Barack says ignore the man behind the curtain

The man in this case is Barack Obama's mentor, political sponsor, long time pal, and business partner, William Ayers:


I wonder what job in his administration Barack has promised to Billy? Probably head of the Committee for State Security except he may have to fight Michelle Obama for it.

Let's help Barack Obama pick a VP candidate!

I already offered Barack my advice, but Ann Coulter has a more succinct suggestion:

This week, Barack Obama's challenge is to select a running mate who's young, hip, and whose accomplishments in life don't overshadow Obama's. Allow me to suggest Kevin Federline.

All indications are that unlike Obama, Federline can talk without a teleprompter, so even he may be a stretch.

Barack Obama the crooked developers' pal

David Freddoso in today's NY Post - BARACK'S FAVORS FOR CORRUPT CRONY:

Barack Obama has admitted it was "boneheaded" to get involved in a land deal with Tony Rezko, his friend and fund-raiser. But the media's focus on that deal has distracted from the bigger question: Why would Obama become involved in any deal with a man like Rezko, who made his living sponging off taxpayers and corrupting public officials? Because, by the time of the deal, the two already had a long relationship of mutual benefit.
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After Rezko's 2006 indictment on unrelated federal corruption charges, Obama denied unequivocally that he'd ever helped the man: "I've never done any favors for him."

That's simply false. Rezko was a genius of corporate welfare who enriched himself at taxpayers' expense, both legally and illegally, via his multiple political connections. Yes, he went to others for the illegal deals that landed him in prison. But Rezko depended on Obama when he wanted legal access to the state treasury. The arrangement was a far cry from Obama's image of "change and hope."

The hope is for crooks who have Barry's cell phone number, but I digress.

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" [Freddoso's new book] I identify and parse six housing bills with which Obama was closely involved.
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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.

Gosh, young Barry must have been a star pupil in the Chicago school of politics. I'm not as sure as Mr. Freddoso that Barry didn't do anything illegal though. Wanna bet that Rezko turns state's evidence to keep out of the slammer if Obama isn't in a position to pardon him after the election?

However, the best part is that ole Hussein thinks these types of "private-public partnerships" are just the ticket for developing affordable housing in the USA. Aside from the graft, read Binyamin Appelbaum's lengthy expose in the Boston Globe of how it worked out for the residents in Grim proving ground for Obama's housing policy:

The squat brick buildings of Grove Parc Plaza, in a dense neighborhood that Barack Obama represented for eight years as a state senator, hold 504 apartments subsidized by the federal government for people who can't afford to live anywhere else.

But it's not safe to live here.

About 99 of the units are vacant, many rendered uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage. Mice scamper through the halls. Battered mailboxes hang open. Sewage backs up into kitchen sinks. In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale - a score so bad the buildings now face demolition.

Grove Parc has become a symbol for some in Chicago of the broader failures of giving public subsidies to private companies to build and manage affordable housing - an approach strongly backed by Obama as the best replacement for public housing.

As a state senator, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee coauthored an Illinois law creating a new pool of tax credits for developers. As a US senator, he pressed for increased federal subsidies. And as a presidential candidate, he has campaigned on a promise to create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund that could give developers an estimated $500 million a year.

But a Globe review found that thousands of apartments across Chicago that had been built with local, state, and federal subsidies - including several hundred in Obama's former district - deteriorated so completely that they were no longer habitable.

Grove Parc and several other prominent failures were developed and managed by Obama's close friends and political supporters. Those people profited from the subsidies even as many of Obama's constituents suffered. Tenants lost their homes; surrounding neighborhoods were blighted.

Maybe Barry should just call his big plan the My Developer Pals Trust Fund? As for the taxpayers, well they always get screwed, just more so in Chicago.

Barack Obama the ventriloquist dummy

Barack Obama's supporters are still smarting from his inability to complete whole sentences at the Saddleback "debate." I guess they haven't figured out yet that the dummy doesn't work too well without the ventriloquist:

According to several Democrat political consultants presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama spent part of his Hawaiian vacation working on weaning himself from a heavy dependence on teleprompters. Even in what are staged as "town hall" events for Obama, remarks are scripted or formatted into bullet points that scroll on teleprompter screens. Obama has had several embarrassing events where the teleprompter either malfunctioned or the screens were not fully visible.

"He just locks down and can't get the words out," says one political consultant. "For such a fine speaker, it's really quite remarkable that he's had issues."

I guess they are too young to remember that was also true of Charlie McCarthy when Edgar Bergen wasn't around.

Obama's troubles with unscripted moments contributed to his campaign's refusal to participate in town hall format debates or discussions with Sen. John McCain, who feels much more comfortable in the unscripted moments.

Maybe ole Barack should just retire to his mansion and wait for his coronation.

More John Edwards hijinks revealed!

Yep, it's Wednesday and so it's time for the Enquirer's JOHN EDWARDS BLOCKBUSTER NEW EXPOSE! It looks like they saved the really hot stuff for the paper edition, but there are still plenty of naughty bits. For instance, the day before Edwards gave his faux confession, Rielle took the Love Child for a $50,000 private jet ride and:

THE ENQUIRER tracked Rielle to St. Croix where our reporters discovered Rielle and the baby stayed in a luxurious oceanfront home owned by controversial trial lawyer Lee Rohn, another close friend of Edwards.

When visited by an ENQUIRER reporter on August 15, Rohn snapped a terse “No comment!” when questioned about Hunter.
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After the ENQUIRER discovered Rielle’s hideaway with Rohn, she was moved to a motel on the island before returning to Santa Barbara on August 17 according to another source.

An ENQUIRER reporter then saw Rielle back in her California home, which is being paid for by Edwards’ former finance chairman Fred Baron.

And Rielle now has an off-duty police officer guarding her house.

None of this is paid for by Rielle. The money continues to come from Edwards’s network of loyal supporters, with no explanation from Edwards why he is having his friends continue to support Rielle now that the affair has been made public.

Edwards is not only aware of the hush money payoffs but orchestrated it with his team of former campaign advisors and now The ENQUIRER has discovered that a team of six more lawyers have been involved in the coverup and are funneling payments to Hunter, who has no money and no means of support.

I guess she just relies on the kindness of strangers. Heck, I said I was willing to help!

Anyhow, I promised naughty:

A friend of Rielle’s told The ENQUIRER that when Edwards and Rielle met, “She wanted to pick him up. According to her, the chemistry was instant.

“They ended up sleeping together that night!”

Rielle told her friend that she was hired to shoot behind-the-scenes video for the Presidential campaign because Edwards wanted them to be together.

“A friend kidded her she was actually shooting ‘between-the-sheets’ videos!”

Johnny Reid, you devil, you!

An American Carol - fun with Mikey Moore and the Moonbats

Director David Zucker of Naked Gun and Airplane fame has delivered a delicious sendup of pigboat propagandist Michael Moore and his looney leftwing pals called An American Carol. The idea is that the porcine one wants to abolish July 4th and is visited by three spirits (ala Charles Dicken's Christmas Carol) to show him the error of his ways. It's opening Oct. 3 and looks like a blast:



It's nice that Zucker was able to find so many Americans in Hollywood. Grab some popcorn and get ready for the cries of leftoid angst.

RIP: 40th anniversay of the death of the Democrat party

Bruce Walker does some remembering in 40 Years after the Death of a Party:

Incredibly, a political party largely reconstructed around the notion that its own nation is evil and its own citizens are dupes or worse, has survived and thrived in America. Its party leaders more or less openly root for the defeat of American soldiers in war. Its party bigwigs hobnob with America-haters like Michael Moore at national conventions. Its party faithful, according to public opinion polls, listen seriously to arguments that the American government planned war upon its own people.

The descent from a reasonable, serious political party into a gaggle of anti-patriots began forty years ago this month, just as the case for winning the Cold War was made most emphatically in the streets of Prague. It is not accidental that a former Democrat turned Republican, Ronald Reagan, won that Cold War over the constant squawking of Democrats.

The students of Chicago streets are now the old men of the Democrat Party. They blame America, somehow, for Russian tanks in Georgia, just as they blamed America, if they blamed anyone, for Soviet tanks in Czechoslovakia. Frozen in time, immune to reality, they tear and claw at the nation which gave them everything. They lived as they lived in 1968 -- reveling in the bloodying of America, chanting praises of Marxist monsters, pummeling anyone within their party who did not toe the party line.

When people sense the sickness of American politics and government, what they sense is something missing for forty years from our national dialog: Sincere and patriotic partisan debate. There should be two political parties, both committed to the American Dream, both in love with their nation, both proud to defend her. Instead, one party has accepted the lies told about America on the streets of Chicago in 1968. Too rich, too powerful, too confident, too comfortable -- this is what the rioters in Chicago thought of America then; this is what the heart of the Democratic Party thinks now, forty years after their political party died.

The part I like best is where the Democrat Presidential candidates compete for Moonbat love during the primaries and then flip flop and pretend to be Americans during the election campaign.

More on the same theme from Michael Graham in the Boston Herald:

My grandfather helped push Patton’s tanks across Europe, and one reason for my grandfather’s unshakable party loyalty was his belief that Harry Truman saved his life by dropping the A-bombs on Japan.
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I miss my grandfather, but I’m also glad that he isn’t around to witness the tragic descent of his beloved Democratic Party.

Watching Obama with the Rev. Rick Warren this past weekend, answering questions - or, more accurately, not answering - about his most basic beliefs was simply embarrassing.

Obama supports partial-birth abortion and voted against the “Born Alive Infant Protection Act.” When he got the invitation to an evangelical forum hosted by a pro-life pastor, he had to know that issues regarding life and the law were going to come up.

And his prepared answer to the most fundamental question about public policy and abortion (“is the fetus a human being?”) is that it’s “above my pay grade?”

There are certain sentences that should never appear on the lips of the Leader of the Free World. “That Vladimir Putin, what a great guy!” is one of them. “I did not have sex with that woman” is another.

But on the very top of the list of statements about our nation’s laws that should never be spoken by a guy whose job it is to sit next to the Big, Red Button is “That’s above my pay grade.”

With all due respect, Sen. Obama, being president is above your pay grade. And the voters are starting to figure that out.

I like it - Barack Obama: being President is above his pay grade.

Barack Obama picks Michael Jackson as running mate!

EXCLUSIVE - MUST CREDIT COUNTRY STORE!
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Barack Obama has sent his supporters an email saying he will announce his VP pick tomorrow, but sources tell The Country Store that Barack is planning to stun the nation by picking pop star Michael Jackson as his running mate! Here's a snip from the draft press release:

Barack Obama today chose Michael Jackson as his Vice Presidential running mate in an "outside the box" choice that answers the nation's burning cry for Hope and Change. Mr. Obama said, "Besides being the greatest pop star of the century, Michael Jackson is an advocate for diversity and the rights of children. I welcome his warmth and his strength to my ticket of Hope and Change!"

Mr. Jackson commented, " I'm believe so much in Barack's movement for Hope and Change that I have agreed to leave my special young friends in the care of a nanny and venture out on the campaign trail. I have always said that I can learn everything I want from a young boy, and I promise to bring that philosophy to the campaign and to the office of Vice President. Barry and I call our joint program the Peter Pan Platform and my job is to be Tinker Bell!"

Gosh, Osama bin Laden must have filled his dance card!

I confess, I am the father of Rielle Hunter's baby!

I see where John Edward's goofy gofer Andy Young is getting $20,000 a month for pretending to be the father of Rielle Hunter's baby. It's not clear whether that includes the rent on the multimillion mansion in Santa Barbara where he was comically living with his wife Cheri, his 3 kids, and Rielle and her baby until Rielle and Cheri got to fussing and Rielle moved to a separate fully furnished mansion that rented for $9000 a month. It's also not clear whether it includes family cars - Rielle was driving a BMW. Still, it's a nice chunk of change for no work.

Aside from an astonishing criminal record and being unemployed, it's not obvious what Andy Young brings to the job beyond an endearing loyalty to John Edwards. However, for $20,000 a month plus Rielle's $9,0000 housing allowance, I can be very loyal and obviously my studly demeanor

makes me a much more credible candidate for the role of a philanderer. What's more, I won't have any family trouble since my wife suggested I apply for the job and she's airing out the guest room right now!

I told her, "These young blondes can be mighty flighty, but I'll try my best to handle Rielle if I get the gig."

She said, "Shut up, you old fool! The only thing you'll be handling is dirty diapers. Rielle and I are going to be busy shopping and going to New Age soirees in the BMW. You're going to be taking care of the baby."

I guess I'd have to hire my scary neighbor Skeeter and his hound dog Rex to keep off the reporters, but that way I'd have someone to talk to while I tend to the Pampers and pablum.

So, hey Fred Baron! Give me a jingle. I'm a much better candidate for the job of love child daddy and I might even give you a nice Country Store discount.

Rielle Hunter takes up a career in masonry

Golly, I was beginning to feel kinda sorry for ole Rielle Hunter. First her swain John Edwards throws her under the bus and she had to take it on the lam from the multimillion dollar mansion his friends had parked her in. No one was stepping up to defend her except her family who challenged Johnny Reid to take the paternity test he was prattling on about.

Well, I should have know better - turns out Rielle doesn't want a paternity test because it would "invade her privacy". Of course, her judgment may be affected by the private jet that whisked her and the kid away two days before the big Edwards coverup story was released and the cash that is still coming in from Edwards' pals. Gosh, I wonder if she got a raise?

As for Johnny Reid himself, the Enquirer claims to have evidence that he visited his "brief liaison" and her supposed kid by another man two other times this year besides the last time when he hid in the john at the Beverly Hilton. Yep, it was just a quickie!

Finally, even if you take Edwards' implausible explanation at face value, there's a legal problem with "personal contributions" from his pals to his "old" liaison and kid (and also faithful eunuch Andy Young) while Edwards was running for office. Check this out:




Johnny Reid and his lawyer pals will look great in stripes.