Word: houstons
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Sherron Watkins, according to her lawyer and press reports, is Enron's vice president of corporate development. She is 42 years old and lives in Houston with her husband Richard. She grew up in a Houston suburb called Tomball, the daughter of two secondary school teachers, and graduated from the University of Texas. She was a sorority girl...
...punishments of the legal variety, with their pick of Wadkins, Duncan, Andersen's now-suspended Houston management team and disgruntled employees of both sinking ships, federal and congressional investigators have their pick of potential squealers. Despite - or because of - the political largesse of both companies (Andersen's own campaign checkbook graced 94 of 100 U.S. Senators), the political heat will be turned up high, and Justice's own little bedfellow problem (Andersen is helping them reorganize the FBI) shouldn't prevent them from collecting plenty of arrests in the name of George W. Bush's integrity. For the wrongdoers...
Half the House of Representatives. Three-quarters of the Senate. The head of the Justice Department. And of course the president and vice-president. Kenneth Lay and Enron have sent a total of $5.7 million from Houston to Washington since 1989, $4.1 million of it to the business-friendly Republicans - and $623,000, over the course of his political career, to George W. Bush alone. (And that's only at the national level - Texas attorney general John Cornyn has had to join the mass recusals because he'd received $158,000 for his own campaigns...
...then there's the entire office of the U.S. Attorney in Houston, recusing itself for going to too many company barbecues or something, and local District Court Judge Lee Rosenthal, recusing herself (after ruling against seizing the proceeds of Enron execs' puzzlingly well-timed stock sales) for being related to Enron through Bush consigliere James Baker - and for being a stockholder herself. And don't get us started on Wall Street...
...maybe we'll discover that the whole bunch, from Bush to Lay to Breaux to Lieberman, is as dirty as the air in Houston, which wouldn't be all that surprising. But if you're Kenneth Lay, you've probably put away your political checkbook for a while, maybe for good, and if you're Microsoft or Comcast or ExxonMobil you might be wondering if those guys in Washington are worth the money if they can't help you out when you need it the most...