Recently in Enrongate Category

"'Today's the decision day. I wish it weren't the case,' said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.)." Despite the apparent attempt by divider-not-a-uniter John McCain to kill a compromise he hadn't even read last week, the Dubya White House and Congress hold their respective noses and come to agreement on Paulson's $700 billion bailout plan, with debate in the House starting today. "The proposed legislation would authorize Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. to initiate what is likely to become the biggest government bailout in U.S. history, allowing him to spend up to $700 billion to relieve faltering banks and other firms of bad assets backed by home mortgages, which are falling into foreclosure at record rates. The plan would give Paulson broad latitude to purchase any assets from any firms at any price and to assemble a team of individuals and institutions to manage them."

As I said here, I'm not all that happy about the nation having to subsume the risk, and ride to the rescue of, the many banks and Wall Street types that profited massively from these obviously suspect mortgage deals. But, what else is there to do? As with so much else occurring over the past eight years, it befalls us now to clean up the mess left by the free market fundies of late. I just hope we learn something from the economic consequences of this latest binge of free-market fraudulence, before they grow too dire. To wit, whatever the corporate-funded right tells you about self-regulating markets, we need, and will continue to need, real refs on the field.

Update: Uh oh. The bailout compromise dies in the House, prompting the Dow Jones to swiftly tank 700 points. "The measure needs 218 votes for passage. Democrats voted 141 to 94 in favor of the plan, while Republicans voted 65 to 133 against. That left the measure with 206 votes for and 227 against."

As the TIME article linked above noted before the vote, "the candidate with the most riding on Monday's vote is McCain, who backed the concerns of conservatives in the House over the initial agreement...[I]f a majority of the House Republicans don't vote for the measure, McCain could lose political face. 'If McCain cannot persuade them, it is hard to portray him as a leader,' said Clyde Wilcox, a political science professor at Georgetown University." So, that's the silver lining, I guess. But the bad news now, alas, is considerably worse.

"'The universe of offshore tax cheating has become so large that no one, not even the United States government, could go after all of it." A new Senate report delves into offshore tax shelter schemes by extremely wealthy individuals, ones which cost the American public billions in federal tax revenues (and which often utilized fronts based in the Isle of Man, once the long-time home of my now-deceased English grandparents.) "'We need to significantly strengthen the aiding and abetting statutes to get at the lawyers and accountants and other advisers who enable this cheating,' Senator Levin said, adding that 'we need major changes in law to stop the use of tax havens' by tax cheats."

In a surprising coda to the Enron trial, company founder, presidential confidant, and recently convicted felon Ken Lay died this morning of a heart attack. His dubious legacy: "Enron's bankruptcy filing cost thousands of workers their jobs, spooked investors into doubting the integrity of the stock market and spurred lawmakers to enact the most significant changes to corporate practices in more than 70 years."

"'Enron is one of the great frauds in American business history,' said James Post, a professor of management at Boston University. 'But it is also a symbol of a particular era of management practice.'" In a strange confluence of ill omens for the current administration, a jury finds finds Enron heads Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling guilty on multiple counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, and securities fraud, with sentencing set for 9/11. For their part, Lay and Skilling immediately began talking appeal, but perhaps that'll be unnecessary. After all, surely "Kenny-Boy" can wrangle a pardon from his boy Dubya, particularly after he spent all that time crafting Dubya's energy policy.

"Unbeknownst to almost all of Washington and the financial world, Bush and every other President since Jimmy Carter have had the authority to exempt companies working on certain top-secret defense projects from portions of the 1934 Securities Exchange Act. Administration officials told BusinessWeek that they believe this is the first time a President has ever delegated the authority to someone outside the Oval Office." In related news (and as seen at Ed Rants), Dubya has apparently, on the sly, "bestowed on his intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations."

"'We rely on those transactions,' Mr. Lay said during the September meeting, according to Mr. Glisan. 'They are imperative for us to hit our numbers and we will continue to do them.'" Prosecutors begin to wrap up their case in the Enron trial with the testimony of former Enron treasurer Ben Glisan, Jr., who is currently serving a five-year prison term for his part in the fraud. (He created Enron's "Raptors," "four fragile financial structures...used to house assets and investments and to hide losses.") According to the NYT, he "provided some of the strongest testimony against Mr. Lay heard by the jury so far."

"Fastow, in a nervous but steady voice, spent most of his first six hours on the stand describing quid pro quo deals he arranged with Jeffrey K. Skilling, then Enron's chief executive. He said Skilling was so obsessed with making the company look good for Wall Street that Skilling approved of sham deals that helped the company meet its earnings targets while Fastow...personally skimmed millions of dollars off the transactions." Following last week's damning testimony by Kevin Hannon ("They're on to us"), former Enron Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow took the stand yesterday as part of a plea deal. The prosecution's star witness in the Enron case, Fastow is "also prosecutors' most personally tainted witness, a man who admitted to stealing and involving his wife in fraud and who described himself Tuesday as sometimes 'obnoxious' and 'opportunistic.'" Sounds like he was in good company. Update: On Day 2, Fastow implicates Ken Lay, and the defense sharpen their knives.

So, apparently Rep. Chris Cox (R-CA), Dubya's new pick to head the SEC, is -- wait for it -- yes, yet another right-wing freakshow, this time of the corporate stooge variety. "Mr. Cox - a devoted student of Ayn Rand, the high priestess of unfettered capitalism - has a long record in the House of promoting the agenda of business interests that are a cornerstone of the Republican Party's political and financial support. A major recipient of contributions from business groups, the accounting profession and Silicon Valley, he has fought against accounting rules that would give less favorable treatment to corporate mergers and executive stock options. He opposes taxes on dividends and capital gains. And he helped to steer through the House a bill making investor lawsuits more difficult."

"'To lose a case like this is huge,' said William B. Mateja, a former official of the Justice Department's corporate fraud task force. 'Arthur Andersen was the poster-child case of all the corporate fraud cases.'" The Supreme Court overturns the 2002 conviction of Arthur Andersen LLP, thus facilitating future corporate shredding binges. "More broadly, some lawyers said the court's decision shows its sympathy for corporate America's view that companies should be freer to engage in routine document destruction -- often under the ironic title of 'document retention policy.'"

"'It's a bill that's going to significantly harm small consumers who want to hold large companies accountable for defrauding them,' said Frank Clemente, director of the Congress Watch division of the consumer group Public Citizen." So guess which side Dubya and the GOP were on? In the name of "tort reform" (and at the behest of their corporate overlords), the Senate GOP pass the Class Action Fairness Act, which moves state class action suits into the (less favorably disposed) federal court system. They did so after gunning down a series of Democratic amendments that tried to strike a more stable balance between private power and public accountability. Or would it have been too litigious to exempt cases brought by state attorneys general? We wouldn't want some aspiring Mr. Smith cutting in to Old Man Potter's profit margin, now, would we?

Monica who? On the eve of Dubya II, Salon's Peter Dizikes offers a short but comprehensive list of this administration's scandals thus far. Thirty-four and counting...not that you'd know it from watching the evening news.

Hope is on the...wait, what's this? Oops, sorry about that. Turns out Hope took a wrong turn and got lost somewhere back there in Idiotville. Welcome to Despairtown, baby.

So, that's that, then...the Idiot Wind blows anew. The American electorate has spoken and -- despite all the shadiness and incompetence of the past four years -- has given Dubya and his cronies the imprimatur to go hog-wild. 51-48%...this is pretty much a mandate, folks. (Big of those Red Staters to ensure that we will be woefully unprepared for the next terrorist attack on a Blue State.) Y'know, H.L. Mencken's whole Tyranny of the Booboisie schtick has always grated on my lefty sensibilities, but at this point I have to admit he may have been on to something.

Ugh. I'm too young to remember 1984 very well, but I'm curious as to how last night and this morning compared for America's Left. (I've since been reminded by several people I trust that 1968 and 1972 were much more grievous blows.) Thing is, 2004 started out with such promise over here. But, right around the time I ended up on crutches in May, events personal and political took a nasty turn, and the past few months have been some of the most dismal I can remember. Now, it seems, I may just look back on this time as relatively calm and worry-free.

But, ok, enough wallowing...let's start taking it frame-by-frame. Given the war, the economy, and Dubya's obvious incompetence, how on Earth did we lose this election? Well, give credit where credit is due...all this exit-talk of "moral values" proves that Karl Rove pulled off his gambit: He got the extra 4 million evangelical votes he was targeting, partly, it seems, by judiciously invoking rampant anti-gay hysteria. Yet, for some reason or another -- a lousy ground game, perhaps? -- the Dems inexplicably didn't counter with extra votes of our own.

Where do we go from here? The Dems are facing an ugly Rule of Four...We lost four seats in the Senate, at least four seats in the House, and likely four seats in the Supreme Court. Whatsmore, we now appear officially dead in the water in the South and Midwest. And, with Kerry and Daschle gone, our standard-bearers now appear to be Hillary Clinton (about whom the country has already made up its mind), John Edwards (whom I still admire, but he couldn't carry his home state), and Barrack Obama (who's probably too inexperienced to make much headway in 2008.)

Obviously, it's now well past time for the serious party overhaul we should've began last cycle, when Al Gore had an election stolen from him that he should have won hands down. Daschle & Gephardt are already in the dustbin of history, and Terry McAuliffe should probably follow them there. I for one don't think Howard Dean was or is the answer, but he's one of the only people injecting new blood and enthusiasm into the party right now, so he should have a seat at the table. Right now, I think Edwardsian populism is our strongest ideological card, but as I said, it didn't seem to make much headway last night.

Silver lining? Yeah, right. Well, as this Washington Monthly forum noted in September, second terms are notoriously scandal-prone (Watergate, Iran-Contra, Monica), partly out of press boredom, and Dubya's ilk seem particularly scandal-worthy...perhaps we'll finally hear a little more about Halliburton. I'm sure there'll be no shortage of horrifying policy decisions emanating from this administration that'll keep lefty blogs like this one in business. And, on a purely selfish note, my likely dissertation topic on the fortunes of progressivism in the twenties is now seeming much more sexy in the wake of last night's 1928-like cultural divide. Of course, none of these are really any consolation at all.

At any rate, I generally believe that America tends to get the president it deserves. So, God help us, we've brought this upon ourselves. And now, for we 48%, the hard work begins...we have to lick our wounds, get our act together, and figure out how we can best combat the rightward drift that's afflicting our nation. Alas, I fear Dubya will do much of the heavy lifting for us, by running the nation further into the ground over the next four years. Still, we gotta keep on keeping on, y'all. I do not believe this darkness will endure.

Speaking of the conservative fringe, investigations into Enron have produced more evidence of corporate fundraising shadiness by the DeLay machine in Texas. This guy has got to go, already.

Kenny Boy, Your pants, your pants are falling. Ken Lay, former Enron CEO and Bush's prime corporate sponsor, is indicted on 11 counts of fraud. Says Lay's lawyer, "Obviously, Andy [Fastow] and his group were not telling the boss that they were stealing from Enron. That's as obvious as can be . . . It was done by stealth and deceit and of course, in a company as big as Enron, you have to trust someone and obviously trust was placed in the wrong place." Ok, then explain why Lay dumped $24 million in Enron stock while telling his employees to buy. Throw the book at him, already. (But, by all means, let him speak his mind first.) Update: Dubya can't handle the truth.

Former Enron chief Ken Lay attempts damage control in the New York Times. "'If anything, being friends with the Bush family, including the president, has made my situation more difficult,' Mr. Lay said in a recent interview, 'because it's probably a tougher decision not to indict me than to indict me.'" Yeah, ok, buddy.

Transcripts emerge of Enron officials bragging about "stealing money from California...to the tune of a million bucks or two a day." Whatsmore, it appears that former chairman and Bush buddy Ken Lay, who has not yet been charged with any Enrongate malfeasance, knew full well that his company was extorting millions from the likes of "Grandma Millie from California." Shady.

"Here's a riddle: What do shuttered factories manufacture? Democrats. Or at least they might, if the national Democratic Party had the balls to do what needs to be done." Rick Perlstein treks through Illinois to evaluate the growing cracks in the Dubya (and Wal-Mart) coalition.

From out the mists of history, Watergate figures weigh in on Felonygate and this administration's total lack of credibility: Nixon counsel John Dean calls the Bushies worse than his old employers, while Daniel Ellsberg argues that the Plumbers are back. Says Ellsberg of the Plame situation, "I see an almost identical pattern here [between his own experience and Plame's]. Really, I don't know of any analogy so close in the 30 years between now and then. This is not an everyday occurrence." In related news, it turns out that the Bushies have lied again -- this time, Wolfowitz & co. drastically overstated the health of the Iraqi oil industry, despite a Pentagon report to the contrary, so as to minimize the cost of Iraqi reconstruction for American taxpayers. Typical.

After a week of considerable coverage for Dean (due to his second-quarter funding success), John Edwards tries to get back in the game by unveiling his corporate accountability plan. As usual, I think Edwards is playing this smart. The issue shores up his Populist creds while drawing attention to an area where Dubya is dismal. And Edwards still holds a trump card, in that he is the only top-tier candidate with an answer to the Dem's Southern problem. It'd be nice to see Edwards, Dean, and Kerry go head-to-head-to-head in a real debate, but first the field still needs to be culled, of course.

The Corporate Scandals of 2002. You know, the ones that were all over the news before Saddam began his unchecked aggression again. Wait a tic...when did Saddam...? Now I'm confused.

Oh, and by the way, Harvey Pitt resigned yesterday, right after the polls had closed in the East. After all, we wouldn't want to remind anyone of how thick the corporate corruption surrounding Dubya and his minions runs until after the election now, would we? As it turns out, the GOP-controlled Congress probably won't look into SEC malfeasance anymore anyway.

Perhaps content that Saddam's "resurgence" has snuffed out media coverage of Enrongate for the time being, Dubya tries to gut the SEC's budget increase, making it impossible for the agency to fulfill the requirements of the recently-signed Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Absolutely shameful. And, as per usual, I think we can guess who's the brains behind these latest shenanigans.

Financier and philanthropist George Soros weighs in on the recent spate of corporate malfeasance and the dangers of "market fundamentalism."

"The era of low standards and false profits is over...No boardroom in America is above or beyond the law.". And with that, Bush signs the corporate reform bill. He then leaned into the microphone, made the Dubya face, and declared, "You can run but you can't hide, Dick Cheney. We're going to hunt you down like the agent of evil you are. You hear me talkin', Halliburton boy?"

Ex-President Clinton fires back at Dubya on corporate abuse.

The stock market rallies almost 450 points today, but will it be enough to take the heat off Dubya?

As GOP polls predict considerable electoral fallout from Enrongate, Dubya plans to regain the political initiative during the August congressional recess. Uh-oh.

On a day which saw the stock market drop below 8000, Dubya (according to the Standard & Poors index, the worst President in 75 years) declares "the future's gonna be bright." Oh, good...I feel better already. As Time noted yesterday, "the President and congress appear to be zealously attacking corporate abuses the way Pilgrims would a dance hall. But get past the reformist posturing, and the proposed new laws add up to half-measures.

The plot thickens...just when the stock market really doesn't need any more bad news, turns out Citigroup helped Enron evade the law to clear $125 million in debt. Shameful...struggle to get by, and Citibank screws you with exorbitant credit interest rates. Live on the high hog, and they cut you an (illegal) sweetheart deal. Update: J.P. Morgan is in the mix too.

Corporate Scandal Trading Cards...collect them all!

In the wake of the administration's corporate shadiness, GOP candidates run away from Dubya and his vice-president.

NYT editorialist Frank Rich deftly skewers Dubya yet again. For [Bush's] first pitch, he appeared against a blue background emblazoned with the repeated legend "Corporate Responsibility." Next came a red backdrop, with "Strengthening Our Economy" as the double-vision-inducing slogan. What will be strike three — black-and-white stripes and "Dick Cheney Is Not a Crook"? Maybe this rah-rah technique helped boost the numbers back when George W. Bush was head cheerleader in prep school. But he's not at Andover anymore. Where his father's rhetoric gave us a thousand points of light, his lopped a thousand points off the Dow.

Dubya defends Cheney against charges of Halliburton shadiness.

Much as the Bushes have derided Eastern elitist universities during their presidencies, it turns out Harvard kept Harken afloat during Dubya's stint there. In related news, George Soros - another big Harken investor at the time - admits to David Corn he was "buying political influence" when he gave money to Harken. So much for Dubya's business savvy.

Ralph Nader weighs in on the corporatization of America in the Post. At stake is whether civic values of our democratic society will prevail over invasive commercial values.

Lot of Enrongate coverage today, I know...but I've been out of it for a few days. Here's a good recap on Cheney's Halliburton shadiness.

John McCain devours Dubya crony and SEC chairman Robert Pitt (whom Dubya has ill-advisedly embraced despite the calls for his resignation) on Meet the Press.

In the wake of WorldCom, industry experts doubt FCC Chairman Michael Powell's ability and desire to put the brakes on the telecom meltdown.

While Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan tries to assuage the market (something Dubya is seemingly incapable of), the Senate and House pass measures to stifle corporate malfeasance (and the stock market free-fall), thanks to a Republican "deathbed conversion."

Dubya calls for the end of a corporate loophole he himself profited from back in his Harken days. Meanwhile, this being an election year (and since I'm sure their profiles aren't doing so hot right now), the Senate voted unanimously on several measures to curtail corporate malfeasance, a number of which go further than Dubya desired.

"In the long run, there's no capitalism without conscience. There is no wealth without character." I dunno, George...you seemed to do pretty well for yourself. In his much-anticipated speech yesterday, Dubya tried to put the brakes on the Wall Street sell-off and quell the growing questions surrounding his own stock shadiness (timeline here.) Needless to say, it didn't seem to work.

As Worldcom execs take the fifth and both Congress and the Dubya administration prep for damage control (for the latter, in a Wall Street speech tomorrow,) White House strategists look desperately for a way to avoid being hoisted by their own petard. Says Dubya of his Vice-President, who's in deep with the Halliburton scandal: "There are good actors and there are bad actors; he's one of the good guys." May work for terrorists, George...doesn't work so well for executive profiteers.

Meanwhile, John McCain weighs in on the corporate scandals and calls for the resignation of SEC Chairman (Dubya flunky) Robert Pitt. (Via the swankily redesigned Medley.)

Frank Rich weighs in with another discerning op-ed on Enrongate, in which he notes that the Bush administration has significant ties to FIVE of the companies currently under scrutiny - Enron, Halliburton, Andersen, KMPG and Merrill Lynch (which is why, of course, Dubya keeps talking about WorldCom.)

You've gone and ticked off Ralph. Nader calls for a probe into Dubya's Harken stock dump.

Robin Givhan of the Post blames the recent corporate scandals on Dress-Down Fridays. Somehow, I don't think most of these guys would be any more straight-laced in a power tie.

Just as the Bush White House tries to sidestep the corporate scandals, Dubya changes his story about a Martha Stewart-esque stock dump he made as director of Harken Energy Corporation in 1990, two months before the shares went sour.

While the Dems pressure Bush to do more about corporate malfeasance, Salon aptly notes that Dubya's in deep.

The SEC vows to delve into Halliburton mismanagement, despite what Dick Cheney has to say in the matter.

Joining Enron and Martha Stewart in infamy, Worldcom cooks the books for $3.8 billion. It's not like either the telecom industry or the economy at large need another hit right now, and this one's going to be a doozy. Good news for the Dems, at least, but I wonder what this'll mean for UUNet. Update: Bush vows a probe into the situation. Hey, let's not forget about Enron there, bud.

Frank Rich wonders aloud if all the recent hem-hawing about the Watergate anniversary might be better spent monitoring today's Imperial Executives. (Thanks, Tim.)

The "feeding frenzy is over," according to Phil Gramm, and corporate lobbyists are breathing a sigh of relief. The impetus stalls for post-Enron corporate reform in Congress.