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Today's
Stories
June
8, 2005
Jim
Hougan
Strange Bedfellows
Deep Throat, Bob Woodward and the CIA
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Exit Right, Advani: Unpardonable Acts of Statesmanship
Dave
Zirin
The Rotting Soul of the 49ers
Derrick
O'Keefe
Bush's Terrorist: the Case of Posada Carriles
Diana
Johnstone
Non, Neen, Angelene!
Why Defenders of the "Oui" are Wrong
Website
of the Day
The Meatrix
June
7, 2005
Forrest
Hylton
Bolivia's Agony of the Stalement Continues
Greg
Moses / Susan van Haitsma
Pushing Back the Violence
Lenni
Brenner
What Madison Would Think About the Air Force Academy's Offical
Fanatics
Col.
Dan Smith
Liberation vs. Survival in Iraq
Joshua
Frank
Dean at the DNC: the Establishment vs. the Elites
Dave
Lindorff
Fair-Weather Allies: US Denies French Fighters Emergency Landing
Rights
Margot
Veranes / Adrian Navarro
Xenophobia in the Desert: Racist Fever Becomes Law in Arizona
Michael
Neumann
Sharing Music: Property Gone Wild
June
6, 2005
Stew
Albert
Everybody Must Get Busted: Supremes
Rule Against the Sick
Paul
Craig Roberts
Federal Bureau of Entrapment
Nicole
Colson
Inside Walter Reed Hospital
Ali
Khan
Friendly Renditions to Muslim Torture
Chambers
Jason
Leopold
When Will Rumsfeld Be Indicted?
Charles
Walker Poff
Rumsfeld, China and Hypocrisy
Ramzy
Baroud
My Grandpa's Right of Return
Rep.
John Conyers
Did Bush Deliberately Deceive America About Iraq?
Evelyn
Pringle
TeenScreen's Top Pusher
Gary
Corseri
25 Reasons to Impeach Bush
Website
of the Day
Save This 200 Year Old Burr Oak from Bible Thumpers with Chainsaws
June
4 / 5, 2005
Alexander
Cockburn
France's Magnificent Non!
James
Petras
The Centrality of Peasant Movements
in Latin America
Robert
Fisk
Who Killed Samir?
Patrick
Cockburn
My Father, Claud Cockburn, the MI5 Suspect
Rev.
William Alberts
When Pride in Power Corrupts: the Story of a Methodist President,
His Bishops and an "Incompatible" Lesbian Minister
Saul
Landau
40 Interns and a Mule: Will the Dems Ever Take Advantage of the
Republicans' Blunders?
Mario
Lamo Jimenez
Dante with a Brush: Botero Immortalizes Bush
Dave
Lindorff
What is the Media Running From?
Lance
Selfa
Why Bush is Getting Away with Murder
Tom
Crumpacker
On the Use of State Terrorism: the Posada Precedent
Joshua
Frank
How Beltway Dems Sank Dean for America
Fred
Gardner
Don't Bogart That Taxable Commodity
Michael
Dickinson
Roll Out the Barrel: Blood, Oil and Baku
Roger
Martin
We Can See, But Not Far Enough
Reza
Fiyouzat
Welcome to the Third World
Ben
Tripp
Romance: Advice from a Pro
Graeme
Greenback
Pardon Me, While I Piss on this Bible
Poets'
Basement
Smith-Ferri, Albert, Engel, Smith
June
3, 2005
Paul
Craig Roberts
Welcome to a Has-Been Country
Joseph
Massad
Witch Hunt at Columbia
Jeff
Halper
The Process of Transfer Continues
Tom
Barry
The Immigration Debate: Whose Side Are You On?
Bruce
K. Gagnon
Bush Seeks Military Control of Space: "It's Our Destiny"
Joshua
Frank
Bombing Iran: Facts Don't Matter
Mickey
Z.
Deep Throat as Sideshow
Gary
Leupp
"Peddling Lies About How They
Were Mistreated"
Website
of the Day
Tattoo on My
Heart: Warriors of Wounded Knee, 1973
June
2, 2005
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Slave Traders of the Gitmo Gulag
Forrest
Hylton
Bolivia: the Agony of Stalemate
Mike
Whitney
Post-Mortem on the 4th Amendment: Warrants without Judges
Brian
Cloughley
Anarchy in Afghanistan; Ignorance in America
Mazin
Qumsiyeh
A Two-State Solution is No Solution
Russell
D. Hoffman
High Tension at San Onofre
Norman
Madarasz
"Le Jolie Mois de Mai": the Meaning of the French "Non"
Norman
Solomon
War Made Easy: from Vietnam to Iraq
David
Price
The Shallowness of Deep Throat
Website
of the Day
Fallujah on Film
June
1, 2005
James
Petras
Beyond Hypocrisy: the Deeper Meaning
of Posada
Justin
Delacour
Framing Venezuela: US Media Bias
Against Chavez
Edward
Jay Epstein
Was "Deep Throat" a Fictoid?
Omar
Barghouti / Lisa Taraki
The AUT Boycott: Freedom vs. "Academic"
Freedom
Dave
Lindorff
When War Goes Off the Script
Kevin
Zeese
Reality Check: Who to Believe on Iraq War and Gitmo?
Jason
Leopold
When Presidents Lie
William
S. Lind
Wreck It and Run
May
31, 2005
Sen.
Mike Gravel
Thank You, Mark Felt: We Need a New
Deep Throat
David
Krieger
US Nuclear Hypocrisy
Tad
Daley
The Nuclear Me-Too Club
Joshua
Frank
Pelosi at AIPAC: Israel Comes First
Richard
Gott
Chavez Leads the Way
Norman
Solomon
Time to Get Serious About Impeachment
Tom
Segev
Our Man in the Territories
Walter
Brasch
Killing Americans with Secrecy
Diana
Johnstone
The French "Non"
May
28 / 30, 2005
Alexander
Cockburn
There's Their Way or the Galloway
Richard
Lichtman
We Wuz Framed! the Consolations
of George Lakoff
Sharon
Smith
The Road to Abu Ghraib
Paul
Craig Roberts
Bush Opts for Civil War in Iraq
Dave
Lindorff
Whigged Out: the Dems Have Become
Merely a Vestigial Opposition Party
Ramzy
Baroud
Muslims Were Desecrated, Not Just
Their Holy Book
Brian
Cloughley
Why Are Nukes OK for You, But Not for Us?
Fred
Gardner
Advice from a Lawyer About Medical Pot
Lee
Sustar
Chavez Gets Proactive
Joshua
Frank
Isikoff Comes Clean: "Nobody in the US Said a Word, Until
the Riots"
Justin
E.H. Smith
What About the People? a Report from Romania
Jackie
Corr
A Montana History Lesson on Assfulness
Michael
Kimaid
Bush as Ahab
Toufic
Haddad
Lessons from the Reversal of the AUC Boycott
Justin
Taylor
The Fear of Paul Virilio
Amir
Butler
Searching for a Saladin
Ben
Tripp
Insomnia and Sarcasm
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Engel, Davies and Louise
May
27, 2005
Gary
Leupp
It Really is a Crusade!
Daniel
Estulin
Infiltrating Bilderberg 2005
Kevin
Zeese
Iraq Withdrawal Vote: If Walter "Freedom
Fries" Jones Can See the Light, Why Can't Nancy Pelosi?
Robert
Fisk
Mubarak's Goon Squads
Dave
Zirin
Why Pat Tillman's Parents Are No Longer
Silent
Website
of the Day
Stuckists
May
26, 2005
Yuki
Tanaka
Firebombing and Atom Bombing
Ray
McGovern
Bolton, the Monomaniac Who Would Be Ambassador
Arthur
Mitzman
Agenda for a Sustainable Europe
Jack
Random
Afghanistan: the Forgotten Occupation
Britt
Bailey and Brian Tokar
Big Food Strikes Back
Rebecca
Rush
The New Banana Wars: Chiquita's Threat to the Caribbean Islands
Jorge
Mariscal
Santiago v. Rumsfeld
Paul
Craig Roberts
Uncovering a DOJ Cover-up: The Murder of Kenneth Trentadue
Website
of the Day
The F Word
May
25, 2005
Camilo
Mejia
Prisoners of Conscience
Dave
Lindorff
Brain Dead Democrats
William
S. Lind
Of Cabbages, Cessnas and Kings
Chris
Floyd
Tattoo Nation: Abu Ghraib as Normalcy
Brian
Cloughley
The Stench of "Progress": the Torture and the Lies
Continue
Lenni
Brenner
The Plot to Stigmatize My Book on Nazi-Zionist Collaboration
Sean
Cain
A Review of Naomi Klein's "The Take"
Karl
Shepard
Extinction, Kansas and "Intelligent Design"
John
Ross
Sweet Revenge at Terminal Island
Website
of the Day
SWARM the Minutemen
May 24, 2005
Dave
Zirin
Palestine's Big Visitor: Not Laura,
but Ronaldo
Michele
Bollinger
Criminalizing Abortion in S. Carolina: Why Did Gabriela Flores
Go to Jail?
Winslow
Wheeler
The Pork War
Uri
Avnery
Wagner at the Holocaust Memorial
Michael
Donnelly
Behind the Green(back) Curtain
Joshua
Frank
Chavez's Economy: Is It Sustainable?
Stephen
Dunifer
The Folly of Media Reform
Paul
Craig Roberts
Is Bush a Sith Lord?
May
23, 2005
Esther
Sassaman / Thomas Nagy
An Exclusive Interview with George Galloway
Mike
Whitney
Free Jose Padilla: Three Years
in Prison, Not a Shred of Evidence
Ramzy
Baroud
Fallout from a Forged War: Battling Windmills While Iraq Burns
Michael
Dickinson
Pictures at an Exhibition: Censoring the "Carnival of Chaos"
Walter
Brasch
In Praise of Bob Barr
Dick
J. Reavis
The Newsweek Scandal: an Unmentioned Detail
Maria
Tomchick
Galloway and the US Press
Norman
Solomon
Let's Play "Media Jeopardy"
Kevin
Zeese
Inventing a Pretext for War: an Inte4rview with James Bamford
Website
of the Day
Drawings of Darfur: Genocide Through Children's Eyes
May
21 / 22, 2005
David
H. Price
CIA Skullduggery in Academia
Gabriel
García Márquez
My Visit to the Clinton White House, Bearing a Message from Fidel
on Terrorism
Oren
Ben-Dor
To Create Academic Freedom in Israel,
a Boycott is Needed
Gary
Leupp
Nights in White House Satin with Jeff Gannon
Laith
al-Saud
An Anatomy of the Iraqi Resistance
Elaine
Cassel
Bush and the Angry God: Twilight of Secular Democracy in America?
Greg
Moses
The Saints of Mischief and Halliburton
Fred
Gardner
Martyring Dr. Carol Wolman
Dave
Lindorff
The GOP's Police State
Alan
Maass
Uzbekistan's Karimov: Bush's Favorite Terrorist?
William
Blum
The American Myth Industry
Tom
Crumpacker
Send Posada Carriles to Venezuela
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Newsweek: a Contest of Hypocrisies
Doug
Giebel
The Grand Illusion
Evelyn
J. Pringle
No Child Left Unmedicated: TeenScreen, State-drugging and Suicide
Carolyn
Baker
Spiritual Abuse by the Religious Right
Chris
Floyd
Justice in JebWorld
Frederick
B. Hudson
Black and Gay?: a Review of "Brother to Brother"
Ben
Tripp
Him Talk Plenty Long Time: Busting the Filibuster
Poets'
Basement
Davies, Engel and Louise
May
20, 2005
Dave
Lindorff
Newsweek and White House Hypocrisy
Kevin
Zeese
As Insurgency Increases, New US Military
Recruits Fall
Paul
de Rooij
"Private": a Film in Search
of a Cliché
Christopher
Brauchli
How Insurance Companies Exploited 9/11
Mark
Engler
Triumph Over Debt?
Joshua
Frank
Bush to Dine with Porn Star
Robert
Jensen
TV Talk, No Evidence Required
Jeffery
R. Webber
Bolivia Erupts
May
19, 2005
Bill
Forman
An Interview with Alexander Cockburn
Stan
Goff
Hey, Democrats, Listen to Galloway and
Learn Something
Neve
Gordon
From Ghettos to Frontiers: What Will Happen After Israel Withdraws
from Gaza
Michael
Dickinson
The Trouble with Menwith: Tagging British Peace Activists
Karyn
Strickler
The Texas Nexus: How Racial and Political Gerrymandering United
Andrew
Freedman
Nazi Science at NIH
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Politics and Economics of Outsourcing
May
18, 2005
Jean
Bricmont
Vive La France?
Laura
Carlsen
Bush's Posada Carriles Quandry: an
Anti-Cuba Terrorist is Still a Terrorist
Mike
Whitney
The Secret Raids of Alberto Gonzales: 10,000 Swept Up
Joshua
Frank
Flushing the Koran: Why Newsweek Got It Right
George
Galloway
Thusly, I Humiliated Norm Coleman (and Christopher Hitchens)
Manuel
Garcia, Jr.
Writing Tickets for American War Crimes
Dwight
D. Eisenhower
How the GOP will Destroy Itself
Dave
Lindorff
The Plot to Make the PATRIOT Act
Even Worse
May
17, 2005
Mickey
Z.
GIs Behaving Badly
Petuuche
Gilbert
The People of Acoma Still Fight to
be Free
Paul
Craig Roberts
Lies That Kill: Why Isn't Bush in
the Dock?
Ramzy
Baroud
The New Palestinian Uprising
Robert
Jensen / Pat Youngblood
Pinning the Blame on Newsweek
Stan
Cox
Poisoning Patancheru: the Severe Side Effects of India's Drug
Industry
Dave
Zirin
American Anthem: Ozzie Guillen and Fining for Freedom
Diana
Barahona
Reporters Without Borders Unmasked
Website
of the Day
Revolutionary Flower Pot Society
May
16, 2005
Michael
Gillespie
The Family Released a Statement:
Death Notices for the Warrior Theocracy
Jason
Leopold
BP Stains the Arctic
Jesse
Muldoon
How Many Schools Left Behind?
Norman
Solomon
Media and the War: "The Bombs in Iraq Explode at Home"
Robert
Cray
Twenty
Patrick
Cockburn
Iraq is a Bloody No Man's Land
Website
of the Day
Bolton's Divorce Papers: She Took It All Away, Including Most
of the Furniture
May
14 / 15, 2005
Alexander
Cockburn
Join the 14 Per Cent Club!
Saul
Landau
Lessons from Vietnam: Wars Kill Empires as Well as People
Gary
Leupp
Whither Yale? Towards the Imperial University
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The Glory that is Lockhart, Texas
Ben
Tripp
The Wayward Airplane: a Cautionary Tale
Brian
J. Foley
Was Jesus Gay?
Tom
Barry
Bolton the Eavesdropper
Mitchell
Verter
Barbarous Oaxaca: Indigenous Rights Groups Meet the "Law
of the Club"
Mike
Ferner
War on COs: Army Files Additional Charges Against Kevin Benderman
Dan
Smith
Perceiving Darfur
Mark
Scaramella
Death with Pitfalls
Don
Fitz
Mommy, Is This a Finger in My Rice Puffs?: Splicing Human DNA
into the Food Chain
Diane
Farsetta
PR Industry Imitates Big Tobacco: the Senate's "Fake News"
Hearings
Michael
Dickinson
Soldier Crawling: Military Conscription in Turkey
Ron
Jacobs
The Jackson State Murders
Fred
Gardner
"Hydroponics? Ridiculous!": A Real Farmer Looks at
Medical Marijuana
Farrah
Hassen
Far From Heaven: a Review of Ridley Scott's "Kingdom of
Heaven"
Douglas
Valentine
50 Cent's Plea
Poets'
Basement
Louise, Ford, Engel, & Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Military Base Closings and the South
May
13, 2005
Tom
Stephens
A Chronology of US War Crimes and Torture, 1975-2005
Patrick
Cockburn
"They Destroyed Everything"
Mike
Whitney
Tom Friedman, Imperial Chronicler
Chris
Floyd
Miami Vice: the Sleazy World of Jeb Bush
Jenna
Orkin
Ground Zero's Toxic Dust
Dave
Lindorff
Googling for Fun
Joshua
Frank
Yale Fires an Acclaimed Anarchist Scholar:
an Interview with David Graeber
Website
of the Day
Botero: Pinta El Horror de Abu Ghraib
May
12, 2005
Paul
Craig Roberts
America is Losing: More Phony Jobs
Hype
Uri
Avnery
Death of a Myth
Greg
Moses
Neo-Con Logic at the Border
Carolyn
Baker
The Politics of Dominionism: the New Religious Right in America
Pat
Williams
Amateurish High Jinks on Roadless Areas
William
S. Lind
Reality Gap: the Myth of US Invincibilty
Jack
Random
The Dubious Wisdom of George W. Bush
Gary
Leupp
Douglas Feith Bares His Soul to Jeffrey Goldberg
May
11, 2005
Patrick
Cockburn
The Rise, Fall and Rise of Ahmed
Chalabi: King of Jordan to Pardon His $300 Million Bank Swindle
Kevin
Zeese
The Occupation Gets More Saddam-like
Every Day
Christopher
Brauchli
Coffee, Tea or Torture?: A One Way Ticket to Uzbekistan
Zalman
Amit
The Collapse of Academic Freedom in
Israel: Tantura, Teddy Katz and Haifa University
Robert
Shull
Carte Blanche for the Terror Cops:
Senate Gives DHS Power to Waive All Laws
Mike
Whitney
God, Gays, and George Bernard Shaw
Dr.
Teresa Whitehurst
Anti-Arabic Week at a Southern High School
Norman
Solomon
Political Bluster and the Filibuster
May
10, 2005
Richard
Drayton
The Imperial Mythology of WW II:
an Ethical Blank Check
Dave
Zirin
Steve Nash's Brilliant Year: Anti-War
Hoopster Wins NBA's MVP
Jackie
Corr
The Medicare Catch: Mrs. O'Hara's Windfall
Dave
Lindorff
Silence of the Scams: Economists
on China
Michael
Donnelly
From Roadless to Clueless: the Great
Stillborn Eco Victory
Reza
Fiyouzat
Nomadic Abstracts
Scott
Parkin
Taking Direct Action Against Halliburton
Stephen
Babcock
The Burden of Knowing Better
Alan
Farago
Florida, Water and Lobbyists
Michael
Neumann
Naomi's Courage
Website
of the Day
One Nation Under Plagiarism
May
9, 2005
Louis
Proyect
Shilling for Chevron: Jared Diamond,
Greenwasher
Robert
Fisk
"Mission Accomplished": the Occupation, Year Two
Kevin
Zeese
Concientious Objection on Trial: the Court Martial of Keith Benderman
Joshua
Frank
Kerry Bashes Gay Marriage
Sasha
Kramer
A Mother's Day Call for Justice in Haiti's Prisons
Andrew
Wimmer
Create and Resist
Jeffrey
Webber
Back to the Streets in Bolivia?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Straight to Bechtel
May
7 / 8, 2005
Alexander
Cockburn
Who Beat Hitler?
Gary
Leupp
Biblical Prophecy and Christian Zionism
Saul
Landau
Pope Torquemada: Purges, Pedophiles and Cover-Ups
Joe
DeRaymond
Autumn of the Revolutionary: Another Look at Daniel Ortega
Daniela
Ponce
Seeing Chile in Nepal
Heather
Williams
Hollywood Does Enron
Gregory
Elich
Zimbabwe's Fight for Justice
Anis
Memon
To Cuba and Back
John
Chuckman
The Peculiar State: "Criticism of Israel is a Form of Anti-Semitism"
Mike
Whitney
Hard Right Rage Against the Truth
Ron
Jacobs
Re-Reading "Born on the Fourth of July" as the Iraq
War Grinds On
Colin
Kalmbacher
Whither Disorder? Ann Coulter and the Texas Police State, Cont.
Lance
Selfa
Uprising in Mexico City
Fred
Gardner
"Getting High is a Little Like Cuba"
Ben
Tripp
Letters on Wittgenstein
Mickey
Z.
The Mother of All Days
Richard
Joseph
Those Patriotic Magnets
Dr.
Susan Block
Come As You Are: Masturbation 101
Poets'
Basement
Smith-Ferri, Louise, Nettnin, Engel and Albert
May
6, 2005
Patrick
Cockburn
Baghdad Diary: a Week of Bombs and
Blood
Erin
Yoshioka
Another "3 Strikes" Travesty:
Why is Santo Reyes Facing Life in Prison?
Sam
Husseini
Talking with Syrians
Dave
Lindorff
Ernie Pyle Where Are You? When Reporters were Reporters
Kevin
Zeese
Circus Trials of Abu Ghraib: When Even the Fall Girl Can't Plead
Guilty
Joshua
Frank
An Overextended US Military? It Won't Stop Another War
Dan
Bacher
Tribes and Salmon Win One: Bush Backs Off Trinity River Water
Raid
P.
Sainath
India's Bloody Water Wars
May
5, 2005
Carles
Mutaner
Is Chavez's Venezuela "Socialist"
or "Populist?"
Carl
G. Estabrook
Is There Any Hope for the Pope?
Farrah
Hassen
The US's Syrian Obsession
Kevin
Zeese
"Sent Into Combat Unequipped and Unprepared": an Interview
with Patrick Resta
Michael
Leonardi
May Day with an American Soldier in Rome
Bennett
Ramberg
The Future of Nuclear Terror: Coming to a Reactor Near You
Ray
McGovern
The Smoking Gun on White House Deceit
Norman
Solomon
Nuclear Fundamentalism, the New York Times and Iran
Nicole
Colson
The Back Alley Attack on Abortion Rights
Brian
Concannon, Jr.
Clearing the Fences in Haiti
May
4, 2005
Colin
Kalmbacher
Ann Coulter and the Police State:
Heckle a Racist, Get Arrested
John
Walsh
Al Franken is a Big Fat Phony: Lying
on Air America to Support the War
Greg
Moses
Vigilante Wedge: Schwarzenegger Reprises
"Birth of a Nation"
Ali
Khan
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Poised to Fall Apart
Chris
Floyd
Ring Them Bells
Linda
S. Heard
D-Day for Tony Blair: Bogeymen and Scare Tactics
Dave
Zirin
The NFL, Congress and the Male Cheerleader Principle
William
S. Lind
Fool's Paradise
Gary
Leupp
Bolton's Proudest Moment: Breaking
the UN's Anti-Zionist Resolution
Website
of the Day
Kent State, May 4, 1970
May
3, 2005
Dave
Lindorff
Bush has Grasped the Third Rail,
Now Turn on the Juice
Brian
Cloughley
Halliburton's War Loot
Ira
Kurzban
Death Squad Diplomacy: How Bolton Armed Haiti's Thugs and Killers
Seth
Sandronsky
Towards Debtors' Prisons?
Gilad
Atzmon
The Labour Party Isn't an Option Any More
Michael
Donnelly
Branding Eco Collapse
Alex
Sanchez
Chile's Man at the OAS: a Blow to Bush?
Peter
Linebaugh
Magna Carta and May Day
May
2, 2005
Ron
Jacobs
Toward an Anti-Imperialist Movement
Stan
Goff
The Case of Hasan Akbar
Karyn
Strickler
Achieving Gender Balance in US Politics
Joshua
Frank
Leaked UK Memo Indict's Blair's Iraq Folly
Kevin
Zeese
Getting Out of Iraq will Prove Tougher Than Getting Out of Vietnam
Vicente
Navarro
Pope Benedict: a Rightwing Politician
April
30 / May 1, 2005
Alexander
Cockburn
Marla Ruzicka, Rachel Corrie and
"Credibility"
Gabriel
Kolko
Lessons from a Total Defeat: the End
of the Vietnam War, 30 Years Later
Jennifer
Loewenstein
The Disengaged: Gaza and the Fragmentation of Palestinian Nationhood
Lee
Sustar
City for Sale: Richard Daley's Chicago
Saul
Landau
The Bush-DeLay Axis of Naked Power
T.W.
Croft
The Undiscovered Country: the High Tide of the Neo-Con Confederacy
Nikolas
Kozloff
Fox News v. Hugo Chavez
William
Blum
Never-Ending Double Standards
Dave
Lindorff
Judicial Jury Tampering in Philly
Joshua
Frank
The Bi-Partisan Assault on Teenage Girls
Doug
Giebel
Saving Jane Fonda
Steven
Erlanger
A Response to Kathy Christison, from the NYT Jerusalem Bureau
Chief
Fred
Gardner
Washington State Doctor Harassed
Mike
Whitney
Another Mad Bush Press Conference
Kurt
Nimmo
Putin Pussyfoots in Palestine
Joe
DeRaymond
A Short History of the 15th Congressional District of Pennsylvania
Michael
Dickinson
Flags
Mickey
Z.
May Day at Yankee Stadium
Justin
Taylor
The Crawling Chaos: HP Lovecraft's Polymorphous Legacy
Poets
Basement
Krieger, Engel, Albert, St. Clair
Website
of the Weekend
Save Barbados's Cowpastor
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
June 8, 2005
Enron Lives!
Former
Army Secretary Thomas White Wants Government Funding for New
Energy Project
Beware. This could be your tax dollars
at work.
The federal government may guarantee hundreds of millions of
dollars in loans to help a former energy executive who publicly
admitted he had no idea that the division he once ran cooked
its books and who is now trying to secure funding for a new
energy company he started with three ex-colleagues.
Yes, Thomas White, the former vice chairman of Enron Energy Services
and one-time Secretary of the Army, who testified before the
U.S. Senate more than two years ago that he was clueless about
the tactics the employees who worked for him used to manipulate
electricity prices in the California power market in addition
to the massive losses EES-under his leadership-hid in an effort
to keep its parent company, Enron Corp, temporarily afloat, is
back in the energy business and this time he's looking for a
handout.
(Full disclosure: I spent a year investigating White and wrote
a lengthy news story in August 2002 that tied Thomas White to
the fraud at Enron, specifically that he was aware the division
he ran was hiding losses and that he instructed an underling
to cover up losses from a particular energy contract. The story,
published by Salon.com, was removed two months after it was posted
because a single email I obtained proving the allegations was
called into question by right-wing journalists and the White
House. I was discredited and falsely accused of plagiarism by
Salon. To this day, not one reporter has ever followed up on
the story or has proved that the email wasn't authentic, despite
the fact that two years after the story was first published the
allegations, detailed in a federal indictment against former
Enron CEO Jeff Skilling, proved to be true.)
The federal energy bill that's currently making the rounds
through the Senate contains a provision that provides federal
loan guarantees for "a project to produce energy from coal
mined in the western United States and offers the potential
to sequester carbon dioxide emissions and shall be located in
a western State at an altitude greater than 4,000 feet,"
the energy bill states.
According to the watchdog group
Public Citizen, White and his business partners are trying to
secure funding for a project to produce energy from coal in Wyoming,
specifically, "a $2.8 billion coal gasification project
in Medicine Bow, Wyoming. The coal will be supplied from Arch
Coal mines neighboring the power facility; it will stuff carbon
dioxide emissions into oil wells; and the facility will be located
in a western state (Wyoming) at an altitude above 4,000 feet."
But when contacted about the possibility of funding an energy
project run by a person such as White, whose business acumen
is questionable at best, an aide to Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colorado,
who was responsible for drafting the language in the energy bill,
became alarmed and claimed the text in the energy bill was written
specifically to fund an energy project proposed to lawmakers
by executives with Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy and PacifiCorp
in Portland and, possibly, a third unnamed company. Salazar wouldn't
comment on the specifics of the proposal because he said it hasn't
been publicly announced by the companies.
Yet Public Citizen's Tyson Slocum said in an interview that the
language in the energy bill is "very broadly written and
could very well accommodate other energy proposals" including
Thomas White's new project.
Slocum said he is concerned because he has heard that White has
been actively lobbying lawmakers to try and get loan guarantees
for his new energy venture.
Senator "Salazar and the energy committee is saying that
the language that's written in the bill is not intended to fund
White's project but White's company does qualify because of the
way the bill is written."
It's been two years since Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
fired Thomas White. Since then, White has kept himself busy writing
a book, preparing his $15 million Florida for sale, and quietly
getting back into the field that made him a very rich and reviled
man.
White's new endeavor, DKRW Energy (whose symbol has an eerie
resemblance to Enron's crooked E), is a joint business venture
started in 2000 by three other former Enron executives: Robert
C. Kelly, formerly the chairman and chief executive of Enron
Renewable Energy, Jon C. Doyle, who worked at Enron in an executive
capacity under Kelly and H. David Ramm, who used to be president
and CEO of Enron Wind and was a co-managing director of Enron
Renewable Energy, according to the bio's on the company's website.
White joined DKRW last year. The company, formerly known as DKR
Development, changed its name to DKRW after White promised his
partners that his connections to Washington, D.C. lawmakers would
help the company secure federal funding for various renewable
energy projects, according to two people who are close to White.
Interestingly, though, there's not a single reference to White's
tenure at Enron on his bio. Instead, White's bio states that
he "has 11 years experience in energy markets."
So what's he hiding?
Maybe it's the fact that the division he once ran, EES, turned
out to be largely responsible for the massive losses that contributed
heavily to Enron's bankruptcy; or that under his leadership the
same division was responsible for jacking up electricity prices
in California and creating artificial electricity shortages that
resulted in widespread blackouts. Maybe it's the dozens of calls
he made to his former Enron colleagues, a month after 9/11, while
he was serving as Army Secretary, to get the inside scoop on
what was going on at the company right before he sold his stock.
It's hard to say. Neither White nor anyone at DKRW responded
to numerous calls for comment about the suspicious omission of
his former employer from his bio. But this isn't the first time
White's tried to erase the past. When White was tapped by President
Bush in May 2001 to serve as Secretary of the Army his bio, posted
on the Pentagon's website, was virtually wiped clean of any reference
to Enron. White also co-authored a book with new business partner
Kelly on postwar planning in Iraq, in which his author bio listed
his two year stint as Army Secretary but failed to mention that
he spent 10 years at Enron.
If White and his partners are going to be the recipients of federal
loan guarantees then taxpayers have the right to know that the
money is going to a corporate con man who and that they may be
on the hook for repaying the government hundreds of millions
of dollars in loans if White falls asleep on the job again which
he claimed was the case with Enron.
To be fair, Kelly, Ramm and Doyle left Enron well before the
company's bankruptcy and fraudulent activities became public.
However, during Ramm and Kelly's tenure running the unit Enron
Wind and Enron Renewable, the division allegedly defrauded the
federal government, according to federal investigators.
A few months after Enron bought Portland General Electric in
February 1997, Enron's three wind farms - Zond Windsystems, Victory
Garden and Sky River - applied to the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission for recertification as qualifying facilities. To qualify,
the farms had to be independently owned, according to a 1978
federal law.
Under that law, intended to lessen dependence on foreign oil
by cutting demand for traditional fossil fuels, FERC designates
which facilities qualify and oversees the rates that the producers
charge buyers.
Each wind farm promised FERC that Enron would transfer ownership
to partnerships that would not be affiliated with Enron. In June
of 1997, FERC recertified the wind farms as qualified to sell
wholesale electricity to U.S. utilities having been under the
impression that Enron transferred its ownership stake in them.
However, civil and criminal lawsuits filed against Enron former
Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow, the mastermind behind
the company's schemes, in federal court in Houston alleged he
and other Enron executives created special partnerships to hide
the company's stake in the three wind farms.
"Fastow, and one of his subordinates, Michael Kopper,
created "Friends of Enron" partnerships to enable Enron
to maintain control over the wind farms after having ostensibly
sold them to supposedly independent "Special Purpose Entities,"
according to an Oct. 28, 2002 report in bizjournals.com.
"The Securities & Exchange Commission has alleged that
Fastow and Kopper created off-balance-sheet partnerships to disguise
Enron's interest in the wind farms so that they could continue
to receive beneficial regulatory treatment while secretly remaining
under Enron's control."
Kelly and Hamm were never named in the government's investigation
of Enron nor is there any evidence that either of them knew about
or took part in Fastow's schemes involving the wind farms.
But White, on the other hand, is another story. The federal government's
indictment against Enron's Jeff Skilling lays out in detail that
the division White ran was nothing but a house of cards, its
energy contracts a sham, and that company executives misled investors
about the unit's true financial condition. And while White testified
that he stood behind the company's energy contracts, was unaware
of the malfeasance that went on at Enron, that he was totally
in the dark about the shenanigans at EES, a former employee is
on the record saying that White knew otherwise.
In the Enron documentary, "The
Smartest Guys in the Room," an ex-EES is employee recalls
asking White how EES is going to make up for massive losses the
division suffered during a particular quarter.
"One word," the employee
said he recalled White telling him and a few other people. "California."
Jason Leopold is the author of the explosive memoir,
News Junkie, to be released in early 2006 by Process/Feral House
Books. Visit Leopold's website at www.jasonleopold.com
for updates.
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