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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (665195)	8/2/2012 3:06:15 PM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 1572958

With Romney as president the US will not sell out itself to Russia, the muslims, and other enemies. Lefties tremble at that idea.

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (665195)	8/2/2012 3:15:06 PM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 1572958

Emails: Solyndra took sales pitch directly to Obama ‘Getting business from Uncle Sam’ was key for company By Jim McElhatton - The Washington Times Finances had become so dire at Solyndra in the spring of 2010 as President Obama toured the federally-backed solar panel maker in California that company officials began viewing the government not just as a lender but as a customer big enough to lift the company out of a growing financial hole, according to documents. “Getting business from Uncle Sam is a principal element of Solyndra’s channel strategy,” one investor wrote in an email months after Mr. Obama’s May 2010 tour of the now-bankrupt company, according details of an investigative report Thursday by Republicans on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The now bankrupt company’s founder, Chris Gronet, “spoke very openly to Obama about the need for installation of Solyndra’s rooftop solar panels on U.S. government buildings,” Tom Baruch, founder of CMEA Capital, an investor, wrote to another Solyndra official. “I heard Obama actually promise Chris he would look into it when he got back to Washington,” the email continued. “The point is that the government has to pay for energy no matter what. The capital funding to deploy a lot of rooftop solar on government buildings (say $300 million) just falls off the table in Washington anyway.” The report chronicles Solyndra’s rapid decline, noting that when discussions about a second government loan fell through, the company saw government contracts as a way to stay afloat. The report also says the White House had been told about the company’s shaky finances. Even when Solyndra closed on a more than $500 million loan in September 2009, the company was scrambling to get more loan money, according to the report. “The Bank of Washington continues to help us,” Mr. Gronet wrote in an email to a colleague after the loan deal. But privately, at least one investor was concerned, writing in an email that while Solyndra won a loan of more than $500 million, it had revenues of less than $100 million and wasn’t yet profitable: “… while that’s good for us, I can’t imagine it’s a good way for the government to use taxpayer money…” All the while, officials both in the government and company were publicly praising Solyndra’s prospects. Last year, The Washington Times reported that months before Solyndra’s collapse, former Department of Energy official Jonathan Silver was insisting that the company was headed in the right direction. “This is a company that doubled their revenues and essentially doubled them again, year over year,” he said in an April 2011 interview with SNL Renewable Energy Weekly, a trade publication. But the congressional report paints a different picture, noting that during the same month, the former chief financial officer for the DOE, Steve Isakowitz, had emailed a colleague about a meeting he had with Mr. Silver about a report from Solyndra’s auditors on the company’s shaky finances. While Mr. Silver noted the filing was “expected”, Mr. Isakowitz wrote, “he admitted his monitoring is currently inadequate so he wouldn’t know if things were indeed deteriorating.” Meanwhile, the White House pushed back Thursday against the Republicans’ findings. A White House spokesman, Eric Schultz, said the “215,000 pages of documents, 14 committee staff briefings, five congressional hearings, 72,000 pages from Solyndra investors and committee interview with George Kaiser affirms what we said on day one: This was a merit-based decision made by the Department of Energy.” He said Republicans won’t say how much the investigation has cost taxpayers and should be focused on legislation to create jobs and grow the economy. washingtontimes.com