Excerpted from The Liberal War on Transparency by Chris Horner
So, Al Gore came to do good and ended up doing really, really well, according to the Washington Post. That’s actually not unique for Washington, except possibly as a matter of scale: Gore went from being worth $2 million when leaving office to about $100 million now.
Gore, of course, “invested” in or otherwise found profitable arrangements with many companies whose financing mostly comes courtesy of the taxpayer, either directly, or indirectly in that private money flocks to that which politicians wed themselves to — the “halo effect” — on the knowledge that once the spigot opens it is difficult to turn off for fear of having a taxpayer-funded flop on their hands.
I couldn’t help but be reminded, by this story, of the personnel executing these programs for President Obama, he of the $90 billion in “green energy” money squandered on boondoggles whose own owners’ sales pitch for the dough was unless you give me this money, I won’t exist.
For example, in one of those funny coincidences of life, did you know that Obama appointed the CEO of Al Gore’s own pro-green energy advocacy group, Alliance for Climate Protection, to be his Assistant Secretary of Energy for Renewable Energy? I detail this in a chapter of my new book, The Liberal War on Transparency: Confessions of a Freedom of Information “Criminal” (greens hailed this move as akin to his coup of plucking Van Jones!)
After it became clear that she was not about to be confirmed for a higher position to which Obama moved her, Ms. Zoi moved out to start a Gore-like fund with some guy named Soros. But while Zoi was in government, I obtained some of her emails under the Freedom of Information Act. I also obtained a whole lot more discussing her orders and actions. More on that in the book, but here’s the big-picture.
Proving that transparency in government can be as entertaining as it is illuminating, I got hold of an email from Ms. Zoi’s close pal, the Managing Director of Solyndra’s outside political consulting firm. Just a note to let her know he was “at [the] poolside bar at Caesars having a drink” with her “Senior Advisor” (a twenty-something poli-sci grad). Right about then, back in Washington, President Obama’s political team was leaning on colleagues in government to get a campaign bundler’s company — Solyndra — a historically wasteful loan guarantee, soon to be predictably squandered.
Cheers! Other emails showed assistant secretary Zoi bantering as close confidantes do with yet a different partner in Solyndra’s political firm, for example arranging dinner at her house that weekend which promised to be a blast as “a couple of other fun political animals will be there”. Other Zoi emails showed her enlisting the same firm, apparently pro bono (although that would seem to be a legal no-no under The Anti-Deficiency Act, 31 USC § 1342), to help pull together materials she wanted to consider when developing DOE’s campaign, pushing the same agenda but from the inside.
But, no, that whole Solyndra and “green stimulus” boondoggle and the cronies that made out at the taxpayer’s expense, that came about due to the merits.
With the current administration, risibly self-congratulating as the most transparent in history, we now know to ask sooner than we did with Solyndra, even if by the time that scandal broke I had already used information requests to expose the basic but thorough corruption of Obama’s “green energy” operation. For example, another of my FOIA requests to Zoi’s fiefdom in the Department of Energy led to a treasure trove of emails exposing what Investor’s Business Daily called “The Big Wind Cover-Up.” This also uncovered the collaborative effort to smear the Spanish “green jobs” economics professor and his team’s work documenting the true disaster of liberal plans to reorganize America’s economy as “the clean energy economy.”
FOIA allowed me to chase down the genesis of this panic-driven attempt at discrediting people viewed as political opponents, this instance confirmed aggressive violations of Barack Obama’s promises of transparency and to banish lobbyists from insider roles in the policy process.
But documents pried out of the administration also let slip revealing details of how this defense of a “renewables” industry that Solyndra later made famous but all along made Gore and other well-connected types wealthy was coordinated with industry lobbyists and left-wing pressure groups. These included Soros’s project, the Center for American Progress, using the industrial wind lobby as the go-between in anticipation of DOE claiming, for example, to Congress that it “had no direct contact with” CAP or another pressure group to which the windmill lobbyists served as DOE’s “cutout” contact.
IBD described these records as being as substantively explosive as the previously described “Climategate” leak in 2009 of emails and computer code, because it showed senior Obama political appointees doing the bidding for industries that were propped up in the name of an anti-energy ideology and crony capitalism joined with the assault on abundant domestic energy sources that work and therefore also disfavored for ideological reasons.
With truths like these trickling out while we still have access to public records, it’s no surprise that Al Gore did so well “investing.” How he does if taxpayers decide that enough is enough remains to be seen.
Christopher C. Horner is a Washington, D.C. attorney and author of the new book The Liberal War on Transparency: Confessions of a Freedom of Information “Criminal” (Threshold Editions, published October 2, 2012)
Lazy Teen is buzzing on this one…I think we hit a nerve.
Keep up the good work.
LazyTeenager says
So can I safely assume you voted for Bush instead of Gore?
Neither. i’m not an American.
As far as I am concerned this is about criminal activities. It’s only a political issue, because politicians on the Left indulged in an orgy of croney capitalism (more correctly croney socialism).
Not just Western-world flailing. There’s a useful commentary – not too euro-centric – at http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/. As ever, in a ‘crisis’, money bleeds towards the self-appointed ‘vital’ organs…
While the facts of this piece are of great interest. The “hit piece” writing style negates its point. Write this in a stone cold, matter of fact manner and I think it works better. In the light of such obvious betrayal of moral core principals, such sensationalist writing is unnecessary. Besides, by painting the CAGW issue as a right/left divide issue, we lose the other half of people that could finally kill this hoax. Does anyone even begin to think that this pilfering of the public purse to pursue these green dreams and hobgoblins could have gone on without “bipartisan” support? This is not an expose, it’s a tirade.
Was it ever thus? Tony Blair made a killing after leaving office, partly due his connections as Middle east peace envoy, bit of a joke considering he helped Bush in declaring illegal and baseless wars in that region. Speaking of which the Bush family fortunes were founded on support for the German Nazi party in the 30s, Gore is not unusual , at the end of the day he is an all American boy and that means adherence to the all American dream of making fortunes regardless of ethics. Our own Conservative party in the UK are rather more upfront. Most of the government went to extremely expensive public schools and still happily increase their fortunes through contacts and opportunities resulting from high office. I have not even discussed Halliburton. So Gore may be unpopular with readers of WUWT due to his cynical approach to climate change, but make no mistake, he is feeding out of the same trough as most politicians and is no different.
What an odd defense! First, the initial figure given is derived from publicly available records and thus – as far as we know – accurate. And it seems puzzling to me to defend Al Gore by claiming that “he was a 1%’er before he became a 0.5%’er.”
LazyTeenager says: October 13, 2012 at 8:30 pm
Philip Bradley on October 13, 2012 at 7:10 pm
With a republican president, I expect to see the SEC and DoJ go after Gore and his ilk. The schadefruede will be delightful.
———–
So can I safely assume you voted for Bush instead of Gore? In that case the whole world should express its eternal gratitude to you and your deep wisdom and political insight. Just think if you had voted for Gore instead we would have missed out on the Iraq war, the afghan war, the global financial crisis and Osam Bin Laden would have been caught and executed within a couple of years. That Al Gore is just plain evil and would have deprived us of all that.
LT, you’re being too modest. With an Al Gore administration, 911 would never have happened, right?
I do miss Saddam Hussein, though. At least we knew where we stood.
As far as SEC and DoJ, unless Romney appoints Mark Levin or Michele Bachmann Attorney General, we’re not going to see much attitude adjustment in D.C.
AFAIK, Gore netted $600 million when he sold off his (free) CCX holdings prior to its collapse. If he’s down to $100 million now, then he’s been following way too much of his own advice.
I am shocked to find out that an politician makes so much money after leaving office!
Surely it is not a general problem of making politics in a capitalistic system, but rather it is limited to some green liberal making politics in the interest of his pork barrel cronies, something the other party would never do.
So if the people of the United States would just vote in somebody from the other party the next time, if they would just vote in the right person, then this will all stop and everything will be just fine.
LazyTeenager says:
October 13, 2012 at 8:30 pm
“Just think if you had voted for Gore instead we would have missed out on the Iraq war, the afghan war, the global financial crisis and Osam Bin Laden would have been caught and executed within a couple of years.”
Playing the Blame Bush card.
Brian H
http://www.forbes.com/2010/12/22/chicago-climate-club-carbon-barack-obama-opinions-contributors-larry-bell.html
CCX shut down its operations in November. This occurred after an avalanche of its investors bailed following a hurricane of ill winds for cap-and-trade that swept away Democrat control of the U.S. House of Representatives. By that time Sandor had already pocketed an estimated $98.5
million for his 16.5% CCX ownership. Just how much Al Gore’s GIM and Goldman’s GSAM ended up with no one is saying. But it was probably enough to pay for a nice private party.
LazyTeenager says:
October 13, 2012 at 8:30 pm
It wouldn’t matter whether Bush, Gore or anybody else was elected in 2000. Many if not most politicians from USA, Australia, Europe are mostly left wing and follow the fascist business model. This model is one where politicians and big business work hand in hand to make money for each other. This model destroys small business and independant operators. Maybe with Gore in charge 911 may not have happened but something else would have. The GFC would have happened anyway since the seeds for the GFC were sown in the Clinton years.
Say what you like, but 9/11 had absolutely nothing to do with who was President at the time. 9/11 was primarily retaliation for Clinton’s actions, when he killed Bin Laden’s son during an ill advised attempt on Bin Laden. At the time we all figured it was nothing but a distraction from his legal woes. That was the seed, planted.
If you ACTUALLY believe that any President would ignore credible situation briefings, thus making 9/11 possible, then you know nothing of US government. NO President would ignore a credible warning, and none of the daily briefings had anything specific enough to justify the actions it would have taken to prevent 9/11.
Again, like it or not, after 9/11, taking out the Taliban was the right thing to do, and likely would have been done by ANY President. The details might have changed, personally I think the traditional Democratic mishandling of anything military would have made things worse, but the Taliban had to be dealt with… militarily, Not with a strongly worded email to the UN.
And dealing with Saddam was on Clinton’s table, too. It was more inevitable than most people seem to think. Maybe a Gore presidency would have handled the PR better. Maybe not. But Iraq was not “illegal” and was one of the most successful military campaigns in history, with incalculable benefits to the region.
I’m truly saddened that so many people have bought into the “illegal war” meme, and actually seem to believe that President Bush did anything other than bungle the PR surrounding both military actions. Both were properly sanctioned and within all appropriate legal requirements.
I shudder to think what a Gore presidency would have been like, but I do know for a certainty that Gore could not, and would not, have somehow magically prevented 9/11, which was targeted directly at Clinton and the USA, not the current President.
@Ossqss (and anyone else),
http://bjdurk.newsvine.com/_news/2010/02/23/3941508-who-are-these-guys-cape-wind-emi-upc-first-wind-ivpc
Here is a case of a governor who is a bundler for Obama that appointed wind executive(s) to certain advisory roles.
http://bjdurk.newsvine.com/_news/2012/04/01/10888055-massachusetts-green-bubble-alert-first-wind
Apart from it all, it would be a pleasant change to see someone in the White House who did not have to ask his wife if he can take a pee. Maybe someone with some ability and intelligence besides being a socialist crony and Marxist hypocrite. Now that would indeed be a pleasant change. They would probably even encourage the bureaucrats to try and tell the truth instead of outwardly lying.
That would be a pleasant change as well.
(sigh) I don’t know why 9/11/2001 popped up on the thread. But, since it has, I’d like to review a little history.
It is instructive to read what Osama bin Laden said in a 1997 interview with CNN “reporter” Peter Arnett.
“BIN LADIN: We declared jihad against the US government…..”. THIS IS IN THE WORDS OF OSAMA BIN LADEN. Curiously, nobody remembers that the so called “war against terror” was declared against us. It started no later than Bubba Clinton’s second administration. (My personal thoughts are that it started under Johnson when a heroic Palestinian Freedom Fighter brought justice to the evil Bobby Kennedy. Sarc!!!!) Bubba had three chances to eliminate Osama. Three times, he did NOTHING.
http://anusha.com/osamaint.htm
Reading the transcript further, you will find reasons that Osama bin Laden KNEW that he/they would win against these United States
“BIN LADIN: in Somalia … After a little resistance, The Americans ran away…. successive defeats in Vietnam, Beirut, Aden, and Somalia………..”
The failure Viet Nam. Eisenhower had less than 1K troops in Viet Nam; Kennedy increased that to 30K and Johnson to 500K. One part of Nixon’s platform was to get out of Viet Nam. He did. Do you suppose THAT’S why Liberals hate him so much? It was a Democrat war, started under Kennedy and lost under Johnson, with the withdrawal under Nixon.
The failure in Beirut. The United Nations and President Reagan sent the Marines into Beirut in 1982. There was a civil war raging and a UN multi-national force (including French, Italian and British troops) went to stop the bloodshed. Our reward was, of course: the bombing of the US embassy (April 18, 1983) and the bombing of the Marine barracks (October 23, 1983). As I recall at the time, the Democrats in Congress said that if Reagan brought justice to the killers, they would impeach him. At any rate, we did NOTHING.
The failure in Aden. A hotel in Aden was being used as a way station for troops going to Mogadishu. “On 29 December 1992, Al Qaeda …..first known terrorist attack….bombing the Gold Mohur Hotel”. Bubba Clinton did NOTHING.
The failure in Somalia. “United Nations-sanctioned …. protected environment for…. humanitarian operations” The United Nations and George HW Bush on 4 December 1992 had sent troops to save Muslim lives. Later, the troops asked Bubba Clinton for increased fire power to defend themselves. The Clinton administration refused as “it would send the wrong message”. (Déjà vu all over again re the current controversy on our Ambassador in Libya.) This, of course, led to “Black Hawk Down”, October 3 and 4, 1993. “18 U.S. soldiers were killed….. 73 were wounded”. On October 6, 1993, Bubba cut and ran and did NOTHING.
“(CNN) REPORTER (Peter Arnett): “Let’s go to the bombings of United States troops in Riyadh and Dhahran. “ ”
Riyadh: 13 November, 1995. “U.S. training facility….(car bomb)… killed six people….President Clinton said that efforts were under way to find who was responsible.” Bubba did NOTHING.
Dahran: June 25, 1996 “Khobar Towers bombing….. 19 U.S. servicemen…..were killed…” and Bubba did NOTHING.
BIN LADIN: “Mentioning the name of Clinton…….. provokes disgust and revulsion.”
Exactly.
To those, I would add:
“February 26, 1993, Ramzi Yousef and a Jordanian friend, Eyad Ismoil, ….World Trade Center….The bomb opened a 30-m (98 ft) wide hole through four sublevels of concrete.” And Bubba treated it as a criminal matter, not an act of war.
“…(US) Embassy bombings… August 7, 1998 …..in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya.” On 20 August, 1998, Bubba DID fire off some 75 cruise missiles at targets in Afghanistan and Sudan. To quote Osama bin Laden: “….jokingly told militants at the al-Jihad merger that only a few camels and chickens had died”. George W. Bush referred to the event as “Shooting a few camels in the ass”. Well, GW IS from Texas!
Bombing of the USS Cole, October 2000. Bubba did NOTHING.
And the “Great Mother” of them all: When Iranian Jihadists took the US embassy in Tehran, the Ayatollah assessed Poor Jimmy Carter as a stupid, feckless weakling. The Ayatollah then took Poor Jimmy by the scruff of the neck and rubbed his nose in the doggy poo.
After a while, you begin to see a pattern. There was a book out named “ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN”. One of the things a person should have learned is: “Appeasing bullies will just make your life worse”.
The best example of this on the world stage was Neville Chamberlin.
“On September 30, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned from.. Munich …having agreed to the so-called Munich Pact …with Adolf Hitler……(Neville) got off the plane at Heathrow Airport waving a piece of paper….(the) text of the pact……later that day…. (he) made a short remark… “symbolic of the desire ….never to go to war ….again. My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time… Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.””
“with honour….peace for our time” The course to WWII was set. And there was NO honour.
To postulate that a Gore presidency would have somehow prevented 9/11 is strong evidence that the individual has not learned any history.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”
George Santayana, The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress: Reason in Common Sense
Regards,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin.)
Tony Mach says:
October 14, 2012 at 2:55 am
I am shocked to find out that an politician makes so much money after leaving office!
Surely it is not a general problem of making politics in a capitalistic system, but rather it is limited to some green liberal making politics in the interest of his pork barrel cronies, something the other party would never do.
So if the people of the United States would just vote in somebody from the other party the next time, if they would just vote in the right person, then this will all stop and everything will be just fine.
———————————–
Tony,
Which other party. You don’t seem to understand US politics. Both the democrats and republicans support a crony/capitalist system. (some on defense and some on windmills) Some people don’t recognize this because they have a deep political belief that their party is good and any other group which disagrees with them is evil.
Both Dems and Reps are weasels and do little except protect their position and wealth. We need to dump Obama and avoid Romney. The best fix is Governor Gary Johnson. The R’s and D’s control the presidential debate invitations by enforcing 15% polling threshold then the R’s and D’s leave Johnson off the poll.
Johnson has not told one lie or stretch of the truth while campaigning. He would not allow the congress to sidestep an issues or dilute a bill with amendments.
Governor Johnson vetoed almost 100 bills per year in New Mexico.
Johnson is the only one of the three who isn’t looking to bomb Iran.
The only one willing to stop foreign aide.
The only one who would not have allowed our ambassador and staff to stay in the worlds ‘hell holes’ of ruthless murderers. Having people in the Middle East just provides targets for our sworn enemies. We have ambassadors to work with other countries to protect our interests around the world. When the ME arrives in the 21st century their leaders can visit Washington if they find a need to ‘deplomasize’ with we the “Evil Satan”
http://www.garyjohnson2012.com
Before you repeat the mime “he can’t win” or “don’t waste your vote” take the time to hear what he has to say. It will change to “we need to vote this guy in office” and “vote your conscience”
cn
Martha Stewart goes to the grey bar hotel for a $5 large inside stock tip. Congress writes their OWN ethics rules and are all exempt from insider trading laws. Nancy Pelosi made $70 large in one IPO and that was just a crony capitalism “wise” investment. Wall Street can bribe all 435 Represenatives and all 100 Senators, AT NO COST BEYOND A PHONE CALL. The ruling two party crime syndicate has an extensive local farm system to promote the most effective and easily corruptable to “serve” in DC. Monopoly money rules reality.
“Maybe someone with some ability and intelligence besides being a socialist crony and Marxist hypocrite”.
Anyone who genuinely thinks Obama is a Marxist is truly displaying a profound lack of understanding of political systems. The rest of the Western world sees Obama as a classic one nation Conservative, and Mitt Romney somewhat to the right of him. Both of whom have made millions, as do most politicians. Hopefuly this site will not mutate from a science questioning established theories to a cheer leader for the right wing factions during this election period.
Garethman,
If you really believe that Obama is a right wing politician, the only explanation is that you live in an alternate universe. Obama is a Communist, just like his father and everyone who mentored him.
It is fairly common in cults that the cult leaders make off with the loot.
I think you guys are being too hard on old Al. He’s just trying to get by and reduce his co2 output.
/ END SARC
Fire missiles >>>>
June 10, 2010
When Gore realized that he needed to reduce his carbon footprint as well as giving him more living space he did the following.
It’s good to know that Old Al has always loathed Big Oil despite the Gore family getting rich on Occidental Petroleum.
What’s a second home, 6 fireplaces, big oil money and helping big oil between friends?
Garethman says:
October 14, 2012 at 8:53 am
I do not know ANYONE who sees Obama as a “classic one nation conservative”. I live in “the rest of the western world”. Substantiate, please.
“Hopefuly (sic) this site will not mutate from a science questioning established theories to a cheer leader for the right wing factions during this election period.”
I cannot begin to understand this statement, as Obama has surrounded himself (Chu, Holdren, etc.) with people that are trying to use climate as a political weapon for social control and taxation. Your posts are either uninformed or attempts to obfuscate issues that are clear for all to see.
How does the idea that posters really believe Obama is a Communist reflect on their scientific views and the views of this site? If someone truly believed Obama was a Marxist or communist I would be very suspicious of any other beliefs they held. Perhaps D Böehm can show the characteristics of Obama which make him think he is a communist? Maybe Obama has plans to collectivise the farms of the mid west ? Perhaps Obama is planning a dictatorship ? possibly planning a state ownership of the means of productions by the masses ? In reality he subscribes to the same views as our Conservative party, though in an American sense, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19577434
The trouble with flinging these labels around without the faintest idea of what they mean is you end up looking foolish, as did this plonker who used the same tactic. http://www.towleroad.com/2012/10/woman-calls-obama-a-communist-video.html
By the way universal healthcare is not a characteristic of a communist state, in fact it is the opposite, communist governments rarely have such social programmes due to having poor economies or a lack of commitment to their populations. China is a good example. So before posting opinions on climate or politics, at least do your homework 🙂 Calling Obama a communist is like calling Romney a Fascist, both views are fundimentally mistaken and reflect badly on the validity of the posters on this site.
David Ball says:
October 14, 2012 at 9:46 am
Garethman says:
October 14, 2012 at 8:53 am
I do not know ANYONE who sees Obama as a “classic one nation conservative”. I live in “the rest of the western world”. Substantiate, please.
“Hopefuly (sic) this site will not mutate from a science questioning established theories to a cheer leader for the right wing factions during this election period.”
I cannot begin to understand this statement,(sic) as Obama has surrounded himself (Chu, Holdren, etc.) with people that are trying to use climate as a political weapon for social control and taxation. Your posts are either uninformed or attempts to obfuscate issues that are clear for all to see.
David, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19577434 also it’s worth reading http://toryreformgroup.tumblr.com/post/32867558309/is-obama-a-one-nation-tory-everyone-else-seems-to-be If you are going to use this site to criticise traditional conservative Presidents, maybe the same attention should be given to the follies of those to the right of Obama? Otherwise the site becomes tarnished with the idea that its philosophies are informed not by science, but by right wing politics.
Taxation is a sensitive subject, some voters hate it and prefer the anarchy of no government or taxes, while there are those who will put up with some tax, as long as it for the causes they embrace, e.g. the military or universal health. But taxes have to be raised, if they are not raised from taxing carbon or whatever they are likely to be raised elsewhere. If you want to have the ability to wage wars or commission universal healthcare you need the funds, if you really hate all taxes you may appreciate the lifestyles enjoyed in Somalia or Liberia and other failed states. With reference to Al Gore; personally I don’t think he would have made a good President, but then again Bush was hardly outstanding. But as I mentioned, Gore has behaved in the traditional US way for most politicians, make money while you can and don’t worry too much about the ethics. By the way, if you think my posts are uninformed, what do you think of the views of someone who believes Obama to be a communist eh?