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Â· Sen. Bill Brady may have been reading the comments here, because yesterday a commenter pointed out that a Sun-Times story about this week’s devastating audit of DHS reported that the state was paying more than $550,000 to buy 109 shredders. That seemed excessive, and I think shortly thereafter Brady sent out a press release wondering what the heck was going on.

Â· Was a real estate deal by US House Speaker Denny Hastert corrupt or just a sweet and fortuitous arrangement among old friends investing in a rapidly booming county?

Â· Daley won’t wait for state

Â· Sorry, alderman, but that was a lame excuse

Â· Cook County bumbles beetle battle

Â· Witness claims Sorich ordered files erased

Â· Kadner: Crete Mayor Michael Einhorn lies.

Â· “The Supreme Court of Illinois ordered Wednesday that lawyers in this state must report how many hours they spend helping poor clients every year.”

Â· Now, here’s a threesome that you don’t often see on the same page: Lauzen, Schmitz and Blagojevich.

Â· Apparently, Frank Watson prefers diplomacy over my war plans. Good for him, but it would’ve been a grand adventure. Then again, maybe there’s still hope.

Â· Interesting story, good human interest, but no chance.

Â· Illinois Legislators Lambaste Governor’s Subsidy Plan

Â· The Southern has a great piece on my old buddy John Reilly.

After more than four decades in the hotel and restaurant business, it would seem that John Reilly might be looking for a slower pace and a lower gear.

Instead, it’s quite the contrary for the personable Reilly, who goes about his daily duties at Rend Lake Resort and Conference Center as general manager and acts as a one-person tourism committee by continually singing the praises of Rend Lake and all of Southern Illinois. […]

Reilly said he will continue to be a goodwill ambassador for Southern Illinois at every opportunity.

“I don’t want to hear people say that Rend Lake is the best kept secret in the state,” Reilly said. “I wish that I would have gotten to this point quicker than I did but we’re certainly not finished. I don’t think I’ll ever be totally satisfied until everybody knows what we have to offer here in Southern Illinois.”

If you haven’t been to the resort, you really ought to go. I had an amazingly good time when I was last there. This article makes me want to head down to Rend Lake today, but I can’t. Maybe next weekend. You can find a lot more info here.

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Jun 15, 06 @ 4:59 am

Comments

The Illinois Review article on Eric Wallace shows whats wrong with Black Republicans and why the GOP in general has a long road ahead of them before they garner any significant African American support.

As an African American it offends me that one of the first things Black GOP candidates do is attack Black leadership. Race is something that voters, both Black and white will always be conscious of and for a Black candidate to win he or she will always need a significant portion of the Black vote, trust me the way to do it is not by attacking Black leadership.

“I want her to be forced to defend her allegiance to Emil Jones and the Chicago powerbrokers,” he said. “From my perspective, it’s indefensible.”

As long as the Democrats continue to receive in upwards of 85% of the Black vote this strategy does not work. By questioning Black loyalty to the Democrats Republicans are basically calling African Americans stupid, saying we are idiots for supporting Democrats. The way to get me to vote for you is not to call me stupid.

While this tactic may garner points with white Republicans it turns off the vast majority of Blacks and I have never ever seen a Black candidate win a race without the Black vote.

Comment by wndycty Thursday, Jun 15, 06 @ 6:33 am
While the remarks made by Chicago Ald. Todd Stroger (8th) regarding the privacy rights under federal law that his father Cook County Board President John H. Stroger, Jr. has concerning the elder Stroger’s health condition were legally accurate, they miss the larger point.

Serving in elective office brings additional responsibilities to a person. The more important that office is, the greater the responsibilities are. As a private citizen John Stroger would have every right under the law to maintain privacy regarding his health condition. But as the elected chief executive of America’s second largest county, Stroger has a responsibility to level with the 5.4 million people of Cook County about the true nature of his health, how much imput (if any) does he have in making policy decisions for county government and is he going to continue in office or not.

While we are at it, we also need to know where John Stroger plans to live, given the fact that he has sold the residence from which he was registered to vote, which if not resolved puts into question his continued service as the County Commissioner from the 4th District and the 8th Ward Democratic Committeeman. So Todd, what’s being done about that? Are your folk going to move in with you? Or will you be setting up a cot in the back of the 8th Ward Democratic Headquarters?

Comment by Randall Sherman, Secretary/Treasurer, Illinois Committee for Honest Government Thursday, Jun 15, 06 @ 9:33 am
You can buy shredders for under 100 dollars at Wal-Mart but the state started paying their Wal-Mart bill like they pay everyone else and the Wal-Mart shut them off.

Comment by DOWNSTATE Thursday, Jun 15, 06 @ 9:44 am
Good to see Sen. Brady has come out of the comma that cost him the GOP govenor nomination, many were afraid he had suffered some permanent problem. Soon as he realizes his campaign really ened 3 months ago he can go back local real estate scams.
Meanwhile, Rich: if you are headed for Rend Lake, please the leave the keys to your house, boat and beer cooler for CaptFax fans so they enjoy the fruits of making you so famous and wealthy while not wasting a fortune on gas. If one looks at Lake Springfield with one eye partially closed it looks like Rend Lake. Just use the same approach Cub fans use to see a major league team when they attend Wrigley.

Duplicating Reilly will be hard, but if there are any W.C. Fields wannabes in SPI please head Rich’s Lake Front Resort. We could call this CaptFax Fest!

Comment by Reddbyrd Thursday, Jun 15, 06 @ 9:50 am
This story on Denny Hastert and his Little Rock Trust #225, (put out by the Sunlight Foundation in Washington), is huge and will continue to grow in scope as the weeks go by. It is just now starting to break into the light of day. Hastert and his campaign treasurer, Dallas Ingeminson and one of Denny’s large campaign contributors who owns a trucking company made a huge sum (millions of dollars)of money in a land deal where Hastert’s proposed Prairie Parkway is supposed to be built. Hastert and his wife easily made over a million dollars by his “astute land investment” near his proposed major highway construction project that will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

Did Denny Hastert do anything illegal by quietly putting this land deal in a convoluted trust arangement cloaked under names that hid his and his friends ownership in this land investment? I don’t know but perhaps not. However, as a taxpayer and voter, I wonder what else Denny has hidden or that he has failed to disclose to us? It smells a lot like what George Ryan, Larry Warner, and other Ryan cohorts were pulling off to benefit themselves financially due to “insider knowledge” of political and governmental actions to be taken in the future. If it was a stock market transaction, the SEC would handle it like they did with Martha Stewart.

Denny Hastert has lost my vote and respect unless he can explain why Bill Allison, Senior Fellow at the Sunlight Foundation is incorrect in his findings. Otherwise, there doesn’t appear to be much difference between Denny Hastert and George Ryan in my mind. I don’t want either to serve as a role model for my kids and grandkids. Nor do I want them to represent me in Springfield or Washington DC.

Comment by Beowulf Thursday, Jun 15, 06 @ 10:20 am
In addition to his many other titles, I believe that Dallas Ingemunson is still Chairman Emeritus of the State Republican Party. Think that title was reconfered for another four years in May by the Central Committee.

Comment by Anonymous Thursday, Jun 15, 06 @ 10:40 am
Hey forget about that silly land deal and Dallas and Speaker Denny….they are just some country guys out there fighting the city slickers. Plus $2 million will get nothing any more.

Let’s start putting some real pressure on the CaptFax for boat rides and beer. The idea of piling into his place while he is gone to Rend Lake is even better. We can trash all the Wilco CDs and bring in Barry Manilow !

Comment by Reddbyrd Thursday, Jun 15, 06 @ 11:16 am
Denny’s land is more than 5 miles from the nearest Parkway exit (I measured it on a map, from the property on Little Rock road to the planned exit at US 34 in Plano). Being this far from the exit, the land may be worth a little more with a freeway in Kendall County, but if that’s the case, he just boosted the property values of, say, 10,000 landowners in the county. Land is appreciating at about 25% a year out there; this is not an unusual transaction, except for the political angle. Lots of farmers have been turned into instant mega-millionaires in the area.

And if the intent of the parkway was to make Denny rich, IDOT did a poor job of routing the freeway so far from his property.

And it’s hard to argue that this is a pork barrel project that has no purpose, like the famous Ketchikan, Alaska “bridge to nowhere”, when Kendall County is the #2 or #3 growth county in the U.S.

Still, it is much better for a congressman to have the appearance of taking a vow of poverty to serve the people (a la Proxmire), than to have the appearance of a member of the good ole boys club making him and them money while he’s in office.

Comment by Six Degrees of Separation Thursday, Jun 15, 06 @ 2:03 pm
Give me a break! He’s a crook always will be. He’s a profiteer and has abused the trust of the people of Illinois. He’s made millionaires of farmers? Give me a break! I’ve seen it many times. These farmers are forced into selling their land when the people like Hastert artificially raise the value of that land. Hastert is a crook, Ingemunson is a crook, Lindner is a crook and anyone else that had a hand in the sale of that land is a crook.

Comment by What?@#$ Monday, Jun 19, 06 @ 4:23 pm