Posted on 09/18/2011 9:51:02 AM PDT by KeyLargo
Obama's Solyndra scandal reeks of the Chicago Way
Those of us from Chicago know exactly what the Solyndra scandal smells like. And It doesn't smell fresh and green.
John Kass
September 18, 2011
The Solyndra scandal cost at least a half-billion public dollars. It is plaguing President Barack Obama. And it's being billed as a Washington story.
But back in Obama's political hometown, those of us familiar with the Chicago Way can see something else in Solyndra — something that the Washington crowd calls "optics." In fact, it's not just a Washington saga — it has all the elements of a Chicago City Hall story, except with more zeros.
The FBI is investigating what happened with Solyndra, a solar panel company that got a $535 million government-backed loan with the help of the Obama White House over the objections of federal budget analysts.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden got a nice photo op. They got to make speeches about being "green." But then Solyndra went bankrupt. Americans lost jobs. Taxpayers got stuck with the bill. And members of Congress are now in high dudgeon and making speeches.
Federal investigators want to know what role political fundraising played in the guarantee of the questionable loan. Washington bureaucrats warned the deal was lousy. And White House spokesmen flail desperately, like weakened victims in a cheesy vampire movie.
So forget optics. What about smell? It smells bad, and it's going to smell worse.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
In my opinion this is going to take Obama down. Not because it is worse than smuggling guns across the border to Mexico, but because the left will grab onto it as an excuse to abandon Obama.
They are not wedded to the man, they are wedded to the idea of progressivism or socialism or communism. Just as the Soviet apologists used to say that communism never failed in the USSR because it was never tried, since Stalin took things ino another direction, the American left has to jettison Obama so they can say that true progressivism never was tried in the US. The easiest way to do that is to assail him for buddying up with billionaires and giving financial benefits to his supporters, since that is straight-up corruption by anyone’s definition.
I understand that John Kass is a conservative (I’m from Chicago and used to read him when I used to read the Tribune),and I am speaking more generally here about my prediction that this story is going to have legs.
I still don’t expect Obama to resign or to decline to run for re-election. I think he will torch the Democrat party to stay in office and seek vindication for his socialist agenda.
If you ask me (and I know you didn’t), I think the thing that has got him so depressed and enraged is that he grew up believing in the Cloward-Piven strategy, which argues that if we overload the system then the people will come running to the government for help and a socialist system can be imposed. Instead, it turns out that Obama “misunderestimated” the American people, who are calling instead for the jackboot of government to be lifted off of our necks. He can’t accept that, because that is the absolute strategic core of everything he has believed since young adulthood.
They are not wedded to the man,...
The left is extremely utilitarian, like the devil. If they could jettison the big O and increase their odds of moving their agenda, then Obama will be toast, today. But the left is, indeed, wedded to Obam and this divorce will be ugly. I bet a donut that more that half the black voters will stay home on election day if Obama leaves office under pressure.
” Instead, it turns out that Obama “misunderestimated” the American people, who are calling instead for the jackboot of government to be lifted off of our necks. “ <<<
We hope you are right and that the Tea Party focuses on the singular theme that rocketed them to political power, that being the fiscal overeach that uncovered turns out to include outright corruption. If this same theme can remain the leading issue and the sole banner of the TP then even democrats will join us. However, I am afraid democrats will want to be for Romney. Dare I whisper that? Rick Perry will have to appeal to the Hispanic voters and at some point to the eastern Republicans to offset the mutiny ready democrats who are done with Obama. Congressional democrats looked like deer in headlights on Sunday talk shows. If they can’t get Obama to go away so they can beg Hillary to run, they may put her up at the convention. Then, all bets are off. Whaduhya think?
When I refer to the Left I am not referring to black voters. They voted for Obama as a racial thing and will not be moved away from their love of the man by something as pedestrian as his abject failure to improve the United States in any way.
I think we will see more and more criticisms of Obama, though, during the tail end of his reign and after. When many on our side crow that progressivism has been buried, just as we did after the fall of the Soviet Union, the rejoinder will be that it never has been tested.
Still, I have been in discussion on another thread about Bill Clinton/James Carville’s agenda in stepping up their criticism of Obama and his administration. I haven’t been able to figure out what that is about, nor have I seen any worthwhile theories. Maybe he simply is trying to get off the Titanic before it sinks.
I don't think so. Actually, the Party Propaganda Ministry would never have published any article or headline with the name "Solyndra" in it without the approval from The Won and his minions.
Piranha wrote:
In my opinion this is going to take Obama down. Not because it is worse than smuggling guns across the border to Mexico, but because the left will grab onto it as an excuse to abandon Obama.
The administration is confident that the FBI has locked up or destroyed any evidence tying this administration to any scandal with Solyndra. The media is covering this because Issa and Upton will not find anything when they investigate. This is a diversion from Fast and Furious and other scandals.
I hope the FBI missed something, or that something will come out later, but I'm not confident that will happen.
The fact that the Washington Post and the LA Times have had articles about Solyndra is an indication of their confidence that any evidence of wrongdoing has been destroyed or hidden.
I don’t think there will be a serious proposal at the convention to put up Hillary. I don’t think she would do it, and I don’t think they want to risk estrangement from the black population that has been so loyal to the Democrats since the 1960s.
At most there could be some “young Turk” who wants to make a national name for himself by running against Obama, but I don’t expect this to happen, either. I think we are watching the sinking of the Titanic (the Obama administration and the Democrats’ prospects for 2012). It’s big and slow, but it is irreversible. Check mate.
Of course, this is only a prediction, so is worth absolutely nothing.
If you watch the way that the Democrats are responding to Solyndra, and the nature of the reporting even in the mainstream media, it certainly appears that the Democrats have found themselves forced to defend the indefensible.
I think this is the end not only of the Obama administration but also of massive federal (and eventually state) subsidies of green energy and green jobs.
Reasonable minds may differ.
“I bet a donut that more that half the black voters will stay home on election day if Obama leaves office under pressure.”
I doubt that.
They will be not “be staying home”. There will be plenty of activities for them to be doing on the street.
The riots that will have started after either Obama is forced out, (doubt that), or loses the election will still be ongoing with cities in flames.
Bloomberg knows something.
“Bloomberg: Economy Woes Will Lead to ‘Riots’”
Obama would not have kept FBI Director Mueller for another two years if Obama was not certain that Mueller would do his bidding.
President Barack Obama on Tuesday signed a bill that effectively extends FBI Director Robert Mueller’s ten-year term by two years, allowing Mueller to serve until Sept. 2013.
7/26/2011
” Of course, this is only a prediction, so is worth absolutely nothing. “ <<<<
If Dick Durbin’s expression this morning was any indication, then your prediction is likely to be
spot on. I’m with you. And Hillary does Revenge Served Cold better than anybody. She will let the Dems sink in their own betrayals. She may even smirk. :)
What did Durbin say today?
That shows the level of corruption in government even before Obama brought in his cohort.
Mueller has been one of the most compliant senior governmental officials in the Obama administration.
Sadly, I wonder whether the FBI took the Solyndra files out of their facilities in order to sanitize them before they are turned over to Congress or to an independent investigator, or at least to hold them and control which parts of them are turned over to investigators.
“Mueller was a Bush admin. appointee.”
So?
Powell was at one time the darling of the Bush Administration and appointed by Bush as Secretary of State.
During the Clinton administration, Attorney General Janet Reno asked Mueller to replace U.S. Attorney Michael Yamaguchi in San Francisco.
“Mueller was a Bush admin. appointee.”
So?
Powell was at one time the darling of the Bush Administration and appointed by Bush as Secretary of State.
But, like the Chicago way, most of it will be swept under the rug, and the blame will be placed on a bunch of minor players while the real culprits will get away scott-free and rich.
Wow, pretty bad if even in CHICAGO they are calling Obama out on playing it the “Chicago Way.”
Don’t these people have ANY shame??
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