Calling BS on Reid's Bain tax claims...

[UB_S]

Calling BS on Reid's Bain tax claims

Dan Primack / Fortune / 7-31-2012

Harry Reid is either a liar or a lousy critical thinker.

FORTUNE -- Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) made political waves today by claiming that a Bain Capital investor told him that Mitt Romney didn't pay any taxes for a 10-year period.

One of two things has happened: (1) Reid is simply making the whole thing up, in order to pressure Romney into releasing tax returns for years prior to 2010, or (2) Reid's investor pal lied, and the Senator didn't bother to conduct even a mild vetting before sharing the accusation with reporters. Either way, shame on gossipy gentleman from Nevada.

Let me make this crystal clear: Investors in private equity funds do not receive, nor are they entitled to request, personal tax returns for fund managers. Not just at Bain Capital, but everywhere. For example, ask the person managing your 401(k) for their personal tax returns. See how far you get.

What makes this particular claim even sillier, of course, is that Romney hasn't even been managing Bain funds for the past 10 years (no matter when you believe he leftthe firm). He's been a silent investor like Harvard and MIT. Think the guy managing private equity for Harvard can get the personal tax returns of the guy managing private equity for MIT? Yes, that's another rhetorical question.

And just to close the circle, it also isn't possible that Reid's source was someone within Bain because partner tax returns are not prepared or reviewed in the firm's offices. Instead, that's done at PricewaterhouseCoopers. So no "maybe someone found it on a fax machine" theories. It's also possible that someone else at Bain didn't pay taxes for 10 years, but that wouldn't necessarily mean that Romney did or didn't (he does have other financial interests).
A Reid spokesman defended his boss to me on the phone, only saying that I'd have to talk to Reid's original source. But of course he wouldn't provide the source, or even ask Reid if there had been a follow-up like "How the hell would you know that?"

Whatever the truth about Romney's tax history, we know that Reid's "source" is full of it.

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/31/calling-bs-on-reids-bain-tax-claims/

[Liberty]

I think the only one who should be embarrassed is Nevada for electing Reid in the first place. How this idiot continues to get away with his nonsense is beyond me.

[Warhawk1982]

It wouldn't suprise me if reid weren't giving the mob money/tax breaks in Vegas for certain..."favors".

[UB_S]

i.e. where is the fair and unbiased press on this:

Here is a condensed version of an interesting (opinion) article about hypocrisy and ethics:



Harry the Weasel

8-8-2012 / Arnold Ahlert / The Patriot Post

To paraphrase an old saying, if you're going to accuse someone else of being a weasel, it's probably not a good idea if you're a major weasel yourself. Senator Harry Reid called attention to himself last week, accusing Mitt Romney of not having paid taxes for 10 years. The basis of his allegations? Depending on the day of the week, it was one person: "As I said before, I was told by an extremely credible source that Romney has not paid taxes for ten years...," or more than one: "I am not basing this on some figment of my imagination," Reid said in a telephone call with Nevada reporters. "I have had a number of people tell me that." Asked to elaborate, Reid declined. "No, that's the best you're going to get from me," he said.

Now, in a world where journalistic integrity was anything other than the oxymoron it has become, Mr. Reed would have been vilified for making unsubstantiated allegations of the "when did you stop beating your wife" variety. Not by Mitt Romney, but by a national press corps that ought to occasionally realize how tragically transparent their roles as useful idiot water-carriers for the left have become.

But as I've said before, there's an election to win for Barack Obama, and anything that can divert the conversation away from the latest round of stinko job numbers -- numbers New York Post columnist John Crudele has ridiculed as completely bogus -- then that is all that matters. The Chick-fil-A story is pretty much played out, and this qualifies as a viable substitute.

Yet if Mr. Reid insists on implying that Mitt is dishonest, I think it's time someone in the media, small as my circle of influence is, returned the favor. Harry, you see, is one of the quintessential examples of someone to whom the expression, "he came to Washington to do good, but ended up staying to do very well" so aptly applies. Harry's been a Senator for 26 years, yet even as he has worked "tirelessly for the little guy" he has amassed quite a bit of dough for himself.

Not that we'll ever know exactly how much.

Why? Try this...:

"The two Democratic leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives (that would be Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, respectively) are among hundreds of senators and representatives from both parties who refused to release their tax records."

Pot meet kettle. But we're just warming up...
...

As with so many Democrats, parsing the language is critical. The key phrase here is "not a lot of cash." I'm betting most people think a million bucks -- give or take an additional hundred grand -- is an amount a tad bigger than that. Oddly enough, that's exactly what Harry made six years ago on a real estate deal. What kind of deal?

From a Newsmax story, dated Oct. 11, 2006: "Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid collected a $1.1 million windfall on a Las Vegas land sale even though he hadn't personally owned the property for three years, property deeds show."
"In the process, Reid did not disclose to Congress an earlier sale in which he transferred his land to a company created by a friend and took a financial stake in that company, according to records and interviews."
Who's the so-called friend? "The Nevada Democrat's deal was engineered by Jay Brown, a longtime friend and former casino lawyer whose name surfaced in a major political bribery trial this summer and in other prior organized crime investigations."

The story goes on to deal with a lot of details, most of which demonstrate what a weasel Harry truly is. But for me, the kicker is this line: "Reid hung up the phone when questioned about the deal during an AP interview last week."
Since Harry's a Democrat, that was pretty much the end of it...
...

If Harry want to look at someone who's in violation of the law, the nearest mirror should do the trick.

Americans need to ask themselves which is more important, Mitt Romney's missing tax returns -- or the Senate's missing budget? The Senate Majority Leader has refused to pass one in more than three years, abandoning his primary responsibility as a leader, and violating the Constitution in the process. Meanwhile, annual deficits continue to explode above the trillion dollar marks and the national debt is pushing a nose-bleeding $16 trillion.

In other words, it's still all about the economy, no matter how hard weasels like Harry -- along with his fellow weasels in mainstream media -- try to divert our attention. It's not going to happen.

http://www.patriotpost.com/opinion/14360

[261911]

Since he's not going to stop these shenanigans, let's do the next best thing: make him minority leader in the Senate on November 6.

[UB_S]

Originally Posted by 261911

Since he's not going to stop these shenanigans, let's do the next best thing: make him minority leader in the Senate on November 6.

Let's do it..!!


Obama Attack Dog / 8-6-2012 / Daryl Cagle / www.cagle.com

[Warhawk1982]

That sums it up perfectly /\

[RexOdatis]

One of two things has happened: (1) Reid is simply making the whole thing up, in order to pressure Romney into releasing tax returns for years prior to 2010, or (2) Reid’s investor pal lied, and the Senator didn’t bother to conduct even a mild vetting before sharing the accusation with reporters. Either way, shame on gossipy gentleman from Nevada.