Free Republic

It is becoming increasingly clear that in western society the inmates are running the asylum. The idiot elite that holds power in most western nations have demonstrated their insanity by accepting the outright lie that the essential atmospheric gas carbon dioxide is a undesirable pollutant that needs to be regulated. The scam begun by the crooked Enron corporation in the 1990's falsely claims that very slight increases in CO2 would substantially raise air temperatures. Enron, and its successors, hoped to profit from trading carbon credits like it had profited from trading credits in sulfur dioxide, a byproduct of coal combustion....

There are three levels of resistance that I have to the massive fraud that is Global Warming/Climate Change. 1st--the intent of the proponents. There were some occasional reports and studies published, and some discussion among the scholarly community, but the political and corporate involvement in the man-caused global warming discussion started 1990-1992-ish. The first major "legitimate" non-environmental-science-agenda-driven-pony-tailed-professor actors that started pushing and massively funding the global warming crap were General Electric and Enron. It just turns out that Enron was the largest provider of solar cell panels in the world, and G.E. was the largest supplier of wind turbines. So...

“If there is one thing I have been impressed with over the last decades, it is that when the environmental community defines a number one priority, something happens. Not always something good—but something.”1 Dr. Kenneth L. Lay, Chairman, Enron Corporation, June 1997 (1) Who was the late Ken Lay, the architect and chairman of Enron throughout its 16-year history? All parties to the current legislative debate on a CO2 cap-and-trade bill should know. After all, Lay’s tireless efforts to promote CO2 regulation and enact renewable energy quotas make him a father figure for HR 2354, the Waxman-Markey climate bill, what...

Backing Gas Ken Lay’s political niche began innocently enough with a unique, highly focused natural gas strategy, one that would culminate in Enron’s 1995 self-description as “the world’s first natural gas major.” In pursuit of that goal, Lay promoted gas-fired power generation relative to coal. He countered the coal lobby’s contention that the 1970s shortages were the inevitable result of a tiring North American gas resource base. “We had a surplus of regulation, not a shortage of gas,” Lay would say, and Enron backed up its claim by offering utilities long-term fixed-priced gas contracts. Enron also challenged the tendency of...

First, there were those infamous hacked e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. Now, a mere seven days before the Copenhagen Conference on climate change, this breaking news story takes the breath away. The whole ‘global warming’ shambles is falling apart. Today, The Copenhagen Post declares: “Denmark Rife With CO2 Fraud”: “Denmark is the centre of a comprehensive tax scam involving CO2 quotas, in which the cheats exploit a so-called ‘VAT carrousel’, reports Ekstra Bladet newspaper. Police and authorities in several European countries are investigating scams worth billions of kroner, which all originate in...

Warming Scandal: The architect of climate fraud steps down, the creator of the infamous "hockey stick" is investigated, and Australia's parliament defeats cap-and-trade. We love the smell of truth in the morning. As the high priests of what Czech President Vaclav Klaus has called a "religion" prepare their pilgrimage to worship the earth goddess Gaia in Copenhagen, complete with humanity being sacrificed, the heresy of climate truth is finally being heard. The gospel of climate change, once expressed with the messianic fervor of an Elmer Gantry by Al Gore, is now expressed with the stammering incoherence of an Elmer Fudd...

Enron executives worked closely with the Clinton administration to secure support for the Kyoto Protocol because the company believed the treaty could provide it with a financial windfall. An internal Enron memo circulated immediately after the 1997 Kyoto meeting - and first reported by The Washington Post - shows the company believed the treaty "would do more to promote Enron’s business than will almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring the energy and natural gas industries in Europe and the United States." So Enron philanthropists lavished almost $1.5 million on environmental groups that support international energy controls to reduce...

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will take up former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's appeal of his convictions for his role in the collapse of the energy giant, accepting another high-profile challenge to a favorite tool of prosecutors in white-collar and public corruption cases. Skilling's appeal stems from his convictions in 2006 on 19 counts of conspiracy, securities fraud, insider trading and lying to auditors involving the 2001 collapse of Enron. The justices already are entertaining similar claims from former newspaper magnate Conrad Black and a former Alaska lawmaker ensnared in a public corruption scandal. At issue in...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court will consider throwing out the convictions of former Enron Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Skilling for his role in one of the largest scandals in U.S. business history. The court said Tuesday it will hear Skilling's appeal of lower court rulings that upheld all 19 of his 2006 convictions of conspiracy, securities fraud, insider trading and lying to auditors involving the 2001 collapse of the one-time energy giant. Skilling, serving a 24-year prison term, is asking the court to consider whether the federal "honest services" fraud statute was applied correctly.

A decade ago, General Electric was the shining star of American business. Its longtime chief executive, Jack Welch, was named manager of the century by Fortune Magazine, and its stock seemed always to go up. It ran a bewildering array of businesses but somehow always managed to make the expected profits. That record was viewed as proof of superior management, and the battle to succeed Mr. Welch in 2001 was watched all over the business universe. When a winner emerged, the losers quickly were hired to run other major companies. G.E. is different now. The stock has fallen and the...

The Clinton administration's interest in an international agreement to combat global warming also dovetailed with Enron's business plans. Enron officials envisioned the company at the center of a new trading system, in which industries worldwide could buy and sell credits to emit carbon dioxide as part of a strategy to reduce greenhouse gases. Such a system would curtail the use of inefficient coal-fired power plants that emitted large amounts of carbon dioxide, while encouraging new investments in gas-fired plants and pipelines -- precisely Enron's line of business.

Former NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw has been reduced to doing infomercials. I don't know if it's because he has some psychological need to be on tv or he lost his money to Bernie Madoff. Perhaps he expects to profit from trading carbon credits. Most of us have watched at least portions of infomercials. They often use a similar format. A shill pretending to be a real interviewer asks the questions the seller wants to answer. Usually the seller has a manufactured product, some medical treatment, a book or perhaps some get rich quick scheme. The format can also be used...

...Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay, keen to engineer an encore, saw his opportunity when Bill Clinton and Al Gore were inaugurated as president and vice-president in 1993. To capitalize on Al Gore’s interest in global warming, Enron immediately embarked on a massive lobbying effort to develop a trading system for carbon dioxide, working both the Clinton administration and Congress. Political contributions and Enron-funded analyses flowed freely, all geared to demonstrating a looming global catastrophe if carbon dioxide emissions weren’t curbed. An Enron-funded study that dismissed the notion that calamity could come of global warming, meanwhile, was quietly buried...

Critics of the tea parties held in April noted that participants lacked a common theme. They carried signs dealing with a variety of issues making it difficult for simple minded critics to understand what was going on. Critics don't understand that protesters felt that government wasn't interested in them except as a source of funds for government programs that sometimes have little or no apparent value. The original Boston Tea Party had a specific theme - a symbol of what colonists felt was wrong. Colonists were tired of people an ocean away making decisions without considering their input. The new...

With a reach across the political divide for Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman as ambassador to China, President Barack Obama may have sidelined for now a potentially formidable Republican moderate and possible White House challenger in 2012. ... Huntsman, 49, is fluent in Mandarin Chinese from his days as a Mormon missionary in Taiwan. He previously served as U.S. ambassador to Singapore and as a deputy U.S. trade ambassador. ...As ambassador, Huntsman could play a critical role in getting China to sign onto a new international agreement to curb the emissions blamed for global warming. The Obama administration has said it...

With the Recession in full swing, one can’t help but ponder on the causes leading up to the effects we are feeling now. While profit is good and it has been much anticipated, this is only short-term profit. Big Banks are announcing major 1st Quarter Profits. In the long term, there is not much that can be done about continued success in a corrupt financial system. There will come a time in which the quick patches will no longer prop up failing businesses. These failing businesses are wreaking in the benefits, while others suffer. I recall a time in which...

Last week, almost every major US bank manufactured profits out of thin air by changing their regular reporting periods to exclude months in which huge losses occurred by changing their definitions of bad debt, and by revaluing their assets at fantasy land valuations that they will never receive in the open market, courtesy of FASB. This event was a non-event to me because it merely continued the process known as the Enronization of America. This event, the systemic injection of fraud and deceit into nearly every aspect of American life, has been unfolding for decades, even prior to the Enron...

This is big. Obama's administration is now seeking to prevent Congressional restrictions on companies receiving bailouts from applying to future companies that receive bailouts, on the grounds that failure to do so will prevent more companies from accepting bailout relief funds. http://digg.com/u1CB4

Double jeopardy in before US Supreme Court HOUSTON A former Enron Corp. executive is hoping a little known component of the Fifth Amendment's double jeopardy clause will help him avoid a retrial on charges related to financial fraud at the once mighty energy giant. Attorneys for F. Scott Yeager are set to present oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday on the issue of whether double jeopardy prevents prosecutors from retrying individuals after a jury votes not guilty on some charges, but fails to reach a verdict on others that share an element with the acquitted charges. Prosecutors...

RUSH: Here's Brad in Severn, Maryland. Great to have you. Welcome to the program. CALLER: Thank you, Rush. I'm glad you moved me ahead of Carol. RUSH: She asked for it. She asked for it. CALLER: She did indeed. RUSH: There you have it. Okay. CALLER: I was just calling about this issue with the execs at AIG, and I think this is another one of the numerous plays that the Obama administration is making, because it really is absolutely pointless. They could solve a lot of their problems with a few accounting moves. One of them is getting off...

There was a newsflash this morning on Reuters that "Mark to Market is NOT going to be suspended", allegedly sourced from someone at the SEC. MTM was put into place after ENRON due to the amazing abuses on their balance sheet with asset "valuations" in an attempt to prevent re-runs of that debacle. It has been circumvented to a large part by "Level 3" assets, which are in fact marked to model (same thing as non-MTM eh?) So why the furor? Let's say you are a bank and have $1 billion of some bond issue that was stuffed to the...

New online program can replace trip to a field office WASHINGTON — The Social Security Administration, envisioning the near-future prospect of 10,000 baby boomers applying for benefits every day, has put together a new online service that will allow people to get their benefits without ever traveling to a Social Security field office. The agency, in introducing the program Tuesday, said most people will be able to apply for their retirement or disability benefits in 15 minutes or less.

NEW YORK - Just in time for Valentine's Day, The New York Times today delivered a remarkable front-page bouquet to Robert Rubin, in the form of an unusually generous assessment of the former Treasury secretary's attempted string-pulling on Enron's behalf.

The bank’s downfall was years in the making and involved many in its hierarchy, particularly Mr. Prince and Robert E. Rubin, an influential director and senior adviser. Citigroup insiders and analysts say that Mr. Prince and Mr. Rubin played pivotal roles in the bank’s current woes, by drafting and blessing a strategy that involved taking greater trading risks to expand its business and reap higher profits. Mr. Prince and Mr. Rubin both declined to comment for this article. When he was Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration, Mr. Rubin helped loosen Depression-era banking regulations that made the creation of Citigroup...

A new YouTube group, Taxpayers for Truth, has a good question to ask today. The Bush administration frog-marched executives from Enron, Tyco, and Worldcom into federal prison for their financial shenanigans, in collapses that look positively microscopic in the wake of the failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Why hasn’t anyone in the recent failure received the same treatment? Here is the roster presented by the video, in brief: Bernard Ebbers, Worldcom: 25 years in prisonKen Lay, Enron: Convicted on 10 counts, died before serving sentenceJeff Skilling, Enron: 24 years in prisonAndrew Fastow, Enron: 10 years in prisonDennis Koslowski,...

<p>We were reading President Bush's budget the other day (we know, get a life), when we came across an unusual mention of our all-time favorite companies -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. What we found is a tale we think taxpayers and investors should want to hear.</p>

Fannie/Freddie Scandal Dwarfs Enron, WorldCom RUSH: Investor's Business Daily today has just a great, great editorial: "Should Congress Be 'Perp-Walked'?" They say, "A federal grand jury in New York is probing the accounting shenanigans at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It's about time, and we hope it doesn't end there. Remember the early 2000s, when companies such as WorldCom, Enron, Tyco and Xerox suddenly and spectacularly were revealed to have been cooking their books? Remember the glee expressed by Washington politicians, especially Democrats, as they watched CEOs and their underlings get perp-walked out of their buildings and into federal custody?...

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell said on "Fox & Friends" that the media reported more this year on the 2002 Enron collapse than the collapse of government-backed mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. VIDEO

They said it was "too big to fail." This multi-billion dollar firm was now on the brink of bankruptcy. Although not a bank, the firm held complicated financial assets such as derivatives and traded with just about every big bank on Wall Street. So company officials called on the administration of George W. Bush, hoping to get a lifeline. Big Wall Street executives, including former government officials, phoned the Bush Treasury Department to plead their case to save this company. Treasury's response? "Not a chance!" The company described above was not Bear Stearns or American International Group, although it had...

Eligible shareholders whose Enron holdings became worthless when the company crumbled in scandal will receive $7.2 billion in settlements under a distribution plan approved in federal court. And the California-based law firm that ran massive Enron shareholder litigation for more than six years will get $688 million — plus interest — for its work, U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon ruled late Monday. "We're pleased that the court recognizes the tremendous amount of work, skill and determination required to overcome significant obstacles in this complicated case and recover over $7 billion for defrauded investors," said Patrick Coughlin, chief trial counsel for...

Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman weighs in with an argument to DO SOMETHING!!!! about global warming: It's true that scientists don't know exactly how much world temperatures will rise... While there's a chance that we'll act against global warming only to find that the danger was overstated, there's also a chance that ...the results of inaction were catastrophic. Which risk would you rather run? It wasn't so long ago that global warmists were ...likening skeptics to Holocaust deniers. Now they are reduced to saying we really don't know if global warmism is true ...but since the consequences are so dire...

I was reading how Phil Gramm couldn’t be more pleased with the economy while he upset John McCain greatly by saying so being McCain’s top economic advisor. Its funny but if Phil Gramm had stayed in the senate, he would likely be the Republican nominee for this presidential election cycle because he was such a favored senate leader until he quit a few days before September 11, 2001, 911. I remember his announcement about not going to seek reelection coming as kind of a shock to me personally, but not really. It was like when Enron crashed a few months...

Drilling off the coast of California, Florida and elsewhere would increase domestic oil production by 7 percent by 2030, according to the Energy Information Administration. But “because oil prices are determined on the international market…any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant.” There is no short-term benefit to drilling, says the EIA, because it would take at least five years for oil production to begin. (Source: Center for American Progress.)

One of the biggest factors in high oil prices, according to many experts, is that investors, such as hedge funds and investment bankers, can use loopholes in commodities law to manipulate the market and drive crude oil, heating oil, gasoline and diesel fuel prices to new heights. Congress is aware of the problem and lawmakers recently passed legislation to address the “Enron Loophole,” one of the major loopholes that opens the door to abusive trading practices, but the law didn’t go far enough.

The National Climatic Data Center just released their global temperature data for May and also for meteorological spring/fall (March, April, May). Here is a summary.....

Sometimes we need to think the unthinkable, particularly when dealing with a problem as dangerous as climate change - there is no room for dogma when considering the future habitability of our planet. It was in this spirit that I and a panel of other specialists in climate, economics and policy-making met under the aegis of the Stockholm Network thinktank to map out future scenarios for how international policy might evolve - and what the eventual impact might be on the earth's climate. We came up with three alternative visions of the future, and asked experts at the Met Office...

Somewhere on the road to Kyoto, Canada turned into the land of the carbon zombies. Like the walking undead, blood-sucking politicians of all stripes are howling at each other over discredited ways to reduce carbon emissions that other countries, having tried to implement, are running away from in terror. In Europe, politicians who boasted they were leading the fight to save Gaia from global warming are now fleeing before enraged mobs of citizens, furious their governments' plans to "save the planet" have turned out to be nothing more than skyrocketing taxes and energy prices. That, plus a "cap-and-trade" carbon market...

Is the earth warming? Is human activity the cause? Is there anything we can do about it? While many believe there is a consensus in the scientific community that humans are causing the earth to heat and that serious action must be taken immediately, that's not what most Americans believe, according to a Pew Poll taken May 8. The poll did find that 71 percent of Americans say there is solid evidence that the earth is warming. But only 47 percent said they believed the earth was warming because of human activities, such as burning fossil fuels. That clear majority...

HOUSTON — U.S. Rep. Ron Paul is considering using $4 million left over from his failed presidential campaign to start a for-profit publishing company that would reflect his Libertarian-leaning views.

Circuit City (NYSE: CC) is currently trading at $3.90/common share.Goldman Sachs (GS) is acting as a financial adviser to Circuit City (CC).Investor Mark Wattles, a holder of over 6.5% of Circuit City stock, is hounding Circuit City Executive Management to fire their CEO and Board of Directors.The stock price has bottomed out.The company has net book value which is 200% higher than it's market capitalization.Circuit City is a prime target for a buy-out.The company has very little debt and over $11 Billion in annual sales.The company has hoards of cash and an incredible amount of untapped credit.Circuit City has trimmed...

What we didn't know did hurt us. That was the general assessment given Monday by famed economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman during a talk at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Center. Krugman discussed the recent wave of exotic securities and financing schemes that have arguably helped lead the country to the brink of recession. In fact, Krugman believes it is already there.

A total vanity post, so if it's inappropriate, just delete it. Isn't the modern definition of science that a hypothesis has to be falsifiable or testable to be considered "science?" How can this idea of "global warming" be considered plausible when no matter what happens regarding the climate, it is considered "evidence" of global warming. How can any straight faced scientist take this serious and not realize it is complete propaganda?

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Tuesday curbed investor lawsuits against businesses accused of scheming to inflate stock prices. In a 5-3 ruling, the court gave a measure of protection from securities suits to suppliers, banks, accountants and law firms that do business with publicly traded companies. The court ruled against investors who alleged that two suppliers colluded with Charter Communications Inc. to deceive Charter's stockholders and manipulate the price of the cable TV company's stock. Charter investors do not have the right to sue because they did not rely on the deceptive acts of Charter's suppliers, said the majority...

Widow's filing answers complaint that seeks assets The widow of former Enron Chairman Ken Lay denies he committed any crimes, according to a filing Friday in the government's civil forfeiture case that is seeking nearly $13 million from his estate, including the upscale condominium they shared. On Nov. 14, U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein Jr. denied Linda Lay's request to dismiss the case, which was filed after Ken Lay died of heart disease in July 2006. Werlein concluded that the government had made "ample allegations" of criminal activity tied to the cash and property in question and could pursue the...

Al Gore’s campaign against global warming is shifting into high gear. Reporters and commentators follow his every move and bombard the public with notice of his activities and opinions. But while the mainstream media promote his ideas about the state of planet Earth, they are mostly silent about the dramatic impact his economic proposals would have on America. And journalists routinely ignore evidence that he may personally benefit from his programs. Would the romance fizzle if Gore’s followers realized how much their man stands to gain? Earlier this year Gore experienced a notable public relations debacle. The Tennessee Center for...

Once this panic is over and all the corporate and financial corpses have been found and buried, politicians and an angry public will demand legislative action. Let's hope the reaction will be more constructive than that in the aftermath of the Enron and WorldCom scandals during the earlier part of this decade: the baleful Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Sarbox has created a lot of unnecessary paperwork for companies (and lucrative make-work for accountants and lawyers). It is a waste of brainpower. The act assumes that paper barriers will stop business wrongdoing. The spectacular bankruptcy of commodities broker Refco in 2005 showed how...

HOUSTON - The former chief of Enron Corp.'s high-speed Internet unit, who turned government witness and testified in the trial of former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling and company founder Kenneth Lay, was sentenced Monday to 27 months in prison. It's been nearly three years since Kenneth Rice, 48, pleaded guilty to securities fraud and agreed to help federal prosecutors on other cases related to the energy giant's collapse. His sentencing was postponed as he cooperated with prosecutors. Before sentencing, Rice apologized for his role in the corporate scandal that wiped out thousands of jobs, more than $60 billion in market...

Wall Street's investment banks just got another step closer to making defrauding investors an accepted line of business. And Enron's employees who lost their pensions and the small investors who got fleeced in the Enron frauds just got shafted again -- this time at the urging of President George W. Bush. Wall Street's most powerful investment banks and their friends in high places lobbied the U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement to reject the recommendation of the Securities and Exchange Commission that the Justice Department support defrauded investors in their appeal to the Supreme Court. The case before the Supreme Court...

NEW YORK - The New York Mercantile Exchange plans to offer contracts for trading carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming, and other heat-trapping emissions. The entry by Nymex Holdings Inc. into the sector may herald the start of fierce competition among energy exchanges to serve a multibillion-dollar trading market for carbon emission allowances. The Chicago Climate Exchange has been the first in the United States to create an exchange for trading carbon credits, but Nymex hopes to use its relationships with energy companies and traders to snatch business from the Chicago exchange. "The interplay between the...

THE market in carbon credits grew faster than expected last year, tripling to $US30 billion ($36.6 billion) from $US10 billion in 2005, the World Bank said on Wednesday. But the fledgling carbon credit industry is struggling to keep up with demand, the Financial Times has found, as there is now a shortage of skilled technicians to monitor carbon reduction projects and verify that the claimed emissions cuts are taking place. Nearly $US25 billion came from transactions under the European Union's emissions trading scheme, while $US5 billion was from the sale of carbon credits by developing countries. China was the biggest...