The Chicago Way

In these days of tough economic conditions, it's nice to know that some folks have work.  Take this fine upstanding fellow from Illinois:

Xadrian McCracken may be the poster child of the dysfunction of Illinois government. Fired last year from a state job, McCracken took a senior position in July with the Illinois Department of Corrections, earning $110,000 a year. He secured the position advising on parole policy in spite of a criminal history with "at least" 24 criminal arrests.  

McCracken's criminal history includes arrests for arson, illegal gun possession, attempted robbery, drug possession and aggravated assault. He plead guilty to a weapons charge in 1989 and was found guilty in 1999 for a charge related to domestic battery assault.

He has worked for IL state government since 2000. Prior to that, McCracken had sought to become a Chicago police officer. His application was rejected after a criminal background check. McCracken sued the department, arguing that the background check was racial discrimination.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys threw out McCracken's suit, noting in his ruling that the police background investigation found McCracken to be a known “drug dealer, gang member and supplier of guns to other gang members."

Keys' ruling was in August 2000, the same year McCracken went to work as a child protection worker with the state's Department of Children and Family Services. He has been in and out of state government since then.

Just remember....that's YOUR tax money funding his employment.  And given the lousy state of Illinois finances, you can be sure that federal funds will be there to prop up the corrupt Democratic government.  Word to the wise -- whenever you hear the words "federal funds", that means it's coming from your taxes.  Not some mystical pot of money found in the forest.  And there's no Rumpelstiltskin to spin gold from straw.

But hey...you gotta admit McCracken's got a nice gig at the taxpayer's expense.  After all, that's the Chicago Way.

H/T to Big Government at Breitbart.

Government Motors

From Fox News:

The Treasury Department on Monday announced that the government has sold its remaining shares of General Motors and that losses from the 2009 auto industry bailout total about $15 billion.

It's just $15 BILLION dollars.  Nothing to see....move along now.

Plus, don't forget how the UAW got their claws into the company's equity. How bondholders were stiffed by flagrantly illegal disregard of bankruptcy law all to reward the union cronies of Obama.

Exactly how did they put it....oh, yes.  "Bin Laden is dead, GM is alive".  But Detroit is in bankruptcy.  Watch for Obama to try to send a federal bailout in that direction too.

Government Motors.  The forerunner of Government Medicine.  All coming from those enlightened folks who know what's best for you.

Slumlords for Obama

Flopping Aces brings back a 2008 story from the Boston Globe about slumlords and federal subsidies in Chicago.  And among the players mentioned....Valerie Jarrett.  Yes, the same Valerie Jarrett who had over 100 Chicago policemen assigned to her daughter's wedding.

From the story:

Grove Parc and several other prominent failures were developed and managed by Obama’s close friends and political supporters. Those people profited from the subsidies even as many of Obama’s constituents suffered. Tenants lost their homes; surrounding neighborhoods were blighted.

and

Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Obama’s presidential campaign and a member of his finance committee. Jarrett is the chief executive of Habitat Co., which managed Grove Parc Plaza from 2001 until this winter and co-managed an even larger subsidized complex in Chicago that was seized by the federal government in 2006, after city inspectors found widespread problems.

Read the whole thing.  The cronyism is inbred in this group.

Follow the money

More crony capitalism, this time from New York City.  From the New York Post:

Here’s an inconvenient truth: New York is greening the wallet of Al Gore.

Embattled city Comptroller John Liu has delivered a $16.56 million contract to the former vice president’s environmentally friendly investment firm, Generation Investment Management, to help manage hundreds of millions of dollars in city pension funds, The Post has learned.

The Comptroller’s Office had previously awarded Gore’s firm $12.8 million in pension-fund business under Liu’s predecessor, Bill Thompson.

Since 2009, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli has approved $6 million in contracts to the firm, co-founded and chaired by Gore. Generation now manages nearly a half-billion dollars of state pension-fund investments, records show.

In total, that’s more than $35 million in greenbacks to Gore’s firm.

Liu’s office proposes investment-management contracts to the board of trustees of the city’s five major pension funds. Generation is an investment manager for two of them: the New York City Employees Retirement System (NYCERS) and the Police Pension Fund.

But the Gore connection has been a closely held secret.

One NYCERS trustee said he didn’t even know Gore’s firm was a city investment manager.
“That’s been way under the radar. I was unaware of it,” said NYCERS trustee Gregory Floyd, head of Teamsters Local 237.

So not only does Algore get the management fees from the contract, he also gets to use those pension fund assets to prop up "green investments".  Moving the money around can make it seem as though the companies have genuine market interest.  I'll even bet there may be some "rob Peter to pay Paul" going on in pumping up "values".

All that matters is that you have the right friends.

Hat tip to I Own the World pointing to Michelle Malkin.

Cronyism in the heartland

Although major firms like Solyndra have gotten deserved attention because of their huge federal croynism, that same disease is at work at the state level.  From Media Trackers Ohio comes this account of Toledo Blade reporting:

The Ohio Department of Development recently announced plans to audit Perrysburg solar-panel manufacturer Willard & Kelsey Solar Group LLC — also known as WK Solar — after the company failed to make regular debt payments on money it borrowed from taxpayers.  The company borrowed $5 million in taxpayer funds from Ohio’s Air Quality Development Authority “green jobs” program, as well as another $10 million in funds lent by the Department of Development itself.

The Air Quality Development Authority is a separate state commission but often collaborates on projects with the Department of Development.

As early as 2009, the Ohio Department of Development and the Air Quality Development Authority were aware of the company’s financial woes.  Company records provided to the state showed that WK Solar ran up $4.2 million in debt. Nonetheless, taxpayer funds continued to be pumped into WK Solar’s coffers.

At that time, state and federal officials had great expectations for the Perrysburg “green energy” company. Vice President Joe Biden joined then-Governor Ted Strickland to tour the plant, where Biden said the now-failing company was key to “our folks getting back in the game.” Massive taxpayer funding of the foundering green energy company has led critics to deride WK Solar as “Ohio’s Solyndra.”

In 2010, WK Solar executives — including CEO Michael Cicak and president James Appold — donated almost $25,000 to Gov. Ted Strickland’s re-election campaign. Cicak also donated to Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher’s US Senate campaign. Fisher served as director of the Department of Development under Governor Strickland.

Later that year, in July of 2010, the Department of Development lent WK Solar an additional $10 million in taxpayer dollars. Strickland’s administration also approved multiple deadline extensions for required financial reports, as well as deferrals for required loan repayments.

Records show that department officials were very aware of WK Solar’s financial woes but forged ahead with loan negotiations anyway. However, Strickland and Fisher both claim that they were not aware of any financial problems with the company whatsoever.

and more:

In December of 2011, WK Solar reported that it could not meet its promise to create over four hundred permanent jobs, a condition of the loan agreement with the state. Instead, as of this year, the company has created only fifty-one new jobs and has laid off forty employees. As reported by the Blade, no more than 72 people were employed by the company at any point in time.

William Mitchell, the company’s former chief executive officer, alleged that the company violated its contract by using Department of Development funds to pay other executives and to lend them money. Mitchell was fired in 2009, and died in 2011.

According to the Toledo Blade, before his termination, Mitchell copied company records showing that the firm spent thousands of dollars of taxpayer funds on entertainment expenses, including sports games in Detroit and Pittsburgh.

In the past few months, WK missed two monthly debt payments — $466,000 each — and has only made incomplete payments towards interest owed. The missed payments prompted the state to investigate.

That was Democrat Governor Strickland.  And Democrat Lt. Governor Fisher.   Just so you know.

The cronyism rot runs deep.

Thanks to Breitbart for the pointer.

Big Pharma

The fix was in.  During the run-up to Obamacare, the Obama administration used a familiar page from the Democrat playbook, the payoff.  Breitbart reports (quoted in full):

President Obama spent much of his time during the Obamacare debate ripping pharmaceutical companies for supposedly overcharging customers. But as it turns out, an email from June 2009 shows that Obama’s director of White House Office of Health Reform, Nancy DeParle, told Big Pharma’s chief lobbyist that the Obama administration would protect the industry from drug reimportation from Canada, which would cut prices on medication. “I made decision, based on how constructive you guys have been, to oppose importation on this bill,” she wrote. In other words, the Obama administration got its quid pro quo: support from Big Pharma. In exchange, they’d ensure that drugs weren’t imported from Canada to undercut US prices.

Big Pharma agreed to finance millions of dollars worth of television advertising on behalf of Obamacare, and absorb $80 billion in cost over ten years. As Philip Klein points out:

In exchange, PhRMA not only ended up with a law that promised to provide it with millions of new customers, but protected it against policies contemplated by Democrats that would have been harmful to their profits, such as introducing a government plan into the Medicare prescription drug program, allowing rebates for drug purchases through the program and drug re-importation.

Obama’s promises of transparency and accountability were lies in 2008; now, they’re provable lies. And those who kowtow to him reap the benefits of his dishonesty.

Public Equity -- the video

From American Crossroads comes this new ad.



Let's see....we have a choice between a candidate that has made money and a president who has lost money.

Duh!!

Two years ago in California

Byron York, writing at the Washington Examiner, looks back to a day two years ago.

Two years ago today, May 26, 2010, President Obama traveled to Fremont, California to showcase a "brighter and more prosperous future" promised by the green-energy company Solyndra.

The solar panel maker went bankrupt last year, taking with it $535 million in taxpayer-funded loan guarantees.  More than 1,000 people lost their jobs.  The Obama administration had cut corners to rush money to Solyndra, with some of the beneficiaries being top Obama fundraisers.  Even as Solyndra failed, the administration considered giving it another $469 million.

But on this day in 2010, with Solyndra already facing serious obstacles, President Obama was filled with optimism. "The true engine of economic growth will always be companies like Solyndra," the president said.  "Less than a year ago, we were standing on what was an empty lot.  But through the Recovery Act, this company received a loan to expand its operations.  This new factory is the result of those loans."

"We've placed a big emphasis on clean energy," Obama continued.  "It’s the right thing to do for our environment, it’s the right thing to do for our national security, but it’s also the right thing to do for our economy…When it’s completed in a few months, Solyndra expects to hire a thousand workers to manufacture solar panels and sell them across America and around the world."

"It's happening right now.  The future is here," Obama said.  "It's here that companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future."

Fifteen months later, Solyndra was bankrupt, and that taxpayers' money was lost.

Taxpayer's money.  Try this little exercise from now until November....everytime you hear "taxpayer's money", substitute "my money".  And realize how much has been either outright wasted or sent to prop up a crony of Obama.

If you have a strong stomach, the entire text of Obama's speech at Solyndra is included in York's article at the above link.

Crony Cheeseheads

From the Washington Free Beacon:

Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett, who is running against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in the upcoming state recall election, allegedly awarded illegal no-bid contracts to a campaign donor, according to two metal recycling firms who are threatening to sue the city.

The two firms claim they were shut out of business by a third company that obtained exclusive contracts through the city. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports:

A lawyer for Mill Valley Recycling and Waukesha Iron & Metal filed a notice of claim Tuesday, saying they will sue if the city doesn’t rescind its ongoing contract with Miller Compressing and offer other companies the opportunity to bid on the work. …

A contract was awarded to Miller [...] after bidding in 1990 and 1994. The latter was “privately extended” through 2000 without competitive bidding, according to the claim notice. In 2001, when the contract had expired, it was extended “in secret and without public bid” on a month-to-month basis to October 2003, when the parties entered a contract until 2005, and then until 2009.

The other firms contend that the public works commissioner has never made a formal determination that it was best to go without a contract.

In 2010, Miller Compression gave $10,500 to Barrett in campaign contributions immediately after the company was awarded another no-bid contract in 2009.

Republican Party of Wisconsin Communications Director Ben Sparks said in a statement that the arrangement “reeks of pay-to-play politics.”

“Tom Barrett giving away lucrative no-bid contracts to his campaign donors, all while increasing wasteful government spending by $300 million, simply highlights his gross mismanagement of the City of Milwaukee,” Sparks said.

The Barrett campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Milwaukee isn't that far away from Chicago, in more ways than one.

Politically Correct with Big Sis

The Daily Caller breaks the story:

President Barack Obama’s Homeland Security secretary, Janet Napolitano, has presided over the hiring of at least four senior staffers and advisers who have no law enforcement experience but align politically with the president.

Jordan Grossman was a special adviser and deputy to the deputy chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, for instance, yet his resume shows no law enforcement experience. Before Grossman got his post in January 2009, he was a “special assistant” at the Obama-Biden presidential transition team after working for Obama’s 2008 election campaign.

Before that, Grossman worked as a research assistant at the Annenberg Public Policy Center, a communications think tank at the University of Pennsylvania. Grossman also interned for the left-wing Center for American Progress, and for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

He lists no law enforcement experience on his resume, even though the Obama administration had hired him into a senior law enforcement role. Grossman has since left his government position for to attend Harvard Law School.

Obama is great on jobs.  Jobs for the politically connected, paid for with taxpayer money.  Jobs that are given without regard for qualifications, just regard for connections.

Read the whole story for more examples. Hat tip to I Own the World for the pointer.