Solyndra executives are being hauled before a GOP House Committee today, the latest props in the conservative right’s war on clean energy. The House Energy and Commerce Committee wants to bat them around a bit and also use them as a way to point out alleged White House corruption. But the executives will plead the fifth instead.

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Please join me in the comments and say hi to Susan, Sandy, Bill and Warren.

A new study by the Rand Corporation, which is not known for being pro-marijuana, found that crime actually goes up significantly in surrounding areas when local medical marijuana dispensaries are forced to close. And it makes perfect sense.

The Obama Administration is frantic about stopping the Palestinian effort to secure a vote on statehood at the UN. Today the President meets with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to try and dissuade him from introducing the statehood resolution at the UN Security Council.

It should be noted, for the record, that the Roberts court is one of the most right-wing Supreme Courts in generations. Buncha activist judges tramplin’ on our states’ rights.

Just shy of a majority of registered voters, 49 percent, say they definitely plan to vote against Barack Obama in 2012, but just 36 percent say they definitely plan to vote for him, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll.

In a rare attempt to intervene in the policymaking of an independent agency, the four top Republicans in the House and Senate wrote a letter to Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke, warning him against further steps to use monetary policy to boost the struggling US economy.

Ron Suskind’s book looks like it will be the talk of the entire week. The dispute with Anita Dunn over a truncated quote is sucking up a lot of oxygen. I haven’t read the book, but I think the context does indicate that the President stepped in when the old boy’s network was getting to be a problem, and that Anita’s quote still makes it clear that the work environment was hostile to women – or maybe just plain hostile – before that.

The poor state of the economy remains the great anchor dragging down Obama’s numbers. The poll found that 75 percent of Americans believe the country is currently in a recession and only a third of the voters approve of Obama’s handling of the economy, 61 percent disapprove.

Support for Occupy Wall Street is growing by the hour. Solidarity actions in Chicago, Phoenix and Paris, France, are all getting off the ground. In Los Angeles, Cleveland, and Atlanta, actions are in the works. Each of these may become occupations. There”s also an indication the International Workers of the World will have members at the site supporting the occupation, and it appears Sojourner’s, a Christian Left organization, is taking an interest in the action.