enron/bush collusion in sticking it to californian energy consumers

Dan Brown: 'It's Time to Appoint a Special Prosecutor'
Date: Sunday, January 13 @ 09:14:12 EST

By Dan Brown, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Enron executives have disclosed that they met with the Bush
administration just one day before the administration
determined not to assist California in its Enron-created
energy crisis, by not imposing price caps and allowing
Enron to further gouge Californian energy consumers,
potentially bankrupting California energy providers and
endangering the stability of the government of California.

The White House has disclosed that Enron executives met
with at least two Cabinet-level Bush administration
officials prior to the Enron collapse and discussed the
precarious Enron financial situation. These Bush
administration officials have a fiduciary duty to oversee
U.S. pension accounts, yet those officials determined to
"do nothing."

The White House has further disclosed that President Bush
learned of Enron's impending collapse "last fall," in the
words of White House spokesman Ari Fleischer -- yet Bush,
who now says through spokesmen that he wants to make sure
that this "doesn't happen again" to the pension accounts of
innocent victims, did nothing to see that it didn't happen
the first time.

We already know that more than 29 Bush administration
officials are former Enron executives or shareholders. We
know that Ken Lay and Enron bankrolled Bush's gubernatorial
and presidential campaigns. We know too that Enron was the
second largest contributor to John Ashcroft's Senate
campaign as well; more than $61,000 came from Enron and
Lay.

Further, we now know that Deputy Attorney General Larry
Thompson, to whom the investigation has fallen upon
Attorney General Ashcroft's recusal, also has ties to
Enron, which makes it impossible for Thompson to lead an
investigation of this magnitude. Thompson worked for the
law firm of King and Spalding from 1977 to 1982, served as
a U.S. Attorney under the Reagan administration, and
returned to King and Spalding as a partner in 1986. He
stayed at the firm until his appointment as deputy attorney
general in 2001.

King and Spalding has represented subsidiaries of Enron,
including Enron Global LNG, Enron Global Markets and Enron
Energy Services. As a former law partner, Larry Thompson
profited from the firm's work for Enron. Even if he did not
work directly on Enron matters -- information that is not
publicly available -- Thompson cannot avoid the "appearance
of impropriety," which is fatal for such an important
investigation.

The Enron story is more important than whether Afghan
prisoners were drugged on the way to Cuba. It's more
important than Donald Rumsfeld's failure to secure the
capture of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan -- or whether
Yasser Arafat has control over Hamas.

The Enron story is about the spectacular failure of the
deregulation nightmare unleashed on us by President Ronald
Reagan and resurrected by George W. Bush. Enron was a
product of deregulated Texas under then-Gov. Bush.

The Enron story is about control of the government of the
United States by the highest bidder. Ken Lay and Enron
built Bush.

With unlimited access, Lay and Enron engineered the exit of
an unfavorable Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chair
and appointment of a sympathetic "watchdog" over his own
industry. With unlimited access, Lay and Enron kept the
U.S. government from doing what it was supposed to do to
assist California in its energy crisis, caused, ironically,
by Enron. With unlimited access, Lay and Enron kept the
government of the United States from protecting the pension
accounts of tens of thousands of Enron employees, while
highly paid executives made off with billions of dollars.

Bush is often said to run the government like a "business."


Unfortunately, to see the model upon which that business is
based, we need only look as far as Enron.

Enron sacrificed the best interests of all the energy
consumers in California to corporate greed. It leveraged
deregulation to thrive as an unneeded middleman in the
energy trade. It tossed out tens of thousands of employees,
broke, while its executives made billions of dollars.

And it kept its puppet government of Bush apprised every
step of the way.

Every time Bush had to decide whether to act in the best
interests of the nation or the best interests of Enron,
Bush chose Enron. Every time Bush faced a decision to act
on or report information given to him by Enron that
affected the public trust he has undertaken, Bush chose to
keep quiet.

Bush and his administration have been complicit in every
action that Enron has taken to thrive at the expense of the
United States of America.

It's time to appoint a special prosecutor and hold Bush
accountable.

It's what the shareholders would want.

-- Dan Brown, St. Paul. Data analyst.