@okie,
That is so hypocritical of you. The ranchhand was performing personal services for Reagan before and after the election. However, the taxpayers get stuck with his pay once Reagan gets elected. Wow, do you have blinders!
@Advocate,
Not hypocritical at all, get serious, Advocate. Upon election, personal services become a bit more than that, the president is on duty 24/7. I would have to do research, but I would bet that every president has government paid personnel at every home or retreat that they have. Look, the president is on duty 24/7, and we know for sure that staff travels with the president wherever they go, and I would also bet that every president's home or retreat, where they visit often, has paid personnel that stay there. This would not raise an eyebrow of mine, for Obama or any other president to have people paid wherever he spends a significant amount of time besides the Whitehouse. Within reason, I do not think they need a half dozen of these places, but in addition to the Whitehouse, there would be at least Camp David, and their original homes. We owe it to the president to take care of wherever they are, within limits, for their safety and propriety, after all, many people, including heads of state are received at those locations, as part of the job of president, not as a president living there personally on his own time. Take Camp David for instance, I would bet their are plenty of people there being paid by taxpayers, to keep the grounds, whatever.
This is totally different than a senator's wife, a job that is totally unrelated to the job of their husband, a job at a location totally unrelated to their husband's job, and a job wherein they probably don't do alot, except to draw a pile of money, as a political favor.
@okie,
The term "political favor" could also be determined as a "kickback," Advocate. Just to remind you of the potential seriousness of the subject.
Apparently Blago tried to extort Emanuel:
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=283656&src=109
"Another new allegation to come forth is that Blagojevich held up a $2 million grant to a publicly supported school in exchange for fundraising help from an unnamed congressman pursuing the funds. A White House aide confirmed Thursday that the congressman was now-White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel."
When one reads about all the schemes of Blago, one wonders how he could do all of this without every politician in the state of Illinois knowing about all of this? Isn't not reporting these kinds of crimes a crime?
And this interesting story about the stellar career of Rahm Emanuel and his easy 14 month job at Freddie Mac for a cool 320 grand.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/chi-rahm-emanuel-profit-26-mar26,0,5682373.story
"The board met no more than six times a year. Unlike most fellow directors, Emanuel was not assigned to any of the board's working committees, according to company proxy statements. Immediately upon joining the board, Emanuel and other new directors qualified for $380,000 in stock and options plus a $20,000 annual fee, records indicate.
On Emanuel's watch, the board was told by executives of a plan to use accounting tricks to mislead shareholders about outsize profits the government-chartered firm was then reaping from risky investments. The goal was to push earnings onto the books in future years, ensuring that Freddie Mac would appear profitable on paper for years to come and helping maximize annual bonuses for company brass.
The accounting scandal wasn't the only one that brewed during Emanuel's tenure.
During his brief time on the board, the company hatched a plan to enhance its political muscle. That scheme, also reviewed by the board, led to a record $3.8 million fine from the Federal Election Commission for illegally using corporate resources to host fundraisers for politicians. Emanuel was the beneficiary of one of those parties after he left the board and ran in 2002 for a seat in Congress from the North Side of Chicago.
The board was throttled for its acquiescence to the accounting manipulation in a 2003 report by Armando Falcon Jr., head of a federal oversight agency for Freddie Mac. The scandal forced Freddie Mac to restate $5 billion in earnings and pay $585 million in fines and legal settlements. It also foreshadowed even harder times at the firm.
Many of those same risky investment practices tied to the accounting scandal eventually brought the firm to the brink of insolvency and led to its seizure last year by the Bush administration, which pledged to inject up to $100 billion in new capital to keep the firm afloat. The Obama administration has doubled that commitment.
Freddie Mac reported recently that it lost $50 billion in 2008. It so far has tapped $14 billion of the government's guarantee and said it soon will need an additional $30 billion to keep operating.
Like its larger government-chartered cousin Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac was created by Congress to promote home ownership, though both are private corporations with shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The two firms hold stakes in half the nation's residential mortgages.
Because of Freddie Mac's federal charter, the board in Emanuel's day was a hybrid of directors elected by shareholders and those appointed by the president.
In his final year in office, Clinton tapped three close pals: Emanuel, Washington lobbyist and golfing partner James Free, and Harold Ickes, a former White House aide instrumental in securing the election of Hillary Clinton to the U.S. Senate. Free's appointment was good for four months, and Ickes' only three months.
Falcon, director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, found that presidential appointees played no "meaningful role" in overseeing the company and recommended that their positions be eliminated."
Okie--and the most unbelievable part of all of this corruption in Illinois( Blagojevioch is not the only one who has been or will be indicted,) is that the most "intelligent" president the USA has ever had, was not, despite the fact that he worked closely with Democratic operatives in Illinois for years, AWARE of the corruption in Illinois.
As the Chicago Tribune's top columnist, John Kass, has written--OB took advantage of the help of the convicted political operative, Anton Rezko,in getting thousands of dollars taken off of OB's new mansion in Chicago.
J. Kass calls Rezko--Obama's real estate fairy. Rezko waved his magic wand and saved Obama thousands.
@genoves,
I don't see the crimes in your statement.
What really gets me is that Fitzgerald comes down big-time on Blago for dubious crimes, but allows the Bush administration to go virtually scot-free after outing a CIA spy. Do you agree with me?
@Advocate,
Advocate wrote:
Re: genoves (Post 3647180)
I don't see the crimes in your statement.
What really gets me is that Fitzgerald comes down big-time on Blago for dubious crimes, but allows the Bush administration to go virtually scot-free after outing a CIA spy. Do you agree with me
NO- I do not. You obviously know nothing about the LAW.
l. We will find out whether Fitzerald comes down big-time on Blago for
DUBIOUS crimes. When Blago is convicted, I'll remind you.
2. Are you able to find any evidence that ANYONE has blamed Fitzgerald for not "allowing the Bush administration to go "virtually scot-free". Everything I know about Fitzgerald is that he is uncorruptable.
But, Bush might have been spared prosecution because Fitzgerald was still examining the egregious pardons made by Slick Willie. Compared to the pardon of Libby, Slick Willie is the clear winner, especially since one of his pardons resulted in a HUGE donation to the Clinton Library.
Note:
*********************************************************************
Our faux constitutional crisis: PRACTICALLY everything else in American life has been dumbed down, so why not constitutional crises? The braying over President Bush's commutation of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence is that Bush has undermined the rule of law and the Constitution.
The Founders would be bemused at this, since -- inconveniently for the Scooter-must-hang left -- they included the pardon power in the Constitution. There it is in Article II, Section 2: The president "shall have the power to grant reprieves and pardons." They didn't include a proviso that the power shall not extend to persons vilified by left-wing bloggers as the personification of "the case for war."
Bush can hardly create a constitutional crisis by exercising a plenary constitutional power, and doing it in a way that has become almost routine. The first President Bush pardoned former CIA official Clair George (convicted of lying to Congress), former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger (indicted for perjury) and former National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane (pled guilty to withholding information from Congress). Like the current Bush's commutation, these Iran-Contra pardons violated the Justice Department guidelines. And somehow, the republic survived.
President Clinton pardoned or commuted the sentences of former Arkansas operator Susan McDougal (jailed for myriad offenses); former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros (caught up in an interminable independent-counsel investigation about whether he lied to the FBI); former CIA Director John Deutch (in the midst of a plea bargain over his mishandling of classified material); and eight people connected to the scandal around former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy (all of whom had been convicted of or pled guilty to illegal acts).
This leaves aside Clinton's truly egregious pardons and commutations: 16 Puerto Rican terrorists over the opposition of the FBI and the Federal Bureau of Prisons; the international fugitive Marc Rich; one man convicted of mail fraud and perjury and another convicted of cocaine trafficking, each of whom had paid $200,000 to Hillary Clinton's brother Hugh Rodman to represent them.
Bush's commutation is nothing like those outrageous acts of clemency. It is perfectly in the mainstream of pardons throughout the past 20 years in cases that are considered politicized prosecutions by the aggrieved administrations. The Founders created the pardon power to grant relief from a justice system that might, in the words of Alexander Hamilton, be "too sanguinary and cruel." It doesn't serve that function so much anymore, but has turned out to be a safety valve in an era when each party criminalizes political disputes when it suits its purposes.
This creates a perpetual argument over whose perjury is worse. Liberals say that Libby's perjury is more serious than Clinton's because Libby lied about the war and Clinton lied only about sex. Actually, Libby's case wasn't about the war, but about whether or not he had misremembered when and from whom he first had heard that Joe Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, worked at the CIA.
Regardless, except for the most blatant crimes, the political arena is the best forum for politically controversial charges of wrongdoing. Rather than commuting Libby's sentence on grounds that it was excessive, Bush should have pardoned him altogether on grounds that the case had become a way to make one man pay for the alleged sins of the administration regarding the war. Our system of government provides a straightforward method to punish an administration without resorting to special prosecutors and criminal charges, which is to vote against the president or his party.
Just wait: The same people hyperventilating about Libby now will have exactly the opposite attitude about the criminalization of politics when a Democrat is back in the White House. Then, they will grow fond of Article II, Section 2 all over again.
Rich Lowry writes for the National Review.
@genoves,
genoves wrote:
Okie--and the most unbelievable part of all of this corruption in Illinois( Blagojevioch is not the only one who has been or will be indicted,) is that the most "intelligent" president the USA has ever had, was not, despite the fact that he worked closely with Democratic operatives in Illinois for years, AWARE of the corruption in Illinois.
As the Chicago Tribune's top columnist, John Kass, has written--OB took advantage of the help of the convicted political operative, Anton Rezko,in getting thousands of dollars taken off of OB's new mansion in Chicago.
J. Kass calls Rezko--Obama's real estate fairy. Rezko waved his magic wand and saved Obama thousands.
That is amazing, the most intelligent president ever, compared to Abraham Lincoln, FDR, and all the great ones, all of the stuff in Chicago simply escaped his notice while he was organizing communities there, and working to help Blago become elected, etc. And he had no idea Rezko was a crook either.
@Advocate,
I see it the same way, but I'm not totally informed on the Blago "crimes."
Blago has not been convicted yet. He did what they all do, but was a bit unartful about it. In any event, he would be an amateur crook compared to the Rep friends of Abramoff, who took in millions.
@Advocate,
I know nothing about the "Rep friends of Abramhoff, who took in millions". Why don't you give us some data instead of merely flatulating?
Is Blagojevich guilty? We will know after the trial is over but those who think that there is no problem here should be aware that the ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE OVERWHELMINGLY VOTED HIM OUT OF OFFICE.
Illinois governor guilty of abuse
Blagojevich: 'I love the people of Illinois'
Rod Blagojevich has been ousted as Illinois governor after being convicted of abusing his powers.
Mr Blagojevich said he was "saddened and disappointed" by the verdict but "not at all surprised" and would fight to clear his name.
He was charged with trying to sell the seat vacated by Barack Obama when he was elected president.
In a second vote, Mr Blagojevich was banned from holding public office in Illinois for life.
He had been arrested in December and faces a criminal trial over bribes allegedly taken during his two terms.
No other Illinois governor has been impeached, let alone convicted in a Senate trial.
Mr Blagojevich has now been replaced as governor by Patrick Quinn, a fellow Democrat and the state's lieutenant governor.
'Blago show' goes on
Senators voted 59-0 against him after an impeachment hearing, despite his claim that he had "done nothing wrong" and there was no evidence of a crime.
After being sworn in, Mr Quinn told the senate "the ordeal is over".
He said the elected representatives had "reflected the will of the people".
"Now it's our job to call upon the people of Illinois to make the sacrifices necessary to address the serious challenges we have before us," Mr Quinn said.
Mr Blagojevich had addressed his trial on Thursday in a last-minute bid to save his position, having earlier said he would not take any part.
"I sort of looked at him as a magician and we've all been wowed. But all the magic is gone," one senator told the Chicago Tribune.
"I am immune to his speech giving, because we've seen those tricks before. He can look sincere, he gives a good speech and he's a good performer. Perhaps he can get a job in the arts," she said.
FBI evidence
Since Mr Blagojevich was arrested last month, he has persistently denied the charges against him and has refused to resign.
CHARGES AGAINST BLAGOJEVICH
Federal agents say Mr Blagojevich
Tried to obtain campaign contributions in exchange for official actions
Tried to use state funds for the private purpose of inducing the Tribune Company to fire Chicago Tribune editorial board members critical of him
Tried to obtain personal financial benefits for himself in return for his appointment of a US senator
Impeachment prosecutor David Ellis, in his rebuttal, emphasised that Mr Blagojevich had refused to appear under oath to answer questions, opting instead to make a closing speech.
In his closing remarks, Mr Ellis said: "The evidence showed that throughout his tenure as governor, the governor has abused the power of his office and put his own interest above the interest of the people."
The impeachment followed an investigation by a 21-member committee of Illinois legislators, which looked at testimony from FBI agents who wiretapped phone calls to and from the governor's office about who should fill President Obama's seat.
It is alleged the conversations show that Mr Blagojevich was trying to use the seat to get himself or his wife a job.
Mr Blagojevich is the first US governor to be impeached in more than 20 years, after Arizona's Governor Evan Mecham was removed from office in 1988.
The most unbelievable part of all of this corruption in Illinois( Blagojevioch is not the only one who has been or will be indicted,) is that the most "intelligent" president the USA has ever had, was not, despite the fact that he worked closely with Democratic operatives in Illinois for years, AWARE of the corruption in Illinois.
As the Chicago Tribune's top columnist, John Kass, has written--OB took advantage of the help of the convicted political operative, Anton Rezko,in getting thousands of dollars taken off of OB's new mansion in Chicago.
J. Kass calls Rezko--Obama's real estate fairy. Rezko waved his magic wand and saved Obama thousands.
Genoves, didn't you formerly go by the name "Brandon?" He came across as ignorant and obnoxious, just as you do.
@Advocate,
Advocate wrote:
Genoves, didn't you formerly go by the name "Brandon?" He came across as ignorant and obnoxious, just as you do.
I've wondered the same thing, but don't know, but to address the real problem you don't like, genoves lays it all out in a stark and sarcastic manner that you don't like, but its hard to argue against his facts, is it not? You were beginning to hint that Blago had done nothing, and ci was beginning to chime in, meanwhile genoves simply reminds you that Blago is a corrupt scumbag politician from Illinois, and most likely Obama is not clean as the wind driven snow either. Given the fact Obama came out of that culture of corruption, Chicago politics, and Illinois politics, with relationships to criminal activity, the only way he skates so far is the media and authorities consider him off limits, he is politically immune to it right now, he is too big of a cult figure to bring down.
@Advocate,
No, I never went by Brandon but I do note that your attempt to denigrate me rebounds on you. You are obviously unable to respond to my arguments and you hope to intimidate by by your "ad hominem" attack. What you do not realize is that you could, if you had the learning and wit--which you haven't, attempt to show that my arguments are in error.
You won't because you are unable to do so.
@okie,
You are correct, Okie. All the left wing needs to do is to show that the facts I lay out are incorrect. They cannot.
How could one of the most intelligent( or so they say) and politically astute( or so they say) politicians who had an intimate knowledge of Chicago politics and knew all of the players have not known that Blagojevich was "dirty".
Note:
Culture Of Corruption: Obama’s Obliviousness To Chicago Politicians
By Herb Denenberg, The Bulletin
Published:
Friday, December 12, 2008
Everyone is entitled to the presumption of innocence. But there’s also a presumption that when you emerge from the cesspool of Chicago politics, you don’t come out perfectly clean. That’s where President-elect Barack Obama came from, so buyer beware. There’s also a presumption that anything that might cast even a slight negative light on Mr. Obama or the Democratic Party was censored out by the mainstream media, which only post-election is discovering the nature of the political environment that produced the next president of the United States.
Where are House Majority Leader Rep. Nancy “San Francisco Values?” Ms. Pelosi, D-Calif., and her campaign against the culture of corruption when we need her? You’ll recall that was her theme song when a bunch of Republicans were in trouble, but that’s all forgotten now with the parade of
Democratic wrongdoers capped by one of the great political scandals of modern times, Gov. Rob Blagojevich, trying to sell a senatorial appointment and about everything else. His own words establish him as so corrupt and so beyond the pale that he appalled even the people of Chicago, who have seen a long parade of governors and other politicians go to jail. This latest scandal has been called a political corruption crime spree unprecedented in recent political history.
We have what we should have expected from Crook County Illinois, a.k.a. as Cook County Illinois, where the corrupt Chicago political machine has long held sway. And we should not forget that this swamp of corruption and criminality gave us President-elect Obama, who was part of the machine and used the machine in his rise to power and prominence. This was one of the many facts of Mr. Obama’s history ignored by the mainstream media, which censored out of the news anything that might interfere with the election of their Messiah.
Like it or not, the president-elect is right in the middle of the Blagojevich scandal. He endorsed him twice for governor, and the second time around there were already strong indications that Mr. Blagojevich was under criminal investigation, but that didn’t stop the endorsement. Even the well-known Democratic pollster and pundit, Pat Cadell, admitted that in Chicago, politicians all know what’s going on in their domain. (This is the same Mr. Obama who entered into a corrupt land deal with felon and slumlord Tony Rezko even when it was well known that he was under criminal investigation.) We should also remember that President-elect Obama had questionable dealings with Mr. Blagojevich’s bagman, Tony Rezko, involving the corrupt real estate transaction that still has not been fully investigated but raises serious questions about Mr. Obama’s financial transactions.
Finally, we should remember that when an attempt was made to reform the Crook County political machine, Mr. Obama was asked by the reformers to help out, but instead sat on the sidelines, and in effect endorsed the most corrupt and crooked political machine in America.
There is even a question about President-elect Obama’s connection with the Senate-for-sale scandal. In a statement, Mr. Obama said he was saddened and sobered by what happened, whatever that means. He also said of the Senate appointment, “I had no contact with the governor or his office…” Notice he did not say if a representative of his office was in contact with the governor. But that claim was directly contradicted by his spokesman, senior political adviser and alter ego, David Axelrod, who made a clear statement that the two had discussed the appointment.
Mr. Axelrod said spoke about contacts of the senator with the governor about the senatorial appointment as follows: “I know he’s talking to the governor and there are a whole range of names many of which have surfaced, and I think he has a fondness for a lot of them.” Now Mr. Axelrod claimed he “misspoke,” which fits into the category of the greatest political lies ever told along with “It was taken out of context.”
The prosecutors didn’t accuse Mr. Obama of any wrongdoing in making their announcement. However, they did not exonerate him either. But we don’t have the full story yet, and I must say that Mr. Obama’s denial of any contact with Gov. Blagojevich about the senatorial appointment has to be taken with more than a grain of salt. The president-elect has a long history of being caught up in questionable associations and than trying to lie out of the problem.
He didn’t know what the Rev. Jeremiah “God Damn America” Wright was up to, even after sitting in his church for 20 years, even after working with him and naming one of his books after one of his sermons, and even after initially seeking him out as soon as Mr. Obama arrived in Chicago. And terrorist Mr. Ayers was just a guy in the neighborhood, with Mr. Obama attempting to conveniently forget they worked for years closely on Mr. Ayers’ radical education projects and that Mr. Obama funneled millions of dollars in grant money to Mr. Ayers. And he was in the dark about convicted felon and close associate Tony Rezko, the racist and bigot Father Michael Pfleger, and terrorist Bernadine Dohrn, Mr. Ayers’ wife, and the anti-Semite and bigot, Rev. Louis Farrakhan. Should we believe Mr. Obama’s denial of any contact on the Senate matter or his spokesman, David Axelrod? My answer is heavily influenced by the Mr. Obama history of lying about such associates as Rev. Wright, the racist and bigot, and terrorist Mr. Ayers.
Dennis Miller, the radio talk show host put it perfectly when he said this guy (Obama) is supposed to be the smartest guy on the planet yet he is always oblivious to what his close associates are doing. Comedian Jackie Mason said Mr. Obama wasn’t there and when he was there he wasn’t listening. I still prefer my formulation: Mr. Obama is either the biggest liar in the world or the biggest idiot. My guess is it’s the former, and not the latter.
But even Gov. Blagojevich’s political crime spree did not wake President-elect Obama up to the corruption of his political machine. Even with that news, the president-elect, as noted, was saddened and sober…but not sad and sober enough to condemn Gov. Blagojevich’s conduct in the strongest possible terms. Later, when pressure starting building, Mr. Obama called on Mr. Blagojevich to resign joining a long list. Recall how long it took him to denounce Rev. Wright.
I would not place too much hope in the new Democratic Administration clearing up the corruption issues in Illinois and the election wrongdoing still not properly investigated. For example, why hasn’t President-elect Obama indicated that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald will be allowed to continue and finish his investigation of Crook County, even after the new administration takes over? Instead, Mr. Obama has taken an almost nonchalant stance in the face of mountainous and long-standing corruption in Illinois.
Despite cheerleading from the mainstream media, the picture is not bright for the years ahead under a Democratic Party administration in control of the White House and both houses of Congress. At worst, we may be going the Chicago way, but at best we’re going the far-left liberal way. And what is supposed to be a transparent Obama administration may be on its way to being a stonewalling and covering up administration.
