Rahm Emanuel takes control of the “Muscle”
Hugo Floriani, Investigative Reporter
Any politician who wants to wield supreme power in Chicago must control the Cook County State Attorney's Office.
The Chicago Sun Times, Rahm Emanuel's Pravda, took a big step toward giving that power to the Mayor.
For those not familiar with Chicago politic's, put simply, it's a protection racket. And the Cook County State Attorney's Office is the "Muscle".
Here's how it works: Eight years ago, Mayor Daley controlled "The Machine". So it was dictated - probably not by His Honor himself, but by others - that there'd be no real investigation into the death of David Koschman, and that the Chicago media would ignore the event.
Why? Because the man responsible for David Koschman's premature death was a Daley family member, and, therefore, a protected member of "The Machine".
Fast forward to present day: The current Mayor, Rahm Emanuel, needs to control the States Attorney's Office. So his journalistic minions at the Chicago Sun Times resurrect, and then use, the tragedy of David Koschman's death, to dismantle the power of State's Attorney Anita Alvarez, and thereby future discredit the"Daley Machine," so Rahm can replace it with the "Emanuel Politburo".
It's that simple. And it's that disreputable.
The investigation into the death of David Koschman was derailed eight years ago due to political power.
It was resurrected in order to gain political power.
Justice doesn't figure into the equation.
Welcome to the People's Republic of Crook County.
The Cook County States Attorney's Office is the "Muscle" in Chicago, and Rahm "Never let a crisis go to waste" Emanuel, is well on his way to taking control of it.
Bye, bye, Anita
Related Story on how the "Muscle" and the media operates in Chicago:
Annabel Melongo, the Machine's Political Prisoner.
Eavesdropping on the Sun Times Chutzpa
Annabel Kent, Chicago Media Critic & Thomas Barton, Political Commentator
Recently, the chutzpa of the Chicago Sun Times was on full display in their reporting of events involving employees of Mayor Rahmbo’s City Hall recording their phone conversation with Chicago Tribune reporters.
The act of recording the reporters without their knowledge is a felony in Illinois. Recently, there have been high profile eavesdropping cases that are being scrutinized, or to Illinois’ shame, not being scrutinized.
One case in particular, that illustrates the hypocrisy of the current situation on so many different levels, was brought against Annabel Melongo who was jailed as a political prisoner in Crook County for over a year-and-a-half.
Crook County’s Political Prisoner
Here is what one of the Times’ investigative “Watch Dog” reporters, Carol Marin, wrote about how Mayor Rahmbo handled the Tribune eavesdropping episode:
So, is Carol Marin, now, finally, taking up the cause for Annabel Melongo who was wrongly-incarcerated for 20 months?
Or, did the Times, via Marin, just aim to send the Tribune, and anyone else who might consider making an issue of Rahmbo’s City Hall violating eavesdropping laws, a message that he/she will open the can of worms known as the Save-A-Life-Foundation Scandal if the scrutiny of City Hall does not cease immediately?
(Oh, BTW, the Illinois Attorney General is allegedly investigation the Save-A-Life Foundation’s questionable money reporting – “allegedly” is the operative word.)
We are guessing the latter – that Marin/Times sent a message to back off their guy Rahmbo.
Although, incurably optimistic, we do hope against hope that the Times is preparing to expose the all-too-common practice of imprisoning people for political reasons in "The Peoples Republic of Cook County”. Hey, we can dream.
P.S.: One of the Time’s “Watch Dogs” told a writer for Andrew Breitbart’s Big Journalism in 2010 that the Time’s editors told that reporter not to report on the Melongo case because “there wasn’t time to do the story justice”.
Is the Illinois AG Pretending to Investigate the Defunct Save A Life Foundation?
Hugo Floriani, Investigative Reporter
About five years ago, Chicago ABC7 I-Team reporter Chuck Goudie, in a series of investigative reports, exposed the questionable veracity of the founder of the Save A Life Foundation (SALF) and the organization’s claimed achievements. Here is the first of Goudie’s reports.
That was the beginning of the end for the “charity” founded in 1993. During its lifetime, the SALF received millions of dollars ($7,856,869 to be exact) in federal ($2.6 million alone from the Centers for Disease Control) and state grants from several Illinois agencies.
SALF lived off the state and federal largess by enjoying the advocacy of a host of state and federal officials, including, but not limited to, Arne Duncan, who ran the Chicago Public Schools then and is now the Secretary of Education, Illinois State Democrat Senators Emil Jones and Donnie Trotter, plus U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D), and U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D) – a very active promoter for SALF.
It wasn’t all Democrats, though, who hyped SALF. Former Senator Norm Coleman (R. MN) tried, but failed, to get millions more for SALF from the federal treasury. And, current Illinois Republican Senator Mark Kirk openly supported SALF and once accepted an award from the “charity”. But the majority of the pols promoting SALF were Democrats.
About three years after Chuck Goudie poked a hole in the SALF balloon, it closed up shop in 2009. But that’s not the end of the story.
A writer for the conservative website, American Thinker, gathered all the Illinois Form 990’s – the annual forms that all charities are required to submit reporting their receipts to the Illinois Attorney General’s Office. When the grant monies that SALF reported having received over the years were compared to what the various granting agencies reported they’d given SALF over those same years, there was a discrepancy. SALF had not accounted for having received $853,709. Oops!
In July 2010, this discrepancy was brought to the attention of Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office – where apparently math is not a strong suit since they never noticed the discrepancy – and the AG’s Charitable Trust Bureau, the department responsible for monitoring Illinois charities, allegedly began an investigation of SALF’s finances.
It’s been nearly a year-and-a-half now, and the “investigation” is still…“open.” Of course, “open” doesn’t necessarily mean being pursued. In only means…not closed. It could stay open for…well, indefinitely. That would be The Chicago Way.
So what happened to the missing money? Can we say – Illinois Pay-to-Play?
Chicago’s Political Prisoner Partially Released and Then Gagged
Thomas Barton, Illinois Pay-to-Play Political Commentator
On October 19 last, you read here of the continuing incarceration of former Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF) employee Annabel Melongo in the Crook County Jail. There’s been a new development in her case.
After 18 months in the slammer, Ms. Melongo has been released under house arrest. But she’s forbidden to speak to the media. Illinois Pay-to-Play has made no effort to contact her, not wishing to endanger her semi-freedom from jail, if not her freedom under the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
The website Sidebar posted a thank you note she sent to several bloggers who kept her case alive during the last 16 months.
Allegedly, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office continues to “investigate” the $853,709 state and federal dollars in grant monies received by the SALF, but not reported on their Form 990 to the state. Nor, presumably, reported to the IRS’s via the federal 990. If you think there’s a real AG investigation underway into the matter, then check the classified ads for cheap Florida swamp land.
Hey, what’s less than a million missing government dollars in the greater scheme of the national version of Illinois’ Pay-to-Play metastasizing throughout the United States of America? Billions are slipping away in various green, GM, Fannie & Freddie, and other schemes. The redistribution of wealth is in full throttle – but not going to the poor, but to the players. But that’s another story.
One wonders: What’s the Court afraid that Ms. Melongo might say about what she witnessed at SALF before it went belly-up in 2009? What names of prominent pols (at the state and federal levels) might she mention? And where did unaccounted for government grant monies representing nearly 10% of SALF’s receipts go over the years of its operation?
Melongo was in a position to see where the money went; now she’s gagged. After being framed for corrupting their computer system. It’s the Chicago Way.
These are questions that the relentless investigative reporters at the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times are probing even as you read this – ah...well, no they’re not.
Fact is, we’ll never know where the money went. But, look, it’s chump change. Unfortunately, the citizens of Crook County and Illinois are the chumps.
Annabel Melongo, the Machine’s Political Prisoner For Over 18 Months
Thomas Barton, Illinois Pay-to-Play Political Commentator
Annabel Melongo has been locked-up in the Crook County Jail since April 10, 2010. Yet, she’s been convicted of no crime. Her bail, originally set at $500,000 (!), is now $300,000.
Annabel’s a single, legal immigrant from Cameroon. She has no family here. She can’t make bail.
Melongo’s a political prisoner.
Her story, and the saga of the now-defunct Save A Life Foundation (SALF) where she was once employed as a computer specialist, has been covered by several new media outlets including the American Thinker, Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government and Big Journalism, the Cincinnatibeacon.com and the Chicago Daily Observer.
Melon-go’s problems with the Cook County State’s Attorney began back in 2006. The Cincinnati Beacon summarized the beginning of her ordeal.
“Annabel Melongo is a computer professional, born in Cameroon, who has lived and worked in the Chicago area since 2003. From December - April, 2006, she worked for the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF), a nonprofit whose charter was to teach first aid to children in public schools.
Founded in 1993, SALF was a member organization of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and over the years received close to $9 million in federal and state funding. Since November 2006, SALF has been the subject of about a dozen news reports around the country that raise serious concerns about the organization’s claims, activities, and finances.
In October 2006, Annabel was charged with destroying SALF’s files, among them financial records. Those charges were entirely based on claims made by SALF’s founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri of Grayslake, IL. According to multiple news reports, Spizzirri has a history of serious fabrications, including the false claim that she is a Registered Nurse; that she worked as a renal transplant nurse in a Milwaukee hospital; and that she earned a BSN degree from a Wisconsin college whose name she misspelled on her CV. According to a recent sworn affidavit, in 1985 a Milwaukee court-ordered psychologist, Dr. Burton S. Silberglitt, diagnosed Spizzirri as ‘paranoid schizophrenic.’”
SALF collapsed in 2009. Spizzirri moved to California. And, after being made aware that the organization failed to account for $853,709 in state and federal (CDC) grant money, the granting of which was facilitated by several Illinois politicians – mostly Democrats – the Illinois Attorney General’s Office is supposedly investigating the organization’s finances. Raise your hand if you believe there’s a real investigation underway.
The missing money is approximately 10% of government monies received by SALF during its lifetime. Can we say Pay to Play?
Melongo was originally arrested on a complaint from Spizzirri that Melongo corrupted the organization’s computer records from off-site, after she’d been fired. Those charges have been put in legal limbo. Then she was arrested for audio-taping two brief innocuous, procedural conversations with a court clerk pertaining to questions she had about her case, and for posting those conversations on her website. Not smart, for sure. Annabel went to trial and the result was a hung jury. The Cook County States Attorney’s Office has decided to go to a re-trial on those charges. Why would they do that ?
Meanwhile, she’s been sitting in the Crook County Jail now for over 18 months.
The mainstream Chicago media isn’t interested in her story.
In July 2010, a writer of the aforementioned Big Journalism article reported this comment from a Sun Times investigative reporter.
“‘My bosses aren’t interested in tackling the story [of Melongo].’ That’s what a top investigative reporter at a major Chicago newspaper said when I asked why the story of Annabel Melongo – former Save A Life Foundation employee – wasn’t being covered. ‘We’d have to spend a lot of time to get it right.’ The reporter explained how, with a limited staff of investigative reporters tasked to write one ‘investigative story’ each week, there aren’t enough resources to focus on the Melongo case.”
Of course they aren’t interested in Melongo’s story. Just too many well-connected Chicago area pols were associated with the SALF.
Meanwhile, Joseph Cari was sentenced to three years probation for attempting to extort millions from a state pension fund for school teachers. Go figure.
According to the on-line Crook County Jail’s Inmate Report, Melongo comes before a judge again on October 25. Stand-by.
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Links
- Big Government
- Bill Baar's West Side
- Chicago Daily Observer
- Citizen WElls
- Doug Ross @ Journal
- Illinois Review
- Newsalert
- PeterLance.com
- RBO2.com
- The Blaze
- The Ulsterman Report