Saturday, November 15, 2008

Who is Valerie Jarrett, senior White House adviser to Barack Obama?


This week President-Elect Obama named Valerie Jarrett his senior White House adviser. Who is Ms. Jarrett?

Certainly she is a long-time friend of and fundraiser for Barack Obama. But her ties to failed and fraudulent real estate deals in Chicago are of the most concern.


Earlier this year The Boston Globe reported on the stunning failures of Jarrett's companies. "Jarrett is the chief executive of Habitat Co., which managed Grove Parc Plaza from 2001 until this [past] winter and co-managed an even larger subsidized complex in Chicago that was seized by the federal government in 2006, after city inspectors found widespread problems."


Problems including the fact that many of the approximately one thousand housing units were "uninhabitable" and were condemned by federal authorities. Grove Parc Plaza, one of the largest residential housing complexes in Barack Obama's state senatorial district, has been at the center of a variety of scandals.


This week a non-partisan watchdog group -- Judicial Watch -- announced that it had secured documents linking Jarrett to a variety of real estate scandals including failed housing developments operated by Obama fundraiser Tony Rezko.


"Valerie Jarrett served as a board member for several organizations that provided funding and support for Chicago housing projects operated by real estate developers and Obama financial backers Rezko and Allison Davis. (Davis is also Obama's former boss.)...


... Jarrett was a member of the Board of Directors for the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corporation along with several Davis and Rezko associates, as well as the Fund for Community Redevelopment and Revitalization, an organization that worked with Rezko and Davis.


...(According to press reports, housing projects operated by Davis and Rezko have been substandard and beset with code violations. The Chicago Sun Times reported that one Rezko-managed housing project was "riddled with problems -- including squalid living conditions...lack of heat, squatters and drug dealers.")


...As Chief Executive Officer of the Habitat Company Jarrett also managed a controversial housing project located in Obama's former state senate district called Grove Parc Plaza. According to the Boston Globe the housing complex was considered "uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage...
"


All subsidized by the taxpayers, mind you, and aided and abetted by the likes of Jarrett and Obama. The Boston Globe explained the troubling quid pro quo between Jarrett, Rezko and Obama:


"Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Obama’s presidential campaign and a member of his finance committee. Jarrett is the chief executive of Habitat Co., which managed Grove Parc Plaza from 2001 until this [past] winter and co-managed an even larger subsidized complex in Chicago that was seized by the federal government in 2006, after city inspectors found widespread problems...


Allison Davis, a major fund-raiser for Obama’s US Senate campaign and a former lead partner at Obama’s former law firm. Davis, a developer, was involved in the creation of Grove Parc and has used government subsidies to rehabilitate more than 1,500 units in Chicago, including a North Side building cited by city inspectors last year after chronic plumbing failures resulted in raw sewage spilling into several apartments...



Antoin “Tony” Rezko, perhaps the most important fund-raiser for Obama’s early political campaigns and a friend who helped the Obamas buy a home in 2005. Rezko’s company used subsidies to rehabilitate more than 1,000 apartments, mostly in and around Obama’s district, then refused to manage the units, leaving the buildings to decay to the point where many no longer were habitable...

Campaign finance records show that six prominent developers - including Jarrett, Davis, and Rezko - collectively contributed more than $175,000 to Obama’s campaigns over the last decade and raised hundreds of thousands more from other donors. Rezko alone raised at least $200,000, by Obama’s own accounting. (This number now exceeds $500,000)...



One of those contributors, Cecil Butler, controlled Lawndale Restoration, the largest subsidized complex in Chicago, which was seized by the government in 2006 after city inspectors found more than 1,800 code violations...


...Obama [rewarded his backers with] legislative action as a state senator. In 2001, Obama sponsored a successful bill that increased state subsidies for private developers. The law let developers designated by the state raise up to $26 million a year by selling tax credits to Illinois residents. For each $1 in credits purchased, the buyer was allowed to decrease his taxable income by 50 cents...


The developers gave Obama their financial support. Jarrett, Davis, and Rezko all served on Obama’s campaign finance committee when he won a seat in the US Senate in 2004...



These are the kinds of heartwarming success stories that Obama and Jarrrett left in their wake in Chicago. I shudder to think what they could do to the entire country. And I sincerely hope I'm wrong.

Source: Boston Globe: Grim proving ground for Obama's housing policy and Ten degrees below zero.

Hat tips: Gateway Pundit and Larwyn. Linked by: The invaluable American Thinker. Thanks!

Failure must be tolerated


Having seen financial institutions suckle at the teat of government, broken businesses, and even cities, are lining up for their share.

GM.

Ford.

Even Chrysler, which is held by Cerberus, a private equity firm.

Now the mayors of various cities are getting in the queue, looking for help with their pension costs and cash flow. The cities include Philadelphia, whose pension system lost more than $650 million in the first nine months of the year.

Atlanta.

Phoenix.

Professor Mitchell Langbert quotes Andy Martin, whose prophetic email in 2005 called for a bankruptcy filing by GM.

GM managers did not want to file in 2005 because they probably foresaw that bankruptcy could come some day, and they wanted to protect their executive pensions by insulating them from future creditor claims. In addition, GM's astronomical executive salaries could not survive a bankruptcy proceeding...

But GM's labor costs would be slashed as well in bankruptcy. In the long run, there is no way the existing labor cost structure can be preserved in the automobile industry. If GM and others move quickly, they can still save tens of thousands of good jobs and preserve good pay and good benefits. But every day's delay will cost the economy future jobs...

...every day that bankruptcy is delayed will cost every American economic security... Today the auto industry has unsustainable wage levels and ridiculous benefits. They are the product of a bygone era in labor relations when the Big three enjoyed a practical monopoly in domestic sales.

...the end of the road has arrived for the inflated, incompetent auto industry management... I predict even more dire consequences for the economy if aid does go to the auto companies... First, there will be no pressure to cut or costs and modernize labor relations. Wage levels are still way too high in the northern UAW auto plants.

Second, resentment is already building against bailouts that preserve high wages and executive perks, and are paid for by poor and working families...

...Sadly, I can only prescribe a bitter pill for my friends in the UAW. But I also can promise them that if labor and management do not head for bankruptcy court this week, the next pill will be a suicide pill. Which is worse?

Fast bankruptcy action will save jobs and stimulate the economic recovery. Delay is death, for workers, managers and our economy.


The American auto industry is an anachronism -- these companies must be gutted and reorganized. The same holds true for mismanaged cities and businesses. A major retooling is required due to poor stewardship; this is for the ultimate health of the entire economy.

Draw a line in the sand. Call your legislator and demand that these companies file bankruptcy and reorganize -- just like companies in the airline industry. The alternative is like filling a car's gas tank when it's sitting up on blocks.

Related:
Investors Business Daily: "No UAW Bailout"
Wall Street Journal: "Nancy Pelosi's Motown Juggling Act"
Gateway Pundit: "Big Three Bailout"

Friday, November 14, 2008

Still wondering...


"Where is the Congressional Investigation?"

                                                                        -- Me. Just now.

Anyone wondering why there hasn't been an investigation of Fannie Mae's collapse? You know, the one that took out AIG and Lehman? And helped collapse the financial system? And then touched off our current global recession?

Could it be because of this? Or this? Or this?

And let's just pray that Jamie Gorelick is named to lead the commission investigating this mess. There's no conflict of interest! Kinda like when she was a 9/11 Commissioner.

Larwyn's Link Kerplosion: Don't Blame Capitalism


Forbes: Time to batten down the hatches: "Many of my clients are in shock or denial or some other stage of financial post-traumatic stress. Many are confused and don't know what to think. Most have yet to grasp the enormity of what has happened, or the difficult and lengthy adjustments I foresee playing out for a long time to come. I do my best to encourage them to hunker down, trying not to convey panic."

Atlas: Why then should capitalism take the blame today -- when capitalism doesn't even exist?: "It's time to stop blaming capitalism for the sins of government intervention, and give true laissez-faire a chance. Now that would be a change we could we believe in."

JPost: What Obama owes to Bush: "Bush was the first color-blind Republican president in my half-century memory, and his refusal to play the race card in his two campaigns helped create a climate in which part of his own base could vote for a black Democrat. "

WGHP Raleigh, NC: Same Day Registration Helped Obama Win N.C.

The Star (Malaysia): Mauled to death by white tigers: Can actuaries really determine the odds that I would be ripped to shreds by tigers? And the odds that the attackers would be white tigers?

PC World: 5 Reasons I Hope Classmates.com Gets Sued Into Oblivion. True dat.

The Week: Armless man steals TV. Eh, what?

The circus called: they want their tent back


Hillary made an appearance at the Glamour Awards earlier this week.

The 101st Airborne called: they want their parachute back.

Gateway Pundit captioned it: " Hillary Hangs Up the Pantsuit -- She decided on the yard bag instead."

Sweetness & Light asked the question on everyone's mind: [Speaking of "thunderous applause"]... Should they use “thunderous” in any article extolling Mrs. Rodham’s “glamour”?"

In retrospect, I really, really liked the pantsuits. Actually, it's not Hillary's fault -- the dress designer must have been a Republican.

Photo: AP Photo/Jason DeCrow.

Ferrari 250GT photo shoot


The Hemmings Auto Blog has a great photo shoot featuring the classic '61 Ferrari 250GT.

If you have to ask what one of these are going for these days -- even considering the "Age of Plenty" -- the closest you'll get to one is this picture. The same goes for me.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

WGHP Raleigh: Same-day registration helped Obama win NC


Local news in Raleigh reports on rampant vote fraud voter non-suppression.

Despite his successful effort to register tens of thousands of voters this summer, President-elect Obama might not have won North Carolina without the state's new law allowing same-day registration and voting before Election Day.

Obama took North Carolina — the first Democrat do to so in more than three decades — by an unofficial margin of 13,692 votes...

Nearly 92,000 new voters registered during the early voting period, which opened after the registration deadline for Election Day voting had passed. And those voters, according to an Associated Press review of registration and exit poll data, were a huge well of support for the Illinois senator...

Anyone care to guess how many were felons, illegal aliens and the dead?

Mainstream media? Helloooooooo...? Is this thing on?

Mugshot o' the day


Twin Falls Idaho resident Lori Brutsche-Ely, 41, was charged with four felony counts of battery against police officers, "another felony for allegedly destroying jail equipment, and misdemeanor charges of battery, indecent exposure and malicious injury to property." The helpful Idaho Mountain Express even provides a mugshot.

...Hailey officer Shelly Pharis wrote in a probable cause affidavit that when she arrived at the bar she found Brutsche-Ely, completely unclothed, outside and in front of the nightclub yelling at Mint security personnel and patrons who had followed the fracas outside.

Brutsche-Ely was charged with four crimes for things she allegedly did in or outside of the Mint. The misdemeanor indecent exposure charge alleges that Brutsche-Ely illegally exposed her private parts in public, while the misdemeanor battery charge alleges that she kicked Mint security man Mike Kimball in the groin.

...Pharis, with the assistance of other officers, was able to transport Brutsche-Ely to jail, where four other crimes allegedly occurred. While in a holding cell, Brutsche-Ely allegedly broke a sprinkler head by striking it with a folded blanket, flooding the cell and causing more than $1,500 in damage.

She also allegedly battered jailer Laura Bowling by "slapping the victim's face and grabbing and pulling her hair." She also allegedly battered Sgt. Curtis Miller.

"We were still trying to control the female when I felt pain in my left shoulder," Miller wrote in a probable cause affidavit. "I looked and observed the woman biting me...

Executive summary: naked woman kicks cops in groin, requires five armed police officers to be subdued, and then goes all Al Franken on the jailers. Word is that the Democrat Party is eyeing her for a Senate run.

Honda in Malaysia advertises human-like robot


Check out this banner ad from a Malaysian website:

It's an ad for a roadshow demonstrating the Honda Asimo robot. The concept for the robot is fascinating: a demi-human that can sense and learn from its surroundings.

And what could possibly go wrong with that, Doctor Skynet?

Locations aren't anywhere near you, I'd wager.

New York not-very-Timely reports Palin rumors were bunk


Sarah Palin thought Africa was a country. She couldn't name a single country belonging to NAFTA. She believed that the U.S. had 57 states. Oh, wait, that last one was President-Elect Obama.

The Palin rumors, breathlessly marketed by David "Laughingstock" Schuster of MSNBC, turned out to be hoaxes and poor ones at that. So says the New York Times (don't worry, the link is to CNet), which calls Schuster the reincarnation of Dan Rather and labels MSNBC a "comedy channel". Well, I think they said that but then I only skimmed the article.

Who would say such a thing [about Palin]?

On Monday the answer popped up on a blog and popped out of the mouth of David Shuster, an MSNBC anchor. "Turns out it was Martin Eisenstadt, a McCain policy adviser, who has come forward today to identify himself as the source of the leaks," Shuster said.

Trouble is, Martin Eisenstadt doesn't exist. His blog does, but it's a put-on. The think tank where he is a senior fellow--the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy--is just a Web site. The TV clips of him on YouTube are fakes...

Gee, MSNBC fell for a Dan Rather-style forgery? And a poor one at that? And then the New York Times reported on the debacle in the kindest way possible to cover for MSNBC?

I'll alert the real media: the blogosphere.

Update: Speaking of timely, terrorist Bill Ayers now says that Barack Obama was an old "family friend".

Banner ads show much trouble U.S. automakers are in


Banner ad seen on several websites this afternoon.*

$7,500.00 cash back?? Why not throw in a weekend in Vegas with a side-trip to the Mustang Ranch?

* Hyperlink to Ford provided out of pity.

Line o' the Day: A quaint notion


"The Iranian regime will soon disabuse the next president of any utopian belief in the power of diplomacy."

-- Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute

The culmination of decades of fitness


After many years of workouts, lifting, basketball and the like, I'm pleased to report that my physique has finally equaled that of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I've really got myself buffed out, just like Ahnold.


Photo hat tip: Debbie.