BLAGOJEVICH WILL NOT GO AWAY

Well the jury rendered a decision, and impeached former Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich was recently found guilty of one felony count, but the Prosecution announced that they will move forward with a retrial on the remaining 23 deadlocked counts. This decision had all the television stations going wall to wall with coverage and analysis of this latest episode of political corruption which Chicago and Illinois are now long famous for perpetuating.

Personally, I am disgusted with the entire chain of events, but honestly someone and something will someday get to the bottom of this story, because it has extremely far reaching tentacles. It does not take a scholar to know that this tale reaches into the highest levels of our federal government, state politics in Illinois, and it blankets every level of government in the Windy City machine politics.

WGN-TV, the Chicago Tribune owned independent television station, ran a poll asking the question, “Do you think the government should retry Rod Blagojevich?”

Yes 34%
No 66%

Are you surprised? I am not, because the citizens of Chicago believed that their ex-Congressman and ex-Governor would not be found guilty on the significant charges, because that is just the way business has always been conducted for as many years as I can remember. The already over-taxed residents of Illinois do not want another trial costing another $20 million dollars of their money.

It does not take a leap of faith to suspect that the fix was in with the lone juror who could only find Blago guilty of one of the 24 counts, but I suspect we will never know. How the prosecution team did not get at least a few of the charges proven with the extensive audio tapes in evidence leads me to my conclusion of a poisoned jury, since we know the jury voted 11 to 1 to convict on many of the 23 counts.

I would also wonder why the big-wigs would want this trial to continue, because there are voices of significant influence that should have been heard but were never called, i.e., Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., Presidential Advisor Valerie Jarrett, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Senator Roland Burris, and currently buried deep in a federal facility Anton “Tony” Resko who could sing like a canary if called to testify. Anyone who does not believe that this scandal reaches deep into the White House must have blinders, because President Obama knows far more than we have been permitted to hear regarding Blago’s attempts to gain from choosing the successor to Obama’s vacated Senate seat once elected to the nation’s highest office.

Your Commander believes it would be wise for the Administration to have a little talk with Attorney General Eric Holder and the ego-driven U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick J. Fitzgerald, and let this matter go quietly into the sunset. If they have the Judge sentence Blago to the full five years that is possible under the sentencing guide-lines on his felony conviction he will be neutralized and busted financially.

If only the television cameras would go away and ignore Blago he would fade away faster than an old soldier. That would be an inexpensive solution to a long festering embarrassment.

After all these months we all know what Blagojevich really is. It is time to move on without any further waste of the taxpayer’s money. Someday somebody will sing and most of the story will come before the full light of day, but in the meantime let’s all move on to turning the economy around without further expense, additional deception, and deflection from the big issues of the day.

COMMANDER GRANGER