stimulus (10)

Republican's Invited Lobbyists to Their Retreat

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Just heard on Greta Van Susteren that the Republicans are planning a retreat for this week-end.  House Republicans will hold their annual retreat at a waterside resort on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Although Republicans will deny what I’m about to say vehemently, deals behind closed doors not exactly kosher. The bottom line is they’re wining and dining with some high powered lobbyists from big corporations and various associations. The lobbyists just purchased themselves a free pass to wheel and deal behind closed doors with the Republican Party.   

I know what their song and dance will be about my comment – they’re going to say that the Republican Party doesn’t get any of the lobbyist’s money – it all goes to the Congressional Institute. Lobbyists at Your retreat????? 

Shame on all of you – here’s your lousy report card for the past five years which will show beyond a doubt that you haven’t been doing your job.

Starting back in 2009 Americans were forced into handing the Government 787 billion dollars for the sole purpose of jump starting our economy, creating jobs, helping those who are losing their homes and jobs due to the housing bubble.  That didn’t happen! 

For starters let’s discuss the $312 billion in tax breaks available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act which are being claimed legitimate yet no one in Congress could get a handle on these tax breaks or verify the actual eligibility of the recipients. All were too busy playing politics and as usual taxpayers got gouged once again.

Where were the Republicans when the DOE kept handing our millions of our stimulus money for the “Green Energy” scams?  Reports verify that over 90% of our loans to the green scam went to Obama’s big bundlers or donors, Harry Reid and other high ranking Democrats.  Not a bleeping peep out of you!  You didn’t bother telling us about this scam until you were caught with your pants down and companies started going belly up.

Let’s revisit the 75 billion dollars that Obama said was set aside for mortgage relief – this money once again went to risky lenders who were in lawsuits up to their armpits. Everyone was too busy to oversee and monitor this relief fund. 

My daughter was a victim of the HARP program, which was a blooming nightmare with more holes in it then tea strainer!  All this program did was prolong the agony of foreclosure.  Not one of you bothered monitoring this program either – it was easy come easy go, taxpayers and homeowners took another financial hit due to your negligence.

Let’s talk about the Fast and Furious Gunrunner operation – Obama funded the program with our money, Holder & Napolitano choreographed and launched the program.  In April 2009, they toddled down to Cuernavaca Mexico City to discuss the Fast and Furious operation with Mexican officials. Holder and Napolitano both perjured themselves lying under oath feigning that they didn’t know about the operation. End of story!

The rest of the story about the gunrunner operation is this: OIG sent a letter to CIA, FBI, ATF, Homeland Security and Congress warning them that the gunrunner operation was flawed and dangerous. You can find this information on the DOJ website if you’re having a lapse of memory. 

Not one Republican raised their hand to notify Americans about the deadly operation, not until two of our brave border agents were killed and hundreds of innocent Mexican men, women and children were murdered. Once again you were AWOL – now years later Obama, Holder & Napolitano are walking our streets free as “jay birds.” 

The Benghazi murders are still unsolved after all of these months, yet you regularly get on National TV putting on your dog and pony show pointing fingers, naming names and no one is responsible.  If you’re afraid of Obama, Clinton, Panetta, Lamb, Carney and Rice – then kindly step down, the last thing we need is cowards in the Republican Party.

In closing the other scandals that you seem to avoid like a plague are the IRS, NSA and Obama care – all of these scandals have harmed Americans and been a horrendous cost to taxpayers. Yet, you opt to play politics and worry more about job security rather than fulfilling your oath to our Nation and all Americans.

The Old Republican establishment is a disgrace – you are self- serving back biting leeches. You turned on the tea parties and the new faces that entered the House and Senate in 2012.  For five years you’ve refused to be good stewards of our money. Originally I  thought the House was in charge of our money or is it no one is in charge of our money?

The Old Republican dogs are the gutless wonders that kicked Ted Cruz under the bus when he wanted to repeal Obamacare.  Obamacare is the most deadly dangerous law that Obama has jammed thru - Republicans better believe if it isn’t repealed and Obama gets his way he will control our beautiful America.

Alinsky was right, if you control the healthcare, you control the people.  The other thing the Republicans have ignored is the extreme increase in the poverty level – Obama is truly the food stamp President and he’s damned proud of it. 

Alinsky said increase the poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back of you are providing everything for them to live.

So enjoy your retreat, but understand that you have failed in your promises to Americans and you’ve fractured, sliced and diced what was once a political party that Americans were proud of and embraced.   Not much to be proud of now, is there?

As Always,

Little Tboca

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4063756135?profile=originalNext February, we will celebrate the 5th anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). You know, President Obama's trillion-dollar spending spree that was sold to the American people as a means to save our economy from the brink of disaster and create American jobs. 

As the former-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in 2010, when she and her left-wing minions were forcing the Affordable Care Act on the American people, “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of controversy.”

Quite the pathetic statement, however, it is eerily true for us American citizens, because we are either kept in the dark, lied to, or manipulated as to what our government is up to. And once any large piece of legislation is passed, time is what enables us to grasp its impact –– good or bad, corrupt or mismanaged –– and calculate the cost to us hard-working American taxpayers. History has already proven that our government has grown too large, too intrusive, and too expensive.  

To better understand this piece of the "green energy" scandal, let me remind my fellow Americans that President Obama promised to have, and claims to be, the most transparent administration in history. Yet here we are over fours yeas later with David Sanger, the New York Times reporter who has spent two decades reporting in Washington, slamming this theory by proclaiming that the Obama administration is the "most closed, control-freak administration" he's ever covered, reported POLITICO this month.
As if many of us didn't have that sentiment already, especially in the midst of a series of serious scandals that hit the White House this year. More so, when we learned that political appointees within the Obama administration, across several agencies, including the Energy Department, and recently the IRS, have been using secret or personal email accounts to conduct official government business. But secrecy is not the only thug tactic operating inside this administration: they have been known to intimidate inspector generals, as told by Gerald Walpin. "But I learned, through being fired by the Obama administration, that performing one’s responsibilities as one should, and potentially adversely affecting the administration’s image, is not the way to keep one’s job," Walpin wrote this past June.

This brings me to today's Green Corruption File, "The RAT in the Recovery and the Gang of Ten," which is the underbelly of this scandal. First is the deception: other than the overall "save the planet" manipulation, Americans were misled as to the real purpose of the stimulus package. Secondly, the Obama administration's "RAT maneuver" (and those behind it) leaves us with speculation (some will say proof) of premeditation and intention in regards to potential shenanigans with the stimulus funds. Last but not least, the "ten green stimulus authors" (yet there could be more) that I have uncovered and will expand upon in the third section of this post, were allowed to ensure that their "green" interests were represented in the stimulus bill, thus cashing in at the tune of tens of billions of tax dollars.

The RAT in the Recovery


What most don't know, not even the majority of Congress, is that there was a RAT hidden deep inside the 1,073-page stimulus bill, which was drafted by the Obama transition team and congressional aides.

Entitled the Obama-Biden Transition Project, it employed approximately 400 people and it was comprised of Obama bundlers and campaign contributors as well as lobbyist and those that operate inside Washington’s egregious revolving door. In the mix was a squadron of Center for American Progress (CAP) experts, the billionaire George Soros-funded liberal think tank. Within this transition group, we also find many that eventually operated inside this clean-energy scheme, of which I'll highlight later.

"From the first debates over the stimulus bill, the White House has promised unprecedented levels of transparency and accountability," noted U.S. News in 2009, even appointing Vice President Joe Biden as the nation’s stimulus spending cop, Stimulus Sheriff Joe, who ultimately went MIA.


Quite the contrary, and it all started when Team Obama starting planning their trillion-dollar spending spree, because “deep inside” the 2009 Recovery Act was a RAT, an attempt to suppress potential investigations, and only a few news outlets caught it in February of 2009: the Washington Post and the Washington Examiner.
As legislation was moving at rapid speed, and Congress continually failed to read the bills, the Obama administration had placed a “far-reaching and potentially dangerous provision." The creation of the RAT Board (Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board) was supposed to be “an oversight panel headed by a White House nominee.” 

The controversial provision emerged in a January 2009 draft of the bill prepared by Obama's transition team officials and members of the House Appropriations Committee, of which at that time it was labeled by the White House as “critical to prevent waste and corruption.” This RAT board gave them the authority to ask, “That an inspector general conduct or refrain from conducting an audit or investigation.”
 
Did you get that? An Obama appointee could dictate what to investigate and what investigations they wanted to squash. 

According to The Examiner...
When Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, a longtime champion of inspectors general, read the words “conduct or refrain from conducting,” alarm bells went off. The language means that the board — whose chairman will be appointed by the president — can reach deep inside a federal agency and tell an inspector general to lay off some particularly sensitive subject. Or, conversely, it can tell the inspector general to go after a tempting political target. …”
Senator Grassley (Republican from Iowa), also warned, "This is a dangerous provision that will hamper oversight, restrict transparency, and damage the independence of inspectors general."

Subsequent concerns arose, with Senator Claire McCaskill (Democrat from Missouri), who was alarmed by the sentence that allowed "the panel to order an inspector general to stop an investigation." As reported by The Post in February 2009...
The group representing federal inspectors general recommended that the entire disputed provision be deleted from the legislation, according to David R. Gray, counsel to Phyllis K. Fong, chair of the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency. 
Senate negotiators changed the board composition. While the president would appoint the head of the panel, the rest of the members would be inspectors general. 
House and Senate negotiators also added a line proposed by McCaskill saying that the final decision on whether to proceed is up to the inspector general. "The language sends a very clear message that the IG is in the driver's seat," she said.

As you can see, eventually lawmakers revised the original bill, and allowed “the watchdog agencies to reject the panel's decisions.” But only after they were BUSTED, leaving many wondering why another layer of bureaucracy? Worse, why would a panel be given that kind or power in the first place, power that was not entirely stripped away.

At that time, they named the former Interior Department Inspector General Earl Devaney, who helped uncover the Jack Abramoff scandal, as the head. Yep, we got a Stimulus Czar, and more taxpayer money going out the door: "The bill allotted about $350 million in oversight measures, including $84 million for the creation of an oversight board," as documented by U.S. News. Mr. Devaney has since retired, and in December 2011, President Obama appointed Kathleen S. TIghe Chair of the Board, with eleven Inspectors General from various federal agencies that serve with her. 

Moreover, “Per the Recovery Act, the Board's Recovery activities were supposed to end on September 30, 2013. However, in the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013 to assist states and individuals impacted by Hurricane Sandy, Congress stipulated the Board provide oversight of the funding through 2015.”

The irony here is that the RAT Board's stated goals are “to provide transparency of Recovery-related funds and “to detect and prevent fraud, waste, and mismanagement.” While I can't speak for the entire stimulus bill, I know that tucked inside was $100 billion that Team Obama carved out for their big clean-energy push (save the planet funds). Money that I have been following since 2010, which has not only led to plenty of fraud, waste, and mismanagement, but also abuse, cronyism, corruption, and failure.

Most critically is that this “RAT” maneuver only leaves speculation of premeditation and intention in regards to potential shenanigans (an understatement) with the stimulus funds, and the daunting question, what has the RAT Board done about the massive pile of clean-energy dirt? 

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) 
& Its $100 billion renewable energy earmark 

Shortly after President Obama began his reign as our 44th president, in February 2009, he signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). This was a massive economic stimulus bill –– among the biggest in history –– that was sold to the American people as a means save our economy from the brink of disaster and create American jobs.  

By the beginning of 2012, revelations revealed the real intent behind Obama's trillion-dollar spending spree ("walking around money"): it was “a key tool for advancing the Obama administration’s clean-energy goals and fulfilling a number of campaign commitments.” In fact, the 2009-Stimulus package was jammed-packed full of clean-energy provisions, of which about 10 percent of the monies were earmarked for renewable energy. 

It's important to point out that the $100 billion in stimulus funds is not the only money being used to fuel the Obama administration's efforts to save the planet using other people's money.  I'd say it's closer to $150 billion to date, and counting, because they continue to dish out more. In short, other departments handing out "green" include the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Biorefinery Assistance Program, and we even find that there is a "Green War" being waged: "the Department of Defense has launched more green energy initiatives than any other federal agency and many are duplicative and wasteful," as reported by the Washington Free Beacon.
Another means where huge corporations and Obama's "green" pals get taxpayer money is through the taxpayer-supported Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im), who "has a Congressional mandate to support renewable energy and has been directed that 10% of its authorizations should be dedicated to renewable energy and environmentally beneficial transactions."

Additionally, the president's new Climate Action Plan, announced in July of this year, calls for releasing "$8 billion in loan guarantees for advanced fossil fuel and efficiency projects, and strengthen the Better Building Challenge to increase building efficiency 20 percent by 2020." Meanwhile, the "Obama administration is ready to restart the controversial automotive loan program designed to kick-start the development of alternative vehicles." This is the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing (ATVM) program that holds authority to award up to $25 billion in direct loans. 
Last fall, I chronicled how there were over 100 applicants for this section of the DOE's loan program, yet only the "FAVORED FIVE" were granted ATVM loans totaling $8.4 billion. Three of the five loans are directly tied to President Obama and the other two, both Ford Motor Co. and Nissan, were heavily engaged in negotiations with the administration over fuel economy standards for model years 2012- 2016 at the time DOE was considering their applications."
The ATVM is part of the Energy Department’s Loan Guarantee Program (DOE LGP) which has been a main focus throughout my work since April 2012. This is a program that consists of three separate entities: Section 1703Section 1705, and Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM), and has thus far guaranteed $34.7 billion of taxpayer money. Both Section 1703 and the ATVM programs were established during the Bush administration, and Section 1705 was created by the 2009-Recovery Act.

This is the same Energy Department program which the Green Corruption Files has exposed over and over how at least 90 percent of the winners have meaningful politically connections (bundlers, top donors, fundraisers, etc) to the president and other high-ranking Democrats –– in many cases, to both. It also brought you big alternative energy losers such as Solyndra, Beacon Power, Abound Solar, Vehicle Production Group, SoloPower, Nevada Geothermal, and Fisker Automotive, flushing billions of tax dollars down the toilet. Yet there are billions more still at risk, and we're keeping an eye on these DOE projects: AREVA and its $2 billion, Georgia Power Company and its $8.33 billion, NRG Energy, Inc. (BrightSource) and its $1.6 billion, First Solar and its $3 billion, and others.

Still, the Energy Department's loan program is not the only place where we find taxpayer-funded clean-energy losers. At the end of 2012, I calculated that "as many as 50 Obama-backed green energy companies were bankrupt or troubled." In May I revisited this area, with my new numbers reflecting that 25 are bankrupt, and there are four about to go under. Then, if we keep those that were having issues the same (at 29), the latest taxpayer-funded clean-energy failure list is about 60 –– with almost half bankrupt. Stay tuned for a new investigative report on this topic in the near future. 
Continue reading "The RAT in the Recovery and the Gang of Ten" at The Green Corruption Files...
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Organizing for Action: Obama's Recycled Political Machine Pushing Climate Change, Raising Unlimited Cash from Special Interests, and Selling Access 4063680240?profile=original

“Obama, who long cast himself as an ardent opponent of big money in politics” –– even scolding the Supreme Court's ruling on campaign finance reform during his 2010 State of the Union address –– in mid January unleashed his recycled political machine that is pushing on issues that range from climate change to immigration reform to women’s health.

According to Politico, “The president and his allies declared it would be powered by grassroots activists and change politics from outside Washington.”

Not so fast.

If you read the fine print, “[this nonprofit group] shows how disturbing its work really is. Its name is Organizing for Action (OfA), and if its initials seem familiar, that’s because the group is the direct descendant of Obama for America, the president’s campaign organization in 2008 and 2012, noted the left-wing New York Times –– and it's an organization with many of the same Obama strategists, but without the restraint of limited donations.

"It stinks," slammed the Washington Post in an op-ed titled, "The temptation of dark money" –– "judging by recent reports, Organizing for Action should be renamed Paying for Access," because they are raising large sums of money by offering advisory board positions with "the privilege of attending quarterly (and secret) meetings with the president."

It's pretty obvious what access and influence buys in Washington DC these days, but now the Obama Team is openly selling access. Is that even legal?

Or maybe it's just "change we can believe in."

With a massive address list of 20 million, they are circulating emails claiming, "Organizing for Action's mission is to put power back into the hands of the American people. That's why we won't accept a single dollar from corporations, PACs, foreign donors, or lobbyists."

Meanwhile, Jim Messina, Obama’s 2012 campaign manager and the OfA national chairman, and Jon Carson (OfA Director) were traveling across the country “meeting with members of the Obama 2012 National Finance Committee, who are being pressed back to work to find support for the new organization” –– even ”hitting up Hollywood studio executives, California energy investors and Chicago business titans,” reported the Post in February. And in its first days, Organizing for Action "[had] closely affiliated itself with insider liberal organizations funded by mega-donors like George Soros and corporations such as Lockheed Martin, Citi and Duke Energy,” noted Politico in late January.

However, after much criticism, the Washington Free Beacon recently reported, "OFA pledged not to accept donations from corporations and foreign individuals or groups," but will still accept donations from labor unions.

Hmm, we'll see about that.

In my last exposé, Citi’s Massive 'Green' Money Machine, I revealed Citigroup's large footprint inside the Obama White House as well as this green-energy scheme, chronicling their connection to approximately $16 billion of “green” stimulus deals. Meanwhile, I’ve highlighted Duke Energy a few times: Duke’s CEO Jim Rogers and his "2012 DNC Cameo" as well as the money behind it, however, fresh information shows that Duke Energy has more stimulus funds to account for. 

Still, there is a much bigger player to expose at this time: the left-wing billionaire George Soros: Obama’s "Agent of Green."

Labeled by the Right as "the single most destructive leftist demagogue," there has been much said and written about the politically powerful George Soros. Along with his deep-rooted shadowy agenda, we know that Soros funds numerous left-wing organizations, including radical environmentalism groups like the Tides Foundation. Most identified are the “anti-Fox” outlet Media Matters, the extremist Moveon.org as well as Obama’s left arm, Center for American Progress (CAP).

As Soros continues to bankroll the Left's far reaching progressive plans, he's more interested in the bottom line, which is evident by his own words, “I am basically there to make money. I cannot and do not look at the social consequences of what I do.”

True to Soros' nature, he’s cashing in at the Bank of Obama, despite what it's doing to our economy. Starting with the fact that Soros was involved in crafting the trillion-dollar so-called "Recovery Act," which President Obama signed into law in February 2009. A massive economic stimulus bill –– among the biggest in history –– that was sold to the American people as a means save our economy, however, recent revelations reveal the real intent behind the stimulus package; a key tool for advancing clean energy, of which at least ten percent was earmarked for that purpose –– it was packed full of "clean energy provisions." 

 

But what has followed is nothing but pure dirt (cronyism and corruption) including the fact that "in the first quarter of 2009, Mr. Soros went on a stock-buying spree in companies that ultimately benefited from the federal stimulus," including twelve alternative energy and utility companies.  And, after three weeks of intense research, I found that through these twelve, and other timely investments in renewable energy, Soros' green tab exceeds $11 BILLION of stimulus money –– and you, the taxpayer, footed the bill. Keep in mind that this tally is not factoring in the huge profit Soros is making off of these investments.

Most aren’t aware of Soros’ additional links to the president that date back as far as 2004, and how he is key villain in this Green Corruption scandal.

As of late, Daniel Greenfield of Frontpage.com took aim, “George Soros has leased the White House as a summer home for eight years, and appointed a number of his stooges to Cabinet positions, including Chief of Staff.”

In January, President Obama’s named former CAP Senior Fellow Denis McDonough (a deputy national security advisor and a longtime aide to the president) as chief of staff to the White House, to replace outgoing Jack Lew, who is set to take over Timothy Geithner's post as Treasury Secretary. Marita Noon (energy columnist at Townhall.com and my cohort in unearthing the vast amount of clean-energy dirt seeping through our current administration), and I recently completed a collaboration of Mr. Lew and Citigroup: "Wall Street Walks all over the Obama White House."

Daniel Greenfield explains it best, “Denis McDonough’s appointment as Chief of Staff is probably the biggest win for the Soros Lobby since the Obama victory…the George Soros funded Center for American Progress, which is the criminal brain behind the Frankenbody of Obama Inc.”

Subtly put, Edwin Chen of Bloomberg in 2008 described CAP as "an intellectual wellspring for Democratic policy proposals," of which, at that time, a squadron of CAP experts worked with president Obama's transition team along with CAP's president and founder, John Podesta, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton.

CAP, on my radar since 2010, is closely aligned with the Obama White House, and last summer we gave some insight into the Podesta Group's lobbying connection to SolarReserve and its $737 million in Department of Energy (DOE) loan guarantees, which is also a Citigroup investment, and part of the stimulus created 1705 loan program, the DOE's "junk bond" portfolio.

Looking deeper, you’ll find many CAP associates inside Obama’s 2009 Green Team: both former Climate Czar Carol Browner and the self-proclaimed communist turned CNN contributor, Green Jobs Czar Van Jones. Meanwhile others from CAP had posts inside the Department of Energy like Steve Spinner, a two-time Obama bundler and former DOE Loan Programs Advisor. They are all central to this green-energy scheme, which fit into different categories: "The RAT in the Recovery and the Gang of Eight" as well as the "DOE Dirty Dozen."

We've already unleashed four of the "gang," including General Electric through the 2008, 2009 DOE Electricity Advisory Committee, which includes other green stimulus winners like NextEra Energy and American Electric Power (AEP) –– the former we've covered and the latter we'll get to in this post.

On our journey, we've exposed John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins and our new Secretary of State, Senator John Kerry's part. Now we tackle George Soros, who not only heavily backed candidate Kerry in 2004, but also funds the Apollo Alliance –– a left-wing organization who exerts powerful influence on the views and policies of the Obama administration, of which I had alerted to in 2010 that boasted of writing Obama's trillion-dollar spending spree, and will revisit again.

Further in our "gang of eight" is the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) that we noted in our Citigroup columns, and eventually we'll get to TJ Glautheir and McBee Strategic Consulting. Adding to the immense corruption, the "DOE Insiders" and CAP's green-energy, crony-corruption complete stories are still in the works.

Soros Funds Obama Victories

Soros has long, deep and shady ties to the Democratic Party, more specifically, Hillary Clinton, yet Soros jumped into the political arena with Barack Obama as early as 2004, and donated to his Senate run. "Soros and his family gave Barack Obama $60,000. This does not include money that Soros was able to funnel to so-called 527 groups (Moveon.org, for example) that have also been politically active; nor does it include money that Soros was able to raise from tapping a network of friends, business associates, and employees," revealed Ed Lasky news editor of American Thinker in 2007.

Soros helped bankroll an Obama victory in 2008, making it on Forbes' Obama's Billionaire" list;

however, Soros' overall political funding statistics are startling, as reported by the New Yorker in February 2012.

Over the past thirty years, no benefactor has contributed more to the Democratic Party and other liberal groups than Soros, the billionaire chairman of Soros Fund Management LLC, a hugely lucrative hedge fund. In 2004, he contributed more than twenty-three million dollars, a record at the time, to Democratic groups aiding John Kerry’s ultimately unsuccessful Presidential bid. In 2008, he was one of the three largest campaign donors to either party, as he gave five million dollars to help make Barack Obama President.

But the king of contributions wasn’t done there, and in September 2012, Soros pledged $1.5 million in donations to a trio of super PACs backing President Obama and congressional Democrats.

Soros and his family even made it on the Center for Public Integrity list of biggest financial backers of election 2012, ranking #18 with total contributions to super PACs at $5.1 million –– of course all pro-Obama and pro-Democrat.

Besides Soros arming the Democratic Party with a large campaign war chest, he has donated some $5 billion of his fortune to left-wing non-profit groups through the Open Society Institute, which as Michelle Malkin says, "is committed to Soros’ militant ideology of toppling the fascist tyranny of the United States, which he says must undergo de-Nazification in favor of justice."

In the summer of 2010 I had written about the cap-and-trade scheme as well as the Soros-funded Tides Center/Foundation participation, which involved the Chicago Climate Exchange and an array of Obama connections; climate crusaders; and radical environmentalist and conservation groups. Additionally, built-in to this scheme at the time were players like Richard Sandor, Al Gore's Generation Investment Management (GIM), Goldman Sachs, as well as the Joyce Foundation and Obama's Senior Advisor and Assistant, Valerie Jarrett. Looming in the midst are two powerful billionaire forces: the "global warming guru" Maurice Strong, and of course, George Soros, of which according to Canada Free Press, both "were working on anti-American schemes as far back as 2006."

There is much more tell about Apollo, but a newly released investigation by Watchdog.org, reveals troubling information about the Tides Foundation, listing big-name liberal donors and the fact that "from 2009 to 2011, the government has given Tides some $28 million in grants paid for by American taxpayers."

And what do taxpayers get for that 28 mill? 

"Liberalism’s most ambitious agenda" –– a laundry list of programs, of which at the conclusion, Watch.org states, "significantly it’s become a meeting place of two potentially warring factions of the Left — labor and environmentalists." Meanwhile, "Tides officials logged 92 White House visits last year," and "Perhaps Tides’ biggest coup was using its Apollo Alliance Project to help draft Obama’s massive stimulus bill."

As I warned in 2010, "our environment has been hijacked," and now we have President Obama vowing to confront climate change in his second term. This time he's armed with a political propaganda machine, a powerhouse of left-wing Big Green groups, plenty of high-powered clean energy lobbyists, and wealthy "green cronies" with access and influence. 

Throw in a new "Climate Cabinet" –– which thrills most environmentalists –– with the likes of Climate Hawk John Kerry as Secretary of State, Climate Czar Heather Zichal as well as the Center for American Progress four-year lease of the White House. Plus, those inside the Obama administration that are directly benefiting from "green" (Citigroup and Goldman Sachs come to mind), be prepared for regulations and legislation that will in some form or another resemble cap-and-trade and demands for additional funds to bankroll Obama's efforts to save our planet.

Furthermore, the president's choice of Gina McCarthy –– labeled as "Obama's Green Quarterback" –– to head the Environmental Protection Agency most say is a signal that the president "plans to make climate change a larger part of his environmental agenda." With Ernest Moniz set to run the Energy Department, don't expect "green corporate welfare" to end either. "Both nominees fit nicely into the pragmatic mold of Obamanomics, seeking to increase government's role in the energy sector with the cooperation of business," writes Timothy Carney, Senior political columnist at the Washington Examiner.

 

Soros Helped Craft the 2009-Recovery Act; Then Went on Stock-Buying Spree

Most relevant to this piece of the Green Corruption scandal is Soros' timely investments, which included twelve alternative energy and utility companies.

Just after the release of Peter Schweizer’s blockbuster 2011 bestseller, one of the most damning revelations featured in Throw Them All Out aired on Stephen K. Bannon's Victory Sessions –– in an interview that starred Schweizer and Wynton Hall of Breitbart.com.

Billionaire George Soros gave advice and direction on how President Obama should allocate so-called “stimulus” money in a series of regular private meetings and consultations with White House senior advisers even as Soros was making investments in areas affected by the stimulus program.

While we know that George Soros has visited the White House on at least five occasions since Barack Obama became president, possibly more, Schweizer gives specifics, "Mr. Soros met with Mr. Obama’s top economist, [Larry Summers, another "green crony"] on February 25, 2009 and twice more with senior officials in the Old Executive Office Building on March 24th and 25th as the stimulus plan was being crafted. Later, Mr. Soros also participated in discussions on financial reform."

Then Schweizer reveals, "In the first quarter of 2009, Mr. Soros went on a stock-buying spree in companies that ultimately benefited from the federal stimulus."

  • Soros doubled his holdings in medical manufacturer Hologic, a company that benefited from stimulus spending on medical systems
  • Soros tripled his holdings in fiber channel and software maker Emulus, a company that wound up scoring a large amount of federal funds going to infrastructure spending
  • Soros bought 210,000 shares in Cisco Systems, which came up big in the stimulus lottery
  • Soros also bought Extreme Networks, which, months later, said it was expanding broadband to rural America “as part of President Obama’s broadband strategy”
  • Soros bought 1.5 million shares in American Electric Power, a company Mr. Obama gave $1 billion to in June 2009
  • Soros bought shares in utility company Ameren, which bagged a $540 million Department of Energy loan
  • Soros bought 250,000 shares of Public Service Enterprise Group, 500,000 shares of NRG Energy, and almost a million shares of Entergy—all companies that came up winners in the Department of Energy taxpayer giveaway that produced the Solyndra debacle
  • Soros bought into BioFuel Energy, a company that benefited when the EPA announced a regulation on ethanol
  • Soros bought Powerspan in April 2009. Just weeks later, the clean-energy company landed $100 million from the Department of Energy
  • In the second quarter of 2009, Soros bought education technology giant Blackboard, which became a big recipient of education stimulus money
  • Soros also bought Burlington Northern Santa Fe and CSX, both beneficiaries of Mr. Obama’s plans for revitalizing the railroads
  • Soros bought Cognizant Technology Solutions, which scored stimulus funds in education and health care technology
  • Soros also bought 300,000 shares of Constellation Energy Group and 4.6 million shares of Covanta, both of which landed taxpayers’ money through the stimulus, the former of which bagged $200 million

In Throw Them All Out, Schweizer catalogs several more of Mr. Soros’ trades and says that, while “it is not necessarily the case that Soros had specific insider tips about any government grants,” nevertheless, Soros’ “investment decisions aligned remarkably closely with government grants and transfers.”

Whether Mr. Soros’s involvement in private White House meetings influenced which companies received stimulus money is unclear. What is certain, writes Schweizer, is that “crony capitalism favors the politically active, and the manipulative. It does not favor one party over the other. It does not care about policy. It just knows how to make money off any policy — your tax dollars, leveraged to the rich.”

Just After the February 2009 Stimulus, Soros Forms New Climate Change Group and Launches Green Growth Fund, Plus Quantum Strategic Partners. Both Silver Lake and Quantum Cash in on Stimulus Funds 

Soros, who manages funds through various accounts in the US and the Cayman Islands, owns shares in financial companies and banks that include Citigroup, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and so on. However, as noted, in early 2009, just after the trillion-dollar stimulus bill was crafted and passed (February 2009), with 10% earmarked for alternative energy (almost $100 billion tax dollars), Soros dove into renewable energy –– and from what I gather, financial services tops Soros' interests, yet energy is second with his "sector weightings" at 6.1%.

In addition to the timely investments divulged in Schweizer's book, in 2011 Reuters reported that Soros, through various funds had invested in green companies including "U.S. solar panel maker First Solar Inc (another part of Green Corruption that I'll get to in a bit) and Chinese solar company JA Solar, according to U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission filings. At the same time, his funds have investments in sectors that environmentalists complain about, such as coal company Peabody Energy Corp and oil company InterOil Corp, according to filings.”

Besides spending billions to fund left-wing, radical environmental groups, Soros, in the fall of 2009, announced his plan to invest $1 billion in clean energy (climate change), and formed and financed ($10 million a year for 10 years) an “advisory group’ called Climate Policy Initiative (CPI), which states they are “an independent, not-for-profit organization with long-term support from financier and philanthropist George Soros.”

At that time, Soros had this to say, “The problem of global warming is primarily a political problem at this point.” Adding, “The science is beyond dispute, but how do we achieve the objectives we all know are necessary? That is a political problem.”

Later in early 2011, Soros teamed up with the private equity firm Silver Lake Kraftwerk to invest in “the energy and resource sectors,” of which he hired folks from Kleiner Perkins (KPCB) –– the Venture Capital firm of John Doerr and Al Gore that I've tackled quite a few times.

Also in 2011, Soros' Quantum Strategic Partners led a $25 million investment round "into a start-up that aims to cut electricity waste, the latest addition to the billionaire investor's green-energy portfolio," reported Reuters. Soros jumped into this venture with existing investors KPCB, Google Ventures, Foundation Capital and Lux Capital. The company Transphorm, based in Goleta, California, received $9 million in stimulus grants, of which details can be found in my extensive research on KPCB Greentech Portfolio that secured all kinds of loans, grants and special tax breaks (federal and state) –– tied to at least $10 billion of Obama's taxpayer funded green-energy spending spree.

NOTE: From what I gather, there is the Quantum Fund with familiar big green winners, and Quantum Strategic Partners is an investment fund managed by Soros Fund Management, and are the lead investor in Crystal Financial, however, they also are investing in green, and I have yet to locate a Quantum Strategic Partners cleantech portfolio. 

But the big catch for Soros was Cathy Zoi.

Zoi, an Al Gore acolyte, who is also one of the “DOE dirty dozen” tied to billions of clean-energy stimulus funds, is the former Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency Cathy Zoi, who oversaw the disbursement of more than $30 billion in green-energy stimulus funds in her Department of Energy post" at the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) –– a post which began in April 2009, and later she briefly filled the role of Acting Undersecretary for Energy, yet in March 2011, she jumped the DOE ship to work for Soros.


In February 2012, Silver Lake Kraftwerk and others invested $81 million into the California solar firm SolarCity –– a solar firm that I covered in my February post, “Obama's Jobs Council Closed: Mega-Rich Member Penny Pritzker "Rumored" for Commerce Job, “Related” to Two Large Green Corruption Stories.”

The SolarCity story includes other billionaire players and Obama donors like Elon Musk, Nicholas J. Pritzker, Al Gore's firm Generation Investment Management LLP as well as Obama Wall Street buddies: Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Citigroup. Adding to the sleaze, as of December 2012 SolarCity was under a federal prove regarding their $341 million in grant, and looking deeper I found 27 1603 grants for "USB SolarCity Master Tenant," which ranges over 15 states, totaling over $88 million. This means that SolarCity snagged approximately $429 million of tax-free cash.

Soros Green Stimulus Stock Winners

Number 1: NRG Energy 

NRG Energy CEO David Crane Thoughts on $5.2 Billion of Taxpayer Money, "It is just filling the desert with panels." 

As stated, just after the stimulus was passed in February 2009, Mr. Soros bought 500 shares of NRG Energy, and as of the latest data I could find (the end of December 2012), his current shares are 866,137, which according to Insider Monkey is valued at $19,912,000.

Interesting enough, President Obama’s other billionaire buddy Warren Buffett along with Mr. Soros –– both revered "as legendary figures in the investment world of our times" –– seem to gravitate toward the same stock ideas, but “the investment styles of the two are night and day different.”

Buffett too is heavily invested in NGR Energy, is connected to First Solar, and they both stand to benefit from key energy decisions coming down legislative pipeline: both on the rejection of the Keystone Pipeline; while Soros and T. Boone Pickens in the passing of the NAT GAS Act.

When I get to the rest of Soros "green stimulus stocks" in this post, I'll share more on Pickens and the NAT GAS Act (H.R. 1380), which died with the 112th Congress, and was referred to Committee.

Meanwhile, there is another ploy that should be pointed out that was reported by Breitbart.com, which cites more Soros Fund Management natural gas investments. But also, President Obama in April 2012, in order to expedite the natural gas boom, "decided to form an inter-agency natural gas council run by Cecilia Muñoz, a former community organizer with La Raza and White House bureaucrat with deep ties to George Soros."

But I digress a little...

 

NRG Energy Inc., a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 Index company, owns and operates one of the country's largest and most diverse power generation portfolios that includes coal, nuclear, gas, wind and solar generation, of which we know they are in cahoots with Citigroup.

NRG's highly paid president and CEO since 2003 (and stock owner), David Crane had this to say back in 2011, “I have never seen anything that I have had to do in my 20 years in the power industry that involved less risk than these projects.” “It is just filling the desert with panels,” he added. 

Crane was referring to how NRG and its partners secured $5.2 billion in federal loan guarantees, plus hundreds of millions in other subsidies for four large solar projects.

While Crane is a friend of the Clintons, which is one reason why, in September 2010, NRG made a $1 million contribution through the Clinton Global Initiative to deliver solar power to Haiti. Crane did in fact place his bet on Hillary Clinton during her 2008 run for the presidency, but later, and along with other NRG executives, sided with then-Senator Obama. In fact, according to OpenSecrets.org, since 2004 NRG Energy has donated $1,191,047 to both political parties, primarily to Republicans in 2006, however, the shift that went to blue in 2008 and 2010 is quite amusing, with top five candidate donations going to Democrats, including President Obama –– with the exception of David Dewhurst (R-TX)..

In October 2012 the Heritage Foundation reported on more NRG favoritism, where they "received the go-ahead from the Interior Department to produce wind energy off the coast of Delaware, despite doubts that the project in question will actually materialize." But the bias has been flowing out of the Department of Interior since Obama took office in 2009, and began pushing his green agenda –– a discovery Marita and I chronicled in our Special Seven series last summer, which included many favored DOE loan recipients.

Lachlan Markay goes on to unravel Kathleen McGinty, Director at NRG Energy and a “protégé of the former Vice President Al Gore; her White House influence; and subsequent visits to key environmental officials.

In fact Gore acolytes have infiltrated the Obama administration, and we've already uncovered the former vice-president's extraordinary "carbon foot print" inside the Green Bank of Obama. It turns out that Gore is also an Obama White House visitor, and we know about two of them. In December 2009, President Obama met with Gore in the Oval Office in advance of his meeting with business and environmental leaders at the White House regarding the Copenhagen conference, and Gore also visited the Obama White House on April 8, 2010. 

Keeping it in the NRG family, President Obama snagged the support of Jason Few's wife when Arvia Few became a bundler for his re-election campaign. According to the Washington Free Beacon, "Mr. Few became senior vice president of Houston-based Reliant Energy in 2008. He was named president of Reliant in May 2009 when NRG Energy acquired Reliant for $287.5 million [and abruptly left the company in October 2012]. Mr. Lew currently serves as executive vice president and chief customer officer of NRG Energy.

In an analysis of the DOE Loan Program by Veronique de Rugy (an extremely significant report I'll revisit in a bit), as of June 2012, "Reliant Energy and Reliant Energy Tax Retail LLC, two NRG Energy companies, reported receiving at least 37 grants under the ARRA," of which we know that in late 2009, Reliant Energy was among 100 winners that came out of the $3.4 billion of smart grid stimulus grants for just under $20 million.

Where are the other 36 grants for Reliant?

More digging required... but another NRG company, "Green Mountain Energy, received two grants under the ARRA in the second quarter of fiscal year 2011." Furthermore, "NRG will also be eligible to receive $430 million from the Department of the Treasury" –– in addition, many NRG companies have already benefited from the 1603 grant program, which was created under the 2009-Recovery Act "to support the deployment of renewable energy resources."

 

Still, SolarCity, Reliant, and Green Mountain are nothing compared to NRG's overall footprint inside the Green Bank of Obama.

 

Both NRG Energy and Crane are aggressively pushing clean energy, and according to Mark Gunther of GreenBiz.com in 2011, "[Crane] is passionate about the climate crisis –– he was active in USCAP, the failed big biz-big green coalition that lobbied for federal regulation of greenhouse gases." So passionate that since 2000, OpenSecrets.org records that NRG Energy has spent $10,356,000 in lobbying efforts, and $2,500,000 in 2012 alone. And that  "5 out of 14 NRG Energy lobbyists in 2012 have previously held government jobs."

Whether we can credit George Soros, David Crane, NRG executives or their lobbying money –– most likely an "all of the above" strategy –– there is no doubt that NRG Energy has "access and influence," as reflected in the sheer volume of green government subsidies. Moreover, it is clear that those that hire lobbyists and make campaign contributions have a much better rate of return on investments than those that don't.

To continue reading, click here...

NOTE: This is another rather lengthy post, thus I've changed the title of my blog to The Green Corruption Files. Please feel free to continue reading and review the rest of "Soros Stimulus Stock Winners," including NRG Energy's part in Green Corruption  –– (a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 Index company) and its subsidiaries that were the recipient of most of 1705 stimulus loans: $5.2 BILLION of taxpayer money and counting.  

Beware: most of these renewable energy and utility firms lead to more crony, corruption players and stories, confirming the size and scope of Obama's "green corruption" scandal –– the largest, most expensive and deceptive case of crony capitalism in American history.

 

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Another Obama Energy Dud

4063617987?profile=originalA123 Systems, a Massachusetts-based battery manufacturer, received $249 million from Barack Obama’s failed stimulus program.  At the time they received the money, A123 pledged that the nearly quarter-billion-dollar stimulus money would lead to the creation of thousands of new jobs.

Said company President David Vieau when the company opened a factory in Livonia, Mich., in 2010:

“Over the next several years, we expect to create thousands of jobs in Greater Detroit and plan to continue our expansion in the area as we do our part in helping the U.S. emerge as a global leader in the production of advanced lithium ion batteries.”

Like all stimulus recipients, reporting job creation statistics to Recovery.gov was required of A123 Systems.

Recent disclosures reveal only a few hundred positions were actually created before A123 Systems joined with $500 billion failure Solyndra to become part of the growing list of green energy companies which ended in bankruptcy after receiving federal stimulus funds.

The stimulus tracking database’ latest jobs report shows a mere seven positions were created by grant money from April 2012 to June 2012.  When all the reports are combined, since 2009, a grand total of 408 new positions have been created with the stimulus dollars.

 That works out to more than $300,000 per job.

How many families suffering the effects of the $50 billion dollar blow delivered by “super storm” Sandy could use some of that money?

Solyndra alone wasted ten times the amount of the estimated repair costs.

Four million people are still without power.

Speaking of power, all the people who have been living without heat or lighting for the past few days have been given a preview of how everyone in the United States will live if Obama is reelected and continues his disastrous energy policies.

The choice could not be simpler.

Sentence America to a new dark age (literally) or elect a new President Romney, who will develop domestic energy.  Not only will the U.S. be freed from the hostile grip of OPEC, the jobs created by development of domestic American energy cannot possibly be shipped overseas.

http://mjfellright.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/another-obama-energy-dud/

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Double-Dip Recession

Courtesy of Obama, Soon Official

What happens when you combine gross INcompetence with hatred of capitalism and a vow to make a “fundamental transformation of America” (along Marxist lines): double-dip recession, that’s what! Mr. Obama has now officially made himself into the worst president in the history of the nation by damaging our economy and our way of life (via unending attacks upon the U.S. Constitution) in the shortest possible time frame (roughly 19 months). Short of turning our own nukes on us, how much harm can one man do?

Item: In one law, Obamacare, he created 388 new government agencies (almost ten times the output of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 12+ years in office.

Item: Calling himself a friend of business and the “Jobs President,” Obama forced through a $787 Billion job stimulus bill in February, 2009, that America didn’t want, claiming that when it was passed unemployment would not go above 8%. That figure shot to 10% and has been stuck at 9.5% in recent months. Our “Bailout President” has certainly disproven dramatically any claim to being the “Jobs President.”

Item: 27 percent drop in existing home sales on top of our other woes

Item: Home foreclosures have multiplied 10-fold over the last three years

Item: He is plotting to raise taxes in January, by NOT extending the Bush tax cuts now in place. If there is one item that all economists, even the most lost Keynesian economics professors, agree upon it is this . . . thou shalt NOT raise taxes in the midst of a recession. Of course, raising taxes in the middle of a double-dip recession is the ultimate government-interference sin.

Item: House Republican leader John Boehner, Tuesday, urged Obama to immediately support an extension of tax cuts and to fire key economic advisers, arguing that more than a year of "government as community organizer" has failed to revive the economy. Thus far Obama, now on vacation again (in Martha’s Vineyard this time) and his adminstration have not deigned to reply.

Item: Earlier this week, Treasury Secretary Timoth Geithner said that the George W. Bush law (originally pushed by Republicans in January, 2005, and finally in watered down form) passed in July, 2007 saved the economy from a much more severe recession than we’ve so far had and that without it home prices would have plummeted.

Item: Thanks to five progressive mortgage guarantee bills culminating in the three passed by Bill Clinton the statistic that only one in every 404 American home loans was made with 3% or less down payment, had changed to roughly one in three loans by 2005 were questionable loans forced upon lenders by government regulations. ACORN has been pursuing those loans for 33 years and Obama worked as an ACORN lawyer shaking-down lenders to make them follow the ignorant federal requirements so that people without ID, without jobs, without rental history, without decent credit ratings, with only food stamps to show as “income,” on welfare, and even illegal aliens could own $400,000 homes.

Ya’ll live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

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http://www.forbes.com/2002/07/25/accountingtracker.html

If Ol’ Rajjpuut were to visit the web link above and take the top twenty-two corporate scandals before 2003 and then throw in our present financial Armageddon’s corporate misdeeds and add them all together . . . that is, all the Wall Street, all the Bank and lending institutions, and AIG insurance malfeasance dropped into the mix already created . . . and stack all that money in a pile of George Washingtons, one-dollar bills. We’re talking about a stack reaching roughly the distance from the earth to the moon and back down and once around the earth’s equator . . . a truly significant stack of money -- so far, so good.

IF now in a separate pile we take the full cost of federal government malfeasance from just nine sources including both debt and unfunded obligations: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid’s federal component, the two separate stimulus bills in late 2008 and early 2009, and the cost of the government’ three mortgage-guarantee bills (‘1977 Community Re-investment act; 1992 expansion forcing Fanny and Freddy to join the CRA ’77; and Clinton’s 1998 mortgage-guarantee on steroids expansion of the two earlier bills) and finally the so-called health care ‘reform’ law popularly known as “Obamacare.” In the government stack let’s use Ulysses S. Grant, fifty-dollar bills. And, lo and behold the government’s stack of fifties is roughly the same size as the stack of ones . . . oooooops, maybe we shouldn’t be giving government all this control of our lives.

Now Rajjpuut isn’t saying financial reform isn’t needed. True reform is, indeed needed. But “Barack Banking” as contained in the 3,137 pages of the bill before the House of Representatives is just a ploy to expand government control and also a subterfuge to allow all the ACORN-clones now operating under different names to receive renewed funding from the federal government. This is quadruple-dangerous because all Rajjpuut’s loyal readers now realize that ACORN and lawyers like Barack Obama were the agents provacateur abusing the three poorly-written and poorly-conceived mortgage-guarantee laws to force banks and lending-institutions to grant ridiculously unwise loans to people without jobs; people without I.D.; people with abysmal credit ratings; people without home addresses; and especially undocumented illegal aliens. These Cloward-Piven actions by ACORN are the single-most exacerbating events responsible for the creation of the housing bubble and the sub-prime lending crisis that brought this country to its knees.

Given all the evidence, let us just say this: government is ever trending toward becoming more and more government-centric and it’s becoming more and more difficult if not impossible to get government to pay attention to the Constitution, the people and the states . . . in today’s world government only listens to government and the itch to build more government is their main rallying point. This Barack Banking bill is just one more example of a GIB/GSB (government interference boondoggle/government spending boondoggle) that is truly aimed at giving government more power and corrupt ACORN a brand new lease on life with our tax money.

Ya’ll live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

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THE ELECTORATE vs. OBAMA'S AGENDA

If the shoe fits........ Since Obama's State of the Union address is almost identical to his Joint Session of Congress speech a year ago, after astounding defeats in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, of course he's not an ideologue. Wonder why he felt compelled to profess this in another speech before the recent Republican Conference. Straw man! Jeeze, when does this man 'preside'?

THE ELECTORATE vs. OBAMA'S AGENDA.

For liberals, the observation that "the peasants are revolting" is a pun.

http://tinyurl.com/yf53fld

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BEHIND OBAMA'S PHONY DEFICIT NUMBERS

Over and over again, Obama spouts "I inherited this deficit, I inherited this recession, I inherited this financial crisis, I saved America from the brink, I gave tax cuts (REBATES) to of America". I -- I -- I, and still it's not about him. Uh-huh. Of course, the numbers are a lie in order to show off his magnificence, but the true numbers are far more interesting.BEHIND OBAMA'S PHONY DEFICIT NUMBERSObama's program of fiscal austerity in this new budget is a joke.http://tinyurl.com/ykkuoc6
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While straddling the fence, through the late 60s and 70s, it was candidate Ronald Reagan's question "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" that finally gave me the shove, never to return. As a young single mother, struggling to hold on to a newly purchased home for my children with the interest rate topping out at 21-3/4%, I swore never to vote Democrat again -- ever!ARE YOU BETTER OFF NOW THAN YOU WERE *BEFORE* HOPE AND CHANGE?http://tinyurl.com/yjggmo4
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