Still more hypocrisy from criminal bastard Dumbya

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Bush Defends His Business Tenure

Tue Jul 2, 6:10 PM ET

MILWAUKEE (AP) - President Bush ( news - web sites) 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 ( news - web sites) 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."

Democrats 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 ( news - web sites) 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 ( news - web sites), 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.

-- bwaahaaahaaa! (who's@he.kidding?), July 03, 2002

Answers

"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."

In other words, Poppy paid them off.

-- (Bush family @ crooked. scumbags), July 03, 2002.


This could be very advantageous for the Dems if they don't overplay their hand. (Shut up, Jennifer Palmieri.)

-- Peter Errington (petere7@starpower.net), July 03, 2002.

Trollboy = LL = Jennifer Palmieri? Yowza, I love Eyetalian bimbos!

Dov'è la ritirata?

-- (roland@hatemail.com), July 03, 2002.


Try again, dipnut.

-- hee haaw (what@jack.ass), July 03, 2002.

Bush Corporate Record Examined Wed Jul 3,12:36 PM ET

By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House acknowledged Wednesday that when he was a corporate director, President Bush ( news - web sites) 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 ( news - web sites) 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 ( news - web sites) 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."

-- lol (clerical mistake my ass @ you fucking. cheating criminal bastard), July 03, 2002.



Get a life

-- (and take@your. medication!), July 03, 2002.

I am a law-abiding bastard and I strongly resent your use of the term "criminal bastard".

-- (roland@hatemail.com), July 04, 2002.

Does anyone still read these oh so predictable pastes? I shoot to the answers in hope but then sometimes as now you get treated to another completely predictably redundent paste. Belivers sound off. Skippers list yourselves too.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), July 04, 2002.

"Does anyone still read these oh so predictable pastes?"

Why wouldn't you read it, do you prefer ignorance? It's bad enough that so many people voted for a man they don't even know. Now that he is the most powerful (and potentially dangerous) man in the world, choosing to remain in denial about his history is just downright pathetic.

-- (repugs@phony.patriots), July 04, 2002.


Are you saying that you know Al Gore?

-- dr. pibb (drpibb@new.formula), July 04, 2002.


Why wouldn't you read it, do you prefer ignorance?

Reading boiler-plate doesn't eliminate ignorance. It adds to it. You are a classic example.

-- (roland@hatemail.com), July 04, 2002.


What is boiler-plate, nigga boy?

These articles are from the Associated Press, and are not based on opinion of any kind, just the facts. Do you understand that, nigga?

-- yo aunt jemimie (just the @ facts. mam), July 04, 2002.


What a sap. Go celebrate your Independence Day with a cherry bomb up yo ass.

-- (factoids@hemorroids.com), July 04, 2002.

Bush's Business Practices Examined Thu Jul 4, 5:13 AM ET

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - As a Texas oilman, President Bush ( news - web sites) engaged in some of the same kinds of business practices he's now promising to clean up in response to a wave of corporate scandals.

Bush was a board member of Harken Energy Corp. in 1989 when the company engaged in a transaction that later prompted an inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission ( news - web sites). The SEC forced the company to amend its books to reflect millions of dollars in losses that had been masked by the sale of a subsidiary to a group of insiders. And Bush, who was on the company's audit committee, was the subject of a separate insider stock trade investigation by the SEC.

More than a decade later, the SEC is investigating insider deals and questionable bookkeeping at Enron, WorldCom and other companies, and Bush is promising to crack down on corporate wrongdoers.

Questions about Bush's past business practices prompted the White House to acknowledge Wednesday that he had failed to promptly disclose the 1990 sale of his Harken stock as required by federal law. The notice of the sale was filed with the SEC 34 weeks after it took place.

A spokesman blamed it on a clerical mistake by company lawyers. Bush has said previously that he filed the disclosure form and government regulators lost it.

Bush's stock sale was the subject of an SEC insider trading investigation. The president sold Harken stock for $848,000 two months before the company reported millions of dollars in losses. The stock price plunged from $4 when Bush sold it in June 1990 to a dollar a share by year-end.

Bush had gotten the stock when Harken bought his failing oil company in the mid-1980s. The SEC took no action in the insider trading probe of Bush.

Democrats have made Bush's dealings at Harken a political issue over the years, and it resurfaced in recent days because of Bush's promises to deal harshly with corporate wrongdoers in the wake of the latest corporate scandal, at WorldCom.

"It's time this CEO, President Bush, took responsibility for his actions as a private businessman and as president of the United States," Democratic National Committee ( news - web sites) chairman Terry McAuliffe said Wednesday. He said the Bush administration has "given the green light to unscrupulous CEOs by helping to foster a business environment that says 'if it feels good, do it.'"

WorldCom, the nation's second-largest provider of long-distance phone service, has said it inflated its earnings by wrongly listing on its books $3.8 billion of expenses in 2001 and $797 million for the first quarter of 2002.

The White House dismissed comparisons between Bush's dealings at Harken and the current corporate scandals.

"To compare a $12 million sale of a subsidiary company by Harken to a deliberate attempt to hide $3.8 billion in losses is ridiculous," said White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett. "The proof is in the results. Harken fully complied with the SEC and restated its losses and by 1991 the value of their stock doubled from its price a year before." On Wednesday, Harken stock was selling for 45 cents a share.

In the 1989 transaction, Harken financed the sale of a subsidiary to a partnership of its own executives. The company then counted the sale price as income, reducing its overall losses. Under pressure from the SEC, the company redid its books to reflect additional losses.

WorldCom is the latest in a series of corporate scandals beginning with Enron, which filed for bankruptcy after revelations that it had concealed hundreds of millions of dollars in losses in off-the-books partnerships operated by company insiders.

The accounting firm Arthur Andersen was the auditor for both WorldCom and Enron, and was found guilty of obstruction of justice regarding the Enron investigation. Andersen also was the accountant for Harken Energy when Bush sold his stock.

After the Enron bankruptcy, Bush proposed a 10-point reform plan that included a requirement that executives promptly disclose when they sell or buy their company stock.

On Wednesday, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer ( news - web sites) defended the president's sale of his Harken stock by saying Bush had notified the SEC in advance and in a timely manner that he intended to sell his shares. However, Bush failed to notify the SEC once the stock was actually sold, as required by law.

Fleischer said that when Bush blamed the SEC for losing the form, he may have been referring to the first form which he knew he had filed.

Initially, Fleischer said that the second form — on the actual sale — is filed by the corporation, but later he said he did not know who bears the legal responsibility

Federal law says that it is the responsibility of the individual director — not the corporation — to file the form.

-- Dumbya = (definition@of.hypocrisy), July 04, 2002.


Ans worse: Ari Fleischer is a jewboy.

-- Kikes = (defintion@of.konniving konspiracies), July 04, 2002.


BWAHAAAHAAHA!! First he says it was a "clerical mistake", now he says it was everything from "not exactly black and white" to an honest "disagreement" to he "still hasn't figured it out completely"!! LOL, he'd be a lot better off to just use the old trusty "I don't recall" line that Ronnie Reagan always used!

**********

Bush Defends His Texas Oil Dealings

Mon Jul 8, 7:04 PM ET

By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush ( news - web sites) heatedly defended his decade-old dealings as an oil company director Monday amid rising concern about the nation's business scandals. "Sometimes things aren't exactly black and white when it comes to accounting procedures," he said.

Bush rejected comparisons between his own actions and those of executives and accountants at such companies as Enron and WorldCom that have resulted in billions of dollars of losses.

"This was an honest disagreement about accounting procedures," Bush said.

One day before he was to propose stiff punishments for corporate wrongdoing, Bush faced a barrage of questions at a news conference about his own failure in 1990 to disclose stock sales as promptly as required by law.

Pressed to explain, Bush said: "I still haven't figured it out completely." Previously, Bush has said he thought regulators lost the documents. Last week the White House called it a mix-up by lawyers.

In his dealings involving the Harken Energy Corp. a decade ago, Bush said, the Securities and Exchange Commission ( news - web sites) "fully looked into the matter, they looked at all aspects of it, and they did so in a very thorough way, and the people that looked into it said there is no case."

He said there was "no attempt to hide anything."

The SEC forced the company to amend its books to reflect millions of dollars in losses that had been masked by the sale of a subsidiary to a group of insiders. And Bush, who was on the company's audit committee, was the subject of a separate insider stock trade investigation.

The SEC took no action against Bush in that inquiry. An agency summary on the matter states that "it would be difficult to establish that, even assuming Bush possessed material nonpublic information, he acted with ... intent to defraud."

On Monday, Bush grew testy at times with questions about his actions as a corporate director on the eve of a speech he will give in New York on corporate responsibility.

"People love to play politics," Bush said. "You know, you said the Democrats are going to attack me based upon Harken. That's nothing new."

Bush will propose stricter regulation of businesses on Tuesday, including longer jail terms for executives who commit fraud.

The White House stood firmly behind Bush's chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Harvey Pitt, as House members at a hearing on WorldCom called for Pitt's resignation. The Senate was considering legislation to tighten oversight of the accounting industry.

Bush will speak on Wall Street at a time of rising public outrage over accounting scandals in some of the nation's biggest firms.

"He thinks it's important for the economy that the American people have confidence in corporations and his speech is going to be aimed at restoring that confidence," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer ( news - web sites) said as the president returned from a 3-day birthday weekend with his parents in Maine.

The first president with a master of business administration degree faces a balancing act in the speech: boosting investor confidence while also distancing himself from executives who are among his most ardent and monied political supporters.

Several administration officials previously worked for Enron, the oil-trading company that collapsed last fall, and former Enron chairman Kenneth Lay was Bush's biggest campaign donor.

Bush's Army secretary, Thomas White, was head of Enron Energy Services, a subsidiary. Vice President Dick Cheney ( news - web sites) was CEO of Halliburton Co. when it adopted accounting methods now under SEC investigation.

-- lol (what@sleaze.bag), July 08, 2002.


Sheeesh, that scumbag will try every lie in the book before he ever gets to the truth!!

-- hee haaaw! (Dumbya such a dumbfuck @ and. soooo transparent), July 08, 2002.

Dems are trying real hard to 'get' Bush but in the end all they do is make themselves look extremely stupid.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), July 10, 2002.

Guilt by association

-- (Fascist McCarthyite tactics used by Dubys's scumsucking opportunist enemies @ bwahaaaa. desperation), July 10, 2002.

"Pressed to explain, Bush said: "I still haven't figured it out completely."

Previously, Bush has said he thought regulators lost the documents.

Last week the White House called it a mix-up by lawyers."

LOL, this is why they don't like to put Dumbya in front of the cameras! He gets so rattled that he can't remember which lie he was going with, then he just digs himself into a deeper hole every time he opens his mouth!!

BWAAAAHAHAHHAHAAAHAAAHAHAAAHAHAAHAHA!!!!

MAN, I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW DUUUUMB THIS GUY IS!!

-- jeeesuuuzz keeerist (is laffin his @ ass. off), July 10, 2002.


Dems are trying real hard to 'get' Bush but in the end all they do is make themselves look extremely stupid.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), July 10, 2002.

Maria, these facts are documented. Even you have enough brains to start to see the that documentation, government records, are showing the truth, as opposed "opinions" by individuals.

-- Cherri (whatever@who.cares), July 10, 2002.


MAN, I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW DUUUUMB THIS GUY IS!!

It always amazes me when pipsqueaks denounce their superiors. It's easy for an anonymous coward to throw around words like "dumb", "imbecile", etc but it's just armwaving, doesn't mean a thing. Who are you trying to impress, Trollboy? Cherri? She wouldn't piss on the best part of you.

-- (The Crow @ avenging.angel), July 10, 2002.


"It always amazes me when pipsqueaks denounce their superiors."

Yeah, wachin them pipsqueak pugs denounce Klintoon from 92 to 2000 was a real gas too.

-- hee haaw (take your @ reamin. pipsqueak), July 10, 2002.


"Dems are trying real hard to 'get' Bush but in the end all they do is make themselves look extremely stupid.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), July 10, 2002."

Boy that Maria is a dim bulb, in total denial of reality because she wants to suck little Dubby's pecker. I'm afraid your hero is the one who looks stupid, coming up with all kinds of lies like a kid caught by his parents.

-- bwaahahaa!! (dumbya @ man. child), July 10, 2002.


"It always amazes me when pipsqueaks denounce their superiors."

ROTFLMAO!! Dumbya is my "superior"???

LOL, which planet did you say you came from?

-- (you gots to be @ shittin me. dimwit), July 10, 2002.


Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad

-- (nurse ratchet @ thorazine.depot), July 10, 2002.

I don't normally respond to troll boy but since Cherri questioned my ability to know the facts here, I'll state what is extremely obvious to the rest of us but not her.

"Bush had followed the law by informing regulators of his intention to sell stock in Harken Energy Corp., ... Bush had not promptly reported the sale after it took place. "

First, he did what he was supposed to do. There was no 'due date' for when to file on the actual sale of stock. The law was grandfathered.

Second, the company stock went up AFTER he sold. So in effect, he actually could have made more money than he did. So, where's the insider trading issue?

This is just another example of trying to get Bush. All this was very public in Texas when he was running for Gov, now the liberal media gets it and tries to do their liberal thing with it. Only the stupid people are buying.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), July 11, 2002.


Maria, it is my understanding that Bush sold at $4 a share, after which the share price dropped to about a dollar at year's end.

-- Peter Errington (petere7@starpower.net), July 11, 2002.

"Cherri questioned my ability to know the facts here, I'll state what is extremely obvious to the rest of us but not her."

Sorry dim bulb, but we're gonna have to go with Cherri on this one. The only thing that is extremely obvious is that what you call facts are really just delusions in your little noggin.

-- the rest of us (thanks@morning.chuckle), July 11, 2002.


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