Obama’s dirty-money Hawaii connection

Barack Hussein Obama is the closest Democrats can come to electing a foreign Muslim President of the United States without actually violating the constitutional requirement that American Presidents be native-born.

Obama’s nomination would follow in the footsteps of 2004 Democrat presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry, whose French-language Swiss boarding school education made him the closest thing to a European socialist able to run for President of the US without violating the constitution.

Not only does Obama’s name sound like some kind of sick Islamist joke on America—a candidate whose moniker invokes both Saddam Hussein and Osama bin-Laden—but he would be the first madrassa-educated American President. Moreover Obama is subject to a standing order of death to any Muslim who abandons Islam as Obama formally did when he finally joined Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ in the early 1990s just prior to his first political campaign.

While it is tempting to dismiss Obama as a lightweight who is peaking too early in the election season, comparisons with another Democrat presidential candidate—Bill Clinton—should give pause to any who might dismiss his candidacy as a fad. The Clinton parallels include early dirty-money backing from Hawaii Democrats.

Obama, born in Honolulu in 1961, has not only a Muslim father, the late Barack Hussein Obama Sr. of Kenya, but a Muslim step-father as well. His first father left when Obama was two. His mother divorced and soon remarried Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian oil manager. Obama’s first campaign book is titled, “Dreams from My Father: A story of race and inheritance.”

The new family moved to Jakarta Indonesia in 1967 when Obama was six. Indonesia was still reeling from a Muslim war with the Maoists leading to the death of between 300,000 and 1 million Indonesians.

According to a March 2004 Salon.com article by Scott Turow, Obama in Jakarta spent "two years in a Muslim school, then two more in a Catholic school." He was then sent back to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandmother and attend the private secular Punahou School from grade five through high school graduation.

Growing up without a father in the house is not Obama’s only Clinton common denominator. There’s drug abuse too. In Dreams from My Father, Obama writes about smoking marijuana and snorting cocaine during his teenage years.

Obama studied for two years at California’s Occidental College then continuing at Columbia University, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations. He also studied for three years at Harvard Law School.

Occidental, Columbia and Harvard are all places where conservative students and faculty are denied academic freedom.

Obama’s life: Raised in Muslim lands and educated in Muslim schools, then sent to a secular high school serving the children of Hawaii’s Democrat-controlled political and business elite. Graduating to secular US colleges run by academic leftists. Not a pretty picture, as Obama himself explains in a June 28, 2006 speech:

“I was not raised in a particularly religious household, as undoubtedly many in the audience were. My father, who returned to Kenya when I was just two, was born Muslim but as an adult became an atheist. My mother, whose parents were non-practicing Baptists and Methodists, was probably one of the most spiritual and kindest people I've ever known, but grew up with a healthy skepticism of organized religion herself. As a consequence, so did I.”

Beyond corrupt Hawaii Democrats, leftist academia and cultural secularism, Obama has another Clinton characteristic: shady land deals. A standard method for bankrolling the lifestyle of up-and-coming Democrat politicians, in Obama’s case his associate in the deal is already indicted by a federal grand jury. The December 24 ChicagoTribune documents Obama’s relationship with political fundraiser Antoin ‘Tony’ Rezko and Illinois businessman Joseph Aramanda—both of whom are named in a federal investigation of bribery of Illinois state officials. Rezko was indicted by a federal grand jury in October and Aramanda is named as an un-indicted co-conspirator.

According to the Tribune, “Rezko, a real-estate and fast-food entrepreneur, has emerged as a central figure in a series of state government corruption scandals. He began cultivating a friendship with Obama around 1990, becoming a key fundraiser…".

In June 2005, even as Rezko was widely reported to be under federal investigation, the Tribune reports, “Obama bought a $1.65 million South Side home on the same day that Rezko's wife purchased the adjoining garden lot for $625,000. Obama and Rezko then engaged in a series of private transactions to redivide and improve their adjoining parcels.”

Obama’s corrupt backers in Illinois’ seamy and fetid political swamps are matched only by the unsavory gaggle of politically-connected supporters assembling to back his candidacy in Hawaii. Obama’s Hawaii support comes from a group of Democrat politicos around former Governor John Waihee—considered by some the dirtiest figure in Hawaii’s very dirty politics. Waihee and his cronies were also early money backers of Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 bid for the White House.

The little-known story of Clinton’s Waihee ‘early money’ Hawaii connection is told in the 1997 PBS Frontline special “The Fixers”, a story which begins with poor Hawaii farmers being driven off their land in a mid-1980s deal to build Maunawili Valley Oahu golf course deal with Japanese investors flush from the Japanese market and real estate bubble. “Fixers” (and Waihee associates) Gene and Nora Lum go from buying the entire Hawaii State legislature for $50,000 in order to pass a bill allowing golf courses on agricultural land to becoming ‘early money’ Clinton financial backers. They engage in a series of transactions mixing Oklahoma gas leases, Democrat connections with Asian money and the sale of political influence to facilitate other Hawaii land deals.

The story continues into the Clintons’ better-known mid-1990s Asian money scandals involving John Huang, Charlie Trieh, Johnny Chung, the Lippo Bank of Indonesia, Clinton’s Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, Hillary Clinton, and 938 documented visits to the Lincoln Bedroom by hundreds of people who paid thousands for the privilege. “The Fixers” ends with then-President Clinton, ten days after winning his second Presidential term, on his way to Asia stopping in Honolulu and playing golf with Waihee in the pouring rain on the Maunawili Valley O`ahu course where it all started. The ‘early money’ backing of Clinton paid off handsomely for Waihee and his cronies. Clinton in 1993 signed the so-called “Apology Resolution” in essence apologizing for the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom and 1898 US annexation of Hawaii and implicitly placing Hawaii Statehood in question.

The Apology Resolution quickly became a politically correct ‘guilt’ justification for corrupt Hawaii political operators to rake in millions operating lucrative state and federally funded programs and even private companies pretending to benefit Native Hawaiians. One deal alone, Sandwich Isles Communications, got $500 million in federal funds to provide nearly useless fiber optic connections to Hawaiian Homelands residential lots--most of which are undeveloped. Costs are estimated at $278,000 per utilized connection.

Today Hawaii’s political class is focused on passage of the so-called “Akaka Bill” a political descendant of the “Apology Resolution” which would create a sovereign native Hawaiian “tribal” government—a guaranteed source of billions for Hawaii’s venal elites, possibly making them able to drain all of Native Hawaiians’ patrimony without legal oversight. Obama has been such a strong Senatorial advocate for the Akaka Bill, he is often called “Hawaii’s third Senator.”

In addition to the Hawaii Democrat dirty money machine Obama is tied in with Goldman Sachs, investment houses specializing in highly regulated industries and many Clinton administration figures as described in the December 6 Harper’s Magazine article, “Barack Obama, Inc.”:

“He (Obama) quickly established a political machine funded and run by a standard Beltway group of lobbyists, P.R. consultants, and hangers-on. For the staff post of policy director he hired Karen Kornbluh, a senior aide to Robert Rubin when the latter, as head of the Treasury Department under Bill Clinton, was a chief advocate for NAFTA and other free-trade policies that decimated the nation’s manufacturing sector (and the organized labor wing of the Democratic Party). Obama’s top contributors are corporate law and lobbying firms (Kirkland & Ellis and Skadden, Arps, where four attorneys are fund-raisers for Obama as well as donors), Wall Street financial houses (Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase), and big Chicago interests (Henry Crown and Company, an investment firm that has stakes in industries ranging from telecommunications to defense). Obama immediately established a “leadership PAC,” a vehicle through which a member of Congress can contribute to other politicians’ campaigns—and one that political reform groups generally view as a slush fund through which congressional leaders can evade campaign-finance rules while raising their own political profiles.”

Goldman Sachs had substantial dealings with ex-Governor Waihee and the corrupt trustees of the $6 billion Bishop Estate exposed finally in the late 1990s and documented in the current Hawaii best-selling book, “Broken Trust”.

Is “Broken Trust” a thing of the past? Obama’s Hawaii steering committee taps into both Bishop Estate and the Waihee administration. As the December 13 Honolulu Advertiser explains, “Chuck Freedman, a retired vice president of corporate relations for Hawaiian Electric Co. (HECO) and former communications director for former Gov. John Waihee, said the committee has contacted Obama's aides and has received a positive response.”

Currently three of the five Bishop Estate trustees are also board members of Hawaiian Electric. HECO monopolizes power generation and distribution in Hawaii and through double-taxation (tax on fuel for generation, and on the electricity produced) under the General Excise Tax, supplies a large part of the State General Fund. HECO also provides many thousands of dollars of political ‘donations’ to legislative incumbents. Bishop Estate is Hawaii’s largest private landowner.

Voters rarely got the truth from Bill Clinton; will they get the straight story from Obama? Not judging by his December 6 comments to Harper’s: “Progressive candidates generally have a harder time raising money, he said, and at times some of them will ‘trim their sails’ on behalf of the people who are financing them.”

Hawaii may not amount to much in the Electoral College, but to the National Democrat Party money machine, these islands are a fountainhead of cash. If Waihee and his cronies could parlay their dirty land deals into the Presidency for their selected candidate in 1992, they could do it again. Barack Hussein Obama will keep his Islamic past under wraps and his radical secularist sails trimmed. He will say whatever it takes to bring in the cash and win election. His candidacy, record and corrupt connections deserve close scrutiny now, before it is too late.

PBS Frontline: The Fixers: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/fixers/etc/script.html

Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0612240343dec24,1,7299492.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

Hawaii Donations to Incumbents: http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?1ba6f2ab-6c24-46a5-855a-452cec2339e6

Advertiser: Effort launched here to draft Obama http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2006/Dec/13/br/br9324817650.html

Sandwich Isles Communications: http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?9341371c-c4b7-4b47-8855-8279fefcf04c

He is a disaster from every point of view.>>>>>>>>>>>>

I disagree. When Tom DeLay was ousted by the backroom machinations of our RINOs along with their compadres across the senatorial aisle, you will notice that there was no longer a functional party whip from then on. The conservative agenda was traduced in the Senate. Tom DeLays absence hurt the Party. He was and is a good politician, disliked by many because he plays political hard ball. He is just the sort of man we need as a president.

NOw maybe we can go and find such a man, properly couched in clothing which our earnest Democrat friends and puny minded Rinos can stomach according to their false bipartisan pork barreling lights.

I would vote for DeLay as president in a heart beat, a hard man he is, but a hard man maltreated by his own party, and abandoned by the soft cheeses who now run the RNC, who worry more about image than substance.

So we will disagree on Tom Delay, and I guess that is what makes your cookie crumble, and there is nothing I can or will do about that.

Suture yourself!

Tom Delay was "ousted" by himself not the almight "RINO".

Delay had NOTHING to do with the "Senate".

Then the idiotic actions he took in the Primary ensured a Republican loss of a seat when he later cravenly backed out of the race. Why did he do this AFTER the primary instead of BEFORE?

No one is complaining about "hardball" tactics or his actions prior to 2006 (well except for the Schiavo nonsense) but his totally egotistic actions last year.

He allowed himself to get caught up in these legal issues with NO other Republican responsible for them but himself.

[That is some serious dreaming there. Conservatives have NO leader capable of winning the nomination. In fact, there none that could even get close. Much of the best conservative voices were eliminated from the Congress.]

What I posted is nothing more or less than an outline of the current OPPORTUNITY that exists for conservative Republicans. I made no mention of anybody's dreams or desires, nor of what I think of the chances of the opportunity being seized. For the record, I'm not too optimistic.

[Very few votes will be won on a plank of reducing the size of government. Although it is an ancient claim of almost all politicians since the very beginning that doesn't change the fact that government grows because the voters WANT it to grow and because society grows more complex.]

It happened in 1980 and again in 1884 with Reagan, and the country prospered under his deregulation of industry and significant tax cuts, and it happened yet again in 1994 with the contract with America resulting in more tax cuts, welfare reform (and reduction) and federal spending caps. They were elected on this platform, which can only be described as "smaller government". It's a winning issue to run on as long as the politicians follow through with their promises.

[WAKE UP...more liberals voted than conservatives sat out. there is NO evidence that Republicans voted for the Democrats this time out.]

I don't know whose post you were reading, but nothing I said even suggested that I thought any Republicans voted for Democrats. I'm well aware that the moderates and independents voted overwhelmingly for Democrats instead of Republicans and that made all the difference in the election.

[I will bet you my life savings (and it's considerable) that there will not be a Consevative President in our lifetime, if ever. IT'S A DIFFERENT WORLD OUT THERE, and you people better wake up.]

Whoa! hold on there buddy. I don't know how many years you've got left in your lifetime, but I plan to be around for quite a few more decades and these things go in cycles; one side runs the show for awhile until they become complacent and screws up, then the other side wins by default and it's their turn to run the country until THEY screw up. That's the nature of a government accountable to the people. Consider that leftists ran the show during the sixties and seventies, raising taxes through the roof and over-regulating businesses until under a Democrat congress and president (Carter) the economy bottomed out. Then Reagan took over and DE-regulated business and lowered taxes and the economy boomed. H.W. Bush moved to the left and the public abandoned Republicans and Democrats took over by default. Clinton and his party tried to take the country back to the days of Carter and the result was the Gingrich conservative Republicans and the Contract with America in '94. Too bad they pooped out and the MODERATE "compassionate conservative" W. Bush and his soft and squishy colleagues in congress have not earned the support of the conservative right so now we're back to the Democrats taking another turn.

The conservatives I know aren't just going to go away and sulk for the next 40 years, so you would probably be wise NOT to bet everything on perpetually losing.

[I hope you know a helluva lot of Conservatives to make up for the hoards of liberals voting now.]

It was the moderates who made the difference in the last election because they all gravitated toward the left after seeing the lack of enthusiasm on the right.

But the funny thing about moderates is they're FICKLE, and if the Democrats don't live up to their campaign promises* in the next year and a half, the moderates can just as easily all break for the Republicans in '08, provided they can scrounge up a few decent candidates who don't come off as Democrat Lite.

*The Democrats had better start pulling some magic wands out of their butts it they intend to keep all the promises they made during the last campaign. For starters, they promised their constituents they would:

-- come up with a "smarter" solution to the war in Iraq
-- stop using our troops to fight terrorism and rely on the U.N. and international courts to keep us safe from militant Islamists, and also implement a plan of peace with the terrorists through negotiation, diplomacy and apology for the crimes of America past and present.
-- dramatically increase entitlements to everyone in need without increasing the budget deficit
-- repeal the tax cuts without hurting taxpayers or businesses
-- come up with a solution to keep both social security and Medicare solvent without changing the programs in any way or raising taxes to make up for future shortfalls
-- make sure all workers earn a "living wage" without causing a rise in inflation or unemployment or hurting business or the savings of retirees
-- enact significant environmental regulations without negatively affecting the economy and come up with a plan to reverse global warming
-- impeach Bush and try him and everyone in his cabinet for crimes against humanity

While the above list may sound satirical, in fact the Democrats have promised all of these things to their various constituents in exchange for their enthusiastic votes this past November and those voters are going to be mighty pissed off if the Democrats can't deliver.

"It happened in 1980 and again in 1884 with Reagan, and the country prospered under his deregulation of industry and significant tax cuts, and it happened yet again in 1994 with the contract with America resulting in more tax cuts, welfare reform (and reduction) and federal spending caps." None of the above reduced the size of government. In fact, the irony is that reducing tax RATES can (and has) increased tax REVENUES hence giving the government MORE funds to use. It is also a fact that since about 1920 or so the share of the GNP devoted to government hovers around 20%. The variance is about 2% one way or the other.

Translating Rhetoric into Fact is much more difficult than one would think.

I always think of the "size of government" as the sum of two separate components. 1) The amount of money it takes out of the economy 2) The amount of intrusive regulations and laws that affect private citizens and private business

You are absolutely correct that historically the federal take of GNP is always around 20% +/- 2% and I'm glad that someone else recognizes its significance; the actual dollar amount can increase from year to year, and that's fine as long as the percentage taken out of the economy doesn't go up. Federal spending caps in the 90's moved the figure down to the low end of the range, but since they've expired, federal spending as a percentage of GNP is going back up, and if it gets into the 21-22% territory it will stifle the economy, as it always does.

As far as intrusive laws and regulations, there was an improvement during the Reagan years but, since then, it's been all downhill. The two areas that the government has been most intrusive are free speech (CFR) and eminent domain (eg. Kelo v. New London).

CFR is one of the most useless laws ever passed and has not limited the free speech of anyone except outright idiots. And it is fully within the explicit Constitutional authority of Congress to regulate federal elections.

Kelo merely recognized no federal interest in a local action. It also has produced considerable good as states were forced to act to reign in excessive condemnations. Some have put protections within their constitutions.
This needs to be attacked at the local and state levels.

One thing we should fear is that the RATS wise up one day and see that lowering tax rates can increase tax revenues. Then look out for a free for all of spending.

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