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Italian police said on Friday they had seized about $6 trillion of fake U.S. Treasury bonds in Switzerland, and issued arrest warrants for eight people accused of international fraud and other financial crimes. The operation, co-ordinated by prosecutors from the southern Italian city of Potenza, was carried out by Italian and Swiss authorities after a year-long investigation, an Italian police source said.

While there is precious little in terms of detail coming out of the latest and literally greatest "fake" bond story in history, the BBC has been kind enough to release the pictures of the boxes that the supposedly fake bonds were contained in. While we reserve judgment on the authenticity of the bonds, what we wonder is whether the boxes were also fake. Because while we can understand why someone would counterfeit the Treasury paper itself, what we don't get is why someone would go the extra effort to also create a "fake" compartment in which to store it. In...

Chicago, the city that launched the career of President Barack Obama, now has the dubious title of being the nation’s most corrupt city, according to a lengthy study done by University of Illinois Political Science Professor, Dick Simpson. He is pointing to the fact that “the Chicago area has logged more public corruption convictions by federal prosecutors than any other city.” The two worst crime zones, Simpson says, are “the governor’s mansion in Springfield and the city council chambers down the hall.” His research revealed a staggering 1,531 convictions since 1976! Additionally, Illinois is the only state which will have...

The Chicago Teachers Union is asking for raises amounting to 30 percent over the next two years, the opening salvo in heated contract negotiations with school officials who are implementing a longer school day across Chicago Public Schools next school year. Documents obtained by the Tribune show that in the face of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's expansion of the school day, the union has led with an offer seeking a 24 percent raise in the 2012-13 school year and a 5 percent increase the following year, the net effect being 30 percent.

To understand President Barack Obama (D) it is necessary to understand where he comes from. And no, I'm not only referring to Hawaii, Indonesia, Columbia University, Harvard Law School, University of Chicago Law School and any other places he touched down on to his journey to the White House. All of the preceding were/are important in molding him of course and all have been analyzed in varying degrees of thoroughness. But one influential component of his life has been relatively neglected--the poisonous Chicago and Illinois political culture he jumped in to, participated in and took with him to Washington. Known...

When the Pioneer Zephyr — better known as the Silver Streak — made its historic run from Denver to Chicago in 1934, the diesel-powered passenger train now on display at the Museum of Science and Industry topped out at 112.5 miles per hour, which at the time was only slightly off the world land speed record. What then are we to make of Wednesday’s official Amtrak kickoff for its first “high speed rail” corridor outside the Northeast — on which trains traveling between Chicago and Kalamazoo, Mich., will now reach top speeds of 110 miles per hour? Bring back the...

Lon wrote: The most striking thing about this column, and the comments that follow it, is the degree to which they highlight the lie that what differentiates the right and left is how much government they want. Ransom is outraged that a town is not telling a business where they can and cannot locate. (Oddly he is actually outraged at a nearby city that a town is not telling a business where it can locate, but he tends to have a special level of incoherence). Very few of the conservatives below even blink at the idea that government should interfere...

Video Linky Here It's one of the few politician-sponsored activities that should be free of controversy: a high school art contest. But an annual citywide competition to design the stickers affixed to every windshield in Chicago has suddenly become a public relations nightmare. The sticker, designed by 15-year-old Herbie Pulgar, depicts Chicago's famous skyline inside of a heart, with a backdrop of the city's blue and white flag. Extending up from the heart are four hands, and above them, symbols representing police officers, firefighters and paramedics.

An email from a TTAG reader who experienced a DGU at a Windy City train station has generated a lot of traffic and discussion. Here’s a comment from a Chi-town cop: “I’m glad that you were not harmed during your encounter on that “L” platform. Yes, CTA does have some very, very good video surveillance on their platforms, buses. Sad part is that if those 3 mutts had called the Police, we would have to check it (and you if still on the scene ) out. Don’t believe the BS that having a firearm in a fanny pack is having...

Earlier this month, the city of Chicago wrote a check for $399,950 to the Second Amendment Foundation, a gun rights group located in Bellevue, Wash. The check was a reimbursement for legal fees the foundation incurred in the McDonald v. Chicago case, which resulted in the United States Supreme Court overturning the city’s ban on handguns. “The city lost that action,” said Julianne Versnel, the foundation’s director of operations. “

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants lawmakers to require that all handguns in Illinois be registered with the state, or gun owners could face felony charges. A statewide gun registry is key in helping solve Chicago crimes that involve handguns from outside the city, and would also help crack down on gun trafficking, Emanuel is expected to argue Thursday. Under Emanuel's proposal, handgun owners would have to pay $65 for a registration certificate from the state, which would function much like the title to a car. Illinois law currently requires that gun owners and shooters have a firearm owners identification card,...

Chicago's City Clerk said Wednesday afternoon she will be using a new design for the next round of city vehicle stickers. Susana Mendoza says the original design drawn by a 15-year-old could include gang symbols. "The experts have felt that yes indeed it could potentially be perceived as symbollizing gang relations and, frankly, I, as clerk, cannot ask Chicagoans to put a sticker on their car if there's even remotely the possibility of that being misinterpreted." The stickers were supposed to be printed next week. Meantime, a spokeswoman for the special needs school where the artist is a freshman says...

As Gustavo Vargas drove off from a Harvey strip club after a night of drinking for the Super Bowl, he kept taunting his three buddies by screaming, "You guys ready to die? You guys ready to die?" His friends thought he was just "fooling around" but grew worried as Vargas kept yelling and "driving crazy" down the highway. Eduardo Rodriguez, sitting in the back seat, said he and his friends Jorge Pina and Armando Ruiz warned Vargas for what seemed like an hour not to do anything foolish.

<p>Chicago - City Clerk Susana Mendoza is investigating whether gang signs are in the artwork of the new Chicago city sticker just days before the sticker is set to be printed.</p> <p>The sticker was picked as the winner in a city-wide contest and was designed by a 15-year-old boy who attends a school for troubled youth.</p>

Ann Liston and Eric Adelstein are hardened Chicago Democratic consultants. Their behind-the-scenes role helping the Wisconsin Democratic Party collect more than 1 million signatures to recall Gov. Scott Walker has put them in a campaign unlike any they've ever seen. The two 40-somethings said Facebook's power to reach voters, combined with a recentU.S. Supreme Court ruling that unfettered limits on corporate and union political spending, has rewritten their industry's game plan. "It's horrible for democracy but great for business," Adelstein said Tuesday, referring to the Citizens United U.S. Supreme Court decision. Voters in Wisconsin, South Carolina and Florida have been...

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan got a $50,000 payout in unused sick and vacation leave when he left his job as CEO of the Chicago Public Schools system to join the Obama administration. According to a new report by the watchdog group Better Government Association, the secretary was able to take advantage of department policy to covert unused, accrued benefits into a cash payout. Since 2006, Chicago's school system has paid $265 million to employees under this policy, with $227 million for sick days alone. The policy was put into place by the Chicago school board and predates Duncan, a...

Two men who prosecutors said were dressed as women when they mugged two people in November 2011 near Lincoln Park Zoo have been charged with a pair of additional attacks that authorities said happened the month before, police said.

Nothing would make me happier than seeing Occupiers rampaging in the streets of Chicago only six months before the November elections. (CNS News) — Adbusters, the radical, Vancouver-based anti-consumerist magazine, credited by many media outlets for launching the Occupy Wall Street protests, has put out an ad calling for 50,000 protestors to “Occupy” the G8 summit in May. And they are not calling for peaceful protest. The Adbusters ad shows a picture of policemen beating up a defenseless protestor, and comes with the caption: “In the Tradition of the Chicago 8.” The Chicago 8 were radicals who incited riots in...

Minister in ‘rent-a-protester’ flap offers to open his books BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter/rrossi@suntimes.com Last Modified: Jan 28, 2012 02:12AM A minister in the eye of the “rent-a-protester” storm has offered to open the books of his non-profit agency to prove it spent taxpayer money appropriately — and not on packing school closing hearings with paid protesters. “Small stipends” offered to school protesters did not come from after-school and safe-passage grants the HOPE Organization received from Chicago Public Schools, the group’s CEO, Rev. Roosevelt Watkins III, told the Chicago Sun-Times in an email. “I have called CPS and invited them...

The American Communist Party was born in Chicago in 1919 and headquartered there until 1927, when its headquarters and newspaper, the Daily Worker, moved to New York. In the 1930s, the Communist Party in Chicago reached its largest audience through organizing the unemployed and protesting evictions and cuts in relief. Black Belt organizers recruited protesters at Washington Park, while Communists in Back of the Yards built alliances with community activists like Roman Catholic bishop Bernard Sheil and Saul Alinsky. During the Popular Front of the late 1930s, Communism's popularity increased among artists, writers, and intellectuals. By the end of the...

Yesterday we released a video of John Bachtell, a national board member from the Communist Party U.S.A., addressing the bongo-banging, spoiled, suburban run-aways at the #OccupyChicago tent city and an interview with a few of his “fellow travelers” in the march. Thanks to a reader tip, we have identified the three individuals in the march who we interviewed. In the photo below starting on the left is James Raines, a University of Memphis teacher (from reader tip), next to his right is Jordan Farrar (Young Communist League & Organizing for America), and next to him is Gabe Niechcial, another young...

Does Barack Obama have sufficient signatures on his petition to qualify for ballot placement in Illinois Primary election to be held on March 20th? This is the question that will be addressed in the next 10 days. While working on a voter fraud investigation, Defend the Vote, in conjunction with Jack Roeser, Publisher of Champion News, uncovered that Barack Obama’s petition application to get on the Illinois Primary Ballot was prepared contrary to Illinois election law. Overall Mr. Obama’s application was very sloppy and included petitions that were not signed and/or notarized by the circulator, 20 page gaps in page...

The media will spend the next ten years with their heads up their sphincters trying to determine motive. Hmmm ..... what could it be now? For those of us in the media who have not surrendered to jihad (all three of us), we have noticed a decided uptick in this activity. Arrests in the US are weekly now, sometimes daily. Nothing to see here, folks, keep it moving until the next catastrophe. And then the enemedia and Hamas-CAIR operatives in DC will blame ...... counter jihadists. :) Colorado man arrested on terrorism AP (hat tip Ken) AURORA, Colo. (AP) —...

The Chicago Annenberg Challenge: In 1995 William Ayers appointed Barack Obama as board chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which aimed to infuse students with a radical political commitment and emphasized social activism far more than academic achievement and test scores. Bankrolled by the billionaire publishing mogul Walter H. Annenberg and his charitable foundation, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) was a five-year school-reform effort created ostensibly to improve public schools in Chicago and elsewhere across the United States. Mr. Annenberg seeded this initiative with $500 million. School reform initiative in the 1990s Founded by William Ayers, the former Weather Underground...

Wednesday marked the first time since early 2011 that there were no shootings or murders in the city of Chicago in a 24-hour period, Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said in a statement released Thursday. “On January 18, for a 24-hour period, there were no shootings and murders in the city of Chicago,” McCarthy said. “The last time we went a day without a murder or shooting was nearly a year ago in early 2011. This is clearly the result of the tremendous police work of the men and women of the Chicago Police Department.

Here's something Chicagoans can celebrate. Or is it? Police Supt. Garry McCarthy announced Thursday the city of Chicago went 24 hours without a murder or shooting. Wednesday marked Chicago's first shooting- and murder-free day for almost a year. Early 2011 was the last time the city was this still, McCarthy said.

Occupy Chicago protestors interrupted Mayor Rahm Emanuel for about three minutes Thursday as the mayor shared a stage with pundits at the inauguration of former White House advisor David Axelrod’s Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago. “He has fired 363 library employees and cut numerous CTA routes,” protestors shouted. “Do I take it that your election was not unanimous?” Republican pundit Alex Castellanos teased Emanuel. Emanuel smiled and conceded that his election as mayor was not unanimous

E.R. Companion, of Eagan, writing to the editor in Sunday's Pioneer Press, wondered why our elected officials would commit to spending billions of dollars for a so-called high-speed rail line from the Twin Cities to Chicago. (Well, because they're nuts.) Companion was referring to a story that appeared Jan. 12 featuring the idea that the Minnesota Department of Transportation has begun studying environmental impacts along the 400-mile route, which would take passengers to Chicago, through Milwaukee, in an advertised five hours and 30 minutes. Companion wondered what was high-speed about that, and I could not agree more with his sentiment....

CHICAGO (AP) — Seven teenagers were arrested Wednesday in the beating and robbery of a 17-year-old Chicago high school student that was filmed and posted online, city police said...

CHICAGO, IL – President Obama’s Chicago homecoming on Wednesday was less welcoming than he expected, as Obama was shocked to learn his Hyde Park residence had been foreclosed upon some time last year. Obama was in Chicago for a series of fundraisers and decided to visit his old home, only to discover the locks had been changed and a new family had moved in. Since his inauguration, President Obama had neglected to make a single payment on the home he’d shared with his wife and two daughters, while the house itself fell into grave disrepair.

Looking to reduce costs as it continues to grapple with a changing media landscape and challenging economy, the Chicago Tribune told employees Monday it will offer an undisclosed number of voluntary buyouts in the newsroom. Gerry Kern, senior vice president and editor of the Tribune, issued a memo outlining the voluntary separation program, which will be open to all editorial staff except top departmental management. "We begin the year with a need to reduce costs as we face the continued financial pressures from a weak economy and structural changes in our industry," Kern said. "We are committed to taking action...

ROSWELL, Ga. — A group of Indian-American men are learning to shoot guns after a rash of metro Atlanta home invasions they believe targeted their community. The men gathered Saturday at a firing range in north Fulton County for target practice and to learn about gun safety, WSB-TV reported.

A key figure in a legendary jewel heist attributed to the Chicago mob and his alleged accomplices are in court Tuesday to face charges that they tried to rob a former partner. All three defendants are in their 70s. Joseph "Jerry" Scalise, Arthur "The Genius" Rachel and Robert "Bobby" Pullia, are accused of trying to rob the home of Angelo "The Hook" Pietra, in an attempt to recover what might be a rare diamond, or the proceeds from its sale. Scalise, a mob enforcer who served a lengthy 13-year prison sentence for the theft of the 45 carat Marlboro diamond...

An organization that investigates and fights government corruption announced this week that it obtained records detailing costs associated with a trip made by President and Mrs. Obama and key members of the administration to Copenhagen, Denmark, for the expressed purpose of securing the 2016 Olympics for the city of Chicago. Expenses for the two-week trip appear to have far exceeded $467,175, in light of the fact that costs associated with the aircrafts ? two Boeing 747s and several Air Force cargo planes – have not been made available. According to the records obtained from the Obama Department of Defense (DOD),...

If for nothing else, Jodi Kantor’s The Obamas will be remembered for an anecdote from 2010. After he spent hours disputing an allegation in the French media that Michelle Obama thought life in the White House was “hell,” press secretary Robert Gibbs encountered senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. She told him the first lady was unhappy with his work. Gibbs exploded in a rage, informing Jarrett that she didn’t “know what the f— you’re talking about” and that if Mrs. Obama was displeased, well, “f— her too.” Subsequent relations between the senior adviser and press secretary were strained. Gibbs told Kantor...

Bill Daley leaving the Obama administration was big news for ten minutes. But as my friend Streetwise Professor and I discussed on Twitter after the news broke, this really signals a big change in direction on how Obama will campaign. It’s going to get really ugly. How ugly? Think of the election cycle from 1796-1804. It will be that ugly. The culmination of those election cycles was a duel by Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, with Hamilton losing his life after the gun battle.Both Hamilton and Jefferson manipulated the press of that time to scandalize the other side. Character assassination...

Chicago Loop on Lockdown During NATO, G8 SummitsBy Rachel Bogart | Yahoo! Contributor Network – 1 hr 31 mins ago According to the Chicago Sun-Times, during the NATO and G-8 summits this spring, a major security perimeter will take place downtown and prohibit motorist access to certain streets. Both summits will be expecting high-profile leaders, including President Barack Obama, and the lockdown of the downtown area will be led by the U.S. Secret Service. Ultimately, cutting off areas of downtown is a step to boost security, especially since Mayor Rahm Emanuel is estimating that the summits will draw thousands of...

President Barack Obama returned tonight to the comfort of his hometown, where he made his first trip to his re-election headquarters that opened in May and used a supportive political base to raise millions in campaign cash at a series of fundraisers.

Complete title: Judicial Watch Obtains Documents Revealing Cost of Barack and Michelle Obama’s Failed Bid to Bring 2016 Olympics to Chicago Two-Week Trip to Copenhagen Cost Taxpayers in Excess of $467,175 (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch, the organization that investigates and fights government corruption, announced today that it has obtained records detailing costs associated with a trip made by President and Mrs. Obama and key members of the administration to Copenhagen, Denmark, for the expressed purpose of securing the 2016 Olympics for the city of Chicago. Expenses for the two-week trip appear to have far exceeded $467,175, in light of...

In a trade that made a lot of sense for Democrats, Chicago Mayor Richie Daley decided to take a powder as Mayor-for-Life in October 2010, while Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel succeeded Daley as mayor of the big, broken city by the lake. The player to be named later in the trade was William Daley, Richie’s brother. Bill Daley took Emanuel’s place as chief of staff with the charge to be the White House’s bridge to the business community. The Obama administration was hoping that Daley’s business savvy would help them repair a rocky relationship with big business- and...

MINNEAPOLIS – When Meredith Aby met with members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in 2006, she asked what it would take to get them to stop fighting. Jess Sundin did the same during her trip to Colombia 11 years ago. They returned and openly wrote and spoke about their experiences, while criticizing the U.S. government’s involvement in that country. FBI documents recently found by the anti-war activists suggest the trips may have started an investigation into apparent connections between local activists and radical groups in Colombia and the Middle East. One document says the probe expanded to include...

Washington - When Michelle Obama worked in Mayor Daley's City Hall in the early 1990s, she was "distressed" by how a small group of "white Irish Catholic" families -- the Daleys, the Hynes and the Madigans -- "locked up" power in Illinois. And as she prepared to become first lady, Mrs. Obama naively wanted to delay a move into the White House for six months, so her daughters could finish the school year. Her initial thought was to "commute" to the White House from her South Side home. And Marty Nesbitt, one of President Obama's best friends, had been recruited...

Project Shield was supposed to make citizens safer. But in the end, the $45-million Homeland Security program more resembled a disaster, wasting taxpayers’ dollars and failing to make a single citizen more secure. The failed Cook County initiative was replete with equipment that failed to work, missing records and untrained first responders according to a report by the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The report, to be released Monday but obtained by The Sun-Times and NBC5 News, found “millions of tax dollars may have been wasted.”

At 15, Jarvis Nelson should be in high school and even thinking about college. Yet Jarvis is in seventh grade, and doesn’t know where he’ll go to high school — or even where he will be living — when he graduates from junior high, hopefully next year. That’s because Jarvis has attended three different schools in the past four months. He’s lived in three different places on the North and South Sides of the city — including his most recent home, a temporary shelter in Lake View. Jarvis, like thousands of other students in Chicago Public Schools, is homeless. He...

So, Jennifer Epstein wites a breathless puff piece about a breathless puff piece written by Jodi Kanter about the magnificent Michelle and the God like Obamas. New York Times "reporter" gets 7 figure advance to write this drivel, after one interview with the Obamas, to come out just in time for the election season.

*snip* “She feels as if our rudder isn’t set right,” Mr. Obama confided, according to aides. Rahm Emanuel, then chief of staff, repeated the first lady’s criticisms to colleagues with indignation, according to three of them. Mr. Emanuel, in a brief interview, denied that he had grown frustrated with Mrs. Obama, but other advisers described a grim situation: a president whose agenda had hit the rocks, a first lady who disapproved of the turn the White House had taken, and a chief of staff who chafed against her influence.

As Michelle Obama realized over the summer and fall of 2008 that she was likely to become first lady, she asked a question that probably would have surprised outsiders: could she and her children delay moving to the White House? Perhaps it was better, she told aides and friends, to remain in Chicago until the end of the school year, giving her children more time to adjust, rather than coming right at the inauguration. Her notion, though short-lived, was telling: she didn’t understand or care what sort of message it would send to a public enthralled by the new first...

Michelle Obama was privately fuming, not only at the president’s team, but also at her husband. In the days after the Democrats lost Edward Kennedy’s Senate seat in January 2010, Barack Obama was even-keeled as usual in meetings, refusing to dwell on the failure or lash out at his staff. The first lady, however, could not fathom how the White House had allowed the crucial seat, needed to help pass the president’s health care legislation and the rest of his agenda, to slip away, several current and former aides said.

New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor, in a book to be published Tuesday, portrays a White House where tensions developed between Mrs. Obama and former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and former press secretary and presidential adviser Robert Gibbs. Among the book's most provocative anecdotes, Kantor recounts a scene in which Gibbs, frustrated after tamping down a potential public relations crisis involving the first lady, exploded when presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett told him the first lady had concerns about the White House response to the flap. The initial commotion had been over an alleged remark by Michelle Obama...

The First Lady reportedly believed that Mr Emmanuel's willingness to cut backroom deals during the battle over health care reform was tainting Barack Obama's image as a new kind of American leader. The Obamas paints a picture of a presidential inner circle divided between Mrs Obama's idealistic belief in what the administration could achieve and the grittier pragmatism of Mr Emmanuel. The book, written by New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor, claims that the chief of staff refused to allow the president's wife into high-level morning meetings, leading a brooding Mrs Obama to berate other senior advisers by email. She...