Culture of corruption: Blago’s dead fundraiser and Team Obama
You know about Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
But have you ever played Six Degrees of Roddy Blago?
Take any Blago corruption story, and you can link it to Team Obama in six easy steps or less.
Watch.
Over the weekend, Rod Blagojevich’s former chief fundraiser, Christopher Kelly, died after his girlfriend found him over his car wheel in a lumberyard.
Kelly was about to check in to the Graybar Hotel before his death:
“An admitted high-stakes gambler who once haunted Las Vegas’ card tables, Kelly was facing at least eight years in prison after pleading guilty to fraud charges in two separate cases, and he was scheduled to start serving his time on Friday. Kelly was part of the former governor’s inner circle, and as chairman of Blagojevich’s campaign fund, he presided over a political war chest of millions of dollars. But at the time of his death, Kelly had run up thousands of dollars in personal debts was believed to be strapped for cash. He was facing three years in prison for hiding $1.3 million in income, including company money he used to pay gambling debts that he wrote off as business expenses. He was facing five additional years for taking part in an $8.5 million fraud involving roofing work on United Air Lines and American Airlines hangars at O’Hare International Airport. And still to come was a trial in a sweeping indictment that charged Blagojevich, Kelly and four other men with planning several fraudulent deals involving state government and millions of dollars in kickbacks. The trial is set for June 3 and could have added years to Kelly’s sentence.”
The Chicago Tribune profiled Kelly after his indictment here. Kelly served as part of Blago’s wheeler-dealer Kitchen Cabinet along with convicted fraudster Tony Rezko.
Rezko had loaned money to his business partner and fellow Blago confidante Kelly, who had schemed to evade the IRS by using ill-gotten gains to pay off his massive debts:
He pleaded guilty to tax fraud charges earlier this year. That scheme was tied, in part, to Kelly’s known gambling addiction. He admitted that he converted business funds to pay off gambling debts but did not report it properly to the Internal Revenue Service. Some of the illicit funds out of the O’Hare fraud also went to pay gambling debt, along with other debt Kelly had incurred, including a loan from convicted businessman Tony Rezko.
Rezko, of course, served as an ardent fund-raiser for Saint Obama and cooked up his sweetheart real estate trade in Chicago, land of coincidences.
And that’s not all. As I recount in Culture of Corruption, now-Attorney General Eric Holder signed up to assist Blago in a casino license battle in 2004. The state’s gaming board had approved the construction of a disputed casino, overruling the recommendation of the board’s staff. Rank-and-file investigators had qualms over the casino developer’s alleged mob ties and over Blago’s appointment of a crony fund-raiser to oversee the state’s deal-making with the casino. The fund-raiser was…
…Christopher Kelly.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Rezko “held an option to lease a hotel site next to the proposed casino site.” Holder held a public press conference with Blago to announce his role as a special “independent” investigator into the matter. The dog-and-pony show produced no report, but Holder and his law firm had contracted to conduct the probe for a tidy $300,000. Somehow, the foul-smelling case slipped Holder’s mind; he failed to mention it in his Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire.
I’m reminded of the diagnosis from one of Obama’s hometown observers, who told ABC News in February 2008:
“We have a sick political culture,” said Jay Stewart, the executive director of the Chicago Better Government Association, “and that’s the environment that Barack Obama came from. Stewart says he does not understand why Obama has lectured others about corruption in Washington and Kenya but “been noticeably silent on the issue of corruption here in his home state, including at this point, mostly Democratic politicians.”
The corrupt Chicago way is always just a hop, skip, and jump away.
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Categories: Corruption
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Perhaps the administration hired ‘Dexter’ as their ‘Tidying up loose ends’ Czar.
Right from the Clinton playbook methinks!
(munching popcorn) More cheese Gromit!
Christopher Kelly died? Christopher Kelly played hardball with the big boys of Chicago. Chicago always did have a rather odd reputation for people dying at a most opportune moment. Sometimes they jumped out of hotel windows with Chicago policemen in attendance and sometimes they pass away peacefully in their car.
Considerate man Christopher Kelly-saved the Grand Jury and his friends all that grief. Let’s hear a round of apple sauce for old Chris. Or as Joe Biden might say: Stand up Chris.
Suicide by aspirin?
Painful, basically death by ulcer.
A whole bottle of val!um, washed down by several stiff drinks. The tranqs alone, hard to OD.
Or the ‘Godfather’ method, pour a very hot bath, slit the veins wrist to elbow, fall asleep and don’t wake up.
But suicide by aspirin? Either a Chicago Way murder, clever by being unclever, as a warning to others who’d testify against the Thug in Chief or Blago, or Kelly was a complete maroon.
If only we’d give more money to stem cell research, Chris would walk again.
I don’t believe this guy’s death is a coincky dink!
Chicago was always more about the unfortunate accidents, like accidentally falling down an open elevator shaft…
… onto some bullets.
Democrats seem to have a high death rate when democrats are in power.
They’re not even trying hard to make this look believable. You’d have thought they’d consult with Rahm’s doctor brother to find a more plausible “suicide”.
They must think we’re reeaallllly stupid.
They are sending a message to anyone else who might cooperate against the Obama Thugocracy…
I guess this will limit the number of questions being asked at the trial. Next witness.
Obamascare: “Take two and call me in the morning.”
Sonny: [laughing] What are you gonna do? Nice college boy, didn’t want to get mixed up in the family business. Now you want to gun down a police captain. Why? Because he slapped you in the face a little? What do you think this like the Army where you can shoot ‘em from a mile away? No you gotta get up like this and, badda-bing, you blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit. C’mere.
[Kisses Michael on the head]
Malone: Oh what the hell? You gotta die of something.
–The Untouchables
In the 90′s we had the Clinton Death Count. What should we call this?
Rumors of ACORN operatives seen nearby have not been confirmed, although when asked for comments James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles just smiled knowingly.
Perhaps the only question that remains is: Will Michelle Malkin have to write a book every 6 months or will the rate of corruption require a more frequent schedule?
Speaking of South Side Barry, he’s conducting a teleprompter reading on financial market regulation. Must be some glare. He doesn’t seem to be struggling to digest the text before speaking the words. Too many complicated concepts and technical terms. Certainly no opportunities to lead chants. Fish out of water.
Correction:
Speaking of South Side Barry, he’s conducting a teleprompter reading on financial market regulation. Must be some glare. He
doesn’tseem to be struggling to digest the text before speaking the words. Too many complicated concepts and technical terms. Certainly no opportunities to lead chants. Fish out of water.Hahahahahaha! Oh, this really exists??
Uh….ok. Talk about an oxymoron.
Advice to the CBGA: just hang it up and shut the door already folks. I don’t think anyone can take you seriously…
this communist wants to “fix” the financial system of the U.S. that’s like the taliban wanting to fix the nations of the middle east.
sounds like a marvelous euphemism for when someone has become way to inconvenient for the Party of Death. Yes, there does seem to be a resonance with the Clinton administration’s mysterious deaths. I find the whole thing highly suspicious and worthy of an investigation but it won’t happen and that is all that I will say on the matter.
Used to be called “Gettin’ Vince Fostered” — now we could call it something like “Gettin’ Blago’d.”
Blago has been making the TV rounds. He makes me sick. I saw part of him on Huckabee over the weekend. He is a smug self centered, lying politician.
Watching him smile all nice and say, I will be vindicated. I can’t answer any of your questions right now because of the case. Yeah right. Why do these guys even have him on? He is mentally deluded.
BTW, everything Barry is saying on the banking system regulatory problems is dead-on accurate. His solutions, however, are based on imposing even worse regulations than the prudent regulations that either were eliminated (Glass-Steagall) or not enforced (Sherman Anti-Trust Act). Big corrupt government where regulators will continue to be industry stooges getting rich with the usual revolving door perks.
Whatever solution he imposes, it will dove-tail right into a global government scheme.
You’ve already said too much. Be careful out there. Vewy, vewy careful.
Because that would mean he would have to acknowledge his participation in this corruption. Which, not being an honorable individual, he is not inclined to do.
Hope and Change?
I live in this area and the dude was definitely murdered. This girlfriend? If she lived in the area she would have known that Oak Forest Hospital has no ER. Why didn’t she take Kelly to South Suburban Hospital about 7 blocks away that has a large and well-equipped ER? If she didn’t live in the area, how did she know to go to Oak Forest Hospital? It is an old military hospital. It looks like a castle. It’s set way back on a plot of land behind a grove of big trees. It has no lights on. It only has one sign, which isn’t lit and wouldn’t be visible coming from the lumberyard. Anyone who actually spots it either thinks it’s a convent, military academy, or an insane asylum. No one would ever take anyone there unless they wanted that person to die. This needs more investigation Michelle. Chicago is the testing ground for leftist policy. And if Kelly was murdered who and why. Either Daley or Obama. You always say sunshine is the best disinfectant. Shed some light on Chicago.
Pretty soon there will a body count to equal that of the Clintons. Associating with Obama may be dangerous to your health. Getting thrown under the bus sounds tame in comparison.
I hope this girl never finds me!
(Sorry Michelle!)
Let this be a lesson to us all:
If:
You live in Chicago (or any other Democrat controlled city)
If:
You drive a Cadillac Escalade
If:
You have been indited or convicted
DO NOT TAKE ASPIRIN
If Oak Forest Hospital does not have an ER blame Bush/Cheney/Rove/Michelle Malkin/El Rushbo /Glenn Beck and of course The chicagojedi .
I hope this helps.
BHO is the new Nixon. Just waiting for the corruption to take him down. It’s coming. Chicago politics has tainted this POTUS.
ROPE AND CHAINS
Has anyone accounted for all the Clinton Era operatives? It’s like deja vu all over again!
Sweet home, Chicago!
Who thinks he was murdered?
It’s an organized hit!
She should do it serial-style – like Stephen King did with The Green Mile. Come out with one book every 2-3 weeks. For 4 years. By the end of his term, Culture of Corruption on a bookshelf will look like the National Geographic collection, or a set of Britannicas. She could make the bindings, when shelved, form a picture of the shattered hopeychangey logo, just like Pink Floyd did with their box-set. Just some ideas.