Obama, His Lobbyists and His Cronies
By SusanUnPC on January 11, 2008 at 1:35 PM in Uncategorized
“Let the vetting begin,” writes Taylor Marsh, who gives us this YouTube:
ABC News is all over the scandal involving Tony Rezko, who goes on trial February 25th for “extortion and fraud charges, which include shakedown allegations involving an Illinois pension fund.” (Much more below the fold.)
Besides Rezko, here are more of Barack Obama’s lobbying connections:
- Pharmaceutical Companies: Obama’s New Hampshire campaign co-chair, Jim Demers, is a lobbyist for pharmaceutical and pro-tobacco lobbyists.
- Credit Card Companies: Obama voted to protect credit card companies’ “predatory credit card interest rates.” (Sen. Hillary Clinton voted against the amendment.)
- Nuclear Energy Companies: Exelon Corporation, “the nation’s leading nuclear-power-plant operator” is Barack Obama’s “fourth largest patron.” U.S. Sen. Obama “Obama helped to vote down an amendment that would have killed vast loan guarantees for power-plant operators” — “called ‘one of the worst provisions in this massive piece of legislation’ by Taxpayers for Common Sense and Citizens Against Government Waste; the public will not only pay millions of dollars in loan costs but will risk losing billions of dollars if the companies default.” (Harper’s)
CAN ANY OF YOU decipher what Obama is mumbling to Diane Sawyer in the Good Morning America interview? Does that mumbling remind of you his weak, faint response in the top YouTube here?
The Left Coaster has more on Rezko in “Obama Can’t Shake Connections To Chicago Insider In Trouble With FBI“:
Rezko, a Syrian-born U.S. citizen who owned a real estate development business and a group of fast-food franchises, has spent his career showering Illinois officials with campaign money. He was a top fundraiser for Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
His connection to Obama began when the future senator got national attention as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. Rezko was impressed by what he read and offered Obama a job to work in his real estate development company. Obama turned him down, but it was the beginning of a political friendship, with Rezko being one of the first to donate big bucks to Obama’s [state] senate campaign in 1996.
In October of 2006 it was revealed that Rezko helped Obama purchase a home for hundreds of thousands of dollars below the market value, while Rezko bought the lot next door. Illinois residents remember well Obama saying he didn’t recall the conversations with Rezko, then remembered after Chicago papers started examining the deal, then admitted it was a “bone-headed mistake” on ABC. [As the YouTube video shows, Obama has had a variety of "explanations" for his longtime association with Rezko.]
Rezko is charged with plotting to shake down money management firms hoping to do business with the Illinois Teachers Retirement System, a $39 billion state pension fund, for kickbacks. He also is charged with swindling the General Electric Capitol Corp. out of $10 million in a deal involving the purchase of pizza restaurants.
While Obama turned down Rezko’s offer of a job back in 1991, he ended up in a group of real estate deals involving the developer anyway. He accepted a position at the law firm then known as Davis Miner & Barnhill. There he represented community groups that partnered with a developer in getting city and state housing rehabilitation loans. The developer was Rezko.
… The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Obama provided an internship for a buddy of Rezko’s. That same article mentions a shake down of a Hollywood producer for $1.5 million in campaign contributions to Gov. Blagojevich.
See also: Today’s Chicago Tribune article, “Obama knows his way around a ballot: Some say his ability to play political hardball goes back to his first campaign.”
On Wednesday, the A.P. reported that “Barack Obama talked of introducing some Chicago smackdown to his politics of hope Wednesday, seeking a rebound after Hillary Rodham Clinton grasped victory in the New Hampshire primary.” Bring it on, Sen. Obama. Bring it ON!
Is Obama getting worried? Is that why he issued a campaign memo Wednesday, after his New Hampshire loss, that Time’s Mark Halperin mocks and tells us to check out the “memo-oozing-confidence-and-bravado here.” Is that why he came out with that god-awful endorsement from John Kerry?
This January 9th feature story at Time’s The Page blog speaks for itself:
The look on Obama’s face on Tuesday night was a “tell.” Gone was the “bravado” and the audacious “arrogance,” as a CNN commentator called the look about Obama after his Iowa win.
Let’s just hope that he begins to get asked the HARD questions by the media. ABC News, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Time’s Mark Halperin are leading the way to sober assessment and investigative reporting. Will the rest of the Obama-gob-smacked media begin to follow?
(small, medium and large sizes; for both dogs and cats)
+ 
Great news lots of hits. Sorry about the breakdown
Here is Juan Coles latest on deaths in Iraq
http://www.juancole.com/
This is for you, Kathleen, and for Shoephone — from the Las Vegas newspaper today:
I TOTALLY LOVE THAT. What class to point out Edwards’ devotion to unions and workers.
Honesty and class..thanks for the link
Here is a link for submitting questions for the debate.
here is my question too long I know but who knows?
Will be submitting more
Senator Clinton you voted for the Kyl Lieberman amendment which Senator Webb stated was “tantamount to declaring war on Iran”. This amendment defines the Iranian Revoutionary Guard as “terrorist”. Senator Obama you just happened to be out of town on the day that the most critically important legislation on Iran came up.
There was a recent encounter between U.S. naval ships and Iranians in the Straits of Hormuz. Cnn reported that those Iranians were members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. This means that U.S. naval ships are patrolling waters with members of the Iranian military that our congress has defined as “terrorist” based on unsubstantiated claims that are in the Kyl Lieberman amendment.
Senator Clinton why did you vote yes on this warmongering legislation and Senator Obama why did you sit on the fence on this legislation when you call yourself an “anti-war candidate?
SUBMIT AWAY
http://www.januarydebate.com/
You and I had a private e-mail exchange about the use of the word warmonger. Voting for a resolution that does not authorize war and does call a terrorist group a terrorist group (as factual a statement as saying the sun rises in the morning) does not constitute warmongering. Sen. Clinton — as well as Larry Johnson here — believe that the heavily revised amendment (required by many before they’d vote on it) was the “sticks” part of carrots-and-sticks diplomacy. Some disagree, like Sen. Jim Webb who I admire very much, and I can also see their concern and apprehensions vis a vis how Bush would view it. But it’s hardly warmongering.
Further, at least Clinton stuck her neck out by making a public vote, whereas Obama not only skipped the Kyl/Lieberman vote but then LIED to Wolf Blitzer about how he missed the vote — claiming he didn’t know in advance about the vote and was stuck in New Hampshire campaigning. The truth is that all Senators were told the day before about the vote, but Obama didn’t want to be on record either way. Just as he voted “Present” many times in the Illinois State Senate.
I agree I have more respect for Clinton for voting than for Obama. Many of us at Empty Wheels went through much of the proposed legislation before it was passed and hammered away at the legislation pushing for them to drop particular parts of that legislation. We were well aware of what Kyl and Lieberman were pushing for before the final amendment
We disagree. I call defining the Iranian Revolutionary Guard “terrorist” which was based on unsubstantiated claims, warmongering. What would you call it?
This was the first time in our history that we have defined a standing army “terroist” The first time. This is the way into Iran and the neo-cons know it.
Kathleen,
I have not understood why everyone is up in a lather over defining the IRGC as “terrorists”. Based on my experience and memory of the 80s it is a proper and accurate characterization. Remember, it was a senior IRGC fellow in communication with the folks in Saudi Arabia who blew up Khobar Towers.
Let’s be clear what Hillary was doing. First, she pushed to get the language out that would have empowered Bush to launch an attack on Iran. However, she also understood that voting against the notion that the IRGC is a terrorist organization would be used against her and all Democrats in the general election.
More than likely my question will not get on…but I have literally gotten on both Talk of the Nation and the Diane Rehm show literally hundreds of times the last seven years asking questions that push the envelope a bit. I am not bull shitting here…hundreds of times my first phone call was just after the Supreme court judicial coup in 2000. I have not stopped since.
That is very interesting, Susan. I’m sure that most of her motivation is finding any avenue for criticizing Obama, but her giving Edwards recognition in the process doesn’t bother me at all!
Ah Shucks Susan you have done it again…you rock!
Your incredible…will be spreading this one around the neighborhood.
Whose next on your fact $$$$ check list Susan? Hillary Edwards?
I know you want to be fair and balanced so we can make informed desisions.
Kathleen, there are plenty of people vetting Edwards and Clinton. There are so very few people vetting Obama, so I’m going to concentrate on that for now.
ALSO: I just added a comment at the end of the “above the fold” section.
I can’t for the life of me figure out what Obama is mumbling to Diane Sawyer. Can you? (All I can say is that it’s pathetic…. imagine a president mumbling indecipherable utterings.)
Fair is fair…trust your insights
I’m sorry if this repeats.
I don’t think you want to go down this path.
The GOP and some progressives are waiting to attack Hillary again with the following:
IN 2007, A Pakistani immigrant who hosted fundraisers for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton became a target of the FBI allegations that he funneled illegal contributions to Clinton’s political action committee
HILLARY CLINTON SUPPORTED the appointment of Rudy Giuliani’s buddy, Bernie Kerick, to be Secretary of Homeland Security,. Kerick subsecquently withdrew and not long after was indicted.
NUMBER of Hillary Clinton fundraisers convicted of, or pleading no contest to, crime: 5
NUMBER OF TIMES that Hillary Clinton, providing testimony to Congress, said that she didn’t remember, didn’t know, or something similar: 250
NUMBER OF CLOSE BUSINESS partners of Hillary Clinton who ended up in prison: 3. The Clintons’ two partners in Whitewater wereconvicted of 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy.
IN THE 1980s, Hillary Clinton made a $44,000 profit on a $2,000 investment in a cellular phone franchise deal took advantage of the FCC’s preference for locals, minorities and women. The franchise was almost immediately flipped to the cellular giant, McCaw.
IN 1993 HILLARY CLINTON and David Watkins moved to oust the White House travel office in favor of World Wide Travel, Clinton’s source of $1 million in fly-now-pay-later campaign trips that essentially financed the last stages of the campaign without the bother of reporting a de facto contribution.
IN 1996, Hillary Clinton’s Rose law firm billing records, sought for two years by congressional investigators and the special prosecutor were found in the back room of the personal residence at the White House. Clinton said she had no idea how they got there.
DRUG DEALER Jorge Cabrera gave enough to the Democrats to have his picture taken with both Hillary Clinton and Al Gore. . . Cabrera was arrested in January 1996 inside a cigar warehouse near here in Dade County, where more than 500 pounds of cocaine had been hidden. He and several accomplices were charged with having smuggled 3,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States through the Keys
In 2000, Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign returned $22,000 in soft money to a businesswoman linked to a Democratic campaign contribution from a drug smuggler in Havana.
continue
http://prorev.com/hillary.htm
KATHLEEN ALERT: You have to read this MyDD diary with much more on Obama and his lobbyists. This guy has access to subscription-only lobbying services, and has the scoop (and the dirt).
Passing this on…thanks
Don’t ya just love it when people try to take you down cause you came up in Chicago & you end up having a few iffy friends? The Daily’s probably have a few iffy friends,(I’m being nice) how in the hell do you come up in Chicgo without runnin’ into a few iffies in the Windy? huh? I’d love to hear the perscribed social register of squeeky clean politicos in Chicago.
I agree. but if he was fully aware of what was taking place for Rezko and then how do you explain having a campaign manager in New Hampshire who is a lobbyist.
That is not too sharp
It’s not just that Jim Demers is a pharmacuetical AND tobacco industry lobbyist. It’s that Hillary pointed it out at the debate and Obama flat out lied and said “no, he isn’t!”
When candidates lie about their campaign managers and who they are getting money from, it’s fair game. (That’s what Think Progress, Media Matters, Open Secrets.org and FactCheck.org are all about, and thank God for them.)
Hillary has been called out for trying to gloss over her special interest fundraising with her “lobbyists are people too” comment. She deserved to be called out. Plus, like Obama, she wants to negotiate WITH insurance companies over a health care plan. Bad move I say — it all deserves scrutiny. And as an Edwards supporter, I have been equally as incensed about some of the really offensive things that Mudcat Saunders (his campaign honcho) has said about Southerners and women.
I don’t like it when any of them lie or try to paper over their associations. But it’s just a fact that Obama has gotten very little scrutiny so far. That needs to change.
When candidates lie about their campaign managers and who they are getting money from, it’s fair game.
Shoe,
The campaign gave a sorry justification for it too. They said he lobbys the state, not the federal government so this is legal.
Cee - Their excuse qualifies as either the epitome of the word “parsing” or the word “spinning”! Ok. Both.
Shoephone writes: “It’s not just that Jim Demers is a pharmacuetical AND tobacco industry lobbyist. It’s that Hillary pointed it out at the debate and Obama flat out lied and said “no, he isn’t!””
That is the point. I hate to say this but, since I have researched Obama rather extensively, it seems that he has a habit of lying, or dissembling. (Yes, we all do, but …)
And he’s not particularly adept at lying. he looks like a little boy when he’s lying — as both of the YouTube videos above show — and the great orator gets rather inarticulate and unintelligible, and his voice recedes to a faint level.
If you use the Chicago Tribune link in my story, you should find a link to the lengthy “bio” that the ChiTrib did of Obama. Their reporters fact-checked the biographical details in his books about his life, and found many of his stories to be inaccurate or just plain not true. Others have written that his two books are full of composite characters, made-up stories, etc. but I don’t have a link at my fingertips on that. However, the ChiTrib’s bio is a helpful starting point.
Watched the clip with Diane Sawyer and Obama. Sounds like Obama said “wada wada what she”
he is going to catch it with this no lobbyist claim
The MSM is starting to turn the heat up on The Obamarama parade. Uh oh.
Where would I find the breakdown for Hillary’s $$$ and lobbyist connections and support?
How far back do you want to go? 35 years?
Cee posted a good link for that a few back.
It’s fair to go after the rest. But what bugs me is that Obama is pretending to run free of lobbyists and “special interests” while he’s not.
I far more believe Edwards when he touts a special-interests-free administration. It’s become a cause for him.
It is impossible to emerge from Chicago patron politics without having “served” somebody higher on the ladder. Edwards is not getting traction simply because he is threatning those very power structures…it’s no wonder the MSM is ignoring him considering they very people he wants to take on have permenant lease on the airwave he needs.
And they have been ignoring him for the whole year. think progress had some interesting pie charts and graphs on this ..can’t find them now
For starters, if you want to look at the contributions for 2008 races, go here:
http://www.opensecrets.org/
Thanks Shoephone! I was drawing a blank!
Shorter version of this post: Obama is almost as sleazy and beholden to big money interests as Clinton, so vote for Clinton!
Doesn’t make sense to me.
Clinton proposes economic plan for Georgia’s working families
by andrewalker08, Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 02:27:23 PM EST
Clinton Unveils Aggressive Plan to Jumpstart U.S. Economy
Plan Would Help Tens of Thousands of Georgia Families Stay In Their Homes; Provide Over 1.1 Million With Energy Assistance
Hillary Clinton is unveiling an aggressive $70 billion stimulus package today that would boost the U.S. economy and help families who have been hit hardest by the economic downturn across America and Georgia.
Clinton detailed the five-part stimulus plan in a speech at the IBEW Hall in City of Commerce, CA. Her plan would specifically help homeowners who have been hurt by the housing foreclosure crisis, provide immediate relief to families who are facing skyrocketing energy bills, support workers who have lost their jobs, and make immediate investments in “green collar jobs” which will not only stimulate the economy, but improve the environment.
More than 1.1 million Georgians would receive energy assistance under Clinton’s plan, and tens of thousands of families would get help to avoid foreclosure and stay in their homes.
“Economists and politicians are finally waking up to what many of America’s families already know: that we might be sliding into a recession,” Clinton said. … Read all.
Luke,
Yes, except he hasn’t been as long enough to be as corrupt. One of the TV gasbags said that last night.
’bout time we started to take a good, hard look at Obama. He is not who he’s selling to the public.
Add AROUND AS LONG in my prior post
I gotta say something. I started reading this blog because it had a lot of interesting stuff to say on military and strategic affairs that I didn’t find elsewhere, and I appreciate Larry’s take on things.
I appreciate Susan’s take, too. And I do indeed care a lot about the coming election. But I have to say, I’m not hanging around here as much now that it’s all pro-Clinton, anti-Obama all the time. Edwards is my first choice. If he doesn’t make it, as seems likely, I’m not sure who I’ll go for. Either one is a far better alternative, IMO, than any repug. But I don’t want to argue that right now.
I would just like a return to some more of the original content of this blog. There’s a lot going on out there.
Thankyouverymuch.
Delia, you’re always welcome to send me links to stories you’d like see covered. It is a help because I don’t have enough time to read as much as I’d like about all the issues. If you write a comment or two, I will consider adding your thoughts to the story. susanunpc at gmail dot com
Caveat: Don’t send me too much. My Inbox is a mess, and I’ve got hundreds of e-mails I have yet to open. (Joined a mailing list that is impossible to keep up with, but I can’t bring myself to quit it yet, and it’d be impossible to read the daily digest because there are too many e-mails.) I’ve tried using filters to organize the e-mails but that means I tend not to get to those folders containing the filtered e-mails.
Delia - Did you get a chance to read this post on “Charlie Wilson’s War” from the other day?
http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/01/09/more-on-charlie-wilsons-war/#more-1294
It’s written by a friend of Larry’s who served in special opps during the Russian/Afghanistan War.
It’s really fascinating. Make sure to read through the comment thread as well.
If Edwards doesn’t make it, I’m writing him in in November! I no longer want to feel I am being forced to vote for people I know are NOT GOOD or that I don’t believe. The Democratic party has been foisting losers on us now for two long…look at the present Congress, then add either Clinton or Obama. What do you think you’ll get? A lot watered down stuff or legislation that is outright mostly Republican.
Enough is enough! If Americans can’t see that we need a fighter instead of collaborators, then they deserve what they get…which will be nothing.
Sorry for the typos….TOO LONG (not two)…and people that I don’t believe IN. AAARGHH!
A look at this list is better than a B to B phone book for energy interests of Illinois.
http://www.futuregenforillinois.com/task_force.htm
William Kennard
DC Carlyle Group Bundler for Barack Obama, raised more than $200,000.00 2008
Louis Susman
IL Citigroup Corporate and Investment Banking Bundler for Barack Obama, raised more than $200,000.00 2008
I have to say if you have it flaunt it.
I Wonder why the Carlyle Group has not donated to Hillary.
http://www.whitehouseforsale.org/index.cfm
They’re all connected
As head of the Carlyle Group, David M. Rubenstein is a regular at power lunches along the New York-Washington corridor.Mr. Rubenstein and other
American financiers have long traveled to the Middle East in search of energy dollars to finance deals in the United States. Carlyle, in fact, has been one of the more aggressive in courting Mideast investors.
————————————————-
From Clinton friend Dick Morris
Saturday, March 4, 2006 2:02 p.m. EST
Dick Morris: Clinton on Dubai Payroll
Former President Bill Clinton is up to his eyeballs in dealings with Dubai, his former top political adviser has revealed.
According to Dick Morris, author of the best-selling book, “Condi vs, Hillary,” Clinton is a paid agent of the crown prince of Dubai, now involved in a firestorm over its deal to take over some of the operations at six major U.S. ports.
“Bill Clinton is a senior adviser - a paid adviser - to a company called Yucaipa which recently set up a relationship with a group called the Yucaipa Investment group to set up a new company called DIGL,” Morris said on “The O’Reilly Factor.”
“DIGL Inc. is in charge of managing the investments of the crown prince of Dubai throughout the world. Bill Clinton is paid by Yucaipa a percentage of the profits it makes, and Yucaipa said its profits have exceeded 40 percent in recent years.
“He is a paid agent of the crown prince of Dubai. That in addition to the roughly million dollars they gave his library, in addition to the probably $600,000 in speaking fees he got, and in addition to the scholarships for Dubai children they endowed through his library.
“I have three points about that. First, when Bill Clinton tells us this port deal is kosher, he ought to disclose that he’s being paid by the government. Secondly, he should register as an agent of a foreign principal because he’s giving public relations advice to a foreign company. And thirdly, his wife should disclose how much Clinton is being paid and when he’s been paid, because it goes into a joint bank account and this is in effect a payment to the husband of a senator.
“And then I would raise another question: Didn’t Hillary jump out of the box opposing this port deal because she knew of her husband’s vulnerability and wanted to get out ahead of the story? I was talking to a source of mine who’s very close to the Clintons about seven or eight months ago and the source said that he’s all the time going back and forth to Dubai and getting deeper and deeper into that relationship. She (Hillary) was worried about that and its political impact,” Morris said.
I did not have_______ with that Dubia…I mean Dubai.
I would dearly love to see CIFIUS peeled back and pumped out by a Rooter-Rooter Truck. Everyone acted like they were completly in the dark about what goes on over at CIFIUS. I would take old Morris says with a gain of salt. If he is being paid by a foreign government doesn’t that have to be declared? I am curious if Hillary was concerned about it because of Bill’s activities….
Good one Cee…
To your point Cee: Seems like a bunch of the Bohemian Club members got a piece of the action.
I was looking for the current status of this deal but nothing since 2006…
[...] smackdown” — a reference to the shady, brutal, mobbed-up world of Chicago politics with which Obama is intimately familar. But now he and his campaign are resorting to low-brow, trumped-up racism? (For a while, it seemed [...]
Caveat. The latest version of the Chicago Trib Obama story “Knows is way around a ballot” seems to be a somewhat sanitized version of what they posted in Aprl titled
“Showing his bare knuckles
In first campaign, Obama revealed hard-edged, uncompromising side in eliminating party rivals”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/chi-0704030881apr04,0,3337845,full.story?coll=chi_news_politics_obama_promo
For one thing I can’t find in the “ballot” version the quote about destroying Alice Palmer which was in the “bare-knuckle” version:
And he defended his use of ballot maneuvers: “If you can win, you should win and get to work doing the people’s business.”
….
[dunno whether this is in the sanitized or not:]
Asked whether the district’s primary voters were well-served by having only one candidate, Obama smiled and said: “I think they ended up with a very good state senator.”
Imo a very nasty, dismissive thing to say, as they already HAD a very good state senator, Alice Palmer. Mr Kumbaya Negotiator could have done things a little differently, and got TWO state senate seats for his group, instead of bumping her out of hers and then making nasty remarks about her.
More details at my LiveJournal.
[...] you remember “Obama, His Lobbyists and His Cronies,” my January 11th piece on ABC News’s reports on Barack Obama’s long [...]
[...] Obama, His Lobbyists and His Cronies [...]
[...] Obama, His Lobbyists and His Cronies [...]
[...] Obama, His Lobbyists and His Cronies [...]
[...] Obama, His Lobbyists and His Cronies [...]
[...] you recall “Obama, His Lobbyists and His Cronies,” my January 11th piece on ABC News’s reports on Barack Obama’s long associations with — and [...]
[...] Obama, His Lobbyists and His Cronies [...]