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   Issue #25 - January 2002 - Depose King George 7:34 PM 1/14/02 Enronor and Integrity Edition From: It's the 50th Top Ten Conservative Idiots, and there's just one word on everyone's lips this week: Pretzel. Um... I mean, Enron. It finally seems to be catching on, folks. That's why the first three spots this week are reserved for the top players in this developing scandal, George W. Bush (1), Arthur Andersen (2), and Ken Lay (3). Apparently none of them know anything about the whole thing, they've never heard of one another, and they can't even remember what they had for dinner last night. How surprising. But there's more to life than the Bush administration and Enron fondling one another's buttocks - which is why we turn to the world of entertainment to find CNN (4), Dr. Laura (6), and Ann Coulter (8) on the list this week. And if you're a fan of schadenfraude (aren't we all), don't miss our special 11th idiot. Enjoy! 7:14 PM 1/14/02 
Attack of the Killer Pretzel! 5:37 PM 1/14/02 By: Mary McGrory Even Bill Clinton's most curdled critics can summon up a little sympathy for him. He has lost his beautiful, beloved dog, Buddy. Life holds few bleaker moments. Wisecracks about Buddy's being his only true friend are out of order. Buddy was a credit to his master and the White House.
He was like Clinton, too, in not wanting to be left out of any gathering. Many an international parley or down-and-dirty session on domestic politics was suspended while the chief executive went to admit a whimpering Buddy for a high-level ear scratching under the eye of his beaming boss. 4:54PM 1/14/02 By: Bruce S. Ticker It is like something Biblical. Or anti-Biblical. For six days God snoozed. Then on the seventh day he, or she, geared for action and gave us a gift. If you are religious or not, that seventh day - Jan. 11 - was the day the truth caught up with George W. Bush. 3:45PM 1/14/02 Editorial from: Get ready to add another to the long list of Bush-administration assaults on the natural environment. The oblique Bush plan is too cute by half. It would let utilities "expand" and "upgrade" their operations without installing up-to-date anti-pollution technology. Up till now, Clean Air Act regulations required new facilities - even if they were connected to an old plant - to be cleaner-burning than the outmoded plants. But the industry says this approach is too expensive, and it wants to build more dirty plants. The industry's rationale is that these facilities would be more energy-efficient, and that justifies the pollution... 3:22PM 1/14/02 Memo about destroying documents is at focus. By: Michael Schroeder and Tom Hamburger A House committee is seeking information about an Oct. 12 memo from Arthur Andersen LLP management, which committee aides believe advised the firm's Enron Corp. audit team to abide by an Andersen policy to destroy electronic and paper documents relating to audits. The memo was issued days before Enron reported a $618 million loss for the third quarter last year. Last week, Arthur Andersen confirmed the destruction of documents and said it is investigating further. "We acknowledge that there were internal communications that raise questions. Until we know more, it would be inappropriate to comment further", said David Tabolt, a spokesman at Arthur Andersen... 10:18 AM 1/14/02 By: Robert Novak Marc Racicot, the former governor of Montana, and his White House sponsors have solved more than half of their ethical problem. They belatedly abandoned the absurd idea of the Republican Party's national chairman simultaneously functioning as a registered federal lobbyist. But Racicot intends to stay on the lobbying firm's payroll while serving as a dollar-a-year "volunteer" for the Republican National Committee. It is difficult to find any Republican outside the White House who endorses this arrangement. "Would you let a volunteer run your office?" asked a prominent Republican. State party chairmen want presidential political operative Karl Rove to re-examine a situation that they say never would be permitted in their own states. 9:00 AM 1/14/02
* Based on FEC data downloaded 11/1/01. 1:58 AM 1/14/02 By claiming Enron backed Richards in 1994, Putsch deliberately lied to the American people. By: Bryan Zepp Jamieson Of course, the Republicans are doing what they always do when cornered. They are lying and creating as much misdirection as they can. The fax machines have been cranking out report after report about how Democrat "A" got $1,500 for the campaign, Democrat "B" got $12,500, all the way through Democrat "Z", who got $1,000. Of course, the "press releases" never mention that this particular list of funds is dwarfed by the amount ($300,000) that Enron, Enron's president, and Lay jointly donated to the Putsch inaugural ball. Mind you, that's just the inaugural ball. They infused Republicans with over TWO MILLION DOLLARS during the 2000 election cycle. For every dollar they gave the Democrats in that campaign, they gave eight to the Republicans. They supported Republicans by a 9 to 1 margin over the past year since then. 1:06 AM 1/14/02  12:45 AM 1/14/02 By: Dan Brown 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. 4:56 PM 1/13/02 By: Don Van Natta Jr. The rules in the damage-control playbook are deceptively simple: be the first to release the bad news (all at once, if possible). Do not misrepresent information. And the cover-up is always worse than the crime. Yet, last week, Washington once again watched as a new administration seemed to ignore the old rules when it scrambled to deal with what may be its first full-blown political scandal - its close ties to the Enron Corporation, one of the largest contributors to President Bush's 2000 presidential campaign. 4:50 PM 1/13/02 "They [the press] act like there's some billing records or some cattle scam or some fired travel aides or some blue dress" Nice try Mary. But it's going to be much worse than that. Before it's over, you'll be eating your words. Hee hee. 3:11 PM 1/13/02 By: James G. Wilson The Republican propaganda machine was set into motion almost immediately after the news broke that the Justice Department had launched a criminal probe into the Enron collapse. Why was there a need to create an offensive blitz so quickly? Could it be that they know George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and members of their administration have some role to play in this scandal? 2:09 PM 1/13/02 The latest question: Did the humbled energy giant take deductions for $1.2 billion in debt carried on its books as shareholders' equity? By: Mike McNamee and Wendy Zellner The Internal Revenue Service has opened its own investigation of Enron, the beleagured and bankrupt energy trader, according to senior government investigators. The IRS probe pushes to an even dozen the number of government inquiries into the accounting, securities, and pension practices of the failed Houston-based outfit. The Securities & Exchange Commission is investigating whether errors on Enron's financial statements constituted securities fraud - a question that is also the subject of an investigation by a nationwide Justice Dept. task force. 12:19 PM 1/13/02 By: Arianna Huffington Since the Enron collapse, President Bush has been acting as if Ken Lay was just some good ol' boy who also happened to hail from Texas. This new information proves otherwise: that Lay and his company's sizable political contributions had bought what Rep. Henry Waxman has termed "extensive access" to the epicenter of American political power. It's Teapot Dome, the sequel. During his run for the White House, Bush fought long and hard to convince us that he was a new breed of conservative - a compassionate conservative. But recent events make clear that he is actually the standard bearer of a far more coldhearted breed. Call them the Enron conservatives. Enron conservatives are people who use political money and connections as levers to free themselves of all accountability to laws, regulations and responsibility - even to their own employees. Simply put, they are people who consistently, shamelessly and aggressively put their self-interest above the public interest. And when the lives of others are destroyed in the process, they just look the other way and hope that the law does, too. 11:54 AM 1/13/02 "Although it is true that only about 20% of American workers are in unions, that 20% sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts." 9:03 AM 1/13/02 By: Leslie Wayne
One of the biggest sellers was Kenneth L. Lay, who became prominent as the company's chairman and a leading contributor to President Bush. He was among more than a dozen Enron executives who received $30 million or more, including one who sold shares valued at $353.7 million. 8:43 AM 1/13/02  7:34 AM 1/13/02 Exciting events include worker fleecing and book cooking. By: Jon Carroll The Justice Department recently announced the formation of a "task force" to investigate the blizzard of crimes allegedly committed by Enron, the giant energy trading company with strong ties to both Dick Cheney and George W. Bush. I am putting up $100 right here, payable to Doctors Without Borders; I am betting that not a single Enron executive will spend a day in jail. Not one, not ever. 8:03 PM 1/12/02 What is up with Microsoft? If this excerpt of a 'bulletin' (discussing the purpose of a security 'patch' for users of IE 5.5 and 6.0) taken directly from their website, isn't blatantly sexist I don't know what is. Excerpt:
7:40 PM 1/12/02 Or, the Fine Art of Bankruptcy By: John Powers In a superb article in the December 9 Houston Chronicle, reporter Greg Hassell offered a portrait of Enron's glory days, laying bare a gaudy corporate culture that was busy readying its vanities for the bonfire: Beyond the in-building health club and free Starbucks coffee, silver Porsches became an obligatory parking-lot status symbol, and traders were known to freak out when their annual bonus was only half a million bucks. This conspicuous consumption was encouraged by an evangelical leadership that one former executive compared to the Taliban - either you were for the company or you were an infidel. To call down an Enron fatwa, you needed merely ask for proof of its extravagant claims of profitability (proof its accountants obviously didn't seek very diligently). As Hassell explains, Enron focused on deals that looked lucrative in the short term - "My bonus is based on what I do this quarter", shrieked one of its agonized traders - even if they were long-term disasters. Such shortsightedness didn't just sap the company, it led to an abject lack of social responsibility. When Enron wasn't driving up energy prices in California last year, it was buying up, then destroying Oregon's homegrown energy system; in India, human-rights groups have compelling evidence of physical violence against villagers who opposed new plants by Enron subsidiary Dabhol Power Co. This same casual amorality turned office politics into one endless episode of Corporate Survivor, in which a policy nicknamed "rank and yank" had employees give one another annual ratings, with the bottom 15% being fired. In such a cutthroat culture, it's hardly surprising that Enron execs would sell off their own shares for a fortune and prohibit underlings from doing the same, even when it became obvious that Enron stock was sinking faster than a Soviet sub. Such is the fine art of bankruptcy. 6:27 PM 1/12/02 By: Lisa Kadonaga I was fetching a glass of orange juice during the late night news when I happened to glance over at the fruitcakes. A clip from one of George W. Bush's speeches was playing on the TV, and suddenly things made a lot more sense. For one thing, the baked goods were a perfect analogy. Secondhand, more than a bit stale, uninspiring, and kind of nutty - and only tolerated for their symbolic role. (Some White House watchers, referring to the red nose Dubya was sporting over the holidays, went so far as to suggest that the "alcohol-soaked" part of the metaphor might not be far off the mark either - or maybe it was just the First Lady's holiday trifle recipe.) But in the larger sense, Pauline's statement also applies: Mr. Bush is a man who's accustomed to eating his cake and having it too. Regarding his performance in office, this seems to have spread to his most ardent supporters, who seem to be arguing from two sides simultaneously, as demonstrated by the following examples. 4:00 PM 1/12/02 Lay Interview, '94 Campaign Records At Odds With Bush's Claim By: R.G. Ratcliffe and Bennett Roth Enron chief Ken Lay's own words and campaign contributions undercut President Bush's assertion this week that he merely inherited the energy executive's support from former Democratic Gov. Ann Richards. Bush, seeking to distance himself from the troubled Houston energy company, said earlier this week that Lay had supported Richards against Bush in the 1994 gubernatorial race. But in a television interview last year, Lay made it clear that he backed Bush in that race despite his past association with Richards. 5:44 AM 1/12/02 From: At least 15 high-ranking Bush administration officials owned Enron stock last year, and more than 250 members of Congress received political contributions from the now-bankrupt energy company, according to two government watchdog groups. The stockholders included Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, senior Bush adviser Karl Rove, deputy EPA administrator Linda Fisher, Treasury Undersecretary Peter Fisher and U.S. Trade Rep. Robert Zoellick. 8:39 PM 1/11/02 Top Bush aides talked with CEO about bankruptcy, its implications. By: William Neikirk and Jeff Zeleny The investigation into the collapse of Enron Corp. widened Thursday as the company's auditor, Arthur Andersen LLP, admitted destroying an untold number of documents relating to the Houston energy firm while the White House disclosed that Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay last fall contacted two Cabinet officers about the firm's pending bankruptcy. As the White House sought to contain election-year political damage from the company's extensive ties with the Bush administration, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and the entire U.S. attorney's office in Houston recused themselves from a newly opened criminal investigation into Enron's failure. 7:55 PM 1/11/02 By: Cragg Hines Ari Fleischer, that simpering twit of a White House spokesman, urged Thursday that the Enron debacle not be turned into a partisan witch hunt. OK, Ari, let's make it a bipartisan witch hunt. But all the news seems so Republican-specific at the moment. You know they're getting edgy at the White House when both President Bush and Fleischer - within about 30 minutes of each other - try to blame Enron Chief Executive Officer Ken Lay (the single largest contributor to Bush's political career) on Ann Richards. Whoever wrote that talking point needs to be sent to the correspondence pool. It, at least, was not a good day to try the line. 6:29 PM 1/11/02 By: Ted Rall Conspiracy theories are funny things: the wackier they sound, the more likely they are to be true. The fires of September were still burning when I, among others, suggested that the Bush regime's Afghan war might have more to do with old-fashioned oil politics than bringing the Evil Ones to justice. Little did I know how quickly I would be proven right. 12:18 PM 1/11/02 "We are working hard to convince both the Indians and the Pakis that there's a way to deal with their problems without going to war." (emphasis added) 11:35 AM 1/11/02 
Just the FACTS!      - except wherein noted.All rights reserved. |
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Buddy had a gleaming chocolate coat, a glad heart, and an acute understanding of Clinton's bottomless need for unconditional love. He did his White House job superbly as a mood-altering and ice-breaking presence. The self-indulgent Clinton was an indulgent dog-parent, giving the animal the run of the Oval Office without a care in the world about priceless furniture coverings. Buddy followed the sun around the room.
No final decision has been made, but White House officials say it's likely the administration will bend to the desires of utility-industry lobbyists and loosen regulations on coal-fired power plants. Attorneys general in nine eastern states are hopping mad, understandably, for legal action is already under way to force Midwestern air polluters to cut poisonous emissions that flow eastward on prevailing winds. Now Mr. Bush wants to make it easier for Midwesterners to send more filth downwind, not less. This is not progress.
As Enron stock climbed and Wall Street was still promoting it, a group of 29 Enron executives and directors began to sell their shares. These insiders received $1.1 billion by selling 17.3 million shares from 1999 through mid-2001, according to court filings based on public records. They continued selling just before Enron's stock started to tumble early last year and the company began its slide into bankruptcy protection.
