Wow! 3 out of 4 of the ladies of The View (Joy Behar was not there, Sheri Shepherd was) think the Ayers-Obama connection is A-Okay. I mean, he’s not a terrorist now, for Goodness’ sakes, sheeesh! But, in this article I found from January 27, of this year, a website called Working Life, published by the Labor Research Association, takes psychic exception to Whoopi, Inc. There’s lots of good stuff there, most of which we already know, but it lays things out before Rezko was convicted, and months before this current Ayers stuff has fit the fan.
But behind the story, the federal case against Rezko is based on a detailed picture of the web of influence Rezko and his cohorts exerted over state agencies managing Illinois’ financial assets. Barack Obama’s political career was spun out in tandem with this Rezko apparatus, particularly through Rezko’s partner and Obama’s former boss, Allison S. Davis.
Start with U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s December 21, 2007 proffer in the Rezko case, with its charges of extortion and kickbacks taken in 2004 from the Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System: $10,000 from this crime was channeled to a “political candidate” not named by the prosecutor. The fact that Rezko was on the finance committee of Obama’s campaign for U.S. Senate, and the other facts in the case, make it clear that Barack Obama was the candidate in question.
Though Ayers is not mentioned by name, the “Hyde Park Mafia” is:
The “Hyde Park Mafia” purportedly backing Obama’s rise was centered in the University’s campaign for school reform, along the lines of the Ford Foundation and British efforts to corral American slum residents into blind, self-defeating local politics.
This pdf report on The University of Chicago website, (U of C is in Hyde Park) concerning the first three years of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, entitled “Improving Chicago Schools,” does acknowledge “Bill Ayers” as a founding member. The connections between Ayers, Rezko and Obama have been explored in many places, notably Evelyn Pringle’s Board Games, which have been summarized here and here, among lots of others.
Is Tony Rezko singing for his supper? Maybe. AP-Yahoo News is reporting that the convicted Chicago fundraiser and Obama “pal” (don’t tell Sarah Palin! Shhhhh) has had his sentencing delayed, usually a sign that a felon is giving somebody up.
Federal prosecutors moved Monday to delay indefinitely the sentencing of convicted fundraiser Antoin “Tony” Rezko, sending their strongest hint yet that he is ready to spill his political secrets.
The filing asks for a postponement while prosecutors and defense attorneys “engage in discussions that could affect their sentencing postures.”
Rezko has donated to Obama’s political campaigns in the past, supposedly Obama has returned all donations for his presidential run:
Obama’s campaign says it has sent to charity $159,000 traceable to Rezko’s past fundraising.
Notice the use of the word, “traceable?” While Obama has admitted his real estate dealings with Rezko were “boneheaded,” it seems Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is the big fish in prosecutors’ sights. But, one can hope.
A week long period in which Ohioans could register to vote and immediately cast a ballot ended Monday with turnout that didn’t quite match the expectations of election officials — or the campaign predictions that preceded it.
Early returns showed about 3,000 voters in Ohio’s four largest counties took advantage of the disputed policy, a surprisingly low turnout to some elections officials.
The article doesn’t mention how many of the early voters were Republicans. Or Independents. Or tinfoil hat wearing alien descendants responding to the voices in their heads. Just six days ago, AP reported on the breathless anticipation Ohioans were experiencing:
Voters in this crucial swing state began casting absentee ballots Tuesday, after state and federal courts upheld a ruling that allows residents to register and vote absentee on the same day during the first six days of voting.
Five people were waiting at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections when doors opened at 8:30 a.m. Two in line said they were voting for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, including John Fuller, 73, a retired hospital orderly from Cleveland.
Talk about a “silly season.” Barack Obama’s favorite line for characterizing political attacks against him by his opponents appears to apply especially well to him. Angered by Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin’s “palling around with terrorists” comments, the Obama campaign is threatening once again, to take off the gloves and attack back. This time, they’re focusing their now famous laser-like offensive intensity on John Mccain’s decades old involvement with the “Keating 5,” a group of politicians accused of influence peddling. Camp O will be making the case in a 13 minute internet video scheduled to air at noon, that McCain’s behavior in that instance is not only indicative of his inability to handle the current economic crisis, it laid the groundwork for it.
“I was judged eventually, after three years, of using, quote, poor judgment, and I agree with that assessment.”
Meanwhile, AP-Yahoo News, in it’s “rapidly-becoming-famous” ridiculously illogical defense of Obama’s associations with radical William Ayers, quotes an Obama surrogate calling Palin a “fluffy bunny.” Way to get tough, guys:
“It’s a giant changing of the subject,” said Jenny Backus, a Democratic strategist. “The problem is the messenger. If you want to start throwing fire bombs, you don’t send out the fluffy bunny to do it. I think people don’t take Sarah Palin seriously.”
“Fluffy bunny?” Okaaaay. Maybe you shouldn’t send a “fluffy bunny” to throw firebombs, but you certainly shouldn’t use the phrase “fire bomb” in a defense of a guy who’s proud of setting them. And, you might not want to bring up a case implicating your own party in economic shenanigans as an indictment against your opponent. Ya think?
But AP’s Douglass K. Daniel goes one (or 20) step further by accusing Palin of what the New York Times calls “racism without racists,” or subliminal racism, in bringing to mind post 9/11 images of “dark skinned radical Muslims”. According to Daniel, any mention of terrorism is an attempt to smear Obama with racially based xenophobia. But, the terrorist in Palin’s comments was Ayers, not Obama, and that terrorism association is more likely to bring to mind Timothy McVeigh than Mohammed Atta. Unless Dougie knows something the rest of us don’t about Obama’s religion and extra-curricular activities, the racism charge is more than a stretch, it’s a trip down the rabbit hole.
And that “fluffy bunny” thing is just weird.
But then, the whole Obamanon (Obama phenomenon) is getting weird. In Virginia, a state Obama won handily in the primaries, his supporters are pulling out all the stops to head off potential racist voting by “getting it out in the open:”
When Cecil E. Roberts, president of the coal miners union that shapes politics in much of this mountain region, talks to voters, he tells them that their choice is to have “a black friend in the White House or a white enemy.” When Charlie Cox, an Obama supporter, hears friends fretting about Obama’s race, he reminds them that they pull for the nearby University of Tennessee football team, “and they’re black.”
Union organizer Jerry Stallard asks fellow coal workers what’s more important: improving their work conditions or holding onto their skepticism of Obama’s race, culture or religion. “We’re all black in the mines,” he tells them.
That oughta put those racists’ minds at ease. And, Lord knows, that “subliminal racism” is not always so “subliminal,” so you gotta fight it wherever you see it. Because if you get enough of it, and you let it go by, it might offset the 90+ percent of black people voting for Obama.
Maybe it’s just the fact that according to The Washington Post, the Republican National Committee is planning to call for an investigation into Obi-WanNaBePresident’s fundraising is what’s gotten Team O so discombobulated. Or maybe the Rasmussen Report that almost 60% of Americans polled are fed up with Congress, with almost half convinced that people picked randomly from the phone book could do a better job, that’s just got all politicians spooked.
Personally, I think we all walked through the looking glass and fell down the rabbit hole on our way to The Twilight Zone. Hope there are no “fluffy bunnies” down there; if there are, somebody might make a porno movie about them. And I imagine that could ruin Peeps for me forever.
Wow! 3 out of 4 of the ladies of The View (Joy Behar was not there, Sheri Shepherd was) think the Ayers-Obama connection is A-Okay. I mean, he’s not a terrorist now, for Goodness’ sakes, sheeesh! But, in this article I found from January 27, of this year, a website called Working Life, published by the Labor Research Association, takes psychic exception to Whoopi, Inc. There’s lots of good stuff there, most of which we already know, but it lays things out before Rezko was convicted, and months before this current Ayers stuff has fit the fan.
