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News/Politics 12-22-12

What’s news today?

I’ve got a few, then let’s see what you have.

This one ticks me off. Taxpayers are out $50 Billion on GM, and their workers are getting $5,500 to $7,000 dollar bonuses? Wow.

From 24/7WallSt.

“GM workers can expect bonuses of between $5,500 and $7,000, and Ford’s  employees could receive a payment of more than $8,000 each, according to a  report in The Wall Street Journal. The payments are based on a formula that  gives workers a $1 bonus for every $1 million in North American operating profit  at the two companies.

U.S. auto sales are on track to top 14.5 million units in 2012, up 14% over  last year’s sales total. In the first three quarters of the year, GM has posted  operating profit of $5.55 billion and Ford’s profit totals nearly $6.5 billion.  And the fourth quarter looks good too.”

Looks great. For everybody but taxpayers.

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This one smells fishy. Unrelated. Sure.

From NYCBSLocal

“Federal agents raided an eastern Connecticut gun shop on Thursday, the same gun shop that sold one of the weapons used by the Newtown elementary school shooter.

Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, assisted by police, moved in on Riverview Sales at 4 Prospect Hill Road in East Windsor at around 5:15 p.m., reported Len Besthoff of CBS 2 sister station WFSB in Hartford.”

“All indications are Thursday’s raid was not directly related to the Newtown massacre investigation, but, as Besthoff reported, it was related to several other crimes committed at the store, including the recent theft of an AR-15 and the attempted theft of a .50-caliber long gun, both by a man with mental illness, Besthoff reported.”

If there was wrongdoing by the owner, by all means, raid him. But why would you raid a store for simply being the victim of attempted thefts?

Like I said, fishy.

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This last one, I’m unsure about, but it wouldn’t exactly break my heart.

From Breitbart

“Several conservative House Republican members are contemplating a plan to unseat Speaker John Boehner from his position on January 3, Breitbart News has exclusively learned. Staffers have compiled a detailed action plan that, if executed, could make this a reality.

The Republicans, both conservatives and more establishment members alike, are emboldened after the failure of Boehner’s fiscal cliff “Plan B” on Thursday evening. Dissatisfaction with Boehner is growing in the House Republican conference, but until now there hasn’t been a clear path forward.

Those members and staffers requested anonymity from Breitbart News at this time to prevent retaliation from Boehner similar to what happened to those four members who were purged from their powerful committee assignments a few weeks ago. Their expressed concern is that if Boehner knew who they were, his adverse reaction toward them would be much more brutal than losing committee assignments, such as a primary challenge in 2014 by a leadership-sponsored candidate.”

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17 thoughts on “News/Politics 12-22-12”

  1. On Maurice Strong. Never heard of him? Me neither. But here he is.

    “The survival of civilization in something like its present form might depend significantly on the efforts of a single man,” declared The New Yorker. The New York Times hailed that man as the “Custodian of the Planet.” He is perpetually on the short list of candidates for Secretary General of the United Nations. This lofty eminence? Maurice Strong, of course. Never heard of him? Well, you should have. Militia members are famously worried that black helicopters are practicing maneuvers with blue-helmeted UN troops in a plot to take over America. But the actual peril is more subtle. A small cadre of obscure international bureaucrats are hard at work devising a system of “global governance” that is slowly gaining control over ordinary Americans’ lives. Maurice Strong, a 68-year-old Canadian, is the “indispensable man” at the center of this creeping UN power grab.
    ……………….
    The concept of global governance has been fermenting for some time. In 1991, the Club of Rome (of which Strong is, of course, a member) issued a report called The First Global Revolution, which asserted that current problems “are essentially global and cannot be solved through individual country initiatives [which] gives a greatly enhanced importance to the United Nations and other international systems.” Also in 1991 Strong claimed that the Earth Summit, of which he was Secretary General, would play an important role in “reforming and strengthening the United Nations as the centerpiece of the emerging system of democratic global governance.” In 1995, in Our Global Neighborhood, the CGG agreed: “It is our firm conclusion that the United Nations must continue to play a central role in global governance.”
    Americans should be worried by the Commission’s recommendations: for instance, that some UN activities be funded through taxes on foreign-exchange transactions and multinational corporations. Economist James Tobin estimates that a 0.5 per cent tax on foreign-exchange transactions would raise $1.5 trillion annually — nearly equivalent to the U.S. federal budget.
    It also recommended that “user fees” might be imposed on companies operating in the “global commons.” Such fees might be collected on international airline tickets, ocean shipping, deep-sea fishing, activities in Antarctica, geostationary satellite orbits, and electromagnetic spectrum. But the big enchilada is carbon taxes, which would be levied on all fuels made from coal, oil, and natural gas. “A carbon tax,” the report deadpans, “. . . would yield very large revenues indeed.” Given the UN’s record of empire-building and corruption, Cato’s Ted Carpenter warns: “One can only imagine the degree of mischief it could get into if it had independent sources of revenue.”
    Especially significant for the U.S. was the CGG’s proposal for eventual elimination of the veto held by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. The Commission knew that the current permanent members of the Security Council, including the U.S., would not easily surrender their vetoes, and so it recommended a two-stage process.

    http://www.afn.org/~govern/strong.html

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  2. Instead of us paying bonuses to GM workers, the taxpayers should get our refund from GM.

    And I think it’s time for Boehner to step down. Let Paul Ryan be speaker so we can see what kind of a leader he is.

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  3. I’m just hoping the party out of power can get itself together at some point. Not looking good so far. The opposition is in disarray, from all appearances, perhaps knocked off balance by the ’12 election. 😦 Too bad that all turned out the way it did, but there it is and here we are.

    Four more years.

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  4. I’m a little confused where the gov’t loss comes from; they sold their GM shares for a profit so where’s the loss. I find it hard to begrudge autoworkers a bonus when they took serious cuts in their wages in the last five years. I’m more annoyed with the finance sector receiving million dollar bonuses soon after they destroyed the world economy.

    The House Republicans are seriously out of step and are finding new ways to hurt themselves. After gerrymandering their way into a majority with a minority of votes, they seem over confident in their mandate. Given their two year terms, they may want to play nice as their position is not nearly as secure as they think. Rejecting Plan B was a serious error, since the progressive wing of the Democratic party was ready to split the party over cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Instead the Republicans split themselves apart before the Democrats had a chance.

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  5. Chas — your article on Maurice Strong is 15 years old. Since that article, none of the things mentioned have come to pass. Strong himself is more or less retired at the age of 83 from the UN and lives in Beijing as an honorary professor.

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  10. Michelle, I read the above link this morning. I have to agree with almost everything he said. Instead of pasting Adam Lanza’s photo all over the place the media should have just called him a disturbed, pathetic loser who was so pitiful that he had to shoot unarmed people to make his pathetic little life as a loser seem better. They shouldn’t have even published his name.
    It doesn’t matter that he he was autistic or not. There are lots of gun owners and lots of autistic people who don’t kill people. He couldn’t pick on someone his own size or someone equally matched. He had to pick on little children and people who couldn’t defend themselves.

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  11. Interesting link Michelle,

    For the most part, the author lists strawman type arguments exaggerating gun control positions. Most people realized how embedded gun culture is and thus only want to limit access and capacity. Its true that many gun control advocates are not technically proficient about guns but that’s no reason to discount their position.

    His main argument for much of his post seems to be that regulations won’t work or won’t be complied with 100% of the time. America has an embedded car culture yet has enacted licensing, rules and regulations around the car. And yes they are not followed 100% of the time but traffic regulations are still enforced and for the most part followed.

    The concealed carry theory strikes me as strange. Several months ago highly trained police men confronted an armed man in the street. A gun battle ensued and the police injured more bystanders than the gun men. ABC news did an interesting experiment on the effectiveness of concealed carry.

    There are a few errors he made in terms of international comparisons. Scandinavia and Canada have high levels of gun ownership. He cites Norway as tough gun control rules and the subsequent massacre of the student Social Democrats. However, Norway’s rules allow for high gun ownership including the shooter of 2011 massacre. Great Britain has very strict gun control and although it has high violent crime (by Europe’s standards not America’s), it has a low homicide rate and gun crime. Most of its violent crime is the result of the culture of public drunkenness that permeates British streets. Swiss laws are actually quite strict — they allow for high levels of ownership but there’s no concealed carry, most guns have to be locked at all times,and ammunition is tracked. The armed Israeli teacher is a myth — this only occurs in settlements in the West Banks. In Israel proper, teachers aren’t armed.

    Alternate explanations of American exceptionalism in school shootings can’t explain it entirely. Violent video games are available worldwide yet school shootings don’t occur elsewhere. The de-institutionalization of mental patients has occurred elsewhere in the world without mass shootings. Admittedly, mental health care is better elsewhere due to universal access, but I’m not sure if America will accept single payer health care as part of the solution.

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  14. I have earned and paid for a concealed carry permit. Not because I see myself saving the lives of millions in a shopping mall or public school, but to legally carry a gun when I go camping for protection against predators, four footed and two footed. When I am way out there alone with several children, it seems sensible.

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  15. By the way, I am glad the armed bystander did not fire when he had the Clackamas mall shooter in his sights. He did what he needed to do, the shooter did the rest.

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  16. Its perfectly reasonable to take a gun camping, hunting, etc. I question the effectiveness of civilian use of guns in a crowded environment. Given the incident in NYC, where the police fired and wounded bystanders, I even question police use. Even in Clackamas, the shooter stopped shooting when his gun jammed and then went into a Macy’s. What caused him to commit suicide could’ve been the off-duty security guard or simply the break in firing.

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  17. I guess I would have to say that if I was in a crowd and somebody started firing, I would want somebody to take him out even if it meant getting shot myself by the protector. If it would stop the shooter, that is a good thing. I am not fond of the idea of anybody shooting in a crowd. Criminal or officer or wary civilian. It is a sad point at which we have arrived.

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