-By Warner Todd Huston
The long awaited verdict in the trial of former Democratic Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich and his brother is finally at hand — at least a little. Blagojevich has been accused of trying to sell for personal gain his influence to appoint a senator to replace Barack Obama when he resigned the seat to become president.
Over the last week or so the jury revealed through a long parade of written questions to the judge that they were hopelessly deadlocked on most of the counts that the pair were facing. At one point the jury admitted that they could only agree on two of the 24 counts. Worse, they hadn’t even looked at the 11 wire fraud counts.
The fact is, though, that only two of the counts really mattered. The 2nd Count, racketeering and conspiracy, carries a 20 year maximum sentence, and the 24th Count, Lying to the feds, which carries a 5 year maximum sentence.
The jury never did come to much agreement on this case as it happens. But they did convict ex-Governor Blagojevich on one of the counts.
At about 4:30 the jury delivered their verdict on the only count they agreed upon. Count 24, lying to the feds. The jury agreed that Rod Blagojevich is guilty on this count. After that verdict was delivered the jury was dismissed for the day.
This means that Rod Blagojevich is likely to serve at least 6 months in federal jail. No news on the counts that the ex-governor’s brother faces.
Judge Zagel has announced, however, that he’s declaring a mistrial on the rest of the 23 counts. He is rescheduling a re-trial.
Continue reading “
The Verdict for Ex-Governor Rod Blagojevich and Brother is IN”
Those chickens have come home to roost… or at least they will during the upcoming mayoral election in the Windy City if the new reality TV show being shopped by Chicago’s incendiary Father Michael Pfleger is concerned.
New Chicago public teachers union chief Karen Lewis could have come into office as a visionary that would bring some sanity to teachers union bloated demands in this era of the worst economy since the Great Depression. She could have seen the good sense of lowering expectations. She could have taken the stance of refusing to take pay raises for Chicago’s teachers as a motion of good faith in negotiating. Unfortunately, Lewis has proven herself to void of vision and stuck in the 1990s by 
Disgraced former Congressman Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois passed away today at his summer home in Wisconsin. He was 82.
Two political workers for Chicago Alderman Bernard Stone (50th Ward) have been convicted of vote fraud and were sentenced to one year in jail on August 4.
Tony Rezko has been at the root of many of Illinois’ worst cases of government corruption and influence peddling with ties that go back decades. He’s been tied to President Obama, indicted Governor Rod Blagojevich, and now Senate Democrat candidate Alexi Giannoulias whose family bank loaned the crook almost $23 million.
With recent 
One of my early blogging assignments was the media bias beat over at Newsbusters, so I became particularly attuned to picking up on how the Old Media toes that “unbiased” journalistic line. Unfortunately, in sometimes subtle ways their rhetoric is geared to smear Republicans in any way possible.
This story has been building for weeks on 
Cook County Board President Todd Stroger’s last year in office is marked by one incident of bilking the taxpayers after another. Each week seems to bring a new example of Stroger and his buddies and family members sticking their hands in our pockets and this week has been no different.