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Newly uncovered emails show the White House closely monitored the Energy Department's deliberations over a $535 million government loan to Solyndra, the politically-connected solar energy firm that recently went bankrupt and is now the subject of a criminal investigation. The company's solar panel factory was heralded as a centerpiece of the president's green energy plan -- billed as a way to jump start a promising new industry. And internal emails uncovered by investigators for the House Energy and Commerce Committee that were shared exclusively with ABC News show the Obama administration was keenly monitoring the progress of the loan, even...

A high profile, politically well-connected California solar energy company that had won a $535 million loan guarantee from the Obama Administration declared bankruptcy earlier this month and closed its doors sending 1100 workers to the unemployment line.   The demise of Solyndra has already sparked an FBI investigation, congressional hearings, and raised numerous questions of political cronyism and corruption connected to the highest levels of the Obama Administration.   While the White House and Congressional Democrats feign surprise at the collapse of what was described as "the most hyped startup in the crowded Solar Energy field," it appears Obama Administration representatives...

The CEO of government-backed solar company Solyndra was visited by the FBI yesterday but agents did not search his house, according to a Solyndra representative. The Washington Post reported yesterday that the home of Solyndra CEO Brian Harrison was searched after the FBI conducted a surprise raid at Solyndra's Fremont, Calif., solar panel plant. ABC News reported today the FBI also searched the homes of former CEO Chris Gronet and another executive, who is said to be co-founder Kelly Truman. Solyndra made solar collectors by covering glass tubes with thin-film solar cells. (Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET) Solyndra spokesperson David Miller confirmed...

Of all the misfits and demented rejects that have the temerity to call themselves columnists at the New York Slimes , the most detestable of them all is Paul Krugman. Sure, there is Maureen the Moron and Comrade Friedman, but there's a special place in hell for the fraud known as Paul Krugman. Remember this from 1999 ? (Hat tip: Ann Coulter and her fabulous tome, Demonic .) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The retreat of business bureaucracy in the face of the market was brought home to me recently when I joined the advisory board at Enron [Yes, that Enron. The same Enron...

It’s like watching the same train wreck — twice. Our politicians are starting to commit the same wasteful blunders, resulting in the same perverse consequences, as the Europeans have in pricing carbon dioxide emissions, ostensibly to fight climate change. The harbinger of many bad things to come for us is now happening in B.C. There, the provincial government is forcing the transfer of millions of tax dollars from cash-strapped schools, hospitals and other public institutions, by requiring them to buy carbon offsets. Money which then benefits hugely profitable energy companies like Encana. This is eerily reminiscent of what happened in...

Kleiner Perkins, the well known Silicon Valley venture capital firm, just released a stunning analysis prepared by their new partner Mary Meeker, a very well-known financial analyst who worked for years at Morgan Stanley and was prescient about the impact of the Internet. Meeker spent about a year gathering publicly available data and refining an analysis of the dire debt and spending fiscal crisis facing the U.S. The result appears to be the definitive compendium of data documenting the incredibly precarious and dangerous situation facing the U.S. from generations of recklessness as welfare state policies and incentives triumphed. In over...

The youngest son of jailed former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling has been found dead in his college apartment. John Taylor Skilling, who went by the nickname JT, was just 20 years old. He was a sophomore at Chapman University in Orange, California. Mystery surrounds his death after authorities ruled out foul play or suicide, his father's attorney Daniel Petrocelli said. The Orange County Coroner's office said the death is under investigation. Toxicology results will take four to six weeks. A local TV station reported there was 'no obvious' cause of death. Mr Petrocelli told CNBC that classmates became concerned when...

JERUSALEM – The Egyptian government has information a diplomat at the U.S. embassy in Cairo secretly met yesterday with a senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the nation's major Islamist opposition group, WND has learned. The topic of the meeting was the future of Egypt following the "fall" of President Hosni Mubarak, an Egyptian intelligence official told WND. The claim comes amid charges from Cairo that the Obama administration has been encouraging the protests rocking Egypt and targeting the rule of Mubarak, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East. The Egyptian intelligence official told WND his government has information...

Unlike the private sector, government accounting is unaccountable. Governments are free to toss out ridiculous figures without an audit or criticism – Pres. Obama’s stimuli have save 3 million jobs, please. One way governments claim to save money is through creative financing that would be illegal in the private sector. One recent example is the Denver bus system’s claim that it has saved $1.9 bln on a future train to the local airport. This savings is huge, considering the project’s budget is $2.3 bln. Nobody in the press questioned the improbability of such amazing savings or how the simple math...

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Supreme Court found fault Thursday with the federal government's high-profile convictions of Enron's Jeffrey Skilling and former media mogul Conrad Black, rejecting the government's use of a key white-collar crime law on which part of the prosecutions were based. Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling in April 2006. The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday found fault with the federal government's convictions of Enron's Jeffrey Skilling and former media mogul Conrad Black. The justices sent the cases back to two different lower courts to determine whether portions of Messrs. Skilling and Black's convictions should be thrown out. In ruling for...

New Orleans Radio personality unloads on BP and Feds. See video on right side of page.

You think the action in Procter & Gamble was weird, check out the nosedive on Accenture, which plummeted from above $40 at 2:47 p.m. to $0.01 at 2:48 p.m. Had demand for consulting services declined so sharply in that one minute? Obviously there was some sort of technical snafu out there. Still, it seems that the worries in Greece were seriously worsening Thursday. So how much of that scare was robots gone wild and how much was sensible worry from flesh and blood investors? We’ll have to wait and see, though we did close down more than 3% on the...

A lot of people have wondered why its taken Obama so long to respond to the oil spill disaster in the Gulf. Well, now we know. During the 2008 election cycle, individuals and political action committees associated with BP — a Center for Responsive Politics’ “heavy hitter” — contributed half a million dollars to federal candidates. About 40 percent of these donations went to Democrats. The top recipient of BP-related donations during the 2008 cycle was President Barack Obama himself, who collected $71,000.

Campaign contributions from Goldman Sachs employees to President Obama are nearly seven times as much as President Bush received from Enron workers, according to numbers on OpenSecrets.org. President Bush's connections to Enron were well-hyped during the company's accounting debacle that rippled through the economy. Time magazine even had an article called, "Bush's Enron Problem." The Associated Press ran with the headline, "Bush-backing Enron makes big money off crisis." David Callaway wrote that Enron for Bush was worse than Whitewater for Clinton.

Campaign contributions from Goldman Sachs employees to President Obama are nearly seven times as much as President Bush received from Enron workers, according to numbers on OpenSecrets.org. President Bush's connections to Enron were well-hyped during the company's accounting debacle that rippled through the economy. Time magazine even had an article called, "Bush's Enron Problem." The Associated Press ran with the headline, "Bush-backing Enron makes big money off crisis." David Callaway wrote that Enron for Bush was worse than Whitewater for Clinton. But the mere $151,722.42 (inflation adjusted) in contributions from Enron-affiliated executives, employees, and PACs to Bush hardly add up...

March 12, 2010, 8:00 pm The bankruptcy examiner’s report filed by Anton R. Valukas on the 2008 demise of Lehman Brothers discusses some accounting gimmicks that are eerily reminiscent of how Enron tried to prop up its balance sheet back in 2001 before it collapsed. Both companies appear to have played right along the edge of properly accounting for transactions designed to make them appear much stronger than they turned out to be, becoming steadily more aggressive as they teetered on the brink of ruin. Peter J. Henning, writing for DealBook’s White Collar Watch, is a commentator on white-collar crime...

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Former Enron chief executive Jeff Skilling lost the first half of the fight of his life when a jury convicted him nearly four years ago for committing fraud while at the helm of the once high-flying energy trader. On Monday before the U.S. Supreme Court, lawyers for federal prisoner 29296-179 will take their last shot at shredding a lower court's conviction that sentenced him to 24 years in jail. If Skilling succeeds, his sentence could be shortened or he could win a new trial. The federal government already has a 0-2 Enron record before the high court...

Reading The Herald Tribune over breakfast in Hong Kong harbor last week, my eye went to the front-page story about how James Chanos — reportedly one of America’s most successful short-sellers, the man who bet that Enron was a fraud and made a fortune when that proved true and its stock collapsed — is now warning that China is “Dubai times 1,000 — or worse” and looking for ways to short that country’s economy before its bubbles burst. China’s markets may be full of bubbles ripe for a short-seller, and if Mr. Chanos can find a way to make money...

The approach of the new year might be an appropriate time to summarize what I have learned in researching the several books and articles that I have written this decade. That I came to own -- or even break -- many of the stories involved, although satisfying to me, should appall any ordinary citizen. These stories were too big for a responsible media to miss.  They became mine as a result of what I call the "ABETTO Syndrome."  For at least the last generation, the left in general, and the media in particular, have been turning A Blind Eye To...

It is becoming increasingly clear that in western society the inmates are running the asylum. The idiot elite that holds power in most western nations have demonstrated their insanity by accepting the outright lie that the essential atmospheric gas carbon dioxide is a undesirable pollutant that needs to be regulated. The scam begun by the crooked Enron corporation in the 1990's falsely claims that very slight increases in CO2 would substantially raise air temperatures. Enron, and its successors, hoped to profit from trading carbon credits like it had profited from trading credits in sulfur dioxide, a byproduct of coal combustion....