Posted on 12/19/2008 12:25:19 AM PST by hoosiermama
Edited on 02/09/2012 7:04:21 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
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!”
Trying to keep it all together. Feel free to connect dots or add anything you find to the thread.
Olympic Suicide
Enterprise Record Post Scripts ^ | 2/22/10 | Bray
Posted on Monday, February 22, 2010 12:58:59 PM by OneVike
(Jarrett shown left)
It seems the Olympic suicide flu is spreading through Chicago. Michael Scott another dirty political partner of Valerie Jarrett decides to blow his brains out.
We all know the Daley motto, dead men tell no tales and Scott won’t be talking. Of course we also know that suicide in Chi-town is like going for a swim w/lead sneakers in NJ. This is the second Daley inner circle pay-to-play thugs to die. The first was convicted dirtbag Kelly who accidently took an overdose of aspirin and rat poison the week he was heading for prison. Rumor was both of these were singing like canaries.
Where in Chicago could anybody find someone to make a murder look like SIEUicide? Michael Scott was a longtime partner of Jarrett who rose through the ranks of the Daley machine in the same Black Power slumlord circles. They both owned Real Estate companies just like Rezko that are used as a business to launder bribe $$. He was also on the same Chicago Boards where all the power and Pay to Play is funneled into the machine. He was also a force in the Obama circle of commie black leadership that ran their side of the Daley syndicate. He was so deep in the corruption that he was being investigated for his taking bribes and favors as Chairman of the Chicago Public School Board.
The real corruption he was being investigated was his connection w/Jarrett on the Olympic Committee where he was a member, that was going to develop properties near the village. This was in
(Excerpt) Read more at norcalblogs.com ...
http://www.norcalblogs.com/post_scripts/2010/02/olympic-suicide.html
gonna link your entire thread here...Lost of supportive information. Feel free to add anything you wish to this thread...We’re trying to keep it all together so the dots will be easier to connect.
From:
Trying to keep it all in one place
FROM:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2456617/posts
Issa vs. ACORN, Report claims ACORN and SEIU are part of a criminal conspiracy
National Review Online ^ | February 22, 2010 | Kevin Williamson
Posted on 02/22/2010 4:47:03 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, led by Rep. Darrell Issa, have issued a scalding report on ACORN and the SEIU. The main thesis — that ACORN and SEIU are, operationally, in effect the same organization, an organization that illegally channels restricted money into political activity — is argued persuasively.
The odds are vanishingly small that Eric Holder’s Justice Department, which could not be bothered to prosecute armed New Black Panther–party thugs brandishing weapons to scare off would-be voters, is going to do much about an organization at the heart of its boss’s political coalition and fundraising operation. Issa’s report may be the closest thing to an indictment ACORN ever sees — which makes its flaws all the more of a shame.
As for his primary argument, Issa pulls no punches, writing: “ACORN is a single corrupt corporate enterprise composed of a series of holding companies and subsidiaries that are financially and operationally dependent upon the main corporation. . . . ACORN and SEIU’s illegal agreements, and the crimes committed in furtherance of these agreements, constitute a criminal conspiracy.”
Among Issa’s findings: “ACORN has received $5,609,338 from SEIU. Anthony Hill, a state senator from Florida, was simultaneously employed by SEIU and ACORN. Newly reviewed documents show Senator Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.), former Governor Rod Blagojevich (D., Ill.) and Congressman Gerry Connolly (D., Va.) have received the support of SEIU’s ACORN affiliates. Insiders claim that, despite SEIU Treasurer Anna Burger’s statement to the contrary, SEIU has never cut ties to ACORN.” It has been widely noted that SEIU and ACORN often share mailing addresses, office space, and employees.
RE: Rahm E parents and connections
Really, I am not making this up, the chief power-broker of the Democrat Party, the 5-and-a-half foot foul-mouthed Israeli named Rahm, is the son of terrorist – a real living terrorist.
...snip...
Irgun, the army of his father, is short for Irgun Zvai Leumi, which supposedly means something like “National Military Organization” in Hebrew. As a matter of fact, the Irgun was simply a terrorist Zionist group that operated in Palestine from 1931 to 1948. They killed innocent Palestinians and British soldiers and blew up buildings.
After 1948 they became part of the new Israeli government and did the same thing. In September 2001 they put their skills to work in New York City and Washington to kick start the “war on terror” - a conflict long promoted by their chief architect, Bibi Netanyahu, son of the former secretary of Ze’ev Jabotinsky.
...snip...
The late Sherman Skolnick of Chicago called Rahm Emanuel the “Acting Deputy Chief for North America of the Mossad – Israeli Intelligence.”
cloakanddagger.de Rahm Emanuel
Skolnick went on to say that Emanuel’s father Benjamin had been “part of the Israeli assassin team that murdered Sweden’s Count [Folke] Bernadotte” in 1948. Bernadotte was the envoy of the United Nations in Palestine who sought to find a solution to the UN Partition Plan that gave Palestinian land to Jews from “beyond the pale.”
Was Skolnick correct? Skolnick does not document his claims so I checked into his allegations.
“Beyond the pale” would certainly describe where Rahm Emanuel’s family came from. His father’s family came to Palestine from somewhere in the Ukraine in 1917, according to what Dr. Benjamin M. Emanuel told me the other day. Dr. Emanuel now lives on the appropriately named Locust Road in Wilmette, Illinois.
Benjamin, speaking with a thick Israeli accent, told me that his father’s name was Ezekiel Auerbach and that his mother’s name was Pinina or something like that. He said it meant “pearl” in Hebrew. Asked about his role in the Irgun, Ben told me he had been a “simple soldier.”
Yes, Ben, but serving as “simple soldier” in a terrorist organization makes you a terrorist. And the fact that you served in a terrorist organization 60 years ago makes no difference. You know, same rules for Nazis and terrorists.
GOt it!
From:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2459887/posts
Obama and the MSM Define Bipartisan the Chicago Way: It’s ‘the Combine’
Big Journalism ^ | 2-25-10 | Archy Cary
Posted on 02/26/2010 8:46:54 AM PST by STARWISE
Think the Chicago Way political machine is all about corrupt Democrat politicians and their cronies? Think again. It’s bipartisan. While Democrats have run the Machine out of Chicago for decades, a supporting cast of Republicans has long participated in Machine enterprises.
Chicago Tribune reporter John Kass uses the term, “the Combine” to refer to the combination of Illinois Republicans working with Democrats to make hay for themselves regardless of who’s driving the tractor. As Republican power-broker Bill Cellini once said,
When we’re in [Republicans], we’re in. And when you’re in [Democrats], we’re in.
This month, the University of Illinois released a study entitled “Curing Corruption in Illinois: Anti-Corruption Report Number 3.” Here are some of its findings:
Since 1972 there have been three governors before Governor Blagojevich, state legislators, two congressmen, 19 Cook County judges, 30 aldermen, and other statewide officials convicted of corruption. Altogether there have been 1,000 public officials and businessmen convicted of public corruption since 1970…Corruption in Illinois seems endemic in both political parties. (p.3)
Here’s now corruption in both political parties, the Combine, works.
William F. Cellini, long-time GOP state power-broker seconded Gerald Ford’s nomination for President at the 1976 Republican National Convention. For four decades, regardless of which party ran the Illinois state government, Cellini did well, while attracting little attention.
That relative obscurity ended in October 2008 when Cellini was indicted by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s office for conspiracy and extortion. The indictment, read here, describes how pay-to-play works in Illinois politics. Here’s an excerpt from Count 2 (of 4) in the indictment:
As part of the conspiracy, CELLINI, [Stuart] Levine, [“Tony”] Rezko, and Co-Conspirator A [identified by the Chicago Tribune as former Gov. Rod Blagojevich Chief of Staff Alonzo “Lon” Monk who is cooperating with the Feds] agreed that they would use their influence and Levine’s position [as a Trustee] at TRS [Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois with $30 billion in assets] to prevent [John] Rosenberg’s firm, Capri Capital, from receiving a planned $220 million allocation of TRS funds unless Rosenberg and Capri Capital agreed to raise or donate a substantial about of funds for the benefit of Public Official A [Blagojevich].
When Rosenberg threatened to expose the plan, CELLINI, Levine, Rezko, and Co-Conspirator A [Monk] acted together to prevent Rosenberg from telling law enforcement about the extortion plan. As a result of Rosenberg’s threat, CELLINI, Levine, Rezko, and Co-Conspirator A agreed that Capri Capital would receive the $220 million allocation, but that Capri Capital and Rosenberg would receive no further funds from the State of Illinois. (pp. 14-15)
Think it couldn’t get any more embarrassing for the Illinois GOP?
Alonzo “Lon” Monk, ex-Chief of Staff to Blagojevich, signed a Plea Agreement in the case against Blago. One section discusses the “Pension Obligation Bond (POB) Deal:”
One of the ways in which Blagojevich, Rezko, [Christopher who committed suicide] Kelly, and Defendant [Monk] tried to obtain money for themselves from their control over the State of Illinois government related to the re-financing of $10 billion in Pension Obligation Bonds (“POB”) by the State of Illinois in 2003…
Defendant understood that the lead firm would make the most money from the POB sale. Initially, Defendant understood that Kelly and Rezko were pushing for Investment Firm A to be chosen either because Investment Firm A would make a contribution to Blagojevich or because Defendant, Blagojevich, Rezko, and Kelly would make money if Investment Firm A was chosen…[The $10 billion in bonds was subsequently issued by the State in one day.]
After the POB issuance, Rezko and Kelly told Defendant in additional conversations about the amount of money that Defendant, Blagojevich, Rezko, and Kelly would make from the POB deal. Defendant learned from those conversations that Individual A, who Defendant understood either had received or was going to receive money from Investment Firm A for acting as a consultant on the POB deal, was going to give Rezko $500,000 that would be held in a separate account.
Defendant understood that the $500,000 payment was for the help that Rezko had provided to Investment Firm A and Individual A relating to the POB deal, and that the money would later be split between Defendant, Blagojevich, Rezko, and Kelly.” (pp. 10-12)
The Chicago Tribune identified “Individual A” as Bob Kjellander (pronounced Shell-an-der), a high-profile Illinois Republican and former Treasurer of the Republican National Committee.
Kjellander’s friend, Cellini, goes on trial next November. Kjellander has not been indicted.
Obama would like to govern in the bipartisan Combine style of Illinois politics. The MSM, with their criticism of uncooperative Congressional Republicans, clearly shares Obama’s wish to spread the Combine nationwide.
Looks like Alex may be in even more trouble...;~) Wonder who will bail him out....Looks like someone is connecting the dots.
Fridays are getting tense in the Chicago campaign office of Alexi Giannoulias, the Democrat seeking the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama. That’s the day regulators announce which troubled banks they’ll close. Broadway Bank in Chicago, owned by Giannoulias’s family, must attract at least $75 million in capital by late April to meet terms of a consent order with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. prompted by losses on commercial real-estate loans. Even if successful, the family could lose control before November’s election, dealing a blow to Democrats and an Obama friend.
* * *
Some of the Broadway loans that have generated controversy involve Michael Giorango, a convicted bookmaker and prostitution-ring promoter. It has also made loans to convicted Illinois influence peddler Antoin “Tony” Rezko and a family accused of having connections to organized crime.
GOt it...THey are so intertwined
John Rogers is divorced from Desiree —— they had one child. He is now remarried.
In 1994, Time featured John Rogers as one of its 50 leaders under 40. On February 23, 2008, Rogers, owner of Ariel Capital Management, and one of Obama’s chief fundraiser, became the first African-American winner of a Woodrow Wilson Award for his service to the Princeton alumni community, the Chicago community, the African American community and the financial community.
(Ex-WH czar, commie Van Jones, just got a one-year joint appointment as a distinguished visiting fellow at Princeton’s Center for African American Studies and Woodrow Wilson School of Public and Int Affairs, where he will teach a seminar on environmental and economic policy).
Rogers is co-chairman of Jesse Jackson’s annual Wall Street Project minority conference (AKA The Annual Shakedown), chairman of the Chicago Urban League, a member of four corporate boards and was a leading campaigner for Princeton basketball legend and United States Senator Bill Bradley’s 2000 United States presidential campaign.
Three of the boards he serves on are Fortune 500 companies: McDonald’s, Aon Corporation, and Exelon Corporation.
(Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, helped create Exelon. when Emanuel was at the investment bank Wasserstein Perella (now Dresdner Kleinwort). In his 2-year career there Emanuel earned $16.2 million, according to congressional disclosures. His biggest deal was the Exelon merger. David Axelrod was Exelon’s PR man. Emanuel e-mailed Exelon’s John Rowe on the eve of the House vote on global warming legislation and asked that he reach out to some uncommitted Democrats. “We are proud to be the President’s utility,” says Elizabeth Moler, Exelon’s chief lobbyist. “It’s nice for John to be able to go to the White House and they know his name.”
Rogers is a trustee of the University of Chicago. He has served numerous civic, educational and arts organizations as a director or trustee, including the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the Oprah Winfrey Foundation and the Chicago Symphony.
At Princeton, he was a trustee of the University from 1990 to 1994 and more recently has served as a member of the Association of Black Princeton Alumni (ABPA) and the Princeton Varsity Club board of directors, as well as the Alumni Schools Committee. He has been an advocate for greater diversity in upper-level corporate positions.
In the early 1990s, Rogers served as a fundraising leader in Project Vote voter registration efforts led by President Barack Obama (aided by ACORN).
(There was criticism of the financial ties and close cooperation between President Obama’s campaign and ACORN and its sister organizations Citizens Services Inc. and Project Vote. The groups came under fire during the campaign after probes into possible voter fraud in a series of presidential battleground states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Mexico and Nevada. ACORN and its affiliates are currently the target of at least 14 lawsuits related to voter fraud in the 2008 election and a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act complaint filed by former ACORN members.)
Rogers was part of the inner circle of the Barack Obama presidential campaign. He is a long-time Obama associate who serves as the co-chair of Obama’s Illinois finance committee and who has been a major Democrat fundraiser.
He served along with Bill Daley, Pat Ryan, Penny Pritzker and Julianna Smoot on Barack Obama’s 2009 presidential inauguration committee.
Thanks.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2467531/posts
Obama and Giannoulias) Banking on Corruption In The Windy City
Investor’s Business Daily ^ | March 9, 2009 | Investor’s Business Daily staff
Posted on Tuesday, March 09,
Politics: Another bank failure is nothing new these days — except if the bank is run by the family of a U.S. Senate candidate who profited handsomely and lent millions to a convicted felon. But then, that’s the Chicago way.
‘I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat-cat bankers on Wall Street,” President Obama said in a recent interview with “60 Minutes.” Speaking to those bankers, he said: “You guys are drawing down 10, 20 million dollar bonuses after America went through the worst economic year that it’s gone through in — in decades, and you guys caused the problem.”
Not all those fat cats, apparently, are on Wall Street. Some are on Main Street in the president’s hometown. One of those “guys” recently won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat once held by Obama.
He’s an Obama protege and fundraiser. His name is Alexi Giannoulias, and his family runs the Broadway Bank in Chicago, a financially troubled institution that the feds appear ready to seize and shut down. He is running for U.S. Senate from Illinois.
Last Friday, Crain’s Chicago Business reported that the Giannoulias family stood to collect more than $10 million in federal tax refunds even if the bank does fail. “It’s quite likely the bank will fail,” the Chicago Tribune reported Giannoulias as saying last Wednesday, unless “they can raise the capital to keep the bank going,” an amount estimated at $85 million
Posted 03/09/2010 06:57 PM ET
from: second page of above.
One of the people Giannoulias cared about, apparently, was Michael “Jaws” Giorango, a Chicagoan with multiple convictions for bookmaking and promoting prostitution. As Ed Morrissey reported when he ran his Captain’s Quarters blog, Giannoulias approved some $11.8 million in loans to Giorango and associates after Giorango was convicted in 2004 for running a prostitution ring.
In answering questions about Broadway’s loans to Giorango during a 70-minute meeting with the Tribune editorial board, Giannoulias, the newspaper reported, “at first contended he was unaware of Giorango’s criminal history. That contradicted Giannoulias’ comments in 2006 to the Tribune, in which he acknowledged knowing Giorango had a criminal background.”
Stolen for the chicago crime thread.... Where corruption is linked and linked and linked......
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2469634/posts
Boston Blackie’s owners arrested in check-kiting scheme (Illinois Senate Race)
Chicago Breaking News ^ | 3.12.10
Posted on Friday, March 12, 2010 12:24:48 PM by Thebaddog
A father and son who operated the Boston Blackie’s burger restaurants were charged Thursday with ripping off nearly $1.9 million from two banks in a check-cashing scheme, and authorities said they arrested the father on the U.S. border as he was trying to enter Canada.
The allegations caused a new round of political embarrassment for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate and state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, whose family owns Broadway Bank and has long known the father and son.
The Blackie’s operators are accused of writing bad checks from their accounts at Broadway to other banks as part of their alleged scheme. Longtime Blackie’s operator Nick Giannis gave Giannoulias more than $114,000 in campaign contributions for his treasurer and Senate campaigns.
Giannoulias was in a state of “shock and disbelief” at the news, according to his campaign, which announced he would donate an equivalent amount to local charities.
Giannis, 62, his son, Chris, 38, and restaurant manager Andy Bakopoulos, 38, were charged with defrauding Charter One and Washington Mutual banks. Chris Giannis also was charged with two counts of being an organizer of a continuing financial crimes enterprise. Nick Giannis was arrested by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Detroit while attempting to enter Canada after he failed to surrender to authorities and investigators sent out a nationwide alert.
Prosecutors said the men participated in a so-called check-kiting scheme in which they wrote checks from bank accounts that didn’t have enough money and deposited those checks at Charter One and Washington Mutual. They then withdrew money from their Charter One and Washington Mutual accounts before the checks actually cleared, or in some cases stopped payments on the checks.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagobreakingnews.com ...
MORE:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2469973/posts?page=5
Broadway Bank, owned by U.S. Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias’ family, was defrauded in an alleged check-kiting scheme by the owners of a popular Chicago restaurant, Boston Blackies.
Nick Giannis and his son, Chris, are charged with stealing nearly $2 million.
Chris posted bond and was released Friday from Cook County Jail. His father Nick remains jailed in Detroit.
Alexi Giannoulias said Friday in a statement he was “shocked and appalled” at the arrests Thursday of principals in the Boston Blackies restaurant chain.
Thirty-eight year-old suspects Chris Giannis and Andy Bakopoulos were picked up in Chicago while Blackies founder 62-year-old Nick Giannis was detained in Detroit allegedly trying to leave the country.
Giannoulias reportedly has known the elder Giannis and son for decades. Not only has Nick Giannis donated $119,000 to Giannoulias’ campaigns for treasurer and the U.S. Senate, the Giannoulias family’s troubled Broadway Bank has made business loans to the Boston Blackies chain.
(Excerpt) Read more at abclocal.go.com ...
Catherine H on FOX news/ Specialreport/ bret baier stated this evening that Patrick Fitagerald was meeting with the CIA and that the case he had been working on with them had been closed for some time.
Free RepublicForum Account You have mail New posts to you Post Sign Out
Search: Keywords Users Titles Yahoo
Reply Next Previous Delete
Re: Re: CHICAGO: CRIME KIND OF TOWN Fred, Star, Mag, Lucy t, BP
From maggief | 03/15/2010 4:02:18 PM PDT new
Fred, Star, hoosiermama, Lucy t, BP
Not good news.
“the Justice Department team recently added Mr. Fitzgerald”
The Washington Times
Monday, March 15, 2010
Justice, CIA clash over probe of interrogator IDs
Bill Gertz
The CIA and Justice Department are fighting over a secret investigation into a controversial program by legal supporters of Islamist terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay that involved photographing CIA interrogators and showing the pictures to prisoners, an effort CIA officials say threatens the officers’ lives.
The dispute prompted a meeting Tuesday at CIA headquarters between U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald and senior CIA counterintelligence officials. It is the latest battle between the agency and the department over detainees and interrogations of terrorists.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. angered many CIA officials and Republicans in Congress by reopening an investigation last August into whether CIA interrogators acted illegally in questioning senior al Qaeda detainees.
According to U.S. officials familiar with the issue, the current dispute involves Justice Department officials who support an effort led by the American Civil Liberties Union to provide legal aid to military lawyers for the Guantanamo inmates. CIA counterintelligence officials oppose the effort and say giving terrorists photographs of interrogators has exposed CIA personnel and their families to possible terrorist attacks.
As part of the disagreement, a senior Justice Department national security official removed himself from the counterintelligence probe last week after opposing CIA security worries.
Donald Vieira, a former Democratic counsel on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence who in September became chief of staff at the Justice Department’s National Security Division, recused himself from the counterintelligence investigation into the recent discovery of photographs of CIA interrogators in the possession of defense lawyers at the prison in Cuba.
The investigation has been under way for many months, but was given new urgency after the discovery last month of additional photographs of interrogators at Guantanamo showing CIA officers and contractors who have carried out interrogations of detainees, according to three officials familiar with the investigation. They spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Findings of the investigation to date produced some signs that the senior al Qaeda detainees at Guantanamo gained intelligence on CIA interrogators through their lawyers that could be used in future legal proceedings.
CIA counterintelligence officials have “serious concerns” that the information will leak out and lead to the terrorists targeting the officers and their families, if the identities are disseminated to terrorists or sympathizers still at large, said one official.
“They have put the lives of CIA officers and their families in danger,” said a senior U.S. official about the detainees’ lawyers.
The case is being pressed by the counterspies who only recently were able to alert senior agency, Justice Department and White House officials to their concerns.
Details on Mr. Vieira’s recusal could not be learned, but the Justice Department team recently added Mr. Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago who led the controversial 2005 investigation into the public disclosure of the identity of CIA undercover officer Valerie Plame.
The recusal is said to be related to Mr. Vieira’s past work on the House intelligence committee on detainee policy before 2009, one official said.
Mr. Vieira could not be reached for comment, and Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler declined to comment.
A CIA spokesman also declined comment, as did Mr. Fitzgerald, through a spokesman.
According to the officials, the dispute centered on discussions for a interagency memorandum that was to be used in briefing President Obama and senior administration officials on the photographs found in Cuba.
Justice officials did not share the CIA’s security concerns about the risks posed to CIA interrogators and opposed language on the matter that was contained in the draft memorandum. The memo was being prepared for White House National Security Council aide John Brennan, who was to use it to brief the president.
The CIA insisted on keeping its language describing the case and wanted the memorandum sent forward in that form.
That resulted in the meeting and ultimately to Mr. Vieira withdrawing from the probe.
CIA Director Leon E. Panetta and his chief of staff, Jeremy Bash, a former chief counsel for the House intelligence committee, at first were unaware of both the scope and seriousness of the case.
However, both officials began addressing the matter after inquiries were made from members of Congress. Since then, Mr. Panetta and Mr. Bash are getting regular updates on the dispute, said the officials.
The legal underpinnings of the counterintelligence probe stem from the 1982 law that makes it illegal to disclose the identity of clandestine CIA and other intelligence officers. The law was passed after CIA defector Philip Agee in the 1970s disclosed the identity of Richard Welch, the CIA station chief in Greece, who was assassinated in 1975 after the disclosure.
The law was tested in the Plame case, amid press accusations that senior Bush administration deliberately leaked the name to embarrass her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV. However, no one was prosecuted under the statute for the disclosure.
The Pentagon also is involved in the investigation in the photographs compromising CIA officers’ identities at Guantanamo because the military provided the lawyers currently representing some detainees. A Pentagon spokeswoman in charge of detainee affairs had no immediate comment and said she was unaware of the case.
The officials said the photographs of the CIA officers found recently at Guantanamo were obtained by a joint program of the ACLU and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers called the John Adams Project.
The project, according to a Washington Post report in August, hired contractors to photograph CIA officers who were thought to have carried out terrorist interrogations. Those photographs were then to be provided to defense lawyers representing some of the Guantanamo detainees as part of an effort to identify the interrogators, for possible use as witnesses in military or civilian trials.
Joshua Dratel, a lawyer representing the John Adams Project, declined to comment directly on whether his group hired investigators to photograph CIA officers and supply them to military defense lawyers.
However, Mr. Dratel said in an interview that “none of the John Adams Project lawyers have done anything inappropriate or contrary to the protective order or any other rules that apply” to the prisoners.
ACLU spokesman John Kennedy also declined to comment on whether the project obtained photographs of CIA officers. However, he said none of the John Adams Project lawyers disclosed the identities of CIA officers to detainees held at Guantanamo.
Details about the investigation into the photographs remain closely held, but one official said CIA counterintelligence and security officials were alarmed by the discovery at the prison.
“What it says is that somebody is going out and finding these agents, taking their pictures, and taking them back to Gitmo, trying to get these guys at Gitmo to confirm who they are and where they are from,” one U.S. intelligence official said. “CIA is afraid this information will become public and jeopardize the lives of the agents.”
A second source said the probe also has heightened an ongoing political dispute among CIA, Justice and White House officials over the issue of terrorism detainees.
After the Bush administration’s Justice Department closed its investigation into alleged wrongdoing by CIA interrogators, Mr. Obama’s Justice Department team reopened the case into whether they broke the law while questioning terrorism suspects captured in the early 2000s.
The Justice Department, under Mr. Holder, also favors conducting civilian trials for some terrorism suspects, rather than holding military tribunals. It also has sought to treat captured terrorists more like criminal defendants in legal cases, rather than as enemy combatants captured in wartime.
Stolen (It’s the Chicago way) to keep everything together...feel free to add more or just connect a few dots.
FROM:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2483075/posts?page=101
Chicago Law School faculty hated Obama
theblogprof. ^
Posted on Tuesday, March 30, 2010 9:30:01 AM by big black dog
The smartest genius President evah is nothing more than a carboard cutout. A fraud. Doesn’t exist. We don’t even know how he did in school because to this day his transcripts are sealed. Turns out now that when he was an instructor at the Chicago, his colleagues who were actual Professors didn’t like him and didn’t want him. Obama’s position was obtained through political channels.
Is the President’s resume accurate when it comes to his career and qualifications? I can corroborate that Obama’s “teaching career” at Chicago was, to put it kindly, a sham.
I spent some time with the highest tenured faculty member at Chicago Law a few months back, and he did not have many nice things to say about “Barry.” Obama applied for a position as an adjunct and wasn’t even considered. A few weeks later the law school got a phone call from the Board of Trustees telling them to find him an office, put him on the payroll, and give him a class to teach. The Board told him he didn’t have to be a member of the faculty, but they needed to give him a temporary position. He was never a professor and was hardly an adjunct.
The other professors hated him because he was lazy, unqualified, never attended any of the faculty meetings, and it was clear that the position was nothing more than a political stepping stool. According to my professor friend, he had the lowest intellectual capacity in the building. He also doubted whether he was legitimately an editor on the Harvard Law Review, because if he was, he would be the first and only editor of an Ivy League law review to never be published while in school (publication is or was a requirement).
Consider this: 1. President Barack Obama, former editor of the Harvard Law Review, is no longer a “lawyer”. He surrendered his license back in 2008 possibly to escape charges that he “fibbed” on his bar application. ...
4. A senior lecturer is one thing. A fully ranked law professor is another. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, “Obama did NOT ‘hold the title’ of a University of Chicago law school professor”. Barack Obama was NOT a Constitutional Law professor at the University of Chicago.
5. The University of Chicago released a statement in March, 2008 saying Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) “served as a professor” in the law school, but that is a title Obama, who taught courses there part-time, never held, a spokesman for the school confirmed in 2008.
6. “He did not hold the title of professor of law,” said Marsha Ferziger Nagorsky, an Assistant Dean for Communications and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago School of Law.
7. The former Constitutional senior lecturer cited the U.S. Constitution recently during his State of the Union Address. Unfortunately, the quote he cited was from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution.
10. By the way, the promises are not a notion, our founders named them unalienable rights. The document is our Declaration of Independence and it reads: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
11. And this is the same guy who lectured the Supreme Court moments later in the same speech?
When you are a phony it’s hard to keep facts straight.
For a constitutional senior lecturer, it’s also noteworthy that Obama doesn’t know what car insurance covers
UPDATE: Doug Ross updates with this: Most Transparent President Ever Has Bar Records Redacted This Week, Leaving Only Traces of His Existence Some Betamax Videos and a Fraternity Pin
President Obama’s Occidental College transcripts have never been released. His Columbia transcripts are, likewise, AWOL. And his Harvard Law transcripts also haven’t been made public. Finally, it’s reported, he never published any articles while at Harvard, yet somehow served as Editor of Law Review. That would make him unique among editors, according to insiders.
Even John “D Student” Kerry was guilt-tripped into releasing his transcripts.
Curiously, since I relayed a report of Obama’s “teaching career” at Chicago (he was apparently never a law professor, as some have claimed), the Illinois Bar has decided to partially redact what little public information it had available on its website related to the President’s legal status.
UPDATE #2: Another from Doug Ross: Rub a dub dub, how many IDs does one profile need?
An anonymous tipster points out that the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of Illinois has gone through some amazing contortions maintaining a single database record for a retired attorney named Barack Obama.
Obama is only transparent in the sense that his past is invisible.
Thanks....Can it get any worse? When will it get better? Would it be cheaper to just fence Chicago in?
FROM:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2485458/posts
Ill. Senate Candidate’s Bank Made $20 Million in Loans to Felons
Friday, April 02, 2010 6:05:07
Broadway Bank had already lent millions to Michael Giorango when he and a new business partner, Demitri Stavropoulos, came to the bank in mid-2004. Although both men were preparing to serve federal prison terms, the bank embarked on a series of loans to them.
Alexi Giannoulias took a senior position at the bank at about the same time and used it as a launching pad for his political career. But as he campaigns to step up from state treasurer to the U.S. Senate, he has tried to distance himself from the bank’s business with the pair and has been reluctant to detail his role.
Broadway is now suing to recover millions of the pair’s delinquent loans as the bank struggles to avoid a federal takeover.
Obama supports Giannoulias
Keeping together. TY again.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/chi-mxa0322magazineobamapg6mar22,0,4776413.story
Law professor Geoffrey Stone’s best Barack Obama story has gotten better with age, acquiring an extra measure of ironic punch with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s antic tumble from power. Stone was dean of the University of Chicago Law School back in 1992 when its faculty was trying to recruit the sleek and all-around stellar Harvard Law student who had once worked as a community organizer on the city’s South Side. Sniffing out Obama’s plan to return to Chicago after graduation, Stone and Douglas Baird, who was chairman of the faculty appointments committee, cooked up a plan of their own: They created a faculty fellowship slot custom-tailored for Obama and then invited him to apply for it. When Obama visited the campus for his initial interview, he spent a few minutes outside Stone’s office chatting with Stone’s secretary, Charlotte Maffia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/us/politics/30obama.html?pagewanted=2
He positioned himself early on as a protégé of the powerful Democratic leader, Senator Emil Jones, a beneficiary of the Chicago political machine. He courted collaboration with Republicans. He endured hazing from a few black colleagues, played poker with lobbyists, studiously took up golf. (“An awful lot happens on the golf course,” a friend, Jean Rudd, says he told her.)
(snip)
One of the first was campaign finance reform. Illinois had one of the least regulated campaign finance systems in the country and a history of corruption. Paul Simon, the former United States senator, was running a public policy institute at Southern Illinois University and asked each of the four legislative leaders to name a trusted lawmaker to work on a bipartisan ethics bill.
Mr. Jones recalls receiving a call from Abner J. Mikva, a former Chicago congressman, federal judge and friend of Mr. Simon. Judge Mikva, who had once tried to hire Mr. Obama as a law clerk, suggested him for the job. Mr. Jones says he knew that the new senator was hard-working and bright and that few others would want the assignment.
“He caught pure hell,” Mr. Jones said of Mr. Obama. “I actually felt sorry for him at times.”
Early ties and connections:
Betty Lu Saltzmann (... Fenton)
Pritzkers (... Soros)
Jarrett
Ayers
Khalidi
Wright
Emil Jones (... Chicago Machine, ... Simon ... Axelrod, Chicago Trib)
Abner Mikva (... Jackson)
“I had lunch with him at the Quadrangle Club, and we were discussing the different bases he had to touch. I said, ‘You have to talk to the Jackson boys first,’ ” Mr. Mikva recalled, referring to Representative Jackson and his father, the Rev. Jesse Jackson. “Because Jesse Jackson Jr. had his eye on that seat. He said, ‘I know. I’m working on that.’ ”
Mr. Obama soon sat down with the younger Mr. Jackson at the 312 Chicago restaurant. Michelle Obama had attended high school with Mr. Jackson’s sister and been close to the family for years, and the congressman had attended the Obamas’ wedding. “He said, ‘Jesse, if you’re running for the U.S. Senate I’m not going to run,’ ” Mr. Jackson recalled.
But Mr. Jackson had already decided against it, and he gave Mr. Obama his blessing.
A Pivotal Moment
Betty Lu Saltzman, a Democratic doyenne from Chicago’s lakefront liberal crowd, convened a small group of activists, including Ms. Katz, in her living room to organize a rally to protest the United States’ impending invasion of Iraq. It was late September 2002, and Mr. Obama was on the top of Ms. Saltzman’s list of desired speakers.
She first met him when he ran the black voter registration drive in the 1992 election, and was so impressed that she immediately took him under her wing, introducing him to wealthy donors and talking him up to friends like Mr. Axelrod. But with just a few days to go before the rally, Ms. Saltzman was having trouble reaching Mr. Obama. Finally, she said she left word with his wife.
(snip)
In courting families like the Crowns, Mr. Obama was gaining entree into the upper echelon of the city’s corporate boardrooms, a ripe source of campaign money. But he was also seeking to broaden his appeal to Jewish voters, and he was wading more deeply into one of the touchiest issues in American politics: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
For years, the Obamas had been regular dinner guests at the Hyde Park home of Rashid Khalidi, a Middle East scholar at the University of Chicago and an adviser to the Palestinian delegation to the 1990s peace talks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/us/politics/11chicago.html?pagewanted=5
//
http://www.barackbook.com/Profiles/JeanRudd.htm
133 posted on Monday, April 05, 2010 8:43:42 AM by maggief (Not everything is what it seems.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 126 | View Replies | Report Abuse]
Payback???
(no link)
Obama pick may have Chicago link - Supreme Court nominee may share his school ties
Chicago Tribune (IL) - Sunday, May 3, 2009
Author: John McCormick and Jeff Coen, Tribune reporters ; Tribune reporter Ray Gibson also contributed to this report.
Ever since Barack Obama ‘s election as president, there has been anticipation among scholars at the University of Chicago’s Law School that one of their own could be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court bench in the next few years.
That anticipation was heightened late last week with news that Obama , who taught constitutional law at the school from 1992 to 2004, soon will be making his first Supreme Court pick.
Almost every short list of possible nominees to succeed Justice David Souter includes three individuals with strong ties to the Hyde Park law school: U.S. Appeals Court Judge Diane Wood, Obama regulatory czar Cass Sunstein and U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan.
Even if Obama does not pick one of the past or present faculty members this year, feelings run strong on campus that he will before he leaves the White House.
“It’s more likely than not that at least one of these three will be nominated within his tenure,” said U. of C. law professor Geoffrey Stone , who was the law school’s dean when Obama was hired.
“There’s definitely extra buzz on campus,” said Douglas Baird, a law professor who recruited Obama to the faculty. “They will be naturally on the short list, but not because he is sentimental about the law school, but because they fit the ticket.”
//
http://newsmax.com/Newsfront/Obama-Kagan-Stevens-court/2010/04/05/id/354741
Obama Mulls Kagan, 2 Others for Stevens Seat
Monday, 05 Apr 2010 08:51 AM
President Barack Obama is short-listing three candidates to succeed Justice John Paul Stevens, according to a Bloomberg report.
Heading the list is U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan Kagan, the first woman to serve in that post — the federal government’s top Supreme Court advocate. She formerly served as the first female dean of Harvard Law School, where she graduated.
Also reportedly on the list: federal appellate judges Diane Wood and Merrick Garland.
Keeping it all together, feel free to add or connect dots already on thread.
Obama and the Chicago New Party (10/10/08 for all to see)
Red County ^ | 10/10/08 | Dr. Richard Swier
Posted on Thursday, April 08, 2010 8:55:23 AM by blueyon
On Monday Google, celebrating its 10th birthday, opened it’s earliest archives for one day of searching the past. Some astute researchers found the old newsletters from the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Guess who was in their Spring 1996 newsletter, making a soaring Marxist presentation at a Chicago Socialists rally?
According to Bruce Bentley from the DSA Update, “About 50 activists attended the Chicago New Party membership meeting in July. The purpose of the meeting was to update members on local activities and to hear appeals for NP support from four potential political candidates. The NP is being very active in organization building and politics. There are 300 members in Chicago. In order to build an organizational and financial base the NP is sponsoring house parties. Locally it has been successful both fiscally and in building a grassroots base. Nationwide it has resulted in 1000 people committed to monthly contributions. The NP’s political strategy is to support progressive candidates in elections only if they have a concrete chance to “win”. This has resulted in a winning ratio of 77 of 110 elections. Candidates must be approved via a NP political committee. Once approved, candidates must sign a contract with the NP. The contract mandates that they must have a visible and active relationship with the NP.
The political entourage included Alderman Michael Chandler, William Delgado, chief of staff for State Rep Miguel del Valle, and spokespersons for State Sen. Alice Palmer, Sonya Sanchez, chief of staff for State Sen. Jesse Garcia, who is running for State Rep in Garcia’s District; and Barack Obama, chief of staff for State Sen. Alice Palmer. Obama is running for Palmer’s vacant seat.”
(Excerpt) Read more at redcounty.com ...
VIDEO: Targeting The Chinese Mafia In Chicago, IL
Saturday, April 10, 2010 9:12:55 AM · by AtlasStalled · 1+ views
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2490400/posts
Friends of Ours ^ | 04/10/10 | Friends of Ours
In Chicago, IL a Mandarin-speaking police officer posed as a cop on the take in a sting operation “that busted a Chinatown prostitution ring and exposed a scheme to obtain thousands of Illinois driver’s licenses illegally” as reported by Frank Main for the Chicago Sun-Times: Brothel operator Sheng Quan Dong bribed the officer to keep police away from his business, prosecutors said. Dong is accused of making $18,000 in payoffs over two years. * * * The prostitution sting led investigators to an identity-fraud scheme in which 19 people were charged in federal court in 2009. Using fake passports, more...
Keeping it all in one place. Feel free to connect dots or add to the thread whenever you find something.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2493275/posts
Blagojevich’s Wife Received Tens of Thousands From Antoin Rezko, Prosecutors Allege
Washington Post ^ | April 14th 2010 | Peter Slevin
Posted on Wednesday, April 14, 2010 10:11:45 PM by Steelfish
Blagojevich’s Wife Received Tens of Thousands From Antoin Rezko, Prosecutors Allege
By Peter Slevin CHICAGO — Illinois businessman and Democratic fundraiser Antoin Rezko was so anxious to help his friend, then-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), that he funneled tens of thousands of dollars in payments to Blagojevich’s wife, federal prosecutors contend in a document unsealed Wednesday.
Patti Blagojevich did no work for the payments, which were allegedly disguised as real estate commissions and other payments from one of Rezko’s Chicago companies. To make it appear that she had earned them, prosecutors allege, she showed up from time to time at Rezko’s offices - usually carrying her infant daughter and soon leaving.
“Rezko was willing to do whatever it took to get her money, whether it was from a monthly retainer or through hiring her to work on his development at Roosevelt and Clark,” the prosecutors wrote in a 91-page document. The document was made public by U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel, who is due to preside over Rod Blagojevich’s corruption trial starting June 3.
“Rezko did not seem to care if she actually did anything to earn the money,” prosecutors continued. “Rezko was only concerned about ensuring that Blagojevich did not have to worry about his finances.”
Patti Blagojevich is named as a “conspirator” in the document, but has not been charged with a crime. Prosecutors cited her alleged participation amid evidence that her husband worked with Rezko and other insiders in illegal money-making schemes that began soon after he took office in January 2003.
Rezko, currently in prison, is better-known nationally as a friend and fundraiser for Barack Obama during the first decade of Obama’s political career in Chicago. He did not contribute to Obama’s presidential campaign.
(Excerpt) Read more at voices.washingtonpost.com ...
Let’s see, what does this summer have in store...Blank=O trial, Third District case on BO’s eligibility....The Lt’s legal works.....All the primaries....How will we ever keep up with it all?
AND BO’s face just tics, tics, tics.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2493220/posts
More in comments.
Rezko’s cash used to renovate Blagojevich home, feds say
Chicago Sun TImes ^ | April 14, 2010 | NATASHA KORECKI, CHRIS FUSCO AND TIM NOVAK
Posted on 04/14/2010 6:19:45 PM PDT by penelopesire
“Rod and Patti Blagojevich have long claimed they dipped into their own checking account to pay for personal home renovations set up by a company of convicted businessman Tony Rezko.
But a newly released, 91-page filing from federal prosecutors alleges that Rezko secretly funneled tens of thousands of dollars to the former first couple by setting up a sham $40,000 real estate commission for Patti Blagojevich. Prosecutors say the money was then used to pay for work on the Ravenswood Manor home.
The company overseeing the work on the home was a Rezko company, Chicago Construction Services.”
(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.