Earlier this month three judges sat down from 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to hash out the constitutionality of Obama’s heath care plan. The panel was in response to two lawsuits filed by Virginia’s Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli and Liberty University. Now it seems this is just as much as a political question than constitutional one. The judges were pulled from a pool of 14 candidates. The three judges selected could be decidedly in favor of Obama’s politics. That is because all three judges were Democratic appointees.

This is how they were “pulled.”

Under the rules of the 4th Circuit, judges are picked to sit on particular cases by “a computer program designed to achieve total random selection,” the court said. The third member of the panel, Judge Diana Motz of Maryland, is a President Clinton appointee.

Even if this comes off as a setback to those who find the law it’s very likely the appeals will wind up at the steps of the Supreme Court.

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A joke making the rounds during my brief, late 1990s stint with General Electric’s ideological and political forerunner, Enron, keyed off of that company’s disastrous energy venture in India and its fabled arrogance. It went, in short, who else would believe they could sell turbines to Indians?

Give it a minute. Then hold that thought.

Last week, to optically set the stage for Tuesday night’s rhetorical pitch for more big government to prop up certain favored losers called the ‘clean energy economy’, President Obama teamed with his BFF — and big-time lobbyist for/vendor to massively increased government mandates — CEO Jeff Immelt of GE for a photo-op at a GE plant in Schenectady, NY.

GE makes a gas turbine there, several of which it has signed a contract for sale to India. So that made a very good backdrop, if for a very confused message.

The logic goes something like this: GE makes renewable energy gizmos, manufacturing jobs for which Obama wants to create here by mandating markets for and otherwise propping them up with taxpayer dollars. Therefore, GE’s economic, non-mandated, efficiency-enhancing fossil fuel turbine is evidence that energy technology innovations are possible and therefore the federal government ought to mandate all sorts of uneconomic ‘renewable’ efficiency killers.

Which reminds us of Enron-style arrogance.

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Picture an incandescent light bulb. This is your country.

Now imagine a compact fluorescent light bulb. This is your country on Progressivism.

What does a country on Progressivism look like? To start with, in the evening hours it’s pretty dim. Have you tried reading at night in a hotel room recently?

With more than 300 million of those little curly-Q fluorescent light bulbs now sold annually, our country is looking a lot less bright. Ever since Congress a few years ago declared that by 2012 Americans needed to be more energy efficient, it’s been out with Edison, in with the EPA. And turn on some more lights—I can’t see a thing!

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A provision within Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s health care measure passed by the House the other week rehashes a months-old intramural battle between powerful Democrats over how biologic drugs will face competition from generic drug manufacturers.

While the House bill provides a brand drug maker-backed 12 years of monopoly data protection for these next generation therapies, one component of the bill, buried on page 1,534, beginning on line 15 under the heading, “Restrictions on biological products containing dangerous ingredients,” might raise more than eyebrows.

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