Without Enrony

While it's useful to know that Kenny-Boy Lay and Jeff Skillings are unlikely to get anywhere on their appeals for convictions on fraud and conspiracy, I wish the press coverage was more forthright on what they did: they stole huge amounts of money from thousands of people, utterly changing their lives, and they systematically cheated millions of considerable amounts of money while creating economic and political chaos in California, and robbing state government and the people who justly deserved to be served by the programs and agencies paid for by our taxes.

These guys are monumental criminals, and what they did isn't "scandal" or even "corruption." They are robbers, extortionists, liars, con men and thieves. They held an entire state hostage, and stole from their own employees. The people who did their bidding in such enterprises as manipulating energy flows are no less guilty of those acts, but these guys were the executives of evil, the architects of criminal enterprise. They deserved the same fair trial as anyone else accused, but allowing them to continue hiring expensive lawyers using their ill-gotten gain should stop now. Their assets aren't theirs. That's what the verdict means.