd save would be totally worth it, how could you as a politician not see that this would've been political suicide? It's a complete no brainer. There are tons of people willing to decry the war(s), but very few Americans, much less politicians, are willing to come out against the military itself. Thankfully we learned a little bit from Vietnam here.

Obama did eventually come to his senses. For that, he'll get a +3% rating boost. That still leaves him net -7% for the whole affair, but I'm leaving that in place because this position should never have made it past an inner-office conference call, much less the newspapers. That it didn't shows either a tremendous lack of respect and concern for the American fighting man, or an even more ginormous lack of foresight and judgement. That puts his rating at 36% for now.

Thomas Paine speaks from the grave

You can put away the high powered rifle. This is not a warning of the upcoming zombie invasion (that's next post). This is actually a fella dressed up like the author of Common Sense (You can read up a bit on the real Thomas Paine, if you are as lacking in American historical knowledge as I was). The video is just over six minutes long, and is pretty entertaining.

It's called the "We the People Stimulus Package", and berates the viewer (meant to be the general American populace) for standing idly by while Congress has gone power mad. He touches on a variety of issues, from not allowing our "Non-representing Representatives" to vote themselves raises, to term limits, to my personal favorite "Throw them all out" (Them being everyone who voted for the largest spending bill in American history without bothering to read it).



I don't agree with everything he suggests. For instance, I'm not convinced compulsory service is the way to go. I'm not totally convinced we should abolish the electoral college (though I probably wouldn't shed any tears at its passing either). The complaint he has against Congress' pension plan is valid, but his information isn't accurate. You can read up on it here. Basically, they get pensions based on their length of service, but the lowest listed in the article is $14,165/year for just six years service (If only I could qualify for that kind of package). Of course, that pension doesn't take into account any of the other perks they get, which are legion. The President's name is misspelled as "Barak" at the very end.

Finally, the idea of sending tea bags to Washington is cute, but impractical. Not one of them will ever get through to any Congressman's office. They'll be intercepted and destroyed at the Post Office. Still, if the Post Office is bogged down with tons of little paper tea bags, it could still make the news and make a statement.

All of my critiques aside it is a very passionately delivered speech, and lays the blame for the excesses of government right where it belongs: The lazy American voter. Wake up, America, else you may one day rise to note that you have been enslaved.