Solyndra - Obama Administration Scandal

[American Patriot]

PLEASE post all you find about this subject in this thread. Don't scatter it.

[American Patriot]

Their web site is still online:
http://www.solyndra.com/

[American Patriot]

Solyndra probe to hear from Energy's Chu on November 17

• Lawmakers ask Obama to delay Keystone decisionWed, Oct 26 2011
• First Solar ousts CEO, shares at 4-1/2-year lowTue, Oct 25 2011
• Special Report: Singed by SolyndraMon, Oct 24 2011
• U.S. solar panel makers seek duties against ChinaWed, Oct 19 2011
• Republicans again ask for White House Solyndra emailsWed, Oct 19 2011

By Roberta Rampton
WASHINGTON | Thu Oct 27, 2011 9:01pm EDT

(Reuters) - Energy Secretary Steven Chu will testify on November 17 to a group of lawmakers investigating his department's $535 million loan guarantee to Solyndra, a solar panel company that has since filed for bankruptcy and was raided by the FBI.
Chu has been a passionate advocate of government help for renewable energy companies trying to commercialize new technologies. Solyndra was the much-touted first recipient of a "green energy" loan when President Barack Obama's administration took office.
Republicans on the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee have turned the company's failure into a high-profile political embarrassment for the administration, highlighting connections between Obama fundraisers and Solyndra.
Administration officials have said decisions on the project were made on merit, and have denied accusations that donors had any influence on its loan.
The committee has gathered more than 70,000 pages of emails and other documents from the Energy Department, White House, and other agencies on the loan, and held a series of hearings.
Chu would be the highest-level official to appear before the panel, which is the day after a court-slated deadline for bids for the failed company.
Solyndra has told Delaware's bankruptcy court it has received interest from 25 potential buyers for all or parts of its operations.
The Republican leading the investigation said the committee wants to know why the Energy Department ignored warnings about Solyndra before granting the loan, and then agreed to a restructuring plan that ranked taxpayers' investment behind some private investors in the event of bankruptcy.
"We are also interested in why Secretary Chu and the Energy Department, at a time when Solyndra was fresh out of cash, still went ahead and restructured Solyndra's loan in violation of the plain letter of the law," Cliff Stearns, head of the energy committee's oversight panel, said in a statement.

[American Patriot]

Energy Secretary Steven Chu, renowned physicist, at center of Solyndra policy storm


View Photo Gallery —  These leaders have been a driving force behind the nation's economic policies as Washington aims to fix our troubled economy.




By Steven Mufson, Published: October 27

Energy Secretary Steven Chu was preparing to speak at a black-tie gala this month, and the hundreds of people milling about there were busy gabbing. Seeking to quiet the din, Chu called out “Solyndra, Solyndra, Solyndra,” and people stopped to listen.
He didn’t mention the company again.

Graphic


Energy’s loan guarantee programs

Gallery

  Solyndra, a California solar company backed by a half-billion dollars in loan guarantees from the Obama administration, announced it was shutting its doors and laying off 1,100 employees.


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Ever since Solyndra, a California manufacturer of solar panels, went bankrupt Sept. 5 with $535 million of federal loan guarantees, Chu and his Energy Department have been the focus of some unwanted attention. The department has been hammered by members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has unearthed reams of Obama administration e-mails about internal rifts over the Solyndra loan guarantee. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), head of the panel’s oversight subcommittee, has gotten Chu to agree to testify Nov. 17. And GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich called for Chu to be fired for “grossly mismanaging federal dollars.”
“Daily Show” host Jon Stewart devoted eight minutes to the Solyndra affair and addressed lawmakers’ charges that the loan was based on politics, not merit.
“Maybe their hearts were in the right place and they bet on the wrong horse,” said Stewart of the Energy Department officials. “It’s not like there’s any damning evidence they knew in advance this horse was, in fact, a donkey.”
For Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, it has been a demonstration that the laws of politicsare more important in Washington than the laws of physics.
For most of Chu’s time here, those laws have been aligned. President Obama is fond of the idea of having a Nobel Prize-winning physicist in his Cabinet, say people who have been in touch with senior administration officials.
The president liked Chu’s wonkiness, intellectual authority and devotion to planting technological seeds for slowing climate change. Though the Energy Department’s grant and loan guarantee programs were less than one-tenth of the 2009 stimulus total, Obama showcased many of the projects because, unlike road repairs, they held out the promise of gee-whiz innovation and of heightened competitiveness on a global stage.
Chu personified that gee-whiz character, and as a physicist he was able to understand the bulk of the Energy Department’s more mundane but important responsibility to manage the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile. On the day Obama visited Solyndra in 2010, he mentioned that Chu — “who, as you know is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist” — was then in the Gulf of Mexico personally poring over plans, pressure equations and photos in an effort to plug BP’s leaking Macondo oil exploration well.
But now Solyndra has become a financial and political blowout, and it has made Chu look naive, at best, for saying in March that with Solyndra’s sales rising and its equity investors kicking in more money, he was “confident they can repay” the federal loan.
Weeks earlier, in a Jan. 31 e-mail, an Office of Management and Budget staffer was alarmed. The staffer wrote that an upcoming senior staff meeting “might present an opportunity to flag to DOE at the highest levels the stakes involved, for the [Energy] Secretary to do as he sees fit (and be fully informed and accountable for the decision).” The staffer, whose name was redacted, said, “Although [political] optics are generally out of our lane, it may be worthwhile for the [OMB] Director to privately make this point to the Secretary.” What happened at that senior staff meeting remains unclear.



More here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/busine...WNM_story.html

[American Patriot]

Romney tied to former Solyndra lobbyist


By Alicia M. Cohn - 10/27/11 01:04 PM ET
Mitt Romney is facing scrutiny this week for associating himself with a lobbyist whose firm worked for failed California solar panel company Solyndra.

Lobbyist Alex Mistri co-hosted a Romney fundraiser Wednesday that included a number of lobbyists and members of Congress, held at the American Trucking Association near D.C.'s Capitol Hill.

Mistri is a managing director of the lobbyist firm Glover Park Group LLC. The firm worked for Solyndra in the weeks leading up to the company’s declared bankruptcy, though the firm was reportedly never paid for their work. Mistri is also a Republican donor and has donated money to Romney’s campaign this year.

Romney has slammed the Obama administration for backing the now-bankrupt California solar panel maker as recently as earlier this week in an op-ed for the Orange County Register. Romney accused the White House of acting like a “venture capitalist” by trying to pick winners in providing Solyndra a $535 million loan guarantee.

“Even as the administration trumpeted its accomplishments, the firm was careening toward insolvency,” Romney wrote. “Taxpayers were left holding a $500 million bill, and the firm was left facing an FBI investigation.”

Romney also noted that “at least one Solyndra-linked fundraiser is helping to organize Tuesday's presidential cash call in San Francisco,” likely referring to Steven Spinner, a former Energy Department official believed to have pushed the White House for a prompt decision on the Solyndra loan.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), one of Romney’s biggest congressional endorsements yet, also attended the fundraiser on Wednesday.

Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has been at the forefront of the congressional investigation into the White House-backed loan guarantee to the solar firm.

[American Patriot]

Darrell Issa Attended Fundraiser Held By Solyndra Lobbyist


The Huffington Post Luke Johnson First Posted: 10/27/11 09:04 AM ET Updated: 10/27/11 01:13 PM ET






Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) attended a fundraiser co-hosted by a lobbyist for Solyndra, the now-bankrupt solar energy company Issa is investigating as chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune.
According to his hometown paper, Issa was featured on the invitation to a fundraiser in Washington for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign co-hosted by Alex Mistri of the Glover Park Group, a lobbyist for Solyndra. A spokesman said Issa attended the event in order to support the former Massachusetts governor, who he endorsed for president.
The Huffington Post's Sam Stein reported on the event held Wednesday morning at the American Trucking Association office with nearly two dozen members of Congress on the guest list. The Obama administration granted Solyndra a $535 million loan guarantee in 2009, and the company went bankrupt this September. Solyndra was to pay Mistri $20,000 for his lobbying services; however, the Glover Park Group said that the firm will have to eat the bill.
Issa said that he would launch a "broad" investigation into loan guarantee programs in late September. "There's been this attitude that government can weigh in with loan guarantees and money and pick winners, specific company winners, and losers," he said in a recent C-SPAN interview. "We see that as a backdoor easy way to end up with corruption in government."

[American Patriot]

Solyndra investigation heats up with DOE interviews

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Two of the officials questioned sat on the panel that approved Solyndra's application. | AP Photo Close



By DARREN SAMUELSOHN | 10/26/11 9:02 AM EDT
House Republicans probing Solyndra have privately interviewed at least seven Energy Department career officials central to different critical phases of the controversial $535 million loan guarantee, a source familiar with the investigation tells POLITICO.
The highest-ranking DOE official questioned to date by the Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee aides is Jonathan Silver, the former chief operating officer of the Loan Program Office.



Republicans also have met four times with Susan Richardson, the loan program office's chief counsel and author of a controversial February 2011 legal memo clearing the way for private investors to get first dibs ahead of taxpayers on $75 million if the California solar company went bankrupt.


Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) said he wants Richardson to testify at a hearing next Tuesday alongside another unnamed career DOE attorney who was serving at the start of the Obama administration.


Other DOE staffers quizzed about Solyndra include Frances Nwachuku, the director of portfolio management in DOE's loan program office and Douglas Schultz, a former Overseas Private Investment Corporation official now at DOE working on loan origination.


In a February email exchange, Nwachuku wrote to Treasury Department officials that they had a "gross misunderstanding" of how DOE planned to restructure Solyndra's loan guarantee. Republicans say that DOE’s decision to put the taxpayers behind the private investors violated the 2005 Energy Policy Act.


Republicans also have interviewed two senior DOE career officials who served on the five-member Credit Committee that gave the all-important green light to Solyndra's loan guarantee application in March 2009 just two months after the same team remanded the company's application for further review at the tail end of the George W. Bush administration.


The two Credit Committee members are Lach Seward, who was serving at the time as its chairman and director of the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing loan program, and Owen Barwell, who served at the time as DOE's deputy chief financial officer. Seward retired earlier this year and Barwell is now DOE's acting chief financial officer.


House committee staff also have spoken with another DOE official from the loan guarantee office, but sources couldn’t name the person.


Stearns said Tuesday that some of the DOE officials that his staff contacted have also refused to answer questions about Solyndra. Still, the Florida Republican said he was not going to press for testimony from everyone connected to the loan guarantee as he gears up for a hearing before Thanksgiving with Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
"I don't think you need to bring them all in and put them under oath," Stearns said.
Given Stearns's schedule, it appears that several people central to the Solyndra loan guarantee likely won’t get a call to talk to the House investigators. They include:
Steve Isakowitz — The department's former CFO had an oversight role on the loan guarantee program, which was housed in his office dating back to the George W. Bush administration. Isakowitz featured prominently in several of the internal DOE emails discussing the scramble to close Solyndra's loan guarantee by September 2009 so that President Barack Obama or Vice President Joe Biden could participate in a groundbreaking ceremony.


A former comptroller at NASA, Isakowitz left the federal government in September to be executive vice president and chief technology officer for Virgin Galactic, the commercial space flight enterprise run by Richard Branson, one of several private investors in Solyndra.


Matt Rogers — Chu's point person in clearing out the red tape to get more than $36 billion in stimulus funding, more than the department's annual budget, out the door. Since it was the department’s first loan guarantee, DOE emails show Rogers kept a close eye on Solyndra. He pushed in March 2009 for Obama to visit the company during a California trip but quickly realized he had gotten its Bay Area headquarters confused with Tesla’s electric car manufacturing plant near Los Angeles.
Rogers left DOE in September 2010, returning to McKinsey & Co. to serve as director of its San Francisco office and head of its North American petroleum practice.



Rod O’Connor — Chu's first chief of staff emailed Biden's chief of staff Ronald Klain in May 2010 with reassurances that Obama shouldn't be concerned about visiting Solyndra despite warnings from a top Silicon Valley fundraiser and clean energy venture capitalist.


A former adviser to Vice President Al Gore, O'Connor's background was in event management, including running the 2000 and 2004 Democratic National conventions. He left DOE in March to become the London-based executive vice president for AEG Facilities, a sports and entertainment facility management company.


Steve Spinner — An Obama fundraiser in 2008, Spinner landed a job handling loan guarantee logistics at DOE. His unusual role and possible conflicts of interest (his wife worked at a law firm that represented Solyndra) repeatedly frustrated career officials who thought he was leaning on them to speed up the process.


Spinner started as a Chu adviser in April 2009, a month after the department had approved a conditional commitment for Solyndra’s loan guarantee. He left in September 2010, working until last month as a Silicon Valley-based senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. Spinner raised $500,000 or more for Obama in the third quarter of 2011.


Stearns said he didn't plan to invite Spinner in for testimony. "We think based upon his emails we know enough about him," he said.


Missy Owens — DOE deputy chief of staff and Biden's niece. Her name is on several of the emails circulated between DOE and the White House just prior to Solyndra's loan guarantee winning its final approval in September 2009, including debates over the timing of the groundbreaking ceremony that Biden eventually participated in via video.


David Frantz — The Bush administration hired Frantz in 2007 to lead the DOE loan guarantee program, tapping his 25 years of experience on international project financing. Most recently, Frantz worked at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. He's been the acting director of the loan program office since Silver resigned earlier this month.


Bill Miller — A DOE veteran who handled Solyndra's loan guarantee file. Internal emails show him involved at several stages of the process, including relaying Office of Management and Budget concerns and admonishing Spinner after he requested the name of an outside attorney assigned to the case.


Neile Miller — Miller was the director of DOE's budget office at the time Solyndra won the loan guarantee. Her job included one of the five seats on the Credit Committee that recommended approving the company’s application. She switched jobs at DOE after the Senate confirmed her in August 2010 to become the principal deputy administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration.


Lawrence Oliver — He served as DOE’s assistant general counsel for fossil energy and energy efficiency at the time of Solyndra’s loan guarantee approval, a job that gave him a seat on the Credit Committee. Oliver started at DOE in 1977 and retired in 2009.
Ove Westerheim — He worked at DOE from late 2007 until February 2011 as director of its loan program project portfolio and management division. Westerheim was a member of the Credit Committee. He is now back at OPIC, where he'd worked for 13 years before joining DOE.


Jay Hoffman — The director of the CFO's Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation, he served as an alternate on the Credit Committee.


This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 5:35 a.m. on October 26, 2011.

[American Patriot]

U.S. Funds Overseas Jobs Via Government Loans

Between 2000 & 2010, U.S. lost 5.8 million manufacturing jobs, the largest 10-year loss on record.
By Chairman Tom Pauken, Texas Workforce Commission
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN, Texas – As it turns out, Fisker Automotive has contracted the assembly of its green energy Karma vehicle to the Finnish-owned manufacturing firm Valmet, located in Uusikaupunki, Finland. While time will tell if Fisker Auto will be successful in the relatively new industry of clean-tech vehicles, I question whether this was an investment American taxpayers want our government to make, especially when the only jobs created to this point have been overseas.
A government-guaranteed loan to a so-called green energy company, Solyndra, has been in the news lately. Solyndra was supposed to employ 1,000′s of Americans in the production of solar panels and received federal loan guarantees from the Obama administration in excess of half a billion dollars. Now, the company has filed for bankruptcy, and the American taxpayers are expected to get little or nothing back from this dubious investment.
Solyndra wasn’t the only questionable investment made by the Obama administration under its “green energy” initiative.
The latest example to emerge, Fisker Automotive, also received loan guarantees of more than half a billion dollars in late 2009, ostensibly to make capital investments in order to begin domestic production of energy-efficient, economy-class cars at a former General Motors factory in Delaware.
The Department of Energy approved the loan of $528 million in 2009 as part of a larger package of government venture capital investments in the relatively young clean-tech auto industry. At the time, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said,

“This investment will create thousands of new American jobs and is another critical step in making sure we are positioned to compete for the clean energy jobs of the future.”

If only that were true.
In October, Americans marveled at the debut of the Fisker Karma, a flashy sedan that more closely resembles a hotrod than the more conservative hybrid cars we’re accustomed to seeing on the road. As impressive as it was with all of its bells and whistles, critics have noted the absence of one important feature – the “Made in America” tag.
Prior to Fisker contracting production of the new Karma to the Finnish-owned manufacturing firm Valmet, co-founder Henrik Fisker told ABC News that his company was unable to find a contract manufacturer in the U.S. capable of assembling the vehicle to their standards.
“We’re not in the business of failing; we’re in the business of winning. So we make the right decision for the business,” Fisker said. “That’s why we went to Finland.”
Adding insult to injury, Fisker Auto recently announced that the start date for production of its economy-class model – the model that was supposed to start production in Delaware in 2012 – would be delayed until 2013 at the very earliest.
Investments in clean technology and alternative energy are inherently risky, and no doubt should be made in the free market where risks can be absorbed without burdening taxpayers with more public debt.
This should be evident from the past mistakes of the socialist government of Spain, which heavily invested public money into green energy initiatives that failed to ever be competitive or create jobs. In fact, one study from the King Juan Carlos University in Madrid showed that each “green job” created by government-supported subsidies resulted in the loss of 2.2 jobs in other areas of the private sector, while costing an average of $774,000 per job.
Between 2000 and 2010, U.S. manufacturing employment declined by 5.8 million jobs. That’s a drop of one-third, the largest 10-year period loss on record.
As a consequence, our national economy has given way to high levels of debt, trade deficits with 105 nations, and record long-term unemployment rates. It is insulting that our tax dollars are being used by the current administration to create jobs abroad while our existing corporate tax system – the most onerous in the world – already has the effect of exporting manufacturing jobs overseas.
Companies that operate in the U.S. must do so under a system that encourages debt and outsourcing, rather than savings and investment here at home.
In contrast, our national competitors have border-adjusted tax systems that exempt exports, and in turn reward firms for keeping operations in their home country. Finland, for example, has a border-adjusted tax of 22 percent which must be paid on all imports coming in to their country, but is exempted on those goods going out – like new Karmas being shipped to the United States.
One idea to correct this was proposed by Austin businessman David Hartman. His plan would eliminate the corporate income tax on American businesses and replace it with a revenue-neutral, border-adjusted consumption tax.
Such an approach to taxation would level the playing field with our trading competitors, and, more importantly, would ensure that future hybrid cars came with a “Made in America” tag.
Tom Pauken is Chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission and author of Bringing America Home. The Texas Workforce Commission is a state agency dedicated to helping Texas employers, workers and communities prosper economically. For details on TWC and the programs it offers in coordination with its network of local workforce development boards, call (512) 463-8556 or visit www.TexasWorkforce.org.

[American Patriot]

I had to hunt hard for data on this.

I think that the media is deliberately trying to HIDE this information.

[American Patriot]

October 21, 2011
Solyndra to Auction Assets, But Taxpayers Won't See a Dime

Fire it up 202

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By Lachlan Markay, Heritage

As part of its bankruptcy proceedings, defunct solar company Solyndra will auction off thousands of items from its California production facility on Nov. 2 and 3. But taxpayers won’t see a dime of the proceeds, due to the Energy Department’s decision to subordinate taxpayers to Solyndra’s private financiers in repayment of their investments.

As I explained in a Friday column in the Washington Examiner, DOE has developed an unprecedented interpretation of the law to allow Solyndra’s private investors to recoup $75 million of their investment before taxpayers are repaid.

Heritage Global Partners, which is conducting the auction, told Scribe that the money raised from the upcoming auction “will not be anywhere near” $75 million, meaning the proceeds will go entirely towards repaying Solyndra’s private investors (though later asset sales may exceed that threshold).

[vector7]

I had to hunt hard for data on this.

I think that the media is deliberately trying to HIDE this information.

Yes, they're sanitizing another chapter in this Administrations growing number of "Crony Capitalism Dirty Stories".

Can you imagine if a conservative tried to get away with just a few of these incidents?

The draconian hypocrisy coming out of all the major news networks with the exception of FOX is really disturbing. Makes me wonder how any conservative could win under this environment in 2012 or beyond.

Speaking of more scandals, I never got around to posting how Obama gave another half a billion to an electric car company connected to Gore producing cars off shore.

Should we start another thread about this?

Obama Admin Gave Half-Billion-Dollar Loan to Gore-Connected Electric Car Company to Build Cars in… Finland?

• Posted on October 20, 2011 at 10:49pm by
• Tiffany Gabbay
• Comments (340)

An electric car company that received more than a half-billion-dollar Obama administration-approved loan is reportedly now assembling its first line of cars in rural Finland, rather than in the United States. What’s more, the car company, Fisker Automotive, is funded by a venture capital firm whose partners include former Vice President Al Gore.

To make matters worse, Fisker is more than a year behind in rolling out its $97,000 luxury “Karma” car, funded in part with Department of Energy funds. A mere 40 Karmas have thus far been produced, with only two delivered to customers — one of whom is famed actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
ABC reports:

With the approval of the Obama administration, an electric car company that received a $529 million federal government loan guarantee is assembling its first line of cars in Finland, saying it could not find a facility in the United States capable of doing the work.

Vice President Joseph Biden heralded the Energy Department’s $529 million loan to the start-up electric car company called Fisker as a bright new path to thousands of American manufacturing jobs. But two years after the loan was announced, the job of assembling the flashy electric Fisker Karma sports car has been outsourced to Finland.

“There was no contract manufacturer in the U.S. that could actually produce our vehicle,” the company’s founder and namesake told ABC News. “They don’t exist here.”

Henrik Fisker said the U.S. loan has been spent on engineering and design work that stayed in the U.S., not on the 500 manufacturing jobs that were exported to a rural Finnish firm, Valmet Automotive.

“We’re not in the business of failing; we’re in the business of winning. So we make the right decision for the business,” Fisker said. “That’s why we went to Finland.”

But shipping 500 jobs abroad is only part of the odd equation. According to ABC:

Fisker is part of a $1 billion bet the Energy Department has made in two politically connected California-based electric carmakers producing sporty — and pricey — cutting-edge autos. Fisker Automotive, backed by a powerhouse venture capital firm whose partners include former Vice President Al Gore, predicts it will eventually be churning out tens of thousands of electric sports sedans at the shuttered GM factory it bought in Delaware. And Tesla Motors, whose prime backers include PayPal mogul Elon Musk and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, says it will do the same in a massive facility tooling up in Silicon Valley.

Meanwhile, Tesla’s SEC filings reveal the start-up has lost money every quarter, and while its federal funding is intended to help the company mass-produce a $57,400 Model S sedan, ABC reports that the carmaker has never tackled a project so vast — raising doubts about the company’s ability to produce.

An investigation by ABC News and the Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News slated to air on “Good Morning America,” purportedly found that the DOE’s bet carries risks for taxpayers, has raised concern among industry observers and government auditors, and raised additional questions about the way in which billions of dollars in loans for smart cars and green energy companies are appropriated.

Ironically, the Fisker’s $100,000 price-tag eliminates the “other 99%” of the potential customer base. That may be just as well, since it offers worse fuel efficiency than many gas-guzzling SUV’s.
Forbes reports:

The Fisker Karma electric car, developed mainly with your tax money so that a bunch of rich VC’s wouldn’t have to risk any real money, has rolled out with an nominal EPA MPGe of 52.

Not bad? Unfortunately, it’s a sham. This figure is calculated using the grossly flawed EPA process that substantially underestimates the amount of fossil fuels required to power the electric car…

As I calculated in my earlier Forbes article, one needs to multiply the EPA MPGe by .365 to get a number that truly compares fossil fuel use of an electric car with a traditional gasoline engine car on an apples to apples basis. In the case of the Fisker Karma, we get a true MPGe of 19. This makes it worse than even the city rating of a Ford Explorer SUV.

The entire ABC report can be read here.



(h/t: WeaselZippers)

[American Patriot]

It is sounding like Congress is going to subpoena Obama's papers (White House stuff)... what they knew, when and for how long, how Obama was involved etc.

I'd bet you that a lot of loud mouths come out of the wood work in the next few hours screaming things like "RACISM!"

[American Patriot]

A half billion dollars.....


This is MIND boggling. I'm trying to make sure I have 100,000 in cash in my pocket for retirement plans. That's all, not much. They want to try to fuck with my IRAs too. That's MY money. It doesn't belong to anyone else. I EARNED IT. I PUT IT AWAY. I SAVED IT!

And they gave a half BILLION bucks to a fucking Green Company that WENT BANKRUPT!

This pisses me off more than anything else I've seen in politics and out of the White House lately.

This is MY MONEY THEY LOST. OUR MONEY people...

That is over 5000 retirements for me.

The government needs to STOP giving away OUR money. Unless they are going to GIVE IT BACK.

Let me see now... there's 312,546,718 people in the United States. Thats about a dollar and fifty cents per person. The White House would have you believe probably that "You dumb assed ignorant Americans can afford that".

But this isn't the point. It's the fact that about 50% of those people NEVER PAID ANY TAXES. That means it's more like 3.00 per person. Then you subtract out the kids who don't pay taxes (because, well, they're little kids) and that is easily another one half of that number. That raises it up to 6.00 a person.

I guess that they ought to just give every American (kids included) non-taxable 1 million dollars each to spend any way they wish, on whatever products they want, be it a car, boat, airline tickets, pay off bills... whatever.

THAT would "stimulate" the economy.

So each adult citizen getting a million bucks to spend? Damned right we'd spend it. I'd quit my fucking job and go spend it in another country. Fuckers....

[American Patriot]

House panel to vote on White House subpoena in Solyndra loan deal

(Paul Sakuma/Associated Press) - An auction sign is shown at bankrupt Solyndra headquarters in Fremont, Calif., Monday, Oct. 31, 2011 before Wednesday’s auction. Solyndra received a one half billion dollar loan guarantee from the government before filing for bankruptcy in Sept. 2011.


By Associated Press, Updated: Thursday, November 3, 1:13 AM

WASHINGTON — A House panel is set to vote Thursday on a plan to subpoena White House documents related to Solyndra Inc., the failed California solar company that received a half-billion-dollar federal loan.
Republican leaders of the House Energy and Commerce oversight and investigations subcommittee say a subpoena is necessary because the White House has denied or delayed requests for thousands of documents related to Solyndra. The Fremont, Calif., company received a $528 million federal loan before filing for bankruptcy protection in September and laying off 1,100 workers.

1









A vote on subpoenas for White House Chief of Staff William Daley and Bruce Reed, chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden, was scheduled for Thursday.


The subcommittee chairman, Florida Rep. Cliff Stearns, and Michigan Rep. Fred Upton, chairman of the full committee, met with White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler on Wednesday to discuss the Solyndra case.


“Sadly, despite our outreach, the White House still refuses to turn over internal Solyndra-related communications,” Stearns and Upton said in a statement. “We have exercised extraordinary restraint and patience these last eight months in the face of an administration that has fought our efforts to protect taxpayers every step of the way. Our document requests have been reasonable, yet the stalling tactics from the Obama administration have been prodigious.”


Congressional Republicans have been investigating Solyndra’s bankruptcy amid embarrassing revelations that federal officials were warned it had problems but nonetheless continued to support it and sent President Barack Obama to visit the company and praise it publicly.


An Energy Department spokesman said the administration was cooperating with House investigators and has provided more than 80,000 pages of documents. Damien LaVera said the administration turned over more than 15,000 pages of documents to the committee this week, including about 1,200 pages of communications between the White House and the Energy Department.


In addition to the documents, Energy officials also have participated in a committee hearing and made more than a half dozen officials available for briefings with committee staff since March, LaVera said.


“Despite all the allegations and insinuations, the record shows that the decisions related to this loan we made on the merits after extensive review by the loan program” office, LaVera said.


Among the 1,200 pages of documents the administration released Wednesday were details of a bailout plan considered by the Energy Department that would have provided an infusion of cash to Solyndra and a new board of directors, including two directors appointed by the Energy Department.


Officials rejected the plan, which was recommended in August by the investment banking firm Lazard Ltd. Lazard was paid $1 million for analyzing options related to Solyndra.


Without an infusion of new cash, Lazard wrote in an Aug. 17 memo to the Energy Department, Solyndra was almost certain to fail, which would “likely result in little recovery to the DOE.” The department rejected the refinancing plan sometime after Aug. 28, and Solyndra shut its doors on Aug. 31.


The White House announced last week it had ordered an independent review of similar loans made by the Energy Department. The review by former Treasury official Herb Allison will assess the health of more than two dozen other renewable energy loans and loan guarantees made by the Energy Department program that supported Solyndra.
___
Matthew Daly can be followed at http://twitter.com/MatthewDalyWDC

[American Patriot]

Obama Administration Considered Bailout for Solyndra Before Bankruptcy


Published November 03, 2011
| Associated Press

• 
  AP
  Oct. 31, 2011: An auction sign is shown at bankrupt Solyndra headquarters in Fremont, Calif., before Wednesday's auction. Solyndra received a one half billion dollar loan guarantee from the government before filing for bankruptcy in Sept. 2011.

WASHINGTON – Days before a solar panel maker collapsed, the Obama administration considered a bailout that would have provided an infusion of cash and a new board of directors, including two directors appointed by the Energy Department.


Officials rejected the plan, which was recommended in August by the investment banking firm Lazard Ltd. Lazard was paid $1 million for analyzing options related to the faltering company, Solyndra Inc.


Details of the bailout plan were among nearly 1,200 pages of documents released by the government Wednesday.



A House panel is set to vote on a plan Thursday to subpoena the White House for documents related to the company.


The Republican-controlled House Energy and Commerce Committee said a subpoena was necessary because the White House has denied or delayed requests for thousands of documents related to Solyndra. The California company received a $528 million federal loan before filing for bankruptcy protection and laying off 1,100 workers.


An Energy Department spokesman said the administration was cooperating with House investigators and has provided more than 80,000 pages of documents. The administration turned over more than 15,000 pages of documents to the committee this week, including about 1,200 pages of communications between the White House and the Energy Department, Energy Department spokesman Damien LaVera said.


DOE officials also have participated in a committee hearing and made more than a half-dozen officials available for briefings with committee staff since March, LaVera said.


Congressional Republicans have been investigating Solyndra's bankruptcy amid embarrassing revelations that federal officials were warned it had problems but nonetheless continued to support it, and sent President Barack Obama to visit the company and praise it publicly.


"Despite all the allegations and insinuations, the record shows that the decisions related to this loan we made on the merits after extensive review by the loan program" office, LaVera said.


The bailout plan considered by the Energy Department would have converted much of the U.S. loan to equity in the company worth as much as 40 percent, the emails show.


Lazard was hired to look at Solyndra's financing after the company received a $528 million loan in 2009 and $69 million in private money earlier this year in a restructuring deal approved by the Obama administration. Under the second deal, the private investors moved ahead of U.S. taxpayers in case of a default on the loan, a fact that GOP investigators have sharply criticized.


Without an infusion of new cash, Lazard wrote in an Aug. 17 memo to the Energy Department, Solyndra was almost certain to fail, which would "likely result in little recovery to the DOE." The department rejected the refinancing plan sometime after Aug. 28, and Solyndra shut its doors on Aug. 31.


Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., who chairs the energy panel's investigations subcommittee, said the White House has been "stonewalling" on Solyndra, releasing some documents but not all.


"They feel that the inner circle of the West Wing is off bounds and we have no right to ask this information," Stearns told Fox Business News this week. "I think the American taxpayers deserve an answer."


"I mean, we're just talking about what happened on Solyndra. It's nothing to do with national security," Stearns added. "We're asking where the taxpayers' money went. And frankly, we're just trying to understand, did the White House actually push this (loan) out, knowing that it was going to fail?""


Daley announced last week that he had ordered an independent review of similar loans made by the Energy Department.


He said the review by former Treasury official Herb Allison would assess the health of more than two dozen other renewable energy loans and loan guarantees made by the Energy Department program that supported Solyndra.


Allison, who oversaw the Troubled Asset Relief Program, part of the 2008 Wall Street bailout, is not looking at the Solyndra case, officials said. Instead he will evaluate other loans worth tens of billions of dollars and recommend steps to stabilize them if they appear to have similar problems.


Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said he welcomes the White House review. Chu is scheduled to testify Nov. 17 before the energy panel.

[American Patriot]

Former Solyndra CEO got $456K severance

RANDALL CHASE
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DOVER, Del.
New court documents show the founder and former CEO of solar panel maker Solyndra Inc. negotiated a severance package worth almost half a million dollars.
Documents the company filed in bankruptcy court in Delaware also show the executive, Chris Gronet, was terminated July 1, almost two months before Solyndra announced he was leaving.
The company received a $528 million federal loan and was touted by the Obama administration as a "green jobs" creator.
The documents, filed Monday, show Solyndra paid more than $17,000 to its bankruptcy law firm in early February. That was two weeks before finishing a loan restructuring in which some $70 million borrowed from private investors got priority for repayment over $385 million in taxpayer money.
Solyndra filed for bankruptcy protection in September.

[American Patriot]

House panel has voted TO SUBPOENA White House documents on Solyndra!

Good. Let's find out who the people are who've been cheating the American people... and kick them out too.

[Ryan Ruck]

House panel has voted TO SUBPOENA White House documents on Solyndra!

Good. Let's find out who the people are who've been cheating the American people... and kick them out tar and feather, then imprison them too.

Fixed it for you.

[American Patriot]

Fixed it for you.

Ah I knew I misspelled those phrases.....

/chuckles

[Malsua]

Thieves are the worst.

Crony government enablers who buy votes with public money deserve to be tossed in a pit and pissed on.