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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (29860)	6/5/2008 10:27:56 AM
From: TideGlider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224705

So tell me about the radical changes!

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (29860)	6/5/2008 11:09:08 AM
From: TideGlider	Respond to of 224705

Why Did Obama Pay Rezko an Extra $64,000 For That Strip of Land? From Steven Spruiell's must-read piece on the Rezko guilty verdict this morning: Obama may have thought all of his interactions with Rezko were above-board, but they weren’t. One of the counts against Rezko detailed how he funneled the proceeds of an illegal kickback scheme into Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign. Rezko’s co-conspirator, a former trustee of the Illinois Teachers Retirement System (TRS) named Stuart Levine, told the jury that he directed the TRS to invest $50 million with a firm called Glencoe Capital. In exchange, Levine arranged for himself and Rezko to be paid a fraudulent $500,000 “finder’s fee.” Levine routed Rezko’s half to an associate named Joseph Aramanda in March of 2004. That month, Aramanda wrote a $10,000 check to Barack Obama’s campaign. Of course, Obama may well not have known the details of such a shadowy transaction, and his campaign has donated that $10,000 — and all other Rezko-related money — to charity. But what became clear over the course of the Rezko trial is that this kind of scheme exemplified Rezko’s way of doing business. It’s hard to believe that Obama could be so clueless about Rezko’s character, just as it’s hard to believe that Obama sat in Jeremiah Wright’s pews for 20 years and had no idea that the man was a radical black nationalist. Gabe Malor, over at Ace of Spades, notices Obama is using the same "he's not the man I once knew" line that he used with Jeremiah Wright. Obama has returned $157,835 in campaign funds that Tony Rezko and his associates donated in his career. But will he return the land that he bought from Rezko? I can hear it now. "But Jim, this isn't a donation from Rezko to Obama," because the senator bought the land for a lot more than it was worth — "an appraiser valued the slice of land Rezko sold at $40,500, Obama decided it would be fair to pay Rezko substantially more: one sixth of his original purchase price, or $104,000." Precisely. Rezko "widely known to be under federal investigation at the time." Paying substantially more than the land was appraised creates the appearance of a $64,000 payment to a person who, if found guilty, could discuss his longtime association and business dealings with a U.S. senator with federal law enforcement. 06/05 09:39 AM