Good catch, kcvl. Perhaps a new thread is in order.
http://www.verumserum.com/?p=7926
As IRS Commissioner Doug Schulman says “we found that UBS was facilitating tax evasion.” He goes on to explain that several tax-cheats whose names had been released by UBS earlier this year have been taken to court and convicted of evasion.
And yet, completely unmentioned in all of this is the fact that the CEO of UBS Americas Group is Robert Wolf. Who is Robert Wolf?
As I explained here, he is Obama’s biggest bundler, i.e. the single individual who rounded up the most cash for Obama’s run for the White House. He may have pulled in as much as $2M for the President. In thanks, Obama gave him a seat on the Economic Recovery Advisory Board where, so far as I know, he still sits.
There are a bunch of questions to be asked. Did any of Obama’s run-for-office-money come from Wolf’s tax-cheating clients? Is the President troubled that his biggest fundraiser aids and abets tax cheats? Will anyone in the MSM ever bother to ask any of these questions?
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http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/195009.php
The conference room belonged to George Soros, the billionaire bête noire of the right. After talking to Soros for an hour about his prospective bid for the White House, Obama walked down the hall and found assembled a dozen of the city’s heaviest-hitting Democratic fund-raisers: investment banker Hassan Nemazee, Wall Street power Blair Effron, private-equity hotshot Mark Gallogly, hedge-fund manager Orin Kramer. Most had been big-time John Kerry backers in 2004. Most had a connection to the Clintons. All were officially uncommitted for 2008.[...]
Wolf was wowed by Obama that afternoon: his straightforwardness, his “bold and impressive” early stance against the Iraq war. He handed Obama his card and said, “I’d like to get to know you more.” Obama phoned the next day. “When we hung up, he said, ‘I’ll call you after the holidays,’ and I’m thinking, Yeah, right, he’s gonna call me,” Wolf says. But call Obama did. The next week, they had dinner in Washington, just the two of them, on the night that George W. Bush gave his speech announcing the surge of additional troops into Iraq. “I felt so honored to be sitting down with him for two hours on an occasion like that,” Wolf recalls, “knowing that he was going off to be interviewed on television later.”
Within ten days, Obama had announced his intention to run and Clinton was officially in. A story in the Times reported that Obama had nailed two A-list New York donors: Soros and Wolf. But though Soros’s backing was a symbolic coup, it’s Wolf who has emerged as Obama’s most copious cash collector in the city so far—hosting two high-dollar cocktail parties, making countless calls, harvesting more than $500,000. As Wolf tells me about the soirées he’s hosted, he reaches into a meticulously organized scrapbook, takes out a photograph of him and Obama grinning madly, and tells me that I can keep it. “The way Barack has taken this nation with his rock-star status,” he says, “it’s very exciting!”
The other golfer/Martha Vineyard’s guest/dinner date/etc. is Eric & Cheryl Whitaker...
Dr. Eric Whitaker, who heads the Urban Health Initiative, is one of Michelle and President Barack Obama’s closest friends and has attended White House functions promoting the Obama administration’s health reform plan.
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Obama’s pal Eric Whitaker, his Tony Rezko tie
By Lynn Sweeton October 28, 2008
Dr. Eric Whitaker and Sen. Barack Obama go way back.
Their friendship began when they were graduate students at Harvard University. Now, Whitaker is one of Obama’s closest advisers.
Five years ago, Obama, then an Illinois state senator, gave a “glowing’’ reference for Whitaker to Tony Rezko, the now-convicted political fixer who helped Gov. Blagojevich find people to run state agencies. Blagojevich hired Whitaker to be the state’s public health director.
Obama has said that’s the only time he can recall talking to Rezko — who was a major campaign fund-raiser for him and for Blagojevich — about getting anyone a state job.
“Somebody who I do remember talking directly to Tony about was Dr. Eric Whitaker,” Obama told the Sun-Times in March. “He and I played basketball together when he was getting his master’s in public health at Harvard, while I was in law school there. He had expressed an interest in that job. I did contact Tony, or Tony contacted me, and I gave him a glowing recommendation because I thought he was outstanding.’’
As state health chief, Whitaker spent millions on programs that used churches to educate minorities about AIDS, breast cancer and preparing for public health emergencies, a program hailed nationwide.
Whitaker’s agency also got caught up in scandal. He oversaw the budget of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, which approves medical construction projects. Rezko and his associates controlled that board, which they used to solicit kickbacks and payoffs, according to testimony at Rezko’s trial.
Rezko was convicted. Whitaker, who said he wasn’t involved in the board’s day-to-day operations, was never accused of any wrongdoing.
“During my time as director of IDPH, I received four or five calls from Tony Rezko seeking my support for and attendance at the St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital charity event,’’ Whitaker said. “After my employment interview, I never had a conversation with Mr. Rezko about the” health department or the planning board.
Whitaker left the state payroll a year ago and joined Obama’s wife Michelle as a high-ranking executive at the University of Chicago Medical Center. When he was hired, U. of C. was seeking permission to expand its children’s hospital — one of five expansions the university sought from the state while Whitaker was health director. All were approved by the planning board. Whitaker and the U. of C. said he had nothing to do with those approvals.
“Whether and to what extent Dr. Whitaker had anything to do with the [approval] process while at IDPH was and is totally irrelevant to his hiring by or his work at the Medical Center,” wrote Susan S. Sher, a medical center attorney.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/10/obamas_pal_eric_whitaker_his_t.html
Wolf makes me gag with his gushing.