Andy Martin says Barack Obama’s business associate should be freed from solitary confinement

NEWS FROM:
ANDY MARTIN
“He works for
the People of Illinois”
Suite 4406
30 E. Huron Street
Chicago, IL 60611-4723
(312) 440-4124

ATTENTION: ASSIGNMENT/DAYBOOK EDITORS

ANNOUNCEMENT OF NEWS CONFERENCE TODAY: February 22, 2008

(CHICAGO)(February 22, 2008) Internet editor and columnist Andy Martin will hold a Chicago news conference today, Friday, February 22nd at 3:00 P.M. to call on Senator Barack Obama to make a full, complete, “honest and truthful” disclosure of all of his contacts and relationship with indicted Illinois influence-peddler Tony Rezko.

Martin will also announce he has asked federal authorities to “Free Tony Rezko” and will release copies of Martin’s letter to the Department of Justice.

“Barack Obama has been lying to the American people, plain and simple,” Martin will charge. “He told the media that Tony Rezko was someone ‘he had known’ in Chicago. Today’s Chicago Sun-Times discloses otherwise. Rezko and Obama went house-hunting together: http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/807793,CST-NWS-rside22.article

“With all due respect, house-hunting is one of the most personal things people do in life. We all know that. You don’t go house-hunting with strangers or casual acquaintances, as Obama would have us believe. The disclosure that Barry and Tony went looking together raises the closeness of the Obama-Rezko relationship to a hitherto-undisclosed level.

“Obama has been trying to conceal the truth from the American people. It is time for Obama to ‘come clean’ and stop lying.

“On a related matter, I have written to the Department of Justice and Attorney General and asked that Tony Rezko either be freed from confinement or placed in general population. The attempt to psychologically torture Rezko and to deprive him of a meaningful opportunity to defend himself is a disgrace to American justice. It is time we as a nation stopped torturing our own, just as we should stop torturing abroad,” Martin will state.

NEWS CONFERENCE DETAILS:

WHO: Internet Columnist-editor/media critic
Andy Martin on the need for Barack Obama to
make full disclosure on his links to Tony Rezko,
and for the U. S. Department of Justice to
Free Tony Rezko

WHERE: 30 E. Huron Street, Chicago

WHEN: Friday, February 22, 3:00 P.M.

MEDIA
CONTACT: (312) 440-4124

WEBSITE: ContrarianCommentary.com

BLOGS: ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com;
ContrarianCommentary.wordpress.com

E-MAIL: AndyMart20@aol.com

-----------------------------------------------------------
Chicago-based Internet journalist, broadcaster and media critic Andy Martin is the Executive Editor and publisher of ContrarianCommentary.com. © Copyright by Andy Martin 2008. Martin covers regional, national and world events with more than forty years of experience. Martin is a former candidate for United States senator. AndyforUSSenator.com. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law.

Andy Martin says "Free Tony Rezko,” Barack Obama’s close friend

ANDY MARTIN
Executive Editor
ContrarianCommentary.com

“Factually Correct, Not
Politically Correct”

ContrarianCommentary.com update:

FREE TONY REZKO, PART TWO

THE U. S. GOVERNMENT LOVES TORTURE; WE EVEN PRACTICE IT ON OUR OWN CITIZENS

THIS IS JUSTICE? CHICAGO–STYLE?

(CHICAGO)(February 22, 2008) One of the first things the United States did after the invasion of Iraq was to reopen Saddam Hussein’s jails. U.S.-trained jail guards went on to torture helpless detainees. Abu Ghraib became a worldwide symbol of shame for America. And, for good measure, the U.S. proposed building a massive new prison system in Iraq, a new Saddam-style gulag to imprison tens of thousands of Iraqis, most of them innocent. We condemned Saddam for the very practices that we then imposed on Iraq ourselves.

If Iraq is too painful for you to accept, American jailers also tortured and murdered helpless prisoners in Afghanistan as well. Our barbarity seemingly knows no limits. So why stop at Abu Ghraib, Baghram or Guantanamo? Why indeed.

The current case of Tony Rezko in federal court in Chicago is illustrative of a fact that is not often obvious. Americans love to torture; we even torture our own.

Mr. Rezko is not charged with a violent crime. I have no problem imprisoning violent defendants and those charged with crimes of violence. That is what jails should be used for. Rezko is charged with what used to be called “white-collar” crime. He is charged with being a part of Illinois’ dirty and corrupt politics.

He went house-hunting with presidential candidate Barack Obama, as today’s Chicago Sun-Tues confirms, see http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/807793,CST-NWS-rside22.article.

So is Rezko a violent beast who should be caged and paraded around the courthouse and streets of Chicago in chains? I think not. If you want to see why we commit crimes at Abu Ghraib and Baghram, look at what Rezko’s jailer had to say. He told the judge they were not “punishing” Rezko. He was being psychologically tortured “for his own safety.” Somewhere in hell, Joseph Stalin in smiling.

Federal jail guards have locked Rezko in his tiny cell 23 hours a day, forced him to “share underwear” in some form, and sought to destabilize his mind through this abusive treatment.

This is the way the federal government wins cases in Chicago. Imagine if you will that you are charged with a serious, complex crime. Every day you are awakened at 4:30 A.M., strip searched, chained and dragged through the streets in caged vans, then searched again and held in a cold cell for hours, all before your trial starts each day. At the end of the day you repeat this process, return to solitary confinement and eat cold slop. You are cut off from visits by many family and friends. How well could you focus? How well could you concentrate? How well could you defend yourself?

How well could you defend yourself against the power of federal prosecutors, agents and a judge who hates Arabs and Muslims? How well, indeed?

In other words, the federal government, after accusing Rezko of scheming, is now scheming to deny him a fair trial and to convict him based on psychological torture techniques that have been condemned by the U. S. Government elsewhere in the world but which are routinely practiced here in the United States.

Even if there was a single hair of evidence that Mr. Rezko would flee, and there is none, he should be in "general population” with other prisoners. Mr. Rezko is not endangered by other inmates and he is obviously no danger to anyone else.

Isolation is also being used to disrupt Rezko's defense and to place attorney-client conversations under federal surveillance, where privacy is impossible and the right to counsel is rendered a joke. How often have we seen criminal prosecutions based on wiretapping and surveillance videos of lawyers and prisoners? All too often. Corrupt justice department officials are merely carrying out the orders of prosecutors and the judge to engage in psychological torture of the defendant.

I am ashamed to call this travesty of humanity and corruption of federal government power “justice.” I hope you agree. I don’t know if Mr. Rezko is the guiltiest man in the world, although I have increasing doubts as to his guilt. But I know the man is entitled to a fair opportunity to defend himself in court, and not to be psychologically tortured by federal prosecutors.

Free Tony Rezko.

[Note: I have never met Tony Rezko and have never had any contact with him. I am merely an outside observer who is outraged by the corruption of American justice. I am going to be asking to interview Rezko, however.]
------------------------------------------
Chicago-based Internet journalist, broadcaster and media critic Andy Martin is the Executive Editor and publisher of ContrarianCommentary.com. © Copyright by Andy Martin 2008. Martin covers regional, national and world events with over forty years of experience. He is a former candidate for U. S. Senator. AndyforUSSenator.com. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law. Columns also posted at ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com; contrariancommentary.wordpress.com. Comments? E-mail: AndyMart20@aol.com. Media contact: (866) 706-2639. Web sites: ContrarianCommentary.com.

Andy Martin answers a Chicago Sun-Times columnist on why Barack Obama is bad for America

ANDY MARTIN
Executive Editor
ContrarianCommentary.com

“Factually Correct, Not
Politically Correct”

“YES I CAN!”

[EXPLAIN TO RICHARD ROEPER OF THE
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES WHY PATRIOTIC
AMERICANS ARE CONCERNED ABOUT BARACK OBAMA]

OBAMA WEEK, 2008: PART TWO

(CHICAGO)(February 21, 2008) Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times today poses a question to the “GOP right:” What’s so bad about Obama? [http://www.suntimes.com/news/roeper/805525,CST-NWS-roep21.article]

Mr. Roeper deserves an answer.

Roeper poses a list of questions. I will answer each in turn. First, I would like to recharacterize Mr. Roeper’s question, since it is not the “GOP right” that is concerned with Barack Obama, it is patriotic Americans.

Roeper question: Do you think Obama is “off the charts intelligent…?”

Andy’s Answer: No one denies that Mr. Obama is an intelligent man. But “off the charts?” You’re off base. There is no evidence that Obama has ever distinguished himself by his intelligence. He was a very mediocre lawyer who never argued a case in trial court, and shamelessly inflates his record as “fighting for civil rights in court.” That’s a fairy tale, with credit to former president Clinton. Obama’s real skills flow from his childhood as an abused and neglected child, when he developed coping skills to survive and prosper in the hostile youth culture of his upbringing.

Obama appears to have been a protégé of indicted influence-peddler Tony Rezko, who arranged for Obama to be hired by Rezko’s law firm. Smart? “Off the charts” intelligent?

Obama wasn’t chosen to lead the Harvard Law Review because he was the brightest student. He was picked because he was the least offensive member of the board and the best politician.

Roeper question: “Is he a man of God?”

Andy’s Answer: Mr. Obama’s connection to the deity has been most confused. He began life as a Muslim, despite his desperate efforts to conceal that fact. At some point in his 20’s or 30’s he accepted Christianity, although the exact date of his Baptism remains murky. Because Christianity is an inclusive religion, where profession of the faith “includes” one in Christianity, Obama is a Christian today. I have no problem with that.

He belongs to a church that many find troublesome but I do not. Christianity is a big tent and there is room for “Black Christians” just as there is room for many other denominations. Jesus was an adder, not a subtracter.

But Obama’s recent use of religion in South Carolina stems mostly from his attempts to deflect the attention I focused on his former religion beginning four years ago. Obama suddenly became a “Super-Christian!” and flooded South Carolina with religious material. I find Obama’s battlefield conversion to muscular Christianity highly suspicious.

Roeper question: Is he a sincere person…?

Andy’s Answer: I don’t doubt Obama’s “sincerity.” But sincerity for what, apart from his own self-promotion? “Change” is actually a classic Marxist doctrine. When one looks at his Marxist mantra of “Change,” and Obama’s voting record—instead of his campaign trail claims—one finds a person who comes as close to a Marxist revolutionary as we have recently found in American politics. Is it any wonder that someone has reported an Obama campaign office in Texas had a picture of the Cuban flag and Che Guevara?

Roeper question: Do you think he is a man of strong morals…family values?

Andy’s Answer: If this question is addressed to Obama’s personal life, he appears to lead an exemplary family life. Yes, I would say he is a good husband, a great father and someone who embodies family values. No one has ever suggested otherwise.

Roeper question: If elected, would he surround himself with cynical hacks, or experienced, idealistic individuals?

Andy’s Answer: Are you kidding? Throughout his entire political career Obama has knowingly surrounded himself with the most cynical and most corrupt hacks in America, Chicago’s politicians. From the crooked Mayor Daley, through crooked Senator Jones, to crooked aldermen and others—not to mention indicted influence-peddler Tony Rezko—Obama has always wallowed in extreme sleaze. He is perhaps the sleaziest politician to make it to the presidential level in many, many years. [Can anyone suggest when someone with as sleazy a political background as Obama has risen so fast, so high?] An Obama administration would be chock full of corruption.

How could someone who had just taken office as U. S. senator in 2005 claim he made a “boneheaded” investment with Tony Rezko, when Tony Rezko financed the purchase of the Obama’s home? How? Obama may be the greatest tap dancer in history, as shown by the way he has slipped away from his links to Rezko—with a pliant and somnolent Chicago media to do his bidding—but he can’t tap dance away from the truth of his involvement with sleaziness and corruption in Chicago.

What if a corrupt lobbyist had helped John McCain buy a house? What if?

Bottom line: Obama has fallen in love with himself. And many gullible Americans, in fact almost a million of them at last count, have fallen in love with Obama. As Kris Kristofferson would say “Sunday Morning Comin’ Down” is going to be a hard one. I pray the United States will not be victimized by this tainted and ultimately doomed love affair.

And that, Mr. Roeper, is why patriotic Americans feel so uncomfortable about Obama.

PART THREE (February 22): AFFIRMATIVE ACTION BABIES RISE UP-AND BITE THE HAND THAT FED THEM; THE TRUE MEANING OF MICHELE OBAMA’S OUTBURST

PART FOUR (February 23): BARACK OBAMA AND THE RACE CARD; WHOSE CARD IS IT REALLY?

------------------------------------------
Chicago-based Internet journalist, broadcaster and media critic Andy Martin is the Executive Editor and publisher of http://www.ContrarianCommentary.com. © Copyright by Andy Martin 2008. Martin covers regional, national and world events with over forty years of experience. He has been a candidate for U. S. Senator from Illinois. www.AndyforUSSenator.com. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law. Columns also posted at ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com; contrariancommentary.wordpress.com. Comments? E-mail: AndyMart20@aol.com. Media contact: (866) 706-2639. Web site: www.ContrarianCommentary.com.

Andy Martin on the New York Times smear of Senator John McCain

ANDY MARTIN
Executive Editor
ContrarianCommentary.com

“Factually Correct, Not
Politically Correct”

THE MCCAIN SMEAR

ANDY MARTIN SPINS JOHN MCCAIN’S “CRISIS” AND SAYS MCCAIN SHOULD CONGRATULATE HIS STAFF FOR OUTSTANDING WORK.

AND THAT’S ALL

“YAWN”

(CHICAGO)(February 21, 2008) Good staff work is the hallmark of a successful congressional office. The same is true for a presidential campaign. Just ask Hillary Clinton what a weak staff can do. John McCain is now being smeared because he had a strong staff that expressed concern about the undue presence of a lobbyist in McCain’s senate offices. This is a scandal?

It’s a joke. Pity the poor New York Times that the paper is so starved for relevance that it has cooked up an “FCC dinner” that would make a TV dinner look like a royal feast.

I tuned into MSNBC Wednesday evening and almost called 911 to report Keith Olbermann hyperventilating and on the verge of collapse. Olbermann was breathlessly speaking with his regular contributors about a “scandal” involving Senator John McCain and a lobbyist that was being reported by the New York Times web site. I watched as the virus spread to Fox News and possibly even to CNN.

And then I read the story.

What a disappointment. I never thought of McCain as a Capitol Hill sexpot and, after investigating him for months, apparently neither does the Times.

The Times has been running profiles on the presidential candidates and it became McCain’s turn to face the gauntlet. Apparently there had been “research” and “investigative reporting” going on for months. But the Times found nothing. There was nothing new to report. But was no news good news? Not when the Times was “investigating.”

Most of the material in the Times “expose” is so stale it is reported in McCain’s own memoir. Finding nothing in the 2008 campaign to write about the Times merely segued back to the year 2000 and wrote about a female lobbyist that had been banned from the senator’s office. Well.

Staff members are highly protective of their legislators. And if they are looking ahead to careers in the capital they learn quickly what’s right and what’s wrong. Capitol Hill and congress are a small city. If a lobbyist is running her mouth, word will get around. Apparently McCain’s openness to one lobbyist, and her claims of “access” to the senator (“access!”) boomeranged back to the senator’s office. Most likely, as the Times suggests, the staff were horrified. And they clobbered her. I see that as the work of an ethical staff working to assist an ethical senator.

They also took the senator aside and warned him what was happening. And nothing happened. Did the senator write letters to the FCC? Yes he did; he writes about the exchanges in his book. But I myself have asked senators to write letters to the Federal Communications Commission. I didn’t think that I was doing anything improper or unethical. Congressional offices routinely have contact with the FCC staff. That is not to say FCC commissioners like congressional meddling; they don’t.

I have been in and out of Washington for forty-two (count’em) years. That’s a long time. I’m listed in the phone book. McCain has also been around along time. I have seldom seen a more ethical man, a senator who repeatedly took on his party and took on the crybaby conservative talk show hosts to do what he thought was right.

Is McCain flawless? Not by a country mile. McCain was embroiled in the Keating Five scandal and, as the senate’s own special counsel stated on Fox News Wednesday night, special counsel suggested McCain played no meaningful role in that unfortunate episode. Democrats held McCain hostage to cover their own corruption.

Because I know McCain very deeply, I know his strengths and his weaknesses, and weak ethics are not one of his vulnerabilities.

I am a Republican, and I am proud that Senator McCain will be the nominee for president of my party. Coming from Illinois, which is a cesspool of bipartisan corruption (yes, like McCain, I can spot Republican crooks just as easily as Democratic ones), I wish McCain represented Illinois instead of Arizona. We need him more.

Frankly, I find the behavior of the media, from the New York Times on down to the cable network hyperventilators, juvenile, desperate and disgusting. The media has shamed itself in this instance.

If I were McCain I would simply stay “I had and have a strong staff, because I encourage openness. My staff members did their job, and I salute them for it. That’s the kind of a tough team I will take to the White House.”

------------------------------------------
Chicago-based Internet journalist, broadcaster and media critic Andy Martin is the Executive Editor and publisher of ContrarianCommentary.com. © Copyright by Andy Martin 2008. Martin covers regional, national and world events with forty years of experience. He has almost forty years of experience in the Middle East, and is America’s most respected independent foreign policy and intelligence analyst. Andy is a former candidate for U. S. Senator from Illinois. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law. Columns also posted at ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com; contrariancommentary.wordpress.com. Comments? E-mail: AndyMart20@aol.com. Media contact: (866) 706-2639. Web sites: http://www.ContrarianCommentary.com, http://www.AndyforUSSenator.com

Andy Martin on the "Myth of the Two Democrats" for president

ANDY MARTIN
Executive Editor
ContrarianCommentary.com

“Factually Correct, Not
Politically Correct”

BARACK OBAMA AND THE MYTH OF THE “TWO DEMOCRATS”

WHY CLINTON GOES TO THE CONVENTION

OBAMA WEEK, 2008: PART ONE

(CHICAGO)(February 20, 2008) One of the conceits and condescensions of the Democratic Party and its cable TV cabal during the primary season has been that the Democrats have “two candidates” who are broadly acceptable to the Democratic base, while the Republicans have a front runner who is rejected by at least some of the Republicans’ core constituency. The fallacy of the Democrats’ belief may soon be exposed.

It is undeniably true that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are, broadly speaking, acceptable candidates for most Democrats. How could it be otherwise? They have virtually identical views on the issues. Despite their “differences,” the commonalities are overwhelming.

But the idea that Clinton and Obama are interchangeable candidates as presidential nominees is utterly wrong.

I began writing about Obama four years ago. I never expected to be writing about him four years later. OK, so what.

As the primary season moved into high gear I expected to efface myself, as the mainstream media (MSM) took over the job of questioning Obama and vetting his credentials. That hasn’t happened. MSNBC, for example, has become an Obama foghorn.

The “chatter” I receive tells me two things: (1) MSM have not played the role they should have; (2) “Clinton” Democrats are not necessarily going to line up behind Obama when McCain is the Republican option.

In 2007 ContrarianCommentary.com sponsored “Obama Week,” in which we devoted a great deal of analysis to studying Obama’s qualifications and character. By popular demand we are now back with a 2008 version.

Obama & Co. have misinterpreted the mentality of the Republican Party. It is true that some talk show host cry babies have sought to agitate their audience by denigrating Senator John McCain and attacking him for old controversies. But in the long run the Republican Party is not run by talk show hosts, it is run from a pragmatic center that is focused on the work at hand, to win elections. In any and every election there will always be some members of one party that will migrate to the other organization. Rarely has this tendency been anything more than window dressing (Democrats for Nixon, anyone?)

Based on what I am receiving and seeing—because ContrarianCommentary.com is not only a news and opinion-producing organization, it is a news and opinion-receiving operation, many Clinton Democrats will vote for McCain in November.

If anyone doubts my thesis they need look no further than the New York Post for confirmation that my views are correct.

A Sienna College Survey found Senator McCain within striking distance of the democrats in New York State. See:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/02192008/news/regionalnews/true_blue_is_purple_98270.htm

In New York?

Obviously, McCain is not the “old man” that Obama ridicules. McCain is drawing “Reagan Democrats,” already. Even before Hillary is rejected (not to say that she will be). So who were the Reagan Democrats? Less educated, lower wage, Roman Catholics. According to pollsters yesterday, what has been Hillary’s final “base?” Less educated, lower wage, Roman Catholics. In other words, Reagan Democrats have stayed with Clinton.

Where do these voters go if Clinton is rejected? The vast majority of them will go to McCain, not to the brie-and-Chablis Obama campaign.

As I told someone yesterday, the “Democratic Party has been having a conversation with itself; the real world will intrude on the day that the party’s nominee has to start having a conversation with the American People.”

Are Clinton and Obama interchangeable nominees? Not at all.

You read it here first. ContrarianCommentary.com

Bottom line: buyer’s remorse among Democrats will set in the day primaries end and Obama claims a majority of the “pledged” delegates. Pledged to what? Defeat in November?

My advice to Hillary? Honey, talk it up. Tough it out. Take it to the convention. And tell it like it is. And start doing this tomorrow. Not on March 5th.

PART TWO (February 21): AFFIRMATIVE ACTION BABIES RISE UP-AND BITE THE HAND THAT FED THEM; THE TRUE MEANING OF MICHELE OBAMA’S OUTBURST

PART THREE (February 22): BARACK OBAMA AND THE RACE CARD; WHOSE CARD IS IT REALLY?

------------------------------------------
Chicago-based Internet journalist, broadcaster and media critic Andy Martin is the Executive Editor and publisher of http://www.ContrarianCommentary.com. © Copyright by Andy Martin 2008. Martin covers regional, national and world events with over forty years of experience. He has been a candidate for U. S. Senator from Illinois. http://www.AndyforUSSenator.com. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law. Columns also posted at ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com; contrariancommentary.wordpress.com. Comments? E-mail: AndyMart20@aol.com. Media contact: (866) 706-2639. Web sites: ContrarianCommentary.com.

ANDY MARTIN
Executive Editor
ContrarianCommentary.com
“Factually Correct, Not
Politically Correct”

ContrarianCommentary.com update:

FREE TONY REZKO

REZKO FEDERAL JUDGE HATES ARABS, MUSLIMS

OBAMA CRONY DESERVES PRE-TRIAL FREEDOM

CHICAGO TRIBUNE: REZKO TO APPEAL BAIL DENIAL

(CHICAGO)(February 13, 2008) As I get back in the swing of covering Illinois and national politics after my senate primary campaign, and before any future endeavors as a candidate, I start with a focus on the unconscionable incarceration of indicted Illinois wheeler-dealer Tony Rezko, Senator Barack Obama's long-time sponsor, banker and crony.

Why, you might ask, after having had had so much to do with exposing the Obama-Rezko connection am I suddenly advocating freedom for Rezko? What I have learned in 40 years as a lawyer is that when you tolerate abuses of the Constitution for your opponents you eventually find abuses of the Constitution directed at your friends. The expression that "justice is blind" does not really exist in Chicago, where we have "Obama" federal judges and right-wing nutcake judges as well. Sadly, justice is not blind in Chicago and, where Arabs and Muslims are concerned, not blind anywhere in the United States.

African-Americans have an expression they use to describe racist police, "DWB," which means "Driving While Black." In other words, African-Americans are always at the risk of racist justice when they are driving on the highway.

It seems that in federal courts we now have a similar syndrome: "DWA," or "Defending While Arab." In other words, Arabs and Muslims are prosecuted on flimsy charges, see their rights violated, and end up being punished where a non-Arab would not be. The U. S. Department of Justice has acted as a virtual extension of the Israeli secret service, the Mossad. In Tampa, Florida, federal prosecutors spent months presenting a wildly incredible case, and lost. Then they reneged on a plea agreement and continued to persecute the main defendant, Sami Al-Arian.

Closer to home, the same Judge Amy St. Eve who is persecuting Tony Rezko, a Syrian immigrant, previously conducted a sham trial against Muhammad Salah.

Judge Amy St. Eve has a problem: she apparently hates Arabs and Muslims. She becomes a vicious psychopath when Arabs and Muslims come before her. Tony Rezko would be wise to seek her removal.

St. Eve conducted the carnival trial against two Palestinian activists, Abdelhaleem Ashqar and Muhammad Salah. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft breathlessly announced the Salah indictment in a comedic news conference, accusing the men of being terrorist masterminds. St. Eve allowed Mossad torturers to come into court and testify—in disguise. The trial was a show trial of the type Americans would condemn in the Russia or China. But St. Eve conducted this travesty in Chicago.

Fortunately, the intelligent people of Illinois, jurors all, rejected the Mossad's fictitious allegations, and the Department of Justice was a humiliated by losing the vast majority of its Salah case. The two men were convicted on minor, technical violations, one of them (Salah) for mistaken testimony in a related case that has since been reversed on appeal by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago. (Boim v. Holy Land, 12/28/07).

But in what should have been and may have been a warning to Judge St. Eve in he Rezko matter, the Seventh Circuit stated in reversing Boim:

Belief, assumption and speculation are no substitute for evidence in a court of law…We must resist the temptation to gloss over error, admit spurious evidence, and assume facts not adequately proved simply to side with the face of innocence and against the face of terrorism. (Note: the Boim case was not decided by Judge St. Eve.)

St. Eve sentenced two innocent men to jail, one (Salah) to two years in jail and the other (Ashqar), who committed no crime, to eleven years in jail. And we wonder why they hate us?

Back to Rezko. What "crime" did Rezko commit to justify being jailed before trial? None that I can see. There was merely more of the same sort of anti-Arab hocus pocus presented to Judge St. Eve in the Salah trial. Rezko had borrowed money after posting bail. He had reimbursed friends for helping with his bail. And he paid his lawyers. From these innocent acts St. Eve concocted a vast conspiracy as a pretext to jail Rezko before trial. And the high quality of Mr. Rezko's bathroom fixtures also found its way into news reports after "federal agents" arrested Rezko is yet another show trial episode, storming his home in the morning when Rezko would have voluntarily appeared if asked to do so. It is enough to make you want to vomit about the sad state of justice in Chicago.

Mr. Rezko's crime in St. Eve's court was nothing more than "DWA," Defending While Arab. The fact that Rezko was in Syria when he was indicted, Syria!, and did not have to return to Chicago to face charges, and did so voluntarily, was ignored by the judge. She is apparently obsessed with the fact that Tony-the-Arab may flee to. Syria? He already left there.

And the fact that Rezko borrowed money? Lots of people who are broke can borrow money. I am not surprised that Rezko was trying to arrange his financial affairs to—pay his lawyers (who got the bulk of the "secret" loan). By all means, pay the lawyers!

In closing, three points.

Whether guilty or innocent, a defendant is entitled to a fair trial. Judge St. Eve has shown she hates Arabs and no Arab or Muslim can obtain a fair trial in her courtroom.

Second, if Rezko is guilty of his criminality involving Obama (where he has not been charged with a crime) and other influence peddling with crooked politicians in Illinois, he should be found guilty and punished appropriately. But he should be treated as a defendant, not an Arab-defendant, and be tried before a judge whose neutrality and impartiality is not in question.

Finally, my comments have nothing to do with the "war on terror." I am a strong supporter of the war on terror, and I have no hesitation to prosecute or convict, or kill, persons who conspire against the United States. But Palestinian freedom fighters or sympathizers are not conspiring against the United States; they are fighting to free their land from Israeli occupation, seizure and theft. American courts have no business criminalizing a war of national liberation that is playing out in the Middle East.

The Department of Justice lost in Florida. They lost in Texas and they lost in Chicago. The Department keeps losing its anti-Arab cases because it is bringing phony, trumped-up political cases against people who are freedom fighters and sympathizers, not criminals. Why does Justice keep trying? Because of pressure from the Israeli government to fight the war in America that Israelis losing in the Middle East.

Fortunately, in each instance above, juries freed the defendants from the charges, but could not always free the defendants from the malignant tentacles of the Department of Justice. The innocent were made to suffer.

Near as I can determine, Tony Rezko has never had anything to do with Middle East politics. He came to America to make money. Rezko loves money, he loves making money, and he loves spending money on politicians. And he may have crossed the line as a confederate of Illinois' corrupt Governor Rod Blagojevich. But, because Rezko is an immigrant from an Arab country, and a non-very-popular Arab county at that, Rezko is receiving corrupt justice from a biased judge in federal court in Chicago.

I am compelled to stand up for our Constitution. Free Tony Rezko. And let the man defend himself in open court without dragging him through the streets of Chicago in chains and prison clothes. End the racial bias of the judge and the Department of Justice against Arabs and Muslims. Hasn’t Justice lost enough cases? What does it take for the "justice" lawyers to get the message? Ultimately, the Department is not disgracing Rezko. The Department is disgracing the American people. And the whole world is watching.

------------------------------------------Chicago-based Internet journalist, broadcaster and media critic Andy Martin is the Executive Editor and publisher of ContrarianCommentary.com. © Copyright by Andy Martin 2008. Martin covers regional, national and world events with over forty years of experience. He is a former candidate for U. S. Senator. AndyforUSSenator.com. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law. Columns also posted at ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com; contrariancommentary.wordpress.com. Comments? E-mail: AndyMart20@aol.com. Media contact: (866) 706-2639. Web sites: ContrarianCommentary.com.