President Barack Obama likes; as a matter of fact he heartily
approves of it and has become a practitioner of it as well. Our
current president is a "crony capitalist".
"Crony Capitalism" is defined as giving the taxpayers' money
to one's political pals in exchange for getting some of that
money back at election time so one can fund one's campaign
for re-election. There has been an awful lot of that taking
place in these United States in recent years. It is the extension
of the old favor-swapping arrangement of "you scratch my
back and I'll scratch yours", taking it to staggering new lows.
Take Solyndra, a solar power company in California which
sought a loan from the Obama "green jobs" program. This
program was created to move our country toward a
supposedly cleaner industrial framework and enviornment,
leaving a smaller "carbon footprint" and all that enviro-
jazz, as well as to create lots of jobs for people who were
displaced from their erstwhile employment in The Great
Recession. The shortcuts to getting the loan approved
boggle the mind.
The White House leaned on the Office of Management
and Budget (OMB) in August 2009, in Obama's first year
as president, to approve Solyndra's $530 million loan so
that Obama could enhance his enviornmental program.
Some OMB analysts protested that such pressure would
affect the due dilligence with which the loan was being
reviewed. Obama wanted to arrange the loan for Solyndra
in early 2009 despite many internal warnings that Solyndra
could be financially unstable, according to internal e-mails.
The e-mails reveal that the Department of Energy (DOE)
was told by the Treasury Department that its refinancing
arrangement in early 2011 for the loan might be improper
and should be cleared with the Department of Justice (DOJ).
On August 17, 2011 Mary Miller, Assistant Treasury
Secretary, stated in a memo to OMB Deputy Chief
Jeffrey Zients that six months earlier that the Treasury
requested in writing that the DOE seek the DOJ's
approval of any proposed restructuring, but "to their
knowledge that never happened."
Steven J. Spinner, an Obama fundraiser hired to help
oversee the administration's energy loan program
badgered DOE officials to hasten approval of the
Solyndra loan, even as his wife's law firm was
engaged to represent Solyndra (!) according to the
e-mails, which were sent less than two weeks after
Spinner received a 3-page ethics contract in which
he pledged to "not participate in any discussion re:
any application involving his wife's law firm,
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich Rosati."
Jay Carney, White House Press Secretary, claimed
that as far as the White House knew, Spinner had no
input on the green loans portion of Obama's enviorn-
mental program. However, e-mails prove that Spinner
was in contact not only with Obama, but with Vice
President Biden and even Solyndra's Vice President
of Marketing!
By the by, Solyndra recently went bankrupt, leaving
over 1,000 employees without jobs. So much for Obama's
plans for "green jobs" to put people to work; will the
rest of his program produce similar results?
Your favorite Peasant wants to state for the record
that if a Republican administration behaved in this
manner the Democrats, the media, and so-called
public-interest groups would be demanding an
congressional investigation followed by a
veritable flogging of the accused. But since
this is a Democrat administration --- with
The Annointed One at the helm --- the Dems
and their pals ask "What's all the fuss?" Once
again, the liberal establishment double standard
goes into effect; since they are superior to the rest
of us, the Great Unwashed, the mindless masses,
the ignorant peasants, they get an automatic free pass
on whatever they want to do. You see, it's for our
own good, or so they expect us to believe. We
cannot question them and their motives; we must
acknowledge our place and bow low before them
in obedience and deference because they are so
much smarter, more moral, simply greater than we
simple folk.
Ah, the arrogance of power! This corrupt administration
bears out the admonition of Lord Acton, a British
statesman of long ago: "Power corrupts; absolute
power corrupts absolutely." It's time to take away
Obama's power. Regime change in 2012!
MEM
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