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BARACK OBAMA: IS AMERICA READY FOR REPARATIONS? OBAMA'S SUPPORTERS SEE REPARATIONS IN THEIR FUTURE IF BARRY O IS ELECTED READY TO PAY? OBAMA'S THE WAY (CHICAGO)(April 4, 2007) Is America ready to pay reparations for slavery? What is that you say, "Doesn't Senator Barack Obama oppose reparations for slavery?" Well, no. He doesn't. In fact the reparations crowd in Washington and Chicago is salivating at the prospect Obama might stumble into the White House and put them on track for a reparations gravy train for slavery which took place centuries ago. To tackle the topic, first, a simple question: is...

Her blatant nepotism at the taxpayer-bankrolled Harold Washington Cultural Center ...others are wondering how Obama's decision to back such a die-hard proponent of slavery reparations will play in Iowa and New Hampshire.

While the debate over slave reparations has merit, it will never be taken seriously with advocates like Dorothy Tillman at the helm. As is her wont, Tillman's antics undermine her own causes. Take her reaction to the admission by the international investment firm Lehman Brothers. The firm announced last month that the three brothers who founded the firm's predecessor purchased a slave named Martha in the 1850s. Lehman 'fessed up, thanks to an ordinance, championed by Tillman, that mandates all city contractors attest to whether they ever participated in America's slave trade. Of the 2,000 companies that have filed affidavits,...

Wachovia Corporation's ridiculous apology for its alleged ties to slavery has backfired.Chicago City Council aldermen are vowing to strip from Wachovia a $9.4 million loan to build affordable housing units as punishment for the bank's supposed failure to disclose that its predecessor banks were involved in slave-related business deals. This serves as a warning to other companies that believe they can buy peace with the slave reparations movement. Wachovia thought it would be good for business to cave in to the demands of reparations activists. Now, not only is the company out of a multi-million dollar contract, it has made...

Big-box retailers would be required to pay their Chicago employees a “living wage” — at least $10 an hour and $3 in benefits by 2010 — under a groundbreaking ordinance approved today that sets the stage for a court fight. The 35 to 14 vote by a bitterly divided City Council is a victory for organized labor, a stunning defeat for Wal-Mart and the latest in a string of legislative embarrassments for Mayor Daley. Chanting protesters on both sides of the contentious debate lined up early and jammed the Council chambers to witness a vote that could change the economic...

It was the year 2000, and I was a young, hungry reporter in Chicago with a young, hungry state legislator on my speed dial -- It's not quite eight in the morning, and Barack Obama is on the phone screaming at me. He liked the story I wrote about him a couple weeks ago, but not this garbage. Months earlier, a reporter friend told me she overheard Obama call me an asshole at a political fund-raiser. Now here he is blasting me from hundreds of miles away for a story that just went online but hasn't yet hit local newsstands....

This is another in a series of stories that received some play in Chicago at the time it occurred but never made it past the state line for some reason. It is especially curious that this story never took off nationally because far more than most people realize, Mayor Richard M. Daley is a player in national Democratic politics – perhaps not as powerful as his father but almost certainly the current Mayor Daley has more clout than any other big city Democratic mayor in the country. The current mayor has fewer congressmen that he can whip into line for...

I was surprised, and horrified, to learn that Barack Obama endorsed Alderman Dorothy Tillman for re-election in Tuesday's runoff. For those of you who aren't local or who wisely avoid the open sewer of Chicago politics, Dorothy Tillman is the disastrously corrupt, incompetent, and even demented alderman of the south side's long-decrepit 3rd Ward... I just can't understand is how he could throw in with Tillman, the one example I know of the kind of person white right-wingers imagine when they think of black politicians linking militant race rhetoric to city machine corruption.

Barack Obama and his supporters are fond of citing his opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq as an example of his superior judgment over his rivals Hillary Clinton and John McCain. To me, it’s just the opposite, and illustrates how poorly Mr. Obama, as commander-in-chief, would handle national security matters. Saddam Hussein ignored 16 United Nations resolutions demanding U.N. inspectors’ unfettered access of his facilities to locate and dismantle weapons of mass destruction. After a protracted cat-and-mouse game, Saddam finally kicked inspectors out and thumbed his nose at the world. How many more resolutions would Mr. Obama like to...

Looks like Dr. Harvette Grey, head of the DePaul Cultural Center, is up to some chicanery in publicizing Ward Churchill's upcoming hate rants at DePaul next week. Sent my way by an anonymous tipster: Old listing: (I added the bold print.) October 20, 2005 Lecture: Ward Churchill -Open to DePaul Community (5:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m., Student Center 314-A) October 21, 2005 Multicultural Human Rights Education Workshop (2:00 p.m.--4:30 p.m., Student Center 314-B) -Ward Churchill For Student Organizations Only Cached URL: http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:c9HKxOXFAgEJ:studentaffairs.depaul.edu/culturalcenter/events.html+&hl=en&client=firefox-a New listing: October 20, 2005 Lecture: Ward Churchill -Open to DePaul Community (5:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m., Student...

Bank One has filed an affidavit with City Hall warning that it "owns subsidiaries that conduct business in states where slavery was practiced" and that predecessors of some of those companies may have had ties to slavery. Although Bank One checked the box that says it has "found records relating to investments or profits from slavery," the carefully worded disclosure statement filed by Bank One Capital Markets in connection with a water bond issue makes no such claim. It merely states that such ties may exist because of the history of its many subsidiaries and the states in which they...

CHICAGO (CBS 2) The highly charged issue of slave reparations took center stage at a Chicago City Council hearing on Friday. Alderman Dorothy Tillman accused mega-bank JP Morgan Chase of failing to disclose its past ties to slavery, as required by city law. “We will go back and get with our lawyers we will submit to the law department the reason as to why they lied,” Tillman said. A top executive with JP Morgan strongly denied Tillman's allegation. “We've found no evidence to support the allegation that any of our predecessor institutions had issued, financed or underwritten slavery insurance,” said...

The City Council champion of the slave reparations movement demanded Monday that Carole Brown apologize to African Americans or step down as CTA board chairwoman for "allowing herself to be used" to defend a financial services firm with past ties to slavery. Ald. Dorothy Tillman (3rd) said it's insensitive and insulting for Brown, senior vice president of Lehman Brothers, to suggest that "the Lehman Brothers in the 1850s is not the company that it is today." Brown made the statement after the company she works for became the first city contractor to admit past ties to slavery. "She should have...