Real World

New news about our ethical hero Harry Ried.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...home-headlines

In 2002, Reid (D-Nev.) paid $10,000 to a pension fund controlled by Clair Hay****, a Las Vegas lubricants distributor and his friend of 50 years. The payment gave the senator full control of a 160-acre parcel in Bullhead City that Reid and the pension fund had jointly owned. Reid's price for the equivalent of 60 acres of undeveloped desert was less than one-tenth of the value the assessor placed on it at the time.
Six months after the deal closed, Reid introduced legislation [which failed to pass] to address the plight of lubricants dealers who had their supplies disrupted by the decisions of big oil companies. It was an issue the Hay**** family had brought to Reid's attention in 1994, according to a source familiar with the events.

If Reid were to sell the property for any of the various estimates of its value, his gain on the $10,000 investment could range from $50,000 to $290,000.

It is a potential violation of congressional ethics standards for a member to accept anything of value -- including a real estate discount -- from a person with interests before Congress.



Oh, and how could I leave out the scumbag looser Dennis Hastert. I saw some pundit mention this when talking about all the corruption and ethical issues going on the last couple of years. Who the fugg votes for these loosers?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/...n1740900.shtml

(CBS/AP) House Speaker Dennis Hastert denied Thursday that he pushed for federal funding for a proposed highway in northeastern Illinois so he and his wife could reap about $1.8 million from land deals near their home in Kendall County.

Based on Ingemunson's figures, Hastert paid roughly $259,000 for one parcel and later pocketed about $621,000 from its sale; and the speaker paid about $1.03 million for the other parcel and later reaped $2.48 million. Altogether, Hastert turned about $1.3 million in investments into about a $1.8 million profit in less than two years.

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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897

patsfan13

Should be fun when Patters shows up to rationalize Dirty Harry's behavior. This kind of stuff illlustrates why we should have term limits. Congress is into stuff that the founding fathers would never have dreamed of and spend (give away) far too much money to avoid this sort of corruption. I won't even get into the issue of tax breaks (eer wonder why pols react to the Flat Tax like a vampire to Holy Water?).

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"Some guys play in all-star games, some guys don't. I don't know who picks all those all-star teams. In all honesty, I don't know who picks the combine, for that matter," Belichick said. "How does (Miami-Ohio offensive lineman Brandon) Brooks not get invited to the combine? How did Vollmer not get invited to the combine? I don't know. We can't really worry about that. We just have to try to evaluate them the best we can."

PressCoverage

Conservatives: Property rights

Liberals: People's rights

patsfan13

Are you the king of meaningless slogans or something.

My guess is that most of the rich pubbies in congress earned their money and most of the dems inherited their's (Kohl and Lautenberg being notable exceptions.

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"Some guys play in all-star games, some guys don't. I don't know who picks all those all-star teams. In all honesty, I don't know who picks the combine, for that matter," Belichick said. "How does (Miami-Ohio offensive lineman Brandon) Brooks not get invited to the combine? How did Vollmer not get invited to the combine? I don't know. We can't really worry about that. We just have to try to evaluate them the best we can."

Patters

As the article states, Reid's purchase price probably was, but may not be low givenf the complexity of the deal, but his advocacy on behalf of lubricants is obviously unethical.

What the flat tax has to do with this is beyond me. By the way, there was an article in the New York Times a few days ago about a study that concluded that our actual tax rate, when all taxes are taken into account is flat (within a percent or two) for people earning between about $20,000 and $500,000. The article maintained the issue was mostly political posturing. It was quite interesting.

patsfan13

What does the Flat Tax have to do with this. Well rich lobbyist work congress for breaks for their (mostly rich individual/corporate) clinets. If their were a Flat Tax with a personal exemption only the tax breaks the conress could give and the reason for a lot of the lobbying that goes on would evaporate. This would reduce the amount of coruption.

As far as posturing goes, look at the effective tax rates paid by some of the rich as opposed to the theoretical rate.

I alway look to the Sultzbergs for an objective analysis of the effective of free market tax proposals.

Try reading some of S Forbes writings on the subject if you are inerested.

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"Some guys play in all-star games, some guys don't. I don't know who picks all those all-star teams. In all honesty, I don't know who picks the combine, for that matter," Belichick said. "How does (Miami-Ohio offensive lineman Brandon) Brooks not get invited to the combine? How did Vollmer not get invited to the combine? I don't know. We can't really worry about that. We just have to try to evaluate them the best we can."

wistahpatsfan

You forgot Bush.
Are you friggin kiddding me? You can draw a party-line distinction between something as universal as generational wealth in Congress? Wake up! THese boys and girls are all in it together. They're all rich and most of them were born rich. Dem or Repub, to separate one from the othe using this criteria is ridiculous. This is why the sheeple wake up believing one party is better than the other somehow. Chumps.

wistahpatsfan

Flat tax doesn't go far enough. The only fair tax is a consumption/sales tax and this, combined with term limits wil greatly reduce corruption. The only reason we haven't had a sales tax is, besides the fact that the rich get to screw everyone with massive write-offs, is that in the past, the paperwork for companies would have been too much. Now everything is digitally recorded - hardly any additional work involved.

DarrylS

There is little confidence the tax system will ever change in our lifetimes, there is too much of a vested interest in the status quo.. imagine if all of these millionaire guys and gals had to pay a flat tax on their income, w/o deductions or if they had to pay taxes on their consumption.. would back any party who introduced term limits, no retirement benefits and an alternative tax.

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Harry Boy

There are certain people that walk into a room and the minute you look at them you see a "Slinky Slimey Sneaky Weasle" that you wouldn't let carry your dirty laundry. HARRY REID is one of these people.

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Harry Boy (Genius)

In The Absence Of Law And Order Society Will Surely Destroy Itself