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.[1]
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.[2]
“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.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Barack_Obama_and_campaign_contributor_Alexi_Giannoulias
NormsRevenge
Rezko already has told prosecutors his version of what they say was a plot to stack the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board and ram through a major expansion program for Mercy Hospital in return for a major contribution to Blagojevich’s campaign fund. It’s one of many allegations they have investigated of job and favor trading for campaign contributions.
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Sen. Barack Obama’s wife and three close advisers have been involved with a program at the University of Chicago Medical Center that steers patients who don’t have private insurance — primarily poor, black people — to other health care facilities.
Obama’s top political strategist, David Axelrod, co-owns the firm, ASK Public Strategies, that was hired by the hospital last year to sell the program — called the Urban Health Initiative — to the community as a better alternative for poor patients. Obama’s wife and Valerie Jarrett, an Obama friend and adviser who chairs the medical center’s board, backed the Axelrod firm’s hiring, hospital officials said.
Obama has said he recommended Whitaker for the state job, giving his name to Tony Rezko, who helped Gov. Blagojevich assemble his Cabinet. Rezko, a former fund-raiser for Obama and Blagojevich, was convicted in June on federal corruption charges tied to state deals.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/1122691,CST-NWS-hosp23.article
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ALL OF THIS CORRUPTION was swirling around Obama and he wasn’t involved in any of it. /SARCASM
20 posted on Sunday, December 21, 2008 9:06:31 PM by kcvl