The president’s energy agenda took a hit on Thursday, as yet another stimulus-backed energy company filed for bankruptcy. Videos have surfaced since then showing both Obama and Vice President Biden praising the company’s promise, drawing the attention of congressional investigators. As Scribe reported yesterday, Ener1 submitted a pre-packaged bankruptcy plan as part of a refinancing agreement after suffering numerous setbacks late last year. Ener1 subsidiary EnerDel received a $118 million grant from the Energy Department to produce its lithium ion battery technology. The president singled out EnerDel for praise during a speech …
George Soros, a billionaire investor and major backer of President Obama, stands to reap a windfall from legislation promoting natural gas-powered vehicles. The White House unveiled a proposal on Thursday that would do just that. 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 …
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. The month after the spill, the administration announced that about 25,000 barrels per day of oil was being leaked into the Gulf. That estimate turned out to be wildly off the mark. About 53,000 bpd were being spilled. According to emails obtained by the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the administration falsely reported the …
After months of financial turmoil, an Energy Department-backed lithium ion battery company has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company, Ener1, received a $118 million grant from DOE in 2010 as part of the president’s stimulus package. The money, which went to Ener1 subsidiary EnerDel, aimed to promote renewable energy storage battery technology for electrical grid use. But despite generous federal support for the company, Ener1 was racked by problems last year. In October, NASDAQ delisted the company due to non-compliance with Securities and Exchange Commission filing requirements. A …
Joseph Kelley knew something was wrong when his son Rashawn flunked first grade. “I knew he knew his alphabet forward and backward, he knew how to count to 100 forward and backward,” Kelley said. He had taught Rashawn these things himself. Rashawn’s teachers were surprised to find out that he knew how to read; they hadn’t noticed. At the time, Rashawn was attending a public school in Washington, D.C. Kelley decided to sit in on his son’s classes to learn the teachers’ vocabulary and techniques so he could tutor Rashawn …
President Obama made a number of questionable statements in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. Heritage experts took on some of the policy issues he raised, but we at Scribe thought we would address the simple factual accuracy of 10 of the more outlandish statements from the president. Quotes are drawn from the president’s prepared remarks. Claim: “On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I …
Testifying on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, the National Park Service made clear its legal position for declining to enforce laws against camping on federal land with respect to the Occupy DC protest group. But the Supreme Court has already weighed in on a near-identical case and found that enforcing laws against camping does not violate First Amendment rights, as the NPS claims. “The core of [Occupy DC’s] First Amendment activity is that they occupy the site,” explained NPS director Jonathan Jarvis. In other words, “occupying,” or camping on the land …
The Obama Administration’s decision to forego the Keystone pipeline has forced the country’s labor groups into a bitter civil war. At issue is the central purpose of the labor movement: those who feel it should represent workers in the workplace generally oppose the administration’s decision; those who see unions as primarily political organizations have generally supported it. Unions that had a stake in the Keystone decision were livid that the administration abandoned it, and equally angry at their fellow union members who had supported that decision, according to a Friday …
Two House committees have scheduled hearings on President Obama’s unconstitutional appointments of four federal officials earlier this month. On Tuesday, the financial services panel of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee will examine the role that Richard Cordray will play at the helm of the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The hearing will be streamed live at http://oversight.house.gov. Subcommittee chairman Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) called Cordray’s appointment an “apparent contravention of constitutional requirements for a recess appointment” in a Jan. 4 statement. The panel, McHenry added, “is deeply interested in …
Financial disclosure documents filed by two of President Obama’s illegal appointments to the National Labor Relations Board show that one will continue to receive payments from a major labor union during his time on the board. Richard Griffin, the former general counsel for the International Union of Operating Engineers, will receive regular payments under two different IUOE pension plans. The payment amounts are not listed on the disclosure form. He will also receive a single lump sum payment equal to three weeks of salary (one week for each of the …
