RezkObaMoore, Inc. Stock Falling

Tom Roeser just can't quit Chicago Alderman Joe Moore. Roeser, a talk show host on WLS-AM 890 in Chicago, frequently has Joe on as a guest. Recently, Roeser was critical of Moore (see Roeser Rips Moore on Rezko, Abortion, Obama...). On April 29, Roeser said on his Sunday radio show, "...if Obama had been an alderman, he should be held accountable for receiving funds from a slum-lord-but Obama wasn’t: he was a state senator. The fact that Rezko’s unsavoryness was well known, that Rezko was a neighbor means nothing in the argument to Moore." Antoin “Tony” Rezko is under intense investigation by the federal authorities for massive financial hijinks. It should also be pointed out that 49th Ward Alderman Joe Moore has accepted at least $5,000 in campaign donations from Tony Rezko. Joe Moore responded today to Roeser via Roeser's blog. A couple of excerpts: It turns out that while Tony Rezko may have many character deficiencies, being a slumlord is not one of them. After the radio show, I did a little digging around and discovered that Rezko’s company actually did a very good job at acquiring abandoned and troubled buildings on Chicago’s South Side, fixing them up and managing them well as affordable housing. Perhaps you can argue that Rezko knew the properties were losing money and were heading for trouble when he unloaded them and perhaps you can argue that Rezko was a snake for breaking his promise to Alderman Preckwinkle and the city that he would own the buildings in the long-term. But you can’t argue that Barack Obama knowingly accepted campaign donations from a known “slumlord.” An owner of 30 buildings with four code violations over a period of eleven years cannot be considered a slumlord. Senator Obama’s off the hook on this one. Apparently Joe Moore does not read - or believe - the Chicago Sun-Times, which has been covering the Rezko mess for a while now. Say what you will about the Sun-Times, they do have some good investigative reporters down there, and on April 23 the Sun-Times ran Part One of a two-part article titled, "Obama and his Rezko ties." Written by staff reporter Tim Novak, this is must reading. In light of Moore’s pitiful statements in defense of Tony Rezko, Novak’s article shows Joe Moore to be either a liar or an incompetent boob (or both). The Sun-Times article began with these words: For more than five weeks during the brutal winter of 1997, tenants shivered without heat in a government-subsidized apartment building on Chicago's South Side. This directly contradicts Moore’s statement that “Rezko’s company actually did a very good job [with] troubled buildings ... and managing them well.” (But then, Joe Moore probably thought local slumlord Jay Johnson was running his buildings well when six children died in one of them.) The Sun-Times piece continues:

It was just four years after the landlords -- Antoin "Tony'' Rezko and his partner Daniel Mahru -- had rehabbed the 31-unit building in Englewood with a loan from Chicago taxpayers. Rezko and Mahru couldn't find money to get the heat back on. But their company, Rezmar Corp., did come up with $1,000 to give to the political campaign fund of Barack Obama, the newly elected state senator whose district included the unheated building. So, Joe “did a little digging around” and he “discovered that Rezko’s company actually did a very good job.” Apparently it was very little digging indeed, and one must wonder where Moore was digging. Did Moore “discover” that Rezko’s company “did a very good job,” or was he simply reassured by Obama’s people of this lie? On April 25, the Sun-Times ran a story titled, “Aldermen lash out at Daley administration over Rezko projects.” Chicago aldermen accused the Daley administration today of looking the other way while low-income housing projects developed by the now-indicted Tony Rezko collapsed into disrepair. The spigot of loans, grants and tax credits should have been cut off when the first of 30 taxpayer-supported Rezko buildings in Chicago fell into disrepair, the aldermen said. Joe Moore’s name was not mentioned in the article. Funny, that. Perhaps Joe was not at that Council meeting. If he was, you can bet he was hiding under his chair while his colleagues were condemning the man that Joe Moore is so eager to defend. And take $5,000 from Rezko. The Sun-Times, of course, is hardly the only one interested in the RezkObaMoore story. On May 3, Rob Kezelis at Capitol Hill Blue wrote: Barack's first problem is called "Rezko". A professional, political whore who buys pols in Chicago, Cook County, and Illinois when it suits his purposes, his close, constant rubbing of elbows with Barack is actually far worse than anything Harry Truman did with his Pendergast connections. Harry's wife's White House deep freeze freezer hardly qualifies as graft. But Barack's home's additions certainly do, and that story has been stored, savored, and fully investigated by the GOP, should Barack be the nominee or even the VP. Tie the Rezko and Obama stuff together and you get an ugly, all-too-typical picture of just another dirty politician. Tie the RezkObaMoore stuff to the 49th Ward and you get, well, another all-too-typical picture of a dirty political machine.

Which leads me to a prediction: The Obama-Rezko-Moore connection will become big national news. Don Gordon’s challenge will factor in, too, as the depositions and discovery process uncover rough diamonds of information. But more so, the federal investigations going on will lead to Joe Moore’s 49th Ward Aldermanic Office. It will be the beginning of the end for RezkObaMoore, Inc. Bet on it. RELATED:

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Slumlords for Moore