MP3: 30-Minute Seg­ment
REALAUDIO NB: This RealAu­dio stream con­tains both FTRs 653 and 654 in sequence. Each is a 30 minute broad­cast.

Intro­duc­tion: As nov­el­ist William Faulkner observed–“the past is never dead and buried, it isn’t even past.” As we look to the per­ilous future which President-elect Obama must nav­i­gate, it is impor­tant to antic­i­pate some of the avenues of attack that the forces opposed to him might use. This pro­gram explores a web of asso­ci­a­tions in Chicago that con­nect Obama to the urban polit­i­cal machine of the Daley fam­ily and–more importantly–to a milieu of slum­lords who’ve gen­er­ated much of their wealth at the expense of poor African-Americans. (As dis­turb­ing as this con­nec­tion is, Mr. Emory stresses that this is not nec­es­sar­ily to be held against Obama. Dave opined that no one can ever become Pres­i­dent or even a major party can­di­date with­out asso­ci­at­ing with some pretty unsa­vory indi­vid­u­als.) Of greater sig­nif­i­cance for our pur­poses is the fact that one of the prin­ci­pals in this slum­lord net­work–Syrian-born Antoine “Tony” Rezko described by some as Obama’s polit­i­cal godfather–has links to the Bush admin­is­tra­tion, GOP string-puller Karl Rove and to peo­ple asso­ci­ated with the Car­lyle Group. In addi­tion to Rezko’s links to the very Repub­li­can ele­ments who are ranged on the oppo­site side of the aisle from Obama, Rezko has links to ter­ror­ist ele­ments as well. (This is explored at greater length in FTR #655.) Interestingly–possibly sig­nif­i­cantly–Rezko’s ele­va­tion into the ranks of Illi­nois politi­cos came cour­tesy of Talat Oth­man, a close asso­ciate of the Bush fam­ily and admin­is­tra­tion, as well as the man who inter­ceded on behalf of the indi­vid­u­als and insi­tu­tions tar­geted by the Oper­a­tion Green Quest raids of 3/20/2002.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Orga­nized crime links of some of Obama’s Chicago slum­lord con­nec­tions; the untimely deaths of some of Obama’s slum­lord asso­ciates; review of the Grover Norquist/Karl Rove/GOP/Islamist connection.

1. Antoine “Tony” Rezko was more than a casual acquain­tance of Obama’s.

” . . . 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.’ . . .”

“Barack Obama-The Wiz­ard of Oz” by Eve­lyn Pringle; Scoop.co.NZ; 3/29/2008.

2. The Rezko milieu is fun­da­men­tally cor­rupt. Vet­eran lis­ten­ers will rec­og­nize the pat­tern of strate­gic lethal­ity man­i­fest­ing itself in the wake of the Rezko cor­rup­tion scan­dals. Many prin­ci­pal tar­gets of the inves­ti­ga­tion died as the inquiry unfolded.

” . . . 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. . . .”

Idem.

3. At the epi­cen­ter of Mr. Emory’s explo­ration of the Rezko/Obama/slumlord con­nec­tion is the polit­i­cal rela­tion­ship between Rezko and the polit­i­cal forces that will be work­ing to destroy Barack Obama and the United States. Rezko is deeply con­nected to the GOP, the Bush admin­is­tra­tion and, as we will see, Islamist ele­ments asso­ci­ated with the Under­ground Reich.

” . . . 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. . . .”

Idem.

4. The Obama/Rezko/slumlord milieu is linked to that of the GOP and George W. Bush through-among other elements-the Car­lyle Group and Karl Rove. These links will assume larger sig­nif­i­cance when we explore attempts at bad­jack­et­ing Obama in FTR #655.

” . . . 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 Chicago Sun-Times the Repub­li­can National Committee.

In the April 3, 2008, 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. . . .”

“Barack Obama-Subplots of Oper­a­tion Board Games” by Eve­lyn Pringle; Scoop.co.nz; 4/21/2008.

5. Con­clud­ing the pro­gram and look­ing ahead to FTR #655, it is sig­nif­i­cant that Tony Rezko was intro­duced into Illi­nois state gov­ern­ment by Talat Oth­man, a long­time asso­ciate of both Georges Bush, a for­mer direc­tor of Harken Energy (one of Bush’s failed energy com­pa­nies), a pro­tege of the BCCI milieu and a direc­tor of Grover Norquist and Karl Rove’s Islamic Institute–the point of inter­face between the GOP and the Islamist ter­ror fund­ing appa­ra­tus in the United States.

” . . . Rezko was intro­duced to state pol­i­tics and Ryan’s pre­de­ces­sor, Jim Edgar, by Talat Oth­man, a long­time fundraiser for state and city gov­ern­ment officials. . . .”

“Arabs in Chicago Dis­cover Polit­i­cal Clout and Con­tro­versy” by Ray Hana­nia; Arab Amer­i­can Media Ser­vices;6/8/2005.