Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Pennsylvania gets it wrong again!

Let me get this straight… Pennsylvania gives millions in tax breaks and incentives to Volkswagen to open a plant in Westmoreland County. Curiously, the assembly plant lasts 12 years or so; about the same time frame as the incentives. Then, in a brilliant and bold new initiative, Pennsylvania gives millions in tax breaks and incentives to Sony to occupy the long vacant location. Curiously, Sony announced this week that it will be closing the plant, some 12 or so years after opening, and around the time the incentives are drying up.

Anyone see a pattern here?

Paying companies to enter a hostile environment will not keep them there! Lowering business taxes and loosening regulations will create an environment that business will voluntarily seek out, without being paid! (no, it’s true – see Virginia, Utah, North Carolina, and Washington)

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Boycott China – or Bush? -- Letter Response

See below for the original letter to the editor

In response to Jay Lynch (“Boycott China – or Bush?” Pittsburgh Tribune Review Online Thursday, April 17, 2008); WOW!

Where to start?

While I am no fan of some of our President’s policies; I nevertheless feel compelled to defend against your accusations. Even though all of these charges have been fully debunked by fact long ago, many still believe them due to persistent repeating by uninspired vermin like you.

I guess we’ll just have to go down the list:

Our (yes our) invasion of Iraq was constitutionally authorized by Congress; and we are currently in Iraq at the invitation and request of her government.

Many people, perhaps many of them innocent, have died in this war. This is what happens in wars. Saddam Hussein’s regime can be directly attributed with a smidgen over 2 million. Even with your wildly exaggerated numbers, this war has saved untold numbers of lives, and liberated 25 million from an oppressive tyranny.

There is no evidence that any representative of the United States ever, under authorization, tortured any individual ever, period. I challenge you to come up with some. If this country’s concern was the moral activities of our allies, we would not be in the UN. The Geneva Convention was specifically written to outlaw the type of behavior for which we hold unlawful combatants; they do not deserve its protections. Presidents Bush and Clinton penned presidential orders limiting Habeas Corpus in times of emergency; and congress has passed several pieces of legislation concerning the matter of late; but which US Citizen’s right to petition has been quashed? Please tell me! There have been no illegal wiretaps of US Citizens! Once again, please provide evidence.

And finally – Signing statements have been used by most every president since Monroe. I feel that President Bush should have vetoed most of the half-baked legislation to which he added signing statements. These signing statements were almost always of the “I will not violate the constitution while enforcing this law” flavor, so why not veto them?

Perhaps at some point, the mainstream media will re-find its long lost responsibility to the facts; thereby saving ignorant reprobates like you this kind of embarrassment; but I’m not holding my breath!

Gerald L Kreitzburg

Original:

Human rights activists and many congressional representatives (including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama) say President Bush should refuse to attend the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics in China.
They say his absence will serve to condemn China's illegal invasion and military occupation of a sovereign country, Tibet. They also cite ongoing human rights abuses and legal injustices by China's leaders.
Could anything be more hypocritical?
How can George Bush condemn China, or any other country, for illegally invading and occupying a sovereign nation after his illegal invasion and ongoing occupation of Iraq?
Can Mr. Bush, with a straight face, really tell Chinese leaders that their treatment of the people of Tibet is barbaric and unjust, when he is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths and injuries, millions of refugees and the endless suffering of innocent Iraqis?
What about the abuse of human rights by China's leaders?
How can Bush criticize them when he approves the use of torture and rendition, establishes lawless prisons, violates the Geneva Conventions, suspends habeas corpus, wiretaps his own citizens and ignores the will of the people's representatives with "signing statements" that boldly declare he will not enforce our laws?
Instead of asking President Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies, shouldn't activists be petitioning the International Olympic Committee to prohibit him from attending at all?
Jay Lynch
Upper St. Clair