42 Comments

• 1. Joe  |  February 26th, 2008 at 8:51 pm

  Woo-hoo. Another “GOTCHA” post out of Margolis. Glad to see all you folks were so pissed off at the NYT posting that “smear article” about McCain the other day.
  Eventually you will find something. I see how the next 8 years are going to be. It will be a witch-hunt all over again. You can’t win on merits, so dig until you find anything that may stick.
  Have fun with this one Matt. Keep digging.

• 2. BARRASSO  |  February 26th, 2008 at 8:52 pm

  Deleted - off topic.

• 3. Matt Margolis  |  February 26th, 2008 at 8:57 pm

  “It will be a witch-hunt all over again. You can’t win on merits, so dig until you find anything that may stick.” -Joe

  That’s really funny Joe, because that’s what the left has been doing with Bush and the Republican Party for years…

  But that doesn’t mean you can just write off this revelation as just digging up dirt without trying to explain why this scandal is irrelevant or not a big deal.

• 4. Rich  |  February 26th, 2008 at 9:22 pm

  You libs shouted from the rafters and hounded DeLay out of office, and he hasn’t been convicted on any thing. Went after Rove, and once again nothing. Funny when things start to trickle out about the golden boy you simply put your fingers in your ears and shout “not listening”. You are a bunch of hypocritical jokes.

• 5. Christian Wright  |  February 26th, 2008 at 9:34 pm

  Rich:

  Rezko is the only person accused of a crime and he does not hold a public office.

• 6. Rich  |  February 26th, 2008 at 9:48 pm

  Are you saying this matter should not be looked into? How many wild goose chases and interviews have the dems had in the past 2 years? Does this land deal not look just a little bit shady to you? Or do you only want to look for corruption when it suits you?

• 7. Almiranta  |  February 26th, 2008 at 9:48 pm

  Rich, you might also note that while they are whining about observations about Obama’s activities—that is to say, commenting on things that really did happen, are documented, actually exist—- they are also still complaining that no one ever found out any fraud connected with Whitewater.

  This passionate dedication to indictments on the part of the Left is really odd. They appear to think that indictments, or the lack of same, are the end-all and be-all of the legal system.

  One one hand, a shady political hack promises the Democrat Party in Texas that he will “bring down” Tom DeLay, proceeds to sit grand jury after grand jury till he finally bullies one into issuing indictments which are based for the most part on an action that was not even illegal when it happened—and the Dems cheer as if this has any meaning. Once the bogus indictments were brought in, some were dismissed, and the hack has since fought tooth and nail to keep the others out of court—because the legal system will allow DeLay to provide evidence to prove them bogus, too, and after seeing Mike Nyfong busted for prosecutorial misconduct the Dems’ hack is understandably nervous. But the Dems hold this reprehensible manipulation of the judicial system up as a great and glorious victory.

  On the other hand, RESPONSIBLE investigators, after finding enough Clinton fingerprints on enough damning evidence to indicate plenty of wrongdoing in Whitewater, ranging from bank fraud to income tax evasion to campaign finance fraud (a harbinger of things to come, for Governor Clinton…) and noting that every other person involved in Whitewater had been convicted of some degree of wrongdoing, decided not to indict because, while the presumption of guilt was great and supported by the evidence, there was simply not enough to guarantee a conviction.

  Sure, they could have acted like Dems, taken Chuckie Schumer’s advice that convictions are not necessary and that indictments are all you need, but they didn’t play games with the legal system just to score some political points.

  And by the way, the Clintons DID get hammered on two IRS charges for non payment of taxes and trying to claim a loss when they had never invested anything in the first place. On the other charges, their co-conspirators took the rap for them—they got well paid for it, but they carried the Clinton water so future radicals could claim the Clintons were “proven innocent”.

  Ah, the glory of the simple indictment. To the simple-minded, the presence of one is proof of guilt, and the absence proof of innocence. Hey, between that approach to indictments and activist judges making law, the Dems can really streamline government, can’t they?

• 8. Joe  |  February 26th, 2008 at 10:30 pm

  Rich, first of all… Delay was actually indicted. So that argument of yours goes out the window. I’m sure someone will bring up Jefferson and I think he SHOULD step down. Now Renzi was also indicted and says he isn’t stepping down either.
  So the “they did it worse than we do it” argument doesn’t hold water.
  It should be looked into and I’m guessing nothing comes out of it. If something does, then we can deal with it then.

  Matt,
  I’m not dismissing anything. I’m not going to defend this accusation either. Obama is the one who needs to explain what happened. But answer me this….. if nothing comes out of this and it proves this was a lie, are you going to admit you over-acted calling him corrupt? My guess is no.

  My point is this GOTCHA politicking is getting really old. Obama is muslim. His middle name is Hussein. He has a cousin in Kenya. He is corrupt. Rezko. Blah blah blah blah.

  Then you cry like a school girl when the NYT runs a dumb story about McCain and a possible relationship with a lobbyist. Even to the point that the White House says the NYT is deliberately smearing Republicans.

  But again… just keep lobbing crap against the wall on Obama… maybe one day something will stick. Let’s see if you guys can outdo the Starr investigation in money spent on nothing.

• 9. hermie  |  February 26th, 2008 at 10:44 pm

  Obama is the typical Chicago Dem politician. He was willing to be part of a corrupt system, and took no steps to fight it or even denounce it. He went along with the annointment of John Stroger’s son Todd to the post of Chairman of the Cook County Board, and has said nothing about the hiring of relatives to top positions at enormous salaries, while the Cook County government finances are in a mess.

  Obama’s participation in a corrupt system will eventually shatter that image of being for ‘change’.

• 10. Freedom1  |  February 26th, 2008 at 10:47 pm

  “The money transfer raises the question of whether funds from Nadhmi Auchi, one of Britain’s wealthiest men, helped Mr Obama buy his mock Georgian mansion in Chicago.

  A company related to Mr Auchi, who has a conviction for corruption in France…”

  I thought Mr. Auchi’s corruption conviction was worth point out.

• 11. Rich  |  February 26th, 2008 at 11:00 pm

  Um no not exactly. delay was indicted on trumped up charges and as I’m sure you’ve heard the pundits say, you can indict a ham sandwhich. My real point was that the left loves conspiracy theories and tries to make any type of connection (Abramoff had a picture with Bush= corruption) when it comes to republicans, and will deny even the possibility when it comes Democrats. How many basless charges did you toss at Rove? Yet you scream bloody murder when questions are raised at the golden boy.

• 12. Joe  |  February 26th, 2008 at 11:05 pm

  Deleted - off topic.

• 13. Willem van Oranje  |  February 26th, 2008 at 11:25 pm

  Am I missing something? Let’s cut thru the chaff first:

  A company related to Mr Auchi [...] registered the loan to [...] Antoin “Tony” Rezko on May 23 2005. Mr Auchi says the loan, through the Panamanian company Fintrade Services SA, was for $3.5 million. Three weeks later, Mr Obama bought a house on the city’s South Side while Mr Rezko’s wife bought the garden plot next door from the same seller on the same day, June 15.

  That’s it? That’s the “shady deal involving Barack Obama and a British-Iraqi billionaire“?

  You’ve got to be kidding me. The first deal (loan to Renzo from his business partner Aunchi) does not involve Obama. The second deal (Mrs Renzo and the sellers of the plot) does not involve Mr Aunchi and technically not even the Obama’s. Only because they bought an adjacent house on the same day from the same sellers.

  (Off topic part of comment deleted)

• 14. Willem van Oranje  |  February 26th, 2008 at 11:45 pm

  Deleted - off topic (the topic is Obama/Rezko - I don’t think Tom DeLay has anything to do with this; quit it, liberals - stop trying to always change the subject.)

• 15. Rich  |  February 26th, 2008 at 11:50 pm

  So two years later and where is the trial much less the conviction? I’m looking over my post Joe and I don’t believe I wrote anything about Renzi, could you please point it out?

• 16. Willem van Oranje  |  February 27th, 2008 at 12:31 am

  Deleted - off topic.

• 17. Willem van Oranje  |  February 27th, 2008 at 12:34 am

  Rich
  

  So two years later and where is the trial much less the conviction?

  When DeLay hadn’t filed for motions to dismiss the charges, he might have been in jail right now.

• 18. Rich  |  February 27th, 2008 at 12:55 am

  Ok so I have you down for conviction before trial, duly noted.

• 19. Willem van Oranje  |  February 27th, 2008 at 1:46 am

  Rich, I guess I should have to blame homeschooling that you fail to recognize “might have been”?

• 20. Mark Noonan  |  February 27th, 2008 at 1:57 am

  Willem,

  It isn’t an adjacent house - it is a vacant lot which is entirely worthless to anyone who doesn’t own Obama’s house; it is undeveloped property AND IT IS ONLY ACCESSIBLE through Obama’s property. The plots (one with house, one with nothing) were owned by the same seller and the requirement of the sale is that both lots be sold at the same time - the owners, naturally, didn’t want to be stuck owning the lot behind the house because it is useless property without the lot with the house on it.

  The problem, for Obama, is that this vacant lot significantly increased the price of the house - in steps Rezko to buy WHAT HE CAN NEVER USE, and the price Obama pays for his house drops a lot. Now we find that Rezko was broke when he bought this lot - and it seems he got the money for the purchase from this Iraqi ex-pat, who has been convicted for corruption…

  This land deal stunk to high heaven without all this - now its a nasty brew of money, power and influence peddling…what is Obama’s precise role in all this? Inquiring minds want to know - and know BEFORE we vote on whether he should be President.

• 21. Kahn  |  February 27th, 2008 at 1:57 am

  What were all the liberals saying last week? “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”???

  Give me a break. This was shady, admit it. No-one seems to care anyways.

• 22. Mark Noonan  |  February 27th, 2008 at 2:00 am

  Kahn,

  They are going to want to ignore this as much as possible - their Hero must win, and no questions must be asked of him, lest his winning be put at risk. This is what you get when you go with a complete unknown - of course, the “known” in Hillary isn’t any better.

  Wonder if any of them are regreting they didn’t go with Kucinich? He at least seems honest in his kook leftiness…

• 23. Rich  |  February 27th, 2008 at 2:10 am

  Nice ad hominem insult. It might have been funny if you actually had a point and were not simply squawking. So filing to have charges dismissed is further evidence of one’s possible guilt? I guess I should have to blame that ignorant statement on the bong you’re toking. Making up things is fun isn’t it? Anyways, this thread is just more proof that you libs want to convict others before a trial, and won’t even consider that your own people can break the law. Thanks to Joe and Willem for being the stereotypical hypocrits from the left. The Golden Boy’s past must not be questioned.

• 24. Freedom1  |  February 27th, 2008 at 4:34 am

  Hey Mark and Matt,

  You might want to keep a running list of all of Barack Hussein Obama’s corruption charges. Like VDH said, alone one or two might not make much difference but a clear pattern of corruption will matter a great deal to voters in the general election.

• 25. Yakki.PsD  |  February 27th, 2008 at 4:58 am

  Hey Noonan,how about you delete some of your wingnut buddies comments that are about Delay then,if the subject is Obama?

  Seems to me,you’re playing favorites and letting their crap stand,and deleting any rebuttles to their arguements.

  Whatsamattah? You work at Fox or something?

• 26. Yakki.PsD  |  February 27th, 2008 at 4:59 am

  Excuse please,it’s Margolis.

  Same difference,comment still applies. Show a little balance around here.

• 27. hermie  |  February 27th, 2008 at 8:15 am

  Obama uses the mantra of ‘Change’, but he has never taken a leadership role in fighting the corruption in Illinois and Chicago politics. In fact, he was just another one of Richie Daley’s puppets in Springfield.

  He played the voters of Illinois and now he’s playing the voters of the entire U.S. wityh his talk of ‘change’ and ‘bipartisanship’ and ‘hope’, when he has been cosy with corruption and extreme partisanship all his political career.

• 28. eric  |  February 27th, 2008 at 9:07 am

  This is from the Guardian:

  “Allow me to introduce you to Nadhmi Auchi. He was charged in the 1950s with being an accomplice of Saddam Hussein, when the future tyrant was acquiring his taste for blood. He was investigated in the 1980s for his part in alleged bribes to the fabulously corrupt leaders of post-war Italy. In the 1990s, the Belgium Ambassador to Luxembourg claimed that Auchi’s bank held money Saddam and Colonel Gadaffi had stolen from their luckless peoples. In 2002, officers from the Serious Fraud Squad raided the offices of one of Auchi’s drug companies as part of an investigation of what is alleged to be the biggest swindle ever of the NHS.”

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/nov/16/iraq.politicalcolumnists

  A former henchman of Saddam Hussein lends millions to Senator Obama and the left wants to ignore it. Good times.

  Before the lefties jump on me about the above quote, there is a link to a .pdf in which Mr. Auchi, not surprisingly, denies all of the allegations in the article and states that he is appealing his conviction.

• 29. Almiranta  |  February 27th, 2008 at 10:07 am

  Matt, I understand that DeLay is off-topic, but as the comment from Joe in # 8 is still there, I’d like to just link his whine “Delay was actually indicted. So that argument of yours goes out the window.” to my post # 7 in which I comment “Ah, the glory of the simple indictment. To the simple-minded, the presence of one is proof of guilt, and the absence proof of innocence.”

  The Lefties act as if the lack of an indictment is proof of innocence, while they seem to think that an indictment, no matter how it was achieved, whether or not it is baseless, is the same as proof of guilt.

  This wackadoo spin on the judicial process is what allows so many of them to pretend to occupy the higher moral ground while defending actions which are, in fact, indefensible.

  It also has to drag in the Starr investigation, misrepresenting it, of course, trying to make it appear to be something it was not.

  The link among all of these is the ability of the rabid Left to blithely ignore even the most blatant examples of irregularities on their side, while not only trumpeting with glee the slightest hint of impropriety on ours, but actually LYING about those improprieties to try to make them seem greater than they are.

  So, even a question about a very serious allegation against Obama, coupled with some very damning evidence, is dismissed out of hand as a”witch hunt” while extravagant exaggerations and claims are made about DeLay, who has not been convicted and who has, furthermore, been DENIED his day in court to do so, and poor Mr. Starr, who has been reviled for doing his job and lied about in claims IT was a “witch hunt” which never found anything.

• 30. Joe  |  February 27th, 2008 at 10:09 am

  Ya know… my comment #12 and Willem comments #14 and #16 deleted.
  Let’s just review….. Rich brings up Delay in comment #6. I respond to it. And I get deleted? OK. So I read on. Rich responds in comment #11 about Delay. That comment sticks around.

  But hey… it’s your blog. Filter comments as you see fit.

  Mark, your comment #20 provides a good overview of the issue. Of course everything in there is just circumstantial, but as long as you say it as all is true and illegal, I guess people will start to believe it.

  You go on to say this: This land deal stunk to high heaven without all this - now its a nasty brew of money, power and influence peddling…what is Obama’s precise role in all this?

  That IS the question, isn’t it? Since nobody knows his role at this point, and all you have is circumstantial evidence and coincidence….. why do you (and Matt) state that this is corruption? Well… I can understand Matt doing that. He doesn’t have an original thought in his body.

• 31. Willem van Oranje  |  February 27th, 2008 at 11:22 am

  Mark (and Matt), you still haven’t proven any link between Mr Aunchi and Obama. The links between Aunchi and Rezko were well established long before the loan: they were business-partners. This wasn’t the first loan from Aunchi to Rezko either.

  The requirement that the two lots be sold at the same time even exonerates the Obama’s and gave them bargaining leverage. That they managed to knock the price down to $1.65 million from $1.95 million makes sense: the house had been on the market for several months and given the uncertain future development of the vacant lot clearly are grounds for trying to knock the price down.

• 32. Rich  |  February 27th, 2008 at 12:38 pm

  Decent point Willem. However, can you explain what Rezko had to gain by buying a useless attached property with money he had to borrow in the first place? Was Rezko going to go camping in Barry’s back yard? I’m sorry but if I could not afford to buy property without borrowing heavily from an individual, the last thing I would be buying is an empty lot located behind somone else’s house. If you can come up with a logical explanation for Rezko doing this then you might blow this thing out of the water. If not, then you must admit this needs further looking into. The stench of quid pro quo is heavy on this deal in my opinion. As the libs say, “follow the money”.

• 33. Rich  |  February 27th, 2008 at 6:50 pm

  Crickets…

• 34. js  |  February 27th, 2008 at 7:27 pm

  Maybe Rezko was goin to open a 7-11 back there hoping the traffic would increase, eh?

• 35. sleepygene  |  February 27th, 2008 at 7:38 pm

  Mark-

  Just a point. The piece of land next to Obama’s house is not worth nothing. A small piece of land in Hyde Park like that can be easily converted into a three flat condo. Hyde Park is a nice neighborhood where a lot of yuppies live. So you are il-informed on the plot of land.

• 36. eric  |  February 27th, 2008 at 7:42 pm

  Quoting Mark:
  “it is undeveloped property AND IT IS ONLY ACCESSIBLE through Obama’s property”

  That would render the property pretty much worthless, unless Senator Obama wanted to devalue his property by providing access (and by putting up a three flat condo next door).

• 37. Yakki.PsD  |  February 28th, 2008 at 12:16 am

  Actually,he could get access granted from the state. Anytime a landsale in my area goes through,any properties bounded by others has to have an access.

  Heck,for all we know there may already have been an access there.

  Also,say the guy decided to build a residential there. Nothing says he can’t buy an accessway if he has to,that is if the right to access isn’t upheld.

• 38. Rich  |  February 28th, 2008 at 1:52 am

  Yakki- from an earlier post that was ignored, maybe you can answer?

  Can you explain what Rezko had to gain by buying a useless attached property with money he had to borrow in the first place?

  Personally, I own a few rental properties and I’m just gonna say that any time I have had to deal with the zoning laws and the city, it has been a complete pain in butt. Why on earth would somone want to buy a blocked off piece of property and then have to fight to get access to it when there is plenty of normal property to be bought? The more this is exposed, the more it stinks.

• 39. Yakki.PsD  |  February 28th, 2008 at 3:55 am

  Rich,I have no idea. I’m not Rezko.

  But then again,neither are you. There are many possibilities as to why a person would buy real estate.

  You know…land. They’re not making any more of it.

  It’s quite conceiveable that he could turn that property into something in the future,and possibly it was bought to put pressure on the neighbours at a later date,by building in zone something they don’t want.

  I’m not going to talk for Rezko or anyone else in the matter. He bought it,it was his credit he borrowed on,not mine,or anyone elses.

  I really don’t know why he bought it. Has anyone asked him?

• 40. Yakki.PsD  |  February 28th, 2008 at 3:57 am

  I’d liek to point out though,that I’m not defending Rezko or Obama in this. I don’t see anything amiss about it. Both parties have stated there was nothing to it,and no one has dredged up anything to it other than innuendo.

  I’m perfectly willing to let this play out,and see how it goes.

• 41. Rich  |  February 28th, 2008 at 5:34 am

  “It’s quite conceiveable that he could turn that property into something in the future,and possibly it was bought to put pressure on the neighbours at a later date,by building in zone something they don’t want.”

  I guess that could be one scenario but it does seem a little far fetched. Seems to me if you were going to go through with borrowing money for a speculative buy, you would not make this deal as it has been explained (and you would buy something in a developing neighborhood like Bucktown where I live rather than Hyde Park). Maybe we are not getting the whole story, but I would love to hear more. Especially about why the hell Rezko bought it in the first place.

• 42. Yakki.PsD  |  February 28th, 2008 at 6:33 pm

  So would I.

  I’ve got no problem with there being an investigation into it. Never have said anything about it.

  I’m a bit more concerned with an actual investigation occurring,instead of what it’s smelling like,a witch hunt.