* A little Humble Pie for all you “Greater Chicagoland Area” folks caught in that wicked storm that’s blowing through. Stay safe, stay dry and, for crying out loud, stay inside. Then turn it up…
* It turns out that Mark Kirk wasn’t a nursery school teacher, as he and his campaign have both claimed. Instead, he apparently assisted a woman who ran a “play group” for kids in a church basement and just played with the kids…
A leader of the church where Representative Mark S. Kirk of Illinois, a Republican candidate for the United States Senate, claimed he worked as a nursery school teacher said on Friday that he had overstated his role there. […]
“He was never, ever considered a teacher,” Ms. Grubb said in an interview after researching the history of Mr. Kirk’s association with the nursery school for two days. “He was just an additional pair of hands to help a primary teaching person.”
The Methodist church in Ithaca, N.Y. has been trying to determine whether Mr. Kirk worked there after The New York Times reported on Thursday about the brevity of Mr. Kirk’s teaching experience. Eight longtime members of the church, including two former pastors, said in interviews this week that they did not recall having a male nursery school teacher in 1981 when Mr. Kirk said he worked there. […]
In an interview on Friday, Ms. Grubb said that she told a representative of the Kirk campaign of her concerns when they reached out to her on Thursday to try to verify Mr. Kirk’s time at the nursery.
Ms. Grubb said she spoke to the teacher who led what was then a “play group” organized by parents that met in the church basement. The teacher had a “vague recollection” of having Mr. Kirk as a work study student, but she did not remember his name. She added that Mr. Kirk did not have any major responsibilities at the play group, such as creating lesson plans, and he was only an assistant who played with the children.
This is what Kirk’s campaign spokesperson was quoted as saying yesterday…
“One of his jobs was a nursery school teacher with the responsibilities one would expect.”
I “expect” a teacher to, you know, teach. Not play with kids.
It just gets weirder and weirder with this guy.
…Adding… I’ve moved this here from a previous post. I do agree with the Giannoulias campaign about this point…
The Kirk campaign did take issue with a portion of The New York Times story that quotes a 2006 speech by Kirk on the House floor about school safety where he recalled “the kids who were the brightest lights of our country’s future” and “those who bore scrutiny as people who might bring a gun to class.”
The New York Times reported that a Kirk campaign spokeswoman said the congressman was referring to his nursery school students - not his students at the London private school. However, campaign spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski said Tuesday, the clause “brightest lights of our country’s future” referred to nursery school students while the “bore scrutiny” clause referred to a few students at the prep school in London.
[Giannoulias campaign spokesman Matt McGrath] countered, “That’s even more absurd. They’ve gone from bizarre to absurd.”
That was a high-class private school in a hoity-toity London neighborhood. There’s just no fathomable way that people were concerned about kids bringing guns to that English prep school in the early 1980s.
Also, will the Sun-Times now retract today’s goofy editorial?
* Alexi Giannoulias needs to remember that just because Mark Kirk is in some hot water these days, that doesn’t mean he is somehow absolved. Statements like this are bound to be attacked…
Giannoulias, who was joined Thursday by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan on a tour of a Chicago community center and at private fundraisers, countered that “the other side” is trying to politicize the economic downturn’s effect on community banks.
There was more to his family bank’s collapse and FDIC seizure than simply ” the economic downturn’s effect on community banks.”
The spokesman said Giannoulias, who also sought an extension for his personal income taxes, wants to have a “more accurate picture of his personal finances, which have changed considerably since the sale of Broadway Bank.”
Sale? Yeah, the bank was sold, but first it failed and was then seized…
DuPage County state’s attorney Joe Birkett claims Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias is deceiving voters by calling the takeover of his family’s bank a sale and criticized him for not releasing financial information. Birkett said Thursday that he was speaking on behalf of Republican Mark Kirk’s U.S. Senate campaign.
Um, Joe, how about practicing those lines before you talk? You rendered those gems useless for the teevee and radio.
And even though the Sun-Times editorial today was based on incomplete information and was, therefore, ludicrous, I still agree with this part…
It comes down to this:
Mark Kirk gets carried away when talking about his accomplishments, but he does have accomplishments to get carried away with. He was in fact a teacher, even if not for long. He is in fact a respected officer in the Navy Reserve.
Giannoulias, in contrast, worked for his dad for four years at the family bank. Then he was elected state treasurer. And this spring, the bank went bust.
[Section deleted and moved to a different post for clarity.]
Giannoulias and Quinn are getting a lower level of support from people who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 than any other Democratic candidates across the country we’ve polled on since the beginning of April, and it’s not even close. Only 50% of Obama supporters are currently committed to voting for Giannoulias and just 48% say they’ll cast their votes for Quinn.
No other Democrat we’ve polled on recently has been getting less than 60% of the Obama vote- the one at that level is Roxanne Conlin, running what has to be seen as an incredibly uphill battle against Chuck Grassley in Iowa. Even politicians with sub 30 approval ratings (Chet Culver at 68%) or who are pretty much completely unknown (Vincent Sheheen at 70%, Rodney Glassman at 65%) are doing a far better job of locking up the Democratic base vote.
There is a partial explanation…
Obama did way better in 2008 here than any Democratic presidential candidate in many a year. He scored a higher percentage than Lyndon Johnson did in 1964, which is pretty darned amazing.
So, as politics returns to a bit more normal level here and voters return to their more traditional behaviors, it’s understandable that Democratic candidates wouldn’t be doing nearly as well with Obama voters as Obama did.
Even so, those numbers are just horrible for both Quinn and Giannoulias. Horrible.
PPP’s most recent national survey found that while Obama had a positive approval rating at 48/47, only 33% of voters were more likely to vote for a candidate endorsed by him while 48% said support from Obama would make them less likely to vote for someone. That’s because only 64% of voters who approve of the President say his endorsement would make them more inclined to vote for a candidate, but 91% who disapprove say Obama’s support makes it less likely they would vote for one of his preferred candidates.
To put into perspective the perils of having Obama out on the campaign trail, consider the numbers in his home state of Illinois. Even there just 26% of voters say they’d be more inclined to back an Obama endorsed candidate while 40% say his support would be more likely to turn them against a candidate. It’s another example where the intensity of feeling about Obama is much stronger on the GOP side- 80% of Republicans say they’re less likely to vote for someone with the President’s support while only 49% of Democrats say they’re more likely to. If Obama’s support isn’t a net positive in Illinois it’s hard to know where he should be deployed.
The Illinois results with the national results in parentheses…
* Do you approve or disapprove of Barack
Obama’s job performance?
53% Approve (48%)
41% Disapprove (47%)
6% Not Sure (5%)
* Are you more or less likely to vote for a
candidate endorsed by President Obama, or
does it not make a difference either way?
26% More likely (33%)
40% Less likely (48%)
34% Doesn’t make a difference either way (17%)
* Are you more or less likely to vote for a
candidate endorsed by Bill Clinton, or does it
not make a difference either way?
25% More likely
38% Less likely
37% Doesn’t make a difference either way
* Do you have a higher opinion of Bill Clinton or
Barack Obama?
32% Bill Clinton
39% Barack Obama
30% Not sure
* Related…
* Whitley adds more praise for Quinn — ‘Breath of fresh air’
* Senator’s e-mail directs donors to call district office: State Sen. Michael Noland of Elgin asked supporters recently to chip in “$25, $50, $75 or $100″ to his campaign via a blast e-mail, then he told them to call his taxpayer-funded district office with any questions.
* Forbes has a new interactive map that shows 2008 population movement by county. Outbound movement is in red, inbound is in black. Here’s Cook County…
* Illinois Debt-Default Insurance Climbs to Record High: “If the spread is the widest, it says the problem is bigger than it’s ever been before,” said Peter Hayes, who oversees $106 billion of municipal bonds for New York-based BlackRock Inc. “It’s a reaction to the inability to pass a budget. We’ve seen a greater unwillingness from Illinois and the market is reacting to that.”
* McCormick Place revitalization plan seems to be working
* Sen. Collins to probe debt broker’s pitch: State Sen. Jacqueline Collins (D-Chicago) is launching an inquiry into a new business that wants to make loans to social social service agencies owed money by the state of Illinois.
* Judge Zagel to Sam Jr.: “Why do you do this?”: With spectators sitting on the edge of their seats, Zagel gave Adam a tongue-lashing for the judicial equivalent of running his mouth off.
* Judge, defense attorney clash at Blagojevich trial: Sam Adam Jr., whose theatrical courtroom presence is at odds with standard federal court decorum, finally got all the way under Zagel’s skin. And the judge responded by lecturing him in front of the jury and once even ordering jurors from the room so he could make a point with the lawyer outside jurors’ presence.
* Blago trial sideshows: Witness decked, sandwiches yanked: [Prosecution witness Joseph] Cari landed on his back and then rolled onto his stomach, according to a WGN-Channel 9 video. He was helped up about 40 seconds later.
The Democratic candidate for the 10th Congressional District seat has been called out for using an old endorsement.
Dan Seals was misleading voters by including a portion of a Daily Herald endorsement as part of a rotating gallery of information on his campaign home page, according to a blogger who follows the action in the 10th.
The endorsement came during the Democratic primary, as Seals dueled two other candidates. He edged state Rep. Julie Hamos for the nomination to face Republican Bob Dold in the November general election. The seat is currently held by Republican Mark Kirk, who is running for U.S. Senate.
“It doesn’t apply today,” said Larry Falbe, a Mettawa trustee and creator of Team America’s 10th District blog.
“This isn’t buried somewhere on an endorsement list. It’s front and center,” added Falbe, a Kirk supporter and volunteer for Dold who has been critical of Seals in the past.
Props to Larry for pushing that story into the mainstream, but the Daily Herald reporter and Larry should’ve both looked at Republican Bob Dold’s website before they launched into their attack on Dan Seals. If they had, they would’ve seen this…
In case you’re a little slow this morning, that would be the exact same “problem” as Seals’ website had. Dold is prominently displaying a Tribune endorsement from the primary.
Oops.
Rob thinks this is an example of media bias. If the reporter knew about the Dold site and didn’t include it in the story, then, yes, it’s bias. But we don’t know yet whether the reporter knew, so that’s why I’ve just labeled this as journalistic laziness. If it’s worse, I’ll get back to you.
* What is it about people these days who see a video camera and don’t immediately think “My stupid overreaction could be seen by thousands of people on YouTube”? Sheesh…
More rough tactics were on display last night in Washington DC as a hotheaded campaign worker for the Alexi Giannoulias campaign for Senator of Illinois confronted a man with a video camera at a fundraising event.
The event took place on the rooftop of an apartment building in Washington DC which is a public space for residents of the building and their guests. The unidentified camera man has stated that he was, in fact, the guest of a friend of his who lives in the building. Even if one stipulates that the campaign had the right to the section of the roof that was set aside for the event, the way in which the situation was handled certainly calls into question the judgement and temperment of the people candidate Giannoulias surrounds himself with.
As seen earlier this week in the outrageous response by Rep. Bob Etheridge to two college students with cameras who asked him if he supported “The Obama Agenda”, Democrats seem more and more reactionary when they see a person with a video camera near by. In the words of a seasoned DC insider: ”The heat is on.”
It’s not nearly as bad as the Etheridge incident, but it’s not good, either. The video…
* The NRSC did a nice job of pushing the video into the public domain by issuing a memo advising campaigns on how to deal with trackers…
After the second clip in a week hit the web showing a confrontation between a Democratic political campaign and a person shooting video, the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent out a memo to its campaigns Thursday reminding them to be sure staffers don’t become “verbally abusive” or “make physical contact” with videographers.
The memo, penned by NRSC Counsel Sean Cairncross and obtained by POLITICO, warns GOP Senate campaigns how to handle video trackers, stating that “this physical confrontation took place less than 72 hours after Democrat Congressman Bob Ethridge was recorded grabbing and placing a chokehold on another videographer.” […]
The NRSC’s memo states that as long as the videographer is “on public property and not actively disrupting” the event, he or she can continue filming. The NRSC recommends that campaigns tell staffers not to insult or threaten or physically touch a videographer, and to “always be polite” with them because “your interaction is likely being recorded.”
“The video attached to the e-mail containing this memorandum is an example of precisely how not to handle a videographer – and has created potential legal liability for both the individuals involved and the Giannoulias campaign,” Cairncross wrote. “Instituting these policies will help your campaign avoid both the political embarrassment and legal exposure that accompany inappropriate responses to videographers.”
Thoughts?
*** UPDATE *** The Giannoulias campaign called to say that they had just one paid staffer at that fundraiser and that nobody in the video was a campaign staffer or a volunteer. They were event attendees, according to the campaign.
Brady, a state senator from Bloomington, also dismissed as Blagojevich-like criticism from his Democratic rival, Gov. Pat Quinn, that an appearance with a member of the Bush family was a sign that Brady would return to the fiscal policies of President George W. Bush.
“It seems to me that this current governor’s hallucinating the same way that the governor on trial is,” Brady said at the Chicago Club.
“He’s talking about raising tax rates on a recessionary economy that’s losing jobs faster than almost every state in the nation. He’s talking about borrowing on the backs of human service providers, educational institutions, colleges, cities and county government. He’s ignored dealing with the budget while he’s gallivanted around the state when we’re in a fiscal crisis,” Brady said.
“He’s a professional naysayer, we know that,” Quinn said of Brady. “All he does is preach doom and gloom, that’s not going to get Illinois out of the economic turmoil that George Bush created. You know, Sen. Brady was a George Bush delegate, he was a cheerleader for George Bush, George W. Bush, and all these policies that ran the American economy into the ditch.”
Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush beat up the Democrats with Jimmy Carter for 12 years, and it worked for about 9 of those 12 (they’ve used it again against Barack Obama with little success). The Democrats successfully used Herbert Hoover against the Republicans for almost two decades.
“W” was horribly unpopular in Illinois pretty much throughout his two terms, but particularly in that second term, when Blagojevich successfully whacked Judy Baar Topinka with a TV ad linking her to the president.
Whether this sort of thing will work in Illinois this year is up for debate, but I would like to see some polling data before making any firm pronouncements.
…Adding… One oppo dump deserves another in the US Senate campaign. From Matt Lewis, a “writer, blogger and commentator based in Alexandria, VA” and via the Kirk campaign…
According to his website, Alexi has taken a hard-line stand against BP, noting “the unreasonably low liability cap could enable BP to evade paying for long-term damages. Alexi supports raising the liability limit under the Oil Spill Prevention Act from $75 million to at least $10 billion.”
Zemenides appears to be working as an unpaid adviser to the campaign, but he is clearly a top counselor to Giannoulias, and is frequently identified as a “top aide” or “political director.”
A groundbreaking partnership which will enable BP to extend and improve its service station network across Europe in a more cost-effective manner has been formalised with Bovis.
Under the partnership agreement - which will run for five years - Bovis will build and maintain BP’s retail sites in Europe and will derive its profit solely from the savings it achieves. By the end of 1997 at least 150 service stations will be built under the new arrangement.
BP is beyond radioactive at the moment, of course, so we’ll see if this former lobbying contract takes hold.
* Related…
* God Apologizes To BP For Putting The Gulf Of Mexico In The Way Of All That Oil
State budget records, however, reveal that 70 percent of the money allocated for the first year [of the capital bill] is still unused, surprising even the Illinois budget director.
“That’s my attitude exactly, what’s the hold up?” said David Vaught, Illinois budget director. […]
“We sold $4 billion in bonds to get the program moving. The money is available, the projects are authorized, as soon as the agencies, the non profits, you know, the hospitals, as soon as they get their grant applications in and get the paperwork done, or as soon as the bids go out, and people bid on the projects, the cash is flowing,” said Vaught.
According to state records, there is almost $3 billion available for approved Illinois projects and the jobs that go with them; $2.61 billion is currently unclaimed by offices and agencies that include:
# Stateville Prison in Joliet: $4.5 for construction of a new prisoner housing unit
# shoreline stabilization at a state park in Lake County: $1 million
# a new heating and air condition system at the Thompson Center: $4 million
# a back up generator at Reed Mental Health Center: $1.4 million
Vaught isn’t just the budget director. He’s the director of Management and Budget. Vaught needs to find out what the “hold up” is today.
And while the unemployment picture improved ever so slightly last month, those capital bill jobs are still desperately needed. From a press release…
The Illinois seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped -0.4 point to 10.8 percent in May, according to data released today by the Illinois Department of Employment Security. The over-the-month decline is the largest since October 1983. The three-month moving average decreased -0.2 point to 11.2 percent in May, its first decline since November 2006. Illinois has added 70,000 jobs so far this year.
Closing in on 60 votes, Senate Democrats trimmed billions more from their once ambitious jobs and economic relief bill Wednesday in hopes of winning over swing Republicans and breaking the stalemate this week.
The spending reductions — estimated near $20 billion — are accompanied by tax changes tailored to the small-business concerns of Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) as well as venture capital and real estate interests with influence in both parties.
In the bargaining now, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, up for reelection in cash-strapped Nevada, is still holding onto a $24 billion, six-month extension of federal Medicaid assistance from January to June next year.
The money is vital to the finances of states like Reid’s, hit hard by the economic downturn, and he has the support of President Barack Obama. But the cost of the Medicaid funding makes the program an easy target, and the dollars may still have to be scaled back to win the swing vote of Snowe’s fellow Maine Republican, Sen. Susan Collins.
U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Peoria, who’s been featured in GQ magazine and whose six-pack abs were featured in a photograph that made the rounds on the Internet, got another dash of pictorial publicity this month — to which he has reacted.
Gawker.com posted a picture of the congressman at a White House picnic last week in which Schock was wearing bright white pants, a tight red-and-white shirt with cuffs neatly rolled up, and a teal belt.
Schock responded this week on his Twitter account, twitter.com/repaaronschock: “Never thought a pic of me w/ my shirt on would go viral. Learned my lesson and burned the belt.”
The pic…
* The Question: Caption?
And make extra sure that you keep it clean. Violators will be banned for eternity. That’s a very long time, in case you were wondering.
* As we already know, Gov. Pat Quinn’s campaign was in Bloomington yesterday for a counter-rally during Jeb Bush’s fundraiser for state Sen. Bill Brady. The Quinnsters were decked out in buttons displaying a message that will surely be a theme for the rest of the campaign…
“Bill will have a big challenge in front of him, but leadership matters and I have confidence he has some big ideas and can restore growth to Illinois,” he said.
Brady said that in order to get Illinois finances back in order, the state must change its philosophy.
“We have to start living within our means,” Brady said. “We have to live up to our obligations, but we don’t have enough funding for schools, human resource providers and county governments.”
The economy also was the focus of Simon’s speech, and she wasn’t shy about taking shots at Brady’s featured guest. Brady’s private event featuring Bush required $500 per ticket.
“Our event was free and open to the public, and we drew a huge crowd,” Simon said. “This is Bill Brady’s hometown and yet it’s obvious that people want to hear our message and want to support our cause.”
* In a long, torturous opinion, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals decided yesterday that Illinois is supposed to hold a special election to fill the US Senate seat vacancy created when Barack Obama was elected president…
As the case now stands, the plaintiffs take the position that the Seventeenth Amendment requires Governor Quinn to issue a writ of election calling an election to fill President Obama’s vacancy in the Senate, and the state is arguing that he is under no such obligation. Our analysis of the Seventeenth Amendment convinces us that the plaintiffs have shown a strong likelihood of success on the merits. The governor has a duty to issue a writ of election to fill the Obama vacancy. That writ must include a date, but it appears that the Illinois legislature has provided only one date from which Governor Quinn may choose: November 2, 2010.
But the court also ruled that the plaintiffs did not make their case that they would be irreparably harmed if an injunction ordering the governor to call a special election is denied…
The fact that the plaintiffs leave us essentially in the dark about the irreparable harm that they confront makes it impossible for us to conclude that the district court abused its discretion when it denied the preliminary injunction.
The conclusion…
There is still time for the governor to issue a writ of election that will call for an election on the date established by Illinois law and that will make it clear to the voters that they are selecting a replacement for Senator Obama. The district court can easily reach and resolve the merits of this request before any of the harm that the plaintiffs forecast comes to pass. Moreover, circumstances change: Governor Quinn might issue a writ of election tomorrow, or next week.
Go figure.
*** UPDATE *** I couldn’t access NBC5’s site for a while this morning, so I didn’t see this one until now. Mary Ann Ahern looks at the Scott Lee Cohen race…
Election lawyer Burt Odelson says he’s not a betting man, but he doesn’t think Scott Lee Cohen will have enough valid signatures to get on the ballot for governor in November.
Furthermore, Odelson says established case law effectively negates Cohen from even running.
“This is a case of what we call a case of ‘first impression,’” he said. “If you partook in the primary, you couldn’t change parties during the election cycle and switch over to another party.” […]
But Odelson contends that anyone who voted or took part in the last primary will also be knocked off. And he said that limitation extends to those collecting signatures: prove the collector is ineligible and all the signatures they’ve acquired are also deemed invalid.
“I would like to know what his reasoning is,” Cohen later questioned. “I took the time to research the candidate’s handbook for 2010. There was nothing in there stating that. In fact, it clearly, in black and white says that if you signed a position in the primary for a candidate, whether it’s Democrat or Republican, you are still able to sign the ballot of an Independent during the General.”
I’ve heard these arguments as well and I suspect Cohen will be tied up in court for a while if he has enough valid signatures to make the ballot, which isn’t exactly guaranteed, either.
* Related…
* ADDED: State Sen. Michael Noland has come under fire for an e-mail that his private campaign sent out that asks for donations and also lists his taxpayer-funded Springfield and Elgin offices… “One would think that the federal corruption trial of former Gov. Blagojevich would remind Sen. Noland to show some regard for ethical standards,” Cudney said. “Instead, Sen. Noland seems to have an ongoing problem making the important distinction between his state duties and his political activities.”
* ADDED: Gov. Pat Quinn signed legislation Wednesday that is set to assist Illinois workers during economic recessions. The new law declares that all state-funded public works projects must employ Illinois workers to make up 90 percent of the project’s workforce during periods of high unemployment, defined as a jobless rate of 5 percent or more for two consecutive months. Projects receiving state funds or funds that are administered by the state also must adhere to the new law.
* Compromised Care: Nursing home part-owned by state lawmaker may lose its license: State health authorities have moved to revoke the license of a southwest suburban nursing home part-owned by state Sen. Heather Steans because of repeated citations for serious patient neglect. Steans does not have any operational role in the facility, Evergreen Health Care Center in Evergreen Park, and the Chicago Democrat said she has drawn little or no income from what she described as her small ownership stake in companies that manage the home.
* Bernard Schoenburg: Rutherford rolls out unconventional Facebook page: I’m writing about the Facebook page of Pongee — Rutherford’s car, a Pontiac G6.
*** UPDATE *** As pretty much everybody suspected, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush today flat-out denied that a very goofy Blagojevich-circle plot ever reached him. The plot involved having former football star Bernie Kosar contact Jeb Bush about a presidential pardon for Chris Kelly. From NBC5…
Bush denied the claim.
“It would be humorous if it wasn’t so tragic,” Bush said. “Only in Chicago.”
Zagel fell short of slapping a muzzle on the blabby Blagojevich, calling a gag order a last resort. But he took issue with the defendant’s comments in a news conference Tuesday about the testimony of a key government witness. Blagojevich called former aide Lon Monk a liar and said Monk brought shame to his family.
“It is an appeal to sympathy, which is something you are not permitted to do with the jury,” Zagel said. “I do have significant concerns.”
Zagel told the defense and the prosecution to come up with agreed guidelines by Monday on what can be said outside of court.
The prosecution’s motion is here. More from Zagel…
Judge James Zagel told lawyers the issue concerns him. He said news shows include “fairly quick cuts” that are hard for jurors to avoid when they turn on the TV. Zagel says Blagojevich’s comments were “essentially a kind of backhanded plea for sympathy,” and the judge says that kind of defense is not allowed by law.
Moments after Zagel’s decision to hold off for now on a gag order, Blagojevich was back outside the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse glad-handing and posing for cell-phone pictures with passers-by who appeared stunned to be running into a celebrity on Dearborn Street. Blagojevich thanked each one and stopped to give his autograph before stepping toward a waiting car.
The controversy over recent statements of Blagojevich and his lawyers was the latest culture clash between federal prosecutors, who want the trial to proceed with machine-like precision, and Blagojevich’s defense team, schooled in the razzle-dazzle legal style of Chicago’s Criminal Courts Building.
At “26th and Cal,” showmanship is the norm. Murder defendants there have been known to pass around a single pair of reading glasses to wear at trial in the belief it would make them appear less threatening to a jury.
In potentially crucial testimony Wednesday, prosecution witnesses described a mechanism of multiple transfers and deposits that allegedly involved Blagojevich’s inner circle. Prosecutors put up a colorful chart with arrows, dates and cash figures that purported to show a trail of money.
Blagojevich’s name did not appear, though former fundraisers Chris Kelly and Tony Rezko did. Blagojevich has pleaded not guilty to scheming to sell President Barack Obama’s former U.S. Senate seat.
The name of President Obama came into play this afternoon at the political corruption trial of former governor Rod Blagojevich as an associate of political fund-raiser Tony Rezko testified that Rezko asked him to write a $10,000 check to Friends of Obama.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported in January 2008 that Glenview businessman Joseph Aramanda, who is testifying today, made the donation as part of a scheme orchestrated by Rezko.
Aramanda gave $10,000 in campaign cash to Obama’s U.S. Senate campaign on March 5, 2004, according to records. The money came from part of a finder’s fee Aramanda received, but did no work for, thanks to Rezko.
The allegation is the first time Obama has been linked to Rezko through first-hand sworn testimony at the corruption trial.
Former Democratic national fund-raiser Joseph Cari — who once was presidential candidate Al Gore’s top fund-raiser — is back on the witness stand this morning. He’s discussing a New York fund-raising trip he helped arrange for then-Gov.-Blagojevich in 2003, as well as the alleged shakedown of an East Coast investment-banking firm, JER Partners, in 2004.
Prosecutors are using Cari’s testimony to try to show jurors how Blagojevich and his top fund-raisers were trying to control consulting fees tied to state teacher-pension investments in exchange for campaign contributions and kickbacks.
In a speech on the House floor on Sept. 19, 2006, as he talked about school safety, Mr. Kirk spoke about “the kids who were the brightest lights of our country’s future, and I also remember those who bore scrutiny as people who might bring a gun to class.”
Perhaps even worse, nobody from Kirk’s staff could provide documentation that he actually worked at the nursery…
The campaign did not provide verification, and it could not be independently confirmed. A longtime member of the church who had a son in the nursery around the same time said she did not recall any male teachers.
The conservatives are gonna love this one. The chapel appears to be a very liberal house of worship. From its “Who we are” page…
We joyfully receive for ourselves and others the blessings of community, sexuality, marriage and the family.
We commit ourselves to the rights of men, women, children, youth, young adults, the aging, and people with disabilities; the improvement of the quality of life; and the rights and dignity of racial, ethnic and religious minorities.
We believe in the right and duty of persons to work for the glory of God and the good of themselves and others, and in the protection of their welfare in so doing; the rights to property as a trust from God; collective bargaining and responsible consumption; and the elimination of economic and social distress.
In a House Budget Committee hearing five years earlier, shortly after Mr. Kirk arrived in Congress, he talked about his time as “a teacher, both nursery and middle school.” He added, “I did leave the teaching profession, but if we had addressed some of the teacher development issues, which I want to raise with you, I might have stayed.”
Mr. Kirk left Milestone College in 1983 and began working on the staff of an Illinois congressman, John Porter, the following year and did not return to teaching.
Milestone College, a prep school, was in London, England. Not in the United States. He worked there a year after he finished his master’s degree.
* We are now in some very bizarre, dark territory in this US Senate campaign.
Mark Kirk is an accomplished, decorated Naval veteran who blew that reputation out of the water with unfathomable exaggerations about his military record. He’s an intellectual graduate of the London School of Economics who lied about his experience with liberal nursery school students carrying guns.
These accusations against Mark Kirk are no longer about mere “embellishments” or “exaggerations.” This campaign is now about whether anything he says is true, and why.
* By the way, the NYT article was perfectly timed. The Illinois Education Association is holding endorsement meetings with both Kirk and Alexi Giannoulias this week. The IEA endorsed Kirk in the primary, but not Giannoulias. If this latest NYT story kills the IEA nod for Kirk, it’ll be yet another headache for that embattled campaign.
…Adding… From a morning press release…
After one month of waiting for Alexi Giannoulias to file his Personal Financial Disclosure with the Senate Ethics Committee, the Kirk for Senate campaign today called on Alexi Giannoulias to tell voters the truth about what happened to Broadway Bank and end his “Blagojevich-style” concealment tactics with regard to his personal finances.
In a statement to the Chicago Tribune yesterday explaining why Mr. Giannoulias failed to file his ethics disclosure on May 17th, the Giannoulias campaign said the candidate wants to have a “more accurate picture of his personal finances, which have changed considerably since the sale of Broadway Bank.”
*** UPDATE 1 *** From an Illinois GOP press release…
The New York Times rebutted accusations by Alexi Giannoulias’ campaign that Congressman Mark Kirk had not been a teacher. The Times’ London Bureau confirmed reports that Mark Kirk did serve as a full-time teacher at the Milestone School in London for the academic year 1982-1983. In addition, Kirk worked as a nursery school teacher in Ithaca, New York as part of his senior-year work-study program at Cornell University.
“While Mark Kirk has worked as a teacher and backed education reforms in Congress, Alexi Giannoulias wiped out $70 million in Bright Start college savings,” Kirk campaign spokesperson Kirsten Kukowski said. “When it comes to education, Illinois voters have an easy choice in this election.”
This release is nonsensical. The Giannoulias campaign didn’t say that Kirk had not been a teacher. But notice that they still have not provided any confirmation about that nursery school gig.
*** UPDATE 2 *** This is what passes for “analysis” at NBC5’s blog…
In his effort to catch Kirk in another lie, Giannoulias overreached and exposed a piece of Kirk’s biography that adds to the breadth of his experience. Teaching — especially nursery school — is not a pursuit normally associated with conservatives. It also shows a side of Kirk quite opposed to the he-man Naval officer he’s been trying to portray himself as.
Yeah. That’s the “real” take-away here. Kirk was a nursery school teacher.
The only reason I even mention that goofy piece is because the Kirk campaign sent it over a few minutes ago.
* Years ago, I was a regular on Mike Wilson’s WMAY talk show in Springfield, mainly on Wednesday afternoons when the station would broadcast from a downtown studio connected to a tavern. I was on his last show before he was laid off, but I wasn’t the reason. The station made the move because of financial pressures.
Mike was a young phenom. He was one of the youngest radio producers in Chicago when he worked for WLS, then was the Statehouse Bureau Chief for WMAY at the tender age of 21. He won the ACLU’s 2008 Ethel Gingold award for defending free speech rights while on the air.
Mike ended up on the Senate Democratic staff. But he left two years ago and is now doing stand-up comedy and writing in Chicago.
* In other “Mike” news, my former cartoonist Mike Cramer’s award-winning film Dear Mr. Fidrych is playing at the Acorn Theater in Three Oaks, Michigan on June 27th at 3 o’clock Eastern Time. Mike says the town is about an hour and a quarter from the Loop. If we can get enough people to go, I could easily be talked into a road trip.
It’s 1976 in Detroit. Twelve-year-old Marty Jones is intellectual and poetic. But, in his final year of youth baseball, he desperately wants to ascend to his local youth league’s ‘majors’ and star as a pitcher. Marty blows tryouts and finds himself mired on a terrible team in the youth league minors.
When Bird-mania hits, Marty is motivated by the overnight success of the Detroit Tigers’ quirky rookie sensation, Mark ‘The Bird’ Fidrych. Marty writes a poem to the Detroit Tigers’ star, and Fidrych unexpectedly writes back, propelling Marty on a winning streak.
Thirty years later, Marty is a Chicago advertising executive muddling through a mid-life slump. His wife is thinking of leaving him; he barely knows his son; his career is faltering; and he can’t find the inspiration to write new poems.
Can a father-son road trip in search of Mark ‘The Bird’ Fidrych help Marty reconnect with his family and his youthful optimism? Who will be the hero of Marty’s own life?
The film features a poignant performance by the late Mark Fidryich, who died in a tragic accident in April 2009, just as the film was nearing completion.
* And while we’re plugging things, Sen. Rickey Hendon is about to release his second book in a year. This one is called Backstabbers: The Reality of Politics. From a press release…
Rickey Hendon is the illustrious Democratic state senator from Illinois’ fifth senatorial district—located on the west side of Chicago—who has served as assistant majority leader in that chamber for the last ten years. As a professional politician, political consultant and active campaign manager for numerous political contests, Hendon brings his considerable insider’s perspective to bear in this lively and informative book just in time for election season.
In Backstabbers, Hendon teaches the nuts and bolts of all aspects of political campaigns. It is the ultimate political handbook for winning elections; written by someone who practices what he preaches. Hendon has been an elected official since 1988 and has won an astounding 16 elections over his extensive career.
Hendon describes the petition process—getting on the ballot while knocking your opponent off—and details the different strategies for not only beating out the competition, but destroying it. He is a winner because of his people skills, his dedicated organization and his remarkable ability to motivate voters, and his book is sure to be a valuable resource to fans of politics and future politicians alike.
Senator Rickey Hendon lives in Chicago and is the author of Black Enough/White Enough: The Obama Dilemma. He has also spent time as a film producer and actor.
It’s the film that I really want to see. So far, no luck in convincing Rickey to re-release it.
…Adding… I forgot to add that a former college classmate of mine Amy Dean is promoting her best-selling book, A New New Deal: How Regional Activism Will Reshape the American Labor Movement, via a “Webinar”…
This compelling webinar complements the vision and strategic plan that forms the basis of her book. Using case studies, Amy will demonstrate how this model has already started to show tremendous results for workers and the progressive movement around the country. Amy’s message on doing labor organizing and politics differently – focused on building a larger, sustainable grassroots base and stronger progressive collaboration – will get you energized and inspired to take the next steps.
Sign up today to take the first step toward developing and executing a practical plan for real change in your community.
An autographed copy of A New New Deal: How Regional Activism Will Reshape the American Labor Movement ($29.95 value) is included in the webinar package, arming you with everything you need.
…Adding More… My Statehouse office-mate John Patterson of the Daily Herald has accepted a position with the Illinois Senate Democrats. Best of luck, John!
Anybody else out there wanna plug something? Have at it.
Illinois Governor Pat Quinn is his own worst enemy. 50% of Illinois voters disapprove of him, while only 27% of voters approve and 23% have no opinion. His opponents are generally unknown. 56% of voters have yet to form an opinion of Republican Bill Brady and 80% are unsure of Green Party candidate Rich Whitney.
In a horserace Brady comes out on top with 34% of the vote, even though he is unknown amongst a majority of voters. Governor Quinn follows with 30% and Whitney receives a meager 9%. This may be a sign of people voting against Quinn, not for Brady.
It appears that Governor Quinn has not recovered from his primary battle. 62% of Democrats either disapprove (37%) or have no opinion (25%) of their party’s nominee.
While the same is true for Brady—62% of Republicans either disapprove or have no opinion of their party’s nominee—only 10% of Republicans have an unfavorable opinion of Brady. Quinn has an uphill battle, as he has to regain the support of Democrats who know him and dislike him. Brady simply has to get his name out.
* Quinn is only getting 51 percent of the Democratic vote, which is just plain horrible…
And check out how badly the governor is doing with women voters…
Racial breakdown…
This is what you’d call an extremely unmotivated Democratic electorate.
Quinn’s numbers really haven’t changed much at all over the course of the three Illinois polls PPP has conducted this year. The chances of his actually convincing Illinois voters they like him by November do not seem very good. But he can make voters in this strongly Democratic state think that Brady is an even worse alternative and there’s a lot of room for him to make that argument with most voters not yet having formed an opinion about the GOP nominee.
Green Party candidate Rich Whitney, who got 10% of the vote in 2006, is polling at 9% in this poll. It will be interesting to see if he can keep up that level of support. Rod Blagojevich’s reelection was pretty much a foregone conclusion by election day last time so disaffected Democrats could safely cast a vote for Whitney without it resulting in the election of a Republican Governor. It doesn’t look like that will be the case this time and Whitney could see an erosion in support if Democrats who don’t like Quinn still end up voting for him because they feel the need to keep Brady from being elected.
Brady is still favored here but he is not strong enough on his own merits as a candidate for this race to turn into a blowout. It should be competitive into the fall.
Smokers in Kane County can breathe easy now that county board members snuffed out a call for a ban on outdoor smoking Tuesday.
The county began researching a potential ban after a private citizen from Aurora approached the county board’s development committee last month. Stacy Blaszak told the committee members she has a respiratory condition and outdoor smoking often impinges on her right and need to breathe as well as compromises her health and the health of babies and pets.
County staffers spent the last month researching any precedent for an outdoor smoking ban. At the most, communities have addressed the issue by inserting a clause into their public nuisance laws to address any unusual circumstances involving smoking, the staff reported. Development Director Mark VanKerkhoff said even organizations with missions to curb smoking said they only get a few of inquiries a year about how to institute an outdoor or residential smoking ban.
* The Question: Could you support a ban on smoking outdoors in your town? Explain.
* Over a week ago, Gov. Pat Quinn said he believed he had “three or four” Republican votes to pass the pension borrowing plan in the Senate. As you know already, the House passed the bill last month with two GOP votes, but it stalled in the Senate when two Dems expressed opposition.
A couple of days later, Quinn said that Senate President Cullerton had enough Democratic votes to pass the borrowing bill on his own. Cullerton has 37 Democrats and the bill requires a super-majority of 36. Cullerton’s office said Quinn was dreaming.
Yesterday, Quinn again said he believed the Senate had enough votes to pass the borrowing bill and said the chamber would return at the end of this month…
“They want to do it on the last day of the month, so be it.”
Trouble is, the Senate has no plans to return at the end of this month because the votes are still not there…
But a spokeswoman for the Senate President says there’s no plan to make lawmakers return to the capitol.
I’m getting whiplash from all this back and forth.
“They have to get their vacations and all this and that in order. But I expect them by the end of the month to come together. I mean this is what government is about. If you get sworn into office to protect the common good and carry out the public interest, then you have to be there when it counts.”
Like Blagojevich before him, Quinn is trying to deflect his problems onto the General Assembly. And like Blagojevich, Quinn may not fully realize that the governor always wears the jacket…
The executive director of the Elgin-based Community Crisis Center would rather help victims of domestic abuse than side with a party or endorse a specific agenda.
But Tuesday, crisis center supporters unfurled a large banner saying that the state owes the center $327,928 and people should call Gov. Pat Quinn’s office at (800) 642-3112 to protest.
It was a last resort move by Vapnar who, like many social service agency heads, has been pushed to the brink by the state budget mess.
“It’s like dominoes,” she said. “If one of us goes down, all of us are affected.”
Faced with a deficit projected to be at least $427 million, Board of Education members gave unanimous approval at an emergency meeting on Tuesday to resolutions that will allow CEO Ron Huberman to raise class sizes to 35 students and still pay teacher raises promised in the union contract. […]
Huberman stressed that he doesn’t know exactly how much he will have to cut because Gov. Pat Quinn has yet to sign the state budget. Also, the Legislature gave Quinn the power to make changes in the budget.
“This could be good for us or not so good,” Huberman said. Quinn could decide to keep education funding level, which would reduce CPS’ budget gap by $127 million, or make cuts.
Another big question mark is whether and when the state will pay out what it already owes CPS for this year. That amount now stands at more than $400 million, prompting Huberman to ask the board for the power to borrow $800 million. He explained it as a short-term loan that the district will pay back as soon as they get the money from the state.
* Village still reaping tax revenue for residents who left: A new state law could determine how much shared tax revenue the new village of Campton Hills is entitled to collect from the state. The county says it’s collecting part of the county’s share.
“I think I could beat the president running for governor in Illinois today,” Brady, a state senator, said during a visit to Washington this week, pointing to Obama’s record on government spending.
Bravado is one thing, but that’s something quite different.
* Gov. Pat Quinn is sending unpaid state interns to attend and monitor the Blagojevich trial. Here’s the Quinn statement issued to WBEZ…
“Unpaid interns from our legal staff have been attending the Blagojevich trial on a regular basis. The reason is twofold: trial observation is often a requirement of internships for law students, and the interns who attend the trial can provide our legal staff with recaps on any testimony relating to current State government.”
The question becomes whether their daily reports are getting to the campaign. I’ll check.
* The Democratic Governors Association has removed an Internet ad that may have violated the General Assembly’s rules. The ad featured footage apparently from the official GA website of a House proceeding. The House footage was used to illustrate Sen. Bill Brady’s hundreds of missed Senate votes. But the House has a policy against using the footage without permission, and the campaign never received that permission…
In addition to the General Assembly’s policy, state law clearly prohibits the use of public resources for political purposes. The use of this footage in a political ad could fall into a gray area, said Ronald Michaelson, a political consultant and former executive director of the Illinois State Board of Elections.
“This is a little obtuse, but I suppose one could argue this was public material,” he said. “This was footage produced by a public agency.”
Frankly, this is a goofy policy. There is a “Fair Use Doctrine” in this country, and I really doubt the House can legally prevent anyone from using the video. There is, however, a “gentleman’s agreement” to not use the video in campaigns to avoid embarrassing anybody. And that’s what is really at stake here.
…Adding… I forgot to post a video from the Quinn campaign. As you may know, Quinn signed AT&T’s deregulation bill yesterday during a Chicago ceremony. He received plaudits from all involved, including a somewhat unlikely source: Illinois Chamber of Commerce President Doug Whitley. Here’s Whitley…
*** UPDATE *** I told subscribers about this earlier today, but the Tribune now has a story online about how Rod Blagojevich is caught on tape dissing his former bigtime contributor Blair Hull…
…Blagojevich was sitting in his house with the “golden” opportunity to appoint whoever he wanted as a U.S. Senator. Hull, who unsuccessfully ran for Senate in 2004 against Barack Obama, was calling around to people close to Blagojevich to see if he had a shot to get the seat this time.
He didn’t. But Blagojevich didn’t want him to know that.
So just before 11 a.m. on Nov. 1, 2008 – even before Obama won the presidency – Blagojevich was on the phone with his brother, Robert, asking him to get another $100,000 in contributions from Hull, for whom the governor clearly had little respect.
“Blair Hull actually thinks he can be senator, you believe this guy?” Blagojevich is overheard on a federal wiretap of his home phone telling his brother, who laughs.
Adam worked to undo the damage Monk had done over three days on the stand.
Monk leveled severe allegations against his old law school roommate and boss, including that Blagojevich was in on meetings in which associates plotted to make hundreds of thousands of dollars off of state deals.
In one exchange Tuesday, Adam asked Monk if he recalled additional details about his testimony that Monk, Blagojevich and fund-raisers Tony Rezko and Christopher Kelly met secretly to set up ways to split up money from state deals.
Probing for increasing levels of detail, Adam designed his questions so that time and again, Monk could only offer the same reply: “I don’t remember.”
“This is the first time you all sit down and agreed to commit crimes together and you can’t remember?” Adam shouted.
Monk, a longtime friend and top aide to Blagojevich, had testified that Rezko was the instigator and the one who was going to be the keeper of the cash, including $500,000 that allegedly was diverted from the 2003 sale of $10 billion in state bonds designed to shore up Illinois pension systems.
But under questioning from Adam, Monk acknowledged that he knew nothing about where the money he supposedly was going to get was being held.
“You can’t tell us the name on the account?” Adam asked Monk, who agreed. “You can’t even tell us the state the account was held in?”
“What if Rezko dies?” Adam continued. “You don’t know where the money is. What if Rezko is arrested? You can get the money, can you?”
Rezko associate Bob Kjellander worked as a lobbyist for Bear Sterns during the bond sale and was awarded more than $800,000 for helping secure the contract, according to Vincent Mazzaro, an accountant for the investment firm at the time of the sale.
Kjellander also has been a longtime player in Springfield Republican politics, serving as a committeeman on the Republican National Committee until he stepped down in September 2008.
But the government’s case is a complicated one.
Prosecutors allege that Blagojevich increased the size of the [pension bond] contract in addition to rigging it, in order to increase Kjellander’s profits.
Mazzaro testified Kjellander would receive “success fees” based on how much money Bear Sterns received from the deal. Those fees increased when the state decided to unload all $10 billion on June 5, 2003, rather than the three installments as was originally intended.
But the defense argues the decision was influenced by economics, rather than greed. Prosecution witness and former Illinois Director of Debt Management David Able affirmed that notion during cross examination.
Interest rates were at 5.05 percent in early June, the lowest in more than 30 years. Able said it was good economics for the state to issue bonds when interest was low and would benefit future returns on investment.
Prosecutors appear to be trying to link money that was in Aramanda’s account to earlier testimony, which indicated that more than half a million dollars was routed through Kjellander from a state pension bond deal and eventually was to be divvied up between Rezko, Blagojevich and two other associates. […]
Aramanda planned to use the money to rebuild a pizza business which he’d bought from Rezko.
Instead, Aramanda testified that once Rezko helped arrange for the loan, he turned around and demanded the money.
Aramanda said Rezko forced him to use the money to settle a $475,000 debt Aramanda still owed Rezko from Aramanda’s pizza franchise purchase.
Aramanda ended up paying $461,000 to people to whom Rezko owed money, he said. He said he used the rest of the money to try to help his pizza restaurants stay afloat.
Then, in April 2004, Kjellander called Aramanda wanting the one-year loan repaid early.
That’s when, according to Aramanda, Rezko arranged for another loan to him — from Jay Wilton, a California developer who’d recently been awarded a deal to operate oases for the Illinois Tollway. Wilton also was a major Blagojevich campaign contributor.
Aramanda used the Wilton loan to repay Kjellander the $600,000, plus another $24,000, which was presumably interest.
OK, so the original loan was used to pay off Rezko’s debts. Then Aramanda got another loan from Wilton to repay Kjellander. So, my question is, where is the money that the “cabal of four” were supposed to divvy up? There appears to have been a plan to do so, but it doesn’t look like they ever got the cash, unless those pay-back recipients kicked it all back to Rezko. Then again, a conspiracy is alleged. Not necessarily a result.
* Roundup…
* Suit against Blago aides by fired workers going to trial: Sixteen former state workers fired during an alleged partisan purge under impeached former Gov. Rod Blagojevich cleared a major legal hurdle Tuesday after a federal judge ordered that their lawsuit against three Blagojevich appointees proceed to trial.
