* Uh-Oh…
Sneed has learned that a Cook County grand jury is probing allegations that state public aid recipients were forced to circulate Cook County Board presidential candidate Dorothy Brown’s nominating petitions under threat of losing their welfare benefits.
* The kicker: Several public aid recipients, who have been called before the grand jury twice, complained they feared they’d be dropped from the job-training program (which is administered by the state Human Services Department) if they didn’t circulate Brown’s petitions as part of their training.
* The firing squad: The recipients were receiving job training at Mother’s House, a South Side social service agency managed by Hassan Muhammad, who, until recently, was a field director of Dorothy Brown’s campaign. […]
When complaints were first disclosed by Fox News Chicago in October, Brown said she had no knowledge of the practice and did not condone what was going on.
Keep in mind that a grand jury investigation doesn’t automatically mean guilt, despite the saying that “In this town you’re innocent until investigated.” Also, keep in mind that Brown may not have known anything about this. Yes, the probe could be big political trouble, but don’t jump to too many conclusions just yet.
* Meanwhile, Cook County Board President Todd Stroger has fired a couple of Speaker Madigan’s guys…
Stroger isn’t pleased that Madigan has withheld his backing, county insiders say. He took political revenge first by firing longtime Madigan loyalist Richard Bono, a $99,187 county Forest Preserve District maintenance superintendent who also collects a $30,353 city pension.
“They called [Bono] in and said he was out,” a top county source said. “No mention of a reason. No feds. No grabbing computers. He was just out, and that’s it.”
On Wednesday, Cook County medical examiner’s office worker David Foley was fired from his $110,354 executive officer post. During his employment at the medical examiner’s office, Foley bragged that he was Madigan’s “No. 1 precinct captain,” sources said.
* And the Sun-Times continues to look at whether Rahm Emanuel wanted Gov. Blagojevich to find a way to appoint a replacement, a move which would’ve been blatantly unconstitutional…
On the day last year that Emanuel was named White House chief of staff, John Harris, the top aide to then-Gov. Blagojevich, began researching whether Blagojevich had the authority to appoint someone to temporarily fill Emanuel’s Northwest Side congressional seat, according to records that show the Web browser history on Harris’ state government computer.
The records show that Harris, who was Blagojevich’s chief of staff, Googled this exact search term on his state computer on Nov. 6, 2008: “temporary appointment to fill vacancies in the house of representatives.”
The confirmation of Harris’ Google search — which, by the way, yielded 308,000 hits — lends credence to previous Sun-Times reports that Blagojevich’s office was working with Emanuel at that time on a strategy that would enable Emanuel to one day reclaim his old House seat and vie for the powerful post of speaker of the House.
The top result of that search leads to a document on Sen. Joe Lieberman’s site, entitled: “House and Senate Vacancies: How Are They Filled?” Scroll down and you see this…
The Constitution thus requires that all House vacancies be filled by special election.
There is no constitutional provision for the appointment of interim Representatives.
Back to the story…
Surfing the Net, the records show, another Web site Harris visited was www.kingmadigan.com — which depicts Blagojevich’s arch political enemy, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, as a greedy “king” decked out in a jewel-studded gold crown.
Fun guys, those Blagojevichians.