Lawmakers' Profits Are Scrutinized - Hastert and Others Defend Land Gains

[Mr. Mojo Risin]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/21/AR2006062102210.html?nav=rss_email/components

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) made a $2 million profit last year on the sale of land 5 1/2 miles from a highway project that he helped to finance with targeted federal funds.

A Republican House member from California, meanwhile, received nearly double what he paid for a four-acre parcel near an Air Force base after securing $8 million for a planned freeway interchange 16 miles away. And another California GOP congressman obtained funding in last year's highway bill for street improvements near a planned residential and commercial development that he co-owns.

For more than a year, the congressional corruption scandal triggered by former lobbyist Jack Abramoff has focused attention on earmarks secured by lawmakers on lobbyists' and government contractors' behalf. Now watchdog groups are combing through lawmakers' land holdings and legislative activities, searching for earmarks that may have boosted the value of those investments.

"The sound bites from politicians have always been that they're doing what's best for their districts, but we're starting to see a pattern that looks like they might be doing what's best for their pocketbooks," said Keith Ashdown, vice president of the group Taxpayers for Common Sense.




Keep moving, nothing to see here. Just some more corruption.



Let the revolution begin.

[Monkeyman]

1. We are after the Fatman

He not only got caught in this deal hiding the deal in a trust. But got caught lying to veterans about his support of us. He has the second lowest voting record on veterans. Plus all VSO in Washington gave him failing grades.Hastert is got to expain holding a bill up on genecide. It looks like he was paid to do so by Turkey. Remember he wrote a letter to Gale Norton in the Abramoff Indain deal recieved 70,000 for that letter.

www.john06.com