Quotes
Cocaine
Tax Money for Obama Supporters (Solyndra Solar)
Political Pressure to approve LightSquared Wireless Plan
Firing the Inspector General
The Iowa Fakeout
Tony Rezko & the Shady Land Deal
Hanging Out with Radical 60s Bomber
Secret Muslim? Educated in Madrassa?
Sources
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Barack Obama started his public career with an unusual move---
writing a book where he talks about using cocaine.
It was unconventional, but damned if it didn't just work. After that
promising start,
though, he has been a scandal dud. Like Ron Paul, a doctor who also had
money before he entered
Congress, Obama doesn't seem to have made much money from people he
passed laws for (especially compared to someone like Rick Santorum).
And like Ron Paul, we haven't seen any
credible allegations of sexual immorality (especially compared to
someone like Newt Gingrich or Bill Clinton.) He has mostly lived up to
his motto of "No Drama Obama,"
to the point of dullness.
The biggest scandal since he became president is the loan guarantee -- and loss -- of a half-billion taxpayer dollars to Solyndra, a solar company run
by Obama donors that went bankrupt. Less well known but similar is Obama administration pressure on government bureacrats to push through the LightSquared wireless
broadband network -- which just happens to be run by Obama donors. In fact, Obama himself was an early investor.
Part of the difficulty in working out this president's scandals is that
some of his opponents, including Fox News, have pushed a bunch of
scandals that just don't hold up, from the
conspiracy theories about Obama's birth certificate -- which have been
conclusively debunked -- to the weak attacks against things like
political "czars" -- which have been common since the 1970s.
Other scandals, such as the Gerald Walpin case, looked very promising when they started but just haven't lived up to their potential (as scandals.)
We could easily be missing something, though. If you have any tips, as always please email us.
Quotes
"It was a mistake to have been engaged with him [Antoin Rezko] at all in
this or any other personal business dealing that would allow him, or
anyone else, to believe that he had done me a favor" -- Barack Obama
"There's no doubt that this was a mistake on my part. 'Boneheaded' would
be accurate. There's no doubt I should have seen some red flags in
terms of me purchasing a piece of property from him." - Barack Obama
"I think very highly of Hillary. The more I get to know her, the
more I admire her. I think she's one of the most disciplined people I
know. She's one of the toughest. She's got an extraordinary
intelligence, and she's somebody who's in this stuff for the right
reasons. She's passionate about moving the country forward on issues
like health care and children." -- Barack Obama
Cocaine
Long before he ever ran for political office, Obama wrote a book
about, well, himself, and his amazing his journey from messed up kid to,
um, himself. It was quite an epic, considering he was 34 at the time.
In that book, called "Dreams From My Father", he writes that he used
marijuana and cocaine ("maybe a little blow".) Oddly enough, he writes
that he didn't try heroin because -- wait for it --
he didn't like the pusher who was selling it. (Weren't there any other
reasons?) In a later interview, he added "Teenage boys are frequently
confused."
But cocaine aside, the press has ignored the one truly outrageous drug
scandal that Obama has successfully hid -- he's a SMOKER. That's right,
tobacco cigarettes. Obama theoretically gave it up, and claims he
never
smoked more than 7 or 8 cigarettes a day, but if you dig deeper, he
admits he has been bumming cigarettes during the campaign.
-- Sources
Tax Money for Obama Supporters (Solyndra Solar)
George Kaiser was a major "bundler" of campaign contributions for
Obama -- he pulled in between $50,000 and $100,000 for Obama's
successful presidential campaign,
and hosted Obama at his Oklahoma home.
The George Kaiser Family Foundation also owned 36.7% of Solyndra, a
big manufacturer of solar electrical panels using a new, non-silicon
technology. Solyndra was one of the 16 finalists
out of 134 companies that applied for federal loan guarantees (which
had been approved under President Bush). They spent $1.8 million
dollars on lobbying during the application process,
and Kaiser has visited Obama's aides 16 times since 2009.
On January 9, 2009, two weeks before the Obama administration took
office, the credit committee of the Energy Department reviewed the loan
guarantee proposal and put it on hold, saying there were
issues that needed to be resolved first. Nonetheless, the Obama
Administration tentatively planned to give approval anyway during a
visit to California by Obama on March 19th.
On March 10th, a White House budget analyst wrote that the deal was "not
ready for prime time" but they gave conditional approval anyway, with
full approval scheduled for September.
MORE warnings -- on August 20, 2009, an Energy Department analyst
predicted a cash flow problem for the Fab 2 project (that the loan
guarantee covered)
would occur by September 2011. Despite all this, Solyndra was the
first of the 134 applicants to get approved, on September 2, 2009. Sure
enough, in late August 2011, cash flow problems caused the entire
company to go bankrupt,
and the US government had to pay off the $535 million loan.
Government auditors found that the Obama administration had rushed
through the loan package without completing legally required
evaluations, and had failed to properly
evaluate Solyndra's business plan. The Washington Post newspaper
reported that they had pressured regulators to approve it in time for
Vice President Joe Biden to announce it
at a ground-breaking ceremeony in September 2009, and that politics
played a key part in the approval despite repeated warnings.
Federal agents searched Solyndra and the homes of Brian Harrison, the
company's CEO, and Chris Gronet, the company's founder, in September
2011, and Harrison resigned a month later,
but even then the Obama Administration pushed through a loan
restructuring that put federal taxpayers in line behind other creditors
-- including the George Kaiser Family
Foundation -- despite warnings that it was illegal. By October 6, 2009,
Jonathan Silver -- the director of the Department of Energy's loan
office -- resigned, and a
federal investigation into links between the campaign contributions to
Obama and the loan guarantee was under way.
-- Solyndra Sources
Pressure to Approve the LightSquared Wireless Deal
The Obama Administration pushes a lot of its favorite technologies --
and they sure seem to have Obama campaign donors as investors a lot of
the time.
Lightsquared is company with 3 satellites (2 since 1995), some L-Band
spectrum, and
a plan to cover the U.S. with a national, wireless broadband network
(in progress) partnering with Sprint, Cricket, Best Buy and other big
players.
That last plan is controversial because it might interfere with the
adjacent GPS spectrum, which could mess up key military functions as
well as the ability of
anyone under 45 to find directions.
LightSquare's investors include Donald Gips, Obama's friend, donor and
former White House personnel chief; billionaires Phillip Falcone (a
Republican who donated $50,000
to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee -- and $80,000 to
Republicans -- since 2007) and George Soros (no introduction needed),
and -- in 2005 -- Barack Obama himself.
However, Obama invested back in 2005, about the time the the plan was
first proposed, and he lost $13,000 of his original $90,000 by the time
he sold his stock, just 8 months later.
LightSquared's wireless plan received initial government approval on
February 25, 2005 under President Bush as a satellite service, but it
needed a special waiver in 2010 to
operate terrestially only. Despite warnings by Air Force General William
Shelton, the head of the Space Command, and Anthony Russo, director of
the National Coordination
Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (a government
agency), Obama's FCC approved this waiver on January 26, 2011 -- on the
condition that LightSquared resolve the concerns of GPS providers.
Shelton, a four-star general, told a closed-door session of Congress
that the White House had
pressured him to change his comments -- given in advance to the White
House for review -- to be more favorable to LightSquared, and both men
said the White House asked them to insert a specific sentence,
saying that testing of the potential interference could be resolved
within 90 days. Both men refused (though neither would publicly say he
was inappropriately pressured)
and both warned against the LightSquared technology.
In any case, it looks like the proposed system is dead in the water,
since the 9 federal agencies involved in testing the LightSquared system
sent a letter in January 2012
unanimously agreeing that it interfered with "many GPS systems," even
when modified to reduce the impact, and stating that they planned no
further tests. Perhaps most
disturbing is the finding that the LightSquared system interfered with
an air-safety system designed to help airplanes avoid hitting buildlings
and mountains. Kind of like
when flight attendants tell you to turn off your cell phone, except that
it's a real problem.
-- Lightsquared Sources
Firing the Americorps Inspector General (Gerald Walpin)
Barack Obama has been a major supporter of Americorps, the do-gooder
organization set up by Bill Clinton, and Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson
-- the former National
Basketball Association star, and an Obama supporter -- has run a
large, Americorps-aided community development project called St. Hope,
which includes several
charter schools.
In June of 2009, a few months after taking office, Obama
abruptly fired Gerald Walpin, an Inspector General for the Corporation
for National and Community
Service (CNCS), which runs Americorps. Walpin, a Bush appointee, had
been investigating St. Hope and referred charges that St. Hope
misspent
federal funds, had Americorps volunteers running errands for Kevin
Johnson, and other violations to the U.S. Attorney. The president is
supposed to give Congress 30-days notice of any IG firing, but Walpin
got a phone call saying he
had one hour to decide to resign or get fired. (He did not resign,
and protested loudly.)
Democratic Senator Claire McGaskill, an Obama supporter but also a
strong supporter of Inspector General independence, joined Republicans
in demanding an
explanation. Alan Solomont, the outgoing head of the CNCS, had said
that he discussed the Walpin case only with the White House Counsel's
office, but there
were rumblings that Michelle Obama, a strong supporter of Americorps,
was meddling in its affairs, and sure enough, White House logs
showed that Solomont had met with Jackie Norris, Michelle's
then-chief of staff, the day before Walpin wsa fired -- and five days
before Norris would leave
Michelle Obama's office to become a senior CNCS adviser. Republicans
charged that Norris and Solomont must have discussed Walpin's firing.
Sadly, the more this situation was probed, the less scandalous it
appeared. The White House got around the 30-day notice provision by
putting Walpin on
administrative leave for 30 days
before officially firing him, which is sleazy but legal, and they
released mounds of documents and emails. It turned out that Walpin is
78 years old
and mostly retired, telecommuting part time from his home,
and had been confused and incoherent
at the May meeting of the board, unable to answer questions. (He said
that he was frustrated at being interrupted when he spoke, and "may
have had a bug.")
But the real problem was Walpin's behavior on the Johnson
case. Walpin is a very partisan Republican, a member of the Federalist
Society, and once introduced Mitt
Romney to a crowd by saying that Mitt was from Massachusetts, which
is run by a "modern-day KKK -- the Kennedy Kerry Klan." Walpin's
pursuit of Kevin Johnson
was similarly partisan and sloppy. He never did an audit to pin down
how much money had been misspent -- he just alleged that all of it was.
He announced
his findings publicly and proclaimed Johnson guilty in the middle of
Johnson's mayoral race, but the Republican local US Attorney that Walpin
referred the case
to found
no criminal wrongdoing. (The AG settled with St. Hope, forcing them
to pay back half the money. Kevin Johnson personally paid back about
$72,000.)
Walpin even
took the unusual step of recommending that Kevin Johnson be barred
from receiving any federal money, which -- as Walpin knew -- may have
prevented the City of
Sacramento from receiving any federal funds, once Johnson was
elected. (The AG ended that ban with teh settlement.)
In fact, local US Attorney Lawrence Brown filed a formal complaint
against Walpin for unethical and sloppy work with the board that hears
complaints against government
watchdogs. Walpin withheld evidence that exculpated Johnson from his
charges, for example, and failed to conduct an audit.
Walpin made as much hay as he could off of this scandal, suing
the federal government and touring conservative talk shows (with help
from the PR firm behind
the Swift Boat ads against John Kerry). He lost his suit in District
Court,
appealed, and was unanimously rejected by a 3-judge panel (2 of whom
were Republican appointees.)
There's one final, odd twist to this story. Remember Michelle
Rhee, the brash, young, conservative, Harvard-educated Korean woman who
was chancellor of the
Washington DC school system for a couple of tumultuous years, until
she angered too many people with her mass firings and school closures?
She was more than once accused
of racism for her efforts to reform the largely-Black DC school
district. In September, 2011, she married Kevin Johnson.
-- Walpin Sources
The Iowa Fakeout
Zachary Edwards, a former Obama internet organizer more
recently working for Link Strategies, a Democratic opposition research
outfit, was arrested on
January 20, 2012 for identity theft.
The details indicate that this could be much more significant than
that simple description sounds. Edwards is charged with impersonating
Iowa Secretary of
State Matt Schultz -- or, confusingly, his brother Thomas Schultz --
on June 24, 2011 -- "in an alleged scheme to falsely implicate Secretary
Schultz in perceived
illegal or unethical behavior while in office," according to the Iowa
Department of Public Safety.
Both parties realized the power of secretaries of state in 2000, when Katharine Harris -- Bush's Florida campaign co-chair and
Florida's Secretary of State --
played a key role in delivering that state's electoral votes -- and
the presidential election -- to Bush. More recently, secretaries of
state have been at the center
of the controversy over alleged (but rarely proven) vote fraud and
restrictions on voting to fight it. So taking out a swing-state
secretary of state, early in
a presidential election year, could have a huge impact.
So far, there is no direct link to the Obama campaign, but Edwards
worked on Obama's 2008 campaign, and Link Strategies is run by Jeff
Link, himself a media
consultant for Obama in 2008. Link Strategies fired Edwards hours
after his arrest, and denied any involvement. It's not clear exactly
what happened, but a
good guess is that Edwards hacked into Schultz' email account looking
for dirt.
There is a liberal blog in Iowa called "Under The Golden Dome"
(UTGD). On June 24th -- the same day Edwards is alleged to have
committed his crime -- UTGD began
a series of 3 blog posts criticizing Matt Schultz for attacking Jon
Huntsman on official Iowa state stationery. UTGD charged Schultz with
illegally
using state resources for partisan reasons and alleged that
the Santorum campaign was behind
Schultz' statement. It helps to know that Schultz' brother Thomas
was the leader of the Draft Rick Santorum campaign in Iowa.
In June, the Iowa Democratic Party had filed an ethics complaint with
the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board about Schultz' letter.
The agency
dismissed the complaint on the grounds that Schultz had not violated the
law.
UTGD printed several emails from Schultz' office. Where did they get
them? Joe Quimby of UTGD wrote "A helpful tipster has provided Under
the Golden Dome
with documents from an open records request to Iowa’s Secretary of
State Matt Schultz’s office that contain some very troubling internal
emails." He did not
identify the helpful tipster. You would think that the results of an
open records request would be public information, by definition really.
Then again, you
would also think that you couldn't fool Schultz' office by pretending
the emails were from an open records request to Schultz' own office;
Schultz
would kind of have to know about it, right? The official press
release said that the case started with a report from the Secretary of
State's office on June 24th,
so maybe they didn't fool them.
It's not clear why the official Iowa release called it an attempt to "falsely
implicate" Schultz. You'd think a hacker would look for whatever they
could find.
If they were sending out fake emails from the account that sounded
bad, that would be an attempt to falsely implicate. But at this point,
we really just don't know.
-- Iowa Sources
Tony Rezko & the Shady Land Deal
Barack Obama has been friends with Antoin ("Tony") Rezko since at
least 1990. Barack interviewed with Rezko for a job in the early 1990s
(Rezko offered the job,
but Obama turned it down), and Rezko has raised at least $150,000 for
Obama's campaigns. Prosecutors
charge that at least $10,000 of the money Rezko gave Obama was extorted
in return for political favors by a different politician.
In return, Barack arranged an internship in 2005 for John Aramanda, the
son of a Rezko business associate (Joseph Aramanda, who himself gave
Barack $11,500.)
There's more. In June, 2005, Obama bought a house in Chicago for $1.65
million ($300,000 below the asking price). The same day, Rezko bought
(in his wife's name) the vacant lot next door for $625,000, the full
price asked. Seven months later, Rezko sold Barack a slice (1/6th) of
his lot so the Obamas could have a bigger yard.
There's no evidence that Rezko bought the vacant land for any other
reason than to do Obama a favor. The seller would only sell the house
if he could sell the lot on the same day. And the lot is only
accessible through Obama's yard. Rezko and his wife
sold the lot last year to someone they owed money to, and let that
person keep the small profit he made.
Here's the real problem: among other problems, Rezko was convicted in a
federal government corruption case for demanding kickbacks from
companies wanting to do business with Illinois Governor Blagojevich,
another politician that Rezko has befriended and donated to. (Rezko is
also under indictment
for shaking down a Hollywood producer for $1.5 million in campaign
contributions for Blagojevich. The guy takes care of his political
friends.) In fact, Joseph Aramanda is an unindicted co-conspirator in
one of the kickback cases.
Obama has admitted that the land deal was a mistake, and donated money
donated directly by Rezko to charity. His story has changed, though.
When the land deal was first reported, Obama said his only contact with
Rezko was asking him if it
was a good deal. In February 2008, though, one of Obama's staffers
admitted that the candidate walked around the house and lot with Rezko.
Rezko has said he bought the lot to help the Obamas expand their
backyard.
Hanging Out with Radical 60s Bomber
Bill Ayers, the son of a rich utility executive, calls himself a
"small-C communist." In 1969, he and his wife Bernadette Dohrn helped
found the Weathermen (aka the Weather Underground), a radical group that
bombed several buildings, killing a police officer and three of their
own members. In 1981, an armed robbery of a Brinks truck by Weather
Underground members killed two police and a security guard.
By then Ayers and Dohrn has morphed into reasonably respectable
professors in Chicago, and weren't involved. But Ayers has no regrets;
in 2001 he even wrote "I don't regret settings bombs. I feel we
didn't do enough." Ayers and Dohrn were never convicted because of
illegal wiretaps and
other prosecutorial misconduct that got their charges thrown out.
Great scandal, huh? Only problem is that Ayers' links to Obama are not
that clear. They live 3 blocks apart in Chicago's Hyde Park
neighborhood,
and their kids go to the same school. In 1995, they were both on the
board of a charity founded by
Walter Annenberg, the billionaire founder of Reader's Digest (not
exactly a liberal - he was Nixon's ambassador to Britain).
From 2000 to 2002 they were on another board together (the Woods
Foundation).
Obama praised one of Ayers' many books, in a 1997 newspaper
interview. Ayers donated $200 to Obama's 2001 campaign. The biggest
link was in 1995, when Ayers
and Dohrn hosted a coffee fundraiser, at which State Senator Alice
Palmer introduced Obama as her chosen successor as state senator. Obama
certainly had no problem with that hosting, though since then he has
criticized
Ayers' crimes many times as "detestable".
The big question is, does this indicate that Obama is a secret radical?
I haven't seen any solid evidence beyond this. But I'm all ears -- email me.
Muslim? Educated in Madrassa? Won 't Salute the Flag?
Fox News ran a story claiming that Obama had been educated in a
madrassa school in Indonesia. If you're not familiar with that term,
it's a type of fundamentalist Muslim school, often funded by the
extremist Wahabi sect of Islam (with Saudi money) and often very
anti-American.
There was only one problem with the story: it was completely false.
Yes, Obama had gone to school in Indonesia as a kid; two schools in
fact. One was Catholic, the other was a public school, with teachers
and kids of various faiths.
The only scandal here is that Fox News ran the story with no facts or
reporting backing it up. They simply repeated a story from a highly
partisan website, with no effort to check out the school. It's there,
still open, and easily visited. Reporters who did so found out that the
story was false in minutes.
There have been several other stories about Obama floating around in
emails -- that he has no birth certificate, was born in Kenya, refuses
to put his hand over his heart when saying the pledge of allegiance,
that he is secretly Muslim, etc.
We print REAL scandals, not fake ones. If you want the facts on these
lies, a great source is www.snopes.com.
Sources
"Obama and ’60s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths", by Scott Shane, New York Times, October 4, 2008
"Barack Obama, asked about drug history, admits he inhaled", by Katherine Seelye, International Herald Tribune, October 25, 2006
"Dreams From My Father", by Barack Obama, 1995
"As Developer Heads to Trial, Questions Linger Over a Deal With Obama", By MIKE McINTIRE and CHRISTOPHER DREW, New York Times, March 2, 2008
"Internship also links Obama, Rezko", Chicago Sun-Times, December 24, 2006, by Frank Main
"Obama Says He Regrets Land Deal With Fundraiser", by Peter Slevin, Washington Post, December 16, 2006
Solyndra Sources -- Back
In Rush to Assist a Solar Company, U.S. Missed Signs
By ERIC LIPTON and JOHN M. BRODER, September 22, 2011
Solyndra employees: Company suffered from mismanagement, heavy spending By Carol D. Leonnig and Joe Stephens, Washington Post, September 21, 2011
Solyndra loan: White House pressed on review of solar company now under investigation by By Joe Stephens and Carol D. Leonnig, Washington Post, September 13, 2011
Amid Solyndra controversy, head of federal loan program resigns By Carol D. Leonnig and Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post, October 6, 2011
Solyndra loan deal: Warning about legality came from within Obama administration By Joe Stephens and Carol D. Leonnig, Washington Post, October 7, 2011
Solyndra Supporter Spoke to President
by RYAN TRACY AND DEBORAH SOLOMON, November 10, 2011
More E-Mails Released on Failed Solar Company
By MATTHEW L. WALD, New York Times, January 13, 2012
LightSquared Sources -- Back
White House Pressure for a Donor?
by Eli Lake, The Daily Beast, September 15, 2011
White House’s Testimony ‘Guidance’
by Eli Lake, The Daily Beast, September 19, 2011
Soros Surfaces on the Edge of White House
Controversy Involving LightSquared (no author listed), Fox News.com, September 23, 2011
Harbinger’s Falcone defends LightSquared, D.C. connections By Cecilia Kang The Washington Post, September 19, 2011
GOP lawmakers scrutinize LightSquared By Cecilia Kang The Washington Post, September 15, 2011
FCC grants LightSquared approval to use satellite airwaves for cell phones
by Cecilia Kang,Washington Post, January 26, 2011
FCC's Genachowski: We
won't let LightSquared operate without GPS interference resolution, by Lynnette Luna, Fierce Broadband Wireless, June 5, 2011
LightSquared Asks for More Tests After U.S.
Cites GPS Disruption by Todd Shields, Bloomberg Business Week, January 14, 2012
"Fed: LightSquared Network Causes 'Harmful Interference' to GPS, No New Tests Planned," By David
Murphy, PC Magazine, January 14, 2012
Politically-connected LightSquared
pushes wireless Internet plan despite GPS concerns by John Aloysius Farrell and Fred Schulte, Center for Public Integrity iWatch, July 19, 2011
Emails show wireless firm's
communications with White House as campaign donations were made by John Aloysius Farrell and Fred Schulte, Center for Public Integrity iWatch, September 14, 2011
Walpin Sources -- Back
Lawmakers Question Obama's Dismissal of AmeriCorps IG, By Ed O'Keefe, The Washington Post, June 16, 2009
Watchdog fired by Obama loses appeals case, By Ed O'Keefe, The Washington Post, January 4, 2011
White House Explains IG Firing — Will It Be Enough?, by Zachary Roth, TPM Muckraker, June 17, 2009
White House Explains Firing of AmeriCorps IG, By Ed O'Keefe, The Washington Post, June 16, 2009
GOP investigation ties Rhee to IG firing, Ed O'Keefe and Bill Turque,
The Washington Post, November 20, 2009
Republicans revive the Walpin IG case, By Ed O'Keefe,
The Washington Post, December 18, 2009
Iowa Sources -- Back
Man Charged with Identity Theft after Falsely Implicating Secretary of State in Illegal
Activity, Press Release, Iowa Department of Public Affairs, January 20, 2012
Des Moines man accused of sec. of state ID
theft, Assoicated Press story, Des Moines Register, January 20, 2012
Matt Schultz Open Records Exclusive,
Part 1:SOS focused on UTGD blog post, Under The Golden Dome (a liberal blog), June 24, 2011
Matt Schultz Open Records Exclusive,
Part 2: Caucus Updates and the Rappsheets, Under The Golden Dome (a liberal blog), June 26, 2011
Matt Schultz Open Records Exclusive, Part 3: Santorum Campaign Operative and Schultz Brother behind the Attack on Jon Huntsman, Under The Golden Dome (a liberal
blog), June 26, 2011
Political consultants
quickly fire arrested man, by Tom Witosky, Des Moines Register, January 21, 2012
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Robert Wolf, CEO of UBS Americas, who has bundled more than $370,850 for Barack Obama 
