Barack Obama, Tony Rezko, and the Winter of 1997

"Change you can believe in" was the Obama motto for his campaign. Given that he was a Chicago politician, I still don't understand why anyone believed it. 30 Degrees Below Zero - The Private Journal of Doug Ross

Tony Rezko was a property developer in Chicago. He went to jail at one point, I think, and I don't know what he has done since, but in 1997 he was associated with a development company named Rezmar Corporation.

Rezmar Corp. had gotten tax dollars to refurbish a building on the South Side of Chicago.

For more than five weeks during the brutally cold winter of 1997, tenants suffered without any heat in a government-subsidized apartment building. The 31-unit building in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood had been "rehabbed" just four years prior at taxpayer expense, no less.

How cold was it? Temperatures routinely dipped around ten below zero. With wind-chills factored in, the effective temperatures approached 30 below.

Rezmar refused to turn the heat on until they were sued. They had to be sued multiple times for multiple buildings

How does Obama figure in, aside from the fact that at least some the buildings owned by Rezmar were in Obama's district when he was a state senator in Illinois, he was associated with Rezko in other ways.

There's a simple reason Obama didn't lift a finger to protest these horrific violations. His political patron, Tony Rezko, was the driving force behind Rezmar. And Rezko helped raise a quarter of a million dollars for Obama's various campaigns.

But that wasn't all.

And after stating he'd "never done any favors for" Rezko, the Chicago Sun-Times discovered letters Obama wrote to city and state officials supporting Rezko's bid for $14 million in taxpayers' money for an elder-care facility.

And while that is all that Doug Ross brings up, there is one more example. The Rezko Connection: Obama's Achilles Heel?

This was in relation to a dodgy real estate transaction. Before Obama became President, he didn't have the money to buy a house. Afterwards, he bough a mansion on the beach, but that's another story.

The short story is:

On the same day Obama closed on his house, Rezko's wife bought the adjacent empty lot, meeting the condition of the seller who wanted to sell both properties at the same time.

The Obamas then bought a slice of that empty lot, making it so that no one could ever build on that lot due to zoning issues. The long story is a bit convoluted. Click thru.

Are we shocked that a Chicago Politician appears to be doing shady deals, or is dealing with people who would go on to be charged with corruption? If you're shocked, it only means that you are not from Chicago.