The Reid "scandal" is totally bogus, and Greenwald tells why

[Starfury]

Glenn Greenwald weighs in on the laughable Reid "scandal." Now, I'm not a tax attorney or an accountant, but this seems like a total joke.

Investigations and arrests of key Republican political operatives have become so numerous that they are genuinely difficult to keep track of, so it is understandable that many Bush supporters are so eager to find a Democratic scandal to enable them to argue some sort of balance. As understandable as that desire is, this Harry Reid "scandal" is predicated on some of the most irrational and misguided claims imaginable.

(...)

The attempt to transform a technical inaccuracy into some sort of grand corruption scheme is dependent upon this incredibly misleading claim, as illustrated by Captain Ed:

Besides, the man made $700,000 in profits in 2004 on that one sale of land that, according to his disclosure statements, he didn't even own at the time.

The Washington Post article linked to above uses this same formulation, which has become the standard anti-Reid mantra: "The Associated Press reported last week that Reid gained the 2004 windfall even though he had not owned the property for the previous three years."

(...)

As for the Reid matter, Doctor Biobrain points out in Comments that the proceeds received by the LLC from the sale of land are automatically deemed (for tax and accounting purposes) to be personal income to Reid, even if the proceeds remain in the LLC. By definition, profits received by an LLC are attributed to the individual LLC shareholders. To suggest that there is something untoward -- or even unusual -- about individual LLC shareholders receiving the profits from the sale of land owned by the LLC is itself dishonest, since not only are such transactions entirely common and proper, our tax laws are premised on the assumption that the beneficiaries of the profits generated by sale of an LLC-owned asset are the individual owners of the LLC.

You can read it here, http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/10/todays-tour-around-mind-of-bush.html
and as a bonus, you get a very nice summary of Newt Gingrich's hypocrisy when he tries to criticize Pelosi's "San Francisco" lifestyle. :)

[Hav]

1. .

They have nothing else than to run on their lies and false insinuations as so many of them got caught being corrupt and perverted scum.