Posted on 06/02/2004 3:18:52 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay
Yep, Enron led back to the Clintons, and Ken Lay was an adviser to then CA Governor Grayout Davis.
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.
Must be some history we are not aware of.
So the Republicans decline to pursue this? You stated the investigation led right to Clinton. You're words.
LOL, I guess.
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.
*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.
"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!
It official, California is actually in play! At least that's what I glean from the Christian Bashing Station's piece.
For the record, Investor's Business Daily predicted the fiscal crisis back in May, 2001:
CALIFORNIA'S BLACK-RUPTCY [IBD Editorial]
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.
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.
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.
Yes. When Ron Brown's plane went down in Croatia, he was on an errand concerning Enron.
I don't know how they give conservatism a bad name. How do you know their political affiliations?
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.
And it was Clinton butt-boy Robert Rubin who tried to get the Bush administration to ease off on Enron.
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.