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]
Bookmark to read later. How can so much crime be in one city? Shocking!
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Both Jacksons to back Burris ‘ bid for governor
Chicago Tribune - Thursday, February 14, 2002
Author: Rick Pearson and Mike Dorning, Tribune staff reporters. Tribune staff reporters James Janega and Ray Long contributed to this report.
Fighting for African-American support in the race for governor, Democrat Roland Burris has captured the endorsements of U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and his father, the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
In a statement, Rep. Jackson called Burris and opponents Paul Vallas and Rod Blagojevich all “highly qualified” and “good personal friends.” ...
(snip)
..
Jacksons back Burris nephew in county race against Shaw
Chicago Sun-Times - Wednesday, February 20, 2002
Author: Abdon Pallasch
Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) and his father, the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson , are preparing to endorse Steve Burris in his bid to oust Cook County Board of Review Commissioner Bob Shaw.
(snip)
..
Jackson , PUSH throw support behind Burris
Chicago Sun-Times - Sunday, March 8, 1998
Author: SCOTT FORNEK
Promising “a critical get-out-the-vote effort,” the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson endorsed Democrat Roland Burris for governor Saturday, the day before the former presidential hopeful’s son and namesake plans to do the same.
(snip)
..................
Quiet donor gives Burris $1 million
Chicago Sun-Times - Sunday, February 3, 2002
Author: Scott Fornek
Joseph Stroud is said to be a quiet guy who doesn’t like the limelight.
That was certainly true Friday, when Stroud —head of the only black-owned television station in the Chicago area and president of a telecommunications firm—did not return phone calls about the support his firms have given to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Roland Burris —support worth more than $1 million.
It is believed to be the largest contribution from an outside source in Illinois political history.
Stroud is so publicity shy that Burris ‘ campaign initially refused to provide reporters with any additional information about an $800,000 loan from Telephone USA Investments Inc. that showed up on the campaign disclosure report Burris filed Thursday. An aide would only call it “the corporate identity of a supporter who ... prefers to remain anonymous.”
(snip)
..
http://www.ilcampaign.org/sunshine/patrons/profiles/jovon.asp
Jovon Broadcasting Corporation, Telephone USA Investments, Inc.
Joseph Stroud, an Oak Brook resident, is the president and founder of the Jovon Broadcasting Corporation and the president of Telephone USA Investments, Inc. The Jovon Broadcasting Corporation is a Tinley Park-based firm that operates WJYS-TV, the only African-American-owned television station in the Chicago area. WJYS-TV’s programming includes religious shows and infomercials. Telephone USA Investments is a telecommunications firm.
The Jovon Broadcasting Corporation is a career patron of unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate Roland Burris (D).
From 1993 to 2001, the Jovon Broadcasting Corporation contributed $286,170 to candidates for Illinois statewide constitutional and legislative office, 100% of which was contributed to Democrats.
..
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/chi-0610260164oct26,0,5506158.story
Governor’s aide was on disputed fund trip - 2 others on flight faced corruption charges
Chicago Tribune (IL) - Thursday, October 26, 2006
Author: John Chase and Crystal Yednak, Tribune staff reporters.
EXCERPT
Also on Wednesday, campaign disclosure reports showed Blagojevich getting $100,000 from Telephone USA Investments , a Tinley Park firm headed by Jospeh Stroud, who also founded WJYS-TV.
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/st_clintondonor_20081218.html
Clinton Foundation Donors
Joseph A. Stroud
$250,001 - $500,000
http://news.muckety.com/2008/11/20/penny-pritzker-reportedly-passes-on-commerce-post/7191
(Penny) Pritzker first met the Obamas in the late 1990s when her son and daughter played in a summer basketball league at a Chicago YMCA coached by Craig Robinson, Michelle Obama’s brother, who introduced them.
..
http://www.suntimes.com/news/sweet/1297550,CST-NWS-sweet25.article
‘She has this great ability to do things world class’
Chicago Sun-Times (IL) - Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Author: Lynn Sweet, The Chicago Sun-Times
Dipping into their close circle of Chicago friends to find the new White House social secretary, President-elect Barack Obama and wife Michelle named business executive Desiree Rogers to the job Monday.
Rogers , 49, is a former Illinois Lottery director, Peoples Energy chief and current president of Allstate Financial’s Internet play, who has been a major social and civic figure in Chicago for years.
Rogers will have one of the most important jobs in the East Wing — the domain of the first lady — which oversees the social events in the White House.
“She just has this great ability to do things world class,” said her former husband, John Rogers , another close friend of the Obamas who will be one of the Inauguration co-chairs. The Rogers have a daughter, Victoria, 18, a Yale freshman.
Desiree met Michelle Obama through John — he attended Princeton with Michelle’s brother Craig Robinson and later met Barack. Rogers would go on to become close friends with Valerie Jarrett, who grew up on the same block on South Greenwood Avenue as John Rogers .
(snip)
Tuesday, December 30, 2008 5:08:23 PM · 152 of 152
maggief to STARWISE; penelopesire; hoosiermama
Ping to post #150.
“Those firms and others met with Illinois officials beginning in 2001, asking to manage a larger portion of the state’s multibillion-dollar pension funds. And they found an ally in Obama. Among other initiatives, he served for three months, from September to December 2003, on the seven-member Senate Select Committee on Public Pension Investments, which recommended ways for state pension funds to use more minority- and women-owned financial firms.”
#
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-30309536_ITM
Building a money machine - Barack Obama’s impressive fundraising for his presidential bid is no fluke: He has cultivated insider donors since early in his political career.
Chicago Tribune (IL) - Friday, April 13, 2007
Author: David Jackson and John McCormick, Tribune staff reporters
EXCERPT
A friend to money managers
Elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, Obama crafted a reputation for serving the disadvantaged — and for drawing sustained support from Chicago’s flourishing black-owned financial and investment firms.
Officers and employees of Holland Capital Management donated more than $40,000 to committees that directly supported him from 1999 through last year, for example, and directors and workers at Ariel Capital Management gave more than $50,000 over that period.
Those firms and others met with Illinois officials beginning in 2001, asking to manage a larger portion of the state’s multibillion-dollar pension funds. And they found an ally in Obama. Among other initiatives, he served for three months, from September to December 2003, on the seven-member Senate Select Committee on Public Pension Investments, which recommended ways for state pension funds to use more minority- and women-owned financial firms.
During Obama’s three months on the panel, Ariel directors and employees gave him $14,500, records show, and Holland officers and employees donated $1,500.
If some self-interest was perhaps at play, so too was a sense of shared experience that inspired many African-American professionals. Many of them had never before raised money for a candidate but found common ground in Obama’s Ivy League education, in social networks that crisscrossed the city and in an ethos that celebrated the accumulation of wealth — if it was used to address the broad inequities faced by black Americans.
“You had people who had never participated at this level before. Not just their own contributions, but also rallying other people,” said Ariel President Mellody Hobson.
She recalled hosting an early Obama fundraiser at her cramped Near North Side apartment in about 1995. As the one-bedroom overflowed with a “mixed group” of people, she said some of the furniture had to be moved out into the hallway to make room for the crowd.
By 2003 and 2004, she said, the buy-in from African-American professionals was so strong that fundraising became relatively easy. “They felt the time was now to get behind one of our own,” Hobson said.
In a typical pattern, Hobson said she met Obama’s wife through Obama’s brother-in-law Craig Robinson , a Princeton University grad like her, and a 1990s board member of a foundation for inner-city students created by Ariel executives.
Obama’s brother-in-law also served in 1999 as a managing director at the bond underwriting firm Loop Capital Markets, which was co-founded by Obama’s neighbor, friend and political financier James Reynolds Jr. Several of Obama’s most active financiers — black and white — say they were first introduced to him by Reynolds.
Among those is investment adviser Barbara Bowles, who had given close to $9,000 even before Obama started his presidential bid, and former Chicago Stock Exchange Vice Chairman Andrew Davis, who with his wife gave $24,000 to Obama’s U.S. Senate bid. Davis served on Obama’s Illinois finance committee for that campaign.
Reynolds also brought Obama to Les Coney, who recalled hosting a late-1990s Obama reception at the Mid-America Club in Chicago where they greeted about 15 guests and raised roughly $5,000.
http://www.afro-netizen.com/2004/11/firm_in_skyway_.html
Firm in Skyway deal linked to corruption case
By Frank Main & Fran Spielman
Staff Reporters
Chicago Sun-times
A politically connected minority-owned Chicago investment banking firm that recently won a piece of the lucrative Skyway toll road deal is at the center of a federal corruption case in Philadelphia.
Loop Capital Markets — a big donor to Illinois politicians — secretly funneled money to a Philadelphia attorney to gain business with the city of Philadelphia, according to a federal indictment there.
The indictment accuses the attorney, Ronald A. White, of bribing Philly’s then-treasurer, Corey Kemp, to steer city business to favored companies, including Loop Capital Markets. White died this month. Kemp and others are scheduled to stand trial next year.
Loop Capital Markets is not a defendant and is not formally named in the indictment. But the document lists “Company No. 4” as one of the firms that benefitted from White’s alleged wrongdoing, and the Chicago Sun-Times has identified Company No. 4 as Loop Capital Markets based on financial details in the indictment and a source close to the case.
(snip)
..
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FBImakes Philly wiretaps public
Intelligencer, The (Doylestown, PA) - Thursday, February 17, 2005
Author: David B. Caruso The Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA - Federal prosecutors released transcripts Wednesday of more than 550 phone conversations secretly intercepted by the FBI during its investigation of public corruption in Philadelphia.
Almost all of the calls were made on phones owned by Ronald A. White , a fund-raiser for Mayor John F. Street who died in November while awaiting trial on charges that he made payoffs to the city’s treasurer in an attempt to influence government contracts.
The ex-treasurer, Corey Kemp, is scheduled to be tried next week on corruption charges, along with two executives at Commerce Bank and a millionaire Detroit businessman as well as White’s mistress.
All are accused of participating in a scheme in which city contracts were allegedly traded for political contributions, gifts, favors and payments.
Street, who has not been charged in the case, was recorded speaking to White at least three times, according to the transcripts.
In one call, White asks for Street’s help in arranging for a Chicago company, Loop Capital Markets, to receive a lucrative financial services contract. During the call, White tells Street that Loop has been “helpful.” He also reminds Street that he just arranged for $50,000 in donations to his re-election campaign, and another $17,000 for the Democratic City Committee.
“I need Loop in there,” White said.
(snip)
..
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GREED, LIES AND AUDIOTAPES - ON TAPE, KNIGHT ADMITS FIBBING
Philadelphia Daily News (PA) - Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Author: ERIN EINHORN
ON OCT. 16, 2003, Janice Knight called her boyfriend, Ronald A. White , and informed him that she had just lied to the FBI.
Three agents had shown up at her house unexpectedly at 7 a.m. that morning and interviewed her for about an hour, agent Michael O’Brien testified yesterday in the City Hall corruption trial.
As soon as they left, Knight called White on his cell phone.
“He asked me about . . . Renee Enterprises,” Knight told White in a conversation that was recorded by FBI wiretaps.
Renee, a company owned by Knight, was registered as a vending company, but agents knew from their investigation that it had also received $30,000 in monthly “consulting” payments from a Chicago financial services company called Loop Capital Markets.
Prosecutors say the payments were a back-door way for Loop to buy White’s access to Mayor Street, former city treasurer Corey Kemp and other top city officials.
(snip)
Prosecutors then delved into Knight’s businesses, demonstrating White’s heavy involvement in both of them. They played tapes of White setting up the Renee contract with Loop , bringing it to Knight to sign, then telling Knight how to do the job.
In one conversation, White called Knight to tell her she needed to call Loop CEO Jim Reynolds to tell him that he had been moved from one bond deal to another. Knight was angry. “Am I suppose to be apologetic in my voice?” she asked. “I mean you know, am I supposed to be angry like I was fighting tooth and nail for this? Like I don’t like going in blindly the way I am.”
(snip)
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Defense: Bankers broke no laws
Bucks County Courier Times (Levittown, PA) - Thursday, February 24, 2005
EXCERPT
Prosecutors said Loop Capital Markets, an Illinois-based firm, hired White’s mistress as a $5,000 per month consultant in an attempt to win his help lobbying the city.
Wonder if Robinson ‘developed’ any new clients in Philadelphia while with Loop? Interesting timing of career changes.
http://www.projo.com/sports/billreynolds/sp_bkc_rencol10_02-10-08_RR8V36O_v13.32c51e2.html
EXCERPT
He became a two-time Ivy player of the year at Princeton, was drafted by the Philadelphia 76ers, spent two years playing overseas.
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Trading it all for basketball
Oregonian, The (Portland, OR) - Sunday, April 13, 2008
Author: PAUL BUKER, The Oregonian
PAUL BUKER
In the cutthroat world of Wall Street bond trading, Craig Robinson was a rising star.
(snip)
Robinson, now 45, was a vice president for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter from 1992 to 1999 before he took a managing director’s position at the investment banking firm Loop Capital Markets in Chicago.
This was before Robinson _ a two-time Ivy League basketball player of the year at Princeton _became better known as being Michelle Obama’s brother, and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s brother-in-law.
This was before Robinson gave up his near-million-dollar salary, his luxury cars and his European vacations to serve as an assistant coach at Northwestern for six seasons at one-tenth the pay. Before he turned around the basketball fortunes of Brown University. Before he stunned some of his East Coast friends last week by becoming the head coach at Oregon State, a once powerful program gone bust. A program that needs a miracle . . . or a maybe former Wall Street bond trader.
(snip)
The biggest knock on Robinson’s resume is his relative inexperience as a head coach, but his years as a bond trader just might be equivalent to three years as head coach at a mid major.
At OSU, Robinson agreed to a six-year, $5 million-plus contract laden with incentives that guarantees him a base salary of $750,000 in 2008-09. Although it is a raise from what he was making at Brown, it doesn’t compare to the salary he raked in on Wall Street and in downtown Chicago.
(snip)
“Athletes do very well in investment banking,” said Loop Capital CEO Jim Reynolds, who hired Robinson after he left Morgan Stanley. The two men remain friends, and Reynolds has closely followed Robinson’s coaching career.
At Loop Capital , Robinson worked “client development” and recruited new talent.
(snip)
Robinson explained why he blew off investment banking to become an assistant coach at Northwestern for one-tenth the salary in very simple terms.
“Here I was, making all this money, but I wasn’t really excited with what I was doing,” he said.
“You know, excited like you should be, if you sort of have arrived? . . . What I got the most pleasure out of was coaching my kids in youth basketball or T-ball, or soccer, all that stuff. . . . I had a passion for coaching. I didn’t have that passion for business. . . . I didn’t feel that excitement in my stomach that I feel every day when I get up and coach.”
What bothered Robinson the most about Wall Street, and the financial district in Chicago where he worked, was the fact that “I wasn’t helping people. I had been raised to try and give back. And that’s what I felt was lacking in that industry.”
When Carmody called in 2000 with the Northwestern job offer, Robinson said it was a life-changing experience. He said he took a cab ride on his lunch hour to mull it over.
Then he walked into Craig Reynolds’ office at Loop Capital .
“He said he was resigning,” Reynolds said. “I asked him how much he was going to get paid at Northwestern, and he didn’t even know. He just knew he was following his passion, and you’ve got to respect and admire that.”
Robinson said he talks almost daily with pals he knows from Morgan Stanley and Loop Capital . They follow his teams, cheer his victories and commiserate with him when he loses.
(snip)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/16/sports/ncaabasketball/16brown.html?_r=1
Robinson went to Princeton. A 6-foot-6 forward, Robinson developed into a two-time Ivy League player of the year (1982 and ‘83) under the Tigers’ longtime coach, Pete Carril . Robinson was drafted in the fourth round by the Philadelphia 76ers, then played professionally in England for two seasons before returning to the United States. He decided he wanted to be a teacher and a coach, but Carril talked him out of it.
So Robinson returned to Chicago and received a master’s of business administration in finance from the University of Chicago. He was a vice president at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter from 1992 to 1999 and then a partner in a boutique firm, Loop Capital Markets.
But his six-bedroom house, closet full of tailored suits and driveway filled with luxury cars did not translate to happiness. “I’m so embarrassed to admit it,” Robinson said. “I had a Porsche 944 Turbo. I had a BMW station wagon. Who gets a BMW station wagon? It’s the dumbest car in the world. Why would you buy a $75,000 station wagon?”
What did give Robinson happiness was basketball. Despite working long hours in business, he scouted area high school games to help Princeton coaches find prospects. He also spent a season as head coach at the University of Chicago High School.
In 2000, Robinson received a phone call that changed his life. Bill Carmody, who was an assistant to Carril during Robinson’s senior year at Princeton, had taken the head-coaching job at Northwestern and wanted Robinson to be his assistant.
He would be making one-tenth of his salary in the business world, but Robinson, who was going through a divorce, did not consult with anyone. He quickly accepted the post.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2156549/posts
Blago attorney resigns - William Quinlan, Managing Partner at Quinlan & Carroll Ltd.
Did Michelle Obama do legal work without an active law license?
Re: MICHELLE OBAMA ON “COURT ORDERED INACTIVE STATUS”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2154422/posts
Further link at that thread. Pertinent part is copied to FR. thread.
Is there any way we can check to see if she actually passed the bar examination?...Four years is just about the time it would take for her to retake it several times. Many grads get jobs at firms with their license still pending.... Affirmative Action may get you a degree with help from tutors etc., but it doesn't help you pass the Bar!
Judicial Watch Announces List of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians” for 2008
FROM:
uk.sys-con.com ...
Here is the list:
Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY)
Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT)
Obama Advisor Valerie Jarrett (D-IL)
Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA)
President-Elect Barack Obama (D-IL)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY)
Former Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ)
Former Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK)
Rep. Don Young (R-AK)
DISHONORABLE MENTIONS
Former Senator John Edwards (D-NC)
Former Rep. William “Dollar Bill” Jefferson (D-LA)
FR thread: Good comments and quotes from article re:
“Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians” for 2008
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2156868/posts
Add Barney Frank and Harry Reid to that list.
http://www.iardc.org/ldetail.asp?id=677676558
It appears Mrs. Obama did pass (and worked at Sidley Austin on marketing/intellectual property in 1993 according to wikipedia).
That database shows voluntary and court ordered inactive status at the same time, so that contradiction shows an issue. I’ll look for what the court ordered thing is about, but since there’s apparently no public record of discipline or pending proceedings, I doubt I can find out. Probably conflict of interest or malpractice insurance criteria issues, where she either had to voluntarily go inactive, or face some problems, I don’t know.
Barack Obama is still listed as active on the following site, but the database looks a couple months out of date:
http://www.martindale.com/Barack-H-Obama/916766-lawyer.htm
Education Harvard University, J.D., Columbia University, B.A.
Admitted 1991
ISLN 900781740
both sites have lawyer search engines, iardc.org shows Obama as voluntarily inactive, no court ordered issues.
probably nothing to this...SOP
https://www.iardc.org/rule770inactivestatus.html
Prior to November 1, 1999, former Supreme Court Rule 770 provided for a proceeding in the Court for any voluntary transfer to inactive status, whether because of some incapacitating condition or solely as a matter of the lawyer’s preference because the lawyer would not be practicing law.
The current registration rules provide a procedure for lawyers on Court-ordered inactive status under former Supreme Court Rule 770 who might wish to register. Whatever registration status the lawyer wishes to assume (active, inactive, or retired), the lawyer must first file a motion with the Supreme Court for restoration to active status under Rule 759. The motion process is necessary to screen for those who transferred due to circumstances that require some review of present fitness, and the motions will be contested only in such cases. In all other cases, the ARDC will consent to the transfer, and when a consent is submitted, the Supreme Court typically allows the motion within a few weeks of when it is filed.
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