We as spiritual beings or souls come to earth in order to experience the human condition. This includes the good and the bad scenarios of this world. Our world is a duality planet and no amount of love or grace will eliminate evil or nastiness. We will return again and again until we have pierced the illusions of this density. The purpose of human life is to awaken to universal truth. This also means that we must awaken to the lies and deceit mankind is subjected to. To pierce the third density illusion is a must in order to remove ourselves from the wheel of human existences. Love is the Aswer by means of Knowledge and Awareness!

Questions about George W. Bush's Business Career

Riling the lapdogs 
Joe Conason
Salon.com
July 11, 2002

Mainstream journalists are starting to pose hard questions about 
George W. Bush's business career -- the kind of questions that gave 
way two years ago to more urgent issues like the color of Al Gore's 
suits and the "authenticity" of Bill Bradley and John McCain. 
Wednesday, reporters in the White House press room requested copies 
of the Harken Energy board minutes from 1989 and 1990. Those are the 
same minutes that the president urged the press to consult during his 
Monday press conference. But the answer from the White House 
communications office is that those minutes won't be made available. 

Spokesman Dan Bartlett said that the White House doesn't have the 
records, although Bush himself certainly once did, and as president 
could surely request them again. The Harken board minutes would show 
whether and how he participated in the deceptive purchase of a 
company subsidiary, Aloha Petroleum, by a firm that included the 
Harken chairman and other insiders. 

On Monday, Bush seemed to indicate that he couldn't remember his view 
of the Aloha scheme. Maybe he enthusiastically endorsed it, which 
wouldn't look so good right now; or maybe he was the kind 
of "independent director" who yawned, collected his fees and stock 
options and rubber-stamped management, which wouldn't look so good 
now either. If he had opposed that Aloha deal, he would probably 
remember it well. And if he or his lawyers are keeping those yellowed 
board minutes in an old trunk anywhere, that's one Pandora's box 
they're not opening. 

Still, there are clues to be found in the publicly available 
documents. Harken's proxy statement for its annual stockholders 
meeting on Nov. 18, 1990, mentions aspects of the Aloha Petroleum 
sale. In a footnote on Page 20, the statement explains that "the sale 
price was ... approved by independent directors of HMC," or Harken 
Marketing Company, then a subsidiary of Harken Energy. Weren't 
the "independent directors" of HMC identical with those on the board 
of Harken Energy, including George W. Bush? A glance at those proxy 
statements, available at the SEC's EDGAR site, might refresh the 
president's dim recollection. 

Do as I say 

The same proxy statement also shows that Bush got personal loans from 
Harken totaling more than $180,000 to purchase company stock. As the 
Washington Post and the New York Times headline Thursday, the 
president now says such loans to directors should be outlawed because 
they tend to discourage the borrowers from exercising critical 
judgment about management decisions. I guess he would know. (The 
Times story, by Jeff Gerth and Richard W. Stevenson, is well reported 
and scoops the sweetheart aspects of the loans. It also poses new, 
unanswered questions about which "institutional investor" purchased 
Bush's 212,000 shares at a time when they were clearly declining in 
value. The broker who arranged the deal won't say.) 

Why was Bush on Harken's board? 

What hasn't been discussed much lately is why Harken management 
wanted George W. Bush on its board, why they paid millions for his 
worthless, debt-ridden Spectrum 7 oil company in 1986, why they 
continued to pay him a handsome $120,000 consulting fee and how his 
association finally paid off for them. 

Months before Bush cashed out most of his stock in June 1990, he had 
attracted the benign attention of the Gulf sheikdom of Bahrain. The 
sheiks generously awarded an exclusive offshore drilling contract to 
Harken -- despite the fact that the small, poorly run company had 
neither the experience nor the capital for such a huge venture. The 
story in today's Times notes that the Bass oil interests of Fort 
Worth were completing a deal with Harken to do the real work in 
Bahrain around the same time that Bush sold his shares. 

That "good news" about the Bass family briefly pumped Harken's stock 
price a month after Bush sold. But the much bigger news was the 
Bahrain deal itself, which had been announced six months earlier. And 
apparently it was during the discussions in 1989 with the Bahraini 
authorities -- which began after Bush Senior became president -- that 
Harken gave Bush, but no other outside director, another sweetheart 
loan of $84,000. 

There is much more to be said about the Bahrain deal, and there are 
many reporters in Washington who know a lot about it -- including one 
very high-ranking editor in the Times Washington bureau. Digging up 
those old stories would lead to some very contemporary angles about 
the Bush family's Saudi friends.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
About the writer
Joe Conason writes a daily journal for Salon. He also writes a weekly 
column for the New York Observer.

*****

Stocks Careen To 1997 Lows - 
Confidence In Economy Plummets
By Denise Duclaux 
7-10-2

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Major U.S. stock gauges slammed to lows unseen 
since 1997 on Wednesday after Qwest Communications International Inc. 
inflamed worries over corporate accounting and Standard & Poor's 
booted a handful of companies from its prestigious index. 
  
"There are no buyers and that's a proxy for a major lack of 
confidence in U.S. companies," said Gary Wedbush, head of trading at 
Wedbush Morgan Securities. 
  
Wall Street has suffered three straight days of deep declines. The 
market has been on a mostly downward spiral as blow-ups like WorldCom 
Inc.'s $3.85 billion accounting scandal, fears of another terror 
attack on the United States and apprehension over the upcoming 
quarterly earnings season rattle the market. 
  
Qwest lost almost one-third of its value after federal prosecutors 
launched an unspecified criminal probe into the No. 4 U.S. local 
phone company. The latest in a string of high-profile investigations 
into Corporate America dealt another stinging blow to investor 
confidence. 
  
Royal Dutch slumped nearly 10 percent after the Anglo-Dutch oil group 
and six other foreign firms were yanked from the S&P 500 index to be 
replaced with seven U.S. companies. Money managers dumped the foreign 
shares to make room for the new members of the benchmark index. 
  
Selling intensified as the closing bell approached. The S&P 500 
skidded 32.36 points, or 3.40 percent, to 920.47, based on the latest 
available numbers, hitting its lowest level since October 1997. 
  
The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 282.59 points, or 
3.11 percent, to 8,813.50 -- its largest one-day percentage loss 
since September 2001. The technology-loaded Nasdaq Composite index 
sank 35.11 points, or 2.54 percent, to 1,346.01, ending at its lowest 
level since May 1997. 
  
"The mood is relatively sullen," said Jack Schwetje, a senior 
equities trader at Deutsche Bank. "All the up moves have been sold. 
It hasn't made much sense to get involved over the last couple of 
weeks." 
  
Losers trounced winners by a ratio of about 3 to 1 on the New York 
Stock Exchange and about 2 to 1 on Nasdaq. More than 1.78 billion 
shares changed hands on the Big Board and more than 1.79 billion on 
Nasdaq in active trading. 
  
The market has suffered a staggering loss of nearly $7 trillion since 
hitting an all-time high on March 24, 2000 -- reflecting a 40 percent 
tumble in the Wilshire Total Market Index. The total U.S. stock 
market is now valued at about $10.4 trillion. 
  
Yahoo! Inc. emerged as a bright spot after a dismal session by 
snapping a string of six consecutive quarterly losses. The Internet 
media company after the bell posted a second-quarter profit and 
higher revenues, with the help of new fees on services. Yahoo ticked 
up to $12.54 in after-hours trade after ending down 51 cents at 
$12.19. 
  
During regular hours, Qwest tumbled 83 cents to $1.77. Qwest, the 
dominant local phone company in 14 states from Minnesota to 
Washington, said it was not told the subject of the criminal probe by 
the U.S. Attorney's office in Denver. A Qwest spokesman declined to 
comment on whether investigators have asked the company for any 
documents. 
  
Stock-market index compiler S&P sent seven foreign companies reeling 
after saying it would yank them from its S&P 500 index to create a 
U.S.-based benchmark. Royal Dutch fell $5.16 to $50.73. Consumer 
products giant Unilever lost $4.15 to $60.97. Canadian firms Nortel 
Networks, Alcan, Barrick Gold, Placer Dome and Inco also slumped on 
news of their impending exit. 
  
S&P said it would replace the foreign companies with seven U.S. 
firms, including United Parcel Service ; Electronic Arts Inc. ; Ebay 
Inc. ; Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ; Prudential Financial Inc. ; 
Principal Financial Group Inc. ; and SunGard Data Systems Inc. . All 
those stocks rose. 
  
Accounting concerns spread to the White House. A public interest 
group sued Vice President Dick Cheney and the oil services company he 
once ran, Halliburton Co., alleging they defrauded shareholders by 
overstating the company's revenues. Halliburton shares fell 57 cents 
to $13.55. 
  
The civil lawsuit was filed in federal court one day after President 
Bush went to Wall Street to outline proposals aimed at stopping the 
accounting scandals that have shaken investor faith in U.S. financial 
markets. 
  
Auto makers added more pressure to the market. General Motors Corp., 
the world's largest auto maker and a Dow component, lost $3.53 to 
$47.61, and rival Ford Motor Co. dropped $1.12 to $13.99. Banc of 
America cut the car giants to "market perform" from "buy" due to 
concerns over competitive industry pricing. 
  
Pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. slumped $2.18 to $43.57. The Dow 
component delayed the $980 million public sale of its Medco Health 
Solutions Inc. pharmacy unit for a third time, as turbulent markets 
sapped investor demand for new shares. 
  
Cisco Systems Inc., up 37 cents at $13.51, emerged as a bright spot 
in a solemn market. Merrill Lynch raised the rating on the Web gear 
giant to "strong buy" from "buy," saying it expected an imminent 
turnaround in the network equipment sector.  

*****

The Insider Game
Paul Krugman
New York Times

An aside: Some pundits have tried to dismiss questions about Mr. 
Bush's business career as unfair — it was long ago, and hence 
irrelevant. Yet many of these same pundits thought it was perfectly 
appropriate to spend seven years and $70 million investigating a 
failed land deal that was even further in Bill Clinton's past. And if 
they want something more recent, how about reporting on the story of 
Mr. Bush's extraordinarily lucrative investment in the Texas Rangers, 
which became so profitable because of a highly incestuous web of 
public policy and private deals? As in the case of Harken, no hard 
work is necessary; Joe Conason laid it all out in Harper's almost two 
years ago. 

But the Harken story still has more to teach us, because the S.E.C. 
investigation into Mr. Bush's stock sale is a perfect illustration of 
why his tough talk won't scare well-connected malefactors.

Mr. Bush claims that he was "vetted" by the S.E.C. In fact, the 
agency's investigation was peculiarly perfunctory. It somehow decided 
that Mr. Bush's perfectly timed stock sale did not reflect inside 
information without interviewing him, or any other members of 
Harken's board. Maybe top officials at the S.E.C. felt they already 
knew enough about Mr. Bush: his father, the president, had appointed 
a good friend as S.E.C. chairman. And the general counsel, who would 
normally make decisions about legal action, had previously been 
George W. Bush's personal lawyer — he negotiated the purchase of the 
Texas Rangers. I am not making this up...

*****

http://www.mediawhoresonline.com

BUSH STONEWALLED FEDS ON HARKEN
The Gun Before the Smoking Gun?
Harken Shocker -- But What's In The Whole File???
Pressure Builds on White House To Come Clean

A newly released batch of long-sealed S.E.C. documents from 1990 and 
1991 shows that George W. Bush has dissembled for years on crucial 
matters connected to the Harken Energy deal, and to the S.E.C. 
investigation of the deal.

Until now, though with the story changing constantly, Bush has 
insisted that he complied and cooperated with the SEC, but that 
certain intended mishaps got in the way.

In 1994, Bush claimed that he and his lawyers had returned  proper 
SEC disclosure forms about the deal in a timely fashion, but that the 
SEC had mislaid them.

Then, in recent days, Bush's spokesman Ari Fleicher changed the 
story, saying that there had been some mix-up on the forms with the 
Harken lawyers.

Then, in a press conference earlier this week, Bush claimed that he 
doesn't really know what had happened with the forms.

Eventually, the forms reached the SEC.  But as the newly-released 
documents, obtained by the Center for Public Integrity, now prove, 
Bush and his lawyers were also involved in a firm stonewalling action 
to keep the SEC from acquiring all of the documentation it wanted to 
see regarding the Harken transaction.

In fact, as late as June 1991, Bush's lawyers were deliberately 
holding back the requested information from the SEC, basing their 
actions on "attorney-client privilege."  And although Bush himself 
provided what the SEC called "a small amount of information" 
voluntarily, it provided, according to the SEC investigators, "little 
insight as to what Harken nonpublic information he knew and when he 
knew it."

The crucial SEC memorandum, from Herbert Janick and Paul Gerlach of 
the Enforcement Division is dated July 17, 1991.

The last of the newly-released documents, a letter dated July 25, 
1991, from Janick to Baker & Botts attorney Joseph A. Cilaone 2nd, 
who represented both Bush and Harken, shows the SEC  requesting 
additional documentation connected with the Harken deal, that might 
provide more insight.

Bottom line: Months after he supposedly complied with the SEC, Bush, 
along with his lawyer, was trying to conceal crucial information 
about the Harken deal from the SEC.

All of which raises huge new questions:

-- What did Bush and his lawyers have to hide?

-- Might one of the things they tried to hide have been the 
mysterious investor who bought up Bush's Harken stock?

-- Why did Bush say he had cooperated with the SEC when, in 1991, he 
did not?

-- When will Bush finally permit release of the full file to clear up 
the mounting appearance of gross impropriety and even outright 
securities fraud?

Developing with legs....

***

HARKEN FIRESTORM THREATENS BUSH WHITE HOUSE
ALOHA, DUBYA!
More Harken Sleaze Exposed in New Documents
How George W. Bush Pulled A Kenny Boy

In the latest dramatic disclosure from the dribble of newly-secured 
government documents, the Los Angeles Times has confirmed that, while 
a director of Harken Energy Corporation, George W. Bush approved a 
deal virtually identical to the deals at the heart of the current 
Enron scandal.

In early 1989, George W. Bush and his fellow board members at Harken 
Energy Corp. were presiding over a company that was headed south in a 
hurry. The Dallas-based oil firm had lost millions of dollars placing 
bad bets on commodity futures. Debt was piling up; red ink was 
beginning to flow.

Harken's executives came up with a novel plan to ease the pain. They 
would sell a small chain of Hawaiian gas stations called Aloha 
Petroleum to a group of investors that included Harken's chairman and 
one of its directors. The buyers would pay $1 million up front, but 
the accountants would record an immediate $7.9-million profit, enough 
to erase most of Harken's losses for the year.

They made a point of seeking the approval of directors who were not 
participants in the investor group. Bush, a member of the board's 
audit committee, signed off on the deal, according to Harken 
documents. So did the company's outside auditor, Arthur Andersen & Co.

But the government challenged and ultimately overturned the 
accounting method used by Harken to post a gain on the sale. Aloha 
was sold a second time, and the new buyer extracted big concessions 
from the company. The initial profit recorded on the sale morphed 
into a big loss. In the midst of all the maneuvering, Bush sold most 
of his Harken stock in June 1990.

Sound familiar?

The Aloha sale was so similar to what Enron Corp. did to hide its 
losses that Harken could have served as a model for the now-disgraced 
company, one accounting expert said.

"The people at Enron could have gone to school on this thing," said 
Alfred King, former managing director of the Institute of Management 
Accountants, vice chairman of Milwaukee-based Valuation Research 
Corp. and former advisor to the Financial Accounting Standards Board.

"They sold to themselves and recorded a profit," King said. "That's 
exactly what Enron did on a number of those off-balance-sheet 
transactions. On this one transaction at least, it's almost 
identical."

What's that, we hear from the White House?  Sometimes things just 
aren't so black-and-white when it comes to accounting?

Developing, along with all of the other new document stories....

As a Board Member, Bush OKd a Deal Like Enron's
Los Angeles Times, July 12, 2000

*****

SEC Chairman Refuses To Resign 
Or Release Bush Harken Docs
By Marilyn Geewax 
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer 
7-13-2

WASHINGTON -- Harvey Pitt, chairman of the Securities and Exchange 
Commission, said Friday that he "absolutely" will not resign and that 
he has the full support of President Bush. 
  
"I have a big job to do," said Pitt, the nation's chief regulator of 
financial markets. 
  
Pitt spoke in an exclusive interview with Cox Newspapers, his first 
since a growing number of accounting scandals sparked calls for his 
resignation by high-profile lawmakers of both major political 
parties. Pitt said he has no plans to release additional SEC 
documents involving Bush's sale of Harken Energy Co. stock in 1990. 
Critics recently questioned whether Bush benefited from inside 
information before selling the stock. The president has acknowledged 
that lawyers at Harken belatedly filed paperwork with the SEC related 
to the sale. Pitt said he didn't think the release to the public of 
all the documents would quiet questions about the president's 
business dealings at Harken. "The reason is, first of all, I don't 
think the president's credibility needs to be increased," he 
said. "And second, this was thoroughly investigated a decade ago. It 
was meticulously done . . . so the issue at this juncture is 
political." 
  
Just before Friday's interview at his SEC office, Pitt met with Bush 
at the White House to lay out strategies for a new anti-fraud task 
force, described by Bush as a SWAT team that will crack down on 
accounting fraud and other kinds of corporate wrongdoing. 
  
The panel includes Pitt, Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, 
Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller. Pitt 
said Bush's support for him "has been clear all along. . . . It has 
never wavered." 
  
The president, Pitt said, knows he will be a tough crime fighter 
because Bush "is aware of what we are actually doing" at the SEC to 
enforce laws. "I am enormously grateful for his support." In recent 
days, more critics have demanded Pitt resign, saying he is the wrong 
man for the job because he spent 23 years representing the accounting 
and securities firms he now must police. 
  
On Thursday, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the agency needs a new 
leader "whose background and record leave no question" about the 
SEC's independence and authority. 
  
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said Pitt's "cozy 
relationship" with accountants calls into question "whether or not he 
has the credibility to be the independent regulator he needs to be." 
  
Attacks are 'political' 
  
Pitt said such attacks are "political diatribes" that ignore facts, 
and he does not agree with those who say he has become a political 
liability to Bush and to Republicans running for office in 
November. "If you look at the people who criticize, you'll notice 
that all of their criticisms are generic -- they're just sound 
bites," he said. "No one who sees what we have done could doubt that 
this is the most effective SEC in history." 
  
Pitt said the SEC has stepped up its pace of enforcement actions and 
issued numerous new reporting rules and regulations. "My obligation 
is to serve the public," he said. "After November, after all of the 
critics have moved on to the next issue, I'm still going to be here 
cleaning up the mess" in the accounting world. Pitt is not daunted by 
the scope of that task, he said. "This is a historic period -- I want 
to be part of the solution." He said he was devastated to learn of 
accounting irregularities at Enron, WorldCom, Xerox and other major 
corporations that have led to the loss of tens of thousands of jobs 
and hundreds of billions of dollars in retirement savings. 
  
"You look at an Enron or a WorldCom, and to me it's devastating," he 
said. "I won't tolerate it. I will make certain that we do everything 
in our power to restore the integrity and quality of the accounting 
profession." Throughout his career, first as a young SEC lawyer and 
then as an attorney in private practice, Pitt, 57, has been praised 
for his legal brilliance and diligent work habits. But the events of 
his first year as SEC chairman have been daunting. By his own count, 
he already has faced four crisises: the economic fallout from the 
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Enron accounting debacle, the felony 
conviction of accounting firm Arthur Andersen and a stock market 
plunge tied to the loss of investor confidence. 
  
Pitt may have set himself up for criticism in October, just a month 
after taking office, when he made a speech to the American Institute 
of Certified Public Accountants. He promised a new era at the SEC, 
saying the commission "has not, of late, always been a kinder and 
gentler place for accountants." That phrase has been used time and 
again to suggest he won't be tough enough on criminal conduct in the 
industry. 
  
"People are misconstruing what I said," Pitt said Friday. Accountants 
used to be reluctant to call the SEC for advice, he said. He was only 
suggesting that his staff would be more willing to sit down with 
companies and their auditors to explain the law, and be sure they are 
following it, he said. His words were taken "wholly out of context" 
because some people want "to make political capital." Responsible or 
timid? 
  
Critics have said Pitt is not aggressive enough, that he asked for a 
budget increase of $100 million for more staff, yet Congress since 
has made it clear it would give him about three times as much. "I 
wasn't being too timid. I was being responsible" in asking for a 
modest amount in his first year in office, Pitt said. "I wanted to 
make a top-to-bottom study of our efficiency" to determine exactly 
what the budget ought to be. 
  
"We are doing that now," he said. "It will be done by the end of the 
summer, at which point we may well ask for additional people. But at 
least our request will be scientific, not this, 'Let's see who can 
outbid whom and who can come up with the largest number.' "