Thursday, August 14, 2008
List: Obama and the Company He Keeps
We're keeping a list of Obama's professional and personal associations. He, and others, say these people shouldn't be used to judge him. We disagree. We think any honest and objective vetting of Obama should start with this list.

So Comrades, is Obama a good judge of character?







Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard Professor, Racist
Link to Obama: Friend
Quote Below - MyFoxBoston.com:

Obama called Gates a friend, and said he doesn't know all the facts of the case. Nonetheless, Obama said, anyone would have been angry if treated the way Gates claims police in Cambridge, Mass., treated him. Gates claims he was arrested in his own home after showing ID to police who responded to a report of a possible burglary.

Police say Gates yelled at the officers and initially refused to show his ID. Gates allegedly yelled “this is what happens to a black man in America” and “you don’t know who you’re messing with” before he was arrested, and police said he was uncooperative.


More links: Police Report, Wikipedia, our Blog posts on the subject: first & second. Added 7.25: AT's Obama's a Racist:

Don't let these two Ivy League-educated, erudite, distinguished black men convince you that only whites can be racists. Believe me, these two men are the worst kind of racists: black and elitist.
---
So why is President Obama a racist? Because he, like his friend Gates, automatically assumed the white police officer "acted stupidly." BO assumed it was the white officer's fault, because, of course, we all know white cops are racist, right? And later, when he slightly retracted his statement, he still felt the need to say, "It would have been better if cooler heads had prevailed." By now he knew the facts, that his friend Gates had lost his mind and acted like a fool, but he assumed that Sgt. Crowley similarly lost it and "got all up" in Gates' face, because, of course, that's what all white cops do.






Rashid Khalidi, Former PLO Terrorist and Arafat Advisor
Link to Obama: Praised for Anti-Semetic Beliefs by Obama
Quote Below - Debbie Schlussel, October 29, 2008:

There has been much discussion throughout the Net about a secreted video showing Barack Obama at a dinner with terrorists Bill Ayers and wife Bernadine Dohrn, and the anti-Semitic Arafat advisor, Rashid Khalidi.

The Los Angeles Times has a copy of the tape, but won't release it because they said the source--whom I believe is Arab American Action Network (AAAN) founder and anti-Israel Palestinian activist Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada--required it not be released as a condition of sharing it. That's because it likely shows Obama applauding an anti-Semitic, anti-Israel poem that was read at the dinner.


Quote at Doug Ross - Obama's toast to Khalidi:

He congratulates Khalidi for his work saying "Israel has no God-given right to occupy Palestine" plus there's been "genocide against the Palestinian people by Israelis."


More Links: Hugh Hewitt





Franklin Raines, Former Fannie Mae CEO
Link to Obama: Self-Proclaimed Obama Campaign Advisor
Video Below - John McCain ad, September 18, 2008:



Link: Washington Post story at Seattle Times. Raines tells reporter Anita Huslin he had "taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters."

Raines was fined $25 million for the Fannie Mae accounting problems that led to the mortgage and credit crisis.





General Wesley Clark, Media Military Analyst, Former (Fired) Supreme NATO Commander (Kosovo)
Link to Obama: Obama Supporter
Quote below (with video): July 23, 2008, HotAir Blog Ed Morrissey, Wes Clark on the surge: It was a Saudi payoff that worked

Certainly one would expect a military “analyst” for a major media outlet to know at least that much about the surge that he’s dismissing. However, it’s clear that Clark isn’t providing analysis but political cover for Barack Obama by trying to argue that the surge didn’t have any effect on Iraqi security. With the media pressing Obama to explain why he still opposes a strategy that worked, Clark wants to give him an out by claiming that the Iraqis beat al-Qaeda all by themselves after the Saudis bribed them to do so.







Tony Rezko, Chicago Slumlord
Link to Obama: Obama Contributor, Sold house to Obama at discount price
Quote below: January 9, 2007, The Conservative Voice Tom Fitton, Barack Obama's Whitewater?

First, Obama's dealings with Rezko reveal a politician oblivious to the expectations of at least the appearance of integrity for those in public office. At the time Obama entered into his dubious land deal, it was widely known that Rezko was the subject of a federal investigation for allegedly trying to collect nearly $6 million in kickbacks from government deals. Obama and Rezko have been friends since 1990. Obama knew about Rezko's shady reputation and ought to have avoided the appearance of impropriety.

Second, Obama's dealings with Rezko suggest, at least, that Obama might be the kind of politician willing to peddle his influence. The Chicago Tribune reported that Obama purchased his land for $300,000 less than the asking price, while Rezko's wife paid full price for the adjoining lot from the same owner. Did Mrs. Rezko partially subsidize the purchase of Obama's new home? And what of the subsequent sale of a section of the Rezko property to Obama shortly thereafter?


Other Resources: Rezko Watch






Eric Holder, Former Clinton Assistant Attorney General who helped fugitive Marc Rich get a Presidential pardon.
Link to Obama: Obama VP Selection Committee
Quote below: June 7, 2008, Pajamas Media Jennifer Rubin, Obama’s New Advisor Stained by Clinton Pardon Scandal

So to be clear, Holder helped steer the attorney for Rich, a fugitive whose pardon request would likely have been rejected through normal channels due to his status as a fugitive, to the man Holder wanted assistance with in getting his next job. Now there’s a man who knows something about conflicts of interest.








Ludacris, Rap Singer
Link to Obama: Obama Friend and preferred musician
Link, with Video: July 30, 2008, HotAir Blog, Allahpundit, Audio: This is not the Ludacris that Barack Obama thought he knew







Julia Boseman, North Carolina State Senator
Link to Obama: Rumored Obama Running Mate
Link: June 12, 2008, Townhall.com Mike S. Adams, Obama-Boseman 2008






Mike Klonsky
Link to Obama: Obama Supporter
Quote below: June 26, 2008, Gateway Pundit blog post, Obama Throws Maoist Hardliner and Weatherman Pal Under the Bus

Klonsky belonged to the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and was best friends with William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn who later became famous for their acts of terrorism when the SDS broke up and the Weathermen terror group was formed.
---
Today his blog was removed from the Obama website.
Comrade Klonsky is no longer with us.







Sam Graham-Felsen
Link to Obama: Official Campaign Blogger
Quote below: May 1, 2008, WorldNetDaily, Obama's Official Blogger a Fan of Karl Marx

Writing in a Harvard Crimson blog in his senior year, Graham-Felsen described meeting radical MIT professor and author Noam Chomsky as "a life changing experience" that left him feeling "as though I had been through the Matrix and back."

Graham-Felsen advised Chomsky to "tone his message down" so as "to convince Americans."

He argued that "even if [Chomsky] is waiting for Americans to rise up in mass movements, he's not going to spark widespread protest unless he can get more people to embrace his message."







Mohammed Salim Al-Churbaji - Son of deported member of Al-Qaeda
Link to Obama: Obama Fundraiser
Quote below: July 31, 2008, Debbie Schlussel Blog Post

Meanwhile, the son of terrorist Abu Salim continues working for the Obama campaign. When terrorists and their families support Barack Obama, that might give you a hint why you should not.







George Soros - Billionaire (in blue shirt at right)
Link to Obama: Hidden (?) Financial Support
Link: June 10, 2008, LGF Blog Post - Six Degrees of George Soros






Alice J. Palmer - Former Illinois State Senator, former member US Peace Council (a communist front group)
Link to Obama: Former Friend of Obama's
Quote below: Discover the Networks

Palmer said that America’s white-owned press “has tended to ignore or distort the gains that have been made [by the Soviets] since [the Russian Revolution of 1917]. But in fact the Soviets are carrying out a policy to resolve the inequalities between nationalities, inequalities that they say were inherited from capitalist and czarist rule. They have a comprehensive affirmative action program, which they have stuck to religiously -- if I can use that word -- since 1917.”







John Edwards - Former Democrat Presidential Candidate
Link to Obama: Recently Disqualified 2008 Running Mate or Attorney General
Quote below: New York Times, Gail Collins, August 8, 2008, Ken Doll in Lust

If Edwards’s political career is toast, it will be because he has always seemed to be less than a sum of his parts: the position papers, the “Two Americas,” the photogenic grin, the supersmart wife. The only piece of the package that consistently disappointed was the man himself. He wasn’t a very good running mate for John Kerry, and as a presidential candidate, he always struck me as being about 2 inches deep.






Billionaire, and former Superior Bank Chairman Penny Pritzker
Link to Obama: Obama fundraiser
Quote below: WSJ, July 21, 2008, A Top Obama Fund-Raiser Had Ties to Failed Bank

Ms. Pritzker served as Superior chairman until 1994. During that period, Superior "embarked on a business strategy of significant growth into subprime home mortgages," which were then packaged into securities and sold to investors, according to a 2002 report by the Treasury Department's Inspector General.

"Superior was at the forefront of the securitizing of subprime mortgages," says Timothy Anderson, a retired bank consultant who has studied Superior and other failed thrifts.
...
The Pritzker name lent credibility. In June 2001, Fran Sweet deposited about $480,000 of retirement funds with Superior. The 64-year-old former telephone-industry employee recalls that when she asked if Superior was sound, an official told her, "Don't worry. The Pritzkers own it."

By July 2001, the recapitalization plan had unraveled and regulators took over Superior. It was the biggest thrift collapse in nearly a decade.

Later that year, the Pritzkers reached a settlement with regulators. Without admitting wrongdoing, they agreed to pay $100 million immediately, and another $360 million over 15 years. "I am proud of how I and my extended family dealt with" Superior's closure, Ms. Pritzker said.







Pastor, and Illinois State Senator, James Meeks. Also an Obama Delegate
Link to Obama: One of three of Obama's Spiritual Mentors
Quote below: Washington Blade, April 11, 2008

Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign this week sought to distance itself from the anti-gay rhetoric of controversial minister and Illinois state Sen. James Meeks (D), who reportedly provides spiritual guidance to Obama and will serve as a delegate for him at the Democratic National Convention.

Meeks has a long history of anti-gay remarks. In 2007, the Southern Poverty Law Center placed Meeks among the “10 leading black religious voices in the anti-gay movement.” The center reported that Meeks used his church to launch petition drives for the Illinois Family Institute, a religion-based organization that praised him for “clearly understanding the threat of gay marriage.” The center also criticized Meeks for being allied with conservative groups Focus on the Family, Family Research Council and the Alliance Defense Fund.







Robert Malley
Link to Obama: Former Obama Middle East policy advisors (as of May 08)
Quote below: TimesOnline.co.uk, May 10, 2008

One of Barack Obama’s Middle East policy advisers disclosed yesterday that he had held meetings with the militant Palestinian group Hamas – prompting the likely Democratic nominee to sever all links with him.

Robert Malley told The Times that he had been in regular contact with Hamas, which controls Gaza and is listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organisation. Such talks, he stressed, were related to his work for a conflict resolution think-tank and had no connection with his position on Mr Obama’s Middle East advisory council.

“I’ve never hidden the fact that in my job with the International Crisis Group I meet all kinds of people,” he added.


U/T: Jawa Report & Ace of Spades HQ






Bernadine Dohrn
Link to Obama: Obama friend and supporter

Dohrn describing the US as the "heart of the monster" at a reunion of her fellow terrorists in 2007. (0:41):





Dohrn, in 2007, denouncing the US "empire". (0:53):





U/T: Powerlineblog





Richard Danzig
Link to Obama: Former Clinton Navy Secretary and likely Obama National Security Advisor
Quote below: Telegraph.co.uk

Richard Danzig, who served as Navy Secretary under President Clinton and is tipped to become National Security Adviser in an Obama White House, told a major foreign policy conference in Washington that the future of US strategy in the war on terrorism should follow a lesson from the pages of Winnie the Pooh, which can be shortened to: if it is causing you too much pain, try something else.

Mr Danzig told the Centre for New American Security: “Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security.”

He spelt out how American troops, spies and anti-terrorist officials could learn key lessons by understanding the desire of terrorists to emulate superheroes like Luke Skywalker, and the lust for violence of violent football fans.


U/T: LGF







Michael Pfleger
Link to Obama: One of three spiritual advisors








William Ayers, Terrorist
Link to Obama: Supporter
Quote Below: Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, April 25, 2008
Sound File: Powerline Blog, April 22, 2008

Take Ayers. Obama makes it sound as if the relationship consists of having run into each other at the DMV. In fact, Obama's political career was launched in a 1995 meeting at Ayers's home. Obama's own campaign says that they maintain "friendly" relations.

Obama's defense is that he was 8 when Ayers and his Weather Underground comrades were planting bombs at the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol and other buildings. True. But Obama was 40 when Ayers said publicly that he doesn't regret setting bombs. Indeed, he said, "I feel we didn't do enough."


William Ayers speaking of violence (0:30):





Update 8.18 - NRO, Stanley Kurtz, Chicago Annenberg Challenge Shutdown?

Ayers was pictured in a 2001 article for Chicago magazine, stomping on an American flag, and told the New York Times just before 9/11 that the notion of the United States as a just and fair and decent place “makes me want to puke.” Although Obama actually launched his political career at an event at Ayers’s and Dohrn’s home, Obama has dismissed Ayers as just “a guy who lives in my neighborhood,” and “not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.” For his part, Ayers refuses to discuss his relationship with Obama.


Update 9.2: Video about restricted documents at the University of Illinois, Chicago that may/may not show a deeper relationship between Obama and Ayers.



Update 9.2: Some info coming out about Annenberg. Obama spent $160m with zero results?? Steve Diamond, Chicago SunTimes:

...the Annenberg Challenge was a failure. $160,000,000 down the drain and no improvement in student outcomes.


Update 9.24: Stanley Kurtz exposes the Obama-Ayers Annenberg relationship in the WSJ.

Update 10.9: McCain ad:







James A. Johnson, Former Fannie May CEO
Link to Obama: One of three VP Selection Committee Members (resigned 6.12.08)
Quote Below: WSJ Editorial, June 11, 2008

A former CEO of mortgage financing giant Fannie Mae, Mr. Johnson is now vetting Vice Presidential candidates for Mr. Obama. But he is also a textbook case for poor disclosure as regulators sifted through the wreckage of Fannie's $10 billion accounting scandal. Despite an exhaustive federal inquiry, Mr. Johnson managed to avoid disclosing one very special perk: below-market interest-rate mortgages from Countrywide Financial, arranged by Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo.
---
The irony here is that Mr. Obama has denounced Mr. Mozilo as part of his populist case against corporate excess, calling Mr. Mozilo and a colleague in March "the folks who are responsible for infecting the economy and helping to create a home foreclosure crisis." Obama campaign manager David Plouffe also said in March that "If we're really going to crack down on the practices that caused the credit and housing crises, we're going to need a leader who doesn't owe these industries any favors." But now this protector of the working class has entrusted his first big task as Presidential nominee to the very man who received "favors" in return for enriching Mr. Mozilo.


John McCain Video, September 18 2008:







Michelle Obama
Spouse









Jeremiah Wright
Retired Pastor, Trinity United Church of Christ
Link to Obama: Pastor of 20 years, "Spiritual Mentor", Added then removed from campaign staff








James Yee
US Army Captain and Chaplain Accused, then Cleared of Spying, 2004
Link to Obama: Obama Delegate
Quote below: From James Taranto's Best of the Web series, May 21, 2008

What kind of man supports Barack Obama? The Associated Press reports that James Yee, a former Muslim Army chaplain at Guantanamo Bay who was accused of spying, has been chosen as an Obama delegate to the Democratic National Convention.

Yee was not prosecuted on those charges. The AP states that he was "cleared," but a 2004 New York Times editorial said otherwise:

In dropping the prosecution last week, the military refused to clear Captain Yee, contending that it had acted only because of ''national security concerns that would arise from the release of the evidence.''
Last year, the Middle East Media Research Institute aired a clip of an interview Yee gave to Syrian television. Blogger Charles Johnson has a transcript. Yee claimed that the Koran "was being desecrated in Guantanamo in many different ways." Yee acknowledged that he did not actually witness any of the purported desecration; he merely took the detainees' word for it.

What kind of man supports Barack Obama? The kind of man who goes on TV in an Arab country ruled by a hostile authoritarian regime and participates in propaganda that seems designed to inflame anti-American sentiment.





More Sources:

10min Video covering Rezko, Meeks, Wright, Michelle, and Jesse Jackson Jr.


John McCain ad - September 21, 2008






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