SusanUnPC’s April 8th note: When even Keith Olbermann lowers the boom — calling President Barack Obama’s decision “change you cannot believe in”, condemning Obama for going further than Bush in his expansion of invasive, extra-Constitutional powers — you know the Obama Administration is going to the “dark side,” as Jane Mayer describes in her esteemed book. Howard Fineman explains the administration’s amoral political calculus and its “newbie” problem, and refers to Mayer’s book. When Mayer is a guest on No Quarter Radio soon, we will ask her about this astonishing abandonment of key principles touted by Obama during his candidacy, when he said whatever it took. Question of the Day: Didn’t the Kossack crowd scream for Bush’s impeachment over precisely this issue? Why not threaten Obama with impeachment?

P.S. Do you remember this Boston Globe article about Hillary Clinton on October 11, 2007? “Clinton vows to check executive powers.” If but for the willful Obamabots’ delusions and caucus thuggery, we’d have a president who would stand up to the intelligence community because, for one thing, Hillary wouldn’t have a learning curve hurdle and already knows who’s who, while Obama, as always, thinks he can cover up his ignorance by charming people through doing their bidding. My hunch is that, to a one, the intel community has disdain for his ignorance and unctuous collusion.

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer and friend of Larry Johnson’s, is a contributing editor to The American Conservative and a fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance. Originally published at Antiwar.com.

Those who hoped that the change promised by candidate Barack Obama would include repeal of the various acts that have stripped Americans of their constitutional rights should be disappointed.

Benjamin Franklin supposedly wrote, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” The citation is likely apocryphal, at least in terms of its attribution to Franklin, but it is useful shorthand for the unfortunate abandonment of many of the liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution as a consequence of 9/11.

The trauma of 9/11 created an opportunity for those seeking to centralize executive power, an objective of recent presidents from both political parties. Many Americans initially accepted that there had to be some abridgment of fundamental liberties while fighting a multi-faceted and unconventional war against terrorism, but few realize just how much the constitutional rights that all citizens take for granted have been eroded. History also teaches us that once a right is suspended, in all likelihood it is gone forever.

The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 might well be described as one of history’s more spectacular euphemisms employed to gut a constitution, somewhat akin to Hitler’s “emergency act” in the wake of the Reichstag fire of 1933. It is better known as PATRIOT Act I. PATRIOT Act I became law six weeks after the fall of the Twin Towers and was followed by PATRIOT Act II in 2006. The two laws together diminish constitutional guarantees of free speech, freedom of association, freedom from illegal search, the right to habeas corpus, prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, and prohibition of the illegal seizure of private property. The First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments in the Bill of Rights have all been discarded or abridged in the rush to make it easier to investigate, torture, and jail both foreigners and American citizens. The PATRIOT Act also incorporates the Financial Anti-Terrorism Act of Oct. 17, 2001, which permits the freezing of assets and investigation of individuals suspected of being financial supporters of terrorism. “Suspected” is the key word, as there is no oversight or appeal in the process.

The Military Commission Act of 2006 (MCA) followed the PATRIOT Acts, creating military tribunals for the trying of “unlawful enemy combatants,” including American citizens. Unlike a civil or criminal court, the accused needs only a two-thirds vote by the commission members present to be convicted. The act permits the indefinite jailing of suspects in a military prison without being charged with a crime or given access to a lawyer. The government is not required to produce any normally admissible evidence at a commission hearing and can rely on hearsay or even information obtained overseas during torture to make its case. Detainees do not have access to any classified information used against them and cannot cross-examine or even know the identity of witnesses. The MCA suspends habeas corpus for anyone charged and forbids the application of the Geneva Conventions to mitigate conditions of confinement or to challenge the judicial process or verdict. The Geneva Conventions also cannot be invoked if the accused subsequently claims he was tortured or otherwise abused, protecting overly zealous interrogators from later charges of “war crimes.” The act was also designed to cover all cases that were pending, meaning that it was retroactive.

An executive order issued on July 17, 2007, which is still in effect, authorized the president to seize the property of anyone who “threatens stabilization efforts in Iraq.” As the administration’s own Justice Department decides what constitutes “threatening stabilization efforts,” the order can be used to go after any critic of the government. Most disturbing, the order does not permit a challenge to the information the seizure is based on, and it also permits the confiscation of the property of anyone who comes to the assistance of the suspected de-stabilizer.

The threat to civil liberties is real. Under the authority of the PATRIOT Act, the FBI requested more than 30,000 national security letters in 2007, and the number was surely higher in 2008. The letters enable the FBI to look at anyone’s personal information without any judicial oversight or showing of cause. Anyone who is presented with a letter and compelled to cooperate to provide information on a suspect cannot reveal that the letter has been received. Are there 30,000 terrorists roaming the United States? If there were, the country would surely be a bombed-out ruin by now. The government is instead using the security letters and the other tools provided by the PATRIOT Act legislation to look at people who are completely innocent of any wrongdoing, because it is convenient to be able to do so without the bother of having to go to a judge for a search warrant.

Sen. Barack Obama opposed the MCA and voted against it. He was not in the Senate when the first PATRIOT Act was passed, but he criticized the second version for its abuse of civil liberties before voting for an amended version. Candidate Obama ran on his record of opposition to the various pieces of legislation, noting consistently that they had authorized the abuse of authority by law enforcement and had abridged the rights of every American. Unfortunately, President Obama appears to have forgotten the principled positions he took as a senator and presidential candidate. After his inauguration, he moved quickly to publicly ban the CIA’s use of torture, a meaningless gesture in that the Agency had already abandoned the practice, but it now appears that he will do nothing to revoke Bush-era legislation like the MCA that he once strongly criticized. There is every indication that he will also endorse renewal of the PATRIOT Act when it expires at the end of the year, afraid that if he does not do so and there is a terrorist attack he will pay a significant political price. The Obama administration has also been silent about the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretaps and has invoked the “state-secrets privilege” in connection with a lawsuit by the Islamic charity al-Haramain in an apparent bid to prevent disclosure of the warrantless wiretap procedure.

President Obama is not just contradicting his progressive campaign promises and betraying many of the people who voted for him. As a lawyer, he surely understands that protecting the government’s questionably legal “rights” to monitor citizens completely subverts the rule of law, because it guarantees that there will be no accountability. Currently, judges who rule on the state-secrets issue are not themselves allowed to see the alleged classified information, meaning that there is absolutely no transparency to the process in which the government is asserting an extralegal privilege that is surely unconstitutional.

If the Obama administration is beginning to sound like the Bush White House, it should. To be sure, the new president is relying on the advice of many Bush administration holdovers like FBI Director Robert Mueller. Mueller asserts, without providing any evidence, that the tools provided by the PATRIOT Act have been effective in preventing terrorism, just as Bush-era intelligence chiefs claimed that torture and extraordinary rendition were essential to meet the terrorist threat. All such claims should be viewed with extreme skepticism, particularly as they are rarely backed up by any evidence. The government also often lies when it wants to make a case for some illegal action. Claims made in 2008 that the waterboarding of Abu Zubaida produced a flood of information that frustrated terrorist plots are now revealed to have been false. Zubaida confused his interrogators and sent them off on wild goose chases with information that was either deliberately deceptive or flat-out wrong. In reality, the government cannot cite a single instance where the use of draconian new legislation or illegal procedures like torture has either prevented a terrorist incident or led to the arrest of anyone who was ready, willing, and able to carry out a violent act.

Obama would have been wiser to ignore the experts and sit back and consider the broader picture. Does the creation of a monstrous Department of Homeland Security supported by a bloated defense and intelligence establishment really make sense in light of the threat that the U.S. actually faces? How did we arrive at a 400,000-name no-fly list and an NSA that has conducted hundreds of millions of interceptions of telephone calls without any oversight?

That a small group of terrorists holed up in an isolated and backward part of the world got lucky against an unsuspecting America on 9/11 is clear, but the odds of them repeating that spectacular success are minimal. More than seven years later, the actual vulnerability of international terrorism should be completely clear and the government should be telling the people the good news, that al-Qaeda is on its last legs and that the other Salafist terrorist groups that have a similar philosophy have been hounded and contained all around the world. There has been no successful terrorist action within the United States, and the appeal of jihadist terrorism is on the wane everywhere else. Its moment has passed.

In spite of the reduced threat, under Obama the business of fighting terrorism goes on with a change in the rhetoric but not in the policy, buttressed by an enlarged military budget to spread the cheer to Afghanistan and increased spending on intelligence. And there is no sign that the liberties that Americans have bartered away are about to be returned. Having an amorphous foreign threat hanging around is always good politics, as it can be used to divert attention from more serious problems at home. Having the mechanisms at hand to investigate an American citizen can also be useful when the critics become too loud. Those who feared that George W. Bush would give his successors unconstitutional tools that they would be reluctant to relinquish have apparently been vindicated.

Well get this. Oh, this is good. Another one of Obama’s appointees, Vivek Kundra, had two people under him who have been arrested by the FBI. Yes, you read that right, and you can read more here:

An employee of the D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Officer and a private contractor were charged with corruption Thursday after an FBI raid at the former office of one of President Obama’s appointees, Vivek Kundra.

Kundra is on leave from his White House job until further details of the case become known, a White House source tells the Associated Press.

Gee, ya THINK??? Well, then again, int his age of Chicago-style politics gone national, who the hell knows? In Obama’s world, he’ll probably get a PROMOTION or something after this. You know there’s more:

Kundra has not been linked to Thursday’s raid.

Yusuf Acar, 40, acting chief security officer of the D.C. Office of the CTO, was charged with bribery of a public official, money laundering, wire fraud and conflict of interest.

Acar was ordered held without bond until a hearing Tuesday.

FBI agents found $70,000 in Acar’s Northwest D.C. home when they arrested him Thursday morning.

Acar, a native of Turkey, is responsible for buying D.C.’s computer equipment and hiring contract workers for various D.C. agencies. Acar, who has been with the agency since December 2004, has an annual salary of $127,468, according to charging documents.

Sushil Bansal, President and CEO of Advanced Integrated Technologies Corporation (AITC) and a former D.C. government employee, was charged with bribery of a public official, money laundering, wire fraud and conflict of interest.

Bansal, 41, was released but ordered not to engage in overseas financial transactions and had to surrender his passport. Bansal, of Dunn Loring, Va., is due back in court on April 21.

Government records show Bansal, a native of India, is not a U.S. citizen and holds an H-1B visa, which is given to foreign workers in specialty occupations.

Authorities say Acar and Bansal, along with others, used a variety of schemes to defraud the D.C. government, including billing the District for inventory that was never delivered and billing “ghost” contract employees who never worked.

The alleged scheme involved Acar approving falsified bills and then splitting the money with Bansal – who submitted them – and other vendors, according to charging documents.

Wowie zowie. WHO is it that is supposed to be vetting people to work in the White House again? What am I saying – OBAMA was never thoroughly vetted, why should his employees have to be? Ahem. At least the FBI is playing well with others:

The FBI worked with another D.C. Office of the CTO employee who was in on the scheme and secretly recorded conversations with Acar and Bansal as part of the investigation.

Several other individuals and businesses are involved in the alleged schemes, but an FBI affidavit supporting the arrest warrants only identifies them by their initials.

Bansal’s company has offices in D.C. and India and received more than $13 million in business with the D.C. government in the past five years, according to court documents.

One contract involved providing computer support to the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles. The company also was given a contract to upgrade the city’s human resources computer records and sold virus detection software to the city.

In 2008, Bansal received the Entrepreneur of the Year Award from the Association of Indians in America, according to AITC’s Web site.

Last week, Kundra resigned from his post as D.C. chief technology officer to take a job in the Obama administration as the federal government’s chief information officer.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the Department of Justice told the White House on Thursday morning of its planned raid.

However, Gibbs declined to comment on whether the White House was aware of the investigation before Thursday.

“No comment! No comment!” That is going to become the new “Words, Just Words!” of the Obama Administration, dontcha think? Gibbs hasn’t been all that inspiring anyway, but boy, oh, boy – when something like this comes down the pike, I’m sure he has to be shoved out to the podium.

And here’s the rest:

AITC has been working with the D.C. government since 2004. Once Kundra took over as D.C. Chief Technology Officer in March 2007, AITC’s contracts doubled to more than $5 million in 2008.

Kundra has also worked for Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). During his time at SAIC, Kundra provided consulting services at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

On AITC’s Web site, Bansal lists SAIC as one of AITC’s strategic partners and says his firm has performed contract work for HHS.

On Thursday morning, the FBI served a search warrant at the office of D.C.’s Chief Technology Officer.

More than a dozen FBI agents – including evidence technicians – were at the office, located at 1 Judiciary Square on 4th Street in Northwest.

Most of the employees were told to go home. Other employees were put into a waiting room.

The FBI later expanded its search from 9th floor offices to 10th floor offices.

The 10th floor was closed to the public while the FBI searched the offices that house the Administrative Services Modernization Program.

As the raid took place, Kundra was giving a speech at FOSE – an annual government technology expo – about changing the way the government purchases materials from vendors.

Doesn’t the irony make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Or is that just your blood pressure rising? Kundra is giving a speech about changing the way the government buys stuff from vendors, while his office is being raided! You cannot make this shit up, people. It is almost laughable. Almost.

What happened to the “Change in the way things are done in Washington” meme that we heard about AD NAUSEUM from Obama? I guess the change is that they are just becoming more blatant about hiring a bunch of crooks. Holy smokes. If this keeps up, I’m gonna need a scorecard…

As many of you may already know, Bill Moyers worked in the Lyndon Johnson Administration, and it is that period of time with which this article deals:

One of the darker periods of modern American history was J. Edgar Hoover’s long reign over the FBI, as we have learned since he died in 1972. So it is more than a historical footnote to discover new records showing that prominent public television broadcaster Bill Moyers participated in Hoover’s exploits.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, the Washington Post has obtained a few of the former FBI director’s secret files. According to a Thursday front-page story, Hoover was “consumed” with exposing a (nonexistent) relationship between a gay photographer and Jack Valenti, the late film industry lobbyist who was then an aide to Lyndon Johnson. Hoover’s M.O. was to amass incriminating personal information as political blackmail.

But as the Post reports in passing, the dossier also reveals that Mr. Moyers — then a special assistant to LBJ — requested in 1964 that Hoover’s G-men “investigate two other administration figures who were ’suspected as having homosexual tendencies.’”

Sigh. Tell me that doesn’t make you sad. It does me. I know, I know, it was a different time, but for someone who has long been considered to be above that sort of thing to have engaged in that sort of thing is just disheartening. Especially because:

This isn’t the first time Mr. Moyers’s name has come up in connection with Hoover’s abuse of office. When Laurence Silberman, now a federal appeals judge, was acting Attorney General in 1975, he was obliged to read Hoover’s secret files in their entirety in preparation for testimony before Congress — and as far as we know remains one of the only living officials to have done so. “It was the single worst experience of my long governmental service,” he wrote in these pages in 2005.

Amid “bits of dirt on figures such as Martin Luther King,” Judge Silberman found a 1964 memo from Mr. Moyers directing Hoover’s agents to investigate Barry Goldwater’s campaign staff for evidence of homosexual activity. A few weeks before, an LBJ aide named Walter Jenkins had been arrested in a men’s bathroom, and Mr. Silberman wrote that Mr. Moyers and his boss evidently wanted leverage in the event Goldwater* tried to use the liaison against them. (He didn’t, as it happened.)

When that episode became public after Mr. Silberman testified, an irate Mr. Moyers called him and, with typical delicacy, accused him of falling for forged CIA memos. Mr. Silberman offered to study the matter and, should Mr. Moyers’s allegations pan out, he would publicly exonerate him. “There was a pause on the line and then he said, ‘I was very young. How will I explain this to my children?’ And then he rang off.”

How indeed, Mr. Moyers? Or to the rest of us who have developed a deep respect and admiration for you? Or is this just old news:

Memories are short in Washington, and Mr. Moyers has gone on to promote himself as a political moralist, routinely sermonizing about what he claims are abuses of power by his ideological enemies. Since 9/11, he has been particularly intense in criticizing President Bush for his antiterror policies, such as warrantless wiretapping against al Qaeda.

Yet the historical record suggests that when Mr. Moyers was in a position of actual power, he was complicit in FBI dirt-digging against U.S. citizens solely for political purposes. As Judge Silberman put it in 2005, “I have always thought that the most heinous act in which a democratic government can engage is to use its law enforcement machinery for political ends.”

Mr. Moyers told us through a spokeswoman that he “never heard of the Valenti matter until this story and had nothing to add to it.” He also pointed to a 1975 Newsweek article in which he wrote that he learned of the LBJ-Hoover relationship in “the quickly fading days of my innocence.” In the Nixon days, this was called a nondenial denial.

Well, my memory isn’t short. And the “nondenial denial” just doesn’t help matters much. I expected more, and better, from Mr. Moyers.

Oh – and just in case some folks have forgotten, J. Edgar Hoover was mighty good friends with Joseph McCarthy. As in the one from whom we have the term, “McCarthyism.” I might add, that J. Edgar Hoover was notorious for spying on American citizens. So, bear that in mind as you consider the above, and all of the ramifications of this article. (There are tons of books available on the subject of McCarthyism, McCarthy, and J. Edgar Hoover, if you wish to learn more. A simple search will reveal a number of them, especially at Amazon.com.)

And I wonder what Mr. Moyers thinks of Obama’s maintaining of some of Bush’s more egregious policies, given how outspoken he was when Bush began them (FISA, anti-terror policies like extraordinary rendition, State Secrets, etc., etc.). Despite the disappointment of what this article reveals, I hope Mr. Moyers will continue to hold the powers-that-be feet to the fire. That he will hold Obama accountable for continuing so many of the more despicable policies of Bush II that he decried when Bush did them.

Still, the disappointment lingers.

* By the way, you may recall that it was on the issue of GLBT people in the military, Hillary Clinton always quoted Barry Goldwater who said, “You don’t have to be straight to shoot straight.” So, it doesn’t surprise me that HE did not use the issue of homosexuality for political reasons. That the Democrats had no problems doing that, though, does…

Barack Obama on Thursday stated the following:

“I have never spoken to the governor on this subject. I am confident that no representatives of mine would have any part of any deals related to this seat. I think the materials released by the U.S. attorney reflect that fact,” Obama said at a Chicago news conference. “I’ve asked my team to gather the facts of any contacts with the governor’s office about this vacancy so that we can share them with you over the next few days.”

But on Friday we learned the following:

Emanuel, who has long been close to both Blagojevich and Obama, has refused to respond to questions about any involvement he may have had with the Blagojevich camp over the Senate pick. A spokeswoman for Emanuel also declined to comment Friday.

One source confirmed that communications between Emanuel and the Blagojevich administration were captured on court-approved wiretaps.

Another source said that contact between the Obama camp and the governor’s administration regarding the Senate seat began the Saturday before the Nov. 4 election, when Emanuel made a call to the cell phone of Harris. The conversation took place around the same time press reports surfaced about Emanuel being approached about taking the high-level White House post should Obama win.

Emanuel delivered a list of candidates who would be “acceptable” to Obama, the source said. On the list were Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, Illinois Veterans Affairs director Tammy Duckworth, state Comptroller Dan Hynes and U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Chicago, the source said. All are Democrats.

Where do we begin with Obama’s statement on Thursday?

“I am confident that no representatives of mine would have any part of any deals related to this seat.”

I am confident you phrased this statement in the manner you did, for you knew Emanuel was in contact with Blagojevich through his Chief of Staff and through other advisors and operatives. I am also confident that Emanuel is avoiding reporters, for Emanuel knows his voice is recorded on wiretaps gathered by Fitzgerald and his investigators. It is time for Emanuel to resign and to vacate his House seat. And by the way, is not former Daley operative Valerie Jarrett Co-Chair of your Transition Team? Why was the Co-Chair of your Transition Team in contact with Tom Balanoff, the SEIU Representative, who according to page 69 of the criminal complaint filed by Special Agent of the FBI David Cain “stated that he would find out if Senate Candidate 1 [Valerie Jarrett] wanted SEIU Official to keep pushing her for Senator with ROD BLAGOJEVICH.” Maybe it is time you answer questions about Valerie Jarrett’s contact with Blagojevich and his operatives.

“I have never spoken to the governor on this subject.”

You claim you did not speak to the Governor, but Emanuel submitted a letter with a list of candidates you preferred to Blagojevich. In other words, you communicated with the Governor about the open Senate seat. Moreover, news reports you and your operatives have attempted to remove from the Internet reveal you met with the Governor the week following the Presidential election. You met with him, and you sent him letters. This website contains two screen shots and a press release from Blagojevich’s office documenting that meeting. I recommend you read them and explain their existence to the media during your next press conference. Thank you for your prompt and anticipated cooperation.

“I think the materials released by the U.S. attorney reflect that fact.”

Perhaps you need to think again, for the criminal complaint filed by Special Agent of the FBI David Cain reveals that a line of communication existed between your team and that of Blagojevich. We also know that members of your team, including Emanuel, were engaged in conversation with members of Blagojevich’s team about the open Senate seat and the possibility of positions for Blagojevich since November 4, 2008. Maybe you need to read and reread the criminal complaint until its full import and significance is understood. And besides, no one cares what you “think;” we care about what is known.

“I’ve asked my team to gather the facts of any contacts with the governor’s office about this vacancy so that we can share them with you over the next few days.”

Ask your staff again. Obviously they are incapable of compiling information, for it is Sunday, and no documents have been made available to the public. Do you have any intention of sharing any and all communications between your staff and that of Rod Blagojevich? And while your seemingly inept, incompetent and corrupt staff compiles these records for the perusal of the traditional media and writers online, I recommend you ask them to create a dossier on your dealings with Rezko. This staff, after all, is housed in the Kluczynksi Federal Building on Dearborn Street in Chicago. Access to records from your days as a state Senator of an inner city Chicago state Senate district should not be difficult for a group of overpaid operatives in your Transition offices to obtain. I imagine they are not very bright, but if they refrain from engaging in drunken gang rape simulations with your speechwriter Jon Favreau, the lazy and inept lot will probably have the energy and focus to locate and compile these documents in a timely manner.

=========================

One paragraph, one lie, two equivocations and one false promise: how and why does anyone take Barack Obama seriously?

UPDATE:

Times Online reports calls for Emanuel’s resignation as Obama’s Chief of Staff. I quote with emphasis:

THE bullish, foul-mouthed but effective Chicago arm-twister Rahm Emanuel has come under pressure to resign as Barack Obama’s chief of staff after it was revealed that he had been captured on court-approved wire-taps discussing the names of candidates for Obama’s Senate seat.

Emanuel’s presence at the heart of the scandal threatens to roil the president-elect’s administration as a Chicago prosecutor builds his corruption case against Rod Blagojevich, the Illinois governor.

Not only should Emanuel resign as Obama’s Chief of Staff; he should resign from the US House, where he is also Chair of the House Democratic Caucus. According to the Chicago Tribune, he is yet to vacate his House seat. I quote:

Though now working full-time on Obama’s transition, Emanuel has yet to resign his congressional seat. Illinois law has a different process for filling vacant House seats than Senate seats. When Emanuel resigns, a special election will be held for his replacement.

Emanuel should resign as Chief of Staff and as member of the US House, as sources have confirmed his involvement in the scandal surrounding Obama and Blagojevich. I quote the Chicago Tribune again:

One source confirmed that communications between Emanuel and the Blagojevich administration were captured on court-approved wiretaps.

Another source said that contact between the Obama camp and the governor’s administration regarding the Senate seat began the Saturday before the Nov. 4 election, when Emanuel made a call to the cell phone of Harris. The conversation took place around the same time press reports surfaced about Emanuel being approached about taking the high-level White House post should Obama win.

Emanuel delivered a list of candidates who would be “acceptable” to Obama, the source said. On the list were Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, Illinois Veterans Affairs director Tammy Duckworth, state Comptroller Dan Hynes and U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Chicago, the source said. All are Democrats.

Promising to rid Congress of what she called a Culture of Corruption, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated the following after Democrats seized control of the House in 2006:

“The intention of our Founding Fathers was for Congress to be a marketplace of ideas. The Republicans have turned Congress into an auction house – for sale to the highest bidder. You have to pay to play. It is just not right.

“Democrats are leading the effort to turn the most closed, corrupt Congress in history into the most open and honest Congress in history.

Communicating with Blagojevich’s Chief of Staff, submitting a list of candidates Obama approved to Blagojevich through operatives and advisors and participating in conference calls in which Blagojevich was attempting to forge a “pay to play” deal with Obama and Jarrett, Emanuel is engaging in the “pay to play” practices Nancy Pelosi decried on January 6, 2006. If Democrats are truly committed to ridding the House of ethical clouds, cronyism and corruption, then Emanuel must resign as Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

He must also resign as Obama’s Chief of Staff, for Obama has promised “a new dawn of American leadership,” a new dawn that includes a “clean break from the broken politics of Washington.” Emanuel’s direct participation in conversations with Blagojevich reveals that Obama will never enact a clean break if Emanuel is one of his chief advisors. Barack Obama’s inability to disclose all communications between his staff and that of Blagojevich in a timely manner is also a sign that no clean break with the politics of the past will occur during an Obama administration.

I wonder if more calls for Emanuel’s resignation will surface. And if such calls surface, I hope they also include calls for him to resign from the US House. For not only should the White House be free of Emanuel’s corruption; Democrats in the House do not need to be tied to the scandal that is the “pay to play” politics of Washington, DC, and of inner city Chicago, where Democrats Rahm Emanuel, Rod Blagojevich and Barack Obama were schooled in the art of corrupt machine politics.

Can I just say from the outset, no freakin’ DUH??? Like we didn’t already know this! Now, there is testimony to back up what we have been screaming from the top of our lungs: ACORN and Obama ARE CONNECTED. What does it take already? According to the article:

Acorn, the liberal “community organizing” group that claims it will deploy 15,000 get-out-the-vote workers on Election Day, can’t stay out of the news.

The FBI is investigating its voter registration efforts in several states, amid allegations that almost a third of the 1.3 million cards it turned in are invalid. And yesterday, a former employee of Acorn testified in a Pennsylvania state court that the group’s quality-control efforts were “minimal or nonexistent” and largely window dressing. Anita MonCrief also says that Acorn was given lists of potential donors by several Democratic presidential campaigns, including that of Barack Obama, to troll for contributions.

Glad to hear the FBI is getting involved in this now – I sure hope it isn’t too little, too late.

But you know that Obama is going to try and WORM (What Obama Really Meant) his way out of this, or just flat out lie, what has become his standard MO:

The Obama campaign denies it “has any ties” to Acorn, but Mr. Obama’s ties are extensive. In 1992 he headed a registration effort for Project Vote, an Acorn partner at the time. He did so well that he was made a top trainer for Acorn’s Chicago conferences. In 1995, he represented Acorn in a key case upholding the constitutionality of the new Motor Voter Act — the first law passed by the Clinton administration — which created the mandated, nationwide postcard voter registration system that Acorn workers are using to flood election offices with bogus registrations.

Ms. MonCrief testified that in November 2007 Project Vote development director Karyn Gillette told her she had direct contact with the Obama campaign and had obtained their donor lists. Ms. MonCrief also testified she was given a spreadsheet to use in cultivating Obama donors who had maxed out on donations to the candidate, but who could contribute to voter registration efforts. Project Vote calls the allegation “absolutely false.”

Huh – which one are you going to believe, Ms. Moncrief, or Ms. Gillette. Now wait, before you answer that question, consider this: Secretary of State in Ohio, Jennifer Brunner, and Karyn Gillette, have a major connection to each other. Yep – sure do. Turns out, according to Brunner’s husband, Rick, they even worked out of Gillette’s office. The plot thickens:

She (Moncrief) says that when she had trouble with what appeared to be duplicate names on the list, Ms. Gillette told her she would talk with the Obama campaign and get a better version. Ms. MonCrief has given me copies of the donor lists she says were obtained from other Democratic campaigns, as well as the 2004 DNC donor lists.

How pissed off are you right now? ACORN and Obama, along with OTHER Democratic campaigns, were sharing mailing lists. Privacy? What privacy? Get this:

In her testimony, Ms. MonCrief says she was upset by Acorn’s “Muscle for Money” program, which she said intimidated businesses Acorn opposed into paying “protection” money in the form of grants. Acorn’s Brian Kettering says the group only wants to change corporate behavior: “Acorn is proud of its corporate campaigns to stop abuses of working families.”

“Muscle for Money”??? Is this for real?? Well, holy crapydoo – that sure explains a whole helluva lot about how the Obama campaign and its minions have been operating, doesn’t it??

Here is the sad tale of Ms. Moncrief and ACORN, in the interest of full disclosure:

Ms. MonCrief, 29, never expected to testify in a case brought by the state’s Republican Party seeking the local Acorn affiliate’s voter registration lists. An idealistic graduate of the University of Alabama, she joined Project Vote in 2005 because she thought it was empowering poor people. A strategic consultant for Acorn and a development associate with its Project Vote voter registration affiliate, Ms. MonCrief sat in on policy-making meetings with the national staff. She was fired early this year over personal expenses she had put on the group’s credit card.

She says she became disillusioned because she saw that Acorn was run as the personal fiefdom of Wade Rathke, who founded the group in 1970 and ran it until he stepped down to take over its international operations this summer. Mr. Rathke’s departure as head of Acorn came after revelations he’d employed his brother Dale for a decade while keeping from almost all of Acorn’s board members the fact that Dale had embezzled over $1 million from the group a decade ago. (The embezzlement was confirmed to me by an Acorn official.)

INTERNATIONAL??? Oh, dear. That is scary as all get out. Anyway, I guess Obama was inspired by Rathke to be Ruler of the Universe, commander of all he sees. And taking something that doesn’t belong to him? Well, heckfire, that seems to be Obama’s MO, too – caucuses, votes, whatever…

Then there is the vindictiveness Obama has demonstrated time and time again:

“Anyone who questioned what was going on was viewed as the enemy,” Ms. MonCrief told me. “Just like the mob, no one leaves Acorn happily.” She believes the organization does some good but hopes its current leadership is replaced. She may not be alone.

Just like the mob.

And here is some information I think Joe the Plumber could certainly use given what the Obama camp and its minions in Ohio have done to him:

Last August two of Acorn’s eight dissident board members, Marcel Reed and Karen Inman, filed suit demanding access to financial records of Citizens Consulting Inc., the umbrella group through which most of Acorn’s money flows. Ms. Inman told a news conference this month Mr. Rathke still exercises power over CCI and Acorn against the board’s wishes. Bertha Lewis, the interim head of Acorn, told me Mr. Rathke has no ties to Acorn and that the dissident board members were “obsessed” and “confused.”

According to public records, the IRS filed three tax liens totaling almost $1 million against Acorn this spring. Also this spring, CCI was paid $832,000 by the Obama campaign for get-out-the-vote efforts in key primary states. In filings with the Federal Election Commission, the Obama campaign listed the payments as “staging, sound, lighting,” only correcting the filings after the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review revealed their true nature.

“Acorn needs a full forensic audit,” Ms. MonCrief says, though she doesn’t think that’s likely. “Everyone wants to paper things over until later,” she says. “But it may be too late to reform Acorn then.” She strongly supports Barack Obama and hopes his allies can be helpful in cleaning up the group “after the heat of the election is gone.”

Let’s see – a private citizen has his fairly insignificant lien posted all over the airwaves, but ACORN’s $1 million lien?? Um, not so much.

Naturally, this is all a blatant attempt by right-wing loonies to cast aspersions on this fine organization right before an election:

Acorn’s Mr. Kettering says the GOP lawsuit “is designed to suppress legitimate voters,” and he says Ms. MonCrief isn’t credible, given that she was fired for cause. Ms. MonCrief admits that she left after she began paying back some $3,000 in personal expenses she charged on an Acorn credit card. “I was very sorry, and I was paying it back,” she says, but “suddenly Acorn decided that . . . I had to go. Since then I have gotten warnings to ‘back off’ from people at Acorn.”

Acorn insists it operates with strict quality controls, turning in, as required by law, all registration forms “even if the name on them was Donald Duck,” as Wade Rathke told me two years ago. Acorn whistleblowers tell a different story.

Oh, you knew it was coming – this is ALL about voter suppression, not voter fraud! Racists!!! Ahem.

Oh, but it isn’t just Ms. Moncrief who feels compelled to finally tell the truth:

“There’s no quality control on purpose, no checks and balances,” says Nate Toler, who worked until 2006 as the head organizer of an Acorn campaign against Wal-Mart in California. And Ms. MonCrief says it is longstanding practice to blame bogus registrations on lower-level employees who then often face criminal charges, a practice she says Acorn internally calls “throwing folks under the bus.”

Gregory Hall, a former Acorn employee, says he was told on his very first day in 2006 to engage in deceptive fund-raising tactics. Mr. Hall has founded a group called Speaking Truth to Power to push for a full airing of Acorn’s problems “so the group can heal itself from within.”

Well, I’ll be damned. Seems that ACORN has a bit of a history in shenanigans. What I particularly love is how they Higher-Ups blame EVERYTHING on the underlings. Just what we can look forward to with an Obama presidency, I predict!

Oh, and do I even have to add this? You coulda guessed it:

To date, Mr. Obama has declined to criticize Acorn, telling reporters this month he is happy with his own get-out-the-vote efforts and that “we don’t need Acorn’s help.” That may be true. But there is no denying his ties with Acorn helped turbocharge his political career.

Seriously? You aren’t counting on all of those fraudulent votes for you in OH, CA, IN, TX, FL, NC, and the list goes on, at LEAST 15 states (16, if you include SC, which is already investigating ACORN)? Yeah, okay. Well, you may claim you don’t need ACORN, and ACORN may claim it is “non-partisan,” but judging from the video below, I think you are both lying – again:

Hopefully, more whistle blowers will come forward. Probably not in time to save this election from ACORN’s influence, but at the very least, to save more of our taxpaying dollars from going to these bozos in the future. Our vote is precious, and not to be trifled with by those who seek to distort it. We must stand up to these kinds of influences, and we sure as hell should not be paying for it.

And one more time, because of all of the documented fraudulent activities of ACORN, if you see something suspicious at your polling place, you can call: 866-976-VOTE to report it.

**********Truthteller asks bloggers and reporters to direct their attention to Amrish Mahajan and the Mutual Bank of Harvey.**********

Mike Robinson’s AP article entitled “Obama Fundraiser, Convicted of Fraud, Spills Beans,” corroborates what we at No Quarter have been writing for weeks: Antoin “Tony” Rezko is cooperating with federal prosecutors interested in Barack Obama. While the national media’s attention to this topic is long overdue, I am not prepared to state that it is too little, too late. I am, however, disappointed.

Also disappointing but somewhat predictable is the blogosphere’s bungled reception of Mike Robinson’s article. Of course those who have embraced Obama will dismiss the story as so much yellow journalism. One blogger claims that prosecutors are interested in Blagojevich and not Obama. But looming in the blind spot of that blogger’s necessarily tendentious gaze is Rezko’s 9 JUN 2008 letter to Judge Amy St. Eve and the reference to Obama as “Individual D” in the superseding indictment and the proffer of evidence filed by Fitzgerald and his prosecutors during the Rezko trial. Obama’s name can be printed again and again on the surface of the legal documents filed during the proceedings of the Rezko trial, but these writers with all their “naked” insight will clothe the verifiable record with their blindness. Knowledge production, it seems, has been lifted from its evidentiary supports when Democrats write about Barack Obama and Antoin “Tony” Rezko.

And yes, those Democrats include some ostensible Hillary Clinton Democrats. Seizing upon the following quotation in a Chicago Sun-Times column, one blogger believes the AP story heralds the end of the political careers of Alexi Giannoulias and Barack Obama:

Sneed hears rumbles political fund-raiser/fixer Tony Rezko, who is now singing sweetly to the feds from his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, has been talking about his “dealings” with a Chicago bank, which has political connections.

Stay tuned.

While Rezko was a customer of Alexi Giannoulias’s Broadway Bank, where he amassed a debt of $450,000 after writing bad checks at Las Vegas casinos, and while Giannoulias did write loans for Rezko, I do not believe one can aver with the confidence of the blogger I cite above that federal prosecutors are now focusing on Giannoulias, even if Giannoulias was tied to Rezko by his opponent during his 2006 bid for the office of Illinois state Treasurer. Allow me to be clear: Obama bundler, mobster banker and Obama protégé Giannoulias is, to be sure, embroiled in the Rezko scandal and in other aspects of Chicago politics any political observer would find unsavory, but he is not in my opinion the topic of the conservation occurring between Rezko, Rezko’s attorney and Fitzgerald’s team of prosecutors. I do admit he is grist for the mill of impetuous bloggers who desire web traffic and a controversial headline or two, however. Because I tend to rely on evidence and not on hearsay, I believe we should focus our attention on Amrish Mahajan and the Mutual Bank of Harvey, not on Giannoulias and the Broadway Bank, if we are to assign names to the financial institution about which Sneed of the Chicago Sun-Times has heard “rumblings.” Although Mahajan is not known to readers of No Quarter and to the national media, I imagine they will desire more information on the unscrupulous banker once they read the information I unpack below the fold. And yes, Obama is involved, deeply involved.

My interest in Amrish Mahajan and the Mutual Bank of Harvey was picqued by this list of contributors in Rezko’s bundling network provided by the Chicago Sun-Times last March. View the second page of the document, and notice the following entry:

The data available in the Sun-Times spreadsheet is corroborated by the following data, which is democratically available at the Federal Election Commission’s website:

MAHAJAN, AMRISH
CHICAGO, IL 60607
MUTUAL BANK

OBAMA, BARACK
VIA OBAMA FOR ILLINOIS INC
12/20/2003 500.00 24020030170
04/14/2004 1000.00 24020461757

Not only was Mahajan a member of Rezko’s bundling network; his bank, the Mutual Bank of Harvey, granted Rita Rezko the $500,000 mortgage she needed in order to purchase the lot on which the Obama mansion in Chicago sits. As many of you may recall, the Obamas could not have purchased the mansion they could not afford unless transactions for the mansion and the lot closed on the same day. Obama needed to locate someone who would buy the lot, and he approached Rezko, the convicted slumlord with whom Obama toured the property before they mutually agreed to the following arrangement:

The home and lot sales closed on June 15, 2005. A land trust controlled by the Obamas bought the house for $1.65 million, and the Obamas secured a $1.32 million mortgage from Northern Trust to complete that purchase. That same day, Rezko’s wife, Rita Rezko, bought the side lot for $625,000. A $37,000- a-year Cook County employee, she secured a $500,000 mortgage from Mutual Bank of Harvey.

The structure of this transaction begs the following question: What bank would lend a government employee who earns $37,000 per annum a $500,000 mortgage? What bank would assume such a risk?

The Mutual Bank of Harvey, of course, for the Mutual Bank of Harvey’s President is a man who is deeply connected to the Chicago machine that backed Barack Obama. Indeed, Amrish Mahajan was one of Mayor Daley’s first political appointments in 1989, when he was named to a seat on Chicago’s Plan Commission, where he would be joined by Obama’s former boss and Rezko’s business partner Allison Davis and by Valerie Jarrett, Daley’s Chief of Staff who chaired the Commission from 1991-1995. Mahajan, in other words, worked with those who devised and profited from Daley’s failed public housing experiment in Chicago, a public housing policy Obama helped fund as state Senator and US Senator.

Rezko, according to the Boston Globe, was one of the major beneficiaries of Obama’s legislative advocacy for funding of Daley’s public housing experiment. Other major beneficiaries are Jarrett and Allison Davis. Mahajan was also a beneficiary, for his bank had made $3.4 million dollars in loans to Tony Rezko’s slum landlord business since 2002. A banker for one of the slumlords who benefitted from the Daley housing program Obama helped bankroll, Mahajan was returning a favor when he wrote a $500,000 mortgage in 2005 for the wife of one of his clients. Although Tony’s financial problems were mounting in 2005, and although Rita earned only $35,000 per annum, Mahajan underwrote the mortgage. Favors must be reciprocated, I guess, especially when one can satisfy two parties at once: the person with whom one has a complicated relationship in real estate and the politician who helped finance that complicated relationship as state Senator and US Senator.

I doubt federal investigators are interested in the Mahajans solely for their involvement in the property deal involving Obama, Mahajan and the Rezkos. The Mahajans, I believe, are the foci of their probe for many reasons.

• Anita Mahajan, the wife of Amrish, has been involved with questionable real estate deals that are the subject of federal probes with Governor Blagojevich’s wife, Patricia
• Anita Mahajan exploited lucrative no bid contracts with the Department of Children and Family Services to steal $2.1 million from Illinois taxpayers; she was charged and released on a $250,000 bond in March 2007
• “Uncle Amrish” has raised more than a half million for Blagojevich and approximately $50,000 for Mayor Daley, whose father helped launch Mahajan’s banking career
• “Uncle Amrish” also helped Obama purchase a house he could not afford

The real estate transaction involving Rita Rezko, the Obamas and Mutual Bank of Harvey is just the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, the Mutual Bank of Harvey seems to be at the center of all the corruption in Chicago. To quote former Donald Perillo, Chicago insurance mogul and son of the lawyer for Al Capone, in the Chicago Tribune article I cite above:

Donald Parrillo said he isn’t surprised to see Mahajan mix it up with politics and business. “He got that attitude from the Parrillo family,” the former alderman said. “He wanted to get in the game.”

And Mahajan certainly is in the game. The banker of the Chicago machine, he is also the man who wrote the mortgage for Rita Rezko that facilitated Obama’s purchase the mansion he could not afford. This is why I believe prosecutors are interested in Harvey Mutual Bank. Not only did Rezko receive loans from this institution; this bank is heavily involved in problematic real estate dealings involving Blagojevich and Obama. And if I may quote Rezko in the 9 JUN letter he wrote to Judge Amy St. Eve:

Your Honor, the prosecutors have been overzealous in pursuing a crime that never happened. They are pressuring me to tell them the “wrong” things that I supposedly know about Governor Blagojevich and Senator Obama. I have never been party to any wrongdoing that involved the Governor or the Senator. I will never fabricate lies about anyone else for selfish purposes. I will take what comes my way, but I will never hurt innocent people. I am not Levine, Loren, Mahru , or Winter.”

Rezko is now talking, and prosecutors are presently interested in a politically connected financial institution. I bet Obama now regrets paying Rita Rezko $104,500 for the strip of the land in the lot on which his house sits in January 2006. Acquired with the assistance of a questionable $500,000 mortgage from Amrish Mahajan’s Mutual Bank of Harvey, this lot and Obama’s desire to expand his yard by bit was the catalyst for all the investigative reports into Obama’s deep ties to Rezko. By the way, Rita’s lot is only accessible through the front gate of Obama’s home; it is not a separate property, and it was never intended to be a separate property.

“It was a mistake to have been engaged with him at all in this or any other personal business dealing that would allow him, or anyone else, to believe that he had done me a favor,” Obama says of the real estate transactions with Rezko. I wonder if now he also believes it was a mistake for him to serve as the legislator who represented and bankrolled Richard Daley, Amrish Mahajan, Valerie Jarrett, Allison Davis and the Chicago Plan Commission. But at least he and Michelle have a house, a house the Mutual Bank of Harvey, the politically connected bank that wrote loans for Rezko, helped them procure in 2005. Too bad that house will be the end of Barack Obama.

—————————————————-
No Quarter dossier on Obama and Rezko:

• Rezko, Giannoulias, Obama – Dominoes?
• CORROBORATED: Rezko Speaks, Prosecutors Interested in Obama Listen
• More Than Just a Boneheaded Mistake
• The Epistolary Rezko
• The Illinois Combine II: The DNC Moves Into Chicago
• Obama’s Gangster Mentality
• Prescience: “Will Rezko Blow Up Obama?”
• “CHICAGO MACHINE”
• The Tipping Point?
• Barack, The Truth Ain’t A Smear
• Recently Unsealed Documents Confirm Obama Heavily Embroiled in Rezko Case
• Boston Globe Exposé, Part II: Barack Obama (D-Slumlord) Is Aloof, Oblivious, Dangerous
• Boston Globe Exposé, Part I: Introducing Cecil Butler, Obama’s West Side Slum Landlord Patron
• Patrick Fitzgerald Issues Obama A Warning
• What Hypocrite Obama Should Have Discussion during His Wesleyan Commencement Address
• Barack Obama’s Candidacy as a Take on The Picture of Dorian Gray
• A Majority of One: On Losing the Democratic Base
• Ok, So Tell Us What IS Allowed
• Two Lone Voices Speak for Millions of Us
• What’ll Be Left of the Democratic Party
• It Ain’t Over: Obama MAY Have to Pay the Piper After All
• Obama to Donate Contribution from Rezko’s Iraqi Friend
• Be My Friend, Godfather
• Jaws V, Starring Barack Obama
• The Chicago Three: Obama, Ayers & Rezko
• Charlie Gibson, Will You Ask Barack about Nadhmi Auchi?
• Saddam Hussein, Barack Hussein Obama’s Hidden Real Estate Partner?
• Barack “I-Didn’t-Know” Obama
• Those Who Haunt Him
• Hillary’s Campaign Comes out Swinging
• “Nobie and Obama”
• Authorization to Use Misleading Falsehoods
• What We’ve Noticed about the Speech
• This Is for Main Street (And for the Forgotten People Barack Obama Doesn’t Know)
• Michelle Obama: “Give Us Something Here”
• Rezko Muckrakers Alert!
• The Forgotten People
• Irrefutable Proof That Obama’s Own District Was Home to 11 Rezko Foreclosed Properties
• Speak the Truth, Fallout Be Damned
• The Rezko Saga: Two Videos
• Get Your Daily Rezko Dose Here
• The Media’s Panderbears, Part I
• Sunday Scoops: Rezko-gate and Adviser-gate
• Obama’s Prime-Slime Advisors
• Good Morning, Barack! (Rezko Got Jobs for Your Staffers? Do Tell.)
• Today’s Rezko Trial Scoops (And Prosecutors on $20K Kickback to Obama)
• ABC News: Rezko $50 Million in Debt
• 312.321.2417
• (Pants on Fire!) Lynn Sweet: Obama and His Taking Questions on Rezko
• Rezko Trial: Obama May Be Witness
• Obama’s Judgment on the Eve of Judgment Day
• Truthtelling from Lanny Davis (What about “Iron My Shirt?”)
• Experience, and Experiences (of the Rezko Sort)
• No He Can’t Because Yes They Will
• More Questions on Rezko
• “Obama Bagman” in Jail
• Democratic Death Wish
• How to Buy A Mansion You Can’t Afford
• Will Rezko Blow Up Obama?
• It is “Possible” Obama Was Aware of Rezko’s Financial and Legal Woes
• 20-Year Associate of Obama Arrested
• Look before You Leap: Obama’s Mobbed-Up Allies
• Politics Is A Blood Sport
• BREAKING: ABC News Reports $100,000 from Rezko That Obama Hasn’t Returned
• CNN on Rezko and Obama: This Is Obama’s “Slumwater”
• FACT CHECK: Obama, His Contributor Rezko, The Slum Landlord Business
• A Dope with Hope?
• Obama/Rezko: It Comes down to Judgment
• Didn’t Obama Watch The Firm
• Steve Clemons on Tonight’s Debate
• Patrick Fitzgerald Ties Obama to Rezko Indictments
• All in for Hillary
• Obama, His Lobbyists and His Cronies

RezkoWatch contains even more information on Obama’s deep and problematic ties to convicted slumlord and notorious political fixer Antoin “Tony” Rezko.

Also listen to our NQR Radio Show entitled “READING REZKO with Truthteller and SusanUnPC”

So who cares about some county executive anyway? Well, the FBI, for starters. Yes, that is right, yet another one of Obama’s CLOSE associates is under investigation. How many does that make now? Let’s see – there’s Tony Rezko, convicted felon who looks like he’ll be singing like a bird to stay out of prison; Kwame Kilpatrick, former mayor of Detroit, convicted felon; Gov. Blagojevich, who is under investigation, and about whom Rezko may well be singing; and then there’s Bill Ayers, confirmed, unrepentant domestic terrorist who is only out of prison on a mere technicality. These are the people of whom I can think off the top of my head. Feel free to add more.

Anywho, seems Larry Walsh is in a bit of hot water with the Feds. And before anyone tries to deny that Obama and Walsh aren’t really that close, and he doesn’t really know him, blah, blah, blah, just take a look at the photo above from February, 2008.

Uh, yeah. Just save it. They are clearly, um, close.

And then there are the EARMARKS that Obama has porked Walsh’s way (major H/T to Jennifer Rubin at Commentary Magazine for this information and newsflash. Earmark citation is HERE):

In 2006, Obama requested that Will County receive $1.3 million to support its Flood Studies for Unincorporated Will County.

In 2006, Obama requested $800,000 for the Will County Sheriff’s Office Wireless Communications Technology Upgrades.

In 2006, Obama requested $1,953,331 for Will County’s Ridgewood Water and Sewage Project.

In 2005, Obama requested $2 million for the Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois, to establish a Center for Academic and Community Learning, which is designed to address the significant educational needs of the less advantaged in the Will County region by providing academic assistance not only for students on campus but also for residents of the surrounding communities.

And that’s just for starters. Feel free to peruse the whole long list of Obama’s earmark requests – holy freakin’ toledo. Oh, yeah – Obama is SOOO not a typical politician!! Hahahahaha!! Right.

Now, just why are the Feds interested in Obama’s close confidant and long-time friend, Larry? Good question. No one’s saying, and Walsh claims he hasn’t the foggiest why anyone is talking about the Feds anyway – he hasn’t done anything!

Cough, choke.

Huh. I guess he didn’t see this Washington Times article, “FBI Investigates Obama’s Friend“:

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.

Mr. Walsh, who served in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2005, was endorsed by Mr. Obama in his county executive election bid. With the support of some of Mr. Obama’s U.S. Senate volunteers, he easily defeated incumbent Republican Joseph Mikan.

Will County auditor Steve Weber confirmed that his office had been asked by the FBI to assist in an investigation, but he did not elaborate on the specifics.

Two FBI agents out of Chicago reportedly spent more than an hour in the Will County offices on Wednesday morning.

Yeah, I’m guessing when the FBI comes to chat for an hour, they include that it is best to not talk about specifics. So, what’s the deal then? This:

According to sources, the Walsh investigation may be tied to lobbying firm Smith Dawson and Andrews, which was hired in 2006 for $10,000 per month to help Will County acquire federal grants.

The firm, which is registered with the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, assists clients with communications and legislative strategies that better their public policy agendas, according to its Web site. Last month, Mr. Walsh announced that Will County was the recipient of a $750,000 federal government grant that would allow law enforcement and prosecutors to fight against domestic violence.

One of the firm’s partners, James P. Smith, contributed $2,000 to help Mr. Walsh’s county executive election bid.

Money. It always comes down to money, doesn’t it? Let’s finish up this interesting article about the relationship between Walsh and Obama:

A corn farmer from Joliet, Mr. Walsh has supported his friend’s presidential bid, and campaigned for him in rural and farming areas of the state. They are seen hugging each other in photos before Mr. Obama’s announcement that he was running for president.

The two men became tight friends during their tenure in the Illinois Senate and bonded over games of poker. According to a report in Time magazine, Mr. Walsh lost to Mr. Obama once with what he thought was a winning hand, and then slammed down his cards and said: “Doggone it, Barack, if you were more liberal in your card-playing and more conservative in your politics, you and I would get along much better.”

Mr. Walsh denied any knowledge of any investigation.

“I don’t have a clue what you are talking about,” Mr. Walsh said in reports published Thursday in the Chicago Sun-Times.

“I’m innocent! I’m innocent! Just like Tony Rezko, Kwame Kilpatrick, and Bill Ayers! Really”

For crying out loud, the hits just keep on coming from Obama. If these are the people we KNOW about, with the total paper job of the MSM for Obama, how many more are there? And WHY are the alleged news sources not covering these issues? McCain is right – if this was ANYONE else but Obama, the MSM would investigate, nay, SCREAM from the front page, about these characters in Obama’s life, and Obama’s character. Can you just imagine, just IMAGINE, if these kinds of people were in Senator Clinton’s life? Or Senator McCain’s life? Or ANY OTHER POLITICIAN’S life? But with Obama, they are swept under the rug, “move along, folks, nothing to see here, nothing to see! Move along!” You know, at some point, preferably before November 4th, these questions must be asked, and answered, and I don’t mean Obama’s typical, “I barely know the guy – saw him walking down the street! That’s IT! Stop asking me already and leave it alone!” All I can say is where there is smoke, there is fire, and there is a smoldering one surrounding Obama. Questions must be asked, and answered now (though they COULD have been asked, oh, I dunno, maybe EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO???). Yep, some answers would be mighty nice.

You know, this would be a pretty big change for the US of A – to elect someone with known shady associates BEFORE they got into the White House and just letting it go as opposed to hounding them into shame like, say, Gary Hart. Heck, he had one affair and was sent off to Purgatory. Obama has a shady past, no records, criminal associates, and he is sailing right along. Maybe THIS is what he meant by Change? If so, that’s some change I can do without, I’ll tell ya. Anyway, stay tuned – no telling which good buddy of Obama’s will be in the cross hair’s next! Can’t wait until it is OBAMA in the cross hairs – now THAT would be new and different!

Isn’t this election electrifying?!?! Oh, boy…

While researching the source of Michelle Obama’s alleged “whitey” rant, we discovered direct connections between the Nation of Islam (NOI), Stokely Carmichael, Jeremiah Wright’s Black Liberation Theology and, most prominently, Louis Farrakhan.

According to Larry Johnson’s sources, the Michelle Obama tape captures her in sordid company:

The sources who have seen the tape report that Michelle says
disparaging things about “whites” and that Louis Farrakhan is visible.
There is no identifying information on the segment they have seen to
identify the location or time when this was recorded. [emphasis added]

Those who are following this matter will recall that Michelle Obama, when asked about these allegations, is reported to have said that “whitey” is not a word used by African Americans today. However, we documented that Mrs. Obama’s primary text for her Princeton thesis was Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton’s 1967 book Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America, and we showed how Carmichael used the term “whitey” repeatedly, thereby establishing an epistemological connection between Carmichael and Mrs. Obama. In other words, Michelle Obama is the intellectual offspring of Stokely Carmichael.

Before going further, it should be noted that Reverend Jeremiah Wright was once a member of the Nation of Islam, though it’s not clear when he was involved with NOI. Ryan Lizza of the New Republic first reported that:

Wright was a former Muslim and black nationalist who had
studied at Howard and Chicago, and Trinity’s guiding principles–what the church calls the “Black Value System”[Emphasis added]

But back to Stokely Carmichael. Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, the Federal Bureau of Investigations has released hundreds of pages from their files on Stokely Carmichael. It’s a treasure trove for those interested in the history of the civil rights movement. What we found most interesting, however, were the large number of documents connecting Carmichael with the NOI. For instance, the document below is an Airtel sent to Director Hoover on July 29, 1966, from Chicago. The subject is Stokely Carmichael and it concerns NOI leader Elijah Muhammed’s “CALL FOR SUMMIT MEETING, MAJOR CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS.”

There are three areas of interest for us: first, the Airtel came from the city of Chicago; second, the year 1966 (more on that later), and third, that the Nation of Islam — in the manner of the infamous mob meeting in Apalachin in 1957 — was organizing all of the major civil rights groups.

It has been widely reported, and documented here, that Carmichael was an “Honorary Prime Minister” of the Black Panther Party, and that he was the leader of the innocuous sounding Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The following document, however, shows that Carmichael was open to violence as a political tool–see the highlighted sentence below–”This nonviolence bit is just a philanthropic hang-up,” and that he was indeed a founder of the Black Panther Party:

In the following document we initially noticed Carmichael’s willingness to use violence. He is paraphrased as saying that “in his opinion, the black man is justified in using any means at his command to obtain what he believes is due him,” indicating an acceptance of violence as seen through a racial frame. What’s more interesting, however, is the next paragraph. “Louis Walcott, Minister of the New York City Muslim Mosque, Nation of Islam, also participated in this conference.” See the second paragraph below:

The name Louis, of course, was glaring. Could it be he? A quick Google search linked to a 1996 Morning Edition transcription of a Bob Edwards piece on Farrakhan:

The early life of Louis Farrakhan, who grew up as Louis Eugene Walcott, was heavily influenced by his loving but demanding mother and his poor but safe neighborhood of Roxbury, Boston, in the late 1940s.

Over the last decade, Louis Farrakhan has emerged as one of the most visible and formidable black political leaders in America

Let’s add up what we have so far: Stokely Carmichael, Michelle Obama’s primary source and intellectual ancestor, shared the stage with Louis Farrakhan, the same man who she allegedly shared a stage with when she said “whitey.”

Carmichael and Farrakhan may have shared more than a stage. The document below indicates but doesn’t conclude that Carmichael may have been a Muslim himself. Although heavily redacted, the FBI’s source said that “Stokely Carmichael, [redacted] as ‘one of us’ which this source interpreted as meaning a member of the Muslims.”

Whether or not Carmichael was a Muslim is unclear. What is clear is that at sometime in the summer of 1966 there was a meeting of the minds between some civil rights groups, black radicals, and the Nation of Islam. These groups organized into a force promoting and preaching a racist form of black nationalism. The document below describes a meeting that clearly shows this union of forces: Carmichael and Minister Louis “made it clear they wanted to unite with all Negro groups regardless of philosophy.” Note the date of August 18, 1966:

This takes us back to Jeremiah Wright and the question of when Wright was a Muslim. According to Wright’s Wikipedia entry:

In 1963, after two years of service, Wright joined the United States Navy and entered the Corpsman School at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Wright was then trained as a cardiopulmonary technician at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

“In 1966, as a U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman,” the Wikipeida entry continues, Wright assisted with the care of President Johnson. Extrapolating from these dates, it appears that Wright was in Maryland between 1964 and 1966, and this may have been the time when he was a member of NOI. Wright didn’t start at Trinity until 1972, and evidently received spiritual training after receiving a master’s degree in English in 1969.

Also in Maryland in 1964 was Stokely Carmichael, where he was arrested “as a result of demonstrations in that city.” This doesn’t mean that Wright knew Carmichael, but surely Wright was cognizant of Carmichael’s work and of NOI as well. This is likely the time when he was a “Muslim and black nationalist.”

However Wright was radicalized, it is clear that he consciously appropriated the language and tenor of the Nation of Islam.

Wright’s statement that 9/11 was deserved retribution (“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans…America’s chickens are coming home to roost”) is a perfect echo of Malcolm X’s statement that “The assassination of Kennedy is a result of that way of life and thinking. The chickens came home to roost.”

Although it appears that Wright began his focus on Black Liberation Theology sometime after 1966, his racial attitudes and rhetoric have imitated that of NOI since at least 1970. Wright’s blaming the United States for creating AIDS to kill minorities is but just one example of his thinking being in lockstep with NOI.

Black Liberation Theology was first formed in 1966. According to NPR:

Black liberation theology originated on July 31, 1966, when 51 black pastors bought a full page ad in the New York Times and demanded a more aggressive approach to eradicating racism. They echoed the demands of the black power movement, but the new crusade found its source of inspiration in the Bible.

Keep in mind that NOI’s Elijah Mohammad called for a summit of black leaders on July 11, 1966, only 20 days prior to the official formation of Black Liberation Theology. If the dates don’t convince you of a synergy between NOI and Black Liberation Theology, please note Wright’s mentor — and Black Liberation Theology founder — James Cone’s words about NOI’s Malcolm X:

Malcolm X was not far wrong when he called the white man ‘the devil.’ The false Christianity of the white-devil oppressor must be replaced by an authentic Christianity fully identified with the poor and oppressed.

The black intellectual’s goal, says Cone, is to “aid in the destruction of America as he knows it.”

Couple these words with Wright’s own view that:

There will be no peace in America until whites begin to hate their whiteness, asking from the depths of their being: ‘How can we become black?’

In 1998, Louis A. De-Caro, Jr. published a book titled Malcolm and the Cross: The Nation of Islam, Malcolm X, and Christianity. De-Caro’s book underscores the racial nature and revolutionary intent of the NOI’s promotion of a black “Christianity”:

Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam based their religious orthodoxy more on the Bible than on the Qur’an. In part, this was because they sought to convert black Christians. More- over, Elijah Muhammad taught that the Bible, actually the story of “dark people,” had been distorted by the white man in order to enslave and oppress black people in the United States.

PaganPower succinctly captures Michelle Obama’s thesis and shows how it dovetails with the thinking of Cone and Wright:

A logical expansion of this would be to say that white people, because of the color of their skin, have a separate innate belief system and have their separate innate set of morals too. In other words, it’s all in the melanin.

The Nation of Islam and Black Liberation Theology are two doors to the same room. Black Liberation Theology is a “palatable” form of “Christian” black nationalism. The fiery anti-American, race-baiting words of Wright, Meeks, Pfleger, and Moss are from the same philosophical cauldron as the Nation of Islam. It’s obvious now why Wright’s Trumpet Magazine featured Farrakhan on the cover:

Some have said that Michelle Obama’s thesis proves nothing because it was written more than 20 years ago. We suggest that it was no accident that the Obamas sought out Wright a mere 2-3 years after she wrote her thesis and stayed with him for nearly 20 years, even while he preached the vilest and most hateful sermons that our nation has been forced to hear. TexasDarlin writes:

It’s no wonder that the Obamas joined Trinity United, grew close to Jeremiah Wright and Michael Pfleger, and actively defended the church. And there is no doubt in this alert reader’s mind that Michelle Obama clung to Trinity as long as possible politically and, unfortunately for her husband, perhaps many years too long for most voters’ palates.

But the Obamas’ connections to the Nation of Islam go deeper than Rev. Wright. Louis Farrakhan’s political connections extend to the Obamas directly through Chicago politics and Tony Rezko. Larry Johnson writes that:

Before Barack came on the scene, THE MAN in his political district was Louis Farrakhan. No one could take Alice Palmer’s seat without Farrakhan’s blessing. No one. I do not fault Barack Obama for seeking out the blessing of Farrakhan, but the story of what was done behind the scenes to get rid of Barack’s predecessor—Alice Palmer—has not been told. A knowledgeable source tells me that Tony Rezko played a direct role in this feat. And Rezko has been tight with Farrakhan.

At some point, probably between 1964-66, Jeremiah Wright was a member of the Nation of Islam and was indoctrinated into its odious brand of racist theology. And make no mistake, Wright’s race-baiting is not indicative of the vast majority of black churches. A pastor at LivePrayer writes:

Please hear me very clear. Black liberation theology is a perverse view of the Scriptures and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a radical view held by a very small minority of black pastors. This is NOT representative of the black church or the overwhelming majority of black pastors who preach and teach the true Gospel of Jesus Christ without looking at it thru the lens of color. Every black pastor I know condemns Dr. Wright and this perverse racist theology.

In 1966, a group of “Christian” ministers, at the behest of Elijah Mohammad, began to preach the same teachings as NOI. Stokely Carmichael and Louis Farrakhan actively worked to bridge the gap between these two groups, and Carmichael would soon publish a book espousing much the same separatist ideas. Carmichael’s book “guided” Michelle Obama’s thesis and soon she and Barack would join Trinity United Church of Christ.

The continuity of the teachings of Carmichael, Farrakhan, Cone, and Wright is incontrovertible.

Christopher Hitchens asks:

how is it that the loathsome Wright married him, baptized his children, and received donations from him? Could it possibly have anything, I wonder, to do with Mrs. Obama?

And of course there is this picture of Michelle and Mrs. Farrakhan, a picture which speaks more than a thousand words:

• Time Magazine: Tony Rezko Arrested
• Chicago Tribune: Tony Rezko arrested, sources say
• No Quarter post by SusanUnPC: “BREAKING: ABC News Reports $100,000 From Rezko That Obama Hasn’t Returned/Given Away,” January 25, 2008

By the way, on ABC’s This Week yesterday, Barack Obama said that he has had a “20-year” relationship with Tony Rezko, not the 17-year relationship typically described by newspaper reporters who are unable to interview Obama on his relationship with the influence peddler indicted by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. In my Saturday story, “Politics Is A Blood Sport,” I noted that Chicago Sun-Times columnist Lynn Sweet pointed out that “Obama has never agreed to an interview about Rezko.”

There’s also an exceptional Boston Globe op-ed I quoted from, written by a Democratic media consultant in Boston, “Worrying about Obama“:

Who’s this slumlord? While running as a reformer, Obama has had a 17-year relationship with an indicted Chicago con man who’s going on trial for fraud, extortion, and money laundering. ABC News found that Obama has been close to Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a major slumlord and wheeler-dealer who used minority set-asides and community groups as fronts to win government contracts.

As a state senator, Obama wrote letters to the city and state backing Rezko’s successful bid to get $14 million in tax money to build senior citizen housing that wasn’t in Obama’s district.

ABC and the Chicago Sun-Times both found that Obama asked for and got Rezko’s help in buying land neighboring Rezko’s property for $300,000 below the asking price. When the deal became public, Obama said it was a mistake that he regrets. He may not be done regretting it.

The Sun-Times has learned that Obama is the unnamed political candidate in the federal indictment against Rezko. His US Senate campaign got $10,000 out of quarter-million-dollar scheme engineered by Rezko.

Obama’s dealings with Rezko took place while it was well known that Rezko was under investigation by US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who sent Scooter Libby to jail. Rezko goes on trial Feb. 25, three weeks after Feb. 5, when half of all the delegates will be chosen. … Read all of “Worrying about Obama.”

From today’s Chicago Tribune story on Rezko’s rearrest:

… Tom Simon, an FBI spokesman, said a bond revocation hearing was continued until 12:30 p.m.

“We can confirm that Tony Rezko was arrested without incident this morning at his home in Wilmette,” Simon said.

Rezko, a former adviser and top fundraiser for Gov. Rod Blagojevich, was taken into custody at O’Hare International Airport after he was indicted in 2006. He had flown back to Chicago from Syria to face charges he used his relationships with top state officials to extort companies wanting to do business with two state boards.

Rezko had been released on bail after pleading not guilty in the case, and after a group of his friends had put up nine properties worth $1.5 million to secure his release.

Rezko allegedly used the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board and the state’s Teachers Retirement System Board to extort kickbacks. Stuart Levine, a member of both, has pleaded guilty to taking part in the kickback scheme and is expected to be the key government witness against Rezko.

The government in December filed a document in the case, moving the misconduct closer to Blagojevich, described in the document as Public Official A. The document states that Blagojevich had told Levine to stick with him and his contacts and “you will do very well for yourself.”

Rezko also has become an issue in the presidential campaign because of his long association with Democratic candidate U.S. Sen. Barack Obama. More than $80,000 in campaign contributions linked to Rezko and given to Obama have now been donated to charity.

MORE ON THE REZKO/OBAMA CONNECTIONS:

SEE OTHER STORIES and VIDEOS at NoQuarter:

Tony Rezko has never contributed a dime to Hillary or Bill Clinton. They have no relationship with Tony Rezko.

Tony Rezko has been described as Sen. Obama’s “political patron” and friend of 17 years.

Tony Rezko and his associates have directly donated over $200,000 to Sen. Obama, and bundled more, but Sen. Obama has only returned $85,000. Sen. Obama’s name recently appeared in court documents because it was revealed some money Rezko raised was funneled through at least one straw donor or stolen from the government.

Sen. Obama wrote letters to city and state officials that helped secure $14 million for Rezko in taxpayer money.

Sen. Obama helped Rezko impress potential investors by appearing at his business meetings.

Most famously, Sen. Obama and Rezko were involved in a controversial real estate transaction.

SEE OTHER STORIES at NoQuarter:

• “CNN on Rezko and Obama: This Is Obama’s “Slumwater”“
• “FACT CHECK: Obama, His Contributor Rezko, the Slum Landlord Business“
• “A Dope With Hope?
• “Obama/Rezko: It Comes Down to Judgment“
• “Didn’t Obama Watch The Firm?“
• “Patrick Fitzgerald Ties Obama to Rezko Indictments“

[To click on the countries in the BBC map, go here.]

Following up on Larry’s post two weeks ago about how Sibel Edmonds is finally getting her story out, the Times of London reports today that:

THE FBI has been accused of covering up a key case file detailing evidence against corrupt government officials and their dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets. 

The London Times further reports that an anonymous letter names a high-level US government official who allegedly warned a Turkish member of the nuclear network not to deal with Brewster Jennings.

The anonymous letter names a high-level government official who was allegedly secretly recorded speaking to an official at the Turkish embassy between August and December 2001.

It claims the government official warned a Turkish member of the network that they should not deal with a company called Brewster Jennings because it was a CIA front company investigating the nuclear black market. The official’s warning came two years before Brewster Jennings was publicly outed when one of its staff, Valerie Plame, was revealed to be a CIA agent in a case that became a cause célèbre in the US.

The Brad Blog has more….