Nightly Ramble:The Meeting; Unions And the Bailout; Who Will Obama Appoint; More

Welcome, dear reader, to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the ‘sphere.. Bit’sBlog’s Nightly Ramble

Hope your weekend was a good one. We’ve got lots of ground to cover, so let’s get to this.

• Barack Hussein Obama and George W Bush, along with their transition teams, met today. There is a lot of people who would like to be a fly on the wall for that meeting. I’ve heard some suggest that this meeting will not be as tense as say, Reagan/Carter, since Reagan ran directly against Carter…. the suggestion being that Obama didn’t run directly against Bush. Yet, in many ways, and demonstrably so, Obama did run against GWB.
• There’s on old joke about PETA members going after rich women in furs, rather tha bikers in leather, because rich women in furs are not likely to kill you for attacking them. So, in that context, I notice they’re marching against Rick Warren’s Chuch? Oh, well, I guess the same rules apply, here. it’s not a Mosque…
• Note Billy’s use of the phrase “organized criminals “, here. It’s already happening, folks. The comparison to Hilter’s early days is compelling.
• Interesting; The New York Times seems to feel Jamie Gorelick is on Obama’s short list for AG.. Says Beldar: this morning,
  

  Short of appointing an actual member of al Qaeda, I cannot imagine a more offensive symbolic repudiation of the Global War on Terror — nor a more enthusiastic embrace of the chronic mismanagement, cronyism, and graft which led to this fall’s credit crisis — than the appointment of Jamie Gorelick as attorney general.

  I wonder how may people who voted for Obama gave any consideration to stuff like that?? Another name that keeps coming up for various positions, including Atty General, is Janet Napolitano, and Eric Holder. I note No Quarter openly wonderingabout the possibility of Bill Ayers as Secretary of Education. Horrifying, to be sure, and I’d not put it past them, and it’s certainly online with their far left mantra. Beldar, always a favorite of mine, notes in the same post I linked above.

  The Democratic Party’s ethical standards have now plummeted significantly below those which prompted Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards to joke in 1983 that “The only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.”It appears that we have no example extreme enough to provide an answer yet to this critical question: How badly do you have to screw up to stop getting promoted, much less destroy your career, in the Democratic Party?

  And that’s really a central question, going forward. Then again, what can you possibly expect from a party still committed to big government socialism, in spite of the long known failures of such? Oh… and I’m hearing chatter that Henry Rivera would end up at the FCC. Yeah, I know… “Who?”… Rivera was in the FCC previously, and was a major roadblock to the so-called “fairness Doctrine’ being removed from the books. Remember we said that was coming back, and got laughed at for our pains? SITYS. Watching this unfold is like watching like the re-release of a slice and dice movie. It’s that point in the movie where you begin to understand just how seriously screwed the hero is.

• So why is the UK threatening to silence the media? GIven he damage the supposedly American media just recently, one can understand it. But what these people are proposing is equally dangerous. In short, they’re moving the same direction, already having collected the guns.
• I’m watching this with some interest… Boortz, this morning:
  

  Congress is gearing up to bailout the auto industry. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsonto “review the feasibility . . . of providing temporary assistance to the automobile industry during the current financial crisis.” Temporary? Yeah, sure. Check back with us in a year or two. The Pelosi/Reid part of the Troyka They want Paulson to use the bailout money for the auto industry because “a healthy automobile manufacturing sector is essential to the restoration of financial market security.” Sorry, don’t buy that one either.The newly empowered Democrats seem eager to comply. If the request is granted, it would expand the federal government’s role in private enterprise far beyond what we have seen in the financial sector. Obama’stransition team says they are working on “policy options to help the auto industry adjust, weather the financial crisis and succeed in producing fuel-efficient cars.” They will do this under existing laws or by passing “additional legislation.”

  Well, a couple things.

  First, it was the Leftist push toward producing “fuel-efficient cars” that helped to kill off the American autoi insudtry in the first place. The way to solve the issue, is to drill, which of course is the one solution the Democrats won’t go for. Doesn’t anyone note with the level of irony required, that the Democrats are trying to be the solution for the problems they themselves caused, all of which is costing us, literally, trillions?

  

  Why are these men smiling?

  Secondly,…. (and granted that the auto industry as a whole is doing less well than it was a few enviro-whack job laws ago)…that’s not the only problem. The other is unions. Notice, please, that the American auto industry is doing pretty well in places like Texas, Indiana, Illinois, Mississippi, and so on. Why there and not in Detroit?  Simple; The unions are not quite as well established in their over-costly wage and benefit demands. Labor costs in 2000 for the big three was $45/hr on average. for the companies outside the big three, it was half that. These days, the big three are paying n the order of $74 per man hour of labor costs, give or take. That’s a cost increase far above the rate of inflation, whereas the labor costs for other, non-union manufacturing has risen at roughly half that rate.

  To that point Bainbridge apparently agrees:

  “Union contracts that impose astronomical health and pension costs, make innovation harder, reduce production flexibility, and fail to ensure quality. American workers can produce quality cars and do so at numerous foreign owned plants. Most of those plants, however, are not organized. A Democrat-sponsored bailout is certain to preserve the current union contract.”

  Now, add all the unfunded mandates the government is adding as regards CAFE and so on, and you can begin to see why the big three have a problem today. the problem is labor unions. So, since it’s only the big three… the union shops getting the bailouts, what this amounts to is a bailout for not the American auto industry, but the unions. Notice how the news isn’t saying much about that? Well, I guess you need to look outside the mainstream. Well, wait. Maybe not so far outside.

• Did you see Biden getting booed at the Eagles game… Hey, wait a sec.. isn’t Philly a Democrat town?
• I think I mentioned this over the weekend… how the WaPo is now admitting they were biased. Will someone please explain to me how we’re supposed to take them anything like seriously, now?
• So much for global warming, part 279. Won’t stop Obama from appointing Al Gore as something or another.
• I see the US Post office is talking about dropping 40,000 employees. I also see DHL is looking to cut, as well. Around 9000 I hear. So much for Unionising being a way to protect your job from reality.
• Circuit City has declared bankruptcy. So much for the new LCD I was looking at.
• Wish the Marine Corps a happy birthday. I can’t help but think that a lot of the folks who defended us so well are starting to see the buzzards circling.
• Hey, it works for dogs….
• Apparently a Democrat city councilman decided he had the need for political self-expression. I wonder if he’ll get their vote next time. there’s something satisfying, I suppose about noting a Democrat literally peeing on those who voted for him, instead of the way it usually goes down… figuratively.
• And here it is, Gang… The reasoning behind it all… Obama wanted to be President, while McCain just wanted to be ‘nice’. If there’s one thing that annoyed me about McCain, and his non-campaign, it was that.
• Perhaps there’s an out, here. I see Newt would serve as RNC chair, if asked. We could do a lot worse.
• Why a national holiday for The Chosen One, already?  What has he accomplished? Is it simply because he’s black? Go ahead now, tell me how this wasn’t about race again.