[PhiKapMom]

Thomas Ayers died June 12, 2007, but before then was a guru in IL politics which shocked me. He and Valerie Jarrett’s mother, Barbara Bowman were friends through the Erikson Institute. They also lived in the same neighborhood.

Soros has been funding the Shadow groups for sometime it seems. As of August 2004, the husband-wife team of George Soros and Susan Soros had contributed $13,120,000 to Shadow Party groups and operations, second only to Soros’ longtime friend and collaborator, insurance mogul Peter B. Lewis ($14,175,000). The third leading donor was Jane Fonda ($13,085,750), followed by Hollywood producer Stephen Bing in fourth place ($9,869,014). Other major funders of the Shadow Party include the Tides Foundation and the Open Society Institute.

During the 1990s, Soros had grown close to Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. Their ascension to power gave him easy entreé to Washington elites of a sort he had long coveted but never enjoyed. Soros became the Clintons’ unofficial envoy to Russia and to other former Communist states. The assignment proved lucrative for him. Soros made a fortune in the so-called “Russiagate” phenomenon – the orgy of backroom “privatization” deals and Russian junk bond issues which Clinton officials such as Strobe Talbot, Al Gore and Lawrence Summers helped foster in the former USSR.

http://logisticsmonster.com/radicals/

There is a lot of background on that site that connects some dots but what is missing is the Minow family and Steven Koch which needs tied into the picture. I have this horrible feeling these are all part of the puzzle pieces that are dropping in faster now.

Tom Ayers and Minow were good friends and served together on the Northwestern Board of Trustees (Ayers was also head of the Board at one time) and found this:

best guess is that it would have been Tom Ayers who vetted Obama to Sidley and that would have helped him get the attention of someone like Newton Minow. (And that would come in very handy later in Obama’s career as Kaufman suggests but not just because of the fund raising that Minow could help with but perhaps also helping with an introduction to the Kennedy family, whose recent endorsement of Obama came at such a critical moment in his campaign.)

You have Ayers, Minow, and Koch all involved at Northwestern University along with Bernadette Dohrn. My guess is that Northwestern may be the tie that binds a lot of this together.

[thouworm]

The Minow Daughters: Martha, Nell, and Mary

Martha Minow recently became dean of Harvard Law School. She also has been nominated by Obama to be a director of the Legal Services Corporation, the federal organization that provides civil legal services to the poor. She and her father both clerked for Supreme Court justices - Martha for Thurgood Marshall and Newton for Frederick Vinson.

http://news.muckety.com/2009/09/11/just-sit-right-back-and-youll-hear-a-tale-of-the-minows/20011

According to a story in the Harvard Gazette, Minow has been a member of the Law School faculty since 1981. She is a distinguished legal scholar with interests that range from international human rights to equality and inequality, from religion and pluralism to managing mass tort litigation, from family law and education law to the privatization of military, schooling, and other governmental activities. She is also a widely admired teacher who chaired the law school’s curricular reform efforts of recent years.

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/chicago-law/newton-minow/

One day, when just a mere professor there, she [Martha] called her father at his Sidley Austin law firm in Chicago and recommended he hire the smartest student she'd ever taught. Barack Obama. And it was at the firm that he met another lawyer, Michelle Robinson. You know the rest.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-j-elisberg/the-bizarre-world-of-nell_b_276441.html

Martha is married to Joseph Singer, the Bussey Professor of Law at Harvard Law School (teaching property law)

Professor Joseph William Singer began teaching at Boston University School of Law in 1984 and has been teaching at Harvard Law School since 1992. He was appointed Bussey Professor of Law in 2006. Singer received a B.A. from Williams College in 1976, an A.M. in political science from Harvard in 1978, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1981.

Nell Minow, the eldest, is an expert on corporate governance. As co-founder of the Corporate Library, a research firm, and Lens, an activist investment fund, her views are much sought after by business executives and board members, government officials and journalists.

http://news.muckety.com/2009/09/11/just-sit-right-back-and-youll-hear-a-tale-of-the-minows/20011

Nell Minow is married to her childhood sweetheart, David Apatoff, an accomplished Washington lawyer, who grew up two blocks from me. This lead to two children, Benjamin and Rachel -- which lead to the Movie Mom, 15 years ago.

Apatoff jokes that she picked two careers where she always gets to give her views. And she gives them with fearless honesty. How much so? Once when advising shareholders, she recommended they drop one of the Board of Directors. It was her father! (He'd missed too many meetings for her standards. When he explained to her his excellent reasons, she graciously understood his excuse -- and repeated her recommendation.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-j-elisberg/the-bizarre-world-of-nell_b_276441.html

Arnold & Porter, LLP; Washington, DC

David Apatoff has decades of experience representing large technology companies on sophisticated contractual, regulatory, and compliance matters. He focuses on federal contract law, intellectual property rights, and international transactions in the telecommunications and information technology industries.

Mr. Apatoff’s experience with federal grants and contracts ranges from major defense systems to basic research at some of the nation’s premiere educational institutions. He has handled contract disputes, suspension and debarment proceedings, Defense Contract Audit Agency audits, bid protests, and investigations by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Inspectors General, US Government Accountability Office, and the United States Department of Justice.

http://www.arnoldporter.com/professionals.cfm?u=ApatoffDavidB&action=view&id=1

Mary Minow is an attorney, a former librarian and library trustee, and a library law consultant with librarylaw.com. She has taught library law at the San Jose State School of Library Science. She received her B.A. from Brown University, her A.M.L.S. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and her J.D. from Stanford University.

Mary Minow is married to James ????????. I spent an hour looking for his last name---all to no avail. Mystery man!

This is a start, but have not seen any connections here to the Chicago "machine." --- perhaps more to be gleaned in educational philosophy and/or political ideology.