Obama Purchased $1.6 Million Mansion After 2004 Election

Being elected to the U.S. Senate as the Illinois and Cook County Democratic Party Daley Machine's representative in the U.S. Senate can apparently be a pretty lucrative gig. As Chicago Tribune reporter David Mendell noted in his 2007 book Obama: From Promise To Power, following his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack "No Experience" Obama and his wife, then-University of Chicago Hospitals Vice-President Michelle Robinson Obama, purchased a mansion in 2005 for more than $1.6 million.

According to the Obama: From Promise To Power book:

"Purchasing a piece of property right next door, on the very same day, had been the wife of Antoin `Tony' Rezko, an old friend and financial contributor of Obama's who had been indicted just months before on federal fraud charges. Reporters for the Tribune, where the story broke, also found that Obama and Rezko's wife engaged in a series of financial transactions to redivide the properties and improve their parcels. The relationship between Rezko and Obama went back twenty years. Obama had met him when Obama was in law school and Rezko's development partners had tried to hire him. At his north suburban home, Rezko had hosted a fund-raiser for Obama in 2003 that helped fund early parts of his Senate candidacy. Since then, Rezko had been a regular contributor to Obama's campaigns. The two had also been social friends, with the Rezkos dining out a few times a year with the Obamas."

The wife of 2008 Democratic Party presidential candidate Obama, the daughter of a Cook County Democratic Party Precinct Captain and a former Assistant to the Democratic Mayor of Chicago, apparently was making a lot of money each year from Chicago's failing health care system. As the University of Chicago Hospitals Vice-President, Michelle Robinson Obama apparently took home an annual salary of over $250,000 per year during the early 21st-century.

Next: Wiretapping in Chicago Historically Under Illinois Dem Rule

Obama's $1.7 Million Book Contract

Most people in the United States don't believe it's democratic for a German media conglomerate like Bertelsmann AG to monopolize control over the U.S. book publishing industry. Yet 2008 Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack "No Experience" Obama apparently has no program for reducing foreign corporate control of the U.S. book publishing industry and other U.S. media industries.

One reason Obama might not want to propose that U.S. anti-trust laws be enforced against German media conglomerates like Bertelsmann AG is that between Election Day 2004 and his swearing in as a Senator, Obama was given a $1.7 million two-book contract by the Random House/Crown Publishers/Alfred Knopf subsidiary division of Bertelsmann AG. By signing his lucrative book contract with the German media conglomerate's U.S. subsidiary before taking office, Obama did not fall under various requirements for disclosure and reporting that applies to members of Congress who accept money from U.S. media conglomerates.

Like many U.S. Establishment politicians and U.S. television news correspondents and talk show hosts, Obama's 2004 book deal with the Bertelsmann AG subsidiary was arranged by Robert B. Barnett of the Washington, D.C. law firm, Williams & Connolly. Besides representing the special financial interests of U.S. Establishment politicians and U.S. television correspondents, Williams & Connolly lawyer Robert B. Barnett also represents the special interests of German corporations like Deutsche Bank and has coached Democratic Party presidential candidates before presidential debates since the 1980s.

As long ago as the 1990s, the Bertelsmann media conglomerate was the world's largest book publisher and the second-largest U.S. publisher. In 1981, Bertelsmann purchased Bantam Books and, in 1986, Bertelsmann took control of Doubleday and RCA Records. Its U.S. property by the early 1990s also included eight U.S. printing plants, Doubleday Book Shops in New York City and elsewhere, Dell Publishing, Arista Records and "Parents Magazine." During the early 1990s, the administration of New York City's first African-American Mayor, Columbia University Professor David Dinkins, http://www.sipa.columbia.edu/academics/directory/dd98-fac.html gave a $10.8 million special tax break to Bertelsmann AG when it purchased a 44-story Manhattan skyscraper for $119 million in March 1992
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Bertelsmann AG was owned for many years by the family of Reinhard Mohn, who was a member of the Third Reich's Afrika Korps during World War II; and the same German firm published books for the Nazi regime in Germany between 1933 and 1945. During the early 1990s, the Mohn family still owned about 69 percent of the Bertelsmann/Doubleday/Bantam Books/Dell Publishers/Random House/Crown Publishers foreign-based media monopoly.

But don't hold your breath waiting for the stable of U.S. politicians who are represented by the Williams & Connolly corporate law firm to finally introduce some legislation to democratize power within the foreign-controlled U.S. book publishing industry in 2009 to insure that U.S. anti-trust laws are finally enforced within the U.S. mass media industry world.

For more information about Barack Obama's 2004 book deal, you might want to check out the following link on the Century Foundation web site:
http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=NC&pubid=1425

Next: Obama Purchased $1.6 Million Mansion After 2004 Election

Democratic Party Corruption In Illinois Historically

As The Lesser Evil: The Democrats by Lenni Brenner observed in 1988:

“The Illinois and Cook County Democratic Parties are, arguably, the most corrupt political bodies west of Gomorrah. Otto Kerner, governor from 1961 to 1968, did two years, in the mid-1970s. In 1987, Daniel Walker, governor from 1973 to 1977, pled guilty to bank fraud…Myriads of Chicago Democrats have run—some have even won—while on indictment…Ten ran at one time in 1973. Nine judges were convicted of bribery in 1987."

The Chicago Tribune also revealed in 1996 that “former Democratic Illinois State Sen. Jeremiah Joyce, one of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s top political operatives, and Grace Barry, a good friend of Daley’s wife, stand to reap millions of dollars from no-bid agreements to sell gifts, food and liquors at O’Hare International airport” and “contracts worth more than $100 million and benefiting friends and supporters of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and his wife” were “expected to sail through the City Council” in 1996, under Democratic Party rule in Chicago (Chicago Tribune 2/8/96, 3/6/96).

Coincidentally, 2008 Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack “No Experience” Obama was apparently a member of the Illinois and Cook County Democratic Party before he and his Billionaire Crown Dynasty financial backers decided that the freshman U.S. Senator from Illinois should start running for President--before even completing the first three years of his term as the Illinois and Cook County Democratic Party Establishment’s representative in the U.S. Senate.

Next: Obama’s $1.7 Million Book Contract

Fems vs. Dems Historically

If you’re an anti-war woman Democrat, you might be wondering why the patriarchal Democratic Party Establishment still seems reluctant to nominate a pacifist woman or a radical feminist anti-corporate woman to be the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate in 2008. Yet the patriarchal Democratic Party has a long history of promoting institutional sexism in the world of U.S. Establishment mainstream media politics. As Why And How Women Will Elect The Next President by Eleanor Smeal noted in 1984:

“Many women…spent 10 years begging Democrats to do more and to place the ERA higher on their agenda—all to little avail. The ERA was defeated in Democrat-controlled Oklahoma, Florida, and North Carolina…Several key leaders of the opposition to the ERA in these states were Democrats, notably Senator Dempsey Barron, dean of the Florida Senate, and Lieutenant Governor Jimmy Green of North Carolina, president of the North Carolina Senate…

“The same picture holds true for other women’s issues. Leading opponents of women’s rights of access to abortion are Democrats as well as Republicans. The 1983 attempt to pass a constitutional amendment permitting Congress and/or the states to ban abortion was cosponsored by…Thomas Eagleton (D-MO)…Many women are suspicious of both political parties and view themselves as `independents’…”

(Downtown 6/26/96)

Next: Democratic Party Corruption In Illinois Historically

`Eugene Debs'

(chorus)
Eugene Debs the socialist
Did you ever hear his name?
“Eugene Debs for President”
Was the Working-class Refrain

(verses)
From Terre Haute, Indiana he walked into the world
He worked upon the railroad in the days when coal was hurled
The wages were too low, the hours were too long
And the American Railway Union, Eugene Debs he formed. (chorus)

He fought the baron Pullman and the trains then ceased to roll
They broke the strike with troops and put Gene Debs in a cell
He read a book in prison, it opened up his mind
And now he understood why the workers always cried. (chorus)

He had a gift for speaking and making things so clear
His big Socialist Party made victory seem near
He campaigned around the country and got a lot of votes
The Village really liked him and he gave the workers hope. (chorus)

His life was very saintly, he wasn’t an office-seeker
He was a man of principle who loved all the workers
He wrote in “Appeal To Reason” and sided with the unskilled
He opposed World War I and so they put him in jail. (chorus)

Remember Eugene Debs, if you walk into their booth
Remember Eugene Debs, if you fear a big defeat
He saw it made no sense to vote for what you don’t want
When pounding in your heart is the beat of a socialist. (chorus)

The Eugene Debs biographical protest folk song was written in Brooklyn during the late 1970s.

To listen to the Eugene Debs biographical protest folk song, you can click on the following music site link:

http://www.last.fm/music/Bob+A.+Feldman/More+Biographical+Folk+Songs/Eugene+Debs

Next: Fems vs. Dems Historically

LBJ's Hoover Connection

Although former FBI Director J.Edgar Hoover was apparently not too fond of President Kennedy, he was apparently quite fond of President Johnson. As the book Alien Ink: The FBI’s War On Freedom of Expression by Natalie Robins recalled:

“On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas…A Hoover friend of over 20 years was sworn in as President…Johnson was the only American President whose autographed photograph hung on the living-room wall of J.Edgar Hoover’s home. The Director also kept a bust of Johnson in his dining room.”

In his 1970 book, Hoover’s FBI: The Men And The Myth, former FBI Agent William Turner described the nature of President Johnson’s relationship to former FBI Director Hoover:

“One of Lyndon Johnson’s first requests upon ensconcing himself in the White House was for 1,200 dossiers on his political adversaries from the FBI’s supposedly confidential files, plus the Bobby Baker volumes [of LBJ’s former aides]. Hoover, whose time for mandatory retirement was looming (only the president could extend it), was happy to oblige…

“Popular fable has it that the Hoover-Johnson friendship stemmed from nothing more than the fact they were neighbors when Johnson was in the Senate…

“But it was much deeper than that. In a very real sense, Hoover was part of the Texan’s political family [LBJ aide] Walter Jenkins’ brother had long been an FBI agent in Amarillo, and one of LBJ’s shirttail relatives moved from Texas state politics to the FBI (despite the fact that he was slightly under the height minimum), where his rise through the ranks was mercurial. And then there was old Clint Murchison, Hoover’s bosom pal, who was one of Johnson’s earliest political benefactors…

“The assassination of President Kennedy brought out the Hoover-Johnson team at its precision best. As Congress cranked up to investigate the momentous crime, Johnson took over with the announcement that he was forming his own blue-ribbon commission of inquiry and had asked the FBI to investigate. Less than three weeks after the assassination, far too little time to cover all the ground, Hoover handed the president a confidential summary report that concluded there was no conspiracy. Simultaneously…he leaked the report’s contents to the press. Thus was the public inculcated with the `no conspiracy’ theory, and the Warren Commission was handed it as a fait accompli…”

(Downtown 4/14/93)

Next: Eugene Debs lyrics

LBJ Told Mistress: `CIA Eliminated JFK'

Although the Warren Commission Report blamed the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 on Lee Oswald, U.S. President Johnson apparently told his mistress, Madeline Brown, that the CIA was responsible for the elimination of President Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963. In his 1992 book, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Dick Russell wrote the following:

“As I was completing the manuscript of this book, it was suggested that I get in touch with Madeline Brown. Between 1948 and 1969, Brown maintains that she was a mistress of Lyndon B. Johnson. LBJ’s handwriting on numerous letters to Brown has been verified by analysts, and today it is generally accepted that her son Steven, who died of cancer in 1990, was a son of the former president.

“Brown, today [in 1992] 67, came from a wealthy Dallas family, the Duncans, which made its money in real estate and ranching…She decided to go public with what Johnson once imparted to her about the Kennedy assassination…

“Before the assassination, according to Brown, `Lyndon Johnson told me that the Kennedys would never embarrass him again. It was not a threat, but a promise.’ Then, as 1963 passed into history, they were together at a New Year’s Eve party. ` I said, Lyndon, I’ve got to have my mind put at east,’ Brown remembers. `People are saying you are responsible for the assassination, and I’ve got to know.’ Well, he had a terrible temper tantrum, as he often did. Then he told me: IT WAS THE OIL PEOPLE AND THE CIA.’”

(Downtown 4/14/93)

Next: LBJ’s Hoover Connection