Rezko Connections: More Questions for Obama

Obama tied to Iraqi government fraud?

worldnetdaily.com...

Sen. Barack Obama's office engaged in six months of negotiations with a company controlled by convicted criminal Tony Rezko to lobby the U.S. government to push through a nixed $50 million contact to train Iraqi security personnel at a site in Chicago.The contract was awarded to Rezko's company while Aiham Alsammarae, a long-time, close Rezko friend and a contributor to Obama's campaign, served as Iraq's U.S.-appointed electricity minister, the senator's office confirms.

Rezko was a major Obama fundraiser and associate for two decades.

Alsammarae also awarded another Rezko-controlled operation as part of a $150 million contract to construct a 250-megawatt electricity plant in Iraq.

Alsammarae later was arrested by Iraqi authorities for bilking the coalition government out of some $650 million. He was sprung from prison under questionable circumstances in 2006 and escaped from Iraq, where he is still wanted for questioning with regard to major financial crimes.

The information raises questions into the nature of Obama's relationship with multiple deals made by Iraq's Electricity Ministry while Alsammarae was in charge. Obama has ties to Alsammarae and to the recipients of several of the massive contracts Alsammarae handed out.

WND reported Alsammarae posted more than one-third of Rezko's jail bond earlier this year, putting up as surety his $1.9 million Chicago home and two other properties.

www.wnd.com...
atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com...

Obama Played by Chicago Rules

online.wsj.com...

The most dramatic examples of Mr. Obama's commitment to old-style politics are his repeated endorsements of Chicago's machine politicians, which came in opposition to what people of all ideological stripes viewed as the common good.In the 2006 election, reformers from both parties attempted to end the corruption in Chicago's Cook County government. They probably would have succeeded, too, had Mr. Obama taken their side. Liberals and conservatives came together and nearly ousted Cook County Board President John Stroger, the machine boss whom court papers credibly accuse of illegally using the county payroll to maintain his own standing army of political cronies, contributors and campaigners.

The since-deceased Stroger's self-serving mismanagement of county government is still the subject of federal investigations and arbitration claims. Stroger was known for trying repeatedly to raise taxes to fund his political machine, even as basic government services were neglected in favor of high-paying county jobs for his political soldiers.

When liberals and conservatives worked together to clean up Cook County's government, they were displaying precisely the postpartisan interest in the common good that Mr. Obama extols today. And Mr. Obama, by working against them, helped keep Chicago politics dirty. He refused to endorse the progressive reformer, Forrest Claypool, who came within seven points of defeating Stroger in the primary.

Mr. Obama has never stood up against Chicago's corruption problem because his donors and allies are Chicago's corruption problem.Mr. Obama is not the reformer he now claims to be. The real man is the one they know in Chicago -- the one who won his first election by depriving voters of a choice.

The Endless Secrecy Around Barack Obama

ap.google.com...

Just to review, the public cannot get access to paperwork related grants distributed by then-state-legislator Obama (records from 1997 to 2000 aren't available); his state legislative office records (which he says may have been thrown out); he refuses to release a specific list of law clients, instead giving a list of all of his firm's clients, numbering several hundred each year; he won't release his application to the state bar (where critics wonder if he lied in responding to questions about parking tickets and past drug use); he’s never released any legal or billing records to verify that he only did a few hours of work for a nonprofit tied to convicted donor Rezko; and he's never released any medical records, just a one-page letter from his doctor.

Now the University of Illinois at Chicago is denying Stanley Kurtz access to documents relating to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a small foundation, founded and inspired by Bill Ayers, for which Obama served as board chairman.

Chicago Annenberg Challenge Shutdown?

article.nationalreview.com...

Cover-Up?Unfortunately, I don’t yet have access to the documents. The Special Collections section of the Richard J. Daley Library agreed to let me read them, but just before I boarded my flight to Chicago, the top library officials mysteriously intervened to bar access.

I'll just keep plugging along here untill the truth comes into light.

The University of Illinois has refused to release records related to Sen. Barack Obama's service for a nonprofit educational project that put him in contact with activist William Ayers, a 1960s-era radical and now education professor.

www.swamppolitics.com...

SO

Obama said I he hardly knew Ayers, he hardly knew a lot of things

Yet he was chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, inspired by Bill Ayers,

“Curiouser and curiouser!”

Still wondering about non issueness, lol



Bought and Paid For!

www.youtube.com...://sugarnspice.typepad.com/

this is one of the best I have seen

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Iraqi Billionaire Threatens Reporters Investigating Rezko Affair

www.aim.org...

Why aren’t the American media investigating the role of British billionaire businessman Nadhmi Auchi in supplying loans to Barack Obama fundraiser Tony Rezko? Some point to media bias, but there is another factor. Working for Auchi, who was born in Iraq, attorneys from London law firm Carter-Ruck have for several months been flooding American and British newspapers and websites with letters demanding removal of material they deem “defamatory” to their client.

Rezko’s relationship with Barack Obama goes back to at least 1990, when Obama’s law firm did work relating to thousands of now-decaying Rezko apartment units in South Chicago. Rezko was a key early-money fundraiser in Obama’s state Senate campaigns and his failed run at the U.S. Congress.Allow me to introduce you to Nadhmi Auchi. He was charged in the 1950s with being an accomplice of Saddam Hussein, when the future tyrant was acquiring his taste for blood. He was investigated in the 1980s for his part in alleged bribes to the fabulously corrupt leaders of post-war Italy. In the 1990s, the Belgium Ambassador to Luxembourg claimed that Auchi’s bank held money Saddam and Colonel Gadaffi had stolen from their luckless peoples. In 2002, officers from the Serious Fraud Squad raided the offices of one of Auchi’s drug companies as part of an investigation of what is alleged to be the biggest swindle ever of the (British National Health Service). With allegations, albeit unproven, like these hanging over him, wouldn’t you think that British MPs would have the sense to stay away?

But after threats from Carter-Ruck, Cohen’s “defamatory” article became one of six Guardian and Observer articles scrubbed from the Internet this April.

Investing in Obama
Government favors for Chicago benefactors.

article.nationalreview.com...



Biden has deep ties to Rezko accomplice

www.suntimes.com...

When the Delaware senator began contemplating his own 2008 presidential run, he initially was helped by Chicago lawyer Joseph Cari Jr., who also served as Biden's Midwest field director in his failed 1988 bid for president.In 2005, Cari admitted to taking part in an $850,000 kickback scheme that prosecutors say was part of a larger political fund-raising operation for Gov. Blagojevich overseen by Rezko, who was convicted in June of wide-ranging corruption involving state deals.

Offering Cari a vote of confidence at the time, Biden said, "All I know is Joe Cari is a friend, and he's an honorable guy, but I don't know anything beyond that."

abcnews.go.com...

Unlocking Biden's baggage reveals Blago ticketIf only fate and fortune weren't such merciless home wreckers, it might have been Gov. Rod Blagojevich standing beside Sen. Joe Biden during Saturday's ceremony in Springfield.
Soon, Mr. Cari will be known only by an 8-digit number.

That numeric title will be bestowed on Cari by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons when he reports to a federal penitentiary after pleading guilty to trying to extort campaign money for Gov. Blagojevich from an investment firm seeking state contracts.

So it is interesting indeed that Mr. Cari has deep connections with Blago, Biden, a loose link to Obama himself and several other notable political figures.

First, Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del):

Mr. Cari was a top campaign official and successful fundraiser for Sen. Biden in 1988, during the Delaware senator's maiden run for president. Biden's campaign chairman 20 years ago was William Daley, brother of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.

Together, Cari and Bill Daley raised more money for Biden than any other candidate in the Democratic field.

If only fate and fortune weren't such merciless home wreckers, it might have been Gov. Rod Blagojevich standing beside Sen. Joe Biden during Saturday's ceremony in Springfield.

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Biden's Son Employed in Profession Obama Disdains: Lobbying

news.yahoo.com...

Sneed hears former U.S. Commerce Secretary Bill Daley had a heavy hand in Obama's selection of Joe Biden as his running mate.

"Let's put it this way," Daley told Sneed. "When asked . . . I made it very clear Biden was the guy, that he was the obvious choice.

www.suntimes.com...

Biden has indirect tie to Rezko
www.upi.com...

Web of Illinois connections abound in Biden pick
newsblogs.chicagotribune.com...

Wilhelm, who is a superdelegate from Ohio, also was Biden's Iowa campaign director in the Delaware senator’s ill-fated 1988 presidential run. This time around, after Biden dropped from the race, Wilhelm jumped to the Obama camp in February, serving as a strategist and wooer of superdelegates in the extended primary battle against Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.Wilhelm and Axelrod also worked together on Clinton's presidential campaign. And Wilhelm ran the 1989 and 1991 campaigns of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, one of Axelrod’s major political clients.

And who served as a political director of Biden's brief 1988 campaign? Bill Daley, the brother of the Chicago mayor, who went on to become a commerce secretary under Clinton and is now exploring a potential 2010 run for Illinois governor.

Possible change of heart
Rezko talked with prosecutors, may aid probe, sources say
By David Kidwell, John Chase and Jeff Coen | Chicago Tribune reporters
5:24 PM CDT, September 27, 2008

Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a convicted influence peddler who was once one of Gov. Rod Blagojevich's most trusted confidants, has met with federal prosecutors and is considering cooperating in the corruption probe of the governor's administration, sources told the Tribune.

Rezko's possible change of heart—after years of steadfast refusal—has sent ripples through a tight circle of prominent defense attorneys who represent dozens of potential witnesses and targets in the wide-ranging probe.His cooperation would give prosecutors investigating the governor and his wife access to someone they have described as an ultimate political insider at the center of a pervasive pay-to-play scheme.

Rezko's trial this year laid bare a culture of scams, bribes and backroom deals stretching from City Hall to the Statehouse.

It even became fodder in the presidential campaign of Democratic nominee Barack Obama, whose fundraising and personal ties to Rezko go back more than a decade.

www.chicagotribune.com...

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Rezko redux

www.suntimes.com...

Tipsville: Sneed hears rumbles that convicted influence peddler Tony Rezko, whose dealings have been linked to Barack Obama and Gov. Blagojevich, is singing to the feds. To wit: "I'm told by a close friend of Rezko that he's cooperating with the feds," said a Sneed source. "I don't know whether he's talking about Gov. Blagojevich or Barack Obama or anyone else," the source said.

Documents Uncovered by Judicial Watch Shed Light on Barack and Michelle Obama's Chicago Connections
www.judicialwatch.org...

Obama served as Chairman of the Annenberg Challenge, a school program designed by William Ayers, a known domestic terrorist, for eight years (1995-2002). The documents include a fundraising letter signed by Obama requesting a $22,500 grant noting, "we [meaning the Annenberg Challenge] are launched." Ayers is reported to have been the power running this group and Obama needs to better explain his contacts with him.Documents showing Barack Obama supported a housing development project known as Cottage View Terrace, which yielded $900,000 in developers' fees for convicted felon Antoin $quot;Tony" Rezko and Obama's employer, lawyer Allison Davis. Rezko, who was involved in Obama's home purchase, was recently convicted on 16 counts of fraud and money laundering, has personally donated at least $21,000 to Obama's campaigns, and raised over two hundred thousand dollars in additional support.

Documents that raise questions about Michelle Obama and the Rezko land deal as well. One document that lists the number of community institutions involved with the Cottage View Terrace project includes The University of Chicago. In 1998, Michelle Obama was working for the University of Chicago as Associate Dean of Student Services. She was also in charge of developing the University's Community Service Center. The University wrote three letters in which it "enthusiastically supports" the project.

Other documents we found show that another close associate of Obama, Valerie Jarrett, whom CBS News once called "the other side of Barack Obama's brain," is also connected to Rezko. She served on the Board of Directors for the Fund for Community Redevelopment and Revitalization, an organization that worked with Rezko and Davis, and also voiced her support for other Rezko projects.

www.judicialwatch.org...

www.judicialwatch.org...

www.judicialwatch.org...



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Obama A Champion Of The Slumlords

www.judicialwatch.org...

Sen. Obama blames the present national crisis on crony capitalism. But he omits two crucial facts:1. He was at the middle of the crony capitalism that led to the p resent financial crisis while in the U.S. Senate, and while Sen. John McCain was calling for reform of the system, Sen. Obama was raking in contributions from the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac family at the heart of the present mortgage scandal and was not lifting a finger when Sen. John McCain was calling for reform. He talks reform but practices the corrupt style of Chicago machine politics. There is where he learned the politics he now practices and which enabled him to climb the political ladder. Sen. Obama, and the rest of the Democrats in the Senate were silent, while a group of senators headed by Sen. McCain pressed for reform, and precisely predicted the disaster that is now upon us. I've told this part of the story in another column, but there's a second and equally important part.

2. That second part of the story involves Sen. Obama's leadership in doing to Illinois what is now taking place on a national scale with disastrous consequences.

This Illinois mortgage scandal is explored by David Freddoso, author of the book, The Case Against Barack Obama, in an article written for the National Review Online. Mr. Freddoso explains that Sen. Obama has compared our current mortgage scandal to the savings and loan scandal and bailout of the late 1980s. Mr. Freddoso writes that at the time of that scandal, "Too many S&Ls took advantage of the lax rules set by Washington to gamble that they could make big money in speculative real estate ... [T]hey made hundreds of billions in bad loans, knowing that if they lost money, the government would bail them out. And they were right. The gambles did not pay off, our economy went into recession, and the taxpayers ended up footing the bill."

Now if that sounds familiar, you're right. Mr. Freddoso writes, "It sounds a lot like what Barack Obama did to Illinois taxpayers as a state senator in Springfield. Using his elected office and his clout, Obama helped Tony Rezko and other unscrupulous low-income housing developers, a.k.a. slumlords, obtain millions of dollars in state grants, tax credits, low-interest loans, and regulatory advantage."

In case you've forgotten, Mr. Rezko is the now convicted felon who was a close associate of Sen. Obama, who was one of his key fundraisers, and who was involved in a land transaction with him that Sen. Obama admitted was "bone-headed." And well he might admit the nature of the transaction. That's because it appears that the land transaction may have been a payoff by Mr. Rezko to Sen. Obama for all of his legislative favors obtained for Mr. Rezko over the years.

Mr. Rezko and the others helped by Sen. Obama's legislative work proved to be slumlords, so Sen. Obama was in effect making Mr. Rezko and other developers rich by building housing that was then left to deteriorate into uninhabitable slums. Mr. Freddoso writes, "Taxpayers had no serious chance of recouping these 'investments' in Mr. Rezko and other developers. And many beneficiaries went one step farther, depriving the public of even the benefits they could have gotten. These developers took government help to build low-income housing, and then let their buildings deteriorate into uninhabitable slums."

Sen. Obama was a great champion of this kind of low-income housing, but he was also a champion of his donors and friends responsible for the housing who then neglected the developments so they became slums.

Sen. Obama introduced at least six bills giving these developers special tax breaks, tax credits, building and maintenance subsidies, and zoning exemptions. He wrote letters on behalf of his close associate and now felon, Mr. Rezko, and another close friend and former boss at a law firm, Allison Davis. He was the godfather of these slum developments.

According to an expose appearing in the Boston Globe, a Davis development, Grove Parc Plaza complex, was described as follows: "Mice scamper through the halls. Battered mailboxes hang open. Sewage backs up into kitchen sinks. In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale - a score so bad the buildings now face demolition."

One of Mr. Obama's campaign advisers, Valerie Jarrett, was until recently the chief executive of the company that managed the Grove Parc Plaza complex. She managed another housing complex until its condition deteriorated so much that the government seized it in 2006.

Another Obama donor, Cecil Butler, also became an Obama financed and sponsored slumlord. His Lawndale Restoration complex was confiscated by the government in 2006, "after city inspectors found more than 1,000 violations."

The city of Chicago sued Mr. Rezko's company at least a dozen times for failure to heat its properties. At one of the Mr. Rezko's developments, tenants went without heat from late December 1996 to mid-February 1997. Mr. Rezko's company claimed it lacked funds to heat the unit in Mr. Obama's district. But it had enough money so Mr. Rezko could write a check for $1,000 on Jan. 14, 1997 for the campaign fund of state senator Mr. Obama.

Mr. Rezko wasn't a small time operator. Over one decade, Mr. Rezko's company would get more than $100 million in loans from the city, state and federal governments in addition to private bank loans all for low-income public housing in Chicago.

The bottom line is that you can now add to the long list of questionable associated of Sen. Obama such as unrepentant terrorist William Ayres, the Rev. Jeremiah "God Damn America" Wright, the bigot and radical Father William Pfleger, more questionable associates, namely, a long list of slumlords that robbed their tenants and the state of Illinois, all with the help of then Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama. Mr. Freddoso writes that there is ample evidence of how closely Sen. Obama was and is still tied to this world of slumlords: "He's taken contributions from its big players and pushed legislation favorable to them. His closest ally in that sphere has been Rezko, who raised $250,000 for Sen. Obama's campaigns before being convicted on unrelated corruption charges earlier this year."

Mr. Freddoso has some advice for those who have to listen to Sen. Obama's recent lectures on government accountability and regulation: "When Barack Obama talks about risky real-estate investments and failures of government oversight, remember how he put Illinois taxpayers on the hook for some of the worst real-estate investments of all - investments in his close friend and in other slum landlords who took the public's money and betrayed their trust."

Voters should not think when casting a ballot that they are judging a contest in oratory. They are electing the leader of the free world, and should look to a candidate's record, achievements, and values, not his oratorical prowess. Sen. Obama would make an excellent speech coach, but there is nothing in his record, his achievements to date, his value system, or his associates that suggests he should be considered for our most important office.

Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner, and professor at the Wharton School. He is a longtime Philadelphia journalist and consumer advocate. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of the Sciences. His column appears daily in The Bulletin. You can reach him at [email protected].

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Obama About to Be Hit on Questionable Associates

blogs.abcnews.com...

There's also a curious story bubbling out there about a former Obama poker buddy, Will County Executive Larry Walsh, and questions leveled by a political opponent about Walsh's connections to a county contractor.

FBI investigates Obama's friend

www.washingtontimes.com...

The FBI is investigating a former Illinois state senator who is a poker-playing buddy of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama. According to Chicago authorities, the FBI visited the offices in Joliet, Ill., of a Will County auditor to ask questions about Larry Walsh, a longtime friend of Mr. Obama's, and his chief of staff Matt Ryan.

www.washingtontimes.com...

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And when I get to heaven To St. Peter I will tell,
"Another Worldwider reporting, sir... I've served my time in hell!"

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Breaking Story: Prosecutor Fitzgerald Could Send Obama To Jail

The Sun Times today gave a major clue that Barack Obama will indeed go down with Tony Rezko, sooner rather than later. It looks as though Rezko is about to turn on Alexi Giannoulias, the 30-year old State Treasurer of Illinois (who was elected only because Obama backed him).

www.stoptheaclu.com...

www.puma08.com...

Former Obama fundraiser Rezko, convicted of fraud, spills beans

www.suntimes.com...

OBAMA'S 'MOB-TIE' $IDEKICK

www.nypost.com...

Good grief is there anyone that isn't shady in Obama's path of friends?

Complaint hits Rezko land deal

www.washingtontimes.com...

Critics of Mr. Obama's dealings with Rezko charge that the senator may have gotten a deal on his property purchase, noting that Mrs. Rezko paid the full asking price for her property on an adjacent lot. Both of which were sold by a single seller. Mr. Obama bought his house for $1.65 million - $300,000 below the asking price.When the property was sold, Mr. Obama knew Rezko was under investigation on fraud charges.

The complaint said the Rezko loan was approved by Mutual Bank President and CEO Amrish Mahajan and others so that Mrs. Rezko could buy a 9,090-square-foot vacant parcel of real estate. It said that in January 2006, Mrs. Rezko and Mr. Obama, along with his wife Michelle, signed an agreement to sell a 10-foot strip of the property to the Obamas. At that point, according to the complaint, Mr. Connor's firm asked him to conduct the reappraisal.