Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Impeach John EDWARDS -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jlallen who wrote (9)	3/1/2004 11:42:41 AM
From: Peter S. Maroulis	Respond to of 19

March 1, 2004 WASHINGTON -- Sen. John Edwards got through last Thursday night's debate in Los Angeles, as he has his entire presidential campaign, without being asked an embarrassing question. How can he explain setting up a dummy corporation to avoid paying an estimated $290,000 in Medicare taxes in the two years before he ran for the Senate? It would be an embarrassing question for a self-described populist inveighing against privileges for the rich and powerful. There were plenty of opportunities for Sen. John Kerry to bring this up during the debate's extended discussion of health care. Some of Kerry's key advisers worked on the 1998 North Carolina Senate campaign won by Edwards, when this issue was raised. But with Kerry on the brink of collecting a majority of delegates to guarantee the Democratic presidential nomination, he does not want to risk trouble with negative campaigning against his sole remaining serious opponent. However, it is inconceivable that President Bush's crack researchers are not aware of the massive tax loophole utilized by Edwards, who is the clear consensus choice to be Kerry's vice-presidential running mate. Democrats, relishing thoughts of the attractive and charismatic Edwards face to face against Dick Cheney in debate, must ponder a better answer to the Medicare tax question than the senator gave six years ago. At 9 a.m. on June 28, 1995, articles of incorporation were filed with the North Carolina Secretary of State for John R. Edwards, P.A. (professional association), of Raleigh, N.C. The new corporation was authorized to issue 100,000 shares of common stock -- all owned by Edwards, who is its only employee. This is a classic Subchapter "S" corporation devised to shelter income, mainly for professionals such as lawyers (and also syndicated columnists, but not me). It is one of the last loopholes left in the Internal Revenue Code, and it is a big one. Edwards put his own little corporation to good use in his last two years as a multi-millionaire personal accident lawyer before becoming a full-time politician. He paid himself salaries of $600,000 in 1996 and $540,000 in 1997, on which he paid Medicare taxes. As the sole stockholder, Edwards received dividends of $5 million for each of those years -- all of it free from Medicare taxes. That saved the future senator around $290,000. Republican Sen. Lauch Faircloth, facing defeat in 1998 by Edwards, charged that his challenger "has avoided paying taxes, shortchanging seniors." Edwards shot back with a response of a young man who had proved himself a virtuoso in pleading before juries: "I have paid every dime of Medicare taxes I owe and am required to pay by law. If Lauch Faircloth wants to make negative personal attacks, he needs to do it to my face in debate." Faircloth, a self-made and largely inarticulate businessman, was not about to take on silver-tongued Johnny Edwards in debate -- and Edwards knew it. Whether his tax avoidance was perfectly legal, however, remains unknown in the absence of an IRS audit. The government's position is that dummy corporations such as John R. Edwards, P.A., must pay its sole employee a "reasonable" salary. Tax practitioners told me that paying a $1.1 million salary out of $11.1 million net income may not pass the "reasonable" test. Manipulating the IRS code to maximize his personal wealth comes at the peak of a campaign where Edwards has raised himself from the lowest of also-rans to become a strong runner-up by propounding his concept of "two Americas" -- including one America where the rich play dirty tricks on the other America. In an early presidential debate in Columbia, S.C., last May 3, he promised "a better life for our families" that would be "based on the values of hard work and responsibility, not accounting tricks and corporate greed." There is no record that Edwards, during his six years in the Senate, ever even considered legislation to close the giant loophole of the personal corporation. He must know that loophole well, because he is a lawyer who took advantage of it. He has not been seriously challenged on this so far, but surely will if he is put on the ticket in Boston this summer. townhall.com

To: jlallen who wrote (9)	7/7/2004 4:23:13 PM
From: Bill	Respond to of 19

John Edwards, the "other" John, selected as VP nominee. Being rich, he'd better watch out. Kerry may want to marry him.

To: jlallen who wrote (9)	8/6/2008 3:32:55 PM
From: Bill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19

A BABY DADDY FOR BOTH AMERICAS by Ann Coulter July 30, 2008 The mainstream media really seem to imagine they can prevent Americans from knowing information by refusing to mention it in newspapers or on TV. For those few Americans without an Internet connection and to whom I have not faxed the National Enquirer stories: Evidence is accumulating that John Edwards is right -- there really are "two Americas." There's one where men cheat on their cancer-stricken wives and one where men do not cheat on their cancer-stricken wives. To put it another way, it would appear that ambulances aren't the only things John Edwards has been chasing lately. Last year, the National Enquirer broke the story about New-Age divorcee Rielle Hunter, formerly Lisa Druck, telling friends she was having an affair with Edwards and that she was pregnant with his "love child." Who knew that "my father was a mill worker" could be such a great pickup line? In his defense, Edwards had to do something to kill time between giving $50,000 speeches on poverty. I guess the Enquirer is lucky Edwards isn't a trial lawyer! A sleazy carnival sideshow trial lawyer wouldn't even need to start channeling unborn children before a jury -- as Edwards did in the junk-science cases that made him a multimillionaire -- to win a defamation case if these charges are false. The "love child" allegation could be easily disproved by DNA testing. Which brings up a fascinating legal question: Would it be admissible for Edwards to channel the very love child at issue during such a proceeding? Reminiscent of his performances in medical malpractice cases, he could say: She speaks to you through me and I have to tell you right now -- I didn't plan to talk about this -- right now I feel her. I feel her presence. She's inside me, and she's talking to you, she's saying: "John Edwards ain't my daddy!" When the National Enquirer story first broke last year, the Edwards campaign denied that Edwards was the father, pawning the affair off on an apparently very loyal Edwards campaign official, Andrew Young. Like Edwards, Young was married with children, but also like Edwards, Young is a Democrat, so it was possible. Except that, not only has Young's wife not left him, but she was perfectly copacetic with her husband's mistress moving into their gated community for the duration of her pregnancy, and even joining her, Andrew and the kids for dinner. Back on Earth, that doesn't happen. The Edwards campaign better start looking at its backup plan of claiming Nathan Lane is the father. It also didn't smack of innocence that the Edwards campaign stripped Hunter's videos from the Edwards Web site when the story broke. Soon after Edwards met Hunter in a bar in New York, the Edwards campaign began paying her more than $100,000 to make "hip" videos of him for the campaign Web site. Unfortunately, Edwards' hair stylists ate up most of the budget. As Herculean a task as it would be to make John Edwards look hip, the videos can't be worse for the campaign than the Edwards staffer who said of the Catholic church's position on birth control: "What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit?" So why did they take down Hunter's videos? With the MSM still pretending the Internet doesn't exist, last week the Enquirer staked out the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles after receiving a tip that Edwards would be going there to visit Hunter and the love child, who reportedly has her mother's eyes and her father's dramatic flair in front of a jury. According to the Enquirer, Edwards entered Hunter's hotel room around 9:45 p.m. and left at 2:40 in the morning. Seeing reporters as he left Hunter's room, Edwards sprinted to a hotel bathroom and blockaded himself in until hotel security came to rescue him. Even more suspicious, while Edwards was barricaded in the bathroom, no one reported hearing sounds of a blow dryer. When asked about the Enquirer story at a press conference a few days later, Edwards looked as flustered as Rep. Robert Wexler did after being asked if he really lives with his mother-in-law in Florida while running for office in that district. First Edwards pretended to be unfamiliar with the story, a preposterous pose even if the story were false. Then Edwards dropped eye contact and said: "That's tabloid trash. They're full of lies. I'm here to talk about helping people." He couldn't have looked more guilty if he had broken into a cold sweat and lit a cigarette. Britney Spears has responded more credibly to questions about tabloid stories. Meanwhile, the only way consumers of the old media might ascertain that Edwards is embroiled in some sort of scandal is that, starting last Thursday, his name was summarily dropped from lists of possible vice presidential candidates. If only Republican Larry Craig had been in the bathroom, the MSM might have covered it. COPYRIGHT 2008 ANN COULTER DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE 4520 Main Street, Kansas City, MO 64111