Chicago Daily Observer

Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois.

The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago.

HT: Backyard Conservative

Read More...

Chicago's Media Incumbents do not see any connections between Curtis Cooper's crushed little body and the tons of Progressive Chicago Clout that helped unhinge the truth. There is nothing more heart-breaking than the death of a child due to an accident.



A three year old, like Curtis Cooper, and his pals probably weigh between thirty five and fifty pounds each -tops but we are told their hi-jinks and collective weight ripped a solid wrought iron fence from its hinges.



Here's this morning's account from the ... Read More...

It was, of course, inevitable. How could any politician rise so quickly on the legendarily corrupt Chicago political scene and be as pure as Obama’s devoted followers were purporting him to be? The question in the minds of skeptics was, “Who sent you?”

Well now we’re beginning to find out and it ain’t pretty. In a lengthy, and amazingly frank, Boston Globe article depicting the dismal results of Chicago’s attempt to develop and manage low income housing through private developers, we see that the candidate of change is nothing more than another Chicago machine-generated pol with his feet firmly mired in the muck of corruption of the city he chose to make his political base.

Read More...

Barack Obama made one shrewd move this week, along with one risky one.

In talking with reporters after the Supreme Court ruled that criminals who rape children may not be executed, Mr. Obama moved smartly to the political center. “I think that the rape of a small child, six or eight years old, is a heinous crime and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances, the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that does not violate our Constitution,” he said, siding with conservative dissenters in the case.

Mr. Obama was on shakier ground when he insisted that none of the burgeoning scandals in Illinois politics have anything to do with him.

Read More...

The squat brick buildings of Grove Parc Plaza, in a dense neighborhood that Barack Obama represented for eight years as a state senator, hold 504 apartments subsidized by the federal government for people who can’t afford to live anywhere else.

But it’s not safe to live here.

About 99 of the units are vacant, many rendered uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage. Mice scamper through the halls. Battered mailboxes hang open. Sewage backs up into kitchen sinks. 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.

Read More...

Barack Obama’s name could have been invoked more at the corruption trial of his former fund-raiser Tony Rezko.

But it appears prosecutors opted against bringing Obama into the mix during the two-month trial.

Newly unsealed documents show that prosecutors sought to call witnesses to testify about Rezko’s ties to Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.

Related Story
Obama says he avoided city, state corruption

Read More...

In July 2004, state pension board member Allison S. Davis voted to turn over as much as $100 million in state workers’ retirement cash to an investment management firm.

Months after it won the lucrative deal at Davis’ urging, that investment firm hired Davis.

RREEF America REIT II Inc. agreed to pay the Chicago developer $30,000 a year to take a part-time post on its board of directors, even as Davis continued to serve on the Illinois State Board of Investment.

Read More...

Ayham Alsammarae, Iraq’s slimy ex-Minister of Electricity under the Bremer and Allawi administrations, who had escaped from an Iraqi prison by hiring an American security company to break him out back in December 2006, has resurfaced in the Jordanian capital Amman where he gave a press conference today saying, among other things, that he hoped that the insurgency in Iraq “would continue [against U.S. occupation] and avenges the Iraqi people.”

Alsammarae, an Iraqi-American Chicagoan, added during remarks carried by Radio Sawa (Arabic link) that he had contributed the maximum allowable of $2,300 to Barack Obama’s campaign. But there’s another Obama link to Alsammarae: while serving as electricity minister Alsammarae had been involved in brokering deals in the Iraqi electricity sector for Antoin Rezko, Obama’s long-term friend and patron. Rezko is the Syrian-American hustler who was convicted of fraud in an Illinois court on the day that Obama secured the Democratic ... Read More...

You should if he’s Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

And surprisingly, under the Illinois Constitution, you can.

Unlike the U.S. Constitution, which requires “high crimes and misdemeanors” as justification for impeachment and removal from office, the state Constitution is purposely vague on the subject. So being the blockhead he is, the General Assembly can grant his most cherished desire: to become a permanent resident of Ravenswood who never, ever needs to go to Springfield again.

To that I’d say hurrah and alleluia. And three cheers for the Democratic staff, which works under the direction of Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, for getting the ball rolling for laying out one of the best indictments I’ve seen yet for kicking In-Rod-We-Trust out of office. Yes, it is ironic for one top state Democratic office holder to go after the state’s highest Democratic state officer, for, of all things, corruption, when the Democratic Party ... Read More...

The Illinois Senate quietly approved a bill this spring that would have steered the proposed third airport down a path of pay-to-play politics – and certain doom.

I know, because Antoin “Tony” Rezko attempted to lead Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. down that same path two years ago – a proposal Jackson flatly rejected.

Pay-to-play was the pathway laid out in Senate Bill 2063, sponsored by state Sen. Debbie Halvorson. That bill would have codified what Rezko essentially proposed to Jackson, ALNAC and its developers (SNC-Lavalin and LCOR), which was to create an airport board comprised of appointed – not elected – commissioners.

These non-elected insiders would have enormous powers to control the project – including eminent domain, condemnation, taxation, and contracts galore – yet they’d stand accountable to no one.

Sound familiar?

Read More...

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Eric Zorn hypnotically tells us that Rita Rezko did not assist Barack Obama in buying his Kenwood Mansion in exchange for Sen. Obama’s continued support of her husband Tony Rezko.

Seems odd that the Rezkos would go to all the trouble they did on this transaction as some kind of coincidence but Zorn tells us it is just an “ordinary real estate story” when one of the great Chicago political manipulators gives you a walk through on your house.

Does Eric Zorn actually believe that Sen. Obama thought Tony Rezko was good judge of real estate, after coming off 15 flopped “affordable” housing projects between Rezmar and Obama’s law firm? We suspect that Sen. Obama may have got some very specialized handling from the Rezkos, in exchange for continued immediate access to a US Senator and presidential candidate, only interrupted by Tony Rezko’s indictment.

... Read More...

More than his racist minister chums, his starkly liberal voting record, his pandering to the get-out-of-Iraq-right-now zealots, what really bothers me about Barack Obama is his association with politics as practiced in Chicago and Illinois.

This is not a crime, of course, but the fact that he is someone who got his start and was propelled to stardom after an internship in the incubator of perhaps the nation’s most corrupt state gives me, at least, pause. It seems that everywhere you turn here, especially if it is toward the federal courthouse, some politician or political insider is being found guilty of some or another form of corruption.

Read More...

In what counts as one of the worst moments in time for Illinois state government, Antoin “Tony” Rezko has been convicted by a jury of his peers on 16 counts of high level political corruption. Essentially, jurors found that Rezko abused his position in the governor’s kitchen cabinet by masterminding an extensive—and illegal—pay to play scheme, that forced businesses looking for state contracts to pay millions of dollars in kickbacks. Even in a state that has had more than its share of corrupt public and quasi-public officials, the sheer scope and audacity of Rezko’s actions—coming on the heels of Governor Ryan’s corruption conviction—has to shake the confidence of even hardened, political junkies in the institution of state government.
This lack of public confidence in all likelihood will impede the state’s ability to resolve the most significant issues that have vexed Illinois policy makers for decades, involving everything from inadequate, ... Read More...

Barack Obama’s friend, financier and political supporter Tony Rezko was convicted by a Chicago jury today on sixteen counts involving various forms of political corruption. Obama released this statement:

I’m saddened by today’s verdict. This isn’t the Tony Rezko I knew, but now he has been convicted by a jury on multiple charges that once again shine a spotlight on the need for reform. I encourage the General Assembly to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent these kinds of abuses in the future. Read More...

Rezko’s relationship with Obama goes back 18 years. Some key events:

1. In 1990, Obama was a Harvard Law School student when he got a job offer from Rezko, then a developer of low-income housing in Chicago. Obama didn’t take the job.

2. In 1993, Obama got a job with a small Chicago law firm, Davis Miner Barnhill, that worked with low-income housing developers.

3. In 1995, one of the firm’s clients—the Woodlawn Historic Preservation and Investment Corp., co-founded by Obama’s then-boss Allison Davis—teamed with Rezko to turn a vacant nursing home at 61st and Drexel on Chicago’s South Side into low-income apartments. Obama worked 32 hours on the project, but only five hours came after Rezko and WPIC became partners, according to the law firm.

Read More...

Stanley Kurtz, NRO has another blockbuster report, (previously on the Rev. Wright) this time on Acorn and Barack Obama. For background on Acorn, Kurtz cites Sol Stern's 2003 piece in City Journal. They first drew my notice when they were harassing the University of Chicago hospitals. Kurtz explores in depth Barack Obama's community organizing experience with Acorn--read this as organizing demonstrations--useful stuff, huh--really improves people's lives. No, the actual work is left to others, who actually care for indigent sick people, for example. Probably good training for a political campaign, though. Note this is Obama's sole claim to experience for the presidency, other than his Read More...

A former high-up federal prosecutor whom I talked to the other day told me that in his estimation the feds will arrive at “an Agnew” solution to the Blagojevich problem.

Vice President Spiro Agnew was formally charged by the feds with accepting bribes totaling more than $100,000 while Baltimore chief executive and Governor of Maryland, receiving some of the money from past favors while holding the office of vice president. After a deal with the U.S. attorney, Agnew pleaded no contest on October 10, 1973 to a single charge that he had failed to report $29,500 of income received in 1967 and as part of the deal resigned as vice president.

My source says that the Agnew solution would be applied to both Rod and Patty Blagojevich in this manner. There is a thick tissue of probes involving his possible corruption…a leasing deal reached for occupants of a remodeled Illinois ... Read More...

Morgenthaler’s site tells us,

In both Iraq and Afghanistan, I believe Congress must do a better job overseeing how US money is spent. The war in Iraq is costing American taxpayers trillions of dollars. Big money non-compete defense contracts are being consummated behind closed doors for the benefit of wealthy friends of the Bush Administration with little regard to need or budget considerations. At a time of fiscal uncertainty, I will go to Congress committed to ensuring that all taxpayer dollars are spent wisely.

Morgenthaler might want to start by explaining how deeply she was involved in Alsammarae and Frawley’s plans for Iraq Reconstruction funds.

Alsammarae, who lives in the Chicago area and was a college classmate of Rezko, is a dual U.S.-Iraqi citizen. He left his post as Iraq’s electricity minister in May 2005, about a month after Companion got the contract. Alsammarae was accused of financial corruption by ... Read More...

In an explosive development reaching to the state’s highest office, a former high-ranking state official claimed Tuesday that Gov. Rod Blagojevich was on hand when he handed over $25,000 in campaign money to now-indicted campaign fundraiser Antoin “Tony” Rezko.

Ali Ata, 56, a former executive director of the Illinois Finance Authority, said Blagojevich then asked Rezko if he had talked to Ata about a job.

Read More...

According to prosecutors, the deal with Mell never went through, and the money instead went to Rezko associate Joseph Aramanda.

And who is Joseph Aramanda? The guy who allegedly gave a straw donation for Rezko to Barack Obama, and whose son served as in intern in Obama’s Senate office in 2005.

Read More...

Will Gov. Blagojevich be indicted? Let’s say that a cursory study of grand jury corruption probes from all 50 states…including those when the U.S. consisted of 48…shows that there has never been an occasion when so many allegations and testimony before federal juries has failed to yield an indictment of a major figure whose name has been so prominently mentioned. That doesn’t mean this couldn’t be the first time—but knowledgeable people say not for attribution that if Blagojevich isn’t nailed, it will be an historic first.

One deciding factor seems to be testimony last week at the Rezko trial by Clyde Robinson, director of investor relations at JER Partners, a private equity, real estate investment management company headquartered in McLean, Virginia which manages private equity real estate funds with clients totaling more than 100 institutional investors including some of the world’s largest public and private pension funds, endowments and ... Read More...

Who is Nadhmi Auchi and why is he important to Barack Obama? Let’s take a look.

*

Contrary to Obama’s persistent claims, he indeed did favors for Tony Rezko, including this one:

“While Mr. Obama was running for the Senate, Mr. Rezko was also raising money for a huge development in the South Loop of Chicago, often playing host to dinners in a private room at the Four Seasons Hotel here.

“Former Rezko associates said that Governor Blagojevich attended one of the dinners, and that at Mr. Rezko’s request, Mr. Obama dropped in at one for Middle Eastern bankers in early 2004, just as he was starting to pull ahead in the Senate primary. The visits, Mr. Rezko’s partners said, helped impress foreign guests.

Read More...

After the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s now-notorious sermons gained a significant amount of national media attention, Illinois Senator Barack Obama felt compelled to explain his relationship with Wright in a major speech on race relations in America. Now that the governor of Illinois has been implicated in the schemes of Obama’s friend Tony Rezko, it might be time for Obama to explain his relationship with Rezko in a major speech on the endemic political corruption that afflicts his home state of Illinois.

Rezko’s trial has lifted the veil on Illinois’s infernally corrupt political establishment, and a government witness named Stuart Levine has taken the part of a meth-snorting, double-dealing Virgil, guiding the public through it. Levine is a broken man, testifying for the government in order to avoid spending the rest of his life in prison. Over seven days of direct examination, he has described an astonishingly broad network of fraud, ... Read More...

Illinois businessman Stuart Levine, an associate of Republican former Gov. George Ryan, had dinner one evening in 2004 with fellow businessman Antoin “Tony” Rezko — an associate of Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich — at the Standard Club, a ritzy members-only hotel near Chicago’s downtown financial district.

Read More...

An MRC analysis of all broadcast news shows through February 29 found the TV networks weren’t much better.

Evening News. Only the NBC Nightly News has aired a full Rezko story, by reporter Lisa Myers on January 28, a week after Hillary Clinton threw out Rezko’s name at a debate. ABC’s World News hasn’t touched it.

CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric mentioned it once in passing on April 27, 2007. She then reported her own story celebrating the ardor of Obama’s community organizing in Chicago: “Most people stayed in that job for four months. Obama continued to fight for four years, cutting his teeth on community activism, the first measure of his leadership skills that are now being tested on a much larger stage.”

Read More...

This might be obvious to anyone who owns a home or has an empty adjacent lot next to his dwelling, but the Press is missing a simple economic key to Rita (Mrs. Tony) Rezko’s ownership a neighboring lot to Senator Obama.

Most homeowners like having a large yard or garden. Even more people like having their neighbors mow and landscape that vacant lot. Having a well kept adjoining green space increases the value of your lot, and your home.

So when Rita Rezko owned and cared for the lot adjoining Sen. Obama’s home in Kenwood, the value of Sen Obama’s home increased. If Rita would have filled the lot with garbage (not all that uncommon in the neighborhood), or built an ugly house on that lot (again not all that uncommon on the South Side), Sen. Obama’s house would have decreased in value.

Lot values in urban areas are dramatically ... Read More...

As the national media finally swarms around Barack Obama, asking him about his same day property purchase with accused corruption kingpin Tony Rezko, most of the questions are off the mark.

Here is the question he needs to be asked:

Q. Did you ever discuss with Rezko the notion that he would buy the side lot to your mansion and keep it undeveloped until you could afford to buy it back from him?

This appears to be the danger zone for Obama. From my seat, this seems to be the most logical reason for Rezko’s participation in the purchase. Acknowledging that reason could be deadly to Obama because it might be construed as a gift and therefore a Senate ethics violation. The association with Rezko, by itself, is bad judgment but nothing more. Any arrangement that bestowed a gift upon Obama is much worse.

Read More...

Feds say governor’s adviser sought jobs for friends, family

In the weeks and months after Gov. Rod Blagojevich took office, close adviser and fundraiser Antoin “Tony” Rezko gave the administration the names of people he wanted to see get state jobs.

And in the grand tradition of Illinois politics, those names ended up on a list. Call it a clout list, or a favors list.

But federal prosecutors call such lists evidence, and they are starting their own tradition of using them in political corruption cases.

Read More...

Auchi: Riverside Park project to create 10,000 new construction, retail and commercial jobs; it is a win-win for Chicago.

CHICAGO – One of Britain’s most successful businessmen says he remains bullish on investing in the American economy and wants to complete a proposed $2-billion real estate development near downtown Chicago.

Nadhmi Auchi, ranked by Forbes as one of the world’s wealthiest men with a reported net worth of $3.1 billion, looks forward to developing a 62-acre parcel just west of Chicago’s “Loop” near downtown as part of a signature project, Riverside Park, that would include residential, retail, and commercial space.

Read More...

Great work again by RezkoWatch’s B Merry:

Did former Weather Undeground Terrorist William Ayers, pictured in the 1960s, donate to the Obama campaign?

From Peter Hitchens in the Daily Mail:

It suggests very bad judgment, as do strong, persistent suggestions that Obama also accepted quite small contributions from extreme Left-wing veterans of the terrorist Weather Underground now living in Chicago.

Read More...

For the first time, Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama has surfaced in the federal corrupton case against his longtime campaign fund-raiser, Tony Rezko, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

The Illinois senator isn’t accused of any wrongdoing. And there’s no evidence Obama knew contributions to his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign came from schemes Rezko is accused of orchestrating.

Read More...

[Note: Yesterday we wrote a long article with suggestions as to what the wonderful Hillary campaign should do next. We made several suggestions regarding the Michigan and Florida primaries, the upcoming debate on MSNBC and the rest of the debate schedule. We will discuss these issues further – possibly tomorrow, possibly this weekend. ]

• *

In olden days, corrupt Chicago politicians would simply take a bag full of money. Usually the bag of money was passed under the table while corrupt politician and corrupt fixer lunched or dined. Those were simpler times.

With all the do-gooders trying to stamp out political corruption things got more complicated for politicians on the take.

Read More...

In sharp contrast to his tough talk about ethics reform in government, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., approached a well-known Illinois political fixer under active federal investigation, Antoin “Tony” Rezko, for “advice” as he sought to find a way to buy a house shortly after being elected to the United States Senate.

Read More...

At the peril of veering from constant criticism of the Chicago Media, our editors have found reasons to cheer on our local publications on a variety of issues.

Here are 5 top examples of good reporting that made it through to publication, and even had follow-ups in some cases.

1) The CTA is in financial trouble. We not only know about it from 1st hand experience, all of the major media outlets carried stories about financial problems in our mass transit systems, an even considered a variety of proposals (including-gasp-higher fares) to fix the issue. Abstenteeism, lack of riders, muddy minded management, poorly planned capital projects all received at least a scrutinizing glance.

2) TIF District Mania. Ben Joravsky at the Chicago Reader has been accused of being obsessed with TIF districts: good for Ben. In Ben Joravsky and the Chicago Reader there is finally some oversight ... Read More...