Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

File under They that throw stones should check their own HOUSE

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  2. What’s that supposed to mean? You mean like on songs where the artist is listed Rhianna featuring Jay-Z?

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    p>Could you please refresh us of the facts on who sold what to whom for how much and how it is improper? Honestly, I don’t remember what this whole deal was all about and why I should care now. Is Rezko supposed to mean something to anyone besides the anti-Obama crowd? Context would help.

  3. McCain was outraged that Obama had purchased a home with a loan.  His aides had to kindly explain that houses were often bought with loans.  Can’t fault him for not knowing, when was the last he had to get a loan for anything?

  4. But rolling it out this early proves how big a goof the “I don’t know how many houses I have” problem is.

  5. Once again Factcheck comes to the rescue of those of us trying to counter the distortions of the opposition.  They conclude that Obama did nothing improper vis-a-vis Rezko.

  7. Here is the relevant portion from Barack Obama for Beginners. You can find complete citations to all of the statements here.

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    p>Please try to be accurate if you want to make attacks — otherwise, you just look juvenile and ill informed, like a Republican Senate candidate, for example, who can’t even organize a competent signature collection effort.

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    By 4 March, when Clinton finally won Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island, analysts armed with sharp pencils had concluded that, barring a cataclysm, an Obama nomination was only a matter of time. John McCain clinched the Republican nomination the same evening.

    The Clinton campaign waited to see if the trial of Chicago real estate developer Antoin “Tony” Rezko, which began on 6 March, might be cataclysmic for Obama. Rezko was charged with using his clout as an adviser to the Illinois governor to extort money from firms that did business with the state. There was no direct connection between Obama and the charges – but the Presidential candidate had a long history with the defendant. Rezko offered Obama a job when Obama became President of the Harvard Law Review, but the student turned him down. Later, Rezko was a client of his law firm Davis, Miner, and Obama spent five hours on matters related to a partnership between a church group and Rezko’s company, the Rezmar corporation, to build low-income housing. In 1997, Allison Davis, a partner at the law firm, left and joined Rezko to form the New Kenwood real estate company. Obama, then a state senator, wrote letters to state and federal officials to urge them to approve a housing development for low-income senior citizens proposed by the company. “It was going to help people in his district,” his campaign said in 2007. Finally, Rezko donated numerous times to Obama’s campaigns, although not to his presidential bid, and was a member of the finance committee for his U.S. Senate campaign. Total donations from Rezko, his family members, and his associates, to the senate campaign totaled about $250,000.

    This was the context when, on 15 June 2005, Obama and his wife bought a house for $1.65 million (financed largely by earnings from his writings) – and Rezko’s wife bought an adjoining vacant lot on the same day from the same seller for $625,000. The Obamas paid $300,000 below the asking price for the house. Rezko’s wife purchased her lot for the asking price. The seller, a doctor, later said the Obamas had made two earlier bids for the house that were even lower, and that the price he accepted was the best he could get. In February 2006, the Obamas bought one-sixth of the lot, a 10-foot strip that ran next to their property, from Rezko’s wife for $104,000 – one-sixth of the purchase price – to expand their garden. Details of these transactions came to light in November, after Rezko’s October indictment. Obama, in response to questions from the press, termed the transactions related to his house “boneheaded.” “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 that he had done me a favor,” he said.

    Obama had not, however, done anything illegal. The issue faded. In March 2008, his 2010 U.S. Senate re-election campaign committee announced it would give the contributions by Rezko and his family members and associates to charity. In June, the developer was convicted on 16 counts of corruption and went to prison.

    • Illegal and unethical are two different standards.  Obama was responsible for Tony Rezko receiving millions of dollars in special considerations from the state of Illinois.  From the same article I linked to.  

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      In October 1998, Obama wrote city and state officials, urging them to give Rezko $14 million to build an apartment complex outside of Obama’s state Senate district. The Chicago Sun-Times noted last year that Obama’s request included $855,000 in “development fees” for Rezko and for another developer, Allison Davis, who happened to be Obama’s old law-firm boss. Obama’s spokesman said it was just a coincidence that the state senator wrote letters to obtain millions of dollars for his two longtime friends.

      In fact, Obama was a dependable ally of subsidized developers in the Legislature, giving Rezko and others broader help as well. In “The Case Against Barack Obama,” I identify and parse six housing bills with which Obama was closely involved. A few examples:

      * In 2001, Obama cosponsored a bill allowing developers to sell state tax credits to others and pocket half of the proceeds.

      * In 2002 and 2004, he was chief cosponsor of a bill to authorize a rent-subsidy fund giving “grants . . . directly to developers” of low-income housing. Seventy percent of the money was earmarked for the Chicago area.

      * Obama cosponsored the Illinois Housing Initiative Act of 2003, which required the governor to develop a plan for more low-income housing and “provide[d] for funding for housing construction and rehabilitation and supportive services.”

      * In 2003, Obama voted for the Affordable Housing Planning and Appeal Act, which required Illinois municipalities to make 10 percent of their housing units “affordable” (by definition, this included subsidized housing). This forced 46 communities just outside of Chicago to create more than 7,000 new “affordable” units – a huge boost in demand for area developers. The bill also provided loopholes for developers to circumvent local ordinances and regulations.

      After voting for this measure (it passed narrowly), Obama then cosponsored a new bill that moved up its implementation by more than a year.

      These and the other Obama-backed bills helped make millionaires of Rezko and other slum developers at taxpayers’ expense. The developers – including his former law boss and an adviser to his current campaign – reciprocated, together giving and raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for Obama’s campaigns.

      To sum up: Obama got them subsidies to build. He secured them a steady income of government rent subsidies. He arranged special tax credits and abatements for them. He backed measures that increased demand for their services, and helped them legally circumvent local laws.

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      p>Yup Obama did nothing for Tony.  You guys are so gullible.  He truly can’t do any wrong right.  The man grew up in the Machine Politics of Chicago but he and he alone comes out unscathed?

      • The post starts off  not about Obama’s patronage, but about his HOUSE (as you capitalized in the title of the post a la PJ).  Connect the dots for us, EaBo. Was the part about the house just a non-sequitur or can you actually tie it all together for us? What, exactly, is the charge here?

        • Obama helped Rezko

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          p>Rezko’s wife bought a 625K piece of land so that Obama could buy his house for $300,000 off the asking price.  The piece of land has never been developed and the obamas have basically had use of it.  

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          p>Quid meet Quo Meet Pro.

          • That makes no sense at all.

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            p>And where does it say that the Obamas have had use of the property? Or are you just making that one up?

  8. This is McCain’s response?  

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    p>I had to double check to make sure this was an actual ad created by the McCain campaign.  It seems kind of juvenile and cheesy, even the guy’s voice inflection.

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    p>To me it’s something SNL would make up as an attack ad.  How can someone see this and not come away thinking the McCain campaign is a joke.

    • “Barack Obama once purchased some land from a guy who is now in jail, ergo, he is unfit to be president.” Devastating.

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      • Obama and the guy in jail both bought land adjacent to each other at the same time.  had both not bought neither were going to buy.  Rezko make the deal happen for Obama.  it’s not illegal but somewhat unethical.  Obama never would have afforded his house without that purchase by Rezko.  

          • they had a 17 year relationship.  This was clearly a favor to Obama.  The two adjacent properties were marketed as one property.  The Obamas could not afford the whole property.  Rezko bought part of the empty lot so that Obama could buy the property.  both transactions happened on the same day.  So you can be cutesy all you want.  Obama has been tainted by his dealings with this slimeball and you know it. That’s all from me. I don’t feel a need to continually defend my documented positions.  So chip away.  this one is a pretty clear cut case.  Obama was a public official.  Someone whom he has helped with legislation bought a piece of land so he could afford his new house.  That is a textbook example of an ethical lapse.  

            • But not a big deal. It’s not like Rezko lost money on the deal. In fact, the property was sold to Rezkos lawyer and as of Feb 1 on the market for $950,000.  People make it sound like Rezko sold Obama a house for pennies on the dollar or something, which couldn’t be further from the case.

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              p>People that don’t already hate Obama won’t give a crap about this.  

              • because he is the “leader God has graced us with at this time.”

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                p>He can do no wrong.

                • …we got nothing – no platform, no solid policy ideas, no advantage on Iraq, no sound plan for the economy, no concrete Obama wrongdoings, nothing – so we’ll just bitterly mock Obama as the ‘messiah’ and a ‘celebrity’.”

                • I’m not the one treating Obama like he’s the second coming. Your side is. I’m just pointing it out man.  You got issues take em up with Nancy Pelosi.

                • …and got jealous. Some would should travel to the Reagan Library and make sure Ron’s tomb isn’t empty, just to be sure.  

                • Just a huge bounce leading up until THEIR convention and a dog race that was supposed to be a landslide

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                  p>Bury head in sand

            • …the Factcheck link I provided above?  I have yet to see what is improper about THIS transaction.  This is starting to sound like Whitewater with just as little actual wrongdoing as that one.  So you and I pool our resources to buy land and it later turns out I’m corrupt in other dealings.  This taints you how?

        • Reynolds, pajamas, Fox etc. (including yourself EaBo) have prefaced this cheesy McCain video.  If you need to explain yourself first then you have a problem.  This is a horrible ad, it actually makes his situation worse.

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