Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 12:20 am
Rush Limbaugh is blaming President Obama for the fact that Hostess could not come to an agreement with its striking employees and decided lay off 18,500 employees by closing the plant. In Limbaugh’s mind, Obama has Twinkie blood on his hands.
Transcript from Rush Limbaugh:
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Rush Limbaugh: Look, here I’m already being asked, “Are you gonna talk about Hostess?” Yeah, I’m gonna talk about Hostess. You know what, 18,500 people gone, Hostess Twinkies, Ding Dongs, shut down. Some people might think it’s a buy opportunity if you want to get in the Ding Dong business. But folks, if you need an indication that the Democrats will never compromise on anything, look at this. Hostess is going out of business because of unions. Now, that’s 18,500 jobs. You would think in this economy that somebody might want to show the ability to compromise if only to fool people. They won’t even compromise on this.
Unions are the Democrat Party. Trumka is at the White House again today. Won’t even compromise to save 18,500 jobs. Are you kidding me? Obama couldn’t step in here even for the optics of it? I mean, yesterday he saved New York. Today he could save Ding Dongs. He could save Twinkies, except at the White House Michelle’s probably celebrating, ’cause this is just rotten, no good food to her. But, see, I think they wanted this, folks. I think they wanted Hostess bye-bye. And you know why? They wanted this to happen because this is just going to create more dependents on unions and the government. It’s just gonna create more dependents. So this is all fine with Barry.
I know nobody understands me. I’m doing this program with a whole different mind-set now. Snerdley’s in there panicking. I’m saying mind-set. As I do this program I’m imagining how I’m being heard by all these uneducated, ill-educated, maleducated young people, and it’s fun, and I’m sure that they’re throwing daggers at their radio because they just heard me criticize Obama on this Hostess thing. Anyway it’s a funny thing. It’s actually a build-out on some of the things that we were discussing yesterday about the battles that we face really being cultural as well as, if not more than, politics. Anyway, the Hostess thing is what it is. It’s gone. We knew it was coming. It just illustrates there’s no desire to compromise.
Limbaugh’s blaming of Obama and unions leaves out a couple of important facts.
Via KCUR,
At the Hostess plant in Lenexa, where 200 people work, there was a rotating picket line. While some Lenexa workers crossed the line to keep their jobs, their striking colleagues said they could not accept further concessions. The striking workers described what they said were dramatic compromises after Hostess first declared bankruptcy in 2004. They’d taken a pay cut, paid $10 to the company each month out of their paychecks, and seen decreases in their pensions . The striking workers said they couldn’t afford any more concessions. The company never gained profitability, and in January of this year it declared bankruptcy a second time. After contract negotiations with the BCTGM union, management presented a contract with an 8 percent pay cut, and a decrease of about 30 percent in the benefits package. That led workers in Lenexa to walk off the job last week. Thousands of Hostess laborers around the country followed suit.”
What Limbaugh is suggesting is that President Obama should have interfered with the free market in order to save a twice bankrupted company that wasn’t profitable. Rush is saying that Obama is guilty of killing Twinkies and Ding Dongs because he would not force workers to accept more crippling concessions to benefit management.
Hostess is dead due to Bain style management that has decided to maximize their profits by liquidating the company. In short, the “job creators” decided to make more money for themselves by killing 18,500 jobs.
If President Obama would have intervened, Limbaugh would have called him a socialist who hates the free market. Since Obama didn’t intervene, he is a socialist who is trying to create more dependents on the federal government. Either way, Rush Limbaugh’s psycho interpretation of The Day The Twinkies Died is complete and utter nonsense.
Unions didn’t kill Hostess, people who believe in the Mitt Romney school of management killed Hostess. America’s so-called job creators will pocket additional millions while 18,500 workers will be out of a job. Those are facts that Rush Limbaugh and right wing media bubble cronies don’t want to discuss.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
