Another Obama Solar Company Goes Bankrupt …Taxpayers Lose $2 BILLION?

A California solar energy company that was unable to meet a deadline for an Energy Department loan guarantee last year has sought bankruptcy protection in Delaware.

Solar Trust of America’s Chapter 11 filing on Monday listed assets between $1 million and $10 million, and liabilities between $10 million and $50 million.

The filing comes amid the ongoing controversy surrounding Solyndra, a solar firm that received a half-billion dollar federal loan and was touted by the Obama administration before declaring bankruptcy last year.

At the same link you’ll find the text of an April 19, 2011 article reporting, “The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded a $2.1 billion loan guarantee to Solar Trust of America for a solar thermal power plant near Blythe, Calif.”

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*green companies taking federal subsidies and/or loan guarantees going bankrupt.

The left-leaning daily in our nation’s capital is finally reporting on an Obama administration scandal, but do wonder if they are doing so deliberately on a day when most people aren’t paying much attention to the news.

At least they do report how “infused” the green technology program was “at every level“:

Meant to create jobs and cut reliance on foreign oil, Obama’s green-technology program was infused with politics at every level, The Washington Post found in an analysis of thousands of memos, company records and internal ­e-mails. Political considerations were raised repeatedly by company investors, Energy Department bureaucrats and White House officials.

The records, some previously unreported, show that when warned that financial disaster might lie ahead, the administration remained steadfast in its support for Solyndra.

Via Instapundit.

Bruce alerts me to a tweet from Michael Johns, “Remember when Biden said they used to call @joncorzine for advice?”

“The reason why we called Jon,” the Vice President said (at about 0:44 above), “is that we knew he knew about the economy, about world markets, about how we had to respond unlike anyone we knew.”  Later, the Delaware Democrat reports (at 2:00) that they talked with Corzine a “long time about what the elements of a national package should be.”

Indeed, Biden wanted to start a mantra about where “Jon was right.”  Doesn’t look like the defeated Democrat of a pretty blue state was right about this: MF Global Trustee Says Shortfall Could Exceed $1.2 Billion. According to the New York Times,

The amount of customer money missing from the collapsed trading firm MF Global may be more than $1.2 billion — double previous estimates — the trustee dismantling the firm’s brokerage unit said on Monday.

. . . .

Regulators currently suspect that MF Global — at the time run by Jon S. Corzine, the former Democratic governor of New Jersey — improperly used customer money for its own purposes in the days before filing for Chapter 11 protection on Oct. 31.

Well, $1 billion is chump change to the Obama-Biden Democrats whose failed “stimulus” cost the country about 800 times that.   Can you imagine how much coverage the above clip would get if a top Republican had said this about a fellow partisan who led his company into a (possibly) billion-dollar bankruptcy?

Well, now we’re getting a better idea of what the “stimulus” failed; just look at the economic knowhow of some of the folk who designed it.

There are many things I would rather blog about than the Herman Cain proposal.  Newt Gingrich delivered a stellar performance in his debate with Herman Cain.  Mitt Romney released a bold plan to tackle federal spending, confront the debt and reform entitlements.  And yet the media have turned the coverage of the candidate into a circus.  So, we blog to put such sensationalism into context.

Barack Obama has been president for two-and-three-quarters years and we still don’t know the specifics of his plan to confront the debt — or reform entitlements.  Meanwhile, his White House stonewalls on Solyndra, refusing to provide documents requested by Congress.  And it’s not just Solyndra.  The White House won’t “cough up requested info” about other troubled companies receiving federal loans.

Now, we read that the White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley is turning

over day-to-day management of the West Wing to Pete Rouse, a veteran aide to President Obama, according to several people familiar with the matter. It is unusual for a White House chief of staff to relinquish part of the job.

Emphasis added.  ”Congressional Democrats,” reports Will Rahn

had criticized Daley, a former commerce secretary under President Clinton, for what some described as his imperfect understanding of the legislative branch, and his tense relationship with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. This stood in marked contrast to his predecessor, Rahm Emanuel, a former Democratic congressman who is now Mayor of Chicago.

This is pretty big news, yet on Memeorandum, in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, it is relegated to the middle of the page far below the stories on Herman Cain’s accuser. (more…)