Posted on 09/26/2008 5:20:53 PM PDT by mdittmar
Nevada Senator Harry Reid today spoke about the need to pass legislation quickly that addresses the financial crisis in a responsible way that strengthens our national economy while helping middle-class Nevadans who are struggling. Reid urged House Republicans to join in the bipartisan negotiations currently taking place in the Senate.
"We will work with the President to modify his plan to make it better for tax payers and homeowners,” said Reid adding, “We will demand tough oversight to make sure tax dollars are not used to reward CEO’s who created this mess.” Reid urged House Republicans to join bipartisan deliberations to address the financial crisis and work toward focused solutions, not photo ops or political stunts.
Where was he 5 years ago?
Translation, I need $50 to $150 billion for my store front leftist organizations, and I don’t want anyone to know how much graft I added to this fix.
Nevada can't even fund schools
Thanks to your no drilling Policy Vegas has massive layoffs
No gambling revenues
Is there a “Duh” ping list I can start up?
Reid just wants to make sure McCain gets no credit for whatever happens.
"Words, words, its only words"
Go home Harry. We’ll call you if we need you.
This is from the guy who a few days ago said, “We don’t know what to do.”
The Repubs must insist that the final bill be posted online for all to see.
Then it had damn well better take some time and be scrutinized thoroughly for Harry Reid isn't capable at his age to get his brains back after all those years of being stuck on stupid.
More talk from Dingy,was he in the Capital Building doing work at all today?
Funny how they NEED Republicans now, isn’t it? They never needed them before.
What a pile of excrement Reid is. He and that squishy bag of dung Barney Frank should be impeached, imprisioned, and impaled (prison-style, if you know what I mean).
Casino owners need cash.
That would be a first.
His one honest moment as a liberal politician....and THAT was synonymous to a stopped watch being accurate twice a day.
Well stated! Harry POS Reid BUMP!
Why are the dems so anxious to get this done? I don’t remember them agreeing with Bush very often.
Nah, Barney would like that.
IOW: Democratic Majority Leader asks Democratic majority to follow his lead and vote for his plan
Reid got his depends in a wedgie!
All have Reid pegged. He is bought and paid for by Vegas unions.
I cannot even listen to this fool when they have him on TV. I hit the mute button. He makes me sick!!!!!
The dems are a lot like the Taliban and al qaida. Hide behind civilians and whoever else can provide you protection.
Harry, you whiney little sh!t, kiss my a$$ and go back to your hole. Why, oh why have the people of Nevada kept electing this cretin?
Reid and Pelosi need to offer up Dodd and Franks as sacrificial offerings to the masses.
Guy can't think beyond his own constituency. Last I knew there were middle-class people (and poor) in the other 49 states that are struggling. Maybe they added another 8 states while I wasn't looking?
Reid Calls For Swift Action To Address Financial Crisis?
more like :
Reid Calls For Swift Fleecing of Tax Payers To Address Financial Crisis!
Swift action? How about the swift resignation of your office, Pelosi steps down, Dodd stands down, and Frank stands down...hand in your resignations and stay the hell out of office for the rest of your lives.
“...work toward focused solutions, not photo ops or political stunts.”
like make our shale oil resources off limits?
A put-a-gun-to-your-head horrid, awful, nagging song from the '70s keeps playing through MY head:
"Seasons In The Sun" by Terry Jacks.
LOL!! You got that right!
Don't we all?
Me thinks that I.O.U's aren't cutting it anymore and this bill is a last ditch effort to rally those financial conservatives and the liberal spenders so the conservative thriftmizers can bail out the wanton millionaires who don't know how to become a millionaire on their own via hard work and personal sacrifice via taking risk.
Sadly enough true liberal democrat's don't know what risk is, hate work, and demand comfort financially and until now have got it.
Liberal: Just DAMN! They won't take my CC anymore because they say it's over maximum.
Liberal politicians: First thing's first, we need to stay in power and do what it takes to insure that we do. Just DAMN, lets make sure that this demise for our constituents creates a bill that doesn't slam us out of power and easy living!
Conservative: DAMN, I've worked my a$$ off tried to help those in need via compassion and in my own way, but I can't even think for myself anymore financially for all I have earned is taken away by a Washington decision via politicians who are the peoples representatives.
I am just having a real hard time understanding what the rush is with all of this. I understand 6 versions of why-but who is really driving this? And it’s not W or Paulson. Who’s pulling their chain and why?
Real Life Example No. 1: In the early 1990s a helpless corporation, Del Webb, wanted to realize its personal dream and develop some land outside Las Vegas. There was just one problem: the government owned much of it and it wasn’t for sale! Employing the simple Reid Estate wealth building system, Del Webb hired a former Reid aide, donated $18,000 to Harry Reid’s campaign fund and then did the obvious next thing: it purchased “environmentally sensitive” lands 400 miles away near Lake Tahoe. After two letters to the Interior Department from Sen. Reid and a personal meeting organized by him, at which a government employee said he felt “pressured” by Reid, the Interior Department allowed Del Webb and its partners to swap that environmentally valuable land near Lake Tahoe for the environmentally worthless (but commercially valuable) land in Las Vegas. Reid claims to have done nothing unusual.
BAM! Instant value. IT’S JUST THAT EASY TO MAKE MONEY IN REID ESTATE!
Real Life Example No. 2: In a remarkable coincidence, land adjoining the above “swapped” land was then sold by a Del Webb partner to … Sen. Harry Reid and his partner, Jay Brown. The transaction was at fair market value, Reid later stated. Mr. Brown, described by the Associated Press as a “casino lawyer” whose “name has surfaced in federal investigations involving organized crime, casinos and political bribery,” and Sen. Reid wished to develop the land as a strip mall—which would have a much fairer market value than the land they bought, which was zoned strictly residential. A Reid Estate rezoning was called for!
But first Sen. Reid sold his land (for the exact price he had paid for it) to “Patrick Lane,” a limited liability corporation created by Mr. Brown, in exchange for a share of that limited liability corporation. This move created no net value, but coincidentally resulted in Reid’s name being removed from the deed before Mr. Brown went publicly before the zoning board to represent Patrick Lane LLC, a corporation that somehow omitted Mr. Reid’s name from any of its public corporate filings.
When the first board rejected the rezoning as “inconsistent” with Clark County’s Master Development Plan, Brown appealed and the Clark County Zoning Board and the Clark County Commission overruled the decision. Coincidentally, Mr. Brown’s agent had stated to commissioners during the appeal, “Mr. Brown’s partner is Harry Reid, so I think we have people in this community who you can trust to go forward and put a quality project before you.” Strange—that Reid’s name was so carefully removed from legal documents and then dropped casually in the halls of government—and right before the commission overruled the previous decision. Well, the important thing is that the residential land Reid bought for $400,000 was soon sold for $1.1 million (Reid’s part) as a commercial property. And all because Sen. Reid did nothing unusual. That’s the power of the Reid Estate system! Let the wheels of government grind away your financial worries!
Real Life Example No. 3: But even the first two examples are nothing compared to the experience of one Harvey Whittemore, a simple lobbyist and long-time practitioner of the Reid Estate system. Whittemore inadvertently got a great deal on a 42,832-acre property once intended as a missile test range. The land was a development nightmare, because it was infested with the endangered Desert Tortoise and the entire road frontage along U.S. 93 was blocked by a mile-wide power line corridor leased to the federal government. Either one of these problems alone might take an act of Congress to solve. But Harvey Whittemore had that in mind all along! Whittemore understood the importance of “Step 2” of the system: “Hire a Reid, invest with a Reid, contribute to a Reid, but above all know a Reid!”—and he had all the bases covered.
“You have to understand how close the Whittemore and Reid families are,” Whittemore told the Los Angeles Times. “My relationship with Sen. Reid goes back decades.” In addition, Whittemore’s personal attorney is Leif Reid, the senator’s son. Rory Reid, another of the senator’s sons and head of the Nevada Democrat Party during the Clark County Commission’s decision to rezone his father’s property, was made a partner in Whittemore’s law firm. In fact, all four of Reid’s sons (Rory, Leif, Josh and Key) have worked for the firm during their careers. Whittemore has given tens of thousands of dollars to Harry Reid’s campaigns, thousands to Rory Reid’s successful campaign to be elected to the Clark County Commission, and thousands to Josh Reid’s unsuccessful bid to be elected to the city council of Cottonwood Heights, Utah.
Although neither Sen. Reid nor Leif Reid intervened on his behalf, according to Sen. Reid, the Bureau of Land Management gave Whittemore clear title to 10,000-acre rent-free lease constituting the Desert Tortoise Preserve in the middle of the site, in exchange for 10,000 acres on the eastern edge of the 5-mile by 13-mile tract. Local officials of the Interior Department objected to this minor “boundary adjustment” of the preserve, but were overruled by Washington. The Desert Tortoises, it turns out, were willing to move to the Mormon Mountains.
The federal power corridor was a bigger problem. But after Sen. Reid inserted a measure into a federal land bill opening up the property across the highway for the corridor, then repeatedly inserted a provision into bills to move the corridor across the highway, that pesky 15-square-mile corridor just disappeared. At first, this was to be a gift from the government to Mr. Whittemore, but after a minor stink was raised, Whittemore offered to pay $160,000 for the 15-square-mile improvement. Eventually, he was forced to pay the $10.4 million that government appraisers said the change was actually worth.
But that was still a bargain, since together the federal changes to the corridor and the Desert (and Mountain) Tortoise habitat freed up more than 20,000 acres of highway-accessible Reid Estate for a development that will eventually include 159,000 homes, 16 golf courses (several by Jack Nicklaus), and all the associated strip malls this new city will require. I suggest they call it “Tortuga Hills.”
But there was one last obstacle to clear. The EPA suddenly decided that bulldozing desert streambeds, as proposed, might be bad for the streambed environment. A flurry of calls from Sen. Reid arranged meetings between the EPA, Whittemore and Leif Reid. Nevada’s junior senator, Republican John Ensign, was enlisted in the cause, clearing the way for the senior senator, Harry Reid, to also become more directly involved in talking to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson. Can you guess what the outcome was? That’s right—the system worked. The Harry Reid Real Estate Investment System, that is. The project proceeded with minimal changes.
There are other examples, as well. But you can see how this simple investment system, accessible by every citizen (no mater how unconnected), works to create millions and millions of dollars of new government-unleashed wealth for its practitioners
How successful is the system for its inventor, Sen. Harry Reid? So successful he doesn’t even remember how much land he owns anymore! He’s constantly “remembering” old parcels just before the ethics committee asks about them. Such oversight is often the result of “clerical errors”—just like Sen. Reid accidentally paying personal obligations with campaign funds was the result of “clerical errors.” “Clerical errors” are soon to be added as “Step 4” of the system: “What to claim upon getting caught using the system.”
In fact, the system is so successful that Harry Reid, that beacon of morality from Searchlight, Nev., can now stop worrying about money altogether, and concentrate on his true calling: fighting the “culture of corruption” in Republican Washington.
Get with the system! It works for Harry, Harry’s friends, Harry’s sons, and even Harry’s son-in-law—but that’s a whole other (998 acre) story. The system can work for you, too.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=17582
Re Dell Webb - I remember hearing something about that corp in connection with some land development for senior citizens years ago but I thought that was in Arizona. Was raising babies, working, traveling on business and trying to get a degree at that time so politics wasn’t on the agenda. This article is just plain scary. I simply can’t understand why nothing ever comes of stuff like this. It is so bizarre that it borders on unbelievable. Simply amazing! Thanks for sharing.
Memo for Harry: Senator, maybe if you'd stop accusing the House Republicans of "photo ops and political stunts", and listened to their concerns, you might get closer to the "bi-partisan" result you claim to want.
Rule of thumb when Dems say, “We’ve got to act fast and pass this Bill.”: Read the Bill!
“I am just having a real hard time understanding what the rush is with all of this.”
Exactly. Thursday even Charles Krauthamer was saying that if Congress didn’t act quickly, the market would panic and plummet. Friday came and went and I believe the market was up a few points—without a deal in place.
I can only surmise that this is just one more bad piece of legislation coming down the pike and that the Dems will once more pass the “savings” along to their constituents (ACORN, LaRaza, bailout of the foreclosed lower-class).
Men and women of the GOP House, please, please, please read the bill slowly, carefully. Bring light to all earmarks. Come before cameras and say, “We’re almost there, America, but the ‘loyal’ Dems have some provisions that we simply cannot abide by [and here’s why]. I urge you to contact them for their removal so that we can approve a good, healthy piece of legislation and move our country forward.”
It would be helpful, too, if McCain would go up to Washington this morning, sit down with the House GOP members and say, “All right, what’s the hold-up? How can I help? I’ve got a bunch of men with cameras waiting for me outside that door; is there anything you want me to say to the American people?”
Last night, McCain was beating on his podioum talking about corruption. This is a time to come out and point out a classic example [brought to America by the ‘loyal’, but misguided Democratic party].
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This link should be shouted from the rooftops: