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US congressman indicted in land deal scheme
Feb 23, 2008, 14:27 GMT
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Older Talkback
page: 1
Bush supports this regime!
tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=24736
a good friend of JM. Oh and of course JM never had improper sexual relations with that woman.
Congressman Rick Renzi (R-Az), a longtime protégé of John McCain
Do you think the Clinton camp might mention any part of this?
John, please tell us this is a planted story by your opponents. Tell us it isn't true. Poor old John, does not even have the nomination and is already catching all the crap. I wonder if it is really worth the effort when you are his age?
worth voting for president
all crooks lyers scammers pedifiles etc.
take them all out and shoot them before they spread.
WASHINGTON - Sen. Barack Obama's refusal to wear an American flag lapel pin along with a photo of him not putting his hand over his heart during the National Anthem led conservatives on Internet and in the media to question his patriotism.
Now Obama's wife, Michelle, has drawn their ire, too, for saying recently that she's really proud of her country for the first time in her adult life.
THE IDEAL PRESIDENT AND FIRST LADY.
actually, this is what's great about the USA. These atrocities are a matter of personal preference and not a matter of law. Obama and his wife can hang the flag upside-down and be ashamed of America and he can be pretty and still run for the presidency.
Yeah, and William Jefferson, the congressman who Accepted $100K From an FBI Informant and hid it in his freezer supported Obama in his senate race... So what..
Too bad we don't talk about their policies.
...this is a very good example of the Bush administration going after another crooked congressman, regardless of his affiliations.
AG Gonzales pursued these guys relentlessly. After all, WHY do you think congress wanted him gone sooo bad?
Now it's the new guys turn.
During Clintons stay, Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Il) was tried and convicted for similar charges.
Clinton pardoned him.
His AG, Jnet 'buck'Reno, protected every one of Clinton's pecadillo's until the stench was so bad she had to spec pros. the White Water investigation, because Clinton ordered her to fire the investigating attorney.
Now who's the filthy dickhead here? Compared to Hillary and Bill, Bush is a boy scout. Oh yeah, liberals also hate the boy scouts too.
His head is up Bush's ass all day.
That does not make me wrong.
is only outdone by your stupidity SP4. Reading your posts is really good crap and I don't know why anybody would feel anything for you other than pity.
SP4: NonethelessFeb 23rd, 2008 - 23:19:16
That does not make me wrong.
=======================
What makes you 'wrong' is your persistent need to open your mouth, and the facts be damned.
If it's not this old story on Renzi finally ending up with DOJ action, it's McCain's apparent confusion over which lobbyists he met with, and when the meeting (did/did not) occur. On top of that is his not acknowledging the concern of the FEC over whether he has the right to suddenly NOT be publicly funded. Since the FEC board has vacancies they have no teeth to pursue anything in time for the election, but all these 'shortcomings' are dead weight on someone who thrives on their reputation for ethics. The GOP is concerned because they have no fallback if McCain's halo is tarnished, and the Times story has turned into a fundraiser for McCain amongst the paranoid GOP preoccupied with the 'liberal media' and other gremlins in the night. When McCain needs to bring out Bob Bennett to explain a 'mis-statement', that's a problem.
www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=4334984&page=1
Just when John McCain may have been breathing a sigh of relief, his campaign woke up to a new round of negative headlines -- this time, suggesting that in defending himself against The New York Times this week, he had misrepresented some facts.
In an effort to refute the Times story implying the senator had an inappropriate relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman, McCain's campaign stated unequivocally on Thursday that he had never held a meeting with Iseman and her client, broadcaster Lowell Paxson, about letters he sent to the Federal Communications Commission on Paxson's behalf in 1999.
But it turns out, McCain did sit down with the two of them, and he himself admitted to the meeting in a 2002 deposition. Today, McCain's lawyer says the campaign got its facts about the meeting wrong, but insists the underlying point remains the same.
'On top of that is his not acknowledging the concern of the FEC over whether he has the right to suddenly NOT be publicly funded. '
Hey if Obama isn't going to keep his word and go with Public Funding why should McCain?
'but all these 'shortcomings' are dead weight on someone who thrives on their reputation for ethics.'
Good thing Obama doesn't have a reputation to protect.
'he Times story has turned into a fundraiser for McCain amongst the paranoid GOP preoccupied with the 'liberal media' and other gremlins in the night.'
LOL! Naaah, the Times isn't liberal and the media haven't been falling all over themselves to fawn over your flavor of the month or anything.
'But it turns out, McCain did sit down with the two of them, and he himself admitted to the meeting in a 2002 deposition.'
And that got them what? You would have a story if McCain broke some rules for them but even the Times acknowledges that after 8 years of looking they couldn't find anything.
How do you like these apples?
' Barack Obama's longtime minister, mentor, and sounding board has been a key supporter of Louis Farrakhan and last month honored the Nation of Islam leader for lifetime achievement.
Farrakhan has repeatedly made hate-filled statements targeting Jews, whites, America, and homosexuals. He has called whites 'blue-eyed devils' and the 'anti-Christ'. He has described Jews as 'bloodsuckers' who control the government, the media, and some black organizations.
'Do you know some of these satanic Jews have taken over BET [the Black Entertainment Network] Farrakhan said in a speech on Nov. 11, 2007. Everything that we built, they have. The mind of Satan now is running the record industry, movie industry, and television. And they make us look like we're the murderers; we look like we're the gangsters, but we're punk stuff.
The month after that speech, Obama's minister and friend, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. and his Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, honored Farrakhan at a gala, bestowing on him its Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Lifetime Achievement Trumpeteer award.'
[snip]
The title of Obama�s bestseller 'The Audacity of Hope' comes from one of Wright�s sermons. Wright is one of the first people Obama thanked after his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004.
For a Jan. 21, 2007 story in the Chicago Tribune, Obama said that Wright keeps his priorities straight and his moral compass calibrated.
'What I value most about Pastor Wright is not his day-to-day political advice, Obama told the paper. He's much more of a sounding board for me to make sure that I am speaking truthfully about what I believe is possible and that I'm not losing myself in some of the hype and hoopla and stress that's involved in national politics.'
However, Obama has said that in the fall of 2006, he broached the subject of a run for the presidency with Wright, who encouraged him to go ahead.
As noted in a Jan. 7 Newsmax article, 'Barack Obama's Racist Church,' in sermons and interviews, Wright has equated Zionism with racism and has compared Israel with South Africa under its previous policy of apartheid. On the Sunday following 9/11, Wright characterized the terrorist attacks as a consequence of violent American policies. Four years later, Wright suggested that the attacks were retribution for America's racism.
[snip]
Just before Obama's nationally televised campaign kickoff rally last Feb. 10, the candidate disinvited Wright from giving the public invocation. Wright explained: When [Obama's] enemies find out that in 1984 I went to Tripoli� to visit Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell.
According to Wright, Obama then told him, 'You can get kind of rough in the sermons, so what we've decided is that it's best for you not to be out there in public. Wright is retiring as senior pastor of the church in May. He asked his successor, Otis Moss III, to speak instead, but he declined. However, Obama and his family prayed privately with Wright just before the presidential announcement.
The media blackout on Obama�s radical minister is in striking contrast to the coverage of Romney. Nearly half the references to Romney in the media include a discussion of his membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
[snip]
'Moreover, [Obama's] church has a 'non-negotiable commitment to Africa,' according to its Web site, and the church and its pastor subscribe to what is called the Black Value System.
While the Black Value System encourages commitment to God, education, and self-discipline, it refers to 'our racist competitive society' and includes the disavowal of the pursuit of 'middle-classness' and a pledge of allegiance to 'all black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System.' It defines 'middle-classness' as a way for American society to 'snare' blacks rather than 'killing them off directly' or 'placing them in concentration camps,' just as the country structures 'an economic environment that induces captive youth to fill the jails and prisons.'
Oh yeah... there is plenty, plenty more. Are you sure you want to down this road?
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, January 15, 2008; Page A13
Barack Obama is a member of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. Its minister, and Obama's spiritual adviser, is the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. In 1982, the church launched Trumpet Newsmagazine; Wright's daughters serve as publisher and executive editor. Every year, the magazine makes awards in various categories. Last year, it gave the Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Trumpeter Award to a man it said 'truly epitomized greatness.' That man is Louis Farrakhan.
Maybe for Wright and some others, Farrakhan 'epitomized greatness.' For most Americans, though, Farrakhan epitomizes racism, particularly in the form of anti-Semitism. Over the years, he has compiled an awesome record of offensive statements, even denigrating the Holocaust by falsely attributing it to Jewish cooperation with Hitler -- 'They helped him get the Third Reich on the road.' His history is a rancid stew of lies.
It's important to state right off that nothing in Obama's record suggests he harbors anti-Semitic views or agrees with Wright when it comes to Farrakhan. Instead, as Obama's top campaign aide, David Axelrod, points out, Obama often has said that he and his minister sometimes disagree. Farrakhan, Axelrod told me, is one of those instances.
Fine. But where I differ with Axelrod and, I assume, Obama is that praise for an anti-Semitic demagogue is not a minor difference or an intrachurch issue. The Obama camp takes the view that its candidate, now that he has been told about the award, is under no obligation to speak out on the Farrakhan matter. It was not Obama's church that made the award but a magazine. This is a distinction without much of a difference. And given who the parishioner is, the obligation to speak out is all the greater. He could be the next American president. Where is his sense of outrage?
Any praise of Farrakhan heightens the prestige of the leader of the Nation of Islam. For good reasons and bad, he is already admired in portions of the black community, sometimes for his efforts to rehabilitate criminals. His anti-Semitism is either not considered relevant or is shared, particularly his false insistence that Jews have played an inordinate role in victimizing African Americans.
In this, Farrakhan stands history on its head. It was Jews who disproportionately marched for civil rights and, in Mississippi, died for that cause. Farrakhan and, in effect, Wright, despoil the graves of Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and, of course, their black colleague James Chaney.
I can even see how someone, maybe even Obama, could dismiss Farrakhan as a pest, a silly man pushing a silly cause that poses no real threat to the Jewish community. Still, history tells us that anti-Semitism is not to be trifled with. It is a botulism of the mind.
The Obama and Clinton campaigns are involved in a tasteless tussle over the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. What is clear from rereading King's celebrated 'I Have a Dream' speech of Aug. 28, 1963, is how inclusive that dream was -- 'all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!' '
This, though, is not Farrakhan's dream. He has vilified whites and singled out Jews to blame for crimes large and small, either committed by others as well or not at all. (A dominant role in the slave trade, for instance.) He has talked of Jewish conspiracies to set a media line for the whole nation. He has reviled Jews in a manner that brings Hitler to mind.
And yet Wright heaped praise on Farrakhan. According to Trumpet, he applauded his 'depth of analysis when it comes to the racial ills of this nation.' He praised 'his integrity and honesty.' He called him 'an unforgettable force, a catalyst for change and a religious leader who is sincere about his faith and his purpose.' These are the words of a man who prayed with Obama just before the Illinois senator announced his run for the presidency. Will he pray with him just before his inaugural?
I don't for a moment think that Obama shares Wright's views on Farrakhan. But the rap on Obama is that he is a fog of a man. We know little about him, and, for all my admiration of him, I wonder about his mettle. The New York Times recently reported on Obama's penchant while serving in the Illinois legislature for merely voting 'present' when faced with some tough issues. Farrakhan, in a strictly political sense, may be a tough issue for him. This time, though, 'present' will not do.
And you think anything you have said in all these posts will take votes away from people who are sick of the way things are going? No matter what you say your rants are not going to sway one person who hates the way things are politically in America.
Go smoke another one and shut the f*ck up.
'And you think anything you have said in all these posts will take votes away from people who are sick of the way things are going? '
Things could go a lot worse. Not all 'change' is for the better.
Not likely, and none of these posts STILL make me wrong.
SP4: DruggieFeb 24th, 2008 - 16:25:55
Not likely, and none of these posts STILL make me wrong.
==================
You don't need any help in being wrong - you do it all by yourself.
How is he wrong?
As far as I'm concerned, campaign financing is a bad joke - no one accepting it can compete with the major candidates, and unless EVERYONE agrees to it, the entire concept is a waste of time.
Here's an article addressing Obama and campaign financing:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/21/AR200802210305 0.html
'In a letter to the FEC, lawyers for the Democratic presidential candidate asked whether the campaign could 'provisionally raise funds for the general election but retain the option' of returning the money if an agreement were reached with other candidates on accepting public financing. The FEC ruled on March 1 that this was permissible, as long as the general-election money was kept in a separate account.
The Obama campaign is correct in arguing that there is nothing in the letter to the FEC that can be interpreted as a commitment to accept public financing. Obama spokesman Bill Burton told Politico.com last Feb. 28 that the senator would not necessarily commit himself to public financing if the commission approved his proposal. 'It would be a situation where if the Republican agreed to opt in to the public financing system, it would be something we would explore,' Burton told Politico.'
==========
Obama has changed the game by using the internet well to expand his donor and support pool, and to have a large pool donating incrementally, which will provide a flow of money for a long period.
McCain ran a poor campaign originally and blew through his funds, and looked to public financing to remain in the race - not a good showing for someone looking to run a country with a deficit. Romney, on the other hand, tossed his own money in, and it proved useless since the public did not want him.
Sen. Clinton ran as though the campaign ended on 2/5, and now faces Obama organizations in place in every state, and topped-out contributions from major donors.
Insofar as the noble notion of public financing for a Presidential campaign - either let the notion die, or raise the amount of money and MAKE everyone running take it. No one can run for President under those limits and last in a contest that runs on for this long against someone who knows how to organize and raise small amounts from more people. If it were a one-year campaign, and everyone agreed, it might have a shot - but campaigns are running longer and longer, and soak up more and more total funding.
If everyone ran under caps from public financing, there'd be fewer negative ads and mailings and robo-calls bugging you at dinnertime, and the TV networks would be the ones to suffer from fewer sales of ad time. There would be a need for REAL debates of substance, and the candidates could construct Web sites stating their positions in depth, and the media could discuss the postings instead of analyzing 'slips' during debates.
(He clearly says that he will pursue an agreement with the GOP nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election - see Page 3 of this PDF)
www.midwestdemocracynetwork.org/templates/media/MDNPresidentialQuestion naire.pdf
(also) blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/02/our-view-on-cam.html
'Last week, Obama's campaign manager Bill Burton told the Associated Press that public financing was 'an option' that's still 'on the table.' Obama said, 'It would be presumptuous of me to say now that I'm locking myself into something when I don't even know if the other side is going to agree to it.'
McCain also pledged last March to use public financing in the general election if his opponent would. McCain, a leader in campaign-finance reform just as Obama has been, reiterated his pledge last week.'
'and unless EVERYONE agrees to it, the entire concept is a waste of time.'
Indeed.
'The Obama campaign is correct in arguing that there is nothing in the letter to the FEC that can be interpreted as a commitment to accept public financing.'
That is not where he committed to accept public financing. Here is a quote from Obama, try not to swoon when you read it:
'In February 2007, I proposed a novel way to preserve the strength of the public financing system in the 2008 election. My plan requires both major party candidates to agree on a fundraising truce, return excess money from donors, and stay within the public financing system for the general election. My proposal followed announcements by some presidential candidates that they would forgo public financing so they could raise unlimited funds in the general election. The Federal Election Commission ruled the proposal legal, and Senator John McCain (r-AZ) has already pledged to accept this fundraising pledge. If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.'
This is from the New York times
WASHINGTON, March 1 — Senator John McCain joined Senator Barack Obama on Thursday in promising to accept a novel fund-raising truce if each man wins his party’s presidential nomination.
The promises by Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, are an effort to resuscitate part of the ailing public financing system for presidential campaigns.
In every election since Watergate, candidates have received limited sums of taxpayer money on the condition that they abstain from raising or spending any more. But this year, the leading candidates are all sidestepping the system in a competition to raise far more in private donations, more than $500 million each, according to most projections, compared with $150 million in potential public financing.
But there is a chance that the obituaries for the public system may be premature. On Thursday, a spokesman for Mr. McCain said that he would take up Mr. Obama on a proposal for an accord between the two major party nominees to rely just on public financing for the general election.
Such a pact would eliminate any financial edge one candidate might have and limit each campaign to $85 million for the general election. The two candidates would have to return any private donations that they had raised for that period.
Mr. Obama laid out his proposal last month to the Federal Election Commission, seeking an opinion on its legality. The commissioners formally approved it on Thursday.
The manager of Mr. McCain’s campaign, Terry Nelson, said he welcomed the decision.
“Should John McCain win the Republican nomination, we will agree to accept public financing in the general election, if the Democratic nominee agrees to do the same,” Mr. Nelson said.
A spokesman for Mr. Obama, Bill Burton, said, “We hope that each of the Republican candidates pledges to do the same.”
Mr. Burton added that if nominated Mr. Obama would “aggressively pursue an agreement” with whoever was his opponent.
Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama have backed changing campaign finances.
www.nytimes.com/2007/03/02/us/politics/02fec.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=kirkpat rick+obama+mccain+aggressively+burton&st=nyt&oref=slogin
So clearly, Obama is trying to have it both ways on this... Looking like Mr.Nice guy before the election and weaseling out of it during the campaign. With no real record to run on does it make you comfortable that that Obama's promises (the only thing he offers) are not necessarily promises?
Notice that Professor Insult didn't have a response. They all fade in the final round.
Nope, not fading, just leaving you to rot in your own stench.
So... How is he wrong?
People do this because they don't really have anything to offer. This is fine with me.
The Libnazi attacks on three premises:
1) Your Stupid - Bush
2) Your Crazy - Bush after the 2nd election, because they don't want to call the loser a loser to a stupid person
3) Radical - Bush after crazy did not work either.
This is because liberlism is a religion, and not a political philosophy for the libnazi. To them, if you disagree, you are a heretic and must be persecuted.
We've seen this repeatedly. Bush is the gold standard. They have focused their hatred of him into a useful tool, to galvanize support. Now that he is leaving, they must find a new person, but it's hard to make McCain this person because of his resume'.
The poster above is one of the robots for the libnazi church. By insulting me, he thinks being cute is a substitute for intellect. My recommendation: keep doing exactly what you are doing.
Your???????? the proper word is a contaction - you're. It is short for you are. Your is an adjective. But then what else could be expected from a mind addled by drug abuse? You can't think straight let alone spell.
'the proper word is a contaction[sic] - you're.'
What is a 'contaction'? Does spelling count only when it is SP4?
thats how sp4 fights back.
like the little girley boy he is.
A neurotic thinks that two and two are five.
A psychotic KNOWS that the answer is four, but he HATES it.
The continual 'libnazi' reference is a mark of a failure to THINK; which is why SP4 gets slammed around as typical of the brainwashed brontosauri who listed to Limbaugh, believing that Limbaugh is on their side in some way.
Limbaugh is in it for the money. Coulter is in it for the money. All the preachers busy telling you how to behave are in it for the money.
Where does the money come from? From ignorant bigots like SP4 who read Newsmax as though it's an addition to the Bible.
This thread was on Renzi and the fact that his criminal case is moving forward - and the fact that he not only was a McCain co-chair in Arizona, but that McCain has persistently defended him in spite of facts known. Like his dealings with lobbyists despite his protestations of NOT being affected by lobbyists, he has lobbyists as primary campaign advisers, rather than experts and academics. Why? He needed the money, because he spent what he had early in a poorly run campaign.
Obama, on the other hand, offered to go with public financing IF his opponents did likewise. That may in reality have been an empty gesture, since NO ONE can effectively run for President on the public financing basis any longer.
I have great respect for McCain as an honorable man - it's his judgment that keeps coming into question. The GOP is just waiting to see if the Times has another shoe to drop, as if McCain is found to be stating anything OTHER than the absolute truth, he's finished - NOT for sex, but on the basis of authenticity. Newsweek and the Washington Post are on the same trail, and while I'd expect McCain to have a far more honorable record in dealing with lobbyists than most others in Congress, HE's the one who is 'holier than thou', and has more to lose.
The public really does not give a damn about heterosexual sex anymore, and the GOP has certainly given them enough homosexual sex to read about. McCain's campaign had AMPLE warning on this particular story to allow them to do a quick deflection, and Bennett has been on retainer for awhile - not like it took anyone by surprise.
'McCain has persistently defended him in spite of facts known'
Where? Where has he defended Renzi since the indictment?
'he has lobbyists as primary campaign advisers, rather than experts and academics.'
Who are these 'lobbyists' as 'primary campaign advisers'?
'Obama, on the other hand, offered to go with public financing IF his opponents did likewise. '
Well his opponent offered to do so now Obama is weaseling out.
' HE's the one who is 'holier than thou', and has more to lose.'
So Obama, who got a sweetheart land deal from Antoin “Tony” Rezko in order to get help in getting the feds off his back really doesn't have anything to lose because he never made any claims to be honest?
Why haven't the press made a mountain out of this? Obama even admitted it was a 'mistake':
Obama on Rezko deal: It was a mistake
November 5, 2006
BY DAVE MCKINNEY AND CHRIS FUSCO Staff Reporters Contributing: Mark Brown
U.S. Sen. Barack Obama expressed regret late Friday for his 2005 land purchase from now-indicted political fundraiser Antoin 'Tony' Rezko in a deal that enlarged the senator's yard.
'I consider this a mistake on my part and I regret it,' Obama told the Chicago Sun-Times in an exclusive and revealing question-and-answer exchange about the transaction.
In June 2005, Obama and Rezko purchased adjoining parcels in Kenwood. The state's junior senator paid $1.65 million for a Georgian revival mansion, while Rezko paid $625,000 for the adjacent, undeveloped lot. Both closed on their properties on the same day.
Last January, aiming to increase the size of his sideyard, Obama paid Rezko $104,500 for a strip of his land.
The transaction occurred at a time when it was widely known Tony Rezko was under investigation by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and as other Illinois politicians befriended by Rezko distanced themselves from him.
In the Sun-Times interview, Obama acknowledged approaching Rezko about the two properties being up for sale and that Rezko developed an immediate interest. Obama did not explain why he reached out to Rezko given the developer's growing problems.
Last month, Rezko was indicted for his role in an alleged pay-to-play scheme designed to fatten Gov. Blagojevich's political fund. Rezko also was accused of bilking a creditor. [snip]
The land deal came up in a court hearing Friday that delved into Rezko's finances. Obama said he has not been approached by federal prosecutors about the transaction nor has plans to go to them about it.
Obama and Rezko have been friends since 1990, and Obama said the Wilmette businessman raised as much as $60,000 for him during his political career. After Rezko's indictment, Obama donated $11,500 to charity--a total that represents what Rezko contributed to the senator's federal campaign fund.
So Obama got $520,500 in property and $48,500 in cash from 'Tony' Rezko who is in jail for fraud and extortion and where is the outrage?
In June 2007, the Sun-Times published a story about letters Obama had written in 1997 to city and state officials in support of a low-income senior citizen development project headed by Rezko and partner Allison Davis. The project received more than $14 million in taxpayer funds, including $885,000 in development fees for Rezko and Davis.
Why hasn't everyone heard about this? (Yet)
So was that $569,000 worth of goodies that Tony Rezko gave Obama simply payback for helping him get $14 million in taxpayer funds? Or was it to get help in getting the feds off his back?
What's that? No one in the press ever told you about this?
www.chieftain.com/national/1203799169/2
INDIANAPOLIS - Sen. John McCain said Friday that while lobbyists serve as close advisers to his presidential campaign, they are honorable and he is not influenced by corruption in the system.
McCain, who has styled himself as an enemy of special interests, defended having lobbyists working for his campaign. He is the expected Republican presidential nominee.
thinkprogress.org/2008/02/23/black-mccain-client/
Charlie Black, who serves as McCain’s chief political adviser, “is chairman of one of Washington’s lobbying powerhouses, BKSH and Associates, which has represented AT&T, Alcoa, JPMorgan and U.S. Airways.” Though he is currently playing a prominent role in the McCain campaign, Black “is still being paid by his firm.”
On Friday, Black told the National Journal that he doesn’t think his continued lobbying is a problem for the anti-lobbying image of his “client,” John McCain:
Well, it’s perfectly fine as long as I am able to make the distinction between giving advice to McCain and representing clients. It’s the same principle as when you have multiple clients and you handle them all differently. You don’t talk to one client about what you do for the other. In my volunteer role with McCain, I consider him a client.
Some of Black’s other clients currently “have interests before the Senate and, in particular, the Commerce Committee, of which” his “client,” John McCain is a member. As TPM’s Greg Sargent noted yesterday, Black “does a lot of his work by telephone from McCain’s Straight Talk Express bus.”
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080218/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_inner_circle
Charlie Black: Involved in GOP politics for dozens of years, Black was a senior adviser to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He also has a close association with the current president. Now chairman of the lobbying firm BKSH & Associates, Black signed on with McCain in an informal capacity last year, but his role quickly mushroomed after McCain's near implosion. He's now considered the dean of the group, with a historical knowledge of campaigns and GOP establishment connections.
Re the very stupid:
'Where? Where has he defended Renzi since the indictment?'
-----------
SINCE the indictment? Hell, even Bush would not be that dumb.
news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20080222/cm_thenation/45289083
As far back as September 2005, Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington listed Renzi as one of the 'most corrupt' members of Congress. News of Renzi's land scheme had been percolating for a long time before it finally became public in October 2006. 'Many people had information on Rick Renzi and his corrupt practices in 2006, which is one reason I ran for Congress,' says Ellen Simon, a civil rights lawyer who was falsely accused by McCain and others of being president of the ACLU. 'At the same time this information was known, John McCain was actively supporting Renzi in the race.'
Renzi is a co-chair of McCain's campaign in Arizona. The Arizona Republic describes the two men as 'close.' In June 2006, McCain sent out a fundraising letter on Renzi's behalf.
'Already his liberal opponents have started advertising on television against him and the Washington liberals have recruited a multi-millionaire from Ohio to challenge him in November,' McCain wrote in the e-mail. 'Rick's opponent, Ellen Simon, is the former president of the ACLU and has pledged to spend millions of her own dollars to defeat Rick. We simply cannot let this happen,' McCain said.
(As I said, bad judgment, particularly after Keating. Ellen Simon was NOT the President of the ACLU, another of Renzi's many lies when running for office)
tiodt.blogspot.com/2006/10/willing-to-say-anything-to-get-elected.html< br />
In the 2002 campaign he ran ads claiming that George Cordova embezzled money from a business he was a partner in and then wired it out of the country to an uncle in Mexico. Of course if this were true then Cordova would have gone to prison for a long, long time. But he not only did not go to prison or have any charges filed against him, but he sued Renzi after that election for libel and settled out of court for an undisclosed sum of cash. You figure it out.
Heck, it isn't even the first big lie that Renzi has told this year (2006). Earlier this year he claimed that he had been endorsed by former Navajo Nation President Albert Hale. Only it wasn't true. Hale, irked at the fake endorsement, publically asked Renzi for an apology and to retract the endorsement. Far from an apology, Renzi's response was to personally attack Hale and call him a 'convicted felon' (also a big lie). Hale, who had planned to pretty much sit this election out, immediately endorsed Ellen Simon.
(This guy has been under investigation since 2005, yet McCain gave him a lead position on his campaign? Why? Couldn't he find someone honest?)
embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/02/23/indicted-congressman-to-leave-mccai n-campaign/
Sen. John McCain told a blogger conference call Friday that indicted Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ), who serves as one of his Arizona state co-chairs, will be resigning from his position in the coming days. Renzi was indicted on 35 criminal counts Friday including extortion, money laundering and wire fraud, related to an alleged illegal land deal and its cover-up.
In fact, Renzi’s name has already been deleted from a press release the campaign issued last month announcing the state leadership team. His name was previously listed between Gary Pierce and fmr. Rep. Matt Salmon on the original Jan. 26 press release, according to a cached version of the release.
At a press conference in Indianapolis Friday morning, McCain called the indictment “very unfortunate.” “I rely on our Department of Justice and system of justice to make the right outcome,” he said.
(Is that statement NOT a defense of Renzi? How is a 35-count indictment 'unfortunate'??? What is the 'right outcome'?)
(The above link contains a cached screen-shot of the press release BEFORE Renzi's name was scrubbed).
...what McCain says. He's not involved, not indicted and has nothing to do with it. It's always unfortunate to see someone given so much power and responsibility abuse it.
Firstly, I notice you ducked the campaign finance issue, which is what your original complaint was. Secondly I noticed that you ducked the issue of Tony Rezko who is an unquestioned supporter, contributer and associate of Obama who has provably had favors done for him after provably giving Obama large sums of money and sweetheart deals on property.
Yes, Charles Black is the chairman of BKSH & Associates but he is being employed by the McCain campaign as a strategist. Who better to work in a presidential campaign then a PR man? He is not 'lobbying' for anything other then John McCain to be president. 'Thinkprogress.org' and 'the nation' are not reputable sources for anything by the way.
'SINCE the indictment?'
Gee, you folks like to trot out the whole 'innocent until proven guilty' line when it applies to terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or grifters like Webster Hubbell... No, he hasn't come to Renzi's defense.
' Ellen Simon was NOT the President of the ACLU'
Ellen Simon is a 'civil right attorney' who has argued on behalf of the ACLU and once served as their president of the Cleveland chapter. To say that she has never been a president in the ACLU is a lie, to infer that she has never been affiliated with the ACLU is a lie and as proof I offer you the ACLU's own website as proof:
'Ellen Simon once served as president of the Cleveland, Ohio, chapter of the ACLU. Rick Renzi continually refers to her as 'ACLU Ellen'
Of course you knew that already because you cited the same source trying to toss mud at McCain. (What was that about half-truths being as bad as lies?)
All of which happens to have nothing to do with John McCain.
My take on the whole thing? McCain should have and has cut him lose. If you want to judge people by the company they keep that is fair enough. Brace yourself to be held to the same standard. Do you want to address Obamas taking $569,000 worth of goodies from Tony Rezko as payback for helping him get $14 million in taxpayer funds and help in getting the feds off his back?
'In fact, Renzi’s name has already been deleted from a press release the campaign issued last month announcing the state leadership team. '
He got fired.
'At a press conference in Indianapolis Friday morning, McCain called the indictment “very unfortunate.” “I rely on our Department of Justice and system of justice to make the right outcome,” he said.'
Is that statement NOT a defense of Renzi?'
No, not at all... It is a statement saying that Renzi is on his own.
'How is a 35-count indictment 'unfortunate'???'
Because there is the potential that he could be guilty. It is 'unfortunate' that he might have done something to disgrace himself.
'What is the 'right outcome'?'
Justice.
By NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT
February 24, 2008 -- The corruption trial of Antoin 'Tony' Rezko, due to start in federal court in Chicago tomorrow, comes at a bad time for Barack Obama.
The senator from Illinois is surging ahead of his rival Hillary Clinton in the Democratic race by presenting himself as Mr. Clean, untainted by the corrupt ways of Washington politics.
But Obama's ability to make the right call on important issues, and his claim to be untainted by politics as usual, is seriously called into doubt by his alliance with the property developer and fast food franchiser Rezko, a close personal friend and one of his most generous donors.
[snip]
In June 2005, Obama bought a 98-year-old Kenwood mansion from a University of Chicago doctor for $1.65 million, using a $1.69 million advance he received from publishers Crown for his book, 'The Audacity of Hope.' The same day Rezko's wife Rita paid the doctor $625,000 for the empty lot adjoining Obama's property.
Even though at the time Rezko was under federal investigation for influence-peddling in Illinois Governor Blagojevich's administration, Obama did business with him, buying for $104,500 a 10-foot wide strip of Rita Rezko's lot, ostensibly to provide space for a fence. The deal left Mrs. Rezko's lot too small to build upon, thereby lifting the value of Obama's home.
Obama denies wrongdoing. 'I misgauged the appearance presented by my purchase of the additional land from Mr. Rezko,' Obama told the Chicago Sun-Times. 'It was a mistake to have been engaged with him at all in this or any other personal business dealing that would allow him, or anyone else, to believe that he had done me a favor.'
Obama now calls 'boneheaded' his decision to continue to consort with Rezko even after a grand jury investigation into his dealings had begun and he has given about $150,000 of Rezko's campaign contributions to charity.
But that was not the end of the affair. The senator's claim to have been completely open about his relationship with Rezko was called into doubt on Monday when the senator belatedly admitted that, before he bought his home, he and Rezko visited the property together.
Rezko is a presidential candidate's nightmare buddy. He stands accused of demanding fake finder's fees for payments made to Illinois teachers' and health workers' state pension funds. And he is accused of defrauding GE Capital out of $10 million in loans for his fast-food franchises.
According to court documents, Rezko is also accused of prompting 'at least one other individual' to give money to Obama's senatorial campaign, then reimbursing him, in violation of federal election law.
Prosecutors have submitted to the court a 26-page list of those Rezko wanted appointed to posts in Illinois Governor Blagojevich's administration. The list contains those whom Obama recommended for state jobs. On Thursday it was reported that among those Rezko proposed for a job was the real estate agent who conducted the sale of Sen. Obama's home.
The links between Obama and Rezko that will be on show in the forthcoming trial may expose a chink in Obama's shining armor. Hard evidence of his at best naivety in the face of political corruption may not come quickly enough to help Hillary Clinton, who must win in Texas and Ohio on March 4 if she is to escape defeat. Most of the coming week in court will be taken up with jury selection.
In one of the early debates Clinton berated Obama for his links to Rezko, whom she called a 'slum landlord.' The remark was dismissed by the Obama camp and Clinton has not returned to the attack. She will be sorely tempted to revive the issue this week.
If the Rezko trial comes too late to alert Democratic voters to the murkier side of Obama's time in Chicago politics, John McCain can be sure to exploit the court-attested fact that the Illinois Senator is not as free from the influence of sleaze as he likes to suggest.
Obama's letters for Rezko
NOT A FAVOR? | As a state senator, he went to bat for now-indicted developer's deal
June 13, 2007
BY TIM NOVAK Staff Reporter/tnovak@suntimes.com
As a state senator, Barack Obama wrote letters to city and state officials supporting his political patron Tony Rezko's successful bid to get more than $14 million from taxpayers to build apartments for senior citizens.
The deal included $855,000 in development fees for Rezko and his partner, Allison S. Davis, Obama's former boss, according to records from the project, which was four blocks outside Obama's state Senate district.
Obama's letters, written nearly nine years ago, for the first time show the Democratic presidential hopeful did a political favor for Rezko -- a longtime friend, campaign fund-raiser and client of the law firm where Obama worked -- who was indicted last fall on federal charges that accuse him of demanding kickbacks from companies seeking state business under Gov. Blagojevich.
The letters appear to contradict a statement last December from Obama, who told the Chicago Tribune that, in all the years he's known Rezko, 'I've never done any favors for him.''
On Tuesday, Bill Burton, press secretary for Obama's presidential campaign, said the letters Obama wrote in support of the development weren't intended as a favor to Rezko or Davis.
www.suntimes.com/news/politics/425305,CST-NWS-obama13.article
Since announcing his presidential bid, Obama has faced repeated questions about his 17-year relationship with Rezko, one of his earliest political contributors, who has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Obama.
Rezko backed Obama's election to the Illinois Senate in 1996, his successful re-election bids and his 2004 election to the U.S. Senate.
Two years ago, the two men were involved in a real estate deal that Obama later apologized for, calling it 'boneheaded'' and a 'mistake'' because the transaction occurred while Rezko was widely known to be under federal investigation. Rezko's wife paid full price for a vacant lot in Chicago's historic Kenwood district on the same day Obama bought the mansion next door from the same property owner for $300,000 below the asking price. Rezko's wife subsequently sold a sliver of the land to Obama.
Firm paid city $1 for land
New Kenwood LLC also got letters of support from Obama, who represented a nearby Senate district.
'I am writing in support of the New Kenwood LLC's proposal to build a ninety-seven unit apartment building at 48th and Cottage Grove for senior citizens,'' Obama wrote in separate letters, each dated Oct. 28, 1998, to city and state housing officials. 'This project will provide much needed housing for Fourth Ward citizens.''
At the time he wrote the letters, Obama was also a lawyer with Miner Barnhill & Galland, the law firm Davis formerly headed. Among the firm's clients were several companies owned by Davis and Rezko. The firm did not represent New Kenwood.
Davis and Rezko hired Daley & George, the law firm of the mayor's brother Michael, to help them get $3.1 million from bonds issued by the city of Chicago.
Rezko and Davis paid the city $1 for the land and spent more than $100,000 to clean it up, including the removal of an underground storage tank. Some tainted land was left behind, but state environmental officials approved construction after Rezko and Davis agreed to cover the polluted areas with parking lots, sidewalks or three feet of dirt, records show.
The $14.6 million Cottage View Terrace was funded entirely by city, state and federal taxpayers.
The project included $855,000 in development fees for New Kenwood. Records don't show how Davis and Rezko split the money. Davis owned 51 percent of New Kenwood, Rezko 49 percent, according to the records.
In addition to the development fees, a separate Davis-owned company stood to make another $900,000 through federal tax credits.
Check out his relationship with some of the nations Coal companines...
RE:
'At a press conference in Indianapolis Friday morning, McCain called the indictment “very unfortunate.” “I rely on our Department of Justice and system of justice to make the right outcome,” he said.'
Is that statement NOT a defense of Renzi?'
No, not at all... It is a statement saying that Renzi is on his own.
'How is a 35-count indictment 'unfortunate'???'
Because there is the potential that he could be guilty. It is 'unfortunate' that he might have done something to disgrace himself.
====================
Someone here should look up the word 'sarcasm'. 'Unfortunate' is like calling Pearl Harbor a boating accident.
There is ample evidence for a 35-count indictment, since they've been collecting evidence for three years, waiting for this moment. McCain could have AT LEAST said that he was disappointed in Renzi, rather than waiting for some 'O.J. moment' to excuse the guilty. Renzi is at the very least not of the calibre of people that McCain should even be associating with; never mind co-chairing his campaign. Stop the B.S. excuse-making, and understand that McCain is acting as the apologist-in-chief rather than the commander-in-chief. After all of the stains of the Bush era, people expect better perspective from their leadership. Obama cleanly owned up to his own errors in judgment, and came out the better for it. McCain has left a ghost haunting his campaign, until he likewise says that supporting Renzi for 3 years AFTER the original charges surfaced was an error that he won't repeat.
www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/0224sun1-24.html
The 35-count indictment announced by Assistant U.S. Attorney General Alice S. Fisher and U.S. Attorney for Arizona Diane J. Humetewa charges the congressman with wire fraud, extortion, money laundering and looting $400,000 from the trust account of a Renzi family business, Patriot Insurance Agency. Also indicted Thursday were Renzi's business associates: James W. Sandlin, 56, of Sherman, Texas, and Andrew Beardall, 36, of Rockville, Md.
In our system of justice, Renzi is presumed innocent, but if these charges are proven, he will take his place among the most corrupt political figures in Arizona history. At a time when we remember former Gov. Evan Mecham, who died on Thursday, it is worth noting that the impeached governor's misdeeds pale in comparison to those alleged against Renzi. If Mecham was an 'ethical pygmy,' a convicted Renzi would be a Herculean scoundrel.
The central allegations facing Renzi, who represents the sprawling 1st Congressional District, are stunning. Beset with 'financial difficulties' in 2005 and needing 'a substantial infusion of funds to keep his insurance business solvent and to maintain his personal lifestyle' he directed two groups - one a private corporation, the other an investment group - to buy land that unbeknownst to them was owned by a Renzi associate.
'This thread should come with instructions'
It isn't that hard now is it... Read from left to right...
'Someone here should look up the word 'sarcasm'.'
Or 'Tony Rezko'... Or 'Obama +Weather underground' Or 'obama +Farrakhan'
''Unfortunate' is like calling Pearl Harbor a boating accident.'
Sorry to burst your bubble, she who will not address the Obama getting hundreds of thousands of dollars from someone who was ALREADY under indictment... but this hardly reaches the level of Pearl Harbor. (Of course folks on your side of the equation do like to minimize attacks on the USA like Pearl Harbor or 9/11 to simple criminal actions instead of acts of war.)
'McCain could have AT LEAST said that he was disappointed in Renzi,'
What did Obama have to say about supporter William Jefferson? You know, the guy with the freezer full of FBI informant cash? Again, the terrorists like the ones in Guantanamo bay seem to be the only people you regard as innocent until proven guilty?
'Renzi is at the very least not of the calibre of people that McCain should even be associating with'
Agreed. What about Obama meeting with William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn?
'never mind co-chairing his campaign.'
He isn't. Sent packing...don't you remember?
'Stop the B.S. excuse-making'
I haven't been, When are you going to address Obamas connections with Tony Rezko?
'Obama cleanly owned up to his own errors in judgment, and came out the better for it. '
He has not had to own up to anything other then what he has been forced to own up to. If he is sorry, why didn't he give the property back? Why hasn't he had to answer questions about the letters he wrote to help Tony Rezko get the property for 1 dollar and get 14 million dollars of tax payers money to develop it? PLUS a tax break on top of that! (Chicago is such a corrupt city, Capone knew where to set up shop.) You call that 'owning up'?
What lapse in judgment did McCain make? BY ALL ACCOUNTS any alleged dirty dealing that Renzi was behind HAD NOTHING TO DO with McCain. BY ALL ACCOUNTS Obama was intimately involved with many aspects of 'Tony' Rezko's wrongdoing.
'McCain has left a ghost haunting his campaign,'
What part of he fired the guy do you not understand? Nice try....
Sun-Times
Rezko and Mahru had no construction experience. Yet City Hall gave their new company, Rezmar Corp., a $629,000 loan to help fix up an abandoned apartment building at 46th and Drexel.
They had applied for the loan just six days after Richard M. Daley won his first term as mayor in 1989, having campaigned on a promise to build more housing for the poor.
Tony Rezko's company got more than $100 million in loans to renovate Chicago apartment buildings for poor people. And the money kept coming even as the buildings fell apart.
Rezko and Mahru got the loan four months later, and quickly became one of the Daley administration's favored developers. They got deal after deal -- between 1989 and 1998, more than $100 million from the city, state and federal governments and bank loans to rehabilitate 30 buildings in Chicago.
Rezmar was paid at least $6.9 million to develop those apartments.
Taxpayers have lost $5.7 million in grants and loans written off by the Daley administration, a Chicago Sun-Times investigation has found. Millions more could be written off, based on court records and interviews.
And the IRS has so far demanded that corporations repay $7.8 million in tax breaks they got for investing in Rezmar apartments that failed to provide low-income housing for at least 15 years.
Rezmar was supposed to provide 1,025 apartments for the poor. But today:
• Six of its 30 buildings are boarded up.
• Seventeen went into in foreclosure, most after Rezmar abandoned them.
• An 18th building is being foreclosed on by the state. Rezmar walked away from it, leaving it to the corporate investors, who got a state loan to try to save it but failed. The building is now boarded up.
• Hundreds of apartments are vacant, most in need of major repairs.
'Every one of these properties has failed,'' said Phillip Kupritz, the architect on every Rezmar low-income rehab.
Rezko did not respond to interview requests regarding the low-income housing deals. Rezko is under federal indictment on unrelated charges, accused of demanding kickbacks from companies seeking state business under the Blagojevich administration. He's also charged with fraudulently obtaining a $10 million loan for pizza restaurants he began while fixing up low-income buildings with tax dollars.
'I sold him ice'
Rezko, a native of Syria, came to Chicago in the late 1970s to study engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He joined an engineering company, designing nuclear power plants. He left to design roads for the state Transportation Department, making $21,590 in his one year there.
In 1984, Rezko went to work for Crucial Concessions Inc., owned by Herbert Muhammad, whose father, Elijah Muhammad, founded the Nation of Islam. Herbert Muhammad also was the longtime manager of boxing great Muhammad Ali. Crucial had a contract with the Chicago Park District to sell food on the beaches and in many South Side parks. Rezko was running Crucial when he met Daniel Mahru.
'That's an interesting story,'' Mahru said. 'He sold food along the beaches, and I sold him ice.''
Mahru, chief executive officer of Automatic Ice Inc., which leases ice makers to bars, hotels and restaurants, grew up on the North Shore. He had been an attorney with a big Chicago law firm.
He and Rezko incorporated Rezmar in January 1989, when Chicagoans were focused on Daley's campaign to oust Mayor Eugene Sawyer. Daley won, and Rezmar came seeking funding from City Hall.
'Rezmar Corp. expects this project to be the first of many during the next few years,'' Mahru wrote in Rezmar's first application to the city Housing Department.
And it was.
As Rezmar's loan application was pending, Daley reformed the Housing Department. Daley said he found that housing officials were giving loans to their cronies. So the mayor's staff would now decide who got the money.
And his staff liked Rezmar, which got more than $24 million in loans and $8.5 million in federal tax credits from the city to rehab 14 buildings during Daley's first six years as mayor. Daley's top advisers signed off on those deals before the City Council approved them. Among the staff, according to records and interviews, was Daley's longtime friend Tim Degnan, who ran the City Hall patronage office.
'You trying to put me in the middle with Rezko?'' Degnan said in a brief phone conversation. 'I don't recall anything about Rezko.''
All 14 of those buildings ended up in financial straits. Today, three are boarded up.
Problems soon developed
How did inexperienced developers like Rezko and Mahru get money from the city, state and banks? It was the people Mahru hired, and his business acumen, said Robin Coffey, a vice president at Harris Bank.
'It was his team,'' Coffey said. 'It was his management style. He was using contractors we knew. He was outsourcing management.''
Along with the city, Harris funded Rezmar's first project in 1989. Over the years, Harris gave Rezmar more than $10.6 million to help rehab 18 buildings. Harris also put in additional money, purchasing some of the $50 million in federal tax credits Rezmar obtained from the city or state for the projects.
Two buildings Harris funded -- at 5751-5759 S. Michigan and 7000-7010 S. Sangamon -- began having problems within a year or two, Coffey said.
'By year five, it wasn't in great condition,'' she said of the Michigan property. 'It had vacancies, high turnover.''
The bank put part of the blame on the neighborhoods and kept giving Rezmar money.
Harris has lost at least $1 million on Rezmar loans. And the bank has had to repay the IRS for some federal tax credits it got by investing in Rezmar buildings.
City knew of problems
Mahru ran Rezmar's day-to-day operations.
Rezko was the schmoozer. He showered politicians with money for their campaign funds and got others to do the same. He gave to Democrats -- foremost among them former Cook County Board President John Stroger, Gov. Blagojevich, Daley and Sen. Barack Obama. Rezko gave to Republicans, too -- among them former Gov. Jim Edgar, the late Rosemont Mayor Don Stephens and President George W. Bush.
He also gave to others who held sway over Rezmar's housing deals -- like Chicago aldermen.
Meanwhile, Rezmar's low-income apartments were deteriorating, and it stopped repaying some loans.
So why did the city keep lending Rezko's company more tax dollars? 'During the time he did work with us -- and that was many years ago -- there was nothing to indicate there was a problem,' Daley spokeswoman Jacquelyn Heard said.
In fact, there was. City attorneys repeatedly went to court to force Rezmar to make repairs to its buildings and, in some cases, to get the heat turned on.
State loans helped
In 1991, Jim Edgar had just been elected governor, and Rezko had been 'very helpful'' in raising money for Edgar, according to Robert Kjellander, a top Illinois Republican Party official and one of Edgar's top fund-raisers.
Rezko and Mahru hired Kjellander, an influential lobbyist, to help get state money for housing projects.
'It just lasted a couple years,' Kjellander said.
Eight months after Edgar took office, the Illinois Housing Development Authority gave Rezmar a $500,000 loan to help rehab a 65-unit building for senior citizens in South Shore. A year later, Rezmar came back to the state and got a $60,000 loan, citing cost overruns.
Eight years later, Rezmar abandoned the building, leaving it to its partner in the deal, the Chicago Equity Fund, whose corporate investors had purchased tax credits from Rezmar to help pay for the rehab. The building was left in disrepair, and the Equity Fund investors were facing IRS penalties if the project didn't survive for 15 years. So the fund got a separate loan from the state, for $381,839, to try to rescue the building.
Today, all three mortgages are delinquent. The state is foreclosing on the building in hopes of finding someone who can run it and the senior citizens can continue living there.
Rezmar got paid first
If one of these low-income housing deals failed, lenders and investors would lose money -- but not Rezmar or its owners.
Rezko and Mahru weren't responsible for any government or bank loans. And they would never have to repay the $50 million in federal tax credits they got to rehab the buildings.
But they were guaranteed to make money. Rezmar put just $100 into each project and got a 1 percent stake as the general partner in charge of everything. Rezmar got to hire the architect and contractor, as well as the company that would manage the buildings, screen tenants and make repairs. The management company Rezmar hired? Chicago Property Management, also owned by Rezko and Mahru.
Rezmar made its money on upfront development fees. And Rezmar got paid first -- $6.9 million in all from its deals.
The development fees ultimately came from taxpayers. Here's how that worked: The federal government gives the city and state a set amount of tax credits to hand out for low-income projects. Developers, like Rezmar, are awarded those credits, then sell them to corporate investors at a fraction of their value. The investors profit through those tax breaks.
Rezmar got part of its development fees when its deals closed. It got the last of those fees when tenants moved in.
Under its deals with the Chicago Equity Fund, Rezmar promised to cover all operating losses in any building for seven years. But after that, Rezmar began walking away from the buildings, often leaving them with many vacant apartments and other problems.
'They had every incentive to walk away from the deals,'' said Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th), who had six Rezmar buildings in her ward.
One former government official knowledgeable about the deals said: 'It's too coincidental that, once the developer fees are in their pockets, the things start going down. ... We never had one guy with that many deals go belly up.
'Were we all to blame for not going after Rezmar when they started going bad? Yeah. There were huge drug problems in a lot of their buildings. Their tenant screening left a lot to be desired.''
'Financial difficulties'
That's what city officials called it when Rezmar stopped making the $2,982.79 monthly payment on its first city loan after just three years. Rezmar got the $629,000 loan to fix up a 44-unit abandoned building at 4611-4617 S. Drexel. But rental income never met expectations. Tenants came and went, leading to high vacancy rates and maintenance costs. Property taxes were higher than expected. And Rezmar hadn't planned for one expense that turned out to be necessary: security guards to keep drug dealers away.
Rezmar's deals 'were doomed to fail,'' said David Brint, Rezmar's former executive vice president. 'You had unrealistic expectations on expenses and income.''
Rezmar missed 16 payments on its first city mortgage, and the city changed the terms: Rezmar would have to pay just $465 a month, instead of $2,982.79.
Meanwhile, the city and state each gave Rezmar more money for two more buildings -- one in Logan Square, another in Uptown. Both later went into foreclosure.
City official's concern ignored
Rezmar's financial problems became a concern to city officials in the summer of 1998 -- six years after it first missed payments on city loans. Rezko and Mahru were seeking a $3.1 million loan in 1998 for what would be their final low-income housing project.
Rezmar's loan application apparently made no reference to financial problems, including a bank's threat to foreclose on Rezmar's first deal, the building at 46th and Drexel. This worried Jack Markowski, then the city's first deputy housing commissioner, now commissioner.
'For Rezmar, I'd want to see their 1997 computation since rumors are that they're in bad shape,'' Markowski wrote in a July 8, 1998, memo to his staff.
Despite Markowski's concerns, the Daley administration gave Rezmar a $3.1 million loan to help rehab 84 apartments.
Asked about his 1998 memo, Markowski issued a statement last week saying the city gave Rezmar the loan because 'credit references were positive and loans current.'' And Markowski noted that others -- First National Bank of Chicago and Apollo Housing Capital -- invested in that project.
That deal included three of the mayor's top African-American allies: Bishop Arthur Brazier, Leon Finney Jr. and Allison Davis. Brazier and Finney ran the Fund for Community Redevelopment and Revitalization, a not-for-profit group that was Rezmar's partner in the project.
Davis' company is listed in state records as an investor in the deal, though the state said he didn't end up investing in the deal. Davis said he had no recollection of investing in the deal. But one of his companies formed a partnership with Apollo and got a $130,000 fee on that deal, state records show.
Davis and Finney are also members of the Chicago Plan Commission, appointed by Daley.
No keys, no heat
Two years later, Rezko and Mahru began abandoning their buildings, dumping them to its limited partner, the Chicago Equity Fund.
'I told Dan [Mahru] that he ought to stay in, that he owed it to us and the properties,'' said William Higginson, who founded and was president of the Chicago Equity Fund. 'I understand the [seven-year] guarantee is gone, but that doesn't mean the responsibility was gone. They said they couldn't do it.''
Rezmar's buildings were in bad shape, according to a May 14, 2001, letter Higginson wrote to state housing officials asking them to suspend the mortgage payments for six months.
'We were faced with innumerable problems,'' Higginson wrote. 'No keys for dozens of units; no heat in over half of the buildings; Insufficient record-keeping to enable us to identify actual tenants as well as delinquent tenants; high percentage of tenants rent that were 3-4 months behind; back payables that exceed $350,000; and capital improvements, legal costs for evictions and unit turnovers that will cost between $300,000-$400,000 over the next 12 months.''
As Rezko and Mahru left many black neighborhoods with deteriorating apartment buildings, they moved on to something new -- building upscale condos and townhomes in booming Chicago neighborhoods, including the South Loop.
'A problem . . . for years'
Mahru blamed Rezmar's problems on their low-income tenants -- tenants he and Rezko were responsible for screening.
'We lost huge amounts of money operating those buildings,' Mahru said. 'There's no money in affordable housing. The tenants don't pay their rent. You can't evict them. And when you finally evict them, they owe more than a year's rent, and the apartment is a mess. There's no money to clean it up or fix it up. That happened over and over again.''
Janet Jenkins witnessed the deterioration of one building that Rezmar co-developed with the Chicago Urban League a dozen years ago. Today, the 12-unit building at 62nd Street and Rhodes is boarded up. And she's glad.
'Oh, absolutely,'' said Jenkins, 57, who lives a few doors south of the building. 'That building has been a problem to this block for years.
'We had numerous complaints. Drug selling. Prostitution. The whole nine yards. Filthy. Deplorable. Rats. Mice. Roaches. Urine. Feces. Name it.''
'A big disappointment'
Preckwinkle, the South Side alderman, has a long friendship with Rezko. She got more than $30,000 in campaign contributions from Rezko, his family and business associates over the years. And Rezko served on her campaign finance committee for years.
Still, she criticizes Rezko and Mahru for leaving their six buildings in her ward 'marginally occupied, full of drug dealers and thugs. They had a whole bunch of deferred maintenance. And they stripped the buildings of all of their reserves.
'That Rezmar would do this was a big disappointment to me.''
Obama has never held himself up as the ethical model that McCain did, and the fact remains that McCain has yet to own up to HIS error in continuing to believe in Renzi, despite the evidence. Obama, on the other hand, had ALREADY turned all of the donations into charitable contributions just based on the CHANCE that illegals donations were made.
You can either consume server space in digging up the same story over and over, or explain McCain's lapse in calling his own guy a crook.
Obama admitted his error, and the total funds involved, as well as the number of people impacted, are well below Renzi's total impact. The Feds are free to go after Obama's friend, and in the case of suspicious campaign contributions, Obama already has made sizable charitable contributions against those funds. That's called 'taking responsibility', which McCain has not done in the case of Renzi, who co-chaired his campaign - a far cry from Rezko's level of influence.
www.suntimes.com/news/metro/812207,morerez022508.article
There’s a strong chance the name of presidential contender Barack Obama will surface at indicted political fund-raiser Tony Rezko’s trial, which begins next week. In a nine-page ruling this afternoon, U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve said she would allow federal prosecutors to present evidence about a portion of a $375,000 finder’s fee that a Rezko associate, Joseph Aramanda, obtained through an alleged kickback scheme orchestrated by Rezko.
As with the Aramanda contribution, Obama has donated a $10,000 contribution from Maloof to charity. The two contributions are among a total of $157,835 in Rezko-linked donations that Obama has given away. Rezko was once part of Obama’s senatorial finance committee.
Informed of the judge’s ruling, Obama presidential campaign spokesman Bill Burton said, “We had no knowledge of any straw donations and have returned any of the donations about which we have any reasonable question. “By now it is well established that Sen. Obama is not involved in the matters at issue in the [Rezko] trial.”
(We'll have both trials; but Obama has already stood up and admitted to poor judgment, while McCain is apparently letting it drag out).
The real 'unfortunate' thing is that no matter what you say, these neo-cons will pound and pound and pound on someone (and never admit that anything you have to say is of any matter), no matter what. They would be doing the same thing if Hillary was in the lead, or Joe Biden, or Chris Dodd, etc. Their support for the 'worst President in History' is of no consequence to them.
Remember no matter what you say, it is not enough. Just let the people that support Mr. Obama speak for themselves and let the pieces fall where they may. Mr. McCain has a long list of skeletons that will appear over then next 9+ months (some factual, some not so factual). He has been a senator for 25 years, trust me they are there.
'Obama has never held himself up as the ethical model that McCain did,'
I can see why. :-D So it is ok to help someone loot millions from the taxpayers and enrich yourself with contributions and property if you do not pretend to be ethical... OK, got it.
'and the fact remains that McCain has yet to own up to HIS error in continuing to believe in Renzi,'
If he 'continued' to believe in Renzi as you mis characterize why would he have gotten rid of him?
'. Obama, on the other hand, had ALREADY turned all of the donations into charitable contributions'
NO - HE - HASN'T.
', or explain McCain's lapse in calling his own guy a crook.'
If he called him a crook it would do jeopardize his right to a fair trial,
It would prejudice people against a potentially innocent man. And when has Obama called Rezko a 'crook'?
'Obama admitted his error, and the total funds involved, as well as the number of people impacted, are well below Renzi's total impact.'
Are you joking? Rezko stole TENS OF MILLIONS of dollars from the taxpayers of Illinois and the United States, His theft caused thousands of poor, usually black families to live in dangerous, falling apart slums. The very people that Obama pays lip service to helping were bilked out of what was rightfullt theres so Rezko could get ricj and Obama could get campaign contributions and property. PROPERTY WHICH HE HAS NOT GIVEN BACK.
'That's called 'taking responsibility''
What part of 'he hasn't given all the money and property back' do you not understand? How can you be missing that?
' - a far cry from Rezko's level of influence.'
Did you even read the article?
'Obama has donated a $10,000 contribution from Maloof to charity.'
That is just great, he got over a half a million in contributions and property! But he donated 10 grand? BIG DEAL!
'“By now it is well established that Sen. Obama is not involved in the matters at issue in the [Rezko] trial.”'
It is well established that he was involved. He worked for him and then with him... To say that Obama is not involved is simply idiotic.
(Larry Craig, redux)
thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/renzi-says-he-wont-resign/
Representative Rick Renzi, the Arizona Republican who was indicted last week by a federal grand jury on 35 corruption charges, issued a statement on Monday saying that he would not resign despite signals from Republican leaders in Congress that they would welcome his swift departure.
“I will not resign and take on the cloak of guilt because I am innocent,” Mr. Renzi declared in the statement. “My legal team of Reid Weingarten and Kelly Kramer will handle these legal issues while I continue to serve my constituents.”
Mr. Renzi, with his legal troubles mounting, had already announced that he would not seek re-election to a fourth term. But his insistence on remaining in office while fighting the charges is likely to frustrate fellow Republicans who are already facing enormous challenges in this year’s elections, including a persistent disadvantage in campaign money and a wave of retirements by incumbents.
Mr. Renzi had been serving as a Arizona state co-chairman of Senator John McCain’s campaign for president. But Mr. McCain has indicated that Mr. Renzi would be resigning that post.
A grand jury last week indicted Mr. Renzi on a raft of corruption charges, including fraud, money laundering and extortion. Prosecutors charged that Mr. Renzi pressured constituents to purchase land from his business partner in exchange for his support for legislation that the constituents needed. At least $733,000 in proceeds from the land sale were funneled back to Mr. Renzi, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors also said that Mr. Renzi and a partner in an insurance firm that he owned swindled clients, many of them non-profit organizations, by selling them policies and then stealing the premiums. Much of the money was deposited in Mr. Renzi’s campaign accounts, the prosecutors said.
'Mr. McCain has a long list of skeletons that will appear over then next 9+ months (some factual, some not so factual).'
Anything like this:
Taylor Marsh, who calls herself, 'the antidote to right wing talk', assembles a lot of evidence that Barack Obama has a serious past association with former Weather Underground terrorism supporter William Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn.
She writes:
Obama's Ayers and Dorhn relationship is something more than a few people have been trying to nail down for weeks. You can bet the Republicans and their 527s will do just that. I don't blame them either. This goes well beyond the Rezko connection. In the bad judgment file, any association whatsoever with a domestic terrorist who actively tried to thwart an air war during the Vietnam war, calls our Marines 'terrorists,' while also being unrepentant about it, shows a lack of seriousness I will never accept. John McCain's personal disgust at this connection between Obama and Ayers will bring out a righteous fury that will likely pit the War Hero against the Terrorist's Friend, which is just one angle Obama's opponents will use.
www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=27075
Both Rezko and Renzi will soon be forgotten. There are far larger fish to fry:
www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JB20Dj09.html
'He did NOT 'get rid of him' -'
Oh, so he is still there?
'Where's the official announcement? Renzi snuck away, and McCain erased his name from the roster'
' where's a statement from McCain requesting his resignation'
They haven't released one, no doubt to not hand nitwits like you ammunition to throw at them.
'and stating a reason for it?'
'Unfortunate' :-D
So are you going to answer the Obama/Rezko scandal which cost the taxpayers tens of millions of dollars?
'His feeling sorry for Renzi is one thing; but the smart thing would have been to announce straightaway his severing of any campaign links'
And what if, on the admittedly off chance, he turns out to be innocent of these charges? Then McCain would have besmirched an innocent man. What if he is guilty? Labeling him as such would poison the jury pool and could lead to an acquittal.
Nope, you are wrong. This was handled appropriately because there was never the allegation McCain did anything wrong.
'Yes, he DID. All donations seen as originating from Rezko, or from anyone linked thus far to Rezko, were given to charity.'
That is NOT TRUE! It simply is not the case. Do the math! Heck, I have done it for you! Read the above stories and above all realize that Obama still owns that piece of property that he 'bought' from Rezko at a deflated price.
'Overall, the campaign has now given to charity nearly $150,000 in contributions received by Obama's House and Senate campaigns that came from Rezko'
Gee, he got over a half a million in cash and goodies... You talk about 'Banquo's ghost'? When Obama is dribbling money out here and there to pay back the money he helped Rezko to steal in the hopes that people will forget before he has to give it ALL back, how smart is that?
No, it was bad judgment for Obama to work with this guy, to take money from him, to help him get money from the taxpayers and to take subsidized property from him. It is also bad judgment for Obama not to give back every penny and apologize.
Mansion 'mistake' piles the pressure on Barack Obama
A British-Iraqi billionaire lent millions of dollars to Barack Obama's fundraiser just weeks before an imprudent land deal that has returned to haunt the presidential contender, an investigation by The Times discloses.
The money transfer raises the question of whether funds from Nadhmi Auchi, one of Britain’s wealthiest men, helped Mr Obama buy his mock Georgian mansion in Chicago.
A company related to Mr Auchi, who has a conviction for corruption in France, registered the loan to Mr Obama's bagman Antoin 'Tony' Rezko on May 23 2005. Mr Auchi says the loan, through the Panamanian company Fintrade Services SA, was for $3.5 million.
Three weeks later, Mr Obama bought a house on the city's South Side while Mr Rezko's wife bought the garden plot next door from the same seller on the same day, June 15.
Mr Obama says he never used Mrs Rezko's still-empty lot, which could only be accessed through his property. But he admits he paid his gardener to mow the lawn.
Mrs Rezko, whose husband was widely known to be under investigation at the time, went on to sell a 10-foot strip of her property to Mr Obama seven months later so he could enjoy a bigger garden.
Mr Obama now admits his involvement in this land deal was a “boneheaded mistake”.
Mrs Rezko’s purchase and sale of the land to Mr Obama raises many unanswered questions.
It is unclear how Mrs Rezko could have afforded the downpayment of $125,000 and a $500,000 mortgage for the original $625,000 purchase of the garden plot at 5050 South Greenwood Ave.
In a sworn statement a year later, Mrs Rezko said she got by on a salary of $37,000 and had $35,000 assets. Mr Rezko told a court he had 'no income, negative cash flow, no liquid assets, no unencumbered assets [and] is significantly in arrears on many of his obligations.'
Mrs Rezko, whose husband goes on trial on unrelated corruption charges in Chicago on March 3, refused to answer questions about the case when she spoke by telephone to The Times.
Asked if she used money from her husband to buy the land next to Mr Obama's house, she said: 'I can't answer these questions, I'm sorry.'
Asked how long she and her husband had known Mr Auchi, she replied: 'I will not be able to answer this question.'
The spotlight fell on Mr Rezko's ties to Mr Auchi last month when the Chicago businessman was thrown in jail for violating his bail terms by failing to declare a different $3.5 million loan from the British billionaire, made in April 2007. Prosecutors feared Mr Rezko, who travels widely in the Middle East, might flee to a country without an extradition treaty such as his birthplace of Syria.
Mr Auchi was convicted of corruption, given a suspended sentence and fined £1.4 million in France in 2003 for his part in the Elf affair, described as the biggest political and corporate scandal in post-war Europe. He, in a statement from his media lawyers, claims he is appealing against the sentence.
Mr Auchi founded his Luxembourg-based General Mediterranean Holding (GMH) in 1979, a year before he left Iraq. He says that he did business with his native country when it was considered a friend of the West but ceased to trade with the late Saddam Hussein's regime once sanctions were imposed after the invasion of Kuwait.
Mr Rezko has told a court that Mr Auchi is a 'close friend.' Mr Auchi's lawyer told The Times: 'It is untrue that my client and Mr Rezko are 'close friends'. Mr Auchi first met Mr Rezko after the 2003 Iraq war and they have a business relationship.'
Mr Rezko and Mr Auchi have been partners in a pizzeria business in the Mid-West and a major 62-acre land development in Riverside Park in Chicago.
According to court documents, Mr Rezko's lawyer said his client had 'longstanding indebtedness' to Mr Auchi's GMH. By June 2007 he owed it $27.9 million.
Under a Loan Forgiveness Agreement described in court, Mr Auchi lent Mr Rezko $3.5 million in April 2005 and $11 million in September 2005, as well as the $3.5 million transferred in April 2007.
That agreement provided for the outstanding loans to be 'forgiven' in return for a stake in the 62-acre Riverside Park development.
A posting last week on a GMH-owned website, middle-east-online.com, portrayed Mr Auchi as a Middle Eastern 'Donald Trump' with a global business construction empire.
Mr Auchi visited the United States in 2004. Pictures show him meeting Emil Jones, the president of the Illinois state senate, an ally of Mr Obama, a former state senator.
Both Mr Auchi and Mr Obama say they have no memory of meeting each other. But, according to a source, the two may have had a brief encounter at the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago where Mr Auchi’s visit was being honoured with a dinner attended by the Governor when Mr Obama, coincidentally in the hotel, dropped in.
An aide to Mr Obama said he did attend an event at the Four Seasons at which Mr Rezko was present but does not remember meeting Mr Auchi. 'He shook a lot of hands and met a lot of people,' the aide said. 'We do not remember individual people.'
Prosecutors say that, after Mr Auchi was unable to enter the United States in 2005, Mr Rezko approached the US State Department to get him a visa and apparently asked 'certain Illinois government officials to do the same.' Mr Obama denies he was approached. Mr Auchi's lawyer has emphasised to The Times that it would be entirely false to imply that money had been lent by GMH to Mr Rezko in return for Mr Rezko seeking to assist Mr Auchi to obtain a visa. The two men's relationship, the lawyer stressed, was a busines s one.
LOL!
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article34 33485.ece?token=null&offset=24
(This is a guy who shoots from the hip, and just as he has poor judgment in whom he associates with, he has bad judgment when making his own statements. He has a reputation amongst Congressional colleagues for shooting before aiming, and he'll be his own worst enemy. Here's another quote from the same link).
''We can fail in Iraq,' McCain said Monday in an Associated Press interview. But, he added: 'I see a clear path to success in Iraq.' He defined that as fewer casualties and Iraqi troops taking over security to allow U.S. forces to return home. 'All of us want out of Iraq, the question is how do we want out of Iraq,' he added.'
(We can FAIL? That's something Bush has never admitted, and the Admin. cannot be happy that he said it).
www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/25/politics/main3874324.shtml?source=mo stpop_story
McCain: I Could Lose Over War Issue - GOP Frontrunner Says He Won't Win If Americans Don't Believe U.S. Policy In Iraq Is Succeeding; Later Backs Off Remark
ROCKY RIVER, Ohio, Feb. 25, 2008
(CBS/AP) John McCain said Monday that to win the White House he must convince a war-weary country that U.S. policy in Iraq is succeeding. If he can't, 'then I lose. I lose,' the Republican said.
He quickly backed off that remark.
'Let me not put it that stark,' the likely GOP nominee told reporters on his campaign bus. 'Let me just put it this way: Americans will judge my candidacy first and foremost on how they believe I can lead the county both from our economy and for national security. Obviously, Iraq will play a role in their judgment of my ability to handle national security.'
'If I may, I'd like to retract 'I'll lose.' But I don't think there's any doubt that how they judge Iraq will have a direct relation to their judgment of me, my support of the surge,' McCain added. 'Clearly, I am tied to it to a large degree.'
'McCain's candidacy is clearly tied to some extent to the war in Iraq,' said CBSNews.com Senior Political Editor Vaughn Ververs. 'But he went further than he knew he should have with these comments. He is going to quickly learn that the rules for general election campaigns are much different than the primaries when it comes to speaking off-the-cuff.'
'This is a candidate used to shooting the breeze with reporters in the back of his bus,' added Ververs. 'Once he becomes the nominee, the media spotlight is far more formal and less forgiving. He won't be able to 'retract' many comments from here on out.'
Ellen Simon is a 'civil right attorney' who has argued on behalf of the ACLU and once served as their president of the Cleveland chapter. To say that she has never been a president in the ACLU is a lie, to infer that she has never been affiliated with the ACLU is a lie and as proof I offer you the ACLU's own website as proof:
---------
BULLSHIT!
I provided the link (below), which explicitly SAYS that she was NOT the national president, but WAS an affiliate president. There are over 50 State chapters, and she was the President of a local AFFILIATE, which is even lower down than a state chapter. Like saying a city council member is equal to the state's governor.
I never said that she was NEVER affiliated, since the link I offered explicitly said that she WAS.
Once again hidden dum-dum turns himself inside out and exposes the liar that he is. Back to the link that explains that Ms. Simon WAS involved with an affiliate, and NOT the national organization:
tiodt.blogspot.com/2006/10/willing-to-say-anything-to-get-elected.html< br />
However, the first half of Mr. Renzi's statement, saying that Ellen Simon was the President of the ACLU is flat out and demonstrably wrong. The President of the ACLU since 1991 has been Nadine Strossen (Incidentally, she is the first woman to ever head the organization). Strossen succeeded Norman Dorsen, who served as the President of the ACLU from 1976-1990. So the contention that Ellen Simon was 'the President of the ACLU' is a flat out, bald faced lie, and a very easy one to prove false with a few minutes and a search engine. She was involved with the ACLU in Ohio, being the President of their Cleveland affiliate, but of course an ACLU member in Ohio could not have been responsible for a decision made by a Massachusetts affiliate, so in order to complete his chain of spurious logic trying to paint her as a defender of pedophiles, he had to invent a new resume for her (which is interesting-- if she lied on her resume, it would be a major scandal. But if he lies on her resume, it's just politics as usual.)
Renzi is going on trial for his lies, and if we're lucky, you'll get dragged in with him.
RE: Yes, Charles Black is the chairman of BKSH & Associates but he is being employed by the McCain campaign as a strategist. Who better to work in a presidential campaign then a PR man?
=====================
He's riding in the campaign bus doing company business for other clients. Interesting that his own resume does not mention McCain.
www.bksh.com/charlie-black.html
He also helped prep Blackwater for testimony, and has ties to Chalabi.
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10575121
(2005)
Also last month, a representative of Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress who works out of Iraq’s embassy in Washington hired a powerful lobbying firm, which helped with Chalabi’s U.S. trip.
The firm, BKSH & Associates, is the lobbying vehicle of Republican insider Charles Black and registered with the Justice Department as an agent for the INC's Entefadh Qanbar.
Lobbyist Riva Levinson wrote in an e-mail to NBC News of concerns about fraud in the Iraqi elections. She wrote that 'many parties, including the INC, are concerned about fraud with dozens of cases now being actively investigated.'
This would not be the first time Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress have used influential K Street lobbyists. BKSH has longstanding ties to Chalabi that preceded the war. The firm was paid, initially, with funds from the Iraqi Liberation Act and was involved in promoting Chalabi’s cause as he pushed for the overthrow of Saddam.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/21/AR2008022101131_pf .html
For years, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has railed against lobbyists and the influence of 'special interests' in Washington, touting on his campaign Web site his fight against 'the 'revolving door' by which lawmakers and other influential officials leave their posts and become lobbyists for the special interests they have aided.'
But when McCain huddled with his closest advisers at his rustic Arizona cabin last weekend to map out his presidential campaign, virtually every one was part of the Washington lobbying culture he has long decried. His campaign manager, Rick Davis, co-founded a lobbying firm whose clients have included Verizon and SBC Telecommunications. His chief political adviser, Charles R. Black Jr., is chairman of one of Washington's lobbying powerhouses, BKSH and Associates, which has represented AT&T, Alcoa, JPMorgan and U.S. Airways.
Senior advisers Steve Schmidt and Mark McKinnon work for firms that have lobbied for Land O' Lakes, UST Public Affairs, Dell and Fannie Mae.
McCain's relationship with lobbyists became an issue this week after it was reported that his aides asked Vicki Iseman, a telecom lobbyist, to distance herself from his 2000 presidential campaign because it would threaten McCain's reputation for independence. An angry and defiant McCain denounced the stories yesterday, declaring: 'At no time have I ever done anything that would betray the public trust.'
Even before McCain finished his news conference, uber-lobbyist Black made the rounds of television networks to defend McCain against charges that he has been tainted by his relationship with a lobbyist. Black's current clients include General Motors, United Technologies, JPMorgan and AT&T.
Black said he is still being paid by his firm and does work for clients in his 'spare time,' recusing himself from lobbying McCain: 'I not only do not lobby him [McCain], but if an issue comes up that I have a client on, I will tell him that and stay out of the discussion.'
In McCain's case, the fact that lobbyists are essentially running his presidential campaign -- most of them as volunteers -- seems to some people to be at odds with his anti-lobbying rhetoric. 'He has a closer relationship with lobbyists than he lets on,' said Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. 'The problem for McCain being so closely associated with lobbyists is that he's the candidate most closely associated with attacking lobbyists.'
Davis did not respond to requests for an interview. Black, acting as a campaign spokesman, said that Davis is being paid neither by his firm nor by the McCain campaign, and has not been a registered lobbyist for three years.
(All candidates use lobbyists and other professionals to run their campaigns, but McCain has more of them raising money than the other candidates; and McCain's position on Commerce would inevitably involve him with some of the clients. In the final paragraph, Black admits that he's doing work for other clients on McCain's bus. McCain's key problem, at a time where people are looking for 'change', is that he comes off as the ultimate insider, particularly in terms of funds spent in Iraq).
------------------
Public Citizen, a group that monitors campaign fundraising, has found that McCain has more bundlers -- people who gather checks from networks of friends and associates -- from the lobbying community than any other presidential candidate from either party.
By the group's current count, McCain has at least 59 federal lobbyists raising money for his campaign, compared with 33 working for Republican Rudolph W. Giuliani and 19 working for Democrat Clinton.
'The potential harm is that should Senator McCain become elected, those people will have a very close relationship with the McCain White House,' Sloan said. '[That] would be very helpful for their clients, and that would give them a leg up on everybody else.'
Of all the lobbyists involved in the McCain campaign, the most prominent is Black, who has made a lucrative career of shuttling back and forth between presidential politics and big-time Washington lobbying. He has worked for the campaigns of former congressman Jack Kemp (N.Y.), former president George H.W. Bush and former senators Phil Gramm (Tex.) and Robert J. Dole (Kan.), all Republicans.
But even as Black provides a private voice and a public face for McCain, he also leads his lobbying firm, which offers corporate interests and foreign governments the promise of access to the most powerful lawmakers. Some of those companies have interests before the Senate and, in particular, the Commerce Committee, of which McCain is a member.
Black said he does a lot of his work by telephone from McCain's Straight Talk Express bus.
archive.salon.com/politics/war_room/2004/06/07/mustreads/index.html
(2004)
The London Telegraph reports that an American consultant, Francis Brooke, is wanted in Baghdad for trying to stop the recent raid on his boss Ahmed Chalabi's house. Chalabi claims to have files related to the U.N. oil-for-food scandal. The report also says records of a British consultant investigating oil-for-food were destroyed by hackers on the same day as the raid.
' ... Mr Brooke, who is an evangelical Christian, has worked with Mr Chalabi since 1990 -- first as a consultant paid by the CIA and most recently as a consultant for BKSH and Associates, a company run by Charlie Black, a Republican Party veteran. Reports from Iran suggest that Mr Brooke acted as an intermediary between Washington and Teheran, passing letters between the two governments, which do not have bilateral relations. Yesterday, Mr Brooke could not be reached for comment, although a colleague in Baghdad said that the arrest warrant was part of a politically-motivated campaign to discredit Mr Chalabi and his followers.'
'Mr Brooke has boasted of engineering the war on Iraq by providing America the evidence it was seeking on weapons of mass destruction. ''I'm a smart man,' he told The New Yorker magazine last week. 'I saw what they wanted, and I adapted my strategy.''
'Among the records held by Mr Chalabi in his Baghdad headquarters -- which were stripped during a raid last month -- he claimed to have material relating to the scandal-hit oil-for-food programme run by the United Nations during Saddam's rule. Last night, it emerged that on the same day as the raid, computer files belonging to the British consultant investigating the oil-for-food scandal were destroyed by hackers and a back-up databank in his Baghdad office wiped out.' 'Claude Hankes Drielsma, a British businessman and long-time acquaintance of Mr Chalabi, accused America and Britain of mounting a 'dirty tricks' campaign to obstruct his inquiry. His report on oil-for-food, written for the international accounting company KPMG, was due to be released in three weeks but its publication has been delayed for at least three months, he said.'
''I believe that what Washington wants is to keep the lid on things until after the presidential election. The White House believes that the report will be detrimental to President Bush's re-election campaign.''
www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2004Q2/chalabi.html
Between 1999-2003, the INC retained PR giant Burson-Marsteller's Washington lobbying arm, BKSH & Associates. Despite restrictions on taxpayer money being spent on to influence public and Congressional opinion, K. Riva Levinson, a managing director at BKSH, did media work and lobbying for the group. According to Brooke, BKSH received $25,000 a month from the State Department.
Some would say the money was well spent. Burson-Marsteller and the INC won PR Week's 2003 public affairs division award for getting the INC's message out and building the its 'profile with key political decision makers in the US, Europe and the Middle East. Of particular importance was positioning INC founder Dr Ahmad Chalabi and other Iraqi opposition spokespeople as authoritative political leaders. With teams working in Washington, New York, London and Europe, B-M compiled intelligence reports, defector briefings, conferences and seminars on the transition of Iraqi society post-Saddam,' PR Week wrote.
While Chalabi may have failed as an Iraqi opposition leader, he succeeded at spearheading a 'sophisticated marketing operation' to topple Saddam. Brooke told the New Yorker, 'This war would not have been fought if it had not been for Ahmad.'
Brooke may not have been overstating the success of Chalabi. Without his neoconservative supporters in the Pentagon and White House, the INC and Chalabi would not have had an eager, war-hungry audience for the fruits of the group's Information Collection Program. Receiving $340,000 per month - first from the State Department, then from the Pentagon - until May 2004, the program was the source of much of the key intelligence used by the White House to make its case for the Iraq invasion.
'nd just as he has poor judgment in whom he associates with, '
You are going to continue to try and ignore the whole Barack Obama/'Tony' Rezko/Nadhmi Auchi scandal, aren't you? It isn't going to go away buddy. :-D
'We can FAIL? That's something Bush has never admitted, and the Admin. cannot be happy that he said it'
Yes, we can. If we elect a narcissistic child like Barack Obama who will hand what we achieved in Iraq over to al Qaeda and Iran. Something that he has vowed to do. What would he care if we have emboldened our islamist enemies? All this guy cares about is getting elected. He and his wife seemingly do not have a patriotic bone in their bodies.
We can fail in Iraq and Afghanistan if we elect someone like Barack Obama who has so much invested in our defeat.
' I don't think there's any doubt that how they judge Iraq will have a direct relation to their judgment of me, my support of the surge,' McCain added.'
Thankfully, time has proven McCain correct on the surge, and Obama/Clinton dead wrong. You too as a matter of fact. Unless you want to try to refute the fact that there has been an incredible turn around...
McCain is from a military background that goes back generations and his own service record is one of unquestionable courage and dedication. He has been proven correct in EVERYTHING that he has advocated for; from the removal of Rumsfeld to the appointment of General Petraeus to the surge that has shown an undeniable in the Iraq situation.
MEANWHILE: Clinton voted for the war before she voted against it and called our general who is most responsible for our current success a liar. Obama was busy not voting in senate and cozying up with crooks to get free stuff in Chicago.
'To say that she has never been a president in the ACLU is a lie, to infer that she has never been affiliated with the ACLU is a lie and as proof I offer you the ACLU's own website as proof:'
'BULL***T!
'I provided the link (below), which explicitly SAYS that she was NOT the national president, but WAS an affiliate president. '
They never claimed she was the 'national president'. This is just more weasel words from you. Ellen Simon WAS, ACCORDING TO THE LINK YOU
POSTED the president of the Cleveland chapter of the ACLU. (Of course you cut that part out when you posted it)
'Once again hidden dum-dum turns himself inside out and exposes the liar that he is'
How can you call me a 'liar' when what you post yourself confirms what I wrote? LOL! Jumping up and down and calling someone a liar when they are citing the SAME article that you posted is kind of stupid.
'Renzi is going on trial for his lies'
I notice you are still not addressing the Barack Obama//Nadhmi Auchi scandal... The one where Obama hasn't given back the money and property that he helped steal. 'Tony' Rezko is going on trial for his lies.... Just tin time for the election too... :-D
'He's riding in the campaign bus doing company business for other clients.'
1) And you know this how? You get to ride along on the McCain campaign bus? And you call other people 'liars'...
2) Even if he was, so what? It just shows that he can multi task.
Your position seems to be that since Obama hasn't even claimed to have any kind of business ethics it is OK for him and his cronies to steal money and property from the taxpayers but since McCain has tried to blunt the influence of the lobbyists that he is somehow bad for hiring a former lobbyists as one of his strategists...
OK, if that is the position you want to take... we will see how far it gets you.
'He also helped prep Blackwater for testimony,'
And?
I notice you are still not addressing the Barack Obama//Nadhmi Auchi scandal... The one where Obama hasn't given back the money and property that he helped steal. 'Tony' Rezko is going on trial for his lies.... Just tin time for the election too... :-D
'All candidates use lobbyists and other professionals to run their campaigns, but McCain has more of them raising money than the other candidates'
That is simply not true. Don't you think the unions that Obama has rented himself out to at hourly rates don't use lobbyists? They are the ones who leave Obamas money on the night stand.
============================================
Here, this is from the New York times, no friend of McCain:
The Real McCain
By DAVID BROOKS
You wouldn’t know it to look at them, but political consultants are as faddish as anyone else. And the current vogueish advice among the backroom set is: Go after your opponent’s strengths. So in the first volley of what feels like the general election campaign, Barack Obama has attacked John McCain for being too close to lobbyists. His assault is part of this week’s Democratic chorus: McCain isn’t really the anti-special interest reformer he pretends to be. He’s more tainted than his reputation suggests.
Well, anything is worth trying, I suppose, but there is the little problem of his record. McCain has fought one battle after another against lobbyists and special interests. And while I don’t have space to describe all his tussles, or even the lesser ones like his fight with the agricultural lobby against sugar subsidies, I thought that, amidst all these charges, it might be worth noting some of the McCain highlights from the past dozen years.
In 1996, McCain was one of five senators, and the only Republican, to vote against the Telecommunications Act. He did it because he believed the act gave away too much to the telecommunications companies, and protected them from true competition. He noted that AT&T alone gave $780,000 to Republicans and $456,000 to Democrats in the year leading up to the vote.
In 1998, McCain championed anti-smoking legislation that faced furious opposition from the tobacco lobby. McCain guided the legislation through the Senate Commerce Committee on a 19-1 vote, but then the tobacco companies struck back. They hired 200 lobbyists and spent $40 million in advertising (three times as much as the Harry and Louise health care reform ads). Many of the ads attacked McCain by name, accusing him of becoming a big government liberal. After weeks of bitter debate, the bill died on the Senate floor.
In 2000, McCain ran for president and reiterated his longstanding opposition to ethanol subsidies. Though it crippled his chances in Iowa, he argued that ethanol was a wasteful giveaway. A recent study in the journal Science has shown that when you take all impacts into consideration, ethanol consumption increases greenhouse gas emissions compared with regular gasoline. Unlike, say, Barack Obama, McCain still opposes ethanol subsidies.
In 2002, McCain capped his long push for campaign finance reform by passing the McCain-Feingold Act. People can argue about the effectiveness of the act, but one thing is beyond dispute. It was a direct assault on lobbyist power, and earned McCain undying enmity among many important parts of the Republican coalition, who felt their soft money influence was being diminished.
In 2003, the Senate nearly passed the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act. The act was opposed by the usual mix of energy, auto and mining companies. But moderate environmental groups were thrilled that McCain-Lieberman was able to attract more than 40 votes in the Senate.
In 2004, McCain launched a frontal assault on the leasing contract the Pentagon had signed with Boeing for aerial refueling tankers. McCain’s investigation exposed billions of dollars of waste and layers of contracting irregularity.
In 2005, McCain led the Congressional investigation into the behavior of the lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The investigation was exceedingly unpleasant for Republicans, because it exposed shocking misbehavior by important conservative activists.
Over the past few years, McCain has stepped up his longstanding assault on earmarks. Every year, McCain goes to the Senate floor to ridicule the latest batch of earmarks, and every year his colleagues and the lobbyists fume. For years, McCain has proposed legislative remedies — greater transparency, a 60-vote supermajority requirement — that were brutally unpopular with many colleagues until, suddenly, now.
Over the course of his career, McCain has tried to do the impossible. He has challenged the winds of the money gale. He has sometimes failed and fallen short. And there have always been critics who cherry-pick his compromises, ignore his larger efforts and accuse him of being a hypocrite.
This is, of course, the gospel of the mediocre man: to ridicule somebody who tries something difficult on the grounds that the effort was not a total success. But any decent person who looks at the McCain record sees that while he has certainly faltered at times, he has also battled concentrated power more doggedly than any other legislator. If this is the record of a candidate with lobbyists on his campaign bus, then every candidate should have lobbyists on the bus.
And here’s the larger point: We’re going to have two extraordinary nominees for president this year. This could be one of the great general election campaigns in American history. The only thing that could ruin it is if the candidates become demagogues and hurl accusations at each other that are an insult to reality and common sense.
Maybe Obama can start this campaign over.
===============================================
LOL! 'the gospel of the mediocre man', They sure had you figured out pb.
OH, I notice you are STILL not addressing the Barack Obama//Nadhmi Auchi scandal... The one where Obama hasn't given back the money and property that he helped steal.
Do read that David Brooks article... For once read what has been posted.
This line of BS that you are pushing simply is not going to get you to where you want to go. McCain's record is long and indisputably anti-lobbyist. If a former lobbyist is working for free on his campaign as a strategist that signifies absolutely nothing.
Now, are you going to continue to avoid commenting on the Barack Obama//Nadhmi Auchi scandal... The one where Obama hasn't given back the money and property that he helped steal.
Do you think that is going to go away? Clinton can't make an issue out of it what with whitewater and all of the other assorted scandals... McCain won't have any problem pointing out that Obama got so much from the slum lord who he provably lobbied for.
Here, more bad news for you:
Obama's Rezko ties deeper than land deal
BY FRANK MAIN Staff Reporter
In addition to a land deal, Sen. Barack Obama’s ties to indicted dealmaker Antoin “Tony” Rezko include an internship the senator provided the son of a contributor at the request of Rezko, an Obama spokesman confirmed today.
John Aramanda served as an intern for Obama for about a month in 2005, said Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs. His father is Joseph Aramanda, a Rezko business associate who was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal corruption case against Rezko. Aramanda has contributed $11,500 to Obama since 2000, Gibbs said.
“Mr. Rezko did provide a recommendation for John Aramanda,” Gibbs said. “I think that it’s fairly obvious that a few-week internship is not of anything of benefit to Mr. Rezko or any of his businesses.”
The revelation of the internship comes after Obama acknowledged a mistake in buying property from Rezko in January 2006 — a deal that enlarged the senator’s yard in the Kenwood neighborhood on the South Side. The transaction occurred at a time when it was widely known Rezko was under investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office.
“It was a mistake to have been engaged with him at all in this or any other personal business dealing that would allow him, or anyone else, to believe that he had done me a favor,” Obama — a likely presidential candidate — told the Sun-Times in November.
Rezko was indicted in October for allegedly trying to collect nearly $6 million in kickbacks from government deals and trying to shake down a Hollywood producer for $1.5 million in campaign contributions to Gov. Blagojevich.
Obama and Rezko have been friends since 1990, and the Wilmette businessman has raised as much as $60,000 in campaign contributions for him.
After Rezko’s indictment, Obama donated $11,500 to charity — the amount Rezko contributed to the senator’s federal campaign fund.
(WHAT ABOUT THE PROPERTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Gibbs said he did not know whether Obama was considering returning any contributions from Aramanda given his alleged role in the federal corruption cases against Rezko and former Teachers Retirement System board member Stuart Levine.
Aramanda is identified as “Individual D” in Rezko’s indictment. And when Levine pleaded guilty in October, Aramanda again was listed as “Individual D.”
Aramanda was identified by the Sun-Times as “Individual D,” who allegedly received a $250,000 kickback tied to a scheme to steer lucrative state pension deals to firms and consultants that donated to Blagojevich. Aramanda is not specifically named or charged with criminal wrongdoing in the court papers. He could not be reached for comment Saturday.
Aramanda has contributed $11,500 to Obama's campaigns since 2000, Gibbs said. He gave $1,000 toward Obama’s run for Congress against Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Chicago) in 2000; $500 to Obama’s Senate campaign in 2003 and $10,000 to his Senate campaign in 2004, Gibbs said.
Gibbs said John Aramanda served in Obama’s Capitol Hill office from July 20 to Aug. 26, 2005, during which he received an $804 cost-of-living stipend. Aramanda was one of nearly 100 interns who worked for Obama in 2005, Gibbs said.
Antoin Rezko
For years, Antoin 'Tony' Rezko was a strong advocate of grassroots Arab American activism in Chicago, providing funds for election campaigns and community outreach from profits he earned from an inner-city rehab program and from his growing food franchise business.
Born in Aleppo, Syria. Rezko moved to Chicago after graduating from high school. He holds a bachelors and a masters degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology in civil engineering and construction management.
Rezko was often the largest contributor to Arab American campaigns for political office. Rezko once said that he felt proud to be able to contribute to his community.
Rezko is a member of the St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, which was founded by Lebanese American Danny Thomas and has many Arab American members, and also other philanthropic organizations around the country, many that serve Arab American interests.
But several years ago, Rezko’s generosity began to appear on campaign disclosure forms for prominent politicians in Chicago, Cook County and Illinois.
Today, those ties have made him the focus of an intense investigation surrounding allegations he profited from political favoritism and is involved in an abuse of set-aside programs that give minorities a preference in winning state, county and city contracts.
Rezko is a co-owner of Rezmar which rehabs buildings in the inner city. With his Jewish American partner, Dan Mahru, Rezmar has transformed abandoned eyesores into livable residences.
As Rezmar grew, Rezko entered the food service business and today holds franchise rights for the Panda Express Asian fast-food chain in five Midwestern states, including Illinois, and in Papa John’s, the nation’s third largest pizza chain.
Last year, in a dispute with Papa Johns, Rezko renamed his 30 Chicago-based pizza franchises 'Pappa Tony’s.' Today, Rezko reportedly owns more than 125 restaurants around the Midwest and employs more than 3,000 people.
Illinois is divided into three levels of political clout, beginning with Chicago, Cook County and the state of Illinois. Chicago and Cook County have always been Democratic controlled. The state was Republican controlled under Governors Jim Edgar and George Ryan, and now is under Democratic control under Blagojevich.
With the blessing of Chicago Mayor Daley, Rezko’s restaurant ventures included several exclusive franchises along the city’s beachfronts, on Chicago Park District property.
When Cook County Board President John Stroger ran for election, Rezko made the single largest campaign contribution to his campaign, more than $90,000. In October 2000, Stroger introduced a resolution praising Rezko’s commitment to the county.
Stroger, the county’s first African American county board president, is enjoying his second term in office. He has named Rezko as honorary chairman of his upcoming re-election campaign.
Rezko also became an adviser to former Gov. George Ryan, who was later indicted on unrelated government corruption charges, and to Blagojevich. Rezko was introduced to state politics and Ryan’s predecessor, Jim Edgar, by Talat Othman, a longtime fundraiser for state and city government officials. Edgar is now an associate of the PR firm Rezko hired to represent him.
Rezko raised more than $500,000 for Blagojevich.
Under Blagojevich, Rezko’s role changed expanding from fundraising to helping to name individuals to head key state offices and commissions including several Rezko colleagues.
But controversy soon erupted.
In 1997, Panda Express won the right to open a lucrative concession at O’Hare International Airport under the city’s Minority Set-Aside program which directs large contracts to companies owned by Women, African Americans or Hispanics.
The city awarded a 10-year contract for O’Hare Airport to Crucial Inc. in 1999, which the city believed was owned by an African American, Jabir Herbert Muhammad, the son of the late Elijah Mohammad.
Crucial Inc.’s annual revenues skyrocketed from under $200,000 in each year before opening at O'Hare, to nearly $6 million in 2002, according to recently published reports. Crucial Inc. has earned nearly $16 million in its first four years at the airport.
Last March, Chicago officials charged that Jabir Herbert Muhammad had acted as a front for the real owner, Rezko, who is of Syrian Arab heritage and does not qualify for minority set-asides.
According to Mayor Daley, Jabir Muhammad founded Crucial Inc. in 1976. It was certified as a minority business in 1989. Rezko had been involved with the company since 1983, serving as a vice president and general manager. In July 1997, the company’s minority status lapsed but the forms were not renewed.
Although Muhammad said he ran Crucial Inc., city officials said the company was run by Abdelhamid 'Al' Chaib, and longtime friend and Rezko business associate.
Rezko later told the Chicago Tribune that he did not do anything wrong and is surprised by all the attention. Daley said the city’s investigation showed that Crucial Inc. should never have received the contract and should be stripped off its minority business certification.
Rezko’s clout grows
Crucial Inc. was also hired as a subcontractor to telephone giant SBC Communications, which received an exclusive deal to provide 1,000 pay phones for Cook County Government.
A spokesman for Stroger said County officials are investigating to determine whether or not Crucial Inc. still meets the county’s minority business criteria. Six of Rezko’s relatives have been placed on the Cook County payroll, according to published reports.
In state government, Rezko’s ties resulted in a prize greater that lucrative financial contracts. At least three of his associates were appointed to influential positions overseeing hiring, contracts and policy.
They include:
* Former business partner Jack Lavin, named to Gov. Blagojevich’s cabinet as Director of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. He served as Rezko’s former CFO. Lavin is an officer of Crucial Inc.
* Winnetka Podiatrist Fortunee Massuda appointed by Blagojevich in 2003 to sit on the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board. He is a partner in a real estate venture with Rezko.
* Kelly King Dibble, a Rezko business associate, was named by Gov. Blagojevich as executive director of the Illinois Housing Development Authority.
Abdelhamid 'Al' Chaib, vice president of Crucial Inc., is the sole owner of the Subway sandwich shops that have secured the rights to operate at seven of the State’s Tollway oases. Chaib also is a director of Rezko Concessions Inc., which is Rezko's portion of the joint venture with Panda Express, state records show.
Already Rezko has become a target in the upcoming election campaign, Illinois State Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka has alleged that Rezko is a part of a 'shadow government' pulling the strings in the Blagojevich administration.
Rezko has a long history of supporting Arab American causes. He made a significant donation to help establish the Ibn Rushd Lectureship in Arabic in 2002 at the University of Chicago. Rezko served as a former Executive Director to the Muhammad Ali Foundation. And, he was named 'Entrepreneur of the Decade' by the Arab-American Business and Professional Association. The president and founder of ABPA is a generous and successful Chicago Arab American businessman and political adviser, Talat Othman.
I can not frigging wait!
There is so much more to come.... Probably Money laundering charges, perhaps a Hizbullah connection... :-D!!!! An effing grand slam home run.... Game over...
The Obama-Rezko plot thickens (updated)
Thomas Lifson
The UK Times reports that Barack Obama's involvement with Chicago slum landlord Tony Rezko, currently under indictment, may involve money originating from a British-Iraqi Middle East wheeler-dealer, Nadhmi Auchi, a convicted criminal.
Rezko, an Obama fundraiser, helped facilitate Obama's purchase of a $1.65 million mansion in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood for $300,000 below the asking price. The owner wished to sell both the house and an adjoining lot. Mrs. Rezko paid the full asking price of $625,000 on the same day that the Obamas purchased their luxury home. At a substantial discount. The seller denies that there was any connection between the two transactions. Later, a small portion of the land was sold to the Obamas so that they could expand their garden.
Senator Obama calls this arrangement a 'mistake.'
Now it develops that Mr. and Mrs. Rezko apparently lacked the money to make the purchase of the plot of land.
In a sworn statement a year later, Mrs Rezko said she got by on a salary of $37,000 and had $35,000 assets. Mr Rezko told a court he had 'no income, negative cash flow, no liquid assets, no unencumbered assets [and] is significantly in arrears on many of his obligations.'
Just weeks before the Hyde Park transactions, Auchi loaned $3.5 million to Rezko.
A company related to Mr Auchi, who has a conviction for corruption in France, registered the loan to Mr Obama's bagman Antoin 'Tony' Rezko on May 23 2005. Mr Auchi says the loan, through the Panamanian company Fintrade Services SA, was for $3.5 million.
There is much yet to be learned about the web of transactions involved, but it now appears that money originating from a convicted Middle Eastern wheeler-dealer found its way to indicted Chicago wheeler-dealer Tony Rezko, and then weeks later provided the means for a nearly simultaneous land transaction that enabled the Obamas to buy their home for substantially below asking price.
It certainly doesn't look like change we can believe in, when it comes to Chicago politics.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA-vlOf3mAc
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxyPBmZE69s&NR=1
COME ON PB! WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THIS!
You backed the terrorists and you lost...
You slammed the military and you lost...
You bet on the wrong candidate and you are going to lose...
What stocks should I NOT invest in PB? ... Tell me so I can go out and buy them. Tell me what the winning lottery numbers WONT be pb!
Where have you been right here? :-D
For all the sturm und drang, Clinton is not raising the issue. McCain is not raising the issue. There's plenty of scandal to go around for both parties, and the public likely just accepts it as a political fact of life.
I'm far more concerned with McCain advisor Charlie Black's background and involvement with the start of the Iraq war, and the delivery of info from Chalabi and others telling Cheney exactly what he wanted to hear to justify it. The nation needs no more of those propagandists influencing U.S. policy. McCain, I judge by the company that he keeps, and he has no solution to terrorism.
I realize that a blind schmuck like you does not keep up with the DAILY news of violence in Iraq continuing, or the current invasion by Turkey against the PKK, or the continuing problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where Musharraf's time may be ending. Instead, you measure short-term results while neglecting the eventual likely outcome. Here's Tony Cordesman, who DOES actually know what he's talking about, explaining the ditch that Bush's policies have dug for us.
www.usnews.com/blogs/barone/2008/2/25/two-winnable-wars.html
'What the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan have in common is that it will take a major and consistent U.S. effort throughout the next administration at least to win either war. Any American political debate that ignores or denies the fact that these are long wars is dishonest and will ensure defeat....
If the next president, Congress and the American people cannot face this reality, we will lose. Years of false promises about the speed with which we can create effective army, police and criminal justice capabilities in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot disguise the fact that mature, effective local forces and structures will not be available until 2012 and probably well beyond. This does not mean that U.S. and allied force levels cannot be cut over time, but a serious military and advisory presence will probably be needed for at least that long, and rushed reductions in forces or providing inadequate forces will lead to a collapse at the military level.'
(The LIE is that our winning in certain areas NOW, thanks to paying the Sunni $300 a month each, and al-Sadr's continuing the cease-fire, is relevent to the future; as Cordesman understands that THIS Iraqi government is NOT ready to lead, and possibly never will be.
Barone's overlay in this blog, where he quotes Cordesman, is the B.S. factor, where he blames the political opposition for the Neocons' own policy and strategy failures after 5 years. His asinine wrap-up about people 'slavering at America's defeat' makes Barone the liar and the traitor, by dismissively demeaning those Americans who've realized all along how futile the entire exercise has been based on policy and strategy; and how Bush will dump this large mess on the next Administration, along with a massive debt load and economic problems.
The one bright spot here has been the performance of America's fighting forces; but the price that they AND their families are paying is enormous and ongoing.
thinkprogress.org/2008/02/25/iraq-recession-campaign/
'A new poll of swing voters commissioned by US Action found that a huge majority — 69 percent of them — support ending the war and reinvesting in health care and new clean energy jobs. A recent AP poll found that 68 percent of Americans believe pulling our troops out of Iraq would help a great deal or somewhat in addressing our faltering economy.'
ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iu6xjCz8Ykakz5T6AjT3olMgRXTwD8UMCQAO1
(This is McCain's chip in the game, and he himself blurted out, and tried to retract, that his race depends on how Iraq appears to be going. No wonder we're not hearing about Iraq on a day-to-day basis as we once did, with the candidates the big news of the day, and al-Sadr's continued cease-fire takes pressure off the continuing internicine problems in the south)
ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gkx-3oYeFwuWKCusr2jrojs98w8wD8V28C084
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki once described the fight for Mosul as a 'decisive battle' against the Sunni radical group. But the U.S. military has tried to temper expectations of a climactic showdown, describing the effort as more of steady push than a single battle. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker has termed it a 'hard fight.'
Meanwhile Tuesday, tension surrounding Turkey's incursion into Iraq rose as the Iraqi Cabinet demanded the Turks end their current campaign against the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.
The latest bloodshed highlighted the slow-going, punch-counterpunch U.S.-led campaign against al-Qaida in Iraq, more than a month after Iraq's prime minister said he expected the fight for Mosul would be a 'decisive battle.'
The Americans view the northern campaign as a chance to subdue al-Qaida in Iraq in areas surrounding Mosul, a major transportation hub which the military has described as the terror group's last urban stronghold.
Tuesday's bombing, 40 miles west of Mosul, struck a bus heading from that city to the Syrian capital of Damascus.
Al-Qaida is believed to use the cover of sprawling sheep and produce markets in Mosul to smuggle foreign fighters, weapons and cash from Syria. Mosul, the country's third-largest city, lies some 80 miles east of the Syrian border and 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.
Farther north, Turkish officials said Tuesday their troops pressed an incursion deeper into Iraq, as they chased separatist Kurdish rebels as much as 12 miles across that border. Fed-up Iraqi leaders demanded that Turkey end the military operation, and the regional parliament in Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish area unanimously approved a measure authorizing its military forces to fight back if attacked by Turks.
'McCain is not raising the issue. '
Not yet... timing isn't right.
'There's plenty of scandal to go around for both parties'
Well the thing is, you have sought to paint McCain as someone who is in bed with the lobbyists when the truth (See the above David Brooks article) is that there have been few in the senate who have done more to limit the influence of lobbyists. On the other hand, the Rezco scandal is very, very real and very, very well documented with new stuff being discovered daily.
If you think this is just going to go away by launching a preemptive attack on McCain with flimsy stuff like this you are kidding yourself.
'I'm far more concerned with McCain advisor[sic] Charlie Black's background and involvement with the start of the Iraq war,'
LOL! So you have tried to misrepresent what he is: A republican strategist volunteering for the McCain campaign... To 'lobbyist'... to now someone who was involved in the start of the Iraq war! You are going to streatch this thing so thin that you can see through it.
'nd the delivery of info from Chalabi and others telling Cheney exactly what he wanted to hear to justify it. '
Newsflash: Chalabi didn't need to go through Charlie Black or anyone else to talk to Cheney or Rumsfeld. Not only was he employed directly by the US government (as he was through the Clinton administration,) but the SOB has undoubtedly figured out how to use a phone by now.
'I realize that a blind schmuck like you does not keep up with the DAILY news of violence in Iraq continuing,'
I realize that a clown like you doesn't have the class to admit that you have been consistently wrong about Iraq (as well as pretty much EVERYTHING else)but because of the policies that you argued passionately against it is now safer to be an Iraqi then it is to live in Detroit, Washington DC. or Atlanta.
'or the current invasion by Turkey against the PKK,'
Turkey was doing the same thing when Saddam was in charge. We used to see the F-16's going in to bomb the PPK on our way out of the northern no fly zone. Look at it this way... We now have another NATO ally fighting in Iraq.
'or the continuing problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where Musharraf's time may be ending.'
Yeah, Obamas naive plan to bomb Pakistan should fix things right up there... The isiot wants to surrender to our enemies and bomb our allies.
''What the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan have in common is that it will take a major and consistent U.S. effort throughout the next administration at least to win either war.'
Yes... And Obama wants to not continue that effort, there by losing us what are 2 winnable wars.
'If the next president, Congress and the American people cannot face this reality, we will lose.'
Yes, and Obama has been the leader in the deny reality camp.
'effective local forces and structures will not be available until 2012'
I think that is pessimistic.
'The LIE is that our winning in certain areas NOW, thanks to paying the Sunni $300 a month each, and al-Sadr's continuing the cease-fire, is relevent[sic] to the future;'
THE LIE IS SAYING THAT IS ALL THAT WE ARE DOING. The LIE is saying that there hasn't been political progress as well as military progress in Iraq in order to peddle your defeatism. The LIE is ignoring the obvious and pretending that the undisputed progress that has been made in Iraq doesn't count because it won't help Obama hand the whole thing over to Iran and al Qaeda:
'After agonizing years of searching for the right strategy and the right general, we are winning. How do Democrats react? From Nancy Pelosi to Barack Obama the talking point is the same: Sure, there is military progress. We could have predicted that. (They in fact had predicted the opposite, but no matter.) But it's all pointless unless you get national reconciliation.
'National' is a way to ignore what is taking place at the local and provincial level, such as Shiite cleric Ammar al-Hakim, scion of the family that dominates the largest Shiite party in Iraq, traveling last October to Anbar in an unprecedented gesture of reconciliation with the Sunni sheiks.
Doesn't count, you see. Democrats demand nothing less than federal-level reconciliation, and it has to be expressed in actual legislation.
The objection was not only highly legalistic but politically convenient: Very few (including me) thought this would be possible under the Maliki government. Then last week, indeed on the day Cordesman published his report, it happened. Mirabile dictu, the Iraqi parliament approved three very significant pieces of legislation.
First, a provincial powers law that turned Iraq into arguably the most federal state in the entire Arab world. The provinces get not only power but elections by Oct. 1. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker has long been calling this the most crucial step to political stability. It will allow, for example, the pro-American Anbar sheiks to become the legitimate rulers of their province, exercise regional autonomy and forge official relations with the Shiite-dominated central government.
Second, parliament passed a partial amnesty for prisoners, 80 percent of whom are Sunni. Finally, it approved a $48 billion national budget that allocates government revenues -- about 85 percent of which are from oil -- to the provinces. Kurdistan, for example, gets one-sixth.
What will the Democrats say now? They will complain that there is still no oil distribution law. True. But oil revenues are being distributed to the provinces in the national budget. The fact that parliament could not agree on a permanent formula for the future simply means that it will be allocating oil revenues year-by-year as part of the budget process. Is that a reason to abandon Iraq to al-Qaeda and Iran?
Despite all the progress military and political, the Democrats remain unwavering in their commitment to withdrawal on an artificial timetable that inherently jeopardizes our 'very real chance that Iraq will emerge as a secure and stable state.'
www.primetimepolitics.com/primetime/site/page/democrats_dug_in_for_retr eat/
By the way: 'thinkprogress' is not a valid reference for anything.
'A new poll of swing voters commissioned by US Action found that a huge majority — 69 percent of them — support ending the war and reinvesting in health care and new clean energy jobs.'
We shall see... Another new poll? Both Obama and Clinton have more core opposition then McCain and Obamas is creeping up. The more people read about this guy the less they like him.
For or Against Presidential Candidates
McCain Has Less Core Opposition Than Clinton or Obama
Thirty-four percent (34%) of all voters say they will definitely vote for John McCain if he is on the ballot this November. Thirty-three percent (33%) will definitely vote against him while 29% say their support hinges on who his opponent is.
Barack Obama has the same number who will definitely vote for him--34%. But, more people are committed to voting against him than McCain. Forty-three percent (43%) say they will definitely reject him at the ballot box. For 18%, their support depends on his opponent.
For Hillary Clinton, 32% will definitely vote for her if she is on the ballot and 46% will definitely vote against. Core opposition to Clinton, the best-known of the candidates as the long campaign season began, hovered in the high 40s through most of the past year.
Thus, while the base of strong support has risen for both men in recent weeks, it's risen only slightly for Obama. On the other hand, core opposition to McCain, the least of any candidate's, is the same as in December; whereas strong opposition to Obama has jumped seven percentage points.
By Steven Laib
What America truly needs is not a sycophantic public following a cult leader on a path of foolishness.
America as been fortunate in avoiding political cults of personality. The closest that we have come to it may have been the 4 terms that Franklin Roosevelt was elected to. We should note also that FDR was a special case. He was first elected during the Great Depression and continued into World War II. This form of crisis situation has been unusual, and while one might disagree with the way that President Roosevelt handled some aspects of them, he certainly understood the gravity of the situation and the need for America to take action to preserve itself. This is exactly the opposite of what we see with current Democrat presidential front-runner, Barack Obama.
Simply stated, and as a significant number of critics, both liberal and conservative have pointed out, Senator Obama is an empty suit; a candidate who talks in endless platitudes, but says nothing of substance, except that he wants to enact a myriad of tax and spend programs at home, while ignoring the true nature of its enemies abroad and emasculating the military. Perhaps he believes that the foreign dictators are foolish enough to fall for his charm. If elected, he will quickly learn that they will be more than willing to say anything, and then do exactly the opposite if it suits their interest at the time. As Neville Chamberlain sold out Europe to Nazi Germany, Senator Obama is willing to sell out the United States anyone and everyone who has an axe to grind and is willing to say the right things in public, regardless of their true intentions.
Sean Hannity has talked a lot about two focus groups that were asked if they could identify any of Obama’s accomplishments. Both came up with essentially nothing, which speaks volumes; the man really has done nothing, except promote his own political career as rapidly as can. Now, the fact that he can speak charismatically is really all that he is running on. People like what he says, regardless of whether it has any substance. I remember having a similar reaction to Jimmy Carter many years ago. I was a teenager when I told my, now departed, Mother that he said a lot of things that sounded nice, but there was nothing that I could identify specifically as practical or realistic. Obama is now doing the same thing. He talks about “hope” but it is a blind hope; faith that he has all the answers and that electing him to office will somehow solve all of America’s problems. To make matters worse, his campaign is taking on a messianic attitude. This may well speak of an even greater underlying danger.
Michael Medved recently asked of his audience why people are supporting this candidate. He received all of the usual empty answers about hope, unity and the like. In the end, there really was nothing of substance that anyone could identify. I have an answer; it is not one I like, but I believe that it is the truth; that Senator Obama is the candidate of the intellectually bankrupt. It is no wonder to me that so many young people are swooning over this charlatan. He is all show and no substance, like so much of modern entertainment. He is the MTV candidate. He is the candidate of people who love special effects and don't care about the plot. Politically they are oblivious to the consequences of electing someone who is as gullible as they are. He is their drug that will make all problems go away, but like with a drug, the problems don’t really go away and after effects are terrible. Enacting the Obama domestic policies would result in a quick trip to national bankruptcy. His foreign policies would create a weak, vacillating nation that will not defend itself because talking to an implacable enemy is always better than eliminating him. He has no realistic method for dealing with our national energy needs. In short, he is running on hot air, and despite his contentions to the contrary, empty words. He does not have the depth to create words of real substance and so he must rely on others to do his thinking for him.
Anyone who is willing to blindly trust an inexperienced, charismatic figure in our present situation is operating off of emotion, rather than intelligence and rational thought. This is precisely what a charismatic leader wants. It was the same with the people who followed the religious cult figures during the 1970’s. In the worst example, they let Rev. Jim Jones do their thinking and ended up dead from cyanide laced Kool-aid. Fortunately, the damage Jim Jones caused was limited to a relatively small number of people. Electing a President of the United States has far reaching consequences, and can make the difference between a nation that survives or dies.
Barack Obama is counting on a non-thinking, poorly educated public to sweep him into office. He is counting on people having decided that there is no longer any real threat from Islamo-fascists. He is also counting on no one understanding that a high tax, big government; super-regulatory state is a recipe for economic disaster. It seems that the vast number of his followers fit this model to a T. They don’t care about anything except the nebulous mantras of “hope” and unspecified “change.” As Dennis Prager likes to point out, change doesn’t mean anything unless it states what you are going to change from, how you are going to change it, and what you expect the end result to be. No one I’ve heard from seems to know exactly what kind of change is proposed or expected, except that he will magically unify the nation and make our challenges disappear. Change for change’s sake appears to be the fashion this year. Real, specific, identifiable changes, calculated to preserve American existence for the future are not high on any candidate’s list, unless you believe that John McCain will suddenly reach in a totally new direction and allow Michael Savage to formulate his policy direction in the same manner that he allowed Ted Kennedy to do.
What America truly needs is not a sycophantic public following a cult leader on a path of foolishness. What they need is to believe in themselves; to believe that they can lead themselves and take control of their own lives. They need to educate themselves to take charge of their own futures and avoid the empty promises of political con artists of any and all stripes. They need to be able to separate the true statesmen from those offering platitudes in the interest of self aggrandizement. And, if Americans need a messianic figure, then let it be the one they find in their church, rather than a self appointed demagogue who offers nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
The Times of London follows the money in the journalistic tradition of Watergate and finds a strange connection between Tony Rezko, Barack Obama, and Nadhmi Auchi. The latter, one of Britain’s richest men, has a long history of shady financial dealings as well as numerous connections to Saddam Hussein, who he helped to power. According to the Times, Auchi sent a lot of money to Rezko just before his wife bought property adjacent to the Obamas in a land deal that has already raised a lot of eyebrows:
A British-Iraqi billionaire lent millions of dollars to Barack Obama’s fundraiser just weeks before an imprudent land deal that has returned to haunt the presidential contender, an investigation by The Times discloses.
The money transfer raises the question of whether funds from Nadhmi Auchi, one of Britain’s wealthiest men, helped Mr Obama buy his mock Georgian mansion in Chicago.
A company related to Mr Auchi, who has a conviction for corruption in France, registered the loan to Mr Obama’s bagman Antoin “Tony” Rezko on May 23 2005. Mr Auchi says the loan, through the Panamanian company Fintrade Services SA, was for $3.5 million.
Three weeks later, Mr Obama bought a house on the city’s South Side while Mr Rezko’s wife bought the garden plot next door from the same seller on the same day, June 15.
Why is this important to the land deal?
Mrs Rezko paid the asking price for the garden but the Obamas bought the house for $1.65 million, - $300,000 less than the asking price. The sellers deny they offered the Obamas a discount on the house because the garden had fetched full price from Mrs Rezko.
They took 15% less than the asking price? That’s a rather remarkable discount. And how exactly did the Rezkos afford to buy the adjacent plot? It cost $625,000, and they needed to make a $125,000 down payment on the land. Yet at the time, Tony Rezko had “no income, negative cash flow, no liquid assets, no unencumbered assets [and] is significantly in arrears on many of his obligations” — according to a sworn court statement a year later. His wife had an income of $37,000 and assets of around $35,000.
How could they qualify for a mortgage on the adjacent plot? Where did they get the money for the down payment? More importantly, why did Auchi lend so much money to Rezko, when Rezko had been in such financial straits? And why was Auchi so interested in Rezko in the first place?
Let’s take another look at Auchi:
Auchi’s brother was among the many Baathists killed by Saddam, but the execution did not inhibit Auchi’s business dealings with Iraq which, he says, didn’t stop until the Gulf war of 1991. His first coup in the West was to broker a deal to sell Italian frigates to the Iraqi Defence Ministry, for which he received $17m in commission. Italian investigators claimed that a Panamanian company owned by Auchi was used to funnel allegedly illegal payments. Auchi denied he had done anything wrong.
In the mid-1980s he got to know Pierfrancesco Pacini Battaglia, a man whose role in directing money to politicians led Italians to call him ‘the one below God’. Saddam Hussein had ordered the construction of a pipeline from Iraq to Saudi Arabia. Battaglia and Auchi secured the contract for a Franco-Italian consortium. In a statement to New York lawyers Battaglia alleged he knew how. ‘To acquire the contract it was necessary, as is usual, especially in Middle Eastern countries, to pay commission to characters close to the Iraqi government… In this case, the international intermediary who dealt with this matter was the Iraqi, Nadhmi Auchi.’ Auchi has denied any wrong-doing.
Nick Cohen suggests that Britain only extradited Auchi to France to face fraud charges in 2003 because our invasion of Iraq had ended his usefulness as an expert on the Hussein regime for MI-6. In any case, Auchi also allegedly had a hand in defrauding the UK’s National Health System after his fleecing of the French oil company Elf.
Rick Moran pines for the late Mike Royko, who would have known exactly what to do with these connections:
At this point, unless there is a deliberate, concerted effort by the large media outlets to allow this story to die once Rezko is convicted, I find it probable that other revelations are yet to come that will show Obama to be just another machine politician, skirting the edge of ethics and the law – perhaps even going over the line and engaging in criminal activities.
Obama is not the Agent of Change. He is a calculating politician who plays the game the same way politicians have been playing it for hundreds of years – receiving money in exchange for favors from government for his friends and cronies. And if Mike Royko were alive, one has to believe that despite agreeing with his politics, Royko would have been relentless in taking Obama down, hammering away in his own inimitable style at the influence selling, the sweetheart deals, the pay for favors, and all the rest of this sleazy mess.
No Royko today. But we have an army of bloggers who can push this story into the mainstream and force the media to expend the resources necessary to get to the bottom of the Rezko-Obama enterprise. True, like Whitewater it is a very complex story and there is very little ease in the telling. But given the stakes, an effort should be made nonetheless.
There seems to be a lot more to Rezko than just slumlording. When a figure like Auchi gives a low-rent figure like Rezko that kind of money, he’s not looking to expand tenement ownership.
THIS JUST IN, Obama met his
The handshake heard round the world took place in April, 2004, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Chicago between Barack Obama and a mysterious London billionaire named Nadhmi Auchi.
Until James Bone and Dominic Kennedy asserted the handshake took place in their February 25, 2008, Times Online article, 'Barack Obama embarassed by billionaire link to home deal,' the meeting between these two political actors was unconfirmed....
What does the handshake mean? It places Mr. Obama, then a state senator from the 13th District who had just won his party's nomination to run for the U.S. Senate in the fall, in the same critical meeting between Mr. Auchi and his Chicago-based partner, Antoin 'Tony' Rezko, along with Mr. Rezko's patron, Governor Rod Blagojevich, as well Mr. Obama's mentor in the Illinois State senate, Emile Jones, Jr. It places Mr. Obama in association with Mr. Auchi, who is now, because of three particular wire transfers of cash, one in 2005 and another two in 2007, the latter two most suspicious to the prosecutors, a weighty figure in the trial about to begin into the felonious graft around Governor Rod Blagojevich these last years.
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Isn't it rather EARLY in his career for Barack Obama to be claiming he 'doesn't remember'... Especially when he was meeting the guy who financed his house?
I see the smear campaigns have started already.I admire the boring long posts from one single poster putting a lot of words on paper but failing to provide anything relevant on Obama but his own twisted logics.Nothing better to offer ?Then spare us the boring nonsense .
Rather focus on the issues of the elections like health care,education ,global warming .Because that is what elections are all about.No use in trying to sidetrack to silly accusations ...
'.I admire the boring long posts from one single poster putting a lot of words on paper but failing to provide anything relevant on Obama but his own twisted logics'
Obama is living on property that he bought for pennies on the dollar from someone who he wrote letters for in order to secure tax payer money which he then stole and is now going to trial for theft and racketeering.... and you do not think that is relevant? LOL! OK, it is a good thing you can't vote in our elections then.
'No use in trying to sidetrack to silly accusations ...'
I didn't see you whining when it was they who were smearing McCain. Which is odd, because usually you whine about everything.
If you think someone who is under indictment for fraud and stealing tax payers money, someone who is accused of money laundering for Iraqi businessmen who worked closely with Saddam Hussein, someone who was admittedly a friend of Obamas and someone who Obama admittedly helped have access to public funds who he then stole... If you think that it is OK for a presidential candidate to be accepting contributions and property amounting to over a half million dollars and then 'coincidentally' doing him political favors is 'silly'... well, once again, I am glad you can't vote here.
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