CTU member at an Occupy Chicago rally |
Keep it classy, Karen.
CTU member at an Occupy Chicago rally |
David Stott Building |
On Thursday, at age 20, Khan stood before a federal judge in Chicago pleading guilty to attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization. The Bolingbrook man faces up to 20 years in prison. If he continues to cooperate with law enforcement officials, however, prosecutors said they would recommend an actual prison sentence of only five years.More...
The agreement does call for an unusually lengthy period of court supervision once he gets out -- at least another 15 years.
As part of the plea deal, Khan must seek "psychological and violent extremism counseling" once he is released from prison. He must perform at least 120 hours of community service per year and allow authorities to search his cellphone, email and computer four times a month for the first 7 1/2 years.
Investigators found that Khan had spent months honing his jihadist views via social media. On his YouTube account, they pointed to one of Khan's favorite videos from Syria: "We shall chop off their heads with swords... and by Allah we shall make the ground spit out their corpses," referring to the infidels who don't tote the ISIS line.Too bad Khan wasn't charged with treason as well.
I&M Canal at Ottawa |
The summer of 2017 now is the target time for an Illinois National Guard engineer unit to excavate, grade and prepare sections of the long-dry canal bed to again hold water.The Guard was already committed for projects, but things are clearly looking up for 2017.
The nonprofit Ottawa Canal Association hope to re-water the 2,900-foot dry section of the canal between Guion and Walnut streets with three feet of water, so it can be used as a tourist draw and for recreational purposes, such as kayaking.
In 2012, the Ottawa City Council voted down seeking a state grant for the re-watering project — hesitating at paying a 20 percent share of the grant amount. The next year, the OCA approached the Illinois National Guard to see if the canal project could be a match for an annual two-week training session for the 766th Engineer Battalion headquartered in Decatur.
Eight Mile Road in Detroit |
Some donors have told Susquehanna University that they intend to keep their cash now that the "Crusaders" nickname and logo are being replaced.This is another example of political-correctness run amok. If Muslims don't like the Crusaders name, they don't have to enroll at Susquehanna.
Others offered donations in support of Monday's decision to move on from the moniker that dates to 1924, according to university president L. Jay Lemons.
The issue has split opinion in three directions: approval, refusal, and apathy.
By Wednesday, a day-old change.org petition to keep the name had passed 1,500 signatures. Supporters are rallying on Twitter and Facebook. There's been a run on Crusader merchandise at the campus bookstore.
The Grim Creepers are proposing the Halloween revolt. They're part of an extremist group known by feds as the National Liberation Militia.Yes, cop lives matter.
Detroit Police Assistant Chief Steve Dolunt acknowledges the serious nature of the threat. He learned the group has encouraged members to wear Halloween masks and create a disturbance to lure in officers and then to use weapons on them - weapons such as bricks, bottles and firearms.
John Dennis Hastert will appear in court at 9 a.m. to change his plea to guilty, but in the court of public opinion, Hastert has already been sentenced to the cold shoulder. Big-name public figures who run awry of the law can usually count on die hard supporters to send letters of praise to judges in an effort to solicit mercy. Not so the in the case of the USA versus Hastert - where the I-Team has learned the judge's mailbag is nearly empty.Hastert allegedly sexually abused male students while he taught at Yorkville High School.
When ex-Speaker Hastert walks the media gauntlet into the federal building on Wednesday, he will be surrounded by dozens of people. But he may still feel very alone, at least according to the barometer of letters written on his behalf.
Since his indictment May 28, only three letters have been received by Judge Thomas Durkin in Chicago, the I-Team has learned.
Chicago's Grant Park |
Chicago City Council members are about to make life easier for themselves. They're running their inspector general — the person assigned to investigate them and their staffs — out of town.
The contract of Legislative Inspector General Faisal Khan, who has warred with the aldermen since he was hired in 2011, expires in November. There's no chance the aldermen will renew it. But they're also making no moves to replace Khan.
The most logical step would be to expand the powers of the city's inspector general, Joe Ferguson, to allow his office to investigate complaints into aldermen and their staffs. But the aldermen are in no rush to do that either.
The aldermen created the LIG job and hired Khan, but set him up for failure. He can't launch an investigation into aldermanic or council staff corruption on his own. He has to wait for a complaint. He can't investigate anonymous complaints. He needs permission from the city's Board of Ethics to pursue an investigation. He has to inform the subject that he or she is under investigation.
ISIS, which comes up with more and more heinous methods of execution, has ramped up its cruelty: Members of the group tied three people to the pillars in the ancient section of Palmyra and killed them by detonating the pillars, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
The group said it learned of the killings from local sources in the city, which has been under ISIS control since May. The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights relies on activists inside Syria to document human rights violations in the country.
Hoop house on Detroit's east side |
A massive five-year plan was announced Monday for a blighted neighborhood on Detroit's east side.The thirty five acres of land for RecoveryPark won't resemble rural Iowa; hoop houses for vegetable cultivation is what Wozniak has in mind. Besides, most Detroit vacant land has building foundations hidden in the soil. Try plowing that.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan joined a jovial Gary Wozniak in announcing a $15-million plan to turn 22 blocks around the former Chene-Ferry Market into an urban agriculture hub for the city.
Wozniak is the CEO of the nonprofit RecoveryPark, which essentially repurposes blighted abandoned land in Detroit into specialty urban farms through RecoveryPark Farms, a for-profit arm creating agricultural jobs for Detroiters.
RecoveryPark Farms specifically hires ex-offenders, recovering addicts and others who would have barriers to employment.
Detroit Open School is now closed |
In a series of conversations with her boss in November 2014, Kenyetta (KC) Wilbourn, the former principal of Mumford High School, laid bare the nature of alleged corruption in the Educational Achievement Authority, according to an account contained in hundreds of pages of documents and e-mails released by the EAA this week.Remember when you pay your property tax bill that some of that money is "for the kids."
Wilbourn acknowledged that she would help vendors score school business by ghost writing their responses to bids. She would take a cut of vendor payments and allow vendors to overbill. In one case, she said she had a vendor hire her uncle to channel money to her cousin.
"She said she was taught all of this during her DPS days by veteran principals," EAA Chancellor Veronica Conforme wrote in a summary of the conversations she sent to district lawyer Michelle Crockett, who later forwarded them to the FBI. DPS is a reference to Detroit Public Schools, where Wilbourn worked for years before joining the EAA, the special school district created in 2012 to turn around Michigan's lowest-performing schools. Wilbourn mentioned specifically a former principal who now works as an administrator for DPS as her mentor in how to work vendors to her advantage.
Reagan statue, Dixon, IL |
Ronald Reagan would've just been another "Back to the Future" fanatic today.Related posts:
The Republican icon enjoyed how he got to be a punchline in the first film (When Marty McFly travels to the past and tells Doc Brown who is the current president, the mad scientist responds: "Ronald Reagan? The actor?! Then who's vice-president – Jerry Lewis?"). He liked the scene so much that he apparently had the projectionist rewind the film and play it back.
Four new victims joined seven others in a sextortion federal lawsuit against the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, alleging top officials within the agency were aware of complaints.I can only imagine the howls from liberals if these allegations were made about workers at a private housing development, as opposed to a government-run establishment, which of course is the case here.
On Tuesday, amendments to the lawsuit detail new facts, including an affidavit from a victim who was a Baltimore Public Housing resident and who worked as an administrative assistant for the deputy executive director of the authority.
In her affidavit, she said that in May 2015 she told the deputy executive director about demands from maintenance men for sex in exchange for repairs to her public housing unit. This was in addition to complaints, which are already in the public record, to lower-level housing authority managers and investigators in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015.
According to the affidavit, maintenance men in Gilmor Homes left the woman and her daughter without heat for two winters because she refused to have sex with them.
Columbus statue, Chicago |
Marathon Pundit in front of Wrigley Field |