Warren to Reid: no you may not help Casino constituents avoid bankruptcy

"A move by Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to help Caesars Entertainment Corp. avoid bankruptcy has put the Senate Democratic leader at odds with one of his star colleagues, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

Reid is seeking to insert language in an end-of-year spending bill that would allow the gaming corporation to restructure the debt of a subsidiary out of court despite opposition from holdout bond holders.

If Caesars doesn’t get the help and folds, it could cost Reid’s state thousands of union jobs.

The problem is that the language could also help Education Management Corp. — a top target of Warren’s.

She argues the private education company, which operates for-profit colleges such as the Art Institutes, Argosy and Brown Mackie, uses “scam recruiting practices” to bilk students.

Earlier this year, Warren called for tougher federal oversight of for-profit colleges, and last month she sent a letter to the Departments of Education and Justice criticizing a settlement with Education Management for being too lenient.

Decisions by two courts involving Caesars and Education Management make it more difficult for corporations to cut their debts without going into bankruptcy if their debt-cutting plans are opposed by minority shareholders.

Reid’s language is meant to override those decisions to allow Caesars to cut its debt without going through bankruptcy despite opposition from some stockholders.

He argues the language has been drafted so that it would not apply to Education Management, but allies of Warren say it does not pass muster.

Adam Levitin, a law professor at Georgetown University who is a friend and former student of Warren’s, said Reid’s legislative language is poorly drafted and will not exempt Education Management from protection."

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/262741-casino-rider-pits-reid-against-warren

Mrs. and Sen. Reid sue exercise band company

"Reid, 75, claims he was injured while exercising with the band on Jan. 1 at his Henderson home.
"The TheraBand was mounted to a sturdy object in his bathroom," according to the lawsuit. "While in use, the TheraBand broke or slipped out of Mr. Reid's hand, causing him to spin around and strike his face on a cabinet."

According to the document, Reid suffered "loss of vision in his right eye, a concussion, broken orbital bones, severe disfigurement and bruising to his face, hand injuries, facial lacerations, scarring, and broken ribs.""

So did it slip from his hand or did it break? That's unspecific language for a lawsuit.

I have never used these kinds of bands in an exercise program, but when I have stretched them, I always thought, 'how likely is it they will they break and hit me in the face?'


http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/sen-reid-wife-sue-makers-exercise-band

"Homeland Security exec used 'improper influence' to favor Reid, McAuliffe"

"Department of Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas exerted "improper influence" on behalf of three applicants for a federal program that grants residency to foreign investors in U.S. projects, including one with links to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and another to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe."

Mayorkas created a hand-picked "deference review board" that reversed a series of decisions by the LA Films center to reject applications linked to film projects of Sony and Time Warner. "This board did not previously exist and was never used again after it voted to reverse the adjudicators' proposed denials. Remarkably, there is no record of the proceedings of this board," the inspector general said.

In the Las Vegas example, Mayorkas intervened at the request of Reid seeking "expedited review of investor petitions involved in funding a Las Vegas hotel and casino, notwithstanding the career staff's original decision not to do so." The inspector general said "Mayorkas pressured staff to expedite the review. He also took the extraordinary step of requiring staff to brief Senator Reid's staff on a weekly basis for several months."

Senator Reid is dirty and everybody knows it.

Harry Reid

Busted his face exercising.

I understand Reid was trained as a boxer. I read it somewhere. I respect that. It is odd.

But I must say, I've seen him in interviews with other people and he always seems like the smallest man on any given panel and his contributions to discussions seem petulant and feeble. Without sufficient interest to research his life I do wonder sometimes how a man this apparently shallow attained his authority if not through the magical machinations of party, if not without absence of ethics. Maybe "Las Vegas" answers all of that.

The group of co-bloggers at Ace of Spades were having a field day on Twitter challenging reporting of Reid being hurt by morning exercise. Again. The last time he injured himself running. These things have names, you know; bench press, bar, weights. Why so vague? They were having a good time suggesting he fell out of his sex sling.

Fight, fight, fight, Democrats are always fighting for something, anything, even to micro aggression, while accusing their opposite of maintaing a spirit for war, and simultaneously ignoring the wars their own leaders have dragged us into with no real intention of winning.

Senator Reid addressed Las Vegas Asian Chamber of Commerce

"I don't think you're smarter than anybody else, but you've convinced a lot of us you are."

"One problem I've had today is keeping my Wongs straight."

Reid being Reid 

Charles and David Goldstein

Video: Sen. Pat Roberts Stands Up To Harry Reid on the Senate Floor

"Kansas Senator Pat Roberts recently performed something like an intervention (as the Daily Caller’s Chuck Ross called it) addressed to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s “Koch addiction.” The Kochs are of course among Roberts’s constituents."

Bundy Redux

From the Washington Post on March 21, 1993: The Post article was written more than 21 years ago, before Cliven Bundy had been assessed even one dime in fees, and validates his claim that his grievance is about the intrusiveness of federal rules aimed at protecting the desert tortoise, and how the government has used the rules as yet another tool to pick economic winners and losers.

Three years ago, with tortoise populations crashing largely because of habitat destruction across its range in Nevada, California, Arizona and Utah, the federal government added the tortoise to its list of threatened species. The designation immediately imperiled tens of millions of dollars worth of construction projects in this development-crazed city.    

But it also triggered a novel experiment in the peaceful resolution of endangered species conflicts that is similar, in many respects, to the process Babbitt would like to try nationwide to defuse explosive development-versus-environment fights.    

Employing a rarely used mechanism approved by Congress a decade ago, environmentalists, developers, government officials, cattlemen, miners and off-road vehicle enthusiasts began negotiating a “habitat conservation plan.” The hope was it would satisfy both the needs of the tortoise and the Las Vegas area’s rapacious appetite for development.    

The result was a plan to protect the tortoise by providing vast tracts of federal land as a refuge while sacrificing other tortoise areas to development....    

By mid-1991, the Fish and Wildlife Service had approved a short-term conservation plan that allows for development of about 22,000 acres of tortoise habitat in and around Las Vegas in exchange for strict conservation measures on 400,000 acres of federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land south of the city. The plan is funded by development fees of between $ 250 and $ 550 an acre paid by builders. Almost $ 10 million has been raised so far.

Among the conservation measures required are the elimination of livestock grazing and strict limits on off-road vehicle use in the protected tortoise habitat. Two weeks ago, the managers of the plan completed the task of purchasing grazing privileges from cattle ranchers who formerly used BLM land....

Open Secrets reports that Harry Reid has raised more than $44 million of campaign donations during his time as Senator.  Many of the donors are attorneys, casino owners, developers, etc.

1989 - 2014 Total Receipts:

$44,499,256

Say what you will about Cliven Bundy being a cantankerous old guy, the facts suggest that he and other ranchers are being screwed out of a living by the federal govenrment, all so other interests can use the land Bundy and other ranchers have been grazing their cattle for more thatn a century.  The land on which he holds grazing rights is being set aside as tortoise habitat so other lands can be deleloped, likely by people who have enriched Harry Reid's campaign chest.

And who, exactly, gave the order to kill Bundy's cattle?  Shouldn't we know that?  Damn right we should.

Read more here.

A Different Take On The Bundy Ranch Conflict

The best part of the video is in the middle.   The beginning has some fluff, the end is a commercial of sorts.  There is clear information that Harry Reid and his son are involved in the BLM attempting to end Cliven Bundy's cattle operation.

Is Sen. Harry Reid Behind BLM Land Grab of Bundy Ranch?

“[Reid] and his oldest son, Rory, are both involved in an effort by a Chinese energy giant, ENN Energy Group, to build a $5 billion solar farm and panel manufacturing plant in the southern Nevada desert,” he wrote. “Reid has been one of the project’s most prominent advocates, helping recruit the company during a 2011 trip to China and applying his political muscle on behalf of the project in Nevada.

His son, a lawyer with a prominent Las Vegas firm that is representing ENN, helped it locate a 9,000-acre (3,600-hectare) desert site that it is buying well below appraised value from Clark County, where Rory Reid formerly chaired the county commission.

The land in question is the land on which Cliven Bundy and his family have grazed cattle for more than 100 years.  Land on which they have for years taken steps to provide habitat for tortoises the Bureau of Land Management says are (suddenly) threatened.

“A tortoise isn’t the reason why BLM is harassing a 67 year-old rancher; they want his land,” journalist Dana Loesch wrote. “The tortoise wasn’t of concern when [U.S. Senator] Harry Reid worked with BLM to literally change the boundaries of the tortoise’s habitat to accommodate the development of his top donor, Harvey Whittemore.”

Harry Reid is involved in something filthy.  Are you surprised?  I'm not. 

Read more.

The Weekly Standard: "Harry Reid Denies All Obamacare 'Horror Stories'; 'All Are Untrue'"

"Harry Reid spoke about the Obamacare "horror stories" on the Senate floor this morning. He said that "all are untrue."

"Despite all that good news, there's plenty of horror stories being told. All of them are untrue, but they're being told all over America," said Reid.

"The leukemia patient whose insurance policy was canceled [and] could die without her medication, Mr. President, that's an ad being paid for by two billionaire brothers. It's absolutely false. Or the woman whose insurance policy went up $700 a month--ads paid for around America by the multibillionaire Koch brothers, and the ad is false. READ MORE

Video of Senator Reid's remarks at the links.

Gates Duty: 'No Fan of Harry Reid… or Nancy Pelosi'

"At a press conference in April 2007, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid famously declared “This war is lost,” and that “the surge is not accomplishing anything.” That didn’t sit so well with Gates, who writes that when he heard the comments, he was reminded of a Lincoln quote (which he shared with his staff): “Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged.” Ouch. He also wasn’t exactly enamored with the idea that the calls he received from Reid had to do with Air Force objections to wind farms in Nevada, and Reid pushing him to spend DoD money on irritable-bowel-syndrome research. Gates writes, “I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.” It wasn’t the last time he would laugh about Reid. Gates writes that Reid called him during the 2008 campaign to ask some questions of Gates as a potential vice-presidential candidate."

"Later, Gates went to breakfast with then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi days after she said “The president’s strategy in Iraq has failed,” and “The choice is between a Democratic plan for responsible redeployment and the president’s plan for an endless war in Iraq.” Gates argued with her that President Bush and Gen. David Petraeus had enacted a change of mission and a “sustainable path forward,” but according to him, she did not care. This led Gates to surmise that, “after all, one wouldn’t want facts and reality—not to mention national interest—to intrude upon partisan politics, would one?” Later, Pelosi is briefed on the timetable for drawdowns in Iraq, during which she was informed that roughly 50,000 troops would remain in Iraq through 2011. Gates describes that she “alternately looked like she had swallowed an entire lemon and like she was simply going to explode.”

Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War

I am tranquil about this

Volkh: Senate Goes Nuclear, Expect Fallout.

Rule passed 52 to 48. Always so close. I heard the antique say, "Look at what's happened. Look at what's happened." Yes, Harry, we look at what has happened. I started paying attention to this sort of obstruction at the time of Clarence Thomas where observers notice this sort of bullshit began in earnest as stated policy of Democrats. Your Party did create this and now rues the situation of its own creation, or says it rues.  

What was that Clarence Thomas said back there about your Party's activities? 

It's a national disgrace. And from my standpoint, as a black American, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate rather than hung from a tree.

That is what your Party did. That is who you are, what you have become.

Volkh is interesting but says what we're already thinking. This helps Republicans more than it does Democrats because Democrats are by far more obstructionist, the record shows that, just wait. The desperation is showing and this is most pleasing to observe.

Over 400 comments over there and they get interesting right off. 

Bill Bentnickel links Dr. Strangelove riding the bomb.

JohnSkookum 

• 6 hours ago

I am tranquil about this.

Number one, it's perfectly Constitutional. The houses of Congress set their own rules.

Number two, it is the most convincing evidence yet that the Democrats are completely panicked about losing the Senate in 2014. This would not be true if they held the House also, of course, but they don't, and they know that nothing they want is going to make it through both houses. Instead, they want to pack the courts as a final f**k-you on their way out the door they know is shortly to be held open for them.

Number three, the ongoing cataclysmic failure of Obamacare bids fair to wreck the Democratic Party for a generation. it is delicious to contemplate the kind of judicial nominees President Ted Cruz or Rand Paul or Scott Walker will now be able to get approved starting in early 2017. I hope they throw the filibuster in the trash altogether and start dismantling entire Cabinet departments willy-nilly.

I find them interesting comments. Just a few more:

"Where’s Joe Biden?"

"When President Barack Obama laid out his strategy for the current debt-limit fight in a private meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this past summer, Reid stipulated one condition: No Joe Biden."

And while Biden attended the White House dog-and-pony show meeting last week with congressional leaders, Reid has effectively barred him from the backrooms, according to sources familiar with the situation."

Biden was once Democrats’ deal-maker-in-chief, designing budget pacts with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in the summer of 2011 and New Year’s Eve 2013."
Both Reid’s office and the vice president’s office declined to comment for this story.
But the Reid-Biden tension stands out because the two men spent so much time together in the Senate — 22 years — and because they’re on the same team. It is also yet another example of how deteriorating relationships among the nation’s top political leaders are making it harder to game out a solution to the fiscal crisis."

Read more at Politico