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floydreportslogo2 Floyd ReportsWelcome to the new home of FloydReports.com. Enter for conservative commentary, conservative videos, and conservative news from veteran political expert Floyd Brown,  President of the Western Center for Journalism. If you are a subscriber of FloydReports.com, you will still get the same great content to your inbox, just at a new home. The blog’s move to WesternJournalism.com will allow it to have greater reach and a more powerful server. Please take a look around, and if you have any comments, please use our contact page to reach us.

 

While GOP Dawdles Over Amnesty, Obama Transforms America

September 20, 2011 By 1 Comment

by Joe Guzzardi

change01 While GOP Dawdles Over Amnesty, Obama Transforms America

Immediately after Congress returned from its August vacation, U.S. Representative Steve King, R-IA, called for oversight hearings to investigate President Obama’s administrative amnesty. Obama’s unconstitutional measure, announced by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on August 19, will cancel at least 300,000 aliens’ deportation orders.

Two weeks later, public outrage escalated when Obama’s Uncle Onyango apparently became one of the new policy’s first beneficiaries. Onyango, arrested for drunken driving, had an outstanding deportation order against him issued nearly 20 years ago. During the intervening years, he had been working as a liquor store clerk — a job, by the way, Americans would do. King wants Onyango to testify.

Yet despite King’s repeated calls for a hearing, so far nothing is scheduled. To move forward, Darrell Issa, R-CA, the Chairman of the Congressional Oversight Committee has to get on board.

Issa, however, is preoccupied with another Obama scandal. He has launched a probe into what he views as an inappropriate and potentially illegal overlap between Obama’s official and political activities.

Under Issa’s direction, the committee as part of its most pointed inquiry into the White House and the Democratic National Committee’s money raising activities, recently sent a letter to White House counsel Kathy Ruemeller. The letter requested hundreds of internal documents relating to what Issa termed “an array of potentially illegal fundraising behavior.”

Among Issa’s concerns are a March Obama White House meeting organized by DNC officials and held with large Wall Street donors. In Issa’s opinion, the meeting violates the Hatch Act, a law that restricts federal employees from doing partisan work financed by taxpayers.

Issa questions the Obama administration’s decision to provide access to administration officials, including the White House chef, to large donors and also probes into a campaign video shot in the White House that advertised a raffle offering a dinner with the president and Vice President Joe Biden in exchange for contributions. In his capacity as Oversight Chairman, Issa has the power to issue subpoenas.

In the meantime, those in favor of Obama’s administrative amnesty are hard at work trying to increase the alien base that would benefit from it. According to the immigration lawyers’ website, ILW.com, the expanded objective includes going back to reopen cases of aliens previously ordered removed to change the decision retroactively. This would serve as one of many ways that the so called “low priority” 300,000 presented as a ceiling could become a larger number.

Immigration lawyers are also pressing to be included among those who decide which aliens will or will not be deported. According to Senator Dick Durbin, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are working together to develop which criteria defines a low-priority deportation case. But, describing themselves as uniquely qualified, private immigration practitioners want to add their opinion to those of the DOJ and the DHS. No group is more predisposed to siding with aliens than immigration lawyers. If allowed to sit at the table, few aliens’ cases will be rejected.

The more time that passes before hearings, the more entrenched Obama’s backdoor amnesty becomes. That’s bad news for Americans determined to restore immigration law enforcement.

Joe Guzzardi, a Californians for Population Stabilization Senior Writing Fellow, has written syndicated editorial about immigration and related social issues since 1986. Contact him at joeguzzardi@capsweb.org.

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Obama Admin Pressured General To Change Testimony About Company He Invested In

September 19, 2011 By 21 Comments

by Susan Stamper Brown

Gen William Shelton Obama Admin Pressured General to Change Testimony About Company He Invested In

Generally speaking, generals do not tell lies. Nor are generals in the practice of concocting stories before congressional committees. That is why Air Force Space Command General William Shelton’s gutsy and potentially career-ending and provocative testimony to the House Armed Services subcommittee recently should be taken seriously.

General Shelton claims he was pressured to alter prepared congressional testimony, or “say things” he “didn’t agree with” that would, in the end, benefit the communications and satellite company, LightSquared, which is funded by major Democratic Party campaign donor, Philip Falcone.

According to General Shelton, LightSquared’s plan for a 4G network could seriously impede the effectiveness of the military’s GPS receiver systems, and testified he was pressured to say “the interference problems could be mitigated.” The “interference” has been described as participating in a telephone conversation during a rock concert, and precision GPS could be severely degraded or jammed, as a result.

Irrespective of potential national security implications LightSquared was given the green light, in what some describe as a “fast-track approval” by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), currently chaired by President Obama’s long-time basketball buddy Julius Genachowski.

On March 1, 2011, Ken Boehm, of the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), reported, “Under extremely unusual circumstances, the FCC recently granted…LightSquared the right to use wireless spectrum to build out a national 4G wireless network. LightSquared will get the spectrum for a song, while its competitors [like AT&T and Verizon] have to spend billions.”

Back in early February, the NLPC had requested an investigation by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, alleging favoritism was granted in exchange for campaign contributions to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, after a visit to the White House by hedge fund billionaire Phil Falcone, who runs Harbinger Capital, the owner of LightSquared.

Falcone claims he is a Republican, and at worst, neutral politically, but the fact remains he is among a small percentage of Americans who have had the privilege of paying a personal visit to the White House that appears to have paid off personally.

While it is tempting to blow this off as yet another “Pay for Play” deal, which runs the risk of being normal in politics these days, think again.

You see, the company, LightSquared, used to be called SkyTerra. In 2005, Barack Obama invested more than $50,000 in SkyTerra — at the bidding of SkyTerra investor — and, according to ABC News, a friend of President Obama – George Haywood (the same George Haywood that was invited to the White House India State Dinner).

In March, 2007, the New York Times reported four principal owners of SkyTerra (and friends of Obama), had raised more than $150,000 for Obama since 2004. When questioned about his investment, Obama claimed he had opened a blind trust and “had no knowledge of any stockholding [sic.] with this account at any time.” He explained, “After I got [sic.] my [$1.9 million] book contract, I had money to invest,” insinuating that his investment in a company principally sponsored by political allies was mere coincidence. Obama later sold his investment at a loss after assessing the potential political ramifications.

On September 15, 2011, LightSquared Chairman and CEO, Sanjiv Ahuja issued a defensive statement on its website, Lightsquared.com, saying it is “ludicrous to suggest LightSquared’s success depends on political connections.” During the hearing the same day, House Armed Forces Subcommittee Chairman Michael Turner, R-Ohio, took the opposite opinion, chastising the administration for approving LightSquared proposals and reprimanding FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski for both granting a January 26 waiver to LightSquared, and failing to show up at the hearing to “discuss the significant harm to national security that may result from the FCC’s action.”

Promising a “possibility of real change” while speaking about campaign finance reform during a speech in 2008, Obama complained that, “special interests drown out the voices of the American people and will continue to erode our politics.”

Mission accomplished.

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Republican Fear Empowers Obama’s Corruption

September 19, 2011 By 6 Comments

by Floyd and Mary Beth Brown

Obama Corrupt Republican Fear Empowers Obama’s Corruption

Corruption inside the Obama administration runs rampant. The list of scandals grows longer by the moment, with a new one popping up at an ever-increasing rate. However, the Republican leadership empowers the corruption by refusing to fight. They fear Obama and are resigned to waiting for the buzzer instead of stopping the madness.

This week we learned of three more corpses resulting from Obama’s Operation Fast and Furious. This is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ program that encouraged the smuggling of illegal guns to the drug lords and gangs of Mexico. The resulting bloodshed has been ghoulish.

Next we saw e-mails from the White House in the Solyndra scandal, and the extemporaneous record shows corruption. Rep Cliff Stearns of Florida declared at a hearing this week, “The review process took a back seat to the need to set up a photo-op for the vice president and other administration officials.”

Solyndra is a politically connected solar energy firm that received more than half-a-billion dollars in federal loan guarantees. Now the firm is bankrupt. It is one of a string of firms that Obama touted as an engine of “green jobs.”

The White House e-mails show that the Obama administration rushed to get money to the firm based on politics, not job creation. No wonder the stimulus plan didn’t stimulate job growth; the money was diverted to the pockets of Obama’s political cronies.

Now he’s at it again with his new stimulus plan he’s trying to push down Congress’ throat. This new scheme takes more money from working citizens who could help get the economy moving again with the freedom to create jobs or spend it, thus spurring job creation. But no, Obama is only looking out for those who solidly vote for him and will then have more money to pour into his re-election coffers.

Now, The Daily Beast is reporting, “The four-star Air Force general who oversees Air Force Space Command walked into a highly secured room on Capitol Hill a week ago to give a classified briefing to lawmakers and staff, and dropped a surprise. Pressed by members, Gen. William Shelton said the White House tried to pressure him to change his testimony to make it more favorable to a company tied to a large Democratic donor.”

The donor is Philip Falcone, and the company is his new wireless satellite broadband company, LightSquared. The Democratic donor was sure to profit from the altered testimony to Congress.

Any of these scandals would have taken down Republican administrations. But Obama shoulders on without being touched by investigations. This is the direct result of a strategy poorly concocted by the leadership of the Republicans in Congress, because they fear Obama. It results in bad policy that is prolonging the weak economy as the Republicans compromise on policy and fail to provide adequate Congressional oversight of the federal government.

The strategy, which is only voiced behind closed doors, goes something like this: “Our polling shows that the American people want us working with the president. If we are too aggressive in our investigations of the administration, then people might get the idea we aren’t team players.”

Their strategy is akin to the four corners strategy in basketball. Before the days of shot clocks, teams were known to just keep passing the ball from corner to corner in the hopes that they wouldn’t make a mistake and time would run out.

The Republicans see that Obama is wounded, and they fear that if they do anything, then they might make a mistake and give his administration a shot at re-election. Why? The Republicans lack confidence in their ideas and are afraid to engage.

But the strategy has the potential to backfire. Voters, who are frustrated by what they see in Washington, could declare a pox on both their houses. Today, Americans feel our leaders are fiddling like Emperor Nero while the country literally burns.

Photos of the Republican leader John Boehner enjoying a game of golf with the president while the average citizens fears losing his job and his house leaves middle class voters with resentful attitudes.

Another year of Boehner hugging Biden on TV and then empowering the president to raise the debt ceiling at his whim could see the Tea Party lead a full scale revolt against not just the Democrats, but all the so called leaders in Washington.

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Barry, The Rich Pay Their “Fair Share” (And Yours, Too)

September 19, 2011 By 3 Comments

by Dr. Paul G. Kengor

feature 2011 09 teaparty 580x221 Barry, the Rich Pay Their “Fair Share” (And Yours, Too)

I’ve only recently come to realize the nature of the hurdle this country faces in trying to turn around a stalled economy and horrendous deficit. Here it is: liberal Democrat politicians have fully convinced huge numbers of people that our economic/fiscal mess is the result of two principal demons: 1) “the rich” and 2) the Tea Party. The former, of course, has been a longtime liberal scapegoat; the latter is a new one.

I’ve realized this painfully in the last few weeks as a result of several commentaries I’ve done (USA Today, FoxNews, among others), viewed by a large portion of Americans from across the political spectrum. In these commentaries, I tried to stick to statistics and facts. I naively thought my approach would be convincing. It was not, as evidenced by the many people I continue to argue with in e-mails.

Here today, I’ll reiterate the one fact that I thought was irrefutable:

As I noted in an article titled, “It’s the spending, stupid,” the federal government, from 1965-2009, never cut spending one single year. That’s right, not one time—nope, nada, nothing. To repeat: from 1965-2009, the federal government never decreased annual spending. To see the figures on a chart is eye-opening. The annual rise in spending has been a steady, non-stop, unbroken, upward climb for over 40 years. To the contrary, revenues to the federal government have gone up and down, the result—not of tax rates on “the rich,” but—of the status of the economy from year-to-year, especially during recessions. It’s both amazing and depressing to see that the federal government, unlike you and your family and your household and your business and your anything and everything else, is apparently incapable of adjusting (i.e., decreasing) its spending based on available revenues. It used to do so, under both Democrat and Republican presidents, but that changed in 1965, when the federal government, starting with the Great Society, began an outright spending addiction.

As I noted in the article, seeing this for yourself is as easy as Googling “historical tables deficit,” where one can view two sources: CBO historical tables (Congressional Budget Office)and OMB historical tables (Office of Management and Budget). These are the official sources for data on federal budgets. In the OMB link, look at Table 1.1, titled, “Summary of Receipts, Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits: 1789-2016.”

In my articles and e-mails, I even included hyperlinks (as I have here) to these tables, imploring people to look for themselves rather than accept my word. And yet, I can’t begin to recount the angry e-mails I got from people insisting that the reasons for our deficits/debt is not over-spending by the federal government but greed by wealthy people who don’t pay “their fair share” of income taxes and by dastardly “racist” “terrorists” in the Tea Party. And, yes, I actually got e-mails (many of them) from people insisting that Tea Party members are “terrorists.” To observe an American public, only a decade removed from September 11, somehow equating Tea Party members with “terrorists” leaves me almost speechless and hopeless.

I will not bother responding to that particular smear, but I would like to address the charge that the rich are not paying “their fair share.” Again, I will stick to data.

If you Google the words “Who pays income tax?” you will find a chart (click here) from the National Taxpayers Union. It includes these telling statistics:

The top 1 percent of income earners pay 38 percent of all federal tax revenue. The top 5 percent pay 59 percent. The top 10 percent pay 70 percent. The top 25 percent pay 86 percent. The top 50 percent pay 97.3 percent. Conversely, the bottom 50 percent pay merely 2.7 percent of all federal tax revenue.

As the data shows, the rich are certainly paying their fair share. In fact, they pay the vast share. The poorest Americans, conversely, pay literally nothing in income taxes.

If anything, the system is disproportionately titled against the wealthy. Our “rich” are paying for the reckless behavior of politicians addicted to spending; they are subsidizing spending addicts. And to watch those addicts blame their mess on the rich for not paying enough? It’s downright obscene.

But the folks who have e-mailed me have the complete opposite opinion. It is an incorrect opinion.

Let me repeat: America’s deficit/debt problem is a spending problem. It is not the fault of rich people who pay too little income tax or Tea Party members guilty of “terrorism.” Don’t take my word for it. Look at the data.

My fear, however, is that the data just doesn’t matter to a huge number of followers of the party line. And that’s a very serious problem for this country, a giant propaganda hurdle that may be insurmountable.

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Video: GOP Congressmen Put The Heat On Obama’s “Drunken Uncle Omar”

September 17, 2011 By 4 Comments

Barack Obama’s “Uncle Omar” may have gotten out of jail following his drunk driving arrest last month, but some Republican congressmen want to cross-examine him — and Obama’s stealth amnesty program — themselves.

Rep. Steve King of Iowa, one of the staunchest critics of illegal immigration, said Monday, “We have to bring drunken ‘Uncle Omar’ in front of the House Judiciary Committee, drill down into this, and tell America what’s going on.” It appears he wants to haul the illegal Kenyan immigrant — Onyango, that is — before Congress.

Police in Framingham, Massachusetts, say they arrested 67-year-old Onyango Obama, whom the president refers to in Dreams from my Father as “Uncle Omar,” on August 24 after he nearly hit a police officer at a stop sign. They say they measured his blood alcohol level at nearly twice the state’s legal limit. Although the government ordered Onyango deported in 1992, he remains in the country awaiting a new hearing on his status.

Obama’s aunt, Zeituni Onyango, received similar preferential treatment after she was found illegally living in public housing and receiving welfare. After her asylum case was denied in 2004, the same judge, Leonard Shapiro, reversed course and granted her claim in May 2010.

Although Zeituni carried a massive chip on her shoulder toward her nephew’s country and violated immigration and welfare laws, her actions did not endanger anyone’s life. Onyango’s actions do, and that may be too much even in an Obama-run nation.

The senator from the state where Onyango illegally resides wants to see him gone. Sen. Scott Brown, R-MA, told talk show host Howie Carr authorities should put Omar “through the [immigration] process and see what happens.”

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Uncle Omar will indeed undergo government hearings, where he would be treated “like any other immigration case.”

Texas Congressman Lamar Smith finds that talk hollow. “It appears there is a double standard — one for President Obama’s family and one for everyone else,” he stated in a press release. “Last year, President Obama’s illegal immigrant aunt was granted asylum and now his illegal immigrant uncle has been released from ICE custody, even though he was arrested by authorities for drunk driving.” Seemingly echoing this author, Smith concluded, “Last month, President Obama made several changes to our deportation policy and his illegal immigrant uncle might be one of the first illegal immigrants to benefit from it.”

This author wrote: “Uncle Omar seems a likely beneficiary of President Obama’s recent amnesty-by-fiat. The White House announced on August 18 all future deportations would be carried out by “priority”…One could be excused for thinking Obama implemented his most recent amnesty fiat strictly for his relatives’ benefit.”

Smith’s fellow Texan, Louie Gohmert, underlined the damage Obama’s policies have done to America’s stature. “This is one more example of where the president is in a position where he can give favorable treatment to his cronies, and in this case a relative,” he said. “It’s one more step making us look like a Third World corrupt government where it’s all about who you know.”

For America to avoid becoming a Third World banana republic, we must replace its would-be tin-horn dictator from office — and his family from the country. It’s good to see some in the Republican Party have the courage to say so, even in ultra-liberal Massachusetts.

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Dead Teenagers: The Human Face Of Obama’s Amnesty

September 17, 2011 By 5 Comments

by Kevin “Coach” Collins

VictimsMattleJimmerson inset Dead Teenagers: The Human Face of Obama’s Amnesty

On the evening of April 17, 2009, the real meaning of what Barack Obama’s call for shared sacrifice was forced on the families of Leigh Anna Jimmerson and Tad Mattle, a 19-year-old from Huntsville, Alabama, any family would be proud to claim. Tad was more than a typical teenager. Leigh Anna was Tad’s girlfriend. (Family and friends said they were a great couple.) Tad was an Eagle Scout who planned to attend the University of Alabama on a full academic scholarship. If ever there were a young man with his whole life in front of him, it was Tad Mattle.

That changed forever around 9 p.m. on that spring night as Tad and Leigh Anna, a high school sophomore, were stopped at a light in their hometown of Huntsville. Suddenly, they were dead. A drunken illegal alien traveling approximately 70 miles per hour slammed into the rear end of Tad’s car, causing the two to burn to death.

The other driver was Felix Ortega, a criminal who sneaked into our country. He was leading police in a high speed chase through crowded city streets. His blood alcohol level was more than three times the legal level, and he had three prior drunk driving arrests under three different phony names. This upstanding example of humanity survived the crash.

That night the Mattle and Jimmerson families learned firsthand about Barack Obama’s call for “shared sacrifice.” Spurred on by this ugly episode,  the state of Alabama has acted to protect its citizens with what is being called the toughest anti-illegal immigration law in the country.

A law such as this one could not sail into implementation without opposition, even in the deep Red South. Not surprisingly the religious community in Alabama has voiced its antipathy toward this hardline stance.  Alabama’s bishops are unified in an effort to roll it back — and of course, they are joined by the ACLU.

Their opposition begs a few questions: Do the lives of these “objectors” bring them into contact with the criminals they are beating their breasts to protect? Are they being threatened everyday by violent thugs who laugh at our police? Are any of them in danger of losing their jobs or livelihood to an illegal alien?

Do they think the only human faces in this debate belong to the illegal aliens we don’t want in our midst? Or are they the only ones who count?

To contact your Congressional representative, use this link: http://www.contactingthecongress.org/

To read more, follow these links:

http://blog.al.com/breaking/2011/08/for_huntsville_couple_still_gr.html    

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/us/14immig.html?pagewanted=all

This article originally appeared on CoachIsRight.com and is reprinted with permission.

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Obama New Jobs Shell Game

September 17, 2011 By 4 Comments

by Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson

feature 2011 09 jobsgambit 580x221 Obama New Jobs Shell Game
If you watched President Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress, you didn’t see anything new. He did what he does best—campaign for re-election and pay lip service to private enterprise and fiscal responsibility while proposing more top-down economic planning that (despite his claims to the contrary) will surely plunge the government more deeply into debt; that is, if Congress gets stampeded into passing the proposed “American Jobs Act.”

This president’s policies so far have left us with economic stagnation and stubbornly high unemployment. His new proposals are more of the same. Obama’s rigid ideological convictions may render him incapable of supporting the kinds of policies that let job creation flourish. Remember that word “let”—I’ll come back to it.

Over a year and a half ago, my article “Obama’s Anti-Jobs Policy” described several ways by which this president’s policies were killing jobs: heavier taxation and regulation of business, expensive federal jobs programs that triggered a net job loss, and a minimum wage hike, among others.

Team Obama has continued to undercut job formation by waging a relentless campaign against profit-making businesses. To Obama, it seems like the only good business is a business that government funds and/or controls. His modus operandi is government economic planning. Think of the tax dollars blown on uneconomic solar boondoggles.

Team Obama persecutes private businesses. It has just launched lawsuits against banks for peddling the junk mortgages that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac essentially forced them to issue. Late last month, the feds raided Gibson Guitars, showing far more concern for the possible importation of a little bit of illegal wood than concern for the certain immigration of large numbers of illegal aliens. The executive branch bureaucracies—led by the EPA, the NLRB, the Departments of the Interior, Transportation, Energy, et al.—have hounded, burdened, impeded, blocked, threatened, and intimidated businesses.

No wonder American businesses are reluctant to hire. In this kind of environment, business managers can’t help but wonder if they will be the next to get zapped by some government-hurled bolt out of the blue.

It never ceases to amaze me how some individuals can claim to be pro-jobs when they are aggressively anti-business. If you want jobs, you need businesses to prosper and profit. Businesses equal jobs, period. Did President Obama offer a truce to business in his speech last night? No. Instead, he trotted out his stale, make-the-most-profitable-businesses-pay-their-fair-share-of-taxes line (i.e., raise their taxes) again.

Yes, he did propose to give businesses a tax credit for hiring workers—another iteration of that government-with-strings-attached “partnership with business” that Obama refuses to abandon. Job creation would be more vigorous and less costly to government if the president could grasp that profit-seeking businesses are the major employers in a growing economy, and you don’t need government to use tax dollars to pay them to hire people. You just need to get government off their back.

Obama presented a new version of his failed “stimulus” plan by proposing various make-work projects. Naturally, these projects are of his choosing, which means more spending targeted to union interests such as teachers and construction workers on federal jobs. What the president fails to grasp is that government attempts to accelerate economic growth and boost job creation are counterproductive. Jobs are like roses: You can’t make them grow; you have to let them grow. If you remove obstacles to growth and protect your crop from disruptive intrusions, you’ll end up with more of what you wanted than if you try to force the issue.

What the president needs is for one of his pals in Big Business to explain to him how free markets generate jobs. Unfortunately, he surrounds himself with the likes of GE’s Jeffrey Immelt who shares his belief in state capitalism. The kind of business friend he really needs is a modern version of Monsieur Legendre.

Few people today remember M. Legendre, an obscure 17th-century French merchant. In 1680, the French economy was stagnant, as ours is today. Merchants labored under the burden of mountains of regulations and the oppressive meddlesomeness of government bureaucrats. Anxious to stimulate the economy (as a means of increasing royal revenues), Louis XIV’s Finance Minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, assembled some business leaders to inquire what could be done for them.

The plainspoken M. Legendre replied with the immortal phrase, “Laissez-nous faire”—“Leave us alone.” That was the origin of the term “laissez faire” as a label for a free-market economy. More fundamentally, it set forth a great truth, simple in its elegance and profundity—that the “invisible hand” of a free market generates wealth-producing jobs far more effectively than the heavy hand of government planning. That truth eludes many a bright individual, Barack Obama included.

The president pointedly belittled the laissez faire option last night. That is his prerogative—and our job-seekers’ loss. More stimulus, more debt, and more government planning can produce only what they have been producing: more stagnation and reduced employment opportunities.

Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson is an adjunct faculty member, economist, and fellow for economic and social policy with The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College.

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Video: Did Valerie Jarrett Push Corrupt Solyndra Loan Deal?

September 16, 2011 By 12 Comments

NThjYTEzMSZvZj*w Video: Did Valerie Jarrett Push Corrupt Solyndra Loan Deal?video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

Americans are demanding to know why the Obama administration extended a $535 million taxpayer-funded loan guarantee to Solyndra Inc. after officials in the waning days of the Bush administration unanimously vetoed the deal. Why would political appointees push career analysts, who knew the material best, to finance the troubled green energy firm whose product, solar energy panels, cost twice as much to make as their final selling price?

The answer may be simple: Valerie Jarrett.

Solyndra received the Obama administration’s first loan guarantee despite numerous red flags raised by industry and political experts.

In 2008, Fitch Ratings gave the company a B+ rating, meaning investment should be treated as “speculative.” (Spokeswoman Cindy Stoller told ABC News the company regards the mark as “a non-investment grade rating.”) PriceWaterhouseCoopers questioned its sustainability.

Career analysts had the same concerns but acted under extreme political pressure to support the government-favored business. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) felt pressured to complete the review by September 4, 2009, when Joe Biden and Energy Secretary Steven Chu hoped to attend the company’s groundbreaking ceremony. “This deal is NOT ready for prime time,” one analyst wrote in 2009. Another warned the technology was “immature.”

What accounts for the speedy approval, against the best wishes of the analysts who know the material best? Crony capitalism. ABC reports, “Federal auditors had flagged the loan, saying some applicants had benefited from special treatment.” For once, the source of this special treatment is easily identified. The George Kaiser Family Foundation controls 35.7 percent of Solyndra. George Kaiser personally bundled between $50,000-$100,000 in campaign contributions for Obama in 2008. Notoriously porous White House logs show Kaiser visited the White House (at least) four times.

On February 23, the government restructured its agreement with Solyndra to entice investors to sink another $75 million into the failing firm. The restructuring agreement provides that, in case of bankruptcy, those investors get to recoup their funds before taxpayers are repaid. Republican Congressman say this is a clear violation of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which states taxpayer dollars must “not [be] subordinate to other financing.”

As such, the restructuring alone may be an impeachable offense.

Nonetheless, the administration hailed its “success” at putting people back to work. Chris Horner rightly pointed out in the American Spectator that Obama made the company “the face of the stimulus.” Then on August 31, Solyndra Inc. laid off 1,100 workers — the day after its plant started new equipment.

Structural financial problems as deep as Solyndra’s are not overlooked without pressure, and pressure does not come without the aid of important political elites.

Enter Valerie Jarrett

The George Kaiser Family Foundation maintains, although its leader met with multiple Obama officials during the loan’s negotiations, he “did not participate in any discussions with the U.S. Government [sic.] regarding the loan.”

The denial strains credulity. Whom, then, did Kaiser pressure? Who agreed to finance, then restructure, a loan for Kaiser’s baby?

Kaiser met with a number of political appointees, none more significant than Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s alter ego and closest adviser.

By all accounts Jarrett, a conduit of radicals into the White House who regularly addresses political and religious extremists, has unparalleled influence over the president. She first got Michelle Robinson Obama well ensconced in Chicago political circles during Mayor Harold Washington’s administration and has acted as an intimate confidant for both Obamas ever since. In July 2009, Obama told the New York Times, “I trust her completely…She is family.” Jarrett, President Obama confided, is entrusted “to speak for me, particularly when we’re dealing with delicate issues.” He added that he runs every decision by her. Jarrett confirmed her own behind-the-scenes power. “We have kind of a mind meld,” she said.

An Obama 2008 campaign official told the Times, “If you want [Barack Obama] to do something, there are two people he’s not going to say no to: Valerie Jarrett and Michelle Obama.”

Despite her long and well-established connection to radical left-wingers, Jarrett also heads up the administration’s “business outreach.” Kaiser would have gone to great lengths to speak to Jarrett in her capacity both as a (big) business liaison and Obama’s apparent ventriloquist.

By all accounts — both Obama’s and her own — if she gives the order, the president obeys. The only question is whether she rendered judgement that Solyndra should be funded and/or that its half-billion-dollar loan should be restructured in violation of the law.

Rep. Steve Scalise, R-LA, is currently attempting to find out who approved this subordination of the U.S. taxpayer. Kaiser’s meeting with Valerie Jarrett should the top his investigative priorities. If these clear signs of smoke lead to fire, Jarrett must be fired and her boss/servant turned out of office.

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The Obama Jobs Plan Jeopardizes Social Security

September 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

by Tom W. Pauken

obama ponzi scheme ponzi politics 1312310114 The Obama Jobs Plan Jeopardizes Social Security
Social Security has been a political football for a long time. That makes any serious effort to reform the system, and preserve its long-term viability, all the more difficult.

Ironically, the centerpiece of President Obama’s recently announced jobs program would cut payroll taxes – the principal funding source for the Social Security Trust Fund – without immediately making up for those lost revenues through other revenue streams. Normally, the employer and employee pay an equal share, 6.2 percent of income up to $106,200. This provided $544.8 billion in funding for Social Security in 2010. Last year, President Obama persuaded Congress to pass a two percent employee payroll tax cut for 2011. Thus, there will be $112 billion less in revenues to go into paying for Social Security benefits, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. That will require finding other funding sources to make up the difference.

President Obama’s latest jobs bill calls for a much bigger cut in payroll taxes for next year. Under this legislation, the employer tax rate would drop from 4.2 percent to 3.1 percent through 2012. Employers would see their share of the payroll tax also cut to 3.1 percent on the first $5 million of their payroll. Any increase in wages (up to $50 million), from either new hires or raises, would be entirely exempt from the payroll tax. The total cost of the cuts is projected to be $240 billion, which would result in a 36 percent reduction in Social Security tax funding in 2012.

Such a significant reduction in designated payroll tax funding of Social Security will impact the long-term ability of the trust fund to make good on promised payments to seniors unless there is an alternative funding mechanism dedicated to make up for the shortfall caused by lowering payroll taxes. Considering that the Social Security Trust Fund is going to run out of money sometime in the future under current projections, the Obama jobs initiative will speed up that process by taking substantial, existing funding out of Social Security with no real plan to pay for it. This simply “punts” the problem of paying for it down to the 12-member Congressional Super Committee.

The president and his advisors are rightly concerned about the negative impact the employer portion of the payroll tax has on job creation. Combine the 6.2 percent payroll tax on employers with the 35 percent corporate income tax, and it results in the U.S. having the most onerous corporate tax system in the world. Nonetheless, since the payroll tax cuts in Obama’s proposed legislation are temporary, they are unlikely to affect businesses making long-term decisions like hiring new workers.

Getting rid of all, or part, of this job-killing corporate tax system is a worthy goal in order to get our private sector moving again and put people back to work. But, you have to make up for the lost revenue at a time in which our federal government is running massive budget deficits in excess of a trillion dollars a year.

A much better approach to getting the American economy moving again without further jeopardizing the solvency of our Social Security system would be to change the way we tax business to a revenue-neutral, consumption tax along the lines advocated by Austin businessman David Hartman. Under the Hartman Plan, the corporate income tax would be replaced with an 8 percent border-adjusted, business consumption tax. All goods and services coming into the U.S. would be taxed at that level while all U.S.-based companies exporting overseas would receive a tax credit, or tax abatement, of a comparable amount on their business consumption tax. The amount of revenue it would generate not only would make up for the revenue previously provided by the corporate income tax, it also would provide enough money to fund Social Security from any loss of revenues due to a cut in payroll taxes. This new tax system would be structured so that a portion of the revenue stream goes directly to the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for the lost revenues from a payroll tax cut. As the economy starts growing again – and more people are put back to work under this new taxing system – there will be more revenues available to make the Social Security Trust Fund sound again.

With this change in the way we tax American-based businesses, we will level the trading field with our competitors, start growing our private sector again, bring jobs home to America, and help preserve the solvency of the Social Security system.

This is a real economic stimulus program which doesn’t steal funding from our Social Security system.

Tom Pauken is Chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission and author of Bringing America Home.

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Obama Blames Bureaucracy, Bush For Solyndra Cronyism

September 16, 2011 By 9 Comments

Obama Blames Bureaucracy, Bush for Solyndra Cronyism

In the wake of the growing Solyndra scandal, the Obama administration is playing the familiar card that its inside deal-making and cronyism really amount to nothing more than bureaucratic mistakes that should be blamed on his Republican predecessor. Like the Black Panther case dismissal, left-wing spinmeisters are pinning the Solyndra loan guarantee on the career federal employees the Obama administration pressured. In this case, they also blame President George W. Bush.

“The loan guarantee decision was merit-based and made by career staffers at DOE (Department of Energy),” said White House spokesman Eric Schultz. “And the process for this particular loan guarantee began under President Bush.”

The decision to blame federal employees recalls Obama’s dismissal of the Black Panther voter intimidation case. Obama’s Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Thomas Perez may have perjured himself when he told the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights the decision amounted to nothing more than “a case of career people disagreeing with career people.” Judicial Watch subsequently proved substantial pressure from two Obama political appointees, Steve Rosenbaum and Sam Hirsch.

The idea that President Bush is responsible for Solyndra’s loan mess is more laughable. The loan process did indeed begin under President Bush, where it was also rejected. Although he raised the possibility of a loan guarantee, career analysts unanimously vetoed the idea in the last days of his administration. It took Obama to push through the crony deal on behalf of his campaign bundler, George Kaiser, and to restructure the loan deal in apparent violation of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 when Solyndra seemed in danger of bankruptcy earlier this year.

Obama looked at the $535 million loan guarantee as a payback for a political crony but also a way to pump federal money into the economy and, through the miracle of Keynesianism, put Americans to work. However, his green energy investment has been a bust for American taxpayers and workers. Bloomberg reports, “Solyndra is the third U.S. solar manufacturer to fail in a month as falling panel prices and weak global demand are driving a wave of industry consolidation.”

Indeed, Solyndra is not the only stimulus recipient to declare bankruptcy. The deceased company is joined by four other green energy firms: Evergreen Solar Inc., SpectraWatt, Mountain Plaza Inc., and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Co.

All of this bears out Sarah Palin’s contention that the Obama administration is engaged in “crony capitalism on steroids.”

What has the Obama administration learned from this massive squandering of taxpayer money? Nothing. Daniel Poneman, Obama’s Deputy Secretary of Energy, faulted China in a USA Today op-ed (in which he also blamed dipping sales on “short-term softening demand”). China certainly subsidizes its green energy sector, and Congressional Democrats such as Ron Wyden and Steny Hoyer have recommended taking action before the World Trade Organization. Poneman, however, recommends taxpayers make steeper “investments” in the administration’s preferred clientele. “Government support has an important role to play in developing new industries and emerging technologies,” he beamed.

Schultz agreed, “As the Department of Energy has made clear, they have always recognized that not every one of the innovative companies helped would succeed, but we can’t stop investing in game-changing technologies that are key to America’s leadership in the global economy.”

Coming from a White House drunk on spending, his words do not sound like a statement of resolve so much as the admission of an addict desperately in need of going cold turkey.

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