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Michigan UAW Picket Line: Biden Walked for 12 Minutes, Spoke for 87 Seconds

Michigan UAW Picket Line: Biden Walked for 12 Minutes, Spoke for 87 Seconds

Today’s episode of “I Care” theater.

Earlier this week, I noted that the current occupant of the White House was planning to come to Michigan and spend time picketing with the United Auto Workers, who are striking three auto manufacturers.

He joined the group of union picketers at the General Motors plant on Tuesday.

…Biden grabbed a bullhorn and joined striking autoworkers in Michigan on Tuesday, becoming the first sitting president to join a picket line in an extraordinary show of support for workers demanding better wages.

Auto companies were doing well, Mr. Biden told dozens of workers outside a General Motors facility that employs more than 200 people in Belleville, Mich., outside Detroit.

General Motors did its best to ignore the president’s visit, saying in a statement: “Our focus is not on politics but continues to be on bargaining in good faith with the U.A.W. leadership to reach an agreement as quickly as possible.” The company added that “nobody wins” from a strike.

Biden walked for 12 minutes and spoke for 87 seconds.

The move is also unprecedented.

But sitting presidents, who have to balance the rights of workers with disruptions to the economy, supply chains and other facets of everyday life, have stayed out of the strike fray — until Biden.

Unimpressed, Trump called Biden’s visit “nothing more than a PR stunt from Crooked Joe Biden to distract and gaslight the American people from his disastrous Bidenomics policies that have led to so much economic misery across the country.”

…Labor historians said they could not recall an instance when a sitting president had joined an ongoing strike, even during the tenures of ardent pro-union presidents such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Theodore Roosevelt invited labor leaders alongside mine operators to the White House amid a historic coal strike in 1902, a decision that was seen at the time as a rare embrace of unions as Roosevelt tried to resolve the dispute.

The irony of this move by Biden is being noted on social media…often.

While there are no reports of Biden slipping, tripping, or falling, some are using the event to inject a little humor into the review of today’s episode of “I Care” theater.

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Comments

Headline typo! Walked ‘for’ is missing the ‘F’!

Hard to tell if it should have been shorter or should have been longer, moral outrage-wise.

Lucifer Morningstar | September 27, 2023 at 7:28 am

Joe went to Hawaii. Joe went to Michigan. But as far as I can tell he never went to East Palestine, Ohio. Claimed he was just too busy to go. How disgusting is that.

More liberal progress. It used to be that mentally challenged people “rode the short bus.” Now they use the “short stairs” to Air Force One.

The Democrats must long for the good old days when Truman tried to nationalize the steel mills to give free stuff to the steelworkers’ union, only to have the Supreme Court remind him that presidents have limited powers.

Capitalism has made our country the richest in history, yet the Dems seem determined to impose socialism (which by the way has failed EVERYWHERE it’s been tried) and have us emulate their heroes in Venezuela.

If the UAW is determined to have every auto plant in the United States non-union, we shouldn’t stand in its way. GM, Ford, and Stellantis seem to want to jump on the ash heap of history. Good luck to them. More pay for less work tends to not work very well unless consumers want to pay higher prices for worse products.

    scooterjay in reply to Disgusted. | September 27, 2023 at 8:07 am

    Union and Democrats…one entity…have a big mad cause automotive flocking to right-to-work states.

    henrybowman in reply to Disgusted. | September 27, 2023 at 2:17 pm

    “Capitalism has made our country the richest in history, yet the Dems seem determined to impose socialism”
    Because it’s the only way to transfer those riches into their (the parasites’) own pockets.

Did he regale the striking workers with stories of his cat and his Corvette?

Obviously he heard the sound of an ice cream truck nearby.

Chant Joe chant. March Joe march. Such enthusiasm must have spread to Philly last night because Democrat operatives went on a looting spree on camera. All in all a revealing 24 hours for the Democrat Party.

The Gentle Grizzly | September 27, 2023 at 9:21 am

Eighty-seven seconds… Is he that far gone?

Malarkey from a dog faced pony soldier’s bullhorn.

Now that he’s joined the partisans on one side, he’s lost all credibility as a neutral mediator to try to help resolve the strike.

Many difficult strikes have been resolved by firm pressure from the White House. Now that Biden has joined the strikers, he is incapable of applying neutral pressure to resolve the strike. Any pressure or recommendations from the White House will be considered as union talking points.

    John M in reply to OldProf2. | September 27, 2023 at 9:50 am

    I was going to make the same point but you said it better than I could. I would only add that other executive agencies like the DOL and NLRB will have the same taint. It’s a bit like the problem of command influence in courts-martial.

    D38999 in reply to OldProf2. | September 28, 2023 at 3:17 pm

    The administration’s plans are mostly reactive to Trump’s moves these days. This ham-handed partisan move is not a good look for Team Diabolical.

Remember when Japanese cars became popular in the 1980s? At that point, UAW labor costs, including generous retirement and medical plans, added so much to the price of a car that Japanese (and other foreign) makers could undersell Detroit with higher-quality vehicles.

We’re about to see that again.

I wonder what the honorarium was for the Big Guy to make that cameo?

Ever looking for the positive … at least he used the right end of the megaphone.

    henrybowman in reply to MrE. | September 27, 2023 at 3:16 pm

    Here’s another positive:
    the fool punted on the first down, and tomorrow the opposing team has the ball.
    Now you are going to see how the game is played.

Imagine how much taxpayers money and resources went into that trip.

I imagine the rank and file consider it a blessing that his time with them was so short.

Joey spent more time arguing with a union rep about guns and the Second Amendment than his comments to the crowd. I didn’t hear it but I imagine it was garbled as much as his typical speech.

There seems to be some distress that the Biden folks can no longer be arbitrators in this dispute because of this.

Why isn’t there thunderous outrage – even if only from the RNC – about him taking sides in a legal dispute between Americans against Americans? By walking the picket line, Biden has announced that he is certainly NOT the President of the US; that he is merely a powerful fixer for whomever pays him better.

Since Biden himself doesn’t think he’s President for all Americans, I don’t see any reason why I should regard him as such, either.