A $100,000 state grant for a botanic garden in Englewood that then-state Sen. Barack Obama awarded in 2001 to a group headed by a onetime campaign volunteer is now under investigation by the Illinois attorney general amid new questions, prompted by Chicago Sun-Times reports, about whether the money might have been misspent.
The garden was never built. And now state records obtained by the Sun-Times show $65,000 of the grant money went to the wife of Kenny B. Smith, the Obama 2000 congressional campaign volunteer who heads the Chicago Better Housing Association, which was in charge of the project for the blighted South Side neighborhood.
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.
Attorney General Lisa Madigan — a Democrat who is supporting Obama’s presidential bid — is investigating “whether this charitable organization properly used its charitable assets, including the state funds it received,” Cara Smith, Madigan’s deputy chief of staff, said Wednesday.
In addition to the 2001 grant that Obama directed to the housing association as a “member initiative,” the not-for-profit group got a separate $20,000 state grant in 2006.
But of course the person investigating the crime is a Obama supporter, so we shouldn’t be surprised that others will go under the bus as Obama skates:
Madigan’s office has notified Obama’s presidential campaign of the probe, which was launched this week. But Obama’s actions in awarding the money are not a focus of the investigation, Smith said.
Come on. The spouse of a campaign aide gets a grant for a garden that never gets built and Obama isn’t suspected of any wrongdoing?
How about his judgment?
The relationship between Smith and Obama dates to at least 1997, when Obama wrote a letter that Smith used to help the housing association win city funding for an affordable-housing development near the garden site. Plans called for more than 50 homes; a dozen ultimately were built.
So he helped the aide get funding for 50 homes, most of which were never built. Then a few years later he gives that same aide some MORE money for a garden that was never built.
Yeah, this guy is all about change.
More here.
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Who says “money doesn’t grow on trees?”
I’m telling ya, that boy knows how to raise and spend money… and not get any results. It’s been so obvious from his ACORN/community organizer days… thru CAC… to this. And somebody ought to check on what was done with those IL earmarks he got in his few days of doing his Congressional job.
Or perhaps he’s got a warehouse filled with styrofoam Greek columns somewhere?
How come nobody is doing a “witch hunt” on Obama? They are doing one on Sarah… why not on Obama? NOBODY in America knows who the hell this guy is in reality. They would be in for a big surprise if somebody would bother to dig a bit in his secret life. What are they waiting for?
Craig: I can’t find the video of the woman at a McCain Town Hall who asks why we haven’t sent as many investigators to Chicago to look into Obama as Dems did to Alaska to dig dirt on Sarah Palin.
If anyone remembers the details of that, please let me know.
As for geting the word out on the REAL Obama, we know we can’t count on the “news” media. And I am wondering where all the 527 groups are? I’ve seen a few ads, but nothing like the Swift Boat Vets blitz that gave us the TRUTH on John Kerry’s four months in Vietnam.
I suspect we’ll start to see them come mid-October. Since the average American sheeple has a 24 hour attention/retention span, it would be a waste of cash. Also, since we aren’t in a battleground state, we’re going to see much less of them. Just my 2
Obama crack coin worth
why doesn’t mccain fight fire with fire? i know he wants to run a clean campaign, but really, this is all getting to be to much. how do these people get away with this shit.
Mike’s America, I didn’t found the video neither… maybe it’s been erased… lol
But, I have founf this:
OBAMA COVERS HIS TRACKS
Ed Lasky
September 11, 2008
Barack Obama apparently wishes his two autobiographies to be the definitive record of his past.
– He has blocked efforts by others who wish to independently examine his past.
– He won’t allow his transcript from his undergraduate days at Columbia University to be released.
– He “lost” his thesis on Soviet nuclear policy (see “Where in the World is Obama’s Missing Thesis” which might provide insight regarding his seeming lack of knowledge about Soviet policy during the Kennedy years).
– He won’t answer questions about his days at Harvard Law School.
– He “lost” his Illinois Senate records.
– He will only release a simple one-page letter from his doctor on his medical condition.
– He won’t release his application to the state bar, which, as National Review’s Jim Geraghty notes raises questions about whether he told the truth about parking tickets and drug use, among other issues.
– He won’t disclose list of his clients from his law firm days or the nature of the work he did for them as a lawyer (his clients include the indicted political fixer Tony Rezko).
– He walks away from uncomfortable questions about Rezko at a news conference.
– His cultists try to shut down inquiry into his stewardship of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge by sliming a journalist investigating his days at the helm of that group, which blew through $100 million dollars with no discernible benefit for the schools and students that it was putatively designed to help (what does the constitutional law lecturer say to the chilling of free speech by his acolytes?).
– He tries to muddle his long-standing ties with Pastor Wright by producing a version of his attendance record at Trinity Church that is sharply at variance with previous versions he has given (“Obama Re-invents his Trinity Church History”).
– The Wall Street Journal joins the battle over Obama’s past in today’s editorial (“Obama’s Lost Years”): The Columbia years are a hole in the sprawling Obama hagiography…
To read the rest of this article:
To read the rest of the article above (#7):
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/09/obama_covers_his_tracks.html