CHICAGO: CRIME KIND OF TOWN

various | various | various

[hoosiermama]

Crime in Chicago has been in the news lately, but it is nothing new. Historically it dates back over a hundred years. From the tale of the Gray Wolves

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/540.html

The 1890s Chicago City Council was notorious for corrupt political practices orchestrated by a faction of its aldermen known as the Gray Wolves. So named because they were viewed as preying upon the defenseless public, the Gray Wolves were led by First Ward aldermen “Bathhouse” John Coughlin and “Hinky Dink” Mike Kenna, and Johnny Powers of the Nineteenth Ward. These elected officials were not only skilled at trading votes for favors, but once in office they excelled in making municipal decisions to profit themselves financially.

TO the present, it is a compelling historical subject.

“Please post links and information, or connections of dots to this thread. Keep chit chat to the minimum or in Freemail. THANKS!”

[KellyM37]

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/1/27/161410/392

Look Before You Leap: Obama’s Mobbed-Up Allies
by susanhu, Sun Jan 27, 2008 at 04:14:10 PM EST

Update [2008-1-27 18:33:9 by susanhu]: At the end of the diary, on the Tony Rezko connection to Giannoulias.
The Chicago Tribune in its story, “Critics: Obama endorsements counter calls for clean government”: “In the 2006 Democratic primary, for example, Obama endorsed first-time candidate Alexi Giannoulias for state treasurer despite reports about loans Giannoulias’ family-owned Broadway Bank made to crime figures. Records show Giannoulias and his family had given more than $10,000 to Obama’s campaign, which banked at Broadway.” [Giannoulias is now a bundler for Obama’s presidential campaign, aiming for $100,000.]

That’s Barack Obama endorsing “granny grifter” Alexi Giannoulias, who got elected as Illinois’ state treasurer with the hands-on support of Barack Obama. Besides his mob ties, Giannoulias “was involved in an alleged mortgage fraud five years ago against an 83-year-old woman.”

Curious now? Here’s SourceWatch.org — as independent a resource as you’ll find on the Internet — on Barack Obama’s ties to Alexi Giannoulias:

Alexi Giannoulias—a “man who has long been dogged by charges that the bank his family owns helped finance a Chicago crime figure” and “who became Illinois state treasurer” in 2006 after Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) “vouched for him”—”pledged to raise $100,000 for the senator’s Oval Office bid,” Charles Hurt reported September 5, 2007, in the New York Post.

The September 5, 2007, Chicago fundraiser was omitted from Obama’s public schedule and the event was closed to the press,” Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

“Before he promised to raise funds for Obama, Giannoulias bankrolled Michael ‘Jaws’ Giorango, a Chicagoan twice convicted of bookmaking and promoting prostitution.

“Giannoulias is so tainted by reputed mob links that several top Illinois Dems, including the state’s speaker of the House and party chairman, refused to endorse him even after he won the Democratic nomination with Obama’s help. ...

Next, “Obama the king maker”:

“Did U.S. Senator Barack Obama clear the field in the Democratic state treasurer’s race?” lawyer and political analyst Russ Stewart wrote January 4, 2006.

“Until incumbent Republican Judy Baar Topinka announced for governor, the only Democrat willing to run for the post was obscure Knox County State’s Attorney Paul Mangieri, of Galesburg. He was slated by the Democrats, and he is on record as opposing abortion rights. ... When Topinka decided to move up, a flock of ambitious Democrats eyed the job,... But none announced, and all deferred to Alexi Giannoulias, a 29-year-old Chicago investment banker who was an early supporter of Obama in his 2004 Senate race, whose father owns Broadway Bank, and whose family helped bankroll the Obama campaign. Giannoulias has said that he will campaign as a ‘progressive,’ and he has promised to put more than $1 million in family funds into the race,” Stewart wrote.

“The bottom line,” Stewart said: “Obama is the potential king maker. Expect Obama to publicly endorse Giannoulias, cut television ads for him, and go heavy for him on black radio stations. Of course, there’s a downside. If Obama endorses Giannoulias and he loses, that would indicate that Obama’s clout is not transferable,” Stewart wrote

In March 2006, Giannoulias said that “his ‘good friend and mentor, Barack Obama,’ inspired him to run.

In fact, Giannoulias’ “endorsers” were “essentially the base of the Obama coalition: white north side progressives and south side blacks.”

[hoosiermama]

Who’s on whose side:
From:

http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:wjm1zXky4NsJ:jeffberkowitz.blogspot.com/2006/03/another-just-another-pol-day-for.html+Paul+Mangieri,+%2B+Obama&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us

Another “Just another pol” day for Senator Obama.
So, Stroger beats Claypool for the Democratic Party nomination for Cook County Board President, with Tom Hynes besting David Alexrod. Ballot theft helped along by wisdom over brains? Yes, we all wonder who had control of those ballots between the time they left the voting precinct and the time they were counted.

Basically, Claypool lost because his good friend Senator Barack Obama decided not to stick his neck out. Obama endorsed Giannoulias big time for Treasurer against the Speaker Madigan slated candidate, downstater Paul Mangieri. Obama’s endorsement carried the day for Alexi, helping him past some tough criminal associations and dumb statements to the media. Alexi’s opponent was white and Barack owed Alexi for all that money his family raised for Barack early on. So, it was no problem for Obama to take on Speaker Madigan.

Senator Obama endorsed Duckworth to help Senator Durbin and Cong. Emanuel carry the day and ultimately win the 6th CD general with Duckworth, or that is the general theory. Duckworth’s opponents are white, so no problem for Sen. Obama to endorse Duckworth.

[KellyM37]

Michelle needs a mirror or at least a serious wax job.

[AmericanGirlRising]

IL GOP site - http://friendsofblago.com/index.htm

Connects Blago to Mulligan, Jones, Fullerton, Quinn. Connections sourced at link.

[hoosiermama]

Obama impeached from senate aseat petition ??? and more:

From:
http://obamaimpeachment.wordpress.com/2008/08/15/the-case-against-barack-obama-dan-shomon-obama-corruption-robert-blackwell-state-grants-killerspin-campaign-contributions-chicago-pay-for-play-david-freddoso/

One of the charges of corruption against Barack Obama on the Petition to Impeach and/or expel him from the senate is below:

Whereas: Senator Barack Obama has engaged in unscrupulous business
practices, in particular with Mr. Robert Blackwell.
............

Perhaps the most surprising story about Barack obama and money is one that no one talks about at all. It involves ping-pong. it is the story of how state Senator Obama was paid more than $100,000 for legal work, then helped his client’s company get $320,000 in taxpayer grants.
For some reason, only the Los Angeles Times has examined the story of Robert Blackwell Jr. and the government grants he received after he invested in Barack Obama.

..........

Obama writes in The Audacity of Hope that after his failed congressional run in 2000, he was “more or less broke.” His family would make $240,000 that year, but they had large debts, and he had just loaned his losing campaign $9,500 and maxed out his credit card. To keep his family afloat, he writes, he went back after the election to his law firm, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, which he had neglected throughout 2000 (he received no income from the firm that year). He planned to do some legal work to supplement his modest $58,000 salary as a state senator.

In 2001, while serving as a state senator, Obama would earn $98,158 from his law practice. Of that money, $80,000 came from a single client - Electronic Knowledge Interchange (EKI)-which had put him on a $8,000 monthly retainer
..........
The Times reports that Obama, in his required legal financial disclosures, buried his six-figure financial conflict of interest amid a list of hundreds of other clients represented by his law firm. He did not mention that the majority of his 2001 income came from EKI-nor was he required to do so under Illinois law.

.............

Dan Shomon was a long time employee of Robert Blackwell and Barack Obama as well as main political advisor to Obama
.....
Shoman, while an employee of both Blackwell and Obama secured grants for Blackwell company Killerspin:
$200,000 grant for its 2003 tournament
$100,000 grant for its 2004 tournament

Robert Blackwell had strong ties to Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich who has been mentioned many times during the Tony Rezko corruption trial.

........
“Andy Martin says ‘retainer’ by Robert Blackwell, Jr. was classic Illinois ‘pay to play’ and may have been criminal behavior.”

[kalee]

Oh my! Proves my point huh? She has horrid taste!

My husband walked by, looked at that picture and asked is that where she carries her concealed weapon? lol He’s bad.

[hoosiermama]

From:

http://friendsofblago.com/index.htm

Madigan was investigated for using taxpayer funds to pay rent on a Democratic Campaign office. (Jennifer Davis, "Lisa Madigan Defends Father", Copley News Service, 8/14/02)

Madigan has also been criticized for funneling $300,000 in state subsidies to a college friend for an "international livestock exposition" at the Illinois State Fair. It was the only private livestock show to receive state subsidies.

[hoosiermama]

From: same

Jones is BO mentor.
............................................
How I Help Myself and Family at the Expense of Taxpayers
“[S]tate Senate President Emil Jones, Serves Under An Ethical Cloud. He Has Several Family Members On The State Payroll And Uses His Clout To Aid Their Business Interests.” (Ron Fournier, “Obama’s Life And Record In Springfield, Ill., Hint At The President He Would Be,” The Associated Press, 6/16/07)

Jones’ Family Has Experienced “Financial Good Fortune,” Including His Wife Who Was Promoted By Gov. Blagojevich’s Administration And Given A $70,000 Raise. (Carol Marin, Op-Ed, “Jones Plots Ethics End Run,” Chicago Sun-Times, 7/11/07)

John Sterling, Jones’ Stepson, Has Received “Tens Of Millions Of Dollars” In State And Local Contracts. (Carol Marin, Op-Ed, “Jones Plots Ethics End Run,” Chicago Sun-Times, 7/11/07)

Jones Is A “Veteran Of The Rough-And-Tumble World Of Chicago Politics.” (Christi Parsons and Ray Long, “Wheeler-Dealer With A Cause,” Chicago Tribune, 9/19/04)

“Illinois Senate President Emil Jones … Is About As Old-School As They Come. Just Last Month, The Chicago Democrat Publicly Ridiculed An Attempt To Block A Pay Raise For Legislators By Sarcastically Declaring: ‘I’ve Got To Get Me Some Food Stamps.’” (Andrew Malcolm, “The Nation Sees One Obama, Chicago Knows Another,” Los Angeles Times’ “Top Of The Ticket” Blog, www.latimesblogs.latimes.com, 6/24/08)

[KellyM37]

Showdown at Clout Corner
UNDER INVESTIGATION | Rezko, partners made millions on Northwest Side deal that pitted mayor against Ald. Mell
What does Barack Obama know about Mr.Mahru or should we say what has Mahru told the Feds about the $1000 that find its way to Barack Obama.No word yet from Alderman Burke on those 62 Acres.

http://nalert.blogspot.com/2008/12/former-rezko-partner-files-for.html

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/1255204,tony-rezko-mayor-daley-home-depot-deal-110208.article

http://nalert.blogspot.com/2008/11/rezko-and-friends-make-millions-mayor.html

[hoosiermama]

from:

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/1255204,tony-rezko-mayor-daley-home-depot-deal-110208.article

---

The mayor wouldn’t let Rezko, Dan Mahru and Ali Ata build townhomes at Addison and Kimball on Chicago’s Northwest Side.

Rather than fight City Hall, Rezko and his partners sold the 10-acre site to Home Depot — represented by developer Michael Marchese, a friend of the mayor’s.

Rezko and his partners paid $7.9 million for the vacant land in September 2001. Eleven months later, they sold it to Home Depot for $12.5 million — a 40 percent profit.

The sale infuriated neighbors who didn’t want a busy store on the corner where an envelope factory had operated for decades.

Now, the deal is under federal investigation, a source familiar with the probe said. “There’s a further case against Tony Rezko. It involves this property,’’ the source said.

[hoosiermama]

Creeps, scum.

From:
http://nalert.blogspot.com/2008/11/rezko-and-friends-make-millions-mayor.html

---

For more than five weeks during the brutal winter of 1997, tenants shivered without heat in a government-subsidized apartment building on Chicago’s South Side.

It was just four years after the landlords — Antoin “Tony’’ Rezko and his partner Daniel Mahru — had rehabbed the 31-unit building in Englewood with a loan from Chicago taxpayers.

Rezko and Mahru couldn’t find money to get the heat back on.

But their company, Rezmar Corp., did come up with $1,000 to give to the political campaign fund of Barack Obama, the newly elected state senator whose district included the unheated building.

[hoosiermama]

RE: “pitted mayor against Ald. Mell”

City of Chicago - Ward33 Served by Richard F. Mell

Mell is the father of Patricia Blagojevich (Rod)

Alderman Mell currently serves as Chairman of the Committee on Committees, Rules and Ethics and is a member of the Committees on Budget and Governmental Operations, Finance, Health, Housing & Land Acquisition, Human Relations and Traffic Control and Safety.

[AmericanGirlRising]

http://www.nrtw.org/en/blog/blagogate-it-all-comes-back-forced-unionism12102108

Stern/SEIU election support for Blago of $1.7 m leads to Blago awarding SEIU child-care workers contact over competing union AFSCME.

[hoosiermama]

New material above:

Also From: (more at link)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/21/AR2008122102334.html?hpid=topnews

---

Pamela Meyer Davis had been trying to win approval from a state health planning board for an expansion of Edward Hospital, the facility she runs in a Chicago suburb, but she realized that the only way to prevail was to retain a politically connected construction company and a specific investment house. Instead of succumbing to those demands, she went to the FBI and U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald in late 2003 and agreed to secretly record conversations about the project.

Her tapes led investigators down a twisted path of corruption that over five years has ensnared a collection of behind-the-scenes figures in Illinois government, including Joseph Cari Jr., a former Democratic National Committee member, and disgraced businessman Antoin “Tony” Rezko

---

Many of the developments in Operation Board Games never attracted national headlines. They involved expert tactics in which prosecutors used threats of prosecution or prison time to flip bit players in a tangle of elaborate schemes that Fitzgerald has called pay-to-play “on steroids.”

---

Meyer Davis’s hospital wasn’t the only one with problems winning approvals from the state board that reviewed new projects for health-care facilities. The Chicago Medical School wanted a student housing project and found itself steered to the same construction and investment firms. Mercy Hospital faced similar obstacles. The board held up requests for open-heart surgical units and community clinics, and it seemed that a high price tag was attached to moving the board toward action.

At the center of the scheme was board member Stuart Levine, a prominent GOP fundraiser and businessman. Levine also courted Blagojevich, flying him to fundraisers in Texas and New York at which the governor collected more than $120,000 in campaign contributions. Levine held seats on the health facilities board and the teachers pension board, which controlled more than $41 billion in assets.

[hoosiermama]

SEIU - Service Employees International Union

Homecare workers and public-service workers in state and local government and private non-profit agencies.

Representatives of Illinois SEIU have been in communication with the United States Attorney’s Office in Chicago, and we have no reason to believe that SEIU

[AmericanGirlRising]

Willie Brown 12/21/08 SFGate article on Blago’s innocence (don’t laugh... he’s serious) after a recent chat with Blago.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/21/BAG314QRPO.DTL

Interesting take on this here, e.g. Blago was being forced to take 0/Rahm’s candidate Jarrett instead of IL AG Lisa Madigan who Blago wanted.

http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/7428

[hoosiermama]

National AFSCME. did not endorse BO....was that why they didn’t get the contract? Were the two working together?

From:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/676801,120107obama.article

The Illinois chapter of the country’s major government-employees union broke with its national organization Saturday to endorse Barack Obama for president.

Nationally, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is backing Hillary Rodham Clinton. But the union’s Illinois leaders decided to make their own endorsement

In endorsing Clinton, national AFSCME leaders focused on her experience in Washington and her toughness as a candidate

[AmericanGirlRising]

SEIU appears to be close with 0 and Blago (see image on SEIU home page. Stern/SEIU have reported fights with AFSCME over Chicago/Illinois contracts.

Labor War in Chicago, 3/05, The American Prospect
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=labor_war_in_illinois

from National Right to Work:

"In Blagojevich's first race for governor in 2002, the SEIU provided a thousand volunteers in the weeks before the primary election, enough to push the Congressman over his nearest rival by just one percent. As governor, Blagojevich repaid the SEIU by issuing executive orders that effectively ensured that the SEIU (and not AFSCME) would "represent" the 5,000 home-care workers and 48,000 child-care workers in the state."

[hoosiermama]

Valerie Jarrett was born in 1956 in Shiraz, Iran, about 570 miles south of Tehran. ...

Most thread emphasise whe was raised in CHicago.

Lawyer, “the other side of Obama’s brain”, business woman

Valerie Jarrett: Chosen for: White House Senior Advisor and Assistant

---

From:
http://www.judicialwatch.org/news/2008/nov/obama-advisor-valerie-jarrett-linked-real-estate-scandals

According to the documents obtained by Judicial Watch from the Illinois Secretary of State, Valerie Jarrett served as a board member for several organizations that provided funding and support for Chicago housing projects operated by real estate developers and Obama financial backers Rezko and Allison Davis. (Davis is also Obama’s former boss.) Jarrett was a member of the Board of Directors for the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corporation along with several Davis and Rezko associates, as well as the Fund for Community Redevelopment and Revitalization, an organization that worked with Rezko and Davis

.....

As Chief Executive Officer of the Habitat Company Jarrett also managed a controversial housing project located in Obama’s former state senate district called Grove Parc Plaza. According to the Boston Globe the housing complex was considered “uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage...In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale — a score so bad the buildings now face demolition.” Ms. Jarrett refused to comment to the Globe on the conditions of the complex.

[hoosiermama]

DId you know that they had started a petition to impeach BO from the senate?

Also who are these people?
The three Stooges? Naw

???? Bo Jarret?