Archive for April, 2005
Posted in April 29th, 2005
Here “Sort of like a prizefight between accountants.” That’s how Gov. Blagojevich characterized the differences between the state auditor and the Department of Central Management Services after the former laid into the latter for mismanagement and waste. It’s a cute image for a newspaper cartoonist or skit writer to work with, but in making light […]
continue reading.....
Posted in April 29th, 2005
I think the Trib lost a lot when John McCarron left, but his regular (semi-regular) column helps. Otis White of Civic Strategies tracks the quality of urban reporting and while the Trib does poorly overall, Gary Washburn performs well. So I’ll just take the chance to plug the idea of adding the local and state […]
continue reading.....
Posted in April 29th, 2005
Really, the new design is quickly taking what used to be (before the recent versions) one of the worst web sites to explore to one of the easiest and friendly for bloggers. New features include a list of national and foreign correspondents with a link to their recent stories. Bloggers have been added to the […]
continue reading.....
Posted in April 29th, 2005
Despite scumbags like former Chicago Police Commander John Burge, there are many honorable police officers out there trying to do the right thing and the victory in a civil suit for Mike Callahan over Illinois State Police superiors is a great thing. Despite facing significant career sanctions he continued to investigate a murder investigation where […]
continue reading.....
Posted in April 29th, 2005
Rich Miller’s weekly column covers a story that is behind the scenes in Springfield, and unfortunately may stay that way.
continue reading.....
Posted in April 29th, 2005
Eric Zorn just gave it to Jim Oberweis on WBEZ’s 848. “How do we miss you if you won’t go away”. Heh.
continue reading.....
Posted in April 29th, 2005
He’s really good at the sound bite–as boring as the guy is, he’s got a talent for summing up the state of a debate and even more talent at reflecting what the average person on the street thinks. Despite being in DC for a long time, he’s especially attuned to chatter of constituents more than […]
continue reading.....
Posted in April 29th, 2005
I know the press is trying to be fair, but it’s misrepresenting what an audit does. It doesn’t go in and ask questions about procedures, it documents whether procedures are in place and implemented properly. It isn’t an allegation when it finds a problem–it is a problem.
continue reading.....
Posted in April 29th, 2005
What an idiot, absolute idiot the Governor is. CMS is “ruffling some feathers” because it is changing purchasing policies established 10 to 12 years ago by Holland, who worked on reforming state purchasing laws, Blagojevich said. Which misses the point of nearly every finding—the law was not followed in regards to RFPs, RFPs were changed […]
continue reading.....
Posted in April 29th, 2005
The Daily Herald offers up this in relation to the audit: Maybe Illinois government?s roots in political and money connections, quid pro quo agreements and wink-and-nudge contracts run so deeply that Blagojevich has found it harder than he expected to change business as usual. Maybe those he entrusted to make the changes have let him […]
continue reading.....
Posted in April 29th, 2005
And threaten to commit suicide if Tom DeLay continues to be attacked. Shrug. One nice thing about being in the minority–the incredibly stupid political moves that majorities always make become really funny.
continue reading.....
Posted in April 29th, 2005
Who wouldn’t pay to hear Melissa Bean do a Kareoke version of “I Will Survive” Social Security is a political nightmare for Republicans ?Support for the Bush Social Security proposals by a member of Congress yields a net electoral loss of 24 percentage points,? conclude pollsters Guy Molyneux and Geoffrey Garin. Hart polled 811 voters […]
continue reading.....
Posted in April 29th, 2005
Apparently the President’s proposal is to significantly reduce the COLAs for Social Security over time. The problem being: The Social Security Administration calculates that the system will deplete its reserve of Treasury bonds by 2041, after which it will be able to pay out in benefits only what it receives in taxes. But even then, […]
continue reading.....
Posted in April 28th, 2005
I don’t do these often, but I found this kind of interesting: Your Linguistic Profile: 70% General American English 10% Dixie 10% Upper Midwestern 5% Midwestern 5% Yankee What Kind of American English Do You Speak? I grew up in Central Illinois, but spent many summers in Georgia with my Dad who worked for Lockheed […]
continue reading.....
Posted in April 28th, 2005
Rightfully: A scathing audit released this week on one of the state’s most powerful agencies bolsters the impression that the Blagojevich administration is taking on the hue of its predecessor. The audit found so many troubling practices regarding how contracts were awarded and managed that Auditor Gen. William Holland turned the findings over to the […]
continue reading.....