* It’s Friday, I’m busy on and distracted by other projects and issues, we’ve got some pretty “deep” posts already with more to come, so let’s lighten it up.
Cardinal fans frequently comment here that, while they do appreciate the Cub bashing, we tend to ignore their team. I ignore the Cardinals mainly because St. Louis is not in Illinois, and this is an Illinois site.
But, just this once, I’ll do something for all the Card fans.
* The Question: Do you think the St. Louis Cardinals can go all the way this year? Explain fully, please.
* I took a tour of state prisons several years ago, and by far the Tamms “SuperMax” prison was the cleanest, quietest facility in the bunch. One reason for its spotless look is the prison is still relatively new compared to most of our ancient facilities. And it’s so quiet because inmates - who are supposedly sent there because they are the “worst of the worst” are kept in solitary confinement 23 hours a day.
That’s torture, say some, and now Gov. Pat Quinn’s new Dept. of Corrections director is taking a look at the conditions.
* One of the reasons that I’ve been so hesitant to go into detail of the Belleville News Democrat’s series on Tamms is that prisoners are known to say just about anything. Also, the series appeared to be prompted by a lawsuit against a Tamms psychiatrist. One should always be careful about basing articles on lawsuits of that nature, and I wasn’t sure the paper was careful enough.
During a civil trial Tuesday in U.S. District Court, Tamms supermax prison inmate Anthony Gay was described by the day’s only witness as a “manipulator” who routinely cut or threatened to cut himself to get what he wanted from prison staff.
His accuser, psychiatrist Dr. Rakesh Chandra, is being sued by Gay, 35, of Rock Island, for alleged violations of the Constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Gay claims his civil rights were violated when, after severely mutilating himself on several occasions in 2004, Chandra ordered him strapped naked to a metal bed frame and left for as long as 32 hours without food instead of being given mental health therapy or medication.< [...]
Powell, Chandra's attorney, said her client did everything he could to help Gay, including strapping him down to prevent him from further harming himself until his mental state stabilized.
The [BN-D] articles included evidence of mental illness exhibited over periods of years by inmates, including self-mutilation and feces-smearing.
It also challenged the Department of Correction’s assertion that the prison holds the “worst of the worst.”
For example, Anthony Gay, who entered prison to serve a seven-year sentence for stealing a hat and a dollar bill, is now serving a 99-year prison sentence for assaults on guards. Since his incarceration, he engaged in self-mutilation by cutting his arms, legs and genitals.
But this is from a letter in the Belleville News-Democrat…
I read your recent series on the “inhumane” treatment of prisoners at Tamms prison. I mentioned this series to a family friend. Ironically enough, he is a former corrections officer at Tamms, and every day he fearlessly faced the dangers of his profession. The reason I brought this event up is because your reporter only reported half of the story.
When I mentioned the article, my friend asked if Anthony Gay was one of the inmates mentioned. They know each other really well.
The whole reason Gay has been in prison for so long. Gay’s stay at the “Concrete and Iron Bar Hotel” was extended because he assaulted my friend [a former prison guard]. Your article fails to mention that Gay was convicted of repeatedly throwing urine, fecal matter, and other bodily fluids, striking my friend.
* Click here to see the IDOC director’s 10-step plan for reform…
His 10-step plan announced [yesterday] in Chicago includes a full mental health evaluation of all Tamms prisoners within 30 days of their arrival. Clinical staff also will make weekly rounds of all areas throughout the prison, not just the mental health unit, to detect whether inmates’ conditions worsen or if they become suicidal.
Another significant change is the new process for reviewing prisoners who are to be transferred from a lower security prison to Tamms. Hearings will be conducted to allow inmates to rebut information that led them to be placed in Tamms, and they would be able to appeal their placement there. All hearings would be recorded.
More…
* Inform each inmate of an estimated time they’ll stay at Tamms and how they can earn privileges and eventually transfer out to a less restrictive prison.
* Enhance incentives for good behavior, including earning the right to use the telephone or spend more time out of their cells.
* Begin offering General Educational Development testing.
* Implement congregate religious services for inmates.
* Rescind some of the restrictions on printed materials.
* Develop a plan to allow inmates access to a “step down” program, which would help at-risk inmates transition from Tamms to the general prison population.
* Plan a media, legislative and public outreach program that includes a visit to Tamms.
* Reexamine the population of inmates having served extensive time at Tamms to see whether they are eligible to transfer out. Some have been at Tamms since it opened in 1998.
Three metro-east legislators want the suspension of all state funding and contracts for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also known as ACORN.
State Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Highland, and Sens. Dave Luechtefeld, R-Okawville, and Kyle McCarter, R-Lebanon, have sent a letter to Gov. Pat Quinn, asking that the attorney general’s office conduct an investigation of ACORN before the group receives any more state funding. […]
“In light of the multiple news reports exposing ACORN’s questionable behavior, as well as video evidence showing ACORN employees offering tax assistance to open brothels and tips on how to launder money into a congressional campaign account, Illinois government needs to take a good, long look at the business it does with this organization,” Stephens said. “We need to see what this group is really up to and whether or not any contracts and connections they have with the state are worthy of the use of public money.”
Stephens said the organization has received grants from various state agencies. Stephens said he and some other legislators are still gathering information on how much money the organization has received.
At issue are a series of secretly filmed videos at ACORN offices in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and New York City showing employees answering questions from a pair of 20-somethings posing as a prostitute and pimp (actually they’re an amateur filmmaker/MBA student and a college journalism student). The duo sought advice on how to get help buying a home in which to run a sex ring for underage girls from El Salvador, all while dodging taxes on the whole illicit endeavor. Boy, did they get lessons in how to lie and cheat.
You’re not a hooker, but a “freelance performing artist” on loan documents, the girl is told in Baltimore. In Washington, she’s advised to set up a fake company and become an “independent consultant” for it. Bury your profits in the back yard, you don’t have to pay taxes. Claim the teen sex slaves as dependents for the tax credit.
* Sens. Dick Durbin and Roland Burris were among just seven US Senators voting “No” on a bill to cut off certain ACORN funding. Burris showed he’s still spry when a Fox News reporter tried to get his reaction. The video shows just as much about Burris as it does about Fox…
Sen. Dick Durbin explains that ACORN has helped more than 100,000 families obtain homes. Sen. Roland Burris… says he didn’t want to pass judgment based on “a few isolated incidents.”
But Jackson said she agreed with Illinois’ two current senators who were among a handful of senators who voted against a proposal to strip the controversial community organizing group ACORN of federal funding.
* As always with cable TV meltdowns, you have to take a look behind the hype. And at least some of the hype is just that, apparently…
But when the Press-Enterprise newspaper caught up with ACORN employee Tresa Kaelke, she told the newspaper she was messing with the filmmakers and making it all up.
“They were clearly playing with me," she said "I decided to shock them as much as they were shocking me." Reports the newspaper: "Since she claimed on the video to have killed her husband, two San Bernardino police homicide detectives interviewed her at the office Tuesday. Police said they have been in contact with Kaelke's former husbands and the homicide claims do not appear accurate.
In Philadelphia, Neil Herrmann, ACORN’s lead organizer there, said the couple was kicked out after talking to a counselor “for a few minutes.” They called to set up an appointment the day before the visit.
“At first when the counselor came,” she wasn’t going to take them back,” Herrmann said. “But they had made an appointment. When he mentioned the 13-year-old girls, they were asked to leave.”
O’Keefe disputed Herrmann’s account, saying “we talked to them for more than a few minutes.”
ACORN emailed a copy of a Philadelphia police report dated July 24 to The Post to verify its account that police were called and the couple was shown the door. O’Keefe is named on the report.
Still, there are some very real problems with at least local branches of that group. I’d like to see if any of the legislators have any proof or allegations of Illinois wrongdoing, however.
* Related…
* ACORN Announces Major Steps to Address Issues Raised by Videos
* Florida may do battle with ACORN - The state of Florida could take its own action against ACORN, a legislative leader said Thursday, as the firestorm over revelations about the group’s activities grew in intensity.
* Louisiana governor bans state contracts with ACORN
* ACORN backlash expected to have few effects on Sacramento branch
* Schwarzenegger Urges Attorney General to Investigate ACORN
* ACORN vows to keep fighting after video controversy: The Midwest director of ACORN flew into Detroit on Wednesday, vowing to continue the group’s advocacy despite a white-hot controversy over a video showing two employees telling a couple posing as a prostitute and pimp how to cheat on taxes.
Illinois State Police officials, on behalf of 13 states to the south and west of Illinois, are asking for federal stimulus money to buy hundreds of special cameras that would be placed on interstates known as frequent routes for drug-runners.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood promised the full backing of the federal government to fix what ails area transit if Chicago gets the 2016 Olympics, but he wasn’t as forthcoming on the consequences of a state spat over high-speed rail Thursday.
* I thought I had a good idea for the new website, but I may have changed my mind. Not sure yet. Anyway, you could help me out by answering this question…
What Illinois campaign websites have you found out there? Post ‘em in the comments, please. Thanks.
* Curt Mercadante believes he’s seeing the beginning of the end of the traditional press release. He makes some good points…
* Earlier this year, we helped a candidate launch a statewide political campaign — and garnered statewide media attention without issuing a single press release. We relied on a short online video and a brief email to supporters. Most news outlets based their stories off of the video and email — and some simply called us directly for comment. No press release needed.
* When we helped a think-tank release a policy study last March, we knew we wouldn’t get much coverage from our press release. That’s why the centerpiece of our media strategy was the microsite we built for the study’s release. We were correct — while most of the immediate coverage came from blogs we pitched through social media outlets, other “mainstream media” outlets (such as National Public Radio) have found our study and contact information from the microsite.
* Social media tools are quickly replacing the press release as the main source of story ideas for members of the media. Many journalists are not only effectively getting pitched on Twitter — some news outlets are reporting their stories based on the Twitter updates of politicians and celebrities. Public relations strategist Sarah Evans created #journchat as a weekly Twitter discussion that connects journalists with communications professionals. And Peter Shankman’s “Help a Reporter Out” program is providing a great way for journalists to direct queries to PR professionals and get story ideas quickly, effectively and, yes, for free.
Those are all good ideas, but I see a few problems with declaring press releases dead.
In my own case, I have almost 2,000 Facebook “friends.” I can scroll down for half an hour and barely see the last ten minutes of what they’ve been doing. Yeah, and I need to somehow weed this crud out, but if you post something that you want noticed on Facebook, you’d better make sure you point it out to me.
Same goes for Twitter. I’m following over 550 people. Usually, I can keep up with that, since many of those people don’t Tweet too often. But those posts go by so fast that I surely miss a lot of them.
Frankly, I barely have time to read my e-mail. And a lot of that is because of press releases. So, there’s my quandary.
* From new media to old, Eric Zorn says corporate greed has little to do with the decline of newspapers.
Not all, but quite a lot of the papers in the worst trouble borrowed way too much money at the height of the bubble and paid top dollar for underperforming assets. Oops. That may not be greed, but it is bad business.
* And speaking of terrifying, I’m frightened that the Sun-Times will close and leave us with one Chicago paper. If you think Mother Tribune is high and mighty now, just wait until there’s nobody else around.
Prospective owner James Tyree’s plan to essentially gut the union of all power and toss the contract out the window is not going to do much for quality journalism, which is what he says he wants. They’re down to about 100 reporters at the Sun-Times right now as it is. Not too many more layoffs and you may as well forget it.
I’m hoping this was just a bluff and he and the union can work out a deal. But they’d better do something soon. The clock is ticking.
The political lesson that I’ll take away from these last few months is that until nominating petitions are filed at the Illinois State Board of Elections, there are no official candidates. […]
We got another example of this with Matt Murphy deciding he wasn’t running for governor but will now pursue lieutenant governor. […]
At the moment, anyone can be an unofficial candidate for anything.
Somebody asked me yesterday to help her figure out which Chicago legislative races would be the most intense. For a variety of reasons, including the fact that many people who are now circulating petitions won’t be on the ballot, and some of the big players have yet to make a decision on where they’re going.
And other than the fact that few people care, one reason why I haven’t written much about the lieutenant governor candidates is that I doubt all of them will successfully file.
We don’t know what it’s gonna look like yet.
* Having said that, Cheryle Robinson Jackson kicked off her US Senate campaign yesterday. Jackson was not a popular person with reporters when she worked for Blagojevich. Some found it difficult to get her on the phone. I rarely ever had that problem. Still, keep an eye out for a bit of payback in upcoming stories.
Stressing her focus on economic development and supporting entrepreneurs like her late father, Chicago Urban League President Cheryle Jackson today formally launched her candidacy for U.S. Senate.
The contrast with her main rivals couldn’t be clearer in the venue Jackson chose: a neighborhood restaurant at 87th and Stony Island.
B.J.’s Bakery owner John Meyer said Jackson’s Urban League helped him grow his business. Democratic front-runner Alexis Giannoulias launched his candidacy from the Hilton Hotel downtown, and Republican front-runner Mark Kirk launched his from his boyhood home in Kenilworth.
State Sen. James Meeks said “I think Cheryle Jackson is the only person who can beat Mark Kirk.”
Chicago Urban League president Cheryle Jackson launched a campaign Wednesday that could make her the only black member of the U.S. Senate if she manages to overcome concerns about her former boss, disgraced ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
The first thing Democratic party voters will notice about Cheryl Robinson Jackson is that she’s the only woman in the race. Her campaign signage has a definite feminine color and look about it and she’s going all out to make herself the favorite of female voters who make up 53 percent of the statewide electorate.
“If it takes a woman to be in Washington to fight for parity and make certain that we don’t lose ground and speak up boldly on behalf of that, then I’m happy to be that woman,” said Jackson.
* Meanwhile, Democratic US Senate hopeful David Hoffman was on Chicago Tonight yesterday. Go have a look. It was a relatively brief interview and he came off pretty well.
* Delmarie Cobb, Roland Burris’ chief media strategist, wins our rarely bestowed Quote of the Month award. Cobb was interviewed for an ABC7 story about Cheryle Robinson Jackson’s US Senate campaign. Have a listen…
In case you can’t watch videos where you are, this is the text from that ABC7 story…
“When you dig one grave be careful you don’t fall in. And the Democrats dug a grave in terms of Roland and now we have fallen in as the Democratic party because the Republicans are going to take this race. It has nothing to do anymore with black or white,” said Delmarie Cobb, political consultant.
Now she tells us that race shouldn’t matter and that the Roland Burris disaster dug a “grave” for the Democratic Party?
I really don’t know what to say.
Should we take a walk down memory lane? Let’s do it…
Now, Cobb says, Burris’ enemies are trying to bloody him up and weaken him with mounting legal bills.
Veteran political consultant Delmarie Cobb is a top adviser to Exhibit No. 1 of the old strain, Sen. Roland Burris. I visited her Bronzeville office last week during a pause in her winning battle to keep Burris in office.
“All of a sudden, we’re into this young thing, and anybody who’s been out here needs to be put out to pasture,” she vented. Cobb resents “that somebody would take this kind of knowledge and put it out to pasture.”
“They keep trotting out these marquee names to scare Roland,” said Delmarie Cobb, the senator’s media and political adviser, adding that some Democrats are out to “lynch” Burris and turn him into a “whipping boy.”
I could go on for a long time, but I’d rather not.
* Ms. Cobb is very good at what she does. She fights like the devil for her clients. She kept Sen. Burris in place and untouched by the Illinois powers that be. And even though I think she may have been saying that it was the Democratic Party’s fault that the Burris thing got out of hand, I hope she’s finally realizing that there are limits when doing one’s job.
This state was needlessly divided over the Rod Blagojevich’s Burris appointment and the resulting racial morass. There were wrong people on all sides, but the record is clear that Ms. Cobb did her very best to fan tiny embers into massive flames.
* Now, a warning to commenters. Do not use her past quotes as an excuse to go all racist on us in comments. I’m in no mood.
The appeals court in Chicago will hear arguments today on why there should still be an election to replace Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate. Roland Burris has Obama’s old seat but that could change if Marty Oberman has his way. He’s suing the Governor because Pat Quinn hasn’t called for a special election. Oberman says the 17th amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires Quinn to call a special election despite an Illinois state law that allows the governor to appoint people to the Senate
Through July 31 of this year alone, there were $23.3 million worth of outstanding fines on citations written by 11 city departments. Last year’s deadbeat total was $38 million.
Once again, the Chicago Police Department tops the list, with $20.2 million in outstanding fines since Jan. 1, 2008. That’s followed by the departments of Streets and Sanitation ($14.2 million), Buildings ($13 million), Business Affairs and Consumer Protection ($10.2 million) and Health ($1.4 million).
The amount of money in defaults and uncollected citations dwarfed the amount of money collected by the Police Department by a nearly 4-to-1 margin.
The report, released Monday, said Stroger and the board have adopted protections against illegal patronage hiring, then detailed allegations that the system is still being subverted for political reasons by decision makers who work for Stroger.
“While some county policy makers and their agents are busy drafting and adopting and implementing appropriate policies, others are busy evading and frustrating and defying policies,” the report stated.
During Wednesday’s discussion, Stroger asked if all of the allegations of illegal patronage relate to a time before he was in office.
“No,” Robinson said. She added that her job is not to prove such allegations but rather to work toward eliminating the hiring, firing, promotion and transfer of most workers based on political considerations.
* Some Cook County bosses still hire patronage workers for ‘non-exempt’ jobs: court-appoited monitor
A Chicago Heights Park District Board member who voted to give district Supt. Alex Lopez a hefty raise was appointed to a city job that same month by Lopez, who also is mayor of Chicago Heights.
The City Council on Tuesday unanimously voted to draw up an ordinance proposal for opting out of the Illinois’ Video Gaming Act, which was approved by state legislators as a way to fund a large capital bill. The council will vote on the proposal Oct. 6.
The Evanston City Council voted Monday to ban video gambling, joining Rosemont and Country Club Hills. DuPage County has enacted a ban in unincorporated areas.
About 125 establishments in Naperville would have been eligible for the video gambling machines.[…]
Under the Video Gaming Act, the state will receive 25 percent of video gambling revenues, while towns will receive 5 percent. An econometrics firm calculated Naperville could have reaped $11,250 a year for each business with five machines.
The Daley administration will make cash payments totaling $600,000 to 162 Chicago Police officers denied their requests for compensatory time in a move denounced as a “blatant violation” of the police contract.
The Fraternal Order of Police on Wednesday filed an unfair labor practices complaint and a class-action grievance on behalf of officers who accumulated comp time that falls under under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The act requires the city to grant comp time requests made with sufficient notice, even if it means calling other officers in on their days off to fill the void. It applies to time earned above 11 overtime hours during a four-week period.
The incident is being investigated by Area 3 detectives and the Independent Police Review Authority. At the time of the incident, the officer already had been relieved of his police powers for an “unrelated matter,” a Chicago Police spokesman said, without elaborating.
The alleged beating occurred Saturday night in the Loop. At the time, the officer was riding a bicycle, and then allegedly boarded the bus, accusing the driver of trying to cut him off.
Jefferson said video surveillance shows the police officer repeatedly punching the driver, leaving the bus, and then returning to punch the driver some more.
The principal of a school that’s part of a federal probe into admissions practices at the city’s elite public high schools said Wednesday that she has testified before a grand jury.
Whitney Young Principal Joyce Kenner declined to provide details of her two-hour testimony last week before the federal panel.
* Gov. Pat Quinn says compromise possible on Payton statue ahttp://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2009/09/gov-pat-quinn-says-compromise-possible-on-payton-statue-at-soldier-field.html
