I still can't believe that Martha's sitting in jail and Ken Lay's not!

[trumad]

40,000 buck deal compared to millions Lay ripped from his company. Backass world folks...Backass world!

[Edwardsgroupie]

1. Ken's time is coming

and it won't be pretty

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Warpy]

3. Martha's a Democrat

They'd jail us all if they could.

[izzie]

4. Right on and she is an uppity women in a white mans world.

http://smilies.sofrayt.com/1/r/bigd

[Digit]

24. Exactly!!!!!!!!

They cannot stand a successful, powerful woman.
It emasculates them.

[SarahB]

51. You got it!!!

:thumbsup:

[AP]

9. Martha may be a Democrat, but it wasn't very Democratic of her to try

to pass on a 40,000 dollar loss on to someone who had less information than she had, and it wasn't very Democratic of her to then lie about it in order to protect the market value of her billion dollar holding of her own stock.

[AntiFascist]

19. Why do Democrats have to live up to different standards than Repugs?

There must be plenty of wealthy Republicans who have done worse.

[AP]

20. Are you saying she shouldn't have to live up to any standard?

[AntiFascist]

23. No, but the main purpose of indicting such high-profile individuals....

on charges like this is so that they stand as an example to others not to follow in their footsteps. Instead, I can imagine a lot of Republicans sitting back and laughing at her, and laughing about what they are able to get away with.

[AP]

25. The main purpose is justice.

[AntiFascist]

26. justice should be blind, not politically motivated.

[AP]

27. You're the person arguing that some people shouldn't be judged.

[AntiFascist]

28. OK, I'll have to admit....

when I saw Martha at the New York stock exchange, basking in her billions, and handing out home-made cupcakes to other multi-millionaires, I may have wished evil things upon her. When she was accused of insider trading part of me felt vindicated. (btw, this is not at all fair, just an emotional response).

I'm not saying Martha shouldn't be judged, just that she be judged on an even playing field with Republicans. It seems that when Repubs are sent to prison it's only for extreme offenses involving embezzlement, or corrupt practices that affect a large number of customers and stock holders.

[MUSTANG_2004]

32. Martha probably wouldn't have gone to prison

if at the very beginning she had decided to admit what she did and cut a deal. She probably wouldn't have even been front-page news for more than a couple of days.

[AP]

34. That's exactly the truth of it. She was offered a deal but said no because

she thought that the value of her billion dollar holding in MSLO would shrink if she -- the TM of the company -- were thought of as a liar and a greedy cheater.

Martha CHOSE to fight the allegation rather than admit she did anything wrong becuase she wanted to protect her millions. Ie, she did it FOR MONEY.

This is strange because she already didn't have the most sparkly of characters. Furthermore, she's clearly finding a way to make her conviction a business growth opportunity. (She told people to support her by buying a subscription to her magazine.)

However, a guilty plea does remove her from lots of other money making oppotunities. She can't be on the board of the SEC, neither can she be on the board of her own company (IIUC).

So, whatever. She attached a dollar value to the possibility of a conviction, and she rolled the dice. Basically, she's spending 6 months in jail (or whatever it is) so that she can call herself a victim, and can say she was wrongly convicted, and so she can keep her company from decreasing about 300 million dollars in value. Would you spend 6 months in jail for 300 million dollars?

[jdj]

41. Well then I hope she gets every dime of the 300 million.

Since Bush ain't ever going to jail for Harken, it's only fair.

I hope this victim of the worst Bitch Hunt ever takes it to the bank.

[AP]

46. History is litered with people who were never punished. It's never a...

...reason not to punish the next guilty person.

[DemonFighterLives]

5. I feel bad for Martha, we lost a vote

She is a felon now and cannot vote. All the while Kenny Boy (B*sh hardly knew yee) goes about his merry way.

[Justice]

6. I just explained this to my 9 year old

I am buying a subscription to one of her magazines today to show support.

I think Martha showed courage by going to prison even while appeals are pending. She will come out of prison stronger, smarter and become even more wealthy and famous as a result.

[pearl]

7. I'm bitter too

My brother lost his entire pension and retirement.
Ken Lay and Skilling.
My nephew had just started college and things were
horrible for my family because of Enron.

Martha doesn't belong in jail.

[Lorien]

10. I bought a subscription the day her sentence

was read. She was being punished for being a successful woman and a dem; the "evidence" against her was flimsy at best. *'s Harken sales were more obviously criminal, yet NOTHING was made of them!

[politicat]

45. Political prisoner? 8 million shares of ImClone were sold in the day she

sold hers. She sold 3000 shares. Why has not the SEC gone after the other 7,097,000 shareholders who sold on that day? Until that happens, what they're doing to her is unfair.

She's a successful woman in a man's world. She doesn't sit down, shut up and pretend to let her man run the show. She's not barefoot and pregnant. She's an uppity rich white woman who dared to make a living and was by-bloody-god better at it than the boys.

Yeah, they're making an example of her... an example of what happens when you don't be a good little woman. Just like they try to do to Hillary Clinton and THK.

NOW should be all over this... but of course, they're not.

Pcat

[AP]

8. In terms of proportionality, Martha lied to protect the value of her...

...shares in Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, which was worth about 500 million.

So, ultimately, she had her eyes on about the same amount of money that Ken Lay had his eyes on.

In any event, she can now be the yardstick by which we measure the amount of time Lay should get.

[FlaGranny]

12. Every

single senator and congressperson and corporate insider is privy to much more insider information than Martha could ever hope for. The sensators and congresspeople get to vote on the issues that directly affect their pocketbooks. She is a small, small fish swimming in a sea of sharks. She is in jail because she takes pressure off pursuing the sharks and because she is a Democrat.

I've been an extremely honest person my entire life, but I'm not sure what I'd do in a situation where a friend told me that I better dump my shares of a certain company because it's going to tank. I'm pretty certain that most people would dump the shares. I'm no insider but I'd be willing to bet this occurs hundreds, if not thousands of times all over the country on a daily basis. I'm also familiar with a few cases of the opposite occurring - a friend calling a friend because a stock is going to soar.

I'm not saying any of this because I believe insider trading is right, but to put this one case in perspective. Many other people are much more deserving of jail than Martha Stewart and if they are not in jail, then she should not be in jail either.

Wasn't she convicted, not of insider trading, but of lying by claiming to be innocent of insider trading or something like that? I haven't followed the story as closely as some have, but I'm under the impression she was never even tried for insider trading.

[AP]

13. Not in this case. In this case, Martha heard straight from CEO by way of

their brokers that the company wasn't getting approval.

It saddens me that Democrats are willing to look the other way for Martha regarding an issue that explains about 50% of why the rich are able to get so much richer while middle class people are meant to assume all the risk and to be the guarantors of wealth for the rich.

[trumad]

14. Not the point of my thread

sure martha should pay but they're a whole bunch of crooks far worse than Martha living Lavita Loca.

[antigone382]

15. It's simple. Martha could throw down on some Dem parties

and help Kerry.

Lay is a skUnk, a weasel who is even now getting influential people to screw America.

[AP]

17. La Vida Loca or La Vida Broka, she had her eyes on saving herself

40,000 bucks and behaved unethically, then, when that came to light, and it threatened her billion dollar empire, she behaved unethically again.

I agree. There are people who plan and plan and spin complicated webs over long periods of time, and then keep lying for less money.

So, perhaps she's getting punished out of proportion to the effort she made to be bad, but she certainly isn't being punished out of proportion to the money that was at stake. By any measure, stealling 40,000 bucks from the unsuspecting buyers of her stock is a big deal. In California, you can go to jail for a long long time for a third strike that's a petty offense (stealing a video, for e.g.). And then compound that with the 100s of millions she was worried about in relation to the valuation of her holdings in MSLO...that's a lot of money.

[SoCalDem]

18. Martha could have "paid" for her crime in a more constructive way

That's WHY we have judges.. To mete out justice..

She should have paid a fine (which she did), legal costs (which she did) AND

she should have been made to start a jobs training program TAUGHT by HER, to teach underprivileged people "social skills" that would help them in the job market..

She could have been forced to pay their transportation to HER facility, and "under house arrest", she could have paid her debt to society:)

[AP]

21. Yeah, if you're white and rich, you get options.

[Pithlet]

29. Apparently that wasn't true for Martha

She's in jail.

[demforall]

33. Martha?

So when did she start serving and how long was her sentence?

[ljm2002]

35. The sentence was...

...5 months, and she started serving it last week.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

39. But that wouldn't be as sexy, now would it

I understand what Stewart did wrong, and I understand meting out justice. But I am sickened by all the public gloating about strip searches and um, friendly cellmates and so on that I hear not only on late night TV but on virtually ever every news and opinion show. They call her Martha and leer over her body cavity searches. Fuck them. Fuck them!

That's a lot of what this is all about. It's not just that she's rich and white, she's a she. So few women get that rich compared to men, why, she must be a witch. So burn the witch. No constructive punishment.

It has all turned my sympathies entirely towards Stewart.

[bloom]

43. I agree - she has become a female icon

and I think to bring her down is symbolic.

I think it could be a potential women's issue to frame what she did in comparison to the advantages that others got at shareholders expense WITHIN THEIR OWN COMPANIES.

Cheney and Haliburton for chrissakes - why is he free?

[FizzFuzz]

50. you are soooo right

I can't even remember ever hearing about filthy rich white men meeting justice. Certainly not as fast as this. Martha does what all the boys do and bingo, the long arm of the law suddenly does what its supposed to do.

If I knew anything about the criminal justice system, I'm sure I could share statistics about gender discrimination.

And you hit it right on, the disgusting media slavering over sexualized humiliations. I think I need to go look at the homoerotic Bush cartoon on nostamj's thread, just to lighten my mood.

[jdj]

42. I'm not willing to look the other way, I just don't think she should

waste taxpayer money sitting in jail.

She's now got a record, give her 1000 hours of community service and let her do something for US. If she's the ogre that you paint her to be, that'll be a much worse punishment than jail.

Now because of this stupid jail sentence, taxpayers are having to foot the bill to give a multimillionaire three hots and a cot for six months. How fucking stupid is that????

[Booster]

16. You're absolutely right and what I want to know is what

happened to the family, especially the daughter, of the CEO who all sold their shares? The daughter, if I remember correctly, sold 2 million shares, and she has never been even mentioned. WTF?

[AP]

22. The CEOs in jail.

The daughter apparently didn't lie about her involvement when talking to the police, which is what Stewart was convicted of doing.

[Booster]

36. But selling 2 million shares because your Daddy tells you

the drug is not going to pass is not inside trading? Maybe I'm just not understanding what inside trading is. Martha lied about a crime she wasn't charged with - that bothers me to no end. That could happen to anyone of us if the Feds decide they want to get you. Kind of your word against theirs; he said, she said.

[AP]

47. Getting insider information from an insider while not being an insider

yourself isn't clearly covered by the statute. Congress should fix that. That's why it was so silly for Martha to lie to the FBI. Lying to the FBI is a crime, and it's clearly written into the criminal code. Had the daughter lied to the FBI and if she had tried to create false evidence, she would have been prosecuted.

[B Calm]

11. Bush should be in JAIL, not Martha!

Bush is guilty of insider trading along with many other crimes!

[Sugarbleus]

30. I agree. She was scapegoated or something

I can't say I "adored" M.Stewart, but I recognize a "railroading" when I see one.

"Somebody" wanted to make an "example" of her....... What a load of crap. Ken Lay and God knows how many others are getting the white glove treatment compared to M.Stewart.

Some of those big wig swindlers will pay "something", in time; but not NEARLY enough in most cases, and not nearly FAST ENOUGH overall.

I am sure! I want to see (not really, yawn)a gavel to gavel trial of Key Lay and his cohorts as their business is smeared and outed to the public via gigantic headlines and constant TV coverage.

I'd like to see the people they bilked be able to come in and BLAST them on TV for what they've been through because of the FRAUD and THEFT those crimies perpetrated.

[Andromeda]

31. But, but, but ...

don't you feel safer with Martha behind bars?

:silly:

[Elginoid]

37. I can't believe that Martha's sitting in jail and George W. Bush isn't...

his SEC violation re: Harken Energy was MUCH more agregious than hers, no matter how you look at it.

[TrustingDog]

38. she got a raw deal, but is holding her head up

and will ride this out with dignity. Not like those squealing oinking Enron pukes and their filthy friends. She's got more spine than the whole lot of them.

go martha.

[goforit]

40. Yep......It's time Women start fighting fire with fire!!!!

The Bush Administration hatred and jealousy of women
has just picked the straw that broke the camel's back!!!!

[Blue_Tires]

44. there will never be true justice for enron billions stolen

huge donations to the RW will ensure that

[against all enemies]

48. Bush and Cheney were insider traders too. Why is America so great?

[cavanaghjam]

49. What I find truly amazing

is that no one asked, "What the hell is the FDA doing giving information to IMClone before giving it to the public? The FDA works for us not the pharmaceutical companies." We all know the truth - government is no longer of, by, or for the people.