Screwed Again

Hello all,

What a shame it is that common sense thinking people in this country get a label slapped on them. Now, we have heard it many times in the past but once again the tea party members are a bunch of “racists”. That’s right, us members are nothing more than a militant splinter group representing “whitey”. If you listen to the mainstream media, or liberals, all tea party members are good ole southern boys, flying the Confederate rebel flag from their flagpoles. Funny thing happened last week though. Herman Cain won the Republican Presidential straw poll in Florida. Cain has been portrayed in the media as one of the tea party backed Presidential Candidates. Folks, just so you understand, let me review. A black man, from Georgia, won the Republican Presidential straw poll in Florida (a Southern State), and this man was backed by the tea party. I’m having a bit of difficulty connecting the dots that claim the tea party is a bunch of racists. Now wait a minute, it gets more confusing, check this out; fresh off of Herman Cain’s win in Florida, the Congressional Black Caucus was held, where several members described Herman Cain as an “Oreo” (black on the outside white on the inside). Some described him as “someone who needs to find his identity”. What? Now that’s offensive. Who is being racist here? This is 2011 people; color must not be in the forefront. Choose someone who best represents your ideals and visions of our country’s future. Enough said!

Speaking of color let me say a few words about “green”. Yes, that’s right, I’m talking about Solyndra. The California solar panel company that has gone belly-up, leaving us taxpayers on the hook for $535 million. The Obama administration gave Solyndra a $535 million loan back in 2009. This was even after several members on the House and Energy Commission warned against it. Under the Bush administration, the Department of Energy rejected Solyndra for a loan in early 2009, worrying that the company didn’t have good long-term prospects. Yet only two months later, Obama’s newly appointed Energy Secretary Steven Chu, announced the government would give the company a $535 million loan, funded with money from the stimulus. Last year, government accountability investigators criticized the white house for scheduling a groundbreaking at a Solyndra plant before the Energy Department had even finished filing the paperwork. At issue are two things. One, emails obtained by the Center for Public Integrity shows that white house officials asked the Department of Energy to make a decision on the Solyndra loan so that they would know weather they could schedule President Obama for a visit to the facility to publicize the loan. Republicans say this is evidence that the white house pressured the Energy Department, or used undue influence, to approve the loan before they knew whether it was a good bet. The second issue is once the loan went through, the administration ignored warning signs that the company was failing and then refinanced the loan in a way that left taxpayers twisting in the wind. A few days before the groundbreaking on the new Solyndra facility in September 2009, a Department of Energy official completed an analysis that concluded the company would run out of cash by September 2011, a forecast that turned out to be right on the mark. But it wasn’t until last February that the government decided that Solyndra was about to default, and refinanced the company’s original loan with the help of $75 million from private investors. As part of the deal, the government agreed that if Solyndra ever went bankrupt, it would have to pay back the $ 75 million to investors first, ahead or disbursing any money to the taxpayers. In other words, we get screwed again. I suspect we will not see that $535 million but I bet the private investors get theirs.

To tip it all off, I heard that the Department of Energy has approved four more solar energy loans worth nearly $5 billion, just hours before the administration’s loan program expired. Common sense would dictate that the administration stop this loan program until it has some sort of safeguard in place to ensure this never happens again. I guess that makes too much damn sense. Rep. Cliff Sterns, R-FLA, Chairman of a House Energy subcommittee had this to say. “In a last minute mad dash to beat the stimulus deadline, DOE (Dept of Energy) rushed out an unprecedented tidal wave of taxpayers dollars- and the question still remains, where are the jobs? American taxpayers are already on the hook for half a billion dollars for the sins of Solyndra. What surprises does the DOE have in store from this rush job?”

All right folks, that’s it. It’s getting late and I have to go outside and take my Confederate flag down from the flagpole. Join us at www.peopleofliberty.com and let Mike and I know what you think.

Until next time

Rodney