Nancy Pelosi is facing accusations of cronyism after a solar energy project, which her brother-in-law has a stake in, landed a $737 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy, despite the growing Solyndra scandal.

The massive loan agreement is raising new concerns about the use of taxpayers' money as vast sums are invested in technology similar to that of the doomed energy project.

The investment has intensified the debate over the effectiveness of solar energy as a major power source.
The SolarReserve project is backed by an energy investment fund where the Minority Leader's brother-in-law Ronald Pelosi is second in command.

PCG Clean Energy & Technology Fund (East) LLC is listed as one of the investors in the project that has been given the staggering loan, which even dwarfs that given to failed company Solyndra.

Other investors include one of the major investors in Solyndra, which is run by one

There’s something else happening here. Some investors are not confident with what gold is backed by, or if it’s backed by anything at all, as compared to something like the US dollar. Investors are comfortable that the U.S. dollar is backed by the America government, so no matter what is happening to the American economy, something like the U.S. dollar is backed by the Federal Reserve that’s going to be around a year from now. That’s a much more comfortable investment for them.

The United States is looking at building fences along the border with Canada to help keep out terrorists and other criminals, according to a draft report by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency

The report proposes the use of "fencing and other barriers" on the 49th parallel to manage "trouble spots where passage of cross-border violators is difficult to control."

But a spokesperson for U.S Customs and Border Protection said the government is not considering the fence option "at this time" and instead is looking at the environmental effects of putting more manpower, technology and infrastructure along the border. MORE

Conservative watchdogs have been barking that automakers like GM — in order to grab eye-popping $19,300-per-car incentives to sell Chevy Volts in China — "must share their technology with Chinese counterparts and produce the vehicles over there" (my respected colleague Paul Chesser, National Legal and Policy Center).

I admire their doggedness, but they are missing the real scandal. To quote the classic Hollywood line: "Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown."

READ IT HERE

“The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

I have been working on a contract that will come to bind you, dear reader. This contract will give myself, and those I employ, the power to seize your property whenever we deem it to be necessary and proper. This contract can be amended at anytime and can only be interpreted by myself, and those I employ.

You say you would never sign such a contract?

No worries, your signature is not needed. I have, in good faith, taken the time to have many of my Friends and Neighbors sign it. Those who have signed it, have, with their signatures, legally bound you to this contract. I know, I know, it seems unfair and perhaps somewhat unjust. That is why I will provide you with arbitration, and I promise I will see to it that this method of arbitration will be as objective as possible. This Arbitrator will be paid by me through funds I have stolen…errr…extracted from you through the barrel of m….errr…through taxation. You see, I only sign the paychecks, the money comes from you; it’s more than fair this way. You couldn’t possibly be competent enough to use your own money to buy your own arbitration, so I must force it upon you. This Arbitrator, this Judge, will be addressed as “The Honorable”, or, “Your Honor” and he will have almost unlimited powers within his court. If you choose to disrespect or disrupt “the Court” you will be caged for an indeterminate amount of time. However, before you are thrown into a cage, you will have a chance to grovel at the feet of the Court. Maybe this most Honorable Man will show mercy on you, or perhaps not. Even though your money and property is extracted to pay for this Public Servant, it is not your place to question him in his court. All dissenters must be punished, this is the only way to maintain the absolute authority of “the Court”.MORE

In the current racial circus, the president of the United States, in addressing an assembly of upscale black professionals and political leaders, adopts the style of a Southern Baptist preacher of the 1960s. He alters his cadences and delivery to both berate and gin up the large audience — posing as a messianic figure who will “march” them out to speak truth to power. In response, the omnipresent Rep. Maxine Waters goes public yet again, to object that the president has no right to rally blacks in this way, when he does not adopt similar tones of admonishment with Jews and gays. (Should Obama try to emulate the way he thinks gays and Jews talk in his next address to them?)

Hope-and-change has now sunk into little more than a tawdry spectacle of racial spoils, as the president of the United States desperately cobbles together squabbling special-interest racial, ethnic, and gender groups in lieu of restoring the nation’s prosperity. Before the age of Obama, I don’t recall that some members of the Black Caucus were so ready to invite political opponents to “go straight to hell,” or to allege that they were veritable murderers eager to lynch blacks and restore slavery. MORE

Over drinks at a bar on a dreary, snowy night in Washington this past month, a former Senate investigator laughed as he polished off his beer.

"Everything's fucked up, and nobody goes to jail," he said.  "That's your whole story right there.  Hell, you don't even have to write the rest of it.  Just write that."

I put down my notebook. "Just that?"

"That's right," he said, signaling to the waitress for the check. "Everything's fucked up, and nobody goes to jail.  You can end the piece right there."

Nobody goes to jail. This is the mantra of the financial-crisis era, one that saw virtually every major bank and financial company on Wall Street embroiled in obscene criminal scandals that impoverished millions and collectively destroyed hundreds of billions, in fact, trillions of dollars of the world's wealth — and nobody went to jail. Nobody, that is, except Bernie Madoff, a flamboyant and pathological celebrity con artist, whose victims happened to be other rich and famous people.MORE

In its quest to promote taxpayer-funded entitlement programs, the Obama Administration has actually rewarded one state with a $5 million bonus for its efficiency in adding food-stamp recipients to already bulging rolls.

It’s part of the administration’s campaign to eradicate “food insecure households” by improving access and increasing participation in the government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).  Incidentally, the program was recently changed to SNAP to eliminate the stigma that comes with a name like food stamps. Just a few months ago the federal agency that administers the program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), launched a multi-million-dollar initiative to recruit more food-stamp participants even though the number of recipients has skyrocketed in the last few years.

This week Oregon officials bragged that the USDA has given the state $5 million in “performance bonuses” for ensuring that people eligible for food benefits receive them and for its “swift processing of applications.” The money comes on the heels of a separate $1.5 million award from the feds for making “accurate payments of food stamp benefits to clients.” So welfare recipients are clients? .MORE

"When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were instinctively, to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink." -- George Orwell, "Politics and the English language"

Last weekend, President Obama gave a speech to the Congressional Black Caucus. It would have passed largely unnoticed into the giant, gaseous cloud of accumulated Obama speeches that hangs somewhere above Washington had it not been for an Associated Press reporter dutifully doing his job.

READ IT HERE

In a single day this week, the Obama administration managed to chill the free market, stomp all over the First Amendment and -- once again -- bend Detroit’s auto industry to its political will.

Not bad for a day’s work.

For the past few weeks, Ford has been airing spots on TV and online showing the owner of an F-150 pickup truck declaring his disdain for companies that took a government bailout in 2009 to stay afloat.

The Blaze explains: "Massive retailers like Apple, Microsoft, Netflix and Wal-Mart have a relationship with an Internet marketer called the Charity Giveback Group (CGBG). When CGBG brings customers to retailers’ web sites, the marketer gets commission for the sales that are made. This, of course, is a common occurrence in the e-commerce world.... A portion of the commission that retailers pay out is donated to the buyers’ charity of choice. On the list of potential recipients are Christian organizations like the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family — groups that oppose gay marriage."

READ IT HERE

Democratic stances on culture and coal proved insurmountable for Al Gore, John Kerry, and Barack Obama, but most of West Virginia’s own Democrats are adept at distancing themselves from the national party when needed.

READ IT HERE

President Obama has unveiled his so-called deficit reduction plan.  Besides spending cuts that aren’t really cuts, he has proposed ending the Bush-era tax cuts for individuals making $200,000 (couples $250,000) or more and an additional surtax on those earning a million or more.  The President’s argument for the surtax is that no millionaire should pay a lower tax rate than his or her secretary. (Obama calls this the “Buffett Rule” for reasons to be explained below.)  This is part of a more general claim that the rich need to “pay their fair share.” He denies this is “class warfare,” but only “simple math.”  By taxing the rich, he says, we can raise sufficient revenue to significantly reduce the deficit and debt.

Let’s put the “Tax-the-Rich Truth Squad” on the case and see how Obama’s claims hold up.  We’ll start with the claim that millionaires pay lower rates than their secretaries. This debate started when legendary investor Warren Buffett claimed that the rate he paid on his income last year — 17.4 percent — was about half what his secretary paid.

Defining “Income”

Part of the problem here is in how you define “income” and the relevant “rate.”  Buffett pays himself a very low salary, but earns a great deal of income in capital gains from his speculative activity.  Those gains are indeed taxed at a lower rate — 15 percent — than his secretary’s top rate of 30 percent or more.  The reason the capital-gains rate is so low is that those gains are taxed first at the corporate level — at  35 percent — before being taxed again as Buffett’s income at 15 percent.  In addition, it’s not clear what Buffett included in his secretary’s taxes and income. MORE

Here’s a small note about the FDA that hasn’t received too much attention in the news:

Senate Appropriators Pass $50M FDA Budget Increase, Mainly For Food Law. The Senate appropriations panel cleared the fiscal 2012 FDA budget bill late Wednesday (Sept. 7) to boost FDA funding by $50 million beyond this year’s level, with the bulk of the additional money targeting implementation of the new food safety law and leaving the medical product portfolio with nominal changes ahead of user fee negotiations next year.

Unknown to many, Benito Obamalini’s budget included a 5-year freeze on non-security discretionary spending, except that the FDA obtained a $50M boost, and that is just the beginning for the fed’s stepped-up enforcement of its Food Tyranny Act.

On order to prepare scientists around the world to submit to the U.S. policy on all things food, a U.S. government lab in the heart of the Washington, D.C. statist sewer is already training international scientists in “food safety”: the International Food Safety Training Laboratory. A comment from a manager at the lab:

“The United States is not imposing its methods on other countries,” she added. “There is really a grander goal of harmonization of techniques.” MORE

• INTERACTIVE: How state legislators inflate pensions
• MORE: State-by-state pension rules and methodology

In his so-called jobs speeches, Obama exploits class envy shrouded in fairness.  President Obama continues to escalate his divisive assault on achievers, purposely pitting Americans against each other.

Obama's "Hate the Rich" campaign appeals to our lower nature and encourages the sin of covetousness.  If Obama's despicable campaign proves successful, it will be a sad commentary about who we have become as a people and how far we have fallen as Americans.

READ IT HERE