My Letter to the editor (Bush worse than Martha)

[Killarney]

I just sent this Letter to the Editor about Bush being worse than Martha. Feel free to use it yourself for your papers. I sent this to the Boston Globe. Hopefully they'll print it!

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So, Martha’s guilty and most likely going to jail. She sold $228,000 worth of ImClone stock before the price plummeted based on insider info and was convicted on obstruction charges. But what I would like to know is, why are the rules not the same for everyone?

In 1990 George W. Bush dumped $848,000 worth of Harken Energy Corp stocks before the price plummeted. Bush, as a Harken board member and a member of the well-informed Harken Audit Committee, surely had insider information about the oil company’s financial woes. If Bush didn’t think his sale would be considered suspicious, then why did he wait 8 months to notify the SEC about the trade and then uncharacteristically leave the notification undated? He said the timing of his sale of stock before the price plummeted was purely “coincidental.”

Lucky for Bush, his father was President at the time, the head of the SEC was his father’s appointee and former Vice Presidential counsel, and the SEC’s general counsel was Bush’s personal lawyer in his Texas Rangers deal.

Why is it that George W. Bush got away with something much worse than Martha Stewart’s crime?

[whathappened]

1. don't no

i just call it a witch hunt for martha to make them look like they are doing something

[Bozvotros]

2. Great letter..

LTTE are a great means to remind people of just what kind of thugs, criminals and hypocrits occupy this administration. Especially since the press doesn't want to do their job. This is the perfect time to remind them of Bush's own much larger stock swindle.

[Piperay]

3. Good letter

and the answer is that Martha is a Democrat and held to a higher standard and that repukes can say one thing but do whatever the hell they please. :mad:

[NJCher]

4. good letter

I'm going to write a version of that for my paper.


Cher

[Lorien]

5. It's letters like yours

that may make a real difference come November!

Nitpicking; since the charges of insider trading were dropped, do we really know that Martha is guilty of that crime? Also, wasn't her net gain $42,000? Dubya's was certainly $848,000 (since the seed money wasn't his own).

Some pigs are just more equal than other pigs.:eyes: :grr:

[Killarney]

10. Net gain

I don't know what Bush's net gain was. His stock sale was $848,000 just like hers was $200K.

[klook]

6. Excellent work

I wrote a version of this and just submitted it to my local paper. I'll let you know if it gets published.

Thanks for doing this! :toast:

[Bozita]

7. That letter definitely works for me

The Dumbya/Harken stock dump is still not a settled item from a legal viewpoint.

[Ksec]

8. Good letter

and accurate.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

9. Excellent letter!

I hope our hometown newspaper prints it!

[mainer]

11. Someone please explain to me: IS it insider trading if....

you sell just because you heard someone is dumping his stock? Without knowing the reason?

It seems to me that insider trading would mean you're getting a tip from someone INSIDE the company (i.e., directly from Waksal or someone on the Imclone board.) But all Martha got was a call from a broker who said Waksal was selling his stock. If you don't know why Waksal was selling, only that he was selling, is that the same thing as "insider" information?

Bakanovic may be guilty of breaking client confidentiality (if Waksal was his client) because he revealed Waksal's moves. But still, did Bakanovic really know what was going on inside Imclone?

[Dudley_DUright]

12. That is exactly why the feds did not charge her with insider trading

They did not have a case. The bottom line is that she is going to prison for feebly trying to cover up a crime she did not commit.