Barack Obama - The Wizard of Oz

March 29, 2008 Evelyn Pringle

The most trusted leaders of the Democratic party, such as John Kerry and Ted Kennedy, ought to be ashamed of themselves for supporting Barack Obama. With use of the internet, a fifth grader could connect the dots to show a picture of a guy who was picked up in college and carried up the political ladder by a corrupt gang of influence peddlers.

John McCain is just drooling waiting for Obama to become the nominee so that he can come out with the trail of dirt that the Democratic party is too afraid to reveal this late in the in the game. If nominated, Obama will not survive a month when faced with the Republican attack machine.

If he becomes the nominee, the web of corruption leading to Obama's rise to power that this investigative journalist was able to untangle in less than three weeks, will be front page news right up until election day, handing the Republicans their only chance in hell of winning the White House.

Instead of the leaders of the Democratic party doing their homework, a small group of investigative reporters in Chicago will be credited with exposing the corrupt backbone of Obama political career and the mainstream media need only follow their lead if the Democrats hold him out to be a viable candidate.

The list of reporters deserving of credit for doing the investigative work that should have been done by the leaders of the Democratic party before they got behind Obama, includes, but is not limited to, Chicago Sun-Times reporters, Tim Novak, Dave McKinney, Fran Spielman, Chris Fusco, Natasha Korecki, Steve Warmbir and Lynn Sweet. Chicago Tribune reporters especially deserving of credit include Jeff Coen, Bob Secter, John Chase, Virginia Groark, Rick Pearson, David Jackson, John McCormick, Mickey Ciokajlo, Rudolph Bush and Dan Mihalopoulos.

This article is the first in a series that will give the details of Obama's rise to fame.

As for the most recognized allegation against Obama, that helped slumlords operate in Chicago, while accepting their campaign contributions, its true. Obama was a member of the political machine that helped a whole gang of slumlords funnel local, state and federal tax dollars, over the backs of poor people in need of affordable housing, to line their own pockets and fund the campaigns of politicians in positions to recommend and award contracts.

The Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland law firm, where Obama worked for nearly a decade, served as a hub for a slew of slumlord deals, many that benefited the firm's founder, Allison Davis, and Obama's claims that he knew nothing about the inner workings of this small firm, represent an insult to the intelligence of the American public.

Tony Rezko was Obama political Godfather. Obama received his first contributions of $2,000, to launch his political career as a state senator on July 31, 1995, from Rezko. Obama started out saying that Rezko only raised $50,000 or $60,000 for his political career but after a year of lying his way through the primaries, the latest total he gave to the Sun-Times and Tribune during interviews on March 14, 2008, adds up to $250,000.

For a year, he also minimized his relationship with Rezko by telling the media that he only had dinner or lunch with Rezko one or twice a year. But when confronted by Sun-Times reporters during the March 14 interview, with the allegation that an FBI mole saw him coming and going to Rezko’s office often and that three sources said he talked to Rezko on the phone daily, Obama changed his tune.

Now the story is that he may have talked to Rezko daily at times during campaigns but sometimes he went for a whole month without talking to him. “I have to say we're talking over the course of 10 years,” Obama said, “there might have been spurts where I talked to him daily.”

But then he added: "There might have been stretches over a month where I wouldn't have talked to him at all."

This story is a far cry from the picture Obama gave to the public of him and Rezko meeting once or twice a year, and he never did respond to the allegation by the Times reporter that an FBI mole “saw you coming and going from Rezko’s office a lot.“

Without Rezko's fundraising, Obama would not have been elected to the Illinois senate, or the US Senate, and he would not have sold the books he wrote about himself because like the Wizard of Oz, Obama is nobody special.

Even with Rezko's massive fund raising, Obama could not beat former Black Panther, Bobby Rush, in his 2000 bid for a seat in Congress. And the only reason he won the US Senate race was because his viable opponents had to drop out due to the public airing of personal scandals. Beating Alan Keyes is hardly a victory to brag about.

The media needs to quit grouping all the Obama backers under the name Antoin "Tony" Resko because the list of contributors to his political campaigns includes the names of many individuals and entities with their own agendas.

The trail of corruption involving the people raising money for Obama's political career stretches from the city of Chicago to the Illinois tollway to the O'Hare airport all the way over to Iraq. And testimony in Rezko's corruption trial reveals that an equal number of Democrat and Republican crooks benefited from all the moneymaking schemes.

Rezko is not a Democrat; he's an equal opportunity profiteer. He supported President George Bush and attended a Christmas party at the White House in December 2003, at the same time that he was a top fundraiser for Obama's US Senate campaign.

Rezko co-hosted a $3.8 million Chicago fundraiser for Bush in 2003, and on December 9, 2003, he donated $4,000 to Bush, as a "self-employed businessman," and gave another $2,000 on December 19, 2003, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Prior to backing Rod Blagojevich for governor of Illinois, Rezko threw his money behind Republican candidates for governor, including George Ryan, who was convicted of doling out leases and contracts to cronies and sentenced to prison for more than 6 years.

Rezko then switched horses and chose Blagojevich in 2002 and Obama has supported Blagojevich, even when his administration was embroiled in corruption investigations.
Recent testimony in the Rezko trial by his co-conspirator, Chicago businessman, Stuart Levine, explained that Rezko had plans for Blagojevich to be Presidential, not Obama. However, anybody following the trial knows that Blagojevich is more likely to be headed to the "Big House" rather than occupying the White House.

Obama's entering into real estate deals with Rezko, while it was public knowledge that he was under investigation for funneling illegal contributions to Illinois politicians, was not a "boneheaded" move, it was motivated by pure greed. While knowing that he would get caught up in a major scandal, Obama went ahead with the deal because he and his wife wanted that mansion, with four fireplaces, six bathrooms, and a wine cellar, period.

On March 16, 2008, the Boston Globe added an interesting twist to the story when reporting that Donna Schwan, of MetroPro Realty, which listed the mansion and lot next door for the owners, "said it is her recollection that the Obamas may not have made the highest bid, and that other bidders may have matched Rezko's bid," but the willingness of both buyers to close in June 2005, "was decisive."

Which logically means had Rezko not been willing to buy the lot in June, the deal was off.

According to an article by Edward McClelland in the February 1, 2008 Salon Magazine, when asked who approached her about the house, Donna Schwan told Salon, "I honestly don't remember. Tony Rezko lived across the street, so he'd been interested in the lot."

Any claim that Obama was unaware of the investigations into the corrupt dealings of Rezko with Illinois politicians in June 2005 is ridiculous. On February 15, 2005, the Chicago Tribune reported:

"Gov. Rod Blagojevich long has vowed to purge the Illinois tollway of cronyism, yet two of his closest friends and political advisers have links to food vendors awarded lucrative contracts to operate inside the toll road's sleek new oases, government records show."

"The Subway sandwich shops and Panda Express Asian restaurants now being installed in the tollway's seven revamped rest stops are controlled by firms with strong ties to the food-service empire of Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a Blagojevich confidant who has seeded the governor's cabinet with former business underlings."

Christopher Kelly, Blagojevich's chief fundraiser, "who also recommended the tollway's executive director for his job, is an investor in at least one Rezko-controlled food firm," the Tribune wrote. On March 16, 2005, the Tribune reported that:

"City officials alleged Tuesday that a minority contractor at O'Hare International Airport acted as a front for a firm run by Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a top adviser and fundraiser for Gov. Rod Blagojevich....

"Rezko, a member of Blagojevich's kitchen cabinet of advisers, has come under increased scrutiny in recent weeks following questions about his links to operators of new tollway oasis franchises. The revamp of the oases is a showcase project for the Blagojevich administration."

On May 15, 2005, the Sun-Times reported that the accusations by his father-in-law that Blagojevich doled out jobs for campaign contributions had "resulted in dozens of grand jury subpoenas being sent to the governor's office, his unpaid advisers, agency directors and his top fund-raisers".
Among those subpoenaed for documents, sources told the Times, were "Blagojevich's biggest money men, Christopher Kelly and Antoin "Tony" Rezko."

On May 20, 2005, less than a month before Obama bought the mansion, the Tribune reported that Resko, "has had a business relationship with First Lady Patti Blagojevich for eight years, the governor's office acknowledged Thursday."
Six month before Obama bought the strip of land from Rezko's "wife" to enlarge his yard, on August 28, 2005, Natasha Korecki reported in the Sun-Times that, "there's so much corruption to investigate in the Chicago area, the FBI is adding manpower."

Robert Grant, FBI Special Agent in Charge, told the Times that he had reorganized the bureau to add a third public corruption squad, giving Chicago the largest corruption unit in the country, even bigger than those in New York and Los Angeles.

"It is the second time in two years the FBI in Chicago has expanded its public corruption force," Korecki noted.

On November 6, 2006, the Times asked Obama why he did not reveal the land deal with Rezko before it was reported by the Tribune stating: "Why did you not publicly disclose the transaction after Rezko got indicted?"

"At the time, it didn't strike me as relevant," Obama answered. It seems like a lot of events were not relevant a couple months before he announced his candidacy for president.

In the November 2007, Chicago Magazine, James Merriner described a "fashion show" that took place in the first week in November 2006, to benefit St Jude Children's Research Hospital, which he said, "attracted little if any media coverage, which may have been exactly as its organizers and sponsors had hoped."

"The invitation to the affair," he wrote, "offered a veritable guidebook to political influence in Illinois, much of it centered on one St. Jude benefactor, Antoin "Tony" Rezko."

"Just three weeks earlier," Merriner pointed out, "Rezko had been indicted on charges of extorting kickbacks from businesses seeking contracts from the Blagojevich administration."

The "fashion show" was chaired by Rita Rezko, co-chaired by the Governor's wife, Patti Blagojevich, and Michelle Obama was a special guest that day, according to Merriner.

Two weeks after the "fashion show," on November 17, 2006, the Sun-Times reported that Blagojevich's wife Patti got nearly $50,000 from a real estate deal in late 2002 involving Rezko.

In terms of dollar amounts of campaign contributions directly from Rezko in Illinois, the top four earners were, the now deceased President of the Cook County Board, John Stroger, Blagojevich, Chicago Mayor, Richard Daley, and Obama - in that order.

Rezko was the head of Stroger's campaign finance committee at the same time that he served on Obama US Senate finance committee.

When it came time for Stroger's reelection campaign, in the midst of the erupting Rezko scandals in the media, on April 8, 2005, the Tribune reported that Stroger "has selected beleaguered businessman and political powerbroker Antoin "Tony" Rezko as one of the honorary chairs of his campaign fundraiser next month."

Stroger appointed Rezko's wife Rita to the Cook County Employee Appeals Board, which hears cases filed by fired or disciplined workers, at a part-time salary of $37,000 a year.

According to documents filed in the Rezko corruption case, this was Rita's sole income when she supposedly came up with a $125,000 down payment and secured a $500,000 mortgage to buy the $625,00 lot next to Obama. Less than a year after Obama bought his strip of land, Rita sold the rest of the lot to attorney Michael Sreenan, and made a profit of more than $50,000.

On February 27, 2007, the Sun-Times pointed out that Obama's "new neighbor, Michael Sreenan," had contributed $5,000 to Obama's campaigns. Less than a year after buying the lot, Sreenan put it up for sale for $1.5 million in October 2007.

Of course John Stroger will not be answering any questions about corruption, or any other matter, because he died on January 18, 2008. His former chief of staff and godson, Orlando Jones, will not be talking either because he was found dead of self-inflicted gun wounds in September 2007, "just as a corruption inquiry targeting him was heating up," according to a September 7, 2007 report by CBS News channel 2 Chicago.

"Jones left his position in county government to create a lobbying firm in association with Tony Rezko, who has been indicted on fraud charges," CBS reported.

Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica told CBS that Orlando Jones’ death raised many questions about the Cook County president’s office. “Some of these matters Jones was involved in that are currently being investigated by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office are reaching to the highest level of county government,” Peraica said.

Obama endorsed John Stroger's son, Todd Stroger, in his bid for Cook County Board President after his father died. Todd was in the news as recently as March 24, 2008, when the Sun-Times published a front-page article reporting that his cousin Donna Dunnings, the county’s new chief financial officer, was receiving a 12% pay increase.

Dunnings’ salary will be the largest increase of any county employee, with the average increase being around 5%. She will make nearly $160,000 with the pay increase, or roughly $5,000 more than her predecessor made at the job, according to the Times.

Mayor Daley endorsed Obama immediately after he announced he was running for president and in return, Obama endorsed Daley's reelection for Mayor right smack in the middle of major federal investigations of corruption in the Daley Administration.

Obama's ties to the corrupt Daley machine began when he was dating his wife Michelle and she brought him into the fold. Valerie Jarrett, the deputy chief of staff to Mayor Daley, hired Michelle as her assistant in 1991. Daley made Jarrett the chairman of the Chicago Department of Planning and Development and Michelle worked as her assistant in that Department during 1992-93.

From there Michelle moved up the political tiers to the University of Chicago and ultimately got an overnight pay raise from about $121,000 to close to $317,000, after Obama became a US Senator, as a vice president at the University of Chicago.

Susan Sher, was corporation counsel in the Daley Administration when Michelle was hired back in the early 1990s, and Sher is now Michelle's boss at the University of Chicago, according to the April 22, 2007 Chicago Tribune.

Shortly after Obama entered the US Senate, Michelle was also handed a position on the board of TreeHouse Foods. Wal-Mart is the largest customer of TreeHouse Foods. Factoring in stock options and other payments, the value of her compensation package for serving on the board in 2006 was $101,083, according to the Tribune report.

On May 14, 2007, during a meeting with the AFL-CIO in New Jersey, Obama was asked about Wal-Mart and he said: "I won't shop there." Michelle resigned from the board of TreeHouse eight days after husband said he would not shop at Wal-Mart, CBS News reported on May 27, 2007.

When it came time for Obama's US Senate campaign, Valerie Jarrett became the campaign finance chairman and worked hand and hand with fellow finance committee members, Rita and Tony Rezko, and his former boss at the law firm, Allison Davis, in fundraising endeavors. The committee raised more than $14 million, according to Federal Election Commission records, Tim Novak reported in the Sun-Times on April 23, 2007.

Jarrett is now the CEO of Habitat Co, a real estate development and management firm which manages the housing program for the Chicago Housing Authority, the entity mandated to administer public housing, and she serves as an unpaid advisor to Obama's Presidential campaign.

Mayor Daley's brother Bill also became an Obama advisor. Mayor Daley's chief image defender, David Axelrod, is a top strategist for Obama's campaign and he was also the media consultant for Obama's US Senate campaign.

On April 1, 2007, Dick Simpson, a former Chicago alderman who is now chairman of the political science department at the University of Illinois at Chicago, told Ben Wallace-Wells in the New York Times: “David Axelrod’s mostly been visible in Chicago in the last decade as Daley’s public relations strategist and the guy who goes on television to defend Daley from charges of corruption”.

The scandals involving the Daley administration have no beginning and no end. In January 2004, the Sun-Times published a three-part series exposing widespread corruption in the Hired Truck Program and revealed that some companies were being paid for doing little or no work and that some had mob connections or were tied to city employees.

On January 25, 2005, the Associated Press reported that trucking company manager, John Cannatello, the 16th person charged in the scandal, was charged with getting $6.6 million in city hauling work "by giving campaign contributions and cash to officials and falsely claiming his firm was eligible for jobs set aside for women-owned businesses."

According to the article, city officials said the Hired Truck program, "which at its height doled out $38 million worth of work in one year to contractors without bids, was designed to save taxpayers money by outsourcing hauling jobs that otherwise would require the city to buy trucks and insurance."

On June 6, 2006, the Sun-Times reported that the brother-in-law of Cook County Commissioner, John Daley, was sentenced to 18 months in prison "for taking about $5,400 in bribes to steer city business to a Hired Truck company."

Of course John Daley is another brother of Mayor Daley.

On January 6, 2006, the New York Times ran the headline, "Corruption Scandal Loosening Mayor Daley's Grip on Chicago," and reported that a "wide-ranging federal investigation into what prosecutors describe as "pervasive fraud" in hiring and contracts at City Hall has led to 30 indictments, including two senior administrators close to the mayor, and a dozen cabinet-level resignations. "

The Tribune broke the hiring scandal on April 29, 2005, after federal agents carried out an all-night raid of Daley's patronage office at City Hall and less than three months later, Robert Sorich, the patronage chief in the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, and three former city officials, were arrested and charged with fraud to rig city hiring for 12 years.

During the criminal trial, prosecutors produced a list of more than 5,700 politically connected job applicants, and Patricia Molloy, a longtime secretary in Mayor Daley's office, testified that aides kept track of applicants and their political sponsors during much of Daley's time in office, according to a July 7, 2006 report by Rudolph Bush and Dan Mihalopoulos in the Tribune.

City officials testified that they "were heavily involved in politics and directed city workers and aspiring public employees to knock on doors and work the phones for political candidates endorsed by the mayor," the July 7, 2006 Tribune report noted.

"Witnesses who marshaled pro-Daley political groups testified that they took campaign orders from top Daley aides," the Tribune wrote, "and later got jobs and promotions from the mayor's office for loyal and effective political workers."

Sorich and three others were convicted on July 5, 2006, of carrying out what prosecutors described as fraud in hiring, "complete with sham interviews, rigged test scores and color-coded charts to track political sponsors," according to the July 6, 2006 Sun-Times.

Chicago attorney, Michael Shakman, whose federal lawsuit against the city led to anti-patronage decrees, told the Tribune on July 7, 2006, that Daley was to blame for the political hiring system. "You have to lay the responsibility squarely at the feet of Mayor Daley," he said. "These [defendants] are his people, who never would have thought of doing this without his approval."

At the sentencing hearing in November 2006, US District Judge David Coar told Sorich: “If I thought that by sentencing you I could stop this type of hiring corruption in the city of Chicago, I would throw this building at you…. But it won’t," the Tribune reported on November 21, 2006.

Obama is a political psychopath. He exhibits no shame, no matter where his money comes from. On September 5, 2007, the New York Post reported that, "Alexi Giannoulias, who became Illinois state treasurer last year after Obama vouched for him, has pledged to raise $100,000 for the senator's Oval Office bid."

"Giannoulias is so tainted by reputed mob links," the Post noted, "that several top Illinois Dems, including the state's speaker of the House and party chairman, refused to endorse him even after he won the Democratic nomination with Obama's help."

If the Democratic party places Obama on the ballot against John McCain, Democratic voters will have no choice in this election. Once the whole truth becomes public, and it will the minute he becomes the nominee, no honest American could support sending Obama and his corrupt gang of cronies to the White House.

Barack Obama - Operation Board Games For Slumlords

April 7, 2008 Evelyn Pringle

Barack Obama has a long history of working with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and governors of Illinois, including the current Governor Rod Blagojevich, in doling government funding for housing development in Chicago. His history is hardly a model of success, except for the hundred of millions in profits made by the chosen few slumlords.

Less than a year ago, in the April 26, 2007, Chicago Sun-Times, Fran Spielman reported that Chicago aldermen were accusing the Daley administration "of being asleep at the switch while low-income housing projects developed by the now-indicted Tony Rezko collapsed into disrepair."

"The spigot of loans, grants and tax credits should have been cut off when the first of 30 taxpayer-supported Rezko buildings in Chicago fell into disrepair, the aldermen said," according to the report.

Instead, Spielman said, a “Sun-Times investigation showed that the city, state and federal governments kept the gravy train rolling -- to the tune of $100 million between 1989 and 1998."

The lending continued, the Times noted, even as the city repeatedly sued Rezko's development company, Rezmar, "for such basics as no heat."

"They were going after people for being slum landlords in one department and loaning them money in another," said Alderman Freddrenna Lyle.

Obama now wants to bring this dog and pony show to Washington. I can see it now. His former boss, Allison Davis, at the Davis, Miner & Barnhill law firm, that served as a hub for Rezko's thriving slumlord business for a decade before Davis quit and became partners with Rezko, will be appointed to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Davis and his partners, which include his sons Jared and Cullen, have received more than $100 million in taxpayer subsidies to build and rehab apartments and homes over the past 10 years and have made at least $4 million in development fees, according to the Times.

"Davis has gotten deal after deal from the mayor, helping to make Davis one of the city's top developers," Tim Novak noted in the November 7, 2007 Sun-Times.

There's already a plan in place to guarantee that the Chicago model of "community development" is carried out in the White House. In his "Plan to Fight Poverty in America," Obama says, "we should create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund to develop affordable housing in mixed-income neighborhoods."

The Plan will create a "White House Office of Urban Policy" to develop a strategy for metropolitan America, and Obama will appoint a Director of Urban Policy who will report directly to him, as president, to "coordinate all federal urban programs," the Plan states.

Mayor Daley will probably be hired for this gig. The Plan explains that Obama will task his new Director "to work across federal agencies and with community and business leaders to identify and address the unique economic development barriers of every major metropolitan area in the country."

While climbing the political ladder, Obama held himself out to be a champion of rights for minority-owned businesses. According to an article on Black Enterprize.com, "it is Obama's strong record when it comes to supporting minority-owned businesses that has black business leaders working overtime to send the 42-year-old congressman to Washington."

However, an example of the Chicago version of a minority-owned business is DV Urban Realty Partners, where Allison Davis, who is an African American millionaire many times over, owns 51%, and Robert Vanecko, Mayor Daley's nephew, owns 49%.

On July 18, 2007, Obama discussed his plan to deal with urban poverty in a speech at the Town Hall Education Arts and Recreation Center in Washington and started out by tugging the heart strings by invoking the name of Bobby Kennedy and stated:

"It's been four decades since Bobby Kennedy crouched in a shack along the Mississippi Delta and looked into the wide, listless eyes of a hungry child. Again and again he tried to talk to this child, but each time his efforts were met with only a blank stare of desperation.

"And when Kennedy turned to the reporters traveling with him, with tears in his eyes he asked a single question about poverty in America: 'How can a country like this allow it?'"

"Forty years later," Obama said, "we're still asking that question."

First of all, "Barack Obama you are no Robert Kennedy," and we're still asking the question because the careers of politicians like Obama are funded by a political mafia which has turned helping the poor into a cottage industry.

During his speech, Obama himself spelled out why low-income housing developers get away with funneling tax dollars through poor people in cities like Chicago without drawing any scrutiny, when he stated:

"These Americans cannot hire lobbyists to roam the halls of Congress on their behalf, and they cannot write thousand-dollar campaign checks to make their voices heard. They suffer most from a politics that has been tipped in favor of those with the most money, and influence, and power."

In Obama's case, a whole gang of slumlords in Illinois made their "voices heard" by writing campaign checks to fund his rise to fame. But as long as the focus of the slumlord allegations remains solely on a crook named Rezko, the other members of the gang will not get the credit they deserve.

One fact is beyond dispute. Without the fundraising of his political Godfather, Rezko, Obama's rise to power would not have occurred. However, Rezko was not the pied piper of Hamlin who led Illinois politicians astray. It's the other way around. Without the cooperation of the corrupt government officials, Rezko would not have been able to fund their political campaigns.

In Illinois, favored politicians are joined at the hip when it comes to fundraising. For instance, from 1999 through 2006, an analysis by the Chicago Tribune shows Obama took in more than $1.5 million from some 700 people who also contributed to Mayor Daley during his political career.

A cursory review of Illinois campaign records shows Allison Davis and his family members giving close to $16,000 to Obama's presidential campaign. The Sun-Times reports that Davis has donated more than $400,000 to dozens of political campaigns, and the top beneficiaries include Mayor Daley, Blagojevich and Obama.

The truth about all the scams run by the political mafia operating in Illinois is only coming out now because of Rezko's corruption trial, and if the Democrats want to lose any chance of winning the White House, all they have to do is nominate Obama.

This case is only the first of what could be many to go to trial. Other criminal charges are pending against several people listed in the indictment, and civil lawsuits have been filed against many of the same people and are awaiting the outcome of the criminal cases.

If Obama had an ounce of respect for Democratic voters, he'd drop out of the race before the details of the corruption in Illinois spread to the rest of the country. If the leaders of the Democratic party had a lick of sense, they would inform Obama right now that under no circumstances will his name be on the ballot come fall.

Political junkies know the details of all the sordid scandals swirling around Obama in Chicago, but the average American voter does not have a clue.

The prosecution team is led by the US Attorney for Northern Illinois, Patrick Fitzgerald, of Scooter Libby fame; the same guy who put the last Illinois Governor behind bars and convicted a host of government officials from the Daley administrations who were involved in what prosecutors called "pervasive fraud" to rig city hiring for 12 years with persons who got out the vote for Mayor Daley, and the candidates he endorsed, as well as numerous crooks rounded up during the scandal involving Daley's Hired Truck program.

The list of names in the indictment includes about eight persons referred to as "Co-Schemers," and reads like a "who's who list" of major campaign donors to Obama, Blagojevich, Daley and other powerful Illinois politicians.

Blagojevich is referred to as "Public Official A," Obama is referred to as a "political candidate," and there is a list of "Individuals" from "Individual A" all the way up to "Individual HH."

By now, everybody following the case knows the names of the "Co-Schemers" and "Individuals", and the Republicans can use the court filings as a roadmap for their plan of attack on Obama. In fact, they are probably editing their talking points for cable news shows as we speak. They no doubt already have video clips in the can of every failed low-income housing project in Chicago connected to Obama to splash across the airwaves the minute he is nominated.

In addition, the Chicago Tribune has two ace reporters, Bob Secter and Jeff Coen, stationed at the courthouse, who provide a daily blog called "Gavel-to-Gavel" on the Tribune website which gives a blow-by-blow account of the live testimony in the trial every few hours.

The names of corrupt politicians and power brokers from both the Democratic and Republican parties are being dropped before the jury like flies. Many of the witnesses, including the main co-defendant, Chicago businessman Stuart Levine, have already pleaded guilty and are testifying under grants of immunity in hope of getting a lighter sentence, which means they have everything to gain by testifying about the other crooks.

Although the Tribune's Gavel-to-Gavel coverage is just as good as having a front-row seat in the courtroom, the Obama camp apparently feels the need to monitor the trial first-hand. On March 14, 2008, during an interview with the Sun-Times, a reporter said to Obama: "You have somebody in the courtroom to monitor the trial, right?"

"We may," he replied, "I think that may be true."

The case involves the corruption of two state regulatory boards. The investigation, dubbed "Operation Board Games," by the Feds, began in December 2003, based on information supplied by an informant. Its now obvious that Rezko was aware of the investigation as early as 2004, because during a January 16, 2007, court hearing his attorney, Joe Duffy, told US District Judge Amy St Eve that he was hired in 2004.

"And my guess is you hired Mr. Duffy to deal with the Feds?" the judge said to Rezko, and Rezko replied, "Yes, your Honor."

The first board controls the Teachers Pension System, which administers pensions and benefits for all Illinois teachers except for those in Chicago, and the Health Facilities Planning Board, which approves all proposals for construction projects that involve medical facilities in Illinois.

The Teacher's Pension fund has over $30 billion in assets. Investment firms that want to do business with the fund submit proposals, and the board votes on whether to approve the proposal. Some members of the board are elected by teachers in the state, others are appointed by the governor and others serve by virtue of their state office such as the school superintendent.

On Blagojevich took office, the Schemers were able to stack the TRS board with members who would vote whichever way they were told. Once they accomplished that feat, they demanded kickbacks from investment firms in exchange for the approval of their proposals.

Rezko's partner in the Rezmar development company, Daniel Mahru, is referred to as "Individual Z" in the indictment, and according to court filings, Rezko told Mahru that "$500 million" of TRS money was earmarked for their company. Mahru is reportedly cooperating with federal investigators.

In addition to lining their own pockets, the money gained through the scheme was funneled to the campaigns of Blagojevich and Obama. Prosecutors have identified two $10,000 payments that were made to Obama's US Senate campaign through straw donors Joseph Aramanda and Elie Maloof, which originated from a kickback paid by investment firm, Glencoe Capital, to secure approval for a $50 million deal.

Aramanda and Maloof also each gave Obama $1,000 for his failed run for Congress in 2000. Once Obama became a US Senator, Aramanda's son was granted a coveted intern position in Obama's Senate office in Washington during the summer of 2005, based on a request which the Obama's camp has admitted came from Rezko.

Levine was appointed to the TRS Board in 2000, by Republican Governor George Ryan and was reappointed in 2003 by Blagojevich. As part of the team led by Levine to rig the votes, Blagojevich appointed, attorney Anthony Abboud, to serve. He is "Individual Q" in the indictment. He has been donating money to Obama's political career since March 2000, with a total of more than $2,800.

Blagojevich also appointed, attorney Jack Carriglio, or "Individual R." On June 30, 2003, Carriglio donated $1,000 for Obama's US Senate campaign.

The TRS story has the makings of a great Hollywood movie with subplots upon subplots. Allison Davis, or "Individual BB," was a friend of Hollywood producer Tom Rosenberg, who produced the movie, "The Human Stain," with Anthony Hopkins and Davis in a small part. He also produced the Oscar winning, "Million Dollar Baby."

Rosenberg, or "Individual J," is a central figure in the case. His investment firm, Capri Capital Advisers, a real estate manager, had done about a billion dollars of business with the TRS in the past and wanted to do more. In 2004, the Schemers tried to coerce a bribe from Rosenberg, or in the alternative a $1.5 million contribution for Blagojevich, in exchange for approval of a $220 million deal.

According to the indictment, Davis admitted to Rosenberg that Rezko, and Blagojevich's top fund raiser, Christopher Kelly, or Co-Schemer B, had asked Davis who could raise funds for Blagojevich from the state pension system and he volunteered Rosenberg's name.

During his testimony on April 1, 2008, Levine explained that he was already mad at Rosenberg because he expected $500,000 for help he gave Rosenberg in getting the TRS board to approve a $100 million deal in 2001, but he never came through with the money.

The only benefit Levine received from the deal was that Rosenberg said Levine no longer had to pay him $50,000 a year for lobbying efforts, according to the monitoring by Gavel-to-Gavel.

However, all hell broke lose when Rosenberg refused pay the $1.5 million. During the trial, prosecutors played tapes of phone calls in which comical conversations were discussed between the bipartisan group of Co-Schemers and Individuals, as they were trying to figure out how to deal with Rosenberg and his threats.

The jury heard conversations between Republican power broker, William Cellini, or Co-Schemer A, and Levine, in which they said Rosenberg was threatening to "stand at State and Madison," and make public the attempt to extort money for Blagojevich's campaign and that he would "take them all down," and even threatened to go to the Feds.

They claimed Rosenberg said he considered Rezko and Christopher Kelly the two most likely members of Blagojevich's inner circle to end up in prison someday, according to Gavel-to-Gavel. Kelly has been charged in a separate case with hiding $1.3 million from the IRS and using money from his business to pay gambling debts with Chicago bookies and Las Vegas casinos.

Levine testified that Rezko wanted things to settle down and quoted Rezko saying, "Mr. Rosenberg was a dangerous individual, and nobody wanted to be put in a dangerous situation."

Levine said Rezko told him that TRS should grant Capri the $220 million. "But, in fact, that should be the last business that Mr. Rosenberg does with the State of Illinois," Levine recalled Rezko telling him, according to Gavel-to-Gavel. Levine testified that Rezko said Blagojevich had been briefed on the plan and agreed with it.

During his testimony, Levine also told the jury that Rezko had plans for Blagojevich to run for President. "He said that he had raised a great deal of money for Gov. Blagojevich and that he had great hopes and expectations that Gov. Blagojevich would run for president," Levine told the jury.

"And although he knew it was a long shot, he was working toward that end," Levine said.

He also told the jury about an October 29, 2003, trip in a plane he chartered to carry Blagojevich and others to fundraisers in New York, during which Levine thanked Blagojevich for reappointing him to the Planning board and said the governor told him, "Never discuss any state board with me, discuss them with either Tony Rezko or Chris Kelly."

The TRS part of the story has many subplots. For instance, in 2005, the Feds issued a subpoena to the TRS for records pertaining to a $150 million deal approved for the Carlyle Group, in which Robert Kjellander, or Individual K, described in the August 11, 2005 Sun-Times as the "national Republican Party treasurer," and "a Springfield lobbyist with close ties to the White House," was to be paid a $4.5 million fee.

The most famous investor in the Carlyle Group is the family of Osama bin Laden, and its most famous advisor is the first President George Bush. On October 26, 2001, the New York Times reported that the "Saudi family of Osama bin Laden is severing its financial ties with the Carlyle Group, a private investment firm known for its connections to influential Washington political figures."

"It came largely as a result of public controversy about the family's stake in a Carlyle fund that invests in buyouts of military and aerospace companies," a Carlyle executive told the Times.

After the September 11 attacks, the Times noted, "the investment was criticized amid speculation that the family might profit from increased military spending from America's war on terrorism."

Kjellander reportedly headed Bush's reelection campaign in three states and in December 2003, he was able to obtain an invitation from the Bush administration for Levine, Rezko, and Cellini, along with their wives, to attend a Christmas Party at the White House.

Apparently Kjellander is still in good graces with the Republicans because he is "helping plan this September's Republican National Convention in Minneapolis," according to John Kass in the March 7, 2008 Chicago Tribune.

The subpoena issued to the TRS in 2005, also included a request for records involving a $10 million investment approved for Hopewell Ventures in 2003, whose principals included David Wilhelm, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who is now a super delegate who openly supports Obama. Wilhelm was a main player in getting members approved to serve on the Health Facilities Planning Board.

The Board is made up of nine members and approval of a project requires a majority of five votes. At the center of this scheme was a proposal by Mercy Health System to gain approval to build a new hospital in Crystal Lake. On April 21, 2004, the board voted to approve the project, even though state analysts said the hospital was not needed.

Levine was also appointed to the Planning Board by a Republican Governor. However, he established himself as a bipartisan crook early in the trial. On March 10, 2008, he told the jury that even before he got involved with the Blagojevich administration, he used to funnel campaign contributions to Democratic candidates through straw donors at the request of former Chicago Alderman Edward Vrdolyak, who has also been indicted on federal fraud and bribery charges in a related case.

Levine's term on the Board was set to expire in 2004, but the Schemers made sure he remained on the panel. On March 10, 2008, Rezko's lawyer questioned Susan Lichtenstein, former general counsel to Blagojevich, about a series of email exchanges she had related to the appointments of members to the Board in 2003.

One of the emails was between Lichtenstein and the office of Wilhelm, who ran Blagojevich's 2002 campaign, which suggested several appointees, including Levine.

"With the e-mails," Gavel-to-Gavel reports, "Rezko's lawyers appear to be pushing the point that Rezko wasn't alone in backing Levine and that Levine's appointment had a broad array of support."

While all this was going on, as a state senator, Obama was the chairman of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services. As such, his name also appeared in the email exchanges as a member of a team working on legislation to keep the board from expiring under a sunset provision of Illinois law.

The email exchanges said, Wilhelm had “worked closely” over six months with state legislators to extend the life of the board and listed Democrat and Republican leaders in the Illinois Senate and House, including Obama.

The exchange with the names of four candidates for the board stated that “our attached recommendations reflect that involvement” with the political leaders.

In the end, the changes made by the lawmakers in 2003 dropped the number of members on the Board from 15 to 9, making it much easier to stack the panel, and by the summer of 2003, the Schemers controlled a 5-bloc vote.

At the time, Thomas Beck was the chairman of panel, and Levine was the vice-chairman. Beck testified, under a grant of immunity, and told the jury that he took a $1,000 donation for Blagojevich when he met with Rezko to seek reappointment.

The persons chosen to guarantee the votes were 3 doctors: Imad Almanaseer, Michel Malek and Fortunee Massuda.

Massuda, or "Individual Y," gave Obama $2,000 on January 26, 2004. Malek is "Individual FF," and he donated $10,000 to Obama's US Senate campaign on June 30, 2003, and another $500 in September 2003.

Almanaseer, or "Individual EE," contributed $1,000 to Obama on March 12, 2004, and ponied up another $2,000 on May 24, 2004.

This part of the scheme also opens up several subplots. The person responsible for working out the details for the kickback on the Mercy proposal was Jacob Kiferbaum.
Kiferbaum was the builder hired by Mercy to construct the new hospital. Levine told the jury about a long history of taking bribes from Kiferbaum, who would then pad his bills to hide the payments. He said the money would be passed through middlemen, such as John Glennon, a prominent Republican insider, who had served on a pension board with Levine.

The new hospital was never built after details about the crimes became known. Kiferbaum has pleaded guilty in the case and is cooperating with the Feds.

When referring to the fact that Obama's name shows up in the email exchanges as reviewing the recommendations to appoint Levine and the others to the Planning Board, the media is always careful to mention that Obama is not accused of anything.

However, on March 14, 2008, during an interview with the Tribune, Obama was finally asked directly: "Did you have discussions with him [Rezko] about either recommendations that you sought for people or recommendations that he was making?"

"I did not have any formal discussions with Tony," Obama said, "beyond one individual, and that was Dr. Eric Whitaker, who ultimately became the head of the Illinois Department of Public Health and who had been a longtime friend of mine, who I had known since he was getting his master's at Harvard and I was at the law school there."

"He had expressed an interest in that post," Obama informed the Tribune.

"I think he had applied separately," Obama said, "but I don't recall whether I called Tony or he called me."

"And I simply said, 'I think this guy is outstanding and is certainly somebody who is worthy of an interview,'" he added.

"And was it your understanding that Tony was going to effectuate that?" the Tribune asked.

"No," Obama said. "What I knew was, and I don't think this has been disputed, that he was one of a number of people within the Blagojevich circle who were, you know, helping to screen or interview potential candidates for administration posts."

The job Obama recommended for his friend paid about $150,000 a year. However, Eric Whitaker is now an executive vice-president of the University of Chicago Medical Center, according to the March 9, 2008, Sun-Times. That would be the same employer that pays Michelle Obama a salary of close to $350,000 as a vice president.

But Obama's using the lure of the pension funds to raise campaign money goes way back. In 1999, he "was instrumental in the formation of a coalition of black investment firm owners and legislators in Illinois to create an initiative that would award black-owned firms with the management of some of the state's retirement funds," according to a 2004 article on Black Enterprise.com.

"He's out there fighting for us," said John Rogers, chairman and CEO of Chicago-based Ariel Capital Management in the article. Rogers donated $9,000 to Obama's US Senate campaign.

"He was a catalyst to pull [everyone] together to create the initiative to have these organizations let minority firms do business with state funds," said Lee Holland, managing partner and Chief Investment Officer of Holland Capital. Lee Holland, his wife and two of his partners donated $35,000 to Obama's US Senate campaign. In the October 1, 2007, New York Times, Christopher Drew and Raymond Hernandez reported that:

"Members of the group, the Alliance of Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs, say Mr. Obama checked into their problems and helped start a drive that enabled minority investment executives to win millions of dollars in business from the state's giant pension funds."

However, the Times pointed out that Obama's political career had benefited many times over from his ties to the group. "Several of the businessmen or their wives would help clear the debts from his Congressional race," the Times wrote, "and six of the group's members are now among the top fund-raisers for his presidential campaign, according to campaign finance records."

All totaled, the Times said, employees at more than 30 companies listed on the group's website and their relatives donated more than $300,000 to help Obama win his US Senate seat in 2004 and "set fund-raising records early in the 2008 presidential race."

In fact, when Illinois State Senator Emil Jones, Jr became the State Senate president in 2003, he assigned Obama to a committee looking into the pension questions "to help raise his political profile," according the Times.

During this period, the Times says, campaign finance records show executives from Ariel Capital, Loop Capital, Holland Capital and Capri Capital, "sharply increased their donations" to Obama's State Senate campaign fund.

"And once he began his campaign for the United States Senate," the Times wrote, "they quickly became a fund-raising core that has carried over into the presidential race."

Obama quit the State Senate committee in late 2003 as his race for the US Senate heated up, "and just as the panel began a series of hearings that produced the most substantial changes," the Times reports.

The changes generated millions dollars in fees for some of the firms. For instance, Loop saw its fees from one pension fund rise to $2.4 million in 2006, from $5,700 in 2001, and Holland and Ariel both got several hundred million from the pension funds to invest.

John Rogers and two other people at Ariel each bundled at least $50,000 in donations for Obama's presidential campaign, according to the Times.

An October 3, 2005 article in the Sun-Times, by Chris Fusco and Dave McKinney, reported that Ariel and its top executives also contributed $117,500 to Blagojevich's campaign.

Although the current criminal case focuses on two boards, the testimony of Jill Hayden, the former head of Blagojevich's Office of Boards and Commissions, established that the same process was used to fill some 1,500 positions, on 300 boards and commissions, that control a wide variety of regulatory decisions, which would include other pension funds.

Blagojevich appointed Davis to serve on a separate pension board, the Illinois State Board of Investment, which oversees funds for state employees, judges and legislators, and "also has been under federal investigation," according to the November 7, 2007 Sun-Times

In the September 23, 2007, Sun-Times, in reference to the "minority owned" DV Urban, of Davis and Robert Vanecko, Tim Novak reported that a "nephew of Mayor Daley stands to make millions of dollars from city-connected pension funds" in "winning business from pension funds for city workers, cops, teachers and CTA employees".

All total, the pension funds gave DV Urban $68 million. The first investor was the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund, but according to Novak's report, the board members did not learn that DV Urban was owned by the Mayor's nephew until 6 months after they voted to approve the investment.

As of September 23, 2007, Davis and Vanecko had received $1 million in management fees and they are "guaranteed at least $3 million in management fees and could make as much as $8.4 million before the pension deal ends on Dec. 31, 2014," Novak reports.

In addition, Davis and Vanecko will share in any profits from the real estate deals and can earn a 3% fee on the property they develop.

Obama says he met Rezko, when he got a call right out of the blue from David Brint, after he was elected president of the Harvard Law Review, wanting to know if he would be interested in being a developer for Rezko's real estate company, Rezmar.

Because they read that he was interested in community development work, Obama says, Rezko and his two partners, Mahru and Brint, met with him to discuss the job. "I said no, but I remained friendly with all three of them," Obama said in the Chicago Tribune on November 1, 2006.

"All three of them remained great contributors of mine," he added.

And so they did. According to the latest tally given during interviews with the Tribune and Sun-Times on March 14, 2008, the amount attributed to Rezko went from a claim of $50,000 or $60,000 a year ago, to Rezko raising roughly $250,000.

In fact, Obama told the Tribune that Rezko "might have raised $50,000 to $75,000" for one campaign alone in his failed run for Congress in 2000.

The Rezmar connection is a gift that keeps on giving. In February 2007, David Brint gave Obama $4,600, and his wife, Elizabeth gave contributed $2,300. Brint also hosted a fundraiser for Obama in June 2007. Elizabeth donated a couple thousand in 2002 and $2,000 more in 2003 as well.

On March 17, 2000, Mahru gave Obama $1,000, listing himself as president of Rezmar. On March 4, 2004, he donated a whopping $5,000. Mahru also tossed $1,000 to Mayor Daley in 2001 and gave him another $1,500 in 2003.

But then Rezko and Mahru had plenty of money to throw around. By 1998, Rezko had a reported net worth of $34 million and Mahru was worth $14.6 million, according to the "Rezmar who's who list," published in the April 24, 2007 Sun-Times.

After turning down the surprise job offer from Rezko, Obama expects voters to believe that he just happened to get hired at the small 12-attorney Davis law firm, which just happened to represent Rezmar in development deals. And then a couple years later, Rezko's companies just happened to appear on the very first contributions made to the "Friends of Obama" committee to launch his political career as a state senator.

On March 14, when asked by the Sun-Times, whether the subject of politics was mentioned at his first meeting with Rezko, Obama stated: "Quite frankly, I don't recall. I think it was talking about the possibility of me working for him."

About the same time that Rezko began funding Obama's campaign for the Illinois senate, Rezmar began developing low-income apartments with three non-profit groups, which were also represented by the Davis law firm, including the Chicago Urban League, the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp, and the Fund for Community Redevelopment and Revitalization.

Bishop Arthur Brazier, described as "a powerful ally of the mayor" by the Sun-Times, founded the Woodlawn Preservation Corp and the Fund for Community Redevelopment.

Davis was the treasurer for Woodlawn when the group went into business with Rezmar and he also served on the board that ran the Fund for Community Redevelopment.

By the time Rezmar started working with the non-profits, two of its earlier projects were having major problems, including a building where the tenants were without heat for five weeks between December 1996 and February 1997. The city had to sue to get the heat turned back on and in fact Chicago sued Rezmar for failing to heat buildings at least a dozen times, according to the Sun-Times.

Obama got a $1,000 campaign donation from Rezmar on January 14, 1997, while those tenets were without heat, Novak reports. Records show that Obama also received a $1,000 contribution from Resko Concessions, a day earlier on January 13, 1997.

Rezmar rehabbed 15 buildings between 1995 and 1998 in partnership with the nonprofits.. Each project involved public and private financing including loans from the city or state, federal low-income-housing tax credits and bank loans. The way it was set up, Rezko and Mahru always came out ahead because Rezmar was paid part of the development fees when a deal closed and the remainder when tenants moved in.

The projects were supposed to provide housing for low-income tenents for at least 25 years. "But the first deal Rezmar struck with the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp. collapsed in just six and a half years, when the state sued for foreclosure," according to a report by Novak in the April 23, 2007 Sun-Times.

Of the buildings managed by Rezko and Mahru, 17 ended up in foreclosure, six buildings are currently boarded up, hundreds of the apartments are vacant and in need of major repairs, and taxpayers are left stuck with millions in unpaid loans, Novak reports.

An "Operation Board Games" investigation should be conducted on the slumlord business in Illinois over the past 15 years. The Chicago Sun-Times reporters, and especially Tim Novak, have already done an excellent job in connecting all the dots.

Daley became Mayor in 1989 and Rezmar got its first city loan of $629,000 the same year, even though Rezko and Mahru had no construction experience.

Rezmar stopped making the $2,982 payments three years later and missed 16 payments before the city changed the terms so that Rezmar would only have to pay $465 a month, according to the Sun-Times report by Novak.

Over the years Davis has been appointed to serve on the Illinois Capital Development Board, which oversees state construction projects, and the Chicago Public Building Commission. Daily appointed Davis to the Chicago Plan Commission in 1991, where he stayed until January 2006.

The Plan Commission must approve, disapprove or defer any proposal by a public body or agency "to acquire, dispose, or change any real property within the territorial limits of the city" on the basis of whether or not the referral complies with the city's long range planning goals and objectives, according to its web site.

After Rezko got Davis appointed to the pension fund Board, Davis helped Rezmar in two major developments as a member of the Plan Commission, even though the two men were business partners. The first vote involved a housing development along the Chicago River at Irving Park Road and was cast a month after Davis won a seat on the Board.

The second was cast a year later in March 2004, for the approval of Rezmar's proposal for the 62 acre South Loop project. This deal collapsed shortly before Rezko was indicted in October 2006, according to Novak.

Daley made Thomas McNulty, the attorney who acquired the buildings for Rezmar, president of the Chicago Low-Income Housing Trust Fund, a charity run by the city that doles out tax dollars to landlords to subsidize rent payments for the poor. Rezmar received more than $2.7 million from this charity fund, according to the "Rezmar who's-who list" in the April 24, 2007 Sun-Times.

Mahru was appointed to the Illinois Affordable Housing Advisory Commission in 1993, which helps decide which projects get state funds, by Governor Jim Edgar.

Obama began serving on the board of Woods Fund, a Chicago charity foundation, in 1993, the same year he was hired by Davis' law firm. In 2000, Davis went to the foundation to help fund his plans to build low income housing. Obama voted to invest $1 million with Neighborhood Rejuvenation Partners, a $17 million partnership that Davis still operates, according to a report by Novak in the November 29, 2007 Sun-Times.

Davis used some of the money to build a 72-unit apartment building for senior citizens, a $10 million project built with a $5.7 million city loan, which earned Davis nearly $700,000 in development fees, Novak says city records show.

Davis' son Cullen is paid to manage the building, which opened three years ago with a ceremony featuring Mayor Daley.

Kelly King Dibble was the vice president for business development at Rezmar and she became the executive director of the Illinois Housing Development Authority once Blagojevich became Governor. She is now an attorney with, The Northern Trust Company, the same company that financed Obama's mansion.

Velma Butler, an investor in Rezko's 62 acre Loop project, also serves on the Illinois Housing Authority. She donated $1,000 to Obama's US Senate campaign in 2003.

On October 1, 2006, Daley appointed Martin Nesbitt chairperson of the Chicago Housing Authority. The CHA was created for "the purposes of engaging in the development, acquisition, leasing, operation, and administration of a Low Rent Housing Program and other federally assisted programs," according to the agency’s 2005 annual financial report.

Nesbitt succeeded Sharon Gist Gilliam, according to the CHA web site. Gilliam is a former board member of Rezmar. She told the Sun-Times that she was only on the Rezmar board until 1991. However, the Times found her still listed as a board member in a 1994 biography on the company's web site.

Daley had appointed Nesbitt commissioner of the Housing Authority on July 9, 2003, and he served as vice chairperson of the Board since January 17, 2006.

Nezbitt is also vice president of the Pritzker Realty Group, where he procures new real estate investment opportunities, retail investments and developments for the Pritzker Group, according to the CHA web site. A quick trip to the Huffington Post site showed tens of thousands of dollars donated to Obama from people with the last name Pritzker in the Chicago area but many people are listed as homemaker or not employed or information requested, so its impossible to sort them out.

Nesbitt is treasurer for Obama's presidential campaign according to the Center for Public Integrity. Over his political career, Nesbitt has contributed more than $10,000 to Obama's campaigns.

Michelle Obama was hired as an assistant in Daley's office by Valerie Jarrett, Daley's deputy chief of staff in 1991. When Daley appointed Jarrett chairman of the Office of Planning and Development, Michelle became her assistant..

Jarrett is now CEO of the real estate development and management firm, called Habitat, which manages the housing program for the Chicago Housing Authority.

The Commission on Chicago landmarks "is responsible for recommending to the City Council that individual buildings, sites, objects, or entire districts be designated as Chicago Landmarks, thereby providing legal protection," according to the government web site.

Daley appointed Michelle to serve on the Chicago Landmark Commission. The current chairman of the Commission is Daley's former chief of staff, David Mosena.

Mosena was a member of Obama's US Senate Finance Committee in 2004, with other members that included Valerie Jarrett, Tony Rezko, Rita Rezko, and Allison Davis. The committee raised more than $14 million, according to Federal Election Commission records, cited by Novak in the Sun-Times on April 23, 2007. Jarrett serves as an advisor to Obama’s presidential campaign.

The Illinois Finance Authority was established by Blagojevich in 2004. Its "role is to support the Governor of Illinois' economic development agenda," and "IFA approves about $3 billion in project financing each year," according to the its site.

Rezko business associate, Ali Ata, was appointed to head the Finance Authority. He is now under indictment in a separate criminal case in which Rezko is also charged. On June 30, 2003, Ata contributed $5,000 to Obama's US senate campaign.

On June 13, 2007, the Sun-Times reported that as a state senator, "Obama wrote letters to city and state officials supporting his political patron Tony Rezko's successful bid to get more than $14 million from taxpayers to build apartments for senior citizens."

"I am writing in support of the New Kenwood LLC's proposal to build a ninety-seven unit apartment building at 48th and Cottage Grove for senior citizens,'' Obama wrote in October 28, 1998 letters to both city and state housing officials. "This project will provide much needed housing for Fourth Ward citizens.''

New Kenwood was set up as another "minority owned" company, where Davis owned 51% and Rezko 49%.

In the Times, Novak reported that the deal included $855,000 in development fees for Rezko and Davis, while Obama was still working at the Davis law firm, for a bid on a project that was "four blocks outside Obama's state Senate district."

Although the law firm represented several companies owned by Davis and Rezko when Obama wrote the letters, the firm did not represent New Kenwood in the deal. According to the Sun-Times, Davis and Rezko instead hired a firm owned by Mayor Daley's brother Michael, "to help them get $3.1 million from bonds issued by the city of Chicago."

"In addition to the development fees, a separate Davis-owned company stood to make another $900,000 through federal tax credits," Novak reported in the June 13, 2007 Sun-Times.

The development opened in 2002 and was supposed to be managed by William Moorehead & Associates. William Moorehead was also a client of the Davis law firm and a business partner of Davis. In April 2007, Moorehead told the Times that his company was dropped from the deal before the apartments opened. The apartments are now managed by a company owned by Davis' son, Cullen Davis, according to Novak.

In the Times article, Novak also noted that Moorehead received a 4-year prison sentence "for stealing more than $1 million from ... public housing projects he managed for the Chicago Housing Authority and the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department, as well as from two developments he co-owned with Davis."

In a 2006, Moorehead pleaded guilty to fraud and other crimes and admitted stealing more than $600,000 from the Island Terrace and other federally subsidized projects.

During the period when Moorehead was stealing money, the Times reports, he lent Davis $100,000. Davis sent Moorehead a letter on June 15, 2000, and said the sale and refinancing of one of their housing projects had been delayed and wrote: "I need to borrow $100,000 from the Island Terrace resources."

As part of a plea deal, Moorehead is cooperating in an ongoing federal investigation.
David Brint now owns Brinshore Development. He told the Times that he quit Rezmar four years after the company got its first deal with city because Mahru did not find money for building repairs. Brint and his partners have taken over four failed Rezmar buildings -- "in one case paying the city $1 million to settle a $4 million loan made to Rezmar," according to the Times.

Gary Poter owned the construction company that rehabbed all of Rezmar's buildings. He was stabbed to death in May 2006, supposedly by a disgruntled employee, according to the Times "Rezmar who's who" list. Back on March 3, 2004, Poter donated $2,000 to Obama's US senate campaign and on July 19, 2004, he gave Obama another $1,000.

Its more than obvious that the political mafia of Illinois now has plans to install the new, "White House Office of Urban Policy," as a means of getting richer by funneling tax dollars through poor people and retirees on a national level via Obama.

The leaders of Democratic party need to tell him that he will not be the nominee and to drop out of the race. If they do not, the Republicans have enough truthful information lined up to drive Obama out before election day.

A month ago a friend of mine who knew I did not think Obama was qualified to be president, asked me what I would do if he was nominated. I replied that I would vote for him of course, what a dumb question. No more. After a month of research, I could no more support Barack Obama as the leader of this country than I could support another war profiteering Republican.

If he becomes the nominee, all the Democrats in America will be viewed by the rest of the world as either utterly stupid, or totally corrupt. Therefore, for the first time in my life, I have made a conscious decision to take a stand and not vote in a presidential election if the choice is Obama.

Barack Obama - Subplots of Operation Board Games

April 21, 2008 Evelyn Pringle

The investigation dubbed “Operation Board Games,” into the influence peddling within the cesspool of corruption that encompasses Illinois politicians from both major parties, has developed into multiple subplots, many of which feature Barack Obama.

Therefore, Obama should start bidding for the starring role in the movie that is sure to follow the criminal trials involved in this case because he has absolutely no chance of winning the White House, even if the leaders of the Democratic party allow this sorry charade to carry on and his name appears on the ballot.

The major media organizations continue to ignore a story that is destined to become the biggest political scandal of the decade, except for a bleep here and there. By now this can only mean one of two things. They are either unwilling to commit the manpower necessary to connect the dots of all the subplots or they know the Republicans will supply the goods free of charge the minute Obama becomes the nominee.

This two-part article is the last article in a 3-part series. The first two, Barack Obama - The Wizard of Oz and Barack Obama - Operation Board Games For Slumlords, cover Obama’s rise to fame in the political mafia of Illinois, bankrolled by the now infamous Syrian-born influence peddler, Antoin “Tony” Rezko.

They also give the details of Obama’s involvement in a slumlord business largely operating out of the Chicago-based Davis, Miner & Barnhill law firm, which hired Obama in 1993, with his boss, Allison Davis, reaping in the profits with Rezko‘s development company, Rezmar.

The “Board Games For Slumlord” article gives in-depth details of the federal investigation along with the names of people who are listed as “Co-Schemers” and “Individuals” in the indictments issued thus far. Therefore for the most part, this article will refer to all the scams collectively as what prosecutors refer to as “pay-to-play” schemes.

The mainstream media continues to refer to the corruption trial currently taking place in a Federal courthouse in Chicago as the Rezko case, never mentioning the fact that Rezko is sitting in the courtroom alone at the defendant’s table only because many of the co-defendants have already pleaded guilty, or have not been indicted yet.

Some of the people listed in the indictments as co-schemers and individuals include William Cellini, a long-standing Republican powerbroker in Illinois, and Robert Kjellander, treasurer for the Republican National Committee.

In the April 3, 2008 Chicago Sun-Times, Mark Brown wrote: “For more than three decades, William Cellini has been the unseen hand pulling the strings of Illinois government, adroitly manipulating it to his purpose.”

“That purpose,” Brown noted, “was mainly to make himself rich -- through lobbying fees and insider contracts, government loans and leases for his real estate developments, and finally the coup de grace, his own riverboat casino company.”

Cellini was a co-founder of Commonwealth Realty Advisors, “a firm that has received hundreds of millions of dollars in pension funds to invest on behalf of retired state employees and teachers,” according to a report by Rick Pearson in the April 6, 2008 Chicago Tribune.

The Feds have several incriminating taped conversations between Cellini and the co-schemers and after hearing the tapes, Sun-Time reporter, Mark Brown wrote:

“That Cellini would slip up and allow himself to be caught on a federal wiretap is nothing short of a miracle to those of us who have marveled at his career and attempted to expose his deals where we could -- mostly in vain and always too late to foil him.”

On January 7, 2005, Crain's Chicago Business described Robert Kjellander as the “White House’s man in Illinois,” and noted that:

Mr Kjellander, "the GOP national committeeman from Illinois, long has been at the center of the state Republican Party and related government doings. He is a close associate of key presidential advisor Karl Rove, and is considered the unofficial chief operative in the state for President George W. Bush."

In 2005, the Feds issued a subpoena to the Illinois Teachers Retirement System pension fund for records pertaining to a deal in which Kjellander was paid $3.1 million by the Carlyle Group, with an additional $1.4 million still to come. Many little known facts about the secretive Carlyle Group are discussed in the book, "The Iron Triangle," by Dan Briody, including this bizarre eye-opener:

“On the morning of September 11, 2001, in the plush setting of the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Washington, DC, the Carlyle Group was holding its annual international investor conference. Frank Carlucci, James Baker III, David Rubenstein, William Conway, and Dan D’Aniellow were together, along with a host of former world leaders, former defense experts, wealthy Arabs from the Middle East, and major international investors as the terror played out on television.

"There with them, looking after the investments of his family was Shafiq bin Laden, Osama bin Laden’s estranged half-brother. George Bush Sr. was also at the conference, but Carlyle’s spokesperson says the former president left before the terror attacks.

"In any circumstance, a confluence of such politically complex and globally connected people would have been curious, even newsworthy. But in the context of the terrorist attacks being waged against the United States by a group of Saudi nationals led by Osama bin Laden, the group assembled at the Ritz-Carlton that day was a disconcerting and freakish coincidence.”

Kjellander and Cellini have not been indicted - yet. When prosecutors filed a proffer with the court outlining the evidence to be used at trial they made it known that they did not intend to call several co-schemers to testify, including Cellini. Resko’s attorneys then filed a brief seeking to exclude the statements attributed to Cellini and others, on the basis that they would not be called as witnesses and in Cellini’s case, he had never even been interviewed by prosecutors.

However, in a response brief, the government asserted that, Cellini “participated in a number of corrupt aspects of the scheme” and “there are many other explanations that can account for the failure to charge or interview an individual other than innocence.”

On February 19, 2008, US District Judge Amy St Eve issued an order denying the request to exclude statements by Cellini and said the government has submitted enough evidence to corroborate the contention that “Co-Schemer A (Cellini) was “an integral player” in the scheme.”

Rezko is widely known to be a bipartisan influence peddler. During his opening statement, Rezko’s lead defense attorney, Joseph Duffy, told the jury that Rezko raised money for Democrats and Republicans alike, such as former Cook County Board President, John Stroger, and Representative Luis Gutierrez, Democrats, and former Governor Jim Edgar, a Republican, along with current Governor Rod Blagojevich and Obama, both Democrats.

Duffy told the jurors that Rezko “met Barack Obama when he was in Harvard Law School and tried to hire him” to be the lawyer for his development company. During 2003 and 2004, he said, Rezko helped organize fundraisers for both President Bush and Obama

Persons who have avoided trial in the Board Games case by pleading guilty to corruption charges include the government’s star witness, Stewart Levine, a Chicago businessman who had been a major fundraiser for Republicans in Illinois for decades, including Bush.

Levine was the first defendant nailed in the Board Games investigation. The FBI confronted him four years ago on May 20, 2004, and although he was cooperating with the Feds for some time, he did not enter an official guilty plea until October 2006.

Defendants who pleaded guilty as early as September 2005, include Chicago attorney, Steve Loren, a lawyer for the teacher’s retirement pension fund, Joseph Cari, an attorney and former finance chairman for the national Democratic National Committee, and Jacob Kiferbaum, owner of a Chicago area construction company.

Several other people listed in the indictments are testifying under a grant of immunity from prosecution. The jury has been made aware that if the people who have pleaded guilty or been granted immunity are caught lying under oath in court, all deals are off.

On October 11, 2006, the US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Patrick Fitzgerald, issued a press release to finally announce the unsealing of two indictments charging “Chicago area businessman and political fundraiser Antoin Rezko in connection with two separate and extensive fraud schemes.”

The press release noted that Rezko, “who, in addition to owning pizza and fast food restaurant franchises in Illinois and Wisconsin, developed real estate and was involved in political fund-raising in Illinois, was added as a new defendant in a pending federal corruption case that was brought against Levine and others last year.”

The first indictment alleged that Rezko participated in a scheme to obtain millions of dollars by shaking down firms doing business before two Illinois regulatory boards, the Teachers Retirement System (TRS) and the Hospital Facilities Planning Board, on which Levine served. In the press release, Fitzgerald stated:

“This indictment describes a frenzy of corrupt scheming, particularly in April and May 2004, in which political insiders sought to manipulate the activities of two state boards to fleece investment firms and individuals. The defendants and their associates put the word out loud and clear: you have to pay to play in Illinois.”

Fitzgerald further reported that, “Cari and Loren, both formerly prominent Chicago lawyers, each pleaded guilty in the pending TRS fraud case. Kiferbaum, a suburban construction executive, pleaded guilty in the pending Planning Board case.”

“All three are cooperating with the government and awaiting sentencing,” the release said.

"This basically involved a pay to play scheme on steroids," Fitzgerald told reporters.

Allison Davis, Obama’s boss at the law firm, is also listed in legal documents as playing a part in setting up a major extortion attempt in the Board Games case.

In court filings, the government also discusses plans by the schemers to use the State Board of Investments, which invests pension funds for state employees, and the State University Retirement System, which invests pension funds for state university workers, to obtain kickbacks from companies wanting to do business with the pension funds.

In fact, several kickback schemes were already set up when Levine was confronted by the FBI, and failed only because he could not follow through with the deals.

The second indictment unsealed on October 11, 2006, alleges that Rezko fraudulently obtained more than $10 million in loans for a pizza restaurant business from General Electric Capital Corp. Due to the complex nature of the two indictments, the loan fraud case will be discussed in Part II of “Subplots of Operation Board Games.”

The indictments issued so far point to only two politicians as specifically getting money from kickbacks resulting from the Board Games‘ schemes: Governor Rod Blagojevich and Barack Obama. Twenty thousand dollars from the first pay-off was funneled to Obama through a bank account belonging to the pizza businesses.

When Rezko was asked whether he was considering cooperating with the government and testifying against others as part of a plea bargain, he laughed loud and long and said, "Hell, no," according to a report by James Merriner in the November 2007, Chicago Magazine.

"Tell them I'll see them in court," he told Merriner.

Rezko has now been seen in court for about a month and a half. The Chicago Tribune has two reporters, Bob Secter and Jeff Coen, covering the trial at the Federal courthouse in Chicago and every few hours they post excellent highlights of the testimony on “Gavel-to-Gavel” which can be followed this Tribune Rezko court blog.

Credit for much of the testimony cited in this article belongs to the diligent efforts of Sector and Coen in covering the trial. Facts and evidence offered by the government that is cited comes from the indictments, motions, briefs and other court filings.

Stuart Levine was a member of both the TRS board and the Planning Board when Blagojevich took office. During his opening statement, Rezko's lead defense attorney, James Duffy, pointed out that Levine backed a Republican in the 2002 governor’s race and said Levine realized "he bet on the wrong horse,” when Blagojevich won.

"Mr. Inside was now on the outside," he told the jury. "His ego could not handle it."

He also made a point to mention that Levine had close political ties to Obama and other Illinois politicians.

According to Duffy, the reason Levine started making up stories about having ties to Blagojevich and people close to the governor was to give off the impression of power.

The jury might have found that feeble excuse for a motive a tad credible if not for the fact that documentary evidence was produced to prove that Blagojevich, along with his campaign manager, David Wilhelm, his other campaign fundraisers, and high ranking Illinois officials, including Obama, specifically approved Levine’s re-appointment to the Planning Board.

Stuart Levine was on the stand for over two weeks, singing like a canary, hoping to reduce what could have been a life sentence to less than 6 years.

Duffy used up a good portion of his cross-examination exploiting the fact that Levine was an admitted dope fiend who, in addition to swindling every buck he could with the help of corrupt politicians for his entire life, spent much of his spare time partying at motels with a group that Duffy constantly referred to as “male friends.”

However, after reading all the testimony posted on Gavel-to-Gavel, the only point clearly established is that Levine footed the bill for the parties and would put a bonifide street junkie to shame. While on the stand, Levine admitted again and again to taking a litany of drugs including cocaine, qualudes, ecstasy, crystal meth and an animal tranquilizer.

Duffy drilled away at this issue and at times it became downright amusing. For instance, at one point Duffy asked Levine whether Levine’s secretary could hear him snorting drugs through the closed door of his office, and Levine replied: "If my snorting was so loud that you could hear me through a wall or door, I'm quite amazed at the loudness of my snorting."

Thus far, jurors have also heard damaging testimony about how the scheme was carried out from the chairman of the Health Facilities Planning Board, Thomas Beck, and Imad Almanaseer, one of three doctors who were appointed to the panel to help rig the votes.

The first two articles in this series reported that Blagojevich was supposed to be the candidate for President, not Obama. That assertion was based on testimony in the trial by the government’s star witness, Stuart Levine, about conversations he had with Rezko.

That one of the main goals of the “pay-to-play” schemes was to raise money for a presidential run by Blagojevich was collaborated by testimony on April 15, 2008, by Joseph Cari.

He told the jury about a conversation he had with Blagojevich himself in 2003, in which Blagojevich told him that it would be easer for him to raise money then a senator because now that he was governor, Blagojevich had the power to hand out contracts and state business to people who contributed to his campaign.

Cari also testified that Blagojevich tried to convince him to lead the national fund raising efforts for his presidential bid but Cari did not want the job.

Blagojevich also told Cari that Rezko and his other major fundraiser, Christopher Kelly, were the two people he trusted most and apparently would follow Blagojevich to Washington. "They were going to be the key people in his public-service career, wherever it went," Cari said.

Cari also told the jury about meetings he had with Rezko and Kelly in 2004, at which they pressured Cari to lead the national fundraising operation for Blagojevich in exchange for receiving legal work, consultant work or pension fund business from the state.

"I could have whatever I wanted, but they needed help nationally to raise money," he told the jury.

Cari maintains that he repeatedly said no to their requests.

Campaign finance laws in Illinois have aided and abetted influence peddling schemes for years because they allow donors to give as much as they like to candidates running for state office, so the sky‘s the limit.

Obama’s political career was bankrolled by the same gang that planned to make Blagojevich president. For instance, Fortunee Massuda, another participant identified in the “pay-to-play” schemes, contributed $25,000 to Blagojevich compared to $2,000 to Obama. Michel Malek, another participant, threw $25,000 to Blagojevich and $10,500 to Obama.

Ali Ata, another guy listed as a co-schemer in one indictment, was made executive director of the Illinois Finance Authority, and he contributed $25,000 to Blagojevich and $5,000 to Obama.

Jay Wilton, identified by prosecutors as a major contributor to Blagojevich, is the owner of Wilton Partners, a construction company in California. He donated $50,000 to Blagojevich shortly after his firm cinched an $83 million contract with the state to refurbish the Illinois tollway’s oasis rest stops. Wilton also gave $5,000 to Obama.

Joe Cari donated $15,000 to Blagojevich but only gave $1,335 to Obama.

A trial exhibit produced by an FBI agent, identifies major contributors who donated $1.43 million to Blagojevich between 2001 and 2004. The Chicago Sun-Times compared the exhibit to government campaign records on Obama and found he received more than $220,000 from many of the same donors between 2001 and 2004.

John Roger, the head of Ariel Capital, an investment firm that ended up with major money from the pension funds, is on the FBI’s summary of Blagojevich’s top contributors. He also gave Obama $25,000.

Rogers is a member of the finance committee for Obama’s presidential campaign. Rogers also served on the campaign finance committee for Obama’s US Senate run with Tony and Rita Rezko, Allison Davis, and Myron “Mike” Cherry.

Mike Cherry is listed in the indictment for the pay-to-pay schemes and the FBI shows he gave Blagojevich $25,000 in 2003.

Daniel Mahru, a major player in the Chicago slumlord racket, has reportedly flipped in the Board Games case and is cooperating with the prosecution. He is the owner of Automatic Ice Company, which donated $10,000 to Blagojevich. Mahru gave $5,000 to Obama.

Attorney, Jack Carriglio, contributed $25,000 to Blagojevich and was appointed to the TRS Board. He also gave $1000 to Obama.

After Rezko's indictment was unsealed in October 2006, the first report in the Chicago Tribune noted, "Obama donated $11,500 to charity -- a total that represents what Rezko contributed to the senator's federal campaign fund."

That statement intentionally leads readers to believe that Obama donated all campaign contributions from Rezko to charity, which is so far from the truth that it’s laughable.

On November 5, 2006, the Tribune reported that, Obama said Rezko raised as much as $60,000 for him during his political career. The next day, the Sun-Times quoted Obama as saying: "I did however donate campaign contributions from Rezko to charity.”

The Obama camp stuck with the $50,000 or $60,000 story for nearly a year until Obama’s March 14, 2008 interviews with the Chicago Sun-Times and Tribune and the team of reporters pinned him down and the amount added up to $250,000.

For decades, the “pay-to-play” schemes exposed by the Board Games case have been standard conduct for politicians in Illinois, Republicans and Democrats alike, creating a vicious circle. Officials cannot get elected without the contributions of the corrupt influence peddlers and the crooks cannot fund the campaigns without the pay-offs.

In a January 11, 2006, report by Better Government Association, the groups Executive Director, Jay Stewart, stated: "Illinois is awash in scandal and corruption."

"Former Governor George Ryan is on trial, Governor Blagojevich’s administration is the subject of numerous investigations, and the Hired Truck scandal has resulted in dozens of guilty pleas and indictments in Mayor Daley’s City Hall. A common thread with all these scandals is questionable campaign contributions, contracts and hiring."

The most alarming indication that the corruption in Illinois will never end is the fact that the schemes continued on at full-throttle at a time when the same team of Federal prosecutors, led by Patrick Fitzgerald, was arresting people left and right as a result of an eight year investigation of the last Governor, George Ryan.

The guilty pleas of Steven Loren and Joe Cari in the Board Games case came just days before jury selection was scheduled to being for a trial in which Ryan was facing a 22-count indictment with charges involving many of same kinds of influence peddling.

Seventy-three of Ryan's former associates and state employees in his administration pleaded guilty or were convicted of federal felonies, including bribery, kickbacks, and perjury, according to an October 1, 2005 report by Steve Stanek for the Heartland Institute.

The governor's former campaign manager and chief of staff, Scott Fawell, and Ryan both ended up with six and a half years in prison.

Four of the last seven Illinois governors have been indicted on charges related to influence peddling, and three were convicted. Anyone following the first trial of what could be many in the Board Games case knows that Blagojevich is targeted to be the fourth.

Ironically, Reuters reported on Ryan’s entering prison on November 7, 2007 and stated: “The scandals paved the way for Democrats to regain the Illinois governor's seat for the first time in more than a quarter century with Rod Blagojevich's election in 2002.”

The Board Games investigation was also known to be underway as top members of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's Administration were being investigated, arrested and convicted by the same prosecutors for crimes ranging from bid rigging to illegal hiring for city jobs in exchange for campaign support for Daley and the candidates he endorsed.

A January 26, 2004 Sun-Times article by Fran Spielman reported: “The dethroned head of Chicago’s scandal-scarred Hired Truck Program was charged with extortion and bribery in an indictment, unsealed this afternoon, stemming from a sweeping federal investigation of the $40 million-a-year city program.”

On January 10, 2005, the Associated Press reported that contractor, James Duff, whose family has raised money for Mayor Richard Daley's campaigns pleaded guilty to defrauding the city through a series of janitorial contracts “worth $100 million.”

Duff is part of a mob-connected family that has been closer to Daley than any other defendants charged in recent corruption cases. “The family has raised thousands of dollars for the mayor's campaign fund and socialized with him at Christmas parties and other events,” according to the Associated Press.

In this case, 5 family members were accused of getting city contracts that were reserved for businesses controlled and operated by women and minorities, when in fact, Windy City Maintenance was controlled by James Duff.

On March 20, 2008, the Chicago Tribune reported the Inspector General, David Hoffman, stated that:

“James Duff, who cheated the city and insurance companies out of millions of dollars, should be subject to the stiffest penalty outlined in policies drawn up in 2005 following a series of contracting scandals.”

But the Tribune then said: “Daley's administration has banned the head of Windy City Maintenance and two others convicted of contract fraud from doing business with the city for three years, despite a recommendation from the inspector general that they never be allowed to do work for City Hall again.”

"Allowing the defendants in this case to be eligible for city contracts in the future sends a message that is inconsistent with deterrence and integrity in the system," Inspector General Hoffman said.

"If racketeering, fraud and money laundering only merit three years' debarment, then it will be hard to convince other contractors that their misconduct will result in a powerful financial sanction," he said in the Tribune report.

The last two presidents of the notoriously corrupt Cook County Board include a father-son Stroger tag team. John Stroger left office after he had a stroke in 2006, and he died in January 2008.

His 2002 campaign finance committee was headed by Rezko, which means Rezko was a might busy guy being he also served as the top rainmaker of fundraising for both Blagojevich and Obama during the same time period.

The Cook Country Board was also under the gun at the same time that the Board Games investigation was being conducted. On September 22, 2006, ABC News in Chicago reported that:

“FBI agents armed with search warrants carried out raids at several Cook County offices in downtown Chicago Thursday in connection to an investigation in to political patronage hiring. Agents are expected to return Friday.”

ABC pointed out that the feds have been all over the Daley administration, the Blagojevich administration, and they were all over Cook County government. Agents armed with subpoenas and requests for information were at all three of the medical facilities, the hospitals, and the forest preserve district.

“We don't know how many different investigations of corruption are going on countywide, but the target seems to be allegations of political shenanigans when it comes too hirings and promotions,” ABC News stated.

Since November 2006, a Federal court-appointed monitor has been overseeing the hiring practices in Cook County, and as recently as April 10, 2008, she reported that political hiring is alive and well in Cook County with President Todd Stroger running the Board.

Julia Nowicki, “who monitors about 12,000 jobs under Stroger and at the Bureau of Health, said she has hundreds of old and dozens of current patronage complaints -- including claims an entire department under Stroger is a patronage haven,” according to the April 10, 2008 Sun-Times.

Last but not least, Obama knew about the Operation Board Games investigation during his year-long wheeling and dealing escapade with Rezko to arrange the purchase of the mansion and lot, and any claim to the contrary by the "I did not know" candidate is ludicrous.

On July 18, 2004, nearly a year before Obama bought the mansion, Chicago Tribune reporters Ray Gibson, Crystal Yednak, Ray Long and Jane Fritsch wrote that: “Blagojevich adviser tied to appointee; Doctor, fundraiser co-owned condos.”

A podiatrist, Fortunee Massuda, selected to a serve “on a powerful state health-care oversight panel is a partner in a real estate venture with a top Blagojevich fundraiser and counselor who recommended her appointment,” the report stated.

Massuda's connection to Antoin Rezko, the Blagojevich fundraiser and adviser, was not publicly disclosed when the governor appointed her to the Health Facilities Planning Board on August 12, 2003, the Times pointed out.

The report also noted that Massuda was one of “several members” appointed by Blagojevich to sit on the board, “after the governor won legislative approval” to overhaul its membership. That would be the “legislative approval” that Obama signed off on.

On January 8, 2005, the Sun-Times reported that Blagojevich's own father-in-law said the governor’s fund-raising chief Christopher Kelly, "trades appointments to commissions for checks for $50,000" to Blagojevich’s political fund.

In May 2005, news came that Levine had been indicted on 27 counts of official corruption and was facing a possible life sentence in prison.

On September 1, 2005, nearly four months before Obama bought the lot, the Tribune obtained a copy of a June 2005 subpoena issued to the TRS fund and reported that:

“Federal investigators have asked the state teachers' pension system for records involving a cadre of political insiders, ranging from prominent GOP fundraisers to a close adviser to Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich.”

“The subpoena seeks records for more than two dozen people and businesses, including several clout-heavy Republicans and Democrats with years of influence in state and national politics. Some of those named have done business with the pension fund, while others have no apparent connection to the board.”

The report notes that one of “the most prominent names in the subpoena is Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a close confidant and major Blagojevich fundraiser.”

The revelation in the Tribune most relevant to Obama going ahead with his “boneheaded“ deal, was the comment that the subpoena also called for records of Rezko’s “wife's firm as well as records of some of his business associates.”

Also in September 2005, Steve Loren and Joe Cari pleaded guilty and Cari’s plea agreement mentioned Stuart Levine and an "associate," whom the media quickly reported was Rezko.

Obama's purchase of that mansion was the result of pure greed. By the time he bought the lot, Obama knew Blagojevich was going down and would not be the presidential candidate. He also knew that he would be pulled off the bench as the second choice, but he went ahead with the deal anyways.

Illinois citizens are sick of paying the cost of corruption. A September 26, 2007 News Release by Steve Stanek of the Heartland Institute carried the headline: “Proposed Tax Hike Would Give Chicago Nation’s Highest Sales Tax Burden”

“Chicagoans would face an 11 percent sales tax rate, highest in the nation, if Cook County officials go through with a plan to more than triple the county’s portion of the area’s sales tax,” Stanek wrote.

An October 14, 2007 Sun-Times report by Tim Novak and Fran Spielman noted that,
“When Mayor Daley asked Chicagoans to cough up $293 million more next year to finance the cost of city government, there's one tax he failed to mention: The Corruption, Waste and Mismanagement Tax.”

“It's almost impossible to calculate the cost of the Hired Truck, city hiring, minority contracting and police corruption scandals,” they wrote. “More than 1,400 people have staked claims to the $12 million fund created to compensate victims of the city's rigged hiring system.”

Well over $2 million in legal fees, and counting, have been paid to federal hiring monitor appointed in 2005 to oversee city hiring, the report said, “by a federal judge livid with the city for making a mockery of the decree that was supposed to end political hiring and firing, but never did.”

According to the Sun-Times, Hundreds of thousands of additional legal fees were spent for attorneys who represented Daley, the City Council and the Black Caucus in the case.

On February 1, 2008, Steve Stanek reported that the “Chicago City Council has approved the biggest property tax hike in the city's history, plus higher taxes and fees on a host of other items.”

“Other items to see tax or fee hikes,” the report noted, “include liquor, telephone service, natural gas, car leases, DVD rentals, and city vehicle stickers.”

The tax hikes also included a five-cent tax on each bottle of bottled water sold in the city.

Corruption was the argument raised by city aldermen who opposed the tax hikes.

"Nothing has eroded public confidence in our local government more than the constant drumbeat of criminal indictments and convictions of people who have enriched themselves at public expense," said Alderman Joe Moore during the floor debate, according to the report.

"And nothing has made the public more cynical than the endless string of broken promises to end business as usual in city government."

"How many bottles of water must be sold to pay for the $12 million fund created to compensate victims of the city's rigged hiring system?" Moore said, referring to a lawsuit settlement the city is still paying for years of corrupt hiring practices that favored politically connected persons for jobs and promotions, Stanek reports.

A March 8, 2008 report by Stanek in Budget & Tax News on a Cook County Board Meeting in late December 2008 reported that:

“Complaints from thousands of angry taxpayers and infighting among county commissioners have held off nearly $890 million of proposed tax and fee hikes in Cook County, Illinois.”

According to Stanek, taxpayers flooded the county commissioners with phone calls, emails, and letters of protest, “apparently to good effect.” The report noted that:

“Dozens of former Chicago city workers and close associates of the Daley administration have been convicted of crimes in recent years. Illinois' immediate past governor and scores of his associates have been convicted of federal crimes, and current Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), his wife, and associates of theirs are the apparent targets of several federal criminal probes.”

“Some Blagojevich administration officials have been convicted of crimes related to their involvement with state government.”

During the board meeting, Democratic Cook County Commissioner Forest Claypool said public pressure against any tax or fee increases "has been intense."

According to the report, Claypool believes "the constant backdrop of news stories about government corruption and waste here in the county and in Chicago and Springfield has shown people they really are paying corruption and dysfunction taxes."

"I think people are realizing that paying more taxes is simply enabling decrepit and dysfunctional government," he said.

During the meeting, Republican Cook County Commissioner, Tony Peraica, said: "The best way to fight tax increases is by fighting the corruption that drains tens of millions of dollars from the county budget."

Peraica has long complained of illegal patronage hiring, rigged contracts, and other waste and corruption in Cook County, according to Staneck‘s report.

And let there be no doubt, Obama is a member of this corrupt gang. On January 22, 2007 ABC News in Chicago announced that Senator Obama “is supporting Mayor Daley's re-election bid despite a series of City Hall corruption scandals.”

Mayor Daley endorsed Obama for president a few weeks ago and the mayor's brother Bill is now an Obama advisor, the report noted.

“So in the spirit of political payback, Obama is endorsing Daley for re-election over two African American challengers despite a series of City Hall corruption scandals that Obama called deeply troubling as recently as a few months ago.”

ABC reported that Obama said, “Daley's overall record, his style of inclusion and his love of Chicago make him a better choice than challengers.”

Obama also endorsed Daley's running mates for City Clerk, Miguel Del Valle, and Stepanie Neeley, for Treasurer, ABC News added. It should be noted, that the last City Clerk just got out of prison after being convicted in the Hired Truck scandal, and has written a book about the corruption in the Daley administration.

Five months after Obama publicly endorsed Daley, a report by David Jackson and John McCormick in the June 12, 2007 Tribune noted that:

“Obama endorsed former Ald. Dorothy Tillman (3rd), calling her "a very early supporter of my campaign." Tillman was then under fire for her stewardship of the scandal-plagued Harold Washington Cultural Center, where contracts benefited members of her family.

“Obama supported the re-election of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, whose administration is embroiled in corruption probes.”

And during the race for Cook County Board president, Obama predictably endorsed Todd Stroger over a Republican and was criticized for calling Stroger "a good progressive" despite allegations of job-rigging to favor members of Stroger's 8th Ward organization,” according to the report.

On September 5, 2007, the New York Post reported that: “A man who has long been dogged by charges that the bank his family owns helped finance a Chicago crime figure will host a Windy City fund-raiser tonight for Senator Barack Obama.”

Alex Giannoulias became Illinois state treasurer last year after Obama vouched for him, has pledged to raise $100,000 for the senator's Oval Office bid, the Post noted.

When Giannoulias was questioned by the Tribune in March 2006 about loans made between 1994 and 2002, to companies controlled by convicted bookmaker and prostitution ring promoter, Michael Giorango, he said the bank's decisions were made while he was still in law school, when he wasn't a full-time bank employee.

But the Tribune later found records that showed Broadway Bank made nearly $12 million in additional mortgage loans to Giorango in 2005, when Giannoulias was overseeing the bank's loans.

Obama knew the September 2007 fundraising affair would draw attention in Chicago so he tried to make sure it remained unknown. On September 5, 2007, Lynn Sweet, wrote in the Sun-Times:

“Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) omits from his Wednesday public schedule a fund-raiser hosted by Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias at a restaurant in Chicago's Greektown community. The event is closed to the press and a campaign spokesman, Ben LaBolt, said in response to my e-mail query this morning that a pool reporter will not be allowed in the reception.”

On April 22, 2007, the Tribune noted that City Hall records show Michelle Obama began work as a $60,000-a-year mayoral assistant to Richard Daley in September of 1991.

At City Hall, Michelle formed close friendships with Valerie Jarrett, and many other top Daley aides, including former Corporation Counsel Susan Sher and David Mosena, who was the mayor's chief of staff when Michelle first joined his administration.

“All have long since left the city payroll,” the Tribune wrote, “but are loyal to the mayor and now the Obamas.”

On June 13, 2006, Michelle’s employer, the University of Chicago announced that, "Valerie Jarrett has been appointed as the new Chair of the University of Chicago Medical Center Board and also Chair of a newly created Executive Committee of that board. She has also been named Vice-Chair of the University's Board of Trustees."

According to the announcement, Jarrett "served for eight years in City of Chicago government posts, first as Deputy Corporation Counsel for Finance and Development, then as Deputy Chief of Staff for Mayor Richard Daley in 1991," and, "as Commissioner of the Department of Planning and Development from 1992 through 1995."

Jarrett served on Obama’s US Senate campaign finance committee and serves on Obama’s presidential campaign finance committee along with Alex Giannoulias and Mayor Daley’s brother Bill.

The political mafia of Illinois now plans to move the Chicago brand of corruption to Washington in a U-Haul hooked up to their second choice candidate. Americans will never allow it to happen. They will either vote for McCain or not at all.

If Obama becomes the nominee, the Republicans will unleash a non-stop expose of Obama in the mainstream media that will make the swift boat attacks against John Kerry seem trivial. Only this time, they won't have to make lies because the truth will be on their side.

The tracking of the subplots that developed as a result of the Board Games investigation, has revealed a spider-web of corruption that spread from the Chicago Loop to O'Hare Airport to the Illinois Tollway, all the way to bid-rigging in Iraq, with Iraqi-born billionaire, Nadhmi Auchi, owner of General Mediterranean Holdings, a Luxemburg-based conglomerate with investments all over the world in everything from defense contractors to pharmaceuticals, at the center of many schemes.