Listen to the video in its entirety because Matthews describes further how VERY near he was to where that bomb went off. And Ayers (of course, this was not discussed today) is a free man solely because his attorneys managed to prove the FBI improperly conducted wiretaps. (I have MUCH MORE TO SAY about this below, and ask you to read along and then share YOUR reactions and add your own knowledge and your own impressions of what occurred, shamefully, on MSNBC.)

I can only imagine what Concerned Mother would have to say about this travesty.

It is unconscionable to me that we and the MSM constantly RAGE about O.J. Simpson, who murdered two people, but not reject Barack Obama, a presidential candidate, now president-elect, who has associated freely and over a long time with a man who could have killed dozens and dozens of people.

On his remarkable radio show a few weeks ago, Nocturnal Warrior made a brilliant point about PEBO’s selection of numerous former Clinton White House and cabinet members. Warrior said that PEBO has to select such people because he has almost no FRIENDS or LONGTIME ASSOCIATES to appoint to any serious jobs in his administration. This is a situation that has NEVER occurred in the history of the presidency of the United States. Heretofore, every U.S. president has had a rich collection of friends, associates, and allies from whom he could select many qualified for high-ranking administration positions. But not Barack Obama. You faithful readers of No Quarter know of many of Obama’s real longtime associates: Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, Father Michael Pfleger, William Ayers, Allison and Cullen Davis, Penny Pritzker, Bernardine Dohrn, and on and on, only a very, very few of them suited for any respectable position at any level in an administration. (I’ve clicked several Categories to provide you with a list.) And now, this week, we learn more about other Obama longtime associates like Rod Bagojevich and his wife.

William Ayers’ Crimes, and Additional Perspective History

The SOLE reason no one died is because Ayers et al. were piss-poor bomb makers. What is the sentence range these days for an attempt to commit murder? And don’t forget all the other bombs that nearly killed many others. Including the judge, his wife, and his children — while they slept — simply because that judge was doing his job: Handling the trial of a Black Panther. I’m not generally in favor of the death penalty, but Ayers’ and the Weather Underground’s attempts, repeatedly, to kill as many people as possible in the Capitol, the Pentagon, police stations, and a judge’s home are the works of people so dangerous that those people should never be freed, and may be eligible to be charged with a capital offense.

Ayers has famously said, “Free as a bird, guilty as hell, ain’t America great.” (From Larry Johnson’s must-read article, “A Statement by a Retired FBI Agent Re William Ayers.”)

Dear readers, please understand this: All that, to Matthews, is just some history. It has some import to Matthews, given that he might have been blown up himself, but apparently not much since the conversation flows easily and reasonably amicably, and Matthews, at the end of the interview, gladly flogs Ayers’ book. THEN, after this interview, Matthews has his panel on. Matthews asks Joan Walsh, Salon’s editor, why Ayers — who appeared today to be “confessional” in his tone — didn’t do that during the campaign. Ms. Walsh LAUGHS with a SMIRK on her face, and says, “I think he wanted to stay out of it entirely, and not dignify what the McCain campaign and others were doing.”

Thank you, Ms. Walsh. We now know who the real criminals are. Shame on you, John McCain. Shame on you, Sarah Palin.

Ms. Walsh, please share your opinions with John Murtagh. Well, of course. That’s unfair. You don’t know who John Murtagh is.

Uppity Woman can tell you, in her story, “When This Man Was 9 Years Old, Ayers Bombed His Home.”

If I may, I will contrast the actions of William Ayers and the rest of the sociopathic members of the Weather Underground to the actions of a man who — unless you’re my age and you closely followed anti-war activities during the Vietnam War — you’ve probably NEVER heard of, and will not hear of in the MSM.

After all, he didn’t make bombs. He didn’t befriend a future president and excite the easily excitable rightwing. He simply did the hard work of truly changing history and he paid the price that true, albeit boring, heroes do, in anonymity.

His name is David Harris.

He was the resident counselor in the boys’ dormitory across the street from my girls’ dorm. Many of us sat at his feet as he modestly told us his stories about traveling to the South in summers past to try to help black people get the right to vote. He also shared with us the music he’d learned about in the South — the blues. He told us about Muddy Waters and more. We were entranced. With him, with his stories and the very REAL danger he was in during those summers when white racists wanted to kill him and every white college kid who dared to fight for blacks’ right to vote.

He ran for student body president and I worked on his campaign. He ran on the sole condition that, if elected, he would not serve. He won in a landslide. And did not serve.

Then his draft number came up. (My memory is vague these days, but I believe he tried all the normal routes available back then, such as conscientious objector status, and so on. All of those routes failed.)

So he went to prison. Leavenworth. About seven years ago, I did a search on him, curious what his life had been like. I discovered that he had written a book about his time in Leavenworth, along with his then-wife Joan Baez. I bought the book, and read it. It was a heart-wrenching account. I had no idea that being an inmate in Leavenworth was such a horrific, maddening, insane experience.

It is a simple story, really.

He refused to fight for a war he did not believe was right.

The U.S. government tried him and sentenced him to prison.

He served roughly three years, as I recall.

You may disagree with his decision, but he decided to take the punishment like a man.

He had a father who, as I remember it, was an attorney in Fresno, California. His father surely had some means, but not enough to prevent his son from going to prison.

Bill Ayers had a father who was Chairman of Commonwealth Edison and a mover/shaker in Chicago politics, the arts and education. His father had the means to hire a cadre of attorneys who successfully prevented his son from spending a single day in prison.

David Harris did not build bombs.

He tried to help blacks in the South get to vote, at great risk to his own life.

He helped educate and watched over younger students attending the university, which was often a tedious task, listening to those 18-year-olds’ angst and fear and uncertainty and their various problems with and anxieties about their classes.

He helped the students with the difficult reading for the required freshman class, The History of Western Civilization, because he had read all of those works, including all of Plato, Socrates, and more, and he could — and did — explain those works to those anxious students. He spoke with them patiently and kindly and always very softly.

He was a hulk of a man with broad thick shoulders and a large angular head and a blond mustache but he was, as they say, a gentle giant.

He did not teach the younger students to build bombs or burn down buildings.

He taught the students about giving black people the right to vote and about the blues and about philosophy and about literature and about political thinking and about peaceful protest and about Martin Luther King and Gandhi.

He marched and sang folk songs with his wife, who bore their son.

What a dull man.

Doubtless, Chris Matthews will never invite David Harris for a feature interview.

If only he’d built bombs and then buddied up with a future president, he’d be a sought-after guest.

At least he has an entry in Wikipedia.

:::::::::::

Via Google News results:

Matthews to Ayers: ‘I Agitate My Way, You Agitate Your Way‘ – NewsBusters

Chris Matthews invited on Bill Ayers on Wednesday night’s “Hardball,” and actually confronted him about his bombing of Capitol Hill during his days as a member of the ’60s terrorist group Weather Underground, as the former Capitol Hill police officer emotionally observed: “I was a Capitol policeman at the time, so I was one of the guys that could have been killed obviously at the time you put that, your guys put that bomb in there. So I have a little personal interest. It wasn’t just vandalism. To me it was life-threatening to the guys I worked with. And there were some pretty good guys working there.”

However Matthews, who paradoxically may not even be alive to conduct this interview today if the Weather Underground’s bombs were more devastating, devoted most of the interview tossing softballs Ayers’ way, as the two often agreed with each other on Barack Obama and Iraq policy as the “Hardball” host pointed out they only really differed on how to spread their points of view: “Well, Mr. Ayers, with all due respect, you agitate your way, I agitate my way.

Matthews, who back in October dismissed Sarah Palin’s mention of Ayers, as “the politics of distraction,” began the interview by setting up Ayers to play down any association he had with Obama: …

READ ALL: Matthews to Ayers: ‘I Agitate My Way, You Agitate Your Way‘ — NewsBusters

AND READ MORE of NoQuarter’s treasure trove of materials on the bombings conducted by William Ayers.

**********Truthteller asks bloggers and reporters to direct their attention to Amrish Mahajan and the Mutual Bank of Harvey.**********

Mike Robinson’s AP article entitled “Obama Fundraiser, Convicted of Fraud, Spills Beans,” corroborates what we at No Quarter have been writing for weeks: Antoin “Tony” Rezko is cooperating with federal prosecutors interested in Barack Obama. While the national media’s attention to this topic is long overdue, I am not prepared to state that it is too little, too late. I am, however, disappointed.

Also disappointing but somewhat predictable is the blogosphere’s bungled reception of Mike Robinson’s article. Of course those who have embraced Obama will dismiss the story as so much yellow journalism. One blogger claims that prosecutors are interested in Blagojevich and not Obama. But looming in the blind spot of that blogger’s necessarily tendentious gaze is Rezko’s 9 JUN 2008 letter to Judge Amy St. Eve and the reference to Obama as “Individual D” in the superseding indictment and the proffer of evidence filed by Fitzgerald and his prosecutors during the Rezko trial. Obama’s name can be printed again and again on the surface of the legal documents filed during the proceedings of the Rezko trial, but these writers with all their “naked” insight will clothe the verifiable record with their blindness. Knowledge production, it seems, has been lifted from its evidentiary supports when Democrats write about Barack Obama and Antoin “Tony” Rezko.

And yes, those Democrats include some ostensible Hillary Clinton Democrats. Seizing upon the following quotation in a Chicago Sun-Times column, one blogger believes the AP story heralds the end of the political careers of Alexi Giannoulias and Barack Obama:

Sneed hears rumbles political fund-raiser/fixer Tony Rezko, who is now singing sweetly to the feds from his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, has been talking about his “dealings” with a Chicago bank, which has political connections.

Stay tuned.

While Rezko was a customer of Alexi Giannoulias’s Broadway Bank, where he amassed a debt of $450,000 after writing bad checks at Las Vegas casinos, and while Giannoulias did write loans for Rezko, I do not believe one can aver with the confidence of the blogger I cite above that federal prosecutors are now focusing on Giannoulias, even if Giannoulias was tied to Rezko by his opponent during his 2006 bid for the office of Illinois state Treasurer. Allow me to be clear: Obama bundler, mobster banker and Obama protégé Giannoulias is, to be sure, embroiled in the Rezko scandal and in other aspects of Chicago politics any political observer would find unsavory, but he is not in my opinion the topic of the conservation occurring between Rezko, Rezko’s attorney and Fitzgerald’s team of prosecutors. I do admit he is grist for the mill of impetuous bloggers who desire web traffic and a controversial headline or two, however. Because I tend to rely on evidence and not on hearsay, I believe we should focus our attention on Amrish Mahajan and the Mutual Bank of Harvey, not on Giannoulias and the Broadway Bank, if we are to assign names to the financial institution about which Sneed of the Chicago Sun-Times has heard “rumblings.” Although Mahajan is not known to readers of No Quarter and to the national media, I imagine they will desire more information on the unscrupulous banker once they read the information I unpack below the fold. And yes, Obama is involved, deeply involved.

My interest in Amrish Mahajan and the Mutual Bank of Harvey was picqued by this list of contributors in Rezko’s bundling network provided by the Chicago Sun-Times last March. View the second page of the document, and notice the following entry:

The data available in the Sun-Times spreadsheet is corroborated by the following data, which is democratically available at the Federal Election Commission’s website:

MAHAJAN, AMRISH
CHICAGO, IL 60607
MUTUAL BANK

OBAMA, BARACK
VIA OBAMA FOR ILLINOIS INC
12/20/2003 500.00 24020030170
04/14/2004 1000.00 24020461757

Not only was Mahajan a member of Rezko’s bundling network; his bank, the Mutual Bank of Harvey, granted Rita Rezko the $500,000 mortgage she needed in order to purchase the lot on which the Obama mansion in Chicago sits. As many of you may recall, the Obamas could not have purchased the mansion they could not afford unless transactions for the mansion and the lot closed on the same day. Obama needed to locate someone who would buy the lot, and he approached Rezko, the convicted slumlord with whom Obama toured the property before they mutually agreed to the following arrangement:

The home and lot sales closed on June 15, 2005. A land trust controlled by the Obamas bought the house for $1.65 million, and the Obamas secured a $1.32 million mortgage from Northern Trust to complete that purchase. That same day, Rezko’s wife, Rita Rezko, bought the side lot for $625,000. A $37,000- a-year Cook County employee, she secured a $500,000 mortgage from Mutual Bank of Harvey.

The structure of this transaction begs the following question: What bank would lend a government employee who earns $37,000 per annum a $500,000 mortgage? What bank would assume such a risk?

The Mutual Bank of Harvey, of course, for the Mutual Bank of Harvey’s President is a man who is deeply connected to the Chicago machine that backed Barack Obama. Indeed, Amrish Mahajan was one of Mayor Daley’s first political appointments in 1989, when he was named to a seat on Chicago’s Plan Commission, where he would be joined by Obama’s former boss and Rezko’s business partner Allison Davis and by Valerie Jarrett, Daley’s Chief of Staff who chaired the Commission from 1991-1995. Mahajan, in other words, worked with those who devised and profited from Daley’s failed public housing experiment in Chicago, a public housing policy Obama helped fund as state Senator and US Senator.

Rezko, according to the Boston Globe, was one of the major beneficiaries of Obama’s legislative advocacy for funding of Daley’s public housing experiment. Other major beneficiaries are Jarrett and Allison Davis. Mahajan was also a beneficiary, for his bank had made $3.4 million dollars in loans to Tony Rezko’s slum landlord business since 2002. A banker for one of the slumlords who benefitted from the Daley housing program Obama helped bankroll, Mahajan was returning a favor when he wrote a $500,000 mortgage in 2005 for the wife of one of his clients. Although Tony’s financial problems were mounting in 2005, and although Rita earned only $35,000 per annum, Mahajan underwrote the mortgage. Favors must be reciprocated, I guess, especially when one can satisfy two parties at once: the person with whom one has a complicated relationship in real estate and the politician who helped finance that complicated relationship as state Senator and US Senator.

I doubt federal investigators are interested in the Mahajans solely for their involvement in the property deal involving Obama, Mahajan and the Rezkos. The Mahajans, I believe, are the foci of their probe for many reasons.

• Anita Mahajan, the wife of Amrish, has been involved with questionable real estate deals that are the subject of federal probes with Governor Blagojevich’s wife, Patricia
• Anita Mahajan exploited lucrative no bid contracts with the Department of Children and Family Services to steal $2.1 million from Illinois taxpayers; she was charged and released on a $250,000 bond in March 2007
• “Uncle Amrish” has raised more than a half million for Blagojevich and approximately $50,000 for Mayor Daley, whose father helped launch Mahajan’s banking career
• “Uncle Amrish” also helped Obama purchase a house he could not afford

The real estate transaction involving Rita Rezko, the Obamas and Mutual Bank of Harvey is just the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, the Mutual Bank of Harvey seems to be at the center of all the corruption in Chicago. To quote former Donald Perillo, Chicago insurance mogul and son of the lawyer for Al Capone, in the Chicago Tribune article I cite above:

Donald Parrillo said he isn’t surprised to see Mahajan mix it up with politics and business. “He got that attitude from the Parrillo family,” the former alderman said. “He wanted to get in the game.”

And Mahajan certainly is in the game. The banker of the Chicago machine, he is also the man who wrote the mortgage for Rita Rezko that facilitated Obama’s purchase the mansion he could not afford. This is why I believe prosecutors are interested in Harvey Mutual Bank. Not only did Rezko receive loans from this institution; this bank is heavily involved in problematic real estate dealings involving Blagojevich and Obama. And if I may quote Rezko in the 9 JUN letter he wrote to Judge Amy St. Eve:

Your Honor, the prosecutors have been overzealous in pursuing a crime that never happened. They are pressuring me to tell them the “wrong” things that I supposedly know about Governor Blagojevich and Senator Obama. I have never been party to any wrongdoing that involved the Governor or the Senator. I will never fabricate lies about anyone else for selfish purposes. I will take what comes my way, but I will never hurt innocent people. I am not Levine, Loren, Mahru , or Winter.”

Rezko is now talking, and prosecutors are presently interested in a politically connected financial institution. I bet Obama now regrets paying Rita Rezko $104,500 for the strip of the land in the lot on which his house sits in January 2006. Acquired with the assistance of a questionable $500,000 mortgage from Amrish Mahajan’s Mutual Bank of Harvey, this lot and Obama’s desire to expand his yard by bit was the catalyst for all the investigative reports into Obama’s deep ties to Rezko. By the way, Rita’s lot is only accessible through the front gate of Obama’s home; it is not a separate property, and it was never intended to be a separate property.

“It was a mistake to have been engaged with him at all in this or any other personal business dealing that would allow him, or anyone else, to believe that he had done me a favor,” Obama says of the real estate transactions with Rezko. I wonder if now he also believes it was a mistake for him to serve as the legislator who represented and bankrolled Richard Daley, Amrish Mahajan, Valerie Jarrett, Allison Davis and the Chicago Plan Commission. But at least he and Michelle have a house, a house the Mutual Bank of Harvey, the politically connected bank that wrote loans for Rezko, helped them procure in 2005. Too bad that house will be the end of Barack Obama.

—————————————————-
No Quarter dossier on Obama and Rezko:

• Rezko, Giannoulias, Obama – Dominoes?
• CORROBORATED: Rezko Speaks, Prosecutors Interested in Obama Listen
• More Than Just a Boneheaded Mistake
• The Epistolary Rezko
• The Illinois Combine II: The DNC Moves Into Chicago
• Obama’s Gangster Mentality
• Prescience: “Will Rezko Blow Up Obama?”
• “CHICAGO MACHINE”
• The Tipping Point?
• Barack, The Truth Ain’t A Smear
• Recently Unsealed Documents Confirm Obama Heavily Embroiled in Rezko Case
• Boston Globe Exposé, Part II: Barack Obama (D-Slumlord) Is Aloof, Oblivious, Dangerous
• Boston Globe Exposé, Part I: Introducing Cecil Butler, Obama’s West Side Slum Landlord Patron
• Patrick Fitzgerald Issues Obama A Warning
• What Hypocrite Obama Should Have Discussion during His Wesleyan Commencement Address
• Barack Obama’s Candidacy as a Take on The Picture of Dorian Gray
• A Majority of One: On Losing the Democratic Base
• Ok, So Tell Us What IS Allowed
• Two Lone Voices Speak for Millions of Us
• What’ll Be Left of the Democratic Party
• It Ain’t Over: Obama MAY Have to Pay the Piper After All
• Obama to Donate Contribution from Rezko’s Iraqi Friend
• Be My Friend, Godfather
• Jaws V, Starring Barack Obama
• The Chicago Three: Obama, Ayers & Rezko
• Charlie Gibson, Will You Ask Barack about Nadhmi Auchi?
• Saddam Hussein, Barack Hussein Obama’s Hidden Real Estate Partner?
• Barack “I-Didn’t-Know” Obama
• Those Who Haunt Him
• Hillary’s Campaign Comes out Swinging
• “Nobie and Obama”
• Authorization to Use Misleading Falsehoods
• What We’ve Noticed about the Speech
• This Is for Main Street (And for the Forgotten People Barack Obama Doesn’t Know)
• Michelle Obama: “Give Us Something Here”
• Rezko Muckrakers Alert!
• The Forgotten People
• Irrefutable Proof That Obama’s Own District Was Home to 11 Rezko Foreclosed Properties
• Speak the Truth, Fallout Be Damned
• The Rezko Saga: Two Videos
• Get Your Daily Rezko Dose Here
• The Media’s Panderbears, Part I
• Sunday Scoops: Rezko-gate and Adviser-gate
• Obama’s Prime-Slime Advisors
• Good Morning, Barack! (Rezko Got Jobs for Your Staffers? Do Tell.)
• Today’s Rezko Trial Scoops (And Prosecutors on $20K Kickback to Obama)
• ABC News: Rezko $50 Million in Debt
• 312.321.2417
• (Pants on Fire!) Lynn Sweet: Obama and His Taking Questions on Rezko
• Rezko Trial: Obama May Be Witness
• Obama’s Judgment on the Eve of Judgment Day
• Truthtelling from Lanny Davis (What about “Iron My Shirt?”)
• Experience, and Experiences (of the Rezko Sort)
• No He Can’t Because Yes They Will
• More Questions on Rezko
• “Obama Bagman” in Jail
• Democratic Death Wish
• How to Buy A Mansion You Can’t Afford
• Will Rezko Blow Up Obama?
• It is “Possible” Obama Was Aware of Rezko’s Financial and Legal Woes
• 20-Year Associate of Obama Arrested
• Look before You Leap: Obama’s Mobbed-Up Allies
• Politics Is A Blood Sport
• BREAKING: ABC News Reports $100,000 from Rezko That Obama Hasn’t Returned
• CNN on Rezko and Obama: This Is Obama’s “Slumwater”
• FACT CHECK: Obama, His Contributor Rezko, The Slum Landlord Business
• A Dope with Hope?
• Obama/Rezko: It Comes down to Judgment
• Didn’t Obama Watch The Firm
• Steve Clemons on Tonight’s Debate
• Patrick Fitzgerald Ties Obama to Rezko Indictments
• All in for Hillary
• Obama, His Lobbyists and His Cronies

RezkoWatch contains even more information on Obama’s deep and problematic ties to convicted slumlord and notorious political fixer Antoin “Tony” Rezko.

Also listen to our NQR Radio Show entitled “READING REZKO with Truthteller and SusanUnPC”

In mid-June, Truthteller and I did an hour-long radio show on the highly disturbing story of Rezko and Obama’s long relationships, and the impoverished people of Chicago who suffered because Obama was more interested in making big deals for his rich benefactors than in truly helping the poor get beter housing. Listen to the archive of our show, just as timely today as it was in June. It’s also vital to read these two articles on Obama’s entanglements with these corrupt and unconscionably cruel men: “The Blood Money of Barack Obama’s Money Men” and the Boston Globe’s “Grim proving ground for Obama’s housing policy.”

Also in June, in “The Epistolary Rezko,” Truthteller undertook the daunting task of compiling ALL of the posts at No Quarter — and there have been dozens of them! — on Tony Rezko and Obama’s other questionable associations with various characters in the Chicago Machine:

No Quarter dossier on Obama and Rezko:

• The Tipping Point?
• Barack, The Truth Ain’t A Smear
• Patrick Fitzgerald Issues Obama A Warning
• What Hypocrite Obama Should Have Discussion during His Wesleyan Commencement Address
• Barack Obama’s Candidacy as a Take on The Picture of Dorian Gray
• A Majority of One: On Losing the Democratic Base
• Ok, So Tell Us What IS Allowed
• Two Lone Voices Speak for Millions of Us
• What’ll Be Left of the Democratic Party
• It Ain’t Over: Obama MAY Have to Pay the Piper After All
• Obama to Donate Contribution from Rezko’s Iraqi Friend
• Be My Friend, Godfather
• Jaws V, Starring Barack Obama
• The Chicago Three: Obama, Ayers & Rezko
• Charlie Gibson, Will You Ask Barack about Nadhmi Auchi?
• Saddam Hussein, Barack Hussein Obama’s Hidden Real Estate Partner?
• Barack “I-Didn’t-Know” Obama
• Those Who Haunt Him
• Hillary’s Campaign Comes out Swinging
• “Nobie and Obama”
• Authorization to Use Misleading Falsehoods
• What We’ve Noticed about the Speech
• This Is for Main Street (And for the Forgotten People Barack Obama Doesn’t Know)
• Michelle Obama: “Give Us Something Here”
• Rezko Muckrakers Alert!
• The Forgotten People
• Irrefutable Proof That Obama’s Own District Was Home to 11 Rezko Foreclosed Properties
• Speak the Truth, Fallout Be Damned
• The Rezko Saga: Two Videos
• Get Your Daily Rezko Dose Here
• The Media’s Panderbears, Part I
• Sunday Scoops: Rezko-gate and Adviser-gate
• Obama’s Prime-Slime Advisors
• Good Morning, Barack! (Rezko Got Jobs for Your Staffers? Do Tell.)
• Today’s Rezko Trial Scoops (And Prosecutors on $20K Kickback to Obama)
• ABC News: Rezko $50 Million in Debt
• 312.321.2417
• (Pants on Fire!) Lynn Sweet: Obama and His Taking Questions on Rezko
• Rezko Trial: Obama May Be Witness
• Obama’s Judgment on the Eve of Judgment Day
• Truthtelling from Lanny Davis (What about “Iron My Shirt?”)
• Experience, and Experiences (of the Rezko Sort)
• No He Can’t Because Yes They Will
• More Questions on Rezko
• “Obama Bagman” in Jail
• Democratic Death Wish
• How to Buy A Mansion You Can’t Afford
• Will Rezko Blow Up Obama?
• It is “Possible” Obama Was Aware of Rezko’s Financial and Legal Woes
• 20-Year Associate of Obama Arrested
• Look before You Leap: Obama’s Mobbed-Up Allies
• Politics Is A Blood Sport
• BREAKING: ABC News Reports $100,000 from Rezko That Obama Hasn’t Returned
• CNN on Rezko and Obama: This Is Obama’s “Slumwater”
• FACT CHECK: Obama, His Contributor Rezko, The Slum Landlord Business
• A Dope with Hope?
• Obama/Rezko: It Comes down to Judgment
• Didn’t Obama Watch The Firm
• Steve Clemons on Tonight’s Debate
• Patrick Fitzgerald Ties Obama to Rezko Indictments
• All in for Hillary
• Obama, His Lobbyists and His Cronies

RezkoWatch contains even more information on Obama’s deep and problematic ties to convicted slumlord and notorious political fixer Antoin “Tony” Rezko.

BarackBook

The Republican National Committee (RNC) today launched a new Web site, BarackBook.

The site parodies the social networking website FaceBook and Obama’s own website. BarackBook highlights some of Barack Obama’s notable associations throughout stages of his career, including his relationships with Tony Rezko, Nadhmi Auchi, and Alexi Giannoulias.

Leveraging the popularity of social networking sites, BarackBook allows voters to explore Obama’s connections with these individuals as well as their connections to one another using video and news articles.

From my blog, By The Fault.

First, here is video of Father Michael Pfleger on June 22, 2008, at St. Sabina in Chicago:

Despite the “Statement of Cardinal Francis George” on May 30, 2008 — “concerning remarks of Fr. Michael Pfleger about Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton during an address at Trinity United Church of Christ on Sunday May 25, 2008″ — Father Michael Pfleger, a radical activist priest, was permitted to return yesterday, after a three-week suspension, to his St. Sabina parish in Chicago.

Always the self-aggrandizing showman, Fr. Pfleger made a grand entrance — invoking the image of legendary boxing champion Muhammad Ali.

St. Sabina’s ushers distributed “light-blue fliers with a silhouette of boxing great Muhammad Ali in fighting stance that read: ‘Ain’t nothing like a comeback’.” The congregation rose to its feet, cheering Fr. Pfleger on as if he were entering a Las Vegas boxing arena for the championship fight of his life.

So what, you ask. Here’s why it matters: Fr. Michael Pfleger is a decades-long intimate confidante and associate of Barack Obama — as well as Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, Mother Khadijah Farrakhan (Farrakhan’s wife, seen here with Michelle Obama), the homophobic Rev. James Meeks, Trinity’s new minister Otis Moss, and more.

Exhibit One attesting to the Obama/Pfleger closeness:

In April and May, when Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama became estranged, it was Father Pfleger who spoke directly with and counseled both men, frequently. (It is astonishing, to me, that a presumptive presidential nominee would take regular phone calls from Fr. Pfleger, but it is true, according to Chicago media.)

Exhibit Two attesting to Pfleger’s involvement in the Rev. Wright/Obama saga:

Fox News’s Greta Van Susteran reported, on several shows, that she ran into Father Pfleger at Washington, D.C.’s National Press Club, during Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s now infamous Q&A, after which Obama finally severed ties publicly with the Reverend who “is like a father to me.” (At whose behest did Father Pfleger fly to Washington, D.C. for the press club appearance? And why?)

Further, Father Pfleger created quite a group for St. Sabina’s fundraising committee, including Chicago mayor Richard Daley, Illinois state treasurer Alexei Giannoulias, and — get this — Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod.

From Truthteller’s “Saint Sabina Raises the Roof on Obama’s Den of Political Tricks and Corruption [Update]“:

[V]iew some of the names on this list of fundraisers:

• Richard Daley, the corrupt Obama backer behind the Hired Truck Scandal, an elaborate network of cronyism and corruption that rocked Chicago City Hall in 2004, 2005 and 2006;
• David Axelrod, Lead Strategist of the Obama campaign and Political Consultant to Richard “Hired Truck” Daley who also served as Consultant for Exelon, the Illinois nuclear giant whose lobbyists convinced Obama not to regulate companies that contaminated groundwater with radioactive toxic waste; and
• Illinois state Treasurer Alexei Giannoulias, whose bank, the Broadway Bank, granted loans to known mobsters and to indicted political fixer and Obama patron Antoin “Tony” Rezko.

Father Michael Pfleger used to be featured on Barack Obama’s official Web site section for “Faith Testimonials.” Larry Johnson displayed the screenshot of Pfleger’s endorsement — now removed, of course, from Obama’s site — in his April story, “What Would Tip O’Neill Do About Barack’s Pastors? [Updated].”

Fr. Pfleger’s endorsement of Barack Obama is on Obama’s official Web site:

(Click on the image to see the full-sized screenshot of Pfleger’s endorsement [formerly] proudly displayed by Barack Obama.)

Barack Obama’s campaign staff hurriedly removed Father Pfleger’s testimonial after Larry Johnson’s story appeared.

Just as they’ve removed numerous other sections of their Web site when the material was exposed and became embarrassing to the Obama campaign.

These “now you see it, now you don’t” stunts ought to concern every voter.

Why on earth would the Obama campaign post the testimonial of a known radical priest who hangs out regularly — and constantly praises — Minister Louis Farrakhan, a known anti-Semite and black separationist?

What kind of judgment does that show about Obama? And his staff?

Why did Obama and his staff ever post this extremist’s photograph and words in the first place?

Surely Barack Obama himself saw the Father Pfleger testimonial and personally approved its appearance on his official campaign site.

We know that the two men are longtime close friends and fellow collaborators — for at least two decades — so perhaps Obama okayed the testimonial in honor of their friendship. But any politician with even minimal common sense would know better than to put this radical’s photograph and words on prominent display on his official campaign site.

By the way, Larry Johnson wrote in his must-read April story that his own former pastor told him about a conversation he once had with Tip O’Neill. The great Speaker of the House told Larry’s pastor this:

Politicians need to learn an important skill. If you are hearing things that go against your values you get up and walk out.

The troubling problem is that we do not know what Barack Obama’s true “values” are. Are they those of his longtime extremist friends Father Pfleger, Rev. Wright, and Bill Ayers? Or did Obama betray his own true “values” for over two decades by continuing to associate with these radicals and extremists?

In either case, Obama’s judgment is in serious doubt.

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Thanks to V for the video, now up at NoQuarter’s channel at YouTube.

KNOW THIS: Fr. Michael Pfleger and Barack Obama have been CLOSE for over TWO DECADES. Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times confirmed this on Greta’s Fox News show last night.

UPDATE / KNOW THIS: Fr. Pfleger bragged to the MSM (CBS April 29th story + Chicago newspapers, etc.) that HE was the go-between to Rev. Wright and Obama during their BIG SPLIT, after Rev. Wright spoke at the Nat’l Press Club, and Obama — finally — “disowned” the uncle he could NEVER disown. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? PFLEGER WAS IN DIRECT TALKS WITH OBAMA re Rev. Wright IN LATE APRIL and presumably into May 2008. That’s a pretty damn close connection, don’t you think, to the man who is one of THREE left who will be the next most POWERFUL LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD????

(Do you want as your president — and as the most powerful leader in the world — a man who regularly consorts with and SEEKS ADVICE from a racist, radical, extremist priest shunned even by his own archdiocese in Chicago? A priest so disturbed that the videos you’ve seen of his “preaching” show him to be a certifiable lunatic and anti-white racist?

Furthermore, do you want as your president a man who gave at least eight different versions of disassociation from a manic, disturbed, racist and radical Rev. Jeremiah Wright — and who took months to finally disassociate himself from this loudmouthed, racist madman? Of note: Racism goes both ways, ladies and gentlemen. It is NOT a one-way street as we Americans have ALL been brainwashed into thinking. Ask Geraldine Ferraro, whose op-ed today I must find and post for you.)

BARACK OBAMA’s chief strategist and “kingmaker” is David Axelrod. What board does David Axelrod sit on? Why, the fundraising board for the Catholic church run by that extremist, radical, racist priest, Fr. Michael Pfleger. (Along with additional notorious characters.) — SusanUnPC
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So Mayor Richard Daley and Reverend Michael Pfleger decided it was time for everyone to begin “Raising the Roof for St. Sabina.” Too bad their little fundraising scheme also raises the roof on the Barack Obama campaign’s den of political tricks and corruption.

Just view some of the names on this list of fundraisers (enlarged in the image to the right):

• Richard Daley, the corrupt Obama backer behind the Hired Truck Scandal, an elaborate network of cronyism and corruption that rocked Chicago City Hall in 2004, 2005 and 2006;
• David Axelrod, Lead Strategist of the Obama campaign and Political Consultant to Richard “Hired Truck” Daley who also served as Consultant for Exelon, the Illinois nuclear giant whose lobbyists convinced Obama not to regulate companies that contaminated groundwater with radioactive toxic waste; and
• Illinois state Treasurer Alexei Giannoulias, whose bank, the Broadway Bank, granted loans to known mobsters and to indicted political fixer and Obama patron Antoin “Tony” Rezko.

Mobster banker Giannoulias also moonlights as one of the Obama campaign’s top bundlers. Dirty money, it seems, does not travel far in the city of Chicago.

But this is not a story of the circulation of funds in an elaborate labyrinth of cronyism and corruption; this is also a narrative of the circulation of words in a coordinated network of events and characters who desire to elect Barack Obama President of the United States.

You recall Father Michael Pfleger, the quack cum Catholic priest on Chicago’s south side who exhorted parishioners during a rally to “snuff out” legislators who defended the right to bear arms. Although Pfleger was admonished by the Chicago Archdiocese for his incendiary rhetoric, he remained a close affiliate of Daley, Giannoulias and Axelrod, all of whom are close associates of Barack Obama.

Pfleger is also a close associate of Obama’s pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan, who spoke at St. Sabina Church on May 25, 2007.

In fact, Pfleger is so close to Wright, he has served as an intermediary between Wright and Obama after the two reached an impasse after Obama denounced Wright during the latter’s series of entertaining press conferences. Here is the report of CBS News Chicago:

CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports Obama felt betrayed and Wright felt sand-bagged. Father Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Church said he has been speaking to both men as the events of the past 24 hours unfolded.

He counseled Obama Tuesday morning, and while CBS 2 talked to him Tuesday evening, Rev. Wright called his cell phone.

“I don’t think he had any intention to hurt Barack. He loves Barack,” Pfleger said. “I think the pain and the moment took over.”

That moment was in a place Pfleger called “a lion’s den” – The National Press Club.

“The people who were close to him pleaded with him not to do it,” said WVON radio host Roland Martin. “We knew what the questions were gonna be, but it really was the antics, the looks the dismissive tone, the strut. It was being flippant, some say being pompous and arrogant.”

That appearance Monday was far from a pastor’s comfort zone, like St. Sabina on the South Side, the site of Wright’s first appearance after his words drove a wedge between him and Obama.

Fr. Pfleger says Wright’s first instinct Monday was to defend his reputation.

“Sometimes you get caught up in the emotional response because you’re hurt, because you’re injured,” Pfleger said.

Mayor Richard M. Daley called the current flap a dangerous distraction.

“You better believe it; you cannot have distractions in any campaign,” Daley said.

So Pfleger had to serve as mediator between Wright and Obama during the Wright spectacle last week, and Daley felt obliged to assess the whole affair. Not mentioned in this article is David Axelrod, the same Axelrod who simultaneously serves as Chief Strategist of the Obama Campaign and as a member of the “Raising the Roof for St. Sabina” board, the board that ensures that Pfleger’s house of worship and source of income will remain intact.

This fiduciary relationship between Pfleger, Obama, Wright, Axelrod and Daley raises a few questions:

• Did Axelrod coordinate the impasse between Wright and Obama?;
• Did Axelrod ask Wright to humiliate himself on national television in order to mobilize the African-American base while Obama placated white voters with his sanctimonious repudiations of Reverend Wright?; and
• Did Pfleger, an outspoken Obama supporter and Obama contributor who is the beneficiary of Obama’s state legislative activity and of Axelrod’s fundraising prowess, serve as intermediary between Obama and Wright as Axelrod coordinated their bifurcated strategy to mobilize African-American supporters while pandering to white voters who were abandoning Obama en masse after seeing Wright once again on their television screens?

And what is one to think of the membership of Axelrod, Daley and Giannoulias on the “Raising of the Roof for St. Sabina” fund when one learns that Pfleger donated to Obama’s various political campaigns after that church received state grants Obama announced?

Not only is money circulated within a tightly knit but complicated network of corruption and cronyism in Chicago; the actions of all those involved appear to be staged and coordinated by David Axelrod.

Just raise the roof of Pfleger’s St. Sabina Church. What one sees below is a snake pit of corruption starring Axelrod, Daley, Farrakhan, Obama, Pfleger and Wright. The chickens, I guess, come home to roost in Pfleger’s radicalized and marginalized St. Sabina Catholic Church.

Father Pfleger writes to say, “I regret the words I chose on Sunday. These words are inconsistent with Senator Obama’s life and message, and I am deeply sorry if they offended Senator Clinton or anyone else who saw them.”

Is this why the Obama campaign scrubbed Pfleger, one of Obama’s “spiritual advisors,” from their official webpage on faith? Did the Obama campaign ask Pfleger to apologize? Will Obama apologize to Clinton? Clinton personally apologized to Obama in the wake of Shaheen’s remarks in NH.

What I find troubling about Pfleger’s statement is the following:

These words are inconsistent with Senator Obama’s life and message, and I am deeply sorry if they offended Senator Clinton or anyone else who saw them.

No, they are consistent with Obama’s life and message. This is why this the paroxysm Father Pfleger mistook for a sermon is newsworthy. Here is Michelle Obama in Charlotte, NC:

But Mrs. Obama, the star attraction, is taking no chances. Walking onstage to chants of “Yes, we can!” and “Fired up — ready to go!” she quickly gets to the heart of her message: There are forces out there who are trying to take away everything Barack has worked for. They — she doesn’t mention anyone in particular but does refer to one “brand name politician” — are trying to win this election for themselves and thereby deny Obama the opportunity to move America to the mountaintop of hope. And they must be stopped.

“We’ve learned that we’re still living in a time and in a nation where the bar is set, right?” she tells the crowd.

“That’s right.”

“They tell you all you need to do is do these things and you’ll get to the bar — ”

“Uh-huh.”

“So you go about the business of doing those things — ”

“Yes — ”

Her husband has been doing just that, Obama explains — raising money, building an organization, winning caucuses, winning primaries, and amassing a large number of delegates. And yet he still hasn’t won, because nothing is ever enough for those unnamed adversaries.

“You start working hard and sacrificing, and you think you’re getting closer to the bar, you’re working and you’re struggling, you get right to that bar, you’re reaching out for the bar, and then what happens?”

“They raise the bar!”

“They raise the bar. Raise the bar. Shift it to the side. Keep it just out of reach.”

In other words, “whitey” Hillary Clinton is raising the bar on “black man” Obama. And Hillary, the “brand name politician,” does this, as Hillary, a white woman, feels entitled to the Presidency.

Pfleger is not the first person to discuss Hillary in Trinity. We remember the following Christmas Day sermon by Pfleger’s good friend Reverend Jeremiah Wright:

In “Bible country,” Wright informs his audience how the Clintons, the “rich white people,” the Europeans, are responsible for the negative press on Barack Obama, who does not fit the model of “white, rich and privileged.” Hillary fits the mold, while Obama does not. Hillary will never understand oppression, while Obama, who led a life of privilege, does. Hillary is entitled, while Obama is not. Obama is the black Jesus, while Hillary is the Roman oppressor. Hillary must be destroyed. Hillary is a product of white entitlement.

Also notice how Wright and Pfleger behave as if they are engaging in acts of copulation when speaking to the Trinity congregation: Pfleger has verbal orgasms, while Wright thrusts his pelvis toward the pulpit.

I guess members of Trinity should expect both sex and religion on Sunday mornings. And yes, this was a central part of Obama’s life for twenty years. He and his wife even exposed their children to the wanton abandon of these deranged men when they sat in the pews of Reverend Wright’s den of hatred and desire every Sunday.

But Pfleger was not just a part of Obama’s religious life; he is a part of Obama’s political and financial life. I quote:

One of those long-time supporters was Rev. Michael Pfleger, the politically active leader of St. Sabina Church. He gave Obama’s campaign $1,500 between 1995 and 2001, including $200 in April 2001, about three months after Obama announced $225,000 in grants to St. Sabina programs.

Father Pfleger and his “message” are perfectly consistent with Obama’s life and message. And they will remain consistent with that life and message until Obama repudiates Pfleger and personally apologizes to Clinton for the remarks a member of his campaign delivered in Jeremiah Wright’s “God Damn America” Church in inner city Chicago.

Save the apologies for the Vatican, Father. We know the Chicago Archdiocese will only slap you on the wrist, for Daley, Obama, Wright, Axelrod and Giannoulias will ensure that St. Sabina will remain intact. After all, you earned it last Sunday.

So Mayor Richard Daley and Reverend Michael Pfleger decided it was time for everyone to begin “Raising the Roof for St. Sabina.” Too bad their little fundraising scheme also raises the roof on the Barack Obama campaign’s den of political tricks and corruption.

Just view some of the names on this list of fundraisers (enlarged in the image to the right):

• Richard Daley, the corrupt Obama backer behind the Hired Truck Scandal, an elaborate network of cronyism and corruption that rocked Chicago City Hall in 2004, 2005 and 2006;
• David Axelrod, Lead Strategist of the Obama campaign and Political Consultant to Richard “Hired Truck” Daley who also served as Consultant for Exelon, the Illinois nuclear giant whose lobbyists convinced Obama not to regulate companies that contaminated groundwater with radioactive toxic waste; and
• Illinois state Treasurer Alexei Giannoulias, whose bank, the Broadway Bank, granted loans to known mobsters and to indicted political fixer and Obama patron Antoin “Tony” Rezko.

Mobster banker Giannoulias also moonlights as one of the Obama campaign’s top bundlers. Dirty money, it seems, does not travel far in the city of Chicago.

But this is not a story of the circulation of funds in an elaborate labyrinth of cronyism and corruption; this is also a narrative of the circulation of words in a coordinated network of events and characters who desire to elect Barack Obama President of the United States.

You recall Father Michael Pfleger, the quack cum Catholic priest on Chicago’s south side who exhorted parishioners during a rally to “snuff out” legislators who defended the right to bear arms. Although Pfleger was admonished by the Chicago Archdiocese for his incendiary rhetoric, he remained a close affiliate of Daley, Giannoulias and Axelrod, all of whom are close associates of Barack Obama.

Pfleger is also a close associate of Obama’s pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan, who spoke at St. Sabina Church on May 25, 2007.

In fact, Pfleger is so close to Wright, he has served as an intermediary between Wright and Obama after the two reached an impasse after Obama denounced Wright during the latter’s series of entertaining press conferences. Here is the report of CBS News Chicago:

CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports Obama felt betrayed and Wright felt sand-bagged. Father Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Church said he has been speaking to both men as the events of the past 24 hours unfolded.

He counseled Obama Tuesday morning, and while CBS 2 talked to him Tuesday evening, Rev. Wright called his cell phone.

“I don’t think he had any intention to hurt Barack. He loves Barack,” Pfleger said. “I think the pain and the moment took over.”

That moment was in a place Pfleger called “a lion’s den” – The National Press Club.

“The people who were close to him pleaded with him not to do it,” said WVON radio host Roland Martin. “We knew what the questions were gonna be, but it really was the antics, the looks the dismissive tone, the strut. It was being flippant, some say being pompous and arrogant.”

That appearance Monday was far from a pastor’s comfort zone, like St. Sabina on the South Side, the site of Wright’s first appearance after his words drove a wedge between him and Obama.

Fr. Pfleger says Wright’s first instinct Monday was to defend his reputation.

“Sometimes you get caught up in the emotional response because you’re hurt, because you’re injured,” Pfleger said.

Mayor Richard M. Daley called the current flap a dangerous distraction.

“You better believe it; you cannot have distractions in any campaign,” Daley said.

So Pfleger had to serve as mediator between Wright and Obama during the Wright spectacle last week, and Daley felt obliged to assess the whole affair. Not mentioned in this article is David Axelrod, the same Axelrod who simultaneously serves as Chief Strategist of the Obama Campaign and as a member of the “Raising the Roof for St. Sabina” board, the board that ensures that Pfleger’s house of worship and source of income will remain intact.

This fiduciary relationship between Pfleger, Obama, Wright, Axelrod and Daley raises a few questions:

• Did Axelrod coordinate the impasse between Wright and Obama?;
• Did Axelrod ask Wright to humiliate himself on national television in order to mobilize the African-American base while Obama placated white voters with his sanctimonious repudiations of Reverend Wright?; and
• Did Pfleger, an outspoken Obama supporter and Obama contributor who is the beneficiary of Obama’s state legislative activity and of Axelrod’s fundraising prowess, serve as intermediary between Obama and Wright as Axelrod coordinated their bifurcated strategy to mobilize African-American supporters while pandering to white voters who were abandoning Obama en masse after seeing Wright once again on their television screens?

And what is one to think of the membership of Axelrod, Daley and Giannoulias on the “Raising of the Roof for St. Sabina” fund when one learns that Pfleger donated to Obama’s various political campaigns after that church received state grants Obama announced?

Not only is money circulated within a tightly knit but complicated network of corruption and cronyism in Chicago; the actions of all those involved appear to be staged and coordinated by David Axelrod.

Just raise the roof of Pfleger’s St. Sabina Church. What one sees below is a snake pit of corruption starring Axelrod, Daley, Farrakhan, Obama, Pfleger and Wright. The chickens, I guess, come home to roost in Pfleger’s radicalized and marginalized St. Sabina Catholic Church.

UPDATE: At the end of this story, I’ve added an update showing the connection between the indicted Tony Rezko, who goes on trial Feb. 25 before Patrick Fitzgerald and his U.S. Attorney’s office in Chicago, and Alexi Giannoulias.

From the Chicago Tribune in its story, “Critics: Obama endorsements counter calls for clean government“: “In the 2006 Democratic primary, for example, Obama endorsed first-time candidate Alexi Giannoulias for state treasurer despite reports about loans Giannoulias’ family-owned Broadway Bank made to crime figures. Records show Giannoulias and his family had given more than $10,000 to Obama’s campaign, which banked at Broadway.” [Giannoulias is now a bundler for Obama's presidential campaign, aiming for $100,000.]

Curious now? Here’s SourceWatch.org — as independent a resource as you’ll find on the Internet — on Barack Obama’s ties to Alexi Giannoulias:

Below, “Obama the king maker“:

NOTE: All of the Sourcewatch statements above contain relative link footnotes, which I stripped out. Go to the source article at Sourcewatch for all of the links within the piece.

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Read all of “Obama Shilled For Granny Grifter.”

I realize that almost everyone is smitten with Barack Obama and that the media — with very few exceptions like Brian Ross, the Chicago newspapers, and Craig Crawford — are giving him a free pass.

But just remember that the Republicans know all of this, and much more than I’ve discovered. They’re surely way ahead of little ol’ me.

And the Republicans will bury him with this, and the rest of what they’ve unearthed, in a general election.

Look before you leap.

It may be wise to consider the one candidate whose been investigated, endlessly, by every Republican politician and media outlet, and who has not only survived but also knows how to deal with their attacks.

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P.S. There’s more to come. I’m just getting started.

[UPDATE]

[UPDATE] Giannoulias is directly connected to the indicted Tony Rezko, who goes on trial on February 25th, following a several-year investigation by the F.B.I. with an indictment written by the U.S. Attorney’s office headed by Patrick Fitzgerald:

The BROADWAY BANK (owned by Giannoulis and his family) LOANED REZKO PROJECT $11 MILLION DOLLARS: “Rezko and his then-partner in Chicago-Hudson LLC, Daniel Muhra [sic], purchased the site in 2001. But preonstruction sales for the units, priced from about $300,000 to $600,000, floundered, and construction never proceeded. In early 2002 the partnership borrowed about $10.9 million from Chicago-based Broadway Bank to carry the land, according to the bankruptcy filing.” — From the Chicago Tribune on 5/23/06

The BROADWAY BANK (owned by Giannoulis and his family) HELPED TONY REZKO’S REZMAR CORP. FINANCE A 24-STORY CONDOMINIUM: “When Mahru was a partner with Rezko, their company — Rezmar Corp. — was helped by Thomas’ Carnegie Realty Partners to obtain financing to build a 24-story condominium complex at Chicago and Hudson, a project that ultimately did not get off the ground. The financial institution that backed that deal was Broadway Bank, which is owned by the family of state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias. Elected in the Democratic sweep last year, Giannoulias has had to answer criticism over loans his bank made to reputed crime figures. “Carnegie brought us to Broadway,” Mahru said, and introduced him to Giannoulias’ father. “We paid Carnegie a 1 percent commission on the loan, which is normal and customary.” A spokesman for Giannoulias referred questions to the bank, which could not be reached.” — From the Chicago Sun-Times, 5/5/07

And, of course we know that the Broadway Bank was the bank at which Obama opened his campaign fund account.