The Czar believes there are no less than three (3) very serious scandals going on in the Obama administration. At no point do we wish to say the President is involved in any of them—really, the evidence isn’t there—but the evolution of the stories so far not only points in that direction, but historically these types of stories usually wind up there.

Watergate serious? Not so far. Teapot Dome scandal? Absolutely. And as such, the require the full measure of investigation to determine what the heck is going on. Naturally, the appearance of these stories in the popular media are hazy, deflecting, and even vague. So here is your rundown of the big three, ranked in our opinion of least-to-most-serious.

1. Solyndra. Back in the Bush years, a company petitions for a federal dollars to develop a radically new approach to solar energy technology. The Bush administration reviews it, but concludes the idea is too far-fetched to compete successfully. Obama is inaugurated, and within that first week, Solyndra (a) sends a huge check to the Obama war chest, (b) makes a phone call to some Obama officials, and (c) is notified their application will be approved. The DOE requests time to review their application before rubber stamping it. No matter, as Solyndra receives $535 million in funds. Solyndra employees report gross mismanagement of the money and reckless spending. The DOE analysis comes back later, indicating that due to recent advances in Chinese solar technology, Solyndra cannot make their devices for less than the sale price—meaning they will lose money on every single one made. As a result, the DOE predicts (with astonishing accuracy) the company will go tango uniform by September, 2011. The DOE is shocked to learn the money has already been given to Solyndra, without any consideration of their findings, with the approval of (allegedly) Secretary Chu himself. Solyndra runs out of money in September, 2011—and no one can account for where the money went. It appears to have vanished. Effect: the President has to distance himself from this massive malfeasance, and ideally Secretary Chu should take the fall for losing a half-billion dollars of tax payer money.
2. LightSquared. A wireless technology company (LightSquared) wants to push a product that uses wireless frequencies very close to those used by GPS systems. The military elects to review this technology, and a USAF general familiar with these systems concludes that there could be disastrous overlap between the two systems—specifically, the LightSquared technology could inadvertently jam GPS frequencies. This has serious effects for the military, of course, who might suddenly go blind during a serious operation; however, it can also affect airplane navigation (which is almost exclusively GPS these days), and have detrimental effects on civil engineering GIS systems as well. He recommends against LightSquared’s plan until they iron out the bugs. LightSquared, conveniently, donates big money to Democratic candidates, and the general is told to approve the idea. He refuses, on grounds that there is too much risk. Effect: No laws were necessarily broken, and LightSquared has fixed the overlap issue, but the dotted line here says that the Obama administration was willing to risk the lives of soldiers and air travelers simply because LightSquared donated big bucks. This is another item the President has to distance himself from, and likely fire someone over, to defend against accusations of pay-to-play and lobbyist interests.
3. Fast and Furious. This one is really bad. A pair of gun store owners were contacted by ATF agents and were requested to sell firearms to obviously criminal elements with no questions asked as part of a sting operation. The store owners were assured no laws would necessarily be broken, but the hope was to track weapons back to distributors in Mexico and shut the whole operation down. Indeed, bad guys showed up and purchased no shortage of powerful hardware—each time, the store owners were reassured that this was part of the plan…until numerous people on both sides of the border were being killed by these weapons. Indeed, it became evidently clear that no one was tracking anything, and now thousands of dollars in illegal weapons were responsible for killing innocent people. Each time investigators looked into the chain of events, the authorization went higher and higher. Presently, there are open admissions on record that Attorney General Eric Holder was well aware of what was happening, and that he may or may not have been advising the President on the original idea. Effect: A total failure, and Eric Holder should resign over this. There is blood on his hands over this, and if the President was aware that American law enforcement was knowingly aiding Mexican drug lords in killing innocent Americans, wow. This one is bad.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.