Crony Capitalism

Nancy Pelosi, who's been much criticized recently for using her political clout to enrich herself, doesn't appear to be too worried about crony capitalism: 

Steve Hayes, with Mara Liasson and Charles Krauthammer, last night on Fox News:

The crony capitalism represented by the failed “green energy” firm Solyndra has gotten a lot of media attention lately, but much lower on the public’s radar is a much bigger example of corporate pork over at the national space agency—and it’s bipartisan. Let’s call it Shuttlyndra.

Here’s how it works.

A little over a year ago, Congress approved a NASA authorization bill that mandated the agency to spend billions in taxpayer dollars over the next few years on a congressionally specified giant rocket with no defined mission and no budgets with which to build payloads for it.

Associated Press: "Obama donor discussed solar loan with White House"

Associated Press: "Penn State trustees oust football coach Joe Paterno, president Graham Spanier"

Ross Douthat: "Our Reckless Meritocracy"

Glenn Reynolds: "Occupy Wall Street gets the ink, Tea Party gets the voters"

Well, now we know the reason for the Friday night news dump. When the Obama administration finally announced that they would be launching an independent review of Department of Energy loan guarantees, they were likely trying to get out ahead of this:

This is starting to become a familiar refrain:

Democratic leaders have been quick to embrace Occupy Wall Street. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has been fundraising off the protesters. Nancy Pelosi believes that God should bless the movement. And many other Democrats seem to have simply embraced Occupy Wall Street by expressing sympathy.

Will it turn out worse than Solyndra?:

As failed solar panel manufacturer Solyndra rides through the investigative ringer in Congress, revelations of another politically-connected company that received what appears to be a less-than-virtuous $1.2 billion loan guarantee are surfacing.

The company, SunPower, received its $1.2 billion loan guarantee in September, immediately before the program’s deadline.

Kevin Williamson:  A (Steve) Jobs Agenda

David Freddoso: "Will Palin endorse wisely?"

The Hill: "Cantor aides deny new PAC is about VP run"

Sometimes in politics appearing guilty can have more consequences that actually being guilty (though the two frequently are related). And this latest development in the Solyndra scandal certainly looks bad:

The Los Angeles Times opened up a new front in the Solyndra scandal on Friday (and there are too many fronts to count at this point), reporting that Steve Spinner, another prominent Obama donor, served as a top official in the Energy Department program that made the half-billion dollar loan to the now bankrupt solar panel maker. In Spinner's defense, he did recuse himself from the decision to grant the loan—because his wife works at a law firm that represented Solyndra.