November 6, 2010 – The story is STILL going to come out

Genie out of the bottle and all the other metaphors…once truth begins its exodus to light, there is little chance to stop it.  I’m thinking that will be the case.  Whether it’s now or in 50 years the whole of the story of  Michigan’s Supreme Court will out.

Here’s an analysis from yesterday’s Michigan Messenger, an article by Eartha Jane Melzer.  Yes, yes, I KNOW…it’s supposedly a left-leaning conduit, and perhaps its supporters (you can find them listed at the site, it’s a 501(c)(3), after all) have in mind a liberal agenda, but in this case….

And maybe Ms. Melzer can help me dig out that robocall from Michelle Engler…I’ve been working at it, but so far the Michigan GOP will not return my calls and has not responded to this e-mail request:

At least I wasn’t the only one who heard the robocall.  For about five minutes I thought this might have been a prank and I had helped to perpetrate a hoax.  Nope.  There is confirmation.

But I still want the script from which she read.  My thought regarding this is “What the heck, Mrs. Engler!  You took the time to send this call to me and you WANTED me to hear it.  Why not stand behind it now?  Is there something about this that’s unseemly, Mrs. Engler?  Is it perhaps as unseemly as your work with Freddie Mac in serving on that institution’s board as it steered straight to the brink of ruin during the most recent (and continuing) financial crisis?”

As I thought that I also thought I needed to know a little more about her.  I do not want to be uncharitable.  Here’s a Bloomberg Businessweek profile of Mrs. Engler.  If you click on “board relations” in her profile, you’ll find some interesting connections, including one to Mike Bouchard’s Illumina, Inc. enterprise.  That’s pretty dang fancy work for an otherwise Oakland County Sheriff, but he’s a man of many abilities, much experience, and varied interests.

The point is, I guess, connections and affiliations.

And, as an odd aside, Michelle and John Engler were included in “Washington’s 60 sizzlingest power couples!” in the May 2007 issue of Washington Monthly:

John Engler president, National Association of Manufacturers Michelle Engler board of directors, Freddie Mac.

He was Michiqan’s Republican governor from 1991 to 2003.  Later, he was a government lobbyist for Electronic Data Systems, which received more than $24 million from Freddie Mac for business consulting in 2003.  She was appointed to Freddie Mac’s board in 2001. Through a spokesman, he told us he didn’t know anything about the contract until after he left the company.

Well, that article was published about the time things really started going downhill for the financial markets.  And she may have had something to do with it all.  Certainly it happened on her watch and she was receiving some kind of compensation for her oversight while she was there; she left the board in 2008.  But before she left, she did pretty well. Here’s a look at the Freddie Mac report from 2008 (and you can get earlier filings if you want):

If you want to find it in the report it’s on page 199 of this SEC filing.

If you want to know what all that might have been worth in 2007:

(Same report and the page number is showing.  You can find it for yourself.)  Look at this, too, for 2007 directors’ stock awards:

In fact, once you are in this report, just search on “Engler” and you’ll see all the mentions of her compensation tied to this report.  Heck, she even was reimbursed $466 for bringing her spouse to the 2007 Board meeting.

Public service is a noble enterprise.  Mrs. Engler has been very busy over the years in that regard.  I am so relieved that she had my very best interests at heart in the recent election and that she took the time to warn me about lies about Justice Robert Preston Young, Jr., and insidious connections between the Democrats and the Ku Klux Klan.  I just wish I had a transcription of her message so you could benefit from it, too.