Not so fast——something smells rotten in Chicago.  Fitzpatrick pulled the plug too quick on this caper—-why?  He claims he wanted to prevent a crime from being committed.  What kind of crime—-there was to be no murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, etc just money changing hands for a quid pro quo.  All Fitzpatrick has now is intent and that’s going no place.  He should have waited for the crime to take place.  I believe he was protecting someone.  Remember Fitzpatrick went after Scooter Libby when others were even guiltier.  Libby was the sacrificial lamb knowing he would receive a full pardon from Bush.  Fitzpatrick is playing another game and IMHO he was protecting Jesse Jackson, Jr who was about to buy his way into the Senate.  His thinking that if Blagojevich named Jackson it would be a fait accompli, but the Senate would have refused to seat him when they learned of the payoff. All we have now is more political theater.

I suspect that much of the country is watching the roiling, boiling, criminal malfeasance of our latest Governor, Rod Blagojevich (D) with disbelief. The only disbelief Illinois residents experienced was that Hot Rod had actually ACCELERATED his greedy piggery after being placed under investigation and under the spotlight over three years ago by no less than Federal Prosecutor exemplar, Peter Fitzgerald.

We have a long bipartisan history of corruption in our statehouse and governor’s mansion (not that Blagojevich actually spent much time there). Blago will likely be our second consecutive governor sent to prison, following grumpy George Ryan ® to the big house. A conviction of Blagojevich will result in Illinois having the distinction of four of the last eight of our governors convicted of corruption. A fifth Illinois Governor, William Strattan ® escaped conviction after indictment and trial.

Illinois politics reads like a list of comic book crooks like Secretary of State Paul Powell whose Springfield apartment was found to contain shoe boxes, stuffed with over $800.000.00 in cash, discovered after he suddenly died in office. Then there’s Ryan’s cast of henchmen like Rodger (The Hog) Stanley, or the puffy paramour,  Scott Fawell. Fawell, a ganja smoking,  prostitute frequenting, Caribbean bon viant, was persuaded to drop a dime on his former boss to save his fiancée from prison time.

The last Republican gubernatorial candidate to run against Blagojevich, Judy Barr Topinka,  was up to her eyeballs in a political cesspool filled to overflowing by Republican patronage chief Big Bill Cellini. The biggest stinker, in that particular cesspool, was the taxpayer funded sweetheart deal to refurbish the Abraham Lincoln Hotel in downtown Springfield. A state funded loan was herded through the legislature that only required that the developers pay back the loan in years the white elephant manages to squeak out a profit. These are not terms generally available on the open market. In spite of these generous conditions, Topinka had at one point pushed legislation to absolve 75% of the loan’s principle of this boondoggle, leaving the taxpayers of Illinois holding the bag.

In a more personal example of how things work in Illinois, I had. in the early 1990’s turned over internal United Parcel Service company documents in a class action lawsuit that was brought against the corporation because of tactics that forced many of its employees to work through their “unpaid,” lunch hour, a direct violation of the “Fair Labor Standards Practice Act.”

These documents established that UPS was not only aware of the practice but were actually tracking the percentage of drivers that were forced to work thru all or part of their lunch-time. UPS, upon learning of the uncovering of this document, responded by dispatching a lobbyist to Springfield and succeeded in having the law modified to exempt them -and only them- from legal culpability in this matter. Incredibly, in a separate vote, UPS came within one vote of getting a “retroactive exemption,” for their violation of this law.

Attorney David Mark of Seattle, Washington, phoned me and sputtered in amazement that he was flabbergasted at how politics worked in Illinois. Attorney Mark told me it was like being witness to a scene out of the “Wild West,” and that the UPS lobbyist was all but handing money out on the floor of the Illinois House and Senate.

Not much has changed in Illinois politics since then, only the names and faces.

mike kohr

Princeton, IL 61356

Sure ... the GOP should prosper mightily because of the corrupt Illinois governor ....

except that an Illinois Democrat was just elected president,  and he’ll work with Democratic majorities in the Senate and House ..... so Illinois should run to the right, support GOP candidates when ever possible .... leaving Illinois behind as the rest of the nation realizes that, as corrupt as Chicago Democrats can be and are .... the GOP has just as many slimeballs to deny ... and a terrible track record for governing the national interest in the last 7-something years   ... great opportunity for the GOP .. surely

PE Obama will nominate former Governor of Iowa Tom Vilsack Secretary of Agriculture. This appointment deserves several comments.
1. Vilsack is an ardent advocate of ethanol from foodstuffs such as Iowa corn.
2. The ethanol industry has given huge sums to the Obama Presidential campaign. Were any promises made? Mr. Fitzgerald can you investigate this also?
3. If this is not pay-for-play Chicago style, what is it?

leave it to the voters to decide the finale out come. State Senate can name a temporary administrative replacement, who agrees not to run for the seat in the immediate spacial election.