Category: Auto
Description: Car
Item #: 822
Bidding Ends: 6/4/06 8:00:00 PM
Current Bid: $150
Details: 1991 Pontiac Grand Am LE 2 door white
Notes:broken out passenger side window dash damaged (hot wired), flat tire in back no keys miles 151,088
Lay, Skilling found guilty at Enron trial
Former CEOs convicted of securities, wire fraud
Former Enron Corp. chiefs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were convicted Thursday of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud in one of the biggest business scandals in U.S. history.
The verdict put the blame for the demise of what was once the nation’s seventh-largest company squarely on its top two executives. It came in the sixth day of deliberations following a trial that lasted nearly four months.
Lay was also convicted of bank fraud and making false statements to banks in a separate trial related to his personal banking.
State Rep. Gregg Underheim often said, almost reverently, that Scott Jensen was the smartest man in the Legislature. Apparently not. But Underheim's assessment shows how far his moral compass was corrupted by Jensen's magnetic personality.
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To shrug off the scandal by saying, "Oh, well, that's Madison for you," is to underestimate the pervasiveness of the corruption and ignore the fact that it had spread to Oshkosh. There is information, for example, that strongly suggests that Underheim was the beneficiary of illegal campaign assistance.
There is absolutely nothing to suggest that Underheim, who is not running for re-election in November, did anything illegal himself. But while Jensen was being investigated, Underheim did express frustration that allegations were blown out of proportion since the campaign tactics in question were common practice in the capitol.
Jensen, in fact, used the 'everybody was doing it" defense at his trial.
The links between Underheim and illegal campaign activities first surfaced in 2002 and explained away as election year mudslinging.
Underheim was running for re-election against Democrat James Genisio at the time when the connection was documented. In his primary race against Melanie Bloechl in 2000, a graphic artist employed by the caucus named Kacy Hack worked on Underheim's campaign literature. When questioned about the graphic artist, Underheim said Hack did the literature on her own time. "That is my belief. I absolutely believe that." Underheim said at the time.
That explanation never really passed the smell test since it is beyond belief that a Madison based graphic artist would volunteer to help a candidate in Oshkosh in a primary election. Further, the Democrats produced a UPS shipping label that showed Hack sent the literature from the caucus office to an Oshkosh printer.
The dots got easier to connect when Hack testified for the prosecution in Jensen's trial in February. The prosecution built its case around the testimony of former caucus employees who detailed the staggering amount of campaign work they did as soldiers in Jensen's campaign apparatus while on the state payroll.
But Part D's bad start isn't just another illustration of the administration's trademark incompetence. It's also an object lesson in what happens when the government is run by people who aren't interested in the business of governing.
Even Mr. Bush has acknowledged that signing up for the program is a confusing process. But, he says, "there is plenty of help for you." Yeah, right.
There's a number that people needing help with Part D can call. But when the program first went into effect, there were only 300 customer service representatives standing by. (Remember, there are 43 million Medicare recipients.)
There are now 7,500 representatives, making it easier to reach someone. But should you believe what you're told? Maybe not. A survey by the Government Accountability Office found that when Medicare recipients asked for help in determining which plan would cover their medications at the lowest cost, they were given the right answer only 41 percent of the time.
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Adding drug coverage as part of ordinary Medicare would also have saved a lot of money, both by eliminating the cost of employing private insurance companies as middlemen and by allowing the government to negotiate lower drug prices. This would have made it possible to offer a better benefit at much less cost to taxpayers.
But while a straightforward addition of drug coverage to Medicare would have been good policy, it would have been bad politics from the point of view of conservatives, who want to privatize traditional social insurance programs, not make them better.
Moreover, administration officials and their allies in Congress had both political and personal incentives not to do anything that might reduce the profits of insurance and drug companies. Both the insurance industry and, especially, the pharmaceutical industry are major campaign contributors. And soon after the drug bill was passed, the congressman and the administration official most responsible for drafting the legislation both left public service to become lobbyists.
So what we got was a drug program set up to serve the administration's friends and its political agenda, not the alleged beneficiaries. Instead of providing drug coverage directly, Part D is a complex system of subsidies to private insurance companies. The administration's insistence on running the program through these companies, which provide little if any additional value beyond what Medicare could easily have provided directly, is what makes the whole thing so complicated. And that complication, combined with an obvious lack of interest in making the system work, is what led to the disastrous start-up.
Confidence in GOP is at new low in poll
Democrats favored to address gas, health care in particular
Public confidence in GOP governance has plunged to the lowest levels of the Bush presidency, with Americans saying by wide margins that they now trust Democrats more than Republicans to deal with Iraq, the economy, immigration and other issues, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll that underscores the GOP's fragile grip on power six months before the midterm elections.
Dissatisfaction with the administration's policies in Iraq has overwhelmed other issues as the source of problems for President Bush and the Republicans. The survey suggests that pessimism about the direction of the country -- 69 percent said the nation is now off track -- and disaffection with Republicans has dramatically improved Democrats' chances to make gains in November.
Democrats are now favored to handle all 10 issues measured in the Post-ABC News poll. The survey shows a majority of the public, 56 percent, saying they would prefer to see Democrats in control of Congress after the elections.
The poll offers two cautions for the Democrats, however. One is a growing disaffection with incumbents generally. When asked whether they were inclined to reelect their current representative to Congress or look around for someone new, 55 percent said they were open to someone else, the highest since just before Republicans captured control of Congress in 1994. That suggests that some Democratic incumbents could feel the voters' wrath, although as the party in power, Republicans have more at risk.
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Only a third want the GOP to remain in the majority in Congress. Nearly three times as many Americans say they will use the elections to express opposition to the president (30 percent) than to show support for him (12 percent).
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The current president's decline has been particularly steep among Republicans, who until last month had remained generally loyal while independents and Democrats grew increasingly critical. According to the survey, Bush's disapproval rating among Republicans has nearly doubled in the past month, from 16 percent to 30 percent, while his approval rating dipped below 70 percent for the first time. Nearly nine in 10 Democrats and seven in 10 independents do not like the job Bush is doing as president.
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Bush's fading popularity is matched by waning popular support for the Republican-held Congress. A third of the country approves of the job Congress is doing -- identical to the president's poor job performance rating -- and a 10-year low. Even Republicans are divided over the performance of the Republican-controlled Congress: 49 percent approved while 47 disapproved, a view shared by seven in 10 Democrats and political independents.
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By 2 to 1 or better, the public preferred Democrats to handle gas prices and health care. And by double-digit margins, they preferred Democrats to deal with education (23 percentage points), the budget (20 points), the economy (18 points) and protecting privacy (15 points). Democrats also had a 14-point edge on handling Iraq, immigration and taxes.
On one other measure, incumbents look slightly less threatened. More than three in five, 62 percent, said they approve of the way their own representative is doing his or her job, up from 59 percent last month. At this point in 1994, an equal percentage gave good ratings to their representatives, but by October that number had plunged to 49 percent.
First lady Laura Bush said on Sunday she does not believe opinion polls showing her husband's approval ratings at record low levels.
Interviewed on Fox News Sunday, Laura Bush said she did not think people were losing confidence in President George W. Bush, despite a series of polls showing support for him at its lowest point in his five-year presidency and among the lowest for any president in the past 50 years.
"I don't really believe those polls. I travel around the country. I see people, I see their responses to my husband. I see their response to me," she said.
"As I travel around the United States, I see a lot of appreciation for him. A lot of people come up to me and say, 'Stay the course'."
U.S. reserves nearly 'broken,' says chief
Iraq, Afghan conflicts sap military resources
The U.S. Army Reserve, tapped heavily to provide soldiers for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is “degenerating into a ‘broken’ force” due to dysfunctional military policies, the Army Reserve’s chief said in a memo made public Wednesday.
“I do not wish to sound alarmist. I do wish to send a clear, distinctive signal of deepening concern,” Lt. Gen. James Helmly said in a Dec. 20 memo to Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker.
Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You're Calling
May 15, 2006
10:33 AM
Brian Ross and Richard Esposito Report:
A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources.
"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.
ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.
Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.
One former official was asked to sign a document stating he was not a confidential source for New York Times reporter James Risen.
Our reports on the CIA's secret prisons in Romania and Poland were known to have upset CIA officials. The CIA asked for an FBI investigation of leaks of classified information following those reports.
People questioned by the FBI about leaks of intelligence information say the CIA was also disturbed by ABC News reports that revealed the use of CIA predator missiles inside Pakistan.
Under Bush Administration guidelines, it is not considered illegal for the government to keep track of numbers dialed by phone customers.
The official who warned ABC News said there was no indication our phones were being tapped so the content of the conversation could be recorded.
A pattern of phone calls from a reporter, however, could provide valuable clues for leak investigators.
Winnebago County DA will not seek re-election
Winnebago County Dist. Atty. Bill Lennon announced Monday afternoon that he does not plan to run for re-election.
"I came to this job with the goal of restoring honesty and integrity to the district attorney's office," Lennon said in a news release. "I believe I have achieved that goal and will look back at my time in office as one of my proudest accomplishments."
Lennon cited his defeat in April in the race for Winnebago County Circuit Court judge as part of his motivation for leaving public office. Lennon was defeated by Karen Seifert for the Branch 4 seat.
"I feel it is time to look to new opportunities for me and my family," Lennon said.
Lennon thanked his supporters for help, and wished luck to the candidates who will run for district attorney this fall. Lennon urged candidates to refrain from "the types of personal attacks that marred (his) campaign for district attorney against Joe Paulus and E.J. Jelinski."
Lennon was elected district attorney in 2002 and re-elected in 2004.
There isn't a compelling reason in modern-day Wisconsin to have a death penalty. It hasn't served as a deterrent in states that have it. We don't need it here.
State Sen. Alan Lasee, R-De Pere, has authored a bill for a non-binding vote on the November ballot about bringing back the death penalty. But it's a referendum looking for a problem.
Right now, Wisconsin is one of about a dozen states with the District of Columbia that lack the death penalty. The penalty is an idea that doesn't live up to its promise. It isn't a powerful enough deterrent to crime.
There is an appeal, admittedly, to survivors who know someone who was murdered and would want the death penalty for the criminal. But we need the rule
of rationality and not the rule of emotion to guide our justice system. Revenge is a poor basis for creating good law.
Facts show that states with the death penalty have a credibility problem. They sentence the wrong people to death. Likewise, death penalty states sometimes place too much trust in DNA for evidence. DNA evidence isn't always conclusive. The several reversals of wrongful convictions have shown this.
States with a death row also can exhibit a strong rush to justice. Gary Nelson of Georgia was wrongly sentenced to death in 1978 for a murder of a child he didn't commit. He wasn't freed as an innocent man until 1991. The hype around the 1978 sentencing overshadowed the need for the rational rule of law.
Even the phrase for the issue is incorrect. The concept should be called the "discrimination penalty." A person who is low-income or a minority has a higher chance as a criminal to get sentenced to death row. At its core, the death penalty is the antithesis of the Civil Rights movement. It gives a voice to racial discrimination that would be illegal in any other context.
The bottom line should be proof enough, truthfully, to avoid wanting a death penalty. The legal costs of prisoners fighting to stay alive exceed the cost of "three hots and a cot" to imprison the person over the same length of years. Smart states should ban the death penalty on excessive costs of appeals alone.
In sum, our state experience, rational thought, death of innocents, discrimination and high costs aren't welcome here. We haven't had a death penalty since 1853. We don't need one now.
Leave the death penalty off the law books of the state of Wisconsin. This isn't a state that wants a reputation for sentencing innocents to death.
The Final Thought: Wisconsin shouldn't enact a death penalty. A non-binding referendum on the death penalty in November should be defeated.
A battle for the hearts and wallets of consumers escalated this week as retirees of the Big Three U.S. automakers launched a campaign to make Americans think twice about buying a foreign car -- even one made in the United States.
With Asian automakers shipping about $65 billion worth of autos and auto parts to the United States last year and U.S. automakers shedding tens of thousands of jobs, ad campaigns by Toyota and Hyundai touting the number of Americans they employ have hit a raw nerve.
"While foreign automakers own more than 40 percent of the market, they employ only 20 percent of the workers," Jim Doyle, president of Level Field Institute, said at a news conference on Thursday to roll out a more than $1 million ad campaign focused initially at Washington policy-makers.
"The result? Each foreign auto purchase supports half the jobs (that) buying a Ford, GM or Chrysler does," Doyle said.
Rep. Tom Petri, R-Fond du Lac, said he found the news hardly surprising and noted that he was aware of phone monitoring that was done when he worked in the Nixon White House in 1969.
“It was perhaps the first time in Bush’s tenure that the president was forced to sit and listen to any American cite the litany of criminal and corruption allegations that have piled up against his administration.”
THE usefulness of scientific theories, like those on gravity, relativity and evolution, is to make predictions. When theories make practicable foresight possible, they are widely accepted and used to make all of the new things that we enjoy — like global positioning systems, which rely on the theories of relativity, and the satellites that make them possible, which are placed in their orbits thanks to the good old theory of gravity.
Creationists who oppose the teaching of evolution as the predominant theory of biology contend that alternatives should be part of the curriculum because evolution is "just a theory," but they never attack mere theories of gravity and relativity in the same way. The creationists took it on their intelligently designed chins recently from a judge in Pennsylvania who found that teaching alternatives to evolution amounted to the teaching of religion. They prevailed, however, in Kansas, where the school board changed the definition of science to accommodate the teaching of intelligent design.
Both sides say they are fighting for lofty goals and defending the truth. But lost in all this truth-defending are more pragmatic issues that have to do with the young people whose educations are at stake here and this pesky fact: creationism has no commercial application. Evolution does.
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So evolution has some pretty exciting applications (like food), and I'm guessing most people would prefer antibiotics developed by someone who knows the evolutionary relationship of humans and bacteria. What does this mean for the young people who go to school in Kansas? Are we going to close them out from working in the life sciences? And what about companies in Kansas that want to attract scientists to work there? Will Mom or Dad Scientist want to live somewhere where their children are less likely to learn evolution?
One Kansas biology teacher, a past president of the National Association of Biology Teachers, told Popular Science magazine that students from Kansas now face tougher scrutiny when seeking admission to medical schools. And companies seeking to innovate in the life sciences could perhaps be excused for giving the Sunflower State a miss: one Web site that lists companies looking for workers in biotechnology has more than 600 hiring scientists in California and more than 240 in Massachusetts. Kansas has 11.
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In his most recent State of the Union address, President Bush mentioned our problems in science education and promised to focus on "keeping America competitive" by increasing the budget for research and spending money to get more science teachers. I hope he delivers, but we can't keep America competitive if some states teach science that has no commercial utility. Those smart youngsters in India and China whom you keep hearing about are learning secular science, not biblical literalism.
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Where science gets done is where wealth gets created, so places that decide to put stickers on their textbooks or change the definition of science have decided, perhaps unknowingly, not to go to the innovation party of the future. Maybe that's fine for the grownups who'd rather stay home, but it seems like a raw deal for the 14-year-old girl in Topeka who might have gone on to find a cure for resistant infections if only she had been taught evolution in high school.
Of 1,003 U.S. adults surveyed in a telephone poll, 29% think Mr. Bush is doing an "excellent or pretty good" job as president, down from 35% in April and significantly lower than 43% in January. It compares with 71% of Americans who said Mr. Bush is doing an "only fair or poor" job, up from 63% in April
At a time when corporations are reporting record profits, they should also be providing record wages.
USA Today said Thursday that the National Security Agency has been building up the database using records provided by three major phone companies — AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. — but that the program “does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations.”
Instead it documents who talks to whom in personal and business calls, whether local or long distance, by tracking which numbers are called, the newspaper said.
USA Today said its sources for the story were “people with direct knowledge of the arrangement,” but it did not give their names or describe their affiliation.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., argued that the program “is not a warrantless wiretapping of the American people. I don’t think this action is nearly as troublesome as being made out here, because they are not tapping our phones.”
But another Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, told Fox News Channel: “The idea of collecting millions or thousands of phone numbers, how does that fit into following the enemy?”
The existence of an NSA eavesdropping program launched after the Sept. 11 attacks was revealed in December.
Defending the controversial program, Bush and his administration officials have said it aims to uncover links between international terrorists and their domestic collaborators and only targets communications between a person inside the United States and a person overseas.
But USA Today said that calls originating and terminating within the United States have not escaped the NSA’s attention.
“It’s the largest database ever assembled in the world,” the paper quoted one source as saying. The agency’s goal is “to create a database of every call ever made” within U.S. borders, it said the source added.
The NSA has “access to records of billions of domestic calls,” USA Today said. Although customers’ names and addresses are not being handed over, “the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information,” it said.
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Among major U.S. telecommunications companies, only Qwest Communications International Inc. has refused to help the NSA program, the paper said.
Qwest, with 14 million customers in the Western United States, was “uneasy about the legal implications of handing over customer information to the government without warrants,” USA Today said.
It said the three companies cooperating with the NSA “provide local and wireless phone service to more than 200 million customers.”
1994
Former President George H.W. Bush's office released his letter of resignation from the National Rifle Association, in which Bush expressed outrage over the NRA's reference to federal agents as ''jackbooted government thugs.''
1775
Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys captured the British-held fortress at Ticonderoga, N.Y.
1865
Union forces captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Irwinville, Ga.
1924
J. Edgar Hoover became director of the FBI, a job he held until his death in 1972.
59
Andrew Card - Former White House chief of staff
48
Rick Santorum - U.S. senator, R-Pa.
46
Bono - Rock Singer (U2)
41
Krist Novoselic - Rock musician (Nirvana)
69
Maybelle Carter - 5/10/1909 - 10/23/1978 - American singer, songwriter and guitarist
26
John Wilkes Booth - 5/10/1838 - 4/26/1865 - American actor; assassinated President Abraham Lincoln
Less than a week after besting a primary challenger, Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) faces more scrutiny in regard to the pay-to-play scandal surrounding lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
The latest development is a plea agreement signed today by Ney's former top aide, Neil Volz -- a plea that has the Ohio congressman's now-familiar moniker -- "Representative #1" -- all over it.
The agreement alleges that during his time as communications director and chief
of staff for Ney, Volz "received things of value from or at the direction of Abramoff, [Tony] Rudy and others, including tickets to sporting events, meals and drinks, and golf." It goes on to state that: "During the same time period, defendant Volz, Representative #1 and others performed official acts for or at the behest of Abramoff and others, which were motivated in part by the things of value received."
The eight-page document details those exchanges, including an all-expense trip to Scotland, tickets to sporting events in the Washington area and food and drink at Abramoff's restaurant -- Signatures.
From the desk of District Attorney
Paul E. Bucher
16. What is the top public policy issue facing Wisconsin? Item Responses (%)
Taxes 29 (35.80)
Health care costs 26 (32.10)
Lawsuit abuse 13 (16.05)
Economic slowdown 4 (4.94)
Energy 3 (3.70)
Labor shortage 3 (3.70)
Regulation 1 (1.23)
Education 1 (1.23)
Other 1 (1.23)
17. What is the top business concern facing your company? Item Responses
(%)
Health care costs 28 (34.57)
Competition 13 (16.05)
Labor shortage 10 (12.35)
Energy 8 (9.88)
Regulation 7 (8.64)
Economic slowdown 7 (8.64)
Taxes 5 (6.17)
Other 2 (2.47)
Lawsuit abuse 1 (1.23)
