Feeling the Heat

Rezko roundup. Sun Times, $3.9 million would be Rezko's cut from the business arising from state board deals:

"I told Mr. Rezko that there was an opportunity for a lot of money to be made," Levine said. "I wanted Mr. Rezko to understand the magnitude of what could be done with these companies."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Niewoehner asked how Rezko reacted.

"He asked me what needed to be done in order to accomplish them," Levine said.

"Did Mr. Rezko ask you if it would be legal for him to receive those fees?" Niewoehner asked.

"No, sir," said Levine.

This is mostly about the governor, but it does showcase the slime that is Illinois politics. Tribune story online, but these further paragraphs from the print edition:

In exchange for their help, Rezko and Kelly were promised that lucrative TRS investments would also be pledged to firms as a reward for making big donations to the governor's campaign fund, Levine testified.

Another showcase Blagojevich initiative was a sweeping ethics reform package that would have made it illegal for members of state boards to secretly discuss official business with outsiders. "Nobody of consequence was going to pay attention to the ethics ordinance," Levine said Rezko reassured him. "It was just there for show."

NRO's Stephen Spruiell was on hand in Chicago yesterday as well:

In 2006, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald announced that he had opened an investigation into “very serious allegations of endemic hiring fraud” involving “the alleged rigging of state employment practices” to benefit Blagojevich’s political cronies. Just a few months later, news broke that Blagojevich accepted a $1,500 check from a friend and subsequently found his friend’s wife a job with a state agency, even though she had failed a state hiring exam (Blagojevich claimed the $1,500 was a gift for his daughter). [snip]

Blagojevich was supposed to represent a new day in Springfield, and therein lies a lesson for those Americans enamored of Barack Obama and his message of change. Illinois voters have some recent experience electing a young, ambitious, hard-charging Democrat who promised them a break from the past. Last November, over half of them said they would vote to recall him.

(The Tribune pushes instituting a recall measure in an editorial today.)

And then there's this (scroll down, under sweet TRS deal):

The lawyers ended their day by arguing about a tape prosecutors hope to play soon, a recording of a call between Levine and William Cellini.

In the conversation, Cellini communicates to Levine that he is concerned about possible federal investigations because of heat being generated by Rezko and his fellow fundraiser Christopher Kelly, who are out "hammerin' " people for contracts.

Rezko was Barack Obama's main money man for years. Feeling the heat Barack?

UPDATE: Who is scrubbing TUCC's website? Jake Tapper, ABC's Political Punch. (Wright likens conservatives to terrorists. Where's the love Barack?) Sen. "Able" Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), (she of blaming Republicans for falling bridges. Where's the love Barack?) endorses Obama:

Klobuchar said the results of Minnesota's Feb. 5 caucuses, where Obama won by a 2-to-1 margin, influenced her decision to endorse now, as did her work with him on ethics and child-safety issues, her 12 year-old daughter's observation that her silence was "awkward" and Obama's promise of bringing a new brand of politics to the nation's capital.

"He's able to dissolve the hard cynical edge that has dominated our politics under the Bush administration," Klobuchar said.

Taking advice from a twelve year old. (Child-safety--what about adult safety?) Ethics? Obama's the man for that, being he was so successful and all in cleaning up Illinois. And Hillary accuses Obama of not wanting every vote to count. Enjoy.

UPDATE: Obama is now supposedly no longer Superman but "underdog" according to the NY Times, using simpler language but still describing the world in cartoonish terms, Big Oil, Big Energy, big whoop:

“The problem with talking about hope all the time is that these are not hopeful lands; Obama is talking change to people who equate change with life getting worse,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic Party consultant who has studied the political culture of these working-class states with a Talmudic intensity.

David tries some spin:

So, noted David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s chief political strategist, voters can expect to hear the candidate emphasizing his organizing roots. “What we want to do is acquaint people with that dimension of his history,” Mr. Axelrod said. “A lot of this can be pleasing, but empty patter unless you can establish your authenticity."

Barack Obama, authentically challenged. In trouble in Indiana next door:

Andrea Helmer was interested in Barack Obama until she heard sound bites of his fiery pastor's sermons. Last week, she volunteered for Hillary Clinton's campaign in Indiana.

``As things came out regarding some of the things his pastor has said, I got concerned,'' said Helmer, a 36-year-old respiratory therapist and mother of two in Evansville, Indiana.

Where's the love Barack? (I noticed at the grocery store the other day National Enquirer had a front page inset pix of Obama and the Rev. Wright and a Destroy White People headline)

UPDATE: Former NY Mayor and Democrat Ed Koch says there's no excusing Obama on Wright.

UPDATE: Barack Obama, as James Lewis nails it--moving from one liberal anti-American subculture to the next--I have thought this for a long time--does he really know America? Will he make us pay and pay? (Why do liberals hate us?):

I just don't recognize "Ameri-KKK-a," in the Rev. Wright's witty little phrase. In the real America of the last half century you have to turn over a lot of rocks to find the evil racist, sexist, homophobic meanies. Instead, I see a country that is desperately working to do good in the world.

Now this is the big, unanswered question about Barack Obama --- does he really understand America as it is? Or does he fall for the paranoid narrative of the Left? That is crucial. If he has internalized the Left's view of America, he will try to make the country pay and pay for all the wrongs, real or imagined, of the distant past. The country will be permanently guilt-tripped.

UPDATE: One more question for Obama on the attack by ISM on Holy Name Cathedral, Chicago. Via Pat Hickey:

But Obama’s association with the ISM through his church and lobbying in Chicago goes even deeper than just his past links to Al Awda and Ali Abunimah. His pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and the Trinity Union Church of Christ in Chicago, are both equally involved with the ISM.

More on ISM here. Why does this stuff keep coming up with Obama and his friends? Answer--because he's a radical. And he doesn't view this stuff as controversial. Over and over these extremist associations surface.

Related post: 22 Questions