Posted by ryan on 18 Dec 2008 at 02:44 pm

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GM CEO, Rick Wagoner, when asked what size balls it takes to ask for $18 billion from people you've spit on for years and ground into poverty thru outsourcing and other jerk moves.

Gotta love this exchange between the Three Stooges (Larry, Moe and Chrysler) and Congress (a.k.a. the 535 Stooges).

Autocrats: Can we have $25 billion (that’s a thousand million for the Brits and just a plain metric fuck-tonne for everyone else) so that we can stay in business despite poorly spending our largess to enrich executives and thumbing our noses at environmental concerns by over-producing over-consumming monster trucks for moms (not to mention shelving electric cars much loved by celebrities)?

Congress: How do we know yr not gonna spend it on booze?

Autocrats: How bout $34 billion?

Furthering their already staggering audacity, GM vowed to “cut more than 20 percent of its remaining jobs, shut nine factories, seek to renegotiate the terms of $66 billion in debt, and push to reopen contract talks with the United Automobile Workers to reduce labor costs“, i.e., cut jobs, close factories and reduce wages.

And that’s if they get the money!

Now there’s talk of a structured bankruptcy for GM which would prolly allow them to weasel out of something (note to self: dazzle them with something clever to cover up yr lack of research on this issue).

Despite their support for a bailout (tho opposed to a structured bankruptcy), in their talking points the United Auto Workers suggest that the end result will be same whether or not a bailout occurs (note: as above, so below IR in italics).

5. The consequences of a collapse by the domestic auto companies would be truly devastating:

• 3 million lost jobs;

instead of the mere 60,000+ (more than 20% of 3 million (a number based on UAW membership)) they’ve promised to cut if they get the money!

• pension and health care benefits cut for 1 million retirees, spouses and dependents;

children and the elderly always die in a crisis. see pandemics and lions. that means I’ve got no rebuttal for this talking point but consider it dishonest to exclude it.

• thousands of other businesses - dealers, suppliers and others - would be threatened;

they already are cuz no one is buying cars (or much at all, really), douche! and you’ve already outsourced much of yr supply chain, fucktard!

• huge pension and health care costs shifted to the federal government;

and just what exactly does a bailout do diff’rently, dawg?

• negative impact on the entire economy, making the current recession much worse;

boogerman!

• drop in revenues to the federal, state and local governments, forcing cuts in vital social services.

straight up bullshit. deficit spending requires no tax base not to mention that the entire money system is fiction (but that’s another issue (see bank bailouts, fractional reserve banking)). and if yr so concerned about government budget shortfalls, end the insane (and insanely expensive) GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR!

And their website is ugly.

To wax serious-like for a moment, there’ll be big, hurty consequences for a lot of little people if there’s no auto bailout.

But rewarding bad behavior and poor business practices enables the same old shit to keep happening.

Furthur (and maybe worserer), propping up a dying automobile industry, thereby allowing it to remain a large sector of the economy, impedes real transportation innovation (think about it, I haven’t).

I emplore Congress to cease transferring private debt into public debt (unless it’s for individuals facing home forclosure instead of corporations :-).

Posted by Bob on 04 Dec 2008 at 12:29 pm

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If you invent money and introduce it into an economy, that doesn’t matter (WRT impact on human lives) as much as where you insert it in the food chain.

It seems criminal (AS HELL!!!1!LOL) to bail out one class of debtors while throwing another class of debtors to the wolves.

If you give the bank monies in an amount equaling the cost of the defaulted mortgages, effectively paying off loans designed to fail, why can you not give the same amount of money to families in financial crisis with the stipulation that they use it to pay off their sub-prime home loans?

The bank ends up with the same amount of money either way, but fewer lives get ruined in the process (poverty kills, mofo!).

If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, but please, somebody splain this to me.

Oh right.

My bad.

A nation of happy, financially secure families creates conditions less conducive to the rise of fascism, and thus, is bad (for fascists).

Posted by Bob on 22 Sep 2008 at 10:55 am

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I have been out of town on tour with the Buddy System and haven’t been able to find time to blog but I just got an email about the arrests of journalists at the Republican Convention and I had to post it here:

“This is America. We don’t jail journalists here.

This video is upsetting, but you deserve to know what’s really going on.

Goodman and her producers were released last night. (An AP photographer was also arrested and released). But the charges are still pending.

Americans deserve to know that journalists are being jailed for trying to do their jobs. E-mail CNN President Jonathan Klein and NBC News President Steve Capus today (NBC News controls MSNBC) to demand coverage of this brutally important story.”

So yeah, not that I’m surprised considering it was at a fascist convention but what the FUCK?!

Click here to take whatever action you feel is appropriate!

Posted by ryan on 02 Sep 2008 at 03:48 pm

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Interactive Bush Admin Crime Chart

Some writers at Slate have posted an interactive Venn diagram detailing the overlap of complicity in a few of the Bush Administrations (many) illegal actions.

Good stuff, but hardly complete.

I know, I know.

The internet isn’t big enough to withstand a chart of that magnitude.

Posted by Bob on 26 Jul 2008 at 10:09 am

1 Comment »

Earlier tonight, Hillary Clinton missed a chance to prove us all wrong. She could have defied expectations and proven herself to be a uniting force in our country. But she didn’t.

At the end of a gross display of ego and hubris, Clinton asked Americans to go to HillaryClinton.com and tell her what to do next. Well I did and so should you. Here is what I said:

Senator Clinton,

Ryan Lewis

Click HERE to send her your own wake up call.

Tonight America moved forward towards the kind of bright future that we all deserve. Tonight I am proud to be an American after 8 years of heartbreak and an empty wallet. Tonight I pulled my cracked check card from that empty wallet and donated another $10 to the Obama campaign. Consider doing the same HERE.

Posted by ryan on 03 Jun 2008 at 09:38 pm

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SERIOUSLY, WTF?!

We are fucked.

Posted by ryan on 23 Apr 2008 at 02:10 pm

1 Comment »

Yikes. Seriously.

Posted by ryan on 15 Apr 2008 at 02:39 pm

5 Comments »

Yeah, yeah, yeah… “Real American Hero” bladiddy, bladiddy, blah…

You probably know that John McCain got captured in Vietnam and was tortured for 5 1/2 years and now he is one pissed off old coot, but did you also know that he is crazy, panders to racists and is prone to freakishly aggro mood swings? No, well the folks at MoveOn.org have compiled a “Hit Parade” of Ol’ Crotchety’s darker points…

Please to enjoy: 10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don’t):

1. John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has “evolved,” yet he’s continued to oppose key civil rights laws.

2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain “will make Cheney look like Gandhi.”

3. His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.

4. McCain opposes a woman’s right to choose. He said, “I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned.”

5. The Children’s Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children’s health care bill last year, then defended Bush’s veto of the bill.

6. He’s one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a “second job” and skip their vacations.

7. Many of McCain’s fellow Republican senators say he’s too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: “The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He’s erratic. He’s hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”

8. McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.

9. McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his “spiritual guide,” Rod Parsley, believes America’s founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a “false religion.” McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church “the Antichrist” and a “false cult.”

10. He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year.

Also, I am not sure if you know this but John McCain is old. Like really fucking old. Crypt Keeper old. Just saying…

Now you know! And knowing is half the battle!

*NOTE: for anyone concerned with sources, check out MoveOn.org for footnotes to this list.

Posted by ryan on 07 Apr 2008 at 03:49 pm

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Sorry guy.

Posted by ryan on 07 Feb 2008 at 02:31 pm

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