Released from
SoapBlox/Chicago
Last Wednesday former Illinois Governor George Ryan was
sentenced to prison for 78 months (that's six and a half years) for "racketeering, conspiracy, fraud and other offenses involving favoritism and kickbacks for state contracts and property leases". While there's been
some disagreement, I have to think that Ryan got caught up in a complicated situation. I disagree with a lot of Ryan's positions, but he was remarkably forward thinking on some issues. His
moratorium on the Illinois death penalty in 2000 was one of the more progressive policies to come out of the governor's office in years. Nevertheless, he was caught up in an old pay-for-play, machine-based political system that encouraged graft, nepotism, and generally placed the welfare of those in power above that of the public good. It isn't anything that we
haven't seen before, and indeed probably doesn't even rise to the levels of corruption that we have
come to expect from Republicans, but the
public outcry following the deaths of six children at the hands of a truck drivers who had bribed his way to a license caught up with him.
At that time we put up a brief story mentioning the news. Along with it we posted a picture of former Governor Ryan laughing it up with Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. The amazing thing was where we found the picture: on the Hastert official governmental website. At the time I half-heartedly pulled a screen capture of the site mostly as a joke. After all, it wasn't as if Hastert had any direct role in the Ryan trial, and while it certainly isn't good to have your picture with convicted felons hanging around its not as if photos that are just as incriminating aren't around. (Like for instance here, here, here, here, here, or here.) So why did Hastert remove this pic from his site? Could it be that the charges that brought down George Ryan hit a little too close to home?
It wouldn't be the first time that Hastert had a reaction to our little site.
Support John Laesch and send a message to Dennis Hastert and the Republican elites that lining their own pockets is not more important than their duty to the public.