Kerry loan to campaign questioned

Washington Times ^ | 3/02/04 | Donald Lambro

[kattracks]

Sen. John Kerry was asked yesterday to make public all documents involving the emergency $6.4 million bank loan he secured on his Boston town house late last year to finance his then-sagging presidential campaign.

At issue is the Mellon Bank's $12.8 million appraisal of Mr. Kerry's house on Boston's Beacon Hill

[onyx]

Simply delicious.

[John Lenin]

this is good bump

[nopardons]

Isn't it just ? :-)

[alwaysconservative]

While you're opening those records on the value of your house, Monsieur Kerry, maybe you'll agree that YOUR service records also deserve some open scrutiny while you run for the highest office in the land?

And how about that reimbursement of your "salary" (gift) for having missed close to 60% of the votes you were hired to do?

[onyx]

Don't miss this news. :)

[My2Cents]

He's not called "Cash-and-Kerry" for nothing.

[Tactical]

The general rule of thumb for home values set for property taxes is this. Multiply the assessed value times 1.5 and that will give you a rough true value of the real property. At least that pretty much the way it is here in Arizona.

So, $6.95M x 1.5 = $10.425M in real value.

A couple million less than the $12.8M he got. Who knows though? Maybe Kerry has gold driveways???

[TheSpottedOwl]

Hahahaha, thanks for the ping :-)

It will be interesting to see how he wiggles out of this.

[Tamzee]

Ahhh, thank you! A lovely bit of reading, to be sure :-)

[onyx]

He's not called "Cash-and-Kerry" for nothing.

Right. And, the Heinz fortune can't bail him on this one.

[Tamzee]

Nope, not gold driveways... close, though ;-)




(snipped)

"So why did Heinz's application stir up such a brouhaha in the Boston papers? Perhaps because it came after Kerry and Heinz had a fire hydrant moved in front of their Boston townhouse to open up a more convenient parking space. That particular mini-scandal began in March 1996, when the Boston Globe printed a photo showing Heinz's Jeep Cherokee parked next to a fire hydrant near her five-story brick home at Beacon Hill's Louisburg Square."

"A little more than a year later, the couple put in a formal request to the Boston fire department to move the hydrant. Within a week, the district chief went to the site himself and approved the move. After the hydrant was moved around the corner (at the expense of Kerry and Heinz, not taxpayers), Kerry irritated his neighbors by claiming the five new legal parking spaces created by the move. Local real-estate gurus estimated the new spaces would add $200,000 or more to the value of the Heinz-Kerry mansion. Eventually, the senator sent word to his neighbors that he would abide by the longstanding unwritten agreement that each house on the privately owned square has a right to only two parking spaces."

(snipped)

http://www.nationalreview.com/geraghty/geraghty200402050908.asp

[Tamzee]

Methinks we have ketchup leaking into places no ketchup should go...

[onyx]

LOL-LOL-LOL --- you always come up with the best graphics. Thanks.

[Howlin]

Bump!

[AmishDude]

Watch the foundations that are funded by the Heinz charities.

[CFC__VRWC]

My guess is Kerry goes on the attack and accuses the Bush campaign of using "dirty tricks" and of attacking his patriotism for daring to apply the law to him. The media will be more than willing to push this message for him.

Question - what exactly is the penalty for breaking these campaign finance laws? For instance, let's say Tah-Ray-Za and George Soros just say the hell with it, openly give Kerry's campaign millions of dollars and then make a big public stink about it, daring the FEC to "bring it on." Would they risk any prison time?

My guess is that they might get fined a few thousand dollars and that would be all, meaning that it would be a low-risk bet with a potentially enormous payoff, a deal too good to pass up. Even if the worst came about and Kerry didn't get elected, they could keep the case tied up for years and years with endless appeals, and eventually weasel out of even paying the chump change fines.

[jmstein7]

BUMP!

[jackbill]

Each state has different rules for assessing property. In Massachusetts, the assessment is, by law, 100% of fair market value.

I lived there from 1991 to 1997. It works and it is very accurate.

In Maryland, where I now live, assessments were at about 42% of fair market value until about three years ago. They are now at 100% of fair market value, and it works.

Kerry couldn't sell his place in Boston for one damned dollar more that $6.5 million.

[Carolinamom]

Didn't Clinton get an UNSECURED loan from an Arkansas bank early in his presidential campaign which tided him over until federal funds kicked in?