The Chicago Way – Garden Variety – a new state investigation of Obama friends

Foreword by SusanUnPC: The report below, found and written cogently by LisaB, is a typical Obama operation whereby he preaches his usual lofty rhetoric, but delivers only to his insider rich friends. Taxpayer money is diverted to the likes of Obama’s close friend, the now-convicted Tony Rezko, who also enabled the Obamas to buy a mansion they couldn’t afford. Some reasons for our nation’s current financial crisis are found in the kinds of cozy public housing deals supposedly to help poor people but which benefited mostly Obama’s rich Chicago machine buddies. Below LisaB’s report I’ve listed some essential reading on how Obama has manipulated public housing monies to reward his political benefactors.
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LISAB: Thursday’s Sun-Times has an article following up on an old campaign promise Obama made to would-be Illinois constituents. Way back when Obama was trying to (unsuccessfully) seat US Rep. Bobby Rush, Obama promised to “work tirelessly” to get a local garden built for an inner city neighborhood.

The matter is now under investigation by the state attorney general.

A $100,000 state grant for a botanic garden in Englewood that then-state Sen. Barack Obama awarded in 2001 to a group headed by a onetime campaign volunteer is now under investigation by the Illinois attorney general amid new questions, prompted by Chicago Sun-Times reports, about whether the money might have been misspent.

The garden was never built. And now state records obtained by the Sun-Times show $65,000 of the grant money went to the wife of Kenny B. Smith, the Obama 2000 congressional campaign volunteer who heads the Chicago Better Housing Association, which was in charge of the project for the blighted South Side neighborhood.

Smith wrote another $20,000 in grant-related checks to K.D. Contractors, a construction company that his wife, Karen D. Smith, created five months after work on the garden was supposed to have begun, records show. K.D. is no longer in business.
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In a previous interview, Smith said the state grant money was legitimately spent, mostly on underground site preparation.
But no one ever took out construction permits required for such work, city records show. And a contractor who Smith said did most of the work told a reporter all he did was cut down trees and grade the site with a Bobcat.
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The relationship between Smith and Obama dates to at least 1997, when Obama wrote a letter that Smith used to help the housing association win city funding for an affordable-housing development near the garden site. Plans called for more than 50 homes; a dozen ultimately were built.
Smith also has donated $550 to Obama campaign funds.

Does this sound kind of shady (no pun intended, really) to you? Well, by Chicago standards, this is penny ante. But it’s the Chicago way.

1) Get money from the government
2) Involve friends and relatives who get a piece of the project
3) Don’t bother to do the job
4) Get indignant if questioned and act pugnaciously

One last component.

5) Don’t bother to really hide the graft. No one cares anyway.

Voila! The Chicago way.

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Afterword by SusanUNPC: For more, do not miss these essential reads, two No Quarter stories by Un coup de des:

(1) “Boston Globe Exposé, Part II: Barack Obama (D-Slumlord) Is Aloof, Oblivious, Dangerous and

(2) “Boston Globe Exposé, Part II: Barack Obama (D-Slumlord) Is Aloof, Oblivious, Dangerous.

There’s also my recent story, “The Blood Money of Barack Obama’s Money Men.”