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What neither of these columns mentions is that the current chair of
Republican National Committee, Marc Racicot, was hired as a
lobbyist-attorney of Houston's Bracewell & Patterson, which is Enron's chief
lobbyist.  Racicot was instrumental in getting Montana's power industry
deregulated while he was governor of that state, chiefly for the benefit of
Enron's expansion into fiber optic cable systems.  They also don't mention
Enron's historical connections to the Bakers' gas company, Entex, now part
of Reliant Energy (formerly Houston Industries) and its connection to
Pennzoil, a company controlled since 1962 by Bush family friends, the
Liedtkes.

Linda



http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/opinion/columns/ivins7.htm

Published Friday, Dec. 7, 2001, in the San Jose Mercury News
Company's connections with Bush go way back
Enron's pipeline crumbles
BY MOLLY IVINS

HAIL and farewell, o Enron! What a flameout. The Establishment media,
sucking its collective thumb with unwonted solemnity, is treating us to
meditations on two themes: ``How the mighty have fallen,'' and, ``Who would
have thunk it?'' Pardon me while I snort, in lieu of ruder noises, and offer
two themes of my own: ``What took so long?'' and, ``Anyone with an ounce of
common sense.''

If you want to know what this story is about, pretend Bill Clinton is still
president. Pretend Clinton's long-time, all-time biggest campaign
contributor, a guy for whom Clinton has carried water for over the years, a
guy with unparalleled ``access,'' a shaper of policy -- imagine that this
guy's worldwide empire has tumbled into bankruptcy in just three months amid
cascading reports of lies, monumental accounting errors, evasions, iffy
financial statements, insider deals, a board of directors rife with
conflicts of interest, top executives bailing out with millions while
regular employees see their life savings shrink to nothing -- imagine all
this back in the day of Bill Clinton.

We'd have four congressional investigations, three special prosecutors, two
impeachment inquiries and a partridge in a pear tree by now. Republicans
would be drumming their heels on the floor in full tantrum.

But this is not President Clinton, it is President Bush -- so of course
different standards must apply. The fact that Ken Lay, Enron's chairman, has
been Bush's chief money man since he first went into politics is mentioned
only in passing. The media don't want to be impolite.

The main problem with Enron is that it has never produced much of anything
in the way of either goods or services; it has not added a single widget to
the world widget supply. Enron is in the business of ``financializing,''
making markets, trading in wholesale electricity, water, data storage,
fiber-optics, just about anything.

Enron started as a gas pipeline company that went into trading natural gas,
and even then the company's critics claimed Enron was making profits by
stoking volatility in gas prices. The same charge showed up again in spades
with the newly deregulated electricity markets. Enron had lobbied for
utility deregulation relentlessly, formidably and very expensively at both
the state and national levels. The company seemed to spend more time
influencing government than doing business.

Just a few spiffy eye-openers on Enron's connections:


Lay and Enron together donated $2 million to George W. Bush. In 2000, a
company memo that was an open strong-arm recommended employees give campaign
checks for Bush to the political action committee: low-level managers were
urged to contribute $500 and senior executives at least $5,000. It gave more
money last cycle than any other energy company.

Lawrence B. Lindsay, Bush's top economic adviser, got $50,000 from Enron in
2000 for consulting, presumably giving the company the same excellent advice
now proving so healthy for the nation's economy.

Karl Rove, Bush's top political strategist, sold between $100,000 and
$250,000 worth of Enron stock earlier this year, after being criticized for
conflict of interest.

The California Legislature passed a contempt motion against Enron for
failure to respond to a June 11 subpoena. The legislature is investigating
whether power generating companies willfully manipulated electricity supply
in order to drive up prices.

Lay was the only energy executive to meet alone with Vice President Dick
Cheney while Cheney was drawing up a new national energy policy in secret.

Enron influenced public policy time and again while Bush was governor in
Texas. Enron was a major player during the utilities deregulation debate,
for which Bush lobbied actively, and in ``tort reform,'' making it harder to
sue corporations for the damage they do.

===
Molly Ivins is a syndicated columnist.

++++++++++++
http://www.rense.com/general17/magic.htm
...
Of the billions apparently secretly sucked out of Enron, the bulk went
disguised as at least 600 billion dollars, if not even more, at key moments,
to temporarily prop up the U.S. stock markets. That is, some 20 billion
dollars, multiplied by the black magic of fractional reserves to 600 billion
dollars. Some who count beans faster than others, contend it is actually
many trillions of dollars, supported by fractional/fictional reserves piled
on derivatives piled on drifting sand in some uncharted oily desert.

[As a young man, having been taught mathematics by a protege of Albert
Einstein, I might have years ago understood the illogic of multiplying 20
billion dollars of purloined corporate funds into 600 billion dollars as
part of a trip on the way to many trillions. As I recall, there is a
mathematics symbol for negatives that cannot otherwise be balanced or
explained in a math equation. I think they used to call it the "j" operator
or such. Nowadays, I would label it the JACKASS SUBTRACTOR.]

Enron became the all-purpose, world-circling trading desks for energy, a
contractor for oil, natural gas, and electric services, a near-limitless
investment machine, a telecom, a biggie piggy bank, an insurer. In short, as
major newsfaker Time Magazine described it in their 12/10/01 issue "the
brash energy-trading giant called Enron". And, "After weeks of escalating
financial troubles, business had effectively collapsed in many of Enron's
most important markets. Only months earlier, Enron was considered one of the
most innovative U.S. companies, having brought new-economy tools [or was it
old-economy embezzling and money laundering?-ed.] such as Internet and
sophisticated hedging strategies to the old business of matching producers
and consumers of electricity, oil, natural gas-and eventually some 800 other
commodities and services. Its operations directly or indirectly touch almost
every American home and business." AND, how many members of the U.S.
Congress and OTHER foreign parliaments do they also touch? Is Enron a latter
day Bank of Crooks and Criminals International, BCCI?

Like phantom money ship BCCI, Enron did their elaborate game of changing
currencies hidden in a smokescreen of black art.

Dick Cheney up to August, 2000, had been CEO of Halliburton, among other
things, a supplier of oil industry machinery. [Hey, as of the posting of
this story, is Halliburton another BCCI/ Enron device?] Through
Halliburton's overseas units, Cheney, a major stockholder of Halliburton,
has apparently treasonously supplied Iraqi strongman, Saddam Hussein, a
disgruntled former private business partner of Daddy Bush, what Saddam
needed to break the embargo on oil shipments. [As to Daddy Bush/Saddam
Hussein, see our website story, "The Secrets of Timothy McVeigh."]

Dictators, like some political condiments gathering in a mythical
Chinese-style restaurant, seem to have private business partnerships off and
on mixing with one another, at times sweet, at times sour.

Cheney, Daddy Bush, Bush, Jr., and their circle hovering around Big Oil,
used Enron as an accomplished cruise ship. Like those Love Boats sailing the
Caribbean, U.S.S. Enron asked no questions of those who brought on-board
their steamer-trunks of dirty money. The unwritten deal was, Enron was
supposed to keep a per centage as a fee. In the real world, there is a most
serious non-statutory offense, never violated by those hoping to go up in
the Establishment, called FAILURE TO BRIBE. [I once startled what I call a
court victim, stating YOU ARE GUILTY, after all of THAT, right?]

Various "investment houses", actually money laundries, have been bloodied by
Enron's collapse but are mostly silent. Did some brokers screw some Enron
stock owners?

"The Enron episode further damages the credibility of Wall Street analysts.
Richard Gross, an analyst at Lehman Brothers...kept a 'strong buy' rating on
Enron's stock throughout the decline. Lehman stood to earn a hefty fee for
advising Dynegy to buy Enron, until Dynegy withdrew its offer. A Lehman
spokesman said it was the firm's policy not to change its rating on a
company involved in a deal where Lehman is an adviser. BUT ANYBODY WHO TOOK
LEHMAN'S ADVICE ON ENRON'S STOCK IN RECENT MONTHS WOULD HAVE LOST ALMOST
EVERYTHING." New York Times story, "With Enron's Fall, Many Dominoes
Tremble", 12/2/01 (Emphasis added.)

Enron, while sinking, became the vessel from which was covertly extracted
(or embezzled?) huge sums, multiplied by financial witchcraft, to
temporarily prop up the failing stock markets. In 1929, many suckers really
believed the bigshots who said they would bail out the markets. Except in
1929, it was done out front, in 2001, secretly or not publicly spoken. [See
the book "The Great Crash-1929" by Kenneth Galbraith, how that great fraud
empire, J.P. Morgan, fooled the suckers into staying in a collapsing
market.]

Hey, Greenspan/Redspan! Tell your wife, Andrea Mitchell, it is okay to pass
along this "more than pillow talk" to General Electric, the boss of her boss
NBC Network. And while you are at it, as Federal Reserve commissar, order
G.E. to stop selling what some curse, their damned "too-often-burning-out"
light bulbs.

Hey, Wendy Gramm! Call Enron, hurry up, before the phones are disconnected.
[Wait a minute. Would a telecom giant like Enron have dead phones?]

Is a tidal wave of Enron/Halliburton about to wreck the White House? More
coming.

Stay tuned.

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