What do Wal-Mart and Morgan Stanley have in common? Both have been in the list of top 10 donors to Bush....and both are guilty of systematic discrimination against and degradation of women. Women suing both cos say "a pattern existed in which women were paid far less than their male counterparts. They also have recounted tales of bad behavior by male co-workers with a startling sameness - in the Wall Street case it included a birthday cake shaped like a breast and trips to strip clubs; in the Wal-Mart case, it was business meetings at a Hooters restaurant and women told to "doll up." "I was kind of shocked, because I guess I see those as more of your upscale, professional type offices," Melissa Howard, a former Wal-Mart store manager in Indiana involved in the class action case, said of learning about the claims in the Morgan Stanley case. "I think it just happens so much more widely than what people realize." Yep - It's a Bushie thing.

David Franz, the VP of the Southern Research Institute, which mistakenly shipped live anthrax to Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute, under a different administration, would never have been given the nation's top security clearance for handling bioterrorism agents. In the 1990s, Franz was a supervisor at Ft. Detricks bioweapons research operation. Under his watch, gross harassment against Muslim workers was condoned. In 1997, Franz fired Muslim workers, leading to lawsuits. At least two highly respected researchers testified that Franz was a racist. Yet Franz was not only let off the hook, he was later promoted. His current company was given millions in Bush admin. Homeland Security contracts. Dr. "

Empty flatbed trucks crisscrossed Iraq more than 100 times as their drivers and the soldiers who guarded them dodged bullets, bricks and homemade bombs. Twelve current and former truckers who regularly made the 300-mile re-supply run from Camp Cedar in southern Iraq to Camp Anaconda near Baghdad told Knight Ridder that they risked their lives driving empty trucks while their employer, a subsidiary of Halliburton Inc., billed the government for hauling what they derisively called "sailboat fuel."...KBR's contract with the Defense Department allows the company to pass on the cost of the transportation and add 1 percent to 3 percent for profit, but neither KBR (a Halliburton subsidiary) nor the U.S. Army Field Support Command in Rock Island, Ill., which oversees the contract, was able to provide cost estimates for the empty trucks. Trucking experts estimate that each round trip costs taxpayers thousands of dollars.

Newsday: "A military contractor that makes fabric for Army tents has admitted lying to the government about testing the fabric for the toxic chemical lead chromate.Bondcote Corp. pleaded guilty Monday to misdemeanor counts [misdemeanor?? We'd call it reckless endangerment at the least!) of making false certifications and conspiracy to make false certifications. The company supplied about 70 percent of the covered material used in tents, tarpaulins and vehicle covers for the U.S. armed services in 2003. The Army prohibits the use of lead chromate, which can cause cancer and respiratory problems. The criminal investigation started after Keith Ayers, whose company provided pigments and dyes to Bondcote, filed a whistleblower lawsuit saying that Bondcote put American soldiers at risk by using lead chromate."

SF Chronicle: "A rupture in a pipeline spilled up to 60,000 gallons of diesel fuel in one of San Francisco Bay's most sensitive wildlife marshes, just south of Fairfield, authorities said Thursday. Cleanup crews descended upon Suisun Marsh in a battle to stem the contamination, which affected up to 25 acres of the 55,000-acre marsh in Solano County. More than 1.5 million ducks, geese and other waterfowl either live in the area or pass through every year on the Pacific Flyway, which is directly over the marsh. Environmental officials said it was too soon to determine the extent of potential damage to wildlife and to the marsh itself." The disaster occurred on Tuesday night, but Kinder Morgan Energy Partners of Houston, Texas (why doesn't that surprise us?) failed to report it until Wednesday afternoon.

US Newswire: "An expose will appear in the May/June issue of Sierra revealing how a Denver-based mining company secretly paid off Al-Qaeda- linked terrorists under the auspices of 'international security. The story also shows how the Bush administration's Homeland Security and Justice Departments turned a blind eye when first informed that Denver-based Echo Bay Mining Co. paid millions of dollars to the international terrorist group Abu Sayaff and other terror groups in the Philippines in exchange for protection of its gold-mining operations." To cover its tracks, when the Sierra magazine investigation was announced, the Justice Department reversed course and announced that it would open an investigation into Echo Bay's operations. The same way they are claiming now to the 9/11 commission that they never saw any evidence of an impending Al Qaeda attack!

"Prosecutors here investigating the collapse of Parmalat Finanziaria are leaning toward adding seven banks to the list of 27 people that will receive indictments by the March 19 deadline for securing a fast-track trial, judicial sources said Tuesday. The banks, which a month ago were placed under investigation for price manipulation, are Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Banca Popolare di Lodi and the fund management arm of Banca Intesa, Italy's largest bank, the source said."

This October interview with Sam Waksal, former head of Imclone points up the injustice of the Ashcroft/Bush "justice" system. Waksal's crime was detected within weeks of the Enron debacle. Yet Waksal, a liberal, has already been tried, convicted, and sentenced to 7 years in jail for selling off $5 million in stock, while Bush buddy Ken Lay, who stole billions from tens of thousands of Enron employees and stockholders, has yet to even be charged. And, while Waksal admits his guilt without shifting blame, Lay, Skilling, et al. continue to lie and evade the truth. The contrast between these two cases says it all about Bush and his network of hardened corporate criminals.

Dick Meyer writes: "I believe there is now a professional, well-trained elite, supported by large institutions, that is adept and willing to use corrupt practices to accumulate wealth. Despite assurances from game-theorists and anthropologists that the criminal cadre in the species remains a constant percentage over time, I believe today's mainstream, sanitized, and institutionally sanctioned financial crime rackets are being run by a new breed of crook. There have always been scandals and crooks in the history of American money, but our predator class is a distinct creation of the late 20th century. I believe there is no way the counter-class made up of regulators, watchdogs and do-gooders and hack columnists can match wits with the predator class. Today's piles of money are so huge, great fortunes can be amassed by swiping the tiniest of slices in the wiliest of ways long before picked pockets are discovered."

Vladimir Putin did the unthinkable - he actually pulled the plug on an oil baron -- Mikhail Khodorkovsky, reputed to have gained his empire the Ken Lay way. Worse yet, Putin froze 44% of the corporation's assets (the same thing we do here in the US when dealing with fraud cases, drug lords, and terrorists, don't we?). Now western corporate media everywhere are up in arms, spinning the story as evidence of Putin being a "Stalinist" out to revive communism. Putin is also criticized for trying to minimize media criticism of the Kremlin (Gee, that sounds familiar, too!).Could it be the financial world real problem is fear of a precedent? Maybe Halliburton or ExxonMobil will someday get the same richly deserved treatment!

"Bare-chested Adonises wearing Speedos, flexing their well-oiled muscles. An ice sculpture of the statue of David, his rear visible but his vodka-spewing penis not quite in view. Jurors got a showing yesterday of rich people gone wild - otherwise known as a video of a $2.1m birthday bash ex-Tyco titan Dennis Kozlowski threw for his wife... 'It's going to be a fun week. ... Eating, drinking, whatever. All the things ... we're best known for,' a grinning Kozlowski says as he welcomes 75 guests in June 2001 to wife Karen Kozlowski's week-long 40th-birthday party. Prosecutors had hoped to show a more racy version of the tape [with] a frontal view of the David and a cake shaped like a woman with exploding breasts... They said it was a 'stark example' of the filthy-rich lifestyle Kozlowski supported with millions looted from Tyco. The balding bigwig justified billing the company for half the cost of the party by scheduling a few meetings and inviting some Tyco employees, prosecutors said."

"One reason the Bush Administration gave for going to war in Iraq was Saddam Hussein's alleged ties to terrorists. So it is ironic that one of the partners in a big Iraqi firm being used by US contractors [e.g. Bechtel and Haley Barbour's New Bridge Strategies] in Iraq is also a founding partner in an organization that's been identified as helping fund Al Qaeda... Sadoon Al-Bunnia is one of three principals in one of Iraq's oldest companies, the Al-Bunnia Trading Company. The Iraqi firm has become a major subcontractor for US firms working under US government contracts in Iraq. But, as documents obtained by The Nation from the Lugano office of the Swiss Federal Commercial Registry show, Sadoon Al-Bunnia is also a founding partner of a Swiss-registered firm called the Malaysian Swiss Gulf and African Chamber (MIGA), which the US government and the United Nations Security Council have designated as funders of Al Qaeda." Bechtel was also part of the Reagan-Bush Iraqgate scheme.

"The incident occurred when about 1000 people including the local villagers and supporters of other organisations under the banner of National Alliance of Peoples Movements (NAPM) were on an agitation against the Coca Cola bottling plant on 11th September... Security guards of the Coca Cola company attacked the protesters when they were on a silent protest and severely beat up causing grievous injuries to Mr. Pande, Nandalal, Father Anand, Musa, Suresh, Mukesh etc. and others while police watched in silent approval... About 400 people were arrested from the demonstration site and taken to police station where 77 were put into custody and released after 2 days on personal bond. The attack and arrest is a blatant attack on the fundamental rights of the people to lawfully assembly and protest. The Coca Cola Company has to be made accountable for stealing the water through bore wells causing depletion of ground water leading to drinking water problems and irrigation in agriculture farms."

"United for a Fair Economy and the Institute for Policy Studies' tenth annual CEO compensation survey, 'Executive Excess 2003' includes these findings: CEOS at the 50 firms that announced the most layoffs in 2001 saw their median pay rise by a whopping 44% from 2001 to 2002. They earned a median salary of $5.1m in 2002, 38% more than the median CEO salary of $3.7m; CEOs at the 24 Fortune 500 companies with the greatest number of subsidiaries in offshore tax havens earned 87 percent more in salary than the median large company CEO between 200 and 2002; As employee pension plans falter, CEOs have secured their own personal futures with higher pay. At the 30 companies with the largest deficits in their pension plans, top executives had median pay in 2002 that was 59 percent higher than the median pay of the average large company CEO; Despite drops in average CEO pay from 2000 to 2002, the CEO-worker pay gap of 282-to-1 is nearly seven times as large as the 1982 ratio of 42-to-1."

"The deficit at the government's pension insurance program grew by $300 million from April through July, reaching $5.7 billion as the number of bankrupt retirement plans it must take over kept on climbing. The cash-strapped Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. will be responsible for paying a record $2.5 billion benefits to nearly 1 million people in the budget year that ends Sept. 30, the agency's executive director told Congress on Thursday. That compares with a payout of $1.5 billion in 2002... The agency estimates that almost 80 percent of the 32,000 pension plans offered by single private employers are underfunded. The projected deficit for all of those plans was more than $400 billion as of last year - a record."

BBC's Lynne Landes writes: "This is hot off the newswire -- 7/15/03 "NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- Accenture Ltd., the former Andersen Consulting, disclosed Tuesday that it might have violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Chairman and CEO Joe Forehand, on an earnings call with analysts and reporters Tuesday, said the consulting firm's Middle East operations could be in non-compliance with the Act, which prohibits the bribery of foreign government officials by U.S. persons." The Canada-based Polaris Institute published a scathing report on Accenture, saying, "Accenture's efforts in government outsourcing have often been very expensive and/or of poor quality. There is good reason to question Accenture's track record in outsourcing of government services."

Jon Talton writes for the Arizona Republic: "Somebody's got to take the fall for the worst corporate scandal in modern history. It couldn't be the chiefs of the major investment banks... It couldn't be the corrupt chief executives with their Caligula-level compensation, or the institutional investors that failed to protect their millions of customers, or the lawyers and bankers who drove mergers that killed jobs but brought big fees. These are some of the biggest donors to both parties. Many are among the closest friends of the Bushes and Cheneys - indeed, the vice president worked among their ranks. So Martha must go down... And what a character to walk the plank. She can be envied for her blond good looks, taste, social connections and fortunate life. She can be loathed for the mean, hypocritical personality dramatized by Cybill Shepherd on television. By comparison, Ken Lay is just another round-faced Republican White guy."

If you are an American under the Bush regime, then this bit from the "Financial Times" ought to sound disturbingly familiar: "The billionaire businessman [Berlusconi] ... defended his role in a 1985 business deal that led to the graft charges. Berlusconi...and four others are accused of bribing judges to influence the sale of food and catering company SME in a privatisation involving Italy's political and business elite... Berlusconi has threatened to call snap elections if he is convicted. That could spark a constitutional crisis...Berlusconi, whose coalition enjoys a majority in both houses of parliament, is pressing lawmakers to reinstate immunity from prosecution for leading state figures in a step that would remove the legal threat to his government." Another star Bush pupil!!

Rex Nutting writes for CBS Marketwatch: "When individual Americans are accused of helping terrorists, they're thrown in jail and their names are dragged through the mud. But when major U.S. corporations are caught trading with the enemy, they get just a slap on the wrist from the government. In the past two weeks, the government has revealed that 57 companies and organizations have been fined for doing business with terrorists, despots and tyrants. However, neither the government nor the companies are forthcoming with the public about the details of the illicit trade with rogue governments like Iraq, Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Sudan. Read about the laws. The fact that the New York Yankees and ESPN have been caught doing business with Fidel Castro won't be on any highlight film. ChevronTexaco hasn't bragged about breaking the sanctions against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Citigroup hasn't issued a press release extolling how it helped finance terrorist groups."

"Prompted by heightened concerns about corporate ties to states sponsoring terrorist activity, New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. is calling for a review of three U.S. companies that conduct business with terrorist-linked countries. Thompson has submitted shareholder resolutions on behalf of the New York City Police and Fire Department Pension Funds to the Halliburton Company, ConocoPhillips and the General Electric Company. The resolutions call on shareholders to vote to establish a Board of Directors' committee to review the corporation's operations with reference to 'potential financial and reputational risks... If we are trying to eradicate terrorism, we must ensure that companies in our portfolio are not using off-shore subsidiaries to legally evade United States sanctions against terrorist-sponsoring states,' Comptroller Thompson said."

Under Reagan and Bush I, Bechtel developed a lucrative petrochemicals project in Iraq called the PC2 project. The project provided Saddam with the precursors needed to manufacture mustard gas. Bechtel's claims of igorance about the situation stretch the imagination. For example, a primary product of the operation was ethylene oxide, the main requirement in mustard gas production. Yet Bechtel swears it never dreamed of such a possibility. The company also said it was "totally unaware" that $10 million of the payments funneled to it came from a sophisticated money laundering operation run by the Italian government via the Banco Nazionale del Lavoro - an operation that helped finance Saddam's rise to despotic power. It may help to note here that one of the biggest supporters of the Bush war on Iraq today the Italian government.

This 1999 article from the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs reveals that Honeywell eagerly dealt with Saddam Hussein for years, KNOWINGLY and WILLINGLY aiding and abetting the dictator's schemes. "A Honeywell engineer, Louis Lavoie, and his division chief, John Beckmann, tried to stop a chemical project that 'sounded shady and probably violated Honeywell's principles regarding international arms business.' Beckmann later wrote that the proposition had 'a malodorous quality about it. Frankly, I think the proposition is immoral, violates Honeywell's principles and is not in the best interest of Honeywell.'" Honeywell officials pushed it through anyhow."

Shocking headline? An estimated 80% of all money donated by the tobacco industry to political campaigns goes to the GOP. The tobacco industry was instrumental in putting G.W. Bush in office. As soon as he was in office, he pulled funding from the judicial department in an attempt to block an ongoing investigation and lawsuit. At every turn, Bush has protected big tobacco. Now the European Union reveals in a 149-page complaint that a big Bush donor, R.J. Reynolds has been engaged in a blackmarket tobacco crime cartel which promotes the activities of drug lords, mobsters, and corrupt government officials and helps them launder millions. Worse yet, the same people who deal most closely with Bush - Reynolds' highest-level execs, are the very folks accused of personally sanctioning the operations.

Citigroup is the NUMBER ONE financial broker to oil industry, the 7th largest donor to GOP, one of the top Bush patrons, and is condemned by environmental groups for its wanton disregard for the environment and native cultures. (see http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5613) We can't think of a "nicer" company to be the target of a massive investigation! Just like Enron, it now appears that Citigroup used "creative accounting" and flimflam to sucker investors, convincing them that WorldCom, Global Crossings, and other failed operations had rosy futures when they knew they were on the way down. Hooray for NY attorney Eliot Spitzer, who is going after the REAL VILLAINS - the very ones the Bush administration works overtime to protect.

Consider the following: BioPort's CEO Fuad El-Hibri: Sold anthrax to Saudi Arabia after the Pentagon refused to; is a director of Speywood Holdings, a subsidiary of I & F Holdings (an investment firm incorporated in the Netherland Antilles, a money laundering capital); was the owner of the Porton Down lab in the UK. - a company that runs a joint venture with Dyncorp called Dynport; and once loaned two "consultants" to So. Africa's infamous CBW program. The program director, Wouter Basson, was tried for murder and plotting to use pathogens, incl. anthrax to perpetrate assassinations and mass murders (Basson's lieutenant Dr. Andre Immelman testified that Porton Down was involved in the murder of the Rev. Frank Chikane, with an exotic toxin called Paraoxon). But Bush rewarded El-Hibri with a HUGE contract within weeks of 9/11! (See http://www.vaccinationnews.com/DailyNews/November%202001/MediumRare.htm)

"Roughly three-quarters of the nation's top 1,500 companies -- 1,133, to be precise -- have disclosed loans to insiders in recent regulatory filings...Of the companies that disclosed loans, 510 made them for the purchase of stock..." (like Harken did for Bush) "All told, loans to insiders in recent years may have reached more than $5 billion. Hundreds of millions of dollars in loans, perhaps as much as $1 billion, have been or will be forgiven...How did the system get so out of whack? Insider lending added thrust to the long surge in executive pay that has pushed the average major-company CEO's compensation from 45 times that of the average worker in the early 1970s to about 500 times worker pay today....If the rationale for making insider loans was to lure hotshots, the stated reason for forgiving the loans was often to keep them onboard when the going got rough." Do you get paid more for doing a worse job? Hang on, this is going to be even rougher than we thought!

CBSMarketwatch.com organized a nifty table of both the charges and the investigations that are rocking corporate boardrooms, including those with ties to the Bush administration, such as Enron. Also profiled: Adelphia, Arthur Andersen, Critical Path, Global Crossing, Homestore.com, ImClone Systems, Martha Stewart Living, Salomon Smith Barney, Tyco, and WorldCom. It includes the company, persons, positions, allegations, status and their 2001 reported compensation. Unfortunately, a few key folks are missing - Thomas White (Enron), Dick Cheney (Halliburton), and George W. Bush (Harken). Hey CBS - they ALL belong in the pokey!

The latest defendants in a case of corporate fraud reads like a who's who at a BushLott fundraising gala: Philip Anschutz, a major GOP donor who was recently given permission by Bush to drill for oil on environmentally critical lands sacred to Native Americans in Montana; Bernie Ebbers, the former chief exec of WorldCom, and best buddy of Trent Lott (who has engineered all sorts of favors for Ebbers and Worldcom at taxpayer expense). This corporate crime ring has been charged by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, of making a total of $28.2 million by "profiteering" in hot initial public offerings. Also named in the suit are Stephen Garofalo, the chairman of Metromedia and McLeodUSA's CEO, Clark McCleod. No wonder the GOP wants to keep the focus off the economy and corporate crime!!!

Each year, U.S. employees steal an estimated $400 million directly from their employers. In addition, billions are said to be lost through rampant shoplifting by employees at big box stores and other chains. Now a new study by Jerod Greenberg of Ohio State University investigates this trend and concludes that the employees steal largely because of the facelessness and lack of ethics exhibited by big corporations. Employee theft, Greenberg and others have determined, is the result of a complex combination of opportunity, fear of getting caught, greed and financial need.... but, more importantly, company culture. Says one researcher: "If people are cheating and conniving at the top, they'll cheat and connive at the bottom."

Writes Gabriel Ash for the Yellow Times: "Putting the powerful behind bars was never the goal of the criminal justice system, which is therefore poorly suited to the task. At best, symbolic trials can result in a few jet-set inmates. The symbolism looks good on newsstands and on TV shows; look, for example, at the endless gags and snide remarks about Martha Stewart's new life-style opportunities. But Martha Stewart's travails are really show business. If she is ever put on trial, dispatches from the courtroom would merely be another episode of 'The Practice,' selling the audience an imaginary sense of fairness. Corporate crime will continue unabated...Corporate crime has structural reasons: Executives are driven to cutting corners because their careers depend on one thing only - the bottom line. Toughening the sentencing laws will not deter crime...If we seriously wanted to reduce corporate crime, there are many ways to achieve it. Here is a shortlist."

Fortune.com reports: "The not-so-secret dirty secret of the crash is that even as investors were losing 70%, 90%, even in some cases all of their holdings, top officials of many of the companies that have crashed the hardest were getting immensely, extraordinarily, obscenely wealthy... Executives and directors of the 1,035 corporations that met our criteria" (market cap >$400 million, post-1999 insider stock sales, stock sold by top executives and board members excluding venture capital firms) "took out... roughly $66 billion. Of that amount, a total haul of $23 billion went to 466 insiders at the 25 corporations where the executives cashed out the most... For an ordinary investor, it is nearly impossible to look at this list and not feel ripped off. In some cases insiders clearly cheated the investment community to realize their gains--by ginning up (phony) revenue numbers." Martha Stewart for relatively trivial trading, while Fortune's 466 insiders are laughing their way to the bank!

Blah3.com is using cool Flash multi-media animations to reach voters who don't pay much attention to political rhetoric. Check out the latest in blah3's "?" campaign, which asks: After corporations have lost $5.5 TRILLION, do you want corporations to run our government?

"An FT investigation has found that the top management of the 25 biggest recent US corporate collapses amassed $3.3 BILLION from share sales, payoffs and other rewards. Eliot Spitzer, the New York State attorney general, has responded to the FT's findings by announcing that he is investigating the legality of stock options and other compensation awarded to chief executives of now bankrupt companies. In this special report we examine who made those fortunes, how they did so even as their companies were heading for bankruptcy, and what lessons can be learned by regulators and corporate governance reformers. FT.com's analysis of the barons of bankruptcy includes an exclusive table of the 61 executives and directors who each collected $10 million or more from companies that have filed for bankruptcy since January 2001." The next question to ask is: how much did Republicans take from the Barons of Bankruptcy???

Why would Bush gut a Clinton rule to cut tax evasion by foreigners living aboard? "On the surface, the move appears to be a favor to Florida and Texas bankers who profit greatly from Latin American expatriates. [Jeb Bush lobbied the administration for the change. But this] sop to the Bush Brothers' home states has deeper - more Machiavellian - implications going to the very heart of the offshore tax haven debate currently underway... The IRS estimates that the US Treasury loses at least $70 billion a year to offshore corporate tax havens... Others put the cost much higher, at around $200 billion a year. [Clinton supported a treaty to close the offshore tax havens.] Conservative Republicans stymied those efforts... and hope to kill them entirely now, though they can no longer do so openly." And -- Bill Simon lost the lawsuit to a former partner -- who is a convicted drug smuggler. GOP family values at work.

Harold Meyerson writes "Epochs do not change on a dime. Yes, the era of market extremism is waning, Republicans' ratings are plummeting, and, the polls agree, more of us believe that Elvis is hiding in the hills with the Shining Path than still have faith in American big business. But none of this means that the liberal era, or hour, is upon us... Welcome to politics in a time of interregnum. Everything has changed and nothing has. The corporate and financial sectors, as they periodically do, have blown themselves up but, through the logic of capitalism and through simple inertia, they retain vast power. Liberal forces have high hopes for the next election, but are themselves only beginning to stir... The decisive exception here is labor... labor is the one sector of our society with a burning interest in, and some damned good ideas about, systemic economic reform."

George W. Bush claims he will throw corporate criminals "in the pokey, where they belong." But talk is cheap - so we're keeping score. And when it comes to pokey, we're not counting "Club Fed". We want to see Hard Time - some serious rock busting, even a Southern-style chain gang. And of course we want to see complete forfeiture, including all mansions in fraud-friendly states like Texas and Florida (sorry, Linda!) and all the loot stashed away in numbered Swiss bank accounts, Marc Rich style. Bush campaigned as a "reformer with results." The proof is in the pokey.

"The Good Book says Jesus hung with thieves. I guess some of our corporate fathers took that one literally. It's kind of ironic that many of the business folk accused of wrongdoing in recent months and years -- especially those allegedly involved in pinching millions or billions -- all share a strong spiritual background. Which makes perfect sense. I'd drop down to my knees and thank Sweet Jesus if my bank account had that many zeros. Consider what a strong grounding in religion did for these titans of commerce:" John Rigas, Bernie Ebbers, Ken Lay, Andrew Fastow, Charles Keating, and the Hunt brothers. "So? Other than a big, fat 'neener-neener' for religious right haters, what does it all mean? "

Mike Allen writes: "Former president Bill Clinton has chastised the Bush administration for suggesting he bears part of the blame for the corporate accounting scandals and said Bush made a mistake with his first-year Middle East policy... Bush administration officials have suggested that corporate practices got out of hand under the Clinton administration's Securities and Exchange Commission. 'These people ran on responsibility, but as soon as you scratch them, they go straight to blame,' Clinton said." They're shocked that Clinton would dare to answer attacks by Bush-Rove operatives! " A White House official called the remarks 'surprising.' Jim Dyke, press secretary of the Republican National Committee, said they were 'a typical Clinton response: Attack and politicize.'" These hypocrites accuse Clinton of playing partisan politics for merely defending his record from their partisan, slimy blame-shifting tactics.

Andrew Osterland writes that: "a swarm of reporters also turned up to ask questions about special-purpose entities (SPEs) and other means of moving risk off corporate balance sheets. The media, of course, were looking for the next Enron. 'How do we help the market distinguish between what we do and what Enron did?' one association member asked Pitt. He had no ready answer. The off-balance-sheet genie is out of the bottle, and for the time being there's no easy way to put it back in... Even if regulators don't curb the activities, the hue and cry from investors is likely to keep it [in the spotlight. Given] that more than a trillion dollars of assets were taken off corporate balance sheets last year and put into SPEs and vehicles known as commercial-paper conduits, the issue may extend beyond comparisons to Enron."

Bush's Justice Department made a spectacle of arresting 77 year-old John Rigas, his 2 sons, and 2 other former Adelphia executives. But despite fraudulently hiding $2.3 BILLION off its books and embezzling $252 MILLION in company funds to personal debts, the defendants were charged with one count of conspiracy, one count of securities fraud, four counts of wire fraud and two counts of bank fraud. If convicted, each defendant faces a possible maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each of the conspiracy and wire fraud counts; 10 years and a $1 million fine on the securities fraud count; and 30 years and a $1 million fine on each of the bank fraud counts. Yeah, right - does anyone want to place bets on actual hard time served? And when will Kenny Boy Lay, Jeff Skilling, and Andrew Fastow see the inside of a jail cell? And what about Cheney - and Bush???

To Regain Confidence -- Robert Rubin writes: "There has been much confusion and uncertainty among investors and in Washington about the economy and the stock market, and about what to do in response to a seemingly significant loss of confidence in our system. Much of the focus has been on accounting and corporate governance. These issues are important, but I think the restoration of confidence and the establishment of sound fundamentals going forward require a much broader focus." Yo Paul -- are you listening, Yachtboy?

James Galbraith asks "Is it Morning in America, Again? [Bush says we've been on a 'binge,' and we've got a 'hangover'.] Were the '90s lived in a stupor, and is recovery merely a matter of sleeping it off? Is a drinking problem, in short, a good metaphor for our economic problem? We do know that... billions were diverted to the pockets of corrupt directors, officers and CEOs. Here is where the hangover metaphor breaks down. Because we are 'fundamentally strong,' Bush tells us, our troubles will pass... But in fact, we won't be all right by lunchtime. Consumer finances are getting worse, not better, as debts rise and asset prices fall... In short, we face major threats: unsustainable private debts, rising oil prices, a confidence crisis, fiscal woes at all levels of government and a falling dollar amid weak export markets. Not a hangover, in other words, in a healthy organism -- but an underlying disease. Call it debt dependence. Or, perhaps, 'capital'-ism."

Robert Hemsley writes, "I work operating industrial machinery at a paper mill that is owned by a global corporation. My mill was built in the 1920's, when the stock market was soaring, F. Scott Fitzgerald was writing about the rich and Babe Ruth was hitting home runs for the Yankees. I get paid by the hour and do not understand the markets. I do not belong to a country club or own a suit. I just want to work at the mill until I retire. My mill has survived the Depression, a world war, even a couple minor earthquakes. But I worry if it can survive Ken Lay. Small investors like me -- encouraged by politicians, financial advisers and CNBC -- poured our retirement savings into the stock market. Now we are dismayed that the corporate captains have abandoned accountability while the crew sinks with the ship."

Frank Rich writes "Wagging the dog no longer cuts it. If the Bush administration wants to distract Americans from watching their 401(k)'s go down the toilet, it will have to unleash the whole kennel. Maybe only unilateral annihilation of the entire axis of evil will do. [What's riveted Americans is] the spectacle of numbers tumbling as the president [sic] gave two speeches telling us help was on the way. [First up was 'Corporate Responsibility' -- Next came 'Strengthening Our Economy'] What will be strike three -- black-and-white stripes and 'Dick Cheney Is Not a Crook'?.. In the real world, everything connects. What is most revealing about Mr. Bush's much-touted antidote to the bad apples... is how closely it mimics Enron's Cayman Island shell subsidiaries... The SWAT team's main purpose is to bolster the administration's poll numbers as the Enron off-the-books partnerships did its corporate parent's stock price. And like its prototypes, it may already be going south."

David Callaway of CBS Market Watch writes: "But while the Whitewater scandal was never more than a sideshow for the Clinton team, the corporate calamity and ensuring plunge in confidence that has resulted from the Enron scandal is now the major issue of the Bush presidency [sic], overshadowing even the war on terrorism and threatening the Republican's grip on the House in November...Bush remains unable to fix it. His tax cut was a disaster, enriching a few and giving the rest of us just enough to take a family of four to a baseball game (if they're not on strike). But it was no help to the economy at all...First, fire Harvey Pitt. The head of the Securities and Exchange Commission has become a liability, no matter how hard he is working. Then, fire Army Secretary Tom White, clearing out any scent of scandal from Enron. Then, he should silence Cheney -- or put him back in a bunker or something -- and follow his own gut about how to clean up corporate America."

Ellen Goodman writes "even less credible than Bush's economic analysis is his moral analysis. 'America,' he said, 'must get rid of the hangover that we now have as a result of the binge, the economic binge we just went through.' Binge? This was America's binge? We dunnit? Is it possible that the head of Bush Inc. seems to believe that we lost our way in what he now describes as the make-believe land of 'endless profit' and 'no tomorrow'? ... Whose binge? The White House cast of corporate characters wants to put some of your Social Security into the same tank as your 401(k). And just moments after he warned of a 'hangover,' the president [sic] was promoting an end to the estate tax, a windfall for the heirs of Enron, etc... Into this morass comes Bush with his binge politics expecting our trust. The same core group that got us into this fix now says they'll get us out. Bush Inc.? The cure for this hangover is going to be the hair of a very different dog."

Don't let your eyes glaze over in the current spate of corporate fraud details! Geoffrey Colvin of Fortune simplifies fraud: "...no matter how complicated the grift, deceptive transactions can accomplish only three things: moving earnings, usually from the future to the present; avoiding tax; or hiding debt. That's it. Look at all the book cooking in telecom, electricity, cable TV, and other industries, and it all comes down to those three things...There's a theory that the only real deterrent is orange jumpsuits. When managers see their peers in prison couture, they get religion. There's even a theory that it happens in a 15-year cycle; after that much time, a new management generation finds its own way to the same old places. And it's true that the last time lots of high-profile business people became government guests was about 15 years ago, in the late '80s. Anyway, it's probably time for the jumpsuits to be taken off their hangers. It isn't really very complicated."

"The leader of Bush's new task force on corporate crime was a director of a credit card company that paid more than $400 million to settle charges of consumer and securities fraud. Larry Thompson, the deputy attorney general, served on the board of the company, Providian Financial Corp., from June 1997 until he was confirmed by the Senate in May 2001, according to Securities and Exchange Commission documents. During that period, state, local and federal agencies investigated Providian for gouging its customers, who filed class-action lawsuits against the company...Providian's officers and directors, including Thompson, are defendants in a class-action lawsuit brought by company employees who claim they urged large holdings of Providian stock in 401(k) retirement plans while they were employing questionable accounting methods and cashing in on their own shares." The value of Thompson's shares when he took office as deputy attorney general was $4.7 million. Where is the outrage?

SF Gate columnist Mark Morford writes "Of course we're at war. Just look at those horrible lines at the airport... Simply because this is one of the most secretive and blatantly unreported wars in American history and if you think all the cover-up is merely in the name of security, I've got a fabulous time-share on a Saudi oil field to sell you, cheap... And meanwhile isn't that Bush appointee and former conniving, pro-accounting industry, anti-SEC lawyer, current SEC chairman Harvey Pitt investigating malfeasance at WorldCom? Cherish the irony. You just know we're at war because clearly there is just no room for accusations of Bush's former corporate wrongdoings or economic bilking, or of Cheney's... $73 mil worth of oil deals with Iraq while Dickie was still CEO just a handful of years ago."

Stephen Pizzo writes, "As the world's largest capitalist economy staggers under a cascade of corporate fraud, its two top leaders find themselves rendered ineffectual by of reports of their own alleged corporate malfeasance. The allegations now facing former executives of Enron, WorldCom, Quest, Xerox, et al, bear more than a passing similarity to the behavior of both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney during their days as corporate executives. The recent blizzard of corporate revelations has left investor's minds (and guts) churning. What is it exactly that Bush and Cheney did that makes them part of the problem rather than part of a solution? Here's a cheat-sheet you can bring to your next game of Not-So-Trivial Pursuits."

The New Republic's Peter Beinart writes, "The right's suggestion that Bill Clinton is to blame for today's corporate scandals [is absurdly wrong]. 'If you're looking for someone who set the moral tone for the decade of the '90s, I don't think you have to look any further than the former president's behavior,' explained House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas on CNN late last month. 'It's impossible to understand Enron,' editorialized The Wall Street Journal, 'outside the moral climate in which it flourished ... the Clinton years, when we learned that 'everybody does it.'' Or, as Steve Forbes put it recently, 'If you want to look at the tone of the '90s, it started right at the top, at the White House, where the attitude was anything goes.' Yes, that's right: Respected conservatives are actually suggesting that Enron and WorldCom cooked their books because Bill Clinton lied about a blow job. It's not an argument that takes a lot of deep thinking to rebut."

Qwest Communications confirmed that the U.S. Attorney's office has launched a criminal investigation into the local telephone service provider. In mid-June, amidst accounting probes, the company ousted Chairman and Chief Executive Joseph Nacchio, a Bush insider who also served as the Chairman of the George Bush's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee! ( www.qwest.com/about/company/management/nacchio.html ) Naturally, Nacchio gave thousands of dollars to Republicans (and not a penny to Democrats). All of Bush's cronies are crooks - just like Bush himself!

Arianna writes, "Every scandal, it seems, produces at least one classic and defining euphemism... Corporate America's glittering contribution: 'restatement of earnings.' It sounds so innocuous and benign... What it doesn't sound like is, well, what it is: out-and-out fraud involving the fleecing of billions of dollars from shareholders and pension funds... The reason these companies can get away with both the euphemisms and the fraudulent practices is because the government clearly doesn't take corporate crime seriously. How else can you explain the fact that Xerox, which was hit with a $10 million fine - the largest financial penalty ever levied by the SEC - did not even have to admit any wrongdoing? The rapacious shareholder swindles perpetrated by WorldCom and Xerox are merely the latest outbreaks of an epidemic of fraud. Restatement of earnings has become the Ebola virus of corporate America, with close to 1,000 U.S. corporations restating their earnings since 1997."

The two former WorldCom officials who were most responsible for the company's $4 billion accounting fraud - CEO Bernie Ebbers and CFO Scott Sullivan - pled the 5th amendment in refusing to testify before Congress. This is exactly what happened with Enron's Ken Lay and Andrew Fastow. But this time, some Democrats got angry. Rep. Max Sandlin (D-TX) "said Mr. Ebbers should be held in contempt of Congress. Mr. Sandlin argued that Mr. Ebbers waived his Fifth Amendment protection by giving a brief statement defending himself." When will the Bushcroft Justice Department start prosecuting these corporate fraud kingpins?

Salon's Damien Cave writes, "Joseph Stiglitz began explaining why markets fail long before Enron and WorldCom rose, exploded and crashed. But not many people wanted to listen during the boom-boom '90s; Stiglitz was even fired from his position as chief economist at the World Bank after he repeatedly criticized the organization's free-market obsessions. Today, Stiglitz's lifetime of work is suddenly all too relevant. Consider, for example, his theory of 'asymmetric information.' Stiglitz spent years demonstrating that one party in a transaction -- say, the owner of a factory -- often possesses more information than the other about that transaction, and thus has an advantage that allows for market inefficiencies, and potentially, human suffering. His work... handily explains why Enron and other companies successfully hid their accounting tricks for so long."

Robert Borosage writes, "Corporate corruption is a 'moral cancer that ... is threatening this great system and our economic health.' These 'sins of omission, malfeasance and misfeasance' are 'eroding shareholder value for all corporations and public confidence in critical elements of our economic system.' This is a 'betrayal of capitalism' in which the 'most fundamental principles of our market system were being flouted'... these quotes come from leaders of America's financial community, [who are] calling for rapid, bold institutional and legal reforms to revive investor confidence. But these financial giants are discovering that if they want to save capitalism from itself, they'll have to rely on liberals to lead the way."

Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje writes that the recent ruling by a federal appeals court wasn't nearly as interesting as the public's reaction to it. "Children grow into decent, law-abiding, compassionate human beings if they are raised with love, respect and discipline, not because they recite a rote reference to God every morning. And the bedrock principles of this country -- justice, fairness, dignity -- don't depend on third-graders making references to monotheism... My grandfather used to say, 'The Devil likes to get dressed up and go to church on Sunday.' Embedded in that old saying is a cautionary tale about the dangers inherent in public piety, in the easy oaths and proclamations that too often masquerade as true faith, true charity... Corporate mandarins at places such as WorldCom and Enron steal millions in a country where wealth is increasingly becoming concentrated in the hands of the few... Too bad folks can't work up a head of outrage over that."

"Bush is so peeved about corporate America's 'wrongdoers'… that last week he spoke out about them four times in four days. By the time he took a breather, the markets had hit their worst half-year finish since 1970, the Nasdaq was at a five-year low, the dollar was on the skids and, despite much evidence to the contrary, a majority of Americans had told CNN/USA Today pollsters that the country was in a recession… At least five members of that theoretically tiny club [of corporate culprits] have direct ties to the Bush administration: Enron, Halliburton, Andersen, KMPG and Merrill Lynch - the last three all former clients of the president's choice as Wall Street's top cop, the S.E.C. chairman Harvey Pitt. Five for 15: Mr. Bush could have used a batting average that high when he ran the Texas Rangers… Thomas White, who was vice chairman of Enron Energy Services when it allegedly hid $500 million in losses and manipulated the California energy crisis, is still secretary of the Army."

Marie Cocco writes "It's the workers, stupid. Not the accountants. Not the corrupt corporate chieftains. Not even Martha Stewart. You can lock them all up and the bottom line - the bottom line you can trust, now and forever - is that the political fix will not trickle down. The workers of WorldCom, of Enron, of Xerox, of whatever company is next up in headline news, cannot be made whole. No paycheck will arrive for laid-off workers because some congressional committee tinkers with accounting regulations. Nobody's retirement account is replenished with tough talk about corporate crooks."

Bridget Gibson writes for YellowTimes.org: "Let's go back to MCI WorldCom and January of 2001. During the election cycle of 2000, MCI WorldCom was a very active contributor. It was so active that it made a list. No, not a shopping list (although it may have had a wish list of regulations that it wanted from its stable of politicians). The list that I refer to is available for the viewing at the CorpWatch.org website - a list of the top twenty corporations with consumer brands that contributed to the Republican Party for the 2000 elections. MCI WorldCom was number 7 on this list. On June 19, 2002, when George Bush raised $30 million in soft money for the GOP, MCI WorldCom gave $100,000 and was listed on the program as a vice chairman of the event."

Ed Vulliamy writes in the Guardian UK that for the first time since 11 September, there is a bitter, domestic issue -- corporate corruption. "No administration has been so closely associated with, and beholden to, corporate America. Backstage, [Bush's advisers are either worried about biting the hand that feeds them, or] being further tarnished by scandals affecting their friends. [Details are emerging that could spiral into a political scandal -- the lucrative relationship between WorldCom and] Trent Lott, one of Bush's closest confidants on Capitol Hill... WorldCom was seeking political influence at the core of the administration right up to the eleventh hour before admitting its fraud. [Last week the company gave a $100,000 donation to a Bush gala.] Democrats are pitching a new strategy called 'economic patriotism'" -- making the November election a referendum on Bush sleaze.

With every major US corporation apparently now in the crosshairs of investors suspicious about accounting practices, the spotlight is now on US industrial and financial icon General Electric. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, for one, has said that GE, General Motors, Exxon and other heroes of USA Inc are basing their pension fund profit contributions on "pretty heroic assumptions" about future performance. As the company that gave political birth to Ronald Reagan, no company deserves the chopping block more. G.E. They bring bad things to light.

"Instead of the profit of $1.4 billion the company reported in 2001 and $130 million in this year's first quarter, WorldCom now says it lost money... WorldCom said it had fired its chief financial officer, Scott D. Sullivan, the executive widely credited with helping orchestrate the financial strategy... that enabled WorldCom to rise from a second-tier telecommunications company to a world giant through a series of acquisitions that included the $30 billion purchase of MCI in 1998. Mr. Sullivan had been the executive closest to Bernard J. Ebbers, the company's longtime chief executive, who abruptly resigned in April, owing WorldCom more than $366 million for loans and loan guarantees the company had made to him.... Operating costs like basic network maintenance had been booked as capital investments, an accounting gimmick that enabled WorldCom to hide expenses, inflate its cash flow and report profits instead of losses." WorldCom's auditor was Arthur Andersen - who will go to JAIL???