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UPDATE: AP:
One of the jurors at former Gov. George Ryan’s racketeering and fraud trial appealed to the judge to protect her from “shouting profanity and personal attacks'’ within the jury room, according to transcripts of meetings among lawyers that were unsealed Friday.The complaint came in a March 20 note to Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer from juror Evelyn Ezell of Chicago who was later dismissed and replaced with an alternate juror for an unrelated reason.
“Do I have to accept being called derogatory names, shouting profanity and personal attacks?'’ Ezell said. “Can you please address this issue because this has been going on for the last couple of days.'’
Pallmeyer sent jurors a note directing them to “treat one another with dignity and respect'’ but one day later rejected a motion for a mistrial from Ryan’s attorneys, who said the note showed that Ezell was being coerced or intimidated into reaching a verdict.
Pallmeyer said there was no sign that Ezell would be intimidated.
The judge later dismissed Ezell from the jury after finding she had checked “no'’ on a jury questionnaire when asked if she had ever been involved in criminal proceedings. Court records showed she had brushes with the law although she had never been convicted.
· Here’s that Keith Olbermann bit I told you about this morning. (Video is here and Larry has more)
The reason prosecutors describe an official as an official A is when there‘s pejorative information about that person, and the person has not yet been indicted and had a chance to defend themselves. But we‘ve looked at prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald‘s record as far as designating people as official A or official B, and in every single case we have found, Keith, that prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, when he designates somebody as official A in an indictment, that person eventually does get indicted themselves.
· RRS: Topinka blames gov for ‘dysfunctional’ state
· Tribune: Guv’s `Straight Talk’ ad not quite straight
· Mike Lawrence: What lesson was George Ryan to draw when editorial writers and lawmakers of both parties applauded him for engineering a major infrastructure program predicated on revenue increases he pooh-poohed while campaigning?
· Whig: Questions about how to proceed with selecting a replacement for U.S. Rep. Lane Evans have been sent to the Illinois State Board of Elections and probably will be forwarded to the Illinois attorney general.
· Kadner: Daley wins as suburbs continue to squabble
· Mixing drinks — and history
· Beachwood Reporter: You get the feeling that the Chicago Tribune, which got the ball rolling when it discovered criminal cases in the backgrounds of two jurors in the George Ryan trial who were then dismissed, would now just like to see the whole mess go away.
· BGA react to Ryan verdict
· God Bless the Patriot Guard Riders
· Rep. Yarbrough introduces impeachment resolution
· Illinois’ Dirty Little Secret
UPDATES:
· AP: Walter Jacobson, a Chicago television news anchor, reporter and commentator for nearly 40 years, is leaving WFLD-TV, the station announced Friday. The 68-year-old Jacobson was the lead anchor at the Fox-owned station’s “Fox News at 9″ from 1993 until he was replaced in 2004 by Mark Suppelsa. Since then he has hosted a Sunday morning news and analysis program and has given commentaries on the 9 p.m. news show.
· Smashing Pumpkins back in studio
TIME-KILLER UPDATES:
· Bluetooth laser virtual keyboard. Wow.
· Perfect for old press releases (or new ones, for that matter).
· Beatles Catalog to be Offered on iTunes
· Todd? Is that you?
posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Apr 21, 06 @ 1:36 pm
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I was a tad rude to the Trib on Eric Zorn’s blog, but it did seem like he was ducking the question about how the Trib came to investigate this story.
Comment by Carl Nyberg Friday, Apr 21, 06 @ 1:53 pm
I’ll be tracking individual legislator’s positions on the impeachment resolution on Proviso Probe.
For those of you that think Congress should actually fulfill its duties to check presidential power I encourage you to contact your legislators and ask ‘em to co-sponsor the Yarbrough impeachment resolution. Let me know what each of ‘em says.
Comment by Carl Nyberg Friday, Apr 21, 06 @ 1:57 pm
As if the Republicans in the General Assembly don’t have enough problems as is; now they face the prospect of having to defend George Bush and the falsehoods made by the President to get this nation into a war.
Comment by Randall Sherman Friday, Apr 21, 06 @ 1:57 pm
The fact that the Pumpkins are back in the studio is the best news I’ve heard all week!
Comment by Les Paul Friday, Apr 21, 06 @ 2:16 pm
My understanding of the “Jefferson Rules†(which allow a state legislature to advance a motion of impeachment) is that they had more to do with balancing the power between the states and the federal government, not political parties.
At last count, there were 201 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives (including Yarborough’s own Represenative, Danny Davis), and not one of them has introduced legislation to impeach the President. Why do you think that is? My guess is that it’s NOT because they figure Hastert won’t let it see the light of day….no, just the opposite. It’s because they’re afraid the GOP leadership would do what they did with Murtha’s Iraq pull-out bill: immediately bring it to the floor for debate and a vote, forcing Democrats to put their money where their mouth is and risk being branded in the midterms this fall as the party that would impeach the President for protecting Americans (Remember, regardless of what you might think personally, every national poll has showed that the public does NOT think the wire-taps constituted an impeachable offense. Furthermore, every poll showed that most Americans thought that Feingold’s proposal to censure the President was based more on partisanship that anything else).
Comment by grand old partisan Friday, Apr 21, 06 @ 2:41 pm
Well, Partisan, let’s hold some hearings and get to the bottom of Bush’s lies and usurping of power.
Let’s get the full truth in the media and let the American people make a judgment.
Comment by Carl Nyberg Friday, Apr 21, 06 @ 2:49 pm
I thought it was very suspicious when the first dismissed juror’s family member (I think son) went on the radio and said now Ryan has no support. I wonder if the feds knew who the holdout was and went after her because she was not dismissed for anything that it seems half the other jury could have been dismissed for.
Comment by The Hankster Friday, Apr 21, 06 @ 2:51 pm
One attack on JBT is that she is against the minimum wage increase. Why doesn’t the current Democratic administration just raise it now? Why must we re-elect Blago before this can happen?
Comment by Mr . Ethics Friday, Apr 21, 06 @ 3:16 pm
I miss those early days when Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobsen were a team on WBBM Ch. 2. Those were halcyon days indeed.
Nowadays Kurtis is like a Leslie Nielsen parody of himself, narrating one salacious sex crime/murder documentary after another for the A&E channel, which should be renamed the B&E channel.
Skippy Jacobsen was a holy terror in his youth, a red-meat-eating junkyard dog of a reporter who went full-tilt berserker at crooks and pols, well, those old days when he and Pam Zekman rattled the cages of the mayor’s office as well as crooked local businesses made great TV, and made you feel like things were slowly changing for the better, but looking back some thirty years now, I feel like it was all an empty exercise, and no real progress has been made. Walter can still tail a city truck and find guys standing around not working, bribes being exchanged, etc etc. A mayor named Daley is still running the city like a fiefdom. The outfit still hangs on, there isn’t even a full time mob beat reporter like John Drummond anymore.
Modern corporate run TV news is pretty much toothless these days, afraid or too lazy to dig for the story, because it’s not cost effective and in line with demographics. They spend more time now running pre-supllied “Video news Release” packages and shilling for corporate interests with tie-ins to their network’s entertainment programming. What little passes for TV political journalism has devolved into a game of “who has the cute “gotcha” of the moment”… it’s played for laughs as much as anything… but these guys never seem to follow up on the “gotcha”. They have to be led by the nose thru other media to keep following up on a story after it breaks. It’s like they have the memory span of a goldfish, or think we do.
It seems I’ve got a touch of excess cynicism today, but with may Sweeps coming up, all the nonsense stuff I’m seeing on the tube is depressing me. Only 342 more “in depth reports” on “the horrors or Myspace.com” to go… (sigh) while
the real news goes on without comment or notice.
Comment by On Da El Friday, Apr 21, 06 @ 3:21 pm
Carl, I’m not going to get into a protracted debate about whether Bush should be impeached or not. Obviously, neither one of us has much a chance at change the other’s mind. And really, that’s not the point. I am merely questioning the appropriateness of this proposal at this time. The Illinois General Assembly still hasn’t passed a budget for the state. And the Democrats in the US House of Representatives haven’t even tried to introduce an impeachment resolution yet. Now, once we get a budget, and if and when a Democrat in Congress actually tries to introduce an impeachment bill only to see it blocked from serious consideration…..then maybe it will be a different story.
Comment by grand old partisan Friday, Apr 21, 06 @ 3:24 pm
Blagojevich definitely got “Punk’d” by the Tribune. The headline ‘Guv’s `Straight Talk’ ad not quite straight’ is extremely misleading. When you read the story, the innuendo — and it’s only innuendo — is whether a town hall meeting is really a town hall meeting if the press isn’t invited.
Rick Pearson doesn’t dispute one statement made about Topinka’s record, but you can sure bet that headline is going to end up in a Topinka ad next week.
Of course, this is exactly how the Tribune pimped for George Ryan back in 1998 and has pimped for other GOP candidates throughout the years.
In this case, I don’t think that the Tribune has decided that Topinka is definitely their candidate in the fall. They endorsed Gidwitz for a reason. Topinka’s problem is she can’t make the Tribune editorial board and Bill Dugan happy when it comes to assault weapons. Nor can she make the Tribune Editorial Board and Joe Birkett happy when it comes to the death penalty. I think the Tribune’s endorsement of Gidwitz was their way of hinting she might be able to make the Editorial board and educators happy when it comes to school funding reform.
I think the death penalty might tip the issue. Cornelia Grumman won her Pulitzer Prize for a reason. Her editorials on the dealth penalty resonated with the conscience of us all. I just can’t imagine she’s going to throw that away and endorse Topinka-Birkett, especially when Topinka has adopted Birkett’s stand on the death penalty. They dislike Blagojevich immensely, but I can’t imagine they dislike him enough to retract their courageous stand on the death penalty and throw a Pulitzer in the trash.
But, by trying to keep the race tight for now, they can keep their options open.
Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Friday, Apr 21, 06 @ 3:24 pm
I second Les Paul’s thoughts about the Pumpkins, progenitors of my nick.
Comment by Gish Friday, Apr 21, 06 @ 3:28 pm
The laser virtual keyboard thing is about six years old; to freshen it up this year they added bluetooth, but still nobody is buying it. Probably because, if you HAD a decent flat horizontal surface always handy to project on, you’d more likely already be using a laptop (with keyboard) on it. Crackberries and the like have better built-in keyboards than this thing creates- you get no tactile feedback and have to watch your fingers to hit the right keys. It’s not at all like touch typing. It’s really only an ostentatious toy for showing off to easily impressed dorks while you’re making a big deal about typing at a table in Starbucks.
For a lot less money you can get a flexible rubber roll-up typing keyboard from tigerdirect that similarly fits in a pocket and connect to your mobile whatever.
Comment by geekboy Friday, Apr 21, 06 @ 3:29 pm
Ok, ok…didn’t anyone else look at that blue tooth keyboard? Just about the coolest thing ever, thanks Rich!
Comment by On my blackberry at a beer garden Friday, Apr 21, 06 @ 3:31 pm
Furthermore, every poll showed that most Americans thought that Feingold’s proposal to censure the President was based more on partisanship that anything else).
Unsurprisingly, g.o.p. neglected to mention that at least one reputable poll (Bloomberg/L.A. Times) also showed a plurality of Americans support Feingold’s censure resolution. And unlike g.o.p., I’ll support my claims with documentation:
http://www.latimes.com/media/acrobat/2006-04/22915725.pdf
Comment by truth squad Friday, Apr 21, 06 @ 3:51 pm
Go Billy!
Junebug skipping like a stone.
Comment by B Hicks Friday, Apr 21, 06 @ 3:52 pm
Make that two polls:
Do you favor or oppose the United States Senate passing a resolution censuring President George W. Bush for authorizing wiretaps of Americans within the United States without obtaining court orders?
3/15/06 Favor Oppose Undecided
All Adults 46% 44% 10%
http://americanresearchgroup.com/
Comment by truth squad Friday, Apr 21, 06 @ 3:54 pm
oh good god, truth squad:
Yes, you are absolutely right. I did neglect to mention that. Believe it or not, it was actually because it didn’t seem relevant to the point I was making.
Censuring and impeaching are two very different things. The American people know that, which is why even though some polls show a plurality of people supporting the former, there are none showing such support for the later (and, if you can think of a way I can support that with “documentation,†short of posting a link to every single poll ever taken on the subject please tell me.). The polls regarding Feingold’s resolution were mentioned only because I feel that the suspicion of motive would transfer to an effort to impeach.
Comment by grand old partisan Friday, Apr 21, 06 @ 4:18 pm
I echo pretty much everything On Da El said about Walter “Skippy” Jacobson. While his hey day was at Ch. 2, I’ve started to really enjoy his Sunday morning news and political analysis show on Ch. 32 that he launched when he left the 9 p.m. anchor chair. I’ll miss that hour of Perspective Here’s to Skippy, another loss in journalism where Ken and Barbie continue to win out. Can you ever imagine another TV anchor in this city nicknamed Skippy or dressing up like a homeless person undercover?
Comment by Niles Township Friday, Apr 21, 06 @ 4:22 pm
GOP -
Relax we’re not going to impeach Bush. He’s the gift that keeps on giving.
Smart political tacticians know its better to wound the enemy than to bump him off.
Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Friday, Apr 21, 06 @ 5:13 pm
the best news of the year….Smashing Pumpkins back in the studio!!! screw politics for today…ha!
Comment by silas - assassin opus dei monk Friday, Apr 21, 06 @ 5:49 pm
Rich –
sorry to burst your bubble, but it is not me.
One look at the hair, I don’t normaly have that much. Two Mine is black going to gray very rapidly. Three I don’t ride a Goldwing.
now play nice or I’ll have Korg put you over his knee and spank you.
Todd
Comment by Todd Monday, Apr 24, 06 @ 4:00 pm