James Comey's Dereliction
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“I'm in Heaven Right Now”
CHICAGO’SFREEWEEKLYSINCE | JANUARY | JANUARY CHICAGO’SFREEWEEKLYSINCE “I’M IN HEAVEN RIGHT NOW” Angel Bat Dawid taps into the root of all black music. BYLG31 MAYORAL RENT CONTROL THEATER SPOTLIGHT ON IN THE FIRST AND DIRECTORS ON TONI PRECKWINKLE 26TH WARDS GENDER BIAS Ben Joravsky | Kathleen Hinkel10 IN CHICAGO Samantha Smylie 8 Novid Parsi15 THIS WEEK CHICAGOREADER | JANUARY | VOLUME NUMBER A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR “DOES JOURNALISM HAVE a future?” Jill disaffection for journalism that Lepore and have stated their support quite clearly. Lepore asked in the most recent issue of the Peretti point to in their own ways. I’ve put We’re honored. New Yorker, as prankster turned media inno- several of my own publications down, watched But the real appreciation for your sup- vator Jonah Peretti laid o 15 percent of his freelance paychecks dwindle, faced increas- port shines through our pages and on our workforce at BuzzFeed and then refused to ing antagonism for asking basic questions of website. Listen to our first-ever podcast pay most former employees their paid time authority. Perhaps most horrifying, I’ve faced the BACK ROOM DEAL at chicagoreader. o . Meanwhile, we’re over here adding pages the prospect of either doing the work for free com/backroomdeal (or Spotify, Stitcher, or to our print edition, launching a podcast, or choosing to live in a world where the work Apple) for the complete scoop on the Chi- and tracking gains in Web tra c month after doesn’t get done. cago elections from Ben Joravsky and Maya month (after month). (We also expanded our Yet we’ve seized the chance at the Read- Dukmasova. -
No Games Chicago Book of Evidence for The
NO GAMES CHICAGO BOOK OF EVIDENCE FOR THE INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE Why Chicago Should NOT Be Awarded the 2016 Olympic Games GAMESNO BEITER HOSPITALS * HOUSING * SCHOOLS AND TRAINS ©[l{]I]©~@@**** GAMESNO BETTER HOSPITALS * HOUSING * SCHOOLS AND TRAINS ©[M]~~@@**** Dear Members of the International Olympic Committee: We are citizens from Chicago, Illinois who are opposed to our city hosting the 2016 Olympic games. We see four major reasons why Chicago should not be awarded the Games. (1) Lack of Finances. Our nation, state, county and city are broke and running massive deficits. There's no way to guarantee that we will have the many billions needed to complete the work needed. Chicago is famous for going way over budget on any large construction project it tackles. (2) Lack of Competence. Our state, county and city are notoriously corrupt and populated with incompetent officials who line their pockets and make choices based not on effectiveness or the public good, but rather on how much money . can be made by friends and family members. This directly translates into bloated construction projects that go massively over budget and suffer repeated delays. (Block 37 is a project that is 30 years old and still incomplete, Millennium Park was just four years late). Also, there are a number of very high-ranking corruption investigations under way and our former Governor faces trial in 2010. It's entirely possible that many of the Chicago officials the 10C has been working with may be under investigation. (3) Lack of Infrastructure. Our city is falling to pieces around us. -
United States Attorney District of New Jersey
United States Attorney District of New Jersey FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Matthew Reilly July 12, 2017 Office of Public Affairs www.justice.gov/usao/nj (973) 645-2888 FORMER PORT AUTHORITY OFFICIAL SENTENCED FOR HIS ROLE IN SCHEME TO PUNISH FORT LEE MAYOR FOR NOT ENDORSING GOVERNOR’S RE-ELECTION NEWARK, N.J. – A former official of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was sentenced today to three years’ probation for using the authority’s resources to facilitate and conceal the cause of traffic problems in Fort Lee, New Jersey, to punish that borough’s mayor for not endorsing Gov. Chris Christie’s re-election. David Wildstein, 55, the former director of Interstate Capital Projects at the Port Authority, pleaded guilty on May 1, 2015, before U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton to an information charging him with two counts of conspiracy for his role in the scheme. Judge Wigenton imposed the sentence today in Newark federal court. Wildstein, William E. Baroni Jr., 45, former deputy executive director of the Port Authority, and Bridget Anne Kelly, 44, former deputy chief of staff to Gov. Christie, engaged in a scheme to manufacture traffic problems in Fort Lee by reducing from three to one the number of local access lanes to the upper level of the George Washington Bridge. Baroni and Kelly were both convicted at trial for their respective roles in the scheme. On March 29, 2017, Judge Wigenton sentenced Baroni to 24 months in prison and Kelly to 19 months in prison. “As we said in our motion to the Court, although David Wildstein was the architect of this criminal scheme and a force behind its cover-up, he accepted responsibility for his actions and admitted his guilt,” Acting U.S. -
Barack Obama: a Radical Leftist’S Journey from Community Organizing to Politics by Elias Crim and Matthew Vadum
Barack Obama: A Radical Leftist’s Journey from Community Organizing to Politics By Elias Crim and Matthew Vadum Summary: The remarkable ascent of Demo- cratic presidential candidate Barack Obama begins with his career as a “community organizer” for far-left causes in Chicago, an experience that served as a launching pad for his political career. Along with way, Obama acquired some unsavory friends including sleazy political fundraiser Tony Rezko and unrepentant Pentagon bomber William Ayers. Obama promises to carry his activist spirit into national politics, but does he also carry the smell of Chicago politics into the national arena? “What Obama is proposing goes far beyond the boundaries of traditional community service volunteers. Obama wants to bring the spirit and tactics of community organiz- ing into the political system, and there is no road map out there for how to do it.” —John K. Wilson, Barack Obama, The Improbable WhenWhen you’reyou’’re runningrunniing ffoforr prpresident,esidentt, iit’st’s hhahardrdd ttoo outrun your past. Shown in old mug- Quest (2008) shots, unrepentant terrorist William Ayers (above center), and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn (right), helped launch Barack Obama’s political career by holding a 1995 fund- raiser in their Hyde Park home. The event came years after the couple detonated he Chicago winter of 1996-1997 was bombs in the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol, and New York City police headquarters. a bad one, especially for residents of Chicago’s inner-city neighborhoods. But he Foundation, an Islamic charity founded in Tthe Englewood apartment building at branched out into politics in the early 1980s 1975 that in 1985 changed its name from 7000-10 South Sangamon. -
Will Taking the Fifth Save Christie's Sidekicks?
Will Taking the Fifth Save Christie’s Sidekicks? http://www.newsweek.com/will-taking-fifth-save-christies-sidek... Will Taking the Fifth Save Christie’s Sidekicks? By Pema Levy | 4/22/14 at 4:32 PM What do the emails of two of Chris Christie’s closest confidants at the heart of the Bridgegate affair tell us about the part the New Jersey governor played in the scandal? Too bad investigators can't get their hands on them to find out. At least not without extensive legal wrangling around one of the most famous but least understood amendments in the U.S. Bill of Rights: the Fifth. Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Stepien, Christie's former deputy chief of staff and campaign manager, respectively, are invoking their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in the investigation into the infamous lane closures on the George Washington Bridge in September. The two aides featured prominently in emails published on January 8 showing their involvement in orchestrating and covering up the scandal. Kelly is responsible for the most famous quote from the debacle so far, in which she ordered up "some traffic problems in Fort Lee," setting off four days of gridlock there. In a later email, Stepien called the mayor of Fort Lee an "idiot." As prime suspects, the two were slapped with subpoenas from the investigating committee of the state legislature, along with 16 other officials. While documents from the others, as well as Christie's office and his campaign's, are now trickling in to the committee, Kelly and Stepien will hand over nothing. -
What Is Written Below Is a Summary of Why Donald Trump Was Elected President by His True, and Diehard, Supporters
What is written below is a summary of why Donald Trump was elected President by his true, and diehard, supporters. The author of this piece is not known to me... just sharing... My Leftist friends (as well as many ardent #Never Trumpers) constantly ask me if I'm not bothered by Donald Trump's lack of decorum. They ask if I don't think his tweets are "beneath the dignity of the office." Here's my answer: We Right‐thinking people have tried dignity. There could not have been a man of more quiet dignity than George W. Bush as he suffered the outrageous lies and politically motivated hatreds that undermined his presidency. We tried statesmanship. Could there be another human being on this earth who so desperately prized "collegiality" as John McCain? We tried propriety: has there been a nicer human being ever than Mitt Romney? And the results were always the same. This is because, while we were playing by the rules of dignity, collegiality and propriety, the Left has been, for the past 60 years, engaged in a knife fight where the only rules are those of Saul Alinsky and the Chicago mob. I don't find anything "dignified," "collegial" or "proper" about Barack Obama's lying about what went down on the streets of Ferguson in order to ramp up racial hatreds because racial hatreds serve the Democratic Party. I don't see anything "dignified" in lying about the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and imprisoning an innocent filmmaker to cover your tracks. I don't see anything "statesman‐like" in weaponizing the IRS to be used to destroy your political opponents and any dissent. -
Kelly V. United States—Supreme Court Overturns “Bridgegate” Convictions
May 12, 2020 Kelly v. United States—Supreme Court Overturns “Bridgegate” Convictions The U.S. Supreme Court Reaffirms that, to Be Punishable as Wire or Federal-Program Fraud, the Core Purpose of a Fraudulent Scheme Must Be to Obtain Money or Property. SUMMARY On May 7, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reversed the convictions of two associates of then- New Jersey Governor Chris Christie involved in the “Bridgegate” scandal, in which the defendants realigned two lanes of the George Washington Bridge as a form of political retribution against the mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, for the mayor’s refusal to support Christie’s 2013 reelection campaign. The Court explained that, to sustain the defendants’ convictions for wire and federal-program fraud, the government was required to prove that the specific object of their fraud was to obtain money or property. Because the government failed to prove that obtaining money or property was the central purpose of the defendants’ scheme, the Court overturned the defendants’ convictions. BACKGROUND In an effort to establish strong bipartisan support for then-Governor Christie’s 2013 reelection campaign, Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie’s Deputy Chief of Staff, courted various mayors for their endorsements, including the mayor of Fort Lee, New Jersey, Mark Sokolich. In summer 2013, Mayor Sokolich informed Kelly’s office that he would not back the governor’s campaign. In retaliation, Kelly and two officials from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (the “Port Authority”)—William Baroni, Deputy Executive of the Port Authority, and Daniel Wildstein, Baroni’s chief of staff—devised a scheme to cause, as Kelly wrote in an email, “some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” New York Washington, D.C. -
Texas and Ohio: the End of the Beginning, but Not the Beginning of the End John C
The End of the Beginning, But Not the Beginning of the End DGAPstandpunkt Washington Briefing Prof. Dr. Eberhard Sandschneider (Hrsg.) März 2008 N° 4 Otto Wolff-Direktor des Forschungsinstituts der DGAP e. V. ISSN 1864-3477 Texas and Ohio: The End of the Beginning, But Not the Beginning of the End John C. Hulsman Hillary Clinton hat sich mit den Vorwahlsiegen in Ohio und Texas einen Namen als Harry Houdini im ame- rikanischen Wahlkampf gemacht. Die scheinbar unaufhaltbare Nominierung von Barack Obama durch die Demokraten nach elf siegreichen Vorwahlen in Folge ist gestoppt. Für dieses Zauberkunststück hat Clinton sich nicht gescheut, eine Negativkampagne gegen den Konkurrenten aus dem eigenen Lager zu starten: Obama wird dabei immer wieder als unzuverlässiges Leichtgewicht in Fragen der nationalen Sicherheit hingestellt. Das fortge- setzte Kopf-an-Kopf-Rennen macht es für beide Kandidaten schwierig, die notwendige Anzahl von Delegierten für die Nominierung zu erringen. Diese Unentschiedenheit schadet den Demokraten enorm und spielt direkt in die Hände der Republikaner. Following supposedly pivotal Super Tuesday in early more often than Dracula). Stories appeared about the February, something rather surprising happened in disarray in her campaign, how they had blown through this roller-coaster of an election campaign: the Demo- $120 million dollars with precious little to show for it. crats seemed, at long last, to have decisively moved Why these folks had not even thought about a post- toward one of the party’s candidates. Barack Obama Super Tuesday strategy, so confident were they that won 11 straight contests, often by decisive margins. Hillary would lock up the nomination by then. -
UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations
UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title StoryMiner: An Automated and Scalable Framework for Story Analysis and Detection from Social Media Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9637m3j1 Author Shahbazi, Behnam Publication Date 2019 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles StoryMiner: An Automated and Scalable Framework for Story Analysis and Detection from Social Media A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science by Behnam Shahbazi 2019 © Copyright by Behnam Shahbazi 2019 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION StoryMiner: An Automated and Scalable Framework for Story Analysis and Detection from Social Media by Behnam Shahbazi Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science University of California, Los Angeles, 2019 Professor Vwani P. Roychowdhury, Co-Chair Professor Douglas S. Parker, Co-Chair The explosive growth of social media over the past decade, together with advancements in computational power, has paved the way for many large-scale sociological studies, which were not possible before. Social media sites are now the primary source of data for much of our insights into society, from trending topics to behavioral patterns of various groups such as online shoppers or political parties. One particular area of interest is the analysis of events and interactions through their descriptions in social media posts. Inferring and analyzing real-world events from social media in a large-scale automated way provides a platform for understanding real-world stories, which are not only influenced by but also heavily impact public opinion. Therefore, it is necessary to design computational and statistical tools to automatically extract social media stories. -
Robert-Fitch-On-Obama
The Change They Believe In Speech for Harlem Tenants Association, November 14, 2008 By Robert Fitch Nellie asks us to foretell what an Obama Administration is going to do for cities, housing and neighborhoods. Of course we can’t really know what’s going to happen in the future. We can only know what’s already happened. So it’s an exercise that reminds me a little of Johnny Carson’s old late night TV routine with his sidekick Ed McMahon. Carson played Karnak the Magnificent. McMahon would give him an answer. And Karnak, wearing a giant turban, and holding an envelope to his forehead, would guess the question inside the envelope. Ed would give an answer like. “A B C D E F G.” Karnak would reply with the question: “Earlier versions of Preparation H.” What’s President-elect Obama’s prescription for urban pains? I’m going to put on my urban turban and try to play Karnak. It’s a difficult role not only because the future is hard to predict; but because Obama himself is not easy to read. In my lifetime, we haven’t had a politician with his gifts: his writing talent; his eloquence; his charisma; his mastery of public policy; his ability to run a national campaign against formidable rivals. Obama projects so brilliant an aura that it’s almost blinding. He’s become the bearer of pride for forty-five million African Americans who want to be judged by the content of their character. He’s the prophet of hope; the apostle of change and the organizer of “Yes We Can.” All this makes Obama’s actual politics very hard to put in any critical perspective. -
Key New Jersey Cases to Watch in 2018 by Jeannie O'sullivan
Portfolio Media. Inc. | 111 West 19th Street, 5th Floor | New York, NY 10011 | www.law360.com Phone: +1 646 783 7100 | Fax: +1 646 783 7161 | [email protected] Key New Jersey Cases To Watch In 2018 By Jeannie O'Sullivan Law360, New York (January 1, 2018, 3:04 PM EST) -- High-profile New Jersey cases are poised for key developments in 2018, when the U.S. Supreme Court may decide on the state’s bid to legalize sports betting and the Third Circuit ponders appeals by former public officials facing prison for their roles in the infamous George Washington Bridge lane closures. On the state level, New Jersey’s high court will tackle Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.’s attempt reinstate trial court victories in litigation over its acne drug Accutane, while other pharmaceutical companies continue to defend the state’s civil suits targeting their marketing of opioid drugs like OxyContin. Here are four key legal battles likely to captivate Garden State attorneys over the next year. Ex-Officials Fight ‘Bridgegate’ Convictions While Gov. Chris Christie will be leaving office in January, the saga continues in the George Washington Bridge lane-closure scandal that plagued his administration. Onetime public officials William E. Baroni Jr. and Bridget Anne Kelly have appealed their convictions on charges that they orchestrated the traffic jam at the heart of the case for political reasons. Baroni, a former executive at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and former Christie aide Kelly were respectively sentenced in 2016 to two years and 18 months in federal prison for conspiracy and related charges. -
Can Our Politicians Solve the Immigration Reform Problem?
Vital Signs PETE SOUZA/WHITEHOUSE/FLICKR Can Our Politicians Solve the Immigration Reform Problem? CHRIS CHRISTIE’S BRIDGEGATE SCANDAL • THE OSCAR PISTORIUS TRIAL • GOPRO DIGITAL CAMERAS Vital Signs w EDITORIAL IN THIS ISSUE Will the Lane Closures in Bridgegate Scandal Melanie Naratil 2 Fort Lee Shut Down Chris The Disappearance of MH370 Tanay Gupta 4 Christie’s “Road” to the WhatsApp - $19 bn. Acquisition Pradyuth Maganti 7 White House? Michael Sam: Ushering in A New Era in Professional Sports HUDCONJA/WIKIMEDIA Sam Kececi & Bryce Weisholtz 8 The negative publicity surrounding Chris Christie’s The Lies and Guilt Behind Oscar involvement with “Bridgegate” has compromised his Pistorius potential as a candidate for the presidency in 2016. Julia Axtell 9 Drewniak said that he was led to believe that BY MELANIE NARATIL the lane closings were done to study traf- Economics in Immigration Reform Although Chris Christie has not yet been, fic patterns, an explanation that has since Peter Shim 11 and may never be, proven personally respon- been discredited. He described the Septem- Genetically Modified Organisms sible for Bridgegate, the nega- ber 2013 lane closings—which caused significant traffic tie-ups 13 tive publicity surrounding the Natalie Lifson incident has compromised his that delayed school buses, am- Turmoil in Venezuela potential as a candidate for the bulances, and commuters—as reckless and perplexing. Drew- Joshua Metzger 14 presidency in 2016. On May 13, 2014, Christie’s niak expressed his confidence The Infinitely Innovative Elon longtime press secretary, Mi- that Christie and other senior Musk chael Drewniak, testified before advisers had no advance knowl- a legislative panel in Trenton edge of this political payback Parth Patel 16 that is investigating a politically plot that occurred in the midst Thomas Kean - Profile in Courage motivated four-day shutdown of Christie’s successful re-elec- tion campaign.