Blago's Lawyer: "He's a Celebrity Idiot"
How Sam Adam Jr.’s plan for helping his client beat the rap: Let him blather.
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The Wives Club: No Wonder Blago Wanted That Job for Patti
How lovely for Carrie Zalewski and Lynne Sered. Governor Pat Quinn recently appointed the two women to plum jobs on state boards that pay six-figure annual salaries. Each woman appears to have solid credentials. But—in the kind of coincidence that seems to happen all too often in Illinois—each woman also has a powerful connection…
Alexi G's Basketball Diaries
Many stories about Alexi Giannoulias, the candidate for the U.S. Senate seat once held by Barack Obama, mention that the two are basketball-playing buddies. Not recently: They haven’t played since Obama won the White House. In a phone interview, Alexi attributed this to the President’s busy schedule, but reports suggest that Obama’s advisers want their man…
On Congressman and former Blagojevich aide Daniel Lipinski
ROD’S MAN DAN: Long before he became his party’s odd man out, he worked for Blago
The Life and Death of Blago Aide Christopher Kelly
THE LONG FALL: Christopher Kelly operated in the top circle of the Blagojevich administration, using his tough-guy style and disdain for rules to raise piles of money for the governor. Then the feds got on Kelly’s trail. Last September, he swallowed a deadly mixture of pills and poison. “Tell them they won,” he said with his dying breath
Photos: Christopher Kelly
RELATED STORY: The Life and Death of Christopher Kelly
The Sins of the Father—Should Lisa Madigan Return the Money?
The sprawling, front-page story on Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune gave center stage to House Speaker and state Democratic Party head Michael Madigan, in the paper’s continuing, depressing coverage of clouted admissions to the U of I. This time, his daughter, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, took a key supporting role…
A Republican Ahead in Hawaii—A Sign of Things to Come in Illinois?
At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, President Obama drew applause when he mocked the conspiracy theory that he was born in Kenya. “It’s been quite a year since I’ve spoken here last—lots of ups, lots of downs—except for my approval ratings, which have just gone down. But that’s politics. Beside[s], I happen to know that my approval ratings are still very high in the country of my birth…
Forrest Claypool to the Rescue?
Editorial boards and earnest columnists have exhorted readers to sign those petitions for Forrest Claypool—the one man, in their words, standing between fair property tax bills and Joseph Berrios, a machine pol who won the Democratic nomination for assessor in February.
The signatures are flowing in, and the 52-year-old Cook County commissioner will almost certainly claim a spot on the November…
The St. Valentine's Day Massacre and Al Capone—Excerpt from Get Capone
THE COLDEST CASE: Since February 14, 1929, when seven men were gunned down inside a Clark Street garage, the mastermind behind the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre has remained a mystery, though suspicions usually point to Al Capone. Now a new biographer has uncovered fresh information implicating a different suspect—a forgotten Chicago felon with a simple and timeless motive: revenge.