NebraskaPatriot

Oops, but it was for the greater good . . .

same song, different verse . . .

News of yet another collapse in a "Green Energy" company into which President Obama dumped millions of our hard earned tax dollars.

William Yeatman writes at Global Warming.org that:

"Earlier this week, Stimulus beneficiary Evergreen Energy bit the dust. Then, Ener1, a manufacturer of batteries for electric vehicles and recipient of Stimulus largesse, filed for bankruptcy. And today, the Las Vegas Sun reports that Amonix, Inc., a manufacturer of solar panels that received $5.9 million from the Porkulus, will cut two-thirds of its workforce, about 200 employees, only seven months after opening a factory in Nevada.

I foresaw this spate of bad news last November. As I explained yesterday,

In a previous post, I compared renewable energy spending in the 2009 Stimulus to a green albatross burdening the President. I argued that Stimulus spending was inherently wasteful, because politics invariably corrupts government’s investment decisions. The result is taxpayers losses on bankrupt companies that existed only by the grace of political favoritism, a la Solyndar. I predicted the green stimulus would haunt the President, in the form of a slow drip public relations nightmare, as a litany of bad investments go belly-up in the run up to the 2012 elections.

Mr. President, are you still sure you want to"double down" on renewable energy giveaways?"

The pain of course, is not the President's but ours as we see our tax dollars wasted on investments that were ill conceived and illogical in the first place. After three years, it has become painfully apparent that Mr. Obama's appetite for spending others' money can only come to an end by sending him packing back to Chicago for good.

In honor of President Obama's insistence on using our tax dollars to prop up his Green Energy efforts, our friends at Crossroads GPS have a new ad out:

        

 

 

ObamaMotors A Negative Charge To Its Dealers

the Green Energy sham continues at ObamaMotors . . .

It appears that U.S. consumers outside Holywood are just not buying President Obama's new electric cars. An article in Automotive News on-line reports that General Motors dealers across the country are balking at taking any more of Mr. Obama's Volt cars.

Apparently, dealers are having trouble selling the few they already have and don't want to increase their inventory of cars that no one wants. Oh, and then there's the little issue with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's investigation into the risk of fires in the Volt's battery pack.

All of this Washington central planning brings to mind this quote:

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy."  ~Ernest Benn

 

 

Farmers Win Only Because of Election Politics

it just keeps coming at us . . .

President Obama and his minions throughout the Federal Government for the past 2 ½ years have basically viewed our lives as their personal chess pieces by implementing regulation after regulation after regulation. If it moves, Obama-ites theorize, either implement new regulates or pile on to those already in place.  

Among the recently proposed was to make farmers who operated tractors, combines and semi tractors on rural roads, get a commercial driver’s license like professional truck drivers.

You can only imagine what the great majority of farmers thought about this one. They can be a rather independent and conservative lot.

But something happened on the way to the barn. The Feds have announced that they have changed their collectivist minds and so, "never mind"!

Did pressure from farm state Senators become too great or did folks in the Obama 2012 campaign cabal in Chicago realize they had just given Republicans a fat, hanging curve ball that could easily be swatted out of the park? I don't think they give a hoot about farmers, rather, I imagine they could envision a campaign ad by Republicans that even soccer moms could relate to and drive their suspicion and dislike even further lower of Obama.

When your poll numbers are already in the tank, the last thing you need to do is give opponents more political fodder and further re-enforce a doubting electorate.

Regardless of why, thankfully this one has gone by the way side. One down and hundreds of thousands to go . . .

Your Electric Bill To Rise Thanks To Obama's EPA

and Obama wonders why business is hesitant to spend on new jobs . . .

Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency is still out there issuing page after page of new regulations, each one wrecking havoc; killing jobs and reducing our personal checking accounts.

The latest is the EPA’s new limits on coal-generated emissions at power plants.

The EPA wants to reduce the interstate transport of pollutants and they have determined that emissions from Nebraska’s coal burning electrical plants are traveling all the way to Wisconsin, Milwaukee to be exact. Apparently, the EPA will tell you that Nebraska’s plants have some how pushed Milwaukee levels 1% above the EPA’s determined acceptable levels.

Interestingly enough, Milwaukee is the only city in the Midwest that the EPA determined we were impacting.

Now, I know I’m just a dumb old boy but one has to wonder how we are responsible for the dramatic (!) increase of a whole 1% in Milwaukee yet we did not impact Chicago which is 89 miles south or Madison, WI which is 82 miles west of Milwaukee.

Apparently the staffs at the coal burning power generators in Sutherland (NPPD); Fremont; Grand island; Hastings and Omaha (OPPD) are so good that they can emit emissions up into the atmosphere; avoid all jet stream effect and weather related influence (we do get some wind here at times!) and each and every day shoot our emissions directly to Milwaukee, WI and just to Milwaukee alone. I know we are all pretty talented in this state but come on, Disney couldn’t even turn that make-believe into a plausible plot!!! .

So here we are again, being ruled by a bunch of environmentalist wackos in Washington DC and in particular those occupying the various offices and cubicles in the EPA.  As President Reagan once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

And here’s the kicker. Due to our premeditated, outrageous and heinous acts against the humanity of JUST Milwaukee, WI, all of these coal burning power plants have to comply to the EPA’s new mandate by January 1, 2012. And the cost?

NPPD just spent $35.5 million to comply. Fremont is looking at spending $35 million over five years; this for a community of 25,000. Hastings is projecting it will cost that community of just over 25,000, more than $20-million to comply.

And of course, who ultimately pays for this? We do. In Fremont, they’ve already announced that rates will increase a minimum of 8% a year for the next two years.

The one elected official in this state who is even trying to do battle for consumers is Attorney General Jon Bruning.

I'm personally not a fan of law suits but this is one time when a law suit is needed to slow down this craziness and Bruning is giving it serious consideration. A Texas utility provider already has filed one so a full frontal assault on these tree huggers in Washington and the Obama Administration may be the only option.

Meanwhile, guess who has been very quiet on all of this?

It is interesting that one of President Obama’s good friends, Senator Ben Nelson has been conspicuously silent. This is the same guy that was out front on television and talk shows in support of Obama's Stimulus give away program and ObamaCare, yet is no where to be found on a real issue that effects the pocketbooks of a large segment of Nebraskans.

Honestly, the sounds of silence from the Senator’s office should speak volumes to Nebraskans.

EPA Decides U.S. Hasn't Lost Enough Jobs

Got to hand it to the folks at Obama's Enviromental Protection Agency, they sure know how to kill jobs and increase our family budgets.

Click here to read and I must say it's a must read on the EPA's new edict that will ultimately cost each of us thousands of dollars in our family budgets. These folks are flipping idiots!

In Nebraska, this has to have some impact on the Gerald Gentleman Power plant. NPPD aka Nebraska Public Power District describes GGS this way on its web site:

"Gerald Gentleman Station (GGS) is Nebraska's largest generating plant. Located near Sutherland, Nebraska, the plant consists of two coal-fired generating units, which together have the capability to generate 1,365 megawatts of power. While NPPD can place the awards in a showcase, NPPD's customers are the real winners. In addition to generation records, plant employees also continue to set safety records. In recent years, Gerald Gentleman Station has been recognized by Platts Power magazine as the lowest cost coal-fired producer in America."

Well, now, we can't have any more of that "lowest cost coal-fired producer in America" stuff. Nope, Obama's EPA says heck with low cost, we need to save, well, we think all this new cost will save . . . well, we aren't really sure but the Tree-huggers in the EPA say it's good for us so suck it up and live with it. So do it because those of us in the Bureaucratic State or B.S. for short, in Washington DC of course know what is best for you poor unwashed minions out in the hither land.

My gosh, when will this nightmare be over . . .

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

this group in the White House is just a piece of work . . .

I don't know about you but I'm reaching my saturation point where Obama and members of his administration tell us how we should go "green" and how wind mills will save the world.

The latest episode involves our dear transportation secretary Ray LaHood. In the on-line site Jalopnik, Justin Hyde reports that Mr. LaHood was out and about recently promoting new "fuel-economy window stickers". There was just one problem as you will see by clicking here for the article.

As someone once said, "Inept from start to finish" . . . 

The Blame Game and Excuses for Failure to Lead

he wanted the job so stop whining . . .

Everyone knows a person who when things don't go right, always has an excuse or someone else to blame. Well folks, I'm afraid it's becoming very apparent that our President is one of those types.

Ever notice how he never, NEVER takes responsibility. It's Bush's fault; it's those mean Republicans; it's those fat cats on Wall Street; it's those silly people who cling to guns; it's the Healthcare Insurance Industry; did I mention it's Bush's fault.

Anyway, after almost three years of watching this guy in action, it's become apparent that I don't think  he has ever been held accountable for anything in his life. And unfortunately, guys like him go through life blaming others for their own failings.

And now we have gas prices escalating due in part to the President's orgy of spending that has blow our debt to astromical levels and threatened our country's pristine credit rating for the first time in our country's history. The President's Treasury is printing money to pay for his outrageous spending orgy which is pushing speculators to bid up commodities such as gold, silver and oil. Now throw in that he has basically shut down any expansion of oil exploration in our country and has made current oil producers here sit on hold in getting new permits in the Gulf and what is our President's response to higher gas prices? 

He doesn't look in the mirror, goodness no, for he is the Anointed One, maker of heaven and earth and all that is good in the kingdom.

No he finds someone else to blame . . . gosh it must be nice to always blame others and never, never take responsibility for anything that goes wrong.

Let me give the President some hard facts:

Larry Kudlow, host of CNBC’s The Kudlow Report, had a good piece in Wednesday's National Review On Line entitled, “The Left Hates Oil Companies”. In it, Mr. Kudlow writes:

“When oil prices blew sky high in 2008, ExxonMobil paid $36.5 billion in income taxes, $34.5 billion in sales taxes and $45 billion in other taxes, for a total of $116.2 billion in taxes paid and collected in 2008.”

Kudlow explains that the tax credits that oil companies get is to expense out high-risk investments to find and produce the oil.

He adds, “So while President Obama is out there ragging on oil companies to remove so-called tax subsidies, it’s odd that he doesn’t mention how much in taxes the energy firms actually pay to Uncle Sam.”

Of course, it’s also interesting that the President has failed to mention that General Electric paid ZERO in federal taxes last year. Ironically, the CEO of GE is a good friend of Obama’s and GE has gotten Billions of our tax payer dollars and subisdies and tax write-offs for its “Green” industries, wind turbines, etc. Any guess which industry produces more energy for our economy?

Any guess which industry produces more jobs in this country? Trust me, it ain’t the green companies. Nope, they suck up tax dollars but fail to generate any worthwhile abundant energy and projections are that they won’t in our life time if ever.  

It’s the same old Hope and Change we’ve come to expect from this bunch. Find an American or American company, demonize them to hide the Administration’s complete and utter lack of a coherent policy and that my friends is the President's idea of leading.

In another bit of irony, this President abhors off shore drilling for oil yet recently went to Brazil to praise  the Brazilians for serious deep water drilling. At the same time, he pledges billions of our tax payer dollars to help the Brazilians drill in deepwater. Now, think about that for a minute. Does the phrase, “do as I say, not as I do” come to mind. Obama and his fellow tree-huggers believe oil and gas and it’s carbon are destroying our planet so we need to shut it down in the U.S. by making it so expensive that it ends or at least is curtailed substantially. Yet, isn’t Obama encouraging the Brazilians to explore and pump more oil. So if big oil in the U.S. is destroying our planet, doesn’t it also destroy the planet when it occurs in Brazilian waters with our tax dollars?

Mr. President, you are spiraling ever so near the land of caricature and Oz with destination loony tunes not far off. All that Hopeychangey has us out here seeing little Hope and Change and is only making things worse. It gets more depressing every day. This is becoming so Carteresk. Remember how dreary those days became.

Is there someone out there with a vision and drive to  put us back on the path to that “shining city on the hill” . . . 

This Global Warming Thing . . .

can we put the nail in that coffin . . .

I spent last week in Dallas (Super Bowl week) on business. Well, not much business got done with the ice storms, frigidly cold wind chill levels and then snow Friday morning. Demand for electricity got so high that I also got to experience rolling black outs Wednesday which was a first for me.

Oklahoma was even worse and earlier this week they got hit again with heavy snow.

With all this winter wonderland going on down south, it brings up a thought. So how is it we are in GLOBAL WARMING????????????????????????????????

I thought it was just precious last week that our very own Global Warming Nut Case, Mr. Al Gore gave this explanation:

“As it turns out, the scientific community has been addressing this particular question for some time now and they say that increased heavy snowfalls are completely consistent with what they have been predicting as a consequence of man-made global warming,”

Really? So basically global warming explains any and all adverse weather changes. Amazing. Wow, it explains all. How simple. Well we can check that off our list of issues I guess. Global Warming has the answers to everything.

To read more about how the global warming alarmist community is in a complete scramble to explain all of this, click here for the article.