Wow! We could have written that headline at the beginning of this mess. Unions seem to take great delight in standing in the way of reform that could possibly save their jobs. Remember when the airline pilot's unions killed Eastern Airlines?

All the unions had to do in order to get the Republicans to go for this $15 billion bailout was to promise to reduce union wages to the level paid to automakers in the Toyota and Nissan plants by the end of 2009. No way. They weren't going for it. So now GM has hired bankruptcy council.

(By the way ... in answer to the question of who would buy a car from an automaker that was going bankrupt? I would -- I did -- Just yesterday. At this place. There are some pretty amazing deals out there. Trust me.)

Did you hear about the riots? Yeah .. the riots. Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina knows that a vast majority of Americans used to be absolutely opposed to the idea .. as time has dragged on, that number has gone down slightly. But the point is that this auto bailout - which is really a union bailout - still has many of you upset. You are tired of the government picking winners and losers. You are tired of the unions dictating business practices. You are thinking about your grandchildren who are really going to bear the brunt of this massive spending spree.

DeMint, and he brought up an excellent point. GM is in a better financial situation than the government that wants to bail it out. The only difference between these two failing entities (GM and the government) is that the government can print the money. GM can't.

So where does this lead us? DeMint says that if a bailout passes we are going to see riots: "We're going to have riots. There are already people rioting because they're losing their jobs when everybody else is being bailed out. The fairness of it becomes more and more evident as we go along. The auto companies may be hurting ... but there are very few companies that aren't hurting and they're going to hurt. We don't have enough money to bail everyone out." He's absolutely right .. we don't have the money. Government politicians who are drunk with power think that they will be able to bailout the people that support their power. This auto bailout is no exception. Riots? No ... I don't really think so. Take the dubs off the market, and maybe so.

That leads us to the unions. For months, politicians have been creeping around the real source of this auto bailout: the unions. They know the UAW is the problem but they are too afraid to say it. Why? Because of exactly what I said before: power. But Jim DeMint says, "The primary driver behind this is the unions, because bankruptcy allows the auto companies to basically restructure all their contracts in a way that a bankruptcy judge says will make them sustainable ... And if they do that, then essentially the unions lose all their leverage. It's the unions that have brought them to the brink. So definitely, I think the reason they want a political solution and a car czar is because a car czar can protect the unions through this whole process at the expense of the taxpayer." Makes sense ... so why did the UAW stand in the way of this $15 billion? I'll tell you why. Because they know they can get the full deal as soon as the Democrats take over, without any strong wage concessions. They're betting that GM doesn't pull the bankruptcy lever before PEBO gets sworn in.

Now back to these riots. Do I think there will be riots? No. And that's because I don't believe that the people of this country really care all that much. They may think they do, but when was the last time they contacted their Congressman or Senator to tell him? When was the last time they turned off Entertainment Tonight and picked up a history book? Sure the phone lines on talk radio shows will ring for a while, but that will die out quickly. You have Christmas to worry about. I don't blame you. But just know that when you return from your vacation, and Barack Obama is sworn in, and the new Congress is ready to enact its agenda .. that is just the beginning, folks. There's a lot of work to be done, and I'm afraid I don't have the faith that the people are willing to fight for it.