Two weeks ago, alternative energy company Solyndra, which received $535 million in “stimulus” loan guarantees from the Obama administration, collapsed. Solyndra was the poster child for the Obama administration’s claim that it could create green jobs with taxpayer money. Now 1,100 more people are out of work and American taxpayers are on the hook for half a billion dollars.

But while this ought to be an abject embarrassment for the dirigistes in the Obama administration, there’s a much bigger story behind the Solyndra scandal. It involves a concerted effort by White House officials to improperly rush the Solyndra loan decision for political reasons.

The Washington Post had the exclusive story:

The Obama White House tried to rush federal reviewers for a decision on a nearly half-billion-dollar loan to the solar-panel manufacturer Solyndra so Vice President Biden could announce the approval at a September 2009 groundbreaking for the company’s factory, newly obtained e-mails show.

The Silicon Valley company, a centerpiece in President Obama’s initiative to develop clean energy technologies, had been tentatively approved for the loan by the Energy Department but was awaiting a final financial review by the Office of Management and Budget.

The August 2009 e-mails, released exclusively to The Washington Post, show White House officials repeatedly asking OMB reviewers when they would be able to decide on the federal loan and noting a looming press event at which they planned to announce the deal. In response, OMB officials expressed concern that they were being rushed to approve the company’s project without adequate time to assess the risk to taxpayers, according to information provided by Republican congressional investigators.

The Post goes on to detail some of these email messages. Here’s one of them:

“We have ended up with a situation of having to do rushed approvals on a couple of occasions (and we are worried about Solyndra at the end of the week),” one official wrote. That Aug. 31, 2009, message, written by a senior OMB staffer and sent to Terrell P. McSweeny, Biden’s domestic policy adviser, concluded, “We would prefer to have sufficient time to do our due diligence reviews.”

Now here’s where mere incompetence turns into corruption. Want to guess the name of Solyndra’s biggest financial backer? Tulsa billionaire and Obama fundraiser George Kaiser.

(more…)

The White House is expected to announce a new deficit reduction plan today. The bulk of it appears to be, end the wars and let’s get the class warfare on to try and position the GOP badly for 2012. That’s not governing, it’s politicking, while adding more downward pressure on the economy in already dangerous economic times. This  is what change looks  like. Obama’s plan is half tax increases and ending wars is not reducing the size of government.

WASHINGTON — President Obama will unveil a deficit-reduction plan on Monday that uses entitlement cuts, tax increases and war savings to reduce government spending by more than $3 trillion over the next 10 years, administration officials said.

First, a word of caution, never underestimate the power of incumbency when it comes to elections – especially when talking about the Presidency. That said, some Democrats are especially worried about Obama’s standing in the polls right now.

One Nevada Democratic Party insider offered this tip for candidates running for public office in 2012: “Don’t get your picture taken with President Obama,” he said. At least not while Barack Obama’s approval ratings remain in the tank, in the high 30 percent to low 40 percent range, according to recent opinion polls.

Steve Chapman-in the pages of the Chicago Tribune, no less-thinks it might be time for Obama to pack it in and not run for reelection.

While Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of the Congressional Black Caucus admits; if anyone else were President, they’d be marching on the White House.

Part of Obama’s problem could be that, as observed by Michael Barone, he sees his job as Shop-Steward-in-Chief. Most of his proposals seemed squarely aimed at the 7% of the workforce who is unionized.

Hmmm…Instead of paying back taxpayers, Obama’s GM is giving union workers a cash bonus for signing a new contract. Looks like Barone is right again.

(more…)

Wow, this is remarkable. The alternative minimum tax (AMT) is one of the most-hated features of the tax code. It is such a nightmare of complexity that even Democrats routinely have supported “patches” and “band-aids” to protect millions of additional households from getting trapped in this surreal parallel tax universe – one that requires taxpayers to calculate their taxes two different ways, with the IRS getting the maximum amount of money from the two returns.

(Hong Kong, by contrast, give taxpayers the option of calculating their taxes two different ways, but they’re allowed to pay the smaller of the two amounts.)

Notwithstanding the AMT’s status as arguably the worst feature of the internal revenue code, President Obama apparently wants to double down on this horrific policy by creating a new version of this nightmarish provision.

Here are some excerpts from the Wall Street Journal’s coverage, including a key observation that Obama’s scheme is just another version of the AMT.

The administration’s principle resembles the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was first adopted in 1969 and was intended to hit the superwealthy. The AMT has been hitting an increasing number of the middle class because it wasn’t indexed for inflation, and Congress has continually wrestled with how to get rid of it.

The WSJ article also notes a glaring inconsistency in the White House’s rhetoric. The plan is supposed to be a “very significant” tax hike, but doubling the tax burden on millionaires would only raise $19 billion per year. In other words, the Administration’s class-warfare rhetoric is probably just cover for a tax hike that actually will hit a lot of people with far more modest incomes.

(more…)

You need to act before Wednesday. At a time when the Obama Administration is clamoring to save or create jobs, his Department of Labor is about to sucker punch America’s job creators with an unprecedented regulatory overreach—all to curry more favor with union bosses.

On Wednesday, the public comment period will be closing on a Department of Labor proposal that the majority of America knows nothing about and even fewer understand.

If enacted as drafted, the union cronies within the Department of Labor will require every private-sector employer and service provider (whether or not they ever talk directly to employees) to file financial statements with the Obama Labor Department if the service provider’s services indirectly affect employees’ choice to unionize or not.

Unless you act by commenting here, this rule change will likely take affect. [See link to a downloadable sample comment below.]

Once the financial information—which includes the service provider’s entire company (or firm’s) receipts (even from other clients)—are submitted, it will become public information. It will then be published on the Department of Labor’s website and available to union bosses. What’s more, willful failure to file the financial information is a criminal violation, punishable by either imprisonment, a fine, or both. (more…)

Pursuit of Happiness is my favorite unalienable right, and a cornerstone of American exceptionalism. No other Nation on earth has happiness written into its founding documents, so people from all over the world flood our borders trying to crash the party. But it seems that the agents of “Change” have stumbled onto a solution: by making America just as bleak and dismal as the rest of the world, they can make everyone stay home. Even the Department of Transportation is on the job.

My friend Louis took up electronic smoking about three years ago; partly because he was trying to quit, and partly because he was tired of going out into the cold Minneapolis winter, to huddle outside the restaurant with the other smokers after dinner.

It seemed like a perfect solution. electronic cigarettes offer the enjoyment of a smoke, without any of the nuisance. You don’t have to light one; it’s just a metal tube that releases a warm nicotine mist. There is even a little red light on the end, that glows when you draw in, so it looks like a cigarette.

It’s completely odorless and smokeless, and doesn’t have the carbon monoxide or tars that cause most of the health problems associated with cigarettes and second hand smoke. So there is no real reason for anybody to complain about electronic smoking.

I thought I might get one myself, because I enjoy the occasional cigar with a cocktail, and it would make a great drinking companion –especially on airplanes. I imagined myself flying across the country with a cigarette and Martini in classic Mad Men fashion. I started flying in an era when you could still book a seat in the smoking section; riding in a comforting veil of nicotine, as you contemplated all the things that could go wrong on a flight.

But Louis told me not to bother. I’m flying to Minneapolis to work at his club this week (Acme Comedy Company, Tuesday & Wednesday September 20 & 21) and he sent me this release. Apparently a lot of people have taken up electronic smoking to while away the hours; and the Department of Transportation aren’t happy.

(more…)

President Obama and the Democratic Party effectively turned every controversial issue they faced over the past three years into a potential crisis, and convinced the American people to support their solutions without question to avert presumed dire consequences.  Important works of legislation capable of changing the American way of life were passed on the basis of “we have to pass this now – or else!”  Mr. Obama is preparing to face the nation again with another speech that will proclaim urgency and use panic to get his legislative desires passed.  We need to recognize what has been going on and put a stop to it.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the stimulus bill, was quickly passed by the Democratic controlled House and Senate without real debate in order to keep the unemployment rate from rising above 8%.  With unemployment at 9.1%, and over 17% when considering all those who stopped looking for work or are working part-time, that crisis was not averted.  All the stimulus bill did was to spend $800 billion of tax payer money to pay government workers salaries for one year and for a few temporary road construction projects.  The law did not provide any incentive for self-sustaining employment and our economy is now facing another recession.

The Patient Protection and Affordability Act of 2010, Obamacare, was crammed through the Democratic controlled House and Senate against overwhelming protests by the American people. All this ideologically designed legislation accomplished, with over 2,700 pages and the creation of 159 new bureaucracies, was to create uncertainty for employers and push up the cost of health care insurance.

The recently passed Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, the last piece of hastily formed legislation passed by the Democratic controlled House and Senate before the November  2010 election shifted power in the House to the Republicans, is an empty bill passed for political purposes leaving its substance to regulations yet to be written.  Our nation’s banking system is now paralyzed by the uncertainty of what will be in those regulations.

From Cash for Clunkers to cash for Solyndra, everything this administration does is preceded by “pass it now, there is no time for debate.”  Economic conditions are difficult for most Americans and with 14 million citizens unemployed and an estimated 25 million Americans in total who are unemployed or under-employed, families are hurting and it would be easy to proclaim a crisis and cause panic.

(more…)

Today, in 1863, began the Battle of Chickamauga began. It ended in a staggering Union defeat.

Oh the scandalizing books ahead of election time. I remember them well and how work-place liberals loved to quote from their pages when it was the Bush team in the White House. Between them and the liberal press, one would think everyone was apart of the Bush administration besides you. Karl Rove was the devil incarnate, Bush was a pea-brained, and Cheney called the shots from inside his lair. Together they were all in a State of Denial but hell bent on empire and other neo-conservative designs.

Those were the good ol’days for liberals. But Obama was going to be different — just you wait! Obama’s supposed genius, moderation, and infinite wisdom enabled him to put together a team of the nation’s brightest. His team of rivals was second to none in the history of the world. A trusted team comprised of men, women, gays, Hispanics, blacks, and whites. Truly it was an inclusive team that bared the soul of a decent, humble, and empathetic man. Ivy League types, of course, but you get the picture.

Obama has said he admires Doris Kearns Goodwin’s wonderful Lincoln biography, Team of Rivals. “He talks about it all the time,” says a top aide. He is particularly intrigued by the notion that Lincoln assembled all the Republicans who had run against him for President in his war Cabinet, some of whom disagreed with him vehemently and persistently. “The lesson is to not let your ego or grudges get in the way of hiring absolutely the best people,” Obama told me. “I don’t think the American people are fundamentally ideological. They’re pragmatic … and so I have an interest in casting a wide net, seeking out people with a wide range of expertise, including Republicans,” for the highest positions in his government (Joe Klein).

That was the story anyway. The real one is much more believable.

The book, by Ron Suskind, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, quotes White House documents that say Mr. Obama’s decisions were routinely “re-litigated” by the chairman of the National Economic Council, Lawrence H. Summers. Some decisions, including one to overhaul the debt-ridden Citibank, were carried out sluggishly or not at all by a resistant Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, according to the book.

Mr. Suskind quotes from two memos for the president in which Pete Rouse, a senior White House aide, wrote, “There is deep dissatisfaction within the economic team with what is perceived as Larry’s imperious and heavy-handed direction of the economic policy process.”

A copy of the book, “Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President,” published by HarperCollins, was obtained by The New York Times before it officially goes on sale on Tuesday. The White House declined to comment on Mr. Suskind’s account, which he said was based on interviews with more than 200 people, including the president.

The book offers a portrait of a White House operating under intense pressure as it dealt with a cascade of crises, from insolvent banks to collapsing carmakers. And it details the rivalries among figures around the president, including Mr. Summers; Mr. Geithner; the former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel; and the budget director, Peter R. Orszag.

(more…)

Will any of the lawmakers, journalists, labor leaders and other activists in attendance at Fighting Bob Fest repudiate the notion, made by a speaker there, that protesters should escalate their harassment from beer to urine?

Don’t hold your breath.

[Madison, Wisc…] Thousands of liberal political activists, gathered here Saturday for an annual conference, cheered and laughed as a speaker recounted the recent assault of a GOP lawmaker. The crowd attending the Fighting Bob Fest also rejoiced at the suggestion that protesters, instead of dumping beer over the heads of Republicans, should urinate on them.

“This is Wisconsin, this is the place where you had some guy pour a beer on the head of a Republican State Senator?” said Fest speaker Greg Palast as the crowd erupted with cheers. “No, no, no, that’s all wrong. You can’t do that. That’s just wrong. I’m from New York. If you’re going to pour beer on a Republican, you have to drink it first.”

The crowd can then be heard breaking out in loud and sustained cheers and laughter.

(more…)

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) came to Washington as the a tea-party conservative with the goal of fixing the economy, addressing the debt crisis and curbing the growth of the federal government. It’s an uphill battle for the youngest member of the U.S. Senate, but one he’s prepared to fight.

(more…)

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner may be most famous in the United States for cheating on his taxes (you can even buy a t-shirt to acknowledge his tax dodging), but he’s becoming a punch line in the rest of the world for different reasons.

I wrote two years ago about Chinese students erupting in laughter after Geithner claimed the Administration believed in a strong dollar.

Now he’s getting mocked by the Europeans.

After Friday’s post about the absurdity of Obama sending his Treasury Secretary to lecture the Europeans, you can imagine my great amusement today as I read that the Europeans basically told Geithner to go jump in a lake.

Here are some passages from the Reuters report.

(more…)

It was supposed to be this:

On the 17th of September, we want to see 20,000 people to flood into lower Manhattan, set up beds, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months.

Instead, as they say about the best laid plans, it was something entirely different. It was, frankly, a stroll through a park—Zuccotti Park, in lower Manhattan, to be exact.

A Non-Union Non-Event

Over the summer, on the heels of Arab Spring, an anti-capitalist group called adbusters established a campaign to occupy Wall Street, beginning on September 17th. Whether coincidental or not, September 17th also happened to be Constitution Day. While there had been some unfounded unfounded speculation a few weeks ago that the SEIU’s Stephen Lerner and ACORN founder Wade Rathke were behind the OccupyWallSt movement, there were never any signs that the Marxist-Anarchist protesters had any formal union backing—nor has there been anything posted on union websites about the occupation of Wall St.

This morning, protestors did, however, call for “revolution”
(more…)

We ignore most polls because most are not meaningfully instructive and, often, the phrasing of the questions hideously corrupts the results.  There are, however, some polls we do watch carefully because we believe they are instructive.  The Rasmussen “wrong direction, right direction” tracking poll is one we do watch carefully. It is conducted week after week and the single question that is asked (do you believe the country is headed in the right direction or the wrong direction?) is exquisitely unambiguous and the message it conveys to the ruling class can only be ignored at great peril.

Campaign strategists for President Obama as well as the leaders of both political parties, should be burning a lot of midnight oil pondering the reality that three quarters of the nation believes we are headed in the wrong direction.  That’s not just an opinion that’s being expressed.  It, rather, reflects a growing sinking feeling, a queasiness in the nation’s collective gut, not that things just aren’t going well, but that things are getting worse. It says that the vast majority of Americans believe the course that has been, and is being, set is the wrong course.

What should be particularly distressing to the White House is not only that the nation’s confidence is so low, but that it has also been deteriorating rather steadily.  To be sure, the people were unhappy with the direction of the country when President Bush left office.  When Bush departed Washington, two-thirds of the people felt we were headed in the wrong direction.  Now, following thirty-three months of President Obama’s initiatives to fundamentally transform America, three-quarters of the nation feels we are headed in the wrong direction.  The question doesn’t ask whether the people are happy with where we are, but, more importantly, whether they are happy with where we are headed.

Most polls provide a glimpse at where the electorate’s opinions are at a given moment, and, consequently, are subject to rapid change.  For example, prior to September 15^th 1950, most Americans probably would not have liked the way the war in Korea was going.  But between September 15 and September 19^th the enormously successful Inchon landing took place, and American opinion would have, no doubt, turned around on a dime.  President George H.W. Walker enjoyed very high approval ratings in January of 1991 following the successful Gulf War, but in spite of his personal popularity, his electability diminished as the economy declined in the months thereafter, clearing the way for President Clinton’s election in 1992.  Likewise, President Obama enjoyed a temporary, but well deserved bump in his approval rating when our navy seals took out Osama Bin Laden.

Presidential approval ratings (as compared to the “where we’re headed ratings“) are, we believe, less telling.

(more…)

This scandal is getting curiouser and curiouser. There are even rumors that MSNBC may actually cover the story this week.

From Reuters:

President Barack Obama, in a populist step designed to appeal to voters, will propose a “Buffett Tax” on people making more than $1 million a year as part of his deficit recommendations to Congress on Monday.

Such a proposal, among suggestions to a congressional supercommittee expected to seek up to $3 trillion in deficit savings over 10 years, would appeal to his Democratic base ahead of the 2012 election but may not raise much in revenues.

(more…)

Do you believe in American exceptionalism? I do and while President Barack Obama may not I believe a great many of you also do.  In fact some of you who are reading this article at this very moment might yourselves be shining examples of American exceptionalism.

If so then your story has the opportunity to possibly be included in my upcoming new book on the lives and stories of ten people who are shining examples for the rest of us of American exceptionalism. Those chosen will also be offered to appear as guests on my radio show.

To submit your story for consideration simply email me your name, contact information and a brief (less than 3-4 paragraphs) description of  your story of American exceptionalism.

In his farewell speech President Reagan urged us not to allow our values to slip away and to once again make them a part of our pop culture.

So whether you were born elsewhere and immigrated to America or if your family’s roots date back to the Mayflower landing I want to hear your stories of American exceptionalism!

The first known person to write about the United States as being exceptional was a Frenchman named Alexis de Tocqueville around 1831. Tocqueville believed America’s exceptionalism was a result of the American Revolution and a uniquely American ideology based on liberty, self reliance, the common person free from a ruling class and private business free from over-regulation.  He marveled at how our democracy infused into every nature of our society and culture at a time when it was not popular elsewhere in the world.

(more…)

EDITOR’S NOTE: Recently, a woman I’ll call “Janet” met with me for more than six hours to discuss two court cases in which she’s involved. One is a Family Court case involving the welfare of a child, while the other is a Probate Court case involving the welfare of that child’s great-grandmother. Names and case-specific personal details in the stories below have been changed in order to protect the identities of the innocent people involved.

Unlike other middle-age Americans who find themselves caring for both young children and elderly parents, Janet’s status as a member of the “sandwich generation” is unique. Rather than simply care for her almost-seven-year-old granddaughter and her octogenarian mother at the same time, the 40-something woman who once earned six-figure income as manager of a high-end fitness center/spa in a posh St. Louis suburb finds herself fighting for both of them in separate cases at the St. Louis County (Mo.) Courthouse. After years of legal wrangling, she now finds herself on the verge of bankruptcy, having thrown everything she had into the effort to save the two most important people in her life.

“Sometimes I feel like that movie is my life,” said Janet, referring to “Changeling,” a 2008 film in which a grief-stricken mother takes on the Los Angeles Police Department to her own detriment after it stubbornly tries to pass off an obvious impostor as her missing child. Unlike the movie, however, Janet’s child isn’t missing; instead, her granddaughter is on the verge of being taken from her family permanently. In addition, her mother has, for the most part, already been removed from her life.

SAVING A GRANDDAUGHTER

Janet’s most-pressing concern is the fight to keep her granddaughter, a little girl for whom she’s been the primary caregiver during most of early life, from being placed up for adoption — possibly by total strangers. In less than 10 days, a court hearing could determine whether or not she succeeds in the fight that begun in earnest 15 months ago.

(more…)

The upheavals of the sixties had political and cultural contexts – the war in Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement. There is a great debate about the relationship between culture and politics; a which-came-first conundrum similar to the vexed “chicken or the egg” question. Few deny the critically important relationship between culture and political change. What the sixties generation had however we in the American Renewal movement haven’t got – a soundtrack.

There seems little doubt that the growing bitter rhetoric of American politics signifies a deep national divide. With the centrist middle ground shrunk and ignored, the language of conflict and war is heard more often now than in recent memory in political debate.

The deep relationship between music and politics that was seen during the 1960s was both reactive and causative; culture drives politics and vice versa. Because music plays a far more important role in the lives of young Americans than it has for any preceding generation the power of music to drive change and respond to it both positively and critically should not be neglected. The message is the medium.