DALLAS - The Securities and Exchange Commission has formalized its investigation of Halliburton Co.'s accounting practices, the company said.
The decision, announced late Thursday, expands a probe the SEC began in May.
The accounting issue concerns a 1998 policy change, when Dallas-based Halliburton began counting cost overruns as additional revenue on some construction and engineering jobs, before the customer agreed to pay for the extra costs.
The change was made when Vice President Dick Cheney served as the company's CEO and was approved by Arthur Andersen, the company's former auditor.
This is something we have consistently pointed out in many earlier posts: the disproportionate treatment of Arthur Andersen, relative to the still-unindicted Enron executives, was always ultimately meant to protect not just George W. Bush but also former Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney. They knew that the SEC would bear down upon Halliburton sooner or later, and what better way to destroy the accounting evidence than to shred not the documents but the auditor itself.
The entire administration reeks of cronyism and dirty tricks. What's the antonym of "meritocracy"? The Bush dynasty.
There is no such thing as context in Woodward's world, almost no history and absolutely no possibility that anyone would dare to try to mislead America's most famous reporter.
I am prepared to believe most of what's here; not that it actually happened, but that someone in a position of authority is willing to say it did.
From presidential investigator to empire stenographer in thirty years. Sad.
Scoop! Atrios traces the line from the Christian ultra-right to companies that supply proprietary voting machines. Read his take and be sure to check out all the links he provides.
$10,000 Reward for information leading to the identity of the Eli Lilly Bandit — the person who slipped the midnight rider into the Homeland Security Bill, shielding the pharmaceutical giant from lawsuits by parents who claim the company's vaccines caused their children's autism. (Relevance to Homeland Security? None.)
State Rep. Tom Craddick, who is expected to become the speaker of the Texas House in January, received tens of thousands of dollars in income from energy companies benefiting from a tax cut he sponsored in 1999, a government watchdog group reported Tuesday.
The tax measure, which provided a temporary severance tax exemption for marginal oil and gas wells in Texas, was championed by then-Gov. George W. Bush and was approved overwhelmingly by Texas lawmakers.
Craddick, R-Midland, who is in the oil and gas business, was the House sponsor. [...]
The watchdog group said Craddick's royalty payments included between $10,000 and $24,999 from Pioneer Natural Resources, which received a $1 million tax cut from the legislation.
Pioneer was created in 1997 in a merger orchestrated by former Bush business associate Richard Rainwater. Bush declared the tax break an emergency, which helped to speed up legislative passage of the measure. [...]
Craddick, who has announced that he has enough votes to be elected the first Republican speaker of the Texas House in modern times, had previously been criticized for his business ties.
Also in 1999, during a debate over electric deregulation, Craddick carried an amendment to give Cap Rock Energy an edge over other electric utilities in Texas. A year earlier, he had been paid $28,500 for brokering a separate business deal for the company.
Craddick's daughter, Christi Craddick, also received $30,000 in lobbying fees from Cap Rock in 1999, the Fort Worth Star Telegram reported earlier this fall. Subsequently, a spokesman for the Craddicks announced that Christi would no longer be a lobbyist while her father was speaker.
I normally don't give a damn about Texas politics, except we're beginning to see that it is an incubator for the diseased politics wafting out of the White House. If Texas is the rough draft, how far can we sink as a nation?
By the way, how's that Enron/Cheney criminal investigation going?
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Law enforcement officials still cannot find more than 100 of 393 children reported missing from Department of Children & Families care, a report released Tuesday said.
Out the 103 youngsters listed on the report, 88 are being sought by law enforcement as missing children. Thirteen have turned 18 and are not being sought by law enforcement, the report said. Another turned 18 but is being sought as a missing adult and another, 17-year-old Marissa Karp, was found slain in August.
Gov. Jeb Bush started Operation Safe Kids in August, ordering DCF and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to find the children missing from state care, most of whom are believe to be runaways or taken by a noncustodial relative.
Bush called the operation a success in a statement released Tuesday, saying that in addition to locating most of the missing children it improved communication between DCF and law enforcement agencies.
Operation Safe Kids "has helped to establish a system that will better protect the children in our state," Bush said.
As part of the process, the state formed seven regional task forces to search for the children and make recommendations on how to better ensure children's safety.
Bush's order resulted from DCF scrutiny in the wake of the Rilya Wilson case. The 5-year-old Miami girl was missing for 15 months before department officials in April realized she was gone. She is still unaccounted-for.
Also unaccounted for is a shred of competence or moral fiber in any member of the Bush family.
Combine that with Junior's propensity to kiss the feet of faith-based hogwash peddlers who feel entitled to determine the birth control methods of everyone else. Meanwhile, in a more intelligent non-American universe, the United Nations has announced that birth control is a remedy for poverty.
What a difference a few decades make. The American war on poverty has devolved into Junior's war on the impoverished. It's not enough that they're down — we've got to pummel them with the full weight of the Republican party, its formidable assets, its clandestine agenda, its theocratic leanings, its dubious leadership, and its fundamental racism.
Merry Christmas, poor people, from the GOP. Here's a swift kick in the teeth. Try not to bleed on our money too profusely.
Meanwhile, Scott D. Sullivan, WorldCom's former chief financial officer, continues construction on his 24,000-square-foot megamansion in Boca Raton, Fla. Mr. Sullivan was indicted on charges that he conspired to hide billions of dollars in losses at the company.
[...] Mr. Sullivan is regularly seen zipping around town in his silver Range Rover on his way to inspect that $15 million construction project, which includes an 18-seat movie theater, a private art gallery and a lagoon.
While Mr. Sullivan may not be safe from jail and civil lawsuits, his new home is secure; even if he is forced to file for bankruptcy, Florida's Homestead Act could protect the home and the land from creditors.
Of course his 24,000 square foot home is protected, with Florida's high-quality crony-protecting legislation. To endanger Sullivan's house, wouldn't the governor of Florida have to want to come after him really bad? But Jeb's distracted, busy feathering the nests of his brothers, the educational software genius and Silverado savings-and-loan leech* (Neil) and that other one, what's-his-name.
