An Example Of An Obama Crony: Brian Deese, Butcher Of General Motors

How did Brian Deese become such an influential voice in the Obama administration and how did he get put in charge of dismantling General Motors?

Let's look at his resume. According to Glenn Beck at Fox News:

Deese grew up in a Boston suburb, the son of a political science professor at Boston College. He moved to Vermont and attended Middlebury College, where he studied political science and also took time to host a campus radio show called "Bedknobs and Beatniks," described in one write-up as "a format of music, news, discussion and banter." He graduated college in 2000 and then it was onto a pair of non-profit think tanks: the Center for Global Development and the Center for American Progress. Eventually Deese went to Yale for a law degree, but a few credits short of graduating, he went "on leave" to work on Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, quickly becoming her top economic policy staffer.

Did you see anything in there that would even remotely qualify this guy to work in the auto industry? Neither did I. So, how did he get to where he is?

Read on:

Last summer, Deese moved to the Obama campaign as a deputy economic policy director and, just before this current gig, he served on Obama's transition team as an economic adviser.

There it is. That's it. No other reason. This is an example of pure cronyism on the part of a president who promised that such things would not happen in his administration.

Also, you should note that this same president promised to fix the auto industry in Detroit. But since he took the reigns, the auto industry has been going bankrupt faster and faster. That's why GM is being sold off by pieces and a deal to merge Chrysler with Fiat is being pushed through.

If I were the CEO of Fiat, I would be very concerned at how much influence an inept and bumbling Obama administration wields with Chrysler. So much so that I would call off the deal unless I could get a guarantee in writing that the U.S. government would stay out of my business.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Meet Brian Deese
Glenn Beck
Fox News
June 2, 2009

JB Williams: America Largely Silent While Obama Destroys The Nation

I can't disagree with the title here. I see it everywhere. I see it on television. I see it in the retail stores. I see it on the Internet. There are a great many people who seem to simply not care about what is happening to their own nation.

I'm certain there were similar attitudes in Germany when the Nazis took over. (In fact, having read Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich by William L. Shirer, I am absolutely sure that such attitudes existed.) I am also certain that similar attitudes were held by the average Russian after Stalin siezed power.

That is why it scares me to see the same attitudes here in the United States while the Obama administration installs more socialist policies for which the response from the media and a majority of Americans has been nothing but silence, which Obama and his socialist cronies will take as tacet approval.

Writing for Capitol Hill Coffee House, J.B. Williams has the following observations:

Obamanation has taken the nation from a trillion in debt to over $4 trillion in debt in the first sixty days, with even more federal spending promised, which could put the nation $10 trillion in debt before the 2010 mid-term election cycle. Amnesty for illegals and ACORN led redistricting will make 2010 and beyond a moot point.

Now, Obama likes to use the excuse that he "inherited" this debt. Only up to a point. The quadrupling of the debt is entirely his fault as well as the fault of the Democrats who voted to go along with it.

Now here is where we have to wonder at the silence. If a trillion dollar debt is bad, then why would the Democrats consider a 4 trillion dollar debt to be better? Shouldn't it be four times worse? Where is the outrage at how Obama and the Democrats are threatening to squander our children's and grandchildren's future?

More:

Old concepts have been redefined. Capitalism is now referred to as Fascism. Personal ambition is now called greed. Those who seek access to other people’s rightful earnings are called charitable, and those who demand a right to only that, which they earn, are called greedy. It isn’t just the words that have new definitions. The concepts have new meaning as a result. Words like socialism and communism no longer have a negative connotation attached to them. Most Americans have no idea what they are anymore, or why they don’t want to find out the hard way. The concept of liberal interpretations limits the meaning of words only to one’s individual imagination. The Constitution means only what someone imagines it to mean. If the shoe doesn’t quite fit, a new definition will solve the problem.

We've seen Timothy Geithner ask, in the name of Obama, for the power to go in and take over any private sector entity he deems necessary. (I can see how that power can be abused simply to destroy political enemies.) We've seen how Obama wants to control the auto industry by forcing out the CEO of General Motors despite the fact that the only thing Obama or any other government official would only be able to do is drive GM further into the ground.

This is socialism, folks! And it has been a disaster everywhere it has been tried. We do not need to relearn this lesson the hard way. We simply need to crack open some history books and read. Read how the Nazis (National Socialists) drove Germany into the ground. Read how the communists drove Russia and Eastern Europe into the ground. Read how socialism is driving Europe into the ground right now.

What will it take?

Nobody knows for how long or at what expense, but so far, the people remain silent and Washington continues to profitably interpret that silence as broad-based consent. At this late date, I have no idea what will wake up the average American or how they might react once finally awake and ready to engage in self-governance. However, I am sure about two things… * When they finally do awake, they are going to be really angry... * And, the anti-American left won’t let up until then... The clock isn’t just ticking. Time has already run out as of the 2008 election. Washington DC is currently dismantling America, individual right by individual right, in an unprecedented massive multi-faceted assault on all things American.

I see the dangers and know the lessons of history.

Do you?

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Americans Largely Silent As Their Nation Is Systematically Destroyed
JB Williams
Capitol Hill Coffee House
March 25, 3009

Big Surprise: Unions Want A Bailout Deal For Detroit

And now, the shoe is on the other foot. It should come as no surprise that the UAW is now putting pressure on Congressional Democrats to support a bailout of Detroit. After all, if the Big Three go into Chapter 11, all of those union contracts will be torn up and would have to be renegotiated, assuming whomever comes in to replace the Big Three want to negotiate at all.

Thus, the union bosses like Ron Gettelfinger would lose their large salaries and would have to come up with really good explanations about things like why the new owners have to pay workers for not working.

David Goldman at CNN notes:

The UAW called on Congress to provide a low-interest bridge loan to get the companies through the end of the Bush administration until President-elect Barack Obama can put in place a bigger bailout package that will help restore General Motors, Ford and Chrysler to solvency.

But the UAW is a major reason why Detroit is in such bad shape. The unions have bled so much capital away from the companies that there is no money left for modernizing or improving the productions lines. Further, the union negotiated contracts have artificially inflated the prices of American autos to the point that now foreign carmakers have the majority of the market share.

If the unions are for a bailout of Detroit, then those of us living on Main Street U.S.A. should be against it.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

UAW To Congress: Get A Deal Done
David Goldman
CNN.com
November 20, 2008

Another Reason For Opposing A Bailout Of The Big Three Automakers

Jobs bank programs. I doubt anyone can give one good reason why we should pay people not to work. But that is what is happening up in Detroit and one of the many reasons why the American automakers are failing.

The following excerpt comes from a story first published by the Detroit News back in 2005. It should have been a clear warning sign to anyone who read it.

Ken Pool is making good money. On weekdays, he shows up at 7 a.m. at Ford Motor Co.'s Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne, signs in, and then starts working -- on a crossword puzzle. Pool hates the monotony, but the pay is good: more than $31 an hour, plus benefits. "We just go in and play crossword puzzles, watch videos that someone brings in or read the newspaper," he says. "Otherwise, I've just sat." Pool is one of more than 12,000 American autoworkers who, instead of installing windshields or bending sheet metal, spend their days counting the hours in a jobs bank set up by Detroit automakers and Delphi Corp. as part of an extraordinary job security agreement with the United Auto Workers union.

"Extraordinary" doesn't even begin to cover it. I doubt that other workers in the United States get such a sweetheart of a deal. But, it is the rest of the United States that pays for this program in the form of higher priced cars.

More:

Detroit automakers declined to discuss the programs in detail or say exactly how much they are spending, but the four-year labor contracts they signed with the UAW in 2003 established contribution caps that give a good idea of the size of the expense. According to those documents, GM agreed to contribute up to $2.1 billion over four years. DaimlerChrysler set aside $451 million for its program, along with another $50 million for salaried employees covered under the contract. Ford, which also maintained responsibility for Visteon Corp.'s UAW employees, agreed to contribute $944 million. Delphi pledged to contribute $630 million. In August, however, Delphi Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert S. "Steve" Miller said the company spent more than $100 million on its jobs bank program in the second quarter alone. "Can we keep losing $400 million a year paying for workers in the jobs bank and $400 million a year on operations? No, we cannot deal with that indefinitely," Miller said in a recent interview with The Detroit News. "We can't wait until 2007."

Steve Miller got it right. Has Detroit learned any lessons from this? Maybe some small ones. The jobs bank was cut in 2007 under a collective bargaining agreement with GM, but it was not done away with.

Given that the Big Three are going to the Feds begging for a bailout, it was obviously too little, too late.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Jobs Bank Programs -- 12,000 Paid Not To Work
Bryce G. Hoffman
The Detroit News
October 17, 2005