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Bush Will "F--- Whack This S---" for Enron, "Crude, But True"(CBS Rather Blathers Enron Bush Tie)
MRC ^ | Wednesday June 2, 2004 | BrentBaker

Posted on 06/02/2004 3:18:52 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay

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To: CyberAnt

Yep, Enron led back to the Clintons, and Ken Lay was an adviser to then CA Governor Grayout Davis.


81 posted on 06/02/2004 9:26:07 PM PDT by BigSkyFreeper (John Kerry: An old creep, with gray hair, trying to look like he's 30 years old.)
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To: Joe Hadenuf

Only to you!

You're assuming that because the guy was in TX he was cozy with Bush .. bad assumption.

And .. who turned Enron away when everything began falling aprart and some Clinton hack approached the Bush admin and wanted favors .. they didn't get them.

You're wrong about another issue .. Lieberman didn't expose Clinton .. he just shut down the investigation so he didn't have to.

There's a new book out about the murder of Ron Brown .. and low and behold, involved in that is a trip Ron Brown arranged for Enron .. it was an exclusive .. as there were no other energy companies involved in the deal. But .. remember .. these are the very same people who are whining that Bush was showing favoritism toward Halliburton. The real deal on that is that Halliburton and Bechtel had the original plans for the Iraq oil refinery and that's why they were chosen. And .. just a little more data for ya .. Iraq put over $10 million in the bank in May from the sale of their oil so far this year.


82 posted on 06/02/2004 9:26:36 PM PDT by CyberAnt (The 2004 Election is for the SOUL of AMERICA)
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To: Joe Hadenuf

Must be some history we are not aware of.


83 posted on 06/02/2004 9:31:52 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (The terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States - and war is what they got!!!!)
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To: CyberAnt
.. Lieberman didn't expose Clinton .. he just shut down the investigation so he didn't have to.

So the Republicans decline to pursue this? You stated the investigation led right to Clinton. You're words.

84 posted on 06/02/2004 9:33:23 PM PDT by Joe Hadenuf (I failed anger management class, they decided to give me a passing grade anyway)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

LOL, I guess.


85 posted on 06/02/2004 9:33:55 PM PDT by Joe Hadenuf (I failed anger management class, they decided to give me a passing grade anyway)
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To: fight_truth_decay

Oh, my gosh. Dan Rather must be a Democrat activist.

But, no, how could I think that? He denies it, so it can't be true.


86 posted on 06/02/2004 9:37:34 PM PDT by Rocky (Kerry cannot decide what style of empty suit he should be)
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Comment #87 Removed by Moderator

To: tarnished3000
Reason: You'll be happier at a liberal site. It's probably old news to some of you, but your forum is scared of dissent. I don't know who banned me or why, but it was cowardly.

*If* what you posted was the reason you were banned, at the risk of being axed, I tend to agree. Opinions, regardless of their positions or politics, should not be eliminated or silenced, and can be debated with facts or other opinions.

88 posted on 06/02/2004 9:55:39 PM PDT by Joe Hadenuf (I failed anger management class, they decided to give me a passing grade anyway)
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To: Joe Hadenuf

"So the Republicans decline to pursue this?"

I don't run the repub party so you'll have to check with them.

"investigation led right to Clinton"

It was common knowledge the investigation was going to lead to Clinton .. Rush was talking about it the moment Lieberman announced he was going to start an investigation into Enron - and "bury Bush". If you don't know that info, that's not my fault.

"You're words." Your words!


89 posted on 06/03/2004 2:16:46 AM PDT by CyberAnt (The 2004 Election is for the SOUL of AMERICA)
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To: fight_truth_decay

It official, California is actually in play! At least that's what I glean from the Christian Bashing Station's piece.


90 posted on 06/03/2004 2:28:57 AM PDT by LowCountryJoe (#40 ARZ)
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To: LowCountryJoe
In post #90 it should read "It's official..." as in the Democrats recent polling must have suggested that the 2004 election in California was/is going to be tighter than expected. So what do the Democrats do? They run a hit piece to play on the emotions [insert Gore saying, "We play on your fears..." in his best 'evangelists voice'] of the California voter through the extended arm of the DNC. On radio they called it Air America on TV it should be called Scare America but I guess CBS Evening News keeps their hand more guarded.
91 posted on 06/03/2004 2:44:26 AM PDT by LowCountryJoe (#40 ARZ)
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To: Poodlebrain; gitmo
The fiscal disaster and the energy crisis in California were easily predictable.

For the record, Investor's Business Daily predicted the fiscal crisis back in May, 2001:

CALIFORNIA'S BLACK-RUPTCY [IBD Editorial]

92 posted on 06/03/2004 3:58:02 AM PDT by snopercod (I'm a mean motor scooter and a bad go getter.)
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To: Dog Gone
What these tapes mostly show is that some Enron employees had foul mouths and were enjoying the dysfunctional market in California. Their actual evidentiary value is not terribly high, except for that one quote where the employee was recommending taking a power plant offline.

Sort of like "I did not have sex with that woman......."

These people were all about ripping off the consumers, stealing from the rate payers and the stock holders at the same time, and all we get on this forum...."Tell Michael it was only business...."

The so called free market does not seem to be so free after all. The greed market however is well and prospering.

93 posted on 06/03/2004 9:05:10 AM PDT by itsahoot (The lesser of two evils, is evil still...Alan Keyes)
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To: itsahoot; Dog Gone
There is a difference between being foul mouthed and illegally manipulating a market. That is what anti-trust laws are suppose to protect against.

As to the foul mouths, I have been in sales meetings were folks like to draw analogies to hunting and killing their competitors by making sales and watching brand X's employee have their homes foreclosed on. I feel such talk is "over the line" and not good buisness practice. Time is money and meetings should be about exchanging needed information, not about posturing and shooting one's mouth off.

It is clear from the government relations tape that someone was trying to justify their job and contribution to Enron's bottom line, in the hopes of either getting a bonus or staying employed. As such they were fishing for straws they could grasp at to make their point to the home office.

As for the sc@#&^!ing aunt Millie, that is just trash talk, that while not illegal, will do much to impress a jury and more importantly draw public scrutiny away from the utility with the highest retail rates in Washington State that released the information & tapes publicly.

I understand that this utility is despirately trying to find any reason to allow a court to nulify a $100 million obligation they have to Enron. I wish them luck. They may get a jury (but not a bankruptcy judge or FERC Administrative law judge) to throw out the contract cancelation feature of their contract with Enron, due to some of the trash-talk tape language.

Now as to the can this powerplant be shut down. That gets to an interesting area of anti-trust law. The real question with those comments is, "who are the folks talking and what is their possition? What kind of plant were they talking about?"

Shutting down a power plant is not something that is done lightly at a utility (at least in my experience). With the exception of peaking plants, shutting down a plant is a big deal. For example, when I designed base load plants at Bechtel Power, we did something call "hot springing" the steam lines. Steam lines and boiler tubes will expand in length as the temperature and power level increases. We often made sure that the pipe was cut so that mechanical stress on the pipe was at a minimum when the plant was near full power production. This meant that when a plant was shut down, you had huge mechanical stress on the piping. That meant that things were more likely to break during a shut down as forces increased.

Similarly, in figuring out maintenance on a combustion turbine or deisel generating peaking unit, each start-up and shut down is counted as many hours of operation in the "hours of operation between major maintenance outages."

Because of these kinds of factors, often times shutting down a plant is something that requires plant managers approval and a review of maintenance impacts and requirements, as you usually try to do maintenance when a plant is down, if at all possible. If nothing else, you usually want to have maintenance people on hand to make sure nothing bad has happened and help you get it back up and running again.

Therefore, the question on the plant shut down, is did the folks doing the talking have the ability to get the plant to shut down? If they did then this might be an anti-trust violation showing market manipulation. If their positions were such that they were just asking questions about options and or just doing wishful thinking (if x happens then the price I can charge for Y will go through the roof and I will get a bonus), it is just bad PR.

With all the investigations that occurred on the part of California and FERC over the maintenance shutdowns at certain powerplants during the Cal Power Crisis, I would be surprised if there were now "new reasons" for the shutdowns. I seem to remember that plant managers and the responsible officials were grilled pretty harshly on those shutdowns as California officials were sure that was the smoking market manipulation gun. Again, I see this part of the tapes as likely "old news" but could influence a jury over a contract cancelation clause.

94 posted on 06/03/2004 10:21:00 AM PDT by Robert357
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To: Robert357; Dog Gone
Again, I see this part of the tapes as likely "old news" but could influence a jury over a contract cancelation clause.

Stir it anyway you like, these guys are crooks and give conservatism a bad name. You want protectionism to prevail, just let the crooks have a free rein and it will come.

95 posted on 06/03/2004 3:38:56 PM PDT by itsahoot (The lesser of two evils, is evil still...Alan Keyes)
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To: gov_bean_ counter

Yes. When Ron Brown's plane went down in Croatia, he was on an errand concerning Enron.


96 posted on 06/03/2004 3:44:19 PM PDT by scouse
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To: itsahoot

I don't know how they give conservatism a bad name. How do you know their political affiliations?


97 posted on 06/03/2004 3:45:19 PM PDT by Dog Gone
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To: itsahoot
Stir it anyway you like, these guys are crooks ...

Some of the Enron Accountants were crocks.

Some of the bankers and investment companies Enron dealt with were crooks.

Some of the politicians that Enron tried to buy were crooks.

Some of the Enron employees were crooks.

As to "these guys" (being associated with the questions on plant shut downs), I would like to know a little more about what there positions within the company were, before, I would call them crooks. The reason is that there were several well publicized cases where various California officials said that energy marketing firms had illegally held their plants off the market.

In the several previous investigations (if my memory is correct) of this by State officials and federal officials what was generally found was needed maintenance, air pollution control limits, gross failure to pay the power plant operator to the point that the operator could no longer affort to maintain the plants and had to shut them down (lots of small renewables including windfarms) and bad information provided by the California state agency responsible for generation scheduling were why the plants had been shut down and not available to deliver power.

98 posted on 06/03/2004 5:51:19 PM PDT by Robert357
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To: Robert357
I give up, you are right, all they did was make good business decisions.</sarcasm>
99 posted on 06/03/2004 6:16:39 PM PDT by itsahoot (The lesser of two evils, is evil still...Alan Keyes)
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To: MizSterious
Not only that, but if memory serves, it was Clinton who played golf with Ken Lay.

And it was Clinton butt-boy Robert Rubin who tried to get the Bush administration to ease off on Enron.

100 posted on 06/03/2004 6:19:13 PM PDT by jackbill
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