Free Republic

Scott Green, a lobbyist with close ties to Joe Biden, purchased Virgin Islands property from James Biden and then extended him a private mortgage. ------------------------------------------- In 2005, Joe Biden’s brother bought an acre of land with excellent ocean views on a remote island in the Caribbean for $150,000. He divided it into three parcels, and the next year a lobbyist close to the Delaware senator bought one of the parcels for what had been the cost of the entire property. Later, the lobbyist gave Biden’s brother a mortgage loan on the remaining parcels. The Virgin Islands land deal, reported here...

BULLHEAD CITY, ARIZ. — It's hard to buy undeveloped land in booming northern Arizona for $166 an acre. But now-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid effectively did just that when a longtime friend decided to sell property owned by the employee pension fund that he controlled. In 2002, Reid (D-Nev.) paid $10,000 to a pension fund controlled by Clair Haycock, a Las Vegas lubricants distributor and his friend for 50 years. The payment gave the senator full control of a 160-acre parcel in Bullhead City that Reid and the pension fund had jointly owned. Reid's price for the equivalent of 60...

Harry M. Reid of Nevada, the Senate's top Democrat, said yesterday that he was in discussions with the chamber's ethics committee to determine whether he should amend his financial disclosure forms to include details of a real estate transaction that allowed him to collect $1.1 million. The Associated Press reported that Reid gained a windfall from that sale of land in 2004 even though he had not personally owned the property for the previous three years. Reid also did not divulge the 2001 transfer of the land to a company he co-owned with a friend, a transaction that would normally...

On the campaign trail, 2012 presidential hopeful Rick Perry plays up his humble roots as a dryland cotton farmer from rural Texas. He rarely, if ever, mentions that he has become a pretty savvy real estate investor during his more than 25 years in office. The Fort Worth Star Telegram reports that Perry's income has soared as he has climbed the political ladder in Austin, thanks largely to a handful of lucrative real estate deals that have made him a millionaire. When Perry was first elected to office in 1985, as a state representative from Haskell, he and his wife...

Just a few short weeks ago the President spoke to Wall Street CEOs on the anniversary of the Lehman Bros. collapse: Unfortunately, there are some in the financial industry who are misreading this moment. Instead of learning the lessons of Lehman and the crisis from which we're still recovering, they're choosing to ignore those lessons. I'm convinced they do so not just at their own peril, but at our nation's. So I want everybody here to hear my words: We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess that was at the heart of this...

If Nancy Pelosi's and Harry Reid's shady land deals weren't enough to signal to Rep. Alan Mollohan (who is already under investigation) not to get involved in earmarks that could increase the value of your own property, then you got all the proof you need that Democrats think they are above the law.

Instead of talking in sweeping platitudes about "ethics reform," Senate Democrats might want to prove they mean it by dumping their ethically challenged majority leader, Harry Reid. The Nevada lawmaker has been implicated in yet another land scheme that this time could net him a tidy $50,000 to $290,000. Los Angeles Times investigative reporters Chuck Neubauer and Tom Hamburger, this week revealed that Reid paid $166 an acre for valuable northern Arizona land whose market value, according to the county assessor, four years ago was worth $2,144 an acre. Who would be a big enough fool to sell Reid the...

Californians will soon go to the polls to vote on Proposition 84, a $5.4 billion bond to pay for water projects and park land -- the largest such bond in state history. But even as that campaign plays out, questions are arising over whether taxpayers are getting a fair price when state agencies buy land for parks and wildlife. Environmentalists, taxpayer groups and several Bay Area political leaders last week called for new laws to require California agencies to make appraisals public before they buy ranches, forests, wetlands and other property. They argue that this would reduce the risk of...

Re: Harry Reid's sweetheart deal, is the MSM: a.)Too stupid to understand how land use works? b.)Too lazy to do the digging on the key questions? c.)Too partisan to turn over the rocks because the Democrats' #1 senator is involved? d.)All of the above? On the chance that there are a couple of MSMers long on energy and curiosity but short on how to investigate a land deal, here are some of the questions that need answering, especially given the admission from Senator Reid that the failure to disclose his ownership interest may have been a violation of Senate rules....

MIDI - THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND This land was my land it needed rezoning And now I've got these reporters phoning This is unreal...somebody squealed This land was made to profit me I gave up title without reporting And now my grand scheme Rove's intent on thwarting It's become unreal...'cause somebody squealed This land was made to profit me When we talk ethics, I'm doing the right thing And I must tell you, the right wing's frightening This is unreal...somebody squealed This land was made to profit me We'll take the Senate...I'll be the leader Investigators, I'll be...

The Senator, Sons, Lawyers,Son in-law,

REDLANDS Federal investigators probing Rep. Jerry Lewis' ties to lobbyists are looking into a land deal that put nearly 41 pristine acres in the congressman's neighborhood off-limits to developers, The Associated Press has learned. The land was given to the city of Redlands by Jack and Laura Dangermond, who have donated generously to Lewis. The Dangermonds founded and run a company Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc. of Redlands that has gotten tens of millions of dollars' worth of contracts through the powerful House Appropriations Committee that Lewis, a Republican, now chairs. One government contract came months after the land donation....

One of the most inhospitable places in the country, Coyote Springs Valley is so barren that, until recently, its best use was thought to be as a weapons test range. Yet the valley — an hour northeast of Las Vegas — is on its way to becoming a real estate development of historic proportions, with as many as 159,000 homes, 16 golf courses and a full complement of stores and service facilities. At nearly 43,000 acres, Coyote Springs covers almost twice as much space as the next-largest development in a state famous for outsized building projects. Helping make Coyote Springs...

We’ve all been had. The bottom has long since fallen out of the key group that master-minded the Kyoto Protocol credit scheme, but nobody seemed to have joined the dots. It all began with the flight of Canadian Maurice Strong’s Earth Council from Costa Rica as noted by the National Post’s Peter Foster in May, 2004. With no fanfare, the Earth Council landed in CH2M Hill’s Consumer Road Toronto office towers. The Costa Rican government has been pursuing the Earth Council for payment of U.S.$1.65 million, for the wrongful sale of a tract of land it imprudently donated to the...

PENNSAUKEN, N.J. (AP) - The oil company that owns Petty's Island wanted to donate it to the state as a nature preserve while local officials and a land developer were planning on building homes and a golf course on it. When the state rejected the donation offer, it was partly at the behest of southern New Jersey Democratic powerbroker George E. Norcross III, according to a report in Sunday's editions of The Philadelphia Inquirer. The newspaper obtained a copy of a Sept. 29 fax in which Norcross asked state Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley Campbell to ``please review'' a memo describing...