I CORINTHIANS CHAPTER 13 1 ¶ Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. 4 ¶ Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; 6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; 7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. 8 ¶ Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. 9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. 11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 13 And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. sent week 020915 No wonder ENRON JUSTICE is taking SO DAMN LONG! Turns out probably george w. bush, dick cheney, and the secretary of the usa army also belong in prison over this one too as well as MANY others! The American people need to be better informed and investigations and actually criminal proceedings SHOULD BE QUICKLY EXPEDITED!!!! For your viewing "PLEASURE" I have cut and paste the facts on this ENRON OILY MESS from: www.mediawhoresonline.com ------------- Meet Thomas "Enron" White Thomas E. "Enron" White was appointed Secretary of the Army by George W. Bush last spring. A West Point graduate and distinguished veteran officer of the Vietnam War, Secretary White made his career not in the military but in the private sector -- as one of the chief honchos at the now disgraced and bankrupt Enron Corporation. As Chairman and C.E.O. of Enron Operations Corporation and Vice-Chairman of Enron Energy Services, White was in charge of capital management and facilities management. He also became a very rich man. According to last year's company statements, White owned Enron Corporation common stock valued at between $25 and $50 million, that paid over $5 million in dividends and capital gains Enron Corporation stock options valued at between $25 and $50 million, that paid between $100,000 and $1 million in capital gains An Enron Corporation Cash Balance Retirement Account valued between $100,000 and $250,000 An Enron Corporation-DLJ Private Equity Partners Fund II that paid $5,516,131.08 in salary. An Enron Employee Stock Ownership Plan, Defined Contribution Plan Managed by Enron valued between $1 million and $5 million An Enron Phantom Stock Award valued at between $5 million and $25 million An Enron Retirement Account (Enron Stock) worth less than $1,000 Not bad, huh! But there's more!!! When White joined the government, he received $1 million from Enron Corporation in severance pay, following provisions in his employment agreement and the routine practice of Enron. And his Phantom Stock Award in Enron (approximately 240,000 shares) was accelerated and paid out when he left the company. Looks like Thomas E. "Enron" White left Enron just in the nick of time!!! Except there's one little thing -- what happened to all of the rest of "Enron" White's holdings -- to the tune of over $100 million? Did they go down the tubes with the company? Or did White -- perhaps with some insider tip -- dump all of that too? The company's next financial statement should clear all of that up. Either way, no tears need be shed for White. At the very least, he came away with his million-dollar severance pay, along with somewhere between $5 and $25 million in his curiously-named Phantom Stock Award. But if he did better than that -- if he dumped his holdings as the rest of the Enron corporate brass did -- well, then, some questions need to be raised - like what did "Enron" know and when did he know it? Is our Secretary of the Army a corporate chiseler and crook? Time will tell. But when it does, and if the telling is bad, will the news media and the Congress even care? For a complete list of Bush Administration officials with ties to Enron, including holdings disclosures, see: http://j-marshall.com/talk/jan0201.html#0102021142am The first in an occasional series of MWO reports. ANNALS OF ENRON A Continuing MWO Feature Meet Harvey Pitt Last year, George W. Bush appointed Harvey Pitt as Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Friends of deregulation, from the official industry lobby, the Securities Industry Association, to Senator Phil Gramm, loudly applauded the appointment. The Senate quickly confirmed Pitt in a unanimous vote. Pitt served as the SEC's general counsel from 1975 to 1978. But he really made it big thereafter in private legal practice, where, as a partner at the firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, he became known as one of D.C.'s über-lobbyists. He gained his greatest exposure as defense counsel to the notorious Ivan Boesky at the time of the Wall Street insider trading scandals in the late 1980s and early 1990s. So where does Enron come in? One of the most outrageous aspects of the Enron scandal has to do with its auditing practices. Had the firm's longtime auditor, the accounting firm of Arthur Andersen, done its job, it would have raised hell when Enron executives started looting the company. Except that Arthur Andersen was also double-dipping -- making $27 million on top of its $25 million auditing fee, by performing additional services for Enron -- even as it was supposed to be inspecting the company's books. Talk about conflict of interest! The SEC's chief mission is watch out for and stop this sort potential corruption. And, indeed, Pitt's predecessor as SEC chairman, Arthur Levitt, strongly proposed prohibiting auditors from performing additional services for the companies they are supposed to be scrutinizing. But Levitt was stymied, which allowed Enron and Arthur Andersen to keep their cozy little relationship going while the Enron brass robbed the company blind. And who led the successful attack on Levitt's regulatory efforts? Why, none other than the old insider D.C. lobbyist, Harvey Pitt -- who got his reward when Bush and the Senate handed him Levitt's job! Had it not been for Harvey Pitt, the Enron thievery might just have been halted in time. And now, the fox -- Boesky's boy, Phil Gramm's boy, the deregulator Harvey Pitt -- is in charge of guarding the chicken coop! In his first speech after winning confirmation, Chiarman Pitt declared the start of "a new era of respect and cooperation" between the SEC and the firms it is supposed to regulate. In short, a "kindler, gentler" SEC -- as far as the securities traders are concerned! Since then, in an interview with Business Week, Pitt has dismissed the possibility that Arthur Andersen might have shown insufficient "independence" in it connections with Enron: "To a firm like Arthur Andersen, as significant as the dollars are, they don't make a significant ripple in their overall financial structure-- whether it's $27 million or $25 million." While promising to get tough with lawbreakers, Pitt promises to change nothing about the conflict-of-interest arrangements. Nor, it seems, will he do anything except shield his political patrons in the Bush Administration from any investigation in connection with Enron. Cautiously denying that he was getting any heat from the White House or Capitol Hill -- "No, I don't think so," were his words-- Pitt gave a strong signal in Business Week that Enron's close Republican pals have nothing to fear from the SEC: "The only aspect of Enron we're focused on is what happened to investors and whether the proper compliance with all our securities laws and rules applied." Democratic senators -- including Joseph Lieberman, who has begun an official investigation into the Enron scandal -- may come to regret their votes confirming Harvey "The Fox" Pitt. And the news media may come to regret their obsession with Gary Condit and shark attacks while "The Fox" got put in charge of the SEC. One commentator, Arianna Huffington, has even called for Pitt's resignation. But don't hold your breath waiting for anything more. For further information, see Enron Sham Sure Blows DC's Cover Harvey Pitt: "Violate the law, you will pay" ANNALS OF ENRON Follow-up: Harvey Pitt You really have to hand it to the Washington Post. For years, it hyped endless phony, unsourced stories about the long-past Whitewater pseudo-scandal, as if the Republic was about to fall. Now a very real scandal breaks, involving untold billions of dollars as well as current White House policy -- and the Post demands everybody turn a blind eye to the possibility that the current Administration just may be culpable. Democrats, the Post says, should resist the "temptation" to look into the links between George W. Bush and Kenneth Lay, Bush's biggest campaign contributor and Enron's CEO. How much more important it was, though, for the Post to investigate, year after year, Bill Clinton's by-gone passing links with a drug-addicted petty con-man who had turned against him, Jim McDougal -- even though every single investigation turned up absolutely nothing! But the Post's blatant double standard isn't the really rich part of all of this. In the same editorial in which it tries to call off the hounds about Bush, the paper intones solemnly that Enron's auditing methods were, indeed, scandalous, and that "[a]n important focus for Enron's inquisitors is to consider tougher oversight." Nowhere does the editorial mention that it was Bush's hand-picked chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Harvey Pitt, who, as a private lobbyist, defeated Clinton Administration efforts to crack down on precisely the kinds of abuses that ran wild at Enron and its accounting firm, Arthur Andersen. And nowhere does the editorial mention that Chairman Pitt last month specifically rejected reconsidering that crack-down, dismissing the potential of corrupt collusion between corporations and their auditors as unimportant. See: Business Week Even adopting The Washington Post's ridiculously narrow view of the matter, it is plain that the Bush Administration and the current SEC need some tough questioning about "tougher oversight." But the Post questions not -- just as it utterly failed to report on Pitt's obstructionism back before Pitt entered the Administration. Email Leonard Downie at the Washington Post to ask why his newspaper has failed to question the Bush Administration and, specifically, SEC chairman Harvey Pitt, about Pitt's involvement in obstructing tough oversight of companies like Enron ANNALS OF ENRON EXTRA!! CHENEY-ENRON BLOCKBUSTER!! Veep's Lawyer Admits Secret Energy Report Confabs 6 Sessions, Not One Urgent Questions Raised After months of stonewalling, the White House had admitted that representatives of the disgraced Enron Corporation met six times with Vice President Dick Cheney or staff from his energy task force. Previously, only one meeting between Cheney and Enron chief and Bush-Cheney campaign contributor, Kenneth Lay, on April 17, 2001, had been disclosed. The Vice President's counsel, David S. Addington, informed Rep. Henry Waxman of the hitherto secret Enron sessions in a January 3 letter. Previously, Addington had rebuffed the inquiries of Rep. Waxman and other Members of Congress, on grounds of executive privilege. See: Investigation of the Energy Task Force http://www.house.gov/commerce_democrats Four of the six newly-disclosed meetings occurred before the energy task force issued its report last May. While admitting to these meetings, White House officials did not respond to questions raised by Rep. Waxman and others about Enron's possible influence in crafting Administration energy policy. "Enron did not communicate information about its financial position in any of the meetings with the Vice President or with the National Energy Policy Development Group's support staff,'' said the Addington letter. According to expert legal sources, this denial appeared to evade many of the issues at stake in the congressional inquiry. Above all, it side-stepped questions, which Rep. Waxman raised in an December 4 letter to Vice President Cheney, about whether "the task force relied on information from Enron that may have been unreliable or self-serving." Text of Waxman Letter Text of Addington letter Full Story ANNALS OF ENRON An MWO Continuing Feature Dubya and "Kenny Boy" The Bush-Lay Connection PART I As Saturday Night Live's baseball immortal Chico Esquela might have put it, Kenneth Lay, chief of the disgraced Enron Corporation, has been 'bairy 'bairy goood to George W. Bush. And Bush has been 'bairy 'BAAIRRRy gooood to Kenneth Lay. Over the years, Lay and his employees have donated more than $500,000 to Bush's campaigns. Lay is one of the Bush "pioneers" who raised $100,000 for Dubya's White House bid in 2000. According to the Associated Press, Lay "has been the biggest benefactor of George W. Bush's political career." WHAT WAS DUBYA THINKING? Kenneth Lay, right, CEO of Enron Corp., visits with former president George Bush prior to the Houston Astros' home opener at Enron Field in April, 2000. In the foreground is Lay's close friend and presidential favorite, then Texas Gov. George W. Bush. Dubya spent the game whooping it up at a private party in Lay's stadium box. Lay, a native of Missouri but a longtime Houstonian, became Enron's chief executive in 1986, and was a friend and supporter of Bush's father during his successful 1988 presidential campaign. After the elder Bush left office in 1993, Enron hired two of his most prominent former Cabinet members, Secretary of State James Baker and Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher. In 1994 and 1998, when the younger Bush was elected and re-elected governor, Lay personally contributed a total of $100,000 to his campaigns. No wonder Dubya, who likes to pin nicknames on people, refers to Lay affectionately as "Kenny Boy," even though he is a few years Lay's junior. And what has Dubya done for his "boy"? As Lay was raising money to make Bush governor Enron, then chiefly a gas company, was lobbying legislators to deregulate the electric industry, into which Enron was trying to expand. In 1999, Governor Bush signed the deregulation bill, which allowed Enron access to previously off-limits markets. To hear Bush's flacks tell it, that was mere coincidence. Dubya and Kenny Boy are just a couple of good old country hardball lovers, with a common love of the game. No political favoritism on THIS club. "The governor is an avid baseball fan who has attended games his entire life," a Bush spokesman said when Dubya and Lay raised eyebrows by having a grand old time together at the Houston Astros' home opener in April, 2000. Bush was, of course, still Governor of Texas -- and the appearance of impropriety was widely noted. Other Texans have dismissed the sports talk. "Those two have a mutual self-interest in being buddies," said Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice, a campaign-finance advocacy group. "Bush has always delivered on Kenneth Lay's political pitches." "Enron depends upon government policies to enhance their bottom line in lots of ways," McDonald elaborated. "The company relies upon this kind of access to government." And what Lay liked in a governor he was sure to love in a president. "He'll want a president who won't tax the Internet or regulate it, and who will open global markets," Bob Stein, a political scientist at Rice University said in 2000. "Those are the three things he cares a lot about -- a government that's hands-off business." Lay got what exactly what he wanted -- and as a result of the "hands-off" Bush Administration, he and his fellow Enron executives appear to have looted the company as it went belly-up in 2001. What were Dubya and Kenny Boy, and their go-betweens, talking about while all of that was going on? Barry Bonds? Randy Johnson? The height of the pitcher's mound at Yankee Stadium? Nothing at all? Can you imagine what the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN, Newsweek, Faux News, the Weekly Standard, and all the rest would be doing and saying if the President, under exactly the same circumstances, happened to be Bill Clinton instead of George Bush? Can you IMAGINE?! Full 2000 A.P. story, by Megan K. Stack ANNALS OF ENRON An MWO Continuing Feature HOUSTON, WE'VE GOT A PROBLEM!! John Ashcroft Larry Thompson It's getting tough to find anybody in the Bush Administration -- or in the state of Texas -- who can investigate the fallen Enron Corporation without raising issues about conflicts of interest. First, Attorney-General John Ashcroft had to recuse himself from the case, because he had been the recipient of campaign contributions from Enron and Enron CEO Kenneth Lay. Thereafter, the entire Houston U.S. Attorney's Office took itself off the case, because of conflicts of interest. There have been calls for Texas Attorney-General John Cornyn, a Republican who served under George W. Bush when Bush was governor, to withdraw himself from any state investigation into Enron because of donations to his campaigns from company officials. Now the Feds have another big problem. It turns out that Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, the man whom Ashcroft has placed in charge of the Justice Department's investigation, also had financial ties to Enron, according to a report released by Democrats.com. Thompson worked for the law firm of King & Spalding from 1977 to 1982, served as a U.S. Attorney under the Reagan administration, and returned to King & Spalding as a partner in 1986. Thompson remained at King & Spalding until his appointment as Deputy Attorney General in 2001. According to King & Spalding's Web site, the firm has done extensive work for Enron. King & Spalding's work for Enron and other energy companies is detailed here. Even if Thompson did not work directly with Enron, he certainly had a financial interest in his firm's connection with the now disgraced energy corporation. In any case, whether Thompson did work with Enron is private information. Thus, for him to be in charge of such an important investigation gives at least the appearance of a potential conflict of interest -- an extremely damaging one, in view of the case's importance. Pressure is building in the Bush Administration to appoint some sort of special counsel to head the investigation so that it will at least appear impartial. What a mess. Full story Meet D. Stephen Goddard D. Stephen Goddard of Katy, Texas, is a Managing Partner at Arthur Anderson LLB, the giant accounting firm now under heavy investigation for fraud in connection with the Enron scandal. Goddard is in charge of the firm's Gulf Coast office in Houston, where he specializes in servicing multinational energy companies. He sits on the board of Texas A&M’s George Bush School of Government. If anybody at Andersen is in hot water over the Enron affair, it would appear to be Goddard. Presumably, he worked closely with Enron and Kenneth Lay. Goddard is also (surprise!) a key financial backer of George W. Bush, one of the elite group of "Pioneers" (along with his and Bush's good friend, "Kenny Boy" Lay) who raised $100,000 or more for the Bush 2000 presidential campaign. And not just that. According to records obtained by Texans for Public Justice, Goddard contributed over $250,000 in soft money contributions from his employer, the vast bulk of it ($238,908) going to Republicans. Did Goddard in any way facilitate the destruction of Arthur Andersen files in connection with Enron? If so, whom or what was he attempting to shield from investigators? If not, how can he explain what happened on his watch? And why, everywhere you look, is practically everyone caught up in the Enron scandal also a big Bush supporter? Coincidence? Exactly what one would suspect about giant Texas businesses and business branches? What favors has Bush done for Goddard and Andersen over the years? And what are Goddard's connections to Harvey Pitt, the current Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission? Incidentally, according to records obtained by the Center for Responsive Politics, the Arthur Andersen Political Action Committee, Andersen Worldwide, contributed more than $600,000 to federal candidates in the last election cycle, two-thirds of it to Republicans. Page 2 BUSH'S BIG LIE Caught Red-Handed in Lie to American People! Will the News Media Wake UP??! In his 1/10 press appearance about Enron, George W. Bush stated flatly that Kenneth Lay, CEO of the bankrupt Enron Corporation, supported his opponent, Ann Richards, in the 1994 Texas governor's race, and that he, Bush, only got to know Lay after that election. But easily obtained reports and records directly contradict Bush's statements. The sources for this information are the Federal Election Commission, the Center for Public Integrity, the Center for Responsive Politics, Newsweek, the Boston Globe, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the New Yorker, and the Nation. These reports show that Dubya and Lay go back a very long time. Lay contributed handsomely to Bush's 1978 congressional campaign: a full SIXTEEN YEARS before Bush told the press he got to know the man. Enron and the families of its top executives donated at least $100,000 to Dubya's gubernatorial campaign in 1994 -- the year, Bush told the press, that Lay supposedly supported Ann Richards. Although Lay may have given money to Richards, he strongly supported Dubya. Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, is an old friend and financial beneficiary of Kenneth Lay. After the 1992 election left Secretary of State and Secretary of Commerce (and Bush pals) James Baker and Robert Mossbacher jobless, he signed as consultants for Enron. An article by Seymour Hersh in 1993 disclosed that Neil Bush, another presidential son (hard to keep up with all the members of the Bush Crime Family: Neil is the one cited by federal regulators for conflict-of-interest violations regarding a failed savings and loan), had attempted to do business with Enron in Kuwait. Yesterday, Bush sat in the White House and told the American people, in effect, "I had no relationship with that man, Mr. Lay before I became governor in 1995. He was a supporter of my opponent in 1994." OK, news media: will you call Bush and Ari Fleischer on this outrageous lie? Or will you sweep it under the rug? (Once Again: Imagine if Bill Clinton had done something like this. IMAGINE!!) Sources: Newsweek, 5/1/00; Boston Globe, 10/3/99; Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 4/27/00; Center for Public Integrity, THE BUYING OF THE PRESIDENT 2000; Center for Responsive Politics, website www.crp.org;FEC Records; The Nation, 11/21/94; Democratic Policy Committee, SPECIAL INTEREST REPORT, 5/16/01. BREAKING UPDATES A mountain of evidence is now piling up showing that George W. Bush lied -- or at the very least tried seriously to mislead the public -- in his White House statement on January 10 about his relations with Kenneth Lay. The latest: In an interview with PBS's Frontline, given last March, Lay himself said that he supported Bush in the Texas gubernatorial race in 1994, directly contradicting Bush's statement of 1/10. In June 2000, the New York Times reported that "[t]he relationship between Mr. Bush and Mr. Lay is close, and old: the two men got to know each other in the 1980's, when Mr. Lay was a big political supporter of Governor Bush's father, former President George Bush." New York Times, 6/30/00 Lay has said that he got to spend increasing amounts of "quality time" with George W. Bush when the two men worked together in conjunction with fund-raising for the George H.W. Bush presidential library at Texas A&M -- sometime between 1989 AND 1991! Dallas Morning News, 7/22/01 According to the Houston Chronicle, "Lay worked closely with George W. Bush during the Republican National Convention in Houston in 1992, when Lay co-chaired the host committee." Moreover, the Chronicle has reported, that is when the two men "became close." Houston Chronicle, 4/15/01, 12/29/01 **FLASH** DALLAS MORNING NEWS REPORTS BUSH LIE! Lame Parsing by White House Spokesman Can't Cover Up The Truth And Dallas Doesn't Tell the Half of It -- Though It's Bad Enough! AUSTIN – In distancing himself from Enron, President Bush said that CEO Kenneth Lay "was a supporter" of Democrat Ann Richards in his first race for Texas governor in 1994. But records and interviews with people involved in the Richards campaign show that he was a far bigger Bush supporter. Mr. Lay and his wife gave Mr. Bush three times more money than Ms. Richards in their gubernatorial contest, according to a computer-assisted review of campaign finance reports by The Dallas Morning News Full Story ANNALS OF ENRON An MWO Continuing Feature FACES IN THE CROWD: Bush Appointees and Enron Apart from Secretary of the Army Thomas E. "Enron" White, more than thirty Bush Administration appointees who required Senate confirmation held Enron Corporation stock last year, with a combined value of up to more than $2 million, company records disclose. Enron is currently under congressional investigation for numerous alleged violations of federal securities laws, as well as for buying influence over Bush policies. The appointees with Enron connections include one member of the Cabinet, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the new Chairman of the U.S. Import-Export Bank, and a variety of other officials, including newly-appointed U.S. Attorneys in Idaho and Louisiana. According to a separate investigation by The Center for Public Integrity, of the top 100 Bush appointees, 17 owned Enron stock last year. In addition to Rumsfeld, these officials include Karl Rove, Senior Advisor to the President, Margaret Tutwiler, Advisor to the President, and Lewis I. Libby, Chief of Staff to Vice President Cheney, as well as six Cabinet undersecretaries. Among the largest Enron holders among the thirty-two Senate-approved appointees were the generous Bush contributor and current Ambassador to Ireland, Richard J. Egan (up to $500,000 worth of stock), and the flamboyant advertising executive and current Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Charlotte Beers (up to $250,000 worth of stock). The Bush/Enron connection includes three other ambassadors (including the current envoys to Belgium and Spain), the former treasury of the Bush-Cheney campaign committee, and a former assistant to Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. It also includes one holdover from the Clinton Administration. The combined total of these Bush/Enron connection holdings is miniscule compared to Secretary White's. But the disclosures affirm an alarming pattern of connections between Enron and Bush officials, in addition to the well-publicized close political links between Bush himself and Enron CEO Kenneth Lay. Questions previously raised about the degree of influence Enron may have had over Bush Administration policies, particularly over energy policy, are all the more pressing given the latest revelations, informed Washington sources said. Some of the holders may simply have had small amounts of Enron stock in their portfolios - and suffered relatively minor losses when Enron went belly-up. But one source close to the congressional investigations noted that any pattern of sell-offs over the past year, especially by any of those with substantial holdings, will be an additional area of strong concern. MWO awaits the news media's efforts to get official reactions to these disclosures. Bush Top Officials Who Owned Enron Stock in 2001: Name Position Asset Name Minimum Maximum Asset Type Fisher, Linda Deputy EPA Administrator Enron 1001 15000 Stock Fisher, Linda* Deputy EPA Administrator Enron 15001 50000 Stock Fisher, Peter Undersecretary of Treasury Enron 1001 15000 Stock Beers, Charlotte Undersecretary of State Enron 100001 250000 Stock Cooper, Kathleen Undersecretary of Commerce Enron 1001 15000 Stock Dorr, Thomas Undersecretary of Agriculture Enron 1001 15000 Stock Dorr, Thomas* Undersecretary of Agriculture Enron 1001 15000 Stock Marburger, John Dir., Office of Science and Technology Policy Enron 1001 15000 Stock Rumsfeld, Donald Secretary of Defense Enron 1001 15000 Stock Deily, Linnet Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Enron 15001 50000 Stock Deily, Linnet* Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Enron 0 1000 Stock Aldonas, Grant Undersecretary of Commerce Enron 15001 50000 Stock Calio, Nicholas Asst. to the President, Dir. Of Legislative Affairs Enron 1001 15000 Stock Libby, I. Lewis Vice President's Chief of Staff Enron 1001 15000 Stock Zoellick, Robert US Trade Representative Enron 15001 50000 Stock Tutweiler, Margaret Advisor to the President for Communications Enron 15001 50000 Stock Rove, Karl Senior Adviser to the President Enron 100001 250000 Stock * Two separate holdings Source: Center for Public Integrity, http://www.public-i.org/story_01_011102.htm ANNALS OF ENRON ALERT BEWARE OF HOOEY: ENRON WAS A REPUBLICAN OUTFIT GOP Spreading Nonsense About Bi-Partisan Corruption The spinning going on inside Washington over the Enron affair is audible all over the country. "All smoke, no fire." "No smoking gun." We half expect that George W. Bush, in full back-pedal mode, will soon be telling us that he’ll be smoking Kenny Boy Lay and the other Enron executives out of their caves. One bit of spin certain to be out there soon is that Enron is a bi-partisan corrupter, that it gave to Democrats as well as Republicans, and that there’s really nothing partisan going on here behind the scenes. Bill Paxon, Hooey-Monger "It's a little difficult for the Democrats to point their fingers," former Representative Bill Paxon of New York told the New York Times. Paxon, an intimate advisor to the Bush White House, was referring to the fact that several Democrats have received bits of Enron contributing support in recent years. But Paxson is just ramping up what has developed in recent days and months as a phony smoke-screen argument -- one that, alas, some timorous Democrats have also seemed to endorse. Senator Joseph Lieberman, head of the Senate Commerce Committee, has already signaled this phony argument, telling the Washington Post that Enron "also had close relationships with some Democrats, it’s fair to say." (Lieberman, about whom MWO remains nervous, is one of the Democrats who has received Enron contributions.) The Post editorial page has likewise asserted that "this looks more like an instance of the generalized corruption of campaign finance than a shadow over the Bush team. The truth is that Enron showered money on many politicians of both parties, and especially on Texans." And during the 2000 campaign, a Post article by Dan Morgan noted gravely – and speciously -- that "Enron, one of the biggest political players among oil and gas companies, has given $330,000 – or nearly 45 percent of its corporate soft money – to Democratic Party organizations." Beware of this hooey: it’s going to be coming at us fast and furious. Hooey? Yes, that’s exactly what it is. It is quite true that Enron, like other corporations, gives money to candidates and organizations of both parties. But when it comes to presidential politics, and to general soft- and hard-money party gifts, Enron, like the rest of the oil and gas industry, is heavily pro-Republican. Let’s look at some figures, courtesy of the Center for Responsive Politics. Here is a breakdown of where Enron put its money in the presidential contests after George H.W. Bush’s election in 1988: Top Presidential Recipients of Enron Contributions, 1989-2001* George W. Bush (R) $113,800 Bob Dole (R) $95,650 Al Gore (D) $13,750 George H. W. Bush (R)* $13,000 Bill Clinton (D) $11,000 NOTE: Totals do not include the 1988 election cycle, when George H.W. Bush first ran for president. Pretty obvious, no? Want more? OK: How about total contributions to the parties? Enron Total Contributions, 1989-2001* Election Cycle Total Contributions From Soft Money From PACs From Individuals % to Dems % to Repubs 1990 $163,250 $0 $130,250 $33,000 42% 58% 1992 $281,009 $75,109 $130,550 $75,350 42% 58% 1994 $520,996 $136,292 $189, 565 $195,139 42% 58% 1996 $1,141,016 $687,445 $171,671 $281,900 18% 81% 1998 $1,049.942 $691,950 $212,643 $145,349 21% 79% 2000 $2,441,398 $1,671,555 $280,043 $489,800 28% 72% 2002 $172,859 $124,059 $ 32,000 $16,800 11% 88% $5,770,470 $3,386,410 $1,146,722 $1,237,338 27% 73% NOTE: Soft money contributions were not publicly disclosed until the 1991-92 election cycle. Notice any partisan patterns? Any trends over time? Now let’s have a look at the top five Enron individual donors Top Enron Individual Donors, 1989-2001 Contributor Total To Dems To Repubs LAY, KENNETH L MR & MRS $882,580 $86,670 $793,110 HOGLUND, FORREST E MR & MRS $410.002 $16,180 $393,822 SKILLING, JEFFREY K MR & MRS $187,500 $7,750 $179.750 PAI, LOU L MR & MRS $89,250 $2,750 $86,500 KINDER, RICHARD D MR & MRS $65,440 $7,490 $57,950 Press corps: Check out the Lincoln bedroom guest list since January 20. And the White House invitation lists. But, then again, maybe these guys don’t need free food and lodging for the night! The point is simple: Enron, like the rest of the oil and gas industry, is heavily pro- Republican. So whenever you hear some Republican (or Naderite) trying to tell you on the TV or the radio or in the newspaper or the bar that, hey, they all do it, its just the way things are, the Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans, no difference 'twixt the two – well, now you’re ready. It’s hooey. Or, as the late great Charles Ruff once put it, "fudge." ENRON AND THE BUSH-G.O.P. ECONOMIC STIMULUS BILL The outbreak of the Enron scandal has led Administration officials and defenders to claim that no political favoritism was ever shown the collapse energy giant. But let's look at the record. One of the chief features of the White House-backed G.O.P. Economic Stimulus Bill is a repeal and refund of corporation alternative minimum taxes dating back all the way to 1986. Currently, corporations that use tax shelters to hide their assets are required to pay the alternative minimum tax, as a way to guarantee that they contribute their fair share. For a long time, corporations have lusted after abolishing the tax. The G.O.P. bill not only gives them that -- it refunds all the money they've paid in the tax over the past fifteen years. Among the biggest beneficiaries would be Enron. Under the bill -- which the White House still hopes to pass -- Enron would get an immediate tax rebate check of $254 million. That adds up to more than $100 for every dollar the corporation spent on federal candidates and committees in the 2000 election cycle. When was the last time you made an investment that paid off at 100 to 1? It's the same as hitting 127 million incredible longshots at the $2 bettors window. No favoritism? MEDIA CAUGHT FLATFOOTED ON ENRON Bush-Lay Links Long Known, Under- Reported So, NOW They Tell Us! A preliminary review of newspaper coverage of the 2000 campaign reveals that the press knew about George W. Bush's cushy connections with Kenneth Lay and Enron -- but chose to slight it. You remember the 2000 campaign, don't you? That's the one where the coverage was all about how Al Gore claimed he had invented the Internet (he claimed no such thing), and committed some sort of crime at a Buddhist Temple (he did no such thing), and said he was one of the sources for the novel "Love Story" (which he was), and is a pathological liar, cheat, and fraud, whereas George W. Bush is a compassionate conservative. Well, that wasn't quite all. Buried in the blizzard of innuendo and false stories about Gore (and the gushy treatment given to Bush), there was this one little item in the New York Times: June 30, 2000 "For a Generous Donor and Bush, the Support Is a Two-Way Street" By Richard A. Oppel, Jr. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/30/politics/30ENRON.html "Mr. Bush, 53, listens closely to what Mr. Lay, now 58, and others at Enron have to say about important policy matters. As governor, Mr. Bush has been a supporter of the legislative initiatives that have been most important to Enron, including deregulating electric utilities, easing the tax burden on capital-intensive companies, and passing laws meant to curb large jury awards in civil cases. On all of them, Mr. Bush received advice from top Enron executives, sometimes soliciting it." Maybe we should give the Times credit. Who, after all, in the national news media was saying anything at all about Bush and Lay in 2000? But where were the Times's teams of investigative reporters to follow up on Oppel's piece? Where was the intrepid Jeff Gerth? Where were the paper's editorial writers? That the Times knew what it did and said and did so little is nearly as damning -- maybe even more so -- than knowing nothing. Knowing nothing was the specialty of the rest of the news media. As it has remained until now. Had the media been doing their job and had the Times done a better job -- instead of pushing the RNC line on Al Gore, and then moving on to Gary Condit and the attacks of the killer sharks -- we might have been alerted to Enron's influence with Bush much earlier. Just as we would have been alerted to the Hart-Rudman report and the clear and present danger of terrorist attacks long before September 11. Sure, there were surprises. No one can know everything ahead of time. But the Times knew something, and kept it pretty quiet -- and everyone else in the news business just ignored what the Times knew. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. DID BUSH LIE ABOUT LAY & ENRON? IT SURE LOOKS THAT WAY! BUSH'S BIG LIE Caught Red-Handed in Lie to American People! Will the News Media Wake UP??! In his 1/10 press appearance about Enron, George W. Bush stated flatly that Kenneth Lay, CEO of the bankrupt Enron Corporation, supported his opponent, Ann Richards, in the 1994 Texas governor's race, and that he, Bush, only got to know Lay after that election. But easily obtained reports and records directly contradict Bush's statements. The sources for this information are the Federal Election Commission, the Center for Public Integrity, the Center for Responsive Politics, Newsweek, the Boston Globe, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the New Yorker, and the Nation. These reports show that Dubya and Lay go back a very long time. Lay contributed handsomely to Bush's 1978 congressional campaign: a full SIXTEEN YEARS before Bush told the press he got to know the man. Enron and the families of its top executives donated at least $100,000 to Dubya's gubernatorial campaign in 1994 -- the year, Bush told the press, that Lay supposedly supported Ann Richards. Although Lay may have given money to Richards, he strongly supported Dubya. Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, is an old friend and financial beneficiary of Kenneth Lay. After the 1992 election left Secretary of State and Secretary of Commerce (and Bush pals) James Baker and Robert Mossbacher jobless, he signed as consultants for Enron. An article by Seymour Hersh in 1993 disclosed that Neil Bush, another presidential son (hard to keep up with all the members of the Bush Crime Family: Neil is the one cited by federal regulators for conflict-of-interest violations regarding a failed savings and loan), had attempted to do business with Enron in Kuwait. Yesterday, Bush sat in the White House and told the American people, in effect, "I had no relationship with that man, Mr. Lay before I became governor in 1995. He was a supporter of my opponent in 1994." OK, news media: will you call Bush and Ari Fleischer on this outrageous lie? Or will you sweep it under the rug? (Once Again: Imagine if Bill Clinton had done something like this. IMAGINE!!) Sources: Newsweek, 5/1/00; Boston Globe, 10/3/99; Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 4/27/00; Center for Public Integrity, THE BUYING OF THE PRESIDENT 2000; Center for Responsive Politics, website www.crp.org;FEC Records; The Nation, 11/21/94; Democratic Policy Committee, SPECIAL INTEREST REPORT, 5/16/01. BREAKING UPDATES A mountain of evidence is now piling up showing that George W. Bush lied -- or at the very least tried seriously to mislead the public -- in his White House statement on January 10 about his relations with Kenneth Lay. The latest: In an interview with PBS's Frontline, given last March, Lay himself said that he supported Bush in the Texas gubernatorial race in 1994, directly contradicting Bush's statement of 1/10. In June 2000, the New York Times reported that "[t]he relationship between Mr. Bush and Mr. Lay is close, and old: the two men got to know each other in the 1980's, when Mr. Lay was a big political supporter of Governor Bush's father, former President George Bush." New York Times, 6/30/00 Lay has said that he got to spend increasing amounts of "quality time" with George W. Bush when the two men worked together in conjunction with fund-raising for the George H.W. Bush presidential library at Texas A&M -- sometime between 1989 AND 1991! Dallas Morning News, 7/22/01 According to the Houston Chronicle, "Lay worked closely with George W. Bush during the Republican National Convention in Houston in 1992, when Lay co-chaired the host committee." Moreover, the Chronicle has reported, that is when the two men "became close." Houston Chronicle, 4/15/01, 12/29/01 **FLASH** DALLAS MORNING NEWS REPORTS BUSH LIE! Lame Parsing by White House Spokesman Can't Cover Up The Truth And Dallas Doesn't Tell the Half of It -- Though It's Bad Enough! AUSTIN – In distancing himself from Enron, President Bush said that CEO Kenneth Lay "was a supporter" of Democrat Ann Richards in his first race for Texas governor in 1994. But records and interviews with people involved in the Richards campaign show that he was a far bigger Bush supporter. Mr. Lay and his wife gave Mr. Bush three times more money than Ms. Richards in their gubernatorial contest, according to a computer-assisted review of campaign finance reports by The Dallas Morning News Full Story NEW ENRON ALERT: THE LATEST PIECE OF HOOEY ENRON = WHITEWATER? No, Enron Is Far Worse -- But Right-Wing Media Runs Scared In an early reaction to the Enron fiasco, National Review Online's Byron York has said that the scandal is important enough to worry Republicans. "A major corporation that was one of the president's top supporters is under criminal investigation in a case that appears to involve massive fraud and thousands of victimized investors. The White House — and Republicans in Congress — would be crazy to resist an exhaustive investigation, both by the Justice Department and by Capitol Hill committees." http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york011102.shtml But there is, of course, a big danger for the Bush and the GOP in York's suggestion, as York admits: "And in the course of those investigations, new evidence might come to light that would make the story much more serious for the White House than it appears now." The upshot of York's piece, though, is the protective argument that Enron is far less serious a scandal than Whitewater was. This is bound to be the latest bit of hooey than the Republicans and their media buddies will start spinning as soon as possible. So, BE ON THE ALERT!! Whitewhat??! Look at how York summarizes what he takes to be the damning Whitewater "scandal": [I]n Whitewater was ignited by events deep inside the White House; the story mushroomed at the end of 1993 and beginning of 1994 after revelations that Clinton aides removed documents from the office of deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster on the night of his suicide. That news in turn revived long-dormant press interest in the Whitewater real-estate investment, in which Bill and Hillary Clinton appeared to have received special treatment from their two business partners, both later convicted of felonies. Later, the story involved the investigation of whether the president lied about that special treatment under oath. This is psychedelic! Whitewater was not "ignited by events deep inside the White House" -- it was ignited by an obscure lying grifter named David Hale (the one witness called by the Feds), plus the equally-obscure drug-addicted con-man Jim McDougal, plus a bunch of neo-segregationist nut cases, all thousands of miles away from the White House in Arkansas. The Vince Foster story (is York really serious?!) was hype from the start, a despicable lie about a troubled man put in play by the likes of Jerry Falwell, Robert Bartley, and William Safire -- right-wingers who learned long ago the art of mainstreaiming paranoia. The document removal fantasy was invented by the Washington Times. White House officials testified unanimously that it never happened, and there was no credible evidence to contradict them. Every investigator -- including three independent counsels --confirmed that Foster's tragic suicide and the "removal" of his papers had nothing to do with Whitewater or any other "scandal." Rather, they showed that Foster's death probably had to do with his persecution by Bartley and the Wall Street Journal editorial page. There was nothing "dormant" about press interest in the case. (Just ask Leonard Downie, Jr., "Stenographer Sue" Schmidt, and Jeff Gerth!) And the "investigation" into whether Clinton lied about Whitewater was utterly bogus from the start. Even Independent Counsels Kenneth Starr and Robert Ray came to that conclusion, reluctantly. Whitewater was a failed $200,000 land deal consummated many many years before Bill Clinton was president. The "special privilege' the Clintons received from Jim McDougal was losing $45,000, and the crimes of which he was convicted involved Whitewater not at all. Indeed prosecutor Ray Jahn's closing argument -- unreported by the Media Whores, of course -- asked the jury to protect the presidency from being "besmirched" by the likes of Jim McDougal. Ballyhooed charges of wrongdoing by the Clintons were proven false as early as 1996, by the Resolution Trust Corporation report, but which the media, the Republican Party, and various right-wing nuts kept roiling and roiling and roiling, with reckless disregard for the truth. Enron involves tens and possibly hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars, in the largest bankruptcy filing in American history, which involved people who may have been grifters and con-men but who also happen to include one of George W. Bush's close friends and his ALL-TIME BIGGEST CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTOR. It involves events that happened not many many years ago, but right through Bush's first year in the White House. It involves the crucial questions of political favoritism in the design of Administration energy policy. It involves White House insider knowledge of an incipient collapse of Enron, even as the company was publicly declaring itself hale and hearty. It involves, potentially, if not crimes against the state, then crimes against the American people at the very highest levels of government. So Enron = Whitewater -- NOT!! Even in the earliest days, Enron looms as much worse -- say about a thousand times worse, conservatively, and that's just in financial terms. And politically? York, to his credit, quotes the perceptive Joe Lockhart: "The reason this is so potentially devastating to Bush is that it brings to life in very real terms the notion that when push comes to shove, he's for the big business special interests and not for the little guy," former Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart told the Associated Press Thursday." Still unconvinced? Well have a look at this report from January 10, 2002, the day the story broke, carried by CBS MarketWatch, which is not exactly a den of Democrats: CBS MarketWatch: {}ENRON IS NOT BUSH'S WHITEWATER: IT WILL BE WORSE So beware of false comparisons. Be on the alert for those who say Whitewater was worse than Enron. And tell those who spread them that they are full of hooey and fudge. WASHINGTON POST: IN THE ENRON TANK? In the early days of the Enron scandal, no national newspaper has been more pro-G.O.P. than the Washington Post -- except for, maybe, the Washington Times, which is not, of course, a newspaper but a flamboyantly right-wing propaganda sheet. MWO has learned from reliable sources that, around the first of this year, Post editors received plenty of now highly-publicized information about links between the Bush Administration and Enron -- and spiked it!! The Post has also repeatedly editorialized to the effect that the Enron scandal is, as far as it can see, strictly a non-political, non-partisan matter. Leonard Downie, Jr: Hooey-Monger And the Post's reporter, Dan Morgan, has repeated the hooey that Enron contributed to Democrats as well as Republicans -- as if the pittance that the corporation gave to some congressional Democrats in any way balances the millions it gave to Bush and the Republicans. The Post's editor-in-chief, Leonard Downie, Jr., prizes himself on being a pillar of journalistic objectivity. But so far, on Enron, the Post looks like a pale imitation of the Moonie paper, peddling, between its printed lines, the GOP political line promulgated by the likes of former Representative and intimate Bush White House advisor Bill Paxon. Email The Washington Post Recent Post pieces on Enron: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37287-2002Jan12.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37287-2002Jan12.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34693-2002Jan12.html ANNALS OF ENRON ALERT An MWO Continuing Feature ENRON AND BUSH: THE HEART OF THE MATTER Why Did the Feds Not Warn Us? More Hooey From the Right Wing Republicans and their supporters in the press keep insisting that, by doing nothing about Enron, the Bush Administration served the public good. That is because they load the deck by assuming that the ONLY thing the Administration could have done was to bail out the collapsing corporation. This assumption is more hooey. The heart of the matter is this: if any officials in the Bush Administration knew of Enron's situation -- and we now know that many of them did -- then they had a public responsibility to bring that to the attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission and to the American public. They did not -- which raises deep and troubling questions about favoritism being shown a big backer, Kenneth Lay, and his corporation. That possibility is heightened because so many of the key players involved -- including SEC Chairman Kenneth Pitt (see earlier AoE: "Meet Kenneth Pitt") -- were so intimately connected either to Enron or Arthur Andersen or both. And it reveals the very real possibility of corruption as well as of incompetence. The full story is spelled out in a fine piece published in the L.A. Times. White House's Failure to Sound Alarm Faulted: That no warnings were issued as Enron collapsed raises the specter of special treatment, critics charge. So don't let the hooey-moongers -- including William Safliar of the Times -- spin the story any differently. This has the makings of a huge and genuine political scandal, and not just an "economic" scandal. Speaking of Safliar.... SAFLIAR: ENRON "NO SCANDAL" Man Bites Dog! Pseudo Safliar Insists on Enron: "No Scandal" Man Bites Dog! Scandal-Monger Tries to Dampen Real Scandal William Safliar, the former huckster who wrote Richard Nixon's and Spiro Agnew's right-wing speeches attacking the press and then was hired as a New York Times columnist, has spent his media career scandal mongering. His special talent is to invent scandals where none exist, but to convince others that there must be something there. Safliar wrote column after column suggesting that the clinically depressed deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster didn't really commit suicide, or that his motive had to do with Whitewater--the totally bogus dirty trick that Safliar helped turn into a wild goose chase. When Ken Starr tried to quit as grand inquisitor into the phoney Whitewater affair in 1997, Safliar excoriated him as a betrayer of the righteous conservative cause--and the weak Starr, a man of feeble character, returned to his lunatic inquisition like a beaten dog. Along the way the vulgar and careless Safliar called Hillary Clinton "a congenital liar," accused completely innocent Clinton officials of high crimes and gleefully pushed for impeachment, acting like a mad mullah to the Taliban House Managers. But now there's a real scandal in the greatest bankruptcy in American history, with Enron executives looting the company at the expense of its employees, and with Kenneth Lay, its chief executive, being the single biggest contributor to George W. Bush's political career, even kicking in $10,000 for Bush's "recount" fund in Florida--money that paid for the strong-arm "white riot" of Republican thugs that stopped the counting of votes in Dade County. Where's Safliar? The scandal-monger now says there's no "political scandal," that Bush and his Enron-porked up administration are scandal-free. Oh, really? What does Safliar want the media to hide and why does he want to hide it? BUSH HONCHO EXPOSED AS CLUELESS, IMMORAL Treasury Secretary O'Neill: Cold-Hearted Reactionary Do They Even KNOW the Laws??? In a statement sharply condemned in Washington today, Secretary of the Treasury Paul H. O'Neill revealed just how mean, immoral, and out-of-touch the Bush Administration is on the Enron matter. Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Secretary O'Neill declared that the Federal Government had, and has, no responsibility in protecting stockholders in Enron -- or, by implication, any other company. "I think what those of us in the administration knew was [shrugs] public property," O'Neill said offhandedly. "Everyone knew from Enron's disclosures they were struggling. Uh, we didn't know more than that. The company had a duty to inform its shareholders and employees about things that were going on inside the company. That's not a federal government responsibility...." NOT A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT RESPONSIBILITY??!! Of course it is, Secretary O'Neill. Oversight of these matters had LONG been a matter of federal law. Are you even aware of what the Securities and Exchange Commission is for? Senator Joseph Lieberman, appearing on Face the Nation, was quick to condemn the Secretary's remarks. "With all due respect to Secretary O'Neill, those statements are outrageous. I hope that they sound more coldblooded than he means them to be," Lieberman said. As Lieberman went on to comment, O'Neill's comments show that he is thinking like a Secretary of the Treasury of the 18th century or maybe the 19th century -- but not of the 21st!! O'Neill, former head of Alcoa, has already shown his basic hostility to modern American democratic capitalism. A laissez-faire zealot, he has declared his basic hostility to all taxation of corporations, and to many of the regulatory safeguards put in place by Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and other great presidents over the past century. He's a buggy-whip extremist, who wants to take us back to the bad old days of jungle-rules economics. If O'Neill's view become public policy, then ordinary Americans will have no protections whatsover from rich crooks like the ones who looted Enron -- rich crooks who just happen to be Secretary O'Neill's (and George W. Bush's) good buddies. O'Neill shows he is utterly unaware of basic American civics. He looks heartless -- an ignorant businessman whose only morality is the morality of the rich and powerful. And this is the person who is now in charge of the Treasury Department? Outrageous! CBS MARKETWATCH: ON THE CASE Amid the slowfooted media, one network outlet, CBS MarketWatch, has done a good job of keeping up with the breaking Enron scandal and its direct political implications. MarketWatch's latest updates contain many of the details reported earlier on MWO's Annals of Enron and in local papers like the Dallas Morning News, but so far reported only sparingly in the national dailies. So: credit where credit is due: good work, MarketWatch. See: {}Enron-Bush ties dominate news: Questions about relationship with Lay dog administration {}Andersen's Enron documents flap revives separation issue: Company survival concerns URGENT NEWS LIMBAUGH LATEST TO LIE ABOUT ENRON Straight from the RNC? You Be the Judge! More Hooey from the Hooey-Meister Himself Call Him On It, Readers: Email Below One person who is really REALLY mad at CBS MarketWatch is none other than Rush Limbaugh, who on his website blasts the lede MarketWatch article as "liberal" and "absurd." Why? Because the article "doesn't once mention that Enron gave to both parties in almost equal amounts." Come again, Rush? Well, there he goes again, later in his screed: "Enron gave to both parties in almost equal amounts," he says. To back up this obvious lie, Rush cites a National Journal piece from 2000, which claimed that Enron's "hard money is fairly evenly split -- 55% for the GOP vs. 45% to the Democrats." HOOEY!!! As Rushter knows all too well, "hard money" contributions are only a small part of the picture. The utterly reliable, widely-publicized, uncontested figures from the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics show that, since 1990, Enron has overall contributed far more heavily to Republicans than to Democrats, by 73% to 27% . THAT'S A RATIO OF NEARLY THREE TO ONE, FAT MAN. In 1996, the ratio was 81% Republican, 18% Democratic. In 2000, the ratio was 72% Republican, 28% Democratic. George W. Bush got $113,800 from Enron in 2000; Al Gore got $13,750. (That's about 9 to 1, Rush. "Roughly even?" LIAR!!) And so far in 2002, it has been 88% Republican, 11% Democratic. Don't trust us, Fat Man? OK: then check out: http://www.opensecrets.org/alerts/v6/enron_totals.asp http://www.opensecrets.org/alerts/v6/enron_pres.asp Looks like Rush cooks his figures just as much as -- and just as clumsily as --Arthur Andersen does. And then he, like the Andersen folks, lies. Much of rest of Rush's frothing has to do with the Chinese Communists and Bill Clinton and Janet Reno and lifesavers and Bill Clinton. (Where's Vince Foster, Fat Man? Or have you given up on that one!) Rush also parrots the delusional Republican line that the Feds had no responsibility to the Enron shareholders, that the only thing they might have done would have been to bail out Enron, which would have been wrong: "It's called the market system. It's called capitalism." So Rush is living in the 19th century too, along with the outrageous Secretary of the Treasury O'Neill. (Yes, a bail-out would have been wrong -- but where were the SEC and the other regulatory agencies? Why weren't they alerted?) Except we suspect that Rush's remarks are meant to be exactly as coldblooded as they sound. But the main thing is, Rush Limbaugh has lied, with such obviousness that it begs a response. In the past, Limbaugh has been known to pick up on the Republican National Committee's daily line. It seems likely he's done it again -- unless he just leafs through back issues of National Journal in his spare time! And what of George W. Bush's lies? What about those Rush? URGENT Email Rush Limbaugh, politely asking him publicly to retract his lie about Enron's contributing about equally to both political parties, and inquiring how he justifies George W. Bush's prevarications on January 10 about his only getting to know and work with Ken Lay after 1994? Pete Hamill Also Gets to the Heart of the Enron Matter Mr. Enron & His Buddy Mr. President New York Daily News, January 14, 2002 Q. WHOSE DOLLARS PAID FOR THIS THUGGERY? A. KEN 'KENNY BOY" LAY'S ANNALS OF ENRON An MWO Continuing Feature WE WILL REMEMBER After the election in November 2000, eleven couples ponied up $10,000 to the Bush Florida recount fund. No couples gave more generously . All were from Texas. They included: George W. Bush: Presidential Recount Donors Lay, Kenneth L Houston, TX 77019 Enron Corp $5,000 11/16/2000 Lay, Linda P Mrs Houston, TX 77019 Enron Corp $5,000 11/16/2000 Source: Center for Responsive Politics and in what may be an even bigger related development in Florida.... MORE BUSH-ENRON NEWS FROM THE SUNSHINE STATE Is Little Brother In Deep Doo-Doo, Too? Enron Funded Florida G.O.P, Jeb Campaign --Then Sought Political Breaks The Palm Beach Post has broken new and potentially damaging revelations about the connections between the failed Enron Corporation, the Republican Party, and Bush -- no, not George W., but his brother Jeb Bush, the Governor of Florida. According to the Post, Enron "barreled into Florida in the mid-1990s looking to become one the state's biggest energy players by changing laws, deregulating utilities and building pipelines, company officials doled out more than $200,000 in campaign contributions. Most of the money went to Florida Republicans who were emerging as the new political power by 1998 after taking control of the state legislature and the Governor's Mansion for the first time in more than 100 years." In his 1998 campaign, Jeb Bush received $6,500 from Enron. Of that total, $1,000 came from Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay and his wife, Linda. Examining official records from 1995 to 2000, the Post investigation revealed that Enron contributed, in state races, $166,500 to Republicans and $42,000 to Democrats -- A RATIO OF ALMOST EXACTLY 4 TO 1 IN FAVOR OF THE REPUBLICANS. Undeterred by the dramatic disparities in these figures, Jeb Bush's current campaign manager, Karen Unger, told the Post, "Both Democrats and Republicans receive contributions from hundreds of companies, including Enron." Thus, Ms. Unger has recycled in the Sunshine State the same hooey that is making the rounds in Washington regarding the national GOP and her boss's big brother. The Post did not report whether Ms. Unger blushed when she made her statement. The real turning point in Enron's political activities in Florida -- and in its political payoffs -- appears to have been 1998, the year Jeb Bush was elected Governor. "During the 1998 campaign," the Post reports, " Enron stepped up its Florida campaign contributions. At the same time, the company was escalating efforts to push Florida toward deregulating power companies. The company also was working on plans to build a natural gas pipeline from the Bahamas to South Florida and wanted to build two electric plants in South Florida." One Florida Democratic congressman who received Enron funds -- a measly $500 -- was the intrepid Representative Robert Wexler, who did so much to stand up to the right-wing hanging jury on the House Judiciary Committee during the Clinton impeachment. But in Wexler's case, the contribution meant nothing, according to the Post. "Wexler said his dealings with the company were 'very adverse.' He said he was enlisted by constituents to fight a state Department of Environmental Protection permit that would have allowed Enron to build a 510-megawatt power plant in Pompano Beach. Wexler spoke against the plant at a DEP hearing that drew more than 500 people in Pompano Beach. Wexler said community leaders of Coconut Creek called him after the state issued the permit, 'and they said they had been run over by Enron.. I joined the effort, and to some extent led it, and we fought them tooth and nail.'" So you see, Ms. Unger, Democrats are not just the same as Republicans -- even Democrats who may be lucky enough to get a paltry hand-out from Kenny Boy. Full Story: Enron eased way into Florida with cash THE HEART OF THE ENRON MATTER, ONCE MORE The Republicans and their media friends are still trying to spread the hooey that, by "doing nothing" regarding Enron, the Bush Administration did the right thing. But, as the L.A. Times and others have begun to point out, that misses the heart of the matter -- that by doing nothing, the Bush Administration in fact did an ENORMOUS favor for its Enron benefactors. A HUGE, ENORMOUS favor -- maybe the biggest, costliest, most damaging political favor in all of American history, one that stripped untold thousands of ordinary Americans of their life savings while transferring billions to crooked Enron executives -- all in the largest bankruptcy filing EVER in this country. This is political and financial corruption on a monumental scale -- perhaps without parallel in our long history. Don't believe us? Think we're being "partisan"? Well then look at the latest piece that goes to the heart of the matter -- written for the Associated Press, which is hardly a subsidiary of either MWO or the Democratic Party. Bush team may have feared Enron aid* (*Whore watchers: Beware of misleading MW headlines implying Enron execs were not aided by Bush team) The meltdown of Enron Corp. threatened broader financial problems, but administration officials chose to do nothing -- even after being reminded by Enron that the government intervened in 1998 to prevent the collapse of a big fund for wealthy investors. Fears of a conflict of interest involving a big Bush donor may have led to the inaction, analysts suggest. In any event, the White House should have made public the extent of the energy-trading giant's financial woes when Cabinet officials learned of them in calls from Enron executives last fall, some analysts said Monday. ... Given the magnitude of the troubles at Enron, "I think they (administration officials) had an obligation to be public about the controversy," said Paul Light, director of government studies at the Brookings Institution, a think tank. The White House should have disclosed the Enron phone contacts to the press immediately, Light suggested. Full Story MWO’s White House-R.N.C. Hooey Line of the Day A New MWO Feature Every working day, and sometimes on weekends, the White House and the Republican National Committee work out a "line of the day," to be dutifully repeated by officials, office-holders, flacks, and their loyal Media Whores. Currently, the line is focused on the Enron scandal. By endlessly repeating the line, Republicans are able to give their propaganda the false appearance of consensus common sense, a spontaneous groundswell of opinion. And it’s always, ALWAYS hooey. As public service, MWO will now provide its readers with the White House-R.N.C. Hooey Line of the Day, whenever and as early as possible. It may be the line word-for-word, or just a paraphrase. We will then follow up to see which flacks and Whores most dutifully spouted the line. Ever wonder why Ari and Rush and Tucker and Novak and Safliar and Matalin and Hannity and all of the others manage to say so much of the same stuff on the same day, or roughly the same day? Now you’ll know why – ahead of time!! Join in the fun, starting with today’s HlotD and follow-up: Hooey Line of the Day for Monday, January 14: "Enron is a Democrat problem, too. Enron contributed to both parties almost equally. Nothing partisan about it. It’s an economic scandal, not a political one" "Enron gave to both parties in almost equal amounts." -- Rush Limbaugh, www.rushlimbaugh.com, 1/14/02 "Seems to me if there's a scandal having to do with Enron and politics and the place where they intersect, it points to the Democratic Party, doesn't it?" --Tucker Carlson to Sheila Jackson Lee, CNN Crossfire, 1/14/02 "But based on what we now know, it's not a political scandal." --William Safliar, New York Times, 1/14/02 ANNALS OF ENRON An MWO Continuing Feature HOT FUN IN THE SUNSHINE STATE? Florida's State Pension Fund Out 300 Million in Enron Debacle: So Where Was Jeb? In recent months, Florida's $94 billion pension fund has lost a cool $300 million in 7.5 million shares of worthless Enron stock which it was forced to dump when the company went belly-up. According to the Palm Beach Post, the State Board of Administration, headed by Governor Jeb Bush, took action last month when it fired Alliance Capital Management Corporation as manager of the fund's portfolio. Alliance Capital was heavily investing Florida funds in Enron stock even after Enron admitted it had lied about its finances. What's wrong with this picture? Well, for one thing, the chair of Alliance Capital, Frank Savage, is also a member of Enron's Board of Directors, where he has sat since 1999. Why in the world did Jeb Bush place his state's pension funds in the hands of an investment company run by an Enron director? And why didn't Bush and his board start raising alarms long before December, when Alliance was still investing the pension fund's holdings heavily in Enron stock? But there's more. According to Secretary of the Treasury Paul H. O'Neill, Enron's failing condition was "public knowledge" as early as October 2001. But why, then, did it take Governor Bush and his Board until December to catch on? Perhaps Enron's condition wasn't so "public" after all. Then again -- are we to believe that O'Neill, and Secretary of Commerce Dan Evans and George W. Bush Chief of Staff Andrew Card all knew that Enron was going down the tubes -- but somehow Jeb Bush did not? If Bush did know, why didn't he and his board act more quickly? Could it be that he willingly allowed Enron, his family's close friend and benefactor, bilk the Florida pension fund until it became too embarrassing to do so any more? That is sheer speculation, of course, of the darkest sort. But Governor Bush, like his big brother, needs to answer some tough questions, about Frank Savage, Allied Capital, Enron, and the Florida public trust. Was this just a $300 million screw-up, belatedly corrected? Will Governor Bush apologize? And, even if he does, will he explain why Frank Savage, Enron director, was in charge of Florida's pension funds? Coincidence? Cronyism? And if this was not just a screw up, then state and federal authorities better start looking into whether it was a screw job. ANNALS OF ENRON EXTRA!! An MWO Continuing Feature CALIFORNIA SCHEMIN': DID BUSH ADMINISTRATION AID ENRON OVER PHONY ENERGY CRISIS? Scandal Deepens Fresh Line of Inquiry Opens in Sacramento How Did the Media Whores Help? State GOP Awash in Enron Cash Remember last summer, when Bush Administration officials led by Vice President Dick Cheney were everywhere proclaiming an incipient "energy crisis" in the wake of the California electricity gouging and fake shortages? And remember how the crisis turned out to be a complete fraud? Investigators in California and Washington are now looking into whether the entire operation was a corrupt Bush White House shill, undertaken at the behest of Enron and its chief, Kenneth Lay. News of the scare was heavily promoted by Administration officials on various national outlets, including Meet the Press. Blackouts in California would be just the beginning. Gas prices at the pump would reach 2 to 3 dollars a gallon. There would be higher energy prices across the board. California Governor Gray Davis went to the Bush Administration to request price caps to stem the crisis in his state. But Bush officials, after meeting with Lay, rejected Gray's request. A defiant Gray imposed the caps anyway and urged his constituents to conserve energy -- and the "crisis" melted away into nothing. It would thus appear that the Bush White House may have hyped the phony "energy crisis" story to keep open the cash pipelines running from California to Enron's Houston headquarters. In Sacramento, state legislators have begun inquiries into the matter, and especially into how much evidence regarding the Enron-California connection and manipulation of energy prices was destroyed in the round-up of Enron-related records by Arthur Andersen. "A lawyer for the Senate Select Committee to Investigate Market Manipulation said subpoenas will be served on executives from both Enron and its auditing firm, Andersen, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. And that's not all. Enron's California schemin' appears to have included a badly compromised California Republican Party: "News of the subpoenas broke on the same day the California Republican Party defended taking a $50,000 contribution from the failed energy giant last summer. After suspending campaign contributions to California politicians during the energy crisis, Enron resumed its political giving as the threat of rolling blackouts began to ease and its stock began to fall. In all, Enron contributed more than $78,000 to California political campaigns in the last half of 2001, most of it in a single check to the state GOP." Full Story ANNALS OF ENRON An MWO Continuing Feature CLINTON TRIED TO STOP ENRON SCHEMING, BUT GOP CONGRESS STOPPED CLINTON In a direct refutation of those who are trying to link Bill Clinton and the Democrats to the Enron fiasco, the Wall Street Journal has divulged details of a Clinton Administration bid to halt the failed energy giant's tax shenanigans -- efforts thwarted by securities lobbyists and the Republican-controlled Congress. At issue were Enron's flagrant abuse of so-called "trust-preferred securities" schemes. "As the strategy was initially marketed during the 1990s," the WSJ reports, "a corporation typically formed a subsidiary that issued preferred shares paying a fixed, regular amount to investors. The subsidiary then lent the proceeds to the corporation. For tax purposes, the corporation could deduct interest paid on the debt, arguing that the preferred shareholders owned the subsidiary. But for financial-accounting purposes, the corporation could argue that it controlled the subsidiary; hence, it could treat the loan more like an asset." In 1996 and again in 1997, the Clinton Administration asked Congress to limit the strategy's use in many situations -- but securities firms and businesses lobbied intensely and got Congress to defeat the proposal. The IRS under Clinton also tried to halt at least two Enron uses of the scheme, but got bogged down in heavy litigation. "Energy price swings and the company's use of off-balance-sheet partnerships appear to have contributed substantially to Enron's problems. But government officials also are interested in Enron's use of trust-preferred products. They said that at least $900 million or so shows up in the company's latest annual report," the WSJ article says. WHITE HOUSE-RNC-WHORES HOOEY LINE OF THE DAY January 15, 2002 More Enron: There is no political scandal. It's all in the imagination of a frenzied, scandal-hungry pro-Democrat liberal media. That Secretaries O'Neill and Evans did nothing to save Enron proves that the Bush Administration acted correctly. Put Enron in the cross-hairs, if you must -- but keep the Republicans out of it. Democrats are overreaching and will be hurt. The Enron "scandal" is dead and buried. HOWIE PLAYS THE SPLIT DODGE ON ENRON Kurtz Invents Division in Media Over Enron Post Tanking Badly There is an old trick in journalism called the split dodge. Find one or two people, no matter how extreme or disreputable, who say one thing, compare it to the vast majority, and report it as a "split," as if the two sides were roughly equal in size and influence. Now Howie Kurtz has offered up a text-book example of the split dodge on media coverage of Enron. Kurtz has found a tiny number of hard-right wing ideologues and toadies-- Junior Goldberg, the Washington Times -- who slavishly peddle the RNC line that Enron is no scandal at all. Having found them (not exactly difficult to do; they're out there screaming), Howie pronounces that the media are "split on [the] import of Enron." Read carefully, Kurtz's column actually shows that the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal (news, not editorial), CNBC, even his own timorous Washington Post all think the Enron story is significant. We might have thrown in the three major broadcast networks, all of which have covered Enron heavily as a scandal in the making. But Kurtz has his corporal's guard of right-wingers, and so pronounces a great division in the media. The split dodge. Actually, Kurtz's column is the latest example of how the Washington Post has been the most pro-GOP of the national dailies. Ample space given to the phony "split," plus lots of space for Ari Fleischer and Mary Matalin. Only at the very end do we get some common sense -- about how the press is not split, but simply too craven to follow the story as it deserves. In the final 2 grafs, Paul Begala notes that Dubya's claims that Ann Richards opposed him in 1994 got quickly debunked in some of the Texas papers (he might have mentioned MWO, too!), but only quickly mentioned elsewhere. "'Bush got off very very easy,' he says, 'because the press are a bunch of cream puffs.'" Now there's a story, Howie. Why not try getting to the bottom of it instead of playing old games like the split dodge? MWO’s HOOEY LINE OF THE DAY CHECK A New MWO Feature Earlier today, MWO posted the RNC’s "line of the day," as disseminated from Republican headquarters to loyal officials, office holders, and media flacks. In keeping with our new feature, we are now pleased to report back the early returns, of whores and others who dutifully spread the RNC line. We call this new report-back feature SHIP OF TOOLS January 15, 2002 An especially rich harvest of slavish hooey-mongering today – complete with the sound-chamber effect of Rush taking his cue not just from the RNC, but from fellow fudge-monger John Podhoretz. Here was the official line of the day, posted earlier today on MWO: WHITE HOUSE-GOP LINE OF THE DAY January 15, 2002 More Enron: There is no political scandal. It's all in the imagination of a frenzied, scandal-hungry pro-Democrat liberal media. That Secretaries O'Neill and Evans did nothing to save Enron proves that the Bush Administration acted correctly. Put Enron in the cross-hairs, if you must -- but keep the Republicans out of it. Democrats are overreaching and will be hurt. The Enron "scandal" is dead and buried. And now to the Tools: You may not know it yet - in part because the mainstream media doesn't exactly know it yet - but the Enron scandal died over the weekend. --John Podhoretz, New York Post, 1/15/2002 "The scandal that never was has ended, as is the topic of John Podhoretz's column in Tuesday's New York Post. It ended when Commerce Secretary Don Evans and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill went on the Sunday shows to say, 'Yeah, we got phone calls from Enron. We didn't do anything'… At that point, it's over. There is no political scandal involving Bush. There never was." --Rush Limbaugh, on-air and on www.rushlimbaugh.com, 1/15/02 (On the following, readers, see the above MWO report on Roll Call’s expose. In case you don’t recognize it, it’s out of the RNC playbook, Plan A.) "Enron pales when one considers the many scandals — some of them still unresolved — in the Clinton administration." --Cal Thomas 1/15/02 And, finally... "'The Real Story: Why the Enron failure has nothing to do with Bush et. al.' The media and political commentators have worked themselves into a frenzy over the Enron story. As far as the Republican party and the administration are concerned, it should be enough to ask: What did Enron managers get in return for their contributions? Absolutely nothing." --Tappen Soper, National Review Online, 1/15/02. See how easy it is folks – once you’ve been tipped off ahead of time to the White House-RNC daily line! Why, these whoring hacks barely need to write an original sentence: they can just copy and embellish the daily Republican handouts (when they're not copying from each other.) Nice work if you can get it! Stayed tuned to MWO, for regular postings of the Republican daily line -- and then, in the evening, SHIP OF TOOLS. ANNALS OF ENRON An MWO Continuing Feature A HERO -- BEFORE THE CROOKS TOOK OVER For eight years, Bill Clinton's head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Arthur Levitt, Jr., fought fiercely to halt the kinds of accounting frauds that have directly led to the Enron fiasco. For his troubles, Levitt, dubbed by Business Week Online as "The Investor's Friend," was thoroughly trashed by the Big 5 accounting firms (including Arthur Andersen), who resisted Levitt's reforms every step of the way. "As a broker, chairman of the American Stock Exchange, and since 1993, SEC chairman, Levitt has fought to break down the old-boy barriers that America's financial institutions erect to protect their profits and freeze out the public," Business Week said back in 2000. But now Levitt, and the Clinton Administration, are still under heavy attack by the old boys accounting and securities industries and their media flacks. And things have changed, big-time, at the S.E.C. under George W. Bush! Who's the new S.E.C. chair? Why, none other than Levitt's nemesis, Harvey Pitt, the mega-lobbyist and former mouthpiece for Ivan Boesky, who also represented Arthur Andersen in resisting Arthur Levitt. Harvey "The Fox" Pitt -- better known as "The Crook's Friend." Mr. Pitt is bound to be subpoenaed to testify in connection with the Enron fiasco -- the fiasco his office should have been alert to, a fiasco in which, with every passing day, he becomes more deeply implicated. The media should listen hard to how he tries to wriggle out of responsibility. And Arthur Levitt should get a medal. Full story An MWO Continuing Feature CALIFORNIA SCHEMIN' PART TWO Salon Exposes How Cheney, Lay May Have Conspired Could Be Smoking Gun in Bush-Enron Scandal See Anthony York's excellent article in Salon: Enron's California Smoking Gun And also see the latest from Sacramento on Enron and Arthur Andersen's California schemin' in The Sacramento Bee: State fears key Enron papers gone ANNALS OF ENRON EXTRA AN MWO SPECIAL REPORT BUSH PIONEER DISCIPLINED IN ANDERSEN SHREDDING CASE OFFICIALLY RELIEVED OF RESPONSIBILITIES TIMES, POST BLOW STORY In an explosive new development, one of George W. Bush's elite Pioneer contributors has been relieved of his duties as a Managing Partner at Arthur Andersen in connection with the Enron shredding scandal. D. Stephen Goddard was yesterday "relieved of...management responsibilities" by the embattled Big 5 accounting firm, according to a report in the Washington Post. As MWO reported five days ago, Goddard has been a Managing Partner at Arthur Anderson, in charge of the firm's Gulf Coast office in Houston, where he specializes in servicing multinational energy companies. He also sits on the board of Texas A&M’s George Bush School of Government. And, as we reported, Goddard is also one of the elite group of "Pioneers" (along with his and Bush's good friend, "Kenny Boy" Lay) who raised $100,000 or more for the Bush 2000 presidential campaign. And not just that. According to records obtained by Texans for Public Justice, Goddard contributed over $250,000 in soft money contributions from his employer, the vast bulk of it ($238,908) going to Republicans. Five days ago, MWO noted that "[i]f anybody at Andersen is in hot water over the Enron affair, it would appear to be Goddard." We also asked if Goddard "in any way facilitate[d] the destruction of Arthur Andersen files in connection with Enron?" It now appears that he did -- or that, at the very least, his own firm is holding him partly responsible for the shocking scandal. The latest report only adds to the web of connections between the Bush White House and the evil-doers in the Enron scandal. The question is: why have the big media played down this link, if they report it at all? Why is little old MWO -- and not for the first time -- way ahead of the Times, Post, and other outlets on this major story? What is going on here? Well, one thing that's going on is that it's plain: for full, up-to-the-minute coverage of the Enron scandal and related matters, make sure to check in with MWO. Oh, yes: for D. Stephen Goddard's recent political contribution history, as compiled by Texans for Public Justice, see http://www.tpj.org/pioneers/d_goddard.html And for MWO's earlier coverage, click here. HOOEY LINE OF THE DAY CHECK: OVERNIGHT RETURNS SHIP OF TOOLS HOWARD FINEMAN PUTTING THE HO IN HOOEY RECITES WH-RNC TALKING POINTS ON AIR -- PRETENDING THEY'RE HIS OWN WORDS AND THOUGHTS! Last night, MWO reader "Czar" caught Howard Fineman, MWO's 2001 Whore of the Year, reciting yesterday's White House-RNC Line of the Day on MSNBC -- PRACTICALLY WORD-FOR-WORD WHAT MWO REPORTED AS THE OFFICIAL LINE EARLIER IN THE DAY!! "He was just on with Brian Williams discussing Enrongate and if you had just awoken from a 12 month sleep and heard his version of the scandal, you would have assumed the Democrats were guilty of a crime. He is reading the RNC line on the news pretending to be a journalist. Let's list some points he made: 1) Enron scandal is a business story, not a political story. 2) Dems received gobs of money and are just as culpable. 3) Dems are over-reaching. 4) The most inappropriate contact made during the scandal was by Robert Rubin to a Treasury official." Great catch, Czar! Does Howie the Whore have a great memory, or what? Or was he just cribbing from a cue sheet? Let this be a lesson to you, Howie and all the rest of you. MWO now has regular access to the White House-RNC Daily Line. If you recite it, or rehash it, or rework it, the whole world will know what you've done, most likely within 24 hours. Just as we know what you did yesterday, Howard, embarking on the Ship of Tools. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. And, with apologies to Bob Dylan, don't say we didn't warn you if your brains get lost. You know, it's a terrible thing when you lose your mind. Let this also be an invitation to whore-watchers everywhere. Want to see big-name reporters and pundits caught parroting (or, in the case of Fineman, regurgitating) the official White House-RNC Daily Line? You'll only find it here: on MWO's Line of the Day and Ship of Tools features! Spread the word! IS THAT YOU RUSH? OR JUST A PLAGIARIZING DITTOHEAD? FAT MAN BUSTED -- ON MWO! Is Rush Limbaugh, or one of his henchmen, trying to spread his hooey via MWO? It looks possible -- except that the scam, and Limbaugh's hooey, have been busted -- by one of MWO's brilliant readers! On January 14, at 10 P.M., an MWO Discussion Board poster with the innocuous handle of "fyi" posted seven supposed "myths" about Enron. You know, that there was no secret insider trading going on because all trades were posted on Yahoo, Ken Lay lost money in the deal -- that sort of hooey. The posting appeared to be "fyi"'s own work. No mention was made of any other author. Well, as it turns out, the pathetic "seven 'myths'" bit appeared earlier word for word on Rush Limbaugh's show and website that same day. Straight from the Hooey-Meister himself! Was Rush posting his booshwah on MWO under an alias? Or is "fyi" just another "dittohead" without an original thought in his head -- and a plagiarist to boot! But that's not all.. The next day, Grand Wizard Limbaugh was preening over his "myths" fudge on the air and on his site: "On Monday's show...I absolutely nuked all the Enron myths - not out of any attempt to spin or dodge, but because I am engaged in a relentless, unstoppable pursuit of the truth." Pull over, Fat Man. Take this breathalyzer test. Cause you've been BUSTED! Even before Monday turned into Tuesday, MWO reader "Blackadder" had exposed Rush's spin and dodge for what it is -- PURE, UNADULTERATED, 100% HOOEY!! Take it away, "Blackadder": Rush's Enron "Myth" #1: Insiders sold their positions in secret. Truth: Yahoo! site lists every insider transaction for the last year. Blackadder: It doesn't matter whether they sold in secret. It matters whether they sold because of knowledge of inside information, which is illegal. They most certainly did do that. Rush's Enron "Myth" #2: Enron Myth #2: Enron workers were not permitted to sell their shares. Truth: The so-called lockout did not happen until late October. Before that, anybody could have sold shares - and did. Blackadder: The lockout did happen, didn't it? It is stupid to say "you should have sold before the lockout, you should have known this would happen", because those people had no reason to expect to be locked out, because such lockout is illegal. Rush's Enron "Myth" #3: "Little guys" locked in while the insiders dumped their stock. Truth: Since this so-called lockdown, Ken Lay sold zero shares. Jeffrey Skilling sold zero shares. In fact, almost all insider sales were from one beneficial holder, a guy named Roger Maynard - and he could get more than what he did if he'd held on to the stock and sold it today. Blackadder: People were selling shares when the lockout was going on. So those people received preferential treatment. Rush's Enron "Myth" #4: Ken Lay screwed everybody. Truth: Whatever he did or didn't do, legal or criminal, I have no idea. But he received the proverbial screwing more than anybody did here. I'm not defending Ken Lay, but he took out over $100 million in the last three years. That's a lot of money, but at the stock's high, he had $3 billion worth. Blackadder: Since that 3 billion worth was a stock valuation based on fraudulent numbers he never really had it, did he. He still took out way more than he deserved and more than other outside stockholders in his position got for their stock. Rush's Enron "Myth" #5: The little guys lost fortunes in their retirement funds. Truth: The reports of 401(k), IRA losses, are painful, but these reports of people losing everything appear to be massively inflated, if you look at this from the standpoint of Enron's all-time high in the 80s. In other words, it could have been much worse than it was. It's a matter of personal choice. Blackadder: It could always be worse. Doesn't mean it's good now. Rush's Enron "Myth" #6: Ken Lay wrongly sent out encouraging e-mails to Enron employees. Truth: The e-mail was sent, but is it unusual for the head of the company to send out a rally-around-the-flag, positive-spin memo? Is he supposed to send out a memo that tells everyone to abandon ship? Blackadder: He is not supposed to lie. Especially if he lies in an effort to get a good price for the shares he is selling. Rush's Enron "Myth" #7: Henry "Nostrilitis" Waxman and Joe Lieberman assert that the Bush administration "should have warned the little guy" that there were problems at Enron so they could have sold their stock. Truth: This betrays sheer ignorance when it comes to the reality. Can you imagine this? "Hi. This is Dubya, your president. Sell your Enron stock now." Can you imagine the national panic that would have ensued? Blackadder: Truth is, this [shows] sheer ignorance when it comes to the law. The ERISA [Employee Retirement Income Security Act, passed in 1974--MWO] requires the federal government to intervene when it knows that people's retirement benefits are in danger. And although Bush did not warn the little guy he (or Ken Lay, or some other scoundrel) sure did warn all his friends in the administration. People in the Administration who had Enron stock sold it at a good time. O.K. Fat Man, assume the position. The breath test shows you're WAY over the limit. You have the right to remain silent...but wait a minute, you don't like that Miranda warning law, do you? Don't take us for fools, Rush -- or whatever "dittohead" ripped off his show/site and showed up on ours. MWO is a Hooey-Free Zone -- and we aim to keep it that way!! So please stay away with your fudge, or we'll be forced to take stronger action. ANNALS OF ENRON EXTRA An MWO Continuing Feature G.O.P. ENRON MEDIA STRATEGY EXPOSED!! Same Old Thing: Shift Blame to Clinton, Democrats Roll Call Calls Out G.O.P., Media Whores In a report that has media circles buzzing, Roll Call has exposed the Republicans' overall media strategy, that is, strategy in dealing with the Enron fiasco. The plan: Attack Bill Clinton and the Democrats! (Talk about ingenuity!!) And if that fails, move to Plan B: Say that the Democrats were just as corrupted by Enron as the Republicans. Roll Call writes: "It's a strategy that sounds hauntingly familiar to veterans of the political wars of the late 1990s: Blame it on Bill Clinton and the Democrats. And if that doesn't work, point out that Democrats, both individually and through their national party committees, were just as willing as Republicans to accept hundreds of thousands of dollars in political donations from Enron over the past decade. And say that Democrats became self-righteous on the issue only after it became clear that the company's demise presented them with an opportunity to slam President Bush and the GOP." Since Bill Clinton tried to stop Enron's accounting abuses only to be shot down by the securities-industry friendly GOP Congress, it's doubtful the first plan will work. And since Enron contributed far more heavily to Republicans as well as Democrats, by a factor of about 3 to 1, it will be hard for the hooey-mongers to get the second plan off the ground. But the Republicans and their media-hack friends will try it anyway, Roll Call discloses -- because it's all they've got!! Roll Call quotes one senior Republican aide: "The Bush administration has only been in place for one year. The Clinton administration had 1998, 1999 and 2000 to deal with any problems at Enron, and they clearly didn't do it. They are the ones at fault, not Bush. If you want to blame anyone, blame Clinton and the Democrats." This is outrageous. Bill Clinton, Clinton's SEC chairman Arthur Levitt, Jr., and the Clinton Administration worked endlessly to stop the sorts of gross abuses that Enron, Arthur Andersen, and others were pulling, and that led to this disaster. Who stopped them? The Republican-controlled Congress!! Check the record!! Then Plan B kicks in. Roll Call quotes a "top Republican strategist": "The Democrats' hands are just as dirty as ours on Enron. There's plenty of blame to go around." This is fudge. What's interesting, of course, is that frightened GOP'ers are frankly admitting that their hands are dirty. But there is no way in the world that the "we both did it" line is going to fly. Because we both DIDN'T do it: Enron was a bastion of Republican Party support, as numerous mainstream news sources were reporting as early as the mid-1990s. When a Republican gets cornered what does he or she do? Why he or she tries to shift the blame!! It won't work -- if we call the media on it every time they try to spread the Republican's calculated hooey and fudge. The Democrats have figured this out. Roll Call quotes a top aide to Majority Leader Tom Daschle: "Every day their problems grow exponentially. They can try all they want to blame it on Clinton and the Democrats, but this happened on their watch and they're going to have answer for it." Yes they will -- unless the Media Whores spring them free by filling the airwaves and the newspapers with hooey and fudge. MWO will continue to do its part, with White House-GOP-Media Whore Hooey Line of the Day updates. But we should all be on the alert for what the Republicans are trying to pull -- and what Roll Call has now neatly exposed. And shout out lustily: "HOOEY!!" Full story: GOP Enron Plan: Shift the Blame "Our performance has never been stronger; our business model has never been more robust ... We have the finest organization in American business today'' - Kenneth "Kenny Boy" Lay in an Aug. 14 e-mail just two months before Enron's long-hidden financial problems surfaced. BUSH BACKED BIG ENRON TAX BREAKS - AFTER CABINET MEMBERS KNEW COLLAPSE UNDERWAY Official White House Records Divulge Massive Incompetence $254 Million Handout to Ken Lay-- in Late October and November!! Scandal Deepens: But Who Cares, Right? An MWO investigation has discovered official White House documentation that the Bush Administration supported huge tax breaks to the Enron Corporation -- after top Executive Branch officials had been alerted to the mounting disorder within the collapsing energy giant. On October 31, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer confirmed that both the President and Vice President supported legislation, under the so-called "economic stimulus plan," that would have handed Enron a gift of $254 million in taxpayers' money. But this confirmation came after Kenneth Lay had informed Secretary of the Treasury Paul H., O'Neill and Secretary of Commerce Don Evans that Enron was in deep trouble. And it came while Lay and other Enron top brass were completing their fantastic looting of the company at the expense of ordinary investors and employees. This new revelations causes huge problems for the White House -- and especially for O'Neill and Evans. On October 29, Evans received a phone call from Enron CEO Ken Lay, informing him that Enron was on the ropes. Earlier, Lay had imparted the same information to O'Neill. Yet two days after the call to O'Neill, the White House sent Ari Fleischer out to tell the press that the President and Vice President supported legislation that would hand the troubled Enron $254 million in taxpayers' money. Moreover, over the following weeks, Bush went around the country drumming up support for the economic stimulus bill -- complete with its payout to Enron. And still, by their own testimony, O'Neill and Evans said and did nothing. O'Neill and Evans have perversely tried to make a virtue out of their claim that they did not inform the President of Lay's calls and efforts to intervene. But in light of the new revelations, these claims raise new and troubling questions. For by not informing the president, O'Neill and Evans were content to let the payout plan to Enron to go forward -- and to allow Bush push hard for the payout, directly and through Ari Fleischer. The economic stimulus bill passed the House in a sharply partisan vote. Had it passed the Senate, Enron would now be picking up its $254 million check of taxpayers' money. Imagine how embarrassing and hurtful that would have been! Fortunately, support for the bill in the Senate was too weak to allow passage -- though the Bush Administration is still officially supportive of passing it in the upcoming session of Congress. Otherwise, thanks to O'Neill and Evans would have caused the White House even greater political problems than it has now. And the taxpayers would have been bilked out of hundreds of millions of dollars, above and beyond the billions that Enron executives screwed out of their ordinary shareholders and employees. In short, O'Neill and Evans, if they did in fact did refrain from informing Bush, are guilty of gross ineptitude at best, and of collusion at worst. Will the White House see fit to fire O'Neill and Evans, as they deserve to be fired? Will Bush show some outrage at erstwhile friends who let him down, and nearly caused him even bigger political damage than he has suffered already? And will the White House back off from the outrageous huge payout to Enron still proposed under the G.O.P. economic stimulus bill? Or will it just be business as usual, Texas-style, in the West Wing? What do you have to say now, Ari? And press corps -- press him to say something! Document: For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary October 31, 2001 Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer Q The second question -- in today's New York Times, on the economic stimulus package, says that a group of Texas energy companies will get big checks from the government under this package. And he says they're disproportionate in size. So, for example, while General Motors, which has 380,000 employees, will get a check for $800 million, TXU, which is the former Dallas Power & Light, which has only 16,000 employees, will get a check for $600 million. And he points the finger at Vice President Cheney, saying that a group of Texas energy companies, including TXU, Enron, Chevron and Texaco, will get these big checks. The question is, what role did Vice President Cheney have in developing this economic stimulus package? MR. FLEISCHER: The economic stimulus package or the energy package? I thought that's what you addressed the question to at the beginning. Q These are tax rebates, the corporate tax rebates. MR. FLEISCHER: Well, first of all, the President has proposed the economic stimulus package to apply universally to low- and middle-income taxpayers, to other taxpayers, in the case of expensing, which he's proposed, and in the case of corporate AMT, for all corporations that currently are treated under the tax code unfairly because they're penalized for their investment plans. That was a proposal that was made by the President. The Vice President, of, course, concurs with it. And that's where we stand. Source See also: "Once-Mighty Enron Strains Under Scrutiny," New York Times, October 28, 2001 "An Economic Stimulus Bill With Corporations in Mind," New York Times, October 27, 2001. HAS SEN. GRAMM QUIT OVER ENRON? Wife Took Large Sums From Enron While Supposedly Regulating It Right-Wing Republican Was Enron's Tool The Enron scandal may have already brought down one of its biggest political beneficiaries and promoters -- the ultra-conservative Republican Senator Phil Gramm of Texas. Early investigations of the Enron affair show an alarming pattern of involvement by Sen Gramm and Sen. Gramm's wife, Wendy Gramm, a member of Enron's board of directors and chairman of the board's auditing committee, in promoting deregulation at Enron's behest. Enron has over the years paid large sums to Mrs. Gramm in the form of salary, stock, and dividends since since joined the corporation in 1993. Enron was also Sen. Gramm's largest campaign contributor between 1989 and 2000. Mrs. Gramm, as director of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, made crucial decisions to exempt Enron from regulation in its energy derivatives, the financial instrument which became the basis for its trading empire. Sen. Gramm, as former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, thwarted numerous efforts to regulate energy interests, and was the spearhead of the obscure Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which, according to Public Citizen, set Enron free to run what amounted to an energy auction that "gained control over a significant share of California's electricity and natural gas market." Out of that debacle emerged the phony California energy crisis hyped by the George W. Bush White House -- a crisis that vastly inflated the worth of Enron holdings, until pressure from California Governor Gray Davis and federal regulatory agencies forced a price cap on California prices. And at precisely this point, Enron executives including Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling began rushing to dump their Enron stock. These involvements, and other matters now under heavy scrutiny, seem to lie behind Sen. Gramm's sudden decision last year to step down from office. Developing very hard.... For some background: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/020121/usnews/21enron.htm http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=983 www.projo.com/cgi-bin/story.pl/opinion/06651601.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22448-2001Dec24.html http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/business/1213610 http://www.nypost.com/business/35981.htm www.cfo.com/Article/1,4610,,00.html?article=6108 www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-000000242jan02.column?coll=la-util-op-ed http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0203/ridgeway.php SHIP OF TOOLS January 16, 2002 Early Returns Today’s official White House-RNC Line of the Day was to keep shifting the blame for Enron on the Democrats, to go after Joe Lieberman as a recipient of Enron funds, and to attack the Daschle Democrats as partisan while praising our hard-working Dubya. The early returns bring back some old friends – Junior Goldberg, Rush, of course – and oh, looky here: Dickie Scaife! "Although Enron gave generously to the Bush campaign and to congressional Republicans, Democrats are not immune to charges of influence peddling. Enron also donated $25,000 to Mr. Lieberman's New Democrats in 2000, records show. Those donations create potential conflicts of interest that should disqualify Mr. Lieberman from leading a congressional probe of the collapsed energy firm, the Fairfax-based National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) told the senator in a letter." --Washington Times, 1/16/02 [MWO Note: According to the most recently disclosed figures, from 2000, the National Legal and Policy Center, described by the Washington Times as a "conservative-leaning watchdog group," received $100,000 from the foundation headed by Richard Mellon Scaife. It is one of the many Scaife front organizations still fouling the Washington waters.] "In fact, so far, the only evidence of a political figure doing anything improper, though hardly illegal, concerns President Clinton’s former treasury secretary, Robert Rubin.” --Junior Goldberg, syndicated column, 1/16/02 "I asked why the Democrats had to wait for the president to warn us. Democrat Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee took more Enron cash than anyone in the House, and the number two cash taker was also a Democrat. On the Senate side, Democrat Chuckie Schumer took more from Enron than three other Senators. Why didn’t they warn us about Enron?" --Rush Limbaugh, on-air and site, 1/16/02. ANNALS OF ENRON An MWO Continuing Feature S.E.C. CHAIR UNVEILS PHONEY FIX-IT PLAN Harvey "The Fox" Pitt: Speak Loudly and Carry a Little Stick "Reform" Plan Derided As Too Little, Too Late SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt is talking tough about cracking down on auditing fraud in the wake of the Enron disaster -- but his proposed reforms of industry practices amount to the merest face-saving band-aid on a huge and growing problem. The trouble, of course, is that Pitt, an old Arthur Andersen LLB hand and consigliere, refuses to recognize that the buddy-buddy connections between firms like Enron and auditors like Andersen practically invite massive corruption. "He's chasing a gopher down a wrong hole," said one expert of Pitt's proposals, in a front-page New York Times report. When will the Bush Administration realize that, in Harvey Pitt, it has exactly the wrong man for the job? For more on "The Fox," see MWO's Annals of Enron archive. Full Story: ANNALS OF ENRON An MWO Continuing Feature Republicans and their kept men and women in the media are still charging, predictably, that Clinton and the Democrats are responsible for the Enron disaster. This takes gall, given the record. A little outline of which follows: A (Very) Brief History of How the Clinton Administration and Democrats Tried to Prevent the Enron Disaster from Happening -- But Got Defeated by the Republicans 1997: President Clinton's chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chair Brooksley Born proposes greater regulation of energy derivates by way of more stringent disclosure. Her proposal is beaten back by House Republicans, including then-House Banking Committee Chair Jim Leach (R-IA) who scolds Born for two hours at a hearing. Energy derivatives were the key instrument with which Enron Corporation was building its trading empire. Four years earlier, the outgoing chair of the CFTC, a gung-ho de-regulator, pushed through a special lucrative exemption for the Enron Corporation. A few days later, she was appointed to the Enron board of directors. Her name: Wendy Gramm, wife of Republican Senator Phil Gramm of Texas. 1997: Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) proposes banning investment of more than 10 percent of the total 401(k) plan in the employer's stock --the maximum that investment experts recommend a person sink into any one company. (If enacted, Boxer's proposal would have saved thousands of Enron's employees from their current dismal fate.) The GOP Senate passes her bill, but waters it down so completely that it doesn't apply to a single company in America! 1998-2000: Clinton Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Arthur Levitt proposes regulations to prohibit accounting firms from simultaneously serving as consultants and auditors. Arthur Andersen LLB and other giant accounting firms mount a massive lobbying campaign against the Clinton-Levitt regs, killing them. The lead lobbyist for the accounting firms is Harvey Pitt. 1999-2000: Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers proposes a crackdown on tax havens such as those used by Enron. His proposals are opposed and defeated by the GOP Congress. Later Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill opposes efforts by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to protect investors from tax havens. May, 2001: George W. Bush appoints Harvey Pitt as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. CHENEY COVERUP LIES BEGAN IN 2000 CAMPAIGN MISSING VEEP'S CREDIBILITY ZERO POLITICAL SITUATION WORSENS (WASHINGTON, D.C., January 22, 2002; Special to MWO) As financial analysts grew panicky today over the imminent release of Halliburton Company's quarterly earnings report, the scandal over Vice President Dick Cheney's ties to the firm mounted. In what could turn out to be the biggest cover-up story since the Iran-Contras scandals, evidence has surfaced that Cheney has been lying and deliberately misleading both officials and the public for more than a year about his money-making at Halliburton and about the firm's immense government contracts. Cheney has said that while he and Halliburton got extremely rich during the prosperity of the 1990's, "the government had absolutely nothing to do with it." In fact, records show that, during the five years that Cheney was its CEO, Halliburton aggressively pursued federal government contracts, taxpayer-backed loans and other breaks. In contracts alone, the company brought in $2.3 billion, nearly double the amount of government business the company did during the five-year period before before Cheney arrived. All told, under Cheney, Halliburton's raked in some $3.8 billion in government funds. Over the same period, Halliburton's political contributions more than doubled, reaching $1.2 million. Its lobbying expenditures rose at about the same rate, reaching $600,000 in 1999. Business analysts observe that Cheney's position as former Secretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush helped gain Halliburton favorable treatment in Washington, especially for lucrative defense contracts. "Absolutely nothing"? All the more embarrassing for the press is that the Cheney cover-up began in earnest on national television during the 2000 presidential campaign -- in the plain view of millions -- and yet no one covering the campaign caught on. On October 5, 2000, debating Cheney in Danville, Kentucky, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Lieberman made a straightforward campaign pitch, with a mild zinger quip attached: "I think if you asked most people in America today that famous question that Ronald Reagan asked, 'Are you better off today than you were eight years ago?' most people would say, 'Yes.' And I'm pleased to see, Dick, from the newspapers, that you're better off than you were eight years ago, too." As the audience laughed, Cheney, on the defensive, stumbled a second, started his response, with some words about "most of it," then changed direction. CHENEY: And most of it and I can tell you, Joe, that the government had absolutely nothing to do with it. Cheney's riposte got the biggest laugh-and-applause line of the night. Unfortunately, his joke was also a baldfaced lie -- as becomes all the more apparent when viewing videotape of the exchange. Cheney wanted, in a jokey way, to mislead the voters and the press into thinking that the government had had nothing to do with his and his company's skyrocketing success. It was an appeal to rugged individualism, to the sort of Western tough-guy loner image that the G.O.P. has cultivated so assiduously since the Reagan era. And it was totally false. Democrats did complain at the time, but there was hardly any reporting of the incident. What little there was emphasized Republican dismissals, and suggested that the Democrats were trying to distract voters from the supposedly weighty issue of Al Gore's "exaggerations" about the Internet and "Love Story." Then-Bush-Cheney campaign spokesman Ari Fleischer waved off the charges, saying "the worse [the Democrats] are doing in the polls the more they exaggerate and make things up." White Ayres, a Republican pollster, told the New York Times that the Gore campaign should have tried another tack. "The accusation isn't going to fly," he said. "They would have been better off counterattacking on anything which voters already suspect is true." There was not a single national newspaper story on the actual substance of Cheney's Halliburton connection and how it reflected on his veracity. The voters suspected nothing because the news media had said nothing -- and would say nothing. But now, thanks to the Halliburton decline of 2001, that is about to change -- nearly a year and a half late. With Halliburton hanging by a string, the Cheney cover-up is on the verge of being exposed for what it was and what it is. Developing ever more furiously.... Sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/11/politics/11DEMS.html http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm?ID=3728 Transcript: http://www.cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,238990-412,00.shtml Top table: HALLIBURTON PER SHARE STOCK VALUE (in dollars) Lower table: VOLUME OF HALLIBURTON STOCK SALES (in millions of shares) CHENEYGATE New White House Scandal Shocker ANNALS OF ENRON An MWO Continuing Feature VEEP'S FIRM COLLAPSING OVER ASBESTOS LAWSUITS Big-Time Payoffs to G.O.P. Pols Panic On Pennsylvania Avenue Halliburton: Enron II (Washington, D.C., Jan. 21, 2002: Special to MWO) The lid has just about blown off this already tense capital city with breaking news of the possible impending collapse of Vice-President Cheney's old firm, Halliburton Company of Dallas, Texas. With its stock value in free fall for months, Halliburton is reported on the edge of doom, thanks to a mountain of asbestos lawsuits linked to its 1998 acquisition, under then-CEO Cheney, of Dresser Industries. The company has paid out more than $150 million in recent damages for asbestos cases -- and has about 260,000 related lawsuits still pending. More than $19 billion in Halliburton shareholder value has vanished since the summer of 2001 -- an undisclosed amount of it in employee 401(k) plans and other pension funds. To try and stem off the disaster, Halliburton has given huge gobs of money to former and present Congressional Republicans in order to gain favorable deregulation rulings and other breaks. Among the more prominent names caught up in the Halliburton political operation, apart from Cheney, are former Missouri Senator and current Attorney General John Ashcroft and House Majority Leader, Dick Armey of Texas. Both stock-watchers and political heavyweights are nervously awaiting Halliburton's release of its latest earnings report, now scheduled for Wednesday. Bad news could lead to allegations of fraud and mismanagement like the ones that have befallen Enron.. Confidence in Halliburton and its imminent statement is all the shakier given that the firm's accountant is none other than Arthur Andersen LLB -- the same outfit mixed up in destroying documents and defrauding shareholders in the Enron affair. Non-partisan watchdog groups warn than Halliburton shows all the signs of becoming another Enron. "Halliburton is just as vulnerable to collapse but doesn't get much scrutiny," said Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice. "We definitely should be alarmed." So, apparently, should the White House and the Republican Party -- big time. According to public records, Halliburton and Cheney funneled nearly $500,000 to congressional candidates from 1997 to 2000, including more than $150, 000 to members of Congress sponsoring legislation that would limit the ability of workers to sue companies for asbestos exposure. The vast majority of the money has gone to Republicans -- just as, not surprisingly, did the great bulk of the company's contributions in the last presidential campaign. Of special interest are Halliburton's payouts in connection with the highly controversial Fairness in Asbestos Compensation Act, a piece of legislation so outrageous that it has not yet passed the Congress. Halliburton gave big money to 49 of the 77 lawmakers who in 2000 co-sponsored the act in the House of Representatives and 14 of 29 co-sponsors of similar legislation in the Senate. Halliburton's spending on the bill was intensely partisan, including 46 House Republicans and only three House Democrats, along with 14 Senate Republicans and no Senate Democrats. Of the more than $150,000 Halliburton doled out over the asbestos bill, all but $3500 went to Republicans -- a pro-Republican division of 98% to 2%. Among the top beneficiaries were Tom De Lay (R-TX, $5500), Dick Armey (R-TX, $6000), and J.C. Watts (R-OK, $7000). Cheney, as an individual, donated $12,500 to members who sponsored or co-sponsored the asbestos bill. A Halliburton spokeswoman, Zelma Branch, told reporters that the contributions were "purely coincidental." Further complicating matters, while Halliburton, under Cheney, pressed for radical deregulation, it also fed richly at the federal trough, benefiting from at least $3.8 billion in federal contracts and taxpayer-insured loans between 1995 and 2000. If he were to become vice president, one Halliburton official who admires Cheney but asked to remain anonymous said in 2000, "the company’s government contracts would obviously go through the roof." But the company's demise now could well bring close scrutiny to its government contracts, both before and after Cheney and George W. Bush "won" the disputed 2000 election. There were some scattered press reports about Halliburton during the 2000 campaign, no more. Even though charged by consumers and workers' groups with being an integral part of an asbestos industry which knowingly poisoned its own workers for years, Halliburton escaped media scrutiny. Reporters were too busy tracking down every last detail of Al Gore's "exaggerations" and the phony Buddhist Temple non-scandal to pay much mind to Dick Cheney and Halliburton -- to say nothing of Halliburton's hundreds of thousands of victims, Americans who are today riddled with cancer and other diseases which could have been prevented, except for Halliburton's immoral worship of the bottom line. Now, just maybe, the press will start paying attention. Or it will come Wednesday. Developing furiously.... Sources: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/01/20/BU125026.DTL http://www.opensecrets.org/pressreleases/cheney/halliburton.htm http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/hall04.shtml http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/hallchart04.shtml http://www.public-i.org/story_02_011402.htm http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=hal&d=c&t=1y http://www.public-i.org/story_01_080200.htm U.S. embassies assisted Cheney firm. (Associated Press, Oct. 26, 2000) Cheney's standard of living soars in private sector. (Los Angeles Times, Oct. 19, 2000) Next Page BUSINESS WEEK LATEST TO SLAM G.O.P. HOOEY On Taxes, Bush is Misleading Voters, Says Wall Street Watcher "[B]y attacking a straw man, and repeating the attack often enough, Bush hopes to inextricably link Democrats to tax hikes.... "Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), Bush's personal friend, gave the President ammunition on Jan. 16 when the prominent Democratic liberal endorsed delaying implementation of rate reductions in the 2001 tax cut for the wealthiest 1% of Americans. 'Future additional tax breaks for the wealthy don't deserve higher priority than strengthening education, covering prescription drugs under Medicare, or protecting Social Security, or meeting other urgent national priorities,' Kennedy declared at the National Press Club. Anticipating GOP attacks, Kennedy said, under his proposal, 'No taxpayer would pay a higher tax rate than they pay now.' That hasn't stopped Republicans from equating a delay in future tax cuts with a tax increase. 'The Democratic position is to favor higher taxes,' Bush Budget Director Mitchell Daniels said in response. Wait a minute." First Tweety, then National Review, the WSJ, and the Prince of Darkness -- and now Business Week? Bad moon risin' over the White House, boys... Full Story AND MAYBE NOT JUST ABOUT ENRON.... CBS MarketWatch: {}Commentary: Enron scandal: Where is Cheney? Veep has questions to answer. CONSERVATIVE CRACK-UP OVER ENRON Right-Wingers Begin Civil War New Cheney Revelations Stoke GOP Freak-Out Much as they did over Watergate thirty years ago, the nation's conservatives are cracking up and fighting with each other over Enron. The difference is that what took months during Watergate is transpiring now in a matters of hours and days. Syndicated columnist David Limbaugh has now ripped into Chris "Tweety" Matthews' turn against the Bushies on the Enron matter, calling Tweety's remarks "destructive." Full story: "Will Democrats Seek to Exploit Enron?" This follows the long-time faux (and Faux) populist Bill O'Reilly's partial break with the party line earlier this week, as well as Tweety's column urging the Democrats to clobber the G.O.P over Enron. It follows Byron York's National Review admission at week's end that conservatives have begun to grow nervous about the White House's possible culpability in the Enron scandals. Above all, it follows fresh reports that Vice President Cheney, long out of public view, was using the National Security Agency as a bargaining tool for Enron abroad, along with additional news about Cheney's fierce refusal to release his secret energy policy committee's papers on grounds of "executive privilege." Enron over? Not by a very long shot! And not while conservatives are shooting at each other!! FRANK RICH NAILS BUSH, LINDSEY, MATALIN ON LIES If There's No Fire, How Come the Bushies Are Blowing So Much Smoke? The United States of Enron Frank Rich NEW HOOEY SHOCKER!! Conservative Crack-Up on Enron Speeds Up! GOP Lines of the Day Get Wackier Now It's Blame the Employees! Republicans have got their tongues twisted over Enron. Now, in the Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal, they want to blame the scandal on the employees whose pensions were looted!! We can't wait to see what looney turn the Republicans will take next trying to explain away Enron. Meanwhile, the Bush-Cheney stonewall on the energy task force papers continues! What are they hiding? Conservative whores, doesn't it make you nervous? Taking stock: Diversify, diversify, diversify: Enron employees aren't blameless for the bath they took Snitch Takes Hooey Line As the whore-catcher of record, MWO feels a public responsibility to report that Snitchens has, a bit late in the game, begun peddling the official White House-RNC Hooey Line about the Enron scandal. Not that anybody cares, or should care. But we've got a job to do, too. Hey, I'm Doing My Best HOOEY? NO, THANKS Unleash independent counsel on Enron Marianne Means "The initial assumption that the administration comes to this with clean hands is beginning to be questioned. Congress is growing impatient with the administration's continued resistance to releasing the secret records of Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force.... "The latest Enron outrage appears to be that the company paid no income taxes in four of the last five years by hiding resources in nearly 900 subsidiaries in tax-haven countries and using other creative dodges.... "Bush insists that the tax burden on American corporations must be reduced because it is too heavy to bear. Not for Enron, it wasn't." FLORIDA AG LOOKING INTO ENRON RACKETEERING More Than $300 Million Lost From State Pension Fund, Much of It in Final Days Meanwhile, Bush Holds Fundraiser at Ex-Enron Chief's House The Florida pension fund scam, reported on MWO several days ago, looks like it's really heating up. Attorney-General Bob Butterworth, a Democrat, has ordered a full investigation. Governor Jeb Bush greeted the news by holding a campaign fundraiser at the home of former Enron chief Richard Kinder in Houston. Bush denied any conflict of interest. Enron Under Scrutiny: State Investigates Pension Fund Loss SHIP OF TOOLS January 18, 2002 Line Of Day: Bush had no stake in Enron, and will get to the bottom of the tragedy. As Byron York signaled in his NRO piece posted this morning, even some conservatives are getting a little resistant to the White House-RNC Daily Line. (Might this explain why Tweety flipped earlier this week?) But one reporter still bought and spread the hooey big-time today. And he did the Line-givers one better. Remember back in the '90's, when one of the standard slanders of Bill Clinton was that he was a "typical" irresponsible, narcissistic baby boomer (that is, dangerous '60's type.) Well our pundit has found a way to turn the baby boomers into the centerpiece of this scandal-- not the greed and political connections of Ken Lay (who's a bit too old to qualify) but Ken Lay's victims, "self-obsessed and selfish" as ever over their retirement plans. Who else in the press corps can be so tone-deaf and wooly-minded as well as so slavish? Yes, you guessed it: 2001 MWO Whore of the Year Howard Fineman. "[N]either Republicans nor Democrats can benefit from the scandal, since both are complicit in creating the sordid reality Enron now symbolizes.... "There is more fallout from the Enron collapse. It signals the arrival of a new issue at the centerpiece of politics: retirement security for the always self-obsessed and selfish Baby Boom generation..... "So far, Enron has done nothing to tarnish George W. Bush's standing as a very popular leader in the post 9/11 age. There is no indication that he was was aware of, or interested in, the fate of Enron. He says he wants the matter investigated, and four government agencies and six congressional committees are obliging him...." - Howard Fineman, "Enron 'winners' outside Beltway: Neither party can benefit," MSNBC site, January 18, 2002 Bush not tarnished by Enron connection? Not so fast, Howie: NEW POLL: TWO THIRDS OF AMERICANS NO LONGER TRUST BUSH ADMINISTRATION Almost two-thirds of Americans in a new CBS News poll think the Bush administration is either hiding something or lying about its relationship with Enron, the failed energy trading company that has been a big contributor to the president and to other politicians from both parties. The poll was of 1,030 adults was taken Jan. 15-17 and released Friday. It had an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Among the poll findings: Almost two-thirds - 63 percent - think the Bush administration isn't telling everything it knows about its relationship with Enron. That group breaks up this way - a fifth think the Bush administration is lying about its relationship with Enron, while almost half - 44 percent - think the administration is hiding something. More than half said Enron had at least some influence on the Bush administration's energy policy and even more said the influence was inappropriate. Full Story A TASTE OF HOOEY Conservatives Panicked, Fear White House Cover-Up Nat Review: Looks Like Ari Really IS Stonewalling At week's end, conservatives in Washington suddenly turned very nervous about Enron and the Bush Administration. After spreading various pre-cooked lines-of-the-day all week, Republicans have wound up with a sour taste in their mouths -- a taste of hooey. Earlier in the week, National Review Online's Byron York writes, "there was growing confidence among many Republicans that the White House had successfully answered many of the questions about the administration's actions during the collapse of Enron." But no longer: "Now, however, it appears some of that confidence might have been misplaced, after a number of less-than-reassuring statements by White House spokesman Ari Fleischer." Maybe, conservatives are now beginning to say publicly, there's more there than Ari and his bosses have let on -- something rotten in the Bush White House. In York's article, one can almost see the beads of sweat suddenly breaking out on the lips and temples of conservatives everywhere: "Fleischer's comments seem to suggest that there are indeed more contacts between Enron and administration officials than are publicly known. Last week, for example, he said, "I think it should surprise no one that people in the administration receive phone calls from people who are either in business or in unions. It happens every day." If there are more contacts, it is likely that they will ultimately come to light, and even if they do nothing to change the basic the-White-House-did-not-intervene-on-behalf-of-Enron storyline, the administration will face legitimate questions of why it did not reveal the information earlier. "Storyline?" "Legitimate questions?" On Enron, the White House credibility gap is growing by the hour -- even on the Right! White House Enron Stonewall?: The administration refuses to answer questions Byron York Link of the Day EnronOwnsTheGOP.com SILENCE OF THE SCAMS Executive Privilege: Where is the Press Now? Bush, Cheney Invoke Old Bugaboo, Whores Silent Mary Matalin Exposed As Four-Flusher Ever since Richard Nixon's Watergate scandals of the 1970's, White House claims of "executive privilege" have set the media to roaring. And when Bill Clinton raised claims to executive privilege amid the railroad job of Kenneth Starr -- claims that, in retrospect, proved entirely legitimate, especially given Starr's dubious prerogative -- the press nearly impeached Clinton and removed him from office on the spot. Tim Russert , for example, leeringly wondered on Meet the Press in March '98 whether Clinton would "invoke, like the ghost of Richard Nixon, executive privilege..." But it's WAY different with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney on the Enron scandal and related matters. Executive privilege? Fine by us, say the whores. Is Tim Russert likening George Bush and Dick Cheney to Richard Nixon? Of course he isn't. And yet, after just one year in office, the Bush Administration has been the most secretive and "executive privilege" prone of any other since Nixon's -- and not just over Enron. First, earlier this year, Bush signed an order that effectively shredded 1978 Presidential Records Act and gave former presidents more authority to claim executive privilege to withhold certain papers -- in effect, anything the former president doesn't want seen. A day or two's worth of of complaint arose from the press -- then nothing. When will anyone see Ronald Reagan's or George H.W. Bush's papers connected with, say, Iran-Contra? Or Dubya's papers connected with Enron? Probably never, thanks to the new "executive privilege" order. Now, with Enron breaking out over everybody's head, Vice President Dick Cheney is refusing to release papers connected with his secret energy policy planning committee where Enron played a big role. Why? Executive Privilege. "There is a principle here that we want to preserve--for not just this administration but future administrations," Cheney's aide Mary Matalin says. "The powers and prerogatives of the executive branch have been eroded, and we're going to stop that." Remember Ron Ziegler, Nixon's press secretary and aide? That was his line too, back in 1973 and 1974. But it's funny -- back in 1998, the very same Mary Matalin, appearing with the very same Russert on Meet the Press, said that it was an "outrage" that Bill Clinton was even considering invoking executive privilege, and implied that no president should: "Ronald Reagan, before congressional investigators and the independent counsel, waived both attorney-client privilege and executive privilege. This is an outrage that [President Clinton] is even considering it" - Mary Matalin, Meet the Press, 3/1/98 Matalin has no principles here, any more that the rest of the Bush White House does. What a four-flushing phony! It's about the arrogance of power, not constitutional principle. But the press, cowed, lets it all happen. With a few exceptions that prove the new rule, like this from the L.A. Times. Ben Bradlee, Katherine Graham, the elder Arthur Sulzberger -- they knew what to do in the face of this kind of executive intimidation. Their successors? Pretty quiet out there, except for a few "BAAAAAAAs" Bleating of the lambs amid the silence of the scams. REMEMBRANCE OF G.O.P SCANDALS PAST -- AND PRESENT John Dean Nails Enron and Media Coverage When John Dean told his then-boss President Richard Nixon that Watergate was a "cancer on the presidency," Nixon continued to stonewall -- but Dean proved correct. Now the same John Dean has seen what's at stake for the Bush Administration in Enron -- and it looks malignant. And Dean has some choice words to say about the media coverage so far about Enron. "[W] hen Enron hit the wall, the Bush Administration remained mute, even knowing Enron was disintegrating. Certainly the former governor of Texas had some idea of what this would mean to his beloved state. For one thing, twenty thousand employees of Enron would be out of work, with their 401(k) plan worthless. Surely a man with a Harvard MBA could envision the devastation this business failure (of a company he had once promoted) would have on countless thousands of Enron stock and bond holders, not to mention major lending institutions who had provided Enron working capital." Did Enron Successfully Buy Influence With The Money It Spent? John Dean Hint: Dean's answer isn't no. GRAMM UPDATE: PHIL AND WENDY ON THE LAM!! GOP Senator From Enron Won't Talk Wife From Enron In Hiding, Too Senator Phil Gramm, the usually outspoken Republican from Texas, and his wife, Wendy, the former chairperson of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, who took gobs of contributions and cash from Enron, and were crucial to Enron having its way cleared toward disaster, now won't say a word. Not a word. Unavailable to the media. From motor-mouth to zipped mouth. Their silence and media disappearing act comes on the heels of shocking reports in the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune about their Enron connections over the past decade and more. The Tribune article takes an especially hard look at Wendy Gramm's responsibilities as chair of Enron's auditing committee: "Wendy Gramm served on the audit committee of the board, meaning she was one of the directors responsible for Enron's financial reporting to investors. "Beginning in the late 1990s, Enron executives hid hundreds of millions of dollars in debt in supposedly unrelated partnerships. The result was to make Enron appear much stronger financially than it actually was. "When word of the partnerships surfaced and Enron acknowledged its debt last year, the company's stock price collapsed and it filed for bankruptcy. "The members of the audit committee were to oversee the partnerships, according to a report by Enron's law firm, Vinson & Elkins. That means the partnerships were not merely a misstep by a lower-level executive but rather were supposed to be known to Wendy Graham and the top leaders of Enron." On September 4 of last year, just as the Enron collapse was entering its final stage, Sen. Phil Gramm suddenly and unexpectedly announced that he would not seek another term in the Senate in 2004. Now Phil and Wendy are as silent as the tomb -- although Wendy will have to talk soon enough under subpeona to congressional investigators. A few questions for the Gramms, in the meantime: Senator Gramm, did you announce your leaving the Senate because of your involvement with the Enron scandal? Are you refusing to speak on advice from attorney? Can you detail your contacts with Kenneth Lay and other Enron executives other than your wife since 1989, and account for Enron's influence over your decisions on energy-related matters in the Senate, including as member (and, for a time, chairman) of the Senate Banking Committee? Mrs. Gramm, why did you sign off on the dubious accounting and auditing practices that led to Enron's collapse? Why were you among the early Enron board members and executives who started dumping their Enron stock in 1998? How will you reply to the civil suit brought against you and twenty-eight other Enron officials, including Kenneth Lay? Full stories: New York Times: Bill Showed Complexities of Power Couple's Ties to Enron Chicago Tribune: Gramms Regulated Enron, Benefited From Ties The White House-RNC-Media Whores Hooey Line of the Day January 18, 2002 It's Friday, so things are quieting down for the weekend. Keep blaming the Democrats. Added wrinkle: GWB had no stake in Enron, he was personally uninterested about its success or failure. Dramatize this: Lay, Skilling, et al. may have been thieves, but GWB knew nothing, had nothing to gain from any shenanigans in 2001 (he was, after all, already POTUS), and has nothing to gain from helping them now. White House will help get to the bottom of this economic tragedy, to ensure it doesn't happen again. TIME DOCTORS PHOTO TO PROTECT DUBYA Bush cropped out of Kenneth Lay image Restoring honor, one photo at a Time, Inc. For feature in yet another article denying any wrongdoing on the part of Bush in the Bush Enron Scandal, Time Magazine selected this photo: Correction: Time selected part of that photo. By the time the Bush apologists at the magazine were finished doing what any loyal protector and defender of the Bush administration (Media Whore) would do, this was what was left - the image Time presented to the public: See: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,192920,00.html SHIP OF TOOLS January 17, 2002 Things were relatively quiet on the Daily Hooey Line front today. We have received an unconfirmed report that, well down the GOP media food chain, John Gibson of Faux's "The Big Story," reported that Joe Lieberman is only going after Enron in order to enhance his presidential hopes in 2004, and that the entire scandal is a phony. Pretty much word for word from the Daily Line. But that is unconfirmed; and as Gibson is so obscure it will take a little time to corroborate. The Line may be about to shift away from Enron altogether and back to stressing the War (and that American Taliban kid) as far as possible. We will see. Meantime, there was one bit of Daily Line recycling, as posted today on the Faux site: Brit Hume: What does it now appear, from what we now know, that Enron got for its - in return for its campaign contributions? Jeff Birnbaum, Washington bureau chief, Fortune magazine, and Faux contributor: As best as we can tell, they got nothing. Despite the pleas of Ken Lay, there was no intervention with the debt agency. There was no infusion of capital from the Federal Reserve. And it's peculiar that campaign finance reform may actually pass, because... Will the Enron Financial Scandal Turn Into a Political One, Too? Faux site, 1/17/02 Yes, Birnbaum and Hume went on to lament the "irony" of how the Enron affair might actually prompt the passage of what Birnbaum called the "nonsensical" effort to legislate campaign finance reform. Are you listening, Senator McCain? Next Page THE INTIMIDATION OF TRAITOR TWEETY Chris Momentarily Leaves Reservation; R-W Whores Go Ballistic What Will Tweety Do? Latest Sign of Conservative Crack-Up In the latest sign of a severe conservative crack-up over Enron, right-wing commentators have begun blasting one of their own -- Tweety Matthews. What did Tweety, the quondam Democrat, do that was so wrong? He wrote a column saying that the Democrats should clobber the G.O.P. over Enron. Heresy! shouts the right-wing media. "Destructive," screams Rush's syndicated brother David Limbaugh. "Democrat media machine!" brays NewsMax. (Tweety "I voted for Bush" Matthews?! Oh, brother!) The really interest question is: how will Tweety react? Will he be chastised back into spreading the party line? Or might he stray off the reservation a little more -- knowing that his blue-collar base just won't buy the G.O.P.'s Enron hooey. Tweety has been a concern to the Right for some time, ever since one of Hardball's conservative producers left to work at the White House earlier this year. Without their babysitter in place, booking guests and making sure that Tweety was "sound," the Right has been worried that the ex-Democrat Matthews might just wander. Now, at the very first slight sign of independence, the right-wing is coming down on Tweety like Sylvester. Your move, Tweety. See: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/davidlimbaugh/ http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2002/1/18/95810 "BOY GENIUS" ROVE HIT BY ENRON AMNESIA Helped Pat Robertson's Boy Get Enron Job Karl: "I Can't Even Remember" Karl Rove, nicknamed "Boy Genius" by his maximum leader, George W. Bush, seems to have strange but useful memory lapses when it comes to his political connections with Enron. The Houston Chronicle reports that, in 1997, Rove helped get a juicy political consulting job with Enron for Ralph Reed, former honcho of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition and now chairman of the Georgia G.O.P. Confronted evidence about his political fixing between Enron and the Christian right, Rove suddenly experienced a partial memory recovery -- but only a partial one. "I put in a good word for [Reed], but I can't even remember who I put in a good word with," said Rove. The "Boy Genius" seems to have a genius for convenient forgetting. Maybe Congress should call Rove as a witness and help jog his memory about Reed and Enron. And maybe then Rove will remember the circumstances under which he bought all that stock he owned in Enron. And maybe then his memory will improve about Enron's involvement in the Bush-Cheney energy panel, whose papers Cheney is now guarding as though they were radioactive. Full story: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/special/enron/1218175 ANNALS OF ENRON An MWO Continuing Feature WHEN CHARACTER WASN'T QUEEN Peggy Nooner Admits: Took Enron Cash Was Ken Lay's Ghostwriter, Touted "Deregulation" Latest Exposure of Corrupt Right-Wing Shills Amid mounting pressure to come clean, Peggy "Nooner" Noonan has admitted belatedly on the Wall Street Journal's online site that she took cash from Enron and ghostwrote at least one speech and portions of an annual report for Enron's disgraced ex-CEO, Kenneth "Kenny Boy" Lay. Although the liaison that Noonan discusses took place five years ago, she has only divulged it now -- as criticism has focused on other conservative journalists and writers, including William Kristol of the Weekly Taliban Standard, who are accused of secretly taking Enron cash. Over the interim, Noonan has shamelessly touted the sort of aggressive "free market" deregulation that Enron favored. Yet now, she claims, she "just didn't get big business." Like her hero, George W. Bush, Noonan is trying to distance herself from Lay and Enron, saying that it was all so long ago and didn't mean much. She also calls Enron "a corporate whore." Funny, we thought that the whore was the party who took money in exchange for services rendered -- not the party who got serviced. Is Peggy begging a question here? At any rate, to keep from getting in even deeper doo-doo, she is forced to admit that "Mr. Lay used at least part of the speech I worked on, about deregulation and its challenges. Some of what I tried to write for the annual report made it in." Mr. Lay, huh? Doesn't THAT sound familiar -- positively Bushian! Peg O' My Heart now calls for a special prosecutor to oversee the Enron mess. For once, she and MWO agree. But will Noonan call for an investigation of how Karl Rove used Enron as a political favor bank, wangling Christian Colation director Ralph Reed a cushy Enron sinecure to help in his boss Dubya's difficult Republican primary fight against John McCain? Will she call for an investigation of Irwin Stelzer and William Kristol for taking Enron's big bucks and turning the Weekly Standard into an Enron shill? Will Peggy write about the corruption that is eating at the heart of conservatism? Developing furiously.... BUSH'S S.E.C.CHIEF COUNSELED SHREDDING DOCUMENTS Will Harvey Pitt Be Jailed? Ari Waffles "The Fox" Now On the Line -- But Will the Media Follow Up? George W. Bush's Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman, Harvey "The Fox" Pitt, could be in line for an indictment and jail-time over the Enron-Arthur Andersen scandal. And in a little-noticed exchange during a press briefing last week, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer pointedly refused to quash speculation that Pitt could be in very big trouble. Pitt, before getting the S.E.C. job from Bush, worked for Arthur Andersen LLB, the troubled accounting firm. In that capacity, Pitt helped foil efforts buy Clinton S.E.C. chairman Arthur Levitt, Jr., to regulate auditing firms more closely. Questions have now arisen about how closely Pitt may have involved in destroying Arthur Andersen documents relating to Enron. Previously, Pitt counseled that, short of a subpoena, auditing firms should shred and delete documents they think might be compromising. "Each company should have a system of determining the retention and destruction of documents...," Pitt wrote in a law review article in 1994. "Ask executives and employees to imagine all their documents in the hands of a zealous regulator or on the front page of the New York Times...Obviously, once a subpoena has been issued, or is about to be issued, any existing document destruction policies should be brought to an immediate halt." Shocking? Not in one sense -- for Pitt simply told his clients (including Andersen) what all white collar defense attorneys advise their clients, to destroy incriminating documents until the last possible minute. What's shocking is that George W. Bush would pick -- and the Senate would approve -- such a shady character to head the S.E.C. And what's shocking is that Pitt could well end up doing time -- a possibility that Ari Fleischer himself left open last week at the White House. Will the news media follow up on the perils of Pitt? Will the Beltway pundits begin to call for, at the very least, Pitt's immediate recusal from the Enron and Andersen investigations? Or will they turn a deaf ear -- even to Ari's not-so-hidden panic? Official White House Transcript Full Story STELZER, KRISTOL AWASH IN SECRET ENRON CASH Who Else at the Standard Silently On the Take? In kicking up a false fuss about Paul Krguman, Andrew Sullivan has inadvertently revealed a hitherto secret cash operation linking higher-ups at the Weekly Taliban Standard with the Enron Corporation. According to National Review writer Larry Kudlow, Irwin Stelzer of the Weekly Standard and London Sunday Times -- former Reagan director of regulatory affairs, Hudson Institute fellow and a close confidante of right-wing press mogul Rupert Murdoch -- organized the consulting operation. Apparently, Stelzer wangled cushy 50K a year consultant board appointments for various journalist and political buddies -- none of whom has divulged his or her involvement until confronted over the past few days. Among Stelzer's Enron hirelings was WTS editor William Kristol, who worked with Enron for two years for a cool 100K, and never told the public -- even as his magazine covered the Enron beat. For its trouble, Enron has and is still receiving wonderful notices at the Weekly Taliban Standard -- most recently this essay about all the good that Enron has done, by none other than the right-wing shill, bag man and enforcer, Irwin Stelzer. "I won't rat out others on the 'advisory board,'" Kristol said, confirming that there was something deeply unsavory about his connection to Enron, and suggesting why he (unlike Paul Krugman) did not volunteer information about his link long ago, but only now, when challenged. Asked it he would return the money, or donate it to a fund for Enron's defrauded employees, Kristol smugly replied that he had "donated" the money to his daughter's college tuition. ANNALS OF ENRON ALERT An MWO Continuing Feature CHENEYGATE & THE STATE OF THE UNION Will Bush Use Speech to Shill for Halliburton? Read His Lips: "Tort Reform"? "Limited Liability"? (New York, January 26, 2002; Special to MWO) The incipient scandal surrounding Vice President Cheney and the Halliburton Company is deepening over this weekend in anticipation of George W. Bush's State of the Union address on Tuesday night. The question: will Bush use his speech to make a pitch for limited liability protection from abestos cancer lawsuits for Halliburton and other giant corporations? Late last week, word hit Wall Street that Bush would do exactly that -- enough to boost Halliburton's stock prices despite a so-so profits report delivered last Wednesday. "There are rumors that the president is going to discuss asbestos and talk about liability limitations,'' said Seth Tobias, a money manager for Circle T Partners, referring to President George W. Bush's State of the Union address on Tuesday. Tobias said that nearly 40 percent of the Dow Jones Industrial Average has asbestos exposure. "The thing driving some gains today is the rumor that Bush is going to cap asbestos litigation,'' said portfolio manager Uri Landesman. "It's kind of been rocking the market.'' Halliburton has recently been forced to pay out more than $150 million in asbestos cancer claims. Over the past year, its stock value has fallen 21%. With more than a quarter-million asbestos cancer claims still outstanding against the company, limiting asbestos liability would be a huge boost for the company and for its former CEO--Vice President Dick Cheney -- who oversaw the early stages of the company's asbestos debacle. According to money managers, asbestos cancer claims are "battering" Halliburton, and several other giant companies, and "threatens to push some into bankruptcy," said Reuters. Of course, the Bush Administration would not at all like to see Halliburton, Dick Cheney's firm and a heavy G.O.P. backer, become a second Enron. By backing limited liability on asbestos, the Administration will most likely adopt the Halliburton-corporation line that unfair, selfish lawyers are pushing the suits, and that the corporations, not their cancer-ridden victims, are the real victims. In short, Bush will help his rich and powerful friends, including Cheney, over the dead and dying bodies of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans. It is impossible that Bush's speech will mention Halliburton specifically. It also certain won't mention asbestos and cancer in the same sentence -- and it may not mention asbestos at all. But listen closely for the code -- anything about limiting liability to stimulate the economy, anything about tort reform, anything at all about protecting "good" and "honest" companies from "nuisance" suits. Read his lips. Halliburton. Full Story DRIP...DRIP....DRIP... WHITE HOUSE SUDDENLY CONFIRMS ROVE-RALPH REED-ENRON SCAM The scandalous revelations tying Ralph Reed into the ever-growing web of lies and corruption, fast becoming known as the "Bush/Enron Political Scandal," seem to have taken their toll on the silver-tongued former leader of the Christian Coalition. On Thursday's Hardball, a visibly aged Reed, now easily passing for a high school senior or even college freshman, attempted to obfuscate and deny the circumstances surrounding his hiring by Enron as reported in the New York Times. Waiting until Sunday, normally a down-day in the news business, the White House finally confirmed what Karl Rove and Ralph Reed had sought to cover up. According to a little sidebar from CBS: "The White House confirmed that Bush adviser Karl Rove recommended Republican consultant Ralph Reed to Enron for a job in 1997. Bush, considering a presidential run at the time, wanted Reed to help him court conservative voters in the 2000 election." Think the press will notice? MWO has. Drip...drip...drip...go the revelations. ANNALS OF ENRON ALERT An MWO Continuing Feature THE STATE OF THE UNION & THE SMOKING GUN Will Bush Press for Enron Giveaway? Read His Lips -- Again White House watchers are wondering furiously if George W. Bush will use his State of the Union message on Tuesday night to press for handing a windfall at the taxpayers' expense to the disgraced Enron Corporation. Listen to him closely. If Bush endorses once again either H.R. 3529 or H.Res. 320, or any reprise of the Economic Recovery and Assistance to Displaced Workers Bill, or what is commonly called the Economic Stimulus Bill, or any other repeal and refund of the Alternative Minimum Tax on corporations -- then he is still trying to hand $254 million in taxpayers' money over to the Enron looters. No one in the news media has been willing to point out this provision for what it really is -- a smoking gun in the Enron scandal. Back when Ken Lay was (in the words of National Review writer and paid Enron secret agent, Larry Kudlow), "a real Bush policy insider", Lay and Enron lobbied the White House and Congress hard for repeal and refund of the AMT. Enron got its way in Title II of H.R. 3529 -- the so-called Economic Stimulus Bill. But for the Democrats in the Senate, that bill would today probably be law -- with Enron lined up to receive $254 MILLION gouged out of the American taxpayer. Bush not only supported the proposal -- he pushed hard for it in campaign-like rallies across the country all through the autumn, even as Enron was going down the tubes. On December 2, Enron filed for bankruptcy -- AND STILL THE WHITE HOUSE SUPPORTED THE AMT ENRON RIP-OFF. Two weeks later, the House, in a mostly partisan vote, actually APPROVED the rip-off, only to be stymied by Tom Daschle and the Democrats. Now that the second session of Congress is underway, the Economic Stimulus Bill remains under active consideration. Republicans are pushing it relentlessly, while smearing denouncing Daschle as a "rabid" obstructionist. Yet amazingly, nothing has been done to remove the offensive ATM Enron rip-off -- the smoking gun -- from the bill's provisions. The Congressional G.O.P. leadership is shameless -- all the more so since the new media have said almost nothing about any of this. So let's see and hear what Bush does now. Sure, he won't come right out and say, "My fellow Americans, we must give $254 million of your money to Enron." He'll talk about "economic stimulus." And about "getting this economy going." Just like with relief for asbestos cancer companies, led by Halliburton, Bush will talk in code. Of course, the White House press corps could save us all a lot of strain by asking Ari Fleischer for a straight answer to a simple question: "Does your boss still support repeal and refunding of the Automatic Minimum Tax on Corporations, yes or no?" But under the safe assumption the media will consider this all so booorrring, we'll have to be on the lookout. Read Bush's lips: Enron bail-out. Halliburton favors. MWO SPECIAL REPORT FRIENDS OF ENRON LAUNCH VICIOUS AD ATTACK ON DASCHLE "Kenny Boy"'s Buddies Begin Terror Air War Message: "Don't Mess With Texas" In a sudden sneak attack, the friends of Enron and its deposed C.E.O. Kenneth Lay have begun running vicious personal television attack ads against Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. T.V. Smear of Tom Daschle, by Friends of Enron (FOE's) http://www.clubforgrowth.com/video/daschle.html The ads, currently running in Daschle's home state of South Dakota, are meant to terrify voters into submission over the White House and G.O.P.'s economic and energy plans -- plans largely dictated, we now know, by Kenneth Lay. The ad, a classic negative t.v. smear, charges that Daschle is a dangerous partisan, and promotes the usual G.O.P. propaganda about its "economic stimulus" package. The ad fails to manage that the G.O.P. package includes a $254 million windfall for Enron. The group that calls itself The Club for Growth has claimed responsibility for the attacks. The well-financed Club, little known to the public, has numerous ties to Enron and Lay. Among the club's founders and one of the members of its policy council is Lawrence Kudlow, former Reagan official and current contributing editor of National Review, who was one of the conservative writers secretly on the take from Enron, in arrangements exposed only last week. The day before George W. Bush's inauguration, the club hosted a triumphant meeting at the Dirksen Senate Office Building, offering an "Agenda for Prosperity" to the incoming Administration. Among the featured speakers: Larry Kudlow and Kenneth "Kenny Boy" Lay Larry Kudlow and Kenneth Lay Address Club for Growth, Washington, D.C., January 19, 2001 (That's Kenny Boy in the middle.) Kudlow went on to describe that session in National Review, where he called Lay "a big Bush insider," and said that Lay had let the group in on Team Bush's determination to cut the capital gains tax. Among the other officials in the Club are the notorious "supply side" propagandists Arthur Laffer and George Gilder, as well as failed right-wing presidential aspirant Pete du Pont and veteran organizer of right-wing front groups, Brent Bozelle. Now, with the Bush phony "pro-growth" budget on the ropes, with the Enron mess growing higher and higher, the Club for Growth, friends of Enron, have decided to step up to the plate and get blatantly political -- and viciously personal. http://www.clubforgrowth.com/ Will the Media Whores expose this vicious partisan effort by a right-wing front group? Developing.... MWO's Viewer's Guide to the ENRON SUPER BOWL HEARINGS All the Plays All The Players Not since Charles Van Doren prepared to testify to Congress over the "21" game show scandal has Washington been as transfixed as it is over the scheduled testimony on Monday of Kenneth L. Lay over the Enron affair. Just as it did with George W. Bush's "State of the Union," MWO is proud to present a Viewer's Guide to the Enron Super Bowl Hearings, beginning with Kenny Boy's testimony. When you hear Kenny Boy say, in effect: "I didn't know anything..." "I didn't know everything..." "I was in the dark...." Then remember -- this is the classic "I dunno" defense. It it adopted by everyone from five-year-olds caught with their hand in the cookie jar, to relatives of presidents and governors caught shoplifting, to mobsters, to Nuremberg Nazi defendants. Kenneth L. Lay was CEO of Enron and head of the board that had to sign off on everything. He knew everything. Everything. Then, when the Kster says: "So-and-so knew, but I didn't...." "I trusted whoozewhats to provide reliable information..." "In a large company like Enron, some things are bound to fall through the cracks..." Then remember -- this is the classic follow up to the "I dunno" defense, the "everybody but me knew" defense, otherwise known as the fall-guy dodge. Kenny Boy has all sorts of fall guys to choose from, beginning with Arthur Andersen officials and climbing up all the way to his own executive suite (but not quite into the suite). It's crap. If anybody knew anything and everything about Enron, it was Kenneth L. Lay. Then, when you get this little Lay Up: "I've lost everything....." "No one has been hurt more by Enron's failure than me..." "I take full responsibility, but none of the blame. I've been hurt badly too..." "I've lost billions..." Stuff it: All Ken's lost are a few (not all) of his luxury houses, and even that's dodgy. He may have lost billions in paper assets, but these weren't worth anything anyway. What he didn't lose was the fortune he milked out of Enron before the thing collapsed all around him. A more than tidy sum. Questions for the senators to ask "Mr. Lay": Did you, like your wife before her appearance on television, receive public relations coaching before your appearance here today? Former President George H. W. Bush has given you and your family supportive calls and messages over recent days or weeks. Did former President Bush express any sorrow or support for the Enron employees and shareholders whom you bilked out of untold billions of dollars? What is your relationship with Ed Gillespie? Explain how you and Irwin Stelzer invented the Enron Advisory Board. Explain your relationship to Stelzer. Did Dick Cheney ever discuss Halliburton's internal problems involving the more than 260,000 abestos suits filed against it when he was CEO and how he gave money to Republican representatives and senators to limit his firm's liability? What's your relationship with Dick Armey? Tom DeLay? Tell us about your discussions involving federal policy and politics with them. Did you, your wife or other Enron executives give money to the Bush Recount Effort in Florida beyond the $20,000 listed for you and your wife? Did you know that your money was used to help pay for thugs organized by Tom DeLay's congressional office to fly from Washington to Miami and then to intimidate Dade County officials by staging a riot from counting votes? Did anyone from DeLay's office or Bush's campaign or office discuss the Florida tactics with you or anyone else at Enron? During the Florida phase of the election, were you and others at Enron already drawing up policy proposals for the Bush-Cheney administration? Detail for the American people your discussions during the Florida recount with anyone in the Bush effort. Did you or anyone at Enron ever discuss policy or politics at that time with James Baker, leading the Bush effort in Florida, who has been on the Enron payroll? How worried were you that Bush would lose Florida? What impact would that have had on Enron? Detail the efforts of the Clinton administration that would have curbed the activity of Enron that led to its collapse that you and others at Enron opposed. (Tightening disclosures of energy derivatives; cracking down on offshore shelters; tightening regulation on auditing firms.) Did you or anyone at Enron ever discuss with anyone at your auditing firm, Arthur Andersen, its lobbying effort against the Clinton SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt's attempt to stop practices that led to Enron's collapse? What is your relationship with Roger Hertog, vice chairman of Alliance Capital, that controlled the Florida state pension fund and forced it to purchase Enron stock when warnings were already being issued by the SEC? Hertog is chairman of the conservative think tank, the Manhattan Institute, and sits on the board of the conservative American Enterprise Institute with you. What help have you received in your endeavors from these associations? Question to the senators: Will you give Ken Lay the sympathetic wussy attention that Lisa Myers gave to Linda Lay? Or will you do your job? TOP FED OFFICIAL ACCUSES CHENEY OF LYING Veep On TV Lied Repeatedly About Requests for Papers National Review Affirms Charge Is "Correct" In the latest evidence of the continuing conservative crack-up over Enron, the National Review Online has confirmed that Dick Cheney lied shamelessly when making the rounds of the Sunday talk shows to defend his stonewalling. "They've demanded of me that I give Henry Waxman a listing of everybody I meet with," Cheney told Fox News, "of everything that was discussed, any advice that was received, notes and minutes of those meetings." But as the Comptroller of the United States David Walker -- the man who is demanding that Cheney hand over records from the energy policy task force -- told NR, Cheney lied. Or, in Walker's slightly more diplomatic language: "That was a very critical and highly material misrepresentation. If we were asking for that, I'd understand where they are coming from. But we are not." And the NR writer, Byron York, backs Walker up. Walker, it should be noted, was a Republican appointee, originally backed for his job by Trent Lott. So nobody can call him "partisan." Bush has lied to millions about Ken Lay. Cheney has lied to millions about the investigation into the energy task force. Even National Review gets it. But not the Media Whores. Can you imagine what they'd be saying if Bill Clinton and Al Gore had been caught out telling such whoppers? Can you IMAGINE!!! GAO to Cheney: You're Lying Byron York ANNALS OF ENRON ALERT An MWO Continuing Feature WHITE HOUSE SHREDDING OF ENRON RECORDS? Buried at the very bottom of a Washington Post report about the Justice Department's directive to the White House to save its Enron records comes the following alarming news: "A senior administration official said last night that until now, the White House had not been making any formal effort to preserve or catalogue information about Enron contacts." So, has there been shredding or email deleting or any other forms of selective removal of Enron-related material going on at the White House, as well as at Arthur Andersen and Enron headquarters? Did John Ashcroft give the White House time to "disinfect" its Enron records before demanding that they be preserved? How will we ever know? Who will find out? And can we be sure that what the White House hands over for the period before January 20, 2001 is reliable? This is what happens when the executive branch is permitted to investigate itself -- an "investigation" that stinks to high heaven. So, get to work, news media. The "senior administration official" all but admits that White House information about Enron has been compromised. Follow up. Find out. Please don't leave it to MWO, and cause yourselves even more humiliation than you've suffered so far. Full Story WHITE HOUSE OFFICIAL CAUGHT IN ENRON SMEAR Nixonism Now Rampant in Bush P.R. Efforts Ex-Hardball Chief Now Doing Karl and Ari's Dirty Work Will McCain respond? A former producer for "Hardball" and "The McLaughlin Group," now employed by the White House, has been caught red-handed trying to deflect and halt criticism over Enron by smearing John McCain. According to a column by Robert Novak, Adam Levine, a White House press aide known in Washington as Ari Fleischer's little hatchet man, approached Karl Rove some weeks ago with a strange story about John Weaver, a long-time aide to Sen. John McCain. Weaver, it seems, had encountered Levine in a Washington bar. There, Levine claims, Weaver told him a story about how Rove had arranged an Enron job for Pat Robertson's ex-right-hand man, Ralph Reed, in exchange for Reed's support for George W. Bush in the 2000 elections. That story -- which according to CBS has actually been confirmed by the White House -- is one of the many revelations aired recently about political and financial machinations involving Enron and the Bush forces. Novak, however, echoing Levine, says that the Rove-Reed story is false, and that Weaver concocted it and took it to the New York Times, in order to make Bush look bad. In recycling Levine's smear, Novak is careful to call his informant a White House "rookie" -- slighting Levine's long career as an overseer of some of the most blatant television exhibitions of malevolent conservative blather, spin, and falsehood. Levine is no rookie. He's a seasoned, slimy pro, who now just happens to work in the West Wing. Weaver has categorically denied Levine's charge, but Novak simply rejects that out of hand. Novak also discounts the testimony of Campbell Brown of NBC and Juleanna Glover-Weiss, Dick Cheney's former press secretary. Both were present with Levine and Weaver, and both affirm that Weaver said no such thing about Rove and Reed. Levine claims they had stepped away when Weaver told his "story." That Bob "No Facts" Novak should be involved in this ugly little caper comes as no surprise. What is interesting, and alarming, are the lengths to which a jittery White House will now go to try and destroy others in order to protect itself -- using "No Facts" in order to smear a top McCain aide and, by extension, McCain himself. By "blaming" Weaver for the Rove-Reed revelation -- which is just the tip of the iceberg of the Bush-Enron scandal -- Levine and his boss hope to shut down any other revelations along this line. It's all reminiscent of the Bush operation during the South Carolina primary in 2000, when Dubya and his handlers pulled out every dirty trick in the book in order to defeat a surging John McCain. It's also reminiscent of the Nixon White House when, under pressure over Watergate, it took to smearing its "political enemies" in the press and on Capitol Hill with lusty abandon. Will John McCain rise up to defend himself and his aide from these slimeball tactics, much as he did in South Carolina? More important -- you in the press: you're in true Nixon territory now. Want to be a latter-day "Woodstein"? Why not start by asking Ari a few questions about the White House campaign to shut down press coverage of its deep ties with Enron. Why did he and Karl Rove send out the little goon Levine to smear John McCain's staff and threaten to stop these stories? Or will you just play along with Karl Rove & Company -- as "Woodstein" refused to play along with Haldeman and Ehrlichman and the rest of Nixon's arrogant lying crew? Full Story --->Cordially Yours, (Kirk) , Kirk Gregory Czuhai (last name pronounced "ChewHi") 11369 Caberfae Allendale, MI 49401 USA Phone: 616-895-5933 Email: lovekgc@altelco.net Click to send an email to Kirk! Democratic Home Page: ~www.altelco.net/~lovekgc Click for some hillarious Bush (w.) Bashing! A NICE & EASY way to MAKE some good money from a few hundred to well over a thousand dollars a year with little work can be found at above Home Page also !!! My Business Home Page: ~www.altelco.net/~churches My resume: ~www.altelco.net/~lovekgc/kirksresume.htm Big Picture of Me: www.altelco.net/kirk.htm You just GOTTA HAVE ONE!!! ~What A Deal!Free American Flags: ~Brainwashing in the USA?!??(assuming you have one) I do not like you and think you stink!) Drink beer with anyone else but w.!!! Read newsgroup alt.impeach.bush send articles from there to your USA congress men and women!!!! www.hated.com -- www.antiwar.com A LOT about ENRON STORY www.mediawhoresonline.com American People Need to know! www.mediawhoresonline.com AGAIN!!! PEACE AND LOVE FOR YOU!!! ( Even if I do not like you and think you stink!)