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Edgar says damage is worse than under Blagojevich

Wednesday, Dec 14, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Former Gov. Jim Edgar is back in the news with an interview on Public Radio’s “The 21st”…

Illinois’ economy will suffer for years because of the ongoing budget stalemate.

That’s according to a man who was once responsible for leading Illinois — former Governor Jim Edgar.

“The damage is … the worst damage I’ve seen. I mean even the bad years of Blagojevich and the image he gave of Illinois, I don’t think has done anything as much damage as we’ve seen.” […]

He says there are huge, long-term consequences of students choosing to attend out-of-state universities. And Illinois businesses are threatened by the government instability.

Maybe that’s what JB Pritzker shoulda said yesterday about the state GOP’s attacks. But, hey, it’s just getting started. More on that in a bit.

61 Comments

Blagojevich arrested eight years ago today

Friday, Dec 9, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Seems like decades ago…

The predawn rousting of Gov. Rod Blagojevich from his Ravenswood Manor home Tuesday marked a stunning climax to a tale of alleged public corruption unmatched in Illinois’ storied history of elected scoundrels and thrust the state into an unprecedented political crisis.

Illinoisans awoke to news that their governor had been arrested, handcuffed and hauled before a federal magistrate on sweeping charges he conspired to sell his office many times over–including putting a price on the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.

U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald said the governor’s actions forced his office to intervene. “Gov. Blagojevich has been arrested in the middle of what we can only describe as a political corruption crime spree,” he said. Fitzgerald said Blagojevich’s “conduct would make [Abraham] Lincoln roll over in his grave.”

The well-coiffed governor, sporting a turtleneck beneath a blue Nike track suit and running shoes, was released on his own recognizance and walked out not only free, but still empowered to make an appointment to the Senate seat federal prosecutors say he tried to corrupt.

“They’re doing well. He’s sad, surprised and innocent,” Blagojevich attorney Sheldon Sorosky told reporters outside Blagojevich’s home Tuesday night.

Throughout the day, the halls of state government in Springfield and Chicago were humming with calls for his resignation or impeachment–and lawmakers planned an emergency session to schedule a special election and to strip the governor of his sole authority to fill the Senate post.

My website as well as those run by the Tribune and the Sun-Times all crashed that morning because of the traffic spike. Such crazy times.

42 Comments

Don’t hold your breath

Wednesday, Aug 17, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Ain’t gonna happen…

Rod Blagojevich and his supporters hope President Barack Obama might consider clemency for the imprisoned former governor.

“Obama certainly has the power to commute (reduce) Blagojevich’s sentence and send him home to his family. The president has two daughters just like Blagojevich and he may have some compassion for him,” says Leonard Goodman, the defense attorney handling the former governor’s appeal of his 2011 corruption conviction.

An online petition asks Obama to grant clemency to the imprisoned former governor. It needs 100,000 signatures by Sept. 9 in order to get the White House’s attention. It has 969 signatures as of Tuesday afternoon. The petition, whose creator is identified only as “A.G.,” was put on the White House’s “We the People” website. […]

“I think he deserved some kind of pardon or diminished sentence, but I don’t think there’s any likelihood that will happen. There are a lot of people out there with much more compelling problems,” says Ed Genson, Chicago’s dean of criminal defense attorneys. […]

“The focus of President Obama’s clemency attention has been on drug offenders and cases of (pardoning) people who have been long out of prison and who are dealing with the adverse effects of having a conviction,” [Margaret Love, a D.C. attorney who specializes in executive clemency issues] says, adding it would be unlikely for Obama “to do anything so unpredictable” as to pardon Blagojevich.

No way is this gonna happen. No way.

Blagojevich and Obama were never close. In fact, Rod left the 2004 Democratic National Convention in a huff because Obama was getting all the media attention. Rod saw himself as Illinois’ rising star, and he never got over the fact that Obama was the one who caught lightning in a bottle. Obama, for his part, mostly kept his distance from Blagojevich. They did share a fundraiser (Tony Rezko), but there wasn’t any other significant overlap to my recollection, so the former governor has nobody with strong Obama connections to make his case. And their families weren’t close, so Obama wouldn’t have a personal feel for their current pain.

Also, Blagojevich was initially convicted of trying to sell Obama’s US Senate seat. A commutation or pardon would be seen by many tinfoil hat types as an admission that Obama was somehow in on it.

Not to mention that US District Judge James Zagel did a pretty good job the other day of explaining why Blagojevich didn’t deserve a reduction in his sentence.

And then there’s the pathetic response to the online petition.

Nope.

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