The guy launched his campaign for State Senator of Illinois from William Ayers house....thats not conjecture, thats FACT....Do some research on William Ayers man....the guy participated in bombings of a NYC Police Department, the Capitol Building and the Pentagon, and in his book, proudly states that he will do it again if he deems necessary....this is a treasonous radical that should be arrested, tried, and executed....this man is an associate of the man you want in the White House? Think it through Bro', Think it through
I'll take a huge leap of faith and say Obama's not a terrorist. Obama was 9 years old when Ayers was in that Weather Underground thing.
It is ridiculous isn't it? Ayers released his book detailing his doings in 2001. Obama ran for State Senate in 1996 and left the board in which Ayers was apart of in 2002. In other words he got out of there. So the deep connection that Sean Hannity tries to play with every night just isn't really there. You know I get that if you want to go after him on his policies but some of the stuff the far right says is just plain crazy.
Beef, get a grip. It really sounds like you are making a mountain out of a molehill. Have you ever done community work locally with individuals that you barely knew and found out later that they had previous criminal records? Now if I run for office will I be guilty by association? With this kind of logic serving diner at a soup kitchen can be politically damning act.
I don't get the correlation between who Obama may have associated with in the past and his credentials to be president. If he were to pick Ayers to be Secretary of State or something like that, then there'd be an issue. I doubt anyone like that would be considered or make it out of congress. I suspect that the republicans have polled on the Obama associates and found it to be damaging, so they're pushing it. In my book, the only things I've seen regarding Obama that have me concerned are his lack of experience, his stated and restated positions (like dealing with Iran), and the Rezko thing.
^ Rezko? There's nothing there. I would have assumed you were one of the people who knew better than that, even though you're a McCain supporter.
Rezko raised large sums of money for Obama, helped Obama buy land in a shady deal, and was convicted and faces jail time. Nothing there? What's there is the Chicago Democratic Party Machine.
Why do you insist on labeling people with titles that are completely false, especially after the person has point blank stated such?
http://www.suntimes.com/news/watchdogs/757340,CST-NWS-watchdog24.article# 8 things you need to know about Obama and Rezko Tale in national spotlight, thanks to Clinton January 24, 2008 All of a sudden, seems as if everybody's talking about Barack Obama and Tony Rezko. Even Jay Leno. Rezko already was a big story in Chicago, accused of influence-peddling in the Blagojevich administration and set to face trial Feb. 25. <!-- BlogBurst ContentEnd --> <!-- start sidebar --> Presidential hopeful Barack Obama and Tony Rezko (left). (AP, file photo) <!-- begin poll --> <!-- end poll --> But Monday, he became national news -- and an issue in the presidential race. That's when Hillary Clinton blasted Obama for having represented "your contributor, Rezko, in his slum landlord business in inner-city Chicago." Having a hard time keeping track of the facts? Here are eight things to know: 1. They met in 1990. Obama was a student at Harvard Law School and got an unsolicited job offer from Rezko, then a low-income housing developer in Chicago. Obama turned it down. 2. Obama took a job in 1993 with a small Chicago law firm, Davis Miner Barnhill, that represents developers -- primarily not-for-profit groups -- building low-income housing with government funds. 3. One of the firm's not-for-profit clients -- the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp., co-founded by Obama's then-boss Allison Davis -- was partners with Rezko's company in a 1995 deal to convert an abandoned nursing home at 61st and Drexel into low-income apartments. Altogether, Obama spent 32 hours on the project, according to the firm. Only five hours of that came after Rezko and WPIC became partners, the firm says. The rest of the future senator's time was helping WPIC strike the deal with Rezko. Rezko's company, Rezmar Corp., also partnered with the firm's clients in four later deals -- none of which involved Obama, according to the firm. In each deal, Rezmar "made the decisions for the joint venture," says William Miceli, an attorney with the firm. 4. 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. 5. 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. 6. 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. 7. 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. Questioned later about the timing of the Rezko deal, Obama called it "boneheaded" because people might think the Rezkos had done him a favor. 8. Eight months later -- in October 2006 -- Rezko was indicted on charges he solicited kickbacks from companies seeking state pension business under his friend Gov. Blagojevich. Federal prosecutors maintain that $10,000 from the alleged kickback scheme was donated to Obama's run for the U.S. Senate. Obama has given the money to charity.
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4111483 The Rezko Connection: Obama's Achilles Heel? Obama's Connection With an Accused Political Fixer Raises Questions By BRIAN ROSS and RHONDA SCHWARTZ Jan. 10, 2008— In sharp contrast to his tough talk about ethics reform in government, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., approached a well-known Illinois political fixer under active federal investigation, Antoin "Tony" Rezko, for "advice" as he sought to find a way to buy a house shortly after being elected to the United States Senate. The parcel included an adjacent lot which Obama told the Chicago Tribune he could not afford because "it was already a stretch to buy the house." On the same day Obama closed on his house, Rezko's wife bought the adjacent empty lot, meeting the condition of the seller who wanted to sell both properties at the same time. Rezko had been widely reported to be under investigation by the U.S. attorney and the FBI at the time Obama contacted him and has since been indicted on corruption charges by a federal grand jury in a case that prosecutors say involves bribes, kickbacks and "efforts to illegally obtain millions of dollars." This week, a federal judge in Chicago ordered the Rezko trial to begin Feb. 25. Obama maintains his relationship with Rezko was "above board and legal" but has admitted bad judgment, calling his decision to involve Rezko "a bone-headed mistake." Rezko's behind-the-scenes connection in the Obama house deal became public as Rezko revealed personal financial details as he sought to post bail. While Rezko's wife paid the full asking price for the land, Obama paid $300,000 under the asking price for the house. The house sold for $1,650,000 and the price Rezko's wife paid for the land was $625,000. <!-- page --> Obama denies there was anything unusual about the price disparity. He says the price on the house was dropped because it had been on the market for some time but that the price for the adjacent land remained high because there was another offer. Obama then expanded his property by buying a strip of the Rezko land for $104,5000, which the senator maintains was a fair market price. Obama later told the Chicago Sun-Times, "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 he had done me a favor." Obama had known Rezko long before the house deal, calling him a "friend." An ABC News review of campaign records shows Rezko, and people connected to him, contributed more than $120,000 to Obama's 2004 campaign for the U.S. Senate, much of it at a time when Rezko was the target of an FBI investigation. "It surprised me that late in the game he [Obama] continued to take contributions from somebody who was under a rather dark cloud in the state," said Cynthia Canary of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, a group that has worked closely with Obama and supported his legislative efforts. In the wake of the Rezko indictment, Obama says he has given $44,000 of the Rezko-connected money to charity. There is no mention of Obama in the Rezko indictment. Federal authorities say the investigation is focused on Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, identified in court filings as Public Figure A.
I don't think anything is shady about it other than the fact that it was Rezko. People but homes below market value all the time.
Well, there's the $120K in campaign donations while Rezko was under indictment for starters. The issue with the real estate deal is that Rezko's wife (looks like money laundering) bought the land next to Obama's house to facilitate the sale (did Obama a huge favor). All this leads to what Obama did in return for those favors.
Anyone else bothered by the fact that Obama is taking potshots at the McCain's wealth--specifically Cindy McCain's wealth, but Michelle Obama or anything Obama does is off limits?
Rezko's wife turned a profit on the adjacent land, no? I don't see anything besides conspiracy theory. Obama was associated with a criminal, which sure was dumb, but the $120K was from people they both knew. Assuming that everybody that donates to a political campaign gets a favor convicts every politician on Earth. What does that mean? I hear lots of noise from the right on both.
All told, Rezko's assistance to Obama was $120K in campaign donations to his Senate campaign, $300K+ for his house, $600K+ for buying the land next door, minus whatever Obama paid for the sliver of land he bought back. Politicians don't usually give political favors to people who donate $2K, but when the sums are ~$1M, you have to take a look into it.
