Stroger's whereabouts unknown to campaign manager during candidate forum

Yesterday, a coalition of Democratic groups hosted a forum for the Democratic candidates for President of the Cook County Board at DePaul University.

Todd Stroger failed to attend.

Sun-Times (Lisa Donovan):

Stroger's campaign manager, Vincent Williams, reached by phone after Sunday's political forum, didn't know why he missed the event: "I haven't spoken to the president today, so I don't have an answer."

Missing a major candidate forum without an explanation is not normal. Having the campaign manager clueless makes it hard for normal people to have confidence in the candidate's competence.

ABC7 is on the case.

After initially saying he was not actually confirmed to attend the debate, Stroger's campaign said Monday they knew of the debate, and pulled out after a Sun-Times report appeared in the paper Sunday alleging a conspiracy in the board race.

In the article Stroger attacks Dorothy Brown. I'm not really sure why Brown getting busted doing something underhanded (according to Sun-Times (Tim Novak) Brown's nominating petitions were in some cases circulated by the same people who circulated Terry O'Brien's) would keep Stroger from appearing.

Why do you think Stroger failed to attend?

Scavo convicted; where's it gonna lead?

Vito Scavo, the former Melrose Park chief of police, was convicted of 22 of 22 counts of corruption today. Also convicted were Gary Montino, Scavo's deputy chief, and Michael Wynn. Scavo faces up to 20 years in prison. See Proviso Herald (Jolie Lee), Chicago Tribune (Mike Robinson, AP), ABC7 (Chuck Goudie) or CBS2 (STNG).

What can I add?

Some people involved in Proviso politics like Jesse Martinez and Mike Manzo (both of whom have run against Ron Serpico for village president of Melrose Park) see Ron Serpico as being the central figure in bad (if not corrupt) government in in Proviso Township.

In the indictment against Scavo some of the malfeasance goes back to 1996. August Taddeo was village president until at least 1998.

So, it seems possible that Scavo was "the big fish" and Serpico was Scavo's guy. The Melrose Park police force provided the base of power in the Village of Melrose Park. Scavo picked Serpico to be his candidate for village president because he knew Serpico wouldn't interfere with the criminal schemes Scavo was running in the police department.

Serpico didn't have an intention of reforming things, but the corruption was there before he arrived.

What are the pieces of the puzzle?

Scavo was convicted and will now be looking to cut a deal. With whom did Scavo have interactions with?

Serpico
District 209 (Scavo's security company was paid to guard the PMSA building)
Who else?

Anthony Bruno has been charged with tax evasion. With whom did Bruno have interactions?

Ric Cervone, a former board member at District 89 (Maywood and Melrose Park elementary schools), was charged in the same indictment that convicted Scavo. With whom did Cervone interact?

Who else is in the mix?

How Stroger Hospital pinches pennies on health care

The U.S. health care system doesn't work.

Opponents of single-payer health care whine about waiting for health care in countries with national health care. But plenty of people are denied health care or have to wait for it in the United States. We just don't pay attention to how long Americans have to wait to receive basic health care services.

Kevin Drum (Political Animal) had a pithy quote for smacking down those who oppose national health care.

The only reason we even know [countries with national health care] have waiting times is because they measure it. We [Americans] don't. That doesn't mean we don't have waiting times. It just means we don't know how long they are, which in turn implies that we don't have any interest in reducing them. After all, if we did, we'd measure them, wouldn't we?

ABC7 (Leah Hope):

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger says the county is bearing too much responsibility for the uninsured and needed to take this step.

"Our hospital tries to make sure if we can't see people immediately, that we can connect them with hospitals that do, so when the list gets too long, we try to put something together where we'll talk to the other hospitals and see who they will take," said Stroger.

Stroger, who himself was had prostate cancer detected early, says other facilities should step up to help patients in need of preventive care.

"Unfortunately, we can't carry the full load for everyone who can't pay, so some of the other hospitals will have to take some of that," Stroger said.

The way U.S. society is supposed to work in the Chicago area is that if you don't have health care privately the Cook County system is your back-up.

But the back-up system is overburdened. One can make the argument that Stroger has blown a few million hiring cronies that don't need to be on payroll. And it's almost assuredly true, but how much extra health care could be provided by cutting waste?

And the demand that Cook County government eliminate all waste before getting more money for services is unreasonable. No big organization functions without redundancy and waste.

Let's get back to what real people face when they go to the Cook County health care system. Stroger is saying that to deal with the Cook County system being overburdened it is policy to deny people services and hope that other hospitals provide the services. Legally, hospitals are only required to accept patients who can't pay when the health condition becomes so acute that it would be a crime to turn them away.

So, people are expected to go from hospital to hospital until they get really sick. Aren't you proud to be an American?

BTW, breast cancer rates for Black women are higher than for "White" women. And Chicago Black women have it particularly bad. And that was before the cuts.

WBEZ's Eight Forty Eight:

Last fall, the Sinai Urban Health Institute found that the mortality rate among black women in Chicago was 68 percent higher than that of their white counterparts.

That’s far higher than the national rate -- and the gap is getting wider.

BTW, has anybody seen Sicko by Michael Moore?

GOV, Don Stephens retrospective

ABC7 (Chuck Goudie) recorded a couple interviews with Rosemont Mayor Donald Stephens.

The interview is mostly devoted to Stephens disputing the allegation that he is connected to organized crime. He blames his health problems on the federal government hounding him about connections to organized crime. Stephens did beat a couple charges in federal court.

If I were advising Stephens I'd tell him to emphasize what's he's accomplished, not denying the allegations.

What do you think of Stephens?