Ann Woolner

October 17, 2005 | Daily Report Online

by Ann Woolner When it comes to describing Harriet Miers' qualifications for the U.S. Supreme Court, the White House gets it exactly backward. It withholds critical information while showering us with details that have no bearing on her worthiness. President Bush has declared off-limits any documents that might say what Miers has been doing as a top White House aide for almost five years.

By Ann Woolner

4 minute read

March 25, 2009 | Daily Report Online

For all the righteous indignation at American International Group Inc. spewing from Capitol Hill this week, you would think Congress had played no role in creating this mess. All the screaming last week at AIG's Chief Executive Officer Edward Liddy diverts attention from the role Congress played. It helped build the mammoth firms taxpayers are bailing out and the risky, unregulated derivatives business that made them so vulnerable.

By Ann Woolner

4 minute read

June 18, 2010 | Daily Report Online

Few could argue convincingly that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has excelled at its duties. Having failed to detect the largest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history, and with employees viewing Internet porn on the job, the SEC hasn't exactly served as a shining star in the federal galaxy of regulators. A solution is now before Senate and House conferees who are hammering out their differences in a mammoth financial reform bill.

By Ann Woolner

4 minute read

August 19, 2009 | Daily Report Online

By Ann Woolner

5 minute read

November 23, 2009 | Daily Report Online

Picture Hurricane Katrina without the broken levees, with minor flooding that quickly drained, with no folks chopping through the attics of New Orleans in desperate hope of rooftop rescue. So it might have been if the Army Corps of Engineers hadn't flunked its job so completely and so repeatedly. This week U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr.

By Ann Woolner

4 minute read

January 24, 2005 | Daily Report Online

Ann Woolner Go to www.arthurandersen.com and click. Now try it again. No matter how many times or where on the home page you click, nothing happens. Such a shell is the former accounting behemoth, so complete its demise in the wake of its criminal conviction in 2002, that it came as a surprise that there's enough left of Arthur Andersen to file an appeal to the U.

By Ann Woolner

5 minute read

May 27, 2009 | Daily Report Online

There was a time, not long ago, when whoever wanted to use a news story for commercial purposes would actually ask the newspaper's permission. They might even pay for the privilege. As outlandish to the Google generation as typewriters, the idea was that newspapers owned their content. And why shouldn't they They pay reporters, photographers and editors to produce news stories.

By Ann Woolner

5 minute read

July 24, 2009 | Daily Report Online

Let's say you hand a million dollars or more to an investment advisory firm that boasts a sterling reputation, grand results and a promise to thoroughly investigate hedge funds before recommending them. For all the claims of super due diligence, this fine firm sinks your money into what turns out to be a Ponzi scheme. Now your money is gone and the hedge fund founder who lost it is serving more than 20 years.

By Ann Woolner

4 minute read

April 08, 2002 | Daily Report Online

Ann WoolnerPicture an election in which candidates can't voice opinions on hot-button issues, where they're not allowed to promise which way they'd vote on what.A violation of free speech rights Sure is. An obstacle to fully informing the voter That, too.And yet, that's how judicial elections work in most of the 39 states that elect judges.

By Ann Woolner

5 minute read

March 16, 2010 | Daily Report Online

In these poor economic times, there is one endeavor that offers unlimited opportunities for employment defending the debt-rating companies in court. It won't make you popular. But there has got to be a demand for lawyers willing to stand up for Moody's Corp. and Standard Poor's, whose ridiculously high grades for hopelessly risky mortgage-backed securities helped trigger the worst recession in at least a generation.

By Ann Woolner

4 minute read