A brief hiatus.

{ 11:57 AM }

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Contrition of the conspirators. "It was the first time the two had appeared together to face their multiple criminal charges, and when Lay entered the court he winked at Skilling, who smiled back."

{ 9:38 AM }

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Equal opportunity destroyer. America's middle is caught in a downward spiral: the middle aged and the middle class are going broke in record numbers (WSJ, 8/6/04, sub. req'd.):

Since the 1960s, personal bankruptcy has often been a haven for the young and struggling. Bankruptcy lawyers say younger and less-educated people tended to rack up too much debt while starting families and jobs, without a savings cushion to carry them through lean times. No government agency tracks the age of bankruptcy filers, but the rule of thumb, say those who've worked in and studied the field, was the older the group, the fewer the filers.

That's changing, as personal bankruptcy filings are hitting all-time highs. Last year, there were more than 1.6 million such filings, compared with 875,000 a decade earlier. Some experts say much of the increase is being driven by older people, many of whom have decades of work experience in white-collar jobs.

The Consumer Bankruptcy Project, which surveyed 2,400 bankruptcy filers in 2001 and 1991, found that on a per capita basis, older people are now the most likely to file. In 2001, for instance, per capita filings of individuals ages 45 to 54 increased 58%, to 11 per thousand, according to the study. "The curve is moving to the right," says Elizabeth Warren, a professor at Harvard University Law School, who co-authored the study. "It reflects a more frightening reality for a wide swath of middle-class America."

[...]

Ben B. Floyd, a personal-bankruptcy trustee in Houston for the past 30 years, says he's now seeing people "who obviously had a white-collar background. They come in looking lost." Personal-bankruptcy lawyers across the country say they've witnessed a tidal shift in their practices, seeing older clients with longer work histories. "These people didn't take their credit cards to Atlantic City," says Gabriel Del Virginia, a New York bankruptcy attorney. "It's largely because people lost their jobs or had a catastrophic illness."

Bankruptcies have doubled since the Clinton years. Is it a coincidence?

Note to the GOP: why don't you tackle the real, systemic problems of job and health security and your own fiscal responsibility before you address the high-drama but low-impact problems of abortion and gay marriage?

{ 2:19 PM }

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My vote for what Kid Rock should perform at the Republican National Convention is his hit "Fuck U Blind."

{ 12:32 PM }

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$38 million to defend Skilling and Lay. Tandem dockets and bulging pockets (Mary Flood in the Houston Chronicle):

Ex-Enron Chairman Ken Lay wants to go to trial immediately and alone, possibly without a jury, and he's ponied up some $15 million to get it done, according to court papers filed Monday.

Lay, who faces 11 criminal charges, was indicted along with former Chief Executive Officer Jeff Skilling and former top accountant Rick Causey. As expected for weeks, Lay's Houston lawyer, Mike Ramsey, asked U.S. District Judge Sim Lake on Monday to separate Lay from his alleged co-conspirators and try Lay in mid-September.

[…]

The government noted in court papers Monday that Lay has set aside "a formidable war chest, transferring $15 million to a legal defense fund eight weeks before his indictment."

[…]

The gigantic sum only seems small in comparison to Skilling's war chest. Charged with 35 counts of insider trading, securities fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy, Skilling put $23 million in his legal defense fund.

Where did these two guys get $38 million? Could their possession of that kind of stash have anything at all to do with "insider trading, securities fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy"? Hmmm...

(Reminder: Martha Stewart, as a Democrat and a woman, may go to jail for an insider trade that netted her $224,000. Enron's two CEOs, as Republicans and as men, can afford to put up $38 million for their defense fund alone. God only knows what they've sequestered offshore in Switzerland or the Caymans. They've had three years to do it.)

{ 8:44 AM }

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Agnew chides Bush. The dynasty that prays together, slays together (FindLaw/AP):

KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine (AP) - A clergyman implored his affluent congregation, including President Bush's family, to jettison their material possessions, gently mocking George H.W. Bush's struggles on the golf course to drive home his point.

The Very Rev. Martin Luther Agnew preached Sunday to a packed Episcopal church just down the road from the Bush family's seaside estate. Its oceanfront parking lot was filled with luxury cars made by Jaguar, Mercedes, BMW and Volvo, testament to the wealth of the summer visitors at this southeast Maine resort.

"Gated communities," Agnew said, "tend to keep out God's people." But, he said, "Our material gifts do not have to be a wall."

"They can very well be a door. Jesus says, 'Sell your possessions and give alms,'" Agnew said. "I'm convinced that what we keep owns us, and what we give away sets us free."

Agnew, a guest minister from Louisiana whose summer assignment ended Sunday, swung a golf club to get his message across to the vacationing congregation.

The sermon culminated with a joke about the first President Bush's battle to chip a golf ball out of an anthill. Swinging the club in a mock re-enactment, Agnew said Bush had swung twice and whiffed completely, wiping out hundreds of ants.

The ants got together and agreed: "If we're going to live, we better get on the ball!"

The former president sat stone-faced through this parable, even as his family, including the current President Bush, looked at him and smiled.

The ex-president gamely high-fived Agnew when the priest approached the second pew.

"Brothers and sisters, what God is inviting us to do is get on the ball," Agnew said, again imploring his audience to part with their possessions.

The Bush family that gathered at the front of the church Sunday morning is wealthy by any measure. They convened here at the 11-acre family compound owned by the former president and perched on the Atlantic Ocean. It is worth millions of dollars.

The current president lists among his assets his Texas ranch, worth between $1 million and $5 million. He also has U.S. Treasury notes valued at $5 million to $8.7 million. He sold his share of the Texas Rangers baseball team in 1998 for more than $15 million.

Also in the stone-and-mortar church were Bush's three brothers, Jeb, Neil and Marvin, first lady Laura Bush and Barbara Bush, the former first lady.

The family were gathered here for the wedding Saturday of Jeb Bush's son George Prescott Bush.

Neil Bush shows up for his nephew's wedding, but nobody shows up for his.

That's what happens when you're an adulterer and a freeloading client of prepaid prostitutes while your family is trying desperately to put forth a hypocritical campaign based on "values."

{ 2:41 PM }

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Civilized countries to monitor US election. Perhaps twenty-first century Americans can finally advance beyond staged elections (courtesy of Katherine Harris and Antonin Scalia and their ilk) toward actual democracy. Our November elections will be monitored by the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe], a bunch of Europeans.

{ 1:57 PM }

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