Posted on 05/30/2008 6:53:41 PM PDT by weef
I honestly don’t think money matters to him. He’s in it for the power, fame and glory. Mollahan on the other hand.....
My .02
If the corrupt bastards which make up our current GOP House would act in their own best interests, they would come out for an absoluted, definitive and unquestioned ban on earmarks. A total ban.
It’s right in line with the 1994 Contract With America. And that is what will get the GOP grassroots to finally show up for these weaselly bastards. Unless they can prove that they are different than the democrats which they replaced and who eventually replaced them, there is little reason for all of us to show up, give money or actively support them for re-election.
It’s a easier thing for challengers to oppose earmarks entirely but the current encumbents need to bite the bullet and go the one thing which might save their sorry @sses and keep themselves in office. If they fail to separate themselves from the liberal scum in power now, we have no need to reward them with re-election and we will search for a new revolution like we did in 1994.
Republican Congressman beware!
Founded in 1998, Cornerstone was once touted as a leader in developing a cutting-edge technology that would bring high-paying jobs to the region. It operated in a leased Plains Township facility before closing its doors in 2003 and moving machinery and equipment into a parking garage of a Nanticoke bowling alley.
Steve Sitar, an auctioneer hired by Sheils to inventory and appraise assets, said he found barrels of graphite, some office equipment and a couple of pieces of small machinery.
Conrad on Friday laughed when told there were minimal assets found. He wondered where two milling machines, developed using U.S. Navy funding, were. Sitar said he did not see them.
Conrad said the ending to the tale was not the one he envisioned when he signed on a decade ago. He said the technology was “sound” and there were investors ready to pony up millions of dollars. Poor management and greed ruined the fairy tale, he said.
Conrad pinned the blame squarely on the congressman’s involvement in the company.
“The moment we had a greedy congressman trying to stuff his pockets with money we were through,” Conrad said. “If your only principle in business is greed, your business will fail.”
June 2006
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert has used an Illinois trust to invest in real estate near the proposed route of the Prairie Parkway, a highway project for which he’s secured $207 million in earmarked appropriations. The trust has already transferred 138 acres of land to a real estate development firm that has plans to build a 1,600-home community, located less than six miles from the north-south connector Hastert has championed in the House.
Hastert’s 2005 financial disclosure form, released today, makes no mention of the trust. Hastert lists several real estate transactions in the disclosure, all of which were in fact done by the trust. Kendall County public records show no record of Hastert making the real estate sales he made public today; rather, they were all executed by the trust.
The trust, called the Little Rock Trust #225, transferred 138 acres of farmland in which Hastert had an interest to a company called RALC-Plano LLC on Dec. 7, 2005. (See Document 1, attached) Illinois Secretary of State records show that the company is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Robert Arthur Land Company. The company’s Web site lists plans for a Plano development called North County, with lots for 1,635 homes, 33 acres for commercial and retail businesses, and 18 acres set aside for a public school.
The proposed path of the Prairie Parkway is a little more than 5.5 miles to the east of the development; the Kendall County Board has already voted in favor of putting an interchange on Galena Road, giving residents of the new development easy access to the highway.
Hastert has argued that the highway is needed to cope with Kendall County’s rapid population growth. In 2002, for example, he said the proposed highway will “address tomorrow’s growth-related problems before they occur.”
Hastert’s use of the trust obscured his ownership interest in particular parcels of property. For example, Hastert listed, on his 2004 financial disclosure form, that he had acquired a “1/4 share in 69 acres (Plano, Ill.)” on Feb. 17, 2004. However, a search of Kendall County public records for Hastert’s name revealed no such purchase. Instead, Little Rock Trust #225 acquired the property, effectively hiding Hastert’s interest in the land. (See Document 2.)
On May 2, 2005, the Hasterts transferred an additional 69 acres of land—part of the property they bought as a primary residence in 2002—to the trust. (see Document 3.)
Those two properties, according to Kendall County’s online real estate records, were sold by the Little Rock Trust to RALC-Plano for more than $4.9 million on Dec. 7, 2005.
The trust was established on February 9, 2004. Under Illinois law, trusts have no obligation to make public the identity of their beneficiaries. The Little Rock Trust #225 documents do show that the trustee is Dallas C. Ingemunson, who wears multiple hats in Illinois and Kendall County politics. He serves as treasurer of Hastert’s federal campaign committee, chairman of the Kendall County Republican Party, and is sometimes described as Hastert’s political mentor.
The trust continues to acquire property. On his 2005 financial disclosure form, Hastert lists a purchase of “1/3 share of 125.96 acres (Kendall County, IL)” for between $1,000,001 and $5 million. That land—located at 15715 Miller Road in Plano—was actually acquired by the Little Rock Trust.
June 2006
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) made a $2 million profit last year on the sale of land 5 1/2 miles from a highway project that he helped to finance with targeted federal funds.
A Republican House member from California, meanwhile, received nearly double what he paid for a four-acre parcel near an Air Force base after securing $8 million for a planned freeway interchange 16 miles away. And another California GOP congressman obtained funding in last year’s highway bill for street improvements near a planned residential and commercial development that he co-owns.
Hastert and Reps. Ken Calvert and Gary Miller say that they were securing funds their home districts wanted badly, and that in no way did the earmarks have any impact on the land values of their investments.
******
Hastert received 275 acres of property overlooking the Mississippi River in Eastman, Wis., for which he paid $756,000.
The partners partially took payment in land because federal law allows capital gains taxes to be deferred when a business or investment property is swapped for another business or real estate.
******
June 2006
Hastert’s family paid $11,000 per acre in 2002 for some of the land he and his partners subsequently sold in December for $36,000 per acre.
The speaker has long been a staunch supporter of the proposed Prairie Parkway and helped secure more than $200million in federal funding through an earmark in federal transportation legislation last year.
A map of Calvert’s recent real estate holdings and those of a partner, Woodrow Harpole Jr., show many of them near the transportation projects he has supported with federal appropriations. For example, Calvert and Harpole own properties close to a bus depot in Corona for which Calvert sought funding. According to development experts, improvements to the transportation infrastructure have contributed to the area’s explosive growth.
Calvert said he had used earmarking solely to benefit his district. Those appropriations, he said, have had nothing to do with his investments or financial gains. Noting that property values have climbed throughout the Inland Empire, he added: “They haven’t passed a law against investing yet.”
In 2005, Calvert and Harpole paid $550,000 for a 4.3 acre parcel just south of March Air Reserve Base. Calvert’s real estate firm, where Calvert’s brother, Quint, is the president,[5] and Halpole is vice president, received brokerage fees from the seller, Rod Smith of Greeley, Colorado, for representing both buyer and seller in the deal. Less than a year later, Calvert and Harpole sold the property for nearly $1 million. During the time he owned the land, Calvert used the earmarking process to secure $8 million in federal funds for a freeway interchange 16 miles from the property, and an additional $1.5 million to support commercial development of the area around the base.
In the spring of 2006, Calvert and Harpole purchased 4 acres of land from Jurupa Community Services District, a water and sewer district in northwestern Riverside County, for $1.2 million, along with five investment partners who jointly had a one-third interest. A newspaper investigation reported in August 2006 that the district apparently never first offered the land to other public agencies, a requirement of state law intended to provide more recreational land. The district’s general manager said other agencies were notified, but representatives of those agencies said they received no such notice. The district could not provide evidence of the notification, saying relevant files had been misplaced.
The community services district did not advertise or list the land for sale, a practice required by counties and many other public agencies seeking top dollar on behalf of taxpayers.
In May 2007, the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct of the U.S. House of Representatives sent Calvert a letter stating that his earmark request for $5.6 million for the Corona Transit Center did not, in the committee’s opinion, constitute a “financial interest”. The transit center, a hub for rail commuters and an a transfer point for bus connections, is in the vicinity (from .1 miles to 1.7 miles) of seven properties in which Calvert has an ownership interest. Calvert had successfully obtained earmarks of $700,000 in 2004 and $500,000 in 2006 for the transit center.
In 1993 Calvert was arrested for soliciting a prostitute.
Also in 1993, Calvert and his former wife, Robin, were divorced after 15 years of marriage. His ex-wife later accused him of not paying the alimony arranged. In addition, his father committed suicide. After these experiences, Calvert said that the experiences “have helped me mature greatly... and become a better person.”
BTTT
“Of course they are. Why else would they spend $1m dollars to get a job paying $100k?”
BINGO!
We have a winner!
Why do you think Hastert went all out to defend William Jefferson, D-LA?
Make that 'Romanian Term Limits.'
Our government culture has tipped. You can't move in unless you're of the same moral (immoral) persuasion.
Earmarks are actually not such a bad thing per se, but the abuse is.
On Fox News now...
It's on now...Fox News.
There covering Paul Kanjorski and his family now. What a slimeball.
Doing your usual excellent sleuthing kcvl. Awesome job!
Everyone should write FNC and compliment their special and ask that they make this a regular program every week! There’s corruption in BOTH parties.
In the meantime, I vote we grab our pitchforks!!
Don’t worry, Ol’ Denny ain’t going anywhere!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/30/AR2008053002852.html
...”At Dickstein, Hastert “will not be lobbying; he will be providing strategic counseling to our clients,” a spokeswoman for the firm said.”
yeah, right.
Saw that too. What a dirty little piece of canine refuge. Hastert, and there are many of his kind, are what is wrong with the GOP.
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