On April 7th, I’ll take the Metra ( Rock Island) from 107th St. Stop in Beverly to La Salle Street Station and walk up Dearborn to Lake Street, in order to pick up a grant for Leo High School from one of the many private Foundations that support this school’s mission to young men from Auburn Gresham/Englewood/ Grand Crossing/ Brainerd/ Chatham and South Chicago.  My appointment is a t 10:30 A. M. and I always show up about half hour early for any and all appointments.  When you are asking …

If U.S. Attorney Pat Fitzgerald was still thinking about appealing the light sentence given Fast Eddie Vrdolyak, a ruling in an unrelated appellate case last week might have changed his mind.
Fitzgerald had appealed a lenient sentence in a case of consumer fraud, with the result that Judge Richard Posner actually ordered the defendant acquitted, adding a rebuke to prosecutors that was, even for Posner, sharply worded.
Fitzgerald’s spokesman told me that the Vrdolyak matter is “still under review” and he had no comment on Posner’s ruling.
Vrdolyak, after pleading guilty in a …

Chicago Republicans…at least conservative ones…have been so out of power in Chicago (since Big Bill Thompson in 1931)…that they forgot what it’s like to have a big shot power player in trouble with the Feds-forgot, that is, until the other day. That was when Fast Eddie Vrdolyak…the conservatives’ own who left the Democratic party for the GOP and who epitomized the true neighborhood guy ran into trouble with U. S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald because of a crooked deal Vrdolyak was ginning up and which was captured by the FBI listening …