It was not all that long ago that the Virginian Pilot, Maurice Jones Publisher, was inveighing against Republican Delegate Phil Hamilton. Hamilton, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates had managed to get a grant for Old Dominion University. In return for which grant, Hamilton was hired by Old Dominion to teach a course at a salary of $40,000 a year. The result: Phil Hamilton has been sentenced to nine and a half years in prison, for which the Virginian Pilot claimed credit.
Barack Obama, when he needed extra income, got his wife a job.
After Barack Obama became an Illinois state legislator, his wife moved up as well, scoring a job as 'vice president of community relations' at the University Of Chicago Hospital for a very generous salary of $121,910. When Obama became a senator in 2005, her 'salary' leapfrogged to $316,962 for the same job...and one of Senator Obama's first acts in office was to see to it that the hospital received over a million dollars of your tax dollars as an earmark.
You say this could be sheer coincidence? After all, Michelle Obama was filling a vital role at the hospital, right?
Well, Michelle has moved on, and guess what...that vital job of hers, worth a salary of over $300 K has been quietly eliminated.
Phil Hamilton came a lot cheaper than Michelle and took the job himself. Michelle got a “no-show” job and the Obama family finances got much better, in fact she was the family’s primary breadwinner. Obama himself earned $58,000 a year as an Illinois state senator which was supplemented by an $8,000-a-month retainer to give legal advice to Robert Blackwell Jr. owner of Electronic Knowledge Interchange (EKI). A few months after receiving his final payment from EKI, Obama sent a request on state Senate letterhead urging Illinois officials to provide a $50,000 tourism promotion grant to another Blackwell company, Killerspin. With support from Obama, other state officials and an Obama aide who went to work part time for Killerspin, the company eventually obtained $320,000 in state grants. Hamilton needs to study up on how the big boys and girls do it.
Maurice Jones was recently nominated by Barack Obama to be deputy secretary for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Jones is part of the apparatus of the famous revolving door between government employment and private industry, where one hand washes the other. No word yet on whether Maurice Jones has a problem working for someone who did the same thing as Phil Hamilton, selling his office for cash. This time the Virginian Pilot didn't care.
1 comment:
Well said! Isn't it odd that according to the prosecution Hamilton is the first elected official in Virginia to be convicted of selling his office for money.
If this is the best the press can do in protecting Virginian from corruption they have certainly settled for low-hanging fruit.
I don't know who the victim was in the Hamilton case.
Dave Smiley, Virginia Beach
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