Last updated on 2014.06.28
KSFY offers a lengthy collection of clips from our U.S. Senate candidates speaking about the EB-5 visa investment program.
Democrat Rick Weiland says letting foreigners buy their way through Customs "doesn't feel right." He views EB-5 in the frame of big money getting big favors.
Independents Gordon Howie and Larry Pressler both oppose the program. Howie says the more we learn about the program, the more questions come up. Pressler says the state Attorney General and the U.S. Attorney aren't doing enough to answer those questions; he proposes an Illinois-style independent prosecutor to figure out what happened in our EB-5 scandal.
Republicans Stace Nelson and Larry Rhoden both express concerns about EB-5. Nelson, as you'd expect, is more forceful in his condemnation of the program. He says taking foreigners' money to help government pick winners and losers in the marketplace is the opposite of what made America great. Rhoden says he has "refrained from making any judgment calls" about the EB-5 scandal... but he uses the word scandal. Rhoden also judges that there was a pretty dramatic lack of oversight.
The man responsible for that lack of oversight, Marion Michael Rounds, says EB-5 is good for South Dakota. He defends the federal program (and he emphasizes federal throughout the interview, to deflect his repsponsibility for grabbing that brass ring and pulling with all his might) with this cleverly crafted string of words:
We've created literally 28,000 new jobs while I was governor. We used the EB-5 program during that time to create those job opportunities [Marion Michael Rounds, interview with Mark Roper, "Senate Hopefuls Weigh in on EB-5 Scandal, Government Transparency," KSFY, 2014.05.29].
Rounds crafts that response to make it sound like EB-5 created all 28,000 of those jobs. He later claims thousands of people are at work right now because of the EB-5 projects. This claim is baloney: under no interpretation can we conclude that every new job that popped up in South Dakota came from any policy of the Rounds administration, let alone from EB-5 specifically.
Rounds also makes the laughable claim that the dollars EB-5 investors put into South Dakota are still here. Rounds apparently doesn't believe any of that EB-5 money went to refinance loans or pad offshore accounts. And he apparently knows more than the rest of us about the location of the $95 million in EB-5 money that Northern Beef Packers made go poof. Do tell, Mike....
KSFY squeaked Jason Ravnsborg in to the end of the interview. Maybe Ravnsborg said more that didn't make the cut, but KSFY only shows him going off the EB-5 track and saying we need to cut corporate tax rates. Yes, Jason, because the solution to a bad bout of crony capitalism is to engage in more crony capitalism.
Bill Clinton and Democrats should have known this program would not be good for the country before they implemented it. When SD implemented the Democrat's new program, they should have not followed Democrat states and moved towards private regional centers. Democrats created a model that was highly corruptible, and easily defrauded which is apparent through the high number of lawsuits dealing with EB-5 in blue states.
I really wish Rick Weiland would be more specifically aggressive against the EB-5 program using what has happened under the Rounds administration. He needs to add to the common theme other candidates opposing Rounds have brought up in an effort to educate SD voters and weaken Round's lead.
Rhoden? The SDPB debate just confirmed to me that he is a Round's victory enabler.
If Rounds does win the general election I'll be looking for Rhoden and Ravnsborg political appointments.
Decoy #3 Bosworth/Haber? incarceration and restitution.
That's like blaming the bank robbery on Henry Ford for inventing the getaway car. Hogwash!
Clinton didn't suggest the state agency in South Dakota tasked with handing the EB-5 transactions be privatized so that public accountability and transparency would be impossible. That was the thinking of a cabal of crooks in the Rounds Governor's Office of Economic Development.
Dan, if your kid stole a Snicker's bar at the Cenex convenience store, are you holding Cenex responsible, or your kid who stole the candy bar?
"Democrat Rick Weiland Weiland says letting foreigners buy their way into citizenship "doesn't feel right." "
Weiland is going nowhere with waffling statements about his "feelings". Feelings might make for good music lyrics, but it is nothing like "The EB-5 corruption stinks to high heaven and just like being skunk-stunk, Mike Rounds won't shake the stink." Stink is real, feelings are in the neighborhood of transient chimera.
"Democrats created a model that was highly corruptible, and easily defrauded which is apparent through the high number of lawsuits dealing with EB-5 in blue states."
It might also mean that blue states better regulate corruption than do one-party states that give corporate enties government powers with none of the responsibility or controls.
entities
Thanks 96 tears for supporting my opinion. If they can point out the incompetence that started it in SD, can't I point out the incompetence that started this at the national level? Neither were actually the ones taking money.
EB-5 was created by the 1990 Immigration Act,before Clinton was Potus and after 94 Clinton had an extremely hostile wingnut congress to put up with.
EB-5 is one of the dumbest programs ever. If any government wants foreigners to come to their country,spend money,create jobs,etc. how about making them actually apply for citizenship,become legal citizens,and start a business or invest in a business? It really chaps my rear that there are always some people that think that they can buy their way into or out of anything. Unfortunately,the crooks and their ilk will find a way to exploit whatever system/program to benefit themselves no matter who they are.
Dan, we agree that EB-5 is a bad tool, but, perhaps, for different reasons. For a Red Chinese corporate elite (irony, eh?), the path to acceptance is a mere half million dollars. For an impoverished Mexican who's trying to escape with his wife and children from the tyranny of gangs and drug overlords in Nuevo Laredo, there is no pathway to freedom and safety or acceptance. Only hopelessness and terror at home and contempt from well-to-do crackers who think America ain't white enough any more.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/mexico-drug-violence-9-hanged-14-decapitated-border-city-nuevo-laredo-article-1.1072899
"Maybe Ravnsborg said more that didn't make the cut, but KSFY only shows him going off the EB-5 track and saying we need to cut corporate tax rates. Yes, Jason, because the solution to a bad bout of crony capitalism is to engage in more crony capitalism."
Cory, there is now way that you should equate tax cuts with crony capitalism. Crony Capitalism needs a Big Government. Cutting taxes and reducing the size and scope of Big Government is the solution to reducing crony capitalism. Increasing taxes and/or using more federal debt is the water that nourishes the greedy thirst of crony capitalists.
Apparently many countries have similar plans to the EB-5. In Canada the foreigner has to cough up $800,000 although Canada has now suspended their program. Italy sells legal residency for a mere $250,000 and the applicant gets access to the whole EU!
There was an article in the Economist a couple weeks ago (on page 42 as I recall). It was suggested that well to do Chinese folk are fleeing China for clean air and water, safe food and a chance to have two kids.
The Economist did not mention South Dakota.
Without an open records law [FOIA], the citizens in a state have no idea what material information is exchanged in the emails of public officials. Further, if the state places an unreasonable rate on its procedure to produce copies of records…. kinda' has a person wondering what is going on behind the curtain.
To put Daniel Buresh comment in context, he acknowledges the corruption of EB-5 by state Republicans. Naturally he has to blame a Democrat, Clinton, for the really sticky fingers Rounds cronies have.
Daniel is probably right in one respect, if you have a viable workable program to enhance South Dakota's economic development, Bill Clinton should have known that South Dakota Republicans would find a way to corrupt the hell out of it.
Precisely, Roger.
Whomever devised the system of South Dakota's constitutional government should be held accountable for the thieft, payoffs and criminality of the Republicans who've run Pierre unimpeded for nearly 40 years. Damn you Founding Fathers for giving Mike Rounds another option to be tempted to fill his pockets and reward his pals.
Democrats are just as responsible for the corruption as are the Republicans. The constitutional form of government had to be destroyed first. Thanks to Woodrow Wilson, FDT, LBJ, and the two Bushes with a lot of help from their friend Bill Clinton.
I had no idea that a green card and American citizenship were the same thing.
Lynn - you couldn't be more wrong. No one puts themselves out there like this for any amount of money. Well, I suppose there are some but to make an accusation like that about Larry Rhoden tells me you know not a thing about him. I can assure you he is not a Rounds' victory enabler.
In regard to the debate, if you've been watching the last year I would say that Rounds used alot of Rhoden's standard lines; things he's been saying for almost a year now that Rounds hadn't previously.
Please put some more thought into statements before putting them on your screen and pressing enter.
Steve Sibson, your attempt to distract GOED/EB-5 with broad strokes of national corruption will not work.
Your logic seems to be that since all those politicians that laid the foundation for corruption are at fault for the death of Richard Benda and the theft of millions of dollars that were designed to help South Dakotans.
I don't blame those politicians or a poorly written state constitution, the blame is with Mike Rounds, Dennis Daugaard, and Marty Jackley.
If you think that all those politicians you name can be prosecuted for murder, embezzlement, campaign finance laws, etc., you are sadly mistaken.
If you need to place blame, place it where it belongs.
TG Rhoden really does not distinguish himself much from the other candidates. I'll bet he is a great guy in person and is probably the low key guy to get the grunt work done behind the scenes and that is a good thing but he just is not very dynamic as a candidate. It's one thing to run a positive campaign but he does nothing to go after the front runner in giving a reason why voters should vote for him vs Rounds. Again based on what I interpret and especially after watching the SDPB televised debate he seems like he is a Rounds victory enabler. Am I right or wrong? I guess time will tell but if Rounds wins the general I'll be watching to see who gets political appointments afterwards.
Ms. Lynn, Senator Rhoden is a man of few words, tall and serious, yet with laughing eyes. He is a man's man, a real cowboy, a blue-collar fellow who can weld without gloves and is of the age of knowing better. He's living large. He is clean, square jawed, tough as horse-shoe nails and hued from sinew, just like I used to be.
Most of all, he is not insaner than most.
Vote Rhoden.
Really Roger?....Why don't you go see where the largest offenses of EB-5 corruption have taken place and get back to me? ......maybe check to see how well it has done in Obama's home state. SD isn't even on the map when you compare numbers with other states. Our EB-5 program was corrupted based on the nature of how 48 other states operated prior to SD. When NSU suggested it needed to be out of their facility, it makes sense why our leaders would follow suit to 48 other programs already in place. It was flawed by design by allowing private regional centers without a minimum amount of oversight. Where the idea to privatize originated was probably with Bollen since he appears to be the mastermind of it all, but when you have 48 others states and over 300 regional centers operating in that manner, it would be an easy sell to anyone making the decision to privatize. Rounds was looking to promote economic development using a failed program. I don't believe he had anything to gain monetarily and he was truly trying to grow SD. I have yet to see any fact to prove otherwise and the speculation that Rounds and his buddies made off like bandits is unfounded. There hasn't been a single fact presented that supports Rounds having any sort of monetary gain from the program and the only amount of theft that has been identified is by Benda when he double submitted travel expenses. This is the land of equal opportunity, not equal outcome. Not all investments will support a return, and those losses are not theft. Unless you can prove intent to theft by deception, it's just a failed business.
When I saw TG's post, I thought that grudz had taken on another identity. I guess TG must be one of those other two Rhoden's Rangers.
Stick to your guns Lynn. Rhoden may not be a "Rounds' victory enabler" but he certainly does not have clean hands when it comes to EB-5 or a lot of other crony capitalism that came out of Rounds' administration of our State government, because as he always likes to say he was the majority leader in the House. I have likened him to Rounds' waterboy because of the way he did Mike Rounds' bidding on various things as majority leader.
DeeBee: Shinseki is gone for not knowing far more and Rounds gets to stay for not knowing far less? Howz that work?
" Cutting taxes and reducing the size and scope of Big Government is the solution to reducing crony capitalism. "
Steve, cutting taxes on the rich only increases crony capitalism because Republicrats always insist on more taxes on the rest of us to make up for the cuts on the rich.
I don't know, ask Hillary about Benghazi.
When I shut down my business in 1993, I wanted to emigrate to Canada. I could not qualify because of the point system which they had in place. One of the items was age, at which you acquired the most points at 35, I believe. I was in my early 50s and would have only earned two points for age. You earned 10 points for speaking English, 10 for French and another 10 for speaking both. You could get quite a sizeable number of points by having enough money to create 10 jobs, somewhat similar to what EB-5 offered. There is no, "give me your huddled masses" in Canada.
Clinton just released a book, deebee: you?
Yes, DB, Really,
To be clear, I don't care about the EB-5 corruption in other states or need a tutorial on how it started. Marty Jackley recently provided senate candidates with political immunity until after the general election, is he now providing Rounds, et al with justifiable corruption because other states abused the EB-5 program in other states?
You bring to light the point that is most important, thank you, what evidence there is out there may not directly link Rounds to any monetary gain or any culpability in Benda's questionable suicide, that is the point of an investigation.
In the past two legislative sessions, Republicans ran from GOED/EB-5 scandal because of the stink it had on it. They did not attempt to investigate or subpoena any of the players, including Rounds and Bollen.
Daugaard and Jackley swept this thing under the rug so quickly the public didn't even know it raised any dust.
The truth is, we don't have the answers to what happened to all that money that you claim was a simple business mistake or a poor investment.
DB, those millions went somewhere, where did they go, don't you think this state's government has an obligation to its citizens to provide some answers?
DB,
Benghazi caused Mike Rounds corruption?
Hil just released her Benghazi chapter of her memoirs,aimed below the belt of wingnuts using the deaths of four Americans for political purposes.
Bloody Australians charge 4.5 million for a green card,not a paltry 500k like the US.
OTHER SCANDALS
Other scandals, such as those involving the El Monte Regional Center, Victorville Regional Center, and the South Dakota Regional Center “Dairy Case,” all show the same pattern of small projects finding investors in China by paying very high fees to Chinese emigration agents, and no one performing even superficial due diligence.
To be continued……
From Roth Immigration Law Firm
Dan, you always use the same tactic: when we have South Dakota Republcians dead to rights on corruption, you try to turn the conversation to Obama, Clinton, or some other national meme that fits your spoon-fed talk radio mindset. Knock it off. Regardless of how other states have exploited EB-5, Mike Rounds handed the EB-5 program to South Dakota cronies without supervision so they could turn it into their personal profit center. They are the example of how not to run the program. They should be held accountable for such chicanery. Not one word of what you have written here, Dan, changes those facts or the moral and political implications. You are making excuses for bad behavior by your preferred politicians.
El Rayo! The point is well taken. Citizenship ≠ green card. I have changed the headline and text to reflect your correction.
This isn't about me Cory, no matter how much you try to make it. I'm simply explaining how the program got to where it was. Would Democrats have done the same thing?.....likely.....as is proven in other states. Your attempt to make this a conspiracy where the player's intents were simply to make themselves and their friends rich is just speculation to shed them and Republicans in a bad light. You have no proof of wrongdoing, yet you continue to imply there was. Do you really think our leaders are not trying to make our economy grow here? Do you really think all the players involved in the investigation are all in on the conspiracy? I'm going with Lalley on this one, you guys are working backwards to find the explanation that fits you best, not the explanation that probably lays out how they got to this point in the first place. If Rounds is guilty of anything, it was following along with 48 other programs in 48 other states. He should have followed suit with the one state that did it right. How it got started is the biggest hole in your entire "intent" conspiracy theory. You haven't proved any corruption "dead to rights" on Republicans. You only know a rogue director was working with a private citizen in a legal, yet very shady manner. Putting those actions on Rounds is bs.
We need to change the name of GOED/EB-5 scandal to Rounds/Daugaard/Jackley Justifiable Corruption non-scandal.
DB, that's from the "they all do it" approach to moral equivocation. As everyone's mama would have put it, "what if all 48 governors jumped in a lake? Is it okay for Rounds to jump in a lake?" "Following suit" is no justification for a failures of judgement and oversight.
"for failures of"
JT, more like if "all other governors are robbing banks, is it OK for Mike Rounds to rob a bank?"
No, Dan it's not about you. But every time you open your mouth here, I have to sweep away your Fox News distractions and get us back to the real issue. Mike Rounds approved the use of a program prone to corruption and based on the bad principle that rich foreigners ought to be able to buy their way into the country b y sinking their money into questionable projects the local market can't support. Mike Rounds just went along with the crowd instead of using better judgment (an exact recipe for how he governed and how he would Senate). Mike Rounds compounded the error by handing the program to cronies and not watching what they were doing (and I'm being generous; it's still possible he quite knew and quite happily approved of their profiteering). He made possible corrupt activity that damaged lives.
In the 1920s and 30s our country's government had drifted so far in favor of business that the economy collapsed and started a revolution of government being in favor of working people and standing up for their rights, the 40 hour work week, paid vacation, sick leave, holiday pay, a living wage, etc.
After WWII, in which captains of industry got a chance to see how good the American people were, (the troops defeating the hun, the women being nurses to help with the healthcare of those wounded and at home doing the work that had previously been done by men, and being assisted by the kids and the senior citizens.
Those captains of industry realized that we are all one in this great country and that when we work together we can accomplish almost anything. THen there were the Ayn Rands and Eugene McCarthys of the country convincing everyone that in every labor union, in every newspaper or magazine or group sticking up for working people, there was a socialist or worse yet a communist. Anarchy was right around the corner if we didn't see that.
The Captains of industry, though didn't buy in because they had seen the American people at their best coming out of the depression and fighting a war on two continents. So the standard of living of the American people exceeded that of any people since the beginning of civilization.
Through all of this, the government kept its hands off business and labor. How things have changed now. And government has bought into the Ayn Rand and McCarthy views and the unions have been broken, working people's pay has stagnated for twenty years. At the same time the Dow Jones Industrial Average today hit to a level nearly 17 times higher than the high that it hit, just 32 years ago.
Lost in this entire discussion about the EB-5 program is, what the hell business does the government have in stimulating one business or another. Make regulations that make things easier for business, but don't be sitting there picking winners and losers, putting your cronies in places where they cannot succeed. The federal government has learned well from the States, I guess. That is why it was okay to bailout the banks, that they had favored with cheap money in the overnight lending rate, and when that was no longer enough to come in with quantitative easing and just give the money to the banks, and to bailout car companies when they were going broke, and the same with the largest insurance company, AIG.
I know I am not supposed to yell, BUT THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT IS NOT BUSINESS, IT IS GOVERNING.
cannot but succeed.
Oh no, it has been a long day, Joe McCarthy, not Eugene.
Yup, on McCarthy. I was SD state director for Gene McCarthy campaign, but I can also remember hearing the army-McCarthy hearings on WNAX-AM 570. World of difference between Joe and Gene.
Cory, You are right. Mike Rounds implemented a Democrat designed program that he should have never brought to SD. He should have known Democrats couldn't create a program that wouldn't be rife with waste and fraud, especially considering a murderer like Ted Kennedy had his hands in it. Mike Rounds should not have followed Democrat states and allowed for private regional centers. Mike Rounds handed the program to his director and I hold nothing against him for the rogue actions of a criminal. He should have never gotten involved into a Democrat program that sold citizenship and allowed private regional centers across the country to take advantage of foreign investors.
Hey Roger, It should be the Rounds/Daugaard/Jackley/Johnson Justifiable Corruption non-scandal. Don't forget Brendan has supported everything up to this point, but I'm sure you guys want to forget about that while you illegitimately try to tie illegal behavior to everyone you can in the Republican party. It's funny how he gets left out of every topic and it is just placed on Republicans, while Johnson could cause a shit storm for SD if he felt it was warranted. Why doesn't he? Oh yeah, he doesn't believe all the nut job conspiracy theories like all the people do here. He bases his position on fact and precedent, not speculation or Cory's butterfly wishes.
I don't need butterflies or Ted Kennedy to prove that Mike Rounds made a really bad decisions with EB-5. And if a governor hires criminals, if a governor lets them handle big money, the governor bears some responsibility. Only partisan desperation, certainly not good conscience, allows DB to say, "I hold nothing against him." DB holds more against us Democrats for the crimes he ascribes to Ted Kennedy than he holds against Mike Rounds for demonstrable policy and administrative failure.
Nobody will be surprised if Skjonsberg, Glodt or Pat Powers shows up in a shelter belt after a shotgun tied to a tree discharges into an abdomen.
We are getting a post-primary taste here of how Rounds and Pals will distort his legacy of cronyism and corruption.
So sad DB. You are a little bit right. There were times that Ted Kennedy was a scondrel, as I have been and I would be willing to bet that you have too. But let's be honest. Ted Kennedy is dead gone and buried. His legacy for both good and bad, but particularly the good will live on for sometime.
The point of this blog, is to point out the corruption of Mike Rounds and why he should not be elected to the US Senate, because he would bring his corrupt policies to a US Senate that already is full of scoundrels. That is how we have gotten into illegal and immoral wars. That is how we cut taxes twice while fighting those wars. That is how we got over 17 trillion dollars in debt. That is how we put the social security and medicare trust funds into tough shape.
So talk your crap about Ted Kennedy and Dems all you want to, but take it to a FOX news blog, this blog post is about the corruption of Mike Rounds.
SB
So, we can now equate the Ted Kennedy to GOED/EB-5? Heck, let's add the Tea Pot Dome and Watergate scandals, yeah, that caused Rounds and his corrupt cronies to poorly plan a major business venture and reap the financial rewards off the top before actually making the packing operational and profitable.
Brendan Johnson hasn't said much or anything at all about Rounds' scandal. That doesn't necessarily imply support for Jackley, it just means that the U.S. Attorney's office rarely comments on ongoing investigations. Brendan is hardly complicit in this Republican scandal, he is doing what he was appointed to do, investigating.
DB, explain as you will, your guys took advantage of and abused a program that could have provided an economic edge for South Dakota.
Those state funds totaling $4.3 million with EB-5 funds in more than $95 million went somewhere. Was there intentional mis-planning to pad preferred contractors?
There are layers upon layers of where all that money went before there was an attempt to make the beef plant work.
If to understand your support of this corruption, I'd have to believe that Democrats from decades back constructed a program that would encourage South Dakota Republicans to steal money from
Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Benghazi, Richard Nixon or the Tea Pot Domers had nothing to do with the corruption of the Rounds/Daugaard corruption of the EB-5 scandal. By pursuing that argument you are complicit in the ongoing cover up Jackley is in engaged in.
Wingnuts get deranged over proportionality. Raygun unarmed Marines in Beirut and 241 died in a single blast. Wingnuts essentially told Dems to stop micro-managing Raygun's foreign policy. Under dumbass dubya there were multiple attacks and dozens of casualties-wingnuts turned into crickets. Kennedy kills the same number Laura Bush killed and it is all out war. Same for the Black guy in the WH. 4 dead and wingnuts want Obama's blood. What a bunch of fauxknee maroons.
While some of these Republicans are grasping at straws to hide their actions, they might consider why anyone would ever want the job in the first place.
City Pages is an alternative free weekly in MN that has been around for a few decades now. In this week's issue there is an article titled, "The Worst Job in America." It's fun and interesting, frequently quoting Tom Tancredo of Colorado. I recommend it to you.
http://www.citypages.com/2014-05-28/news/worst-job-in-america-congress/
Tancredo has no redeeming social values and no artistic or literary skill. Unfortunately,he doesn't arouse anyone's prurient interest or we could have him declared pornographic by contemporary community standards and have him banned or deleted. Tancredo-Pffftttt!!
Mike, did you read the article? It's not about Tancredo's politics, or anybody else's politics. It's not about politics. It's about what it's like to be a Congressperson in D.C.
That's all it is. Period.
Oh yeah, and it's interesting, sometimes funny.
No,I didn't read it. I remember Tancredo as a congressweasel and I find it impossible to seperate the weasel from my memories of his time as a congressweasel. Somke of us don't forgive or forget. No offense.
None taken.
(Box says "Message too short," so here is another paragraph and more words. Maybe this will be acceptable.)