Question of the Day - Golden Horseshoe Awards
Monday, Dec 12, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Commenter “Franz” picked both of our winners for best House Dem and GOP campaign staffers. First up, House Democratic staffer Tom Wogan…
Wogan, he is smart, short and bitter, but just bitter enough to be effective.
And House Republican staffer Nick Bellini…
Bellini, he is smart, short and bitter, but just bitter enough to be effective.
Fully agreed on both.
* Today’s nominations are now open…
* Best campaign staffer - Senate Democrats
* Best campaign staffer - Senate Republicans
As always, make sure to explain your nominations. Posting their names isn’t enough.
And, by the way, repeatedly posting a nomination from the same IP address, or attempting to use a foreign IP address because you think you can fool me, will only result in an immediate disqualification. I mean, really, I ain’t stupid.
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State of confusion
Monday, Dec 12, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
* A new investigative report by the John Howard Association has some pretty creepy revelations…
According to the report, prison guards hoping to be more efficient in moving prisoners around the antiquated facility near Joliet adopted the “appalling” practice of showering two inmates at a time under one showerhead.
This practice, which has since been stopped by prison administrators, comes as inmates complain about squalid living conditions.
* Not much of a demotion…
The warden of the Menard Correctional Center, whose fishing trip while out of work on temporary total disability prompted a state investigation, has been transferred to an assistant warden’s job at a smaller prison.
Dave Rednour is now the assistant warden for programs at the medium security Pinckneyville Correctional Center, said Stacey Solano, communications manager for the Illinois Department of Corrections. He has asked not to be contacted.
Solano declined to comment as to whether Rednour’s transfer to an assistant’s job at a smaller prison was connected to controversy caused by a front page photo that ran earlier this year in the Belleville News-Democrat. It showed the warden on a 2009 fishing trip with then-state treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate at the time.
In the photo, which originally ran in a weekly newspaper, Rednour can be seen holding a fishing pole and wearing a cast on his right forearm connected to surgery that 11 months later led to a tax-free, taxpayer-funded $75,678 workers’ compensation settlement. Workers on temporary total disability are supposed to refrain from strenuous activity.
After the BND’s story this March, the Illinois Attorney General and IDOC asked the state Department of Insurance to investigate circumstances surrounding Rednour’s claim and settlement. That investigation is ongoing.
* This is kinda hilarious, in a pox on all your houses sort of way…
Three of the four candidates for state representative in the 108th Illinois House District have ties to the General Assembly scholarship program. […]
The scholarship issue first surfaced in the 108th District race during a recent candidate forum, where the [appointed] incumbent, Rep. Paul Evans, R-O’Fallon, challenged his fellow candidates, also all Republicans, to sign a pledge stating they’ll work to abolish the program. The pledge also stated that “if I or any family member received a scholarship, I will repay it to the taxpayers of Illinois with interest.” […]
The son of candidate Steve Klingbeil, of Highland, received tuition waivers for 2008, 2009 and 2010 for Eastern Illinois University from former state Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Greenville. Klingbeil was Stephens’ campaign fundraiser, and his wife was employed as a legislative assistant to Stephens.
Another candidate, Charlie Meier, of Okawville, has a nephew who received a legislative scholarship in 2006 to Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
And it turns out that Evans has his own, less-direct connection to the program. A son of his campaign chairman, John West, of O’Fallon, received a tuition waiver in 2004 for Illinois State University. That scholarship was granted by Stephens, who, throughout the years, received at least $1,800 in political donations from West.
That’s pretty darned direct, if you ask me. Ron Stephens was apparently quite generous with scholarships for political types in his neck of the woods.
Then again, most everybody has been overly generous with those scholarships. They need to go away.
* And a roundup…
* Another Sears showdown getting underway: Even if the full House approves the deal today, the Senate, which has scheduled a one-day session for Tuesday, will have to approve it. The Senate in November approved an approach to the tax breaks that the House soundly rejected, so its acceptance of a House approach that, among other differences, divides the agreement into two separate pieces of legislation is by no means certain.
* Klein Tools closing 2 subuurban plants: Tax policies in Illinois have drawn heavy attention and some have argued the state has developed a business climate that’s chasing away companies. But Beebe said Klein’s shift to Texas is no political statement. “We have no bad feelings about the tax climate,” he said, noting that the company will continue in Lincolnshire and also has a location in Elk Grove Village.
* Kadner: Law ends elections for township school board
* St. Clair County hires Clayborne to negotiate more prisoners for overcrowded jail
* No mercy: Guilty of 18 counts of corruption, Rod Blagojevich sought mercy at last week’s sentencing hearing in Chicago federal court, admitting that he made “terrible mistakes.” But Blagojevich, during his six years as Illinois governor, meted out very little mercy when presented with petitions for clemency — pardons, paroles and commutations of sentences. The ex-governor entered office in 2003 with 10 clemency petitions awaiting review. He left office in 2009 (impeached, convicted and expelled by the Legislature) with a backlog of 2,500 clemency petitions.
* DNA might clear man’s name, but authorities refuse to try it: No one has ever fought longer or harder for DNA than Savory. He was one of the first to seek testing after Illinois passed a law in 1998 making DNA testing available to defendants. At that time, he asked to test bloodstains on pants that prosecutors had argued he had worn during the crime. The adult-sized pants actually belonged to Savory’s father, and Savory wanted to show that the blood was his father’s, not the victims’. But the Illinois Supreme Court did not allow that testing, finding that the results — which could not have identified the true killer — would not be significant enough to raise reasonable doubt.
* Court Reverses Conviction of Man Jailed for 19 Years in Rape and Murder: In an opinion that harshly criticizes the tactics of the police and prosecutors, an Illinois appellate court on Friday night reversed the conviction of Juan Rivera, who has spent 19 years in jail for the 1992 rape and murder of an 11-year-old baby sitter in a suburb of Chicago.
* St. Louis Post-Dispatch Publisher Lee Enterprises Files For Bankruptcy
* Restoring blown levee in southeast Missouri is slow going
* State Rep. Sommer opposes free tuition program
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Time for atonement
Monday, Dec 12, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
* My weekly syndicated newspaper column…
“I … I … I … I … I couldn’t fathom what I would say to those two girls,” U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald stammered last week when asked what he would say to Rod Blagojevich’s daughters after our former governor was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
It was impossible not to think of those little girls last week. Even some of the most hardened partisan Republicans I know felt no joy at Blagojevich’s long prison sentence because of those kids. I don’t know the children well, but I did spend some time with them a few years back, and I thought they were good kids, even normal kids, despite their father’s position at the time and the overall weirdness of their situation.
He didn’t dote on them much when I spent three solid days with Blagojevich and his family on a bus tour through Illinois in April 2007. The governor’s time was almost purely spent with me, his staff and others who jumped on and off the bus during those three long days.
After we’d been on the road a while and had dispensed with formalities, I decided I’d try to personally warn the governor that he was heading for serious trouble. The feds had indicted Tony Rezko and were in hot pursuit of the governor’s best friend, Chris Kelly. Their ultimate target was obviously the governor.
He had to radically clean up his act or they’d get him, I warned. I was as stern as I could be without raising my voice, for fear that his children, sitting just a few feet away, would hear. They didn’t need to know that I thought their dad was destined for prison.
A few hours later, Blagojevich surprised me by offering me a job. I smirked and tossed out the highest salary that came to mind. He said it could be arranged — in a tone that meant there’d have to be some subterfuge to get me all that cash. I immediately turned him down, explaining that he’d never listen to me anyway, so I’d probably quit and end up dead broke and pursued by the feds.
I knew Rod was just fantasizing that he could handle having somebody like me around. It was obvious that he never listened to anybody who didn’t constantly reinforce his own heroic notions about himself.
Right up until the end, he was always the good guy on the white horse, and everybody else was trying to bring the great man down. Remember when he demanded to know whether Fitzgerald was man enough to meet him in court? The guy just asked for it. It’s as if he wanted to be defeated.
Ironically enough, the insanity of the last three years seemed to make Rod Blagojevich a better father. He appeared to draw strength from his family, and they from him after his arrest, impeachment, trials and convictions. He seemed to become the doting dad, and his children, despite all the adversity, did better than most expected. But now what happens to them?
“It’s not like their name is Smith,” Blagojevich told the judge last week about his girls. “They can’t hide.”
No, they can’t ever hide. Even when their father’s villainy fades from the national memory, their name will haunt them wherever they go. And it’s really too bad because they didn’t deserve this fate. I hope they can learn to forgive him.
As for me, I don’t think I will ever forgive the man. What he did to his state, his party, his friends, his staff and his family justifies every day he’ll spend behind bars. His attorney, Sheldon Sorosky, defiantly pledged to appeal his client’s prison sentence, and Blagojevich told reporters “See you soon.”
He still doesn’t get it. He’ll never get it.
But we have to get it. We have to stop hiding from ourselves.
Illinois has to eventually come to terms with why it re-elected this guy knowing he was a crook. Our democracy was perverted by an attractive candidate with lots of slick TV ads.
Democratic Party leaders have to finally fess up that they cynically put keeping the governor’s office ahead of seeing a decent person elected.
The sycophants who kept telling told Blagojevich how great he was need to apologize. And his Republican Party enablers must stop lying about their involvement.
It’s past time for atonement.
Thoughts?
* Meanwhile, the Blagojevich saga is sparking some new high-tech thinking…
Like a swarm of angry bees, helicopters hovered around the Chicago courthouse Wednesday when former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich listened to his sentence of 14 years for corruption.
“I don’t know why we needed a real helicopter to do that,” said Brian Boyer, news applications editor for the Chicago Tribune.
Instead of the expensive helicopters so many news organizations use for breaking news events, Boyer and other journalists have begun envisioning using cheaper, unmanned aircraft to capture video and photos.
Such aircraft have long been associated with military use in the Middle East, both as smart weapons and surveillance tools. Now, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor wants to consider their use for journalism.
* Related…
* Epiphany about Blago: The chorus of man-on-the-street interviews since Blago’s sentencing include some variation of this line: “I feel sorry for his two children.” So what does Blagojevich do, on the first Friday night after being handed his lengthy prison sentence? Knowing that the news crews in front of his house would follow, he takes his wife and two children out to pick up a second family dog. The Blago girls that everyone has said they feel so sorry for, are right there on the TV news and in the papers — needing another puppy to deal with daddy’s disgrace. If you had just been humiliated — dressed down raw by a federal judge who castigated you for grandstanding — would you climb back up on the pedestal as did Rod? And would you pull up your kids to stand there with you?
* Nation, not just Illinois, will cover Blagojevich’s costs: Between his prison sentence and congressional pension, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich will cost taxpayers about $350,000 over the next 12 years, the minimum time he will have to serve on his 14-year corruption sentence.
* Rod Blagojevich’s strangest moments
* Blagojevich legacy clouds Illinois’ reputation
* Editorial: A smart reform right now: fund judicial elections
* Editorial: Blagojevich’s sentencing just start, not an end
* A few (slightly delayed) thoughts on Blago’s sentence
* Warren: When Privilege Trumps Justice
* First Illinois governor to do time was known as ‘Mr. Clean’ - Unrepentant Otto Kerner served 7 months for racetrack scandal
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A way around the debtor’s prison ban
Monday, Dec 12, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
* A close friend of mine has a warrant out for his arrest for this very reason. He doesn’t even really owe the money, but he was too broke to hire an attorney because he’s unemployed and he was too embarrassed to tell me what was going on until it was too late. Now, he’s basically just waiting to get popped. Not good at all…
It’s illegal in Illinois to throw a debtor in jail for not being able to pay, but some creditors are getting around that. A collection agency can file a lawsuit which might require a court appearance. If the debtor doesn’t appear at the hearing, a warrant can be issued for their arrest.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said in some cases, the court notices aren’t being served.
“We hear time and again from the legal aid lawyers who ultimately find out often about these people when they’re in jail that people didn’t even know there was a lawsuit against them, let alone a judgment had been entered,” Madigan said.
People have been stopped for minor traffic violations, but then arrested and sent to jail after police found the warrant in their file. Legal aid attorneys have said this is more of an issue in rural parts of the state. Madigan said it often happens to people with little to no income, and they usually don’t know their exemption rights as a debtor. The amount owed is usually a small amount. Money used to bail the debtor out of jail often goes directly to the creditor.
Kevin Kelly with the Illinois Creditors Bar Association said creditors don’t want to send people to jail. He said members of his organization don’t issue warrants unless it’s an extreme situation. […]
Madigan said more could be done to prevent debtors from needlessly being jailed. She said courts around the state need to be certain they have accurate information to serve legal notices. She also said her office is investigating creditors that could be abusing the law. Her office has sued six creditors since 2006.
Oy.
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* I didn’t go to Sunday’s House Personnel and Pensions Committee meeting, so I relied on newspaper reporting for a very brief story I did on the hearing for subscribers today. I should’ve looked at the bill status first.
Why? The reporting is not quite right…
Some Democrats in the Illinois House are having second thoughts about cracking down on pension abuses by union officials, including two lobbyists who qualified for teacher pensions by spending a single day in the classroom.
The lawmakers argued Sunday that reversing benefits after they’ve been earned, even by questionable means, is probably unconstitutional. Just two weeks after supporting legislation to take away those pension benefits, they began moving a new bill that closes several loopholes going forward but has no impact on people who have already taken advantage of them.
House Republicans objected to the new proposal. Senate Democrats said they believe the original measure will pass constitutional muster even though it would take away benefits that have already been awarded.
A Democrat-dominated House pension committee voted 5-3 Sunday for the new measure.
More…
Signaling House Speaker Michael Madigan’s interest in the issue, his chief legislative counsel, David Ellis, testified about the new bill before the House Personnel and Pensions Committee, where it was approved on a 5-3, party-line vote.
“It’s changing the rules after people have followed the rules,” Ellis told the committee.
Ellis was also concerned about whether changing pension benefits for current and former Chicago labor leaders is constitutional. Eleven people are being investigated by federal prosecutors in Chicago in connection with pension double-dipping.
“Let’s just say, going forward, we’re not going to allow these leaves of absence where you can work for a union but somehow have that affect your pensionable credit with the government,” Ellis said.
Etc., etc.
* But that’s not what happened. The underlying bill passed, but it didn’t pass “as amended.” Instead, the two new amendments debated last night were tabled. From the bill status…
12/11/2011 House Do Pass / Short Debate Personnel and Pensions Committee; 005-003-000
12/11/2011 House Placed on Calendar 2nd Reading - Short Debate
12/11/2011 House House Committee Amendment No. 1 Tabled Pursuant to Rule 40
12/11/2011 House House Committee Amendment No. 2 Tabled Pursuant to Rule 40
12/11/2011 House Second Reading - Short Debate
12/11/2011 House Final Action Deadline Extended-9(b) December 31, 2011
The underlying bill was introduced in February and is basically just a vehicle bill.
So far, no word on whether McCarthy’s amendments will be reintroduced in another form. Since Dave Ellis testified on their behalf, it could happen. But those amendments are, for now, inoperative.
Also, the House Democrats say they sent the reform bill which passed two weeks ago to the governor.
Hey, mistakes happen.
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