How the smirking idiot George W Bush got very, very rich off the Texas Rangers.

[Octafish]

The crazy moron made some big bucks by fronting the Texas Rangers, which he found the money to buy into by dumping his HARKEN shares on inside information before the bottom fell out on the stock. Here's a nice overview from DU's friends at Online Journal on the Rangers. The second piece from CBS MarketWatch describes HARKEN and how Bush avoided prison. Last is a nice overview of how a drunken greedhead got a family kicked out of their own house so a private baseball stadium could make more money off parking.



Toughin' it out at Harvard.

Bush' Texas Rangers' plot thickens into tax evasion and more

By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Contributing Writer

October 20, 2004—As if Bush's sale of his $606,000 share of Texas Rangers stock to owner Tom Hicks for $15 million wasn't enough, there's more from deep in the heart of Texas to nail the good old boy, namely the possibility of tax evasion. That is, Bush declared the proceeds as a long-term capital gain, which it wasn't, as opposed to ordinary income, which it was. This means Bush paid at the capital gains' rate of 20 percent as opposed to the ordinary income rate of 39.6 percent. Beating the IRS out of nearly 20 percent in additional taxes. But the fun doesn't stop there.

As reported by MakeThemAccountable.com, Bush had had prior business with Tom Hicks, who also was cofounder, with his brother R. Steven Hicks, of a radio company that merged in 1999 into AMFM, Inc. It was soon engulfed and devoured by Clear Channel Communications, of which old Tom became vice chair (I think the title is appropriate, don't you?).

Tom, a busy bee, is also chief corporate raider for the firm Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst. In addition to being Bush's No. 4 career patron, Hicks, Muse wanted to dip into the $13 billion University of Texas (UT) endowment for takeover deals, sort of like Michael Milken's old corporate raider "treasure chests." And we all know what happened to Mike. Indicted in 1989 of 98 counts of fraud and racketeering. In 1990, banned from operating in the securities industry for life and sentenced to 10 years in prison for security fraud by then straight shooting New York D.A., Rudy Guiliani. Sentence later reduced to 22 months, served at a "Club Fed," a fenceless prison camp for low risk inmates. Ah well, life at the top. But let's move on . . .

Coincidentally, as Bush stepped into the Texas governor's office, Hicks was confirmed as a University of Texas regent, first chair no less. Hicks corralled some lobbyists to help pass a bill to create the UT Investment Management Co (UTIMCO). Love the acronyms. Then UTIMCO handed out contracts to private investment firms to "manage" pieces of the endowment—lots of foxes in the old hen house. When a media scandal (remember those) actually exposed UTIMCO's juicy contract deals with firms connected to Hicks and Bush, and even one that President Bush 1 reportedly had a piece of, well, folks weren't too happy. Nevertheless, the management fees to Hicks for "investing" the TU billions could easily have topped the $250 million he paid for the Texas Rangers. In so many words, Bush in his official duties as governor passed Hicks the money to buy the team.

CONTINUED...

http://www.jregrassroots.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=8788

Of course, learnin' about insider trading doesn't hurt.

Bush Sold Stock Despite Promise

WASHINGTON, July 16, 2002 (CBS MarketWatch)

Two and a half months before George W. Bush sold his stock in Harken Energy Corp., he signed a "lockup" letter promising to hold onto the shares for at least six months, according to internal company documents obtained by the Washington Post.

The Post reported late Tuesday that the letter, signed by Bush on April 3, 1990, is now being compared with the account his lawyers gave federal securities regulators who examined the stock sale as a possible insider trade.

According to the Post story, the letter Bush signed promising to hold onto the stock was released by the Securities and Exchange Commission under the Freedom of Information Act. At the time he signed it, Harken was considering a public stock offering to raise money to solve a cash flow problem.

The President's lawyers have said that Bush had a pre-existing plan to sell his stock in Harken and other companies to pay a tax bill and a loan he owed for his stake in the Texas Rangers ball team.

In June 1990, Bush sold about $850,000 in shares of Harken, just weeks before the oil and gas company reported an unexpected loss. Eventually, the SEC forced Harken to restate its financials to show a loss of $12.6 million for 1989, disallowing the accounting it used for the sale of a subsidiary to a group of insiders. Bush was a director of the company, which had acquired Bush's own energy firm, Spectrum 7.

CONTINUED...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/07/16/politics/main515266.shtml

Then, there's using the power of government to kick the Curtes-Mathes clan off'n their own land.

Bush Condemned Property Via Eminent Domain to Build Rangers Stadium - And Made $14 Million Off the Deal

Posted in the database on Saturday, November 05th, 2005 @ 13:44:39 MST (486 views)
by Jon Pensito Review

Governing elite: The recent Supreme Court decision that allows local governments to use eminent domain to evict property owners in order to use their property for private development set off a howl on the Right.

To counter the ruling, Republicans in Congress are working on legislation that would cut off all federal funding to local governments who use eminent domain to evict property owners.

The president may have a hard time keeping a straight face when he signs the bill, however. In his past life as a baseball team owner, Mr. Bush profited from exactly this sort of eminent domain eviction - to the tune of $14.3 million.

The story was first reported by Texas reporter Robert Brice in May 1997, late in Bush’s first term as governor of Texas:

Since he took to the stump three and a half years ago to run for governor, Bush has railed against “big government.” On the very first day of his campaign, November 8, 1993, Bush told supporters in Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas that “the best way to allocate resources in our society is through the market place. Not through a governing elite, not through red tape and over-regulation, not through some central bureaucracy.”

But through the Arlington stadium deal, Bush, who owns 1.8 percent of the Rangers, has been personally enriched by using the “governing elite” and the “central bureaucracy” not only to confiscate land for private purposes, but to get a huge public subsidy for a stadium that generates profits for himself and the Texas Rangers. Though Bush’s present ownership percentage of the team is relatively small, the asset represents a large part of his personal wealth; moreover, Bush’s deal with the team includes a provision that will almost certainly multiply his future ownership interest to 11 percent.

Briefly, here’s what happened on the Ballpark deal. Bush and his partners in the Rangers convinced Arlington officials to:

Pass a half cent sales tax to pay for 70 percent of the stadium;

Use the government’s powers of eminent domain to condemn land the Rangers couldn’t or didn’t want to buy on the open market;

Give the Rangers control over what happens in and around the stadium;

Allow the Rangers to buy the stadium (which cost $191 million to construct) for just $60 million;

Bush and company went into action on the stadium in late in 1989, when Bush’s father was still vice president and as the project was getting off the ground he became president. The younger Bush’s company exercised its considerable political clout and used the Texas state government to take the property for the stadium involuntarily from its rightful owners

In April of 1991, the Rangers shepherded through the Legislature a bill would create the Arlington Sports Facilities Development Authority, a quasi-governmental entity endowed with the power of eminent domain. Shortly after the bill was signed into law by former Governor Ann Richards, three parcels of land located near the stadium, nearly thirteen acres in all, were condemned by the ASFDA. The land was owned by … the heirs of television magnate Curtis Mathes.

Among court documents is an unsigned Rangers memo by a team representative, discussing the history of the Mathes tracts. The representative notes that in his first contact with the Mathes family concerning the land, on November 6, 1990, “I was not well received.” The memo goes on to say that the ASFDA’s appraiser assigned the land a value of $3.16 per square foot, for a total value of $1.515 million. “An offer was made by the Authority at this price. This offer was rejected & the Sellers countered with $2,835,000.00 for all three tracts, i.e.: $5.31 p.s.f.” In mid-December, the ASFDA offered the Mathes heirs just $817,220 for the three tracts, far below even what the ASFDA’s first appraiser had suggested. The Mathes family refused to sell, and the ASFDA seized the land through eminent domain.

Glenn Sodd, a Corsicana attorney who represents the Mathes family, says he has found little evidence that Bush was directly involved in the decisions to condemn the property for the stadium. But he adds, “What happened to my folks was pretty audacious. It was the first time in Texas history that the power of eminent domain has been used to assist a private organization like a baseball team.”

(In May 1996), a Tarrant County jury found that the sports authority’s offer of $817,220 for the Mathes property was too low, and it awarded the Mathes heirs $4.98 million, plus accumulated interest. For the past year, the city of Arlington and the Rangers have been arguing over who will pay the tab.

Bush sold his interest in the Rangers in 1998 for $14.9 million. He had invested a total of $606,302.27 (in 1989) and was one of two managing partners.

http://www.lookingglassnews.org/viewstory.php?storyid=3349

Show me a liar and I'll show Thee a thief.

[Hydra]

1. His MO hasn't changed

He uses gov't power to trample people who have what he wants, in order to make a huge profit.

There's a word for that: Tyrant

[Octafish]

4. The Bush Bust-Out

Tyrant is the word.

Bust Out - A technique devised by organized crime to loot large sums of money from unsuspecting businesses prior to the movement of organized crime into the looting of S&Ls after the Reagan deregulation. Soon picked up by the Savings and Loan criminals.

Now he's doing it to the United States of America:

The Bush Bust-Out

The Opinion Mill
March 7, 2008

Thanks to John Cole, I see that while the Republicans try to gin up outrage over whether Barack Obama wears a flag pin on his lapel, one of their favorite politically connected firms, Kellogg Brown & Root, is hard at work patriotically vampirizing the U.S. economy:

More than 21,000 people working for KBR in Iraq - including about 10,500 Americans - are listed as employees of two companies that exist in a computer file on the fourth floor of a building on a palm-studded boulevard here in the Caribbean. Neither company has an office or phone number in the Cayman Islands.

The Defense Department has known since at least 2004 that KBR was avoiding taxes by declaring its American workers as employees of Cayman Islands shell companies, and officials said the move allowed KBR to perform the work more cheaply, saving Defense dollars.

But the use of the loophole results in a significantly greater loss of revenue to the government as a whole, particularly to the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. And the creation of shell companies in places such as the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes has long been attacked by members of Congress.

A Globe survey found that the practice is unusual enough that only one other ma jor contractor in Iraq said it does something similar.

“Failing to contribute to Social Security and Medicare thousands of times over isn’t shielding the taxpayers they claim to protect, it’s costing our citizens in the name of short-term corporate greed,” said Senator John F. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee who has introduced legislation to close loopholes for companies registering overseas.

With an estimated $16 billion in contracts, KBR is by far the largest contractor in Iraq, with eight times the work of its nearest competitor.

The no-bid contract it received in 2002 to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure and a multibillion-dollar contract to provide support services to troops have long drawn scrutiny because Vice President Dick Cheney was Halliburton’s chief executive from 1995 until he joined the Republican ticket with President Bush in 2000.

I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it: the actions of the Bush administration make no sense except when viewed in terms of a “bust-out” — that venerable con in which crooks flim-flam their way into getting access to a company’s name and credit lines, then max out the credit lines with bulk purchases of easily disposable items that can be sold at a fraction of their value. The con-men then walk away, leaving the creditors to get what they can from the hollowed-out shell of what was once a functioning, productive business.

Virtually everything Bush and his cronies have done reinforces the view that the past seven years have been a colossal bust-out. The Iraq invasion was never once conducted in a manner that would suggest Bush believed his own guff about weapons of mass destruction; the “War on Terror” has never been conducted in a way that would suggest it was anything but a means to cow critics and expand presidential power in ways that would make it easier to bust open the cash registers, clear the shelves and empty the bank vault. Five years after its formation the Department of Homeland Security is simply an enormous ATM for contractors, with none of its ostensible goals accomplished.

What makes this bust-out even more disgusting than its low-level sewer rat incarnations is its ideologically self-reinforcing nature. Bush conservatives get to “prove” government doesn’t work by filling government jobes with Bush cronies uninterested in anything except suckling at the federal sugar tit. Bush contractors get to cheat the government out of Social Security payments, while Bush himself delivers speeches about how financially untenable the Social Security program has become. Of course government doesn’t work — conservatives are too busy working the government.

You can’t call it an example of one hand washing the other. It’s more like dung beetles helping each other roll their paydays.

http://theopinionmill.wordpress.com/2008/03/07/the-bush-bust-out-contd/

Something I've noticed is that tyrants never want to give up power.

It's long past time to arrest Arbusto Boy and all his cronies.

[izquierdista]

2. You give him too much credit

More likely people told him it was time to sell his shares so he could put the money in a trust account for him. Left to his own devices, he would have left it on the counter at the liquor store when he went to buy his celebration booze.

[Octafish]

8. .'s First Enron Connection - Update on the Bush-Enron Oil Deal

¡Muchisimas gracias, izquierdista! Just splorged a-llllll over my keyboard.

W.'s First Enron Connection:
Update on the Bush-Enron Oil Deal

by David Corn
Published on Thursday, March 7, 2002 in The Nation

Editor's note: Below is David Corn's article, posted on March 4, 2002, that first broke news of the Bush-Enron oil deal. An update follows.

Did George W. Bush once have a financial relationship with Enron? In 1986, according to a publicly available record, the two drilled for oil together--at a time when Bush was a not-too-successful oil man in Texas and his oil venture was in dire need of help. Bush's business association with Enron, it seems, has not previously been reported.

In 1986, Spectrum 7, a privately owned oil company chaired by Bush faced serious trouble. Two years earlier, Bush had merged his failing Bush Exploration Company (previously known as Arbusto--the Spanish word for shrub) with the profitable Spectrum 7, and he was named chief executive and director of the company. Bush was paid $75,000 a year and handed 1.1 million shares, according to "First Son," Bill Minutaglio's biography of Bush. Under this deal, Bush ended up owning about 15 percent of Spectrum 7. By the end of 1985, Spectrum's fortunes had reversed. With oil prices falling, the company was losing money and on the verge of collapse. To save the firm, Bush began negotiations to sell Spectrum 7 to Harken Energy, a large Dallas-based energy firm owned mostly by billionaire George Soros, Saudi businessman Abdullah Taha Baksh and the Harvard Management Corporation.

The deal took months to work out. In September of 1986, Spectrum 7 and Harken announced they had reached an agreement. Spectrum 7 shareholders, under the plan, would receive Harken stock. Bush publicly said that Spectrum 7 would continue to operate in Midland, Texas, as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Harken and that he would become an active member of Harken's board of directors. As Minutaglio noted, the deal would give Bush about $600,000 in Harken shares and $50,000 to $120,000 a year in consultant's fees. It also would provide $2.25 million in Harken stock for a company with a net value close to $1.8 million.

As the details of the Spectrum-Harken acquisition--which Bush badly needed--were being finalized, Enron Oil and Gas Company, a subsidiary of Enron Corporation, announced on October 16, 1986, that it had completed a well producing both oil and natural gas in Martin County, Texas. An Enron Oil and Gas press release reported the well was producing 24,000 cubic feet of natural gas and 411 barrels of oil per day in the Belspec Fusselman Field, 15 miles northeast of Midland. Enron held 52 percent interest in the well. According to the company's announcement, 10 percent belonged to Spectrum 7. At that point, Spectrum 7 was still Bush's company. Harken's completion of the Spectrum 7 acquisition was announced in early November.

To spell it out: George W. Bush and Enron Oil and Gas were in business together in 1986--when Ken Lay was head of Enron. (Lay was named Enron chairman in February of that year.) How did this deal come about? Was this the only project in which Bush and Enron were partners? A call placed to the White House produced no response. Karen Denne, an Enron spokeswoman, says "I can't tell you anything about" that project, explaining Enron "sold all its domestic exploration and production assets about two years ago to EOG Reources" and probably did not retain records regarding that well. As for the possibility Spectrum 7 invested in other Enron ventures, she notes, "You're referencing something that happened in 1986. I can check, but we're pretty short-staffed now." Elizabeth Ivers, a spokeswoman for EOG Resources (formerly Enron Oil and Gas), says, "If we did have any records on that well, it would be nothing that we would share with the public. We do not disclose the details or specifics of who we have well interests with."

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0308-03.htm

You pegged him.



El sinpendejo would be so happy at the thought of getting his buzz, he'd leave his wad on the counter. Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!

[El Supremo]

3. Don't forget that Tom Hicks was the jerk who blew the lid off of baseball salaries...

in 2001 by giving Alex Rodriguez a record 10 year $252 million contract. That was $63 million more than the next richest deal.

I could go on with some personal gripes I have with Hicks, but it is old now.

[Octafish]

13. Smirko McCokespoon: ''I was a pit bull on the pant leg of opportunity.''

Oh yeah, El Supremo. A-Rod is set to make more this year than the entire Florida Marlins roster.

Bush built success on Harken sale

The struggling oil company served as a launching pad for the president's role in Major League Baseball which, in turn, spurred his successful political career.

By ROBERT TRIGAUX, Times Business Columnist
© St. Petersburg Times, published July 21, 2002

EXCERPT...

"My pet belief, and I think it's grounded in some good research and reality, is that George W. Bush would not be president of the United States today if not for that starting point of this controversial Harken sale," Bill Minutaglio, author of the Bush biography, First Son: George W. Bush and the Bush Family Dynasty, said on ABC's Nightline Thursday.

Since delivering his "corporate responsibility" speech July 9 on Wall Street, Bush has faced these and tougher questions each time he talks of cracking down on corporate fraud and accounting scams.

The president's supporters scoff at efforts to turn the long-ago Harkin deal into an Enron scandal -- or another Whitewater affair. But critics ask whether Bush can provide the leadership needed to fix corrupt corporate business practices when he has had dubious deals of his own. Then there's Vice President Dick Cheney, whose past job was as CEO of Halliburton Co., which is under SEC investigation for accounting shortcuts. And there's Army Secretary Thomas White, the former Enron executive, who sold $12-million in Enron stock prior to the company's bankruptcy and allegations of phony accounting.

More than 67 percent of those surveyed in a New York Times/CBS News poll last week said the administration was more keen on protecting the interests of large companies than those of ordinary Americans. That concern was expressed by more than a third of Republicans and most Democrats.

SNIP...

Asked this month why Bush and other members of Harken's audit committee didn't see that this Enron-like deal would not pass SEC review, the president responded: "In the corporate world, sometimes things aren't exactly black and white when it comes to accounting procedures."

By April 1991, Bush's long overdue Form 4 filing of his stock sale in 1990 had arrived at the SEC. The tardy filing and suspicious timing of the sale shortly before Harken reported a heavy loss prompted the SEC to open an investigation of Bush's transaction.

SNIP...

With the SEC inquiry over, Bush resigned in late 1993 from the Harken board to pursue his successful run for governor of Texas.

By 1998, Bush had served four years as Texas governor and was preparing for a second term. He also was ready to unload his stake in the Texas Rangers. After buying the team for $86-million in 1989, Bush and his co-owners sold the franchise in 1998 to media mogul Tom Hicks for $250-million.

Bush, who held a mere 1.8 percent stake in the Rangers, was paid 12 percent of the sales price in 1998. That unusual boost dramatically enhanced the deal's return to Bush, an elected official.

On a borrowed $606,000 investment that should have returned $2.5-million, Bush received $15-million. His transformation from business failure to success was complete, with help from family friends all along the way.

Said Bush, in a favorite line about his wheeling-and-dealing era in private business: "I was a pit bull on the pant leg of opportunity."

CONTINUED...

http://www.sptimes.com/2002/07/21/news_pf/Worldandnation/Bush_built_success_on.shtml

Goes to show: Money can buy you love. And a pennant.

[BigDaddy44]

18. Blew the lid off of baseball salaries?

Hey, baseball players are labor. This is the first post i've ever seen thats chided management for paying labor TOO much. Would you prefer management/owners keep the money for themselves?

[El Supremo]

21. Have you seen the price of tickets lately?

Or maybe you don't like going to games.

There should be a stronger salary cap in baseball like in football.

Baseball players are labor? The people who heat the hot dogs are labor. Baseball players are like Hollywood stars. Over payed prima donnas. But I still like to watch both perform.

It's the old case of the have nots vs. the super rich. And the average fan has to pay for it.

[SammyWinstonJack]

5. He ripped off the Curtis Mathis family. Stole their land and made the taxpayers pay for it. Him

and Bud Selig(sp) the baseball commissioner. Birds of a feather and all that jazz. The bu$h has been ripping off Americans for EVER! High time we recognize what snakes they are and get rid of them!

[Tempest]

7. Great minds think alike

See my post below.

[Octafish]

15. Stealing Home

I'm with you on the nature of Bush crime family.

The great Robert Bryce pegged the crook, way back in '97.

Stealing Home

May 9, 1997
Texas Observer

(RB Note: This was the first story to show how George W. Bush and his cronies used the power of eminent domain to enrich themselves. It was also the first to forecast just how lucrative the deal would be for Bush when he sold his interest in the Texas Rangers.)

George W. Bush loves baseball. And why not? After all, baseball has been very good to the governor.

When it comes to power, the governor is a true triple-threat. Consider his record: (1) His initial baseball investment of $600,000 carries the current potential of a 2,500 percent return. (2) Through savvy P.R. and political maneuvering, he and his partners have persuaded a city and the state to directly subsidize a facility for their business. (3) Not content with taxpayer subsidies, he and his fellow owners have also successfully used the power of government to take land from other private citizens so it could be used for their own private purposes.

Yes, baseball has been very good to Bush. Moreover, the biggest deal Bush has ever done, the career-shaping transaction he boasted of on the campaign trail--the planning, funding and construction of the Texas Rangers' Ballpark at Arlington--has been largely ignored by the national media as they rush to paint Bush's presidential portrait.

Yet whether the public interest issue is taxes, size of government, property rights, or public subsidies of private sports ventures, Bush's personal ownership interest in the Texas Rangers baseball team has been wildly at odds with his publicly declared positions on those issues. And ongoing litigation over the Ballpark deal has revealed documents showing that beginning in 1990, the Rangers management--which included Bush as managing general partner--conspired to use the government's power of eminent domain to further its private business interests.

Since he took to the stump three and a half years ago to run for governor, Bush has railed against "big government." On the very first day of his campaign, November 8, 1993, Bush told supporters in Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas that "the best way to allocate resources in our society is through the market place. Not through a governing elite, not through red tape and over-regulation, not through some central bureaucracy."

But through the Arlington stadium deal, Bush, who owns 1.8 percent of the Rangers, has been personally enriched by using the "governing elite" and the "central bureaucracy" not only to confiscate land for private purposes, but to get a huge public subsidy for a stadium that generates profits for himself and the Texas Rangers. Though Bush's present ownership percentage in the team is relatively small, the asset represents a large part of his personal wealth; moreover, Bush's deal with the team includes a provision that will almost certainly multiply his future ownership interest to 11 percent.

SNIP...

Among court documents is an unsigned Rangers memo by a team representative, discussing the history of the Mathes tracts. The representative notes that in his first contact with the Mathes family concerning the land, on November 6, 1990, "I was not well received." The memo goes on to say that the ASFDA's appraiser assigned the land a value of $3.16 per square foot, for a total value of $1.515 million. "An offer was made by the Authority at this price. This offer was rejected & the Sellers countered with $2,835,000.00 for all three tracts, i.e.: $5.31 p.s.f." In mid-December, the ASFDA offered the Mathes heirs just $817,220 for the three tracts, far below even what the ASFDA's first appraiser had suggested. The Mathes family refused to sell, and the ASFDA seized the land through eminent domain.

Glenn Sodd, a Corsicana attorney who represents the Mathes family, says he has found little evidence that Bush was directly involved in the decisions to condemn the property for the stadium. But he adds, "What happened to my folks was pretty audacious. It was the first time in Texas history that the power of eminent domain had been used to assist a private organization like a baseball team." Last May, a Tarrant County jury found that the sports authority's offer of $817,220 for the Mathes property was too low, and it awarded the Mathes heirs $4.98 million, plus accumulated interest. For the past year, the city of Arlington and the Rangers have been arguing over who will pay the tab.

Arlington Deputy City Manager Bill Studer, who also serves as executive director of the ASFDA, told Metroplex reporters in March that the city expects the Rangers to pay the jury award. But Tom Schieffer, the president and current general partner of the club, thinks differently. "Our position is, that is a judgment that's against the sports authority, not against the city or the Rangers," he told the Observer. "The sports authority has to pay that." Yet Studer appears to be in no hurry to talk to the Rangers about the dispute. On April 3, nearly a year after the Tarrant County jury decided the Mathes heirs were owed $4.2 million more than the ASFDA offered, Studer told the Observer, "We haven't discussed it at all with the Rangers at this point."

CONTINUED...

http://robertbryce.com/ar_4

Sure wish more Americans knew about this in '97. Things would be very different today, which is the point. And that'd be the press' job or shame.

[Tempest]

6. Arlington paid $7.5 million to a family who had their land stolen for the stadium

In May of 1996, a Tarrant County jury found the ASFDA had not paid a fair price for thirteen acres of land it condemned, and awarded the sellers (the Mathes family) more than six times what the city had agreed to pay. A year after the jury's decision, the city decided not to appeal and paid the plaintiffs $7.5 million.
http://www.bushfiles.com/bushfiles/SweetheartDeal.html

[SammyWinstonJack]

10. Yep! Slimy GW and he always was.

[Octafish]

16. Molly Ivins: 'Eminent Development'

This episode should have interested our nation's press. It didn't, largely because the press itself profits from backing Bush and his cronies.

Emeinent Development

By Molly Ivins, AlterNet
Posted on June 30, 2005, Printed on April 3, 2008

At least they're more in touch with reality than a majority of the Supreme Court.

The justice who nailed this one was Sandra Day O'Connor, bless her. She wrote in dissent: "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms. As for the victims, the government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result."

The court ruled 5-4 that local governments may use the power of eminent domain to confiscate private homes and turn them over to private developers, who will make more profitable use of them, tax-wise. The case came out of New London, Conn., a city that has lost tens of thousands of jobs and has an unemployment rate twice that of the rest of the state.

In the late 1990s, the Pfizer drug company decided to build a $300 million research campus next door to 32 acres the city had acquired after the Navy closed a facility there. The state pledged $7 million to open the waterfront to the public, fill in the flood plain and clean up the area, which has environmental hazards. The city also came up with a redevelopment plan that includes marinas, parks, private offices, condos and a hotel. But seven of the 90 landowners in the area refused to sell.

The court essentially extended the use of eminent domain -- the right by which the government can seize private property to use for public purposes in exchange for fair market value -- to include for-profit development.

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/23281/

Eminent Domain used to be used for the public good -- not a private company's greed.

[Ishoutandscream2]

9. Really, the only "business" he was "successful" at

And even this was bullshit.

[Octafish]

17. Bush's Aloha Connection

The crazy warmonger is no slouch when it comes to criminality, or "bidness" as his cronies say.

Bush's Aloha Connection

Hawaii Stories
July 08, 2002

A couple of weeks ago, President Bush called the WorldCom scandal — the latest case of big business malfeasance, following Enron, Xerox and others — "outrageous." Today he's giving a speech on Wall Street in which he's expected to call for a crackdown.

His cries for corporate responsibility are ringing hollow for some, though, as a 1989 Bush business deal makes its way into the headlines. It involves a Texas company called Harken Energy, and a little subsidiary named Aloha Petroleum.

Aloha Petroleum, ostensibly a "kama'aina company," is turning up in the Washington Post, Houston Chronicle, and on CNN. Why? For many, it's Exhibit A in proving that Bush opposes fudging the numbers, except when it works in his favor.

Here's how it worked. Harken Energy had just bought out George W. Bush's failing oil company, likely more for his name and connections than its assets. Haken's own numbers weren't all that rosy, either, however. So a group of Haken insiders created a phony company — funded through a Haken loan — to turn around and "buy" Haken's little Aloha Petroleum at an exorbitantly high price. This sale, essentially to itself, let Haken claim a $10 million "phantom profit," balancing its books quite nicely.

Of course, the SEC was watching, and Haken could only play the shell game for so long. But weeks before Harken announced it had lost $23 million (and Haken's stock plummeted), Bush just happened to unload 212,000 shares of inflated Haken stock for over $848,000.

Not bad for a failed businessman.

CONTINUED...

http://www.hawaiistories.com/archives/004708.shtml

It's almost as if Smirko was born with a silver spoon up his nose.

[Swamp Rat]

11. "Draft Dodger!"

:rofl:

:hi:

[Octafish]

23. The Harvard Connection

College.

The Harvard Connection

School Had Off-The-Books, Legal, Partnership With Harken Energy

AP BOSTON, Oct. 10, 2002

Harvard University helped Harken Energy, the small company where George W. Bush served as a director, take debt off its balance sheet with an off-the-books partnership, according to a report released Wednesday by a watchdog group.

Unlike some off-the-books partnerships by bankrupt energy company Enron Corp., the 1990 Harken-Harvard partnership was disclosed in Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

But the arrangement apparently helped struggling Harken ride out a difficult financial stretch. With a cleaner balance sheet, Harken stock more than tripled in the early 1990s to about $8 a share. Harvard, which had invested $30 million in the then little-known energy company, sold 1.6 million shares.

"It's legal, but God, it smells rotten," said Bill Coyle, an accounting expert at Babson College. Coyle said Harken's only legal obligation was to disclose the existence of the partnership and any debts Harken had guaranteed for it.

SNIP...

At a July 1990 board meeting, Bush and the Harken board voted to establish the venture between Harken and Aeneas Venture Corp., Harvard Management's venture capital wing.

The partnership assumed $20 million in Harken debts and $26 million in oil-drilling assets that had appeared on Harken's balance sheet. Aeneas contributed $64.5 million in oil drilling assets.

CONTINUED...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/07/30/politics/main516808.shtml

Maverick was born in Panama.

A lot of good people were born in Panama.



That doesn't mean McCain happens to be one of them.

[Bravo Zulu]

12. bu$h the businessman:

What did we learn from this exercise?

Failed businessman bu$h was rescued multiple times because he was the son of a politically powerful father.

How bu$h got rich:
1.He was invited to be a part owner of the Texas Rangers because his last name was Bush.
2.He was able to secure his partnership in the team through the questionable sale of Harken stock.

The Rangers got government to pay for, and confiscate, assets that enriched the team.

bu$h assisted in the effort to get government financial and legal support for the Rangers, and was rewarded with additional shares in the team.

When governor, his support of Hicks management of state university finances was a factor in Hicks later paying handsomely for the Rangers.

[Octafish]

24. Conason: 'A heartwarming tale about baseball, $1.7 billion, and a lot of swell friends.'

What PAVet4Murtha said:

How bu$h got rich:

1.He was invited to be a part owner of the Texas Rangers because his last name was Bush.
2.He was able to secure his partnership in the team through the questionable sale of Harken stock.

Notes on a Native Son: The George W Bush Story

A heartwarming tale about baseball, $1.7 billion, and a lot of swell friends.

By Joe Conason
Harper's Magazine
February 2000

Fortune's Child

As George W. Bush's wealthy admirers continue to pack cash into the largest presidential war chest in American history (at last count a staggering $58 million), perhaps the time is ripe to examine how the would-be president became rich himself-quite rich, in fact, if not by the standards of H. Ross Perot or Steve Forbes, at least by the measure of most Americans.

Bush, who received $15 million for his share of the Texas Rangers franchise, would be the richest Democratic or Republican nominee since Lyndon Johnson. On the June 1998 day that the baseball team was sold, Bush told reporters, "When it is all said and done, I will have made more money than I ever dreamed..."

Indeed. The sum represented an enviable 2,400 percent increase on the $606,000 investment Bush had made in the team nine years earlier, with borrowed money, and a considerable improvement on his own record of losing millions invested by others. Together with his elation about the windfall there may also have been a feeling of vindication for the eldest scion of the Bush family.

Although twice elected governor of Texas (in 1994 and again in 1998), the son known as "Dubya" had lived through nearly two decades of business failures, embarrassing bailouts, and eyebrow-raising favors that had besmirched his family's reputation. The money, coming late in Bush's life, at age fifty-one, is understood not to have corrupted him, and his handlers depict him as a man of religious faith and moral character who will cleanse a White House soiled by scandal; Bush, in their audience-tested Calvinistic fable, is a once-upon-a-time hard-drinking ne'er-do-well transformed into a well-to-do teetotaler.

The fact that his political rise has been crowned with material rewards might, in the metaphysics of American capitalism, very well be deemed a sign of righteousness and divine favor. But viewed in less sentimental terms, the history of George W. and his millions is a success story about a privileged young man who grew up in proximity to money and political power, appreciated the relationship between them, and so learned to live happily ever after with his wealth and his conscience. Not only does the story explain why Bush is so attractive to the corporate leaders and Washington lobbyists now staging his nomination for the presidency; it is also a textbook lesson in modern American civics. We who might soon elect Bush should hear this story, to know how he might act should he achieve the Oval Office.

Although the immediate mechanics of the Rangers deal were well-documented by the media, the sale of the team was but a moment in the governor's long and still-unfolding political and financial relationships with certain fortunate personages-some of whom, it can reasonably be expected, might be appointed to positions of authority in a new Bush administration. The numbers are complicated, and many of the sums imponderably huge, but the power is real and the outcome as observable as, well, a brand-new baseball stadium.

A Young Man With A Future

When his father was still in the White House, developments in the business career of George W. Bush were occasionally reported by the national media and sometimes scrutinized for evidence of influence peddling and conflicts of interest. His difficult sojourn in the oil business, for example, was documented in Texas newspapers as well as in Time magazine and the Wall Street Journal, and that period was examined more recently in the Washington Post as part of a biographical series on the Republican front-runner published last year. But considering Bush's present fame, the details of his early career are not widely known- and they must be revisited briefly here in order to identify the people who made possible his baseball bonanza.

From the outset of his career, George W. Bush exhibited an impatience that would have embarrassed his father, who underwent a long apprenticeship in the oil business. In 1978, only three years after graduating from Harvard Business School and returning home to Midland, Texas, he incorporated his own oil- drilling venture. Almost simultaneously, he made an even more startling announcement. Again unlike his father and grandfather, who established their fortunes and reputations before running for public office, George W. declared his candidacy for Congress in 1978 from the district that included Midland. His name was his only political credential, aside from a year as president of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity at Yale. His candidacy seemed almost plausible, how, ever, when he defeated a far more seasoned opponent in the Republican primary. He went on to lose badly in the general election to a Democrat who had mocked Bush's pretentious description of himself as an independent oilman.

CONTINUED...

http://www.utwatch.org/utimco/nativeson.html

Love the chart, PAVet4Murtha. Saved to the hard drive.



Wish more people had known about this story. We might not be in this mess today.

[HughBeaumont]

14. History of the BFEE in 4 and a half minutes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTbtSTO78Xs&feature=related

Bewsh IS a "DeathStar". The most corrupt politician, criminal murderer ever to hold the White House hostage, and the media along with 60 million people that share the same brain are going to let him get away with it. One look at this asswipe's family tree is reason enough to send unbridled corporatism to the shit vat of history: The Bewshes are an absolute product of this brand of bad business practice. The BFEE is nothing but a legal mafia, except they'll mostly get away from the law (since they pretty much OWN it).

Our own Ceaucescu, who will never meet the same fate.

[Octafish]

25. That IS the history of the BFEE in 4 and a half minutes!

Thank you, HughBeaumont! I have finally found my new favorite band.

The Bush Crime Family has used their positions in public life to loot the Treasury and to make war for the sake of profit. They also have shown themselves to be willing accomplices to the most vile regimes to ever befoul mankind. They will continue their evil ways until some number of us gives a damn about it and works to stop them. The people who made that video have gone a long ways to bringing an end to the madness.

[leftchick]

37. That is great!

:applause:

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

19. What was Bush's original Harken investment?

Wasn't it something like $50,000 or thereabouts? Which he eventually parlayed through insider trading, land grabbing, and tax dodging into $15 million with the Texas Rangers? The Republicans raised a big stink about Hillary Clinton's stock investment in cattle futures many years ago where she made I think $100,000. Bush's investment was a lot sweeter of a windfall, I think, and of highly dubious ethics.

[Octafish]

27. $17,000 from his Trust Fund started Arbusto Energy

He eventually parlayed that sum into $14.9 million when he sold his "interest" in the Texas Rangers.

Famous Texans sums up the details:

George Walker Bush

EXCERPT

Profession: In the West Texas energy business, George W. Bush started out researching who owned mineral rights. He later traded mineral and royalty interests and invested in drilling prospects. He had started his own oil and gas company by 1978, taking $17,000 from his education trust fund to set up Arbusto Energy (arbusto means Bush in Spanish). The company fell on hard times when oil prices fell. He made several attempts to revive the business, first by changing the company's name and later by merging with other companies. In 1983, Bush’s company was rescued from failure when Spectrum 7 Energy Corporation, a small oil firm owned by William DeWitt and Mercer Reynolds, bought it. Bush became chief executive officer. Harken Energy Corporation acquired Spectrum 7 in 1986, after Spectrum had lost $400,000. In the buyout deal, Bush and his partners were given more than $2 million worth of Harken stock for the 180-well operation. Bush became a director and was hired as a "consultant" to Harken. He received another $600,000 of Harken stock, and has been paid between $42,000 and $120,000 a year. By the spring of 1987, Harken was in need of cash. So Bush and his fellow Harken officials met with Jackson Stephens, head of Stephens, Inc., an investment bank in Little Rock, Arkansas (Stephens contributed $100,000 to the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980 and gave another $100,000 to the Bush dinner committee in 1990.) Stephens arranged for Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) to provide $25 million to Bush’s company in return for a stock interest in Harken. As part of the deal, Sheikh Abdullah Bakhsh, a Saudi real estate tycoon and financier, joined Harken's board as a major investor. Stephens, UBS, and Bakhsh each had ties to the infamous, scandal-ridden Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). In 1990, Bush sold his remaining stock options and left the oil business. Writer Jack Colhoun revealed some details of that stock sale, referring to Bush by his childhood nickname “Junior”:

On June 22, 1990, George Jr. sold two-thirds of his Harken stock for $848,560-a cool 200 percent profit. The move was well timed. One week after Junior sold his stock, Harken announced a $23.2 million loss in quarterly earnings and Harken stock dropped sharply, losing 60 percent of its value over the next six months. On August 2, 1990, Iraqi troops moved into Kuwait and 541,000 U.S. forces were deployed to the Gulf.

"There is substantial evidence to suggest that Bush knew Harken was in dire straits in the weeks before he sold the $848,560 of Harken stock," asserted U.S. News & World Report. The magazine noted Harken appointed Junior to a 'fairness committee' to study possible economic restructuring of the company. Junior worked closely with financial advisers from Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Company, who concluded "only drastic action could save Harken."

A year earlier, in 1989, Bush prepared for his move from the oil business to the sports business when he helped assemble a group who purchased the Texas Rangers baseball team from Eddie Chiles. He and Rusty Rose served as managing general partners until Bush was elected Governor of Texas in 1994.

CONTINUED w/sources:

http://www.famoustexans.com/georgewbush.htm

Amazing so few know about this. Sad that so few seem to give a damn about it.

Sorry this took so long. I had to re-primer the Jeep.

[spanone]

20. let's hope that karma finds this soul-less fool at some point in his pathetic life

[Octafish]

28. How George W. Bush Scored Big With the Texas Rangers - Puppet for Bush, Partners

Gee. That sure sounds familiar.

How George W. Bush Scored Big With the Texas Rangers

The Public i
CHARLES LEWIS
January 18, 2000

When George W. Bush first embarked on a deal to buy the Texas Rangers professional baseball team in 1988, he already had his eye on the governor’s mansion in Austin. But he knew that to have a shot at winning, he would need better credentials than a string of unsuccessful oil companies and a failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1989 he told Time magazine, “My biggest liability in Texas is the question, ‘What’s the boy ever done?’ He could be riding on Daddy’s name.”

But his father’s connections were instrumental in helping Bush overcome that perception. Back in 1973, when the senior George Bush was the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Bush befriended one of father’s assistants, Karl Rove. Rove cut his teeth alongside the senior Bush’s chief political strategist, Lee Atwater. Rove would become George W.’s own Atwater, helping to run his 1978 bid for Congress and laying the groundwork for his 1994 run for governor. As the Rangers deal got under way, Rove told Bush that baseball was his ticket to the big time. “It gives him ... exposure and gives him something that will be easily recalled by people,” Rove said.

Rove’s calculation turned out to be right on the money.

It all began in fall of 1988, when William O. DeWitt Jr., Bush’s partner in a Texas oil-and-gas exploration company called Spectrum 7, called to let him know that Eddie Chiles, the owner of the Texas Rangers, was looking for a buyer.

Ueberroth Presses for Deal

Chiles, a family friend who called Bush “Young Pup” when he was a kid, was eager to sell to Bush. And so Bush and DeWitt quickly assembled a team of investors. They hit a snag when Peter Ueberroth, then commissioner of Major League Baseball, told them he wouldn’t approve the sale without more investors from Texas. Ueberroth believed that local owners would be less likely to relocate the team. The commissioner, a GOP donor himself, wanted the deal approved before his term expired at the end of 1989, and so he and then-American League president Bobby Brown took it on themselves to line up Fort Worth financier Richard E. Rainwater.

SNIP...

Puppet for Bush, Partners

While on paper the Arlington Sports Facilities Development Authority was a public entity, in practice it was merely a puppet for Bush and his partners. According to documents obtained by the Center for Public Integrity, the owners would identify the land they wanted to acquire. A Rangers owner, Mike Reilly, a Realtor, would then offer to buy the parcels for prices he set, which in several cases were well below what the owners believed their property was worth. If the landowners refused to sell to the Rangers at the offered price, the Arlington Sports Facilities Development Authority could take possession of their land and leave the price to be determined in court.

Several of the landowners took the authority to court over the seizures and won settlements totaling $11 million. In a final insult to taxpayers, the Rangers resisted paying the settlements, trying to pass off yet another cost to Arlington residents. (The Rangers, under new ownership, finally agreed to pay up last year.)

When confronted with the seamy details of the land grab, Bush professed ignorance. But Schieffer, the team’s former president, has testified that he kept Bush aware of the land transfers. In October 1990, Bush also let this slip to a reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: “The idea of making a land play, absolutely, to plunk the field down in the middle of a big piece of land, that’s kind of always been the strategy.”

It was a strategy that would have an enormous payoff for Bush personally.

After he became governor of Texas, Bush put his all of his assets into a blind trust, with one notable exception: his stake in the Rangers. Schieffer kept Bush apprised of the owner’s efforts to sell the team to Thomas O. Hicks, the chairman of Hicks, Muse, Tate and Furst, Inc., a firm that specializes in leveraged buyouts and until recently owned AMFM, Inc., the nation’s largest chain of radio stations. Hicks and employees of his companies are Bush’s No. 4 career patron, having given him at least $290,400.

CONTINUED...

http://www.angelfire.com/ok5/pearly/htmls/bush-sec5.html

I am trying my best to follow he Golden Rule. Wish Bush would.

[MinM]

22. Roid Rangers

:kick:
not to mention this was probably the most 'roided' out team in the steroid era -- Canseco, Pudge. the Gambler, Palmero, Tettleton, Incaviglia, Dubya...

[Octafish]

29. Drugs are a main line of business for the BFEE

Geez, that's some scars on Jose's elbow. Thanks for the heads-up on the steroid connection to the Rangers. Now it may've been legal when they were getting all pumped up, but the thing is the Bushes have a long history of better living through chemistry.

Poppy and Jeb with Merck and Rummy at G.D. Searle above ground. Who knows who underground? I mean, apart from Ollie North.

DEA Agents Agree: CIA Means 'Cocaine Importation Agency'

When Monkey threw out the first pitch last week at the Senators, eh, Nationals game, he had to throw to a coach, as the catcher had been associated with the scandal. For bad reason he got booed.

[wiggs]

26. Dean wrote that the Harken mess is one of the things that could

mean the downfall of GWB....if the government was willing to look into it. John Dean...Worse than Watergate....felt Harken was a big deal.

[lonestarnot]

30. Sheat! They won't even look into the bazzillions squandered for a war/occuppation of lies, why

would they "look into" this?

[Octafish]

32. Excellent point, lonestarnot. It's a sign, when someone doesn't want to investigate wrongdoing...

...Typical of accessories after the fact, and so on.

Willing participation would make that person or persons a co-conspirator. Like Prescott's study and Poppy's patron, Richard M. Nixon.

Sometimes a lack of interest is really a question of extortion. These government folks learned the art from their colleagues in the mafia.

As far as Bush and his cronies' multi-generational free pass, it's probably a combination of the three.

[lonestarnot]

34. Keep the fire burning Octafish!

:toast:

[Octafish]

36. Bahrain and the Family that Preys Together

From Summer 1992 and the good folks at Covert Action Information Bulletin:

The Family That Preys Together

by Jack Colhoun, Covert Action Quarterly, Summer 1992

"This is an incredible deal, unbelievable for this small company," energy analyst Charles Strain told Forbes magazine, describing the oil production sharing agreement the Harken Energy Corporation signed in January 1990 with Bahrain.

Under the terms of the deal, Harken was given the exclusive right to explore for gas and oil off the shores of the Gulf island nation. If gas or oil were found in waters near two of the world's largest gas and oil fields, Harken would have exclusive marketing and transportation rights for the energy resources. Truly an "incredible deal" for a company that had never drilled an offshore well.

Strain failed to point out, however, the one fact that puts the Harken deal in focus: George Bush, Jr., the eldest son of George and Barbara Bush of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC, is a member of Harken's board of directors, a consultant, and a stockholder in the Texas-based company. In light of this connection, the deal makes more sense. The involvement of Junior-George Walker Bush's childhood nickname-with Harken is a walking conflict of interest. His relationship to President Bush, rather than any business acumen, made him a valuable asset for Harken, the Republican Party benefactors, Middle East oil sheikhs and covert operators who played a part in Harken's Bahrain deal.

In fact, Junior's track record as an oilman is pretty dismal. He began his career in Midland, Texas, in the mid-1970s when he founded Arbusto Energy, Inc. When oil prices dropped in the early 1980s, Arbusto fell upon hard times. Junior was only rescued from business failure when his company was purchased by Spectrum 7 Energy Corporation, a small oil firm owned by William DeWitt and Mercer Reynolds. As part of the September 1984 deal, Bush became Spectrum 7's president and was given a 13.6 percent share in the company's stock. Oil prices stayed low and within two years, Spectrum 7 was in trouble.

In the six months before Spectrum 7 was acquired by Harken in 1986, it had lost $400,000. In the buyout deal, George "Jr." and his partners were given more than $2 million worth of Harken stock for the 180-well operation. Made a director and hired as a "consultant" to Harken, Junior received another $600,000 of Harken stock, and has been paid between $42,000 and $120,000 a year since 1986.

Junior's value to Harken soon became apparent when the company needed an infusion of cash in the spring of 1987. Junior and other Harken officials met with Jackson Stephens, head of Stephens, Inc., a large investment bank in Little Rock, Arkansas (Stephens made a $100,000 contribution to the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980 and gave another $100,000 to the Bush dinner committee in 1990.)

CONTINUED for a Must-Download article:

http://www.afrocubaweb.com/bushes.htm

Thank you for understanding why this is so important for our country, lonestarnot!

[Octafish]

31. Bush Name Helps Fuel Oil Dealings

Smirko always seems to know when to dump his stock, as if he knew what was going to happen before it happened, like Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

Wish that more in the press were on to the stinky fellah before Selection 2000:

Bush Name Helps Fuel Oil Dealings

By George Lardner Jr. and Lois Romano
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, July 30, 1999; Page A1
Sixth of seven articles

As world oil prices plummeted in the winter of 1985-86, George W. Bush faced the most serious crisis of his 11-year career as a West Texas oilman.

SNIP...

"One of the reasons Harken was so interested in merging was because of George," said Paul Rea, a geologist who had been president of Spectrum 7. "They believed having George's name there would be a big help to them. They wanted him on their board."

The buyout not only rescued Bush financially but gave him the collateral for an investment a few years later in the Texas Rangers baseball team that eventually made him a millionaire. In addition to the seat on the board, he received more than $300,000 of Harken stock, options to buy more, and a consulting contract that paid him as much as $120,000 a year in the late '80s, when he was working full time on his father's presidential campaign.

It was one of the biggest breaks of Bush's life. Still, the Harken deal completed a disappointing reprise of what was becoming a familiar pattern. As an oilman, Bush always worked hard, winning a reputation as a straight-shooter and a good boss who was witty, warm and immensely likable. Even the investors who lost money in his ventures remained admirers, and some of them are now raising money for his presidential campaign.

But the story of Bush's career in oil, which began following his graduation from Harvard Business School in the summer of 1975 and ended when he sold out to Harken and headed for Washington, is mostly about his failure to succeed, despite the sterling connections his lineage and Ivy League education brought him.

Thanks to his and his family's ties to wealthy investors around the country, including prominent Republicans, Bush was repeatedly able to raise money to invest in oil drilling, especially when prices were booming and tax breaks were inviting in the late 1970s. But connections could not help with the tricky business of picking profitable holes to drill, and Bush never made a big score.

In fact, Bush lost money for most of his well-connected investors. At the same time, the management fees and other expenses he collected from them kept him in business and enabled him to buy oil reserves for his company's own account, including the reserves that eventually attracted Harken's attention.

Three times during his years in Midland, Bush was saved from financial trouble or stagnation by the appearance of new partners or financial angels who gave him a fresh start. One was a Princeton classmate and friend of James A. Baker III, who was to serve as his father's secretary of state; another was a fellow Yale man who shared Bush's love for baseball.

The third was Harken, which was to save Bush from humiliating failure but also create a target for later criticism. Reporters would scrutinize the deal as early as 1990. Led by then-Texas Gov. Ann Richards, Bush's opponent in the 1994 gubernatorial election, his political critics have asked whether Harken used Bush's name to obtain oil business. Even now, questions linger about a 1990 sale of Harken stock by Bush that was the subject of a probe by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

CONTINUED...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/wh2000/stories/bush073099.htm

I'm no expert, but John Dean has been pretty much rehabilitated in my book. The guy's memory alone is a national treasure.

[AzDar]

33. K & R....

:kick:

[Octafish]

35. Economic Expert brings up an interesting name... bin Laden

Bidness, Bush style.

Arbusto Energy

Arbusto Energy (Arbusto Oil) was a petroleum and energy corporation formed in Midland, Texas, in 1977, by George W. Bush.

The name Arbusto is Spanish for "shrub", a synonym for "bush".

Investors in the company included Dorothy Bush, Lewis Lehrman , William Henry Draper III and James R. Bath. At the time that Bath made an investment of $50,000 he was representing Salem bin Laden's interests in Texas. When Salem bin Laden died in 1988, his interest in Arbusto (along with other bin Laden Group assets) passed to Khalid bin Mahfouz.

In 1982, Arbusto became known as Bush Exploration, a year after George H. W. BushGeorge Herbert Walker Bush (born June 12, 1924) was the 41st President of the United States ( 1989 1993). Previously, he had served as ambassador to the United Nations ( 1971 1973), director of the CIA 1976 1977, and the 43rd Vice President of the United became Vice President. A friend of the Bush family Philip Uzielli invested $1 million in 1982 in exchange for a 10% stake in the company, at a time when the whole company was valued at less than $400,000. As it neared financial collapse again in September 1984This page is about the year 1984. For other uses of 1984, see 1984 (disambiguation). 1984 is a leap year starting on Sunday (link shows calendar). Events January January 1 Brunei becomes a fully independent state January 1 AT&T is broken up into 22 indepe, Bush Exploration merged with Spectrum 7Spectrum 7 was an oil company owned and run by George W. Bush, that in 1986 was saved by his now rival George Soros. Energy Corp., a company owned by William DeWitt and Mercer ReynoldsMercer "Merce" Reynolds III (born 17 June 1945) is an American businessman. He was the finance chair of U. President George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign and is widely expected to be Bush's nominee to replace Don Evans as Commerce Secretary. Reynold. Bush became Chairman and CEO of Spectrum 7.

In 1985, Spectrum 7 reported a net loss of $1.5 million and was bought in 19861986 is a common year starting on Wednesday. Events January January 1 Spain and Portugal enter the European Community January 1 Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands and is separated from the Netherlands Antilles. January 9 After losing a pa for $2.2 million by Harken Oil and Gas, with Bush joining the Harken board of directors and finance audit committee.

In 1987 the Saudi investor Abdullah Taha Bakhsh bought most of Union Bank of Switzerland's shares in Harken becoming its third largest investor owning 17% of the company. He was represented on the board by Talat M. Othman. Another investor was Ghaith R. Pharaon who would later be involved in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International scandal.

In January 1990 with the company in the same state as its previous incarnations, it was awarded a contract to drill for crude oil off the coast of Bahrain, a move that shocked industry insiders as Harken had no previous experience outside of the US or of drilling offshore.

In June 1990 Bush sold most shares in Harken to a Los Angeles broker named Ralph D. Smith. One week later Harken announced an overall loss of $23.2 million triggering an SEC investigation into the sale.

SOURCE w/ links, etc.: http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Arbusto:Energy.htm

Gee. Bin Laden. Where have we heard that name before?