‘Abound Solar’ Under Investigation after Receiving Money from Obama’s Stinkulus Package and Going Bankrupt

As Romney so deftly said to Obama during the first  debate, “You don’t just pick the winners and losers, you pick the losers all right!”:

Abound Solar under investigation by Weld County district attorney; received $68 million stimulus
Abound Solar declared bankruptcy earlier this year
The Denver Channel ABC7 – By Marshall Zelinger

LONGMONT, Colo. – A bankrupt Longmont-based company that received $68 million in stimulus money is under investigation by the Weld County district attorney’s office.

7NEWS has confirmed Abound Solar is under investigation.

Abound made solar panels which it sold across the country, Europe and India.The Department of Energy approved nearly $370 million in federal stimulus money for Abound. The company received $68 million before payments were stopped in 2011.

Sources tell 7NEWS that the company’s finances are under scrutiny.

7NEWS obtained internal documents from 2012 that show orders for tens of thousands of replacement solar panels. The orders cite different reasons for the replacements including, “low performance,” “under performance” and “catastrophic failures.”

The orders are for replacements requested after the Department of Energy stopped stimulus money payments to Abound.

“These are solar panels we are now seeing reports that said they worked as long as you didn’t put them in the sun,” said Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo. “Now the question is did the (Department of Energy) — did they know something that the rest of should have known? Did Abound not tell the DOE something? These are questions that need to be answered.”

[…]

Yes.  Yes, these questions do indeed need to be answered, but don’t expect any help from the Lame Stream Media—or Steven Chu, for that matter…

Wanna’ See What Employment Growth Looks Like in America?

Nope, this isn’t a growth rate chart, it’s a deterioration chart!  Even the Bureau of Labor Statistics can’t whitewash this one!

It’s really quite scary and I couldn’t help but notice that the signs of destabilization began shortly after the DemonRats took over the House and Senate—and, has just gotten worse under Obama.

Seems we flushed over a trillion dollars down the toilet via both Bush’s and Obama’s Stinkulus packages.  You would think that economists and politicians would have learned by now that Keynesian economics and policies based upon that model are a road map to disaster; but, sadly, no:

Ruh Roh! US Manufacturing Industries Back in Recession

Might I suggest a new catch-phrase for Obama? 

“Deterioration Summer”:

US manufacturing sector back in recession
Health check of US industry gives Barack Obama an election headache
Larry Elliott, economics editor – guardian.co.uk, Monday 2 July 2012

Barack Obama was given an election headache on Monday when the latest health check of US industry revealed that plunging order books sent the manufacturing sector back into recession territory last month.

In a surprise to Wall Street, the monthly snapshot from the Institute for Supply Management fell below the 50 level that separates contracting from expanding output for the first time in three years.

News that the index had dropped from 53.5 in May to 49.7 in June sent shares tumbling in New York and prompted speculation that the US Federal Reserve might step in with fresh measures to boost flagging demand.

[…]

The decline in June was largely the result of sharply weaker order books for US manufacturers – a hint that production will remain at low levels over the months to come.

[…]

If I Wanted America to Fail I Would…

In celebration of Earth Day, Free Market America has just released this nice little gem which serves to point out how the EPA and Obama are actively and knowingly destroying America:

Obama Friendly BofA Drops McMillan Firearms as a Customer

Saw this on Facebook today and thought I’d share it with you all:

McMillan Facebook Page – Kelly D McMillan

McMillan Fiberglass Stocks, McMillan Firearms Manufacturing, McMillan Group International have been collectively banking with Bank of America for 12 years. Today Mr. Ray Fox, Senior Vice President, Market Manager, Business Banking, Global Commercial Banking came to my office. He scheduled the meeting as an “account analysis” meeting in order to evaluate the two lines of credit we have with them. He spent 5 minutes talking about how McMillan has changed in the last 5 years and have become more of a firearms manufacturer than a supplier of accessories.

At this point I interrupted him and asked “Can I [possibly] save you some time so that you don’t waste your breath? What you are going to tell me is that because we are in the firearms manufacturing business you no longer [want] my business.”

“That is correct” he says.

I replied “That is okay, we will move our accounts as soon as possible. We can find a 2nd Amendment friendly bank that will be glad to have our business. You won’t mind if I tell the NRA, SCI and everyone one I know that BofA is not firearms industry friendly?”

“You have to do what you must” he said.

“So you are telling me this is a politically motivated decision, is that right?”

Mr Fox confirmed that it was. At which point I told him that the meeting was over and there was nothing let for him to say.

I think it is import for all Americans who believe in and support our 2nd amendment right to keep and bear arms should know when a business does not support these rights. What you do with that knowledge is up to you. When I don’t agree with a business’ political position I can not in good conscience support them. We will soon no longer be accepting Bank of America credit cards as payment for our products.

Kelly D McMillan
Director of Operations
McMillan Group International, LLC
623-582-9635

http://www.mcmillanusa.com

Considering that Bank of America is more than quite cozy with the Obama administration, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to discover Obama and his psychophants somehow involved in all of this…  Just throwing it out there as a possibility…

Another Recipient of Obama’s Green Stinkulus Package Has Executives Living High on the Hog While Company Self-Destructs

Behold, King Obama; the man with the anti-Midas touch!  (Everything he touches turns to crap):

President Obama speaks about business hirings and expanding production because of the Recovery Act investments in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, April 30, 2010. President of Itron Malcom Unsworth (L.), from Washington state and David Vieau (R.), president of A123 Systems from Massachusetts were also in attendance.
Larry Downing/Reuters/File

A123 Systems' plunging stock as of March 30, 2012

Eco-Scams Are as Easy as ‘A123’
Yet another “green energy” boondoggle from Obama’s Energy Department.
By Michelle Malkin- NRO

While President Obama was busy lambasting Big Oil tax breaks on Thursday, yet another of his environmental-welfare recipients (the very kind he wants to redistribute oil subsidies to) was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Who needs to win the Mega Millions lottery? Start a pie-in-the-sky eco-boondoggle, and a half-billion-dollar jackpot ripe for squandering is all yours!

The Solyndra of the week is A123 Systems, an electric-vehicle battery company based in Massachusetts. The firm also has battery plants in Michigan, where former Democratic governor Jennifer Granholm once heralded A123 as a federal stimulus “success story.” Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the company headquarters and hailed it as a “great example of how Recovery Act funding is helping American companies.” In addition to nearly $300 million in Obama Recovery Act funds, Granholm kicked in another $135 million in tax credits and subsidies to bribe the company to keep jobs in her state.

How’s the return on government investment? This green dud will have taxpayers seeing red. A123’s official company motto is “Power. Safety. Life.” But the firm’s reality is “Out of power. Endangering safety. Clinging to life.”

Earlier this week, the company announced a recall of malfunctioning battery packs manufactured in Livonia, Mich. A123 makes products for Fisker, Chevrolet, and BMW electric cars. Consumer Reports flagged the potentially hazardous defect caused by faulty calibration earlier this month. The recall will cost upward of $55 million.

A Deutsche Bank analyst wrote:

“We no longer have enough confidence that [A123] can raise sufficient capital (without massive equity dilution) and/or continue to augment their book to future business. Recent quality issues may lead to concerns over [A123’s] ability to manufacture with quality at high volumes, potentially leading to customer defections or at least difficulty in procuring new contracts.”

When it rains, it pours. The dead-battery debacle follows news of 125 layoffs in November due to diminished vehicle production by top customer Fisker Auto. That troubled company (into which A123 has itself dumped $20.5 million of stock equity and cash) admitted faulty-wiring problems with its electric cars.

While Michigan workers lost their jobs, Massachusetts executives burned through $155 million in cash this year and the company stock plummeted to just over $1.00. A123 lost a net $172 million over the first three quarters of 2011 and has yet to see a profit. Like Solyndra’s top brass, A123 managers have been living high on the hog and partying it up with Democratic-party bigwigs.

Taxpayers Have Shelled Out Millions of Dollars to Defend Fannie and Freddie Executives

Considering that Obama’s trillion dollar Stinkulus Package cost American Taxpayers more than it took to send a man to the moon AND build our interstate highway system,  $100 million in legal fees is just a drop in the bucket.  However, remind me again why it is we are shelling out money to DEFEND the very same executives at Fannie and Freddie who helped collapsed our financial system to begin with?:

Legal Fees Mount at Fannie and Freddie
Gretchen Morgenson – NYT

Taxpayers have advanced almost $50 million in legal payments to defend former executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the three years since the government rescued the giant mortgage companies, a regulatory analysis has found.

In that time, $37 million has gone to three former Fannie Mae executives accused of securities fraud, according to the analysis by the inspector general of the Federal Housing Finance Agency [FHFA], which oversees both companies.

[…]

“F.H.F.A. and Fannie Mae believe that their options are limited in paying current legal fees for former officers and directors,” [the Inspector General of the FHFA, Steve A Linick,] said in a statement. But he called for greater oversight. The legal costs are the responsibility of taxpayers because of contracts struck by the companies before they collapsed.

[…]

But with legal outlays since 2004 reaching $99.4 million for Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae’s former chief executive; J. Timothy Howard, former chief financial officer; and Leanne G. Spencer, former controller, it seems unlikely that the taxpayers will ever recover the money even if some or all of them are found liable.

[…]

The inspector general’s report noted that the legal contracts could have been repudiated when the companies were taken over in September 2008. They were not, though, and taxpayers have covered the costs since then. Taxpayers are also bearing the cost of recent lawsuits by the Securities and Exchange Commission against the top executives who were running the mortgage companies when they failed.

[…]

Administration Fellation Helps Sell Obama’s Cooked Books

Again, I keep coming back to one of my favorite sections in George Orwell’s classic, Animal Farm:

“Meanwhile life was hard. The winter was as cold as the last one had been, and food was even shorter. Once again all rations were reduced, except those of the pigs and the dogs. A too rigid equality in rations, Squealer explained, would have been contrary to the principles of Animalism. In any case he had no difficulty in proving to the other animals that they were not in reality short of food, whatever the appearances might be. For the time being, certainly, it had been found necessary to make a readjustment of rations (Squealer always spoke of it as a “readjustment,” never as a “reduction”), but in comparison with the days of Jones, the improvement was enormous.

“Reading out the figures in a shrill, rapid voice, he proved to them in detail that they had more oats, more hay, more turnips than they had had in Jones’s day, that they worked shorter hours, that their drinking water was of better quality, that they lived longer, that a larger proportion of their young ones survived infancy, and that they had more straw in their stalls and suffered less from fleas.

“The animals believed every word of it.”

America on Verge of Economic Collapse Because of Obama’s Cooked Reports
By Chuck Ness – News Blaze

The Obama administration has released an economic report that claims everything is coming up roses, and it is making the rounds of the MSM’s news outlets. Truth is, when you look into the numbers, it’s rather easy to come to the conclusion that the economic reports are as screwy as the administration’s employment numbers. In order to convince Americans that his economic measures are working, Obama is claiming there has been an increase in retail sales from December to January by a seasonally adjusted .4%. The administration goes on to explain that while the economy is moving in a positive direction, it is still slow. They also point out that the recently reported gains reduced unemployment to 8.3%, proving that Socialist economic policies are working. However, Obama’s unemployment numbers have since been proven to be lies. Have I stated that we are in an election year and that Obama needs to get re-elected in order to continue transforming the greatest country in the history of mankind into a Soviet style basket case? To assist in the destruction, the MSM has been knowingly repeating this administration’s lies.

Instead of reporting how America’s real unemployment is actually up between 19 and 25%, they report that Obama has been able to get unemployment down to 8.3%. Instead of reporting that the government is spending more money than it is taking in, and that retail sales have dropped by almost $100 billion from December to January, we are told by the administration’s propaganda machine that retail sales have increased by .4%. In an election year, the MSM will do everything in their power to convince Americans that Obama is even greater than Ronald Reagan. We will be fed report after report that proves Socialism is the way to go, and that we need to keep Obama in office so that we will never again return to the days of unchecked capitalism that only allowed the top 1% of society to benefit.

Just like the Soviet Union lies to their people by telling them everything is great, we now have an administration that operates the same way. This can only work with a willing and compliant media, such as the Soviet Union had in Pravda. Well thanks to the MSM, a vast portion of the public believe what they are told, and what they are told are pernicious lies. The end game for them is to get the same uneducated Americans who voted for Obama in 2008, to do so again.

[…]

Click HERE to read the rest of this over at NewsBlaze.com

Get Ready For $5.00 Per-Gallon Gas this Summer

Which begs the question, “How’s that Hope and Change working out for ya’?”

BTW – Just a quick anecdote:  I saw an Obama T-shirt a couple of weeks ago that said:  “HOPE – Helping Obama’s Presidency End!”  Anyway, I got a chuckle out of it and thought I’d share it with you. – DB

Gas prices’ earliest-ever rise above $3.50 a bad sign for motorists
Morning Call
American motorists have seen the national average for a gallon of regular gasoline rise above $3.50 a gallon on just three occasions, but it has never happened this early in the year. Analysts say it’s likely a sign that pain at the pump will rise to some of the highest levels ever seen later this year.

In 2008, average gasoline prices had hit inflation-adjusted records nationally by the summer, but they didn’t climb above $3.50 a gallon across the U.S. that year until April 21, according to the AAA Fuel Gauge Report. It happened again last year, but not until March 6.

But $3.50 a gallon gasoline is already here in 2012, weeks before refineries typically shut down for springtime maintenance, and weeks before the states switch from their less expensive winter blends of gasoline to more complicated and pricier summer blends.

“This definitely sets the stage, potentially, for much higher prices later this year,” said Brian L. Milne, refined fuels editor for Telvent DTN, a commodity information services firm. “There’s a chance that the U.S. average tops $4 a gallon by June, with some parts of the country approaching $5 a gallon.”

[…]

There are plenty of reasons for the high prices, and lots of reasons to fear a big price spike in the spring, said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for OPIS.

“Early February crude oil prices are higher than they’ve ever been on similar calendar dates through the years, and the price of crude sets the standard for gasoline prices,” Kloza said, later adding, “We’ve lost a number of refineries in the last six months (to permanent closure). Some of those refineries represented the key to a smooth spring transition from winter-to-spring gasoline.”

[…]

Thank you EPA!  /sarcasm

 

Lowe’s Hardware Comes Under Fire for Pulling its Advertising During TLC’s ‘All American Muslim’

Hey, it’s still a somewhat relatively free country with a Free Market.  If Lowe’s doesn’t want to waste money advertising during a particular time slot, they are more than free to do as they wish.  It’s their money, their right.  Right? 

Throughout the history of television, sponsors have continually rotated in and out of advertising slots.  It’s a business.  If sponsors aren’t getting a good return for their investment in advertising during a particular program, or they feel that a program is not in line with their core values, or—as appears to be the case in this instance—they receive sufficient backlash from the public, then it only makes sense that they pull their advertising.  That’s the way it has always worked and will continue to work.  Like I said, it’s a business.

So, why all the hubbub?  Well, it’s pretty obvious:  We are dealing with a bunch of whiny Muzzies and their legions of dhimmified Lefturds:

‘All American Muslim’: Russell Simmons Lashes Out at Lowe’s for Pulling Ads from TLC Show
by Crystal Bell – AOL News

Hip-hop mogul and former reality star Russell Simmons slammed Lowe’s hardware store after it pulled its ads from TLC’s new series ‘All American Muslim,’ exclusively reports Entertainment Weekly.

“This can’t happen in America … [Lowe’s] needs to fix this immediately,” Simmons said. “They can’t get away with that, it’s ridiculous. There are American principals at stake here. I can’t imagine the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, the National Urban League, or any organization that fights for their own rights will allow this to happen to any other group because they know they’re next.”

Might I just interject here that Russell Simmons admits that his own politics are even farther Left than Keith Olbermann’s?  Just thought I’d throw that in there for a sense of perspective.

Simmons isn’t the only one upset by the homebuilding store’s decision. According to the Los Angeles Times, California state senator Ted Lieu called on Lowe’s to apologize for pulling its advertising from the TV show, which follows the lives of five Muslim American families from the Dearborn, Michigan area, home to one of the most active Muslim communities in the country.

Yet, according to the conservative Florida Family Association, “The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish.”

They then encouraged members to email the program’s advertisers, the conservative organization posted a letter reportedly from a Lowe’s representative, stating that the retail giant has agreed to pull its ads from the docu-series: “While we continue to advertise on various cable networks, including TLC, there are certain programs that do not meet Lowe’s advertising guidelines, including the show you brought to our attention. Lowe’s will no longer be advertising on that program.”

Lowe’s then acknowledged its decision on Twitter. “We did not pull our ads based solely on the complaints or emails of any one group. It is never our intent to alienate anyone. Lowe’s values diversity of thought in everyone, including our employees and prospective customers.”

However, Simmons says that pulling the ads was “a stupid thing to do,” reports Entertainment Weekly, and called on the hardware company to show support the show, instead of pulling its ads.

“This is a press nightmare for them,” Simmons told Entertainment Weekly. “This country is built on religious freedom. This is the kind of hate that tears this country apart.”

LOL!  Suddenly, a Lefturd who practices Solipsism—“I pray to Atman, to the self. The Atman is self”.—is pulling out the American History/Constitution Card.   The cognitive dissonance is deafening. 

Uh…  Just a quick question for Russell Simmons:  Hey, Russell, where were you when you and your ilk were calling for Glenn Beck’s sponsors to drop him?  Do I detect a note of hypocrisy here?   Yeah, I thought so.