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Kenny-Boy and George
By William Rivers Pitt t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Wednesday 07 July 2004
You have to love the irony: Since Kerry announced his VP choice of John Edwards, the Bush campaign has broadbanded the anti-Edwards slam that he is nothing more than your basic gutter-dwelling trial lawyer. This comes blithely on the heels of Bush hiring his own trial lawyer to protect him during the 70-minute Oval Office interrogation he endured regarding the Valerie Plame CIA-outing case some weeks ago. Everyone hates lawyers until they need one, it seems.
Perhaps Bush doesn't like trial lawyers because a team of them failed to keep his long-time friend and financial backer, Kenneth Lay, from getting his hide nailed to the shed in Houston. According to CNN, Lay was indicted by a Texas grand jury today for crimes relating to the apocalyptic Enron scandal. The indictment is sealed until further notice, so no determination of the exact criminal charges can be made.
Damn lawyers.
For those who cannot quite recall the specifics of Ken Lay and Enron, a bit of background is in order. Lay, along with Andrew Fastow, Jeffrey Skilling and some dozens of other high-flying bosses from Enron, are accused of insider trading, securities fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy, manipulation of earnings reports to hide the fact that Enron was hemorrhaging cash from every pore while they reaped massive salaries and bonuses, and finally, manipulation of the California energy market for no other reason than to wring pin money out of grandmothers who were forced to live in the dark because they couldn't afford to pay their Enron-inflated energy bills.
Tape recordings of Enron energy traders were recently aired by CBS News. In one segment, the traders can be heard discussing the ins and outs of manipulating the California energy market. "They're fucking taking all the money back from you guys?" complains one Enron employee. "All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?" The response: "Yeah, grandma Millie, man." Another response: "Yeah, now she wants her fucking money back for all the power you've charged right up, jammed right up her asshole for fucking $250 a megawatt hour."
Charming.
-snip-
Read it and weep ....
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