Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Clinton-Gore sales team eased Enron's path to success
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ^ | Sunday Dec. 9, 2001 | Dateline D.C.

Posted on 12/09/2001 7:26:27 AM PST by ElkGroveDan

Edited on 04/13/2004 2:02:19 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

WASHINGTON - "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall."

This week, this old nursery rhyme has taken control of this column. From Washington to Pittsburgh by way of New York City and Los Angeles with important detours to China, Japan, India, Mozambique, Croatia, England, Germany and elsewhere in the world, we have been watching and reading about the great fall of Enron.


(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: clintonscandals; hughhewitt; michaeldobbs
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 101-108 next last
To: blackie
Thanks! I'll have to remember that one!
41 posted on 12/09/2001 6:46:42 PM PST by Lady In Blue
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: ST.LOUIE1
Hi St.Lou! Good to see you back.I'm ok.I'm about ready to get a used car this week(Camry).My Sable has over 418,000 miles on it(original engine)so it's about time!I'm thinking about getting through "Enterprise Car Rentals." They have some really good deals!
42 posted on 12/09/2001 6:49:21 PM PST by Lady In Blue
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]

To: VRWC For Truth
So just leave the original terminology which we can ALL agree with instead of replacing it with something which has nothing at all to do with attitudes toward life. I thought his reference to "Spock babies" was so good that I'll incorporate it in future work. Besides, you are quite mistaken in thinkins that 3/4 of the "baby boomers" are dissolute and irresponsible. I can assure that when I was in college from 1967 to 1971, I never met a single person who used marijuana or drank or behaved badly in any manner. Everybody that I knew was quite responsible and focused. So your attempts at slander of an entire generation are quite frankly wierd.
43 posted on 12/09/2001 7:40:10 PM PST by wildandcrazyrussian
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 40 | View Replies]

To: ElkGroveDan
WOW...just by the TV press I would have thought it was all the Republican's and Bush's mess.
44 posted on 12/09/2001 7:49:22 PM PST by Hildy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ElkGroveDan
The ABCNBCSeeB.S. news tonight was trying to link the Enron collapse to the Bush administration. Sounds like X42's administration was the real co-conspiritor of Enron.
45 posted on 12/09/2001 8:47:10 PM PST by nightdriver
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Roger_W_Isom
My brother did an analysis of the Enron stock trading, results - the big guys started bailing out in January, so the xlinton involvement in the crash very well could be.
46 posted on 12/09/2001 10:16:27 PM PST by XBob
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: ElkGroveDan
Government + Business = Fascism
47 posted on 12/09/2001 10:19:53 PM PST by dfwgator
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lady In Blue
Hi St.Lou! Good to see you back.I'm ok.I'm about ready to get a used car this week(Camry).

Good for you!

My Sable has over 418,000 miles on it(original engine)so it's about time!

Wow! You must have treated it like a baby.

Good luck. Sounds as though you're quite a traveler.....

....or the car you have is really, really old. LOL!

48 posted on 12/09/2001 11:15:57 PM PST by ST.LOUIE1
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: Dog Gone
does ken lay = frito lay family? frito is a texas company, correct?
49 posted on 12/10/2001 8:43:25 AM PST by thinden
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: deport; Dog Gone
sorry guys, missed deports previous question re: ken lay's family biz.
50 posted on 12/10/2001 8:48:41 AM PST by thinden
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: thinden
Frito Lay History

Dallas Texas now. The orginal Lay came from Kentucky and the Frito part was from South Texas. Merged to become Frito-Lay in 1961 and the Pepsi Cola Co. in 1965... No connection of the Lay of Enron and the Lay of Frito-Lay that I can find. The Lay of Enron was from MO.

51 posted on 12/10/2001 8:54:51 AM PST by deport
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 49 | View Replies]

To: deport
thanx for the info.
52 posted on 12/10/2001 3:58:38 PM PST by thinden
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 51 | View Replies]

To: meenie
Always get the other side of the story, it makes for a lovely muddle. Molly Ivins may be a liberal's liberal, but there is enough stench surrounding the Enron collapse for both parties to wallow in. Fire away:

AUSTIN - Hail and farewell, O Enron! What a flameout.

by Molly Ivins

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

If you want to know what this story is about, pretend that Bill Clinton is still president. Pretend that Clinton's long-time, all-time biggest campaign contributor - a guy for whom Clinton has carried water for over the years, a guy with unparalleled "access," a shaper of policy, a man with a veto on regulatory appointments affecting his business, with connections at every level of the administration, a political fixer beyond the wildest dreams of James Riady - imagine that this guy's worldwide empire has tumbled into bankruptcy in just three months amid cascading reports of lies, monumental accounting errors, evasions, iffy financial statements, insider deals, a board of directors rife with conflicts of interest, top executives bailing out with millions while regular employees see their life savings shrink to nothing. Imagine all this back in the day of Bill Clinton.

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

But this is not President Clinton; it is President Bush - so of course different standards must apply. The fact that Ken Lay, Enron's chairman, has been Bush's chief money man and key backer since he first went into politics is mentioned only in passing. The media don't want to be impolite. They have been credulously swallowing Enron's PR and overlooking the obvious for years.

The main problem with Enron is that it has never produced much of anything in the way of either goods or services; it has not added a single widget to the world widget supply. Enron is in the business of "financializing," making markets, trading in wholesale electricity, water, data storage, fiber optics - just about anything. One Enron executive told The New York Times that the company's achievement was to create "a regulatory black hole" to suit its "core management philosophy, which was to be the first mover into a market and to make money in the initial chaos and lack of transparency."

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

The company seemed to spend more time influencing government than doing business. Like Long Term Capital Management, the hedge fund that went awry, it seemed to have only a parasitic relationship to actual economic activity. The problem with deregulating utilities is the reason that they were regulated in the first place: Monopoly power and the threat of market manipulation are a set-up for unholy price-gouging. How many times do we have to relearn that lesson?

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

* Lay and Enron together donated $2 million to Bush. In 2000, a company memo that was an open strong-arm recommended that employees give campaign checks for Bush to the political action committee; low-level managers were urged to contribute $500 and senior executives at least $5,000. Another $1 million was given to mostly Republican congressional candidates. It gave more money last cycle than any other energy company.

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

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

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

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

* Enron influenced public policy time and again while Bush was governor here, including the infamous "grandfathered plants" deal. In 1997, Lay asked Bush to contact every member of the Texas delegation to explain how "export credit agencies of the United States are critical to U.S. developers like Enron, pursuing international projects in developing countries." These agencies provide political risk coverage and financial support to U.S. companies abroad. It's called corporate welfare.

* In Texas, Enron was a major player during the utilities deregulation debate, for which Bush lobbied actively, and, of course, in "tort reform," making it harder to sue corporations for the damage they do.

53 posted on 12/10/2001 4:23:32 PM PST by SBeck
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: ElkGroveDan
Here's another Clinton/Enron Connection via Chief of Staff Mike McLarty (Rush talked about this today):

SEPTEMBER 1, 1997 VOL. 150 NO. 9 NOTEBOOK

THE SCOOP

THE WHITE HOUSE
THAT INVISIBLE MACK SURE CAN LEAVE HIS MARK

For a man who had supposedly vanished from the corridors of power, MACK MCLARTY was the man to see in 1996. BILL CLINTON's former chief of staff, now a White House counselor tucked away in the basement, provided assistance to businessmen who ponied up $1.5 million for the Democrats in the last election. On Nov. 22, 1995, for example, Clinton scrawled an FYI note to McLarty, enclosing a newspaper article on Enron Corp. and the vicissitudes of its $3 billion power-plant project in India. McLarty then reached out to Enron's chairman, KEN LAY, and over the next nine months closely monitored the project with the U.S. ambassador to New Delhi, keeping Lay informed of the Administration's efforts, according to White House documents reviewed by TIME. In June 1996, four days before India granted final approval to Enron's project, Lay's company gave $100,000 to the President's party. Enron denies that its gift was repayment for Clinton's attention, and White House special counsel LANNY DAVIS says McLarty acted out of concern for a major U.S. investment overseas.

Nevertheless, there does seem to be a McLarty pattern. At Clinton's request, he met with international oil consultant ROGER TAMRAZ and asked the Energy Department if the Administration could not be more supportive of his Caspian Sea pipeline proposal (Tamraz' contribution: $200,000). It was McLarty who directed a White House lawyer to query the Justice Department about a case protested by VANCE OPPERMAN, head of a legal publishing house (contribution: $350,000). The counselor arranged a White House meeting for Miami computer executive MARK JIMENEZ to discuss political unrest in an important Latin American market (contribution: $325,000). And last week the Washington Post reported that McLarty helped get a Clinton audience for Federal Express chairman FRED SMITH and his concerns about Japanese trade practices. Contribution: $525,000. Davis says McLarty acted "appropriately" in every case.

--By Michael Weisskopf/Washington

54 posted on 12/11/2001 10:02:42 AM PST by JulieRNR21
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: COL. FLAGG
rush limbaugh revealed today, how the clinton admin reached out to Enron and secured a 3 billion power project in India just before feadline and how Enron made a $100,000 donation 3 days before the deadline, sometime in the early-mid 90's.
55 posted on 12/11/2001 11:24:41 AM PST by XBob
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: Lady In Blue
34 - "the greatest scandal of all the Clinton's(known)scandals and that is the BLOODGATE scandal. "

this is indeed one of xlinton's greatest evil deeds, selling hepatitus and aids to thousands of innocent people, and profiting from it.

And indeed, it has been well covered up and/or ignored by the media.

56 posted on 12/11/2001 11:39:48 AM PST by XBob
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: ElkGroveDan
Love this article. I would guess that Richard Mellon Scaiffe(?) will be 'tagged' as the villain in this criticism of 'godfather' Clinton's family.

Ron Brown, Enron, Croatia - 'deals with the devil'

57 posted on 12/12/2001 8:35:23 AM PST by d14truth
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Alamo-Girl
Good afternoon, A-G, nice to see you in the 'threads'.
58 posted on 12/12/2001 10:04:51 AM PST by d14truth
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: Simcha7
I'm lifting you and your husband up for God's blessings during these difficult times. Praise God!!!
59 posted on 12/12/2001 10:11:05 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: deport
Thanks for the flag. Missed this earlier !

General interest reference here:

The Fall of Enron : How ex-CEO Jeff Skilling's strategy grew so complex that even his boss couldn't get a handle on it

60 posted on 12/12/2001 12:46:09 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 101-108 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson