From the Associated Press:

The deals announced Friday include a $1.5 billion loan guarantee to Florida-based NextEra Energy and other investors that bought a planned 550-megawatt solar farm on federal land in Southern California from First Solar, as well as $646 million to Illinois-based Exelon Corp. for a 230-megawatt solar plant near Los Angeles. Next Era Energy Resources and GE Energy Financial Services bought the Desert Sunlight project from First Solar, while Exelon bought the Antelope Valley project. First Solar will continue to build and operate both projects.

A third project, worth $1.2 billion, will help San Jose-based SunPower Corp. build a 250-megawatt solar plant in California, while $1.4 billion will go San Francisco-based Prologis Inc. to support installation of about 750 solar rooftop panels in 28 states.

The loan program expires on Friday.

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I give all but one of the GOP candidates an “F” for last night’s performance.

The very premise of the Republican presidential debate, hosted by NBC/Politico and broadcast by corporate welfare queen MSNBC proves that conservatives don’t understand the power the media is trying to exert over the next election.

It is an insult to the house of Reagan that MSNBC would try to pass itself off as a fair news organization with the eight Republican candidates giving the sneering, snobby and snide enemy a certain imprimatur of legitimacy.

The only reason the GOP is in a fighting stance in the 2012 presidential election is the Tea Party. The alternative narrative-drivers at MSNBC have spent much of the last two-plus years trying to frame millions and millions of patriotic and concerned Americans as violent, racist knuckle-draggers.

To dignify those habitual and unaccountable slanderers by appearing on that stage shows that apparently these Republicans and daily MSNBC punching bags don’t comprehend the scope of the media problem.

Barack Obama was elected due to the work of the media in 2008. Barack Obama will not cross the finish line in 2012 without the help of that same media–with MSNBC leaning forward as it pushes their wildly unpopular President from behind. (more…)

The unsightly film on our “clean” dishes had become a source of great frustration in our household.  Dish washing was the job of my daughter and she was evidently was really slacking off.  We worked with her on critical strategies like pre-washing, proper loading technique and the importance of rinse aids.  Still, we found that the dishes usually had to be washed at least twice and with increasing amounts of detergent.  In this lousy economy and runaway food and fuel inflation, I was using 50% more Cascade detergent and running twice as many loads.  This deal worked out great for the the water and electric utilities, and especially for P&G (Proctor and Gamble) but not so well for us.

As a conservative, I believe there is a right way and a wrong way to do just about anything from how to install toilet paper to what ingredients are key to a product.  That makes me a consummate label reader. So one day I noticed that Cascade was “phosphate free”.  That struck me as really odd because I dutifully inject that naturally occurring element into the ecosystem every time I use my Miracle Grow “Bloom-booster” plant food.  So how could something that is good for plants be evil for the environment?

I asked my friend Kat, who is a full time environmental activist and I challenged her. I am now using at least twice as much water and electricity, not to mention time as I spent before on clean dishes.  She toed the party line, that too much phosphates in sewer systems somehow creates too much algae which disrupts ecosystems.

So I explained my situation and the fact that a huge corporation about which she should be suspicious of before me, was making out like bandits. I asked her, “Do you realize you are working for the man?”  “What?” She asked. The irony was quite amusing.

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The Coffee Party is at it again.

Desperately seeking a raison d’etre other than NOT to be the Tea Party, the Brew Crew has just issued a Congressional chain-letter which it hopes its tens of followers will co-sign. Pulling no punches, the Political Percolators are telling Congress to…to…well, to quit being so darn mean to Us the People. Here’s the full venti cup of their scalding scolding:

Dear Congress,

Please remember: you are fighting over how to spend our money.  We the People pay 33.7% of the Federal Fund while corporations pay 7.2%. Many corporations pay no taxes at all.  Yet your entire focus during this budget battle has been on how much to hurt the people.

We did not cause the recession, the deficit, or the national debt.  We know this, and we need you to know that we are aware of a corrupt system in which corporations spend their vast wealth to lobby and manipulate you.

We know that’s why the tax code so unjustly burdens us while favoring them. We know this is why Elizabeth Warren and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are under attack from the US Chamber of Commerce and other powerful lobbyists. We know that is why your policies reward multinational corporations, including those that DID cause the recession, with bailouts, bonuses, and tax benefits.

As you wrangle over how much to hurt our quality of life and jeopardize our future, consider ways to create jobs and invest in our future.

Congress should work together on how to help us, not fight over how to hurt us.

Sincerely,

Annabel, Eric B, Lynda, Eric W, Gloria, Mark, Beth, Tina, Corinne and the Coffee Break to Save America Team

The note to Coffee Party mailing list members is oleaginously signed with first names only. But the letter to Congress itself is a rich pu-pu platter of economic naivete.  Annabel Park—the dark liquid organization’s founder—and her co-scolders have obviously never heard of the Laffer Curve—or if they have, they think it’s a baseball pitch.

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Last week President Obama began the blitz which, barring Republican collapse (read on) could last for the next two years, pushing his State of the Union call for American taxpayers to hand over even more billions to underwrite a supposed ‘clean energy’ future.

By chance, I read of this between sessions conferring in London and Brussels with leading experts on the disastrous folly of Europe’s experiment with the ‘clean energy economy’. We know that this is the same disaster that President Obama is now doubling down on as an economic recovery plan because he used to admit as much.

But in his new push the president has toned down the European roots of his model, as well as the planetary salvation rationale for energy rationing. This is because, respectively, the success stories all proved to be black holes which European governments are now trying to walk back, and the public turned against the global warming campaign.

So it was with great amusement that I caught, on my flight back this weekend, some art imitating life in a spectacularly appropriate way. Accountant Leo Bloom revealed to producer Max Bialystock, “under the right circumstances, a producer could actually make more money with a flop than he can with a hit”. Voila! There you have, in a Broadway second, President Obama’s ‘clean energy’ agenda.

Government Electric – once a bastion of American genius now fallen to being no more than a government front company – and the rest of the ‘renewables’ Music Men (to note another apt vehicle) are the Bialystock and Bloom of policy. They seek to make their fortune by producing flops. But since their ‘markets’ are arranged by pals in government and not due to performance, it works. That’s the beauty of it.

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The appointment by President Obama of Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman and CEO of General Electric, to head the new President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness is just another sign of the commitment of the Obama Administration to “Crony Capitalism”. For over 100 years GE was known for business innovation and manufacturing excellence. But long gone are the uplifting moments in our nation’s history when company spokesman Ronald Reagan proudly exalted GE’s motto: “Progress is our most important product.”

Mr. Immelt as the newly appointed pied-piper for the future for American industry suggests, (as Immelt wrote to shareholders):

“The interaction between government and business will change forever. In a reset economy, the government will be a regulator; and also, an industry policy champion, a financier, and a key partner.”

For the last three years, Mr. Immelt has been in the vanguard for this new relationship between business and government, as a member of the Administration’s “Economic Recovery Advisory Panel”.

During the wild Congressional spending spree of the last couple of years, GE miraculously became the largest beneficiary of the government’s Troubled Asset Recovery Program (TARP) bank bailout. Although GE did not initially qualify for TARP, the company’s $18 million annual investment in battalions of Washington DC lobbyists convinced Administration regulators to push that “reset” button and extend TARP guarantees and subsidies to GE. Public records demonstrate GE Capital, the company’s massive financing arm, pocketed $120 Billion in loans from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation at interest rates of less than 1% and snatched 25% of the entire $340 billion in subsidies from “Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program” (TLGP) rescue fund.

Unlike other highly regulated financial institutions that secured Federal back-stops, including Bank of America, Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase; GE was not required to curtail use of risky derivatives or pass the Fed’s liquidity “stress test” to qualify for taxpayer funding. GE was also exempted from new regulations restricting executive compensation at firms like AIG and Goldman Sachs. Mr. Immelt took advantage of GE’s special treatment to pick up $30.9 million in total compensation over the last three years, while GE shareholders suffered a catastrophic 46% loss as the company’s shares crumbled from $35 to $19.

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When hard times come, people might wake up. They might have to rethink their foundational beliefs. Some of that may be happening right now as the Obama administration leads the nation ever deeper into a moral, political, and economic decline. This was supposed to be New Deal II. Well, maybe it is, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. If we can come up with a leader who has learned his or her lessons from this experience, there might be hope for real change.

It happened before in the case of Ronald Reagan. Raised a New Deal liberal, Reagan never seriously questioned his political faith until after World War II. It was then that he became president of the Screen Actors Guild and had to confront the enemy in the form of communist subversion of the movie industry. Communist-led strikes created chaos; lives were threatened—even Reagan’s. He had to carry a gun for months after an anonymous caller warned that his actions would end his career. He was told later that plans had been made to throw acid in his face.

Reagan became the voice of the actors in congressional hearings. He went to Washington to testify in 1947.

Reagan Testifying at Congressional Hearings on Communism in Hollywood

In his autobiography, he stated,

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The Central Illinois 9/12 Project became one of the first to expose — beginning this past March on BigGovernment.com – Shorebank’s extensive green and microfinancing agendas, in anticipation of that bank’s impending bailout.  Shorebank, a Chicago-based, community-based investment bank, is focused on domestic and foreign microfinancing, is heavily engaged in the financing of “green” projects and “green” jobs, and has a host of ties to the Obama and Clinton administrations.  Most recently, we wrote in April about Shorebank seeking a “bailout” from larger financial firms that have previously received bailout money from the federal government. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky had previously proposed that the bank receive funds from the State of Illinois to help cover its loss of capital since the beginning of the nation’s economic downturn in 2008.

As we previously wrote, Shorebank would potentially be eligible for TARP funds if it were to be recognized as a “Community Development Financial Institution.” In order to to received needed federal TARP money and prevent seizure by the FDIC, Shorebank needed to receive appropriate matching funds from private sources.  News stories have been released over the past several days indicating that Shorebank has potentially received such funding.

Shorebank has reportedly received $20 million from General Electric, $20 million from Goldman Sachs, and $20 million from Citigroup – with additional large funds being promised by J.P.Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley. Shorebank also has received funds from the Northern Trust Corporation, State Farm, and Harris N.A.  It has been reported that the bank could also receive funds from Wells-Fargo and PNC Financial Services.  Assistance from these financial institutions puts Shorebank’s raised capital from private sources within the range needed to make it eligible for TARP funds.

As we reported previously, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Chase all received tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money from TARP.  Does this then mean that Shorebank is being bailed out by bailout money?

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By now, readers of BigGovernment.com know that that the Democrats “Wall Street Bank” bill, which may get a final vote as early as this week, will reach far beyond Wall Street and ensnare businesses not typically thought of as “banks.” Stories here by this author and others have laid bare provisions of the Obama-Dodd-Frank-Everything’s-A-Bank bill that broadly define a “financial company” as any business “substantially engaged” or “significantly engaged”  in financial activities. And if your business happens to fall in such a category, it could be subject to a bailout “assessment” tax to bail out a high rolling financial firm, intrusive regulation by a banking agency or the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, or even outright nationalization if the troika of the Federal Reserve, Treasury Secretary, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation decide your firm is a threat to “financial stability.”

Trouble is, though its audience is growing by leaps and bounds every day, this site is still at the point in which not every American relies on it for essential political info. And because Republicans have done a mediocre job of explaining how far this bill would reach, and the establishment media largely has no interest in explaining these facts, supporters of Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd’s “Restoring American Financial Stability Act” have been able to get away with saying, “If you’re against this bill, you’re against reform of Wall Street.”

Or at least, that was the case until a couple days ago. That’s when Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) introduced an amendment with a straightforward message: A bill that claims to be about fostering transparency on Wall Street should itself be transparent in its objective and not sneak regulation on Main Street manufacturers and retailers.  Call it (and I just did) the Not-Everything’s-A-Bank Amendment.

Vitter has distinguished himself with his dedicated efforts in fighting for real financial reform.  He co-sponsored with self-proclaimed (but not necessarily sole) Senate socialist Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)a bipartisan amendment similar to the measure in the House bill to have the Government Accountability Office audit the Federal Reserve. When Sanders and others went for the Obama administration”compromise” of a one-time audit of a limited part of the Fed’s operation, Vitter carried the flag of Fed transparency.

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Thursday, in his resounding defense of the First Amendment in the Citizens United decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority:

…[w]hen Government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.

“Censorship” is a dirty word in America, and that is why the restrictions at issue in our case were cloaked in the guise of “campaign finance reform.”  But the fact remains that any restrictions on political speech, especially those that criminalize such speech, send us down a very slippery and very dangerous slope.

Last March, our government argued in court that it has the Constitutional authority to ban books that mention a candidate for federal office.  The government later retracted that statement, but is there any doubt that such a statement never would have been made if there had not been 100 years of progressively more intrusive restrictions on political speech preceding it?    Had the Court not acted, what was to prevent the government from asserting that authority over the internet, which does not have the benefit of two centuries of tradition and jurisprudence protecting it?

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I’ll be the first to admit that anti-trust law is not my strong suit.  The myriad implications of cable giant Comcast’s proposed acquisition of NBC are complexities beyond the grasp of most mortals.  Legions of attorneys will put legions of children through college with the fees that this transaction will generate.  This is the kind of stimulus that will inject much-needed capital into the private country club sector of the economy.

But beyond the regulatory and legal minutia that technically govern this proposed deal, one obscenely crass, downright offensive action by Comcast’s CEO warrants the application of withering scrutiny to the merger.

A day, one single day, after the two media giants announced their deal, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts proudly weighed in to strongly support the Senate Democrats’ health care reform bill.

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