[Chicago Tribune] In one afternoon in April 2007, Cook County Commissioner William Beavers cashed three checks from one of three campaign funds -- for a total of $6,000 -- and went to the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond to gamble, prosecutors alleged today as his trial on tax-evasion charges got underway.
While gambling at a casino boat is not illegal, what Beavers did next was, Assistant U.S. Atty. Samuel Cole told the jury. Beavers, a "seasoned politician" well-versed in campaign-finance rules, failed to report any of that cash as income and then never paid taxes on it, he charged.
"The defendant knew these rules from his many, many years of raising and spending campaign money," Cole told the jury as a stern-faced Beavers swiveled slowly in his chair. " ... There is nothing wrong with gambling at the Horseshoe Casino ... (But) he didn't want to declare those checks."
In his opening statement, Cole told the jury that the April afternoon was only one of numerous examples in which the longtime Chicago Democrat spent tens of thousands of dollars in campaign funds on personal expenses and then didn't pay taxes on the money.
Beavers' gambling losses at the river boats was the only personal expense cited by Cole in a 30-minute opening that laid out a straightforward prosecution case.
Beavers, Cole said, had been burned with a $27,000 tax bill after reporting $43,000 in campaign funds he converted in 2005. Over the next three years, he failed to report the converted campaign cash, the prosecutor alleged.
Beavers attorney, Sam Adam Jr., however, struck hard at the prosecution case with his characteristic dramatic style, claiming it was missing one essential ingredient: a crime.
"William Beavers didn't commit a crime at all," said Adam, his voice rising. "This is a unique case where there is no crime!"
Adam repeatedly told the jury that any money Beavers took from campaign funds were loans and that he eventually paid $196,000 of the $226,000 that the government says he didn't report to the Internal Revenue Service.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
Um, misleading headline! I was expecting pictures...
After insulting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as a Golden Girl Friday morning, the roster of headliners at the Conservative Political Action Conference continued to woo the groups of voters they alienated during the 2012 election. This time, former GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump told the CPAC audience to give up on ever earning the votes of the 11 million illegals, even if they were given citizenship, and instead, wondered Why arent we letting people in from Europe?
When it comes to immigration, you know that the 11 million illegals, even if given the right to vote, you know youre going to have to do whats right. But the fact is, 11 million people will be voting Democratic, Trump said, and in case the message about those 11 million undocumented immigrants was lost on the crowd, added You can be out front, you can be the spearhead, you can do whatever you want to do, but every one of those 11 million people will be voting Democratic, thats just the way it works.
Trump went on to describe the current push for comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to citizenship, a suicide mission for Republicans, a clear message that Republicans should give up on the Latino vote they just lost so crushingly. In case it still wasnt clear, he added, Youre just not going to get those votes.
He then contrasted that electoral calculation with this question: Why arent we letting people in from Europe?
I have many friends, many, many friends, and nobody wants to talk this. Nobody wants to say it, Trump said, but I have many friends from Europe, they want to come in!
#1
The thing is, if we lower our tax rates we might have a ton of Europeans immigrating. As is always the case this would be beneficial to the US, but it would mean anyone left to fight against the growing nanny state abroad is also gone.
We allow the bravest Cubans to come to the US and the result is decades of Castro in power. We look the other way while Mexicans cross the border and the result is entenched oligarchy. Go further back to the waves of Germans coming over and the rise of totalitarian states. Perhaps its chicken & egg but I think we need an honest debate about what our immigration might do to the nations left behind.
Ah, but special waivers are for Southeast Asians (boat people), the previous Reagan amnesty for Latins, Haitian economic refugees, a special lottery for Senator Kennedy's Irish, but never the English or Central/Northern Europeans. Why that would be racists. You think we judge people by the color of their skin? /sarc off
As in nearly everything else connected with our government, it's not the region [Europe], it's politics and ethnicity. I know a very successful, tax paying entrepreneur, who has dozens of US Citizens in his employ, who went through bloody hell for five years playing by the rules and failing. It finally required his hiring an immigration attorney and taking the entire family back to South Africa for appeal and re-application, before he was issued Green Cards.
#4
It makes sense, we were peop;ed by Europeans a long time ago, and our taxes are a LOT lower than most of theirs, Let'em come.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/15/2013 18:05 Comments ||
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#5
OWG NAU 2015 + Trans-Atlantic Union + Trans-Pacific Union, etc. similar = "borderless" Amerika where the National-level Govt [GLOBAL-level?] can only keep track of legit Citizens-Residents vee RFID Chips + Drones + pervasive ground-level Micro/Nano-Surveilance.
WHERE THE RIGHT OF FORIDNARY AMERICANS = AMERIKANS TO OWN GUNS IS IMPUGNED BECAUSE IT WOULD ENDANGER THE MILYUHNS OR SCORESOF MILYUHNS OF LEGIT FOREIGN WORKERS THAT WILL BE INVITED TO COME + WORK IN OWG AMERIKA, + DITTO ENDANGER THE LIVES OF THOSE ILLEGALS TRYING TO SNEAK OVER THE BORDER THE GOVT HAS NO SERIOUS OR REAL INTENTION OF SECURING ANYWAY.
The US Govt priority will seemingly be the protection of Foreigners, not US Citizens-Residents.
YOU MIGHT HAD NOTICED THAT THE US GOVT IS N-O-T TALKING ABOUT IMPLANTING RFID CHIPS ON FOREIGN WORKERS COMING TO AMERIKA TO LIVE + WORK, NOR DENYING THEIR RIGHT AS FOREIGNERS TO OWN GUNS OR MILITARY-STYLE ASSAULT WEAPONS WHILE LIVING + WORKING IN AMERIKA.
Everyone is talking about foreign workers coming to Amerika - no one is talking about Amerikan workers being allowed by Washington or Foreign Govts to go overseas to live + work in foreign countries.
[CNSNEWS] Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), ... the undistinguished Representative-for-Life from Michigan. Mrs. Conyers is, hopefully, on her way to jug for corruption as a Detroit councilwoman. Mr. Conyers, natch, knew nothing of such a thing and was routinely reelected last November.
the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said on Thursday that the nation's current debt of $16.7 trillion is "not endangering" the country, adding that "some debt is not a bad idea" and that he and other congressional Democrats "don't think there's a problem." There are those of us who think that any debt is a bad idea and that enormous debt is a worse idea. We're not going to run out of money, as the Dems keep telling us. But the dollar will keep getting smaller and smaller. I bought a Clark bar a few days ago. It cost me $1.69. When I was a tad I used to buy the same size bar for a nickle. When my grandson is my age and feels the urge of overload his pancreas, he can buy a bar for $55, assuming they're on sale that week.
Conyers and other liberal Democrats spoke at a Capitol Hill press conference about their initiative to compel Congress to cancel the across-the-board budget cuts (sequester) of $1.2 trillion over 10 years, which actually are reductions in the rate of increase in federal spending and amount to $44 billion for this year. Remember the phrase "That and a dime'll get you a cup of coffee"?Or was that before your time?
At the event, CNSNews.com asked Conyers, "Republicans say if we don't make cuts to reduce the deficit soon that sequester cuts will actually be small compared with cuts we would need to make if we continue on this track [of spending].
Meanwhile, ...back at the laboratory the smoke and fumes had dispersed, to reveal an ominous sight... Leader Pelosi has said she doesn't think that we have a spending problem and the White House has recently said that we shouldn't balance the budget just for the sake of balancing the budget. That said, by canceling sequester would we then be manufacturing a larger crisis in the future and, if so, how would you justify those more severe cuts to the American people?" I'm still trying to figure how they justify subsidizing Big Bird. "Public" terriblevision appeals to a tiny segment of the actual public. Probably fewer are interested in NPR. We didn't have a Department of Education when I was a boy and we routinely knew how to read when we graduated grade school. Since we now have a federal bureaucracy to guide the nation's educational progress, I had to send my son to private school, where he had to pick up reading to keep up with his peers. We have fewer union members and a larger Department of Labor than ever. I could go on all morning, but you get the idea. None of that mess can be trimmed? Instead they have to do away with White House tours and release a swarm of illegal aliens awaiting deportation?
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2013 09:58 ||
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Meanwhile, in a reality closer to this one, Michigan's governor has appointed an emergency financial manager for Detroit, who will take over most financial operations of the city, including bankruptcy if necessary. Rep. Conyers, predictably, is agin' it, and thinks there is no problem there that more free money won't solve.
#6
For each year there's not a surplus, they should execute a random selection of congress, about 10% per year. For each year they've been in congress, their name goes in the bowl, so the longer you're in, the more chance you wind up tied to the stake.
#7
both parties should be required to vet their candidates to insure:
They are US Citizens
They have an IQ higher than Joe Biden, no I take that back it has to be higher than 100.
They have to have a college degree
They have to pass a test on basic economics
They cannot have a criminal record
they must pay their taxes
Once we get that in place, then we talk about having them all take the MMPI and have a psychological profile done...NO NARCISSISTS allowed.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
03/15/2013 12:50 Comments ||
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#8
debt is never a problem ... until somebody wants their money back. then it's a huge problem, esp. if you can't pay.
in the current situation - ultimately it's the American people who are being robbed. Our kids are being robbed of a decent future by this massive build-up of debt.
"The popular media narrative is that this country has shifted away from conservative ideals, as evidenced by the last two presidential elections. Thats what they think. Thats what say. That might be true if Republicans had actually nominated conservative candidates in 2008 and 2012," Gov. Rick Perry (R-Texas) said in his address at CPAC this afternoon.
Perry also slammed President Obama for undocumented illegal immigration being released from detention centers due to sequestration cuts.
"This president's posture, it'd be laughable if he hadn't taken it one step too far, dangerously releasing criminals onto our streets to make a political point," Perry told the crowd at CPAC. "When you have a federally-sponsored jailbreak, and don't get confused, that's exactly what that is -- when you've had a federally-sponsored jailbreak, you've crossed the line from politics of spin to politics as a craven form of cynicism."
#4
My goal and prayer is to simply live long enough to see that arrogant, tribal, narcissistic communist bastard GONE! My kids and grannies deserve much, much better. :-(
[An Nahar] It will take Iran "over a year or so" to develop a nuclear weapon, U.S. President Barack Obama told Israel's Channel 2 television a week before he pays a historic visit to the Jewish state.
Truly that Obama is a superior being to know such things, when all others merely guess!
"We think
Oh wait. He's not. Bummer.
that it would take over a year or so for Iran to actually develop a nuclear weapon, but obviously, we don't want to cut it too close," he said in an exclusive interview with the private TV station.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
Plenty of time for Obama to bow to Dinnerjacket and serve up Israel on a silver platter!
#2
I wonder what he will say or do when Tel Aviv disappears undr a mushroom cloud.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
03/15/2013 9:50 Comments ||
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That the report he is talking about is two years old because of sequestration, you are a racist, and that he is not heading for the official bunker thanks to Tiger Woods.
#4
What happened to all of that tut tuting the Obamanistas in State and the CIA were saying about SIX years?
The freaking Israelis have been telling us for YEARS the Iranians were further down the road than the IAEA or the US were saying. AND NOW, Obami comes out and agrees with the Israelis?
Oh sweet Sister Mary and Martha, I have a bad BAD feeling about all of this.
Any one want to lay odds on how long we have until either London or Los Angeles glow in the dark?
PS, even the Iranians are not crazy enough to piss in their own Cheerios. A nuke on Tel Aviv would wind up as a big fallout plume right back in their own faces. A big evil foreign power is a much more Islamically correct target. A nuke on Israel would kill too many good Moslems in the West Bank, Jordan, Iraq, AND most of all Iran.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
03/15/2013 12:34 Comments ||
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Bill, you are assuming that the Mad Mullah's give a flying F about the lives of Muslims or anyone else except themselves. That is not true.
Remember they were the ones sending waves of people into minefields during the Iran/Iraq war in order to clear them. Plus the Mad M's also fully expect the 12th Iman to come out of his hidy-hole and save them.
#6
First of all, the Mullahs believe Allah will protect them from anything material, like fallout. Second, those were not people they sent to clear the Iraqi minefields armed only with a gold-coloured olastic key to the gates of Paradise, but primary age schoolchildren.
#8
Yeah - after a while, they told the kids to wrap themselves in blankets when they went out to clear the minefields. That way when they got blown up, the pieces would stay together more. The real soldiers were getting tired of looking for pieces of bodies all over the place.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
03/15/2013 19:13 Comments ||
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#9
I'm more inclined to believe the Bammer knows SHTF anytime wid China + Japan - China is Nuke-armed, Japan is not, + Iran is by most accounts a Nuke-wannabe only, thus better for the Bammer = USA to delay any milaction agz Iran than have the US = US-Allies fight a multi-front war agz two sovereign countries.
The deteriorating situation between China + Japan has the potential to devol into a multi-front, East-South Asia war all by itself exclusive of anything wid Iran [Syria?].
The Maha-Rushian, Milyuhn-dollar questione' is will Iran + Russia stay NEUTRAL iff China + Japan start shooting at one another, as IMO the threats from the DPRK is just covert or disguised threats from China via third-party [vassal]nation???
[An Nahar] U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday called on all Lebanese parties to "resolve their differences peacefully and at the ballot box," urging Lebanon and its leaders to "hold elections on time."
"Today marks the eighth anniversary of Lebanon's Cedar Revolution, when the Lebanese people took to the streets to peacefully demonstrate and demand a sovereign and democratic country free from foreign interference and to call for the truth behind the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 22 others," said Kerry in a press release.
He noted that the Lebanese people "continue to face challenges as they work to ensure a stable, sovereign, and independent state that unifies all Lebanese."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2013 00:00 ||
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He's no longer Massachusetts' biggest embarassment; now he's everyone's biggest embarassment!
[DAILYCALLER] Following President Obama's lunch meeting with Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill, Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins described the food served and said the president was not able to eat since his "taster" was not present. When I first saw this I was sure it had to be from the Onion or something like that. It couldn't be true. Apparently it is. My mind is officially boggled.
"University of Maine recipe for healthy lobster salad -- I pointed that out to the president in keeping with the first lady's initiatives and Fox Family Potato Chips made in Aroostook County where I'm from and wild blueberry pie full of anti-oxidants, see this was a healthy lunch as well. We did have a little ice cream on the pie too, also made in Maine, Gifford's Ice Cream. So in all seriousness this was well received," Collins told reporters on Thursday after the meeting at the Capitol. Not living in Maine myself, I haven't tasted lobster salad since the late '70s, when it escaped my price range.
"Unfortunately, you know, the president can't," said Collins when asked if Obama ate at the lunch meeting. "No, no. Certainly not. He wouldn't eat with Publicans, only with Sinners."
"He looked longingly at it," Collins continued. "He honestly did look longingly at it, but apparently he has to have essentially a taster, "Essentially?" It's kind of a binary, isn't it? He needs an Imperial Food Taster or he doesn't.
and I pointed out to him that we were all tasters for him, that if the food had been poisoned all of us would have keeled over so, but he did look longingly at it and he remarked that we have far better food than the Democrats do, and I said that was because I was hosting." I have to go change my shirt. I just barfed.
According to a 2009 AFP report, the U.S. Secret Service has "always refused to confirm that US presidents travel with a food 'taster', in line with their policy of discretion on all security related issues."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2013 09:28 ||
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I wonder what happened to the food 'taster'. Off sick?
But you know, since he's the greatest linguist since Cervantes, he basically said that even if he broke bread with republicans they would poison him. Hardy har har.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[CNSNEWS] Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.),
[An Nahar] It will take Iran "over a year or so" to develop a nuclear weapon, U.S. President Barack Obama told Israel's Channel 2 television a week before he pays a historic visit to the Jewish state.
[An Nahar] U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday called on all Lebanese parties to "resolve their differences peacefully and at the ballot box," urging Lebanon and its leaders to "hold elections on time."
[DAILYCALLER] Following President Obama's lunch meeting with Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill, Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins described the food served and said the president was not able to eat since his "taster" was not present.
