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History repeats itself. This story has many echoes that resonate through the country today. Barack Obama has done for the United States what he did for Grove Parc. The more things hope and change, the more they stay the same. CHICAGO - The squat brick buildings of Grove Parc Plaza, in a dense neighborhood that Barack Obama represented for eight years as a state senator, hold 504 apartments subsidized by the federal government for people who can't afford to live anywhere else. But it's not safe to live here. About 99 of the units are vacant, many rendered uninhabitable by...

Convicted political fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko has granted his first television interview since he went to prison for corruption. "I was indicted, tried and convicted for a crime I did not commit," he told ABC7's Charles Thomas. "Here I am serving a 10 and a 1/2 year sentence that I believe I do not deserve." Rezko was the wealthiest and most influential member of former governor Rod Blagojevich's inner circle. As he sits in the federal penitentiary in downstate Pekin, Ill., four years after his conviction, Rezko still says he did not do it. At least not the 16 fraud,...

In the White House pecking order, Jarrett has more clout than the president’s chief of staff. During the savage internecine warfare between Jarrett and Obama’s first two chiefs of staff — Rahm Emanuel and Bill Daley — Obama sided most of the time with Jarrett, a classic limousine liberal who believes that Obama was elected president in order to engineer social change. Ultimately, Jarrett emasculated Emanuel and Daley and forced them from their jobs. She has also been responsible for much of the incompetence and amateurism that have been the hallmarks of Obama’s time in office. Indeed, Jarrett has been...

Documents obtained by The Daily Caller show that President Barack Obama’s close friend Eric Whitaker, who runs the University of Chicago Medical Center’s Urban Health Initiative, spoke at Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Chicago-area church in 2006. Whitaker was a speaker at Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ during a Sept. 17, 2006 “Health Care Justice Forum,” according to a church bulletin TheDC obtained. The bulletin is no longer on the church’s website. Whitaker made headline news Monday when New York Times bestselling author Edward Klein alleged during a radio interview with Sean Hannity that Whitaker offered Wright $150,000 to stay silent...

Eric Whitaker has been friends with Obama ever since...". Whitaker — who now runs the Urban Health Initiative (UHI) out of the University of Chicago Medical Center — often vacations with the first family, is a regular golf partner of Obama and has organized Chicago-area parties when the president visits the Windy City. Publicly released visitor logs show “Eric Whitaker” officially visited the White House 7 times during the Obama admin..." Whitaker had purportedly offered Rev. Jeremiah Wright — an infamous and challenging weight on Obama’s 2008 campaign — $150,000 to stay silent..."

If you haven’t heard already, Drudge is reporting that Newt’s ex-wife has unloaded on him in a 2 hour interview with ABC News. Suddenly, ABC News went into a civil war over when to air the video because of the South Carolina Primary this weekend. Here are the details from Drudge: Marianne Gingrich has said she could end her ex-husband’s career with a single interview. Earlier this week, she sat before ABCNEWS cameras, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. She spoke to ABCNEWS reporter Brian Ross for two hours, and her explosive revelations are set to rock the trail.... ...Levin covered...

CHICAGO — More than three years after his conviction on fraud and bribery charges, Antoin Rezko, a former real estate mogul and a once-powerful fund-raiser with ties to President Obama’s early political career, was sentenced on Tuesday to 10 and a half years in prison. The trial drew national attention primarily because of Mr. Rezko’s relationship with Mr. Obama, who was at the time in a tight race with Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. “Boneheaded” was the word Mr. Obama used then to describe his part in a real estate transaction made with Mr. Rezko in 2005,...

A U.S. judge on Tuesday sentenced Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a former Chicago fundraiser for President Barack Obama, to 10-1/2 years in prison for corruption and extortion. Rezko's conviction was among a slew of guilty pleas that led to the conviction in two trials of former Democratic Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and several of his aides. A Syrian immigrant who earned millions in the real estate and restaurant businesses, Rezko has been imprisoned since his 2008 conviction on 16 fraud and attempted bribery counts. "Enough is enough. Corruption in Illinois has to stop," U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve in handing...

Antoin “Tony” Rezko was sentenced today to 10½ years in prison for extorting millions of dollars from firms seeking state business or regulatory approval while he was a top fundraiser and adviser to then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Rezko's daughter broke down sobbing in the courtroom as U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve handed down the sentence. Rezko apologized to the judge, saying, “I come to ask for God's forgiveness and the court's mercy." "You were engaged in a very, very serious offense, Mr. Rezko" the judge said as she imposed the sentence. Several family members called out 'we love you" to...

While it's true that President Obama began his political career in the living room of former Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, his first political sponsor and major fundraiser was Antoin "Tony" Rezko. The pair go back to the 1990s and Obama's state Senate years, but they are best known for the still-not-completely-explained 2005 real estate deal that allowed the Obamas to buy their Chicago South Side mansion, while Rezko's wife bought a narrow strip of the home's lot on the same day. At that time, Rezko was under federal investigation for influence peddling and fraud while serving...

A federal judge sentenced Tony Rezko to 10 1/2 years in prison Tuesday, describing his actions under Rod Blagojevich’s tenure as “selfish and corrupt.” Rezko has already served about 44 months. His daughter burst into tears at hearing the sentence. U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve said she found it offensive that Rezko put at risk the Teachers’ Retirement System by scheming for kickbacks with a board member in 2004. “You put their retirements at risk for your own greed and your own thirst for power,” St. Eve said. A pale, thin Rezko gave a brief statement before he learned...

Long known as the “political fixer,” who was friends with a politically young Barack Obama, Tony Rezko once grabbed headlines in a presidential campaign. At the same time in Illinois, Rezko’s name was synonymous with a federal investigation into former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. But since Rezko volunteered to go jail after his 2008 conviction, he’s settled in as not much more than a footnote in both politics and corruption. That’s partly because the investigation into Blagojevich exploded after Rezko’s trial, taking a new turn involving the sale of President Obama’s U.S. Senate seat — conduct that happened when Rezko was...

Daniel Frawley deposition and testimony could lead to Obama arrest or investigation, Ulsterman White House Insider report, FDIC vs Mutual Bank, Where is House Judiciary Committee? “You said earlier that Obama was more confident these days though… He is. Pelosi backed off. Issa appears to have done the same. Holder is holding the line. Information coming out of Chicago is still being limited – clamped down upon. That doesn’t mean they aren’t nervous. They are. Watch the Blagojevich thing – the trial. The deal to be made. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And what happened to Rezko? That’s part of...

Barack Obama’s three closest friends — Valerie Jarrett, Martin Nesbitt and Dr. Eric Whitaker — sat down in the study of Mr. Nesbitt’s house in Chicago for one of their increasingly frequent heart-to-hearts. ... In the presidential campaign, the Obamas had a “no new friends” rule, surrounding themselves with a coterie of familiar faces. Even if the Obamas lift that rule in Washington, newcomers are unlikely to replicate the intensity of this group’s ties, formed over more than a decade ... They vacationed together: in December, with the Obamas in Hawaii; in August, with Ms. Jarrett on Martha’s Vineyard. Mr....

Reggie’s the best athlete I know - Obama The rumors of Obama’s gayness abound, but the press is muzzled by the CFR like a trained lapdog. The Globe however ran an article recently about Donald Young, one of Obama’s alleged “gay lovers”, who was found murdered in Chicago. He was a gay choir director at the now infamous Trinity Church and reputedly a friend of Obama’s. Young’s mother thinks he was killed to protect Obama’s secret gay life during the campaign. This was reported by Larry Sinclair during the campaign. The media choose to bury the story. An article ran...

Federal prosecutors say Tony Rezko deserves to spend up to 15 years in prison for his crimes in two separate cases and that he damaged his own credibility by lying to the court. Prosecutors for the first time publicly addressed why they never called the convicted political fund-raiser to the witness stand after he began cooperating in 2008. They say in more than 19 meetings with them, he did not fully tell the truth about his own wrongdoing until he was confronted by agents with new information. Prosecutors said juries would never have accepted his word. “Rezko’s cooperation was heavily...

Guys like Bill Cellini don't get indicted in Illinois. And the puppet masters don't sit at the defense table in federal court, tapping their fingers, waiting for the jury to pronounce judgment. *snip* They're Democrats, they're Republicans. They're the bosses of the Combine. *snip* All involved should know that their ((prosecutors)) work is appreciated, by every taxpayer in this thoroughly corrupt state who've wondered how the puppet masters of the Combine keep getting away with it. On Tuesday, they didn't get away with it. And Bill Cellini went down.

Officers and directors of Mutual Bank issued $10.5 million in "imprudent" dividends, spent $250,000 of the bank's money on a wedding, and paid $495,000 in defense costs for a spouse's Medicaid fraud case before the Harvey-based lender failed in July 2009, a federal regulator alleged last week. Mutual was the bank that financed the purchase by the wife of political fundraiser Tony Rezko of a side lot in a deal that enabled Barack Obama to buy his dream house.In a lawsuit filed in a U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Illinois last week, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp....

Why was Obama promoting Capri Capital and other investment firms at the same time that Rezko, Levine and Cellini were shaking them down?” “Why did Patrick Fitzgerald and the US Justice Department wait until December 2008 to arrest Rod Blagojevich?” “Why was Tony Rezko’s sentencing delayed?” Do not be fooled by the investigation of Jesse Jackson Jr. in the so called selling of Obama’s senate seat. This was a well crafted diversion intended to take the attention away from Obama’s earlier involvement in Chicago corruption with Tony Rezko, Stuart Levine, et al. The investigation of Jackson is another diversion. I...

A judge has delayed sentencing for Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a top fundraiser and adviser to disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Rezko, convicted on corruption charges, was scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 21. But prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve to move the sentencing because another corruption trial connected to the Blagojevich administration starts this week – and includes allegations of an extortion plot involving Rezko. Prosecutors most directly involved in the Rezko sentencing are also handling the prosecution of William Cellini, a Springfield powerbroker whose trial on charges including attempted extortion and fraud starts this morning. In...