Solargate: The Department of Energy urged Solyndra to hold off a layoff announcement until after the 2010 midterm election

  As regular readers of this blog already know, Barack Obama–in the interest of giving Joe Biden a backdrop for announcing the Obama regime’s “green initiative” policy–fast tracked a $500 million stimulus loan to the troubled “green” company Solyndra. It was well known within the regime that this was a very risky proposition, and President Bush had rejected a similar request from Solyndra because of these risks, so the Obama regime promptly changed the stimulus loan guidelines to protect investors in the company–who happened to be Democrat donors–instead of the taxpayers who were footing the bill in the event that Solyndra went bankrupt.

  To the amazement of nobody, Solyndra did in fact file for bankruptcy earlier this year and if there wasn’t enough proof that the Obama regime was putting politics–in the form of its “green initiatives” policies–ahead of the American taxpayers when it agreed to restructure the loan, this story should provide the necessary proof that Barack Obama cared more about achieving political success than ensuring the taxpayers money went to good use.

  As I alluded to above, Solyndra was in trouble from the get go but that didn’t stop Barack Obama from approving a loan for pure political reasons at the sacrifice of the proper review procedure, and we are just now beginning to learn how troubled the company was at the time the loan was approved.

  Shortly after receiving their $500 million taxpayer funded windfall Solyndra informed the Department of Energy that it would have to lay off some of its employees if the company did not receive additional emergency funds. This was late in October of 2010, shortly before the midterm elections, but Solyndra was “urged” to hold off making the announcement until November 3rd of 2010:

DOE continues to be cooperative and have indicated that they will fund the November draw on our loan (app. $40 million) but have not committed to December yet,” a Solyndra investor adviser wrote Oct. 30. “They did push very hard for us to hold our announcement of the consolidation to employees and vendors to Nov. 3rd – oddly they didn’t give a reason for that date

  Solyndra complied with the “request” and did not announce the layoffs until November 3rd even though the Obama regime did not give the company a reason for the delay request. So what possible motive could the Obama regime have for “requesting” a delay of about a week in the announcement of layoffs within the company which was to be the poster boy for the Obama regime’s “green” initiative policy?

  By a remarkable coincidence November 2nd just happened to be the date of the midterm elections that saw the Republicans swept into power in the House in what Barack Obama himself called a “shellacking.” And it seems more than evident that the Department of Energy did not want the layoff announcement to come before the midterm election in the hopes that Democrats would somehow hold onto power.

  Barack Obama authorized the stimulus loan to Solyndra for political reasons and when it became clear to the regime that Solyndra was not solvent (this should have been known before the loan, all the warning signs were there) Barack Obama’s first thought was not with the taxpayers, it was not with the American people, and it was not with the people who were going to be losing their jobs; Barack Obama’s first thought was about politics, and how he could minimize his loses on election day and I find this to be reprehensible to say the least.