NU$H, $CHWARZNEGGER, ENRON

[bassnectar]

hi...
i know this isnt *necessarily* relevant, but itsa FUCKLOT more IMPORTANT than it is RELEVANT, so here goes:


dont know if anyone out there cares, but this really rocked my world:

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=283&row=1

just as with any news, i have no proof that it is true. its something i suspected and expected, but i got the chills when i read this report.

I know its easy to dismiss politics as being boring, invasive, annoying, or at the very least IRRELEVANT to burningman.

True Enough....but i honestly feel that if California goes to BU$H (meaning if the RECALL PASSES) there is no way to reverse the "patriot" Act, and all our passions are that much closer to disintegrating.

So I am putting out this call, if you have the time, please contact everyone you know in California and URGE them to vote THIS TEUSDAY October 7th:

NO ON THE RECALL (if the Recall goes through vote for BUSTAMANTE)

If people need more info they can go to WWW.CSCSF.ORG

We are organizing a mob tomorow, Sunday October 5th in San Francisco

This is a wandering MOBILE ALTERNATIVE NEWS NETWORK Paul Revere style...

You can download copies of the info-flyer we will be distributing at www.cscsf.org
if you want to come, print out some copies to pass along! the destination schedule is on the website! we will have a mobile sound system, pirate radio, and open decks (CDJs)

If you are in another country, please don't think this doesnt affect you!

If CALI goes to the Republicans, they OWN CALIFORNIA, FLORIDA, and TEXAS...and they WILL WIN the 2004 Election fo the Bu$h Corporation. The WORLD WILL SUFFER. This is everyone's problem.


I just feel this is important, so amidst all the fun, love, and laughs on this board, I wanted to put this out there.

Sorry if i offend anyone.

Lo

[bassnectar]

dangblast my typos!

obviously the subject should read BU$H not NU$H....

sheesh.

Lo

[Kinetic]

An interesting post but you might want to watch cross posting the same message in other threads. It's a fast way to get people ticked off at you and the flames can be fast and furious from other users.

I'm NOT a moderator but after seeing the cross post I'm was thinking that your going to catch some heat even though the message is good. You might want to try a different approach and put the notice in General Discussion instead. It seems like this section of e-playa doesn't get as much traffic like General Discussion does.

Again I meant no harm I just thought I'd toss out a caution for ya.

[bassnectar]

yeah, no doubt....

i miwqkenly stuck it there in that other post trying to make it a new post...i know its irrelevant to this forum anyways, so maybe i will get kicked off.

worth the "risk" tho...
thanks for your words.


lorin

[Kinetic]

Sheesh, your not going to get kicked off for that. You have to be a lot more obnoxious before that would even be considered by the admins if they would even do it at all. The old e-playa had a few characters that really ticked people off but they were allowed to stay. They kept the place stirred up and sometimes that's a good thing despite the way they went about doing it.

I didn't know if it was an accident or not but I wanted to keep you from getting flamed. Looks like I had nothing to be concerned about. I try to mind my own business usually but if I can keep someone from getting toasted it's worth tossing out a line or two. In this case...you're fine.

BTW, that was an interesting link....here in the midwest we only dream of protests like that. I hope it works and changes some votes, it promises to be a wild 3 more days!

[Ardust Plaza]

Bassnectar for Governor! Go get 'em L! Respect!

I sent this out to my whole list too. Let's hope it does something.

A. Alcyone.
(hi!)

[Ardust Plaza]

Bassnectar for Governor! Go get 'em L! Respect!

I sent this out to my whole list too. Let's hope it does something.

A. Alcyone.
(hi!)

[glam_daddy]

droppin knowlegde..

thank you...

love the album...

Jordan

[Simply Joel]

November 4, 2004
Jury Convicts 5 Involved in Enron Deal With Merrill
By KURT EICHENWALD

The first criminal trial stemming from the financial dealings at the Enron Corporation ended yesterday when a federal jury in Houston found that five defendants, including four former executives of Merrill Lynch, had conspired to help Enron report bogus profits.

But the jury split in its finding on the two former Enron executives charged in the case, convicting one former midlevel financier while acquitting a former accountant.

The verdict was an important lift to the government's efforts to prosecute wrongdoing at Enron in the years before its collapse into bankruptcy protection in December 2001. Indeed, the case - centered on a single transaction involving what the government argued was a bogus sale of an interest in barges by Enron to Merrill - involved similar theories and charges brought in virtually every Enron indictment to date.

Some of the convicted defendants were once Wall Street luminaries, including Daniel Bayly, the former head of global investment banking at Merrill, and James A. Brown, the former head of the firm's project and lease finance group. The other former Merrill executives convicted yesterday include Robert S. Furst, a banker in the Houston office responsible for managing the Enron relationship, and William Fuhs, a banker who did some work on the barge deal.

Dan Boyle, a former executive in Enron's finance division who is a virtual unknown to the public, was also convicted. Sheila Kahanek, the accountant who was acquitted, had worked on the barge deal, with prosecutors contending she had ordered another executive to destroy evidence about the transaction.

Despite the small size of the transaction, which brought in $12 million in profit to Enron, legal experts said that the verdict had broad significance in the wake of years of corporate scandals.

"What this does is, for other cases that are out there, is make defendants see that juries are not very sympathetic with white-collar criminals," said John J. Fahy, a former federal prosecutor in New Jersey. "It's a good message to businesses that they have to stay on the up and up."

The verdict came after 21 hours of deliberations and a six-week trial. But the case is not over. Today, the six-man, six-woman jury along with the convicted defendants, their lawyers and the prosecutors must return to hear evidence about the amount of the financial damage caused by the fraud.

Case law governing the sentencing is in dispute, and prosecutors may need such a finding from the jury for a sentence to be upheld.

The barge transaction took place in late December 1999, when Enron was struggling to meet Wall Street's profit projections. When no buyer emerged, Merrill agreed to invest $7 million in an entity that made the purchase, in exchange for what the government said was a secret oral commitment from Enron to repurchase the barges in six months. Such a deal would guarantee Merrill against loss, meaning that Enron still retained the risk of ownership and could not report the money from the deal as revenue.

Despite the potential complexity of the facts, prosecutors from the Enron Task Force presented a tight, almost streamlined recitation of the evidence, focusing on the terms of the purported commitment and Merrill's subsequent sale of the barge interest to an investment fund controlled by Enron's former chief financial officer, Andrew S. Fastow. Mr. Fastow has already pleaded guilty to several crimes relating to his tenure at Enron.

The lawyers for the defendants, some of whom had never worked together before, appeared at times to struggle with the unwieldiness of their situation. Six defendants often meant six cross-examinations of each witness, with advances achieved by one defense lawyer sometimes surrendered in further questioning by another.

Indeed, some of the strongest arguments about the impropriety of a commitment by Enron to buy back the barge investment from Merrill came from the defense. Ms. Kahanek, the sole defendant to be acquitted, testified that she had warned Enron executives many times that the company could not properly provide Merrill with a guaranteed profit or a commitment to repurchase the barges.

While the jury accepted that there was not enough evidence to conclude that Ms. Kahanek was involved in the illegalities, her statements as well as those of other defendants seemed to underscore that a crime may have taken place, and the jury's job was solely to conclude who had committed it.

In other instances, defense lawyers argued that their clients believed that the transaction involved real risk to Merrill, which would allow Enron to treat the deal as a sale. They pointed out that they consulted lawyers on the deal, although prosecutors argued that terms of the side deal were kept hidden.

The documentary evidence was particularly damaging, with multiple e-mail messages and other records introduced by the government showing that Merrill thought it would be taken out of the transaction by June 30, 2000, at a preset profit.

While the defendants argued that they never thought Enron would repurchase the barges, some of the former Merrill executives prepared a demand letter seeking payment. That document was one of the more damaging pieces of evidence introduced at the trial.

Beyond the documents, some of the most damaging evidence came from a former mid-level Merrill analyst named Tina Trinkle, who testified that she had participated in a conference call with several of the defendants, and heard that Enron had said it would buy back the barge investment if no other purchaser could be found.

Ms. Trinkle identified Mr. Bayly, Mr. Furst and Mr. Brown as participating in the call, and quoted one of the men as saying that the repurchase agreement could not be put into writing because then Enron would be able to obtain the accounting treatment it wanted.

The testimony, which prosecutors argued in their closing had not been refuted, suggested that at least some defendants knew that the treatment of the deal would be invalidated by Arthur Andersen, Enron's accountants, if the firm learned of any oral side agreement to protect Merrill's investment.


Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company