As you may recall, Judicial Watch has been investigating Vice President Biden’s role in securing a bailout for auto manufacturer Fisker Automotive, which opened a facility in V.P. Biden’s home state of Delaware in 2009. Well, that investigation has taken a new turn now that Fisker’s domestic operation is crumbling while funds and jobs promised to American taxpayers are heading overseas to Finland.

On February 1, 2012, JW sued the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for records regarding the $529 million loan granted by the DOE to Fisker – funds that were to be used to manufacture the company’s Karma and Nina electric vehicles. While the Obama White House (led by V.P. Biden) and the DOE promoted the loan as a means to generate American jobs, Fisker, which has facilities in California and Delaware, came under fire in 2011 for manufacturing cars in Finland and was recently beset with massive layoffs at their domestic operations.

Here’s what Judicial Watch is after pursuant to our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed with the DOE on November 15, 2011:

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One of the Democratic Party’s top fundraisers and the co-chairman of the Democratic National Convention host-committee, Duke Energy Corp. CEO Jim Rogers, contributed more than $210,000 to Democrats since 2008 and saw his company receive $230.4 million in federal grants for so-called “green energy” projects.

From The Washington Free Beacon:

Just as Rogers has helped fund Democratic politicians, they, in turn, have helped steer massive amounts of federal funding to Duke Energy. The 2009 stimulus package, for instance, was a boon for the company: Duke received federal grants totaling $230.4 million for a number of “green” energy projects including “smart grid” development and wind energy storage.

According to Recovery.gov, Duke created 196.6 jobs as a result of the grants.

The company also received a $350,000 grant to assist General Motors in the development of the Chevrolet Volt, the poorly selling electric vehicle that the Obama administration has recently proposed subsidizing at a rate of $10,000 per car.

Rogers’ support for the president’s “green” agenda earned him a spot on the short list to become President Obama’s Energy Secretary.

As if that act of crony capitalism weren’t enough, in 2009, Mr. Rogers’s company paid the lobbying firm of the co-chairman of Obama-Biden transition team, John Podesta, and Mr. Podesta’s brother, Tony Podesta, $860,000 to lobby to “support the passage of climate change and energy legislation” and “energy efficiency and clean energy solutions.”   John Podesta was also formerly the president of the left wing Center for American Progress.

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Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) wants answers from Energy Secretary Steven Chu about documents that appear to indicate that Mr. Chu personally intervened to help secure a $1.4 billion partial loan guarantee for a large-scale rooftop solar project known as Project Amp that was to be supplied equipment by the sinking ship that was Solyndra.

“It is astonishing that DOE actively negotiated a plan to risk even more taxpayer money to prop up Solyndra at all costs,” said Rep. Stearns.

In his role as Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Rep. Stearns sent Sec. Chu a letter inquiring why the Energy Secretary would have helped put even more taxpayer money at risk when it was clear Solyndra was yet another failed green energy scheme, particularly since the Department of Energy itself seemed squeamish about approving the loan:

Project Amp is a large-scale rooftop energy generation project using solar panels on commercial facility rooftops to generate electricity for sale to utilities and power purchasers.  The panels for first phase of Project Amp were to be sole sourced from the failing Solyndra, Inc.   Documents obtained by the Committee indicate that DOE had some hesitation in approving the loan guarantee and that Secretary Chu intervened on behalf of Project Amp.  This brings up many questions, including if this was an attempt to support the faltering Solyndra since it occurred during discussions over the second restructuring of the Solyndra loan guarantee.

According to Rep. Stearns letter, a Solyndra employee email suggests that, indeed, Mr. Chu was part of a Herculean effort to craft a deal that “went to higher levels in the Obama Administration”:

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Both the House and Senate have now passed their respective versions of a bill known as the STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act to ban members of Congress from using private information to enrich their investments.

As the two chambers now hammer out the distinctions between the two bills, one major difference has emerged: whether to require so-called “political intelligence” firms, who scour Congress and leverage high-level contacts with Hill staffers to gather tidbits of valuable nonpublic information that can be sold to investment firms or others, to register as lobbyists.  The Senate version of the bill contains such a provision; the House version does not.

Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), the person responsible for adding the provision to the Senate version of the STOCK Act, says that requiring political intelligence operatives to register as lobbyists is simply a matter of common sense:

If you seek information from Congress in order to make money, the American people have a right to know your name and who you’re selling that information to.

There’s much at stake in whether or not the eventual STOCK Act will require political intelligence operatives to register as lobbyists. Experts say that the 300 political intelligence firms worldwide comprise a $100 million industry.  Furthermore, many of the 2,000 individuals who make up the political intelligence industry are themselves former Hill staffers or members of Congress.

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After the 2010 congressional elections, which President Obama admitted were a “shellacking” of his party at the hands of irate independent voters, the President and his administration shifted gears.

When Democrats ran all of Congress, the Administration was curiously passive, leaving the details and even major decisions of legislation to committee chairs and floor leaders.  But with Republicans empowered to put a brake on Obama’s policies, his Administration has adopted a full-throttle, two-pronged strategy: attack Congress indiscriminately (even if Democrats are collateral damage) and push past the constitutional boundaries on executive authority to keep pushing the President’s agenda.

But to fully grasp where we are now – and why it matters – it’s important to look back at how we got here.

Once upon a time, a Democrat president was elected with muscular majorities in Congress that would give him whatever his heart desired. The only limit on their appetites and ambitions was what they could agree upon themselves.

And they agreed upon a lot.

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Here’s a a question: If tax dollars were being used to make prices cheaper for companies overseas while simultaneously forbidding American companies from enjoying the same luxury…would that be fair?

I would submit that it’s not and President Obama claimed to feel the same way at his State of the Union earlier this year:

… It’s not fair when foreign manufacturers have a leg up on ours only because they’re heavily subsidized.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what is happening.  Let me introduce you to something call the Export-Import Bank.

The Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im) exists for the purpose of backing U.S. sold goods to foreign customers that are unwilling to take a credit risk.  Basically the agency, which was created in 1934 by those executive orders we all love so much, makes sure people in other countries buy our stuff and prevents things like “credit” from getting in the way.

One of the things that the Ex-Im currently does is provide foreign airlines loans at rates as low as 4% (vs. domestic carriers which pay market rates as high as 10.4%).  But remember, as great as these loan guarantees are, they are only available to foreign airlines, not U.S. airlines.  This is because of something called the “Home Market Rule.”

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Making its way through cyberspace is a bold, brash and largely accurate depiction of the state of American government and politics.  Delivered on his last nightly broadcast, Judge Andrew Napolitano takes on the system in a five-minute rant about just how upside down the whole political process really is.  His conclusion?  It’s about them, not us.  “Them” refers to the elite class of elected officials, senior-level bureaucrats and political machinery who first created and now maintain a system in which people matter less and government matters more, or people I refer to as the Ruling Class.

Napolitano’s pseudo-endorsement of Ron Paul may be a bit off, but the general point is one all of us need to appreciate.   Ron Paul is not electable and some of his ideas, particularly on foreign policy, are outright dangerous.  But broadening Napolitano’s argument to suggest that we need to change the status quo beyond merely switching parties in control of Congress or the White House is a good dose of sense.

The two-party system hasn’t failed Americans.  A political culture that is too timid to challenge well-financed special interests has.  As Napolitano points out, both Republicans and Democrats, from Reagan to Bush have pledged to the American people to reduce the size of government and not only did they fail to keep that promise, all of them grew the size of government considerably.

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Another day another taxpayer funded bailout to a politically connected energy company up to its eyeballs in debt. This time, it’s a California solar company called SunPower. And Judicial Watch is once again battling the Obama administration for details as to how the deal went down.

On February 1, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of the Treasury for records regarding the controversial $1.2 billion government loan guarantee from the Obama Department of Energy to SunPower, a California solar company reportedly $820 million in debt. (A similar lawsuit was filed on the same date by Judicial Watch against the U.S. Department of Navy for related documents.)

Here’s what Judicial Watch is after pursuant to its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed with the Departments of Interior and Treasury on October 21, 2011:

Any and all records regarding, concerning or related to the issuance of a Department of Energy loan guarantee to SunPower, Inc. and/or NRG Energy, Inc. on or about September 30, 2011.

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While at CPAC last week for The Heartland Institute, I met a lot of old friends, made some new ones, and heard some great speeches (the best I’ve heard from Rick Santorum; Sarah Palin was on fire; and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin was excellent.) Speaking of Scott Walker, the Occupy Wall Street crowd and their union allies targeted him for a special protest.

First, let me say this: The Occupy Wall Street protests were a big dud. Yes, a few got into the hotel — and there was even a scuffle in the hallway. But every time they shouted their tired slogans, they were quickly drowned out by a combination of ridicule and chants of “USA! USA! USA!” by the CPAC attendees.

But as Walker entered the Wardman Park Marriott in DC, the Occupy folks were outside (in a rather small force) to express their displeasure at his reforms, which have probably save the state from bankruptcy. So I moseyed on down with my iPhone in my pocket and took a couple of videos. A highlight of the juvenile street theater was the parading of a “golden toilet” down the sidewalk.

I’d say more, but the video speaks for itself.

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For the first time in its 78-year history, the 100 percent taxpayer-backed Federal Housing Administration is projected to run out of its remaining $4.7 billion financial reserves and trigger an infusion of funds from the Treasury.

So says the Wall Street Journal:

The FHA has burned through its reserves over the past three years as defaults mount on loans it guaranteed as housing markets deteriorated. FHA-backed mortgages are an attractive option for borrowers because they can make down payments as low as 3.5%. But as home prices continue to fall, many of those borrowers have fallen underwater, where they owe more than their homes are worth and are at greater risk of default if they experience income shocks.

Given that the American Enterprise Institute’s “FHA Watch” estimates that the FHA has a current net worth of – $17 billion (that’s negative $17 billion) and an estimated capital shortfall of $35 billion to $53 billion, many are left to wonder how much longer the government can afford to meddle in the fledgling housing market.

“It’s no surprise that the fund is under some level of stress,” confessed the FHA’s Acting Commissioner Carol Galante.  Still, says Ms. Galante, “It’s highly unlikely that we’ll need any special assistance from the Treasury given the policy changes we’re making.”

But as Edward J. Pinto of the American Enterprise Institute reports, no amount of “policy changes” are likely to resurrect the New Deal-era agency:

The FHA continues to expand and crowd out the private sector. It is guaranteeing more high-risk loans than low-risk ones, has close to one million mortgages in its foreclosure pipeline, and is permitted to project its financial health using accounting rules based on rosy projections extending decades into the future, all the while ignoring that it is already insolvent and needs a bailout to the tune of tens of billions of dollars by any reasonable accounting standard.

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Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) support for a bill banning members of Congress from using insider information to enrich themselves is being overshadowed by a report by the Wall Street Journal that the congresswoman’s husband, Stephen Lowey, invested $350,000 in a fund co-founded by Rajat Gupta, a former Goldman Sachs board member facing criminal insider-trading charges.

Rep. Lowey’s husband says his decision to invest $350,000 since 2008 in a fund run by New Silk Route Growth Capital should not reflect negatively on his wife:

Neither Mrs. Lowey nor I know Mr. Gupta, have ever met him or have had any dealings with him at all. It’s not her [Rep. Nita Lowe's] investment. She had nothing to do with it.

Between 2006 and 2011, one of New Silk Route’s co-founders, Parag Saxena, contributed more than $8,000 to Rep. Lowey’s congressional campaign funds.  According to the Wall Street Journal’s report:

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In his New York Times bestselling book, Throw Them All Out, Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer revealed how members of Congress enrich themselves and their relatives using earmarks and insider information.  Now, the Washington Post, following in Schweizer’s footsteps, has conducted a study that found 16 members of Congress have used their power of the purse to benefit companies, colleges, and community groups tied to their relatives.

Image by Washington Post

According to the study, the bipartisan “dirty 16″ deny that their actions were meant to directly benefit themselves or their spouses, parents, or children.  Instead, they claim, they were merely helping organizations and institutions in their congressional districts that just so happen to be connected to their relatives.

But as the investigation reveals, hiring the relative of a member of Congress can bring big bucks for employers.  Among those cited in the Washington Post report were the following:

• Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX): obtained $5.3 million and sought $16.5 million more for the University of Houston where her husband has been employed since 1978 and has seen his salary double since 1994 (a year before Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee was elected) to $210,491.  Rep. Lee’s staff ignored repeated requests for comment.

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On Tuesday, February 7, House Republicans proposed adding a “Pelosi Provision” to the fast-moving insider trading ban known as the STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act that would prevent members of Congress from landing coveted and lucrative initial public offerings (IPOs), similar to the Visa stock IPO Rep. Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul Pelosi scored that made them a staggering 203% profit.

The Pelosi Visa IPO revelation made headlines when Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer published the evidence in his New York Times bestselling book, Throw Them All Out.  CBS News’s 60 Minutes did a subsequent report based on Schweizer’s book that sparked a media firestorm.

In early 2008, Nancy Pelosi and her real estate developer husband, Paul, were given an opportunity to buy into a Visa IPO.  Despite Rep. Pelosi’s consistent railing against credit card companies, on March 18, 2008, the Pelosis bought between $1 million and $5 million (politicians do not have to report the exact amounts, only ranges) worth of Visa stock at the IPO price of $44 per share. Two days later, the stock price rocketed to $65 per share, yielding a 50% profit. The Pelosis then bought Visa twice more. By their third purchase on June 4, 2008, Visa was worth $85 per share.

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President Obama says we should allow the federal government to take charge of our healthcare; as usual, the “experts” are best positioned to instruct us how to live our lives.

Except they’re not.  Today, according to the AP, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention told Americans that they eat too much bread and rolls, and that such foods account “for more than twice as much sodium as salty junk food like potato chips.”  No wonder we’re fat.

Unfortunately, the federal government that now tells us that we eat too much bread is the same government that originally told us to stuff our pieholes with … bread.  Remember the original food pyramid?

I remember this pyramid – I grew up learning about it in my vaunted public school.  Notice how the bottom section is enormous, and suggests 6-11 bread, cereal, rice and pasta servings each day.  Why did the government originally mandate that?  According to Harvard Medical School’s Eat, Drink and Be Healthy (Simon & Schuster, August 2001), the government was attempting to help out farmers via the Department of Agriculture’s recommendations.

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The Washington Post has completed an extensive study of earmarks–the process of slipping pet spending projects into bills–for all 535 members of Congress and has concluded that Rep. Nancy Pelosi added $50 million in earmarks for a light-rail project that runs near a four-story commercial building she and her husband own.

The Post says the revelation was uncovered by Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer’s blockbuster bestseller, Throw Them All Out:

Over the past decade, the House minority leader helped secure $50 million in earmarks toward a light-rail project that provides direct access to San Francisco’s Union Square and Chinatown for neighborhoods south of Market Street. Pelosi’s husband owns a four-story commercial building blocks from Union Square. These earmarks were reported in the book “Throw Them All Out.” A Pelosi spokesman said the project was requested by community leaders and that the new stations on the line will be farther away from the building than those on the existing line.

In response, Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s spokesperson, Drew Hammill, had this to say:

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Borrowing a page from Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer’s investigation of how elected officials funnel taxpayer dollars to projects that increase the value of properties they own, the Washington Post has conducted a study revealing that 33 members of Congress earmarked more than $300 million for projects within two miles of land they own.

After analyzing the holdings of all 535 members of Congress and comparing them to their earmarks for pet projects since 2008, the Washington Post found numerous eye-opening instances of potential self-enrichment at taxpayers’ expense, including:

• Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS): obtained a $900,000 earmark to resurface roads where he and his daughter own two homes.  “I didn’t say, ‘Do the street that I live on,” Rep. Thompson protested when the Washington Post confronted him.  “The earmark went to the county.  It had no designation on it whatsoever, and that was it.”
• Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett (R-MD): secured approximately $4.5 million for an interstate interchange that leads to Rep. Bartlett’s home, his 104-acre farm, and rental properties that earn him $150,000 annually.  “He was being an advocate for what was presented to him as the highest priority,” the congressman’s press secretary Lisa Wright said.  “Coincidentally, this was around two miles from his farm.”
• Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX): bagged $665,000 in taxpayer funds to expand a road 600 feet away from his family’s food processing plant, H&H Foods.  “It helps everybody,” Rep. Hinojosa told the Washington Post.  “The only way it made sense to handle this tremendous population growth and avoid problems for the school buses that go through that intersection was to widen it.”
• Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA): scored $750,000 for a new bridge three blocks away from a 7,000-square-foot building he and his wife own as well as Columbia Basin Paper & Supply, a janitorial supply company he previously owned that is now run by his brother.  “It never crossed my mind,” Rep. Hastings told the Washington Post.  “Every business in Pasco will benefit by that.”
• Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MA): landed a $187,000 earmark to replenish a shoreline 90 miles away from his home district near a beach that, coincidentally, he and his wife own two condominiums by that generate $15,000 in rental income.  Rep. Ruppersberger said questioning the proximity of his properties to the project was “ridiculous.”  “That’s a stretch to say that thing’s going to benefit me.”
• Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA): secured $6.3 million to replenish a beach 900 feet away from a $142,900 cottage he owns.  “It’s absurd to suggest that this benefits me,” Kingston protested to the reporters.  “The beach doesn’t improve the real estate of a house, unless it’s on the beach.  The only thing that changes in value is the beachfront property.”
• Rep. John W. Olver (D-MA): obtained $5.1 million in earmarks to restructure a road 209 feet from Rep. Olver’s 15-acre home and several adjoining properties he and his wife own.  “I had no monetary interest whatsoever in this project,” Rep. Olver said.  “I had nothing to with the design.  I was never notified of any of the hearings.  I had no involvement whatsoever.”
• Rep. Candice S. Miller (R-MI): obtained a $486,000 earmark that helped add a 14-foot bike lane within walking distance of her house.  “People earmark for all kinds of things,” Rep. Miller said when asked about the project.  “I’m pretty proud of this; I think I did what my people wanted.  Should I have told them, ‘We can never have this bike path complete because I happen to live by one section of it’?  They would have thrown me out of office.”
• Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY): secured $7 million in earmarks, a portion of which went to overhaul streets around the corner from a bank where he is director emeritus and owns a $1-$5 million stake in the bank’s holding company and also narrowed the street he lives on to slow traffic.  “Congressman Rogers sees no conflict of interest in helping local community leaders achieve their goals for growth,” the congressman’s chief of staff Michael R. Higdon told the Washington Post.

The Washington Post report also concluded that 16 members of Congress directed taxpayer dollars to “companies, colleges, or community programs where their spouses, children or parents work as salaried employees or serve on boards.”

The practice of earmarks continues to be a source of angst for conservatives and citizens concerned with out-of-control federal spending.  In 2010, a record high 11,230 earmarks accounted for $32 billion in federal spending.

Amid the controversy over Chrysler’s “It’s Halftime In America” Super Bowl commercial, a glaring question remains: if Chrysler is back on top and so strong, then why hasn’t it repaid taxpayers the $1.3 billion it still owes them?

“I was, frankly, offended by it,” said Republican strategist Karl Rove. “I’m a huge fan of Clint Eastwood, I thought it was an extremely well-done ad, but it is a sign of what happens when you have Chicago-style politics, and the president of the United States and his political minions are, in essence, using our tax dollars to buy corporate advertising.”

Already, Democrats have begun co-opting the “It’s Halftime In America” meme, and President Barack Obama’s campaign team has already signaled that “saving” Detroit and the American auto industry will be a central campaign theme in Mr. Obama’s 2012 reelection bid. Indeed, in June 2011, Mr. Obama proudly declared:

Chrysler has repaid every dime and more of what it owes American taxpayers for their support during my presidency–and it repaid that money six years ahead of schedule.  And this week, we reached a deal to sell our remaining stake.  That means Chrysler will be 100 percent in private hands.

The Washington Post fact checker, however, disagreed–strongly. (more…)

On a stage adorned with American flags and amid the glitter of Las Vegas, Donald Trump, who had been threatening a third party run for the presidency, revealed he is endorsing Mitt Romney for president of the United States. Earlier in the day it had been rumored that ‘The Donald’ would be endorsing New Gingrich but that turned out to be false. Whether ‘The Donald’s’ gurus in media attention planned the “mistake” we will probably never know. A more valid question is this. Why should we care who Donald Trump endorses for President?

To say that ‘The Donald’ has a penchant for attracting the white-hot lights of media attention would be to state the blatantly obvious. For months Mr. Trump advanced the idea that he might enter the race for the presidency but whenever pushed to declare “yea” or “ney” alluded to the ridiculous notion that his contract with NBC wouldn’t “allow” him to run…equal time restrictions, don’t you know. Right. And if you believe that…well, “you’re fired!”

Make no mistake; I am not taking issue with ‘The Donald’ for his unique ability to captivate the media. More power to him. I am taking issue with the mainstream media and those swayed by celebrity endorsements of political figures for even caring. We – as a voting public – should aspire to make our political choices based on our own research and experiences, not the declarations of those lucky enough to have achieved notoriety; famous or infamous.

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I have watched Ron Paul for a very long time and one trend I see over and over is the split that emerges between people of roughly under the age of 40 and those who are older when his name is mentioned. I have no polling data to back this up, but young people seem to like Ron Paul and older people seem not to.

This is by no means uniform. I know plenty of older folks who love the good doctor and plenty of young people who do not like him, but generally the above statement holds I think. Why is this?

Fundamentally I believe it comes down to faith in the markets and whether or not one is playing for the future, or if one is clinging to the past.

Young people have much to lose in the economic quagmire we find ourselves in, namely their future. They recognize that times have changed, that the old economic regime is corrupt, and in order to get things going in any real way (not government stimulated) fundamental reforms must be implemented. Many, including myself would embrace a gold standard or a standard based on a basket of commodities. This is a radical departure from the Fed centered fiat currency regime. It would disrupt the current economic order, but a reset is needed and many young people recognize that it is vital that we head in this direction before it is too late. The economic hubris of the 20th century has come home to roost. We would like a real economy.

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Charles Sykes is a longtime Milwaukee talk-radio host and the prolific author of a number of books that helped to shape my personal political worldview, including 1988’s eye-opening “Profscam,” and 1993’s “A Nation of Victims,’ two works as timely today as they were decades ago.

“A Nation of Moochers: America’s Addiction to Getting Something for Nothing” (St. Martin’s Press) was just released, and the fact that I’m writing this at the very moment President Barack Obama is announcing yet another government plan (his fourth, I think) to “bail out” those “victims” who bought homes they couldn’t afford, makes this informative and engaging page-turner feel about as urgent and timely as any author could hope for.

What you need to know up front is that “Moochers” isn’t an attack on the poor or needy or, for that matter, a specific political party. In fact, from beginning to end, Sykes makes clear that as a country we have an obligation to feed the hungry and offer shelter to the homeless. Moreover, he isn’t even targeting a particular group, which would be impossible without a sawed-off shotgun anyway, because America’s moochers come from every level of our society.

What Sykes is targeting is a mentality, a dangerous and un-American mentality that infects almost every aspect of our culture, and one that is currently being bred into our children by those on both the left and right who are empowered by fomenting and excusing the dependence, greed, and selfishness of others. From corporate welfare to school lunches for the well-to-do to Wall Street bailouts to paying millionaires not to grow crops to tax breaks for Hollywood gajillionires to unending unemployment benefits to disaster relief for those who haven’t suffered disasters to TARP, and finally, to the shameless who walk away from mortgages they can afford to pay — what Sykes is exposing is that we are on the march to becoming Greece. Not just a European welfare state, but the kind of welfare state where the populace has been engineered by a nanny state to riot at the very thought of not being able to mooch the life to which they have become accustomed.

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