culture, politics, commentary, criticism

Thursday, July 21, 2005
And they all lived happily ever after, thanks to Enron acquittals. Why is it you never hear the words
"humbled prosecutors" in a routine case of drug possession, but rather only when we're talking about white collar criminals who also happened to be the biggest contributors to the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign?
After deliberating less than 24 hours over four days, a Houston federal court jury acquitted three of the men on some charges and deadlocked on most of the Enron Broadband Services case.

The five men faced various charges relating to their roles in allegedly misleading investors regarding the success of the Internet venture.

It's the second blow in less than two months for the Enron Task Force: The U.S. Supreme Court earlier overturned the obstruction of justice conviction against the Arthur Andersen accounting firm.

On Wednesday, jurors declared themselves deadlocked on many charges and prosecutors asked the judge to order them to keep trying. U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore refused to do so, and declared a mistrial on the dozens of counts on which the jury could not agree.

"This verdict is a reflection of the complexity of this prosecution," said Robert Mintz, a New Jersey-based legal expert who follows the cases. "It spells trouble for the government trying to convince jurors in this case and others in the future."

He and other legal experts said the acquittals and mistrial can only bode well for ex-Enron executives Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling and Rick Causey, who face off with the humbled prosecutors next January.
The case was bungled from the start. And quite probably by design.
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Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Sidestepping Roe v. Wade. Obviously it's important, but I am sick of Roe v. Wade as the defining criterion of the Democratic position. There are other legal issues worth discussing by the Supreme Court. What about more general rights of privacy and identity undermined by the Patriot Act? What about government vs. corporate vs. individual rights? What about the ineffectiveness of mandatory minimum sentences, or larger and more proportionate sentences for the economic leverage of white-collar crime? The rights of families to remove extraordinary efforts to keep someone in a persistent vegetative state alive despite what Republican legislators think? The protection of journalists from the people they write about?

Perhaps most important of all: the overreach of the executive branch of government as the demolition of American democracy. When all branches of government behave as the personal fiefdom of the White House, aren't we already living in a dictatorship?
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Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Imagining uranium. The uranium didn't exist, and now nearly 2,000 Americans and at least
25,000 Iraqi civilians don't either. We know who started this war, and how they started it, but we have yet to divine the real reason why.

Dubya's daddy complex, the neocons' devotion to nominal democracy, Halliburton/Bechtel cash flow: none of these is enough to explain the expenditure of blood, sweat and tears (not to mention cash) that went into this war. The invasion of Iraq was a hugely public expression of a handful of private desires — but whose? And which?
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Greatest Hits · Alternatives to First Command Financial Planning · First Command, last resort, Part 3 · Part 2 · Part 1 · Stealing $50K from a widow: Wells Real Estate · Leo Wells, REITs and divine wealth · Sex-crazed Red State teenagers · What I hate: a manifesto · Spawn of Darleen Druyun · All-American high school sex party · Why is Ken Lay smiling? · Poppy's Enron birthday party · The Saudi money laundry and the president's uncle · The sentence of Enron's John Forney · The holiness of Neil Bush's marriage · The Silence of Cheney: a poem · South Park Christians · Capitalist against Bush: Warren Buffett · Fastow childen vs. Enron children · Give your prescription money to your old boss · Neil Bush, hard-working matchmaker · Republicans against fetuses and pregnant women · Emboldened Ken Lay · Faith-based jails · Please die for me so I can skip your funeral · A brief illustrated history of the Republican Party · Nancy Victory · Soldiers become accountants · Beware the Merrill Lynch mob · Darleen Druyun's $5.7 billion surprise · First responder funding · Hoovering the country · First Command fifty percent load · Ken Lay and the Atkins diet · Halliburton WMD · Leave no CEO behind · August in Crawford · Elaine Pagels · Profitable slave labor at Halliburton · Tom Hanks + Mujahideen · Sharon & Neilsie Bush · One weekend a month, or eternity · Is the US pumping Iraqi oil to Kuwait? · Cheney's war · Seth Glickenhaus: Capitalist against Bush · Martha's blow job · Mark Belnick: Tyco Catholic nut · Cheney's deferred Halliburton compensation · Jeb sucks sugar cane · Poindexter & LifeLog · American Family Association panic · Riley Bechtel and the crony economy · The Book of Sharon (Bush) · The Art of Enron · Plunder convention · Waiting in Kuwait: Jay Garner · What's an Army private worth? · Barbara Bodine, Queen of Baghdad · Sneaky bastards at Halliburton · Golf course and barbecue military strategy · Enron at large · Recent astroturf · Cracker Chic 2 · No business like war business · Big Brother · Martha Stewart vs. Thomas White · Roger Kimball, disappointed Republican poetry fan · Cheney, Lay, Afghanistan · Terry Lynn Barton, crimes of burning · Feasting at the Cheney trough · Who would Jesus indict? · Return of the Carlyle Group · Duct tape is for little people · GOP and bad medicine · Sears Tower vs Mt Rushmore · Scared Christians · Crooked playing field · John O'Neill: The man who knew · Back to the top






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