RUTHFULLY YOURS

Remember Malik Obama?  He’s the Kenyan-born half brother of the more famous Obama. The men, who first met in 1985, are not close, but each served as the best man ^[1] at the other’s wedding.  Malik has what The Daily Caller delicately calls ^[2] “a checkered past.” That’s not the president’s fault, of course, any more than Jimmy Carter was responsible for his erring brother Billy.

There are, however, wheels within wheels here. Consider the Barack H. Obama Foundation, ^[3] a 501(c)(3) entity founded in 2011 and presided over by Malik Obama.  Never heard of it?  I hadn’t either until a friend pointed out the curious connection between Lois “Fifth Amendment” Lerner, one of the IRS officials at the center of the widening scandal engulfing that federal agency, and the Barack H. Obama Foundation.  It turns out that these last several years the IRS has not only been harassing groups whose descriptions include phrases like “tea party” and “patriot.” It has also been bending over backwards to give preferential service to certain groups with a different political complexion. Groups, that is, like the Barack H. Obama Foundation. As The Daily Caller reports ^[2], Ms. Lerner

signed paperwork granting tax-exempt status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a shady charity headed by the president’s half-brother that operated illegally for years.

According to the organization’s filings, Lerner approved the foundation’s tax status within a month of filing, an unprecedented timeline that stands in stark contrast to conservative organizations that have been waiting for more than three years, in some cases, for approval.

Lerner also appears to have broken with the norms of tax-exemption approval by granting retroactive tax-exempt status to Malik Obama’s organization.

Yikes! No wonder she wants to take the Fifth. Where do you suppose this rottenness ends?  Yesterday, Israpundit pointed out ^[4] in a video that Malik’s “checkered past” extends to the present.  Among other things, he is the executive secretary of the Islamic Da’wa Organisation ^[5], an entity that was created by the Sudanese government, which is considered by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist state. ^[6] So why was Ms. Lerner so eager to facilitate the fund-raising operations of a foundation presided over by a man with such dubious connections?

I do not know the answer to this. But one thing, I think, is certain: we’re going to hear a lot more about this affair and I predict that Malik won’t be the only person named “Obama” involved.