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America's Only E-Paper That Comes Out Every 5 or 11 Days!!TAKE ME TO The Fictional Times!
Established April 17, 2001
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A Fictional Times News & Analysis Special Report by Gilbert Hurricane, Mort Smepp, Biff Revox, and Heather Boutique |
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Washington, D.C. - (GNS) Pre-Scandal Status (Pre-Scan III) Ordered By Congressional Scandal Office Barely a year into his first term, President Bush faced the beginnings of a problem that may become a scandal that may threaten his presidency. Known currently as "Enron", after the corporation that pushed for and used deregulation of the energy industry to accumulate vast sums for its top executives while destroying the lives of more people than were killed at the World Trade Center, Leading Indicators pointed strongly to the possibility that it will be classfied as a Scandal and be known as "Enrongate" before April. The Congressional Scandal Office, created during the post-Nixon years, ordered the designation Pre-Scan III last Friday, conferring on Enron full Pre-Scandal status, according the CSO Director Winchell Ripley. "Pre-Scandal Status does not automatically lead to Scandal Status," Ripley explained. "There are two more levels of Pre-Scandal, Pre-Scan II and Pre-Scan I before Scandal Status is official. This could remain in stasis, increase in intensity, or we could return to where we were last Summer, Pre-Scan V, which is really the same as No-Scan I," he said. So far, President Bush has distanced himself from the scandal by convincing reporters to report that he has distanced himself from the scandal. But with eight Congressional committees and a press corps not allowed to cover the war on evil, terrorism and bad stuff, the traditional collision between the press and the President may be revisited very soon. No Sex Found Yet In Scandal There is concern among those who want the issue to gain traction that there is no sex, just money, power and corruption on a scale, according to one analyst, that "makes Whitewater look like your penny collection." Although charged with something-or-other having to do with a land investment of less than half a million dollars, former President Clinton was brought to the brink of removal from office because of a dogged insistence that blowjobs from interns violated the Constitution and disgraced the White House. "Thousands of people got screwed by Enron directly, and millions got screwed by their evisceration of energy regulations, but it appears nobody got a blowjob," said one congressional investigator, who preferred to remain anonymous. "We think the American public feels just as strongly about corruption and theft as it does about sex, but given the attention Clinton received, and the lack of attention the S&L scandal and the connections of that to Bush the Elder received, we're just not sure this scandal has traction," the investigator said. "I Did Not Have Conversation With That Man" Bush Declares What investigators, reporters and pundits are sure of is that President Bush has a relationship, perhaps even a friendship, with Kenneth Lay, the man who flushed so many lives down the proverbial toilet. President Bush was emphatic at a press conference he held during the holidays at Crawford, Texas, insisting he had not spoken to Lay recently or in many months. When asked about his relationship with the Enron CEO and if there were conversations in the summer and fall while Enron was deceiving its employees, its auditors, the government, and the public, and lobbying with Vice President Dick "Richard" Cheney about even more largesse from the Federal government, Bush replied in no uncertain terms, "I did not have conversation with that man." Left unexplained was whether or not the word "conversation" has only one meaning, or if the country will be faced to deal with the concept that it depends on the meaning of the word "conversation". It was reported yesterday that Lay and other Enron executives did call Cabinet officers to try to arrange for special favors. According to investigators, all indications are those requests were turned down, but tapes and memos relating to those conversations have yet to surface. There is no evidence yet that Bush did anything directly to help Enron, other than selecting Cheney as Vice President and placing the Vice President in charge of a national energy plan. Nor is there any evidence he had any knowledge of Enron's pending collapse. "If they ask me what did I know and when did I know it, the answer is I knew nothing and always knew nothing," Bush declared. While some analysts have always suggested Bush knew nothing, other analysts have suggested that this would be another parallel with Bush the Elder's administration. "His father said 'Read my lips', the son said 'Over my dead body'. His father said 'I was out of the loop', the son said 'I know nothing'," noted popular historian Stephen Ambrosia.  Entire Justice Dept., Led By Ashcroft, Recuses Itself Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the investigation late last week. His lead was followed at first by the entire staff of the Justice Department in Houston, and then by the entire Federal Justice Department. "There were so many administrators and policy-makers in the Bush Administration who had worked for Enron, who had Enron stock, or who had been part of the secret Cheney-Enron Energy Plan meetings that shortly after the Justice Department recused itself, most of the Federal Government recused itself," according to un-named sources at the Un-named Source Bureau of the Wall Street Journal & Apologizer. Bureau Of Indian Affairs Will Conduct Enron Investigation As of the end of the week, the Undersecretary of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in charge of small pox blankets and withholding oil fund payments was going to lead the Federal investigation and possibly prosecute the case. "I have great confidence that Undersecretary Custer will do a thorough job," Ashcroft said, handing the single-page file that represents the sum of the investigation to date to Custer. Custer, dead since 1876, said he had not even heard of Enron and was therefore the only one in the government who could proceed impartially. Ashcroft dismissed the need for a Special Prosecutor. "No, no, no, that's not necessary," he said in a short, legal opinion included in his six-word speech to the Oil Executives Of America at their annual Golden Parachute Banquet last week. Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell: "It's The War, Stupid" News of the scandal has challenged the administration's focus on the war and brought back the haunting presence of the senior Bush administration's defeat, caused, many historians suggest, by Bush The Elder's focus on foreign policy and his inattention to the economy. "It's the war, stupid," became the slogan of top policy-makers in this administration as the issue came closer and closer to being labelled a scandal. "It's the war, stupid," bristled Secretary of War Rumsfeld, "and anyone who wants to bring this president down with a perfectly legal investigation into corruption and illegal influence peddling better think about the consequences." "It's the war, stupid," declared NSA Director Condoleeza Rice, "and anyone who undermines the president during this war could end up in Guantanamo." "It's the war, stupid," said Secretary of Hoodog Colin Powell, "and anyone who tries to bring up the Taliban's visit to Texas in 1997 and the scheme to takeover Afghanistan to build a pipeline for Big Oil is losing focus." "It's the war, stupid," said Ari Fleischer, who wore a t-shirt with the slogan to the press briefing on Friday. Fleischer said the military was considering allowing the press to cover the war "more like they did in Vietnam," if the press would ignore Enron until after the elections in November. "C'mon guys, be patriotic," he said. "Pretty please!" Media Attempt To Focus On Hockey Dads, Ignore Enron, Fails In what many have called a failure of the system or an entension of the breakdown of western culture, interest in the so-called Hockey Dads trial failed to garner sufficient attention and divert the public from their interest in Enron's collapse and its relations with the Bush family and administration. "We did our best," said a reporter from CNN, which carried long live segments of the Hockey Dads trial even as there was breaking news about Enron, "but even though people were interested, it just didn't have the same draw as Jon Benet or Chandra Levy. We're looking into that, trying to learn what elements are necessary to hold the public's attention in cases that really don't effect their livelihood or welfare or security." Some analysts suggested that if two Cindy Crawford-like Soccer moms had fought to the death, ripping each others' clothes off in the process, it may have been a better, longer diversion from news that counts. "More people are involved in Soccer than Hockey," said one pseudo-political science professor at a major midwestern university in western Nebraska. "And Cindy Crawford in a ripped blouse, well, that compelling image speaks for itself," he added. Other analysts suggested that sports now has limits as to its diversionary powers. "People have seen alot of violence around sports, and there's a gazillion teams. I think they're looking for a new diversion, but beyond sex, drugs, celebrity worship, religion and food, I don't know what it could be," said Hubert Murkey, Barbara Walters Professor of Talk Shows at the University of Dubuque. Many analysts agree that the bottom line might be there is a genuine interest in economic security and welfare and Enron may have what Watergate had: betrayal. "It's Jesus and Judas wrapped in one person," said Dr. Rance Mohamitz, Professor Emeritus of Singular Identities at Hazmat University. "People trust Bush, they applaud his efforts to save us from the evil-doers. But if he's betrayed us to the greedy foes of individual prosperity and national health, they'll crucify him." New York Times, CNN, to publish list of names and features about those ruined by Enron Pressure from the public to cover Enron has increased so much that the New York Times and CNN have decided to cover the issue similarly to the way they have covered the WTC tragedy. "A tragedy is a tragedy," said a reporter from the New York Times. "For the last several months, we've been running a list of names of the people killed at the WTC and the Pentagon, and we've been doing profiles of the people killed and the loved ones who survived. We call them 'Portraits of Grief'." She said the Times will begin publishing similar stories about the people who lost their life savings when Enron executives destroyed the company, and will run stories about the people throughout the country whose energy costs went up because of Enron's schemes in the marketplace. "People's lives were destroyed, people's lives were damaged. If it's news when a crazy, violent terrorist group does it because they hate America, it's also news when a corporation chooses an outlaw path because they hate justice and fairness and believe only in greed," said a CNN reporter who was fired after talking with The Fictional Times. Several pundits in the last week have written of what they are calling Economic Terrorism and Corporate Terrorism. "We live in fear of Al Qaeda bombs, we live in fear of White Supremacist groups with Anthrax and truck bombs, now it appears we have to live in fear of corporate power; raw, naked, unregulated, unrestrained, undemocratic, anti-democratic corporate power," wrote William Safron in the New York Times. |
"I guess if we were still allowed to observe irony, post-911, it would be fair to say that their view was the stability of energy prices and reliability of corporations had to be crushed. What Communism, OPEC and the Taliban failed to do, Enron succeeded in doing."
"Enron Was The Elvis Of Energy" Estimates of the economic damage done and financial hardships caused by Enron's cavalier approach to business vary. The company was once celebrated throughout the corporate world as the renegade with an approach that would revolutionize business in the 21st Century. Fortunate Son Magazine, in its April 2000 issue, actually compared Enron's fresh challenge toward business to the challenge Elvis Presley issued to rock 'n roll. "They described American business as a place where old farts danced to Guy Lombardo when suddenly Elvis bursts into the room in his gold suit and starts rocking the joint," said Guy Fawks, a columnist from The Luddite Alumni Magazine. "They described themselves and were described as radicals. I guess if we were still allowed to observe irony, post-911, it would be fair to say that their view was the stability of energy prices and reliability of corporations had to be crushed. What Communism, OPEC and the Taliban failed to do, Enron succeeded in doing," said another pundit who used to be paid for his writing, before irony was designated a Class E Felony. Bush Administration officials and publications like the Wall Street Journal & Apologizer have spent much time and print arguing that all Enron did was lie to its accounting firm, Andersen, and that the real crimes were probably committed by Andersen, not Enron. "Andersen destroyed thousands of memos, millions of sheets of paper. They were being paid a million a week as a consultant. If anything should be investigated, it's Andersen and other accounting firms," insisted one anonymous White House source who bore a strong resemblance to Ari Fleischer. Another White House source suggested that accounting firms and accounting requirements be eliminated. "You want a free market, then free the corporations from the accountants," he said. Congress Weighs 'War On Corporate Terrorism' Of the eight Congressional investigations now underway, two portend the most danger to the Bush presidency: The Committee On What Did He Know And When Did He Know It?, chaired by Senator Joseph Biden (D. - Hairplant), and The Committee To Investigate Corporate Terrorism, a joint Senate-House committee chaired by Senator Paul Wellstone (D.-MN) and Congressman Bob Barr (D.-GA). The Corporate Terrorism committee was created to look into Enron and the power a corporation has not only to disrupt and destroy the lives of its employees, but also to create such chaos in the marketplace that the lives of millions of American consumers are also economically damaged. Analysts say this committee could put Bush on the hotseat in that he would have to dismiss, reject and condemn corporations who helped elect him and who stand for the kind of frontier capitalism that he embraces, or he would have to try to defend them in the face of growing condemnation of these activities by the public at large. "Telling Americans that he's going to look into the way corporations deal with pension plans, that he's going to put together a "working group" who will report to him, well that's alot like the FBI and CIA saying they realize now they'd better start doing their job. It raises the question, 'Where have you been'," Senator Wellstone would have said if he were on the ball. But Barr may be able to block a thorough investigation of corporate terrorism, and the committee may end up calling people like George Stephanopoulus, Laura Ingraham and William Bennett, who, according to most analysts, will simply "blather and bloviate". Enron Execs Could Face Military Tribunals If the Committee On Corporate Terrorism were to conclude that the actions of the Enron executives warrant charges of terrorism, those executives could face trial by Military Tribunal. "There's alot of hoops before we get to that," said one attorney for the committee, "but it is a possibility, and would certainly be good television." Many political analysts say that while a strong penchant for justice is stirring in the American soul, there is also a bloodlust that has not been fully mitigated by the bombing of most of Afghanistan and the promise of justice. "There are alot of people who want to see somebody die, and killing John Walker is just not going to do the job. Now if it turns out Bin Laden and Mullah Omar are already dead, or if they end up getting talk shows on Fox TV or ABC Radio Network, then someone else is going to have to die, and it could be Kenneth Lay," said one analyst. Military tribunals at Nuremberg prosecuted, sentenced, jailed and hung Nazis who were involved in the business of war as well as the killing in war. If a case is made that Enron's actions, and the actions of anyone who helped Enron, damaged the American economy, especially in a time of precarious ecomonic stability and war, then those people could end up facing a military tribunal and a rope. Brits Offer To Send 'Justicekeeping Force' To Ensure Enron Investigation Is Fair British Prime Minister and Steadfast Ally Who Has No Equals Tony Blair offered to send a "Justicekeeping Force" to the United State to help with the investigation and "prevent outbreaks of partisanship, illegal wiretapping, false moralizing, witch-hunting, and queer interpretations of the law, such as occurred during the Clinton administration scandals and the 2000 election." "We are prepared to send barristers and inspectors from Scotland Yard at a moment's notice," Blair said. "SAS has helicopters, submarines and jet planes standing by to dispatch help the minute it is requested," he said. Blair said he was proud that Americans had adopted a system of justice based on the English system, "rather than, say, the Talibanese system." "The invisible hand of a deregulated marketplace has unleashed a visible curtain of greed," Blair said, in what he said he hoped would be known as his "Visible Curtain" speech. Blair said he may dispatch assistance even if it is not requested. "It is not in the interests of the anti-Evildoers Coalition to let America, our ally and good friend, tear itself apart. If that means sending troops, removing Bush and seating an interim president selected by the Queen, then so be it," he said. The Jeffords Factor The Committee To Investigate What Did He Know And When Did He Know It? may go farther than the Corporate Terrorism committee because it is a Senate Committee chaired by a moderate yet tirelessly, ceaselessly, doggedly, determinedly middle-of-the-road veteran of televised Senate Hearings, Sen. "Moderate" Biden. The fact that Biden chairs this committee is due entirely to the switch almost a year ago of Sen. John Jeffords from Republican to Independent, which gave the Democrats a majority-by-one in the Senate. If Jeffords had not switched, then Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R.-Co) or Senator Stonewall Jackson Shelby (R.-Al) might be chairing the committee, if such a committee were to exist in a Repubican-controlled Senate. Campbell and Shelby switched from the Democrat to the Republican party amid an incredible and unprecedented lack of hoopla and recriminations and a total absence of charges of treason. Biden's Chairmanship derives from what is known as "The Jeffords Factor". "Although it wasn't inevitable that there would be the occurrence of something that might become a scandal that would challenge the Bush presidency, it was, given the last thirty-odd years, probable," said Theordore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan biographer Edmund Morris-Morris. "If the scandal arises and the party controlling the White House controls the Senate, the likelihood of an investigation is slim. That's how LBJ got away with the Bobby Baker scandal. But Jeffords' shift put Bush at risk, and could put him in deep shit," Morris-Morris said. Lay To Bush To Ridge: Double Play Combination Put Force-Out On Regulations Up first in any investigation will have to be the phone call Enron CEO Lay made to then-Governor George Bush in 1997. "I called George W. to kind of tell him what was going on," Lay told the New York Times about the 1997 phone call, "and I said that it would be very helpful to Enron, which is obviously a large company in the state of Texas, if he could just call the governor [of Pennsylvania] and tell him [Enron] is a serious company, this is a professional company, a good company." Lay was indisputedly instrumental in Bush's rise to the presidency. Since 1993, Lay and top Enron executives donated nearly $2 million to Bush. Lay also personally donated $326,000 in soft money to the Republican Party in the three years prior to Bush's presidential bid, and he was one of the Republican "pioneers" who raised $100,000 in smaller contributions for Bush. Lay's wife donated $100,000 for inauguration festivities, according to published reports. Lay's role in the sudden replacement of Curtis Hebert Jr. as Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman is also likely to be included in any investigation. As the New York Times reported, Hebert "had barely settled into his new job this year when he had an unsettling telephone conversation with Kenneth L. Lay." Lay reportedly pushed Hebert to support moving more quickly in opening up access to the electricity transmission grid to companies like Enron. Lay said he made such a phone but insists that Hebert's job status was not up to him, but was up to "George W." This could make Bush's action, replacing the slow-moving Hebert with Pat Wood, a Texan preferred by Lay, look very suspicious. Investigators will also likely look into Karl Rove, who owned roughly a quarter of a million dollars in Enron stock, and at Larry Lindsay, an economic adviser, and Robert Zoellick, a trade representative, who left Enron to join the Bush administration. Cheney Announces 'Secret, Secure Location' Will Be Permanent Residence But most analysts at this point agree that Vice President Cheney's role as the chair of the president's Secret Energy Planning Group, will be most critical in discovering whether or not the scandal designation is justified. Cheney held meetings with Lay and other Enron executives last Spring and has refused requests by Congress to release information about those meetings, citing Executive Privilege, National Security, and the double-secret policy known as I Don't Have To Tell You. This was during the energy crisis that occurred right after Bush came into office, and, in California, was highlighted by several rolling blackouts and skyrocketing energy prices. Cheney's background in the oil and energy industry suggested his preferrence was to turn the country's resources over to the energy conglomerates to "solve" the energy crisis. Cheney and Bush advocated drilling in the Alaskan Wilderness Preserve, and dismissed energy conservation and alternative energy as "hippie ideas that have come and gone". "The bottomline was Cheney favored deregulation, which was the very thing that fortified Enron and allowed those executives to walk away filthy rich, with consumers, investors and employees holding the bill," said one attorney for the Senate committee. "Simply put, Enron was the company of their dreams," he said. According to a recent Wall Street Journal & Apologizer, Enron fought for and paid for any decision that would limit or abolish federal oversight of its trading business. "Not that there's anything wrong with that," the Journal declared in an accompanying editorial titled "Let Enron Be Enron". "Then its trading business collapsed because of lack of oversight and accountability. It's not a coincidence when those who advocate the elimination of government regulators and regulations and celebrate themselves as saviors turn out to be guilty of grand theft," said the attorney. Cheney, in response to the Pre-Scan III status, announced he would stay in his "secret, secure location." "It wouldn't look good, during this war, for me to be arrested and tried for high crimes and misdemeanors," he said. Take Me To The Fictional Times! |