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Solyndra: The $535 Million Green Energy Potemkin Village

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Monday, 12 September 2011 12:50

First off, hat tip to conservative radio talk show host and constitutional lawyer Mark Levin, as he came up with the accurate Potemkin village comparison.  By now, a great deal of information has been released regarding the political scandal about Solyndra, the green energy company that received $535 billion in phony stimulus funding.  This boondoggle has the potential to be President Obama's next Watergate, following the under reported "Fast and Furious" gun mess.  The issue is simple: all indications suggest that Solyndra was politically connected to the White House, where more than 19 visits occurred, including one with Obama himself.  This has been a green energy facade.

Here are some additional details from The Wall Street Journal:

"Solyndra was once a leading light, if you will, of the Obama Administration's signature "green jobs" dreams. The Energy Department signed off on the loan guarantee under a George W. Bush-era law, and the Federal Financing Bank, a unit of the Treasury Department, also provided a loan with a 1.025% quarterly interest rate. A parade of Administration officials praised the investment, including President Obama, who said in a speech last year at the company's Fremont headquarters that 'companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future.'

Solyndra never did turn a profit and laid off employees in November. But in February the company renegotiated its loan guarantee—with a hitch. Under the new agreement, Solyndra's investors would loan the company $75 million but be first in line on repayment in the event of bankruptcy, in front of taxpayers.

One of Solyndra's biggest backers is the George Kaiser Family Foundation, whose namesake is an Oklahoma oilman who bundled campaign contributions from multiple sources for Mr. Obama's 2008 campaign."

Solyndra produced solar panels and filed for bankruptcy on August 31.  Reports from low-level employees, as such on Mark Levin's show last week, indicate the company should have filed for bankruptcy months ago, but refrained from doing so because the company had been touted so frequently by the Obama White House as a green energy and stimulus success story.  However, there was talk that the company never possessed the superior technology needed to compete with competitors in China and, most importantly, Solyndra knew this.  The result is a black eye for the White House and millions of taxpayers' dollars wasted.

The company was weak to begin with, but that didn't stop Solyndra from receiving loans.  The FBI raided company offices last week to seize documents.  The potential impact of this is substantial.  It's our belief the unknown circumstances - such as the fact that the product had not been tested yet and that the Chinese had already cut the price on their technology - were known and the White House had planned for these details to eventually come to light, but not until after Obama's re-election campaign, which would make the situation almost irrelevant.  Our conclusion is based on the culture of corruption that resides in the White House, as well as Obama's extreme liberal ideology, which is heavily focused on the green movement.  Solyndra was a way for Obama to keep his radical environmental base off of his back.

The Potemkin village connection is straight forward.  In the Soviet Union,  the government used these to fool foreign visitors of just how prosperous their country was.  When reporters were permitted into the country - escorted by secret police - cities and towns looked normal from the outside, as if Communism was working beautifully and equal to all citizens.  But behind these Potemkin villages was the truth: devastation and poverty.  They were intended to mislead reporters about the benefits of Communism.  It was all a lie.

Solyndra is a green energy Potemkin village.  It was the fake success story of the green movement.  On the outside, they had President Obama touting their technology and the benefits of the phony stimulus package.  On the inside, however, was a company that had unproven technology that wasn't financially sound, but they at least had a political connection to the White House and the green message.

If the green movement isn't working here, shouldn't other countries, which are pouring in billions of dollars into their infrastructure to "go green", ask the obvious question?: if the green movement doesn't work in America, is there any chance it will work anywhere else?  We know the answer to that and the realization won't come until billions of dollars have been wasted.  The bigger question is, how many other Solyndra's are there that have such deep political connections to the Obama administration?

Chuck Justice is the editor-in-chief for Habledash.