* It’s now 9:08 pm. Your website hasn’t updated since 8:09 pm. It’s filing deadline day and yet we have no updates for an hour? And there’s no way to reach anyone after normal business hours?
What the heck gives, man? Some of us have work we’d like to finish here.
*** UPDATE 1 *** The rant must’ve worked. Thanks. Back to work I go.
*** UPDATE 2 *** It’s stuck again. Sheesh.
*** UPDATE 3 *** And, we’re back. Good. Hope I don’t jinx it again.
*** UPDATE 4 *** If any Senate Republicans are still awake out there, could you get Sam McCann to file his D-2 please? It’s after the midnight deadline and he’s the lone holdout.
*** UPDATE 5 *** And he’s filed. Thanks.
*** UPDATE 6 *** I’m not doing statewide candidates in the Fax tomorrow, but I just noticed that Rep. David Miller hasn’t filed his D-2 yet for the comptroller’s race. You’d think a comptroller candidate would file financial paperwork on time. It’s now 12:25 AM and no report from Miller.
*** UPDATE 7 *** Rep. Miller just filed. An hour late. Not great, either…
Funds available at the beginning of the reporting period $388,768.93
Total Receipts $479,948.28
Subtotal $868,717.21
Total Expenditures $709,725.00
Funds available at the close of the reporting period $158,992.21
The judge hearing the Rod Blagojevich corruption case has abruptly adjourned court for the day, without explanation.
Sources told the Chicago Sun-Times that Blagojevich is unlikely to take the stand and that his lawyers will likely rest without calling a single witness.
The former governor had been expected to testify in his own defense starting this afternoon but did not take the stand.
Earlier today, during a lunchtime break in the trial, Blagojevich’s lead attorney, Sam Adam Jr., wouldn’t say whether Blagojevich would testify.
And Adam’s father and co-counsel, Sam Adam Sr., said only: “Nothing is a certainty.”
Asked this afternoon whether he would testify, Rod Blagojevich wouldn'’t answer. […]
But then they watched Monday and today as prosecutors cross-examined his brother and codefendant, Robert Blagojevich — the somber businessman with a background in the military, who’s accused of far less criminal conduct than Rod Blagojevich.
In just the first 10 minutes of cross-examination Monday, Robert Blagojevich, who had overseen the Friends of Blagojevich campaign fund, found himself contradicting his own statements and having to explain a secretly recorded and previously unheard conversation in which he’d urged his brother to do some “horse trading” with then-President-elect Obama in an effort to kill the then-ongoing criminal investigation of the Blagojevich administration.
Eric Zorn has predicted for weeks that the former governor wouldn’t testify.
Attorneys for Rod Blagojevich told the judge in his corruption trial this afternoon that the former governor will not testify in his own defense, sources said.
But after conferring with lawyers in a private sidebar, U.S. District Judge James Zagel told the defense team to mull the decision overnight, the sources said.
One day after a third Chicago police officer was gunned down after his shift, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn was in Chicago to sign the state’s newest get tough on guns law.
But it is not the weekend tragedy or the spike in violence in Chicago that is most significant about the law. The legislation that requires prison time for criminals caught with a gun is one of the few gun laws that passed the legislature with broad support. […]
Todd Vandermyde with the Illinois State Rifle Association said the new law deals with a topic that both gun supporters and opponents can agree on. Vandermyde says no one wants bad guys to be walking around with illegal weapons.
“If you don’t posses a FOID card and you’re prohibited from owning a firearm, those are the people we’ve always said should be punished.”
* Part of what made this announcement political is that Sen. Bill Brady missed the vote on the bill this year. From a Quinn campaign press release…
There is an epidemic of violence in our state. Our citizens and first responders are under assault from criminals using illegal weapons that have no place on our city streets. Just yesterday, another officer was shot and killed, the third such tragedy in two months.
At such an important time, Bill Brady didn’t think that increasing penalties for illegal gun possession mattered. He failed to appear to vote on this bill.
Our campaign has repeatedly pointed out that Bill Brady is outside the mainstream, more than any gubernatorial candidate in the history of our state. When it comes to guns, Brady isn’t a conservative; he’s an extremist.
And then they go on to list Brady’s gun votes…
For example, Brady opposes a ban on assault weapons. These are the same guns former Republican Governor Edgar called, “weapons of slaughter and destruction used by criminals” that had “no legitimate civilian purpose in a civilized society.”
These are Senator Bill Brady’s positions on weapons:
* Voted against safe storage of firearms to keep guns out of children’s reach [SB 117, 4/28/99; HB 156, 3/22/99];
* Would eliminate IDs for gun owners and destroy records of gun purchases [Chicago Tribune, 2/27/06];
* Voted against licensing gun dealers [HB 225, 3/22/99];
* Voted against penalties for ‘straw purchases’ of guns, one of the main ways illegal weapons make it onto our streets [HB 228, 3/22/99];
* Sponsored legislation to destroy records of gun purchases and eliminate waiting periods at gun shows [SB 57, 11/4/05];
* Voted against requiring gun license applicants to certify that they had not been convicted of domestic battery [HB 127, 5/31/97];
* Said he would veto legislation to ban semi-automatic weapons [Associated Press, 12/13/09].
* The Quinn campaign has now posted an Internet video blasting Brady’s gun stance. Watch it…
* Scott Lee Cohen actually got some local pols to sit down with him on the first leg of his “listening tour.” Yorkville’s mayor Valerie Burd and city administrator Bart Olson met with Cohen yesterday…
Cohen is now running against GOP nominee Bill Brady and incumbent Democrat Gov. Pat Quinn, although he was for a short while on the ticket with Quinn. He called Quinn “arrogant” and “incompetent” in dealing with the state’s financial crisis during his meeting with Yorkville officials.
Cohen made the comments after city officials said the biggest problem facing them at the moment is the state’s late disbursement of income and sales taxes. […]
Cohen said the General Assembly threw the financial system problem all to Quinn, and “that was the wrong person” to throw it to.
“Our fearless governor is cutting all this education funding,” he said. “I don’t believe education is the place to cut.”
Quinn will have to deal with this problem for the rest of the year unless a (not yet filed) lawsuit succeeds in knocking Cohen off the ballot. Cohen appears to be using most of his energy to blast the governor, who failed to show “proper respect” after the primary when word got out about Cohen’s past.
Notice also how the local paper tread ever so lightly on Cohen’s “issues”…
Cohen, who won the Democrat lieutenant governor’s primary race but resigned after disclosures of domestic violence incidents in court-filed divorce papers, is now running as an independent for governor.
Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn on Monday quietly signed a new law sponsored by his Republican rival and inspired by a controversy over the Quinn administration’s early release of prison inmates.
The new law, sponsored by Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington, would require the Department of Corrections to post on the Internet photographs and other information about prisoners who are being released early. A key goal of the law is to give crime victims and communities a user-friendly and specific location to check on whether a perpetrator is getting out of prison ahead of schedule. […]
“We believe the governor should have signed this bill promptly instead of letting it sit on his desk for 60 days because of politics,” said Patty Schuh, Brady spokeswoman. “Gov. Quinn had a secret early release program that jeopardized the public safety of Illinois, and I suspect he continues to be embarrassed it.”
* Quinn has recently criticized Brady for not showing up to vote in the Senate, and those absences cost him with the Illinois Chamber’s latest ratings…
The Illinois Chamber of Commerce is out with its annual legislative ratings and — I know you’ll be shocked, shocked, shocked at this — every one of the winners is a Republican.
The most significant rating was for lawmakers who voted right 85% of the time or better over the past three General Assembly sessions. Twelve senators and 25 representatives — again, all Republicans — got the nod.
Interestingly, Sen. Bill Brady, the GOP nominee for governor, fell just short of that mark because he missed or failed to vote in favor of a measure revamping the state’s telecom law and failed to vote against a bill creating a legal cause of action for public employees subjected to an “abusive” work environment.
*** UPDATE *** Greg has deleted that last graf and rewritten it to read…
Notably included is Sen. Bill Brady, the GOP nominee for governor. He voted perfectly, the chamber said, except he missed or failed to vote in favor of a measure revamping the state’s telecom law and against a bill creating a legal cause of action for public employees subjected to an “abusive” work environment.
So, no issue there.
…Adding… From a press release…
Governor Pat Quinn today announced that construction will begin in early September on the Chicago to St. Louis high-speed rail route. An agreement between the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) and Union Pacific Railroad will allow upgrades to be made on an initial 90-mile segment of Union Pacific track to prepare it for high-speed rail. The $98 million dollar project is funded through the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and will support an estimated 900 jobs.
“Today’s announcement will create hundreds of jobs and is a major step towards making high-speed rail a reality in Illinois,” said Governor Quinn. “When the corridor is completed, travelers will be able to move from Chicago to St. Louis in under four hours, making Illinois the high-speed rail hub of the Midwest.”
Houlihan has long privately coveted the mayor’s office. But now, with the 2011 election looming, he was open about that prospect today.
He said the results of a Chicago Tribune / WGN poll, published Sunday, that found 53 percent of those surveyed don’t want Daley reelected “didn’t surprise me.”
Houlihan took note of “the focus on the parking meters, people being upset about that, referring to Daley’s having turned over parking meters to private business interests that raised the cost of parking at a meter.
* Related and a state roundup…
* Will Illinois miss the Tea Party revolution, too?
* IL-10: Fuzzy Math-News Claims Dold Bests Seals in Q2 Funding When the Opposite is True
Robert Blagojevich and prosecutor Chris Niewoehner are entrenched in a long back-and-forth over Robert’s phone records on Dec. 4, 2008, the day of a key phone call between Rod and Robert about the Senate seat appointment.
Niewoehner is going over a list of attempted phone calls in harrowing detail. He puts up a chart that Robert’s lawyer originally published that details all the calls made that day.
It’s a long list. Robert tried to reach his brother over and over again, to no avail, sometimes more than once per minute. When that didn’t work, he repeatedly tried to reach the governor’s scheduler.
Robert gets irritated at the questioning. “I concede,” he says repeatedly, as the prosecutor tries to get him to acknowledge each call one by one. “Let’s not waste time.”
Robert’s lawyers originally showed jurors the list to show that Robert was annoyed — and not thinking straight — at a Starbucks, when Rod finally reached him and told him to elevate Jesse Jackson Jr.
But prosecutors are trying to show that Robert was, in fact, actively trying to get a hold of the ex-governor that day — suggesting maybe he wasn’t as distracted as he said when the two had that critical conversation about Jackson.
* I’ve noticed that a lot of commenters have quite a bit of sympathy for Robert Blagojevich, with some even saying they think he’ll be acquitted. Mark Brown was one of those until cross-examination yesterday. Robert had said over and over that he did everything possible to keep fundraising and government apart. But the prosecution undercut his credibility in a big way yesterday…
And then it all blew up in Robert Blagojevich’s face in just the first 15 minutes of cross-examination by federal prosecutor Chris Niewoehner as the former chairman of Friends of Blagojevich was left trying to explain a previously unheard conversation in which he counseled brother Rod to conduct “horse trading” with then President-elect Barack Obama to kill the federal criminal investigation of his administration.
The Nov. 5, 2008, discussion came one day after the presidential election at a time the Blagojeviches already knew Obama wanted Valerie Jarrett as his replacement but a month before the governor’s arrest when the full extent of the investigation would become known.
“If you can get Obama to get [U.S. Attorney Patrick] Fitzgerald to close the investigation on you, it completely provides you with total clarity,” Robert Blagojevich was quoted as telling Rod in a transcript read by Niewoehner, suggesting this as a more realistic gambit than angling for a Cabinet appointment. […]
There was no crime committed in this discussion, which is why we hadn’t heard it previously, but the problem for Robert Blagojevich is that it blew a huge hole in his credibility.
One minute he’s testifying about how he’d taken pains to maintain a separation between fund-raising and official government action and fully appreciated the legal ramifications, and the next minute he’s defending the idea of political interference in a federal corruption probe.
* For Phil Kadner, the moment he believed that Robert lost credibility was during a conversation about appointing Jesse Jackson, Jr. to the US Senate…
Back to the offer of campaign cash for the appointment of Jesse Jackson Jr. to the Senate.
For hours, Robert Blagojevich tried to convince the jury that he was kept in the dark about the behind-the-scenes politics.
He said he made no offers of anything in return for contributions to “Friends of Blagojevich.” If deals were being cut, he was unaware of them.
And then Ettinger had him go through a crucial conversation with his brother that occurred over the phone while Robert was at a Starbucks with his wife.
It was one of the few times the couple had gone out together, and Robert explained he was quite irritated that his brother was bothering him with political talk.
“Right,” Robert said over and over again.
But then the governor says he may appoint Jackson to the Senate seat after all, to stick it to the folks in Washington, D.C., who have been sticking it to him. He tells his brother to talk to the people who offered money for the Jackson appointment.
They key word is “if” he appoints Jackson, Robert said, what would they be willing to do. Robert says he will phone them.
The governor says not to use the phone when doing so. The whole world may be listening, he warns. Talk to them in person.
What did this mean?
Robert seemed to take it to mean that personal contact was always better than a phone call. Nothing more than that.
I don’t know what the jury thought, but I thought Robert’s credibility vanished with that statement.
Paulie hated phones. He wouldn’t have one in his house. He got all his calls second hand. Then you’d have to call the people back. There were guys, that’s all they did all day, was take care of Paulie’s calls.
Robert Blagojevich testifies that when he asked Children’s Memorial Hospital CEO Patrick Magoon to host a fund-raiser in fall 2008, it was not in exchange for pending government action that would have increased reimbursement rate for the hospital.
Instead, Magoon was merely a name on a list of prior contributors that Robert Blagojevich was trying to hit up for campaign cash, he testifies.
Robert said he was given the list of names by his predecessor at Friends of Blagojevich, and it contained only donor names and phone numbers — no amounts.
“(Magoon), like many others, was a previous contributor,” Robert Blagojevich testifies. Magoon said on the stand last week that he had given several $1,000 contributions to the governor. “To me, they were all the same, just names and numbers of people to call who were previous contributors.”
“It wasn’t your practice to go through the list and find people who had given at most $1,000 and then go ask them to hold a $25,000 fund-raiser?” prosecutor Chris Niewoehner asks. “Because it wouldn’t make sense to suddenly ask people to give 25 times more than they’d given before, would it?”
Robert Blagojevich argues that asking someone to hold a fund-raiser is different than asking them directly for cash.
“I think that’s a real difference,” Robert testifies. “I didn’t ask him for a contribution, I asked him to host a fund-raiser. If he wanted to.”
* Blago Prosecution Fights for Jury Anonymity: The U.S. Attorney’s office also referenced instances of people with no ties to the trial attempting to involve themselves in it. The government noted one incident — which largely flew under the radar — involving a woman named Tynetta Muturi, who was arrested and charged with criminal contempt of court on June 23 after trying to enter the courtroom against deputy marshals’ orders. Muturi, who was sentenced to one year of probation, had previously filed documents seeking $10 billion and, according to the motion, “the release of certain files relating to an investigation into the theft and sale of her grandchildren, which documents were allegedly taken from defendant Rod Blagojevich’s office by the government in the course of its investigation of the charged offenses.”
* UIS student Sean Olsta created this mock campaign commercial for a class. His friends said he should forward it to me and I’m glad he did. It’s a hoot…
I hadn’t noticed it before, but Quinn actually does look like Fozzie Bear.
* My intern Barton Lorimor is back at SIU for the summer. Gov. Pat Quinn was down ‘yonder yesterday for a press conference and Barton started right off asking off-topic questions. Quinn had to actually beg for questions on the topic at hand. Way to go, Barton…
* The three-week construction strike that shut down projects all over Chicagoland is over. This was the final tipping point…
The deal comes the same day Illinois Department of Transportation Secretary Gary Hannig wrote the Illinois Road and Transportation Builders Association saying the state may try to invoke no-strike requirements in the future, could possibly rebid contracts and would not extend deadlines for financial incentives.
Hannig warned the contractors that he was keeping the clock running on the projects regardless of the strikes, which would’ve wiped out any early completion bonuses the contractors could’ve earned. He also threatened to rebid contracts if the strike wasn’t settled soon. The unions said they were prepared to bring in replacement contractors and IDOT was prepared to impose Project Labor Agreements to make sure the work restarted, with or without the current contractors. It was all bad for the contractors. So, they signed a deal that just days before they had said was outrageously high. From a contractor press release…
MARBA has agreed to increases of 3.25% per year, in wages and benefits, for three years. The unions’s original offer was 15.9% over three years.
The last time the unions received this low of an increase was ten years ago when they received 3% per year.
Contractors had been offering just over 4 percent in benefit hikes over 3 years. They’ll be giving nearly 10 percent over the life of the contract.
But the tough line drawn by Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration — which has received significant support, financial and otherwise, from big labor — seems to have broken the stalemate and ended the strike.
That’s true. Quinn deserves big credit for this.
*** UPDATE *** From Gov. Quinn…
“I want to salute the Operating Engineers and Laborers’ for coming to an agreement that will allow Illinois’ workers to return to their jobs and get important infrastructure projects back on track. We must continue to work together to keep these projects moving for Illinois residents and for the future of our state’s economy. The Illinois Department of Transportation continues to announce new projects that are part of the largest construction season in the history of Illinois. I want to again commend both parties – the unions and contractors – for the agreement reached last night that will help keep this construction season moving in the right direction.”
Also, for those of you who are griping about this settlement in comments, please re-read MARBA’s statement…
The last time the unions received this low of an increase was ten years ago when they received 3% per year.
Given the deep economic pain afflicting Americans, politicians are generally not very popular – whether it’s the president or members of Congress, Republicans or Democrats. So it should be no great surprise that Chicagoans are dissatisfied with the most important Chicago pol, Mayor Richard Daley.
Just three years after he was re-elected for the fifth time, by a landslide margin, people are asking what he’s done for them lately. A Tribune poll finds 53 percent don’t want to see him re-elected, with 68 percent disapproving of his handling of city corruption.
“The city that works” doesn’t. It’s an old cliche, but it certainly applies.
The middle class is being squeezed hard by high taxes and fees and service that gets worse every day, not better.
Expensive parking meters are springing up all over the city where meters have never been. It’s never cost more to take a bus or a train, yet the service has never been worse. Billions are spent on downtown, while neighborhoods crumble. None of Daley’s big projects were done properly because he wanted them done so fast. Midway’s remake was a disaster, for instance. Millennium Park had so many retrofits that the grass where the general public watches band shell concerts couldn’t be sloped for fear that it would collapse the entire thing. So, nobody can see what’s going on except the swells up front.
The schools still suck. The streets aren’t even close to being safe. Remember Natasha McShane and Stacy Jurich, the women who were beaten half to death in Bucktown? There’s a far different vibe in the city now, and the murders of three police officers in the past two months has gotta have residents on edge. Police cameras are everywhere, but crime is legitimately freaking people out. Zorn…
Though Officer Thor Soderberg was in uniform July 7 when a man attacked him in a police parking lot, took his gun and shot him dead, that attacker was evidently mentally ill. Sunday’s attacker or attackers, apparently, in contrast, made what they considered a rational decision that an unprovoked assault on a uniformed officer was worth the risk.
This death wasn’t the result of a shootout with thugs who felt cornered, a high-speed pursuit or a terrible encounter with a deranged person. It appears to be a random hit by predators utterly undeterred the uniform.
Violence problems don’t get much more out of control than that.
“Out of control.” That’s Chicago. Daley was supposed to be good at control. But the city has gotten too far away from him while he was doing things like jaunting to Europe on his failed quest to bring the Olympics to Chicago.
A two-year police hiring slowdown has left the Police Department understaffed by more than 2,230 officers a day, below the city’s budget-authorized 13,200.
And sometimes we are seized by the startling commonality of it all. That was the case last week, when a group of young men from the Midtown Educational Center’s journalism apprenticeship sat in on an editorial board meeting. Our guests, participants in a mentoring program for 10th- to 12th-graders, had already done some reporting on crime and gangs — their work will appear soon on the Midtown Voices blog, midtown-metro.org/midtown-voice.html. Many of them live or go to school in neighborhoods where gangs and violence are everyday fixtures.
For nearly an hour, the apprentices schooled the pros about life on those streets. How they navigate their neighborhoods to get to class safely. How they distance themselves from intraschool skirmishes and gang conflicts. How to behave, who to cultivate and who to avoid in order to maintain relative safety in public. How gang members hold their guns, as opposed to the laughable depictions in the media.
We quizzed them about what can be done to defuse the danger. Are there enough officers on the street? (No, they said.) Do police surveillance cameras deter crime? (Get serious, they said.) Is Chicago better off with or without a handgun ban? (There was a spirited debate.)
Most tellingly, our young guests said they don’t count on adults, especially police, to protect them. They dodge the daily perils as best they can. They didn’t say this in a way that suggested they felt the grown-ups had failed them. It is what it is.
Chicago has failed its people. Illinois has failed its largest city. The federal government has failed one of the nation’s greatest cities.
Why doesn’t the city launch an all-out war on the gangs with the state and federal governments? They infest everything now.
Why not try new ideas in the city’s schools? A friend of mine in Kansas City sends her daughters to a fantastic French immersion charter school. She’s the widow of my best friend and we’d all love her to move to Chicago, but there’s nothing even remotely like that school in Chicago’s public system.
Why not take some of that bloated TIF fund and put it towards hiring more cops?
Why raise CTA fares just enough to barely get by but never enough to make the system decent again?
Most importantly, why isn’t the mayor asking why?
It’s time for fresh thought and a complete do-over. Top to bottom. And Daley is far from fresh.
* We must stop ‘creating more monsters’: But the most insightful words came from retired Chicago Police Sgt. Thomas Wortham III. Wortham urged government to come up with more money to keep young people involved in positive activities that will steer them away from trouble. “There is a new generation coming up that we need to save. We need funds. We need activities in the community to keep from creating more monsters,” he said.
