Greg Palast: Bush and Republicans should give up ill-gotten Lay loot that bought the White House

". . .Ken Lay and his Enron team are the Number One political career donors to George W. Bush. Mr. Lay and his Mrs., with no money to pay back bilked creditors, still managed to personally put up $100,000 for George's inaugural Ball plus $793,110 for personal donations to Republicans. Lay's Enron team dropped $4.2 million into the party that let Enron party.
OK now, Mr. President, give it back -- the millions stuffed in the pockets of the Republican campaign kitty stolen from Enron retirees.
And what else did Ken Lay buy with the money stolen from California electricity customers? Answer: the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Just before George Bush moved to Washington, Kenny-Boy handed his hand-picked president-to-be the name of the man Ken wanted as Chairman of the commission charged with investigating Enron's thievery. In a heartbeat, George Bush appointed Ken's boy, Pat Wood.
Think about that: the criminal gets to pick the police chief. Well, George, give it back. Dump Wood and end the de-criminalization of electricity price-gouging that you and Cheney and Wood laughably call "de-regulation." Give us back the government Lay bought with crime cash.
And while we're gathering up the ill-gotten loot, let's stop by Brother Jeb's. The Governor of Florida picked up a cool $2 million from a Houston fundraiser at the home of Enron's former president long AFTER the company went bankrupt. Enron, not incidentally, obtained half a billion of Florida state pension money -- which has now disappeared down the Enron rat-hole.
And Mr. Vice-President, don't you also have something to give back? In secret meetings with Dick Cheney in the Veep's bunker prior to the inauguration and after, you let Ken and his cohorts secretly draft the nation's energy plan -- taking a short break to eye oilfield maps of Iraq. Let us remember that the President's sticky-fingered brothers Neil and Marvin were on Enron's payroll, hired to sell pipelines to the Saudis. The Saudis didn't bite, but maybe a captive Iraq would be more pliant. . . ."