Posts Tagged ‘2022 election’

Another front in the Boss Madigan scandals is something for Illinois voters to remember on Election Day

Posted: October 23, 2022 by John Ruberry in crime, elections, News/opinion, politics
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Madigan graphic courtesy of the Illinois Policy Institute

By John Ruberry

In March, after years of investigation, Michael Madigan, the decades-long speaker of the Illinois House and chairman of the state Democratic party, was indicted on corruption charges. The heart of that indictment was centered on northern Illinois’ principal electric utility, Commonwealth Edison, in what the indictment termed a “years-long bribery scheme” involving contracts, jobs, and of course favors, such as legislation favoring ComEd. Earlier this month, Madigan was indicted again, this time AT&T Illinois, a subsidiary of the much-larger AT&T, was the company involved. 

ComEd’s parent, Exelon, is a publicly traded company, as is AT&T. 

In return for AT&T Illinois paying a $23 million fine and admitting guilt, charges will be dropped by the local U.S. attorney’s office in two years, according to the paperwork filed in federal court in a deferred prosecution agreement. ComEd agreed to a similar settlement, while paying a $200 million fine. 

Madigan, 80, entered public life in 1969 as a delegate to the Illinois constitutional convention. He was elected to the Illinois General Assembly from a Southwest Side Chicago district a year later. He became House Speaker in 1983. 

As I’ve remarked many times before, Illinois is in serious need of term limit laws.  

While he was running what the U.S. District Attorney of Northern Illinois later called “the Madigan Enterprise,” the Boss managed to expand his power even more by becoming chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party. Perhaps the most devious gerrymanderer ever, Madigan used that post and the speaker’s office to create supermajorities in both chambers of the General Assembly. Oh, Madigan’s daughter, Lisa, served four terms as Illinois’ attorney general during dad’s reign. 

During Madigan’s reign-of-error, Illinois’ pension bomb was created. The fingerprints of the Boss were on every state budget from 1983 until his departure from public life.

The Madigan Enterprise fell apart early last year after–on Illinois Democrats’ standards–a lackluster 2020 general election. The Boss, finally visibly tainted by the drip-drip of the ComEd scandal, was unable to win reelection as speaker. Madigan, bereft of the linchpin of his power, quietly resigned not only as state party chairman, but he also resigned his House seat. He even quit as Democratic committeeman of Chicago’s 13th Ward, where presumably he is still revered. Madigan was never interested in student council-style pretend-power, he only relished the real thing. 

AT&T Illinois sought out Madigan because it wanted to ditch its landline telephone business, which it did in 2017. The General Assembly overrode the veto of Governor Bruce Rauner, a Republican, to get the job done. 

According to the indictment, Edward Acevedo, a Madigan crony and former state representative, received $22,500 for an allegedly no-work AT&T Illinois consulting job. Acevedo is now serving time in prison for tax evasion tied to his role in the Commonwealth Edison scandal. 

Also indicted by the feds this month was AT&T Illinois’ former president, Paul La Schiazza, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

Many of the minions of Boss Madigan are still in the General Assembly, most prominently Chris Welch, the current Illinois House speaker who, Brutus-like, turned on Madigan last year. 

Who is still in office is something for Illinois voters to think about when they make their election choices this autumn. Especially since, I suspect, it’s hard to fathom that ComEd and AT&T Illinois were not the only companies that tried to illegally curry favor with the Madigan Enterprise.

I recently read Matt Rosenberg’s What Next, Chicago? Notes of a Pissed Off Native Son—my review is here. In it, Rosenberg recalls a conversation with a former Chicago alderman, Dick Simpson, who told the author, “We have a rule about bureaucratic crime, that if one person is convicted there were probably ten people involved with that particular crime or that general pattern, that were not caught.” 

When Madigan was sworn into office as a state rep in 1971, Illinois had 26 electoral votes. In 2024 it will only have 19. 

Surprised?

Disclosure: The author of this entry worked for AT&T Wireless for over a decade.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

The fraud of John Fetterman

Posted: September 13, 2022 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

John Fetterman, the Democrat nominee for U.S. senator in Pennsylvania, is one of the biggest fakes to seek political office.

At 53, he’s basically never held a paying job outside of government, owing mainly to his family’s wealth. 

Born in West Reading, Pennsylvania, to an insurance executive and his wife, Fetterman got a public policy degree from Harvard and traveled more than 250 miles west to the small town of Braddock, where he worked as a member of AmeriCorps, the domestic version of the Peace Corps.

Fetterman, the carpetbagger from eastern Pennsylvania, had found his niche in the western part of the state.

In 2005, he ran for mayor when the town had 3,000 souls, about two-thirds of whom were black, promising to clean up crime and make the economy better. Amazingly, he won the race by one vote: 149-148. Unsurprisingly, some election day shenanigans allowed three people to cast ballots who had been turned away at the polls. See https://www.post-gazette.com/local/east/2005/06/09/One-provisional-ballot-decides-Braddock-mayor-s-race-It-s-Fetterman/stories/200506090277

For whatever reason, Fetterman became a media and elite darling despite his tattoos, hoodie and shorts, and excess pounds. 

The Guardian described John Fetterman as the “coolest mayor” in the country. The New York Times told its readers that Fetterman had “turned the busted town of Braddock, PA, into a national symbol of hope, hard work and authentic blue jeans.

Fetterman was feted at The Aspen Institute and with a TED talk.

As Tucker Carlson put it: “It’s so perfect: homesteading, organic vegetables, art installations, and also, again, inevitably a heaping dose of climate theology, all imported from Harvard. Fetterman imposed on a town with no jobs, carbon caps on Braddock, Pennsylvania, and he claimed these carbon caps would somehow — he never explained how — bring more manufacturing jobs back. He called this initiative “Carbon Caps = Hard Hats.” So expensive, unreliable energy will mean more manufacturing jobs, and yet somehow no one laughed at him, so John Fetterman kept going.” 

During his 14 years as mayor, he rarely attended town council meetings and argued incessantly with the black leadership of Braddock.

In 2013, Fetterman said he heard a loud sound, which he thought was gunfire. He grabbed a shotgun and followed a jogger, who was black, and confronted him. The jogger said Fetterman pointed the shotgun at his chest and face. No charges were filed, and no apology was made.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is9AD2PIKMk

Imagine what would have happened if a Republican running for ANY political office did such a thing?

In 14 years as mayor, Fetterman saw nearly half of the people leave. Crime and the economy aren’t any better. 

But the Democrats elected him as lieutenant governor in 2019 and nominated him for U.S. Senate. 

Fetterman’s stands on the issues are to the left of Bernie Sanders, whom he endorsed for president. Fetterman makes AOC seem sane!

I can only hope that the voters of Pennsylvania finally see through his facade and media hype to return him as an ordinary citizen to live out his years in Braddock or Aspen.