Mood:
sillyTopic: Lib Loser Stories
KERRY: 'IF YOU'RE LEAKING TO TELL THE TRUTH...' 
Former presidential candidate John Kerry has come to the defense of a fired CIA officer accused of disclosing classified information to the press.
"I'm glad she told the truth but she's going to obviously -- if she did it, if she did it, suffer the consequences of breaking the law,' Kerry explained to ABC THIS WEEK.
ABC 'THIS WEEK' HOST GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: On another -- on another front, excuse me, CIA official Mary McCarthy lost her job this week for disclosing classified information according to the CIA probably about a WASHINGTON POST story which reveal revealed the existence of secret prisons in Europe. A lot of different views. Senator Pat Roberts praised action but some former CIA officers described Mary McCarthy as a sacrificial lamb acting in the finest American tradition by revealing human rights violations. What's your view?
SEN. KERRY: Well, I read that. I don't know whether she did it or not so it's hard to have a view on it. Here's my fundamental view of this, that you have somebody being fired from the CIA for allegedly telling the truth, and you have no one fired from the white house for revealing a CIA agent in order to support a lie. That underscores what's really wrong in Washington, DC Here.
STEPHANOPOULOS: That's one issue of hypocrisy but should a CIA officer be able to make decisions on his or her --
KERRY: ... Of course not. Of course, not. A CIA agent has the obligation to uphold the law and clearly leaking is against the law, and nobody should leak. I don't like leaking. But if you're leaking to tell the truth, Americans are going to look at that, at least mitigate or think about what are the consequences that you, you know, put on that person. Obviously they're not going to keep their job, but there are other larger issues here. You know, classification in Washington is a tool that is used to hide the truth from the American people. Daniel Patrick Moynihan was eloquent and forceful in always talking about how we needed to, you know, end this endless declassification that takes place in this city, and it has become a tool to hide the truth from Americans.
STEPHANOPOULOS: These --
SEN. KERRY: So I'm glad she told the truth but she's going to obviously -- if she did it, if she did it, suffer the consequences of breaking the law.
Drudge Report Exclusive ** Kerry: 'If You're Leaking to Tell the Truth...'Latest with related links:
CIA traitor Mary McCarthy; Kerry supporter, appointed by Sandy Berger, Failed polygraph, admitted leaking
Posted by yaahoo_2006iest
at 8:11 PM EDT
Updated: Sunday, 23 April 2006 8:18 PM EDT
chatty
C.I.A. Fires Senior Officer Over Leaks
The C.I.A. would not identify the officer, but several government officials said it was Mary O. McCarthy, a veteran intelligence analyst who until 2001 was senior director for intelligence programs at the National Security Council, where she served under President 
The dismissal of Ms. McCarthy provided fresh evidence of the Bush administration's determined efforts to stanch leaks of classified information. The Justice Department has separately opened preliminary investigations into the disclosure of information to The Post, for its articles about secret prisons, as well as to The New York Times, for articles last fall that disclosed the existence of a program of domestic eavesdropping without warrants supervised by the National Security Agency. Those articles were also recognized this week with a Pulitzer Prize.
Several former veteran C.I.A. officials said the dismissal of an agency employee over a leak was rare and perhaps unprecedented. One official recalled the firing of a small number of agency contractors, including retirees, for leaking several years ago.
as part of an intensified effort that began in January to scrutinize employees who had access to particularly classified information. She was given a polygraph examination, confronted about answers given to the polygraph examiner and confessed, the government officials said. On Thursday, she was stripped of her security clearance and escorted out of C.I.A. headquarters. Ms. McCarthy did not reply Friday evening to messages left by e-mail and telephone.
"A C.I.A. officer has been fired for unauthorized contact with the media and for the unauthorized disclosure of classified information," said a C.I.A. spokesman, Paul Gimigliano. "This is a violation of the secrecy agreement that is the condition of employment with C.I.A. The officer has acknowledged the contact and the disclosures."
Mr. Gimigliano said the Privacy Act prohibited him from identifying the employee.
Intelligence officials speaking on the condition of anonymity said that the dismissal resulted from "a pattern of conduct" and not from a single leak, but that the case involved in part information about secret C.I.A. detention centers that was given to The Washington Post.
Ms. McCarthy's departure was another unsettling jolt for the C.I.A., battered in recent years over faulty prewar intelligence in Iraq, waves of senior echelon departures after the appointment of Mr. Goss as director and the diminished standing of the agency under the reorganization of the country's intelligence agencies.
The C.I.A.'s inquiry focused in part on identifying Ms. McCarthy's role in supplying information for a Nov. 2, 2005, article in The Post by Dana Priest, a national security reporter. The article reported that the intelligence agency was sending terror suspects to clandestine detention centers in several countries, including sites in Eastern Europe.
Leonard Downie Jr., The Post's executive editor, said on its Web site that he could not comment on the firing because he did not know the details. "As a general principle," he said, "obviously I am opposed to criminalizing the dissemination of government information to the press."
Eric C. Grant, a spokesman for the newspaper, would not address whether any C.I.A. employee was a source for the secret prison articles, but said, "No Post reporter has been subpoenaed or talked to investigators in connection with this matter."
The disclosures about the prisons provoked an outcry among European allies and set off protests among Democrats in Congress. The leak prompted the C.I.A. to send a criminal referral to the Justice Department. Lawyers at the Justice Department were notified of Ms. McCarthy's dismissal, but no new referral was issued, law enforcement officials said. They said that they would review the case, but that her termination could mean she would be spared criminal prosecution.
In January, current and former government officials said, Mr. Goss ordered polygraphs for intelligence officers who knew about certain "compartmented" programs, including the secret detention centers for terrorist suspects. Polygraphs are routinely given to agency employees at least every five years, but special polygraphs can be ordered when a security breach is suspected.
The results of such exams are regarded as important indicators of deception among some intelligence officials. But they are not admissible as evidence in court - and the C.I.A.'s reliance on the polygraph in Ms. McCarthy's case could make it more difficult for the government to prosecute her.
"This was a very aggressive internal investigation," said one former C.I.A. officer with more than 20 years' experience. "Goss was determined to find the source of the secret-jails story."
With the encouragement of the White House and some Republicans in Congress, Mr. Goss has repeatedly spoken out against leaks, saying foreign intelligence officials had asked him whether his agency was incapable of keeping secrets.
In February, Mr. Goss told the Senate Intelligence Committee that "the damage has been very severe to our capabilities to carry out our mission." He said it was his hope "that we will witness a grand jury investigation with reporters present being asked to reveal who is leaking this information."
"I believe the safety of this nation and the people of this country deserves nothing less," he said.
Ms. McCarthy has been a well-known figure in intelligence circles. She began her career at the agency as an analyst and then was a manager in the intelligence directorate, working at the African and Latin America desks, according to a biography by the strategic studies center. With an advanced degree from the University of Minnesota, she has taught, written a book on the Gold Coast and was director of the social science data archive at 
Public records show that Ms. McCarthy contributed $2,000 in 2004 to the presidential campaign of 
who were granted anonymity after requesting it for what they said were obvious reasons under the circumstances - were divided over the likely effect of the dismissal on morale. One veteran said the firing would not be well-received coming so soon after the disclosure of grand jury testimony by Vice President 
"It's a terrible situation when the president approves the leak of a highly classified N.I.E., and people at the agency see management as so disastrous that they feel compelled to talk to the press," said one former C.I.A. officer with extensive overseas experience.
But another official, whose experience was at headquarters, said most employees would approve Mr. Goss's action. "I think for the vast majority of people this will be good for morale," the official said. "People didn't like some of their colleagues deciding for themselves what secrets should be in The Washington Post or The New York Times."
Paul R. Pillar, who was the agency's senior analyst for the Middle East until he retired late last year, said: "Classified information is classified information. It's not to be leaked. It's not to be divulged." He has recently criticized the Bush administration's handling of prewar intelligence about 
spacey
9th Circus Rules in Favor of "The Offended"
I think of these liberals, I just think of them living their private lives and what they must do behind closed doors. You know it isn't fun. You know they're just sitting there wringing their hands and worried about the fate of communism and what will we do reenergize it and so forth. I do. I share these inner most thoughts with you. I think of these libs behind closed doors and the last thing I see them doing is enjoying life. I see them fretting all the time. Anyway, "Reinhardt affirmed a lower court's decision against an injunction against the school and said schools may bar slogans believed to be hurtful. Students 'who may be injured by verbal assaults on the basis of a core identifying characteristic such as race, religion, or sexual orientation, have a right to be free from such attacks while on school campuses,' Reinhardt wrote.
'The demeaning of young gay and lesbian students in a school environment is detrimental not only to their psychological health and well-being, but also to their educational development,' Reinhardt added. In his dissent, Judge Alex Kozinski said the majority would gag campus dissent to Poway High School's policies. 'The types of speech that could be banned by the school authorities under the Poway High School hate policy are practically without limit. Any speech code that has at its heart avoiding offense to others gives anyone with a thin skin a heckler's veto - something the Supreme Court has not approved in the past,' Kozinski wrote."
This is exactly right. Now, you people wondering, "Why are we spending so much time on this, Rush?" I've dealt with this my entire broadcast career. You know, and I'm not advocating this particular T-shirt here, homosexuality is shameful, that's not the point. The point is, like Mr. Snerdley and I talking about this story today. He said, "Well, who gets to sit there and decide what's hurtful?" And I said, "The hurt." So we're going to have a new group. We already have the offended. If you go back to the archives of this program I have told you who the offended are. There's a professional business, the offended are political correctness aficionados, and they shut things up that they don't want to hear by claiming that it offends them. And this is the way the minority reaches out and gags the majority.
Judge Kozinski is exactly right here. You know my theory on being offended, nobody has the power to make me feel offended, it's up to me. I don't get offended, folks. I really don't get offended. I have not only a thick skin, but I'm not going to let somebody have that kind of power. Can you imagine being such an emotional vegetable that you go through life and you're just scared to hear anything because it might offend you? What kind of life is that?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
By the way, we now know that hurtful speech has been banned by the Ninth Circuit. You can't hurt anybody when you say anything. Folks, do you understand how that's going to shut everybody up if this spreads? I mean, "You can't say that, it offends me. You hurt my feelings." You may not even be talking to somebody and they hear you say something, "You can't say that, shut up!" You know, people too weak and too spineless to not even be able to overlook it. I mean do you want to let somebody have that kind of power over you to offend you, you go right ahead, but in the meantime, I don't know if you knew 
"The court said the writers of the hit TV series 'Friends' did not create a hostile work environment or sexually harass a woman who worked for them by transcribing their raucous work sessions creating programs. The case was closely watched in Hollywood, where several leading writers and civil liberties lawyers said the suit threatened to undermine freedom of speech and the creative process. A spokesman for Warner Bros. Television, named as a defendant in the suit, hailed the ruling, saying: 'Now we can continue doing what we do best, writing and producing hit television shows--'" cussing, making all kinds of despicable, deceitful remarks, I don't care who hears them, and nobody can do anything to us about it. "The unanimous ruling by the --" (interruption) who's safe, H.R.? Well, yeah, we're safe because you people can't come after me for hurtful speech because I am creating in the process.
The difference here, sex talk, offensive talk, when you're creating art, writing a TV series -- (laughing) -- it doesn't matter who you offend. Andres Serrano knows this, and so does the person who put elephant dung on the Virgin Mary at the Brooklyn museum. No, if you offend somebody in the process of, uh, being creative, which of course we are here on the EIB Network. So, you know, I'm immune. But if you put on -- (interruption) yeah, you're safe also because you all are part of the creative process, absolutely right. Everybody working on this program is safe. I mean, I can't be sued for sexual harassment; I can't be sued for anything based on this ruling in California -- now, I know this ruling in California is California, but it's precedent out there. So all of us in the creative process -- (laughing) -- we have free rein to make you mad, to hurt your feelings, and offend you 'til you die, and you can't do anything about it. If you're just an average schmo running around in school someplace wearing a harmless little T-shirt, you're in trouble, according to the US Ninth Circus.
END TRANSCRIPT
Read the Background Material...
d'oh
Senior Democrat Exits House Ethics Panel
WASHINGTON -- The top Democrat on the House ethics committee, Alan Mollohan, will leave the panel - at least temporarily - while he defends his own financial conduct, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Friday.
Mollohan's decision comes in an election year when his party is accusing majority Republicans of allowing a "culture of corruption" in Congress.
Mollohan, of West Virginia, will be replaced by Rep. Howard Berman of California, a former ranking Democrat on the panel. Mollohan has denied any wrongdoing.
The only evenly divided panel in the House, the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct
has been divided along partisan lines for the past 16 months and unable to launch any major new investigations. If Mollohan had stayed while under his own ethics cloud, the chances for the stalemate to end would have been almost impossible.
The Wall Street Journal reported two weeks ago that Mollohan (right) steered millions of dollars to nonprofit groups in his district - with much of the money going to organizations run by people who contribute to the lawmaker's campaigns.
Also, a conservative group filed a complaint with federal prosecutors this year questioning whether Mollohan correctly reported his assets on financial disclosure forms.
While Mollohan's troubles threaten to become a major campaign problem for Democrats, Pelosi, of California, said in a statement that Mollohan decided on his own to step down and that she accepted his decision.
"The allegations against Congressman Mollohan originate from the National Legal and Policy Center, which engages in highly partisan attacks on Democrats," Pelosi said.
"The attacks are an attempt to deflect attention from the long list of Republican criminal investigations, indictments,
plea agreements and resignations which have resulted from the reported long-term and extensive criminal enterprise run out of House Republican leadership offices," she said.
Using a phrase that has become a Democratic refrain, Pelosi said, "The Republican culture of corruption has been ignored by the ethics committee for a year and a half following the decision of the Republican leadership to fire their own chairman and committee members for doing their job."
While Mollohan and committee chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash., had 16 months of friction, Berman had a good working relationship with former ethics chairman Joel Hefley, R-Colo.
Hefley sought to have his term as chairman extended at the start of but he and two other Republicans were forced off the 10-member committee after having voted to admonish then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.
Since the beginning of last year, the two leaders fought over internal rules and staffing, and in a recent meeting discussed - but were unable to agree - on launching any new investigations.
Citing the Washington Post story on the then-secret prisons and the New York Times article disclosing terrorist surveillance efforts, both of which won Pulitzer Prizes on Monday, NPR's Nina Totenberg declared on Inside Washington that nefarious Bush administration practices justified the decision to reward the two newspapers: "It's a good thing that they won for those intelligence stories because the Bush administration is investigating now and is threatening to subpoena and conceivably jail those reporters. So I think it's important that those stories be rewarded as something important to have done." (Transcripts follow.)
Schieffer introduced the April 21 CBS Evening News story:
"It is no secret that the current administration does not like its people hanging out with news reporters without permission. But the administration took that concern to a new level today and scored a first -- a dubious first, to be sure -- but a first. Jim Stewart has more on that."
Later, on Inside Washington aired at 8:30pm EDT on Washington, DC's PBS affiliate, WETA-TV channel 26 (and which will re-air at 7pm Saturday on Washington's cable NewsChannel 8 and again at 10am Sunday on Washington's ABC affiliate, WJLA-TV channel 7 where it was taped Friday afternoon), NPR's Nina Totenberg argued:
"It's a lucky thing that the New York Times and the Washington Post -- not a lucky, it's a good thing that they won for those intelligence stories because the Bush administration is investigating now and is threatening to subpoena and conceivably jail those reporters. So I think it's important that those stories be rewarded as something important to have done...."
"One of the things that a civilized and democratic society is supposed to do is have a system of checks and balances. And this administration did not allow that system of checks and balances to exist. Congress didn't know about this stuff by in large, it didn't approve of this stuff by in large. And the administration has not tried to institute any sort of mechanisms, legal, any legal mechanisms to put, have anybody from outside check them."
Fellow panelist Charles Krauthammer, a syndicated columnist, retorted: "In the NSA case, that's simply not so. There were eight top leaders in the Congress who knew about the program. To say that Congress was not informed is simply wrong."
CNN reporter tossed from Hu welcoming ceremony
Duke Researchers Debunk Apocalyptic Liberalism
They go on to demonstrate here through science and objective thinking why the hysteria of the left regarding the misnomer global warming is, as I have always said, it's political. Scaremongering on the earth's climate is not based on science and the reason that they can get away with it is because science and math, as we all know, is horribly taught in this country. Look at the science and math scores. We know they're horrible. The United States was near the bottom of the heap in industrialized nations when it comes to teaching and learning science and math. The second story was in the 
"Global warming may not be as dramatic as some scientists have predicted. Using temperature readings from the past 100 years, 1,000 computer simulations and the evidence left in ancient tree rings, Duke University scientists announced yesterday that 'the magnitude of future global warming will likely fall well short of current highest predictions.'" They're not predictions; they're wild guesses! "Supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, the Duke researchers noted that some observational studies predicted that the Earth's temperature could rise as much as 16 degrees in this century because of an increase in carbon dioxide or other so-called greenhouse gases. The Duke estimates show the chances that the planet's temperature will rise even by 11 degrees is only 5 percent, which falls in line with previous, less-alarming predictions that meteorologists made almost three decades ago. Marked climate change in other centuries resulted from 'external forcing,' said the Duke findings.
"
At any rate, you do now have some scientific community members from elite leftist institutions now who are worried about their reputations, and I would think a lot of scientists would be. They don't want to get lumped in with this mad dash to insanity that is based purely on politics and money -- and then 
"The study's results refute recent research suggesting that the climate may be susceptible to extreme increases in temperature. But Hegerl cautions that the findings do not diminish the threat of global warming." Oh, of course not, they don't diminish the "threat," no, no, no! The climate may not be as susceptible to it, and it may not be as bad, but, oh, we can't deny there's global warming. Now, you know what's happening. As the leftist environmental wackos hear this and other leftist intellectuals and they find out that all this contrary study and data is coming from Duke within the context of the Duke rape case,
you just know that the left has got somebody out there saying, "I knew there was something wrong at Duke. Everybody thinks it's this rape thing, but it's their science department! I knew there was something wrong at Duke."
Oh, and then there's this from the 
It means the climate isn't killing us, it means we've got the best health care system in the world and all we have is a crisis, panic-oriented community on the left that gins up doom and gloom every day.
We all know the life expectancy is increasing. We all know people are living longer. How does this story even get written as though it's news? The headline here: "
.
Related: 
Fulbright's Terror Supporter
At-Tajdid's website has a permanent link to the Union of Good, an umbrella organization of Hamas-funding charities. Five of these organizations have been listed by the U.S. Treasury Department as Specially Designated Global Terrorist entities (SDGTs):
♠ The Al-Aqsa Foundation, Belgium and Holland Branches
In addition, two more groups, The World Association of Muslim Youth (WAMY), and the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), have been accused in a lawsuit filed by families of the 9/11 victims[1] of being "connected to Osama bin Laden and two of his top operatives."
The Union of Good was established in October 2000 and is presided over by Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi and run by Essam Yussuf, a prominent figure in Interpal, a British Hamas front organization. Even the Palestinian Authority considers the Union of Good as a body supporting Hamas.
Clicking on the link to the Union of Good on the At-Tajdid website gives the reader a choice of English or Arabic. The English site takes the reader to the donations page of Interpal, a British-based charity that is designated by the U.S. as an SDGT. According to U.S. law, this is an indication that Khalfi himself should be designated a SGDT. A check of archived At-Tajdid websites shows this link to be a permanent feature since at least February 2003.
In August 2003, when the U.S. Treasury Department designated Interpal and several other Union of Good charities as SDGTs, it determined that "they provide support to Hamas and form part of its funding network in Europe." In other words, Mustapha Khalfi is the editor of a newspaper that knowingly solicited funds for a SDGT.
Executive order 13224 is very clear about the criteria that the Secretary of the Treasury may use to designate an entity as a SDGT. Anyone determined to "act for or on behalf" of a listed entity or to "provide financial...support for, or financial services to or in support of...entities designated in or under the Order" or "[t]o be otherwise associated with certain individuals or entities designated in or under the Order" may be designated a SDGT. In other words, soliciting funds or even being associated with an SDGT is enough to get someone designated an SDGT.
Given the facts, it strains credulity to assert that Khalfi did not knowingly support funding Interpal or that he was not associated with the Union of Good. There is at least a prima facie case to designate Khalfi as a SDGT. The only possible recourse for a defender of Khalfi is try to exonerate him on a technicality. Khalfi certainly violated the spirit of executive order 13224 if not the letter, and the U.S. Treasury department is currently reviewing a dossier of our findings.
Also, At Tajdid is the official paper of an association called Al Islah Wa Attawhid, also known by its French acronym MUR (Mouvement de l'Unicite' et de la Reforme) which is closely linked to the same SDGTs. The MUR is a constituent organization of the Union of Good, which we described above. In addition, Dr. Abd Ziyad Al-Mughrabi al-Idrisi, who sits on the consultative council of the MUR and the secretariat of the PJD (Parti de la Justice et du Developement), the main Moroccan Islamist party, is also a trustee of the Union of Good.
At-Tajdid and the MUR Islamist propaganda
At Tajdid and the "Zionists"
Here is a chosen excerpt:
"Congratulations to the Palestinian resistance for this great victory which announces an even greater victory that of the recovery of Al Quds and all stolen Palestinian territories." In light of this one should not be surprised that At-Tajdid and Khalfi were opposed to any kind of peace process in the between the Israelis and the Palestinians -- and even the normalization of relations between Morocco and Israel. In 1999, during a period of relative quiet between Israelis and Palestinians, the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram ran an article quoting Khalfi: "Mustafa Khalfi, a writer who opposes Arab-Israeli normalization, criticizes this group's (Moroccan Jews) economic power because it "aims to influence decision-making [in Morocco]. As another example, during the recent Danish cartoon controversy, At Tajdid blamed "a Zionist provocation aimed at reviving the conflict between the West and the Muslim nation".
The March 14, 2006 edition reproduces verbatim an entry published on "The Al-Aqsa Organization" website claiming that Israeli President Moshe Katsav declared war against the Al-Aqsa mosque.
At Tajdid and terrorism
At Tajdid and the USA
"Despite the difficulty of identifying those who were behind the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, reactions have demonstrated that the assassination is part of a project that began with the mapping out of Iraqi election results, with the resumption of normalization with the Zionist Entity, the partial European support for the U.S. position vis-a-vis Iran and the threats of NATO military intervention in the Sudan. The assassination has come amidst mounting international pressure against the Syrian presence in Lebanon, thus tightening the noose of arrogant colonial aims in the Middle East."
And for this and other views, Khalfi gets the ear of a Democratic Congressman and one of America's most prestigious scholarships.
[1] 
This is a question that no one seems to be asking. And so I've asked it. And here, in essence, is what I think is the answer. (The answer, of course, applies to Ford and Chrysler, as well as to General Motors. I've singled out General Motors because it's still the largest of the three and its problems are the most pronounced.)
First, the company would be without so-called Monday-morning automobiles. That is, automobiles poorly made for no other reason than because they happened to be made on a day when too few workers showed up, or too few showed up sober, to do the jobs they were paid to do. Without the UAW, General Motors would simply have fired such workers and replaced them with ones who would do the jobs they were paid to do. And so, without the UAW, GM would have produced more reliable, higher quality cars, had a better reputation for quality, and correspondingly greater sales volume to go with it. Why didn't they do this? Because with the UAW, such action by GM would merely have provoked work stoppages and strikes, with no prospect that the UAW would be displaced or that anything would be better after the strikes. Federal Law, specifically, The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, long ago made it illegal for companies simply to get rid of unions.
Second, without the UAW, GM would have been free to produce in the most-efficient, lowest cost way and to introduce improvements in efficiency as rapidly as possible. Sometimes this would have meant simply having one or two workers on the spot do a variety of simple jobs that needed doing, without having to call in half a dozen different workers each belonging to a different union job classification and having to pay that much more to get the job done. At other times, it would have meant just going ahead and introducing an advance, such as the use of robots, without protracted negotiations with the UAW resulting in the need to create phony jobs for workers to do (and to be paid for doing) that were simply not necessary.
(Unbelievably, at its assembly plant in Oklahoma City, GM is actually obliged by its UAW contract to pay 2,300 workers full salary and benefits for doing absolutely nothing. 
Third, without the UAW, GM would have an average unit cost per automobile close to that of non-union Toyota. Toyota makes a profit of about $2,000 per vehicle, while GM suffers a loss of about $1,200 per vehicle, a difference of $3,200 per unit. And the far greater part of that difference is the result of nothing but GM's being forced to deal with the UAW. (Over a year ago, 
Fifth, as a result of UAW coercion and extortion, GM has lost billions upon billions of dollars. For 2005 alone, it reported a loss in excess of $10 billion. Its bonds are now rated as "junk," that is, below, investment grade. Without the UAW, GM would not have lost these billions.
Sixth, without the UAW, GM would not now be in process of attempting to pay a ransom to its UAW workers of up to $140,000 per man, just to get them to quit and take their hands out of its pockets. (It believes that $140,000 is less than what they will steal if they remain.)
Seventh, without the UAW, GM would not now have healthcare obligations that account for more than $1,600 of the cost of every vehicle it produces.
Eighth, without the UAW, GM would not now have pension obligations which, if entered on its balance sheet in accordance with the rule now being proposed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, will leave it with a net worth of minus $16 billion.
What the UAW has done, on the foundation of coercive, interventionist labor legislation, is bring a once-great company to its knees. It has done this by a process of forcing one obligation after another upon the company, while at the same time, through its work rules, featherbedding practices, hostility to labor-saving advances, and outlandish pay scales, doing practically everything in its power to make it impossible for the company to meet those obligations.
Ninth, without the UAW tens of thousands of workers - its own members - would not now be faced with the loss of pension and healthcare benefits that it is impossible for GM or any of the other auto companies to provide, and never was possible for them to provide. The UAW, the whole labor-union movement, and the left-"liberal" intellectual establishment, which is their father and mother, are responsible for foisting on the public and on the average working man and woman a fantasy land of imaginary Demons (big business and the rich) and of saintly Good Fairies (politicians, government officials, and union leaders). In this fantasy-land, the Good Fairies supposedly have the power to wring unlimited free benefits from the Demons.
Tenth, Without the UAW and its fantasy-land mentality, autoworkers would have been motivated to save out of wages actually paid to them, and to provide for their future by means of by and large reasonable investments of those savings - investments with some measure of diversification. Instead, like small children, lured by the prospect of free candy from a stranger, they have been led to a very bad end. They thought they would receive endless free golden eggs from a goose they were doing everything possible to maim and finally kill, and now they're about to learn that the eggs just aren't there.
It's very sad to watch an innocent human being suffer. It's dreadful to contemplate anyone's life being ruined. It's dreadful to contemplate even an imbecile's falling off a cliff or down a well. But the union members, their union leaders, the politicians who catered to them, the journalists, the writers, and the professors who provided the intellectual and cultural environment in which this calamity could take place - none of them were imbeciles. They all could have and should have known better.
What is happening is cruel justice, imposed by a reality that willfully ignorant people thought they could choose to ignore as long as it suited them: the reality that prosperity comes from the making of goods, not the making of work; that it comes from the doing of work, not from the shirking of it; that it comes from machines and methods of production that save labor, not the combating of those machines and methods; that it comes from the earning and reinvestment of profits not from seizure of those profits for the benefit of idlers, who do all they can to prevent the profits from being earned in the first place.
In sum, without the UAW, General Motors would not be faced with extinction. Instead, it would almost certainly be a vastly larger, far more prosperous company, producing more and better motor vehicles than ever before, at far lower costs of production and prices than it does today, and providing employment to hundreds of thousands more workers than it does today.
Few things are more obvious than that the role of the UAW in relation to General Motors has been that of a swarm of bloodsucking leeches, a swarm that will not stop until its prey exists no more.
It is difficult to believe that people who have been neither lobotomized nor castrated would not rise up and demand that these leeches finally be pulled off!
Perhaps the American people do not rise up because they have never seen General Motors, or any other major American business, rise up and dare to assert the philosophical principle of private property rights and individual freedom and proceed to pull the leeches off in the name of that principle.
It is easy to say, and also largely true, that General Motors and American business in general have not behaved in this way for several generations because they no longer have any principles. Indeed, they would project contempt at the very thought of acting on any kind of moral or political principle.
Any business firm today that tried to make a principled stand on such a matter as throwing out a legally recognized labor union would have to do so in the knowledge that its action was a futile gesture that would serve only to cost it dearly. And a corporation that did this would undoubtedly also be embroiled in endless lawsuits by many of its stockholders blaming it for the losses the government imposed on it.
But none of this should stop anyone else from speaking up and making known his outrage at what the UAW has done to General Motors.