By Steve Rhodes
“There’s this thing that’s bleeping golden,” Phil Kadner writes. “It’s called the public trust. Unfortunately, politicians in this state don’t seem to put the same value on it that I do.”
Has anything really changed in the year since Rod Blagojevich was arrested?
Kadner doesn’t think so, and it’s hard to argue with him.
“Sadly, in the 12 months that have passed, political leaders have done little to restore credibility to the political system.
“Gov. Pat Quinn has done nothing to fumigate the state payroll of Blagojevich patronage employees.
“Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) has done his best to block reform efforts while making Quinn appear inept.
“As for the Republicans, former Gov. Jim Thompson, whose law firm defended another former governor, George Ryan, against charges of political corruption, is now trying to get part of Ryan’s state pension restored.
“Ryan, also a Republican, is sitting in a federal prison because while he was Illinois secretary of state, he placed a ‘for sale’ sign on his office.”
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Former prosecutor Patrick Collins reiterated his stance to Kadner that “I’m a one-issue voter now. I look for integrity. If it’s not there, if I can’t see it, nothing else a candidate says matters.”
That’s been the Beachwood’s stance from the get-go. The political culture won’t change by voting for the least offensive candidate, or voting along party lines. Vote for truly honest candidates, if you can find them, regardless of ideology. This state is so sleazy that ideology must take a back seat to true reform. I don’t care what party someone belongs to; if they are smart, honest folk, I want them in government.
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Quinn Signs Old Bill.
TIFs For The Rich
The critics were right. And the rest of us are screwed.
About Alexi
A man and his bank.
At The Circus
Reporters still sleeping with the elephants.
Civil War
Rich Miller vs. John Laesch vs. Abraham Lincoln.
Catching On
“I was pleasantly surprised to be invited to the White House jobs summit last Thursday, where I got to watch President Obama engage with about 130 people off the cuff,” Robert Kuttner writes. “And I was reminded, first hand, what drew so many of us to the promise of this remarkable outsider – the decency, the intellect, the idealism, and the evidently progressive impulses. I came away even more bewildered and dismayed at the reality that this president, who could have been such an insurgent at a moment demanding insurgency, has been so utterly captured by the Wall Street elite, the health insurance industry elite, and the military elite.”
Daley Dab
Came across this while looking up clips for something else:
“The federal charges hit close to home for Mayor Daley. Bridgeport native Patrick Slattery is a newlywed whose wife is the mayor’s personal secretary.”
Somehow I think it escaped me – or maybe I just forgot – that one of the Daley aides caught up in the Sorich hiring scandal was married to the mayor’s personal secretary. But nobody knew nuttin’!
Salahi Story
Is the story of the White House gate-crashers being overplayed? Well, the media can’t resist the social elite part of it, but the truth is this: Somebody got to the president. That’s the biggest security breach out there, isn’t it? I mean, except someone with bad intent getting to the president . . . It’s just that there’s not a lot left to report after stating that fact.
The Daley Show
“Mayor Richard Daley has a full schedule, but once again isn’t taking any off-topic questions,” the Tribune notes.
Only questions on pre-approved topics, please.
I Am A Security Guard
And customers are nuts.
Future Shock
“We expect the Internet to overtake newspapers to become the world’s second-largest advertising medium by the time we are half way through the next decade,” reports ZenithOptimedia.
New Old Read
The Times Skimmer by The New York Times.
White Coats
Google Labs.
Twits of the Week
Um, Todd, the story you are tweeting about here is about Terry O’Brien, not Toni Preckwinkle. Guy can’t even get a tweet right.
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Speaking of O’Brien, he (or his staff) retweeted Preckwinkle winning the endorsement of the New Trier Dems.
Kap’s Korner
David Kaplan is one of the sharpest minds among local sports media, but “The Hottest Baseball Wives and Girlfriends?”
Street Smarts
Just catching up with this:
“Gerald W. Bracey, 69, one of the most erudite, prolific and acidic critics of national education policy, died unexpectedly early Oct. 20 at his home in Port Townsend, Wash.,” the Washington Post reports.
“He published articles in dozens of magazines and newspapers and wrote 10 books during the last two decades of his life. He skewered the educational policies of the George W. Bush administration and donated money to and voted for presidential candidate Barack Obama. By May of this year, Mr. Bracey was hitting Obama too, noting that the president was wrong when he said ‘in 8th grade math we’ve fallen to 9th place.’
“Actually, this was an improvement from 28th place in 1995, Mr. Bracey pointed out.
“In his book, Education Hell: Rhetoric vs. Reality, published this year, Mr. Bracey attacked the misuses of standardized testing, a subject on which he was an acknowledged national expert. ‘We went from a system that valued producing good citizens for a democracy to one that worshipped at the temple of high test scores,’ Mr. Bracey wrote. ‘We should be asking, what were we thinking?'”
Taste Section
Yahoo! President Carol Bartz’s comments at a media conference as summarized in a tweet by paidContent: “Tiger better than Michael Jackson. Can’t place ads next to funeral.”
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Automatic for the people.
Posted on December 10, 2009