C-SPAN caller: "What about Bush's Stock Scandal" ???

[Laura PourMeADrink]

I said it before - there are SO many crimes you can't keep up with them. I believe this is a real strategy. What better way to get away with shit, do more shit, so people forget the shit you did the week before.

A C-SPAN caller today asked about the Bush stock scandal - said it went into a black hole...

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/07.13C.bush.stock.htm

Secrecy Surrounds Bush Stock Deal
By The Associated Press | New York Times

Friday, 12 July, 2002

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It is a stock market whodunit that has withstood a decade of scrutiny. Who bought George W. Bush's problem-plagued oil company stock just before its value dropped?

The 1990 transaction involving shares of Harken Energy Corp. allowed the future president to pay off a bank loan for his now-famous stake in the Texas Rangers baseball team. The identity of the buyer of the stock has escaped public disclosure.

Federal regulators who examined the deal as a possible insider trade never asked. President Bush says he doesn't know and the White House declines to ask the broker who handled the transaction. Reporters have fared no better in getting to the bottom of the mystery.

Was Bush's sale of Harken stock another instance of a helping hand from family friends? Or was it a simple case of a buyer trying to make a killing in a high-risk investment?

Corporate scandals and failures that have rocked Wall Street in recent months have renewed questions about Bush's own business dealings when he was a Texas oilman. The White House was put on the defensive again Thursday, as it faced questions about the fact that Bush borrowed $180,000 from Harken to buy some of its stock. The loans are a type of transaction that Bush now wants to ban as part of a crackdown on corporate wrongdoing. snip

[blm]

1. The buyer of the stock IS KNOWN - Salem Bin Laden via James Bath.

No way the media happened to MISS that connection - especially AFTER 9-11 when more people recognized the name Bin Laden.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

2. Frank Rich seems to me like the best anti-B** journalist out there

I wish he would take a sabbatical from the NYT and write an anthology of B** crimes. Or, I wish we had a progressive cable network. It could have a show dedicated to revealing a crime a week.

[blm]

3. THE best is Robert Parry - but BFEE got him blackballed after IranContra

and BCCI.

What I would like to see is Paul Krugman sitting with Robert Parry and all his files from the last 3 decades for about two weeks, and the two of them come up with the DEFINTIVE timeline and links to the BFEE's criminal actions.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

4. Yes ! Throw in Sy Hersch too. He had the scoop on how the BFEE

rigged the first Iraqi election so that no one would get a majority. That went into the black hole too.

I think that it would be very important to our future too to throw in as much as possible about any republican that played a role in any of it. Soon, we will be beyond any possibility of impeachment (I believe that each day we get closer to the end of his term, the impeachment probability goes down). It will be much more important to nail any repigs running..

[karynnj]

6. Even if there's no impeachment

which given the fact that it will be impossible without control of the house, it's important that these things come out. Warren Harding was not impeached, but his name is one of the first historians would list as a corrupt President.

For other Republicans, exposing their venality is important because they have used their self assumed position as the moral party to label perfectly moral Democrats as bad. A series of indictments will show this for the lie it is.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

7. I am with you 100%

[blm]

10. Yes - Sy got blackballed BEFORE Parry.

That's how BFEE operates.

[spindrifter]

5. Do you happen

to have any links? Did any of the bins have other major financial dealings with the BFEE, particularly around that time?

[blm]

8. Bin Laden's construction company built the US bases in Saudi Arabia.

All you need is google for that.

GWBush's specxific dealings were done through James Bath - again, all you need is google. It is also a small part of BCCI.

[mattclearing]

9. Harken has been gone over again and again.

He got a slap on the wrists from the SEC. The media has yawned this story into oblivion on cue.

[blm]

11. Media did so out of their own complicity to protect BushInc.

.

[mattclearing]

12. Of course.

I'm just saying...making a story of this at this point...it seems hopeless with this crowd.

[Cha]

14. This is a better "point" to

make the story then say..after 9/11 when "90%" of the country bought into the bush lies of protecting the country from "terrorists"!

Pile it on when bush's ratings are in the 30's.

[SoCalDem]

13. Poppy Bush's appointee was "in charge" of investigating

the Harken dealings.. Gee i wonder why he dropped the case and was not particularly interested..

It's the same issue we have with the judicial appointments.. The people in charge of investigating crimes must be free of political intrigue, or the smarmy well-connected will always get a pass..

Martha Stewart was pursued because there was an "unfriendly"
atmosphere, and at the time she did what she did, she was also hosting a series of democratic party fund raising events.. (so it's not solely a republican problem)..Both sides try to pack the courts and regulatory agencies with "friendlies".. That's why the rest of us have problems getting real justice..

The whole process is tainted

[KharmaTrain]

15. Old News...And Small Change...

Considering all the damage this fukstick has done since 1990. Yep, he got a slap on the wrists from the SEC and then went off to play baseball for a couple years...with Dallas' taxpayer's money.

It's all but documented (thanks to Native Son) that James Bath acting on behalf of various Saudi families bailed out the deal. The only controversy I've ever seen on this is was it as a payback to Poppy for the first Gulf Oil War or was it covering up bigger and deeper scandals? And, this was nothing compared to the scandal good old Neil got himself in with the swindling of billions from Silverado. He was never held accountable either...and then went on to his own future scandals. That family is slimer than two month old New Orleans mold.

This is like the TANG story...it's been very well investigated, but the corporate media has its blinders on to this privilidged boy and still refuses to hold him accountable. The last person you'd expect to be sympathetic to that call would be any of the moderators on C-SPAN...the right wing bend this network has taken is getting to be so blatant lately.