3-9-11 Tough times in Hutchinson/Ellison's "Witch hunt"
Willmar's population is 20,000, give or take. Imagine if, over the course of 3 years, 2200 jobs were lost. Hutchinson's population is 12,000, and with the latest job cuts at Hutchinson Technology, they will have lost more than 1400 jobs since 2008. Hutchinson Technology produces computer drive parts, but lost their biggest customer, Seagate Technology in 2008, and now have decided to do all their manufacturing at their plant in Eau Claire Wisconsin and in Taiwan. Minnesota and the U.S. still cannot compete with countries with slave labor wages, and companies will continue to look for ways to cut costs and ship jobs overseas. As a country, we can either castigate those companies by boycotting them or asking our government to cut their tax benefits, like President Obama wants to do, or we can make for a better work climate here in this country by cutting red tape and creating a better tax climate. And do something about high health insurance costs. There's not much that can be done about labor costs, but eventually the third world workers will want to have a piece of the pie and demand more money to buy cars, homes and all the fun consumer things we spend our money on in the U.S. In the meantime, let's hope someone comes in and fills the vacuum in Hutchinson. New businesses are always looking for trained and available labor, and they will certainly be able to find it in Hutchinson.
America's only Muslim congressman, Keith Ellison of Minneapolis, is calling hearings in New York looking into homegrown radical Muslim terrorists a "witch hunt" and McCarthyism. Even though, time after time, we hear reports of sleeper cells and independent citizens arrested for planning to carry out acts of terrorism in the U.S. and they are almost always Muslims that somehow became radicalized. If finding these people is a witch hunt, well, these are the kinds of witches I want found. These are witches that want to ignite fertilizer bombs at Time's Square on New Year's Eve, or release poison gas on buses and subway trains. Congressman Ellison, I'm sorry that terrorists have hi-jacked your religion, but you need to get over the fact that people from a different party organized these hearings and realize you, your family, and even other Muslims could be victimized by these religious fanatics. I think it would be better from someone from the Muslim faith, like yourself, to step forward and strongly support the efforts to find the radicals who want to kill U.S. citizens.
