By Steve Rhodes

“Former U.S. congressman Mel Reynolds pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges of possessing pornographic images and videos, two days after his arrest at a hotel in Zimbabwe,” Reuters reports.
“State prosecutors accuse Reynolds of possessing ‘nude pictures and videos of naked women and men having sexual intercourse’ on his mobile phone, according to the copy of the charge sheet seen by Reuters.
“Possession of pornography is illegal in Zimbabwe.”
It is not, of course, in America. Yes, I get the connection to Reynolds’ past. And yes, he’s a creep. But I’ll still hold off on the ridicule until the facts are in.

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Posted on February 19, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“With the heat on in the high-profile David Koschman homicide case, the original Chicago Police Department case file – a file that had been presumed lost, then suddenly surfaced – ended up in a brick bungalow on the Northwest Side,” the Sun-Times reports.
“It was taken there by the owner of the home, Lt. Denis P. Walsh, a well-connected cop with a troubled past who’s now been tied to four instances of missing records in the case, for which former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s nephew Richard J. ‘R.J.’ Vanecko began serving a 60-day jail sentence Friday after pleading guilty Jan. 31 to involuntary manslaughter.
“The file had been missing for months – possibly years – when it mysteriously turned up one summer’s night three years ago on a shelf in the police station at Belmont and Western.
“The officer who reported finding it? Walsh.”

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Posted on February 18, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“A top-secret document, obtained by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden, shows that an American law firm was monitored while representing a foreign government in trade disputes with the United States,” the New York Times reports.
“The government of Indonesia had retained the law firm for help in trade talks, according to the February 2013 document. It reports that the N.S.A.’s Australian counterpart, the Australian Signals Directorate, notified the agency that it was conducting surveillance of the talks, including communications between Indonesian officials and the American law firm, and offered to share the information.
“The Australians told officials at an N.S.A. liaison office in Canberra, Australia, that ‘information covered by attorney-client privilege may be included’ in the intelligence gathering, according to the document, a monthly bulletin from the Canberra office. The law firm was not identified, but Mayer Brown, a Chicago-based firm with a global practice, was then advising the Indonesian government on trade issues.”

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Posted on February 17, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“Americans are enthusiastic about the promise of science but lack basic knowledge of it, with one in four unaware that the Earth revolves around the Sun, said a poll out Friday,” AFP reports.
“The survey included more than 2,200 people in the United States and was conducted by the National Science Foundation.
“Ten questions about physical and biological science were on the quiz, and the average score – 6.5 correct – was barely a passing grade.
“Just 74 per cent of respondents knew that the Earth revolved around the Sun, according to the results released at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago.”
To be fair, the results were skewed by members of Chicago’s city council, who answered that the Earth revolves around the mayor.

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Posted on February 15, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

Last November, the Beachwood Bookmaking Bureau knocked Dan Rutherford’s chances of winning the GOP nomination down five points to 30 percent, saying he was “cementing [his] reputation as a bumbler.”
Now we’ll put him at 0 percent – he’s toast.

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Posted on February 14, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“More than 88,000 Illinois residents have selected a health insurance plan created by President Barack Obama’s health plan, according to enrollment numbers that came out six weeks before the deadline to enroll this year,” the Sun-Times trumpets.
Isn’t that actually an embarrassment? After all, that’s just slightly more than the population of a single Chicago ward – or about as many people Home Depot is hiring for its big spring selling season.

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Posted on February 13, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“CPS has spent the last week touting what officials say is a big decrease in suspensions, culminating with a school visit and press conference by Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday, where the mayor declared that curbing suspensions was just the ‘right thing to do,'” Sarah Karp reports for Catalyst.
“But a confidential document obtained by Catalyst Chicago shows that suspension data from last year is more troubling than something to boast about. Last year, young elementary-age students were suspended far more than in previous years.
“Plus, the racial disparity in suspensions of black students compared to whites and Latinos – long a problem in CPS and something that current CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett says she cares personally about – has widened over the past few years.”
Go read the whole thing – and then marvel yet again at how the truth is always exactly the opposite of what City Hall and CPS says it is.

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Posted on February 12, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“The prosecutor who declined to charge former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s nephew in the killing of David Koschman – and apparently ‘threw away’ the case file – has left the Cook County state’s attorney’s office, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.”
“‘Darren O’Brien no longer works in the [state’s attorney’s office]. The state’s attorney accepted his resignation letter approximately six weeks ago,’ said Sally Daly, a spokeswoman for Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez.”
This is just extraordinary.

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Posted on February 11, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

A member of the grand jury that indicted R.J. Vanecko reached out to Carol Marin to express his frustration with the case, and his comments to her are quite illuminating. For example:

CM: The Cook County state’s attorney’s head of felony review, Darren O’Brien, appeared before you. It was he who told police there was insufficient evidence to charge Vanecko . Will you describe his testimony?
Juror: He’s sitting before us, saying that reasonable self-defense was warranted by Vanecko, whom he never interviewed . . . A 6-foot-2, 230-pound guy against a 5-foot-5, 125-pound guy . . . Nobody in the room believed him. Most outrageous of anything I heard. Then, the fact that O’Brien threw away the felony review file on Koschman . . . We thought that was just amazing.

Indeed.

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Posted on February 10, 2014

By Natasha Julius

Since when does Chicago care about Mob actions?
Market Update
In related news, apparently the weather only affects you in December anyway. So get on out there, sailor!

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Posted on February 8, 2014