Nick Blase ruled the Chicago suburb of Niles for almost half a century, defeating every challenger and even facing down legendary Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley on occasion. Ultimately, Blase, the longest-sitting mayor in the country, resigned from office following an arrest on federal corruption charges the morning of his seventy-eighth birthday. He pled guilty and was sentenced to a year and a day in prison. Despite the cloud over his tenure, there is no doubt Blase made a huge impact on the sleepy suburb, turning the postwar bedroom community into an economic powerhouse that ranked with the largest cities in the state. After exhaustive research and hours of personal interviews, Andrew Schneider has put together a fascinating portrait of Blase's political career.
Upbeat and charismatic, Nick Thomas is living the high life in San Francisco, and it’s about to get even better. He has secured a loan to expand his company by putting up all of his extensive personal holdings. The day the loan funded, Nick awoke to an empty bank account and his friend and CFO, Lance, in the wind with thirty-two million dollars. Shocked, a suspect, and adrift, Nick must come to terms with the actions of his partner – and what it means going forward. His unusual reaction to the betrayal lands him in the South Pacific, embarking on a journey of adventure, romance, and discovery.
It was 1948 when Abner Mikva, fresh out of college, volunteered at the 8th Ward Democratic headquarters in Chicago. “Who sent you, kid?” the leery ward committeeman asked. “Nobody,” Mikva said, and the man informed him, “We don’t want nobody nobody sent.” That marked the beginning of Abner Mikva’s storied political career, which would take him to the Illinois Statehouse, the US House of Representatives, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Clinton White House—culminating in a Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded by a young politician he had mentored, Barack Obama. Around that time, eighty-seven years old and in declining health but as wise and wry as ever, Mikva sat down with his former speechwriter and longtime friend Sanford Horwitt for the first of the conversations recorded in this book. Separated by a generation, but with two lifetimes’ worth of experience between them, the friends met monthly to talk about life, politics, and the history that Mikva saw firsthand—and often had a hand in making. Conversations with Abner Mikva lets us listen in as the veteran political reformer and unreconstructed liberal reflects on the world as it was, how it’s changed, what it means, and what really matters. Speaking in no uncertain terms, but with an unerring instinct for the comic, Mikva has something to say—and something well worth hearing—about his bouts with the Daley political machine, the NRA, and the Nazis who marched in Skokie. Whether recalling his work as a judge on civil rights, describing his days as White House counsel, decrying the most activist Supreme Court since the Civil War, expounding on our rigged political system, or assessing the Obama presidency, Mikva is eloquent, deeply informed, and endlessly interesting. And finally, in this intimate and unfiltered encounter, he remains an optimist, inspired and inspiring to the very end of a remarkable life of public service. In 2016, at the age of ninety, Abner Mikva died on the Fourth of July.
Each volume in this series contains transcriptions of passenger lists containing German surnames for ships entering all US ports beginning in 1840. Lists are arranged by date of ship arrival and are indexed by passenger names. This volume covers the period from January 2, 1840 to June 1843.
What plays in Vegas, stays in Vegas. At least Sadie Bligh hopes so. A geeky math professor from Chicago, Sadie is on a mission to change her life. Her career has stalled and her social life is non-existent, so she’s hoping a wild week in Sin City will be just the thing to break her out of her rut. But Sadie’s first night in Vegas involves an unfortunate run-in with a mojito and a poker table, drawing the attention of the casino’s deputy chief of security. Nick Saxon thinks Sadie’s a problem, but she thinks he’s incredibly sexy. Since she’s come to Vegas to let loose, Nick just might fit the bill. With a boss who hates his guts, Nick has enough to worry about without the bundle of mayhem and trouble called Sadie Bligh. But Sadie is also funny and smart, and the sexual energy between them could light up the Vegas strip. Unfortunately, when she’s fingered for counting cards at the blackjack table, it’s up to Nick to rein her in or risk losing his job.
