Boston Globe Exposé, Part I: Introducing Cecil Butler, Obama’s West Side Slumlord Patron
By Un coup de des on June 27, 2008 at 3:57 PM in Barack Obama, Chicago, Chicago politics, Rezko, Tony Rezko
This is the first of a series of articles to be written on a lengthy exposé published in the Boston Globe entitled “Grim Proving Ground for Obama’s Housing Policy.” The 27 JUN 2008 investigative report is required reading for all No Quarter users. The editorial board of No Quarter finds the evidence cited in Binyamin Appelbaum’s article very compelling, and we will attempt to unpack it in a series of short essays to be published this weekend.
If Antoin “Tony” Rezko is Barack Obama’s slumlord patron from Chicago’s South Side, Cecil Butler is Rezko’s West Side counterpart. I quote:
Campaign finance records show that six prominent developers - including Jarrett, Davis, and Rezko - collectively contributed more than $175,000 to Obama’s campaigns over the last decade and raised hundreds of thousands more from other donors. Rezko alone raised at least $200,000, by Obama’s own accounting.
One of those contributors, Cecil Butler, controlled Lawndale Restoration, the largest subsidized complex in Chicago, which was seized by the government in 2006 after city inspectors found more than 1,800 code violations.
Similar to Rezko, Cecil Butler is a developer who profited from the privatization of low income, public housing in Chicago during the 1990s. Butler is also not coincidentally a major supporter of Barack Obama whose low income tenements were ultimately seized by the government for multiple building code violations.
The Boston Globe provides a description and a brief history of Butler’s Lawndale Restoration.
Chicago’s struggles with the deterioration of its subsidized private developments seemed to reach a new height in 2006, when the federal government foreclosed on Lawndale Restoration, the city’s largest subsidized-housing complex. City inspectors found more than 1,800 code violations, including roof leaks, exposed wiring, and pools of sewage.
Lawndale Restoration was a collection of more than 1,200 apartments in 97 buildings spread across 300 blocks of west Chicago. It was owned by a company controlled by Cecil Butler, a former civil rights activist who came to be reviled as a slumlord by a younger generation of activists.
Lawndale Restoration was created in the early 1980s, when the federal government helped Butler take control of a group of old buildings, including lending $22 million to his company to redevelop the buildings and agreeing to subsidize tenant rents. In 1995, Butler’s company got a $51 million loan from the state to fund additional renovations at Lawndale Restoration. In 2000 Butler’s company brought in Habitat Co. to help manage the complex.
Nonetheless, the buildings deteriorated badly. The problems came to public attention in a dramatic way in 2004, after a sport utility vehicle driven by a suburban woman trying to buy drugs struck one of the buildings, causing it to collapse. City inspectors arrived in the ensuing glare, finding a long list of code violations, leading city officials to urge the federal government to seize the complex.
Who helped Cecil Butler secure government funds for Woodlawn Restoration? Barack Obama, of course: the same Barack Obama who wrote letters on behalf of Rezko’s slum properties the same year residents of Rezko’s tenements were complaining of lack of heat and sanitation services. For the Executive Vice President of Habitat Co., the company who helped Butler manage his deteriorating warren of slums, was Valerie Jarrett, another Obama contributor who develops low income housing and serves as a top advisor to the Obama for President campaign. The Boston Globe explains how Obama exploited his position as state Senator to assist Jarrett and Cecil Butler. I quote:
Obama translated that belief into legislative action as a state senator. In 2001, Obama and a Republican colleague, William Peterson, sponsored a successful bill that increased state subsidies for private developers. The law let developers designated by the state raise up to $26 million a year by selling tax credits to Illinois residents. For each $1 in credits purchased, the buyer was allowed to decrease his taxable income by 50 cents.
Obama also cosponsored the original version of a bill creating an annual fund to subsidize rents for extremely low-income tenants, although it did not pass until 2005, after he had left the state Senate.
“He was very passionate about the issues,” said Julie Dworkin of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, who worked with Obama on affordable housing issues. “He was someone we could go to and count on him to be there.”
The developers gave Obama their financial support. Jarrett, Davis, and Rezko all served on Obama’s campaign finance committee when he won a seat in the US Senate in 2004.
Obama has continued to support increased subsidies as a presidential candidate, calling for the creation of an Affordable Housing Trust Fund, which could distribute an estimated $500 million a year to developers. The money would be siphoned from the profits of two mortgage companies created and supervised by the federal government,
Fannie Mae andFreddie Mac .
Obama, in other words, authored and passed bills to the financial benefit of his slumlord contributors, and he will continue to do so as Senator and perhaps as President.
I mention Cecil Butler, as Butler was the subject of much controversy during Barack Obama’s 2004 bid for the US Senate. According to the Boston Globe, Obama’s deep ties to Butler and to Jarrett compelled many activists in Lawndale to support Obama’s opponent Republican Alan Keyes. The political alliance was so strange even the Chicago Reader penned an article on the protest activists in Lawndale were staging. I quote the Boston Globe:
In the midst of the uproar, a small group of Lawndale residents gathered to rally against the Democratic candidate for the US Senate, Barack Obama.
Obama’s Republican opponent, Alan Keyes, trailed badly in the polls and was not seen as a serious challenger. But the organizers had a simple message: Cecil Butler had donated $3,000 to Obama’s campaign. Habitat had close ties to Obama. And Obama had remained silent about Lawndale’s plight.
Paul Johnson, who helped to organize the protest, said Obama must have known about the problems.
“How didn’t he know?” said Johnson. “Of course he knew. He just didn’t care.”
“He just didn’t care:” just as Obama did not care about the residents who lacked heat and sanitation services in a Rezko tenement during the late 1990s when he represented them in the state Senate.
A disturbing pattern emerges, and it can be summarized as follows:
- Obama secured funds for developers who desired to earn profits off of low income housing during the privitization scheme of the Chicago Housing Authority that occurred during Barack Obama’s tenure as a state Senator. Those developers include Tony Rezko, Valerie Jarrett and Cecil Butler.
- These public-private partnerships failed, leaving many in squalor.
- Barack Obama remained silent, but he accepted contributions from Rezko, Jarrett, Butler and others.
- Rezko is not an isolated case. Obama also colluded with the likes of Cecil Butler, whose negligence inspired African-American residents of the Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side to organize support for radical Republican Alan Keyes during Obama’s 2004 Senate bid.
- Obama’s desire to privatize public housing has resulted in a series of failed projects that have left the indigent in squalor.
- But Obama accepted the political contributions of these unscrupulous developers nonetheless.
Flineo created a video entitled “Obama’s Forgotten People,” and I publish it again, as there is a new group of low income housing residents on the West Side of Chicago Obama we can add to the group on the South Side Obama abandoned in order to climb the political and social ladder.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP-YoB5mnZs[/youtube]
Nothing, in my opinion, is more deplorable than a career politician who exploited African-Americans in low income housing for political and personal gain. And Obama did it again and again in inner city Chicago. Now he has manipulated African-Americans across the country to view his candidacy as the empowerment of the very people Obama ignored in order to line the pockets of his slumlord friends and contributors. Progressives and ostensible Democrats may forget, but those of us who are concerned with social justice will continue to serve as the true muckrakers this election cycle.
The edifices reproduced in this essay are buildings managed by Cecil Butler. The restoration project that followed in the wake of Cecil Butler’s mismanagement of Lawndale Restoration is described in this document.
Un coup de des you did a great job putting this together!
Much more dirt on Obama’s past, links to G.O.P. and the overall plan to swindle this election:
http://www.thecityedition.com/Pages/Archive/Winter08/2008Election.html
Great article !
This is a very disturbing report which we hope will bring justice to the tenants and put to jail the corrupt developers and guilty politicians.
hey, the video is no longer available. What’s that about?
It’s funny how they have all these rules for people who have to live there, but none for the scumbags making a fortune off them.
Excellent work
Amazing! So complex. So dirty. Yuck.
Obama, the anti-community organizer.
He was basically a playground director. he registered voters. That’s what he “organized”. From this he becomes a senator. Only in Chicago.
Nothing worse than trampling and abusing the most vulnerable amongst us.
But we know that Obama does not care who he throws under the bus..or steps on on his road to power and position.
Well he wants to be president so he can pardon Tony Rezko and make him the head of HUD. He will help even MORE poor people live with rats and no heat.
Why don’t the networks cover and report on this aspect of Obama? If this were one of the Clintons we would be hearing it 24/7. Obama is not a liberal and he doesn’t care about the people who are not as well off as he is. He doesn’t care about African Americans and has bamboozled them into thinking he is the next Messiah. He is nothing but a lowlife criminal who should be investigated for all of the crimes he has stood behind for his wealthy sick friends.
HA! Can you just SEE THE HEADLINES!!
They would CRUCIFY the Clintons for this……. and rightly deserved!
Such fricken hypocrisy here it’s so THICK your boots get stuck as you try to take another step……. and damn you don’t want to lose that shoe in the mud!! lol
I’m sure the Repugs will do an adequate job of castrating the bho campaign with all this but it REALLY SHOULD NOT BE THEIRS TO ENJOY!!
I’m sorry I just can’t believe we are still considering putting his name on the ballot in NOV. It’s just crazy talk. He’s soooooo not qualified.
Where’s MIKE GRAVEL????? I’d like to vote for MIKE! (if we’re all just getting crazy)
but I won’t pull the lever for Bambi
nope
ACTION ALERT!! Help force the Senate Commerce Committee to hold hearings on the media bias and suppression of damaging info about Obama. It violates anti-trust law, FCC rules and may even amount to a criminal conspiracy. Here is info, a sample letter to Sen. Boxer and contact links to all the committee members. They held hearings on the Dixie Chicks case, why not now?
http://www.thecityedition.com/Pages/Archive/Winter08/MediaPushbackCampaign.html
The FCC is just as useless as the FDA. Political appointees all of them. The FCC is too busy looking for somebody’s boob to show up on TV so that they can collect some money in fines.
What’s really sad is that it is the Clintons who are genuinely trying to help the poor and disadvantaged.
The Clintons cared very much about the AA community,
yet they turned their back on the Clintons.
It’s been along time since I lived in MA. Hopefully the Globe is still as influential as always. If so, the local TV stations will pick it up and develop it. From there we can hope to makes it to global reporting.
It is good to see a major newspaper is starting to get down to the nitty gritty- and in Kennedy/Kerry country too!
Hopefully, the Globe still has integrity and won’t back off when the Big Boyz start crying.
This is a great article! Sorry I forgot to tell you in above post. Thank you for the hard work.
Get over it. Who cares if Obama betrayed the community he “organized.” How does this talking about slums help Michelle’s children? How does this further the discussion about how Michelle is a victim of sexism just as much as Hillary?
Funny!
Betrayal is yet another kind of CHANGE. It is the epitome of CHANGE, the ne plus ultra of CHANGE.
That remark he made was a huge mistake. He lost even more women that day.
Besides, Michelle is registered as MALE in her county voting records.
I have that link somewhere.
I always felt these developers were the real story of the myth of Obama as the change agent.
Obama says he “didn’t know”.
He is either lying or stupid. Either way he has no business asking the American people to believe in his hope and change message.
He is lying because he is very smart about manipulating politcal systems. I hope everyone in this blog community will keep hammering on this and pound in the word “profitizing” (not privatizing) until the message sinks in to the general public and they really start to think about the implications.
Democrats are NOT about profitizing — that is the domain of the Republicans. How can Obama claim to be a Democrat while advocating Republican values? How interesting that Obama always wants to “reach out” to them!
Hey, if our nominee is just going to do the things the Republicans do, then we might as well vote for McCain.
My family, friends & I are NOT voting for BHO!
For our great country, do not vote Obama !
Hillary or McCain ‘08
God Bless America!
Bob Barr is the better choice. I’m not wasting my vote on Obama or McCain. I’m voting for the people’s rights and world peace. Barr.Root 2008
Obama has his slum lord buddies, and Bush has his defense contractor buddies.
He has to be lying. These slums are iin his district. Or maybe he never showed up for work there either. I don’t think he’s done a lick of work in his life. Even mo says he doesn’t even take out the garbage.
I have always pointed to his representation of that district that Rezko was awarded money to for rehabilitation. Nothing was done and those people froze in Chicago winters. How could Obama not have known? Why did he not challenge Rezko? Why did he not demand an audit?
Because they were all benefiting in one way or another. If he could allow this to happen to a few thousand people he will do it to millions if given the chance. The man is nothing more than a political opportunist.
He can take his hope and change crapola and put it back in the dictionary as this is all that it means to him.
Wake up America!
How is he any different than Cheney, though, or Bush, or Rove, though?
They let New Orleans drown, did everyone forget?
Which part of “get out” didn’t they understand?
Kevin, you are telling people without cars and money to get out and go where? Thousands went to that colliseum where they stayed for days with no water. That is all those poor people could do. What a drip you are.
A female democratic senator from PA just was on Fox news doing an interview and said she had never heard of Obama having a trust from any of the PUMA parties. She said the only person she ever heard that statement from was McCain.
Ok PA what’s wrong with you Puma’s out there? Don’t you talk with your congress women?
Who was she? I’m in PA, I’ll be happy to inform her.
After reading this - why is anyone voting for this guy? How is he winning elections in IL? Doesn’t anyone care about this people?
only low income, low information, low IQ, racist Hillary supporter types like us.
I thought most of the people here were Republicans, pretending to support Hillary…
Or would that just be the “brilliant” crew of trolls?
LOLOLOLOLOLOL
You don’t win elections in IL, you buy them.
To understand how Nobama has won elections in Chicago you have to understand the Machine as it is called in ChiTown.
Obama made his way into the Machine via Rezko.
What happens in the Machine to get, (and keep), certain politicians in office is simple. Most city and county workers had to “know” someone to get their job. To then keep that job they have to campaign, donate and also vote as they are told by higher ups. Most employees are accountable for a set amount of donations too. This is all checked and if you are caught not doing as you were told you loose your job. There are tens of thousands of these workers and when you add in the family voters you have a machine voting one way. This keeps the power within a select group.
Not all in IL like Nobama I promise you that. In fact the further away from Chicago you get the less he is liked.
Don’t forget Michelle’s father was a precinct captain and had a patronage job with the Department of Streets and Sanitation. How do I know it was a patronage job? Because ALL those city jobs are patronage jobs. And Michelle worked as an assistant to Mayor Daley. So Obama married into the machine.
I have written to EVERY delegate in PA. Who is this person? Does she not read her e-mails or listen to her messages?
Get her name, I will be happy to see she gets more e-mails and calls.
Wasn’t he imitating denzel in Malcom X by inciting passions of AA voters by saying
“You were Hoodwinked! Bamboozled!!”
But he did not tell them that he himself was the one who did the hoodwinking and bamboozling!
Good one!
He quotes too many movies for my taste.
I have tried to tell everyone since he announced his run that Allison Davis his first boss would blow up in his face. Valerie Jarrett his trusted advisor and BFF of Michel has become a very rich person because of her relationship with Mayor Daley and so has Allison (I’m a blackman Davis). You have to see his picture to get the reference. This is minor what they did on the Westside compared to what they did on the Southside. They are slumlords that have become richer than crap off the backs of poor black people. If Black fokes knew the real Bambi and his associates, they would have not voted 9 to 1 for him.
When it became increasingly clear to me that the MSM was making Obama the candidate, I began researching Obama on the internet because I was trying to find reasons for me to campaign for Obama.
Reading the Chicago newspapers shed a much different light on the real Obama from the Obama character in his books. He is quite opposite from the community builder he is portrayed in the MSM.
His associations with Chi developers and his overlooking their obvious slumlord behavior was one of the main facts that led me to adamantly oppose Obama and expose him for the fraud he is.
Thank you for your great job of presenting these facts again!
This is really something! I did the same thing … went to the Chicago papers and, like you, discovered what could be one of the great detective stories of our time. Reading the articles from the Sun Times and the Trib shocked me. I am from NYC and stupid me, I was reading the NY Times and the Daily News, not even imagining I was reading a fairy tale (boy, was Bill Clinton right about that). Now I no longer read the Times or the News… no NY Papers at all. I read the Chicago Papers every day, and I also look for the John Kass column at the Chicago Tribune which appears several times a week. I read No Quarter and use the links to other sites posted here. I discovered Evelyn Pringle’s articles by accident at the OpEd site (extremely pro-Obama and quite nutty in my opinion but for Evelyn’s stuff). I noticed that the Sun Times and Chicago Tribune have been at this for years. But none of it was picked up by other big city papers … until today … until the Boston Globe .. and the release of these documents related to the Rezko trial. For months we’ve been watching Hillary battle Obama in debate after debate and the crackdown by the mainstream media has been nothing short of extraordinary. Hillary Clinton should be commended for her ability to survive this and win the popular vote as well. I only hope there’s some justice left in this world. It’s no longer a case of hoping she can prevail. If this country is to be kept out of the grip of Obama & Co., Hillary Clinton must prevail.
You are absolutely right. If the MSM wasn’t either in the tank for Obama or just too lazy to live, they would have already been reporting on this. The info is not hard to find.
I live in Massachusetts and began reading the Chicago newspapers several months ago when I suspected I wasn’t getting all the news about Barack Obama from the MSM. (Our governor, Deval Patrick, is another David Axelrod production.) I see there are others of us out here!
Diane, our Mistress of Mischief, at JustSayNoDeal.com has sent the following schedule of events:
ABC - POLITICS LIVE - INTERVIEW 215PM
Interview with MAWM! Neil Cavuto, FOX NEWS- 4:15pm
MSNBC - INTERVIEW 4:30pm
FOX BUSINESS NETWORK 7PM
CBS EVENING NEWS - 6PM
GOOD MORNING AMERICA - TOMORROW A.M.
FOX NEWS SATURDAY - BETWEEN 2 & 4PM
AL JAZEERA ENGLISH - 4PM TODAY
Diane sas she is fielding calls from the media in Japan and Germany as well. Hot damn! The Viral has gone Global!
http://riverdaughter.wordpress.com/2008/06/27/pumas-are-coming-on-lets-get-this-un-party-started/
YAY! Thanks for that!
What time zone are those times for?
All Eastern time.
That’s great news!
Hillary was winning the AA vote based on all the great work her and her husband have done and Bill still does with his foundation (with almost of the money going to Africa) than Obama played the race card.
What has the Obama’s actually done for the AA community. Barack has hurt them allowing slumlords to be giving grants time and time again in his district shame on him. Allowing AA to go without Heat and clean living conditions.
I don’t understand it. I could never vote for a candidate based solely on skin color or sex. There are so many well-qualified AA’s out there, who I would vote for in a heartbeat. Obama is not one of them. When you allow your most vulnerable constituents to live in squalor without making any attempt to help them, you are a worthless SOB. And to use the BS statement that “he didn’t know”, just shows he is either incompetent or an unfeeling, self-serving bastard.
Why he helped Tony Rezko renovate all those buildings and make those lovely apartments.
Oh wait……not exactly.
Obama is one sick puppy among a pack of wild dogs that prey on the needy. Such a sorry bunch of low down good for nothings. Lower than snakes.
They also prey on peoples hate and fear. That’s why Trinity and St. Sabina have done so well.
How could Americans be so dumb? How many of these things need to come out.
People that live outside Chicago always expect the corruptness of the Chicago Mafia Machine to elect people on the take but this is the machine going national.
I think this man is not only dangerous but its would be risky to even think about electing him.
Have you all accepted Obama as your personal slumlord and savior? Praise the (slum) lord!
I am saved!
i saw a puma on foxnews this afternoon and he let it rip about obama ! we have to get that transcript and post it here. this guy had it dead on…..you have to listen how he summed up what we have been saying for months ! his best statement was ” i dont trust america to obama “……and it said “puma member” under his picture. i think it was in “unity” new hamshire after the speeches.
Obama was too busy fleecing taxpayers to enrich his cronies, who in-turn enriched Him.
Obama believes no principle is too sacred to sacrifice on the alter of ambition!
Native American’s Against Obama -Where?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReaNbXkygn8
Yeah Blu, Obama has a problem with the “First Nations”. This is not new. I am in touch with MANY of my brothers and sisters on and off the REZ and believe me, they know Coyote shit when they see it!
Right On RedDragon62! Coyote Shit sums it up beautifully. I been trying to think up the ultimate definition of what I am seeing here. PEACE!
Ed Rendell said today— he wouldn’t mind working under a President Obama as Secretary of Transportation once his term as governor of PA runs out. That explains his comments yesterday. *%@!*
The time of the Long Knives is upon us. I believe you get my drift!
As the song goes….
” They smile in your face, all the time wanna take your place…The back Stabbers”……..Ojays
I was thinking of the song “River”
“That boy ain’t right.”
Rendell said on fox tonight that he thinks bo will win over Hillarys voters. The commentator said if he doesn’t he’ll lose and if he does he’ll probably win. Well bud, he doesn’t.
So far:
38% OBAMA
62% MCCAIN
http://www.news.aol.com/political-machine/2008/06/27/aol-straw-poll-june-27-july-4/
GO VOTE!
Just did for McCain
This is what I have been SCREAMING about for YEARS! This man is FUCKED UP!
He can not be trusted! He is a DAMN CROOK! If this was McCain or Hillary, they would have SCORCHED them with this criminality! Why not Obama?
Those of you that :Know” of me know I have been preaching this for some time. I live here in Chicago and those of us that pay attention here, know all of this!
Thank you NOQuarter and Boston Globe for FINALLY putting this to the public. Will it do any good? Time will tell.
Sorry for the intro….But when I read the above story, I lost it..ROFLMAO!
How do you think this lady explained herself to her family.
I know the Rev. Wright and Pflegar used this as an example of white people raping the community:
Nonetheless, the buildings deteriorated badly. The problems came to public attention in a dramatic way in 2004, after a sport utility vehicle driven by a suburban woman trying to buy drugs struck one of the buildings, causing it to collapse.
Are we on different planets from MSNBO???
Even PAT B is drinking the koolaid or just goin along to get along?
I mean his praise of BHO was all a lie! None of it was true. He’s NOT a brilliant politician! Not if WE HERE at NO Quarter have him figured out!!
And we’re not alone. We just NEED someone that can speak slow with clarity to the DingAlingLemmings of MSNBO! They are NOT paying attention. Harwood is beyond lost, poor Joan she tries, Pat’s gone, i don’t know who the other hostile obamabot was but he reminded me of a hyena … the way he kept snickering his disgust of Hillary!
ARGH I wanted to just slap him stupid! or MORE stupid
You know those buildings were built in true Chicago fashion. Patronage contracts, substandard materials. Those bldgs were and are just waiting to collapse.
You are preaching to the choir in Chicago. I supported his Senate bid against the Daley Machine slated canidated, but what is he going to say in Denver? 4 years ago I made a speech on the stage at the DNC convention. And, Oprah loved it and went on Larry King and said I should be President.
Give me one ‘F”ing break!! This is worst than W. And with this Daley Machine, we will have higher everything. It cost more for gas and water in Chicago than anywhere in the country. And, according to recent report, we will have the highest murder rate this year. One homocide that will not be mentioned or counted is the murder of the DEMS as we loved it.
The more we know about Barack Obama the more evident it becomes that not only is he not new, different, fresh, or any of the other thoughts that seems to be tossed about. It appears that Mr. Obama is more corrupt than the average politician. He is certainly prone to lie at moment notice like the average politician. In fact he is a through back to worst kind of offender. For the first time in a very long time, the words “Limousine Liberal and Poverty Pimp” comes to mind when I think of the Barack Obama we are getting to know.
Here’s the sad part about all of this, those men and women out there who are not connected to the party machine and are not players in the Democratic Party leadership apparatus are true believers, they have been convinced that this guy (this corrupt empty suit) is the read deal, unfortunately they are right. Just not the real deal they have been waiting for. If we don’t stop him, just maybe his former pastor will prove to be prophetical, in that we may very well be dammed.
Native American’s Against Obama
http://nativeamericansagainstobama.wordpress.com/
That is an excellent video on the website. Can you tell me who is singing that song?
That is Walela, Rita Coolidge and relatives. They are singing in Cherokee.
Is that your new link? You folks were one of the blogs that got locked thanks to Obama Comrade scum falsely reported a bunch of anti Obama blogs as spam, right?
If that’s you, I will put your new link up.
If the delegates knew you would not vote for them if they are going to be in the ballot on NOV. if they are supporting OBAMA. What would they do? Your vote has been taken for granted. I hate it when they say they will come around by Nov. no where else to go. I thought of writing Hillary’s name but then its like throwing my vote away. Someone has to be in the WHITE HOUSE let it be MCCAIN. SINCE MICHELLE DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO TAKE CARE OF HER HOUSE, SHE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO TAKE CARE OF THE WHITE HOUSE.