The video replays footage of Walsh’s famous brunch-time freakout at Uno Chicago Bar & Grill, over a soundtrack of The Clash’s cover of “Brand New Cadillac,” which is supposed to make us feel that Walsh is out of control.
“Don’t blame banks and don’t blame the marketplace for the mess we’re in right now,” he shouts. “I am tired of hearing that crap.”
Without a doubt, this Walsh candidacy is gonna be a fundraising bonanza for Duckworth and Raja Krishnamoorthi, but…
It is not true that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) promised Walsh $3.5 million for an 8th district run. Last week, Walsh switched from the 14th district, where he faced a GOP primary with Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-Ill.)
“That number credited to him is not accurate,” Cory Fritz, Boehner’s political spokesman told me Monday. Duckworth is using the $3.5 million number to help jumpstart her donations, attributing it to a report in a suburban paper.
* Meanwhile, Peter Roskam isn’t exactly champing at the bit to endorse Walsh…
Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), a member of House leadership, says it is premature to back anyone yet because a federal court panel in Chicago has not yet ruled on the legality of the Democratic-drawn congressional map. The map is designed to help Democrats pick up seats.
“We’re not even convinced the new 8th District is going to exist. So It is entirely premature to discuss any hypothetical matchup while the map is still with the Courts,” Dan Conston, Roskam’s spokesman told me.
* Duckworth’s campaign is doing whatever it can to generate press, including placing stories about old donations…
Top House and Senate leaders cut checks for Iraq War veteran Tammy Duckworth’s (D-Ill.) House bid recently — a strong signal that top Democrats are ready to make a significant investment in her campaign for the 8th district.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) donated to Duckworth in the past couple of months via their campaigns or political action committees, according to the House hopeful’s campaign.
The disclosure comes only a few days after freshman Rep. Joe Walsh (R) announced he’ll seek re-election in the 8th district instead of running against his fellow GOP freshman Rep. Randy Hultgren. The donations are also notable because Duckworth faces former Illinois Deputy Treasurer Raja Krishnamoorthi in the Democratic primary this March.
* In other campaign news, the idea for allowing candidates to draw a salary from their campaign funds was designed to let the non-wealthy compete with people who didn’t have to work for months at a time. But, of course, it was inevitable that somebody would take advantage of the law…
Chicago aldermen get paid $114,000 a year, but a FOX Chicago News investigation finds two of them are paying themselves out of their campaign funds for extra work, like marching in parades, passing petitions, and slating candidates at political meetings.
Ald. Danny Solis (25th Ward) has paid himself $194,778 since 2004.
“My job is to promote the Democratic Party in the 25th Ward, and that’s what I paid myself for,” Solis said. “If I paid a consultant, they would probably get paid maybe a little more than that if they were doing this full-time.”
The practice of paying for political work is completely legal, but David Morrison from the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform says when politicians pay themselves, it creates huge ethical problems.
“I can’t give you a bribe, but if I can give you money you can convert to your own use it’s the same thing,” Morrison said.
That’s less than $28K a year, but the guy is making a decent buck as an alderman.
Lots of people in Washington, D.C., own lots of stock in companies whose profits are affected by federal legislation. But one holding by DuPage County Congresswoman Judy Biggert now is drawing particular scrutiny.
According to her federal financial disclosure, Ms. Biggert, R-Hinsdale, is one of four members of Congress who own stock in TransCanada Corp., the company whose plans to lay pipeline from Alberta to the American Midwest have stirred an environmental furor and have been at least temporarily sidetracked by the Obama White House.
Ms. Biggert’s stake is valued at between $1,000 and $15,000, according to the disclosure.
If that’s all that was there, the matter likely wouldn’t be worth much more review.
But, as first reported by the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington research group, Ms. Biggert last month tweeted about the White House action, writing, “WH caves to anti-American energy lobby, delays job-creating Keystone XL Oil Pipeline.”
Nowhere in the tweet did she mention her ownership of up to $15,000 in stock.
Rod Blagojevich’s attorneys on Tuesday requested a 30-day extension on the date the former governor must report to prison. Judge James Zagel granted the extension during a hearing at the Dirksen Federal Building.
Blagojevich’s new date is March 15.
During the hearing Blagojevich’s attorneys also made a request for which prison he’ll be sent to. They asked for Englewood, Colo.
A federal judge ordered a Chicago Tribune reporter on Monday to turn over notes and other related documents concerning a juror who apparently concealed her criminal record in the William Cellini trial, a directive the newspaper called “unnecessary” and harmful to the independence of the reporting process. […]
During a brief hearing last week, U.S. District Judge James Zagel brought up the idea of compelling the Tribune to turn over its notes from a conversation with the juror before any of the lawyers in the case even raised the issue. The judge identified the juror in Monday’s ruling as Candy Chiles.
The defense argues that the Chicago woman compromised the verdict by concealing her criminal history and potential bias during jury selection. In an effort to bolster their position, Cellini’s lawyers sought access to notes of Tribune reporter Annie Sweeney from a brief interview with Chiles.
In his ruling issued late Monday, Zagel ordered that Sweeney “produce any and all notes, memoranda, tape recordings, documents, or other records, from Oct. 3, 2011, to present, of any conversations the journalist had with the juror” related to her previous criminal history or answers during jury selection.
I really don’t think judges ought to be nosing around in reporters’ notebooks. I asked Dick Ciccone, Cellini’s spokesman, about why they’d ask for such a thing…
It is simply to learn if the juror said anything about Cellini or the trial that did not appear in their stories.
“Journalists must be free to ask questions and collect information secure in the knowledge that their notes will not be seized by the government or litigants in court and used for other purposes. Unfortunately, that security now is threatened by this ruling.
We believe that these subpoenas are unnecessary and in fact do harm to the independence of the reporting process. We are disappointed by Judge Zagel’s ruling, and we now are considering our options.
We do not know why this juror’s record or suitability for service were not ascertained earlier by the court. Had that occurred, we might not face this situation now.
We argued in our court filing that there are other, more direct sources of information available to learn about the juror’s record and actions. These include the court’s jury selection records, the juror herself, her friends and family, and her fellow jurors.
Public court records also are available to everyone in this case, as they were to us when we revealed the felony convictions in our Nov. 11 story. “
Something has come up about you, I said. I am not here to judge, but we know about your convictions. And now there are questions about whether you were eligible to serve on the jury.
She began repeating the word no and indicated she did not want to be interviewed.
I continued talking. I was not taking notes.
She said she had nothing to say and told me to leave. She then made one brief remark that was not in direct response to a question. She said something about they should have known. I am not sure those were her exact words and I did not understand what she meant. I didn’t have an opportunity to ask her to explain it.
At some point I also asked her about her jury questionnaire in which she revealed she had a criminal history in her family but failed to put in the details.
She did not answer my questions and kept asking me to leave, so that’s what I did. The brief conversation ended before I could get a meaningful statement from her and I went to my car and wrote down my recollections of her remarks. They were not verbatim and not in perfect chronological order.
* Today’s SJ-R has by far the best explanation I’ve seen in print of the constitutional argument in favor of the pension reform bill that was sent to Gov. Pat Quinn’s desk…
Senate Democratic leaders, who are aligned with the House Republicans on this issue, believe that in the case of the two IFT officials, Steven Preckwinkle and David Piccioli, another part of the constitution backs their position.
Preckwinkle and Piccioli taught for a day in the Springfield School District in 2007, taking advantage of earlier legislation that allowed union officials to get into the teacher pension fund and count previous years as union employees. They were required to obtain teaching certificates, conduct classroom work and buy pension credits.
However, Article 8, Section 1 of the Illinois Constitution bars public funds from being used for anything but public purposes. Senate Democrats believe the loophole employed by Preckwinkle and Piccioli violated that provision of the constitution, thereby allowing lawmakers to revoke their pensions.
The other side of the argument is that the bill will allow the courts to test the constitutionality of taking away benefits from active employees.
* Sponsoring Rep. Kevin McCarthy laid out his reasoning for having proposed what amounts to a “just in case” trailer bill…
“If we only go forward with the one (piece of legislation) and that is found to be unconstitutional, then it’s as if we did nothing,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy said almost every lawmaker opposes what Preckwinkle and the other union leaders did. But he’s not sure that the Illinois Constitution allows the Legislature to change pension benefits once someone has paid into the system.
State Rep. Frank Mautino, D-Spring Valley, said the question about Preckwinkle and the other double dippers is not a question of right and wrong.
“Is it legal, that’s the question,” said Mautino. “If a court rules against (the pension reforms) then you have case law, a legal precedent, that public pensions cannot be altered.”
We don’t expect the perpetrators — a slew of Democrats in the Illinois House — to confess. But let’s all remember what they nearly achieved in Springfield late Sunday afternoon, when half of Illinois was shopping and the other half was watching the Chicago Bears.
That obscurity would have been perfect cover for gutting important elements of legislation to crack down on egregious pension abuses that are cheating rank-and-file union members and millions of Illinois taxpayers.
We can’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the arrival of four news reporters at this special meeting of a House pension committee radically changed its outcome. See whether you think the Democrats, realizing that they had been found out, hurriedly abandoned a plan to help some important union officials who just happen to be their political allies:
Even if the amendment had passed, the House Republicans and several Democrats would’ve created a huge ruckus on the House floor the following day. And even if it did pass the House, this bill would have never passed the Senate, so wiser heads prevailed.
However, Sunday’s committee hearing did show that the House Democrats aren’t at all enamored with the prospect of having a law out there which could test the constitutionality of taking away pension benefits from current employees, no matter what they may be saying in public. And, needless to say, the bill which already passed is putting the governor in a very tight spot with the unions.
* Roundup…
* State halts sales of underwater college savings plan - Illinois stops accepting new participants due to gap in funding: The new report, commissioned by the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, finds that, as of March 31, the fund was 30% short of what it needed to meet its long-term obligations. That was about the same shortfall found on June 30, 2010, the date of the previous financial-health study. But the latest review incorporates lower, and probably more realistic, forecasts on investment returns and sales of new contracts, assuming they resume.
* Illinois youth prisons fail inmates, society, report says: Illinois’ youth prison system is an expensive failure with more than half of young offenders returning within three years of their release, many of them for trivial problems such as skipping school and staying out late, according to a new report. The Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission made the report for Gov. Pat Quinn and the legislature and issued it publicly Tuesday. The report makes recommendations it says could save nearly $80,000 per imprisoned youth annually, without sacrificing public safety.
* Report: Illinois failing to help young offenders
* Kadner: Corrupt schools boss gets 18 months’ probation
* Meter company sends city $13.5 million bill for disabled parking: Chicago Parking Meters LLC sent the city a $13.5 million bill to cover losses from people who used disability placards or license plates to park for free in metered spots between Feb. 28, 2010, and Feb. 28, 2011, records show. The parking-meter company didn’t gauge how many of those drivers were legitimately disabled — though its surveys have city officials convinced that fraud played a major role in the bill being that high.
* Our first winner from yesterday’s nominations for Senate Democratic campaign staffer is Noe Chaimongkol. An anonymous commenter summed him up…
Never gets the credit he deserves, especially on the political side. Don’t let his quiet demeanor fool you. He knows strategy backwards and forwards and is a someone every candidate should want in their corner. And really - Linda Holmes, twice? That’s worth a horseshoe in itself.
* Runner-up is Bryen Johnson. Here’s “Sideline Watcher’s” nomination…
Bryen Johnson for many of the reasons listed above but mostly because in politics it can be very easy to get cynical and jaded. Bryen erases all that by being an absolutely genuine, hardworking, honest broker who plays to win. We need more people like him, especially in this environment.
Agreed.
“Michelle Flaherty” wanted a special playoff on this one, but it’s not to be…
How about a pay-per-view smack down between Bryen and Noe? It could be broadcast online to CapFax subscribers.
Winner gets the horseshoe.
LETS GET READY TO RUMBLE !!!!!!!!!!!
* Our winner on the Senate Republican campaign staff is Jo Johnson…
Jo Johnson does a swell job on the legal side of things. She’s quick-witted and direct.
She’s done a heckuva job during the petition phase as well.
* A whole lot of people nominated Ryan Cudney, but Ryan runs the operation, so I’ll give him an honorable mention here rather than a runner-up. There were also a ton of nominations for Magen Ryan, who runs the SDem operation, so she also gets an honorable mention.
But instead of pitting the top dogs against their own staff, I’ve decided that we need a new category this year: Best legislative campaign staff director…
* Will Cousineau - House Democrats
* Kevin Artl - House Republicans
* Magen Ryan- Senate Democrats
* Ryan Cudney - Senate Republicans
Make extra sure to explain your nomination in comments, please. I’ll just ignore a simple name. I can’t stress enough that this contest is based far more on intensity than numbers.
And I know how competitive some of y’all are when it comes to partisan campaigns, so do your very best to avoid slamming somebody else. Just stick to the positive aspect of your own nomination, please. Any negativity will hurt your candidate.
…Adding… I’ve already nullified two votes because people are ignoring my insistence that they stay positive. It won’t be too many more of these and the candidate with the most negativity on his or her behalf will be disqualified. Final warning, people. Enough.
* If nothing else, the corporate tax cut bill raids Indiana…
An Indiana-based maker of automobile replacement parts is one step closer to receiving a tax incentives package worth $3.5 million over 10 years that would see the company move its corporate headquarters to Illinois.
UCI International Inc. is the latest in a growing number of companies seeking a special break in exchange for jobs. The company was added last week to a bill aimed at keeping Sears Holdings Corp. and CME Group Inc. from exiting the state. The Illinois House approved the tax-break package Monday. The Senate is expected to consider it Tuesday.
Look, I’m no fan of these cross-border raids, but I’m really getting tired of Indiana and other states bad-mouthing Illinois and attempting to steal our companies.
A buddy of mine had an interesting suggestion yesterday. Every time one of these states tries to lure a company out of Illinois, we ought to go after one of that state’s biggest companies with everything we have. In other words, the “Chicago Way.” Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight, fellas.
We might not have to do that too many times before other states get the message: Lay the heck off.
For instance, how about we make an offer on the Indianapolis Colts? The team sucks this year, but they’ll improve when their quarterback returns. We could move it to Arlington Heights in exchange for no slots at tracks. And then we could grab the Pacers and move them to the Metro East or the STAR Bonds district in Marion. St. Louis has no basketball team, so let’s get one and grab another state’s money in the process.
OK, that was mostly snark. But, seriously, we can’t just sit by and allow ourselves to be hammered like this. Repealing the tax increase would cost too much money and put the state in an even deeper fiscal hole. Maybe it’s time to fight fire with an even bigger fire as well as reforming some business laws.
The Illinois House approved a package of tax relief on Monday for families and businesses, including some big names like Sears and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange that are threatening to leave the state.
When fully phased in, the tax cuts would cost state government roughly $320 million a year. Chicago-based financial exchanges operated by CME Group Inc. and CBOE Holding Corp. would get about $85 million of that tax relief. Sears Holdings Corp. would get about $15 million.
Those companies have warned that they might move their operations to other states unless Illinois offers them incentives to stay.
During the debate, protesters unfurled a banner saying “Stop Corporate Extortion.” They were soon led out of the House chamber and discussion of the bills resumed.
The Illinois House approved tax breaks for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Monday in a move that could cut short its parent company’s talks with outside suitors, including Downtown Indianapolis and Carmel.
It was CME Group Inc., after all, that made noises about relocating most of its highly paid 2,000 employees to another state after the House initially voted down a similar measure last month.
Still, the Indianapolis mayor’s office is watching the developments closely until any possibility of a move is off the table.
Also, local governments — such as Community Unit District 300 in Carpentersville — would get about double the property taxes they now get from the deal, and Hoffman Estates wouldn’t be allowed to use its share to run or pay for the Sears Centre.
“This is a bittersweet victory for us,” said District 300 Superintendent Michael Bregy, who was in Springfield Monday. He noted that while the school district will get more money under the plan the House approved, it wasn’t as much as he wanted.
“We were able to negotiate the best possible deal,” Bregy said.
Thirty-nine Republicans supported the [corporate tax cut] plan after accounting for only one of the eight votes on Nov. 29.
“It’s not a break. It’s not a credit. The reality is they’re being taxed on all of their trades, and that’s not fair. That’s not right,” House Minority Leader Tom Cross (R-Oswego) said of CME, whose trades are taxed by Illinois whether they occur in or out of the state. […]
House Republicans were mostly missing in action on the other piece of the tax-relief package that passed 67-49. It would double the earned income tax credit available to the working poor and increase the standard exemption for all taxpayers by tying it to the rate of inflation.
Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, and Senate Republican leader Christine Radogno, of Lemont, each are optimistic the provisions will win Senate approval on Tuesday, according to their respective aides.
The measures are nearly identical to those of a single, overarching package that received bipartisan support in the Senate late last month, only to be shot down in the House.
“We had agreement about what was put into one proposition and we hope there will be the same level (of) support,” said John Patterson, a spokesman for Cullerton.
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.
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.
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.
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
* 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.
“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.
* 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.
* 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.
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.
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.
* 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
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.
