Obama's #green #jobs #fail

Boy, it's a bad day for Dear Leader when he's exposed as being even more anti-environmental by being OK with some smog, by the neoliberal portion of his claims to environmentalism being a big fail as another "green jobs company" shuts down in large part because this neoliberal president, in touting green jobs and refuses to do anything about China subsidizing such jobs itself, even as his own administration touts Chinese job creation:

Last week, for instance, the White House's U.S. trade representative, Ron Kirk, said we shouldn't be concerned with jobs that are about "making things that, frankly, we don't want to make in America -- you know, cheaper products, low-skill jobs."

Just a few short grafs show how much of a disconnect there is between Obama the myth and Obama the reality.

Here's more on the stupidity of subsidizing solar development projects while China subsidizes the hardware they need.

Meanwhile, environmental groups act surprised about all this. Why? As a senator, Obama had no problem with favoring anti-environmental ethanol, taking nuclear power industry campaign contributions, and telling fluffery about  "clean coal."

Well, "Gang Green" environmentalist groups. As the story notes, folks like CBD are ready to move on, in at least some way and sense.

“I think that two-plus years into Obama’s presidency is more than enough time for him to have established a clear weak record,” said Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity.

Can't say it any better than that, other than noting he never had a strong record to start with. When he appointed Kenny Boy Salazar as Secretary of the Interior, that should have been a signal right there. But, between the soft bigotry of low post-BushCo expectations, combined with "Gang Green" environmentalists often thinking in terms of "access" first, Obama got a pass.

There's not much that could be uglier than this, a failure on environmental issues in general connected with a failure on green jobs ...

Other than his August #fail on jobs in general. The mix of weak, clueless, timid and kowtowing to Wall Street is simply unacceptable. And, as long as the Senate has 41 Democrats with any more backbone than Dear Leader, how can most of the GOP presidential offerings really be that bad? (That's for people who don't like me saying "vote Green" and claim it's a wasted vote.)

UPDATE 1: Meanwhile, here's the details on the amount of growth of those Chinese solar plants, and details on their subsidization by Beijing. And, it's not cheap labor that's the driver on the expansion: it's government subsidies and tax breaks. That's clearly illegal, but yet, we haven't protested yet. (I don't know about the European Union, which has followed an American-type path of subsidizing solar panel use more than its manufacture.)

So, we can't totally blame Obama for the plant closures. That said, we CAN blame him for not seeing this coming down the road, for touting "green jobs" when he knew it wasn't true, and for pounding federal financial aid down a rathole when these companies were up against China.

The story notes that the administration did challenge similar Chinese practice on wind turbines, but by that time, the years of waiting (thanks BushCo, there) had let China build up its turbine industry to where it didn't matter. Democratic neoliberalism following in the footsteps of GOP hollowing-out. What a bad combination.

UPDATE 2: Sorry, Obama, but your "jobs-killing" excuse for this retreat? Businesses say regulatory issues aren't a concern.

 On re-election odds? I put Obama's chances against anybody not named Paul, Palin or Bachmann at less than 50 percent. And, sorry, Texans who know all about Rick Perry; I agree with polls, and see them holding true in the future.