Sen. Ensign admits parents gave money to mistress and family

They all should have joined a swingers club instead of the Promise Keepers. Would have been a whole lot simpler and a lot more fun.

QUESTION: Why was the total $96,000, why were the payments done in amounts of $12,000 each, and why were payments also made to two of the Hanptons' children?

ANSWER: If I remember correctly, the present IRS rule allows any person to make a gift of up to $12,000 per year to any other person without there being any tax consequences to either person.(It previously was $10,000 per year, but if I remember correctly in the last few years it was raised to $12,000.)

As a practical application, that means if well off parents, and who we will refer to as Mr,. and Mrs. A, want to give their son about 50K in 2009 and without there being any tax consequences, based on the present interpretation of the tax code Mr. A could give both the son and the son's wife 12K each and Mrs. A could also give both the son and the son's wife 12K each, and which would therefore mean a total of 48K would have been transferred, and without tax consequences, from the older generation to the younger generation.

Or if Mr. and Mrs. A wanted to transfer 120K to their son and his family and the son had three children, then Mr. and Mrs. A could each gift 12K to their son and the son's wife and also do the same in regard to each of the son's three children.

So in other words John Ensign and his parents came up with a cute gimmick to pay hush money (agues the two sides had settled on a figure of about 100K as the amount of hush money that would be paid) and yet have it all "legal." In fact, the only thing that would be necessary to complete the transaction would be for John Ensign to eventually gift back about 96K to his parents, and then for John Ensign's lawyers to rant and rave and yell and scream and threaten to sue for defamation in regard to anybody who asserted that it was more than strictly a coincidence that he gave his parents 96K back after his parents gave 96K to the Hamptons.

God damn the liberal press! Would you quit reporting what GOP politicians do wrong and stick to liberal wrongs? Otherwise your liberal agenda is clear! The GOP is the party of family values and if the damn liberal press would just stop reporting this crap, they could prove it!

Kind of reminds you of the Kennedy brothers.

Ensign's lawyer is quoted here that the payments were made "out of concern for the family." Sure there was concern, concern that one of them would open their mouth.

The level of narcissism here is incomprehensible to average folks. Ensign shouldn't quit because he was getting consensual booty, he should quit for treating the public like their a bunch of imbeciles.

Look at Berlusconi in Italy. Our politicians should follow his lead. He gets caught with a new 25 year old hottie every month, and he's proud of it.

The 'sanctity of marriage' party fails yet again.

Rapier wrote:

Kind of reminds you of the Kennedy brothers.

Yeah but people loved the Kennedy's. No one loves these republicans and history will forget them in just a few years.

Wow. Take the complete amoral decadence of Rome in its later stages, then wrap it in the self-righteous cant, priggishness and hypocrisy of the Victorians and voila! today's Republicans. What a thoroughly repellent spectacle it is.
Makes the "Real Housewives of New Jersey" (or whatever they're called) look like a class act.
Oh for the by-gone innocent days when the thought of Monica's blue dress made us blush and giggle.
Ken Starr come back! We need you!!

mrbarolo wrote:

Wow. Take the complete amoral decadence of Rome in its later stages, then wrap it in the self-righteous cant, priggishness and hypocrisy of the Victorians and voila! today's Republicans. What a thoroughly repellent spectacle it is.
Makes the "Real Housewives of New Jersey" (or whatever they're called) look like a class act.
Oh for the by-gone innocent days when the thought of Monica's blue dress made us blush and giggle.
Ken Starr come back! We need you!!

Absolutely correct. Further, Clinton cannot carry the jockstrap of these people in terms of being immoral hypocrites! Ensign, Craig, Foley, Sanford, etc etc etc., all bashed Clinton in one way or another, even voted to impeach him and look at them now!

Wow, he even got his own father involved in his sordid affairs. Sick.

Argentina, here I come!

Married people have affairs all the time, both men and women. Senator Ensign's affair in itself is not interesting (although paying off his mistress' family IS interesting). What makes it disgusting, however, is his vote in the senate to convict President Clinton in the Monica Lewinski affair. What hypocrisy!

A Perspective wrote:

Wow, he even got his own father involved in his sordid affairs. Sick.

John is a naughty, naughty man!

Will the Ensign's ever come completely clean on this.Sounds like a wonderful family to do business with.

A Perspective wrote:

Wow, he even got his own father involved in his sordid affairs. Sick.

He's emulating his hero, Ted Kennedy.

Ensign is a worthless piece of shit.

Willie Barrow wrote:

<quoted text>
He's emulating his hero, Ted Kennedy.

He is emulating the "great governor" sanford from SC!

Why don't you just tell us, who you gonna believe, me or your lyin' eyes! Fact remains is that this was not a Democrat..it was a " Family Values" Republican. This is not a conservative issue. Accept it!

Fred,

It is neither a conservative, nor, a liberal issue, it is an issue of falsehoods, lies upon lies, a case of don't do as I do, but do as I would have you believe that I do.

While Ensign, Craig, Foley, Vitter, Bill Emerson, Jo Ann Emerson, and Newt Gingrich are all worthless pieces of shit, it is their lies, their hyprocrisy that is what will damn them to hell.

Wonder how many others are in the D.C. Madam's journal of political clients of her whores? They had to kill her, to keep her quiet, and falsely rig it to be labeled a suicide, even though she had stated in a radio interview that she would never take her life, but did fear for it.

We have much reason to launch a cleansing revolution in this land, the least of reason being the shennighans of these scum. I look forward to that day of cleansing.

Deo Vindice

Alright...getting mom and dad to pay for your hookers....now thats a spoiled "kid" still....soooo mom and dad enabled him and supported him on these adultress affaires. What a scum bag!....the wife will stay cause of the DC partys and shes a fool too!