Free Republic

Think we could use 5 million new jobs right about now? That’s what President Obama promised he’d create by “investing” taxpayer money in so-called green jobs. And not just any jobs, he said on the campaign trail in 2008, but ones that “pay well, and can never be outsourced.” Jump ahead three years, and the only “green” you find is the billions being poured into the coffers of renewable-energy companies lucky to even stay in business, let alone create a high number of jobs. Don’t assume what happened to the solar-panel company Solyndra is unique. Its high-profile bankruptcy is basically...

Thugs in suits, I was thinking. What did they do with over half a billion bucks of taxpayer money? With that kind of score, why would some dumb criminal even think of robbing a liquor store, a drug store, or even a bank? The real money is in white-collar capers, with special treatment and little chance of arrest. All you've got to do is send a team of grifters to the offices of Obama administration adviser Valerie Jarrett and the bucks will be delivered to your bank account with thanks from a grateful administration. ... whoever agreed to put the...

Bloomberg reports that the FBI is investigating Solyndra for accounting fraud, according to a source close to the solar panel company. The report confirms assumptions that the Department of Justice has been looking into whether Solyndra misrepresented the company's financial situation in order to obtain — and then refinance — a $534 million loan from the federal government. We've previously written that Solyndra executives assured the administration that the company's future was bright, even as the company's internal audits showed its finances deteriorating. The company declared bankruptcy earlier this month, prompting the FBI probe, as well as two Congressional investigations.

Several of Barack Obama’s top campaign supporters went from soliciting political contributions to working from within the Energy Department as it showered billions in taxpayer-backed stimulus money on alternative energy firms, iWatch News and ABC News have learned. One of them was Steven J. Spinner, a high-tech consultant and investor in energy companies who raised at least $500,000 for Obama. He became one of Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s key loan programs advisors while his wife’s law firm represented a number of the companies that had applied for loans. Recovery Act records show Allison Spinner’s law firm, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich &...

Acting Commerce Secretary: Despite Failures, ‘U.S. Can’t Afford’ Not to Subsidize Green Tech By Matt Cover September 29, 2011 (CNSNews.com) – Acting Commerce Department Secretary Rebecca Blank said that in a global race for green technology, the United States “can’t afford” not to spend taxpayer money on such projects, and that the price of that spending is an occasional failure. One of those failures was a $535-million federal loan guarantee to the Solyndra company that makes solar panels but which recently filed for bankruptcy. “The U.S. can’t afford to not be a major winner in this race,” Blank said Thursday...

Despite the growing Solyndra scandal, yesterday the Department of Energy approved $1 billion in new loans to green energy companies -- including a $737 million loan guarantee to a company known as SolarReserve: SolarReserve LLC, a closely held renewable energy developer, received a $737 million U.S. Energy Department loan guarantee to build a solar-thermal project in Nevada. The 110-megawatt Crescent Dunes project, near Tonopah, Nevada, will use the sun’s heat to create steam that drives a turbine, the agency said today in a e-mailed statement. SolarReserve is based in Santa Monica, California. On SolarReserve's website is a list of "investment...

If you thought the $535 million Solyndra scandal had chastened the fearless venture capitalists of the Obama Administration, think again. The Department of Energy shovelled out $1.1 billion in new loan guarantees to solar projects in Nevada and Arizona Wednesday, and more deals are pending before the $18 billion program funded by the 2009 stimulus expires Friday.

A Daily Caller investigation has found that in addition to the failed company Solyndra, at least four other solar panel manufacturing companies receiving in excess of $500 million in loan guarantees from the Obama administration employ executives or board members who have donated large sums of money to Democratic campaigns. And as questions swirl around possible connections between political donations and these preferential financing arrangements, the Obama White House suddenly began deflecting The Daily Caller’s questions on Wednesday to the Democratic National Committee. Asked Wednesday to comment on the connection between large Democratic donors and Obama administration loan guarantees to...

It’s as if Solyndra never happened. The Obama Administration is giving $737 million to a Tonopah Solar, a subsidiary of California-based SolarReserve. PCG is an investment partner with SolarReserve. Nancy Pelosi’s brother-in-law happens to be the number two man at PCG.Team Obama is spending $737 million to create 45 permanent jobs. The Hill reported, via Free Republic: The Energy Department announced Wednesday that is has finalized a $737 million loan guarantee for a Nevada solar project. The decision comes several weeks after a California-based solar manufacturer that received a $535 million loan guarantee from the Obama administration in 2009 filed...

Sitting at the center of the Solyndra scandal is an off-balance-sheet bank at the Treasury Department that dates back to 1973. This little-known government bank, the Federal Financing Bank [FFB], had a zero balance in 2008 for green energy projects, but now, with little Congressional oversight, it is giving out billions of dollars in loans to White House pet projects often at dirt-cheap interest rates below 1%. In July alone, the government bank, which had $61 billion in assets, lent nearly three quarters of a billion dollars in taxpayer funds with no Congressional checks and balances. Plus the bank is...

The Energy Department will announce later Wednesday that is has finalized a $737 million loan guarantee for a Nevada solar project. The decision comes several weeks after a California-based solar manufacturer that received a $535 million loan guarantee from the Obama administration in 2009 filed for bankruptcy and laid off 1,100 workers, setting off a firestorm in Washington.

Energy Department approves $737 million solar loan guarantee By Andrew Restuccia - 09/28/11 11:02 AM ET The Energy Department announced Wednesday that is has finalized a $737 million loan guarantee for a Nevada solar project. The decision comes several weeks after a California-based solar manufacturer that received a $535 million loan guarantee from the Obama administration in 2009 filed for bankruptcy and laid off 1,100 workers, setting off a firestorm in Washington. The $737 million loan guarantee will help finance construction of the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, a 110-megawatt solar-power-generating facility in Nye County, Nev. The project is sponsored...

The Energy Department announced Wednesday that is has finalized a $737 million loan guarantee for a Nevada solar project. The decision comes several weeks after a California-based solar manufacturer that received a $535 million loan guarantee from the Obama administration in 2009 filed for bankruptcy and laid off 1,100 workers, setting off a firestorm in Washington. The $737 million loan guarantee will help finance construction of the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, a 110-megawatt solar-power-generating facility in Nye County, Nev. The project is sponsored by Tonopah Solar, a subsidiary of California-based SolarReserve. Crescent Dunes is the latest solar project to...

Scandal: Our ever-campaigning president heads off to a fundraiser held by a politically connected businessman whose company took a $100 million stimulus tax credit. Solyndra didn't stop pay-for-play the "Chicago Way." Tone-deaf somehow does not seem adequate to describe President Obama's silent indifference to the Solyndra scandal of his making as he rushes off to another fundraiser, a $25,000 per person affair in Missouri on Oct. 4 organized by another beneficiary of our stimulus tax dollars. Tom Carnahan, of the Missouri Carnahans, arguably that state's most prominent political family, is listed on President Obama's campaign website as a host of...

The Energy Department has not disclosed any lobbying by the embattled solar energy company Solyndra, despite its K Street firm indicating it had contacted the department regarding the stimulus package. Under a policy first issued by the White House in 2009, federal agencies were required to disclose lobbying for stimulus funds. McBee Strategic Consulting, a lobby firm then under contract with Solyndra, said it had contacted the Energy Department in the first and third quarters of 2009 regarding the Recovery Act, according to records filed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA). Yet a review by The Hill of the more...

Live feed of the Solyndra hearings from CSPAN3

Scandal: Two top executives of the bankrupt solar panel firm will refuse to answer questions about possible fraud and the waste of taxpayer dollars. Unlike oil execs, they and the administration have much to hide. There's a delicious irony in the news that Solyndra's two top executives, Chief Executive Brian Harrison and Chief Financial Officer W.G. "Bill" Stover, plan to invoke their Fifth Amendment rights and refuse to answer questions when they testify Friday before a House Energy and Commerce Committee panel investigating their failed company, which got more than $500 million in federally backed loans. It was only a...

Scandals: A gun dealer's tape shows a possible coverup of a third gun found at the scene of a murdered border patrol agent. Meanwhile, a second congressional witness reports coaching of testimony on a donor's project. That giant sucking sound you hear is the Obama administration imploding under the weight of incompetent policies based on long-discredited progressive ideology and now a wave of scandals that involve gun-running, witness-tampering and political payoffs — and cover-ups of all of the above. The infamous Watergate tape may have its rival in tapes obtained by CBS News between an agent for the Bureau of...

If you want to find out what happened with Solyndra you have to follow the money. I did. The half billion dollars of taxpayer dough that is probably lost in Sol came from the Federal Financing Bank (“FFB”). It’s worth a look at this bank to see what else is going on. FFB is a bank that is owned and controlled by the US Treasury. The chairman of the Board is the TSec. (Tim Geithner). With the (big) exception of the Post Office all of the loans at FFB are guaranteed by government agencies. Technically speaking, FFB has no risks...

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, has sent the following letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, seeking the appointment of an independent examiner to probe the Solyndra scandal: Rep. Smith to Atty. Gen. Holder