ENRON: Connect the Dots to Plamegate

[McCamy Taylor]

It is very simple. Enron is the Mother of all * Administration Scandals. It is the one criminal act which * is personally responsible for. He rolled back the energy price caps, allowing Enron to continue price gouging California into 2001, while Cheney and the FERC laughed and did nothing. When Enron fell, * was suddenly in deadly peril. Ken Lay knew enough to get * impeached and sent to jail.

Fast forward to March 2003. After much stalling the FERC was finally scheduled to issue its report on the California energy crisis of 2000-1. There was plenty of evidence of price gouging by companies like Enron. A report clearing Enron of wrongdoing would be greeted by the California press with derision and might precipitate an even bigger scandal and charges of administration coverup. But, a report that Enron had engaged in price gouging would be very nasty in itself, since it would make the headlines across the country, and it would raise the question of why did * roll back Clinton's price caps and why did Cheney meet with Lay and why did the FERC do nothing to help California?

What the administration needed was a story so HUGE, that no one would notice really big story like Enron guilty of price gouging California. Where would they find this story? In their laps, the war for which they had been grooming the American public for the last 8 months. All they needed to do was speed things up. But to do that, they needed to make things seem urgent. Urgency meant increaing the apparent threat posed by Iraq. Nuclear weapons were the biggest threat around. So, why not use the debunked uranium claim in the SOTU address? They were going to invade Iraq anyway, so why not do it when it would provide them a needed political media smokescreen?

They were successful. They invaded Iraq about a week before the FERC was scheduled to release its report. The report condemned Enron and the administration. On the west coast the report got front page coverage. In the rest of the country it was buried in the business section where it was never heard of again. Everyone was too busy following the war. End of political crisis.

Trouble was, the CIA had overruled them once before on the uranium story, and the CIA was pissed off. Guess the CIA didnt see itself as a political tool for the WH. So, * found himself embroiled in an entirely different scandal, one involving the lies about the uranium.

No problem, just discredit the person making the accusation about the WH lies. Ooops. Here comes another scandal. Plamegate.

BTW, Enron just settled its price gouging civil suit with California. The story is getting little media attention thanks to Rove-gate.

PS Oh, how I wish that Fitzgerald would connect these dots and extend his investigation into Enron's price gouging of California!

[rodeodance]

1. this is a 'Rovedate"!!

[whistle]

2. Rovedate....what do you mean by that?

[Proud_Lefty]

3. Details on the California Suit?

Unfortunately, settlements are normally part of the public record, but it is with the State of California. Any details on that case? Any articles?

[McCamy Taylor]

6. NYT on the Settlement of the Civil Suit Against Enron

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/16/business/16enron.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1121711325-9J+vPvr/RVvA+ZtuisRdsg

The settlement "will squeeze justice from this corporate turnip," Bill Lockyer, the attorney general for California, said in a statement.

"After masterminding one of the largest rip-offs in history, Enron collapsed under the weight of its own greed and corruption," said Mr. Lockyer, who represented California in the settlement.

With this latest agreement, total settlements stemming from the energy crisis that hit the Western states have reached nearly $6 billion, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

"The dark cloud of litigation and regulatory uncertainty has been hanging over California for five years now," Joseph T. Kelliher, the commission's chairman, said in a statement. "That's too long. It's time for all of us to step up to the plate and resolve these remaining issues."

[Gregorian]

4. Remember- this also ties in with the Calif. recall

Bustamonte had a pending lawsuit against Schwartzenegger. And Schwartzenegger had that meeting with Milken. I'm not up on the details. It's hard to do, with this monster of a trail of evidence.

[AX10]

5. Please keep me updated. If you find anything....

could you please let me know?!?

Thank you.

[wli]

7. check John O'Neill's story

[McCamy Taylor]

8. A few more links about Rove's Ties to Enron. Looks like Rove is Guilty Too

Rove was helping Enron "fix" the FERC so that it wouldnt interfere with its California price gouging which was the only part of its operation that was producing cash in 2001. That means that Rove would have a personal reason to want to see that Enron's crimes against California and the Administration's involvement in them remain in the business pages.






http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/business/2002/enron/20.stm

Mr Rove was one of the biggest holders of Enron stock among White House staffers, with between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of shares when he was appointed. He was required to sell them when the Bush administration took office.

The White House has acknowledged that Mr Rove took part in meetings that helped shape the Bush government’s energy policy, while he still held Enron shares and stock in other energy companies – though the administration denies that the meetings were specific enough to raise conflict-of-interest of interest.

http://sanderhicks.com/articles/enron2.html

Bush's Karl Rove took the advice of Enron's Ken Lay about a prospective appointee to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Nora Mead Brownell (also known to her detractors as "Nora Mead Brownout") was appointed by Bush and confirmed by the Senate. A childhood friend of Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, at the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission Brownell had helped Enron enter Pennsylvania's newly deregulated energy markets.

The law was most likely snapped in two. When Rove consulted with Lay over Brownell, Rove owned a significant number of shares of Enron. Normally, a White House official needs to apply for and receive a waiver to clear this kind of conflict of interest. When Congressman Henry Waxman asked why Rove had not sought the proper waiver, the White House curtly replied that Rove was not within the jurisdiction of that law. Representative Waxman didn't buy that. But somehow, our political system lets a non-elected paid campaign official in the White House get away with blatant white collar crime while an elected Congressman, the ranking member of the House Government Reform Committee, can't even get his questions answered.

Before her appointment to the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, Brownell had no experience in public utility management. She was a banker. Senior Vice President for Corporate Affairs at Meridian Bancorp in Philadelphia, she did receive high marks for opening up housing loans to minorities. But her first decision in Pennsylvania, on wholesale phone rates, was criticized as "anti-consumer." The opening stanzas of her testimony to the Senate opens with this breathy libertarian posturing: "In the interest of full disclosure, I believe in free markets."

On 25 May 2001, the Senate confirmed Ms. Brownell. Simultaneously that day, in a move that can't be coincidental, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), a leading member of the committee that confirmed Brownell, called for hearings into the possibility of an improper relationship between the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the energy industry. In her Press release, Feinstein cited the day's New York Times report that FERC Chairman Bob Herbert had been contacted by Ken Lay, and offered "support" if he would change his policies to be favorable to Enron. Senator Feinstein noted "FERC is a $175 million a year agency charged with regulating the energy industry, and it would be unconscionable if any of the nation's electricity traders or generators were in a position to be able to determine who chairs or becomes a member of the commission."

Today, Nora Mead Brownell remains a defender of Enron's integrity. To her, Enron's spectacular crash was not the product of deceit or hubris, as many Wall Street analysts find. The government's "regulator" is far more forgiving than even the most bullish critics in the marketplace. To Nora Brownell, Enron's fatal flaw was simply a lack of restraint. She told the Washington Post, "In my mind, it is a classic case of a company growing very fast and not putting in place the financial controls and management depth that was needed." Unregulated markets were not at fault, of course. "In fact, the market has worked pretty efficiently." She dismisses the accusations of criminal fraud and chalks it up to the wild west nature of the "free market." In a forgiving voice, she recently told PBS, "When you don't have a Ten Commandments, it's very hard to have a sinner." Enron should hope to find the Senate so understanding. Does the killing of over 4,500 jobs not prick Brownell's conscience? Does the vaporizing of $70 billion in value not strike her as bad for the pensions and economy of average, hard-working Americans?

[McCamy Taylor]

9. Another link that sees connections between Enron and Iraq.

To Summarize the author's theory, Neo-Cons planned to use fabricated energry crisis in California to create a sense of national security crisis about oil and energy which could be used to get the nation on board its plan to take over Iraq. Ken Lay and Enron were their tools to create this crisis.

http://www.yuricareport.com/PoliticalAnalysis/FraudinWhiteHouse.htm