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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What you think of Blagojevich situation says more about you than him

One-time Illinois first lady Patti Blagojevich may be “dumbfounded” and “flabbergasted” at the federal court judge who on Tuesday refused to reduce the prison sentence her husband, Rod, is serving.

 

BLAGOJEVICH: Could hair dye restore that mane?

But I can’t help but think that there were many people out amongst the masses who cheered quite loudly when they learned during the lunch hour that U.S. District Judge James Zagel re-imposed the same 14-year prison term that he originally gave to the former Illinois governor.

A FEDERAL APPEALS court in Chicago may have decided last year that five of the 14 counts that Rod Blagojevich was found guilty of were improper and tossed them out.

But that still left Blagojevich guilty of nine criminal counts and prosecuting attorneys at the federal courthouse in Chicago were determined to believe that those counts were the most severe and still amounted to acts worthy of a lengthy prison sentence – and not just the usual 18-month stint at the federal correctional center in Oxford, Wis., that often jokingly is referred to as an “Oxford education.”

It may be that only Patti Blagojevich and the couples’ daughters, Amy and Annie, thought there was a serious chance that Zagel would impose a new prison sentence that would result in significantly-less time having to be served at that correctional center in Colorado, or anywhere else.

Most people were getting worked up at the prospect that the overall sentence would be reduced significantly from the 14-year term to about five or six years – which if it had happened would have basically made his time already served sufficient.

WE COULD HAVE had our former governor back in our midst some time by year’s end.

But Zagel likely made himself popular with the public when he made his own comments – the ones about how he wasn’t swayed by the good behavior of Blagojevich while in prison.

“Those people, Zagel said, “knew him from inside the prison. They don’t know him” like we do in the outside world.

And there most definitely are those in our society vengeful or petty enough to want maximum suffering to take place in this instance. Blagojevich’s case brings out a gut emotion in many of us that goes far beyond the facts of the case.

PARTICULARLY FOR THOSE people who want to believe that just about anything political has a touch of criminality involved, and fantasize for the day that Hillary Clinton, her husband Bill and Barack Obama wind up serving prison time.

And probably think that the time served by former Illinois Gov. George Ryan (just over six years) was also a worthy point to let Republican politicos know what can happen to them if they stray from the conservative ideological line.

So in the end, it didn’t matter much that Patti Blagojevich publicly pleaded for mercy, asking that her husband be set free so that he could at least be a father to the couples’ younger daughter (the elder one is off attending college).

It probably also didn’t matter much that Blagojevich himself was contrite and apologetic and said all the things that legal officials usually want to hear about an inmate feeling contrite and apologetic.

BLAGOJEVICH TOLD US he realized the suffering of his wife and daughters in recent years is his fault, and how much of his past political ambition was improper. “I had a lot of ambition before. I learned that some of that is overrated.”

A comment to which I’m sure some amongst us scoffed and sneered before we go back to thinking of the roughly eight years of time that Blagojevich will still owe to the Bureau of Prisons.

In fact, there may be one significant detail that came out of Tuesday’s hearing at the Dirksen Federal Building – the image of Blagojevich broadcast over closed-circuit television from his prison in Colorado most definitely showed that Rod’s hair has, indeed, gone grey. Which, if he had been free and continuing in politics all these years likely would have happened anyway.

Just look at Obama these days – although he can claim it as being from the stress of having Congressional Republicans thwart his every governmental desire, rather than a fear of being caught in a prison yard brawl!

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Poor Little Milorod? Or an unjust crumb bum who got what he deserved?

There’s one part of the Republican attacks on Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, related to the state budgetary stalemate that I find downright humorous.

BLAGOJEVICH: Victim? Or still a bum?

Many GOPers keep repeating the talking point that Madigan is a power-hungry tyrant who has gone out of his way to undermine every single person who has served as governor in the three-plus decades he has held his speakership title.

OF COURSE, THEY like to remind us of the early 1990s battles with Jim Edgar (which created overtime sessions that seemed downright historic then but now seem ever so quaint – July 19??), downplay the fact that he and George Ryan got along and even show some sympathy for Pat Quinn.

But what do they say about Rod Blagojevich?

It seems that now, under these circumstances, they’re willing to speak decently about the governor whom they impeached. Because it fits their partisan circumstances now.

As if it was because of Madigan that the mood of state government became ever so ugly; refusing to accept the authority of the first Democrat to hold the gubernatorial post in 26 years.

THAT, OF COURSE, is nonsense. At least the part about Madigan picking on Poor Little Rod.

The reality is that it was a desire by Blagojevich to assert his own authority that caused Madigan to use his legislative power to remind the governor of the fact that the executive branch is only one-third of state government, and that our government truly represents the people who elect it when the three branches work together.

MADIGAN: Who picked on whom?

Perhaps that means the real comparison is between Blagojevich and Gov. Bruce Rauner – who seems like he needs to be taught first-hand this spring about the need for cooperation.

Rauner may have won the November 2014 general election for governor, but those same voters also kept the same partisan political balance in the General Assembly that give Democrats the ability to stand up for the principles they espouse about working people and the labor unions that represent their interests.

BLAGOJEVICH GETS SOME nice talk; until Tuesday at least.

For it seems the U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago finally issued its ruling in Blagojevich’s appeal – some 19 months after it was initially filed and argued before a judicial panel.

RAUNER: Blagojevich similarities?

The appeals court determined that five of the charges that Blagojevich was found guilty of cannot stand. Which has some people speculating that the 14-year prison sentence (he’s done about three years thus far) will have to be reduced.

Although I couldn’t help but notice that one-time First Lady Patti Blagojevich expressed disappointment at the decision. For it seems the charges that are no more are more minor and technical.

THE APPEALS COURT wrote in its decision that the remaining charges are severe enough to warrant the full 168-month term in a federal prison. Although the desire had been that the sentence could be reduced by enough that he would no longer be classified as such a serious threat to the public safety and might be eligible to be moved to a federal corrections facility closer to Chicago.

Perhaps he could receive the “Oxford education” that many a Chicago political personage has received at the federal facility in Oxford, Wis.?

One part of the appeals ruling caught my attention – the part that stated the use of wire fraud charges was overdone. All too often, federal indictments come across as multiple counts of wire fraud (or mail fraud) and an act that is not explicitly illegal but which someone in a prosecutor’s office did not approve.

But all of this is bound to bring out the political people who earlier this week were saying Blagojevich is a victim reverting to form and lambasting the former governor; while also speculating about what he looks like since his hair dye has long worn away and he likely now looks his age of 58!

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