Editor's Note: This story is compiled from two websites, Columbia University and the SEC. What it proves is that GWB has appointed all five members of the SEC Commission in 19 months, even though the law requires one member be appointed every year to serve a five year term. How is it that GWB could appoint all five members in such a short time? More on that in the Commentary section. I used the Columbia University website to determine the date of Professor Harvey J. Goldschmid's confirmation, which is not included on the SEC website.

Chairman Harvey L. Pitt
On August 3, 2001, President Bush appointed Harvey L. Pitt as the twenty-sixth Chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

Cynthia A. Glassman
Cynthia A. Glassman was appointed by President Bush to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and sworn in on January 28, 2002.

Harvey J. Goldschmid
Columbia Law Professor Harvey J. Goldschmid, CC '62, Law '65, is one of four new commissioners confirmed by the United States Senate to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The Senate confirmed Goldschmid prior to adjourning for its August recess. Published: Aug 12, 2002

Paul S. Atkins
Paul S. Atkins was appointed by President George W. Bush to be a commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission on July 29, 2002 and began his service on August 9, 2002.

Roel C. Campos
Roel C. Campos was nominated to the Securities and Exchange Commission by President George W. Bush on July 16, 2002 and confirmed by the Senate on July 25, 2002. He was sworn in as a Commissioner on August 20, 2002.

Terms in office:

The Securities and Exchange Commission has five Commissioners who are appointed by the President of the United States with the advice and consent of the Senate. Their terms last five years and are staggered so that one Commissioner's term ends on June 5 of each year. To ensure that the Commission remains non-partisan, no more than three Commissioners may belong to the same political party. The President also designates one of the Commissioners as Chairman, the SEC's top executive.

Purpose:

The primary mission of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is to protect investors and maintain the integrity of the securities markets. As more and more first-time investors turn to the markets to help secure their futures, pay for homes, and send children to college, these goals are more compelling than ever.

Commentary:
Have you tried to figure out why the markets collapsed, why the so-called bubble was created, why no one saw it happening? Are you still wondering how companies could lie for so long and get away with it? The answer seems reasonably simple. All five members of the SEC were appointed by Bush in just 18 months, even though the law requires they be appointed one at a time over a five year period. This means the republican Senate refused to confirm nominee's for a very, very long time and in the process violated US law and destroyed the SEC's ability to function.

If we are to blame one person, or group, it would have to be the republican party. Republican Senators violated US law by not approving nominee's to fill the SEC. Without a strong SEC, corruption followed.

If you need one reason to vote against every republican, this is it. The US lost over $7 trillion in investment income because of republican corruption.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Medicare, the already struggling government health insurance plan for the elderly, stands to lose $11 billion in the next three years, the American Medical Association said Tuesday.

The AMA, which represents about 300,000 U.S. doctors, weighed in heavily on the debate over Medicare, urging Congress to act as soon as possible to shore up the program.

"There's no doubt about it -- Medicare's foundation is crumbling," Dr. Donald Palmisano, the AMA's president-elect, told a news conference.

"Physicians want to serve America's seniors. But they simply cannot afford to accept an unlimited number of Medicare patients into their practices, while facing continued payment cuts," Palmisano added.

"If Congress doesn't act, Medicare payments in 2005 will be back below the 1991 level, and at the same time physicians' practice expenses will have risen by 40 percent."

About 40 million Americans 65 and older qualify for Medicare, the state-federal health insurance program for seniors, but many complain they are having trouble getting care.

Congress has been unable to move far on proposed Medicare reform, but earlier this month two senators -- Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the committee, unveiled a $43 billion, 10-year package to boost payments to doctors and other Medicare health providers.

But it was unclear whether the measure could pass by the time Congress wraps up this year's session, and Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, a Mississippi Republican, said the package was bigger than he wanted.

The AMA said that because of government errors in calculating the Medicare payment formula, doctors, nurses and other health professionals had already taken a 5.4 percent payment cut and could face an additional cut of 12 percent over the next three years.

The result -- doctors are refusing to take on Medicare patients.

"An AMA survey found that 24 percent of physicians have either placed limits on the number of Medicare patients they treat or plan to institute limits in the next few months," Palmisano said.

The federal government agrees. Tom Scully, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services at the Health and Human Services Department, said last month that 200,000 senior citizens were likely to be dropped from private health plans that are part of Medicare.

HMOs have been fleeing Medicare since medical inflation began exploding in the late 1990s. The cost of providing health care is rising at double-digit rates annually.

"The funding formula is basically screwed up," Scully told insurers at an industry conference in Washington.

Voters are interested in the issue, according to the American Association of Retired Persons. A survey of 1,071 adults age 45 and over by the association found 60 percent of those polled said they were more likely to vote for their senator if he or she supports a Medicare prescription drug plan.

Commentary:
The AMA shot themselves in the foot when the opposed the Clinton health care plan. While I'd never want to be seen defending doctors (who charge outrageous fees), it's obvious the elderly are being harmed by Bush's policies. A people aren't judged by how it wages war (any fool can do that), but instead by how they treat the elderly.

This question has to be asked; "how is it that we can afford tax cuts for the very rich (which includes doctors) but we don't have enough money for the elderly?"

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Environmental Protection Agency is again at odds with the White House on clean air policies, with the EPA proposing on Tuesday to approve a vehicle low emission program for Massachusetts that Justice Department lawyers oppose for California.

The Massachusetts program incorporates the California vehicle low emission standards that the Bush administration said earlier this month infringed on the federal government's authority to set vehicle mileage requirements.

The White House sided with automakers DaimlerChrysler AG and General Motors Corp. in opposing the California standards. The Justice Department, acting on behalf of the administration, filed a brief with 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals supporting a federal judge's injunction that delayed the California vehicle emission standards from taking effect for two years until the 2005 model year.

In contrast to the White House position, the EPA praised Massachusetts for adopting the California emission standards, saying it will help the state meet clean air requirements and may result in cleaner vehicles being put on the market.

The California standards that Massachusetts wants to adopt would require at least one out of every 10 vehicles sold to produce no pollution.

U.S. automakers would have a tougher time in meeting such a tough requirement compared to Japanese competitors Toyota Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co., which already build several low emission vehicles that also have higher fuel economy.

"It makes it appear that the administration's actions with regard to California were blatantly political (to favor U.S. automakers)," said Frank O'Donnell, executive director for the Clean Air Trust.

EPA officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

The agency asked for public comment through Nov. 14 on Massachusetts' emissions reduction program.

California's Democratic Gov. Gray Davis recently signed into state law a measure to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. Automakers contend that the California law is a veiled attempt to require stricter fuel economy standards, which only Congress can regulate.

EPA and the White House have a history of disagreement on environmental issues.

Earlier this year, EPA released a report that concluded human activities -- such as operating power plants and oil refineries -- were responsible for causing the emissions that were primarily responsible for global warming.

However, the Bush administration has said more scientific study is needed to determine the cause of rising world temperatures.

President Bush dismissed the EPA report, saying he never read it.

Commentary:
The constitution says;
Article 10
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

The WH said state environmental law, "...infringed on the federal government's authority to set vehicle mileage requirements.

Since no such authority exists, the argument is bogus and Bush's actions are unconstitutional. Those who believe in State's right's (a concept NOT in the Constitution) should be appalled by Bush's decisions in California and Massachusetts. Those who believe in the "rule of law" should demand he be impeached.

But the best part of this article is the last line. "President Bush dismissed the EPA report, saying he never read it." We'll never accuse him of being informed.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush may have succeeded in linking Iraqi President Saddam Hussein with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organization in the minds of many Americans but experts say evidence that the two are working together remains unclear.

In a campaign speech in Michigan on Monday, Bush went further than ever before in linking his two great enemies. Speaking of Saddam, he said: "This is a man that we know has had connections with al Qaeda. This is a man who, in my judgment, would like to use al Qaeda as a forward army."

In saying so, Bush went quite a bit beyond an assessment by CIA director George Tenet, which was declassified and released last week, which said that Saddam might possibly provide chemical or biological weapons to Islamic groups, but only as a last resort.

"Saddam might decide that the extreme step of assisting Islamic terrorists in conducting a WMD (weapons of mass destruction) attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him," said Tenet in a letter to Florida Sen. Bob Graham, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Brookings Institution scholar Ivo Daalder said Bush's statement was flatly contradicted by Tenet's letter.

"Presumably, the president relies on the CIA for his information on matters such as this. But the president keeps changing his message about the danger posed by Saddam. It suggests the administration is still looking for a message that would be compelling and backed by convincing data," he said.

However one public opinion poll released last week suggested Bush had persuaded a majority of Americans that his Iraq policy was part of his "war against terrorism."

According to the Pew Research Center poll, 86 percent of those surveyed believed Saddam had nuclear weapons or was close to acquiring them, and 66 percent believed he was involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, a linkage that the administration has never made.

Even those who believe there are many links between Saddam and al Qaeda concede there is no smoking gun to suggest that the Iraqi leader had any part in the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Much of the argument that such a link exists is based on a meeting that may or may not have taken place in Prague a few months before the attack between Mohammed Atta, believed to have been the ringleader of the Sept. 11 hijackers, and a senior Iraqi intelligence officer, Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al Ani. Czech officials said the meeting took place but the CIA failed to verify it.

MANY CONTACTS

Tenet's letter did lay out many contacts between Saddam and al Qaeda, partly based on information received from senior captured al Qaeda operatives. However these did not add up to a clear operational relationship.

"We have solid reporting of senior-level contacts going back a decade. Credible information indicates that Iraq and al Qaeda have discussed safe haven and reciprocal nonaggression," the letter said.

Tenet also said there was solid evidence that al Qaeda members had been in Baghdad in the past 4 years, that they had sought Iraqi help in acquiring chemical or biological capabilities, and that Iraq had provided training to al Qaeda members in using gas and poisons and in making bombs.

Yonah Alexander at the Inter-University Center for Terrorism Studies said there was a complex web of relations between various militant groups, including Palestinian groups as well as al Qaeda, and the Iraqi government.

"You can't always put your finger on a direct link but all of these groups are linked to one another, directly or indirectly," he said.

Alexander said there was no evidence that Saddam had provided any organization with weapons of mass destruction but predicted that it was only a matter of time.

According to Neil Livingstone, chief executive of Global Options, a consultancy that provides private clients with risk assessment and strategic information, said there was considerable circumstantial evidence that Saddam had a hand in the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 in which 6 people died.

"Whether he sponsored or had any serious input into the Sept. 11 bombing is open to serious question. There were known contacts to be sure but the relationship was problematic because Saddam, as a secular leader, did not share bin Laden's strict Islamic vision," said Livingstone.

Now, however, with bin Laden's fate uncertain following the U.S.-led assault on Afghanistan, contacts may be growing again, he said.

During the summer, there were reports that Saddam was providing weapons to militants who had taken control of two villages inside Iraqi Kurdistan, an area which is otherwise controlled by anti-Saddam factions. The militants were said to have included some fighters who had fled from Afghanistan to escape capture by U.S. forces.

"The president may be making a weak case when he talks about the existing ties between Saddam and al Qaeda. But I would expect that those ties are increasing at this very moment, as the prospect of a U.S. attack on Iraq grows nearer," Livingstone said.

Commentary:
The media spent months beating the drums of war, whipping up patriotism to such a fever that truth is no longer part of our political discourse. Americans believe things that are simply false. Saddam didn't have anything to do with 9/11, and he doesn't have nukes, and he doesn't have the ability to get them for at least 10 years (CIA report).

Because of the around the clock drum beat of war by the press, sane and moral people in congress were unable to stop this truly evil president. Shame on them. The US is now prepared to go to war based on lies. Lies, that according to the polls Americans believe. Shame on them. The truth is out there, but you have to look really hard to find it.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - As British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw visited Washington on Tuesday, key U.N. Security Council members were deadlocked for the third week on a resolution authorizing force against Iraq.

Despite attempts at a compromise by the United States and France, which is leading the opposition to a U.S.-drafted measure, "We're still stuck," a key council diplomat said.

France, which according to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan probably has a majority of the 15 council members on its side, wants the resolution to allow U.N. inspectors to test Iraq's willingness to cooperate with stiff demands. If Baghdad does not comply, a second resolution would authorize force.

The United States wants authorization to use force in the first round. Alternatively, Washington might approve two resolutions if the first one gave it legal cover to use military force. "Then they can do what they like with the second," one U.S. official said.

Britain, which helped the United States draw up its resolution, would back two council votes on the use of force, providing requirements for Iraqi disarmament were tougher than those France has proposed, diplomats said.

Straw was to confer in Washington with Secretary of State Colin Powell on the resolution after near daily telephone calls among foreign ministers of the five council members with veto power -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China. Both Russia and China have backed France.

Washington has not formally introduced its draft yet, preferring to get approval from the five permanent members before tackling the other rotating 10 nations on the council.

A Security Council resolution needs a minimum of nine votes in favor and no veto for adoption.

Annan said last week that most U.N. members prefer two resolutions. But one key diplomat believed nations may not be given such a simple choice, saying, "If the U.S. backs out of the whole thing, then people might think again."

All U.N. members will have an opportunity to speak on Wednesday, the first public debate on Iraq.

MAYBE NEXT WEEK

No deadline has been set for a vote in the Security Council but the strong show of support for the administration in the U.S. Congress last week appeared to have done little to speed up the negotiations.

The United States hopes to introduce its resolution by late this week or early next week, but there was no sign of a breakthrough.

"We cannot accept a strike that is not a last resort, a final resort," French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said on Monday. "The United States is still shocked by the (Sept. 11) terrorist attacks, which leads them to base their strategic doctrine more on the pursuit of security than of peace."

Senior Pentagon civilian officials routinely dismiss the effectiveness of U.N. inspections, saying they can do little to uncover Iraq's efforts to hide chemical or biological weapons.

At the same time the chief U.N. weapons inspector, Hans Blix, is reluctant to field teams under the ground rules the United States has proposed, according to diplomats he briefed after meeting with Powell and other U.S. officials.

Commentary:
For weeks Bush has been campaigning against the UN for not passing a resolution yet. The truth is Bush hasn't formally given the UN a resolution and most members are clueless what the US wants. We can classify this one under "Bush is a bumbling idiot."

I'm also somewhat perplexed by war-mongering within the Bush family. Under daddy Bush the US slaughtered well over 100,000 innocent civilians during the Gulf War (sometimes referred to as Desert Sprinkle). The butcher of Bagdad isn't Saddam, it's Bush Sr. But that was yesterday. Today, the new butcher of Bagdad was given power to repeat the carnage and cause insecurity/terrorism for the US for time immortal.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers and families of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks blamed the White House on Friday for the collapse of what they called a bipartisan deal to form an independent commission to investigate the assaults.

"The White House is professing openly to support an independent commission ... (but) privately they're moving to thwart the commission," said U.S. House of Representatives Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat.

The proposed grouping would have a broader scope than the current joint inquiry by the House and Senate intelligence committees, which has focused on shortcomings at spy agencies.

On Thursday, Republican and Democratic negotiators announced an agreement on legislation to create a 10-member commission that they said would take the most comprehensive look yet at the 2001 attacks.

But hours later, there was no accord. The White House said it had not signed off on the plan and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss, a Florida Republican, said some matters remained unresolved.

With the 107th Congress drawing to a close, it was unclear whether an agreement would be reached this year, put off until next year or never be reached at all.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said on Friday, "The president believes it is still terribly important for Congress to reach an agreement on this with the White House."

DISAGREEMENTS

"The scope will be broad," he said. "There's no disagreement on that."

"But one area where there is disagreement and it needs to be resolved is on the question of subpoena power," Fleischer said. He said other differences included the group's makeup.

Stephen Push of Families of September 11, which represents about 1,300 survivors of victims, said he does not believe the administration wants a commission.

"I think they are afraid of anything that might come out -- since 9/11 happened on Bush's watch," he said.

Push attended as a spectator a news conference on Friday by Pelosi and the chief Senate sponsors of legislation to create a commission, Democrat Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Republican John McCain of Arizona.

Lieberman and McCain first offered their bill last year. The White House initially opposed a commission, but came out in favor of one last month, when it became clear Lieberman and McCain had the Senate votes to pass their measure.

House and Senate negotiators have been trying to resolve differences between legislation passed by the two chambers.

Lieberman and McCain said they believe, despite White House statements to the contrary, that the administration wants to limit the scope of the commission probe.

"Every bureaucracy in this town is scared to death of an investigation," McCain said. "Numerous mistakes were made. You limit the scope, you limit the damage."

The two senators said they will keep pushing, even if it takes until next year. "It's going to happen," McCain said.

Commentary:
The cover-up continues. Bush has opposed investigations into what really happened since 9/11. When it looked like he was ready to give in he got his friends in the republican controlled House to stop the investigation again. What is he hiding? Why is he so afraid? Why do republicans protect him? And why has the press remained SILENT?

Each day now, someone says something even more incredible ‚ even more unimaginable — about President Bush's obsession with war. On Tuesday, George Bush was himself telling an audience in Cincinnati about "nuclear holy warriors". Forget for a moment that we still can't prove Saddam Hussein has nuclear weapons. Forget that the latest Bush speech was just a re-hash of all the "ifs" and "mays" and "coulds" in Tony Blair's flimsy 16 pages of allegations in his historically dishonest "dossier". Forget that if Osama Bin Laden ever acquired a nuclear weapon, he'd probably use it first on Saddam. No. We've got to fight "nuclear holy warriors". That's what we have to do to justify the whole charade through which we are being taken now by the White House, by Downing Street, by all the decaying "experts" on terrorism and, alas, far too many journalists.

Forget the 14 Palestinians, including the 12-year-old child, killed by Israel a few hours before Bush spoke, forget that when his aircraft killed nine Palestinian children in July, along with one militant, the Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon — a "man of peace" in Bush's words — described the slaughter as "a great success". Israel is on our side.

Remember to use the word "terror". Use it about Saddam Hussein, use it about Osama Bin Laden, use it about Yasser Arafat, use it about anyone who opposes Israel or America. Bush used it in his speech yesterday, 30 times in half an hour — that's one "terrorism" a minute. But now let's list exactly what we really must forget if we are to support this madness. Most important of all, we absolutely must forget that President Ronald Reagan dispatched a special envoy to meet Saddam Hussein in December 1983. It's essential to forget this for three reasons. Firstly, because the awful Saddam was already using gas against the Iranians — which is one of the reasons we are now supposed to go to war with him.

Secondly, because the envoy was sent to Iraq to arrange the re-opening of the US Embassy — in order to secure better trade and economic relations with the Butcher of Baghdad. Thirdly, because the envoy was — wait for it — Donald Rumsfeld. Now you might think it strange that Rumsfeld, in the course of one of his folksy press conferences, hasn't chatted to us about this interesting tit-bit. You might think he would have wished to enlighten us about the evil nature of the criminal with whom he so warmly shook hands. But no.

Strangely, Rumsfeld is silent about this. As he is about his subsequent and equally friendly meeting with Tareq Aziz — which just happened to take place on the day in March, 1984, that the UN released its damning report on Saddam's use of poison gas against Iran. The American media are silent about this too, of course. Because we must forget.

We must forget, too, that in 1988, as Saddam destroyed the people of Halabja with gas, along with tens of thousands of other Kurds — when he "used gas against his own people" in the words of Messrs Bush/Cheney/Blair/Cook/Straw et al — President Bush Sr. provided him with $500 million in US government subsidies to buy American farm products. We must forget that in the following year, after Saddam's genocide was complete, President Bush Sr. doubled this subsidy to $1 billion, along with germ seed for anthrax, helicopters, and the notorious "dual-use" material that could be used for chemical and biological weapons.

And when President Bush Jr. promises the Iraqi people "an era of new hope" and democracy after the destruction of Saddam — as he did on Tuesday night — we must forget how the Americans promised Pakistan and Afghanistan a new era of hope after the defeat of the Soviet Army in 1980 — and did nothing.

We must forget how President Bush Sr. urged the Iraqis to rise up against Saddam in 1991 and — when they obeyed — did nothing. We must forget how America promised a new era of hope to Somalia in 1993 and then, after "Black Hawk Down", abandoned the country.

We must forget how President Bush Jr. promised to "stand by" Afghanistan before he began his bombings last year — and has left it now an economic shambles of drug barons, warlords, anarchy and fear. He boasted yesterday that the people of Afghanistan have been "liberated" — this after he has failed to catch Bin Laden, failed to catch Mulla Omar, and while his troops are coming under daily attack. We must forget, as we listen to the need to reinsert arms inspectors, that the CIA covertly used UN weapons inspectors to spy on Iraq.

And of course, we must forget about oil. Indeed, oil is the one commodity — and one of the few things which George Bush Jr. knows something about, along with his ex-oil cronies Cheney and Rice and countless others in the administration — which is never mentioned.

In all of Bush's 30 minutes of anti-Iraq war talk on Tuesday — pleasantly leavened with just two minutes of how "I hope this will not require military action" — there wasn't a single reference to the fact that Iraq may hold oil reserves larger than those of Saudi Arabia, that American oil companies stand to gain billions of dollars in the event of a US invasion, that, once out of power, Bush and his friends could become multibillionaires on the spoils of this war. We must ignore all this before we go to war. We must forget. (The Independent)

In 1994, William Hogan, the research director of the Enron-funded Harvard Electricity Policy Group (HEPG), urged the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to deregulate the state's electricity market according to what he called the "Enron model" — the deregulation scheme that Enron had already used to deregulate and manipulate the gas market.

Jeffrey Skilling supported Hogan's testimony to the CPUC, and according to industry insiders, the Skilling-Hogan partnership decisively turned the course of California's deregulation process.

HEPG's Hogan remained one of the most prominent lobbyists and advisers in California's deregulation process, endorsing the state's deregulation plan in 1995, lobbying the FERC for approval, and advising the state's elected officials to pass deregulation legislation in 1996.

After California's deregulated market collapsed in 2000, HEPG and Enron publicly opposed numerous proposals for re-regulation. Notably, they opposed price caps to protect consumers, as well as the creation of long-term energy contracts to stabilize prices and service. While they resisted re-regulation, Enron profited from California's crisis: the company recorded earnings of roughly $404 million in the second quarter of 2001, up 40 percent from the year before.

As a final gesture of corporate support, Hogan authored studies attempting to deny or cover up evidence of corporate manipulation of California's deregulated market.

These facts shed new light on recent revelations that Enron manipulated California's deregulated market. Far from taking advantage of an opportunity presented, it appears that Enron and HEPG were deeply influential in shaping that opportunity, as they encouraged California to adopt the exact model of deregulation Enron had designed in the gas industry for its best manipulation and exploitation.

HARVARD-ENRON ALLIANCE TO DESIGN AND PROMOTE DEREGULATION SCHEMES

The Harvard Electricity Policy Group (HEPG), created in 1993, is funded by Enron and has produced 1,000 reports promoting Enron's primary business need: deregulation of energy markets.

In 1994, two years before California passed legislation deregulating its electricity market, HEPG promoted two reports by Jeffrey Skilling offering proposals for electricity market deregulation, with a focus on California.

HEPG provided Enron a conduit to government officials overseeing regulatory policy. At least two members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) worked with HEPG, and one of them, Judith Cardell, went on to do research for Enron and testify to the FERC on Enron's behalf.

HEPG has held nearly 30 conferences throughout the country on energy deregulation for industry insiders. It is known that Enron executives attended and presented at these conferences, but HEPG will not release full information on attendance.

HARVARD AND ENRON PUSHED DEREGULATION FAR BEYOND CALIFORNIA

HEPG and Enron collaborated to design and promote electricity deregulation schemes in Texas, New England, Montana, and Brazil.

The results of these deregulation schemes were disastrous for consumers and workers. In Montana, wholesale electricity prices rose to ten times their original levels, and caused 1,000 workers in plants and mines to lose their jobs. In New England, several states were forced to initiate investigations after private studies found that electricity generators were manipulating the electricity supply during a heat wave in order to increase profits.

ENRON COOPTED HARVARD'S RESEARCH PROGRAMS AND INFILTRATED ITS GOVERNANCE STRUCTURES

Robert Belfer, a long-time Enron board member and Enron's largest shareholder, was a member of the Kennedy School of Government's Visiting Board overseeing the school when it established the Harvard Electricity Policy Group (HEPG). Since then, Belfer has endowed the Belfer Center and funded the Environmental and Natural Resource Program, both at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. The latter has promoted energy deregulation and privatization that Enron needed. It also endorsed Enron's work to build a now-infamous power plant in Dabhol, India, which was so strongly opposed by the local population that Enron paid the police to beat protesters. Human Rights Watch condemned Enron for its activities in Dabhol.

Enron has paid professors at the Harvard Business School significant consulting fees. In return, the Business School has produced five glowing studies of Enron's business model in the last two years, praising the corporation right up to its collapse. Business School faculty have co-authored papers with Enron executives, and Enron's website references favorable Harvard Business School studies.

Herbert "Pug" Winokur, chair of Enron's Finance Committee and currently resigning member of the Harvard Corporation, has funded and influenced research at the Kennedy School of Government. Notably, he has endowed the Herbert S. Winokur, Jr. Public Policy Fund, which has promoted the outsourcing of U.S. military functions. This policy recommendation has directly benefited the U.S. military contractor Dyncorp, of which Winokur is a director.

Enron has been able to control Harvard's research agenda not just through financial control, but through interlocking governance. Today, the seven-member Harvard Corporation is stacked with Enron insiders, notably Herbert "Pug" Winokur, Robert Rubin, and D. Ronald Daniel. Winokur recently announced his resignation after HarvardWatch exposed the depth of his role at Enron.

Commentary:
This is a little on the complicated side so let's have at it. Bush's energy plan was based on an energy crisis manufactured by Enron and Harvard. Harvard Business School received "significant consulting fees" in exchange for "produc(ing) five glowing studies of Enron's business model" and "deregulation."

The deregulation of energy in California was supported and pushed by Harvard/Enron. Harvard also had very strong business dealing with Harken, the company Bush used insider information from to sell his stock and make hundreds of thousands. Harvard's role is Harken is also appalling.

Harvard, Enron and Harken all have one thing in common---GWB. In the Harken/Harvard story that follows, you can see how Harvard/Bush/Harken set up a phony company to dump Harken's debt into so Harken appeared to be profitable. Hiding debt in dummy companies is/was one of the biggest problems in corporate America and the reason so many people lost so much money.

For those who had inside information, that is information on how Harken/Enron/Harvard/Bush manipulated what the public knew they could control the price of their stock. The sorry suckers are those who trusted Harvard/Harken/Enron/Bush by investing in their companies. A careful study of these documents will get you started on the information you need to know about the how corrupt GWB and those who support(ed) him are.

When the small company that helped make George W. Bush a multimillionaire verges on bankruptcy in 1990, newly unearthed documents show an unlikely financial archangel came to the rescue: Harvard University.

It long has been known that the school's endowment arm, Harvard Management Co., was a major investor in Harken Energy Corp. But the documents reveal two heretofore little-noticed deals, both endorsed by Mr. Bush, to allow the Texas firm to stave off creditors. One, critical to the company's survival, involved a partnership used to move troubled assets and large debts off the company's balance sheet -- much like the controversial investments that Enron Corp. set up before it filed for bankruptcy-court protection.

At the time, one of the Harvard endowment's most influential board members was a political supporter of then-President George H.W. Bush, the current president's father. One result of the deal: The current president avoided damaging his credibility as a businessman.

Unlike many of Enron's deals, Harken disclosed its transactions to investors and the Securities and Exchange Commission and complied with accounting rules. Mr. Bush didn't profit personally from the subsequent boost in Harken's stock because he already had sold most of his shares to fund a lucrative investment in the Texas Rangers baseball team.

IVY LEAGUE CONNECTIONS Harvard University's endowment helped Harken Energy when the firm, of which George W. Bush was a director, needed it. Key events in Harken's relationship with Harvard and Bush, along with Harken's stock price. 1. Sept. 19, 1986: Harken agrees to acquire Spectrum 7 Energy Corp., where George W. Bush is chairman. Bush becomes a Harken board member and $100,00-a-year consultant. 2. Oct. 15, 1986: Harvard agrees to buy 1.35 million shares of Harken for $2 million and invest another $20 million in Harken projects. 3. June 15, 1989: Citing the "positive image" Bush helped create for Harken, chairman Mikel Faulker extends Bush's consulting agreement. 4. May 20, 1990: Harken officials warn board the company is about to runout of cash. 5. Aug. 17, 1990: First City agrees to refinance Harken's debts. 6. Aug. 20, 1990: Harken discloses loss of $23 million. 7. Nov. 30, 1990: Harken transfers $20 million in debts to Harvard partnership, eliminates another $16 million in debt by transferring assets to Harvard. 8. September 1991: Harvard begins selling Harken stock at more than $6 a share, receiving $7.4 million over the next 12 months. Source: Thomson Datastream

The partnership deal is notable in the context of President Bush's drive to reform corporate standards in response to a string of accounting scandals. The Harken deal was designed to raise money without incurring new debt or selling stock. It did so by exploiting "a fundamental weakness in accounting rules" by moving the deal off its balance sheet, said Rice University accounting expert Dala Bharan, who reviewed the transactions for The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Bush was then a $100,000-a-year consultant to Harken and the board member who made the motion to approve a partnership that seemed to benefit Harken far more than Harvard. Harvard has said it made a small profit from the association.

White House spokesman Dan Bartlett says the partnership was Harvard's idea and the school "basically dictated the terms of the investment." He said Harvard began talks with Harken in April 1986, well before Mr. Bush joined Harken. "The original relationship had nothing to do with President Bush," he said. He referred questions about the matter to Harken and Harvard. Neither responded to letters and phone calls.

Comment: Everything the WH says is a lie. Read on.

Mr. Bush ended up at Harken as a result of a series of sales of the oil company he founded after earning a master's degree from Harvard Business School. Just after Mr. Bush joined Harken's board, Harvard Management became one of its biggest backers, ultimately buying 30% of its stock, loaning it millions of dollars and transferring oil properties to it.

Harken's good fortune after Mr. Bush joined often has been questioned by political opponents. The firm bested bigger rivals to obtain drilling rights from the Bahrain government in early 1990. But the Bahrain deal did little to improve its short-term finances, which were in a perilous state. The board meeting minutes from that July said the company's primary objective was to "avoid default."

The company's response to the crisis is detailed in records recently gathered from the Securities and Exchange Commission and elsewhere by HarvardWatch, a student and alumni group, and the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity.

Harken was already technically in default at that point, according to other company records, because it had failed to abide by equity requirements in loan agreements with its two primary banks. One, Bank of Boston, was demanding immediate payment, but the other, First City Bancorp, agreed to take over Bank of Boston loans. At the time, First City was controlled by Robert Abboud, another supporter of the senior Mr. Bush who attended a White House event 10 days before that bailout's approval. In an interview, Mr. Abboud said Harvard's backing was a key factor in First City's decision to approve the Harken bailout and that it wasn't influenced by his relationship with the then-president.

But that deal still left Harken with crushing debt. At the July 1990 board meeting, Mr. Bush and the other directors decided to "establish a 'joint venture' " with Harvard Management's venture-capital arm, Aeneas Venture Corp., the minutes say. At the next month's meeting, Harken President Mikel Faulkner laid out a proposal to form a partnership with Aeneas that would take on much of Harken's debt, moving it off the balance sheet. The proposal also provided Harken with desperately needed cash, in the form of fees to manage the new entity. "After discussion, upon motion being made by Mr. Bush," the minutes say, the board unanimously agreed to open negotiations with Harvard.

Comment: Remember, the White House says, ""The original relationship had nothing to do with President Bush." That statement like so many from this WH is a lie.

A partnership deal was struck shortly thereafter. Harken contributed $20 million in debt and liabilities, plus a group of poorly performing oil-drilling assets valued at $26 million -- many of them in Oklahoma's Anadarko basin -- for a net of $6 million. Harvard's Aeneas contributed $64.5 million of its drilling assets, 91% of the investment, but agreed to accept just 84% of the so-called Harken Anadarko Partnership's earnings.

The deal immediately helped Harken's cash flow, bringing in $100,000 a month in management fees, and drilling and servicing fees of more than $3 million in the first year. Harken also retained cash from a $7.5 million bank loan that the partnership was required to repay.

"It seems to be a simple case of Aeneas bailing out Harken," said Mr. Dharan, an accounting professor at Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Management. Because Harken owned less than 20% of the partnership, it no longer was required under accounting rules to include the debts and assets on its balance sheet. Mr. Dharan argues that a true reflection of Harken's financial health would have included them. In effect, the partnership raised money without taking on new debt.

Still more help from Harvard came in an almost simultaneous deal to extinguish another $16.2 million that Harken owed its Aeneas arm from a previous venture. The company allowed Harken to pay off the note with assets valued at just $14.5 million.

The moves led to a gradual recovery in Harken's stock price, which was $1.25 a share at the end of 1990. In 1991, thanks to the prospect of a Bahrain strike and Harken's much-improved balance sheet, the price topped $8, prompting Harvard to begin selling its Harken shares. It sold 1.63 million shares valued at $7.47 million over the next year.

Current and former Harvard officials declined to comment publicly on the Harken transactions for this story or said they remember little about the matter.

Harken had several connections to Harvard, including business-school diplomas held by Mr. Bush and another Harken board member, Alan Quasha. The person with the most influence over the endowment for decades has been Robert Stone Jr., an oil man on Harvard Management's board whom former Harvard executives described as the driving force behind its energy investments.

It is unclear whether the Bush and Stone families were personally acquainted, but they were politically aligned. A sometime resident -- like the Bush family -- of Greenwich, Conn., and Houston, Mr. Stone was a financial supporter of the senior Mr. Bush when he ran for president in 1979, as was his father, siblings and executives at his oil and gas company. Mr. Stone and his wife, Marion, also contributed to the senior Mr. Bush's successful 1988 run. Over a two-month period, Mr. Stone didn't respond to numerous messages left with the receptionist in his New York office.

Commentary:
Since Bush is capable of being this corrupt and since his WH lies to us on a daily basis, why does anyone trust him to take us to war? Why does anyone trust him when he says Saddam is a threat to the US even though the CIA says he's not? The MEDIA needs to start calling this president a pathological liar (read: they need to start doing their jobs).