Free Republic

Over three days, some of the wealthiest people in Chicago, if not the nation, dumped more than $1.3 million into the political re-election campaign of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.. Among the donors was Citadel founder and billionaire Ken Griffin, who donated $250,000 to Emanuel. The mayor is battling to keep his seat against a surging Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia. Others who donated from March 3 to March 6 include: Groupon co-founder Eric Lefkofsky, $200,000; Richard Melman, $100,000; and Jay B. Pritzker and M.K. Pritzker, who tossed in $50,000 each. Garcia recently took in a a $250,000 contribution from...

Chicago Big profit for Pritzkers on costly Chicago FBI deal Sun, 09/14/2014 - 3:30pm Better Government Association @bettergov | Email A deal involving the federal government’s most expensive lease in Chicago produced millions of dollars in profits for a development group that included Penny Pritzker, a top campaign fund-raiser for President Barack Obama who is now his commerce secretary, a Chicago Sun-Times / Better Government Association investigation has found. The developers also included Jack Higgins, a friend and political backer of former Mayor Richard M. Daley. Over the 14-year term of the lease, the government will pay $280 million in...

Media Matters employees are furious that their bosses are trying to keep them from unionizing. A union-organizing committee at the liberal group released a statement Monday slamming their employers for “the unexpected and unexplained path our leadership has taken in response to our efforts to unionize,” adding that “the actions of Media Matters executives have placed employees in the impossible position of continuing to produce content espousing pro-labor values for an employer who is challenging our right to unionize.”

She is 18-year-old Liesel Pritzker, heir to the Hyatt hotel chain. She is young, beautiful, and ostensibly, wealthy. She co-stars in movies with Harrison Ford (Air Force One) and played -- prophetically, as it turns out -- the title role in the 1995 Warner Brothers film, A Little Princess, in which her character takes on the British government in a fight over -- what else? -- her father's money. According to a civil lawsuit filed by the young heiress, life indeed imitates art. In the suit, Pritzker claims that her father, 76-year-old business exec Robert Pritzker, sold off assets belonging...

Hey, these things happen: Penny Pritzker, President Obama’s nominee to lead the Commerce Department, understated her income by some $80 million and had to file a correction to her government-filed disclosures, Bloomberg is reporting. That might sound like a lot of money, but it’s all relative. Pritzker, whose family founded the Hyatt hotel chain, is worth about $1.5 billion. So it’s easy to see how a few million — or 80 — could go missing. Maybe she left it in the other purse? A spokeswoman told Bloomberg that the $80 million was “a substantial amount” and that Pritzker’s advisers corrected...

As the country is still standing following the financial crisis, Barack Obama has nominated a key figure in the disaster apparently so she can finish off the country for good. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama tapped Mike Froman and Penny Pritzker for the last two vacant Cabinet slots on his economic team on Thursday, turning to a law school classmate who is already one of his chief advisors and a billionaire businesswoman who helped put him in the White House. As key members of his team, the two will work to boost demand for U.S. goods and workers, Obama...

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama on Thursday will nominate a longtime fundraiser to run the Commerce Department and a top economic adviser as the next U.S. Trade Representative, a White House official said. Commerce nominee Penny Pritzker, a businesswoman, philanthropist and Hyatt hotel heiress, is Obama's final pick to fill vacancies among Cabinet secretaries in his second term. The Commerce post has been vacant since last summer, when former Secretary John Bryson resigned after he said he suffered a seizure that led to a series of traffic collisions. USTR nominee Michael Froman is one of Obama's senior economic advisers and a former...

President Obama has often denounced “fat-cat bankers” for their role in the 2008 financial collapse, the subsequent bailouts and the recession. His strong words on the topic suggest that he would have little sympathy, say, the former chairman of her family’s bank, whose collapse caused 1,400 depositors to lose millions at the time. You’d expect him to have even less sympathy if said bank had collapsed because it had adopted an aggressive subprime lending strategy; if it had tried to sell itself and its subprime packages to low-income borrowers as their only hope of getting loans; if it had fixed...

Penny Pritzker will be nominated this morning to be the next U.S. Commerce Secretary... She ran candidate Obama's wildly successful fundraising operation in his 2008 presidential bid — even as her brother J.B. was a key adviser to nomination rival Hillary Clinton..... ...Ms. Pritzker, whose family controls Hyatt Hotels Corp... hitched a ride on Air Force One from San Francisco to Portland with the president. In the general-election campaign, she raised at least $500,000 and spent election night with Mr. Obama. She served on the president's Council for Jobs and Competitiveness and his Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

Tesla Motors Inc., the electric-car maker led by Elon Musk, fell the most in two months after cutting its revenue outlook for the third quarter because of supplier shortcomings and other delays in the production of its Model S sedan. Tesla slid nearly 10 percent to $27.64 Tuesday after the company said in a regulatory filing that it expects to generate $44 million to $46 million in third-quarter sales, compared with analyst estimates of $83.1 million. ..........Already the company's largest shareholder, Musk may buy 33,311 more shares, the company said in the filing. Tesla, whose investors include Toyota Motor Corp....

(Being purchased for them by Penny Pritzker and wealthy Chicagoans) [ Michelle Obama's mother, Marian Robinson, has been bragging about getting to live in Hawaii next, in a $35 million beachfront mansion after leaving the White House in January 2013.  "It was fun while it lasted", Miss Marion is quoted by Chicagoans as saying, "but wait until you see the place they're buying for Michelle and Barack!" ] Part 1 of this report — HEREPart 2 of this report — HERE***************************Today has been declared “National Empty Chair Day”, in honor of Clint Eastwood’s speech on the closing night of the Republican...

Penny Pritzker, the billionaire heiress whose family owns the Hyatt hotel chain, took a ride on Air Force One this afternoon from San Francisco to Portland, Ore., where President Obama was making a series of fundraising stops. The ride came hours after the announcement of a global boycott of Hyatt Hotels by Unite Here, the nation’s largest hospitality workers union. That boycott has been joined by the National Organization for Women, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the National Black Justice Center, and the National Football League Players Association. Pritzker was the national finance chair of Obama’s 2008 campaign....

OBAMA'S MONEY CZAR OWNS HOTEL HOSTING AHMADINEJAD Penny Pritzker, national finance chair of Barack Obama's presidential campaign, is the owner of the Hyatt, the hotel hosting the genocidal Hitler wannabee, Ahmadinejad. This is the latest in an assault on Israel and Jewish Americans. Obama and co. strong armed and bullied the craven organizers of the Anti-Ahmadinejad rally to disinvite Pro-Israel supporter Sarah Palin. Clearly Obama's chief fundraiser could refuse to host the Ahmadinejad at her hotel. Instead, she has rolled out the red carpet. It was bad enough that Obama would not send someone to represent him at the anti-Ahmadinejad...

J.B. Pritzker is one of the richest members of America’s one percent and a staunch pro-Israel Democrat. After backing Hillary Clinton in 2008–in opposition to his sister, Penny Pritzker–J.B. helped raise money for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Among other civic and philanthropic causes, Pritzker is heavily involved in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which promotes a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. He has served on AIPAC’s national board, regularly chairs AIPAC events in Chicago, and attends the organization’s annual Policy Conference in Washington, D.C. Given his devotion to a strong U.S.-Israel alliance, it is extraordinary to discover that Pritzker also...

Nesbitt is one of Barack Obama’s closest friends...During the 2008 presidential campaign, Nesbitt became Obama’s campaign treasurer. ... Nesbitt started The Parking Spot, a lucrative airport satellite-parking company that is recognizable from its large yellow buses covered with black spots. Nesbitt started the company with financial backing from Penny Pritzker, the CEO of Pritzker Realty Group. Nesbitt later introduced Pritzker to Obama, and she became Obama’s 2008 national fundraising chair.

One of the more interesting questions bound to come up during the 2012 elections is whether President Barack Obama can reclaim the liberal American Jewish donor base that helped him so much in 2008. ... Among noted Chicagoans who contribute to Obama's success is senior advisor Valerie Jarrett. Of the people managing President Obama's political affairs, Jarrett is perhaps the person Obama has known longest and relied upon the most. Political folklore has it that the president met wife Michelle when he went to Jarrett's office looking for a job. Before Valerie Jarrett came to work for Obama, she was...

Byron Trott has a household name, provided that the household is worth a few billion dollars. Trott is a Chicago investment banker who has advised the likes of the Pritzkers and the Wrigleys. He earns their trust, friends and competitors said, because he is the soul of discretion, never leaking details of pending deals or hogging credit. Accordingly, he seldom gives interviews or takes leading roles in civic functions. Insiders said Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel had to twist his arm to get him to join the board of World Business Chicago, the city’s economic development promoter. And yet Trott...

Barack Obama wants to crush an investigation that's getting too close to him and some really close friends: Attorney General of N.Y. Is Said to Face Pressure on Bank Foreclosure Deal Eric T. Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, has come under increasing pressure from the Obama administration to drop his opposition to a wide-ranging state settlement with banks over dubious foreclosure practices, according to people briefed on discussions about the deal. In recent weeks, Shaun Donovan, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and high-level Justice Department officials have been waging an intensifying campaign to try to persuade...

Agency's $325 Million Mistake Means Vi No Longer Owes Over $128 Million. The IRS disclosure, made in a recent federal tax court filing, appears to end the agency's effort to collect over $128 million in back taxes and penalties from the company. The agency's reversal came even though it continued to defend its underlying position: that so-called "entrance fees" paid by incoming retirement-community residents can be treated as taxable income. Vi was founded in 1987 by Penny Pritzker, who remains its chairman. She is a leading member of the Chicago-based Pritzker business dynasty.

What's the hottest ticket in the nation's capital? An engraved invitation to Tuesday's White House state dinner, the first hosted by President Obama. He and the first lady will honor India's prime minister. But in a departure from the traditional venue -- the elegant State Dining Room -- the Obamas will gather with a few hundred VIPs in a huge, heated tent on the South Lawn. The guest list for the black-tie gala remains a closely guarded secret. Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, will certainly be there. Several notables are good bets, such as Oprah Winfrey and...