The table below compares the White House’s February 2009 projection of the number of jobs that would be created by the 2009 stimulus law (through the end of 2010) with the actual change in state payroll employment through September 2009 (the latest figures available). According to the data, 49 States and the District of Columbia have lost jobs since stimulus was enacted. Only North Dakota has seen net job creation following the February 2009 stimulus. While President Obama claimed the result of his stimulus bill would be the creation of 3.5 million jobs, the Nation has already lost a total of 2.7 million – a difference of 6.2 million jobs. To see how stimulus has failed your state, see the table below.

http://www.republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=150826
( send private message )

to bad the repubs put us into this nightmare.
( send private message )

California’s deficit was presented by everyone at between $20 and $28 Billion long before the porkulus package.. So once again.. you come in here and make up facts..

HERE ARE SOME REAL FACTS

DEMS or GOP at fault?
2009 California is MANAGED by:
25 Dems vs 15 Republicans in the Senate
49 Dems vs 29 Republicans in the Assembly
Since 1970 Dems have had the Majority in the Assembly and the Senate..

SO who did you say was at fault?
Explain how the GOP, who has not had a legislative majority California in 40 years pulled this off?

THE REAL DEFICIT
Jul 2 2009, 11:50 am by Derek Thompson

California’s Deficit Plan Now Includes IOUs California lawmakers failed to agree on deficit measures to close the state’s $24 billion budget shortfall on the eve of July 4 weekend.

NOTE: The number 24 Billion.. not 40..

HOW IT IS BEING FIXED
Since February, Schwarzenegger and lawmakers have slashed $32 billion from spending, cutting into funding for schools, universities and welfare programs. They also raised taxes by $12.5 billion to balance the $85 billion budget..

TELL ME HOW THE PORKULUS PACKAGE Helped lancaster?

If you want REAL truth lancaster.. try reading..

http://www.lao.ca.gov/2009/spend_plan/spending_plan_09-10.aspx
( send private message )

So the Federal Government put California into this mess??

PLEASE guide me to understand how that happened, ok lancaster?
( send private message )

(CNN) — California lawmakers were told to bring their toothbrushes and prepare for a long day Tuesday, with the goal of passing a budget as the state faces a $42 billion deficit and 20,000 layoff notices were set to go out to state workers Tuesday.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger warned lawmakers about potential job cuts last week.

Lawmakers had missed a Monday night deadline to reach a budget deal, prompting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s move on the layoff notices, Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear told CNN late Monday.

The Republican governor, who declared a fiscal emergency in December, has butted heads for months with the Democratic majority over alleviating the state’s $11.2 billion revenue shortfall this fiscal year alone. The cuts would save California $750 million for the year. The state’s $42 billion deficit is for the current and next fiscal years.

Schwarzenegger warned lawmakers about the cuts last week, urging them to approve the latest budget proposal. However, voting was stalled over a 30-hour weekend session as the legislature mulled over 26 pieces of legislation that make up the budget package.

The State Assembly in Sacramento postponed action until Tuesday. A single Republican vote was holding the budget from passing with a two-thirds majority, McLear said.

Don’t Miss
KCRA: State Senate fails to pass budget
State may have to cut prison population by 40 percent
Some Republican lawmakers, including state Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, say they don’t agree with the $14.4 billion in tax increases tied into the budget package.

“People don’t realize where California is at — people are losing homes, people are losing jobs,” Maldonado told CNN affiliate KOVR. “We are in a fiscal emergency and we need to come together to (resolve) it.” Watch a report on the budget crisis »

The cuts wouldn’t begin until the start of the fiscal year on July 1, starting with employees of least seniority, McLear said.

McLear added that state workers are under contract, meaning layoffs would be a slow process. Schwarzenegger and lawmakers have tried discussing alternatives to avoid the scenario.

Running short of cash, California last month started delaying $3.5 billion in payments to taxpayers, contractors, counties and social service agencies so the state could continue funding schools and making debt payments.
E-mail to a friend
( send private message )

The multiyear plan will represent a significant boost to the state, which currently receives about $60 billion a year from the federal government.

Here are the estimates for California’s known share:

_ Health care: $9 billion

_ Education: $8 billion

_ Labor and workforce development: $6 billion

_ Social Services: $3.5 billion

_ Transportation: $2.6 billion

_ General purpose fiscal stabilization: $1.1 billion

_ Resources and environment: $600 million

_ Housing programs: $381 million

_ Criminal justice: $264 million

_ Others: $27 million

Source: Legislative Analyst’s Office
( send private message )

hhhmmmmmm
( send private message )

Please EXPLAIN to me how California’s fiscal crisis has been caused by a party who has not had a majority in 40 years?

I want to understand how you came up with your analysis..
( send private message )

So tell us how this money California does NOT have yet has cut the deficit in half?

Let me educate..

LOOK at the BUDGET link I posted and that will show you the way lancaster..

DRASTIC Cuts in Education… for one..
DRASTIC Cuts in Government payroll for two..
( send private message )

always wrong, always no facts, always pissed!

thank goodness ur here to police grammer and bad words.
( send private message )

According to her the porkulus plan cut the deficit in half..

YET… in her post, there is NO mention of how these “BRIBES” will be paid in terms of years..

ALL this year?
Spread them around for 10 years?

Until that is known it is IMPOSSIBLE to assign credit for any fiscal recovery to date, if there has been any, to the Porkulus Bribe..
( send private message )

I quote facts from one source and you quote another.. Which one is correct?

Ok.. so for the sake of this debate… let us just assume your $42 Billion is correct…

Ok.. so for the sake of this debate… let us just assume your $42 Billion is correct…Now take the $42 Billion number and answer the other questions I asked..
( send private message )

And by the way… I could care less if Obama has 100 advisers or czars as long as they are vetted by someone..

So your continuing effort to call me a liar is absurd since I have ZERO issue with the term..

I have a MAJOR issue, as you should, that ANY President can appoint high powered officials without oversight..

THAT is the issue… with ALL Presidents, not just Hussein..
( send private message )

I posted that we can use your numbers.. so why can’t you answer the questions?

Beck has NOTHING to do with this conversation, so why bring him into it?
( send private message )

Angel time.. our show is about to start..

As much as a disappointment as this is..

I must take my leave until Manana Mi Amiga..

Adios…
( send private message )

So… now answer the questions…
( send private message )

YOU stated that the GOP caused the California Mess and I asked you how they did that?

Considering they have not had a majority in the legislature for 40 years it seems impossible.

And your answer is??

You also stated that BUSH caused California to go from a surplus to a deficit and asked you how he did that

And your answer is??

Pretty simple lancaster.. two very easy questions… I do not need facts to ask those questions…

So… will you answer or keep up your grammar school antics?

I am sure I will log into the site in the AM and find a plethora of data you post to legitimize your claims..

RIGHT?
( send private message )

look up the energy contracts bush had davis sign, a week before he capped energy prices. u do remember the blackouts don’t u dontno? the ones we ONLY HAD THE 1ST SUMMER BUSH WAS PREZ?

of course ur hero, girly girl beck, tells u to just whine about things,
so no one really expects u to do any homework on ur own.
besides, u might learn something, and we can’t have that.
( send private message )

u seem to have lil else to do with ur time.
( send private message )

As usual you have nothing to post beyond taking childish shots at me, someone you have never met..

BECK has nothing to do with this thread but you continue to bring him into it..

So 40 years of Democrats in control of California.. and yet you still blame BUSH and the GOP for California’s fiscal mess..

So with the Dems in Control how did the GOP pull this off?

I do remember the black outs lancaster and it was DAVIS and the DEM Controlled legislature who could not manage California’s budget, not George Bush..

But you keep thinking it is all the GOP and Bush…and you keep up the childish narratives attacking me and anyone who tries to hold an adult conversation with you in here..

It is amusing..

AND I have 7 kids, a trip cross country to plan, a company to manage, 3 dogs and my writing to keep me busy, this site is just a “guilty pleasure.”

But thanks for your expression of concern..
( send private message )

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/democrats_and_the_politics_of_2.html
( send private message )

As you can see even on this blogsite, the majority of Liberals are incompetent when it comes to debating any issue..

Not intellectually incapable in MOST cases, but emotionally handicapped.

Handicapped to the extent that any discussion usually concludes with vehement name calling, character assaults,
and generally personal attacks on folks they have a different opinion than.

Look at how Hussein Obama’s thugs are going after those opposed to
their King

Evil CEO’s
The Greedy Rich
The Chamber Of Commerce
Rush Limbaugh
FOX News
Sean Hannity
Humana (Placed a Gag order on them)
Health Insurance Companies
Banks
The Evil GAS Companies
etc..etc..

And they use the same tactic..

How many times in here as a hit and run blogger posted some nonsense like “Beck’s Insane”, etc.

And then when asked to detail their post, you either get silence or attacked? More times than not…

As much as I disagree with Denise, Guy, CJ and roxi, at least they interact..

In fact they usually participate with respect and honor..

There are times when they, like most of us, get a little testy and may resort to taking a shot, but it is the exception with them rather than the rule…
( send private message )

i have to say that in my lifetime, never have i met a more immature prez. in my life. nobama gets up before a mike and acts like my children! even bush was adult enough ignore his opponents.

i guess that’s the chicago way.
( send private message )

I agree with you on Hussein Obama, he and his playground pals act like children..

I do not agree with you on roxi… she USUALLY debates, like Denise and CJ do, with honor and respect..

roxi, can’t stand me and that is ok…

But with others she usually stays civil and on topic..

Then you have lancaster, Ray, SoCa, HaveFaith and the “Queen Of Mean”, who NEVER fail to soil any discussion they participate in.

All of them resort to spewing out personal attacks, calls of racism, sandbox name calling and my favorite
“Invented Truth”

It is amusing and somewhat entertaining in that it proves the point about LIBS..

Who they Really are and how their limited understanding of the ISSUE at hand propels them to the sand box every time..
( send private message )

Interesting in that even LIBERAL Commentary is taking FOX’s side.

I am amazed that the likes of Bob Beckle, etc.. are suggesting that this
assault on FOX is a huge mistake..

And FOX is not backing down.. it is so cool to watch…Every hour they come at Obama and his thugs…

Greta was the best.. she ran a good 30 minutes of tapes of her show and what she has reported on..

It was a flow of news she has covered..

They did the same thing on Fox and Friends..

Videos and more videos of news stories
covered better, in so many cases, than anyone else..
( send private message )

They are REAL journalists?? LMAO!
( send private message )

maybe if u came up with a fact on occasion. or hey i know, maybe if u responded to someone else’s questions,
or provided a source, instead of just telling us how full of hate we are.

but hey, we don’t expect much, from such a delicate flower.

what’s really amusing is how u and toyboy feel hated.

like ur that important to anyone here!!!
( send private message )

Shoot your arrows as you wish, I could care less..

Save your sympathy for those who cannot conduct themselves with any type of honor in here..

And you only have to look into your mirror to locate the poster child..
( send private message )

You still have not explained how you can suggest that the fiscal issues in California according to you…

Were caused by the GOP who has been in a legislative minority for 40 years..

How did your extensive research into this phenomena come about?

QUIJI Board?
Rock-paper-Scissors?
Pinkie Squared with Diana?

Enlighten me
( send private message )

This story begins with the California energy crisis, which started in 2000 and continued through the early months of 2001, when electricity prices spiked to their highest levels. Prices went from $12 per megawatt hour in 1998 to $200 in December 2000 to $250 in January 2001, and at times a megawatt cost $1,000.

One event occurred earlier. On July 13, 1998, employees of one of the two power-marketing centers in California watched incredulously as the wholesale price of $1 a megawatt hour spiked to $9,999, stayed at that price for four hours, then dropped to a penny. Someone was testing the system to find the limits of market exploitation. This incident was the earliest indication that the people and the state could become victims of fraud. The Sacramento Bee broke the story three years later, on May 6, 2001.

Today, Californians are still paying the costs of the debacle while according to state officials the power companies who manipulated the energy markets reaped more than $7.5 billion in unfair profits.

During those early months of the Bush administration, and even during the prior transition period, Dick Cheney was deeply involved in gathering information for a national energy policy. The intelligence he gathered would provide justification for a war against Iraq but would also place White House footprints all over a fraud scam. This is how it all happened.

Significantly, Ken Lay was also a close friend to Dick Cheney who is a former Enron shareholder. It should come to no one’s surprise that given the relationships, Ken Lay was selected to work on the Bush energy transition team under the chairmanship of Cheney. Lay’s easiest assignment? He interviewed potential candidates for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, an agency that would oversee his company (and months later lead a slow, long investigation into Enron’s role in the California energy debacle). The President picked Lay’s nominee, Pat Wood, to serve as chairman of the agency.

Ken Lay was a very useful and a very knowledgeable man to have around. He knew, for instance, of the holes in the California power market that could be exploited. He tried to warn officials about the problem in 1994 when Enron testified at a Public Utility Commission hearing. Unfortunately his advice was ignored. Enron then went with the flow. It reversed itself, endorsed the system, and lauded the politicians for setting up what Enron knew was an exploitable and faulty infrastructure.

As events would unfold, the dark side of Enron got part of its comeuppance when the Justice Department began investigations of Enron’s role in the California energy disaster.

Along with Dynegy and other power brokering companies, Enron employees were subject to federal criminal charges. One Enron employee pleaded guilty to wire fraud while Dynegy agreed to pay $5 million in fines.

According to a special report prepared for Rep. Henry A. Waxman, over seventeen energy policies recommended by Enron made their way into the official White House National Energy Policy report.

Congress awoke from its somnambulism, having become alarmed at Enron’s close association with the Bush administration. Congressional committees asked Dick Cheney for the names of those who advised him and the reports he relied upon in drafting the nation’s energy policy. Cheney bluntly and adamantly refused to reveal those facts. After months of standoff, the General Accounting Office (GAO) filed a suit against the Vice President in an effort to obtain the requested information. The White House then developed a fascinating legal strategy that helped them triumph over the legislative branch.

Defense attorneys from the civil division of the Justice Department should have been assigned to the case. However, in an unprecedented move, the Bush administration required the services of the nation’s number-one-gun, Theodore Olson, the Solicitor General, who normally only makes appearances before the Supreme Court. Olson, his Assistant Solicitor General, and a handpicked group of Justice Department lawyers formed a special “trial defense task force” to defend the Vice President. This act telegraphed to the court, press, and public that this was no ordinary case. The move paid off, a federal judge found for Mr. Cheney and the GAO declined to file an appeal. That, more or less, marked the end of the story. But then something happened.

On October 6, 2002, a newspaper in the UK published a little known article about Mr. Cheney’s advisers. According to Neil Mackay, an award-winning journalist, writing for Scotland’s Sunday Herald, Dick Cheney commissioned an energy report from ex-Secretary of State, James Baker III. The time of this “commission” is not reported, but since the members of the appointed task force held three videoconferences and teleconferences in December, January, and February 2000-2001, Cheney therefore logically contacted Baker some time prior to the December 2000 meeting—during the presidential transition period.
( send private message )

Equally intriguing is the fact that Baker has ties with both the Bushes and Ken Lay. Years earlier, in 1993, after Baker stepped down from his stint as Secretary of State, he and Robert A. Mosbacher—Bush senior’s commerce secretary—signed a joint consulting and investing agreement with Enron. The two men began a lucrative career making joint global investments with Enron on natural gas projects. Baker Botts LLC, James Baker’s law firm, flourished in its specialty of international oil and gas counseling.

Since Baker walked in their circles, when he set out to select an energy team to advise the White House, he filled it with leaders of the oil, gas, and power industries. Three appointees stand out: Kenneth Lay from Enron, who was working on the Bush Energy Transition team under Dick Cheney at the time; Chuck Watson, the then Chairman and CEO of Houston’s Dynegy Inc., and Dynegy’s General Counsel and Secretary, Kenneth Randolf. Both firms were deeply involved in illegally manipulating the California energy market at the time and eventually faced criminal investigations.

The oilmen selected for the task force were Luis Giusti, a Shell non-executive director, formerly CEO of Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A.; John Manzoni, regional president of British Petroleum; David O’Reilly, Chief Executive of Chevron/Texaco; and Steven L. Miller, Board Chairman, CEO and President of Shell Oil.

In his Sunday Herald article, Neil Mackay links another Fellow of the Baker Institute to the document, Sheikh Saud Al Nasser Al Sabah, the former Kuwaiti oil minister. The Baker Institute’s report on energy was funded through Khalid Al-Turki and the Arthur Ross Foundation.

Sometimes a mystery is hidden in a loaded detail that most of us would rather skip over. A case in point is this: the Baker task force report shows a forty-one member task force, but the press release gives fifty-one as the number. This of course, could be just a typo. But when we look at the structure as revealed in the report, it shows the Baker energy task force team was divided into three separate groups. First came the names of the forty-one-all-star task force. Secondly, came the names of nine observers. And thirdly, there was an unknown number forming a group of “reviewers” whose identities were not disclosed, but who collectively had “broad academic, economic, and energy expertise.” According to the acknowledgements these “individuals reviewed drafts of the report at various stages and participated in the Task Force meetings.” Perhaps the most telling admission is that the final version was “greatly enhanced” by this shadowy group.
( send private message )

The California energy crisis is raised again and again, along with the prophecy that America can expect “more California-like incidents” in the future. There’s even a connection made between the California crisis and the Middle East, which according to the report, “will remain the world’s base-load supplier and least expensive source of oil for the foreseeable future.” With that prophetic utterance, the stage is now set for a new actor, a new villain, and a new energy policy.
( send private message )

According to Neil Mackay in the Sunday Herald article, James Baker delivered the report to Dick Cheney in person in mid April 2001.

The subsequent events of September 11, 2001 helped take the world’s eyes away from the notion that an invasion of Iraq is for oil, but according to Mackay’s sources, the Bush cabinet agreed to military intervention in Iraq six months earlier, in April of 2001.
( send private message )

Ms Lancaster you can’t make me feel one way or another. I don’t give you that power over me. You school-yard pet names and taunts are simply that.
( send private message )

A little background is necessary: In June of 1997 a group of former republican administration officials launched The Project for the New American Century, a think tank offering research and analysis on a “revolution” in modern military methods and military objectives. Like the energy task force, the passionate neo-conservative authors endowed their Principles with hard-hitting force, calling for the necessity of “preserving and extending an international order friendly” to America’s “security, prosperity and principles.” The founders wrote: “The history of the 20th Century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge and to meet threats before they become dire.” In fact, on pages 51 and 67 of the institution’s intellectual centerpiece, Rebuilding America’s Defenses, the authors lament that the process of transforming the military would most likely be a long one, “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.” (How unfortunate for Americans, they got their needed event on September 11, 2001.)

The signers to the “principles” read like a who’s who of the Bush administration plus a chorus line of supporters: Dick Cheney, I. Lewis Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Elliott Abrams, plus world famous: William Bennett, Jeb Bush, and Dan Quayle, among others.

The signers endorsed two other dynamic enabling policies: increased military spending, and the necessity of challenging “regimes hostile to America’s interests and values.”

The seventy-six-page Rebuilding America’s Defenses was published in 2000. With a lot of expositional swagger, the authors created not only the ideal military preparedness level for their goal of global domination, but they identified a new kind of warfare that requires far less “force” than the military was accustomed to accept. What’s more, they identified the “hostile regimes” mentioned in the “Principles” to be none other than Iraq, North Korea, Iran and Syria.

The report credits Thomas Donnelly, a military writer, as “principal author,” and lists twenty-seven participants, some of whom contributed a “paper” to the discussion. The list of participants includes Dick Cheney’s present chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby as well as Paul Wolfowitz.

The two documents clearly show that before George W. Bush took office, key officials of his future administration not only listed Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as “adversaries” who “are rushing to develop ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons as a deterrent to American intervention in regions they seek to dominate,” but endorsed an alien concept, the doctrine of pre-emptive strikes against those nations believed to have hostile intent against the U.S. before such intent is manifested.

When it was all unraveled, almost every major policy action in the Baker report was incorporated into the national report. The tedious process of comparing the two reports with each other occasionally revealed a subtlety. For example, the Baker report says, “The U.S. must have a strategic energy policy based on energy security.” The national report subtly changes this to: “The NEPD Group recommends that the President make energy security a priority of our trade and foreign policy.” This foreign policy change led to the discovery that an important topic is missing from the national report.

Although every other oil producing country was discussed in the national energy text, two countries were glaringly omitted from even a mention: Iraq and Iran. There’s an explanation for the omissions: First, in reading the Baker report one is struck by the strategic military information provided, which would be odd and inappropriate in a report on energy. Secondly, the Baker report is divided into two sections: the first part focuses on strategic steps the new administration should take immediately. The second part focuses on long-range energy policy. “Taking care of Iraq” is listed as an immediate step in the Baker report. The national report, however, focuses solely on long-range policy.
( send private message )

Notwithstanding its importance as an example of what could happen to other states, the author of a passage (at page 5-12) of the national report suddenly yields to an impulse to relate what really happened in California. In doing so, he completely contradicts at least 105 references to California throughout the report. The significance of this contradictory entry into the National Energy Policy must not be underestimated.

In the process of reversing the carefully construed “California experience,” the author’s grasp exceeds his knowledge in that his understanding of the events in California go beyond what he should have reasonably known at the time of its writing. For he wrote, “The risk that the California experience will repeat itself is low, since other states have not modeled their retail competition plans on California’s plan.” This is an astounding statement. If the California crisis was caused by a supply shortage as the author claims a line above this sentence, surely other states could suffer similar shortages. But no, the author is actually making an admission here: he is admitting the energy crisis in California can’t be replicated in other states because certain market means do not exist in the other states. How could the author know this? The writer of that sentence would have to be someone intimately involved in the California system; know the real cause of the state’s crisis; and be familiar with all the other state rules and market infrastructures.

But our knowledgeable author is not done. In trying to amplify what he just revealed, he tried to hide the true actors in the next sentence by misdirecting the reader away from the culprits to blame the state. This is a formula for incoherence. Nonetheless, the writer’s sentence found its way into the national energy report where it spoke for the Bush administration: “California’s failure to reform flawed regulatory rules affecting the market drove up wholesale prices.” If this sentence is read literally, it asks the reader to believe that a state’s experience of failure to amend its rules, along with the flawed rules themselves, somehow had an independent power to “drive up wholesale prices,” without an intervening acting agent. The only sensible reading left to us is that the flawed rules allowed power brokers to manipulate the system. But how could our author and his administration editors know this to be true without being in collusion with the wrongdoers? If they were not in collusion they would have reported the crime. But if they remained silent when they had a duty to report or stop the commission of a crime, they became accessories.

Continuing his unexpected analysis, the author tells us, “Actions such as forcing utilities to purchase all their power through volatile spot markets, imposing a single-price auction system, and barring bilateral contracts all contributed to the problems that California now faces.” This is nothing more than the author, and through him the White House, attempting to throw responsibility for any wrongdoing by energy companies in California squarely at the feet of the state.

Many people were blaming the state at the time, including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The Hoover Institution jumped into the fray and released a book by James L. Sweeney, The California Electricity Crisis, which promotes and assigns blame like this: “After political leaders mismanaged the electricity crisis, California now faces an electricity blight while it struggles to recover from its self-imposed wounds.”

Not until the Sacramento Bee broke its story, “How Californians got burned” on May 6, 2001—ten days before the national report was released—did the public receive the first concrete signs the crisis may have been caused by manipulation. There was finger pointing in the media at the time, and accusations, but there was simply no proof. But after criminal convictions for federal wire fraud came thundering down, everything changed.
( send private message )

“Staff concludes that supply-demand imbalance, flawed market design and inconsistent rules made possible significant market manipulations as delineated in final investigation report. Without underlying market dysfunction, attempts to manipulate the market would not be successful.”

Amazingly, the finding eerily echoes our unknown author’s statements published in the National Energy Policy document (the national report) at page 5-12. The questions I raised above are even more significant now: How could the author and the editors have inserted an accurate assessment of the causes of the California energy fraud in May 2001 without having inside knowledge and or without being part of the scam, when it took the FERC two years of investigation to release virtually the same findings as those published in the national energy report?
( send private message )

Waxman wrote, “Any further changes in the plan were made under the direction of the White House. No subsequent versions of the White House energy plan were circulated to the interagency workgroup.” Assuming this description of the process applied to all the chapters of the national report, it appears the White House had the final word and made the final insertions and changes to the report.

In trying to answer the question, “Who done it?” our Sherlock Holmes people will have to look at the top levels of the White House and the Bush administration, and ask, “Who had sufficient knowledge of electricity markets in California and other states to have written the incriminating statements?”

Few if any names come to mind. Secretary of Energy, Spenser Abraham just doesn’t fit the profile. He was a one-term defeated junior senator from Michigan who is mainly known for never missing a roll-call vote and for his support of abolishing the same Department of Energy he now heads. Many people held the belief that Abraham’s appointment was a clear signal that Bush and Cheney would make all the energy decisions.

Andrew Lundquist, however, is another cup of tea. He was formerly the chief of staff for the Senate Energy Committee where he served brilliantly. Bush appointed him to be the Executive Director of the NEPD Group, chaired by Dick Cheney; however, he may never have seen the final changes.

Beyond Cheney and Lundquist and perhaps I. Lewis Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff, or perhaps Pat Wood, Chairman of FERC, who may fit the profile, one runs out of names.

However, another player does come to mind: he was a lone outsider who insinuated himself into a position of power in Bush’s White House. He is one man who by far is the most knowledgeable and capable power-market-man in the country, and he also happened to know how the marketing system in California could be rigged. His name is Kenneth Lay, the former chairman of Enron.

So the question is, are there any correlations between relevant passages in the text with other documents written by Ken Lay?

In a comparison of the two-page memo we know Lay submitted to Cheney, the passages attributed to the unknown author reveal similarities of vocabulary, including the identical use of words, a similar style of writing, and a correspondence of ideas expressed. It appears that Ken Lay may have written more of the national report than was previously suspected. So what about Dick Cheney as a suspect?

Although Mary Matalin, who was then serving as an adviser to the vice president, told a San Francisco Chronicle reporter that Cheney’s energy plan included input from many sources, “Just because some of the things are included in the plan doesn’t mean they were from the talks between Cheney and Lay.”

However, Mary Matalin may not have known what we now know: She apparently did not know that Ken Lay wrote his memo down on paper and submitted it to the Vice President. In fact, there may have been more than one memo submitted by Lay to Cheney, which might explain why the vice president went to such extremes to keep congress from viewing those documents.

It’s shocking to realize that at the same time the author’s incriminating admissions were being submitted to Dick Cheney, then read, edited and approved for publication by the White House, the fraudulent acts they referenced were being executed. This fact may have serious criminal justice implications for the White House. For in the spring of 2001, California was reeling from rolling blackouts and brownouts and the price of electricity was breaking through the sky like a con trail from a speeding jet.

It may be time to paraphrase Senator Howard Baker’s famous questions during the Watergate hearings, “What did the President and Vice President know and when did they know it?” At the very least, congress and the people of this country need to know who wrote the incriminating passages and who read them.

Henriksen was worried about a few countries, “If left unchecked, rogue states like Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya, and others will threaten innocent populations, undermine international norms, and spawn other pariah regimes, as the global order becomes tolerant of this political malignancy.”

His solution? “America must act not like a policeman but like a sheriff in the old Western frontier towns, acting alone on occasion, relying on deputies or long-standing allies, or looking for a posse among regional partners. . .[America] cannot allow desperadoes to run loose without encouraging other outlaws to test the limits of law and order.” (Surely, given the president’s performance in his first two years in office, this sentence must have been inserted into George W. Bush’s play book.)

Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House and the then-soon- to-be-appointed member of the National Defense Policy Board echoes this simple, lone star imagery, in an address to the Overseers Meeting of the Hoover Institution. “Somebody on horseback with a satellite phone and a laser designator connected directly with a B-2 bomber or a B-52 with smart weapons has a level of power unthinkable ever before in human history.”

Then there are the sensible folks of the Council on Foreign Relations, advising the new president in June of 2001, “Saddam Hussein and his regime pose a growing danger to the Middle East and the United States. The regime cannot be rehabilitated. Therefore, the goal of regime replacement should remain a fundamental tenet of U.S. policy options.”

The paper, written by Geoffrey Kemp and Morton H. Halperin, with sixteen other participants, advises the president there are three red lines describing actions that Saddam Hussein might possibly take. If he crosses any one of the three, the report states, we will gain the support of the Arabs and the Turks against him:

“First, Iraqi military threats or attacks on allied forces.

Second, Iraqi threats or attacks on neighboring states.

Third, Iraqi acquisition and deployment of weapons of mass
destruction or their use, including nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.”

Note the tense of the third sentence: it is present or future tense as opposed to the past tense. Judging from the subsequent actions and words of the president, it appears that the third red line in Kemp-Halperin paper may have played a large role in the administration’s attempts to gain allies in its war against Iraq.

Newt Gingrich’s address before the Hoover Board of Overseers was titled, “National Security Initiative, the Transformation of National Security,” and was an attempt to describe a new kind of military that called for a new kind of military education. He advised dropping the “concept of exit strategies,” which he said was a “fetish that grew out of the Vietnam War.” As for Saddam Hussein, Gingrich said, “We need to immediately replace him.”

Pulling his words out carefully, Gingrich revealed a stunning use of psychological intimidation and warfare. He elevated coercive verbal bullying to weaponry status. He said, “You cannot change Saudi Arabia as much as we need to change Saudi Arabia until you have an Iraq which is an American ally. And you need an Iraq that’s an American ally [because] it has a larger oil reserve than Saudi Arabia does.”

Gingrich unveiled how coercive a threat an American-Iraqi friendship would have over the Saudis: the bi-national friendship would destroy the Saudi’s sense of their reality that they alone are the one single source for the world’s reserve supply of oil. “The morning they see that we are that serious and we are that determined, they will negotiate with us in a very different way.” In other words, once there are two sources of cheap oil, it isn’t likely the Saudis will thumb their noses at a U.S. president’s offer to buy reserve oil at two dollars a barrel. It’s either two dollars a barrel or it’s nothing. (Since this speech, Gingrich has become an adviser to Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense.)
( send private message )

Titled, “Guiding Principles for U.S. Post-Conflict Policy in Iraq,” the report is cosponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy of Rice University.

The President and his advisers are greeted with constraints such as “uphold the territorial integrity of Iraq.”

Addressing the motives of the U.S., the report tells the president, “Western anti-war activists, the Arab public, average Iraqis and international media have all accused the United States of planning an attack on Iraq not to dismantle weapons of mass destruction but as a camouflaged plan to ‘steal’ Iraq’s oil for the sake of American oil interests.” The solution: any repairs, future investments, oil exports and sales of oil must be made transparent and involve both international and Iraqi oversight.

The report gets most interesting when it talks about oil—the lure and the reality. While there is great potential, “it will require massive investment.” ($28 billion.) The president is told, “Iraq has the second largest proven oil reserves in the world (behind Saudi Arabia) estimated at 112 billion barrels with as many as 220 billion barrels of resources deemed probable. Of Iraq’s 74 discovered and evaluated oil fields, only 15 have been developed.” In the western desert “there are 526 known structures that have been discovered, delineated, mapped, and classified as potential prospects in Iraq of which only 125 have been drilled.” It must be very difficult for some individuals and nations to let go of such a vision. We know the president and his men could not.

DiIulio wrote, “The Clinton administration drowned in policy intellectuals and teemed with knowledgeable people interested in making government work.” DiIulio said simply that intellectual work wasn’t “Bush’s style.”

In “eight months,” DiIulio continued, “I heard many, many staff discussions, but not three meaningful, substantive policy discussions. There were no actual policy white papers on domestic issues.”

What Mr. DiIulio may not have known is what the Yurica Report discovered: the policy papers were written for this administration—and not by this administration. The National Energy Policy like the Baker report drills into the reader’s mind that devastating “California-like” crises can and will be repeated unless the administration and congress choose to take prescribed steps to regain control over energy supply-lines. Control or insurance is spelled out as w-a-r against Iraq. Something intervened, however, that made energy crises unnecessary as a justification tool for war. That something was another Pearl Harbor on September 11, 2001.

This story ends as it began: with unrequited lies, deception and fraud. Three sentences inserted into the National Energy Policy report reveal: 1) the White House knew the California crisis was man-made; 2) knew the power companies were manipulating the market in California; 3) and knew these facts at the time the people of California were being fleeced by the scam; 4) yet the Bush White House did nothing to stop the fraud.

A special prosecutor should be appointed by Congress to investigate this whole matter as well as what Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney knew and when they knew it.

ARE you serious? You regurgitate the ENRON issue, which we are all well aware of, and actually try to connect it to the California problem

WOW… you will do anything to avoid the truth..

Next Up.. the TOOTH FAIRY did it..
( send private message )

sources;

1. San Francisco Chronicle, “Memos show makings of power crisis,” May 10, 2002. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/05/10/MN24643.DTL

http://www.sacbee.com/static/archive/news/special/power/050601california.html

3. The two page Ken Lay Memo (Go to this page and click on the “Memo” photo-icon at the top of the article):San Francisco Chronicle, “The Enron Collapse”, January 30, 2002. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/01/30/MN46204.DTL

4. Bush Administration Contacts with Enron, Prepared for Rep. Henry A. Waxman by the Minority Staff Special Investigations Division Committee on Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives.

http://www.house.gov/reform/min/inves_admin/admin_enron.htm

If the above link does not work click here for The Yurica Report copy.

5. How the White House Energy Plan Benefited Enron Prepared for Rep. Henry A. Waxman by the Minority Staff Committee on Government Reform.

http://www.house.gov/reform/min/inves_admin/admin_enron.htm

If the above link does not work click here for The Yurica Report copy.

Also see the following documents: How High Energy Costs Profitted Energy Companies.

6. Neil Mackay’s article in the Sunday Herald:

http://www.sundayherald.com/print28285

7. The Baker Report Press Release:

http://www.rice.edu/projects/baker/Pubs/reports/Pubs/bipp200107/bipp200107_03.html

Editor’s Note: The Yurica Report has learned that the Baker Institute at Rice University has removed the Press release from their web site. For those interested for research and vital information purposes, we have placed a copy on our web site at:: Task Force Issues Recommendations for Energy Policy.

8. Document No. 1: The Baker Report, Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century:

http://www.rice.edu/projects/baker/Pubs/workingpapers/cfrbipp_energy/energytf.htm

Editor’s Note: You may also read the report from our PDF file linked here.

9. Document No. 2: Project for the New American Century “Principles”:

http://newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

10. Document No. 3: Rebuilding America’s Defenses

http://newamericancentury.org/publicationsreports.htm

11. Document No. 4: National Energy Policy report:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/energy/

12. FERC Findings and Report:

http://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/wem/03-26-03.asp

13. San Francisco Chronicle, “The Enron Collapse”, January 30, 2002.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/01/30/MN46204.DTL

14. Letter from Rep. Waxman to Dick Cheney, dated January 25, 2002. http://reform.house.gov/min/inves_energy/energy_cheney.htm

15. Document No. 5: Using Power and Diplomacy to Deal With Rogue States: http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publications/epp/94/94a.html

16. Document No. 6: Newt Gingrich, “National Security Initiative, The Transformation of National Security.” A speech to the Board of Overseers Meeting, Hoover Institution, July 18, 2002. http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/research/conferences/boo2002july.html

17. Document No. 7: A Report on U.S. Policy Options Towards Iraq by Geoffrey Kemp, Morton H. Halperin, Council on Foreign Relations: http://www.cfr.org/publication_print.php?id=3990&content=

18. Document No. 8: Guiding Principles for U.S. Post-Conflict Policy in Iraq Edward P. Djerejian and Frank G. Wisner, Co-Chairs http://www.rice.edu/projects/baker/Pubs/workingpapers/iraq/index.html

19. Esquire, “Why Are These Men Laughing?” January, 2003. “The DiIulio Letter” October 24, 2002,

You making nasty comments about my intellect is like an alcoholic criticizing AA..

But, right on cue, you cannot simply discuss… oh now.. you, once again, have to act like a 4 year whose rattle was taken away…

Keep it up please.. it just confirms for all how silly and childish you are…
( send private message )

The democruds have controlled everything in CA for 40 years, they had the power to make changes, not the reps…

lancaster can’t do it because the truth hurts.
( send private message )

ohohoh, they attack me, ohohohwah.
u attack every lib here. u whine and get all butt hurt over a BLOG!

COWBOY UP, AND SHOW SOME OF THAT INTELLECT UR ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT, BUT
HAVE YET TO SHOW ANY PROOF OF.

come on dontno. no comments concerning the facts from above?

or was it to much for u?

is this where u say u don’t want facts, just opinions?

u seem to have a high opinion of urself! show us what it’s based on!
( send private message )

She is the one who claimed that the GOP and BUSH caused this mess..

She has yet to show me how the minority party for the past 40 years could pull this off..

And then she cuts and pastes ENRON facts as support for her BUSH caused it????

WOW.. she is amazing..

WOW.. she is amazing..EVEN if the “Electricity Issue” was in fact the reason for some “ISSUES” this state had to endure..

WOW.. she is amazing..EVEN if the “Electricity Issue” was in fact the reason for some “ISSUES” this state had to endure..1. Gray Davis was the Governor when the Grid was compromised if I have my facts correct..

WOW.. she is amazing..EVEN if the “Electricity Issue” was in fact the reason for some “ISSUES” this state had to endure..1. Gray Davis was the Governor when the Grid was compromised if I have my facts correct..2. The States immense deficit cannot be 100% blamed on high energy costs, so what is the point of the post?
( send private message )

I DID comment on your cut and pastes.. did you skip my reply? I responded twice… you need more?

AND you still have not have not explained how you can suggest that the fiscal issues in California according to you…

Were caused by the GOP who has been in a legislative minority for 40 years..
( send private message )

I don’t think GW was even a congressman in 94.

Why would you warn them of a problem then if they ignore it fault them for using that information?

Was it Pete Wilson that ignored the problem or was it the PUC?
( send private message )

And Gray Davis failed to recognize that a problem even existed until it was too late..

The REAL point here is..

For 40 years, the Dems have been in control in California…

It is obvious to all that their management plan “Ain’t working”…

Yet here comes lancaster making outlandish claims that it is the GOP’s fault..

And I would LOVE to know how for 40 years, they have managed to pull this off as the minority party..
( send private message )

NS, history is history we live in the here and now. Obama could outlaw the Republican Party if he wanted to if it was the demon ms Lancaster thinks it is.
( send private message )

I am stillllllllllllllll
Waitinggggggggggggggggggg
( send private message )

nobama has such thin skin, i’ve never seen anything like it before. he goes before the mike and cries foul, in his latest performance giving an example about a mop. what an immature prez.
( send private message )

my answer was above o slow one, dontno!
( send private message )

1. You still have not explained how you can suggest that the fiscal issues in California according to you…
Were caused by the GOP who has been in a legislative minority for 40 years..

2. It is nice that I have managed to create a great life for me and my family that allows me to enjoy the time I have left in this world..

3. Never said I work hard.. In fact, I only work hard and not working hard..

4. Are you ready to admit that your DEMS are the ones who made a mess of California?

OR do you have the answer to my question yet?
( send private message )

but then u haven’t answered any questions or given any facts on
anything dontno, so i guess expecting u to read a post is to much to ask!

and only a loser who sits on her ass all day, on a blog, would consider leaving to get some work done slithering!!!!
( send private message )

please, point them out.

were ur facts?
what exactly was the lie u speak of.
( send private message )

You still have not explained how you can suggest that the fiscal issues in California according to you…
Were caused by the GOP who has been in a legislative minority for 40 years..
( send private message )

You still have not explained how you can suggest that the fiscal issues in California according to you…
Were caused by the GOP who has been in a legislative minority for 40 years..
( send private message )

You still have not explained how you can suggest that the fiscal issues in California according to you…
Were caused by the GOP who has been in a legislative minority for 40 years..
( send private message )

u ask questions, that have been answered, and act like a little bitch,
asking the same question, over and over. (because the answer had to many words, or u just couldn’t understand them.)

u accuss people of posting and leaving,
because u don’t understand the term WORK!

u whine and whine and whine about “BEING PICKED ON”, yet every post u make is a attack on a lib.

U ARE NOT HONORABLE, DONTNO!
u are something of a lil bitch!

but then that’s what ur heros are to,
so i guess we shouldn’t be suprised!

lets see, a bitch, a liar and un-honorable.

not my fault u can’t understand my post, dontno. i would suggest a tutor,
but what would be the point?

no spine, dontwork, and dontno seems to be good labels 4 u.

don’t ever change.
( send private message )

Ah, it’s nice to end the day reading a friendly post from someone who also believes he/she doesn’t have to genuflect to NOSPIN.
( send private message )

Why play nice. A lot of lives on the line both locally and nationally with the decisions voters make. I say stir the pot, stimulate some thought, read between the lines, and get out and shout it out if you think you’ve been taken advantage of by votes like the WalMart deal. Isn’t anyone tired of being a pawn rather than the voters with strenght who moves the pieces around the board???
( send private message )