One Bailout, One Scotch & One Beer
**Written by Doug Powers
I am changing my name to Chrysler
I am going down to Washington D.C.
I will tell some power broker
What they did for Iacocca
Will be perfectly acceptable to me
I am changing my name to Chrysler
I am headed for that great receiving line
So when they hand a million grand out
I’ll be standing with my hand out
Yes siree I’ll get mine
–Tom Paxton: I’m Changing My Name to Chrysler
Could there be a more symbolic follow-up to President Obama’s visit to Chrysler’s Jefferson North Assembly Plant where he touted how wisely our $6 billion bailout money was spent than this?
The union says they “strongly oppose” this kind of behavior. Who are they kidding?
Cool classic rock in the video though — the only tunes missing were Sabbath’s “Sweetleaf,” Thorogood’s “One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer” and The Cars’ “Drive.”
The scramble is on to portray this as an isolated incident, but I’ve lived in the heart of auto country just about my entire life and know and have known many auto workers and their families. I don’t think there’s a single one who doesn’t have pitiful stories about goings-on at lunch time (or on the clock for that matter) and how the union does nothing but defend the offending employee(s) — which at that point is the same thing as encouraging it.
Doug Ross concludes:
Actually, I view these developments as helpful.
Because this is the Obama administration in a nutshell. Waste, fraud and outright criminality, all under the umbrella of the Democrat Party and the union bosses that are helping to destroy America.
Don’t get mad. Get even. Remember in November.
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Video: Unhinged, bat-wielding Big Labor thug of the day repeatedly whacks Nikki Haley pinata
May 22, 2012 03:01 PM by Michelle Malkin
70 CommentsEverything you need to know about Occupy in one photo
May 1, 2012 10:37 AM by Michelle Malkin
158 CommentsAnarchy 101: How Wisconsin’s Left embraces chaos (promo video)
April 30, 2012 11:34 AM by Michelle Malkin
36 CommentsThe real GSA scandal: job-killing Big Labor payoffs
April 18, 2012 12:35 AM by Michelle Malkin
89 CommentsFollow-up: Have you done your part to fight the Left’s war on Wisconsin and conservative women?
March 31, 2012 11:38 AM by Michelle Malkin
67 CommentsCarl Levin’s effort to legislate himself a ‘green’ parking space gets delayed
March 30, 2012 02:47 PM by Doug Powers
71 CommentsThe war on Wisconsin; Update: Sarah Palin’s call to arms
March 28, 2012 02:52 AM by Michelle Malkin
131 CommentsInevitable: Obama Surpasses Bush in Debt Increase
March 20, 2012 01:12 PM by Doug Powers
95 CommentsJoe Biden: Economic Theories of GOP Candidates Will Lead America to Bankruptcy
March 16, 2012 04:04 PM by Doug Powers
85 Comments
Categories: Automakers,fiscal stimulus,Unions



Babalu Blog
» U.S. Manned Space Flight in The 21st Century
Villainous Company
» Must Read Post of the Day. Possibly, the Year

Redstate
» Kimberlin’s Associates Caught on Tape?











Buddy, can you spare a dime?
This is where we’re headed if we continue to let Obowmao have his way. Get out and vote and take a neighbor or two.
Yes, take two or three neighbors, because at least one of your votes will be cancelled out by somebody who dreams of taking lunch hours just like this one!
So THAT’S what they meant when they said they found a lot of roaches at the plant!
The people who are building what is billed as the savior of Chrysler, the Jeep Grand Cherokee and the new Durango.
While both seem like much improved cars, this can’t help.
Since I refuse to do business with a government run business, no more Chevy’s for me (or Chryslers, although a 3/4 ton with a cummins is my ideal truck) and my grandad always told me that buying foreign cars just contributes to the demise of America, I guess it’s Ford from now on.
Oh wait Ford is UAW too.
Guess I’ll just fix up the old ones a little longer.
In Germany – a much stronger manufacturing economy than our own – beer is often served with lunch, at the company cafeteria.
Workers enjoy the taste of this, their culture, while eating their lunch, talking with their peers, etc.
They then go back to work and make some of the finest products in the world for another 4 hours.
Contrast that to these imbeciles. They run from the factory, grab jumbo-bottles of beer, doobies, and who knows what else. They then sit in their cars, or stand next to their cars, drinking specifically to get drunk. Smoking to get high.
They then go back to work, and build “fine automobiles.”
They are losers.
Barack Obama and all that support him in supporting these people, are losers.
Our job is to stop these losers, before they turn this into “normal” everywhere.
I drink almost every day. I enjoy a nice drink, with my family, after work.
But this is disgusting. These people are animals.
It was a woman who drove me to drink – and you know, I never even thanked her. – W. C. Fields
It’s criminal what they did to Chrysler, I understand the union got a far bigger share of Chrysler than General Motors.
this is what union run and government owned can do for you.
UAW = Under-the-influence Auto Workers
A few years ago I was in a bar and ran into a friend with his coworkers.They were slamming drinks,dancing, having a great time.Another coworker ran up to the group and said ‘we gotta go’. I asked ‘which club were they going to next’?Answer,’We have to get back to work,we’re on our lunch hour and we’re late’.Very eye opening.
When unemployment is hovering around 10%, what are these guys thinking?
Is it arrogance? Stupidity?
Un-freaking-believable.
And of course, when it collapses again they will ask for taxpayer assistance again. This is why unions must be abolished.
…. And these thugs would have no problem burning your house down if they thought you would interfere with their taxpayer gravy train. Scumbags. Bolsheviks with a midwestern accent.
“Wadda ya gonna do about it?”
This is because they can’t be fired due to union rules. If there was no union, this wouldn’t be happening. Two of my uncles worked for auto companies: Pontiac and Ford. Neither would buy cars from their own companies. They would see people sleeping on the job, drunk on the job, or doing shoddy work like only installing two bolts where the requirement was 4 or 5. They knew it happened at other plants too and were careful about what they bought.
Do you think this happens at Toyota, Honda, or Hyundai plants in this country? NO! Because there’s no union and the workers would be fired, as they should be.
I see these guys all the time rolling down the I75 corridor in their $100K motorhomes on the way to their Florida condos. If they earned an honest living they would likely be spending their vacation dollars in Michigan and Ohio. I wonder how much that would help the local economy?
Somehow, I just don’t see this happening at Asian factories.
I think we need to qualify that.
Two of my brothers were union house painters. All vacations were unpaid. The union provided health, dental, and eye care. This is what unions should be doing; just be “friendly societies” so workers can join them for some benefits that give them peace of mind.
Unfortunately, the UAW management is nothing more than marxist/socialist thugs.
Also, I can’t understand why someone working in a nice clean, safe, office (teachers) need to join a union. Teachers get more time off than Obrainless, their benefits are safe, their profession is one of the best paid, so why? I can see where the teachers’ unions need to be abolished.
Who is it the NEA and the SEIU are ‘protecting’ the rank and file from?
One of the basics of any true government reform.
DirectorBlue at the Green Room wrote an excellent article on what the “Pledge to America” should have been:
http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2010/09/23/a-half-page-pledge-to-america-should-suffice/
The GOP Pledge to America
We pledge that every action we take will be gauged by the answer to a single question: Does it show fidelity to the Constitution, our highest law?
With that as our guide, we solemnly pledge the following as our first actions:
• We will repeal the Democrat health care bill and, if vetoed by the President, will de-fund every aspect of that bill until such time as the American people have input into a sensible health care reform process.
• We will slash the size of the federal government bureaucracies (Commerce, Education, Energy, the EPA, Labor, etc.) by 20% in 2011 with a goal of reducing each by 50% over the next three years, thereby saving hundreds of billions of dollars.
• We will secure the border with physical fencing suitable to repel drug smugglers, human smugglers, and terrorists, while encouraging legal immigration and enforcement of the law.
• We will confront the entitlement crisis — Social Security and Medicare — by preserving benefits for those who depend upon them and moving to privatized options for younger workers. Anything less condemns future generations to mountains of debt and economic catastrophe.
• We will strengthen our armed forces, space and missile defense programs to retain our unparalleled superpower status.
• We will begin the process of paying down our debts, spending within our means every year.
• We will ban public sector unions, which exist solely to wage war against the taxpayers who fund their operations.
Put simply: we intend to adhere to a strict interpretation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Faith, Family, and the Founding. That is our creed.
And for your support and with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
Other possible background tracks: Los Lobos’ “I got loaded”, and Little Feat’s “Willin’”
This exact same situation with union boys drinking and pot smoking was going on at the St Paul MN Ford Ranger assembly plant 10 years ago. One of the local tv stations busted them in the same way. EVERYONE knows this stuff has been going on since the 70′s.
My uncles worked in auto plants in 30s-50s. At that time the only smoking was cigarettes. But…the employees still got drunk. So, it’s been going on since the unions muscled in.
The bogey man under the bed called “management.”
Bascially, union members need a union to protect them from their own union management.
When there is no fear of getting fired there is no check on behavior, nor incentive to be productive.
Of course the unions condone this. The unions create job security to the point that the members can jolly well do whatever they want. Gee, there’s no telling how prosperous the auto makers would have been if the unions had stayed out. Where there little risk for losing one’s job, productivity falls. So nice that the gov, in its infinite wisdom, chose to bailout a bunch of under productive druggies to buy votes. Maybe there wouldn’t be so many retirees if the auto makers needed half the number of employees to build the same number of cars. Anybody want to buy a Jeep Cherokee?
If anyone does, they should ask the police to have the drug dogs check it out first. I wouldn’t want to get busted because an assembly line mechanic left a joint in a door panel.
Maybe it’s just me, but I think that in order to believe all the nonsense that Obama is portraying, one would have to be either high, drunk, or ignorant! Voila!!!
Is it any wonder so many in the Democrat Party think the average Joe American is Homer Simpson?
Don’t be messin with the unions now. All that you saw was a UAW mandated mental health policy in full swing. Thats why we have so much respect for the unions down south cuz we have the good ole boy system here.
This must be the reason that bhocare is to include drug rehab.
Nothing new under the sun. Throw money at the problem. When that does’t work, throw more money.
Having worked on the Railroad in the 80′s, I can attest to the accuracy of these lines from Bob Seger:
I saw tons of money being wasted (and the employees making tons of money). After the party was over, everyone got richer from the carpal tunnel lawsuits.
Well the drug use at least explains why Obama showed up.
Too harsh? Nah….
aw c’mon, they were just having a beer summit….
Were were the cops to issue DUIs?
Car Cossacks
What’s poetic is going to lefty blogs like HP and watching the libs fall all over themselves to deflect and defend this behavior.
I think the most popular comment I saw there was ‘what about the executives and their 3-martini lunches?’
I think the new Democratic Party symbol should be a Donkey, on a trampoline, holding a shield in one hoof and pointing the other direction with another.
Nothing but bouncing around the subject, deflecting criticism, and pointing to the faults of others in defense of their own.
This explains a LOT about that POS Dodge Intrepid I had a few years back. Worst car I ever owned.
And you wonder why American cars suck?
Call it the Reuther Brothers Effect. The UAW was always political, bitter and angry; it looks as if they still are.
Workers are suspended pending further investigation? Simple: they have 2 hours to report to the nearest lab, pee in a cup, then they are DONE. That should wrap up the investigation pretty quickly. I can only imagine what the UAW negotiated on drug testing. And I’m sure that sweet pension is protected (probably more to do w/ERISA than UAW, though).
The only thing that shocks me about this is that they were off the clock.
Just a couple of frugal guys brown bagging their lunch.
Nothin ta see, move along.
And that is right how? Isn’t that the liberal way to defend something with the “he’s doing something just as bad” theory.
Just because someone sticks their head in a bucket of crap doesn’t mean you have to.
Shop Steward: (cough) Hey man, don’t bogart that, (cough) and try not to get the end so wet! (cough cough)
ONE TOKE OVER THE LINE, SWEET JESUS! Our money hard at work. The GM IPO will require a $134.00 per share price to pay back the billions we gave to GM and the consensus is that it may fetch $20.00 per share. But that amount presupposes massive Chinese purchases. Ford stock can be bought today for $13. per share, and it will make money without debt over the next several years. Gubmint motors will PROBABLY never be able to repay it’s debt, while Chrysler will NEVER repay it’s debt.
I worked in a factory for a while and this behavior was common. Remember who these people are. Typically high school graduates that are just getting by in life. They work hard when they have to , play when they can, and generally just aren’t trying to lead the goodie two-shoe life style.
I say, so what, its a free country. Some people are just meant to sit around a park or a garage somewhere and drink and get high. They are not running for President and generally don’t have much ambition. Some may call it lazy, some call it stupid. Either way, some people just are not going to push themselves to the limit, others are. To each his own. They risk losing their jobs doing this so they are living dangerously.
I went to lunch a couple of times with guys that drove to the liquor store with the 7-Eleven next door. A Big Gulp and bourbon along with a joint and they would drive around the local park etc and get high. I hated it. I didn’t want to get drunk and high. I wanted to eat. They also noticed I wasn’t participating, hence I didn’t get asked again, which was fine with me. I still liked those guys though. They were fun, they were nice, wouldn’t hurt a fly etc.
We were not Union though and I don’t work n a factory anymore because I have too much ambition. I finised college, got my MBA and got a better job where I can go to a nice restaurant and get a strawberry margarita. I can snort my cocaine in the car on the way back.
All right, maybe not that last part but I do have some sympathy for these guys. I also despise Unions so there.
I also remember watching shows on TV like Bewitched. Larry Tate had a wetbar in his office. They all did. A client would come in and they would offer a glass of scotch or bourbon. I used to think about how these guys would go to work every day and have 6 or 7 glasses of scotch while doing their jobs. Then they would go home and their wife would have a drink waiting for them. I always thought that was crazy but was portrayed in television as quite common back in the day.
I guess I am a lightweight. One drink around noon and I would be looking for the couch to take a nap. Or looking for another drink to keep the party going. I certainly wouldn’t want to go back to work.