Jeff Gudman: Time to kill the Oregon Growth Board (OPINION)

Like most Oregonians, I've had enough of Salem's crony-capitalist politicians using your money to help well-connected private companies benefit from legislative generosity. --In the Legislature's first week, one such program — the Oregon Growth Board — received a committee vote for a rules change via House Bill 4020A. This is a program that should be abolished, not adjusted. Read more at OregonLive.com

Jeff Gudman is a Lake Oswego city councilor and a Republican candidate for state treasurer. Read More......

Obama Lines Up Crony Capitalist Support for Climate Pact

With many analysts predicting that the upcoming United Nations Climate Summit in Paris will fail to produce an ambitious, binding global agreement, President Obama is hoping to come to the rescue. He does not want a repeat of the 2009 UN confab in Copenhagen, where he was roundly dissed by his green supporters for “failing to seal the deal.”


The president has loads of friends on Wall Street. As the grand sugar daddy handing out corporate welfare, Obama has taken the White House pay-to-play game to new stratospheric levels, as even many of his media allies and erstwhile supporters have critically noted.
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Sen. Whitsett: Climate Alarmists Seek to Squash Dissent

Climate alarmists are losing the debate on man-caused global warming and climate change. The dire scenarios predicted by their computer modelling have failed to materialize. All of the glaring differences between their computer-modelled temperature predictions and empirically measured global temperature are becoming plain for everyone to see. [Snip] [T]he liberal progressive left has recently enlisted a desperate new tactic. Incredibly, they are now attempting to silence the scientific community through threats of sanctions, retaliation and criminal charges. Their efforts to censor dissent is becoming more frantic and strident.

Read more at News from Doug Whitsett Read More......

Boeing threatens to move jobs out of US amid 'Ex-Im Bank' impasse

Despite turning a profit of more than $5 billion over the last year, Boeing plans to lay off up to 300 workers at its satellite assembly plant in El Segundo, Calif. -- and the company’s CEO Jim McNerney threatened to move many more jobs out of the United States. --The reason? Boeing officials are blaming the expired charter of the so-called Export-Import Bank. --[snip]-- Critics call the bank crony capitalism. And some, like Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, are echoing that accusation on the campaign trail.

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Obama, Clinton Foundation Donors Sold ‘Green’ Fuel to Military for $149 per Gallon

     The CEO and Board of Directors of Solazyme, a company the military paid $149 per gallon for “alternative” fuel, have donated more than $300,000 to Democratic candidates and committees, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis.
     Recipients of significant donations included the Obama Victory Fund and the Democratic National Committee. Additionally, Solazyme donated between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.


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McConnell Gives Poster Child of Corporate Welfare a Pass

There is nothing more rare in Washington than the opportunity to shutter the doors of a profligate federal agency. Thus the prospect of ending the wasteful and corrupt Export-Import Bank is even more enticing. Unfortunately, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has just handed the Democrats another gift that could possibly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory for Republicans and reauthorize the poster child of corporate welfare.


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Energy Department Gives $259 Million ‘Green’ Conditional Loan to Politically Connected Corporation

The Department of Energy’s disastrous loan program lost taxpayers at least $780 million as companies like Solyndra, Fisker Automotive, and Abound Solar crashed and burned. But as I write today, after a four-year hiatus, the Energy Department has announced a new fuel-efficient-vehicle loan — a $259 million conditional award to Alcoa.  It’s a pretty sweet deal: The Energy Department touts on its website how this loan program “offers attractive financing for U.S. auto industry,” including no application fees, a closing fee of just 0.1 percent, and interest rates estimated at no more than 4 percent.

Read more at National Review Read More......

Environmental Researcher: Wind Industry Riddled with 'Absolute Corruption'

A Mexican ecologist has blown the whistle on the corruption, lies and incompetence of the wind industry - and on the massive environmental damage it causes in the name of saving the planet.  Patricia Mora, a research professor in coastal ecology and fisheries science at the National Institute of Technology in Mexico, has been studying the impact of wind turbines in the Tehuantepec Isthmus in southern Mexico, an environmentally sensitive region which has the highest concentration of wind farms in Latin America.

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Michelle Obama’s Princeton classmate is executive at company that built Obamacare website

First Lady Michelle Obama’s Princeton classmate is a top executive at the company that earned the contract to build the failed Obamacare website.

Toni Townes-Whitley, Princeton class of ’85, is senior vice president at CGI Federal, which earned the no-bid contract to build the $678 million Obamacare enrollment website at Healthcare.gov. CGI Federal is the U.S. arm of a Canadian company.

Read more at the Daily Caller

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Insurer with NY's 'worst' record of complaints gets $340M Obamacare loan

A health insurance company headed by an old friend from when President Obama was an Illinois state senator got a $340 million federal loan to establish Obamacare co-ops in New York, New Jersey and Oregon despite having a chronic record of consumer and regulatory complaints.

The New York-based Freelancers Insurance Company has been rated the "worst" insurer for two straight years by state regulators, and data compiled by a national insurance association show an extremely high rate of consumer complaints.

Read more at the Washington Examiner Read More......

Harry Reid, Jon Corzine and other cronies that got away in 2012

When businesses and big government politicians go into “business” with one another, taxpayers lose—big time. It's called cronyism.

A "crony" is an individual or organization that colludes with politicians to gain unfair treatment, taxpyer-funded benefits, or regulations that the rest of us don't enjoy. Cronyism occurs because politicians rely on wealthy interests to fund their campaigns, and those donors then seek government goodies or favors in return.

It’s a match made in heaven for cronies and hell for taxpayers. Just as bad, such cronyism erodes economic freedom by destroying the real competition that fuels free market capitalism.


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Battery maker A123 got U.S. funds as it sought bankruptcy

(Reuters) - The Obama administration provided struggling battery maker A123 Systems Inc with nearly $1 million on the day it filed for bankruptcy, the company told lawmakers investigating its government grant.

The company, which makes lithium ion batteries for electric cars, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month after a rescue deal with Chinese auto parts supplier Wanxiang Group fell apart.

That same day, October 16, A123 received a $946,830 payment as part of its $249 million clean energy grant from the Energy Department, the company said in a letter, obtained by Reuters, to Republican Senators John Thune and Chuck Grassley.

Read more at Reuters

List of Failed Obama Green Energy & Solar Companies in the Billions Read More......

The hope-a-nomics disaster: One company’s horror story

President Obama promises to move the country forward with his recycled pledge of five million green jobs. But in the real world, small businesses are struggling to stay afloat as they deal with the fiscal wreckage of this administration’s disastrous venture socialism. Here’s the tale of just one Colorado company victimized by the Obama Department of Energy (DOE).

Colorado Distribution Group is a privately held storage and shipping company based in Denver. Thanks to hope-a-nomics, its warehouse is saddled with nearly 7,000 pallets of federally subsidized solar panels (one-third of which are completely spoiled and unsalable), along with related detritus such as broken glass and stray module parts.

Read more at Human Events Read More......

Obama funder gets insider deal at NASA

Questions are being raised about NASA's relationship with Silicon Valley whiz Elon Musk in the wake of his Falcon 9 rocket delivering only half of the promised cargo on its first mission to the International Space Station.

The rocket lost power from one of its nine engines shortly after its Sunday launch and only delivered 882 of the promised 1,800 pounds of resupply cargo for the space station.

Manufactured by Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp. ("SpaceX"), the Falcon 9 also failed to deliver as promised when it placed a prototype Orbcomm OG2 satellite into a lower orbit than required.

Read more at Washington Examiner Read More......

Bachmann: Obama's H'care Waivers Are Admission Of Failure

(Hat tip: Daren Gardner) Read More......