Posted on 10/23/2009 1:33:22 AM PDT by STARWISE
*snip*
Turns out that when the former governor instituted a state-hiring freeze back in 2003, it was just a ruse so that he could do favors for a bunch of politically connected buddies. He ended up hiring just over 2,500 people during the so-called freeze.
But these weren’t ordinary applicants; politicians, including then-state-senator Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, pushed all the job seekers on Blago.
None of the politicians in the report are accused of doing anything wrong -- leaning on clout is the status quo in Springfield -- but the report does illustrate the insider game that occurs on all levels of government.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the guy who nailed Blago, said in a 2006 letter that there were "very serious allegations of endemic hiring fraud" under the former governor.
Obama, for his part, sent Blagojevich a list of 16 people that he would have liked to see get sweet jobs.
He got five of them through. Two of them landed $75,000 a year jobs as administrators at the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Affairs and the Department of Children and Family Services.
"I think we submitted just a list of people that were mostly, you know, some of them were people who'd sent us resumes in the past or other people we thought ... might be interested," Obama said. "But they weren't people who were connected to our political organization in any meaningful way. Or they weren't people I knew particularly well."
Hillary Clinton sponsored her childhood friend Voda “Betsy” Eveling for a job transfer within the Illinois Department of Human Rights.
Rahm Emanuel sponsored seven people, and got four hired.
*snip*
The clout list likely won’t have any effect on Blago’s upcoming trial.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcchicago.com ...
~~Ping!
The beat goes on ...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*snip*
State budget cuts severely limited student aid for the 2009-2010 academic year, causing approximately 138,000 MAP grant recipients to receive only 50 percent of their award. There is an estimated 130,000 more eligible students who applied after May 15 for the funding who will not receive MAP awards because the fund will have been depleted.
Quinn looks like the hero signing a bill to pay the $250 million in MAP grants, doesn’t he? Kind of like the former governor who, it turns out, Quinn and other legislators in Springfield lambasted for doing just this kind of magic trick.
Remember when former Gov. Blagojevich signed the authorizations to fund a program to provide healthcare to thousands of Illinois children who did not have healthcare coverage?
In fact, Quinn’s funding of the MAP Grant without identifying where the money will come is exactly what Blagojevich did that Quinn and the rest of the hypocrites in Springfield said Blagojevich did that justified their taking action to impeach him from office.
In impeaching Blagojevich, the legislators cited the alleged federal charges that US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald had yet to file against Blagojevich, and they impeached him on the basis of having failed to “follow the law” approving bills without proper funding.
That funding comes from the members of the legislature. But they like Quinn. They never liked Blagojevich.
It’s also possible that the jobs that the legislators sought from Blagojevich are now being sought by them through Quinn.
Jobs through clout and favoritism. Political budgeting. Broken rules regarding how state money (let’s properly identify that as taxpayer money, by the way). It all sounds vaguely familiar, doesn’t it?
I think they called it “pay-to-play.”
And then there is the politics of what Gov. Quinn did. So obvious and so outrageous.
Quinn approved the $250 million in cuts in the MAP Program as a part of his effort to blackmail the public into accepting an increase in the state income tax. Quinn wants to increase the income tax by 50 percent, a huge increase.
http://www.swnewsherald.com/online_content/2009/10/101909rh_blago.php
“I think we submitted just a list of people that were mostly, you know, some of them were people who’d sent us resumes in the past or other people we thought ... might be interested,” Obama said. “But they weren’t people who were connected to our political organization in any meaningful way.
Not in any “meaningful way”?
“or other people we thought ... might be interested,” Obama said.
LOL Hey Blago, here are some names I picked at random that might be lookin for a job see’ns as how you’re not hiring.
I don’t care what anybody says, that’s funny right there.
Cracks me up every time ..
I can’t get it out of my mind. Gonna be humming it all day.
October 20, 2009
Prosecutorial Misconduct (and Gall)
###
In the prosecution of Rod Blagojevich, federal prosecutors have complained to the judge that the former governor is tainting the jury pool with pretrial publicity, and have asked for a gag order. (NYT, 10/2009).
What gall!
Almost a year ago, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald held a news conference that succeeded in convicting Blagojevich without due process. (The same Fitzgerald was commendably scrupulous in avoiding pretrial publicity in the Scooter Libbey case.)
Fitzgerald announced on television that Blagojevich was guilty of a “staggering” level of corruption, and that he had engaged in a “political corruption crime spree.” Since then, Blagojevich has exercised his First Amendment right to try to defend himself against the criminal conviction that has already taken place, at least in the news media and in the minds of the public.
As belatedly recognized in Model Rule 3.8, in language adopted from the American Lawyers Code of Conduct (1980), Fitzgerald’s conduct was unethical. – Any bets on the likelihood of disciplinary action against Fitzgerald?
Comment:
It depends on the odds... but they’d have to be pretty high (say $500 for a $1 bet) for me to take that one.
More seriously, I entirely agree with you that prosecutors should not inflame public opinion against an accused.
I would also question the empirical plausbility of an assertion that anything an accused says at a pre-trial conference could taint a jury’s deliberations given the handicap in the public eye of being the subject of a criminal prosecution.
http://www.legalethicsforum.com/blog/2009/10/prosecutorial-misconduct-and-gall.html
LOL ..
In other news.......
(Post #4 !!!....must get coffee....)
My thoughts exactly. The Obama Kool Aid drinkers will lap that nonsense up as gospel.
BTTT
Impeach. Nothing less.
And the parsing goes on. In just this one paragraph, it is blatant.
I think ... were mostly ... some of them ... any meaningful way ... particularly well. The nerve is astounding.
lol; new school song for the Obot teachers to teach the kids...
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