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Guilty
Thursday, Jul 6, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller  Quote of the week: “I don’t understand the verdict,” Sorich defense attorney Thomas Anthony Durkin said of the split result. “I don’t quite understand how they divided the counts up.” UPDATE: Interesting move by the jurors: But the jury’s foreman said jurors agreed at the outset not to discuss the defendants’ higher-ups. Jay Olshansky, a University of Illinois-Chicago professor, told the Associated Press that Daley’s name never came up during deliberations. UPDATE: Statement by Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., who has talked about running for mayor. “These are some of the mayor’s closest friends and political allies. The mayor cannot have it both ways. He can’t boast about being a hands-on mayor who guides the city that works, yet simultaneously claim to be unaware or naive about the corruption and criminality that is occurring within his Administration and multiple city departments.â€
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Question of the day
Thursday, Jul 6, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller Blogging will be light for at least a while because of an important meeting this morning. In the meantime, here’s your setup: GOP gubernatorial candidate Judy Baar Topinka said Wednesday that she has accepted invitations to three debates against Gov. Rod Blagojevich. And your question: Is this enough? How many debates should there be? What topics, if any, should the debates be designed to cover? UPDATE: From the Topinka campaign: Per your blog post — just know that the 3 debates JBT agreed to are the floor, not the ceiling, of what she’ll agree to do. In your question today about “is 3 enough” kind of implies that this is all we’ll agree to do.
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Oy, Part 467,229
Thursday, Jul 6, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller This is a common practice in state government, but the Blagojevich administration seems to have elevated the “hire a politically connected person as an intern to avoid veterans preference rules” game to an art form. The AP has yet another example today. Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration picked a campaign donor’s son over eight other applicants for a high-level prison job but designated him an intern when it was time to put him on the state payroll, saying he needed more experience. […] This is my favorite part of the story… It’s unknown whether any of the eight applicants who lost out to Ysursa, who has no military experience, were veterans or experienced Illinois Department of Corrections employees. Despite a state administrative rule making job applicants’ names public record, the governor’s office won’t release the list for this job, saying it would violate the privacy of unsuccessful applicants. It turns out he was also on the clout list. In addition to the March memo from Blagojevich personnel director Joe Cini approving the assistant warden hire, Ysursa’s name appears on a list obtained by The Associated Press of nearly 300 names of job candidates and their political sponsors that the administration kept in the months after Blagojevich took office in January 2003. The AP also has a timeline here.
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The Stroger beat
Thursday, Jul 6, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller This pretty much says it all.  Cook County Board President John Stroger’s signature before and after his stroke. John Stroger’s son, Todd, told reporters yesterday that he had spoken with all 80 committeemen, but… when asked Wednesday whether he believes he has the support of a majority of the 80 party committeemen to make that happen, Todd Stroger would only say he has received “good responses” from those party officials. Meanwhile, John Daley has taken his name out of the running to replace John Stroger on an interim basis.
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