Washington Times

Solyndra, Green Jobs, Tax Loopholes = OBAMA MUST GO! (word of the day: Hubris)

Published by Papa Giorgio

From the Washington Times:

….The committee also raised questions about whether the loan deal came about because of political influence, highlighting an email that they said showed how the White House was trying to hurry a loan approval so Vice President Joseph R. Biden could announce the deal in 2009.

The largest private investor in Solyndra is a venture-capital firm tied to Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser, a fundraiser for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

….Solyndra became the first company to get a Department of Energy loan guarantee through the stimulus program, and it was hailed as an example of job creation and clean-energy technology by the White House. ….

….But in a report released by Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, officials said documents show that OMB staff working on the loan approval felt pressure from the White House to finish their work in time for the groundbreaking, which also was attended by Mr. Chu and Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who was California’s governor at the time. Mr. Biden appeared via a satellite feed.

“And out there at Solyndra, you guys have figured it out,” Mr. Biden said. “You figured out how to harness the sun’s power for a better, more efficient, more prosperous future for all of America, and you’re creating more jobs.”

In his remarks, Mr. Schwarzenegger said the project would create thousands of jobs, and he applauded the Obama administration.

“So let’s give a big hand to President Obama and the Obama administration for this great job,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said….

….Mr. Waxman said the loan deal deserves scrutiny, and he raised questions about whether there was proper vetting and whether the company misled federal officials about its finances. He said the company even briefed him personally on its finances and assured him it was in solid shape. Still, he said, the company’s collapse shouldn’t keep the government from backing solar-energy initiatives.

But Rep. Mike Pompeo, Kansas Republican, said the collapse wasn’t surprising. He said that’s what happens when the government tries to pick winners and losers.

Ed Morrisy makes a great point:

Despite President Barack Obama’s steep decline in job approval, especially this summer, the president has commanded a remarkable reserve of high personal regard from voters. Even as the polls show him approaching the kind of job support last seen with his predecessor George W. Bush in the post-Katrina era, Obama has not had to deal with significant levels of personal dislike in national surveys….

….It takes more than a bad bet to make a scandal — but Solyndra has connections all the way to Obama himself. When Solyndra initially applied for taxpayer subsidies, auditors at the Department of Energy questioned Solyndra’s stability. So why did the Obama administration fast-track Solyndra’s application? One reason might be that one of the chief investors in Solyndra is George Kaiser — who also was one of Obama’s campaign bundlers in 2008, raising more than $50,000. Solyndra executives made more than 20 visits to the White House between March 2009 and April 2011. Was it a coincidence that Solyndra ended up with an interest rate from the feds at one-fourth the going rate for green-jobs projects?….

….There have been other controversies in the Obama administration, such as Operation Fast and Furious in the ATF office in Phoenix and the Department of Justice. But Solyndra is the first controversy that has the potential to directly stain Barack Obama himself. Indeed, Obama might find that his well of personal favorability could run dry if investigations discover quid pro quos in Solyndra’s collapse and the vaporization of over a half-billion dollars in taxpayer funds.

Gateway Starts with this:

The Obama Administration spent nearly half of the $38.6 billion funds ($17.2 billion) set aside for his green energy programs and was only able to create 3,545 permanent green jobs. This comes out to a staggering $4,853,000 per job.

The Obama Administration has blown billions of taxpayer dollars on green energy and has only succeeded in producing a few thousand jobs. The Washington Post reported:

[….]

“There are good reasons to create green jobs, but they have more to do with green than with jobs,” Princeton University economics professor and former Federal Reserve vice chairman Alan Blinder has said.

Gateway Pundit Posts the following:

Barack Obama’s gleaming example of green technology – Solyndra – filed for bankruptcy last week. The solar panel manufacturer squandered $535 millionof stimulus money in a little over a year.

But, there’s more…
Top Obama bundler George Kaiser made multiple visits to the White House in the months before the company was granted a $535 million loan from the government. And top Solyndra officials also made numerous visits — 20 — to the White House, according to logs and reporting by The Daily Caller. Solyndra officials in the logs included chairman and founder Christian Gronet and board members Thomas Baruch and David Prend. The company secured the $535 million loan despite the fact that it was widely known Solyndra was in deep economic trouble and had negative cash flows since its inception.

[….]

There’s more…
It has now been confirmed that White House officials sat in on the Solyndra meetings this past year before the company went under. The White House monitored the huge loans. And before the loan guarantees were granted officials knew the company would fail.

Health-Care Mandated Penalties via Commerce Clause Unconstitutional (Classic Ann Coulter Commentary)

Published by Papa Giorgio

“Obviously, I find the two that hold it unconstitutional more compelling, but I mean for logical reasons, Which is to say the interstate commerce clause – there’s no point in having even any limits on Congress’ authority if they can force citizens, all citizens to buy a product,…. By the way, if this is constitutional, then Republicans should turn around and mandate all citizens be forced to purchase a gun and a Bible. And, there’s a lot more evidence that owning a gun and a Bible is better for society than everyone having to own health insurance. But, if that’s what Congress has the right to do, we can have all kinds of mandates. The interstate commerce clause says Congress can regulate either something that affects interstate commerce or the instrumentalities of interstate commerce. I think the judge, Judge Vinson makes a good case as apparently the plaintiffs did that simply not buying insurance is not an activity.” ~ Classic Coulter! (video at bottom)


Scared Monkeys has this:

OBAMACARE DELT CRUSHING BLOW….

As speculated earlier today, a second judge has ruled Obamacare unconstitutional. Federal Judge Roger Vinson ruled today that President Barack Hussein Obama’s health care law is unconstitutional. To add insult to “health care” injury, the federal judge used Obama’s past words against him.

In ruling against President Obama‘s health care law, federal Judge Roger Vinson used Mr. Obama‘s own position from the 2008 campaign against him, when the then-Illinois senator argued there were other ways to achieve reform short of requiring every American to purchase insurance.

“I note that in 2008, then-Senator Obama supported a health care reform proposal that did not include an individual mandate because he was at that time strongly opposed to the idea, stating that, ‘If a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house,’” Judge Vinson wrote in a footnote toward the end of his 78-page ruling Monday.

Judge Vinson, a federal judge in the northern district of Florida, struck down the entire health care law as unconstitutional on Monday, though he is allowing the Obama administration to continue to implement and enforce it while the government appeals his ruling.Hey Barack, words do have consequences don’t they and you do not get to have it both ways. Actually, as stated by Weasel Zippers, some one just got their butt handed to them. During the Democrat primary, Hillary Clinton’s insurance plan required that purchase insurance, Obama’s did not. Since the passage of Obamacare, the president has been singing a different tune and defending the government forcing Americans to purchase a product and claiming regulation authority for inactivity. However,

During the presidential campaign, one key difference between Mr. Obama and his chief opponent, then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, was that Mrs. Clinton‘s plan required all Americans to purchase insurance and Mr. Obama‘s did not.

Congress eventually included the individual mandate in the bill it passed, and Mr. Obama signed that into law in March. Since then, he and his administration have defended its constitutionality, arguing the mandate is the linchpin that brings in more customers to insurance companies, which in turn allows those companies to expand the availability and lower the cost of coverage.

However, Judge Vinson did not just strike down the federal mandate, he struck down the entire health care law, Obama’s crown jewel, as unconstitutional.  Judge Vinson concluded that the federal mandate insurance requirement was so “inextricably bound”to other provisions of Obamacare that its unconstitutionality required the invalidation of the entire law. OUCH! What is the LEFT to do, as they are all whine and no legal argument?

But unlike a Virginia judge in December, Judge Roger Vinson of Federal District Court in Pensacola, Fla., concluded that the insurance requirement was so “inextricably bound” to other provisions of the Affordable Care Act that its unconstitutionality required the invalidation of the entire law.

“The act, like a defectively designed watch, needs to be redesigned and reconstructed by the watchmaker,” Judge Vinson wrote.

(“Like” Scared Monkeys on Face Book.) Here is the ruling that Scared Monkeys linked to:

Vinson Ruling

This ruling may be used almost as is to go to the Supreme Court. It is also a study in original intent as it references many cases from and including the debate on this clause in the Federalist Papers. As such, Constitutional law professors are scrambling to incorporate this in some manner into their class routines. Greta Van Susteren interviewed new Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and made the point that this should go straight to the Court in about 60-days, max. Great great point!

What should be of note is that the Judge used Obama’s own words against his own health-care plan. The Washington Times notes in their story, “Judge rules against health law, cites Obama’s words,” this:

In ruling against President Obama‘s health care law, federal Judge Roger Vinson used Mr. Obama‘s own position from the 2008 campaign against him, when the then-Illinois senator argued there were other ways to achieve reform short of requiring every American to purchase insurance.

“I note that in 2008, then-Senator Obama supported a health care reform proposal that did not include an individual mandate because he was at that time strongly opposed to the idea, stating that, ‘If a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house,’” Judge Vinson wrote in a footnote toward the end of his 78-page ruling Monday.

Judge Vinson, a federal judge in the northern district of Florida, struck down the entire health care law as unconstitutional on Monday, though he is allowing the Obama administration to continue to implement and enforce it while the government appeals his ruling.

The footnote was attached to the most critical part of Judge Vinson‘s ruling, in which he said the “principal dispute” in the case was not whether Congress has the power to tackle health care, but rather whether it has the power to compel individual citizens to purchase insurance.

Judge Vinson cited Mr. Obama‘s campaign words from an interview with CNN to show that there are other options that could pass constitutional muster including then-candidate Obama‘s plan.

During the presidential campaign, one key difference between Mr. Obama and his chief opponent, then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, was that Mrs. Clinton‘s plan required all Americans to purchase insurance and Mr. Obama‘s did not.

Congress eventually included the individual mandate in the bill it passed, and Mr. Obama signed that into law in March. Since then, he and his administration have defended its constitutionality, arguing the mandate is the linchpin that brings in more customers to insurance companies, which in turn allows those companies to expand the availability and lower the cost of coverage.

Much of Judge Vinson‘s ruling was a discussion of how the Founding Fathers, including James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, saw the limits on congressional power. Judge Vinson hypothesized that, under the Obama administration‘s legal theory, the government could mandate that all citizens eat broccoli. (emphasis added)

…(read more)…

Great Stuff!!

Climate Elitism

Published by Papa Giorgio

In a Washington Times story about Climate Change (formerly known as Global Warming) they point to the heavy handed tactic (scientism) used by this large machine to push an agenda without science.

….In the current issue of the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Law and Management, Australian researchers evaluated the community of so-called climate scientists and found them to be “antagonistic toward the disclosure of information.” Professor John Abbot of Central Queensland University, a chemist and lawyer, and biologist Jennifer Marohasy studied the response of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (CRU) and the Met Office – Britain‘s national weather service – to various information requests. The most noteworthy of these was United Kingdom resident David Holland‘s demand for the raw data underlying the infamous “hockey stick” graph that was published in the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment reports. This chart was the centerpiece of the claim that the 20th century was the hottest in a thousand years. The stir that Mr. Holland‘s request triggered among the scientists who worked on the report was captured in the Climategate e-mails.

“If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone,” CRU scientist Phil Jones wrote in a February 2005 e-mail. “We think we’ve found a way around this.” So much for transparency.

Under the British Freedom of Information law, like the similar U.S. statute, information created at the public expense must – with limited exceptions – be made available to the public that paid for it. At first, the Met Office answered Mr. Holland‘s request for data regarding a relatively uncontroversial chapter in the IPCC report. When he asked them for similar details regarding the hockey stick, the Met Office got around the law by claiming the data were “personal information” generated in the free time of the scientists involved. When this dodge failed to hold up, the Met Office began claiming that the records had been deleted.

“Of concern is evidence of a predisposition towards uncooperativeness on the part of the Met Office, which also used spurious claims of deleted correspondence and personal information in attempts to block the release of information,” Mr. Abbot and Ms. Marohasy wrote. The attitude isn’t limited to Britain. The Washington Times asked the White House Council on Environmental Quality for its oldest pending FOIA requests. Among the top five was an August 26 letter from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce seeking documents related to its work on climate-change legislation and the Environmental Protection Agency’s so-called greenhouse gas ruling.

None of these simple requests should have been denied or delayed. Many of those involved in purported climate science seem more preoccupied with advancing a leftist, anti-business legislative agenda than respecting the integrity of the scientific method. It’s obvious why. Their cataclysmic scare stories are unable to withstand scrutiny. By deleting e-mails and using tricks to hide the inconvenient decline in global temperatures, the climate alarmists prove to be not men of science, but ordinary frauds.

…(read more)…

Often times, this is the same attitude of elitism that Intelligent Design theorists deal with. We just see it in action imploding on itself… something that always happens when you elitise a way of thinking.