28 Comments

• 1. liberalT  |  February 16th, 2008 at 6:48 pm

  perhaps first you could give a detailed account of what “Big Lawyer” is suppose to mean. Why you insist in simplifying things so that a five year old can understand them astounds me. What pray tell does “Big Lawyer” mean Marko?

• 2. William Teach  |  February 16th, 2008 at 6:54 pm

  Gee, I would think it would mean lawyers. ‘Nuff said.

  Thanks for creating the straw man argument, LibT

• 3. Retired Spook  |  February 16th, 2008 at 6:56 pm

  Why you insist in simplifying things so that a five year old can understand them astounds me.

  Could be because we’ve got posters here like you who have the mental capacity of a 5-year old.

  I’m sorry, but you really just closed your eyes and walked right into that one, LT.

• 4. Some Assembly Required  |  February 16th, 2008 at 6:58 pm

  LibT,

  There was a previous thread on this which broke down the percentages of the ‘Bigs’. He has spun it here as a smear peace for the dems. In the original post, ‘big oil’ favor the reps by about 73%… I’m thinking being in Iraq may have a direct impact on that, you?

  Also, maybe ‘big lawyer’ favor dems, because of all the scandals regarding ‘big corporations’ such as Enron. Seems to me the dems are trying to help the country by having these lawyers on retainer to fight this evil.

  My point, any fool can fire off wild accusations and make assumptions on statics.

• 5. Jerry Haberer  |  February 16th, 2008 at 7:16 pm

  “Statics????” Is that something like white noise?

• 6. Almiranta  |  February 16th, 2008 at 7:20 pm

  SAR posts: “My point, any fool can fire off wild accusations and make assumptions on statics.”

  And SAR’s posts prove it/

• 7. SEW  |  February 16th, 2008 at 7:22 pm

  More like the logic of their posts. Static.

• 8. Some Assembly Required  |  February 16th, 2008 at 7:23 pm

  Opps Statistics

• 9. Some Assembly Required  |  February 16th, 2008 at 7:28 pm

  Nevermind the point I was trying to make, heres another grammar/spelling mistake for you to jump on…

  “He has spun it here as a smear “peace” for the dems.”

  Should be Piece.

  Though I did laugh at the white noise comment

• 10. Brian (Boston)  |  February 16th, 2008 at 7:29 pm

  I agree that lawyers can act like sharks and most people dislike lawyers. However, you cannot single out a single group for this issue. If you want to remove money from politics, then you must remove all the money. You cannot chose which groups are allowed and which are not allowed based on your preference.

• 11. neocon  |  February 16th, 2008 at 7:40 pm

  SAR,

  Enron happened on Clinton’s watch and was cleaned up and prosecuted on Bush’s watch. The same can be said for Gobal Crossing, Adelphia, etc. Boy those party days of the 90’s were awesome, corporations could get away with anything, and UBL could build his network while Clinton was busy getting hummers in the Oval office. Aw the good ol days.

• 12. LOLguy23  |  February 16th, 2008 at 7:40 pm

  Deleted - off topic.

• 13. neocon  |  February 16th, 2008 at 8:01 pm

  >>our relationships with the world, - LOLguy23<<

  Oh I know, it sucks when a former enemy is now an ally and a friend of the US.

  “We are happy to come to Besmaya for training,” said Hussein. “We will provide the best security for the people of Basra and are prepared to defend the people from north to east and from south to west from all enemies of Iraq.”

  After the ceremony, Babakir, along with Coalition and Iraqi military, toured the Besmaya Range Complex, viewing the ranges and the lot of equipment supplied to each brigade participating in Unit Set Fielding. They then enjoyed a luncheon in honor of the graduates.

  http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17105&Itemid=1

• 14. Almiranta  |  February 16th, 2008 at 8:24 pm

  Ah, the “warrantless wiretap” thing again.

  There are some warrantless electronic interceptions of some calls originating overseas from some, though not nearly enough, terrorists, to some, but not nearly enough, terrorist buddies lurking here in this country.

  But they are not “wiretaps” and they don’t require warrants and they are not illegal and only the most ardenly rabid of the Lemming Left is still beating that dead horse.

  Get a grip, guys. You need some new material every now and then, as your old stuff gets debunked and you look sillier and sillier insisting that it has any legs at all.

  And remember, just repeating incessantly that something is “illegal” doesn’t make it so. You people are so predictable, and soooooooo tiresome. The bleating, the constant bleating, of BDS, is just goofy.

• 15. neocon  |  February 16th, 2008 at 9:06 pm

  OT but the following is a must read for all of us settling in to enjoy the impending Clinton dismantling of the Democratic Party as they fall out of favor with the MSM and the super delegates. Pass the popcorn.

  http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2008/02/16/abcs-obamacan-lashing-out-hillary-brazenly-attacks-barack

• 16. plainjane  |  February 16th, 2008 at 9:20 pm

  Not even worth a comment. The whole system is corrupt; Republicans, Democrats, Green Party the whole bunch are on the take.

• 17. Darva Conger  |  February 17th, 2008 at 12:31 am

  Enron cleaned up on Bush’s watch?

  Criminal Ken Lay was a close friend of the Bush family. He was co-chairman of the George Bush re-election committee in 1992.

  He gave lucrative employment contracts to James Baker and Robert Mosbacher (Cabinet members in the first Bush administration).

  He supported Bush as Governor of Texas.

  Lay was also a “Bush Pioneer” — a member of the elite club of Republicans who had given personal gifts of more than $100,000 to the 2000 election campaign.

  Don’t blame Lay’s criminal behavior on Clinton. He is one criminal truly in the back pocket of the GOP.

• 18. congressive  |  February 17th, 2008 at 1:55 am

  Ah, dirty pool again. These figures come from The Center For Responsive Politics, funded by

  1. Pew Charitable Trust created by Sun Oil Co.,

  2. The Ford Foundation known for releasing energy policy reports created by the Petroleum Institute and hanging on to corrupt CEO Allaire,

  3. The Carnegie Foundation whose board members include Pearlsteine from the Carlyle Group, and Pickering from Boeing, and whose chairman Helen Kaplan counsels Exxon and, suspiciously, Verizon.

  To overuse an overused phrase, these are the most Orwellian of times, where “clean skies” means more pollution and “healthy forests” means clearcutting virgin tracts, and lawyers are separated from big oil, as if big oil employs no lawyers of their own.

  Why do you continue to defend big oil? Must be a stockholder, I s’pose…

• 19. Mark Noonan  |  February 17th, 2008 at 2:01 am

  SAR,

  No, that is money donated by lawyers and law firms to politicians and political parties - and lawyers far outweigh any other group in amount of money given, and give to Democrats vastly more than they give to Republicans. These aren’t people on retainer to fight crime, but lawyers who want a political party to do their bidding - as we see the Democrats, again and again, all too willing to comply with their Master’s commands.

  If money in politics is the problem, then you on the left should be fighting hard to get lawyers’ money out of politics…and yet we never hear a peep on the left about the money lawyers give…showing that it isn’t really the money in politics, but whose money…as long as the money goes to leftwing politicians and parties, the left is perfectly ok with it…and if a corrupt deal or two has to be done to get it, then that is all right, too.

• 20. southerner  |  February 17th, 2008 at 7:12 am

  Mark,

  According to the link you post as your source for this statistic, over 85% of the money donated by ‘Big Law’ comes from INDIVIDUAL lawyers, not law firms or political action comittees or other forms of ’soft money’ favoured by INDUSTRIES such as Big Oil or Big Pharma, but from INDIVIDUALS.

  I don’t know if you’ve noticed this Mark, but there are a LOT of lawyers in America. The majority of members of congress hold a law degree of one type or another and by far and away the law is the number one professional career by number in America. How do you categorize the donations of these individuals as Big Anything? They dontate in their own individual capacities, not in the form of an industry backing a candidate. What are you going to rant about next? Big Retiree bacing McCain? Big Student backing Obama? Big Religious Wacko backing Huckabee?

• 21. neocon  |  February 17th, 2008 at 8:47 am

  Darva,

  Who was President in 1997?

  (since 1997, Enron (ENE-NYSE) had left many of its debts “off the books” and had overstated profits by some $400 million in its annual reports.)

  Who was President in 2006?

  (May 25, 2006 - Former Enron executives Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling have been found guilty of fraud and conspiracy.)

  I am going to guess that even you can figure this one out.

• 22. Darva Conger  |  February 17th, 2008 at 9:50 am

  Who was President on July 6, 2006 and said this about Ken Lay on CNN’s Larry King? (Among other things.)

  “My hope is that his heart was right with the Lord. . . . . (Ken Lay) ” he’s a good guy.”

  Who was president when Lay sold 918,000 shares of Enron stock from August through the end of October 2001? The period during which he was urging employees not to panic?

  Which President-elect in December 2000 considered Ken Lay for Secretary of the Treasury?

  I am going to guess that even you can figure these out.

• 23. southerner  |  February 17th, 2008 at 11:10 am

  Neocon,

  The fact that Clinton was in office when Kenny-boy and co started their fraud is not relevant. What is relevant is that Kenny-boy and others indicted in the fraud were close personal friends of the Bush family. Check out the film ‘Enron - The Smartest Guys in the Room’ to see video of your hero George W appearing on video to give personal testimonies to Enron partners when they retired from the board. George’s deregulation of the oil and gas industry in Texas also paved the way for Enron’s wacky accounting procedures that brought the comapany and the pension plans of thousands of people down in tatters.

• 24. Greg-O  |  February 17th, 2008 at 12:08 pm

  southerner,

  It was more than just coincidence that “Kenny-boy” just-so-happened to do his shenanigans when Clinton was in office.

  In 1992, a Democratic-controlled Congress approved a major energy bill that set the stage for a new wholesale electricity marketplace. Trading companies such as Enron could use the transmission lines of regulated utility companies to sell blocs of electricity to private customers.

  In 1996, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, stocked with Clinton appointees, helped Enron with a series of orders that weakened the monopoly of nuclear and coal-burning utilities. In July of that year, Enron gave $100,000 to the Democratic Party.

  Enron backed Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) in his successful 1998 campaign to oust Republican Sen. Alfonse D’Amato. Schumer’s views on electricity deregulation dovetailed closely with Enron’s. Two years later Schumer, who has advocated deregulation as a way of reducing New York State’s high power costs, co-authored a bill to restructure electricity markets along lines favored by Enron.

  In August 1993, Mack McLarty, Clinton’s former chief of staff, arranged an invitation for Lay to play golf with Clinton in Vail, Colorado. This date irritated Oscar Wyatt, chief executive of Coastal, another natural gas company that had helped the Clinton election campaign raise funds. These connections to the Democratic administration helped Enron considerably.

  Clinton officials publicly helped Enron win the contract in India as well as in Indonesia. Enron had received U.S. government funds to build power plants in China, the Philippines and Turkey. Enron also won contracts in Pakistan and Russia while accompanying senior U.S. government officials on state trips. In June 1996, four days before India granted final approval to Enron’s project, Lay’s company gave $100,000 to the DNC.

  Enron got permission to build a pipeline from Mozambique to South Africa after Clinton’s National Security Adviser Anthony Lake threatened to withhold aid to Mozambique if it didn’t approve the project.

• 25. mikeinportc  |  February 17th, 2008 at 12:51 pm

  “Two years later Schumer, who has advocated deregulation as a way of reducing New York State’s high power costs”

  Yeah , that worked out well . Even before oil prices took off , my bill ^> 2x.

  Who was in bed with Enron? Incumbents , on both sides . Clinton carried water for them , to get India to approve some boodoggle hydroelectric ripoff that was meeting a lot of resistance.(for ex) The idea that they were prosecuted because of the righteousness of the Bush Administration is laughable . They had to, because the jig was up, the scam was all too apparent . Both sides of the WHorehouse were/are crooked.

• 26.   Why Do We Need FIS&hellip  |  February 17th, 2008 at 1:12 pm

  […] over protecting the United States, partially because of the provision of telecom immunity. As Mark Noonan points out, Big Lawyer has “given more than Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Insurance and Big […]

• 27. southerner  |  February 17th, 2008 at 6:04 pm

  Lay’s company gave $100,000 to the DNC.

  Lay and Enron gave over $3 million to Bush’s various electoral campaigns. Kind of puts their token democrat donations in the shade.

  Kenneth Lay was a nobody before he hooked up with the Bush clan down in Texas. The deregulation legislation you mention which was passed in 1992 was institaged by the Bush 1 whitehouse. The legislation reducing government oversight of energy trading was muscled through Congress — without a Senate committee hearing — with the aid of republican U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas. Gramm was chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over the legislation he co-sponsored, but he chose to bypass his committee, and the bill was quietly tacked onto a “must-pass” appropriations bill late in the session. Gramm’s wife, Wendy Gramm, also aided Enron’s rise to power. As chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, she pushed through a key regulatory exemption on Jan. 14, 1993, just as she was about to leave office. Five weeks later, she joined Enron’s board of directors, where she served on the board’s audit committee and had access to key financial information about the company.

  But nice try in attempting to equate democratic involvement with Enron with that of Bush and the republicans.

• 28. southerner  |  February 17th, 2008 at 6:06 pm

  PS - Guess what? Enron was a major contributor to Gramms’s election campaigns during the period he pushed through the deregulatory legislation mentioned above.

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