Unchecked corruption in big corporations, the power of vast wealth with no one standing in effective opposition to it, is the reason our western civilisation is crumbling. But, hey, the economy’s booming, so why rock the boat?

And the answer is that we nationalize the oil industry.  With the public (ie. us) now in control, the industry’s CEO’s won’t be able to team up with politicos for the purpose of stealing someone else’s oil (today Iraq’s, tomorrow Iran’s and with Venezuela’s sure to to follow.  In other words no more blood for oil.  And what a windfall for us, what with Exxon alone’s ten billion haul this past quarter, because once nationalized, oil earnings belong to all of us (not just the corporate elites) and we can see to it that it’s put to good use on such things as education, pensions and reversing global warming, to mention but a few.. Oh, and by popular demand there’ll be no war no more, nowhere, never, not even one.  And just think, our winning on November the seventh makes all this possible, and nice going in advance.

Well, it is the whole system. I teach Legal Ethics at the collegiate level, and one of the questions I always discuss is the responsibility of Enron’s (and Worldcom’s, Global Crossing’s, etc.) lawyers in enabling all of the legal chicanery necessary to make these scams work. Corporate lawyers are supposed to be responsible to the stockholders-- who are their real clients-- but, instead, feel like their clients are actually the CEOs and etc. who hire them, pay their salaries, get them into their country clubs, and so on. The shenanigans could not have happened without the lawyers enabling them, but the lawyers never have to pay when things fall apart. They never get arrested. If you want to cure corporate destructionism, get the lawyers to act correctly. Really. I know it’s a long shot, but all lawyers are trained in ethics, and if they started losing their licenses and going to jail over these corporate scams, there would be less attorney enabling.

Bob Johnson in New York is ready and willing to take on Bushco and the pharmaceutical corps over the shocking state of the healthcare system. If you want to help tackle corporate corruption (is that a tautology? i hope not), do it on the ground with good soldiers like Johnson. Every vote counts, even if it just means the creeps have to talk a lot faster in order to get away with rigging the election.

Ken Lay is about as dead as I am.He is sunning himself at some South American hideaway drinking mai tais with the local CIA bureau chief enjoying his hard-scammed money. Soon he will be joined with other CIA operatives like Osama for a quick hand of gin rummy. They will all be laughing at the gullibility of the american taxpayer-consumer to give up there rights and their pocketbook to fund the biggest scam in human history.

Well, don’t be suprised when GW leaves office that he gives that asshole Skillling a full pradon.

Kenny Boy Took It With Him
.
Ken Lay, the Houdini of sleight-of-hand accounting performed the Impossible for his last act.
“You can’t take it with you” is axiomatic to dying.
Kennie Boy’s estate, due to his conviction, owed $45 million right up to the moment he took his last living breath.
But because his appeals had not been granted their day in court his estate’s debt to all those Kenny had defrauded was expunged.
The estate keeps the $45 million.
Give credit where credit is due.

I don’t think energy deregulation is the cause of this malfeasance.  Lack of innovation in the state run utlity space has given us groggy old coal and oil burning plants that pollute and do harm to our environment.  When oh when, will we have a secure carbon trading market?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Wilson

Pete Wilson – Republican – former governor of California started Enron mess:

As Governor, Wilson championed deregulation of California’s electricity markets. The resulting law, AB1890, was unanimously passed by the State legislature and signed in 1996. The law guaranteed reduced rates for residential consumers through the end of Wilson’s second term as Governor. The law also required that utilities only purchase electricity for sale to residential customers on the spot market, forbidding long term contracts to smooth out price spikes.

Industry analysts immediately warned the law was a recipe for power outages and price gouging, as the power producers no longer had a motivation to build new power plants, while energy speculators stood to gain from shortage pricing in the newly deregulated market. As predicted, the state’s energy needs continued to grow, while new generating capacity was not brought on line.

The result was the spectacular California energy crisis of 2001, which saw rolling blackouts across much of the state, while energy speculators led by Enron Corporation were able to charge the state energy prices over 1600 times the historic rate. Wilson was out of office by the time the ill effects of AB1890 came home to roost, leaving his successor Democrat Gray Davis to bear the political brunt of the crisis. Wilson defended his energy policy and urged specific policies in an article published by the Hoover Institution.

Kenny Boy’s “demise” may have been the backdoor plan. Just as we should closely watch the Bush backdoor plan which may be the recent huge land buys by the Bush family in Paraguay along with cozying up to that corrupt government and sending US troops there. The Nazis fled to Brazil. Will the Bushies & Co. end up in South America? Keep watching this one.

Dear Mr. Scheer, you wrote:
“Getting to the bottom of this story is one compelling reason to hope that the Democrats gain control in this election of at least one branch of Congress, thus permitting a serious investigation of the political machinations behind the Enron swindle.”

I have a wager for you. Presupposing the Dems succeed in taking control of one or more houses, I will give you any odds you like, a year from now, the Dems won’t have done a damn thing. Not on Iraq. Not on the Patriot Act. Not on Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, or any of our torture centers. Not on the MCA. Not on NAFTA/CAFTA. Not on impeachment. Not on the tax giveaways to the billionairefilth. They will talk and talk and talk and talk and DO NOTHING. Why?

They are servants of the Empire.

That is also why the Dems will not restore the Roosevelt Legacy that produced the greatest distribution of wealth ever seen in the history of the human race. You know the numbers.

90% tax on earned incomes over $6mn (adjusted from ‘60 $$). 53% tax on unearned income. 50+% on massive estates (see Waltons & Gates & Buffets + 790 other billionairefilth - they got it the old fashioned way - they stole it from us).

You know the policies the Dems will not restore: The Wagner Act & Glass-Seagal while repealing Taft-Hartley. And finally, and this is crucial:

They will not destroy the lie, the legal fiction of Corporate Citizenship. You know the 1886 case and the header inserted by the revolving door Railroad VP acting, temporarily, as Clerk for the Supremes. That language inserted by that man into that header had no legal basis or standing of any kind. It could have been a love poem to his favorite concubine. Instead it has been used as the foundation for the domination of this country by the billionairefilth and their servitors. This is no State Secret. It is as someone once said: “Non-controversial”.

As you know, Corporations have no ‘right’ to participate in OUR politics in any way: state, local, or federal. No ‘right’ of participation of any kind. Period. If their execs want to pull $$ out of their own pockets and the pockets of their friends, lettem knock their lights out. No Corporate lobbyists. No Industry lobbyists. No “Buying” policians as a matter of course. It is illegal. We just pretend that it is legal. 

The Dems flat won’t DO anything about any of this. Why? As I said at the top, they are servants of the Empire and nothing more.

As you well know, our political system locks out anyone or any group who would challenge the power, privilege, ownership, and control of this country by the richfilth. No one is going to challenge that. Those that would have posed such a challenge were offered the gold, the bullet, or harrassment into silence and suicide. This ‘game’ didn’t start ten years or twenty five years or even 50 years ago.

It started with an empire taken by genocide, drenched in constant war, and built with human slavery. Master classes have owned our societies for a very very long time (except for the Roosevelt Legacy) and history teaches us that they will murder anyone’s child for their swag. It is our history and you are all here now. This is your moment. This is your time. My challenge stands.

Let us not forget that Ken Lay met with Arnold Schwartzenneger (a meeting Arnold “has not memory of") BEFORE the Gray Davis recall, BEFORE Arnold’s campaign.  This, of course, could have nothing to do with the fact that Gray Davis was planning to sue Enron for the Calif energy fiasco.....

more after 11/9 been busy
f trader
nite nite

Ken Lay, the Houdini of Accounting Performs the Impossible Even in Death

“You can’t take it with you” is axiomatic to dying.

Kennie Boy’s estate, due to his conviction, owed $45 million right up to the moment he took his last living breath.

Because his appeals were not, nor never to be, granted their day in court the estate’s debt to all those Kenny had defrauded was expunged.

Give credit where credit is due. The guy bamboozled the system with all he had.

Ken Lay Houdini Til’ Death

This disaster we have on our hands in Iraq is a result of the Enron scandal. I distinctly remember in 2002 this brewing storm errupting around these revelations as well as those with worldcom and other corporate “malfeance”...we rushed to war to turn the media attention away from this story which on its own could have unravelled this presidency...diplomacy be damned; allied support be damned...proper planning be damned...It was all about damage control for the Bush, Cheney cabal - the war gave them a cloak of immunity which is finally coming off, or am I too optimistic?

Covering up for the Bush family’s crony capitalism goes back at least to Prescott Bush and his complicity in bankrolling the Third Reich before and during WWII.

The webs that surround the Bush family, the Saudis, Enron, Exon Mobil and the Carlyle Group are so intertwined, it will take ‘hard work’ indeed to untangle the whole unholy mess. When you follow the money trail it clarifies the relationships and reasoning of such a diverse cast of true ‘evil-doers’ and their commonalities - their quest for power, money and oil. I can only hope, if we gain control of at least one house of government, democratic representatives like Waxman and Conyers will finally be free to disclose the information they were forced to withold from Americans under the deceptive, secretive and manipulative cabal of crooks now helming our government.  The Bush family tree is covered by branches of greedy elitists who were completely comfortable sharing a bed with the forces of evil, from the numero uno Nazi, Herr Hitler, on up through the most craven and bloodthirsty of Latin American dictators intent on the accumulation of wealth and power. As devastating as the Enron debacle has been to the thousands that were defrauded, it was only the tip of this titanic iceberg of deception that has steamrolled America into this unending killing field.  Our treasury has served as the personal piggybank to the greedy pigs who claim to love America as they pick our pockets and go out golfing, shooting and indulging their purient interests with the arrogance of those who fear no consequence.  There must be an accounting - of how Enron was enabled, how Haliburton et al enriched themselves at our expense, and all the war profiteering that has gone unchallenged to the severe detriment of Americans at home and those brave men and women who have given their lives and limbs for such a perverted cause. There can be no moving foward for us as a true democracy without holding those responsible for the last 6 years of destruction, thievery and mass murder committed in our name.  Bush & his corrupt cronies must be held accountable for their crimes against humanity.  This is the way to display what it means to be a democracy to the world, certainly not by the point of a gun. By proving our committment to justice and our disdain for corrupt power mad ‘evil’ leaders, we just might spread democracy around the world just cause it works.

I agree with B (#33289) that to hope for serious investigations into Republican corruption by the Democratic party is wishful thinking. As the LA Times editorial reported a few days ago, Republican members of Congress do not have a monopoly at passing legislation that will personally enrich them, such as funds for a highway that will increase the value of a property they happen to own. And does anybody remember Robert Byrd’s book? Going further back, it is also worthy to remember that segregation was not a Republican invention…

In fact, had the Democratic party wanted to sweep away neocon politics, all it had to do was to echo and publish the very legitimate doubts on the official federal explanation into the 9/11 attacks instead of doing its part to cover it up.

I have deep doubts that a Democratic takeover of one house will clean up Washington. It is much more likely that it will get into deal-cutting: “Democrats won’t investigate this if Republicans grant them that.”

What will it take to clean up Washington for good? Maybe a wake-up and self-cleaning of the Republican party, coming back to its senses, and to its roots of liberalism and integrity.

Texas is a state were crooks are in every fiber
of goverment. This cow state has the distinction of hosting two financial melt downs. The Savings and loan and Enron. The Bush family was involved in both. Lets not forget that George and his Florida brother have a tract record of fleeing the tax payers. Historians will one day uncover all the Bush decay but until then Texas can host another melt down, please stand by.

IN THE WORDS OF A GREAT PHILOSOPHER...I don´t know whether to shit or go blind!
It is perfectly obvious that we have degenerated into unrepentant gangs fighting each other in Washington for the entertainment of the voting public. That way we will not notice all the shenanigans till we see the effects such as Enron.
HOW THE HELL DO WE GET BACK FROM HERE? DO YOU OR ANYONE THINK WE HAVE A CHINAMAN´S CHANCE OF EVER REVERSING THESE LAWS AND GETTING BACK TO SOME SORT OF REASONABLE SITUATION THAT ALLOWS FOR A DECENT LIFE FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES?

Since he’s dead now, first it shows how much pressure a full scale federal prosecution feels like for a defendant. Second, because there will be no appeal the real details mentioned in this article will never be revealed. At least not by Kenny Boy.

mandatory voting to cure the apathy....too late though as iran is next...my oh my

Iraq is just one more indication the Bushco criminals think oil is more valuable than blood. It’s truly a shame our brave soldiers continue at risk for these crooks, liars, and thieves. Time to ‘flip the script’ folks to the page marked Democrat. Despite the fact many of them are just as bad & just as bought off by corporate interests they still are the ‘evil of two lessors’.

The biggest problem we face is how to get ALL these crooks out of our government, especially when we have an election system thoroughly corrupted by financial influence. (On a news program last night it said $2.6 Billion is being spent on the upcoming election, and that is a financial indicator of how truly sick our system has become)

I have been posting this first step about how to fix our compromised voting system on every blog site, to as many friends as possible, and around the country to major printed media, yet the only feedback I seem to get is from friends. I would appreciate more, even if it is an opportunity to further explain points or answer objections.

The first step in preventing further travesties like the Enron debacle, or the rise in power of people like & surrounding the BusCo “Mafia”, is to have knowledge we can put people in positions to serve the people instead of them just being self-serving. We have good, honest, un-corrupted, and capable people in this country, who have great ideas of how to bring our country back to being a beacon of democracy, but they have great difficulty getting their foot in the door.

Anyway, here is a better election system. Feel free to post it anywhere, mail it to anyone, or print it up & pass it out. It’s given freely because I love my country and refuse to remain powerless in the face of people like Lay, Skilling, Cheney, or the Bush family:

=================================================
“A Better Election System” By Paul Magill Smith 3-8-2K6

The latest round of corruption in our government stems from the biggest executive crime of all. In collusion with the Supreme Court our glorious president/dictator/tyrant “stole” the election of 2000, with another criminal (Tom DeLay) “stole” a majority in the house through re-districting, and with corporate henchmen in Diebold & Company “stole” another presidency in 2004. Whether you agree with the presidential election results or not there were statistical anomolies, and thousands of citizen complaints that should have required greater scrutiny & inquiry.

Since the 2000 presidential election our national coffers have been looted to the tune of trillions of dollars, and with almost three more years to go in this theocratic oligarchy there is still much more damage to come. Our financial ruin, through an unsustainable balance of trade deficit, massive fiscal deficits, and a consolidation of wealth in the hands of a few individuals & corporations, bodes ill for generations of Americans to come---IF there are generations to come after the effects of global warming, a state of perpetual global war, and depleted uranium have their way with us.

A bleak picture-yes-but there is cause for hope. Going under the assumption most Americans have a streak of common sense, and an inbred respect for ‘the rule of law’, the first step toward retrieving our now stolen democracy is restoring honesty to our electoral process. Accountability, verifiability, and transparency are not luxuries; they are necessities if democracy in America (the world) is to be viable.

With these considerations in mind I propose an entirely new election system for this country. It uses, for the most part, existing equipment & technology already in place throughout the entire country, and would only require the development of some software. Election expenses would be reduced, election theft would become a thing of the past, and national referendums on key issues would become a possibility. The ‘will of the people’ would become king, instead of the preferences of King George/Dick/Karl/Donald/ etc.

So here is the idea. Currently in the US there are 368,000 ATM machines. They are easy to use (even from a car), provide a paper trail, accessible by use of a card with security features, and very accurately keep track of billions of transactions every month (a 1% accuracy error, which is acceptable for most elections, would land bankers out of their jobs & very likely jailed).

OK, so the first part deals with voting at ATM’s, except when they are being used for elections they would become AVM’s (Automatic Voting Machines).

The issue of verifiability would be very simple also. Since each registered voter would receive their own magnetic credit-card type, individually numbered card (requiring a personalized identification number-PIN-to make it work), each voter would have a specific number, and security that they were the only one who had the secret code to access the AVM.

Elections would start on Friday at 6 PM and end on Sunday at Midnight, eliminating long waiting lines that tend to discourage/disenfranchise voters.

Following an election their unique number, along with the way their vote was recorded would be published in the local paper & on the internet at a specific site. Since all the voter numbers could be placed in numerical order it would be easy to scan down the list to your number and verify your vote was cast for the person you wanted it to be.

If it was an election with candidates in a number of positions your vote would read as a multi-character number. An example would be 1324113 in which you voted for 7 different people for as many electable posts. The AVM would have given you a hard copy receipt to be used to verify against the posted list. No one except you would know how you voted because it would just be a series of numbers on your receipt.

ATM’s are already linked to central computers, so collection of the total votes from all the machines should present very little problem. Election officials would be necessary at these institutions to verify all the votes were retrieved, but the elimination of officials at each precinct polling place would eliminate much of the costs of holding elections as with our current system.

As a further dis-incentive to election fraud, caused by computer tampering, if a certain percentage or number of voters provide their AVM receipt to election officials, and their vote code doesn’t match that of the central computers, the election results are AUTOMATICALLY declared void, resulting in a new election.

Since I have only begun thinking & writing about this new system I am sure there are many details to be considered and worked out. The bottom line is the current election system is broken, with millions of Americans lacking confidence in the extant election process & results.

As the world’s oldest democracy, holding our ‘system’ up as a model for budding or want-to-be democracies around the globe, it behooves us to make sure our own system is the best we can possibly make it, and the one others will wish to emulate. “Do as I say” is not good enough. If America is to ‘talk the talk’ we must ‘walk the walk’ also.

Paul Magill Smith
24 Oak Leigh Ct.
Richmond, VA 23238
804-360-9382
pmsinva2 at hotmail dot com

Connecting the dots and getting to the bottom of this story is going to be very difficult.  Much of the evidence collected by the SEC investigation was lost in the rubble of their offices in World Trade Center Building 7 on 9/11.  The building, which was not damaged by the terrorist attacks, collapsed later in the day in what appears to be an act of precisely controlled demolition.  Google WTC 7 to see the video and follow the threads of a possible conspiracy involving the building owner and two of the other tenants (the CIA and the Mayor).

There are other dimensions in addition to these so clearly laid out by Mr. Sheer.  Their auditors Arthur Anderson and other consultancies such as McKinsey & Co. also heavily contributed.  Anderson flamed out and yet McKinsey too seems untouched, although they made a significant contribution to Enron’s culture and management.

The outcome of the so called “energy crisis” was to blame Gray Davis on the economic collapse and remove him. Benifitting directly from this was Arnold Swartzenegger who was able to “become” governor in a field of over 10 running mates with a paltry 34% of the vote.

In the debate among frontrunners in this election was a question posed by Ariana Huffington on what was discussed in a meeting Swartzenegger attended one month before the “energy crisis” began with Ken Lay and others in Beverly Hills.  Arnold Swartzenegger acknowledged that he attended the meeting, but stated that he didn’t remember what the meeting was about.

That the two frontrunners for the Republican Nomination for Governor, Swartzenegger and Richard Riordan met with Ken Lay at this particular time raises many questions as to their complicity in Eron’s crimes and how Swartzenegger became Governor.

The questions raised here are of a great concern to me and I’m sure others who heard the debates and came away wondering why the meeting was held and what was discussed.

Given that Swartzenegger is again running for Governor, this issue should be brought to light and answers demanded.

If I am not mistaken, the so called energy policy was formulated by a team of former oil executives in Bush’s earlier years after his election.

I do not believe that kenny lay is dead. The job of civilization is to imprison all these houston assholes not just for theft, but for the obvious conspiracy to commit genocide in the Mid East.
Then, by seizing their assets ( all in all a theft of say 10 trillion dollars ), all of us humble folks they been fucking with will have our problems solved, and from time to time tune into that station with the 24 hour camera on the frothing bush and lay in that cell with that large rapist, so’s we can remember DAY ONE of JUSTICE ON EARTH.

What a boon it was for Shrub that Kenny Boy died. Here was a scandal that touched the retirement plans of most Americans. Now if Shrub were Clinton there would be an investigation and reinvestigation and howls for investigations into weather he had killed Kenny Boy to prevent the scandal from doing more harm to his presidency. Remember the Clinton agriculture secretary who died in a plane crash and the white house counsel who committed suicide etc etc?

Certainly Rep. John Conyers has been trying to investigate the criminal actions of BushCo.  However, the Liar in Chief still seems too confident about the Repugnanicans continuing to control Congress.  Only now, two weeks before the congressional elections, am I hearing anything about the problems with electonic voting.  Why wasn’t there manditory paper trails for all electronic voting? Oh yes, the Repugnanicans control Congress.

It would be nice to think that if the dems take control there would suddenly be some accountability in Washington for all the crimes of the “thief in chief”.
But I think that to hope for this to come from the dems is wishful thinking at best. Bush is probably the most impeachable president ever. That includes Nixon. What’s a little political shenanigans compared to the extensive list of crimes Bush and Co. have perpetrated?

B

http://b-political.blogspot.com/

Unchecked corporate power is the real reason behind the Iraq war and countless other disasters. What are we going to do about it?