Democrat Culture of Corruption

Obama Jobs Bill: Billions for ACORN and the Left

Mark Noonan27 Comments

From Pajamas Media:

ACORN and other radical left-wing groups would be eligible for up to $15 billion in federal funding if President Obama’s new economic stimulus package becomes law.

Now that public polling shows Americans are realizing that economic stimulus programs don’t work, the Obama administration is calling the latest round of futile stimulus a “jobs bill.” In a sense it really is a jobs bill: a jobs bill for Saul Alinsky-inspired community organizers.

The draft legislation, which had not yet been introduced in Congress at press time, makes ACORN, Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA), and a phalanx of leftist groups that regularly feed at the public trough eligible for funding…

With the left getting rebellious over Obama’s failure to turn America fully socialist, Obama has to do something to recover their support…and there is nothing a leftist likes better than some taxpayer swag.  To be sure, this doesn’t mean that all $15 billion so earmarked would go to ACORN and similar groups, but with that much cash flowing you know that such groups would pick up at least hundreds of millions…and, perhaps, billions.

This is probably part of the reason Obama wants it passed as is – if he can’t payoff his supporters, there is simply no upside to the bill.  It won’t improve the economy, it won’t create jobs…it won’t, that is, do anything to help Obama in the larger sense, so it had better at least solidify his leftist support.  If the GOP is allowed a say, then the payoffs won’t be in the final bill.

Kill this bill – don’t even think about passing it.  Pass a GOP jobs bill out of the House and let Reid kill that in the Senate, or Obama veto it after passage.  We have no reason to work with the President and the Democrats, at all, because their efforts are not directed at helping America, but at helping themselves.  Let the people decide in 2012 what they want – legislation which is just a payoff for cronies, or legislation that will actually help the United States.

Did the Administration Pressure a General to Change Testimony?

Mark Noonan3 Comments

From the Daily Beast:

…The four-star Air Force general who oversees U.S. Space Command walked into a highly secured room on Capitol Hill a week ago to give a classified briefing to lawmakers and staff, and dropped a surprise. Pressed by members, Gen. William Shelton said the White House tried to pressure him to change his testimony to make it more favorable to a company tied to a large Democratic donor.

The episode—confirmed by The Daily Beast in interviews with administration officials and the chairman of a congressional oversight committee—is the latest in a string of incidents that have given Republicans sudden fodder for questions about whether the Obama administration is politically interfering in routine government matters that affect donors or fundraisers. Already, the FBI and a House committee are investigating a federal loan guarantee to a now failed solar firm called Solyndra that is tied to a large Obama fundraiser…

There are two questions we need to have answered, over all:

1.  Has government policy been for sale?  Did the Administration set things up so that their donors and cronies would get the government swag regardless of the needs of the nation?

2.  If so, then what did the President know, and when did he know it?

Yes that second question is the “Watergate/impeachment” question.  And we need both questions answered.  We already see in the preliminary stages of the growing Solyndra scandal that Obama’s people would ensure that donors got special treatment…now we need to know, further, if outright lies were sought or presented by the Administration to ensure their cronies got government largesse.  Once we find that out, we then need to know if President Obama was aware of it, and when he became aware.  The answers to these questions will tell us if we’ve just got some rather routine government back scratching, or if we’ve got a government which has put the United States up for sale to the highest donor.

Solyndra II?

Mark Noonan18 Comments

Not satisfied with having thrown hundreds of millions away on Solyndra, the Obama Administration is now going to throw billions – from a Department of Energy press release:

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced the Energy Department finalized a $1.2 billion loan guarantee to Mojave Solar LLC for the development of the Mojave Solar Project (MSP).  When complete, the 250MW solar generation project located in San Bernardino County, California will increase the nation’s currently installed concentrating solar power (CSP) capacity by approximately 50 percent.  Abengoa Solar Inc., the project sponsor, estimates it will fund more than 900 construction and permanent operations jobs…

Sounds great, huh?  But we’ve heard this before from DoE:

Vice President Joe Biden, appearing via satellite from Washington D.C., today announced the Department of Energy has finalized a $535 million loan guarantee for Solyndra, Inc., which manufactures innovative cylindrical solar photovoltaic panels that provide clean, renewable energy. The funding will finance construction of the first phase of the company’s new manufacturing facility. Annual production of solar panels from the first phase is expected to provide energy equivalent to powering 24,000 homes a year or over half a million homes over the project’s lifetime.  Solyndra estimates the new plant will initially create 3,000 construction jobs, and lead to as many as 1,000 jobs once the facility opens.  Hundreds more will install Solyndra’s solar panels on rooftops around the country…

Will the new loan guarantee prove better than the last, or is this good money after bad?  Also, did the people running Mojave Solar LLC donate to President Obama?  Other Democrats?  How often have they been to visit the White House?  Is this a hard-nosed, business decision or just another political pay off?

HAT TIP:  Zero Hedge

White House Pressured OMB on Solyndra Loan

Mark Noonan13 Comments

From the Washington Post:

The Obama White House tried to rush federal reviewers for a decision on a nearly half-billion-dollar loan to the solar-panel manufacturer Solyndra so Vice President Biden could announce the approval at a September 2009 groundbreaking for the company’s factory, newly obtained e-mails show.

The Silicon Valley company, a centerpiece in President Obama’s initiative to develop clean energy technologies, had been tentatively approved for the loan by the Energy Department but was awaiting a final financial review by the Office of Management and Budget…

Hey, gotta rush it through – Biden needed a photo-op and Obama donors didn’t want to wait around for a payoff on their investment!  I mean, my goodness, its not like it was real money – it was taxpayer money!  You can do anything you want with that!  As long, that is, it goes to line the pockets of liberal crony-capitalists…

Investigate all loans by the US government to all entities – for profit or not for profit; any time the US government guaranteed a loan, we need to find out just how and why it was done.  Who got paid?  Once we know that, we’ll be able to really unravel the corruption.

Solyndra Raided by the FBI

Mark Noonan1 Comment

Interesting – from NBC Bay Area:

FBI agents armed with search warrants descended Thursday morning on bankrupt solar company Solynrda.

The investigation comes after a request by the Department of Energy’s inspector general, FBI spokesman Peter Lee told NBC Bay Area News…

Bit unclear what the issue is – but Daily Caller takes note of the number of times Solyndra execs visited the White House:

Not only does the now-bankrupt solar energy firm Solyndra have a cozy financial  relationship with the Obama administration, company representatives also made numerous visits to the White House to meet with administration officials, The Daily Caller has learned.

According to White House visitor logs, between March 12, 2009, and April 14, 2011, Solyndra officials and investors made no fewer than 20 trips to the West Wing. In the week before the administration awarded Solyndra with the first-ever alternative energy loan guarantee on March 20, four separate visits were logged…

So, what are we to make of this?  Best I can figure is that with calls being made for an investigation in to how Solyndra managed to get federal backing, this raid is a means of forestalling Congressional investigators…the Administration can say they are willing to cooperate but they can’t release all the data due to an on-going, criminal investigation in to Solyndra.  How much would anyone like to bet me that the investigation goes on until at least November 7th, 2012?

Rather fishy, I think…

Obama Connection to Solyndra?

Mark Noonan3 Comments

Just what are the full details of that “green jobs” loan to Solyndra?  Inquiring minds want to know – and fortunately Bruce Krasting over at Zero Hedge has been digging around:

I wrote about the solar panel manufacturer Solyndra last week; “Government Investment Disaster in the Works” I highlighted all of the negatives that the company was facing.

It was pretty clear to me that that company was facing trouble. But I had no idea that they would file Chapter 11 the very next day. (Sometimes you just get lucky)

I also made note of some scuttlebutt that George Kaiser (Oklahoma oil billionaire) was involved with Solyndra. I have been looking for a confirmation of this. Kaiser is an important link in this story. He is also a very big fund-raiser for Obama. He is often referred to as a “Bundler”. In this case that means he encouraged/pushed others to put up money for the big O’s campaign…

Checking on that and Kaiser is, indeed, a bundler (per Open Secrets).  Don’t know how much he’s done for Obama lately, but for the ’08 cycle he raked in 33,600.00 for Obama – not as much as some of the big boys, but a tidy sum, none the less.  So, we have a big Obama donor who is heavily invested in a firm that Obama cares greatly about (remember, he used the firm as a backdrop for his efforts to convince the people that he’s doing good work as President) – that firm received a hefty loan from the government and has now gone bankrupt.  All that is bad enough…but the Zero Hedge article goes on to claim that in February of this year, Solyndra’s debts were reorganized in such a way that the taxpayer loan went to the back of the bus as far as repayment in bankruptcy goes, while firms like Kaiser’s went to the front of the line.  Convenient, huh?  Imagine that – just six months before it goes belly up, the debt structure is changed to the unusual situation where debtors like Kaiser are at the head of the line.  That is either stupendously good timing, or someone worked an inside deal…in this case, maybe a phone call to Barry or one of his minions from Kaiser?

We don’t know. Could be just the most amazing run of luck imaginable.  But it is something we need to know…after all, quite a lot of money was passed out via stimulus and we should get answers to the following:

1.  How many have failed?

2.  How many are currently in danger of failing?

3.  How many have investors people who were large donors to President Obama?

4.  In all the failed and possibly failed firms, did any of them have their debts reworked to put taxpayers last and banksters first?

I suggest a House hearing in order to clear this up.  Tens of billions of taxpayer dollars were doled out after the stimlus passed, and we need to ensure that it was all used properly…that no one used political connections to get the money nor used them to cover their losses for those firms which have failed.

Democrat Treasurer Arrested

Mark Noonan10 Comments

From the Orange County Register:

A prominent Democratic campaign treasurer who works for federal, state and O.C. lawmakers including U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Rep. Loretta Sanchez and state legislators Lou Correa and Jose Solorio has been arrested by the FBI on suspicion of mail fraud, The Orange County Register has learned.

U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Thom Mrozek confirmed Saturday afternoon that Kinde Durkee of Burbank-based Durkee and Associates, was arrested by the FBI on a criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento. Special Agent Steve Dupre of the bureau’s Sacramento office said she was arrested in connection with her position as a campaign treasurer…

Since this is being done under a Democrat Administration, I can only figure that she stole above her station…because when you have a party of Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank and Charlie Rangel, I can’t see how dipping your fingers in to the campaign coffers is considered all that bad.  I mean, it isn’t like this is her first brush with the law – as the report goes on to note:

…Durkee has had enforcement actions taken against her four times by the state Fair Political Practices Commission, primarily for failing to report transactions or information. She has also received at least a half a dozen enforcement warning letters from the commission and stipulated to a violation before the City of San Diego Ethics Commission…

So, serial ethics problems over the years hasn’t deterred Democrats from working with her…in other words, par for the course in Democrat politics, where the only moral test is that of success.  If you win, then you did good…and it doesn’t matter how you win.  Given all this, it must be something other than her corruption which got a Democrat controlled Justice Department after her…and it will be interesting to see how this unfolds; who did what to whom, as it were.

Nooooo, there’s no room to cut!!!

tiredoflibbs7 Comments

I am so glad the pResident has not rested since taking office and promising to fix the economy, create jobs, heal the earth…  ok he did not say he will not rest on the last one.  But the first two he did and we have seen NOTHING from this so-called “leader” but more of the same failed liberal policies of the past.   I know… I know…you drones can’t wait to cry “Republicans do it too”.  That was before the last election.  We now have some TRUE CONSERVATIVES working against the RINOs.

Here is a collection of government outrage stories from the last few weeks.  It’s just too easy to come up with this BS. There is more…. a lot more.  After next week’s “jobs plan” errrr “jobs summary” errr “reasonable list of policies” speech, there will be even more…

Environmental Enforcement Leaves Gibson Guitar Makers in Fear

Feds Give 4 States $5.8 Million to Protect Insect Habitat

USDA Gives $73,824 Grant To Connect Food With Bed And Breakfasts

DHS Giving $2.1B in ‘Preparedness Grants’ to Cities, Indian Tribes, Non-Profits, Etc.

Postal Service spent $4.3 million on union employees who did “nothing”

$500,000 for a windmill in Milwaukee

Pentagon pays $720M in late fees for storage containers

Gov’t Paying Farmers, Ranchers $112M to Protect Bird Too Numerous to be Threatened

HIV/AIDS group charged with diverting tax dollars to strip club

Taxpayer-Funded App Makes You Look Like a Neanderthal

$245 million for a desalting plant in Arizona that has never been used and still costs $6 million a year to maintain

Taxpayers Foot Bill For an App To Tell Workers It’s Hot Outside

Getting ready for a wave of coal-plant shutdowns

Are you tired of hope and change yet?  Still waiting for the change from someone who was “a new kind of politician” and not “an insider”.  His actions have said otherwise.

Democrats Go Even Lower in the Gutter

Mark Noonan10 Comments

From Politico:

A top lawmaker in the Congressional Black Caucus says tea partiers on Capitol Hill would like to see African-Americans hanging from trees and accuses the movement of wishing for a return to the Jim Crow era.

Rep. Andre Carson, a Democrat from Indiana who serves as the CBC’s chief vote counter, said at a CBC event in Miami that some in Congress would “love to see us as second-class citizens” and “some of them in Congress right now of this tea party movement would love to see you and me … hanging on a tree.”…

Any liberal, any Democrat, who has a shred of decency would repudiate these disgusting statements and call on Carson to resign – he has proven himself unfit to serve in the United States Congress.  Enough is enough – I am thoroughly sick and tired of this slander of the TEA Party.  It is an outright, bald-faced lie to state that there are any racists or racism in the TEA Party.  I’ve been to the TEA Party rallies, I’ve met the people attending and never once did I ever detect even a hint of racial animosity.  The people who make up the TEA Party come from all walks of American life – including minorities – and their sole desire is to restore American greatness so that all Americans can have a nation to be proud of and a future of liberty and prosperity.

Standing firm for basic decency, Allen West has advised the head of the Congressional Black Caucus that he’d better condemn these and other slanderous remarks or West will resign from the CBC.  I say that there has to be more – there has to be a demand that Carson resign, and if he won’t resign the CBC must work for his defeat next year.  It is what we Republicans would do if we found a Republican making such statements and it is the least the Congressional Black Caucus can do.  And it is a matter of doing this or being forever known as a collection of corrupt, hate-filled hacks who use fear and slander to gain personal power and wealth.  The choice lies before the CBC – decency or depravity.  Let the tree be known by its fruit.

 

Obama: “I’m Irresponsible and Unpatriotic”

Mark Noonan7 Comments

Well, that is the case if we take his own words at face value – from NRO’s The Corner:

…Two days ago, CNSNews unearthed a video that captured a July 3, 2008 campaign speech by then-candidate Obama. In it, he said:

“The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from 5 trillion for the first 42 presidents–number 43 added 4 trillion dollars by his lonesome, so that we now have a 9 trillion dollar debt that we are going to have to pay back–$30,000 for every man, woman, and child. That’s irresponsible. That’s unpatriotic.”…

If that is the standard, then Obama is vastly more irresponsible and unpatriotic than President Bush…it took Bush 8 years to pile up $4 trillion in debt, Obama did it in 2 years, 8 months.

To be sure, it is doubtful that Obama really meant what he said – it is highly likely that he was just doing the typical liberal Democrat thing…saying whatever proved necessary to win.  Had President Bush lowered the debt by $4 trillion, Obama would have accused Bush of being unpatriotic and irresponsible for not “investing” in America…and If Obama charges up another $8 trillion by 2017 (presuming he is re-elected) he still won’t consider it unpatriotic or irresponsible.  And if the next President is Republican – in 2013 or 2017, doesn’t matter – and creates only $2 trillion in debt over his 8 year term, Obama and the Democrats will call it irresponsible and unpatriotic.

For a liberal Democrat, the only test is victory – if Democrats obtain more power and personal wealth, then it was good…if they don’t, then its bad.  Right and wrong, human decency, the fate of the nation and the world – all is subordinate to the power and wealth of our liberal Democrats, their RINO enablers, and their crony capitalists.  Keep that in mind any time a liberal Democrat speaks…they aren’t saying what is relevant and true, but what they think (and have likely poll-tested) will help them win.