solyndraSolyndra was a California company that manufactured and sold solar panels. Notice the use of the past tense in that sentence. Unfortunately, Solyndra had to shut its doors and declare bankruptcy last month -- letting go of over a thousand people in the process.

It happens ... especially in this economy, and especially in California. It’s sad, but it’s life, and hopefully everyone that lost his or her job will be able to move on and find another opportunity for work.

But Solyndra is not the typical closing its doors company. Solyndra was part of President Barack Obama’s stimulus project. Way back in early 2009, the brand new president warned that we had to pass a stimulus (on the heels of TARP) in order to keep the unemployment rate from going above 8 percent.

How’s that working out for the economy?

Anyway, this infamous stimulus bill included such amazing projects as funding crack monkeys, sea turtle tunnels, skylights for liquor stores, guns that killed United States border agents ... and Solyndra. 

The green energy company Solyndra got $535 million in taxpayer dollars as part of Barack Obama’s stimulus bill. In fact, President Obama touted Solyndra as a company to emulate: “Companies like Solyndra ... will always be America’s business,” he said. Now Solyndra is out of business. What happened to that $535 million? No one knows. It’s just gone. 

As it turns out, Solyndra got its funding in record time, despite the apparent red flags. The Oklahoma oil billionaire George Kaiser was the one that campaigned the White House to fund the financially shaky solar power company. The very same George Kaiser that was a bundler for Barack Obama ... a bundler being a mega fund-raiser.

There are so many questions to be asked: Why did Solyndra get funding despite its dubious financial situation? Where did the $535 million go? Is this crony capitalism?

So many questions ... so few answers ...