The link takes you to a Chicago Tribune index for recent articles on corruption in Chicago and in the state of Illinois. You have quite a selection to choose from. In other news, three days ago, the Chicago City Council voted 49-0 to assign taxpayers the responsibility for any cost overruns should Chicago win its bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games. The City Council members then gave themselves a standing ovation.
I s'pose we should be grateful they have chosen to confine themselves to such a small, albeit highly lucrative, arena. Think what it would be like had they all decided to go national.
A subpoena served on Lorain City Hall Friday makes it clear that the federal corruption investigation that had focused so far on Cuyahoga County has expanded into Lorain County.
Among other things, the subpoena seeks city records related to longtime Community Development Director Sandy Prudoff, Cleveland halfway house Alternatives Agency and all contracts involving Prudoff's department between 2003 and 2007 - including a list of all contractors, consultants, brokers and third parties.
Oh dear.
Mayor Tony Krasienko also revealed Friday that the FBI issued a subpoena to the law firm Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease seeking some of its records involving Lorain.
Attorney Anthony O. Calabrese III, a former partner at the firm, did legal work for Lorain. Calabrese has emerged as a key player in the corruption probe. At least six of his clients, including Lorain, have been touched by the corruption probe.
Is he wanted on twelve systems?
In addition to working for Lorain, both Calabrese and Prudoff worked as contractors for Alternatives Agency, an East 55th Street halfway house that served as a cash cow for at least three others who have pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges including bribery.
Clearly I must strive to become more worldly. I can't imagine how a halfway house could serve as a cash cow.
Calabrese served as attorney for the nonprofit agency, which recently changed its name to Cuyahoga Re-entry Agency.
That'll fool 'em, fer sher.
And Prudoff -- who for more than three decades has been in charge of revitalizing neighborhoods in troubled Lorain -- said he scouted properties for Alternatives, which wanted to expand and build more halfway houses in Lorain or Erie counties.
Neither Calabrese nor Prudoff -- who is on paid leave -- could be reached Friday. A spokesman for the Vorys firm declined to comment. Calabrese left the firm last month, after several plea agreements implicated him in a bribery scheme.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
I can't imagine how a halfway house could serve as a cash cow.
Many of them get local, state, and federal subsidies to operate, much like ACORN, who alone could get $8 billion from the stimulus.
An attorney in the federal corruption case of a lobbyist says former U.S. Rep. Ernest Istook collected money from lobbyists and then asked them what projects they wanted in a major spending bill.
Queerly enough for this Name That Party mystery, former Representative Istook was apparently a Republican.
Andrew T. Wise, attorney for lobbyist Kevin Ring, says the former Oklahoma congressman held 22 fundraisers in the first three months after becoming the chairman of a subcommittee that had control of highway spending. Wise says Ring helped raise money for Istook and that now-imprisoned former lobbyist Jack Abramoff made the first donation to Istook's political action committee. But Wise says the actions weren't illegal.
In a statement to The Oklahoman, Istook says he based his decisions on merit and on requests from members of Congress, not on contributions.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2009 00:00 ||
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#5
Unwind the currently outstanding credit default swaps, and criminalize future ones, which was the law prior to 2000. I doubt 0 will do anything about this.
#6
Overall the bailouts and financial crisis have cost the American taxpayer two trillion dollars.... and not one stinking thief has gone to jail? The greatest collection of theft in world history and no criminal prosecutions?
Incomprehensible
#1
The major distortion Obama has put into the national discourse is his utter failure to point out the defects in the governmentally-administered portion of health care that have existed for years, and/or will be getting worse in the near future. Indian Health Service, constantly underfunded. Medicare, facing a demographic tidal wave in the near future, for which nothing is being done. The VA. The End Stage Renal Disease program, for virtually all Americans with Stage 5 disease. It pays for kidney transplants but only the first 3 years of anti-rejection drugs. After that the transplant patient has to pay for the absolutely necessary drugs on their own. When they stop taking the drugs, their implanted kidneys fail & they go right back on dialysis at about $100,000 a year. This has been a problem since 1972! I'm sure a more complete list would be much, much longer. All of these problems are already the responsibility of the Congress & the President. Fix them, no, let's go for something entirely new!
#2
The other distortion Obama maintains is not saying a word about tort reform as a way to cut medical costs. He doesn't want to jeopardize the support the trial lawyers give to the Democratic party.
#3
Seen a whole lot of coverage about Joe Wilson and his outburst and fallout from it. A lot less about Obama's lie. Obama was claiming that illegal immigrants won't be covered by ObamaCare. Which is a lie. The house bill contains no restriction on coverage based on citizenship. Neither the house nor the senate bill has any provision requiring proof of citizenship to obtain coverage. So yeah, Wilson was rude. But he was also correct, Barack Obama lied to the American people. But then again he's been getting a lot of practice doing that lately.
Once again we're reminded that political corruption has a cost and that the Chicago Way is not some game or performance art by jesters. On Saturday, we were reminded by Christopher Kelly, friend to politicians. "He's dead, Jim!"
"Thanks for the reminder, Bones!"
He was pronounced dead after taking an overdose of medication, just days after he pleaded guilty to more federal corruption charges. It happens every so often, that we're reminded. A few years ago, it was the deaths of six innocent children burned in a fiery crash that shocked us awake, that reminded us that our sleazy politics has a real cost.
But it is in our nature to forget, because the dead aren't active and our politicians are awfully busy.
The dead still vote in Chicago, so they continue to fulfill their key function, now with no overhead cost.
Their mouthpieces will tell us, as they've told us in the past, that a little corruption really isn't that bad, that a little graft, like a little patronage abuse, is just the grease that makes things work.
Kelly made things work and he was no innocent. He was a player, a big-time political fundraiser and a Vegas gambler. He knew guys who knew guys, from Mayor Richard Daley to indicted former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. He knew the Rush Street crowd and he knew the mayor's former top airport aide, John Harris, who is cooperating with the FBI. In fact, Kelly knew just about everybody who really counts in politics. By that I don't mean the taxpayers, as much as the guys who know guys. They count because they do the counting. We're the ones who do the paying.
Kelly made a fortune in city airport and school roofing deals. He knew much about the multimillion-dollar contracts at O'Hare International Airport now under investigation. He knew much about politicians he gambled with, and his friend Blagojevich. He was under intense pressure to tell what he knew to a federal grand jury.
Now the pressure's gone. Whether his death was a suicide or something else is not yet known. Either way, we should all take a few moments to pray for his eternal soul.
It's also not known if politicians are breathing sighs of relief now that Kelly's gone. They're not going to make speeches to tell us. But I've got a feeling that some people who know their way around Daley's Department of Aviation and the state capitol and city and state contracts are sure breathing a lot easier.
In the next few days, some mouthpiece, perhaps even a politician, will start spinning that if the feds hadn't pressured him to talk, Kelly would be alive. And when that happens, you should see it for what it is: a lie. It's the sound of corruption whispering in your ear, and you'll have to decide whether you should take some responsibility.
Not for Kelly's death. And certainly, not for the corrupt actions of political insiders. But we have to take responsibility for the way things are, for what this state has become. Because we live here, and raise our children here, and none of us would tolerate it if corruption was endemic on some neighborhood PTA.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2009 00:00 ||
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In the next few days, some mouthpiece, perhaps even a politician, will start spinning that if the feds hadn't pressured him to talk, Kelly would be alive.
I just hope he was suicidal because he talked--about Rezko, Obama, Emmanuel, Blago, Daley, etc. An overdose is the easiest way to die, given the future of stoolies.
Coaxing Arlen Specter into switching parties and running for re-election as a Democrat was a major coup for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is bending the Senate's schedule to accommodate a presidential fundraiser for Specter Tuesday afternoon in Pennsylvania.
Reid announced Friday that the Senate would hold no votes after 3 p.m. Tuesday. His office later said that the scheduling decision was meant to accommodate a long-planned fundraiser that President Obama is headlining in Philadelphia to benefit Specter's campaign.
The move could delay efforts to finish work on the fiscal 2010 transportation spending bill, which the Senate began considering Thursday.
Not to mention everything stacked up behind it. I think this is a brilliant idea, and Senator Reid ought to do it often in the next few months. After all, it's going to cost beaucoup bucks to offset the half million-plus* Tea Partiers on the Mall on Saturday, and the honourable senator from Pennsylvania was already at risk.
*per Old Patriot's analysis of photos of the march, the Rantburg official estimate is 500,000-800,000 participants.
Specter, who is seeking a sixth term (and his first as a Democrat), faces a primary challenge from Rep. Joe Sestak. The likely Republican nominee is Pat Toomey, a former House member who nearly beat Specter in a 2004 Republican primary.
Event organizers hope to raise $2.5 million for Pennsylvania Senate Victory 2010, a joint fundraising committee that will share proceeds with Specter's campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which is backing Specter over Sestak.
Attendees will include Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, Democratic Gov. Edward G. Rendell and Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter. No other senators are expected to attend.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/14/2009 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A subpoena served on Lorain City Hall Friday makes it clear that the federal corruption investigation that had focused so far on Cuyahoga County has expanded into Lorain County. 
An attorney in the federal corruption case of a lobbyist says former U.S. Rep. Ernest Istook collected money from lobbyists and then asked them what projects they wanted in a major spending bill.
Once again we're reminded that political corruption has a cost and that the Chicago Way is not some game or performance art by jesters. On Saturday, we were reminded by Christopher Kelly, friend to politicians.
Coaxing Arlen Specter into switching parties and running for re-election as a Democrat was a major coup for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is bending the Senate's schedule to accommodate a presidential fundraiser for Specter Tuesday afternoon in Pennsylvania.
