Part VIII and IX FLIM FLAM CON MAN OBAMA LEARNED FROM OLD TIME CHICAGO POLITICS

A PART OF DALEY’S INNER CIRCLE

 

 According to the April 22, 2007, Chicago Tribune, in the summer of 1991, Attorney Michelle Robinson (engaged to Attorney Barack Obama) was interviewed by Valerie Jarrett, Major Richard Daley’s deputy chief of staff. She was soon hired by Daley as a $60,000-a-year mayoral assistant. (By May 2005, she was earning $273,618 as Vice President for Community and External Affairs for The University of Chicago Hospitals.)

This “was a start of a long relationship that has paid off politically for Barack Obama, connecting him to Daley’s inner circle.” For examples, “Valerie Jarrett has served as treasurer of Barack Obama’s leadership political action committee (PAC), the Hopefund.” This PAC (exceeding campaign donation limits) contributed $180,000 to buy endorsements from Democratic groups and candidates in early voting states.

Obama’s chief campaign strategist, David Axelrod, well versed in Chicago politics, had served as public relations strategist for Mayor Daley, and, according to the New York Times, operates “in this gray area, part idealist, part hired muscle.” Axelrod has known Obama for fifteen years. Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, came from Axelrod’s consulting firm.

 

Obama attracts bad new political operators like Phil deVillis who has a long history of dirty tricks. In March 2007, while working on the Obama campaign website, deVillis admitted authoring the outrageous YouTube “Big Brother” video which painted Hillary Clinton as a dictator. Trumpeting his “New Politics,” Obama tried to distance himself, claiming complete innocence.

QUID PRO QUO – OBAMA ENDORSED DAILEY AND VICE VERSA In 2007, reform candidate Dorothy Brown, Clerk of the Cook County Circuit Court, challenged corrupt Richard Dailey’s reelection. Following months of long private meetings, Obama endorsed Dailey, despite all the recent patronage scandal surrounding him. In exchange, the Mayor would endorse Obama, and the Mayor’s brother, Bill Dailey (with suburb lists of contributors), would become a part of Obama’s campaign.

TYPICAL CHICAGO POLITICIAN On April 3, 2007, Chicago Tribune reporters David Jackson and Ray Long sounded initial warnings for the presidential primary campaign: “A close examination of Obama’s first campaign clouds the image he has cultivated throughout his political career: The man now running for president on a message of giving a voice to the voiceless first entered public office not be leveling the playing field, but by clearing it.” One of those eliminated by Obama’s petition challenges, Gha-is Askia, asked “Why say you’re for a new tomorrow, then do old-style Chicago politics to remove legitimate candidates?”

OBAMA CONS THE PUBLIC With the help of a disgracefully misogynist fawning media – terrified that a woman might ever become President – this charismatic narcissistic man has been able to define himself – claiming to be a new kind of politician, full of hope and virtue, promising change that will magically solve problems.

But, “where is the beef?” His mesmerized supporters can not name one single notable accomplishment. And Obama has trouble with this too. According to the February 3, 2008, New York Times reporter Mike McIntire, Obama bragged in Iowa about passing a bill targeting an Exelon Corporation radioactive nuclear leak, which he actually watered down in response to Exelon – one of his largest campaign contributors – and the bill died.

As an Illinois Senator, he often voted present, thereby avoiding tough decisions. On several occasions, he pushed the wrong button. In one of the primary debates, he admitted that disorganization was his greatest fault.

While he makes a big issue over being against the Iraq War from day one, he only gave a speech against the war, but was not in the U. S. Senate at the time, and later admitted not knowing how he would have voted if he had been there. As a U. S. Senator, he voted essentially the same as Hillary Clinton. He failed to vote on Kyl-Lieberman.

He showed little interest in foreign policy and he has never held a hearing on Afghanistan after being appointed chairman of a subcommittee with oversight of the war effort there.

OBAMA CAMPAIGN FALSELY ATTACKS THE CLINTONS On February 21, 2007, New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, quoted wealthy Hollywood executive and Obama supporter, David Geffen, as saying, “Everybody in politics lies, but they (the Clintons) do it with such ease, it’s troubling.” Despite Clinton campaign consternation, Obama would not repudiate this assertion.

While claiming to be above dirty politics, Obama’s campaign was becoming a very muddy affair. By the middle of June 2007, it was reported by The New York Times that “the Obama campaign yesterday circulated a negative, and ultimately false, story about Bill Clinton – that he allegedly made money giving a speech on September 11, 2006.” Obama refused to apologize.

EXTENSIVE PLAGIARISM On April 16, 2007, Washington Post reporter Ian Bishop wrote: “Obama has literally lifted ideas and text from Clinton’s bills and repackaged them as his own” while he “rarely signs on in support of Clinton’s bills.” He has continued to copy tactics used in the Clinton campaign such as “The Fact Hub” which sets the record straight regarding attacks from adversaries.

On February 14, 2008, Chicago Sun-Times reporter Abdon M. Pallasch quoted Republican candidate John McCain, regarding Obama’s copying Clinton’s economic plan as “the most shameless piece of potential plagiarism that I have ever seen.”

On February 18, 2008, New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny reported that Obama had plagiarized the words of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick at the Democratic Party dinner in Wisconsin on February 16, 2008. Admitting he should have given Patrick credit, Obama did not “think this is too big of a deal.” Other examples of Obama’s plagiarizing followed.

On April 4, 2008, Rezkowatch.blogspot.com asked the question – Did Obama lift his “More Perfect Union” speech from Farrakhan’s Million Man March speech? A reader compared Obama’s March 18, 2008 speech with Farrakhan’s, and found that they were not only very similar, but Obama’s speech was similar to words “he used following his own attendance at the Million Man March, in a December 1995 interview with the Chicago Reader’s Hank De Zutter.

OBAMA SLURS EAST-ASIANS Another Obama anonymously circulated memo referred to Hillary Clinton’s Indian investments which targeted East-Asians by saying Hillary was “the representative of Punjab.” On June 15, 2007, the US India Political Action Committee Chairman quickly reacted with a letter to Obama requesting “that you respond directly to these media reports and let us know if indeed your staff is promoting these hurtful stereotypes…”

OBAMA USED PAC MONEY TO BUY ENDORSEMENTS Obama has been very critical of Clinton for accepting money from lobbyists, claiming he does not take lobbyist or PAC money. However, on August 9, 2007, Scott Helman, of the Boston Globe, wrote: “..Obama’s own federal PAC, Hopefund, took in $115,000 from 56 PACs in the 2005-2006 election cycle out of $4.4 million the PAC raised, according to CQ MoneyLine, which collects Federal Election Commission data. Obama then used those PAC contributions – including thousands from defense contractors, law firms, and the securities and insurance industries – to build support for his presidential run by making donations to Democratic Party organizations and candidates around the country.”

It was finally being reported, as of November 26, 2007, by Washington Post Staff Writer John Solomon, in an article, entitled “Obama PAC Is Active In Key Election States,” that Obama “has handed out more than $180,000 from the nearly dormant PAC to local Democratic groups and candidates in the key early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.”

This could get him in trouble with the Federal Election Commission for being “in-kind contributions to the presidential campaign that would exceed current donation limits.” A retired FEC chief of public disclosure, Kent Cooper, declared “it is a brazen effort to use every avenue to influence an election .. I can’t believe the Obama People can keep a straight face and claim these aren’t part of the presidential race.”

OTHER OBAMA FUNDRAISING On September 5, 2007, New York Post Bureau Chief Charles Hurt reported that “A man who has long been dogged by charges that the bank his family owns helped finance a Chicago crime figure will host a Windy City fund-raiser tonight for Sen. Barack Obama.” This was Alexi Giannoulias “who became Illinois state treasurer last year after Obama vouched for him… Before he promised to raise funds for Obama, Giannoulias bankrolled Michael ‘Jaws’ Giorango, a Chicagoan twice convicted of bookmaking and promoting prostitution.” His mob ties kept other prominent Democrats from endorsing him. Giannoulias promised to raise $100,000 for Obama.

On September 8, 2007, Oprah Winfrey held a fundraiser for Obama at her 42-acre Montecito estate in Santa Barbara County, California. Lynn Sweet wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times: “It’s unbelievable,” said Illinois state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias as the Great Gatesby party scene unfolded before him on Winfrey’s meadow under a gorgeous sky. Real celebrities mingled with Obama’s best donors and bundlers rewarded for their fund-raising efforts with a star-studded afternoon.

ABC News reporter Jack Tapper, in his April 1, 2008, article, “Obama’s Oil Slick,” asks if his claim to not taking “money from oil companies or Washington lobbyists” is “just a lot of gas?” Because “Obama has taken more than $213,000 from individuals (and their spouses) who work for companies in the oil and gas industry – not to mention that two of Obama’s top fundraisers are top executives at oil companies.”

OBAMA NAMED IN ATTEMPTED SUICIDE By September 13, 2007, the Los Angeles Times reported on a suicide note written by Norman Hsu, the disgraced Democratic fundraiser who had contributed to both the Obama and Clinton campaigns. According to an anonymous informant, Hsu said the “articles raising questions about his fundraising activates in the Wall Street Journal and about a criminal case in his past in The Times” and had contributed to his attempted suicide. Hsu targeted Obama by adding that they came from “a politician who pledged ‘hope and change.’”

OBAMA’S GAY BASHING VENTURE On October 7, 2007, Obama concluded remarks in a Greenville, South Carolina evangelical church by prophesizing “I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth.”

However, by October 29, 2007, he was doing just the opposite, and Dean Barnett wrote for The Weekly Standard, in an article entitled “Obama Stumbles…Again – The Illinois senator’s problematic, ‘semi-gay’ supporter,” that “gaffe-prone stumblebum Barack Obama has managed to find yet another pile of manure to plant his wingtips in.”

Obama brought “one semi-gay and enormously popular gospel singer, Donnie McClurkin,” (who claims to have been cured of his homosexuality) to head “a concert tour in the South on the campaign’s behalf.” The response from the progressive community was such that Obama then included “an openly gay white preacher to hopefully balance McClurkin’s presence. He also lamely claimed that he has tried in the past to address the homophobia among some black voters.”

Obama did not attend the concert and McClurkin was able to conclude his three-hour concert with a revival meeting in which he asserted “God delivered me from homosexuality.” The so-called balancing gay white preacher only gave a prayer. The Weekly Standard reporter ended by saying “With this one extended miscalculation, Obama has likely made himself permanently unacceptable to one of the Democratic party’s most critical and influential constituencies.”

OBAMA IS A “SUCKER” AND A “FOOL” On November 16, 2007, Paul Krugman, Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, explained how Obama has been suckered into “saying that major action is needed to avert what he keeps calling a ‘crisis’ in Social Security,” in his desire “to transcend partisanship in an age when that’s neither possible nor desirable” At the same time, he is threatening “the New Deal’s crown jewel” and playing into the hand of Republicans who want to do away with Social Security. As Krugman points out “Social Security isn’t a big problem that demands a solution…if you try to find common ground where none exists – which is the case for many issues today – you end up being played for a fool. And that’s what has just happened to Mr. Obama.”

OBAMA CONTINUES MISINFORMATION AND LIES Paul Krugman wrote on November 30, 2007:

But now Mr. Obama, who just two weeks ago was telling audiences that his (Health Care) plan was essentially identical to the Edwards and Clinton plans, is attacking his rivals and claiming that his plan is superior. It isn’t – and his attacks amount to cheap shots … I recently castigated Mr. Obama for adopting right-wing talking points about a Social Security ‘crisis.’ Now he’s echoing right-wing talking points on health care … Now, in the effort to defend his plan’s weakness, he’s attacking his Democratic opponents from the right – and in so doing giving aid and comfort to the enemies of reform.

 

Obama then attacked progressive Krugman for daring to criticize his health plan, causing Blog Talk-Radio Taylor Marsh to accuse Obama of “being willing to do whatever he can to get elected, cannibalizing his own and our ideals as he goes.”

According to AP writer Nedra Pickler, Obama was claiming on December 21, 2007, to have more of Bill Clinton’s foreign policy advisor’s helping him than does Hillary Clinton, thereby proving that his vision of foreign policy was superior. However, “Clinton’s campaign provided more than 80 names of her husband’s former foreign policy advisers who are publicly backing her, while Obama’s campaign provided 47.”

OBAMA TRIED TO STEAL THE IOWA CAUCUS As early as October 15, 2007, there were reports that Obama was planning to bring in busloads from Chicago to vote in the caucuses on January 3, 2008. He actually bused in many for the Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner on November 10, 2007. The Chicago Tribune stated that Senator Dodd deplored Obama’s “attempt to recruit thousands of out-of-state residents to come to Iowa for the caucuses.”

On December 11, 2007, David Yepsen warned in the Des Moines Register:

Obama’s campaign is telling Iowa college students they can caucus for him even if they aren’t from Iowa. His campaign offers that advice in a brochure being distributed on college campuses in the state. A spokesman said 50,000 of the fliers are being distributed. It says: “If you are not from Iowa, you can come back for the Iowa caucus and caucus in your college neighborhood.”

According to New York Post correspondent Geoff Earle:

The flier, which includes a photo of a smiling student, tries to appeal a generation that likes to party, urging: “Make sure to bring your friends!”

FOLLOWERS GRANT OBAMA MESSIANIC POWERS After Oprah Winfrey endorsed Obama, on December 11, 2007, Rich Lowry of the New York Post, wrote:

This was the pontiff of daytime TV bestowing secular sainthood on the golden child of latter-day liberalism… in a haze of inspirational piety with heavy religious overtones.” For example, Lowry quoted Winfrey as stating “For there is born to you this day a savior,” and “It’s a question the entire nation is asking: Is he the one? South Carolina – I do believe he’s the one.”

MSNBC Commentator Chris Matthews echoed that Obama “comes along, and he seems to have the answers. This is the New Testament.” An Ohio blogger from Akron, Ohio, The Chief Source website, envisioned “a spark that..can ignite the powder-keg of the American Spirit…a chemical reaction.” Others believe he is “the Anti-Christ.” People faint at his rallies.

 

 

 

Part IX

OBAMA AVOIDS TOUGH DECISIONS On December 20, 2007, The New York Times article, entitled “Obama’s vote in Ill. was often ‘present’”. Nathan Gonzales, writing about this for Real Clear Politics, on February 13, 2007, warned this “could hurt him in two very different ways…On one hand, those votes could anger some Democrats, even liberals, because he did not take a strong enough stand on their issues. On the other hand, his votes could simply be portrayed by adversaries as a failure of leadership for not being willing to make a tough decision and stick by it.”

OBAMA CALLS ALLIES “SPECIAL INTERESTS” Shortly before Christmas 2007, Obama voiced concern over AFSCME and AFT unions, and the nation’s largest political action committee – Emily’s List’s – support for Hillary Clinton. Then he accused John Edwards of being hypocritical for accepting support from 527 groups which represented unions. According to Paul Krugman, writing for The New York Times, on December 24, 2007, Obama called unions “special interests,” and said that they “have too much influence in Washington.” Krugman then asked two important questions:

First, does it make sense, in the current political and economic environment, for Democrats to lump unions in with corporate groups as examples of the special interests we need to stand up to?

Second, is Mr. Obama saying that if nominated, he’d be willing to run without support from labor 527s, which might be crucial to the Democrats? If not, how does he avoid having his own current words used against him by the republican nominee?

OBAMA FLUNKS FOREIGN POLICY TESTS He clearly politicized the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, according to a December 29, 2007 Washington Post editorial with -:

–a far-fetched attempt to connect the killing of Ms. Bhutto with Ms. Clinton’s vote on the war in Iraq. After the candidate made the debatable assertion that the Iraq invasion strengthened al-Qaeda in Pakistan, his spokesman, David Axelrod, said Ms. Clinton “was a strong supporter of the war in Iraq, which we would submit was one of the reasons why we were diverted from Afghanistan, Pakistan and al-Qaeda, who may have been players in the event today.

Then, as soon as Hillary recommended an international commission to investigate the death of Bhutto, Obama opposed it, saying we should “not give the idea that Pakistan is unable to handle its own affairs.” Yet, Obama was the one who had created riots, flag burnings, and his own person being burned in effigy, along with President Bush and Tancredo, by reckless talk about taking action against Al-Qaeda if Musharraf did not.

OBAMA CRITICIZES DEMOCRATIC LEADERS On January 1, 2008, Nicole Belle, in an article entitled “Obama slams Gore, Kerry in Iowa,” writing for Crooks and Liars, quoted Barack Obama as saying “I don’t want to go into the next election starting off with half the country already not wanting to vote for Democrats – we’ve done that in 2004, 2000.”

 

She goes on to explain that “Gore won the popular vote in 2000” and that “More Americans voted for Kerry in 2004 than voted for any other candidate in US history, save for (allegedly) GWB. Again, there is demonstrable evidence of election tampering. Why push the Republican meme that Kerry was so unlikable? Kerry’s problems did not stem with his electability .. but by his unwillingness to challenge the election results.”

Newsmax Staff reported on December 19, 2007, that in 2003, at an AFL-CIO forum, Obama said (referring to Senator Ted Kennedy): “Ted, you’re getting a little old now, and you’ve been a fighter for us before. I don’t know what’s happening now. Ted, get some spine and stand up to the Republicans.”

THE GREAT DIVIDER PLAYS THE RACE CARD On January 8, 2008, Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire primary. AP reporter Laurie Kellman gave Obama’s reaction, in “Obama hints of sharper edge vs. Clinton,” writing that he “talked of introducing some Chicago smack down to his politics of hope…” and “I come from Chicago politics. We’re accustomed to rough and tumble.”

We were not long in finding out what this meant – playing the race card big time – thereby dividing blacks and whites, pitting blacks against blacks, and threatening the racial unity of the Democratic Party. This was just the beginning.

First, on January 9, 2008, his national campaign’s co-chair, Jesse Jackson Jr., implied on MSNBC, that Hillary Clinton’s tears (only her eyes misting over) caused her New Hampshire victory, while insinuating that she is insensitive to African-American problems such as Katrina.

Second, later on “Hardball,” Obama supporter Michael Eric Dyson introduced “the possibility that New Hampshire voters, after seeing Obama’s swagger… may have rejected him, repudiated him, or at least had second thoughts or become skeptical about pulling the lever, so to speak, for a black man…”

Third, Obama’s South Carolina Press Secretary. Amaya Smith, sent out an e-mail press release, listing examples in which Hillary and Bill Clinton are considered racists. And Michelle Obama gave an inflammatory speech misinterpreting and mischaracterizing racial charges.

Big Media and the Republicans joined in, of course blaming the Clintons (using the pervasive sexist double standard) for what Obama had created, and thoroughly enjoying the ensuing consternation. This went on until just before the January 15, 2008 Democratic debate in Las Vegas, when a so called truce was called.

There was supposed agreement that no one was against civil rights, and pledges made to have no more racial diversionary tactics. Nevertheless, the genie was out of the bottle and damage done. On January 18, 2007, Toby Harnden in Las Vegas quoted Michelle Obama as speaking “passionately about racial slurs against her husband and the symbolism of having a black family in the White House.”

On this same date, Senator Edwards stated:

 

 

Just a few days ago, on a stage where all three of us were participating in the debate, there was a discussion of putting behind us and stopping the race politics that had been going on for a few days before that between Senator Clinton and Senator Obama. And everyone pledged that this kind of divisive politics that divides the Democratic Party and could divide America would come to an end.

Senator Obama made that pledge. I was sitting five feet from him when I heard him say it. And now it turns out that in the last 24 hours, there’s a radio ad that’s being run – a malicious radio ad attacking Senator Clinton. That is exactly that kind of divisive politics. It’s being run right here in Las Vegas.

OBAMA’S LONG TIME FRIEND AND “GODFATHER” Obama’s mud politics, obviously was also learned from unsavory characters such as his 17 year long friend, Antoin “Tony” Rezko. Rezko is presently under indictment by the federal government for housing fraud, attempted extortion and money laundering, including “demanding kickbacks from companies seeking state business.”

The Rezko trial was to have started February 25, 2008, but was delayed until March 3, 2008. Following this, Rezko also faces over 30 civil lawsuits and is being sued for more than $34 million dollars.

 

As of January 28, 2008, top ABC investigative reporter, Brian Ross announced that Tony Rezko had been jailed for “violating his bail terms by a convoluted series of financial transactions with Mideast banks,” making him a “flight risk.”

It seems that $3.5 million came from a Beirut, Lebanon bank and a company owned by Nadhmi Auchi, a British-based Iraqi billionaire “who was convicted in France on fraud charges.” The Chicago Tribune said Auchi “controlled banks, casinos, telecommunications companies and pharmaceutical firms spanning the globe.” When Auchi was denied a U.S. visa in 2005 as an undesirable alien, Rezko sought help from unspecified “Illinois government officials.” This was the same year when “Sen. Obama had just taken office as a U. S. senator” and when “he sought Rezko’s help in the purchase of his home.”

By the latter part of April 2007, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Daily Herald had revealed that Rezko was one of Obama’s most reliable and largest fund raisers, and helped him buy his expensive Chicago home, to the tune of $925,000.

Most appalling, when slum lord Rezko’s African-American tenants were shivering, without heat in his sub standard housing projects, 11 of which were located in Obama’s Illinois Senate district, Rezko found money for Obama, and Obama accepted it. The Senator claimed complete ignorance of the deplorable situation for the tenants.

While our media slept, it took Philip Sherwell, reporter for the United Kingdom’s Telegraph, to interview one of those tenants who lived less than a mile from the present Obama mansion. Sherwell wrote on January 28, 2008:

The family boiled water on the stove and draped plastic sheeting across the windows in an effort to keep warm during the city’s bitter winters, as the heating was not working. Rubbish piled up uncollected and repeated requests for basic repairs were ignored.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne…

 

 

 

OBAMA HELPED REZKO According to New York Times reporters Christopher Drew and Mike McIntire, writing on June 14, 2007, “as a state legislator, Mr. Obama wrote letters to city and state officials supporting efforts by Mr. Rezko and a partner to build apartments for the elderly with $14 million in government money, The Chicago Sun-Times reported in its June 13 editions. The developers received $855,000 in fees.”

 

Obama often visited Rezko’s office. On February 10, 2008, Chicago Sun-Times reporter, David Roeder, interviewed an FBI “mole” and key prosecution witness, John Thomas, who has “helped investigators build a record of repeat visits to the old offices of Rezko..853 N. Elston, by Blagojevich and Obama during 2004 and 2005.” It has also been reported that Obama often dropped by Rezko sponsored affairs.

 

Obama gave a summer internship to the son of Joseph Aramanda, an Obama contributor, who is named as “Individual D” in Rezko’s federal indictment.

Rezko’s and Obama’s wives were friends and the couples socialized over the years.

OBAMA’S “FAIRY TALE” On January 9, 2008, Chicago Tribune reporter John Kass, wrote, “Obama fairy tale has Chicago-size hole… Obama gets the applause and media sainthood and a pass as a gentle faun in the national fairy tale…One fairy tale that touches close to home for Obama is the story of his real estate fairy, the indicted fixer Tony Rezko, who helped the Obamas buy their dream house… Hillary did better than expected in New Hampshire, but to win she’ll still have to rip Barack’s fairy tale to shreds…”

AND “ACHILLES HEEL” The next day, on January 10, 2008, ABC News reporters Brian Ross and Rhonda Schwartz, added “The Rezko Connection: Obama’s Achilles Heel?” They explained that Obama’s “house deal became public as Rezko revealed personal financial details as he sought to post bail.” Details were also broadcast on ABC Morning News, including Obama’s contradictory statements to varying sources.

On January 15, 2008, AP reporter Mike Robinson announced that “The upcoming trial is starting to attract a national media spotlight because Rezko also was a contributor and fundraiser for presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. Reporters from The Los Angeles Times and NBC News as well as local newsmen were on hand in Judge Amy J. St. Eve’s courtroom Tuesday.”

On January 19, 2008, four reporters from the Chicago Sun-Times wrote a long article entitled “Obama surfaces in Rezko federal corruption case.” They stated that “the case confirmed that Obama is the unnamed ‘political candidate’ referred to in a section of the document that accuses Rezko of orchestrating a scheme in which a firm hired to handle state teacher pension investments first had to pay $250,000 in ‘sham’ finder’s fees.

 

From that money, $10,000 was donated to Obama’s successful run for the Senate in the name of a Rezko business associate, according to the court filing and the source.” This article also details Obama’s long time personal and financial relationships with Rezko, including much of the above information

On February 18, 2008, it was learned from Bloomberg.com that Drs. Fredric Wondisford and Sally Radovick, professors at the University of Chicago Hospitals (where Michelle Obama was also employed), sold the house, on June 15, 2005, to the Obamas for $1.65 million, and the yard, on this same date, to Tony Rezko’s wife for $625,000 (closing dates had to be the same).

On February 19, 2008, Chicago Tribune reporters David Jackson and Bob Secter wrote that, on February 18, 2008, Obama’s campaign revealed that, before he bought his home, he took Tony Rezko “on a tour of the premises to make sure it was a good deal.”

OBAMA AVOIDS THE ISSUE On January 24, 2008, Mark Brown, wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times, “To dismiss Rezko as ‘somebody who I knew’ just isn’t going to cut it.” The reporter declared that this was “such an understatement that it borders on a falsehood… It’s way past time for Obama to come completely and entirely clean…But one way or another, it’s all going to come out before Obama can reach the finish line in November.”

Brown warned that Rezko’s “indictment shows just how far Rezko would allegedly go to take advantage of his ties to an Illinois governor. Imagine what he had in mind if his other buddy became president.”

Rezko’s March 3, 2008 trial date will certainly affect the Democratic Primaries and Caucuses by calling close attention to the many questions which Obama has steadfastly refused to answer regarding their close long time relationship. Since Rezko’s indictment in the fall of 2006, Obama keeps returning more and more of the Rezko connected money to charity. As time goes by, the amounts keep increasing.

Fortunately, the day before the Super Tuesday March 4th primaries, there were several Chicago reporters who confronted Obama in San Antonio, Texas, about his relationship with Tony Rezko and the NAFTA controversy regarding Austan Goolsbee reassuring Canada not to take Obama’s recent NAFTA debate remarks seriously.

According to Chicago Sun-Times reporter Lynn Sweet (and from numerous other reports), Barack Obama “was thrown seriously off message being asked about influence peddler Tony Rezko and why his campaign at first denied his economic adviser Austan Goolsbee met the Canadian consul in Chicago and talked about NAFTA.”

<On March 2, 2008, Lynn Sweet had listed economics professor at the University of Chicago as “Chicagoans in Obama’s life likely targets of McCain, GOP.” She explained:

“The reports finger Goolsbee – who did visit the office of the Canadian counsel general in Chicago but not to talk about trade – as being the source of sending the message to Canada that Obama’s bark is worse than his bite on NAFTA.”>

 

 

Finally, on March 14, 2008, Obama met with Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times reporters and answered a few more questions, still claiming he had never done favors for Rezko, although the record disputes this. He also admitted that Rezko had raised up to $250,000 for his several campaigns – $100,000 more than previously reported.

 

 

JUST HOW MUCH WAS OBAMA INVOLVED? On Easter Sunday, March 23, 2008, Chicago Tribune’s columnist John Kass wrote “In Combine, cash is king, corruption is bipartisan.” From Stuart Levine’s testimony in the Rezko trial, we learn about the “Illinois custom of quiet sharing of power across party lines for the benefit of a fat connected few.” According to former Illinois U. S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald, they are called “The Illinois Combine.” RezkoWatchblogsport.com/ believes the following:

Well, quite simply put, most of them have been connected in one way or the other with 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama dating to at least 1995 when he ran for the Illinois State Senate. They have been – and some still are – colleagues, campaign contributors, and fellow travelers along Obama’s meteoric rise in both Illinois and national politics, a veritable “who’s who” of the “Illinois Combine”.

As the Rezko trial has revealed more and more Illinois political corruption, on April 3, 2008, Stephen Spruiell, writing for National Review Online, “First Wright, Now Rezko,” explained why a speech from Obama will not solve his problem. “..America will have a harder time swallowing excuses for corruption as being a run-of-the-will aspect of the Illinois political experience – particularly not from a candidate that has promised a new kind of politics.”

OBAMA’S CHURCH Obama had a good winning record in February, involving smaller states, several caucuses, and red states, but, on March 4, 2008, he lost all important Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island to Hillary Clinton. The emerging racial divide favoring Obama with Blacks became apparent once again on March 11, 2008, when Obama won the reliable Republican state of Mississippi.

The next day, news commentator John Carlson wrote for The Seattle Times, “The beginning of the end for the Obama campaign.” Carlson’s message was that “soaring, uplifting sermons promising “hope” and “change” eventually run dry unless they’re connected to clear ideas and a coherent agenda… Obama’s words aren’t a bridge to ideas and opinions, they’re substitutes for them.”

On this same day – March 12, 2008 – the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s minister for twenty years, and his new minister, Rev. Otis Moss III, started dominating the news, particularly on the Fox television channel. With numerous videos, we learned of Wright’s hate filled denunciations of America, including “God damn America!” There was his strong praise and support for Nation of Islam Louis Farrakhan, and a parade of accusations blaming rich white Americans for problems faced by people of color all over the world.

At first Obama claimed ignorance regarding Wrights inflammatory tirades. But, then, as the vetting continued, in an attempt to deal with his Pastor Jeremiah Wright problem, as well as another controversial pastor – Illinois state senator James Meeks (who rails against homosexuals) – both of whom had become part of his campaign – on March 18, 2008, Obama gave a racial speech in Philadelphia’s Constitution Hall.

While praised by many in the media, the speech was also recognized as not speaking to Obama’s problem – his inability to separate himself from Jeremiah Wright who had brought him to Christianity, performed his marriage to Michelle, baptized his two daughters, and inspired the title of his second book, The Audacity of Hope.

Drip, drip, drip, Jeremiah Wright continues in the daily news.

March 18, 2008 – Shelby Steele, author of the book -A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can’t Win – writing for The Wall Street Journal, explained in “The Obama Bargain,” how Obama bargains “to put whites at their ease” giving “them racial innocence in a society where whites live under constant threat of being stigmatized as racist,” thereby allowing them “to experience racial innocence.” Steele summarizes Obama’s huge problem:

No matter his ultimate political fate, there is already enough pathos in Barack Obama to make him a cautionary tale. His public persona thrives on a manipulation of whites (bargaining), and his private sense of racial identity demands both self-betrayal and duplicity. His is the story of a man who flew so high, yet neglected to become himself.

March 19, 2008 – ABC News Brian Ross and Avni Patel wrote: “…Sen. Barack Obama contradicted more than a year of denials and spin from him and his staff about his knowledge of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s controversial sermons.”

On this same day, John Kass, columnist for the Chicago Tribune wrote “Obama sounds presidential but speech isn’t about race.” His “job was to address and condemn and isolate his candidacy and his nation from the ugly, anti-American rhetoric espoused by his pastor, Rev. Wright.” He did not do this.

March 20, 2008 – Michael Meyers, executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition, writing for Los Angeles Times, believed that Obama actually “amplified deep-seated racial tensions and divisions…He should have depicted his minister.. as a symbol of the dysfunctional angry men who are stuck in the past and who must yield to a new generation of colorblind, hopeful Americans and to a new global economy in which we will look on our neighbors’ skin color no differently than how we look on their eye color.”

March 21, 2008 – Charles Krauthammer, writing for the Washington Post, called “The Speech: A Brilliant Fraud.”

 

March 23, 2008 – Easter Sunday – Fox News television reported that Otis Moss III, the new minister of this 8000 member Chicago United Church of Christ Church, compared the Wright news reports to the lynching of Jesus by the Romans. Obama had gone on vacation in the Virgin Islands and Wright would cancel all speeches in the foreseeable future.

March 24, 2008 – Former New York Governor Edward I. Koch, writing for Newsmax.com was “Unconvinced by Obama’s Wright Speech.”

April 1, 2008 – Edward Koch, writing for Real Clear Politic, in an article entitled “There’s No Excusing Obama on Wright,” declared “Barack’s failure, in my judgment, is an out-and-out failure of moral strength, as he was unwilling to stand up to his bigoted minister, Wright, for 20 years while Wright denounced from the pulpit whites, Jews and the State of Israel.”

April 1, 2008 – The Order Sons of Italy in America issued a statement to “strongly and unequivocally reject and condemn recently reported remarks made by the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.” plus Wright’s reported published material stating ”<Jesus’> enemies had their opinion about Him…. The Italians for the most part looked down their garlic noses at the Galileans,” Wright’s calling the crucifixion of Jesus “a public lynching Italian style,” and referring to Rome as “Apartheid Rome.”

April 28, 2008 – Regarding Jeremiah Wright’s speech before the National Press Club, Washington Post Dana Milbank reporter declared, “Wright’s Voice Could Spell Doom for Obama.” To elaborate:

…Wright praised Louis Farrakhan, defended the view that Zionism is racism, accused the United States of terrorism, repeated his view that the government created the AIDS virus to cause the genocide of racial minorities, stood by other past remarks (“God damn America&rdquo and held himself out as a spokesman for the black church in America…

…Wright suggested that Obama was insincere in distancing himself from his pastor. “He didn’t distance himself,” Wright announced. “He had to distance himself, because he’s a politician, from what the media was saying I had said, which was anti-American.”

April 29, 2008 – Finally, Obama held a news conference, expressed much concern over his former pastor, and special anger regarding Wright’s “suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing.” He did not think “he showed much concern for me; more importantly, I don’t think he showed much concern for what we’re trying to do in this campaign.”

OBAMA CONSIDERS GRANDMOTHER “TYPICAL WHITE PERSON” In his March 18, 2008, Jeremiah Wright problem race speech, Obama said “I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother.” He went on to deplore that Madelyn Dunham was “a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.”

The following day, on March 19, 2008, in a radio interview, he added: “The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn’t. But she is a typical white person who, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know, there’s a reaction that’s been bred into our experiences that don’t go away, and that sometimes come out in the wrong way, and that’s just the nature of race in our society.”

Christopher Hitchens wrote on March 24, 2008, for Slate, an article entitled “Blind Faith – The statements of clergymen like Jeremiah Wright aren’t controversial and incendiary; they’re wicked and stupid.”

You often hear it said, of some political or other opportunist, that he would sell his own grandmother if it would suit his interests. But you seldom, if ever, see this notorious transaction actually being performed, which is why I am slightly surprised that Obama got away with it so easily. (Yet why do I say I am surprised? He still gets away with absolutely everything.)

I am not an accomplished journalist, therefore I am counting on those of you who are, to take this info and run with it as you will.  I am also counting on all of you to pass it along, and get it all into the hands of the people.