· The Daily Herald has an afternoon update from the George Ryan trial.

Former Gov. George Ryan is a corrupt politician who repeatedly lied about trading state contracts to cronies in return for gifts and condoned illegal licenses-for-campaign contributions schemes to live large and protect the “pot of gold” that was his campaign fund, a federal prosecutor alleged today during the first day of closing arguments in Ryan’s five-month corruption trial.

Read the whole thing. It’s very good.

· Edwin Eisendrath just reported a $500,000 contribution from his mom.

· Eisendrath compares Blagojevich to Bush.

· Jim Oberweis has posted several documents that he claims back up his TV ads. More on this in tomorrow’s Capitol Fax.

· Supremes reject judicial ethics case.

· From a Bill Brady press release:

Sen. Bill Brady, Republican candidate for Governor, today called for a debate on ethics with the contenders for the Republican gubernatorial nomination to clear the air on allegations, half-truths and innuendo.

· From a David McSweeney press release:

David McSweeney, candidate for Congress in Illinois’ 8th Congressional District, will be joined on the campaign trail by former US Senator Peter Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald will be the headliner at a fundraising event in the early afternoon and then a “meet and greet” in Palatine on Wednesday March 8th.

· Jack Roeser claims he “knew Marty Kovarik only casually while he was employed by Topinka but have not seen or spoken to him since.”

· Chicagoist has a funny post up. Read the whole thing.

Best Performance by a Robot: Edwin Eisendrath. Eisendrath’s unnatural hand movements, stilted speaking style, fake smile, and way of looking just to the side of the camera kept us from listening to anything he actually said.

Dumbest Reason to Vote for a Candidate: Rod Blagojevich. Blago gets the nod because he wants us to vote for him for having another kid. Oh yeah, and he’s a little bit wiser now.

Best Use of Truthiness: Jim Oberweis. Oberweis’ March commercials attacking Topinka feature made-up newspaper headlines. His campaign manager said the “text is excerpted” from stories in the papers, but that isn’t really the case. […]

Best Performance by a Politician in a Supporting Role: Forrest Claypool. His mere two words of “BE SPECIFIC!” played over and over again in a commercial for John Stroger still haunt us.

· Bill Baar has sparked a lively discussion over at Illinoize about the 6th Congressional District and what it means for the Democratic Party. And Pat Hickey has a good one going about the 3rd District primary race.

· AFSCME press release:

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 31 will release a report on service quality in the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services at 11:00 a.m.
tomorrow (Tuesday, March 7) in the State Capitol blue room. AFSCME Council 31 executive director Henry Bayer will be joined by a group of frontline child protection workers to present the report and discuss its findings.

The report follows last Thursday’s overwhelming bipartisan vote in the Senate to approve the State Services Assurance Act. That bill, SB 2674, would set minimum staffing standards for state prisons and mental health centers and create oversight groups to determine standards for other key agencies, including DCFS.

· Jack Roeser has just dumped $80,000 into the Family Taxpayers Network. The group is backing a handful of legislative candidates as well as Oberweis.

· Here’s something funny. The Oberweis campaign gave out the wrong contact number for Marty Kovairk. Some poor guy in Wisconsin has been getting tons of calls today. Oops. He seems to be taking it in good humor, however.

· Andy Shaw has a report up about the Topinka thing.