Lately, I’ve been talking a lot with Fred Beuttler, the deputy historian of the House of Representatives and a font of knowledge about that institution. Recently, we discussed one of my favorite subjects: Chicagoan Rahm Emanuel, the former congressman for the 5th District, now serving as chief of staff to President Obama. Beuttler speculates that…
In June’s letters: Thumbs-up and thumbs-down to our taste in hoods, tunes, and eats
June 2010: Joe Wigdahl, Kim Thornton, Marcia Froelke Coburn, Karin Horgan Sullivan, Bryan Smith
A recent Wall Street Journal story reported that Andy Goss, a former Army interrogator seeking the GOP nomination for a Congressional seat from Arizona, is proposing to cut congressional pay by 40 percent (salary is currently $174,000) and use the dollars saved to build a barracks on Capitol Hill. Four of the 19 members of the Illinois delegation go Goss one better: they sleep in their offices. All four are Chicago Democrats…
How Sam Adam Jr.’s plan for helping his client beat the rap: Let him blather.
How lovely for Carrie Zalewski and Lynne Sered. Governor Pat Quinn recently appointed the two women to plum jobs on state boards that pay six-figure annual salaries. Each woman appears to have solid credentials. But—in the kind of coincidence that seems to happen all too often in Illinois—each woman also has a powerful connection…
Many stories about Alexi Giannoulias, the candidate for the U.S. Senate seat once held by Barack Obama, mention that the two are basketball-playing buddies. Not recently: They haven’t played since Obama won the White House. In a phone interview, Alexi attributed this to the President’s busy schedule, but reports suggest that Obama’s advisers want their man…
ROD’S MAN DAN: Long before he became his party’s odd man out, he worked for Blago
THE LONG FALL: Christopher Kelly operated in the top circle of the Blagojevich administration, using his tough-guy style and disdain for rules to raise piles of money for the governor. Then the feds got on Kelly’s trail. Last September, he swallowed a deadly mixture of pills and poison. “Tell them they won,” he said with his dying breath
RELATED STORY: The Life and Death of Christopher Kelly
