Solyndra scandal: Crony capitalism at is worst

  The Solyndra scandal seems to be climbing to heights almost comparable to the deadly Gunrunner scandal, with the exception of this being a case of crony capitalism and not about life and death as is the Gunrunner scandal. It had earlier come to light that Barack Obama fast tracked a review of Solyndra so that the company could receive $500 million in stimulus money–even though many thought the company was not viable–in order to give Joe Biden a nice little backdrop to announce Barack Obama’s new “green” initiative. This was to be the centerpiece of Barack Obama’s new initiative which would created thousands of “green” energy jobs and bring the United States out of recession.

  A funny thing happened on the path to the “green” initiative however as a few months after Solyndra received $500 million in stimulus money the company filed for bankruptcy.

  But this scandal goes beyond simple incompetence an impatience on the part of Barack Obama for this reeks of the type of crony capitalism that I thought Barack Obama was opposed to for it was also learned that the man who solicited for the loan to Solyndra,  George Kaiser, is a major contributor to Barack Obama and the Democrat party who just happened to make several visits to the White House in the week leading up to Barack Obama’s approval of the $500 million loan.

  In addition to giving the Obama campaign over $50,000 in campaign contributions George Kaiser made a nice little donation to Michelle Obama’s pet project, the Urban Health Initiative. Isn’t that a little to convenient to be a simple coincidence?

  And it doesn’t stop there, for as I wrote here, Barack Obama put George Kaiser ahead of the American taxpayers when he restructured the loan to Solyndra to protect him in the case that the fast track loan failed–which it did. George Kaiser invested millions of dollars in Solyndra and he convinced Barack Obama to invest $500 million of our money in Solyndra. Under the terms of the stimulus bill, if a company which received stimulus money went belly up the American taxpayers would have first priority when it came to recouping loses, but Barack Obama restructured the loan and now if any money is ever recouped from this defunct company the first payments will go to the man who “convinced” Barack Obama to give Solyndra the money.

  George Kaiser made sure that if anything happened to Solyndra he would be protected, and Barack Obama went right along with him. There is no doubt that Kaiser–who was invested in Solyndra–had an interest in that company’s survival, so it is unsurprising that he would want to help the failing company along with taxpayer dollars. He got more than just taxpayer dollars to prop up a company he was invested in, he got the assurance from the White House that his investment would be somewhat protected. And he got that assurance from Barack Obama at the sacrifice of the American taxpayer–is this what Barack Obama means by shared sacrifice?

  This is crony capitalism at is worst.