Chicago Daily Observer

Via the Annenberg Challenge, Barack Obama and Bill Ayers were able to send $22,155 to the Fund for Community Redevelopment and Revitalization, a company headed by Allison Davis that worked with Tony Rezko’s Rezmar to develop “affordable” housing.

Page 40, line 34 of the attached file shows the tax return clearly stating the payment from Annenberg to the Fund.

I grew to like you over the last year.

I’ve always thought of you as dangerously naive at best. Eloquent, gifted, genuine, yes. But dangerously naive at best.

I couldn’t vote for you—but not because of your funny name or your lunatic pastor. I couldn’t vote for you because you say we should raise taxes (even on the rich, who I’m convinced already pay too much), and because you say we should abandon Iraq (which I’m convinced would be surrendering a war we must win), and because you don’t respect the Second Amendment (which I’m convinced should disqualify any politician from any office).

Still, I’ve liked your message of unity and your ability to inspire. And, since your rise I’ve hunted, quite frantically, for young conservative leaders with your talent. (To my relief, I found Bobby Jindal.)

“Two buildings – 5630 S. Michigan and 6446 S. Kenwood. Rezmar [Rezko’s company] and the Fund [for Community Redevelopment and Revitalization, a Davis company] closed on this deal in 1998.
The Fund for Community Redevelopment and Revitalization received funding from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. It was the payee for a grant awarded to “South Side community Network. Page 37 of the 1998 tax return.

I don’t know how much money was granted because the “grants awarded” portion of the return doesn’t reconcile with the “payee” information.

The two grants that don’t match payee info are for $116,000 and $85,000.

I don’t know how much money was granted because the “grants awarded” portion of the return doesn’t reconcile with the “payee” information.

The two grants that don’t match payee info are for $116,000 and $85,000. ”

For those of you who still cling to the fantasy that Barack Obama is “about change,” you should note how he, or his minions, want nothing to do with reforming politics in Illinois, perhaps the most corrupt state in the Union.

“Throughout his political career, Barack Obama has fought for open and honest government,” proclaims his campaign Web site. Apparently, no longer. When the Democratic presidential candidate—now his party’s industrial-strength voice for our deliverance from political corruption everywhere—was asked by a reformer if he would help get his political mentor back home to get off the dime and move the most minimal of state ethics legislation toward passage, the Obama campaign sent word back that amounted to a “no.”

Mayor Daley has suggested that flooding in Chicago could have been prevented if residents put out barrels to collect rainwater running off roofs of houses. The Tribune has it that 90 Billion Gallons of storm runoff went into Lake Michigan during the weekend downpour.

With around 7 Million people in Chicago, that would be 12,857 gallons collected per Chicago resident, or 233 barrels per person (at 55 Gallons per barrel). A container holding 12,857 gallons would measure 1718 cubic feet or approximately 12ft x 12ft x 12ft…..so merely having 7 million tanks at 12×12x12 would have prevented the flood, sounds easy enough.

Steel tanks at 1/8 in thick would weigh in at 3700 pounds, so 7 million of these tanks would total approximately 25,900,000,000 pounds of steel. Steel costs approximately $630 per ton, So the Mayor is suggesting for a mere $8 Billion we could have prevented the flood, ... Read More...

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Obama has two new ads up, both highlighting McCain advisers who have been employed as lobbyists.

If having a staffer who has worked as a lobbyist makes you “on the take,” I wonder what it means when you take more money from companies like Fannie and Freddie than anybody except Chris Dodd. More than, say, 352 other lawmakers, going back to 1989.

Seems like time for a response ad. “When the highly-paid CEOs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac felt reformers closing in, they needed a defender. They knew where to send their money. The Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd… and Barack Obama. They gave Obama more than $126,000, in less than four years. While Fannie and Freddie was running aground, Dodd, Obama, and Congress looked elsewhere. Ask yourself who can really bring change to Washington, and keep our financial system from running aground.”

After doing legitimate reporting on Rezko in June 2007, the Times largely ignored the criminal trial of one of Obama’s closest friends and associates, who helped the candidate and his wife Michelle buy their self-described “dream house.” Never mind that Obama’s name popped up in meaningful fashion several times during the proceedings.

Not one Times columnist expressed serious concern about Obama entering into a high-dollar land deal with Rezko, a man he knew to be under federal investigation and now known to all as a convicted felon. Though apparently not worried about Obama’s judgment, the polemical trio of Bob Herbert, Paul Krugman and Frank Rich are apoplectic about the prospects of Palin moving to Washington.