Those who were alive at the time remember Fast Eddie as the alderman who led the white ethnic opposition against Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor. He ran for mayor as a third party candidate against Washington in 1987, lost, later became a Republican, and lost again, this time against Richard M. Daley, then ran for Clerk of the Cook County Courts, and lost. I don't know if he's still a Republican. Maybe he doesn't know.
Stuart Levine, who is a Republican, testified today in Antoin "Tony" Rezko's corruption trial. He came out firing. From the Chicago Sun-Times:
Within minutes of the start of Levine’s testimony late this afternoon, the Highland Park businessman disclosed he paid former Chicago Ald. Edward R. Vrdolyak bribes dating back to the 1980s to win government contracts for clients.
Stuart Levine, the government's star witness in the Tony Rezko trial, testified he paid former Chicago Ald. Edward R. Vrdolyak bribes dating back to the 1980s to win government contracts for clients.
Levine also began to detail the 100-plus sessions with the government in which he provided information about Rezko, a former campaign fund-raiser for Gov. Blagojevich and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
More...
Levine also spoke of handing out bribes to help his clients win contracts to supply tires to the city of Chicago Streets and Sanitation Department and school-bus services to the Chicago Board of Education. He did not say who those bribes were paid to.
In addition, Levine detailed his lengthy history with GOP power brokers Bill Cellini and Robert Kjellander. When Levine met Rezko, he said Rezko told him they had mutual friends: Cellini and Kjellander.
Last year Vrdolyak was indicted on bribery and fraud charges.
Cellini, Individual A in the first Rezko indictment, and Kjellander, Individual K in the same document, have not been accused of wrongdoing. Other than being a political insider and a man who made himself wealthy existing living on the fringe of state government, I don't know if Cellini has an official position within the Republican Party. Kjellander (pronounced "Shellander") is the vice chairman of the 2008 Republican National Convention. As I've stated previously, he needs to resign. If he doesn't, then he needs to be thrown overboard. If the GOP is going to "take back the state," then we have no room for $hellander. Or Cellini.
As I've remarked before, Kjellander was a key Mitt Romney supporter before his exit from the race. Cellini donated cash to his campaign--he also wrote a check for Rudy Giuilani. Romney made it very clear, if he was elected president, that he would not reappoint Patrick Fitzgerald, the man who is prosecuting the Rezko case. John McCain committed to keeping Fitzgerald months ago.
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ReplyDeleteI am as dumb as a bag of hammers, but it seems to me that Ed Vrdolyak would give a guy like Stuart Levine a wide path.
Now, his former employee, the Guv, is another type of cat.
Ed Vrdolyak, like the smartest and quickest of a passel of cats in a Lithuanian Busha's gangway, would be off and over the garage and down the alley, before the Busha dumped a bucket scalding water on all the other felines.
Ed Vrolyak is a rogue. There is huge gap between being a rogue and a thief. I do not believe that Ed Vrdolyak is any where near a thief.
He lost more brains in a stream of used up Old Style than any score of University of Chicago Economists ever hoped of having.
I shocked Eddie was indicted. I mean doesn't he have enough money?
ReplyDeleteAgain, it's an indictment, not a conviction, but since he's close to 70, I think he's lost some of his nimbleness.
pat, that would be lithuanian busia, not busha.
ReplyDelete