Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was sentenced this week to 14 years in prison, but the real sentence is the one taxpayers will serve many years after. He mastered the art of pairing populist rhetoric with expensive new programs directed toward his core constituencies.

To pursue his highly visible programs and agendas, Blagojevich needed money. He found it by diverting billions from the state’s pension system. By taking “holidays” from required pension system contributions and by nearly doubling Illinois’s debt, he burdened future generations to support favored groups in the present.

Perhaps worst of all, as CEO of Illinois, Blagojevich institutionalized a culture of deficit spending. He accomplished this so effectively that Blagojevich’s successor, Gov. Pat Quinn, and today’s lawmakers feel comfortable perpetuating the ruinous habits of spending and borrowing more than the state can afford. Fiscal ineptitude is the new norm.

The Illinois Policy Institute has a new report out that details Blagojevich’s lasting effect on Illinois’ fiscal condition. Read it at www.illinoispolicy.org/blago. Here’s the “top ten” list:

No. 1: Disregarded obligations to state pensioners

Policy: Blagojevich diverted billions of dollars from the pension funds of future government retirees to pay for his own spending priorities.
Problem: Blagojevich ballooned existing spending programs, ignoring his responsibility to ensure the health of the state’s pension systems. Retirees and taxpayers are on the hook for his political expediency.
Program cost: Excess of $3 billion for future taxpayers

No. 2: A culture of deficits

Policy: Grow spending to appease Blagojevich’s core constituencies.
Problem: While Blagojevich was creating and expanding unaffordable programs, the state’s financial position deteriorated year after year.
Program cost: Worst rating of net assets in the nation.

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From the Chicago Sun-Times:

A federal judge sentenced Tony Rezko to 10 1/2 years in prison Tuesday, describing his actions under Rod Blagojevich’s tenure as “selfish and corrupt.”

Rezko, 56, has already served about 44 months. His daughter burst into tears at hearing the sentence.

U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve said she found it offensive that Rezko put at risk the Teachers’ Retirement System by scheming for kickbacks with a board member in 2004.

“You put their retirements at risk for your own greed and your own thirst for power,” St. Eve said.

A pale, thin Rezko gave a brief statement before he learned his sentence, saying “there are no words to describe the pain and regret,” he carries and the amount of suffering his family has endured. He apologized to the court and to his family.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Niewoehner said Rezko’s conduct was severe and included scheming with former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and others to control state deals so they could make money off of it.

“That’s about as bad as it can get in a political corruption case,” he said. “Illinois was for sale at the very top levels of our government.” Rezko’s attorney, Joseph Duffy, said his client would never commit a crime again.

Read more here. Readers will no doubt remember that Rezko and Obama were involved in a controversial land deal when Obama was a state Senator. They had very close ties:

Rezko was a key supporter and donor throughout Mr. Obama’s political career, with the Illinois Democrat estimating that Rezko raised $250,000 for his various political campaigns, though not for his presidential bid. The two were friends who talked frequently about politics and occasionally dined out together with their wives.

Illinois taxpayers are given the option to donate money to charity each year when they file their state tax returns.

Now, America’s most indebted state is raiding those funds to pay for wasteful spending that the Democratic governor and legislature refuse to cut.

As Chicago’s local NBC affiliate reported recently, it’s a form of theft made possible by a law that then-Gov. Rob Blagojevich passed in 2003 allowing “unused” money to be swept into the state’s general fund.

Illinois Tax Return. Source: NBC Chicago

A spokesperson for Blagojevich’s successor, Gov. Pat Quinn, claims the charity money was used to pay for Medicaid expenses, and that without those funds, the state would have lost critical federal funding.

Even some Democrats, including former gubernatorial candidate Dawn Clark-Netsch, find such excuses unacceptable. They are outraged at behavior that would likely result in criminal prosecutions, were it to be done by a private company or individual.

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The retrial of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich has been delayed until April, which will put it after the February 22 mayoral election in which a certain White House former Chief of Staff will be running.

It’s almost certain that Blagojevich’s lawyers will seek to subpoena Rahm Emanuel or at the very least depose him over certain conversations involving the ”negotiations’ over the appointment to Barack Obama’s old senate seat, which the president was reportedly seeking for presidential adviser and long time Chicago crony Valerie Jarrett. Rahm was subpoenaed as a defense witnesses by the defense at Blago’s first trial, which ended in a hung jury, but he was never called.

Of course, by April both the midterms and the mayoral election will both be over, which ought to give a little relief to another prominent Democrat, Alexi Gianoullias whose family owned Broadway Bank was just closed by the Feds amid what can only be called massive ‘irregularities’. And who’s now running for the same senate seat in a hotly contested election.

The feds have Blagojevich’s ex-chief of staff John Harris on tape telling Blagojevich in November, 2008 right after the presidential election that “Alexi called me.” Harris told Blago that Giannoulias “wants to meet with me a few minutes this afternoon. He says it’s . . . I said what’s it about? He says the (Senate) seat, ‘but not for me, for someone else’.”

While Harris claims he never met with Giannoulias, who is a long time friend, fundraiser and supporter of Obama (and along with Obama, a mutual pal of convicted financier Tony Rezco) right after the phone call a meeting was set up between between Valerie Jarrett and Illinois labor leader and Blagojevich supporter and confidant Tom Balanoff, to discuss the vacant senate spot.

That could mean that Jarrett went to the White House afterwards – which would have meant getting Rahm Emanuel involved – and asked them to ‘bid’ for her if this is the way things went down.That could make for some interesting testimony if Emanuel is grilled by Blago’s lawyers this time around.Especially since the feds have Emanuel on tape in various conversations with Blagojevitch and Harris.

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Fresh from lobbying for her friends at ShoreBank, Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) is at the center of another Chicago bank scandal–this time involving the remnants of a bank with connections to convicted former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, convicted fraudster Tony Rezko, and Barack Obama.

Source: http://achicagosojourn.blogspot.com

Under pressure from a contributor named Balvinder Singh (who gave her $500 in 2004, $2000 in 2006, and who knows what in 2010), Schakowsky twisted arms at the United Central Bank to back away from foreclosing on Singh and on several other business owners in Chicago’s West Rogers Park neighborhood.

United Central Bank took over the failed Mutual Bank of Harvey in 2009. According to Crain’s Chicago Business, Mutual funded Barack Obama’s “boneheaded” land deal with Rezko. Mutual’s former CEO also once raised major cash for Blagojevich.

The ghost of Mutual has returned to haunt Chicago politics, this time in a pay-to-play scheme that has unfolded barely a month before Election Day, with Schakowsky, the embattled incumbent, desperate and dishing out favors to survive.

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The trial of scandal-ridden former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich came to an unjust conclusion weeks ago, as Blago was largely let off the hook for his crimes. But as the government plans its second attempt to prosecute the case, news continues to break regarding Blagojevich’s scheme to sell President Obama’s then-vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times:

U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) said Tuesday he is “deeply sorry” for having “disappointed some supporters” regarding his relationship with a female “social acquaintance.”

But the congressman vowed to stay in office in the wake of a Chicago Sun-Times report that a major political fund-raiser has told federal authorities that Jackson directed him to offer former Gov. Rod Blagojevich millions of dollars in campaign cash in return for an appointment for Jackson to the U.S. Senate, to succeed President Obama.

As you may recall, Jackson’s connections to the Blagojevich scandal landed him on Judicial Watch’s list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians” for 2009. As the Chicago Sun-Times reported back then, emissaries for Jesse Jackson Jr., named “Senate Candidate A” in the Blagojevich indictment, reportedly offered $1.5 million to Blagojevich during a fundraiser if he named Jackson Jr. to Obama’s seat. And three days later federal authorities arrested Blagojevich.

So Jackson is partially correct when he said that these allegations are “not new.” But what is new, however, is that Jackson Jr.’s fundraiser, Raghuveer Nayak, has come forward to personally tell investigators that Jackson Jr. asked him to offer not $1.5 million, but a whopping $6 million in campaign cash to Blagojevich to secure the Senate seat!

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The Chicago Sun-Times provides this glimpse into our nation’s future:

The state’s miserable bond rating has driven up borrowing costs for state government by more than $500 million since last year, a government watchdog group says.

The nonpartisan, Chicago-based Civic Federation analyzed the near-record borrowing that the state has undertaken since last September and looked at similar borrowing during the same period in other states that have higher bond ratings than Illinois.

The result was a staggering $551.3 million extra that state taxpayers are having to devote to support the state’s thirst for debt because of a series of rating downgrades, the group says in a report being released today.

“This is an actual quantification of what the cost of the state’s fiscal irresponsibility has been because of the Illinois General Assembly and governor’s failure to stabilize state finances and to allow our credit rating to drop so low we are now the lowest credit-rated state in the country, with California,” said Laurence Msall, the Civic Federation’s president.

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From the very beginning I argued that the public should reserve judgment about Rod Blagojevich.  The Chicago Tribune had the openness to run two of my op-eds recommending suspension of judgment—“Fitzgerald comments crossed ethical line” (Jan. 15, 2009) and “Reign of everyday hypocrisy”  (April 10, 2009).

U. S. Atty Patrick Fitzgerald’s inflammatory comments at his Dec. 9, 2008, news conference—where he stated that Blagojevich’s conduct was “appalling” and that he had gone on a “political crime spree”—were entirely out of bounds.  Finding Blagojevich guilty on only one of 24 counts is some “crime spree.”  Maybe Fitzgerald confused Mr. and Mrs. Blagojevich with Bonnie and Clyde.

Worse, Fitzgerald poisoned the well of public opinion, leading to a zeitgeist of public frenzy—what the 19^th Century Scottish essayists called “schwarmerei,” a swarming herd conformity throughout the country and an animating spirit that precludes reserving judgment.

At the time, I received the following letter on Jan. 22, 2009, from Edward Genson, who had been Blagojevich’s initial counsel:

“I would like to commend you for your opinion piece in the Chicago Tribune on January 15^th and thank you for highlighting Patrick Fitzgerald’s ethical misstep.  Even in the face of this schwarmerei against Blagojevich, Fitzgerald still has to produce enough evidence to indict—imagine the schwarmerei against Fitzgerald if he fails!”

Fitzgerald had gotten away with it with Scooter Libby, whom he knew committed no crime but who perjured himself in subsequent testimony.  And the Conrad Black case does not reflect well on Fitzgerald.

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Here’s what Fox local news in Chicago reports:

Jurors who have been interviewed so far will not identify the juror, other than to say the juror was a female.

FOX Chicago News reported that speculation is centering on juror Jo Ann Chiakulas of Willowbrook, after a second-hand acquaintance said that she has been saying for weeks that she would find Blagojevich not guilty.

Chiakulas is a retired director from the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Contacted Tuesday night, she told FOX Chicago News she would call on Wednesday if she wished to talk about the case.

On one count at least, Chiakulas voted with her fellow jurors, agreeing to convict Blagojevich of lying to federal agents.

This was since confirmed by CBS local news Chicago.

They actually could have reported more — because pre-trial, they had this to say about a female “retired public health director” on the jury panel:

Juror # 106, a black female believed to be in her 60s, is a retired state public health director who has ties to the Chicago Urban League. She has handed out campaign literature for a relative who ran for public office. She listens to National Public Radio and liberal talk radio shows.

Media accounts mention the campaign literature, but they don’t mention NPR and liberal talk radio. Why?

We know they read this description — why do they end their repetition of it at that point?

The media is quick to stereotype conservative-tilting Americans and attribute to them bad motives.

Think they’ll do the same here?

What were her motives for so egregiously ignoring the law to set a guilty man free that her fellow jurors had to confront her with her own oath to render a true verdict? (more…)

After 30 days of trial and 14 days of deliberation in the up-and-down Rod Blagojevich corruption trial, the jury has announced it’s verdict.

Of the 24 counts against Rod Blagojevich, the jury found Rod Blagojevich on only one count, the Martha Stewart offense (making false statements to investigators stemming from a 2005 interview). The jury was hung on all other counts. That offense carries a maximum of 5 years and a $250,000 fine.

Of the 4 counts against Robert Blagojevich (his campaign chief towards the end of 2008), the jury was unable to come to any unanimous conclusion on any count.

As a result, the judge has declared a mistrial on the remaining counts enabling the prosecution to try again, which they said in court they will absolutely do. A hearing was scheduled for August 26th to discuss that matter.

In theory, the prosecution could attempt to retry on any counts that came back as hung but they will have time to decide that issue. However, this is good news for Blagojevich and signals that his defense team, despite much criticism, masterfully managed to dodge the bullet for their client… this time.

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We’ve theorized previously that there may be a smoking gun tying the connection between President Obama and ousted-Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich:  That smoking gun being the Service Employees International Union.

Well, the smell of gunpowder is filling the Illinois courtroom where Blago’s trial is still going on:

Top [SEIU] union leader Thomas Balanoff said he was at dinner the night before the November Presidential election when he got a call that was blocked.

So he didn’t take it.

Later he listened to his messages: “I walked outside, listened to it and it was from President Obama,” Balanoff said.

“Tom, this is Barack, give me a call,” the soon-to-be President-Elect said on the message.

After Balanoff sent word through an Obama aide to call him back, Obama returned his call later that night.

“Tom, I want to talk to you with regard to the Senate seat,” Obama told him.

Balanoff said Obama said he had two criteria: someone who was good for the citizens of Illinois and could be elected in 2010.

Obama said he wasn’t publicly coming out in support of anyone but he believed Valerie Jarrett would fit the bill.

“I would much prefer she (remain in the White House) but she does want to be Senator and she does meet those two criteria,” Balanoff said Obama told him. “I said: ‘thank you, I’m going to reach out to Gov. Blagojevich.”

Balanoff then described a Nov. 6, 2008 meeting he had with Rod Blagojevich to recommend Valerie Jarrett for Barack Obama’s Senate seat.

Though this is technically not a contradiction of then-President Elect Obama’s public “report” that there was no contact between he and Blagojevich, it does seem that SEIU top boss Tom Balanoff [shown here at a 2009 May Day rally] clearly served as the middleman between Obama and Blago.

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The trial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has begun in Chicago. Nothing says free-for-all like a political corruption trial in the Windy City. Should be a long, hot summer.

From CBS 2 in Chicago:

obama

The defense team for deposed Gov. Rod Blagojevich has moved to subpoena President Barack Obama to testify at Blagojevich’s corruption trial.

The motion filed Thursday says Obama was interviewed for two hours by prosecutors and FBI agents regarding the Blagojevich case, and the defense filed a motion asking for all transcripts, notes and reports from that interview. But the defense never received the documents, the motion said.

The motion also claims that prosecutors say Blagojevich met a labor union official whom he believed to be in contact with President Obama, and told the official he would appoint a certain candidate to the vacant Senate seat. In exchange, Blagojevich expected to be named secretary of Health and Human Services, the motion says prosecutors claim.

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“As Speaker, I want every citizen of Illinois to know this is a people’s Legislature — we are here to serve the public, openly, honestly and with the highest standards. I am accountable only to you”, says Speaker Madigan’s own website.

Chicago Democrats have run Illinois into the ground. Since Rod Blagojevich became governor in 2003, Illinois state government has spent roughly $500 billion dollars (yes nearly half a trillion).  Yet, we are:

1. 48^th in job growth
2. 36^th in education
3. Leading the nation in youth violent crime
4. 3^rd in the nation in gambling revenue.

Last year, over 700 manufacturing companies left Illinois.  Over the last ten years, 750,000 people left the state, many of them high income earners.

Illinois does not quantify even basic financial information- such as the number of state programs.  In October, 2007, the Illinois Auditor General issued a report saying that, “Illinois does not have a comprehensive, consistent list of state programs”. Lacking basic data has led to a lack of legal spending control.  For example, the Illinois constitution requires a balanced budget, yet we face a $13 billion budget deficit.  For all we know, much of the money could have been stolen, as we are deficient in even fundamental fraud controls.  Last summer, the Auditor reported that “the state has a material deficiency” of fraud control on “all federal awards”.  The scope of this statement covered $17 billion in spending! Where did the money go?

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From the April 2010 issue of Townhall magazine: Brandon Darby learned something from Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela. Once a hard-core radical who sided with progressive revolutionaries, Darby prevented a left-wing terrorist attack on the 2008 GOP convention. Now, this America-loving patriot is the target of the domestic extremists he once called “friends.”

Did you know that a courageous former radical helped to avert a planned left-wing terrorist attack at the 2008 Republican National Convention that might have killed who knows how many Americans?

Neither did I until recently.

That’s because if you disrupt a terrorist attack on Americans by Islamic fundamentalists as Northwest Flight 253 passenger Jasper Schuringa did on Christmas Day, you’re a hero; however, if you take the initiative to undermine a terrorist attack on Americans by supposedly well intentioned left-wing fundamentalists, you might as well be a terrorist yourself.

Brandon Darby, who in recent years also refused leftists’ invitations to get involved in Venezuelan communist subversion here in America and in anti-Israeli terrorism in Palestine, learned this unpalatable truth the hard way.

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As we watch Obama’s Chicago-style politics in action, it’s time to answer the question the old media, both in and outside Chicago, ignores to this day. Who were the key people in the Chicago Machine who helped advance Obama to the White House? One, Alderman Edward M. Burke, was an early supporter of Barack.

In the mid-1980’s, Chicago Outfit Lawyer Robert Cooley voluntarily went undercover for the FBI as part of an investigation called Operation Gambat. Cooley wore a wire on, among others, Burke’s good friend and made-man, Alderman Fred Roti.  The Chief Judge of Cook County’s Chancery Court and an Assistant Senate Majority Leader of the Illinois State Senate were also targeted. Cooley’s work eventually led to the only judge in U.S. history being convicted of fixing a murder trial. More on that Judge in Part 3.

Operation Gambat resulted in a series of trials, guilty pleas and convictions involving 24 people – mobsters, police officers, politicians, attorneys, and judges.

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Before left-wing activist Bob Creamer escorted his wife, Illinois Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky to the Obama state dinner, before he penned his blue print for the socialist agenda from his federal prison cell, before he committed felony bank fraud and was indicted on 34 counts involving misuse of $2.4 million, this Saul Alinsky disciple reaped hundreds of thousands of dollars from a campaign finance scam that illegally funneled money from deep-pocket Democrat donors  and labor unions to targeted congressional campaigns.

Creamer left his position as head of the ACORN-affiliated Citizen Action/Illinois in 1997 after financial irregularities at the activist organization garnered the attention of federal investigators.  Despite the ongoing federal investigation, Creamer turned to political consulting, bringing his bare-knuckle ACORN tactics to bear on behalf of numerous Democratic candidates like indicted former Governor Rod Blagojevich.  In the 2002 election cycle, Creamer’s Strategic Consulting Group was paid over half a million dollars by the Blagojevich campaign.  Strategic Consulting also did campaign work for Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and others, all while the feds pursued their criminal investigation.

During the period when Creamer was running Strategic Consulting Group the firm served as the primary vendor for several identically-structured campaign committees formed for the express purpose of supporting Democrat candidacies in circumvention of federal campaign laws.

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The Service Employees International Union has demonstrated a history of blatant “pay-to-play” political tactics. And “pay-to-play” is probably why the SEIU has been at the forefront of promoting ObamaCare, with a “robust” public option.

In 2002, the union spent well over $1 million and worked tirelessly getting Rod Blagojevich elected governor of Illinois.  Shortly after he was sworn in, he signed an executive order, allowing SEIU to unionize 20,000 state health care employees.  It was the first such move by any governor on SEIU’s behalf.  Dozens of campaign contributions from the SEIU to Blogojevich are compiled in a list posted on shopfloor.org, a blog maintained by the National Association of Manufacturers.

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Everyone knows that things in Springfield, Illinois are broken. Everyone knows that the government of the State of Illinois is inefficient and corrupt. That’s all true, however, to truly understand the problems in Springfield, we must look at the structure of the legislature.

By its design, the legislature in Springfield consolidates all power in the hands of four people: Tom Cross, Christine Radogno, Mike Madigan and John Cullerton. Those are the Republican and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate. Power is consolidated through the process by which bills see the light of day. In the Illinois legislature, there’s only one way for a bill to be heard and debated: the rules committee. Not surprisingly, each of those four folks are head of the rules committee for their side in the House and Senate. As such, the head of the two rules committees have carte blanche over what bills will and won’t see the light of day. So, if any legislator wants their bill to get a hearing in the House, Michael Madigan must approve. You can see how such a process could corrupt, and does.

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As far as we know, this is the second campaign ad that builds off the ACORN scandal. Media Matters can spin and Big Media can ignore, but the public is paying attention. If ACORN becomes toxic for politicians, they are done.

As always, tip your waitress…