Reports of Rev. Jackson's wandering eye aren't new, but they do apparently merit this video send-up from Next Media Animation. more ›

The former employee says his coworkers mocked and harassed him. The organization and Jesse Jackson are named as defendants. more ›

Yes, the rumors are true - former president Bill Clinton will be stopping by the Chicago Cultural Center on Tuesday, January 18th to rally for Rahm Emanuel. But as some may have expected, Clinton's visit to Chicago isn't necessarily a visit that everyone is excited about. more ›

Yesterday it was Congressman Danny Davis who offered a stern warning for former President Bill Clinton against campaigning for Rahm Emanuel. Today it's former Senator Carol Moseley Braun who says Clinton runs the risk of alienating African Americans if he decides to interject himself into the mayoral campaign. more ›

While many Cleveland Cavaliers fans expressed their displeasure with NBA star LeBron James' departure for the warmer climate of Miami by burning James' merchandise in the streets, the team's majority owner Dan Gilbert instead took to the Cavs' website, where he hammered out a Comic Sans screed about how Cleveland was "cowardly betrayed" by James, and he guaranteed "that the Cleveland Cavaliers would win an NBA championship before the self-titled former 'King' wins one." more ›

Day 15 of the Blagojevich Trial picked right back up without missing a beat in the direct testimony of former chief-of-staff John Harris. And it stepped straight into the surreal even as it focused on something we already knew: Rod considered Oprah for the U.S. Senate seat left vacated by Barack Obama. From Sarah Ostman's report for the Sun-Times on Blago suggesting Oprah, a tape played featured this exchange: more ›

While the nightmare in the Gulf of Mexico drags on thousands of miles away, impacts and repercussions from the goopy mess have reached all the way into Chicagoland, making interesting theater of the reactions from a wide array of local figures tangentially touched by BP. more ›

Illinois senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) toured Louisiana yesterday with Louisiana senators Mary Landrieu and David Vitter, along with some officials from the Obama administration to address the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Durbin remarked on BP’s handling of the spill, deemed by the White House as the worst in U.S. history, saying “In my mind, BP no longer stands for British Petroleum. It stands for Beyond Patience.” He went on to say that the Obama administration would pressure BP to clean up the spill and bear the cost. more ›

In the aftermath of the beating death of teen Derrion Albert, Rev. Jesse Jackson has been part of a call for a "national conversation" on youth violence and a ready-made photo op riding the bus to Fenger High School on the South Side. But yesterday Jackson proposed something that would have a concrete affect on the community -- give people jobs. In a meeting with Chicago officials, Jackson localized his point from a NAACP speech over the weekend in which he said: more ›

This morning, Rev. Jesse Jackson hopped on board a bus with Fenger High School students from the Altgeld Gardens housing development in an attempt to bring attention to what Jackson calls "a state of emergency given patterns of violence and patterns of killing." Students from Altgeld Gardens were transferred to Fenger when their old school, Carver High School, was closed to be converted to a military academy. Residents and students claim the outbreak of violence at Fenger - including the brawl that resulted in the highly-publicized death of Derrion Albert - stems from tension between the Altgeld Gardens students and students from the "Ville" portion of the Roseland neighborhood that surrounds Fenger. Jackson said, "Parents are unanimous in wanting their students to walk to Carver...We must relieve them (the students) of the feeling of harm, the fear of death." [Tribune, CBS 2] more ›

Rev. Jesse Jackson is the subject of a $100,000 lawsuit that accuses him of backing out of a 2007 speech in Trinidad. According to the Associated Press [via the Tribune]: more ›

While other revelers who attended yesterday's swearing in headed home or to the parade, I fought the crush of people and made my way back to temporary HQ where I filed yesterday's Dispatch, got all gussied up in my tux, and headed out for some formal fun. more ›

As Chicago moved past the milestone of over 500 homicides this year, Jesse Jackson, Sr. used the opportunity to further promote his campaign for tougher gun laws. more ›

As the sit-in at the Republic Windows and Doors plant reached its third day, Rev. Jesse Jackson paid a visit to factory workers. The factory was suddenly shut down this week after Bank of America canceled the company's line of credit due to the current economic crisis. Workers, however, are demanding severance packages they say are owed to them. A law signed by Gov. Blagojevich a few years ago backs this claim up. According to NBC 5:

The Illinois WARN Act, signed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich in 2004, requires employers to give 60 days notice to employees and their unions, the Illinois Department of Commerce & Economic Opportunity’s Bureau of Workforce Development and the Illinois Department of Labor, of a plant closing or mass layoff.

This year's presidential race has been a national dialogue on what matters to Americans at this point in our nation's history. But it's also been a sometimes difficult debate on the very real gender, ethnic and racial tensions that lie just underneath our country's perception of itself. more ›

Rev. Jesse Jackson apologized to Barack Obama yesterday on CNN’s and later at a press conference, for remarks he made off-air after an interview with Fox News. In fact, because Jackson spoke when he thought he was off the air, it took several hours to know exactly what was said. more ›

It's hard to avoid if you're keeping up with the mainstream media, but in case you've missed it, today is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. King is remembered in today's Tribune, the Sun-Times speaks to Jesse Jackson, who was present at the assassination, and WBEZ's Eight Forty-Eight focuses on the Lawndale Christian Development Corporation's efforts to fight substandard housing in the neighborhood as well as their tribute to King, a former resident of the neighborhood who also fought segregated housing issues in the neighborhood. more ›

21st Ward Alderman Howard Brookins accepted Jesse Jackson's endorsement for Cook County State's attorney Sunday at Jackson's South Side Rainbow/PUSH headquarters. more ›

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

The race for Cook County state's attorney has been hot and heavy in the past few weeks, with candidates taking plenty of shots at each other in a debate last week. (You can watch the debate here.) more ›

Hillary Clinton's "Emotional Moment" in the Portsmouth, NH café on Monday has already become the stuff of myth, with many pundits directly and indirectly attributing Clinton's surprise victory in Tuesday's primary to the tears that almost fell (but never actually did). Leave it to Chicago's own Jesse Jackson Jr., co-chairman of Barack Obama's national campaign, to siphon the tears out of the excretory ducts of Clinton's eyes and leverage them for political gain: more ›

Congressman and mayoral wannabe Jesse Jackson Jr made some strange bedfellows this weekend when he announced that he's endorsing Larry Suffredin for Cook County state's attorney. more ›

Jesse Jackson Jr wants the FEC to tell him whether he can use his campaign funds to help his wife, 7th Ward Alderman Sandi, to unseat Bill "Hog With the Big Nuts" Beavers as ward committeeman. In the advisory opinion request he submitted to the federal commission on October 15, he specifically asked for clarification on several issues, including how much money, if any, his re-election campaign can give his wife, as well as the... more ›

Loyola University Medical Center started testing all incoming patients for that drug-resistant staph germ that's been going around. Our version of a spa is where George Ryan's going to prison. Jesse Jackson Jr. throws a "tea party" style photo op, dumping bottled water in the Chicago River. Big talk for a man who opted not to run against His Elective Majesty for Mayor. Does El Cubanito make the best Cuban sandwich in town? You'll... more ›

What is wrong with people? Chicago police say a fisherman at Montrose Harbor may have been murdered, simply because he was Asian. The South Side is getting their prayer on after last year's tragic incidents of children being caught in the crossfire. Jesse Jackson is going around asking parents to send their kids to school. And he's finding it ironic that he has to beg when African-Americans fought to go to school in the... more ›

Nearly two weeks after Congressman Luis Gutierrez announced that he will, indeed, seek a ninth term in Congress (after announcing that he wouldn't run again), First Ward Alderman Manny Flores has announced that he won't seek the congressional seat. "I did this of my own accord. He's my friend," Flores told the Sun-Times, adding that Gutierrez didn't try to persuade him. Of course, Gutierrez's decision shouldn't be too shocking. The conventional wisdom is that if... more ›

We've been having some fun here with this series of photos featuring Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. practicing martial arts. After Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown wrote about the photos in today's paper, they're now officially more than an Internet phenomenon. The photos make a nice sidebar to an argument last week between Jackson and Nebraska's Congressman Lee Terry after a debate on an agriculture appropriations bill was tabled for the day. Name calling ensued, prompting Terry... more ›

In the mid 90's we were television addicts. From soaps to sitcoms, we soaked up nearly everything the tube could offer. Our collection of VHS tapes at the time was chock full of good stuff. But in some cases it was the commercials that we loved most. One of our favorites featured Judy Tenuta drinking Diet Dr. Pepper while "working out" at the gym. The moment she proclaiming "You can't get a body like mine... more ›

Calling the sentence imposed on Lewis "Scooter" Libby "harsh" and "excessive," George W. Bush commuted the 30-month sentence on Monday. Not quite the full pardon that some conservatives wanted — he still has to pay a quarter million dollar fine and serve 2 years probation for lying under oath — it certainly left Bush open to criticism, from both sides of the congressional aisle. “He was indicted by a grand jury and convicted beyond the... more ›

Illinois budgets are in trouble all over -- at a meeting with legislative leaders late Tuesday, Gov. Blagojevich warned that unless a budget deal is reached, state government could shut down next month. Selling sex toys on the side and earning a $64,000 salary wasn't enough. Karen Bailey, a top assistant to Cook County Commissioner Jerry "The Iceman" Butler, faces felony charges for allegedly stealing nearly $300,000 from an 87-year-old woman, prosecutors and police... more ›