Harry and the culture of corruption

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Stuck On Stupid

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.
–Albert Einstein

Harry Reid’s Corrupt Connections

After Harry Reid decided to call this Republican Congress the most corrupt in history I thought it might be a good idea to go into the Senate Minority Leaders questionable connections and possible illegal actions.

In Harry’s Words 12/18/2005:

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said today on ‘FOX News Sunday’ that this Republican-led Congress is “the most corrupt in history.” He went on to distance himself from lobbyist Jack Abramoff who is being investigated for illegal payoffs.

“Don’t lump me in with Jack Abramoff. This is a Republican scandal,” he said, and was adamant that he never received bribes from Abramoff. However, Reid, like many Democrats and Republicans, has received campaign contributions from Abramoff clients.

“America can do better than what we’ve done,” said Reid. “The most corrupt Congress in the history of the country. We have such significant problems with what’s going on in this country.”
Sorry Harry, you did accept $66,000 From Abramoff along with some other Dems.

Here are a few articles on Give’em Hell Harry (Reid):

This from The Captain’s Quarters:

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid sent a letter to Norton on March 5, 2002 … The next day, the Coushattas issued a $5,000 check to Reid’s tax-exempt political group, the Searchlight Leadership Fund. A second Abramoff tribe sent another $5,000 to Reid’s group. Reid ultimately received more than $66,000 in Abramoff-related donations between 2001 and 2004. …

An Ethics Complaint against Leaky Harry:

The American Conservative Union, the nation’s oldest and largest conservative grassroots organization, yesterday filed an ethics complaint against Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). The complaint comes in response to Sen. Reid’s May 12th reference to judicial nominee Henry Saad’s confidential FBI file on the floor of the United States Senate.

“Henry Saad would have been filibustered anyway…,” said Reid on the floor of the Senate. “All you need to do is have a member go upstairs and look at his confidential report from the FBI, and I think we would all agree that there is a problem there.”

According to Senate rules, Reid was prohibited from even accessing the FBI file, let alone publicly discussing the information held within. ACU filed the complaint with Ethics Committee Chairman George Voinovich (R-OH). The complaint also cites recent improper referencing of confidential materials by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Carl Levin (D-MI).

The Washington Times:

Add confidential FBI files that aren’t supposed to be discussed publicly to the list of things Democrats will use to try to block President Bush’s judicial nominees. Speaking on the Senate floor last week, Minority Leader Harry Reid referred to “a problem” in confidential files on Michigan Appeals Court Judge Henry Saad. “All you need to do is have a member go upstairs and look at his confidential report from the FBI, and I think we would all agree that there is a problem there,” he said. In so doing, Mr. Reid brought the battle over the president’s nominees to a new, character-assassinating low. But if Mr. Reid has been following the rules, he hasn’t even seen the files. He only knows about them through hearsay, some perfunctory news articles in the Detroit Free Press and the Gannett News Service a year ago or an apparent mistaken Internet broadcast of a Judiciary Committee hearing on Judge Saad.

And then there is this from The Las Vegas Review Journal:

The money that led to the indictment this week of two Las Vegas pastors and the wife of one of them came from federal grants arranged by Sen. Harry Reid in September 2001, a Reid spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Moving to distance Reid from a possible scandal, aide Tessa Hafen said the senator sought the money on behalf of a nonprofit social services agency and not for the churches or persons who have been accused of mishandling the money. Advertisement

“The money was administered by the Department of Justice, and it went to the agency in Nevada (Alliance Collegiums Association of Nevada),” Hafen said.

The Rev. Willie Davis, the longtime pastor of Second Baptist Church, and his wife, Emma, were indicted Tuesday on fraud charges with an associate minister, the Rev. McTheron Jones.

They are accused of spending $330,000 from federal grants on themselves although the money was intended for halfway houses for prison inmates in Southern Nevada.

The indictment identifies Willie Davis as president of the Alliance Collegiums Association of Nevada board of directors.

In late 2002, Emma Davis became executive director, and Jones was assistant director.

According to the indictment, a grant of $423,000 was approved for the alliance in September 2002.

The indictment charges the defendants of using the grant money to benefit themselves….

A Reid relationship with the Second Baptist Church surfaced in 1997, when the senator donated $250 to the church where Davis was and still is pastor.

The money came from John Huang, who was convicted of making illegal contributions to the 1996 re-election campaign of President Clinton.

At about the same time, Reid donated another $250 from Huang to the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Las Vegas.

Reid said he made the contributions to the churches instead of returning the money to Huang because he did not think Huang deserved it.

undefined said Reid has not made contributions to Davis or his church since 1997.

Reid has attended services at the Second Baptist Church “about three or four times” since 1997, Hafen said.

“He says hello to the pastor (Davis) when he goes to the church, but apart from that, the only other time he has seen him was in May when he met with about 30 or 40 ministers to organize a faith-based summit,” Hafen said.

A Reid relationship with the Second Baptist Church surfaced in 1997, when the senator donated $250 to the church where Davis was and still is pastor.

More on the scandal here:

According to the indictment, the defendants obtained a Justice Department grant in 2002, through a nonprofit organization called Alliance Collegiums Association of Nevada, to operate halfway houses for prison inmates in Southern Nevada.

“No halfway house was ever opened to receive inmates under the ACAN grant,” the indictment alleges.

The document identifies Willie Davis as president of the alliance’s board of directors. In late 2002, according to the indictment, Emma Davis became executive director and Jones became assistant director.

“At the time, Willie and Emma Davis were experiencing financial difficulties,” the indictment alleges. “Willie and Emma Davis filed for personal bankruptcy on or about December 3, 2002.”

According to the indictment, a one-year grant in the amount of $423,000 was approved for the alliance in September 2002 and funding began in December 2002. In June 2003, following allegations of misconduct, the Justice Department’s office of justice programs froze the grant funds.

“By that time, ACAN had withdrawn and eventually expended approximately $330,000 in federal grant funds,” the indictment alleges.

The document accuses the defendants of using the alliance grant to obtain financial benefits for themselves and others “that were not under the terms of the grant.”

For instance, according to the indictment:

• Emma Davis, Jones and others received pay for work that was not done.

• Jones was paid for writing the grant application.

• Willie Davis was paid a consultant fee.

• Emma Davis and Jones were given raises not allowed under the terms of the grant.

The indictment also claims the defendants used false documents, “including false time sheets and fictitious ACAN board minutes,” to disguise the nature of their fraudulent scheme. In addition, according to the indictment, they made false and misleading statements when interviewed by Justice Department investigators.

All three defendants face charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, mail fraud, theft of government property, making false statements to a government agency and obstruction of justice. Emma Davis also faces charges of bank fraud, bankruptcy fraud and misuse of a Social Security number.

According to the indictment, Willie Davis submitted an application for incorporation in October 2001 on behalf of the alliance with the Nevada secretary of state’s office. The application included names and signatures of members of the alliance’s board of directors, according to the indictment, but “two of the persons named on the list were not members of the board and had not signed the document.”

The false list of board members later was submitted by the defendants to the Justice Department in response to an inspector general subpoena, the indictment alleges.

…

Money Laundering comes to mind… How was Harry Involved? Let’s see he donated John Huang’s contributions to the Baptist church and none of his own money. By the way, Harry is a Mormon. Searchlight, Nevada must have a serious shortage of Church(s) Of The Latter Day Saints. Something isn’t right about Dingy Harry’s Connection with Willie Davis & Company.

The Nevada Republican Party has a Website dedicated to Harry’s lingering problems that the MSM ignores. The Reid World:

Senator Reid Embraces New Jersey’s Ethically Disappointing Senatorial Appointment Thursday, December 15, 2005

Chairman Paul F. Adams, Nevada Republican Party

Our embarrassing senior Senator Reid has not only embraced the far left of the democrat party, but he now blindly supports ethically disappointing east coast appointments. His support for the appointment of the suspiciously corrupt and crooked Menendez to the U.S. Senate is disturbing.

According to the New York Times “Mr. Menendez has failed to answer questions about his relationship with Kay LiCausi, a young former aide of his. He has helped her get hundreds of thousands of dollars in lobbying contracts and political consulting work.”

By embracing Mr. Menendez, Senator Reid demonstrates that he learned nothing from the corruption scandals surrounding his protégés Erin Kenny and Dario Herrera. Reid protégé Kenny has pled guilty to corruption charges and Reid protégé Herrera is awaiting trial after being indicted on corruption charges. Now we have our embarrassing senior Senator further ensnaring himself in east coast puppet strings by supporting an appointee which the New York Times called disappointing. (More details on Reid protégés Kenny and Herrera and links to the full NY Times article can be found at The Reid World, http://www.thereidworld.com)

This action further demonstrates that Senator Reid values partisan politics over fundamental principles. With each such hypocritical action, he reduces his credibility in Nevada. He may have campaigned as being ‘Independent like Nevada’ but he is independent no more.

An Excerpt From an LA Times Article:

(Note: these articles are now archived)

In Nevada, Reid Is the Name to Know Members of one lawmaker’s family represent nearly every major industry in their home state. And their clients rely on his goodwill. By Chuck Neubauer and Richard T. Cooper, Times Staff Writers June 23, 2003

WASHINGTON — It was the kind of legislation that slips under the radar here.

The name alone made the eyes glaze over: “The Clark County Conservation of Public Land and Natural Resources Act of 2002.” In a welter of technical jargon, it dealt with boundary shifts, land trades and other arcane matters — all in Nevada.

As he introduced it, Nevada’s senior U.S. senator, Democrat Harry Reid, assured colleagues that his bill was a bipartisan measure to protect the environment and help the economy in America’s fastest-growing state.

What Reid did not explain was that the bill promised a cavalcade of benefits to real estate developers, corporations and local institutions that were paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in lobbying fees to his sons’ and son-in-law’s firms, federal lobbyist reports show….

MINES: Mines such as Barrick Goldstrike have benefited from Sen. [Harry Reid]’s advocacy in the Senate. The Nevada Mining Assn., gave him a lifetime achievement award. Industry leaders have paid his son- in-law’s firms nearly $1 million for lobbying….
TOURISM: Sen. Reid fought Grand Canyon flight restrictions. One operator was a client of his son-in- law.
EXCHANGES: The firm that, with Sen. Reid’s aid, traded hilly land for federal parcels near Las Vegas also hired his son-in-law.
LAND DEVELOPMENT: Sen. Reid tried and failed to move a right-of-way for power lines to aid Nevada developers led by a friend who is a partner at the firm where Reid’s sons work.
UNTROUBLED: “It is not as if a lot of cash is changing hands,” Sen. Harry Reid says.

[…]

Harry has a blog-Give ‘Em Hell Harry Check out the comments sections of the posts.

Harry’s Explanation for his non support of The Patriot Act:

I will vote against the motion to invoke cloture on the PATRIOT Act conference report. Rather than cut off debate on this flawed bill, we should work harder to achieve a strong, bipartisan PATRIOT Act that strengthens national security while protecting the privacy of innocent Americans.

Earlier this year, after negotiations that went late into the night, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill to reauthorize and improve the PATRIOT Act. Soon after, the full Senate passed this bill by unanimous consent. Every Senator � Democrat and Republican � approved this reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act. Every one of us is firmly on record in support of giving law enforcement the appropriate tools to fight terrorism.

Unfortunately, the spirit of bipartisanship that led to passage of the Senate bill did not prevail in conference. Not long after the House appointed conferees, Democratic negotiators were shut out of the discussions. The final bill was written by Republican conferees working behind closed doors with Justice Department lawyers. The result was an imbalanced conference report that departed significantly from the bipartisan Senate bill…..

Harry, the American citizens will hold you and your party responsible for any future attacks on our homeland. The Patriot act is a vital tool in protecting us against those that want to kill us. When will you see that politics should not come before our safety? If you truly cared about the American people, you would stand up for what is in the best interest of us, not the terrorist .Your party has now become the defenders of the terrorist . Let’s not abuse these insurgents that wear no military uniform, that would be torture, but they can behead our people. Your party will continue to lose national elections, because Democrats just don’t get it. You have become the Surrendercrat party.

Harry Lives in a glass house. He would be better off shutting up for the benefit of the Democrat Party.

My advice to Harry: Please keep on doing what you are doing. You are a huge benefit to the GOP.

Linked to: Michelle Malkin, IsIt Just Me?, The Captain’s Quarters, The Real Ugly American, Basil’s Blog
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Posted by George on January 11, 2006 08:15 AM | Permalink