Way to go, Mike Ross:
Arkansas Rep. Mike Ross — a Blue Dog Democrat playing a key role in the health care debate — sold a piece of commercial property in 2007 for substantially more than a county assessment and an independent appraisal say it was worth.
The buyer: an Arkansas-based pharmacy chain with a keen interest in how the debate plays out.
Ross sold Holly’s Health Mart in Prescott, Ark., to USA Drug for $420,000 — an eye-popping price for real estate in a tiny train and lumber town about 100 miles southwest of Little Rock.
***In June the National Association of Chain Drug Stores issued a news release thanking Ross for introducing legislation authorizing payments to pharmacists to train patients in how to manage their medications.
Health-related interests have donated $342,475 to Ross since 2007, according to federal campaign data maintained by the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics. No other business sector has given Ross as much.
Sure didn’t take long for the corrupt Dems to start bubbling up, did it?
(via the Great Orange Satan)
IndieTarheel
Right on cue. It’s almost as if there was a plan, or something.
dmsilev
At least he wasn’t a cheap whore. Though I did like this addendum:
I think that was the tip on top of the overall bill.
-dms
Bootlegger
Curious that the corrupt Dems tend to be Bluedogs. Surely it can’t be something about non-progressive values…
ThresherK
Is there a single Blue Dog Dem who isn’t a “key player” in the healthcare debate?
Napoleon
The only way this story could be better if it was one of the a-hole Dem. senators (Conrad, Bacaus, Nelson, Byah) or Jim Cooper in the house. Ross is the guy who said the people in his district were against the public option so Kos ran a poll in his district that I think just came out in the last week showing that to be a pile of BS.
@dmsilev:
To me the fact that the political contribution took place at virtually the same time as the purchase is basically a smoking gun. Also I scanned the article in question and did not see where they nailed down exactly when in 2007 the transaction occured. If it was early in 07, after the Dems went back in the majority with the swearing in of a new Congress in Jan., then that looks even worse (especially if they didn’t even discuss the transaction until after the 2006 mid terms).
daryljfontaine
Fuck ’em. It’s not like the last eight years of Delay, Stevens, Abramoff, et al., couldn’t have shown them that the goddamned writing was on the wall. If you’re stupid enough to get your hand caught in the cookie jar, you deserve a primary challenger at the very least.
D
erinsiobhan
It would be interesting to have a look at the books to see what kind of revenues the store had. If the profit is in the $150K per year range, the total price of $1.67 million isn’t that unreasonable (in this climate, I’d love a 9% return). But I have no clue what kind of money a pharmacy hauls in.
The Moar You Know
So, he pulled a Duke Cunningham?
(for those who don’t remember, Duke’s woes started when someone took a look at why his house sold for way over market)
Throw his corrupt ass in jail.
The Grand Panjandrum
Aw, c’mon be fair. They never went away in the first place. Go spend a couple of minutes at this CREW website. Your boy Mollohan is on the 15 Most Corrupt list.
As much as I want to get rid of Blue Dogs I think the most pressing piece of business is to get rid of the people who made this list. If they happen to be Blue Dogs then so much the better.
Mike
At least he is not a cheap whore. He can be reached at:
[email protected]
BFR
The interesting question for me is how Politico got onto this story. Where do you suppose the tip came from?
Cain
Primary them and get them to hell out of the way. They should be fearing their constituency more than lobbyists. Hell I wish we could make lobbyist fear us. I wonder if there was legislation that could do that hmm… (not that I’m serious.. anything we could do the vast right wing machine can also do and fuck it up at at that)
cain
Unabogie
I called his office and told them I’d been wondering how he could be standing in the way of health care for my family, but now it seems clear.
I suggest you all do the same.
Washington
2436 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-3772
1-800-223-2220
(202) 225-1314 Fax
Bill E Pilgrim
What’s amazing is that somehow they think these things won’t come out eventually.
They all must be on drugs.
Oh wait…
Zifnab
The difference is going to be how Pelosi handles it. If the guy gets a chewing out from the ethics board and loses DCCC support, we’re progressing. If he gets full cover and continues to receive promotion and support in 2010… :-p Fail.
@IndieTarheel: I think the “plan” is to bribe the party in power. That hasn’t changed much in the last 200 years of US history.
Mr Furious
Good. Fucking burn him.
This should keep him off TV bashing reform.
Mr Furious
If Pelosi means what she says about health care and this corrupt asshat was in her way, she will cut him off at the knees. If she doesn’t, it says something about her motives on HCR.
SenyorDave
Hopefully, someday this shitbag will be worrying about dropping his soap in the prison shower.
I’d love to see the Democrats be proactive about investigating this guy, but that is a true pipedream.
The Moar You Know
Even better: USA Drug kept Mrs. Ross on as the pharmacist after the sale.
Hand, cookie jar, caught.
Napoleon
@BFR:
The story originated with Propublica.
By the way, what is even better about the timing is that the Firedoglake people are in the field with an ad running against Ross and Lincoln in Arkansas.
http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/09/22/help-us-put-mike-rossblanche-lincoln-ad-on-arkansas-razorbacks-game/
Xenos
@Cain: If I were a big pharma or insurance lobbyist I would be scared. Think of all the people who have lost family members to insurance companies, or to painkillers that cause heart attacks, and so on. At some point there will be a tipping point and the some of the bereaved are going to realize that they have the ability to locate and confront the very people people who have profited from letting their family members die.
Remember when the first guy went postal? It turned out that a some very unhappy people got some ideas from that.
ChrisB
He’s been targeted by Firedoglake and Rachel Maddow in recent days.
Something tells me this will be on the news tonight sometime after 9:00 on MSNBC.
PeakVT
How soon until Ross starts talking about liberal plots against people who represent “real” Americans?
Morbo
Or corrupt Democratic (since 1996 at least) fundraisers. See TPM for coverage of Hassan Nemazee, prominent fundraiser who made his millions… in bank fraud. To the tune of $290 million… From Bank of America, Citigroup, and HSBC… Go, financial sector, titans of incompetence!
Ryan
The money just flows to whoever is in power at the time. Why do you think the Republicans are so apoplectic over losing their majority status?
burnspbesq
One of the many differences between Democrats and Republicans: we accept that venality is part of human nature and that elected representatives will sometimes be corrupt, but when we catch one, under the bus he (or she) goes. Republicans celebrate venality and embrace corruption – at least when it is a Republican who is either the payor or the recipient (as always, the term “Republican hypocrisy” is redundant).
For us, it’s a bug. For them, it’s a feature.
Ash Can
@Mr Furious:
And how. Shout it from the rooftops. Make it so that everybody, from the Beltway pundit circle jerk all the way down to the blue-haired ladies in the beauty shop in West Flyshit, South Dakota, automatically wonders if payola is involved the moment a Blue Dog starts to question HCR.
Tsulagi
Does sound like he did a Cunningham, but with far less money involved. Good to know some Dems mindful of a weak economy can be bought cheaper. Very considerate.
The Grand Panjandrum
Maybe Ross was just taking Will Ferrel’s advice to stop hating on the people who stand to lose the most if we get some meaningful reform?
burnspbesq
Apologize for going OT, but this has been on my mind for a few days.
Is it just me, or is Afghanistan in 2009 starting to look uncomfortably like Vietnam in 1963?
Brick Oven Bill
Ryan says:
“The money just flows to whoever is in power at the time. Why do you think the Republicans are so apoplectic over losing their majority status?”
Ryan gets it. This is how ‘democracies’ work in Central America. There is a handful of oligarchs that run the place and two political parties. Whichever political party get the vote (going rate US$25/head), gets their cut from the oligarchs. Other than the US$25 at the election, the government does not work in the best interests of the people.
Thus the importance of an intelligent electorate, actively engaged in the economy, capable of representing the interests of their country. This cannot be achieved with universal suffrage in a country with 100 million jobs, 310 million people, and a bunch of dummies.
The interests of the current electorate would be best served by many giving up their political representation. This seems counterintuitive, but is the truth. Wealth has become much more concentrated since 1920. This is by clever design.
General Winfield Stuck
These sort of turds show up with politicians of all ideological stripes, but the lions share seems to be with wingnuts and wingnut light dems. When lib CC’s do it, it’s something more personal and done once or twice and mostly occurs with home loans for houses they live in, or some VIP interest rate on a personal loan.
And I used to cut blue dog types a lot of slack for any number of actions from siding with the goopers in votes, to saying stupid shit against other dems and the like. I did this for the sole reason of keeping a seat that would be GOP otherwise.
But no more. I’m tired of these rat bastards stinking up my party with their antics and bipartisan numbnuttery. And for sucking the corporate tit for party favours. Fuck em, put up real dems in primaries and let the chips fall where they may.
**not all so called Blue Dog dems are sleazy rascaloids, and they should be supported if they have genuine concerns on liberal spending excesses, as some dissent in good conscious isn’t always a bad thing. And disagreement on social issues is ok, so long as they keep it to themselves and their own constituents.
Legalize
Nice Congressional seat you have there. It would be a shame if if got broken.
/Rahm?
A Mom Anon
@burnspbesq:
We’re headed there if something doesn’t change soon. I hate this madness. The only way to stop the madness is to fucking stop it.
burnspbesq
@General Winfield Stuck:
With all due respect, I cannot agree. Are you really so sanguine about the prospect of John Boehner as Speaker of the House?
Xenos
@Brick Oven Bill: “This cannot be achieved with universal suffrage in a country with 100 million jobs, 310 million people, and a bunch of dummies.”
This does not compute… The retired are not working, those supported by long-term disability insurance payments are not working, the children are not working, the stay-at-home spouses are not working… Why should 100 million jobs not be enough to maintain a country of 310 million? How does this random number you have pulled out of your ass indicate that freeloaders, as you imply, have the political advantage? How many adults do you think are out there subsisting on welfare, and what proportion of the electorate do you think they make?
For an allegedly educated person you really do not know how to think carefully and methodically about a complex issue.
burnspbesq
And in his latest incarnation, BOB sounds positively Naderite. No difference between the two parties, is that the new meme, BOB?
Ailuridae
Not to be overly contrarian but I am not sure how being involved with a pharmacy chain ties in with Ross’ ill-conceived opposition to health care reform. His state’s biggest employer is obviously Walmart and they haven’t really been coy about supporting this round of reform largely because it will bring in so many customers for new prescriptions. Their margin may go down on each transaction but their number of transactions will shoot up.
Given that in that part of the country (I spend a lot of the summer in Arkansas’ Gomorrah, Eureka Springs) USA Drug is Walmart’s prime competitor I am not seeing the link up. Maybe I am missing something.
Don’t take this as a defense of Ross. He’s clearly an asshole and a scumbag who, like most White Southern Democrats, exists to shit on the disenfranchised who elect him.
Xenos
” Wealth has become much more concentrated since 1920. This is by clever design.”
Yes, and glibertarian useful idiots are an indispensable part of that design.
Calouste
I wonder how much of this is Rahm laying a horse head on the pillow of the Blue Dogs. There are of course rumors and gossip like this one about Ross doing the rounds in DC, if you know which people to talk to. And Rahm has been in DC long enough to know which people to talk to. And it shows to the other Blue Dogs that the administration is willing to break a few eggs to make that omelette.
Common Sense
I hope he got a love slap in the face before they threw him under the bus.
General Winfield Stuck
@burnspbesq:
There are about 50+ blue dogs, self proclaimed in the house. It would take about 35 seats lost by dems to cause it to flip, and there are still some seats wingnuts are holding onto in the midwest and upper midwest that will likely go dem when the winger incumbent retires.
And I qualified my comment to not include the less toxic blue dogs who certainly outnumber the toxic ones. So chill out, my comment hardly portends a loss of the house any time soon,
What will portend that, is if blue dogs like Ross, happen to block HC reform and taint the dem party as corrupt,
The Grand Panjandrum
@burnspbesq: I would say no. BUT it does have that possibility. The real difference being that Obama, although having expressed his desire to find and kill those who harmed us on 9/11, is taking a rational and sober look at what the US should be doing in Afghanistan. You see a lot being written about this McChrystal report and the usual suspects trumpeting this “new plan”.
Obama just had a face-to-face meeting with Colin Powell. He has recently shifted his emphasis in public comments on that war to making it about AQ in Afghanistan. According to McChrystal’s report AQ is not a problem in Afghanistan and his emphasis is on defeating the Taliban. The President continues to talk about the lack of a clear strategy. McChrystal does NOT present a clear strategy in his report but does give an opinion.
The lack of a clear strategy is terrifying, but Obama has publicly stated so. That gives me hope they will do the right thing (and I don’t pretend to know what that might be.) So it is possible we could end up in a very bad place ala mid-60’s Vietnam with a neverending commitiment with no real strategy in place to resolve the war in an honorable way.
John S.
Nah, he’s just following orders from his lord and master Glenn Beck, who proclaimed to Katie Couric that a McCain administration would have been worse.
For idiots like Beck and BOB, it’s the government that is the problem, not the parties that are in control of the government. They just conveniently forget about all that when Republicans are in power.
Zifnab
@Mr Furious:
It says something about her priorities, certainly, if she’s more interested in defending a dissident incumbent than she is in bending him over a rail as leverage to pass health care.
But I wouldn’t boil everything down to pro-/anti-HCR so fast.
General Winfield Stuck
For example, here is another toxic blue dogger that needs to go, a c streeter no less.
Ailuridae
@burnspbesq:
But a lot of these Blue Dogs are so much more conservative than their Districts: Cooper, Harman, Tausher etc. These districts are reliably Dem and they are being represented by people to the Right of, say, Mark Kirk. Primary them, remove them from office. There is no way that all of those Blue Dog Reps are that way solely because of their districts.
Flugelhorn
This location was once a customer of mine. Sure does not seem to be a big price for that particular pharmacy to me.
I would wager that the county records of property assesment were being kept artificially low to save him on property taxes and now it is coming back to bite him in the butt. This is simply another case of Dems poaching their own to force them to vote with the progressives.
The guy owns a pharmacy. He sells the pharmacy to a … Wait for it… Pharmaceutical Company. Now he is in bed with Big Pharma? Should he have sold it to a Public Library? Or a Starbucks? Perhaps he should have sold his Pharmacy to T.J. Max?
Sometimes you blogger folks should be a little more discerning. Here I am, a conservative, defending a Dem. Wow.
MikeJ
This why having Rahm around is a great thing. I doubt he had anything to do with this coming out right now, but if people think he did it works out just as well as if he had.
Ailuridae
@Ailuridae:
Whoa, I take that back. I just read some of LaFrance’s (CEO and founder of USA Drug et al) comments on health care reform and he’s clearly a vociferous opponent. That being said, I am not sure his opposition makes business sense.
Zifnab
@John S.:
Oh bullshit. Republican pundits love to toss this canard out there. “Yeah, the current admin is bad because it’s way too liberal, but the guy who just lost the last election would have been way worse because he was also liberal. Had he been more
crazyconservative, he would have won and I would have supported him. See? I’m bipartisan!”The victim of the wingnut ire isn’t linked to any policy or product, just on whether the guy won or lost. Reagen is a wingnut hero not because of his tax policy or his environmental positions or his military prowess, but because he won twice, handed the WH to his VP, and currently holds an enduring positive legacy. Lincoln, likewise, is venerated because of all the ways he won and how he was positively remembered. Policy is forgotten on the wayside.
McCain is Beck’s new punching bag du jour because he’s a highly visible loser. But if you believe for half a second that Beck would have come down half as hard on a triumphant McCain as he’s been on the first black President, you may be as ignorant and crazy as he is.
pablo
Yeah, but Blue Dogs count as Republicans.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Flugelhorn:
For some reason you seem to think that a Democrat can’t be conservative.
That’s strange.
Brick Oven Bill
There was criticism of Glenn Beck for using ‘The 5000-Year Leap’, as the criticizer claimed that the book was written by a man who believed that America was founded on something called ‘Natural Law’. This criticism was flawed and not factual, as America was founded on Natural Law. From Federalist 10, James Madison:
“The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government… The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society.”
The protection of these faculties is what attracts and motivates productive Citizens, and is the basis of our historic wealth. Instead of protection, Obama covets the faculties of others, and targets them. He is personally threatened by Officer Crowley’s ability to speak articulately without a teleprompter. Crowley is a prole.
I am not sure if Obama is able to comprehend that wealth is finite. His handlers surely do, and we should question their intentions, as where they are going, fiscal realities cannot follow.
The best and most fair answer to date was established in 1789. This system recognizes that life is not fair, and instructs us to be wary of anyone who argues otherwise.
Corruption is worse now than it was in the 1800s.
General Winfield Stuck
@Flugelhorn:
We expect our trolls to read stuff, you know, before spouting off trollery.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Calouste: Huh?
Are you implying that Rahm is progressive and not actually the champion of the Blue Dogs in this administration?
Flugelhorn
@Bill E Pilgrim: I’m sure its possible, but the ratio has to be somewhere in the realm of Needle to Haystack. I certainly can’t name one that is actually serving. Can you?
We are not talking relative to the rest of the party either. I want someone who is ACTUALLY conservative in relation to the US populace, not in relation to Nancy Pelosi.
JenJen
Speaking of which… check out this great health care reform spoof from Funny or Die; spot all your favorite stars!
Protect Insurance Company Profits – PSA
jibeaux
I think the Blue Dog debate has to be considered on a district by district basis. If the blue dog is wingnut lite, not terribly popular or with some scandals, and the district is more progressive, then full primary challenge ahead. But if the blue dog is as progressive as the district is going to get, e.g. Heath Schuler in the mountains of NC, who defeated an eight term Republican, it’s counterproductive to raise a fuss and starts to get into that wingnut ideological purity territory. He’s the most progressive thing that’s going to come out of a mostly poor white Appalachian district (even if it does have Asheville).
Flugelhorn
@General Winfield Stuck: You should try reading mine, Ass-hat. What exactly is it that you contribute here? I already stated that I believe the property values were listed artificially low to save on taxes. Do you know how an “Independent Assesment” is done? Look it up.
Corner Stone
@MikeJ:
But this is what always kills me. Rahm is a corporate whore. He is a DLC’er to the max (as the kids used to say).
He’s siphoning off all the $$$ in the ether.
Please, I’m begging the peopleses – Rahm is not on your side.
Comrade Dread
With respect, the government IS the problem. It can give those it favors tremendous power, influence, wealth, and advantage over competitors, and corporations would be fools not to try and buy themselves a few dozen congressmen and influence it to work on their behalf.
This will not change regardless of who is in power, unless there is a committed drive on the part of constituents to make it stop and force their representatives to draft and support wide sweeping sunlight laws and extensive monitoring of those in power.
Unfortunately, and this is purely my opinion, I think the corporations and government are so entrenched with each other that meaningful reform will be nigh impossible to enact.
Bootlegger
@The Grand Panjandrum: In an interview with The Dick, the Big-O said that he wouldn’t even talk about resources until they had a strategy nailed down. What? Put strategy before resources? What a crazy idea! That nigga is crazy man!! I long for the days when Cheney and Rumsfeld would first state how many troops they needed and THEN decide on the strategy. Those were the days.
General Winfield Stuck
@Flugelhorn:
Corner Stone
@jibeaux: I disagree, Heath is one of those that help give the illusion of a “majority” in the House. All the hard working D’s are like, “WTF? We gots the majority, let’s use it!”
But reality just isn’t so. I think it would be more beneficial to have a more closely divided House and not have Republicans’ such as Heath in the D party. People should understand what’s really at stake. And electing faux-D’s just because is not the answer.
What has it gotten us?
Bill E Pilgrim
@Flugelhorn: If the people making up the current Republican party are the definition of “conservative”, then yes, I can see how you’d feel that way ;)
Not many Democrats who fit that definition, no.
On the other hand, there actually aren’t actually that many Republicans either! Among voters, it’s down to 20%.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Bootlegger: The war as foreign policy advocates are having a hard time with a President who wants strategy and the data to support that strategy laid out before deciding what to do. I don’t know what will come of all this but at least it isn’t a knee jerk acceptance of what McChrystal is trying to pass off as strategy.
Corner Stone
@Bootlegger: Sheeeeit. Those were the days.
jibeaux
@Corner Stone:
Well, that’s an argument, too, and who knows, maybe it is six of one, half a dozen of the other. But you seem to realize the debate can’t be Heath Shuler or More Progressive Dem, it’s going to be Heath Shuler or a Republican. My argument is addressing more the people who think the first is possible.
Brick Oven Bill
Because James Madison Constitutionally protected the natural diversity in the faculties of men, Bill Clinton was able to rise to power.
Bill Clinton is one of Socrate’s free men of nature, and because of his great faculties, rose to a high position. He started out as trailer trash with a single mom. The suppression of these faculties, allows the Bushes and Kennedys to remain in power. This suppression will increase with time, and will then break.
The Bushes and Kennedys are not particularly gifted. These families are given a place at the table because of their class, not because of their natural faculties. The Skull and Bones may have interlocking blood-lines to be concerned about, but this secret society does not seem to increase the natural faculties of men.
I would say the opposite. It makes them flabby.
General Winfield Stuck
@Brick Oven Bill:
This must be Purple Microdot day for Bobalooo.
Elroy's Lunch
BoB,
Thanks for that last post. My day here at work was getting pretty boring but that sure made me laugh. Bravo!
wasabi gasp
A Stratocaster previously owned by Jimi Hendrix will also sell for a substantial premium.
Corner Stone
@jibeaux: Oh Hell no. I live in TX-22 which by some accounts is R +15, and others say R +20.
We had Nick Lampson here for one term after DeLay. And although I like Nick as a person, and agree with a couple of his signature items, he’s wayyyyy too Conservative/BD for me.
But I’d rather have him in the seat and voting for education and NASA, and giving in a little as needed to keep his seat, than have that pig fucker Olson in there now.
Point being, I knew what Lampson was about and knew he gave it up because he wanted to stay in the House and influence his 2 or 3 key agendas (education, space exploration, dreaming big). ISTM that I know too well what Heath is about and it doesn’t seem like he’s compromising to keep a seat but rather that’s how he really feels, and wants to vote that way. Having a D in front of his name is misleading, IMO.
Napoleon
@General Winfield Stuck:
Plus the article directly takes on that possibility and debunks it.
John D.
@Brick Oven Bill: What in God’s name are you blathering about?
There are not 310 million potential employees out there. There are not 100 million potential JOBS out there. It take 1 fucking second to look this up via Google. Try “total US employment” as a search term, and you discover this, as of August 2009:
Total civilian labor force: 154,577,000
Total civilian employment: 139,649,000
Total cilivlian unemployment: 14,928,000
Not in labor force: 81,509,000
So, there is a potential labor pool of 236 million, with 139.65 million employed. Way to go — you were off by 25% on the labor force, and 40% on the job pool. What did you use? A dartboard? Proctonumerology? The voices in your head?
EnderWiggin
OT, but the logo no longer takes me to the homepage. On my iPhone, this makes me sad.
On topic, Pelosi won’t do anything to him. Sigh.
Brick Oven Bill
John D.;
The 100 million figure includes the non-farm payroll and a modifier of approximately 0.33 for government and education employment. This we have previously discussed. This is because these are government and teaching jobs, and for the most part do not contribute to the economy.
If you would take a few more fucking seconds each day and perform a more thorough reading of Balloon-Juice comment threads, you would have been enlightened to this fact-based analysis, and not looked foolish.
Shygetz
@Brick Oven Bill: So the oligarchy is best fought by vesting the vote only in the wealthy, landed interests.
Thanks for clearing that up.
And the notion that government and education jobs do not “contribute to the economy” is laughable.
JasonF
I don’t know anything about Mike Ross’s pharmacy, but selling a viable, ongoing business to a bigger competitor for a few hundred thousand dollars does not necessarily mean corruption — you’d have to take a look at what the business (not just the real estate, but the business) was worth. Nor does keeping on the existing pharmacist after the sale — that’s very common when businesses get sold. Nor does the fact that a guy who worked as a pharmacist for many years introduces legislation that is good for pharmacists — that’s just human nature.
By all means, investigate the guy. If he’s corrupt, throw him out and prosecute him. But the facts presented — while certainly consistent with corruption — are also consistent with “small businessman sells his business to megacorporation and goes into politics.”
Martin
It can haul in a lot – especially if it’s the only one for a distance. Median salary for pharmacists is $106K and if you have a reasonably sized market (could well be larger than the town, depending on the area) it can make $150K above and beyond. And since this was 2007, it was before WalMart cut their $4 deal with the Indian drug companies, so it may have been making good money back then. Given that it’s Arkansas, probably doesn’t make shit now, though.
Not defending Ross here, but the appraiser would value the property, not the business. You shove an Apple Store on a $50K piece of property/structure, that doesn’t make it a $50K business to buy. Hell, the 5th Ave Apple store has been estimated to move north of $400M per year out of a 5,000 square foot store. I don’t think anyone could write a check big enough to buy that location from Apple, regardless of what the property value is.
It looks all manner of bad on its face, and it probably is, but it’s not obvious that you would go from A to B based on what I read in the piece. (Which makes me a little sad since I’m good friends with one of the editors at ProPublica.)
Martin
I have no idea why my post (81) went into moderation. That’s annoying.
Ed in NJ
@Zifnab:
Yeah, right. Fact is, the Republicans won’t say a peep about this, since it would hurt their cause, defeating health care reform, by those in the pockets of big Pharma a bad name.
Without the Republican outrage, Pelosi doesn’t have to do anything except ignore it. It’s only when she feels threatened that she acquiesces to the right, never to the left.
Corner Stone
@JasonF: Mike…is that you?
Just kidding, you make reasonable points that should be dealt with, either way.
Calming Influence
Don’t forget Little Bitsy!
Flugelhorn
@General Winfield Stuck: Do you own a house, Ass-hat? MY house is valued at more than any independent assesment or county assessment will ever show. The longer I own it, the more it will be under-valued. Do you know why? Because until I actually SELL IT it won’t be worth more than an occassional inflation bump year after year. I even have the option to fight that bump every anum so that my LISTED property values may even decrease based on documentation I bring to the hearing.
It is not a difficult leap in judgement to believe that a property was sold at a higher value than its County or “Independent” assesment.
If when I sell my house it sells for 50k more than I bought it, does that mean I am in bed with the real-estate lobby?
What I am trying to point out here is that you rabid knee-biters jump around like excited oompa-loompas at the first sign of any bad press and never bother to even think about the over-all picture and how perceptions can be skewed when you have only a tiny piece of the picture.
John S.
I don’t disagree with you, but to the extent of where the blame gets placed I think it is more the corporations that are the problem rather than the government.
Or to put it another way, the corporations are the parasite and the government is the host. But it’s the kind of parasite that has it’s barb lodged deep in the brain of the host, so removing it without killing the host is very difficult.
And if the activist Roberts Supreme Court has its way, it’s about to get a whole lot worse.
Corner Stone
@Flugelhorn:
Actually, I’ve been dreaming of oompa-loompas recently. Not sure what that means…
scarshapedstar
Now that this asshole has no shot at getting re-elected, would it be too much to ask for him to vote with the rest of the party until his term expires?
John S.
Yes, back in the bubble days it was when a bank sent some dipshit to your house to artificially value it for the purposes of floating you a giant HELOC with which to hang yourself.
Thankfully, the hanging part did not happen to me, but I learned a valuable lesson: The “Independent Assesment” issued by a person with absolutely no oversight acting on behalf of a private interest isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.
daryljfontaine
@Corner Stone:
John Boehner is trying to speak to you through your unconscious mind?
D
Zifnab
@Corner Stone:
I mean, I’m with you. I’d much rather have Lampson over Olsen, but if Lampson isn’t going to last more than 2 years anyway, why does he feel the need to cater to the conservative base? He can read the polls. A (D) in front of your name running in Sugar Land is a gun to your head. He might as well have gone full Shelia Jackson Lee. It wouldn’t have hurt his chances of reelection much.
gwangung
@Flugelhorn: Hm. Looking at BizComps for comparable small business sales in pharmacies, I’m judging that the prices named are more than a tad bit higher than they should be.
Silver Owl
I hope Corporate America organizes a press release when they start buying and selling Senators and House Representatives on ebay.
Corner Stone
@Zifnab: He had no business winning that seat in the first place. If DeLay had stepped out when appropriate, the R’s could’ve nominated a pet rock and won that House seat. But Shelly Sekula-Gibson-Weimaraner-Schwartzen as a write in candidate? Jeebus.
I gave plenty of money and time to Nick and got every penny’s worth when a D took that seat after DeLay. He’s just a naturally conservative D, and I knew that going in. But he’s not a whack job about it, and so I went along. If he’da gone all Sheena E.,…uh, I mean Sheila Jackson Lee, he wouldn’t have lost any uglier, or gotten anything more significant done during his term.
It was inevitable, no matter what he did so I can’t fault him for doing what he thought he needed to do.
Nick is a fiscal conservative (in the actual sense of the term), a proponent of education and all for trying to make children’s lives better. Plus pork for NASA.
General Winfield Stuck
@Flugelhorn:
Like I said pea brain, you have no direct knowledge of the deal and or what it entailed; But you would have if you’d read the article.
And if you’d read the article you would have know your theory was crapola, as Napolean pointed out
@Napoleon:
Back to troll school for you dude.
Wile E. Quixote
@Flugelhorn
Oompa-loompa
Mike’s in the sack
and Flugelhorn
is licking his crack
A county assessment might be low, an independent assessment not so much. And since this sort of thing is a quite common way of bribing politicians it’s something that deserves scrutiny. If Mike Ross doesn’t like that, well tough titty for Mike Ross, when you get elected to Congress you lose a certain degree of privacy with regards to your financial matters.
Gwangung
As I said, there’s evidence outside the land assessment.
General Winfield Stuck
I have a comment in moderation answering Flugelhorn, Someday it will be released.
John D.
@Brick Oven Bill:
“We” have previously discussed? Bullshit. “We” in the classic sense meaning “you and I” have done no such thing. “We” in the sense of you and the delusions in your head, I make no claim about.
You ARE NOT ALLOWED to handwave that garbage. You made a claim, to wit:
This cannot be achieved with universal suffrage in a country with 100 million jobs, 310 million people, and a bunch of dummies.
Note the complete lack of “contribute to the economy”. Note the complete lack of “government and education modifier”. Note the complete lack of economics training apparent in ALL of your blather.
You are utterly ignoring the most important aspect of the economy — money. Government employees and teachers get paid, just like everyone else. They spend that money buying goods and services, just like everyone else. And you are counting them as 1/3 of a person for your delusional calculations? Even the slaves got a better deal than that in our Constitution, and they were literal slaves rather than wage slaves.
You have no training, no experience, no intelligence, and no talent for this sort of analysis. You make outlandish claims that are so disconnected from reality that it’s like watching a never-before-seen butterfly in the wild — an insane, drunk, never-before-seen butterfly.
It’s very simple: You made a simple factual claim, easily verified, that failed verification. Your entire thesis rested on that fact. You are wrong. Admit it, modify your thesis to account for the actual, accurate data, and try again.