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!”
More on davis Here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2273591/posts
Another FOB (”Friend of Barack”) is on the Spot
The Chicago Daily Observer ^ | June 17, 2009 | Daniel J. Kelley
Posted on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 9:48:40 AM by PBRCat
Another “Friend of Barack” is under increased scrutiny these days, but only a mere handful of media reports have linked Obama with Allison Davis. Once upon a time, Davis, Obama and Rezko were as thick as thieves. Davis and Rezko relied upon their friend and politically ally, Barack, to promote their plans to redevelop dilapidated slums into affordable housing for low income residents of the former legislative district represented by State Senator Obama. Tax dollars were misspent and pocketed by the developers, while the minority tenants continued to live in substandard apartments. Obama managed to bob and weave throughout the primaries as he ducked the malfeasance allegations and the issue was ignored in the general election. For his part, Davis dismissed the numerous building code violations by blaming the impoverished tenants for their own misfortunes.
More recently, Mayor Richard M. Daley has been placed on the defensive by the simmering city pension fund scandal. While the members of the complicit media focus their short attention spans on the mayor’s nephew, Robert Vanecko, less has been said about Vanecko’s wily business partner, Allison Davis. This is an angle that needs to be more examined closely.
If nothing else exposing Davis would serve a higher purpose: publicizing the blatant hypocrisy of the phony activists who are really reliable cogs in the Democratic Machine. A one time civil rights protester, who marched outside of City Hall, Davis proved to be someone who could be bought off by the system. His one time protégé, Obama means to overhaul the American economy and engage in a massive expansion of the size and scope of government activities. Like Davis, Obama, exempts himself from the rules and intends to live a life of ease and plenty. The president can jet off for a dinner date on Broadway without worrying about the hypocrisy of simultaneously asking all of us commoners to pay higher taxes and make sacrifices while reducing our wasteful use of energy and limiting our pollution causing habits.
Posing as a community activist is a tried and true way to advance your political and financial career in Democratic Chicago: the Shaw brothers, Bob and his late brother, Bill, were supposedly fair housing activists; Dorothy Tillman attended Chicago Board of Education meetings where she shouted down Angeline Caruso, a former acting school superintendent, and ridiculed Caruso’s frumpy appearance in the name of education activism; Luis Guiterez marched with Communists and Puerto Rican Nationalists, some of whom were later accused of committing acts of domestic terrorism; Marilyn Katz ran with the campus radicals, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, and protested the Viet Nam war while hurling missiles at the police before she became a public relations expert for the political machine; Jan Schakowsky and her unapologetic, convicted criminal spouse, Robert Cremer, are two other fakers. Interestingly enough, despite their varied backgrounds, these folks have something in common: all of these individuals seemed to fall into line as soon as their personal needs and wants were gratified and they were given a place at the head table. They have all been feeding from the public trough ever since. The former Soviets called such privileged leaders “the vanguard of the proletariat.”
Jarrett, Davis, My goodness things ARE getting rather close.
The drip drip drop we’ve been hearing is bHo sweating.
FROM:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2274174/posts
Convicted Oak Parker traveled in Obama, Daley circles
Wednesday Journal (Oak Park, Illinois) ^ | June 16, 2009 | Anonymous
Posted on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 11:35:10 PM by Piranha
William Moorehead, the Oak Park resident sent to prison in 2007 for stealing more than $1 million from various federally supported public housing concerns, apparently ran with a powerful inside crowd connected to both Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and a then-state senator named Barack Obama.
Published news reports show that Moorehead was once a “longtime business partner” and legal client of Allison Davis, who until recently was the business partner of Daley nephew Robert Vanecko. Davis is also often referred to as Obama’s mentor, a role he reportedly fulfilled as the future president’s first law firm boss.
At one time, William Moorehead & Associates managed 14 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-insured or -subsidized apartment complexes throughout the Chicago area totaling about 7,000 units. Moorehead’s fraud and mismanagement was uncovered in the course of an audit conducted by HUD’s inspector general in 2003 and 2004.
Moorehead, now 66, pleaded guilty in April 2006 to engaging in a scheme to defraud HUD of at least $995,000 between early 1994 and August 2002. In May 2007, he was sentenced to four years in the Marion medium-security facility. He’s scheduled to be released March 25, 2011.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported that during the period Moorehead admitted he was stealing money, he loaned Davis $100,000. Davis has not been accused of any wrong doing.
One of the Davis-controlled HUD buildings that Moorehead’s firm managed, from 1999 until 2001, Grove Parc Plaza, was taken over by a firm headed by another person with strong Obama connections.
Valerie Jarrett, a member of Obama’s campaign finance committee and now a senior White House adviser, was the chief executive of Habitat Co. in 2001, when it took over management of Grove Parc Plaza from Moorehead’s company.
Obama was hired out of law school in 1993 by Davis’s law firm, Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland PC, and worked on voting rights and employment cases. According to press accounts, he reportedly wrote letters as a state senator, helping Davis and partner Tony Rezko get $14.6 million in state and federal funding for Cottage View Terrace, another Moorehead-managed property.
Moorehead, who also co-owned two housing developments near Cabrini Green with Davis, was supposed to manage another Davis co-owned HUD building, Cottage Grove Terrace, but was reportedly “dumped before it opened in 2002, in favor of Davis’s son, Cullen.”
Stolen (its the CHicaogo way) for Crime thread (we’re keeping it all in one place)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2274963/posts
The Obamacare Horror Story You Won’t Hear
Townhall ^ | 6/18/09 | Michell Malkin
Posted on Friday, June 19, 2009 12:10:48 AM by pissant
The White House, Democrats and MoveOn liberals are spreading health care sob stories to sell a government takeover. But there’s one health care policy nightmare you won’t hear the Obamas hyping. It’s a tale of poor minority patient-dumping in Chicago — with first lady Michelle Obama’s fingerprints all over it.
Both Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois have raised red flags about the outsourcing program run by the University of Chicago Medical Center. The hospital has nonprofit status and receives lucrative tax breaks in exchange for providing charity care.
Yet, in fiscal year 2007, when Mrs. Obama was employed there, it spent a measly $10 million on charity care for the poor — 1.3 percent of its total hospital expenses, according to an analysis performed for The Washington Post by the nonpartisan Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. The figure is below the 2.1 percent average for nonprofit hospitals in surrounding Cook County.
Rep. Rush called for a House investigation last week in response to months of patient-dumping complaints, noting: “Congress has a duty to expend its power to mitigate and prevent this despicable practice from continuing in centers that receive federal funds.”
Don’t expect the president to support a probe. While a top executive at the hospital, Mrs. Obama helped engineer the plan to offload low-income patients with non-urgent health needs.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
posted on above thread:
Mrs. Obama was involved in dumping low income patients without severely traumatic injuries to nearby hospitals in buses, against the law. She was aided by David Axelrod .. who formed a company for this new business venture .. and Dr. Eric Whitaker, another O bud.
~~~~~
Michelle Obama’s Patient-Dumping Scheme
###
The First Lady helped create a notorious program that dumped poor patients on community hospitals, yet the national media ignore the story. Imagine if her husband were a Republican.
The University of Chicago Medical Center has received a good deal of justly opprobrious press over its policy of “redirecting” low-income patients to community hospitals while reserving its own beds for well-heeled patients requiring highly profitable procedures.
Substantial coverage was given to a recent indictment of the program by the American College of Emergency Physicians. ACEP’s president, Dr. Nick Jouriles, released a statement suggesting that the initiative comes “dangerously close to ‘patient dumping,’ a practice made illegal by the Emergency Medical Labor and Treatment Act, and reflected an effort to ‘cherry pick’ wealthy patients over poor.”
Oddly absent from most of the unflattering press coverage of UCMC’s patient-dumping scheme is any mention of the role our new First Lady played in devising the program. A laudable exception has been the Chicago Sun-Times, which reported last August that “Michelle Obama — currently on unpaid leave from her $317,000-a-year job as a vice president of the prestigious hospital — helped create the program.”
On the rare occasions when other “news” media have bothered to connect the Urban Health Initiative to its glamorous creator, they have attempted to whitewash this tawdry program. Typical of such disingenuous coverage was a story in the Washington Post, which described it as “an innovative program to steer the patients to existing neighborhood clinics.”
But no amount of journalistic lipstick can hide the reality that Mrs. Obama’s initiative is a patient-dumping scheme. Such “cherry-picking,” as Dr. Jouriles accurately describes it, was, at one time, fairly common.
Prestigious institutions like the University of Chicago Medical Center routinely “dumped” Medicaid, uninsured and other unprofitable patients on less mercenary community hospitals.
Many patients suffered needlessly, and more than a few actually died, as the result of this practice. So, in 1986, President Reagan signed the Emergency Medical Labor and Treatment Act (EMTALA) into law.
EMTALA made such “redirection” illegal, but many high profile hospitals still chafed at being forced to treat poor patients.
Enter Michelle Obama, UCMC’s “Vice President for Community and External Affairs.”
Mrs. Obama first hatched the UCMC program as the “South Side Health Collaborative,” which featured a gang of “counselors” whose job it was to “advise” low-income patients that they would be better off at other hospitals and clinics.
The program was so successful in getting rid of unwanted patients that she expanded it, gave it a new name, and hired none other than David Axelrod to sell the program to the public.
According to the Sun-Times, “Obama’s wife and Valerie Jarrett, an Obama friend and adviser who chairs the medical center’s board, backed the Axelrod firm’s hiring.” Axelrod helped the future First Lady formulate a public relations campaign in which the “Urban Health Initiative” was represented as a boon to the community actuated by the purest of altruistic motives.
The resultant PR campaign was a study in Orwellian audacity. Chicago’s inner city residents soon began hearing that UCMC’s patient dumping program would “dramatically improve health care for thousands of South Side residents” and that the medical center was generously willing to provide “a ride on a shuttle bus to other centers.”
Likewise, the people who ran the community hospitals to which these unwanted patients were being shuttled began to read claims in local media to the effect that the Urban Health Initiative was good for them as well.
Dr. Eric Whitaker, the Blagojevich crony who succeeded Mrs. Obama as Director of the program, repeatedly assured gullible reporters that the financial impact on these hospitals would be positive: “The initiative actually is improving their bottom lines.” The CFOs of those hospitals were no doubt relieved to learn that treating Medicaid and uninsured patients is profitable.
But you just can’t please some people. In one of the few frank passages of the Post article, we discover that many members of UCMC’s medical staff believe the program is nothing more than an “attempt to ensure that the hospital retains only affluent patients with insurance.”
And another association of emergency physicians has joined ACEP in denouncing the Urban Health Initiative. The Chicago Tribune reports that Dr. Larry Weiss, president of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine is unhappy about UCMC’s failure to consult its own ER physicians before initiating the program: “Not including emergency-room physicians ... would be analogous to changing the way surgery is performed in an operating room without involving any surgeons.” Dr. Whitaker assures us, however, that such critics are merely “opposed to change.”
Presumably, he would be similarly dismissive of Angela Adams, who brought her son to the medical center’s ER after his lip had been partially torn off by a pit bull.
As the Tribune puts it, “Instead of rushing Dontae into surgery ... the hospital’s staff began pressing her about insurance.” Unfortunately for Dontae, he was covered by Medicaid. So, all he got from the UCMC emergency department was a shot, some antibiotics, and instructions to “follow up with Cook County.”
Angela had to take her son across town to John Stroger Hospital, where he was immediately admitted for reconstructive surgery. Like doctors Jouriles and Weiss, Angela is having trouble seeing the community benefit of the Urban Health Initiative.
Meanwhile, the program’s parents, Michelle Obama and David Axelrod, have moved to Washington. As the First Lady and the President’s closest advisor, they wield enormous power.
Indeed, they may be the most powerful people in the Obama Administration, aside from the President himself. If these two characters were willing to betray their Chicago neighbors — the South Side’s most vulnerable citizens — with a disgraceful program like the Urban Health Initiative, what sort of mischief will they devise for the hapless denizens of flyover country?
Come to think of it, isn’t Obamacare being sold to us in pretty much the same way the Urban Health Initiative was sold to Chicago?
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/michelle_obamas_patientdumping_1.html
American Hero - Anita Moncrief, Whistleblower - former ACORN operative is sued!
FROM: (more at link)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2275653/posts?page=1
Anita made the following statements (basis or basis set forth in parenthesis at end):
1. Project Vote has violated its 501(c)(3) status by using government and private grants that ultimately go directly or indirectly to ACORN (based on direct knowledge).
2. ACORN, Project Vote and Citizens Services Inc. (CSI) are essentially the same organization with different tax designations that are used to facilitate the transfer of money between them (based on direct and indirect knowledge).
3. ACORN has promoted a culture of dishonesty motivated by reaching target Voter Registration goals and senior staff have portrayed an attitude that allows for some “bad” cards in order to reach these goals (based on direct and indirect knowledge).
4. Karyn Gillette, Project Vote Development Director, Jeff Robinson, senior Project Vote “money man” and Nathan Henderson James, Project Vote Research and Political Director are all employed by CSI and may have worked directly with anyone seeking the services of CSI and money paid to CSI would have obvious ACORN ties (based on direct and indirect knowledge and documents).
5. Zach Polett, former Executive Director of Project Vote and former director of ACORN Political Operations mentioned that Obama had worked for us and that he even supervised him during a ACORN Political staff retreat in November 2007 (based on direct knowledge).
Obama in the last presidential debate: “My only involvement I’ve had with ACORN was I represented them alongside the U.S. Justice Department in making Illinois implement a motor voter law that helped people get registered at DMVs.”
That’s a lie, not a fact.
Yes, Obama represented ACORN in that lawsuit and the Clinton Justice Department predictably sided with ACORN.
But that was NOT Obama’s only involvement with ACORN.
And Obama looked into the camera during the last presidential debate and flat out lied to the American people about it (in his calm, seemingly non-threatening manner).
ACORN is the organization with which Obama has been associated throughout his adult life, as organizer, trainer, lawyer, funder and political beneficiary...and Obama’s Achilles heel.
Anita reports revealing connections between ACORN and the Obama campaign based on personal knowledge.
In late 2007, Anita reports, Anita received a call from the Obama campaign asking if this was the same Project Vote that Obama worked for in the 90’s. With the staff retreat fresh in mind, Anita answered yes and sent an email to Zach Polett, Karyn Gillette, Nathan Henderson James, and Kevin Whelan stating that the campaign wanted someone to call them back regarding some media questions that were being asked at the time.
In late 2007, Anita reports, Karyn Gillette approached Anita to tell her that she had direct contact with the Obama campaign and had obtained their donor lists. This meeting took place sometime in November of 2007 and may have even been a conference call between the campaign and Project Vote. Anita was given an excel spreadsheet to work with for cultivation of new donors. When Anita had trouble because of the duplicates, Karyn stated that she would contact her person at the campaign and see if they had another one.
Anita reports that Karyn Gillette also provided lists obtained from the Kerry and Clinton campaigns, as well as the 2004 DNC donor lists, and that these lists were shared with the Political directors of roughly 12 ACORN battleground states in order to raise money for a $28 million dollar (number as of 11/2007) voter registration drive (based on direct and indirect knowledge and documents).
Anita reports that research uncovered after the Rathke embezzlement scandal showed that persons demanded a forensic audit and suggested a well-known, credible firm to do it, but Bertha Lewis told them that the auditors came back with a contract that was “too expensive” and that’s what Dale Rathke told funders back when they were hoping Arthur Anderson would take over auditing (based on indirect knowledge and documents).
Anita reports that ACORN and Project Vote used CCI to transfer money between the organizations and may be guilty of violating RICO statues (based on indirect knowledge and documents).
Anita reports that Sidley Austin, Obama’s old law firm, is representing ACORN pro-bono and Mesirow Financial, the firm hired to provide financial advice to ACORN, is headed by a major Obama donor, Richard Mesirow (based on indirect knowledge and documents).
Anita also notes that questions have been raised about the shredding or destruction of documents by ACORN’s own lawyers (based on documents).
Bottom line: ACORN has been improperly coordinating with and operating as an arm of the Obama campaign, and “the Senator from ACORN”’s involvement with ACORN has been much more than his lawful representation of ACORN in the motor voter case years ago.
© Michael Gaynor
GOt it...Wonder if AMericor funds were funneled at Clout U too....Who is really getting the money?
___________________________________________________
How about Clout U.?
June 21, 2009
Excerpt:
University of Illinois President B. Joseph White thinks it’s a cheap shot for us to call his school “Rezko U.” Federal prosecutors apparently don’t.
U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald wants to see records of communication between campus officials and ex- Gov. Rod Blagojevich or his cronies — Antoin “Tony” Rezko, William Cellini, Chris Kelly and Alonzo “Lon” Monk — related to applications for admission to the university.
Rezko is in prison for taking kickbacks in exchange for state contracts;
*snip*
The subpoena follows a Tribune report that one of Rezko’s relatives got into the U. of I. after Blagojevich asked White to intervene. Never mind that the applicant’s ACT score was “pretty low,” to quote the admissions official who got big-footed on the deal.
After much sober reflection, though, we’re beginning to wonder if the name “Rezko U.” really is unfair — to Rezko. Why single him out? The Tribune investigation found that more than 100 current and former lawmakers used their political muscle to give applicants an edge.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/chi-0621edit2jun21,0,4153194.story
http://dissidentvoice.org/2008/04/barack-obama-operation-board-games-for-slumlords/
a must read and re read....too much to copy.
Kim each of us supports each other. This is my target research area. Feel free to join. Lucy, Star , Maggief so many good researchers on FR and this thread.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2154422/posts?page=101
MICHELLE OBAMA ON “COURT ORDERED INACTIVE STATUS”
Atlas Shrugs ^ | 12/26/2008 | Free America
Posted on Friday, December 26, 2008 9:48:08 AM by Free America52
First off, the biggest ass-kissing media refers to Michelle Obama as a ‘distinguished attorney” despite the fact that Michelle Obama has been”inactive” since 1993.
Linked to above but important and long enough for it’s own post.
________________________________________________________
Obama Camp Has Many Ties to Wife’s Employer
....snip....
In December 2006, the medical center hired a public relations firm, ASK Public Strategies, to help sell the Urban Health Initiative. ASK is co-owned by Axelrod, Obama’s chief campaign strategist.
ASK was selected on the recommendation of Michelle Obama, Sher and Jarrett, according to Sullivan, the hospital spokeswoman. “Axelrod has a love affair with UC, and is arguably the best in the country at public affairs,” Sullivan said in an e-mail.
ASK started work in January 2007; the next month, Barack Obama launched his campaign.
....snip
. Axelrod’s partner, Eric Sedler, confirmed his firm did the work but declined to discuss specifics. Hospital executives declined to say how much Axelrod’s firm was paid.
Howard Peters of the nonprofit Illinois Hospital Association praised the medical center’s efforts,
Eric Sedler, 39, a former public relations director at AT&T and corporate-reputation specialist at PR giant Edelman, is the “S” in ASK and
http://www.nfmpolitico.com/fox11az/2009/04/03/millions-for-axelrod-in-sale-of-firm/
Millions for Axelrod in sale of firm
As he prepared to take a job in the White House at the end of last year, David Axelrod sold the political consulting firm that helped elect President Obama for $2 million to a group of consultants who helped steer Obama’s campaign.
According to a disclosure form released Friday evening by the White House, the firm, AKP&D Message & Media, paid him $897,000 last year, when it had basically turned itself into an arm of the Obama campaign, which paid the company $2.5 million.
The disclosure indicates that Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe—the “P” in AKP&D and still an influential political consultant for Obama and the Democratic National Committee—was not among the buyers, though he’ll remain a senior advisor to the firm.
Instead, Axelrod reported the new owner is a “newly formed S-Corporation” owned by Obama campaign vets John Kupper, John Del Cecato and Larry Grisolano.
Kupper and Del Cecato — the “K” and “D,” respectively — handled research and for the campaign and also wrote many of its ads. Grislano is a Los Angeles-based strategist who handled direct mail for Obama’s campaign.
Axelrod’s disclosure offers a peak inside the business model he used to create a Chicago-based consulting powerhouse, which included both AKP&D and ASK Public Strategies.
ASK, which specialized in corporate public relations, paid him partnership income of $152,000 last year, according to the disclosure, even though he had taken a leave of absence to work on the campaign. Axelrod sold his share of ASK for $1 million at the end of last year to Kupper and Eric Sedler.
...snip
from
http://www.publicallies.org/site/c.liKUL3PNLvF/b.3960231/
Fact Sheet About Public Allies and the Obamas
Fact Sheet on Public Allies’ History with Senator Barack and Michelle Obama
Public Allies has received many media inquiries about our history with President-elect and Michelle Obama, and has been featured in many news stories about them. Following are some details and anecdotes about the Obamas’ history with Public Allies.
· President-elect Obama was a member of the founding advisory board of Public Allies. Michelle was the founding Executive Director of Public Allies Chicago from Spring, 1993 until Fall, 1996, and served on our national board of directors from 1997 until 2001. President-elect Obama was no longer on the board of Public Allies when Michelle was hired. Before joining Public Allies, she was an attorney at the law firm of Sidley & Austin and Deputy Director of Community Development for the City of Chicago.
· Under Michelle’s leadership, Public Allies Chicago pioneered many elements of Public Allies’ program model. To identify and develop the next generation of Chicago leaders, she recruited young people from housing projects and youth centers as well colleges and universities. Her emphasis on indigenous leadership and belief that all people have potential to lead became a core value of our leadership philosophy. When she left, Public Allies Chicago had a cash reserve, a committed board, a talented young staff, and a network of diverse, talented young leaders in Chicago who continue to serve the community today. Michelle was also a pioneer in the social entrepreneur movement – leaders who create new approaches and organizations to provide new solutions to social problems.
· At her subsequent jobs at the University of Chicago and University of Chicago Medical Center, Michelle hired more than a dozen Public Allies to work with her. In addition, she has continued to advise, coach, donate to, and champion Public Allies. President-elect Obama has also been an active volunteer and supporter. President-elect Obama has trained several classes of Allies in community organizing, spoken at Public Allies Chicago events, and helped Senator Durbin secure an appropriation from the Department of Justice that successfully helped us better recruit and retain young men of color for our Chicago program and learn practices we are applying nationally.
· Michelle Obama and Public Allies CEO Paul Schmitz were also original faculty members of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at Northwestern University, led by John McKnight and Jody Kretzmann. John McKnight worked with Barack Obama as an organizer and wrote his Harvard Law School recommendation (see Audacity of Hope, page 360). The Institute has a strategic alliance with Public Allies’ consulting group, The Leadership Practice, through which we provide training and consulting services on how to better identify and mobilize local community assets and participation to strengthen communities.
· Quote from Paul Schmitz, CEO of Public Allies, who worked with Michelle:
“Michelle was an amazing leader and role model for all of us. As a very young staff in the early years, we all emulated Michelle’s incredible combination of professionalism, compassion, critical thinking and commitment to her community. For all of her immense talents, she was also one of the most down-to-earth, inclusive, and authentic leaders I’ve ever worked with. She really did believe that everyone could contribute to their communities and that leaders come from all backgrounds and all parts of the community. The Chicago program she pioneered really created the template we all work from today. We are proud of our colleague and wish her well.”
· Public Allies is a non-partisan organization and does not endorse candidates for elected office. Public Allies has enjoyed support from leaders of both political parties. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush identified Public Allies as a model for national service and funded our pilot program. Under President Clinton, we grew from a pilot to a national program, and under President George W. Bush, we more than doubled in size and were contracted to provide training and technical assistance to other grantees of the Corporation for National and Community Service.
FROM:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/18/us/politics/18axelrod.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
....snip
past clients appeared in the press over the last year, including AT&T, Cablevision and the University of Chicago Medical Center. A fuller picture emerges from a review of public records, including an archived version of his Web site that contains an early list of companies and organizations his firm has worked with.
Among them were Household International, a subprime mortgage lender based in Illinois that faced accusations of predatory practices; Wisconsin Energy, which sought to counter opposition to its coal-fired power plants; and the Compete Coalition, a lobbying group in Washington that advocates deregulation of electricity markets.
snip...
Mr. Axelrod’s consulting business is divided between two companies. One, AKP&D Message and Media, focuses on political campaigns and is where Mr. Axelrod devotes most of his time. He is on leave from the other firm, ASK Public Strategies, which consults for companies and nonprofits, and is run primarily by his partner, Eric Sedler.
Beyond the different clientele, the two firms also have a different approach to transparency. While AKP&D identifies about 70 of its political clients on its Web site, ASK has a policy of nondisclosure.
...snip..
On at least two occasions, ASK has been involved in public-opinion campaigns that used front groups largely bankrolled by a single corporation. One such effort was the New York Association for Better Choices, created to help Cablevision, the owner of Madison Square Garden, defeat a proposal for a stadium on Manhattan’s West Side. Cablevision paid ASK more than $1 million in 2004 and 2005, according to state lobbying records.
In Illinois, ASK created advertisements for Consumers Organized for Reliable Electricity — a group created by ComEd, a utility company that is a subsidiary of Exelon — that warned of possible blackouts if the state did not approve a rate increase. Exelon, a major contributor to Mr. Obama’s campaigns, also tapped ASK to help work on message strategy with the Compete Coalition, a lobbying organization made up of major electricity producers and consumers. A coalition membership list from earlier this year included ASK, although Mr. Sedler disputed that, adding that ASK’s dealings with the coalition were through Exelon and that it did not have a separate contract with the coalition.
Another Alinsky ‘community organizer’ and 0 mentor .. John McKnight ..wrote a letter of recommendation for BO for Harvard. He mentions Judith Snow as being important to this ‘movement.’
Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buTGLg_c304
**
Another John McKnight video (they’re community organizing in Canada, too .. “where there’s a much better vision for the future than the US!!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSWkEBp6SrU&feature=related
**
Judith Snow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TecLdFMHNEQ&feature=related
**
BO Campaign - The meaning of community organizing ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NElvLp4Oyr0&feature=related
Ever run across the name Eric WHitaker before?
from:
http://dissidentvoice.org/2008/04/barack-obama-operation-board-games-for-slumlords/
I did not have any formal discussions with Tony,” Obama said, “beyond one individual, and that was Dr. Eric Whitaker, who ultimately became the head of the Illinois Department of Public Health and who had been a longtime friend of mine, who I had known since he was getting his master’s at Harvard and I was at the law school there.”
“He had expressed an interest in that post,” Obama informed the Tribune.
“I think he had applied separately,” Obama said, “but I don’t recall whether I called Tony or he called me.”
“And I simply said, ‘I think this guy is outstanding and is certainly somebody who is worthy of an interview,’” he added.
“And was it your understanding that Tony was going to effectuate that?” the Tribune asked.
“No,” Obama said. “What I knew was, and I don’t think this has been disputed, that he was one of a number of people within the Blagojevich circle who were, you know, helping to screen or interview potential candidates for administration posts.”
The job Obama recommended for his friend paid about $150,000 a year. However, Eric Whitaker is now an executive vice-president of the University of Chicago Medical Center, according to the March 9, 2008, Sun-Times. That would be the same employer that pays Michelle Obama a salary of close to $350,000 as a vice president.
Clever presentation and funny joke.
Oh yeah ... got the lowdown on him.
U. of I. medical school gave 2003 candidate unfair advantage (Chicago Way)
Lawrence Eppley
Kenneth Schmidt
FROM CHicago trib VIA
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2276476/posts
University of Illinois College of Medicine officials acknowledged Friday that an unqualified applicant pushed by Trustee Lawrence Eppley received an unfair advantage.
...........
But in the 2003 Eppley case, the student seeking to transfer to the Chicago-based medical school had “very poor grades” in the beginning of his college career. The former University of Illinois at Chicago chancellor took the unusual step of agreeing to allow him to join the school if he could achieve, among other things, a better — but “not a spectacular” — score on the standardized test for medical school.
In documents connected to the case, school officials suggested that Eppley was acting as a go-between for an unnamed patron. The student never did transfer.
In one instance, Trustee Kenneth Schmidt, the board’s only medical doctor, forwarded a vitriolic e-mail from a friend who was enraged about an applicant’s denial: “When I can’t understand things at our U. of I. you know I have always come running to YOU,” the friend wrote. “This time, I’m not only running, I’m coming galloping to your doorstep in hopes that you can solve what to me is a more than egregious error on the part of the admissions committee.”
U. of I. medical school gave 2003 candidate unfair advantage (Chicago Way)
Lawrence Eppley
Kenneth Schmidt
FROM CHicago trib VIA
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2276476/posts
University of Illinois College of Medicine officials acknowledged Friday that an unqualified applicant pushed by Trustee Lawrence Eppley received an unfair advantage.
...........
But in the 2003 Eppley case, the student seeking to transfer to the Chicago-based medical school had “very poor grades” in the beginning of his college career. The former University of Illinois at Chicago chancellor took the unusual step of agreeing to allow him to join the school if he could achieve, among other things, a better — but “not a spectacular” — score on the standardized test for medical school.
In documents connected to the case, school officials suggested that Eppley was acting as a go-between for an unnamed patron. The student never did transfer.
In one instance, Trustee Kenneth Schmidt, the board’s only medical doctor, forwarded a vitriolic e-mail from a friend who was enraged about an applicant’s denial: “When I can’t understand things at our U. of I. you know I have always come running to YOU,” the friend wrote. “This time, I’m not only running, I’m coming galloping to your doorstep in hopes that you can solve what to me is a more than egregious error on the part of the admissions committee.”
Federal Inquiry Into Blagojevich Turns to University Admissions
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Excerpt:
By KAREN ANN CULLOTTA
Published: June 18, 2009
CHICAGO — Federal prosecutors are trying to determine if former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich and his allies used political muscle to influence student admissions at three state universities.
United States Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald issued subpoenas .........
The request was related to Mr. Blagojevich and three of his co-defendants on criminal corruption charges, William Cellini, Christopher Kelly and Alonzo Monk.
The investigation also seeks records related to Antoin Rezko, .......
*snip*
investigate accusations that hundreds of students at the University of Illinois had been admitted because of their families’ political connections.
*snip*
The Chicago Tribune has reported that as many as 800 applicants to the university had been admitted because of political patronage.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/us/19donors.html?ref=us
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