The Illinois Combine, for those unfamiliar with the term of art, refers to an unfortunate reality in Illinois politics: to wit, Illinois is not precisely a two-party state. There is a Republican Party of Illinois, and there is a Democratic Party of Illinois – but the party bosses of both more or less ignore everybody else and run the state to suit themselves. Case in | Read More »
Well… actually, if you can you’re one up on the Illinois Republican party, which is in the novel position of running a fundraiser for a candidate whom nobody can find. Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady announced that the Party will host a fundraiser for Patrick John Ryan, the “Republican” candidate challenging House Speaker Michael Madigan in the race for State Representative in the 22nd | Read More »
Back in May it was reported that the failing, yet politically-connected Shorebank in Illinois was to be bailed out. The bank actually closed last Friday, but was resurrected yesterday and turned into a new bank – one that will of course have no obvious relationship to Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL-09), who lobbied very strenuously to save Shorebank… even though it’s not based in her district. | Read More »
Cedra, as you will recall, is a conservative Republican running for the Illinois state Senate who had been thrown off the ballot for being a black conservative Republican a ballot technicality. That has been… resolved, and not in the Democrats’ favor: State Sen. A.J. Wilhelmi has a fight on his hands, and his Democratic bosses have only made it worse. Party leaders brought out the | Read More »
Quick background: Cedra Crenshaw (website here) is a conservative Tea Party activist – and, not incidentally, one that NAACP President Ben Jealous would happily call a ‘race traitor,’ if it weren’t for the minor fact that not even the media would ignore that kind of hypocrisy – who is trying to stay on the ballot for Illinois state senator. Emphasis on ‘trying:’ she’s fighting having | Read More »
I understand that the man is desperate to escape to Washington, DC – but the bills are piling up. And I am not being figurative in the slightest: Even by the standards of this deficit-ridden state, Illinois’s comptroller, Daniel W. Hynes, faces an ugly balance sheet. Precisely how ugly becomes clear when he beckons you into his office to examine his daily briefing memo. He | Read More »
A pleasant beginning to the week, no? First it was President Barack Obama, then White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, now U.S. Senate Candidate Alexi Giannoulias is joining the Rod Blagojevich corruption trial subpoena list. Giannoulias is in the middle of a hard fought campaign against Congressman Mark Kirk for the right to fill the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Obama. So | Read More »
…mostly left. When politicos play musical chairs in Illinois, what happens after the music stops and there’s no safe place to sit? There have been four dead in recent years, unrelated cases of suicide, different except for the acts of the common pageant: The corruption investigators call. The music ends abruptly. Two were done in by guns, one on a beach, the other under a | Read More »
(Via Instapundit) John Kass has a thoroughly entertaining article up on the way that former Governor Blagojevich is doing his level best to drag President Obama into the equally thoroughly entertaining drama that is former Governor Blagojevich’s corruption trial. To summarize: the government is using Tony Rezko to go after Blagojevich; Blagojevich needs to taint Rezko’s testimony; so Blagojevich wants Obama to testify about Rezko. | Read More »
What’s odd is the reaction to this: Gov. Pat Quinn said he’s ready to take on Scott Lee Cohen in the general election if the embattled Chicago pawnbroker publicly announces he’s making an independent run for the state’s highest office. “When all is said and done, there will be a robust contest of ideas,” Quinn said. I mean, you would think that the normal reaction | Read More »
As always, Cohen was going to stick it out to the end, right up to the moment that he decided to spend more time with the members of his family that don’t currently have restraining orders on him. Illinois Democratic Lieutenant Governor nominee Scott Lee Cohen announced Sunday evening that he is withdrawing from the race amid revelations about his personal history. Cohen, a millionaire | Read More »
(H/T: @sorendayton) You know, I noticed during the run-up to the Illinois Senatorial primary that more than one Democratic activist expressed worries about a Giannoulias primary win. And why were they worried? Pretty much because of what you’re about to see. Welcome to Chicago. Moe Lane PS: Mark Kirk for Senate. Crossposted to Moe Lane.
Death by aspirin overdose. The man federal prosecutors pressured to cooperate in the corruption probe of ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich died of an apparent aspirin overdose on Saturday, law enforcement sources said. Christopher Kelly, 51, of Burr Ridge, was pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital at 10:46 a.m. An autopsy is scheduled for today, a Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office spokeswoman said. Death. By aspirin overdose. Uh-huhh. | Read More »
Don’t tease us like this, Senator Burris. It’s unseemly in a Senator: “You never say never,” Burris told ABC News in a “Subway Series” interview for the ABC News program “Top Line.” The “Subway Series,” which debuts on Monday, features interviews with senators and other political leaders on board the Capitol Hill subway. “What I’m still hearing,” Burris said, is “people from all over the | Read More »
This, I think, deserves Ace of Spade HQ‘s Flaming Skull: Rod Blagojevich, the disgraced and displaced former governor of Illinois, now has a website where he continues his fight for “ordinary people,” the Associated Press reports. He has a website, a… radio talk show (WLS-890 AM, although he’s not on the schedule yet), a book (The Governor*) – and he’s available for public speaking gigs! | Read More »
Far be it from me to suggest that the Illinois GOP has decided to not do the Illinois Democratic party a favor: No perjury charge against US Sen. Burris-prosecutor CHICAGO, June 19 (Reuters) – An Illinois prosecutor investigating the appointment of Roland Burris to President Barack Obama’s vacant U.S. Senate seat said on Friday there was insufficient evidence to charge Burris with perjury. Some of | Read More »
This would only be a bombshell if it had been unexpected. AP Exclusive: Blago talked to Durbin about Senate CHICAGO (AP) – Just two weeks before his arrest on corruption charges, then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich floated a plan to nominate to the U.S. Senate the daughter of his biggest political rival in return for concessions on his pet projects, people familiar with the plan told The | Read More »
I am perilously close to being gobsmacked by this transcript of the Burris/Blagojevich conversation (via Hot Air). I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me that there’s enough there to indicate that Roland Burris flat-out lied about not trading favors and money for the Senate seat. I am not, however, so stunned as to be unable to remind people about this, this, this, this, | Read More »
Ace of Spades (H/T, by the way) has kindly given me permission to use the Flaming Blagojevich Skull for this, so I shall: Sun-Times exclusive: Burris promised Blago campaign a check by mid-December In a November conversation caught on an FBI wiretap, Roland Burris promised Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s brother that he’d write the governor a campaign check by mid-December, Burris’ lawyer said today. That was | Read More »
It’s been a while since we visited the Matter of Blagojevich, but one thing that you can always count on: there’s always going to be something new coming out from that glorious trainwreck. Judge OKs release of wiretap of Burris CHICAGO (AP) — A federal judge said Tuesday he would allow the U.S. Senate Ethics Committee to have a federal wiretap of former Gov. Rod | Read More »
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