Thursday, April 27, 2006

Former Illinois House GOP Staffer Dave Olien Makes Good and Observations on Political Corruption

Dave Olien, a former top staffer of George Ryan when he was House Republican Leader, has written a column for the Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin, which compares Wisconsin and Illinois convictions of political folks.

His conclusion:

It marks a major change of the "rules" of politics in Illinois and many other states, including Wisconsin, where insiders have routinely used access to governors to build strong lobbying practices as well as state resources to win elections.
Or, as the headline of the column says,
The Rules of the Game Have Changed
I’m not as sure as Dave. I’m still waiting for the Mike Tristano shoes to drop.

But Olien predicts
It marks a major change of the "rules" of politics in Illinois and many other states, including Wisconsin, where insiders have routinely used access to governors to build strong lobbying practices as well as state resources to win elections.
He continues
Insiders in Illinois and Wisconsin both argued that it was standard practice to use state resources for political purposes. But in both the Federal Courthouse in Chicago and the Dane County Courthouse criminal prosecutions have demonstrated that standard practice was in effect a criminal undertaking as defined by both Wisconsin law and federal law.

Clearly, state employees in the executive and legislative branches in Wisconsin now are vulnerable to federal prosecution as well as prosecution by local authorities if they engage or have engaged in facilitating fundraising or other political activity on state time.
Olien escaped Springfield to the higher paying world of the University of Illinois and, there, underwent an extreme makeover. He also escaped from Springfield’s politically corrupt atmosphere, ending up as a Vice President of the University of Wisconsin System.

For the rest of the story, including a story about why this McHenry County Republican gave money to Chicago Democrats against the wishes of GOP Speaker W. Robert Blair--using a floor amendment, no less--go to April 26 on McHenry County Blog.

5 comments:

Anonymous,  6:32 PM  

Insiders and favors and resources of government to win elections are how it is played.

Anonymous,  6:55 PM  

How are Victor Reyes and HDO not an issue for anyone?

HDO and specifically State Senator Munoz are recipients of campaign donations of the ring leader of a 8 person (at least) Heroin ring run out of the Department of Water Management connected to the Columbian cartel. The indicted drug trafficer is George Prado who is a member of HDO, gave money to HDO and Senator Munoz (at the coincidental timing of promotion) and worked with the father and brother of Senator Munoz as a hoisting engineer (A base pay of $30 an hour with no education and with overtime $75,000 to $100,000 a year) A drug dealer, politics, money, heroin. Serious corruption.

Victor Reyes is "Co-schemer A" in guilty pleas, proffers of immunity and indictments with HDO all over them including former Streets and Sanitation honcho Al "the Troll" Sanchez. Please read (you can do it online) the Federal government documents of the Sorich/Slatter indictment, Santiago proffer, Angelo Torres guilty plea, Donald Tomczak plea agreement. Fixing jobs, violations of Shakman, money for jobs, fixed tests, sex for jobs, nepotism.

Last but not least HIRED TRUCKS, Angelo Torres a former (maybe current) gang member with no education nor management experience (nor contracting or procurement or trucking experience) gets a $80,000 year job in charges of the HIRED TRUCKS program. He takes bribes and gets trucking companies contracts who do no work and are connected to organized crime creating a loss for taxpayers and safety hazards. Merely read the dozens of articles in the award winning Sun Times expose. Hired Truck money went to HDO, Senator Munoz, State Rep Acevedo. Angelo Torres's wife was the campaign treasurer to Senator Munoz campaign committee. Angelo Torres is cousins with Munoz's wife. Torres and Munoz have a religious tie through baptism in Spanish called compadres. Hundreds of millions of hired truck dollars, tens of thousands of bribes, tens of thousands of political contributions.

Rod Blagojevich did nothing about any of this. In fact he said HDO was like H20 (assmudily water)
Rod Blagojevich has given HDO members jobs. Rod Blagojevich has given Victor Reyes access for his clients in lobbying (recall Al Ronan, Swanson, Stu Levine---Victor is worse) Victor Reyes represents the pay to play system.

HDO is a huge issue for Blagojevich and will blow up before November. But Rod is smart enough to

ArchPundit 1:36 AM  

So Cal, do you have a bottle of champagne saved for the day Daniels is indicted?

Anonymous,  7:57 AM  

Lee Daniels and Tristano were both scumbags

Anonymous,  8:13 PM  

Reyes and HDO will hurt Blagojevich. He may be smart enough to create distance but they have too much leverage because of the three HDO Senators, and the 1 State Rep

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