1994: A truck crash kills six children in Wisconsin. Police discover that the driver of the truck has a valid driver's license and speaks only Spanish. This seems odd as the truck driver's license test is given only in English. The state decides to see what's up. Folks in the government say, "Uh, nothing."
2000: Current Secretary of State Jesse White makes a statement saying that at least 175 truckers driving around this country that seem to have bought their licenses between 1990 and 1998. Former Secretary of State George Ryan (1991-1999) claims, "Would I have tolerated it? Hell no, I wouldn't have tolerated it, not in a second." U.S. Attorney Scott Lasser claims that Ryan is not a target of the investigation
Later in 2000: 30 people are charged in "Operation Safe Road," a federal investigation into over $170,000 in bribe money. Apparently it was used to purchase tickets to Ryan fund-raisers. Lasser refuses to tell the press that Ryan is no longer a target or who came up with the name "Operation Safe Road." Dean Bower, one of Ryan's closest advisers and the Inspector General for the Sec. of State under Ryan's tenure is accused of racketeering, mail fraud, obstruction of justice and lying to FBI. Whoops. 1,000 truckers are ordered to retake their trucker driver's license. Of the first 510 that took it, 171 passed. Maybe Killre will have an explanation.
2002: Ryan announces that he will not seek reelection. he will need to spend time with his family. While he can.
2003: Ryan is indicted on 18 federal racketeering, fraud and conspiracy charges. A Longtime Chicago hobby of ghost payrolling is discovered. On the payroll are Ryan's daughters, his son-in-law, his housekeeper, and his adopted sister. They admit that they did very little for his campaign.
2005: Ryan goes to court. Gets a lawyer pro-bono by James Thompson's (Ryan's boss while he was lieutenant governor from 1983-1991) and proceeds to prove his innocence. Or his lack of guilt.
2006: Ryan is found guilty on all 18 charges against him. The judge throws out two of the counts due to lack of proof. Ryan appeals and remains free during his second trial. During the second trial 2 jurors are dismissed because they did not reveal a criminal history. The replacement jurors contain one who was previously removed due to discussions he had about the case when talking to his work. (I am fairly sure this was the second trial but if it was the first I stand corrected.)
2007: Verdict is upheld and Ryan is given (regiven?) 6 1/2 years in the slammer. Luckily, he put a moratorium on killing people in prison. It should make him a little more popular. Thompson claims he is taking this one to the Supreme Court.
Dumb F: The trial was a sham and the man is guilty. He should probably be let free or retried but unfortunately for him he did not work in California where it is much easier to get a proper verdict. And I do not mean that snarkily. {O.J. should have been found innocent. I think he was guilty and I think the police planted evidence. Once evidence is tampered with you do not know how far it went hence he has to be let go. Luckily, he was dumb enough to get caught again.}
Impious since 2006
5 comments:
While this isn't exactly related to George Ryan, I've heard some interesting conspiracy stories lately implying that there are a bunch of frat guys that read this blog. If that's the case, they may be interested in this little tidbit about the current governor of Illinois:
http://nationaleagle.blogspot.com/2007/10/theta-chi-is-governor-of-illinois.html
Related to the post:
Evil Santa Claws.
"1,000 truckers are ordered to retake their trucker driver's license [tests]. Of the first 510 that took it, 171 passed. Maybe Killre will have an explanation..."
The explanation is simple: 339 of them should never have been given a Class A license in the first place.
That's almost precisely two-thirds. That would seem a bit high if we're talking about 1,000 RANDOM Class A drivers, but it's probably about right if --as I suspect-- the 1,000 people in question were selected for re-testing because somebody found their certifications to be suspicious.
I'm not going to defend the 339 numb-nuts who failed. I'm a proponent of TOUGHER licensing standards across the board: Class A, Class B, AND Class C (that's all YOU pissant amateurs, he said with a grin). I, for one, am certainly not worried about losing MY license... and fewer drivers --of all kinds-- would not only alleviate traffic congestion, it just might bring fuel prices down.
How difficult are these tests? I mean the "regular" (I am sure it has a class) license is, I would say a 3 of 10 in difficulty. What is involved and how difficult are trucker licenses?
I saw someone cheat on their standard test - and they took the test away, then gave them another one.
This is the Sesame Street test-
identify the Stop sign test.
She was cheating on it.
They let her retake it...
Save me, Jebus.
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