Again, just imagine if this were Bush and Exxon

[sirs]

...or Bush and his Universal Drug Program for Seniors.  The MSM would be going apoplectic

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Does the American public have the bandwidth to follow two Solyndra-style White House scandals at once?  As maddening as the Solyndra row has been -- and we'll have an update on that story later this morning -- this revelation is probably worse.  I reach that conclusion based on the relative scale and consequences of the dueling disgraces' politically-motivated dishonesty.  First, a little bit of background to prime the pump:  When Democrats entered their full-court press for Obamacare last winter, they made it clear that nothing would stand in their way.  Not hostile public opinion, not sound policy interests, not even a desire to know what was in their own bill.  Nothing.  One of their boldest plays was to manufacture a CBO score explictly designed to reach the ludicrous conclusion that theor new multi-trillion-dollar entitlement program would actually reduce the deficit.  In order to accomplish this feat, they used smoke and mirrors accounting gimmicks that went far beyond even many Beltway cynics' wildest imaginations.

Rep. Paul Ryan exposed and debunked Democrats' most audacious tricks during the healthcare summit -- which of course did absolutely nothing to convince Democrats of the error of their ways.  During his illuminating dissection of the bill, Ryan mentioned a provision called the CLASS Act, a new federally funded long-term care program embedded within Obamacare.  Ryan quoted Sen. Kent Conrad, a Democrat, as decrying the program as a Madoff-style "Ponzi scheme." Why?  Because the premiums supposedly collected to pay for the CLASS Act over Obamacare's first decade would be injected into that phony, contrived "deficit reducing" CBO formula -- while the program itself would likely collapse under its own weight almost immediately.  In other words, some critics suspected, Democrats were creating an entire program just to extract hypothetical dollars from its front-loaded revenue mechanism to "pay for" the larger bill -- with no real intention of implementing a sustainable long-term care program.  To outside observers like Ryan, it looked like a giant shell game.  As we now know, it looked that way to inside observers, too.  The AP has the hugely important exclusive:

Even as leading Democrats offered assurances to the contrary, government experts repeatedly warned that a new long-term care insurance plan could go belly up, saddling taxpayers with another underfunded benefit program, according to emails disclosed by congressional investigators.  Part of President Barack Obama's health care law, the program is in limbo as a congressional debt panel searches for budget savings and behind the scenes, administration officials scramble to find a viable financing formula.


So the White House was telling the public everything was copacetic while internal government experts were frantically warning that the administration's ideological plans were profoundly unwise.  If this scenario feels strangely familiar, it should.  Here's the AP's background on the CLASS Act as well as an explanation of its fatal flaws:
 
CLASS was intended as voluntary long-term care insurance plan, supported by premiums, not taxpayer dollars. Workers would pay an affordable sum of around $100 a month or less. In exchange, they would receive a modest daily cash benefit averaging no less than $50 if they become disabled later in life. Beneficiaries could use the money for services to help them stay at home, or to help with nursing home bills. The Health and Human Services Department is supposed to set the final premiums and benefit levels in the coming months.

But the program is on a collision course with powerful demographic and economic forces. How to pay the exorbitant cost of long-term care remains a major unmet need for an aging society. On the other hand, many economic experts believe the government has already promised seniors more than it can deliver, and now is not the time to launch another program likely to need a taxpayer bailout or new mandates.


In short, this was a preposterous boondoggle that was bound to fail (by design) from the get-go.  The dirty little secret, you see, was that Obama, Inc. didn't care if CLASS failed.  The whole point was to show theoretical on-paper "premiums" that added revenue to the black side of the CBO's overall Obamacare ledger.  Whether those premiums ever materialized, and whether the program went totally bust, was immaterial.  This was purely an accounting scheme contrived to make Obamacare appear less costly.  Some veteran government number-crunchers noticed the impossible math and tried to raise the alarm.  They were disregarded and frozen out of deliberations for their trouble:
 
Emails show that the first warning about CLASS came in May 2009, from Richard Foster, head of long range economic forecasts for Medicare. "At first glance this proposal doesn't look workable," Foster wrote in an email to other HHS officials, some of whom were working with Congress to get CLASS into the health care law.  Foster said a rough outline of the program would have to enroll more than 230 million people — more than the U.S. workforce — to be financially feasible.  But work on CLASS continued, bolstered by a report for AARP that laid out scenarios for implementing the plan. The AARP study also raised financial concerns, although the seniors' lobby supports CLASS.  (My note: More incomprehensible treachery from AARP).

In July, Foster tried again. After reviewing the latest information from Kennedy's office, he wrote HHS officials: "Thirty-six years of (professional) experience lead me to believe that this program would collapse in short order and require significant federal subsidies to continue."  Too late. The Obama administration had decided to support CLASS. Documents and emails indicate that Foster was edged out of deliberations.


Foster was sent to the corner to sulk.  His math was too politically inconvenient, so he was banished to intellectual Siberia.  (Say, I thought it was only those anti-science, anti-critical thinking Republicans who did this sort of thing).  Foster wasn't the only insider who was extremely critical of the scheme:
 
By that time, Marton, the HHS aging policy official, was also raising questions internally. Emails he sent other administration officials relayed studies that raised concerns about such issues as premiums and the role of employers, while also recommending fixes.  Publicly, the administration maintained it would all work out. A December 2009 presentation for senior officials stressed the end result would be a financially robust program.  In private, administration insiders were still spelling out concerns.


They knew it was a lie.  Their actuaries told them so.  The math was clear.  They didn't care.  If CLASS goosed the numbers for the broader bill -- thus helping secure the historic power grab they'd been salivating over forever -- these Statists were thrilled to adopt an "ends justifies the means" mentality.  And that, my friends, is how the White House and Democrats manipulated the CBO score, lied their asses off to the American public, and passed their unaffordable, unwanted healthcare monstrosity under deliberately false pretenses. 

This. Crew. Must. Go.

[sirs]

So.....when ever the left decries how "The GOP won't compromise"..."The Republicans are working against this President"...."The GOP is placing party in front of country", we merely have to go back, no more than 2 years, and take note that Obama & the Dems ramrodded everything they could down our throats, compromise be damned, civility be damned, and damn any repercusssions to the country, along the way (including the loss of the House and near loss of the Senate). 

They did it, because they could, and in the case of Obamination Care, did it even when they couldn't, all the while lying to the country on its cost and the enormous debt it was piling on to our already spiraling out-of-control unsustainable debt

And where's the MSM on this??  If it were Bush, this would be 24/7 news

[sirs]

This just gets more transparently ridiculous in the silence of the MSM
--------------------------------------------------------

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration restructured a half-billion dollar federal loan to a troubled solar energy company in such a way that private investors — including a fundraiser for President Barack Obama — moved ahead of taxpayers for repayment in case of a default, government records show.

Administration officials defended the loan restructuring, saying that without an infusion of cash earlier this year, solar panel maker Solyndra Inc. would likely have faced immediate bankruptcy, putting more than 1,000 people out of work.

(sirs adds; as opposed to the latter bankruptcy, and the putting more than 1,000 people out of work)

Even with the federal help, Solyndra filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this month and laid off its 1,100 employees.

The Fremont, Calif.-based company was the first renewable-energy company to receive a loan guarantee under a stimulus-law program to encourage green energy and was frequently touted by the Obama administration as a model. Obama visited the company's Silicon Valley headquarters last year, and Vice President Joe Biden spoke by satellite at its groundbreaking.

Since then, the implosion of the company and revelations that the administration hurried Office of Management and Budget officials to finish their review of the loan in time for the September 2009 groundbreaking has become an embarrassment for Obama as he sells his new job-creation program around the country.

An Associated Press review of regulatory filings shows that Solyndra was hemorrhaging hundreds of millions of dollars for years before the Obama administration signed off on the original $535 million loan guarantee in September 2009. The company eventually got $528 million.

Given the company's shaky financial condition, Republican lawmakers say the decision to restructure the loan raises questions about whether the administration protected political supporters at taxpayers' expense.

"You should have protected the taxpayers and made some forceful actions here after this analysis," Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., told a top Energy Department official this week. "Because you should have seen the problems. And you should have said, 'Taxpayers need to be protected and this has got to stop.' "

The loan restructuring is one element congressional investigators are focusing on as they look into the federal loan guarantee Solyndra received under the economic stimulus law.

Under terms of the February loan restructuring, two private investors — Argonaut Ventures I LLC and Madrone Partners LP — stand to be repaid before the U.S. government if the solar company is liquidated. The two firms gave the company a total of $69 million in emergency loans. The loans are the only portion of their investments that have repayment priority above the U.S. government.

Argonaut is an investment vehicle of the George Kaiser Family Foundation of Tulsa, Okla. The foundation is headed by billionaire George Kaiser, a major Obama campaign contributor and a frequent visitor to the White House. Kaiser raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for Obama's 2008 campaign, federal election records show. Kaiser has made at least 16 visits to the president's aides since 2009, according to White House visitor logs.

Madrone Partners is affiliated with the Walton family, descendants of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton. Rob Walton, the eldest son of Sam Walton, contributed $2,500 last year to the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The AP review also found that officials at Solyndra had been seeking a second round of loans from the Energy Department to expand the company's Silicon Valley headquarters. The request for a second loan was denied.

"We have incurred significant net losses since our inception, including a net loss of $114.1 million in 2007, $232.1 million in 2008 and $119.8 million in the first nine months of fiscal 2009, and we had an accumulated deficit of $505 million at Oct. 3, 2009," the company said in a December 2009 filing to the SEC. "We expect to continue to incur significant operating and net losses and negative cash flow from operations for the foreseeable future."

Energy Department spokesman Damien LaVera said Friday that the company's financial losses were not uncommon for a high-tech startup and were a major reason Solyndra applied for the federal loan. The loan program is intended to help promising companies that cannot receive financing through private banks because of high risk.

Jonathan Silver, executive director of the Energy Department's loan program, said DOE officials faced a stark choice late last year and early this year: Refuse to allow the loan restructuring, "thereby ensuring that Solyndra would close its doors immediately" or allow the company to accept emergency financing, "thereby giving it and its almost 1,000 workers a fighting chance at success, and the government a higher expected recovery on its loan."

The decision by Energy Secretary Steven Chu was not an easy one, Silver told the House Energy and Commerce Committee, but appeared to be the right action at the time.

"Without DOE's agreement to restructure Solyndra's loan, the company likely would have faced bankruptcy much earlier — in December 2010" or soon after, Silver said. "Restructuring gave them a fighting chance to compete and succeed, and kept approximately 1,000 workers from losing their jobs."

Republicans were not impressed.

"If their model was weak to begin with, and then the market gets worse, doesn't that mean that maybe we should have just not thrown good money after bad?" asked Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va. "Because now we're in a worse position in the bankruptcy courts to get our money back."

GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann called the Solyndra loan an example of "crony capitalism" that benefited political donors.

"It's wrong to abuse executive authority with unilateral actions" Bachmann said at a campaign event Friday in California. "And of course the other problem with Solyndra is the fact that it appears there was crony capitalism, that there were political donors that benefited by this $535 million loan."

Newly released emails show the White House was worried about the likely effect of a default by Solyndra on Obama's re-election campaign.

"The optics of a Solyndra default will be bad," an OMB official wrote in a Jan. 31 email to a colleague. "The timing will likely coincide with the 2012 campaign season heating up."

The budget official, whose name is blacked out in the email, wondered whether Solyndra should be allowed to restructure its loan.

"Questions will be asked as to why the administration made a bad investment, not just once (which could hopefully be explained as part of the challenge of supporting innovative technologies), but twice (which could easily be portrayed as bad judgment, or worse)," the email says.

Piss Poor Judgement??.....naaaaaaaaaaa

[sirs]

I can't pin down exactly when this started, but these days I always carry with me a peculiar sense of angst that everything that has made America so fantastic over the past two hundred plus years - innovation, entrepreneurship, prosperity, the desire for wealth, robust independence and personal responsibility - is slowly grinding to a screeching halt, primarily due to rent-seeking. Thomas Jefferson once wrote, "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

Well, TJ's wise words pretty much sum up the multiple scandals (Solyndra, CLASS Act, LightSquared) we saw coming out of the White House in what I thought set the new standard for their Worst Week Evah, even though they're keeping pretty mum about it all. While President Obama certainly didn't start the snowball of crony capitalism, 'virtue' legislation, and political hijincks that is gradually ruining us, he has aided and abetted that snowball's exponential transformation into an avalanche, and the mainstream media and establishment liberals have been all too content to stand back and let him. Still, however, there's always hope, and I don't mean the kind our slick President promised us the last time around.

In a new New York Times/CBS News poll, the President's job disapproval rating has hit 50 percent, and 42 percent view him as personally unfavorable.

The president’s support has fallen to its lowest levels across parts of the diverse coalition of voters who elected him, from women to suburbanites to college graduates. And a persistent effort over the past year to reclaim his appeal to independent voters has shown few signs of bearing fruit, with 59 percent of this critical electoral group voicing their disapproval.

While Mr. Obama has not yet succeeded in winning over independent voters, who comprise the most influential piece of the electorate, neither have Republicans. The field is largely unknown to independents, and few have a favorable opinion of any of the candidates.

It's a loooooong way 'til Election 2012, of course, but I'm going to choose to see this as an encouraging sign of life from the glassy-eyed zombie electorate of 2008. Support of President Obama's handling of the economy has been diving for some time now, but these numbers are a new low and may be an indicator that Americans are just about ready to give up on The Dream That Was Barack Obama.

[sirs]

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said Tuesday that his committee plans to investigate government loan programs to private corporations in light of allegations of improper dealings between the White House and failed energy company Solyndra and wireless start-up LightSquared.

"I want to see when the president and his cronies are picking winners and losers… it wasn't because there were large contributions given to them," the chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee said Tuesday morning on C-SPAN.

Issa said the committee was looking at whether it was improper for members of Congress or White House staff to select companies eligible for subsidized government loans when those companies could give campaign donations. Loan programs have been a popular tool to provide funding for popular industries — like tech, green energy, and American auto companies — at more favorable terms than could be secured privately.

The Obama administration has been defending itself against criticism by Republicans that it exerted improper influence to the aid of both companies.

Solyndra abruptly filed for bankruptcy earlier this month, surprising both employees and the administration, which had secured $535 million in low-interest loans for the company.

Republicans in Congress quickly mocked the bankruptcy as emblematic of the president's green technology initiatives under the stimulus bill — and noted that a key Solyndra investor had been a bundler for the Obama campaign. House Republicans say they have emails showing the White House pressuring Department of Energy bureaucrats to expedite the loan approvals, although the White House has argued that nothing improper occurred.

Republicans have also charged that the White House pressured an Air Force general to revise testimony before a closed congressional hearing to aid LightSquared, a wireless start-up company. Emails between the company and the White House make mention of the fact that the company's CEO would be attending Democratic fundraisers in Washington, and administration officials met with executives from the company on the same day that CEO Sanjiv Ahuja wrote a $30,400 check to the Democratic National Committee. 

The company is facing a tough regulatory road after initial tests showed LightSquared's technology had been found to interfere with military and aviation GPS. But both the company and White House have denied any influence-peddling.

Although Issa did not specifically accuse the White House of wrongdoing, he suggested that government loan programs tempted corruption.

"This is another reason that crony capitalism … is dangerous, because they're going to pick winners that they ideologically, or in some cases because they support their candidacy, want to see win," Issa said.

The congressman said he also wanted to expand the investigation to see whether congressmen were also exerting influence on the bureaucracy, which is commonly tasked with approving low-interest government loans.

"We see that as a backdoor, easy way to end up with corruption in government," Issa said.


Shhhhhhh, MSM has more important things to look into

[sirs]

Solyndra (Exxon) execs will decline to testify at hearing

Solyndra (Exxon's) LLC's chief executive and chief financial officer will invoke their Fifth Amendment rights and decline to answer any questions put to them at a Congressional hearing on Friday, according to letters from their attorneys obtained by Reuters.

In the letters sent to the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, attorneys for Solyndra (Exxon) CEO Brian Harrison and CFO W. G. Stover said they advised their clients not to provide testimony during the hearings.

The bankrupt company's $535 million federal loan guarantee is being investigated by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Harrison is represented by Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe and Stover is represented by Keker & Van Nest.

Solyndra's (Exxon's) offices were raided by the FBI two days after the company filed for bankruptcy, although the FBI did not say what prompted the raid. (Reporting by Nichola Groom in Los Angeles, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)


Shhhhhhhhhhhh, just (imagining), and the apoplectic outrage the MSM would be having, at this time

[BT]

Just for clarification, are you saying that the Solyndra executives should act against the legal advice given them and waive their 5th amendment rights because of how the press may or may not portray that action?

And could you clarify who you are referring to when you say the MSM would be having a fit if this were Exxon and the Administration was GOP. The reason i asked is because reuters is reporting this planned exercise of 5th amendment rights and i wasn't sure when they lost their main stream media designation.

[Kramer]

Just for clarification, are you saying that the Solyndra executives should act against the legal advice given them and waive their 5th amendment rights because of how the press may or may not portray that action?

And could you clarify who you are referring to when you say the MSM would be having a fit if this were Exxon and the Administration was GOP. The reason i asked is because reuters is reporting this planned exercise of 5th amendment rights and i wasn't sure when they lost their main stream media designation.

From  my perspective if this were a Republican problem every newspaper, every TV station, every Cable News outlet, every magazine, and every late nigh comedy show would have jumped all over this like flies on shit. But most NSM are liberal and like the money and attention going towards alternative energy they are all pretty much silent as lambs about the whole thing. Do you think much has been said about this on MSNBC or CNN?

[BT]

It's not as if this isn't getting play. Once the wire services report it, the story goes viral. The Washington Post has a story about it. Even Democrat Underground is practicing their spin. I just don't see where this story, at this stage, is being hidden.

http://www.google.com/search?q=Solyndra+LLC%27s+chief+executive+and+chief+financial+officer+will+invoke+their+Fifth+Amendment+rights&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

[Kramer]

It's not as if this isn't getting play. Once the wire services report it, the story goes viral. The Washington Post has a story about it. Even Democrat Underground is practicing their spin. I just don't see where this story, at this stage, is being hidden.

http://www.google.com/search?q=Solyndra+LLC%27s+chief+executive+and+chief+financial+officer+will+invoke+their+Fifth+Amendment+rights&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

OK but in my opinion this is a bigger story than the gun selling justice department case that got far too little attention too.

[BT]

Gun Walker got some border agents killed. That by far is the bigger story. And it will get bigger as they work their way up the food chain. We know it goes to Holder... does it go higher up? Don't know that yet. And we don't want folks starting to pity Obama cause those mean racist Repubs are unfairly investigating him.

[Kramer]

Gun Walker got some border agents killed. That by far is the bigger story. And it will get bigger as they work their way up the food chain. We know it goes to Holder... does it go higher up? Don't know that yet. And we don't want folks starting to pity Obama cause those mean racist Repubs are unfairly investigating him.

funny you should say that (about the so-called racist investigations) because I think there are some black politicians that think they have an invisible shield surrounding them (those racist rascals), which tends to get them into ethics trouble. And I think Obama might operate that way too and it just might come back to haunt him with some of these illegal activities he is engaged in. But certainly if Obama thinks he can scream out racism and avoid getting into trouble he could be headed into dangerous waters. Chicago politics is a dirty business.

[BT]

If you control the perception of the story then you control the outcome.

You and I both know the Clinton Impeachment wasn't about sex. Yet to this day that is the dominant perception.

[Kramer]

If you control the perception of the story then you control the outcome.

You and I both know the Clinton Impeachment wasn't about sex. Yet to this day that is the dominant perception.

Yeah and having a large group of the press in your camp gives Obama lots of cover. That is why I'm getting excited because once they leave him he will be left to the wolves. And the wolves smell blood right now.

[BT]

CBS is MSM right?

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20108965-10391695.html