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Alice Palmer is a Chicago based academic, activist and former friend, employer and political ally of Barack Obama. In the mid 1990s Alice Palmer, then an Illinois State Senator, employed Obama has her chief of staff, when she attempted an ill-fated run for the US Congress. Obama was part of Friends of Alice Palmer, alongside controversial property developer Tony Rezko and Democratic Socialists of America members Danny Davis, Betty Wilhoitte and Timuel Black-also a member of Committees of Correspondence). Later Palmer introduced Obama as designated successor to her Illinois State Senate seat, in the living room of former Weather Underground...

Alice Palmer is a Chicago based academic, activist and former friend, employer and political ally of Barack Obama. In the mid 1990s Alice Palmer, then an Illinois State Senator, employed Obama has her chief of staff, when she attempted an ill-fated run for the US Congress. Obama was part of Friends of Alice Palmer, alongside controversial property developer Tony Rezko and Democratic Socialists of America members Danny Davis, Betty Wilhoitte and Timuel Black-also a member of Committees of Correspondence).

It’s turning into Hypocrisy Watch Day here at FinkelBlog. Earlier, we noted John Kerry complaining that “partisan politics” had crept into the confirmation process for Obama nominees–despite having engaged in hardball tactics himself to block Bush nominees. Now it’s the president’s turn. Speaking at a “Women of Courage” event, Pres. Obama said “When women are more than half of our population but just 17% of our Congress . . . we need to ask ourselves some hard questions.” Your wish is my command, Mr. President. How’s this for a hard question? Are you proud of having used hardball tactics to...

Barack Obama's chief campaign strategist David Axelrod, once worked for a man who was an identified member of the Communist Party USA, a registered agent of the Soviet Union and a paid disseminator of Soviet black propaganda. This man went on to become a key Chicago political fixer who helped elect communist linked politicians including the late Chicago mayor Harold Washington and former US Senator Carol Moseley Braun. This man knew Barack Obama and was a key member of an organisation which endorsed Barack Obama in his 2004 US Senate race. Barack and Michelle Obama were active members of this...

WASHINGTON--Barack Obama continues to be attacked by John McCain and other Republicans for his relationship with Bill Ayers, the former terrorist turned respected Chicago educator. Obama served on civic boards with Ayers and Ayers held a coffee for Obama when Obama first ran for a state senate seat in 1995. McCain said he may bring up Ayers at the third and final presidential debate Wednesday night. Obama said McCain--running ads featuring Ayers with Sarah Palin making him an issue on the stump--never said anything to his face. Ayers did not came up in the first two presidential debates. If McCain...

I've previously covered Obama's hidden Marxist past in this blog. Commentary has an excellent new piece out, Obama's Leftism, which offers more of the same.

In 1985, Barack Obama traveled halfway across the country to take a job that he didn't fully understand. But, while he knew little about his new vocation--community organizer--it still had a romantic ring, at least to his 24-year-old ears. With his old classmates from Columbia, he had talked frequently about political change. Now, he was moving to Chicago to put that talk into action. His 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father, recounts his idealistic effusions: "Change won't come from the top, I would say. Change will come from a mobilized grass roots. That's what I'll do. I'll organize black folks....

In 1995, State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district’s influential liberals at the home of two well known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. While Ayers and Dohrn may be thought of in Hyde Park as local activists, they’re better known nationally as two of the most notorious — and unrepentant — figures from the violent fringe of the 1960s anti-war movement. Now, as Obama runs for president, what two guests recall as an unremarkable gathering on the road to a minor elected office stands as a...