Greg Palast "Hillary's Musharraf"

[Emit]

On the way home from work a couple of days ago, I happened to catch Greg Palast on KJFK's Christiane Brown's "The Solution Zone." It's a show that airs here locally via the Air America affiliate, KJFK. He was talking about the Clintons' connections with Musharraf back before the Clinton Presidency, while Hillary worked for the Rose Law firm. The story involved some company called Entergy, Inc., if I recall, who had connections with Musharraf/Pakistan and Arkansas? I didn't quite follow the details, as they were quite intricate, and since I was driving in heavy traffic, I couldn't write anything down.

I've tried to find a link to it through Palast's website, and through "The Solution Zone", but there is no audio to refer to and Palast doesn't seem to have written anything about it recently.

Has any DUer heard Palast talk about this, or are any DUers aware of what he was referring to?

Thanks in advance for any light you can shed on this story.

And, in all fairness, a caller did call in and rake Palast over the coals about this story, saying that Palast was making unfounded assertions that would serve to feed into the Rudy campaign, the Limbaughs and the World Nut Daily crowd. The radio talk show host, Christiane Brown, let the two go at it for a while.

edit typo

[movonne]

1. I would like to know too....

[Emit]

8. Well, if I find anything, I will post about it.

One would think that Palast wouldn't rant on about this if he weren't planning to write about it.

[Emit]

22. See ellacott's post #10 for more info n/t

[bellasgrams]

2. Palast has his own agenda at heart not the country's.

always has always will.

[aquart]

4. I've noticed that.

I think of him as New Nader.

[aquart]

3. I'm sorry, what does "connection" mean?

Is he implying illegal activity? Does he have evidence? Or is this another one of his unfounded slurs? Musharraf came to power in a military coup with the clear support of Pakistan's generals and undoubtedly a more shadowy support from the US government under Clinton. To get that support, Musharraf clearly gave a laundry list of speeches designed to reassure America that its interests were protected. In return, we gave money. Should we NOT have given money to protect our interests?

Does anyone here believe that the coup would NOT have taken place without US support? Is that what Palast is implying? Would he prefer Pakistan to take money from China? Russia?

Or does Palast think the generals chose Musharraf BECAUSE he had some past dealings with the Clintons and they thought he'd be the best man to get their coup accepted?

Now that the Musharaff coup has gone sour under Bush's mismanagement of foreign affairs, is Palast trying to say it's all Hillary's fault? Like Walmart's business practices were all Hillary's fault?

There's a long habit of accepting Palast at face value around here. I no longer can.

[Emit]

5. I probably should have written 'alleged connection'

:shrug:

[Emit]

14. See #10: ellacott's link to Palast's piece posted at the Yurica Report details what Palast was

talking about. From ellacott's post on #10:

http://www.yuricareport.com/RevisitedBks/PalastCalifornia%20Reamin.htm

~snip~

Another one of the big multicontinental players was Entergy International, once a division of a struggling regional electricity company, which grabbed London Electricity and other huge foreign assets following the election of their hometown boy, Bill Clinton, to the White House. Entergy used their Clinton connections to sign deals in China, whose totalitarian regime must have held a particular attraction for the company's chairman, Ed Lupberger. In hunting for assets in Peru, Lupberger said, “They’ve got a good stable situation there, sort of a benevolent dictator, which means good responsible leadership.”

Pakistan looked like another Entergy jackpot when, in 1992, the government of Benazir Bhutto, in a manner most strange, agreed to increase the amount Pakistan's power agency would pay for electricity from plants part-owned by Entergy (10 percent) and Britain's National Power (40 percent). But in 1998, Bhutto lost the election and the new Pakistani government discovered her secret ownership of posh properties in London. Putting her unexplained riches together with the crazy generous deal with U.K.-U.S. power companies, Pakistani prosecutors in October 1988 charged her and the Western consortium with bribery. Pakistan's new government then ended the high payments to the British-American consortium on the internationally accepted rule of law that contracts allegedly obtained by bribery are unenforceable.

Officially, the IMF and World Bank condemn bribery. Nevertheless, within days of Pakistan's filing corruption charges and cutting payments to the accused power combine, the IMF Bank, at the request of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, threatened to cut off Pakistan's access to international finance.

Panicked by the threat of economic blockade, Pakistan prepared to collect the cash to pay off the U.K. - U.S. consortium. On December 22, 1998, Pakistan's military, under the direction of General Pevez Musharraf, sent thirty thousand troops into the nation's power stations. Peter Windsor, National Power's director of International Operations, told me, “A lot changed since the army moved in. Now we have a situation where we can be paid, they've found a way to collect from the man in the street.” Yes, at gunpoint, trade union lawyer Abdul Latif Nizamani told me after his arrest and release following mass demonstrations. (Windsor vehemently denied the bribery charges.)

With Pakistan's army in control of the nation’s infrastructure, and acting as guarantor of payment to the multinationals, General Musharraf's final takeover nine months later--a “surprise coup” to the Western press—was, in fact, a forgone conclusion to the power plant dispute.

In the months before he left office, President Clinton flew to Pakistan. Shocked U.S. congressmen could not understand why Clinton would place the American Eagle seal of approval on a notoriously unbalanced dictator with a Strangelovian affection for nuclear weapons and, at the time, a fondness for the Taliban. The answer was the real item on the agenda: higher electricity prices to pay the questionable contracts with the British-American power group.
~snip~

And the other link at ellacott's post fills in some more details:

~snip~

One company more than happy to pony up for a cash joy-ride with Brown was Entergy International. This electric company, based in Little Rock, became one of the world’s biggest power system operators on the planet under the Clinton regime. Interestingly, Bill Clinton began his political climb by running for Arkansas Attorney General campaigning on a pledge to fight Entergy’s electric price hikes. His pro-consumer plan was defeated in court by Entergy’s law firm - which included one Hillary Rodham.

There were more favors for Entergy. In 1998, I discovered, while working under cover for the Guardian and Observer, that Tony Blair was personally fixing the system to let Entergy to violate British policy on coal plants. Why? I picked up in my secret recordings of Blair’s cronies that calls to take care of Entergy, rules be damned, had come in from the office of ‘the Flotus’ - the First Lady of the United States.

It gets creepier. In June of 1994, Entergy’s partner in Asia, the Riady family of Indonesia paid recently-resigned Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell a $100,000 consulting fee. Odd that: Hubbell was on his way to prison for the felony crime of inflating his legal bills. Why would Asians pay a lawyer for advice on Asia who was on his way to the pokey?

Maybe it had to do with his partner in crime. I’ve conducted investigations of lawyer over-billing. It is nearly impossible for a senior lawyer to pad billing records unless the junior partner also fraudulently monkeys with time logs to make sure the records don’t give away the game. Who was Hubbell’s “little lady” junior partner? Today we call her Madame Senator.

~snip~

http://www.gregpalast.com/hillarys-mother-fing-tour-business

[papau]

6. I know some folks that visited both Pakistan & Arkansas - and have photos of Hillary- for the record

my old boss, General Olstead who funded Ike's slush fund while he was in the Army - thereby getting the appointment to "General" (handling supplies) - and who had Thurday dinners at the White House with Reagan, stated that while Asst Sec of Commerce under Ike he arranged for $20 billion (the actual amount being secret and taken from CIA black box accounts that we hide in other sections of government in our budgeting) to go to Pakistan under Ike's "Atoms for Peace" plan, together with experts and training so as to offset the "USSR client" India's atomic program. Khan was our CIA asset - which explains why he has never been question officially by the US on his sending nuke info and equipment around the world.

If Palast is serious about investigating Pakistan/US (and CIA) conections, that is the story he would be chasing (like how did our 1983 new nuke bomb plans show up in a Chinese journal in 1988 - with no fuss in our media about it? - even after the CIA stated in 93 that they agreed it was in the 88 journal).

Chasing the Clintons makes me think he is either easily lead by the GOP rich and corporate, or he works for them.

[aquart]

7. My mom keeps saying he has a brain tumor.

[Blashyrkh]

9. "Does she have evidence? Or is this another one of her unfounded slurs?

[aquart]

18. I expect it's the nicest thing she can think of to say about it.

But don't let me interrupt your attempt at cleverness.

[ellacott]

10. It's a very interesting story

Not sure if it's true. Entergy was the electric company that filed bankruptcy in New Orleans after Katrina.

I found 2 different links that put the story together. Again, I have no knowledge on the validity of Palast's reporting but it does make an interesting story.

<snip>
One company more than happy to pony up for a cash joy-ride with Brown was Entergy International. This electric company, based in Little Rock, became one of the world’s biggest power system operators on the planet under the Clinton regime. Interestingly, Bill Clinton began his political climb by running for Arkansas Attorney General campaigning on a pledge to fight Entergy’s electric price hikes. His pro-consumer plan was defeated in court by Entergy’s law firm - which included one Hillary Rodham.

There were more favors for Entergy. In 1998, I discovered, while working under cover for the Guardian and Observer, that Tony Blair was personally fixing the system to let Entergy to violate British policy on coal plants. Why? I picked up in my secret recordings of Blair’s cronies that calls to take care of Entergy, rules be damned, had come in from the office of ‘the Flotus’ - the First Lady of the United States.

It gets creepier. In June of 1994, Entergy’s partner in Asia, the Riady family of Indonesia paid recently-resigned Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell a $100,000 consulting fee. Odd that: Hubbell was on his way to prison for the felony crime of inflating his legal bills. Why would Asians pay a lawyer for advice on Asia who was on his way to the pokey?

Maybe it had to do with his partner in crime. I’ve conducted investigations of lawyer over-billing. It is nearly impossible for a senior lawyer to pad billing records unless the junior partner also fraudulently monkeys with time logs to make sure the records don’t give away the game. Who was Hubbell’s “little lady” junior partner? Today we call her Madame Senator.

Hillary’s logs were worth close inspection by authorities, no? But the funny thing about Hillary’s billing records: when requested for disclosure in another suit, they disappeared. First, her law firm’s computers went ka-blooey. Then the paper printouts vanished, but not before, during the 1992 Presidential campaign, they were secretly combed over, line by line, by … Web Hubbell.
<snip>
http://www.gregpalast.com/hillarys-mother-fing-tour-business/

<snip>
Another one of the big multicontinental players was Entergy International, once a division of a struggling regional electricity company, which grabbed London Electricity and other huge foreign assets following the election of their hometown boy, Bill Clinton, to the White House. Entergy used their Clinton connections to sign deals in China, whose totalitarian regime must have held a particular attraction for the company's chairman, Ed Lupberger. In hunting for assets in Peru, Lupberger said, “They’ve got a good stable situation there, sort of a benevolent dictator, which means good responsible leadership.”

Pakistan looked like another Entergy jackpot when, in 1992, the government of Benazir Bhutto, in a manner most strange, agreed to increase the amount Pakistan's power agency would pay for electricity from plants part-owned by Entergy (10 percent) and Britain's National Power (40 percent). But in 1998, Bhutto lost the election and the new Pakistani government discovered her secret ownership of posh properties in London. Putting her unexplained riches together with the crazy generous deal with U.K.-U.S. power companies, Pakistani prosecutors in October 1988 charged her and the Western consortium with bribery. Pakistan's new government then ended the high payments to the British-American consortium on the internationally accepted rule of law that contracts allegedly obtained by bribery are unenforceable.

Officially, the IMF and World Bank condemn bribery. Nevertheless, within days of Pakistan's filing corruption charges and cutting payments to the accused power combine, the IMF Bank, at the request of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, threatened to cut off Pakistan's access to international finance.

Panicked by the threat of economic blockade, Pakistan prepared to collect the cash to pay off the U.K. - U.S. consortium. On December 22, 1998, Pakistan's military, under the direction of General Pevez Musharraf, sent thirty thousand troops into the nation's power stations. Peter Windsor, National Power's director of International Operations, told me, “A lot changed since the army moved in. Now we have a situation where we can be paid, they've found a way to collect from the man in the street.” Yes, at gunpoint, trade union lawyer Abdul Latif Nizamani told me after his arrest and release following mass demonstrations. (Windsor vehemently denied the bribery charges.)
<snip>
http://www.yuricareport.com/RevisitedBks/PalastCalifornia%20Reamin.htm

[Emit]

12. Thank you. The link to the Yurica Report details how he makes the connection to Musharraf.

"CALIFORNIA REAMIN': Deregulation and the Power Pirates"

Thanks for posting that. I'm giving it a careful read right now.

[ellacott]

13. You're welcome

I'd be interested in your perspective. I like Greg Palast I'm always curious as to the validity of his reporting.

[papau]

15. A bit of nonsense - Hillary's billing records were never missing - and they showed no wrong doing on

her part.

What was "missing" was the carbon copy - and Ken Star claimed she may have made notes on the carbon copy that he needed to see - there were no notes of course.

Then the rest is a rate hike based on a bribe that was never shown to have been given - and the enforcement of the law so as to make power plant owners pay what was owed.

There is nothing about Hillary ever doing any work as a lawyer for the Entergy firm - only that the firm was a client of her law firm.

As I said above - this direction Palast has taken - on so little - indeed no - evidence - makes me question his independence.

[aquart]

19. Was Hillary allowed to work on the Entergy case?

Because if she was, that would be a direct conflict of interest and you fellas would finally have something concrete to get her on. But my best guess is she went nowhere near Entergy BECAUSE of the ethical and political suicide involved. And if you had any evidence otherwise the story would not be framed as it is. It would be a direct accusation instead of a drudgelike series of innuendos.

But GOOD TRY!

[ellacott]

21. Good try?

I simply provided the info that the OP was talking about. As I said(twice) I have no knowledge of the validity of these claims.

[mod mom]

11. Here is a link to what Palast was talking about:

http://www.gregpalast.com/hillarys-mother-fing-tour-business/

[SoCalDem]

16. Hillary IS Musharraf or Hillary HAS her own Musharraf?

C'mon Greg, you can do better than that :evilgrin:

[Proud2BAmurkin]

17. Palast is always on the douchy side

Nothing he says ever pans out.

[EFerrari]

20. Can you back that up? n/t