The Obama administration is buying votes in Kenya, charges Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health.

WND reported Monday the Obama administration has funded $23 million of U.S. taxpayer dollars through the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, to support the passage of a Kenyan constitutional referendum Aug. 4 that would increase access to abortions and authorize the operation of Islamic law tribunals in the East African nation.

In a statement issued by his office yesterday, Smith charged that several Kenyan groups receiving USAID money had been given specific quotas built into their USAID contracts requiring the grantees to each produce 20,000 “yes” votes for the Aug. 4 referendum.

“A chart produced by USAID’s inspector-general shows that 60 sub-recipients got funds for activities that include transportation, fuel, road shows, voter ID and ‘yes’ vote ‘buy in’ for professional elites,” Smith said.

“It is unconscionable that U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing a massive one-sided political campaign thinly disguised as ‘civic education’ in another sovereign nation,” the congressman said. “It is a very bad precedent and it is illegal.”

In a separate development, President Obama’s ties with convicted federal felon Tony Rezko and his continued involvement in politics in Kenya have surfaced once again in the on-going effort of key Democrats, including Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., to arrange a public-private bailout for failed ShoreBank Corp. in Chicago.

The developing ShoreBank controversy also has a Kenyan tie to Obama.

ShoreBank connections to Kenya

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner last week extended until Aug. 6 the deadline for ShoreBank Corp. to win $75 million from the Treasury Department’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. That amount would buttress a $150 million commitment made by an investor group that includes some of the biggest names in U.S. finance, such as Goldman Sachs, GE and Bank of America, to produce the capital needed for federal regulators to allow the bank to stay open.

ShoreBank is controversial for ties that extend back to letters then-attorney Obama wrote to support real estate development projects for Rezko in 1998.

ShoreBank is currently running on its website a link to an ABC-7 television report broadcast in 2006 during then-Sen. Obama’s taxpayer-funded Senate visit to Kenya that showed Obama in Kenya promoting ShoreBank’s microfinance program in Kenya.

Stanley Ann Dunham, Obama’s mother, at the end of her career worked in Indonesia in a microfinance program financed by the Ford Foundation.

Peter Geithner, the father of the treasury secretary, headed the Ford Foundation microfinance programs in Asia at the time.

Obama, Rezko and ShoreBank

ShoreBank has received special attention from the Treasury Department because its involvement financing home loans to low-income borrowers allowed the bank to be classified as one of 800 “community development financial institutions.”

A report by the Wall Street Journal revealed that ShoreBank troubles also stem from loans made to fund condominium development in geographical areas outside the bank’s traditional focus on Chicago’s South Side.

Chicago Sun Times reporter Tim Novak documented in 1998 that then-attorney Obama wrote two separate letters, each dated Oct. 28, 1998, to Chicago and Illinois state housing officials to support New Kenwood LLC, a Rezko corporation, in its application to build a 97-unit apartment building for senior citizens at 48th and Cottage Grove in Chicago.

According to a report by the DailyKos.com in 2007, Howard Stanback, who had ties as a ShoreBank board member, was chairman of the Woods Fund when Obama served on the Woods Fund board.

The Woods Fund made investment of $1 million to Neighborhood Rejuvenation Partners, a group reputedly linked to New Kenwood, fulfilling a request made by Allison Davis, the former head of the Chicago law firm where Obama worked when he wrote the two letters in question.

Although the connections are complicated, Stanbeck and Davis each had financial interests in Rezko’s New Kenwood LLC, to the extent that Davis reportedly collected some $700,000 in management fees involved with the senior citizen apartment building at 48th and Cottage Grove.

ShoreBank has never disclosed whether Obama was compensated for the microfinance project that the bank launched in Kenya.

Last month, the White House issued a denial that White House officials had met with ShoreBank regarding support measures for the bank or that the White House had pressured potential financial partners such as Goldman Sachs, GE or Bank of America to provide financial assistance to ShoreBank.

An investigation by three Republican congressmen has revealed the Obama administration has secretly spent $23 million of U.S. taxpayer dollars in Kenya to fund a “Yes” vote on a constitutional referendum scheduled for Aug. 4 that would increase access to abortions in Kenya and establish legal status for Islamic law tribunals.

Meanwhile, trusted sources in Kenya tell WND that the White House has used Vice President Joseph Biden’s trip to Kenya in June and the office of U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Michael E. Ranneberger to put out the message that passage of the referendum would enable the White House to open the floodgates to allow millions of dollars of additional U.S. government aid and private investment capital to flow into Kenya.

Last week, in response to inquiries from Reps. Chris Smith, R-N.J., Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., and Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, admitted to spending more than $23 million of U.S. taxpayer money to influence voters in Kenya to pass the highly contentious constitution.

“Despite denials, the Obama administration’s funding to support passage of the controversial Kenyan proposed constitution is clear,” Jeff Sagnip, spokesman for Rep. Smith, told WND in an e-mail over the weekend. “It constitutes U.S. monetary interference in a sovereign nation’s voting process. If passed the constitution would dramatically alter existing pro-life laws.”

Sagnip pointed out that the proposed constitution would water down the existing abortion law. It would permit abortion when “in the opinion of a trained health professional, there is need for emergency treatment or the life or health of the mother is in danger, or if permitted by any other written law.” That language, Sagnip said, is “obviously vague” and riddled with “blatant loopholes.”

Islamic courts

The proposed constitution would also give legal status to what are known as “Kadhi Courts,” constituting an Islamic judicial structure within the overall structure of the Kenyan legal structure, to resolve disputes between Muslims under Shariah, or Islamic law.

Critics have charged that the constitutional provision to codify Kadhi Courts would violate the separation of state and religion by allowing Islamic law to have official legal status.

WND previously reported that in the 2007 presidential campaign in Kenya, Raila Odinga – the presidential candidate of the Orange Democratic Party and a Luo tribesman like Obama’s father –signed an undisclosed memorandum of understanding with radical Muslims in Kenya to expand Islamic law within the country in exchange for Muslim support of his candidacy.

As reported by Ecumenical News International in the U.K., many Kenyans believe the provision in the proposed referendum that would establish Kadhi courts is a fulfillment of the agreement Odinga made with Sheik Abdullah Abdi, the chairman of the National Muslim Leaders Forum.

U.S. taxpayers suppory “Yes” vote

According to Smith’s office, the USAID inspector general had identified the following programs with direct ties to supporting the “Yes” vote the Obama administration had funded in Kenya:

• Provincial Peace Forum, Eastern Providence: $97,633.33 to “gain buy-in for the new proposed constitution by educating the professional elites in Isiolo South Constituency about its benefits and getting their commitment to use their influence to ensure people register and vote ‘Yes’ at the referendum.”
• Central Organization of Trade Unions, Kenya (COTU): $91,106.66 to “marshal a coalition of pro-Constitution individuals, institutions, and organizations to drum up political support for the Proposed Constitution by organizing a public rally at the historic Kamukunji Grounds, Nairobi.”
• Provincial Commissioner North Eastern Province: $99,220 for “one of a series of activities that aim to contribute to an ‘overrepresentation’ of the ‘Yes’ voters at the next referendum. Specifically, OTI will provide support to the office of the Provincial Commissioner (PC) in the form of transportation and fuel.
• Kenya Muslim Youth Alliance (KMYA): $56,953.33 for “one of a series of activities that aim to contribute to an ‘overrepresentation’ of the ‘Yes’ voters at the next referendum. Specifically, OTI will provide support to Kenya Muslims Youth Alliance (KMYA) in the form of transportation and communications.
• Provincial Peace Forum, Rift Valley Province: $94,193.33 to “build on previous activities in the North Rift as an entry point for a ‘Yes’ campaign on the constitution. Specifically, this activity will serve to gain buy-in for the new proposed constitution by getting the professional elites’ commitment.”
• Inter community Peace Choir Organization: $38,600 for “one of a series of activities aimed at facilitating registration of approximately 20,000 in cosmopolitan areas occupied by IDPs for a ‘Yes’ vote at the next referendum.”
• North Rift Theatre Ambassadors: $37,773.33 for “one of a series of activities aimed at facilitating registration of approximately 20,000 in cosmopolitan areas of Uasin Gishu, namely Turbo, Maili Maili Nne-Chepkanaga, and Huruma divisions for a ‘Yes’ vote at the next referendum.”
• Amani Peoples Theatre: $41,400 for “one of a series of activities aimed at facilitating registration of approximately 20,000 in Kachiliba and Psigor Constituencies-North Pokot for a ‘Yes’ vote at the next referendum.”
• Christian Community Services: $37,466.67 for “one of a series of activities aimed at facilitating registration of approximately 20,000 in the three Constituencies of Turkana South, Central, and North for a ‘Yes’ vote at the next referendum.”
• Pokot Outreach Ministries: $38,133.34 for “one of a series of activities aimed at facilitating registration of approximately 20,000 additional voters in the entire Constituency of Kapenguria for a ‘Yes’ vote at the next referendum.”

“By funding NGOs (non-governmental organizations) with obtaining ‘yes’ votes, the administration has crossed the line,” Smith said last week in a statement. “Directly supporting efforts to register ‘yes’ voters and ‘get out the yes vote’ means the U.S. government is running a political campaign in Kenya. U.S. taxpayer funds should not be used to support one side or the other.”

The Standard in Kenya reported Kenyan Higher Education Minister William Ruto, who is leading the “Red” team opposing the Kenyan constitutional referendum, has accused Ambassador Ranneberger of crossing the “no-go-zone for foreign diplomats.”

In defending his actions, Ranneberger argued he was operating within his diplomatic orbit, but “more so because the U.S. is a friend of Kenya and is pro-reform,” according to the report published by the Standard.

“Ranneberger maintained he was a friend of Kenya and would therefore not shy away from pointing out the lies being propagated by the ‘No’ team,” the Standard wrote.

“Separated by a few kilometers from another meeting, where Ruto was selling his views against the draft, the envoy promised to continue helping the push for reforms,” the paper said. “The American ambassador again pointed out Obama was interested in ensuring the country embraces reforms to pave way for better governance, improved livelihood for citizens.”

Obama’s links to Odinga

The Obama administration’s funding of Kenyan internal politics appears to follow a pattern then-Sen. Obama first set on his 2006 Senate-funded visit to Kenya.

During that trip in 2006, Obama campaigned so openly for Odinga that Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua went on Kenyan television on behalf of Kenyan President Kibaki to object that Obama was meddling inappropriately in Kenyan politics, as WND reported.

WND reported in 2008 that Obama raised almost $1 million for Odinga during the run-up to Kenya’s 2007 presidential election.

Also as WND previously reported, Odinga called for protests over alleged voter fraud during the December 2007 Kenyan presidential election, with the resulting protest violence leaving an estimated 1,000 members of the dominant Kiduyu tribe in Kenya dead and an estimated 500,000 displaced from their homes.

In a horrifying incident following the election, at least 50 people, including women and children, were killed when an angry mob forced Kiduyu Christians into an Assembly of God church in the village of Eldoret, about 185 miles northwest of Nairobi. The mob set fire to the church, hacking with machetes any of the Christians who attempted to escape the flames.

In the final days of the New Hampshire Democratic primary, after the post-election violence in Kenya, Obama told reporters he continued to remain in contact with Odinga by telephone.

Obama did not object to Odinga’s continued push to share the head of state with President Mwai Kibaki despite Odinga’s electoral defeat.

Instead, Obama worked with former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to end the violence by creating for Odinga the position of prime minister – a position not defined in the Kenyan constitution – so Odinga could become co-head of state with Kibaki.

As recently as May, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the top prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, was in Kenya to investigate the possibility of bringing criminal charges against both Kibaki and Odinga for their roles in the post-election violence.

While would be Senator Rand Paul was recently slated by the controlled left wing media for his nuanced philosophical view on one of the ten titles of the Civil Rights Act, the late Sen. Robert Byrd – an actual former member of the Ku Klux Klan – was lauded today by a former president as well as the nation’s first black president.

Clinton and Obama today both defended Byrd’s past association with the Klan in the 1940s.

In a key note speech at Byrd’s funeral in Charleston today, Clinton hit out at eulogies in some newspapers that had highlighted Byrd’s ties with the Klan.

“He once had a fleeting association with the Ku Klux Klan, what does that mean? I’ll tell you what it means. He was a country boy from the hills and hollows from West Virginia. He was trying to get elected,” Clinton said.

“And maybe he did something he shouldn’t have done come and he spent the rest of his life making it up. And that’s what a good person does. There are no perfect people. There are certainly no perfect politicians,” he added.

Watch the video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqPq4AHjzU4

Byrd signed up with the KKK in 1942, becoming head of the local chapter before claiming to lose interest in the organisation a year later. However, in 1946 Byrd stated that the KKK was “needed today as never before.”

President Obama described Byrd as a “statesman”, adding that his ties to the Klan could be forgiven following his long career as a Senator.

“We know there are things he said and things he did that he came to regret,” Obama said.

In reference to a conversation Obama said he once had with Byrd the president noted: “He said, ‘There are things I regretted in my youth. You may know that.’ I said, ‘None of us are absent some regrets, senator. That’s why we enjoy and seek the grace of God.’”

“And as I reflect on the full sweep of his 92 years, it seems to me that his life bent toward justice,” Obama added. “Like the Constitution he tucked in his pocket, like the nation itself, Robert Byrd possessed that quintessential American quality, and that is the capacity to change, a capacity to learn, a capacity to listen, a capacity to be made more perfect.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee will begin its hearing today on [Obama's] nomination of Elena Kagan to be the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Kagan is no stranger to the confirmation process; in fact, she devoted one of her few academic writings entirely to the subject,writing:

The Senate’s consideration of a nominee, and particularly the Senate’s confirmation hearings, ought to focus on substantive issues; the Senate ought to view the hearings as an opportunity to gain knowledge and promote public understanding of what the nominee believes the Court should do and how she would affect its conduct.

Kagan’s law review article specifically criticized recent confirmation hearings as “a vapid and hollow charade, in which repetition of platitudes has replaced discussion of viewpoints and personal anecdotes have supplanted legal analysis.” Instead, Kagan advocated that senators insist “on seeing how theory works in practice by evoking a nominee’s comments on particular issues – involving privacy rights, free speech, race and gender discrimination, and so forth – that the Court regularly faces.” Kagan even suggested that nominees with thin records (and Kagan’s record can definitely be considered “thin,” since she has no judicial experience, few academic writings, and virtually no litigation experience prior to her current post as Solicitor General), should face a heavier burden when answering senators’ questions. So what “substantive issues” should senators press Kagan on to see how her “theory works in practice”?

The First Amendment: As Solicitor General, Kagan asserted before the Supreme Court that government could ban political pamphlets. The core of the First Amendment is the protection of political speech. So not only does such a position therefore violate common sense, but its logic could be used to ban Thomas Paine’s Common Sense or other landmark political treatises, particularly if their authors were so foolish as to publish them through a non-profit corporation. Does Kagan believe that the First Amendment permits the government to ban pamphlets and books?

The Second Amendment: As a law clerk, Elena Kagan recommended that the Supreme Court not even hear a claim that the District of Columbia’s complete ban on handguns violates the Second Amendment — a claim that recently succeeded at the Court. The sole reasoning that she provided for denying the claim: “I’m not sympathetic.” Kagan was also intimately involved in gun-control policies in the Clinton White House, working to reclassify certain hunting rifles as assault weapons and to ban their importation. In Kagan’s notes obtained from the Clinton Library, she even lumped the National Rifle Association together with the KKK as “bad guy org[anization]s.” Does Kagan stand by her recommendation to reject access to the Supreme Court to someone denied his or her Second Amendment rights by a complete ban on handguns? Considering that she has argued that the government can ban political pamphlets, does she also believe that the Constitution permits the government to ban all guns, as well?

Social Issues vs. National Security: As dean of Harvard Law School, Kagan restricted military recruiters’ access to campus. Kagan’s actions, which were based upon a court of appeals decision that did not even apply to Harvard, violated the Solomon Amendment. It was only after the Department of Defense threatened to cut off Harvard’s funding that Kagan granted military recruiters customary access to campus. What legal authority did Kagan have to disregard the Solomon Amendment and restrict the access of military recruiters to campus? Does Kagan think it was appropriate to limit the ability of the military to recruit on campus at a time when the United States is fighting two wars?

Foreign Law vs. the U.S. Constitution: In a letter to Senator Arlen Specter (D–PA) during her Solicitor General confirmation hearings, Kagan wrote, “There are some circumstances in which it may be proper for judges to consider foreign law sources in ruling on constitutional questions,” such as the Eighth Amendment. This position seems consistent with Kagan’s approach as dean of Harvard Law School, where she led the effort to change the first-year curricula to mandate the study of international law while maintaining constitutional law as an elective course. This practice of looking at foreign law to change U.S. law raises grave questions about U.S. sovereignty and is frequently used selectively by justices who cite to practices that favor their desired outcomes.As a justice, would Kagan cite to foreign law in interpreting the U.S. Constitution?

When President Barack Obama outlined his criteria for appointing a replacement for retiring-Justice David Souter, he said he would seek: “someone who understands justice and isn’t about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a case book, it is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people’s lives … I view that quality of empathy of understanding and identifying what people’s hopes and struggles as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes.” Kagan has similarly written that it is the Supreme Court’s mission to “show a special solicitude for the despised and the disadvantaged.” At a time when this White House has shown an utter contempt for the rule of law in favor of their own political allies (e.g. Chrysler bailout, oil drilling moratorium, BP shakedown, etc.) it is now more important than ever that senators ensure Kagan is capable of putting aside her personal preferences, applying the law as it is written, and dispensing justice without regard to the parties before her.

Side Note: Robert Alt, Senior Legal Fellow and Deputy Director, Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week regarding Kagan’s nomination hearing. For more information, visit OrderInTheCourt.org.

Quick Hits:

• Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), the longest serving U.S. senator, died this morning at a Fairfax, Va., hospital at the age of 92.
• At a campaign stop outside of Milwaukee, Wis., on Friday, Vice President Joe Biden called the manager of a custard shop a “smartass” after the manager of the store asked him to lower taxes.
• At the G-20 summit in Toronto, President Obama urged other nations to increase their deficit spending while other nations pledged to halve their deficits.
• According to Gallup, conservatives not only maintained their historic gains from 2009 but added to it, with the percentage of Americans now describing themselves as either very conservative or conservative rising to 42% in the first half of 2010.
• Using the House Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill this week, UPS and its big labor allies in Congress will attempt to raise FedEx’s labor costs by making it easier for unions to organize FedEx employees.

More from The Heritage Foundation:

As the confirmation hearings of Elena Kagan got underway at 12:30, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jeff Sessions (R-AL), lost no time getting to the heart of the concerns that are raised by Elena Kagan’s nomination by President Obama to the Supreme Court:

Ms. Kagan has less real legal experience of any nominee in at least fifty years. It’s not just that she has never been a judge. She has barely practiced law, and not with the intensity and duration from which real understanding occurs. Ms. Kagan has never tried a case before a jury. She argued her first appellate case just nine months ago. While academia certainly has value, there is no substitute for being in the harness of the law, handling real cases over a period of years…

What Ms. Kagan’s public record does reveal, however, is a more extensive background in policy and politics, mixed with law. Ms. Kagan’s college thesis on socialism in New York seems to bemoan socialism’s demise there. In her master’s thesis, she affirmed the activist tendencies of the Earl Warren Court, but complained that they could have done a better job of justifying their activism…

During her White House years, the nominee was the central figure in the Clinton-Gore effort to restrict gun rights—and, as the dramatic 5-4 decision today in McDonald shows, the personal right of every American to own a gun hangs by a single vote…

Ms. Kagan was also the point person for the Clinton Administration’s efforts to block Congressional restrictions on partial-birth abortions. Indeed, documents show she was perhaps the key person who convinced President Clinton to change his mind, from supporting to opposing legislation that would have banned that horrible procedure…

During her time as Dean of Harvard, Ms. Kagan reversed Harvard’s existing policy and kicked the military out of the recruiting office in violation of federal law. Her actions punished the military and demeaned our soldiers as they were courageously fighting two wars overseas…

In her first appellate argument, Ms. Kagan told the Court that the speech and press guarantees in the First Amendment would allow the federal government to ban the publication of pamphlets discussing political issues before an election. I would remind my colleagues that the American Revolution was—in no small part—spurred on by just such a political pamphlet, Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense.” To suggest that the government now has the power to suppress that kind of speech is breathtaking.

Also as Solicitor General, Ms. Kagan approved the filing of a brief before the Supreme Court asking that it strike down provisions of the Legal Arizona Worker’s Act, which suspends or revokes business licenses of corporations which knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, even though Federal law expressly prohibits such hiring. She did this even after the liberal 9th Circuit had upheld the law…

She clerked for Judge Mikva and Justice Marshall, each a well-known liberal activist judge. And she has called Israeli Judge Aharon Barak—who has been described as the most activist judge in the world—her hero. These judges don’t deny activism; they advocate it. And they openly oppose the idea of a judge as a neutral umpire…

In the wake of one of the largest expansions of government power in history, many Americans are worried about Washington’s disregard for limits on its power…Even today, President Obama advocates a judicial philosophy that calls on judges to base their decisions on empathy and their “broader vision of what America should be.” He suggests that his nominee shares that view…Americans want a judge that will be a check on government overreach, not a rubber stamp.

Today’s decision on the Second Amendment by the Supreme Court in McDonald v. Chicago, in which Justice Sotomayor joined with the minority in trying to deny the Second Amendment rights of the American people in direct contradiction to her sworn testimony at her confirmation hearing, shows how important the Kagan hearing is. At her own confirmation hearing, Sotomayor disingenuously claimed that she understood “how important the right to bear arms is to many, many Americans.” Senator Leahy, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary, then said that he could “not see how any fair observer could regard her testimony as hostile to the Second Amendment personal right to bear arms, a right she has embraced and recognizes.” Unfortunately, Sotomayor appears to have forgotten how important the right is that she supposedly “embraced and recognizes” in the short time she has been on the Court and decided it was not quite fundamental enough to be a vital component of American liberty..

But this is just one example of why intensely questioning Kagan on all of these issues is vitally important to preserving this nation as a republic and protecting the liberties of its people. Confirming an activist, liberal judge who believes that the Supreme Court should act as super-legislature that imposes its view of social policy on the country would be an unmitigated disaster that would further imperil the Constitution and the rule of law.

A top aide to former Gov. Rod Blagojevich said he believed Barack Obama knew of Blagojevich’s plot to win himself a presidential Cabinet post in exchange for appointing Valerie Jarrett to the U.S. Senate.

John Harris, Blagojevich’s former chief of staff, testified Wednesday in the former governor’s corruption trial that three days after the Nov. 4, 2008, presidential election, the ex-governor told Harris he felt confident Obama knew he wanted to swap perks.

“The president understands that the governor would be willing to make the appointment of Valerie Jarrett as long as he gets what he’s asked for. . . . The governor gets the Cabinet appointment he’s asked for,” Harris said, explaining a recorded call.

Harris said Blagojevich came away believing Obama knew what he wanted after having a conversation with a local union representative, who in turn spoke with labor leader Tom Balanoff, with whom Blagojevich met to discuss a Jarrett appointment. Jarrett, now a White House adviser, was seeking the appointment to Obama’s Senate seat.

Defense lawyers say Harris’ testimony contradicts the government’s previous public statements that Obama knew nothing about deal-making involving the Senate seat appointment.

The defense on Wednesday moved to force the prosecution to turn over FBI reports of Obama’s interview with federal agents in December of 2008.

Obama is not accused of wrongdoing.

“Testimony elicited by the government from John Harris and wiretaps played in court raise the issue of President Obama’s direct knowledge and communication with emissaries and others regarding the appointment to his Senate seat,” lawyers wrote in the filing.

The filing came on the trial’s third day of the extensive playback of recordings in which Blagojevich is heard repeatedly discussing ways to personally capitalize on his Senate seat appointment power. Blagojevich could be heard plotting to try to head up a charity; swearing and snapping at his wife, Patti, and dismissing the possibility of a federal position that pays $190,000 a year.

“I make $170 . . . So Fred, that has no appeal to me . . . I want to make money,” Blagojevich tells national Democratic consultant Fred Yang. “I might as well go out and find a way to make money.”

Obama’s 2008 internal report about his staff’s contacts with Blagojevich at the time indicates that Balanoff relayed to Jarrett that Blagojevich was interested in a Health and Human Services Cabinet post.

Recordings also revealed that Blagojevich had tried to get the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board fired after it ran a series of disparaging write-ups about the then-governor.

Harris testified that he ignored Blagojevich’s firing directive.

Also Wednesday, U.S. District Judge James Zagel refused to gag the talkative Blagojevich as prosecutors had asked. Zagel said Blagojevich keeps saying he’s innocent, and that anyone who says otherwise is a liar.

The repetition, Zagel said, has rendered Blagojevich’s out-of-court talk unnewsworthy.

President Barack Obama’s nominee to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2^ndCircuit,  Robert N. Chatigny, did legal work as a private defense attorney in 1992 for convicted serial killer Michael Ross and then, in 2005, as a federal district judge, led a proceeding that resulted in a delay in Ross’ execution. Chatigny says he forgot about the earlier work and should have recused himself from the matter.

“Had I recalled it, I would have recused myself,” Chatigny wrote in a questionnaire last month for the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In 1992, Chatigny reviewed motions filed on behalf of Ross and exchanged a letter with Ross, work that did not involve direct representation of the killer. In early 2005, however, as a U.S. District judge in Connecticut, Chatigny led a conference call with attorneys and pushed Ross’ lawyer to do more to delay Ross’ execution, which the lawyer did after Chatigny bullied him over the phone, even threatening, “I’ll have your law license.”

An ethics complaint was subsequently filed that year against Chatigny by state prosecutors concerning his actions in the Ross case and Chatigny was eventually cleared of wrongdoing.

Many legal critics and Republicans think that Chatigny took extraordinary measures to halt the Ross execution in 2005. In committee hearings on Chatigny’s nomination to the 2^nd Circuit, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said of the issue, “I don’t think this is a matter that’s going to lightly go away.”  Also, Sen. Tom Coburn said, “I just wonder why you think your behavior in this case–which is pretty extraordinary–why that behavior would warrant a promotion to a much more senior court.”

Last week, nonetheless, Chatigny’s nomination cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party line vote, 11-7-1, with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) abstaining, and all of her Democratic colleagues on the committee voting to send Chatigny’s nomination to the full Senate.

Concerning the Ross case, the record shows that Chatigny’s earlier work in the case was uncovered only after the state prosecutors had filed the ethics complaint against the judge with the Second Circuit review panel. As part of that inquiry, they learned that Chatigny, while in private practice, had reviewed a motion on behalf of Ross filed by the Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association.

Chatigny testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee in May of this year that in 1992 he reviewed a motion that someone else had prepared. He later told the committee he had exchanged letters with Ross.

In a written response to questions from Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chatigny wrote, “I recalled my prior involvement only after one of the complainants amended his initial complaint to include a claim based on my prior involvement. Until then, I had no recollection of it.”

Ross had been convicted in 1987 and sentenced to death for the killing of four teenage girls; he boasted of raping and killing four other women. His 2005 execution would be the first in Connecticut in 40 years.

In late 2004, Ross had dropped all appeals and was ready to be executed. However, the state’s public defender’s office argued that Ross was not competent to drop his appeals. Ross then fired his public defenders and hired a private attorney, T.R. Paulding, who had the unusual role of defending his client’s right to be executed.

When the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that Ross was competent to drop his appeals, the public defender’s office brought its case to U.S. District Court in January 2005, with Chatigny presiding. Chatigny ruled in favor of the public defender.

One of the prosecutors asked Judge Chatigny in open court about any objections he might have to the death penalty.

In regards to that, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee asked, “Do you understand why one would find it difficult to believe that, even after the State’s Attorney questioned your partiality, you still failed to remember your involvement in one of the most notorious death penalty cases in the state’s history?”

Chatigny’s written response said, “Yes, I understand that a person unfamiliar with the facts regarding my prior involvement might question my failure to recall it. But the truth is I did not recall it. Had I recalled it, I would have recused myself.”

Weeks later, on Jan. 28, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Chatigny’s ruling, clearing the way for Ross’ execution that very day. It appeared the execution would proceed as scheduled.

However, Chatigny told Paulding in a conference call before the high court ruled that Ross “never should have been convicted, or if convicted, he never should have been sentenced to death,” and went on to tell Ross’ lawyer, “You better be prepared to deal with me” and, “I’ll have your law license.” So, Paulding asked to postpone the execution.

After a six-day competency hearing, a state Superior Court judge ruled in April 2005 that Ross was competent to forgo his appeals. Ross was subsequently executed on May 13, 2005, and pronounced dead at 2:25 a.m.

During the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on April 28, Chatigny told senators his involvement in the Ross case “didn’t extend beyond essentially acting as local counsel for my friend for the purpose of filing an application to file a motion” and “some very limited research.” He later said Ross sent him a letter and he responded with a letter in July 1992 stating he was no longer involved in the matter.

In the Judiciary questionnaire, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) asked, “Did you receive any orders following your filing an application to file a motion? If so, how many and for how many years?”

Chatigny said, “Yes. Soon after the amicus application was filed, I received an order granting the application. I do not recall receiving any other orders. However, my former firm’s file relating to the amicus application, when retrieved from storage by my former partner in 2005, contained service copies of various documents filed in the case in 1992, 1993 and 1994. I do not recall seeing any such documents at any time and do not believe I did see them.”

In the midst of the 2005 Ross controversy, Republican members of the Connecticut state legislature, both House and Senate, signed a letter to then-U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.), asking for an impeachment inquiry into Chatigny’s actions.

“By failing to respect and comply with the law, and by failing to act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary, Judge Chatigny may have violated the code of conduct of United States’ judges,” the Republican lawmakers said in the letter.

“Obviously, Congress was not interested in taking action in 2005,” Rep. Arthur O’Neill, the ranking Republican on the state legislature’s joint Judiciary Committee, told CNSNews.com last week. “But the standard for removing a judge for misconduct, and the standard for not promoting a judge are quite different.”

O’Neill predicts that Chatigny will be approved on a party-line vote by the full Senate because his nomination made it through the Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote.

“Judge Chatigny overstepped his bounds and was clearly biased and opposed to the death penalty,” O’Neill said. “He pushed past the line a federal judge should have gone, bordering on abuse of power.”

A scholar and charity head appointed to President Obama’s White House Fellowships Commission is closely tied to the Muslim leaders behind a proposed controversial Islamic cultural center to be built near the site of the 9/11 attacks.

The White House fellow, Vartan Gregorian, is president of Carnegie Corp. of New York.

Gregorian also serves on the board of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. The museum is reportedly working with the American Society for Muslim Advancement, or ASMA, whose leaders are behind the mosque, to ensure the future museum will represent the voices of American Muslims.

“[The 9/11 museum will represent the] voices of American Muslims in particular, and it will honor members of other communities who came together in support and collaboration with the Muslim community on September 11 and its aftermath,” stated Daisy Khan, executive director of the ASMA.

The future 9/11 museum’s oral historian, Jenny Pachucki, is collaborating with ASMA to ensure the perspective of American Muslims is woven into the overall experience of the museum, according to the museum’s blog.

Khan’s husband, Feisal Abdul Rauf, is the founder of ASMA as well as chairman of Cordoba Initiative, which is behind the proposed mosque to be built about two blocks from the area referred to as Ground Zero.

With Gregorian at its helm, Carnegie Corp. is at the top of the list of ASMA supporters on the Islamic group’s website.

Carnegie is also listed as a funder of both of ASMA’s partner organizations, Search for Common Ground and the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. Gregorian was a participant in the U.N. body’s first forum, as was Rauf.

Rauf is vice-chairman on the board of the Interfaith Center of New York, which honored Gregorian at an awards dinner in 2008.

World domination

Gregorian, born in Tabriz, Iran, served for eight years as a president of the New York Public Library and was also president of Brown University. He is the author of “Islam: A Mosaic, Not A Monolith.”

According to a book review by the Middle East Forum, Gregorian’s book “establishes the Islamist goal of world domination.”

A chapter of the book, “Islamism: Liberation Politics,” quotes Ayatollah Khomenei: “Islam does not conquer. Islam wants all countries to become Muslim, of themselves.” Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, is quoting stating it “is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its laws on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.”

Gregorian himself recommends for Muslims a system he calls “theo-democracy,” which he defines as “a divine democratic government” that, according to the book review, “would have a limited popular sovereignty under the suzerainty of Allah.”

Rauf, meanwhile, has caused a stir with his proposed $100 million, 13-story Islamic cultural center and mosque near the corner of Park Place and West Broadway – about two blocks from Ground Zero.

Just last week, WND reported Rauf refused during a live radio interview to condemn violent jihad groups as terrorists. Rauf repeatedly refused on-air to affirm the U.S. designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization or call the Muslim Brotherhood extremists.

The Brotherhood openly seeks to spread Islam around the world, while Hamas is committed to Israel’s destruction and is responsible for scores of suicide bombings, shootings and rocket attacks aimed at Jewish civilian population centers.

During that interview, Rauf was also asked who he believes was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.

“There’s no doubt,” stated Rauf. “The general perception all over the world was it was created by people who were sympathetic to Osama bin Laden. Whether they were part of the killer group or not, these are details that need to be left to the law-enforcement experts.”

Rauf has been on record several times as blaming U.S. policies for the Sept. 11 attacks. He has been quoted refusing to admit Muslims carried out the attacks.

Referring to the Sept. 11 attacks, Rauf told CNN, “U.S. policies were an accessory to the crime that happened. We (the U.S.) have been an accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world. Osama bin Laden was made in the USA.”

Madeline Brooks, a reporter who attended a sermon this year by Rauf, quoted the Islamic leader as stating “some people say it was Muslims who attacked on 9/11.”

Rauf’s 2004 book had two different titles – one in English and the second in Arabic. In the U.S., his book was called, ‘What’s right with America is what’s right with Islam.”

The same book, published in Arabic, bore the name, “The Call from the WTC Rubble: Islamic Da’wah from the Heart of America Post 9/11.”

Before President Obama took office, and the House Oversight Committee Republicans exposed ACORN’s pattern of illegal activities, they were close…really close…how close exactly? Let’s go to the video tape!

During President Obama’s West Point address last week in which he committed 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, he referred to his opposition to the war in Iraq, which he first voiced at a 2002 anti-war rally said to have helped launch his political career.

The rally, which drew some 2,000 participants, was planned by socialist and Marxist activists associated with Weatherman Underground founder William Ayers.

“I opposed the war in Iraq precisely because I believe that we must exercise restraint in the use of military force and always consider the long-term consequences of our actions,” Obama declared Tuesday.

The Oct. 2, 2002, rally at Chicago’s Federal Plaza that was widely credited with propelling to Obama to the national stage.

That event, meant to protest the impending invasion of Iraq, was coordinated on behalf of a small group, Chicagoans Against the War & Injustice, run by Marxist Carl Davidson and extremist activists Marilyn Katz and Bettylu Saltzman.

Davidson is a notorious far-left activist and former radical national leader in the anti-Vietnam movement. He served as national secretary for the infamous Students of a Democratic Society anti-war group, from which Ayers’ Weathermen later splintered.

Davidson was a founder of the New Party, a controversial 1990s political party that sought to elect members to public office with the aim of moving the Democratic Party far leftward to ultimately form a new political party with a socialist agenda.

WND previously reported newspaper evidence showing Obama was a member of the New Party.

Davidson recalled in a WND interview that Obama participated in the New Party. He affirmed that Obama’s views overlapped with those of his party.

Katz worked closely with Davidson, founding Chicagoans Against the War in Iraq. The two also co-authored a 2004 article, “From Protest to Politics,” urging radicals to support Democrat John Kerry for president. One year later, they collaborated on a book, “Stopping War, Seeking Justice: Essays in a Time of Empire”

A Discover the Networks profile said Katz provided “security” for the Students for a Democratic Society and has known Ayers since the age of 17.

During the SDS’s infamous Days of Rage riots in October 1969, Katz introduced protesters to a new weapon to deploy against the police: a cluster of nails sharpened at both ends and fastened in the center. Police later reported being hit by golf balls with nails through them, as well as by excrement. Katz would insist years later that her “guerrilla nails” were merely “a defensive weapon” to prevent “possible bad behavior by the police.”

Katz served on the finance committee of Obama’s presidential campaign.

Obama initially met Katz through his first job at a law firm run by Judd Miner. The New York Times reported Katz “gave [Obama] entry into another activist network: the foot soldiers of the white student and black power movements that helped define Chicago in the 1960s.”

After Obama became president, Katz reportedly tried to convince Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to appoint Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s top adviser, to Obama’s open U.S. Senate seat. The New York Times describes Katz as “a friend” of Jarrett’s who encouraged her to step out of Obama’s shadow and “be the sun.”

Saltzman, meanwhile, reportedly first met Obama when he was in charge of Project VOTE’s registration drive for the 1992 election.

Some anti-American extremists, such as Ayers, the past few days have been protesting Obama’s plan to deploy 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and begin drawing them down in July 2011.

“I am here demonstrating against the war because I am appalled and alarmed that once again we are escalating the war,” Ayers said, in a video interview captured on the streets of Chicago last week. “The idea that there are benchmarks for getting out is a myth and a lie.”

Also, principle Students for a Democratic Society organizer Tom Hayden last week wrote in the Nation magazine that he is removing an Obama bumper sticker from his car until all troops are removed from Afghanistan.

MADRID – U.S. President Barack Obama asked Spain to send Cuba a message about reform when he met Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero earlier this month, the newspaper El Pais reported on Sunday.

Six days after their meeting on October 13 at the White House, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos visited the Caribbean island and met President Raul Castro.

“Have (Moratinos) tell the Cuban authorities we understand that change can’t happen overnight, but down the road, when we look back at this time, it should be clear that now is when those changes began,” Obama told Zapatero, according to diplomatic sources quoted by El Pais.

“We’re taking steps, but if they don’t take steps too, it’s going to be very hard for us to continue,” Obama said.

Obama has pledged a “new beginning” in ties with Cuba as part of a new era of U.S. partnership and engagement with Latin America and the Caribbean.

No one from the Spanish government was immediately available to comment on the report.

Moratinos met Castro on October 19 and said the communist leader had affirmed his commitment to economic reform and expressed his desire to continue improving relations with the United States.

Spain, one of Cuba’s biggest trading partners, has highlighted improved relations between the European Union and the island as one of its priorities when it takes over the rotating EU presidency in January.