With the news that the head of the family is to serve more than a decade in prison for attempting to solicit bribes and getting caught on a wire, the Blagojevich family welcomed a new member of the family– a homeless puppy likely to be named Twix Blagojevich. Twix was welcomed at a press conference along with former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich his wife and children, and the family’s elder pooch, Skittles.

Traders at Chicago’s Board of Trade Building scrawled a missive directed at the Occupy Chicago protestors with signs taped on their eighth floor windows declaring “We Are The 1%”. Chicago’s branch of the Occupy Wall Street movement are calling this response, “Wall Street’s 1st Large Scale Response in Chicago.”

Chicago CBS affiliate WBBM has issued an apology after taking the comments of a four-year-old child out of context in relation to a shooting in the area. The child tells a reporter that the shootings don’t scare him and that, when he grows up, “I’m going to have me a gun” to prevent crime. This makes the child seem to aspire to commit shootings himself, but it was taken out of context– the boy expected to have a gun because he wants to be a police officer.

Have you been missing Rahm Emanuel? To be more specific, have you been missing angry Rahm Emanuel? Well then, today is your lucky day.

Bernie Goldberg is not entirely sure the ceasefire between the White House and Fox News is permanent. On tonight’s O’Reilly Factor, Goldberg discussed the newly released emails regarding the White House/Fox wars of last year, and while the relationship between Fox and the Obama administration has certainly improved since then, Goldberg wasn’t quite ready to trust yet. “It suits their purpose down the road to start up the war again,” he hinted, adding that the White House was playing with fire: “when you go to war with an entire channel, you got to war with their viewers.”

After a Memorial Day respite that likely only served to give everyone involved time to catch up on “weinergate,” the Rod Blagojevich corruption trial has resumed. Blagojevich, still on the stand but now being forced to answer to his incriminating conversations with staffers has found a new roadblock in his testimony, however, and it has nothing to do with the facts of the crime: the prosecution is “making faces” at him.

Two bank robbers dressed as nuns–and carrying handguns–raided a suburban Chicago bank Sunday afternoon, in a heist seemingly inspired by the 2010 movie “The Town.” According to ABC News, the robbery may have been the work of a man-and-woman team who hit the TCF bank in Palos Heights, Illinois just as the bank was preparing to close. “The individuals came in and took over the bank, instructing tellers to do what the say or be harmed,” ABC quotes an FBI spokeswoman. No shots were fired and nobody was hurt.

It finally happened. After two and a half years of pleading with the public for a chance to be heard, former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich finally took the stand today in his defense. As one would expect from his many media appearances, Blagojevich adamantly denied any wrongdoing, but also, according to press in the room, put the jury to sleep with an unnecessarily elongated biography that detailed his disco years and love of Elvis.

TNT took the wraps off its plans for the fall, telling advertisers Conan O’Brien‘s late night show Conan will be hitting the road, with a week-long visit to New York later this year, and a Chicago trip in 2012.

The Hollywood Reporter, which attended the network’s upfront presentation, reports the trips will be O’Brien’s first late night shows in New York–set for the Beacon Theater (October 31-November 3) since he hosted Late Night with Conan O’Brien on NBC.

You can’t please everyone: nearly two years after former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich became the face of disgraceful political mischief worldwide, the ethics lecturer and warrior poet has become so predictable and trite that even Chicago media– who actually have to deal with the circumstances of his governorship, are bored with his current trial.

Remember Rod Blagojevich? He was a tragic hero for a different, more innocent time, a delightfully delusional corruptocrat who to this day denies that taped evidence of him selling a U.S. Senate seat does not, actually, prove that he did any such thing. Well, he somehow didn’t get fully indicted the first time around and the Illinois courts are trying to round up new jurors and even before the trial has started, Blago’s lawyers are playing the race/class cards.

A former employee of Jesse Jackson‘s Rainbow Push Coalition says he was fired for being gay. On TODAY, NBC’s Pete Williams reports the accuser, Tommy Bennett, worked for Rev. Jackson in Chicago for two and a half years. During that time, Bennett claims he was subjected to overt anti-gay treatment, including workers refusing to work under his supervision, and an “office prayer” that asked God to “get these homosexuals out of here, and do it in Jesus’ name.”

And then, there’s a graphic allegation about Jesse Jackson himself, including “gestures and comments” that Bennett interpreted as an “invitation for sexual contact.”

Travelers arriving in Chicago from Japan set off radiation detectors at O’Hare Airport on Wednesday. Airport officials described the radiation as a “very small amount,” but significant enough to trigger alarms as the passengers were clearing customs. “We are aware of the radiation,” Chicago Aviation Department spokesman Karen Pride told WBBM radio. “We are adding screenings and precautionary measures.”

MSNBC’s Morning Joe spent the morning in Chicago, the city that’s home to both Oprah Winfrey and President Obama, and hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski had Oprah as a guest. Asked about the president, Winfrey said “I’m feeling great about Obama’s leadership. I feel that everybody has a learning curve, and the reason why I was willing to step up for him was I believed in his integrity and I believe in his heart.”

Weather geeks are so, well, geeky sometimes. Like when they experience two–yes TWO–consecutive claps of thunder and lightning during a snowstorm. That’s the amazing experience that befell The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore in Chicago during this week’s huge snowstorm and–thankfully–the camera was rolling.

The result? Well, while we can’t truly appreciate the weather amazement that only the holder of an AMS seal would have at thunder snow, we still think the name sounds sorta cool.

After spending a few days as the Illinois judicial system’s hot potato du jour, former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has finally, officially been allowed back on the ballot for mayor in Chicago. Emanuel’s place in the mayoral race had been in dispute since he moved back to Chicago to run, with the Illinois Appellate Court having ruled that his tenure as Chief of Staff in Washington, D.C. revoked his Chicago residency.

Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised the Rahm-Emanuel-is-going-to-be-mayor-of-Chicago saga took an unforeseen turn yesterday.

If you haven’t heard, an appellate court ruled 2-1 he didn’t meet the qualifications for city residency. Because he’d lived in Washington D.C. to take the job as President Obama’s chief of staff and rented out his house, the court ruled, he was out as mayoral candiate.
But here’s why this brouhaha shouldn’t come as a surprise: This isn’t the first time Emanuel has seemed to take things for granted. It’s very similar to what happened when he was Obama’s chief of staff.

After yesterday’s little hiccup, it seems that former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel‘s back on the path towards becoming Chicago’s angriest mayor – at least for the time being. Earlier, an Illinois appellate court determined that Emanuel was not eligible to run for mayor of Chicago because he was did not meet residency requirements.

Today, however, the Supreme Court of Illinois ordered the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners to place Emanuel back on the ballot.

From the Northeast to the Northwest, the country is cleaning up and dealing with snow today. Florida is the lone exception, as it remains snow-free. Concerns over nasty commutes and dangerous roads have people worried, and newspaper editorials this morning captured the fear, anger, and good will that Americans are experiencing in the face of the [...]

Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is, obviously, a man of strong convictions. That decisiveness extends not only to the realms of politics and media, but also to all things culinary, particularly relating to the audacity of the city of Chicago. “Mediaite,” you might be wailing plaintively from your bunker, “whatever do you mean?” To which we say, “Did you just interrupt me?” And also, isn’t it obvious? For decades now, Chicago has been trying to pass off its strange, tomato-covered hubcaps as pizza. And Scalia has, quite frankly, had enough of it.

If radio really is the theater of the mind, then WGN-AM listeners were given a rather unfortunate show recently. As the station interviewed Congressman Danny Davis to discuss his campaign to become Chicago’s next mayor, the conversation was punctured by one of the most distinct sounds known to ears: that of a toilet flushing.

Twitter activity is suggesting a wide-range outing of Internet access in Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana & Michigan. This is Comcast’s second major DNS outage. The last outage occurred on November 28th and impacted the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, from DC to New Hampshire. Fortunately, Mediaite has advice for out of pocket Comcast users (who, hopefully, are accessing this site via smart phone)

If you were wondering what Fox News was going to be up to all day while Washington flooded with ironic liberals rallying for sanity and against, well, Fox News, here’s a taste: former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich told Neil Cavuto this morning that, while he is still unsure what his positions are, he believes “Donald Trump is a very capable, obviously very successful person” with “a voice” who could impact the 2012 elections.

Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel‘s campaign for mayor of Chicago is going… well, mostly as expected. The feisty former Congressman has been conducting “listening tours” of the city where he’s been caught using hand sanitizer (!) after talking to constituents and driving reporters to paroxysms of violent rage. Now he brings the fun to the Chicago Sun-Times, who describe him as “characteristically combative” and “downright annoyed” at some of their questions.

Apparently political reporting is one step away from fisticuffs. Following Carl Paladino‘s altercation with New York Post reporter Fred Dicker the other week, Rahm Emanuel had his own Paladino moment with reporters the other day…sort of. Actually it seems two reporters had a Paladino moment with each other.