Solargate: Another “green energy” company which received stimulus money files for bankruptcy
Ener1 is a company which manufactures the batteries used in electric cars. This company was awarded over $118 million in stimulus money as part of Barack Obama’s “green energy initiative.” When it was learned that the company was awarded this money this is what Brian Levine–one of Joe Biden’s policy advisers–had to say about the news:
The facility that the Vice President visited would not exist if not for a $118.5 million grant from the Department of Energy, which was part of a $2.4 billion Recovery Act investment in electric vehicles
When Joe Biden visited the company he had the following to say:
Well, ladies and gentlemen, here at Ener1, we’re going to harness electricity and bring it to the world like Edison did more than a century ago,” said Biden. “We’re going to reshape the way Americans drive, the way Americans consume, the way Americans power their lives. And in turn, we’re going to reshape America itself. We may not make battery power so cheap that only the rich can afford to drive their cars on imported oil, but—but–with Enron1 (sic) leading the way, we’re certainly going to come pretty close.
It turns out that Enir1 did not “come pretty close” to remaking America as Joe Biden had claimed, and while Brian Levine claimed that the “future looks bright” for Enir1 it turns out that neither of these predictions were close to being the truth because today the company filed for bankruptcy.
Brian Levine and Joe Biden made their statements in January of 2011 and it was predicted that because of this government aid the company would eventually be able to add 1,ooo people to the workforce. Even if this ended up being true, $118 million to create 1,000 jobs seems like a high price to pay. But one year later the company which Brian Levine said would not exist without the stimulus money has filed for bankruptcy anyway and may soon cease to exist in the near future so it turns out that the taxpayers spent $118 million to prop up a green energy company for one year.
What a bargain!
Gunrunner: Arizona to open an investigation into Fast and Furious
I was going to write a post about this last week when the news first broke, but then decided against it because I felt this was something that was going nowhere so why bother? But after reading this article tonight I asked myself a different question; why not write about it?
Frustrated with the slow progress being made by the federal government’s investigation into the Fast and Furious scandal, due in part to the stonewalling of Eric Holder on pertinent documents related to the scandal, Arizona has decided to open up its own investigation into the deadly scandal to determine if the federal government broke any state laws when it entered the illicit business of gun trafficking.
Here is part of what Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin had to say earlier today about this decision: Read more…
If Barack Obama is reelected he may not bring back Timothy Geithner
This is all speculation at this point, but Timothy Geithner feels that if Barack Obama is reelected he will not be asked to return as Treasury Secretary.
He’s not going to ask me to stay on, I’m pretty confident,” Geithner said in the interview. “I’m confident he’ll be president. But I’m also confident he’s going to have the privilege of having another secretary of the Treasury
Now that would certainly be good news, but this is just one man’s thoughts; perhaps Barack Obama has already told TImothy Geithner he would not be returning but this could just be the ramblings of a man who knows he has underperformed at the position entrusted to him by the president and I will not believe it until Barack Obama makes this announcement.
Until that announcement comes there is only one way he can be sure that Timothy Geithner’s tenure as Treasury Secretary is over, and that would be to fire the man who hired Timothy Geithner in the first place.
Warren Buffett will benefit from Barack Obama’s decision to kill the Keystone Pipeline
Warren Buffett is a billionaire who just happens to be a darling of Barack Obama and the left because he has spoken out on the need for the 1% to pay higher taxes. (Although he has never willingly signed over a check to the government to show us how deeply convicted he is on this position.) Barack Obama often cites Warren Buffett’s outspoken views on taxation when he promises to make the rich “pay their fair share” so imagine my surprise when I learned that it is none other than Warren Buffett who stands to benefit from Barack Obama’s decision to kill the Keystone Pipeline.
Mr. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. owns Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC, which is among the railroads that would transport oil produced in western Canada if the pipeline isn’t built.
“Whatever people bring to us, we’re ready to haul,” Krista York-Wooley, a spokeswoman for Burlington Northern, a unit of Buffett’s Omaha, Neb.-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc., told Bloomberg News. If Keystone XL “doesn’t happen, we’re here to haul,” she said.
When Barack Obama decided to kill the pipeline he claimed that it was done for environmental concerns. He claimed that the Republicans forced his hand and he had no choice but to kill the pipeline because there wasn’t adequate time for a review on the environmental concerns even though a three year review was completed and found that the risks to the environment were miniscule. The results were not to Barack Obama’s liking so decided to wait for the results of yet another review in the hopes that the results would be more sympathetic to his political agenda. It was this second review which was cut short by the Republicans because Barack Obama was trying to delay his decision until after the election so he wouldn’t alienate voters whose support he will need in order to win reelection.
Barack Obama’s defense of his decision on this pipeline was always dubious, but now we have learned that a darling of the left, and a major Democrat contributor, seems poised to gain substantially from this decision and one has to wonder if this decision was made for environmental concerns, or if this was simply a kickback to Warren Buffett for his support to Democrat causes over the years.
Allen West defends Newt Gingrich’s “food stamp president” comment
As regular readers of America’s Watchtower already know, I am not fan of Newt Gingrich and I do not wish to see him win the Republican nomination. However he has been under attack as being a racist and using racial code to win support of the Tea Party in South Carolina for calling Barack Obama the “food stamp president” and because these attacks are unjustified I am now compelled to defend him.
I cannot possibly defend him as well as Allen West did, so I will let his words do my dirty work. As can be read here, Allen West came to Newt Gingrich’s defense today:
There is no race code. It’s a fact. Since President Obama has been in the Oval Office, you’ve seen a 41 percent increase in the food stamp recipients in the United States of America. We have a president that’s making more American victims rather than victors.
He continued: Read more…
It might sound like something you would read about in Atlas Shrugged–the Anti-Dog eat Dog Bill or the Equalization of Opportunity Bill–but sadly this idea of creating a “Reasonable Profits Board” to gain greater control on oil industry profits is being introduced by six Democrats in the House. In case you were wondering, the six Democrats are; Dennis Kucinich, John Conyers Jr., Bob Filner, Marcia Fudge, Jim Langevin, and Lynn Woolsey.
The bill would create this board which would be charged with implementing a “windfall profit” tax on the oil companies, up to 100%, after they reach what this unelected board (the three members would be chosen by the president) decided was a reasonable profit. However the bill doesn’t define what a reasonable profit is, that would be left up to the three member panel. And the money will then be spread around by the government and used to invest in alternative energy.
What could possibly go wrong with this plan? Think Solyndra, SunPower, LightSquared, Fisker, Beacon Power, BrightSource, Solazyme, and Tesla–all companies involved in the Solargate scandal and all companies with ties to Democrat donors which happened to receive billions of dollars in stimulus money. I think we can reasonable expect the same in this instance.
Remember Barack Obama once said that at “some point you’ve made enough money” and now Democrats are moving to set up a board which would tell oil companies when they made enough money and who doesn’t think that this idea will spread into other industries over time until we get to the point where an unelected panel is deciding not only how much money they can make but also how much product a company can produce, what they can produce, and how much they can charge for that product?
What type of person do you think Barack Obama would place on this board? I think I know who his first nominee will be:
South Carolina primary wrap up
What a difference a week makes!
Last week at this time it looked as though Mitt Romney was positioned to win the first three contests and sweep his way to the Republican nomination virtually unchallenged; he had won Iowa and New Hampshire and had a big lead in South Carolina and Florida, but when the Iowa votes were recounted because of a typo Rick Santorum was declared the winner in Iowa. This news, coupled with Newt Gingrich’s strong debate performances last week and Mitt Romney’s debate meltdown over a question he should have twice been prepared for allowed Newt Gingrich to surge into the lead in the South Carolina polls leading up to the vote and he won the primary going away, has shaken up the GOP primary race.
Gunrunner: Arizona official to plead the fifth and will not testify in front of the Congress on Fast and Furious
I am writing to advise you that my client is going to assert his constitutional privilege not to be compelled to be a witness against himself
This is his right as guaranteed under the constitution and I do not begrudge him this right, but we all know that most of the time when the fifth amendment is invoked that the person invoking the fifth is guilty of something. How can a person be a witness against himself if he were not guilty of something? A person would not plead the fifth if he had the chance to clear his name and normally I would feel that Cunningham is guilty of a crime, but there just might be more to this story.
Primary news: Rick Perry drops out, Rick Santorum wins Iowa, the latest South Carolina poll, and Newt Gingrich’s personal problems
Today was an unusually busy day in the Republican primary and I thought that I would touch on everything that happened in one post. We have four stories which I consider to be big news items and it is hard to chose which to go into first but I have decided to start with the fact that when the candidates debate tonight there will be one less participant because earlier today Rick Perry dropped out of the race.
Stating that he saw no viable path to the nomination, Rick Perry suspended his campaign and endorsed Newt Gingrich for president. It is true that Rick Perry was only polling at around 2% in South Carolina so what will Perry’s endorsement mean in South Carolina? I expect most Perry supporters to back Newt Gingrich in South Carolina while some may head over to the Rick Santorum campaign, and I don’t see many of Rick Perry’s supporters ending up in Ron Paul’s camp.
Barack Obama says no to the Keystone Pipeline
The last order of business which the Congress was charged with before they adjourned was extending Barack Obama’s payroll tax cut. The House had passed a one year extension of the tax cut and sent it to the Senate where a two month extension was passed. The Senate then promptly adjourned–they did not go into recess–and forced the House to vote on the two month extension, and eventually the House agreed to this extension but not before getting a small concession.
That concession was setting a deadline of February 21st for the president to make a decision on the Keystone Pipeline–a decision which he did not want to make before the 2012 election because he knew he could not win no matter what his decision was. This was a no-win proposition for Barack Obama; if he ruled in favor of the pipeline he would upset the environmentalists and if he ruled against the pipeline he would draw the ire of the right, so he would have rather postponed this decision until it could not hurt his chances politically.
Today Barack Obama made that decision: Siting his concern that the deadline imposed on him by the Congress did not allow for an adequate review of the pipeline, Barack Obama killed the Keystone Pipeline and quickly blamed House Republicans for forcing him to make this decision. There are some legitimate concerns about this pipeline, specifically in Nebraska, where the pipeline would extend over a waterway which supplies eight states with drinking water. But is there more to Barack Obama’s decision?
NH Tea Party Coalition
