Florida Republican Representative Resigns Effective Immediately

[GePap]

A sex scandal needs no actual intercourse to be a scandal, and it certainly needs no criminality to be a scandal either. Any hint of sex, the possibility of sex, that is by itself enough.

[Drake Tungsten]

Lame...

[Barnabas]

He was talking about big bulges for christ´s sake, thats a sex scandal

[Sikander]

Wow, I'm glad to see that this thread hasn't gone downhill since I left last week.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Calling it a "corruption" scandal was unjustified hyperbole on my part, to make fun of the the Foley "sex" or "pedophilia" scandal. It doesn't look like Reid did anything corrupt in this case (it's certainly not as worrying as his links to Abramoff), but he does seem to having broken some Senate ethics rules.

His ties to Brown (under investigation for organized criminal activities and bribery) are equally worrisome.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

NY POST OPED

REID'S SMELLY WINDFALL
BACK-$CRATCHING WITH DEVELOPERS
By ED MORRISSEY
Reid: Failed to disclose embarrassing info.

October 16, 2006 -- SENATE Minority Leader Harry Reid's ethics woes continue to mount. An Associated Press expose shows that Reid pushed through changes in federal law that helped the senator get rich - via complex land deals with a lobbyist who's also tied up in a federal bribery case.

Reid has now told the Senate Ethics Committee that he'll amend his past disclosure statements to for the first time cover the business relationships that AP has exposed. But he calls the amendment "technical" - which suggests it won't explain why his original "disclosures" misled the public on the nature of a partnership that made him a $700,000 windfall.

It isn't the first time Harry Reid's ties to real-estate developers have caused people to question the senator's ethics.

Back in August, the Los Angeles Times exposed Reid's questionable involvement and compensation in another Nevada real-estate deal. Harvey Whittemore, a lobbyist and real-estate investor, had plied Reid with campaign contributions and employed Reid's family members. The senator, in turn, helped Whittemore bulldoze through a host of environmental regulations in developing a huge parcel outside Las Vegas, to profit in the tens of millions.

What Reid failed to disclose was his 2001 transfer of ownership of two parcels of land to Patrick Lane LLC - an entity in which he was partnered with one Jay Brown.

AP notes that Brown is a lobbyist, with reported links to organized crime. And he figures prominently in a federal criminal case - which concerns the bribery of members of the Clark County (Nev.) Zoning Commission by developers seeking changes to permit retail development on land they owned, vastly increasing its value.

As it happens, in 2001, the Clark County (Nev.) Zoning Commission approved a zoning change that allowed commercial/retail development on the land that Reid owned with Brown.

Then, the next year, Reid introduced and pushed into law the Clark County Conservation of Public Land and Natural Resources Act of 2002. The senator heralded this as vital in protecting the environment near Las Vegas. In fact, however, the law forced the Department of the Interior to sell off 18,000 acres of land around Las Vegas, spurring development and boosting the value of real-estate investments in the region. (Not what anyone normally associates with "protecting the environment.")

Normally, the government would have to sell this land at auction, as land swaps had lost the federal government millions in southern Nevada. But Reid insisted on suspending that rule in his Clark County act. The developers that hired his sons as lobbyists prospered with the lower-cost acquisitions of prime real estate through the uneven swaps. Also in the money were those - like Harry Reid himself - who'd already invested money in Clark County real estate.

The L.A. Times revealed the Reid family's extensive connections with Clark County developers in June 2003, as well as Reid's extensive legislative interest in the land, but the Brown-Reid investment had not yet come to light - thanks to Reid's failure to disclose.

Had the investment been known, voters could have made the connection. The Senate Ethics Committee might have taken an interest as well - except that Harry Reid himself sat as the top Democrat on that panel.

Disclosures now are pointless. The ethics panel needs to order a full investigation not just into the $700,000 profit, but all of Reid's business partners and any legislation or intervention with federal regulators Reid pushed on their behalf.

Ed Morrissey blogs at captainsquartersblog.com, from which this is adapted.

[Arrian]

It certainly gives off a certain unpleasant odor, doesn't it?

The NY Post is a rag, but there is plenty of smoke here for me.

Reid

-Arrian

[Drake Tungsten]

His ties to Brown (under investigation for organized criminal activities and bribery) are equally worrisome.

True, but I don't think this particular case is going to shine any light on whatever shady dealings Reid may or may not have with Brown.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Why? Are you implying willful negligence on the part of MSM to follow up what at first glance would appear to be a juicy story full of abuses of legislative power for personal gain?

Shocked I am, that you would imply such a thing.

[Drake Tungsten]

Are you implying willful negligence on the part of MSM to follow up what at first glance would appear to be a juicy story full of abuses of legislative power for personal gain?

Not particularly. I just have a feeling that this particular ethics violation isn't going to lead back to some shockingly corrupt relationship between Brown and Reid if investigated. I wouldn't be surprised if a relationship like that did exist, but I don't think it would be uncovered so easily. Reid is smart, like DeLay...

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

I actually agree, but felt the need for a perfunctory swipe at MSM nevertheless.

[Ramo]

NY Post Opinion piece...

[Ramo]

The irony of this whole situation is that DeLay's new regime and his K-Street Project denied Congressional Dems the power to be all that corrupt, and now the GOP is desperately grasping at straws to demonstrate ethical equivalence.

[pchang]

Mr. Weldon

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-weldon17oct17,0,5512306.story?coll=la-home-nation

was doing some bad things and it looks like these charges will stick.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Ramo
Can someone explain to me what the Reid "corruption" scandal is all about? He told the relevant Senate committee that a LLC he had a stake in was actually personal ownership, which it can be considered as for tax purposes (and, indeed, is clearly more transparent than listing it as a LLC). There's no evidence that he used his power to increase the land's value, etc. So what, exactly, is the big deal?

The big deal is the Republicans are drowning in a sea of corruption which they themselves made and 3 weeks before the election they're trying to find something, anything which they can use to keep in power. They're trying to invent a scandal because they desperately need something to distract people with after the Folleygate scandal (where the leadership knew all about it for years but never did anything to protect the children from a preditor) and from a half dozen other real offenses including Neys' up coming sentencing.