Biden’s Real Estate Dealings With Supporters Called Into Question

Interesting.

While their earnings probably would not be enough to purchase their Greenville estate today, the Bidens have managed to live in such splendor partly because of two financially rewarding real estate deals with political supporters.

In 1996, Biden sold a home in Greenville for the asking price of $1.2 million—more than six times what he paid two decades earlier—to John R. Cochran III, a top executive at the MBNA credit card bank that was a longtime political benefactor.

Using profits from that sale, Biden paid $350,000 cash to real estate executive and developer Keith D. Stoltz for 4.2 vacant acres—a long, narrow lot a few miles from Biden’s old home. Stoltz had bought that same lot five years earlier for the same price.

Stephen Pyle, who sold the land to Stoltz in 1991, said he was surprised that Stoltz, who lived on a neighboring estate, did not make any profit selling to Biden. “That doesn’t sound like Keith Stoltz,” Pyle, an artist who now lives in Texas, said of Stoltz, whose company recently proposed a $525 million project at nearby Barley Mill Plaza, a former DuPont Co. office campus.

Cochran did not return numerous calls for this article.

Although Cochran paid Biden’s asking price, Stoltz wrote in an e-mail to The News Journal that “the residential real estate market was soft” when he was selling his lot.

Biden would not agree to be interviewed, campaign spokesman David Wade said in a written statement, because of “time constraints—he’s going a million miles an hour.”

1. Not a big issue, unless he gets tax advice from House Rep. Charles Rangel (D), Chairman of Ways & Means Committee.

   http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2075488/posts

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 06, 2008 at 0945 hrs




2. The selling of the house looks fine.  The buying of the land could be a little iffy.  I would be interested in seeing more information on that transaction.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 06, 2008 at 1120 hrs




3. Looks like they’ve stumbled across the currently-preferred method of getting bribes to Democrats…ala Obama-Rezko.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 06, 2008 at 1246 hrs




4. Joe is calling you into question!

   Posted by scott on September 07, 2008 at 1017 hrs




5. Funny clip.  Biden says “What do you talk about when you have nothing to say?  You talk about the other guy!”  This at the end of a 3-minute rant about… the other guy.

   Thanks, scott.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 07, 2008 at 1037 hrs




6. I did pick up on that irony.  But he has an extremely valid point: the GOP isn’t discussing issues as much ad the Dems are.  My personal interpretation of that is that they can’t run on issues, because they’re always on the wrong side of them.  Whatever you think the reason is, the fact that they aren’t discussing them is a fact.  Check out the graph from the NYTimes.  Who is talking about jobs?  Health care?  The economy?  Even energy, Iraq, the war…

   Republicans seem to be going after God, taxes, and character.  Pretty typical.

   Posted by scott on September 07, 2008 at 1211 hrs




7. So taxes aren’t an issue scott?

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 07, 2008 at 1235 hrs




8. I notice you forgot to mention that the GOP talked about reform nearly three times as much as the Dems.  Are the Dems on the wrong side of reform, scott?  That’s what your “personal interpretation” would indicate, correct?  Of course, given that both Obama and now Biden appear to be able to leverage some pretty sweet real estate deals from supporters, perhaps this explains the discrepancy.

   And that the very point that Biden made in his rant was bogus - Dems referred to their opponent more than three times as much as did the GOP. 

   They also talked about Bush more, 46 to 7.  That’s talking about the issues, scott?  Maybe they forgot that he’s not running.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 07, 2008 at 1240 hrs




9. Apparently to liberals, the only things that qualify as “issues” are expansion of government programs and regulation…resulting in more taxes and more control over people’s lives. When you suggest that people should be more responsible for their own lives and actions, that’s a “non-issue”.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 07, 2008 at 1344 hrs




10. Taxes are definitely an issue.

    Posted by Teak Furniture on September 08, 2008 at 0551 hrs




11. Look I’m not making this up.  Voters clearly are saying that the economy, the war and health care are the issues they are most concerned about.

    http://www.pollingreport.com/prioriti.htm

    Taxes?  Sure, that’s an issue.  But it’s not a top issue.  Voters say so.  So you go ahead and run on that if you think it’s a winner.

    “Reform” isn’t an issue any more than “change” is.  Notice how I didn’t point to “change” as a top issue that we were talking about that you weren’t?  That’s because it’s not a bona fide “issue.”  Look at the polls at the link above.  Does “change” appear on it?  No.  Because it’s more of a theme not an “issue.”  It’s a meta issue, if anything. 

    You’re upset we’ve been talking about where the country is right now and how we got here?  No wonder!  It’s largely the fault of your party!  You don’t want us to talk about Bush, I can see that.  People don’t trust Republicans to handle their top issues today precisely because Bush and the Republican party have screwed everything up so badly over the last 8 years.

    We’re not confused about who we’re running against.  We’re running against the Republican party—the same Republican party that has brought us to where we are today.  The fact that you’d like to change the name of your party to Maverick won’t matter to anyone in the end.

    So you go ahead.  Avoid talking about what the years of Republican governing (and I use that term charitably) has brought us.  Avoid talking about voters’ top issues like the economy, jobs, health care and the war.  Keep trying to scare people that the big bad Democrat is going to raise their taxes.  Keep trying to tell people that some turbaned, cave-dwelling Muslim extremists are going to blow us up unless we elect you.  We’ll see how that works for you in November.

    (Incidentally, I don’t know if you know this, but John McCain was apparently in the Vietnam war!  Who knew!)

    Posted by scott on September 08, 2008 at 0853 hrs




12. You keep saying that scott but we have loads of videos of Republicans talking about the improving the economy and health care. Energy independence and so on.

    We aren’t avoiding talking about the years of republican governing, we are glad to see someone step up to the establishment and maybe try and make some changes (alas why we love Palin so much!). Wasn’t it the democrats who took over Congress in 2006? What have they done for us?

    Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 08, 2008 at 0923 hrs




13. If you took these issues seriously, Tom, and intended to run a campaign on them, then it seems natural that your convention’s top speaker—the Republican nominee for president—would be talking about them more.  As it turns out, WE are talking about them more.  That’s a fact, and that’s my whole point.  McCain seems to want to run more on God and taxes than he does on the issues voters say they’re most concerned about.  And he doesn’t want to talk about his own party’s record over the last few years—we do.

    Posted by scott on September 08, 2008 at 0941 hrs