Because he can't come up with a decent rebuttal of his own, Mike Rounds desperately tries to spin the arbitrator's ruling in the Darley case as a complete refutation of everything anyone has ever said about EB-5 ever:
Today’s decision proves what I’ve been saying all along—that everything my opponents have been saying about EB-5 are lies, innuendo, and nonsense misinformation.... My opponents used this issue to distract from talking about the issues that matter to the people of South Dakota and the failed policies of President Obama that he said were on the ballot this fall—but the people of South Dakota saw this for what it was—dirty politics aimed at character assassination” [Mike Rounds, press release, 2014.10.07].
This is the most willfully clueless statement Mike Rounds has made all month. The arbitrator's ruling supports one of the fundamental critiques of Rounds's conduct of the EB-5 program, that Governor Rounds failed to exercise responsible oversight of Joop Bollen's EB-5 work for the state. The arbitrator says Bollen hid from the feds his ownership of the private company to which he assigned his state EB-5 duties. The arbitrator's ruling says nothing to refute the evidence that Joop Bollen violated multiple laws and state policies (risk management rules, conflict of interest laws, Board of Regents policy, rules on unlicensed litigation, lending and bank franchise tax laws).
The only leg the arbitrator knocks out from under the EB-5 millipede is that the state has escaped the legal liability that we had to spend over $460,000 to fight. Every other charge leveled against Rounds on EB-5 comes out of this arbitration intact, if not strengthened.
Rounds is prone to exaggerate, because EB-5 just landed a million-dollar haymaker on him. Mayday PAC founder Lawrence Lessig says he was going to stay out of South Dakota's Senate race, but EB-5 changed his mind:
In an interview, Mr. Lessig said that his group had wanted to get involved in the South Dakota race for some time but that initial polls suggested that voters positions had generally solidified. But he said that his group did some polling after the Every Voice ad buys and concluded that South Dakota voters were upset about the investment-for-green-card program and that Mr. Weiland might be able to win after all. He said that while Mr. Rounds’s two key rivals were talking about the green-card issue, Mr. Rounds was avoiding it.
“We did polling and found this issue was very important to South Dakota voters and we could see a path to victory,” Mr. Lessig said [Siobahn Hughes, "Crowd Funding Lifts Democrat Weiland in South Dakota," WSJ: Washington Wire, 2014.10.07].
EB-5 is Mike Rounds's glass jaw. It hurts him bad. And he'll say anything to make it stop, even an outlandish lie about the full meaning of the Darley ruling.
Related Reading: Todd Epp analyzes the Darley ruling and finds more questions raised or left unanswered than definitively disposed of.
Meanwhile, Bob Mercer tersely challenges the exculpatory conclusions of others:
One reporter calls the decision an embarrassment for Democrats, and a Republican spokesman proclaims victory for Republicans. SDIBI and the regents appear to have avoided paying damages, and that’s certainly a victory, but the details of what was secretly happening in South Dakota’s EB-5 program at a key turning point are laid bare in language that is easy to understand. This will be fresh information for many people. Coming four weeks before election day, this information doesn’t seem likely to inspire confidence or increase support for how EB-5 was conducted from 2006 until the Daugaard administration in September 2013 terminated the state contract with Bollen and SDRC [Bob Mercer, "California Arbitrator's Decision Explains Early EB-5 Wrangling by South Dakota," Pure Pierre Politics, 2014.10.07].
Update 19:42 CDT: Seth Tupper says Rounds overstates the case (and so did I!): his headline says "No Winner in EB-5 Arbitration." Tupper cites the aribtrator's statement at the bottom of the ruling that "No determination is made at this juncture as to whether any party is a prevailing party in this matter."
ALL this decision stands for is that if a gang agrees to hire you to drive the getaway car and then uses someone else on the day the bank is looted, then you are not going to be able to sue to get your "share". It says nothing about who is responsible for pulling off the heist and how many crimes were committed in the process and by whom.
Interesting stuff. I say this Mr. Joop needs to be filleted but it is good news indeed that the government won't have to pay millions in some bogus damages to this Darley fellow.
As to more commercials, my grandaughter got this thing called a DTR and I can now jump through all the commercials I don't want to watch. I like it a lot and can't wait for a month to go by and TV to be normal again. I think I may vote for the fellow I see the least ads from in this senate race. grudznick is counting. grudznick is counting.
Mercer has a good post up pointing out the premature nature of the GOP celebration.
"UPDATE: One reporter calls the decision an embarrassment for Democrats, and a Republican spokesman proclaims victory for Republicans. SDIBI and the regents appear to have avoided paying damages, and that’s certainly a victory, but the details of what was secretly happening in South Dakota’s EB-5 program at a key turning point are laid bare in language that is easy to understand. This will be fresh information for many people. Coming four weeks before election day, this information doesn’t seem likely to inspire confidence or increase support for how EB-5 was conducted from 2006 until the Daugaard administration in September 2013 terminated the state contract with Bollen and SDRC. Since the termination, the EB-5 program has been taken in-house at the Governor’s Office of Economic Development; GOED Commissioner Pat Costello has said publicly several times that GOED isn’t recruiting EB-5 projects or investors."
Fresh information!
Reporter-to-reporter smackdown!
Wait...What? GOED is still in the business of EB-5.
Mercer is like a shark with fresh blood in the water...
http://my605.com/pierrereview/?p=11252
Steve Hildebrand posted on his Facebook page that former George Bush and presidential candidate John McCain advisor Mark McKinnon is co-chair of MayDay Pac.
Roger, I hope you are pointing that out over at Pitiful Pat's Emporium of Political Platitudes and Press Releases Pathetic excuse for a Political blog.
Yeah Jana I did.
Pat or Troy will probably delete it.
The arbitration ruling does not clear Joopster or Rounds. If Rounds believes that Joopster should not be prosecuted, means he was on the take. Otherwise a true American would be outraged at the audacity these clowns took advantage of the trust of the public. This is a real issue that Rounds keep trying to avoid addressing. The min Joopster is arrested he will start talking. Forget party bias, these guys are dirty self serving anti-Americans. Bollen needs to be yanked back from paradise to caugh up the truth.
Roger, I have been examining the redacted versions of the EB-5 documents and I believe I have uncovered the man behind the whole mess.
Bill Clay!
Oh wait, we were talking about the credibility of the War Toilet...sorry.
Jana,
I enjoy going over to the Dump Site and antagonizing them, Fleming does his share too.
The sharp level of their debating skills are to call me "scum" "scumbag", "ignorant", or the forever, "prove it". Their rhetorical skills leave me speechless, not.
I've always suspected all the anonymous comments to that site were posted by Powers to make it appear there was actual interest in what he had to say.
Exactly, Mr. Nemec: DWC and ip have nearly identical blog rankings for just that reason while Madville Times is a powerhouse.