On 3/23/2012 4:28 PM, George Plimpton wrote:

I simply can't believe how much this inattentive, plodding,
slovenly dogmatic Hawke-Ptooey pretends he knows. He doesn't
write like a complete inept, but the quality of thought behind
what he does write shows staggering ineptitude. He doesn't seem
to have any idea what a clown caricature he is.


What you don't seem to get is that people here can see through your
facade.

There is that better you nit picking twit?


You need a verb between "can" and "through", Ptooey, or maybe a
verbal phrase. "People here can:

- whistle - relax - do their tax return

through your facade."

Damn, you just blow.


They have seen your blustering and [rabid foam snipped]

You can't support your claim, Ptooey. We get that.

I told you I don't make claims. When I say something it's true.

You claimed that I had no evidence that Dole was dirty or cashed in on
his office to gain personally. Really? You should know better than that.
Like I said, I've seen Dole's whole crooked career so I know him well.
He's a republican politician and as venal as they get but that's
redundant isn't it? You are too ignorant to even have known that. No
surprise there because you don't know jack.


Here's a few things to show what kind of guy Dole was when he was in the
senate.

Archer Daniel Midlands (ADM) is an agricultural giant. It's made huge
money from ethanol subsidies and it has contributed large sums of money
to a variety of entities that Dole and his wife own or control. But it's
only one company out of many that Dole made his money from.


"In a classic real estate maneuver, similar to one of which Lamar
Alexander was the beneficiary, ADM's founder, Dwayne Andreas, sold a
Florida condo unit to the Doles for $150,000.00. The unit, valued at
$190,000 and for which they paid no maintenance for seven months, may
actually have been worth $300,000.00. According to Dole's press
secretary, he and his wife had no idea they were buying the unit from
Andreas. "Ethics experts, "Lewis writes, "generally agree that it is
questionable for a lawmaker or their spouse to purchase real estate from
the chairman of a company with business pending before Congress.
Nevertheless, the Senate Ethics Committee has never formally
investigated the Dole-Sea View matter."

Hell no, those are republicans so we expect that from them and no longer
even think of it as wrong. Nice little gain there of 40 to 150K for the
Doles.

What has ADM gotten in return for its support of Dole? Hundreds of
millions of dollars in subsidies, paid for by our tax dollars. ADM's most
notorious product is ethanol, an alcohol distilled from corn and added
to gasoline to produce "gasohol". ADM makes 60% of the country's supply.
In a grant of corporate welfare as shameful as the equally famous
chinchilla subsidy, Congress created and supports a market for gasohol
that would not otherwise exist. In 1987 alone, ADM received $150 million
in federal ethanol support. Senator Dole was ethanol's steadfast sponsor;
to pick a single example, he held up a steel import bill until his
colleagues
agreed to extend the ethanol excise tax credit to the year 2000.

One thing about Dole, when a company bought him he really worked for
their interests and gave them their money's worth, just like he did for
ADM. But there were many including the tobacco companies. They really
owned Dole.


The above is just one of the ways that Dole used his position for
personal gain. He did this kind of thing for decades. He was a master of
using his office to gain from giant corporations. As a lawyer with
nearly three decades in the senate Dole was in a perfect position to use
every trick in the book to wheel and deal for himself and his corporate
donors. Of course, everyone who knows anything about politics knew this
about Dole.


In a ten year period beginning in 1985, ADM received $424.5 million in
other federal subsidies, from corporate welfare plans such as the
Export Enhancement Program (EEP). All of these programs were approved
by the Senate Agriculture Committee, of which Dole was a senior member.
Dole also supported EEP in speeches, legislative amendments,
and letters he has written to government agencies.





Of course, the real significance of this pattern -- much of which has
not been previously reported -- may lie not in what it says about a
particular senator or even a presidential candidate, but in what it tells
about our system for regulating political fundraising. Dole's story is
all too emblematic of how high-profile politicians use an array of loosely
affiliated PACs and nonprofits to fill their fundraising coffers, shore
up loyalty among potential allies, and build long-term relationships
with the nation's wealthiest interests. It is also indicative of how
the public and the press, increasingly desensitized to conflicts of
interest, are willing to give veteran politicians a free pass for sins
of the past. Oddly, Dole's campaign finance history has gotten virtually
no ink in the national media this election cycle. To be sure, Dole is not
the only prominent public official engaged in these practices. But Dole
was a pioneer of these tactics, and he remains one of the most
successful at employing them.



Although virtually every candidate for office poses as a man of the people,
the gap between rhetoric and reality is particularly glaring in the case of
Dole, a millionaire who has lived in Washington for three decades and
makes his home in the Watergate complex.



Dole, a pioneer of these tactics. Of course, he had decades in the
senate where he learned to be a master of this crooked game. But look at
what it says about Dole. A "millionaire" living in the Watergate
complex. That was way back in 1995 or 1996. So he was a millionaire way
back then. But that is what I said and Pimpleton said there was no proof
of. Well, here is someone else saying he was a millionaire back then.

So, there is tons of evidence that Dole was a master of using the system
in Washington to get rich. That's what he did. Anyone can find out what
Dole was like very easily. But you need to do it yourself. I am not
giving any citations. The quotes are there. If you don't believe it I
couldn't care less because I know what's true.

Hawke