ILLINOIS, -The Land of Larceny-

[mikekohr]

I suspect that much of the country is watching the roiling, boiling, criminal maleficence 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 be our second consecutive governor sent to prison, following grumpy George Ryan ® to the big house. Blagojevich will make four of the last eight Illinois governors to be convicted of corruption. A fifth 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 that died with shoe boxes of money found in his Springfield apartment after he suddenly died in office, or Ryan's cast of henchmen like Rodger (The Hog) Stanley, or the pasty puffball and Caribbean bon viant, Scott Fawell.

The last Republican gubernatorial candidate to run against Blagojevich, Judy Barr Topinka was up to her eyeballs in the political cesspool that was filled to overflowing by Republican patronage chief Big Bill Cellini. in the taxpayer funded sweetheart deal to refurbish the Abraham Lincoln Hotel in downtown Springfield. The state funded loan only requires that the investors pay back the loan in years the hotel manages to turn a profit. Not terms generally available on the open market. In spite of these generous terms Topinka and had at one point pushed legislation to absolve 75% of the liability of insider investors to the taxpayers of Illinois.

In a more personnal example of how things work in Illinois, I had In the early 1990's turned over internal company documents that destroyed the legal arguement of United Parcel Service 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."

UPS, upon learning of the uncovering of these documents that established that they were 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, responded by dispatching a lobbyist to Springfield and having the law modified to exempt them from legal culpability in this matter and came within one vote of getting a "retroactive exemption," for their violation of the act.

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 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

[madrchsod]

1. we do have some very good politicians in this state

unfortunately the bad ones get all the press....

just up the road a piece from princeton :thumbsup:

[mikekohr]

2. I'm from Rural, Princeton neighbor

I just got elected to the Bureau County Board. If I am ever, even remotely connected to this kind of criminality, you have my permission to put your foot up my ass.

mike kohr

[tuckessee]

3. It;'s also like Nepotism Valley, USA.

The creepy Attorney General Lisa Madigan is the daughter of the current Speaker of the House, Michael Madigan.

[ProfessorGAC]

4. We Know, We Know

She's pretty much ok, but occasionally does something to make me wish she hadn't.

But, i'm not sure she had the really professional cred to have made it to AG. Another case of who you know in IL, not what you know.

That being said, i admit i voted for her.
GAC