Whitewater=Enron???

by Julie 30 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  teejay

  Amazing comments, Amazing.

  ... if Vice President Cheney, or President Bush or others in their administration have been involved in crimes, then they need to be held accountable, brought to justice, and if guilty, prosecuted.

  It's in the prosecution of alleged crimes that guilt is determined, not before. It's in the prosecution where they are 'brought to justice.' THEN, if found guilty, execute... er, I mean... penalized.

  I believe that if the Vice President has information, it should be turned over to the authorities investigating Enron.

  I think there's reason to beleive that Cheney has information and you're right: it SHOULD be turned over but WILL it be?

  The California energy crisis is an example of both foolish regulation and how those regulations allowed market greed and stupidity to dominate. So, it is no surprise to me if some in the current administration were or still are behind fighting those silly regulations, and in so doing, may have crossed the line from proper political policy, and getting their hands stuck in the proverbial "cookie jar."

  Republicans got crazy greedy to the ruin of hundreds of others because the regulations (LAWS) they circumvented (broke) were "silly"? Okay.

  The Difference: between Conservatives and Liberals is that Conservative admit when their party needs to be investigated and if found guilty, prosecuted.

  No comment needed. I'm flabbergasted.

  This was true when Republican Vice President Spiro Agnew was forced to resign and was prosecuted; and then then later President Nixon was forced to resign. Republicans, Conservatives would not tolerate it, and joined Democrats in bringing down the Republican Administration by 1974.

  Nixon had targeted so many people, republicans included, that they were more than happy to cross the political line and league up with Democrats who were taking the lead to oust him. The evidence was more than compelling... it was damn near an avalanche. Even then they had to be persuaded.

  Agnew was a crook to begin with; he should never have been anything more than County Dog Catcher, let alone the second highest-ranking political executive in America. He was filthy dirty from the word "go," a true scumbag in American politics. Your Republicans own his selection as part of our history. Be proud, Amazing.

  Liberal Democrats, on the other hand, live in constant denial, and that is why they stood by thier man, Bill Clinton, as he lied in court, allowed national security information to be heard, documented, and spread by an Intern, allowed communist Chinese to illegally donate to his campaign, and then allowed the communists Chinese steal nuclear secrets in return, and spent more time haveing his penis sucked and spreading his semen on Monica than doing the people's business.

  Yeah, that JFK was... oh!! ... you said Clinton! Nevermind, Amazing. My bad.

  So, if Bush and Cheney have done wrong, or seemingly so, then investigate it, and prosecute if needed. That is the response of one who likes Bush and Cheney, voted for them, and who sticks to Conservative views and values.

  That is also why the Republican Party has more trouble holding together ... why? ... because Conservative Republicans will admit error, and turn on their own leaders who screw up ... but Democrats hold together no matter how insulting and criminal their leaders are ... Liberal Democrats are much like JWs who defend the Governing Body no matter how much evidence their is to show they need to be removed from office.

  You're scaring me, Amazing. You really are. Do you really believe what you said above? Just curious. You remind me of a apologist JW who, after living through, say, the '75 Debacle, will say to people twenty-five years later that "the gb never said..." or "they always admit their mistakes."

  You can't be that deluded.

  The Enron fiasco is a horrible mess that has horribly affected hundreds of people, ruining lives and retirement funds of people who trusted the likes of our beloved Republican leadership.

  On a scale with Whitewater, the two don't begin to compare. It's a shame you don't see that.
• 

  sf

  "if Vice President Cheney, or President Bush or others in their administration have been involved in crimes, then they need to be held accountable, brought to justice, and if guilty, prosecuted."

  FAT CHANCE! bwahhhhhhhhhroflol

  "Bush conveniently sold all his shares in his company just before it went bust, and was, I believe investigated by the SEC. He survived. Still, what an honest, God-fearing, born -again, Christian man he is."

  bwahhhhhhhhhhhhroflol

  "Mainly, they are there to distract the unthinking masses from what's really going on, or so it seems to me."

  It WOULD seem.

  sKally

  wcrestnpeace
• 

  teejay

  Enron makes Whitewater look like peanuts
  By Bill Press
  Tribune Media Services

  December 12, 2001

  WASHINGTON (Tribune Media Services) -- Something smells rotten in Houston. Energy giant Enron, which used to brag about becoming the world's biggest company, now holds the record for the country's biggest ever bankruptcy filing.

  The human impact is staggering. Some 4500 employees are out of work. Tens of thousands of investors watched their Enron stock sink suddenly from $83 per share to 26 cents, wiping out $60 billion of stockholder value. And those 11,000 employees whose 401K funds were invested exclusively in Enron -- and who were forbidden by Enron's own rules from diversifying -- today have no retirement plan at all.

  But Enron may be more than the world's biggest corporate disaster. It could also be the world's biggest case of corporate criminality.

  Enron's demise wasn't due to business factors like strong competition, a shrinking market or a lagging economy. It was due to deceitful, and perhaps illegal, games played by corporate executives: diverting funds into secret partnerships, cooking the books to keep those deals secret, lying to investors and employees about the financial health of the company, while selling their own stock to make sure they wouldn't be hurt when the whole house of cards collapsed.

  Unlike thousands of employees, for example, Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay isn't crying the blues. He cashed out on $123 million worth of stock options in 2000 alone, and this year pocketed another $25 million.

  Even as the company started falling apart, other executives were rewarded. Just days before filing for bankruptcy, Enron handed $55 million out to some 500 senior officials: an average $110,000 bonus for screwing up.

  Yes, something smells rotten in Houston. But something smells rotten in Washington, too -- because both the rise and fall of Enron are closely linked to the political fortunes of George W. Bush.

  For years, Ken Lay and George Bush have been joined at the hip, two free-wheeling Texas buddies. One helped the other succeed in "bidness;" the other helped his pal make it big in politics.

  Consider the Bush-Enron connections. Enron could never have happened anywhere but Texas. It was only able to grow so big, so fast, because of the deregulation of energy companies instituted by then-Gov. George W. Bush.

  And Ken Lay rewarded his friend. He and Enron together were Bush's biggest contributor, giving $2 million to his campaigns for governor and president. Lay also loaned Bush his corporate jet. In 2000, Lay sent a memo to company employees, suggesting that they contribute personal funds to Bush through the company's political action committee: $500 for low-level managers; $5000 for senior executives.

  Once in the White House, Bush responded generously.

  Ken Lay was the only energy executive to meet privately with Vice President Dick Cheney to help shape the administration's new energy policy -- which included a recommendation to break up monopoly control of electricity transmission networks, a longtime Enron goal.

  For a while, Bush even considered naming Lay his Commerce Secretary. Fortuitously, that appointment never happened. But he did surround himself with Enron partisans:

  Lawrence B. Lindsey, Bush's top economic adviser, was an Enron consultant.

  Robert Zoellick, U.S. Trade Representative, served on Enron's advisory council.

  I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's Chief of Staff, was a major Enron stockholder.

  Thomas White, Secretary of the Army, was an Enron executive for over 10 years and held millions of dollars in stocks and options when appointed.

  Karl Rove, chief White House political adviser, owned between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of Enron stock when he met with Ken Lay in the White House to discuss Enron's problems with federal regulators.

  And, until he was named Republican National Chairman last week, Marc Racicot was Enron's Washington lobbyist.

  No wonder the Bush White House refused to help California solve its energy crisis last Spring. California's problems were caused by Enron's suddenly inflating the price of electricity, forcing blackouts throughout the state. But Bush refused to intervene to help consumers. He wouldn't do anything to hurt his pal's big business.

  Indeed, the Bush-Enron connections are so close, it's hard to tell whether Enron is the house that Bush built or Bush is the house that Enron built. We know George Bush and friends were major players in Enron's corporate success. Were they also major facilitators of Enron's corporate wrongdoing?

  Either way -- and war or no war -- the whole mess demands a congressional investigation.

  If Congress and Ken Starr could spend two years investigating a 20-year old $100,000 real estate investment in Arkansas, they can and must examine a multi-billion dollar energy scam in Texas, where millions lost their shirts.

  Enron makes Whitewater look like peanuts.
  ---

  Source: http://www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/12/12/column.billpress/

  ----------------------------

  Ken Starr spent, depending on which figures you like, anywhere from $50 to $80 million investigating Clinton's involvement with the Whitewater 'scandal' only to find insufficient evidence to prosecute. Pathetic. The double standards in D.C. is sickening.

  Thank goodness for bin Laden that Bush has to rally America to his side. If not for that...
• 

  teejay

  Ray: Insufficient evidence to prosecute Clintons in Whitewater probe

  September 20, 2000

  WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Independent Counsel Robert Ray, in his final report reviewing the 1970s-era Whitewater real estate partnership, said Wednesday that there was insufficient evidence that either President Clinton or first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton had engaged in criminal wrongdoing.

  "This office has determined that the evidence was insufficient to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that either President or Mrs. Clinton knowingly participated in any criminal conduct ... or knew of such conduct," Ray said in a news release issued by the Office of the Independent Counsel after his report on the Whitewater matter went to a federal three-judge panel Wednesday morning.

  The White House responded to the report's filing with a brief, one-sentence statement, saying, "Robert Ray is now the latest investigator to complete an examination into the transactions related to the Whitewater Development Co., and conclude that there are no grounds for legal action."

  Whitewater was to be a vacation community dominated by time-share homes, but the project collapsed when a key local bank owned by McDougal failed. According to financial documents drawn up at the time of the development's failure, the Clintons swallowed a significant financial loss and later backed out of the construction project.

  The Whitewater investigation began in 1994 amid questions about possible criminal wrongdoing between the McDougals and Clintons over Whitewater. Attorney General Janet Reno appointed a special counsel, Robert Fiske, to investigate the partnership, and Starr eventually took over the case.

  The independent counsel's original task was to determine whether the Clintons had done anything improper in connection with Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, a Little Rock, Arkansas, lender owned by McDougal.

  Madison Guaranty failed in the late 1980s at a cost to taxpayers of more than $65 million. Sales in the Whitewater development were poor, and in 1992, the Clintons sold their remaining interest in it to McDougal for $1,000. Allegations arose that the McDougals and the Clintons violated the law as they sought to prop up the ailing venture.

  "We all lost money," Susan McDougal said on CNN's "Burden of Proof" on Wednesday. "There was never anything criminal about it. It should never have been investigated."

  The report concluded that sufficient evidence refuting Clinton's 1996 testimony could not be uncovered.

  The Whitewater investigation grew to encompass the president's sexual encounters with Monica Lewinsky. Wednesday's report is among the last remaining aspects of the vast probe, which has cost taxpayers some $60 million. Ray told Congress earlier this year he will keep the Lewinsky case open until after Clinton leaves office in January.

  While the land deal phase of the probe is ostensibly over, Ray nonetheless criticized the White House in his Wednesday statement, saying delays in the production of evidence and "unmeritorious litigation" by the president's lawyers severely impeded the investigation's progress.
  -------

  Source: http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/09/20/whitewater/
• 

  JerryTX

  I'm not surprised by the Enron mess. I will be less surprised if no one goes to jail. You want to know how the world works, read Mario Puzo's "The Godfather." Then you'll understand. It's all about who has the money and the power and the right connections and influence. Those who have it will abuse the living hell out of it for their own beneficial gain no matter who gets steamrolled. Remember Charles Keating of Lincoln Savings and Loan fame? For all the people's lives he destroyed through outright fraud, bilking them of their life savings, he did only four and a half years in prison. To me the system actually encourages fraud. What's a few years in prison if you gain millions of dollars in turn? I would do it. Now, if I could only get rid of my conscience.

  This post has been edited for those watching their intake of "fluff."
• 

  larc

  As a Republican, I say there should be a full investigation of the Enron case. If found guilty the executives should serve long prison terms. The court should do what they do to drug lords, sieze their assets, which should be distributed to the employees and the stock holders. Ties with the government should be investigated as well.

  As a Republican, I never saw what was the big deal over Whitewater. After all, they lost money on the deal.
• 

  jelly

  As a moderate here is my take on this issue.

  Whitewater was a half a$$ed business deal that was a little shady that went bad. It should have never been investigated and Ken Star was a waste of taxpayer money.

  Enron was a huge company that was run half A$$ed and went out of business. What Enron is going to be investigated for is to see if they have been falsifying their public SEC documents to make the company appear more stable than they were. If they were someone will be held accountable and will see jail time it happens quite often (actually the accountants signing for the fillings are screwed). No one at Enron is happy the company went under and no one has made any money from this mess; not even the top management, and there is no huge government conspiracy here.

  Enron should be investigated but should not be made into the witch-hunt that was the Clinton trial.

  Jelly

  First to find the verb confusion wins a dollar.
• 

  teejay

  No one at Enron ... has made any money from this mess

  I'm not here to say what actually happened behind the scenes in either case but in the Whitewater deal, ON PAPER, the Clintons lost $1,000.

  In the Enron deal, ON PAPER, scores of people GOT PAID.

  Unlike thousands of employees, for example, Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay isn't crying the blues. He cashed out on $123 million worth of stock options in 2000 alone, and this year pocketed another $25 million.

  Even as the company started falling apart, other executives were rewarded. Just days before filing for bankruptcy, Enron handed $55 million out to some 500 senior officials: an average $110,000 bonus. -– CNN.com
• 

  Julie

  A big thank-you to all the contributions of additional information on this issue. To all you Republicans taking the high road attitude of thinking any wrong doing should be investigated, I agree. However the left is sorely lacking shit-stirrers like Rush and Liddy to get the public whipped into a frenzy. That is what it takes here in the good ol' US of A. We are so heavily sedated with apathy it takes something of monumental proportion to wake us up and get our heads out of our asses (i.e. 9/11).

  I will admit to taking some pleasure in seeing old footage of that class act, Bill Cohen, talking about when Clinton bombed Afghanistan saying, we have taken this action to try to protect the people of America from these and future terrorist attacks. Yeah, everyone inthrall to aforementioned Pub hate-mongers were thumbing their noses "What threat?? This is America!!! They wouldn't dare! Clinton's just blowing it out his ass trying to distract us!!" Guess ol' Bill Cohen spoke the truth then but isn't believed until now. Better late than never, at least I haven't seen him gloating and saying "I told you so". Like I said, he is a class act.

  Regards to all,
  Julie, who doesn't think a democratic government should be a who's who list of corporate America
• 

  teejay

  .