When I dubbed the nascent Solyndra scandal “Teapot Solyndra” in memory of the Teapot Dome Scandal, I worried that I might be getting ahead of myself.
But with this administration, it’s hard to get ahead of oneself. Fearing the worst usually is the safest bet.
And that worst fear seems to becoming true, as the coordination by the administration at high levels to push a massive loan through for political purposes is becoming the scandal which may be for the Obama administration what oil leases and bribes were to the Harding administration.
As reported by Bloomberg (and many other places):
President Barack Obama’s aides pressured White House budget officials to complete a review of a $535 million U.S. loan guarantee to Solyndra LLC, a solar-panel maker that has filed for bankruptcy protection, according to a House committee report based on e-mails and other documents.
Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee released the findings of a seven-month investigation into U.S. support for Fremont, California-based Solyndra before a scheduled hearing today with two witnesses from the administration. The Department of Energy and the Office of Management and Budget “did not take adequate steps to protect taxpayer dollars,” according to the report.
Solyndra was a focal point of Obama’s energy and political plans, and his administration did everything it could to get the deal done so Obama and Joe Biden could run around the country trumpeting the deal as a keystone of economic and job growth.
As pointed out at NRO, which has a good history of the deal, the loan was from Obama’s Stimulus Plan funds, so the scandal goes to the core failure of one of Obama’s claimed achievements.
This was a rotten deal done for political purposes. We don’t know if money changed hands, but we do know that money was traded for political sound bites and photo ops, which is worth more than money to Obama’s campaign.
Update: Obama administration officials are trying to blame Bush, but that doesn’t hold up because the Bush administration rejected the loan as premature. Some interesting background on the Teapot Dome Scandal and the appointment of special prosecutors is here.
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Comments
I hope there is an independent forensics performed on this firm. That money went somewhere and taxpayers, at this stage, have a right to know where. Amongst a host of things I’d like investigated, is what were the names of the largest suppliers to Solyndra and who owned them. As is always the case, if there’s fraud at play, follow the money.
Agree with Syd B. Look for this to get buried like a dead bird by the NYT et al: but it may be very, very hard to bury this one deep enough.
Conservatives (and lesser Republicans, too) need to hammer on ObamaCare, Fast&Furious, and Solyndra as emblematic of this Administration’s utter contempt for the rule of law and the primacy of the electorate in public policy. What better—that is, worse—triad of disasters could better define this cavalcade of dunces?
Oh, and PS: would SOMEONE please report me to AttackWatch for this? If not, I’ll just have to go and do it myself… Thanks!
Is the FBI, per Holder, scooping up all the documents so that they will not be available to Issa et al in congress until after the 2012 elections?
This is a really good example of what happens when resource allocation decisions are made by Government. It is also a case study about why big Government leads to an inefficient economy and a lower standard of living for most citizens.
The media, including NRO, are missing the real sizzle to this story.
And that is, with the February restructuring, the Dept of Energy agreed to subordinate the taxpayer’s priority interest to Argonaut (controlled by Kaiser’s foundation). Argonaut became the senior creditor. After the recent bankruptcy filing it then submitted a plan to the bankruptcy court (which was approved) to provide the DIP financing with an obscenely short 363 auction process of only four weeks.
It is highly unlikely any bidders show up at the end of the four weeks. At that point, Argoanut will take possession of $850 million of assets with it’s investment of less than $100 million. Taxpayers will get zip for their half billion investment. All perfectly legal and sanctioned by the bankruptcy court.
When the media catches up, as Vice President Biden might say, this will be a big effing deal.
Bruce Krasting at zerohedge has been following this one like a hawk. I just summarized his most informative post, but to read it in full, go here:
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/more-solyndra-%E2%80%93-next-move
I heard Sandy Berger was seen about with a pair of extra-large socks, so Mr. Holder has probably outsourced the document scooping on this one.
I don’t think this will go anywhere. I am afraid this will be a two week Tempest in a Teapot, not a Teapot Dome. I am continually in wonder about the lack of outrage among our fellow citizen’s over government fraud and waste. I guess when the majority of the population has no financial stake in the federal government, these “Where is the outrage in America” moments should be no surprise. The only tax many people pay is the payroll tax, and our current political class is doing its best to eliminate that tax for workers. It appears an ever larger percentage of us feel it’s the other guy’s responsibility. Why care?
Until there is outrage, and until more of our fellow citizens wake up and realize government waste, fraud and corruption do real damage to us all, the Solyndra incidents will be fruitful and multiply with little or no consequence to their perpetrators.
While we are on the subject, we need to check out, not just this one, but all of the “green” scams. And most of Secretary Chu’s projects will be found to be scams with a tiny bit of digging. For example, maybe this one could stand some sunshine up its kiester:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/09/energy-department-presses-ahead-with-solar-investments.html
My guess is this is another Teapot Solyndra, but double the size a $1.2 billion.
I hope this doesn’t fade away but I haven’t seen much about it in MSM.
without sites like this it wouldn’t even be news at all.
Prof
thank you for providing the link to the Teapot Dome Scandal. I kinda sorta rememberd it by name but not the details and how it relates to this mess.
does no one in the obama admin ask questions before doing things like this?
Thank goodness the Repubs in Congress are investigating.
oh and BTW one of the first things I do when I get here is check out what the music vid is.
Watch out, you’ll get reported…
http://www.attackwatch.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23AttackWatch
Any way that one can “self-denounce” oneself to AttackWatch?
I think it’s only in the spirit of cooperation and helpfulness that we should all, every one of us forward any less-than-glowing assessments of The One(TM) and his minions to his watchdogs. After all: if he wants to behave like an insecure, gossipy little girl, he should be treated to all the gossip he can handle. And more.
Among the government’s limited authorized duties is a mandate to foster the conditions where the economy thrives. It was never intended for a bureaucracy to select winners and losers among the population.
The combination of authority and involuntary exploitation is a principal contributor to progressive corruption. Some people are more vulnerable than others to its corrosive effects.
In any case, many people are, for the first time in their lives, witness to the true nature of “redistributive change”.
[…] Boob are below 50% in California but still at a relatively strong 49%. But wait a few more months. Wait till Solyndra and other corruptions take their toll on the Obama favorability ratings. Wait until more White House emails emerge about the $500 million rip-off of taxpayer […]
The most ironic part of this scandal is that VP Biden was supposed to be the “watchdog,” making sure all the stimulus dollars were well spent and making sure there was no waste, fraud or abuse. Now it looks like he and his office were primarily instrumental in pushing this loan guarantee through when it should not have been approved under normal circumstances.
I may be getting too far ahead here, but many MSM outlets are picking up this scandal story now, including ABC News, Washington Post and more. This coincides with a sudden surge in negative stories in the MSM about Obama, including many in the Democrat leadership openly criticizing him, negatives comments by Andy Stern, Richard Cohen saying Obama has “lost the Hamptons” and so on. The Left is clearly alarmed at Obama’s plummeting numbers.
So, given that since Journolist we know for certain the MSM actively cooperates to create the “news” narrative, and given that the scandal aspects of the Solyndra story are recently breaking in numerous MSM outlets, is it possible they intend to use the Solyndra scandal to torpedo Obama? They can’t use Obamacare, crushing regulation, the “stimulus” or any of the Dem policy failures without discrediting the entire party, but the Solyndra thing can be pinned on Obama’s people alone.
Just asking.