* 4:18 pm - The Justice Department had asked the US House Ethics Committee to hold off any investigation into Congressman Jesse jackson, Jr. while it probed the Rod Blagojevich case and related matters. That request has now been withdrawn, so the committee is moving forward.
Jackson will probably be hit with some bad press about this. For instance, this is from Debbie Halvorson…
“The House Ethics Committee’s decision to look into possible ethics violations by Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. is proof that he continues to be plagued with distractions over his possible role in Rod Blagojevich’s pay-to-play scandal involving President Obama’s former Senate seat. We should have a Representative that is focusing on job creation and economic development for our district—not on ethics investigations. The 2nd Congressional District deserves strong leadership that will be focused on the needs of local residents. Our campaign remains focused on the many challenges facing the residents of the 2nd Congressional District.”
Headlines so far this afternoon…
* Ethics to look into Jesse Jackson, Jr., allegation on Obama Senate seat
* House Ethics Panel Resumes Inquiry Into Jesse Jackson, Jr.
* Ethics Committee Restarts Probe of Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.
* But this development could also be seen as an implicit admission by the feds that they’ve wrapped up their investigation and aren’t going anywhere else with it.
…Adding… New York Times…
But a preliminary investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics — which serves as a grand jury of sorts for the House Ethics Committee — concluded in 2009 that there was evidence that Mr. Jackson’s staff in Washington and Chicago “were used to mount a public campaign to secure the representative’s appointment to the U.S. Senate,” a possible violation of House rules that prohibit the use of public resources for personal or political causes.
The investigators also questioned if the “emissary” who was recorded offering Mr. Blagojevich help raising campaign funds was acting at the request of Mr. Jackson. If the congressman did have someone offer to raise money for the governor in return for an appointment to the Senate, then he might have “violated federal law and House rules,” the ethics office said in its 2009 report.
9 Comments  
|
Prosecution witness slams alleged victim
Tuesday, Oct 18, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
* There was an interesting turn of events today at Bill Cellini’s corruption trial. Star prosecution witness Stu Levine under cross-examination by defense attorney Dan Webb dumped all over the alleged victim in this case, Tom Rosenburg. From Natasha Korecki’s Twitter page…
Webb to Levine: “you don’t believe a word (Rosenberg) says?” Levine:”Correct.” Rosenberg may testify tomorrow. […]
Levine on tape about Tom Rosenberg: “He has clean hands all over the place.” Levine says he’s referring to ‘dishonest acts.”
So, according to the prosecution’s big witness the alleged victim is a lying crook?
Perhaps our experienced attorney commenters can tell us what this means, but I’m not sure it’s so great for the prosecution. If the victim was also allegedly hinky, then running a game on him might not be so bad. Then again, Rosenberg testified at Tony Rezko’s trial that Cellini never asked him for any money. Webb has referred to that testimony time and time again. Federal prosecutors allege that Levine attempted to extort Rosenberg on behalf of Rezko, Chris Kelly and the Blagojevich campaign. The feds also allege that Cellini participated.
* From yesterday’s cross examination…
Levine testified that he had, in fact, initially launched another extortion approach on Rosenberg — one that did not involve Cellini at all. He also told the jury that Cellini had early on actually helped Rosenberg.
Webb also spent considerable time exploring the relationship Levine had with Rosenberg.
Levine testified that Rosenberg had in 2001 allegedly agreed to another, unrelated bribe scheme with Levine but then failed to pay up. This angered Levine, he acknowledged.
* Meanwhile…
The defense at the trial of a clout-heavy Illinois businessman has sought to punch holes in prosecutors’ claim their client is heard on wiretaps admitting he delivered part of an extortion message to a Hollywood producer.
The issue took center stage Tuesday as William Cellini’s attorney tried to convince jurors that Cellini’s words were, at the very least, ambiguous. Defense attorney Dan Webb was cross-examining star prosecution witness Stuart Levine. […]
But Levine conceded Cellini never said he told the Hollywood executive that he must donate money to then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s campaign or risk losing state pension funds for his investment company.
* Done by Friday?…
Federal prosecutors [yesterday] afternoon said William Cellini’s trial could be headed for closing arguments Friday.
Defense lawyer Dan Webb is likely to conclude his questioning of star witness Stuart Levine on Tuesday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Niewoehner said the government will put on the stand an out-of-state witness (presumably the victim of the alleged extortion, Tom Rosenberg) Wednesday and could be finished with its case by Thursday at the latest.
Webb said he gave a list of defense witnesses to Niewoehner. Still, Niewoehner said closings could happen by Friday.
17 Comments
|
Question of the day
Tuesday, Oct 18, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From the Tribune…
The Blagojevich family posted a message on Facebook on Monday, telling supporters that they can write letters on the former governor’s behalf before his sentencing. U.S. District Judge James Zagel can consider Blagojevich’s good works as mitigating factors when deciding his punishment.
Blagojevich, 54, could face a double-digit prison term after being convicted of corruption charges in June. Though no sentencing date has been set, Patti Blagojevich has indicated it could be sometime in the next month.
“We have been getting so many requests from people who would like to help us by writing a letter to the judge for sentencing that I would like to post the email of one of our attorneys Aaron Goldstein: agoldstein3@hotmail.com,” according to a post on Patti Blagojevich’s Facebook page. “He would be able to help you with how to get the letter to the right place. Thank you to all of you who have supported us during this hard time.”
* The Question: What would your letter to Judge James Zagel say?
Snark is heavily encouraged, of course.
45 Comments
|
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
A recent front page Chicago Tribune story (“Electric Bill Shocker,” June 11) warns that coal plant closures will trigger a substantial spike in our electric rates:
“Consumers could see their electricity bills jump an estimated 40 to 60 percent in the next few years.
“The reason: Pending environmental regulations will make coal-fired generating plants, which produce about half the nation’s electricity, more expensive to operate. Many are expected to be shuttered.”
Because of these closures, nearly double digit rate increases are already set to begin in 2014 - more will come unless we act.
Illinois legislators have a choice. They can protect consumers by voting for the Comprehensive Energy Efficiency and Investment Act (SB 1653). Highlights include:
• 16,000 direct and indirect jobs, according to the University of Illinois
• Energy efficiency programs the IPA says will offset residential rate increases
• Solar rooftop support for business and government
• Expanded rate protections for the $3.5 billion Taylorville Energy Center and other clean power projects
• Extensive MWDBE program for minority contractors
While opponents spread disinformation and use scare tactics, sponsors like Senate President John Cullerton and Representative John Bradley know that SB 1653 is a common sense approach to solving the serious problem of coal plant retirements.
The diverse coalition of SB 1653 supporters includes:
Illinois has a choice. Act now.
Approve the Comprehensive Energy Efficiency and Investment Act
Comments Off
|
Simple math: 60 and 30
Tuesday, Oct 18, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Lou speaks the truth…
Gov. Pat Quinn on Monday laid out what kind of gambling expansion bill he could accept and it doesn’t include slot machines at Illinois race tracks, a position sponsors say could imperil their push to add five new casinos in the state, including one in Chicago.
“If this were in bill form it could not pass,” Democratic Rep. Lou Lang of Skokie said of Quinn’s suggestions.
And so does Sen. Terry Link…
Link said slots at race tracks bring more than 20 votes to the bill. Without it, he can’t pass any gambling expansion legislation, he said.
* The legislative math simply doesn’t work without slots at tracks. Barring a miracle or yet another Quinn flip-flop, the governor has all but killed gaming expansion…
“Unless these principles are followed, there’s no way I will approve a bill,” Quinn said at a Chicago news conference.
And…
“I’m the final word,” Quinn said. “We’re not going to have a willy-nilly gambling bill in Illinois that is not protecting integrity, that is way too big and excessive and doesn’t provide adequate revenue for education. … Casino gambling at 14 different locations in Illinois is way too much. We have no interest in becoming the Las Vegas of the Midwest. We need to retain our culture.”
It will be the mother of all Pat Quinn flip-flops if he decides during veto session that he can support slots at tracks after saying that. I mean, I don’t see a lot of negotiating room there, do you? McCaffrey does, but he gets paid to be an optimist…
Dave McCaffrey of the Illinois Harness Horsemen’s Association described Quinn’s announcement as “the first pitch of the seventh game, and the game will play out during the next month.”
* It’s a pyrrhic victory for Danville and Rockford…
Danville Mayor Scott Eisenhauer has been waiting six years to hear an Illinois governor say his city of more than 32,000 residents should get a casino.
On Monday, “to hear that Gov. (Pat) Quinn, too, supports a casino for Danville is a milestone,” Eisenhauer said. But Eisenhauer realizes that while Quinn supports a casino for Danville, Quinn also could not support legislation that actually would put one there. […]
Leaders in Winnebago County are thrilled to hear Quinn support a casino for their city of Rockford, said Mike Dunn, regional director of governmental affairs for the county.
“We could never figure out what he wanted, but this makes us feel better,” Dunn said.
* The Southland’s leaders thought this was a good thing…
Southland leaders are encouraged by Gov. Pat Quinn’s announcement Monday that he would support a casino in the south suburbs.
Hooray! We’re finally on the governor’s radar!
Kadner supplies the cold water…
“Everything in that bill was put there to attract enough votes to pass it out of the state Legislature,” said state Rep. Marlo Colvin (D-Chicago), a key backer of the casino legislation. “The horse racing industry is in difficult financial shape and needs help. I don’t know how the governor can ignore the economic realities of the south suburbs, Chicago and people across this state who need jobs and economic development.”
I pointed out to Colvin that Quinn did endorse a casino in the south suburbs.
“It isn’t going to matter if we can’t get the votes to pass the bill,” Colvin said. “We’ve been talking to the governor about this since the spring, trying to get a sense of what he wanted, and he comes out with this a week before the fall veto session, at the 11th hour, which is apparently his preferred manner of doing business.”
* The consequences of this particular Quinn decree have been overlooked…
Quinn also switched direction on the video poker law he signed in 2009 to pay for a statewide construction program. The law allows the machines to operate at restaurants and taverns unless a community decides to opt out. Instead, Quinn said the machines shouldn’t go up unless a community votes to allow them. That could greatly reduce video poker in Illinois.
He not only signed that into law, he came up with the idea in the first place. Video poker was designed to help fund capital projects - the very same projects Quinn always talks about when he wants to point to all the jobs he’s created. Opt-in would kill those revenues.
Also, he agreed at the time that there would be no changes to the capital bill unless it was agreed to by all the legislative leaders. This is definitely not an agreed change. And where are they gonna get the money to replace this revenue stream? Another cigarette tax hike? Senate President Cullerton could go along with that, few others will.
* The Sun-Times is concerned…
At a press conference Monday, Quinn didn’t leave much wiggle room. “Unless these principles are followed,” he said, “there’s no way I will approve a bill.”
Key lawmakers have signaled that they are more than willing to compromise.
We can only hope that Quinn will do the same.
But the Tribune is downright giddy…
Quinn’s challenge now is sticking to his ultimatums — in the past, not his strong suit — on what a revised casino bill can and cannot do if it is to win his signature.
Governor, on Monday you did right by the people of Illinois.
You’re holding the winning hand here.
Don’t fold.
It’s definitely a “winning hand” for someone who wants to kill gaming expansion. Quinn’s oversight changes and most of the rest of the stuff is nowhere close to being a deal killer. The slots at tracks thing is a killer, however, and money will have to be found to replace any revenues lost from a change to an opt-in for video poker.
They’ve been trying for a decade to pass this bill. They finally found the winning formula this spring and now it’s been tossed out the window.
* Related…
* ‘No way’: Quinn won’t support slot machines at Illinois racetracks
* Quinn: No slots at state fairgrounds
* Joliet leaders say Quinn casino plan still too broad
* Rockford casino opponents, proponents see Quinn announcement differently
* Rockford casino still a go in Pat Quinn’s proposed bill
60 Comments
|
C’mon, man!
Tuesday, Oct 18, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
* State Sen. Shane Cultra is just chock full of ideas…
“I think one thing, if we made Medicaid patients pay a co-pay, you know, just like any of us do… if they had to pay a lot more to go to the emergency room, and maybe take it out of their LINK card if they don’t have any cash, maybe they would think twice before they use medical services if it’s going to cost them something,” Cultra said.
So, let’s make the poor decide between eating and life-saving health care in the middle of the worst economic climate since the Great Depression. Wonderful idea. Why don’t we throw in a gigantic tax break for the rich while we’re at it? You know, just to rub it in.
* Meanwhile, in the real world…
When the owner of a southern Illinois child care center didn’t get the state funding he was promised on time and faced laying off employees and cutting service to low-income children, he borrowed money from family members to get by.
When a suburban Chicago center helping disabled people live independently didn’t get its state money quickly, employees waited three months for a paycheck so clients wouldn’t feel the pinch.
And when an Elgin domestic abuse program was left with stacks of unpaid bills and no sign of when the money would come from the state, workers took four weeks of unpaid furlough days, especially difficult for employees earning $25,000 a year.
They are among the thousands of community groups and charities making up Illinois’ system for providing human services: the state contracts out the work and agrees to make reimbursements. But as Illinois’ budget crisis worsens and the state lags further behind in paying bills, those that serve the state’s neediest are forced to make dire decisions and at-times heroic sacrifices to pick up the slack.
* And…
Andrew Buffenbarger was expecting a check from the state of Illinois. What he got instead was a letter saying the Champaign County Nursing Home wouldn’t be paid for its Medicaid services for 120 days.
That doesn’t seem like a big deal if you look at the records of unpaid bills at the Illinois comptroller’s office. They showed the nursing home, where Buffenbarger is the administrator, was owed only $47,000 early last month. In reality, however, the home was waiting on nearly $3.3 million.
* And…
Illinois owes the largest downstate ambulance company more than $750,000, and that business soon will cut services to stop the budget shortfalls.
So, how about we come up with some real ideas to solve these problems that doesn’t involve potentially starving out the poor? I’ve said before that it’s going to take years to get out from under these overdue bills even with the tax hike. Actually, I’m not the only one. Pretty much everyone admits it. A drastically scaled-back version of Gov. Quinn’s original borrowing plan would help get many of these bills paid off, particularly if it was accompanied by some negotiated budget cuts. But that’s going to take more courage than currently exists in the building, and legislators will have to ignore the howls about borrowing on the markets even though we’re already borrowing from domestic abuse programs in Elgin.
* Related…
* State’s Delinquent Payments Hurt Charity Organizations
* Universities cope with chronic late payments
* Unpaid bills a pain for SIU
66 Comments
|
* This story just gets weirder and weirder. Yesterday, the Sun-Times told us about how a late 1980s law designed to avoid white flight from Chicago is actually occasionally rewarding white flight with big payouts to sellers. Today, they look at the guy who’s running the obscure agency…
While overseeing the largest of three government-run home-equity assurance programs in Chicago, Kenneth Pannaralla got two interest-free home-improvement loans through his agency worth a total of $15,000, despite a ban on such benefits under state law.
The Southwest Home Equity Assurance Program used property taxes it collects to pay the interest on the loans Pannaralla got from Marquette Bank, under a home-improvement loan program the agency created 11 years ago, records show.
In addition, Pannaralla and his daughter, Jennifer Pannaralla, currently have another zero-interest home-improvement loan through the agency, this one for $10,000.
That, too, appears to be in violation of the Illinois Home Equity Assurance Act, which says: “No commissioner or family member of a commissioner, or employee or family member of an employee, may receive any financial benefit, either directly or indirectly” from the program.
The little-known agency Pannaralla oversees is one of the three created under a law Illinois legislators passed in 1988 to curb white flight in Chicago’s bungalow belt. The law guarantees that homeowners who signed up by paying for an appraisal wouldn’t lose money if they sold their homes even if property values declined, as long as they waited five years to sell and as long as property values went down for reasons other than a national housing slump, as has happened.
* This guy really knows how to make money off the public’s dime. And he’s a Madigan guy running a program that Madigan came up with…
Kenneth E. Pannaralla — once a top precinct captain for Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan — has made a good living in government.
Pannaralla, 63, gets a pension from the city of Chicago in addition to the three paychecks from his three current government jobs, including one as the executive director of the Southwest Home Equity Assurance Program, a government agency created under a law Madigan co-sponsored.
Madigan, who is also chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party, also gave Pannaralla’s daughter, Jennifer Pannaralla, a one-year legislative scholarship in 2003 to the University of Illinois at Chicago. And Pannaralla’s son, Kenneth, is paid $24,000 a year as an aide to Madigan.
Pannaralla makes a total of $213,418 a year
Great work if you can get it.
* Ironically enough, black flight has become a big issue in Chicago these days…
Former magnets for black migrants, including Illinois, Michigan, New York and California, all have had black population declines. Atlanta has even overtaken Chicago as the city with the second-largest black population behind New York City. The black population in Atlanta has grown in the past decade by 473,493. In Dallas it grew by 233,890, and in Houston by 214,928 over the same period. Today, 57 percent of the country’s black population lives in the South, a 50-year high, according to the most recent census data.
Today’s migrants are chasing the same things their forebears sought decades earlier, according to those who have studied the return migration. Others are retiring or returning to familial homesteads, reclaiming land their relatives never let loose.
“There are places like Harlem that no longer have majority black populations because many of the black folks who have lived there for the last 50 or so years have decided to cash in, and they are going to live somewhere more affordable, places that don’t come with the urban baggage that maybe we didn’t ever want but put up with because this was our best chance at a solid economic future,” said Khalil Muhammad, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, part of the New York Public Library and renowned for its collections of historic artifacts. “Those people are going to places that look just the way they want them to look. They are not going to be shackled by a political nationalism or the segregation of the past.”
Meanwhile, Chicago has lost about 181,000 African Americans over the past decade, a drop of 17 percent. Many have fled to the Chicago suburbs. But to a greater extent, who is leaving and where they’re going is difficult to determine, according to demographers. But Brookings Institute reports that these new migrants tend to be financially stable and more educated. Many are students, professionals or retirees.
Obviously, it’s way past time to end that state-sponsored white flight prevention program. It appears to be gamed too much anyway.
26 Comments
|
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
“The Governor’s veto was a great disappointment to the business community and consumers alike. Opportunities for this kind of investment don’t come around every day. Our elected officials should seize it.”
-Jerry Roper, President and CEO, Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce
Businesses looking to relocate or expand can’t afford to rely on an electrical system designed more than 100 years ago. They need a stronger, smarter grid.
“We depend on a steady stream of electricity around the clock to meet the demands of our customers. Even the most minor outage can cost thousands of dollars. We need a modern grid that offers increased reliability to meet the demands of the 21st century economy.”
-George Gatto, president, Gatto Industrial Platers
A modern, reliable grid is essential for Illinois’ effort to rebound from the recession.
“A modern smart grid is necessary to avoid outages that cost local businesses money and hurt their ability to compete. A modern grid will position Illinois to attract new business and new jobs.”
-John Estey, President and CEO, S&C Electric Company, Chicago
For more information on the benefits of grid modernization through SB 1652, visit www.SmartEnergyIL.com .
Comments Off
|
|
Comments Off
|
|
Comments Off
|
|
Support CapitolFax.com
Visit our advertisers...
 
...............
...............
...............
...............
|
   
|
Hosted by MCS |
SUBSCRIBE to Capitol Fax |
Advertise Here |
Mobile Version |
Contact Rich Miller
|
