ABC News reports

The $535 million loan to Solyndra Inc., issued by the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Federal Financing Bank, included a quarterly interest rate of 1.025 percent, the government bank reported in July. Of 18 Energy Department loans cited in the bank’s report, Solyndra’s rate was lowest. Eight other Energy Department projects, each also backed by the Federal Financing Bank, came with rates three or four times higher, the report shows.

That treatment is in keeping with the history of the loan to the California solar panel maker, an arrangement inked in September 2009 with great fanfare — and touted, not long after, during a factory visit from the president. Monthly government bank reports filed since then reveal Solyndra’s rate as the lowest for any energy-related project in nearly every report; in every case its rate was well below that of most energy projects, which ranged from cutting-edge electric car makers to wind and solar ventures. …

Solyndra’s most prolific financial backer is George Kaiser, an Oklahoma oil billionaire who was a bundler of campaign donations for Obama’s 2008 race. Kaiser’s Argonaut Ventures and its affiliates have been the single largest shareholder of Solyndra, according to SEC filings and other records. The company holds 39 percent of Solyndra’s parent company, bankruptcy records filed Tuesday show.

It seems that Solyndra was a high risk firm to start, which adds even more questions as to how they were able to secure such a large loan at extremely low rates. Then again, the answers are not that hard to come up with.

Obama’s stimulus money handouts carry the stench of political favoritism.

Ed Morrissey from Hot Air

Don’t think that this happened by accident. Before Obama took office, Solyndra applied for the federally-subsidized green-tech loan, and only scored a B+ from appraisers, which ABC calls a “red flag.” Dun & Bradstreet only gave a “fair” rating to Solyndra credit, another indication that a big loan might be risky. Instead of slowing the process down to protect taxpayers, the Obama administration fast-tracked Solyndra’s application and made the company a poster child for its promise of a green-jobs “explosion.”

The White House has to explain why it overruled the FFB’s auditors and ignored the warnings from appraisers while fast-tracking over half a billion dollars to a teetering company at loan rates far below what FFB charged other companies. Obama also needs an explanation of why his bundler George Kaiser will get his capital back before taxpayers see the first dime of that $535 million that got destroyed in Solyndra’s collapse. If they don’t have a legitimate explanation for these, then Congress may need to start issuing subpoenas to get answers, because right now it looks very much like Obama used taxpayer money to try to bail out a key campaign donor and left us all holding the bag.

It isn’t hard to see where things went awry in California: just look back to the heady years of the historic 2003 recall of Gray Davis.  Davis was swept out of office due a massive deficit brought on by his rapid expansion of state government during the dot com economy combined with his mishandling of the state’s electricity crisis.  Candidate Schwarzenegger won on a platform of “blowing up the boxes” of bureaucracy while “cutting up” the state’s “credit cards” – Schwarzenegger did neither.  Instead, he gave California seven years of uneven leadership, veering from the right to the left while calling his erratic leadership “post-partisanship.” Schwarzenegger pushed through the largest state tax increase in U.S. history, expanded government spending, debt and regulatory hurdles while shrinking the sphere of liberty – curious actions for a self-avowed fan of the late Milton Friedman.  Schwarzenegger’s voter approval rating hit 22 percent this summer, matching Gray Davis’ recall-eve rating – something Davis, if he wishes to indulge in schadenfreude, might see as poetic symmetry.

While the Democrats had a great election night in the Golden State, there are some signs of hope for the majority of Californians who don’t take their ideological cues from San Francisco.

First of all, Prop. 26 passed.  Prop. 26 makes it nearly impossible for Democrats to pass higher taxes by disguising them as fees.  Taxes require a two-thirds majority vote to pass in California.  Fees, usually defined as a payment for a specific government service, just require a simple majority to enact.  The problem is, that prior to Prop. 26, Democrats got quite adept at changing the definition of a “fee” to cover just about anything they wanted it to.  Assuming that Prop. 25 doesn’t allow Democrats to raise taxes with a majority vote by simply inserting a tax increase into the budget bill, Prop. 26 will make it very tough for Democrats to raise enough revenue to pay for all that government they love.

Secondly, Prop. 20 passed and Prop. 27 went down in flames.  Thanks to the foresight and funding of Charles Munger, Jr., a longtime Republican activist and atom smasher (he’s an experimental physicist at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center), Prop. 20 will extend the mandate of the independent redistricting commission (created by Munger’s Prop. 11 in 2008) to include congressional seats too.  Prop. 27 sought to repeal Prop. 11 and would have canceled out Prop. 20 if it had received more votes, returning the responsibility of redistricting to legislative Democrats.  That Prop. 20 won with 61.4 percent, the most “yes” votes of any of the propositions, shows that the public remains extremely wary of its politicians.  The practical impact of Prop. 20 is two-fold: first of all, Republicans will likely gain a few more congressional seats in the 2012 election as Democrats lose their gerrymander advantage in California; secondly, legislative districts will be more competitive, causing some currently safe districts, both Democrat and Republican, to be in play in future elections.  This, by itself, is a victory for representative democracy.

Thirdly, Steve Cooley looks set to win the very close race for attorney general. This will mark the first time in 12 years that a Republican has occupied California’s top law enforcement office.  Always an important post, now it is especially so.  First of all, Attorney General-elect Cooley will be able to investigate political corruption.  Given that corruption tends to flower when one party has a lock on power, Cooley will likely be very busy for the next four years.  Next, with the state budget deficit at $14 billion and growing and Prop. 26’s passage limiting Democrats’ ability to hike taxes, there is a looming threat of a massive prison inmate release.  The state prison budget is about $11 billion a year. Rather than cut the $49,000 per year that it costs to incarcerate an inmate in California, more than double the national average of $24,000, Democrats would likely just vote to release violent felons as a way to free up more money for welfare.

Lastly, Republicans showed strength in the hard-hit Central Valley, with Andy Vidak defeating Rep. Jim Costa and David Harmer locked in a tight race with Rep. Jerry McNerney in two widely watched congressional races.

So, what do the results portend?

A lot depends on Jerry Brown’s back-to-the-future act.  As governor in the 1970s, Brown dismantled the merit-based civil service system and erected the public sector employee union system in its place.  Ever since, state employee costs have increased almost as much as the rate of government union donations to politicians.  Gov. Brown has a chance to undo some of this damage, in an “only Nixon could go to China” sort of a way.  In interviews after the election, Brown has broadly hinted that voters showed their opposition to new taxes in their votes for Prop. 26 and against Props. 21 and 24.  The difficulty for Brown will be in finessing the majority’s new power to pass budgets without an single Republican vote with the fact that taxes will be very tough to increase. This in essence gives Democrats all the responsibility for the budget but none of the authority to balance it short of acting like Republicans (cutting spending) and / or irresponsibly releasing 50,000 violent inmates on largely Democrat-voting urban areas.

Of course, there is the possibility that Democrats will move to reopen the historically-late 2010-11 budget, as suggested by Senate President Pro-Tem Darrell Steinberg, and vote to increase spending.  Such an act would accelerate California’s date with insolvency.  In doing this, Democrats would seek to force the hand of Sacramento’s remaining band of legislative Republicans, trying to pin the blame of IOUs and bond defaults squarely on their shoulders unless they vote for a $20 billion tax increase.  This drive-the-car-off-the-cliff blackmail maneuver worked in February 2009 when Republican legislative leaders decided to “responsibly” raise taxes rather than allow California to go broke.

Gov. Brown may be reticent on taxes, knowing that there is little voter appetite for them and perhaps understanding that higher taxes won’t create jobs, but in the area of “green” policy, Brown appears ready to double down on Schwarzenegger’s errors.  A recent L.A. Times Op-Ed by 60s radical and Brown ally Tom Hayden illuminates Brown’s green path.  Hayden lauds California’s coming green era, seeing it as a long-awaited opportunity for centralized government planning to pump billions of dollars into “green” energy while at the same time using it as a mechanism “…to ensure that all Californians benefit from the state’s green energy push.”  Hayden says that this green push must benefit “black and brown” and warns that “the green future cannot be purely white.”  He then links these green jobs for minorities to the prison system, writing that “…it makes far more sense to employ at-risk youth weatherizing homes and installing solar collectors than locking them up in the largest mass incarceration system in the world.”

Given Spain’s utter failure to generate a cornucopia of green jobs – 2.2 old-fashioned, but paying, jobs were destroyed for every “green” job created at the cost of $774,000 per subsidized employee, it’s hard to see how Brown’s green effort will do anything other than serve as just another avenue for wealth redistribution.

The next two years will likely see California mired in recession, increasingly lagging behind the rest of America.  Texas will become the favored destination of hard-working Californians and their jobs-creating capital.  California’s continued economic pain will be compounded by liberal policymakers who never see a problem that government couldn’t make worse.  This will provide an opening for Republicans, but only if they have the moral courage to offer a bold break from the failed Democrat policies.

California remains America’s largest manufacturing state.  The Golden State generates a prodigious amount of new technology.  One of eight Americans call California home.  Should California not reform itself soon, it will remain the misfiring cylinder in America’s economic engine, acting to slow the national recovery.

In politics, nothing lasts forever – including the Democrats’ dominance of California. For California’s sake, and America’s, all Americans should hope California voters catch up with the rest of America in 2012.

WBRE-TV in Pennsylvania has reported that former President Bill Clinton denied any involvement in trying to maneuver Sestak out of the race. (Source: House oversight committee, personally confirmed with the evening assignment manager of WBRE via phone call on 8/11):

“Clinton denied it to EyeWitness news, saying he never tried to get Sestak out of the race and has never been accused of it.”-WBRE-TV, 8/10/10

[Update: A reporter caught up with Clinton at a recent event and asked him directly:]

Now compare the above to what Sestack and the White House said in late May when Bill Clinton’s role in the Sestak affair was announced, first by the administration, then by the Pennsylvanian Congressman:

“Last summer, I received a phone call from President Clinton. During the course of the conversation, he expressed concern over my prospects if I were to enter the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate and the value of having me stay in the House of Representatives because of my military background. He said that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had spoken with him about my being on a Presidential Board while remaining in the House of Representatives.

The letter issued by the White House Attorney Robert Bauer at the end of May when President Clinton’s involvement was announced said in part:

“We found that, as the Congressman has publicly and accurately stated, options for Executive Branch service were raised with him. Efforts were made in June and July of 2009 to determine whether Congressman Sestak would be interested in service on a Presidential or other Senior Executive Branch Advisory Board, which would avoid a divisive Senate primary, allow him to retain his seat in the House, and provide him with an opportunity for additional service to the public in a high-level advisory capacity for which he was highly qualified. The advisory positions discussed with Congressman Sestak, while important to the work of the Administration, would have been uncompensated.”

“White House staff did not discuss these options with Congressman Sestak. The White House Chief of Staff enlisted the support of former President Clinton who agreed to raise with Congressman Sestak options of service on a Presidential or other Senior Executive Branch Advisory Board. Congressman Sestak Declined the suggested alternatives, remaining committed to his Senate candidacy.“

At the time Clinton’s involvement was announced back in May, I reported the official  story kind of “smelled”

In the original claim, Sestak said he was offered a high ranking position by the White House. Today the story is it was a non-paid advisory position offered by a former President. And we are to believe that it took ten weeks to come up with.

If the new official explanation is true, why did the White House need a conversation with Sestak’s brother Wednesday to coordinate stories? Why did Sestak play a cat and mouse game with the press for all of these weeks, and why did Sestak wait until the White House issued a written statement before he was willing to explain what happened,

You know my mother used to say that there were three sides to every story, the explanation of each of the two involved parties and the truth. Is Clinton backing away from the story or does it depend what “never” is?  Is the Obama administration lying?  The bottom line is one of them is lying.

Thirty-six years and one week ago a President was forced to resign because a minor burglary in the Watergate Hotel destroyed the trust we had in our government. It was not the crime itself that brought down Richard Nixon; it was the subsequent lies and cover-up. Based on the explanations back and forth about the Sestak affair, we learn that nothing has really changed. There are two versions of the story and one (or both) presidents aren’t being truthful with the American people.

Photo credit: Associated Press

The corrupt Shorebank bailout has pitted one faction of the left against another. On the one side are those like Geithner, who are starting to wake up to the grim economic reality that bailouts and corruption have imposed on our nation. On the other side are those like Schakowsky, who are determined to borrow, spend, and tax our nation into penury in order to chase their radical ideals and reward their political cronies.

The dividing line between the two factions is not based on ideology, but circumstance: those with actual responsibilities are the ones getting cold feet. Even Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) was prepared to allow an investigation of ShoreBank and other bailouts into the financial regulation  bill, until that amendment was killed in Senate negotiations at the last moment by those determined to cover up the role of the White House in the affair.

Schakowsky and other Chicago politicians who have lobbied for the ShoreBank bailout claim they are acting on behalf of a bank that serves needy communities. What they refuse to explain is why ShoreBank is the only community development bank they have campaigned and lobbied for, out of all the community development financial institutions in America that would be eligible for the $1 billion set aside within TARP for their benefit.

Schakowsky did not try to bail out Park National Bank, for example, which failed last year and had a distinguished record of addressing the needs of low-income customers. Nor has she tried to help banks in her own community, such as Bank of Lincolnwood, which was an iconic symbol in the 9th congressional district. This year alone, 11 banks have failed in Illinois, and 86 nationwide. None received the help ShoreBank is getting.

The Treasury is backing away from ShoreBank because of the mounting political and financial cost of supporting it. Schakowsky and other Illinois politicians are determined to save ShoreBank because of what might be revealed in an audit if it were allowed to fail. This is the classic pattern of failed hegemonic political movements, left or right: they fall apart not over differences of principle, but over the rapidly dwindling spoils of power.

The White House released an explanation of the Job offer. The claim is that Rahm Emanuel sent Bill Clinton to meet with Congressmen Sestak to offer an unpaid advisory position which he would hold along with his congressional job if he were to give up his quest for the Democratic nomination.

The letter issued by the White House Attorney Robert Bauer (embedded below) says in part:

“We found that, as the Congressman has publicly and accurately stated, options for Executive Branch service were raised with him. Efforts were made in June and July of 2009 to determine whether Congressman Sestak would be interested in service on a Presidential or other Senior Executive Branch Advisory Board, which would avoid a divisive Senate primary, allow him to retain his seat in the House, and provide him with an opportunity for additional service to the public in a high-level advisory capacity for which he was highly qualified. The advisory positions discussed with Congressman Sestak, while important to the work of the Administration, would have been uncompensated.”

“White House staff did not discuss these options with Congressman Sestak. The White House Chief of Staff enlisted the support of former President Clinton who agreed to raise with Congressman Sestak options of service on a Presidential or other Senior Executive Branch Advisory Board. Congressman Sestak Declined the suggested alternatives, remaining committed to his Senate candidacy.”

Come on, do they really mean to tell us that it took the best and brightest in America ten weeks to come up with that?

Whatever you think of him politically, Rahm Emanuel is a smart politician. Based on their Sestak scenario, the White House wants America to believe that Emanuel truly believed he could talk Sestak out of running for the Senate by offering an unpaid advisory position, and he would serve in that role on top of his regular Congress job. “Hey Joe, I know you want a promotion to the Senate, but we have something better for you, quit the race and we will let you get a second job. And guess what? This second job has no power and you don’t get paid. What do you say?”

Sorry for this explanation to be true, one would have to believe that Emanuel is a political moron, or he thinks that Sestak is the most gullible man alive.

The White House version of the job offer tale is inconsistent with the original story Sestak told back in February.

KANE: “Were you ever offered a federal job to get out of this race?”

SESTAK: “Yes.”

KANE: “Was it secretary of the Navy?”

SESTAK: “No comment”

Later Kane asks again, “Was there a job offered to you by the White House?” to which Sestak nods and replies “yes, someone offered it.”

Kane asks “It was big right?” Sestak replies, “Let me ‘no comment’ on it.”

“Was it high-ranking?” Kane asked. Sestak said yes.

Notice in February Sestak said he was offered a high ranking position by the White House, but the latest version of the proposal was a non-paid advisory position offered by a former President.

If the new official explanation is true, why did the White House need a conversation with Sestak’s brother two days before the announcement to coordinate stories? Why did President Clinton have lunch with Obama the day before the new tale was announced? Why did Sestak play a cat and mouse game with the press for all of these ten weeks, not giving a complete explanation of the job offer until the administration issued something in writing.

It is not clear whether offering a big or small job in exchange for Sestak to drop out of the race, was a misdemeanor, felony, or totally legal “politics as usual” deed . What is clear, is t the explanation offered by the White House and Sestak today does not pass the “smell test” especially when one remembers that the same charges were directed toward the Obama administration in another Senate race.

On Sept. 27, 2009, Mike Riley of the Denver Post reported that Jim Messina, Obama’s deputy chief of staff, offered Colorado Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff a position in the administration if he canceled plans to run for the Democratic nomination against incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet. The paper said the job offer which specified particular jobs, included a possible job at USAID, the foreign aid agency (unlike the tale told about the Sestak offer, Romanoff was offered a paid position).

The report claimed Messina contacted Romanoff right after news leaked in August 2009 that Romanoff would make a primary run against the incumbent, Bennet. Romanoff said no and announced his candidacy. Obama immediately endorsed Bennet who was appointed to his senate seat eight months earlier when Ken Salazar became Obama’s secretary of the Interior.

The White House denied that Romanoff had been offered a job. “Mr. Romanoff was never offered a position within the administration,” said White House spokesman Adam Abrams.

Yet several top Colorado Democrats described Messina’s outreach to Romanoff to The Post, including the discussion of specific jobs in the administration. They asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Romanoff declined to discuss any such communication and said the only job he’s focused on is “representing the people of Colorado in the United States Senate.”

The Romanoff report was never investigated by beyond the Denver Post, and on its own is not proof of White House impropriety. It all could be very innocent. Perhaps the human resources director of USAID was staying up at night desperately searching for someone with Andrew Romanoff’s qualifications. And perhaps that nightmarish search just happened to take place at the same time Mr. Romanoff was considering his bid against Senator Bennet.

Of course to believe that entire scenario happened as described above, one has to believe in coincidences, the tooth fairy, and the story told by the White House today. Even if you are inclined to believe the White House/Sestak story, the fact that a similar claim was made in Colorado has to give one pause.

Thirty-six years and one week ago a minor burglary in the Watergate Hotel destroyed the trust we had in our government, and brought down a popular president of the United States. It was not the crime itself that brought down Richard Nixon; it was the subsequent lies and cover-up. Based on the explanation we received today, before this Sestak thing is over, we may learn that history does indeed repeat itself.

SestakMemo

PA State Rep. Dwight Evans

We are accountable to the voters of this state. He [Corbett] cannot think that he can do whatever he wants with taxpayer money. No one can protect him from being accountable.

For starters, Evans should think about following his own advice, as he is one of the most notorious proponents of “WAMs” in the Pennsylvania Legislature, using taxpayer dollars going to fund his own community group and a failed nightclub venture.

Second, President Obama, Gov. Rendell, and others used far more taxpayer funding – with no objection from Evans – on their public relations campaign on  health care reform than any lawsuit by the AG would cost. Tax dollars were used for everything from rallies to newsletters to press conferences.

Furthermore, Evans’ threat seems a clear violation of the separation of powers, and threatens the independence of the Attorney General. Indeed, it seems particularly curious, coming a mere two days after Corbett secured a conviction against Evans’ former House Democrat colleague Mike Veon, and is continuing his investigation and prosecution of House Democrats.

Lastly, the lawsuit being filed isn’t over some flippant issue. There are legitimate Constitutional concerns over the legality of this legislation. Not only does the legislation violate the 10^th Amendment, but the fiscal impact of the health care bill will assuredly cost Pennsylvanians billions of dollars.

The Tea Party movement is now a year old and what better place to celebrate the movement than in Chicago. We will be at the Dierksen Federal Building plaza at 2:30pm having a rally in honor of the movement and to celebrate all that we’ve accomplished.

I’m also bringing in someone who knows a little something about freedom and just a few decades ago he was fighting in Eastern Europe and Ronald Reagan stood at his side. Lech Walesa will be addressing the gathering to tell us about his struggles.

Illinois has been oppressed by one of the worst Governments in the 50 states, and we have the results to prove it.  We are nearly last in job creation and we have are competing with California and Michigan to see which state can chase productive individuals and businesses out of our state.

This is what happens when a state is in the grip of one-party rule, run by an ideology that the entire nation is now calling the “Chicago Way.”

That’s the bad news.  Here is the good news.  It’s a new day in Illinois.  All across the state, citizens are building the grassroots army that will bring Illinois back from the brink. They are getting activated, informed, and mobilized.  I want to help them by offering them a real choice – not an establishment echo – for Governor.  That ‘echo’ is exacting what I’m running against.

I’m Adam Andrzejewski, and I’m running for Governor of Illinois.