Obama: NEVER a Young Republican; NEVER a WalMart client; NEVER worked for Gerald Ford

and the Republican House Caucus; NEVER endorsed torture; NEVER voted to give Caligula authorization to nuke Iraq or Iran.

So I guess he really doesn't have Hilly's experience, even though he's held statewide elected office for four years longer than her!

the war. In fact, he voted to continue the war every single time it came up for a vote, except once. And that time, he voted so late his vote made no difference whatsoever. Quite a contradiction.

Takes huge donations from big business, yet promises he's going to bring real change. How? Those same big businesses will want the same special consideration for that money that they've been getting from George Bush. How can you accept huge donations from an entity and then go against them later? Another contradiction.

Barack says he supports gay people, yet he allows a vehemently anti-gay preacher by the name of Donnie McClurkin to speak at an official Obama function. To which McClurkin told the audience he was "cured" of being gay by praying to God. What an insult! Yet another big contradiction.

Is this hope for real change or more of the same?

Then you'll have to acknowledge Edwards' role as a co-sponsor of the IWR. None of the other candidates have that hanging over their heads. And since Edwards has been out of the Senate, he had no ability to vote for or against anything since the end of 2004. After the IWR, and before he left the Senate, how did he vote on appropriations bills to fund the war?

There was more to it than war. A lot more. It allowed the UN inspectors back into Iraq to search for WMDs. And had Bush let this process continue, they would have discovered what we now know: there were no WMDs, and no cause for war.

George Bush was the one who took the power grab, removed the UN inspectors, and started the war based on lies, not Edwards.

None of the candidates are perfect. All of them have made mistakes. Yes, we all now know that the IWR was bad, but it was Bush who went too far, not Edwards.

But I'm just asking, how did Edwards vote on funding the war between the IWR (Oct 2002) and the end of his time in the Senate? (Dec 2004) There must have been votes on funding over the course of those 2 years.

it had ZERO to do with UN inspectors. it was the very blank check resolution Bush himself preferred. It gave him unlimited power to go to war on a whim.

that mandated getting out of Iraq. Every one. Obama does not take money from lobbyists. Percentage wise, no more of Obamas campaign funds come from big business than Edwards'. And assuming he'll give in to demands is a leap.

Obama supports civil unions on a Federal level giving the federal benefits of marriage.

JE has blood on his hands in a way Obama does not. Clinton is the same. Feingold summed up the problem I have with Edwards- his election conversion. For three years Edwards supported the war and his vote. Three flippin' years. He switiched positions shortly before he started campaigning heavily in Iowa. That speaks volumes.

Why should I trust Edwards when he did that and when real progressives who worked with him, don't?

It's kind of a shame that it has come down to this "See, they are bigger liars than me". If we are to ever to get a halfway honest government we will be needing publicly funded campaigns and a few other well placed laws to keep narrow agenda special interests out of the loop.

so he can say he never gave authorization.

What a failed and weak argument and a very telling one at that.

and the practical effect of not voting is the same as voting no.

Hilly's problem is that she's never NOT been a Goldwater gal and her House internship and Senate voting record clearly show it, whoever she might have married.

And you know this how?

Unless you think I mean shoppers, which I don't. What I mean is that Obama has never been on the WalMart payroll, nor has his wife.

As the inevitable degrees of separation go, Michelle was briefly a non-exec director of a pickle company that sold products to WalMart, but she's cut the link, just to make life hard for Hilly's swiftboaters.

Hilly did.

8 days after Obama claimed he would not shop at Walmart.

WASHINGTON — Michelle Obama resigned Tuesday from the board of TreeHouse Foods Inc., a Wal-Mart vendor, eight days after husband and White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said he would not shop at the anti-union store.


http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2007/05/sweet_column_michelle_obama_qu.html

Obama has been a director of the suburban Westchester food maker since June 27, 2005. Board chairman Sam Reed received a resignation letter from Obama Tuesday. The company said she quit because of “increased demands” on her time. Obama was re-elected to the board April 19 for a term ending in 2010 — during a period she was preparing to take on a larger role in the campaign.

In a statement issued by the campaign, Obama said, “As my campaign commitments continue to ramp up, it is becoming more difficult for me to provide the type of focus I would like on my professional responsibilities." She said it was in “the best interests of my family and the company” she quit.

Wal-Mart is a target of organized labor in the U.S., a Democratic constituency playing a key role in determining the 2008 Democratic nominee. Obama’s link to Wal-Mart through TreeHouse was a potential liability for Sen. Obama. On May 14, during an AFL-CIO forum in Trenton, N.J., Sen. Obama was asked about Wal-Mart. “I won’t shop there,” he said. Chief rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) served on the Wal-Mart board between 1986 and 1992.

In a SEC filing, TreeHouse stated Obama’s resignation “is not due to any disagreement with the company on any matter.’’

and don't forget the pot.









see, I can be as inflamatory as you can.

At least Hillary doesn't run around singing the praises of that overrated bum, Ronald Reagan, in her speeches like Obama does.

I don't give a rats ass where she came from. She's a loyal Democrat, and the people who sing the praises of Republicans AREN'T.

To say someone has never been a pedophile, for example, does not make him a good potential worker for a job position because he may be utterly unacceptable in all other ways. Say what he's done, not what he hasn't done.

Surely you see the relevance.

:)

You won't last long here using Robert Novak as a source. :hi:

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/353829,CST-NWS-rez23.article




Obama and his Rezko ties
DAY ONE OF TWO


April 23, 2007
BY TIM NOVAK Staff Reporter/tnovak@suntimes.com
For more than five weeks during the brutal winter of 1997, tenants shivered without heat in a government-subsidized apartment building on Chicago's South Side.
It was just four years after the landlords -- Antoin "Tony'' Rezko and his partner Daniel Mahru -- had rehabbed the 31-unit building in Englewood with a loan from Chicago taxpayers.
Rezko and Mahru couldn't find money to get the heat back on.


But their company, Rezmar Corp., did come up with $1,000 to give to the political campaign fund of Barack Obama, the newly elected state senator whose district included the unheated building.
Obama has been friends with Rezko for 17 years. Rezko has been a political patron to Obama and many others, helping to raise millions of dollars for them through his own contributions and by hosting fund-raisers in his home.

"Their buildings were falling apart,'' said a former city official. "They just didn't pay attention to the condition of these buildings.''
Eleven of Rezko's buildings were in Obama's state Senate district.

---
Much of the criticism has centered on two real estate deals involving Obama's South Side mansion. In the first, Obama paid $300,000 less than the asking price for a doctor's home, while Rezko's wife paid the doctor full price for the vacant lot next door. Then -- a few months before Rezko was indicted -- Obama bought part of that lot from Rezko's wife.

But Obama's ties with Rezko go beyond those two real estate sales and the political support, the Sun-Times found. Obama was an attorney with a small Chicago law firm -- Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland -- that helped Rezmar get more than $43 million in government funding to rehab 15 of their 30 apartment buildings for the poor.

Obama role unclear
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.
Obama, however, was associated with the firm for more than nine years, his staff acknowledged Sunday in an e-mail response to questions submitted March 14 by the Sun-Times. They didn't say what deals he worked on -- or how much work he did.

"The senator, relatively inexperienced in this kind of work, was assigned to tasks appropriate for a junior lawyer,'' according to an e-mail from Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs. "These tasks would have included reviewing documents, collecting corporate organizational documents, and drafting corporate resolutions.''

In fact, Gibbs wrote, "Senator Obama does not remember having conversations with Tony Rezko about properties that he owned or any specific issues related to those properties.''

For five weeks, the Sun-Times sought to interview Obama about Rezko and the housing deals. His staff wanted written questions. It responded Sunday but left many questions unanswered. Other answers didn't directly address the question.

Among these: When did Obama learn of Rezmar's financial problems? "The senator had no special knowledge of any financial problems,'' Gibbs wrote.

Did the senator ever complain to anyone -- government officials, Rezmar or Rezko -- about the conditions of Rezmar's buildings? "Senator Obama did follow up on constituency complaints about housing as matter of routine,'' Gibbs wrote.

Did the senator ever discuss Rezmar's financial problems with anyone at his law firm? "The firm advises us that it unaware of any such conversations,'' Gibbs wrote.



The next year, Obama joined Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland, a 12-lawyer firm that specialized in helping develop low-income housing. The firm's top partner, Allison S. Davis, was, and is, a member of the Chicago Plan Commission, appointed by Mayor Daley. Davis was also a friend of Rezko. Davis and Rezko would eventually go into business together, developing homes.

Another firm partner, Judson Miner, ran the city Law Department under Mayor Harold Washington, one of Obama's political idols.

Asked what Rezko cases Obama worked on, Miner told the Sun-Times, "We'll put together a list of the cases he worked on involving Rezko/Rezmar in the next day or two.''

That was March 13. He never provided the information.
..............................................................................................................................

As a U.S. senator, Obama grew closer to Rezko.

Two years ago, Obama bought a mansion on the South Side, in the Kenwood neighborhood, from a doctor. On the same day, Rezko's wife, Rita Rezko, bought the vacant lot next door from the same seller. The doctor had listed the properties for sale together. He sold the house to Obama for $300,000 below the asking price. The doctor got his asking price on the lot from Rezko's wife.

Last year, Rita Rezko sold a strip of that vacant lot to Obama for $104,500 -- a deal Obama later apologized for, acknowledging that people might think he got a favor from Rezko. Obama called the episode "boneheaded'' aancing -- loans from the city or state, federal low-income-housing tax credits and bank loans.
nd a "mistake.''

At the time Obama bought that strip of land, it had been reported that Rezko was under federal investigation for influence-peddling involving the administration of Blagojevich, whose campaign also received Rezko's financial support.

n/t