yes, where was this story during the primaries?

I'm so glad we keep all the wealthy developers in business--it's worth it being poorer and I'm sure the people living in this housing wouldn't want it any other way. How about a rule saying developers have to live in their own buildings?

The part about the vehicle is particularly disturbing, because it took down a whole building, but the pools of raw sewage are horrible and dangerous.

Is being involved in this and ignoring this where Obama comes by his views of people just being bitter because they'd lost their jobs--and that people should just get over things?

issues too--giving public money to private people for housing means he's likely to do it for schools, and for health, and infrastructure, etc-- and he will probably continue all the contracting the Govt. does now--including in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and continue the shitty shitty "faith-based funding" --and no-sex ed money to private groups too.

"... As a state senator, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee coauthored an Illinois law creating a new pool of tax credits for developers. As a US senator, he pressed for increased federal subsidies. And as a presidential candidate, he has campaigned on a promise to create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund that could give developers an estimated $500 million a year. ..."

they never called him or brought it all up-- Prosecutors held back on using Obama's name --

"... Newly unsealed documents show that prosecutors sought to call witnesses to testify about Rezko's ties to Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. ..."

-- sure

Clout and corruption scandals that have plagued Chicago and Illinois politics in recent years have not laid a glove on Barack Obama, he told reporters here Wednesday. ...

the last line of the article:

Jamie Kalven, a longtime Chicago housing activist, put it this way: "I hope there is not much predictive value in his history and in his involvement with that community."

When I think of how I felt about Obama's candidacy last January, before I had seriously looked at any of them other than Edwards, and contrast that with how I feel now

I am so happy!!!!!

This has gotta be the kewlest use of payola evah!
First you funnel tax dollars to your pals so they can get filthy rich building shitty housing for poor people. Then when you want to buy a prestigious mansion, you get your pals to secure the mortgage for you! All we need is a kewl Jay-Z song to go with it!

Are we sure he's not a stealth Repub?

some important and very good questions (from a lousy person) on Faith-Based Funding, etc -- Who'll Keep the Faith-Based Initiative?

and how it works--"... Six current and former DOJ officials told ABC News that Flores often set aside their recommendations and federal rules and regulations to award such grants to further Bush administration policies such as supporting faith-based organizations and sexual abstinence, and to reward political allies of the administration. ..."

for more than fifteen years, it all rings perfectly true. Additionally my daughter lived in Grove Parc Place, 62nd & Cotage Grove for a few months in 2000.

I also lived in (12 years) and served on the board of (7 years) a 500 unit housing cooperative, Noble Square in Chicago where we fired Moorehead & Associates for embezzling a few tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars from us. Despite all kinds of effort, we could not interest the states attorney's office or HUD (our loan was federally guaranteed so they could have stepped in) in investigating any of it, despite the fact that we had the financial records. Moorehead & Associates was just too well connected, like very other developer/property manager outfit in Chicago that receives these kinds of funds.

I shit you not, we watched those people steal from us and from others, like our neighbors at Evergreen-Sedgewick, also mentioned in this article, like it was their birthright, for years. The only way we threw them off was that we were a limited equity cooperative, and had the power to fire those managers, and the next ones, and the ones after that till we got a crew that was not corrupt. By comparison, at places like Grove Parc the residents don't own the complex, so they are helpless and voiceless, just excuses for the big guys to get subsidies and feed at the trough till they are ready to build housing for a "better" class of people.

I've been gone from Chicago a few years and had forgotten that Moorehead finally fell far enough out of favor to get charged and convicted of anything. But Rezko, Moorehead, and the other companies that enjoy thge official favor of these kinds of deals enjoy a culture of immunity that has built up over a generation. The only cure is to make the housing developments cooperatives, so that residents directly control their own destinies, and have them trained to self-manage by folks who are not themselves petty crooks.

For the Clinton fans here it should be pointed out that the "public-private partnership" in question predates, but has been a major component nationwide of Bill Clinton's cynically misnamed HOPE VI (Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere) program which has funded the demolition of tens of thousands of perfectly salvageable public housing units nationwide and passed the property along with generous subsides out to whoever the best connected developers in your city or town are. But that's another story.

Thank you for posting this article. i will be sending it around to a couple hundred folks I know.

Those who really want and need to believe that Obama's ascendancy is the harbinger of some new way of looking at the problems of urban America are on a kind of crack, like CD says. This will help in talking to a few of the crackheads. Maybe.

Bottom line is that Obama may be a new face, but he's from the old school, with all that implies.

Bruce Dixon www.blackagendareport.com

that is what I was thinking.

Also, this thread is a perfect example of why Corrente Wire is now my all time favorite political blog.