Sun Times' Natasha Korecki Scoops National with Jesse Jackson, Jr. Saga

The Chicago Sun Times is blessed with very talented reporters ( Dan Mihalopoulos, Chris Fusco, Tim Novak, Art Golab and especially Natasha Korecki). 

The columnists? Not so hot; with two notable exceptions -  Mark Brown and Steve Huntley are very exacting with the facts and wholly independent.  The reporters are old school fro the most part.

No reporter in Chicago did a better job of covering the hair-ball that was the Blago yarn, than Natasha Korecki. That particularly epic fabrication had more twists than a Chubby Checker retrospective on WTTW, or single Carol Marin column. 

At the core of the Blago trichobezoar remains the campaign for and election to the Presidency of Illinois Senator Barack Obama with its cast of characters* Homer would be hard-set to catalog - Tim Novak somehow managed to do so.

This weekend, the young woman who reported the Blagojevich Trials with the keenest eyes to detail, Natasha Korecki equals the tenacious pitbull Novak with a close look at Jesse Jackson, Jr. - Illinois' Congressional Howard Hughes. 

The first of two reports centers on the Federal probe of the reclusive Jackson's ( odd saying that) Congressional cash piles of taxpayer-lifted spondulices (archaic and so am I)**

The snowballing troubles of Jesse Jackson Jr. took a new turn Friday with the revelation that federal investigators have launched a probe into “suspicious activity” in the South Shore congessman’s finances.
Focusing on a completely new area of scrutiny for the son of the famed civil rights leader, the investigation is not related to former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s attempted sale of a U.S. Senate seat, a scandal that has ensnared Jackson in the past, sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Rather, the probe — based in the Washington, D.C., FBI field office —is focusing on “suspicious activity” involving the congressman’s finances related to his House seat and the possibility of inappropriate expenditures, the sources said. . . .News of the probe — first disclosed by the Sun-Times — comes as questions increasingly swirl around Jackson’s absence from not only his official duties in Washington, but the campaign trail as the Nov. 6 election nears.

Citing exhaustion, Jackson, 47, stopped working, according to his staff, on June 10. His staff did not make that known until two weeks later.
He went to a clinic in Arizona then to the Mayo Clinic, which released a statement saying he was being treated for a bipolar disorder. Jackson is up for re-election Nov. 6 but has not campaigned since he won the Democratic primary in March.

The next places the hairball, not unlike Felonius  Guv doing a few semesters in Club Fed Colorado, into voter responsibility and same-old-same-old Cook County Context:

In Jackson’s South Side and south suburban 2nd Congressional District, even people who don’t like him think he will easily get re-elected.
“I don’t see how he can deal with all these problems and still deal with the district,” said South Shore resident Carlos Jones, 64. “But I believe he’s going to get re-elected and try to make amends.”
William Davenport, 29, said he knows Jackson “has definitely been in hot water with Blagojevich and has issues with his [mental] stability.” Now the new investigation “makes me wonder what’s going on with him.”
But, Davenport added, “The Jackson name carries a lot of weight around here.”
The newly disclosed federal probe is not related to the attempted sale of the U.S. Senate seat that figured in Blagojevich’s corruption conviction, but it’s focusing on “suspicious activity” involving the congressman’s finances related to his House seat and the possibility of inappropriate expenditures, sources said.
The probe was active in the weeks before Jackson took a leave from his U.S. House post on June 10.
“I don’t think this is going to affect his re-election in 2012,” said a Democratic strategist who didn’t want to be named. “I gotta believe that the day after his election, the gun goes off on his next federal primary.”
Jackson has been through the political wringer since 2008. He was initially under federal scrutiny tied to charges leveled against Blagojevich. In 2010, it was revealed that a donor to Jackson, Raghuveer Nayak, told federal authorities that Jackson asked him to approach Blagojevich with what the ex-governor believed to be a $1.5 million offer to be appointed to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama.

Sun Times reporters, especially the great ones like Novak and Korecki, scoop up the hairballs of political hypocrisy and present them to the careful reader and thoughtful voter.  They do great civic service and honor their craft.

The editorial boards of both Chicago papers never seem to read, much less understand the work of gifted writers like Korecki, Novak and Kass at the Tribune.  

The editorial boards send in the clowns and vigorously licking cats; they help elect the mopes and frauds and grifters as much as the "benighted" electorate. Psssst! Read the reporters and skip the editorial pages. Well done, again, Ms. Korecki!

*The following fact pattern was out in the open long before Obama severed his ties to Rezko (sometime in late 2006): In 1983, Rezko started raising a lot of money for Chicago politicians. In 1989, he and his partner Daniel Mahru started vacuuming up deals with the city to develop low-income housing, despite having virtually zero experience in the field. They proceeded to obtain over $100 million in city, state, and federal grants and bank loans to develop 30 run-down properties into affordable-housing projects, earning $6.9 million for themselves. By 2007, the city had sued them numerous times for failing to heat these properties; over half of the properties had fallen into foreclosure, and six of them were boarded up.

Obama helped put one of these deals together during his time as a junior associate at Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland. Other lawyers at Davis Miner helped Rezko acquire half of the properties that fell into disrepair. And many of these properties were located in the district Obama represented as an Illinois state senator. Nonetheless, Obama told the Chicago Sun-Times that he was unaware of Rezko’s growing reputation as a slumlord until he read Sun-Times reporter Tim Novak’s two-part series on the subject. So we are to believe (yet again) that Obama was the last person to know what one of his longtime friends was up to. (National Review June 5, 2008)

**

spon·du·licks

   [spon-doo-liks]  Show IPA

noun Older Slang .

money; cash.

Also, spon·du·lix.

Origin: 
1855–60, Americanism ;  origin uncertain

A Real Reporter, Natasha Korecki, Talks to Tony Rezko - America's Man in the Iron Mask

The Chicago Sun Times is blessed with great reporters.  It's editorial board seems stuck on the "daffy" button and with the exceptions of Steve Huntley and Mark Brown Sun Times columnists seem to have all of the gravitas and substance of an MTV documentary.

Chicago and the nation would never know about Allison Davis, President Obama's former boss and bullet-proof slum property owner who is 'this-close' to Valerie Jarrett, Sneedless to say without Tim Novak and  Chris Fusco - two pit-bullishly independent investigative reporters.  They also unearthed most of the dodgier aspects of Koschman Saga, as well as the career of Daley scion snouts in the public troughs.  Mark Konkol and his Southtown Star colleague Steve Metsch are solid voices for real people in Chicago's neighborhoods.

Natasha Korecki has always impressed me as a singularly and refreshingly honest and tough reporter.  Ms. Korecki's accounts of the Blag trial were essential documents.  One of the shadowy victims of retiring Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's Star Chamber is Tony Rezko.  The man was everywhere and with anyone who could both move and shake.

( looks just like the Old Petrillo!)

Rezko's role in President Obama's ascent to the national teleprompter remains a '" Mere distraction! "Nothing to see here, Folks!  Move it along!  Who cares about a 15' property bargain?  Really. Pay np attention to man in the iron mask!" Tony went away , when the crowd in Grant Park were shedding tears of pure joy that Our Post Racial and Post Political Politician snagged the Post in the West Wing.

Tony Rezko  is the Obama Justice Department's Utility Insider - trotted out when need and then sent to the showers.  Rezko padded wallets and campaign accounts and sits in a concrete and re-bar cubicle on the Federal dimes. Fellow Obama Distraction Bill Ayers bombed Federal buildings and has an Illinois Pension.Make sense?  We might not get to the root and marrow of the Obama Myth until long after the Mormon straps his mutt on the roof of Marine One for a chopper ride.

However, Natasha Korecki scooped and interview with America's Man in the Iron Mask - Tony Rezko -

In a wide-ranging telephone interview from prison with the Chicago Sun-Times on Wednesday, Rezko refused to talk about his former friend who went on to be elected president. 

Natasha Korecki immediately tells the reader that Rezko will not chat, utter, rat-out, or insinuate anything about his Chicago Real Estate disciple and political bundler.  Blago?  You bet. Why not.

Rezko was convicted of Blago Bog-trotting.  Candidate Obama and President Obama never got moist undies due to Mr. Rezko and Natasha Korecki perfumes her narrative and interview with the bog itself.

His ( Tony Rezko's) trial took place in the Spring of 2008, in the midst of a heated presidential primary between Hillary Clinton and Obama. In one debate, Clinton chastised Obama for having ties to Rezko, who had poured money into the campaign fund of Obama earlier in his career.
Rezko was behind bars when authorities arrested Blagojevich in December of 2008 and charged him with attempting to sell Obama’s vacant U.S. Senate seat, citing recorded conversations.
“I think it was very unsmart of him to have conversations when he did about Obama’s replacement,” Rezko said. “But he is not the evil person who is been portrayed over the last few years. I think he did good things for the state of Illinois.”
“I blame nobody but myself, no. I have no ill feeling toward him [Blagojevich]. Or anybody else. Even Stuart Levine. He did what he had to do.” Rezko was referring to the key witness who testified against him.

With whom do Tony have 'issues' and the odd 'ill-feeling?'  Thanks to a real reporter, Natasha Korecki, this mythopoeic regime occupying the White House may have more such inquiry from citizens.  Forward!

 Thanks Ms. Korecki!

http://www.suntimes.com/12873845-761/tony-rezko-says-blagojevich-knew-about-pay-to-play-for-state-posts.html

News Man Tim Novak - The Only Eye-on Allison Davis

It’s been six years since five Chicago government pension plans hired DV Urban Realty — a start-up investment firm founded by then-Mayor Richard M. Daley’s nephew Robert G. Vanecko and President Barack Obama’s friend and former boss Allison S. Davis — to manage $68 million in retirement funds.

Those investments haven’t gone well for the pension funds that represent Chicago teachers, police officers, other city employees and transit workers. The funds have paid DV Urban a total of $7.2 million, including $4.7 million in fees to manage the small share of the pension funds’ money and another $2.5 million for a sister company to oversee the operations of three buildings bought with pension money.

Pension officials — including Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s two top financial advisers — are unhappy. By their estimation, the value of the funds’ real estate investments with DV Urban has fallen by 28 percent, or about $19 million.

(emphasis my own)

President Obama's pal and former boss ripping off the folks? Well, hush my beak!

That is news Goo-goos, Go-Alongs and their Media cheerleaders want hushed up.

I never hear Thundering Dick Simpson rail against real corruption around this burg. I never hear Abner Mikva beef about the cozy Progressive bed-bugs that have dominated the bad old Democratic Machine's mattress for decades.

Blago, Rezko, and Daley relatives get plenty of news ink, but only the great Tim Novak of the Chicago Sun Times keeps his choppers locked on the butts of IVI-IPO champion boondoggler Allison Davis.

God Bless Tim Novak! Now, if only an editorial board in this Crossroads of Crusading Crooks would grow a pair on tenth the size of the set Tim Novak is packing, we'd be informed.

It seems, Allison Davis is everywhere Federal, State and Local tax-dollars get dumped into a sanctioned cache of cash - HUD Money, Pension Funds, and Save the Children coffee cans. The Sun times Editorial Board did Old Allison a solid and did not post his photo along with Tim Novak's report. That Allison Davis up above with post shine -box President Obama.

Allison Davis is bullet-proof with Medill School Power Rangers and Bruce Dold's Chicago Tribune Editorial Morning Zoo Crew.
Davis Père ( his boy Cullen was briefly in the jackpot when a toddler was crushed by Cullen's rusty gate) might be bullet proof, but if turns around and down he will find Tim Novak's choppers locked on his rump.

DV Urban turned a small profit — about $500,000 — when it sold one of the most valuable properties, a 344-unit apartment building at 1212 S. Michigan Ave., for $65.5 million last Nov. 30, county records show.
DV Urban bought the building using $9.9 million in money from the pension funds, records show. The pension funds will get back about $9 million from the sale, according to DV Urban’s countersuit.

Davis, 72, and Vanecko, 47, both of Chicago, founded DV Urban in 2005. Vanecko has given sworn testimony in a legal deposition that his father, Dr. Robert M. Vanecko, introduced him to Davis, a well-known lawyer and developer.

Every Chicagoan knows the names of Patrick Daley and Mr. Vanecko, but I'll be a Sacajawea Gold coin that less than a tennis double in each word has heard of Allison Davis.

Davis ran a small Chicago law firm that hired Obama after his graduation from Harvard Law School. Davis eventually left the law firm and became a business partner with one of his clients, Tony Rezko, in a venture to build affordable housing with taxpayer money.
Davis became a central figure in the trials of Rezko, a top fund-raiser for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, and William F. Cellini, a longtime fund-raiser for Illinois Republicans, who were both convicted on corruption charges.According to testimony, once, during a meeting with Rezko and another Blagojevich fund-raiser, Christopher Kelly, Davis suggested they could raise money from Thomas Rosenberg, a Hollywood movie producer who also owned an investment firm that managed state pension money. Rosenberg tesified he was told he would lose his state deal unless he gave money to Blagojevich’s campaign. Cellini was convicted in the shakedown of Rosenberg. Davis was never charged with any crime.

Gee, Thundering Dick Simpson, one might get the idea that things aren't all on the square, on the up-and-up. Speak on it, Son! Testify!

Readers might also like this one from Tim Novak
http://www.suntimes.com/business/10416320-417/both-sides-file-lawsuits-in-flap-over-city-pension-fund-investments.html

Sun Times Demands Eddie V Do-Over"" Let's Find a Judge Who Will Do What We Want!"

Months ago Judge Shadur sentenced Edward R. Vrdolyak and the Sun Times Editorial Board screamed like Rag Sheenies. They fully expected Eddie V to go to the Guillotine!

They screamed the same way about George Ryan.

They Scream about everything, They are screamers.

Judge Richard Posner is a scream. He looks like Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm and from everything that I've read about and by him over the last thirty years, I'll bet he is as about as warm and as genuine as that character. Take a look at this - right out of the HBO script -

Posner noted that anyone once prominent in government can gin up a lot of letters.

"The business with the letters? It's ridiculous," he argued. "You have a person like this, he could generate a thousand letters."

'Letters????!!!! Anyone can get letters! You gotta write letters to get letters! I got Letters! Track, Glee Club! Alger Hiss Society! Letters? What's Letters?'


Posner's the appeals judge, anti-trust litigation game setter ( Founder of Compass Lexecon* - the Dictionary of getting, acquiring or keeping your billions of dollars), University of Chicago Professor, Abortion Friendly Judge, Dope Friendly Judge and Sun Times Editorial Board friendly judge.

I have always liked and admired Eddie Vrdolyak.

Judge Posner is a Protected White Elephant - 'Oh so, thoroughly above reproach, Me Lawd!'

I am thoroughly unimpressed by Appeals Judge Posner. He's an Ayn Rand character in the flesh. Posner plays with Microsoft and Fast Eddie does deals for people. I'll cotton to Alderman Vrodolyak any day.

Judge Posner screams that Eddie Vrodolyak should be sentenced in a judicial do-over.

The Sun Times Mensa Our Gang Comedians scream along with the Judge. Hell, I'll bet they asked the Judge to do the screaming.

I would love to see Sun Times pitbull journalist sink is buckers into the career and cases and confederates of Judge Richard Posner. They won't take the leash off of Novak because he'd tear buttocks -cheek to cheek - off of Posner and Pals. They'd make fast Eddie seem like a stylite.

It is interesting what Judge Posner screamed, when damning the already tried, convicted and sentenced Edward R. Vrdolyak: - "If you get old enough, you can commit a white-collar crime, and nothing's going to happen to you,"

Sic em, Novak!

Founded in 1977, Compass Lexecon's Chicago office pioneered the application of economics to legal and regulatory matters. We currently have a professional staff of more than 200 individuals, including 60 highly skilled Ph.D. economists and econometricians and more than 60 other individuals with advanced degrees located in seven offices.

Our practices are led by some of the most recognized and respected economic thinkers in the world including six former chief economists of the Department of Justice Antitrust Division. We maintain relationships with numerous high-profile academic affiliates, including Nobel Prize winners.

Antitrust, our founding practice area, remains a central part of our business. Our practice areas have expanded to include other areas of litigation including securities, intellectual property, accounting, risk management, valuation, corporate governance and employment matters. In all these areas, we often provide detailed damages analyses. Our non-litigation-related practice areas include matters such as business consulting, regulatory policy and public policy.

Compass Lexecon is a wholly owned subsidiary of FTI Consulting, Inc., a global business advisory firm.

http://www.compasslexecon.com/about_us/Pages/default.aspx

'Crazy Legs' Quinn Side Steps Madigan's Tax-Guard and Waltzes into a Hay-Maker!

Governor Pat Quinn is a lovely man. Speaker Mike Madigan is probably a lovely guy as well. Mike Madigan is as easy to pin down, publicly and privately, as it is the very last olive oil coated snow pea on a huge plate with a dinner fork, while thirty formally dressed celebrities ask you questions about quantum mechanics while being taped by the crew of 60 Minutes for their Christmas Special.

The difference being that Pat Quinn has made a career of crafting a public persona as a guy who cuts his own lawn with an ancient Sears Craftsman 18 in. Cut Path Reel Mower, Hand Pushed, like the one he used twenty years ago against George Ryan, who hired guys to cut his lawn; and Mike Madigan, could care less what I, the Sun Times editorial board, PETA, Pope Benedict XVI, Perez Hilton, Rev. James Meeks, Carol Marin, WTTW, or the cast Blue Man Group think of him.

Mike Madigan is the Packey McFarland* of politics. Muhammad Ali once called Chicago welter-weight Packey McFarland the greatest boxer who never one a championship.

Pat Quinn is ballromm dancer in the ring with Packey McFarland, the king of the Stockyards.

Tim Novak, the only real investigative writer at the Sun Times wrote this on July 4th:

The governor spent two hours Friday -- a holiday for most state workers -- discussing the state's $9 billion deficit with state Sen. James Meeks, who backs the tax hike. Their meeting came one day after Quinn met with 27 female legislators.

The governor says he plans to sit down with more lawmakers in the coming days.

"I have a number of other legislators -- Democrat and Republican, House and Senate -- I will be meeting with over the next few days,'' Quinn told reporters. "We believe in consensus-building.''

The Senate approved a tax-hike proposal in May, but it failed in the House.

Madigan won't support Quinn's income-tax increase without support from Republican legislators, leaving the state without a budget, which could force drastic cuts in social service programs across Illinois.

Quinn didn't blame Madigan for the stalemate over the state's budget crisis. But Meeks did.

"I do not think the governor is the problem,'' said Meeks, who is also pastor of Salem Baptist Church, which has one of the biggest congregations in Illinois.

"I ain't scared to call the speaker out -- he ain't my daddy,'' Meeks said. "If the speaker wanted this solved, it would be solved. For whatever reason, he doesn't want to work this out. Pat Quinn is trying to do everything he can to save social services.''

Meeks accused Madigan of playing politics by refusing to pass the income-tax increase without support from Republican legislators.

"That's a political decision, not based on what's right and wrong,'' Meeks said. "I think the Democrats bear the burden here because we're in leadership. We can pass any bill.''

Madigan spokesman Steve Brown said "the speaker is attempting to work cooperatively with the governor. The speaker supports a tax increase, but it's going to have to be a bipartisan effort. He [Meeks] ought to focus his efforts on Republicans.''

Political observers say they think Madigan is using the state budget crisis to politically weaken Quinn, who plans to run for election next year. One of Quinn's opponents in the Democratic primary could be Madigan's daughter, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. She is also mulling a run for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Roland Burris.

Progress Illinois, SEIU's web comic book, uses Tim Novak's piece as a Madigan smear offering; however, it appears that the SEIU goon tactics in Springfield over the last few weeks have become tiresome to legislators as well as tax-payers.

Governor Quinn might try to 'side-step' Mike Madigan, but he will have canvass all over his back, when he hears the end of the Ten Count. Governor Pat Quinn has danced to SEIU's and Rev. James 'Someone Else's Money' Meeks hornpipes and Mike Madigan is a balanced hitter.

The more the media try to explain the motives of Mike Madigan, the more Pat Quinn will step into a Madigan Hay-Maker.

*

During his entire career, Packey engaged in 104 bouts and lost just the one. He never forgot the loss and as he moved up in competition, placed caution first and preferred to outbox his man with shiftiness and speed rather than try to put him out and risk getting caught by a lucky punch. For the remainder of his career, he was floored only twice – by Ray Bronson and “Cyclone” Johnny Thompson.

Packey grew up in a tough section of Chicago (“back of the stock yards”) and learned early on to use his fists to take care of himself in fights on the street and in the handball courts. During his first year in the ring (1904), at fifteen years of age, Packey lost the only fights he would ever lose. Harry Gilmore Jr. noticed him in 1906 and guided him to some impressive wins over Billy Finucane, Fred Gilmore, Young Morris, and Jack Fox and, in 1907, wins over Steve Kinsey, Joe Galligan, Kid Goodman, Maurice Sayers, Charlie Neary, and Benny Yanger. Another win over Goodman and victories over Kid Herman (newspaper) and Bert Keyes earned him a match with Freddie Welsh, the unbeaten Britisher.

Packey gained a decision over Welsh in ten rounds at Milwaukee on February 21, 1908 and followed this great win by defeating Jimmy Britt in six rounds at Colma on April 11, 1908.

When accusations of favoritism surfaced after the first McFarland-Welsh bout, fans clamoured for a rematch. A second bout with Welsh was held on July 4, 1908 at Los Angeles. It ended in a draw after twenty-five rounds. Welsh showed himself very clever and skillful at close quarters while McFarland was better at a distance.

http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Lodge/6525/Article-PackeyMcFarland.htm

Steve Huntley - Sun Times' Last Man Standing for Balance

whalen wrote:
Boo hoo, Steve. The Neanderthals lost the elections in 2008, remember? Pardon our dust as we rush past the Cro-Magnon years to enact much-belated initiatives before it is too late for all of us!

Well, Whalen - the last time Progressives had such a 'Pardon Our Dust' victory was the advent of Prohibition. From 1919 until its Repeal, America was set-back on its heels, Whalen.

Sorry, I can be prickly . . .Whalen , or as some Progressive might opine. without the adverbial ending there. With John Dewey*-esque devotion to 'inquiry' over fact, a Progressive Whalen responded to Chicago Sun Times columnist Steve Huntley - The Last Man Standing - over his revelatory column on Progressive Force-feeding of the Government Goose.

John Dewey is the father of radical progressive thought in America and the beauty who's views on education slaughtered Public Education**. Let it be pointed out -Oh, do - that John Dewey established a Lab School for the elites, while the unwashed masses could serve as lab-rats in an educational philosophy that pushed Public Education to eliminate the guts of education.

The study of how the American Government ( local,state and federal) has all but vanished; the canon of American Literature and British Literature has been diluted to a watery and sugary and under-nourishing swill; that for the Dewey Public Schools "inquiry" is the ethic - child should do as opposed to learn and they do not learn. With each new Hegelian/Marxist doctoral thesis comes a further murder of thought and history.

For Dewey and Progressives 'Inquiry' upon which an a priori goal - Gay Studies, Identity Politics in general, Group Thought is achieved and put in place. If you do not know a Concordat from a Magna Carta, a Peace of Wesphalia from a Piece of the Pie, then it is a fair chance that you are Public School Alum of the last forty years.

In that case,let's take this slowly - John Dewey was a philospher of education, society, and psycholgy at the University of Chicago, who was heavily influeced by the German thinker Hegel. who is actually the granddaddy of Marxist thought. John Dewey believed that 'inquiry' is the most important thing in life so long as the outcomes agree with that inquiry. Thus, if we inquire into poverty as rooted in Racism; all poverty results from racism. If failure results from poverty. racism caused failure & etc. Progressive inquiry arrives at a Pre-Determined outcome.

Gay Marriage is good; all opposition to Gay Marriage is evil; Gay Marriage is good.

Abortion is Women's Reproductive Health, Uterine Cancer is a Woman's Reproductive Health Issue; Uterine Cancer . . . Hey, get me a good Nuancer over here!

Dewey made the Artificial, Natural.

Take a look at the Media which offers a "Let's Look at Race Relations!" series.

The outcome is fixed - Systemic Racism, Imperialism, Class ism is always the conclusion. Whites are always bad and people of color are always good. Hence, no Race Crime can be committed by a person of color. Why? Don't matter just is and that is Dewey. Dewey Agree!

Dewey had clout ( Roger Baldwin, Jane Addams, Emma Goldman,I.F.Stone W.E.B. DuBois & etc.). Radical Progressive clout saw Dewey's Philosophy as a burglar bar with which to loot American History and geld American Education. Inquiry is not method it is a goal in Dewey Education.

Steve Huntley represents a mind-set that is valued by most Americans. The old Benthamite view of 'the most good for the most people.' Common Sense.

In Steve Huntley's June 26, 2009, he outlines the Progressive Agenda and the force feeding by the Democratic Leadership in the Congress at the direction of President Obama's White House:

Congress, driven by President Obama's ambitious political agenda, is out to be a jack of all trades. Just look at its to-do list for this year -- health-care reform, clean energy legislation, overhaul of financial regulation, a rewrite of immigration law, stimulus spending to prod the economy toward recovery. Whew! And with six months left in 2009, who knows what else might be added?

That list doesn't include such major business as considering a new U.S. Supreme Court nominee or a host of less sweeping but still significant bills, like a just-passed measure giving an overburdened Food and Drug Administration the duty of regulating tobacco. . . .
With Democrats in total control of the House and close to it in the Senate, fierce partisanship, long-cherished liberal goals and the pent-up energy of the Democratic left are driving the transformational agenda. There's no argument many of the bills address problems needing a fix, but that's best achieved with at least a degree of bipartisan support. Yet we're being force-fed a liberal prescription. A crowded agenda controlled by Democrats and a White House push for quick action crowd out competing views.

Regrettably, the major national media have been compliant. For example, this week ABC News offered an hour in prime time for Obama to monopolize the national discussion on health care.

Yet polls consistently show public discomfort with the implications of greater government control of medical services, worry about the costs and a high-level of satisfaction with their current health care among the majority with insurance. Recent news reminds us a public insurance option would open a new avenue for abuse of the taxpayer. Republican Rep. Peter Roskam of the northwest suburbs has started a "medi-fraud blog" tracking corruption and waste in Medicare and Medicaid. His latest entries note that in just the last week prosecutors broke up schemes in Detroit and Miami to defraud Medicare of $150 million.

Another issue is energy. Some of us think the emphasis should be more on energy security than green goals. Yes, we all want a cleaner planet, but our national security and economic future require the exploitation of abundant fossil fuels such as domestic coal and offshore oil as well as expansion of nuclear energy while we develop solar, wind and geothermal for the long term.

Similarly, the economic meltdown naturally leads to new regulation. Yet remember the Sarbanes-Oxley Act passed in 2002, after the accounting scandals, saddled business with expensive and complex regulations making U.S. enterprises less competitive.

The focus on regulation ignores government's role in the housing collapse. The Wall Street Journal reports Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who encouraged the mortgage excesses of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is at it again, urging the agencies to lower lending standards for condo buyers. Sounds like another dose of the easy credit that wrecked home values.

Obama and Democrats insist Congress works for the good of America in taking on so many projects. But the jack of all trades, as you may recall, is the master of none. Is that how you want the future of your health care or energy supply to be determined?

Columnist Steve Huntley, investigative journalist Tim Novak and Pultizer Prize winning cartoonist Jack Higgins maintain some semblance of thoughtful inquiry for Chicago, because they know that inquiry is not a goal upon which people are forced to agree.

Winning an election is only the beginning of government. The end of government is the preservation of the American Republic. Democrats and Republicans have been doing just that, until these last few months, it seems to me. Dewey has replaced the Founders Fathers for the Progressives. For now.

History has a way of Repealing itself!

*

Dewey is “attractive to those how are more impressed by our new control over natural forces than by the limitations to which that control is subject,” finding that Dewey’s philosophy “is in harmony with the age of industrialism and collective enterprise.” But it is Dewey’s underlying hubris that Russell singles out as “the greatest danger in our time” because “it is increasing the danger of a vast social disaster,” however unintentionally.

Russell’s fears, at least in part, have been realized. There are many who would, without hesitation, describe public education, in combination with other social, economic and political forces, a “vast social disaster.” There are, of course, many more that disagree.

http://home.earthlink.net/~fheapblog/id28.html

**

I believe that the only true education comes through the stimulation of the child's powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself. Through these demands he is stimulated to act as a member of a unity, to emerge from his original narrowness of action and feeling, and to conceive of himself from the standpoint of the welfare of the group to which he belongs. Through the responses which others make to his own activities he comes to know what these mean in social terms. The value which they have is reflected back into them. For instance, through the response which is made to the child's instinctive babblings the child comes to know what those babblings mean; they are transformed into articulate language and thus the child is introduced into the consolidated wealth of ideas and emotions which are now summed up in language.

I believe that this educational process has two sides-one psychological and one sociological; and that neither can be subordinated to the other or neglected without evil results following. Of these two sides, the psychological is the basis. The child's own instincts and powers furnish the material and give the starting point for all education. Save as the efforts of the educator connect with some activity which the child is carrying on of his own initiative independent of the educator, education becomes reduced to a pressure from without. It may, indeed, give certain external results, but cannot truly be called educative. Without insight into the psychological structure and activities of the individual, the educative process will, therefore, be haphazard and arbitrary. If it chances to coincide with the child's activity it will get a leverage; if it does not, it will result in friction, or disintegration, or arrest of the child nature. . . I believe that the community's duty to education is, therefore, its paramount moral duty. By law and punishment, by social agitation and discussion, society can regulate and form itself in a more or less haphazard and chance way. But through education society can formulate its own purposes, can organize its own means and resources, and thus shape itself with definiteness and economy in the direction in which it wishes to move. ( emphasis my own)

I believe that when society once recognizes the possibilities in this direction, and the obligations which these possibilities impose, it is impossible to conceive of the resources of time, attention, and money which will be put at the disposal of the educator.

I believe that it is the business of every one interested in education to insist upon the school as the primary and most effective interest of social progress and reform in order that society may be awakened to realize what the school stands for, and aroused to the necessity of endowing the educator with sufficient equipment properly to perform his task.

Chicago Daily Observer Connects the Allison Davis Dots Found By Sun Times' Tim Novak

Tim Novak of Chicago Sun Times has done more to put ’some’ light on the Progressive Machine; however, Mr. Novak’s great work scatters heaps of Dots that remain Unconnected on the political table.

His labors are Augean, but also like those of Sisyphus - much uphill groaning and heaving only to have the stone roll back.

Dan Kelley's timely piece might just prod the Lap Dogs to connect the piles of Dots:

If nothing else exposing Davis would serve a higher purpose: publicizing the blatant hypocrisy of the phony activists who are really reliable cogs in the Democratic Machine. A one time civil rights protester, who marched outside of City Hall, Davis proved to be someone who could be bought off by the system. His one time protégé, Obama means to overhaul the American economy and engage in a massive expansion of the size and scope of government activities. Like Davis, Obama, exempts himself from the rules and intends to live a life of ease and plenty. The president can jet off for a dinner date on Broadway without worrying about the hypocrisy of simultaneously asking all of us commoners to pay higher taxes and make sacrifices while reducing our wasteful use of energy and limiting our pollution causing habits.
Posing as a community activist is a tried and true way to advance your political and financial career in Democratic Chicago: the Shaw brothers, Bob and his late brother, Bill, were supposedly fair housing activists; Dorothy Tillman attended Chicago Board of Education meetings where she shouted down Angeline Caruso, a former acting school superintendent, and ridiculed Caruso’s frumpy appearance in the name of education activism; Luis Guiterez marched with Communists and Puerto Rican Nationalists, some of whom were later accused of committing acts of domestic terrorism; Marilyn Katz ran with the campus radicals, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, and protested the Viet Nam war while hurling missiles at the police before she became a public relations expert for the political machine; Jan Schakowsky and her unapologetic, convicted criminal spouse, Robert Cremer, are two other fakers. Interestingly enough, despite their varied backgrounds, these folks have something in common: all of these individuals seemed to fall into line as soon as their personal needs and wants were gratified and they were given a place at the head table. They have all been feeding from the public trough ever since. The former Soviets called such privileged leaders “the vanguard of the proletariat.”
Obama has accepted bushel baskets of money from Davis in the form of campaign contributions. He lobbied to place housing redevelopment funds in the hands of Davis and Rezko. Perhaps, a few dollars from the pension fund profiteering ended up in Obama’s campaign war chest too. Only time will tell as the investigation proceeds.
Someday soon, the president needs to explain his relationship with both men. Calling it another “boneheaded” move or claiming “This is not the Allison Davis that I once knew” may not cut it indefinitely. Laundering clean a stained reputation is not an easy task. Club soda does not remove all types of spots.

Click my Post Title for Dan Kelley's Expose of Chicago's Progressive Machine within its Very Nuanced Context and Chicago's Media's Feckless Disregard for Both.

Cleaning the Gutters - Our Trees and the Things They Deposit

Two weeks ago a poor guy in my Morgan Park neighborhood, Willie Whitaker, had the media crawling up his back, because he removed trees on his property.

Willie Whitaker must have his reasons for cutting down the 100-year-old oaks on his property in the Morgan Park neighborhood, but so far he's not letting on.

And his neighbors are pissed.

"This is insane," Carla Winterbottom told the SouthtownStar. "It took 100 years for some of these trees to grow, and now they're gone in 10 minutes."

Winterbottom is the head of Keeping Beverly Green. Unfortunately, there is no Keeping Willie Whitaker Green branch.

"They're my trees. They didn't pay for the trees. My trees are going to be cut," Whitaker told a SouthtownStar reporter before refusing to comment further.

Even the work crew - which counted 175 rings on one stump - was perplexed; the trees were healthy.

Theodore Richardson, who has lived on Longwood Drive across from Whitaker's yard since 1974, said, "He's another Mr. T."

Citing allergies, Mr. T., the Rush Street bouncer-turned-actor, cut down about 100 oak trees from his seven-acre estate in 1987, angering his neighbors in Lake Forest, the SouthtownStar reported.

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/The-Tree-Hater-of-Morgan-Park.html

Mr. Whitaker owns the property.

Wells Fargo Mortgage and I own mine.

The parkway on 108th Street runs along my property on which three mighty Maples were planted decades ago. The Parkway on my property was planted with these Green Giants. The City no longer cares for these mighty gifts of Nature, that toss roots into my foundation and sewer pipes -clog gutters with whirly-bird seeds creating a Planter of the Gutters! - break up the sidewalks & etc. Only God Can Make a Tree! Unless the former City Dept. of Forestry (RIP) planted the woody SOBs back when Kelly was Mayor. I have three such gifts of Nature and long dead City Largess! Thanks So Mucking Fuch! ...

I do not have the steel of spine of Mr. Whitaker and I do enjoy the shade; thus, it falls to my lot - and on my LOT - that I must get in the gutter.

I have an extension ladder ( 24' Aluminum) however the rope that pulls the extension section fouled and broke immediately upon inspection. Therefore, I set the ladder on the deck over back-door ( locked and note attached that Dad is up on the roof in OSHA compliance) and wearing my True Value faux leather working man's gloves, set my gnarled and horny fingers to the rungs and pushed my stumpy haunches up onto the stairway to heaven.

Eight steps up, I carefully eased my blubber up over the gutters and onto the roof, jackknifed my knees in safe balance, pulled the sturdy black bags from my pocket and began the hour long removal of gutter-clutter -whirly-bird plants, grown in honor of the recent wettings by nature, empty Marlboro Lights packs tossed up in celebratory good humor by passing young Americans, Wiffle Balls and the odd dead bird.

This is Nature's bounty and reminders of the Great Chain of Being. The whirly-birds are the seedlings that God in His Wisdom returns to Earth with Hope of Rising. Had I not gotten my lazy ass up there and removed them, I would have the Greenest Roof in Morgan Park - Full Maples on my Roof!

The Wiffle Balls are the cheap toys that we buy little kids, when they are getting the balance that will one day lead them up onto roofs of their own. The Wiffle Balls got smacked and little Jimmy McKenna came home with only his over-sized red plastic bat to the question from the Old Man, recently laid off by the City, 'Hey, where's the ball, Kiddo? Those things don't grow on trees.'

To which the buzz cut red-headed six year old replies, 'Hickey's Roof, Dad.'

'Jesus, Bucko, that gizmo's up there for Good!'

Not so, Brother McKenna, not so. It is now on my kitchen floor and my black cat is chasing it, like Tim Novak* on a corruption story.

It is my property, after all.

Trees remind us that God is found in the details.



Tim Novak - Sun Times Investigative Newsman - the last of dying breed.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/1613491,CST-NWS-mayor09.article

Who Hired Bill Ayers -Lynn Sweet Pretends to Care.

Who sent you? Who's your guy?

Obama went to see Bill Ayers, because Bill Ayers was Hyde Park-made. He became somebody, because his Daddy was somebody - the Head of ComEd who makes the lights go on and stay on, unless there's a screw-up or consumers get snotty about rates.

Billy Ayers is a rich punk who was allowed by Mater & Pater to play with explosives and Communism. Billy blew up property and tried to blow up Americans. He went all 'Underground Man' when things got thick and had Daddo's Ambulance Chasers bail him out. Then Pater Ayers eased Billy and his odious Old Lady ( Bernardine Dohrn - far more dangerous than Billy and a convicted felon to boot) into the tweedy world of academics where flakes and pipe-smokers play at being armchair Trotskies. Academics depend upon Foundations for the Long Green Difference. Billy got the Boards. Then along came Barack Obama, an ambitious kid who wanted to be somebody. Now, whoever was involved in easing Billy into academics - who hired the Boy for the swell job of Distinguished Professor of Education at UICC - knows who was involved in getting Billy situated. That person or persons will also know how and who helped Obama get close to Billy Ayers.

Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun Times pretends to be 'on the story.'

So, did he know who Ayers was when he went to his home in 1995?

"My understanding is that when he went there, he did not," Axelrod said.

Reporters noticed that clause -- "my understanding is" -- and pressed further. Did Axelrod ask Obama if he knew Ayers' history when he first met with him?

"Yes," Axelrod said.

And he did not know?

"Yes," Axelrod said. "That's what I've said -- I answered the question when I was asked the other day. But no one's suggesting that he never knew. I mean that's not -- we weren't offering that. I wasn't offering it -- I was asked a question that you just asked me and just answered it. I wasn't making an argument about it."

I'm not arguing either. I'm just curious.

Now, that's a gritty Chicago pitbull journalist! Lynn Sweet,'OJ are you guilty?'

OJ, 'No.'

Lynn Sweet, 'There you have it, Chicago!'


Sweet is no where near breaking a sweat. Tim Novak, the only real investigative reporter at Chicago Sun Times, has not been allowed to pursue Rezko, or Wright, much less Bill Boy Ayers and his protege Barack Obama. I believe that Sun Times editors have Novak chained in the basement.

Lynn Sweet needs Dave Axelrod to tell her what's what. . .; And they (MSM) they believe that readers are the dopes.

OBAMA R.A.W. ( Rezko, Ayers, Wright) * Things to Remember about Rezko/Obama

Tim Novak where have you been? Where is the best investigative journalist at Chicago Sun Times being held? STNG ( Sun Times News Group) Free Tim Novak! Get him back on Rezko, Ayers and Wright - at least pretend the paper is not totally part of Team Obama. Here's one of his Greatest Hits! from January 2008!

1. They met in 1990. Obama was a student at Harvard Law School and got an unsolicited job offer from Rezko, then a low-income housing developer in Chicago. Obama turned it down.

2. Obama took a job in 1993 with a small Chicago law firm, Davis Miner Barnhill, that represents developers -- primarily not-for-profit groups -- building low-income housing with government funds.

3. One of the firm's not-for-profit clients -- the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp., co-founded by Obama's then-boss Allison Davis -- was partners with Rezko's company in a 1995 deal to convert an abandoned nursing home at 61st and Drexel into low-income apartments. Altogether, Obama spent 32 hours on the project, according to the firm. Only five hours of that came after Rezko and WPIC became partners, the firm says. The rest of the future senator's time was helping WPIC strike the deal with Rezko. Rezko's company, Rezmar Corp., also partnered with the firm's clients in four later deals -- none of which involved Obama, according to the firm. In each deal, Rezmar "made the decisions for the joint venture," says William Miceli, an attorney with the firm.

4. In 1995, Obama began campaigning for a seat in the Illinois Senate. Among his earliest supporters: Rezko. Two Rezko companies donated a total of $2,000. Obama was elected in 1996 -- representing a district that included 11 of Rezko's 30 low-income housing projects.

5. Rezko's low-income housing empire began crumbling in 2001, when his company stopped making mortgage payments on the old nursing home that had been converted into apartments. The state foreclosed on the building -- which was in Obama's Illinois Senate district.

6. In 2003, Obama announced he was running for the U.S. Senate, and Rezko -- a member of his campaign finance committee -- held a lavish fund-raiser June 27, 2003, at his Wilmette mansion.

7. A few months after Obama became a U.S. senator, he and Rezko's wife, Rita, bought adjacent pieces of property from a doctor in Chicago's Kenwood neighborhood -- a deal that has dogged Obama the last two years. The doctor sold the mansion to Obama for $1.65 million -- $300,000 below the asking price. Rezko's wife paid full price -- $625,000 -- for the adjacent vacant lot. The deals closed in June 2005. Six months later, Obama paid Rezko's wife $104,500 for a strip of her land, so he could have a bigger yard. At the time, it had been widely reported that Tony Rezko was under federal investigation. Questioned later about the timing of the Rezko deal, Obama called it "boneheaded" because people might think the Rezkos had done him a favor.

8. Eight months later -- in October 2006 -- Rezko was indicted on charges he solicited kickbacks from companies seeking state pension business under his friend Gov. Blagojevich. Federal prosecutors maintain that $10,000 from the alleged kickback scheme was donated to Obama's run for the U.S. Senate. Obama has given the money to charity


We just might go on the Acronym Paradigm-it's edgy and so MSM!

McCain/Palin: Want more Obama/Rezko/Jones? Get Sun Times to take the chains off of Tim Novak!

Obama has two little girls at home dying for a puppy, when he has this kennel of news poodles at the Sun Times! Not Fair!

Speaking of not fair! Toss Carol a dog Yummy! Sneed!! Sit up!

The only pit bull on the Chicago Sun Times is Tim Novak. Click my post title for a litany of Novak stories dug up out of the dirt and the dust shovelled on the truth by Obama's shills, Daley's stooges, Medill's meatheads, Ayers acolytes, and Rezko's raiders.

When little Curtis Cooper was crushed by rusty iron gate on mismanaged former CHA property, Young Cullen Davis ( Son of Allison Davis Obama's Law Boss), all fat and sassy, came to the light of day only because of Tim Novak.

Tim Novak is the real deal. When Obama had the the editorial board of the Sun Times - Sit Up! Beg! Roll-Over!!! Fetch! for him, Tim Novak was doing a newsman's job.

Free Tim Novak! Get Some News!

Gate Crushes Boy Chicago Tribune Hides Obama Connection but Links Daley

That's Cullen Davis Folks - he's doing just fine. The little boy killed by the gate on the properties that are making Cullen richer never met Cullen. Cullen Davis has long resume for a young man - loaded with all kinds of do-gooder stuff. Cullen Davis never got mentioned in the Tribune story about responsibility for the death of little Curtis Cooper.


Click my Post Title for series of real articles by a real newsman, Tim Novak of the Chicago Sun Times that link Rezko client Obama and Allison Davis - Obama's Law Boss.

The Tribune just flashed a story about CHA complicity in the Death of a little boy this summer, when a rusted wrought iron gate crushed him to death. Little Curtis Cooper died at a property manged by Cullen Davis, son of Allison Davis, a lefty lawyer with thick ties to Obama.

The Tribune is in the tank for Obama. I am in the tank for McCain, but this piece don't cost you nothing.

The Tribune white-washes Obama's sordid support for Rezko/Davis/Ayers/ . . . any more do-gooder crooks that you can name? and saves the kick in the two things that Jesse Jackson wanted to cut off of Obama for Mayor Daley - not a guy that I would like to ever hear the words 'Pat Hickey is a great friend of mine' (which I won't) -because he MAY be treated as the bad guy du jour by the Progressives. He is after all a Daley - not a great one like his brother John, who happens to be one of the most genuine and authentically nice people I have ever had the honor to meet.

Here's the Tribune at its Candy Assed Best:

Inspectors for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reported at least as long ago as 2006 that gates at the Cabrini-Green complex were damaged, falling or leaning. In their last report, in December 2007, they also said that "multiple" gates were "missing hardware" and that the defects were severe.

Six months later, 3-year-old Curtis Cooper died when one of the massive metal gates fell on him. A lawyer for the boy's family has alleged that the gate was dangling by one hinge because its two other hinges had rusted through.

After being alerted to the problem, it's not clear what steps—if any—the CHA took to get the politically connected firm managing the Cabrini-Green Rowhouses to fix the gates. Urban Property Advisors, or UPA, is run by the son of developer Allison Davis, one of Mayor Richard Daley's top allies in the African-American community.

In response to questions from the Tribune on Thursday, the CHA issued a news release Friday morning saying that the agency passed on the last report to UPA and that repairing the gates was not a priority because HUD inspectors did not designate the gates' condition as a life-threatening emergency.

Read the array of Tim Novak pieces for real story. Novak is the only real newsman at the tanking Sun Times

The Tribune just laid off forty plus people, but they put three reporters on this whitewash crap?

They do not even name the punk responsible - they let Daddy get the tune-up because Daddy is already singing an aria to the Feds. That's Cullen Davis Folks*! Cullen Davis!

Mr. & Mrs. Cooper, God Bless you in your grief and give guidance to your days without your little boy, Curtis.

Cullen Davis! Anything to add? Didn't think so. Tribune? How about a Harrumph?

Come off of it! You clowns calling the shots at the Trib have taken way too many pulls on whatever it is that you have in that Hookah.

*Cullen J. Davis, CEO, is a licensed attorney and real estate broker bringing visionary and strategic leadership to Urban Property Advisors (UPA) plus a number of companies and ventures impacting change in urban environments:
• CJD Investments, which identifies opportunities for acquisition of
undervalued properties in transitional neighborhoods.
• CJD Projects, which develops multifamily housing using complex
financial transactions, especially those involving a high degree of government interaction.
• CNS Projects, a company focused on the holistic development of
urban areas and currently has more than $35 million dollars in
value under development.
• Principal of Hallmark and Johnson Real Estate Management,
LLC, which manages condominiums and market-rate housing
across the Chicagoland area.
• Daveri Development Group, a partnership which develops
multifamily housing throughout the state of Illinois.

Mr. Davis is formerly an associate in the real estate department at the law firm of Winston & Strawn, where he represented developers, financial institutions, investment bankers and investor groups in connection with residential, industrial, office and retail properties. He also served as an aid for Congressman Danny K. Davis, a position which further grounded him in the intricacies of public and private partnership. Mr. Davis received a Juris Doctorate from Northwestern University’s School of Law and a Bachelor’s Degree from Grinnell College. He is a certified tax-credit compliance specialist, a member of the Illinois Bar Association, and holds a variety of other professional memberships and certifications.

Mr. Davis, a native of Chicago, lives in the North Kenwood-Oakland community with his wife and has been a pioneer in that community’s redevelopment.

John McCain: Watch This Story - Tim Novak on Obama, Rezko, Doc Ray and Pi$$ed Away Investments

A couple of burglars get caught and Nixon resigns. A county payroll Urologists ( Wee-wee Doc) wets his beak and sings to the Feds. Keep an eye out for this and other stories by the only pitbull among the Progressive purse-puppies at Progressive Sun Times - the paper so deep in Obama's tank that many crossocheilus oblongi are required to clean up for the Obama Campaign. Not it seems, Tim Novak

Chicago Sun Times has a pitbull - Tim Novak. Here is one of his investigative stories that will prove to have legs like Cyd Charisse in 1954!

While on the county payroll, a top urologist at Cook County Hospital solicited nearly $1 million from drug companies over the last decade for his private foundation.

Dr. Paul S. Ray's pitch was that the money would go toward medical research and education.

Dr. Paul S. Ray has been granted immunity from prosecution to testify against Tony Rezko in a still-pending criminal case.

But most of the money hasn't gone to health care at all. Instead, Ray invested it -- mostly in Tony Rezko.

Rezko is the convicted influence-peddler who had been a prodigious fund-raiser for politicians including Sen. Barack Obama, Gov. Blagojevich and the late Cook County Board President John Stroger, the ultimate boss of the county hospitals.

Ray had long worked with Stroger's godson, Orlando Jones, a top administrator at Cook County Hospital who became Stroger's chief of staff. Jones eventually left county government for a job with Rezko. Last September, after he had been questioned by the FBI, Jones committed suicide.

Ray set up the Paul S. Ray Urology Education and Research Foundation 16 years ago. It began investing with Rezko's companies in 2002, according to reports Ray filed with the Internal Revenue Service. The foundation invested $500,000 with Rezko Concessions, which operated Panda Express and Papa John's Pizza restaurants. It also put $100,000 into a proposed housing development Rezko unsuccessfully sought to build on a 62-acre site along the Chicago River in the South Loop.

Ray, 63, of Chicago, also invested his own money with Rezko, spending millions to buy real estate and Papa John's Pizza restaurants from Rezko.

Ray's Rezko deals didn't turn out well:

Click my post title to link on to Tim Novak
The Doctor is singing!

Let the parsing begin!