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NBC's Garrett Haake
Mitt Romney (R) on the campaign press bus heading to the former site of the company Solyndra.
UPDATED AT 3 PM ET
FREMONT, CA -- When Mitt Romney arrived at the gates of the bankrupt solar energy company Solyndra this afternoon, he didn't do it before cheering supporters or backed by a large coterie of staff.
He pulled up on the press bus with the rest of his traveling media contingent.
Romney's staff, fearful, they said, of being blocked by the administration from holding an event here, kept the location of today's press conference secret, even from the press who cover the candidate.
On Wednesday, reporters who cover the candidate were told to get themselves from Las Vegas to San Francisco for an "event" in the bay area on Thursday. No other details were given, except to be ready at a hotel parking lot early this morning.
Professionally curious, the Romney press corps set about cracking the secret code of the event and breaking the story.
"I've got nothing for ya," one aide told NBC.
"Sorry, can't help you," replied another Romney staffer via email, complete with a frowny face emoticon.
And so it was this morning, when 31 members of the national and local press boarded a bus in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn Express, armed only with educated guesses – no reportable confirmation – that Romney was headed to Solyndra.
Message discipline, and an inner circle that sees leaks as treasonous, won this round.
The secrecy, one top aide explained, was to prevent the Obama administration blocking the event from taking place. The aide did not explain how that might happen.
The aide also said the campaign did not fear protesters disrupting the event, as pro-Romney protesters and staff did to Obama senior adviser David Axelrod this morning at an event on the steps of the statehouse in Boston.
Then, Romney boarded the bus.
Beyond a cursory wave and good morning, he didn't chat with the press, but rode in relative silence with a small group of aides and a few Secret Service agents surrounding him in the front of the bus.
Romney was asked why the event -- which ultimately lasted only about 10 minutes on a Nimitz Highway median -- was kept so secret. He offered a somewhat conspiratorial answer.
"I think there are people who don’t want to see this event occur, don’t want to have questions asked about this particular investment, don’t want to have people delve into the idea that the president took a half-a-billion dollars of taxpayer money and devoted it to an enterprise that was owned in large measure by his campaign contributors," Romney said.
This is the former Massachusetts governor's first trip to Solyndra, but he regularly highlights its failing, despite support from governmental loans, in his stump speeches and fundraisers.
Leave a Comment:
It was hardly a failure in Obamas eyes. Everyone advised him against giving them the money. Yet, he did exactly what he wanted.
Funneled our money to another of his campaign bundlers. As he has done many times over.
No shame about it...just shrugs his shoulders.
Have you no shame idiot! Perhaps your selective amnesia is kicking in! what about what Wall street did to us huh! Oh you must have forgotten about all that money or is it OK with you! Numbnut!
Sure. Wall Street didn't give Obama a dime. Neither did the Auto Unions, or the banks.
LOL
There is no sense in Romney annoucing a campaign stop. The only people that show up are campaign staff anyway.
He's already elected, so why waste the gas going to see him?
180,000,000 Americans can't be wrong.
Romney sent his staff to Mass yesterday to heckle Axelrod...Romney also backed companies with government money which went bankrupt while govenor...he is such a liar. He stood at the secretive press conference yesterday and told a bold face lie and he will not get away with it....finally people are starting to pay attention. He has gotten away with telling his lies for too long. The sad thing is some people hate President Obama so much they are willing to buy into this crap. Romney wants to be president so much that he is willing to lie and or buy his way to it. Come on folks he has run for the office so many times...what 7 years now???? If you listen to what he said when govenor it is identical to what he is saying now. He couldn't fix Mass problem (1 state) and he sure as heck can't fix the country's problem....can he???? DOUBT IT!!!! When I look at him he disgusts me...such a snake.
AMEN! Great post! However their hate for Obama will never allow them to see the truth! When they lose in November that might but I doubt it! They deserve their demise!
We know why they hate Obama... and it's not because of his polices. What a bunch of hypocrites and joke.... bigots!! Everything they do is because Obama isn't one of them and they are not big enough to just admit it.
There's a slight difference between a failed investment and FRAUD.
Can't wait for the debates!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey Mitt, please explain to America what happened to the $$$ you steered towards the failed energy upstarts in MA when you were governor. Answer the question sir and stop lying!
There's a slight difference between a failed investment and FRAUD.
Reminds me of the time Mitt bulied a kid at his private school. He's keeping some scheduling items off his official calendar just like his plans to fix everything that's wrong in this country (at least he thinks he can fix everything - just keeping stomping on the middle class!
Romney is practicing his speech acknowledging that he lost the election. He will have about the same size crowd as he has voters. This guy is a big time loser and the more the public sees him the more votes he will lose. Go back to your wierdo life in the Utah Hills and their wierd Beliefs . The more America sees ytou the more disusted they are getting. How can you be so dumb!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"When Mitt Romney arrived at the gates of the bankrupt solar energy company Solyndra this
afternoon, he didn't do it before cheering supporters or backed by a large coterie of staff"
Apparently he also arrived without the knowledge that Solyndra applied for the loan in 2006
and the loan was funded in 2007,,,,,,,LONG before Obama was President
Great post! LMAO!
These nit wits they would make Obama responsible for World War I if they could. No wonder the lies Romney tells doesn't bother them; their just like him! You would have to be just like him there is no other explanation for their apparent blind ignorance.
stuper bon did you see the jobs report get over those number ?? 4 years of you libs in control and what do you have ?? I will tell you FAILED at everything a health care bill that will be GONE after the supreme court strikes it down here in a couple of weeks then what does that leave you ?? NOTHING time to go bye bye and let the adults take charge!!
Wrong where do you lib get your crap news I guess if you say it long enough you'll start to believing it. They were not allowed the funds by bush not until they gave obama a bunch of money knowing they would get the loan and the funny thing about it is they bought him with 10 million in donation and got how much in return ?? STOP watching cnn come on wake up and smell the roses no really the grass is greener on this side.
LOL.... do you even research the internet, news, etc.. ... NO! You listen to the duh repubnuts and repeat, repeat, and repeat their lies, rhetoric, and BS. That's not going to win Rompey the WH. Rompey is his own worst enemy... Love watching him kick his own butt! Can't wait for the debates! I'll have my popcorn, beer and tissues ready to wipe away the tears from watching Rompey crumble under his lies.
There's a slight difference between a failed investment and FRAUD.
The repugnants on here are at it again! what a bunch of losers! So what Solyndra failed! Do you know how many times things fail before they get it right! At least he is trying to do something which is a lot more than I can say for the do nothing repugnants! Give me a freakin break losers this is the best Romney can come up with please! Everyone who has any business sense knows you have to take risks and you will probably fail before you make it! What really baffles me is you blind repugnants seem to think it's no big deal that Romney lies ALL the time there is film after film of this guy! WTF!!! Repugnantswill be their own demise in Nov because they are letting their HATE for Obama cloud their judgement and we all know what happens when you no longer see anything but hate......YOU LOSE!!!! Has anyone on the repugnants side researched to see just how many jobs Romney created you would be surprised to see venture capitalists do not create jobs nit wits! LMAO!!!
Stuper Bon you are so misinformed Solyndra didn't fail because they were trying they fail because they where scamming your all knowing president!! This great company was sell to who ?? them self's they would sell to there company in Canada and then report that as a sell which it really wasn't they bought their own crap because no one else would buy there product. We Republicans aren't that stupid and guess what we actually read the news no not cnn or any of that crap news we read the real stuff,and I would suggest you start doing the same!!
Yeah, honest.... they scammed the BUSH.... read the news!
I think it is fair to ask the following question:
Why Warren Buffet, great friend of President Obama and solidly behind him and his policies, has not stepped in to purchase Solyndra at discount prices, and resurrected the business? He could raise it up, make it profitable, and then pay more taxes he wishes to pay. What's a few hundred million to WB to help get this country on the better track of energy independence? Hmmmmm
I have a theory: Warren Buffet is NOT a true supporter nor a believer, but instead a political opportunist. If he wanted to pay more taxes, he would not have transferred most of his estate to Gates' Foundation to avoid the 55% estate tax, but gladly have it help the Government he believes in so much, which by the way, He has gained much of virtual infinite wealth from through sweetheart deals with naive Gov't officials.
WB sees real value versus rubbish and lack of leadership, and he's too smart to risk capital on a pipedream like Solyndra. Of course, if I'm right, then WB is not really a friend of anybody......
Romney is learning to fight like a Democrat. You gotta play by their dirty rules if you don't want to get cold cocked. Democrats always talk about fairness but they are the dirtiest pols I have ever known.
All Romney can do is lie and lie
What about the Companies in Mass that Romney backed with taxpayer money and went bust, seems Romney has the same problem only he's the one that says he has the business mind. Yet he picked losers and with Taxpayer money.
Guess he will have to relie on Voter suppression to get elected
Blah, blah, blah. Wow, one can sure tell why Oh-Blah Blah has the full undying attention of this group. Birds of a feather...
At least the president tried.
Not like Meat, pocketing the money and sacking the workers, the Bain way.
In August 2009, an Energy Department stimulus adviser, Steve Spinner, pushed for a quicker final decision on the loan, though he had recused himself from the approval decision itself because his wife's law firm had done work for the company. [17] According to the Washington Post, the Obama administration tried to rush federal reviewers to approve the loan so Vice President Joe Biden could announce it at a September 2009 groundbreaking for the company’s factory.[18].
On October 14, 2011 two senior Treasury officials said that they had never seen a loan restructuring like Solyndra, stating the half-billion dollar loan to Solyndra Inc. was restructured so that private investors moved ahead of taxpayers for repayment. Democrats criticized Republicans for not allowing the Energy Department to testify and for blocking the release of an Energy Department memo that outlined the legal basis for its decision to restructure the loan to Solyndra.[24]
Too funny.............everyone is acting like Solyndra is the only one.......it isn't and lo & behold, all of them were Obama's main bundlers.
The article was in The Virginian Pilot this week.......here's another
http://anotherslownewsday.wordpress.com/obamas-energy/
It would take an entire book to analyze every single grant and government-backed
loan doled out since Barack Obama became president. But an examination of grants
and guaranteed loans offered by just one stimulus program run by the Department
of Energy, for alternative-energy projects, is stunning. The so-called 1705 Loan
Guarantee Program and the 1603 Grant Program channeled billions of dollars to
all sorts of energy companies. The grants were earmarked for alternative-fuel
and green-power projects, so it would not be a surprise to
learn that those industries were led by liberals. Furthermore, these were highly
competitive grant and loan programs—not usually a hallmark of cronyism. Often
fewer than 10 percent of applicants were deemed worthy.
Nevertheless, a large proportion of the winners were companies
with Obama-campaign connections. Indeed, at
least 10 members of Obama’s finance committee and more than a dozen of his
campaign bundlers were big winners in getting your money. At the same time,
several politicians who supported Obama
managed to strike gold by launching alternative-energy companies and obtaining
grants. How much did they get? According to the Department of Energy’s own
numbers ... a lot. In the 1705 government-backed-loan program, for example, $16.4 billion of the $20.5 billion in loans
granted as of Sept. 15 went to companies either run by or primarily owned by
Obama financial backers—individuals who were bundlers, members of Obama’s
National Finance Committee, or large donors to the Democratic Party. The
grant and guaranteed-loan recipients were early backers of Obama before he ran
for president, people who continued to give to his campaigns and exclusively to
the Democratic Party in the years leading up to 2008. Their political largesse
is probably the best investment they ever made in alternative energy. It brought
them returns many times over.
....The Government Accountability Office has been
highly critical of the way guaranteed loans and grants were doled out by the
Department of Energy, complaining that the process appears “arbitrary” and lacks
transparency. In March 2011, for example, the GAO examined the first 18 loans that were approved and found
that none were properly documented. It also noted that officials “did not
always record the results of analysis” of these applications. A loan program for
electric cars, for example, “lacks performance
measures.” No notes were kept during the review process, so it is difficult to
determine how loan decisions were made. The GAO further declared that the Department of Energy “had treated
applicants inconsistently in the application review process, favoring some
applicants and disadvantaging others.” The Department of Energy’s inspector
general, Gregory Friedman, who was not a political appointee, chastised the
alternative-energy loan and grant programs for
their absence of “sufficient transparency and accountability.” He has testified that contracts have been steered to “friends
and family.”
In contrast, the New York Times reported in 2011 that “Evergreen has received no federal money.”
Romney’s attacks on Solyndra and clean energy have been misleading and often downright false. The rhetoric on Solyndra veers far from the reality of a loan that Republicans have thoroughly investigated, yet have found no scandal. As the New Republic pointed out Wednesday:
Before etch-a-sketching, Romney embraced development of an industry he now says does not deserve investment (meanwhile, he’s silent on Big Oil subsidies).
Why does everyone keep saying big oil subsidies. The oil companies get a depletion allowance which lets them write off depleted oil a capital asset that is used up on their taxes. This is no different than a plant writing off depreciation on a machine with a useful life of 20 years at 5% of the value per year on their taxes. Both are legal and are not government subsidies.
Ed Rendell is disapproving of negative campaigns while Mitt says, "what sauce is good for the gander is sauce for the goose" or something foreign to most when his campaign heckled Axelrod in Massachusetts. As far as I'm concerned I'm tired of these wimpy Democrats. So if Obama mentions Mitts time in Massachusetts where a couple of companies held by his campaign donors of private equity firms went bankrupt will this be negative campaigning?
Wow if we read Romney Book and then vote him in then we didn't learn a thing
Romeny is a liar,
He's for his buddies and himself, wants to lower his taxes to zero, while making all of us pay for it
Romney will finish the job Bush started in making sure the United States of America is no more
It will be United States of the Rich and powerful
“I promise 100% transparency in my administration.”.
“I promise NO NEW TAXES on a family making less than $250K a year.”.
“I will allow 5 days of public comment before I sign any bills.”.
“I will remove earmarks from PORK projects before I sign any bill.”.
“I will end Income Tax for seniors making less than $50K a year.”.
"I will bring ALL of our troops home within ONE year."
“I’ll put the Health Care negotiations on CSPAN so everyone can see who is at the table!”.
“I’ll have no lobbyists in my administration."
"I'll close Guantanamo."
"I'll resign if I don't cut the deficit in half by the end of four years."
"I'll unite the people of this great country."
and Romney is the liar, huh?
ON TARGET tunanut. This man is splitting the country. WAKE UP DEMOCRATS!
well we all know, well most of us know old mitt the twitt thinks he is better than anyone else because dear old dad told him that when he handed him the silver spoon so it is embedded in his persona after all a single mom of a two year old should go to work so she can have the dignity of having a job even though it might not pay the bills not to mention child care but it ok if a single mom who is wealthy because she comes from money does'nt have to work a day in her life because she was already born with dignity. obama 2012
leftwinger - what a screwed up run on sentence. where did you go to school? have you read the constitution? do you understand it? "mitt the twitt" - oh, how talented you are! contact the democratic party for a job! you are a star!
for those of you that think your part of the romney team heres a clue if your not a millionaire or billionaire your not even a consideration unless your a tool for his benefit and by the way liberals are not looking for a hand out we work and pay taxes and dont mind helping the less fortunate if it means paying a little more taxes to make things a little better for all humanity just like mom and dad taught you to share with your little brothers and sisters . obama2012
leftwinger - what a screwed up run on sentence. where did you go to school? have you read the constitution? do you understand it? "mitt the twitt" - oh, how talented you are! contact the democratic party for a job! you are a star!
Agree! And Romoney wants to be President of the United States of Amercia! What a dumb bunch his handlers are! Filthy rich and can't spell America!
Obama/Biden 2012
read the CONSTITUTION if you can, SuzyQ.
I can read - obviously YOU cannot. America vs. Amercia - DF!
n August 2009, an Energy Department stimulus adviser, Steve Spinner, pushed for a quicker final decision on the loan, though he had recused himself from the approval decision itself because his wife's law firm had done work for the company. [17] According to the Washington Post, the Obama administration tried to rush federal reviewers to approve the loan so Vice President Joe Biden could announce it at a September 2009 groundbreaking for the company’s factory.[18].
On October 14, 2011 two senior Treasury officials said that they had never seen a loan restructuring like Solyndra, stating the half-billion dollar loan to Solyndra Inc. was restructured so that private investors moved ahead of taxpayers for repayment. Democrats criticized Republicans for not allowing the Energy Department to testify and for blocking the release of an Energy Department memo that outlined the legal basis for its decision to restructure the loan to Solyndra.[24]
sfcret,
Actually there is a nuclear plant that was approved. Plant Vogtle in Waynesboro, GA is now being built and is scheduled to go on line at unit 3 in 2016 and unit 4 in 2017. The plant is on schedule and on on budget. There is a fedral loan guarantee on the project of $8 billion; however, looking at the financials, the builder, Southern Company, should not have to touch the guarantee.
I hope after Romney is elected that he will pursue nuclear power much more aggressively than the current administration.
So, where is the report from the press conference (we've just read one that was only about one taking place)? Could it be that the press didn't stay to question Romney further on the Solyndra scandal? Why doesn't this article address questions raised about Solyndra? They just showed up, asked Romney why they were there, then left??
Blah, blah, blah, President Romney.
He doesn't seem to realize than 174,000 lost and 69,000 gained equal almost a 250,000 gain from when the republicans were leaving control? Was he hoping for a 250,000 loss because he thinks failure and shutting our country down is a good way to make it better. In the real world when a company or country goes bankrupt you don't automatically make millions like he did at Bain. Which has turned out to be the Bain of his existence I guess. If we could only get people to think. One and one still is two if only people would quit believing Fox News who is saying it is only one or three or something. Their tactic is taking stuff out of context or making it up and then complaining about it and saying the other side is whining about it. And in Romneys own words that is okay as long as he gets 50.1%. What happend to character matters. He clearly has none. Doesn't claim to either. I will not sympathize with any republicans if he wins and they see the country go down the tanks. No sympathy at all. But they will whine like squealing pigs won't they?
Ktlin, we are already at the bottom of the tank. I thank God for Fox news that is the only one that gives both sides of the many stories out there. Maybe that is why they are Number 1 in news. Bain takes over companies in financial trouble, that would probably go bankrupt, anyway. The try to turn them around, to make them Profitable. Sometime it doen't work so they dismantle them an sell off the assets. Much like when a car goes to the junk yard and is sold for parts, to keep other cars running. Because of companies like Bain workers have jobs, Without them more workers would be in the unemployement lines. The people who study what these companies do know much more about what is going on then the dribble most Liberials spew out. Bain buys companies, so their owners get some money back, if Bain can turn the company around, Bain can sell it for a profit (everyone wins) , if they can't Bain runs the risk of loosing money. Obama uses taxpayer money to support business that contrubute to his campain. Most have gone out of business, loosing taxpayer money. He bails out GM with taxpayer money, so what if the taxpayers loose $20 a share in the exchange. We have been loosing workers for the last 4 years, what people fail to see is you can loose larger numbers eariler on Say 1 million, out of a workforce of 60 million, our trouble is each month we are loosing more and more (not counting the ones that just got tired and droped out of the system.). As the work force gets smaller, even the smaller number of jobless claims have a greater percentage of inpact. Kind of like having a gallon jug of water, you can pour out a quart of water from it and still have a lot. Pour out another quart, then you only have half left, even if you pour out a cup here and there, soon you will have nothing left. Liberals need to quit trying to regulate business, and let businesses create jobs. It is the nature of business to make profit, to pay for payroll for employees, shareholders, and owners. The people that take the risk should get rewarded, because if they fail they have to take the losses. As long as they do nothing illegal, get government out of their way.