Lisa Madigan says she's not a candidate and that's big news: what does it say about those left who are running?

It's big news that Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced yesterday that she is not running for either the office of Illinois Governor or U.S. Senator for the former Barack Obama seat in Washington.

If that's big news, what does it say about all the candidates who are running for those offices. Yikes!

Here's what all the players in this drama want:

Mike Madigan, the Illinois House Speaker: Found himself in a dilemma. He wants his daughter to become Governor, or possibly now US Senator -- Senators do become presidents -- but he also wants to maintain his iron fist majority rule in the Illinois House and the battle over the budget could jeopardize that. He's held back on an income tax increase to protect his daughter and to protect the many spineless legislators who don't want to say if they will support an income tax increase until they know for sure no one of substance will be running against them in this Spring primary.

Gov. Pat Quinn: The deer in the lights. He can't balance his promises of reform against the need to play tough politics. Inept in political diplomacy, Quinn's only talent is to lead often but not always losing campaigns for reform. This time, Quinn was able to reverse course and do nothing to push reform while the wolves ripped the reform chicken to pieces. With Lisa Madigan "in" the race, he could blame everything on Mike Madigan. Now that she is out of the race, he has to blame everything on his pathetic lack of leadership and his hypocrisy.

Senate President john Cullerton: It makes it easier for him to take marching orders from Mike Madigan, who is the defacto governor.

Democratic, spineless legislators: They are falling to their knees crying and yelling "Hail Marys" for their great fortune that they don't have to worry about anything any more. no more important decisions. No more possibilities they will get beat and lose all the perqs and clout and jobs they've gotten their families. And now they don't even have to work. Mike Madigan will do all the thinking for them.

State Republicans: They are in total disarray and divided into two messed up camps. Despite some good leaders, they can't get their act together. Lisa Madigan removing herself from the race allows mediocracy to rule again and anyone can run for office to get a good headline, like Sen Kirk Dillard, who has done what in the past decade? At least Dan Proft, the ultra conservative candidate for Governor, has some good ideas.

News media: We wanted Lisa Madigan to run for either office. She great news. And the dilemma it would cause in Springfield over the budget battle only becomes more dramatic as a news story.

Alexi Giannoulias: Who?

Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich: With all the reality shows out of the way, he's left with fighting the U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald who is out to get him with a vengeance. And all he can do is appear on a morning radio talks how that hammers him when he's not looking.

The public: They are left out in the cold.

-- Ray Hanania

www.RadioChicagoland.com

Spectacular 4th of July Fireworks, despite dark & gloomy Global Warming clouds above

It was a little shorter this year but the Orland Park 4th of July fireworks celebration didn't let anyone down and lived up to its reign as one of the best in the suburban Chicagoland region.

The crowd was down, mainly because it rained all day -- that's what we get for ignoring former vice president Al Gore's warnings about global warming and allowing former vice president Dick Cheney (the anti-Christ -- although that's unfair to the anti-Christ) to diss the whole concept. But what a night. It was worth it.

Aaron was disappointed only because the rain kept him away from enjoying the handful of carnival rides set up on what last year was where everyone laid out their lawn chairs. We bought two new ones from Dick's sporting goods with the American Flag Design -- I wonder if wearing the American Flag on your chair is any different than someone wearing it on their jeans?

The carny folks wouldn't let us recoup the lost money for the tickets -- no rain check. Still, he got to enjoy a few of the rides. And then we sat and (this year without a picnic basket, and me with no cigar) waited and played catch until the fireworks started. The weather held out just perfectly for us to enjoy the fireworks after an introductory speech and welcome from the bandshell by Orland Park Mayor Dan McLaughlin.

Here are some videos I took ... there are more on my Facebook page which I think you will enjoy -- not everyone got to enjoy the fireworks so I thought at least this might be the next best thing.

Happy 4th of July and birthday America. (Maybe we can grow out of our anger. Do they give prescriptions for countries with ADHD to calm them down? Or is President Barack Obama our ADHD medication to chill us out and get us focused on our talents rather than on our fears?)

Hey. What's a 4th of July (or a Ray Hanania blog post without some commentary?)

Love it or leave pals!

-- Ray Hanania

www.RadioChicagoland.com

This is the finale, which was spectacular.

An Inconvenient Mess: Who's the idiot who screwed up 159th and LaGrange Road?

It's very obvious that the person who re-designed the intersection at 159th and LaGrange Road either:

A) -- Does not live in Orland Park and doesn't care about the needs of the residents nor the needs of the businesses at 159th and LaGrange Road

or,

B) -- The person is an IDIOT! (Not IDOT, Idiot, although some people think they are one and the same.)

The talk of Orland Park continues to be that the re-designed roadwork at 159th and LaGrange Road has resolved one "problem," but created another problem, an inconvenient traffic mess at the 159th and LaGrange Road intersection.

"We used to have a very vibrant business until they [expletive deleted] this intersection," explained one of the employees at one of the businesses at this important intersection.

"Now, customers coming from one direction can't turn into our business any more. They have to turn and go down the road and then either make a U-turn or go into another parking lot and turn around. We've seen the accident rates go up significantly. And all we get are complaints from customers. We tell them, go talk to the Village."

I spoke to several businesses at that intersection and they all say the same thing. (Quietly and fearing retribution because a village can bring a heap of pain down on any business who rocks the boat or publicly complains.) But they are seeing revenues fall and they blame that in part not just on the economic situation but on the difficulty customers are having getting to their businesses. And the complaints are many.

The Village's trustees and officials don't always talk to their constituents, living high off the hog in the wake of their recent Beautification, or, as some might call it, an "alleged election." I hear some of the officials are going to arrange to have themselves Knighted or Canonized.

But back to the problem. The intersection at 159th and LaGrange Road is an absolute mess. The reason they renovated the intersection was to "ease the traffic gridlock" there, they said. Well, they traded one problem for another.

Yes, they widened the road. But at what expense? Was it the fault of McDonough (which is one of several companies being investigated by the Federal Government that no one cares about?) Or, more likely, was it the result of the incompetent morons who happen to be the village engineers on the project, who can't engineer their way out of a paper bag. They sure do know how to make campaign contributions to cover up that fact.

Our engineers in the village have a serious problem. They screwed up the flooding problems in the village and came up with a half-assed program that alleviated some of the water troubles -- no one wants to talk about that any more or about the millions spent by the village to buy up the WRONG homes flooded by the waters from 13 years ago.

And now our engineers have screwed up 159th and LaGrange Road. With all the problems local businesses face, from the excessive taxes imposed by County Board President Todd Stroger to the oppressive economic downturn that many rightly describe as a recession, the last thing the village businesses need is a traffic pattern that DISCOURAGES customers from patronizing their businesses.

You might almost think that the Village Idiots -- err, engineers -- intentionally designed it so traffic cannot turn in to local business parking lots and forced the motorists to make left turns and then drive down LaGrange Road south until they come to another strip mall where they have to turn in and then make a U-turn to return to LaGrange Road and then make a right turn to get into one business. Every business is the same. Screwed.

But who cares? The village didn't raise our vehicle stickers $5 (thanks to this column publicizing that worthless effort), but they can pay enormous money to an engineering firm that is worthless and that has a poor record of service but that clearly has some close ties to some of our local officials.

Mayor McLaughlin, PLEASE! Don't use those morons again; hire someone else. Maybe new engineers can figure out how to help the businesses at 159th and LaGrange Road recover their losses. Better yet, maybe they can help the village residents who would like to visit those businesses without increasing their chances of getting in to an accident by taking spaghetti-looped routes involving multiple turns and U-turns and anger.

One problem replaced with another. It's truly one of the most messed up locations in this village.

-- Ray Hanania

www.RadioChicagoland.com

FOX Chicago News launches a new focus on Chicago neighborhoods & suburban communities

FOX Chicago News launches a new segment called "Road to Recovery" that focuses every Thursday on a different Chicago neighborhood or suburban community. The segment is broadcast at 9 PM.

Tonight's focus is on Beverly in Chicago, with reporter Darlene Hill. She appears on my radio show this morning at 8:30 am (WJJG 1530 AM Radio, or listen online at www.RadioChicagoland.com) ... you can also join the Facebook Group on the weekly segment by clicking here.

I remember running in the Beverly-Ridge 10K Run with the late Mayor Mike Bilandic in 1978. It was my first full year on staff at the old and great Southtown Economist Newspaper and the race was big news in the Chicago Tribune that Bilandic was going to run in it. That was considered big news when Bilandic was mayor, until Jane Byrne, whom he fired, ran for mayor and beat him and the Chicago Machine -- before flip-flopping and embracing the Cabal of Evil Men she ran against.

Darlene Hill talks to people in Beverly and gives us some insight into what is happening out there in today's economy. Check it out!

-- Ray Hanania

www.RadioChicagoland.com

Country Bank's Titanic exhibit was very nice -- my own in-depth research

It was a hot day but Aaron and I managed to stop by the Country Financial Bank Titanic display on in the west parking lot at the Orland Mall. Nice set-up. The displays shows some interesting relics from the recovery of the Titanic that sunk in 1912. My son says he had an awesome time at the display.

I am a Titanic expert of sorts and spent a lot of time reviewing the ship's history. One of the big problem's with James Cameron's movie Titanic is that it had some inaccuracies. Like the "Irish" wedding party on the ship is actually a Lebanese family reception and wedding. Although I do owe Cameron for sparking my interest in the topic.

When I saw the movie at the Marcus Theaters when it came out in 1997, the theater placed a complete list of all the names of the victims and survivors on the theater walls. As I walked out of the movie, I noticed that many of the passengers were of Arab heritage yet there was only one mention in the film by a mother with some children in the 3rd Class section. Here's the feature I wrote and responses I received from relatives of Titanic victims and survivors.

-- Ray Hanania

www.RadioChicagoland.com

Fire Judge John J. Fleming and jail Anthony Abbate immediately

Nothing is more disgusting in Chicago than the lack of justice

By Ray Hanania

Had Anthony Abbate been Black, he would have had the book thrown at him. But Anthony Abbate is an arrogant fat pig of a Chicago cop who was caught on tape in a drunken stuper beating the crap out of a young female bartender. I don’t mean “fat” as just some kind of pejorative adjective, although that certainly hangs easily around Abbate’s dirt bag neck.

At 250 pounds, he’s overweight and that only added to the disgusting video scene as he pummeled, pounded, beat, kicked and dragged mercilessly the 125-pound Karolina Obrycka as she tended bar where she was working in February 2007 and where Abbate was drinking himself into an alcoholic stupor.

What provoked Abbate. Turns out he was beating up people at the bar before he turned his fat fists on Obrycka. But when she refused to serve him more drinks because of his conduct and the disturbance he had caused, fat dirt-bag cop Anthony Abbate turned himself into the poster child for everything ugly about the Chicago Police Department and the hypocrisy that protects those who embrace corruption and misconduct regularly.

Sure enough, leave it to a judgment bankrupt and ethically questioned Cook County Circuit Court Judge like John J. Fleming to find a flimsy excuse to justify giving Abbate leniency. Fleming comes from the same culture of corruption that produces cops like Abbate.

A 12-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department, Abbate was off-duty during the altercation but that is baloney. No cops are ever off-duty. They’re always working. They always have the responsibility to step up in any circumstance and throw their weight around.

What is so disturbing about the fat dirt-bag cop Anthony Abbate isn’t the circumstances of this morally corrupt situation, but the silence of the thousands of good Chicago cops and suburban cops, too, who deep down sympathized with Abbate and their stupid “code of silence.”

Abbate, to many of them, was a hero because Obrycka, who has a heavy accent, has been labeled and slandered and defamed on cop-talk blogs and in the halls of police station gossip as an undocumented, illegal alien who can barely speak English.

Instead of throwing that fat dirt-bag cop in to jail, Cook County Circuit Judge John Fleming gave the 40-year-old Anthony Abbate, a slap on the hand: home curfew of 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. and 130 hours of “community service.”

Who is this Fleming? Here’s his bio from one of those legal web sites:

Legal Experience: 1980-83, assistant general attorney, Chicago Park District (in house counsel); 1983-91, assistant state's attorney, Cook County (traffic 4th Municipal District and Felony Trial Divisions); 1991-94, deputy general attorney, Chicago Park District (supervise the Litigation Division); 1994-1995, ALJ, City of Chicago (Personnel and Parking departments); 1996-1996, Director of Administrative Adjudication, City of Chicago.

Judicial Experience: Judge Fleming was first elected to the bench in November of 1996. He was originally assigned to the 1st Municipal District of the Circuit Court of Cook County. He served in Traffic Court, Domestic Violence and Misdemeanor sections. He is currently assigned to Felony preliminary hearings and Central Bond Court at the Criminal Courts Building.

He has the “culture of corruption” stamp padded all over him.

Fleming, naturally defended his kindered colleague in this state’s rampant culture of corruption, asserting that he didn't see any “aggravating factors” to justify a prison term. Fleming incredulously argued that Abbate did not “seriously injure” the Obrycka, the hero in this sad Chicago saga.

Abbate beat the woman for nearly a half hour! What do you think Fleming would have done if the victim had been his child?

And, Fleming insisted after allowing this trial to be delayed two full years – something judges do when they want to help reduce the burden on the criminals they favor – that Abbate had a “clean record before the incident,” and that he had underwent “alcohol rehab and has not had a relapse” since entering the program.

Is it because Abbate’s past conduct has not been captured on tape as it was that night in that Chicago bar? Had it not been for the bar’s video tape system, Abbate would have gotten off without the worthless conviction handed down in Fleming’s unjust courtroom.

“If I believed sentencing Anthony Abbate to prison would stop people from getting drunk and hitting people, I'd give him the maximum sentence,” Fleming said.

Are you kidding me?

The only thing more disgusting about Abbate’s being given a pass is the moral bankruptcy of Judge Fleming’s ruling.

Fleming is a Circuit Court Judge. He was “first elected” to the bench in 1996. That means he can be removed from the bench. And, he should be removed as soon as possible.

Finally, every decent American citizen in the realm of this injustice by Fleming and Abbate has to ask out loud, Where are the voices of disgust from the Chicago Police Department and police departments throughout? Their silence is deafening and just as shameful, too.

END

Forrest Claypool confides to colleagues he won't challenge Stroger

Forrest Claypool, one of the leading candidates who was expected to challenge Cook County Board President Todd Stroger in the February Democratic primary has told his party allies on the county board he will not run.

That leaves declared candidate Ald. Toni Preckwinkle, a reformer who appeals to African Americans and women dissatisfied with Stroger's rule, and opens up other possible challenges, changing the horse race completely. Another candidate in the race is Cook County Circuit Clerk Dorothy Brown who has both strong name recognition, ties countywide and the ability to raise funds. She would be a formidable candidate in the Democratic primary.

Many believed Claypool was actually a weak candidate and some insiders argued that polling numbers over the past few months showed his appeal among countywide Democrats weakening. Rather than be a leader in the fight against the Stroger 1 percent sales tax, he has been meekly following along.

============= =============

Claypool's problem is reflected in the FACT that he is making

more news getting out of the race for Cook County Board President

than he ever did getting in to the race. He just never had it!

============= =============

County Commissioner Larry Suffredin immediately announced his plans to form an exploratory committee to decide if he can beat Stroger, who has been besieged by several controversies and growing unpopularity with the oppressive 1 percent sales tax hike. Suffredin originally opposed the sales tax hike, changed his vote hoping that it would bring some badly needed change to the county's health system, and then supported the repeal when those changes failed to materialize.

Another possibility is that County Sheriff Tom Dart might run for Board president in the Democratic primary.

While Democrats scramble to reposition themselves, Republicans are also taking a closer look at the race. With former Chicago Schools CEO Paul Vallas withdrawing from the contest, the Republicans are looking and possible contenders. One candidate, of course, is 17th District Commissioner Liz Doody Gorman, who has quickly risen to the top of the county list of stars first by leading the fight to repeal the Stroger sales tax and her recent victory in getting the board to reverse itself on last year's $190,000 loan to controversy-plagued Regional Schools Supt. Charles Flowers. She's been a powerful voice for voters on the county board.

But the law has been changed and if Gorman does run in November against the Democratic nominee for president, she would not be able to run for re-election to her county seat. A difficult choice but possibly a great opportunity.

That might also save Pat Maher, whose expected candidacy for the 17th District has been overshadowed by Gorman's fast action leadership on the county board. In a head-to-head race, Gorman could easily beat Maher, the president of the Orland Fire Protection District who has no real name recognition outside of this small corner of the huge 17th district. Maher's only asset so far has been his name which his family has fought hard to protect in recent elections. But outside of Orland, the Maher name means little more than that. Maher's ties to the 19th Ward, which has a huge presence in Orland Park, could both help and hurt him in the suburban county district which runs into the far north suburbs. And his ties to Stroger, through the Democratic organization, could cause him some voter grief.

Gorman would be a great candidate to lead the Republican Party going into the election. Winning the primary would be a synch.

Tough choices would have to be made by the beginning of the Fall when filing begins.

-- Ray Hanania

www.RadioChicagoland.com