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Recent Appearances... Rantburg

-Election 2012
The Obama You Don't Know
2012-09-20
The Obama You Don't Know will not be a surprise to R-Burgers but it is a decent summary of some of the background of Barack Hussein Obama. For people who are not R-Burgers and don't follow politics, much of this might come as a surprise.

Mark Tapscott of The Washington Examiner has done a good job. What the MSM should have done prior to 2008.

The entire series of ten chapters is at the website.
Few if any of his predecessors took the oath of office with higher public hopes for his success than President Obama on Jan. 20, 2009.

Millions of Americans hailed his election as an end to partisanship, a renewal of the spirit of compromise and a reinvigoration of the nation's highest ideals at home and abroad.

Above all, as America's first black chief executive, Obama symbolized the healing of long-festering wounds that were the terrible national legacy of slavery, the Reconstruction Era and Jim Crow. We would be, finally, one nation.

But after nearly four years in office, Obama has become a sharply polarizing figure.

His admirers believe he deserves a special place alongside Wilson, the Roosevelts and LBJ as one of the architects of benevolent government.

His critics believe he is trying to remake America in the image of Europe's social democracies, replacing America's ethos of independence and individual enterprise with a welfare state inflamed by class divisions.

In an effort to get a clearer picture of Obama -- his shaping influences, his core beliefs, his political ambitions and his accomplishments -- The Washington Examiner conducted a four-month inquiry, interviewing dozens of his supporters and detractors in Chicago and elsewhere, and studying countless court transcripts, government reports and other official documents.

Over the years and in two autobiographies, Obama has presented himself to the world as many things, including radical community organizer, idealistic civil rights lawyer, dynamic reformer in the Illinois and U.S. senates, and, finally, the cool presidential voice of postpartisan hope and change.

With his air of reasonableness and moderation, he has projected a remarkably likable persona. Even in the midst of a historically dirty campaign for re-election, his likability numbers remain impressive, as seen in a recent AP-GFK Poll that found 53 percent of adults have a favorable view of him.

But beyond the spin and the polls, a starkly different picture emerges. It is a portrait of a man quite unlike his image, not a visionary reformer but rather a classic Chicago machine pol who thrives on rewarding himself and his friends with the spoils of public office, and who uses his position to punish his enemies.

Peter Schweizer captures this other Obama with a bracing statistic in his book "Throw Them All Out," published last year. In the Obama economic stimulus program's Department of Energy loans, companies owned and run by Obama contributors and friends, like Solyndra's George Kaiser, received $16.4 billion. Those not linked to the president got only $4.1 billion. The Energy Department is far from the only federal program in which favoritism has heavily influenced federal grants.

To paraphrase Tammany Hall's George Washington Plunkitt, Obama has seen his opportunities and taken them, over and over.
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Home Front: Politix
Get out Yer Wallets, Solyndra Ex-Employees to get 13 Grand Each
2011-11-22
The Labor Department today announced that it had approved Trade Adjustment Assistance for the former employees of the bankrupt solar panel maker Solyndra.

That means all of the firm's 1,100 ex-employees are eligible for federal aid packages, including job retraining and income assistance. The department has valued packages at about $13,000 a head.
Quite a gig they have going there.
Taxpayers will have to cough up yet another $14.3 million as a result of Solyndra's bankruptcy. They are already on the hook for $528 million in federal loan guarantees to the company that are unlikely to ever be paid back.
Pocket Government money, screw your employees, and dump it on the Taxpayers.
The department's decision also bodes well for a trade complaint made against China by a coalition of domestic solar panel makers. The request for the TAA was based on the claim that Solyndra failed because China was underselling U.S. manufacturers.
Horse-hockey! Solyndra failed because they had bad management.
And they mis-read the market.
By granting the assistance, the Labor Department has indicated it believes those charges have at least some merit.
Management should have seen that the Chinese could cut prices, since prices had been driven high.
The announcement was made quietly today by the DOL's Employment and Training Administration on its website. The decision was reached Friday.
Another attempt at keeping the scandal quiet.
There was some confusion regarding the decision, which was posted on the DOL website accidentally this morning before the official announcement. A department spokesman told Capital Hill that a programming error was the cause. DOL briefly pulled the information, but has reposted it.

The TAA request was first made on Sept. 2, just days after Solyndra went bankrupt. The Alameda County Workforce Investment Board, a public-private group that aids in job retraining programs, made the request on behalf of the employees.

"We are very pleased," said Patti Castro, interim director of the board. "These workers are highly skilled but they need the retraining available through this."
And it'll keep them from voting Republican...
Most TAA requests take 60 days to process according to DOL, but this one took about 80. The department said the delay was caused by a Senate fight over reauthorizing the program.

"During that period all pending TAA announcements were put on hold," said DOL spokesman Joshua Lamont.
Fight harder next time, Pubs...
That fight was triggered in part by Republican lawmakers' outrage that Solyndra employees were up for TAA help.

As it happens, the decision to grant the aid was made the day after Energy Secretary Steven Chu had a long-expected and highly contentious hearing before a House panel over the Solyndra failure.

Lamont said the administration did not delay the decision until after Chu's testimony.
"Perish the thought!"
The Obama administration has apparently pushed to delay bad news regarding Solyndra before.

The TAA program offers help to domestic workers who have lost their jobs due to the trade practices of foreign countries. The assistance includes job retraining, allowances for job searching, health benefits and up to 130 weeks of income support. The average recipient gets about $13,000 in assistance.

Solyndra was given a $535 million federal loan guarantee in 2009 by the Obama administration as part of a program to boost green jobs. The company was a favorite of the administration, with President Obama himself visiting its Fremont, Calif., location and singing its praises in 2010.

A top Obama fundraiser, George Kaiser, was a major backer of the company through his namesake foundation and discussed the company with White House officials in at least one private meeting in 2010.

Behind the scenes, the company was bleeding cash and seeking a second DOE loan to stay afloat. By late 2010 it had defaulted on the original loan and DOE agreed to a restructuring to allow the company to survive.

The renegotiation included giving private investors first crack at the first $75 million recovered in the event of liquidation. The decision was in apparent violation of DOE loan rules. It all but ensures that taxpayers will recover none of the original loan.
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Economy
Treasury official: Taxpayers on hook for Solyndra failure before commercial firms is a first
2011-10-15
At Friday's Solyndra
...a green technological winner picked by the B.O. regime that cost the taxpayers a half billion dollars, with the added benefit of the campaign contributors who put money into the project getting paid before the taxpayers when the wreckage went up for sale...
 hearing, an B.O. regime Treasury Department official admitted that he's never heard of taxpayer money being subordinate to outside commercial firms.

That means the B.O. regime is admitting it's awfully suspicious that investors like George Kaiser's firms and others got their cash back when Solyndra failed, but the taxpayers ended up on the hook for the $535 million the Department of Energy promised it via a loan guarantee.

"So in your experience of 28 years, plus being the chief financial officer [five years], can -- have you ever heard of taxpayer money being subordinate to outside commercial firms?," House energy and commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations chairman Rep. Cliff Stearns asked Obama's Treasury Department Federal Financing Bank chief financial officer Gary Burner at the hearing.

"No sir, I have not," Burner replied.

Stearns asked the question a couple more times, making sure he got the same answer -- and he did.
Link


Home Front: Culture Wars
Barack Obama's other billionaire: How George Kaiser turned Oklahoma into his personal tax haven
2011-10-13
Via InstaPundit
It's unlikely that President Barack Obama will be naming any tax proposals after George B. Kaiser. An investment by the Tulsa billionaire's family foundation in Solyndra, whose bankruptcy may leave taxpayers on the hook for $535 million in federal loans, has raised speculation that the administration acted in part to aid a financial supporter. But the impact on taxpayers of Kaiser's career goes far beyond the $535 million loss. Kaiser has built his fortune in part through shrewdly playing the Internal Revenue Code. In one six year period, during which he increased his net worth enough to land him on the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, Kaiser reported taxable income to the Internal Revenue Service just once, totaling $11,699--equivalent to a full-time hourly wage of $5.62.

In addition to Solyndra, the George Kaiser Family Foundation has investments worth hundreds of millions in energy firms, most of them in the oil and gas industry. The Washington Post reported that, in 2005, Senate investigators focused on the tax implications of the foundation, whose assets at the end of 2009 had grown to nearly $4 billion. GKFF has averaged more than $194 million a year in income from those assets over the last five years and issued grants that averaged about $53 million a year--or just 1.7 percent of its net assets.

That wasn't the first time Kaiser caught the attention of government tax officials. In 1997, the Internal Revenue Service sent Kaiser and his companies tax bills for more than $72 million in back taxes, interest and penalties, covering individual and corporate returns filed from 1986 to 1992. Kaiser filed returns showing his personal income averaging negative $860,000 between 1986 and 1991; his holding company, GBK Corp., and its subsidiaries reported an aggregate loss from 1989 to 1992 of $507,000--some years it made money and paid taxes, others it claimed losses and paid none.
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Economy
Obama Fundraisers Tied to Green Firms That Got Federal Cash
2011-09-30
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, ABC News and iWatch News have learned.

One of them was Steven J. Spinner, a high-tech consultant and energy investor who raised at least $500,000 for the candidate. He became one of Energy Secretary Steven Chu's key loan program advisors while his wife's law firm represented a number of companies that had applied for loans.

Recovery Act records show Allison Spinner's law firm, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, received $2.4 million in federal funds for legal fees related to the $535 million Energy Department loan guarantee to Solyndra, a solar company whose financial meltdown has prompted multiple investigations. She pledged to take no portion of the money and did not work on the loan applications.

Spinner was not the only Obama political supporter to play a role at the Energy Department. California venture capitalist Steve Westly, who raised more than $500,000 for Obama, had Secretary Chu's ear on green energy issues as a member of a high-level volunteer advisory panel. Mackey Dykes, who was a finance manager for the Obama campaign, was hired to be the liaison between the Energy Department and White House. Each declined interview requests.

Obama's political supporters were also investors in companies that had applied for loans. Westly has held stakes in at least five companies that have won DOE support. Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser, another Obama bundler, was the biggest private backer of Solyndra. Westly, Spinner and the CEO of Allison Spinner's law firm, John V. Roos, (now Obama's ambassador to Japan), each raised more than $500,000 for Obama's 2008 campaign.
Link


Home Front: Politix
Project Solyndra: In the Spotlight -- House Hearing on Wednesday
2011-09-14
On Fox Special Report tonight, Jonah Goldberg reminded us all of the Enron doings. He stated, "I could never find any connection of Bush with Enron, yet, he got tagged with the financial crisis."
Mod Note: Thanks Beavis for the correction for Enron

ME: Solyndra has Obama's name all over it."
Sorta like the pic I found at Ace...
Republicans hope to shed more light on the Solyndra loan scandal tomorrow, when the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hear testimony from two White House officials involved in the now infamous $535 million loan guarantee to the now-defunct solar-panel manufacturer once hailed by President Obama as a "true engine of economic growth . . . leading the way toward a brighter more prosperous future."

In particular, the committee will seek to determine the extent to which Solyndra's financial ties to major Democratic fundraiser George Kaiser may have played a role in the company's receiving federally backed funds. According to a memo circulated by committee Republicans, the hearing will also examine the following questions:

Did the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) conduct a proper review of the Solyndra application?

Should the DOE and the OMB have anticipated some of the financial problems that Solyndra experienced, which resulted in bankruptcy?

Did the DOE and the OMB take adequate steps to protect taxpayers when it negotiated the terms and conditions of the Solyndra guarantee and its restructuring?

Much more at site -- Click to follow this second Rantburg Project (ok so I'm taking some liberties here.... this one is gonna be hard to hide)
Link


Home Front: Politix
O's 'Clean Energy' Stumping Questioned
2011-06-26
With trips that began two months after he took office, President Obama has devoted more than half of his out-of-town private-business visits to promoting a single industry: clean technology, which the president says will lead the nation back to economic prosperity.
So what's standing in the way, Mr. President?
In all, Obama has visited 22 clean-tech projects on 19 separate trips, all emphasizing economic recovery and a $90 billion stimulus program to promote energy independence.
Fracking? Did those frackers contribute?
Obama's unwavering focus has helped him fulfill a campaign pledge to push clean tech, from solar energy and wind power to electric vehicles. But by emphasizing a sector in which the risks are high, the president has prompted questions on Capitol Hill and from industry about the wisdom of his singular strategy and his political ties to some of the companies chosen for federal attention.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
The most attention has focused on Solyndra, a Silicon Valley solar company that ran into financial trouble after receiving a $535 million federal loan guarantee commitment. Last week, Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee pressed the OMB to account for its role in the selection. Obama visited Solyndra's factory in May 2010, only weeks after it became public that independent auditors had questioned whether it could remain a "going concern."

Better take a seat and swallow the beverage in your mouth...
Some of the biggest investors in Solyndra, which makes easy-to-install solar panels, were venture capital funds associated with Tulsa billionaire George Kaiser, a key Obama fundraiser.

There was intense competition for clean-tech stimulus dollars. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said his agency reviewed 50,000 applicants and chose 5,000, a 90 percent rejection rate.
So any links to contributions are merely coincidental!
A White House spokesman said these connections were purely coincidental. Numerous factors -- including location, accessibility to airports and media accommodations -- help decide where Obama will travel, the spokesman said.
See? Coincidental! Oh, wait. He said "trips". The Prez has only visited half of those who got the boodle. What about the selections?
Some of Obama's factory appearances have had a distinctly political feel. The trips have taken him to states where he did well in 2008 and where his message of a rebounding job market is helping set the stage for his reelection campaign.

Contrary to the GAO report, the department met every requirement for the Solyndra transaction," an Energy Department spokesperson said, adding that all reviews were completed before any taxpayer money was obligated.
However..
Solyndra announced in November that it would close its older factory and reduce its workforce by 127 people. Plant expansion plans were put on hold.

This year, the Energy Department's inspector general criticized the agency for learning from ClimateGate by not maintaining e-mails discussing selections of loan-guarantee winners, and the House Energy and Commerce Committee, led by Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), began investigating Solyndra's selection. At a hearing last week, Republicans criticized the Office of Management and Budget for not answering questions and suggested that they may resort to subpoenas.

In July, Obama lauded its technology in a Kansas City speech, and days later, Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis showed up at Celgard to signal more good news: Since Obama's visit, the company had added 40 workers. Amid this flurry of White House interest, some competitors questioned why Celgard warranted so much attention.
Somebody has to get the attention. If you can't reward your friends, what good is a free and transparent society?
"Generally, we're concerned with what kind of due diligence the administration did before throwing out that kind of money and attention," said Bryan Godber, vice president of Trojan Battery, which faced the prospect of higher prices for Polypore products. "They are giving some companies massive advantages over others."

During the official visits, federal regulators were pursuing a case against Celgard's parent company, Polypore. Obama's visit came a month after an administrative judge agreed that Polypore's purchase created an illegal monopoly and that it must sell the competitor. The case is under appeal.

However...
Polypore has seen its stock rise more than tenfold during Obama's tenure -- from $4.15 a share in November 2008 to more than $64 a share in May 2011 -- largely because of the booming market for electric vehicles. Private-equity firm Warburg Pincus has seen its original $300 million investment more than triple in value and recently has been locking in gains with stock sales. (More than $253,000 was raised for Obama in 2008 from Warburg employees and their families, campaign finance records show.)

Obama came to the plant this January, the day after a State of the Union address in which he declared that the nation faces a "Sputnik moment" in its quest for innovation. Orion, a publicly traded company, counts among its largest institutional investors a firm run by John Rogers Jr., a longtime friend and Obama fundraiser. A spokesman for the fund said Rogers played no role in the Obama visit.

Some of Orion's competitors said they could only wish for such a moment of glory. Mark Eubanks, president of Cooper Lighting in Atlanta, estimated that his company sells six times more energy-efficient lighting than Orion, but it is based in a Republican stronghold.
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