Sinclair has ties to company doing business in Iraq, and Enron

[EarlG]

Received this in my inbox this morning... I've edited it for length, orignal is here:

http://kirghizlight.blogspot.com/2004_10_01_kirghizlight_archive.html#109761268791894071

Is it any wonder that Sinclair has an interest in Bush winning the election, not to mention their consistent efforts to make their viewers believe that everything is going just fine in Iraq?

Follow the money. Karl Rove, you've been busted.

Sinclair donates lots of money to Republican causes, and they recently decided to give a massive boost to the Bush campaign by preempting regular primetime programming in the days before the election to show an anti-Kerry smear piece produced by Carlton Sherwood, a former media consultant to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. Oh, and Sherwood's group, POWs for Truth, just merged with the Swift Boat liars, for good measure.

So, Sinclair is prepared to give a major blast of propaganda to the Bush campaign. What's in it for them? Thanks to The Raw Story, we learn that a company called Jadoo Power Systems has been awarded a contract to develop power systems for the US Special Operations Command. No word on how much it was worth, but it must have been a big deal, because a Jadoo press release from 2003 brags that the company's president and CEO, Larry Bawden, personally briefed President George W. Bush on his company's technology.

It could have been old-school ties. A Fortune magazine profile from October 2003 notes:

Barely two years old, has sold its fuel cells to Boeing; government agencies like the CIA, the Secret Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; and the U.S. Army. Earlier this year Jadoo placed in the business-plan competition at Harvard Business School, where vice president of business development Jon Berger, 30, earned his MBA this past spring.

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/smallbusiness/articles/0,15114,534931,00.html

So, who owns Jadoo?

The company's Investor Relations page lists only two "current investors":

Sinclair Ventures, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc....

Contango Capital Management was formed to bring capital to innovative entrepreneurs who are working hard to answer the energy challenges facing our world today and in the near future. Located in Houston, Texas, Contango Capital Management invests in early-stage technology-based and service companies in the energy industry...

http://www.jadoopower.com/investor.html

Hey, this is interesting. Wasn't Enron located in Houston too? Why, lookie here:

John Berger
Managing Partner
Contango Capital Partners

Mr. Berger is a founding partner of the General Partner and its Managing Partner. Mr. Berger has over eight years of experience in the energy industry, during which he managed energy trading books for Enron Corporation and initiated development of the new Enron Premium Power Division.

(snip)

Mr. Berger also managed the Enron Hourly Trading Desk, and operated a utility system in the southeastern United States. At Enron Energy Services he led and developed Enron's corporate strategy for new energy technologies and energy reliability financial products. In addition, Mr. Berger spearheaded development, investment, and partnership opportunities in fuel cell technologies.

During 2002 and 2003, Mr. Berger served as an advisor to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission where he drafted governance guidelines for the Regional Transmission Organizations and served as an advisor to the drafters of the Standard Market Design regulatory document that is currently before the United States Congress. He also advised the Commission on distributed generation, demand response, information gathering and application issues, investigations, and trade clearing/credit issues in the North American energy markets.

http://www.contangocapital.com/team/jberger.html

So a guy who got rich at Enron goes to work for the Bush Administration's Federal Energy Regulatory Commission during the period when they're investigating Enron. He gets an MBA at Harvard, founds a company backed with his Enron stash and some extra seed capital from Sinclair Broadcasting, and uses his connections to get a one-on-one meeting with the President. His company then gets a (presumably no-bid) contract from the Defense Department, thus (presumably) guaranteeing they'll hit their revenue goals this year and (presumably) greasing their skids for the company's planned IPO.

The President even had his picture taken with one of Jadoo's founders:

http://www.harbus.org/news/2003/03/03/News/StartUp.Launched.In.November.2001.Is.Making.Waves.In.The.Energy.World-384199.shtml

Connect all the dots. Enron. Harvard Business School. Sinclair. The Swift Boat liars. This is how Rove works. Unfortunately, he left too many tracks this time.

[edbermac]

1. I hope JK gives this item a few minutes tonight and then...

end it by mentioning the Sinclair exec getting busted for solicitation...that would be such a sweet bitch-slap!

[VolcanoJen]

2. K I C K!!

:dem:

[realFedUp]

3. kick

[newyawker99]

4. kick

[high density]

5. zing

:kick: