August 2003

The John Burge Protection Act

ArchPundit August 1, 2003 0 Comment

Blagojevich didn’t have a mentally retarded killer to showcase for his support of the death penalty, as Bill Clinton did, but that didn’t let him stop himself from pandering to the police by issuing an amendatory veto of a provision allowing for a special mechanism to remove badges of officers found to have perjured themselves in a death penalty case.

He vetoed a measure that would bring credible and substantiated cases of police perjury before a Law Enforcement Standards & Training Board. That board would be made up of 17 police officers. If two-thirds of them found an officer had committed perjury, that officer would lose his badge.

If a cop lies so egregiously on the stand that it leads to the wrongful conviction of a defendant and motivates a panel of 17 fellow police officers to opt to kick him off the force, what’s wrong with that?

This provision does not, as Blagojevich attempted to argue Tuesday, "(treat) the police worse than everyone else." It does not carry the same weight as a criminal felony perjury conviction. If you convict a cop of perjury, he can go to jail. If this board finds that cop guilty, he loses his badge. He’s free to go sell insurance, open a lemonade stand or spend his days on a fishing boat in Florida.

It will not, as Blagojevich also asserted, cause the floodgates to open for every felon to file a perjury grievance against police. This would apply only to homicide cases in which an officer is a relevant, significant witness. That alone significantly narrows the qualifying field of cases.

So in 2008 will he turn to his aids and say, kill the retarded inmate?

It is important to note that John Burge is currently retired in Florida enjoying retirement. Some of his victims spent time in prison for crimes they didn’t commit, but were sentenced for and tortured to promote a confession.

Is Bruce Rauner the Next Arnold Maremont

ArchPundit August 1, 2003 1 Comment

For the Arnold Maremont story, see a post on Political State Report.

From today’s Chicago Tribune

The mayor’s largest individual donor was a little-known Chicago businessman who is said to have political aspirations. Bruce Rauner, who runs a private equity firm called GTCR Golden Rauner LLC, donated $50,000 to the mayor.

Yo, Bruce, you might want to check with Blair Hull about the effectiveness of such a strategy.

The Psychology of Prosecutors

ArchPundit August 1, 2003 0 Comment

Via Peoria Pundit

Comes a Michael Miner column on the inability of prosecutors to recognize police and prosecutor misconduct. It is a good column not because it rails against both groups, but because it explores the more complex reality of dealing with good and honorable people in most cases and then not believing that some are capable of the most horrible of crimes–torture.

Sox Fans are Just so Sad

ArchPundit August 1, 2003 0 Comment

Kass is suffering from such envy at the class of the City of Chicago that he is trying to come up with a curse to explain the pitiful and lousy White Sox performance. Just like a White Sox fan to feel envy at a curse!

The only curse the White Sox have is Jerry Reinsdorf.

Governor Prevert?

ArchPundit August 1, 2003 0 Comment

And the thing is, with all the people in the race, he might just win….

Now that is Cool

ArchPundit August 1, 2003 0 Comment

While this is likely to be a bad G-Rod day or month here at ArchPundit, give him props for this,

Watch for Gov. "Hot Rod" Blagojevich to appear in a cameo role in "Barbershop II," a sequel to the hit movie "Barbershop," which is being filmed in Chicago.

We Know Rutherford is Running for SOS, but what about Bromke?

ArchPundit August 1, 2003 0 Comment

Campaign finance disclosure hits for state Lege members and unsurprisingly, Dan Rutherford is second in Central Illinois with ~$111,000 in the bank following $186,000 in the bank for Bromke. Rutherford is trying to raise his profile and run for statewide office in 2006 putting together seemingly non-partisan get togethers in Chicago that are about ‘networking’. Or establishing a Dan Rutherford network. Nothing wrong with that, he just is. He’s also pulling in cash from labor which he has an interesting relationship with.

But what about Bromke? Just getting a big account for big accounts sake or is he running in 2006 for something bigger?

Rich Miller says the C-Word

ArchPundit August 1, 2003 0 Comment

For those not paying attention, Blagojevich just handed the Supreme Court their asses on a platter. The Supreme Court essentially escalated a fight over judicial raises into state Constitutional Showdown where they had the authority to rule on the ultimate outcome, but they would have lost in the court of public opinion. Playing directly into G-Rod’s hands they portrayed themselves as insider hacks who just wanted to get their raises despite the dire condition of state budget.

Miller does a good job of covering the issue and brings up C-Word–Clinton in that description. Miller is absolutely right about Blagojevich burning a lot of bridges, but just like Clinton, he knows whose buttons to push, and whose buttons aren’t to be pushed.

Last year during the campaign, Blagojevich tried to push Madigan’s button and instead of an outright rebuke that defended Speaker Madigan’s position on livestock show and put Blagojevich in the catbird seat, Madigan mentioned G-Rod might have some indiscretions. What indiscretions were those? Who knows, the Speaker just sort of shrugged leaving it to our and, and more importantly, G-Rod’s imagination. The Speaker says very little, but carries a big stick.

No one really knows what the hell Madigan meant, but G-Rod hasn’t publicly taken on the Speaker, or his daughter, since. Unfortunately for the unfortunate Gary MacDougal, the former Illinois Republican Party head tried to parlay the comment into a scandal. The thing he forgot was that no one knows what the indiscretions were or if there were any. So the head of the Illinois Republican Party was making the case that Blagojevich had a scandal based on the hated Democratic Speaker of the House’s integrity, of which MacDougal thought there wasn’t any integrity. Naturally, the press left the press conference wondering when they had entered Bizarro World and tried to write the story straight, but ended up writing stories that could have been in the Onion. I can’t make that kind of satire up.

The key to this is the Governor hasn’t taken on who matters in the general election or the primaries. He hasn’t taken on Mayor Daley, he hasn’t taken on Madigan, he hasn’t taken on interest groups except for a bungling of the Hispanic Caucus with whom he is reaching out to to heal the problem. He hasn’t directly taken on Dan Hynes who is dancing a strange dance with him over the Senate race and who and when the Governor will endorse a candidate.

This sort of game may work, but it doesn’t exactly bring confidence to government–indeed the entire strategy is based upon tearing down government credibility to increase G-Rod’s and that is unhealthy for the state. In many ways he is playing right into the Illinois Center-Right Coalition strategy of attacking the public sector. There is much wrong with Illinois politics and government, but it is unclear if the Governor is going to fix that at all, or just establish himself as a credible candidate in 2008 or 2012 to be President of the United States.