Dubya did not trade Sammy Sosa and was not the owner of the Texas Rangers!

[trumad]

I get the biggest kick out how Pundits continue to spike Dubya's resume by calling him the former owner of the Texas Rangers... I also get a kick out of hearing Dubya in his speeches use the "I traded Sammy Sosa" as being his biggest mistake he ever made... LOL

Let get this straight. George Dubya Bush bought one percent of a stake in the Texas Rangers baseball team with money he dubiously made from his crooked Harkin days. ONE PERCENT!

Then, after his involvement with the very controversial land grab for the new Texas Ranger basball stadium, the other owners, (and there were several) decided to give old Dubya another 10 percent of the team. They just gave it to him....

SO...When they say that Dubya was the former owner of a baseball team...NOT! He was a minority investor! PERIOD! AND when he says he traded Sammy Sosa...BULLSHIT..he had nothing to do with it!

OH..and BTW: Bush invested 600 grand and made 10 to 14 mill a couple of years later....

[GOPisEvil]

1. However...the Texas Rangers themselves used his name A LOT!

I took a Ballpark of Arlington tour in 1994, the first year it opened. On the tour was a stop at "the owner's suite". The tour guide referred to it as "Mr. Bush's suite". He also mentioned "Mr. Bush's box seats" at stadium level.

Of course he was there to build his presence for an eventual run at Governor and President...that's obvious now.

[HootieMcBoob]

2. I remember Bobby Valentine saying

that Bush was the one who fired him. Which always seemed weird to me because you would think that would be the GM's job. Unless they both did it together. Valentine says he met with Bush and after the meeting was over he didn't know he had just been fired. The GM or somebody else had to meet with him again to make sure he understood.

Also, there's a great nose picking picture of Bush out there somewhere on the net. He's at a Rangers game and his finger is way way up there!:)

[cosmicdot]

6. "Digger" Bush

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. Bush helped get the land grab for the stadium

through the Arlington city government. Small businesses were told their business would boom. Only thing that has boomed is their tax load-according to my brother in law, who owns a bar in Arlington.

[RedSock]

4. illegal land grab

and the team took something like 10 times as much land (270 acres?) as it needed for the stadium (can't recall exact figures). i think a lot of the surrounding land ($$$) went into the bfee coffers. ... anyone have any specific info?

[chiburb]

5. Yep. Here's your specifics...

And a link to DU's own "Maha" archives:

In the meantime, Mr. Bush had used the Harken money to pay the Texas Rangers loan, and he commenced to use his baseball-owner status as a springboard for his political and financial ambitions.

Running through this narrative are a number of nearly incestuous relationships. For example, when the SEC was investigating Mr. Bush, the agency's general counsel was Bush's personal attorney who had helped him arrange the Texas Rangers deal. And the head of the SEC was a long-time, loyal supporter of Mr. Bush's father, who was President of the United States at the time.

Bonanza!

Thanks to a recent column by Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, we know how G.W. Bush made a 2400 percent profit on his Texas Rangers investment.

Mr. Bush and the other Rangers owners persuaded the city of Arlington, Texas, to raise taxes to build a $200 million stadium to be handed over to the Rangers. Even more incredible, Bush and his fellow owners got state and local government to confiscate land for their own enterprises. According to Eric Alterman (The Scandal No One Cares About, MSNBC) the state of Texas gave Arlington Sports Facilities Development Authority the power to expropriate private land on which to build the stadium. Several landowners --mostly homeowners and farmers -- refused to sell for what the Authority was offering. "The Authority condemned their land and expropriated it by force of law," wrote Alterman. "It did this with 270 acres of land, even though only about 17 acres were needed for the ballpark. The rest was used for commercial development that made Bush and his friends rich."

http://mahabarbara.tripod.com/themahablog/id3.html

[RedSock]

7. 8 minutes later!!!!!!!

damn that's fast! thanks.

this is why i LOVE du!!!

[denverbill]

8. "The Scandal No One Cares About" is right.

I could easily be a millionaire too, if I could use the govt like Shrub did and continues to do.

It amazes me that so few people know, or care, about this.