Obama’s Solyndra Scandal Reeks of the Chicago Way
by PubliusFrom the invaluable John Kass in The Chicago Tribune:
The Solyndra scandal cost at least a half-billion public dollars. It is plaguing President Barack Obama. And it’s being billed as a Washington story.
But back in Obama’s political hometown, those of us familiar with the Chicago Way can see something else in Solyndra — something that the Washington crowd calls “optics.” In fact, it’s not just a Washington saga — it has all the elements of a Chicago City Hall story, except with more zeros.
The FBI is investigating what happened with Solyndra, a solar panel company that got a $535 million government-backed loan with the help of the Obama White House over the objections of federal budget analysts.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden got a nice photo op. They got to make speeches about being “green.” But then Solyndra went bankrupt. Americans lost jobs. Taxpayers got stuck with the bill. And members of Congress are now in high dudgeon and making speeches.
Federal investigators want to know what role political fundraising played in the guarantee of the questionable loan. Washington bureaucrats warned the deal was lousy. And White House spokesmen flail desperately, like weakened victims in a cheesy vampire movie.
So forget optics. What about smell? It smells bad, and it’s going to smell worse.
Or, did you really believe it when the White House mouthpieces — who are also Chicago City Hall mouthpieces — promised they were bringing a new kind of politics to Washington?
This is not a new kind of politics. It’s the old kind. The Chicago kind.
Read the whole thing here.
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88 Comments
The byline reads: From the invaluable John Kass in The Chicago Tribune:
I don't know John Cass, never read him before. But, I know this, I love what he has the guts to say!!!!!!!!
For as true as this is, why are we aiming so small!?! 500 million? "Only" half a bil? Thats nothing!
I hope the next article is about the BILLIONS we give away to oil companies in terms of subsidies, the BILLIONS we give away as tax cuts to people who don't need it, the BILLIONS we spend in Iraq and Afghanistan each day.
There are a lot of targets out there for government spending guys!
The difference is that the masters of the Chicago way are realistic, hard nosed and opportunistic. Obama is a shallow, two-bit street hustler who has no idea how to play the game. Other people play it for him while he mans the teleprompter.
That's great when you're popular and the world sings your song. Obama gets the ego boost, and his cronies get to cash in. But what about when things are tough? Real hardball politicians, even the corrupt ones, know how to dig in, fight back, and survive. Obama has no idea what he's doing. He's crashing and burning harder every single day. He's failing because he didn't get to where he is on his merits. He got there by capitalizing on the moral vanity of others. People who wanted a clean, articulate African-American who said all the right things. A post-partisan smooth talker who healed the oceans and made Washington DC a place of understanding and cohesion.
*That* fantasy is gone. So is the wellspring of Obama's power: overwhelming popularity. Without it, he doesn't know how to properly threaten his enemies or reward his friends. He commands no respect. He invokes no fear. He generates no love. He's a one trick pony who's boring the crowd with the same act over and over and over again.
That's why there's no reason to fear him. He didn't claw his way to the top, and he doesn't know how to defend what he has. Now the investigators are on his trail, pulling the threads of an 800 billion dollar giveaway to his pals, and finding more and more corruption every day. Obama's Teflon coating is melting away very, very quickly, and there's nothing but soft underbelly of graft underneath. He should probably stop worrying about reelection, and start worrying about being Blago's new roommate.
hey dolt! for every dollar the oil companies make, citizens paid four in taxes for said oil. when you fill up your tank, the government makes four times as much money as the oil company makes in profit. but i suppose those billions and billions don't mean anything, huh? so next time you hear an oil company made xxx dollars for the last quarter, you paid four times that in taxes. oh, and the oil company must pay more taxes on those profits. who is robbing who?
wow,535billion, and all i got was a photo op for the president, and vice president. i want to know if they want a photo op with me, i will only charge 100 million, and i promise not to fire anybody!
Will there be Chicago Style Justice to go along with this Chicago Style Crime?
As for the cover-up, the diversion, the get out of jail free card, well, there is little doubt that Obama has ramped up racial tension in the USA in order to try and get away with illegal acts committed by Obama while President of the United States of America.
Obama will not win, but, things will get worse before they get better… a lot worse, in my own opinion.
For every 25 cents that the oil companies take in itemized tax deductions (the subsidies you've been misled on), ethanol, solar and wind energy receives TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS in pure government welfare.
Let's cut that instead, since green energy isn't reliable, and cannot possibly replace fossil fuels with our current technology.
If you start reflexively cutting things simply because some propagandist *told* you it was there, and why, you won't have any more success reviving the economy than Obama has.
obama, destroyer of jobs….
"……..BILLIONS we give away to oil companies in terms of subsidies,……"
Maybe yes, maybe no, but at least,……..
we get billions of miles per gallon in return.
Solyndra:….it is a nice logo though.
Kass has been writing about Chicago politics FOREVER! He knows what he's talking about. Read his archives, esp. since obummer got elected. He covered daley mayor senior, jr. and rahm. If ANYONE knows the "Chicago Way" and how obumbles and alexgrease, daley and the whole bunch of crooks are playing it, Kass Does!
I sure hope this turns out to be o's watergate, but I won't hold my breath, he's stacked the justice deck.
And it was another IL goofball that said private citizens don't deserve to keep their earnings. Government has much nobler uses for it, like spreading it around to Obama's campaign donors such as Solyndra.
Solyndra, Barack Obama, and Crony Capitalism: Picking a Loser to be a Winner
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2011/09/14/solyndra...
"It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one." George Washington
Wow, you two proved my point. Oil companies ARE massively profitable… so why do we need to through subsidies at them again?
I understand a lot of people on the right are antiscience and antiprogress … but this is kinda how it works in the R&D world. america had a wonderful explosion of tech and science in the 50s/60s/70s that led to us cementing our status as the best country in the world.
do you think every plan we funded back then, or every paper we cited, or every company that was started was hugely successful? no. but thats the risk.
the point is if Solyndra worked it would have changed the energy industry and make america that much better. it didn't. we lost 500 million, oh well, time to cut our loses and run. you people get incensed at .5 billion spent to a good cause but you turn around and defend billions in questionable causes?
deducting the cost of business is not a subsidy, all busnesses deduct the cost of doing business, but oil companies cannot, what are you a socialist?
The point is that Solyndra wouldn't work (which they knew) but, they gave them the money anyway.
but it would never work, there was never a chance. gm spent 3 million to put solar powered lighting in one of thier factories. the save 15 grand a year. also, the solar components have a life expectancy of 15-20 years. so in 200 years the first set of soalr panels will be paid for in savings. but who is going to pay 3 million in 20 years for the next set? most businesses pay money for things that will save them real money. i pay 1 million, and get back 3 million in savings. they pay 3 million in investment, and get back 300 grand in savings. tell me how this will ever work?
I'll do it for 99 million and pack the house! Is this a new market? lol
yes, in chicago there are two ways to settle an italian beef. rollaids, or a body in the trunk, it's the chicago way!
barry reeks of the chicago way in everything he does…I'm sure this will show up on attack watch…lol
Of course he's a socialist, and an idiot to boot. Oh but that's redundant. I wonder what color kool aid he's drinking?
It would be more satisfying to have a discussion with you about the matter if you actually believed what you write instead of just trying to be a prick.
Thing is, SW, The One Who's Hated By All was probably the most surprised of all by the extent to which he caught lightning in a bottle three years ago. There's a saying that every United States senator looks in a mirror and sees a future president staring back at him or her, but please remember that, back when he announced his candidacy in 2007, Hillary Rodham Clinton's nomination was "inevitable." MuBarack Insane Obungla got in the race to boost his name recognition for a serious run in 2012 or 2016. Heck, he'd still have been a median-age candidate during the 2020 cycle at just shy of age 60.
When his candidacy took off, he had the right staffers in the right place at the right time to capitalize on a critical mass of factors: HRC's early hubris stemming from her "inevitability," followed by adoring media coverage once he secured the nomination in June, followed by the nomination of an opposition candidate who ended up making Bob Dole look like a veritable Bill Clinton on the campaign trail, followed by a financial crisis on the other guys' watch. The ensuing victory from the relative obscurity of a freshman-term senator not quite 21 months earlier made him look like a genius, which was precisely the moment when things began to unravel. Deep down, he began to believe the adoring crowds and gushing media. Far worse, it's painfully obvious now that he had no personal conviction on how he wanted to govern.
That second factor is crucial, for it would render him incapable of forming a functioning government as his four predecessors had. That's the point at which a whole lot of hangers-on with a whole lot of agendas that may or may not be to the new president's benefit have free rein to begin building empires of their own. Political allies and cronies got rewarded with plums. So instead of a "laser-like focus on jobs," we got a laser-like focus on nationalized medicine, which is what the socialists had been after ever since Ted Kennedy drowned his date at Chappaquiddick. The resulting consequences for Owebama's popularity and his re-election chances have thus become every bit as predictable and inevitable.
"I hope the next article is about the BILLIONS we give away to oil companies in terms of subsidies, the BILLIONS we give away as tax cuts to people who don't need it, the BILLIONS we spend in Iraq and Afghanistan each day.
There are a lot of targets out there for government spending guys!"
Striking ignorance on display here.
Letting a company or individual KEEP more of what they EARN is NOT government spending…just as the government isn't "giving" you your hands by not cutting them off. Although if they were removed you wouldn't be able to type. Hmmmm…
BTW the largest profiteer in a gallon of gas is the government.
"I understand a lot of people on the right are antiscience and antiprogress … " More of your liberal BS. The government should not pick winners and losers in the private sector. If the Obama regime had done their due diligence they would have realized that Solyndra was doomed to fail. The loan approval was rushed through for purely political reasons.
Yes we get incensed at $500 million, because it is OUR tax money!!!
I live in Chicago. John Kass is a beacon of truth around these parts. By the way, his beer can chicken recipe is da bomb!
Mmmmm! Beer Can Chicken!
Welcome Troll.
It's been awhile since you've been around. I know we were all thinking "did I do something", "did I say something" to make you go away.
Well I for one welcome you. Without moron d-bags like you posting, it's just not as much fun around here. You can always be counted on to use old discredited talking points, or to say something that shows your stupidity and lack of maturity.
So, next time you finish a juice box and have something to say, post away.
Emanuel says he "knows nothing!" Yeah, sure!
We do NOT subsidize oil companies.
Subsidies are government grants, or low interest loans, given to a company the government wants to push, endorse, or make successful where the company canot succeed on it's own.
What the oil companies get, are tax deductions – the same tax deductions ANY business can take. They are NOT specific to the oil industry.
In reality, the government does not give ANY money to the oil companies. The so-called 'subsidies' you've been lied to about, are actually money that *belongs* to them in the first place.
Money they earn at the rate of EIGHT CENTS PER GALLON OF GAS.
Meanwhile, the vaunted 'green' energy concerns ARE getting subsidies. Solyndra being a prime example, they recieved a half billion dollar loan…. at ONE PERCENT INTEREST.
I'm sorry, but no matter how I twist logic, I cannot see how I proved your point. On the contrary, it seemes you missed the point entirely.
P.S. Class warfare is for losers wallowing in jealosy.
DS, this isn't about a small R&D project, but about a whole company. Solyndra was not only a poor concept, but poorly run as well. They long knew that it was never going to make any money, yet green investors and politicians continued to invest in it even though signs of failure were obvious. In short, it was nothing but bad decisions all around.
Here is the thing about your hypothetical if, it would have never worked still. It would never change the energy industry and is far too costly to be practical. You have to face the fact, solar is a very expensive and impractical energy source. Yet, to have the government to invest taxpayer money in it along with other green companies is just a moronic waste of money.
Obama's presidency reeks -period!
And that Illinois dem has a husband who went to jail for fraud and is still on parole, I think. Lovely bunch there, aren't they?
I smell Democrats….fetid with mold.
Destroyer of worlds…the jack$$!!
They are massively profitable because they have massive SALES.
I puke when I hear politicians rail against "record profits" of oil companies when the Fed gov makes more off a gallon of gas than the oil companies… They for some reason NEVER mention that do they..
Record Profits is what comes when you have guess what…. Record Sales… and it is a given that the oil companies generally have record sales each year… I believe that is caused by there being more demand for their product… duhh..
The profit factor for oil companies is in the single digits, hell there are plenty of businesses that do better than that on a percentage basis.. And most of those probably take a minuscule amount of risk when compared to the risk and expense involved in recovering crude oil..
Leftist and msm propaganda is heavily at work regarding this issue.
And diesel is double that.
The demorats are taking a page from WEEKEND AT BERNIES…..propping up something that is as good as dead.. Hussein. Defending the indefenceable.
Deemers are a sect of the Jackass party that are bent on running one scheme after another to deprive ordinary peoples of their wealth, traditions and freedoms. This is why we need to increase the size of our institutions of incarceration so that we may have enough space to put their kind of politicians……How much proof do you need?
Omerta.
Obama is the only one I know who needs 3 teleprompters when speaking to a classroom full of 1st graders.
About the only thing that might be worse than listening to Obama is listening to Al Gore….I said might be worse.
Obama doesn't have an ability to pull off such a scam, but he has plenty of fevered czars that do. In my opinion, the only thing Obama did was order some rabid administration lackey to make something "green" on his way to the links or vacation.
There's no way he was in the back room cooking up this deal. But I hope he takes the biggest fall of them all (resign) not because he was ultimately responsible but because he believes that he is the greatest president ever. He needs to go down, not for corruption, but for arrogance, ignorance, stupidity and utter incompetence.
Huge Ego…..Thin Skin…..Empty Suit.
Our Crook-in-Chief!!!
Up past his eyeballs in it!
What we've spent during 10 years of war is a drop in the bucket compared to the TRILLIONS in TARP and Stimu-Pork spent in just the last 2 years.
That IL Dem's felon of a husband co-wrote Obamacare while in prison, basing it on a 1980's Soviet healthcare system. BTW, this lovely couple are both avowed Commies.
Don't you mean oil company investments, after all investment is the new term for subsidies. The difference in the oil investments is a return, average return to government from gasoline is .48 cents per gallon, with Zero risk, Exxon makes .02 per gallon and takes all the risk–now that's an investment. See the difference is the return on investment (ROI) in wall street speak.
I just love how left wing lunatics complain about "the cost" of the various wars now going on in the middle east (and the amount the US spends in general on an overstretched military presence in every corner of the earth).
Here I thought that Keynesian economics said that government spending can stimulate an economy! Huh?! If that is true, what difference does it make whether the money is poured down the drain in solar companies or the middle east….?
Of course the reason they oppose military spending is that it takes away money from social spending, redistribution, etc.
I hasten to add that I am not a war monger armchair general; I think that reasonable people can disagree about the length of the military engagements in the middle east and whether some of the adventures were even necessary in the first place.
Two great, insightful comments, BoBo and SW.
You got yourself a deal, peteee.
Just hop on the line. No — not here…waaaay back there, at the end.
Can't see the end?
Here – use this golf cart. It's solar-powered, ya know.
Only the finest, Chinese-built solar cells in this baby!
Another sad aspect of this thing, in addition to us taxpayers being screwed out of a half bil, is the 1000+ laid-off workers and their families. There are plenty of others like them who were sold a bill of goods called "the green industry."
I think Van Jones, his former "green czar," had a big hand in this.
Hey BOBO where was your voice when Bush lost 9 billion dollars in Iraq? No excuse for the government giving out a bad loan to an energy company, but it does seems pale in comparison, don't you think?
Please tell us how this was a good cause when it was proven to be a failure to begin with by the very
people who work for this administration….The government way, pour more money into a failed program,
hoping to get different results….Now what could go wrong with that ??
Hey, HockeyPuckForABrain, where was your voice when King Dumbo Ears blew $5 trillion in additional debt for absolutely no economic gain whatsoever?
It's the start of a terrific comic-book character: I am The Owebaminator! Destroyer of Jobs and Creator of Gargantuan Debts!
;-D
Kass is generally a common sense guys who works in the liberal media
He has been very strong on Illinois Chicago issues – he get it
Looks for write a book or three on Illinois Governors or maybe the Madigan or Bruke family
John is my primary reason for reading the Chicago Tribune
There is no comparison here
Kass gets it and tells the world daily
Evanston Jan and fellon hubby Bobby Creamer are libs followers who never had a original thought in their lives that was not approved by the Dems -
Chicago is getting a very bad rap here
Chicago deals generally do not BK anywhere this quick and tracks are better covered.
Even under BO's standards this deal is very bad as it did not wait to after the election
I how these all thieves in from of the court quickly
Where is Holder?
Hey boo boo, check out the facts, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2753739/...
I know facts are hard to come by around here.
Sounds like something out of a GhostBusters movie. Like Gozer or maybe Mr. Stay Puft.
No Sh!t, I'm putting over $500 a night in my work truck. and thats in NM, if I did it here in AZ it would be closer to $600. Thankfully I don't have a DEF truck that would be another 50-60$ a night.
Throw dumba$$
As long as it has the whiff of bitter almonds, isn't that all that matters?
Both of them make me want to jam ice picks in my ears.
I'm sure several hours of listening to them would break any hardened al Queda operative.
Way to go, Feds. Punish the truckers.
Kids, don't forget that the company also blew through something like $1 billion in funds put in by investors – I would bet real money that one or more executives where skimming heavily from the company.
Dear Moron: Your "facts" are nothing more than yet another steaming, odiferous mound of bovine by-product for which you've become infamous. Debt is debt is debt, and the Chinese aren't going to care who racked it up or for what purpose when they finally decide to say, "¡No mas!" That's the point at which useful idiots like you can kiss your precious welfare state goodbye. Here's news you can use: The 13th Amendment didn't repeal debt slavery. Have fun spending an eternity in hell while your descendants spend whatever minimal spare time they have away from the gulags to curse your memory and spit on your grave – or worse – for what you've done to their prosperity.
Yep. and people really dont realize how much the cost of EVERYTHING they buy is related to the cost of transportation. Taxes on diesel is really a back door tax on every consumer item (including food) on every buyer (rich poor and everything in between) but hey, its not up front so it really doesnt matter right?
Bush didn't get a 9 billion donation for his re-election from Iraq. I was born & raised in Chicago, I understand the Chicago way.
Yes, the FBI may be investigating but you can bet that the primary emphasis is to make sure there are no "criminal" tracks or evidence that can lead to the Obama WH.
Which is why VAT is a bad idea.
"politicians rail against "record profits" of oil companies when the Fed gov makes more off a gallon of gas than the oil companies…"
not to mention politicians making laws & policies that drive up the price of fuel, such as drilling restrictions, overly strict environmental regulations, micro-managing gasoline mixtures ('oxy-fuels'), etc., etc, etc. then they have the unmitigated brass to b!tch about the 'greedy oil companies' charging so much.
you haven't been following this story very closely, have you? Solyndra wasn't really into much cutting edge R&D at all- it was trying to go into large scale production of something the market has shown it DOES NOT WANT at the price Solyndra could supply it- even WITH the shiny new plant built with OPM. this wasn't a case of govt helping a brand new technology (as questionable as that practice may be), this was simply a matter of unscrupulous people using their political connections to prop up a venture that private investors wanted nothing to do with- and they found 0bama & Co. more than willing to play. hey, it's not like it was their money, right?
right on. i may not agree with what he has to say, but i'll defend…….ok, not to the death, but fairly ardently, his right to come on this site and make a complete @$$ of himself any time. what fun is shooting without targets?
the Bigs & similar conservative sites are often accused of being "echo chambers", but the fact is that dissenting views are not only allowed here, they're wholeheartedly encouraged. you want to hear the empty reverb of an 'echo chamber'? go to a lefty site where they routinely censor & ban right-leaning posters- you know, in the name of 'tolerance'. you gotta say something pretty nasty here to even get a single post deleted.
an excellent point.
yes- 2 of the best i've read on the subject.
you really should not get any points for this,……
that was way too easy.
"did you really believe it when the White House mouthpieces — who are also Chicago City Hall mouthpieces — promised they were bringing a new kind of politics to Washington?"
Fooled you once, shame on them…
When James Carville said last week Obama's team needs to panic and some of them need to be fired, do you think he meant just more of the old "throw them under the bus" types that could be sacrificed or the really obvious ones that need to be fired, like Valarie Jarrett, David Plouffe and David Axelrod? The latter are Obama's connection to the Chicago Way. He, of course, cannot afford to lose them, because he then without question will lose re-election. But, so long as they are still part of the team, there is nothing that will be changed from the first time they and the MSM fooled you into supporting this poseur.
BTW, why has there still been thus far in this Solyndra scandal no mention of a role by Van Jones, the commie "Green Jobs Czar" Obama let go last year because of the attention he was getting from Glenn Beck? Doesn't this seem like something he obviously would have had a hand in? Was Jarrett's push for Jones getting that "czaring" role connected to Solyndra at all? And if so, shouldn't that draw attention to what other types of nefarious deals have probably happened for the political benefit of Obama and Jarrett with the other 41 or so "czars" and their behind the scenes power plays that are no doubt still going on? What other closet communists besides Jones, and Anita Dunne perhaps, are left in the WH inner circle? Were those two there in the beginning only as payback to Bill Ayers for helping get Obama into the inner circle of Chicago politics? There is so much we still do not know about this administration, thanks to the MSM never having properly vetted Obama before the 2008 election.
Are they gonna shame you twice and make you the perpetual fool?
Why I do believe you're on to something. I looked up his bio and lo and behold most of Jones' nefarious activity has been in the San Fransisco/Oakland area which is where Solyndra is located.
Image that.
Which is why vat is an EXTREMELY bad idea.
FIFY
Good point. I, immediately, wondered what Jarret's involvement was…I completely forgot about Van Jones.
Even better, make them suicidal, without the aid of a T-shirt made by DuPont.
Agreed, a VAT would jam the throttles wide open on inflation, it will instantly make prices rise, making the min wage folks start screaming for a raise, causing the prices to rise. its a vicious circle, and democrats wont be happy until we are all living on a bare minimum of subsistence, and every one of us from the beggar on the street to the CEO of a major corporation are both totally dependent on their government, er, I mean overlord.
Yo!
Almost forgot! In the leftist catechism bad is good, and good is bad…so a VAT tax is OK (per them).
What I have done?
I am part owner of a business, and work for a company calling on Architects and designers, I am paid straight JUICE!!
I think I know a little about paying my own way, I have NEVER asked for anything from anybody. You are trying to lay the blame entirely on Obama and I am pointing out how IRRESPONSIBLE such an accusation is!!
When Obama took office the US economy was losing 800,000 jobs a month, was this the fault of Obama? was the lack of revenue caused by the loss of 800,000 jobs a month the fault of Obama?
Economist were predicting this outcome years in advance of Obama taking office, a matter of fact, some economists were suggesting that it would take 10 years to recover from what they called "disastrous policies", policies first implemented by Reagan and continued through the next 3 presidencies. Would you like me to post their predictions, maybe you can explain how they are wrong, when they have been proven to be so right.
BTW, last month private sector jobs grew by 76,000 while public sector jobs dropped by 80,000 {mostly Republican states} I thought numbers like this would make you happy, after all, it will be JOBS that will eventually decide whether the debt is ever be reduced!!
BTW, name calling only proves you have no argument and are loosing the the debate, so keep it up if that is all you got!
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