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A new report on "Judicial Hellholes" arrives just in time, albeit indirectly, to remind Congress that no health-system changes can qualify as real "reform" if they don't include serious lawsuit reforms as well. The annual report by the American Tort Reform Foundation, released Dec. 15, shows that President Obama's own Cook County, Ill., is the nation's third-worst place for lawsuit abuse. Maybe that helps explain why Obamacare, especially as translated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, discourages lawsuit reforms rather than promoting them. For instance, the Pelosi bill punishes states if they implement the most effective tort reform of all, namely...

I think we need to meet as conservatives to get ideas on how to save our beautiful state. It was going well until Blago took over in 2002. I'm thinking January 9th. Downtown Chicago.

Here is a really fascinating series of tweets from Commissioner Tony Peraica as he participated in the latest Cook County Board meeting. Today (Dec. 1) Board President Todd Stroger tried to cajole the board into upholding his veto of the roll back of his implementation of the highest tax rate in the country. Peraica is against the tax and since the State Legislature ended the four-fifths rule, lowering it to three-fifths to overturn the president's veto, the fight was on. Anyway, here are the tweets that Peraica posted during the debate and they are a fascinating peak inside a board...

OK, say you are running for the Cook County Board. And say your daddy is the village clerk in the very district where you are hoping to get a whole slew of by-mail and early votes. Also say your cousin is running for Governor and he's already the State Comptroller now. Do you think your opponent might casually wonder if the fix is in? ... well, it is Crook County, after all. Naturally, the above isn't just some bad TV script, but a real situation in southern Cook County. In Orland Park where Democrat Patrick Maher is running to unseat...

Chicago prosecutors have subpoenaed the grades and other material regarding the classroom performance of Northwestern University journalism students, according to The New York Times. Seems the prosecutors are tired of being second-guessed by the J-students, who are participants in The Innocence Project. The Innocence Project is an effort by Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism to provide students with real-life experience in scrutinizing the actions of police and prosecutors in old cases. Their work has led to the release of at least 11 inmates who were shown to have been wrongly convicted. It's that success rate that has the local DAs...

The Democratic primary will be bloody. It will take no great political prognostication to figure that out. Todd Stroger, the encumbent, is vulnerable and the Democrats know it. That's why there are no fewer than four challengers ready to take him on. Stroger is best known for sticking the County with the highest sales tax in the country. Local news stations have featured stories of cushy jobs going to friends and family. Then, there's the story of Tony Cole. Cole was his basketball playing buddy when Stroger offered him a job in the County. Not three months into his tenure,...

Vote of Confidence A huge black turnout in November 1992 altered Chicago's electoral landscape—and raised a new political star: a 31-year-old lawyer named Barack Obama. By Gretchen Reynolds A huge black turnout in November 1992 altered Chicago's electoral landscape-and raised a new political star: a 31-year-old lawyer named Barack Obama. In the final, climactic buildup to November's general election, with George Bush gaining ground on Bill Clinton in Illinois and the once-unstoppable campaign of senatorial candidate Carol Moseley Braun embroiled in allegations about her mother's Medicare liability, one of the most important local stories managed to go virtually unreported: The...

The federal monitor over Cook County government hiring issued a progress report on patronage problems today -- *snip* Some workers for the county are actively undermining efforts to take politics out of personnel practices. Read the report here.

There's a smell test that I usually use when a politician invokes the deity into a political debate. Does it seem out of place? Is this something that the politician does consistently or are they suddenly invoking the deity? For instance, Bill Clinton could be found at church only when there was political heat on him. Sarah Palin, on the other hand, evokes the lord a lot and so if she were to evoke the lord I wouldn't be quite as skeptical. (though, I understand that this would give her more license)

The Chicago Sun Times has the latest in a string political corruption revelation in an area in which this appears common place. Patronage workers with the Cook County Forest Preserve District are seeing more green these days -- in their paychecks. With people everywhere facing tough financial times, the 28 forest preserve patronage workers who've been on the payroll since 2006 all got hefty raises in the following two years, an analysis by the Chicago Sun-Times and the Better Government Association has found. They're among 38 forest preserve workers who are exempt from the Shakman court order that bans political...

The Chicago Sun Times has the latest in a string political corruption revelation in an area in which this appears common place. Patronage workers with the Cook County Forest Preserve District are seeing more green these days -- in their paychecks. With people everywhere facing tough financial times, the 28 forest preserve patronage workers who've been on the payroll since 2006 all got hefty raises in the following two years, an analysis by the Chicago Sun-Times and the Better Government Association has found. They're among 38 forest preserve workers who are exempt from the Shakman court order that bans political...

Patronage workers with the Cook County Forest Preserve District are seeing more green these days -- in their paychecks. With people everywhere facing tough financial times, the 28 forest preserve patronage workers who've been on the payroll since 2006 all got hefty raises in the following two years, an analysis by the Chicago Sun-Times and the Better Government Association has found. They're among 38 forest preserve workers who are exempt from the Shakman court order that bans political hiring in city and county government.

The state is freezing $2.35 million in grant money for Cook County President Todd Stroger's job training program after a probe raised questions about spending and accounting practices at the office.

At last, Roland Burris has made a decision as senator that we can endorse wholeheartedly.He will not run next year for his Senate seat.Thank goodness.At least one chapter in the sad show that is Illinois politics can soon come to an end.You'll remember, of course, that Burris began shredding his own credibility and the legacy of his decades of state service when he accepted the Senate appointment from our radioactive governor, Rod Blagojevich. Blagojevich anointed Burris, just as the governor was getting tossed from office for allegedly trying to sell that very Senate appointment. Recall, too, that we have state...

Politics: The career of Roland Burris, a political cipher from Illinois who became a U.S. senator and the lamest of ducks, is over. He can now retire into the obscurity he so richly deserves.Having obtained the seat under a cloud of typical Illinois corruption, Burris announced Friday he won't run for a full term in 2010. He was appointed by the former and recently impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich who, among his other accomplishments, tried to auction off the seat formerly held by Barack Obama. Blagojevich was forced out of office and may soon join other Illinois governors who went on...

Last week, Rasmussen Reports released a poll showing that 77% of Americans see government officials’ unwillingness to cut government spending as a bigger problem than voters’ resistance to tax hikes: For nearly four-out-of-five U.S. voters, the problem is not their unwillingness to pay taxes. It’s their elected representatives’ refusal to cut the size of government. Those poll numbers are music to our ears … but will these numbers actually translate at the ballot box? After all, for years, the issue of political “pork” has made headlines. And polls regularly show that Americans disapprove of this political spending of taxpayer dollars....

<p>Democratic Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley is cruising tonight in the 5th District race to replace Rahm Emanuel in Congress.</p> <p>With 45 percent of precincts counted, Quigley had an 8,500-vote lead over Republican Rosanna Pulido and Green Party candidate Matt Reichel.</p>

You'll soon need more than your John Hancock to sell your house in Cook County. Homeowners will have to submit their right thumbprint to a notary public to sell their house under a state law that starts June 1. The law is intended to deter housing fraud, which often involves forging a property owner's signature on a deed and selling the property illegally. Sellers also must provide valid photo identification. The thumbprints will not be public records.

Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez introduced Jack Blakey today as her office's new special prosecutions chief. The former assistant U.S. attorney will be in charge of pursuing corruption cases, as well as organized-crime and narcotics investigations. Blakey moves to Alvarez's staff from the office of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, where he was on the team that successfully prosecuted Tony Rezko on corruption charges involving state of Illinois deals under ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich. As Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed reported today, crime-busting is in Blakey's blood. His father, George Robert Blakey, was the principal author of the Racketeer Influenced...

Obama pick faces questions over bombers' clemencyBy PETE YOST Associated Press Writer Originally published Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 2:05 PM WASHINGTON — New York police detective Anthony S. Senft's life changed forever when a bomb set by Puerto Rican separatists exploded, blowing him 15 feet in the air and blinding him in one eye. Now, he's angry that Eric Holder, who played a key role in awarding clemency to the bombers, is in line to be attorney general. Holder, as President Bill Clinton's deputy attorney general, worked closely with the Justice Department's pardon attorney to raise the possibility of...

Relativity by E. M. Escher While researching an article about Obama's Chicago home-- about the circumstances surrounding who is the "owner", I happened across a bit of information: Obama's home has a Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac mortgage to the tune of $1,320,000. (Page 5 of Cook County Property Assessment Record) The information comes from the Cook County Clerk's office where the "owner" of the Obama home is listed as William Miceli, a former supervisor of Obama's when he worked at the David Law Firm. What's unusual about the Obama mortgage is that the upper limits of a Fannie Mae loan...

Wanna know who will get the next huge government bailout check? Take a look at the Democrat donor list. Some researchers are suggesting an uncanny correlation between those who write big checks to candidates and those who cash big checks from elected officials. If you were wondering, like I was, what happened to the capitalistic fire in these executives panhandling up and down Pennsylvania Avenue, we may have an answer. Some of these companies have gotten truly incredible rates of return from their, uh... investments in candidates. Let's look at a few:

December 09, 2008 Categories: Barack Obama Blago wanted to shake down Warren Buffett Blagojevich and his inner circle were expansive in pondering just how they could leverage the Senate appointment for financial gain, and at one point the governor floated the notion that legendary financier and Obama supporter Warren Buffett could somehow be brought into the deal. In a November 11th conversation with John Harris, his Chief of Staff, Blagojevich said he could start a 501(c)(4) political organization to extract money from the billionaire Sage of Omaha, whom the governor called Obama’s “friend.” “What, for you?” Harris replied. “Yeah,” said...

Antoin "Tony" Rezko leaves federal court in Chicago in this Oct. 19, 2006, file photo. Mr. Rezko spent years pouring thousands of dollars in campaign contributions into Barack Obama's climb from the Illinois legislature to Capitol Hill, and helped him raise tens of thousands more. A former Illinois bank official, now claiming whistleblower status, says bank officials replaced a loan reappraisal that he prepared for a Chicago property that was purchased by the wife of now-convicted felon Tony Rezko, part of which was later sold to next-door neighbor Barack Obama. In a complaint filed Thursday in the Circuit Court of...

Two remarkable stories about the state of law enforcement—one exasperating, one encouraging—broke in Chicago last week. Both story lines intertwine in one elaborate saga. We aren't often captivated by press releases. But the opening passage of a U.S. Justice Department account succinctly juxtaposed the story lines: A six-passenger, twin propeller engine aircraft flew on May 13 this year into west suburban DuPage Airport where three men awaited its arrival. Two of them—Ahyetoro A. Taylor and Raphael Manuel, both Cook County Sheriff's Office correctional officers—accompanied an individual whom they believed brokered large-scale drug transactions but, in fact, was an undercover FBI...

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Illinois sheriff: No foreclosure evictions on my watch * Story Highlights * Sheriff Thomas Dart says he is suspending foreclosure evictions in Cook County * Dart: "These mortgage companies only see pieces of paper, not people." * Illinois Bankers Association opposes plan, says sheriff could be found in contempt * Cook County expected to exceed 43,000 foreclosure cases this year CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- Sheriff Thomas J. Dart said Wednesday he is suspending foreclosure evictions in Cook County, which had been on track to reach a record number of evictions, many because of mortgage foreclosures. He said many of the...

About 600 of Chicago’s top African-American lawyers and judges gave standing ovations Thursday to two preachers who’ve been vilified in recent months for their sermons that went nationwide on the Web. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the Rev. Michael Pfleger became headaches for Democrat Barack Obama’s presidential campaign when their controversial comments became fodder for conservative talk-show hosts. Wright said “God damn America” in arguing that American foreign policy helped bring on the 9/11 attacks. Pfleger said Hillary Clinton resented Obama as a black man taking the nomination she felt was hers. But despite the heat on them, the two...

Politics produces a gap between words and deeds. Obama exaggerates the credit he deserves for a limited piece of ethics-reform legislation. He embellishes when he presents himslf as having a consistent record on the Iraq war when in fact he's done done a fair amount of zigzagging. He says it was the 1965 bloody attacks on civil rights protesters in Selma, Alabama, that inspired his parents to marry. They had been married for years already. He engages in doubletalk when, on free trade and Iraq, he tells the yokels one thing and the policy people another. He overstates when he...

Attention-grabbing fact from Fred Siegal's must-read piece on Barack Obama in the dead tree edition: 90% of Obama's popular vote lead over Hillary Clinton was racked up in his home state of Illinois, and two-thirds of that 90% was accumulated in Cook County.

Barack Obama - The Wizard Of Oz By Evelyn Pringle 28 March, 2008 Countercurrents.org The most trusted leaders of the Democratic party, such as John Kerry and Ted Kennedy, ought to be ashamed of themselves for supporting Barack Obama. With use of the internet, a fifth grader could connect the dots to show a picture of a guy who was picked up in college and carried up the political ladder by a corrupt gang of influence peddlers. John McCain is just drooling waiting for Obama to become the nominee so that he can come out with the trail of dirt...

When Cook County Board President Todd Stroger introduced his cousin Donna Dunnings as the county's new chief financial officer last year, they each boasted of the savings taxpayers would realize. She would take a salary far less than the previous CFO. That was then.

Former Cook County Board President John Stroger has died. Mayor Daley announced Stroger's death this morning at a breakfast. He was a close ally of Mayor Daley and his father, Richard J. Daley. Presidential hopefuls curried his favor in hopes of tapping the rich mine of votes his South Side 8th Ward Democratic organization routinely produced. Stroger had loyalty to family, supporters When President Stroger’s final run for office tightened up, it was former President Bill Clinton who came to his aid, singing his praises in radio ads and recorded automated telephone calls.

I don’t mean to startle you enough that you spill your mug of eggnog, but the forces that want you to stop fishing and hunting are at it again. As practitioners of hunting and fishing, we face threats to our sports on a constant basis. Whether it is loss of available hunting land or our losing access to waterways, the threats are real and must be fought with vigor. No threat should be taken more seriously than one that restricts our right to bear arms. The Cook County Board of Commissioners is the governing body for a region that contains...

ISRA Alert: TOTAL COOK COUNTY GUN BAN CLEARS FIRST HURDLE Rabid gun-grabbers on the Cook County Board came one step closer last week to instituting a total ban on firearm ownership in the county – except for police and military personnel. Introduced by Commissioner William Beavers, the so-called “Safe Streets/Weapons Registration Ordinance” appears on the surface to be some sort of gun registration scheme. However, closer examination reveals that the only people who could comply with the registration requirements would be Chicago residents who had previously registered their guns with the city. Everyone else in Cook County would have to...

CHICAGO - Tax hikes, proposed clinic closings and claims of racism plagued a Cook County Board meeting on Tuesday. Commissioner William Beavers charges white members of the board are ganging up on president Todd Stroger to block his agenda. "If this was a white man in power right now, they wouldn't be fighting (Stroger) like this," Beavers said, raising his racial conspiracy theory at a seemingly pointless county finance committee meeting where commissioners grew testy and interrupted each other. Beavers claimed that Tony Peraica hates all black people, saying, "All black elected officials he hates -- he don't like 'em."...

One Cook County commissioner wants to increase the county's portion of the sales tax, and if approved, the sales tax in Cook County would go up to 11 percent. That tax increase would also apply to restaurant and hotel bills. Cook County Commissioner Joan Patricia Murphy said the additional tax revenue would be used to avoid another crisis when it is time to come up with next year's budget. It appears everything is on the table as Cook County commissioners prepare for next year's budget. The last time they called for a sales tax increase was 1992. Some commissioners say...

Orlando Jones, the top aide and godson of former Cook County Board President John Stroger, parlayed his connections into a lucrative career as a behind-the-scenes government consultant with ties stretching from Chicago to Springfield and Las Vegas. But in the last year, his quiet, insider role had brought him under more scrutiny of law enforcement, and on Tuesday he met with his lawyer to discuss how to refute allegations that he was involved in a contract scheme at a Las Vegas public hospital. A day later, Jones, 52, was found dead on a beach in southwest Michigan, and authorities said...

In the end, storming the Cook County Administration Building with dozens of supporters in the middle of the night didn?t make a difference for Tony Peraica. The Republican candidate for Cook County Board president conceded the race to his Democratic opponent, Todd Stroger, today around 2:40 p.m. after suburban vote totals, delayed by technical glitches, made it clear victory was impossible. Returns showed Stroger with 68 percent of the city vote, while Peraica got 61 percent of the suburban county vote. Overall, Stroger was winning by a 54 to 46 percent margin, with 642,000 votes to Peraica?s 547,000. So even...

Dumbest poll question ever.... Go to: http://www.nbc5.com Scroll down to lower right. Do you think corruption is a big problem in Cook County politics? Yes No

Rude, race-baiting questions are not my first choice in the journalistic quiver. But I couldn't help firing a few at Tony Peraica, the Republican candidate for president of the Cook County Board. Tony, just when are you going to turn into an evil white racist? In September or October, when you'll be known as a man bent on disenfranchising African-American voters, like the rest of those Republicans? "Excuse me?" Peraica said. We were sitting in the quietly exclusive atmosphere of CND Gyros during an interview on Wednesday. It's quietly exclusive because it's not expensive enough for most politicians, leaving taxpayers...

One of Chicago's most powerful aldermen has a conspiracy theory for the voting problems experienced during the March primary. Alderman Ed Burke wants to know why the Chicago board of elections would pick a Venezuelan company to supply the city's new voting machines, a company Burke believes has the ability to rig an election for political gain. Both the voting machine company and the board of elections are calling alderman Burke's suggestion of a conspiracy absurd. This happened during a city council hearing Friday on problems during last month's primary. Alderman Ed Burke, whose wife just got appointed to the...

Four Kennedy High School students were charged Thursday in an assault on a Kennedy senior who was pummeled in the school auditorium in front of scores of students and who, witnesses said, was attacked with feces later found strewn across the auditorium floor. Teachers and students were horrified by the incident, which left the victim, an 18-year-old honor student, with a broken nose, two black eyes, abrasions on both eyes and a swollen cheek, according to his father. "For these [attackers] to do what they did is beyond disgusting,'' said one teacher who asked for anonymity. "No kid should go...

Cook County lost more people between 2000 and 2005 than any county in the nation, according to Census Bureau estimates released Thursday that also show continued gains in suburban and exurban counties across the region and portions of the nation. The new figures--based on administrative records and estimates for births, deaths and net migration--show the county lost more than 73,000 people, or 1.4 percent, since the last official count in April 2000. The largest-loser designation can partly be attributed to Cook County's massive size, because raw numbers were used for the rankings. Still, among the nation's 10 largest counties, Cook,...

Chicago is no longer my kind of town. It's a liberal Democrat kind of town. It's a town with a gay and lesbian center – funded by taxpayers. It's a town that aborts over 20,000 of its residents a year. It's Jesse Jackson's home town. It's a town where Republicans meet in catacombs. It's a town where even Catholic priests vote 4-to-1 Democrat. So imagine my surprise when last week the overpowered Cook County Republican Party issued a press release accusing Democrat tyrants of abusing their most prized possession, African Americans.

A Cook County Jail guard has admitted to investigators that he helped six inmates escape over the weekend to give a political advantage to a former jail supervisor running for sheriff... The 36-year-old guard confessed that he allowed a convicted killer, two accused robbers and two others charged with aggravated kidnapping and battery to bust out of the jail to cast a shadow on Sheriff Michael Sheahan's management of the complex at 26th and California. The guard knew the negative publicity would hurt Sheahan's chief of staff, Tom Dart, who is running for sheriff... And the guard admitted he helped...

Six inmates, including two charged with murder, overpowered guards and escaped shortly before midnight from the Cook County Jail. Two were recaptured in Oak Park about 6 a.m., but the others were the subject of an extensive manhunt, authorities said. The escape was the second in as many days from the jail. The latest escapees are believed to have a contraband knife made inside the jail and are considered extremely dangerous, said Bill Cunningham, a spokesman for Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan. He said they escaped from a unit where inmates with discipline problems are housed.

Enjoy those $6.59 cigarette packs for the next 19 days. Starting March 1, they'll cost $7.59. By a 10-7 vote, Cook County Board members voted Thursday to double the county tax on a pack of cigarettes from $1 to $2. A pack of Marlboro Lights that cost $6.59 at a downtown Walgreens Thursday will be $7.59 next month. The same pack costs $4.45 at a White Hen in the DuPage County city of Elmhurst, and it costs $3.76 at a Hammond, Ind... Commissioners voting against the tax hike said shoppers will increasingly hop borders, hurting Cook County businesses. With the...

Some Cook County employees are treating their workspaces like a pigpen -- and that's why they've got rodent problems. That's the essence of a news release issued Tuesday by Chicago's Streets & Sanitation Department that set off a war of words with Cook County Clerk David Orr. On Monday, the Sun-Times reported complaints from clerk employees working in the basement of the City Hall/Cook County building who said they've been seeing rats in the office. But a surprise city inspection Tuesday turned up no sign of rats. Instead, city officials said, they found mice feces as well as "open food"...

Three years ago, Frederick S. Rhine fought the uphill battle of running for Cook County judge against someone with a strong Irish name. He failed miserably. Last week, Rhine admitted he knows he can't beat them. So he's joining them. Documents recently filed in Cook County Circuit Court show Rhine, a Chicago attorney, has changed his name to Patrick Michael O'Brien -- the same last name as the candidate who defeated him in 2002. And while surprised to learn the Chicago Sun-Times discovered his name-change application, Rhine admitted he did it solely in the hopes of winning a judicial seat...