By William L. Garvin
In many religious discussions, there is a premise that all religions are fundamentally the same. A closer study clearly reveals that religions may be superficially similar but they are fundamentally different. Much the same false premise permeates the media comparisons of the Occupy Wall Street protests and the Tea Party.
The OWS gang is weeping and wailing over the salaries, perks, and bonuses received by bank executives, oil executives and all the brass in their evil corporate enemies. Of course, they are spending their nights in sleeping bags made by corporations and sheltering in tents made by corporations. They text on their corporate smart phones, type on their corporate computers, and carry signs made by union corporations. Very few of their clothes are homespun or handmade. No one in New York or Oakland is growing their own food. Consistently inconsistent.
OWS mindlessly drones on about “people before profits” and “destroy capitalism.” In their childish, utopian view of “social justice,” everyone is equal regardless of their contributions. They have yet to explain how all those hardworking employees that make their cars, homes, cell phones, food, clothing, and computers have “exploited” and “ripped off the poor.” They are apparently unaware and unable to explain how this free market capitalism in the USA has spread more wealth over a broader segment of our society than has ever occurred in history. Somewhere along the line (given their outrageous student debt!), they should at least have the capacity to recognize and the decency to admit that we have the richest poor people on the earth! Their concept of forcibly redistributing the wealth is the antithesis of Tea Party principles. Consistently inconsistent.
Another superficial similarity is their outrage about the corporate cronyism and excessive bonuses paid to executives on Wall Street. Curiously (but predictably), the OWS denizens ignore the failings among their pet green energy corporations. They have nothing to say about the failed Solyndra and similar crony capitalist solar projects. They probably didn’t even read the Bloomberg report that Rob Gillette, the ousted CEO of First Solar, may be eligible for an $8.9 million severance package after collecting $29.9 million for his initial fifteen months on the job! Where did this money come from? Over the last year, First Solar’s stock has dropped from over $175 to less than $50! Maybe it’s from the $3.07 billion in loan guarantees from Uncle Sam and his hard working tax payers! Consistently inconsistent.
The media consistently portrayed the Tea Party movement as a fringe element but romanticizes the OWS crowds as emblematic of their self-proclaimed 99%. Unfortunately, Democrat pollster Doug Schoen actually surveyed the OWS protestors. In his findings, he found that 74% voted for Obama and there were ZERO Republicans in the crowd. Any way you cut it, it’s consistently inconsistent.
Look at the furor and outrage over Herman Cain’s campaign ad that showed his campaign manager smoking. Yet there’s no criticism of the President smoking in the White House. We heard the President promise that he would not take money from lobbyists but the New York Times says that fifteen “bundlers” who raised $5 million dollars “…are involved in lobbying for Washington consulting shops or private companies.” We have White House pledges of transparency (remember the health care debates would be televised on CSPAN?) but this administration is setting a new record for stonewalling. No one is taking Eric Holder and the Department of Justice to task for his many failings, especially his blatant refusal to cooperate in the horrendously flawed “Fast and Furious” fiasco. Consistently inconsistent.
Finally, you have the media covering up Bill Clinton’s escapades in the Oval Office with Monica Lewinsky (and numerous other sexual imbroglios), avoiding coverage of John Edwards’ love child and extramarital affair until the National Enquirer broke the story, and initially reluctance to condemn Anthony Weiner’s sexting because “there was no proof.” They were “innocent until proven guilty” and “private matters had no bearing on their ability to govern.” However, Herman Cain, a black Conservative is guilty until proven innocent to obscure charges by anonymous sources. Somehow he has the burden of proof…shameful shades of Clarence Thomas’s “high tech lynching.” Cowardly consistent inconsistency.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
Stuck in the Middle with Who?
By William L. Garvin
“Well I don't know why I came here tonight,
I got the feeling that something ain't right,
I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair,
And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs,
Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you,
Yes I'm stuck in the middle with you,
Stuck in the middle with you.”
Lyrics by Stealers Wheel
It’s been said that an agnostic is really just an atheist without the courage of his convictions. In political terms, maybe that’s how we should define “moderates”—politicians without the courage of their convictions. In the popular but unexamined parlance, they will sacrifice their principles but call it “compromise” because they are “practical” or “pragmatic.” They certainly would not be an “ideologue” of any persuasion. They would probably regard Neville Chamberlain as a master in the art of compromise…or could they even recognize the nefarious “appeasement” in its hideous, clandestine disguise?
Looking ever more closely, just what is an “ideologue”? It’s defined as a “zealous or doctrinaire supporter of an ideology.” Continuing on, what is an “ideology”? Webster says it’s “1. Visionary theorizing; 2a. A systematic body of concepts esp. about human life or culture; 2b. a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture, 2c. the integrated assertions, theories, and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program.” Visionary? Systematic? Integrated? Why that doesn’t sound bad at all does it? That raises the question as to why political candidates of all stripes tend to be ideologues in the primaries but moderates in the general elections? In essence, they sacrifice their principles and beliefs to the centrist voter who has the least defined (but most easily abandoned!) political convictions. That’s why there’s not a dime’s bit of difference between the Democrat and Republican elements of the ruling class. Everybody is courting the squishy, moderate middle.
Maybe we should be thanking the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators for finally giving us a very clear picture of the leftist ideologue and the Tea Party for defining the conservative ideologue. Develop a very clear picture of the Wall Street protestors. That shouldn’t be very difficult. After all, they received three times as much media coverage in their first ten days as the Tea Party received in its first nine months. Now develop that mental picture of the Tea Party rallies. Make a choice, America. Which image of this country do you prefer?
On the left hand, you have the incessant cries to destroy capitalism and strident demands for social justice accompanied by the incessant and mind numbing thumping of drums. The “gimme, gimme, gimme” generation begs for forgiveness on all their debt and wants the government to give them “more, more, more” with no productive effort or contribution on their part. On the right hand, you have much larger crowds singing “God Bless America” and “America the Beautiful.” They condemn the gargantuan growth of government and the bureaucratic strangulation of individual responsibility. They want to be left alone and believe they can run their own lives much better than the big government central planners. The left tramples the flag underfoot; the right raises it high overhead. The left turns public places into a pigsty; the right leaves their gathering places as clean as they found it. The leftist gathering is continually marred by arrests; the right is virtually free of violence.
The left expects a life of luxury but wants someone else to pay for it. They expect the results of success but think they can get there via a path of perpetual indolence. They want to be protected from risk, failure, trial and adversity. The right only demonstrates on weekends because they have to be back at work on Monday! Of course these are opposite ends of the political spectrum but maybe it’s time to have a clear cut choice. Both groups provide a vision for the future but most likely we’ll get stuck in the wishy-washy middle. Still, that will be an improvement on what we have today.
“Well I don't know why I came here tonight,
I got the feeling that something ain't right,
I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair,
And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs,
Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you,
Yes I'm stuck in the middle with you,
Stuck in the middle with you.”
Lyrics by Stealers Wheel
It’s been said that an agnostic is really just an atheist without the courage of his convictions. In political terms, maybe that’s how we should define “moderates”—politicians without the courage of their convictions. In the popular but unexamined parlance, they will sacrifice their principles but call it “compromise” because they are “practical” or “pragmatic.” They certainly would not be an “ideologue” of any persuasion. They would probably regard Neville Chamberlain as a master in the art of compromise…or could they even recognize the nefarious “appeasement” in its hideous, clandestine disguise?
Looking ever more closely, just what is an “ideologue”? It’s defined as a “zealous or doctrinaire supporter of an ideology.” Continuing on, what is an “ideology”? Webster says it’s “1. Visionary theorizing; 2a. A systematic body of concepts esp. about human life or culture; 2b. a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture, 2c. the integrated assertions, theories, and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program.” Visionary? Systematic? Integrated? Why that doesn’t sound bad at all does it? That raises the question as to why political candidates of all stripes tend to be ideologues in the primaries but moderates in the general elections? In essence, they sacrifice their principles and beliefs to the centrist voter who has the least defined (but most easily abandoned!) political convictions. That’s why there’s not a dime’s bit of difference between the Democrat and Republican elements of the ruling class. Everybody is courting the squishy, moderate middle.
Maybe we should be thanking the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators for finally giving us a very clear picture of the leftist ideologue and the Tea Party for defining the conservative ideologue. Develop a very clear picture of the Wall Street protestors. That shouldn’t be very difficult. After all, they received three times as much media coverage in their first ten days as the Tea Party received in its first nine months. Now develop that mental picture of the Tea Party rallies. Make a choice, America. Which image of this country do you prefer?
On the left hand, you have the incessant cries to destroy capitalism and strident demands for social justice accompanied by the incessant and mind numbing thumping of drums. The “gimme, gimme, gimme” generation begs for forgiveness on all their debt and wants the government to give them “more, more, more” with no productive effort or contribution on their part. On the right hand, you have much larger crowds singing “God Bless America” and “America the Beautiful.” They condemn the gargantuan growth of government and the bureaucratic strangulation of individual responsibility. They want to be left alone and believe they can run their own lives much better than the big government central planners. The left tramples the flag underfoot; the right raises it high overhead. The left turns public places into a pigsty; the right leaves their gathering places as clean as they found it. The leftist gathering is continually marred by arrests; the right is virtually free of violence.
The left expects a life of luxury but wants someone else to pay for it. They expect the results of success but think they can get there via a path of perpetual indolence. They want to be protected from risk, failure, trial and adversity. The right only demonstrates on weekends because they have to be back at work on Monday! Of course these are opposite ends of the political spectrum but maybe it’s time to have a clear cut choice. Both groups provide a vision for the future but most likely we’ll get stuck in the wishy-washy middle. Still, that will be an improvement on what we have today.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Enough Already!
By William L. Garvin
The Green Gravy Scam Train just keeps chugging along. Last year Seattle received a $20 million grant to weatherize homes by insulating crawl spaces. As of now, they have created a grand total of fourteen jobs and renovated a total of three homes! Then there’s Oak Park, Michigan’s hybrid bus company…despite millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, it’s out of business. Another egregious example of Green Gone Wild! is the Department of Labor’s green jobs training program. For a mere few hundred million of stimulus money, they were going to create 79, 854 new jobs. Reality is they trained 8,035 people and only 1,336 actually had jobs six months later. This fiasco cost American taxpayers $170 million! The Inspector General says this program has been such a failure that the unused $327 million should immediately be returned to the Treasury.
Nevertheless, the Green Gravy Train just keeps on rolling and doling primarily because government continues to mandate increased usage. California has dictated that one-third of its electricity must come from renewable sources by 2020. Therefore, BrightSource Energy received a $1.37 billion loan guarantee; First Solar received a $2.1 billion guarantee; Abound Solar received a $400 million loan guarantee. The Antelope Valley Ranch Solar Project received $646 million in loan guarantees. In return, they will provide 350 temporary construction jobs but only 20 permanent jobs! You’d think with all this taxpayer funding, green energy would be a terrific investment…not the case. For the investor, it’s caveat emptor! Over the last year, First Solar’s stock has crashed from $175.45 to $53; Canadian Solar from $17.63 to $3.05; Yingli Green Energy from $14.29 to $3.60; LDK Solar from $15.00 to $3.23; and Trina Solar from $31.89 to $6.66! Before Solyndra went bankrupt, it canceled a public offering because there was no private investor enthusiasm. Government was the only entity unable to see the looming bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, governors of Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida have canceled their plans (and federal funding!) for “high speed rail” after determining that it would be no faster than travel on the highways. However, California spends $10 billion on its “high speed” segment of 160 miles in the central valley that no one will ride. Their project cost has already ballooned from $43 billion to $67 billion and they can’t find any private investors.
Looking at cost overruns, New York City is looking at $3.2 million in overtime costs for police to manage the Occupy Wall Street “movement.” Boston is looking at $2 million if the protest continues all this month. There’s every indication that is probable since New York’s radical “Working Families Party” (sic) is advertising on Craigslist for immediate employment at $350-$650/week to “fight to hold Wall Street accountable.” Of course the WFP says these positions are for “routine canvassing jobs.” Riiiiiigggghhhtttt…and all the protestors are patriotic, hard working, peace loving, freedom loving, every day-average men and women just looking for a job.
That’s why we see the Young Communist League in attendance. That’s why the protestors are supported by the Democratic Socialists of America, the Communist Party USA, SEIU, the AFL-CIO, George Soros, MoveOn.org and every victim group imaginable. That’s why their signs say “Destroy Capitalism” and they march around with Marx and Lenin tee-shirts, carry Che Guevara and communist flags, and sport their Mao buttons. That’s why there have been thousands of arrests and the clashes are becoming ever more worrisome. Some speakers have advocated violence and even “beheading.”
For every rational protestor who decries corporate cronyism, bank bailouts, the influence of lobbyists, and wants the Federal Reserve audited, there are a dozen who advocate anarchy, want to destroy the evil capitalist system and demand the government give them free money and bail them out of their student loans and credit card debt! There’s another dozen who are just there for the sex, drugs, and rock and roll. There are a few protestors who are protesting President Obama and his relationship with Wall Street firms (donors), especially Goldman Sachs. But don’t expect the media to cover that or even the protestor who defecated on the police car—they’re still part of the poop-aganda machine and still backing this failed administration.
The Green Gravy Scam Train just keeps chugging along. Last year Seattle received a $20 million grant to weatherize homes by insulating crawl spaces. As of now, they have created a grand total of fourteen jobs and renovated a total of three homes! Then there’s Oak Park, Michigan’s hybrid bus company…despite millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, it’s out of business. Another egregious example of Green Gone Wild! is the Department of Labor’s green jobs training program. For a mere few hundred million of stimulus money, they were going to create 79, 854 new jobs. Reality is they trained 8,035 people and only 1,336 actually had jobs six months later. This fiasco cost American taxpayers $170 million! The Inspector General says this program has been such a failure that the unused $327 million should immediately be returned to the Treasury.
Nevertheless, the Green Gravy Train just keeps on rolling and doling primarily because government continues to mandate increased usage. California has dictated that one-third of its electricity must come from renewable sources by 2020. Therefore, BrightSource Energy received a $1.37 billion loan guarantee; First Solar received a $2.1 billion guarantee; Abound Solar received a $400 million loan guarantee. The Antelope Valley Ranch Solar Project received $646 million in loan guarantees. In return, they will provide 350 temporary construction jobs but only 20 permanent jobs! You’d think with all this taxpayer funding, green energy would be a terrific investment…not the case. For the investor, it’s caveat emptor! Over the last year, First Solar’s stock has crashed from $175.45 to $53; Canadian Solar from $17.63 to $3.05; Yingli Green Energy from $14.29 to $3.60; LDK Solar from $15.00 to $3.23; and Trina Solar from $31.89 to $6.66! Before Solyndra went bankrupt, it canceled a public offering because there was no private investor enthusiasm. Government was the only entity unable to see the looming bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, governors of Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida have canceled their plans (and federal funding!) for “high speed rail” after determining that it would be no faster than travel on the highways. However, California spends $10 billion on its “high speed” segment of 160 miles in the central valley that no one will ride. Their project cost has already ballooned from $43 billion to $67 billion and they can’t find any private investors.
Looking at cost overruns, New York City is looking at $3.2 million in overtime costs for police to manage the Occupy Wall Street “movement.” Boston is looking at $2 million if the protest continues all this month. There’s every indication that is probable since New York’s radical “Working Families Party” (sic) is advertising on Craigslist for immediate employment at $350-$650/week to “fight to hold Wall Street accountable.” Of course the WFP says these positions are for “routine canvassing jobs.” Riiiiiigggghhhtttt…and all the protestors are patriotic, hard working, peace loving, freedom loving, every day-average men and women just looking for a job.
That’s why we see the Young Communist League in attendance. That’s why the protestors are supported by the Democratic Socialists of America, the Communist Party USA, SEIU, the AFL-CIO, George Soros, MoveOn.org and every victim group imaginable. That’s why their signs say “Destroy Capitalism” and they march around with Marx and Lenin tee-shirts, carry Che Guevara and communist flags, and sport their Mao buttons. That’s why there have been thousands of arrests and the clashes are becoming ever more worrisome. Some speakers have advocated violence and even “beheading.”
For every rational protestor who decries corporate cronyism, bank bailouts, the influence of lobbyists, and wants the Federal Reserve audited, there are a dozen who advocate anarchy, want to destroy the evil capitalist system and demand the government give them free money and bail them out of their student loans and credit card debt! There’s another dozen who are just there for the sex, drugs, and rock and roll. There are a few protestors who are protesting President Obama and his relationship with Wall Street firms (donors), especially Goldman Sachs. But don’t expect the media to cover that or even the protestor who defecated on the police car—they’re still part of the poop-aganda machine and still backing this failed administration.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Wall Street, Pelosi and Green Jobs--Scams What Am!
By William L. Garvin
After his mad dash to rush through another $4.7 billion in green jobs funding before the September 30th deadline, Jonathan Silver, the head of the green jobs loan program resigned. A chief beneficiary of his largesse was the Antelope Valley Ranch Solar Project. If you thought the numbers last week were appalling, look at this windfall. Apparently, the $646 million in loan guarantees will result in about 350 TEMPORARY construction jobs but only about 20 PERMANENT jobs—that’s $32 million per permanent job. Such a deal!
In another example of media and government conspiracy, there’s the new jobs report that says 103,000 jobs were created last month. Reality is that 45,000 of those jobs were Verizon workers who had been on strike and finally went back to work. None of those jobs are new. It’s just another numbers scam and a blatant attempt to cover up the massive failure of this Administration’s economic policies.
Speaking of cover ups, why is the media so concerned about Mitt Romney’s religious beliefs when they could have cared less about Senator Obama’s attendance at Reverend Wright’s church? It’s probably the same dynamic that led Nancy Pelosi to finally speak out against slights against womanhood. Of course it was a Democrat woman. Why wasn’t this same sensitivity and “courage” visible when members of her party were engaging in the most bilious of slurs, innuendoes, vile epithets, and baseless charges against Sarah Palin? Oh, that’s right. Republican women are second class citizens and not entitled to the same rules of decorum and spirited defenses by the ex-Speaker and the National Organization of Some Women!
With all this going on, it’s no wonder that a “Wag the Dog” distraction manifested itself in the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrations. Even though supported by Rep. Pelosi, organizers were terribly disappointed when their anticipated 20,000 protestors could barely number 1,000. Unlike the Tea Party, where the media had to search to find a controversial and bizarre sign, here the media had to meticulously search among the “occupiers” to find a lucid person with a coherent message. There was the occasional sound idea to audit the Fed or eliminate crony capitalism but none of them protested the genesis—government interference and ineffective government programs.
They lust to destroy capitalism but they have nothing but bromides from Mao’s Little Red Book as an alternative. One economic genius even “demands” the following: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period. Of course, he also expects a living wage regardless of employment, open borders, free pot and perpetual government induced nirvana. Many of these transients wouldn’t even accept a green job let alone work for an evil corporation!
But they text away on their smart phone (corporate), stream live on their iPads (corporate), occasionally wash up or eat at McDonald’s (corporate), blog on their website (corporate), backed by George Soros and MoveOn.org (corporate), carry signs made by SEIU and the AFL-CIO (unions are private companies and CORPORATE!), all the while spitting on the suits and ties that are working for a living. They rail about “sticking it to The Man.” OMG, that is so sixties!
Somehow they see themselves as romantic freedom fighters aligned in the stars with the Arab Spring. They’re not. They claim they’re representatives of the “99%.” They’re not. They are not even representative of the twenty percent of Americans who identify as liberals. They are representative of a self-indulgent gaggle of narcissists who don’t have a clue that success comes at a price—hard work, good ideas, and perseverance. Somebody should tell them there’s no free lunch (except at protests) and scams like these don’t last long or change anything. Their sound and fury is lacking in substance and signifies nothing more than ephemeral babble.
After his mad dash to rush through another $4.7 billion in green jobs funding before the September 30th deadline, Jonathan Silver, the head of the green jobs loan program resigned. A chief beneficiary of his largesse was the Antelope Valley Ranch Solar Project. If you thought the numbers last week were appalling, look at this windfall. Apparently, the $646 million in loan guarantees will result in about 350 TEMPORARY construction jobs but only about 20 PERMANENT jobs—that’s $32 million per permanent job. Such a deal!
In another example of media and government conspiracy, there’s the new jobs report that says 103,000 jobs were created last month. Reality is that 45,000 of those jobs were Verizon workers who had been on strike and finally went back to work. None of those jobs are new. It’s just another numbers scam and a blatant attempt to cover up the massive failure of this Administration’s economic policies.
Speaking of cover ups, why is the media so concerned about Mitt Romney’s religious beliefs when they could have cared less about Senator Obama’s attendance at Reverend Wright’s church? It’s probably the same dynamic that led Nancy Pelosi to finally speak out against slights against womanhood. Of course it was a Democrat woman. Why wasn’t this same sensitivity and “courage” visible when members of her party were engaging in the most bilious of slurs, innuendoes, vile epithets, and baseless charges against Sarah Palin? Oh, that’s right. Republican women are second class citizens and not entitled to the same rules of decorum and spirited defenses by the ex-Speaker and the National Organization of Some Women!
With all this going on, it’s no wonder that a “Wag the Dog” distraction manifested itself in the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrations. Even though supported by Rep. Pelosi, organizers were terribly disappointed when their anticipated 20,000 protestors could barely number 1,000. Unlike the Tea Party, where the media had to search to find a controversial and bizarre sign, here the media had to meticulously search among the “occupiers” to find a lucid person with a coherent message. There was the occasional sound idea to audit the Fed or eliminate crony capitalism but none of them protested the genesis—government interference and ineffective government programs.
They lust to destroy capitalism but they have nothing but bromides from Mao’s Little Red Book as an alternative. One economic genius even “demands” the following: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period. Of course, he also expects a living wage regardless of employment, open borders, free pot and perpetual government induced nirvana. Many of these transients wouldn’t even accept a green job let alone work for an evil corporation!
But they text away on their smart phone (corporate), stream live on their iPads (corporate), occasionally wash up or eat at McDonald’s (corporate), blog on their website (corporate), backed by George Soros and MoveOn.org (corporate), carry signs made by SEIU and the AFL-CIO (unions are private companies and CORPORATE!), all the while spitting on the suits and ties that are working for a living. They rail about “sticking it to The Man.” OMG, that is so sixties!
Somehow they see themselves as romantic freedom fighters aligned in the stars with the Arab Spring. They’re not. They claim they’re representatives of the “99%.” They’re not. They are not even representative of the twenty percent of Americans who identify as liberals. They are representative of a self-indulgent gaggle of narcissists who don’t have a clue that success comes at a price—hard work, good ideas, and perseverance. Somebody should tell them there’s no free lunch (except at protests) and scams like these don’t last long or change anything. Their sound and fury is lacking in substance and signifies nothing more than ephemeral babble.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Green Scam, I Am!
By William L. Garvin
“I do not like Green Scam I Am,
Your business plans are such a sham.
Billions of dollars you have blown,
The money you spent was not your own!
Cronies and bundling paved the way,
And politicos do whatever you say.
I’d love to hear the cell door slam,
I do not like Green Scam I Am!”
(Apologies to Dr. Seuss)
It was somewhat remarkable to watch the Administration react to the Gulf oil disaster. In an overreaching exercise of caution, they shut down oil rigs far and wide. Deep sea of shallow water, it didn’t really matter. They fiercely fought (and lost!) every court action to reopen the rigs and to resume drilling. One judge even found them in contempt of court for refusing to let American workers resume their gainful employment.
Now contrast that with the Solyndra bankruptcy fiasco. It is so bad that a judge has ruled that there is probable cause that a crime has been committed and has issued a warrant to begin a criminal investigation. Since this is the third solar firm that has recently crashed and burned, you would think that a similar abundance of caution would be exercised. In fact, quite the opposite has occurred. The Administration has broken all land and bureaucratic speed records pushing new green energy grants through the process. Since September 30 was the end of the federal fiscal year, they threw caution to the winds to get taxpayer dollars out the door by that date.
The world’s best Jamaican sprinters would have been hard pressed to keep up with the amazing speed with which government bureaucrats dispatched the $737 million to the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project. After all, they are predicted to create 45 new green energy jobs. It’s unclear what the new math says but the old math says that’s $16.38 MILLION PER JOB! I guess we should praise the progress. After all, “Son of Stimulus,” with its $447 billion price tag, is supposed to reduce the unemployment rate by 0.2 percent. Some estimates say that is the equivalent of creating or “saving” 275, 000 jobs…at a cost of $1.6 MILLION PER JOB. Doesn’t anyone do math anymore? It’s the same old government new math. Remember when the President said ObamaCare would lower the average family’s health care premiums by $2,400? Well, the Kaiser Foundation said the average family’s premiums went UP by $1,400! Maybe the government’s new math is also a scam.
Returning to the Green Energy Scam, here is another interesting wrinkle in the Crescent Dunes project. An investment partner in the deal is Pacific Corporate Group. Their Executive Director is Ron Pelosi. It is undoubtedly pure coincidence that he is Nancy Pelosi’s brother in law. Hmmmm…that’s no more suspect than Maxine Waters’ husband’s bank receiving TARP funds. By the way, whatever did happen with that ethics investigation?
Some time ago when Mother Earth became a deity and “saving the environment” became her religion, mathematics and common sense went out of style. That’s why the President can proclaim that the price of electricity will of necessity “skyrocket” and no one questioned him. If you pump billions of taxpayer dollars into alternative energy sources that are not efficient or economically viable at this stage, if you incessantly use executive orders and bureaucratic fiat to strangle the fossil fuel industries, of course the prices will skyrocket. When you continually demonize those industries that not fuel our economy but the world’s economy, you are setting yourself on the losing side of the equation.
The amount of government money that General Electric and Warren Buffett are receiving is nothing more than the corporate cronyism that the left is protesting on Wall Street and the Democrats railed against during the Bush Administration. If the same amount of money had been put into controlling emissions and upgrading the coal, natural gas, and oil extraction and refinement facilities as went into the alternative energy fiascos, we would already be energy independent AND have a cleaner environment. That’s why “I do not like Green Scam, I Am!”
“I do not like Green Scam I Am,
Your business plans are such a sham.
Billions of dollars you have blown,
The money you spent was not your own!
Cronies and bundling paved the way,
And politicos do whatever you say.
I’d love to hear the cell door slam,
I do not like Green Scam I Am!”
(Apologies to Dr. Seuss)
It was somewhat remarkable to watch the Administration react to the Gulf oil disaster. In an overreaching exercise of caution, they shut down oil rigs far and wide. Deep sea of shallow water, it didn’t really matter. They fiercely fought (and lost!) every court action to reopen the rigs and to resume drilling. One judge even found them in contempt of court for refusing to let American workers resume their gainful employment.
Now contrast that with the Solyndra bankruptcy fiasco. It is so bad that a judge has ruled that there is probable cause that a crime has been committed and has issued a warrant to begin a criminal investigation. Since this is the third solar firm that has recently crashed and burned, you would think that a similar abundance of caution would be exercised. In fact, quite the opposite has occurred. The Administration has broken all land and bureaucratic speed records pushing new green energy grants through the process. Since September 30 was the end of the federal fiscal year, they threw caution to the winds to get taxpayer dollars out the door by that date.
The world’s best Jamaican sprinters would have been hard pressed to keep up with the amazing speed with which government bureaucrats dispatched the $737 million to the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project. After all, they are predicted to create 45 new green energy jobs. It’s unclear what the new math says but the old math says that’s $16.38 MILLION PER JOB! I guess we should praise the progress. After all, “Son of Stimulus,” with its $447 billion price tag, is supposed to reduce the unemployment rate by 0.2 percent. Some estimates say that is the equivalent of creating or “saving” 275, 000 jobs…at a cost of $1.6 MILLION PER JOB. Doesn’t anyone do math anymore? It’s the same old government new math. Remember when the President said ObamaCare would lower the average family’s health care premiums by $2,400? Well, the Kaiser Foundation said the average family’s premiums went UP by $1,400! Maybe the government’s new math is also a scam.
Returning to the Green Energy Scam, here is another interesting wrinkle in the Crescent Dunes project. An investment partner in the deal is Pacific Corporate Group. Their Executive Director is Ron Pelosi. It is undoubtedly pure coincidence that he is Nancy Pelosi’s brother in law. Hmmmm…that’s no more suspect than Maxine Waters’ husband’s bank receiving TARP funds. By the way, whatever did happen with that ethics investigation?
Some time ago when Mother Earth became a deity and “saving the environment” became her religion, mathematics and common sense went out of style. That’s why the President can proclaim that the price of electricity will of necessity “skyrocket” and no one questioned him. If you pump billions of taxpayer dollars into alternative energy sources that are not efficient or economically viable at this stage, if you incessantly use executive orders and bureaucratic fiat to strangle the fossil fuel industries, of course the prices will skyrocket. When you continually demonize those industries that not fuel our economy but the world’s economy, you are setting yourself on the losing side of the equation.
The amount of government money that General Electric and Warren Buffett are receiving is nothing more than the corporate cronyism that the left is protesting on Wall Street and the Democrats railed against during the Bush Administration. If the same amount of money had been put into controlling emissions and upgrading the coal, natural gas, and oil extraction and refinement facilities as went into the alternative energy fiascos, we would already be energy independent AND have a cleaner environment. That’s why “I do not like Green Scam, I Am!”
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