It's your money

This is a composite of two ads that have come to the house--don't know if they are on TV because I don't watch it much. The guy in the middle is Tony Rezko, whom you may remember is under the bus with grandma, Rev. Wright, and Father Phleger until the pardon comes through. A dear Friend and Fundraiser. The one on the right looks a little like Bill Ayers, unrepentent terrorist, but is actually Allison Davis, who got a $20 million piece of pork. Davis and Rezko were partners, but the connection to Obama goes further back--Obama used to work for him (a lawyer). The Sun Times says Davis' father was the University of Chicago's first African-American professor, and maybe so, but in the photo he's lighter than I am. When I worked at OSU our minority recruiter told me you only needed to be 1/32 minority to qualify for a scholarship or aid, and I think Davis misses that by at least one generation.

The man on the left is Kenny Smith, a campaign volunteer, who got a $100,000 grant and is being investigated (as of 9/25/08). Now it's small potatoes compared to the credit card fraud to raise campaign money, and the Tony Rezko deal, but I think those of you from Illinois ought to peek under the kickback rug of his Illinois campaign to see what other pots are calling the kettle black.

A $100,000 state of Illinois grant for a botanic garden in Englewood was awarded by Obama in 2001 to a group headed by a onetime campaign volunteer, Kenny Smith. It was never built, plus according to the Sun-Times, $65,000 of the grant money went to his wife. Kenny B. Smith, heads the Chicago Better Housing Association, which was in charge of the project for the blighted South Side neighborhood. He was a volunteer in the Illinois congressional campaign. Smith wrote another $20,000 in grant-related checks to K.D. Contractors, a construction company that his wife, Karen D. Smith, created five months after work on the garden was supposed to have begun, records show. K.D. is no longer in business. Well, what a surprise. Condensed a bit from the Sun Times story.

But the original plans for this Englewood garden goes further back and awarding state money, back to Obama's failed congressional race. Obama vowed to "work tirelessly" to raise $1.1 million to help Smith's organization turn the City of Chicago-owned lot into an oasis of trees and paths. But Obama lost that race, no more money was raised, and today the garden site is a mess of weeds, chunks of concrete and garbage. The only noticeable improvement is a gazebo. Try, try again. He still owed Kenny and Karen.

The AG of Illinois, Lisa Madigan, is a Democrat, and just like our Jennifer Brunner in Ohio she's really had a struggle figuring out if there's been any hanky panky. (It almost makes me wonder if women should have been given the vote--weren't they going to do things differently, dump the good-ol-boy stuff?) The article I found was over a month ago, and I don't recall any outrage about this like what exploded over Joe the Plumber's small tax lein in Ohio and giving his middle name. His story made international news overnight with the help of someone "plumbing" the computer records of the State of Ohio's computers. What is it with Illinois' AG--doesn't anyone know how to hack the records?