Saturday, September 17, 2011

Another goodie in American Jobs Act – job-seekers can sue companies if they claim to have been discriminated against due to employment status

Not only is the American Jobs Act aka the Son of Stimulus bill a payoff to union thugs and slobs, but it’s also a payoff to trial lawyers. According to The Hill, Obama’s porkulus bill has a section called “Prohibition of Discrimination in Employment on the Basis of an Individual’s Status as Unemployed.” This section would make it “illegal” for employers to not hire someone purely on “job status.” It would also allow those who claim to have been discriminated against to sue the company and seek damages. This should do wonders for company to run out and interview people for jobs don’t you think?


It would also allow aggrieved job-seekers to seek damages if they have been discriminated against. This provision in particular prompted Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) to argue that Obama’s proposal is aimed at creating a new, special class of people who can sue companies.

“So if you’re unemployed, and you go to apply for a job and you’re not hired for that job, see a lawyer,” Gohmert said on the House floor. “You might be able to file a claim because you got discriminated against because you’re unemployed.”

FDA Scolds Big Corn For "Corn Sugar" Ads & Websites

By Chris Morran on September 16, 2011 4:51 PM

ain't life sweet?

For more than a year, the folks at the Corn Refiners Association have been making a very public push to rebrand the controversial but widely used high fructose corn syrup as "corn sugar," telling consumers that "sugar is sugar." But newly uncovered correspondence between the Food and Drug Administration and Big Corn show that regulators aren't exactly thrilled about the new name.

The Associated Press has seen a letter sent from an FDA director to the Corn Refiners Association in July. In which the agency writes, "We request that you re-examine your websites and modify statements that use the term 'corn sugar' as a synonym for (high fructose corn syrup)."

But that was July, and yet CornSugar.com still operates because the FDA can't stop an ad campaign that only seeks to promote an entire industry. However, if someone were to change HFCS to "corn sugar" on an ingredients list before the FDA has signed off on the name change, then the agency has the authority to intervene.

A rep for the Refiners defends the campaign to the AP by saying, "We do not believe that anyone could be confused or believe that the statements regarding 'corn sugar' on the websites refer to anything other than high fructose corn syrup."

Except... the FDA already has something it calls "corn sugar." You might know it as dextrose.

Big Corn had previously attempted to rebrand HFCS as "corn syrup," even though it's not the stuff you buy in the Karo bottle in the baking aisle.

Regarding the "corn syrup" change, which was subsequently dropped in favor of the change to "corn sugar," an FDA deputy commissioner reportedly wrote, "It would be affirmatively misleading to change the name of the ingredient after all this time, especially in light of the controversy surrounding it... If we allow it, we will rightly be mocked both on the substance of the outcome and the process through which it was achieved."

Earlier this year, a group of non-corn sugar companies filed a lawsuit against the Corn Refiners, ADM, Cargill and others over the "corn sugar" ad campaign, calling it "false advertising, pure and simple."

You Can Be Compassionate Without Supporting Big Government

Doug Mataconis · Friday, September 16, 2011

Eugene Robinson has a column out today about the mini-controversy that arose after Monday’s debate when Ron Paul was asked about the fate of an uninsured man needing medical care in a libertarian society:

In Paul’s vision of America, “our neighbors, our friends, our churches” would choose to assume the man’s care — with government bearing no responsibility and playing no role.

(…)

According to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus told the Pharisees that God commands us to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” There is no asterisk making this obligation null and void if circumstances require its fulfillment via government.

Of course, there is no addition to Christ’s statement along the lines of “therefore, thy must support massive government spending programs,” either. Being compassionate, loving thy neighbor, and providing assistance to people in need through no fault of their own are all good things about which there is, I would submit very little disagreement. The fact that Americans are among the most charitable persons on the planet, not only on behalf of people in need within their own borders, but also victims of tragedy and circumstances in other parts of the world. The mid-80s Ethiopian famine, the 2004 Indonesian tsunami, last year’s earthquake in Haiti, and this year’s earthquake in Japan were all followed by examples of private charity by American citizens toward people that they’d never met. It’s an admirable thing to say the least.

Robinson, though, doesn’t see it that way. For him, the only compassion that matters, is the “compassion” that comes when government decides to take Peters money and give it to Paul:

Government is more than a machine for collecting and spending money, more than an instrument of war, a book of laws or a shield to guarantee and protect individual rights. Government is also an expression of our collective values and aspirations. There’s a reason the Constitution begins “We the people . . .” rather than “We the unconnected individuals who couldn’t care less about one another . . . .”

I believe the Republican candidates’ pinched, crabby view of government’s nature and role is immoral. I believe the fact that poverty has risen sharply over the past decade — as shown by new census data — while the richest Americans have seen their incomes soar is unacceptable. I believe that writing off whole classes of citizens — the long-term unemployed whose skills are becoming out of date, thousands of former offenders who have paid their debt to society, millions of low-income youth ill-served by inadequate schools — is unconscionable.

Perhaps there are situations where only government action can address a situation. In this country, we’ve more or less got a social compact that accepts the existence of a basic safety net for the indigent that enjoys wide popular support. However, Robinson wants to go further than that, his basic argument that the only charity that matters is government “charity” and that opposing government action to “help” the poor is equivalent to hoping that they die. This is, with all due respect to Robinson, an utterly ridiculous example of the kind of close-minded thinking one sees far too often from political pundits. Agreeing that the poor should be helped is where the compassion comes in. Disagreeing about how that should be done does not make one uncompassionate, and it’s both insulting and stupid for Robinson to argue otherwise. The fact that someone opposes the latest government program that will supposedly help the poor, leaving out the fact that there is a long history of such programs not helping the poor at all, does not make that person uncompassionate. Finally, bringing Christ into the mix is simply absurd, because there’s not a word in the New Testament that tells us how the poor are to be helped, or that it must come from the state. Bringing up the words of Matthew was little more than Robinson’s cheap attempt to insinuate that anyone who disagrees with him isn’t really a Christian.

Don Boudreaux puts it exactly right:

Reasonable people can disagree over whether or not voluntary charity would be sufficient. It’s a mistake, however, to classify coerced ‘giving’ as “compassion,” and downright bizarre to accuse those of us who would rely more upon genuine compassion – evidenced by people giving from the goodness of their hearts rather than from a desire to avoid imprisonment – as endorsing a society without compassion.

Paul Krugman is also out with a column about this today, and his take on the matters is, no surprisingly, similar to Robinson’s:

In the past, conservatives accepted the need for a government-provided safety net on humanitarian grounds. Don’t take it from me, take it from Friedrich Hayek, the conservative intellectual hero, who specifically declared in “The Road to Serfdom” his support for “a comprehensive system of social insurance” to protect citizens against “the common hazards of life,” and singled out health in particular.

Given the agreed-upon desirability of protecting citizens against the worst, the question then became one of costs and benefits — and health care was one of those areas where even conservatives used to be willing to accept government intervention in the name of compassion, given the clear evidence that covering the uninsured would not, in fact, cost very much money. As many observers have pointed out, the Obama health care plan was largely based on past Republican plans, and is virtually identical to Mitt Romney’s health reform in Massachusetts.

Now, however, compassion is out of fashion — indeed, lack of compassion has become a matter of principle, at least among the G.O.P.’s base.

And what this means is that modern conservatism is actually a deeply radical movement, one that is hostile to the kind of society we’ve had for the past three generations — that is, a society that, acting through the government, tries to mitigate some of the “common hazards of life” through such programs as Social Security, unemployment insurance, Medicare and Medicaid.

I don’t consider myself a conservative, so Krugman’s attacks on the movement mean little to me. However, it’s worth noting that Krugman makes the same mistake in assuming that Ron Paul is a conservative when it’s fairly obvious that his philosophy is firmly rooted in libertarianism.

In any event, Krugman’s error is as egregious as Robinson’s, and just as unsurprising. Compassion for the poor and needy does not require one to support government programs that are supposed to help them. In fact, to the extent that those programs have been shown to actually harm the poor more than it hurts them, such as the devastating critique of 70s-era welfare programs laid out by Charles Murray in his groundbreaking book Losing Ground then I would submit that compassion requires one to oppose those programs and advocate for their repeal or reform. There is no compassion, I would submit, in creating generation after generation of dependency on government. Leaving aside the cost of such policies, the dependency itself has a demonstrable negative impact on the people it is supposed to help, primarily because it’s not the state that human beings were ever meant to live in.

Why, then, can’t Robinson and Krugman see that compassion exists even if one doesn’t advocate and support more and more government. The answer, I think, lies in the fact that what we’re really talking about here is a fundamental divide in American politics:

One of the biggest challenges of the Left-Right debate about the proper size and scope of government is that we are, in some fundamental sense, not speaking the same language as the Left — and because Big Government basically won the 20th century, the language of the Left has been internalized to a certain extent by all of us. In a world where the reflexive response is to equate government with society, folks may quite literally lack the vocabulary to understand conservative principles.

From my perspective, I would submit that we’re dealing with something that’s more complicated than a divide between left and right, conservative and liberal. There are nuances in between these two philosophies that encompass entire schools of thought, which makes the entire “left/right divide” talk far too simplistic. However, I think it’s fairly true that the left has come to view compassion as something that can only really be exercised collectively through the government, and that anyone who doesn’t support those policies lacks compassion. It’s a false dichotomy, and it leads to the kind of demonization that Robinson and Krugman have displayed today.

John Brennan National Security Speech at Harvard Law School

Kenneth Anderson • September 16, 2011 10:52 pm

A few hours ago at a conference on national security sponsored by Harvard Law School and the Brookings Institution (as part of a new partnership on law and security issues), the White House’s senior counterterrorism official, John Brennan, gave what Marty Lederman calls the “most comprehensive single statement of the Obama Administration’s policies and practices with respect to al Qaeda and other terrorist threats.” I agree. Marty posts the speech at Opinio Juris, highlighting the most important parts. It is worth reading, and you’ll likely hear about it in the leading papers tomorrow. Of particular interest to me was his statement on the nature of the conflict with Al Qaeda, in part given what I’ve written in the past few months about “how we came to debate a legal geography of war”:

Nature and geographic scope of the conflict

First, our definition of the conflict. As the President has said many times, we are at war with al-Qa’ida. In an indisputable act of aggression, al-Qa’ida attacked our nation and killed nearly 3,000 innocent people. And as we were reminded just last weekend, al-Qa’ida seeks to attack us again.

Our ongoing armed conflict with al-Qa’ida stems from our right—recognized under international law—to self defense.

An area in which there is some disagreement is the geographic scope of the conflict. The United States does not view our authority to use military force against al-Qa’ida as being restricted solely to “hot” battlefields like Afghanistan. Because we are engaged in an armed conflict with al-Qa’ida, the United States takes the legal position that —in accordance with international law—we have the authority to take action against al-Qa’ida and its associated forces without doing a separate self-defense analysis each time.

And as President Obama has stated on numerous occasions, we reserve the right to take unilateral action if or when other governments are unwilling or unable to take the necessary actions themselves.

That does not mean we can use military force whenever we want, wherever we want. International legal principles, including respect for a state’s sovereignty and the laws of war, impose important constraints on our ability to act unilaterally—and on the way in which we can use force—in foreign territories.

Others in the international community—including some of our closest allies and partners—take a different view of the geographic scope of the conflict, limiting it only to the “hot” battlefields. As such, they argue that, outside of these two active theatres, the United States can only act in self-defense against al-Qa’ida when they are planning, engaging in, or threatening an armed attack against U.S. interests if it amounts to an “imminent” threat.

In practice, the U.S. approach to targeting in the conflict with al-Qa’ida is far more aligned with our allies’ approach than many assume. This Administration’s counterterrorism efforts outside of Afghanistan and Iraq are focused on those individuals who are a threat to the United States, whose removal would cause a significant – even if only temporary – disruption of the plans and capabilities of al-Qa’ida and its associated forces. Practically speaking, then, the question turns principally on how you define “imminence.”

We are finding increasing recognition in the international community that a more flexible understanding of “imminence” may be appropriate when dealing with terrorist groups, in part because threats posed by non-state actors do not present themselves in the ways that evidenced imminence in more traditional conflicts. After all, al-Qa’ida does not follow a traditional command structure, wear uniforms, carry its arms openly, or mass its troops at the borders of the nations it attacks. Nonetheless, it possesses the demonstrated capability to strike with little notice and cause significant civilian or military casualties.

Over time, an increasing number of our international counterterrorism partners have begun to recognize that the traditional conception of what constitutes an “imminent” attack should be broadened in light of the modern-day capabilities, techniques, and technological innovations of terrorist organizations.

The convergence of our legal views with those of our international partners matters. The effectiveness of our counterterrorism activities depends on the assistance and cooperation of our allies—who, in ways public and private, take great risks to aid us in this fight. But their participation must be consistent with their laws, including their interpretation of international law.

Again, we will never abdicate the security of the United States to a foreign country or refrain from taking action when appropriate. But we cannot ignore the reality that cooperative counterterrorism activities are a key to our national defense. The more our views and our allies’ views on these questions converge, without constraining our flexibility, the safer we will be as a country.

We Are All Jews Now!

Democrat Waxman: Greedy Jews Vote Republican Because They Want to Protect Their Wealth

Tell us how you really feel, Henry.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CCA) told reporters that Jews vote Republican because they are greedy and want to keep their wealth.
It’s a good thing he’s a democrat.
The Hill reported, via RedState:

“I think Jewish voters will be Democratic and be for Obama in 2012, especially if you get a Republican candidate like [Texas] Gov. [Rick] Perry,” he said. “But there’s no question the Jewish community is much more bipartisan than it has been in previous years. There are Jews who are trending toward the Republican Party, some of it because of their misunderstanding of Obama’s policies in the Middle East, and some of it, quite frankly, for economic reasons. They feel they want to protect their wealth, which is why a lot of well-off voters vote for Republicans.”

They’re really taking that defeat well, huh?

We the People: A Constitutional Republic, Not a Democracy

Posted by Daniel Horowitz
Friday, September 16th at 7:57AM EDT


Today, we celebrate the 224th anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution (September 17 falls out over the weekend this year). On this day, it is imperative that we reflect on the importance of our constitution and celebrate the roots of our founding. As our nation comes under attack from the forces of tyranny within, we must reaffirm our commitment to the ideals of our founders and founding documents.

Most people often mistakenly refer to our nation as the greatest democracy on earth. They are mistaken because we are not an absolute democracy; we are a constitutional republic. That is what makes our nation great, for if we were merely a democracy, we would be anything but great. And to the extent that we no longer function as a constitutional republic, that greatness is rapidly ebbing away.

Why did we need a constitution? Why are popular elections not a sufficient means of preserving liberty?


A pure unbridled democracy is a political system in which the majority enjoys absolute power by means of democratic elections. In an unvarnished democracy, unrestrained by a constitution, the majority can vote to impose tyranny on themselves and the minority opposition. They can vote to elect those who will infringe upon our inalienable God-given rights. Thomas Jefferson referred to this as elected despotism in Notes on the State of Virginia (also cited in Federalist 48 by Madison):

An ELECTIVE DESPOTISM was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.

Thus, a constitution that limited and divided the power of government was necessary to preclude elected officials from imposing tyranny on the people. This is why they adopted a constitution with limited enumerated power, divided and checked across several branches and levels.

Sadly, we are currently living through the paramount form of elected despotism that our founders so presciently sought to forestall. At some point during the progressive era of the early 1900′s, elected officials began to deviate from the constitution in a dramatic fashion. At present, we find all of our founding principles under assault. Many prominent political leaders in both parties seek to destroy our free markets, infringe upon our personal liberties, and abrogate our social values. Unfortunately, they have accrued a high level of success. Moreover, they have prosecuted this revolution without firing a shot. Instead, they have used the soft edge of the sword of elected despotism.

How have the elected officials been so successful in radically voiding our constitutional republic? The answer is simple. They have cynically manipulated their electoral mandate to create enough dependency for them to enjoy perennial power through democratically held elections.

We have reached the point at which almost every American is involuntarily subservient to the federal government for his or her retirement security and healthcare. Over 45 million people, and one in four children, rely upon government for food stamps. By 2014, under the new Obamacare mandates, an estimated 79 million Americans will be enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP. This circuitous cycle of dependency, perennial electoral power, and breach of constitutional restraints has transformed our nation from a constitutional republic to a majority-rule democracy.

This is the same majority-rule democracy that is being foisted upon the Middle East in the Arab Spring. Democratic elections were held in Gaza and Lebanon, and they elected tyranny. They will be held in Egypt, and they will undoubtedly do the same. In the Middle East, elected despotism will manifest itself in Islamic tyranny, while in America, it has fostered redistributive socialism. The fact that Arab nations are deposing of their dictators is meaningless. As Jefferson observed in Notes on the State of Virginia, “it will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one. 173 despots would surely be as oppressive as one.”

This form of tyranny can only succeed beyond the confines of a constitution that is preserved with vigilance – a constitution that limits the power of government and preserves our rights as granted by God. As founder John Witherspoon noted, “pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state – it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage.”

Unfortunately, even many political leaders who purport to abide by the constitution are misinterpreting the Tenth Amendment to promote tyranny on a state-level, if not on a national level. In many respects, the hard core blue states exercise even more officious nanny-state power than the federal government. Dependency is so rampant among a broad section of some of these states that nobody but those who purvey socialism can assume power. These states exemplify the worst fears of elected despotism that Jefferson decried in his writings. In fact, he was specifically addressing unbridled power at a state-level in his book.

Article 4 section 4 of the Constitution prescribes that “the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government.” It is incumbent upon us to restore our constitution as the supreme law of the land, so that our God-given rights are not revoked by democracy.

Happy Constitution Day!

Tech at Night: Regrouping after patent, Net Neutrality, and competition losses

Posted by Neil Stevens
Saturday, September 17th at 2:30AM EDT

We’ve lost some battles lately. That’s what happens when we let a radical Democrat become President. We let Patrick Leahy’s America Invents Act pass, imposing on America a Euro-style patent system that rewards lawyering, not being the first to invent something. We let the FCC pass an illegal Net Neutrality power grab, and that will have to go to court soon.

We’re even seeing some nominally Republican-run states get on big government bandwagon against AT&T, sadly joining in the effort by the Obama administration and Sprint Nextel to hinder competition and pad Sprint’s bottom line. What are Ohio and Pennsylvania doing there? Come on.

But at least we’re on track to get meaningful 4G competition. Some question the firm’s ties with the Obama administration, but I welcome progress toward LightSquared launching its network. Unlike Obama and Holder, trying to prop up Sprint, I actually want competition and lower prices.


Remember Google and defenders claiming it only patents things defensively? Even as it seeks to acquire Motorola Mobility, a firm engaged in offensive patent suits against Apple? Well, Google just bought over a thousand patents from IBM. Hmm.

Wikileaks is all about principle, and will stand up for the little guy as long as you’re not African.

You have to love committed ideologues of radical, extremist agendas like the ‘media reform’ crowd. They see vast conspiracies behind the refusal of some to champion Net Neutrality. Maybe if they’d pick agendas that weren’t so out of the mainstream, so that they wouldn’t have to rely on well-funded astroturf, maybe people would actually speak out. But George Soros’s wallet doesn’t need spokespeople.

BGR reads this “smartphone shipments” chart and sees the decline of RIM. I look at it and see why Apple is going after Samsung’s infringement of iPhone and iPad so hard: Samsung’s catching up.

Newsbusted Exclusive: Obama To Switch US Currency Away From Dollar

Friday, September 16, 2011
Newsbusted Exclusive: Obama To Switch US Currency Away From Dollar

First Nixon took us off the gold standard, now Obama is taking us off the dollar. In an exclusive report from Jodi Miller, anchor of Newsbusted we have learned that President Barack Obama plans to get rid of the Dollar as the US Currency, perhaps driven by the rumblings from Russia and the OPEC nations that they plan to use a different currency for international trade. Learn all about this story in today's episode of Newsbusted, the twice weekly program from Newsbusters.org.

Other reports included in today's edition include why some economists believe the US is not ready for a double dip recession, Mitt Romney's record of job creation, Warren Buffett clarifies his statement about the rich paying more taxes, the attempt by the Chinese Government to buy the LA Dodgers and much, much more.

Please don't let yourself miss this special episode of Newsbusted. Because if you do, President Obama will demand that you move your backyard fence back to its pre-1967 lines.

Oh and if you cant see the video below click here.

Comprehensive List of All 14 Tax Hikes in Obama's "Stimulus 2.0" Plan

There are fourteen new or higher taxes in President Obama's "Stimulus 2.0" plan he wants Congress to pass. Permanent tax hikes for new spending.

President Obama has asked Congress to pass his “American Jobs Act,” a bill which is a series of permanent tax increases funding temporary tax relief and new spending programs. The overall act is a net tax increase (score pending). All tax hikes are scheduled to take effect in 2013. Below is a comprehensive list of the 14 tax hikes in the bill (in order of appearance in Stimulus 2.0):

Spectrum Tax (Sec. 278): A new $4.8 billion hidden tax on wireless consumers. Levied on users of licensed spectrum, the tax will hit consumers who use mobile phones, tablets, and other wireless devices. Worst of all, the Federal Communications Commission could raise or punitively-target this Spectrum Tax at whim from this $4.8 billion floor.

28% Limit on Itemized Deductions and Employer-Provided Health Insurance (Sec. 401). Under the Stimulus 2.0 tax hike, no matter what tax bracket you fall in, you can only benefit from deductions as if you are in the 28 percent bracket or less. This denies taxpayers in the top two brackets the full deduction for mortgage interest, charitable contributions, and state taxes that other taxpayers can claim. In addition, this tax increase limits most non-itemized deductions and exclusions for these taxpayers, in particular those for employer-provided health insurance, health savings accounts (HSAs) and self-employed health insurance premiums. Moving expenses and the foreign earned income exclusion would also be limited. For taxpayers in 2013’s top bracket of 39.6 percent, this would chop 30 percent of the value of all these exclusions and deductions.

“Carried Interest” (Sec. 411). Under current law, capital gains earned by managers of investing partnerships are taxed (properly) as capital gains. This bill would tax them instead as ordinary income, raising their tax rate from 15 percent today to 39.6 percent in 2013.

Airplane Tax Hike (Sec. 421). Businesses should be able to expense all equipment in the year of purchase (President Obama would seem to agree, since he called for an extension of 100% “bonus depreciation” which does precisely that). However, Stimulus 2.0 inconsistently also calls for a longer “depreciation” (slow deduction over time) of one business expense—airplane purchases. The bill calls for the depreciable life of aircraft (not just “corporate jets”) to be extended from 7 to 12 years. This is a tax hike that will kill jobs, just like the 1990 yacht tax killed that industry a generation ago.

Intangible Drilling Costs (Sec. 431).
Current law allows energy companies to deduct most (only 70% of these costs for the larger companies) of the costs associated with drilling. All expenses should be deductible in the year they are incurred. Stimulus 2.0 would repeal this and make companies deduct the costs very slowly over fifteen years.

Tertiary Injectants (Sec. 432). Current law allows energy companies to deduct the cost of injecting materials into older energy reservoirs in order to keep them productive. This is the proper tax treatment of this cost. Stimulus 2.0 would replace this very ordinary deduction with precisely nothing. Energy companies would simply have to eat the cost with after-tax dollars.

Percentage Depletion (Sec. 433). This refers to a provision of law that allows taxpayers to recover their lease investment in a mineral interest through a percentage of gross income from a well. Stimulus 2.0 would repeal this provision ONLY for investments in oil and gas wells. Interestingly, the largest oil companies don’t benefit from this today, so this tax increase is targeted only at smaller energy companies and their investors.

Manufacturer Tax Deduction (aka “Section 199”) (Sec. 434).
All employers are today allowed to deduct up to 9% of the cost of domestic manufacturing—all employers, that is, except energy companies, who can only deduct 6% of such costs. Stimulus 2.0 would deny this deduction entirely to energy companies, singling them out by picking winners and losers in the tax code.

Oil and Gas Passive Losses (Sec. 435). In general, “passive” (trade or business activities without active participation) losses are not allowed to be claimed by taxpayers. There is an exception for investment in oil and gas extraction. Stimulus 2.0 repeals this exception, which will tend to hit small energy companies and their investors the hardest.

Geological and Geophysical Costs (Sec. 436). Currently, small energy companies can deduct the costs of exploring for new sources of energy over two years (again, the proper treatment should be to expense in the first year). Stimulus 2.0 would stretch this period to seven years. This only affects small, independent energy employers as larger companies are ineligible for the two-year treatment under current law.

Enhanced Oil Recovery Credit (Sec. 437). This credit, intended to spur oil production even when prices are low, can only be claimed when oil is less than $42 per barrel. Oil is currently about $87 per barrel, so this credit is nowhere near claim-able. Nonetheless, Stimulus 2.0 repeals the credit just to raise taxes while scoring cheap points against energy employers.

Marginal Well Production Credit (Sec. 438). This credit is the same as the Enhanced Oil Recovery Credit in Sec. 437, but it is only use-able when oil prices drop to $27 per barrel. Stimulus 2.0 repeals this credit for similar reasons.

Dual Capacity Rules (Sec. 441). The U.S. is one of the only nations which attempts to tax on a “worldwide” basis—even on income which has already faced income taxation in other countries. When combined with the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world, “worldwide” taxation is an uncompetitive jobs killer. In order to avoid international double taxation, employers can claim a tax credit for income taxes paid overseas. Stimulus 2.0 makes it more difficult for energy companies to claim this tax credit, exposing their worldwide income to international double taxation—potentially shipping jobs overseas to avoid paying taxes twice.

Dual Capacity Discrimination Against Oil and Gas Employers (Sec. 442). In addition to the dual capacity rule repeal of Sec. 441, this provision of Stimulus 2.0 makes it even more difficult for oil and gas employers to avoid double taxation than it does for all other taxpayers to avoid double taxation. It adds insult to the injury of dual capacity rule repeal.

PDF Version

Fraud Watch – Twitter Censors Opposition to Obama from ‘Trending’ Reports: #AttackWatch

Twitter Hides #AttackWatch Trending – PROOF
by Doo Doo Econ
Doo Doo Economics Blog


Sep 16th, 2011 by TMH
Gulag Bound

If for some sane reason, you don’t know what ”AttackWatch” is all about, we humbly submit an entry called, at the time of this update, “Fine! Updated with Hitler, The #AttackWatch!! Commercial + Black & Red Reruns.”

While laughing at President Obama’s AttackWatch.com epoch fail on Twitter via the hash tag #attackwatch the site suddenly crashed for about an hour. Twitter is not known for reliability, but what followed deserves a massive outcry.

When the site returned, #attackwatch was hidden from the trending topics. Twitter gurus @GulagBound and @ArlenWilliams helped piece together the evidence.

At the time of authoring the following were trending on Twitter:


Below are the current (constantly updating) statistics for worldwide tweets (click to enlarge):

Stats for #Glen Rice

Stats for #fastfoodaddiction


Stats for #womenlawviolation


It is clear that Twitter has affected their trending report in order to protect the Orwellian administration. Twitter is protecting a government "thought crime" tool designed to divide the American people. By protecting this tool Twitter has gone too far. Twitter is no better than Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa calling Americans SOBs. Obama has jumped the shark with his attack campaign and Twitter has followed up with a shark jump of their own.

Gulag Note - The censoring of such data with political effect is gravely serious business in an American republic now very reliant upon the Internet and social media for access to knowledge with freedom of speech. This instance follows numerous prior complaints from conservatives, about Twitter’s selective and apparently politically biased display of trending topics. It would be a shame for the only solution to become increased government regulation.

Along with Trendistic.com, a tool set used to monitor trending words and phrases in Twitter is Hashtag.org. For learning more about the use of hashtags in Twitter, we suggest Google: track hashtags. Tallulah Star of GulagBound.com contributed to this report. - AW (i.e., Arlen Williams, not Attack Watch)

Doo Doo Econ is an entrepreneur interested in science, politics, technology, and economics.

He holds a B.S. in Business Finance, specializing in Investments from Indiana University and is a talented professional computer scientist. His small consulting company in San Diego focuses on small business development and growth through innovation and technology.

D.D.E. has created, designed and programmed some of the most profitable and innovative websites of the last two decades. Ultimately, he is an inventor who dedicates my life to the pursuit of truth and value.

Lib Activist Physically Assaults GOP Lawmaker, Media Silent

16 Sep 201112:21 pm Warner Todd Huston

A known liberal activist that has for months been stalking several Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin, verbally abusing them, has finally crossed the line into a physical attack. So… where is the Old Media to chronicle this assault? Sadly, no where to be seen.

On Sept. 14 left-wing activist Miles Kirstan entered The Inn at 22 S. Carroll Street in Madison, Wisconsin, began to harass some GOP lawmakers patronizing the establishment, and ultimately attacked them, throwing a mug of beer on them.

The Madison Police Department confirmed to the MacIver Institute that the incident occurred and the group found that Republican State Rep. Robin Voss (Burlington) was the main target. Reps. John Nygren (Marinette) and Scott Suder (Abbotsford) were also a victim of the attack.

Kirstan is a well-known face among the extremists that have been railing against the Walker administration over the budget cuts and other legislative efforts.

He's well enough known that some halfwitted groupies have excitedly delivered their hosannas to him online.

For instance, one young woman named Rachel gushed on tumblr: "I personally know the guy with the microphone in this picture. His name is Miles Kristan and he is a badass motherf**ker. I feel awesome just knowing him."

If I had fans like that I'd be ashamed.

Of course, Kirstan seems to have no shame, so I doubt he's much worried about misleading impressionable young girls. He's been arrested several times during his several years-long campaign as an extremist and activist. Earlier this month, for instance, Kirstan was led away by police from Representative Paul Ryan's townhall. He was also arrested in August for a driving infraction. Last year he was arrested for trying to disrupt a speech being given by JEB Bush.

Kirstan is not just a Walker-hater, though,. He is also an anti-war activist. It isn't surprising that he's dropped his anti-war business to become a member of the anti-walker brigade. Few anti-war activists are much interested in protesting wars during Obama's presidency, after all. I mean, he has to have something to do while he waits for a Republican to take the White House, ya know?

This stepping up of Kirstan’s violence, though, is not surprising. It shows the increasing desperation of the left in Wisconsin. They went from thinking they had a sure-win issue to one by one losing every effort to destroy Gov. Walker and his party. To such extremists, it is only natural for physical violence to be the next steppingstone in their pathology.

Finally, one has to wonder why this didn't become a national story? If it was a Tea Party guy throwing a mug of beer at a Democrat lawmaker -- no matter when the incident might happen -- the news would have this guys, his family, his co workers, his grade school friends, even faux psychologists, talking about the incident for a week solid.

Yet, this uncivil, left-wing troublemaker is ignored.

Gee. Don't you wonder why that is?

Gunwalker Linked to Three More Murders

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice attempts to narrow the definition of a Gunwalker gun.

September 15, 2011 - 12:00 am - by Bob Owens

CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson has revealed a recent document submitted by the Department of Justice to congressional investigators. The document shows that guns linked to Operation Fast and Furious are responsible for at least three more murders in addition to the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry:

Weapons linked to ATF’s controversial “Fast and Furious” operation have been tied to at least eight violent crimes in Mexico including three murders, four kidnappings and an attempted homicide.

According to a letter from U.S. Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), the disclosed incidents may be only a partial list of violent crimes linked to Fast and Furious weapons because “ATF has not conducted a comprehensive independent investigation.”

The letter is specifically worded, tailored to answer congressional questions about a narrow range of “walked” firearms using a very specific definition of what constitutes an Operation Fast and Furious gun:

For the purposes of responding to this question, we consider a firearm to be associated with Operation Fast and Furious if it was purchased by an individual who is a target of that investigation. It is important to note that many of the purchases described below took place before ATF opened the case that became know as Operation Fast and Furious on November 16, 2009; before the purchaser had been identified as a target of the investigation; or without the ATF’s knowledge at the time that a firearm was purchased.

Some amazing caveats that the Department of Justice has chosen to ignore and not count:
Weapons that were purchased by both targeted and untargeted straw purchasers if the ATF was not aware of the purchase in real-time as the buy occurred;
If the straw purchaser was not on a pre-approved and narrow (roughly 20 suspects) list of acceptable targets (some of whom were FBI informants who bought weapons and armed the cartels using taxpayer dollars);
Any suspect or weapon that was not officially part of Operation Fast and Furious before its “official” Nov. 16, 2009, launch date;
Any suspect or weapon from other suspected gunwalking programs alleged to originate from Houston, Dallas, Tampa, or the Midwest;
Related scandals involving some of the same co-conspirators, such as the grenade-walking debacle.

This extremely narrow — and self-serving — definition provided by the Department of Justice notably excludes the third rifle (and possible murder weapon) recovered at the scene of Agent Brian Terry’s death. That gun, while “walked” and used by the cartels in a violent crime, was purchased in an unnamed Texas gun-walking operation. Further, the DOJ — and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in particular — tried to make that SKS carbine “disappear.”

The weapons used to ambush ICE agents Jaime Zapata and Victor Avila were also not included in the DOJ’s figure, as these guns were also “walked” from Texas.

For the first time, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano officially denied having any knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious as it was being run. She testified under oath before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Napolitano made her statement while being grilled by Senator John McCain (R-AZ).

While plausible, Napolitano’s claimed ignorance of the operation is highly suspect. She served as both Arizona attorney general and governor before she joined the Obama administration, and her long-time chief of staff, Dennis Burke, ran Operation Fast and Furious as the U.S attorney for Arizona — a post she helped him acquire. She had a personal stake in operations in her home state, and a professional obligation as the executive in charge of Homeland Security, one of the agencies involved in the operation.

Another senator, John Cornyn (R-TX), asked the Department of Justice weeks ago if there were any gun-walking operations like Operation Fast and Furious running in his home state of Texas. To date, the Department of Justice has not answered. Rep. Gus Bilirakis and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida have similarly asked DOJ about the 1,000 guns allegedly run to drug gangs out of Operation Castaway in Tampa, and have also met a stonewall of silence.

The Obama administration has launched a series of smears against Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chair of the committee investigating the gunwalking scandal.

Issa was first attacked in an article published by the Washington Post after it had been shopped by the White House to several other news outlets and at least one liberal blog. Those outlets turned the story down because it was not credible.

Later, the New York Times published a front-page hit piece of its own on Issa that was factually wrong on almost every point and may have been plagiarized as well. Issa pushed back forcefully against the White House-orchestrated smears and forced the Times to issue corrections, but the editors refuse to issue a full retraction nor discipline an author.

It now appears the Obama administration is using front groups and radical leftist bloggers to parrot the debunked Times article, their further actions possibly the reason the Times will not issue a full retraction.

Both attempted character assassinations in the media have failed in tarring Issa or derailing this and other congressional oversight investigations — indeed, the revelations of more murders and DOJ semantic games show an investigation that remains on track.

Abbas: We're going to the UN to demand full membership

By REUTERS
09/16/2011 18:34




RAMALLAH - Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on Friday he would demand full membership of the United Nations when he goes the UN General Assembly next week, setting up a diplomatic clash with Israel and the United States.

"We are going to the United Nations to request our legitimate right, obtaining full membership for Palestine in this organization," Abbas said in a televised speech, indicating he would seek a vote on the issue in the UN Security Council.

Child’s Sexual Bill of Rights

If you want to predict the future, look to the past. The “Child’s Sexual Bill of Rights” (PDF) dates back to the 1970s. It was passed out to a sex ed course by a perverted professor named John De Cecco. A note before reading the lowlights below: co is Moonbattese for he/she/him/her; cos means his/hers.

2 CHILD’S RIGHT TO COS OWN PERSON
Each child has the right to privacy for cos own personal thoughts, ideas, dreams and exploration of cos own body without any kind of adult interference, directly or indirectly expressed.

Presumably that includes the right to masturbate whenever and wherever they please.

3 SEX INFORMATION
Every child has the right to accurate sex information and to be protected from sex misinformation as soon as co is able to understand this information in simple terms.

The difference between information and misinformation will of course be determined by our liberal degenerate overlords.

It gets worse — much worse:

6 LEARNING THE ART OF LOVE [i.e., sex]
All children have the right to learn the art of love beginning at any age co is able to understand, just as co is entitled to learn any other art or skill.

7 CHOICE OF A SEX PARTNER
Every child has the right to loving relationships, including sexual, with a parent, sibling or other responsible adult or child and shall be protected and aided in doing so by being provided with contraceptives and aids to prevent venereal disease.

The foul-mouthed but “affable” Professor De Cecco went on to be praised as a “queer pioneer” by the San Francisco Chronicle for his homosexual scholarship.

When they feel they have sufficiently mainstreamed homosexual depravity, it will be time for progressives to focus attention on the next item on their cultural agenda. No child will be safe from it.

Via Dr. Judith Reisman, on a tip from RKae.

Bloomberg: Jobs crisis could spark riots here

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is worried that high U.S. unemployment could lead to the same kind of riots here that have swept through Europe and North Africa.

"You have a lot of kids graduating college, [who] can't find jobs," said Bloomberg, during his weekly radio show on Friday. "That's what happened in Cairo. That's what happened in Madrid. You don't want those kinds of riots here."

That was the mayor's response when asked about the poverty rate, which rose to 15.1% in 2010, its highest level since 1993, according to census data released Tuesday. About 46.2 million people are now living in poverty, 2.6 million more than last year.

"The public is not happy," he said. "The public knows there is something wrong in this country, and there is. The bottom line is that they're upset."

Riots have gripped various countries in European cities, including Athens and London, fueled by young people infuriated by high unemployment and austerity measures, which in some cases has led to looting. High unemployment among youth is also one of the driving forces behind the Arab Spring, as impoverished protestors in North Africa and the Middle East rose up against their heavy-handed governments.

"The damage to a generation that can't find jobs will go on for many, many years," said Bloomberg.

The mayor, an independent, criticized the partisan politics that have stymied progress in Congress, and the inability of Republicans and Democrats to compromise on ways to fix the economy.

"There is no overnight solution," he said."You look at the president's proposals. At least he's got some ideas on the table, whether you like those or not."

"The only way you solve this problems is that everybody pays a little more and everybody gets a little less," he added.

The economy added no jobs in August, according to the Labor Department, for the first time since February, 1945.

The unemployment rate is 9.1%, but many experts say that figure is misleading. They prefer to use the so-called underemployment rate, which includes people who have given up their search for jobs as well as people who want to work full-time but are forced to work part-time.

The underemployment rate is 16.2%.

The Federal Reserve Is Using Your Money To Bail Out European Commercial Banks Once Again

Unelected, Unaccountable, Unrepentant: The Federal Reserve Is Using Your Money To Bail Out European Commercial Banks Once Again

For a moment, imagine that there is a privately-owned organization in the United States that can create U.S. dollars out of thin air whenever it wants and can loan that money to whoever it wants to. Imagine that this organization is able to act with the full power of the U.S. government behind it, but that nobody in the organization is ever elected by the American people, and that for all practical purposes the organization is not accountable to the president or to Congress. Imagine that the organization is able to make trillions of dollars of secret loans to banks, to foreign governments and even to their close friends without ever having to face a comprehensive audit. Does that sound preposterous? Well, such an organization actually exists. It is called the Federal Reserve, and today we found out that once again the Fed is going to be taking huge piles of your money and loaning it to commercial banks in Europe. The Congress cannot overrule this decision. Neither can Barack Obama. Because it has so much power, many refer to the Federal Reserve as "the fourth branch of government", but unlike the other three branches of government, there are basically no significant "checks and balances" on the Federal Reserve. If you don't like the fact that the Federal Reserve is racing in to help big foreign banks survive the European debt crisis that is just too bad. The Federal Reserve pretty much gets to do whatever it wants to do, and the folks over at the Fed simply do not care whether you like that or not.

So what in the world just happened today? The following is how an article on CNBC explained it....

Just ahead of the Wall Street open Thursday, the European Central Bank, along with the U.S. Federal Reserve, Bank of England, Bank of Japan and Swiss National Bank announced they would offer three-month dollar loans to Europe's commercial banks, easing dollar funding constraints.

It must be nice to do whatever you want without having to get the approval of anyone else.

What do you think Barack Obama would give for such power right about now?

The Federal Reserve and other major central banks around the world decided that lending big European banks gigantic piles of dollars would be a good idea, so they are just doing it.

No debate, no votes and no democracy - they just tell us how things are going to be and that is that.

It is a bit ironic that all of this happened on the third anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers. It is almost as if the central bankers of the world are trying to send some sort of a message.

So how much money is going to be loaned out?

Well, according to an article in The Daily Mail, big European banks are going to be able to borrow an "unlimited" amount of money....

The deal announced yesterday means banks will be able to borrow ‘any amount’ of money in three separate auctions in October, November and December. Banks will have to put up collateral, or security, to tap the emergency funds.

Wow - I wish someone would offer to lend me an "unlimited" amount of money.

But of course this really is not going to solve anything in the long run. You can't solve a raging debt problem with more debt.

Yes, it will help the big European banks with their short-term liquidity problems, but it will do nothing to fix the long-term structural problems that are tearing Europe to pieces.

Win Thin, a senior currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman, said essentially the same thing to CNBC today....

"They're taking care of the symptoms, but the underlying illness is still out there. On the margin, it's positive. Until Greece defaults and we clear this whole thing up, they're still treading water"

So, no, the financial problems of Europe have not been solved.

Just think of this latest move as a temporary band-aid.

So why get upset about it?

Well, what all of this shows is just how arrogant the Federal Reserve is.

The Federal Reserve gets to throw around trillions of dollars without any accountability to the American people.

As I have written about previously, the Federal Reserve made $16.1 trillion in secret loans to their friends during the last financial crisis.

This was revealed in a GAO report, and members of Congress such as Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders tried to get people to pay attention to this. The following is a statement about this report that was taken from the official website of Senator Sanders....

"As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world"

So how much of that money went overseas? Well, it turns out that approximately $3.08 trillion of that money was loaned to big banks and major financial institutions in Europe and Asia.

Barack Obama can't lend trillions of dollars to foreign banks.

So why does the Federal Reserve get to do it?

Sadly, most Americans know very little about the Federal Reserve. In the United States today, most Americans graduate from high school without ever learning much of anything about the Fed.

But if you really want to understand what is going on with our economy, it is absolutely critical that you understand the Federal Reserve.

The following are some more reasons why you should be upset about what the Federal Reserve has been doing....

*The Federal Reserve is a perpetual debt machine. Today, the U.S. national debt is 4700 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was created back in 1913.

*The Federal Reserve has recently been actually paying banks not to make loans. Right now banks can park money at the Federal Reserve and make risk-free income without having to make loans to the American people.

*Current Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has a track record of failure that is legendary, and yet George W. Bush and Barack Obama both backed him 100%.

*The Federal Reserve system is designed to create inflation. The truth is that the United States has only had a persistent, ongoing problem with inflation since the Federal Reserve was created back in 1913.

*Since 2008, what the Federal Reserve has been doing to our money supply has been absolutely insane. Eventually this is going to have very serious consequences for us.

*The U.S. government has handed over the task of "centrally planning" our economy to the Federal Reserve. The Fed decides what the target rate of inflation should be, what the target rate of unemployment should be, what interest rates are going to be and what the size of the money supply is going to be. This is quite similar to the "central planning" that goes on in communist nations, but very few people in our government seem upset by this.

*The Federal Reserve picks "winners" and "losers" in the financial system. For example, when the last financial crisis hit, the Fed bent over backwards to help out the big Wall Street banks, but hordes of small banks were left out in the cold.

*As mentioned above, the Federal Reserve has become way, way too powerful. The Fed is able to do a lot of things that the three branches of government are simply not able to do. Fortunately, there are a few of our leaders that are alarmed by this. For example, Ron Paul once told MSNBC that he believes that the Federal Reserve is now more powerful than Congress.....

"The regulations should be on the Federal Reserve. We should have transparency of the Federal Reserve. They can create trillions of dollars to bail out their friends, and we don’t even have any transparency of this. They’re more powerful than the Congress."

As long as we continue to use a debt-based currency that is controlled by a privately-owned central bank, we are going to continue to have permanent inflation and government debt that expands at an exponential pace.

The "central planning" done by the Federal Reserve has created bubble after bubble after bubble. Our dollars is on the verge of dying and our financial system is about to collapse.

The Federal Reserve system simply does not work.

Hopefully we can start sending more politicians to Washington D.C. that will be willing to stand up to the Federal Reserve.

But for now, the Federal Reserve is going to keep running around doing whatever it wants to do whether we like it or not.

Flashback: Obama's Lunch Buddy's Company Given Obamacare Waiver (Olive Garden CEO)

4:45 PM, Jul 12, 2011 • By DANIEL HALPER

President Obama had lunch today with "four business leaders to discuss ideas to grow the economy and create jobs," according to the White House. The participants met to "discuss the importance of working with the private sector to promote job training efforts, including ways that companies have been partnering with higher educational institutions to develop curriculum and programs that ensure graduates will have the appropriate background and skills to succeed and get hired within the companies."



Curiously, one of the participants, businessman Clarence Otis, could have used today's affair to provide President Obama a "teachable moment" (a favorite phrase of the president himself). Otis might have explained to the president the negative effects of Obamacare, and why his business, Darden Restaurants, sought and received an Obamacare waiver.

As the Orlando Sentinel reported in November 2010, "Orlando-based Darden Restaurants is getting a break on part of the health-care reform law requiring companies to raise significantly annual coverage limits for low-cost insurance plans starting next year." The Sentinel pointed out that "Darden's waiver would apply to 34,000 employees, or about 20 percent of its 174,000-person workforce. Most of Darden's employees work in its restaurants such as Olive Garden, Red Lobster and LongHorn Steakhouse."

Darden has a health insurance plan for its employees. And, according to the company's statement to the paper, "the waiver allows [the company] to continue to do that as the various phases of the health care law are implemented."

According to a report in May, at least 1,000 companies have already been granted Obamacare waivers -- and the legislation hasn't even been fully implemented.

The point Otis hopefully made to Obama is that Obamacare is bad for business--which is why his own business sought an exemption. That would be a helpful business lesson for the president.

Cameron and Sarkozy -- The New Reagans of Europe

By Martin Sieff
Published September 16, 2011
FoxNews.com

The fall of Muammar Qaddafi at long last in Libya is a triumph for Europe's New Reagans: And it puts to shame America's old ones.

President Obama to his credit, went along with the NATO air support and bombing campaign to prevent Qaddafi using his foreign mercenaries, especially from sub-Saharan Africa, to crush the popular insurrection against him in oceans of blood.

Obama then what comes most naturally to him: He did nothing. He let himself be carried along -- eventually and reluctantly -- by two of Europe's three new Reagans. They were Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain and President Nicholas Sarkozy. (The third is Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany).

Now it's fashionable among the endless fleas who masquerade as conservatives in 21st century Washington to sneer at Cameron and Sarkozy as supposed wimps. But as the Good Book says, "By their fruits shall ye know them."

Prime Minister Cameron has pushed through sweeping 20 percent cuts in spending on the size of the British government. Thse are the biggest cuts the British government has experienced in 80 years since the 1931 financial crisis during the Great Depression. Even Margaret Thatcher never dared to go so far.

Cameron has pulled this off even though he is dependent on the support of the Liberal Democratic Party, successor to Britain's old feckless liberals, for his parliamentary majority.

Now ask yourselves, when President George W. Bush was in office with a compliant Republican majority in the House of Representatives from 2001 to 2007, did see a slashing of government spending of anywhere near 20 percent? For that matter did we see any cuts in government spending at all?

We did not: The Federal Government grew at a feverish pace.

Things got far worse, of course, after President Obama took over and promptly quadrupled the already record deficit he inherited from President Bush. But they were pretty awful to start with. Prime MInister Cameron, if the British stop appreciating you, come over here. America needs you even more.

I also know it's been a reflexive action among America's so-called conservatives to sneer at France and everything French for decades. Pardon me if I barf.

It was French military aid that stopped Qaddafi cold in the mid-1980s when he was shamelessly trying to conquer Chad in sub-Saharan Africa. And why was Qaddafi so obesessed with Chad? Because it was rich in uranium ore -- that's why. But it was the intervention of a small force of French paratroopers sent by President Francois Mitterrand who stopped the Liberator of Tripoli in his tracks.

President Sarkozy, on the home front, has also shown the cojones that the past decade of House Republicans and the Bush II people sorely lacked.

The Tea Partiers are vital to the survival of our nation because, bless them, they are serious about slashing government spending and ending the potentially catastrophic Obama Spending Binge.

Newt Gingrich did what I thought at the time was impossible. He half-cooperated with and half-forced Democratic President Bill Clinton to rein in the federal buidget in the mid-1990s. Whatever mistakes Gingrich is making in his presidential campaign now, he deserves an honored place in true conservative ranks for the Mission Impossible he pulled off then.

But between Gingrich and the Tea Parties, when it came to fiscal responsibility to save American society and the federal government -- No One - Nada. At least until Rick Perry: He seems born to play The Lone Ranger.

Now Britain and France have been far from virtuous over the years about Libya. As I've recorded before in these columns, Cameron's prdecessor asprimem miuister, the sanctimonious Gordon Brown, the New Labour Party's answer to Uriah Heep, pulled strings to release Abdelbasit Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, just to please Qaddafi so British Petroleum could land a lucrative Libyan oil contract. British and French intelligence have even cooperated with Qaddafi against Islamists who are their mutual enemies in recent years.

But times finally changed. Prime Minister Cameron and President Sarkozy even followed President Reagan's classic style in the way they used cautious, focused air power to stop Qaddafi in his tracks. As I've documented and discussed in my 2008 book "The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Middle East", President Reagan was cautious, shrewd and often indirect in the way he kept the peace and skilfully used America's clout to restore respect for Uncle Sam across the Middle East.

Cameron and Sarkozy, like Reagan, used air power.

Like Reagan, they used it carefully and with discrimination.

Like Reagan, they never committed their own ground forces, and they didn't ask America to either: They didn't have to.

Some readers will remember that I did advocate in these columns deploying American ground troops to knock Qaddafi for six -- as British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, a lifelong cricket fan, would have put it.

But there was no way President Obama would ever have approved of that. The Andrew Jackson to George S. Patton and Colin Powell-Norman Schwartzkopf way of war is not for him, it never has been. We 've seen that to our detriment in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The current president deserves full credit for keeping the US intelligence community focused on hunting down Osama bin Laden: But he still isn't the man to fight a war a l'outrance - to the finish - as the French rightly put it.

Cameron and Sarkozy, like Reagan, cultivated allies skilfully in the Arab world. As I point out in Politically Incorrect Guide, Reagan even backed Saddam Hussein, the fearsome dictator of Iraq, to block Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's ambiitous efforts to conquer the entire Fertile Crescent for the Islamic republic of Iran.

Cameron and Sarkozy backed a wide coalition of forces in Libya. There may be some Islamists among them, but they appear so far to be dominated by the strongly Westernized middle class of Benghazi, the country's main port, where Qaddafi's vicious dictatorship was always widely and deeply resented.

The fall of Qaddafi is therefore a triumph for Muscular Conservative Policies in the best Ronald Reagan style. Two of Europe's' three Reagans led it and carefully directed it. The third, German Chancellor Merkel, didn't get on board that bandwagon, but there are plenty of other reasons, especially fiscal ones, to thank the Almighty she still runs the Federal Chancellory in Berlin.

Cameron and Sarkozy have in fact done far more than topple Qaddafi. They have just shown that the cautious, focused and wise policies of President Reagan work as well in the Middle East in 2011 as they did 30 years ago.

The leaders of Britain and France have also shown that when America is led by a "leader" who will not lead, America's allies do not always have to cringe in impotent fear. With the right leaders, they can step up to the plate and knock it out of the ballpark.

President Obama will bask in the reflected glory of Qaddafi's fall: But all American conservatives should remember who was really responsible for it: And they should take heart that they are not alone in the world.

Martin Sieff is former Managing Editor, International Affairs of United Press International. He is the author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Middle East."

Solyndra Pestered Bush Administration Over Delays in Approving Federal Loan, Emails Show

By Ed Henry
Published September 16, 2011
FoxNews.com

WASHINGTON -- Solyndra officials were intensely pressuring Bush administration officials in early January 2009 to approve a government loan for the solar company before the Obama administration took power, according to new emails obtained by Fox News on Friday.

On Jan. 12, 2009, Solyndra CEO Chris Gronet sent an Energy Department official an email marked "urgent" expressing outrage that Bush officials had decided a few days earlier that while the loan application had "merit" it needed further study before officials could move forward with a taxpayer-financed loan.

"I was appalled to learn on Friday that our application is being delayed yet again," Gronet wrote to Energy official Steve Isakowitz, writing there had been "countless communications" back and forth suggesting the application would be reviewed Jan. 15.

Gronet wrote just days before President Obama's inauguration that stretching the process out could have a "severe" impact on Solyndra. The California-based solar panel manufacturer eventually got a $535 million loan from the Obama administration in September 2009 but recently filed for bankruptcy, cut 1,100 jobs and has since been raided by the FBI.

"It could cause an unknown delay in the program with the change in administration," wrote Gronet. "Jobs are at stake this time. I would like to talk to you at your earliest convenience on Monday to discuss how we can get the application back on track for what I hope to be a positive review on Thursday."

Obama administration officials provided the new emails to Fox News to show that Republicans on Capitol Hill have misrepresented other emails released earlier this week to suggest the Bush administration tried to cut off Solyndra's chances of getting a government loan.

Earlier this week, Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee released a Jan. 13, 2009 email in which Bush Energy official Lachlan Seward wrote, "After canvassing the [Energy Department's credit] committee it was the unanimous decision not to engage in further discussions with Solyndra at this time."

Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., a member of the House committee, used that email to charge Friday that the decision to no longer "engage" on the matter meant that Bush officials wanted to pull the plug on the Solyndra deal altogether and the Obama administration improperly moved forward on it later.

"The [credit] committee voted unanimously not to go along with this ... loan so it died, and then like Lazarus it rose again," Murphy said Friday morning on Fox News.

But Obama administration officials insist Seward's email was actually just noting the credit committee did not want to "engage in further discussions with Solyndra" about the decision-making process because they were being hit with emails pressing for a decision. In fact, the Bush officials were still weighing the decision on a loan right up until the handover to the Obama administration.

Back on Jan. 9, 2009, Energy's credit committee had decided it would make sense to conduct "an independent analysis" of Solyndra and "the current state of the competitive market" in solar panels as it weighed to move forward on the deal.

The new emails obtained by Fox News show that on Jan. 12, 2009, Energy officials received several emails from Solyndra officials pressing the department to make a decision and complaining about the Jan. 9 decision to do an independent market analysis.

In a second email from Gronet to Isakowitz on Jan. 12, 2009, the CEO noted he had just been on the phone with another Energy official, David Frantz.

"And I find the response completely unacceptable," wrote Gronet. "An apology from David is enough."

Gronet added, "In addition, the rules and conditions keep changing. The impact on Solyndra is severe."

The next day, Jan. 13, 2009, Seward sent his email to Energy Department colleagues saying it was time to stop engaging with Solyndra officials.

Later that day, Seward received an email from a colleague who mentioned that a USA Today article noted there was a "glut of roof top solar systems," so perhaps Solyndra might not be able to carve out a market.

Seward thanked his colleague for sharing the USA Today article and concluded in a final email, "It serves ... to bolster our argument for a market analysis at this time," suggesting the Bush administration was still considering the deal.

But the new emails obtained by Fox News do not change the fact that other emails released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee suggest the Obama administration did later ignore or discount warning signs about the viability of Solyndra.

In one Aug. 19, 2009, email obtained by the House panel, it was clear to some administration officials that the solar company had shaky finances.

"While debt coverage is robust under stress conditions, the project cash balance goes to $62,000.00 in September 2011," said the email, which was prescient since the company did in fact go bankrupt in that very time frame.

But just days after that August 19, 2009, email, Obama officials approved the loan to Solyndra, with Vice President Joe Biden attending the company's ground-breaking via satellite.

Obama Admin Reworked Solyndra Loan To Favor Donor

By MATTHEW DALY

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration restructured a half-billion dollar federal loan to a troubled solar energy company in such a way that private investors — including a fundraiser for President Barack Obama — moved ahead of taxpayers for repayment in case of a default, government records show.

Administration officials defended the loan restructuring, saying that without an infusion of cash earlier this year, solar panel maker Solyndra Inc. would likely have faced immediate bankruptcy, putting more than 1,000 people out of work.

Even with the federal help, Solyndra filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this month and laid off its 1,100 employees.

The Fremont, Calif.-based company was the first renewable-energy company to receive a loan guarantee under a stimulus-law program to encourage green energy and was frequently touted by the Obama administration as a model. Obama visited the company's Silicon Valley headquarters last year, and Vice President Joe Biden spoke by satellite at its groundbreaking.

Since then, the implosion of the company and revelations that the administration hurried Office of Management and Budget officials to finish their review of the loan in time for the September 2009 groundbreaking has become an embarrassment for Obama as he sells his new job-creation program around the country.

An Associated Press review of regulatory filings shows that Solyndra was hemorrhaging hundreds of millions of dollars for years before the Obama administration signed off on the original $535 million loan guarantee in September 2009. The company eventually got $528 million.

Given the company's shaky financial condition, Republican lawmakers say the decision to restructure the loan raises questions about whether the administration protected political supporters at taxpayers' expense.

"You should have protected the taxpayers and made some forceful actions here after this analysis," Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., told a top Energy Department official this week. "Because you should have seen the problems. And you should have said, 'Taxpayers need to be protected and this has got to stop.' "

The loan restructuring is one element congressional investigators are focusing on as they look into the federal loan guarantee Solyndra received under the economic stimulus law.

Under terms of the February loan restructuring, two private investors — Argonaut Ventures I LLC and Madrone Partners LP — stand to be repaid before the U.S. government if the solar company is liquidated. The two firms gave the company a total of $69 million in emergency loans. The loans are the only portion of their investments that have repayment priority above the U.S. government.

Argonaut is an investment vehicle of the George Kaiser Family Foundation of Tulsa, Okla. The foundation is headed by billionaire George Kaiser, a major Obama campaign contributor and a frequent visitor to the White House. Kaiser raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for Obama's 2008 campaign, federal election records show. Kaiser has made at least 16 visits to the president's aides since 2009, according to White House visitor logs.

Madrone Partners is affiliated with the Walton family, descendants of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton. Rob Walton, the eldest son of Sam Walton, contributed $2,500 last year to the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The AP review also found that officials at Solyndra had been seeking a second round of loans from the Energy Department to expand the company's Silicon Valley headquarters. The request for a second loan was denied.

"We have incurred significant net losses since our inception, including a net loss of $114.1 million in 2007, $232.1 million in 2008 and $119.8 million in the first nine months of fiscal 2009, and we had an accumulated deficit of $505 million at Oct. 3, 2009," the company said in a December 2009 filing to the SEC. "We expect to continue to incur significant operating and net losses and negative cash flow from operations for the foreseeable future."

Energy Department spokesman Damien LaVera said Friday that the company's financial losses were not uncommon for a high-tech startup and were a major reason Solyndra applied for the federal loan. The loan program is intended to help promising companies that cannot receive financing through private banks because of high risk.

Jonathan Silver, executive director of the Energy Department's loan program, said DOE officials faced a stark choice late last year and early this year: Refuse to allow the loan restructuring, "thereby ensuring that Solyndra would close its doors immediately" or allow the company to accept emergency financing, "thereby giving it and its almost 1,000 workers a fighting chance at success, and the government a higher expected recovery on its loan."

The decision by Energy Secretary Steven Chu was not an easy one, Silver told the House Energy and Commerce Committee, but appeared to be the right action at the time.

"Without DOE's agreement to restructure Solyndra's loan, the company likely would have faced bankruptcy much earlier — in December 2010" or soon after, Silver said. "Restructuring gave them a fighting chance to compete and succeed, and kept approximately 1,000 workers from losing their jobs."

Republicans were not impressed.

"If their model was weak to begin with, and then the market gets worse, doesn't that mean that maybe we should have just not thrown good money after bad?" asked Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va. "Because now we're in a worse position in the bankruptcy courts to get our money back."

GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann called the Solyndra loan an example of "crony capitalism" that benefited political donors.

"It's wrong to abuse executive authority with unilateral actions" Bachmann said at a campaign event Friday in California. "And of course the other problem with Solyndra is the fact that it appears there was crony capitalism, that there were political donors that benefited by this $535 million loan."

Newly released emails show the White House was worried about the likely effect of a default by Solyndra on Obama's re-election campaign.

"The optics of a Solyndra default will be bad," an OMB official wrote in a Jan. 31 email to a colleague. "The timing will likely coincide with the 2012 campaign season heating up."

The budget official, whose name is blacked out in the email, wondered whether Solyndra should be allowed to restructure its loan.

"Questions will be asked as to why the administration made a bad investment, not just once (which could hopefully be explained as part of the challenge of supporting innovative technologies), but twice (which could easily be portrayed as bad judgment, or worse)," the email says.

Associated Press writer Gillian Flaccus in Costa Mesa, Calif., contributed to this story.

Follow Jack Gillum at http://twitter.com/jackgillum and Matthew Daly at http://twitter.com/MatthewDalyWDC

___

September 16, 2011 06:41 PM EDT

Copyright 2011, The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

SoCal Grocery Workers Cancel Contract

Charging that management is “stonewalling,” union grocery workers in Southern California have issued a 72-hour notice cancelling their contract extension, paving the way for a strike.

Eight months of negotiations between seven United Food and Commercial Workers locals representing 62,000 workers and management of supermarket chains owned by Kroger, Safeway and Supervalu have been hampered by disagreements over health care contributions. The union has charged that management’s proposal would “bankrupt health plans and eliminate entirely health care access” for employees.

“While we are disappointed the union leadership has taken this step, Ralphs remains committed to reaching an agreement,” said Kendra Doyle, spokesperson for Ralphs, owned by Cincinnati-based Kroger. “Active negotiations are ongoing and this does not mean a strike is imminent. Our stores are open for business and we are ready to serve our customers.”

Vons, the Southern California chain owned by Walnut Creek, Calif.-based Safeway, issued this statement: “We are disappointed by the UFCW locals’ decision to give the employers 72 hour notice of the cancellation of the contract extension. Doing so needlessly alarms our employees and our customers. The notice does not mean a strike is imminent or that a strike will necessarily occur at any point. The notice simply allows the union the ability to call a strike if they choose to do so. Vons and the other employers intend to remain focused on the negotiation process and urge the unions to do so the same.”

Minneapolis-based Supervalu, which owns Albertsons stores in Southern California, did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

“We returned to the bargaining table ready to compromise and make a deal that keeps our employers profitable but protects the jobs of our members,” the leaders of the seven locals said in a press release. “Instead, we got more of the same stonewalling from management. They are unwilling to compromise and are more concerned about hoarding their billions in profits than reaching a fair deal for their employees. We don’t want to strike, but if they won’t negotiate, we have no choice.”

An overwhelming majority of UFCW members, working without a contract since March, voted last month to authorize a strike. Some supermarkets have been accepting applications for fill-in workers in the event of a strike.

A 141-day strike in 2003-04, which cost the stores an estimated $1.5 billion, led some customers to make long-term changes to their shopping habits by going to independent grocers and specialty outlets, 10news.com reported.

Obama fundraiser linked to loan program that aided Solyndra

The revelation is likely to spur new inquiries about the solar company's political influence. Separately, California lawmakers seek investigation of a state tax break the firm received.

By Matea Gold and Stuart Pfeifer, Los Angeles Times

September 16, 2011, 7:59 p.m.
Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles— The White House faced mounting political complications as a second top fundraiser for President Obama was linked to a federal loan guarantee program that backed a now-bankrupt Silicon Valley solar energy company, and as two California lawmakers called for investigations of a state tax break granted to the firm.

Steve Spinner, who helped monitor the Energy Department's issuance of $25 billion in government loan guarantees to renewable energy projects, was one of Obama's top fundraisers in 2008 and is raising money for the president's 2012 reelection campaign.

Spinner did not have any role in the selection of applicants for the loan program and, in fact, was recused from the decision to grant a $535-million loan guarantee to Solyndra Inc. because his wife's law firm represented the company, administration officials said Friday.

But Spinner's role as a top official in the Energy Department program, which had not been previously revealed, is likely to spur new inquiries into whether political influence played a role in the handling of the "green" energy fund. Solyndra faces a congressional probe, a criminal investigation and separate internal inquiries at the Energy and Treasury departments.

"This will fuel more questions, and now you've got real people involved at the inspector-general level who will be turning over chairs and cabinets, asking questions," said Stanley Brand, a criminal defense and ethics lawyer in Washington who has served as general counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives.

He noted that none of the details that had emerged suggested any laws had been broken. "It's embarrassing, it's ham-handed, it looks bad, but so far all we have is the White House trying to advantage itself in a political way with a loan," he said.

The largest investments in Solyndra were funds operated on behalf of the family foundation of billionaire George Kaiser, another major fundraiser for Obama in 2008. Kaiser has denied personally investing in the solar energy company or talking to White House officials about the loan.

Some Republicans in Congress charge that the White House pushed to get the loan approved for political reasons, which the White House denies.

Before its collapse, Solyndra was a showcase of the White House initiative to develop clean-energy alternatives. Obama visited the factory in May and praised Solyndra as a green technology company that would create jobs and help lead the country's economic recovery.

The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Sept. 6. Two days later, agents with the FBI and Energy Department's inspector general served a search warrant at Solyndra headquarters in an inquiry focusing on whether the company misled the government in applying for the loans.

In announcing its closure, Solyndra cited an unexpected reduction in demand for its products and intense competition from Chinese companies that drove down the price of solar panels it could sell.

Spinner, who raised at least $500,000 for Obama in 2008, is leading efforts to raise money from the technology industry for the president's reelection campaign. He did not respond to requests for comment Friday.

Last week, he invited Obama fundraisers who were in Chicago for a national finance committee meeting to the launch of the Technology for Obama fundraising program. In July, the Obama campaign credited Spinner with raising between $200,000 and $500,000 so far this year.

Spinner was a Silicon Valley investor who founded a sports and wellness company before he joined the administration in April 2009 after serving on Obama's transition team. He was named an advisor to Energy Secretary Steven Chu and was charged with helping oversee a loan guarantee program authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the economic stimulus program.

"Steve Spinner acted as a liaison between the Recovery Act Office and the Loan Programs Office," Energy Department spokesman Damien LaVera said in a statement Friday. "In that capacity, he played no role in the decision-making or evaluation of the Solyndra loan application."

During his tenure, the program approved 20 loan guarantees totaling $25 billion for energy storage, wind power and solar generation, according to Spinner's resume on LinkedIn. Among them was final approval for Solyndra, which planned to manufacture thin solar modules for flat rooftops.

The company applied for a loan guarantee in December 2006, filing under a program created by George W. Bush's administration. It received a conditional commitment for $535 million in March 2009, shortly before Spinner arrived.

In the months that followed, department staffers negotiated the final terms and provided the Office of Management and Budget with data as it assessed the risks of the deal.

In August 2009, while that risk assessment was underway, White House officials began expressing interest in having Vice President Joe Biden announce the deal during a trip to California the following month, according to emails released to House investigators this week. That spurred exchanges between officials

at the White House, the Energy Department and the OMB about whether they could speed up the final approval.

Spinner was the recipient of at least one of the emails, administration officials confirmed Friday — an Aug. 25, 2009, message from Biden's office saying that "we would want the VP [to] satellite into the event on 9/4. It's the same day the unemployment numbers come out, and we'd want to use this as an example where the Recovery Act is helping create new high tech jobs."

Spinner forwarded the email to another Energy Department staffer, who responded that she thought the event was scheduled for Sept. 8.

Spinner, who left the department a year ago, remains an enthusiastic proponent of the loan guarantees. In an op-ed he co-wrote on the blog ThinkProgress on July 13, he urged Congress to appropriate more money to the effort, calling it "an outright success."

"Even the most controversial loan guarantee recipient — Solyndra, a solar manufacturer — is seeing an operational turnaround," he wrote with Richard Caperton, a senior policy analyst at Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank where Spinner is a

senior fellow. He did not

disclose in the piece that he had played a role in the program.

Two months later, after the department declined to restructure the loan a second time, Solyndra declared bankruptcy. By that time, $527 million in taxpayer money that Solyndra borrowed from the Federal Financing Bank, operated under the supervision of the Treasury Department, had been disbursed to the company — funds that the government may not be able to recoup.

Separately, lawmakers in Sacramento questioned a $27-million tax break given to Solyndra under a state law intended to encourage clean-energy companies to do business in California.

State Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima), who co-wrote the bill, said he planned to examine the tax break at a hearing this fall.

"We're certainly revisiting the due diligence that was done before an award was given," he said.

Assemblyman Brian Nestande (R-Palm Desert) said he intended to ask Treasurer Bill Lockyer's staff to explain "what their vetting process was."

The law, which was approved unanimously by the state Senate and Assembly and signed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in March 2010, exempts qualified clean-technology companies from paying sales tax when buying manufacturing equipment.

The law established a committee to review applications from companies that sought the tax breaks. In November, Solyndra applied for a credit that would allow it to avoid paying nearly $35 million in sales tax on the purchase of more than $380 million of equipment.

The request was granted, but the company used only $27 million of the credit before it went out of business, said Joe DeAnda, a Lockyer spokesman.

Solyndra also received other indirect benefits from state agencies.

Under the California Solar Initiative, a program created by Schwarzenegger and the Legislature, customers that bought Solyndra-manufactured solar-power modules received about $4.9 million in state subsidies, according to Terrie Prosper, a spokeswoman for the California Public Utilities Commission.

Prosper emphasized that the state subsidies went to Solyndra's customers and not to the company, which is how the program works.

matea.gold@latimes.com

stuart.pfeifer@latimes.com

Gold reported from Washington and Pfeifer from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Marc Lifsher in Sacramento contributed to this report.
Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles— The White House faced mounting political complications as a second top fundraiser for President Obama was linked to a federal loan guarantee program that backed a now-bankrupt Silicon Valley solar energy company, and as two California lawmakers called for investigations of a state tax break granted to the firm.

Steve Spinner, who helped monitor the Energy Department's issuance of $25 billion in government loan guarantees to renewable energy projects, was one of Obama's top fundraisers in 2008 and is raising money for the president's 2012 reelection campaign.

Spinner did not have any role in the selection of applicants for the loan program and, in fact, was recused from the decision to grant a $535-million loan guarantee to Solyndra Inc. because his wife's law firm represented the company, administration officials said Friday.

But Spinner's role as a top official in the Energy Department program, which had not been previously revealed, is likely to spur new inquiries into whether political influence played a role in the handling of the "green" energy fund. Solyndra faces a congressional probe, a criminal investigation and separate internal inquiries at the Energy and Treasury departments.

"This will fuel more questions, and now you've got real people involved at the inspector-general level who will be turning over chairs and cabinets, asking questions," said Stanley Brand, a criminal defense and ethics lawyer in Washington who has served as general counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives.

He noted that none of the details that had emerged suggested any laws had been broken. "It's embarrassing, it's ham-handed, it looks bad, but so far all we have is the White House trying to advantage itself in a political way with a loan," he said.

The largest investments in Solyndra were funds operated on behalf of the family foundation of billionaire George Kaiser, another major fundraiser for Obama in 2008. Kaiser has denied personally investing in the solar energy company or talking to White House officials about the loan.

Some Republicans in Congress charge that the White House pushed to get the loan approved for political reasons, which the White House denies.

Before its collapse, Solyndra was a showcase of the White House initiative to develop clean-energy alternatives. Obama visited the factory in May and praised Solyndra as a green technology company that would create jobs and help lead the country's economic recovery.

The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Sept. 6. Two days later, agents with the FBI and Energy Department's inspector general served a search warrant at Solyndra headquarters in an inquiry focusing on whether the company misled the government in applying for the loans.

In announcing its closure, Solyndra cited an unexpected reduction in demand for its products and intense competition from Chinese companies that drove down the price of solar panels it could sell.

Spinner, who raised at least $500,000 for Obama in 2008, is leading efforts to raise money from the technology industry for the president's reelection campaign. He did not respond to requests for comment Friday.

Last week, he invited Obama fundraisers who were in Chicago for a national finance committee meeting to the launch of the Technology for Obama fundraising program. In July, the Obama campaign credited Spinner with raising between $200,000 and $500,000 so far this year.

Spinner was a Silicon Valley investor who founded a sports and wellness company before he joined the administration in April 2009 after serving on Obama's transition team. He was named an advisor to Energy Secretary Steven Chu and was charged with helping oversee a loan guarantee program authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the economic stimulus program.

"Steve Spinner acted as a liaison between the Recovery Act Office and the Loan Programs Office," Energy Department spokesman Damien LaVera said in a statement Friday. "In that capacity, he played no role in the decision-making or evaluation of the Solyndra loan application."

During his tenure, the program approved 20 loan guarantees totaling $25 billion for energy storage, wind power and solar generation, according to Spinner's resume on LinkedIn. Among them was final approval for Solyndra, which planned to manufacture thin solar modules for flat rooftops.

The company applied for a loan guarantee in December 2006, filing under a program created by George W. Bush's administration. It received a conditional commitment for $535 million in March 2009, shortly before Spinner arrived.

In the months that followed, department staffers negotiated the final terms and provided the Office of Management and Budget with data as it assessed the risks of the deal.

In August 2009, while that risk assessment was underway, White House officials began expressing interest in having Vice President Joe Biden announce the deal during a trip to California the following month, according to emails released to House investigators this week. That spurred exchanges between officials

at the White House, the Energy Department and the OMB about whether they could speed up the final approval.

Spinner was the recipient of at least one of the emails, administration officials confirmed Friday — an Aug. 25, 2009, message from Biden's office saying that "we would want the VP [to] satellite into the event on 9/4. It's the same day the unemployment numbers come out, and we'd want to use this as an example where the Recovery Act is helping create new high tech jobs."

Spinner forwarded the email to another Energy Department staffer, who responded that she thought the event was scheduled for Sept. 8.

Spinner, who left the department a year ago, remains an enthusiastic proponent of the loan guarantees. In an op-ed he co-wrote on the blog ThinkProgress on July 13, he urged Congress to appropriate more money to the effort, calling it "an outright success."

"Even the most controversial loan guarantee recipient — Solyndra, a solar manufacturer — is seeing an operational turnaround," he wrote with Richard Caperton, a senior policy analyst at Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank where Spinner is a

senior fellow. He did not

disclose in the piece that he had played a role in the program.

Two months later, after the department declined to restructure the loan a second time, Solyndra declared bankruptcy. By that time, $527 million in taxpayer money that Solyndra borrowed from the Federal Financing Bank, operated under the supervision of the Treasury Department, had been disbursed to the company — funds that the government may not be able to recoup.

Separately, lawmakers in Sacramento questioned a $27-million tax break given to Solyndra under a state law intended to encourage clean-energy companies to do business in California.

State Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima), who co-wrote the bill, said he planned to examine the tax break at a hearing this fall.

"We're certainly revisiting the due diligence that was done before an award was given," he said.

Assemblyman Brian Nestande (R-Palm Desert) said he intended to ask Treasurer Bill Lockyer's staff to explain "what their vetting process was."

The law, which was approved unanimously by the state Senate and Assembly and signed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in March 2010, exempts qualified clean-technology companies from paying sales tax when buying manufacturing equipment.

The law established a committee to review applications from companies that sought the tax breaks. In November, Solyndra applied for a credit that would allow it to avoid paying nearly $35 million in sales tax on the purchase of more than $380 million of equipment.

The request was granted, but the company used only $27 million of the credit before it went out of business, said Joe DeAnda, a Lockyer spokesman.

Solyndra also received other indirect benefits from state agencies.

Under the California Solar Initiative, a program created by Schwarzenegger and the Legislature, customers that bought Solyndra-manufactured solar-power modules received about $4.9 million in state subsidies, according to Terrie Prosper, a spokeswoman for the California Public Utilities Commission.

Prosper emphasized that the state subsidies went to Solyndra's customers and not to the company, which is how the program works.

matea.gold@latimes.com

stuart.pfeifer@latimes.com

Gold reported from Washington and Pfeifer from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Marc Lifsher in Sacramento contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times