Presidents of both parties have long extolled the virtues of renewable or green energy. But no president has embraced the concept, nor has spent so much taxpayer money on the idea with nothing to show for it but a string of bankrupt companies, as has Barack Hussein Obama. He has even made the idea a cornerstone of his political and environmental platforms. Yet despite dismal failure, his green energy vision remain undaunted, and he continues to spend taxpayer money and offer all manner of provably untrue or conveniently incomplete success stories.

For example, in his State of the Union speech, Obama said, “It was public research dollars, over the course of 30 years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock – reminding us that government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground.” That preposterous claim is completely untrue. Fracking has been used since 1947, and was originally developed by Stanolind Oil and Gas Corporation, and improved by a small-time, independent oil man named George Mitchell.

In the “great timing” department, Obama said, “In three years our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be the world’s leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries.” Two days later, Ener1, high-tech battery manufacturer and the recipient of a $118 million federal grant, filed for bankruptcy. But, the Obama administration advisers promise that battery costs will fall. Why do they think that? The National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences reported that lithium-ion batteries, like those most used in electric vehicles, is not an “emerging” technology, but is quite mature. Dramatic cost drops are most often associated with new technologies.

Obama’s green-energy program has yielded thousands of jobs. The Department of Energy (DOE) reported that $38.6 billion worth of federally backed loans to green-energy companies has created 3,545 new permanent jobs, with each job costing taxpayers $5 million. It would be much cheaper to have simply supported/subsidized these workers until they died. The wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal industries admit that they would cease to exist without mandated consumption orders and massive production subsidies.

Obama’s DOE predicts that consumption of renewable energy will go from 8.4% of total US energy consumption to 10.8% in 2035, with most of that growth coming from government consumption orders. When we total the billions of taxpayer dollars we’re spending on renewable or green energy, that’s not much of a technological revolution. Technological breakthroughs do occur, often without warning. But there is no reason to believe that President Obama is a better energy future forecaster than are market capitalists who stand to gain billions in profits by making good investments in future technologies So for all you green-energy environmentalists, it’s time to put up (especially your own money) or shut up. Speaking of putting up, environmentalists, why are Chevy Volt sales so dismal?

The recent bankruptcies of DOE green-energy loan recipients and the record of bad DOE bets over the past three years caution taxpayers against future crony paybacks, er, taxpayer-backed loans, er, “investments.” American voters should not confuse hope with certainty.

But that’s just my opinion.

Find more articles like this one at RWNO, my personal web site.

Whenever Barack Obama makes a key decision, it always seems to benefit special supporters. 80% of the money Obama threw away on “green energy” programs went to his big donors. It’s become painfully evident that crony capitalism has its fingerprints all over other Barack Obama decisions.

Last year Barack Obama softened up Warren Buffett by awarding Buffett the Medal of Freedom, which Obama felt was appropriate for Buffett having accumulated more than $40 billion in personal wealth. In return, Buffett has become a cheerleader for Obama, voicing his support of Obama’s Buffett rule.

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Monday will call for a new minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year to ensure that they pay at least the same percentage of their earnings as middle-income taxpayers, according to administration officials.

The devil, as they say, is always in the details:

Mr. Obama will not specify a rate or other details, and it is unclear how much revenue his plan would raise. But his idea of a millionaires’ minimum tax will be prominent in the broad plan for long-term deficit reduction that he will outline at the White House on Monday.

Recently Barack Obama said no to the Keystone Pipeline. An article from Bloomberg (which curiously went down the memory hole already) scrapes the ice off the windshield so we can see why:

Warren Buffett’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC is among U.S. and Canadian railroads that stand to benefit from the Obama administration’s decision to reject TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL oil pipeline permit.

With modest expansion, railroads can handle all new oil produced in western Canada through 2030, according to an analysis of the Keystone proposal by the U.S. State Department.

“Whatever people bring to us, we’re ready to haul,” Krista York-Wooley, a spokeswoman for Burlington Northern, a unit of Buffett’s Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A), said in an interview. If Keystone XL “doesn’t happen, we’re here to haul.”

The State Department denied TransCanada a permit on Jan. 18, saying there was not enough time to study the proposal by Feb. 21, a deadline Congress imposed on President Barack Obama. Calgary-based TransCanada has said it intends to re-apply with a route that avoids an environmentally sensitive region of Nebraska, something the Obama administration encouraged.

The rail option, though costlier, would lessen the environmental impact, such as a loss of wetlands and agricultural productivity, compared to the pipeline, according to the State Department analysis. Greenhouse gas emmissions, however, would be worse.

If completed, Keystone XL would deliver 700,000 barrels a day of crude from Alberta’s oil sands to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico, crossing 1,661 miles (2,673-kilometers) over Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

Obama gives Buffett award. Buffett voices support for Obama. Obama makes decision to help put money in Buffett’s pocket.

Tidy.

Obama has what is realistically a complete moratorium on domestic oil exploration and production while at the same time helping to fund Brazil’s Petrobas search for oil. In addition, Obama granted Petrobas permission to operate a deep water vessel in the Gulf of Mexico:

Petrobras has received final approval to operate the Gulf of Mexico’s first floating production, storage and offloading vessel, clearing the way for the Brazilian oil giant to start pumping oil from two deep-water fields, federal regulators said Thursday.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement took the “final regulatory step” in green-lighting the project, with the approval of a production safety system permit and a supplemental deep-water operating plan, the bureau said in a statement.

The floating production, storage and offloading vessel, or FPSO, has a daily production capacity of 80,000 barrels of oil and 16 million cubic feet of natural gas. The ocean energy bureau said with the latest approvals, production at the Cascade and Chinook deep-water fields is expected to begin soon.

The fields are in more than 8,000 feet of water about 165 miles off Louisiana, in an area called Walker Ridge.

The reason?

Soros.

In August of 2010 George Soros sold off his stake in Petrobas.

Billionaire George Soros’s fund management firm sold all of its Petroleo Brasileiro SA stock, dumping its biggest company holding ahead of a planned $25 billion offering by Brazil’s state-controlled oil producer.

Soros Fund Management LLC, which oversees $25 billion, sold 9.1 million American depositary receipts representing Petrobras common stock and 5.88 million ADRs corresponding to preferred shares in the second quarter, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday.

But then he bought back into Petrobas:

Billionaire investment manager George Soros built on his position in Brazilian oil and gas company Petrobras in the first quarter of 2011 for his Soros Fund Management firm, according to the guru watchers over at Guru Focus.com on May 17. He now owns 1.1 million shares of Brazil’s state owned oil company.

Soros sold out of Petrobras in mid-2010 only to return to the market in the fourth quarter of 2010 with the purchase of roughly 588,000 shares. The stock has been a money loser for Soros since getting back into the market, according to his average share price calculated by Guru Focus. Petrobras closed May 17 at $34.27 per share, so Soros’s big purchases in one of Brazil’s top two most actively traded stocks was unaffected by his large purchase orders.

May I draw your attention to the timing. Soros began “building” on his position from the fall of 2010 into the “first quarter” of 2011.

The decision to allow operation of the deep water vessel is announced in the middle of March 2011, and it coincidentally just happens to follow Soros’ Petrobas holdings expansion. Now Brazil has signed an agreement with China for China to purchase Petrobas’ oil.

The administration had already been found in contempt for its determined effort to keep US interests at bay in the Gulf while aiding Soros’ Petrobas.

Curious.

Without an official transcript, and still with the SOTU speech being new, I thought I’d provide an open forum thread for first impressions, and open a thread specifically devoted to the SOTU speech.

UPDATE: You can read the transcript provided by the WH here.

Just to lead off on my own first impressions, I’d say that the POTUS and his TOTUS didn’t disappoint with a soaring campaign speech with all the expected moments… and a few unexpected surprises. For those that are the O’faithful, it’s an out of the park home run.

Even I will admit it was a good speech. Then again, I have as much appreciation for well done fiction as the next person.

What caught my ear most of all was one particular promise of administration-bypassing-Congress actions by this POTUS. Because I have no official transcript, I will use the Hillbuzz Blog Live Transcript wording. This relates to the “clean energy” parts of the speech, and Obama’s unusual tie in to the Defense Department.

We can spur energy innovation with new incentives. We need to fight climate change with a clean energy standard and innovation.

I am directing my administration to allow the development of clean energy on public land to power three million homes. The Department of Defense will purchase Navy clean energy.

The easiest way to save money is to not waste it.

~~~

From UPDATED WH transcript, linked above:

We can also spur energy innovation with new incentives. The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change. But there’s no reason why Congress shouldn’t at least set a clean energy standard that creates a market for innovation. So far, you haven’t acted. Well, tonight, I will. I’m directing my administration to allow the development of clean energy on enough public land to power 3 million homes. And I’m proud to announce that the Department of Defense, working with us, the world’s largest consumer of energy, will make one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history -– with the Navy purchasing enough capacity to power a quarter of a million homes a year. (Applause.)

Once I got my eyebrows back into place, and my jaw clamped back shut, I started pondering… exactly what can the administration do to “develop” public lands, bypassing Congress, for development of national public lands in order to power three million private residences, and what the heck does the Navy and Defense Department have to do with it?

I have only one possible initial explanation to offer… (not much time to research before providing a forum/debate outlet)… and this comes from a June 2011 working draft plan from the Department of Energy, addressing geothermal energy. According to the document:

Excerpt from the Introduction & Overview: The clean energy priorities set forth by the Congress and the Administration require an investment climate where public and private sector partners can come together to research, develop and deploy technologies to make geothermal energy a sustainable resource for generations to come. Furthermore, looking ahead, the expanding electrification of society and replacement of aging generation infrastructure also will require that all renewable energy options are given full consideration. It is in this context that the contributions of geothermal energy to electricity production may become critical to meeting this sizable challenge.

This collaborative document describes the roles and responsibilities of key Federal agencies in the development of geothermal technologies including the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE); the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), including the U.S. Forest Service; the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI), including the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM); the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); and the Department of Defense (DOD). It also highlights the activities of those agencies that as early adopters are deploying geothermal technologies for end-use applications. In identifying these Federal initiatives, it is the purpose of this document to provide an overview of relevant Federal policies and programs for the geothermal industry, financial community, policymakers, state and local government, other stakeholders and the American public.

From pg 17 of the 38 pg draft, they address the role of the DoD and Navy INRE geothermal development.

Department of Defense (DOD) – Geothermal Program Office (GPO)

The Department of Defense (DOD) participates in geothermal development activities, in particular as an end user. In 1978, DOD established the Geothermal Program Office (GPO) and designated the United States Navy as the lead agency responsible for geothermal exploration and development on military lands. The DOD GPO manages 32 million acres of land. < ?b>GPO has helped develop geothermal energy projects for the military as end user at a variety of locations in the Western United States including in California, Nevada, and Arizona. They include those in California at the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake; the Naval Air Facility in El Centro; and the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms; those in Nevada at the Naval Air Station in Fallon and the Hawthorne Army Depot in Hawthorne; and the one in Arizona site at the Chocolate Mountains Aerial Gunnery Range at the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma. This section includes additional information on three of these projects, most notably the long-running and successful Coso Geothermal Field at China Lake, California.

Okay… I see that the Navy can develop public lands for geothermal as the end user of that development. But is Obama planning on using the US Navy to develop geothermal power for private residential use? And where does that authority come from?

Amy Harder at the National Journal also zero’ed in on the same phrase with her evening posting on the SOTU. She has interpreted it as the Navy making a clean energy purchase… enough to power three million homes.

With Congress gridlocked and clean-energy policy stifled by solar-panel maker Solyndra’s default on a federal loan, President Obama said on Tuesday evening in his State of the Union address that he is pressing forward with major initiatives in solar and wind energy that his administration can shepherd on its own.

“The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change,” Obama said. “But there’s no reason why Congress shouldn’t at least set a clean energy standard that creates a market for innovation. So far, you haven’t acted. Well tonight, I will.”

Obama announced that the Navy will make the largest purchase of renewable energy purchase in history, enough to power a quarter of a million homes a year, and the Interior Department will lay the foundation to provide 3 million homes with renewable energy power from solar and wind projects on public lands by year’s end. The announcements are consistent with Obama’s “We Can’t Wait” initiatives that focus on actions the president can do under his own executive authority without congressional action.

I’m still snooping. Obvious the entertaining fiction that is Obama’s final (she says optimistically) SOTU speech is not fraught with details. But it is a direct reference to bypassing Congress, and using Executive Powers to push his agenda in any way possible.

So feel free to add your own thoughts, research and input to the evening here. And to point out some of the specific points of fiction you, personally, would like to highlight

It’s the mother of all boners. Barack Obama gambled the future of the US oil supply on Brazil.

He lost. China kicked his butt.

In March Barack Obama put on his best groveling suit (you know, the same one he wore when genuflecting to the Saudi King) and went off to Brazil looking for foreign oil. The schtick was thick:

Obama started by saying that being in Brazil was a great joy, and thanking his hosts on behalf of his wife Michelle and family for the warm welcome they received.

The US president said it was a pity that he had to come only days after the Carnival but: “my only regret is that we missed the party by coming a few weeks after Carnival. Maybe that’s the best — since I’m not sure I would have had the same level of productivity from my staff”.

While emphasizing US weaknesses, he promised the US would be Brazil’s best customer:

Obama also spoke about energy. “The oil you recently discovered off the shores of Brazil could amount to twice the reserves we have in the United States”, he said, adding that the US want to help Brazil with the technology needed to extract it and, when Brazil is ready to begin selling the commodity, “we want to be one of your best customers”.

That is not to be. Brazil blew off Obama for China instead:

BUENOS AIRES — Off the coast of Rio de Janeiro — below a mile of water and two miles of shifting rock, sand and salt — is an ultradeep sea of oil that could turn Brazil into the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, behind Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

The country’s state-controlled oil company, Petrobras, expects to pump 4.9 million barrels a day from the country’s oil fields by 2020, with 40 percent of that coming from the seabed. One and a half million barrels will be bound for export markets.

The United States wants it, but China is getting it.

Less than a month after President Obama visited Brazil in March to make a pitch for oil, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was off to Beijing to sign oil contracts with two huge state-owned Chinese companies.

The deals are part of a growing oil relationship between the two countries that, thanks to a series of billion-dollar agreements, is giving China greater influence over Brazil’s oil frontier.

Apparently deciding that the US needed neither the oil nor the jobs, Barack Obama rejected the Keystone Pipeline.

President Barack Obama’s decision yesterday to reject a permit for TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL oil pipeline may prompt Canada to turn to China for oil exports.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in a telephone call yesterday, told Obama “Canada will continue to work to diversify its energy exports,” according to details provided by Harper’s office. Canadian Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver said relying less on the U.S. would help strengthen the country’s “financial security.”

The “decision by the Obama administration underlines the importance of diversifying and expanding our markets, including the growing Asian market,” Oliver told reporters in Ottawa.

Once more, China will be the beneficiary.

Obama is strangling domestic oil exploration with bans and moratoriums pretty much everywhere in the US and at the same time is pouring billions of US tax dollars down the toilet on failed “green energy” projects for his top donors. Then in liquidation Obama made sure his donors got their money before us taxpayers.

No energy, no jobs, no oil. Barack Obama does seem determined to lead the United States into becoming a third world nation while making certain China prospers.

Change is….absolutely necessary.

That President Barack Hussein Obama has made “green energy” a priority of his administration is no secret. Under the Obama watch, the Department of Energy (DOE), headed by Dr. Steven Chu, has spent, loaned, or guaranteed loans, and the total amount is $80 billion. And we all know that Solyndra failed, costing taxpayers over $500 million. So what? you say. That’s old news. Well, as the late (great IMHO) Paul Harvey used to say, here is “the rest of the story.”

Believe it or not politics played an important part of Obama’s green energy policy. As Gomer Pyle used to say on The Andy Griffith Show, “Surprise, surprise, surprise!” Obama’s entire $80 billion clean-technology program now looks like a political liability for an administration about to enter a bruising reelection campaign. With that in mind, let’s “follow the money,” let’s see how politics played a part in the entire Solyndra and green energy scandals.

Obama’s green-technology program was rife with politics at every level. Political considerations were raised repeatedly by company investors, the DOE, and White House officials. But to no avail. Obama and his administration remained steadfast in its support for Solyndra. Rarely, if ever, was there discussion of the impact that Solyndra’s bankruptcy would have on laid-off workers or on the development of clean-energy technology. “What’s so troubling is that politics seems to be the dominant factor,” said Ryan Alexander, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. “They’re not talking about what the taxpayers are losing; they’re not talking about the failure of the technology, whether we bet on the wrong horse. What they are talking about is ‘How are we going to manage this politically?’”

The Obama administration gave easy access to venture capitalists with stakes in some of the companies backed by the administration. Many of those investors had given to Obama’s 2008 campaign. Some took jobs in the administration and helped manage the clean-energy program. “This was a merit-based decision made by expert staffers at the DOE,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said. (personal comment: If you believe Schultz’s statement, I own a bridge in NYC in which you may be interested!)

Two days before Obama’s visit to Solyndra, fundraiser Steve Westly warned presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett that an appearance by Obama could be problematic, citing Solyndra’s financial problems and that the company’s failure could generate negative media attention. Wrote Westly, “The president should be careful about unrealistic/optimistic forecasts that could haunt him in the next 18 months if Solyndra hits the wall.” After assurances from DOE officials that their policy was sound and that Solyndra’s troubles would be short-lived, Obama made the appearance. However, Solyndra’s financial picture did not improve, and by the end of 2010, the company was failing. Its investors pitched bailout plans, seeking help from what a Solyndra executive referred to as the “Bank of Washington,” his term for U.S. taxpayers. Said Solyndra board member Steve Mitchell, “The DOE really thinks politically before it thinks economically.” Solyndra eventually realized that it had to lay off workers. But DOE urged company officials to delay the move until after the contentious November 2010 midterm elections. An e-mail among company investors stated, “No announcement till after elections at doe request.”   [emphasis mine]  

But that’s not all. Solyndra’s strongest political connection was to George Kaiser, an oil industry billionaire, and major Democrat fundraiser, who had once hosted Obama at his home in Oklahoma. Kaiser’s family foundation owned more than a third of Solyndra, and Kaiser took a direct interest in its operations. Kaiser flew to Las Vegas, NV, days before the 2010 midterm elections and was a guest at a private fundraising dinner for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), and was seated next to Obama at the dinner. During the dinner, Kaiser complained to Obama about Chinese manufacturers dumping cheap solar panels on the US market. After dinner he pressed Obama’s deputy chief of staff about the need for a “Buy American Act” for federal agencies. The company was intent on making the federal government a major customer of Solyndra.

We now know that none of these political connections and string pullings helped, and Solyndra filed for bankruptcy on August 24, 2011. The first $75 million recovered from Solyndra’s sale is expected to go to Kaiser’s nonprofit organization and other investors. It is unclear how much, if anything, will be left for taxpayers.

All of this “politics” was played out around Solyndra and its loan guarantee from DOE. And we know that DOE provided loan guarantees for numerous other green energy projects. So what other “political” surprises await us? And all of this from the guy who promised us (taxpayers) an unprecedented transparent and open government. And I’m reminded of the definition of an “honest” politician: when he’s bought, he stays bought!

But that’s just my opinion.

Access to other articles like this one can be found at RWNO, my personal web site.

Dennis Kucinich is arguably one of the most anti-American members of the United States Congress and seems continuously determined to prove it. He has introduced a plan to regulate oil company profits- or, rather to prevent them.

Six House Democrats, led by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), want to set up a “Reasonable Profits Board” to control gas profits.

The Democrats, worried about higher gas prices, want to set up a board that would apply a “windfall profit tax” as high as 100 percent on the sale of oil and gas, according to their legislation. The bill provides no specific guidance for how the board would determine what constitutes a reasonable profit.

The Gas Price Spike Act, H.R. 3784, would apply a windfall tax on the sale of oil and gas that ranges from 50 percent to 100 percent on all surplus earnings exceeding “a reasonable profit.” It would set up a Reasonable Profits Board made up of three presidential nominees that will serve three-year terms. Unlike other bills setting up advisory boards, the Reasonable Profits Board would not be made up of any nominees from Congress.

No one from the industry will have a say in what is “reasonable.”

The bill would also seem to exclude industry representatives from the board, as it says members “shall have no financial interests in any of the businesses for which reasonable profits are determined by the Board.”

The funds seized from the oil companies would be thrown down the “alternative” toilet

According to the bill, a windfall tax of 50 percent would be applied when the sale of oil or gas leads to a profit of between 100 percent and 102 percent of a reasonable profit. The windfall tax would jump to 75 percent when the profit is between 102 and 105 percent of a reasonable profit, and above that, the windfall tax would be 100 percent. The bill also specifies that the oil-and-gas companies, as the seller, would have to pay this tax.

Kucinich said these tax revenues would be used to fund alternative transportation programs when oil-and-gas prices spike.

Those supportive of this legislation are the usual brain dead groups:

Co-sponsoring the bill are five other Democrats: Reps. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), Bob Filner (Calif.), Marcia Fudge (Ohio), Jim Langevin (R.I.), and Lynn Woolsey (Calif.).

There is no doubt that were this effort to succeed, it would be only the tip of the spear into the heart of American business and industry. Democrats would love nothing better than to impose regulations on the profits of all business in the US, deeming what is reasonable and what is unreasonable. And you would have absolutely no voice for your business.

Kucinich’s umbrage is nothing but pure idiocy. Oil company profits rise with the price of oil and no one has pushed the price of oil higher than Barack Obama. He’s said no to every single energy proposal that would succeed and has forced us all to pay for those which have all failed.

If one wanted to limit oil company profits, one would push the price of oil down, not up. If one takes away incentive to produce more oil as Kucinich would seize all the profits, one would have no incentive to provide more oil domestically.

That’d be a fun time.

Bis interimituc qui suis armis perit… Syrus

He is doubly destroyed who perishes by his own arms.

The GOP candidates are struggling for position like horses in a long race; except they must contend not only with each other, but with Obama’s State Directed Media as well. For the MSM is intent on ruining the reputation of all but their personal picks with innuendo, fraud, false accusations, and lies. If there is an element of truth within the onslaught of smears, the public, except for the witless believers and those who suck blindly of the Socialist teat of Marxist pablum, have become immune to the assault of the media.

We must remember, the successful GOP candidate has a tremendous advantage; he can run against Obama’s dismal failures. Obama’s State Run Media can attack you personally, but they can’t erase the utter failure and incompetence of Obama.

Yet, the intrepid runners of the GOP refuse to offer, us the Anti-Obamites, the bones we hunger for so desperately: those same bones that would guarantee victory for the runner who would be so bold to make the commitment to drain the cesspool of corruption that is Washngton. We the Anti-Obamites, and certainly not all Republicans, are waiting to join the crusade for a runner who has the temerity to stand against the entrenched corruption of the beltway. You may trust that we will vote for any skim milk candidate who promises to not be Obama. Oh yes, we will trudge to the polls in a half hearted effort and vote for anyone who has a half-assed chance to beat Obama, but if you want to clinch the nomination and win the general election in a landslide with an unprecedented mandate from the American people, just promise to end the Crony Capitalism that Obama has made into an institution of Washington; promise to push for tort reform, promise to repeal Obama Care, promise to promote welfare reform and prosecute welfare criminals, promise to defund Democratic radio like NPR and PBS, promise to end the Insider Trading by members of our congress and Senate, promise to end the pork especially the pork funding Obama’s reelection and the Democratic Party, promise to shut down the national Labor Relations Board, promise to open up drilling in the US and have an energy program that works for the US and not against us, promise to shut down the EPA and end the nonsense that is little more than a ploy to gain control over our citizenry, promise to quit strangling the country over the Socialist Hoax of Global Warming, promise to shut down the borders and enforce our immigration laws, promise to end entitlements for those who are here illegally and illegally milking our strained system, swear to defend this country against its enemies, promise to encourage job growth and not to inhibit job growth with regulations, and promise to fight wars to win, rather than using them for political advantage.

The formula for success is easy; it may seem like a lot, but the candidates have been only too happy to dance around the issues and be everyone’s favorite whore or a typical politician, but we aren’t looking for a favorite whore or a cheap phony like Obama; we are looking for an honest statesman who is committed to ending the corruption in our capital.

Obama’s media pimps lead the GOP candidates like sheep to the abattoir; while you make fools of yourselves by pleading to protect the incomes of the wealthiest of Americans in his theater of the absurd, over half of whom are Obama Marxists, he keeps you from confronting the real issues, and you indirectly give credibility to the Occupiers by standing against them to defend their Marxist benefactors who fund them and Obama; thus he keeps you from attacking his failures and those same issues listed above, and many more we are concerned with. Obama and his State Directed Media will be more than happy to control the nomination process and the election: the question is, are you willing to let him control the process.

‎”I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.” (Leonardo da Vinci, 1452 – 1519).

Crash and burn:

Dutch fall out of love with windmills

Towering over the waves of the North Sea like an army of giants, blades whipping through the wind, the turbines were the country’s best hope to curb carbon emissions and meet growing demand for electricity.

The 36 turbines — each one the height of a 30-storey building — produce enough electricity to meet the needs of more than 100,000 households each year.

But five years later the green future looks a long way off. Faced with the need to cut its budget deficit, the Dutch government says offshore wind power is too expensive and that it cannot afford to subsidize the entire cost of 18 cents per kilowatt hour — some 4.5 billion euros last year.

The government now plans to transfer the financial burden to households and industrial consumers in order to secure the funds for wind power and try to attract private sector investment.

It will start billing consumers and companies in January 2013 and simultaneously launch a system under which investors will be able to apply to participate in renewable energy projects.

But the new billing system will reap only a third of what was previously available to the industry in subsidies — the government forecasts 1.5 billion euros every year — while the pricing scale of the investment plan makes it more likely that interested parties will choose less expensive technologies than wind.

Spain is also feeling the pain:

The AEE said it had asked the government to scrap its plans to legislate on a wind power subsidy it says will cut financing for the sector, destroy over 15,000 jobs an make 2020 renewable energy installation targets unachievable.

“In this context and given the proximity of the general elections, the sector urges the government formed after the polls on November 20 to work to avoid a legal vacuum in wind from 2013,” AEE said in a statement.

An AEE spokeswoman said late Thursday it was trying to pressure the government to improve a proposal for wind power subsidies which the industry ministry said was its final offer.

A massive roll out of wind farms in Spain has made the country the fourth-largest generator of wind power in the world.

It is estimated that there are 14,000 abandoned windmills in the US

Minnesotans for Global Warming report that in the last 30 years, the United States has had 14,000 wind turbines abandoned. Apparently, once the subsidies and the wind run out, these 20-story high Cuisinarts are de-bladed and retired. This means more bats and migratory birds will live.

From Minnesotans for Global Warming: “The symbol of Green renewable energy, our savior from the non existent problem of Global Warming, abandoned wind farms are starting to litter the planet as globally governments cut the subsidies taxes that consumers pay for the privilege of having a very expensive power source that does not work every day for various reasons like it’s too cold or the wind speed is too high.”

Without subsidies, wind power is not economically viable. Left wingers do not understand what a subsidy is. They think it’s free money, harvested from special green trees.

Anybody remember this?

Click here to view the embedded video.

And as the lazy, whining, and confused OWS nimrods march we get this news.

At least ten members of President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign finance committee, plus more than a dozen of his campaign bundlers, benefited from sweetheart loans through the Department of Energy (DOE) that collectively dwarfed those given to Solyndra and Fisker.

Around 80% of all the money loaned out by the Department of Energy’s 1705 Loan Guarantee Program, over 16 BILLION dollars went to companies run by, or owned by, Obama cronies.

Shocked?

I think not.

After living with Obama for 3 years the details of the cronyism isn’t shocking either:

Instead of appointing a team of scientists or engineers to direct the DOE’s loan program office, Schweizer contends, the Obama administration placed some of the president’s biggest fundraisers in control. For example, Steve Spinner, who served on the Obama campaign’s National Finance Committee and was himself a top bundler, was tapped as the “chief strategic operations officer” for the DOE’s loan programs. Spinner was joined at DOE by another Obama fundraiser, Sanjay Wagle, and by Democrat donor Jonathan Silver, who would serve as executive director of the program.

With the scientists and engineers effectively out of the way, and the President’s top backers at the levers of the DOE’s loan program, the Obama administration was able to funnel billions of taxpayer dollars back to green energy companies associated with the President’s political and financial patrons.

For members of Obama’s national finance committee, the returns on investing in Obama’s 2008 campaign were incredibly lucrative, according to Schweizer. For every dollar committee members raised, they received $24,783 in return in the form of DOE sweetheart loans, on average.

…The Government Accountability Office red-flagged this apparent–and historic–pattern of crony capitalism in its March 2011 report, which found that the DOE’s loan and grant programs had doled out federal monies through a process that appeared “arbitrary,” lacked proper documentation, and that “had treated applicants inconsistently in the application review process, favoring some applicants and disadvantaging others.”

Ch-ch-change!

Oh, btw….SEIU endorsed Obama, saying, among other things, that he is for the 99%!

So I’m guessing that 99% wants cronyism government managed rather than privately eh?

How curious it is that the Obama Administration decided to release some more documents related to the Solyndra scandal on a Friday. A day that any news released is most certainly going to be overlooked by the friends of Obama, our media.

So they release 135 pages of documents AND rejected the House of Representatives subpoena for the rest.

Man, all this time I figured you couldn’t refuse a subpoena…..silly me I suppose eh?

The White House on Friday rejected House Republicans’ subpoena for all internal communications related to the $535 million Solyndra loan guarantee, instead providing 135 pages of documents that administration officials say meet the “legitimate oversight interests” of congressional investigators.

In a letter to top Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee Friday, White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler said the documents “do not contain evidence of favoritism to political supporters or any wrongdoing by the White House in connection with the Solyndra loan guarantee.”

An administration official said the documents offer little new insight into the loan guarantee to the failed solar panel maker.

“The Bottom line: No news here. It’s the same stuff you’ve seen before,” the administration officials said. “There’s no evidence of any wrongdoing.”

…The White House withheld about a dozen pages of documents related to the restructuring of the loan guarantee “because of the deliberative nature of the communications.” Ruemmler offered to make the documents available to committee staff for review.

Ruemmler said the White House is cooperating with the investigation. But she also blasted Republicans for issuing such a broad subpoena.

“[W]e continue to have serious concerns about the unnecessary burdens and institutional encroachment on the White House imposed by the Committee’s approach to this investigation,” she said.

The breadth of the subpoena, White House officials have said, would have presented a major logistical hurdle for staff, who would have been required to provide every document that mentioned the California solar panel maker.

So that’s the excuse for refusing to comply with a subpoena. It would just be too hard on the staff.

Really? I mean really?

But hey, they decided to find 135 pages and miracles of miracles…none of them showing any wrongdoing.

So I guess the issue is settled.

Just a few minor questions remaining like, for example, why did Energy Secretary Steven Chu and the head of Energy’s loan program, Jonathan Silver, lie about Solyndra’s finances?

But I doubt there would be any documents about that.

Sigh….