Well, It Is Sorta Funny
ArchPundit
The Illinois Leader offers excruciating detail for Blagojevich leaving the Capitol.
That’s keeping the eye on the ball!
It’s All Fun and Games Until Someone is Hit with An Audit
Carl Officer has opened his administration calling for two investigations. The first was one to look into the circumstances of a city officials recent death which seems a bit strange. The second is to investigate East Saint Louis’ grant making offices including Tax Increment Financing and Community Development Block Grant funds for potential improprieties.
(nervous tic)
Good for Carl.
(Did I just say that?)
(Why yes I did)
Good for Carl. I don’t know of any specific problems with these departments and it could be Officer being Officer, but a good lookover by Federal and State officials would do the town well.
Gambling and Subpoenas
Two articles up at the Political State Report
It Took Prison to Make Her Look Decent
For many years Betty Loren-Maltese was the crooked circus clown of Cicero politics with the huge red hair and painted face. It has taken prison to make her look like a normal human being:
The Sun-Times covers her time in prison and she has made the requisite efforts to claim a jail house conversion.
Of course, the real story is told in this line:
Loren-Maltese told Fox News her family is financially supported by her friends.
Movement on Burge Torture Case
The Tribune reports that the special prosecutors investigating torture under former Chicago Police Commander John Burge.
Moreover, they have gathered 130,000 documents–a total of more than 1 million sheets of paper, they said–that chronicle the controversial legacy of one of Chicago’s most enduring police scandals.
A grand jury in the case has issued subpoenas, Egan and Boyle said, although in some instances, those subpoenaed have agreed to cooperate and have met with the special prosecutors outside the grand jury.
"Is there a reluctance to talk?" said Boyle. "For some of them, of course there is." Others, he said, have helped to move the inquiry forward.
"They’re not all saying, `I’m not going to talk to you,’" said Egan.
Egan and Boyle said that with help from attorneys and through their investigation, they have uncovered nearly two dozen new cases–bringing to 86 the total number they are investigating. They initially began work on 12 Death Row cases.
One hopes they are successful. After torturing suspects for years, Burge is now retired and living a nice life in Florida. That is wrong.
Ryan Name Confusion Much Adieu about Nothing
Eric Zorn points out that near the end of the Jim Ryan for Governor campaign, Ryan name confusion was at 3 % and dropping meaning the name wasn’t the problem. The problem was the worst campaign in a long time and that Jim Ryan did nothing to make himself a strong choice for voters. The remarkable thing is how well he did despite this.
The rest of the column is a positive profile of Jack Ryan, one that he hasn’t earned. And I’ll say the same thing about Blair Hull. Being rich and the such doesn’t make one a good candidate. It makes one rich. Buying into these guys spiels is hogwash. They have never put themselves on the line in elected office. They may do well, but without a public record no one has any business building them up.
Fox overlooking the Hen House
Not Amiel, the convict, but his brother Lloyd was appointed to the Courts Commission that oversees judicial behavior.
Dandy.
John Kass Suggests Perle wouldn’t be tolerated in Chicago
Really and he goes on to wonder why a subpeona hasn’t been served.
Perle is a leading intellectual, and one of the main architects of the war to oust Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. And for the record, I agreed with him on that, and still do, and the only regret I have about it–aside from the American and Iraqi deaths–is that it wasn’t done sooner.
Perle also serves on the Defense Policy Board, a group that advises Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The members of the board receive top-secret information, they’re insiders and they’re in business, many of them, representing billions of dollars in defense-related industries, including homeland security.
In Chicago, if an alderman played those games he could get a subpoena. In Washington, though, the insiders write chin-stroking op-ed pieces and have fashionable brunches in horse country on weekends.
There are hundreds of thousands of American families that have sent loved ones to Iraq or Afghanistan, or to other dangerous places, where they risk their lives carrying out government policy. That anyone advising the president should be involved in an apparent conflict of interest, which is a polite way of saying war profiteering, is revolting.
I told you profiteering would be an election issue–Kass is a strong supporter of the President.
If the Clintons had played it this way, Republicans would shriek their outrage. Now, though, the Republicans are silent.
I saw Bush speak in Philadelphia three years ago. It looked as if he actually believed the words coming out of his mouth. And I could hear him plainly.
I didn’t even have to read his lips.
Speed Up the Strip Club Licenses
Washington Park can’t pay the employees of the town.
The Flying Rutabega (sic) Circus Review
The Post-Dispatch mildly slaps the hand of the SLMPD and Joe Mokwa this morning. The editorial is far too mild. The SLMPD appears to be heavy-handed and incompetent. Not a reassuring combination for those who depend upon them.
In describing the Flying Rutebega Circus arrests, The Post-Dispatch states,
Its members describe themselves as a "rag-tag ensemble of circus acts, puppet shows, jugglers and musical numbers" who bicycle across the country to protest genetically modified food. Last Friday, the Rutabegas were riding down the center of Arsenal Street when police handcuffed them and took them to the police station for riding bikes without a license. The City Counselor’s office acknowledges that the ordinance isn’t enforced, and the city won’t press charges.
There is no question here whether that ordinance is on the books. It is not. The ordinance was repealed two years ago More troubling is the cyclists were hit with Impeding Traffic charges which is a charge cops pull out to harrass cyclists and is, in most cases, a violation of state law that treats bicycles as vehicles on roads. Indymedia and the Missouri Bike Federation are outperforming the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch in accuracy.
In fact, the Post-Dispatch misses its own reporting on the subject from June 10,2000
Aldermen also voted Friday to eliminate the city’s long-ignored bicycle license requirement and to ban motor vehicles from bike paths except for emergency purposes.
Continuing on in the editorial,
Mr. Mokwa isn’t apologizing for a questionable search of two houses – one on Cherokee Street and one on Illinois Avenue – where some of the protesters were staying. He said neighbors had complained and that some protesters had taunted police.
First, if only the City was the efficient at dealing with code complaints all of the time this might pass the smell test. Second, taunting the police is not against the law. Indeed, I’ve done my share of taunting though usually in relation to asking officers why they feel traffic laws don’t apply to them. For some reason they never want to arrest me.
The chief used a building code violation to send officers and housing inspectors into the homes. There they seized a box of roofing nails – a type not used in rehabbing old buildings, the chief said – a bucket of rocks, a slingshot and some torches.
Some nails, some rocks, a slingshot and some torches. The horrors. The horrors I tell you. Given I recently had a lead paint inspector in my apartment, I might have everything but the torches. I don’t know where my slingshot is.
Police also hauled off two eight-foot wooden dolls used in protests (one a caricature of a police officer and the other of an alderman). Police arrested more than a dozen people.
Now here, shouldn’t we consider impounding Tom Bauer for being a caricature of an Alderman? I mean really-what is the bigger threat to the city?
Under normal circumstances, housing inspectors and police officers need a warrant before searching a home. Arrests and searches for minor charges can help clean up cities Giuliani-style. But these tactics shouldn’t be used to target protesters.
I’m actually a big fan of targeting nuisance crime, but the protesters weren’t being nuisances–at least in the legal sense. In one case they were cycling and in the other case, they were, ummmm…in their homes. The point of targeting nuisance crime on the street is to clean up street crime and make it inhospitable to criminals, not people living in their homes.
But the real story appears to be picked up by Indymedia, a group I’m not fond of in terms of their coverage. Via Unsubscibe Indymedia reprints the St. Louis Coptalk threads pulled by the moderator. While one should never take CopTalk too seriously, the thread seems to indicate the police were a little too far on edge for the city’s own good.
Another issue that I am unable to confirm is that the condemnation order of the building searched was only issued the morning of the search.
This was a heavy-handed smackdown of dissent. Dissent by those I’m not particularly sympathetic to, but that is the point. They might be silly, they might be stupid, they migh smell real bad, but they have a right to peacefully assemble and to date the SLMPD has shown virtually no credible evidence that widespread violence was likely.
Being prepared is good. Being paranoid and letting that paranoia reduce the ability of individuals to practice freedom of speech is intolerable.