Internet Scofflaw

The Washington Post reports:

House Democrats on Wednesday called for Congress to expand its investigation into federal loan programs to include a Bush-era loan to the bankrupt broadband Internet firm Open Range.

Open Range went bankrupt earlier this month after receiving the federal government’s biggest broadband loan totaling $267 million. Its collapse has put in jeopardy $74 million in money doled out to the firm. . .

“Your reaction to the Open Range bankruptcy could not be more different than your reaction to the Solyndra bankruptcy,” the lawmakers said in their letter to Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.).

It Democrats think this will counter the Solyndra scandal, just because the loan was made during the Bush administration, they clearly don’t understand the problem. To wit:

1. It is not alleged that Open Range exploited personal/political contacts within the Bush administration to get the loan, or that the loan was revived after being shelved under the previous administration, or that the loan was issued in violation of procedure, or that its renegotiation was contrary to law, which are just a few of the many aspects of the Solyndra affair that make it a scandal and not just a bad decision.
2. The conservative/libertarian argument that the government should not be trying to pick winners and losers (and is incapable of doing so) is not limited to Democratic administrations. We’re not happy that the Bush administration was in that business either. The Open Range bankruptcy simply underscores that point.

(Previous post.)

Earlier this month President Obama said he had no regrets about loaning half a billion dollars to Solyndra, but perhaps that was just an instance of Obama’s inability to admit a mistake. The White House now says it will review all of its green loans.

(Previous post.)

Thermal imaging shows that nearly all the tents in the Occupy London protest are left empty at night.

Perhaps Illinois should just dispense with the pretense of democratic government:

Escalating his war of words with the Legislature, Gov. Pat Quinn Thursday called for an investigation into who cast votes for as many as 18 House members who were off the House floor when utility rate-hike legislation that he opposed passed in the blink of an eye. . .

Shortly before the first part of the rate-hike package surfaced in the House, as many as 18 Democrats were called off the floor to attend a budget briefing. Some of those lawmakers told the Sun-Times they returned from the briefing to see their votes had been recorded, even though they personally hadn’t cast them and, in some cases, opposite of the way they wanted.

POSTSCRIPT: It’s not just Illinois either. We also saw the falsification of a floor vote in the US House of Representatives back when it was under Democratic management.

(Via Instapundit.)

A Gallup poll of small businesses finds that the biggest problem facing small business is complying with government regulations, not — as the pro-stimulus crowd would have us believe — lack of consumer demand. In fact, lack of consumer demand doesn’t even come in second; it barely edges lack of credit (thanks Dodd-Frank!) for third place.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom is set to be dissolved because of one anonymous senator.

I don’t have a problem with the idea that one senator can place a hold on legislation, but they idea that he or she can do it anonymously is an affront to the entire idea of a republic.

I love Occupy Wall Street; a richer vein of irony is hard to find. These protesters, who say they want the wealth of the top 1% redistributed, turn out to have quite bourgeois sensibilities when it comes to their property. They don’t like it when people steal their stuff, squat in their tents, or freeload on their labor.

The law requires that Congress pass a budget, but Democrats haven’t done so in years. A few members of Congress are proposing a new rule whereby Congress would not be able to pass any other legislation while the budget is overdue.

I like the spirit of this, but I can see some practical problems. Fortunately I have a simpler idea: Congress should not get paid until it passes a budget.

ABC News reports:

At a million-dollar San Francisco fundraiser today, President Obama warned his recession-battered supporters that if he loses the 2012 election it could herald a new, painful era of self-reliance in America.

The Obama administration has been caught revising old press releases to replace embarrassing references to Sun Power with a different company. CNBC’s comment is rather understated:

Generally, it is not considered correct procedure to revise old press releases retroactively on the Web.

Indeed not. And an Instapundit reader notes that this isn’t even the first time. The Obama administration was also caught revising old State Department reports (from the previous administration even) to replace “Jerusalem, Israel” with “Jerusalem”.

I agree with him, it is very strange that this isn’t seen as a big deal.

Step 1: President Obama attacks companies that purchase private planes. Step 2: Aircraft demand falls. Step 3: Aircraft manufacturing employees are put out of work:

Piper Aircraft Inc. on Monday announced it will lay off 150 employees and release 55 contract personnel as a result of a decision to indefinitely suspend its Piper Altaire light business jet program.

(Via Instapundit.)

The New York office of ACORN (under its new name, New York Communities for Change) is paying people $10 an hour to participate in the Occupy Wall Street protests.

(Via Instapundit.)

Democrats on the “Super Committee” have come up with a radical new way to cut the deficit:

According to two congressional sources, the Democratic proposal would get to $1.3 trillion in federal budget savings by hiking revenues to raise half of the money. The plan would cut about $400 billion from Medicare — half through benefits cuts and half through provider savings — and proposes raising another $300 billion through stimulus spending.

(Emphasis mine.)

Raising money through stimulus spending! Brilliant! I’m a little short this month myself, so I’m going to go out and buy a flat-panel TV.

Washington DC is now the nation’s richest metropolitan area. I’m reminded of Imperial Rome, which, it is said, exported armies and imported grain.

From a poll of Occupy Wall Street protesters:

If only.

(Via Instapundit.)

Drug reimportation is back on the table, being pushed this time by David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican who ought to know better. Grace Marie-Turner attacks the scheme on the grounds of safety, which could be valid (I don’t know), but the knock-down argument against it is economic.

The short version of the argument is that we cannot realize real savings by shipping a product to Canada and back. The long version is here, the upshot of which is that reimportation would screw Canada over without accruing any discernible benefit to us.

Well said:

The social contract exists so that everyone doesn’t have to squat in the dust holding a spear to protect his woman and his meat all day every day. It does not exist so that the government can take your spear, your meat, and your woman because it knows better what to do with them.

In Chicago, a well-connected union lobbyist can earn an Illinois teachers’ pension of $108,000 per year for one day of work.

(Via Instapundit.)

Investor’s Business Daily has an important reminder of who was responsible for the subprime crash:

POSTSCRIPT: IBD also notes:

And the remaining 29% of private-label junk was mostly attributable to Countrywide Financial, which was under the heel of HUD and its “fair-lending” edicts.

Countrywide Financial should ring a bell.

(Via Instapundit.)

How not to solve the problem:

The European Commission is considering a ban on rating agencies publishing their assessments of EU countries in difficulty, the Financial Times Deutschland reports.

Sheesh.

(Via Instapundit.)

The Competitive Enterprise Institute charges that the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy has been moving discussions to UN servers in order to hide them from Freedom of Information Act requests.

This administration has withheld records on climate change from FOIA requests before.

(Via Power Line.)

A Wall Street Journal op-ed takes a look at how well stimulus plans have worked in the past. Answer: not well. But we never seem to learn.

In the United Kingdom — the exemplar of government-run health care that Democrats are working to bring to America — hospitals have been issuing do-not-resuscitate orders without consulting patients or their families.

But at least the government jumped all over them, right?

Although at least five hospitals were found by the CQC [Care Quality Commission] to be in breach of medical guidance regarding consultation with families, the watchdog declared four of the five to be “compliant” with its standards on dignity for patients, which cover broader aspects of care.

In a national report published about the checks last week, the CQC made no mention of its findings about the misuse of DNR notices.

Oh.

Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) says that President Obama should ditch the Constitution:

Illinois Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. told The Daily Caller on Wednesday that congressional opposition to the American Jobs Act is akin to the Confederate “states in rebellion.” . . .

“We’ve got to go further. I support what [Obama] does. Clearly, Republicans are not going to be for it but if the administration can handle administratively what can be done, we should pursue it. And if there are extra-constitutional opportunities that allow the president administratively to put the people to work, he should pursue every single one of them,” Jackson suggested.

(Emphasis mine.)

And the grand purpose to which we should abandon our 224-year experiment with constitutional government? Jackson wants to send every unemployed person a check for $40 thousand.

(Via Instapundit.)

It’s been pretty obvious for a while that it was going to happen, but the Obama administration has officially pulled the plug on the CLASS program. For those who haven’t been following this closely, the CLASS program was a fraudulent long-term care program in Obamacare.

It could never possibly have worked, but was included in health care nationalization because, the way it was scored, it generated $70 billion in deficit reduction over 10 years. However, although a 10-year horizon can be spoofed, it’s much harder to spoof a 75-year horizon, which is what they had to do in order to bring the program into reality.

BONUS: For further amusement, look through a list of prominent Democrats singing the praise of CLASS. Every one of these people is either dishonest or incapable of basic math.

Joe Biden says crime will soar if Congress fails to pass President Obama’s stimulus jobs bill.

New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin says things are not going well for President Obama:

The reports are not good, disturbing even. I have heard basically the same story four times in the last 10 days, and the people doing the talking are in New York and Washington and are spread across the political spectrum.

The gist is this: President Obama has become a lone wolf, a stranger to his own government. He talks mostly, and sometimes only, to friend and adviser Valerie Jarrett and to David Axelrod, his political strategist.

Everybody else, including members of his Cabinet, have little face time with him except for brief meetings that serve as photo ops. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner both have complained, according to people who have talked to them, that they are shut out of important decisions.

The president’s workdays are said to end early, often at 4 p.m. He usually has dinner in the family residence with his wife and daughters, then retreats to a private office. One person said he takes a stack of briefing books. Others aren’t sure what he does.

If the reports are accurate, and I believe they are, they paint a picture of an isolated man trapped in a collapsing presidency.

Who knows if it’s true, but it’s plausible to me. This is a man whose self-regard dramatically exceeds his ability, and who is facing his first real taste of adversity. No one, himself included, really knew what he is made of, until now.

(Via Instapundit.)

Congressional investigators are scrutinizing another one of the Obama administration’s green boondoggles. Sun Power has received twice as much money from the government as Solyndra, and also appears to be in financial distress:

The Energy Department says on its website that the $1.2 billion loan to help build the California Valley Solar Ranch in San Luis Obispo County, a project that will help create 15 permanent jobs, which adds up to the equivalent of $80 million in taxpayer money for each job. But the Energy Department stands by the project. . .

SunPower posted $150 million in losses during the first half of this year and its debt is nearly 80 percent of its market value. The company is also facing class action lawsuits for misstating its earnings. . .

The company is also politically connected. Rep. George Miller’s son is SunPower’s top lobbyist. The elder Miller, a powerful California Democrat, toured the plant last October with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

(Via Instapundit.)

Meanwhile, the White House is refusing to turn over documents relating to Solyndra.

(Previous post.)

California Governor Jerry Brown (D) has vetoed a bill that would require law enforcement to obtain a warrant to rummage through your mobile phone. Let’s please not have any more nonsense about the left’s dedication to civil liberties.

(Via Instapundit.)

Occupy LA is just a bunch of communist revolutionaries:

So, ultimately, the bourgeoisie won’t go without violent means. Revolution! Yes, revolution that is led by the working class.

Long live revolution! Long live socialism!

Why is the media portraying these people as some kind of laudable, mainstream movement?

(Via Instapundit.)

Andrew Klavan’s latest:

(Via Instapundit.)

The Boston Herald reports.

What? You mean these are really just standard leftists, not ordinary people objecting to Wall Street? You could knock me over with a feather.

(Via Instapundit.)

Harry Reid changes the Senate rules to limit the minority’s ability to offer amendments. The purpose was not to limit stalling tactics (the amendments ruled out-of-order would have taken just 105 minutes to vote on), but to avoid a single embarrassing vote. Reid wanted to avoid the embarrassment of a vote on President Obama’s stimulus jobs bill.

James Taranto notes:

In his news conference yesterday, President Obama said that he “had a chance to meet a young man named Robert Baroz,” a teacher who had “received three pink slips because of budget cuts.” The Boston Herald [link] reports that the president stretched the truth almost to the breaking point:

It is technically true that Obama had a chance to meet Baroz. But the closest Baroz actually got to Obama was the front row of a Rose Garden press conference. . . .

Baroz has in fact received three pink slips in four years, but in each case, his job was saved, either through stimulus funds or the 2010 Congressional Jobs Bill. He now works as a literacy and data coach at the Curley K-8 School in Jamaica Plain, analyzing MCAS data and applying it to teachers’ everyday lessons.

So Obama didn’t meet Baroz, Baroz didn’t get fired, and he’s a “literacy and data coach,” which seems to be something other than a teacher.

The Obama administration knew that its illegal loan restructuring for Solyndra was a bad bet, but went ahead with it anyway:

Internal e-mails show federal reviewers initially estimated they could save the taxpayers as much as $168 million by letting the company go under in December 2010, rather than resuscitating it and allowing it to draw down more federal money.

Energy Department spokesman Damien LaVera confirmed Wednesday that the agency knew Solyndra had violated the loan terms but agreed to change the requirement to help Solyndra.

What’s $168 million when a well-connected green boondoggle is at stake?

(Via Hot Air.) (Previous post.)

A White House official “literally screamed” and “cussed” at CBS reporter Sheryl Attkisson for investigating the Gunwalker scandal. A second official merely “yelled”.

(Previous post.)

Since 1987, Florida law has barred local governments from imposing their own gun-control laws, but local officials have openly flouted that law. After 24 years, those officials will now face consequences if they continue their illegal actions. This makes them very unhappy:

Gallegos wrote that threatening local officials with $5,000 fines “speaks to a degree of intimidation seemingly unprecedented.”

Oh? It’s unprecedented to sanction people for illegal actions? Heck, for 24 years people like Gallegos have been sanctioning people for legal actions!

(Via Instapundit.)

Some people are erroneously inclined to credit Paul Krugman with some kind of wisdom because he holds a Nobel prize in economics. That’s foolish in general, because most of Krugman’s commentary is on matter in which he holds no special expertise, such as Keynesian macroeconomics and whether Republicans cause mass shootings.

But even on the subject of international trade, Krugman’s area of expertise, it’s foolish to credit his writings with any wisdom, because he is in the tank for Democrats enough to be willing to set all his expertise aside.

We can demonstrate this by looking at his changing opinion on whether we should pressure China to do something about their overvalued currency. In 2003 he said that getting tough with China was stupid, because we have very little leverage over China. Today he says that getting tough with China is vital. What changed his mind? Not China’s currency; the Yuan is substantially less overvalued today than it was in 2003. What’s changed is that it’s now Democrats that are talking tough to China, not Republicans.

Who knows what Krugman’s real opinion is? Perhaps he has the mental flexibility/inconsistency actually to hold different opinions on international trade depending on who is in office. On the other hand, perhaps he was simply lying either in 2003 or today. Either way, his professional expertise is either gone or useless.

But what is striking is how disjoint the two pieces are. In 2003, he wrote about our lack of leverage over China, which he didn’t even discuss in 2011. In 2011, he writes about the possibility of  a trade war (he discounts it) and a variety of other issues which amazingly didn’t even come up in 2003. Coming from a supposed academic, it’s telling that he behaves as though the core issues have changed in eight years.

POSTSCRIPT: The most revealing difference is the amount of his 2003 column he dedicated to personal attacks on President Bush, which — strictly speaking — weren’t relevant to the policy at all. He could barely spend a few sentences on actual policy; attacking Bush’s putative stupidity and evil is where his passion lay. In 2011 he has no such boogeyman to attack. The best he can come up with is the Club for Growth. But he gives it the old college try, deploying his trademark dishonesty:

In the last few days a new objection to action on the China issue has surfaced: right-wing pressure groups, notably the influential Club for Growth, oppose tariffs on Chinese goods because, you guessed it, they’re a form of taxation — and we must never, ever raise taxes under any circumstances. All I can say is that Democrats should welcome this demonstration that antitax fanaticism has reached the point where it trumps standing up for our national interests.

Did the Club for Growth really oppose tariffs because they are a form of taxation? Here’s what they said:

Passage of such legislation, or similar legislation, could lead to a costly trade war that would destroy jobs. . . Supporters of this underlying bill believe that cheap imports from China are harming our nation’s manufacturers, but they fail to realize that China ships intermediary goods and raw materials to the United States, not just final consumer products. These cheap goods are used by our nation’s businesses to produce final products that can be sold at competitive prices.

In short, they made a fairly standard argument for free trade.

The only place Krugman has to hang his hat is later where the statement refers to tariffs as taxes. This is somewhat clumsy wording (although tariffs literally are taxes), written as a segue to what they think should be done instead (lower taxes on capital). But nowhere did they put forward tariffs-as-taxes as the reason for opposing tariffs. Krugman made that up completely.

(Via JustOneMinute.)

President Obama, addressing a fundraiser for the Human Rights Campaign, a gay/lesbian advocacy organization:

We don’t believe in a small America. We don’t believe in the kind of smallness that says it’s okay for a stage full of political leaders — one of whom could end up being the President of the United States — being silent when an American soldier is booed. We don’t believe in that. We don’t believe in standing silent when that happens. We don’t believe in them being silent since. You want to be Commander-in-Chief? You can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, even when it’s not politically convenient.

He is referring to an incident at a recent Republican debate where the audience booed a gay soldier who asked a question about homosexuals in the military. Except it never happened, not as it has been reported. “The audience” did not boo; two members of the audience booed. (For all we know, they were provocateurs.)

Obama apologists will reply that Obama never committed himself to the number of boo-ers, so he wasn’t lying. I’ll grant you, it’s a clever use of the passive voice: he’s alluding to the lie without actually repeating it himself. That makes the statement technically accurate, but it doesn’t make it honest.

But let’s suppose Obama really meant it literally. Let’s suppose he really meant that one has a duty to stand for the military, no matter how marginal the attackers, “even when it’s not politically convenient.” Then he must have spoken up forcefully for General Petraeus when MoveOn.org came out with this:

But, of course, he didn’t. In fact, when the Senate passed a resolution 72-25 condemning the ad, Barack Obama declined to vote, despite having been on the Senate floor just minutes earlier. He was running for the Democratic nomination for President, and it wasn’t “politically convenient.” (One other senator didn’t vote: Joe Biden.)

He also sat quietly for years as Jeremiah Wright thundered his bigotry from the pulpit of his church in Chicago. For example, he remained silent when Wright gave this rant, blaming 9/11 on the actions of our bloodthirsty military. Obama, then an Illinois state senator, had ambitions for national office and he needed the support of people like the members of that church. It wasn’t “politically convenient” to speak out.

(Via Instapundit.)

That’s how many Democrats have signed on to co-sponsor President Obama’s another-stimulus-will-do-the-trick-this-time-I-swear jobs bill. They want nothing to do with this turkey.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The nation’s beleaguered banking industry, which has been raising fees and doing away with free services, has a new target: debit-card users.

Bank of America Corp. is laying plans to charge millions of customers a $5 monthly fee to use their debit cards, and other big banks are expected to follow suit. The industry says it needs the fees to recoup revenue it will lose because of new government regulations taking effect Saturday that cap what they can charge merchants for debit-card transactions.

Did the Democrats who forced this law on us intend that the cost of debt-card transactions be borne by individual consumers, rather than vendors? Intend it or not, they were warned.

POSTSCRIPT: As another predicted consequence of the Democrats’ credit bill, credit card companies are shutting down reward programs for customers with good credit. We used to get a 2% rebate on everything we bought with our credit card, but not any more. Thanks Democrats!