Washington Post Shocks America….Obama Green-tech Games are BOONDOGGLES

WaPo: Hey, there were a lot of politics

going on green-tech boondoggles

posted at HotAir     by Ed Morrissey

“Color me shocked, shocked at this revelation from yesterday’s Washington Post.  Politically-connected investors influencing government subsidies?  Inconceivable!

Meant to create jobs and cut reliance on foreign oil, Obama’s green-technology program was infused with politics at every level, The Washington Post found in an analysis of thousands of memos, company records and internal ­e-mails. Political considerations were raised repeatedly by company investors, Energy Department bureaucrats and White House officials.

The records, some previously unreported, show that when warned that financial disaster might lie ahead, the administration remained steadfast in its support for Solyndra.

The documents reviewed by The Post, which began examining the clean-technology program a year ago, provide a detailed look inside the day-to-day workings of the upper levels of the Obama administration. They also give an unprecedented glimpse into high-level maneuvering by politically connected clean-technology investors.

They show that as Solyndra tottered, officials discussed the political fallout from its troubles, the “optics” in Washington and the impact that the company’s failure could have on the president’s prospects for a second term. Rarely, if ever, was there discussion of the impact that Solyndra’s collapse would have on laid-off workers or on the development of clean-energy technology.

I’m not picking on the Washington Post, which has actually done a decent job of reporting on Solyndra and other green-tech boondoggle flops — better than most, but not as well as their polling partner ABC, especially on Solyndra.  The article focuses most of its attention on George Kaiser, whose foundation was a major investor in Solyndra, and whose later investment got protected by the Obama administration — at the expense of taxpayers.  While Kaiser didn’t have an official role at the foundation, the Post’s reporting shows that Kaiser didn’t mind leveraging his access to the West Wing — and urged others in the foundation to do the same in order to protect Solyndra:

With the 2010 midterm elections just days away, Kaiser flew to Las Vegas to help the party cause. He was a guest at a private fundraising dinner for Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), but the real attraction at the event was its headliner — Obama. Realizing he might have an opportunity to talk with the president, Kaiser’s staff prepped him with talking points about Solyndra.

Kaiser did not have to angle for Obama’s attention. Organizers seated him next to the world’s most powerful man — for two hours. …

Kaiser did not squander his time. While he avoided the use of the word “Solyndra,” according to the account he later gave to colleagues, he complained to the president about Chinese manufacturers dumping cheap solar panels on the U.S. market and pressed Obama’s deputy chief of staff about the need for a Buy American Act for federal agencies. The company was intent on making the federal government a major customer — part of what a Solyndra investment adviser called the “Uncle Sam” strategy — and the new act would give Solyndra an advantage. …

Nonetheless, records show that Kaiser, a frequent visitor to the White House, was in contact with officials at Solyndra and its biggest investors, and advised them on leveraging the power of the West Wing.

“Why don’t you pursue your contacts with the WH?” Kaiser advised a Solyndra board member in October 2010.

This is the bottom line from the Post’s reporting:

“What’s so troubling is that politics seems to be the dominant factor,” said Ryan Alexander, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group. “They’re not talking about what the taxpayers are losing; they’re not talking about the failure of the technology, whether we bet on the wrong horse. What they are talking about is ‘How are we going to manage this politically?’ ”

Well, why not?  It’s pretty clear that this administration never had taxpayers in mind with Porkulus in the first place.  The result of the subsidies was to pay off important constituents and constituencies, whether that was George Kaiser in the green-tech stimulus, Philip Falcone in the broadband push, or Big Labor in the decision to interfere with the bankruptcy process of GM and Chrysler.  Everything they have done in their domestic agenda has been about improving their position politically rather than actually growing the economy and creating jobs.”

Chicago Teachers’ Union Doing what Teacher Unions Do Everywhere….Become A Cancer upon America

Editorial: Teachers union’s circus act doesn’t help kids

from the Chicago Sun-Times:

“The war between the Chicago Teachers Union and the school system over how best to improve schools is getting uglier by the day, with the CTU and its allies largely to blame.

Last week, it was a revolt at a Board of Education meeting, with protesters hijacking the meeting to protest proposed school closures and turnarounds. CTU President Karen Lewis says she played no role but the union’s fingerprints were everywhere. On Thursday, CTU organized protests at eight schools targeted for closure or turnaround, a reform where the kids remain but most adults in a school building change.

We appreciate great street theater. We also love to see parents and teachers tell the board it has made a mistake in choosing an individual school, which turns out to be true far too often.

It’s too bad, then, that the protests have gone off the rails, with CTU and allied community groups resorting to exaggerations and inflammatory language to rally the troops and, most importantly, failing to acknowledge that the school system, despite its flaws, wants just what the protesters want: to improve the city’s weakest schools.

That is one key reason we stand behind CPS’ efforts to turn around chronically troubled schools and, in extreme cases, close a handful of the weakest ones. CPS wants to turn around 10 schools and close four, hardly radical in a system of more than 675 schools.

Parents and teachers should speak up if they think CPS has chosen the wrong schools. CPS’ new leadership brags about hosting more community meeting than ever, but gathering reaction to plans is not the same as letting the public help shape policy. But for most of these 14 schools, CPS is doing the right thing.

In extreme cases, a fresh start is needed if there’s any hope of a different outcome. In recent years, CPS has moved away from closures, which haven’t proven helpful for kids, towards turnarounds, which are showing promising results. Despite the union’s contention that turnarounds don’t work, a report due out next month by the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research on the early years of turnarounds shows elementary turnarounds managed by the Academy for Urban School Leadership, a private non-profit, made “significantly greater” gains in reading and math than did comparable schools.

And then there’s CTU’s dismissive claim that a turnaround is merely handing schools “over to private interests.” Yes, AUSL is a private company and, yes, it has ties to a top CPS official and CPS Board President David Vitale. But it’s working, and in our book that’s what matters most. (A side note on Vitale: His dismissive behavior toward protesters at last week’s board meeting, and generally toward anyone with a beef with CPS, does nothing to ease the tensions between CPS and its adversaries).

We agree with the CTU and others who say CPS should invest as much in struggling neighborhood schools as it does in turnarounds. We also agree that CPS has weakened schools that end up as targets for a turnaround or closure by forcing them to accept students from closed schools or opening charters nearby that cream off top students.

But if you take a step back from CTU’s us-versus-them mentality, it’s clear these are not arguments against turnarounds or closures. These are arguments, instead, for strong investments in the dozens and dozens of weak schools that aren’t being closed or turned around, schools across Chicago that are in desperate need of help.”

Obama and His Socialist-Fascism Training

Posted at PowerLine  on December 26, 2011 by Steven Hayward in Obama administration

Obama and the F-Word

“One of my holiday projects is to finish my re-reading of the complete corpus of Whittaker Chambers (with a retrospective essay on his overlooked theological interests to follow eventually), and a couple days ago I read through an article Chambers wrote for The American Mercury in 1944 about the rise of Italian fascism.  Somehow this paragraph reminded me of someone . . . familiar (“let’s see, start’s with ‘O’ I think. . .”):

Civilized countries, like civilized individuals, like to keep their budgets balanced.  For years old-fashioned Italian leaders tried to make income and outgo jibe.  But in 1876 there came to power a modern politician for whom red entries had no terror, but even a certain charm.  Agostino Depretis, Italy’s first Liberal prime minister, started Italy on the road to fascism.  He was a journalist who discovered that the key to modern power politics is the masses and their mouthpieces, the Left politicians.  With their help, he managed to stay in power for eleven years.  He owed this achievement to a technique that seemed inspired then, but is familiar enough now: he had no program.  He simply promised every sort of reform regardless of whether or not his promises were contradictory.  Thus he promised to reduce taxation but increase public works, to restore prosperity but introduce social security.  This catholicity attracted men from all schools of thought.  Oppressed tenants and underpaid workers, reactionary landlords and big employers all sought to collect on the promissory notes which he issued on his way to power.

Seems to me you could easily rewrite this paragraph and apply it to Obama, spanning the range from the Occupy lowlifes to Obama’s Goldman Sachs financiers.

While we’re on the Chambers beat, I was surprised to discover that Chambers reviewed Saul Alinsky’s Reveille for Radicals in Time magazine in 1946.  Who knows what might have been edited out of the rather spare review that was printed, but what survived makes clear that Chambers clearly perceived that Alinsky was a not just an extreme liberal, but a Radical with a capital R, who had no use for American liberals or liberalism.  “A liberal is [a person] who puts his foot down on thin air,” Chambers quotes Alinsky from his book.  Chambers adds that “The author has glimpsed a vision which is greater than his ability to put it in practical terms.”  To the extent that Obama seems otherworldly, aloof, and/or clueless, it is because he really is a dedicated Alinskyite, whose desire the change America fundamentally should be taken seriously.  It helps explain why his heedless irresponsibility is in fact purposeful.”

Comment:   Hitler’s Nazism morphed from the Italian socialist-fascism movement in late 19th century Europe, both experiments in Marxism.    The very word, Nazi,  is the short for National Socialist Workers Party, which early-on turned to German nationalism rather that tutelage from Communist Moscow as its main  reason for existence.

Those aware of the world of Marxism, such as Dennis Prager, have known all along that Barack Hussein Obama, with his Alinsky and other Radical tell- tale trainings, possessed Marxist persuasions……the only noticeable persuasion exhibited by this secretive and devious man.

As Dennis has so frequently asked of the public…..”What did you think  Obama’s promise of “Change  for America” meant?

Hopefully, the American people might be beginning to know the answer, so we can battle  democracy’s true enemy, and do so in the light of DAY and not the Obama Way throught stealth and deceit.

 

Bill Whittle Reviews some of the National Disasters Managed by Marxist Professor Barack Hussein Obama

Bill Whittle: Three Years Under Obama

From the YouTube description: In his last Afterburner of 2011, Bill Whittle takes a look at the state of this country three years into Obama’s rule and has amassed a list of breathtaking failures bound to stun and/or depress champions of smaller government. Solyndra, Fast & Furious, the Keystone Pipeline and the deficit are just a handful of the scandals that make Bill’s blood boil. So what do we need to do in 2012 to counteract Obama’s policies? Take a look.

Obama, National Council of Churches “O-hum” about Muslim Atrocities against Christians

A Month of Christian Persecution

by John Hinderakr    at PowerLine:

“This morning, I wrote about my family’s enjoyment of the Christmas holiday. Unfortunately, in many parts of the world, Christians cannot celebrate Christmas safely. In Nigeria, Islamic terrorists bombed three churches on Christmas day, killing at least 40 worshippers. But that was only the latest of many outrages. Persecution of Christians has reached new heights this year.

At the Middle East Forum, Raymond Ibrahim sums up acts of anti-Christian persecution that occurred during the month of November. One really can’t get the impact without reading the whole thing, so I am taking the liberty of reproducing the whole article, leaving out the links which you can follow in the original:

The so-called “Arab Spring” continues to transition into a “Christian Winter,” including in those nations undergoing democratic change, such as Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis dominated the elections—unsurprisingly so, considering the Obama administration has actually been training Islamists for elections.

Arab regimes not overthrown by the “Arab Spring” are under mounting international pressure; these include the secular Assad regime of Syria, where Christians, who comprise some 10% of the population, are fearful of the future, having seen the effects of democracy in neighboring nations such as Iraq, where, since the fall of the Saddam regime, Christians have been all but decimated.

Meanwhile, it was revealed that “Christians are being refused refugee status [in the U.S.] and face persecution and many times certain death for their religious beliefs under Sharia, while whole Muslim communities are entering the U.S. by the tens of thousands per month despite the fact that they face no religious persecution.”

Categorized by theme, November’s batch of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed according to theme and in alphabetical order by country, not necessarily severity.

Churches

Ethiopia: More than 500 Muslim students assisted by Muslim police burned down a church, while screaming “Allahu Akbar” (and thus clearly positing their attack in an Islamic framework); the church was built on land used by Christians for more than 60 years, but now a court has ruled that it was built “without a permit.”

Indonesia: Hundreds of “hard-line” Muslims rallied to decry the “arrogance” of a beleaguered church that, though kept shuttered by authorities, has been ordered open by the Supreme Court. Church members have been forced to hold services on the sidewalk, even as Indonesia’s leading Muslim clerics warned Christians that it would be “wise and sensible” for the church to yield to “the feelings of the local believers, specifically Muslims.”

Iran: The nation’s minister of intelligence said that house churches in his country are a threat to Iranian youth, and acknowledged a new series of efforts to fight the growth of the house church movement in Iran.

Nigeria: Islamic militants shouting “Allahu Akbar” carried out coordinated attacks on churches and police stations, including opening fire on a congregation of “mostly women and children,” killing dozens. The attacks occurred in a region where hundreds of people were earlier killed during violence that erupted after President Jonathan, a Christian, beat his closet Muslim rival in April elections.

Turkey: The ancient Aghia Sophia church has been turned into a mosque. Playing an important role in ecumenical history, the church was first transformed into a mosque in 1331 by the jihadist Ottoman state. As a sign of secularization, however, in 1920 it was turned into a museum. Its transformation again into a mosque is a reflection of Turkey’s re-Islamization.

Apostasy and Proselytism

Afghanis around the world are being threatened for leaving Islam and converting to Christianity. One exile, who changed his name after fleeing Afghanistan in 2007 when an Islamic court issued an arrest warrant for his conversion, is still receiving threats: “They [Afghan officials] were very angry and saying that they will hit me by knife and kill me.” Even in distant Norway last September, an Afghan convert to Christianity was scalded with boiling water and acid at a refugee processing center: “If you do not return to Islam, we will kill you,” his attackers told him.

Algeria: Five Christians were jailed for “worshiping in an unregistered location.” International Christian Concern (ICC), an advocacy group investigating the case, states that the five Christians are charged with “proselytizing,” “unauthorized worship,” and “insulting Islam.”

Iran: Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, who caught the attention of the world after being imprisoned and awaiting execution for leaving Islam, remains behind bars as officials continue to come up with excuses to force him to renounce Christianity, the latest being that “everyone is [born] a Muslim.” A Christian couple “who had been snatched and illegally-detained” by authorities for eight months without any formal charges, were finally released, beaten again, and have since fled the country. While imprisoned, they were “ridiculed and debased” for their Christian faith.

Kashmir: Muslim police arrested and beat seven converts from Islam in an attempt to obtain a confession against the priest who baptized them. After the grand mufti alleged that Muslim youths were alternatively being “lured” and “forced” to convert by an Anglican priest “in exchange for money,” the priest was arrested in a “humiliating” manner. Recently released, his life is now “in serious danger.”

Kenya: A gang of Muslims stabbed and beat with iron rods a 25-year-old Somali refugee, breaking his teeth; he was then stripped naked, covered with dirt, and left unconscious near a church. Although he was raised Christian since age 7, he was attacked on the “assumption that as a Somali he was born into Islam and was therefore an apostate deserving of death.”

Nigeria: The Muslim militant group, Boko Haram, executed two children of an ex-terrorist and “murderer” because he converted to Christianity. When still a terrorist, he “was poised to slit the throat of a Christian victim” when “he was suddenly struck with the weight of the evil he was about to commit.” After finding he converted to Christianity, “Boko Haram members invaded his home, kidnapped his two children and informed him that they were going to execute them in retribution for his disloyalty to Islam. Clutching his phone, the man heard the sound of the guns that murdered his children.”

General Killings

Egypt: After a Christian inadvertently killed a Muslim in a quarrel begun by the latter, thousands of Muslims rose in violence, “collectively punishing” the Copts of the village. Two Christians “not party to the altercation” were killed; others were stabbed and critically wounded. As usual, “after killing the Copts, Muslims went on a rampage, looting and burning Christian-owned homes and businesses.” Even so, “Muslims insist they have not yet avenged” the death of their co-religionist, and there are fears of “a wholesale massacre of Copts.” Many Christians have fled their homes or are in hiding.

Kenya: Suspected Islamic extremists, apparently angered at the use of wine during communion—Islam forbids alcohol—threw a grenade near a church compound killing two, including an 8-year-old girl, and critically wounding three others. The pastor of another congregation received a message threatening him either to flee the region “within 48 hours or you see bomb blast taking your life and we know your house, Christians will see war. Don’t take it so lightly. We are for your neck.”

Nigeria: In the latest round of violence, soon after mosque prayers were heard, hundreds of armed Muslims invaded Christian villages, “like a swarm of bees,” killing, looting, and destroying virtually everything in sight; at the end of their four-hour rampage, some 150 people had been killed—at least 130 of them Christians. Another 45 Christians were also killed by another set of “Allahu Akbar!” shouting Muslims who burned, looted, and killed. Hundreds of people are still missing; the attacks have included the bombing of at least ten church buildings. Nearly all the Christians in the area have fled the region.

Pakistan: A 25 year-old Christian was shot dead by “an unidentified gunman in what his family believes was a radical Muslim group’s targeting of a Christian.” According to the son, “We firmly believe that my father was killed because of his preaching of the Bible, because there is no other reason.” He began to receive threats “after voicing his desire to start a welfare organization for the poor Christians” of the region.

“Dhimmitude” (General Abuse, Debasement, and Suppression of non-Muslim “Second-Class Citizens”)

November’s major instances of dhimmitude come from two Muslim nations notorious for violating Christian rights—Egypt and Pakistan—neither of which is even cited in the U.S. State Department’s recent International Religious Freedom report:

Egypt: Following October’s Maspero massacre, when the military killed dozens of Christians, some run over intentionally by armored vehicles, Egypt’s military prosecutor detained 34 Christians, including teens under 16, on charges of “inciting violence, carrying arms and insulting the armed forces”; many of the detainees were not even at the scene and were just collected from the streets for “being a Christian.” Three are under 16 years of age, including one who, after having an operation to extract a bullet from his jaw, was chained to his hospital bed. Hundreds of Christians also came under attack from Muslims throwing stones and bottles, after the Christians protested against the violence at Maspero: “Supporters of an Islamist candidate for upcoming parliamentary election joined in the attack on the Copts.” Meanwhile, a senior leader of the Salafi party, which came in second after the Muslim Brotherhood in recent elections, blamed Christians for their own massacre, calling “Allah’s curse on them.” Muslim Brotherhood leaders asserted that only “drunks, druggies, and adulterers” are against the implementation of Sharia—a clear reference to Egypt’s Christians.

Pakistan: A new U.S. government commission report indicates that Pakistani school textbooks foster intolerance of Christians, Hindus, and all non-Muslims, while most teachers view religious minorities as “enemies of Islam.” “Religious minorities are often portrayed as inferior or second-class citizens who have been granted limited rights and privileges by generous Pakistani Muslims, for which they should be grateful,” notes the report. Accordingly, in an attempted land-grab, Muslim police and cohorts of a retired military official, beat two Christian women with “batons and punches,” inflicting a serious wound to one of the women’s eyes after the women spoke up in defense of their land, and shot at Christians who came to help the women. “In the last few years Muslims have made several attempts to seize the land from the Christians, usually succeeding because Christians are a marginalized minority.” Likewise, under a “false charge of theft,” a Christian couple was arrested and severely beaten by police; the pregnant wife was “kicked and punched” even as her interrogators threatened “to kill her unborn fetus.” A policeman offered to remove the theft charges if the husband would only “renounce Christianity and convert to Islam.”

At a minimum, our government should afford asylum to endangered Christians with at least the same enthusiasm with which it has welcomed hundreds of thousands of Muslims, most of them not in any danger at all. So far, that is not happening. More fundamentally, Christians ought not be forced to flee from their homelands. Christians in the U.S. should demand that our government pressure countries that receive our aid to protect Christian minorities–and other minorities, too, like Hindus, Jews and Baha’is, where they have not already been exterminated–before it is too late.”

Comment:    It is natural for Marxists such as Barack Hussein Obama and the European Left to turn blind to Islamic assaults on defenseless Christians throughout the “Old World”.    They, as well as numerous ‘private enterprise’ groups and American universities, know where the Euros and dollars are collecting…..in the oil rich  but decadent and tyrannical Islamic world, especially Saudi Arabia and Iran.   Barack Hussein’s government still refuses to allow Americans to drill and produce from  the country’s own massive energy reserves.   Its financing solar energy toys is a scandal.   Its toying with the VOLT is a scandal.  

But, its refusal to allow development of our own natural resources, and, instead,  support  those industries of our enemies,  is subversive.     

The American Jewish Left might actually rejoice in the slaughter of their traditional enemies back in the Old World. 

 The National Council of Churches is a loose collection of  soft minded leftwing social enthusiasts who wave PEACE flags for self adulation to show off their special tolerance for Marxism and Islam, militant or not,  throughout the world.   It  is mostly a  ”female” group  expressing lady, like  romances and dreams rather than facing realities.    Sin is out, sisterhood is in.

Video of Our Dear Leader Obama placing himself on the continuum of greatness

Video from PowerLine of Our Dear Leader Obama Extolling Himself as  the Hightest

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/12/obama-places-himself-on-the-continuum-of-greatness.php