"And when Kennedy turned to the reporters traveling with him, with tears in his eyes he asked a single question about poverty in America: 'How can a country like this allow it?'" "Forty years later," Obama said, "we're still asking that question."
First of all, "Barack Obama you are no Robert Kennedy," and we're still asking the question because the careers of politicians like Obama are funded by a political mafia which has turned helping the poor into a cottage industry.
During his speech, Obama himself spelled out why low-income housing developers get away with funneling tax dollars through poor people in cities like Chicago without drawing any scrutiny, when he stated:
"These Americans cannot hire lobbyists to roam the halls of Congress on their behalf, and they cannot write thousand-dollar campaign checks to make their voices heard. They suffer most from a politics that has been tipped in favor of those with the most money, and influence, and power."
In Obama's case, a whole gang of slumlords in Illinois made their "voices heard" by writing campaign checks to fund his rise to fame. But as long as the focus of the slumlord allegations remains solely on a crook named Rezko, the other members of the gang will not get the credit they deserve.
One fact is beyond dispute. Without the fundraising of his political Godfather, Rezko, Obama's rise to power would not have occurred. However, Rezko was not the pied piper of Hamlin who led Illinois politicians astray. It's the other way around. Without the cooperation of the corrupt government officials, Rezko would not have been able to fund their political campaigns.
In Illinois, favored politicians are joined at the hip when it comes to fundraising. For instance, from 1999 through 2006, an analysis by the Chicago Tribune shows Obama took in more than $1.5 million from some 700 people who also contributed to Mayor Daley during his political career.
A cursory review of Illinois campaign records shows Allison Davis and his family members giving close to $16,000 to Obama's presidential campaign. The Sun-Times reports that Davis has donated more than $400,000 to dozens of political campaigns, and the top beneficiaries include Mayor Daley, Blagojevich and Obama.
The truth about all the scams run by the political mafia operating in Illinois is only coming out now because of Rezko's corruption trial, and if the Democrats want to lose any chance of winning the White House, all they have to do is nominate Obama.
This case is only the first of what could be many to go to trial. Other criminal charges are pending against several people listed in the indictment, and civil lawsuits have been filed against many of the same people and are awaiting the outcome of the criminal cases.
If Obama had an ounce of respect for Democratic voters, he'd drop out of the race before the details of the corruption in Illinois spread to the rest of the country. If the leaders of the Democratic party had a lick of sense, they would inform Obama right now that under no circumstances will his name be on the ballot come fall.
Political junkies know the details of all the sordid scandals swirling around Obama in Chicago, but the average American voter does not have a clue.
The prosecution team is led by the US Attorney for Northern Illinois, Patrick Fitzgerald, of Scooter Libby fame; the same guy who put the last Illinois Governor behind bars and convicted a host of government officials from the Daley administrations who were involved in what prosecutors called "pervasive fraud" to rig city hiring for 12 years with persons who got out the vote for Mayor Daley, and the candidates he endorsed, as well as numerous crooks rounded up during the scandal involving Daley's Hired Truck program.
The list of names in the indictment includes about eight persons referred to as "Co-Schemers," and reads like a "who's who list" of major campaign donors to Obama, Blagojevich, Daley and other powerful Illinois politicians.
Blagojevich is referred to as "Public Official A," Obama is referred to as a "political candidate," and there is a list of "Individuals" from "Individual A" all the way up to "Individual HH."
By now, everybody following the case knows the names of the "Co-Schemers" and "Individuals", and the Republicans can use the court filings as a roadmap for their plan of attack on Obama. In fact, they are probably editing their talking points for cable news shows as we speak. They no doubt already have video clips in the can of every failed low-income housing project in Chicago connected to Obama to splash across the airwaves the minute he is nominated.
you have posted an inventory of half truths, outright lies and speculations that have evidently been loaded into your word processor with the same shovel you use to clean the stable and quite clearly for use with the same material.
This load of shit isn't even worthy of dissecting with corrections. I can, however, see how you have come to be a propagandist Clintonista.
by
John Sanchez Jr. (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 8 diaries, 1045 comments)
on Friday, April 4, 2008 at 4:22:13 PM
Tracing the trail of Iraqi born billionaire Nadhmi Auchi indicates Rezko's deals may include a money trail leading back to Saddam Hussein oil for food program.
A 2004 Pentagon report described Auchi, "who, behind the facade of legitimate business, served as Saddam Hussein's principal international financial manipulator and bag man." Auchi prospered in Saddam's regime collecting "commissions" on sale of weapons and other goods to Iraq in the 1980s and 1990s.
A recent Pentagon report accuses Auchi of "unlawful activities working closely with Iraqi intelligence operatives to ... arrange for significant theft from the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program to smuggle weapons and dual-use technology into Iraq," and to "organize an elaborate scheme to take over and control the post-war cellular phone system in Iraq."
At Saddam's insistence a scheme orchestrated by Auchi appropriated billions of dollars from America through America's Oil for Food program into Auchi's bank account. These transactions passed through Banque Nationale de (BNP) from its 1995 inception until 2001 through Auchi's General Mediterranean Holdings Company (GMHC) which was the largest private shareholder in Paris. Auchi's General Mediterranean Holdings has connections in Iraq which lead right back to Tony Rezko.
Auchi's company helped finance a 250 megawatt power plant in the Kurdish town of Chamchamal, Iraq, teaming up with Rezko and Iraq's former Minister of Electricity, Aiham Alsamarrae. In December, 2006 Alsamarrae was accused of graft and is being charged in a $2 billion Iraqi reconstruction corruption case. Alsamarrae is a Chicago resident with dual US-Iraqi citizenship -an embarrassing connection for the war critic Obama. Alsamarrae is now living in his Chicago mansion.
Writing in Human Events, March 3, 2008, John Batchelor reports on an Alsammarae-Obama-Rezko connection: "...in April 2005, one month before Mr. Alsammarae left his post, his Ministry of Electricity signed a contract for $50 million with Companion Security to provide training to Iraqis to guard electrical plants by flying them to Illinois for classes.
"Companion Security was headed by a former Chicago policeman with a troubled history, Daniel T. Frawley, in partnership with Mr. Rezko and in association with Daniel Mahru, the lawyer for the original contract and Mr. Rezko's former business partner. In April 2006, Mr. Frawley entered negotiations with Governor Rod Blagojevich's staff to lease a military facility in Illinois to be a training camp. In August 2006, Mr. Frawley started negotiations with Mr. Obama's U.S. Senate staff to complete the contract....
"The timeline of Companion discussions in 2006 is important to note: April 2006 Frawley speaks to governor's office; August 2006 Frawley speaks to senator's office; October 2006 indictment of Rezko revealed; October 2006 Rezko arrested upon return from Syria; October 2006 Alsammarae convicted in Baghdad and makes his first escape attempt; December 2006 Alsammarae escapes from Baghdad. ..."(In 2004) Mr. Auchi traveled by private aircraft to Midway Airport in Chicago and then to a fete at the Four Season Hotel, where he met with his business partner in Chicago real estate, Mr. Rezko, as well as with Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Also present that night, according to a fresh report by James Bone and Dominic Kennedy of the London Times, was State Senator Barack Obama, who had recently won the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate seat...."
The Obama Connection
Recently the London Times reported that Auchi had been a business partner of Rezko since 2003 and between April 2005 and 2007 loaned Rezko at least $18 million. On February 1 the London Times reports uncovering, "state documents in Illinois recording that Fintrade Services, a Panamanian company, lent money to (an) Obama fundraiser in May 2005. Fintrade's directors include Ibtisam Auchi, the name of Mr. Auchi's wife." "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.
These Funds from Auchi's loan helped finance a complex series of transactions between Rezko and Democratic Presidential candidate Illinois Senator Barack Obama involving the 2005 purchase of Obama's Chicago mansion and Rezko's purchase of an adjoining landlocked parcel.Rezko claims he paid "full market price" and Obama apparently received a "discount" of several hundred thousand dollars for his parcel. Rezko then improved his parcel to benefit Obama.Instead of handing cash to Obama, Rezko handed Obama a preferential price for property.
This is the same form of "honest graft" and preferential treatment that sent former Illinois Governor Otto Kerner to jail over 30 years ago, see United States v. Isaacs, 493 F.2d 1124 (7th Cir. 1974).The Chicago Sun-Times recently reported that Mr. Rezko, around the same general period he was wheeling with Obama, also provided a preferential price for a property purchase by U. S. Representative Luis Gutierrez.
Instead of transferring cash to buy influence, Rezko was engaging in structured property transactions and preferential treatment of public officials to confer significant financial benefits on them, far above the legal limits of any legitimate political contribution permitted by federal law.
Rezko was a key early-money fund raiser in Obama's state Senate campaigns. and Rezko's relationship with Barack Obama goes back to at least 1990, when Obama's law firm did work relating to a Rezko housing development. Rezko as a major mob figure is not known for civic-mindedness or desire for good government.
At a March 3 news conference in San Antonio, Texas, Chicago-based reporters peppered Obama with some of the questions the national news corps has avoided for over a year. Obama claims he had already answered the questions in the Chicago media. He said: "These requests, I think, could just go on forever. At some point, what we need to try to do is respond to what's pertinent."
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post wrote:"Reporters, however, had a different idea of what was pertinent, and the questions about Rezko, NAFTA and other unpleasant subjects continued to come. An aide called out 'last question,' and Obama made his move for the exit -- only for reporters to shout after him in protest. 'C'mon, guys,' he pleaded. 'I just answered, like, eight questions.'"Sources: Barack Obama, Tony Rezko,
