Octopus Overlords

At a hearing in August, prosecutors had asked Burmila to delay the trial until later in the year to allow the FBI to enhance the video.

But Breen objected, arguing that the enhancement as well as the delay smacked of harassment and ultimately would not show whether the item seen falling from Claps' coat was a gun or whether it was loaded.

On Tuesday, as reporters questioned him outside the courthouse following Claps’ acquittal, Breen declined comment but pulled a small toy gun out of his pocket — then dropped it on the sidewalk with a smile.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Wed Oct 24, 2018 11:20 am

At a hearing in August, prosecutors had asked Burmila to delay the trial until later in the year to allow the FBI to enhance the video.

But Breen objected, arguing that the enhancement as well as the delay smacked of harassment and ultimately would not show whether the item seen falling from Claps' coat was a gun or whether it was loaded.

On Tuesday, as reporters questioned him outside the courthouse following Claps’ acquittal, Breen declined comment but pulled a small toy gun out of his pocket — then dropped it on the sidewalk with a smile.

Because whether or not it was loaded is relevant.

Enough wrote: ↑Wed Oct 24, 2018 11:52 am

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Wed Oct 24, 2018 11:20 am

At a hearing in August, prosecutors had asked Burmila to delay the trial until later in the year to allow the FBI to enhance the video.

But Breen objected, arguing that the enhancement as well as the delay smacked of harassment and ultimately would not show whether the item seen falling from Claps' coat was a gun or whether it was loaded.

On Tuesday, as reporters questioned him outside the courthouse following Claps’ acquittal, Breen declined comment but pulled a small toy gun out of his pocket — then dropped it on the sidewalk with a smile.

Because whether or not it was loaded is relevant.

I am wondering if there are comparable cases of a person bringing a gun into a court where they got off due to not knowing if it was loaded. The plastic gun is one hell of a troll move, wow.

The city of Chicago is steadily recovering from an overnight snowstorm that delayed hundreds of murders on Friday morning and will likely continue to push numerous homicides across the city drastically behind schedule, public authorities announced. “As we speak, maintenance crews are working diligently to restore public transportation, de-ice roads, and clear back alleyways so that Chicagoans can quickly resume murdering again,” Department of Streets and Sanitation spokesman Dave Michelson said of the heavy blizzard, which caused numerous homicide cancellations this morning at peak murder times.

Moliere wrote: ↑Wed Nov 28, 2018 1:38 am Snowstorm In Chicago Delays Hundreds Of Morning Murders

Chicago has declined in population for the third year in a row, according to the census, marking it as a significant outlier in America's urban centers. It's saddled with enormous debts, partly due to unpaid pension obligations, and the city is trying everything from taxing sodas and human waste, to holding citizens' cars for ransom, in order to make money.

One candidate to succeed Mayor Rahm Emanuel (soon to be heading for the exit himself) has a novel idea to fix the city's financial woes: stealing from the neighbors.

Candidate Bill Daley, son of former Mayor Richard J. Dailey, brother of former Mayor Richard M. Daley, and Emanuel's successor as President Barack Obama's chief of staff (can Chicago's political dynasty get any more incestuous?), is proposing a commuter tax to try to get more money from suburbanites who work in the city of Chicago. "We have to find new revenues, and everything is on the table," he said in a speech.

The nephew [of then-mayor Daley], Robert G. Vanecko, and his business partner Allison S. Davis, a developer who gave campaign money to Daley and was appointed by the mayor to head the Chicago Plan Commission, started investing in a series of property deals that, by the time the last of them are unwound by the end of December, will have cost the city workers pension funds 80 percent of the $68 million they put in — $54 million in all.

...

That’s one reason it’s difficult to unravel the real estate deals Vanecko and Davis made and pinpoint how these five drastically underfunded city pension funds lost so much money.

There’s no question about what happened to $9 million of it: It went to Davis and Vanecko in fees, primarily for managing the pension funds’ money that they largely lost.

Alderman Ed Burke, 75, is charged with one count of attempted extortion for conveying to company executives in 2017 that they’d get the permits only if they signed on as clients at Burke’s private property-tax law firm in Chicago, a 37-page complaint unsealed on Thursday says.

For many Chicagoans suspicious of dealings behind closed doors at City Hall, Burke has personified the city’s machine politics for decades. Dozens of aldermen have entered U.S. District court on corruption charges, but Burke seemed too powerful, too wealthy and too savvy to land himself in the kind of legal trouble he now faces.
...
Prosecutors told the judge that Burke, who has publicly opposed the National Rifle Association and proposed multiple gun-control ordinances over the years, had 23 guns at his offices alone. The judge said one condition of his continued release is that he gets rid of all his guns, including any at his home. He also was required to turn over his passport.

The Democrat’s law firm, Klafter & Burke, represented the high-rise tower that bears President Donald Trump’s name. There’s no indication the case is at all tied to his firm’s work for Trump.
...
The complaint, which does not identify the fast-food company or the executives allegedly squeezed, includes excerpts from wiretaps of Burke’s phone and emails seized in the raids.

When the executives didn’t give Burke’s law firm the business he wanted, Burke spoke with one of his ward employees about how they would “play hard” ball with the company, the complaint says.

Emails between the executives, who the complaint says are victims and not targets of the investigation, show how worried they were about the damage Burke could do to their enterprise.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2016 6:11 pm WaPo

The former Illinois congressman whose Capitol Hill office was decorated in the style of the TV show “Downton Abbey,” and whose six-pack abs landed him on the cover of Men’s Health, was indicted Thursday on charges that he misspent government and campaign money for his personal benefit.

Federal prosecutors finalized a deal Wednesday that would undo the criminal charges against a former congressman from Illinois accused of misspending campaign and government money for his personal benefit — as long as he pays back taxes and reimburses his campaign.
...
[T]he case that once threatened to put Schock in prison almost certainly will end without him being convicted — marking a stunning reversal for the government. Prosecutors agreed to dismiss all the charges against Schock, provided that he holds up his end of their bargain, and his campaign committee agreed to plead guilty to violating the record-keeping provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act and pay a $26,500 fine.
...
The case, though, was troubled from early on. In 2017, Schock’s attorneys alleged that investigators acted inappropriately in the case, including by exploring Schock’s sex life and whether he was gay. That same year, the lawyer for the House said that investigators had possibly committed a crime themselves when they had a staff member-turned-informant take materials from Schock’s district office.

The Justice Department last year replaced the prosecutors on the case, and Schock finally struck a deal with the new team from the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago. Fitzpatrick said the office “conducted a thorough review of the case before proceeding with today’s agreement.” U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly approved the agreement at a hearing Wednesday.

Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, his wife and his brother-in-law are under federal criminal investigation for a dubious residential property tax appeal that dogged him during his gubernatorial campaign last year, WBEZ has learned.

A law-enforcement source familiar with the investigation confirmed to WBEZ that the probe, which has not been revealed publicly until now, began last October and remains active. There are no signs that criminal charges are imminent.

hepcat wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 11:15 amDoes the residential property in question have toilets?
I'm trying to establish a modus operandi.

hepcat wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 11:15 am Does the residential property in question have toilets? I'm trying to establish a commodus operandi.

Trump has commuted sentence of Blagojevich.

Zarathud wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2020 9:22 pm Do not like. We live within a mile of Blago and the news helicopters were flying overhead since the announcement.

Holman wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2020 9:35 pm

Zarathud wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2020 9:22 pm Do not like. We live within a mile of Blago and the news helicopters were flying overhead since the announcement.

... Do they think he's going to commit crimes on the street?

Holman wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2020 9:35 pm

Zarathud wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2020 9:22 pm Do not like. We live within a mile of Blago and the news helicopters were flying overhead since the announcement.

... Do they think he's going to commit crimes on the street?

Archinerd wrote: ↑Wed Feb 19, 2020 12:50 pm I still don't get the impression Blago has any idea that what he did was wrong.

pr0ner wrote: ↑Wed Feb 19, 2020 12:51 pm

Archinerd wrote: ↑Wed Feb 19, 2020 12:50 pm I still don't get the impression Blago has any idea that what he did was wrong.

He absolutely doesn't think he was wrong.

pr0ner wrote: ↑Wed Feb 19, 2020 12:51 pm

Archinerd wrote: ↑Wed Feb 19, 2020 12:50 pm I still don't get the impression Blago has any idea that what he did was wrong.

He absolutely doesn't think he was wrong.

malchior wrote: ↑Wed Feb 19, 2020 12:55 pm

pr0ner wrote: ↑Wed Feb 19, 2020 12:51 pm

Archinerd wrote: ↑Wed Feb 19, 2020 12:50 pm I still don't get the impression Blago has any idea that what he did was wrong.

He absolutely doesn't think he was wrong.

This was an attack on law & order. End of story. I'm pretty tired of people trying to give reasonable explanations about these activities. People don't get we are likely an *authoritarian nation* right now. Stop with the equivocating already.

Archinerd wrote: ↑Wed Feb 19, 2020 1:29 pm

malchior wrote: ↑Wed Feb 19, 2020 12:55 pm

pr0ner wrote: ↑Wed Feb 19, 2020 12:51 pm

Archinerd wrote: ↑Wed Feb 19, 2020 12:50 pm I still don't get the impression Blago has any idea that what he did was wrong.

He absolutely doesn't think he was wrong.

This was an attack on law & order. End of story. I'm pretty tired of people trying to give reasonable explanations about these activities. People don't get we are likely an *authoritarian nation* right now. Stop with the equivocating already.

If this is directed at me, I'm sorry if I gave any impression that I was defending Blago's actions or Trump's decision to let him run free.

pr0ner wrote: ↑Wed Feb 19, 2020 1:54 pm