I produced another ad



The Law L-A-W
OneMan

I guess all I can say about this is ewwww. I would have to agree with Austin Mayor about the standing of Foley on the creepy list.

OneMan

Well it appears that the Beacon, perhaps because it came up at the township meeting reported on Juan Thomas' law license being suspended. Only about 5 days after I did.

Tonight, I was reminded that my political opponents will use any weakness or opportunity to gain an advantage over me," he said. "That's the nature of politics. It is an in-your-face contact sport."

Yes, politics is a full contact sport at times, but I suggest most folks who actually read the finding will also think it raises some legitimate questions.

OneMan

Ok, I try not to go all OpenLine on the Beacon News by referring to them as the 'the fishwrap' or anything. I realize they are doing the best they can. But....
Today they had a story about 'Four area attorneys disciplined'. So I figured I would see something in that about Juan Thomas. Well I would be wrong.

They missed that in the same set of rulings that covered the attorneys they mentioned (it appears the IARDC works in batch mode) Mr. Thomas' disposition was covered in the same set of rulings. He is The Elected Clerk of Aurora Township, I fail for the life of me to understand how that is not news. It been has now been a week since the ruling came down. I suspect they Beacon doesn't understand why some people feel the paper tends to be a friend of the status quo. Perhaps stuff like this is why. If some guy (by accident) who blogs in his basement was able to find this out, what other things is the Beacon missing.

So Beacon News.

Here is the link to a page that has a summary of the disposition of the complaint. If you click on a link labeled R&D on that page you can see the original complaint as well as the final result from the Supreme Court.

OneMan

I created an ad using Windows Movie Maker



Yeah, it's kind of lame but somehow showing him answering that question would be effective.

OneMan

How many times can he say Godfather/Godparent in 9 minutes

The blog has broken the 50,000 hit mark. Thanks to everyone who has linked to me over the years. I have been averaging over 100 hits a day for almost the last week thanks in part to the $1,500 gift that keeps on giving.

OneMan

Is there finally a resolution in the complaint with the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission that was filed against Aurora Township Clerk Juan Thomas?
(I blogged about this about a year ago) It seems the ARDC does not move real fast, It appears to have taken over a year from when the complaint was filed to get to this point.

OneMan

Things you should learn in Governor school.

Don't take cash gifts from anyone who has gotten a job with the state or their spouse, regardless of how tight you are.

The coverup is almost always worse than what you did wrong in the first place.

Don't assume that anyone will keep their mouth shut to protect you in the long run.

If there is a controversy, give answers that will end it. Not prolong it.

If you even seem to avoid reporters expect them to go after you hard when they do get to ask you questions.

OneMan

According the MSNBC via ArchPundit.

During an election debate at the weekend in the outskirts of Chicago, Peter Roskam, the Republican candidate for Illinois's sixth district, trotted out the familiar line that his Democratic opponent wanted America to "cut and run" from Iraq.

Way to turn a phrase there. I bet you could almost hear Roskam's campaign staff slapping their heads.

tags: Duckworth,Roskam, Illinois Politics

Wow,

Just watch the video. Him trying to spin the gift, the dramatic pause at 2:15 is well worth it. Also don't get under Mike Flannery's skin...

A great drinking game would be to drink every time he says 'Like a Godparent to my kids'.

-- Update ---
It have move up in YouTube ratings today
#30 Most Viewed (Today) - News & Blogs
#52 Top Favorites (Today) - News & Blogs

OneMan

If you can't be sure who the gift was for and what it was for. Then how can you be sure that the money even went to your kid.

Also if someone puts $1,500 in a envelope (even as a check) I am going to remember what the heck there was for. Especially if I the governor, heck I am going to make sure I note it for my own protection.

If anything I think his answers make him look worse, also it was nice how he tossed Lon Monk under the bus.

OneMan
Tags: Blagojevich, Illinois Politics, 1,500

Well it looks like at some point Lisa Madigan is going to have to take a stand on the notification issue.

Someone on the Democratic party side of things should have realized there was a risk that at some point over the last decade the court would have issued guidelines. If for no other reason than some other case could have forced it to do so.

The Democratic party could have defused this potential land-mine for Lisa a long time ago without it having nearly the impact politically it will now.

Dan Curry has some thoughts on the politics of the issue here including pointing out that is was a pro-choice governor who signed the bill (Edgar) , surounding states have notification laws and the 80% support number that I have seen more than once (can't find an original refernce for it however).

OneMan
Tag:Lisa Madigan, Illinois Politics

Well it appears the review of the notification rules may come into play after all (Trib Article). Interesting that the dems charge politics when even the Democratic justices voted to review.

If the Democrats start making a lot of noise about reversing the law it might backfire on them a bit. It is an issue that may engage the conservative base a bit (since Judy is in favor of notification) and may cause a problem for some downstate Democrats. I think they would be surprised how many pro-choice parents are in favor of some sort of notification. I also think Lisa Madigan will not do anything with this before the election.

OneMan
Tags: Illinois Politics, Blagojevich, Topinka, Lisa Madigan

Hey Kids it's time of another audit, this time of the Flu Vaccine purchase and I-SaveRx.

So lets take a look.. All page numbers referenced are pages of the PDF file.

Page 10:
A December 21st 2004 e-mail shows that less than 2 months after the purchase the state realized it would likely be unable to take delivery of the vaccine. (Keep this date in mind)

Page 12:
A contract with the supplier Ecosse was not signed until January 13th, 2005. So we signed a contract with these guys even after we suspected we would not be able to take delivery.

Page 13:
We never had contracts with the other government entities who were going to take some of the vaccine.

Page 15:
Points out that it's is illegal to import vaccine without FDA approval and surprise, surprise, surprise the state didn't have approval.

Page 38:
We signed the contact with Ecosse two days after they billed us.

Now some I-SaveRx Stuff ( I am going to skip the department stuff because I don't really get it and focus on inspections and safety)

Page 17: 40% of the forms for pharmacy inspections were not completely filled out with one more requirements left blank.

Page 23: Only 9 of 80 inspection forms indicated whether the pharmacy was approved. In some cases the supervisory review was done by the same person who did the inspections.

Page 24: It might be (it's kind of hard to tell) that I-SaveRx violated Illinois' pharmacy license requirements. It depends on how you define dispense. The audit points out the I-SaveRx pharmacies were inspected by representatives of the state, however these inspectors do not meet the requirements of the license act for pharmacies (read all of page 24, it will make sense).

Page 27: Promotional activities by department, glad to see the State EPA and Fire Marshal as well as Historic Preservation doing their parts.

Page 45: The expansion of I-SaveRx to use suppliers in New Zealand and Australia was justified in part with the statement 'over 10,000 orders had been placed' the number was in fact 7,782 (which is in fact less than 10,000) Also before the trip to New Zealand an official of CanaRX (the supplier) said it was unnecessary and a waste of money. In the same report the official of CanaRx stated that two pharmacies (one in Canada and one in the UK) were currently supplying the program and had excess capacity for 250x the current volume.


The recommendations and Responses:

Read this one yourself. I would recommend looking at recommendation 10, travel. Where the auditor recommends getting approval for overseas travel before it occurs, and the response being it is gotten before the vouchers are submitted.


OneMan
Reading Audits so you don't have to.

Still waiting to hear back if the Topinka campaign is going to offer up banners, buttons or feeds for web-sites. It's been a week.

OneMan
Tags:Topinka,Illinois Politics

The saga of the old Copley site justs keeps getting stranger. Just read the story...
OneMan

Will the State Supreme Court working to issue the guidelines on parental notification have an impact on any races this November? I doubt it, but it will be interesting to see how Lisa responds once they are issued.

OneMan

From the AP via the Sun Times

Paying increased costs for employee pensions, health care for the poor and debt service will eat up virtually all new money the state can expect to bring in over the next three years, Comptroller Dan Hynes said Monday.

The state faces "a serious crisis" by 2010 unless lawmakers take a long-term view of state finances, Hynes told a business group in Chicago. But a spokeswoman for Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich said the administration was well aware of the problems when it came into office and has continued to alleviate them.

Yeah they are aware of them, by not making the pension contributions they are helping to create them. But I am sure if he is governor still by then it will still somehow be George Ryan's fault.

OneMan
Tags: Blagojevich, Illinois Politics, Dan Hynes

Just for some quick perspective on the $1,500. It's only $885 less than the Blagojevich 's gave to charity (according to their taxes) in 2003.
OneMan
Tags: Blagojevich, 1,500, Illinois Politics

Well the Trib has some more on State hiring including another person who spoke to the Trib who later didn't want their comments printed. (She was a 59 yar old intern).

Not so much to re-hash the story, I suspect Rich over at capfax will do a better job of that on Monday than I could. But instead dear reader I want to bring up a single question.

Is the Trib building to some sort of crescendo as election day comes closer. With story after story about hiring and other things with the Blagojevich administration? Will it have any effect unless the smoking gun shows up?

Just asking? Marathon Pundit has some thoughts as well.

OneMan

Tags: Blagojevich, Illinois Politics

The Daily Herald had a story on Saturday about the sleepy campaign for sheriff in particular the Williams campaign.

Hello? The sotry makes reference to how he is hard to reach during business hours. I have to say we see Kevin all the time and he and his folks are in parades and the like and working doors all of the time. Some other folks make the same point over at Illinoize.

The clerks race, I would call that sleepy, but not the Sheiff's race on either side. Sorry, difficulty in media availablity does not make a race 'sleepy'.

OneMan

Tags: Kane County

Technorati Profile

Any suggestions on how to get Technorati to sweep this blog a little more often than once every two weeks?

technorati

Got my annual letter from Beth about her 3-Day walk to raise money for breast cancer research. Reading the letter is worth the donation alone. Her blog reminds me what good writing looks like.

OneMan
Technorati:3-Day

Time for another Natural Golf update: I think I figured out what I might have been screwing up (I was adjusting my lead arm wrong), I am hitting a lot less thin (about 5%~10%) and those I hit thin are not nearly as bad. Slicing a bit now and then but it looks as much a push (or pull) than a true banana by any stretch. I am starting to use some of the clubs in my bag besides the 9-Iron that came with the class. My distance isn't quite there with my 5 Iron, and I was actually able to hit my old 3 wood (it has a tiny head and it's 15+ years old) off of the mat straight.

Looking forward to being good enough to do a couple of outings next year.

OneMan

Natural Golf

Need to Rant for a few minutes about the Judy campaign.

• Why in the heck can't they get back to me about banners, buttons, links and newsfeeds to use with my blog and the local party website. It's not like it will cost them money or anything. It FREE advertising kids. Wake up.
• Why isn't she running banner ads on some dog and cat lover web sites, I suspect they can be geographically focused (most big sites can in fact do that) and pointing out the fund sweep of the Pet Friendly license plate funds should be a non-brainer, low cost vote getter for her.

Let's not assume that indictments are in fact coming.

OneMan

Eric Zorn has the 'official responses' on the job thing.

From my favorite Abby (with my comments in bold) -- FYI Abby has earned a raise.

The Governor and Mike Ascaridis have been best friends for over 40 years, beginning when the Governor was 8 years old. Because Mike and Beverly do not have children, they are particularly close to the Governor’s children. Mike and Beverly give gifts for birthdays, Christmas, and christenings to Amy and Annie. The Governor and First Lady take the Ascaridis’ out for dinner. I thought there was no quid-pro-quo. I take people out to dinner as well none of them have ever given my kids 1,500 (cheap ungrateful...).The Governor regularly takes Mike to Cubs games, especially during the Cubs’ playoff run in 2003, when the Governor, Mike and Amy attended game after game together. OK, they hang out. I've take guys to Hawks games, Sox games, Cougars games again no big check for the kids. When Mike and Beverly were married, the Governor and the First Lady gave them a check. Lots of folks who attended my wedding gave us checks, I have to admit that out of those people who gave us checks (mostly my friends and family) I have given none of their kids gifts remotely approaching 1,500 in value.In other words, their relationship is just like the relationship of close friends all across the world. Most close and friendly relationships all across the world do not involve large cash gifts to kids, heck they don't involve large cash gifts to others period. Like a lot of parents, the Governor and the First Lady set up a mutual fund to help pay for college for their daughters – and that’s been dutifully reported. Well I would recommend using Bright Start. I am assuming she meant to say 'set up an investment account that contained mutual funds'. Here is a question, what kind of account, is it a Coverdell ESA or educational IRA? Because they have a 2K a year limit, which is relevant due to the size of the gift. And yes, Beverly Ascaridis was qualified for her job, and by all accounts she’s done the job well. She may be John Muir or Smokey Bear the bigger question is did they move the job just for her and if so were there equally qualified vets in DuPage who were in the applicant pool. Sorry Abby, the governor's office saying the governor's best friends wife was qualified for a job is not really a definitive answer on that.

Seriously you are going to have to spin this differently than they are friends and this is normal. Because $1,500 gifts to someones kids from a buddy of theirs is NOT NORMAL as the father of two children I wish it was, but it isn't. At the very least the timing of the gifts relative to her job has to be one of the dumbest political moves I have ever seen.

It is sort of like a Social Conservative Republican who was seen coming out of strip club saying he just had to use the rest room, it is plausible but not really believable.

OneMan

Zorn has George Ryan's statement at his sentencing hearing up . I am a bit surprised he spent the time he did giving 'shout outs' to his legal team during the hearing, I think it also in one way shows on some level how he kind of misses what at least bothered some people about what he was charged with doing. I would have liked to have seen this. I know at some level this addresses things that were not 'in play' at the trial.

"Your honor I am sorry that my team created an environment where people felt they had to take and solicit bribes in order to pay for fund raising tickets to help fund my campaigns. We may have at the time considered it the way things were done, but I now realize it was wrong and that because it was done that way in the past was no excuse. That people felt they needed to protect me and my reputation even if the truth had to be hidden. It happened on my watch and that was wrong.

I now realize that the pressure we put on people to raise money had real victims. People who committed crimes because they felt if they didn't find a way to pay for their tickets their livelihoods and their families futures were at risk. It lead to a chain reaction that put lives at risk and may have cost lives. We created this environment, and that was wrong. The goal of winning higher elective office was not worth that price."

OneMan

Wired has a story about how HP may have fraudulently gotten phone records of board members when investigating a leak to the media. A bord member who is making the claim, seems seriously ticked off about it (understandably so). Suffice to say A) read to story B) HP is going to end up in a world of pain over this.

OneMan

So 6.5 years. I guess that is fair, a long time for a guy who is in his 70's. I think history is going to harshly judge the records of governors of this state in the later half of the 20th century. So how many of the the last x governors have ended up in jail? Just sad.

OneMan

Rich has a link to Judy's new TV ad, not super but not bad. Perhaps a little too much time with the dogs but they do humanize her a bit and the 'I have been thinking' isn't a bad comeback. Be sure to read the comments on the post over at CapFax, lots of fun reads.

Also Team Judy, seriously, start reaching out to, offering some tools for (like banners) for GOP bloggers and web sites, I do the local party blog/site and a Judy link/button or newsfeed would be something I would be happy to add to my site(s) if it were available.

OneMan

If you want a definition of courage I suggest you read this story about a vet who passed away this weekend who go 800 Japanese soldiers to surrender.

OneMan

Some of you perhaps (but not likely) were worried that Sneed would not be able to reference Anne Burke as much now that she is on the State Supreme Court...

No worries, today she references her in a piece about Wallace "Gator" Bradley her second in the last week . Also Sneed realizes that if Bobbie Steele retires from the county board as chair it gives her pension a big boost everyone else had that story about a month ago.

OneMan Still priceless and ageless

I have to say in the battle of the mailers on the Duckworth/Roskam race when it comes to Amnesty is looks to me like Duckworth wins. Better looking mailer and a nice Republican-esk toss of the 'trial lawyer' line for good measure.

OneMan

Klau,

Has a blog post about driving from Frankfurt to Prague ...

OneMan

Was going to have a blog post about driving from Oak Brook to Springfield, but realizes it will be lame.

OneMan