Cheat-Seeking Missles

Thursday, October 12, 2006

A Tacky Culture Of Corruption

First the good news -- not getting home last night until 2 a.m. was great because at 1 a.m. one of my clients received approval for a 1,500-home planned community.

I bring it up only because this client is involved in real estate development in a lot of places, but not in Las Vegas. The other day, we were laughing about the twisted misconception of development approvals -- the thought that envelopes of stuffed with cash were part of the process.

"This isn't New Jersey or Chicago," I said.

"Or Las Vegas," my client replied.

So Harry Reid's little scandal should come as no surprise to anyone who's done business in Vegas . In fact, Ed at Captains Quarters two months ago dug up another Reid real estate scandal. The story tells of heavy lifting by Reid to get a project over many, many federal hurdles that normally would have left more than half of the land undevelopable.

Getting around such obstacles through sound planning to avoid sensitive areas (at a loss of sometimes as much as 50% or more of the project site) and extensive (and expensive) environmental programs is how my clients go about winning projects approval. But Reid's friends got slippery language slipped into bills and strong-arming of federal officials. It didn't come cheap:
What did Reid get in exchange for all of this support? According to the Times, [developer] Whittemore contributed $45,000 to Reid and his PACs since 2000. He also gave the DSCC $20,000 in 2000, when it pushed Reid as a leader for the party in the Senate. Reid's son Josh got $5,000 for his unsuccessful campaign for a city council seat; his other son Rory got $5,000 for his successful effort to win a spot on the Clark County Board of Commissioners.
Against this background of a real culture of corruption with their party's top guy, the best the Left can come up with, I kid you not, is Reid made a $700,000 profit on the sale, not $1.1 million. So, I'm assuming that if Foley only mentally fondled 5 pages instead of 10, that scandal will to away, right?

hat-tip: memeorandum
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