Land of Hard Knocks: Who is Harry Reid?

[Nbadan]

Land of Hard Knocks
Long After It Gave Him Something to Escape, the Busted Boom Town of Searchlight Still Speaks To Harry Reid's Heart
By Mark Leibovich
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 17, 2005; Page D01

Sen. Harry Reid is trying to become more polished. Here, he is demonstrating his ability to be a gracious host, welcoming a reporter into his kitchen.

"Hey, you want a drink or something? Water?"

No thanks.

"They said I'm supposed to offer you a drink, so that's what I'm doing. If anyone asks, just tell them I offered you a drink."

-snip-

Still, Reid clearly loves Searchlight, and his hard-bitten story is legitimate. The third of four brothers, Pinky Reid grew up in a wooden shack with no hot water or indoor toilet. Harry Sr. was a hard-rock miner who suffered chronic pain from on-the-job injuries. He battled alcoholism and depression, and spent time in jail. He killed himself in 1972, at 58.

The senator reflects on his childhood with an air of detachment, as if describing events from a novel. He cheerfully recalls his father pulling out his own teeth with pliers. Or the time his brother Dale had his ear sheared off by a windblown piece of tin. Or when another brother, Larry, broke his leg, which also went untreated. Reid vividly recalls the sound of Larry crying out in pain from his parents' bedroom.

Inez Reid was a redhead with few and eventually no teeth. As a teenager, Harry Reid took a job at a gas station and bought her a false set. "It changed her," Reid says of his mother's new teeth. "I mean, you can imagine how good she felt with teeth after all those years?"

-snip-
Reid hitchhiked 40 miles to attend Basic High School in Henderson. There, he met his future wife, Landra Gould, the daughter of a chiropractor who disapproved of Reid instantly. (Reid and his future father-in-law fought bitterly, including once with their fists.) Reid also met a history teacher, Mike O'Callaghan, who would go on to become the governor of Nevada. O'Callaghan coached Reid in boxing at the Henderson Boys' Club and arranged for local businessmen to pay for Reid to attend college at Southern Utah State. Reid boxed in exhibition bouts as an amateur middleweight during college, occasionally sparring with professionals. "You could knock him down but he didn't stay down," O'Callaghan said in a 2001 interview with Salon.com (he died last year). Reid boasts that he never got his nose bloodied.

-snip-

Reid vowed that he would "not play games with undesirables," shutting out reputed gangsters and closing casinos. A security guard moved into the Reid home after several telephoned death threats. The Reids covered their windows with sheets. Landra once discovered a bomb under the hood of their car, which was filled with their kids at the time. Reid then took to starting his car with a remote control device. This all has a way of putting the rough-and-tumble of a confirmation fight in perspective, Reid says."

More: Washington Post

I read somewhere that the ethical gambling commissioner in Scorcese's Casino is based on Harry Reid.

[Vashner]

Everything you guys get excited about turns to ...

Enjoy giddyness.... it's fleeting...

This will blow up in the Neo Lib's face just like every other burning bag of they have tried since 9/11.

Man some of the I have been reading on the DNC talking points websites... about Dingy Harry jumping across the table at gansters or putting them on his back (republican senators).

Your about to see who's in power and who is not... Dingy's nuts are about to get squished by the Bush death machine.

[ididnotnothat]

Yup, you go against Bush and it'll cost you even if they have to lie to prove it.

[Nbadan]

Well, I’m paraphrasing a bit there, but Harry Reid sounded like a real Democratic Progressive in his floor speech attacking the immoral piece of garbage otherwise known as the “Republican budget reconciliation bill”:

Here’s the pertinent passages (the whole thing is posted on his blog, “Give Em Harry”)

“The budget and these reconciliation bills are based on the wrong values, harming vulnerable Americans to provide tax breaks for special interests and multi-millionaires.

………

In essence, …… a budget is a moral do ent. Unfortunately, the Republican budget is an immoral do ent. That’s not my term…. That’s the conclusion of some of our nation’s leading religious leaders who, citing Scripture and the Bible, have urged all of us to oppose this budget reconciliation process. As Bishop Mark Hansen, the Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America put it, “This is not the time to cut…important programs while using the cuts to pay for tax breaks for those who don’t need them.”

And why? Why are we using expedited procedures for cuts that will harm millions of seniors and working Americans?

Is it to reduce the deficit? No.
Is it to pay for Katrina? No.
Is it to prepare for the Avian Flu? No.

It’s to provide congressional Republicans fiscal cover today so they can turn around tomorrow to provide tax breaks to special interests and multi-millionaires.

Let me be more specific. The capital gains and dividend tax breaks in the Republican budget would provide 53 percent of its benefits to those with incomes greater than $1 million. Those lucky few will get an average tax break of about $35,000.

But what about those with incomes between, say, $50- and $200,000? Well, they’ll get an average tax cut of $112.

And what about those with incomes less than $50,000? .......
$6 dollars for those earning less than $50,000.

And to partially pay for these tax breaks, many Republicans now want to cut Medicare. cut Medicaid. Cut agriculture. Cut housing. Cut student loans. Cut child support enforcement. Cut services that Katrina survivors rely on. Cut benefits needed by our nation’s most vulnerable Americans.

Mr. President, now you know why some of our nation’s most respected religious leaders call this budget immoral. These choices do not reflect the best of America’s values. This is not what most Americans would want.”

YOU TELL ‘EM, HARRY! That’s how I like Democrats to sound: Like they actually care about average Americans! Bet you won't catch this on CNN.