Obama's Ties To Rezko Much Closer Than Earlier Thought

Sen. Barack Obama's ties to indicted Chicago political fixer Tony Rezko turns out to be much closer than he acknowledged in earlier interviews. A Chicago Sun-Times interview with Obama paints the two as very close friends. Explaining that Rezko was more than just a fundraiser for Obama, the Sun-Times writes:

Rezko helped bankroll Obama in five election runs — for the state Senate, U.S. House and U.S. Senate. The savvy businessman with the North Shore mansion could bring in as much as $70,000 from political donors in one night. In the heat of a campaign, Obama said he sometimes talked strategy with Rezko daily.

Then, during political down-times, Rezko was his lunch or breakfast companion, more concerned about Obama, his wife and daughters than with posing for snapshots with the senator as he rose from political obscurity to Democratic presidential hopeful. On one occasion, Obama recalled, they wiled away time with their wives at Rezko’s Lake Geneva estate.

This portrait of Rezko emerged during an 80-minute interview Friday with the Chicago Sun-Times that marked the first time the senator has spoken in-depth about his relationship with the indicted businessman, who’s on trial on corruption charges involving allegations he orchestrated political kickback schemes in the Blagojevich administration.

The interview followed months in which Obama had avoided questions about Rezko and tried to downplay their relationship. With the Pennsylvania primary looming in five weeks, Obama said he hoped to clear the air about his ties to Rezko.

During the interview, Obama acknowledged Rezko had raised at least $250,000 for him before he was indicted in October, 2006. That's much more than Obama had earlier acknowledged. "Obama acknowledged that Rezko had raised $250,000 for him — about $100,000 more than had previously been disclosed and about five times more than Obama conveyed during a November 2006 question-and-answer exchange with the Sun-Times," the Sun-Times reports.

Earlier, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) was accused of taking a cheap shot at Obama when she suggested Obama was busy doing legal work for his sleazy slumlord friend in reference to Rezko when she was working on higher endeavors. Clinton said, "I was fighting against those ideas when you were practicing law and representing your contributor, Rezko, in his slum landlord business in inner city Chicago." To wit, Obama responded: "Here's what happened: I was an associate at a law firm that represented a church group that had partnered with this individual to do a project and I did about five hours worth of work on this joint project. That's what she's referring to." The Sun-Times now reports this:

Obama also defended signing a 1998 letter urging the state to fund a low-income housing project developed by Rezko and Obama’s former boss, Allison Davis — both of whom were clients of Obama’s law firm as well as campaign contributors. Obama said he didn’t remember writing the “form letter” until the Sun-Times asked about it last June. This was not one of the Rezko developments that fell into disrepair . . .

Obama picked Rezko for the campaign finance committee for his 2004 U.S. Senate run. Around that same time, Rezko had begun walking away from affordable-housing projects he was building with government funds, leaving some in squalor — including some buildings in Obama’s own Illinois Senate district. Obama said he knew nothing of those problems.

Had Obama known, he said he would have talked to Rezko about the problems. “I think it is deeply troubling he did not keep these properties up, and I am very disappointed in that,” Obama said.

So we have Obama writing letters to the State of Illinois urging it to fund Rezko's low-income housing projects, some of which are in Obama's state senate district. Rezko later walks away and leaves the projects in Indy's Phoenix-like conditions but Obama doesn't know anything about it. He then asks Rezko to help purchase a lot next to a mansion he is purchasing on Chicago's south side, Rezko tours the home with him and Obama later purchases part of the adjoining lot from Rezko. Between his good buddy Rezko and his minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, I'm having a lot of trouble with the company Obama keeps.

Carson Victory Attributed To Voter Turnout

Voter turnout, in particular in Center Township, is being credited with Andre Carson's victory in Tuesday's special election. The Star's Brendan O'Shaughnessy writes:

Turnout was key for Carson. Overall turnout for the election was 18.2 percent but was usually higher wherever Carson won.

Julia Carson began her political career as the Center Township trustee and steadily built a reputation as the only Democrat in contemporary times capable of delivering massive turnout in the city's black urban core.

That pattern seemed to hold true Tuesday, with Center Township delivering a 12,000-vote margin in a race that Andre Carson won by 9,000 votes.

"This shows the machine is still here," said Carl Drummer, the current Center trustee, who campaigned for the candidate. "It was extremely important to show that Center Township can still deliver, that we're still a force to be reckoned with."

So Andre wins by 9,000 votes district wide but carries Center Township by a 12,000-vote margin. More significantly is the mention in the Star article that Bart Peterson out-performed Carson in Center Township. "Carson had a lesser margin of victory (64 percent) than Peterson (68 percent) in Center Township, but the important factor was turnout," O'Shaughnessy writes. "Carson received 24,929 of the votes cast in that district Tuesday, compared with 13,651 for Peterson in November." "In other words, more than 11,000 Democrats in Center Township who stayed home for Peterson came out for Carson."

People need to be asking questions about this result. For inexplicable reasons, a number of the precincts reporting huge margins for Carson did not arrive at the voting center until hours after the polls closed. The ballots were cast on paper ballots which were opened as soon as the polls closed to be hand-counted before being taken to the convention center. Remarkably, the Republicans left many of these Center Township precincts unattended. Only Democrats were supervising these hand counts of the ballots and their delivery to the convention center. This provided a unique opportunity to stuff ballots in the cardboard boxes used during the day to store the ballots cast by voters.

You also need to keep in mind that Jon Elrod represents a significant portion of the southern part of Center Township as state representative. Elrod carried precincts in and around the downtown--some by significant margins--as well as precincts in the southern part of the township. Many of these precincts which generated huge Carson numbers are actually neighborhoods replete with abandoned homes and buildings. These hardcore Democratic precincts are actually de-populating. The former black residents are moving out into the surrounding Pike, Washington and Lawrence Townships, primarily. The only areas of Center Township undergoing growth are areas where better-educated, mostly professional whites and young professionals are moving. These voters voted for Elrod in large numbers.

The Center Township numbers are highly suspect folks. I think some of us need to take it into our own hands to investigate these results. I'm sick and tired of my vote being disenfranchised because the Center Township gang is permitted to steal votes without fear of prosecution. The Democrats always say this is just urban legend. A Democratic friend of mine related a story to me of a close city-county-council race he worked a few years ago in which a white incumbent defeated a black candidate by a handful of votes. The black candidate demanded a recount. In preparing for the recount, my friend surveyed some of the precincts where the opposing candidate had done very well. He turned up dozens of voters who cast votes from vacant lots and abandoned houses after surveying a small percentage of the district. When the incumbent councilor threatened to expose the widespread vote fraud, the opposing candidate was convinced by the Marion Co. Democratic Party that it was in every one's best interest if the vote fraud allegations never surfaced publicly.

It's happening right under our noses and they're laughing in our faces about it. This is all the more reason we have to get rid of the Center Township Trustee's office and eliminate all those make work political jobs Carl Drummer is financing at our expense to turn around and use to screw us in every election. To add further insult to injury, our own money is being used to protect Drummer's job. He has paid Lacy Johnson's law firm tens of thousands of dollars over the past several years to lobby to protect his job. We've got to put a stop to this now.

A note on Beth White failing to open up heavily Republican precincts on election day. A businessman in Perry Township relates to me how his right to vote was disenfranchised on Tuesday after he twice tried to vote at his precinct but found it unopened. The second time was after 10:00 a.m. Thanks, Beth White, for continuing your tradition of disenfranchising voters.

Return To Sender

I was bored this evening so I watched "Indiana Week In Review." Democrat Ann DeLaney offered an interesting twist in the Sen. Brent Waltz residency saga. Of course, the Indiana Election Commission ruled unanimously in favor of Waltz this week in a challenge to his residency made by his Republican primary opponent Mike Beeles. According to DeLaney, an official notice mailed to Waltz by the Commission concerning his placement on the May primary ballot was returned as undeliverable. Maybe the Commission should reconsider its decision. Or perhaps Beeles should make a copy of the returned envelope stamped as undeliverable and mail it to the voters in Waltz' district.

UPDATE: The Johnson County Daily Journal report below on the hearing leads me to believe Waltz in fact does not live in his district. Like I said, the residency requirement has become a big joke. Rep. Win Moses has lived on Indianapolis' northside for years while representing a Fort Wayne district. Note that the mention of "the vacant sticker on his mailbox."

Vigh questioned Waltz about how often he sleeps at the condo, how often he has friends over, his low utility bills, the vacant sticker on his mailbox and why he does not have a TV inside his home.

And commission chairman Thomas Wheeler wanted to know why mail sent to his condo was returned by the post office with a note that they could not locate the receiver.

Waltz had a response for each:

• He slept at the condo about half the nights in the past month, but he doesn't keep track of that. "For the record, I do sleep there, but I've never counted the exact number of nights I've slept there," he said.
• A friend came over within the past week to take photos of the inside of his condo that he showed at the hearing.
• A recent utility bill was between $40 and $50.
• He mostly sleeps at the condo and arrives home late in the evening or early in the morning, so he doesn't watch TV at home. "When you get home at 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning, there's not a lot of good programs," he said.
• The postal service put the sticker on the mailbox because he uses a post office box for his mail, which is likely why mailings to the condo were returned, he said.
• In the end, the commission, made up of two Democrats and two Republicans, voted 4-0 to deny the challenge.

The People Won Out

For a change, I think I can say that the people won out over the special interests in the just concluded session of our General Assembly. The legislature and the Governor screwed up badly last year when they ignored the looming property tax problem and attempted to band-aid over the problem the same way they had for decades, causing the citizenry to take to the streets to protest. To his credit, Governor Daniels understood the gravity of the situation and ordered reassessments in Marion County and a number of other counties last year when it became clear there were serious problems with the quality of the assessments. He established the Kernan-Shepard Commission to reinvent the way local governments in Indiana do business. And he came up with his own comprehensive property tax relief and reform plan as a long-term fix to the problems that ail our property tax system. In the final analysis, he achieved more success than any governor in recent memory in tackling these problems.

To the surprise of many, including me, Democratic and Republican legislators worked in a bipartisan fashion to make property tax reform and reduction possible this year. House Speaker Pat Bauer, Rep. Bill Crawford and Sen. Luke Kenley, in particular, deserve a lot of credit for working out an agreement which produced strong bipartisan support in both chambers. It would have been easy enough for Bauer to turn his back and walk away. Doing little or nothing would have posed a big problem for Gov. Daniels as he faces a tough re-election. Indeed, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jim Schellinger selfishly appealed to Democratic lawmakers a week ago to put off any permanent fix of the problem until next year. Fortunately, Bauer and Crawford put the public's interest ahead of political expediency.

A big winner in this year's legislative session is Mayor Greg Ballard. His unlikely election last year was a product, in part, of property owners concerns with rising property taxes. His presence and steadfast support for a permanent solution was a constant reminder to lawmakers of the consequences of failing to act. He didn't get a repeal of property taxes, but the 1-2-3 caps on property taxes, which will eventually become a part of our state constitution, provides some certainty and predictability to homeowners and businesses on what to expect from their property tax bills. The caps were critical because much of the property tax savings are being financed with a 1% increase in the state's sale tax rate. A referendum requirement for larger bond issues will empower the public to help control local government spending. With an average savings of about 30% from these changes, in addition to the reductions most homeowners will realize from the reassessment and additional homestead credit this year, and the long-term savings from the caps, property taxpayers will see real results this year. More importantly, the state is picking up Indianapolis' public safety pension liability, which threatened to consume an average of $30 million a year from the city's budget for decades. Having that monkey off his back will allow Mayor Ballard to reduce the county's local option income tax or divert those revenues for further property tax reduction, assuming he is able to find significant cuts elsewhere in the budget.

Mayor Ballard came up short in his effort to further consolidate local government in Indianapolis, but the groundwork has been laid to go much further next year. Marion County's assessors weren't eliminated, but at least voters will have the opportunity to take that next step in a referendum in the November general election. Hopefully, next year we can get rid of township government altogether. Let's face it, if Mayor Bart Peterson could have gotten all that Mayor Ballard got from the legislature this year while he was still mayor, he would have been one happy man coasting to re-election. City finances are now manageable for Mayor Ballard. He should not give up on his goal of finding at least $70 million in cuts. The City's economic future is dependent on his ability to scale back the tax increases enacted by Peterson to stem the flow of people and businesses to the suburban counties and revitalize many distressed neighborhoods.

Carson's First Vote Is For Massive Tax Increase

In one of his first acts as U.S. Representative for the 7th District just a short time after being sworn in, Democrat Andre Carson sided with the tax and spend liberals in the House in favor of a massive, $683 billion tax increase on the American people. The AP reports:

Both houses of Congress endorsed the idea of tax increases for millions of Americans Thursday as Democrats pressed ahead with budget plans that would allow some or all of President Bush's reductions to die after he leaves office . . .

As for the $3 trillion federal budget plans, the House version would provide generous increases to domestic programs but bring the government's ledger back into the black by letting all of Bush's tax cuts expire at the end of 2010 as scheduled. That five-year plan passed the House on a 212-207 vote, with Republicans unanimously opposing it over what they argued was $683 billion in tax increases.

It is worth observing that Indiana's other Democratic members, including Reps. Joe Donnelly, Brad Ellsworth and Baron Hill, voted with the Republicans unlike Carson. Congressional Democrats, who had played with an idea touted by Republican Jon Elrod of ending congressional budget earmarks for a period of one year, caved into special interests and killed the plan.

Meanwhile, Carson is getting to participate in an extremely rare closed session of the House of Representatives tonight to discuss proposed surveillance legislation which could impact the nation's ability to combat terrorism. Just weeks ago, candidate Carson came to Washington to hold a fundraiser at CAIR, a radical Islamic group our own government has tied to terrorists and collected tens of thousand of dollars from the group's members. Carson later returned at least one contribution from a questionable person who attended the fundraiser. Carson had boasted during the campaign that he was an expert on homeland security because he had done a 7-month stint as a watch officer at the Fusion Center within the state of Indiana's Homeland Security department.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright A Big Problem For Obama

Fox News' Bill O'Reilly unveiled tonight some video footage of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, minister of the Trinity United Church of Christ church where Sen. Barack Obama and his wife are members, and it is explosive. The Rev. Wright is every bit the racist and anti-American that Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is. Obama is very close to Rev. Wright. He and his wife were married in the church by him and he baptized their children. After watching the video footage of Wright blasting white people and lambasting our U.S. government as being worse than the terrorists who struck our country on 9/11 to the roaring cheer of approving church members, the American people need to be asking some serious questions about the true beliefs of Sen. Obama.

Rev. Wright accused the government of hatching the HIV/AIDS to kill off black people. He rejected "God Bless America", preferring instead "God damn America." He accused former President Bill Clinton of doing to black people the same thing he did Monica Lewinsky. He mocked black Republicans like Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell and Condi Rice. To Wright, 9/11 was simply well-deserved retribution for Hiroshima. It is beyond me that anyone could attend a church as regularly as Obama and his wife have attended this church, hold him as such a close friend and not approve of his message. The American people need to hear what Obama's minister has to say in the pulpit. I don't know that I want a person in the White House who would attend a church for the past 20 years which holds such extremist, divisive and hateful views that are so fundamentally at odds with mainstream America. O'Reilly's report isn't uploaded to FOX News' website, but you can click here for the video footage from an ABC report. Here's a news story from The Guardian, a UK publication:

Obama has been a member of the congregation of Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ in south side of Chicago for nearly 20 years, and he drew the title of his book from one of his pastor's sermons.

The pastor's sermons are available for sale at the church and both ABC and Fox News reviewed the addresses.

In January, Wright spoke from the pulpit in praise of Obama's leadership and comparing him to Jesus's struggles under the Romans, according to Fox television. "Barack knows what it means living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people," Wright said. "Hillary would never know that."

He went on: "Hillary ain't never been called a nigger. Hillary has never had a people defined as a non-person."

Wright also took issue with the idea that Bill Clinton had been a friend to African Americans. "Hillary is married to Bill, and Bill has been good to us. No he ain't! Bill did us, just like he did Monica Lewinsky. He was riding dirty." On the Sunday immediately following 9/11, Wright described the attacks as retribution for the bombing of Hiroshima, America's policy in the Middle East and apartheid era South Africa. Obama has told reporters he was not in church on that Sunday.

However, it is the inversion of the line "God Bless America" that may expose Obama to the greatest criticism. Last month, his wife, Michelle, was criticised by rightwing blogs and indirectly by the Republicans' presumptive nominee, John McCain, for saying she had not been proud of being an American for most of her adult life.

Now we get a clearer picture of why Michelle Obama has not been a proud American until her husband's presidential aspirations brightened. Pretty scary stuff when you think about it. Now that the video footage is surfacing, courtesy of Obama's own church, which offers them for sale online, Obama is trying to dismiss Wright as just some crazy old uncle.

Property Tax Deal Close?

I like what I'm hearing as far as lawmakers reaching an agreement on permanent property tax relief and reform. Gov. Mitch Daniels badly needs something real he can take to voters this fall in his re-election campaign. The ability of our new mayor Greg Ballard to financially govern the City of Indianapolis also has a lot riding on this agreement. And a few lawmakers facing a tough re-election campaign could be aided by property tax relief legislation. It will certainly leave a lot of important issues on the table to be dealt with in future legislative sessions, but at least it appears it will be something more than the band-aid approach taken in past sessions. There's only another day left. Let's hope lawmakers get it done and get it done right.

Simons Put Out For Sale Sign For Pacers?

From today's New York Post comes this item by Peter Vecsey speculating on the sale of the Pacers:

Pacers' CEO Donny Walsh isn't planning to retire after all. "I decided to stay home for a weekend to see if I could take doing nothing. I went stir crazy."

Melvin and Herb Simon, who are trying to sell the team, would love to see Walsh stay put. I don't see that happening. Larry Bird has been calling the shots for two seasons. It's hard enough to turn around a team without trying to do it by committee. Ask the Clippers and Bucks.

A Silver Lining For GOP In 7th District Special Election

The Wall Street Journal's "Political Diary" found a silver lining in the outcome of yesterday's special election in the 7th congressional district for the GOP:

Republicans did better than expected in last night's special election to fill the House seat vacated by the death of Democratic Rep. Julia Carson of Indiana. Her Indianapolis district leans left -- as evidenced by John Kerry's 58% showing in 2004. But Andre Carson, the 33-year-old grandson of the deceased incumbent and a local city council member, eked out only a 54% victory, hardly a barnburner for Democrats. He now becomes the second Muslim serving in Congress. "I'm an Indy 500 Hoosier, I'm a Covered Bridge Festival Hoosier.... I just happen to be a Hoosier of the Muslim faith," he said at his victory celebration.

Defeated was Republican Jon Elrod, who will almost certainly be the GOP standard-bearer when the seat is again up for grabs in November. Mr. Elrod in 2006 pulled off the rare feat of knocking off an incumbent Democrat in the state legislature. But who will he face in November? Despite yesterday's win, the new incumbent Mr. Carson will face serious competition in the May 5 Democratic primary. State Reps. David Orentlicher and Carolene Mays, and former state Health Commissioner Woodrow Myers are all well-financed and claim Mr. Carson only won the Democratic nod for the special election by pulling strings with the local party machinery.

In any event, Mr. Elrod's showing should be of some cheer to Republicans. He performed a full four points better than the GOP "base" vote in the 2004 presidential race. That's certainly better than the seven-point loss in their base vote that Illinois Republicans suffered in surrendering the House seat of former Speaker Denny Hastert on Saturday. Clearly, the GOP has trouble heading into the fall election but the Indiana results aren't pointing to anything like a meltdown.

I guess I'm a little bit too close to the race to share this same perspective. Hat tip to Polis Politics for catching this one.