Harry Reid May Become a Retired Senior Citizen Sooner than He Expected

Senate Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid - we all know Harry Reid and his comments. He's the fellow who said in February that "all horror stories" about Obamacare are untrue. So it shouldn't be too surprising to learn that Harry is in "word trouble," but this time it's what he or his campaign committee signed, not what he said. Harry Reid has got himself into a world of political trouble, facing public scrutiny back home in Nevada over his potential enriching of family members through his powerful position as a Democratic leader. The Nevada Senator has recently become enmeshed in an embarrassing controversy surrounding the $31,268 that his campaign paid to his granddaughter Ryan Elisabeth Reid for the purchase of gift items from her jewelry line, a story that has been pursued by Nevada media for several months. But, the Los Angeles Times reported ten years ago about Reid's pulling strings to help family members when a Nevada land bill proposed by Reid appeared to benefit his son-in-law Steve Barringer's consulting firm and his sons' legal firm. The Howard Hughes Corp. paid $300,000 to the Washington firm Steve Barringer worked for to push a provision allowing the company to buy 1,000 acres of federal land for development in the then-burgeoning Las Vegas area, according to the LA Times. The bill also aided a real-estate development headed by a senior partner in the Nevada law firm that then employed all four of Reid's sons - Rory, Leif, Josh, and Key - by moving the right-of-way for a federal power transmission line off his property and onto what had been protected federal wilderness. In its report, the LA Times said, "So pervasive are the ties among Reid, members of his family, and Nevada's leading industries and institutions that it's difficult to find a significant field in which such a relationship does not exist." Reid's reputation for promoting his family's power, status, and wealth was further enhanced when it was revealed that he had lobbied a Nevada mayor and a councilwoman to support his son Josh Reid's application to become the city's attorney. Although young Reid got the job in 2011, the officials said that Harry's phone calls did not influence them. Reid has also faced allegations that in 2012 he helped his son Rory's legal firm receive legal fees from a Chinese company building a solar plant in Nevada, according to Bloomberg. The company's billionaire founder, Wang Yusuo, joined with Reid to win incentives, including paying just $4.5 million for land to build the plant, which was one-eighth of what it was assessed for. The project produced legal work for Rory's firm, which contributed $40,000 to Reid during the past three cycles, says the Bloomberg report. Earlier this year, Reid's penchant for helping his family made him the target of an ethics and conflict-of-interest complaint after he helped to fast-track US visa applications for Chinese investors in the new Las Vegas casino SLS, represented by his son Rory, Ryan Elisabeth's father. Until the recent controversy, Politico writer Jon Ralston said in a report titled "Harry Reid's Kryptonite," referring to his family, that the senator was Mr. Teflon : "Even when Reid gets caught pulling strings for his family, nothing seems to stick," Ralston wrote. But the scandal surrounding his campaign payments to his granddaughter has brought intense scrutiny, with Jahan Wilcox, a Republican National Committee spokesman, calling it a "personal slush fund." The latest family problems for Reid began when it was revealed that his campaign had paid a total of $16,787 in 2013 to Ryan Elisabeth for "holiday gifts" for the senator's staff, consisting of jewelry items created by his 23-year-old granddaughter. The nepotism issue escalated when it was learned that Reid's campaign had paid another $14,481 to Ryan in 2012, bringing the total in payments over two years to $31,268. Although his payments appeared to enrich a family member, Reid defended the payments by stating that he had complied with Federal Election Commission standards that allow the purchase of goods from relatives if those goods are sold at fair market value. The Democratic leader explained, "I thought it would be nice to give supporters and staff thank you gifts that had a personal connection. But I have decided to reimburse the campaign for the amount of the expenditure." But to Ralston, who worked the political beat for two Las Vegas newspapers before joining Politico, the appearance of impropriety is still an issue. "I gave the money back so I don't look guilty of something," said Ralston in Politico, quoting what he thought Reid was really saying. Politico also pointed out that although the law allows for "nominal gifts," there needs to be a great deal of such gifts to reach $31,268. One report even calculated that with a piece of jewelry from Ryan Elisabeth's line costing $70 on average, it would be the equivalent of buying 450 "nominal gifts" over two years. Ralston said that when he appeared last month on Fox News, host Sean Hannity introduced him by saying, "Tonight we have an in-depth investigation into a scandal that is just beginning to break, and it's one that could mean the end of Harry Reid's political career." ~~~~~ Dear readers, it requires a very active conscience and an iron determination not to succumb to every politician's disease -- they soon come to believe that they are above the law so that whatever they do is in the public interest, because they know what the public's real interest is better than the public does. And if a politician is elected often enough and becomes powerful enough, they forget that they are not the people's servants but rather a breed somehow above the mere mortals who elected them. Why else would the Senate Majority Leader compromise his future and his honor? However, we have had glimpses of Harry Reid's self-righteousness before the jewelry scandal. Reid defended the indefensible Obamacare website by blaming senior citizens for being computer illiterates : “Okay, if you're over age 50, the internet issomething you're just learning about.” (Harry Reid, October 24, 2013). Not knowing when to shut up, Reid added : “If you want to go to the internet, it has not done well, just like when Google started doing all their things, it didn't work out well.” (Harry Reid, October 24, 2013). And just to prove he was right about the Obamacare website being A-OK and senior Americans being out of touch, recently, on March 26, Harry Reid said : “There are some people who are not like my grandchildren, who can handle everything so easily on the Internet, and these people need a little extra time. The example they [Republican Senators] gave us is a 63-year-old woman came into the store and said, 'I almost got it. Every time I just about got there, it would cut me off.' We have a lot of people just like this through no fault of the Internet, but people are not educated on how to use the Internet.” (Harry Reid, March 26, 2014). Now, there, Harry Reid was on to something -- not only do his children and grandchildren know how to use the internet, they seem to know how to tap Harry for money and favors whenever they want to. My advice to Harry Reid would be to stop attacking senior citizens and start preparing for his return to civilian, i.e., non-political, life. Because it may be that Harry will join the ranks of American senior citizens sooner than he anticipated.