ACORN - America's Bad Seed

Check out this group, RottenAcorn and their list of particulars against ACORN in: "ACORN Is A Multi-Million-Dollar Multinational Conglomerate"

Obama Still Allied With Granny Grifter - Part II

According to Michael Sneed's Friday Chicago Sun Times column Barack Obama is continuing to use Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Gianoulias in his Presidential campaign. As Flying Debris has pointed out here, here, here, here, here, here and here, that as a private citizen Mr. Gianoulias was involved as a bank loan officer in a $1 million scam that could ultimately defraud an 87 year-old woman of her home near the edge of Chicago's Greek Town. Mr. Gianoulias was working for his family bank, the Broadway Bank of Chicago when the bank made the $1 million loan to a woman who could not afford to repay the loan (as Alexi admitted under cross examination), could not fill out the loan forms and who had felons as co-signers, including one convicted of bank fraud. The felons ended up taking the money and now the Gianoulias family bank is suing the woman to take her home.

Apparently the Gianoulias family bank had a previous relationship with one of the co-signers, Michael "Jaws" Giorango, including the mortgage they held on the Miami hotel that he used as part of a nation wide prostitution ring. Here's what the Sun Times found last year:

Earlier, Giannoulias also had tried to distance himself from the loans, saying they occurred in the 1990s, when he was not a full- time employee at the bank. But subsequent reports revealed that Giannoulias had overseen $11.8 million in loans to a firm run by Giorango and Stavropoulos last year when Giannoulias was senior loan officer. Some of that money was used to buy a riverboat casino marina in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

When the Broadway Bank sued the victim of the mortgage fraud and tried to take her home Alexi Gianoulias claimed in court that he did not remember most of the specifics of the loan in question. That is despite the fact that the loan involved an 83 year-old woman who could not fill out the forms and a couple of felons including a man convicted of bank fraud, one would hope that an arrangement like that is unusual enough to remember. Considering the millions of dollars involved it strikes me that there is a lot more here than we currently know.

Last month Alexi spent the better part of a week at the Obama Chicago Volunteer Headquarters doing some "phonebanking". Well Alexi has been trying to find a gym in Las Vegas so that he and Barack can play basketball before the Caucus Saturday morning. Here is what Sneed wrote Friday:

$$$: State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias was last spotted trying to set up a Saturday morning basketball game in Las Vegas so Barack Obama could loosen up on primary day.

Of course Alexi should help Barack, they're friends and Alexi owes his current position to Obama and his very strong "rock star" support for the Gianoulias candidacy while many of the specifics surrounding the fraudulent bank loan were publicly known. Flying Debris featured an Obama/Gianoulias commercial from 2006 in this post. This is another example of the caliber of the people around Obama, it is also an example of poor reporting by the press.

Obama Still Allied With Granny Grifter Part I.

Obama Shilled For Granny Grifter

As Flying Debris pointed out earlier today the Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias was involved in an alleged mortgage fraud five years ago. Mr. Giannoulias' family bank the Broadway Bank in Chicago made a $1 million loan to an 83 year-old woman who could not fill out the loan form and who was brought to the bank by two felons and another person. One of those men had twice been convicted of bank fraud. Mr. Giannoulias admits that he knew that the felons were involved and that in his own words "I'm not sure it would be a prudent loan." Well sure, the loan payments were $9,845 per month while the bank's own loan documents show that Ms. Billings had an income of about $10,000 per month. So thats great, when he was working at the family bank he saw the collateral of property in the 1100 block of West Washington St., just west of the traditional Greektown. However when on the witness stand Mr. Giannoulias had a revelation, hey maybe $165 per month is not reasonable for an 83 year-old woman to live on.

Mr. Giannoulias is currently the State Treasurer here in Illinois thanks to the effort of one Barack Hussein Obama, yep that guy who's running for President. Senator Obama (D-IL), spent considerable energy helping the campaign of Mr. Giannoulias, both during the primaries and the general election. This scandal was known during that time. The commenter on this post, an alleged North Side Serf pretty much summed it up nineteen months ago:

Mr. G is the personal pet, sorry, "candidate", of rock star senator Barak Obama. You know, Mr. Clean, voice of a new generation, blah, blah. There is NO WAY Obama, scion of Ricahrd II's Chicago dynasty and beloved of the patroage army that toils there, is clean of the filth of Chicago and Illinois politics, among the most corrupt in the nation. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

The Chicago Tribune had an interesting observation of Mr. Giannoulias, "(h)e appeared largely unruffled during about three hours of questioning, though he frequently could not remember details, often repeating, "Again, that was five years ago." Let me get this straight, the guy is in his first month of a new job at the family bank, he has a strong academic and athletic background (Boston U Cum Laude, Basketball), one would hope that this loan was an unusual loan, what with the bank fraud convictions, and the size of the loan at a bank that descries itself as a "Community Bank". Add to all of that, the public has known about this for some time so Mr Giannoulias has known about this brewing scandal for years and he still can't remember. I just don't buy the whole "I Know Nothing!" line that Mr. Giannoulias has been using in court, the guy isn't an idiot. Think about your first months or even years in different jobs, it's the odd things that stand out, like felons and 83 year-old ladies.

So what did Sen.Obama see in Mr Giannoulias? Well they both play basketball and they both excelled at universities in Boston. I will confess that I always figured that it was money, and that likely played a part. Fair or unfair that is the life of a politician. I will also state that during the 2006 election I found those Obama/Giannoulias commercials to be odd, after all we knew a lot about Giannoulias' Granny-Gate by that time; so what the heck was our Senator doing pushing this guy?

Welcome MyDD readers, this post from early January has a list of Obama posts on Flying Debris. Ms. Hu is correct, there is more out there, my list of posts is long and misses at least two subsequent posts and I'm not a professional.

Barack Obama Supporter Involved in Mortgage Fraud

Not only has Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias and his family supported Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) financially but Senator Obama returned the favor by helping Alexi, a banker to mobsters, get himself elected as State Treasurer. The Giannoulias family must have been ecstatic to get this sap off of the family payroll. Where does it stop with Obama's bad judgement?

See Flying Debris take on these two here, here, here and here.

Democratic Culture of Corruption: Illinois Dem Part of Mortgage Scam

The Illinois State Treasurer, Alexi Giannoulias testified in a mortgage fraud suit yesterday and he pulled the Sgt. Schultz Defense, "I know nothing, I see nothing, I say nothing!" Flying Debris wrote about Alexi the, ahem, banker here more than nineteen months ago. Alexi (if I may call him that) was once a loan officer at his family's bank, the Broadway Bank here in Chicago. While there he approved a loan that anybody with half of a functioning brain would have recognized as fraudulent. Mr. Giannoulias is a man who has supported and has received support from Democratic Presidential primary candidate and Illinois Senator Barack Obama (D-IL). Mr. Obama has received money from the Giannoulias' and he helped raise funds for this disgraceful man's State Treasury run.

Alexi agreed that his family bank would write a mortgage for get this, an 83 year-old woman who could not fill out the forms, who did not have the means to repay the loan and the loan was cosigned by people with a history of bank fraud, prostitution charges and bookmaking. One of the men in question is named Michael “Jaws” Giorango he is a man Alexi described as "a good person." Well the money is gone and somehow I doubt that the octogenarian went on a million dollar spending spree, rather I suspect that the mobsters who Alexi thought were good co-signers (especially the one with a record of multiple bank frauds) probably spent the funds.

To paraphrase Paul Simon (the musician not the late Senator) on the subject of Alexi Giannoulias - "still pimping, after all these years, still pimping after all these years," to the tune of Still Crazy After All These Years.

It is also notable that the blue-state Chicago Sun Times consigned the linked article that makes a local Democrat look terrible to page 8 while featuring Dennis Quaid, his lovely wife and the terrible story of his children on the front page.