October 08, 2011
— Guest Blogger Remember back in the day when the mere appearance of impropriety was enough to launch investigations? Good times, good times.
Well, if anything ever needed to be inspected more closely, this is it.
In the name of “green energy,” the Obama administration is using taxpayer money to subsidize a New Hampshire wind farm that is a subsidiary of a hugely profitable company.But wait, there's more!New Hampshire’s largest wind farm, the Granite Reliable Power project under construction in Coos County, is jointly owned by BAIF Granite Holdings, LLC and Freshnet Wind Energy, LLC. BAIF owns 75 percent of Granite Reliable. BAIF Granite Holdings was created earlier this year by Brookfield Renewable Power, which is a subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management of New York.
That company, which runs clean energy operations around the world, has deep pockets. It reported net income of $454 million in 2009 and $3.2 billion in 2010. Brookfield Renewable Power financed the creation of BAIF Granite Holdings from its Brookfield Americas Infrastructure fund, which was reported in February to have $2.7 billion in assets. With that kind of backing, it is curious that the U.S. Department of Energy announced it would guarantee up to 80 percent of a $168.9 million loan for the Granite Reliable wind farm project last week.
Why would a company created by a $3.2 billion company and backed by a $2.7 billion private fund need federal loan guarantees? That would be an important question at any time, but it is more pertinent after the bankruptcy of Solyndra, a solar-panel maker that got a $535 million federal loan guarantee from the Obama administration last year.
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05:15 AM
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— andy Please join me in thanking this week's guest bloggers. In no particular order:
| Blog | ||
|---|---|---|
| JWF | JammieWearingFool | @JammieWF |
| Moe Lane | Moe Lane Red State | @moelane |
| Ben Domenech | Coffee & Markets (podcast) The Transom* (email newsletter) | @bdomenech |
| John E. | John E.'s Flickr stream | @JohnEkdahl |
| John and Morgen | Verum Serum | @VerumSerum |
| Rosetta and Wiserbud | The Hostages | @TheH2 |
| Cuffy | Perfunction (Abandoned for Twitter) | @CuffyMeh |
*If you're not reading the Transom every morning, you're doing it wrong. more...
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03:40 AM
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October 07, 2011
— CDR M
Bottom's Up! Break out the booze and take off the required amount of clothing. It's time for the ONT.
So Halloween is right around the corner and already there are some costume ideas that are grabbin' headlines.
Meet Anna Rexia. I know, I know. Sounds like a pron star or somethin' but that's the name of the costume and of course, right on cue, some people are 'outraged'.
more...
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05:47 PM
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— DrewM Just yesterday at his press conference, Obama said this about the Solyndra loan guarantees.
...But the process by which the decision was made was on the merits. It was straightforward. And of course there were going to be debates internally when youÂ’re dealing with something as complicated as this.But I have confidence that the decisions were made based on what would be good for the American economy and the American people and putting people back to work.
Apparently "merits" is code for "companies who hire law firms connected to big time donors who work form my administration.
There actually is a line between crony capitalism and illegal corruption. It looks like the Solyndra story is getting closer and closer to the latter.
An elite Obama fundraiser hired to help oversee the administration's energy loan program pushed and prodded career Department of Energy officials to move faster in approving a loan guarantee for Solyndra, even as his wife's law firm was representing the California solar company, according to internal emails made public late Friday."How hard is this? What is he waiting for?" wrote Steven J. Spinner, a high-tech consultant and energy investor who raised at least $500,000 for the candidate before being appointed to a key job helping oversee the energy loan guarantee program. "I have OVP [the Office of the Vice President] and WH [the White House] breathing down my neck on this."
Many of the emails were written just days after Spinner accepted a three-page ethics agreement in which he pledged he would "not participate in any discussion regarding any application involving [his wife's law firm] Wilson [Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati]."
...
Recovery Act records show Allison Spinner's law firm, Wilson Sonsini, received $2.4 million in federal funds for legal fees related to the $535 million Energy Department loan guarantee to Solyndra. That ethics agreement said his wife would forgo pay "earned as a result of its representation of applicants in programs within your official duties."
Spinner's firm says she didn't directly profit from the Solyndra billings but this stinks to high heaven. The fact that this was released on a Friday afternoon of a three day weekend shows the White House knows this.
Below the fold, a John E. (who was actually on this angle before anyone else it seems) special info-graphic showing the Solyndra timeline.
more...
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01:47 PM
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— Guest Blogger I suppose it's really not fair to mock a movement by singling out one of it's more fringe characters...but I'm going to do it anyway. At least this once. Besides, I have a sneaking suspicion that this fellow's lifestyle may be a little more representative of the movement than they would like us to believe.
This must be one of those oddly dressed, silly-sounding young people Paul Krugman was talking about. Well at least he's not an evil, racist tea partier.
God bless you, Greg. Put down that bong and go see a doctor.
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12:22 PM
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— Dave in Texas Obama is a stuttering clusterfuck of a miserable failure. Let's get that right out there.
We’ve been within 0.2 points of 9% since January, sometimes a bit higher, sometimes a bit lower, but essentially going nowhere. Just like Tim Geithner predicted 18 months ago...So when the Obama administration tells you things are “unexpected” or “worse than we thought,” remember that they’ve known exactly what would happen for 18 months. And they did nothing. Or at the least, they did nothing useful.
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(bigger clickable pic at the link).
FIAF STORY BONUS: via Stacia, the tales of a modern day nomad. "I have single-handedly created two international incidents and have been an element of three others." I'm only up to Thailand so I don't know if the international incidents were in Afghanistan or Arkansas.
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10:28 AM
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— Guest Blogger It's no less silly than the demands of the occupiers, but a bit more amusing.
I had forgotten this guy was still alive. Nothing funnier than watching a grossly overpaid multi-millionaire relating to the great unwashed.
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09:55 AM
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— Guest Blogger
Well, that's going to be my guess:
Last week, Bloomberg implied it was only a matter of time before the city tried to put an end to the protests, but offered no hints on when that would be."The one thing I can tell you for sure," he said, "is if anybody in the city breaks the law we will arrest them and turn them over the district attorneys."
He said people charged the police a few nights ago, adding, "that is just not something we're going to tolerate, period."
You may have missed said police-charging - it happened the same night as Sarah Palin announcing that she wasn't running for President, and Steve Jobs passing away - but the Occupy Wall Street people certainly didn't, and they were not really what you'd call happy about the fact that the cops un-apologetically used pepper spray and police batons on the would-be Jacobins. Or that the rest of the world more or less shrugged at the news, once the meda got around to reporting it. Or that the entire thing is largely - and accurately - seen as a Democratic party establishment stalking horse. more...
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08:31 AM
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— Guest Blogger
When you don't have the facts on your side, just make things up. Now if someone told a lie about you, what would you do? Correct the story, right? Sure, most normal people would do that. But when you're a Koolaid-slurping Obama zombie, you just play along.
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07:55 AM
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— LauraW Yes.
Don't know if this is real or not. Suspect that it is. I love how he fiddles with his cap when he starts getting emotional. This punk is somehow mesmerizing.
Thanks to Scott.
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07:32 AM
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