Commentary by Jim Campbell

The title may have just as well been “Soros sure to benefit from White House’s natural gas proposal.  There is no logical reason to stop it and Soros has already positioned his hedge fund for significant gain.

A major company to benefit is  Westport.  When it reaps the predicted windfall, one of the chief beneficiaries will be George Soros, a major Obama donor and supporter. Soros’s hedge fund holds 3,160,063 company shares (as of its last SEC filing). 

Wall Street analysts predicted a boom for the company if the NAT GAS Act were passed. CNBC analyst Jim Cramer said he “expects shares to absolutely explode” in the event the legislation were to pass.

Think there might have been a little insider trading going on with this one?  I do. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, I’m J.C. and I approve this message.

Lachlan Markay

The proposal would offer incentives for companies to buy and use trucks powered by natural gas. Obama announced the effort at a UPS facility in Las Vegas that received stimulus funding to buy natural gas vehicles and build a fueling station for them.

The proposal is remarkably similar to the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions (NAT GAS) Act.

One company that stands to benefit handsomely from the president’s proposal is Westport Innovations. The company converts diesel engines to be fueled by natural gas. 

Jim Cramer made positive mention of Westport, calling it a solid play on natural gas should Congress pass its pending Natural Gas Act. Westport converts diesel engines (i.e. – those found in semi trailers) into ones that run on natural gas.

Benefiting Westport is that it’s: A) basically first to the market, at least in terms of mass production, and B) high barriers of entry for competition because of the complex technology involved in the transformations.

If Westport reaps the predicted windfall, one of the chief beneficiaries will be George Soros, a major Obama donor and supporter. Soros’s hedge fund holds 3,160,063 company shares (as of its last SEC filing).

Soros has given $384,090 to the Democratic Party, Democratic PACs, and Democratic Candidates in the three election cycles beginning in 2008, including $4,400 to Obama himself, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. He describes himself as “an early supporter of Barack Obama, first in his Senate campaign in Illinois and later when he ran for President. Soros supported Obama in his presidential bid because he believed he could provide the transformational leadership the country needed.”

Lachlan Markay

Comment by Jim Campbell

It is rather odd indeed that Obama would use the lower number. Wouldn’t the higher number have created a bigger crisis?  Ah but remember the explosion occurred on April 20th and Obama, made his first public remarks on the spill, on April 29th, pledges to deploy “every single available resource” in response.

He speaks with the governors from five Gulf states, while Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declares a “spill of national significance.” The time line will show that Obama was as usual derelict in his duties and found it more important to be on vacation at the time.  It wasn’t until May 2nd that he visited the region.  What a guy!

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, I’m J.C. and I approve this message. 

According to information obtained by a liberal environmentalist group, the White House deliberately misled the public about the amount of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon disaster in April 2010.

Staff Report

Commentary by Jim Campbell

Has the in what some call our Commander-in-Chief, paid any attention to his Commanders in the field?  When it comes to War, and the defense or our country Obama is a complete zero.  He prefers to be the social engineer making sure ware are all equal.   An equally an unsafe nation of voters too afraid to get rid of him.  This will be just one more of his miscalculations.  January 20, 2013 gone but not soon forgotten he will go down in U.S. History as the worst person to play golf on the taxpayer’s dime.

That’s my sto.

The future is not bright for the U.S. military. Yesterday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta gave America a glimpse of the half-trillion dollars in defense spending cuts requested by the Obama Administration and detailed how the U.S. military’s capabilities would be affected in practical terms. The result is a slashed and burned military that woefully lacks the forces it needs to meet America’s security challenges on a global scale.

Secretary of the Army John McHugh, left, Gen. Raymond Odierno, the Army’s chief of staff, at a briefing on Monday. (Mark Wilson — Getty Images)

On the ground, in the sea, and in the air, American forces will shrink drastically — the Army will shrink by 72,000 people, the active Marine Corps will be

reduced by 20,000, the Air Force will see six tactical fighter squadrons de-established while an additional training fighter squadron will be eliminated, the next-generation F-35 Join Strike Fighter procurement will be slowed, and the Navy will retire seven cruisers and two amphibious ships at an early juncture while delaying the procurements of new ships. To put these cuts in context, we are returning to ground forces levels we had under President Bill Clinton when the Army strained and scrambled to execute smaller missions like Kosovo and Bosnia–let alone significant ground force operations.

In order to compensate for the drastically reduced military capabilities, the Administration plans to increase reliance on unmanned drones and special-operations teams based around the globe. But special operations are a scalpel, not a Swiss army knife. They are not an “easy-button” substitute for the many security missions the United States undertakes worldwide. And they rely on a strong backbone of conventional forces in order to succeed. The U.S. Navy’s presence was essential in Somalia during the recent hostage rescue, as was the Air Force’s support in the first phase of Afghanistan and the Army’s muscle during the surge in Iraq. Special forces without robust conventional forces is like a wide receiver without a quarterback and a line.

In a new paper, The Heritage Foundation’s Baker Spring, the F. M. Kirby Research Fellow in National Security Policy in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, explains that the U.S. military is in danger of becoming the broken force it was in the Carter era:

As was the case following the Vietnam War in the 1970s, defense budget reductions of the scope previewed by Panetta generally lead to reduced combat readiness and, ultimately, a hollow force. This is because a force that is too small has to endure higher operating tempos and rotation cycles. It also results in a reduction in the technological edge that permits the U.S. military to achieve victory on the battlefield quickly and with fewer casualties. Finally, it becomes more difficult to man the force with high-quality personnel and maintain high morale.

Unfortunately, these cuts are just the beginning. Under the Budget Control Act that Congress passed last summer, the military will face automatic budget cuts amounting to as much as $600 billion in addition to those that Panetta laid out yesterday. As Spring explains, the only way to avoid these automatic cuts is for the Budget Control Act to be amended or repealed — a measure that President Obama has said he would veto.

All of this comes despite the fact that spending on national defense — a core constitutional function of government — has declined significantly over time, despite wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Spending on the three major social insurance program that provides income for retirees and the disabled” href=”http://links.heritage.org/ct/7688493:10980374539:m:1:263276861:D6C07D7FEC04D5A4DDF78E63A7F1BBDB:r” target=”_blank”>Social Security, program for low-income individuals and families with children” href=”http://links.heritage.org/ct/7688493:10980374539:m:1:263276861:D6C07D7FEC04D5A4DDF78E63A7F1BBDB:r” target=”_blank”>Medicaid–has more than tripled. And while Washington attempts to cut spending, it is the military that is taking the brunt of it: For every dollar the President hopes to save in domestic programs, he plans on saving $128 in defense.

This leaves America in a precarious position. Fewer troops in all the services will be scrambling in a global shell game to mask the fact that the United States can’t defend all of its interests. The force will be even more stressed than at the height of Iraq and Afghanistan. By cutting the defense budget, the United States is undermining the responsiveness of its defense industrial base. In addition, without proper investments, the United States will lose technological advantages vis-a-vis its future strategic competitors.

Meanwhile, America’s enemies are watching. They can count our troops, our planes, and our ships. They can look on as America’s military retreats and loses its ability to project forces around the world. And they will quickly realize that the United States will not be able to cover its responsibilities worldwide. That is an invitation for the sort of security threats America cannot afford — and they are threats that America may not be able to respond to with its stripped-down military.

NY Times Article

WASHINGTON — The Army’s two top leaders argued Monday against shrinking their service too much, warning that the nation may have to rethink its defense strategy if the ground forces become too small.

The two officials — John M. McHugh, the Army secretary, and Gen. Ray Odierno, the new chief of staff — acknowledged that the Army might be told to cut the number of soldiers even below the 520,000 total that now is the target for this decade.

Read more ….

The Hill

An Indiana-based energy-storage company, whose subsidiary received a $118.5 million stimulus grant from the Energy Department, filed for bankruptcy Thursday.

Ener1 is asking a federal bankruptcy court in New York to approve a plan to restructure the company’s debt and infuse $81 million in equity funding.

“This was a difficult, but necessary, decision for our company,” Ener1 CEO Alex Sorokin said in a news release. “We are extremely pleased to have the strong support of our primary investors and lenders to substantially reduce the company’s debt.”

The company said it hopes the plan will “support continued operation of Ener1’s subsidiaries and help ensure that the restructuring will not adversely impact their employees, customers and suppliers.”

The Energy Department in 2009 approved a $118.5 million stimulus grant for EnerDel, a subsidiary of the company that develops lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles. The company has so far spent $55 million of the federal funding.

“While it’s unfortunate that Ener1, the parent company, has entered a restructuring process, the new infusion of $80 million in private capital demonstrates that the technology has merit,” Energy Department spokeswoman Jen Stutsman said in a statement.

“The restructuring is not expected to impact EnerDel’s operations and the company has made clear that they do not expect to reduce employment at the site.”

EnerDel has received support from Republicans, including more than $4 million in federal grants under the George W. Bush administration.

The Obama administration’s grant was part of a broader program aimed at promoting the development of electric-vehicle battery technology.

President Obama touted the program in his State of the Union address this year.

“In three years, our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be the world’s leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries,” he said.

At the time, EnerDel said the grant would help the company double its production capacity and create 1,700 jobs. But the company has faced major financial problems in recent months.

Ener1’s decision to file for bankruptcy will likely draw the attention of House Republicans, who are investigating the bankruptcy of Solyndra, the solar panel maker that received a $535 million Energy Department loan guarantee in 2009.

The GOP has pummeled the White House over Solyndra, raising broader concerns about the administration’s investments in clean-energy companies.

President Obama’s two biggest “achievements” since taking office are the so-called stimulus and government-run healthcare.

But neither one of those policies are popular, so the President largely ignored them during his state-of-the-union address and instead focused on using the tax code to promote “fairness.”

We call it the Chicago Way.

But fairness doesn’t mean treating everyone equally by adopting a flat tax. Instead, it means a class-warfare policy of higher tax rates.

The President’s home state of Illinois is a good test case of this approach. The politicians rammed through a big tax increase early last year, supposedly to stabilize state finances.

Unfortunately, Obamanomics isn’t working very well in Illinois. The state just got downgraded by Moody’s and ranks below even California.

The most damning evidence, though, is what’s happened to the job market. Unemployment is still far too high across the nation, but the vast majority of states are seeing at least modest improvement.

But a tiny handful of states, led by Illinois, are moving in the wrong direction. Here’s a very powerful chart produced by the Illinois Policy Institute. The tax hike is about one-year old, and we’re already seeing strong evidence that jobs are fleeing the state.

Now close your eyes and envision a different map. Instead of American states, imagine a map of the world. And think what it will look like if Obama succeeds in imposing all the tax increases he had endorsed.

I suppose it won’t look as bad as this map because there are plenty of other nations engaging in suicidal tax policy. But it doesn’t take a vivid imagination to understand that Obama’s class-warfare approach would drive jobs and investment to the nations with better tax policies.

New York Times

By MARC LACEY

Well now isn’t like the NY Times to get apoplectic of these young future losers of America to become incised in a non story.  The Secret Service can do all it like, but we sill have the First Amendment, you know the part about freedom of Speech and Expression! 

Perhaps they missed the federal court ruling that threatening to assassinate Obama is not a crime?  To me it just looks like a piece of art work worthy of being hung in any Patriot’s home. Way to go guys for exercising your Constitutional rights.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, I’m J.C. and I approve this message.

PHOENIX — The Secret Service said Thursday that it was looking into a photograph posted on the Internet that showed a group of young Arizona men posing in the desert with guns while holding up what appeared to be a bullet-riddled image of President Obama’s face.

The photograph showed seven casually dressed young men, four of whom clutched weapons and one of whom held up a T-shirt covered with small holes and gashes and bearing a likeness of Mr. Obama above the word “HOPE.” The weapons held aloft appeared to be a revolver, a bolt-action rifle and two assault rifles.