Results tagged “attorneygenerallisamadigan”

.] Now Jesse Jackson's candidate Larry Suffredin is under renewed scrutiny for his work as a corporate lobbyist.

In what what was quite possibly the most anti-climactic letter ever, Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office announced yesterday that it would stay out of the legal dispute between her dad, House Speaker Mike Madigan, and the Illinois Property Tax Appeals Board. In July, the Board, headed by Blagojevich ally Ron Messina, asked her office to rule on the possibility that the Speaker's second job as a property-tax appeals lawyer might disqualify him from taking a...

In a report published Monday, the Chicago Reporter found that Chicago is the the nation's capital for "high-cost" home loans. The study, looking at three years' worth of federal home-loan data, showed that in 2006, "the Chicago-Naperville-Joliet metropolitan statistical area, which includes Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Grundy, Kane, Kendall, McHenry and Will counties" led the nation, with 88,315 “high-cost” mortgages. "High-cost" mortgages are defined as first-lien home loans that are at least three percentage points above...

Chicagoist has a saying among friends, "no good night ever started with Sparks." While we are totally in favor of beer (obviously), we aren't totally on board with beer that tastes like orange candy and changes the color of your teeth and tongue. Apparently, neither is Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Attorneys General from 28 other states.

Plans for the Olympic stadium and village have been unveiled. Illinois is one of a bunch of states that have reached an $8 million settlement with Bayer, who they say didn't properly warn people about the risks of taking the drug. Local tech company Itellext is teaming up with AOL to make a free customized version of their search tool Watson available for K-12 students. The CTA is putting a new northbound platform and...

It seems that another battle is brewing with Rod Blagojevich. In a last-minute press release Friday evening, G-Rod announced he was suspending a program designed to stop predatory lending in the Chicago area, claiming that it hurt development in those areas. The five-month-old Illinois Predatory Lending Database Pilot Program set up rules for people that wanted to buy a home in 10 ZIP codes on Chicago's west and southwest sides. These rules required residents who...

Oprah urges each and every one of her viewers to “live your best life.” And whether she’s making like an angel or giving out free cars, she often helps to facilitate that in any way she can. But we’re pretty sure she’s not happy about people using her Oprahness to scam people out of money via e-mail phishing schemes. Illinois’ own angel Attorney General Lisa Madigan says not to fall for it. In other less...

Fans of Mandarin Mint, Kauai Kolada, and Warm Winter Toffee cigarettes should start stocking up now, as these cigarettes are in their last days. Yesterday, in a news conference from Chicago’s West Side, Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced that R. J. Reynolds had agreed to a settlement that would prohibit them from selling cigarettes with candy, fruit, or alcoholic beverage names. Under the terms of the agreement, Camel, Kool and Salem can still produce flavored cigarettes; they just can’t be sold with the delicious sounding names.

The price tag on the Dan Ryan construction project wasn't the only thumping big number in the news this past weekend. True to the predictions that we wrote about a couple weeks ago, ComEd announced the results of their first energy auction late Friday afternoon, translating into a whopping 25 percent increase in monthly electricity bills come January.

Coming of age is important in every culture from quincenaras to bar mitzvahs to the now uber-popular Sweet Sixteen bash (Thanks, MTV). Parents now flaunt the love and affection for their children with hugely expensive parties that honor the special achievement of turning sixteen.

So far this week Chicagoist had an argument with our siblings over baseball, endured a date with a guy who isn't even registered to vote, forgot to set our alarm clock, thus making us late for a big meeting at work, fell down some stairs, and accidentally threw our favorite cashmere sweater into the dryer. And it's only Wednesday! Sigh. Even with all of that, our week is still not going as poorly as Governor...

Yesterday, as the snow poured down on Chicago for the first substantial time in a while, it was a great time to cuddle up by the fire with a new book. Oh, wait, that wasn't a book—it was your horrifying energy bill.

Yesterday Governor Blagojevich decided that keno will not have a role in funding state construction projects. So if your gambling itch can’t be adequately scratched with the lottery and riverboat casinos, you might want to head up to Michigan.

Remember that post we did on how anyone can request your cell phone records and find out all kinds of personal information about you? For about $100 - $200 all you had to do was contact 1st Source Information Specialists Inc at one of their websites (locatecell.com, celltolls.com, datafind.org, peoplesearchamerica.com) and you could find out all the calls placed from a number or find out a name, ssn, and address associated with a number. The service can also help you stalk a person by tracking down the location of calls within 500 - 1,000 feet of where they were placed. Scary stuff.

Typosquatting. We knew people did it, but we didn't know there was a name for it. Typosquatting is when someone buys domain names of competitors but with typos in them and then redirects people to their site. So, like if you accidentally typed in "chicagotribuen.com" you'd be taken to the Sun-Times site. Sneaky, huh? But did you know you can get in deep doo-doo for it?

The Chicago Tribune released a poll on Saturday showing Governor Rod Blagojevich's approval ratings at a bottom-scraping 35% among 1,200 voters polled across Illinois. The poll results, conducted between May 5-10, came only days after the Governor's proposed campaign finance reform took a dive in the General Assembly. And on same day as the poll release, Saturday, news came that Attorney General Lisa Madigan served Alderman Dick Mell (33rd) and the governor's office with subpoenas for a grand jury investigation. Mell confirmed the report, but the governor's office would neither confirm or deny the report.

The relationship between a website and its readers is one that is both sacred and profane. Most of the profanity comes out in the comments section while the sanctity is realized in the trust you, as a reader, put in Chicagoist to do what we say we will do. Way back in March, we promised to never do another post about The Band Whose Name We Dare Not Speak. And we tried, Internet, we really tried. But we’re about to fail you here to bring you our Governmental Quote of the Week.

Springfielders are buzzing about a report released this afternoon by State Auditor General William Holland. The report accuses a powerful state agency of illegally shifting funds between accounts, failure to track contract expenses, and inability to document $137 million of claimed procurement savings. The report stopped short of suggesting criminal activity, but the report was referred to Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who's office is reviewing it "very closely." The agency accused of wrongdoing, the...

Apparently those people that have nothing better to do than concoct ways to fuck up everyone else's digital day are moving on to cell phones. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan issued a consumer alert today warning of the dangers of cell phone viruses. While still rare, the viruses have the ability to crash your cell phone the same way traditional computer viruses cripple your CPU.

Attention gullible dipshits! If Sgt. Mark Dang contacts you via e-mail to ask for your help in transferring part of Saddam Hussein's fortune that he found in Iraq, be careful. Sgt. Dang may only be taking advantage of your delusions of renown among the U.S. Armed Forces and, according to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, may not even exist. "I would be very surprised if this con artist is a member of our military, which is serving so courageously in the Middle East. ...This seems to be a new twist on a very old scam," Madigan said today.

Alderman Dick caved. As we told you yesterday, Mell said he was willing to retract his allegation that Chris Kelly, Blago's top fundraiser, traded state appointments for $50,000 donations. But for the past week the attorneys were squabbling over the wording of an apology letter. Evidently they came up with something that pleased both parties as the letter went public today.

So, do you give a shit about this whole thing? We don't want to tell you what to do, but it is going to get really interesting. So you should. Since it's Friday, here's a short recap of the feud this week and a bit of speculation from your friends at Chicagoist.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced yesterday that Illinois will receive $500,000 of a $1.46 million settlement with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. from suits filed by Illinois, New York and Maryland. The money will go toward youth smoking prevention programs.