The jury has reached a verdict in the Enron case, and Drudge is reporting that Ken Lay was found guilty on all counts.
To the big house with him.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.
Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.
But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.
There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.
You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?
If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.
My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.
Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?
Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.
Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.
Fear or fury? The choice is ours.
The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.
The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.
Only Democrats have agency, apparently.
Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!
If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.
Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.
Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.
Giving up is unforgivable.
Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)
The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.
If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.
“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly
This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.
Brian
Thank goodness. I was afraid the guy would walk. Martha goes to jail, yet Kenny Boy would walk….that was my fear.
Brian
And I hear that Skilling’s guilty as well. It’s a good day.
The Other Steve
This is all part of the Criminalization of Business.
Zifnab
w00! I didn’t think I’d see the day.
Kos is saying the same thing, so if Kos and Drudge agree…
Punchy
BJ Poll Question:
After appeals, then more appeals, Lay and Skilling will likely be entering the pookey about the time Bush is wrapping up his disaster of a term, and trying to obfuscate the distaster du jour. What’s the chance, with nothing political to lose except Congress, he pardons one or both?
I put it 75% chance he does for Lay, his good friend.
ET
As one of the 26,000 people that worked for Andersen and was laid off and wondered why Enron didn’t seem to be in as much trouble
– YE HAW!
ET
I should have added
About Freakin’ Time – damn it!!!
zzyzx
I just saw Skilling’s lawyer on CNN. He said, “We will continue to fight the good fight.” I’m wondering what exactly this good fight is. I suspect it’s the fight to make more money for their partnership.
Brian
He’s just being the team-playing defense lawyer. It takes a certain lack of conscience, a particular absence of scruples, to defend people like Lay and Skilling. I don’t envy their job.
tBone
Too bad he’ll never be sentenced to a facility where the first words he hears upon entering his cell are:
“You got a purty mouth.”
Krista
What would be real justice would be for bastards like that to have to live at poverty-level wages for the rest of their miserable lives. I like to think it would show them how evil and greedy they were, but I don’t think bastards like that have a shred of conscience, so it would just cause a wave of well-dressed convenience store robbers…
Punchy
Or we should just ship them to Canada. That’s more of a cold prison.
Brian
I would be nice to have them doing low-wage work as part of a rehabilitation program, but since they won’t get out of prison anyhow (assuming they GO to prison), it’s pointless to try and rehabilitate them.
I heard a story of a guy in British Parliament, who recently died, who was run out of office due to his corruption, back in the 40s or 50s. He left his office and went straight into helping a non-profit as a fundraiser, doing remarkable work for subsequent decades, being largely unrecognized for it. As it should be.
Some people can turn their talents from reprehensible efforts to doing productive work for the needier among society. Skilling and Lay could be such people, but we’ll never know. They’ll probably rot.
PeterJ
Ok, they both will get to see the inside of a jail from whenever they will finally go to jail until January 2008 when Bush will pardon them both. Then their jail sentences will be a crediential for work in the next republican administration.
My guess: Ken Lay will be the Secretary of Energy for either Jeb Bush or Condi Rice.
The Other Steve
I want to confiscate their property, revoke their citizenship. Take them to the border with Mexico, give them $20 and a “Good Luck”.
It’s sad that Exile has become so out of fashion these days.
Brian
They’ll just come back over the border as illegal aliens. They might be better off that way than when they were actual citizens!
Olly McPherson
Brian says, “I heard a story of a guy in British Parliament, who recently died, who was run out of office due to his corruption, back in the 40s or 50s. He left his office and went straight into helping a non-profit as a fundraiser, doing remarkable work for subsequent decades, being largely unrecognized for it. As it should be.”
The person you’re thinking of is John Profumo, a British MP and Secretary of State for war. He had an affair with a woman who was having an affair with a KGB agent and then lied about it to Parliament, resigning in the subsequent scandal. He spent the rest of his life washing dishes for Tonybee Hall, a charity in London.
The Atlantic has an obituary here.
Brian
Thanks Olly. I subscfribe to The Atlantic, but missed the obit.
Remember that it hs been the Bush justice dept. that has carried out this case to a successful conclusion. For this reason, I doubt he’d go through this trouble, then undermine his department by pardoning them.
p.lukasiak
If the Dems are smart — and take control of the House, this will be the Highway to Impeachment.
Simply have the Energy Committee re-supoena the records of Cheney’s “Energy Task Force”, specifically citing the guilty pleas and convictions of some of its participants. The White House will naturally balk — Scotus has already ruled that those records are covered by some kind of “Executive Privilege”. So then the House forms an impeachment committee to supoena the records — a criminal investigation (which is what an impeachment committee is) is a whole different kettle of fish than the standard “oversight” committee, and the failure of the Bush administration to respond to a supoena for the Cheney Task Force records from an impeachment committee would form the basis of an “obstruction of justice” charge against Bush and Cheney as a team
Given that energy prices are expected to continue to climb, public resistance to this move would be manageable — impeach and convict Bush and Cheney, making Pelosi President, and the nation can get over its “long national nightmare” finally….
The Other Steve
THE DONKEY RAFFLE
A young hillbilly named Kenny, moved to Texas and bought a donkey from a farmer for $100. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.
The next day the farmer drove up and said, “sorry son, but I have some bad news, the donkey died.”
Kenny replied, “well, then, just give me my money back.”
The Farmer said, “can’t do that. I went and spent it already.”
Kenny said, “OK, then, just bring me the dead donkey.”
The farmer asked, “what ya gonna do with him?”
Kenny said, “I’m going to raffle him off.”
The farmer said, “you can’t raffle off a dead donkey!”
Kenny said, “sure I can. Watch me. I just won’t tell anybody he is dead.”
A month later, the farmer met up with Kenny and asked, “what happened with that dead donkey?”
Kenny said, “I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a piece and made a profit of $998”
The farmer said, “didn’t anyone complain?”
Kenny said, “just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back.”
Kenny eventually became the chairman of Enron.
Steve
And when Kenny said that spending $100 on a donkey, making $1000 from a raffle, and refunding $2 all adds up to a profit of $998, I believe it was Arthur Andersen who signed off on the audit.
Steve
A couple very interesting diaries at dkos today regarding people’s personal experiences with the Enron situation.
tBone
Also a bunch of crazy bullshit at Screwtaters.
Santa Claus
Those Scrutator people are the only ones to get this story right. Ken Lay is a fucking American hero, and anyone who says otherwise is probably a Communist who hates freedom. Or something like that. I haven’t worked out all the details, and I’m kinda drunk. Hagning out on a beach in Florida, sipping mojitos and waiting ofr next Christmas to work aaign. Anyway, coal for all you motherfuckers! None of you lvoe Ameria as much as Ken Lay! He gave money to George Bush, and Bush wants to keep Grenada British. That makes him okay in my book.
Ho ho ho, bitches.
Santa Claus
Oh, shit, I think I met Gibralatar. Damn, these mojitos are fucking good.
Northern Ireland is British, too. Fucking Micks.
Hey, who the fuck are you? You want a piece of me, asshole? I’m fucking SAnta Claus, fucker, who the fuk are you? A cop? Oh, shit. Sorry, officer. No, I ain’t drunk, I’m just tired.
The Easter Bunny
Yo Santa! What’s up, bitch? Hope you’re enjoying your vacation in sunny Florida. And I hope you picked up a 5-gallon container of sunscreen at Sam’s Club – the scent of 600 pounds of frying bacon would attract every alligator on the penisula. Be careful when you take your shirt off too; the reflection from those vast swathes of flabby, china-white skin could knock a satellite out of orbit, and I’m gonna be pissed if I can’t listen to Stern.
I’m just hanging out here at the North Pole. Did you know you can bribe elves with a 6-pack of Zima and a home cuticle soak kit? Well, you can.
Where the hell is Mrs. Claus, anyway? This place is a fucking pigsty. There’s an entire old-growth forest worth of empty pizza boxes here, for christ’s sake. You oughta change the password on your computer, too. Or at least delete the reindeer porn; that shit’s gotta be illegal, you sick fuck.
Anyway, no worries. I’ll try my best not to accidentally lose any Improvised Easter Decorations while I’m here. Ciao, bitches!
Gray
“To the big house with him.”
What??? Aren’t there already enough crooky lawmakers?
:D
Santa Claus
Dude, I think I’m in jail. What the fuck happened last night? Where the fuck am I? I don’t even know what county this is. Where’s my lawyer?
And don’t talk about Zima, Easter Rodent. Just thinking about booze is gonna make me puke again.
The Easter Bunny
Suck it up, you fucking pussy. If you’re not careful you’re going to get passed around like a bag of mushrooms at a Phish concert. A big, fat, red bag of mushrooms that smells like Stoli and gloryhole.