1170 - Emails and WMD's

They just keep coming. What? The emails. Got this a few days ago.

"BAIL'EM OUT!!! ????
Hell, back in 1990, the Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it. They failed and it closed. Now, we are trusting the economy of our country, our banking system, our auto industry and possibly our health plans to the same nit-wits who couldn't make money running a whore house and selling whiskey?!"
"What are we thinking?


No matter what your opinion on the bailouts, this is from Wikipedia.

Contrary to a popular urban legend circulated by email, the Mustang Ranch was never operated by the US government.

After losing a tax fraud case in 1990, the brothel was closed for three months and auctioned off. Mr. Conforte fled the United States and now lives in Brazil. The brothel was bought by a holding company (a front for Conforte) and stayed open. After that company and the brothel's manager (a former county commissioner) lost a federal fraud, racketeering and conspiracy case in 1999, the Mustang Ranch was closed and forfeited to the federal government. The Brazil Supreme Court ruled in the same year that Conforte could not be extradited.

In 2002, the brothel's furniture, paintings and accessories were auctioned off. The Bureau of Land Management sold the Ranch's pink stucco structures on eBay in 2003.

So the email is about as acurate as WMD's were.