Fire this Globalist metrosexual fraud. This is pure nepotism.
The White House said Jared Kushner will not be affected by any policy changes made regarding security clearances, even though he still has an interim security clearance 13 months into the job.
“Nothing that has taken place will affect the valuable work that Jared is doing,” Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said at the White House briefing on Tuesday.
Chief of Staff John Kelly last week ordered changes to how the White House manages security clearance investigations, after staffer Rob Porter continued to access top secret material even after claims of domestic abuse by two ex-wives were reported to the FBI.
Porter had been working under an interim security clearance, raising scrutiny over the 30 to 40 White House staffers who are also working with interim security clearances, including the president’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner.
The new policy limits new interim clearances to a maximum of 270 days, and cuts off any Top Secret or Sensitive-Compartmented-Information (TS/SCI) level interim clearances for individuals whose investigations or adjudications have been pending since June 1, 2017, or before.
That new policy would presumably affect Kushner, who currently holds an interim TS/SCI security clearance that has been pending since he joined the White House more than a year ago. Kushner has reportedly requested more intelligence information than almost every other White House official outside of the National Security Council. He is allowed to see the nation’s most-guarded intelligence, and access the presidential daily briefing.
On Monday, CNN reported that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s interest in Kushner had expanded beyond his Russian contacts, into meetings during the transition period with foreign investors to shore up financing for a building backed by his family’s firm.
Sanders batted down repeated questions from reporters over Kushner’s security clearance, given his many powerful roles in the administration and the sensitivity of some of his tasks, on everything from working on the Middle East Peace Process to modernizing the federal government’s use of technology.
“I”m not aware of any red flags,” Sanders said.
Trump critics have questioned Kushner’s access to the nation’s most secured intelligence despite his lack of a permanent security clearance for months. Last week, left-wing watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics filed a complaint, calling on the White House to revoke Kushner’s interim clearance.
California Democrat Rep. Ted Lieu has questioned Kushner’s lack of a clearance on a near-weekly basis:
Ted Lieu
✔
@tedlieu
Today is #PresidentsDay2018. That means we all need to ask again: Why does son-in-law of @POTUS still have a security clearance?
Also, did Kushner cause White House to initially turn against Qatar because they rejected his demand to finance the troubled loan at 666 Fifth Ave?
Last week, National Background Investigations Bureau Director Charles Phalen toldlawmakers that he had “never seen that level of mistakes” when asked about Kushner’s security clearance application.
Kushner has revised his security clearance questionnaire multiple times, to include meetings with foreign officials.
Some have also questioned whether Porter was allowed to remain in the job for so long due to his connection with Kushner. Porter attended Harvard with Kushner, according to multiple reports.
A house divided falls. Drain the swamp, Trump, and start with Kushner.
More than a few of my Washington allies noticed a seemingly unremarkable bit of news in a Monday Washington Post article that they thought I ought to see. The article concerned Jared Kushner’s appointment as adviser to his father-in-law Donald Trump.
The appointment did not trouble my friends. What troubled them was the Post’s casual mention that Kushner’s attorney was none other than Jamie Gorelick, deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton. Observed the Post, Gorelick “is confident that the anti-nepotism statute does not cover Trump’s appointment of Kushner.”
Nepotism was the thrust of the article. The Post made no allusion to the concerns my friends and I have about this relationship. I assured them that Kushner probably does not know Gorelick’s history. I write this to make him aware of why bloggers have taken to calling Gorelick, “The Mistress of Disaster.”
Some recent highlights. In 2014, it was revealed that the George Soros-funded Urban Institute had an officially sanctioned role in the vetting of non-profits that seek tax-exempt status through the IRS. Gorelick was the vice-chairman of the Urban Institute board.
In 2011, she represented Duke University in its attempt to squash a suit by lacrosse team members whose lives had been turned upside down by false rape accusations that the university aided and abetted. In 2010, Gorelick represented BP in the Deepwater Horizon oil mess. It gets worse, much worse.
In 1993, as deputy attorney general under President Clinton, Gorelick served as “field commander” for the horrific government assault on a religious community in Waco, Texas, that left more than eighty dead, twenty of them children.
In 1995, she went on to pen the infamous “wall” memo that prevented the FBI and CIA from sharing information in the run-up to September 11. At the time, a dismayed FBI investigator wrote a memo to headquarters which included the sentence, “Someday someone will die — and wall or not — the public will not understand why we were not more effective.”
In 1996, Gorelick stepped up her game, taking a lead role in the investigation of the TWA Flight 800 disaster. This was the 747 that inexplicably blew up off the coast of Long Island in July 1996 killing 230 people.
As deputy attorney general serving under a feckless Janet Reno, Gorelick’s assignment was to rein in the FBI. Five weeks into the investigation, she summoned FBI honcho Jim Kallstrom to Washington and served up a dose of political reality. To be sure, no account of the Aug. 22 meeting provides any more than routine detail, but behaviors began to change immediately afterwards.
The FBI had already leaked to the New York Times information that would result in a headline on Aug. 23, top right: “Prime Evidence Found That Device Exploded in Cabin of Flight 800.” This article stole the thunder from Clinton’s election-driven approval of welfare reform in that same day’s paper and threatened to undermine the peace and prosperity message of the next week’s Democratic National Convention.
What followed in the next several weeks was the most ambitious and successful cover-up in American peacetime history. At its center was Gorelick. With the help of a complicit media and the active involvement of the CIA, she and her cronies transformed a transparent missile strike into a mechanical failure of unknown origin.
Given her role, the months after the crash had to have been emotionally harrowing. In May 1997, the Clintons appear to have rewarded Gorelick for her steely performance with a job that would pay her $877,573 in that first half-year alone.
According to a Lexis search, not one reporter even questioned why a middling bureaucrat with no financial or housing experience would be handed the vice chairmanship of Fannie Mae, a sinecure that the Washington Monthly called “the equivalent of winning the lottery.”
Six years and an incredible $25.6 million later, having done her share to wreck the American economy, Gorelick responded to the call of duty once more and took just one of five Democratic seats on the 9/11 Commission.
During the 2004 Commission hearings, CIA Director George Tenet first addressed the “wall that was in place between the criminal side and the intelligence side.” Tenet made that barrier sound impenetrable.
“What’s in a criminal case doesn’t cross over that line. Ironclad regulations,” he insisted. “So that even people in the Criminal Division and the Intelligence Divisions of the FBI couldn’t talk to each other, let alone talk to us or us talk to them.”
In her response to Tenet, Gorelick acknowledged the wall and claimed to have used “brute force” in her attempt to penetrate it, but she took no responsibility for its creation. The task of assigning credit was left to Attorney General John Ashcroft.
“The single greatest structural cause for Sept. 11 was the wall,” said Ashcroft. “Full disclosure compels me to inform you that its author is a member of the commission.” That author, of course, was Gorelick, the same official who oversaw the cooperation of the FBI and the CIA in the corruption of the TWA 800 investigation.
As the nation learned in the aftermath of 9/11, the “wall” that was breached all too easily to protect the secrets of TWA 800 held much too firmly when it came to the secrets of our enemies.
Jared, don’t trust her! If need be, I would be happy to sit in a room with Ms. Gorelick and hash this out.
BY:Elmer Williams from the Book: “Whatever Happen To COMMON SENSE” Chapter 20
In the movie A Few Good Men, Jack Nicholson’s
character says to Tom Cruise’s character, “You can’t handle the truth.” That is
how I feel about most people in America
today. They are incapable of handling the truth, so they avoid subjects that
will make them feel uncomfortable or issues that show their idols in a bad light.
Every person past the age of six
knows the difference between right and wrong. A forty-year-old is going to have
a better grasp on the subject but even your kids know when they are committing
an infraction against your rules. Most Americans, Jews especially, will never
speak about Hitler in a positive way unless they are just reprobate liberals.
This is based on the Holocaust, which is quite understandable given what Hitler
did to the Jews and many other people. Yet I don’t hear anyone telling the
Jewish people to get over the Holocaust. At least no sane person is making this
request.
When Americans, especially “patriots”
speak about how their forefathers fled religious persecution, they only
remember how great, brilliant, and courageous the forefathers were.
We remember at Thanksgiving
how the pilgrims came over and gave thanks for their religious freedom. However,
blacks were not allowed these same religious freedoms. We see the founding
fathers greatness by looking at their writings and the Constitution itself, but
please don’t ignore all their flaws and evildoings.
Why is it so offensive to speak about this part of history? Get over yourself.
We can’t just ignore history because it makes us feel uncomfortable. Slavery is
a part of American history, just as is the greatness of the founding fathers.
Most whites do not know much
about American black history. The black part of American History should be taught
in our schools also, and not only celebrated in February. Black history is
thought of as different from American history, which it is not.
Most Latinos, whites, and
Asians have not read about what George Washington Carver did with the peanut.
Carver was perhaps the greatest agriculture farmer who ever lived. He created
over three hundred uses for the peanut and is credited with discovering crop
rotation methods. One year, you might plant peanuts and the next year you might
plant cotton. This help preserve the soil.
According to the Great Idea
Finder, ([i]) Carver
was born in 1864 and “looked at ways of utilizing the sweet potato and was able
to develop more than 115 products from it including flour, starch, and
synthetic rubber (the United States Army utilized many of his products during
World War I).” Think about what he was able to accomplish in spite of great
opposition. Why are his accomplishments not taught in schools outside the month
of February? If this man were white, whiteAmerica would know more about him.
Every group of people, and
just about every person, has a sacred cow, so to speak. What I mean is that
every group or race has something that they consider off the table for debate,
even if every stone has not been overturned and examined closely in order to
sift for the unadulterated truth.
Black and Hispanic people get
very bent out of shape if a black or Latino is offended or violated by a white.
Many blacks and Latinos see racism whenever a white does something against them.
Don’t waste your time telling them that this offender has offended whites in
the same way. It could be that the person who committed the offense is just a
bully and a butt hole, or it could be that this individual would commit this
transgression to any person, no matter what their race is. Not every instance
of a white perpetrating an offence against a nonwhite is racist.
Is a man or women’s life less
valuable if they are killed or violated by their own race? Far too often, blacks
and Latinos manufacture racism even when their claims are preposterous. Michael
Jackson came out with Reverend Al Sharpton and declared that the reason that
the prosecutor was targeting him was because he was black.
No, Michael, the reason you
were targeted is because you were inviting children over for sleepovers. Even
if Jackson did
not molest any children, there is something wrong with a grown man inviting
children to sleep over. How would you feel if a man knocked on your door and
invited your children for a sleepover?
If this happened to me, after
someone pulled me off the sick individual, I believe he would come to see the
light of his twisted ways. People and especially Blacks worshipped Jackson like a king
despite his defiant action. I don’t care if you were deprived of your
childhood. Get over it, get a girlfriend, and invite her over for milk and
cookies. I do believe that the parents of the children, who were allowed their
children to sleep over, should be prosecuted also.
There are whites who will say
that talking about the transgressions of the forefathers is something blacks
need to get over. They love to remember the great things about American
history, but the owning of slaves by the founding fathers is unnecessary information.
“We need to move on and stop talking about this part of history,” they say. The
thing that blows my mind about racist whites is, why in the hell are they so
upset. They and their ancestors were the ones enslaving and lynching blacks.
How would Americafeel if the hijackers of
9/11 wanted to start lynching Americans because they didn’t want to be bombed?
How would Americans feel if the Japanese were upset because we were angry about
being attacked at Pearl Harbor? For the life
of me, I can’t see why whites were so upset that blacks wanted to be free.
I also find it quite
ridiculous how carefree they are about the subject. It’s human nature to want
to be free. What if Britain
had enslaved whites, refused to let them read, and broke up their families?
Would they be outraged at the British government’s eagerness to keep them
oppressed? This is the patriot’s sacred cow: “I dare you make any true claims
about the history of our founders.”
Americans celebrate their freedom on the Fourth of July. What if blacks wanted to celebrate their freedom
on January first every year? Instead of celebrating the New Year, we should
celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation. Since Abraham Lincoln issued the
Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, it would be quite fitting. I want
you to notice that I said he issued the document, because the slaves still were
not truly free.
I know some conservatives
wonder why we need to use the term black
history. Well, we need a
way to distinguish what we are talking about. Most Americans do not talk about
black history unless they are referring to the civil rights movement. You
rarely hear about Dr. Charles Richard Drew, Fredrick Douglas, Sarah S. Goode,
Matthew S. Henson, or Elijah McCoy. I might start a dual celebration that
recognizes New Year’s Day and Emancipation Proclamation Day. How do you think
that would fare with the American people?
The Latino community has a great heritage with great family structure. However, some Latinos want us to ignore how much money illegal aliens are costing this country. They seem to think that if someone loves their family and if they are a hard worker, we should pretend that they have not broken the law.
Not all Latino’s think this way because many are against the illegal immigration invasion to. It is not racism if someone doesn’t want to pay for your kid’s education and health care. If I went to Mexico or any other country where a different language is spoken, I would expect to learn it.
I would not take to the streets to protest because I want all the rights of American-born citizens. This is so outrageous that it is shocking to me that anyone would try to defend illegal aliens’ rights. You broke the law. The citizens do not have a problem because you are brown; they have a problem because you broke the law and refuse to conform and adapt to our language and customs.
On the other hand, the liberal whites side with blacks on most cases that are not a clear case of racism. For instance, when Rush Limbaugh made the statement that ([ii]) “I think what we’ve had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media had been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn’t deserve. The defense carried this team. Most blacks and liberal whites thought he was being racist.
Rush Limbaugh failed to say anything about other conservatives and the liberal media that want white quarterbacks to succeed. Donovan McNabb’s numbers are a lot better than those of Doug Flutie, Vinny Testaverde, David Carr, or Drew Bledsoe. I believe McNabb has a better winning percentage than a lot of white quarterbacks that the media coddles. If someone brings Vinny Testaverde out of retirement one more time, I may try out for that team myself. I will be waiting on Rush Limbaugh’s response to the recycling of white quarterbacks.
Even in cases where there is clear racism by a police officer, white liberals and white conservatives don’t appear to be that upset. Consider the case of Byron Gillum, who was shot six times. According to a report from the Houston Press, Officer Tschirhart sent a message asking the dispatcher to find a reason for the officer to arrest Gillum “because he has an attitude.” The dispatcher found nothing, so I guess Tschirhart decided to execute Gillum because he didn’t find the evidence he was looking for.
Ida Delaney was shot by a drunk, off-duty officer named Alex Gonzales. Pedro Oregon was shot twelve times, nine times in the back. The officers took the word of a high crack addict who gave them information to bust into the residence of Mr.Oregon.
To me, these are clear cases where the officers appear to have had a problem with minorities and used excessive force. In some cases, were the race card is played and eventually shown to be a trump card. In other cases it is a counterfeit spade.
One incident that sticks out is the case of Tawana Brawley. Reverend Al Sharpton has yet to admit that Mrs. Brawley was lying about being raped. To my knowledge, Mr. Sharpton or Jesse Jackson was not involved in the three real racism cases. Rush Limbaugh always quotes the Tawana Brawley case because it was a fraud, but he never mentions real racism.
Most liberal whites see blacks as inferior. In my opinion, this is why they try to give blacks handouts instead of opportunities. Instead of giving someone free healthcare and welfare, why not teach them a skill that will enable that
person to be independent? “Massa” wants the slave to stay on the plantation.
So-called conservatives are always talking about how wrong affirmative action is and how it is unfair for a group of people to receive preferential treatment based on skin color. I’m not for affirmative action at all, but I am also against cronyism and nepotism.
Anyone who believes that all whites landed their current jobs based solely on their résumés is fooling him- or herself. I personally know of many cases where someone was hired because their daddy owned the damm company or because their daddy knew someone who owned a company. Sometimes qualified blacks and Latinos do not even get a chance at certain jobs. Whites often get jobs because of who they know. Does any idiot feel that this is an even playing field, when you have inside connection?
Many people have received contracts based on friendship, which is essentially the same as affirmative action or cronyism. I find it comical how indigent that so-called conservatives get about this subject. I don’t know if all politicians do what Tom Delay did by allegedly funneling money into Texas.
However, he was convicted of money laundering. This is another way that
conservatives use affirmative action to help their buddies. Jerry Eversole, the Harris County, Texas, commissioner, was indicted for taking bribes from a developer named Michael Surface. ABC’s undercover investigation team did a brilliant job covering this case, along with many others. Surface partnered with a company called Keystone, from which two officials were charged with bribery. Mr.
Eversole’s son shared an office space with Keystone and they expect us to
believe there was no cronyism involved. Please don’t insult my intelligence.
Reporting on an undercover investigation, Wayne Dolcefino wrote,
([iii]) Last fall we detailed Commissioner Eversole’s questionable work habits and raised questions whether he improperly used campaign funds for personal benefit. While examining his work calendars, we found evidence of his favorite golf foursome. One of the players was Michael Surface, another was Leroy Hermes who was one of the architects of Reliant Stadium. Hermes got contracts at Reliant while Surface was sports corporation chairman. We also know Hermes did engineering work on the Commissioner Eversole’s house. So far Eversole has refused to say how much, if anything he paid for it.
I want the so-called conservatives who know without a shadow of a doubt
that their representatives have engaged in nepotism and cronyism to call it
like it is. Affirmative action, which is awarding a contract or position based
solely on race, gender, or anything other than skills, is absolutely wrong in
my book. Two wrongs don’t make a right. If you give jobs out based solely on a person’s race, how can you be sure that the most qualified person is hired?
What is bound to happen is that a lot of unqualified people will be awarded
jobs or contracts. Just because a person is brown, black, or female is not enough to qualify them for a job. Proponents of affirmative action say these people would never otherwise be given the job. How did people like Robert L. Johnson or Colin Powell make it without affirmative action? If you are given a job based on race, even if you succeed, you will be accused of succeeding only because you received a handout. Affirmative action
earned Barack Obama the presidency and he is failing miserably.
Blacks voted for him because he is black. White media did not tell the
truth because he is black and they did not want to come off as racist. What did Mr. Obama do before he was elected that would encourage a sane person to vote for him? He was a “community organizer” who had never had a real job or run a business. I don’t know why anyone is shocked that he is doing such a poor job.
Personally, I would rather struggle without a handout so that when I make
it, I can say that I earned it on my own merit, not because of my race. I could then stand boldly and declare that by God’s grace, I made it.
Does anybody think that after the end of civil rights movement, all of the
whites who hated blacks died? Are you teaching your kids to hate someone based on race? Just because a law was passed that says blacks can ride at the front of the bus doesn’t mean racism has been eliminated. All racists did not simply say, “Well, that’s it, blacks are just as good as whites.” That is not how the human heart works. The heart is dirty and filthy and it must be taught to love rather than hate.
A man often forgets to guard is heart. Hate and bias creep in when a man
isn’t guarded against them. Racism is often passed down from generation to generation. Kids are not born racist in their hearts. Hatred and a superior
attitude toward others is taught or caught.
If you’re black and your kids hear you refer to whites as “crackers,” they too will refer to whites in a derogatory manner. If you always say whites are racist and that you can’t trust white people, your children will believe that
whites are the devils. If you are Latino and you refer to whites as dumb gringos and blacks as niggers, your kids will follow your stupidity. The Latino community often gets a free pass and they can be the most clannish race of all. I was in Luby’s Cafeteria one day in the takeout line. A Latino lady was wrapping the silverware into napkins. When I walked in, she said the lady who could help me would be right back. I waited about three minutes before the lady came and took
my order. I took my seat and waited and about a minute later, Latino lady came in to place her order. The lady was barely through the door before the women who had not offered to help me jumped into action. With a big smile on her face, she began speaking Spanish to assist the customer. I thought I was a customer too, but I received neither a smile or help from this woman. I thought we were in America, dammit, so these women should have been speaking English anyway. Also why was I being discriminated against because I did not speak Spanish? I believe that this type of clannish behavior is taught in the Latino community. They teach that “you should make sure to help your own.” This is nothing more than a form of racism.
If a white had done this to a Latino, the Latino would have been outraged,
but since a Latino did it, there is no way this could be racist. This is what
gets me about Latinos and blacks. They really believe they can’t be racist
because they are a minority or because they believe they lack power. That is
just about one of the most ignorant things you can say. If you are Latino or
black and you hate someone based solely on their race, then you, my friend, are a racist and I don’t give a damm who says different.
If you were white in America in the 1960s and 1970s, some parents taught their kids from a young age that blacks are niggers, coons, porch monkeys, or spooks. Do you really believe that they will respect blacks? I was speaking with a white lady about racism and why it is so bad. I asked her if any of her relatives referred to blacks as niggers. She said she had relatives who referred to blacks in these terms, but they meant no harm. What? “Why, they even have black friends,” she said. If it’s okay to refer to blacks in this way, I told her, why not tell her white relatives to say to their black friends the next time they saw them, “How’s it going, coon?” or “What’s up, nigger?”
Whites, who say there is no racism in America, are simply putting their heads in the sand. I guess they believe all the racists died after the civil rights movement. Some say that Blacks should be happy that Obama became president because it proves that they have overcome. Speaking to a caller about race, Dr. Laura Schlessinger said, ([iv]) “I really thought that once we had a black president, the attempt to demonize whites hating blacks would stop, but it seems to have grown, and I don’t get it.” She was speaking with a black caller who was married to a white man. What
makes Dr. Laura’s commits ridiculous is that the caller said that some of her husband’s friends were using the N-word or, more simply put, were saying “nigger.” I have already discussed the difference between whites and blacks using the word nigger and nigga.
I don’t care if whites get this or not. There are some things that whites
can say to one another that blacks and Latinos can’t. Just as there are things that Latinos and blacks can say to one another that whites can’t. A black person can say certain things I would find offensive coming from the mouth of a white person, but I don’t find it offensive from a black. If I know you are calling me a nigger and not nigga, it is coming from a racist’s point of view. I’m sorry, but the history of what the racists whites did is going to be in my head. Stop with the nonsense that it is the same if Black’s say it. Nigger is the swastika symbol for blacks so if you can not understand that, I don’t know what the hell to tell you.
Dr. Laura also said, ([v]) “If you are that hypersensitive about color and don’t have a sense of humor, don’t marry out of your race.” Just because some blacks say “nigga” not “nigger” on HBO, I don’t want a white referring to me as a “nigger”, and that does not make me hypersensitive.
Dr. Laura did what a lot of liberals would do. She talked about why the
woman’s husband’s friends used the word nigger around her. Ms. Schlessinger then said that the only reason blacks voted for Barack Obama is because he was black. She got completely off the subject and accused the caller of being hypersensitive.
This is the problem with a lot of so-called conservatives. No matter what
you say about racism, they want you to believe you are too sensitive. It is
obvious that the woman wasn’t overly sensitive about her race. I don’t believe she disliked whites. For God’s sake, she was married to a white man (who happened to be a coward, in my book). If I had friends who came around and made my wife feel uncomfortable, we would not be friends for much longer. What kind of man allows his wife to be insulted?
What I find funny about Dr. Laura’s comments is that she was implying that
since we have a black president, racism no longer exists. In my humble opinion, she was saying, “Here is your forty acres and the mule” in Barack Obama. I would like to tell white people who think Barack Obama, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and the NAACP represent all blacks. You are out of your minds. These clowns do not represent me, nor do they represent all blacks.
Some white people act as if all other kinds of sin exist in America,
such as rape, theft, child molestation, and prostitution, but not racism. How
the hell you can think the human heart is capable of all these other evils but
is guarded against racism? If there was racism in the United States from
slavery unto the 1980s, what would make anyone believe it has all of a sudden disappeared? I don’t believe it is as rampant as it was in the seventies and eighties, but it is still here.
My white conservative friends never really talk about stories like Dr.
Laura’s, and I can tell you why: either they agree with her or it makes them
uncomfortable to discuss it. However, they want to talk about Barack Obama and other liberal topics in the media. I don’t mind talking about any subject because I’m a grown-up and if my daddy was being racist, I would call him on it.
Some blacks and Latinos would have you believe racism in the United States is just as bad as it was during the civil rights movement. Only a fool would believe that. Whatever race is in charge will be more favorable to their own race. If Latinos were the majority, most of the big contracts and lobbyist money would go toward Latino businesses. Affirmative action has always existed in America and will continue to be around as long as sinful men are in charge.
You can bury your head in the sand and refuse to call a spade a spade, but
it doesn’t change the fact that some whites do in fact earn their money or
position honestly. Nonetheless, there are hundreds of thousands of white men and women who have benefited from their skin color. Get your head out of your butt, Mr. Pull Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps.
You are probably a hard worker and you might even be brilliant, but without
opportunity, you wouldn’t have succeeded. Some blacks and Latinos do not have jobs because they have not applied themselves. Some white people may be more qualified, more hardworking, and applied themselves harder than members of the minority communities, in some incidents.
Reparation for blacks is something most Americans seem to think is a bad
idea. Native Americans were given land and money for the ills that were
inflicted on them. When Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which put Americans of Japanese descent into “relocation centers,” the Japanese were given close to $20,000 a piece in reparations.
According to the Institute for Historical Review, ([vi]) Germany paid nearly $61.8 billion to survivors of the Holocaust. In the Bible, when Pharaoh let the children of Israel go, they left with gold, silver, and other gifts. I know Reparations will not solve race issues in the United States. Patriots and liberals can act has if reparations have never been paid before, but the facts don’t agree with their assessment.
Reparation was given to Native Americans because their land was taken away. Reparation was given to the Japanese because they were rounded up and put in camps. Who do you think was mistreated more: slaves, Native Americans, or the Japanese? This is just a little something to think about.
Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence between June 11 and June 28, 1776. It is one of the most cherished documents in the country. It was drafted when there were only thirteen states in this great country of ours. Thomas Jefferson did a masterful job outlining the grievances of the thirteen colonies against the British.
We celebrate our independence every year on the Fourth of July. Why would we celebrate unless we intend to forever remember what happened in the past? Why does white American want to remember the great history of its forefathers but expect blacks to forget the history of great black forefathers?
Forget the damm forty acres and a mule and reparations, which do nothing to solve the race issue. They simply make Cadillac dealers, gold shops, and clothing designers wealthier. If we really want to ease some of the racial problems in America, we must discuss real history. The history of all Americans must be taught in high schools and given at least some discussion.
The Declaration of Independence is written so beautifully that I want
everyone to stop and read it in its entirety: ([vii]) When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its
foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to
them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence,
indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of
immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the
accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent
hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring
themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppression’s We have petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by
the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would
inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore,
acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by
Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence,
we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred
Honor. One of the most popular statements in the document is “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” But it screams of such hypocrisy, that after Thomas Jefferson wrote such a convicting and detailed document, that the founding fathers turned around and enslaved a
people. The Declaration states that the colonies reminded the British of their circumstances and their mass departure. Jefferson even appeals to their “native justice and magnanimity.” This fell on deaf ears because the British government had dirty hearts and could not respond to reason. It was not reasonable to expect the people to pay taxes unless they were represented properly. Why were slaves not given fare representation in America?
Why was slaves treated like livestock by these so-called holy men? They were beaten for learning to read and write. Slaves learned from the Bible to love and obey their masters. Why didn’t the forefathers teach love, justice, and mercy? Slaves worked all day and never got the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Many wealthy whites built their fortunes on the backs of slaves and the drug trade and passed their wealth from generation
to generation. Even whites who did not profit directly benefited indirectly
from other whites. Contrary to popular belief, up until the 1960s and 1970s, some whites would rather give a job to a monkey before they would give it to a black. I have heard conservative talk show hosts discuss how they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps in spite of discrimination and affirmative action. Hell, affirmative action has been going on for years in this country, but it was beneficial to whites only. As I stated earlier, I am opposed to all
forms of affirmative action, but please don’t tell me about your oppression and pretend the founding fathers did not do the same. I would like to tell these so-called martyrs that they may have been done wrong or discriminated against, but their lives were never in danger. No one could enter their houses and kill a family member, or hang them without evidence. No one put dogs on their women and children for resisting evil.
They may have been blackballed for their stand on certain issues, but they did not suffer for it. If you were white with certain beliefs, you had to speak before they knew your heart. If you were black, you didn’t need to say a word. Your skin tone was a dead give away, and I mean dead give away.
If a white person has been taught directly or indirectly that whites are superior to blacks, who do you suppose he or she will give a contract or job to? You are what you think. When you are with your friends, pay attention to how you think. If you are watching a movie and a black person and a white person are onscreen, do you go with the good guy regardless of race? When you listen to the news, do you empathize with the victim, no matter their skin color? Americans should ask these questions daily if we are to get better on race relations.
In the ([viii]) Great Compromise of July 1787, some suggested that taxation in the lower house be based on white inhabitants and three-fifths of all other persons. In other words, they referred to blacks as being three-fifths of a person. I don’t believe that God, who is referred to as the Creator in the Declaration of Independence, would agree with this small-minded compromise. After all, God gave us these “unalienable rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” I know that the Northerners wanted to prevent the influence of the South in Congress, but treating people as property is down right evil. I don’t give a damm about the Great
Compromise. God did not declare that some people should be considered lesser than others. Some have said that the Compromise was necessary in order to avoid a total break down of the convention. In other words, we don’t have time to argue about humans being treated like animals because we need to look at the big picture. The Eight Amendment of 1791 says, ([ix]) “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Blacks were allowed to serve as soldiers as early as 1758, according to Benjamin Quarles in his book The Negro in the American Revolution. They were allowed to fight for the country, but were considered only three-fifths of a person. I wonder if
beating men and women for learning to read qualify as “cruel and unusual
punishment”. Or how about promising land to former slaves for fighting in the Civil War, only to stand by and watch the racist Andrew Jackson steal it?
The first ten amendments of the Declaration of Independence are called the
Bill of Rights and were written on December 15, 1791. The thirteenth amendment
was passed on December 6, 1865. This amendment marks the so-called abolishment of slavery. Not only did it not put an end to slavery, but blacks who were free were brutally attacked by whites.
The American People, Volume Two, ([x]) says of the Memphis Riots of 1866: “A Memphis newspaper suggested that the negro can do the country more good in the cotton field than in the camp and criticized what it called the dirty, fanatical nigger-loving Radicals of this city.” The riots began when a few black soldiers got into a fight with white police officers.
The following story is presented in the book:
([xi]) With the encouragement of the Memphis police, the mobs
engaged in over 40 hours of terror, killing, beating, robbing, and raping
virtually helpless residents and burning houses, schools, and churches persons, all but two of them black, had died in the riot. When it was over, 48 persons, all but two of them black, had died in the riot. The local Union army commander took his time intervening to restore order, arguing that his troops had a large amount of public property to guard [and] (he) hated Negroes too. I find it totally ridiculous that whites hated blacks so much in the days of slavery. Their ancestors received free labor from blacks. Most of the time, blacks were afraid of whites and would not even look them in the eye. Every time a white killed a black, blacks should have taken an eye for an eye. This is the part of the slave’s mentality that I hate with a righteous indignation. I wish they would have all died fighting. To me this would have been much better, and I bet you that “Black History” would have been talked about much more. Only if our ancestors had threw off the chains and fought. People have a tendency to discuss people in history that they have respect for.
Remember what Churchill said about appeasers? These crocodiles were not to be appeased. If you kill our people, damit, we are going to kill yours. I love it when so-called Christians and patriots say, “The Lord says to love your neighbors.” Tell my neighbor to stop killing my women and children, and I will be Christian with them. I have yet to find a passage in the Bible that commands men to stand by while their women and children are brutalized. I don’t believe Father Abraham would have allowed Sara and his offspring to be enslaved and taken advantage of.
Does anyone really believe that David, a man after God’s own heart, would
have surrendered without a fight? Do you think he would have stood by, day and night, while his people were destroyed? I don’t want to take my Lord’s words out of context as some of the founding fathers did in order to oppress a people. Turning the other cheek does not mean I will accept abuse of myself or my family.
Consider the time line of the hypocrisy of the founding fathers. They
declared their independence from Britain in 1776 and in 1791 passed
the eight amendment, which speaks against “cruel and unusual punishment.” They then waited seventy-four years to pass the thirteenth amendment. This was the so-called abolishment of slavery. The fifteenth amendment passed in 1870, gave Black men a right to vote. Still it was the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that fully gave blacks a right to vote. If you look at the savagery that has been shown from the white man you will see why they do not like to talk about this part of their history. Even if you look at how George Washington thought the Native Americans were sub-human. Yes the history of the founding fathers is quite ugly and hypocritical. Don’t tell me if you truly look at the America’s history you will not be able to see why some blacks have such disdain for American History.
In written history, the white man speaks regularly about the black man
intermingling with white women. Some of these hicks may have been attempting to make up for their own shortcomings, or perhaps they were inbreeds who were married or sleeping with their own sisters and cousins. Whatever their fear was they acted as if all these big strapping Negroes were going to rape their women. Many times this was the farthest thing from the Negro’s mind because of fear.
One of the first terrorist organizations in the United Stateswas not the Jihadist Muslims. The first jihadist group was home made in the great USA. They were the cowardly, sheet-wearing redneck Ku Klux Klan organization. They were upset that blacks were receiving unalienable rights. The Klan was founded by six college students between 1865 and 1866 in the town of Pulaski, Tennessee. The next time you hear about college kids starting up an organization based on strong hatred or dislike for another race, you might want to look into it a little more closely.
The Ku Klux Klan is one of the most ungodly and violent groups in American
history. They rap themselves in the flag and Christianity. Then at the same
time they have barbeques while lynching Negroes. Even up until the 1950s and 1960s, blacks were being lynched by “good, white, God-fearing Christians.” In most states, white men were not charged with murder if they killed “coons.” The founding fathers gave the Klan a good excuse to kill blacks when they stated in the Great Compromise that blacks were only three-fifths of a person. If they were not human, the Klan thought they should have the right to beat and hang the niggers as they saw fit. Initially, most Klan members were former Confederate soldiers. I know this makes all you confederate flag loving hicks proud. O yea, please stop with I love the confederate flag in order to honor the men who died. By the way you lost the damm war, get over it.
The old saying that a leopard does not change his stripes is true. While I
do not agree with a lot of things that Thomas Paine, the propagandist, wrote, I do agree with this statement. ([xii]) “A long habit of not thinking a
thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at
first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. This is exactly what many slave
owners did. They had been keeping slaves for so long that they thought wrong was right and right was wrong. Some of the first slaves arrived in North America as early as 1620. South America began employing slaves even before North America. From the time of Plymouth Rock, there was open discrimination against blacks and women. Indentured slaves agreed to work for a period of time, and in return the master or owner would reward the slave with food, shelter, and sometimes land.
Before Negros were brought in from Africa, they came from the West Indies, the Caribbean, and Brazil. The original indentured slaves had rights and could make a living after their debts were paid. Jillian Galle, in “The Plymouth Colony Archive Project” ([xiii]) writes, “Throughout the period of the Plymouth Colony, no laws were enacted that dealt specifically with African slaves or African servants.” We should be asking ourselves why. Native Americans and whites had laws in place to protect indentured
slaves from being abused by their masters. This was not the case for the
blacks, because no one respected a cowardly pushover who refused to die for what they stood for. I believe the Civil War should have happened long before 1865. Blacks should have been planning an all out assault in order to demand respect.
They would have been better off if they had all been killed, because at least they wouldn’t have been helping white men build wealth while their people were being destroyed. You need to demand respect from most people—especially from people who do not consider you fully human. I love America,
but I refuse to sugarcoat the wrong and unjust treatment that has occurred.
Native Americans showed the first settlers how to live off the land, only to be
killed or placed on plantations.
[i]The Black Inventor Online Museum, George Washington Carver -http://www.blackinventor.com/pages/george-washington-carver.html
[x] The American People Volume Two Second Edition
Page 548– Column 1, 1990 by Harper Collins Publishers- Harper & Row
Publishers Inc. 10 East 53rd Street,New York,NY10022
[xi] The American People Volume Two Second Edition
Page 548– Column 2, 1990 by Harper Collins Publishers- Harper & Row Publishers Inc. 10 East 53rd Street,New York,NY10022
WASHINGTON– Government-controlled mortgage giant Freddie Mac has requested $6 billion in additional aid after posting a wider loss in the third quarter.
Freddie Mac said Thursday that it lost $4.4 billion, or $1.86 per share, in the July-September quarter. That compares with a loss of $4.1 billion, or $1.25 a share, in the same quarter of 2010.
This quarter’s $6 billion request from taxpayers is the largest since April 2010.
Freddie’s losses are increasing mainly for two reasons: Many homeowners are paying less interest because they are able to refinance at lower mortgage rates. And failing and bankrupt mortgage insurers are not paying out as much money when homeowners default.
The government rescued McLean, Va.-based Freddie Mac and sibling company Fannie Mae in September 2008 after massive losses on risky mortgages threatened to topple them. Since then, a federal regulator has controlled their financial decisions.
Taxpayers have spent about $169 billion to rescue Fannie and Freddie, the most expensive bailout of the 2008 financial crisis. The government estimates it could cost up to $51 billion more to support the companies through 2014.
Freddie and Washington-based Fannie own or guarantee about half of all U.S.mortgages, or nearly 31 million home loans worth more than $5 trillion. Along with other federal agencies, they backed nearly 90 percent of new mortgages over the past year.
Charles E. Haldeman Jr., Freddie’s chief executive, said many homeowners are refinancing at lower mortgage rates or are shortening the terms of their mortgage. While that saves homeowners money, it is pushing Freddie deeper into the red.
“In fact, borrowers we helped to refinance will save an average of $2,500 in interest payments during the next year,” he said.
For Freddie, those losses are temporary because interest rates will remain low for the foreseeable future, said Jim Vogel, an interest-rate specialist at FTN Financial.
Still, many homeowners are still defaulting on their mortgages. Unemployment remains stubbornly high at 9.1 percent. The percentage of those who are late by 90 days or more on their monthly mortgage payments was virtually unchanged at 3.51 percent in the July-September quarter.
Another reason Freddie needs more aid is because it has received less money from mortgage insurers.
Many riskier mortgage loans require insurance, which is meant to protect lenders and investors from losses if a homeowner defaults and the lender doesn’t recoup costs through foreclosure. The borrower pays a monthly premium for the insurance, typically a set percentage of the total mortgage loan. But when those mortgage insurers fail, they pay out less in claims.
For example, the main subsidiary of private mortgage insurer PMI Group was seized byArizonainsurance regulators last month. That followed heavy losses the group incurred after the housing market collapsed. PMI is now paying claims at just 50 percent.
As a result, the amount that Freddie has set aside for losses increased from $2 billion in the January-March quarter to $3.6 billion in the July-September quarter.
Fannie and Freddie buy home loans from banks and other lenders, package them into bonds with a guarantee against default, and then sell them to investors around the world. When property values drop, homeowners default — either because they are unable to afford the payments or because they owe more than the property is worth. Because of the guarantees, Fannie and Freddie must pay for the losses.
Fewer foreclosures and delays in foreclosure processing because of a yearlong government investigation into mortgage lending practices have reduced the companies’ projected losses.
Fannie and Freddie are required to pay 10 percent dividends on the government money they receive. Freddie paid $1.6 billion in dividends to the Treasury Department in the July-September quarter.
Pressure continues on the government to eliminate Fannie and Freddie and reduce taxpayers’ exposure to risk. The Treasury Department put forward a plan in February to slowly dissolve Fannie and Freddie, although that process could take years. Abolishing Fannie and Freddie would transform how homes are bought and redefine who can afford them.
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON– The White House on Friday strongly rebuffed a subpoena from House Republicans seeking all communications about a failed solar panel manufacturer that received a half-billion dollar federal loan guarantee.
In a letter to two top Republicans on the House energy panel, White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler said the request “was driven more by partisan politics than a legitimate effort to conduct a responsible investigation.”
The White House and the Energy Department have already turned over 85,000 pages of documents on Solyndra Inc. The California-based company filed for bankruptcy and laid off 1,100 workers after receiving $528 million in federal backing.
Ruemmler said those documents show no wrongdoing or political favoritism by the administration. She added that curiosity alone is not a justification to encroach on the Executive Branch’s longstanding confidentiality interests.
House Republicans have used Solyndra to highlight what they see as President Barack Obama’s failure to create clean energy jobs. The company was the first to receive a federal loan guarantee under the 2009 stimulus law, which greatly expanded the program. Obama visited the company last year to praise it publicly.
Documents already obtained by the committee show that the administration knew the firm had problems, yet continued to support it.
On Thursday, a subcommittee of the energy panel voted on party lines to issue the subpoena, calling the White House “obstructionist.”
House Energy and Commerce chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said in a statement issued Friday that he was disappointed that the White House and House Democrats were continuing to put up “partisan roadblocks to hide the truth from taxpayers,” when, he said, the investigation so far has shown that the GOP is on the right track.
“Solyndra was a jobs program gone bad, and we must learn the lesson of Solyndra as we work to turn our economy around and put folks back to work,” he said.
GOP claims that the Obama administration’s green energy loan guarantee program is mired in cronyism grew on Friday after a company tied to Nancy Pelosi’s brother-in-law got the lion’s share of the final government hand-outs made before Friday’s end of the fiscal year.
The decision to guarantee $737 million comes hard on the heels of the loss of more than $500 million of government money due to the bankruptcy of solar panel company Solyndra.
The new grant went to Tonopah Solar Energy, a subsidiary of SolarReserve, which started building Crescent Dunes, a massive solar-thermal plant in the Nevada desert in early September.
One of SolarReserve’s major financial backers is the PCG Clean Energy & Technology Fund (East), whose second-in-command is Ronald Pelosi, the brother of the House Minority leader’s husband, Paul. Another investor is Argonaut Private Equity, a company that lost heavily in the Solyndra debacle.
Already one Republican member of the House Energy and Commerce promised Newsmax that he will be keeping a close eye on the loan to SolarReserve. “You had better believe it is going to be looked at,” said Texas Rep. Michael Burgess.
“With Solyndra, they got into trouble because they were rushing because they wanted a photo-op,” said Burgess referring to accusations that that agreement was rushed through so Vice President Joe Biden could announce it when he visited the company’s headquarters.
“Now they have pushed around one-third of the loan guarantee program out of the door in the last four or five days of the fiscal year and that sounds to me like they were going to be rushing.”
Burgess said there has so far been no suggestion that the guarantee was given due to cronyism, but he told Newsmax, “How can they be so tone deaf to do this right now when there is scrutiny on this program? They are putting other solar and wind projects at risk if they continue to behave in this dismissive way.”
Others too questioned the grants. Texas GOP Rep. Joe Barton, former chairman of the Energy Committee called for closer investigation before more money is paid out. “Are these good investments or political favors?” he asked. “The American people just lost a half billion dollars and they deserve answers to these questions before more money is wasted.”
And the conservative Weekly Standard wrote, “It’s increasingly hard to tell the government’s green jobs subsidies apart from the Democrats’ friends and family rewards program.”
Ronald Pelosi, 76, is a member of one of California’s most powerful Democratic families. He is a former president of both the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the San Francisco Planning Commission as well as sitting on many other boards in the Bay City. His nephew Gavin Newsom is currently the Lieutenant Governor of California.
Pelosi joined PCG this past spring and his biography on the company website describes him as having “an extensive background in the securities industry, mutual funds, and private equity.”
Argonaut’s links to both SolarReserve and Solyndra are being closely examined by Republicans. The fund is headed by George Kaiser, a major Democratic donor. Argonaut’s managing director Steve Mitchell sat on the Solyndra board and is a “board participant” at SolarReserve.
Under the Crescent Dunes plan, more than 17,000 specially designed mirrors will collect the sun’s energy and focus it to heat molten salt, which will flow from a 640-ft. tower to produce steam to run a turbine that will generate electricity.
Once the project is online in 2013, excess energy will be stored in the salt for up to 10 hours so power can still be generated at night. Backers say the project will prevent 290,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere annually and produce enough electricity for 43,000 homes.
In announcing the grant, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Crescent Dunes will be the “first of its kind in the United States and the tallest molten salt tower in the world.” He said the project will provide employment for 600 construction workers – although the company’s own website puts that number at “400-500” – and create 45 permanent jobs.
“If we want to be a player in the global clean energy race, we must continue to invest in innovative technologies that enable commercial-scale deployment of clean, renewable power like solar,” added Chu.
“Solar generation facilities, like the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, help supply energy to local utilities and create hundreds of good, American clean energy jobs.”
Just hours before the announcement of the Crescent Dunes loan Republican Rep. Cliff Stearns, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Oversight Subcommittee expressed concern that the government was rushing payments to meet a Sept. 30 deadline.
“The deadline has been on the calendar since the stimulus was signed into law in February 2009, which means DOE has known exactly how much time it had to perform due diligence and approve guarantees for fully vetted and worthy entities,” said the Florida congressman.
“The administration’s flagship project Solyndra is bankrupt and being investigated by the FBI, the promised jobs never materialized and now DOE is preparing to rush out nearly $5 billion in loans in the final 48 hours before stimulus funds expire,” added Stearns. “That’s nearly $105 million every hour that must be finalized until the deadline.
“Solyndra was the product of a bad bet rushed out the door and taxpayers are now on the hook. We cannot afford DOE rushing out more Solyndras in these final hours.”
The Solyndra scandal has cost taxpayers $535 million following the company’s bankruptcy in early September. The company, whose principals have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic causes is now being investigated by the FBI for fraud.
Last week CEO Brian Harrison and chief financial officer Bill Stover repeatedly invoked their Fifth Amendment rights not to testify when they appeared before the full House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Panel chairman, Rep. Fred Upton attacked the decision to give Solyndra the loan guarantee calling it “reckless use of taxpayer dollars on a company that was known to pose serious risks before a single dime went out the door.”
“It appears we have a great heist of over half a billion dollars and … maybe even co-conspirators called the U.S. government,” added Upton.
