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…)

(Reuters) – Solyndra LLC failed to attract any bids on Tuesday from buyers who could have restarted production, brought back some laid off staff and kept the bankrupt solar panel maker operating, according to a company adviser.

Solyndra, which owes more than $500 million to the U.S. government, has said a turnkey buyer is the best hope for getting the most money for the government and other creditors. However, no turnkey bids were submitted by a Tuesday deadline, said company adviser Eric Carlson of Imperial Capital LLC.

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The White House on Friday sent more internal documents to Republicans investigating the $535 million loan guarantee to failed solar firm Solyndra, arguing that the cache of emails should satisfy GOP investigators.

The emails show senior White House aides discussing the need to coordinate messaging with the Energy Department and others ahead of Solyndra layoffs that occurred in early November 2010.

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It seems like everyday I wake up and it’s the same old story with politics and politicians: If you vote for my bill, I’ll support yours; the Republicans hate this and the Democrats hate that; you scratch my earmark and I’ll scratch yours…

It’s frustrating.

If it’s not a disgraceful politician being exposed for illicit behavior, it’s somebody in some party being caught shoveling money to their friends or illegal back-door dealings, or charges being leveled. Then the other party thinks they have the moral high ground, even though it was their guy or gal that was caught the week before.

A massive cottage industry which produces nothing, builds nothing, and spends taxpayer money like it’s going out of style has grown up around Washington DC. It’s an establishment political class, grown fat and powerful on our backs which grows and grows…

… And regardless of the prevailing economic climate – it just keeps getting bigger.

What is the average American supposed to do?

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From The Hill:

An electric vehicle manufacturer that received a $529 million loan from the Energy Department is recalling 239 vehicles.

The Transportation Department’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Thursday that the company, Fisker Automotive, will recall its Karma vehicles made between July 1, 2011, and Nov. 3, 2011, because of a faulty electric battery component that could cause a fire.

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From The Washington Post:

Since the failure of the company, Obama’s entire $80 billion clean-
technology program has begun to look like a political liability for an administration about to enter a bruising reelection campaign.

Meant to create jobs and cut reliance on foreign oil, Obama’s green-technology program was infused with politics at every level, The Washington Post found in an analysis of thousands of memos, company records and internal e-mails. Political considerations were raised repeatedly by company investors, Energy Department bureaucrats and White House officials.

The records, some previously unreported, show that when warned that financial disaster might lie ahead, the administration remained steadfast in its support for Solyndra.

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President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign is promising to raise enormous sums of money,  by some estimates and unprecedented $1 billion.  The Finance Chair for the 2012 campaign,  Matthew Barzun, is reactivating the 2008 financial network of campaign bundlers to meet that goal.   In my new book, Throw Them All Out, I expose the scandal that is outrageous and typical: those who are raising money for Obama received large amounts of taxpayer-funded energy stimulus money from the Obama Administration.   It offers a new form of “recycling” when it comes to campaign dollars that is unprecedented.

Consider the sweetheart deals and contracts that have come the way of some of President Obama’s biggest fundraisers:

• Financier David Shaw has raised $1.08 million for Obama’s reelection so far.  Shaw’s firm D.E. Shaw is heavily invested in two wind projects that received taxpayer money:  $115 million for First Wind,  and $117 million for Kahuku Wind.
• Financier John Rogers is a board Exelon board member has raised $1.2 million,  and Frank Clark, an executive Exelon,  has raised $153,000 thus far.  Exelon has been approved for $646 million in Department of Energy loan guarantees for a project called AV Solar Ranch One.  They also received a $200 million Department of Energy cash grant through a company they own called Peco Energy for smart-grid work.
• Financier Steve Westly has raised $302,000 so far.  Westly has held large investment stakes in numerous companies that have received stimulus grants,  including Amyris Biotechnologies ($24 million), Tesla Motors ($465 million),  as well as Edeniqu and Recyclebank.
• Bruce Heyman of Goldman Sachs, who has had three energy projects approved for taxpayer money  Cogentrix ($90 million),  First Solar ($4.7 million), and U.S. Geothermal ($96.8 million) has already raised $366,884 for the Obama 2012 reelection campaign.
• Daniel Weiss of the Angelino Group has raised $39,000 so far.   Weiss’ firm is a major equity holder in Powerspan,  we received a $100 million cash grant for smart grid projects.
• Steve Spinner has raised $31,900 to this point.   Spinner is a green energy investor who worked at the Department of Energy as a “strategic advisor” to the loan program.

Other recipients of energy stimulus money have continued cutting checks.  Ian Cumming of Leucadia,  which has had several large projects approved,  has given $10,000 so far to Obama for America and the Obama Victory Fund 2012.

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As a repository of reader insight adding context to or exposing flaw or omissions of a paper’s news and editorial pages, the letters section of the Wall Street Journal is typically unmatched among other outlets.

I have spent some time on the phone and in correspondence with the Letters editor to conclude he is thoughtful and on the ball, though exceptions to the page’s excellence occur. While we do not expect perfection here on earth, sometimes these exceptions are so ridiculous as to demand ridicule. Saturday’s Letters page is a case in point.

Wind’s taxpayer lifeline is expiring, and you can feel it in the air. Responding to a piece touting shale gas, a windmill enthusiast wrote to defend the honor of his beloved pinwheels against gas, a proxy for abundant, reliable (they always work, so you can actually run an economy on them…wind, well, not so much) fossil fuels:

The energy to service a wind farm is free. For gas generation you need water, steel, energy, labor, chemicals and food stocks…

If there is a point here it must be to imply that wind energy is cheaper. It is a twist on the old line spouted by “renewables” pushers, “the wind and the sun are free!”, ignoring that wind and solar power are bloody expensive.

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I’ve been called many things in the last two weeks  with the release of my new book Throw Them All Out by politicians from both political parties, but never a “sock puppet.”

That is how Robert Kennedy Jr. has chosen to respond to my book Throw Them All Out where I disclose the fact that a politically-connected solar company called Brightsource  (of which Mr. Kennedy’s firm is the largest investor) landed a sweetheart billion-dollar plus taxpayer-guaranteed loan.

What has been so remarkable to me with the reaction to the book is the incredible disconnect between those on the inside getting these deals and those of us on the outside watching the rich getting rich with our money.   I think the vast majority of people had no problem with the late Steve Jobs getting fabulously wealthy.  He simply provided products and services people wanted.  But those getting richer courtesy of our money and special loans? People are sick of it.

The bottom line is that Brightsource Energy got a sweetheart deal and it did so thanks to political connections. This is a company that admittedly has huge problems.

Kennedy never disputes that Brightsource got the money, nor that a former Principal at his firm, Sanjay Wagle, was a fundraiser for Obama and went to work in the Department of Energy’s alternative energy grant program after the 2008 election.   Nor does he dispute that Brightsource admitted in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that the Ivanpah project is highly risky, or that Brightsource is in financial trouble.  (The company is $1.8 billion in debt,  had total revenue of just $13.5 million in 2010 and ran an operating loss of $71 million.)  The company openly admits that its technology may not perform as planned and that it faces technological challenges.  It’s also curious to note on the SEC filing (on page 42 linked above) that Brightsource is spending almost six times as much on “marketing, general and administrative” costs than research and development. And more than twice in those areas than it is spending on project development. Does this sound like a company that could survive without taxpayer money?

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Billionaire George Soros gave advice and direction on how President Obama should allocate so-called “stimulus” money in a series of regular private meetings and consultations with White House senior advisers even as Soros was making investments in areas affected by the stimulus program.

It’s just one more revelation featured in the blockbuster new book that continues to rock Washington, Throw Them All Out, authored by Breitbart News editor Peter Schweizer.

Mr. Soros met with Mr. Obama’s top economist on February 25, 2009 and twice more with senior officials in the Old Executive Office Building on March 24^th and 25^th as the stimulus plan was being crafted.  Later, Mr. Soros also participated in discussions on financial reform.

Then, in the first quarter of 2009, Mr. Soros went on a stock buying spree in companies that ultimately benefited from the federal stimulus.

• Soros doubled his holdings in medical manufacturer Hologic, a company that benefited from stimulus spending on medical systems
• Soros tripled his holdings in fiber channel and software maker Emulus, a company that wound up scoring a large amount of federal funds going to infrastructure spending
• Soros bought 210,000 shares in Cisco Systems, which came up big in the stimulus lottery
• Soros also bought Extreme Networks, which, months later, said it was expanding broadband to rural America “as part of President Obama’s broadband strategy”
• Soros bought 1.5 million shares in American Electric Power, a company Mr. Obama gave $1 billion to in June 2009
• Soros bought shares in utility company Ameren, which bagged a $540 million Department of Energy loan
• Soros bought 250,000 shares of Public Service Enterprise Group, 500,000 shares of NRG Energy, and almost a million shares of Entergy—all companies that  came up winners in the Department of Energy taxpayer giveaway that produced the Solyndra debacle
• Soros bought into BioFuel Energy, a company that benefitted when the EPA announced a regulation on ethanol
• Soros bought Powerspan in April 2009.  Just weeks later, the clean-energy company landed $100 million from the Department of Energy
• In the second quarter of 2009, Soros bought education technology giant Blackboard, which became a big recipient of education stimulus money
• Soros also bought Burlington Northern Santa Fe and CSX, both beneficiaries of Mr. Obama’s plans for revitalizing the railroads
• Soros bought Cognizant Technology Solutions, which scored stimulus funds in education and health care technology
• Soros also bought 300,000 shares of Constellation Energy Group and 4.6 million shares of Covanta, both of which landed taxpayers’ money through the stimulus, the former of which bagged $200 million

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From Reuters:

Chu, a bookish physicist and Nobel laureate, took full responsibility for decisions on the loan, but did not apologize. He said his department did its due diligence on the risks, and was not influenced by Solyndra investor George Kaiser, an Obama donor.

He tried to give long and detailed answers, irking Republicans running the hearing.

“I don’t want you to take all of my time – can you just give a really short answer?” said Cliff Stearns, the Florida Republican who has led the committee’s probe.

Republicans argue the government could have pulled the plug earlier, but instead restructured the deal.

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With Energy Secretary Steven Chu set to testify Thursday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the government’s $573 million loan to failed solar panel maker Solyndra, an explosive new list of energy loan amounts to President Obama’s top fundraisers, bundlers, and supporters has been released by Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer, author of Throw Them All Out.

As the list reveals, 80 percent of all $20.5 billion in Department of Energy loans went to President Obama’s top donors. Furthermore, some of those dwarf in size those given to Obama bundler George Kaiser, owner of the now defunct Solyndra.

The list—which features the likes of Google owners Larry Page and Sergey Brinn, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Ted Turner, John Doerr, and Al Gore—raises new questions about the procedures used to administer the now-controversial DOE loans.

Obama Bundlers_ Large Donors_ and Supporters fixed pdf

Schweizer’s list stands in sharp contrast to President Obama’s promise that the allocation of all federal “stimulus” monies would be nonpartisan and fair: “Let me repeat that: Decisions about how Recovery money will be spent will be based on the merits. They will not be made as a way of doing favors for lobbyists,” Obama said in 2009.

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From The Hill:

House Republicans released emails Wednesday that show a major fundraiser for President Obama discussed the $535 million loan guarantee for the solar company Solyndra during a meeting with White House officials.

George Kaiser, a “bundler” for Obama’s campaign whose foundation invested in Solyndra, said the issue “came up” during a spring 2010 meeting with White House officials. Ken Levit, executive director of the George Kaiser Family Foundation, also attended the meeting.

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The headline in today’s ClimateWire (subscription required) blares “U.N. says turning lights on for world’s poor need not boost CO2.” That is, we can provide electricity to 1.5 billion people who have never flipped a light switch and not see an increase in emissions of carbon dioxide (until the global warming fad/excuse for doing things statists like to do, this was called plant food, the driver of photosynthesis).

CO2 is released not just by oceans when they warm (absorbed when they cool) or decaying plants, or people exhaling, but combusting “fossil fuels” like the coal, gas, and, in some places, oil used to create electricity. CO2 emissions generally correlate with economic prosperity–more on that, momentarily.

But there is even less to this absurdity than meets the eye. Here’s how the ClimateWire story opens: (more…)

From The Hill:

A Massachusetts company that received a $43 million Energy Department loan guarantee last year filed for bankruptcy Sunday, a step certain to fuel criticism of federal green energy financing in the wake of the solar company Solyndra’s collapse.

Beacon Power Corp., which develops energy storage systems, filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.

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Several reports of late reveal that new regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency will cause utility providers to shut down a number of coal-fired power plants. It is time to expose the history of the thuggish tactics utilized by the EPA in promoting a “green” energy agenda, specifically during the Clinton/Gore administration.

A press release from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) dated November 3, 1999 reported:

“U.S. SUES ELECTRIC UTILITIES IN UNPRECEDENTED ACTION TO ENFORCE THE CLEAN AIR ACT”.  The release states that “seven separate suits allege that the electric utility companies — American Electric Power, Cinergy, FirstEnergy, Illinois Power, Southern Indiana Gas & Electric Company, Southern Company, Tampa Electric Company — or their subsidiaries, and the TVA, violated the Clean Air Act by making major modifications to many of their plants without installing the equipment required to control smog, acid rain and soot.”

In Florida, Tampa Electric Company (TECO) was the first utility in the country to reach a settlement agreement with the EPA and the Department of Justice.  Under the terms of the settlement agreement, as outlined in a statement from then EPA Administrator Carol M. Browner, Tampa Electric Company agreed to pay $3.5 million in civil penalties, along with another “$10 million for environmentally beneficial projects designed to mitigate the impact of their pollution.”  The entire Consent Decree can be viewed here.  A visit to Tampa Electric Company’s website contains a declaration that in 1999 they were the “first utility in the nation to develop a plan with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address its coal-fired utility initiative.” When questioned about the connection between Tampa Electric Company’s website statement regarding their cooperation with the EPA and the announced settlement with the EPA and DOJ, a source inside the industry replied “Do you mean did they hold a gun to their head?  Absolutely!”

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From CNN:

House Republicans investigating the loan controversy had requested all internal White House documents about the issue. House Energy and Commerce subcommittee chair Rep. Cliff Stearns said that includes emails on the President’s Blackberry.

On Friday the White House Counsel sent a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee explaining they won’t comply with the request because it “implicates longstanding and significant institutional Executive Branch confidentiality interests.”

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The Department of Energy bragged about giving a $1.2 billion loan guarantee to SunPower, a politically connected solar energy company, to create “10-15 permanent jobs,” raising critical questions as to if California SunPower is the next Solyndra in the ongoing Crony-Gate scandal.

Unlike Solyndra, which went bankrupt after receiving the loan from the government leaving taxpayer on the hook, SunPower’s deal is more complicated.  Many questions are being raised about how the company was able to obtain the loan and what they did after they got the money.  Questions include:

• How could the Department of Energy give a loan to a company that was under a shareholder suit alleging securities fraud and misrepresentations?
• The son of Rep. George Miller (D-CA) who was paid $178,000 to lobby on behalf of the company represented SunPower as a lobbyist.  Why did Rep. George Miller tour the SunPower facility – which is outside his congressional district – and what other official action did Rep. Miller take on behalf of the company that is represented by his lobbyist son?
• Did the company’s hefty political contributions to the Obama campaign and the DCCC play a role in the deal?
• Did U.S. taxpayers help pay for the company to open a facility in Mexico after the announcement of the loan?
• Was the U.S. government aware that company executives were in the process of selling a portion of the company to a French company – an action that was undertaken two weeks after the loan was awarded?  Did the loan allow insider’s to cash out leaving other investors holding on to the stock that has dropped by more than 60% since the loan was awarded?

Questionable Finances

In 2009, a year before the DOE awarded the loan, investors in SunPower filed a class action lawsuit against the company alleging SunPower and certain of the Company`s executive officers were in violation of federal securities laws.

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From HumanEvents:

How did a failing California solar company, buffeted by short sellers and shareholder lawsuits, receive a $1.2 billion federal loan guarantee for a photovoltaic electricity ranch project—three weeks after it announced it was building new manufacturing plant in Mexicali, Mexico, to build the panels for the project.

The company, SunPower (SPWR-NASDAQ), now carries $820 million in debt, an amount $20 million greater than its market capitalization. If SunPower was a bank, the feds would shut it down. Instead, it received a lifeline twice the size of the money sent down the Solyndra drain.

Two men with insight into the process are SunPower rooter Rep. George R. Miller III, (D.-Calif.), the senior Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee and the co-chairman of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, and his SunPower lobbyist son, George Miller IV.

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From The Hill:

House Republicans released an email Friday evening showing that a senior Treasury Department official in August expressed concern that the Energy Department’s early 2011 restructuring of the solar company Solyndra’s $535 million loan guarantee may have been illegal.

The restructuring put private investors, who were providing another $75 million to the struggling company, first in line for repayment if the company went under. In addition, House Republicans probing Solyndra – which collapsed several weeks ago – say DOE may have violated requirements to consult with Treasury on the revision of the loan agreement.

The Energy and Commerce Committee’s GOP leaders wrote to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner Friday seeking documents about Treasury’s communication with the White House, DOE and other agencies on the financing.

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