[Salt Lake Tribune] Embattled St. George businessman Jeremy Johnson says new Utah Attorney General John Swallow helped broker a deal in 2010 in which Johnson believed he was to pay Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ... the charismatic senator-for-life from Nevada, currently majority leader ... $600,000 to make a federal investigation into Johnson's company go away.
But when the federal government filed a lawsuit Johnson thought he had paid to quash, he demanded Swallow return some of the $250,000 initial payment. Then, just days before the Nov. 6 election, Johnson engaged in a frenetic but unsuccessful effort to get Swallow to drop out of the race, saying information about what Johnson called a "bribe" would come out and force the Republican's resignation if he became attorney general.
Johnson's allegations come less than a week after Swallow took the oath of office. Federal agents have interviewed several Utahns about Johnson's relationship with Swallow, among other issues, according to those interviewed. The FBI would not comment.
Johnson said he does not know if any of the money he paid in the deal actually reached anyone connected to Reid.
Reid's office declined to comment, spokeswoman Kristen Orthman said Friday.
To back his allegations, Johnson provided an email from Swallow that Johnson identified as key in supporting his claims. Johnson also granted access to at least several dozen other emails, two financial records, several photos and a transcript of about 60 pages of a secretly recorded April 2012 meeting Johnson had with Swallow, who was then Utah's chief deputy attorney general.
The documents appear to support Johnson's story that in 2010 Swallow brokered a deal between Johnson and Richard M. Rawle, owner of the Provo-based payday-loan company Check City, to enlist Rawle to use his influence to get Reid involved on behalf of Johnson and I Works, Johnson's Internet marketing company that was under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission.
Swallow emphatically denies Johnson's allegations and said he doesn't understand why Johnson is spreading lies about him.
"Any suggestion by Mr. Johnson that I have been involved in illegal or inappropriate activity regarding his FTC case or any other matter is false and defamatory," Swallow said.
Swallow insists Johnson approached him in 2010 and sought help to hire a lobbyist to deal with his FTC issues. "I told Jeremy I could not and would not intervene with the FTC on his behalf, given my position with the state [attorney general]," Swallow said. Johnson later asked Swallow to approach the U.S. attorney on his behalf, but Swallow said he refused.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/13/2013 00:00 ||
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Reid's office declined to comment, spokeswoman Kristen Orthman said Friday.
So this guy sez Harry took 600 grand to stiff a federal case for him and Harry's office doesn't deny it. So, according to the standard Harry holds everybody else to, this means he's guilty, yes? Prove you didn't take the money, Harry.
Also, what about that pedophile thing you never denied?
#2
tu, most Americans have already forgotten Whorey Ried's allegations about Romney, so your allusion will go right over their heads. But not here at Rantburg.
#3
Mr. Jeremy Johnson's problem was that his wasn't a 'Green' company with connections to the White House. Now that's the way to make investigations go away. Or be the host of an MSM Sunday talk show program from Washington.
[FREEBEACON] civil rights hustler Al Sharpton ...Tawana Brawley's spiritual advisor... aired a segment concerning a recent National Journal article which analyzed President B.O.'s chances of attaining a coveted spot on Mt. Rushmore Friday evening on MSNBC. Teddy Roosevelt's presence on the landmark garnered particular attention from Sharpton, who expressed his opinion that Roosevelt's thin resume as a "transformative president" strengthens the case for Obama to be included:
ABBY HUNTSMAN: You look at Reagan, he ended the Cold War. I think they have to have a legacy that changed America. Obama was the first black president. That is something that will always be remembered.
AL SHARPTON: And he stopped two wars and the whole question of finance reform on Wall Street and health care. I mean, he has done some concrete things. I can, again, the reason I raised Teddy Roosevelt is that a lot of people could say that Teddy Roosevelt was more of a character than a transformative president. I can name, literally, things that President B.O. has done. Now, I'm going to say that if Teddy Roosevelt is the measure, I think it strengthens the case for President B.O..
Teddy Roosevelt is credited with accomplishments such as completing the Panama Canal and establishing the National Parks system. Historians typically rank Roosevelt among the top five greatest presidents.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/13/2013 00:00 ||
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There's no more room for anybody on Mt Rushmore, as far as Obama, there's not enough room period, His ego wouldn't stand for any sharing.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/13/2013 0:13 Comments ||
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#3
Obviously thousands of street names, gov't buildings, schools, and possibly Lake Michigan must be re-named first. I'll take the contrarian view and support it, as long as Stone Mountain remains undisturbed.
#7
He might be from Hawaii - carve it into the crater of Kilauea. Or since he likes to swim, maybe Loihi. Better than Rushmore too - that Hawaiann basalt is black rock.
#15
Since tourists make up a large portion of the visitors to the Mt. Rushmore monument, a very democratic method would be to let voters and tourists decide. As I recall, there is a huge annual tourist event in nearby Sturgis during the 5-11th of August 2013. Let those in attendance... VOTE on the issue!
[HOSTED.AP.ORG] George Prescott Bush is gearing up to run for a little-known but powerful office in a state where his family already is a political dynasty and where his Hispanic roots could help extend a stranglehold on power Republicans have enjoyed for two decades.
The 36-year-old Fort Worth attorney says he is close to settling on campaigning for Texas land commissioner next year. He doesn't expect to make up his mind until he knows what Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a fellow Republican, decides to do.
"We for sure are running, the question is the office," Bush told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named during the first interview about his political future since filing paperwork in November to seek elected office in Texas.
Bush's father is former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, his grandfather is former President George H.W. Bush and his uncle is former President and Texas Gov. George W. Bush. Perry has been governor since George W. left for the White House.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/13/2013 00:00 ||
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The Primitive, albeit heavily furred creature makes a good point..... The National Train Set..... would be something we can all agree on.
The Rethuglicans want an O Gauge layout, handbuilt using nickel chromium steel tracks, with serious ballast. Only qualified cranks will be allowed to make it go.... The Donks want everymans layout, based on HO scale, with a shit load of cars and stuff and all and cost way the hell more than you would have thought considering everything. Everyone gets to play with it, but it only works 3 weeks every four years before election day. Still it looks good, and it has that going for it. Unless the Chineese kitteh sits on the track and then everything goes to hell in a high speed hopper.
[BOSTONGLOBE] Something didn't feel right to Andrew and Tracey Hyams when they entered the rest stop in Charlton on the Massachusetts Turnpike on Christmas Eve with their 12-year-old son and saw another boy absorbed in an arcade game.
The youth was firing a machine gun replica at the screen, licking off simulated rounds with a rapid-fire rat-tat-tat that reverberated off the walls. "You could even hear it in the bathroom," Andrew Hyams, 58, of Newton, said in a telephone interview Thursday. I've tagged this under "Tales of the Easily Offended," but I actually agree with the state action, probably for the "wrong" reasons. A highway rest stop is for going to the bathroom or taking a nap, maybe buying a cup of coffee or a snack. It's not for hanging around playing games, violent or otherwise. And I don't like violent video games because of 50 percent if everybody is below average, so is 50 percent of the violent games audience. I know lotsa people like to play them, but we have enough violence-fixated brats in this country.
Because the plaza is close to Newtown, Conn., Hyams said, a relative of one of the school shooting victims could have walked in and seen a player firing away, 10 days after the massacre that took the lives of 20 first-graders and six adults.
"People have the freedom to have whatever video games in their own homes that they want," Hyams said. "We were struck by walking into a [state-owned] rest stop within an hour's drive of Newtown and seeing and hearing a life-sized, mounted machine gun on a video game."
The couple felt that such games had no place in public rest stops, and the state Department of Transportation agreed. After receiving an e-mail from the Hyams, the Massachusetts agency removed nine violent games from service plazas in Charlton, Ludlow, Lee, and Beverly.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/13/2013 00:00 ||
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Killed one of their main Profit makers, the rest areas will Love you for this.
Those games are a sink hole for Quarters.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/13/2013 0:16 Comments ||
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Doubt it will be much of a problem in Illinois. Many of the rest stops were closed years ago and are now overgrown with weeds and brush. Couldn't afford to keep them open.
#3
I've been near driven to mass murder by certain pin-ball machines. XOX comes to mind as does FireBall and of course Jumbo. I hate Jumbo, I really hate it, Jumbo picked on me since I was 5 and I had to stand on a bucket to work the flippers. It's Satan in disguise.
If I had a Hammer, oh Lord send me a hammer or a big ass magnet.
#4
We were struck by walking into a [state-owned] rest stop within an hours drive of Newtown and seeing and hearing a life-sized, mounted machine gun on a video game.
After fuming about Video games at Rest Stops perhaps these folks can visit some Places where the phrase struck by takes on a whole new meaning. Coincidentally, theyre also about an hours drive from Newtown.
#5
#3 Ship - All of the old Rantburg regulars have always known that you were in thrall to the Dark Lord. But it's good to see you admit it. The first step on the road to recovery, etc., etc.
#6
Heh...Try getting Mass DOT to act this fast if they screw up the credit card billing on your Fast Pass.
But for a futile PC gesture, they're on it like white on rice. The only thing that happens faster is the press release to the Globe...
#9
First is the Arcade, next will be Internet Cafes + Personal Laptops.
These "violent" games, Contemporary or Retro, are mainly oriented towards Young, Adult, or Working-class Males, as are "Truck Stops" in general. + are key sources of revenue. It will be simialr even as per non-Gun/Weaponized SPORTS or GAMBLING GAMES.
MALE PSYCHOLOGY = THE LESS VIOLENT OR "HARD-HITTING" OR "REALISTIC" A GAME IS, THE MORE BORING IT IS.
[POLITICKER] Yesterday, Mayor Michael Nanny Bloomberg and city officials unveiled a new initiative to limit supplies of prescription painkillers in the city's emergency rooms as a way to combat what they described as a growing addiction problem in the region. Some critics, as documented by The New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... , however, felt the move would unnecessarily hurt poor and uninsured patients who use emergency rooms as their primary care doctor. Needless to say, Mr. Bloomberg was not swayed by this line of argument. After all, who better to prescribe the right levels of medication than a politician?
"The city hospitals we control, so ... we're going to do it and we're urging all of the other hospitals to do it, voluntary guidelines. Somebody said, oh, somebody wrote, 'Oh then maybe there won't be enough painkillers for the poor who use the emergency rooms as their primary care doctor,'" the mayor said on his weekly radio show with John Gambling. "Number one, there's no evidence of that. Possibly because nobody's looked for it.
Number two, supposing it is really true, so you didn't get enough painkillers and you did have to suffer a little bit. Ever had a dislocated hip, bub?
The other side of the coin is people are dying and there's nothing perfect ... Meaning the the city government-imposed dosage limits won't be, either.
There's nothing that you can possibly do where somebody isn't going to suffer, and it's always the same group [claiming], 'Everybody is heartless.' Come on, this is a very big problem." Ever slip a disc, yerhonner?
In the same interview, Mr. Bloomberg stressed the initiative's simple rationale is to prevent extra pills from piling up in the cabinets of New Yorkers who no longer need them, where they can pose a health risk if they're abused. There's a solution to that. It's called a "toilet."
"We talk about drugs, heroin and crack and marijuana, this is one of the big outbursts--and it's a lot worse around the country than it is here. It's kids and adults getting painkillers and using them for entertainment purposes, or whatever field of purposes, as opposed to what they are designed for," he explained. "If you break a leg, you're going to be in pain, nothing wrong with getting something that reduces the pain. But if you get 20 days worth of pills and you only need them three days, there's 17 days sitting there. I've got thirty days' worth of painkillers. Some days I gulp 'em down like candy. Sometimes I go for a week without needing them. No doubt hizzonner will send me an email telling me when's good.
Invariably some of the kids are going to find them, or you're going to take them and get you addicted." The addict's method of taking percocet: first lick the time release coating off the pill. Second, grind it up nice and fine. Third, sniff it up your nose. I don't think merely limiting the number of pills dispensed will do anything to effect that kind of usage.
Mr. Bloomberg also argued the number of pain pills currently being prescribed had even contributed to an uptick in violent crimes outside of pharmacies from robbers looking to steal the drugs. Wouldn't it be a better idea to control the crooks than to control... Oh, wait. I see. It's the law-abiding that get the drugs, the crooks that steal them. It's so much easier to bully the law-abiding, isn't it?
"You see there's a lot more hold-ups of pharmacies, people getting held up as they walk out of pharmacies," he explained. "What are they all about? They're not trying to steal your shaving cream or toothpaste at the point of a gun. They want these drugs." "Therefore you shouldn't have the drugs. So suck it up."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/13/2013 00:00 ||
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the crooks that steal them.
Are a Law fnforcement Problem, How about an Armed Lawman inside esch drugstore, instead of Looking for "Gun Conreol" Use "Criminal Control"?
But that wouldn't stop EEVIL GUNS, (crime). (Sarc)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/13/2013 0:35 Comments ||
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"If you break a leg, you're going to be in pain, nothing wrong with getting something that reduces the pain. But if you get 20 days worth of pills and you only need them three days, there's 17 days sitting there."
I can't wait until this asshole breaks a leg and they give him THREE DAYS worth of painkillers...
#4
Money quote: "supposing it is really true, so you didn't get enough painkillers and you did have to suffer a little bit."
Typical progressive attitude of 'we all have to suffer some for the good of the collective' - actual guilt is irrelevant. Somebody else got fat, I can't have a big soda. Somebody else shot a kid, I can't have my rifle. It NEVER ends.
#5
Well a new study says that three out of four people who end up in th emergency room have soda on a daily basis.
The obvious solution komrades would be a cup buy-back program. After 30 days police and certified public sugar deputies will be dispatched to search random blocks for high capacity styrofoam cups, with the authority to confiscate and arrest for other found contriband.
#7
He's an egomaniac. One of these days his subjects will have had enough of his decrees. Of course, free money will take a lot to overcome. But I have every confidence in the guy in this regard. He gets more and more emboldened every time his sheeple submit to his ever-more-insane ideas.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Harry Reid
[FREEBEACON] 
[HOSTED.AP.ORG] George Prescott Bush is gearing up to run for a little-known but powerful office in a state where his family already is a political dynasty and where his Hispanic roots could help extend a stranglehold on power Republicans have enjoyed for two decades.
[BOSTONGLOBE] Something didn't feel right to Andrew and Tracey Hyams when they entered the rest stop in Charlton on the Massachusetts Turnpike on Christmas Eve with their 12-year-old son and saw another boy absorbed in an arcade game.
Michael 
