Free Republic

<p>The White House hit back hard late Tuesday at a study by accounting firm Ernst and Young that charged President Barack Obama's signature tax proposal could cost 710,000 jobs, claiming it's chock full of "major flaws, errors and misleading statements."</p>

A high-profile member of the Boy Scouts of America's governing board says he doesn't support the Scouts' policy of excluding gays and will work from within to seek a change. Ernst & Young CEO James Turley, whose accounting firm has welcomed gays and lesbians in its own work force, becomes the first member of the Scouts' Executive Board known to publicly disapprove of the policy.

An investigation into the biggest corruption scandal in the history of the United Nations is being hampered by the US-led administration in Iraq, according to congressmen and officials in Baghdad. Serious reservations have been raised over the appointment of auditors Ernst & Young to investigate the disappearance of billions of pounds under the UN oil-for-food programme

Arguing that Ernst & Young engaged in "improper professional conduct" an administrative law judge on Friday suspended the Big Four accounting firm from accepting new publicly traded companies as audit clients for six months and ordered the company to make $1.7 million in restitution, the Wall Street Journal reported. The case was brought by the enforcement division of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which claimed auditor independence issues in Ernst’s relationship with audit client PeopleSoft. Despite earlier vows to appeal any decision that found its conduct to be inappropriate, Ernst said Friday it will not appeal the judge’s decision and...