Capitol Fax’s Miller Admits Chumminess With Pension Thieves

-By Warner Todd Huston

Rich Miller runs Capitol Fax, one of the most widely read political blogs in Illinois. He is decidedly not from the conservative side of the aisle, though, and his reportage, while fairly comprehensive, is fueled by left-wing sources, trial lawyers, and establishment Democrats.

Miller has tried to maintain a middle-of-the-road reputation, with some success, but today’s entry does tend to show where he’s from, if you will. And that “where” is the world of corrupt, left-wing, union-sold, Illinois politics.

Seemingly to get out ahead of past associations, Miller admitted on his blog today that he has long been friends with the latest two most notorious men in Illinois corruption. In fact, according to Miller, one of them is his “mentor.”

That “mentor” is one Steve Preckwinkle, the union heavy that, along with coworker Dave Piccioli, has been caught essentially stealing millions of our state’s taxes through unearned pension payments arranged by pay-to-play donations to Democrats in Springfield.

The pair had worked behind the scenes with Democrats to get themselves secret pension benefits whereby their work as lobbyists and union thugs were added to one day of employment with the state allowing them to qualify for hundreds of thousands a year in state pension benefits. Sure it was legal, but it is the sort of back-scratching, corruption to which Democrats and Rich Miller’s friends are so prone.

For his part, Miller was suddenly outraged over his friends and their corruption. It was all “totally disgusting,” Miller claimed.

The truth is, this is just par for the course for Miller’s “mentors.” They are all as corrupt as Steve Preckwinkle.

Too bad Miller only feels it incumbent upon himself to be “totally disgusted” when his “mentors” get caught in the open with their corruption.

Now, Miller tried to act as if he is not affected by these people. But these are the people he associates with, the people that brought him up in the political biz in Illinois. How could it NOT affect him?
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.

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