Chicago Daily Observer

“We may think we can prosecute and incarcerate our way to a less violent society, but it is going to take more than that.”

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said that Tuesday in his speech to the Lake County Bar Association at Greenbelt Forest Preserve.

Fitzgerald said public corruption gets all the headlines—Tony Rezko, former Chicago Ald. Edward Vrdolyak and Republican power broker Bill Cellini—and violence gets far fewer.

“People are tired of worrying about guns, gangs and drugs, but people are imprisoned in their own homes, afraid to go out even in the middle of the afternoon,” he said.

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To Reappoint



The big question here…in this citadel of the national Democratic party (the nation’s oldest political machine) and the home of the walk-on-water messiah…is whether a ramrod-straight Irish Catholic federal prosecutor will reappointed by President-elect Obama. If so, Patrick Fitzgerald will continue to prosecute more members of the bipartisan combine which runs this town and state. For now, he is a distinct threat to the man known as Richard II, Mayor Richard M. Daley, the Democratic apparatus here including the governor-and very possibly Obama. So don’t hold your breath that his service will be renewed by our reformist president.

Fitzgerald, 47, is the U..S. attorney for the northern district of Illinois, who, ever since his appointment in 2001, has been giving fits to Daley Democrats and “moderate” Republicans who bed down with the Dems There is no doubt that he, recommended for his post by Republican U.S. ... Read More...

All of us are expected to perk up our ears when U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald speaks. And well we should. For the most part he has been a great blessing to our polity. I seriously doubt that George Ryan would have been convicted if one of Illinois’ good old Republic-crats had been named our prosecutor as House Speaker Denny Hastert and his combine colleagues had urged.

Without Fitzgerald, Big Jimbo’s handpicked Dan Webb might well have gotten the porcine creature of bipartisan corruption off-or if not off, a felon one only a few counts who would be confined to quarters with an ankle bracelet. I can even accept Fitz’s conviction of Scooter Libby even though the object of the federal inquiry was known privately to Fitz when the probe began…Fitz remonstrating the offender to keep quiet about it as he inveigled Libby into an act of perjury, proof of which ... Read More...

Sheriff Tom Dart and The Cook County Jail took a 98 page study ( prepared, indexed, rolled and greased with warmed up left-overs from the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board, University of Chicago MacArthur Center for Justice, Chicago Magazine, and the usual assortment of lawsuit addicted lefty lawyers and, it seems Commissioner Quigley) from Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in the shorts this past week.

A few years back, The Chicago Tribune and the usual suspects listed above took a long sprint at Sheriff Michael Sheehan with a series of ‘heart-tugging tales’ from prisoners and diappointed Correctional Employees and had their efforts tossed by a jury in about twenty minutes.

The Tribune’s ‘investigative’ efforts were laughed out of court by the jury and the lawyer most linked to the case against Sheehan was a nano-second away from charges of impropriety for tipping prison gangs about finding just the right time to riot ... Read More...