“It is becoming increasingly clear that Solyndra was just the tip of the iceberg in a sea of taxpayer risk,” Jordan said during a hearing last week.

The panel questioned top executives from Abound, First Solar, Nevada Geothermal, and BrightSource, which were awarded a combined $5 billion in loan guarantees from the Energy Department — one-third of the entire loan guarantee portfolio.

The executives said their loans were awarded on the merits of the project, not politics, but Jordan produced emails that he says shows a direct link between the White House and BrightSource, which received $1.6 billion in loan guarantees.

In one email, BrightSource CEO John Woolard, told a top Energy Department official there had been direct discussions with “Obama about the program’s challenges.”

“The Obama I think it is?”

“Is the Obama in this sentence the Obama I think it is — the president of the United States of America?” Jordan asked. “So just a minute ago, you said there was no political influence, but in an email you reference the president of the United States of America who had a direct conversation with a guy who cares pretty deeply about this project getting approved?”

One month after that email was sent, BrightSource received conditional approval of the loan. “If that’s not political influence, I don’t know what is,” Jordan said.

In another email discussing the project, Woolard asked the Energy Department to proofread a letter from then-BrightSource Chairman John Bryson, who now serves as Obama’s Commerce secretary, to White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley.
“I believe everything we did was fully on its merits,” Woolard said.
Despite Woolard’s assurances to the committee that Bryson’s letter was never sent to the White House, the panel will request that Bryson appear before them to explain what happened.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the full committee, said the emails are the first evidence the investigating panel has discovered that links any of the Energy Department loans directly to the White House.

Additionally, Republicans asked Michael Ahearn, chairman of First Solar, about 700,000 stocks he sold just days after getting the loan approved by the government. The company has laid off 30 percent of its worker force, and while its stock was trading at $300 in 2008, it was selling for $14.35 last week.

Rep. Mike Kelly (R–Pa.) called it “absolutely abysmal” that taxpayers were asked to funnel money into the company while Ahearn sold his own stock, in essence “voting with your feet.”

DOE’s “horrible decision”

“The Department of Energy made a horrible decision and they continue to do that,” Kelly said. “We’re pouring money down an open hole and the chief executive officer bailed out.”

Ahearn told the panel that it is “very normal to sell stocks over time after the company is made public. That’s what happened here.”

The panel also questioned a representative from Abound, which despite receiving a $400 million loan guarantee, let go 180 employees earlier this year.

President Barack Obama’s 2009 stimulus package included $90 billion to fund green energy projects, which the administration said would aid in the country’s economic recovery.

Obama pledged to “harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories,” but Republicans say that initiative is a gamble that has not paid off.

“This is the frustration that we face,” said Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.). “I would challenge whether anyone watching this hearing today whether the federal government needs another dime of taxpayer money.”

Added Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.): “I’m tired of people coming to the government as part of their business plan.”

One executive, James Nelson, who is CEO of Solar 3D, agreed, and told the panel that his company did not accept any government aid.

“Our company has a much better chance than Solyndra ever did of creating a game-changing technology,” Nelson said.

“We have reached this point based on the free enterprise principles of risk and reward, without the use of government aid. In the end, we will become commercial for less than $10 million, and change the landscape of solar energy. It will be an example of the amazing American economic system at work,” Nelson said.

“The loan guarantee program should be retired permanently. The path to commercialization requires brains, discipline and grit. It is rarely aided, and often impeded, by government involvement. Our government should trust the free market forces that have made America great,” Nelson said.

SOURCE:  http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=51565

The speech got scant coverage. The main takeaway seemed to be that a member of the audience shouted out that Obama should do the “moonwalk” when he happened to mention it. Thrilling. The press is keen to remind us that Obama remains cool to the kids. Chris Matthews, call your office.

I don’t care for cool. I’d prefer competent. But as someone who once sat where the graduates were (Toni Morrison was our speaker), I was curious to see what the president would do with the opportunity.

President Obama graduated from Columbia (Barnard’s brother school) in 1983. Unwisely, in my judgment, the president reminisced: “We too were heading out into a world at a moment when our country was still recovering from a particularly severe economic recession. It was a time of change. It was a time of uncertainty.”

Yes, but in 1983, thanks to “Reaganomics,” the economy was adding 430,000 jobs per month. What was the job-growth figure for April, again? Wasn’t it 115,000? And hasn’t the population grown by 25 percent since 1983?

Continuing down memory lane, the president recalled that when he was a student, “we had Walkmen, not iPods. Some of the streets around here were not quite so inviting. Times Square was not a family destination.”

So true, Mr. President! I remember dodging the hooligans myself. Funny you should mention that, because New York was suffering from the liberal policies that had been enacted by Democrats and liberal Republicans (John Lindsay) for decades. Good liberals just like you ran the city into the ground. They believed that crime shouldn’t be punished severely because it was the understandable response to injustice. They believed that high taxes and heavy regulation were the right approach to business, because businesses were based upon greed. They believed that welfare was the least we could do for blacks and others who had been persecuted for centuries. They believed that government employees made life better and that, accordingly, we should have many more of them. It was only with the election in 1993 of a conservative Republican mayor, Rudy Giuliani, that New York — including the iconic Times Square — was transformed. Thanks so much for reminding us that conservative reform can make such a dramatic difference in such a short time.

That the president would pander to the female audience with talk of how bright and creative and essential they are is neither surprising nor offensive. Less excusable were the outright falsehoods he cited in making the tired liberal argument about how persecuted women were in America until liberals saved them.

“Before women like Barbara Mikulski and Olympia Snowe . . . got to Congress,” Obama told the graduates, “much of federally funded research on diseases focused solely on their effects on men.” A hoary untruth. The National Institutes of Health retracted its claim that women were excluded from clinical trials back in 2001. As Dr. Sally Satel noted, “Back in 1979, 268 of the 293 NIH-funded clinical trials contained female subjects. Food and Drug Administration surveys in 1983 and 1988 found that ‘both sexes had substantial representation in clinical trials.’” Also, “breast cancer is one of the five most generously funded diseases. The other four are heart disease, dementia, AIDS, and diabetes.”

Despite four years of his leadership, the world these young women are entering continues to be blighted by sexism, according to Obama. They will face “unique challenges,” the president warned, “like whether you’ll be able to earn equal pay for equal work . . . whether you’ll be able fully to control decisions about your own health.” This is claptrap. Equal pay for equal work has been the law of the land since the 1960s. And “whether you’ll be able to fully control decisions about your own health” is Obamacode for what is actually religious institutions cleaving to their constitutional rights to free exercise in the face of his administration’s assault.

The pander, like liberal governance in New York City, appears to be failing. The latest CBS News/New York Times poll shows Obama trailing Mitt Romney by three points among women.

SOURCE:  http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/300298/obama-barnard-and-women-mona-charen

Of more interest was the reaction to the story. Aside from Romney’s gracious acknowledgment that he might have done something in his teens that he was not proud of (although he could not remember the Post’s hazing incident), and aside from the errors of fact pointed out in the Post story, apparent Romney supporters hit back hard — and in equally trivial fashion. If Romney was an insensitive preppie, well then, so was Obama — and for the matter, we had the punkish young Joe Biden. Almost immediately, all over the Internet, Obama’s own voice was heard reading from Dreams from My Father about his ancient drug use while in prep school, and about earlier unkind treatment of a middle-school girl chum. If high school is fair game in these doggy wars, then why not seventh and eighth grade?

For a year, we had heard from the liberal media the old tale of Seamus the dog, as a sort of Aesop’s fable warning about Mitt Romney’s innate cruelty. You see, on a family vacation, Romney in purportedly callous fashion put the family dog, Seamus, into a custom carrier on top of the family car. Forget about America borrowing $5 trillion in three years; worry instead about a dog on a car roof three decades ago.

But after yet another serial telling, suddenly the Romney supporters fought back: If Romney had confessed to putting the dog out like a masthead to the winds, Obama in his memoirs confessed to eating dogs! In short order, the Internet was flooded with Photoshopped images of cynophagia — as Obama munched on dachshund sandwiches and terrier burgers. I guess the point was that Americans would prefer putting Spot on top of the car to eating him.

The same trump had earlier happened with the “war against women.” Team Obama saw an opening with Rush Limbaugh’s crude “slut” putdown of Sandra Fluke — for which he later apologized — and attempted to inflate the slur as something emblematic of right-wing misogyny. But again it was not to be.

Limbaugh apologized; Limbaugh did not give money to the Romney campaign and indeed opposed his nomination in the primaries; and Limbaugh’s slur at least could be printed in family newspapers — in contrast to liberal Bill Maher’s. The latter’s profanity-laced and misogynistic sick rants against conservative women could not be quoted without dashes and asterisks. He never apologized. And he gave the Obama campaign $1 million in contributions. The desperate comeback of Democratic consultant Hilary Rosen that Ann Romney — a cancer and MS survivor and mother of five — had “never worked” (a point the odious Maher seconded) only made things worse, before this chapter of the doggy war was apparently called off by those who started it.

There have been more of these tit-for-tit, na-na na-na na-na doggy wars — with charges ranging from patrimonial polygamy to prep-school privilege — but you get the picture. So what can we learn from them, aside from the obvious fact that Barack Obama prefers not to talk about 40 months of 8 percent–plus unemployment, 1.7 percent GDP growth, $5 trillion in new debt, $4-a-gallon gas, and Obamacare?

Team Obama usually starts the exchange, either to distract from dismal economic news, or in zeal to portray Romney as aristocratic and out of touch — but without careful thinking about what the inevitable Romney rebuttal might look like.

The Romney people apparently will not run a repeat of McCain’s 2008 campaign, in which the candidate put such petty retaliation off limits. There will be no sanctimonious putdowns from Romney about dredging up Obama’s dog-eating past, in the manner in which McCain lectured his supporters about the inappropriateness of emphasizing the tripartite name Barack Hussein Obama — although Obama himself did, and would go on to focus on his middle name as proof of his multicultural resonance abroad. Just as Bill Clinton’s war room swore not to do a rerun of Mike Dukakis’s punching-bag 1988 campaign, so Romney apparently has determined not to repeat the McCain one-hand-tied-behind-the-back model.

In other words, each time we hear of an irrelevant hit on Romney, we will probably hear of something equally irrelevant — and worse — about Obama, in a way we never would have in 2008. Petty? A distraction from the failing economy? Of course, but the Romney people apparently believe that they must and will achieve deterrence by replying in kind and to such a degree that Team Obama will soon cease playing such a childish game of taunts.

But there is another, more interesting lesson from the doggy wars. These disclosures are supposed to emphasize the haughty, privileged upbringing and past of Mitt Romney: prep-school bully and homophobe, greedy financier, control-freak dad, and a thin happy-face veneer atop the vast hateful right-wing hit machine beneath. But, in truth, the contemporary Democratic party is no longer the old coalition of farmers, union workers, miners, and the lower middle class, but is run by the very wealthy. And so when the Post wished to emphasize Romney’s privileged prep school, did it not realize that Obama likewise went to a tony prep school? Does anyone believe hip left-wing Hollywood celebrities are less profane than talk-radio hosts? Does the present-day Democratic party not hinge on gift-giving from Wall Street, Hollywood, and academia? How can Obama supporters go after Bain Capital and yet hold their convention in Bank of America Stadium? Is Jon Corzine any less venal than was Ken Lay?

The tit-for-tat trivia wars were a bad idea for the Democrats in another sense as well. As we saw from the Republican primary campaign — especially the various hit pieces on the pasts of Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain — in today’s postmodern society of rampant drinking, womanizing, drug use, and shady financial deals, almost no one is above suspicion — but some are far less so than others. Liberals will mock Mormonism, but the doctrinaire avoidance of adultery, alcohol, tea, coffee, drugs, and nicotine is a political handler’s dream. In other words, to find run-of-the-mill dirt on Mitt Romney is going to be almost impossible, which explains why we are reduced to psychodramatic tales about a dog, Rush Limbaugh, and a 50-year-old regrettable prank.

Is the reverse true? Most incumbent presidents should have been fully vetted after nearly four years in office. But for a variety of obvious reasons, Barack Obama never was. He wrote two memoirs, one at a time when the impulse was to earn his advance through candor, not to offer the usual mush to protect a long-standing national political career. The result is that there are scads of things in Obama’s own first memoir (which now come over the Internet in his own voice) that were never cited in 2008, but most certainly can be in 2012.

After all, just because the media decided that they could destroy George W. Bush in 2000 with proof of a DUI or an admission of coke usage, or in 2004 with supposed lax attendance in the Texas Air National Guard, or Rick Perry in 2012 with graffiti on a rock, that does not mean that Obama’s exemption from commensurate scrutiny is always assured, especially since Obama himself has written about common drug use, drinking, and slothful attendance, and many of his earlier associates — Frank Marshall Davis, Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers, the Rev. James T. Meeks, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright — were criminals or unhinged or sometimes both.

In sum, why would the Left try disreputable means to vet a mostly staid Mitt Romney, when Obama himself has bandied about a colorful past that could supply endless rebuttal and countercharges?

So can we at least hope to see an end to these stupid doggy stories? I doubt it.

Quite the opposite: We will probably hear leaks about an undisclosed Romney ailment — only to wonder why Obama, alone of major candidates in recent decades, has never released his medical records. We should expect to hear that Romney got a B or C in some college course — only to remind us that Obama, alone of major candidates, does not want anyone looking at his college transcripts. Do we really wish to hear how an admitted prep-school serial use of beer, marijuana, and occasional coke, and a history of skipped classes, translated into admission into Occidental and then Columbia? We will hear another 19th-century Romney family polygamy story only to be reminded of a 20th-century Obama counterpart. We will be lectured about a fiery Mormon bishop only to hear it trumped by another racist rant from Jeremiah Wright.

That so far the Obama campaign’s trivial pursuit has always backfired hardly suggests that it will stop — especially as the economy continues to sputter. For the true believers who run Obama’s campaign, their messianic leader could not possibly have feet of clay — and so they seem shocked each time they find yet another new way of letting the nation see that he does.

SOURCE:  http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/299930/obama-romney-doggy-wars-victor-davis-hanson

Young America’s Foundation’s 19^th annual “Commencement Speakers Survey” reveals that 71 liberal speakers—and only ten conservatives—are scheduled to speak or have already spoken at the 2012 commencement ceremonies for the top 100 universities as listed by US News and World Report.

Among the top 35 universities, only one conservative is scheduled to speak, compared to 29 liberals.

Sixteen Obama administration officials and appointees will speak, more than all the conservatives combined.

Young America’s Foundation’s previous research shows that Bush administration officials spoke at the top 100 universities a total of 14 times throughout his Presidency. In President Obama’s first three years, administration officials have spoken 29 times—more than double the total number of Bush administration speeches.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is among the controversial invitees. Georgetown University, the nation’s oldest Catholic and Jesuit University, will host the secretary despite her administration’s efforts to mandate that the Catholic Church pay for contraception.

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu will speak at Penn State University. Chu recently gave himself an “A” for the administration’s handling of gas prices, despite the national average hovering near four dollars.

Other notable Obama administration officials and appointees addressing the class of 2012 include:

· First Lady Michelle Obama, the first lady of the United States (Virginia Tech);

· EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson (University of Washington and Tulane University);

· Justice Sonia Sotomayor (New York University);

· Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to the White House (American University); and

· John Brennan, chief counterterrorism advisor to the President (Fordham University).

To qualify as “liberal” or “conservative” for the survey, speakers must have publicly supported ideological causes through speaking, writing, serving in public office, commentating, or financial contributions.

Earlier this year, Young America’s Foundation conducted a poll which revealed liberal professors outnumber conservative professors three-to-one. In 2008, professors supported incoming Obama administration at a nine-to-one ratio. An ongoing Foundation study shows that President Obama has spoken on campuses one out of every 12 days on his Presidency, and the Daily Caller reports administration officials have made 130 appearances at colleges and universities since spring 2011.

The Foundation’s research underscores the Left’s near monopoly in higher education.

Young America’s Foundation’s Ron Robinson noted, “This administration wants to sell its failed policies to college students, and clearly, higher education is more than willing to help.

“As tuition and student loan debt grow at historic rates, what are students getting for the money? An education from leftist professors that—combined with the Obama administration’s policies—has left 53 percent of recent grads unemployed or underemployed.

“These commencement speakers are just the icing on higher education’s indoctrination cake.”

SOURCE:  http://cnsnews.com/blog/ron-meyer/liberals-outnumber-conservatives-7-1-commencement-speakers-top-100-universities

And the name on the lips of Romney friends and supporters isn’t a rising southern senator or a current Dixie governor. He has been out of office for five years, resides on a beach in the Florida panhandle, and hosts a television show.

In other words, Mike Huckabee, the bass-guitar-playing former governor.

Yes, according to several sources close to the Romney campaign, who insisted on anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the vice-presidential search, the 56-year-old Arkansan may be included in the veep mix.

To many Republicans, a ticket with a Mormon bishop and a Baptist preacher isn’t far-fetched. “In a way, it’s almost a dream ticket,” says Ed Rollins, the chairman of Huckabee’s 2008 presidential campaign. “He’s substantive and knows domestic policy, and his personality wouldn’t overshadow Romney’s.”

For now, it isn’t clear whether Huckabee is going to be vetted, or that he’s anywhere near Romney’s short list. But he is, at the very least, being discussed. As one Romney ally puts it, tapping Huckabee would energize tea-party conservatives, evangelicals, and related voters who soured on Romney during the GOP primaries. He’s also not a sweat-inducing pick, since he was vetted by the Beltway press during his presidential run four years ago.

A second top Romney source is less enthusiastic about Huckabee’s conservative appeal but acknowledges that the former governor is probably on the “larger list of about 40 names” that’s being debated within Romney’s inner circle. “People have made that suggestion,” the source said, during conversations with Matt Rhoades, the campaign manager, and tight-lipped Romney confidants such as Scott Romney, the candidate’s older brother, and Ann, Romney’s wife.

Over the next month, that larger list will be whittled down, but the ongoing talks among Romney’s broad group of advisers are reportedly lively and wide-ranging, with the usual names, such as Portman and Senator Marco Rubio, being mentioned, along with other, less obvious options such as Huckabee.

This is a time to “be frank and open about our options,” a third Romney source says, and if Huckabee rises during the consideration process, it won’t be a surprise. Romney’s camp, the source explains, may be tight-lipped in the official search, which is being led by longtime aide Beth Myers, but when it comes to soliciting advice from outside advisers and donors, it is open to suggestions.

What matters to Romney’s campaign, more than anything, sources say, is beating President Obama, and if a slightly unconventional or unexpected vice-presidential selection is part of that equation, they’re willing to do it. Experience and competence are two key factors, but they’re not the only ones.

The growing buzz about Huckabee within segments of Romney World delights social-conservative leaders and Huckabee allies, who have long hoped that Romney would reach out to the GOP’s evangelical voters with the veep selection. “If he’s not on the short list, somebody ought to put him there,” says Hogan Gidley, a former adviser to Huckabee. “He’d bring excitement to a ticket that’s lacking that, to some degree, right now. Beyond that, he’d bring a huge grassroots organization, and, to put it simply, the South.”

Veteran conservative activist Ralph Reed agrees. “Huckabee would be an outstanding and inspired choice,” he says. “He has tremendous support among evangelicals and conservatives, and he knows how to frame issues in a way that makes it clear he has core convictions and he does it in a winsome way.”

“Whatever differences Romney and Huckabee had during the 2008 campaign, and I don’t think they were significant, they have put that behind them,” Reed adds. “Governor Huckabee and Governor Romney, from what I can tell, have a good relationship, and each of them respects the work and views of the other.”

Romney campaign aides say Huckabee and Romney have healed any lingering wounds throughout the past year, mostly during the public forums hosted by Huckabee during the primary campaign, and behind the scenes before television tapings. Huckabee, they say, may not have received a lot of attention as a Romney supporter, but he has been supportive during key moments in the campaign, such as when Democrats attacked Romney as a flip-flopper on abortion. Huckabee, speaking on Fox News, favorably compared Romney’s conversion to Ronald Reagan’s.

Frank Tsamoutales, a Huckabee adviser and current director of HuckPAC, Huckabee’s political-action committee, tells National Review Online that the former governor is open-minded about his political future.

“He would certainly listen and entertain the idea,” Tsamoutales says. “It’s a serious question and he’d take it seriously. Now, he is extraordinarily happy with the way things are going for him, but he also has the capacity and energy to transition into a presidential campaign as a running mate, should he be asked.”

Other sources close to Huckabee echo Tsamoutales, noting that the former governor is busy with his Fox News program, which airs on weekends, and The Mike Huckabee Show, a nationally syndicated radio program distributed by Cumulus Media. He relishes the jobs and his home on Florida’s Blue Mountain Beach, which cost approximately $3 million to build, but “just because he’s comfortable doesn’t mean he’s going to stay there forever,” Gidley says.

Last month, when asked about the vice presidency, Huckabee demurred. “I haven’t gotten a call and I doubt I will, so I just merrily go about doing my business,” he said on Fox News. “I think his better pick is Marco Rubio.”

Regarding Huckabee’s Fox News contract, one GOP operative predicts that it wouldn’t play a role in the decision, since Huckabee could potentially take an unpaid leave for several months, from August through November, with the opportunity to come back in the event the ticket lost.

“I don’t think the door is closed,” says Alice Stewart, a former Huckabee adviser and spokesperson for his 2008 campaign. “So far, he’s stayed out of the mix and he loves doing his radio show, but if he felt it was God’s will to get back” into electoral politics, he would. Private prayer, she says, played a major part in his decision not to run this cycle, but he hasn’t ruled out the veep spot.

Stewart, who traveled on the trail with him last run, also shrugs off any perceived past drama with Romney. Huckabee has a “deep respect, on a personal level, for the candidates he faced in the 2008 primaries,” she says.

Beyond his media work, Huckabee would give the ticket an additional dose of gubernatorial experience. He served as governor in Little Rock for over a decade and amassed a record as a conservative on social issues, but as a big-government Republican on several tax-increase proposals. He also increased state spending. During his 2008 run, he ran a populist campaign similar to Rick Santorum’s 2012 bid, blasting Wall Street greed.

Of course, should Huckabee make the short list, he’ll have plenty of critics. Most observers think Romney needs to pick up moderates and independents, not evangelicals and southerners. Choosing a pundit and talk-radio host might send the wrong message. “I don’t believe he’d help the ticket,” says Ruth Griffin, a well-known Romney supporter in New Hampshire and a former Huckabee endorser. “His exposure on radio and television is not necessarily positive,” she says. “I supported him last time because I believed he’d bring new life to the party, and because I didn’t believe it was Romney’s time. Since then, Huckabee has been overexposed.”

The upside of Huckabee, however, is too tempting for Romney to ignore, says Bob Vander Plaats, an influential social conservative. “Picking Huckabee would be a smart move,” he says. “I’m not at all surprised to hear it being talked about. Romney knows he has a problem with the base and he needs to build a bridge to that base, so Huckabee, or someone like him, would make sense. Social conservatives are keeping an eye on who Romney chooses to surround him.”

On Saturday, May 12, Romney will give the commencement address at Liberty University in Virginia, which was founded by the late Jerry Falwell. Romney officials, many of whom declined to speak about the veep search, say that this speech is critical for Romney, who has spent the post-primary season reaching out to social conservatives. They say he will underscore his commitment to their values and pledge to battle with them for religious freedom throughout the campaign.

Romney will not mention Huckabee in his address, but it will still be a message for his supporters. Many within the university community, such as Liberty board members Tim and Beverly LaHaye, supported Huckabee during his run. Huckabee has also been a speaker on campus in recent years, talking with students about Jesus Christ.

“In a close election, Huckabee would help,” says Rollins, who steered Reagan’s 1984 reelection campaign. “Picking him would show that Romney is a much bigger man that most people thought. It would show that he has what it takes to win.”

SOURCE:  http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/299438/huckabee-veep-robert-costa

New internal e-mails disclosed by the House Natural Resources Committee this week show that a supposedly exculpatory report on the administration’s doctored drilling moratorium analysis — issued by the Department of Interior’s inspector general’s office — was itself incomplete, misleading, and unsubstantiated. Even more damning, the documents reveal that the White House actively blocked investigators and refuses to comply with subpoenas.

Now, as one senior IG agent warned his bosses, “the chickens may be coming home to roost.”

A quick refresher: After the BP oil spill in 2010, the White House imposed a radical six-month moratorium on America’s entire deepwater-drilling industry. The overbroad ban — inserted into a technical safety document in the middle of the night by Obama’s green extremists — cost an estimated 19,000 jobs and $1.1 billion in lost wages.

The anti-drilling administration based its draconian order on recommendations from an expert oil-spill panel. But that panel’s own members (along with the federal judiciary) called out then–eco czar Carol Browner for misleading the public about the scientific evidence and “contributing to the perception that the government’s findings were more exact than they actually were.” Browner and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar oversaw the rewriting of the drilling-ban report to completely misrepresent the Obama-appointed panel’s own overwhelming scientific objections to the job-killing edict.

Federal judge Martin Feldman in Louisiana blasted the Obama Interior Department for defying his May 2010 order to lift its fraudulent ban on offshore oil and gas drilling in the Gulf. He called out the administration’s culture of contempt and “determined disregard” for the law.

Ever since, GOP watchdogs have attempted to hold administration officials accountable for the drilling-ban fraud. In November 2010, the DOI inspector general issued a report cited by Salazar to argue that any editing of the drilling-ban report was unintentional and mistaken. But e-mails from IG senior agent Richard Larrabee released by the House Natural Resources Committee flatly contradict Salazar.

“I truly believe the editing WAS intentional — by an overzealous staffer at the White House. And, if asked, I, as the case agent, would be happy to state that opinion to anyone interested,” Larrabee wrote.

He noted that the IG report failed to mention that investigators were unable to independently validate e-mails supplied by Salazar’s office — and that the report was “simply silent” about how the White House blocked investigators’ attempts to interview one of Browner’s chief henchmen, Joe Aldy. “Well, it will be interesting to see if anyone picks up on these things, or cares about them,” Larrabee wrote.

Well, House Natural Resources Committee chairman Doc Hastings (R., Wash.) cares. In a letter to the DOI inspector general’s office, Hastings blasted the stonewallers who have hid in the dark for more than a year. “The IG report is being used by the Obama Administration and others as a defense that this matter has already been investigated and resolved. These emails contradict that claim and raise new questions on whether the IG’s investigation was as thorough and complete as it should have been,” Hastings wrote.

The actual drafts of the drilling-moratorium report and the communications between senior Interior Department officials and White House political appointees remain out of public view. “To date, the Interior Department has never had to disclose documents to the IG or to Congress,” Hastings noted. “Despite the President’s pledge of transparency, this Administration has not answered questions by anyone on how this decision was made that forced thousands of Americans out of work and cost millions of dollars in lost economic activity.”

This election isn’t just about jobs, jobs, jobs. It’s about the lies, lies, lies that have led to massive job destruction — and the ruthless corruptocrats using our tax dollars to whitewash their radical green agenda.

SOURCE:  http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/299672/white-house-lied-jobs-died-michelle-malkin

Since his election to the Senate in 1976, Lugar had cut a profile as a moderate Republican: He had supported the ethanol mandate, backed the Brady Bill, and opposed the Iraq surge. In previous cycles, Republicans had forgiven Lugar his ideological transgressions, but in recent years, he had become more brazen. Not only did Lugar support the DREAM Act; he cosponsored it. Not only did he vote for New START, he spoke forcefully in its favor. True, Lugar wasn’t Arlen Specter — he opposed the stimulus and Obamacare — but his voting record was moderate enough to make him suspect.

And a combination of a poorly run campaign, a credible opponent, and a small, energized electorate sealed his fate.

1. Lugar ran a nasty and ineffective campaign. Senator Orrin Hatch faces many of the same challenges Lugar did, yet he’s in a stronger position going into Utah’s primary. Why? Because Hatch has recognized the threat to his candidacy and tried to meet it with full force. Lugar seemingly ignored the Tea Party — even insulted it, at times.

He should have known better. On the campaign trail, Lugar said he knew he would face a challenge as early as October 2010. That month, a group of tea partiers confronted Lugar and warned him he was their next target. They were angry that Dan Coats, who had previously served in the Senate and retired, had captured the Senate nomination because conservatives were divided among a number of candidates in the primary. Next time, they vowed, they would be united.

Although Lugar raised over $4 million for his campaign, he didn’t hit the campaign trail until the fall of 2011. His opponent, state treasurer Richard Mourdock, however, announced his candidacy in February 2011. Lugar met some success in courting conservatives: Leaders of the Hamilton County Tea Party, for instance, decided to back him after hearing him out. But Lugar’s reappearance on the campaign trail also reminded the rank and file that they hadn’t seen him at their Lincoln Day Dinners and their partyconventions for decades.

And Lugar wasn’t the most effective speaker, either. When he took the stump, he made a reasonable argument — that, with his seniority, he was an effective advocate for his state’s interests — and he illustrated it with three points: He voted against Obamacare, he wrote a farm bill that would cut $40 billion, and his efforts on behalf of nuclear disarmament were important. Unfortunately, his message was out of tune with the times. And, accustomed to speaking with other pols, Lugar littered his speeches with Washington anecdotes — what Harry Reid had said to him the other day, or how Republicans had delayed Democratic bills with hours of debate. These anecdotes only reinforced Lugar’s image as an out-of-touch politician.

It also didn’t help that he had once told his more conservative opponents on New START to “get real.”

Furthermore, Lugar’s attacks on Mourdock simply weren’t creditable. Because Mourdock lacked a voting record to attack, Lugar’s camp tried to attack his character. Their targets were questionable: a tax deduction Mourdock erroneously received, a number of meetings Mourdock hadn’t attended, a group of junk bonds in which Mourdock had invested state funds. These weren’t signs of an untrustworthy character, but of a person who had made honest mistakes. And voters noticed.

The negative campaign tarnished Lugar’s statesman image. When Howey/DePauw asked voters in their last poll of the campaign whether, over the past few weeks, their opinion of Lugar had became less favorable, 32 percent said yes, while 12 percent said no.

2. Mourdock was a credible opponent.

Unlike Christine O’Donnell or Sharron Angle, Mourdock committed almost no gaffes on the campaign trail. The only major gaffe was committed by hi scampaign manager, Jim Holden, who in an e-mail leaked to the press compared scouring the state party’s e-mail list to pillaging a monastery. The controversy quickly blew over.

Unlike the Tea Party’s less successful candidates, Mourdock was an experienced pol. He ran for Congress in the early Nineties as well as for the party’s nomination for secretary of state. And he had just come off winning two statewide elections as state treasurer. Soft-spoken and understated, Mourdock also put in a strong performance against Lugar in their lone debate in April: He knocked Lugar on his support of New START and his backing of ethanol, and, in so doing, showed his own competence. Once Mourdock showed he was a credible opponent, he started rising in the polls.

3. Turnout was low and concentrated among Mourdock’s motivated supporters.

When Rick Santorum pulled out of the presidential race last month, Mourdock toldPolitico that it was the best possible timing for his campaign. Because Mitt Romney had sewn up the GOP nomination, there would be less interest among casual voters in Indiana. As a result, Mourdock predicted, it would be his more ideologically committed supporters who would turn out — and they did.

In the closing days of the campaign, Lugar was left to plead for the assistance of independents and Democrats to save his candidacy. That tactic — along with his refusal to say whether he would support Mourdock if he won the primary — only heightened Republicans’ suspicions of him. Lugar’s mistakes compounded each other, and now the 36-year incumbent, who once seemed invincible in the Hoosier State, has gone down to defeat.

SOURCE:  http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/299435/why-lugar-lost-brian-bolduc

But it’s Ron Paul who may be having the last laugh in the Hawkeye State — and elsewhere.

While media and voter attention has shifted to the general election, Paul and his supporters have remained focused on the primary process, scoring significant delegate victories. In the Iowa caucuses, Paul won 21 percent of the vote. But of the 13 delegates selected so far to go to Tampa (ultimately, Iowa will send 28 delegates), ten of them “have expressed public support for Paul, such as by donating money or volunteering for his campaign,” reported the Des Moines Register. If he sustains that level of support, Paul could well dominate the Iowa delegation at the convention, despite coming in third in the caucuses.

His campaign’s goal is to win the plurality of delegates in five states, which would put Paul on the first ballot at the convention. “He plans to stay in at this point until all the votes are counted,” says national campaign chairman Jesse Benton. “We are trying to win a plurality of delegates from five states so Dr. Paul could be nominated from the floor.”

Does the Paul campaign think there is still a chance of a brokered convention? Benton pauses a moment. “I don’t see that as an extremely likely situation,” he finally says, mentioning possibilities like “major stumbles” or “unfortunate health circumstances.” Still, unlikely though a brokered convention may be, he says “it is something we are keeping our eye on.”

Meanwhile, the campaign is indeed on its way to winning five states. Paul won 21 of Maine’s 24 total unbound delegates. In Minnesota, the Paul campaign won 20 of the 24 delegates chosen at thecongressional-district level, all unbound. (Minnesota has 16 more delegates that have not yet been chosen, who may or may not ultimately be bound.) Paul supporters are also winning delegate spots in states where they will be bound to vote for the primary winner, including Nevada, where they took 22 of the 28 delegates, and Massachusetts, where they nabbed 17 of the 27 delegates chosen at the congressional-district level.

Paul’s percentage of delegates in these states is significantly higher than his share of the primary vote. In Maine, for instance, he won 35 percent of the vote, and in Minnesota, he won 27 percent. Paul won 19 percent and 10 percent, respectively, of the vote in Nevada and Massachusetts.

The campaign is still looking forward, including eyeing the Minnesota delegates chosen at the state level. Paul supporters also think they have a good chance in Washington and Missouri of nabbing a significant chunk of the delegates, although the vast majority of delegates from both states are already bound.

But will the presence of Paul supporters’ among the delegates matter? In most states, delegates are “bound,” meaning their votes on the first ballot have to reflect the outcome of that state’s primary. Massachusetts delegates, for instance, will have to vote for Romney, regardless of the fact that many of them personally are Paul supporters. Their Paulite allegiances would come into play if there is more than one convention ballot, after which, for the most part, they are free to vote for whomever they like. But in other states — including Iowa — delegates are unbound, and could theoretically entirely disregard the primary results and vote for Paul on the first ballot.

An RNC aide dismisses the possibility of Paul pulling off an upset at the convention, noting that Paul would need to get past the first ballot in order to win. With only Romney and Paul on the ballot — and many of the Paul supporters required to vote for Romney in the first ballot — there seems to be no way that Romney could fail to gain a majority in the first round. “From our perspective, it’s pretty clear Mitt Romney’s going to have the delegates that he needs,” the aide remarks.

But the Paul campaign insists the nomination isn’t the only prize up for grabs at the convention. They’re not gunning for a prime-time speaking slot at the convention for Paul (although Benton says Paul would be honored to receive such a request). Instead, Paul supporters are looking to influence the party’s platform, especially pushing “transparency at the Federal Reserve, a commitment to substantial spending cuts,” and “respect for civil liberties,” including “opposition to things like indefinite detention under the NDAA,” says Benton. Such ideas, he argues, “will help Republicans grow their brand with independents.”

Right now, the campaign is optimistic about their chances of influencing the platform, especially with a more substantial convention presence.

“We never expect to get everything that we want, but we expect to get a good chunk of what we’re fighting for into the platform,” Benton says. “And that’s going to be a very nice victory for us.”

SOURCE:  http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/299374/paul-s-delegate-scramble-katrina-trinko

Chen was already an internationally known human-rights activist when he showed up at the U.S. embassy in Beijing last week seeking refuge. A blind, self-taught lawyer from Shandong Province, Chen had been held prisoner for 19 months for the crime of publicizing Chinese atrocities enforcing the “one child” policy. Chen had chosen a moonless night (his captors were not blind) to scale several high walls and stumble his way to a predetermined meeting place where Christian friends would help him make the harrowing, 300-mile journey to Beijing. He told supporters that he fell 200 times that night — breaking a foot in the process.

At some point, it’s not clear exactly where or when, U.S. officials did help Chen get to the embassy — which is gratifying. What happened next was not.

Four days of negotiations with the Chinese government followed. The State Department was gearing up for the visit of Secretary Clinton, Treasury Secretary Geithner, and other top officials. Chen’s presence in the embassy would cast a pall over the diplomatic niceties. So while U.S. officials held discussions with the Chinese about Chen’s future, it’s clear that they did so with the usual disregard for the nature of the regime they were confronting.

When, for example, the Chinese rounded up Chen’s friends and accomplices in Shandong, U.S. officials asked China to “investigate” these “extralegal” activities by local authorities, as if they were dealing with a government that enforces the rule of law rather than a criminal state that flouts the law.

Throughout the tense days of talks, Chen’s spirits sometimes flagged, understandably. There are reports that the Chinese threatened his family. He asked, the Washington Postreported, about other human-rights heroes — Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi. “‘Does she ever feel low? Did she ever question her choices?’”

State Department officials claim that Chen repeatedly expressed a desire to remain in China and continue his human-rights work. American officials supposedly worked out an agreement with the Chinese that Chen, his wife, and children would be permitted to move to a small city near Beijing to continue his legal studies free from persecution. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a statement that Chen was leaving the embassy in accord with “his wishes and our values.”

The State Department released cheery pictures of Chen being wheeled into the hospital. Then the rosy façade crumbled. Chen was surrounded by plain-clothes police, and the U.S. officials abandoned him. “No one from the U.S. embassy is here,” Chen told a British broadcaster. “I don’t understand. They promised to be here.”

As Melinda Liu of the Daily Beast reported, Chen felt pressured by the U.S. to take the deal. He spoke to Bob Fu of the China Aid Association from his hospital bed. “He was very heavy-hearted,” Fu said. “He was crying when we spoke. He said he was under enormous pressure to leave the embassy. Some people almost made him feel he was being a huge burden to the U.S.” Fu confirmed that Chen was told that “he would have no chance of reunification with his wife and children if he didn’t [leave]. The choice presented to him was walk out — or stay inside and lose his wife and kids.”

Chen told Liu, through tears, that it was his “fervent hope” that he and his family would be permitted to leave China on Hillary Clinton’s plane.

It is sad when the most charitable possible interpretation of a diplomatic episode is that the Obama administration was rolled. Even supposing the administration was acting in good faith, Obama set the table for this sucker punch from the Chinese long ago. In 2009, Secretary Clinton signaled the administration’s weakness by saying that human-rights concerns would not be permitted to interfere with cooperation “on the global economic crisis [and] the global climate-change crisis.” Prior to his 2009 visit to China, Obama declined to meet with the Dalai Lama to avoid offending his hosts. And, while in China, he permitted the regime to stage manage his appearances and effectively censor his remarks.

The Chinese appear to have taken Obama’s measure. They think they have nothing to fear from flagrantly reneging on a deal to offer humane treatment to a human-rights hero — thus openly expressing their contempt for Obama and the United States. Obama has suffered a loss of face. Chen stands to lose everything.

SOURCE:  http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/298920/obama-s-disgraceful-abandonment-chen-guangcheng-mona-charen

The law allows police to check the immigration status of someone stopped for other reasons. Verrilli claimed that constitutes an intrusion on the federal monopoly on immigration enforcement. He was pummeled. Why shouldn’t a state help the federal government enforce the law? “You can see it’s not selling very well,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

But Verrilli never had a chance. This was never a serious legal challenge in the first place. It was confected (and timed) purely for political effect, to highlight immigration as a campaign issue with which to portray Republicans as anti-Hispanic.

Hispanics are just the beginning, however. The entire Obama campaign is a slice-and-dice operation, pandering to one group after another, particularly those that elected Obama in 2008 — blacks, Hispanics, women, young people — and for whom the thrill is now gone.

What to do? Try fear. Create division, stir resentment, by whatever means necessary — bogus court challenges, dead-end Senate bills, and a forest of straw men.

Why else would the Justice Department challenge the photo-ID law in Texas? To charge Republicans with seeking to disenfranchise Hispanics and blacks, of course. But in 2008 the Supreme Court upheld a similar law from Indiana. And it wasn’t close: 6–3, the majority including that venerated liberal, John Paul Stevens.

Moreover, photo IDs were recommended by the 2005 Commission on Federal Election Reform, co-chaired by Jimmy Carter. And you surely can’t get into the attorney general’s building without one. Are Stevens, Carter, and Eric Holder anti-Hispanic and anti-black?

The ethnic bases covered, we proceed to the “war on women.” It sprang to public notice when a 30-year-old student at an elite law school (starting private-sector salary upon graduation: $160,000) was denied the inalienable right to have the rest of the citizenry (as co-insured and/or taxpayers — median household income: $52,000) pay for her contraception.

Despite a temporary setback — Hilary Rosen’s hastily surrendered war on moms — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will resume the battle with a Paycheck Fairness Act that practically encourages frivolous lawsuits and has zero chance of passage.

No matter. Its sole purpose is to keep the war-on-women theme going, while the equally just-for-show Buffett Rule, nicely pitting the 99 percent versus the 1 percent, is a clever bit of class warfare designed to let Democrats play tribune of the middle class.

Ethnicity, race, gender, class. One more box to check: the young. Just four years ago, they swooned in the aisles for Obama. No longer. Not when 54 percent of college graduates under 25 are unemployed or underemployed.

How to shake them from their lethargy? Fear again. Tell them, as Obama repeatedly does, that Paul Ryan’s budget would cut Pell Grants by $1,000 each, if his domestic cuts were evenly distributed. (They are not evenly distributed, making the charge a fabrication. But a great applause line.)

Then warn that Republicans would double the interest rate on student loans. Well, first, Mitt Romney has said he would keep them right where they are. Second, as theWashington Post points out, this is nothing but a recycled campaign gimmick from 2006, when Democrats advocated (and later passed) a 50 percent rate cut that gratuitously squanders student aid by subsidizing the wealthy as well as the needy.

For Obama, what’s not to like? More beneficiaries, more votes.

What else to run on with 1.7 percent GDP growth (2011), record long-term joblessness, and record 8 percent-plus unemployment (38 consecutive months, as of this writing)? Slice and dice, group against group.

There is a problem, however. It makes a mockery of Obama’s pose as the great transcender, uniter, healer of divisions. This is the man who sprang from nowhere with that thrilling 2004 convention speech declaring that there is “not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.”

That was then. Today, we are just sects with quarrels — to be exploited for political advantage. And Obama is just the man to fulfill Al Gore’s famous mistranslation of our national motto: Out of one, many.

SOURCE:  http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/298909/divider-chief-charles-krauthammer