Well, folks, welcome to the end of the world - East Coast, USA Edition!
Or so they're telling us... and telling us... and telling us...
Up here in Harriman, NY it's... er... raining.
Of course schools are closed... hundreds - no... make that thousands... - of school employees are being paid to... er... stay home.
Amazingly... my library is open!
Remote blogging... here we go!
5 comments:
http://nlpc.org/cached/fiat-says-chrysler-jeep-production-may-move-italy.html?q=stories/2012/10/29/fiat-says-chrysler-jeep-production-may-move-italy
Coming hot on the heels of speculation that some Jeep production may be moved to China comes a bombshell.... Fiat is now considering moving Chrysler and Jeep production to Italy.
* CHANT IT WITH ME, MY FRIENDS! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!
"To counter the severe slump in European sales, (Fiat CEO Sergio) Marchionne is considering building Chrysler models in Italy, including Jeeps, for export to North America.
(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
The Italian government is evaluating tax rebates on export goods to help Fiat.
(*MORE SARCASTIC APPLAUSE*)
Mitt Romney has rightfully criticized the Obama Administration for handing over Chrysler to the Italians and now leaving the fate of American workers in the hands of Fiat management. Fiat is not a healthy company and the auto industry is in as great a risk as ever. The insistence that all is well by those with political motivations does not mask the danger. More jobs are at risk of being lost and more taxpayer money may be lost as well.
Let's face it, the auto bailouts were not well thought out. Perhaps General Motors' CEO, Dan Akerson, said it best when he said, "The good thing about our bankruptcy is that it took only 39 days. The bad news is that bankruptcy took only 39 days. If we had been there longer, people would have asked these questions... '
The whole auto industry bailout process was rushed through with the wrong primary motivation of protecting the politically powerful UAW's interests. The Obama Administration never considered that giving Chrysler to Fiat was not a great idea and could eventually hurt the same UAW workers it was trying to protect.
Manufacturers like Chrysler and GM are at a competitive disadvantage due to UAW obligations that were not properly addressed in the [faux] bankruptcy process.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203611404577042181534236806.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
House Republicans won an historic midterm election in 2010, picking up 63 seats. They also gained six Senate seats...
* BUT IT WASN'T ENOUGH TO TAKE BACK THE SENATE. HARRY REID AND THE DEMS WERE ABLE TO RETAIN CONTROL OF THE SENATE.
Back in charge in 2011, Mr. Reid proceeded to stop nearly everything that House Republicans passed. President Obama hasn't even had to sweat a veto fight because nothing escapes Mr. Reid's lost world.
Consider the record:
In 2011 and 2012 the House passed more than three-dozen economic or jobs-related bills and with only a few exceptions they died in the Senate without a vote.
* WITHOUT... A... VOTE...
Then there is the Democratic failure on their constitutional obligation of passing a budget.
House Republicans passed their budgets in each of the past two years in the spring. The latest one, crafted by Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan, contained $4.5 trillion in deficit reduction - at least twice as much as Mr. Obama's budget proposal.
By contrast, the Senate failed to pass any budget in 2012.
Or 2011.
Or 2010.
The Senate hasn't passed a budget in more than 1,200 days.
Sorry, Harry, you can't blame that on a Republican filibuster, because it takes only 51 votes to pass a Senate budget resolution.
In 2011 and 2012 the Senate Budget Committee never even drafted a budget, thus inspiring a House bill to dock the pay of Senate Budget Committee Members for not doing their job.
Mr. Reid even declared in 2011 that it would be "foolish for us to do a budget," no doubt because he thought that would allow voters to see that what Democrats really want is even more spending and higher taxes. This would have made life difficult for vulnerable Democratic incumbents who pass themselves off as moderates in election years, such as Pennsylvania's Bob Casey, Montana's Jon Tester and Florida's Bill Nelson.
So Democrats simply sat back and took shots at the Ryan budget.
Meanwhile, these same incumbents are now campaigning at home as champions of domestic energy, lower taxes, spending restraint and regulatory relief - everything the Democratic Senate helped to kill.
The Senate also failed in 2010 and 2012 to pass a single appropriations bill. According to an analysis by Senate Republicans, that hadn't happened before in the 150-year history of the current spending process.
* FOLKS... YEAH... THIS IS THE WSJ EDITORIAL PAGE AND YEAH... ANALYSIS BY SENATE REPUBLICANS... BUT IT IS ALL TRUE. I'VE BEEN BLOGGING ABOUT THIS STUFF FOR YEARS!
This year the Senate even failed to enact a national defense authorization bill, which almost never happens.
The House passed a bill to avert the tax cliff looming in January, but the Senate failed to act on that too.
Last week Mr. Reid's chief Senate lieutenant, Chuck Schumer of New York, warned that Democrats will stop any attempt at bipartisan tax reform next year, calling the idea "obsolete." He's essentially promising pre-emptive gridlock in 2013 no matter who wins.
Voters can be forgiven for not knowing all this because the media mostly ignore Senate obstructionism these days.
* YEP.
One reason the Reagan policy revolution became law in 1981 is because Republicans scared enough Democrats into cooperating by picking up a net gain of 12 Senate seats in 1980 to gain control 53-46.
If voters want to break the gridlock of the past two years and start addressing the country's urgent fiscal and economic problems, they're going to have to elect a Republican Senate as well as Mr. Romney.
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2012/10/17/Obamas-Auto-Bailout-Was-Really-a-Hefty-Union-Payoff.aspx#page1
In the second presidential debate, Mr. Obama attacked early on, saying, “Governor Romney said we should let Detroit go bankrupt.
”Note to Obama fans: GM did go bankrupt – filing for Chapter 11 protection against its creditors on June 1, 2009. It’s what happened next that the president can take credit for – a handout of $49.5 billion in taxpayer money to GM, some $27 billion of which remains outstanding, and another $17 billion to its financial arm Ally Financial, which still owes $14.7 billion.
In other words, Obama didn’t save General Motors - American taxpayers did; with an assist from the Federal Reserve.
While liberals rant about the bailouts of Wall Street, it is worthwhile noting that of the $417 billion in TARP funds spent to stabilize the economy, only $65 billion has yet to be repaid – and more than half of that is owed by GM and Chrysler.
* DON'T BUY THAT "REPAID" CRAP, FOLKS. THE BANKS WERE ALLOWED (ENCOURAGED, ACTUALLY!) TO TAKE TARP FUNDS AT NEAR ZERO-INTEREST AND THEN TO TURN AROUND AND "INVEST" THEM IN GOVERNMENT TREASURY BONDS (CREATING GOVERNMENT DEBT!) PAYING HIGHER INTEREST. PAPER TRANSACTIONS YIELDING REAL PROFITS FOR THE BANKS AND REAL DEBT COSTS FOR THE TAXPAYERS. THE ULTIMATE CRONY CAPITALISM.
* FOLKS... IMAGINE... YOUR BANK SAYS TO YOU, "WE'LL LOAN YOU $10,000,000 AT 2% INTEREST AND THEN ALLOW YOU TO BUY OUR BONDS PAYING 4% INTEREST. OH... AND ADD TO THIS... IMAGINE THESE "BANK BONDS" WERE TOTALLY "SAFE" BECAUSE THEY WERE BACKED BY THE FULL FAITH AND CREDIT OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.
(*SMIRK*)
* YEAH... I'LL GIVE YOU FOLKS A MOMENT TO DO THE MATH... A 2% NET RETURN ON $10,000,000 - THAT'S $200,000 GRAND, FOLKS! HOW'D YA LIKE TO BE GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE $200,000 FOR NO WORK AND NO RISK?
* NOW, FOLKS... CONSIDER... INSTEAD OF TALKING "LOANS" AND "INVESTMENTS" IN THE TENS OF MILLIONS... WITH TARP WE WERE TALKING THE TENS OF BILLIONS. THE CONCEPT HOWEVER REMAINED THE SAME. NO WONDER THEY WERE ABLE TO 'REPAY" THE TARP LOANS!3
* FOLKS... TARP WAS A SCAM!
The latest TARP report from the Congressional Budget Office says that the government invested nearly $80 billion in those two auto giants and that taxpayers are still on the hook for roughly $37 billion.
In the same report, the CBO projects that handouts to Wall Street firms will ultimately net the government a cool $11 billion profit.
* ONLY IN A BOOKKEEPING SENSE. (FOLKS... REMEMBER... THE GOVERNMENT RUNS AT A HUGE OPERATING DEFICIT. THIS WASN'T MONEY THEY "WITHDREW" FROM THEIR "STASH" AND LEND OUT. THEY SIMPLY CREATED IT OUT OF THIN AIR... JUST ENTRIES ON A COMPUTER SCREEN TO KEEP TRACK. ONLY THE BANKERS RECEIVED REAL MONEY THAT THEY COULD THEN TURN AROUND AND SPEND.)
They say the auto industry...will never pay back taxpayers. According to the congressional bean counters, $20 billion is gone for good.
Where did that money go?
Mainly, it went to paying off debts owed by GM and Chrysler, and – in an historic distortion of our bankruptcy proceedings – to securing the pensions and livelihoods of UAW workers.
It turns out the real debt was that of Mr. Obama to organized labor, which had ponied up some $400 million to help him defeat John McCain.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/331892/benghazi-obama-emerges-fog-war-bing-west
Our ambassador to Libya was killed in our own consulate in Benghazi on the night of September 11, 2012.
For the next six weeks, President Obama repeated the same talking point: The morning after the attack, he [supposedly] ordered increased security in our embassies in the region.
Suddenly, on the campaign trail in Denver on October 26, he changed his story. “The minute I found out what was happening . . . I gave the directive,” he said, “to make sure we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to do. I guarantee you everybody in the CIA and military knew the number-one priority was making sure our people are safe.”
* IN OTHER WORDS... ON OCT. 26 PRESIDENT OBAMA UNILATERALLY CHANGED HIS TIME-LINE STORY.
Notice the repeated use of the present tense, implying that he gave the order during the attack.
* BUT FOR WEEKS HE SAID HE GAVE THE ORDER (WHATEVER THE ORDER ACTUALLY WAS... SPECIFICALLY WAS...) THE NEXT DAY - NOT THE PREVIOUS DAY... THE DAY OF THE ACTUAL ATTACK.
Mr. Obama met with his national-security team, including the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at 5:00 p.m. Washington time. For over an hour, the consulate staff had been constantly reporting that they were under assault by terrorists and Ambassador Chris Stevens was missing in action. In the White House, group-think leads to the mistaken assumption that the attackers are a spontaneous mob.
* MAYBE IT DOES, MAYBE IT DOESN'T - RECALL, FOLKS... CIA CABLES TO THE CONTRARY WERE COMING IN - COMING IN IN REAL TIME! (AND THEY WERE GOING TO THE WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM!)
An hour after the attack has begun, the president orders the CIA and the military to do “whatever we need to do.”
* THIS IS THE "NEW" TIME-LINE. (BUT IN ANY CASE... THIS SURELY ISN'T A SPECIFIC ORDER. "DO WHAT YOU NEED TO DO TO... er... DO WHAT?)
Yet the CIA and the military do nothing, except send drones overhead to watch the seven-hour battle.
* MEANWHILE...
A CIA employee and former Navy SEAL, Tyrone Woods, twice calls for military help. He has a laser rangefinder and is pinpointing enemy targets, radioing the coordinates. The military send no aircraft to attack the designated targets. Special Operations forces standing by, 480 miles away — less than a two-hour plane ride — are not deployed.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
Secretary of Defense Panetta later explained that this passivity was in keeping with a rule of warfare. “A basic principle,” he said on October 25, “is you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on - without having some real-time information about what’s taking place.”
* BUT THEY HAD REAL-TIME INFORMATION! THEY KNEW THE CONSULATE WAS UNDER ATTACK! THEY KNEW THAT THE PEOPLE ON THE GROUND WERE BEGGING FOR IMMEDIATE HELP!
Apart from the questionable philosophy of turning battle into a poker game where all cards are face up before anyone places a bet, Mr. Panetta ignored the fact that the former SEAL on the ground was giving real-time information to everyone listening in at least eight operations centers (the embassy in Tripoli, State, White House, Pentagon, CIA, Special Operations Command, Africa Command, and the National Ops Center).
The SecDef and the president have issued contradictory explanations.
Either Mr. Obama ordered the Secretary of Defense to “do whatever we need to do,” or he didn’t.
* WE'RE TALKING THE "NEW" TIME-LINE... WHERE OBAMA SUPPOSEDLY ORDERED... er... "SOMETHING" TO BE DONE... AS THE CONSULATE WAS BEING ATTACKED.
And either the secretary obeyed that order, or he didn’t.
(And he didn’t.)
[T]he general in charge of the Africa region has allegedly said he received no directive from Washington to dispatch military aid.
[O]ur embassy in Tripoli, 400 miles away, sent an aircraft with six Americans to fight in Benghazi. But our base in Sigonella, 480 miles away, sent no help.
If General Dempsey had concluded that the U.S. military should do nothing, he would have reported his decision not to act back to his commander-in-chief before the latter went to bed to rest up for his campaign trip to Las Vegas the next day. After all, the ambassador was still missing.
And brave Tyrone Woods was to die in a mortar attack five hours later.
[One would think] President Obama would naturally be more than a bit interested in why the military and the CIA did nothing after he explicitly ordered them “to make sure we are securing our personnel.”
Surely it is in the president’s best interests to release a copy of his order, which the military would have sent to hundreds in the chain of command.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
And if the president did not direct the NSC “to do whatever we need to do,” then who was in charge?
When the American ambassador is attacked and remains out of American hands for over seven hours as a battle rages - and our military sends no aid - either the crisis-response system inside the White House is incompetent, or top officials are covering up.
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