We have just passed through the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) brouhaha.

A bill intended to stop theft – an important goal, and a necessary function of government.  But SOPA was overly broad, and deserved in its most recent iteration to go away – which it did.

Because of a bipartisan oppositional uprising – but the two sides arose for very different reasons.

The Theft-Left is vociferously opposed to private property rights.  SOPA is aimed at protecting private property.  So the Left said No.

The Right is loathe to grow government control of anything – including the Web.  And having just witnessed the recent Big Government Network Neutrality Internet power grab, their antennae were highly sensitized – and they said No.

Now, Washington is talking cyber security.  Where there is, again, a legitimate role for government – but we have, again, a bill that defines said role much too broadly.

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On Tuesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) fired a frontal assault on the Obama Administration when he took to the floor of the Senate to offer a series of amendments to the congressional insider trading bill known as the STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act designed to “bring an end to the revolving door between federal employees and companies lobbying for federal funding or loans,” reads a press release from Sen. Paul’s office.

In his Senate speech, Sen. Paul singled out the Obama Administration’s approval of billions of dollars of so-called green energy loans and grants, 80 percent of which went to companies connected to or owned by President Obama’s fundraisers, supporters, or bundlers:

Currently there are some large donors that have been giving to this Administration who have profited enormously and disproportionately.

This will allow this bill to apply to the Administration, and I don’t believe people who are multimillionaires and billionaires should use the apparatus of government as was used in the loans that were given to Solyndra by someone who is profiting off of their relationship and ties to the President, profiting off of people who used to work for these companies now, who are now employed in the administration and using these connections to get taxpayer money to go to private individuals.

This is wrong and this should stop.

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Bob Lutz is a good man.  A Swiss-born immigrant American success story.

He’s held big gigs at BMW and Ford.  He also worked way up the food chain at (now $85 billion bailed-out) Chrysler and General Motors (GM) – retiring as GM’s Vice Chairman in 2010.

And he has recently written a piece:

Chevy Volt And The Wrong-Headed Right

…in vociferous defense of the Chevy Volt.

You know, the more-than-$200,000 in government-subsidies-per-unit-sold Volt.

The overproduced, unprofitable, unpopular, combustible Volt.  (And January 2011’s sales were no less disappointing.)

That Chevy Volt.

Are we on the Right wrong-headed?  Let’s take Mr. Lutz’s piece piecemeal and see.

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A well-connected company with close ties to a key Obama Administration official may be running afoul of the SEC by failing to report to its investors material events that significantly impact its bottom line. Just another day in Barack Obama’s Washington, DC “favor factory.”

Capital Confidential has in the past covered the saga of PharmAthene, a company that produces “medical countermeasures to biological and chemical weapons” and its great fortune to have been awarded the sole-source contract from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). We have also learned that the firm has very close ties to Tara O’Toole, the Department of Homeland Security Under Secretary for Science and Technology, who, as it happens, was once a lobbyist for an industry association that is essentially funded and run by PharmAthene.

All this has been covered and, to be cynically frank, is somewhat familiar behavior from Washington, DC. But what is not so familiar (though it is becoming more so every week) is for well-heeled companies who essentially exist due only to government contracts, connections, loans or bailouts to play fast and loose with laws and regulations designed to protect taxpayers and investors. And here is where PharmAthene reenters the picture.

PharmAthene is publicly traded (NYSE amex: PIP) and therefore has an obligation to publicly disclose material events that might reasonably be expected to affect the company’s stock price. Nevertheless, important pieces of information are missing from recent press releases issued by PharmAthene and posted to the Investor Relations section of its website; information that the company had included in previous releases.

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The latest taxpayer-funded boondoggle to emerge from the Obama Administration’s infamous Energy Department grant and loan program has cost taxpayers $118.5 million, new bankruptcy filings by electric battery maker Ener1 reveal.

From Bloomberg News:

The company listed assets of $73.9 million and debt of $90.5 million as of Dec. 31 in Chapter 11 papers filed today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. Ener1 has been affected by competing battery developers in China and South Korea, “which generally have a lower cost manufacturing base” and lower labor and raw material costs, interim Chief Executive Officer Alex Sorokin said in the petition.

Like Solyndra, Ener1 was a company touted by President Obama as being a shining example of his vision for taxpayer-subsidized clean energy.

The day following President Barack Obama’s 2011 State of the Union Address, Vice President Joe Biden toured Ener1’s lithium-ion battery system manufacturing facility in Greenfield, Indiana and said:

As you heard President Obama say last night, this Administration is forging a new path forward by making sure America doesn’t just lead in the 21st Century, but dominates in the 21st Century. We’re not just creating new jobs-but sparking whole new industries that will ensure our competitiveness for decades to come-industries like electric vehicle manufacturing.

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In a recent op-ed by Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI), the freshman congressman said that while efforts such as the STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act designed to stop members of Congress were commendable, ultimately, they will not work as intended.

Writing in the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune, Rep. Duffy said:

A few months ago, Breitbart News editor and author Peter Schweizer published a book titled Throw Them All Out which suggested that members of Congress were using their influence and access in the legislative process to fatten their investment portfolios.

A 60 Minutes piece followed which brought the issue to national attention and rightly caused Americans to wonder: “Is my representative using the power I’ve entrusted in him for personal gains in the stock market?”

As one of the 87 freshman legislators sent to Washington to clean up the mess, I think we owe it to the American people to do just that: clean up the mess. And that includes the reputation and perception that members of Congress operate above the law. Congress ought to hold itself to a higher standard.

Rep. Duffy says that while he personally has not seen any of his congressional colleagues engage in insider trading, he considers it the better part of reason to remove the possibility for the practice to occur. To accomplish that, writes Rep. Duffy, Congress must pass the bill he recently introduced, the RESTRICT (Restoring Ethical Standards, Transparency and Responsibility in Congressional Trading) Act:

The RESTRICT Act is the only way to stop any real or perceived insider trading by members of Congress.

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I attended Wednesday’s 8:00am (8am?!?) House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing entitled:

Volt Vehicle Fire: What Did NHTSA Know And When Did They Know It?

The witnesses were killer:

National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), Barack Obama-appointee Administrator David Strickland.

And General Motors (GM), Barack Obama-appointee CEO Dan Akerson.

The scope of the hearing was a bit too narrow – leaving out some fairly important attending facts.  Like, say, the (at least) five other Chevy Volt fires that have occurred besides the one being discussed.

This hearing was all about a single June Volt blaze.  The battery burst into flames about three weeks after a test crash at and by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA).

A fire about which Obama’s NHTSA did tell the Obama White House.

But a fire about which neither Obama’s NHTSA, the Obama Administration nor Obama’s GM told the American people for nearly six months – and then did so only when forced by a looming Bloomberg news story.

But:

The White House had no role in the decision to delay disclosure of a fire that broke out in a crash-tested Chevrolet Volt, the Obama administration told Congress on Friday.

Of COURSE not.

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In a State of the Union speech devoid of clarity or specifics, President Barack Obama offered but one shining exception: a direct call for members of Congress to send him a bill to ban congressional insider trading.

“Send me a bill that bans insider trading by members of Congress and I will sign it tomorrow,” President Obama said to applause. “Let’s limit any elected official from owning stock in industries they impact.”

Since the release of “Throw Them All Out,” Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer has been a one-man battalion fighting for members of Congress to abide by the same insider trading laws that apply to all Americans.   President Obama’s speech Tuesday night is evidence that Schweizer’s battle against congressional insider trading and cronyism has scored a critical victory.

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From Bloomberg Government:

Warren Buffett’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC is among U.S. and Canadian railroads that stand to benefit from the Obama administration’s decision to reject TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL oil pipeline permit.

With modest expansion, railroads can handle all new oil produced in western Canada through 2030, according to an analysis of the Keystone proposal by the U.S. State Department.

“Whatever people bring to us, we’re ready to haul,” Krista York-Wooley, a spokeswoman for Burlington Northern, a unit of Buffett’s Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said in an interview. If Keystone XL “doesn’t happen, we’re here to haul.”

The State Department denied TransCanada a permit on Jan. 18, saying there was not enough time to study the proposal by Feb. 21, a deadline Congress imposed on President Barack Obama. Calgary-based TransCanada has said it intends to re-apply with a route that avoids an environmentally sensitive region of Nebraska, something the Obama administration encouraged.

The rail option, though costlier, would lessen the environmental impact, such as a loss of wetlands and agricultural productivity, compared to the pipeline, according to the State Department analysis. Greenhouse gas emissions, however, would be worse.

If completed, Keystone XL would deliver 700,000 barrels a day of crude from Alberta’s oil sands to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico, crossing 1,661 miles (2,673-kilometers) over Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. (more…)

President Barack Obama is in full 2012 reelection mode.  Part of that process is preparing to possibly take on Mitt Romney – whom (it appears) he thinks has the strongest chance to be his Republican opponent.  Which he and many Democrats think is very good news.

Romney fits right into the Left’s absurd anti-capitalism, “robber baron,” Occupy Wall Street anti-1%-er, scorched earth storyline.

Romney is very wealthy, which for Obama and his Democrats is the height of eee-vill (except – these Donkeys are mostly rich…).  Never mind that Romney’s wealth is right in line with many past Presidents and candidates – including 2004 Democrat nominee John Kerry.  (The difference?  Romney earned it, Kerry married it.)

And as Romney recently told us, he these days pays the 15% capital gains tax rate – rather than the (absurdly) higher income tax rates those of us receiving salaries do.  Never mind that this is perfectly legal (and good fiscal policy, and “fair”) – it is culled right from the Leftist, Warren Buffett “I pay less in taxes than my secretary” fraudulent script.

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How did Romney make his coin?  Via the epitome of eeeee-villll free market entities – the venture capital firm.  His was, of course, Bain Capital.

Yes, Bain sometimes invests in failing companies.  Some of which they determine to be not worth saving, so down they go.  Welcome to Reality, Boys and Girls.

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Let me build on Charles Krauthammer’s great Friday column, “The GOP’s Suicide March.” Krauthammer argues that just as President Obama’s class-warfare, soak-the-rich mantra started lagging in the polls, some Republicans on the campaign trail started making the case that Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital was involved in nothing more than vulture capitalism, looting companies, and destroying jobs. Keeping class envy alive.

I’m not going to name names, because everybody knows who these Republicans are. Instead, I want to go positive, and commend Mitt Romney himself. Romney did his best in the second South Carolina debate to fight for free-market capitalism and Adam Smith, and against the spread of Obama-style crony capitalism and class envy.

During the Thursday night debate, Romney launched this:

“You’ve got to stop the spread of crony capitalism. [Obama] gives General Motors to the UAW. He takes $500 million and sticks it into Solyndra. He stacks the labor stooges on the NLRB so they can say no to Boeing and take care of their friends in the labor movement. . . . He has to bow to the most extreme members of the environmental movement. He turns down the Keystone pipeline, which would bring energy and jobs to America.

“My view is capitalism works. Free enterprise works. . . . There’s nothing wrong with profit, by the way. That profit went to pension funds, to charities. It went to a wide array of institutions. . . . And by the way, as enterprises become more profitable, they can hire more people. I’m someone who believes in free enterprise. I think Adam Smith was right. And I’m gonna stand and defend capitalism across this country, throughout this campaign. I know we’re going to get hit hard from President Obama, but we’re gonna stuff it down his throat and point out that it is capitalism and freedom that makes America strong.”

Whoa. Tough stuff. The right stuff.

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The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) (and its Senate alternative, the Protect Intellectual Property Act [PIPA]) have been taking a bipartisan beating.  Conservatives have joined with Leftists to savage the bill and thus its chances for passage.

I too am opposed to this iteration of SOPA – it remains too overly broad.

But something similar and more finely, sharply crafted – must become law.  And conservatives will need to reorient themselves when a better version of the bill comes along – and support it.

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We cannot look at the SOPA debate without putting it into the broader context of the immediately preceding Network Neutrality debate.

Conservatives rightly became highly tuned to Internet censorship as a result of the Left’s drive to impose the truly censorious Net Neutrality by any means necessary.

Following so closely on Net Neutrality’s heels, SOPA got swallowed up in this righteous protect-free-speech verve.

But there are some fundamental differences between SOPA and Net Neutrality that must be acknowledged.

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What’s an absurd Leftist policy without an agitprop song to accompany the inanity?

The attempted spoonful-of-sugar to help force down the bad Progressive medicine they are pushing.

Which brings us to General Motors (GM) and one of the Leftist ideological windmills at which they tilt – the Chevy Volt.

We the Taxpayers have spent billions subsidizing the Volt.  And continue subsidizing it still.

We bailed out GM ($50 billion) and Chrysler to the tune of $83 billion.  On which the Obama Administration now admits we’ll lose (at least) $23.6 billion.  (President Obama once upon a time promised us we’d actually make money on the deal.)

We the Taxpayers are still stuck holding 500 million shares of GM stock – on which we are poised to lose tens of billions of dollars more.

But you know what makes all of this terrible-ness so much less worse?  GM spent some of our money on – the Chevy Volt official song and music video:

Don’t you feel better?

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With only one congressman and two senators, Vermont’s congressional delegation may be small.  But that isn’t stopping Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) from doling out big dollars–$236,830, to be exact–to members of their staffs.

As the Burlington Free Press reports:

Of the three lawmakers, Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, gave the most in bonuses. Twenty-nine of his personal office staffers received bonuses ranging from $1,500 to $5,000 last year, totaling $138,830. Leahy, who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, also gave bonuses to 25 committee staffers, totaling $112,048.

Leahy’s spokesman, David Carle, said many other lawmakers use Leahy’s office salary structure “because it is flexible and fair and rewards good work.”

Sanders gave $2,000 bonuses to 32 people on his personal staff, totaling $64,000. He also gave $2,000 bonuses to two staffers on the Senate health subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, which he chairs.

Rep. Peter Welch, a Democrat, gave each of his 17 staffers a $2,000 bonus, totaling $34,000. House office budgets are authorized by calendar year and Senate office budgets are authorized by fiscal year.

News of the taxpayer-funded big bonuses comes at a time when state budgets are being slashed, the nation’s unemployment is still above eight percent, and the U.S. government is $15 trillion in debt.

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At an event Wednesday in Rock Hill, South Carolina, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich drew applause from the crowd when he called the congressional insider trading scandal uncovered by Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer and a report by 60 Minutes a “good example of a bipartisan mess.”

Mr. Gingrich said he favored a law requiring members of Congress to place all their assets in a blind trust and to submit to a three day reporting requirement on any and all investments.  Although the former Speaker of the House did not refer to it by name, a bill proposed by freshman Congressman Sean Duffy (R-WI) called the RESTRICT (Restoring Ethical Standards, Transparency, and Responsibility in Congressional Trading) Act would do precisely as Mr. Gingrich proposes.

As the Wall Street Journal reports:

Mr. Gingrich said it is wrong for lawmakers to be able to buy and sell stocks based on information they learn in their government jobs. He laid part of the blame on campaign finance rules that favor wealthier candidates for Congress who can afford to pay for their own elections. As a result of those rules, a larger share of lawmakers in both parties come to Congress with extensive financial portfolios.

Mr. Gingrich’s recent statements echo those he made in November when he declared his support for applying the same insider trading laws that apply to private citizens to members of Congress.

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Unveiling what may become a central theme of his presidential campaign, Gov. Mitt Romney on Thursday blasted President Barack Obama’s controversial decision to circumnavigate congressional approval of his three appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) as yet another example that Obama is a “crony capitalist” and “jobs killer.”

At an event in Salem, New Hampshire, Mr. Romney laid out his case that Mr. Obama uses political appointments to reward his supporters—in this case Big Labor—and political cronies:

Yesterday the president did one more thing, an extraordinary thing, that convinces anybody who will go elsewhere that maybe they ought to go elsewhere. And that is that he said “I ought to put more labor stooges on the National Labor Relations Board.”

Mr. Obama’s decision to appoint the controversial NLRB nominees was hailed by liberal Democrats like Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who said “we’re glad that the President took the lead, went out there, it was bold and made the appointments.”

Mr. Romney, however, saw Mr. Obama’s NLRB recess appointments as further evidence of crony capitalism: (more…)

An online petition to ban congressional insider trading has collected 4,488 online signatures.

The petition was started by Rick Smith, a financial writer for the popular investing website The Motley Fool.

For years, Mr. Smith has been championing legislation that would stop members of Congress from profiting off of private information.   Given the head of steam his online petition supporting the STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act appears to be gathering, that’s a message that’s beginning to break through.

Even if the STOCK Act or similar bills on the issue pass, Mr. Smith thinks members of Congress should go farther to ensure public transparency:

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Gov. Rick Perry is making a ban on congressional insider trading a central theme of his presidential campaign.

In an op-ed published yesterday with RedState.com, Gov. Perry wrote:

Earlier this week, the Chicago Tribune ran a little noted editorial on the insider trading scandal plaguing Congress, calling out phony efforts to reform the rules and demanding that we finally put a stop to this outrageous and unethical behavior.

If you haven’t read the editorial yet, I recommend you do because while the professional political punditry class is more interested in superfluous items like the political horse race and candidate attire, the reality is that members of both parties in Washington, D.C., are abusing their positions and ordinary Americans have had enough.

The Chicago Tribune article to which Gov. Perry refers was analyzed in a featured story by Breitbart News yesterday.

As Gov. Perry makes clear in his op-ed:

It’s not enough members of Congress make $174,000 a year, some are trading on inside information to use their public service to enrich themselves.

The Tribune is right, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department should be using every available tool to put a stop to this.  But they are not.  So, Congress needs to pass the STOCK Act as a matter of urgency, to do even more to ensure that this kind of thing is stopped dead in its tracks.

This is not the first time Gov. Perry has stated his support for ending the use of material, nonpublic information by members of Congress when investing.   In November, Perry cut a campaign commercial on this issue.

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As the Tea Party looks to codify and push its 2012 legislative and electoral agendas, a recent editorial by the Washington Examiner argues that the Tea Party would do well to make combating congressional insider trading its marquee legislative issue.

In a piece titled, “Tea Party ‘Outsiders’ Should Raise Hell About Insider Trading by Lawmakers,” the Washington Examiner’s editorial board argues that regardless of what happens with bills like the STOCK (Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge) Act or the recently introduced RESTRICT (Restoring Ethical Standards, Transparency, and Responsibility in Congressional Trading) Act, Tea Party members of Congress can still take action by bringing complaints to the Ethics Committee.

From the Washington Examiner:

[Members of Congress] and members of their staffs are free to make millions on information they get by virtue of being in Congress, whether ordinary citizens like it or not.

That doesn’t mean, however, that complaints cannot be brought against them with the House and Senate ethics authorities for abusing the public trust or creating the appearance of conflicts of interest. And that raises an interesting question, particularly for Tea Party members of Congress: Why haven’t they filed such complaints, if for no other reason than to further highlight the hypocrisy of congressional ethics enforcement? Dozens of those Republicans who were elected in 2010, supposedly as “outsiders,” have been strangely quiet on this issue. What other issue more effectively illustrates the need to, as Schweizer pungently puts it, throw them all out and rid Congress of the stench of corruption?

Tea Party Republicans in Congress have also expressed frustration at their inability to reform federal spending, debt and entitlements. Their impatience is understandable, but the Constitution wisely forces reform movements like the Tea Party to win successive elections. Doing that requires continuously reminding voters of what must be done to fix things. Filing ethics complaints and publicizing them at every opportunity would serve that purpose admirably.

What’s more, writes the Examiner, the delays–some would say foot-dragging–over the complexities and intricacies of banning congressional insider trading are just that: dilatory tactics designed to muddle the issue and whisk it under the national carpet.

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The 25 richest members of Congress and the 25 “poorest” members of Congress break fairly evenly along partisan lines, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Of the top 25 wealthiest members of Congress, 13 were Republicans and 12 were Democrats.

As for the “poorest” members of Congress, 10 were Republicans and 15 were Democrats.

The findings, which were based on the lawmakers’ 2010 financial disclosures, list Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) as having a net worth of – $4,732,002, making him the poorest member of Congress.

At the opposite end of the financial spectrum is Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) whose listed net worth of $448,125,017 puts him at the top of the Congressional wealth chart.

Recent studies have shown that the wealth gap between elected officials and average Americans has widened considerably in recent years.

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