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There Must Be Justice
OPINION

Obama's Corporate Fool

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.
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“Jim Jett always used to say that his brother was the damndest scoundrel that was ever borne,” drawled Abraham Lincoln, “but by the infinite mercy of providence he was also the damndest fool.”

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Jeffrey Immelt, the modern version of Jim Jett’s brother and Chief Executive Officer of General Electric, should be fired.

Actually, if it’s possible, he should be fired twice: once because he’s a scoundrel and another time because he’s a fool.

As a fool and as a scoundrel, the guy has wonderful timing; timing that can only be attributed to the vast Left-Wing conspiracy that aims to convince Americans that the liberals behind public microphones are not just foolish, but also scoundrelous as well. Immelt, who heads Obama’s misnamed Jobs Council, said on TV recently that state run communism in China “works.”

The obvious inference is that the USA should try some communism too.

It works! As seen on TV!

From the Blaze:

After host Charlie Rose brought up the “growth rate” of China falling from double digits to about eight percent, Immelt chimed in.



“Look, I think it’s good for China,” he said. “To a certain extent, Charlie, 11 to 12 percent is unsustainable. You end up getting too much stimulus or a misallocation of resources. They are much better off working on a more consumer-based economy, less dependent on exports, driving technology and innovation harder. Really, the one thing that actually works, state run communism may not be your cup of tea, but their government works.”

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“They get things done,” Rose responded.

They sure do.

"They try to destroy your dignity, your freedom, everything except your life -- and I think the root of such tyranny actually reveals their own insecurity," Chinese dissident Hu Jia told CNN in November about the still extant, robust Communist tyranny. According to CNN, “officials forced him to leave town to ensure a trouble-free 18th Communist Party National Congress where a once-in-a-decade leadership transition will take place at its conclusion.”

In the old days of Daley corruption in the 1960s and 1970s, they used call Chicago “The City that Works” too, like it somehow made the corruption more pleasant.  

So, really, it should come as no surprise that both Immelt and the sycophantic Charlie Rose, who have much to gain by it, believe in a federal command economy like that run by Communist China. One guy works for Government Broadcasting and the other’s employer owns liberal NBC –a 49 percent stake in the proud home of Bob Costas!- while being one of the largest government contractors ever.   

GE’s strategy, you see, has been to suck off the government budget ever since president Obama was elected.

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As the Wall Street Journal reported in 2009: “Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt now has his eye on a huge new pool of potential revenue: Uncle Sam's stimulus dollars. Mr. Immelt, a registered Republican, quips about the shift in thinking in the nation's corner offices: ‘We're all Democrats now.’"

Ha, ha, ha! The guy’s about as funny Michael Bloomberg playing himself in his role as Mayor Big Gulp.

More correctly, Immelt’s views have evolved: “We’re all Communists now.”

"The government has moved in next door, and it ain't leaving," the Journal quotes Immelt as saying at the International Economic Forum of the Americas in Montreal. "You could fight it if you want, but society wants change. And government is not going away."

Yeah, not when crony capitalists like Immelt think there are profits to be made.

“Every day,” reports the left-wing Mother Jones, “the Pentagon publishes a list of all the contracts worth more than $5 million that it's awarded that day. And nearly every day, GE makes the list.”

According to the federal government, GE currently is the prime contractor for 100,099 projects with a total dollar value of $34,122,729,377.  

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At one contract per day, it would take GE 274 years to get 100,000 contracts.     

The $34 billion in revenue is enough to get them the 14th spot amongst federal contractors. While most of the money is in defense, their plan is to emphasize new government spending initiatives like green projects, stimulus-type infrastructure development, or anything else that will make a buck off the taxpayers.

“By January, Mr. Immelt had become a leading corporate voice in favor of the $787 billion stimulus bill,” says the Journal, “supporting it in op-ed pieces and speeches. Reporters who called the Obama administration for information on renewable-energy provisions in the legislation were directed to GE…When the stimulus package was rolled out, Mr. Immelt instructed executives leading the company's major business units ‘to put together swat teams to get stimulus money, and [identify] who to fire if they don't get the money,’ says a person who heard him issue the instructions.”

Gosh, I wonder how liberals would feel about Immelt if his company was Halliburton or British Petroleum rather than Obama’s leading corporate cheerleader. I wonder if the press would quietly use Koch Industries as the White House press office on energy policy without telling anyone.

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The SWAT Team analogy used by Immelt is particularly telling.

In the run up to the 18th Party Congress, China used their own SWAT Teams resourcefully too: “Hundreds, if not thousands, of activists and government critics across the country have been placed under house arrest,” writes the New York Times, “or forced to take ‘vacations’ far from the capital, often in the company of police minders, according to human rights organizations.”

It worked too. From all accounts the party congress was a huge success.

And I’m sure where it failed the communists knew who it was they needed to fire.

And now we know who to fire too.

He’s the damndest scoundrel, but in the infinite mercy of providence, he is also the damndest fool.

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