In his weekly message from the White House, President Obama echoed his call from Tuesday’s State of the Union Address decrying Congressional insider trading and demanded that Congress pass a law banning the practice.

Clearly, Obama’s team have read Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer’s blockbuster book “Throw Them All Out” as revealed by his reference of “campaign bundlers” and their practice of segueing from election-time bag-men to K Street lobbyists as smoothly as an FM disc jockey transitioning from an ABBA song to REO Speedwagon with just a quick mention of the local weather.

What’s most audacious about the president’s call for an end to lobbying by campaign bundlers is that the bulk of Schweizer’s book that deals with the campaign bundler situation focuses on the outrageous behavior of the White House handing out billions of dollars in stimulus funds to their campaign bundlers.  When it comes to being lobbied by bundlers, the Obama White House is Albert Pujols and Congress is Wilson Betemit.  (more…)

Next time you hear sanctimonious wails from the left about how Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) and Republicans want to take collective bargaining rights away from workers, remember that basic evaluations and disciplinary actions for awful teachers is something these union believe need to be negotiated and are not, in fact, the built in right of the employer (that’s you, the taxpayer).

Here’s “Exhibit A”:

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo stressed the importance of officials agreeing on a new statewide teacher evaluation system at yesterday’s State of the State address. Michael Mulgrew, President of the United Federation of Teachers, tells WOR’s John Gambling, Cuomo showed real leadership, but until Mayor Bloomberg negotiates the law the union will not act outside of those parameters. (Audio after the jump) (more…)

With the New Hampshire Primary just three days away, a Super PAC affiliated with Newt Gingrich has released a devastating film attacking Mitt Romney’s days at Bain Capital labeling him “more ruthless than Wall Street.” The film, called “When Mitt Romney Came To Town,” features multiple men and women who had lost their jobs and in some cases their homes, due to the corporate decisions of Romney’s investment firm.

What is striking about the film and its style is that this attack could easily have been made by David Axelrod and the Obama re-election campaign next October. Considering Gingrich received heavy criticism last month for sharply criticizing Romney over “the money he’s earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years at Bain,” this latest attack on Romney’s successful capital ventures is a risky and audacious gambit.

The film focuses on four companies Bain acquired during Romney’s tenure: UniMac, KayBee Toys, DDI; and AmPad. According to the film, each acquisition resulted in heart-ache and despair for the employees at the companies, and riches for Bain and Romney. Relying on tried and true class warfare themes like ordinary Americans losing their homes while Romney purchased large mansions and beach-front properties, one gets the feeling that Michael Moore and Van Jones could have directed and released this film.

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UPDATE:  The White House has responded to our inquiry and they deny that this week’s weekly address video was shot in front of a green screen.  They also explained that the production line that the president was posed in front of is always shut-down on Fridays, the day President Obama taped his message.  It’s impossible to resist the temptation to speculate that this odd production schedule must suggest that the production line is designated for the Chevy Volt.

President Obama delivered his weekly address to the nation from Detroit, Michigan this week after visiting workers at a GM assembly plant.  When the video hit at Breitbart.tv, our tip box suddenly became very active with people claiming that the President was actually sitting in front of a green screen and the background image was really a composite image of an assembly line.

In the image below, you can see a black outline around the president’s shoulder, and you can see the background image slightly distorted around the president’s ear.

Several experts in the field of video effects have given us their opinions on the matter.  Some examples of their takes:

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Big Government has already established that Lisa Fithian is playing an integral part in the planning, organization,and execution of the nation-wide “Occupy” protests and other union demonstrations and “direct actions.”

The Chicago Teachers’ Union has reported that Fithian trained its members, together with the Teamsters, for the Occupy Chiacgo protests. Evidence on the UAW website also shows that Fithian recenlty led members in a march to “close” a branch of designated villain, Bank of America. Fithian is also referred to as an “SEIU Commander” leading activists in a recent march on bankers in Boston.

Now, Big Government’s continued investigation of Lisa Fithian’s activities reveals another badge of dishonor to add to her shameful resume:  Israel-hater.

The “Occupy” protests have already shown startlingly brazen and unapologetic displays of antisemitism, and this newly-discovered footage of Fithian, a key driving force behind the protests, may help explain why hatred toward “Zionist bankers” keeps bubbling up to the surface at Occupy demonstrations across the country.

The footage above was shot on May 31, 2010 and features Lisa Fithian shouting through a megaphone, accusing the state of Israel of “slaughter[ing] Palestinians every single day.”  As Fithian, organizer of the Democratic Party’s new favorite mass protest, looks on, a menacing man decked out in a Palestinian keffiyeh leads her activists in the chant:

“Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea!” (more…)

“It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.”
- Warren Buffett, NY Times Op-Ed August 15, 2011

Those high-minded and selfless words from one of the nation’s richest men inspired the Democrats’ latest push for higher taxes on job creators.  It also sounds like one of the creepy slogans chanted and repeated by the aromatic “Occupy Wall St” protesters when they decry corporate greed and the doomed capitalist system.

Yes, Mr. Buffett has entered his ninth decade of this mortal coil as somewhat of a folk hero to progressives and leftists who would normally be revolted by a multimillionaire investor.  But Buffett (whose many holdings include the GEICO insurance company) has purchased a little media insurance by speaking out against his own tax rates and has practically begged the government to take more of his money and money from the rest of us who are business owners and are trying to be next decade’s Warren Buffett.

Meanwhile, according to research done by Americans for Limited Government, Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, has a decade-old dispute with the IRS over its corporate tax bill, an obligation worth $1 billion dollars, so far.

“The company has been short-changing the tax collection agency for much of the past decade. Mr. Buffett’s company has not fully settled its tax bills from 2002-2009. Yet he says he’d happily pay more. Except the IRS has apparently been asking him to pay more going on nine years.”

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“The Department of Energy made these decisions based on their best judgment.” – President Barack Obama speaking on Solyndra scandal, Oct. 6, 2011

New e-mails show that Energy Department bureaucrats were warned that their $535 million loan restructuring plan to aid a collapsing solar firm called Solyndra could violate federal law and should be cleared through the Department of Justice.  According to DOE officials, the advice was ignored and instead, “career lawyers in the loan program based on a careful analysis of the statute” determined the legality of the deal.

Last month, Chairman of the House Energy Committee, Cliff Stearns (R-FL) described the loan restructuring as an “illegal act” as it put private investors ahead of tax payers for any loan pay-outs that might occur.  Those private investors given priority over tax payers included hedge funds connected with major Obama fundraiser George Kaiser.

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President Obama promised to have the most transparent and ethical administration in our country’s history.  His White House web page on ethics claims they have “the strongest ethics standards in U.S. government history.”  It may be true, but having high standards means nothing if you consistently fail to meet those standards.

Follow along on the latest Solyndra revelations:

Steve Spinner was a major fundraiser for the Obama Campaign in 2008.  He became a loan adviser for the Dept. of Energy after President Obama took office.  He was married to a partner at the law firm of Wilson Sonsini, which was representing Solyndra in its loan application.  He had signed an “ethics agreement” in which he said he would not engage in negotiations about the loan for the company.

There you go.  A fine example of the Obama Administration’s “strongest ethics standards” in action.

So, what did Mr. Spinner do with regard to the Solyndra loan?

Yet throughout Solyndra’s loan process, Spinner worked hard to defend the company from criticisms inside the government, including questions from climate czar Carol Browner’s office. He pushed to get a final decision on approving the loan in August.

“How f***ing hard is this?” Spinner wrote on Aug. 28 an another department official. “What is he waiting for” Will we have it by the end of the day?”

Do those sound like the words of a man who had recused himself from working on the Solyndra loan process?

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Just months after receiving the first “Green Jobs” stimulus money from the Obama Administration, the Department of Energy was poised to funnel another $469 million to Solyndra, the failed solar energy start-up at the center of a growing scandal within the Obama Administration.

E-mails released today show that White House staffers in the Dept. of Office and Management had grave concerns over the proposed “Phase II” funding which would have brought the total amount of tax payer money delivered to Solyndra to just under $1 billion.

The Energy Department was actively pushing to provide the second loan guarantee to the troubled solar-panel manufacturer in April and May 2010, when Solyndra’s auditors warned the company was in danger of closing due to its rapidly mounting debts and expenses, according to complete e-mails just released by a House committee investigating the original loan.

Most damning to the Obama Administration is the responses shown in the e-mails by career staffers at OMB.  Clearly not buying the value in throwing good money after bad at a company that was supposed to be part of President Obama’s “Winning the Future” plan for America, unnamed staffers resorted to gallows humor when contemplating the second proposed loan.

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President Obama’s Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, finally responded to a reporter’s question about Solyndra today, but not without the America’s Morning News reporter getting grabbed by one of the members of the secretary’s entourage.

As the Solyndra scandal continues to boil over, the energy secretary has been frequently cited as the main player who was trying to “fast-track” the $535 million loan for the now-failed solar panel manufacturer.  E-mails show serious tension between the DOE and the Office of Management and Budget at the time of the loan and in subsequent months as fears began to rise over the financial viability of the firm.

Considering he’s been at the center of the storm that is Solyndra, it’s likely he has had time to consider his responses to a reporter’s inquiry on the subject.  That’s what makes his “20/20 hindsight” statement so curious.  It’s an obvious dodge.

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As the mainstream media continue to obsess about a painted rock in Texas, the Solyndra story continues to grow.

“A number of us are concerned that the president is visiting Solyndra…  Many of us believe the company’s cost structure will make it difficult for them to survive long term. . . . I just want to help protect the president from anything that could result in negative or unfair press.”

Those words appeared in an email from Solyndra investor and Obama fundraiser Steve Westly to Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett in May 2010.  The correspondence is yet another indication that the White House had immediate warning signs that the $535 million loan guarantee of stimulus money pushed through by the Obama Department of Energy (DOE) was at great risk.

President Obama visited Solyndra despite the warnings, and the resulting video footage of the photo-op has become the perfect b-roll to accompany stories describing the failed “green jobs” initiative that the president held up as a shining example of how his administration was “Winning the Future.”

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Until now the Solyndra scandal only reached the White House in the guise of e-mails from staffers fretting about the political implications of the disastrous bankruptcy and how it would reflect on the President’s “Winning the Future” rhetoric.

Until now, the Solyndra scandal was a circumstantial log of White house visits by a big Obama donor who also was the failed solar company’s chief investor (those visits occurring right before a half-billion dollar loan guarantee was awarded by Obama’s Dept. of Energy).

Until now, the White House’s direct involvement in the Solyndra scandal appeared to be over-zealous operatives looking to speed-up the loan so Vice President Biden could have a nice photo-op at the doomed solar firm.

Now, we know much more.

According to an investigation by the Los Angeles Times, President Obama was warned nearly a year ago that Energy Secretary Stephen Chu’s department was not rigorous enough in vetting loan recipients and they ran the risk of funneling federal money to companies that shouldn’t receive it, or didn’t need it.  And the warnings came from the President’s top economic advisers Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner.

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This is all that remains of the very popular Ford commercial that went viral on the internet and was featured on cable news channels over the past three weeks:

According to the Detroit News, Ford has pulled the ad due to pressure from the Obama White House:

Ford pulled the ad after individuals inside the White House questioned whether the copy was publicly denigrating the controversial bailout policy CEO Alan Mulally repeatedly supported in the dark days of late 2008, in early ‘09 and again when the ad flap arose. And more.

With President Barack Obama tuning his re-election campaign amid dismal economic conditions and simmering antipathy toward his stimulus spending and associated bailouts, the Ford ad carried the makings of a political liability when Team Obama can least afford yet another one. Can’t have that.

In an exclusive interview with Breitbart.com, the “star” of the popular ad, Chris McDaniel told me he was “a little bit flustered’ by Ford’s decision. He found out about it during a live radio interview this morning.  “I had no idea.  As soon as I got off the interview, I sent an e-mail to Ford’s VP of Marketing.”  He told me,  “I put myself out there on the line.  You either stand behind it or you don’t.”

Ford has not yet returned Mr. McDaniel’s e-mail.

A note posted by Ford Motor Co. on Facebook responding to the controversy says:

“(W)e were not coerced into pulling the ad down. The campaign continues to run. We took the ad out of rotation after 4 weeks which is consistent with the typical lifecycle for the campaign.”

But this explanation is inconsistent with the past practice of Ford and their handling of these commercials.  Other “press conference” style ads that they have produced are still available on YouTube, but the one featuring Chris McDaniel has been removed.

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An oft-repeated talking point and applause line has crept into President Obama’s repertoire of class-envy and demonizing rhetoric these days.

“At a time when countries like China are building high-speed rail lines and gleaming new airports, we’ve got over a million unemployed construction workers — many of them Latino — who could be doing the same thing right here in the United States. That’s not right. It’s time for us to fix it.”

Setting aside the ethnic pandering inserted especially for the Hispanic Caucus audience, the blatant coveting of China’s shiny new toys is  shameful.

There is something unseemly about the President of the United States publicly drooling in envy over the Potemkin Village that has been propped up in Communist China.  Yes, they have fast trains and cool airports, but they were put together with little regard for safety and by the equivalent of slave labor.  The central government of China has made a choice.  They have chosen to erect these symbols of modern technological wonder for the sole purpose of impressing foreign rubes like Barack Obama at the expense of the hundreds of millions of people who still live in squalor.

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Emails released late Thursday night show that officials in the White House were privately very concerned over the viability of Solyndra even as they publicly declared the solar panel manufacturer was in good shape.

“The optics of a Solyndra default will be bad,” an official from the Office of Management and Budget wrote in a Jan. 31 email to a senior OMB official. “The timing will likely coincide with the 2012 campaign season heating up.”

One would hope that an official in OMB would be more concerned that the federal government had just wasted $535 million on the now-bankrupt “green jobs” company, but instead the e-mails reveal ongoing discussions over the political aspects of the doomed venture.  Additional e-mails show that as early as May 2010, right before President Obama’s famous photo-op at the Solyndra headquarters, White House officials were ignoring and downplaying industry reports that Solyndra was in trouble.

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On this 10th Anniversary of the September 11th attack on America we’ll hear politicians and pundits wringing their hands over the “tragic events” of that morning. They’ll wonder aloud whether we’ve “learned anything” in these past ten years and whether we’ve achieved the correct level of “tolerance” and “understanding” that is so desperately needed to solve our worlds problems.

From our president we will hear a call to community service and a plea to find volunteer opportunities in our neighborhoods, because, you know… the real message behind 9/11 is to plant a garden at the local welfare office.

What we won’t hear enough of this momentous day is the truth about 9/11. The truth about what happened that day. The truth about why it happened.

The truth is that on September 11, 2001 war was declared on the United States of America. Our ideological opponents on the left (as well as some of the more troubling supporters of Rep. Ron Paul) will tell you that it 9/11 wasn’t an act of war because the perpetrators were not acting on behalf of any nation. As if in some way the fact that our attackers didn’t have a flag on their sleeves while demolishing our financial and military headquarters some how re-defines the act as merely a “crime”.

The liberals and libertarians mired in their denial of the reality of the world we live in are dangerous and must be answered with vigor. 9/11 was not a “criminal act”. And, despite what President Obama might say, we are not in a war against Al Qaeda. By narrowing our focus and pretending that we must only respond against those whose fingerprints can be found on the 9/11 attack is an invitation to our enemies around the world to wage war on us through proxies like Al Qaeda.  A Commander-in-Chief Ron Paul, with his pathetic call for Letters of Marque and Reprisal, would allow enemies like North Korea, Iran and Venezuela to send hundreds of organizations like Al Qaeda toward our skyscrapers all under the protective banner of “rogue criminal act”.

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By now we’ve all heard the reprehensible remarks made by Congressional Black Caucus Whip Andre Carson (D-IN) where he told the audience at a CBC Jobs Fair Town Hall in Miami that Tea Party Congressmen would like to lynch black people.  Given the opportunity to revise or retract his remarks, Carson instead stood by “the truth” of his comments.

So now it seems pretty fair to say that Andre Carson is a race-baiting bigot who has brought shame upon the U. S. House of Representatives. But any regular reader of Big Government knows that this is not new information.  In fact, Andre Carson’s despicable, divisive slander of August 22nd is just the latest of bogus attacks made by the 2nd term congressman against the Tea Party.  Andre Carson is the man who told the mother of all race-baiting lies against the Tea Party: That racial slurs were screamed “fifteen times” at he and Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) in Washington DC on the day before the ObamaCare vote in 2010.

The headlines at the time (as well as Topic #1 on cable news and Sunday talk shows) was “Racist Tea Party Yells ‘N-Word’ at Civil Rights Icon John Lewis”.  Andre Carson’s name was hardly mentioned in any of the stories.  But a Big Government investigation revealed that it was he, in fact, who gathered Capitol Hill reporters around himself on March 20, 2010 and breathlessly told them what had happened “outside of Cannon (Congressional Office Building)” just moments before.  (audio courtesy Kerry Pickett, Washington Times)

By now you know the story become part of Democratic Party lore showing up in talking points as recently as just last week as Alan Colmes mangled the “facts” but still was able to perpetuate the lie on Fox News’ “O’Reilly Factor”. You should also know by now that Andrew Breitbart offered a $100, 000 reward for anyone who can produce video proof o the supposed racial hatred.  The only videos uncovered were found by the Big Government staff.  They show the exact moment Carson described, “down the steps of Cannon”, from four different angles.  Not only were there no slurs heard on any of the videos, but the scene is not at all how Carson described it to Capitol Hill reporters.

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As the nation tunes in to hear President Barack Obama’s “Jobs Speech” this Thursday, it would be instructive to learn how the last bundle of Keynesian billions were spent on those fabled “Green Jobs” that were supposed to save our economy in 2009.

Meet Solyndra, the latest Darwinian example of how not to run a capitalist economy.  The President’s magic bullet to save America’s job disaster and help “Win the Future” was to be a whole host of “Green” businesses designed to take advantage of the enormous market demand for solar energy, electric cars and high speed rail.  Of course, since that demand did not actually exist, Obama spent an additional bundle of billions to provide incentives for businesses and individuals to purchase the white elephant products he spent to build.

Solyndra was one of the crown jewels in the President’s plan.  He even made a high-profile appearance at the San Francisco factory complete with hard hat tour, and speech to adoring workers who were paid to sit and look thankful for their Green Jobs.  Those workers, 1,000 of them, are all part of the Obama Unemployed now as Solyndra shut its doors and declared bankruptcy.

The green workers got pink slips and no sign of a severance package.

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Solyndra, a San Francisco based solar panel company that received a $535 million loan guarantee from the federal government has declared bankruptcy. Last year President Obama touted the company as “leading the way” in the green jobs future he envisions.

Just a few months ago, ABC News revealed that one of the major financial backers for Solyndra is also a major donor to the Obama campaign.

The donor, Steve Westley, has subsequently been named to the President’s Energy Advisory Board. Solyndra was supposed to have produced 4,000 jobs with the loan guarantee. Now all of the company’s employees have been laid-off. Mr. Westley is still on the advisory board.

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A Wisconsin Democratic Party spokesman accused Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus of “tampering” with the vote in last night’s recall election.

“We believe the election in this contest has been tampered with by Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus.

“She’s sitting on votes. We believe that right now, there are severe irregularities in Waukesha County once again. We believe the very fate of the Wisconsin Senate hangs in the balance and is in the hands of a woman who has already shown extreme incompetence.”

“We believe there’s dirty tricks afoot.”

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