Hello and Goodbye

I’m in.

Suzanne at 98 — thanks for taking the time to talk with him. Hope your parents will take a peek at him — he’s a great candidate, and I’d love to see Mary Bono given her walking papers.

Thank you all for giving Roth such a great forum, hey, for all the candidates you do this for. You, Pach, Jane, Howie, et.al., are simply brilliant, and you make me proud of America.

Even Professor Reynolds sees this dog wont hunt:

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid collected a $1.1 million windfall on a Las Vegas land sale even though he hadn’t personally owned the property for three years, property deeds show.

. . . UPDATE: Reader Anthony Calabrese thinks there’s probably less here than the AP story suggests:

I am a long time reader — also a tax lawyer. While my practice does not involve real estate investments, I think it may be much ado about nothing. Generally, if you transfer property to a company in return for an interest in the company, there is no federal income tax on the transfer. If the company was an LLC (as stated in the media reports), the company was probably a partnership for tax purposes. There would be no LLC level tax as profits and losses would pass through to the partners.

So I can see no real tax issue. The only issue is that Reid might have been hiding his ownership of the property, but holding investment property in an LLC is fairly common in order to protect the owners from torts or bankruptcy. I think this is simply an issue of someone forgetting to file a form.

Good for Professor Reynolds.

looks like reids in trouble

The complex dealings allowed Reid to transfer ownership, legal liability and some tax consequences to Brown’s company without public knowledge, but still collect a seven-figure payoff nearly three years later.

I guess we’re gonna loose that seat.

ummm, no (via Kos): LINK

The latest Reid hit piece Hotlist
by kos
Wed Oct 11, 2006 at 02:58:29 PM PDT

The AP’s John Solomon, the go-to guy at the Associated Press for any anti-Democratic efforts, and this piece is absolute crap. The crux of the claim:

In 2001, Reid sold the land for the same price to a limited liability corporation created by Brown. The senator didn’t disclose the sale on his annual public ethics report or tell Congress he had any stake in Brown’s company. He continued to report to Congress that he personally owned the land.

Actually, he did own that land. It just so happened that three years ago, he transfered the property from his own personal name to that of an LLC.

After getting local officials to rezone the property for a shopping center, Brown’s company sold the land in 2004 to other developers and Reid took $1.1 million of the proceeds, nearly tripling the senator’s investment. Reid reported it to Congress as a personal land sale.

[…]

And btw, this was all disclosed to the ethics committee. The place were things got sloppy is that Reid continued to disclose ownership of the land as a personal asset rather than ownership in the LLC which owned the land. But that’s it. Fact is, the LLC had no other assets other than this piece of land, and Reid disclosed ownership of the piece of land.

Solomon is either being dishonest or an idiot. But watch the wingers and GOP try to gain traction off this story to divert from their coddling of a sexual predator.

[…]

Ultimately, there might be a technical violation of Senate rules — Reid has asked for clarification from the ethics committee. But bottom line is that Reid followed the spirit of the law.

http://www.firedoglake.com/200…..r/#respond

Mitch Ogron, Real Estate Attorney who found the land purchased by Reid and Brown

Senator Reid and Jay Brown asked me to help find real estate for investment. I found the property they ultimately purchased and arranged
the deal for them. PermaBilt, ALC, and Del Webb played absolutely no role in the deal. In fact, Senator Reid and Jay Brown never even had direct contact with the owners of the real estate throughout the transaction. The details were handled by me, the title company, and the escrow agent. This was a simple and straightforward transaction.