Planet Wingnut News for Monday.

Newt Gingrich wants to attack North Korea with ray guns
Newt Gingrich told Fox's Chris Wallace that he would have disabled North Korea's missile before it could have launched.

"There are three or four techniques that could have been used, from unconventional forces to standoff capabilities, to say: 'We're not going to tolerate a North Korean missile launch, period.' I mean, the world's either got to decide that North Korea is utterly dangerous -- I'd recommend, look at electromagnetic pulse, which changes every equation about how risky these weapons are," explained Gingrich.

Hannity: Obama ‘Harbors Deep Resentment’ Of America, Just Like Dixie Chicks
On Friday, President Obama told a town hall audience in Strasbourg, France, that America’s tendency to dismiss Europe — as well as Europe’s tendency to blame America for every problem — had to end. “On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise. They do not represent the truth,” Obama said.

That evening, Fox News’s Sean Hannity truncated Obama’s speech, cutting out Obama’s criticism of Europe’s anti-Americanism. Hannity was apoplectic that Obama would “blame America first,” declaring the president was just like the Dixie Chicks. What’s more, he insisted, the speech was proof of Obama’s “deep resentment” of America:

HANNITY: You know, I’m going to — I resent this. When you consider…all we have done just in the last century alone to save Europe from themselves. I resent this. I think it’s outrageous, the media’s ignored it. But don’t you think this is like the Dixie Chicks? […]

HANNITY: But didn’t we see all of this in the campaign? As I was bringing up — didn’t Reverend Wright give us a little insight into his thought process? Didn’t, you know, Michelle Obama, America is a downright mean country. … But I’m thinking, didn’t we get some insight? When you sit on a board and give speeches with Bill Ayers, didn’t this — Do you think he harbors deep resentment that he just hides? Because I believe he does.

David Gregory Tries To Union Bust Auto Companies; GM CEO Refuses To Play Along
But David Gregory has presumably been a member of at least one union as a television "journalist" for the last ten+ years. Apparently, it's a "great for me, but not for thee" kind of thing for Gregory, because as he speaks to new GM CEO Fritz Henderson. Gregory wants desperately for Henderson to buy into the Media Establishment™ meme that the failure of the auto industry is all about those pesky unions. According to Stretch, the problem with the auto industy does not have to do with their reluctance to adapt to the changing marketplace and get more fuel-efficient cars to the market or being a forerunner (instead of following behind Honda and Toyota) in alternative fuel cars, but because of those stinkin', leechy unions demanding they live up to their contracts and provide pensions for retirees.

Luckily, Henderson ain't gonna play that. When Gregory tries to get Henderson to concede that there are union-mandated jobs in auto factories that have nothing to do with actually making cars, Henderson has to remind Gregory that safety officers are kinda important to industrial manufacturers.

GREGORY: Well, let's talk about how you can do more. How many union jobs are there in a typical factory for General Motors that have nothing to do with producing automobiles?

HENDERSON: Well, actually every job we have in the factory has something to do with producing an automobile. Whether it's obviously putting the actual car together or supplying materials to the line or maintaining the equipment that’s in the plant. So we have worked very hard and if you look at external surveys, for example, like a Harbor Report, we have closed the gap in terms of competiveness, in terms of the manpower. We have within our operation. We need to do more. Every person in the plant has something to do with putting together a car or truck.
GREGORY: But in some factories, you have a shop steward who's responsible for appointing--whether it's a civil rights chief or an education person, these are all union jobs that don’t have anything to do with producing the cars.
HENDERSON: Well, we have -- the union has key jobs, as you identified, but let's take an example. Let’s take health and safety-- we work together with the union health and safety in our plants. We have the safest plants in the United States, in fact, around the globe. And I think providing, for example, a safe work place is very much in the best interests of the company as well as the union.