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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (502120)	12/2/2003 11:56:00 AM
From: PROLIFE	Respond to of 769667

Every time you turn on the news and hear about Enron Corp. and its bankruptcy, you hear all about how George W. Bush allowed Enron to influence his energy policy. The collapse of Enron is the best thing to ever happen to John McCain, Russ Feingold, Marty Meehan, and Chris Shays. It's given them a pulpit from which to preach from. It's given new life to campaign finance reform. So the Democrats are loving this for several reasons: it's given a huge boost to campaign finance reform supporters, it has given them an example of the eeeevil Republican-caused recession, and they think that they can turn it into President Bush's own personal scandal. Clinton had Monicagate, fine they say, give Bush Enrongate. Even though they cannot come up with a single bit of evidence to connect Bush or his Administration to Enron...in fact, the Bush Administration REFUSED to help Enron when asked...the Democrats keep trying to connect the Bush Administration to the Enron bankruptcy. Which is why this newest finding is so deliciously interesting. According to The Washington Times, the Clinton Administration gave over $1 billion to Enron's overseas projects. ONE BILLION DOLLARS FOLKS! This is not a hand-out, this is a take-the-whole-damn-cash-drawer. Why haven't we heard this in the news? Simple, the media loves this so-called Bush connection. Folks, watch the news. You won't hear anything about Clinton, but you'll hear all about the "help" Bush gave Enron. Even though he refused to help! Unbelievable. Between 1993 and 2000, Enron proposed 20 projects to build power plants, natural-gas pipelines, and other facilities all around the world. Clinton and his government cronies financed 19 of these projects. Oh, and remember the Kyoto Treaty that Bush (rightfully) yanked us out of? Well, that treaty was pushed for by Enron, and signed by Clinton. So add another Clinton-tie to the list. And as for Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay? We've all heard how Bush called Lay "Kenny Boy" and all about how they are such great friends. But get this: Clinton called Lay an exemplary "corporate citizen" at a White House event because of Enron's enlightened personnel policies. And it doesn't stop there. Ken Lay was Bill Clinton's golf partner on numerous occasions, he slept in the Lincoln Bedroom, and attended several of Clinton's coffees along with other Enron executives. And yet we hear about Bush and Lay?!? Give me a break. yatesnetwork.tripod.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (502120)	12/2/2003 12:05:40 PM
From: PROLIFE	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

NBC News reporter David Gregory admits that while Enron gave President Bush and Republicans big contributions, there’s no evidence they got anything for their money. That’s certainly the case with Bush and the global warming treaty. Enron was a big backer of the treaty, also called the Kyoto Protocol, and yet Bush has abandoned it because of questions about the science behind the theory and the cost. So it turns out that the company we are led to believe was exercising influence over the Bush Administration through campaign contributions doesn’ t have any influence at all on this issue. This fact makes a mockery of implications that Bush did the bidding of Enron. In an April 23 article in Business Week, Paul Raeburn noted that "big corporate names" were disagreeing with Bush on global warming. One of them was identified as Enron. Enron became a member of the International Climate Change Partnership and the Pew Center’s Business Environmental Leadership Council. These companies bowed to environmental demands to endorse the treaty. At the same time, Enron was involved in a United Nations conference to develop Communist China’s coal resources. The Washington Post described some of Enron’s lobbying on behalf of the treaty in a January 13 article. Reporter Dan Morgan said Enron chairman Kenneth Lay, a member of President Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development, had a meeting with Clinton and Vice President Gore where he advocated a "market-based" approach to the problem of global warming." This was a strategy identified in an Enron memo as "good for Enron stock." Morgan added, "The Clinton administration’s interest in an international agreement to combat global warming also dovetailed with Enron’s business plans. Enron officials envisioned the company at the center of a new trading system, in which industries worldwide could buy and sell credits to emit carbon dioxide as part of a strategy to reduce greenhouse gases. Such a system would curtail the use of inefficient coal-fired power plants that emitted large amounts of carbon dioxide, while encouraging new investments in gas-fired plants and pipelines – precisely Enron’s line of business." Morgan added that Enron officials were elated with the Kyoto Protocol and said it would "do more to promote Enron’s business than almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring the energy and natural gas industries…" The radical environmentalists claimed Enron, which staged many "Earth Day" activities, as a true friend. At a dinner in Kyoto during treaty negotiations, Enron chairman Lay was given an award by the Climate Institute. Enron also received an award from the EPA. Writing in the journal of the Hoover Institution, Bruce Yandle noted that Enron endorsed President Clinton’s $6.3 billion plan to fight global warming by subsidizing the production and purchase of renewable energy and related technologies. Yandle added, "Kyoto-justified taxpayer subsidies will make life easier for firms like Enron." Clinton gave them the subsidies in exchange for campaign contributions. Bush gave them nothing. aim.org

To: American Spirit who wrote (502120)	12/2/2003 12:14:16 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

The details of "Get Shorty" and "Richochet" and the other scams that were worked on the California grid were not known in great detail until after the end of the crisis, as you say. However, the sense of general fraud was very much in the air from the summer of 2000 onward among those who were paying attention to SDG&E's turmoil. It is of note, and quite important, that there was a meeting of power marketers, some utility industry execs and a number of Wall Street brokerage house wonks that took place in Aspen, CO in October, 1997. There was a brief mention of this in the trade press, but the white bread corporate media never picked up on this. One of the articles I read in a trade journal was quite revealing. It stated that a senior engineer from PG & E traveled to Aspen from San Francisco and learned what was being proposed at the meeting by the traders. Basically, he understood that the schemes that I mentioned above, and others, were already active concepts in late 1997. This engineer went back to San Francisco in a panic because he understood the potential that this malicious trading had for bankrupting PG&E. Unfortunately for the company, the senior executives at PG&E brushed off the engineers concerns. They were far more interested in the aspect of AB 1890 and other Federal rule changes that were making it possible for PG&E to slip its regulatory noose and found a non-union, non-PUC regulated subsidiary. So, knowledge of the fact that California was going to be scammed was available to those who were "in the know" from 1997 forward. Clearly the C-PUC must have had some inkling. Cal-ISO clearly did by the summer of 1999 when some clever marketer tested the computers at Cal-ISO and entered bids for 1 Mwh of power at (as I recall) $9,999 for a few seconds, and then came back a short time later and posted a bid of $0.01. The computer accepted both bids. It should have been a huge red flag that the game was on. But no one at Cal-ISO blew the whistle..... and the rest is history.