Harry Reid

[[File:Harry Reid official portrait 2009.jpg|thumb|right|165px|Did you know, when I was your age, I had a sssilver dollar collection?!]]{{uspolitics}}
'''Harry Reid''' {{lived|1939|2021}} was the former leader of the [[Democratic Party]] in the [[United States Senate]], representing [[Nevada]].<ref>[https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/harry-reid-former-senate-majority-leader-and-democratic-kingmaker-dies-at-82 Megan Messerly, "Harry Reid, former Senate majority leader and Democratic kingmaker, dies at 82", The Nevada Independent]</ref> This was despite being a rather conservative [[Mormon]] convert. He was responsible for passing the 2013 "[[Court-packing#Current "use"|nuclear option]]" on executive appointments, and was instrumental to the passage of the Affordable Care Act.

==Miles Manners, superhero== 
When he was elected (following Tom Daschle's electoral defeat), it was thought that his mild manner concealed a shrewd strategist who would be able to quietly wrestle the [[Republican]]s to the ground. Considering Reid's own not-so polite comments about President Obama's lack of a "negro dialect" in 2010,<ref>[https://www.npr.org/2010/01/11/122446750/sen-reid-takes-heat-for-descriptions-of-obama-negro-dialect Sen. Reid Takes Heat For Descriptions Of Obama, 'Negro Dialect'], ''NPR'' 11 January 2010</ref> he was never quite as mild-mannered as people thought.

==No more backdoor "politics"==
In February 2011, Harry Reid showed he really has his priorities straight during a time of [[Great Recession|economic crisis]] by giving a speech to the Nevada legislature on the subject of "the time has come for us to outlaw [[prostitution]]."<ref>[http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/50020.html Harry Reid’s prostitution lecture bombs], ''Politico''</ref> It seems the nice Mormon is tired of having [[capitalist]] businesses and [[pro-family]] mothers balk at relocating to Nevada because they don't want their precious children and employees in the same town with Silly Sally's Chicken Ranch. (The American penchant for [[moral panic]] never seems to end, does it?) Perhaps he was being ironic, given that his latest current residence of [[Washington, D.C.]] ''was'' the very definition of legal prostitution.

==Koch criticism== 
Reid ''really'' hated the [[Koch Industries|Koch Brothers]], mentioning them in 22 separate Senate speeches in just the first seven months of 2014, accosting them around 250 times in total.<ref>Kenneth P. Vogel, [https://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/harry-reid-koch-brothers-108632 Behind Reid's war against the Kochs]. ''Politico,'' 7 July 2014.</ref> He also described their funding of right-wing academia and vast campaign finance network (which donates almost exclusively to Republicans) as "un-American" and "rigging the political system in their favor". Considering the Kochs' long-term goal is to completely gut or end almost every progressive reform made since at least the [[New Deal]], transforming America into the free market neo-feudal state libertarians and [[Ayn Rand]] devotees dream of in the process, this criticism isn't exactly unfounded.

==Harry Reid: slanderer and proud?==
Reid was one of the few elected Democrats who consistently showed a willingness to fight dirty, and perhaps the most notable example of this occurred during the 2012 general election. Reid took advantage of Republican nominee Mitt Romney's hesitance to release his tax returns by contacting The Huffington Post and, in an interview with Post reporter Sam Stein, accused Romney of being a serial tax evader. Reid specifically claimed that Romney had not paid any taxes in the past decade, citing an anonymous source at Bain Capital; Reid later reiterated these accusations in a speech on the Senate Floor.<ref>[http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/aug/06/harry-reid/harry-reid-says-anonymous-source-told-him-mitt-rom/ Harry Reid says anonymous source told him Mitt Romney didn't pay taxes for 10 years], ''Politifact'', Aug 6, 2012</ref> While Reid refused to reveal the identity of his supposed source and conceded he was "not certain," about the veracity of the allegations, they still generated much media buzz, no doubt due to the allegation reinforcing the (accurate) idea of Romney as an out-of-touch Wall Street banker (an image the Democrats, and the Obama campaign in particular, were playing up), to the point that Romney was forced to publicly deny them. Reid evidently has no regrets about the stunt; when asked in 2015 if he felt what he did was wrong, his only response was "Romney didn't win, did he?"<ref>[http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/harry-reid-is-proud-he-lied-about-mitt-romneys-taxes/article/2562300 Harry Reid is proud he lied about Mitt Romney's taxes], ''Washington Examiner'', March 31, 2015</ref>

Although it has been generally acknowledged by tax experts that Mr. Romney probably paid taxes for most of the years in question, he did not conclusively prove his case by releasing his tax returns for the two decades previous to the 2012 election. Instead, his campaign issued a notarized summary of the taxes he claimed to have paid since 1990. It may be worth noting that such a public declaration is no more than a claim on paper with a seal legally identifying the party making it.

==Flying saucers==
He also had a long-time interest in [[UFO]]s, calling for increased government research; while he was a senator, his advocacy led to a Pentagon program, the [[Advanced Aerospace Weapon Systems Applications Program]], which gave his old friend and campaign donor Robert Bigelow $22m of taxpayers money to hunt UFOs, [[ghost]]s, and [[Werewolf|werewolves]] at Skinwalker Ranch in Utah.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program], New York Times, 16 Dec 2017</ref>{{efn|By 2024, Bigelow had turned from supporting Democrats to supporting [[Donald Trump]]'s reelection bid to the tune of $824,600.<ref>[https://popular.info/p/meet-the-people-spending-800000-or Meet the people spending $800,000 or more to make Trump the next president] by Judd Legum & Tesnim Zekeria (Apr 17, 2024) ''Popular Information''.</ref>}} He said that he was not personally sure if UFOs exist, but based on the many people in the military who have seen them, it merits further research.<ref>[https://www.rollcall.com/news/hoh/harry-reid-lobbying-ufo-research-reporting Harry Reid pushing for more UFO research], Roll Call, Jan 10, 2019</ref>

==Notes==
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==References==
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[[Category:Former United States Senators]]
[[Category:Former United States Representatives]]
[[Category:Mormons]]
[[Category:Ufology]]
[[Category:United States politicians]]

Categories: Former United States Senators, Former United States Representatives, Mormons, Ufology, United States politicians