A Liberal’s Lament

Obama and substance? He cannot add what he does not have. Good to see you wake up to the fact that he is an empty suit. Millions of us have been saying that for months.

Here's Obama's substance:

Barack Obama angered fellow Democrats in the Illinois Senate when he voted to strip millions of dollars from a child welfare office on Chicago's West Side. But Obama had a ready explanation: He goofed. "I was not aware that I had voted no," he said that day in June 2002, asking that the record be changed to reflect that he "intended to vote yes."

On March 19, 1997, Obama announced he had fumbled an election-reform vote the day before, on a measure that passed 51 to 6: "I was trying to vote yes on this, and I was recorded as a no," he said.

On March 20, 1997, Obama voted "present" on a key telecommunications vote.
HEY CWA members, WAKE UP and smell the TRUTH ABOUT OBAMA.

He stood on March 11, 1999, to take back his vote against legislation to end good-behavior credits for certain felons in county jails. "I pressed the wrong button on that," he said.

He was the lone dissenter on Feb. 24, 2000, against 57 yeas for a ban on human cloning. "I pressed the wrong button by accident," he said.

On Nov. 14, 1997, he backed legislation to permit riverboat casinos to operate even when the boats were dockside. The measure, pushed by the gambling industry and fought by church groups whose support Obama was seeking, passed with two "yeas" to spare -- including Obama's. He wasn't exactly up front with his constituency, telling a church group on a 1998 campaign questionnaire that he was "undecided" about whether he backed an expansion of riverboat gambling. The senator who led the opposition to the gambling measure, Republican Todd Sieben, said "He was obviously paying attention to this vote. It was a major, major issue in the state, and it was a long debate," Sieben said. "The inadvertent 'Oops, I missed the switch' -- I'd be kind of skeptical of that."
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-obamavotes24jan24,0,4956975,full.story?coll=la-home-center

"The one area where [Rezko] did have a political interest in Springfield that emerged - this is all pre-Blagojevich - was gaming. He was one of the minority investors in Rosemont. That's one area where he could have asked me for favors, but did not, partly because I was clearly on record as being opposed. I was a gaming opponent as [Sun-Times Springfield Bureau Chief] Dave McKinney will recall." - Obama


http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/844597,transcript031508.article

Here's an Obama Tale, sad but true. Obama has lambasted lobbyists and moneyed interests who "have turned our government into a game only they can afford to play."

"It's an entire culture in Washington -- some of it legal, some of it not," the Democratic hopeful told a New York crowd in June. But last year Obama introduced nine separate bills exempting foreign chemical company Nufarm from import fees on a range of chemical ingredients it uses in the manufacture of pesticides and herbicides.

Nufarm wasn't the only beneficiary of Obama's efforts to reduce customs fees and duties. In early May of 2006, two Washington lobbyists registered to work on behalf of Astellas Pharma, a Japanese-owned drug company which also has offices in Illinois.

Together, Obama's obscure measures -- known as tariff suspensions -- steered more than $12 million away from federal coffers, according to government estimates.

While legal, Obama's bills on behalf of Nufarm and other companies are part of the special treatment machine Washington rolls out for special interests, say good-government watchdogs. With a dozen tariff suspension bills to his name, Obama stands out as the most prolific of any presidential hopeful on the topic. Sen. John McCain introduced none.

"If you have a company...there's a whole factory set up to help you get these suspensions," said Steve Ellis, president of the Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. "It's a pay-to-play system you have to rev up and work." Hire the right lobbyist, pay the right fee, and you can save millions, he explained.

Some say the tariff suspension process isn't how Washington should operate.

In his speeches, Sen. Obama seems to agree: "We need a president who sees government not as a tool to enrich well-connected friends and high-priced lobbyists, but as the defender of fairness and opportunity for every American," the candidate said in his June speech. "That's the kind of president I intend to be."

But his actions speak louder than his words.

Junker defended tariff suspensions as good for American businesses. "It's nothing to be embarrassed, ashamed or suspicious of," he said.

justifying the breaks for Nufarm to import a chemical known as 2,4 D and other ingredients by claiming they would "eliminate these unnecessary and avoidable...costs to [Nufarm's] consumers."

But the company's financial reports, issued just two months after Obama introduced Nufarm's numerous tariff-lifting bills, indicate Nurarm was making more money than ever before in North America because it had increased its prices on its U.S. and Canadian customers, predominantly farmers, in particular on "phenoxy herbicides," a family which includes 2,4 D.

Economics aside, some medical researchers have purported to find a link between high exposure to the chemical and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of cancer.

http://blogs.abcnews.co

NO BOUNCE FOR OBAMA EVEN AFTER THE MICHELLE AND CLINTON SPEECHES! HMMM COULD IT BE THAT EVERYONE SAW THAT MICHELLE'S WAS A SCRIPT AND THAT CLINTON BARELY ENDORSED OBAMA (NEVER SAYING HE WAS READY TO LEAD THIS COUNTRY OR THAT SHE THOUGHT HE WAS!) WITH GOOD OLE BILL SPEAKING TONITE THERE WON'T BE A BOUNCE IN THE FUTURE EITHER! BILL CLINTON WILL NOT LET ANYONE TELL HIM WHAT HE WILL SAY IN A SPEECH AND YOU COULD BET HE WILL SAY WHAT THE OBAMA CAMP DON'T WANT YOU TO HEAR (ITS PART OF THE CLINTON PLAN!)

Here's Obama's substance:

Even though Illinois ethics disclosure forms are designed to reveal possible financial conflicts by lawmakers, on disclosure forms for 2001 and 2002, Obama did not specify that a Blackwell company involved (EKI) provided him with the bulk of the private-sector compensation he received. Instead, as was his custom, he attached a multi-page list of all the law firm's clients, which included EKI among hundreds. Illinois law does not require more specific disclosure.

Stanley Brand, a Washington lawyer who counsels members of Congress and others on ethics rules, said he would have advised a lawmaker in Obama's circumstances to separately disclose such a singularly important client and not simply include it on a list of hundreds of firm clients, even if the law does not explicitly require it. "I would say you should disclose that to protect and insulate yourself against the charge that you are concealing it," Brand said.

Obama's tax returns show that he made no money from his law practice in 2000, the year of his unsuccessful run for a congressional seat. But that changed in 2001, when Obama reported $98,158 income for providing legal services. Of that, $80,000 was from Blackwell's company.

In 2002, the state senator reported $34,491 from legal services and speeches. Of that, $32,000 came from the EKI legal assignment, which ended in April 2002 by mutual agreement, as Obama ceased the practice of law and looked ahead to the possibility of running for the U.S. Senate. .

Obama's spokesman said that listing all clients was appropriate and that doing so allowed the public to see any and all potential conflicts for Obama and his law firm colleagues. "He was especially mindful of this responsibility as a leader of ethics reform," said Gibbs, his chief campaign spokesman.

A few months after receiving his final payment from Blackwell's company, EKI, Obama sent a request on state Senate letterhead urging Illinois officials to provide a $50,000 tourism promotion grant to another Blackwell company, Killerspin.

Though Obama's formal efforts consisted of writing a letter and a proclamation, the nitty-gritty of obtaining state grants fell to a former state Senate and campaign aide to Obama, Dan Shomon.

Shomon, working part time for Obama's campaign and for Killerspin, helped prepare Killerspin's initial grant application in 2002. Still working part time with Obama, Shomon helped Killerspin secure a $200,000 grant for its 2003 tournament and a $100,000 grant for its 2004 tournament.

Nice return on Blackwell's "investment" in Obama. So much for Obama's sense of ethics and transparency.