Free Republic

Out of the hundreds of out-of-work employees, vendors, investors and other creditors in the bankruptcy of government-backed solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC, one name stands out: the California Democratic Party. Why California Democrats would be creditor to a company that received more than a half-billion dollars in federal loans to build a solar-panel plant isn’t clear. Even party officials say they’re not sure. The California Democratic Party’s communications director, Tenoch Flores, said the organization was not owed “any funds in any form” by the California-based company. He said he was unclear why the party would be listed as a creditor in...

Before he became Solyndra's chief financial officer, Wilbur G. Stover was at the center of one of the largest price-fixing scandals in U.S. history. From 1994 to 2007, Stover was CFO of Micron Technologies Inc., a maker of computer memory chips. During that time, the Justice Department investigated Micron and four other companies for colluding to drive up the price of memory in violation of federal antitrust laws. "This was a big deal case," said Robert Lande, a law professor at Baltimore University who has written extensively on the case. "It was price-fixing on a crucial component that everybody uses,...

Solyndra might be bankrupt, but their website is still up: From the President's speech in 2010: Every day that you build this expanded facility, as you fill orders for solar panels to ship around the world, you’re demonstrating that the promise of clean energy isn’t just an article of faith -- not anymore. It’s not some abstract possibility for science fiction movies or a distant future -- 10 years down the road or 20 years down the road. It’s happening right now. The future is here.