This report does not look good for Harry Reid:
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.
In the process, Reid did not disclose to Congress an earlier sale in which he transferred his land to a company created by a friend and took a financial stake in that company, according to records and interviews.
The Nevada Democrat’s deal was engineered by Jay Brown, a longtime friend and former casino lawyer whose name surfaced in a major political bribery trial this summer and in other prior organized crime investigations. He’s never been charged with wrongdoing _ except for a 1981 federal securities complaint that was settled out of court.
I have not been following this (I remember rumblings about this months ago), so I really have nothing to offer. Although I will join Red State and the GOP when they inevitably ‘question the timing’ of this report.
Oh, wait. Reid is a Democrat. My bad.
In all seriousness, if this report demonstrates nothing else, it does just go to show that members of Congress simply don’t live like the rest of us do. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have any friends cutting me in casually on million-dollar land deals. I think it is a big deal when one of my friends picks up the tab at the martini bar.
*** Update ***
The Instapundit has a reader whjo states it is nothing but a form oversight, and no tax issue, so I am assuming this is just a hit piece. It seems to have worked, as Glenn states:
“With Republicans, it’s sex. With Democrats, it’s money.”
Notwithstanding the fact that Glenn’s own reader claims it is bullshit and therefore there is NO MONEY ISSUE, I would argue the party of DeLay, Cunningham, Abramoff might want to keep corruption/money charges quiet. Kinda reminds me of this, though:
Pixie
If he’s a crook, then he needs to get what he deserves, just like the rest of the Republican party =P
The Other Steve
Well I for one am not going to vote for Harry Reid this year!
Pb
This just looks sloppy to me, at worst. If it were some sort of intentional criminal act, then I’d hope he’d do a better job at it, or benefit more from it. It sounds like Reid’s friend probably set up or used a shell corporation to hold the land:
Don’t get me wrong, if you want to crack down on this sort of thing, and enforce reporting requirements, I’m all for it. Do it across the board, close the loopholes, and go after the crooks. I’d love to see fewer BCCIs and Enrons and Duke Cunninghams out there. But as financial scandals go, this one sounds pretty weak so far.
p.lukasiak
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.
which sounds really bad…. but the reality isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds.
Although Reid continued to list the land as personal property in his disclosure forms, he’s transferred actual ownership to a partnership with a friend who owned an adjoining parcel. Three years later, the land was sold at a profit — but not a $1.1 million dollar profit, since Reid had bought the land for $400K (and paid taxes on it for years). Nobody (as John suggests) “casually cut Reid in” on a million dollar land deal.
What Reid did that was “wrong” was not filling out the disclosure forms correctly—and thats it.
chopper
‘not having personally owned the property’ at the time of the sale is meaningless if he sold it to a company. people transfer property to companies they have a stake in all the time, and if the company makes cash of a sale of its assets a holder of the company is obviously invited to share in the windfall.
the problem here would be his lack of disclosure of the earlier sale. there may be a lack of rules that apply since he sold it to a company he had a financial stake in (almost selling it to himself in a way), but it still would have been proper to disclose the earlier sale.
ThymeZone
How does this compare with Denny Hastert’s Prairie Parkway land deal?
Hastert bought the land in his wife’s name and then sat by while a sweetheart “earmark” deal apparently shifted the major highway closer to his land parcel. His “farm” was landlocked until a road miraculously appeared to open it up to the outside world.
Steve
The reporting issue is extremely small potatoes in the sense that there’s nothing shady about it. As far as anyone knew, he continued to own the land personally – and given that he was paying the property taxes out of personal funds and that he personally received proceeds from the share, that appears to have been the economic reality of the deal, even if the legal arrangement involves some kind of corporate shell.
The real part of this story which is “unlike how you and I live” is that the land was zoned residential, the local zoning board wanted to keep it residential, but by the sheer magic of dropping Harry Reid’s name (or maybe something shadier) Reid’s business partner was able to get it rezoned commercial, which is where the profit comes from. It’s normal zoning politics, the way it’s played all across America, but it would be nice if the rest of us got to play sometime.
Dan
The question is, did he send sexually charged IM’s to any underage Prairie Dogs? Now, THAT would be a scandal to rival the Republican scandals. :)
p.lukasiak
from re-reading it, my guess is that Reid probably thought he still owned the land — that the partnership existed solely to market the property as a single parcel of land. When he “sold” the land to the partnership, no money changed hands — he still held the deed, and Reid thought that the papers he was signing were an agreement to sell the land to the partnership if the partnership “sold” the combined parcel to a third party.
p.lukasiak
I wonder if Cole bothered to read the whole article…. because those of us who have read the whole thing recognize it as the smear job it is…..
Mike S
Soloman is well known for his smear jobs. I’ll wait for a real reporter to cover it.
Thomas
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the informal understanding may have allowed Reid to have it both ways. If the land’s value went down, he exchanged it for $400,000 to the developer. If it went up, it was worth the market value. I don’t know if that’s illegal, though, but it’s somewhat unseemly.
Steve
Yeah, but you know what, you have lawyers and other professionals to sort these things out for you. It’s not like Harry Reid sits down each year to personally complete all his disclosure forms from memory.
There doesn’t seem to be any “scandal” here, but it is illustrative of the way that Congress imposes huge reporting requirements on everyone else (like Sarbanes-Oxley) but freely shrugs off the reporting requirements that apply to itself.
Even if there was no corruption in this particular deal, shoddy reporting is often used as a way to hide corruption, and thus more attention should be paid to the problem.
Pb
You’ve got a martini bar? Elitist.
ThymeZone
Clearly, just a try at deflecting from the Hastert land scandal.
Punchy
You drink at a martini bar? You Foley.
Steve
Well, no money changed hands other than in the initial sale, so the “informal understanding” didn’t have any real effect. At the end of the day, if the land had dropped in value and Reid’s partner had bought him out for some figure in excess of market value, it would have been equally disclosable.
I think the real point, though, is that when you have the political “juice” with the local authorities, you know the value of the land isn’t going down. Heck, even if they hadn’t gotten the rezoning, Las Vegas is a huge boom town so I’d have to think the real estate would have been a good investment either way.
Steve
How about this one?
It’s all dirty pool, mind you, the only question is one of degree. But by my personal moral compass, using your power as a legislator to change the laws for your own financial benefit is pretty bad stuff. Having your business partner drop your name in order to grease the wheels at the local zoning commission isn’t really fair, but I don’t think it measures up.
Geek, Esq.
The only issue I see is the missed Senate reporting requirement. He essentially bought land and wound up reselling it for a higher price, with an intermediate investment company step in between.
The AP is making this sound WAY more nefarious than it is.
Dug Jay
For Reid, the more serious and ominous part of this story is that it represents the first media attention accorded his “partner,” Jay Brown.
This guy Brown makes Jack Abramoff look like a rank amateur.
Steve
Yeah, cause Abramoff is doing 5 years in the can, while this guy has never even been charged with anything… oh, but wait, his name has “surfaced” during investigations! He must be far, far worse than the guy who sold access to the White House and had the Interior Department at his beck and call!
Dug Jay
Good old Steve missed the entire point in my earlier comment. Making Abramoff look like an amateur was, in part, a recognition of what Steve said, namely, Brown has escaped charges notwithstanding literally dozens of “encounters” with questionable practices. Check out our local Las Vegas coverage over the past couple of decades.
Ugh
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the informal understanding may have allowed Reid to have it both ways. If the land’s value went down, he exchanged it for $400,000 to the developer. If it went up, it was worth the market value. I don’t know if that’s illegal, though, but it’s somewhat unseemly.
No, he contributed the land to an LLC in exchange for interests in the LLC. If the value of the land went down the value of his LLC interest would go down accordingly, though if the other guy contributed land as well this would be mitigated (or exacerbated if the other parcel fell in value faster); and vice versa.
I think the real scandal hear is the dropping of Reid’s name by the business partner, which should be a no no. And also, jeezus, you’re a Senator, how hard is it to document things?
Pb
Who needs a real scandal when you can just trump one up? Remember Whitewater? I’m sure there are *still* wingnuts fuming about not exposing Clinton’s *real* secret financial transactions (or drug running or contract killing) or whatever…
The Other Steve
The note where his name came up… Supposedly he’d taken some money from a strip club owner to lobby the zoning board.
I agree lobbying seems unseemingly, but he wasn’t on the zoning board. Apparently the only thing he had was a reputation for sale. So at worse he’s a whore, but as we all know Prostitution is legal in Nevada.
I’m not a lawyer, so it’s not clear to me what law would have been violated there. Perhaps you could fill us in Dug Jay? Since the law enforcement didn’t charge him with anything, and you are the expert.
The Other Steve
Are you from Las Vegas?
Pb
Lookie here, another scandal…
Vladi G
This sounds about as nefarious as his “free ringside tickets” to boxing matches that Reid received. You remember those, they were the ones that would have been illegal for him to pay for (they were credentials, not tickets, and the Commission cannot sell them, i.e., there is no face value).
Geek, Esq.
I personally blame Ted Kennedy.
scs
Okay, even though it’s somewhat sarcastic I feel compelled to clarify the joke. There is a difference between coming forward in a timely manner with info on some old real estate deal and coming forward with timely info on a child harrasser. One is old news – the other is a potential “crime” in progress. If Dems held onto that info for political hay, they should be ashamed of themselves more so than the Republicans. Because the (top) Republicans, hopefully, are guilty of no more than fumbling, but this would show INTENT on the Dems side and is much worse.
And also, I always knew Reid was a dufus. All you have to do is listen to the guy talk for 10 seconds.
scs
Yes, remember, we all knew that because some anonymous “boxing promoter” in Las Vegas said it was illegal? AP must have decided, ‘why actually look up the statute, when we have the word of an anonymous boxing promoter?’.
Pb
Agreed.
If *Dems* did? As if? Never mind that apparently none of them knew any of that info, unlike several (many?) Republicans?
The potential ‘INTENT’ on the Republican side is clear–they didn’t want this scandal, they wanted Foley to win his seat, and they wanted Foley to keep raising money for them. That’s just what was happening until this story broke, and it also would explain why they told who they told, why they didn’t tell who they didn’t tell, and why large amounts of money changed hands when it did, and between whom.
ThymeZone
That’s why nobody thinks you’re a doofus, then.
thelurker
scs,
pull your head out of your ass and make some sense.
dufus..you should talk.
try reading a few paragraphs of your knee-jerk, smarmy crap.
isn’t there somewhere else for you to peddle your stupidity?
Vladi G
Do you ever feel ashamed about being so fucking stupid? Seriously, because that’s some really deep stupid you’ve got going on there. That “anonymous” promoter? Bob Arum. Real anonymous. He’s only probably one of the 2 or 3 most famous boxing promoters in the business.
Vladi G
And, of course, who was the AP writer who pushed the story about the boxing credentials? The very same John Solomon. What a putz. He’s almost as pathetically stupid as scs.
Pb
Heh. Kos is on it too, and unsurprisingly he seems to agree that there’s just no ‘there’ there. On the other hand, that Corker scandal I linked to actually has everything–apparently his not-so-blind ‘blind trust’ was constructed to help shield him from his own shady land deal… Hey Solomon, want to report on *that* story?
scs
Man, there are a lot of mentally ill people on the internet. First of all, I read about 10 articles in which Bob Arum was not named – it was “a boxing promoter”. Just because you find one article in which he was named does not prove that in the majority of articles he was named. Second of all, where is your source that Bob Arum is one of the most famous boxing promoters? We are not ALL boxing fans, hard as that is for you to believe. And even if he were some famous boxing promoter, how does that make him the gold standard on Nevada law? Wouldn’t it be nice for a AP newspaper source, the source of much of the public’s knowledge, not quote a boxing promoters take of the law, even though we all know boxing promoters are all, of course, great American legal scholars, but ACTUALLY quote the Nevada law that states that? Nah, that must be too much too ask. We’ll just let “fucking stupid” people like you get your law from boxing promoters.
lard lad
another (brown) nugget of wisdom from the portal of scs:
After all the screaming and finger-pointing about what the Demos “knew,” we’re still waiting for one scrap, one tidbit, one fucking iota of evidence to back the tons of hot air spewed by the GOP on this topic. C’mon, guys, not even one memo? An email? An incriminating Post-It?
And these fuckers have the stones to demand, yes demand, that Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emmanuel and Howard Dean submit to polygraph tests to prove that the Foley flap wasn’t the creation of their terrorist-loving minds.
Because, naturally, the House Minority Leader, the DNC Chairman and the Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman have nothing better to do during a crucial midterm campaign than gin up a Machiavellian scheme to take down one Florida congressman.
I’m calling you out here and now, scs. Produce something more substantial than this pulled-from-Limbaugh’s-ass speculation, or shut the fuck up.
scs
You must not have read what I wrote:
And by the way, retard, (to use your language) the article you linked to was NOT written by AP, it was written by a local Nevada writer, which of course again negates your whole post. You are acting so stupid, you have to be another DougJ clone. Don’t waste my time DJ – stick to your nice clones.
scs
Just wait- we’ll have to investigate first. The fact that the front blog was created right before the emails from the page was posted, and was one the first posts, and is a blog rumored to be supported by Soros, is somewhat suspicious. How did this just happen to occur? You’re telling me there is no campaign strategy leftie link in there somewhere? JustoneMinute has lots of good stuff on this. Anyway, we will find out later hopefully what the Dem link to this was, if any, and then we’ll see.
Steve
If Dennis Hastert knew about Foley’s conduct, but kept it quiet because he was hoping for sloppy seconds from the same pages, then he would be, arguably, even more culpable than Democrats like Nancy Pelosi.
I trust the Ethics Committee will be looking into this angle as well. It’s an observation, not an accusation. Surely it’s not asking too much for Dennis Hastert to deny under oath that he was looking to score with Foley’s pages. The American people deserve the truth, that’s all.
Vladi G
Shorter scs: I’ve been nailed, and I know it, so I’ll sling some shit to try and defend myself.
But anyway…
So in other words, he was anonymous until he wasn’t anonymous, only you didn’t know he wasn’t anonymous, and you didn’t bother to check, so you tossed it out there hoping no one else would check. Dumbass. It took all of about 15 seconds to find out that he was the one quoted. The funniest part is that if you google Reid+Promoter+Credentials+Anonymous, two of the first four links SPECIFICALLY MENTION ARUM!! God Damn, you are dumb.
Good lord, you just dig deeper and deeper into stupidity, don’t you? There’s this awesome new invention. It’s called the internets. You should check it out:
And this is priceless:
Yeah, I mean how in the world would one of the biggest promoters in one of the most heavily regulated industries in one of the most heavily regulated states know anything about those regulations? I mean, it just boggles the mind.
You can go crawl back into your hole now, dipshit. You’ve been embarrassed, and just like an Marvin Hagler uppercut, it’s gotta sting.
scs
No dumbass, he was anonymous in AP articles. If you had read what I’d said, you’d know that. In case you don’t know, and you probably don’t, AP articles are often the sources for most news articles in the US. I’m not talking about whether he was anonymous in articles in some Las Vegas daily or even his highschool yearbook, or what his Mom wrote his Aunt about him, about him – I’m talking about newspapers distributed nationally. But you won’t get it, so forget it…
scs
Is supposed to be gay too? That might explain the highschool wrestling stint…
lard lad
Thanks for confirming my suspicions, scs. You got nothing. Game over. Take a hike.
ThymeZone
Reid, McCain and many other officials of local, state and federal government, have received credentials issued by Nevada Athletic Commission entitling the bearer to sit in the Commission’s reserved area during sporting events regulated by NAC. Admission to this seating is not ticketed and cannot be “sold.”
These credentials are not tickets, have no cash value, and like all government certifications, cannot be sold or bartered by government employees. This is pretty much standard law and protocol at every level of government in every state in the country. Selling, or accepting payment for, government instruments is considered a crime in every jurisdiction that I know of in this country, at every level. Any government employee, or any person acting on the Commission’s behalf, who accepted payment for such instruments would be guilty of a crime.
Pretty much any government employee in this country who has been to the first day of New Employee Indoctrination gets this information in the discussion of basic laws and ethics.
What’s more, this information was discussed at length and in depth back at the time of the original “story”, scs, and explained to you in detail.
Why the FUCK they let you troll this place with your useless buillshit is beyond me, I have long ago stopped trying to figure it out. It’s nuts AFAIC, I assume that you are in fact John Cole or his retarded niece.
Vladi G
Prove it, bitch. Find me the AP articles in which he was anonymous. You made a claim that he was anonymous, and you’ve further claimed that he was anonymous in AP articles, which are like totally the be all and end all of journamalism because they’re DISTRIBUTED NATIONALLY!!!!!! So if it’s so fucking prevalent, then fucking find it, liar.
In fact, I’ll do you one better. I’ll bet you can’t find an article in which Solomon (remember him, the guy from the AP) even addresses the fact that the credentials had no face value, and therefore had no reason to quote Arum, anonymously or not. Face it, asshole, you got caught lying, and you can’t talk your way out of it. You’re really pathetic.
Pb
lard lad,
You could have saved time and just hilighted the whole thing–as usual, her ‘facts’ aren’t really, either.
Pb
Oh, and John, sweet update. I’m a huge fan of “I Drew This”, it’s about as dead on as “This Modern World”, but way more underrated.
ThymeZone
What the hell was that? Crosspost from an apparent spoof site run by some adolescents at a midwestern middle school.
Steve
That’s great. Not one word about why Reid’s deal was corrupt. Link to Captain Ed, who also has not one word about why Reid’s deal was corrupt. But at the same time they fail to find very much here, they’re happy to make fun of the silly libs for acting like there’s not much here!
It’s amazing. Someone says, “Look, here’s a scandal involving the other guys!” and they spend about 2 seconds of independent thought on it. Why bother with the merits, it’s mud and mud is fun!
Jess
Wait–wasn’t that scs’s remark? I can’t find it now, but pretty funny if it was…
p.lukasiak
Lets see…. $151,000,000 earmarked to build a bridge to Frank Murkawski’s property (in his wife’s name) in Alaska.
$207,000,000 earmarked to build a highway through a farm area where Denny Hasert owns a nice big chunk of land.
$000,000,000 earmarked to build a road to the property owned by Reid…..
yeah, there’s a real Reid scandal here….
Steve
Good catch, Jess. Hilarious.
scs
Yes a donk standard – you make up your mind BEFORE the investigation. Typical.
scs
Umm, another lie ppgaz. No one ever posted the law even after I repeatedly asked them for it. At least not in the segments I posted in and read. And I notice you have no link. That’s kind of a lot like DougJ clones lately, I notice he tends to post a lot of complicated official stuff with non-working links, which appears to be stuff he just made up to spoof. Which kind of makes me wonder, as well. Why the name change to ThymeZone? He seemed to take a turn for the worse after that. What happened to the original ppgaz? Why the fuck they let YOU in here I’ll never know. Oh but wait- they don’t all the time, do they?
scs
I’m not sure, but I think those words are banned here.
John???
But I know you’re just a spoof anyway – probably tired of that character, so you don’t probably care. Why you get off on this semi-psychopathic behaviour DJ, I’ll never know. I think you really DO have the mind of an 8 year old.
scs
Yes promotion people are known for their complete accuracy and precise statements about all things related to their boxing causes and are never known to exaggerate or hype the truth to help out or “promote” their boxing client interests. That’s what promotion is right – it’s basically legal counsel.
You’re not in the mafia are you? Because if you are, I agree with everything you say.
Vladi G
Still waiting, liar.
scs
God you people are stupid. I’m guessing 450 max on your verbal SATs. Did you ever hear about the concept of reading comprehension? Part of that consists of the recognition that different words have different shades of meaning in different contexts. I obviously used “old” in comparison to ongoing, specifically, “One is old news – the other is a potential “crime” in progress.” – which would make the use of “old” mean something closer to ‘past’ or ‘finished’ – not ‘current’. Why do I even bother here? I must be bored. It is kind of fun to go against canned, computer written spoof I guess, kind of like playing a video game I suppose.
scs
I’ll bet you can’t find one article where Solomon professes his love for green Jello. Come find it, I dare you.
Vladi G
I’m just waiting for you to back up your claim that the promoter was originally quoted anonymously. Of course, such an article doesn’t exist, which makes you a liar. But as I said, I’d said for an article that doesn’t even go that far. Just find me one that addresses the issue.
Don’t bother. You can’t. Liar.
I don’t understand why people feel the need to lie on message boards and blogs. It’s so sad.
Steve
It’s positively adorable to watch the wingnuts argue amongst themselves without even realizing it.
W.B. Reeves
Previously I had described SCS’s maudering as pathetic. Given her performance here I will go on to apply the term idiotic.
scs
Well just for fun, I did a search for you. I did not see one AP article that turned up on the subject, as they are probably too “old” by now – but I did see hundreds of blogs excerpted – all of whom quoted that same Las Vegas article you linked to, treating it as gospel, based on the statement of one Bob Arum. Actually most of the blogs didn’t even to print his name – they just called him the “promoter”. I sure hope BobArum quoted the law accurately, as hundreds of supposedly media elite blogmeisters unquestionally accepted his wisdom as fact. Remember the good old days when we were supposed to get an authoritative source for an assertion, like quoting the ACTUAL LAW, or at least get two opinions? Long gone.
So, since you are such a scholar – find me ONE AP article or national article from the time period where Bob Arum is quoted as a source for Nevada law. How ’bout it smart guy?
scs
Doug, don’t bring out ALL your clones on ONE night. Save some for later…
scs
So VladiG, I was admiring your blog. I see youre a sports fan. I guess I’ll email you to catch up on the latest. Funny your name seems to be LA Seitz – or is that just a screen name?
Pb
Wow, I found the original AP article *and* a national article quoting Arum. Didn’t take me very long, either. And as a bonus, a previous Solomon smear against Reid. That brings the tally to three faild smears? He’s determined, I’ll give him that…
Hint to scs: blogs often have links, and some of them still work, even months or years later.
Vladi G
My name’s no secret, scs. That’s why I’ve never posted without a link to a place where it’s easy to find out about me. Don’t worry, I won’t out you even though I know more about you than you probably realize.
And I will retract the “bitch” comment. I was not aware that I was writing to a female. That was meant more in the “hug it out, bitches” way than it probably came across. Of course, I still think you’re a pathetic dumbass, and obviously a liar.
And no, I’m not Doug J. I’ve never been Doug J. I realize it’s easy to through up the “spoof” jackalope when you’ve been thoroughly embarrassed as you have on this thread.
Apparently you can’t read. It was explained to you more simply than you deserved.
chopper
that’s gotta be a spoof.
man, this just keeps getting better and better.
chopper
nice, call someone a dumbass and when they call you a bitch back go crying to the blog owner.
Blue Neponset
Wow, that Cold Fury moron really has no idea what he is talking about.
Maybe he should read the article at Instapundit that John links to:
tBone
scs insulting our reading comprehension is like Dick Cheney mocking our gun safety skills.
ThymeZone
I’m not doing your work for you. Look it up yourself.
It’s not a name, you moron.
Pb
Heh. Remember what I was saying about Republicans and Foley? Well apparently they’re the reason he stuck around in the first place, too:
Yep, I bet they’re kicking themselves over that one…
Rusty Shackleford
For SCS:
Bob Arum
Bob Arum (born December 8, 1931 in New York, New York), is a Harvard-educated lawyer, who helped the White House during President John F. Kennedy’s time there. He also worked for the US Attorneys Office for the southern district of New York, in the Tax division…
The Other Steve
Careful VladiG, if you fall for this bate scs is going to start sending you sexually explicit IM messages.
ThymeZone
Nothing so satisfying as the well-placed fact bomb.
There are so many craters now in scs’ rap sheet, she looks like a piece of swiss cheese.
John S.
I just looooove scs threads.
They make for great reading over lunch.
rachel
I forget, is scs the troll with the affinity for the brain dead, or is that one of the other ones?
ThymeZone
Yes.
capelza
rachel..that be she…scs has outdone herself today.
And please, scs..don’t go whining to the blog owners. It’s a game you’ve played too often and as a woman myself I find it offensive. Grow a pair, it isn’t like you don’t kow how it works here.
Gene M Collins
I find it hard to believe that Harry Reid, among others, finds it so difficult to take care of the CYA incidents and how strange it is that these integrity gaps always seem to be reported as we approach election dates.
J. Johnson
If this had been exposed about Bill Frist, all you folks would be demanding Congressional investigations and special prosecutors. Really funny. Since it is a Democrat, it’s really not a big deal, just an oversite, probably a Republican plot, etc., etc., etc.
Pathetic!