The Solyndra President. Well, make that the Solyndra-EverGreen–SpectraWatt–First Solar–Solar Trust–Abound Solar–BrightSource–LSP Energy–Ener1–SunPower–Beacon Power–ECOtality–A123–Uni Solar–Azure Dynamics President. Not to mention all the other now-bankrupt green energy crony-capitalist businesses that have stolen more than $2 billion dollars of the American people’s money.
And few Americans have any idea whatsoever how transparently corrupt Barack Obama is.
Eighty percent of all green energy loans provided by the American people’s stimulus money were given to crony capitalist-fascist Obama donors. Obama is using the American people’s money as a political slush fund to reward his friends:
A new book by Hoover Institution fellow Peter Schweizer details the startling extent of the cronyism that has pervaded President Obama’s “green jobs” push. According to Schweizer, 4 out of every 5 renewable energy companies backed by the Energy Department was “run by or primarily owned by Obama financial backers.”
Those companies’ “political largesse is probably the best investment they ever made in alternative energy,” Schweizer explains. “It brought them returns many times over.”
Such is the inevitable consequence of large government interventions in private markets. Leaving aside the losses associated with transfers of funds from self-sustaining industries to ones that rely on government support, such interventions also encourage unproductive business activities by making “subsidy suckling” far more profitable than run-of-the-mill business expansions or product improvements.
Doug Ross spotted the relevant excerpt of Schweizer’s book (h/t Ben Domenech’s Transom):
When President-elect Obama came to Washington in late 2008, he was outspoken about the need for an economic stimulus to revive a struggling economy… After he was sworn in as president, he proclaimed that taxpayer money would assuredly not be doled out to political friends…
…But an examination of grants and guaranteed loans offered by just one stimulus program run by the Department of Energy, for alternative-energy projects, is stunning. The so-called 1705 Loan Guarantee Program and the 1603 Grant Program channeled billions of dollars to all sorts of energy companies…
…In the 1705 government-backed-loan program [alone], for example, $16.4 billion of the $20.5 billion in loans granted as of Sept. 15 went to companies either run by or primarily owned by Obama financial backers—individuals who were bundlers, members of Obama’s National Finance Committee, or large donors to the Democratic Party. The grant and guaranteed-loan recipients were early backers of Obama before he ran for president, people who continued to give to his campaigns and exclusively to the Democratic Party in the years leading up to 2008. Their political largesse is probably the best investment they ever made in alternative energy. It brought them returns many times over.
…The Government Accountability Office has been highly critical of the way guaranteed loans and grants were doled out by the Department of Energy, complaining that the process appears “arbitrary” and lacks transparency. In March 2011, for example, the GAO examined the first 18 loans that were approved and found that none were properly documented. It also noted that officials “did not always record the results of analysis” of these applications. A loan program for electric cars, for example, “lacks performance measures.” No notes were kept during the review process, so it is difficult to determine how loan decisions were made. The GAO further declared that the Department of Energy “had treated applicants inconsistently in the application review process, favoring some applicants and disadvantaging others.” The Department of Energy’s inspector general, Gregory Friedman, … has testified that contracts have been steered to “friends and family.”
…These programs might be the greatest—and most expensive—example of crony capitalism in American history. Tens of billions of dollars went to firms controlled or owned by fundraisers, bundlers, and political allies, many of whom—surprise!—are now raising money for Obama again.
So it really doesn’t matter to Obama whether these crony capitalist boondoggles go bankrupt or not; what matters is that he gets a percentage of the billions of dollars of the American people’s money in the form of campaign contributions.
And that’s THE ONLY thing that matters: Obama providing all kinds of self-righteous rhetoric while he racks up more special interest campaign monies than ANY cynical and corrupt politician in the history of the entire human race.
This is a slick weasel who has now held more fundraisers THAN THE PREVIOUS FIVE PRESIDENTS COMBINED.
Barack Obama is without any doubt whatsoever the most evil and wicked man who has ever polluted the White House.
When Obama is not punishing his enemies and rewarding his friends, he is campaigning, campaigning, campaigning.
The Demoniac-in-Chief has not bothered to govern in years. It has now been ELEVEN HUNDRED days since Obama’s Senate – controlled by his fellow Democrats – have bothered to pass ANY BUDGET AT ALL. Where the hell is Obama while the party that he leads engages day after day after day after day in such abandonment of any kind of responsibility whatsoever???
What about Obama’s own budgets? His 2012 budget was voted down – voted down BY EVERY SINGLE DEMOCRAT – to the tune of 97-0. His 2013 budget was voted down – again by every single DEMOCRAT – to the tune of 414-0. Just where the hell is Obama while he phones in one demon-possessed budget after another that even his own party unanimously vomits over???
He’s campaigning. Endlessly campaigning. Never governing, never leading, never bothering to do anything other than demonize and demagogue and lie and slander.
As of March 27, Obama had attended 191 fundraisers – FAR EXCEEDING ANY PRESIDENT EVER RECORDED IN HISTORY.
God damn America doesn’t need a budget. Because this nation under Obama is going to hell and you don’t need a budget to burn.
We are watching America – and even the most formerly honorable and important positions in America – begin to drift into what can only be described as psychotic behavior.
The Secret Service scandal in which over twenty top Secret Service agents and Marine security personnel engaged in wildly inappropriate conduct involving some twenty prostitutes in Colombia is no aberration. Nobody’s minding the shop; and the same attitude that holds that George Bush is responsible for the economy forever no matter how many years Barack Obama has been in control of it has permeated every single layer of government: nobody is responsible for anything in this “God damned” administration.
So, yes, the Secret Service scandal – which exposes behavior and abuses unlike anything this formerly honored branch of service has ever seen in its history – reveals a blatant failure of leadership on the part of Barack Obama.
That scandal almost immediately followed another scandal that is just beyond maddening: as GSA employees had an out-of-control “gone wild” convention that cost taxpayers nearly a million dollars:
WASHINGTON — Potentially problematic and certainly embarrassing video of the General Services Administration’s infamous $820,000 Las Vegas conference has been obtained by The Huffington Post, showing well-dressed employees singing Frank Sinatra, downing margaritas and making light of lavish spending.
Video of the 2010 party, provided by an administration official on Friday, shows GSA employees in colorful tuxedos, putting on magic shows and enjoying mock Vegas-style entertainment — all in the name of team-building.
The footage follows the release of a video clip featuring a GSA employee named Hank Terlaje at the same convention strumming a ukulele and belting out an ode to high-spending office culture. That video, like the new batch, was part of an awards ceremony meant to be light-hearted and satirical, but clearly at odds with the President Barack Obama administration’s message of fiscal belt-tightening. Several GSA officials have already lost their jobs because of the convention.
“These videos reinforce once again the complete lack of judgment exhibited during the 2010 Western Regions Conference,” Greg Mecher, a GSA spokesman, said in a statement to The Huffington Post. “Our agency continues to be appalled by this indefensible behavior, and we are taking every step possible to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.” […]
Among the report’s findings, GSA spent $95 per person for a dinner reception at the M Resort Spa and Casino in Henderson, Nev.; $75,000 on a bike-building training exercise (the bikes were later donated to the Boys’ and Girls’ Club); $19 per person for an “American artisanal cheese display;” $7,000 in sushi; $3,200 for mind reader; $3,700 for T-shirts; and more than $2,500 on water bottles. The new videos obtained by HuffPost on Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend provide the first long visual evidence of the excess.
One clip features a red carpet entrance into a conference room gathering, during which GSA officials discuss what designer clothes they are wearing. Acting GSA Administrator Jeff Neely, who reportedly encouraged event organizers to make the conference “over the top,” tells the camera he’s donning all Armani, before urging people to “dispense with the notion that what’s done in Vegas stays in Vegas.” Later, a female employee with a self-described “talent for drinking margaritas” is handed a massive goblet filled with the beverage. Terlaje himself makes a cameo without his ukulele, during which he jokes that the board of directors should get a raise.
Another clip features GSA officials destroying office property in a scene inspired by the movie “Office Space.” The song “Push It To The Limit,” from the movie “Scarface,” blares in the background.
In another video, an “angry clown” — either a GSA employee or a professional hired by the organizers — talks about making work more challenging for other people. “Meetings are good to have in between breaks,” the clown declares. “Government — if you think the problems we create are bad, just wait until you see our solutions.”
Among the other clips, there is a performance by the Green Man group — a variation of the Blue Man troupe — that uses recyclable material for beat-making. Additionally, GSA officials, donning black tuxedos with colored vests, perform their own rendition of “Luck be a Lady.”
There are silly magic tricks and an on-stage contest to see which attendee can blow the most bubbles through hula hoops.
Employees were encouraged to submit videos for a talent show contest, which Terlaje won. Among other entrants was one featuring Gumby on a motorcycle, as employees flashed dollar bills and rapped about the world travel and government pay raises they were getting.
“Not trying to get all touchy-feely, but I have to give props to my man [Acting Regional GSA Administrator] Jeff Neely,” they sing.
“I’m thrilled to be doing this,” Neely says in a separate clip, calling the conference the “culmination of a huge and impressive talent contest.”
The new videos seem likely to further inflame the back-and-forth between the administration and House Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) over the GSA’s spending. The California Republican has suggested that the White House tried to hide evidence of lavish spending by sitting on the inspector general’s report for 11 months.
The GSA inspector general “briefed the Obama administration 11 months ago on its factual findings of waste and wrongdoing at a lavish Las Vegas convention,” Issa spokesman Frederick Hill, told POLITICO. “Rather than taking immediate action to suspend or dismiss those identified by the IG at this briefing as responsible, the administration instead let them have bonuses. Despite their efforts to manage the story, the administration only took real personnel actions when there were no more options for delay.”
Administration officials have scoffed at Issa’s charge, noting that proper protocols were followed to investigate the conference spending and that, once it came to light, officials who were responsible resigned or were fired.
With Reporting By Amanda Terkel and Brad Shannon
What did the Obama administration immediately try to do? Blame Bush. For an event that took place two full years AFTER BUSH LEFT OFFICE AND WAS GONE.
Nobody in the Obama administration – from the top down – has ever been responsible for ANYTHING.
Former Bush-era GSA administrator sets the record straight to correct the smokescreen of lies from an administration that is beyond pathological in its refusal to accept personal responsibility. She pointed out:
Doan said the president and his aides aren’t taking ownership of their jobs. “This is very typical of the Obama administration,” she said. “There’s a lot of misdirection and cherry-picking of information that they release to the public. I think you also see the Obama administration circling their wagons because they know this is very damaging. You simply cannot justify the kind of wasteful spending.”
Barack Obama is running for president 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and he can’t be bothered with actually governing or running anything. You don’t take responsibility when you’re running for president – EVEN IF YOU’VE ACTUALLY BEEN THE DAMN PRESIDENT FOR FOUR FREAKING YEARS.
The Fast and Furious scandal – and this is giving Obama and Holder the benefit of the doubt and not believing the very real possibility that the two men deliberately set out to undermine 2nd Amendment gun rights by literally selling Mexican drug gangs guns so they could demonize American gun sellers and thus demonize the 2nd Amendment – has racked up so many corpses it is positively UNREAL. Let me simply sum it up: Obama’s people actually put guns into the hands of criminal drug cartels who then used those guns to murder American Border Patrol agents and HUNDREDS of Mexican soldiers, federal agents, police and family members of officials.
As Chuck Norris put it, Obama is smuggling guns to the Mexican drug gangs without any way to track them while demanding that YOUR guns be regulated or just plain taken away.
And if that isn’t sick enough, Barack Obama’s and Eric Holder’s ATF actually PROMOTED the supervisors who were most responsible for the fiasco. Most likely to keep them quiet.
Congress is on the verge of issuing contempt of Congress proceedings against Obama’s Attorney General, stating:
“For over a year, the Department has issued false denials, given answers intended to misdirect investigators, sought to intimidate witnesses, unlawfully withheld subpoenaed documents, and waited to be confronted with indisputable evidence before acknowledging uncomfortable facts,” it reads. “’Operation Fast and Furious’ outrageous tactics, the Justice Department’s refusal to fully cooperate with the investigation, and efforts to smear and retaliate against whistleblowers have tainted the institutional integrity of the Justice Department.”
They issued a memorandum detailing the charges available here.
And where the hell is Obama? He’s at one after another after another campaign event.
As we speak, Obama’s State Department has terribly and despicably failed to protect human rights or America’s reputation as a nation that defends those rights in it’s godawful handling of China’s abuse of human rights activist Chen Guangchen. A BBC headline reads: “Barack Obama SILENT…”
We’re finding out the State Department applied pressure on Chen to leave the US embassy; then they abandoned him when he was in the hospital. From being safe on sovereign US territory, the human rights activist is now in Chinese custody, future very much uncertain. And his wife’s and children’s future equally uncertain.
If Obama had actually bothered to do his damn job, it might have prevented him from attending another campaign event and raising more campaign money. And that is the ONLY “crime against humanity” that Obama gives a damn about.
There are so many scandals going on under Obama’s “permanent campaign” that many of them – even really vile ones – just get ignored. Such as the one with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) with the out-of-control agency inflicting huge fines on fishermen for small infractions and putting the collected monies in a slush fund used for lavish trips and booze-cruise luxury boats.
That is hardly the end of Obama’s constant scandals. It’s hardly the end of his complete failure to lead. There are so many examples this would be a 25,000 word article for me to write up half of them.
Obama has taken America to “Greece” territory with our debt exceeding our entire gross national product for the first time. Obama is foolishly spending $2.52 in debt for every dollar of “growth” to get himself re-elected.
Obama has promised Russia that he’ll abandon American national security interests if they don’t raise any stinks and thus help his re-election campaign. Meanwhile, his supporters are boasting that Obama will be able to usurp the wealth and freedoms of productive Americans and redistribute them to his supporters without fear in a second term. But apparently Russia doesn’t trust Obama any more than the American people Obama is willing to betray ought to trust him: yesterday Russia warned that it would preemptively strike American facilities – literally threatening war on America – if the US continued to build a missile shield to protect the US from the Iranian nuclear threat Russia is responsible for.
Meanwhile Israel is on the verge of attacking Iran to prevent the nihilistic jihadist regime from developing nuclear weapons. Which Iran is on the verge of getting, mind you, because Barack Obama and the Democrat Party has steadfastly refused to do one damn thing to prevent Iran from getting for the last decade.
And where the hell is Obama? He’s campaigning, campaigning, campaigning. The man who has attended more fundraisers than the last five presidents combined is trying to attend more fundraisers than the last TEN presidents combined instead. So don’t expect anything other than a weak response from the likes of him on pretty much anything.
Tags: campaigning, crony capitalism, fundraisers, GSA, Obama donors, scandals, Secret Service, solar energy
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