Solyndra: The latest Friday Night Document Dump

If nothing else, I'll say I'm slightly surprised at the degree to which the mainstream media - Washington Post and ABC - is covering the Solyndra scandal. The latest news involves a Friday night document dump that shows someone by the name of Steve Spinner may have had a significant conflict of interest at a time when he was leaning hard on the Office of Management and Budget as a 'stimulus adviser' for the Department of Energy (DOE). It looks like he was applying pressure to OMB at the behest of the White House. The conflict of interest? His wife worked for Wilson Sonsini, the law firm retained by Solyndra to represent the company during its application for the loan. Spinner apparently did not recuse himself until after he was done with the heavy lifting.

Via WAPO:

The records provided Friday by a government source also show that an Energy Department stimulus adviser, Steve Spinner, pushed for Solyndra’s loan despite having recused himself because his wife’s law firm did work for the company. Spinner, who left the agency in September 2010, did not respond to requests for comment Friday.

The documents offer new evidence of wide disagreement between officials at the Energy Department and officials at the Treasury Department and Office of Management and Budget, where questions were raised about the carefulness of the loan vetting process used to select Solyndra and the special help it was given as its finances deteriorated. Energy Department officials continued to make loan payments to the company even after it had defaulted on the terms of its loan.

The Solyndra controversy has escalated with each new release of documents to a Republican-led House energy subcommittee investigating the matter. President Obama defended the Energy Department in a news conference Thursday, saying its decisions were made by career professionals. Also Thursday, the head of the embattled loan program announced that he would step down, although Energy Department officials said he was not doing so because of the Solyndra matter.

As Republican committee leaders moved to get more information about warnings from Treasury and the OMB, an Energy spokesman, Damien LaVera, said agency officials had listened to Treasury’s advice to consult the Justice Department on the loan restructuring but felt it was appropriate to move forward.

“Ultimately, DOE’s determination that the restructuring was legal was made by career lawyers in the loan program based on a careful analysis of the statute,” he said.

I found it interesting that exactly one week after the White House released documents that made Attorney General Eric Holder look very bad relative to his role in Fast and Furious, another document dump takes place that looks DOJ look pretty good while making the White House look conspicuously bad.

The e-mails show that Mary Miller, an assistant Treasury secretary, wrote to Jeffrey D. Zients, deputy OMB director, expressing concern. She said that the deal could violate federal law because it put investors’ interests ahead of taxpayers’ and that she had advised that it should be reviewed by the Justice Department.

“To our knowledge that never happened,” Miller wrote in a Aug. 17, 2011, memo to the OMB.

Not saying there's anything conspiratorial at work here but it is interesting that last week, DOJ looks very bad after the Fast and Furious Friday night dump and this week, it's the White House that looks bad while DOJ is portrayed as the entity that attempted to do everything above board.

Earlier this year, Solyndra appeared to double down on its shady behavior when it solicited the investment of Obama donor George Kaiser, who apparently demanded access to Solyndra assets before taxpayers already on the hook, if bankruptcy ensued. In essence, the loan you and I are responsible for granting to Solyndra was subordinated to Kaiser's loan.

There's more. Remember last month when Rahm Emanuel told WLS radio in Chicago that he didn't 'remember' or 'know' anything about Solyndra? That assertion isn't supported by the facts:

In an Aug. 19, 2009, e-mail, an aide to then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel asked Spinner if he could discuss any concerns among the investment community about Solyndra.

Spinner dismissed the idea that Solyndra had financial problems.

“I haven’t heard anything negative on my side,” he said.

A day after a discussion about possible problems at Solyndra, Spinner forwarded to the chief of staff’s aide a list of Solyndra’s main investors and attached a published profile of Kaiser.

As if you needed another reason to think less of Rahm Emanuel.

Read it all.

Shocker! Ron Paul Voters Suspected of Stuffing Straw Poll Ballot Box

Really, what election cycle would be complete without reports that the Ron Pauliens stacked the deck in another poll? It doesn't matter if it's an online poll, straw poll, or any other kind of poll. You can bet that if Ron Paul's name is on it, his supporters will vote as often as the system will let them. It's as if they so desperately want him to win an election that they think he'll be able to do it through straw poll osmosis. Remember, many of the Pauliens are 9/11 Truthers so we can only guess what their motivations are but it seems to be that if they think straw poll ballot boxes get stuffed enough, others will take notice and give Paul more credibility. The problem is that the Pauliens' reputation precedes them to the point that they've actually torpedoed any credibility they would deserve if Ron Paul truly did well.

Via CBS News:

Rep. Ron Paul scored a decisive victory Saturday in a mock presidential election at the Values Voter Summit, trouncing fellow Texan, Gov. Rick Perry, but an organizer of the straw poll suggested ballot-stuffing may have skewed the results.

In a press conference following the announcement of the straw poll results at the annual Washington gathering of social conservatives, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins all but dismissed the results as irrelevant, citing 600 people who registered Saturday morning and, he said, "left after Ron Paul spoke."

A total of 1,983 ballots were cast. "You do the math," Perkins said.

A year ago in the same contest, Paul came in second-to-last. Speaking briefly with reporters before the straw poll results were announced, the Republican lawmaker said, "If I win, it wouldn't be as important to the media than if I lose."

Paul has a history of scoring unlooked-for straw poll wins by packing the electorate with diehard supporters. But Perkins said it's too early to take much away from Paul's win. "Let me just take you back four years to this event, when we had a straw poll. Mitt Romney won that straw poll," he said. "I think people are still in the process of deciding where they want to go."

Paul got 37 percent of the vote. The rest of the ballots showed how widely social conservatives support is splintered among the rest of the field.

We take calls from Pauliens and they truly have a one-track mind. It's truly fascinating to witness but it's like dealing with aggressive flies. They so desperately want to recruit you to their side that they're willing to incessantly pester you until you take the leap. Unfortunately for them, their tactics have the opposite effect. They make you reach for the fly swatter.

h/t Hapblog

Video: Progressive Talk Show Host Outed as Putin Apparatchik

If you're familiar with talk radio, you probably know the name Thom Hartmann. He is a 'progressive' talk show host who survived the Air America disaster. More recently, in addition to his radio show, Hartmann has a television program that airs on Russia Today. Cliff Kincaid of USA Survival attended the Van Jones-led 'Rebuild the Dream' movement that took place from October 3-5. Before we get to Kincaid's encounter with Jones, take a look at his exchange with Hartmann. Kincaid basically gets the 'progressive' talker to admit that his show is being partially funded by the Putin regime. Hartmann's reaction when he realizes he'd been exposed as a communist apparatchik? Well, he does what any communist sympathizer would do once he's been found out. He covered the camera and then got away as fast as possible.

Via USA Survival:



Kincaid then relays an encounter he had with Van Jones when the former presented Jones with a copy of the STORM manifesto. I wish this one was on video but I don't see it:

During another embarrassing incident, Van Jones refused to sign a copy of his Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM) manifesto when asked to autograph it. “No thank you,” he sternly said, before asking “Who are you,” looking at my name badge, and walking away to the next adoring crowd of Van Jones groupies. Jones, a “former” communist, is the new face of the progressive movement that is backing the “Occupation Wall Street” protests and is trying to guarantee President Obama a second term. He was fired as Obama’s “green jobs czar” when the truth about his extremist background and statements started to emerge in reports by blogger Trevor Loudon and then Glenn Beck on Fox News.

There is another video Kincaid posts from the event. Here, he's talking with communist Don Rojas, former press secretary for Maurice Bishop, the Prime Minister of Greneda before the US invaded the island. Notice at the end, Kincaid asks Rojas about his ability to get funding from the Open Society Institute (OSI). OSI is a George Soros outfit.



One of the downsides to the fall of the Soviet Union is that the awareness it brought to Americans about how evil communism is. Oh, and the purpose for this 'Rebuild the Dream' conference was, in part, to show solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street zombies.

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