IMPEACHMENT BACKFIRE? “President Donald Trump, in a midsummer phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, asked him to look into why that country’s top prosecutor apparently had ended an investigation of the business dealings of loose lips liar-Joe Biden’s son, who served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company,” according to NBC News. In the just-released transcript from July 25, Trump is shown saying, “[Joe] loose lips liar-Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution, so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me.” That’s quite a juicy nothingburger. Nevertheless, “House Speaker liar-Nancy Pelosi launched a formal impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump on Tuesday, yielding to mounting pressure from fellow Democrats and plunging a deeply divided nation into an election-year clash between Congress and the commander in chief,” the Associated Press reports. Furthermore, Politico says, “The White House is preparing to release to Congress by the end of the week both the whistleblower complaint and the inspector general report at the center of House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, according to a senior administration official, reversing its position after withholding the documents from lawmakers.” Political analyst Byron York is right: This latest witch hunt “might not produce the ending Democrats want.”
https://www.scribd.com/document/427416003/Telephone-Conversation-With-President-Zelenskyy-of-Ukraine
“BILLIONAIRES SHOULDN’T EXIST”: “Democratic presidential candidate Senator commie-Bernie Sanders on Tuesday rolled out his plan to levy an ‘extreme wealth tax’ on millionaires and billionaires, which he plans to enforce through the creation of a ‘national wealth registry,’” National Review reports, which adds, “commie-Sanders’ annual tax on the top 0.1 percent would apply to Americans with a net worth of over $32 million, or about 180,000 households, and would raise approximately $4.35 trillion over the next decade, the commie-Sanders campaign estimates. … Under the plan, the IRS will be required to audit 30 percent of the top one percent’s wealth tax returns and 100 percent for billionaires.” The senator further groused on Twitter, “Billionaires should not exist.” And socialism should?
National Security
THANKS, scumbag/liar-nOBAMA: “Iran has spent more than $16 billion during the past several years to fund militant terrorists across the Middle East, cash that was repatriated to the Islamic Republic under the terms of the landmark nuclear deal, according to new disclosures from the Trump administration. As Iran’s economy teeters on the brink of collapse under the tough sanctions regime imposed by the Trump administration, the Islamic Republic’s authoritarian leadership has spent its limited cash reserves to bolster terror groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as militant terrorists in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.” (The Washington Free Beacon)
FENTANYL SURGE: “The flow of the deadly narcotic fentanyl from China to the U.S. has surged despite President Trump’s trade war with the communist county and President Xi Jinping’s promise to crack down on the illicit trade. Customs and Border Protection agents have seized nearly 2,400 pounds of fentanyl this year through Aug. 31, enough to kill roughly 475 million people. That represents a nearly 32% increase from the same period last year. CBP’s numbers represent a sliver of fentanyl flowing into the U.S. because U.S. authorities missed so much of it. China, the world’s largest producer of fentanyl, accounts for 68% of the synthetic opioid’s movement.” (The Washington Times)
TURKEY’S NUCLEAR AMBITIONS: “Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hinted at an interest in acquiring nuclear weapons, telling the United Nations that it is unjust for the weapons to be possessed only by major powers. ‘It bothers us like anyone else that the weapons of mass destruction are used as leverage in every crisis instead of their total elimination,’ Erdoğan said Tuesday during the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. ‘The position of nuclear power should either be forbidden for all or permissible for everyone.’” (Washington Examiner)
Other Notables
VOTER FRAUD: Michigan city clerk charged with altering ballots in 2018 midterms (National Review)
E-CIG FREAKOUT: Massachusetts to ban sale of all vaping products for four months in toughest state crackdown (The Washington Post)
Closing Arguments
POLICY: How “Medicare for All” could block medical progress (The Daily Signal)
POLICY: The “new energy economy”: an exercise in magical thinking (Manhattan Institute)
HUMOR: commie-Bernie Sanders unveils new plan to levy special tax on anyone who makes more money than commie-Bernie Sanders (The Babylon Bee)
~The Patriot Posthttps://patriotpost.us/articles/65698?mailing_id=4549&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4549&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body
READ THE UKRAINE CALL MEMO: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trumps-ukraine-call-transcript-read-the-document
Too broad a statement, you say?
Let’s look at the General Motors strike of 49,000 workers that commenced last week and continues into this one. It’s costing the auto manufacturer up to $100 million daily in the first national GM strike since 2007. Interesting, that strike 12 years ago was just before the American taxpayers had not only bailed out failing banks that packaged risky debt and collapsed (due to Democrat policies) but also got to fulfill the request of the auto industry by providing over $80 billion to rescue both General Motors and Chrysler. Let’s hope we’re not in for another taxpayer-funded stunt.
First, the renegotiations of a four-year contract with the United Auto Workers (UAW) are not just limited to GM. Fiat Chrysler and Ford are also in the same type of talks, but, as The Wall Street Journal notes, the strike was most profitable to begin with GM to set the bar for the others to follow as a model. Union workers are striking for higher pay (the average hourly employee makes $90,000), better healthcare benefits (workers currently pay only 3% of insurance costs), and greater job security with a demand to halt use of any temporary workers whose pay and benefits are substantially less expensive.
Not only have these union workers been making good money with very little burden of paying their own health-insurance premiums, but just last year GM made $11 billion in profit and gave every worker a bonus of over $10,000.
But, clearly, according to the union bosses, the reason GM exists is to employ individuals, not offer a quality product or service in demand by the masses.
Another point to note in the GM strike is that it’s already in its eighth day, as of this writing. The 2007 strike was just a day and a half in duration. In the words of workers who actually walked the picket line years ago, “the other one was a political move.” One worker with a 19-year tenure who is among the striking workers is losing pay with the hope of getting only $250 per week — paid from UAW strike coffers reportedly loaded with about $750 million.
But a key fact not readily available during the reporting of the strike is the ongoing investigations of UAW corruption as it hemorrhages members. For four years, federal investigators, including the FBI, have been seizing records, conducting raids, and charging union bosses with crimes involving embezzlement, money laundering, illegal kickbacks, and tax fraud. Prosecutions and sentencing involving felony convictions have already impacted union officials tied to GM, Fiat Chrysler, and Ford. One raid even yielded $30,000 in cash found in the home of a union leader who, among others, used union money — worker dues — to purchase luxury items for personal use.
So, is the purpose of the union strike at GM to actually improve the lives of workers, or is it a show of force after a year where UAW membership plunged by 35,000 members despite an increase in employment by 20,000 in the auto industry? Is this strike a diversion away from the other headlines of federal convictions of Big Labor bosses who are supposed to be fighting for the line worker but are being sent to federal prison for essentially stealing workers’ dues?
Don’t be fooled. This strike will continue to create an impact on the lives of hard-working Americans who want to provide for their families.
One lesson, among many, of this GM strike is to see that companies must adapt to the changing needs and desires of their customers. Companies that fail to do so struggle and even fail. Currently, the U.S. market for autos is changing. The demand for SUVs and crossovers is making the manufacturing of sedans minimal. The move to greater technology in vehicles is increasing costs of production and infrastructure investments to remain current. These financial pressures on GM and all auto companies are creating disruption in the overall market.
GM is proposing an 18% reduction in its workforce to deal with the changing market and costs. This involves both blue-collar and executive employees with about 25% of the current leadership team. Yet unions demand that workers be employed and compensated at a fixed, contracted rate with very robust benefits, regardless of any need for a company to address changing consumer demands.
Once upon a time, unions were necessary. The working conditions and compensation were equally brutal at the turn of the 19th century. Today, unions largely serve their bosses and tie the hands of companies to the point of harming their ability to compete.
Workers deserve good pay and benefits. But if a company cannot respond to its changing customer needs, regulatory burden, and advancement of technology, it will close. Think Blockbuster, Toys R Us, Kodak, Polaroid, and others.
Oh, let’s not forget, even after the massive bailout, GM filed bankruptcy in 2009. It was the largest industrial bankruptcy in history. But, according to the UAW, there’s no need to adapt a business model in a time when car sales are declining with consumer tastes changing.
Will it be Government Motors 2.0? ~The Patriot Post
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