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About 11 weeks ago, I reported from my independent research a case of potential corruption involving Barack Obama and patronage of the Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

Now, after he has been elected, we find that not only has Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich tried to sell a senate seat, but has tried to play dishonest political games with numerous organizations, including the Children’s Memorial Hospital.

I’m not going to say “I told you so” but it does look as though this hospital may be part of a serious political patronage machine.  This should perhaps not go ignored, and while it is presumptuous and hasty to say that Obama was involved in this scandal, it is hardly a good start for an administration dedicatede to eradicating the "same old politics as usual."

UPDATE:

ABC News reports some rather unflattering remarks from the Governor about the President elect.  The only thing this changes in my mind is that Blagojevich has gone from unprincipled to thoroughly unprincipled.  This definitely shows he really has no warm feelings for Obama, so we can probably assume that Obama wasn't involved.

Obama Receives $2.5 Million in Fundraising Help from Recipients of Earmarks

According to Newsweek, last summer, watchdog groups requested that Illinois Senator Barack Obama share records involving his smaller donors. He declined, and now new information is surfacing around his campaign accepting small donations from apparently nonexistent people whose contributions add up to sums exceeding the legal limit by a factor of four. While some of these small donors are now creating problems for Senator Obama, there are a number of large donors that have been causing him trouble for some time now.

The simple magnitude of donations to Senator Obama from recipients of his earmarks is staggering. He directly received over $500,000 dollars in donations from people who sit on the board of organizations he earmarked money to. Beyond that, he received a total of about $2,000,000 dollars in fundraising help from bundlers who received earmarks. In total, these $2.5 million in contributions raise important questions about Sen. Obama’s earmarking habits. This article highlights troubling cases in which Sen. Obama has given taxpayer money to some of his biggest fundraisers.

In 2008, Sen. Obama increased the Adler Planetarium earmark by 900% when the chairman and two vice chairmen together gave close to $250,000 to his presidential campaign. This story, originally researched by our group, made it to top level news organizations such as the Washington Times, Hot Air, Red State, The National Review and number of other news outlets. After further research, it has become clear that Senator Obama is handing out taxpayer money to more than just the members of the Adler Planetarium.

This story is getting some attention on Digg. So digg it!

Obama funnels federal money to top campaign contributors

Although earmarking large sums of money to top supporters and fundraisers is a popular practice in both houses of Congress, not many people would expect such questionable activity from a shining star of liberalism and reform like Illinois Senator Barack Obama. Sadly, he is following a pattern of conspicuous allocations of federal funds. Just as he handed a million dollar earmark to his wife’s employers in 2006 (immediately after which her pay shot up from $121,910 a year to $316,962), Sen. Obama is now drastically increasing earmarks that go to his biggest supporters.

 In 2006, Sen. Obama requested an earmark $300,000 to replace and update the projector system at the Adler Planetarium. In 2008, he requested $3,000,000 for replacement of the projector system and other equipment in the Sky Theater. For reference, this is three times the amount he earmarked for the HIV/AIDS Policy and Research Institute at Chicago State University.

While the Adler Planetarium earmarks look normal on the surface, there is a catch. The Chairman and two of the Vice Chairman of the Adler Planetarium Board of Trustees raised a total of almost $250,000 for Sen. Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign. The Adler Planetarium was probably pleasantly surprised when they found that their earmark increased by $2.7 million dollars, in other words, by a factor of ten.

The Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Frank Clark, stands out amongst Obama supporters. On Sen. Obama’s website, Mr. Clark is listed as a bundler who raised in excess of $200,000 for the Senator’s Presidential campaign. In 2004, Mr. Clark donated $5,000 to the then State Senator Obama’s U.S. Senate bid. In 2005, Mr. Clark became the Chairman of the Board at Adler Planetarium, and in 2006 Sen. Obama earmarked $300,000 to the Planetarium. Then, in the same year that Mr. Clark’s involvement in the Obama campaign skyrocketed to raising an excess of $200,000, Sen. Obama’s earmark for the Adler Planetarium increased tenfold to $3,000,000.

Mr. Clark isn’t the only problematic donor. Two of the Vice Chairmen of the Board, Brian Cressey and Peter Thompson are also significant donors. Between donations from Mr. Thompson and the Cressey household, Sen. Obama received $13,800. The most significant donor here is Mr. Cressey. As a first time donor, Mr. Cressey gave the maximum possible individual donation in essentially one big check. What makes this even more troubling is that Mr. Cressey had never given to Sen. Obama before 2008, the year in which the Adler Planetarium’s earmark increased tenfold.

The fact that three ranking members of the Adler Planetarium’s Board donated huge sums of money (at least $200,000) is interesting by itself. The fact that these enormous contributions came in the same year that Sen. Obama increased their earmark by 900% is truly unsettling. 

Written by David and Daniel Byler