~ It's Time to Rise and Shine ~
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! |
Huge Bush Scandall (2) The hypocrite in Chief President Bush is talking tough about pinstriped rip-off artists -- ignoring the skeletons in his and Cheney's own corporate closets. Anthony York Salon.com Although Bush evaded most of the political fallout from the Enron debacle despite his administration's close ties to that company, the growing scandal of corporate irresponsibility is threatening to engulf the business-friendly White House. And with every move Bush makes to respond, his own corporate past, and that of Vice President Dick Cheney, the former Halliburton CEO, may well come back to haunt him. Bush is planning a big address on the issue, complete with proposals for reform, for July 9. He already put forward a 10-point proposal for corporate reform back in March. But these very moves could help remind Americans of the corners Bush and Cheney cut during their days in the executive suites of corporate America. Point No. 6 of the president's plan, for instance, says, "Corporate leaders should be required to tell the public promptly whenever they buy or sell company stock for personal gain." And yet Bush had his own run-in with the SEC over his failure to report sales of Harken Energy stock in a timely manner when he was a member of Harken's board of directors. Bush dumped thousands of shares of Harken stock and then filed his forms with the SEC 34 weeks late. ***** http://www.mediawhoresonline.com KRUGMAN! Bush/GOP Thwarted Clinton Efforts Against Corporate Fraud No Moral Authority On Issue From Fraud-in-Chief 88's Answer to Biz Cheats? Lots Of Outrage! Everyone is Outraged Paul Krugman New York Times Now to the story of Harken Energy, as reported in The Wall Street Journal on March 4. In 1989 Mr. Bush was on the board of directors and audit committee of Harken. He acquired that position, along with a lot of company stock, when Harken paid $2 million for Spectrum 7, a tiny, money-losing energy company with large debts of which Mr. Bush was C.E.O. Explaining what it was buying, Harken's founder said, "His name was George Bush." Unfortunately, Harken was also losing money hand over fist. But in 1989 the company managed to hide most of those losses with the profits it reported from selling a subsidiary, Aloha Petroleum, at a high price. Who bought Aloha? A group of Harken insiders, who got most of the money for the purchase by borrowing from Harken itself. Eventually the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that this was a phony transaction, and forced the company to restate its 1989 earnings. But long before that ruling — though only a few weeks before bad news that could not be concealed caused Harken's shares to tumble — Mr. Bush sold off two-thirds of his stake, for $848,000. Just for the record, that's about four times bigger than the sale that has Martha Stewart in hot water. Oddly, though the law requires prompt disclosure of insider sales, he neglected to inform the S.E.C. about this transaction until 34 weeks had passed. An internal S.E.C. memorandum concluded that he had broken the law, but no charges were filed. This, everyone insists, had nothing to do with the fact that his father was president. *** THIN-SKINNED, CORRUPT DUBYA CRUMBLES UNDER QUESTIONING Seethes Over Reporter's Query Re Paul Krugman Column Well You Don't Have To Get Snappy, Governor Bush Drip.. Drip.. Drip..... NEW ASSIGNMENT FOR MEDIA To America's Courageous White House Press Corps: Please reconcile this... Bush on Harken corruption scandal investigation: "Everything I do is fully disclosed; it's been fully vetted" AP on Bush's Harken corruption scandal: "The SEC eventually found that Bush did nothing illegal or improper. Full Story: Jul 2, 2002 Bush Defends Himself Against Criticism of His Own Corporate Accounting Experience The Associated Press MILWAUKEE (AP) - President Bush defended in a snappish tone Tuesday his own business experience with a corporation accused of fishy accounting. "Everything I do is fully disclosed; it's been fully vetted," the president said as he paused to speak with reporters during a church appearance in Wisconsin. "Any other questions?" Bush was responding to a journalist who asked for his reaction to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who said in Tuesday's newspaper that Bush's recent campaign against corporate malfeasance draws on "firsthand experience of the subject." Bush, in 1989, was on the board of directors and audit committee of Harken Energy when the company masked $10 million in losses by reporting a profit on the sale of a subsidiary to a group of Harken insiders borrowing money from the company itself. The Securities and Exchange Commission ruled the transaction phony and forced the company to restate its 1989 earnings. The SEC also investigated Bush for insider trading after he sold nearly $850,000 of Harken stock shortly before its mounting debt was publicly disclosed. The SEC eventually found that Bush did nothing illegal or improper. Democrats, however, said those investigations bear close similarities to current-day corporate accounting scandals involving Enron, WorldCom and other business giants that have shaken investor confidence. Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri called the 1989 transactions by Harken and Bush "very Enron-esque" and said they were symbolic of how Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, whose former employer Halliburton is also now under SEC investigation, had helped create a business climate ripe for accounting fraud. Republicans say Democrats are just desperate to make political hay in an election year. With this... "George W. Bush violated federal securities laws at least four times when he was a director of a Texas oil firm in the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to an internal government report." "The SEC did not press charges against Bush, even though the tardy disclosures had become something of a pattern, according to the memo, which was drafted for the files on April 9, 1991, by three enforcement investigators." http://www.public-i.org Investigative Report Bush Violated Security Laws Four Times, SEC Report Says By Knut Royce (Washington, Oct. 4, 2000) George W. Bush violated federal securities laws at least four times when he was a director of a Texas oil firm in the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to an internal government report. The document was prepared by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1991 during its well-publicized investigation into whether Bush had benefited from insider information when he sold Harken Energy Corp. stock before its value plummeted, and then failed to promptly report the transaction to the SEC in violation of federal law. Bush's stake in Harken helped make him a multimillionaire. The internal SEC memorandum, prepared by the commission's enforcement division and obtained by The Public i from sources, discloses what was previously not known--that Bush also had been tardy in reporting three other transactions involving stock in Harken, on whose board he sat as director. (This report was prepared in collaboration with Talk magazine, whose article, "George W. Bush . . . And the Horse He Rode In On," appears in the magazine's November issue.) The Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 requires company insiders to disclose publicly, in a report called a Form 4, all stock purchases and sales by the 10th day of the month following the transaction. A former SEC official who asked not to be further identified said that he could recall at least one instance—involving the late stock manipulator Alexander Guterma, who began a three-year prison term in 1960 for a variety of securities offenses — where a prison sentence was imposed for failure to report a transaction. More commonly, he said, the SEC has obtained court injunctions barring frequent violators from repeating the offense. But he said that instances of insiders filing late disclosures were "fairly common'' and that the SEC, with a limited staff, seldom pursued those cases. The filing requirements are not a trivial matter. Insider transactions can sometimes alert outside investors that corporate officers or directors are nervous about the company's earnings or growth. They can also alert the SEC that an officer or director benefited from information that only an insider could have known, a violation of securities laws. Bush, the SEC memo noted, had on four occasions filed late Form 4s involving Harken stock worth more than $1 million. The tardiest—34 weeks late—was his Form 4 report disclosing that he had sold $848,560 of Harken stock on June 22, 1990, just weeks before the company filed a quarterly report revealing that it had hemorrhaged $23 million during that period. Bush had sold his stock for $4 a share. By the end of the year it was trading not much above $1. The Public i in April reported that Harken had been bleeding profusely in 1989, before Bush sold his stock, but masked the losses by claiming in its annual report a capital gain on the sale of a subsidiary even though the transaction was through a seller-financed loan. Months after Bush sold the stock, the SEC directed Harken to recast its balance sheet to reflect a net loss of $12,566,000 for 1989. The SEC did not press charges against Bush, even though the tardy disclosures had become something of a pattern, according to the memo, which was drafted for the files on April 9, 1991, by three enforcement investigators. "The SEC never raised any missed deadlines with us,'' Bush's attorney in the matter, Robert Jordan, told Talk magazine, which analyzed the transactions in cooperation with The Public i. "It was either a trivial matter to the SEC, or everything was fine." That indeed appears to have been the SEC's conclusion after it learned that between 1987 and 1989, Bush was about three months late on three other occasions in reporting the acquisition of Harken stock, including the shares he eventually sold in June 1990, the memo discloses. Yet the memo also makes clear that Bush was aware of the requirement to report insider transactions. On June 25, 1984, the document reveals, he was timely in filing a report disclosing that he was a director of Silver Screen Management Inc., the managing partner of a movie production company, Silver Screen Partners; was prompt in reporting on Aug. 31, 1989, that he owned shares in Tom Brown, Inc., an energy company on whose board he served, and was only three days late in reporting on Jan. 6, 1984, that he owned stock in Lucky Chance Mining, where he also was a director. In its book The Buying of the President 2000, the Center for Public Integrity reported that Bush had acquired the stock he sold in 1990 in a deal that made little economic sense. Bush had been chief executive officer of a tiny money-losing energy company called Spectrum 7. Harken acquired the firm in 1986 from Bush and two partners for $2 million in stock despite the fact that Spectrum 7 had posted losses of $400,000 six months before the purchase and carried a debt of $3 million. "His name was George Bush,'' Phil Kendrick, Harken's founder, said of the purchase. "That was worth the money they paid him." At about the same time Bush unloaded his Harken stock in 1990, he also sold nearly $700,000 worth of shares in four other companies. His accountant, according to a March 1992 SEC memo to the file, had been "bugging him to get liquid." About $600,000 of the proceeds, the memo noted, went to pay off a bank loan he had taken a year earlier for his minority stake in the Texas Rangers baseball team. In 1998 Bush's trust sold that stake for $16 million, catapulting him to the rank of multimillionaire. Knut Royce is a senior fellow at the Center for Public Integrity. To write a letter to the editor for publication, send to letters@publicintegrity.org. Please include a daytime telephone number. Please report on whether Bush is lying. Please report on whether Bush is parsing. Please ask Bush whether he was cleared of wrongdoing. Then please ask him to explain what the meaning of the word "cleared"... is. Please report on whether Bush has been caught violating laws he is now promoting. Washington Post: Please publish an editorial on whether a congressional investigation into the Harken scandal is in order. If not, please explain why not. Sincerely, The American People *** AP REVISES HARKEN SCANDAL STORY Yesterday: SEC found bush did nothing illegal or improper The Securities and Exchange Commission ruled the transaction phony and forced the company to restate its 1989 earnings. The SEC also investigated Bush for insider trading after he sold nearly $850,000 of Harken stock shortly before its mounting debt was publicly disclosed. The SEC eventually found that Bush did nothing illegal or improper. Democrats, however, said those investigations bear close similarities to current-day corporate accounting scandals involving Enron, WorldCom and other business giants that have shaken investor confidence. Today: SEC closed investigation - but said decision 'in no way' exonerates Bush The Securities and Exchange Commission ruled the transaction phony and forced the company to restate its 1989 earnings. The SEC also investigated Bush for insider trading after he sold nearly $850,000 of Harken stock shortly before its mounting debt was publicly disclosed. The SEC eventually closed its investigation of Bush without taking action against him, although The Dallas Morning News has quoted a 1993 letter from the SEC to Bush's lawyer emphasizing that its decision "must in no way be construed as indicating that (Bush) has been exonerated." *** MORE LIES FROM 1994? Fellow Harken Director E. Stuart Watson: We Knew Everything 'We Were Both Trying To Keep Company On Straight And Narrow' Bush: Watson Is Mistaken DALLAS MORNING NEWS October 11, 1994, Tuesday Richards wants Bush to reveal documents from SEC inquiry; GOP challenger denies insider trading with Harken Energy stock Charlotte-Anne Lucas, Austin Bureau of The Dallas Morning News Mr. Bush and his attorney said he was not aware of the impending losses when he sold the stock. "I absolutely had no idea and would not have sold had I known," said Mr. Bush. Another Harken director at the time, E. Stuart Watson of Richardson, who served on the company's audit and restructuring committees with Mr. Bush, said they were constantly made aware of the company's finances. "You bet we were," said Mr. Watson, who says he supports Mr. Bush in his race against Ms. Richards. "We were both trying to keep that company on the straight and narrow." Mr. Bush said Mr. Watson "is mistaken." ... Mr. Watson, the former director who served on two key committees with Mr. Bush at the time, said they were kept current on the company's finances and knew that losses were to be announced. Earnings reports at Harken "were never a surprise to us," said Mr. Watson, who joined Harken's board after retiring as a senior executive with Arco USA in 1982. As members of the audit committee, the two were briefed by the company treasurer and the inside and outside auditors, Mr. Watson said. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- More From Dallas Morning News: In its letter last year to Mr. Bush's lawyer - a rare action by the agency - the SEC said, "the investigation has been terminated as to the conduct of Mr. Bush, and . . . at this time, no enforcement action is contemplated with respect to him." The letter, signed by an associate director of enforcement, goes on to say that it "must in no way be construed as indicating that the party has been exonerated or that no action may ultimately result" from the investigation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Reader Request To Media: Explain Importance of Form 4 For American People Boring And Insignificant - Or Smoking Gun? MWO, I'm no lawyer, but when I heard Ari assure us that Bush filed Form 3 like he was supposed to; he only neglected Form 4, I thought I was being snowed. Classic scandal management demands that one makes the scandal seem boring, in this case a simple paper-pushing error. So I made a timeline, attached as a .txt file, of the info provided by the Center for Public Integrity linked on your site. It seems that the Form 4 was due after he sold his Harken shares and before Harken announced their losses. As I understand it, the purpose of these forms are to let the public know when insiders like Bush sell their stock so that it's harder to get away with insider trading. That makes the missing Form 4 a pretty big deal, doesn't it? As far as I can tell, the Form 3 is way back from November or December 1986 and simply reported that Bush had become a director of Harken. Saying, "Well, he filed his Form 3, just not his Form 4," is like saying, "Well, he admitted he was an employee, he just lied to cover up the embezzlement." Like I said, I'm not a lawyer, so I might be wrong. Please ask someone who can be confident about the issue and let us all know the truth. Thank you, Jared Feuerhelm *** FLEISCHER: BUSH LIED ABOUT HARKEN IN 1994 CAMPAIGN BUSH 1994: I FILED REPORT. SEC 'MUST HAVE MISPLACED' IT ARI 2002: FORM NEVER FILED ARI 2002: TRUTH 'EXACTLY AS I INDICATED' Bush Corporate Record Examined By Scott Lindlaw Associated Press Writer Wednesday, July 3, 2002; 12:36 PM WASHINGTON –– The White House acknowledged Wednesday that when he was a corporate director, President Bush failed to promptly disclose stock sales as required by federal law. A spokesman blamed it on a "clerical mistake" by company lawyers, though Bush has said government regulators lost it. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush had followed the law by informing regulators of his intention to sell stock in Harken Energy Corp., a Texas oil company, in 1990. But he conceded that because of a "mix-up, a clerical mistake" by Harken lawyers, Bush had not promptly reported the sale after it took place. Reacting to a wave of corporate accounting scandals in recent weeks, Bush has proposed that top company leaders be required to promptly disclose their sales or purchases of company stock for personal gain. The law already says company insiders must disclose publicly, by the 10th day of the month following the transaction, a sale or purchase of stock in their companies. The report is known as a Form 4. Fleischer said that on June 22, 1990, Bush filed a form 144 – the notice of intention to sell Harken stock. "The president has called for prompt disclosure of a sale; the president in his own personal action disclosed promptly the intent to sell," Fleischer said. But, he said: "In the case of the second form, the additional form, the Form 4s, there was indeed a mix-up, a clerical mistake, involving the lawyers at Harken, and in that case the Form 4 was not filed." That explanation was at odds with one Bush himself offered during his 1994 campaign for governor of Texas. Bush said at the time that he had filed the required report, and that the SEC must have misplaced it. Questioned on which version was accurate, Fleischer said: "It's exactly as I indicated." One Form 4 filing came more than eight months late and disclosed Bush had sold $848,560 of Harken stock, according to SEC documents. That sale was on the same date that Fleischer said Bush had given notice that he intended to sell. Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, said the eight- month delay resulted from a miscommunication between Bush's lawyer and Harken's lawyers. "These types of late filings are not out of the ordinary," Bartlett told The Washington Post in Wednesday's editions. "It would be like doing a 60 in a 55" speed-limit zone, he said. Bush filed Form 4s late on four occasions, according to an internal Securities and Exchange Commission finding that was reported by a nonpartisan watchdog group, the Center for Public Integrity. Those sales involved stock worth more than $1 million. On the largest sale, Bush sold his stock for $4 a share, just before the company filed a quarterly report revealing it had lost $23 million during the period. By the end of the year, the memo says, it was trading at around $1. The SEC investigated whether Bush had benefited from insider information when he sold Harken stock before its value plunged, then failed to report the transactions. Though the memo indicates SEC investigators observed a pattern of late filings by Bush, the agency said in 1993 it would not bring a case against him. Bush's father was president at the time the SEC memo was drafted in 1991. Asked by a reporter Tuesday about the matter, the president said curtly: "Everything I do is fully disclosed; it's been fully vetted. Any other questions?" Fleischer said Bush plans next week to deliver a speech before 1,000 business leaders in New York about corporate responsibility. Democrats have seized on the corporate accounting scandals and suggested that Bush – with his strong support from the business community, and his own business background – is soft on corporate wrongdoing. The address will express the "faith he has in our free- enterprise system," Fleischer said. "Our free-enterprise system creates wonderful opportunities and wealth for the American people from all walks of life." But, Fleischer said: "If there are any bad players in our free- enterprise system, they will be held accountable by this administration and by the government." © 2002 The Associated Press |