The Far South Side neighborhood, the first planned industrial community in the United States, is on Chicago's landmarks list and the National Register of Historic Places. more ›

A monthly meeting in their Bronzeville union hall had the spirit of a rally, as letter carriers decried $3 billion in cuts announced earlier this week that would close Chicago mail facilities and result in 28,000 layoffs nationwide. more ›

Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. is still on the collective mind of the House Ethics Committee, which announced their investigation into Jackson's attempts to win appointment to the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama's election as President will continue. more ›

Blagojevich recently sent letters to all 10 members of the House Ethics Committee, indicating what he may know of "Senate Candidate Number Five's" interactions with him and former Gov. Rod Blagojevich could be of interest to their investigation. more ›

Speculation has centered the House may investigate whether Jackson violated House rules for allegedly using campaign funds to fly a mistress from the Beltway to Chicago. more ›

Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. is leaving on a jet plane for Israel tomorrow to meet with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to learn more about foreign policy issues that affect the region today. more ›

Rod Blagojevich is currently giving the jury his life story on the witness stand. more ›

Maybe calling Jesse Jackson, Jr. to testify wasn't the best idea Rod Blagojevich's attorneys have had. more ›

As if Mayor Emanuel didn't have enough on his plate already, now it looks as though he'll be called to testify in the Blagojevich retrial. more ›

Even as Chicagoans prepare to hit the polls Tuesday, an issue left over from last November's election looms large for many Illinois politicos. Redistricting: that time-honored process of gerrymandering political district borders for the state Legislature and U.S. House of Representatives that has been elevated to an ugly art form across the Land of Lincoln. One of the few comforts emerging for Democrats as the dust clears from their national whooping in the last election, the party retained control of the General Assembly in Springfield; which translates into control of the redistricting process. This is one of only seven states where the Dems will be drawling the lines, but the once-in-a-decade process should be particularly interesting here given the City and statewide population declines and the power realignment that will likely occur in response to the alarming African-American flight from Chicago. more ›

(Ed. Note: Art sent the photos for this week's post last Thursday, two days before the events in Arizona. Discussing plans for future posts over the phone yesterday, we agreed that these photos should still run, at the very least, to show that some of the things we face as Americans are the same now as they were back when these photos were shot. — CS) more ›

Jesse Jackson, Jr. gave a rare interview to the AP over the weekend after delivering a Christmas message to detainees at Cook County Boot Camp. Jackson has been pretty quiet since he acknowledged he was named in the criminal complaint against former Governor Rod Blagojevich in 2008. During the Blagojevich trial, Jackson was said to have been mentioned by a businessman at a meeting discussing fundraising for Blago and Jackson’s desire for the seat. Blagojevich’s brother Robert testified that businessman offered to raise up to $6 million for Rod in exchange for Jackson’s appointment. more ›

File this one under "No Surprise:" Jesse Jackson, Jr. announced late yesterday that he will not be seeking the mayor's office next year. “I will continue to work hard on behalf of the people of my district, as I have for the past 15 years, to bring federal resources to Chicago and the South Suburbs for transportation, health care, education and economic development projects,” Jackson said in a statement released to the Tribune. “I will continue to work toward the construction of the Abraham Lincoln National Airport and the 15,000 jobs it will create by the time it opens for business.” more ›

U.S. Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr has been making noises in the press lately like he's going to run for mayor. Logistics, fundraising and personal popularity aside, Jackson could have bigger problems if he throws his hat in the ring. That's because new allegations of his involvement in former Governor Rod Blagojevich's alleged scheme to sell former Senator Barack Obama's seat in congress are coming to light. more ›

The latest update on who may or may not be running for mayor comes from a series of political events and statements from local politicians. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart has said that he's weighing his options when it comes to a run at City Hall. "I'm not as quick as some other people might be to (jump) out of the box and say I'm off to a new career," Dart told the Tribune. "I want to be thoughtful." Nevertheless, petitions to put Dart's name on the ballot are on the street. Dart says that he has no organized political effort to put his name on the ballot for mayor, but that supporters have asked if they could put petitions out for him. Dart spoke to about 250 supporters at a "Women for Dart" event Monday, where he also addressed questions from the press about a potential run. more ›

• Parents of students at Whittier Elementary School in Pilsen held a sit-in to protest the proposed demolition of the school's field house.
• A South Side man was shot twice today and survived both times.
• Shareholders for both Continental and United Airlines approved the airlines' proposed merger.

Rahm Emanuel and Jesse Jackson Jr met Thursday in Washington, DC, to discuss the city and mayoral possibilities, according to numerous anonymous reports. And Jackson broke the silence yesterday, granting an interview to the Tribune. "Rahm and I have not always seen eye-to-eye on everything,'' Jackson told the Tribune. "But both of us agree that Chicago is at a tipping point and the economic destiny of Chicago hangs in the balance.'' According to sources close to both men, they discussed jobs and the economy, as well as the importance of conducting campaigns that would allow either one to unify quickly behind a single candidate should nobody win 50 percent of the vote, leading to a run off. more ›

The Tribune is reporting that sources close to the situation say White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and South side congressman Jesse Jackson Jr met to discuss a possible run for mayor of Chicago. "Rahm is ... talking to a number of people, including political, neighborhood and civic leaders -- and Jesse is one of those people,'' the source told the Tribune. more ›

With speculation swirling around who will be Chicago’s next mayor and the public’s eye already fixed on the possibility of a Rahm Emmanual run, pollsters are already asking which horse people plant to bet on. We Ask America found 40+ candidates mentioned in reports on potential Daley replacements, narrowed that number to ten and asked more than 2,300 people who their top choice was. [Ed's note: I was one of the "lucky" recipients of the call and it had a D.C. area code. Boring. - M.G.] more ›

• Cook County President Todd Stroger's troubled jobs training program lost $2,7 million and could lose even more.
• The Cook County Sheriff's latest partner in crime-fighting: garbage men.
• The attorney for Rod Blagojevich, brother and co-defendant of former governor Rob Blagojevich, admitted he regrets not calling U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. to the stand.

An abbreviated version round-up today. more ›

Testimony from John Harris continued for a fourth day yesterday as talk continued about then-governor Rod Blagojevich's alleged attempt to sell the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by Barack Obama's election. According to what was caught on tape, Blago didn't think too highly of Jesse Jackson, Jr., especially in terms of the Senate seat. Jurors heard a tape during which Harris and Blago discussed a call Harris got from John Wyma, a mutual lobbyist pal between Blago and Rahm Emanuel, in which Wyma again outlined Obama's preference that Valerie Jarrett get the seat. During the call, an irritated Blago is heard saying, "They're not willing to give me anything but appreciation, fuck them." There was also a tape in which Rod discussed the idea of appointing aide Louanner Peters because if it looked like Blago was going to be impeached - it was seemingly on his mind - he could depend on Peters to step down and Blago could appoint himself to the seat. Brother Rob didn't like this idea at all. more ›

U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. is causing a bit of a stir not only by his refusal to endorse Alexi Giannoulias in the race for U.S. Senate but also by the kind words he has for Alexi's Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk. Speaking to Politico, Jackson said, “I like Alexi Giannoulias, but I have great respect for Mark Kirk and his service to the people of Illinois." As Politico points out, Jackson and Kirk are familiar with each other as they both serve on the House Appropriations Committee. For his part, Jackson (a well-known Democrat) didn't issue an endorsement before this year's primaries. Not that supporting along party lines is a habit of Jackson's, as the Sun-Times notes: more ›

Mayor Daley's recent calls for expanding the city Inspector General's authority over the rest of the city council got me thinking about a Chicago Reader blog post by Mick Dumke that ran last month. That's because back in 2007 when Jesse Jackson Jr was beating the drum of reform in the city, pushing a slate of candidates (including his wife, Sandi) for city council that would challenge the mayor's stranglehold on civic discourse in the city, take apart the Chicago Machine and clean up the corruption that's the most public secret in town, he published a ten-point ethics package designed to make Chicago government make sense for regular people (hat tip to Reader reader Hugh for the link!). Strangely, only one has come to be - broadcasting all city council meetings on the internet, although expanding the purview of the city IG ranked number six on Junior's list. more ›

It's the scandal that just won't stop. U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., also known as Candidate 5 in the federal indictment of former governor Rod Blagojevich is still the subject of a federal investigation into his role in the whole Blago saga. Previously, it had been alleged that emissaries for Jackson had promised to raise upwards money for then-governor Blagojevich in exchange for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Obama upon his election. Besides the current federal investigation, there's also an ethics committee probe with which Jackson has promised full cooperation. The investigation has now turned to whether or not Jackson improperly used his congressional staff to aid him in his pitch to Blago and that's beginning to "overlap" with the ethics probe, leading investigators to ask the ethics probe to hang back so as not to interfere with their investigation. more ›

It's not illegal, but the fact Jesse Jackson, Jr.'s campaign has paid his aldermanic wife Sandi (7th) over half-a-million dollars since 2001 certainly does raise eyebrows. The campaign has paid her $247,500 since 2001 including $95,000 since she became an alderman in 2007. On top of that, there's also $298,927 of cash and contributions to Sandi's campaign. Still, while it seems to push the boundaries of ethical behavior, there's nothing illegal about it. A spokesman for Jesse Jackson told Bloomberg via email, “Congressman Jackson and Alderman Jackson are each other’s biggest supporters...[they] do their best to follow all federal, state and local rules, laws and ethic codes." Bloomberg has the full story. [via NBC 5] more ›

With U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. already facing an investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics, the Sun-Times has uncovered some information that will put Jackson on the defensive once again. According to the Sun-Times' Natasha Korecki, two men, one of whom claimed he was a Jackson emissary, promised the Blagojevich campaign Jackson would raise $5 million for Blagojevich and then the Indian community would chip in an additional $1 million in exchange for appointing Jackson to the U.S. Senate seat. What still remains unclear, however, is Jackson's role - if any - in these negotiations. more ›

Yesterday, the Sun-Times' Natasha Korecki reported that the Office of Congressional Ethics is now investigating U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. and his role in attempting to land the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama that then-governor Rod Blagojevich allegedly attempted to sale off to the highest bidder. Jackson isn't the first lawmaker to be investigated by the office; he joins none other than current holder of the seat in question, U.S. Sen. Roland Burris. more ›

Governor Pat Quinn has called on Roland Burris to resign his senate seat in light of recent revelations about the newly minted senator's contact with impeached governor Rod Blagojevich. But not everyone is ready to call for his resignation just yet. In statements to the press late last week, Mayor Daley, who has been in the Persian Gulf, refused to call on Burris to step down. “Let’s put everything in perspective and give him an opportunity to explain himself," Daley said. "Automatically, every time something happens people want everybody to resign. Is it becoming very common now to tell people to resign after he was appointed?" When asked if Burris can effectively represent Illinois in congress given the controversy, the mayor waxed poetical: “He’ll have to explain that himself,” Daley said. “If there’s a cloud, I guess he’ll have to say what cloud it is. Is it a heavy or a light cloud? It’s up to him … I don’t know," he said, noting that the economic recovery bill "never would have passed" without Burris. more ›

Today we're wrapping up our look at the top 8 local stories that captivated us in 2008. more ›