The Reid farewell tour continues. (R-J photo)
The paean to the prince of political payoffs and paybacks continues apace after more than seven pages were devoted in the paper delivered in Sunday driveways to the retirement of Harry Reid after three decades in the Senate.
Today’s piece occupies a majority of the front page and an entire inside page covering his various dabbles into local businesses.
It opens with Reid making phone calls to various banks in 2009 when it looked like the MGM construction of CityCenter was going to be shut down due to the recession. The tale doesn’t say what Reid said to those banks who came to the table and negotiated to allow construction to continue.
Later the story hints at what he might’ve said when he recounts what happened when he browbeat a Nevada power company into halting plans to build new job-creating coal-fired power plants and some businesses started campaigning against him.
“But I called some of them — most of those places were owned by hedge funds and equity firms — and I called whoever they were and I said, ‘You go ahead and do this, but you’re going to pay big time because I’m going to do everything I can to try to mess with your businesses,’” he proudly told the reporter. “And they quit, every one of them, quit, withdrew. So my threats worked. But I was serious about that.”
He has been said to have used similar tactics in the past against against certain bankers who also owned businesses in Nevada.
In the 2010 election campaign MGM’s CEO Jim Murren was on the list of Republicans for Reid.
CityCenter (R-J photo)
4TH ST8 
Thug!
And proud of it.
Is it fawning or is the news exposing his extraordinary political machinations, perhaps opening the door for Woodward and Bernstein “follow the money” type investigations into his bullying tactics? How different is this than the IRS bullying Republican individuals and businesses perceived to be afoul of Washington policies?
He’s retiring. He didn’t lose any of his Senate campaigns.
I used to like what said but over the years he “evolved” into a congress critter of the finest kind.
But he is not going down in infamy, he is leaving at the top of his game. A winner, not a loser.
Whats that saying about winners writing history? After a while the truth, sadly, just sounds like sour grapes.
Bullying? Perish the thought.
Let this nightmare, along with President Pinocchio, disappear from the American Landscape.
Can’t come soon enough!
The “top of his game” is bragging about his tactics, he didn’t stop Romney with that BS story, Romney was too nice, too decent, too gentlemanly in a cutthroat game. Obama had he edge because Romney would have appeared to be a racist by attacking Obama’s record and background. His first question in a debate should have been “Who the hell are you?’.
Nevertheless, Vernon, Reid is retiring by his own choice. Not because he lost the last election.
In most peoples view, that is winning.
No better proof exists that our government has grown too powerful than the example of Harry Reid’s record of “public service”. As Pa use to say, “A man who cannot be believed is not worth much to himself or anyone else.” What a sorry, worthless life to have lived.
Top of his game my a__, this sorry piece of donkey dung is a crook and a liar (and those are his good traits)! The only reason he didn’t run again is because he was afraid Gov. Sandoval would defeat another Reid…(and he would have). I wouldn’t give you a plug nickel for either one of them. And that list needs to be renamed the Rino Traitors for Reid. With stalwarts like those sorry SOB’s…it’s no wonder the state turned blue again. Dennis Miller has dingy Harry pegged a whole lot better than Steve…
Nevertheless, Brien, Reid is retiring by his own choice. Not because he lost the last election.
And his handpicked replacement won his seat.
In most peoples view, that is winning.
Woopty freakin’ doopty…winning at what cost? At the cost of selling your soul and becoming a hated partisan hack? That isn’t really winning at all. (I’ll take Barbara’s summation of his paltry existence). And that of the woman who died in 2010…who in her pre-written obituary asked that in lieu of flowers, a donation be made to try and defeat Harry Reid that year because of what he’d become…
Harry Greid. Best Republican Majority Leader, EVER!
Thanks, Pinky!
Not the point.
We really shouldn’t be singing as though we somehow won something in his choice to not run for another term while successfully inserting his hand picked candidate into his former Senate seat.
Reid won, he won everything he wanted to win while we tried and failed to stop him.
This is no victory, Reid has control of all the cards, even now.
Steve, your point is valid, but the defense of such an odious person is hard to stomach. And the very fact that this corrupt cretin “won everything he wanted to win” says more about the dim bulbs and morality-free voters of Nevada, than this mysterious Multi millionaire whore house slime ball carrying on Victory Lane!
AND there’s also the elephant in the room problem of illegal aliens flooding Las Vegas. E-verify, and denial of welfare would go a long way to restore our employment situation and public schools.
Spot on Athos!
Perhaps he needs to change his detergents?
It’s like saying we win because the other guys got more points, took the trophy and left the field…..
What we learned from the Liberals push for Obamacare is concentrating on things the public is less than concerned about will bite hard. Obamacare and Democratic ignorance of the public’s concern over the economy cost Democrats the House of Representatives in 2010, hopefuly conservatives won’t make that same kind of error.
The coming two years are the chance Conservatives need to prove their points. Rather than trying to claim victory, how about buckling down, getting to work and making conservative ideas reality? Could turn the two year effort into a four year gain and an 8 year victory, followed up with a continuing conservative plank into the next 10 year period?
Wouldn’t that be nice?
I agree