Winds of Change has a link to a report by the Inspector General into Mobile Telecommunications Licenses in Iraq dated May 11, 2004. The preliminary report (PDF here) contains fresh detail into the background and activities of Nadhmi Auchi. Wikileak repeats much of the speculation about Auchi in open source: he “has been tied to illegal activities in Iraq and France, and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.” However that may be, while the report prepared for the International Armament and Technology Trade Directorate, Office of Deputy Undersecretary of Defense (International Technology Security), of the US Department of Defense contains no information on the connection, if any between Auchi and Obama, it contains plenty of information about the modus operandi of Nadhmi Auchi. The report said their investigation had:
brought to the surface, among many other things, the name of Nadhmi Auchi, an Iraqi billionaire who has played a role in the Iraqi-European arms trade for over two decades, and who, behind the facade of legitimate business, served as Saddam Hussein’s principal international financial manipulator and bag man. (page 3/146)
Auchi was suspected of trying to “bribe foreign governments and individuals prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom to turn opinion against the American-led mission to remove Saddam Hussein”; “arrange for significant theft from the UN Oil-for-Food Program to smuggle weapons and dual-use technology into Iraq” and “organize an elaborate scheme to take over and control the post-war cellular phone system in Iraq.”
It was no surprise that the Auchi “set off instant alarms in IATT when it was discovered that he had managed to manipulate the U.S.- and British-sponsored cellular telephone tender under the auspices of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) by having nominal or beneficial ownership of a major part of the equity in two of the winning licenses, and through a complex arrangement, a controlling interest in all three licenses. The investigation which underlay this report was triggered by universal complaints that the tender process had been rigged and that the process lacked transparency. ”
The Inspector General’s report describes how Auchi fixed the the tender. It fleshes out the sketchy portrait of the man who may have provided the backing for Tony Rezko’s ill-fated bid to construct the “a $150 million Chamchamal Power Plant in Kurdish Iraq”, a relationship described in greater detail my article Obama’s Shifting Positions in Iraq: a Rezko Connection? In that piece, I noted that Rezko’s statements to the court during his recent trial admitted that he had no money to undertake the project. His only source of ready funds appeared to Auchi.
When the judge pressed for details Mr. Joseph Duffy, of Stetler & Duffy, spoke for his client, “there was a request for purchase by the Iraqi government. Mr. Rezko and an engineering firm here in the state of Illinois put together a bid, along with other entities; and, then, they won the bid for the contract. The company has no assets. They were just going to — if the contract was given, as I understand the financing was going to be a letter of credit — letter of credit from the Iraqi government and other financing; and then, they were going to put together someone to build or supply the electricity. …
According to court documents, Mr. Rezko’s lawyer said his client had “longstanding indebtedness” to Mr. Auchi’s GMH. By June 2007 he owed it $27.9 million. Under a Loan Forgiveness Agreement described in court, Mr. Auchi lent Mr. Rezko $3.5 million in April 2005 and $11 million in September 2005, as well as the $3.5 million transferred in April 2007. … A posting last week on a GMH-owned website, middle-east-online.com, portrayed Mr. Auchi as a Middle Eastern “Donald Trump” with a global business construction empire. Mr. Auchi visited the United States in 2004. Pictures show him meeting Emil Jones, the president of the Illinois state senate, an ally of Mr. Obama, a former state senator.
Wikileak says, “Auchi has denied accusations over the cell phone contract. The London Times reported that Auchi gave a $3.5 million loan to Mr. Rezko in May 2005 through a Panamanian company linked to the Iraqi expatriate called Fintrade Services SA. Several weeks after the loan, Mr. Obama purchased a house on Chicago’s South Side and Mr. Rezko’s wife bought an expensive plot of land next to the house from the same seller on the same day. Mr. Rezko’s wife later sold a 10-foot section of the property to Mr. Obama, to add to the Illinois Democrat’s garden. Mr. Obama has called the land purchase a mistake”
The Inspector General’s report makes the fairly persuasive case that Auchi was bad company. The person who constituted the single degree of separation between Auchi and the man who is possibly the next President of the United States was Tony Rezko. After the Chicago businessman’s conviction on corruption charges, Obama expressed shock at his former friend’s secret life.
Rezko’s guilty verdict on 16 of 24 corruption counts could have broad repercussions for Blagojevich, who made Rezko a central player in his kitchen cabinet. It could also prove a political liability for U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, who once counted Rezko as a friend and fundraiser, as the likely Democratic presidential nominee heads into the general election campaign against Republican John McCain.
“I’m saddened by today’s verdict,” Obama said Wednesday. “This isn’t the Tony Rezko I knew, but now he has been convicted by a jury on multiple charges that once again shine a spotlight on the need for reform. I encourage the General Assembly to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent these kinds of abuses in the future.”
Despite his evil reputation among those who followed international crime, Mr. Auchi moved in exalted circles. Wikipedia’s entry reveals him as a banker, educational philathrophist, and student of Chicago politics. He seemed equally at home in Paris, London, the Middle East and in the best social circles in America.
From 1996 to 2000 he served on an advisory committee to the Institute for Social and Economic Policy in the Middle East at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He has been president of the Anglo-Arab Organisation since its founding in 2002.
Auchi was a member of the Baath Party in Iraq before Saddam Hussein came to power. While he denies any ties to Hussein’s government, British media reports indicate he sold naval ships to Hussein’s government in the 1980s. He is of the largest shareholders in BNP Paribas, a French bank involved in the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme for Iraq. In 2003, Auchi was convicted of fraud, and given a 15 month suspended sentence and a £1.5m fine for taking illegal payments from French oil company Elf Aquitaine. Following the verdict, Elf (by now merged with TotalFina and re-named Total) decided to take legal action against Auchi in France; Auchi responded by suing Total for £200m in turn, this time in the UK.
In recent years he has entered into several partnerships with Chicago-area businessman Tony Rezko, effectively coming to his rescue as his various investment schemes began collapsing. Auchi bought about 15 of Rezko’s pizzeria’s in Wisconsin, according to court records. In 2005 he took a stake in Rezko’s South Loop development at Roosevelt Road and Clark Street, a deal estimated by observers familiar with the details at $170 million. In 2008 Stuart Levine, the government’s star witness in the corruption trial against Rezko, asserted that Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, were among the guests at party in Auchi’s honor that took place at Rezko’s residence on 3 April 2004. While Obama has acknowledged his ties to Rezko, a spokesman said that the senator responed that “Sen. Obama does not recall meeting Nadhmi Auchi at any time or on any occasion, and this includes any event that may have been held for Mr. Auchi.”
In 2008 The Times of London reported the discovery of state documents in Illinois recording that a Panamanian company by the name of Fintrade Services lent money to a funderaiser for Obama in 2005. Fintrade’s directors included Ibtisam Auchi, the name of Mr Auchi’s wife. Spoksespeople declined to answer when questioned about whether he was linked to this business. The Times also reported that Auchi’s company loaned Tony Rezko $3.5 million three weeks before Rezko’s lot and Obama’s new home were purchased in 2005.
What brought Auchi to Chicago? And what brought Rezko to Iraq? There are still lots and lots of places besides Sarah Palin’s tanning bed where the spotlight needs to shine.
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46 Comments
1. Lifeofthemind:Mein Gott ein Himmel! The Audacity of Hope indeed. My Father once said of someone that “He has the nerve of a burglar.” That is what men like Soros and Auchi rely on. Respectable people find it impossible at first to believe that these characters would have the nerve to attempt to subvert the United States the same way they would some lesser pesthole like Iraq or fading dowager like France. It is a form of bigotry that slows our reactions until it is to late.
Sep 23, 2008 - 5:37 am 2. RWE:Interesting item I saw on TV the other day. A woman in Great Britian went to withdraw some money from her bank account and found that it was all but empty.
Investigation found that someone had hacked into her account and withdrawn the money.
And it had been sent as two political contributions to:
Obama.
Felons for Change!
Sep 23, 2008 - 5:50 am 3. Obama-Ayers Working Relationship at CAC:[...] Richard Fernandez’s piece on Nadhmi Auchi, International Man of Mystery, UN Oil-for-Food abuser, Rezko backer, Ba’athist. Posted by Dan Collins @ 12:44 pm | [...]
Sep 23, 2008 - 5:52 am 4. Lifeofthemind:The United States is being invaded as surely as Poland was invaded by the Wehrmacht. The US Attorneys and FBI should march into Obama’s HQ and the web of shadowy shell organizations he relies on. All the computers should be siezed and every employee, volunteer or associate searched to locate every thumb drive. The forensics teams should go through them to find not only the email and memo links between the campaign and foreign interests but especially the IP taces between Obama and foreign money. We do not need to face a real financial crisis in this country if we can just get back the money these criminals have been stealing from us.
Sep 23, 2008 - 5:58 am 5. Herb:There are internet rumors of some sort of industrial money laundry driving the contributions to Obama’s campaign. But you cant believe everything you read on the internets.
An old engineer once told me anythings possible given enough time and money. The more money the less time required.
Sep 23, 2008 - 6:23 am 6. steveaz:Is Auchi the source of this money?
Auchi sent Rezco. Did Auchi send Obama? Who sent Auchi?
If you take money from an Arab Baathist and then work to obstruct America’s war in Baathist Iraq, can we call you unpatriotic?
What if a political party knowingly corrupts a key national industry in a way that forces foreign investors to shun our nation’s financial markets?
I think we can. The kind of “dissent” many urban Democrats engage in regularly smells funnily like sedition.
Sep 23, 2008 - 6:34 am 7. RWE:Steveaz: All kinds of opponents of Operation Iraqi Freedom - including some American politicians - took money from Saddam. But they say that did not influence their opinions.
Some in the U.S. oppose drilling for oil on our own land, which just coincidently means that we ship billions of dollars overseas to countries that have been known to help out certain American peanut farmers and other Leftist politicians.
Certain politicians have supported “affordable” housing loans for years and now say that it’s not their fault that things got out of hand.
Maybe it’s not sedition. But it works the same way.
Sep 23, 2008 - 6:57 am 8. veracious:@Lifeofthemind:
The United States is being invaded as surely as Poland was invaded by the Wehrmacht.
I submit that prior to invading Poland, German agents, commandos and money surely prepared the way, weakening key locations, institutions, persons and such. Focusing on the money side, Germany had only a small fraction of the wealth with which to influence internal Polish events, compared to the amount of wealth our foreign enemies and _friends_ have to influence US.
This influence flows like a torrent river finding new channels, raging into new parallel tributary when difficulties appose it. The very institutions which you seek refuge from are being torn from within and without by overseers that mingle with the agents of that money.
Friends our leaders, yea our nation, but for a few, slumber with a veil to shade the eyes.
Isaiah 56:9-12:
All ye beasts of the field, come to devour, yea, all ye beasts in the forest.
His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.
Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter.
Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.
Far more more money is being sent voluntarily to those who appose USA, than all the money the criminals take.
Sep 23, 2008 - 7:06 am 9. Sobieski:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122212856075765367.html?mod=rss_opinion_main
A little off topic, but Stanley Kurtz has been granted access to the Annenberg Challenge files after all?
Sep 23, 2008 - 8:05 am 10. WeatherOutpost12:[...] just gets deeper & deeper: Nadhmi Auchi & B. H. Obama pajamasmedia.com “tied to illegal activities in Iraq and France, and Democratic presidential [...]
Sep 23, 2008 - 8:14 am 11. Charles:OT: I like Ben Stein’s take on money. He gives a more cogent explanation of the financial instruments that are driving the current meltdown on Wall St.
http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/yourlife/109609
The answer to Ben Stein’s closing comment I think may be found in the comment section at freerepublic on the article.
“Whenever one takes out an insurance policy, there must be an insurable interest. Since the speculators in CDS, did not own the underlying securities, the CDS should be declared invalid, for lack of an insurable interest. If I tried to collect on an insurance policy I took out on a home I did not own, I would not be paid, and might face criminal charges.
Those who bought CDS on securities they do not own, should eat their losses and be thankful they are not prosecuted for insurance fraud. ”
Sep 23, 2008 - 8:53 am 12. Benj:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2088420/posts
Life of the Mind defines mindlessness - “The United States is being invaded as surely as Poland was invaded by the Wehrmacht.”
That’s as irreal as the paranoia of kooks on the left who assume that Bush is Hitler and 9/11`was the Reichstag fire.
As per Wretch - doubt we need any more light shed on Sarah’s tanning bed, but there’s other stuff in her immediate past that may be more to the point. Especially given that the candidate for VP has not yet held a press conference with the national media - doubt there’s a precedent for that in modern American history…
So maybe the following SLATE story is slightly more relevant than the fact a public figure like Obama may once have been in a room with a financier who turned out to be dirty. (Ya’ll been following the story re Mac’s party on that yacht with the swindler Folinari! Well I haven’t been!! Cos it’s a waste of time!! On the other hand, if I was worthy of Wretch I should focus! If I let my inner paranoid out, I might be be able to work up some conspiracy theory focused on, say, anti-papism? Or Mac’s Montenegran connection? Or…). Here’s the conclusion of a Salon piece linked to today at Real Clear Politics…
Palin’s reputation as a reformer stems primarily from her headline-grabbing ouster of state GOP chairman Randy Ruedrich from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission for flagrant conflict-of-interest abuses. At the time, Palin was heralded in the press as a whistle-blower, but it was later revealed that she was guilty of the same charge that she had brought against Ruedrich — using state office equipment for partisan political business. (While still mayor of Wasilla, she sent out campaign fundraising appeals from her office during her race for lieutenant governor.)
Others suspect that Palin had self-serving reasons for taking on Ruedrich and resigning her seat on the commission. The state energy panel had ignited a public firestorm in Palin’s home base, Mat-Su Valley, by secretly leasing sub-surface drilling rights on thousands of residential lots to a Colorado-based gas producer. Outraged farmers and homeowners, who woke up one morning to find drilling equipment being hauled onto their land, were in open revolt against the commission. While Palin initially supported the leasing plan, she was shrewd enough to realize it was political suicide to alienate conservative property owners in her own district. According to some accounts, she was also growing tired of commuting to state offices in Anchorage and poring over dry, tedious technical manuals for her job. All in all, it seemed like the right move to jump ship — and going out a hero was an added plus.
“Sarah quit the commission to make political hay,” Halcro asserted.
In the end, Ruedrich admitted wrongdoing and settled the ethics case by paying $12,000 in civil fines. But Palin did not drive the well-connected Republican operative into exile. In fact, he remains the party’s state chairman and he could be seen on the floor of the Republican convention in St. Paul, Minn., hugging the newly crowned vice-presidential candidate and cheering her feisty speech against greedy old boys like, well, him.
“The idea that Sarah shook up the state’s old-boy network is one big fantasy, it’s complete bullshit,” Halcro said. “She got all this public acclaim for throwing people who backed her under the bus — but she only did it after they became expendable, when she no longer needed them.
“The good old boys in Alaska are still the good old boys — they’re alive and kicking. Randy is still running the Republican Party — he wasn’t happy about being turned into a national poster boy for corruption, but he went along with the program. Ted Stevens is still running for reelection. And [scandal-tainted Alaska Rep.] Don Young is, too. So where’s the new era of change that Palin supposedly brought to Alaska?”
Sep 23, 2008 - 9:08 am 13. Benj:Sorry the story quoted above was in Salon - not Slate…
Sep 23, 2008 - 9:09 am 14. Mark:Wrichard writes:
“What brought Auchi to Chicago? And what brought Rezko to Iraq? There are still lots and lots of places besides Sarah Palin’s tanning bed where the spotlight needs to shine.”
Thus far Sen. Obama has managed to smooth aside his associations and behaviors like so many loose threads. But how long can he continue to do so? Americans will want to give him every benefit of the doubt because, contrary to what Sen. Obama’s campaign would have us believe, Americans generally want him to succeed. He represents hope and change, as he has pointed out.
But a tipping point might occur. Too much astroturfing? Probably not. Foreign policy/energy policy? Maybe. Partial-birth abortion rights etc? Maybe. Rezko and associates? Maybe even more.
The debates will be interesting to watch. Sen. McCain may simply hit again and again on Sen. Obama’s past voting record and associations. Perhaps he may particularly pick at Sen. Obama’s opposition to the born-alive act and support for partial-birth abortion, branding Sen. Obama as a heartless elitist. Family values may still mean something to voters.
If the threads on Sen. Obama’s tailored campaign continue to hang loose, and reporters start to pull at them, the emperor may find himself quite threadbare.
Sep 23, 2008 - 9:37 am 15. elijah:from the Sobieski link -
In works like “City Kids, City Teachers” and “Teaching the Personal and the Political,” Mr. Ayers wrote that teachers should be community organizers dedicated to provoking resistance to American racism and…oppression.
Are the “oppressors” from Ayers perspective the same individuals as the “captors” from the Black Value System when Obama attended TUCC?
Sep 23, 2008 - 9:39 am 16. Andrew:What individuals comprise these oppressors and captors?
Are they the same individuals who make up the powerful and strong from Obama’s judicial perspective?
Are they the same American oppressors Ahmadinejad refers to and speaks of?
OPINION
SEPTEMBER 23, 2008
Obama and Ayers Pushed Radicalism On Schools
By STANLEY KURTZ
online.wsj.com
“The Obama campaign has cried foul when Bill Ayers comes up, claiming “guilt by association.” Yet the issue here isn’t guilt by association; it’s guilt by participation. As CAC chairman, Mr. Obama was lending moral and financial support to Mr. Ayers and his radical circle. That is a story even if Mr. Ayers had never planted a single bomb 40 years ago.”
Sep 23, 2008 - 9:48 am 17. peterike:than the fact a public figure like Obama may once have been in a room with a financier who turned out to be dirty.
“May once have been in a room with”????
Obama: Damn, where did that property come from?
Benj, you get weaker by the day.
http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/m1media-welcome-to-the-crazy-world-of-obama/
Sep 23, 2008 - 10:02 am 18. heather:A friend of mine noted that being at the top of a wealthy, law abiding country like Canada, and having the morals of a thief, can be very profitable.
Paribas is some kind of offshoot of TotalElfFina, which itself enriched a LOT of folk back in the day of Canada’s “National Energy Policy” (when Trudeau was running Canada). And it is connected with Maurice Strong (you know, the friend of Gore and Gaia, the guy who received a million dollar check from the Oil for Food chicanery, endorsed it, and couldn’t remember doing so, it just slipped his mind); Jean Chretien, the father in law of Paul Demerais’ son (of Powercorp, ie, Bombadier). Chretien was Prime Minister at the time when Canada refused to aid the USA in taking out Hussein (Demerais’ son was/is a major stockholder in TotalElfFina, which had an agreement with Saddam Hussein to develop an Iraqi oil field)…
One of my father’s cousins spent some of his retirement trying to find out what happened to the $500 million that just plain disappeared during the construction of Toronto’s Pearson Airport. It was a sort of hobby of his. Canadians are a nice people, and so don’t publish stories like this. When someone like Conrad Black starts a newspaper in opposition to the Liberals, then in the very nicest way, he is destroyed.
it’s amazing. Almost like the Mafia, only more cosmopolitan and much much richer. I guess the USofA and Canada, etc., should not swan around feeling morally superior to third world kleptocracies, should they?
As per Ayers in particular: I think it is revolting that Bernadine Dohrn lives in a nice house with a living room.
Sep 23, 2008 - 10:20 am 19. David M:The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 09/23/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
Sep 23, 2008 - 11:17 am 20. Benj:Peterike - Wretch still hasn’t offered any evidence - much less proof! - that Obama had any contacts with Auchi other than a single meeting at a social occasion years ago. Wretch linked to the WOC site (as if somebody else was hot on a trail here). But that piece basically linked back to own silly summer post “tracking” changes in O’s postion on the war and speculatinng that O’s political calculations came down to Rezko’s profit motives. I provided a much simpler explanation for O’s shifts in tone re Iraq in threads here back in the day. Wretch has nothing NEW to report. Just yesterday’s tattered threads. Talk about the emperor having no clothes…
Sep 23, 2008 - 11:19 am 21. Lugh Lampfhota:Obama is the most undeserving, sleaze candidate to run for President in my lifetime. His associations with Davis, Wright, Ayers and Rezko should be enough to cause Americans to utterly reject his candidacy. Instead, a majority of Democrat-Americans nominated Obama for the office of President. This troubles me deeply.
How can a man who openly associates with Marxists, racists, terrorists and criminals be considered by many to be an agent of hope and change? Change into what? Zimbabwe?
In my thinking, too many Americans think this country is indestructible. That we can take a wild Friday evening drunken stroll next to the abyss without fear. We could never stumble and fall. If Obama is elected President, I believe this country will have taken a fork in the road from which it may never find it’s way back.
Sep 23, 2008 - 12:52 pm 22. Mike Sylwester:Aside from the suspicion that Nadhmi Auchi might have given a lot of money to Barack Obama, I suggest that Auchi’s attempt to Iraq’s telephone system should be cause for concern. It’s not a good arrangement for the USA if such an International Man of Mystery like Auchi becomes able to monitor all the telephone communications in Iraq.
Sep 23, 2008 - 1:35 pm 23. veracious:@Lugh Lampfhota:
I fear that same fork in the road, the fork leading to perhaps absolute corruption. In my opinion the Clinton’s at least were bought by Chinese money; China likely transitioning from a “friend” to a soon to be enemy. With the amounts of money coming into Obama’s campaign I don’t personally need to see 1 or N (N approaching a bunch) specific instances of how this money is coming from overseas, pouring from oil nations; these people and their ideology hate US and want US gone at about the same time as Israel, give or take…
Sir Abraham Lincoln:
Sep 23, 2008 - 1:40 pm 24. Tony:“When we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which have been gotten out at different times and places and by different workmen, and when we see these timbers joined together and see that they exactly make the frame of a house or mill, all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective pieces, and not a piece too many or too few, not omitting even scaffolding, or if a single piece be lacking, we can see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared to yet bring such piece in; in such case, we find it impossible not to believe that they all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon A common plan or draft drawn up before the first lick was struck.”
Obama wanted to surrender to Al Qaeda in Iraq. Who needs more “evidence” that he’s bad for America and the world?
The Dems have wanted Iraq to be “the next Vietnam” since the beginning, Obama’s prescription would have made it so. If Obama wins with a majority Democrat Congress, they can still pull it off, they’ll just abrogate our defense treaties with newly free but embattled Iraq, and pooooof! it’s the Next Vietnam.
Btw, where can we get more info about the tanning bed?
Sep 23, 2008 - 1:42 pm 25. Brian:That’s as irreal as the paranoia of kooks on the left who assume that Bush is Hitler and 9/11`was the Reichstag fire.
So thats what that comment morphed into?When i was on the left i floated the comparison that 9/11 MIGHT have been a false flag but without evidence,theres no case.It seems the Left takes comments and makes crap up as they go along.
I also floated a comment based on the NAU conspiracy;
Russian and Chinese troops would come pouring across Alaska,down through Canada into the continental U.S. using the NAFTA superhighway.At the end i stated its a lie and i just made this comment up.Apparently there are enough gullibility on the left to believe comments without checking facts.
Anyways getting back to the article,evidence of any wrongdoing should be investigated by the FBI and any other appropiate agencies.Still voting Mccain.Obama definetly has zero experience in dealing with the world.
Sep 23, 2008 - 1:57 pm 26. Eggplant:Lugh Lampfhota said:
“How can a man who openly associates with Marxists, racists, terrorists and criminals be considered by many to be an agent of hope and change? Change into what? Zimbabwe? In my thinking, too many Americans think this country is indestructible. That we can take a wild Friday evening drunken stroll next to the abyss without fear.”
My own thinking exactly. B. Hussein is a dangerous demagogue.
Sep 23, 2008 - 2:24 pm 27. Cannoneer No. 4:Many of you may want to listen to The Radio Patriot tonight at 9 PM Eastern. Andrea Shea King interviews Dr. Rusty Shackleford about how his team researched the story about a world renowned PR firm behind a cynical plot to destroy GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin’s reputation and candidacy.
Sep 23, 2008 - 3:24 pm 28. Cannoneer No. 4:Rusty Shackleford on the Rusty Humphries Show last night.
Sep 23, 2008 - 3:28 pm 29. Charles:OT:Pakistanis say suspected US drone shot down
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080923/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan_drone
I sure hope they had the black box rigged to self destruct pretty thoroughly.
The chinese will pay a very high premium to get their hands on it.
Likely like they got some good stuff out of the shoot down over Hainan Island back in 2000-01.
Sep 23, 2008 - 3:40 pm 30. Doug:The Kurtz link mentioned above:
Finally the Truth… Obama & Ayers Pushed Radicalism on Schools
The Obama Camp for weeks now has been trying to silence Stanley Kurtz.Now we know why.
Sep 23, 2008 - 3:57 pm 31. Doug:Today, Kurtz finally gets the story out on Obama’s relationship with terrorist Bill Ayers in an article for The Wall Street Journal. No wonder the Obama Camp wanted to keep this man quiet.
Sep 23, 2008 - 3:57 pm 32. Tony:Charles, thanks for the pointer to the shoot-down.
This will be really interesting if they shot down a Predator. Still interesting but less so if they shot down one of the smaller “drones” that number in the thousands these days, down to the little hand-launched radio-controlled model aircraft.
If they shot down a Predator, they would need true AA, heavy Jane Fonda-style MG’s at the minimum, maybe MANPADS. If so, there’s always Arclight and Linebacker III as our Rook and Bishop. More likely, this shootdown report is psyops from the other side.
I will be waiting with you for confirmed news of a Predator shot down. Even Terminators die.
Sep 23, 2008 - 4:04 pm 33. Doug:Ahmadinejad Says He Is Willing to Meet With Obama Without Preconditions
Sep 23, 2008 - 4:11 pm 34. Doug:Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be a guest on “Larry King Live” tonight on CNN.
(Gateway Pundit Linked above)
One more OT, ’cause the Dems really deserve it:
Bush Called For Reform of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac 17 Times in 2008 Alone… Dems Ignored Warnings
Sep 23, 2008 - 5:58 pm 35. Paul:Benj accused Wretchard of providing no link between Auchi and Obama.
Benj- How about this- Resko, at a time he admitted he was broke and was being bailed out by Auchi, was able to give Obama several hundred thousand dollars for the purchase of his home. So effectively Auchi helped pay for Obama’s mansion.
Sep 23, 2008 - 5:58 pm 36. F451_2.0:@Heather
Ah yes, the Liberal Party of Canada (Democrat equivalent). But its even more complex and many layered and nastier than what you’ve outlined in your comment.
As a consequence, we here are also having an election and as it stands the Conservatives look set to form a majority government. (Barring “events, dear boy, events”)
We face the uphill battles of which you are familiar because we face the same people. They inhabit the same positions for the same purposes using much the same methodologies.
Ours antagonize you no end because it serves their purpose.
A purpose they share whether they live in Australia/New Zealand, Canada, the U.K.,
Europe or the United States. Antagonize, divide and subvert.
But, I agree with what I perceive as the general consensus of this thread. That as the U.S. is the locus of western power, their efforts both internal and external are proportionate.
No easy task to slow and turn decades in one case and centuries in another of incremental momentum. Turn it we must.
I have no doubt that Belmont Club readers and tens of millions of Americans will do just that.
Its your country. You’ll find a way. It’ll be your way. All I can offer is my support.
Regards
Sep 23, 2008 - 6:38 pm 37. NahnCee:Anyone besides me thinking that the FBI might be looking at overseas funding in their investigations of Wall Street banking crashes, as well as internal fraud?
And what a really swell excuse that gives the Feds to start tracking *all* overseas deposits into American accounts, say, oh for example - such as Obama’s election campaign.
Sep 23, 2008 - 7:21 pm 38. exhelodrvr:Life,
“in” Himmel, not “ein” Himmel.
But they can count on a significant portion of the public to not care enough to vote, and a significant portion of the rest to not care enough to look beyond what they see/hear on the network news. Considering that the media bias strongly favors them, it’s actually a pretty reasonable gamble.
Sep 23, 2008 - 7:41 pm 39. Ex-fetus:NahnCee, yes and NSA already does that. Congress changed the law so the information is not admissible in court, but they still do it to keep track of the terrorists. I guess the Feds think saving a few million lives is more important.
Sep 23, 2008 - 8:23 pm 40. Benj:Congress changed the law because one of the brighter bulbs figured out that if NSA could track Terrorist funds coming into the states, they could also track bribe money leaving the states. Which they can and do.
Can’t use it on Congress critters because that is against the law. But if Hezzebollah suddenly starts buying fishing boats in the New York area, the FBI isn’t that concerned with breaking a few terrorist protecting laws.
I personally think the financial meltdown was caused by a combo of greed and stupidity. The Wall Street roller coaster of the last week wasn’t. That is caused by someone with a LOT of money and HUGH brass ones manipulating the market. After all, what Billionaire could refuse the opportunity to scam the US government out of a Trillion Dollars? That would make Saddam’s Fraud-for-food 100 billion scam look like stealing the tip jar.
You know it’s a scam because sombody ( we don’t know who) wants the money up front. The one thing EVERY scam has in common is wanting the money up front.
I’m hoping that Congress goes with the inflation plan. Buying up Treasuries to crank in a little inflation would do wonders, so long as the inflation didn’t get out of hand. Sort of like fighting a forrest fire with a back fire. A Liitle inflation would lift the value of all those homes (It always has) and get some of the lenders off the hook as well as maybe allowing a few homeowners to refinance on a special FHA plan.
This could be done in 50 billion increments as needed to avoid a Trillion dollars going somewhere unknown in a vague hope that something happens. Plus it will screw whoever has been manipulating the market. The SEC will figure out who was jacking around, it will just take time. I wonder if that would be considered an act of war if done by a foreign power?
Paul says - “How about this- Resko, at a time he admitted he was broke and was being bailed out by Auchi, was able to give Obama several hundred thousand dollars for the purchase of his home. So effectively Auchi helped pay for Obama’s mansion.”
How about this! Obama did NOT borrow money from R. to pay for his mansion. (So “effectively” Auchi has NO connection to O.) When he started bidding on his house, O had serious $ (for the first time in his life) thanks to his two best-selling books. O bought the house and property with his own money. O has spelled out - and apologized - for encouraging R. to buy the piece of property adjoining his own because he wanted to add-on to his own property. R. bought that land and O then paid for 1/6 of the land in question at precisely 1/6 of the price R. paid for the property. R. then sold the bulk of that property at a profit. (Actually the deals were done in R.’s wife’s name.) Again - R. did not loan O “several hundred thousand dollars for the purchase of his home.” The Chicago Sun Times spells out the transaction here…And you can check FactCheck’s account as well…Doesn’t make O look like Saint - he shouldn’t have hung tight with Rez - but there is simply no window to get Auchi into this story…
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/124171,CST-NWS-obama05.article
Sep 23, 2008 - 9:04 pm 41. NahnCee:Ex-Fetus - then if they know who’s been funding Obama, why hasn’t it been leaked? Is it illegal to reveal who’s donating to Presidential campaigns, especially if the funding is coming through Moscow or Beijing or Riyadh?
And why do you think the roller-coaster last week was the only time the market has been manipulated in the last five to ten years?
Sep 23, 2008 - 9:56 pm 42. Wadeusaf:Benj,
This much is bunk IMO,
“O has spelled out - and apologized - for encouraging R. to buy the piece of property adjoining his own because he wanted to add-on to his own property.”
Because if Rezco did not buy it “OH” would have had to pay full price and pick up the lot on his own dime as conditions set said both had to be sold together.
Now I don’t know who owned the property at the time, but I think it is just too convenient that Rezco buys the property knowing his own financial straits, using money earned how and using his wifes name not his why? If noting else the bone head statement is an understatement, and a contemptous one at that.
But what is known here is not enough to investigate? That would be the end of it too except for all the other “boneheaded” moves made by “OH” in the company of other of his neighbors. Time and again, like a broken and repeated record we’ve been treated to boneheaded moves with Ayers, boneheaded moves to a housing project that, funded for fixing, remains untouched, bonedheaded moves to the spreading seed money through the CWChallenge, and boneheaded answers to Acorn.
All these to go along with boneheaded moves voting present, boneheaded moves in one Jerusalem, boneheaded moves to talk to Iran and bone headed moves planed in Iraq and boneheaded moves in taxes.
The non boneheaded moments are virtually all times “OH” acted in agreement with Senator McCain.
Sep 23, 2008 - 11:00 pm 43. Wadeusaf:Benj,
You do realize that article uses as a primary source the words of a felon currently residing in prison, as relayed by a friend of a felon to the reporter.
Sep 24, 2008 - 5:40 am 44. Benj:Wow.
Wade - Re “boneheaded” - “The fundamentals of the economy are sound.”
Yeah I read the HH thing - Good job of “push-back” - but if you care about truth as opposed to scoring a point on a reporter - no way to dirty up the image of that tribune of Alaska’s Old Boy’s Network hugging Sarah after her speech at the Convention. Course maybe you’re entirely at ease with the cynicism that informs the “politics” of pub operatives. (Went right by Hugh.) Try Chait’s new New Republic piece on Mac’s campaign. Might consider that graph about that academic study which indicates a certain brand of conservatives are MORE likely to lock on untruths once they have been confirmed by the media. Talking ’bout you? - For me there was one quote in the Salon piece that seemed to harmonize with the killer line in Gourevitch’s peice on the state of Palin’s state. The Salon guy has pub pol claiming the presentation of Palin as the antithesis of the Old Boys is “bullshit.” Gourevitch ends his piece with an account of the town in Alaska that depends on the sort of earmarks that successful Alaskas pols - including Palin - have made a career out of garnering. An inhabitant there considers what might happen if Palin lives up her own hype. Answer - “We’re fucked.”
Sep 24, 2008 - 11:45 am 45. Ex-fetus:“Ex-Fetus - then if they know who’s been funding Obama, why hasn’t it been leaked?”
I’m sorry, I never said that, so either my poor communication skills created a misunderstanding or you have me confused with some other idiot.
As far as disclosure, yes it is required for Presidential candidates AND Congressional candidates, slthough I have seen Lawyers that thought the Constitution guaranteed the States a right to select their own representation, there are Constitutional amendments that curtail that power to some extent. If the Feds can go so far as to determine financing requirements is a legal question. On the practical side, most Politicians believe and practice the 11th Commandment.
If you can’t cath them, it never happened. In the OIL business it was SOP for upper management to get invited to a after work party at which you got an envelope with 100 dollar bills that were compensation for the check you would write to the designated candidate. The wives loved that since the money had to be spent so as to not leave a hard record.
The running joke was that Neiman Marcus had just stoked up on hats and shoes, it must be time for a management party.
Lots of ways to raise soft money. Only limited by the imagination. And when it comes to stealing money, politicians as a group are VERY creative.
As far as who is donating to whom there are published lists. Since I am to lazy to go thru megabytes of data, here is a link to someone who has;
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/08/obamas_donor_contributions_sil.html
Benji. Here is the URL to the NY Slimes best sellers list for this century;
Sep 24, 2008 - 4:08 pm 46. Wadeusaf:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_Times_Non-Fiction_Best_Sellers
Ohhhhh……BAMA was a best seller AFTER he bought the house. Explain that trick to me, I could use an extra couple of million. The ash tray in my Porsche is full and I need a new one. Porsche, not ashtray. Actually I have fallen in love with the Aprilia RSV4. Cheaper then a Porsche and quicker. Better gas mileage and greener too. At least until I pull off the catalytic converter and turn it into a doorstop.
Well the fundamentals of the economy are sound. Its the Gawsh dang dog eared paper packets produced as principal that has me scratching. That and the idea that so many principals cleave to them.
What untruth? About the house? Was that particular story refuted by the trib or just given a pass? My reading of it was that they did not due their job. All the worse cause “OH” got away with lying to the reporters, not once but twice we know of about the same thing already. And you think the interview cleared the air? It did in fact no such a thing but raise more questions about the guy doing time in prison.
The other guy behind bars is used by Salon as a key source. I did not get that from HH (Hugh Hewit?), rather by reading the Salon story. Thanks for the tip. I wonder if he might not have some reason to be irritated with Governor Palin. Great reporting. not balanced, not conslusive, not even supporting statements or references.
Only four of the earmarks asked for in the last budget were new, all of the other 50 some earmarks represent already in progress programs. Earmarks in and of themselves are not the problem, abuse of them is.
Sep 25, 2008 - 12:07 amSorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.