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| Robert F. Kennedy Jr. |
Big Government - President John F. Kennedy’s nephew, Robert Kennedy, Jr., netted a $1.4 billion bailout for his company, BrightSource, through a loan guarantee issued by a former employee-turned Department of Energy official. It’s just one more in a string of eye-opening revelations by investigative journalist and Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer in his explosive new book, Throw Them All Out. The details of how BrightSource managed to land its ten-figure taxpayer bailout have yet to emerge fully. However, one clue might be found in the person of Sanjay Wagle. Wagle was one of the principals in Kennedy’s firm who raised money for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. When Obama won the White House, Wagle was installed at the Department of Energy (DOE), advising on energy grants. From an objective vantage point, investing taxpayer monies in BrightSource was a risky proposition at the time.
In 2010, BrightSource, whose largest shareholder is Kennedy’s VantagePoint Partners, was up to its eyes in $1.8 billion of debt obligations and had lost $71.6 million on its paltry $13.5 million of revenue. Even before BrightSource rattled its tin cup in front of Obama’s DOE, the company made it known publicly that its survival hinged on successfully completing the Ivanpah Solar Electrical System, which would become the largest solar plant in the world, on federal lands in California. In its Securities and Exchange Commission filings, BrightSource further underscored the risky nature of the Ivanpah venture and, more broadly, the company’s viability:
"Our future success depends on our ability to construct Ivanpah, our first utility-scale solar thermal power project, in a cost-effective and timely manner… Our ability to complete Ivanpah and the planning, development and construction of all three phases are subject to significant risk and uncertainty."
Ironically, in 2008, Kennedy wrote a CNN article praising Obama as reminiscent of his famous father and uncle. The article, titled “Obama’s Energy Plan Would Create a Green Gold Rush,” proved prophetic. However, the “green gold rush” came in the form of $1.4 billion of taxpayers’ money flowing into the pet projects of rich venture capital investors like Kennedy, not average citizens. Read full story here:
News New Mexico
Robert Kennedy Jr. - Just Another Obama Fundraiser and Federal Loan Guarantee Recipient
From Capitol Report New Mexico - As Capitol Report New Mexico posted a couple days ago, Secretary of State Dianna Duran was about to release an interim report into the status of New Mexico’s voter files. Today (Nov. 17), she delivered it. In a 17-page document sent to legislators across the state, Duran’s office addresses allegations — nearly exclusively from Republicans — of persistent problems with fraud and error in voter registration and statewide elections. Among some of the statistics mentioned in the report?1) As of March 2011, the voter file contained 2,608 records with duplicate Social Security numbers 2) The statewide file has an estimated 100,000-150,000 voters on its list who are not eligible to vote. 3) The Secretary of State’s office cannot purge the names of inactive voters until 2015 because Duran’s office said the SOS office under previous Secretary of State Mary Herrera did not conduct a required program to remove voters who had permanently moved in 2007 and improperly conducted the program in 2009. The current SOS office notified the US Department of Justice, which informed the SOS this past September that a purge of voter records cannot be conducted for nearly four years. 4) There are 641 dead people on the rolls. 5) Even though New Mexico law requires potential voters to write down their date of birth and Social Security numbers on voter registration forms, Duran’s interim report says that in 2010, more than 100 voter registration applications were entered in Bernalillo County with no valid Social Security numbers. Duran was elected last fall as the first Republican Secretary of State in 82 years and campaigned on establishing a voter ID program across the state. Read more
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