Hillbuzz pulls a skeleton out of Barack Obama’s closet.
“Skeletons In The Closet. Let’s Look In The Closet.”
Image courtesy of http://www.ivyleagueconservatives.com/tag/liberals/.
“Bribe”
Image courtesy of http://www.votermedia.org/.
A BRIBE? So it appears. During Obama’s Illinois Senate career.
…the bribe Obama took as a state senator is the thing David Axelrod has lived in terror of this whole campaign — he has been praying this does not get out.
…this story appeared in the LA Times. The article’s author, Dan Morain, tried to bring this bribe up in the primaries, but never had any support in the media to go anywhere with it.
In short, Obama had massive campaign debt coming off of his failed bid to challenge Bobby Rush for a seat in Congress. Smarting from that loss, Obama needed money, so he turned to Yesse Yehudah. What’s so strange about this is that Yehudah is a Republican — so why would he raise money for Obama? What the article below does not say is that, magically, 10 people who work for Yehudah and have never given money to any elected official before – AND WHO COULD NOT AFFORD TO MAKE $1,000 donations – all made $1,000 donations to Obama simultaneously. As if someone else made the donations for all of them, in their names, with money that came from somewhere else.
The quid pro quo on this is simple: Obama took a $10,000 bribe from Yehudah for using his position in the state senate to throw a $75,000 grant to Yehudah’s nonprofit organization.People here in Chicago say this was obvious politics in Illinois: where Obama agreed to get Yehudah a grant, but Obama’s fee for this transaction was $10,000 to pay off his campaign debt.
Yehudah’s nonproft later came under investigation, and Obama panicked: he dumped $5,000 of the bribe money he took over to Yehudah as fast as he could after that.
…what Obama did here with this grant is illegal, and it’s the kind of things politicians in Illinois go to jail for all the time— including our last governor George Ryan, and most likely our current governor Rod Blagojevich too.
Bribes like this are what people mean when they refer to “dirty Chicago politics”.
“Bribe. Problem, dirty. Solution, clean.”
Image courtesy of http://www.10ad.org/dont-accept-your-first-bribe/.
Fresh face or old-school player? By Dan Morain. LA Times. September 08, 2007. This is the original story that has been castigated to the annals of forgotten media history. By media choice and convenience. But resurrected here to give folks the opportunity to see for themselves. No Obama Khalidi suppressed video here! Click the story to read it all. Highlights as follows.
He managed to burnish a reformer’s reputation while swimming in the muddy waters of special-interest- infested state politics.
He worked on a nice-guy image while practicing the hardball and brawling tactics of Chicago-style politics.
Now, promoting himself as a fresh face on the national political stage, proclaiming his distance from lobbyists and the Washington culture of special interests, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has to contend with his own history.
Obama may be packaged as something new among presidential contenders, but in this town where politics is played like a blood sport he fit right in.
“He knows how the game is played,”said Jay Stewart, executive director of Better Government Assn., a nonpartisan group that honored Obama for helping overhaul state ethics law. Stewart called Illinois politics “deeply troubled, if not corrupt” at its core.
Obama arrived in Springfield with another familiar tool from the kit of Chicago politics – ambition.
Cynthia K. Miller, who ran his district office, recalls an incident shortly after Obama’s election. She had taken a longer-than-normal lunch break and returned to find an impatient state senator waiting for her.
He didn’t raise his voice, she said, but he turned stern as he explained the importance of time management and the need to focus on goals. Then he shared his own goal: “I plan to be president.”
“When he said it, he wasn’t just whistling Dixie. I believed,” Miller said. “I thought I needed to work harder” to help make it happen.
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As a presidential candidate, Obama has been critical of the congressional system of doling out money for pet projects. But he is no stranger to pork-barrel politics and the practice of spreading government money around his district. In Springfield he once directed state funds to a nonprofit group headed by a Republican and former ballot foe, Yesse B. Yehudah.
Yehudah barely registered a ripple of meaningful opposition, drawing only 10% of the vote in his 1998 challenge of Obama.
The following year, a nonprofit run by Yehudah, a social services organization called Fulfilling Our Responsibility Unto Mankind, began seeking state support. At the same time, Obama was considering mounting an ambitious challenge to U.S. Rep. Bobby L. Rush, a fellow Democrat.
Former foe Yehudah stepped up early to help. In November 1999, five people who worked for the Republican’s nonprofit organization each gave $1,000 checks to Obama’s congressional campaign committee. Yehudah makes no secret of his goal.
“We want [politicians] to know that when we sit down, we’re serious,” Yehudah said. “They know it when a $1,000 check comes in.”
Obama lost his congressional bid.President Clinton backed incumbent Rush, who received twice as many primary votes as Obama. Obama was left with a $40,000 debt.
Later that year, Yehudah associates pitched in an additional $5,000 to help retire Obama’s debt. The contributions were recorded on Oct. 7, 2000, three days after the Illinois Senate, at Obama’s behest, approved a $75,000 state grant to Yehudah’s nonprofit, state records show.
In an interview, Yehudah said the commitment for the grant was secured months earlier, in July. He called timing of the donations a coincidence.
The donations were modest by political standards, as was Obama’s relatively small assist to the nonprofit group of his ex-rival and new benefactor. But in Illinois, “government actions often occur around the time of campaign donations,” said Stewart of the Better Government Assn. “The answer is always the same: It’s always a coincidence.”
Obama spokesman Bill Burton said there was no connection between the campaign donations and the grant to Yehudah’s organization. “Of course not,” he said.
By 2002, Obama was preparing for his next challenge, a run for the U.S. Senate. Also that year, the Illinois attorney general sued Yehudah over allegations of kickbacks unrelated to the state grant. It was settled out of court.
Three days after the suit was filed, Obama returned one batch of donations totaling $5,000.
Hmmm. Why on earth would any money be returned? Isn’t that the usual reaction when politician gets some funny money into their coffers?
Smoking gun.
“Smoking gun.”
Image courtesy of http://www.gifs.net/image/Everything_Else/Guns_and_Cannons/Gun_smokes/8103.
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1 response so far ↓
pennyb22 // October 31, 2008 at 3:16 pm
You Have A Great Blog Keep Up The Good Work ..Cheers