The biggest scoundrel in Nevada isn't rancher Ted Bundy, no matter what you read in the lemming-like media. Fellow Nevadian Harry Reid holds that distinction. The Senate Majority Leader has left a political trail of stench worse than those cow pies deposited by Bundy's cattle.
While Bundy was vilified in the media for his dispute with the bellicose Bureau of Land Management, the newsrooms were silent after social media reports began to circulate about the diminutive senator's unseemly involvement in a Chinese energy company's failed $5 billion solar project.
Bundy and the Chinese firm became linked when some accounts claimed the solar project would have been located next to the grazing land occupied by the rancher's cattle. For the record, the solar plant would have been constructed 180 miles away. But that has no bearing on the scandal.
There were ample reasons for the news media to scrutinize the sleazy senator's connections with the ENN Group, the largest energy company in China led by billionaire tycoon Wang Yusuo. The "clean energy" firm operates more than 100 subsidiaries around the world.
Working behind the scenes, the droll senator lured the foreign giant to build a solar plant in Nevada during a 2011 junket to China and then supplied the political muscle to get the project built. Within months of the trip, the senator's son Rory Reid landed a lucrative contract for his law firm to represent ENN Group.
According to a Reuters report on August 31, 2012, the alien energy company was able to purchase a 9,000-acre site near Laughlin "well below the appraised value from Clark County." Guess who was the former chairman of the county commission? That's right. Rory Reid.
Upon further inspection, the transaction could be called a steal for ENN. Reid's son cobbled together a deal to purchase the site for $4.5 million. That was a mere fraction of the acreage's appraised value that ranged from $29.6 million to $38.6 million on the county tax rolls.
The Chinese-backed company pulled the plug on the multi-billion dollar project in June of last year after it was unable to find customers for the solar power that was to be generated. When the project went up in smoke, the county was stuck with trying to unload the acreage.
This isn't dirty Harry Reid's first brush with shady land deals. In 2004, the mumble-mouthed Reid pocketed a cool $700,000 from a sale of land that he didn't technically own. A complex legal covenant with a holding company enabled Reid to get rich in the unorthodox purchase.
The Los Angeles Times reported in November of 2006 that the stilted Senate Majority Leader snuck $18 million in the federal budget for a bridge in Nevada. The project wasn't a priority of Nevada's transportation agency. But that didn't matter to Reid because he owned 160 acres nearby and stood to benefit financially.
Dubious land shams are only part of Reid's shenanigans. This month a Nevada power broker was convicted in U.S. District Court of illegally funneling $150,000 to the senator's re-election campaign in 2007. The campaign bigwig headed up a billion dollar real estate firm.
But Harry is nothing if not hypocritical. Using the cloak of Congressional immunity, Reid stood on the floor of the Senate and smeared businessmen Charles and David Koch as "un-American" for supporting Republicans and their causes. It wasn't long after the tirade that OpenSecrets.org revealed that the Koch brothers had lavishly donated to at least 36 Democrats in Congress.
Wonder why humbug Harry never complained that the brothers were trying to "buy" Democrats?
It should come as no surprise that Harry Reid recently landed on the Judicial Watch's list of "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians." He wasn't number one. But he certainly has done everything in his power to earn that spot.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment