WSJ:

All of the details weren’t clear in media reports as we went to press, but it seems Mr. Reid’s surtax would raise tax rates on millionaires by five percentage points starting January 1, 2012, or less than four months from now. That’s a year earlier than the tax increases that Mr. Obama is proposing. So much for the President’s promise that “nobody is talking about raising taxes right now.”

How this would stimulate a sluggish economy even under Keynesian economic theory is a mystery, unless you believe like Democrats apparently do that tax rates don’t matter to economic growth.

We doubt that’s how millions of small business owners will feel if they start paying a top marginal rate on their income—which they report through the individual tax code as Subchapter S companies—of 40%. That would rise to nearly 46% in 2013 under Mr. Obama’s other tax proposals (including deduction phaseouts), plus another 3.8% under ObamaCare’s tax increases on investment and payroll income. So Uncle Harry would take nearly 50% of everything they make. Who wouldn’t want to run out and hire more workers with that incentive?

Here’s a great tribute to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, by Kevin Williamson:

Jobs was sometimes criticized for not being a philanthropist along the lines of Bill Gates. Take this article, for example:

Last year the founder of the Stanford Social Innovation Review called Apple one of “America’s Least Philanthropic Companies.” Jobs had terminated all of Apple’s long-standing corporate philanthropy programs within weeks after returning to Apple in 1997, citing the need to cut costs until profitability rebounded. But the programs have never been restored.

CNN, being CNN, misses the point. Mr. Jobs’s contribution to the world is Apple and its products, along with Pixar and his other enterprises, his 338 patented inventions — his work — not some Steve Jobs Memorial Foundation for Giving Stuff to Poor People in Exotic Lands and Making Me Feel Good About Myself. Because he already did that: He gave them better computers, better telephones, better music players, etc. In a lot of cases, he gave them better jobs, too. Did he do it because he was a nice guy, or because he was greedy, or because he was a maniacally single-minded competitor who got up every morning possessed by an unspeakable rage to strangle his rivals? The beauty of capitalism — the beauty of the iPhone world as opposed to the world of politics — is that that question does not matter one little bit. Whatever drove Jobs, it drove him to create superior products, better stuff at better prices. Profits are not deductions from the sum of the public good, but the real measure of the social value a firm creates. Those who talk about the horror of putting profits over people make no sense at all. The phrase is without intellectual content. Perhaps you do not think that Apple, or Goldman Sachs, or a professional sports enterprise, or an Internet pornographer actually creates much social value; but markets are very democratic — everybody gets to decide for himself what he values. That is not the final answer to every question, because economic answers can satisfy only economic questions. But the range of questions requiring economic answers is very broad.

Paraphrasing President Obama, one job of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is to determine if a business is making ‘too much profit.’ Mr. Obama is correct in his assessment that nobody is entitled to “a certain amount of profit,” but where he runs frighteningly amok is taking that assessment to mean that government should be the decider, rather than the American consumer.

Mr. Obama’s statement is quite telling, and scary too: Recall the former Soviet Union leaders used to brag that they suffered no bankruptcies in the USSR — the reason being that one can never have a bankruptcy if there is no private property, or private ownership of business. The president told us in 2008 that his wish was to “fundamentally transform America.” Judging by his words below, he wasn’t kidding. And he wonders why so many Americans fear him, and think he’s a socialist or communist?

President Obama joined fellow Democrats in blasting a new fee on debit card users announced by Bank of America, arguing that banks do not have an “inherent right” to a certain amount of profits.

The bank has come under a hail of criticism after it announced it would begin charging debit card users $5 a month, blaming the move on policymakers who curbed the amount of fees they could collect from retailers.

“You don’t have some inherent right just to get a certain amount of profit if your customers are being mistreated,” he said in an interview with ABC News. “My hope is that you’re going to see a bunch of the banks saying to themselves, ‘You know what, this is not good business practices.’”

“This is exactly why we need this [CFPB - Treasury Deparment's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau],” the president said. “We need somebody whose sole job it is to prevent stuff like this.”

Prevent stuff like what? Making a profit? Wouldn’t merchants (the banks’ customers) best determine if they’re being gouged or not rather than an unelected and unaccountable group of bureaucrats in the U.S. Treasury department? Wouldn’t consumers best decide, rather than some government bureau, if they would prefer credit cards or prepaid cards?

As Jonah Goldberg pointed out recently, here’s how government grows: It (1) either creates a real problem or invents a mythical one, then (2) proposes and enacts a “solution” to that problem. (3) Repeat steps 1 & 2.

So in this case the Democrat Congress, under the Durbin Amendment, invented the problem — that the economy was harmed by debit card fees that were too high for merchants — then enacted the solution, the Durbin Amendment, which by government fiat cut in half banks’ debit profitability, telling them that they could only charge 24 cents per debit transaction (from 44 cents).

This “solution” to an imaginary “problem” was typical liberally-activist government arrogance stemming from a belief that its “experts” could devise better economic engineering than that of 300 million consumers acting collectively.

It also smacks of hypocrisy in the form of propping up one kind of crony corporatism (bowing to the retail lobby) even as they demonize another (banking).

Here’s how the Democrat’s “solution” will affect you: less consumer choices — not just Bank of America, but the rest, like Wells Fargo, CitiGroup, Regions, and Morgan Chase, for starters, are now eliminating free checking and charging annual fees for debit-card holders, as well as eliminating many points programs.

According to CNN, “Your debit card may soon be denied for purchases greater than $100 — or even as little as $50.”

Hey, but thank heavens the government is “protecting us.”

Even worse, Mr. Obama must hate poor people. Without free checking, many poor Americans will be forced into costly high-percentage paycheck-cashers and money lenders. (Hello Amscot!)

Worst of all, the Durbin Amendment is a jobs killer: According to Portfolio.com, “the majority of startups and entrepreneurs often use their personal accounts as the initial run of funding. They count on the perks they can collect as ways to reward their staffs, especially when they can’t always afford the high-flying salaries of the past.”

Sorry, small business!

This is especially true for the smaller banks and credit unions that cannot absorb the financial loss:

The most noticeable change will likely be the closure of bank branches, reversing a decade-long growth. Branches today serve as customer-recruitment centers, as customers, once enrolled, do much of their banking electronically, by ATM or online. By making many new customers unprofitable, however, the Durbin amendment eliminates the incentive to compete by offering more branches.

Citing the negative impact of the Durbin amendment and other regulations on customer profitability, Texas-based IBC bank recently announced its decision to close 55 supermarket-based branches, eliminating 500 jobs, rather than increasing banking fees. Other banks will inevitably follow suit.

Conceived of as a narrow special-interest giveaway to large retailers, the Durbin amendment will have long-term consequences for the consumer banking system. Wealthier consumers will be able to avoid the pinch of higher banking fees by increasing their use of credit cards. Many low-income consumers will not. Banking will become less innovative and consumer-friendly.

No word yet from President Obama if large chain retailers will next be investigated by the CFPB for earning “a certain amount of profit.”

Free speech for me, but not for thee? That seems to be the message in New Orleans. The video is courtesy of the Media Research Center.

And I do love the part where city councilwoman Susan Guidry orders the police to take down the signs (on private property, no less) citing “public safety.” She admits she doesn’t even yet herself know what law the man is breaking by putting up the signs (did I mention on his private property?) and goes on to rattle off a few “maybes” as the cops take them down. “Maybe it’s the size of the signs…” Or, maybe Ms. Guidry is only for free speech that’s not critical of her ideological leanings? And while we’re at it, maybe we should also remove ATMs in the name of public safety too, since that’s were people are commonly mugged. That’s the message she seems to be making — people might do violence to the man, so we’ll punish him rather than those who might do violence.

As to the woman complaining he posted no anti-Bush signs. Seriously? You know how many times I’ve read “Bush Chimp” or “Bush lied” or anti-Bush Katrina signs (including in trips to New Orleans). Pleeeeease!

When the going gets tough on President Obama you can count on him to revise decades of economic history.

[WSJ] President Barack Obama on Thursday said the U.S. has lost some of its competitive edge and gotten a “little soft.”

Mr. Obama, in an interview with WESH-TV in Orlando, said his administration has been tough on the country’s trading partners and tried to strengthen U.S. manufacturing.

“This is a great great country that had gotten a little soft and we didn’t have that same competitive edge that we needed over the last couple of decades,” Mr. Obama said in response to a question about the country’s economic future. “We need to get back on track.”

Mr. Obama has faced heavy criticism for his handling of the economy, and the high unemployment rate –9.1%– is threatening his re-election bid.

As a wise man once said, you’re entitled to your own opinions but not to your own facts. Obama’s context may have regarded the strength of trade and manufacturing, but don’t think for a second that he’s not attempting to portray our current economic plight as something that has been building for decades. It’s just not true. Every economic indicator of relevance shows increasing and steady improvement over the last 2-3 decades. Those who pine for the days of assembly-line factories also miss the point: Those losses were often due to technological advances or simply cheaper wages overseas (benefiting consumers with cheaper costs). It’s like crying a river for all of those railroad and telegraph jobs we no longer provide. It makes no sense. We’re an IT and service economy, and we’re better off for that transition.

Jim Geraghty sums it up nicely:

Er, rewind the tape. We didn’t have the competitive edge we needed over the last couple of decades? Which ones? The 1980s, when the free world outlasted the socialist model and triumphed over the Soviet Union without firing a shot? The 1990s, when our economy integrated the technological breakthroughs of the Internet age and our economy grew to new dazzling heights? Or the last decade, where we responded to the most devastating attack in our nation’s history, where our enemies unleashed mass death in our biggest cities, by toppling two brutal regimes, and we did it all with the unemployment rate between 4 and 6 percent?

The facts are easy to find. Let’s take a gander over at the federal government’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA, Department of Commerce) and Department of Labor (DOL) web pages, for instance.

In the 1980s, gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an average of a whopping 7.8% per quarter (Thanks Reagan!); in the 1990s it grew at an average of 5.6% (another great average); and in  the 2000s (and let’s stop at Bush’s exit, 4th QTR 2008) it grew at an average of 4.4%. Obama’s GDP quarterly growth from 1st QTR 2009 until now? 2.7%

Um, who’s been less competitive?

You can do the same for unemployment too - and it’s truly where the rubber meets the road. The umemployment rate in the 1980s averaged 7.3%, and that’s coming off the late-70s energy crisis and President Carter’s ineptitude. By the time Reagan left office he had it down to 5.3%. In the 1990s, the unemployment rate averaged just 5.8%, and it dropped to 5.1% in the 2000s (again, I’m stopping at Bush’s exit). Indeed, even if you want it averaged by president (which is somewhat a misnomer since the Congress has massive control over an economy), it would read Reagan (7.5%), Bush Sr. (6.3%), Clinton (5.2%), Bush (5.3%) and Obama (9.3%).

This is a great commentary from Jonah Goldberg about the fallacy-laden arguments that occur over time when the government gets its nose into something it never should have and then people attempt to disconnect that market intrusion many years later.

In his 1973 Libertarian Manifesto, the late Murray Rothbard argued that the biggest obstacle in the road out of serfdom was “status quo bias.” In society, we’re accustomed to rapid change. “New products, new life styles, new ideas are often embraced eagerly.” Not so with government. When it comes to police or firefighting or sanitation, government must do those things because that’s what government has (allegedly) always done.

“So identified has the State become in the public mind with the provision of these services,” Rothbard laments, “that an attack on State financing appears to many people as an attack on the service itself.” The libertarian who wants to get the government out of a certain business is “treated in the same way as he would be if the government had, for various reasons, been supplying shoes as a tax-financed monopoly from time immemorial.”

If everyone had always gotten their shoes from the government, writes Rothbard, the proponent of shoe privatization would be greeted as a kind of lunatic. “How could you?” defenders of the status quo would squeal. “You are opposed to the public, and to poor people, wearing shoes! And who would supply shoes . . . if the government got out of the business? Tell us that! Be constructive! It’s easy to be negative and smart-alecky about government; but tell us who would supply shoes? Which people? How many shoe stores would be available in each city and town? . . . What material would they use? . . . Suppose a poor person didn’t have the money to buy a pair?”

It’s worth keeping this fable in mind as the reaction to last week’s CNN–Tea Party Express debate hardens into popular myth. Moderator Wolf Blitzer had asked Rep. Ron Paul (R., Texas) what should happen if a man refuses to get health insurance and then has a medical crisis. Paul — a disciple of Rothbard — explained that freedom is about taking risks. “But, congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?”

At this point, a few boneheads in the audience shouted “Yeah!” and clapped, though liberal pundits and activists imagine they saw an outpouring of support.

Paul calmly replied that he’s not in favor of letting the man die. A physician who began his career before Medicare and Medicaid were enacted, Paul noted that hospitals were never in the practice of turning away patients in need. “We’ve given up on this whole concept that we might take care of ourselves and assume responsibility for ourselves,” he observed. “Our neighbors, our friends, our churches would do it.”

Read the rest. It’s great stuff. Government doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It makes one wonder how people think we educated ourselves prior to the advent of the Department of Education.

SARASOTA — Following an apparent shark attack in the Bay area this weekend, the animal rights organization PETA has announced plans to run an outdoor advertising campaign attacking a recent Bay area shark attack victim.

The organization plans to promote an ad that shows a human “drumstick” hanging out of a shark’s mouth, next to the words “Payback Is Hell. Go Vegan.”

The organization will put the ad on benches and billboards near Anna Maria Island, they said will promote their claim that “the deadliest killers in the water aren’t sharks — they’re humans.”

You see, if we just stopped eating fish and all became Vegans then sharks wouldn’t attack people in the wat… oh, wait… I guess we’d have to give up recreational swimming in the ocean too…

Some people are outraged when they see things like this but I think it’s great because it truly shows PETA for the half-baked, illogical, and extreme organization they are. Such PETA ideological campaigns might be great back-slapping material for their monthly meetings, but it hardly wins over more moderate and reasonably-minded people to their organization.

Here’s Jonah Goldberg:

There are many sincere and decent people — on both sides of the ideological spectrum — who are opposed to the death penalty. I consider it an honorable position, even though I disagree with it. I am 100 percent in favor of lawfully executing people who deserve the death penalty and 100 percent opposed to killing people who do not deserve it.

When I say that, many death-penalty opponents angrily respond that I’m missing the point. You can never be certain! Troy Davis proves that!

But he proves no such thing. At best, his case proves that you can’t be certain about Davis. You most certainly can be certain about other murderers. If the horrible happens and we learn that Davis really was not guilty, that will be a heart-wrenching revelation. It will cast a negative light on the death penalty, on the Georgia criminal-justice system, and on America.

But you know what it won’t do? It won’t render Lawrence Russell Brewer one iota less guilty or less deserving of the death penalty. Opponents of capital punishment are extremely selective about the cases they make into public crusades. Strategically, that’s smart; you don’t want to lead your argument with “unsympathetic persons.” But logically, it’s problematic. There is no transitive property that renders one heinous murderer less deserving of punishment simply because some other person was exonerated of murder.

Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people including 19 children. He admitted it. How does doubt in Troy Davis’s case make McVeigh less deserving of death?

We hear so much about the innocent people who’ve gotten off death row — thank God — because of new DNA techniques. We hear very little about the criminals who’ve had their guilt confirmed by the same techniques (or who’ve declined DNA testing because they know it will remove all doubt). Death-penalty opponents are less eager to debate such cases because they want to delegitimize “the system.”

Whenever the mainstream media fixates on a particular phrase or wording as if they were an autistic parrot stuck in an echo chamber my antenna always go up. Such is their coverage in the Troy Davis execution.

For instance, when you Google “Troy Davis seven of nine” you yield page after page of lazy journalists who simply have copy-pasted their fellow lazy journalists’ copy-pasted articles and commentaries. It’s almost comical, until you remember that a cop lost his life and another man was executed because of what appears to be for his poor choices as a young man. The full wording usual runs something like this:

“Convicted murderer Troy Davis has been executed in the southern US state of Georgia despite seven of nine key witnesses recanting or changing their testimony since his trial.”

Now, this isn’t a post on the pros or cons of capital punishment. Indeed, this case has brought out the worst of passions amongst us. But I can respect — even if mostly disagreeing (but not all) — those who oppose capital punishment across the board, whether for mass murdering dictators or for burglaries gone wrong.

This post isn’t even necessarily about the innocence or guilt of Troy Davis. But you should be able to form your opinion given all of the facts. This has not occurred, from the coverage I’ve witnessed.

This is about how the media uses a case like that of Troy Davis to further an agenda, generally a left-leaning one.

You might be surprised to learn, for example, that there were no less than 34 witnesses for the prosecution in the original Troy Davis case. Not nine. Thirty-four.

You might also be surprised to learn that of the seven witnesses who recanted, all were fully found lacking by a 172-page opinion written by Judge William T. Moore. (Page 149 in Adobe) While Judge Moore does himself use the phrase “seven of nine” his opinion includes very detailed testimony of at least 28 persons (including Mr. Davis):

Not all recantations are created equal; a witness may recant only a portion of their testimony or the witness may recant in a manner that is not credible. To hear Mr. Davis tell it, this case involves credible, consistent recantations by seven of nine state witnesses. (Doc. 2 at 5-11.) However, this vastly overstates his evidence. Two of the recanting witnesses neither directly state that they lied at trial nor claim that their previous testimony was coerced. Supra Analysis Parts III.B.i (Antoine Williams), III.B.v (Harriet Murray). Two other recantations were impossible to believe, with a host of intrinsic reasons why their author’s recantation could not be trusted, and the recantations were contradicted by credible, live testimony. Id. Parts III.B.iii (Jeffrey Sapp), III.R.iv (Darrell Collins) . Two more recantations were intentionally and suspiciously offered in affidavit form rather than as live testimony, blocking any meaningful cross-examination by the state or credibility determination by this Court. Id. Parts III.B.vi (Dorothy Farrell), III.B.vii (Larry Young) . Moreover, these affidavit recantations were contradicted by credible, live testimony. While these latter two recantations are not totally valueless, their import is greatly diminished by the suspicious (149 Case 4:09-cv-00130-WTM Document 92-1 Filed 08/24/10 Page 87 of 112) way in which they were offered and the live, contrary testimony. Finally, Kevin McQueen’s recantation is credible, but his testimony at trial was patently false, as evidenced by its several inconsistencies with the State’s version of the events on the night in question. Id. Part III.Bii (Kevin McQueen). Accordingly, it is hard to believe Mr. McQueen’s testimony at trial was important to the conviction, rendering his recantation of limited value. Ultimately, four of Mr. Davis’s recantations do not diminish the State’s case because a reasonable juror would disregard the recantation, not the earlier testimony; and the three others only minimally diminish the State’s case.

[Page 169] Mr. Davis’s new evidence does not change the balance of proof from trial. Of his seven “recantations,” only one is a meaningful, credible recantation. Supra Analysis Part III.B. The value of that recantation is diminished because it only confirms that which was obvious at trial—that its author was testifying falsely. Id. Part III.B.ii (Kevin McQueen). Four of the remaining six recantations are either not credible or not true recantations and would be disregarded. Id. Parts III.B.i (Antoine Williams), III..iii (Jeffrey Sapp), III.B.iv (Darrell Collins), III.B.v (Harriet Murray). The remaining two recantations were presented under the most suspicious of circumstances, with Mr. Davis intentionally preventing the validity of the recantation from being challenged in open court through cross-examination. Id. Parts III.B.vi (Dorothy Ferrell), III.B.vii (Larry Young). Worse, these witnesses were readily available—one was actually waiting in the courthouse—and Mr. Davis chose not to present their recantations as live testimony.

Yet, over and again we hear “seven of nine,” “seven of nine,” “seven of nine.” Not 34, and certainly never the judge’s discrediting of those recantations in any detail.

One starts to think that the mainstream media wants you to believe there were only nine total witnesses in this case. In fact, the number nine doesn’t even come from the fact that there were just nine eyewitnesses, or that nine persons identified the shooter. It’s not particularly clear from where the number nine originated. (That also bespeaks of lousy journalism).

Did you know that Mr. Davis was accused not just of the shooting of Savannah Police Department Officer Mark MacPhail, but of earlier shooting and wounding another man earlier in the evening at a local neighborhood party (Michael Cooper)?

You might be surprised to learn that four witnesses photo-identified Davis as the MacPhail shooter (but this is the primary basis of the recantations); two witnesses told police that the following day Davis confessed to killing MacPhail (Jeffrey Sapp recanted; but Monty Holmes did not); at least another eight witnessed the shooting (albeit they did not identify Davis by facial recognition). A few of these witnesses included members of the United States Air Force (Lt. Col. Anthony Lolas, Sgt. Robert Grizzard).

At bare minimum the shooting occurred and was related to Officer MacPhail happening upon an altercation between a pistol-whipped victim (Larry Young), Mr. Davis and two of his companions (Sylvester “Red” Coles, Darren Collins). Davis is placed at the Burger King and identified as fleeing to the home of one of the companion’s mother in order to discard his shirt, which Davis does not mention (which does not help his case). According to the judge, Davis doesn’t even seem to be pursuing angles that could best assist his defense: “Further diminishing the value of this evidence is the fact that Mr. Davis had the means to test the validity of the underlying confessions by calling and impeaching Mr. [Sylvester] Coles, but chose not to do s0.”

Again, the document exists. Read it for yourself. You might even decide that Davis is innocent, and that’s reasonable because it’s an imperfect case — albeit terrifying if an innocent man was put to death. I didn’t, however. And again, if the argument is “never execute,” I respect that. But the facts do matter.

Form your own opinion. Because you can bet good money that your mainstream journalists and columnists won’t read that document, and won’t give you all the facts you need. They’ll just keep echoing “seven of nine” while they stir the masses and generate a political distraction to keep your mind off of, say, 9%+ unemployment and awful GDP.

Here’s the former CEO of American Express, Harvey Golub, expressing a less than complimentary opinion on the business savvy of the Obama Democrats:

Meanwhile, [President Obama] he’s ignored entitlement reform, retarded the development of our energy resources, and added new layers to our regulatory burden. He’s also increased the uncertainty inherent in an already dysfunctional and perverse tax code, added trillions to our national debt, spent taxpayer money ineffectively and inefficiently, tried to micromanage the economy, and acted as an incompetent venture capitalist by investing in “green jobs” and high-speed rail. This administration routinely grants and withholds favors by substituting its judgment of what is valuable and good for that of the people. What stimulus spending can do to create jobs is entirely temporary, whether in the public or private sector, and is rooted only in a political calculus.

Well said, sir.

It takes a lot of hubris to believe in the concept of central planning. The idea that a bunch of government “experts” could plan strategies and execute decisions in the free market better than the collective choices of 300 million American consumers — plus millions more globally — takes, to quote Hillary Clinton, a willing suspension of disbelief.

And yet here we are with a trifecta of failures in which the government thought it could determine winning companies.

Let’s start with General Electric, which of course began its crony capitalism relationship with government long before the Obama Democrats too power, but nonetheless continues to receive mountains of taxpayer subsidies based on its “Green” technologies. These are technologies — such as their hyperexpensive light bulbs, wind turbines that provide nothing if the wind isn’t blowing, and absolutely Orwellian carbon credit trading schemes –  which no consumer seems to really want and which wouldn’t survive in an unsubsidized environment.

It is particularly galling, given that the former GE CEO is now Obama’s job czar, and that GE is one of those favored government companies that enjoys paying $0 in taxes — this even as Obama, from the other side of his mouth, attacks “millionaires and billionaires” attempting to do the same. The reason? Because it provides American consumers with things they don’t want and produced with their tax dollars.

But as said, subsidies are as old as the apostles. The next two examples are far more sinister.

First, Soylendra: Despite repeated warnings from private auditors like PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP that the Soylendra solar-panel manufacturing company was a a lousy investment, the Obama administration nonetheless assisted it in receiving $535 million in federal loan guarantees. All that taxpayer money is now gone, Soylendra having declared bankruptcy in early September, and raided by the FBI a few days later.

ABCNews reported that “the White House closely monitored the Energy Department’s deliberations over a $535 million government loan to Solyndra,” and ultimately backed the loan despite warnings from White House employees. Worse, the Obama administration promised that should the company fail they would work to recoup losses of private investors — but we taxpayers are screwed. This is something that should be investigated, says former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy:

As Andrew Stiles reported here at NRO, Republicans on the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee say this arrangement ran afoul of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This law — compassionate conservatism in green bunting — is a monstrosity, under which Leviathan, which can’t run a post office, uses your money to pick winners and losers in the economy’s energy sector. The idea is cockamamie, but Congress did at least write in a mandate that taxpayers who fund these “investments” must be prioritized over other stakeholders. The idea is to prevent cronies from pushing ahead of the public if things go awry — as they are wont to do when pols fancy themselves venture capitalists.

As if that weren’t bad enough, a key Obama supporter named George Kaiser was also involved in Soylendra, and “contributed $10,000 to the Urban Health Initiative, a notorious program created by now-First Lady Michelle Obama while she was at the University of Chicago Medical Center.” Oh, yeah, nothing to see here.

Rubbing Obama’s nose in this steaming, smelly mess, Forbes Magazine terms it a “teachable moment.” Says Forbes:

The fact that federal loan guarantees were even necessary for Solyndra tells us that few, if any, lenders thought that giving the firm money was a very good idea.  Given the fact that lenders who bet “right” on companies with strong prospects but insufficient capital are lenders who will make money, we can rest assured that hundreds if not thousands of bank loan officers took a long, hard look at Solyandra and said … no thanks.  Are we to believe that President Obama knows more than all of these profit-hungry capitalists about Solyndra’s real prospects in global solar energy markets?  That President Obama has even stronger incentives than private investors to ensure that money parked in this company or that is money well spent? To ask these questions is to answer them.

Next, Michelle Malkin has been all over a similar Obama embarrassment called LightSquared — a company that is crafting an open wireless broadband network that, regrettably to our national security, overpowers our commercial and military satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS) devices.

Where this becomes scandalous is because the White House attempted (but failed) to curb the damning testimony of U.S. Air Force Space Command four-star general William Shelton and National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing director Anthony Russo.

General Shelton had noted earlier this year: “Within three to five miles on the ground and within 12 miles in the air, GPS is jammed by [LightSquared’s] towers. . . . If we allow that system to be fielded and it does indeed jam GPS, think about the impact. We’re hopeful we can find a solution, but physics being physics, we don’t see a solution right now.”

Despite industry-wide protests, the firm somehow received fast-track approval for a special FCC waiver that grants LightSquared the right to use wireless spectrum to build out a national 4G wireless network on the cheap. Ken Boehm, of the conservative watchdog National Legal and Policy Center in Washington, D.C., summed up the deal earlier this year: “LightSquared will get the spectrum for a song, while its competitors (e.g., AT&T and Verizon) have to spend billions.”

… LightSquared used to be known as “Skyterra.” In 2005, Obama put $50,000 into the speculative firm — raising eyebrows even among his water-carriers at the New York Times. The paper noted that Skyterra’s principal backers at the time of the investment included four Obama “friends and donors who had raised more than $150,000 for his political committees.”

One of those pals who urged him to buy stock in Skyterra was George Haywood, a major Skyterra investor and campaign donor who chipped in nearly $50,000 to Obama’s campaigns and to his political action committee, as did his wife.

Coincidentally, Obama bought his Skyterra stock the very same day the FCC “ruled in favor of the company’s effort to create a nationwide wireless network by combining satellites and land-based communications systems.” The Times reported that immediately after that morning ruling, “Tejas Securities, a regional brokerage in Texas that handled investment banking for Skyterra, issued a research report speculating that Skyterra stock could triple in value.”

Coincidentally, Tejas and its chairman, John J. Gorman, were also major backers of Obama — flying him in a private plane for political rallies and pitching in more than $150,000 for his campaign coffers since 2004. Obama sold his stock at a loss in November 2005, but his political relationship with the company was cemented. In 2009, billionaire hedge-fund manager Philip Falcone — whose firm Harbinger Capital Partners is reportedly under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for market-manipulation abuses — acquired Skyterra.

Coincidentally, Falcone, his wife, and LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja have contributed nearly $100,000 between them to the Democratic party during critical White House meeting periods and negotiations over LightSquared’s regulatory fate.

Oh, and coincidentally, there’s $6 billion earmarked for a “public safety broadband corporation” buried in the Obama jobs proposal just as LightSquared pushes into that market, too.

It’s all just one strange quirk of timing, Team Obama shrugs. Except, as we all should know by now: There are no coincidences in Chicago-on-the-Potomac. Just an endless avalanche of quids, quos, and taxpayer woes.

I think it goes without saying that were Obama’s last name Bush or Cheney the term “LightSquared” could be well known in American households.