By Steve Rhodes
Wow, it was a big day for The Combine. Former Gov. George Ryan won his bid to stay out of jail while his racketeering conviction is on appeal, but lost his pension. Bobbie Steele got her pension but unfortunately won’t be going to jail for the political fraud she has perpetrated on Cook County voters and taxpayers. Rod Blagojevich, who remains in office and out of jail pending indictment, conviction, and appeal, has once again broken his word, this time to Steele and John Daley. Daley’s brother, Richard, who also remains in office and out of jail pending indictment, conviction, and appeal, is piggybacking on the whitewash of his involvement in police torture as Cook County State’s Attorney by declaring he sees no evil in the police department despite a report of “continued indifference” to corruption in the department.
Bill Beavers said it all: “This is good Democratic politics.”
Cardinal George
“There is a God,” George Ryan declared, upon hearing that he will be allowed to stay out of jail while his appeal is pending.
Apparently He was just on vacation last year when a jury convicted him and a federal judge sentenced him to six-and-a-half years in the pen.
God is like that.
“‘We’re very, very happy,’ Lura Lynn Ryan said, declaring her husband’s innocence. Ryan, who was in the house, did not speak to reporters.”
George was actually inside delivering an “exclusive” to Sneed: He was making bean soup when he got the news. That made the Sun-Times‘s front page.
Soup to Nuts
Message: The racketeer is just like us!
Richie and the Beave
In Mickey Ciokajlo’s account in the Tribune, he calls the manuevers between City Hall and Cook County a “triple patronage play that would stand out even by Chicago standards.”
Steele Breeze
“Among her accomplishments as presidents, Steele cited lifting of the burn moratorium at the forest preserve district and an order to end politics in hiring in the county.”
Then she announced plans to install her son Robert on the Cook County board.
Steele Trap
“She dodged questions about whether pushing her son, Robert Steele, as her replacement was nepotism, or whether she was disingenuous in waiting until after the election to announce she would retire on her president’s salary, which allows her to draw a double pension instead of returning to her board seat,” the Sun-Times reports.
“‘I am finished answering questions,’ she said abruptly, after entertaining just a few queries, and left the dais.'”
She learned that from the mayor.
Bobbie Steal
“For Steele, jumping through a loophole pays great dividends,” the Tribune editorial page noted. “She took office four months ago with only one big responsibility other than warming a chair for her successor: She need to propose a Cook County budget for the fiscal year that begins Friday.
“Steele never did get around to drafting a budget. So many inauguration parties, so little time.”
State of Denial
“Also on Wednesday, Daley scoffed at a report by Lou Reiter, a former senior Los Angeles police official who concluded that Chicago police officials have continued ‘a practice of indifference’ toward corruption that makes renegade officers here ‘feel protected.'”
There is indifference everywhere, Daley said. Even in your industry.
Hall Monitors
What’s your favorite part of the Tamron Hall boob job story? I can’t decide whether it’s her insistence that she’s a “news journalist” who is “in the grind’ breaking stories every day or it’s the lame but mildly amusing jokes in Robert Feder’s column today.
I do know, though, that the coup de grace was turning to Stella Foster today (hey, I do it so you don’t have to) and finding out that Hall will appear in an episode of Fashion House tonight. Perfect.
Same As It Ever Was
“The governor made a commitment,” a steamed John Daley said on Wednesday about a financial deal the county made with the state. “It’s apparent that he has once again not lived up to his word. Maybe we have to do what some members of the General Assembly do and get a letter of commitment when we deal with this governor.”
Obameter
Oh Lord.
Rush Hour
Of course Bobby Rush (D-AT&T) is two-faced weasel. We already knew that. The pertinent question is: What did he get – street paving, a contract for a pal, an appointment to public office for a relative?
Irresistible URL
CelebrityButtPlugs.com.
For entertainment purposes only.
Er, that’s not what I meant.
Rock Dock
“Let’s impose a moratorium on rock critics. Now. A few months ago, I came across this line by critic David Dunlap, Jr.: ‘[The band] Windsor for the Derby has plenty of experience jumping subgenres . . . everything from slo-core to krautrock to electronica to its current flavor of Mancunian-tinged postrock.”
“Call me square, dismiss me as an oldster, but I think when you’re referring to Mancunian-tinged postrock, it’s time to hang it up.”
Bullseye
Good God. (Inspired by a photo in today’s Quick Hits)
In the Reporter
We’re chock full of good stuff. If you don’t believe me, take a look around and see for yourself.
An Inconvenient Truth
“A few scribes remain weepy apologists for City Hall patronage, while standing tough on Cook County patronage, as if Daley didn’t run it all.”
The Beachwood Tip Line: Where slings meet arrows.
Posted on November 30, 2006