Was Blagojevich brought down by the fact that he broke the law or because he crossed someone that is getting even?

Can Obama Escape the Taint of Blagojevich?

By Massimo Calabresi / Washington Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2008

(l. to r.) Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Barack Obama, and Richard M. Daley.

John Gress / Reuters

On more than one occasion during his stunning press conference Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald bluntly said he has found no evidence of wrongdoing by President-elect Barack Obama in the tangled, tawdry scheme that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich allegedly cooked up to sell Obama's now vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. But for politicians it's never good news when a top-notch prosecutor has to go out of his way to distance you from a front-page scandal. And indeed, there are enough connections between the worlds of Blagojevich and Obama that the whole thing has the potential to grow beyond a colorful Chicago tale of corruption to entangle members of the Presidential transition team, to test Obama's carefully cultivated reformist image and to distract the President-elect just as he is preparing to take office.

The Obama Senate seat scheme is only one of the allegations lodged against the two-term governor, whose administration has been under investigation for alleged "pay to play" patronage practices for years. The complaint claims Blagoevich tried to extort the owners of the Tribune company to fire editors at the Chicago Tribune, and to withhold $8 million of state funds to a children's hospital in hopes of extracting a $50,000 campaign contribution from one of its executives. Blagojevich, who came into office in 2002 with promises to clean up the state's culture of graft, made no comment Tuesday during a bail hearing where he was released on his own recognizance. But late in the day his lawyer Sheldon Sorosky told reporters that the governor "is very surprised and certainly feels that he did not do anything wrong...a lot of this is just politics." (See pictures of who will be in Obama's White House.)

In laying out the federal criminal complaint, U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald said Blagojevich went far beyond the realm of hard-knuckle politics into a "political corruption crime spree." The central allegation is that the governor schemed to extort money and jobs for himself and his wife from the Obama transition team in exchange for naming Obama's preferred candidate (unnamed in the charges) to the open Senate seat. The complaint details Blagojevich's attempts to contact intermediaries to the transition and in one case shows him soliciting favors from a union official he identifies as an "emissary." All this alleged activity was taking place, amazingly, at a time when Blagojevich had every reason to believe he was being closely monitored by the U.S. Attorney's office.

For the time being, Obama and his aides have declined to comment on the complaint. Asked about the matter at a photo op Tuesday afternoon, Obama himself said he was "saddened and sobered" by the news but that he had not been in contact with Blagojevich and was "not aware of what was happening."

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1865370,00.html?iid=tsmodule

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Pulling 'Em Back Out From Under the Bus

Barack Obama sacks adviser in May over talks with Hamas Now He's Back In

Malley's Father Was Close Personal Friend of Yasser Arafat

May 2008

Tom Baldwin in Washington

One of Barack Obama’s Middle East policy advisers disclosed yesterday that he had held meetings with the militant Palestinian group Hamas – prompting the likely Democratic nominee to sever all links with him.

Robert Malley told The Times that he had been in regular contact with Hamas, which controls Gaza and is listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organisation. Such talks, he stressed, were related to his work for a conflict resolution think-tank and had no connection with his position on Mr Obama’s Middle East advisory council.

“I’ve never hidden the fact that in my job with the International Crisis Group I meet all kinds of people,” he added.

Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for Mr Obama, responded swiftly: “Rob Malley has, like hundreds of other experts, provided informal advice to the campaign in the past. He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future.” The rapid departure of Mr Malley followed 48 hours of heated clashes between John McCain, the Republican nominee-elect, and Mr Obama over Middle East policy.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3897414.ece

“Rob Malley has, like hundreds of other experts, provided informal advice to the campaign in the past. He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future.”

Obama spokesman, Ben LaBolt in May of 2008, after Robert Malley, a Middle East policy adviser to Obama, disclosed that he had held meetings with the militant Palestinian group, Hamas.

"Aides said President-elect Obama had sent senior foreign policy adviser Robert Malley to Egypt and Syria to outline the Democratic candidate's policy on the Middle East. The aides said Malley... relayed a pledge from Obama that the United States would seek to reconcile with Damascus... regarded by the Bush administration as a leading supporter of the Al Qaida insurgency in Iraq...."

World Tribune - November 5, 2008

http://obamareport.blogspot.com/2008/11/obama-robert-malley.html



A little family history may be in order to understand the genesis of Robert Malley's views. Normally, one should be reluctant in exploring a person's family background -- after all, who would want to be held responsible for the sins of one's father? However, when close relatives share a strong current of ideological affinity, and when a father has a commanding persona, it behooves a researcher to inquire a bit into the role of family in forming views. That said, Robert Malley has a very interesting father.

His father Simon Malley was born to a Syrian family in Cairo and at an early age found his métier in political journalism. He participated in the wave of anti-imperialist and nationalist ideology that was sweeping the Third World. He wrote thousands of words in support of struggle against Western nations. In Paris, he founded the journal Afrique Asie; he and his magazine became advocates for "liberation" struggles throughout the world, particularly for the Palestinians.

Simon Malley loathed Israel and anti-Israel activism became a crusade for him-as an internet search would easily show. He spent countless hours with Yasser Arafat and became a close friend of Arafat. He was, according to Daniel Pipes, a sympathizer of the Palestinian Liberation Organization --- and this was when it was at the height of its terrorism wave against the West . His efforts were so damaging to France that President Valerie d'Estaing expelled him from the country.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/barack_obamas_middle_east_expe.html

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=45777

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Obama Chooses an Attack Dog

Rahm Emanuel: A profile of Barack Obama's enforcer

Rahm Emanuel, who has been chosen by Barack Obama to be the White House chief of staff, is known by colleagues as "Rahmbo" - a nickname reflecting his reputation as one of the most ferociously combative figures in Washington.

By Jon Swaine

Last Updated: 1:43PM GMT 06 Nov 2008

Rahm Emanuel and Barack Obama: the new chief of staff is a former Clinton adviser Photo:

Mr Emanuel, who received training in ballet as a boy, has shown no lightness of step in his political career: would-be enemies are advised to heed the story of a pollster who wronged him and promptly received a large, decomposing fish in the post.

Reflecting on his own foul-mouthed, attack-dog style, Mr Emanuel has said: "I wake up some mornings hating me too." Commentators have suggested that Mr Obama, who ran a lofty campaign based on national unity and bipartisanship, has recognised the need to employ a tough enforcer to push through his policy programme.

Mr Emanuel became Mr Clinton's chief fundraiser, a role in which he gained a fearsome name for extracting exactly what he wanted from wealthy donors. He collected enough money for the campaign to ride out several potentially damaging scandals. The president later said of his money man: "I doubt we could have done it without him."

The intense, eventually successful campaign took a serious toll on him. Colleagues reported that amid a discussion over a celebratory dinner about which political figures had earned the new president's enmity, Mr Emanuel became so enraged that he grabbed a steak knife, stood up and began reciting a list of names, plunging the knife into the table and shouting "Dead! Dead! Dead!" after each one.

None the less, Mr Emanuel remained closely involved with Mr Clinton, and was made a senior White House advisor when the new administration began work in 1993. It was reported that when Tony Blair was preparing to appear in public alongside the president amid the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal in 1998, he told the prime minister: "This is important. Don't ---- it up."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/3390625/Rahm-Emanuel-A-profile-of-Barack-Obamas-enforcer.html

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These are the Guys in My Neighborhood.....

ATTENTION: Bloggers for McCain-Palin, you are welcome to use this report in whole or in part. If you want to give us a link,it's http://sarah-palin-2008.blogspot.com/ But it is not required.

Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won't you be my neighbor?

By Janet Crain

Antoin "Tony" Rezko


"Tony" Rezko (born 1955 in Syria) is an American political fundraiser, restaurateur, and real estate developer in Chicago, Illinois, convicted on several counts of fraud and bribery in 2008.

In 1995, Obama began campaigning for a seat in the Illinois Senate. Among his earliest supporters: Rezko. Two Rezko companies donated a total of $2,000. Obama was elected in 1996 -- representing a district that included 11 of Rezko's 30 low-income housing projects.
Rezko's low-income housing empire began crumbling in 2001, when his company stopped making mortgage payments on the old nursing home that had been converted into apartments. The state foreclosed on the building -- which was in Obama's Illinois Senate district.
In 2003, Obama announced he was running for the U.S. Senate, and Rezko -- a member of his campaign finance committee -- held a lavish fund-raiser June 27, 2003, at his Wilmette mansion.
A few months after Obama became a U.S. senator, he and Rezko's wife, Rita, bought adjacent pieces of property from a doctor in Chicago's Kenwood neighborhood -- a deal that has dogged Obama the last two years. The doctor sold the mansion to Obama for $1.65 million -- $300,000 below the asking price. Rezko's wife paid full price -- $625,000 -- for the adjacent vacant lot. The deals closed in June 2005. Six months later, Obama paid Rezko's wife $104,500 for a strip of her land, so he could have a bigger yard. At the time, it had been widely reported that Tony Rezko was under federal investigation.
Rezko has become an "Achilles heel" for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama after disclosures he and people associated with him had raised almost $200,000 for Obama and that Obama sought Rezko's "help and advice" in the purchase of a new home.
In a court hearing in Chicago, prosecutors detailed a $3.5 million wire transfer from a bank in Beirut, Lebanon that they said was moved through a series of accounts until it reached Rezko or some of his relatives who had posted property for his bond.
Rezko is now in jail and no one knows what the outcome will be. Perhaps a presidential pardon.

Louis Farrakhan

Born May 11, 1933 (1933-05-11) (age 75) The Bronx, New York

Occupation Head of the Nation of Islam Religious beliefs Nation of Islam Farrakhan currently resides in Kenwood, a neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, and part time at a Nation of Islam farm in New Buffalo, Michigan. He led the 1995 Million Man March on Washington and has declared Barack Obama the messiah.

William Ayers
Born
Occupation Professor
William Ayers was a member of the Vietman War protesters known as the Weathermen, a terrorist group in the 60's who caused a great deal of property damage and several deaths. Among other advice Ayers told young people ""Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents—that's where it's really at." His wife, Bernardine Dohrn, was at one time one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted criminals. Although she was convicted of a felony, some legal mixup allowed them both to escape the worst of the charges. Ayers has boasted he is "Guilty as sin, free as a bird." Ayers and his wife co-authored a book, Prairie Fire dedicated in part to Sirhan Sirhan, who asassinated Robert Kennedy in 1969. Barack Obama's polital career was launched in their living room. Obama shared an office with him for at least three years and wrote a recommendation for one of Ayers' books.

Rashid Khalidi

Khalidi has been accused of having ties to the Palestinian Liberation Organization, based on his work for Wafa in the late 1980s, and later serving as an advisor to the Palestinian delegation during the Madrid Conference of 1991. As an example, the New York Times referred to him in 1978 as "an American-educated Palestinian who teaches political science at the American University of Beirut and also works for the P.L.O."

Obama made one of the presentations in praise of Khalidi at a 2003 farewell dinner on the occasion of Khalidi leaving the Chicago Area.The dinner was a celebration of the Chicago area Palestinian community. Obama's remarks alluded to the numerous dinners that he had at the home of the Khalidis. Obama and Bill Ayers dispersed monies to Islamic groups controlled by the Khalidis acting as board members of the Woods Fund of Chicago and Annenberg Foundation.

Reverend Jeremiah Wright

Rev.Wright of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago shocked televison viewers nationwide in March when tapes of his vitriolic hate fill paranoid speeches begain to be shown on prime time news shows. He waved his arms in the air and turned around like an erratic top as he yelled "No, no, no, God Damn America, it's in the Bible!" and "America's chickens are coming home to roost!". All the while demonstrating the incoming flight of a crazed chicken. It was scary and unbelievable people in their right minds would sit there and listen to him. But they did more than passively listen, they cheered and egged him on. He told them lies like AID's was a Government plot to kill black people. That the Government deliberately let our men at Pearl Harbor be killed, and a lot more. We learned his church was not atypical. But the difference was Barack Obama had by his own admission been sitting there for 20 years worth of sermons. "Yep. Every week. 11 o’clock service". What? He sat there with his two little kids listening to that hate filled garbage? Yes. And he considered Rev. Wright his mentor, was married by him and allowed him to baptize his children.

Should Barack Obama be elected President of the United States?

"No, No, No!!!!!!"

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Obama's Campaign Punishing Florida WFTV Station for Tough Questions

Biden to Barbara West: “Are you joking?”


Obama campaign cuts off WFTV after interview with Joe Biden

WFTV-Channel 9's Barbara West conducted a satellite interview with Sen. Joe Biden on Thursday. A friend says it's some of the best entertainment he's seen recently. What do you think? (See below)

West wondered about Sen. Barack Obama's comment, to Joe the Plumber, about spreading the wealth. She quoted Karl Marx and asked how Obama isn't being a Marxist with the "spreading the wealth" comment.

"Are you joking?" said Biden, who is Obama's running mate. "No," West said.

West later asked Biden about his comments that Obama could be tested early on as president. She wondered if the Delaware senator was saying America's days as the world's leading power were over.

"I don't know who's writing your questions," Biden shot back.

Biden so disliked West's line of questioning that the Obama campaign canceled a WFTV interview with Jill Biden, the candidate's wife.

"This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election," wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign.

"Mr. Biden didn't like the questions," Jordan said. "We choose not to ask softball questions."

Jordan added, "I'm crying foul on this one."

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2008/10/obama-campaign.html







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