* I just finished a panel discussion at Roosevelt University’s Schaumburg campus. The panel was led by the illustrious Paul Green. House GOP campaign director Kevin Artl, House Speaker Michael Madigan’s press secretary Steve Brown and Daily Herald political editor Joe Ryan all sat on the panel with yours truly.
Thanks to blueroomstream.com, you can watch the entire thing in two parts…
* And the DSCC has a new Mark Kirk hearts Sarah Palin video…
* Meanwhile, reaction is coming in from GOP gubernatorial candidates to Gov. Quinn’s plan to bring Gitmo prisoners to the Thomson prison.
First up, Andy McKenna…
“The only thing that makes less sense than trying to solve our budget crisis by bringing terrorists to Illinois is promoting this plan as if it were a good thing for Illinois families.
“Gov. Quinn appears to be taking an “Alice in Wonderland” approach to his role as governor; the state’s not really nearly bankrupt, and what we really need to do is bring some terrorists here.
“As Governor I would not support this extreme plan and I call on the General Assembly to act swiftly and decisively to put a halt to Governor Quinn’s attempts to put terrorists in our neighborhoods.”
Kirk Dillard…
“As governor, my first priority would be to ensure the safety and security of Illinois residents. Therefore, I oppose using the Thomson Correctional Center or any Illinois prison to house Al Qaeda suspects. Under a Dillard Administration, we will not make our state a potential target if any of these terror suspects stand trial and are convicted in an Illinois courtroom. This is a matter of national security, and I applaud the Illinois Republican delegation in Congress for standing firmly against the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.”
Dan Proft…
“This is a terrible idea that threatens the safety of Illinois residents.
“It is emblematic of the Obama administration’s erratic public policy choices. The President issues an edict that he will close Gitmo without a plan for the detainees there. Instead of keeping suspected terrorists off domestic soil, the President and Governor Quinn are poised to bring to Illinois those with the ability to operate beyond the walls of any prison.
“We should be utilizing the Thomson prison to relieve prison overcrowding in Illinois’ existing 28 state prisons. According to a report issued by Illinois Auditor General Bill Holland this fall, Illinois’ prisons are 32 percent over capacity currently.
“We should bring Thomson fully online in a way that addresses our current capacity needs and enhances the security of both frontline DOC workers and the general public instead of potentially endangering both by bringing persons suspected to be connected to terrorist networks to Illinois.
“I call on President Obama and Governor Quinn to rethink this poorly conceived idea.”
And Democrat Dan Hynes…
“I support President Obama’s commitment to close Guantanamo Bay because it’s important for America’s image abroad, and for our national security. The kneejerk, alarmist response by some to this news is not helpful, in my opinion. That said, there are more questions than answers right now, and I have serious concerns. I am going to withhold judgment until I have a chance to see all the details and understand the entire picture.”
Then there was conservative GOP US Senate candidate Patrick Hughes…
“I am vehemently opposed to bringing enemy combatants, including the Gitmo prisoners, to Illinois and was also opposed the closing of Guantanamo Bay. This is failure of leadership of the Democrats - from the President down to Governor Quinn. As U.S. Senator, I will enact policies that will advance America’s national security interests and oppose any plans that weaken those interests - like this one being proposed by the Obama Adminstration.”
And the IL GOP took a whack at Democratic US Senate candidate Alexi Giannouolias…
Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady today called on Democrat Alexi Giannoulias to end his silence on the biggest homeland security question to face the State of Illinois since September 11th.
While Governor Quinn, Senator Durbin and every other Democrat running for U.S. Senate says they support a plan to bring roughly 200 terrorists from Guantanamo Bay to Thomson, Illinois, Giannoulias refuses to take a position.
On Sunday morning, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that while Democrats Cheryle Jackson, Jacob Meister and David Hoffman all supported the plan, “other prominent Democrats, including Alexi Giannoulias, who is running for Senate…declined to take a stance on the issue.”
Last night, the Associated Press reported that the three Senate candidates reiterated their support at a candidate forum in Rockford, but “Alexi Giannoulias, the state treasurer, skipped the debate.”
“If Alexi Giannoulias cannot take a stand on a critical homeland security issue, he is not ready to be a U.S. Senator,” Chairman Brady said. “While Congressman Kirk leads the effort to defend the security of Illinois families and all other Democrats in the race state their position, Alexi Giannoulias declined to take a stance. Alexi’s silence is deafening.”
The first, at 12:22 p.m., from the Dan Proft for Governor campaign said, “News Release; Proft wins New Trier Township GOP endorsement.”
The second one, at 1:28 p.m., from the Andy McKenna for Governor campaign said, “Press release: “McKenna wins New Trier GOP endorsement.”
As it turns out, they were both right. The two men — among seven Republicans running for Illinois governor — got a joint endorsement from the New Trier GOP.
That’s three big suburban township endorsements for Proft in the past week. He also got Schaumburg’s nod and Niles’ as well.
Political double agents — that seems the right phrase to describe some volunteers working on the Cook County Board president’s race.
Their true allegiance might not be clear. But their mission is: to topple incumbent County Board President Todd Stroger.
They’ve been working for two of Stroger’s three opponents in the Feb. 2 Democratic primary at the same time: Terrence J. O’Brien, president of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, the lone white candidate in the race, and Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown, one of the two black women challenging Stroger. […]
The proof is in the nearly two-foot-high stacks of nominating petitions each filed with the Cook County clerk’s office three weeks ago to get on the Democratic primary ballot along with Stroger and Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th). Over the last three months, three volunteers simultaneously circulated two sets of petitions — one for O’Brien, the other for Brown
Both Stroger’s and Preckwinkle’s people have been muttering for months that Brown is a put-up candidate by the white powers that be to split the black vote.
For years, Thomas Simmons was a high-ranking bureaucrat at City Hall. He also ran a successful “patronage army” of African Americans on the West Side.
Simmons helped many of his supporters get city jobs, according to testimony at the 2006 trial of Mayor Daley’s former patronage chief, Robert Sorich, who’s now in prison for illegally helping political workers get city jobs.
Today, Simmons and some of his group — Citizens for a Better West Side — are trying to get Terrence J. O’Brien elected the next Cook County Board president.
* I wasn’t able to go to the Rockford Democratic gubernatorial debate yesterday because of a previously scheduled engagement, but it appears I missed a hot one…
Gov. Pat Quinn accused Comptroller Dan Hynes of crying “crocodile tears” over billions of dollars in unpaid state bills, while Hynes called Quinn the “lead cheerleader” for Rod Blagojevich during a combative debate Sunday between two of the major rivals for the Democratic nomination for governor. […]
But Quinn said Hynes could have helped push for an income-tax increase last spring in the legislature. “You know, all this crocodile tears about health care costs–when it really counted in April, May and June, he wasn’t there,” Quinn said of the comptroller. […]
After repeated shots by Quinn that Hynes was AWOL on fiscal issues—“He wanted to politic and I don’t think we should allow that to take place when we have a crisis”—the comptroller said he was not sitting on the sidelines.
“You talk about the sidelines,” Hynes said. “Well, one of us was taking on Rod Blagojevich. The other was not only on the sidelines but was his lead cheerleader. I think that’s going to be relevant in this election.”
Here comes the Blagojevich card, campers. More on that from the AP…
Hynes said he spent years criticizing Blagojevich’s budget plans while Quinn was serving as Blagojevich’s lieutenant governor.
“One of us was taking on Rod Blagojevich. The other was not only on the sidelines but was his lead cheerleader,” Hynes said.
Quinn countered that he spoke out against a major Blagojevich tax plan in the governor’s second term and that he fought to give voters the power to recall corrupt officials, an idea that Hynes opposed.
The candidates were asked how they would make sure the Chrysler automotive plant in Belvidere remains in operation after 2012 when the company discontinues production of the Dodge Caliber, Jeep Compass and Jeep Patriot. Those models will be replaced by products under development that would use Fiat — not Chrysler — architecture, and company officials haven’t said whether those vehicles will be built in Belvidere.
Quinn said he wrote an auto manufacturing bill approved by the General Assembly that would give incentives to remain in Illinois and that he may sign it in Belvidere.
“My opponent wants to be the governor, but I am the governor and I am getting the job done right now for our auto manufacturers,” Quinn said.
* Some of the Democratic US Senate candidates debated as well. Giannoulias was a no-show. The AP has the story here.
I f you ever wondered whether Gov. Pat Quinn would do whatever it takes to win re-election, all you need to do is look at his latest TV ad.
The spot is perhaps the most misleading TV advertisement of the season so far, but it packs quite a wallop. Quinn cannily “accuses” his Democratic primary opponent, Comptroller Dan Hynes, of having “signed off on every single state check.”
“Now Hynes claims he’ll cut the budget line by line, but as comptroller for 12 years he signed off on every single state check,” the Quinn ad alleges.
The Quinn campaign claimed after the ad aired that they were trying to say that Hynes’ statutory check-signing duties meant he ought to know what the budget is all about already and that Hynes shouldn’t need to go over the budget line by line after he’s elected to figure out where to cut waste and over-spending.
While the Quinn campaign’s explanation for why they worded the attack ad the way they did is an interesting after-thought, if you watch the spot carefully you’ll see that what it’s really trying to say is Hynes is somehow responsible for the mess the state is in.
Effective advertising is all about the message received, not the message sent. So when you pick apart a TV ad, you have to try to understand what the advertiser wants viewers to take away from it. And what the Quinn campaign is partially trying to do here is say that Hynes was somehow responsible for the budget meltdown under disgraced former governor Rod Blagojevich.
The Hynes campaign quickly launched a counter-attack via press release. “(T)he Quinn campaign has opened the door to a discussion of who really stood for fiscal responsibility during the Blagojevich Administration. While Dan Hynes repeatedly warned of overspending and pending fiscal catastrophe, Quinn stood silent. As recently as September, 2006, Quinn said of his two-time running mate: ‘He’s always been a person who’s honest and one of integrity. I have confidence the governor does the right thing all the time.’ ”
It was probably only a matter of time before the Blagojevich card was played. And we can probably expect that to continue throughout the rest of the campaign. Blagojevich is the ultimate in political radioactivity. Combine “His Hairness” with the state’s horrific budget deficit and Quinn’s resulting push to raise income taxes on the middle class and it’s easy to see why Quinn would want to begin laying the groundwork to take Hynes down with him.
By the way, that new Quinn ad is entitled “Spa.”
The title refers to a claim within the ad that while Quinn was hard at work on the state’s budget, “Hynes skipped town, flying to Washington, taking a vacation, hitting a spa in Chicago.”
Hynes claims the “spa” is a place just down the street from his home where he got a haircut. His longtime barber had temporarily moved to that location, so Hynes followed him over there. Speaking as someone who has had my hair cut by the same person for almost a decade, I can relate. By the way, she cuts hair at a “salon,” just in case anybody ever thought about doing an attack ad on me.
Hynes’ Washington, D.C., trip was for an Obama campaign event attended by President Barack Obama, Hynes’ campaign claims. Ironically enough, shortly after the ad began airing, Quinn left Illinois for a Washington fundraising trip and skipped an important meeting with mass transit officials.
The vacation mentioned in the Quinn ad was a family break with Hynes’ three sons and his wife. Yes, it was taken while the General Assembly and the governor had not yet wrapped up the state budget, but Hynes didn’t leave town when the Legislature was in session.
Whatever the actual truth is, the Quinn ad’s subtle connection of Hynes to Blagojevich and the overt taunting of Hynes for lolly-gagging in a spa while the state burns makes this a very effective advertisement. And like I said above, it shows that Quinn is no “high road” campaigner. He’ll get right down there in the dirt and the mud and the blood if that’s what it takes to win.
And he’ll definitely need every trick in the book if he wants to survive what’s sure to be the toughest campaign of his life.
* Related…
* Press release: Cook County Commissioner Forrest Claypool today endorsed former Deputy Illinois Treasurer Raja (RAH-jah) Krishnamoorthi (krish-nuh-MOOR-thee) for Illinois State Comptroller. “In this time of economic challenge and large budget deficits, we need officials who will serve as the taxpayers’ watchdog,” Claypool said. “I am convinced that Raja can be the kind of comptroller we need to cut the waste and fraud from state government while protecting the vital services it must provide.”
Rep. Mark Kirk, the leading Republican candidate for Obama’s former U.S. Senate seat, rattled off a letter to the president warning that “if your administration brings Al Qaeda terrorists to Illinois, our state and the Chicago Metropolitan Area will become ground zero for Jihadist terrorist plots, recruitment and radicalization.
“As home to America’s tallest building, we should not invite Al Qaeda to make Illinois its number one target,” Kirk also wrote.
In addition to Manzullo and Kirk, Republican Reps. Judy Biggert of Hinsdale and Peter Roskam of Wheaton came out swinging against the proposal Saturday.
“Terrorists have no place on American soil,” Roskam said.
Biggert, whose district covers parts of DuPage and Will counties, said, “These detainees pose a unique threat to America’s security. They should (be) kept away from our shores, and far from America’s heartland.”
There’s most certainly an important federal policy debate here and they should definitely have at it. We need to have a debate in Illinois as well. For instance, should we be doing this just because the locals want some economic development and the state could use the cash?
But before we do anything, let’s try to calmly look at the facts instead of getting all crazy and predicting the end of the world. For instance…
According to data provided by Traci L. Billingsley, spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, federal facilities on American soil currently house 216 international terrorists and 139 domestic terrorists. Some of these miscreants have been locked up here since the early 1990s. None of them has escaped. At the most secure prisons, nobody has ever escaped, period.
So, despite Congressman Roskam’s claim, lots of terrorists are already locked up in American prisons.
Of the total number, 35 [terrorist] inmates are housed in federal prisons in Illinois, including Ali al-Marri, who pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiring to provide material support to al Qaeda. Al-Marri is serving eight years and four months at the federal penitentiary in Marion, Illinois.
But the apocalyptic rhetoric rarely addresses this: Thirty-three international terrorists, many with ties to al-Qaeda, reside in a single federal prison in Florence, Colo., with little public notice.
Detained in the supermax facility in Colorado are Ramzi Yousef, who headed the group that carried out the first bombing of the World Trade Center in February 1993; Zacarias Moussaoui, convicted of conspiring in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001; Ahmed Ressam, of the Dec. 31, 1999, Los Angeles airport millennium attack plots; Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, conspirator in several plots, including one to assassinate President George W. Bush; and Wadih el-Hage, convicted of the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya.
Those are very evil people who did very evil things. Yet, nothing has happened to the area and the local politicians don’t seem to be screaming bloody murder and predicting an apocalypse.
A. No. It will likely require approval by Congress and at least the ‘OK’ from Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn.
Q. How many detainees would come to the Thomson prison?
A. Not clear. The Obama administration will only say a “limited number.” U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin says it will be “fewer than 100.” […]
Q. Is the Thomson prison secure?
A. It is a maximum-security prison with eight compartmentalized, 200-cell units. On the 146-acre site, the prison is protected by a dual-sided electrical stun fence, 312 cameras and armed towers. The Obama administration would also plan to upgrade security, making it one of the highest security prisons in the country. Detainees would be kept apart from the general population.
News that the federal government seems interested in transferring detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the Thomson Correctional Center was greeted warmly in this small, rural farm town along the Iowa border.
After holding out hope that the sprawling $145 million prison might improve the economic conditions in this remote area of the state, residents say any prisoners would be a welcomed sight.
“It would help the businesses here, and God knows we could use that,” said Kay Lawton, 59, a Thomson resident. “It doesn’t matter to me who they bring here.”
Again, this shouldn’t be done just because that part of the state needs jobs. And it shouldn’t be done just because the state government needs money. And it shouldn’t (and won’t) be done until it is thoroughly debated in Congress.
Despite the evidence, nobody can say for sure that Congressman Kirk is wrong, of course, and that helps make his scary outburst so politically effective. And as clear as it is to me that history shows there’s no serious threat, I’m still not completely comfortable with this Thomson idea. Kirk may look like the boy who cried wolf, but, to me, the proposal makes Illinois look downright desperate. It reminds me a little of the cash-strapped counties which take in garbage from wealthier counties to make a few bucks. As a citizen, I’m embarrassed about the whole situation.
* UPDATE: Related…
* Durbin: Gitmo plan opponents play on fears: An Illinois prison that may house terrorism suspects now at Guantanamo will be inspected by a federal team today, a day after Gov. Quinn and Sen. Dick Durbin stumped for the plan — calling it “a dream come true.”
[Since I had an exam during the day on Thursday, and was incapacitated on Friday morning, I have responded in the comments section to all of your kind B-day wishes from last week. Thanks a bunch everyone]
* State Rep. Annazette Collins Robbed In Woodlawn - Courtyard Where Robbery Happened Was Unsecured Due To Area Code Glitch
With Cook County commissioners expected to roll back the sales tax a half penny on the dollar — and make it stick this time — a simmering discussion may very well boil over about a proposed hospital tax, as one group calls it, to continue delivering health care to the poor and uninsured.
The debate pits Commissioner Joseph Mario Moreno, a Democrat whose district largely encompasses the Southwest Side, against hospitals in Chicago and the suburbs.
Under the legislation Moreno sponsored, larger nonprofit health-care facilities would be subject to what he calls a “fee,” but sounds more like a penalty, if they do not provide free care to the poor or uninsured equal to 4.5 percent of the hospital’s annual expenses.
Moreno is concerned that revenue losses from a potential sales tax rollback would hurt Cook County government, a $3.1 billion operation with roughly $850 million going to the county’s health-care system this year.
The agency that runs McCormick Place and Navy Pier is likely to offer early retirement to 90 eligible employees and force 300 others to take up to 24 unpaid days off to help solve a financial crisis caused by a downturn in convention and tourism business.
Another reduction in hours worked by 200 unionized employees and renegotiation of contracts — for everything from attorneys to landscaping and janitorial services — is also on the table to erase a $34 million shortfall, sources said.
The Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority board will meet at 1 p.m. today to consider the painful remedies.
* Transit unions put foot down with CTA and its plans for layoffs, service cuts
Leaders say they are not willing to make concessions because there are other ways to cut costs without limiting service
CTA workers are facing a list of concessions and layoffs, but union officials feel it’s time to take a serious look at a longterm fix.
At a Sunday morning news conference, union leaders suggested the CTA study the transportation system in Pennsylvania where a new statewide law, with money coming from an increase in highway tolls and sales taxes, provides resources to keep the transit agencies afloat for 10 years.[…]
The CTA is asking its workers for $160 million in givebacks over two years. The agency must find $95.6 million in savings to avoid service cuts and layoffs scheduled for February.
Metra riders who buy one-way tickets or weekend tickets or who wait to pay till they’re on the train will pay more, under a budget approved Friday by the Chicago and suburban commuter-rail agency’s board.
According to the latest figures from the Woodstock Institute, foreclosure filings were up by more than 50 percent in some well-off suburbs during the third quarter, as the mortgage crisis continued to shift to middle- and higher-income communities.
* A couple of items to close the week. First up, we still need to keep Carlos Hernandez Gomez’s spirits up, so his friends should head over to Carlos’ FaceBook page and give him some encouragement.
Pat Quinn’s campaign has yet another new video. This one is is from Quinn’s endorsement by Congressman Gutierrez. Go take a look.
Prosecutors and lawyers for Springfield power broker William Cellini have filed an agreed motion in federal court that would remove Cellini from the sweeping corruption trial of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, expected to start next year.
The filing notes that the September death of political fundraiser Christopher Kelly eliminated the need to keep Cellini in the case.
* Just in time for the holidays, we’ve got the release of a 40th anniversary deluxe box set of Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out!, perhaps the greatest live rock ‘n’ roll record of all time. I played the heck out of that album when I was younger, and it still holds up today. Here’s the opening track…
* As if the Democratic Party doesn’t have enough problems, Rod Blagojevich now wants his trial moved to September - the heart of the fall campaign season…
Lawyers for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich are seeking to delay the start of his trial next summer, court records show.
The attorneys want the the trial moved from June to September to give them time to review a ruling expected in the spring from the U.S. Supreme Court on the “honest services” provision of the federal mail fraud statute.
That statute criminalizes conduct in which public officials–and others–breach the “honest services” they owe to the public or under their contracts.
“While a subsequent filing will challenge the integration of ‘intangible rights-honest services,’ this court will judicially note that the U.S. Supreme Court has a trio of (such) cases on its docket,” the motion states.
The Supremes could strike down the honest services law, or at least part of its application, so Blagojevich does have a point.
But the political impact of a September trial would be even bigger than if it was held in June, as scheduled. The guy is just so unpredictable and hates Pat Quinn and the rest of the Democratic establishment so much that he’s liable to say or do anything during the election.
Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher and former Bear Terry “Tank” Johnson are among those who wrote letters late last year praising the character of former Chicago Ald. Edward Vrdolyak before he was sentenced to probation for fraud in a controversial decision by a federal judge.
Documents made public this week show Johnson and Urlacher wrote letters to U.S. District Judge Milton Shadur, who sentenced Vrodlyak to 5 years of probation in February. Vrdolyak had been captured on an undercover recording discussing a plan to collect a bogus finder’s fee in a corrupt real estate sale. […]
Johnson — now with the Cincinnati Bengals — wrote that he was friends with the former alderman while Johnson was in Chicago. Johnson was in court here last month testifying in the case of his childhood friend’s murder in a River North nightclub. He admitted lying to police because he feared further legal trouble could end his football career. […]
Urlacher wrote that he met Vrdolyak through Vrdolyak’s youngest son, Eddie. He wrote that he felt like part of the family.
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A February primary usually means a timeout in campaigning while voters are preoccupied with the holidays. But McKenna is exploring using his money advantage to press his message in December.
* Congressman Luis Gutierrez has endorsed Pat Quinn. From a press release…
Pointing to Pat Quinn’s decades-long fight for “kitchen table” issues and reforms that really matter to working families, U.S. Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) today announced his endorsement of Governor Quinn.
“Pat Quinn is a champion for consumers, for senior citizens, for veterans, for Latinos and for all of the people of our state,” Gutierrez said at a news conference at Caballeros De San Juan (Credit Union 1) in Chicago. “Governor Quinn understands that every day in Illinois, families are sitting at their kitchen tables making tough decisions about how to make ends meet. Pat Quinn is the person I want in the Governor’s office helping those families.”
* Dan Hynes got off a pretty good zinger in his first ever head-to-head with Gov. Pat Quinn…
“All of a sudden [Hynes] says he’s for a graduated income tax, but it was on the ballot in 2004, he voted against it,” Quinn said. […]
“If the competition is who was for raising taxes first, I guess you win,” [Hynes] told Quinn.
Heh.
The two met at a Rock Island County Democratic “town hall” last night. Quinn appeared to be a bit testy at times. For instance, when asked if they would support whomever won the Democratic primary, Hynes said he would…
Quinn said Hynes’ answer couldn’t be trusted, but didn’t answer the question directly himself, only saying, “I’m a Democrat. I always have been.”
Walls is the only African American running for governor. He says Quinn is trying to knock him off the ballot to improve his own chances of getting most of the black vote in the primary election.
“it’s racially based challenge of petitions of a candidate who’s qualified to be on the ballot for a nefarious purpose,” said Walls.
A Quinn spokesman says Walls has experience on both sides of the petition challenge process. The spokesman says Walls once failed to get on the ballot for city clerk because he didn’t have enough legitimate signatures and another time unsuccessfully challenged Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s nominating petitions.
Topping ballots in Feb. 2 primaries for governor will be William “Dock” Walls of Chicago for the Democrats and state Sen. Kirk Dillard of Hinsdale for the Republicans.
In the races for nomination for U.S. Senate, the lottery showed that Robert Marshall of Burr Ridge will be on top in the Democratic contest, while Don Lowery of Golconda is to lead the GOP ballot.
In the field of six Republicans and six Democrats seeking the post of lieutenant governor, attorney and family businessman Don Tracy of Springfield finished first in the GOP while state Rep. Art Turner of Chicago won the top spot among Democrats. Turner’s petitions face a challenge.
In the race among three Democrats and three Republicans for the state comptroller nomination, Democratic state Rep. David Miller of Lynwood got the first ballot position while former state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka won the GOP’s top placement for the office.
* Democratic US Senate candidate Jacob Meister is trying to get a bit of traction by attacking his opponents…
Meister called state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias a “career politician” and made note of Cheryle Jackson’s work as a one-time spokeswoman for disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
“Cheryle Jackson comes right out of the inner sanctum of the Blagojevich administration,” Meister said. […]
Meister criticized former Chicago inspector general David Hoffman for trying to make the race about ethics.
“Hoffman is playing the slick game of trying to make this election about corruption and his plan for fighting corruption,” Meister said.
He has a very long row to hoe, to say the least. Trying to get your name known before Feb. 2nd is pretty near impossible without a multi-million dollar warchest.
* State Sen. Cronin will top ballot in DuPage chairman’s race: If conventional wisdom holds true, state Sen. Dan Cronin picked up an extra 5 percent of the Republican votes Tuesday in his bid for the DuPage County Board Chairman’s seat.
* Ethics complaint filed against Lake County’s Linda Pedersen: The complaint was filed by Eighth District Democratic Central Committeewoman Nancy Shepherdson on Thursday with the Office of the Legislative Inspector General in Springfield. It says that Pedersen used Republican State Rep. JoAnn Osmond’s office phone to accept RSVPs for a fundraiser for County Board Chairwoman and Republican state Senate candidate Suzi Schmidt. Pedersen is a legislative aide for Osmond and works in her Antioch office.
* My Sun-Times column today is about an issue I’ve discussed several times since the federal “stimulus” plan was first debated. The states are getting the shaft and it is hurting everyone…
This winter, when you’re freezing your tail off waiting extra long for a city bus because of CTA budget cuts, you might want to blame President Obama.
OK, maybe not just Obama. The people responsible for the financial systems meltdown started this disaster.
The economic meltdown that began on Wall Street and then morphed into our current “Great Recession” has all but dried up state and local government revenues.
Obama did support a major cash infusion to state and local governments, but he backed away from a more ambitious plan when “moderate” Republicans and rural Democrats objected. You can blame them for your long bus wait as well.
Illinois did get some money out of the deal, but it wasn’t nearly enough, and the resulting deficit is absolutely crippling.
The political climate makes it impossible to raise taxes to stem the state’s frightening wave of red ink. It’s so bizarre out there that moderate Republican gubernatorial candidate Kirk Dillard now refers to Obama as a “socialist.” That’s the same Kirk Dillard who made a TV ad for Obama’s presidential campaign.
Without revenues, Illinois has been cutting services, borrowing short-term and delaying billions in payments to human service providers and other vendors.
And because the state is in such a bind, it can’t help properly fund the CTA. Gov. Quinn came up with a plan this week to let senior citizens keep their free rides, but it amounts to chump change, and the overall reorganization plan merely delays the day of final reckoning for a year or two — if that.
Meanwhile, transit routes are being slashed and jobs are being cut during the worst employment market in memory.
Even worse, an absolutely essential public asset is being allowed to whither on the vine. Politicians such as Quinn fear that a fare increase will result in a voter backlash. Voters are just fed up with Illinois politicians getting in their pockets, so he and the others do have a point. But how long can the transit system remain viable if it’s being scaled back year after year?
Now, back to Obama.
The projected state deficit is about 2 percent of Illinois’ gross domestic product. Because we can’t print money or borrow long-term like the federal government does, the deficit is a direct drag on Illinois’ economy. For instance, when the state pays a vendor six months late, that vendor has to borrow to make payroll, and because businesses can’t borrow like they used to, workers are let go, or vendors go under.
Illinois is not alone. Revenues have dried up for almost every state and local government in the nation, so they’ve cut, cut, cut. While Obama is trying to hit the economic gas pedal, state and local governments are slamming on the economic brakes. National liberal blogger Duncan Black has taken to calling governors “50 little Hoovers” for their Herbert Hoover-like economic policies of cutting their budgets during an economic catastrophe.
Black, who has a Ph.D. in economics from Brown University, is part of a growing chorus of people who are demanding that the federal government do something to prevent state and local governments from derailing a recovery.
The Democrats who run things in Washington, including Obama, ought to listen. If they want to get re-elected next year, they have to fix the economy. And they can’t make the fix stick if every forward step they take is partially or totally nullified by the states’ budget problems.
Your long bus wait is just a symptom of the overall problem. And it’s going to get worse unless Obama acts soon.
* Eric Zorn takes us through the long, disgusting road that was the wrongful prosecution of Rolando Cruz and Alex Hernandez. The context is a statement by DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett during Brian Dugan’s trial in the Jeanine Nicarico case that eventually led to Dugan’s death sentence: “We got it right! We got it right, Brian! You raped and killed Jeanine Nicarico!”
Zorn disagrees…
Dugan’s public defender told DuPage County authorities this fact in 1985 after Dugan was arrested and confessed to a strikingly similar rape and murder in LaSalle County. But DuPage didn’t get it. They’d already put Rolando Cruz and Alex Hernandez onto death row for the crime, and so dismissed Dugan as a liar.
A state police investigator subjected Dugan’s claim to extensive scrutiny and came away “totally convinced” he was telling the truth. DuPage didn’t get it.
A series of journalists beginning with Rob Warden, now director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law, pored over the evidence and, to a one, concluded that the county had cynically botched the prosecution of Cruz and Hernandez and that Dugan was Jeanine’s killer beyond any doubt. DuPage didn’t get it.
Activists all over the world used the Nicarico case to highlight the dangerous flaws in the capital justice system. DuPage didn’t get it. An assistant Illinois attorney general assigned to contest Cruz’s appeal examined all the evidence in 1992 and resigned rather than participate in what she deemed “this ugly prosecution.” DuPage didn’t get it.
Under the leadership of then-State’s Attorney Jim Ryan, the same Jim Ryan who is now running in the Republican gubernatorial primary, DuPage County continued to brand Dugan a liar and to press the state to execute Cruz and Hernandez. Thursday afternoon, Ryan issued an extraordinary statement acknowledging that he failed to achieve a just outcome in the Cruz-Hernandez case. “And for that I am sorry,” he said.
In 1995, a new round of DNA tests performed at the insistence of Cruz’s defense attorneys excluded Cruz as the source of the semen found inside the victim and put Dugan in the 0.03 percent of the male Caucasian population that could have been the source. DuPage didn’t still didn’t get it, though in attempting to retry Cruz prosecutors began at last admitting that Dugan was “involved” in the crime.
* Meanwhile, all but two Republican candidates for governor support lifting the death penalty moratorium first imposed by Gov. George Ryan or abolishing the death penalty altogether…
Of the seven Republicans, only political consultant turned candidate Dan Proft opposed the death penalty and only former Attorney General Jim Ryan said he’d keep the moratorium in place.
Proft said he would support abolishing the death penalty. “It’s still a fallible justice system presided over fallible human beings,” he said. He would lift the moratorium only because it was, in his view, an illegal act to begin with. As governor, Proft said he’d use his executive power to stay executions or commute death sentences to life in prison if the death penalty wasn’t abolished.
“We have rewritten our death penalty statute. The safeguards are in there, so we can lift it now,” said Kirk Dillard, who supports the death penalty. […]
Andy McKenna said he supports the death penalty but wouldn’t say whether he supports or opposes the moratorium, offering only that he’d “review” it if elected.
McKenna doesn’t have many opinions. I talked to him yesterday for a while and got almost nothing out of him on any topic.
* And the SJ-R editorialized yesterday on the subject…
Illinois’ death penalty record from 1976 until 2000 was abysmal: 12 executions, 13 exonerations. The executions stopped in 2000 when Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium that still stands.
A slew of reforms instituted in the years since now provide safeguards against execution of the innocent. They can’t guarantee that an innocent person will be put to death, but they do guarantee that Illinois’ capital punishment system is more expensive, cumbersome and resource-draining than ever before. Dugan’s attorneys have already indicated they will appeal his sentence, a process that likely will take well over a decade.
We believe the real problem with capital punishment is that it is meted out as an act of revenge, not an act of justice. It is not delivered uniformly according to criminal codes, but by the caprice of individual juries. That’s why Brian Dugan can be killed by the state but the Brown’s Chicken massacre killers and Maurice LaGrone can’t.
Our justice system can never define “the worst of the worst.” It can’t codify revenge. Illinois, which sent 13 innocent people to death row in less than 14 years, can never guarantee it won’t happen again. As our moratorium on executions nears its 10-year anniversary, it’s time for Illinois to recognize this and formally abolish capital punishment.
* And there was reaction from Birkett to Jim Ryan’s apology for repeatedly attempting to execute two innocent men…
In an October 2002 debate, Ryan and Blagojevich were asked to name their biggest political regrets. Ryan did not name any regrets in that forum, not even twice prosecuting Cruz for Nicarico’s murder. […]
On Thursday he said, “If I am elected governor, I will not lift the moratorium on capital punishment until we have created a more limited and accurate system of capital punishment … While Illinois has made significant progress, other reforms have been left on the table, such as a reduction in the number of eligibility factors that trigger the death penalty.”
Ryan’s stance on the moratorium drew condemnation from his one-time top aide in the state’s attorney’s office and the man who successfully prosecuted Dugan, DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett.
“While I respect Jim Ryan, I strongly disagree with his announcement … that if elected governor, he would not lift the moratorium on the death penalty,” Birkett said. “The moratorium put in place by former Gov. George Ryan is legal fiction. The power to pardon, grant clemency or commutation should be used on a case by case basis as the framers of our constitution intended.”
* Related…
* Did Dugan kill even more? - Birkett wants other unsolved crimes investigated to stop him from offering last-minute info in bid to delay execution
Mayor Richard Daley’s administration believes it has cleaned up the city’s corrupt hiring system and early next year will seek to end court oversight of its personnel practices, his top lawyer told aldermen Thursday.
Mara Georges said she plans to tell a federal judge that the city is in “substantial compliance” with the decades-long Shakman decree, the legal threshold for getting out from under court control. Georges’ brief comment came during a question and answer session with a City Council budget committee.
The Daley administration has longed chafed about its hiring system being under the scrutiny of court-appointed monitor Noelle Brennan. She was named to the position in August 2005 after authorities arrested Daley’s patronage chief and others on charges they rigged the hiring system to reward the mayor’s political allies with jobs and promotions.
And it gets worse: Schools aren’t even testing many 11th graders who wouldn’t perform well. As the Tribune recently reported, school districts across the state use a loophole that allows them to liberally define who is a high school junior. The Tribune found that 20 percent of sophomores in the state didn’t advance to junior status last year.
Voila! You’re not a junior, you don’t take the test! And the school’s results aren’t weighed down.
About 70 workers at a vacuum-cleaner warehouse in Will County are losing their jobs. The vacuum company says it’s because a contract for their services is ending. The workers say it’s because they joined a union and complained about their pay and conditions.
According to a Forbes magazine report released this week, the NHL had its most profitable year in 2008-09 and team values rose $3 million to an average of $223 million.
The Hawks, however, increased in value the most. They had ranked 14th in 2007-08, with a value of $205 million. Last year, their value climbed to $258 million — a whopping 26 percent increase. So, the Hawks now rank seventh in financial value among the 30 NHL teams.
* Stringing the Holiday Lights on the Illinois State Capitol - Nov 12, 2009…
* Gov. Pat Quinn’s campaign is launching a new online video series called Quinn Stories. This first video is an introduction to the series. Have a look…
Keep in mind that these videos are not your normal TV advertisements. Too many of you have assumed as much when we’ve looked at online videos from Quinn and others. You gotta get past the old way of doing things. These are meant solely for online viewers, mainly supporters. So please take that into consideration when you rate these types of videos. Thanks.
Also, Quinn’s campaign uses an in-house guy to do these videos. They’re not farmed out to an expensive consultant. Everything from the shooting to the editing is done by a low-paid, over-worked yet highly talented staffer.
Thanks a bunch everyone]
