* Military Times…
Braulio Castillo broke his foot in a prep school injury nearly three decades ago at the U.S. Military Preparatory School, which he attended for nine months before playing football in college. He owns a technology business certified as a service-disabled, veteran-owned company eligible for government set aside contracts.
* Castillo testified in Congress this week and Tammy Duckworth was having none of it…
Castillo’s VA doctors gave him a 30 percent disabled rating; he never saw combat. Duckworth wasn’t pleased. It was clear Castillo he was in for a rough ride when Duckworth started off by asking him, with faux politeness, if his foot hurt, before describing her own phantom pains. But the tensest moments come late in Duckworth’s time:
DUCKWORTH: Do you feel that the 30 percent rating that you have for the scars and the pain in your foot is accurate to the sacrifices that you’ve made for this nation, that the VA decision is accurate in your case?
CASTILLO: Yes ma’am, I do.
DUCKWORTH: You know my right arm was essentially blown off and reattached. I spent a year in limb salvage with over a dozen surgeries over that time period. And in fact we thought I would lose my arm, and I’m still in danger of possibly losing my arm. I can’t feel it, I can’t feel my three fingers. My disability rating for that arm is 20 percent.
* What follows is an absolute must-watch video of one of the greatest takedowns I’ve ever seen…
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Question of the day
Thursday, Jun 27, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller
* We’ve talked about this loophole before, but Tom Kasich wrote about it not long ago…
What campaign committees do is collect dozens of fat checks, let them sit for weeks or months, then deposit them in a bank on one day and report them within five business days.
That, in fact, is what Citizens for Lisa Madigan did in the first quarter of the year. It disclosed 198 separate contributions of $1,000 or more all at once, on April 5. The checks had been deposited on March 29.
Ditto Taxpayers for Quinn. The governor’s campaign fund reported 112 contributions of $1,000 or more, including $20,000 from the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, on April 2. But the trial lawyers reported that the donation was made on March 20.
Madigan’s campaign, for its part, said it reports contributions in one big batch so that it can thoroughly vet all donations and return any checks that create potential ethical problems.
And lawmakers, at the time a new campaign disclosure law was being discussed in 2009, said they wanted to avoid problems with checks that were sent to post office boxes but may have go uncollected for days or weeks.
“Legislators were upset about it — they felt there was the potential for ‘gotcha moments’ — a check in a post office box, and they would get fined for not checking a post office box,” said David Morrison, deputy director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. “I don’t know how often that actually happened. I think they might have been inflating the problem a bit.”
So the law was written to allow campaign committees to sit on contributions for long periods, although they also could disclose them quickly. A law that supposedly was written to foster public disclosure and benefit voters ends up favoring the pols.
“That means that the committee gets to determine when the public finds out about when they received money,” Morrison said. “In the context of an election, it means that a committee can have the check and know the money is in hand, but not tell voters about it until the polls are closed. That’s a very dangerous precedent.
“At the time, the folks in the Legislature said, ‘No, no, no. People won’t actually play that game. Trust us on this.’ I don’t know that that’s true. I think we are seeing some gamesmanship.”
Pretty much everybody is doing this except Bruce Rauner, who is spending money and therefore needs to deposit the checks right away, and Bill Daley, who wants to show he’s viable.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel just reported $470K on a signle A-1, for example.
* The Question: Should Illinois law be changed to require reporting campaign contribution checks within a few days of their actual receipt, rather than after their deposit in a bank account? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
free polls
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St. Clair County implodes
Thursday, Jun 27, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller
* This is just the latest twist in what has been a totally bizarre month in St. Clair County…
A former state lawmaker who’s the new clerk of southwestern Illinois’ St. Clair County says his new job will pay about $20,000 less than what he is making, but he’s fine with that.
The Belleville News-Democrat reports Tom Holbrook will make $100,800 as St. Clair County clerk. He’s now making $120,000 a year as chairman of the Illinois Pollution Control Board.
The county’s board on Monday night unanimously appointed Holbrook as the replacement of Bob Delaney, who resigned last week after an employee accused him of discrimination, sexual harassment and wrongful termination. Delaney denied any wrongdoing.
* The Delaney incident was really awful…
Employees of St. Clair County Clerk Bob Delaney, who resigned abruptly this week, complained that their boss grabbed their breasts and buttocks, kissed them and made inappropriate comments at work, according a copy of an investigative report released Thursday.
The report, by county Equal Employment Opportunity Officer Laura Beasley, also said workers accused Delaney of drinking on the job, using racial slurs and cultivating a climate of fear and racial discrimination.
Beasley determined that the complaint was “overwhelmingly founded.”
The investigation was prompted by a May 16 complaint from Laura Romero, a 25-year-old employee who had been fired. The report was released Wednesday by Romero’s lawyer, Thomas Kennedy III, but parts were missing due to a faxing error.
The complete report says that four other employees were mulling complaints against Delaney. It says seven employees told Beasley that Delaney had grabbed the buttocks of workers, two employees said he grabbed their breasts and 13 said they had been kissed by Delaney “on the face, cheeks, and lips.”
* But that was nothing compared to what happened in late May. The judge who presided over the county’s drug court, and whose father is a major trial lawyer and bigtime Democratic campaign contributor, was arrested. From May 24th…
St. Clair County Circuit Judge Michael Cook is the target of a federal investigation. […]
The investigation has raised new questions about the death of Circuit Judge Joe Christ, who died in March while at a hunting cabin in Pike County, Ill., owned by Cook’s family. The Pike County coroner, Paul Petty, confirmed Friday that Christ died of cocaine intoxication, and that traces of cocaine and drug paraphernalia were found near his body.
Christ, 49, a longtime St. Clair County prosecutor, had only been on the bench about a week before his death.
* Later in the day…
A southwestern Illinois judge already under scrutiny after a colleague died of a cocaine overdose at his family’s hunting lodge was charged Friday with possession of heroin and guns.
Wearing cutoff shorts and a T-shirt with the slogan “Bad is my middle name,” St. Clair County Circuit Judge Michael Cook pleaded not guilty to federal counts of possessing heroin and having a firearm while being an illegal user of controlled substances. The criminal complaint alleges those offenses took place Thursday, and that Cook is an addict.
Earlier Friday, the county coroner said toxicology tests showed that Cook’s colleague, St. Clair County Circuit Judge Joe Christ, overdosed on cocaine while staying with Cook at the Cook family’s 2,500-square-foot cabin near the Mississippi River in western Illin
* Apparently, the two went easy on an alleged heroin dealer who sold them drugs…
First Assistant U.S. Attorney James Porter blames St. Clair County justice for the absence of criminal convictions against alleged heroin dealer and addict Sean McGilvery of Belleville. […]
Porter said he was aware that a report from probation officers listed no convictions.
“We are also aware that the reason is because of the people he dealt with in the courthouse,” Porter said.
“He simply hasn’t been made to pay for any of the things he has done in the past.”
McGilvery allegedly supplied heroin that addicted former St. Clair County Circuit Judge Michael Cook.
* Christ dismissed tickets…
In his final days as a St. Clair County prosecutor, Joe Christ recommended that traffic tickets be dismissed for two men accused in federal court documents of selling cocaine and heroin to Christ and his friend, Circuit Judge Michael Cook, and then Cook obliged.
* The scale is just mind-boggling…
Suspended Circuit Court Judge Michael Cook’s long-time friend, Sean McGilvery, has been named a co-defendant in a high-volume heroin distribution case allegedly run by a mother and son team from Fairview Heights previously charged with concealing the drug overdose death of a 30-year-old woman.
McGilvery, 34, of Belleville, was charged in federal court with conspiracy to distribute more than two pounds of heroin. McGilvery, who pleaded not guilty, resided at 309 N. 38th St. in Belleville, the same address where the home’s owner, McGilvery’s mother Linda Gibson, said Cook was arrested Wednesday evening by federal agents.
On Friday, Cook was charged with possessing heroin and a felony weapons charge. He pleaded not guilty.
Also charged with conspiracy to distribute heroin are Deborah A. Perkins, 64, and her 46-year-old son, Douglas W. Oliver. They were charged Sept. 5 with moving the body of Jessica Williams from their Fairview Heights home and dumping it in Washington Park. An autopsy showed Williams died from a heroin overdose. […]
In addition to being friends for years, McGilvery is also linked to Cook through a 1999 injury liability case where Cook was his lawyer, and in a 2011 drug possession case where Cook was the judge. Cook dismissed the felony drug possession charge in May 2012 after McGilvery completed a drug treatment program.
* And the irony is too thick to be imagined…
The St. Clair County Circuit judge at the center of a drug scandal and charged with heroin possession, handled 90 percent of the circuit’s drug court cases. Judge Michael Cook decided if felons were complying with their rehabilitation efforts. Ironically, it is the judge who is in rehab right now.
* A probation officer was also involved…
On Tuesday, St. Clair County Probation Officer James K. Fogarty, 45, of Belleville, appeared in federal court to answer to charges of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance. He pleaded not guilty and waived his preliminary hearing. He remains in federal custody until a bond hearing set for next week.
During an interview with FBI agent Joe Murphy at Fogarty’s home, Fogarty said he used cocaine with Cook and newly elected Associate Circuit Judge Joe Christ, who was a longtime St. Clair County prosecutor.
Fogarty told Murphy that he sold an “eight ball of cocaine,” or about an eighth of an ounce, to the judges with each paying about $140 apiece. The cocaine was purchased by the judges the day before Christ was found dead at Cook’s family’s hunting cabin in Pike County, Ill. The Pike County sheriff has said that Christ died of cocaine toxicity.
* And that probation officer reportedly squealed…
In asking a judge not to release a former St. Clair County probation officer on bond, a federal prosecutor said the defendant “implicated a number of prominent people up in Belleville and the area around.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney James Porter said the government was concerned that these people might encourage James K. Fogarty, of Belleville, to flee so that he could not further implicate them. He said Fogarty, in his job as a probation officer, committed “a jaw-dropping and extraordinary breach of trust,” and is a flight risk.
* The rot appears to be quite widespread…
The daughter of a former St. Clair County judge was a co-defendant in a drug case against a man who federal prosecutors say provided heroin to another county judge, Michael Cook.
Katherine C. O’Malley, 33, of Belleville, the daughter of retired Circuit Judge Michael O’Malley, is listed as a co-defendant in the 2011 case of Sean McGilvery of Belleville, who was charged with possessing crack cocaine.
Cook, a longtime friend of McGilvery’s, ordered McGilvery to complete a drug treatment class, then dismissed the case.
O’Malley’s case has been expunged and is no longer listed in the circuit clerk’s records, but her attorney, Greg Skinner, said she was ordered to complete drug school, then Circuit Judge John Baricevic dismissed the case on May 23, 2012. It was the same punishment as McGilvery received.
* The US Attorney is expanding the probe…
U.S. Attorney Steve Wigginton told reporters the investigation into who else might be involved is “wide open,” and continues within St. Clair County Courthouse and beyond
* Did that federal probe include a local police chief, who killed himself?…
No one has implicated the late Caseyville police chief J.D. Roth as a suspect in a federal investigation, except Roth himself.
After his June 13 suicide, those close to him told Fairview Heights police that he had been depressed for months about an investigation.
Public records show Roth was arrested on May 8, when state police picked him up on two charges of official misconduct.
Roth shot himself in his back yard, at 9704 Avalon in Fairview Heights..
Ugh.
* Related…
* Departing clerk Delaney faces action over bad debt
* Bound in handcuffs, Belleville woman is interrogated by FBI about Judge Michael Cook
* Judge grants Cook’s motion to continue trial on drug charge; Grand jury returns indictments of McGilvery, Fogarty
* Mothers of women who died from heroin blame Cook: ‘If (he’d) been doing his job …’
* ‘What’s the difference between him and me — the black robe?’: Former addict resents being sent to prison by Cook
* Fallout from Cook case: St. Clair County may expand drug testing
* Accused drug dealer at heart of courthouse scandal won’t go to rehab
* Steven McGlynn named to St. Clair County bench
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A big surprise in the wake of DOMA ruling
Thursday, Jun 27, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The Sun-Times has an excellent roundup of the US Supreme Court DOMA ruling’s impact on Illinois, including this…
Wednesday’s court rulings brought signs of some movement, including within the 20-member House Black Caucus. At the end of May, only five lawmakers in the caucus had publicly committed to voting in favor of the same-sex marriage bill.
State Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago), a vocal critic of Harris’ plan, told the Chicago Sun-Times that she now is “much more inclined” to vote for it because gay couples in other states will now have access to federal benefits but those in Illinois will not.
“I don’t want to hurt their Social Security,” Davis said. “Surely you cannot have people in one state getting Social Security and have people in another who do not. That cannot go.”
Rep. Monique Davis was a harsh, harsh critic of gay marriage. For instance…
Asked if the same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue, Davis didn’t bat an eye.
“Have they ever hung from trees?” she asked. “Were they ever slaves for 500 years, then I don’t think so. I don’t think [the issues are] equal … Simple as that.”
So, obviously, a position change by her would be huge.
* Rep. Ken Dunkin makes a valid point…
“Part of the big challenge with the gay community on this issue is that it’s seen as a white issue,” Dunkin said, adding that activists have yet to create a program to help educate lawmakers and the African-American community about why same-sex marriage is a valid issue.
* Windy City Times…
Many felt the [black] caucus was taken for granted, with two lobbyists hired in the final 48 hours to target Black lawmakers.
Kim Hunt, executive director of Affinity Community Services, also said that Black LGBT leaders were not called on to aide in outreach to Black representatives.
“We could have been educating and mobilizing our constituents,” said Hunt. “We did have some constituents that we knew of that were very interested in going to Springfield. We don’t have the resources for that. There could have been things that we could have done in the Black press, which we tried to do a little bit … but it wasn’t part of a larger strategy. It was just us stepping in because we weren’t seeing anything visible in terms of support marriage equality.”
Hunt and O’Connor were among a group of Black LGBTs to travel to the capitol independent of the coalition to lobby lawmakers.
The lack of African-American outreach in the House and in the districts has been a stupendous failure.
* Related…
* State Sen. Cullerton talks marriage progress in Illinois
* Choking back tears, Tunney urges Il. House to “get its act together” on gay marriage
* Same-sex marriage advocates in Illinois see court ruling as a boost for their cause
* No clear direction on gay marriage in Illinois after court ruling
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* Click here to watch live video of the pension reform conference committee meeting.
* Let’s do some ScribbleLive coverage as well. Blackberry users click here…
* Meanwhile, at first blush, I dismissed this press release yesterday as mere political posturing from a likely gubernatorial candidate…
State Sen. Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) today called on Gov. Pat Quinn and Attorney General Lisa Madigan to publicly testify in front of the recently appointed Conference Committee established to deal with the state’s pension crisis.
“Gov. Quinn said that if he could fix the pension crisis by Executive Order he would. Therefore, Gov. Quinn should appear before the Conference Committee and tell its members what his Executive Order would look like and how his solution to the state’s nearly $100 billion pension crisis would be drafted,” said Dillard. “As Governor, Quinn has not offered his own plan but reacted to the General Assembly. Now it’s time for the Governor to lead and show us his plan.”
Dillard said that as chief legal counsel of Illinois with a staff of attorneys, Attorney General Lisa Madigan should also testify in front of the Conference Committee on the constitutionality of the competing pension proposals being pushed by House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton.
“Importantly, as the state’s chief legal officer Attorney General Madigan should appear before conferees and give legal guidance as to whether Speaker Madigan’s plan or Speaker Cullerton’s plan are able to pass constitutional muster. The Attorney General must have an opinion as to which of the two plans are more constitutional, and she should share this with the Committee,” said Dillard.
But, the more I thought about it, the more this made sense, even considering the partisan source.
As noted below, most legislative committee hearings are far more show than go, and, by the looks of things, this pension reform conference committee will be no different.
So, why not shake things up and heed Dillard’s advice? It couldn’t hurt.
Your thoughts?
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Highway robbery
Thursday, Jun 27, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Have you ever offered something for sale and the buyer agreed to the price right away? It’s happened to me a few times and I’ve always felt stupid, believing - with justification - that I should’ve asked for more.
So, let’s go back to yesterday’s press release from Gov. Pat Quinn on the state’s bond sale…
The state received more than $9 billion in bids Wednesday from 145 investors for $1.3 billion in General Obligation bonds. The average interest rate on the bonds was 5.042 percent.
That $9 billion in offers is seven times the amount of the bond issuance.
* The governor lamented the additional cost of the bonds to taxpayers in that release…
“When I took office, my top priority was to enact the first capital construction plan in 10 years,” Governor Quinn said. “Today’s bond sale ensures that the work continues on much-needed improvements to roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects across Illinois. But legislative inertia has a price, and today the price for taxpayers was an extra $130 million. As I’ve warned repeatedly, this is an emergency. That’s why the General Assembly needs to get the job done by July 9 so we can stop the bleeding, prevent future downgrades and jumpstart Illinois’ economy.”
Totally understandable concern.
* The New York Times adds a bit of context…
States and cities across the nation are starting to learn what Wall Street already knows: the days of easy money are coming to an end.
Interest rates have been inching up everywhere, sending America’s vast market for municipal bonds, a crucial source of financing for roads, bridges, schools and more, into its steepest decline since the dark days of the financial crisis in 2008.
For one state, Illinois, the higher interest rates will add up to $130 million over the next 25 years — and that is for just one new borrowing. All told, the interest burden of states and localities is likely to grow by many billions, sapping tax dollars that otherwise might have been spent on public services. […]
The sell-off in the municipal bond market has followed the general rout in the overall bond market, which was set off when Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, indicated that the strength of the economic recovery might allow the central bank to pull back on its $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program earlier than anticipated.
The Fed was not buying municipal bonds, but the market reacted anyway. Investors expected interest rates to rise, and because prices move in the opposite direction, the values of the municipal bonds they already held dropped.
Investors apparently started selling, not wanting to be the last one out. That caused a flood of bond sales. For the week ended June 19, $3.368 billion flowed out of mutual funds that hold tax-exempt municipal bonds, according to the Investment Company Institute. The outflow for the previous week was $3.236 billion.
Such sell-offs tend to hit the municipal bond market hard because it has many individual investors who buy bonds to hold them, either directly or through mutual funds, rather than financial institutions that trade them quickly.
* So, it’s abundantly clear that Illinois’ bonds most certainly had to be priced yesterday to attract buyers in a crazy market where people were dumping bonds left and right. Totally understandable.
But seven times over-subscribed?
There’s no doubt Illinois would have to pay higher interest rates than other states, but seven times over-subscribed is just ridiculous. The Quinn administration has some real fault here.
* This all reminds me of an old Johnny Rotten quote…
“Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”
I did yesterday.
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Quinn: Act now “or else”
Thursday, Jun 27, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Or else what?…
Illinois Governor Pat Quinn is taking a hard line when it comes to pension reform and refusing to budge from the deadline he set.
The Governor tells CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine that the bill better be on his desk July 9 or else. […]
“It’s disappointing. It’s time for the legislators all 10 of them to get to work,” said Quinn. “I’ve seen conference committees in the past the moment they were appointed they got to work. We’ve passed eight days and tomorrow I guess they are meeting for the first time. I think that have to be put on notice that they people of Illinois expect them by July 9 to have a plan that the members of both house can vote on to reform the pensions.”
“It’s disappointing. It’s time for the legislators all 10 of them to get to work,” said Quinn. “I’ve seen conference committees in the past the moment they were appointed they got to work. We’ve passed eight days and tomorrow I guess they are meeting for the first time. I think that have to be put on notice that they people of Illinois expect them by July 9 to have a plan that the members of both house can vote on to reform the pensions.”
Quinn could hold up capital projects in retaliation, but he’s consistently refused to do that in the past. I asked a top aide months ago whether the governor would be willing to kill construction projects until the GA approved pension reform. I was told Quinn didn’t want to hurt Illinois’ economy further. Not to mention that doing so would deprive a governor in reelection mode an opportunity to cut ribbons.
Could he call them back for more special sessions? Sure. That would be “punishment,” but it would likely be as futile as Rod Blagojevich’s endless summers and probably backfire on him.
* The Tribune agrees with Quinn that the conference committee is moving too slowly…
This committee was supposed to be different. It is the first conference committee, with members from both chambers, formed to address pension reform. The idea behind it was a good one. Get House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton out of the room, and let reform-minded rank-and-file legislators find common ground on the No. 1 issue strangling taxpayers and state budgets.
But Madigan and Cullerton have never been in a rush. It’s clear their appointees aren’t either.
Never mind that the testimony the committee will hear Thursday is the same information lawmakers have been hearing for years. Henry Bayer, executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, doesn’t need to dust off his speech. It’s still fresh from the testimony he gave in May, and before that in March and before that at, literally, dozens of meetings and committee hearings on pensions during the last decade.
Cullerton chose state Sen. Kwame Raoul, Democrat of Chicago, to chair the committee. He’s a smart guy who’s been involved in pension negotiations for months. But he’s a can-kicker. Big foot. Long, sailing punt. Raoul voted against the only bills that would have begun to substantially rescue the retirement funds. And now he’s allowing his committee to meet weekly, or less, based on an opinion from Democratic staff that the committee must give six days’ notice between hearings.
Most public committee hearings mean little to nothing. All the best lobbyists and legislators know this. You do your work behind the scenes and then let the show play out at the hearing.
But these guys just have to scream about something, so here we go again.
* Let’s look at some facts. This paper was written by Marc Joffe of Public Sector Credit Solutions…
When considering the impact of underfunded pensions on Illinois’s solvency, it is worth evaluating the implications of the extreme case, in which the assets of all five systems are exhausted. If that were to happen, the state government would have to cover all benefit payments and administrative expenses from revenues on a pay-as-you-go basis. Offsetting these annual costs would be the contributions withheld from the salaries of current employees and (in the case of the Teacher’s Retirement Fund) school district contributions.
In 2012, the state contributed $4.9 billion to its various pension funds, but it would have been compelled to contribute $6.7 billion if it had been operating on a pay-as-you-go basis… By 2045, the state’s potential burden almost quintuples to $24.6 billion.
It is important to place these numbers into the context of the overall budget picture. According to figures provided to the author by the Institute of Government and Public Affairs (IGPA) Fiscal Futures project, the state’s consolidated revenue was $66.4 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2012 (IGPA, personal communication). The state’s actual pension contributions totaled 7.3 percent of revenue, and would have been 10.0 percent in the absence of pension funding. Thus the debate over pension funding revolves around $1.8 billion, or 2.7 percent, of state revenue—a substantial amount, but not one that would likely trigger insolvency.
Projecting into the future shows some surprising results. While pension costs are expected to increase, state revenues will also rise. In the 31 fiscal years from 1981 to 2012, appropriated state revenues (which approximate consolidated revenue4) increased at an annualized rate of 6.32 percent. This is somewhat higher than the 4.82 percent yearly growth in nominal personal income over the same period, with the difference largely explained by tax hikes imposed during the period. Although revenue growth may be slower over the next three decades (due to lower fertility rates, population aging, and disincentives arising from higher income taxes), it is still likely to be substantial—if for no other reason than simple inflation. Moody’s Analytics (2013) projects that Illinois’s annual personal-income growth will average roughly 4.5 percent through 2021. […]
These revenue growth rates are plausible without further tax increases, since they bracket the Moody’s Analytics forecast of personal-income growth. [Emphasis added.]
It’s more than 2.7 percent of state revenues, because basing this projection on all revenue is misleading. You can’t use Medicaid dollars for pension funding, for instance. You can’t use FOID card application fees for pension funding, either.
But you get the idea.
Joffe also writes convincingly that “Illinois bonds carry very little credit risk.”
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