Chicago out-conned by Rio de Janeiro?

For all the rhetoric we hear about how venal and corrupt the inherent character of Chicago truly is, I couldn’t help but wonder if the real problem is that our city is run by a batch of goo-goos.

The 'games' that never were

It was the thought that popped into my head when I read reports about the bribery and corruption that is being alleged, tied to the decision more than a decade ago to stage the 2016 Summer Olympic games in Rio de Janiero.

THE OFFICIAL RHETORIC was that the International Olympic Committee decided it was FINALLY time to stage an Olympics in a city south of the equator.

But now, we have a former governor of Rio saying he paid the U.S. equivalent of over $2 million to committee members in order to ensure they voted for Rio over any of the other cities around the world that were competing for those games.

In short, bribes were paid. The process was rigged.

Now how truthful should we think all of this is? Well there’s the fact that former Governor Sergio Cabral already is convicted of criminal acts and is serving a lengthy prison term – at 200 years, it is one he may never be free from.

SO WHAT REASON would Cabral have to lie? It seems he has nothing to gain, or lose, by coming forth now with the testimony he offered in court last week. Or it could be the ultimate reason – political revenge.

There are other officials who will have trials coming up soon – and this could be a desire on his part to take down those officials to make them suffer the same fate that he is now enduring.

Daley's soul supposedly too black, but … 

Attorneys for those officials, by the way, claim it’s all trash-talk on Cabral’s part. He’s got no proof! Or so they say.

Now how is any of this the least bit relevant – or interesting – to those of us in Chicago? It’s because those 2016 Olympic Games were the ones that then-Mayor Richard M. Daley was determined to bring to the Second City. Remember the plans for a stadium to be temporarily erected in Washington Park?

REMEMBER THE GLOBAL battles between Tokyo, Madrid, Rio and Chicago? Remember the sentiment that this was a fight for Chicago to win so as to show our global dominance?

… was Hizzoner really too honest to prevail?

Remember the thousands of people gathered in Daley Plaza on that date in 2009 when the Olympic site was chosen – with fanatics chanting “We’re Number Four” (Chicago’s place on the four-city ballot) only to be suddenly silenced when it was learned that Chicago’s bid was the first to be knocked out of the running.

We really were number four – in terms of actually getting those games. The visions of Barack Obama presiding over an Olympics held in his home city turned out to be fantasy.

Mayor Daley was so disgusted by the city’s failure to win the Olympic games that the city has pretty much given up on attracting the International sports scene. It’s a large part of the reason why the 2026 World Cup tourney for soccer will be played partially in the United States – yet none of the matches will be held in Chicago.

EVEN RAHM EMANUEL had enough of the bad aftertaste to not want to bother with the international sports scene.

But now, we hear the whole thing may well have been rigged. We may well have lost that political fight to Rio de Janeiro because we weren’t corrupt enough. As in maybe we would have attracted the Olympic games and all the international attention that Daley wanted to bring to Chicago if only we were as corrupt as some of the political ideologues would want to insist we are.

The 'facility' that never became!

Not that I’m claiming we in Chicago should have loosened up our wallets and come up with more cash than the International Olympic Committee demanded from the Brazilians.

But it makes me wonder how much those ideologues are choking on their rhetoric at the notion that Chicago was out-corrupted by somebody else. And that it may well have been a Daley who got out-hard-balled politically for being too honest.

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Interested in truth? Or only politicking?

It will be interesting to see how (if at all) the Supreme Court of the United States reacts to a brief by several current and former local politicos asking the high court to issue a definitive ruling as to what constitutes bribing a government official.

Only Blagojevich image that interests some

What’s bringing this issue us is Rod Blagojevich – as in the former Illinois governor who is now into serving the sixth year of a 14-year prison term on charges that he tried to solicit bribes in exchange for political appointments.

BLAGOJEVICH, OF COURSE, claims he didn’t have criminal intent. He claims any money given him was purely political contributions made to Rod by his supporters.

An excuse that some may snicker at (Political contributions?!? Yeah, suuuuuure!”) and find absurd.

But to the 19 political people (including one Republican, former state Rep. Angelo “Skip” Saviano who now is village president of Elmwood Park), they wonder if there is enough confusion that exists as to what is a legitimate campaign contribution and what is a bribe.

In their brief, they say they think the Supreme Court ought to take up the Blagojevich appeal on the grounds that it would allow them to issue a legal opinion that, once and for all, establishes what is a campaign contribution and what is a bribe.

THEY WANT THERE to be a definitive ruling that says just what a government official is obligated to do for his financial backers, and what do those backers have a right to expect in exchange for the checks they write out to political people.

Several current and former Illinois members ...

Which are legitimate questions that ought to be resolved. Although I don’t doubt that some people will not want to hear of such talk. They’re the ones whose distaste for Blagojevich is so intense they don’t care if he was grossly over-sentenced for his offense.

Just so long as he gets punished, they’re happy.

Heck, Illinois Republican Party officials on Wednesday were using the legal brief filed by so many Dems as reason to lambast likely Democratic gubernatorial nominee J.B. Pritzker and tie him to Blagojevich.

... want high court to rule on what's a bribe?

HOPING THAT THE mere mention of the boogeyman they call Rod will be enough to ding Pritzker even further. For them, Blagojevich serves a political purpose that is far more important than any serious interpretation of a legal issue.

The tie is that so many current Dem officials signed off on this brief – including Congressmen Danny Davis, Bill Foster, Luis Gutierrez, Mike Quigley, Bobby Rush and Jan Schakowsky. Along with former Congressmen Bill Lipinski, David Phelps and Glenn Poshard.

This issue will become so overburdened with partisan politics that the fear is any legitimate legal ruling will become drowned in political slop. Because being able to ding somebody with the Blagojevich label is all-important to some people.

These politicos who put their names on this brief probably are right that the high court is going to have to be the final arbiter on this issue. That is, after all, the reason for the Supreme Court’s existence.

ALTHOUGH THERE ALSO are those individuals who think the high court itself ought to be the rubber stamp to implement their partisan ideals (while squashing anything the opposition party might try coming up with).

In this Age of Trump, it might be asking too much to expect the Supreme Court to stick its neck out and establish a stance on a crucial issue that could wind up restricting Republican fundraising efforts as well as Democratic ones.

Is Sosa the Blago equivalent?

It’s almost as confusing as the ongoing quandary concerning Baseball’s Hall of Fame and whether ballplayers caught using steroids are worthy of admission. Sportswriters who make that decision have sought advice from the Hall of Fame – only to be told it is their issue to resolve.

Will the Supreme Court ultimately ultimately take the same attitude; thereby reducing the issue of political bribery to the same confusion as to whether one-time Chicago Cub Sammy Sosa deserves his bronze plaque in Cooperstown, N.Y.?

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Was I bought off by the White Sox?

Perhaps I have a disclosure to make – I attended Chicago White Sox Opening Days of 1998 and 1999 courtesy of the ball club.

This particular game view from the 2016 season I paid for all by myself

My brother and I went with tickets that were provided by the team as part of an effort to try to build up more good will amongst the local news media. We sat in one of those private suites whose very existence offends some sports fans, had food and beverages brought to our seats, and to his dying day my brother, Chris, thought that the dessert cart wheeled around in the seventh inning was about the most incredible thing he ever saw in a ballpark.

I BRING THIS up because I’m still not sure what to make of the Chicago Sun-Times report Wednesday about the City Council’s board of ethics, which has made it be known that aldermen will be in big trouble if they accept freebie tickets the team was willing to provide them for Opening Day this season.

It seems that while the price of the ticket is considered minimal, when mixed in with all the luxury amenities that the team was going to provide for the aldermen, it pushes the total value above the $50 standard that they’re not supposed to accept.

I kind of like the idea that the board of ethics is trying to do something to put restrictions on all the freebies and perks that pols are offered. But this is a case where I wonder if it goes too far.

Because I’d hate to think anybody could truly be “bought off” for the price of a ballgame ticket.

ALTHOUGH I’M MORE bothered by the fear that the board of ethics is going to find a lot of chicken-little perks to complain about, while doing nothing to penalize pols who take some more serious payoffs that truly influence their government activity.

Besides, I can’t help but wonder how little good will the White Sox would be obtaining in exchange for letting a few aldermen into the ballpark on Opening Day (April 3 against the Detroit Tigers).

I certainly don’t think they gained much from letting a few reporter-types into the ballpark all those years ago. In fact, I remember the dominant theme of the stories that resulted from those Opening Days was how they had less-than-capacity crowds in attendance.

They let us in for free, and we still wound up finding ways to ding them.

IN MY CASE, I was working for United Press International back then. My then-editor and I actually wrote a column of trivial and gossipy tidbits that caught somebody’s eye.

Hence, our invitation, which my editor had no interest in using. Which is how I wound up getting both of the freebie tickets and taking my brother along.

He wasn’t a White Sox fan, but enjoyed baseball enough that the thought of a live game wasn’t repulsive to him. Particularly since he got to experience the more luxurious amenities of the ballpark now known as Guaranteed Rate Field.

But did I really do something unethical by taking a freebie pair of tickets from the team? I’m sure the board of ethics would argue I’m not an elected official, but might claim the act itself is unproper.

I JUST CAN’T help but think somebody is overthinking this issue way too much.

Although I do admire those aldermen who said they turned down a political perk and went ahead and bought their own tickets for the games on Opening Day.

Actually, the whole situation reminds me of that wisecracking joke reporter-type people often tell about bribes and people trying to influence our news coverage with little gifts.

The mark of a truly professional reporter, we’d joke, is that we take their payoff, then still manage to write something critical.

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Ho, ho and ho? Feds say Christmas party cash was really a bribe!

Did grandma ever combine this ...

There have been some fairly creative attempts to disguise the intent of a cash payment that federal prosecutors think was really a bribe. But using the Christmas holiday?

That may be a new one, and it seems to be the situation related to Curtis Thompson, who was a chief of staff to 21^st Ward Alderman Howard Brookins, Jr.

FOR THOMPSON IS the guy who got indicted on Friday (and was allowed to remain free while charges are pending in U.S. District Court without having to post bond) as the latest corruption case out of City Hall.

... with so much of this?

For the record, the amount is $7,500. That’s how much Thompson supposedly got in exchange for his professional services. Which means it falls within the trend of so many corruption cases – where the actual amount of the payoff is downright petty.

It’s not like $7,500 is anything Thompson could have lived off of for the rest of his life if he had somehow decided to skip the country and go into hiding.

According to the complaint filed in federal court, the person who was willing to make the government payoff was supposed to disguise the money (75 $100 bills tucked into a Christmas card) as donations to Brookins’ holiday toy drive and to pay for the alderman’s annual Christmas party.

THE PERSON MAKING the payoff (who in reality was an undercover informant working with the FBI) said he wanted to operate a 7-Eleven convenience store in the alderman’s home neighborhood, and he also needed certain city permits that would allow him to sell alcoholic beverages.

BROOKINS: Has a job opening for chief of staff

Supposedly, the bribe was to get the chief of staff to persuade Brookins to write an official Letter of Support on behalf of the would-be convenience store operator that would help speed along the bureaucratic process of issuing the required permits.

For what it’s worth, officials say that the businessman/informant actually attended the alderman’s Christmas party back on Dec. 19, which is when the very precious Christmas holiday card was delivered to the chief of staff.

That would make it more memorable than any political holiday party I ever have attended. The best thing I ever got was one year at a Christmas party at the Executive Mansion in Springfield, where then-Gov. Jim Edgar gave everybody silver holiday ornaments designed to look like the Old State Capitol building (the one that Abraham Lincoln would have known as the Statehouse, and where his body was on display just before being buried at the nearby Oak Ridge Cemetery).

I CAN FIND this latest case amusing because of the holiday connection.

Because it strikes me that if this had been something deeper-reaching, Friday would have been the day that Alderman Howard Brookins himself would have been hauled in front of a federal judge – and we’d be adding to the count of aldermen who have faced indictment throughout the years.

One can literally put together an entire City Council, with leftover politicos, from the ranks of those who have been indictment throughout the decades.

Instead, Brookins was only referred to as “Alderman A” in the indictment.

HE’S NOT CHARGED with anything. And he’s claiming he had no idea that when he wrote a letter on behalf of a would-be convenience store owner that somebody else was being enriched by his actions.

Which I’m sure is what would most offend certain types of people – someone else getting rich off their own efforts.

And perhaps knowing that if something does go wrong (which it did in this case because someone got caught), the blame will be spread around far greater than just the one guy.

The one who accepted a holiday card that most of us could never even dream of seeing.

  -30-

Do we have our priorities confused?

It is on days like Monday that I wonder the point of reporting the news, since the priorities for what is significant can become so convoluted.

PETERSON: Too much attention!!!



For there are many of us in the newsgathering business who are wetting our pants in anticipation of the fact that Drew Peterson (the suburban Bolingbrook cop whom many suspect keeps killing his young wives) is going on trial.

IT BEGINS TUESDAY in Will County Circuit Court in Joliet, and the downtown area is going to become a madhouse for the next few weeks – primarily because the small city really isn’t designed for the scale of the lunacy that is going to crop up in coming weeks.

Personally, I’m glad this case is finally going to trial. It has bothered me that it took sooooooo long (nearly three full years) before we got to this point. But I also feel fortunate NOT to be covering this particular story.

Because it will be way too easy to get caught up in the hype and the ill-will,, as there are many people who only view this case as a legal travesty because Peterson wasn’t found guilty a long time ago of the death of wife number three.

These are the people who aren’t the least bit bothered by the fact that this case will rely on so much circumstantial evidence that there are many legal scholars predicting that it might not hold up.

WE SHOULD ALL brace ourselves for the fact that a “not guilty” verdict is very possible, along with the eventual sight of a smug Drew Peterson sauntering out of the courthouse proclaiming victory, innocence, and perhaps even revenge against those who “did him wrong!”

Although even if prosecutors are able to take all the hearsay and third-party evidence and use it to convict Peterson (thereby officially turning him into a corrupt cop who went to prison), then we’d have to put up with the insufferable cheering of people whose mentality is only one level (maybe a level-and-a-half) removed from a lynch mob.

It won’t be a pretty tale that will emanate from Joliet in coming weeks. It will bother me even more than the whole disappearance of Stacey Peterson always has.

QUINN: Bad timing?



There is a part of me that really wishes she were alive and merely hiding from a husband who (from all glimpses) was an overbearing jerk.

BECAUSE THAT WOULD mean Stacey came to her senses and dumped Drew – which I’m sure is such a blow to his ego that he won’t ever fully recover from. Even if he winds up leaving the Chicago area for some rural Florida community near a beach where he eventually takes up with Wife Five (and maybe even Six), getting younger and younger as the years progress for him.

That tawdry end is probably what the Drew Petersons of the world really deserve. Not the attention of the world that he’s going to get in coming weeks.

Although there is a story that I wish could get such attention. But it won’t.

It is the tale concerning Illinois state government and the flawed way in which it funds the programs that cover pensions for retired employees and public school educators outside of Chicago.

IT IS A mess. It is a significant part of the reason why the state’s finances are a mess. Yet officials didn’t bother to do much of anything during their spring legislative session, and they knew they could get away with it because the average public didn’t care.

So when I learned that Gov. Pat Quinn on Monday issued the order saying that the General Assembly must return to Springfield on Aug. 17 at 1 p.m. to consider (and approve) a solution to the mess, I became skeptical.

Because unless there is a solution negotiated by Quinn and the legislative leaders, all that the legislators will do is sit around for a few minutes, then go home. They’ll claim there’s nothing for them to do.

And I’m not the least bit convinced that the legislative leaders are anywhere near close to having a solution in place that the rank-and-file of the General Assembly could even consider voting on.

IF ANY OF you think that the mere presence of the legislators at the Statehouse will force something to be done, you probably also believe that there’s a decent human being lurking somewhere in the body of Drew Peterson.

It won’t happen. If anything, Quinn may have made a mistake by picking that date.

SMITH: More interesting than pensions?



Because Aug. 17 is already the date that the Illinois House is supposed to come back to Springfield to consider the fate of state Rep. Derrick Smith, D-Chicago, who faces federal charges alleging he took bribes in exchange for his government services.

That issue, and all of its rants and rages and cheap rhetoric, will dominate the Legislature’s attention span.

I’D BE WILLING to bet anything that what little public attention is paid to state government that day will go toward whether or not Smith got kicked out of the Legislature. Nobody’s going to care whether or not the pension problem got fixed that day.

And in all likelihood, if the activity in the Drew Peterson trial is particularly feisty that day (it may still be going on by mid-August), even Derrick Smith will be an afterthought.

  -30-

Gone, before he could even become a part of the political scenery?

I have to confess, as much as I like to believe I am more politically aware than the average person, I didn’t have a clue who Derrick Smith was until I learned Tuesday of his criminal charges.

SMITH: Does Tuesday matter much, anymore?

In fact, I doubt I’m alone. I suspect many people are going to read the headlines that say something along the lines of, “Smith accepts bribe” and wonder, “Who?!?”

SUCH A REACTION should not be surprising, since Smith had only been a state legislator since last year, and had never actually been on a ballot to be chosen for his government post.

Smith was the person who was chosen to replace Annazette Collins in the Illinois House of Representatives when she was picked to fill a vacancy in the Illinois Senate.

Because he was an electoral rookie (he used to work for the Illinois secretary of state’s office, but not in an elected position), he was receiving significant amounts of help to ensure that he won his first election on Tuesday.

The Chicago Tribune noted the fact that Democratic leadership interested in maintaining a Democratic Party majority in the Illinois Legislature pumped more campaign cash into the Smith campaign than any other legislative bid for office.

HIS DISTRICT ON Chicago’s West Side was something that was desired, not because anyone thought a Republican challenger would come along. What was more feared was the idea of an inexperienced candidate losing to some sort of activist who would think that bucking the system is the whole point of politics.

In short, a local version of Michelle Piszczor -- that young woman with no experience whatsoever who has gained some public attention for her “unmitigated gall” (heavy sarcasm most definitely intended) of running against Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, himself.

So what happens now? Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if Smith still manages to win his primary election next week.

There will be many people who vote who will go along with the knee-jerk reaction to back the establishment candidate, regardless of what charges are pending. The fact that Illinois Republican Party officials are trying to make an issue of this just won’t amount to much.

IT WILL COME across as the continued rantings of a batch of political gasbags.

Which is sad – the fact that we have a mentality in our society that would be able to overlook this kind of thing. And no, it’s not a Democratic Party thing – I have no doubt that a similar phenomenon would occur in a Republican primary held in the outer suburbs.

Except that federal prosecutors figured out long ago that they get more attention if they indict “Chicago political hacks” than if they pursue political people from DuPage County.

Which is why a political nobody (he hasn’t had time to establish a reputation yet) like Smith will get as his sole legacy that he got in trouble in what seems like such a stupid scheme.

PROSECUTORS SAY THAT Smith wrote a letter on his official legislative letterhead giving his support for a$50,000 state grant to a day care operator. In exchange, the day care person gave him $7,000 – cash!

Except that the day care person was actually working undercover with the FBI. It was a set-up. Smith now faces charges of bribery (as in accepting).

Smith may try to argue that he was framed. Yet too many political observers are going to retort that any politico worth his salt would have sensed how fishy the deal was and walked (no, ran) away.

I can’t help but wonder how Smith will try to blend into the background, considering that he’s now the freshman politico who got busted so soon.

HE MAY NEVER get the chance to recover.

Although I can’t feel too sorry for him, since I couldn’t help but notice the news reports of his initial court appearance on Tuesday. No bond posted. He gets to be a free man while the case is pending.

How many other people get such consideration, particularly if they face the potential of a decade in a federal prison?

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