Super PAC Raises $1.3 Million Plus for Reelection of Rahm Emanuel

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has stockpiled more than $8 million in campaign money for his re-election.

That hasn't stopped a super PAC backed by the Democrat's allies from gathering six-figure checks from some of Chicago's best-known business leaders before February's election. In four weeks, Chicago Forward raised more than $1.3 million from donors, such as hedge-fund billionaire Kenneth Griffin and Groupon Chairman Eric Lefkofsky.

The big-dollar support for Emanuel's agenda is the latest sign that super PAC-scale spending is hitting local contests. Super PACs, allowed by a pair of federal court rulings in 2010, can accept unlimited amounts of money from corporations, unions and individuals to influence elections, but they cannot coordinate their activity with candidates.

"It's the new, shiny object," said Edwin Bender, executive director of the non-partisan National Institute on Money in State Politics. "A lot of money can flow easily through super PACs."

Super PACs focused on individual contests are a big factor in this year's races for Congress. In all, 61 candidate-specific super PACs have spent more than $21 million to influence races, data compiled by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics show. They account for more than 25% of all super PAC activity in federal races.

There's no central database of super PACs that operate at the municipal level, but a review of city-level campaign-finance records shows a new wave of unlimited outside money swamping mayoral races coast-to-coast.

In Illinois, Emanuel awaits a big-name rival. This month, one of his strongest potential challengers, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, announced she would not run for mayor. Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis is weighing a challenge.

The city's business elite already is voting with its wallet.

Griffin, the founder of Citadel, Groupon's Lefkofsky and Michael Sacks, the CEO of Grosvenor Capital Management, each gave $150,000 to Chicago Forward on a single day last month, Illinois campaign-finance records show. Sacks serves as Emanuel's vice chairman on the city's privately financed business-development group.

None of the three contributors returned phone calls.

Rebecca Carroll, a former spokeswoman for Chicago schools and for Emanuel's 2002 congressional campaign, runs Chicago Forward. She did not respond to messages. On its website, the group pledges to support candidates in the 2015 municipal elections "who demonstrate a shared commitment to policies and priorities that will continue to move our city forward."

Chicago Forward touts issues that mirror Emanuel's priorities, including an overhaul of the pension benefits for many city workers.

Emanuel cannot coordinate with the group and cannot take checks larger than $5,300 from an individual for his own campaign. But it's clear that his aides do not object to a super PAC telling positive stories about his first term in office.

"The mayor is focused on helping local neighborhoods, local communities, local schools improve — taking their ideas and working with the city to make them work for every neighborhood in Chicago," said campaign spokesman Peter Giangreco. "To the extent that there are other groups out there that talk about those success stories, then it helps everybody in Chicago."

In addition to talking up successes, the super PAC could train its fire on the mayor's eventual challengers and help elect Emanuel allies to the City Council.

The super PAC's leaders "are guaranteeing that the City Council isn't going to block him," said Dick Simpson, a professor of political science at the University of Illinois-Chicago and a former city alderman.

Thanks to Fredreka Schouten.

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More Than 30 Mexican Cops Arrested for Alleged Organized Crime Ties

More than 30 police officers have been arrested in Mexico for alleged organized crime ties and possible involvement in the killing of fellow cops, authorities said Sunday.

Those detained include a former top public safety chief from the town of Tarimbaro, an ex-commander of the same unit and 18 more active duty agents, a public safety source in the troubled state of Michoacan told AFP.

Authorities are investigating whether those taken into custody were involved in the recent murders of three senior officials in Tarimbaro's public safety unit, the source added.

A second operation netted 12 municipal police officers in Charapan, authorities said.

The suspects were transferred to the state capital, Morelia, where they are due to appear before a judge.

Michoacan, on Mexico's Pacific coast, is a key drug trafficking area for United States-bound narcotics.

Some 80,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since 2006.

Thanks to NGTV.

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Anti-Gun Talking Point Refuted by Background Check Expansion

Last month, while addressing a group of Colorado sheriffs, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper spoke on the topic of the state's 2013 measure outlawing almost all private transfers of firearms. According to the Denver Post, Hickenlooper told the sheriffs, "I think we screwed that up completely... we were forming legislation without basic facts."  A new Associated Press report examining Colorado background check data in the first year of the new law proves the accuracy of Hickenlooper's statement, and should (although likely won't) end the repetition of an already discredited anti-gun background check factoid.

The report states that the Colorado Legislative Council, an offshoot of the state legislature that is tasked with analyzing legislation, estimated that 420,000 additional background checks would be conducted in the two years following the new private sale restrictions. This led the Colorado legislature to allocate $3 million to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to handle the anticipated increase.

However, the AP notes, "officials have performed only about 13,600 reviews considered a result of the new law -- about 7 percent of the estimated first year total." The article goes on to state, "In total, there were about 311,000 background checks done during the first year of the expansion in Colorado, meaning the 13,600 checks between private sellers made up about 4 percent of the state total."

How did the Colorado Legislative Council get their estimate so wildly wrong? They relied on same bogus statistic (that 40 percent of gun transfers occur between private parties) which gun control advocates and the White House have been using to advocate for expanded background checks all over the country.

The 40 percent statistic is from a Police Foundation survey, the results of which were published in a 1997 National Institute of Justice report titled, Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms. The figure has been debunked repeatedly by the NRA and others, and even earned the President "Three Pinocchios" from the Washington Post's fact-checker for his repeated use of the misleading stat.

Unfortunately, these public admonishments haven't deterred gun control supporters from using this absurdly inflated figure. In November, Sen. Dianne Feinstein repeated the factoid in an opinion piece for the San Jose Mercury News. As recently as early July, the Brady campaign asserted in a press release, "Approximately 40 percent of all guns sales go unchecked." A May press release from Michael Bloomberg's Everytown for Gun Safety reiterated estimates "that 40 percent of gun sales occur without a background check in the U.S." Even President Obama's official website, whitehouse.gov, has a page for his "Now is the Time" gun control campaign that continues to claim, "Right now, federally licensed firearms dealers are required to run background checks on those buying guns, but studies estimate that nearly 40 percent of all gun sales are made by private sellers who are exempt from this requirement."

The data from Colorado's first year of restricted private transfers makes continued use the 40 percent figure untenable. Still, some gun control advocates might seek to blame Colorado's low increase in background checks on scofflaws, and those unaware of changes in the law, circumventing the new restrictions. Even if these factors did have a role to play in the underwhelming check numbers, they could hardly be expected to raise the percentage of undocumented private transfers by a factor of 10. Even if they could, it would merely weaken the case of the efficacy of private transfer restrictions. Evidence of background check avoidance would simply underscore NRA's position that background check laws cannot affect the behavior of those who intentionally or unknowingly violate them.

Colorado's expensive foray into background check expansion should serve as a warning to state and federal legislators as to the limited effect these laws can have, and the importance of collecting the "basic facts" before crafting legislation that inhibits the rights of their constituents.

Yet the tactics of gun control supporters are nothing if not shameless, so don't expect them to relinquish the 40 percent myth any time soon. President Obama has openly embraced the confiscatory gun bans of Australia and Great Britain, and he and other gun control radicals realize they can't achieve that goal without registration. "Universal" background checks are the next step in that direction, so for their proponents, the ends justify their dishonest means.

For everyone else, however, Colorado's example is a resounding reminder that the war the proponents of "universal" background checks are waging is one of ideology, not one of facts, and it is certainly not in the service of "gun safety."

Thanks to NRA.

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Chris Cippolini, author of #LuckyLuciano: Mysterious Tales of a Gangster Legend, appears on Crime Beat Radio Tonight

Chris Cippolini, author of Lucky Luciano: Mysterious Tales of a Gangster Legend (Gangland Mysteries), appears on Crime Beat Radio Tonight.

Charles Lucky Luciano is one of the most researched, discussed and dissected American mobsters of all time. His name has become synonymous with NY City's high drama gangland days of prohibition bootlegging, the information of the infamous five families, and controversy over his alleged Last Testament. However, there exists many fascinating and lurid tales and theories regarding Lucky's rise and fall from the mobs top spot. Some of these stories are known, but still incited debate, such as the origins of his nickname and menacing facial scars. Other legends are not so well known to the general public

With information culled from rare news articles, government documents and numerous books written on the subject, this book will give readers a chance to discover Luciano in a way that engages the mystery of his pop culture status, while encouraging further debate over the facts that fallacies that exist about his true role in the history of the American mafia structure.

Crime Beat is a weekly hour-long radio program that airs every Thursday at 8 p.m. EST. Crime Beat presents fascinating topics that bring listeners closer to the dynamic underbelly of the world of crime. Guests have included ex-mobsters, undercover law enforcement agents, sports officials, informants, prisoners, drug dealers and investigative journalists, who have provided insights and fresh information about the world’s most fascinating subject: crime.

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Was Gianni Versace Killed in a Mob Hit?

There is new information from the ABC7 I-Team in a case that stunned the nation and the fashion world 17 years ago. It was then that designer Gianni Versace was gunned down on the steps of his Miami Beach mansion. The case of the street-side assassination of the fashion mogul is still yielding new information.

The I-Team has learned that local authorities first thought Versace might have been cut down by a mob hitman and called in the FBI because of a possible organized crime connection. There are now new details in the old case about the moments and days immediately after Versace was shot and killed in front of his South Beach mansion.

When Versace was murdered 17 years ago, a friend of the designer's actually saw the fatal shot. According to FBI records the gunman "was followed by a friend of Versace's who observed the subject walk north to 12th Street, then head west into an alley, at which time the subject turned and pointed a gun at the witness who fled the area and lost contact with the subject."

The voluminous FBI file on the case reveals that "Miami Beach homicide detectives requested FBI agents respond to the crime scene, initially thinking that Versace may have been killed a result of a murder for hire or some organized crime connection."

Of course it wasn't a gangland hit. It was Andrew Cunanan, who took down Versace at the end of a country murder spree, a criminal odyssey that left Chicago business tycoon Lee Miglin dead along the way. FBI investigative notes on Cunanan state that: "Gianna Versace was shot and killed, subject is believed to be the killer and may, or may not be, targeting former lovers or clients who may have given him AIDS."

In an email to a New York news outlet that Cunanan sent after the Versace murder, he wrote "I love all the news. Any gay rich man who have been with will get there's very good."

Cunanan also had created an elaborate misdirection scheme in an attempt to get away with murder. While he was the target of a nationwide manhunt, he tried to evade authorities by sending out emails stating that he was in New York City (when he wasn't) and that his next victim would be in New York (which it wasn't.)

Those emails were actually sent from the killer's houseboat hideaway on the Miami Beach Intracoastal, a few miles from Versace mansion murder scene, where he would eventually kill himself.

Cunanan died at his own hand ten days after the Versace murder, one of at least five murders attributed to him. Cunanan's remains are in a crypt at a Catholic cemetery in San Diego, the city where he was living prior to the start of the killing spree.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie.

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