DO WE NEED 11,000 LOBBYIST ORGANIZATIONS IN
WASHINGTON ~ I SAY NO, WE DO NOT !!!
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Any private company CEO OR CFO would get the boot if they oked any of these earmarks. NO WONDER WE ARE BROKE.
10 Wasteful Stimulus Projects (source) www.usnews.com
1
. A Visitor's Center With No Visitors
(Craig Mitchelldyer/Getty Images)
$554,763 to the U.S. Forest Service to allow it to replace the windows in a visitors center at Mount St. Helens, Wash., that is currently closed and which the Forest Service has no plans to reopen.
2. A Museum Off the Rails
iStockphoto
$1.2 million to convert an abandoned train station in Glassboro, N.J., that has been boarded up and unused for 40 years, into “a museum, public meeting space and welcome center.”
Analyzing Ants
iStockphoto
$1.9 million to allow the California Academy of Sciences to send researchers to the Southwest Indian Ocean Islands and east Africa, to capture, photograph, and analyze thousands of exotic ants
4. Monkey Business
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$677,462 to researchers at Georgia State University to study why monkeys respond negatively to inequity and unfairness.
5. Artificial Comedy
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$712,883 to researchers at Northwestern University using stimulus money in an effort utilizing “artificial intelligence”
6. Divining Neptune
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$456,663 to University of California, Berkeley to support their getting a better understanding of the global circulation in the atmosphere and altitude of clouds on the planet Neptune.
7. Yoga vs. Hot Flashes
iStockphoto
$294,958 so that researchers at Wake Forest University can study whether Integral Yoga “can be an effective method to reduce the frequency and/or severity of hot flashes” in menopausal women.
8. Big Brother's Recycling Bins
iStockphoto
$500,000 to pay for blue, 96-gallon, microchip-embedded recycling bins for the city of Dayton, Ohio.
9. Better Skiing Through Tax Dollars
(Jamie Squire/ALLSPORT)
$25 million to Mt. Snow in West Dover, Vt., “to replace the Summit Local and Sunbrook chairlifts, construct a 120-million-gallon storage pond for snowmaking, and install additional snowmaking fan guns” that take advantage of a provision in the stimulus that make funds available for “ski area capital improvements.”
10. Meta-Stimulus
iStockphoto
$193,956 to researchers at Houston’s Rice University and the University of Texas in Dallas, who are getting money through the National Science Foundation to “estimate the impact of stimulus funds
http://newworldordersatire.com
Latest post looks at Rick Perry's comments on Guardasil at the presidential debates. Thanks. :-)
It appears that the monetary system is on the verge of collapse. It won't be the first time. While the masses go through very hard times, after the system collapses, some prosper. Why is that?
In a free market economy, you give me money in return for my effort. Comes government to take some of my money and give it to someone deemed to be in need of government help. There are soon going to be a lot more people in need of help. What nice people we have in government! How do you deal with those nice government people helping those they put in the poorhouse.
You figure out how to keep government out of your cash box. There are many ways. You get on the government dole. There are many ways. When you live in Rome, you do as the Romans do. The Romans lived lavishly. They had millions of slaves. Let everyone slave away for you. Live lavishly.
Of course the free enterprise system is better. Your slaves will soon learn the error of their ways. We'll get back on track. We have to learn the hard way.
LAST NITE, I RECIEVED A PHONE CALL FROM REPRESENTATIVE TONKO WHO IS A CHARTER MEMBER OF MISTRESS NANCY PELOSI'S DUNGEON, TELLING ME THAT I WILL BE PART OF A TELEPHONE TOWN HALL TONITE
I HAVE RECIEVED 100% POSITIVE RESPONSES FROM THE LAST 2 RECOMENDATIONS THAT I HAVE SUBMITTED TO
SEVERAL MEMBERS OF CONGRESS AND PUT ON TWITTER, FACEBOOK, LINKEDIN, AS WELL AS BLOGGING HERE.
I AM ACTIVE IN A TAX FORUM ON LINKED IN WHICH HAS SEVERAL TAX ATTORNEYS, C P A'S AND MANY PROFFESSIONAL TAX PROFFESSIONALS ALL OF WHOM AGREE THAT MY SUGGESTIONS ARE TO RATIONAL FOR THE COMMON POLITICIAN BECAUSE THESE POLITICIAN CAN NOT GET PAST THEIR POLITICAL IDEAOLOGY TO BE COGNIZANT OF RATIONAL THINKING. BUT I THINK THAT SOME OF MY COMMON, RATIONAL THINKING IS CREATING CHINKS IN THE POLITICAL ARMOR OF SOME OF THOSE PEOPLE. THIS IS BECAUSE I AM SENDING WEEKLY MESSAGES TO SEVERAL MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. THIS IS WHAT I MEANT IN MY "CALL TO ACTION" BLOG, I DONT WANT TO GIVE THEM TIME FOR MORE THAN ONE DEEP BREATH BEFORE I GET BACK TO WORK TRYING TO OPEN THEIR MINDS TO COMMON SENSE.
Posted on NewsMax.com-By Jim Meyers and Christopher Ruddy-On September 20, 2011:
“Former President Bill Clinton tells Newsmax that Washington should not raise taxes until the slumping economy is turned around — and says President Obama’s plan to increase taxes on the wealthy won’t solve the debt problem.
Clinton sat down for an exclusive interview with Newsmax Founder and CEO Christopher Ruddy in New York, where Clinton is holding the 10th annual gathering of the widely praised Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), an event that brings together heads of state, business leaders, humanitarians and celebrities to devise and implement innovative and successful solutions to some of the worlds most pressing challenges.
In the wide-ranging interview, Clinton discussed his foundation, climate change, the economy, taxes, government regulations, fellow Democrat Obama, and the possibility of civil unrest in America.
He also spoke about his wife Hillary’s chances of running for president in 2016, calling her “the ablest person in my generation” — and offered his surprising take on the 2012 GOP presidential race.
Asked about the impact the CGI experience has had on him since leaving the White House, Clinton says: “First of all it’s been exceedingly good to know that you can still make a difference, that everything I always believed turned out to be true — that private citizens can also do public good.
“It’s enabled me to work with Bob Dole, for example, who was my opponent in 1996. We raised enough money to give college aid to the spouses and children of everybody killed on 9/11, or disabled.
“[I worked] with the first president Bush on the tsunami in South Asia and Katrina, with the second president Bush on the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake.
“All this has been really rewarding, to think that you can just focus on what works and how to do it faster, cheaper, better. It’s been a joy — and a bit of a surprise. If you told me 10 years ago that half the people staying alive on AIDS drugs would have them on our contracts, that we could document 300 million lives in 170 countries we’ve affected, I wouldn’t have believed that.
“It shows what people can do if they just think about how to do something instead of how to talk about it and fight about it.”
Turning to climate change, Clinton observes: “Next year the Kyoto agreement, which was adopted in 1997 and early 1998, expires. They’ve had a meeting last year and they’re about to have one in Durban, South Africa, to figure out what to do next.
{…}
“I have been saying for 10 years, and a lot of people thought I was crazy at the time, but the fundamental problem with climate change is not that it has become a political football in America, that there’s a difference of opinion about it. It’s that — take a country that fervently believes in global warming and that human activity is causing it but will not support an agreement, China.
“China’s the number one investor in clean energy technology. They still won’t support an agreement. Why? Because they don’t know for sure that a country can get rich, stay rich, and get richer without putting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
“So what I decided to do was to dodge the debate, not because I won’t welcome the debate but because nothing’s going to happen in this space until people see that market economies can make profits and generate jobs out of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
Clinton acknowledges that the worldwide economic downturn has made it more difficult to raise money for his foundation. “But we’re doing well,” he is quick to add. “We’re going to have $6 billion worth of commitments here over a 5-to-10-year period, and they’ll affect another 100 million people above the people we’re already helping. That’s pretty good.”
President Obama this week unveiled his plan to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans in an effort to reduce the deficit, even though he could be sure that Republicans would reject the plan.
Clinton says Obama’s whole approach to the deficit is “a little confusing.”
He explains: “In the speech that the president gave to Congress, he didn’t propose any new taxes. The speech was $250 billion in tax cuts, $250 billion in spending over a period of two to three years. It focused mostly on a rather innovative set of payroll tax cuts and incentives to hire people.
“I personally don’t believe we ought to be raising taxes or cutting spending until we get this economy off the ground. If we cut government spending, which I normally would be very inclined to do when the deficit’s this big, with interest rates already near zero you can’t get the benefits out of it.
“So what I’d like to see them do is come up with a bipartisan approach, starting with the payroll tax cuts because they have the biggest return.
“Then what I’d like to see is an effort made at a bipartisan resolution of the banking home mortgage crisis.
“One of the things that President Reagan did with the Democratic Congress in the early 1980s that never gets any discussion is the way they set up this system to purge the debt overhang from the savings and loan collapse. It was unpopular but it had to be done. And as soon as we flushed it out there was a big increase in investment.
“So that’s what we need to do here with this home deal. I don’t think you can tax or cut taxes, I don’t think you can spend or not spend enough to get America back to a full employment economy until we flush that debt.
“What I would like to say to the president and Speaker Boehner is, O.K., you both have your deal. Go work it out. Meanwhile focus on putting American back to work because it just confused Americans. Americans lost the fact that whatever you feel about this millionaire surcharge, it won’t solve the problem.”
Talk coming out of Washington is that there is widespread disarray in Obama White House. If Clinton could meet privately with Obama, he was asked, what advice might he give the president to jumpstart the economy and work with the Republicans.
“The first thing I’d say is we need to get a joint plan,” Clinton responds. “I would organize a meeting. There are two big chunks of money in this country, untouched corporate treasuries and banks. Companies have $2 trillion but they’re not investing it. Banks have $2 trillion but they’re not investing it. I’d like to see him have joint meeting with these people and say, tell us what it takes to get the money flowing again. We don’t have to borrow that from China. We don’t have to run the deficit up. The money’s there.”
Another way to get that money flowing is to pull back on the imposition of new government regulations, Clinton opines.
“What I find is a lot of business people can be supportive of new regulations and new standards, but particularly in a fragile time they don’t like to have too many things changing at once.
“A business can’t do five things at once and decide whether to get back into the investment business after it’s slow. It may be that there is a way, for example, to stagger out a way things are going to be done under the Dodd-Frank bill.
“The really important thing about Dodd-Frank, that we had to do to establish our financial bone fides again, was to have capital requirements on banks and investment banks so we have leverage limits.”
New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg and political analyst James Carville have both recently suggested that the nation’s economic woes could lead to riots and civil unrest.
Clinton comments: “There are two issues. One is the fact that the country has grown markedly more unequal over the last 30 years. This often happens when you change an economic paradigm.
“The industrial economy tended to settle out in a way that was very powerful in Europe and the United States and Japan. We had a big middle class and opportunities for poor people to work their way into it, and a successful class of businessmen and financial leaders. Then we moved into what Tom Friedman calls a flatter world and it changed everything. It changed the job mix and requirements for doing well in it.
“The bottom line is, things start growing more unequal again. In general that has not sparked riots in America. We don’t have a lot of resentment against people who are successful. We kind of like it, Americans do. It’s one of our best characteristics. If we think someone earned their money we do not resent their success. That’s why there’s been very little class conflict in American history.
“The second problem is that it appears that the jobs engine is bad on the vine. A lot of voters get that companies have $2 trillion but they’re not investing it. They get that banks have more than $2 trillion and they’re not investing it. Unless we can find a way to start the jobs engine going again, it is conceivable that someday we could have trouble.
“But I don’t think we should even think about that. I think we ought to think about how to get the jobs engine going because it’s the right thing to do. I wouldn’t worry about the other stuff. Let’s just put America back to work. That’s the right thing to do.”
Casting his eye toward the heated race for the Republican presidential nomination, Clinton agrees that Mitt Romney and Rick Perry are the definite front-runners. But he adds: “If you ask who has the power to get back into the mix, assuming no new people enter — I think Mitch Daniels would have been very competitive, I think Haley Barbour would have appeal, I think the governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, would have appeal — but if you assume nobody else gets in, then of those that are there the question is can Speaker [Newt] Gingrich pull what McCain did last time.
“The one thing that makes it very hard to count him out is he’s always thinking. He’s always got a bunch of new ideas and some of them are pretty good. So a guy that can still use his brain cells and come up with good ideas, you’re never really sure what happens there.”
Jon Huntsman is a viable candidate “because he was governor of Utah, which is a conservative state, speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese and has an exemplary public career, but there may just not be enough space for him in the ideological bandwidth of the Republican primary. But it’s hard to say right now that he would never get anything going.
“If it stays between Romney and Perry, I think Perry will have the juice of being perceived as the more conservative one, Romney will have the power of being perceived as perhaps more electable because he’s more moderate.
“I just have this uneasy feeling that politics is not so static that it will be these two guys fighting it out all the way to the end, with nothing unpredictable happening. We just live in a world that’s too unpredictable.”
A recent poll found that Hillary Clinton is the most favored political figure on the scene today. The former president was asked under what circumstances Hillary might consider a run for the White House in 2016.
“You’ll have to ask her,” Clinton responds with a smile. “But when we were kids and I met her and we started our now 40-year-plus conversation — I met her 41 years ago this last spring — pretty quick I decided that she was the ablest person in my generation. And nothing has happened in those 41 years to change my opinion.
“I may have been a better politician, at least on the first go-round, but I never met anybody I thought had a better combination of mind and heart.
“If she wants to come home, I’ll be happy. If she wants to serve, I’ll be happy. But she has to decide that. All I know is I’m glad that she’s serving now.”
Source:
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/bill-clinton-obama-taxes/2011/09/20/id/411720?s=al&promo_code=D16F-1
Note: The following articles and/or blog posts and video relate to this disturbing issue-You Decide:
I. Geithner: Hikes won’t hurt growth!
What’s wrong with this picture?
Posted on The Hill-By Bernie Becker-On September 19, 2011:
“Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner insisted Monday that the administration’s proposals to raise taxes mainly on businesses and the rich would not further limit an already struggling economy.
He also cast President Obama’s tax proposals as an effort to make the tax code more fair — an argument the administration is using to rally his base and fight back at GOP assertions that the tax hikes will hurt the economy.
Geithner said he was confident that if Congress approved the president’s $447 billion jobs package and other growth-oriented tax reforms, including reduced tax rates and the elimination of some deductions for the wealthy, the economy would emerge more strongly in the long run.
“If Congress were to meet those basic principles he laid out, then I am very confident that the modest changes we’re suggesting in terms of revenues would have — would make the economy stronger in the long term, not weaker in the long term,” the Treasury secretary told reporters during a press conference laying out Obama’s proposals.
One of those principles, the “Buffett rule,” is named after the investor Warren Buffett and declares that the wealthiest taxpayers should pay a larger share of their earnings to the government than middle-class families.
Administration officials on Monday did not spell out how the Buffett rule would work, instead describing it as a guidepost for a revenue-raising overhaul of the tax code that also lowered rates.
“How you achieve that principle, the Buffett principle, depends on the shape of the basic reforms,” Geithner said.
The Buffett rule and proposed tax hikes were made in the context of a $4.4 trillion deficit-reduction plan, but new spending cuts made up a small portion of that total sum.
The proposals are also intended to pay for Obama’s jobs proposal, and add up to about $4.81 trillion in total.
This includes the $1.2 trillion in cuts enacted in August after Congress approved a deal to raise the nation’s debt ceiling. Tax hikes on businesses and the rich make up $1.5 trillion, while reducing interest payments saves another $430 billion, according to a White House fact sheet.
Most of the reduced spending, $1.1 trillion, comes from the drawdown of troops in Afghanistan and the transition to a civilian-led mission in Iraq. Besides those savings, only $580 billion comes from reduced spending.
Maya MacGuineas, the president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, declared that the president’s plan needed to be bulked up on the spending side, noting the expected savings from the end of the two wars.
“I think it’s great that the president’s embraced the notion that the supercommittee needs to go big,” MacGuineas said. “But if you peel back the layers, there really aren’t enough cuts in this plan to really get us where we need to go.”
As details of the Buffett rule began leaking out over the weekend, Republicans started blasting the president’s plan as just the latest Democratic attempt at class warfare. Business groups have also panned the proposal.
Conservatives have also expressed concern that taking aim at the wealthy could hurt investment. As Buffett himself has noted, one of the key reasons top earners have a reduced tax bill is that capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than income.
“Tax increases thinly veiled as tax reform isn’t reform,” Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, said in a statement. “It’s time for a new approach that puts the American people back in charge built on a simpler, fairer tax code, reformed entitlements, and reduced federal spending.”
But Geithner argued introducing reforms that increase taxes on the wealthy is the best way to ensure the government can fund necessary programs for the poor and middle class while reducing deficits at the same time.
“If you try to return this country to living within our means, if you try to restore financial soundness to the basic fiscal trajectory of the United States, and you do so without modest changes in revenues, then you’re just adding to the burden of people that have already borne so much of the burden of this crisis,” Geithner said.
Democrats on Monday largely leaped to the president’s defense, noting that a slew of polls this year have reported that the majority of Americans believe the wealthy should pay more to help reduce the federal deficit.
Democrats also cited statistics showing that the top 400 earners in the country had seen their income skyrocket in recent years, even as they paid a lower share in taxes. And other observers have asserted that only a relative handful of taxpayers reporting small-business income make enough to be hurt by increasing taxes on the wealthy.
“More than anyone else, these millionaires and billionaires benefited from Bush tax cuts and contributed $3 trillion to our deficit to help plunge this nation into a financial hole,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said on the chamber floor on Monday.”
Source:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/182501-geithner-hikes-wont-hurt-growth
II. If you were Bill Clinton, would you want Obama re-elected?-Posted on The Wall Street Journal-By JAMES TARANTO-On September 20, 2011:
III. The Obama Investigations!-Posted on The Heritage Foundation-By Mike Brownfield-On September 21, 2011:
IV. Obama’s Predictable Scandals!-Posted on National Review Online-By VICTOR DAVIS HANSON-On September 21, 2011:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/277797/obama-s-predictable-scandals-victor-davis-hanson#
V. Obama vs. GPS!-Posted on National Review Online- By Arthur Herman-On September 21, 2011:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/277939/obama-vs-gps-arthur-herman
VI. Brooks Breaks Up with Obama!-Posted on National Review Online-By PATRICK BRENNAN-On September 21, 2011:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/277820/brooks-breaks-obama-patrick-brennan
Note: My following blog posts contain numerous articles and/or blog posts and videos that relate to this disturbing issue-You Decide:
The Military Pays the Price for Obama’s Agenda!
http://weroinnm.wordpress.com/2010/08/11/the-military-pays-the-price-for-obama’s-agenda/
Washington Times Calls for Obama’s Impeachment!
http://weroinnm.wordpress.com/2010/08/31/washington-times-calls-for-obama’s-impeachment/Is it important to understand the Marxist assault on the foundations of our system?
Note: If you have a problem viewing any of the listed blog posts please copy web site and paste it on your browser. Be aware that some of the articles and/or blog posts or videos listed within the contents of the above blog post(s) may have been removed by this administration because they may have considered them to be too controversial. Sure seems like any subject matter that may shed some negative light on this administration is being censored-What happened to free speech?-You Decide.
“Food For Thought”
God Bless the U.S.A.!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q65KZIqay4E&feature=related
Semper Fi!
Jake
My wife, after reading Shirley MacLaine’s I’m Over All That, said to me, “Shirley sounds a lot like you.” Curious, I’m reading the book. Shirley says she is over the expectation of the external world. That’s me.
Says Shirley, “ I have a guiding sense of curiousity. I will never get over asking Why. . .As I grow older, I find myself reevaluating experiences on my walls and relating to them in the spirit of synchronicity. . . Somehow in each of our lives is evidence of the scenario and destiny we have outlined for ourselves in order to discover who we really are, why we did what we did, and where our souls have actually been. These memories (and so many others, including those from past lives) are part of my consciousness now. . . I have come to understand that spirit and soul are the only permanent truths that matter.”
“I never cease to be amazed at how far religious people will go in order to turn their destinies over to God rather than take charge of them themselves. . . In fact, everywhere I’ve traveled in the world, the conflicts I’ve seen stemmed from organized religion in one way or another. . .Nothing is as important as zeroing in my passionate ability to be content with myself, the land, the pain, my intentions and the power of allowance. . .I felt in touch with the rhythm of nature for the first time. . .Maybe we choose our destiny but we never know exactly what we’re getting into until we are actually there. So my journey in this lifetime with all its success, failure, fame, searching for my true identity, and exploring new lands, is a mirror of my soul’s journey through time to understand not only who I am but who I was, and most important, what is my relationship with the Creator. . .What I was learning about religion around the world as I traveled was that it offered each denomination and culture an opportunity to bypass responsibility for itself and assign that task to God. . . We invented this outside evil and could justify any behavior toward him by saying were trying to protect our God. . .Therefore, I gave up religion a long time ago. “
Shirley says, “One may not reap what one sows in the same lifetime, but he or she will reap what has been sown eventually—even Hitler.” Shirley visited Mother Teresa in India at her home for the dying. Mother Teresa said her reason for devoting her life to helping others was when she realized she had played a part of Hitler in her. Shirley says, “She became a saint because she exercised her self-responsitility, not because she was completely good and pure.” Shirley: “If I feel physically sick, I ask my higher self what caused it. And I always get some kind of answer. I’ll take that over fear-based religion any day.”
Shirley: “We know that more killing has occurred in the name of God than any other. Did the Devil make us do it? Let’s investigate who we really are in relation to our beliefs, because if we don’t we are going to be forever manipulated by the real ruling elite in this world—the international banking community. In effect, ‘they’ understand the real polarities governing our live are not Good versus Evil, but rather Materialism versus Spirit.”
Yep, Shirley thinks a lot like I think.
P. S. This thought: The Constitution grants that you have personal and private rights, one of which is the right to your own personal God. America's political orthodoxy has given government the authority to enter your home and examine your personal records, and to use those records to tax you, and to give your rightful property to others in the name of fairness. It is hard to determine which is the nuttier, the political orthodoxy or the religious orthodoxy.
“Think of it as ‘pathological science’ or ‘wishful-thinking energy.’ We’ve had ‘green energy’ for thousands of years in the form of water-wheels in some form or other and windmills have served for centuries to grind grain and other such tasks . . . the failing of green-technology isn’t that it doesn’t work. Much of it does work marvelously. The failing of green-tech is that RIGHT HERE and RIGHT NOW it can NOT be harnessed in such a fashion as to replace carbon-fuels. In fact after six decades of devotion to the ‘lovely idea and sweet promise of green energy evolution’ the largest and most reliable renewable energy source right here and right now in America is still the wood burning stove which generates 2.5%** of our nation’s energy. Today, 2011, coal still accounts for 48%.”
Solyndra, Bird-killing Windmills^^ or Cold Fusion:
Green-tech Still Leaves America ‘out in the Cold’
The Solyndra stimulus money and its ensuing bankruptcy form a classic case-study highlighting crony-capitalism and the dangers of the federal government picking winners and losers in the not-so-free market. Latest information reveals Solyndra was one of 18 companies receiving more than $10 billion in total backing from the Department of Energy several others are also reportedly in financial difficulty. The $535 million given as part of President Obama's 2009 stimulus program and his campaign promise to “create five million green-tech jobs” was clearly an abuse of American taxpayers. Since even before the Solyndra bankruptcy each of the 3,500 green-tech jobs so far created within the Obama $787 BIllion stimulus cost an average of $10.88 million dollars or a total of over $38 BIllion; and since Solyndra got more money from the federal coffers in 2009 than 35 of our states did, it’s NOT surprising that some of the biggest names in liberalism are running for the hills to avoid questions about the controversy. Some of the less well-known names as well, the leadership at Solyndra, are running for the hills. While protesting their innocence mightily to the mainstream media (MSM) and saying they “did nothing wrong,” the Solyndra honchos have revealed that they will as a group “avail themselves of their 5th Amendment rights against self-incrimination” and remain silent when they get to Capitol Hill. Privately Solyndra execs tell the MSM that the “falling price of ordinary solar panels” doomed their company. More on this in a few paragraphs.
UNmentioned, by the way, in the president’s latest waves of attack on the “tax loopholes for the rich” is the fact that General Electric paid $0 taxes on $14 Billion in profits largely because of the tax loopholes favoring businesses regarded as “green” by the Obama administration and progressive politicians. This is one reason that GE’s CEO Jeffrey Immeldt was named Obama Jobs Czar even though 80% of his firm’s jobs are located outside this country.
Obama’s Energy Department meanwhile faces a September 30th deadline to give fourteen companies final loan guarantee approval totaling more than $9 billion. House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders Tuesday wrote Energy Secretary Steven Chu voicing concerns about rushing the approval process just to meet that deadline. Back to Solyndra . . . Congressional subpoenas for Solyndra execs are likely to come to naught . . . the nothing we’ll learn from them is dwarfed, however, by the nothing the Obama administration understands about business or the free markets.
Here’s a fact for you: despite all the presidential and vice-presidential ballyhoo about its promise; and the White House creating a Solyndra propaganda video . . . Solyndra never once showed anything close to even ONE profitable quarter in its five years of existence and their so-called “advanced designs” offered little more than a 12-15% greater efficiency for double or triple the money. Two weeks ago the FBI and Energy Department officials raided the Solyndra headquarters in California after claims that as little as six weeks ago the top company officials had sworn to California Rep. Henry Waxman (former chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee) that things were “looking up” and that the company expected “to double revenues in 2012.”
Rajjpuut takes that clever tongue-in-cheek “report” to mean that the Solyndra officials actually were telling the truth-expecting to lose twice as much money in 2012 . . . hence their September, 2011 bankruptcy filing. I remember a Lieutenant JG that once told our ET gang that we’d have “three times the liberty (time off)” we’d recently been given when the ship got to Hong Kong. Of course we all knew that since we’d been at sea for 46 straight days (a.k.a. recently), he wasn’t promising much since 3 X 0 = 0.
The Obama administration’s shocking lack of a clue when it comes to the verities of business came to light when the Energy Department official in charge of the loan program that subsidized Solyndra, Jonathon Silver, responded to a question about the Obama administration using stimulus money “to pick winners and losers” this way.
“The agency is not trying to pick winners or losers in the private sector” but merely “trying to assist companies that have already received substantial support from venture capitalists.” Mr. Silver’s naïveté aside, he, of course sounds like he’s discussing a green-tech version of “too big to fail.” Mr. Silver, venture capitalism is very high risk investment. Typically 5/8 or over 62% of all venture capitalism endeavors lose money. The venture capitalist is looking for NOT the 38% of such efforts that make money, but for the 7% that make “a killing in the marketplace.” The federal government should not be gambling OR doing venture capitalism with taxpayer dollars . . . particularly after three straightforward warnings from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to the White House warned that backing Solyndra was NOT a wise move.
IF and WHEN a green-tech company run by a 21st Century version of Thomas Alva Edison actually produces viable mass-market green technology . . . the government won’t need to be involved at all. Even the nutcases who “produced” muon-catalyzed fusion were offered hundreds of millions of dollars worth of start-up dough until their methodology was deemed fraudulent. Yet even today twenty-two years after that revelation, when Rajjpuut types in “cold fusion” in his web browser he gets 10,400,000 hits. Green tech is a lot like high school in that being popular is no guarantee of lifelong success. The mere highly-attractive nature of an idea (like green energy or radical environmentalism) might be a selling point for science fiction writers but real science ain’t done that way. As Edison rued: “science is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration” . . . and the Obama administration has not done its homework on either green tech or global warming (radical environmentalism).
They have also been utterly UNforthcoming when it comes to the reality of green-tech's effect on the environment. For example we can't irrigate vegetables in California creating 40% UNemployment in some areas because tiny fish (the delta smelt) might get sucked into the piping; but the large electrical-generating windmills kill tens of thousands of birds and we hear not a peep (pun intended). They don't dare tell us of the environmental cost of their ridiculous "Cash for Clunkers" program that drove the average cost of a used car today up by $1,900. They don't tell us that hybrid "green" cars are about eight times more toxic in the manufacturing process than normal ICE (internal combustion engine) ones.
Think of Solyndra and other such frauds as ‘pathological science’ or ‘wishful-thinking energy.’ We’ve had real ‘green energy’ for thousands of years in the form of water-wheels in some form or other and windmills have served for centuries to grind grain and other such tasks . . . the failing of green-technology isn’t that it doesn’t work. Much of it does work marvelously. The failing of green-tech is that RIGHT HERE and RIGHT NOW it can NOT be harnessed in such a fashion as to replace carbon-fuels. In fact after six decades of devotion to the lovely idea and sweet promise of ‘a green energy evolution’ the largest and most reliable renewable energy source right here and right now in America is still the wood burning stove which generates 2.5%** of our nation’s energy.
Coal meanwhile still accounts for 48%. However, some groups claim that coal today only accounts for 23% of all our energy. The same groups claim that hydroelectric energy generates 7.3% of our renewable CLEAN energy and is our largest source of renewable. Since coal-generated electrical power is often used at peak use times to pump water to produce hydro-electricity . . . Rajjpuut will stand with the coal companies’ stats until some definitive study is done.
You do recall that candidate Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2008 that his energy policies “would necessarily make the cost of electricity skyrocket” and that they’d “bankrupt the coal companies.” Where Rajjpuut comes from that’s called “cutting off your nose to spite your face.”
Despite all the raps on America by environmental excessivists, the United States is only the 2nd largest consumer of energy in the world (China is #1); and ranks only #7 in the world in per capita energy use (Canada is the only large country ahead of the U.S. and Norway is the only medium-sized country where their individual citizens use more energy on average they we do here in America). Meanwhile the United States has discovered far and away the largest oil repository in the world (the Bakken Fields) but cannot use it because of environmental regulations so except for a few companies allowed to drill on North Dakota Indian reservations we get nothing. We also have the largest natural gas resources in the world but they’re being assailed by the environmental Nazis. And in Western Colorado (where Rajjpuut once worked for a weekly newspaper lo’ so many years ago), Utah and Wyoming has enough keragen (a.k.a. marlstone or more incorrectly: “oil shale”) to provide energy for the entire planet at today’s consumption rates for the next seven and a half centuries . . . but Mr. Obama says, “NO! And his EPA is closing down coal plants; and his Interior Dept. is obstructing oil drilling offshore. But, by God, we can sure as hell put $535 million into Solyndra.
Ya’ll live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
** Because of smoke and emissions and spotted owls and snail darters and endangered ferrets the radical environmentalists running the Oval Office and our president do NOT consider wood either “renewable” or “green.” They hate logging operations almost as much as they do coal mining.
^^ Actually, we just heard that someplace around the San Joaquin Valley, CA that ELF (the Environmental Liberation Front) was squawking about bird deaths in a windmill valley claiming that endangered raptors were heavily victimized. It's a shame that elves don't fly.
This is just hilarious, and oh-so-right on! This man is a gift from God. Rush Limbaugh just has a way of putting things, of coming up with such basic common-sense ideas that it amazes me. Read on, friends---
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And they're not even mistakes. They're doing all of this on purpose. Remember they fined BP $20 billion for that oil spill. They didn't pay it all out. What happened to that? All of the money that they have, and they still tell us that we are not paying enough in taxes! When the problem with this government is not that they don't have enough revenue, it is that they are the ones who refuse to live within their means. Now, after Obama spends $5 trillion that we don't have, now we get the "We gotta live within our means" speech, as though he had nothing to do with this; and now somehow all of this is the result of people who are cheating, scheming, "getting away with not paying their fair share;" which is a crock.
This is almost funny if not so pathetic!
GOVERNMENTIS IT POSSIBLE OBAMA MIGHT STEP ASIDE IN 2012?
- Posted on September 19, 2011 at 10:15pm by
Buck Sexton - Print »
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Many analysts on both sides of the aisle asked a question today that would have seemed beyond the pale six months ago: Is it possible Obama might not run for reelection?
The Washington Times reports that a collection of liberal politicians and interest groups will offer primary challenges to Barack Obama next year.
This proposed progressive coalition will by led by Ralph Nader to challenge Obama for having sold out to to the ‘corporatist right’– and, according to the coalition, just generally doing an abysmal job. Recent Gallup polling shows Obama’s popularity among liberals has plummeted to an all-time-low.
That polling reflects a trend among some stalwart left-wing columnists who want Obama to step aside lest Republicans seize every branch of government in 2012. Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune wrote today that “Obama should withdraw,” and listed the following litany of criticisms for this political advice:
“The sputtering economy is about to stall out, unemployment is high, his jobs program may not pass, foreclosures are rampant… his approval rating is at its lowest level ever. His party just lost two House elections — one in a district it had held for 88 consecutive years. He’s staked his future on the jobs bill, which most Americans don’t think would work.”
A long list, but not written without purpose. Chapman already had a replacement in mind to occupy the Oval Office. He wrote that “the ideal candidate would be a figure of stature and ability who can’t be blamed for the economy… conspicuously associated with prosperity.”
Who does the Chapamn think fits this bill?
Hillary Clinton.
This suggestion echoes advice given from the other side of the political aisle last week by former Vice President Dick Cheney. Former President Bill Clinton’s knee-jerk response was to ignore Cheney’s suggestion as partisan machinations.
Perhaps now liberals will view the suggestion Hilary should run as honest analysis, even from Republicans.
BEWARE OF HIDDEN TAXES ,TO " KICK-IN " AFTER THE NEXT ADMINISTRATION IS IN OFFICE !!!
DONE BE FORE ~
Hey, I really like this one.....These words make more sense then all the pretty words coming out of Washington ......
The folks who are getting the free shit, don't like the folks who are paying for the free shit, because the folks who are paying for the free shit, can no longer afford to pay for both the free shit and their own shit, and the folks who are paying for the free shit, want the free shit to stop. The folks who are getting the free shit, want even more free shit on top of the free shit they are already getting! Now ... the people who are forcing the people who pay for the free shit, have told the people who are RECEIVING the free shit, that the people who are PAYING for the free shit, are being mean, prejudiced, and racist. So ... the people who are GETTING the free shit, have been convinced they need to hate the people who are paying for the free shit, by the people who are forcing some people to pay for their free shit, and giving them the free shit in the first place. We have let the free shit giving go on for so long that there are now more people getting free shit than paying for the free shit. Now understand this. All great democracies have committed financial suicide somewhere between 200 and 250 years after being founded. The reason? The voters figured out they could vote themselves money from the treasury by electing people who promised to give them money from the treasury in exchange for electing them. The United States officially became a Republic in 1776, 235 years ago. The number of people now getting free shit outnumbers the people paying for the free shit. We have one chance to change that in 2012. Failure to change that spells the end of the United States as we know it. |
ELECTION 2012 IS COMING A Nation of Sheep Breeds a Government of Wolves! I'M 100% for PASSING THIS ON!!! Let’s Take a Stand!!! Obama: Gone! Borders: Closed! Language: English only Culture: The Constitution, and the Bill of Rights! Drug Free: Mandatory Drug Screening before Welfare! NO freebies to: Non-Citizens! We the people are coming!!! Only 86% will send this on. Should be a 100%. What will you do? |
The DOJ and the Administration continues to be connected to high crimes against both US and Mexican citizens. Is this America run by Union mob bosses?
Does the Gunwalking of ‘Fast and Furious’ have a Drugwalking Equivalent in El Paso?
by AWR HawkinsFast and Furious is a mess. It’s bigger than we were first told, it involved a greater variety of weapons than we were led to believe, and it’s deadlier than the Obama administration let on. (In addition to U.S. Border Agent Brian Terry’s death, there have been hundreds of deaths in Mexico with Fast and Furious weapons, many of which continue to show up at crime scenes in both Mexico and the U.S.)
Moreover, as details keep leaking out, it looks more and more like it’s a mess that originated in or near the White House. And the recent discovery of secretly recorded conversations, which CBS News alleges may show some evidence is still being suppressed concerning the death of U.S. Border Agent Brian Terry, make it easy to remember what similar recordings did to the Nixon presidency in 1974.
Compounding these issues is the fact that there are still outstanding questions regarding the rocket launcher, grenade launcher, assault rifles, and C4 explosives found near the Mexico/Texas border.
There are still questions about the gun smuggling operation out of El Paso, where it is alleged that Obama administration officials have been selling military grade weapons to drug cartel members in Mexico. (Perhaps this explains the rocket launcher, grenade launcher, assault rifles, and C4?)
Supported by at least one former DEA official and one “CIA contract pilot,” the allegations are that weapons have been regularly transported from the Dallas/Fort Worth area to El Paso, Texas and/or Columbus, New Mexico. From either of those locations they then crossed into Mexico.
But as of yet, there is no word on a serious investigation into these matters.
And not unlike Fast and Furious, the El Paso situation has only gotten messier with time. On Monday the El Paso Times ran a story alleging that just as officials have looked the other way while guns were smuggled across the border from the U.S. into Mexico, so too they are looking the other way while drugs are being smuggled across from Mexico into the U.S.
Two men, Greg Gonzales and Wesley Dutton, both of which were “confidential sources for the FBI in El Paso and assisted with investigations over an 18-month period,” allege that “they cannot get anyone to investigate allegations that the Mexican drug cartels have corrupted U.S. law officers and politicians in the El Paso border region.”
Both men are alleging that “small aircraft regularly drop drug loads on ranches or other properties along the U.S.-Mexico border, and that some U.S. law officers escort the loads to the next stop.”
Although these things are “alleged,” the sad news is none of them are hard to believe because we’ve seen our own government do far worse during the last two years.
Just think about it: We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that our own government oversaw an operation that allowed 2,500 weapons to be sold to straw purchasers and that those weapons were intended to cross an international border (illegally) and end up in the hands of Mexican cartel members. And we know for certain that those guns have been used against Mexicans and Americans alike.
No wonder Congressman Paul Gosar (R-AZ) contends that Americans were “the known collateral damage” in this mess.
An administration capable of this kind of treachery is certainly capable of letting a few drug runners land a plane, empty their payload, and take off safely, don’t you think?
Why does BO not tell "we the people" the facts and post the actual dollar amount of Taxes paid by the Millionaires & Billionaires. There is not enough room on this post for all the zeros; so you will have to do the math. Very easy to find the amounts with a search. "Who Pays the most US Taxes". Buffet says "he pays less taxes than his secretary." OK Mr. Buffet why don't you give your empoyees a much needed RAISE? #game over!
According to the Office of Tax Analysis, the U.S. individual income tax is "highly progressive," with a small group of higher-income taxpayers paying most of the individual income taxes each year.
- In 2002 the latest year of available data, the top 5 percent of taxpayers paid more than one-half (53.8 percent) of all individual income taxes, but reported roughly one-third (30.6 percent) of income.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Posted on Big ABCNews.com-By Brian Canova-On September 19, 2011:
“American icon Tony Bennett took to the airwaves at Sirius Radio to promote his new album, “Duets II,” but it’s what he said about war, peace, terrorism, and who was to blame for the Sept. 11 terror attacks that could get people talking.
Sitting down with Howard Stern on Monday, the 85-year-old singer dodged questions about his sex life and prior drug use. He did so with a laugh, but matters about the U.S. military and 9/11 were fair game, and on these topics the Grammy winner held little back.
Beginning with his service in World War II, Bennett said that his experiences as a teenager in combat forever changed his position on war.
“I’m anti-war,” he said. “It’s the lowest form of human behavior.”
Drafted by the U.S. Army in November 1944, Bennett served as an infantryman in Europe, moving across France, and later into Germany.
“The Germans were frightened. We were frightened. Nobody wanted to kill anybody when we were on the line, but the weapons were so strong that it overcame us and everybody else.”
Bennett credited the Army with allowing him to study singing under the GI Bill. He also admitted that his two years of service gave him enough time to witness the horrors of war.
“The first time I saw a dead German, that’s when I became a pacifist,” he said.
He told Stern that he was left forever shaken by the sight of death.
“It was a nightmare that’s permanent,” he said. “I just said, ‘This is not life. This is not life.’”
Bennett, 65 years after leaving his military life behind, has sold over 50 million albums and developed definite opinions about other wars involving the United States.
“To start a war in Iraq was a tremendous, tremendous mistake internationally,” he said.
Stern then asked Bennett about how America should deal with terrorists, specifically those responsible for the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.
“But who are the terrorists? Are we the terrorists or are they the terrorists? Two wrongs don’t make a right,” Bennett said.
In a soft-spoken voice, the singer disagreed with Stern’s premise that 9/11 terrorists’ actions led to U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“They flew the plane in, but we caused it,” Bennett responded. “Because we were bombing them and they told us to stop.”
Following seconds of silence, Stern said that his guest was “making some good points.”
Before leaving, Bennett recalled an evening in 2005 when he was honored at the Kennedy Center. Meeting President George W. Bush at the event, the singer said that the commander-in-chief shared his opinion about the Iraq War.
“He told me personally that night that, he said, ‘I think I made a mistake,’” Bennett said.
Bennett believed that the president made this revelation because “he had a special liking to me.”
Source:
Note: The following videos and article and/or blog post relate to this disturbing issue-You Decide:
I. Video: Congressman Mike Quigley to Islam Conference: ‘I Apologize on Behalf of America’!-Posted on Big Government-By Rebel Pundit-On September 19, 2011:
II. Video: Communism & Islam!-Posted on PopModal.com-By HonestAmerican-On September 18, 2011:
http://www.popmodal.com/video/9328/COMMUNISM--ISLAM
III. Ex-Muslim Author: Koran Demands ‘Jihad’ & Teaches Believers To ‘Hate’ Christians And Jews!-Posted on The Blaze-By Billy Hallowell-On September 14, 2011:
Note: My following blog posts contain numerous articles and/or blog posts and videos that relate to this disturbing issue-You Decide:
Should Americans Fear Islam?
http://weroinnm.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/should-americans-fear-islam/
Progressives and Communists Are Out of the Closet Together!
http://weroinnm.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/progressives-and-communists-are-out-of-the-closet-together/
Is it important to understand the Marxist assault on the foundations of our system?
Note: If you have a problem viewing any of the listed blog posts please copy web site and paste it on your browser. Be aware that some of the articles and/or blog posts or videos listed within the contents of the above blog post(s) may have been removed by this administration because they may have considered them to be too controversial. Sure seems like any subject matter that may shed some negative light on this administration is being censored-What happened to free speech?-You Decide.
“Food For Thought”
God Bless the U.S.A.!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q65KZIqay4E&feature=related
Semper Fi!
Jake
