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To: cnyndwllr who wrote (5868)	12/17/2011 11:19:11 AM
From: longnshort	2 Recommendations of 44271

here's why we don't want to pay more taxes. Obama Cronies Slurping up Taxpayer's Money from 'stimulus' ................................................................................................................................................... Big Obama donor cashed in on ‘stimulus’. Energy company received hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds December 15, 2011 by Aaron Klein kleinonline.wnd.com The founder of an energy company that benefited from deals involving hundreds of millions in “stimulus” money made the maximum donation allowable to President Obama’s inauguration, WND has learned. Peter L. Corsell, founder of GridPoint Inc., contributed $50,000 to the inauguration. Corsell served as the Gridpoint’s chief executive officer from the company’s inception until transitioning to the position of non-executive chairman in October, 2010. Yesterday, KleinOnline broke the story that an Obama adviser who played a key role in developing the energy provisions of the so-called stimulus bill serves on the boards of Gridpoint as well as several other companies that recently received government funds, including “stimulus” money. TJ Glauthier served on Obama’s 2008 White House Transition Team. He is widely credited with helping to craft the energy provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the “stimulus.” In addition to serving on the boards of major energy companies, Glauthier previously held two presidential appointments during the Clinton administration. He was the Energy Department’s deputy secretary and chief operating officer, the second-highest ranking official. Earlier, he served in the White House for five years as the associate director for natural resources, energy and science in the Office of Management and Budget. Glauthier is tied to several energy companies that benefited from the “stimulus” bill he helped to craft. One such company investigated by KleinOnline is GridPoint Inc., where he was appointed to the board in March 2008. GridPoint provides utilities with software solutions for electrical grid management and electric power demand and supply balancing. The “stimulus” provides $4.5 billion for so-called smart grid projects. GridPoint has benefited from scores of smart grid deals funded by the “stimulus” bill. The company partnered with the Electric Transportation Engineering Corporation (eTec), Nissan, the Idaho National Laboratory and others in a project to deploy electric vehicles (EVs) and their charging infrastructure in five states. The Energy Department had awarded eTec almost $100 million in “stimulus” funds to support the project. GridPoint’s role in the eTec project was to supply smart charging and data logging capability to utilities located in strategic markets of eTec’s program in Arizona, California, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington. GridPoint also benefited from “stimulus” funds when it recently provided home energy management, load management and electric vehicle management software solutions for a KCP&L’s Green Impact Zone SmartGrid Demonstration in Kansas City, Mo. The project was the recipient of stimulus funding. Additionally, GridPoint helped the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, or SMUD, manage power from its customers’ rooftop solar panels. The Arlington, Va.-based company had landed a contract to help the Sacramento, Calif.-based municipal utility manage renewable power integration, energy storage and home energy management systems. SMUD had won $127.5 million in stimulus funds from the Department of Energy to carry out the project, which also includes deploying 600,000 smart meters in its service territory. Also, in early 2009, the Energy Department awarded Argonne National Laboratory nearly $2.7 million in stimulus funding for three solar-energy related research projects. In addition, Argonne reportedly shared another $5 million in stimulus funding for projects with GridPoint and other companies and the University of Illinois Sustainable Technology Center. Besides benefiting from stimulus grants, GridPoint last year won a $28 million contract with the United States Postal Service to install energy management systems in selected post office locations across the U.S. Glauthier, meanwhile, also had come under fire after Fox News reported the U.S. Navy has purchased 450,000 gallons of biofuel for about $16 a gallon, or about four times the price of its standard marine fuel, JP-5, which has been going for under $4 a gallon. And HotAir reported last week that Glauthier is a “strategic adviser” to Solazyme, the California company that is selling a portion of the biofuel to the Navy. HotAir noted Solazyme received a $21.8 million grant from the 2009 stimulus package. Also, writing at BigGovernment two weeks ago, Whitney Pitcher found that prior to serving as adviser to Solazyme and after his time as part of Obama’s transition team, Glauthier served on the advisory board of SunRun, a solar financing company. In October of 2010, just a few short months after Glauthier joined SunRun’s advisory board, SunRun secured a $6.73 million grant from a Treasury Department stimulus program. The company was the ninth largest recipient of such programs through December 2010.

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From: Paul Smith	12/17/2011 1:04:03 PM
	3 Recommendations of 44271

Former National Security Advisor Jim Jones called today for quick action on the Keystone XL pipeline construction, directly opposing the White House he worked for only a few months ago. Jones, who rarely speaks in public and almost never contradicts his former boss President Barack Obama, lashed out against the administration in a press call and warned of grave consequences to U.S. national security if the project to build the pipeline doesn't move forward immediately. The call was sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute and Jones was joined on the call by API President and CEO Jack Gerard. "In a tightly contested global economy, where securing energy resources is a national must, we should be able to act with speed and agility. And any threat to this project, by delay or otherwise, would constitute a significant setback," said Jones. "The failure to [move forward with the project] will prolong the risk to our economy and our energy security" and "send the wrong message to job creators." The comments come at the worst possible moment for the Obama administration, which is trying to beat back an effort from congressional Republicans to attach language that would force a decision on the pipeline to legislation that extends unemployment insurance and the payroll tax holiday for middle class Americans. Obama has promised to veto any bill that comes to his desk with the Keystone XL pipeline language, and the State Department has said that if it is forced to come to a quick decision on the pipeline, that decision would be no because there has not been enough time to properly evaluate environmental and logistical considerations. The Cable asked Jones if he was getting paid by API for supporting its cause. Jones said he was not getting paid, and was speaking out because he believed in the pipeline cause. "I've known Jack Gerard for a number of years... and when he called me a few days ago and asked me if I was willing to participate in this because of my interest in energy issues, I agreed to do so," Jones said. Jones said the project was an important piece of the U.S.-Canada relationship and that if the United States doesn't act, Canada may decide to cancel the project and give its energy resources to the Chinese. He also said if they United States doesn't move forward with the pipeline, that would be another signal of fading U.S. leadership in the world. "If we get to a point where the nation cannot bring itself to do, for whatever reason, those things that we all know is in our national interest... then we are definitely in a period of decline in terms of our global leadership and in terms of our ability to compete in the 21st century," said Jones. Jones said that he was not in touch with the administration directly on this issue, but that he told Obama personally just before resigning that Obama had a chance to be the "energy president," but was failing to distinguish himself on the issue. "I do not think the United States has a comprehensive strategy for energy writ large and that's a critical shortfall. Nor do I think we are properly organized," Jones said. "In my last few days I communicated that to the president." thecable.foreignpolicy.com

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From: TimF	12/17/2011 1:29:03 PM
	3 Recommendations of 44271

Shannon Love Says: November 30th, 2011 at 11:47 am This surprised me because I never thought of Oregon as a state that had this sort of poverty. That’s because it isn’t. You’re being taken in by the implication designed into the term “food insecure.” You naturally assume it means they often go hungry. However, when you look at the way the term is defined in the actual “studies” it means no such thing. In fact, children can eat every day and be morbidly obese and still defined as “food insecure.” “Food insecure” boils down to their parents having to closely follow a budget. If the parents have to scramble at some point to pay bills during an arbitrary time range, usually a year, then the child is defined as “food insecure” because hypothetically, the child might actually experience a few hours of hunger at some point during the entire year. Note that the child doesn’t actually have to miss a single meal ever, the child is just “insecure” because if the planets align properly, the child might miss a single meal. Given that usually only 25% of children live below the poverty line, saying that 30% of children in the state are “food insecure” is just nonsense. That is doubly true in a state like Oregon which has a history of very little severe poverty. Of course, there are children who go hungry in every American community but their hunger results from parental dysfunction and not the cruel injustices of America’s social system. On the issue of taxes, I think it important for people to understand that taxes don’t just change the incentives of economic-creatives but also materially impairs their ability to generate wealth for the community by removing capital. There seems to be a presumption by many that the taxable income of most wealthy people is entirely separate from the pool of money they use to open new businesses, expand existing ones and/or hire more workers. That is not true. If an economic-creative owns an S-corporation, then their taxable income and their business profits are one in the same. Taxing the owner’s income directly taxes the business. A big chunk if not the majority of “income” taxes come from the investment pool of small and medium sized businesses. chicagoboyz.net

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