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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (59473)	4/7/2005 12:04:00 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

After phony crisis, energy thieves gave heavily to Delay: The Texas Observer reported, “In early June 2002, DeLay held a two-day golf tournament at the Homestead resort in Hot Springs, Virginia. The cost of attending the event was a corporate contribution of $25,000 to $50,000. Five energy companies were invited by Maloney to attend: El Paso Corp., Mirant, Reliant Energy, Westar Energy, and Williams Companies… The golfing took place just before a House-Senate conference on an omnibus energy bill.” Reliant Energy's director of communications would not comment on the baby shower at the time, but admitted the company allowed the use of its conference room for the event. "Reliant gave $65,000 in soft money to DeLay's leadership PAC, Americans for a Republican Majority, in 2000 and 2001," Roll Call noted. "Through its own PAC, Reliant has donated $37,000 in hard money to DeLay's re-election campaigns since 1996, and another $6,348 to ARMPAC." Reliant has run afoul of regulations on several occasions. In 2003, the Houston firm admitted to having violated securities laws to inflate profits by 10 percent; in the same year, they also paid $25 million to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to settle charges of manipulating California’s energy markets; in 2002, Reliant paid $10.5 million to settle charges of manipulating Texas’ energy markets. Energy company manipulation of the California energy market allowed the firms to overcharge California consumers by more than $20 billion between 2000 and 2001. Among the largest offender was Texas-based Enron, also a top donor solicited by DeLay. According to the Washington Post, DeLay requested $100,000 from Enron be channeled to the Texas political action committee abetting a Texas redistricting effort. * Reliant also involves James Baker, counsel to the Bushes, the Saudi royal family and the Carlyle Group. Reliant along with Enron and all of the above energy companies were the thieves that pulled off the massive energy gouging and fraud after Bush-Cheney were nominated in 2000.