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Gov. Wants Health Care Expansion Despite Unpaid Bills CHICAGO (CBS) ― Gov. Rod Blagojevich continues to push an expansion of state-subsidized health insurance, despite a new audit that found at least $1.5 billion in unpaid bills and the system is plagued by mismanagement. CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports among the health care programs affected by the state's delinquency in paying its bills is a treatment program for pregnant drug abusers. The Haymarket Center recently had to wait more than three months for payment from the State of Illinois, and in the meanwhile had to find $600,000 elsewhere to...

Politics produces a gap between words and deeds. Obama exaggerates the credit he deserves for a limited piece of ethics-reform legislation. He embellishes when he presents himslf as having a consistent record on the Iraq war when in fact he's done done a fair amount of zigzagging. He says it was the 1965 bloody attacks on civil rights protesters in Selma, Alabama, that inspired his parents to marry. They had been married for years already. He engages in doubletalk when, on free trade and Iraq, he tells the yokels one thing and the policy people another. He overstates when he...

HOW DO we even begin to measure the degree of crassness embodied in Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s failure to show up at Wednesday’s Days of Remembrance Holocaust Observance at the Old State Capitol? There simply is no metric for an act of omission that so clearly demonstrates this governor’s lack of respect for so many things: for those who planned and participated in Wednesday’s event, for the history it represents, for the very office that he holds. The Holocaust observance is a 27-year tradition that, until 2004, always had featured the governor in attendance. Blagojevich missed it in 2004 because he...

CHICAGO — The high-stakes courtroom drama was all about politics, patronage and payoffs. Illinoisans watched in fascination as George Ryan, the once-mighty Republican governor, fought to avoid a one-way ticket to federal prison but lost. And now they wonder: Will his Democratic successor, Rod Blagojevich, be next? “I think the governor is in extraordinarily big trouble,” Cindi Canary, director of the nonpartisan, foundation-funded Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, said last week as Blagojevich’s problems grew. The governor’s name has surfaced repeatedly in the federal corruption trial of Antoin “Tony” Rezko, the Chicago real estate developer and fast-food tycoon who raised...

Illinois Democrat Governor Rod Blagojevich is facing impeachment talk from within his own party in the wake of the plea agreement of Rezko pal Ali Ata. The Chicago Sun-Times reports The impeachment drumbeat at the Statehouse grew louder Wednesday, a day after the blockbuster accusation by a former state official that he got his state job after pouring money into Gov. Blagojevich's campaign fund -- including a $25,000 check in an envelope he presented to the governor.Two House Democrats said discussions on a possible impeachment resolution targeting Blagojevich accelerated after Tuesday's disclosure by Ali Ata, whom the governor appointed to...

A former top official in Gov. Blagojevich's administration said Tuesday the governor gave him a $127,000-a-year state job in exchange for pouring cash into Blagojevich's campaign fund, including tens of thousands of dollars out of his own pocket. That bombshell from Ali Ata came as the onetime director of the Illinois Finance Authority pleaded guilty in a deal in which prosecutors plan to have him testify in the ongoing corruption trial of former Blagojevich fund-raiser Tony Rezko. » Click to enlarge image From left: Tony Rezko, Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Ali Ata. (AP/Sun-Times files) RELATED STORIESEx-Blagojevich aide pleads guilty Rezko...

Rezko Trial Witness Says Blagojevich Dreamed of White HouseLast Edited: Wednesday, 16 Apr 2008, 4:57 PM CDT Gov. Blagojevich was sitting across from his then-deputy governor, Bradley Tusk, on the New Jersey-bound private plane in 2003 when Tusk got up and asked well-known Democratic political fund-raiser Joseph Cari if he'd switch seats. Cari didn't know the governor well, he testified Tuesday at Tony Rezko's corruption trial. So Cari was surprised when Blagojevich offered a vision for his political future and told Cari he could play a role. "The governor wanted to know about my experience in the 2000 election" as...

CHICAGO, (AP) -- The government's star witness at the fraud trial of Antoin "Tony" Rezko testified Monday that Sen. Barack Obama and his wife attended a party four years ago at the home of the indicted political fundraiser. Stuart Levine said the party took place in April 2004 and was held to honor Iraqi-born Nadhmi Auchi, a London-based billionaire who was visiting the United States at the time. Rezko, 52, was a major fundraiser for Obama and Gov. Rod Blagojevich, and the trial has been closely watched because of Obama's presidential campaign. But very little has been said about the...

The trial of Tony Rezko has promised an explosive look at Illinois politics, and yesterday it delivered a large detonation regarding Governor Rod Blagojevich. After an attempted shakedown of a Hollywood producer failed to generate the million-dollar payoff for Blagojevich’s campaign, fixer Stuart Levine testified that Blagojevich agreed to cut state business with Tom Rosenberg in response: A Chicago businessman-turned-Hollywood producer who believed he was being shaken down by two of Gov. Blagojevich’s campaign fund-raisers threatened to “take them down” if they didn’t back off, according to a recording played at the Tony Rezko corruption trial today.And the governor was...

CHICAGO – Governor Rod R. Blagojevich announced today that the State of Illinois will participate in Earth Hour from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday. Earth Hour is a public awareness event created by World Wildlife Fund that encourages businesses and residents to join in turning off the lights for one hour on March 29th, 2008, to demonstrate that “individual action on a mass scale can help change our planet for the better.” More than 30 cities on six continents around the world are participating in Earth Hour. Chicago was chosen as the flagship Earth Hour city in the...

Hate crimes commission set to fail Blagojevich hasn't appointed anyone to panel By NGUYEN HUY VU THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published Tuesday, March 25, 2008 After religious divisions paralyzed a state commission on hate crimes, Illinois lawmakers wanted a fresh start. They created a new version of the Governor’s Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes, designed to promote tolerance within the state’s diverse population. But seven months later, Gov. Rod Blagojevich hasn’t appointed a single person to the overhauled commission, which will fail to accomplish its first major goal — presenting a report by March 30. Meanwhile, the old version of...

Witness at Tony Rezko trial talks about his connections Rezko witness Thomas Beck said yesterday he's cousins with former longtime ward boss (and former parks superintendent) Ed Kelly. When asked today, Beck laughed. He explained that Kelly is his mother's sister's husband's sister's son. That got a laugh in the courtroom. He calls Kelly his cousin: "to make it simple for everyone." The two have known each other their whole lives, said Beck, former head of the state's health planning board. Beck testified he set up Kelly with a lawyer, Jeff Ladd, who hired Kelly as a consultant to represent...

One whisper got hospital funding approvedMarch 11, 2008 BY NATASHA KORECKI Criminal Courts Reporter With a whisper, one board member had another change his vote to approve an $81 million hospital — the first to be built since the 1970s, according to testimony in the Tony Rezko trial today. Donald Jones, a section chief at the state Department of Public Health, said he had never seen anything like it. Jones’ testimony centered on an application to build Mercy Health Systems’ Crystal Lake hospital. The project needed support from five of the nine board members to go forward. But Dr. Imad...

CHICAGO -- Governor Rod R. Blagojevich today named two of the state’s most influential leaders, former Speaker of the U.S. House Dennis Hastert and Southern Illinois University (SIU) President and former U.S. Congressman Glenn Poshard, as co-chairs of the newly created Illinois Works Coalition. The new bipartisan working group will draw expertise from business, labor and local leaders across the state and will focus on helping pass a statewide infrastructure plan in Illinois. Last month in his annual budget address, Gov. Blagojevich proposed Illinois Works, a $25 billion capital plan, as the central piece of a statewide stimulus package aimed...

FBI agent says Rezko raised $1.4 million for BlagoPosted: Friday, March 07, 2008 at 9:00 a.m. CHICAGO (AP) -- An FBI agent testified Thursday that investigators have identified more than $1.4 million raised by political fundraiser Tony Rezko for Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich from 2000 to December 2004. Charles Willenborg was one of the first witnesses in Rezko's political fraud trial. A chart compiled by the FBI using the Blagojevich campaign's own records showed that Rezko had raised thousands of dollars from contractors, insurance people, lobbyists and individuals who later got seats on state boards that were involved in an...

Laying to rest the latest parlor game of Illinois politics, a federal judge on Monday made it crystal clear that "A" stands for Rod Blagojevich in the public corruption case against the governor's indicted fundraiser, Antoin "Tony" Rezko. A ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Amy St. Eve dispensed with an array of pseudonyms that had cloaked the identities of several people who allegedly benefited from Rezko's financial schemes, including Blagojevich. He had previously been referred to in court documents only as Public Official A. The nine-page ruling was heavy on political names and dealmaking, revealing for the first time...

Judge reveals Blagojevich is 'Public Official A'Rezko allegedly sought donations for governor By Jeff Coen, Bob Secter and John Chase | Tribune reporters 11:25 PM CST, February 25, 2008 Laying to rest the latest parlor game of Illinois politics, a federal judge on Monday made it crystal clear that "A" stands for Rod Blagojevich in the public corruption case against the governor's indicted fundraiser, Antoin "Tony" Rezko. A ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Amy St. Eve dispensed with an array of pseudonyms that had cloaked the identities of several people who allegedly benefited from Rezko's financial schemes, including Blagojevich....

Obama is a product of the corrupt Chicago Machine. One of the key players in this corrupt machine is Tony Rezko - a Syrian real estate developer/slumlord who gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the machine and to Obama's law firm and to Obama's various campaign funds - and was VERY connected to the governor of Illinois. We've covered it previously HERE. NOW, THERE'S NEW NEWS: The real estate agent who sold Obama the house he now lives in - for more than a million bucks - was a pal of Rezko, someone he'd been pressuring the guv to...

Here's a perfect example of the destructive power of government. It's also a representative example of why it's a canard that government ever gives anything away for "free" as that so-called free gift inflicts pain on everyone under that government. In this tale Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has pulled a fast one on the people of Illinois. He's agreed to a plan that hikes a tax that few people even know the existence of and he's added his own layer of cost just to get old people in the city of Chicago to like him. In pandering to this tiny...

CHICAGO, Dec. 24 (UPI) -- U.S. officials investigating alleged corruption in Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration now include the governor in their probe, a report says. He is accused of being part of a "pay to play" scheme where state contracts were offered in exchange for political favors, the Chicago Tribune reported Sunday.

The good news is that despite all of his bluster, Gov. Rod Blagojevich did not call lawmakers into special session in December. Blagojevich reportedly was ready to do so Thursday, but he was finally convinced it would be another embarrassment when large numbers of lawmakers thumbed their noses at him five days before Christmas. Now, regular special sessions will resume Jan. 2. The bad news is that lawmakers didn't meet in December. They whiffed on a chance to set a never-to-be-broken record for futility by meeting in every single month of 2007. Oh, well, there's always next year. What's it...

CHICAGO (AP) ― Federal investigators are looking into real estate deals involving Gov. Rod Blagojevich's wife, including the sale of a $3.2 million home owned by one of the governor's campaign donors, according to a published report. FBI agents asked real estate agent Mary Bennett to explain why she added Patricia Blagojevich, a licensed real estate broker, as a second agent in the 2004 home sale, the Chicago Tribune reported Friday. Bennett told the Tribune she did so at the request of the homeowner, John H. Simpson, a Blagojevich campaign donor. The governor's wife received about $32,000 in the deal,...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) - It might seem incredible that as a former Illinois governor reports to federal prison, the current chief faces similar misconduct allegations, from handing out state contracts as political rewards to accepting money under suspicious circumstances. But this is Illinois. Democrat Rod Blagojevich, who won the chief executive's office five years ago on a promise to clean up former Gov. George Ryan's mess, has wound up besieged by accusations. Two people already have pleaded guilty to federal charges in a shakedown scheme that also ensnared one of the governor's closest fundraisers. And federal prosecutors have acknowledged they...

Patti Blagojevich Reportedly Got Commission On Contractor's Condo Sale CHICAGO (AP) ― The wife of Gov. Rod Blagojevich got a commission from a condo sale involving a man who later won $10 million in no-bid state contracts. The Chicago Tribune reports on the 2005 deal in its Sunday editions and on its Web site today. Blagojevich spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff says first lady Patricia Blagojevich received a standard commission in the sale of Mark Wight's property. The Tribune says a standard commission would have been between $26 thousand and $39 thousand. Patricia Blagojevich has not been accused of wrongdoing. The Tribune...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) -- Gov. Rod Blagojevich and an Illinois congressman are standing behind a man who got a high-ranking state job despite serving prison time for refusing to cooperate in a federal investigation of a militant group. U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a Chicago Democrat, praised Steven Guerra on Friday for doing "excellent work" in private and public sectors pushing health and education issues. Blagojevich continues to support Guerra, who "unequivocally" condemns violence by the Armed Forces of National Liberation, identified by the acronym FALN, and denies he was ever a member, said spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff. Guerra, 53, is Blagojevich's...

Gov's aide did time in '80s terror case SPRINGFIELD | Blagojevich stands by Guerra, who refused to testify before grand jury September 7, 2007 BY DAVE MCKINNEY Sun-Times Springfield Bureau Chief SPRINGFIELD -- A high-ranking official in Gov. Blagojevich's office spent nearly two years in a federal prison for refusing to aid a government terrorism probe into a series of bombings in Chicago and New York City. Steven Guerra, Blagojevich's $120,000-a-year deputy chief of staff for community services, was identified by federal prosecutors as a member of the Puerto Rican separatist group, FALN, which was behind a wave of violence...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorAugust 29, 2007Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Tuesday signed a bill that would force taxpayers there to spend money on embryonic stem cell research. His signing the measure is the latest action going against the views of pro-life advocates on whether unborn children should be sacrificed to advance scientific research.The measure would set up an institute under the Illinois Department of Public Health to award grants for the research, which has never helped any patients.It also makes embryonic stem cell research legal and establishes procedures for couples to donate their "unwanted" human embryos for...

A published report says $2.6 million in flu vaccine the state of Illinois donated to Pakistan never made it to the earthquake victims it was intended to help. The Chicago Tribune reports in its Sunday editions that health officials in Pakistan crushed and burned the half-million doses of vaccine because it had expired. Governor Rod Blagojevich's administration bought the vaccine from overseas in 2004. But the federal government refused to let it into the country. That fall, there was a severe U.S. shortage of vaccine, and Democrats were making an election-year issue out of a federal ban on importing prescription...

SPRINGFIELD (LEE)-Gov. Rod Blagojevich touted a gun control plan Monday, prompting outcries from several lawmakers who want to first finish the state budget that was supposed to be approved more than a month ago. State Rep. John Bradley, D-Marion, berated the governor from the House floor, saying Blagojevich's call for a ban on large ammo clips used mostly for assault weapons was merely a political ploy. "The only logical conclusion that I can draw is that this is an attempt to divide this House, to divide this caucus, to divide this state further," he said. It may have worked, as...

Governor Blagojevich and State Senator Dan Kotowski are planning to ambush gun owners on July 9th by calling for a special legislative session on so-called “gun violence.” It is expected that Kotowski will introduce legislation that would result in the banning and forced confiscation of most of your guns. The hope is to ramrod this legislation through the General Assembly while the public is distracted by failed budget negotiations. Senator Kotowski is quickly establishing himself as the most dangerous anti-gunner in the nation.

"Universal" government health care has once again returned as a political cause, with many Democrats believing it's the key to White House victory in 2008. They might want to study last week's news from Illinois, where Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich's tax increase to finance health care became the political rout of the year. The Democratic House in Springfield killed the proposal, 107-0, after Mr. Blagojevich came out against his own idea when it became clear he was going to be humiliated. Only a month earlier he had said he was prepared to wage "the fight of the century" in defense...

Quinn: Tax Plan Would Hit 'Ordinary People" In The Pocketbook (AP) CHICAGO -- Gov. Rod Blagojevich suffered a very public rejection from within his own administration Thursday as Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn disparaged the tax and health care plans that Blagojevich has made his top priority. Calling a news conference at the state Capitol, Quinn said the governor's proposal for a new $6 billion business tax would end up hitting "ordinary people" in the pocketbook. He also said expanding health care and pumping new money into schools can be done over time and doesn't have to be accomplished immediately, as...

How stupid does Rod Blagojevich think the voters of Illinois are? There's a concept called "conflict of interest" which the public understands pretty well and most politicians treat with a certain amount of seriousness. Entering public life doesn't mean that a person and every member of their family has to quit everything else or stop doing business altogether, but it does mean that they should reevaluate any business relationships that might be called into question or give off the appearance of impropriety. So it's especially insulting that Rod Blagojevich, who is careening his way to reelection amid a flurry of...

Four weeks before Gov. Rod Blagojevich stands for re-election, federal prosecutors Wednesday indicted his top campaign fundraiser in what they called a “pay-to-play scheme on steroids” aimed at extorting millions from firms that wanted business from the state’s teacher pension system. Blagojevich denied knowledge of the alleged scheme, saying he does not expect to be indicted in the next four years and feels “a tremendous sense of personal betrayal” if the allegations against 51-year-old Wilmette businessman Antoin “Tony” Rezko prove true. “If these allegations are true, it’s a violation of my trust and it’s more important a violation of the...

A federal grand jury has indicted Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a top fundraiser for Gov. Rod Blagojevich, on charges that he demanded millions of dollars in kickbacks from investment firms seeking business from the state teachers' pension system, according to an indictment unsealed today.

A criminal investigation into whether lucrative state pension business was being traded for campaign contributions to Gov. Blagojevich has developed a Hollywood storyline: Federal authorities want to know if an investment firm then co-owned by the Oscar-winning producer of "Million Dollar Baby" was pushed to donate money to Blagojevich as it vied for a $220 million state deal, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned. The producer, Tom Rosenberg, and Capri/Capital Advisors were approached in 2004 about contributing to the governor and were told it was a condition for securing investment funds from the state Teachers' Retirement System, sources familiar with the...

Topinka Spokesman Dismisses Endorsement (CBS) CHICAGO -- Gov. Rod Blagojevich has won a surprising endorsement from the Republican mayor of New York City. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was in Chicago on Thursday to promote New York as a host of the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Bloomberg called Blagojevich a fighter for the people of Illinois, especially in health care issues. “If I lived here, I would vote for him,” Bloomberg said of the Democratic governor. In response, a spokesman for GOP rival Judy Baar Topinka dismissed Bloomberg’s endorsement as from an “out of towner.”

Gay marriage amendment lacks ballot vote August 11, 2006 BY DEANNA BELLANDI ASSOCIATED PRESS The state Board of Elections agreed Friday with a hearing officer that an advisory referendum on gay marriage doesn't have enough signatures to be on the November ballot. But gay marriage opponents have taken their fight to federal court contending that the process to get a referendum on the Illinois ballot is burdensome and unconstitutional. "Unless they pull a rabbit out of a hat in federal court, it's not going to be on the ballot," said Patricia Logue, senior counsel for the Lambda Legal Defense and...

Despite new allegations, Blagojevich says misconduct is limited By F.N. D'ALESSIO CHICAGO - Gov. Rod Blagojevich insisted Saturday that misconduct in his administration is limited to isolated events by people who are soon punished, even though his own inspector general found a top Blagojevich aide took part in a "concerted effort" to subvert the law. "As you police the system, every so often you're going find some people who violate the rules. The test of leadership is what do you do about it? Do you act and do you pursue it? Do you work with other law enforcement agencies to...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - The hiring practices of the Illinois governor's office are the focus of a federal investigation into possible misconduct at several state agencies, a federal prosecutor said in a letter made public Friday. U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said in the letter he is looking into "very serious allegations of endemic hiring fraud" by Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration. The allegations include violations of restrictions against using politics to award jobs. Investigators have "developed a number of credible witnesses," the letter states. The Democratic governor, who was elected on a promise to clean up government, has not been charged with...

SPRINGFIELD - With little over four months to go before he stands for re-election, Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration took a significant hit Friday. The torpedo, however, wasn't from his Republican opponent, state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka. Rather, fellow Democrat Lisa Madigan, who is the Illinois attorney general, released copies of a letter outlining her decision to cede control of a hiring probe to federal prosecutors.

State hiring altered amid U.S. probe June 5, 2006 BY CHRIS FUSCO AND DAVE MCKINNEY Staff Reporters Shortly after federal investigators launched a probe into Gov. Blagojevich's hiring practices, his administration overhauled the way it awards state jobs, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned

AP Reports Documents Detail Political Hiring Practices (CBS) CHICAGO -- Gov. Blagojevich is under fire, and hiring practices in Springfield are at the heart of the controversy. A newly discovered e-mail implied that all hiring and firings move through the governor's personnel office. CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports on reaction from the governor on accusations that his administration trades political favors for jobs. Blagojevich took office vowing to reform state government. His first act, Executive Order One, was a hiring freeze on all but essential positions. He vowed then, as he did last week, that politics would...

Governor Rod Blagojevich could have been snippy. He could have been terse. Instead, he had some fun with a group of College Republicans who came out to his appearance at the University of Illinois yesterday. The group wore blue T-shirts emblazoned with an anti-Blagojevich slogan ("Blagojevich sucks") to protest a decision that could put some of the Illinois Student Assistance Commission's student loan portfolio up for sale. The governor announced the program and touted its potential to provide student aid to more students. Then he looked at the College Republicans and said he wanted a T-shirt. In Blagojevich's words, "I...

Yesterday was Holocaust Remembrance Day. Flashback to last summer: Ill. Governor Rod Blagojevich appointed Sister Claudette Muhammad, the minister of protocol for Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, to the Governor's Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes. Her membership in the group only became widely known when she invited her fellow panel members to Louis Farrakhan's annual "Saviour's Day" speech in February. Calypso Louie was in top-form that day, as this snippet from that speech shows: "These false Jews promote the filth of Hollywood that is seeding the American people and the people of the world and bringing you down in...

CHICAGO — Illinois’ northernmost bit is north of Cape Cod and its southern tip is south of Richmond, Va. Scattered the length of the state, from the Wisconsin to the Kentucky border are fragments of wreckage from the state party that produced the first Republican president. In the last four presidential elections, Republican candidates have averaged just 40 percent of the Illinois vote. In 2004, the Republican Senate candidate, a raging resident of Maryland, won just 27 percent of the vote. Judy Topinka, 62, the effervescent three-term state treasurer and Republican gubernatorial nominee against Gov. Rod Blagojevich, thinks she can...

Governor Rod Blagojevich (bluh-GOY'-uh-vitch) joined California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and twelve other governors in pressing federal lawmakers to find money to reimburse states for the cost of jailing illegal immigrants. President Bush's budget request for 2007 proposed killing the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program. Bush has deleted the program in past years but Congress has not gone along. Lawmakers found 405 (m) million dollars for the program in 2006 _ about 40 percent of that goes to California. Schwarzenegger, Blagojevich and the other governors today wrote to leaders of the spending subcommittees in the Senate and House with jurisdiction over...

Earlier today Robert Creamer, the husband of Cong. Jan Schakowsky, (D-IL), was sentenced to five months in prison and 11 months house arrest for his role in a 1990s check-kiting scheme while he was the head of defunct Illinois Public Action Council, a consumer advocacy group. Schakowsky has not been implicated in the scheme. Jan Schakowsky is one of the most liberal members of Congress. She is a member of the far-left Progressive Caucus. Other members of the caucus include such "stars" as Cynthia McKinney, Maxine Waters, Dennis Kucinich, Jim McDermott (Baghdad Jim), Bernie Sanders, and Lynn Woolsey. Schakowsky made...

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was thrust back into the spotlight Wednesday, when a Nation of Islam activist claimed the governor knew about her affiliation to Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader known for his attacks on Jews, gays and other groups, before appointing her to the state's hate crimes commission earlier this year. Sister Claudette Muhammad, blasted Blagojevich for saying he did not know her or realize she was an official in the Nation of Islam before appointing her to the anti-discrimination panel. "You and I spoke. We took pictures. ... I have written to you numerous times, all...

March 20, 2006 - Voter turnout Tuesday in Illinois could break an all-time record, a record low. That is because an Election Day snowstorm is headed straight for central Illinois. A non-presidential primary election usually attracts about a third of all of the registered voters in Illinois. Election experts say a central Illinois snowstorm could reduce Tuesday's statewide turnout to less than 25 percent which would be the lowest in many decades. the turnout forecast for Chicago and the collar counties is good, no rain or snow but windy and chilly. City turnout expected in the 38 percent range. but...