In the past few months and years, President Obama has castigated Super PACs. Obama has said “you can’t be against Super PACs one day and for them the next,” and he’s referred to 527s as a “threat to democracy.”

Fortunately, Nancy Pelosi is here to help explain why these same threats to democracy, when reluctantly utilized by the pure of heart in emergency situations, can also be used to help preserve democracy.

Here’s a brief transcript of Pelosi’s explanation by way of The Right Scoop:

The president made a decision which I think was a wise one that he was not going to unilaterally disarm and leave the field to the Koch brothers to decide who would be POTUS and who would control the Congress.

Maybe Pelosi’s right — it’s straight from Sun Tzu: “To know your enemy, you must become your enemy.” Of course, they didn’t have Super PACs in Sun Tzu’s day, which might explain why the book isn’t called “The Art of Hypocrisy”:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

What’s a week without more suspicious Solyndra news? This should be enough to get us by until the inevitable almost weekly document dump that could come tomorrow.

From the Washington Times:

Fast running out of money, solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC last summer sold off nearly $60 million worth of inventory for less than $20 million in cash to a newly formed corporate entity closely tied to the company’s biggest investors, records show.

Backed by $535 million in federal loan guarantees but burning through the little cash it had left, Solyndra made its first sale in late July to a corporate entity that had been formed just a day earlier. Three more transactions followed over the next few weeks with the same buyer, Solyndra Solar II.
[...]
Todd Zywicki, bankruptcy professor at the George Mason University School of Law, said it’s not unusual for troubled companies to sell off assets to improve liquidity. But he said the inventory sales figure cited by Solyndra — $58.1 million in inventory for $17.5 million in cash — seems unusual.

“The test under the bankruptcy code is whether the sale was for reasonably equivalent value and selling inventory at such a huge discount raises real concerns,” he said. “If Solyndra Solar II is owned or controlled by any insiders or anything like that, then it becomes even more suspicious.”

No word on how much the whistling robots were re-sold for.

Would the aforementioned bankruptcy professor consider these to be “insiders”?

Solyndra Solar II was formed in Delaware by affiliates of Solyndra’s debtor in possession lender — investors Argonaut Private Equity and Madrone Capital Partners — as well as other debt holders, bankruptcy and government records show. Another special-purpose entity, Solyndra Solar LLC, was formed to purchase the company’s accounts receivable.

Argonaut is the investment arm of a foundation headed by billionaire Oklahoma businessman George Kaiser. Madrone Partners has ties to Wal-Mart’s Walton family.

The real test is to wait and see if Solyndra Solar II (Electric Boondoggleoo) sells that inventory for which they paid $17.5 million back to the government for ten times that amount so the Department of Energy can offer it to the next clean energy upstart taxpayers will be on the hook for and thus complete the “green jobs circle of life.”

Obviously glass tubes used in solar panels must have not been in demand during the resale process. Your tax dollars at work:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

If she actually couldn’t see this coming, her family might want to make sure she never crosses the street unescorted:

Former Democratic congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper, a Catholic from Erie, Pennsylvania, cast a crucial vote in favor of Obamacare in 2010. She lost her seat that November in part because of her controversial support of Obamacare. But Dahlkemper said recently that she would have never voted for the health care bill had she known that the Department of Health and Human Services would require all private insurers, including Catholic charities and hospitals, to provide free coverage of contraception, sterilization procedures, and the “week-after” pill “ella” that can induce early abortions.

“I would have never voted for the final version of the bill if I expected the Obama Administration to force Catholic hospitals and Catholic Colleges and Universities to pay for contraception,” Dahlkemper said in a press release sent out by Democrats for Life in November.

What part of Nancy Pelosi’s health care law proclamation didn’t Dahlkemper understand?

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

During the clamor to pass an extension of the payroll tax cut, President Obama asked “What does $40 mean to you?”

His opponents of the way the extension was handled might now be able to counter with, “What does $9,500 mean to you?”

(CBS News) Just before Christmas, American workers got a rare gift from Washington politicians – the current payroll tax cut would be extended for two more months. At the time, both President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner lauded the move to avoid a tax increase for millions of working Americans. But there’s something the politicians weren’t bragging about – the fact that they’re paying for the two-month tax cut with what has turned into a brand new fee on home buyers.

The new fee is a minimum of one-tenth of 1 percent on Fannie Mae- and Freddie Mac-backed loans, and is likely to go much higher. It will be imposed for the next 10 years on most mortgages and refinancings and it lasts for the life of the loan. For every $200,000, it amounts to an extra $15 dollars a month.

It’s bad news for Patty Anderson, who’s buying a home in Virginia. Anderson will save a couple hundred dollars from having her payroll tax cut extended but her mortgage broker told her the new fee would cost her almost $9,500.
[...]
The $35.7 billion collected in fees won’t go into the Social Security fund to replace the lost payroll tax. It goes to the general treasury where Congress can spend it however they please.

Is this outlined in the Homeowners Bill of Rights?

For now, file this under “robbing Peter for decades to pay Peter for a couple of months”:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

This week the First Lady told an audience at a fundraiser that the economy has made “remarkable progress” these past three years. One example of a hiring spree uptick can be found in New York City, where a couple hundred workers have been or are being added to the payrolls due to wildly increasing demand. Sure, it’s to work in welfare offices, but the recovery has to start somewhere:

The Human Resources Administration added more than 100 workers last July and plans to hire another 100 to serve the burgeoning number of New Yorkers applying for food stamps and rent assistance at their offices, according to the Daily News.

About 1.8 million New Yorkers are now on food stamps, which marks nearly a 65 percent increase from four years ago, according to city records. The increase in applicants has led to overcrowding at HRA offices throughout the city, and the agency said at a council hearing Tuesday that it had to hire scores of new workers and supervisors to manage the situation.

The HRA has also expanded its waiting rooms to accommodate the swell in applicants.

I guess I owe Tom Vilsack an apology.

So, if Bush is the real “food stamp president,” will W also be given credit for adding these jobs, or just blamed for the food stamp part?

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

So, it turns out that the cool cat billed as “No Drama Obama” by his sycophants is actually quite the drama queen. While the White House publicly pretends to ignore conservative detractors of his administration, Chief Touchy-Touchy seems to be personally consumed by our critiques. Yes, mine included.

On Wednesday, the president had himself a mini-”Toddlers and Tiaras”-style meltdown with Arizona GOP Gov. Jan Brewer after landing in Phoenix for a post-State of the Union dog-and-pony show. As Brewer told pool reporters on the scene, Obama took umbrage at Brewer’s recent memoir. She minced no words on the cover: “Scorpions for Breakfast: My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media, and Cynical Politicos to Secure America’s Border.”

And she minced no words describing her impressions of Obama as they sparred over her state’s tough immigration enforcement law, which is now the subject of a Justice Department witch-hunt. Brewer called Obama “patronizing” and “condescending.” I’d say she was excruciatingly polite.

According to Brewer, “He was a little disturbed about my book. … I said to him that I have all the respect in the world for the office of the president. The book is what the book is. I asked him if he read the book. He said he read (an) excerpt.” In the shadow of Air Force One, Obama complained that Brewer hadn’t “treated him cordially” and then stalked off while she was responding mid-sentence.

Photogs captured the fracas on film. The civility police gasped at Brewer’s “disrespectful” finger-pointing. On cue, one progressive commentator insinuated the gesture was a “racist” jab tantamount to lynching.

The president was singing a more laid-back tune last summer. As debate on Capitol Hill over the debt ceiling and spending sizzled, Obama bragged to reporters: “I’m not trying to poke at you guys. … I generally don’t watch what is said about me on cable. I generally don’t read what’s said about me even in The Hill (newspaper), so part of this job is having a thick skin and understanding that a lot of this stuff is not personal.”

Uh-huh. At least two other Republican governors — Rick Perry of Texas and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana — have recounted similar presidential snit fits on the tarmac. He sulked over a letter Jindal wrote to the administration about food stamps for Gulf oil spill victims; he bolted after a half-minute meeting with Perry at an Austin airport over border security issues.

You know those “petty grievances” of “Washington politics” that Obama has long condemned? Now it can be told: He knows whereof he squawks.

As New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor’s new book, “The Obamas,” reveals, the president and his inner circle spent even more time carping about conservative influence on public opinion. “He wanted the media to be more of a referee; to put unfair Republican charges to rest,” Kantor discovered. “He could brush off the wildest, most baseless attacks themselves, he told (senior adviser and Chicago pal) Valerie Jarrett, along with (campaign finance bundler and treasurer) Marty Nesbitt and (bundler and finance mogul) John Rogers, at lunch in the little dining room next to the Oval Office.”

But what “galled him,” the book observed, “was when they gained mainstream credibility despite distortions of truth.”

Kantor then dutifully served as a pro-Obama referee:

“Rogers had just noticed a new book by the conservative columnist Michelle Malkin called ‘Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks and Cronies.’ Among many other allegations, Malkin wrote that Michelle Obama — the president’s ‘bitter half’ — was secretly running the country in Lady Macbeth-like fashion. Malkin even took a hatchet to long-dead Fraser Robinson (Mrs. Obama’s father), arguing with no evidence that his job at a water plant made him part of the ‘Chicago political corruptocracy.’ The book debuted at number one on The New York Times nonfiction bestseller list and stayed there for weeks.”

The facts? It was a former alderman in Chicago, Leon Depres, who provided evidence that Robinson’s job in the city water department was a reward for loyalty to the Daley political faction.

It was Washington Post writer Liza Mundy who reported that the department was “a renowned repository of patronage jobs.”

It’s the Illinois press that has long documented Mrs. Obama’s ties to the Chicago machine. It’s Kantor herself who spotlighted the first lady’s internecine warfare with her husband’s Cabinet. And from her meddling in everything from the AmeriCorps inspector general firing case to her aggressive, Big Labor-backed push for a publicly subsidized food police corps, Michelle Obama has been openly expanding her East Wing fiefdom in Marie Antoinette-like fashion.

How long before we see a FLOTUS tarmac tantrum? We did get two divas for the price of one. As longtime observers of the royal Obamas have long observed: Mr. and Mrs. Cranky Pants’ problem has never been the color of their skin. It’s the thinness.

When the story of the Department of Energy’s green loan program is written someday, the entire book will be contained in chapter 11:

After months of financial turmoil, an Energy Department-backed lithium ion battery company has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The company, Ener1, received a $118 million grant from DOE in 2010 as part of the president’s stimulus package. The money, which went to Ener1 subsidiary EnerDel, aimed to promote renewable energy storage battery technology for electrical grid use.

But despite generous federal support for the company, Ener1 was racked by problems last year. In October, NASDAQ delisted the company due to non-compliance with Securities and Exchange Commission filing requirements. A month later, the company’s president, chief executive, and top financial officer were fired.

On Thursday, Ener1 announced it will initiate a pre-packaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan as part of an agreement to restructure the company’s debt obligations.

The problem? Something the government often fails to take into account when spending tons of other people’s money because they think it can be artificially created later on: Product demand:

In a statement announcing the company’s bankruptcy, CEO Alex Sorokin said that the company’s business plan was crippled by insufficient consumer demand.

“We moved aggressively to reduce costs and shift focus when the marketplace did not evolve as quickly as anticipated. Our business plan was impacted when demand for lithium-ion batteries slowed due to lower-than-expected adoption for electric passenger vehicles,” Sorokin wrote.

Translation: You’re not buying Volts fast enough, America!

Not long ago, Ener1 was the proud recipient of a big sloppy Recovery Summer kiss of death from our very own Sheriff Joe Biden:

There will be others.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

President Obama went to Arizona Wednesday afternoon, and according to Governor Jan Brewer who met him on the airport tarmac, the Book-Critic-in-Chief took her to task for something she recently published:

He stepped off Air Force One at 3:28 pm and was greeted by Gov. Jan Brewer. She handed him a handwritten letter in an envelope and they spoke intensely for a few minutes. At one point, she pointed her finger at him.

Afterwards, (I) spoke with the governor.

“He was a little disturbed about my book, Scorpions for Breakfast,” Brewer said. “I said to him that I have all the respect in the world for the office of the president. The book is what the book is. I asked him if he read the book. He said he read the excerpt. So.”
[...]
It was clear from the moment they greeted one another that this would not be a run-of-the-mill encounter between the president and a local official. At one point, she was pointing her finger at him and at another, they were talking at the same time, seemingly over each other.

He appeared to walk away from her while they were still talking, and she confirmed that by saying she didn’t finish her sentence.

When Brewer spoke with your pooler, the AP and an NBC producer for several minutes afterwards, she appeared a bit flustered and taken aback by the conversation. Asked if she was, that’s when Brewer said, “I’ll regroup.”

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal had a similar run-in during the BP Gulf oil spill.

Obama is expected to even both scores in his next book, “Sweat the Petty Stuff.”

Here’s video from a local news story:

Feel free to provide your own caption:

Over at Hot Air, Allapundit has audio of a radio interview with Jan Brewer describing what happened: “He was somewhat thin skinned and a little tense, to say the least.”

Jay Carney will probably be given the opportunity to distort what happened at tomorrow’s White House presser, so we’ll have to wait to get the Obama administration’s version of events.

Meanwhile, the fate of Arizona’s immigration law simmers in the Supreme Court.

Update: What better publicity for your book than by the President of the United States drawing attention to it?

(h/t Drudge)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

In spite of the fact that even Warren Buffett is unsure what the “Buffett Rule” is, President Obama, fully aware that the US tax code is in dire need of more ambiguity, will push for it in his State of the Union speech tonight. Just to hammer home the point, Buffett’s Executive Assistant (the word “secretary” sounds incredibly non-progressive) will sit with First Lady tonight:

Billionaire Warren Buffett’s longtime secretary will be joining first lady Michelle Obama in her box at tonight’s State of the Union, White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer announced on Twitter.

Debbie Bosanek, who has worked for Buffett for nearly two decades, has become a symbol in the White House’s fight over the tax code and economic fairness. Obama is expected to renew his push for the so-called “Buffett rule” that would bring investment taxation levels into line with income taxation levels — and ensure that upper income earners pay rates as high as middle-class Americans.

In his Republican Response, maybe Mitch Daniels can use this as an opportunity to point out the need to lower the tax burden on folks like Ms. Bosanek — as well as talk about how one of her boss’s companies stands to benefit from Obama’s Keystone Pipeline rejection.

Rumor is that after the SOTU Buffett may generously offer to lower his secretary’s salary so as to drop her down into a tax bracket that more closely resembles the percentage he pays on his capital gains and dividends income, but if that happens she’ll probably decline.

(h/t Weasel Zippers)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

If this doesn’t work, the backup slogan is “Please!?”

From ABC News:

Barack Obama campaigned for president four years ago promising “change we can believe in.”

Now, he’s running for a second term touting the ways that “change is.”

The emerging slogan for the 2012 campaign, on display during a high-profile New York City fundraiser Thursday night, thrusts Obama’s social and domestic policy achievements to the forefront of his re-election pitch.

And its appearance on new Obama-Biden campaign merchandise and apparel suggests the “change is” meme will likely be here to stay.

“Change Is” beat out “Hope Was” and “Yes We Tried.”

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

It’s Friday afternoon, which means we’re sitting around waiting to see which documents get dumped out a second floor window of the White House before everybody heads off for the weekend. Until that happens, Jay Carney’s taken it upon himself to keep everybody entertained:

WH reporter: “Do you understand the optics when, at the economy event he was on the ground in Orlando for less than three hours, yet he spent roughly seven hours at these four different campaign events. The way this is viewed, you hear from Republicans…”

Jay Carney: “…I would challenge you to look at what the President does on any given week, including this week and many weeks going back, and not come to the conclusion that he spends a relatively small amount of time — at this stage — on campaign events. That’s a simple fact”:

The Press Corps would ask the President himself if he’s spending much time campaigning, but yesterday Obama’s completely non campaign-related photo op at the Magic Kingdom was followed by the four non campaign-related NYC fundraisers the reporter was referring to (one featuring an Al Green impression that by now is probably Chris Matthews’ cell phone ring tone). Those were followed today by another non campaign-related fundrasier, so the press isn’t able to reach him quite yet:

(h/t HAP)

**Written by Doug Powers

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Hot off the wire from the Washington Post:

The Obama administration will announce this afternoon it is rejecting a Canadian firm’s application for a permit to build and operate a massive oil pipeline across the U.S.-Canada border, according to sources who have been briefed on the matter.

However the administration will allow TransCanada to reapply after it develops an alternate route through the sensitive habitat of Nebraska’s Sandhills. Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns will make the announcement, which comes in response to a congressionally-mandated deadline of Feb. 21 for action on the proposed Keystone pipeline.

In other words, the Obama State Department is allowing TransCanada to reapply after they find a route for the pipeline that avoids the delicate habitat where the endangered 2012 election lives.

Oh well, extending unemployment will create more jobs anyway according to the White House.

At this point, the “alternate route” for the Keystone project’s oil appears to lead to China.

Update: In a report released just yesterday, Obama’s own jobs council recommended increasing US energy independence in various ways, including pipelines:

President Obama’s jobs council called Tuesday for an “all-in approach” to energy policy that includes expanded oil-and-gas drilling as well as expediting energy projects like pipelines.

“[W]e should allow more access to oil, natural gas and coal opportunities on federal lands,” states the year-end report released Tuesday by the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

The report does not specifically mention the Keystone XL oil pipeline, but it endorses moving forward quickly with projects that “deliver electricity and fuel,” including pipelines.

Update II: Obama’s statement is here. This part was interesting:

This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people. I’m disappointed that Republicans in Congress forced this decision, but it does not change my Administration’s commitment to American-made energy that creates jobs and reduces our dependence on oil.

A commitment to reducing our dependence on oil. Not foreign oil, but oil. That certainly sounds like a judgment on the merits of the pipeline.

**Written by Doug Powers

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There’s no better way to show support for Occupy Wall Street during the acceptance speech than by delivering it while almost literally occupying a large chunk of Wall Street:

President Obama will accept the Democratic presidential nomination at the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, a campaign official confirms to CBS News chief White House correspondent Norah O’Donnell.

Mr. Obama will accept the nomination and deliver his convention speech on September 6, the final day of the Democratic National Convention. The open-air stadium, home to the Carolina Panthers, seats more than 73,000. The rest of the convention will take place at the Time Warner Cable Arena. Democratic officials will officially announce the location later today.

Bank of America dropped plans for a debit card fee, so they’re obviously back on speaking terms with POTUS now.

The campaign is saying the switch is simply so more people can witness the event — and rake in as much cash as possible from the one percent:

Wealthy campaign donors will also be courted to buy big money tickets for executive boxes ringing the stadium.

Bonus points: The stadium was built with non-union labor.

A more perplexing juxtaposition of venue to rhetoric hasn’t been seen since Ralph Nader accepted a nomination in the Corvair Room of the Willow Run Ramada Inn.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Yesterday there was another White House document dump regarding Solyndra’s bankruptcy filing just after the 2010 elections. While Solyndra is the crown jewel in the Department of Energy’s “you can’t make a green omelette without breaking a few hundred million taxpayer eggs” trial-and-error initiative, there are many other examples.

CBS News’ Sharyl Attkisson — who was one of the first reporters on the Solyndra trail — featured 11 other DoE loan recipients that either have or probably will take a Solyndra-style plunge and suck down $6.5 billion of taxpayer loans with them.

Video by way of Real Clear Politics:

The DoE isn’t playing with their own money, so no credit risk is too great:

In the case of Beacon Power, even if the company ended up receiving the DOE loan guarantee, Standard and Poor’s analysis indicated it still wouldn’t be a smart investment. The credit agency’s ratings services division assigned Beacon Power a “CCC+” Final Rating.

Standard and Poor’s defines a “CCC” rating as “currently vulnerable” and “dependent upon favorable business, financial, and economic conditions to meet its financial requirements.”

Somebody needs to scrutinize the rigor in the Department of Energy’s process of rigorous scrutiny. Or maybe insisting that DoE officials must invest a dollar of their own money in these projects for every thousand dollars of taxpayer money would help tighten the vetting process.

Final note: Not every Solyndra employee lost his or her job. There are still 84 people working there — a couple dozen of which might even receive bonuses this year.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Get the Greek columns out of storage:

President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign is considering moving the final day of the Democratic National Convention to Bank of America Stadium to sell more skyboxes to wealthy donors, three Democrats involved in the fundraising told Bloomberg News.

The 74,000-seat home of the Carolina Panthers also would have room for the convention to sell more floor passes close to the stage. Planners are struggling to meet a $36.6 million fundraising goal, according to the Democrats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter. Other Democrats involved deny fundraising problems.

In a Tuesday night statement, convention CEO Steve Kerrigan said: “Decisions about convention planning are driven by engaging more people in the process, not by money.”
Also Tuesday, some Democrats told the Observer that they hope Obama gives his acceptance speech at the stadium so that more people can see it in person.

If this comes off, no doubt some of those “wealthy donors” giving the campaign tens of thousands of dollars to sit in the skyboxes will be Wall Streeters looking for a good location from which to hear themselves get bashed. But the pâté de foie gras will be exquisite, so it’ll be worth it.

Considering that Obama’s acceptance offering would include references to how Wall Street has screwed Joe Sixpack, maybe later in the campaign we could expect a speech about the dangers of consumerism to be delivered from a podium inside Mall of America Field.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe