One of the things that makes the Solyndra scandal, where President Obama threw millions of dollars of taxpayer money away in a shady deal with campaign contributors — wittingly or not — so maddening is that people don’t need solar panels as much as they need jobs. And you won’t create nearly enough jobs via green energy schemes. Even if they are on the up and up, they would only provide ancillary benefits at this time to our economy. We need industry producing real everyday basic products people need to sustain life.
Eventually, some of these green things will catch on, but I do not see how in and of themselves they can produce the economic input we need to keep our economy healthy.
It appears that the Obama administration got taken on the Solyndra thing, funding the company $527 million and then seeing it go belly up — where was the due diligence the Obama administration accused (and rightly so) the Wall Street bankers of not using that started this whole mess in 2008?
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ADD 1:
Reports indicate that it was feared inside the Obama administration that something might be wrong with Solyndra even as the president was touting it to the public. You know, this is not good.
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As Gene Burns said last night on his KGO, San Francisco, radio talk show: it’s things like this that have given rise to and have seen the rapid ascent of the Tea Party (and he is no fan of the Tea Party, but admires their political initiative and wonders why those of other persuasions are not so active, or at least that is my interpretation of what he has said).
Worse yet, the word is now that there are more Solyndra type scandals out there.
The public is fed up with on the one hand being told that the nation is trillions of dollars in debt and on the other hand being told it must go deeper into debt to deal with that problem. And it is aghast at such scandals as the Solyndra fraud.
I don’t know what really happened at Solyndra, but it does sound like some lobbying and some campaign contributions garnered a lot of government money and probably those in charge were not of the highest moral character — the greed is good type.
Also I heard that China has dumped a lot of solar panels on the market — free trade or most favored nation status for China and all — another thing that riles the public, and should.
And I think that those who cheered the other night at the GOP debate at the fact that Texas Gov. and presidential candidate Rick Perry has no qualms about the fact he has sent so many people to death row are just yahoos who wanted to take a swipe at the news media hosts who they see as liberal or progressive enemies, but are also emblematic of the public mood against seeing the molly coddling of criminals in general and of violent people being let go on technicalities.
Going off track here a little maybe, but although we certainly don’t want a police state, it was interesting to me that I heard a comment on radio from a citizen during the 9/11 commemoration this past weekend in which the person said how nice it was to see the high police presence and how safe it made one feel.
And I often wonder, why is there not more police presence in high crime areas?
Politically, Obama is in big trouble. The Democrats lost a nearly century-old safe seat in the congress over the Anthony Weiner scandal to a Republican over voter disgust. It is hard to see what with the mood of the country how Obama can possibly get reelected. He’d have to be a comeback kid, ala Bill Clinton, to turn the corner.
Why not concentrate on re-vitalizing our conventional industry and get moving on those infrastructure projects he talks about too? And domestic energy exploration to include natural gas (and I would exclude offshore drilling, except in areas where it is already fact — but that is just me), would be of great help too. Maintaining our oil supply from the Middle East has become way too expensive in blood and treasure.
If Obama could or would go full force with that now, he just might get another term.
If the Democrats cannot beat the Republicans, who would throw out the baby (Social Security and other protections) with the bath water, they don’t deserve to be in power.
And God help us if the Republicans win (maybe Romney would be kinder and gentler than Perry).
Posted by Tony Walther 
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