Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Schakowsky's Wiki War

JB from the North Burbs writes me,

There has been an edit battle going on Wikipedia on the Jan Schakowsky case.

A few people, myself included, have seen to posting information about the progress of the Creamer trial and conviction. A few other people have been removing any mention of Bob Creamer and his trial from Schakowsky's biography. It is quite interesting; I do not know how it will play out, but there will probably be a lock on her biography so that it does not become a political sandbox.
Reminds me of the Soviet history books when they would have to periodically rewrite history.

JB also notes the webpage for the US District Court has little on Creamer's case but features Ryan on the front page. JB says,
I called the webmaster for the District Court. He told me that because they get a lot of requests for information, he posts it directly the website. I asked him if he was posting information about the Creamer trial, to which he replied "Who is that?", prompting me to mention that if he put Creamer on his opening page, he might get more requests for information about that case as well.
I think some emails to the webmaster are due.

Updates: The webmaster responds,
That decision is up to the presiding judge.

Mark V. Tortorici
Systems Manager
United States District Court
Northern District of Illinois

44 comments:

Anonymous,  8:19 AM  

you really know that your (political) position is intellectually bankrupt when you obsess over a minor case like this for no other reason than to embarrass one of your opponents. this is exactly why i always laugh when people try to tell me the clinton case wasn't about a blowjob.

the funny thing is, people are actually offended when i tell them that voters are stupid -- they will believe anything! thanks for demonstrating that fact...

Bill Baar 8:27 AM  

I obsess about Mollohan too:

Lawmaker Bought Farm With CEO
Who Gained From Appropriations

By JOHN R. WILKE, The Wall Street Journal
April 25, 2006; Page A1

Rep. Alan B. Mollohan, the West Virginia Democrat whose real-estate holdings and financial disclosures have drawn federal scrutiny, last year bought a 300-acre farm with the head of a small defense contractor that had won a $2.1 million contract from funds that the congressman added to a 2005 spending bill.

Skeeter 8:58 AM  

Are you really claiming that the Creamer verdict has the national interest of the Ryan matter?

Anonymous,  9:01 AM  

Bill Baar said...
"I obsess about Mollohan too"



And yet you ignore Delay, Abramoff, Cunningham, Doolittle, Burns, Ney et al. Because you're a morally and intellectually bankrupt hack.

Marathon Pundit 9:09 AM  

It's part of the story. Creamer isn't a detached spouse separate from Jan. John and Yoko, Jan and Bob. They're a team.

Bill Baar 9:18 AM  

Skeeter,

Ryan on his way to the joint.

Schakowsky still on the hill.

Me bankrupt? No, but my wallet far lighter than Mollohan's for sure.

Anonymous,  9:21 AM  

Please right-wing nut jobs, please just one example from the trial transcript that connected Creamer's crimes to Schakowsky's office. Then you would have a valid point that this is comparable to Ryan.

Bill Baar 9:24 AM  

anon 9:21

That's why I asked the webmaster to post 'em.

Anonymous,  9:33 AM  

They're easily accessible and there was not a single allegation that she was inviolved. It's a pathetic attempt to put Schakowsky and Mollohan on a par with the litany of GOP criminals. Schakowky has not been charged with anything, not even mentioned as having played any role in Creamer's dealings, but you want to compare her to Ryan. Mollohan is one bad apple compared to rampant corruption of Republican lawmakers as a result of the K Street project. But not one word from the guy who posts every irrational thought that pops in his head?

Bill Baar 9:36 AM  

...and an irrational head with a name.

Anonymous,  9:38 AM  

bill, go ahead amd obsess about mollohan -- he's an elected official accountable to voters. creamer floated checks -- something hardly unheard of in the not-for-profit world. sorry, but people should not be thrown into jail for bouncing checks (to paraphrase a friend of mine who works in the white house, but was previously at the justice department).

but, again, i note the intellectual bankruptcy of your obsession.

as for john, who joins you in the intellectually bereft department (no wonder conservatism is dying): when creamer appears on the ballot, you will have a point. i'm fairly confident that this approach you've stated is only directed at democrats/liberals, as far as you're concerned. iow, it's a double standard.

me, i'm fairly simple: i have one standard for all. this doesn't pass the smell test...

Anonymous,  9:39 AM  

Doesn't matter what the name is or isn't. These are facts. Read the transcript before you make false assumptions. Better to have anonymous facts than the named ramblings of a partisan idiot.

fedup dem 9:43 AM  

Note to Anon 9:21,

Schakowsky served as a Board Member of Creamer's organizations from the early 1990s on (and perhaps even a few years before that). Any trained observer would have easily concluded that their actions were coordinated.

People should be outraged at the "40 lashes with the wet noodle" sentence Creamer got off with, the failure of the federal prosecutor to demand a change in the judge when the case was assigned to Judge James Moran (whose son-in-law has a close working connection to Creamer), and the failure to tie Schakowsky to this case and give her career the sinking it deserves.

As far as I'm concerned I have no Representative in Congress, because I refuse to accept her as such.

Hopefully, the people of the 9th Congressional District will begin treating Schakowsky like a political pariah (they can start by jeering her at the various Fourth of July Parades, particularly Evanston's), and send a message that other Democrats will pick up on in time for the 2008 Democratic Primary.

RANDALL SHERMAN
Secretary/Treasurer, Illinois Committee for Honest Government
Chicago

Anonymous,  9:48 AM  

Randall:

Please cite one example in the G's case when it was alleged that Schakowsky committed a crime? That's the only issue here. The original post compares her dealings with George Ryan’s; I just want one example of that.

I have no problem with finding a better candidate than Jan, and probably agree with you on most points about her. But it strains credibility to compare Creamer's crimes with the systemic corruption of Gerge Ryan's office.

Anonymous,  9:59 AM  

randall doesn't have a connection, he has an assumption. as another blogger pointed out, check-kiting is akin to taking an interest-free (but not penalty-free) loan from the bank. its illegal, just like speeding, and it has the same effects (as speeding). blowing it out of proportion shows desperation. show me the victim, show me the harm, but spare me the empty argument...

Skeeter 10:26 AM  
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Skeeter 10:33 AM  

Bill,

Your post talks about the District Court web page, and suggests that there is some sort of conspiracy.

Was there any national interest in the Creamer story? How about the Ryan matter. Did that story receive national coverage?

It seems to me to be a very rational decision to post something on that site about the Ryan matter but not about the Creamer matter. The Creamer file is still available. You just need to walk over to the District Court.

If you don't like what the judge did, that is one thing. But these personal attacks on the judge really need to stop. There is an unfortunate history here of people getting hostile with judges. There are a lot of us who see decisions that we see as wrong, but we can disagree without personal attacks on the judges or court staff.
(as edited)

Bill Baar 10:42 AM  

When I was a kid, I was one of those out on Dearborn calling Judge Hoffman names.

That's the 60's in me... Schawkosky self-rightousness just makes her too rich a target.

Call me Abbie Hoffman.

Anonymous,  10:49 AM  

i know neither schakowsky or creamer; i'm merely commenting from the standard that candidates' families are out-of-bounds. dick cheney's daughter was fully involved in bush-cheney '04, but the fact that she is a lesbian was considered off-topic. same thing here; a single standard should exist, regardless of partisan loyalty or ideological beliefs...

Anonymous,  10:51 AM  

If Abbie were alive today he’d probably be a rambling, irrelevant fool pimping for the right-wing just like Bill.

Bill Baar 11:15 AM  

Bored,
Typically having a spouse that's a convicted felon makes holding a security clearance hard.

I worked for DoD when Weinberger dropped the sex questions on a background check.

Skeeter 11:18 AM  

Bill,

How about if I call you Bill McVeigh?

It is not 1968 anymore.

The right wing extremists now have become actual terrorists. Judges are under attack.

We just cannot view personal attacks on judges the same way that we viewed them 40 years ago.

Anonymous,  11:24 AM  

well, bill, in that case, you understand fully that a.) security clearances given to members of congress or the administration use altogether different criteria, and that one's spouse is unlikely to be an obstacle (i can think of several instances during the reagan administration where a clearance holder's spouse had worse backgrounds than creamer's), and b.) that security clearances given to non-military personnel also have different criteria. it would not have mattered what my spouse did, short of espionage, and my clearance would have been granted.

Bill Baar 11:26 AM  

no one's attacking a judge skeeter.... it's foolish to suggest it....

we want more documents on the web.

I was at NATO HQ on Ramstein Air Base when it was car bombed. Knocked the whole bldg off to one side... don't tell me about McVeigh ...that's a real slur.

Skeeter 11:37 AM  

Bill,

I was not accusing you of being McVeigh. However, I think the angry remarks about the judges do play into the hands of the McVeighs.

Want more documents on the web? Raise taxes to pay for it.

Contrary to your post, most of the documents ARE available, for a fee. There is a link on the NDIL website to something that used to be called PACER, but now the name has been changed. The fee is pennies a page. Most of the documents should be available on that site.

In the alternative, walk over to the Court and request the documents. It is pretty easy to do. Nobody is hiding them.

Bill Baar 11:49 AM  

Skeeter,

You raised Tim McVeigh. Not me.

I've evacuated Buildings after a bomb threat received in places were terrorists really kill... then do a walk through with MPs and a bomb dog so I can tell them what boxes look out of place or out of the ordinary...

I got the shakes once doing this and the MSG pulled out polariods from his desk when we were finshed (no bomb found) of the aftermath of a car bomb in Saigon and all body parts of the car bomber.

That's an Army Sgts odd way of calming a guy down.

Bored is right, Members of Congress get clearances just by virtue of being elected.


I don't know if I'd end it or not, but I sure like to know what my rep's spouse gets convicted of...

...especially if they keep talking about cultures of corruption.

Skeeter 12:02 PM  

My point was, and is, that when you make personal attacks on judges, you inspire people like McVeigh. Although I don't expect Bill Baar to blow anything up, I am concerned that language from the right against judges does inspire the McVeighs of the world.

We all need to step back.

A judge can make a poor decision without being corrupt.

A judge can make a poor decision without being biased.

A judge can make a poor decision without being unpatriotic.

A judge can make a poor decision but still be a very good judge.

The right wingers need to stop these personal attacks on the judges.

Of course, there has been no evidence presented on this forum showing that the decision in the Creamer case was wrong. Find that evidence and then complain about the decision.

Bill Baar 12:41 PM  

Skeeter,

Complaining to the court about the lack of content available about a case is hardly an attack.

Calling me Tim McVeigh is.

Why go personal all the time?

Lefty bloggers always do that.

Hardball is fun. But telling people they're Tim McVeigh just looks look dodging the ball.

Gov shouldn't make us walk accross the street for pdf files.

That's not compliant at all.

Skeeter 12:58 PM  

Bill,

To make it perfectly clear: I have not accused you of being McVeigh. If I left that impression, I regret it.

My statement above was more that today, the chanting crowds against a judge are not comparable to those protesting Judge Hoffman. Those crowds are more comparable to the McVeighs, for the simple reason that times have changed.

Today, there are right wing extremists who target judges. We saw it with the Florida case. We saw it with Delay's statements. We've seen it with Randall Sherman on the Creamer case. We have tragically seen it here in Chicago.

The personal attacks on judges go too far.

I also note that your post about on-line access to court records was mistaken, but that is another matter completely.

Skeeter 1:10 PM  

Addressing the matter further:

Actually, Bill, you can access the documents in question for 8 cents a page.

The alternative is to raise all of our taxes so that they can put all of the documents on line.

Which option would you prefer? Eight cents, or a tax raise?

Bill Baar 1:27 PM  

Skeeter,

Ryan's make the front page of the website.

Creamer's don't.

The webmaster tells us it's the Judges call.

Whether the Judge does a cost benefit analysis based on charging the public 8 cents a page or not is an interesting questions.

The people out there calling Judge Julius Hoffman names were appalling. It's a past I'm not proud of.

b

Skeeter 1:34 PM  

Bill,

I'm not sure I understand your point.

I was under the impression that you were upset that some Ryan materials were easy to access, while you claimed that the Creamer materials were not.

Was that your original point?

In response, I pointed out that for eight cents a page, you can get all the Creamer documents that you want.

Are you claiming that 8 cents is too much to pay? Are you claiming that all court documents should be free all the time?

Bill Baar 2:01 PM  

Not upset about anything.

If I had my druthers, every piece of gov paperwork save the classified stuff would be public on the web.

Bush declassified 48,000 boxes of captured Iraqi documents and it's all going up on the web.

Everything should be on the web... just like Star Trek where we call out to the computer and get answers to whatever question.

I don't want a Judge sitting their deciding what public stuff can be on the web or not based on who knows what criteria.

I'm a sunshine guy.

JBP 2:06 PM  

Hey Bill,

Glad i got you involved in this. My point with the webmaster was to show how the Ryan's judge is marketing his decision as something he is proud of, while Creamer's judge is not publicizing this at all.

In fact there are no other decisions being marketed by the court, leading me to believe that the judges have made a political decision that

1) It is OK to market your case against some politicians, especially retired ones that you don't like very much.

2) It is not OK to market your case against other politicians, espcially incumbents who served on the boards of lobbying firms with your son-in-law.

Should be one rule all around, and not just a gratuitous attack on Ryan or Creamer.

JB(P)

Skeeter 2:17 PM  

JB,

Marketing?

Are you claiming that the Federal Courts need work? I think I read somewhere that Federal Judges have jobs for life.

What in the world do you mean by "marketing"?

In fact, legal documents are available for a minimal fee. They are open to the public, with very few exceptions.

Go the various judge's websites. Two of them include links to cases that are important either legally or because of press attention.

You want all the documents free? So would I. But then stop whining about how much are government costs.

JBP 2:27 PM  

Yes, marketing, in this case product placement.

If you place your decision in a prominent position on a website, it is marketing your decision to the press, the public, and the next court upstream.

If your procedure involves calling a voicemail system to get a message that is returned a few days later requesting a fax and a fee (unexplained how to pay it) to receive public records for a prominent case, that would be burying a product so that very few can see it, and question why this case isn't as prominent as Gov Ryan's. (then your can retype the information from fax if you want to display public records, or maybe not..it is not clear if paying the 8 cents a copy entitles you to republish the info)

So I asked Bill Baar to shed some light on this. And he has.

Paraphrasing Bill, rats don't like the light.

Thx,
JBP

Skeeter 2:40 PM  

JB,

Go on the ND IL web site. Go to "judges" and you will get a list of the judges. From there, you can follow a link to what was formerly known as PACER. There, for 8 cents a page you can get whatever you want.

It has nothing to do with marketing. It has to with the the fact that the Ryan case has received national attention. Creamer's is at best a local issue. If you want the Creamer documents, go onto the website and fork over your 8 cents a page.

Nothing is hidden. It is wide open.

Incidently, your final comment calling judges "rats" was exactly the sort of language I noted above in response to Baar's comments. Don't call a United States District Judge a "rat."

JBP 3:03 PM  

Sketter,
Thanks for clearing that up!

Doesn't marketing lead to national attention? Why wouldn't a US Congresswoman's lobbyist husband get national attention upon his conviction?

Answering my own question..the judge in the Creamer case decided not to market his decision.

The "Light" allegory applies to a variety of vermin: roaches, thousand-leggers, mice, crafty foxes. Mark V. Tortorici-Judge Moran..How about shedding some light and seeing who scurries?

JBP

JBP 3:04 PM  

Sketter,

before you type it, I am requestion that Judge Moran and Mark Totorici shed some light rather than scurry.

JBP

Bill Baar 3:47 PM  

JB,

You got my sole act of heroism out of this post to boot.

Walking through an old German Army barracks turned Finance Office with a dog looking for boxes out of place.

A there were a lot of boxes of paper sitting around... this was pre office automation days a... my job was to wire the place for WANG.

Another reason why this walk accross the street for a paper report bugs me.

Skeeter 4:01 PM  

BB,

8 cents a page.

Alternative: Raise taxes to hire the staff to pay for putting it all on line.

It is your choice.

You both need to stop acting like there is some conspiracy.

There are several thousand cases pending over at the Dirksen, only one of which has received national attention. We can all expect that has seen countless document requests is the one where they have made it easier to obtain those documents. Seems like a good use of resources to me.

And Bill, nice work of approving of your colleagues use of the terms "rat" and "roaches" for a Senior United States District Judge. Sometimes you are judged by the company that you keep.

Anonymous,  4:31 PM  

Shackowsky and Creamer are scummy sleazebags.

JBP 7:54 AM  

Skeets logic is impeccable. Ryan verdict marketing is completely affordable by our Federal Courts, but Creamer verdict marketing would require a special tax levy.

Is there anything you cant hin of that wouldn't require a tax levy? I wonder how the Federal Court managed to afford their marketing campaign in the Ryan case?

JBP

Skeeter 8:51 AM  

JB,

You are right.

After hearing about this Ryan business, it looks like the Northern District of Illinois has a pretty good court system. I've decided to file a least one lawsuit there.

If it wasn't for that marketing scheme, I never would have considered it.

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