Chicago Torture Cases Still Not A Concern To Liberal Establishment

For decades, Chicago police tortured arrestees through beatings, burnings and electrocutions to force them into confessions. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley prosecuted these cases as a State's Attorney and ignored the problem after he became Mayor until the feds started putting heat on his police department. Nearly six years ago, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office was asked to oversee the review of cases involving former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge to consider the possibility of new trials or freeing persons who may have been convicted of crimes they didn't commit. The cases originally came to her because the former State's Attorney had represented Burge, the instigator of the torture methods used to obtain confessions. She's now trying to pass the cases back to the Cook County State's Attorney's office. Madigan says she is compelled to dump the cases because her office has insufficient funds.

Madigan has been preoccupied as of late with figuring out a way to advance to higher office. She wanted the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama. She tried to bypass Illinois' constitutional procedure for impeachment of the governor by petitioning the Supreme Court to remove him based on an alleged mental disability so Pat Quinn could become governor and appoint her to the Senate. Madigan's father, the Speaker of the House for life, originally called a special session last fall to pass legislation establishing a special election to fill the seat Roland Burris now holds but changed his mind when he thought daughter Lisa might not be able to muster the votes necessary to win in a crowded field. Blagojevich, who said he would sign legislation calling for a special election, appointed Burris when the legislature failed to act. Unhappy with Blagojevich's parting gift, Madigan has now issued a legal opinion that Illinois lawmakers can move up a special election two years for Burris' seat.

What fascinates me is that Madigan is an icon to liberals because she is the Democrat Attorney General of Illinois, she's a woman and she's a huge Obama supporter. These are the same people who spent the last eight years blasting George W. Bush and his administration's alleged mistreatment of foreign enemy combatant detainees at Gitmo. Liberals like Sheila Kennedy never pass up an opportunity to refer to Bush officials as war criminals. Yet, they see absolutely no injustice in the Chicago police torture cases because the torturers are part of the corrupt, one-party Democratic rule in the Windy City that just sent their favorite messiah to the White House. The rights of radical Islamic terrorists from foreign countries who are hell-bent on destroying the U.S. and Israel are more important than our own U.S. citizens as far as these liberals are concerned. They find no fault in Madigan ignoring these cases as Illinois' top law enforcement official, and they see nothing wrong with her partisan usurping of Illinois' constitution to fill a Senate seat with a person of her own choosing--namely herself. The ends justify the means.