Thanks. Some good stuff about Obama in those articles you posted.......here are some informative highpoints:
"Just what legal work -- and how much -- Obama did on those deals is unknown. His campaign staff acknowledges he worked on some of them. But the Rezmar-related work amounted to just five hours over the six years it said Obama was affiliated with the law firm, the staff said in an e-mail in February."
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"Brint said he wanted to know if Obama would come work for Rezmar, developing housing for the poor -- something Obama had expressed interest in, according to the story Brint had read. Brint arranged for Obama to meet Rezko, but Obama didn't take the job."
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"Obama, who has a law degree from Harvard, subsequently returned to Chicago to lead a voter-registration drive in 1992."
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"While at the law firm, Obama spent much of his time working on issues that would help improve conditions in poor neighborhoods, according to his first book, Dreams from My Father, published in 1996."
"In my legal practice, I work mostly with churches and community groups, men and women who quietly build grocery stores and health clinics in the inner city, and housing for the poor,'' Obama wrote in the book.
Three community groups represented by Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland were partners with Rezmar in the troubled housing deals."
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"I don't recall Barack having any involvement in real estate transactions,'' Davis said. "Barack was a litigator. His area of focus was litigation, class-action suits.''
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"At the time, Rezmar had been in business for six years and had become one of City Hall's favored developers of low-income housing, managing 600 apartments in 15 buildings it rehabbed with government funding. Teaming now with community development groups, Rezmar rehabbed another 15 buildings, with 400 apartments, between 1995 and 1998. Each deal involved a mix of public and private financing -- loans from the city or state, federal low-income-housing tax credits and bank loans." |
