Is Nancy Pelosi a crook?

[Jack Black]

Lachlan Marklay, writing in the Washington Free Beacon, reports
that Nancy Pelosi steered more than a billion dollars in
subsidies to a light rail project that benefitted a company run
by a high-dollar Democratic donor and in which her husband is a
major investor. Here, according to Marklay, is how the scheme
operated:

Pelosi has worked for more than a decade to steer taxpayer funds
to a light rail project in San Francisco’s Mission Bay
neighborhood, where Salesforce had planned a new campus. Experts
say the project boosted the value of Mission Bay real estate.

The company’s CEO, Marc Benioff, is a high-dollar Democratic
donor. Pelosi and her leadership PAC are among the recipients of
his generous campaign contributions. Pelosi’s husband is also a
major Salesforce investor.

In April, Salesforce sold its property in the Mission Bay area
for a significant profit. CEO Benioff, the big Dem donor,
obviously benefited from the increase in property values that
federal funding helped generate. So did Pelosi, through her
husband’s large investment in Salesforce.

Power Line readers won’t be surprised to find Tom Steyer’s hand
in this affair. Marklay reports that Salesforce bought the land
in question from Alexandria Real Estate Equities, which had
purchased it from FOCIL-MB, a division of Democratic financier
Tom Steyer’s hedge fund, Farallon Capital.

Mission Bay has been home to some of the fastest growing
property values in San Francisco. The increase has coincided
with the expansion of the city’s Third Street Light Rail line.
According to Marklay, studies on the financial effects of public
transit projects, including one that looked specifically at the
Third Street expansion, show the connection between the
expansion and the increased property values, which should be
obvious in any event.

Pelosi has championed the expansion of this rail line for more
than a decade. Since 2003, says Marklay, she has secured well
over a billion dollars for the project in the form of earmarks,
federal funding agreements, and stimulus disbursements.

In 2004, Farallon, Steyer’s hedge fund, gained ownership of
roughly two million square feet of commercial space in Mission
Bay. The property obtained in 2010 by Salesforce is estimated at
a little under 1.5 square feet.

Paul Pelosi’s holdings in Salesforce amount to between $500,000
and $1 million, according to the former Speaker’s financial
disclosure statement. Pelosi first purchased the stock in 2000.
When it debuted on the market in 2004, it was worth $3.75 per
share. This week, it was trading at just under $53.

Saleforce’s CEO Benioff bundled $500,000 for President Barack
Obama’s reelection campaign and donated $300,000 to Democratic
candidates, party organs, and interest groups, according to data
compiled by CQ Moneyline. He donates to Republicans as well, but
only to the tune of $62,000.

In January of last year, Benioff made two contributions of
$2,500 to Pelosi, $5,000 to her leadership PAC, and $15,000 to
the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Four months
earlier, Pelosi had secured $967 million in federal funding for
the Third Street light rail project.

Apparently, Paul Pelosi is himself the owner of property that
will benefit from the Third Street light rail expansion. Hoover
Institution fellow Peter Schweizer, in his book Throw Them All
Out, reported that two stops on the extended light rail line are
located about three blocks from a four-story office building
owned by Paul Pelosi. Schweizer notes that according to the
National Association of Realtors, high-quality mass transit
(like the Third Street light rail) can increase property values
by more than 150 percent.

So, is Nancy Pelosi a crook? We report, you decide.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/08/is-nancy-pelosi-a-
crook.php
 

[Dänk 42Ø]

Post by Jack Black
Lachlan Marklay, writing in the Washington Free Beacon, reports
that Nancy Pelosi steered more than a billion dollars in
subsidies to a light rail project that benefitted a company run
by a high-dollar Democratic donor and in which her husband is a
major investor. Here, according to Marklay, is how the scheme

The details of the scheme are irrelevant, as members of both ruling
parties use their positions of power to enrich themselves.

Perhaps we need to add a fourth branch of government, one that is
completely independent of politics and dedicated to rooting out
corruption. That used to be the media, which has descended from
its origins in journalism -- finding out the facts and reporting
them correctly -- into tabloid trash. Entire media outlets are
outright pwned by the two ruling parties.

So what passes for politics in America these days is not a debate
on issues of any substance, but which Network has higher ratings,
as if that means anything. Pornography has even higher ratings
than Fox and CNN combined, so perhaps you would vote for Mona Lott
or Jenna Jameson for president?