The Clinton's, USEC, and Cronyism,

[Blarch]

In July 1998, the Clinton Administration privatized the United States Enrichment Corporation, USEC. The privatized USEC proved inefficient at enriching uranium, but exceptionally efficient in enriching several Clinton associates. Hillary’s sidekick Susan Thomases was a USEC lobbyist. The law
firm that defended the President in one of Bill’s bimbo law suits picked up $15 million for work leading up to USEC’s flotation. A federal judge
concluded that documents USEC tried to conceal suggest the privatization decision was influenced by, “bias, self-interest and self-dealing.”
http://www.gregpalast.com/to-russia-with-love-and-15-billion/


A federal judge ruled last week that the closed-door policy used to privatize the government's uranium enrichment industry violated the public trust.
U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler wrote in her decision that the process used to sell the U.S. Enrichment Corp. was "a model of what not to do when considering various options for privatizing a federal entity."

Kessler, citing various news accounts of the privatization, noted that USEC's outside lawyers made about $15 million, a financial advisor would earn up to $7.5 million if the board approved a public stock offering, and USEC Chief Executive William Timbers got a $617,625 bonus. She said the transcripts of the closed board meetings "reveal the ways in which bias, self-interest and self-dealing can influence the decision-making process, especially when that process is kept entirely secretive." http://govexec.com/dailyfed/0301/032001w1.htm


OK Hillary supporters, you can now start killing the messenger.

[TwilightZone]

1. ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4182314

[papau]

3. LOL

[Blarch]

4. not what spell check says.

:eyes:

I hear ya, I just don't care.

[HereSince1628]

7. Computer says "Noooohhhh!" ?

"Kaaahh!" :rofl:

[papau]

2. Who ran Congress in 1998? - Anything else going on at the time? Clinton made how much from this?

[Blarch]

5. Are you implying the congress forced Clinton to do this ?

[papau]

9. You know the legislative history - who proposed what? - or just smearing today?

[elixir]

6. Here's the rest of the article. I think it's important to include the full text for accuracy...

“bias, self-interest and self-dealing.” ...

"To sell privatization, Clinton’s buddies at USEC promised their corporation would buy up tons of Russia’s old warhead uranium.from MinAtom. As with NPT, the sales pitch was that private industry by taking over government enrichment operations, could reduce the amount of bomb ingredients in Russia’s hands at no cost to the US treasury. Another public-private win-win.

But Stiglitz, ever the hard-nosed economist, he could not fathom how this new profit-making corporation pay the Russians above market price for the uranium.

The answer was, USEC couldn’t. In 1996, some birdie dropped a damning document on Stiglitz’ desk. It was a memo indicating that MinAtom had
demanded USEC take about double the amount of uranium originally expected. Rather than take the costly deliveries, USEC quietly arranged a payment to MinAtom of $50 million. Stiglitz called it, “hush money.” USEC says it was a legitimate pre-payment for the hot stuff. However one describes it, MinAtom was more than happy to play along, for a price.

Yet NPT Inc tells us that MinAtom and US private enterprise can now form a trustworthy partnership to safeguard nuclear material for the next few
thousand years. At first, this puzzled me: NPT Inc’s board is led by the CIA and military men who pushed Star Wars which they sold on the premise that Russia has probably let slip nuclear material to unnamed ‘rogue states.’

But I think I’ve solved this puzzling conundrum. What we have here is the ultimate, and very green, recylcing program: NPT ships America’s uranium
to the Russians, who lose track of a bit here and there … which falls into the hands of a Rogue State … which then returns it to the USA perched atop an intercontinental ballistic missile … which is shot down by the trillion-dollar Star Wars defense system. Win-win for everyone."

Now, I love Greg Palast as much as the next guy but this last graph sets up a very questionable scenario. Didn't Star Wars die and go away? And since when have we been concerned about the corporatization (hmmm?) of the world? I may sound cynical but it's a little late to play sleuth on this crap.

[Blarch]

8. It's an important issue.

Bush's administration thrives on cronyism ..do we really want that back in the WH ?

We also need to ask ourselves what else the Clintons would privatize for $$$

Will they dig up Milton Freidman for advice ?