Roland Burris, the Sequel

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So Roland Burris has a son, Roland II. A son who–at a time when Burris I was already leveraging to get Obama’s seat in the Senate–got hired by a state agency to do stuff that he was probably not the best candidate to do.

The son of embattled Sen. Roland Burris is a federal tax deadbeat who landed a $75,000-a-year state job under former Gov. Rod Blagojevich five months ago, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

Blagojevich’s administration hired Roland W. Burris II as a senior counsel for the state’s housing authority Sept. 10 — about six weeks after the Internal Revenue Service slapped a $34,163 tax lien on Burris II and three weeks after a mortgage company filed a foreclosure suit on his South Side house.

[snip]

Burris II had resolved two federal tax liens in 2005 before being hit with the $34,163 lien in July. That lien against his property seeks unpaid taxes for 2004, 2005 and 2007.

A month after the IRS filed the lien, Burris II’s lender filed its foreclosure suit. Since Burris II and his wife got the $372,000 mortgage on July 18, 2006, they’ve paid less than $3,000 on it, the suit alleges. The balance due is $406,685, including interest and penalties.

I’m particularly interested in the foreclosure problems Roland II had on his house, given the fact that he only paid Mayor Daley a dollar for the land he built the house on.

Burris II built his home in the booming Bronzeville neighborhood on land he bought from the City of Chicago in 2000. City records show he paid $1 for the lot as part of an effort to clean up his once-blighted block.

I still have a gut feel that Burris II got a job in exchange for the job that Patti Blago got from the charity that Burris I’s partner sits on the board of which was making development scams possible for Mayor Daley. But I also suspect we won’t get to that part of the story until Burris Blago, Part 10.

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90 replies
  1. brendanx says:

    emptywheel –

    I hope you find this interesting. Your analyses are very important to my understanding of the world, so I wanted to share it on your blog.

    This is way off the topic of the day, but is maybe pertinent to one of the overarching topics of this site, war criminals. It’s certainly vanity that leads me to post this, but also a kind of trepidation that makes me want to make at least a semi-public statement about a very disturbing public encounter I just had.

    Donald Rumsfeld was standing at my bus stop this morning as I waited to take my boy to school. I’m still shaky. I confronted him and couldn’t control my anger. I had seen him once before walk by (his arm was in a sling then and he looked positively wizened, but this time he was hale and nattily dressed) but had been too flabbergasted to react. I wanted to be ready with something to say the next time, and had prepared myself, but couldn’t stay on script past “You think you can show your face in public among decent people?”. I became more vociferous and enraged the longer it went: mass murderer, traitor, torturer, rapist of children….In fact, from my first words, when I saw Rumsfeld don an impenetrable smirk I consciously took the tack of yelling and loudly indicating his presence to everyone else; I wanted to enlist their help. Dismayingly my gentle fellow citizens didn’t intervene in any way, or were even outright hostile to me, although some people who witnessed the exchange from the bus comforted me afterwards, approvingly. Thankfully my kid was not overly disturbed, and seemed even cheerful after I explained that Rumsfeld is a wicked man who started a war, like Sauron or Saruman, but that he was not a danger to us. I’m frankly not positive about the latter assertion.

    Anyway, he did respond at a couple of points. One insidious tactic was to comment on my kid — I don’t remember his exact words, but it was something to the effect that he would be messed up by having such a crazy father, which bait I took and responded, “He has to learn the difference between good and evil.” The other was a surprising statement, the inverse of the “I vuz only taking orders”, uttered in a tone of bemused incredulity you’d recognize from his press conferences: “But I didn’t order those things.” I took that lie as an admission.

    • skdadl says:

      Well done, brendanx. You testified. Every time a citizen just does that, just speaks to principle, however churned up it makes us feel, we get some of our democracy back.

      Remember that annotation of Rumsfeld’s to the DoD memo outlining approved methods of interrogation? Why just four hours? I stand eight to ten hours a day?

      Ask him whether he grasps now what enforced “standing” means when you’re either suspended from above or your chest is forced forward because your arms are locked behind you over the metal bar against your back, as in one infamous photograph from Abu Ghraib. A doctor friend of mine says that “stress positions” like that mean slow suffocation, just as waterboarding is slow drowning (”simulated” only if you’re using simulated water). The other word the doctor suggested was crucifixion.

      • brendanx says:

        He doesn’t have any compunction about all that stuff. What needles him maybe a little is that he maybe didn’t wipe all the fingerprints clean. So maybe I’ll lead with a shamefaced apology for my ugly behavior and tell him that his word is as good as gold when he says he didn’t order those things.

        Someone has to be a prosecutor to him at some point. I wish I had more of a prosecutor’s mind, manner and method. I wish I had some like-minded company at that bus stop.

      • brendanx says:

        That’s actually a good line.

        (Exasperated sigh) I feel like I’ve been standing waiting for this bus for eight hours in a stress position! (joshing, conspiratorial wink))

        • skdadl says:

          (Exasperated sigh) I feel like I’ve been standing waiting for this bus for eight hours in a stress position! (joshing, conspiratorial wink))

          lol. Well, sort of — there’s the funny part, but then there’s always the horrifyingly sad part.

          This, though:

          The other was a surprising statement, the inverse of the “I vuz only taking orders”, uttered in a tone of bemused incredulity you’d recognize from his press conferences: “But I didn’t order those things.” I took that lie as an admission.

          That should be published and analysed all over the place. The man has such a, um, particular way of talking. You might almost call that the banality of evil, except I don’t entirely believe that. I think Rumsfeld was much more an actor than a mere bureaucrat.

      • brendanx says:

        I suspect there’s one thing he’s really ashamed of, the evidence of which he desperately wants to hide: letting 9-11 happen, presumably through incompetence.

        I know you didn’t order those things. No one’s to blame, just like no one’s to blame for not anticipating they would take flying lessons and fly planes into buildings.

    • mollie189 says:

      You are a lucky man. My husband and I enjoying a nice evening at the opera at the Kennedy Center when we felt the cold shiver of something sinister behind us — Rumsfeld surrounded by adoring cronies. I did not have a guts to stand up and ask him how he could sit there after all he and the Bush administration had done to fellow human beings. Instead, I sat fuming — basically dumbfounded. We did move when we could — but we heard quips from Rumsfeld such as “When is intermission over?” He even spoke to my husband — and it was the same with him — just dumbfounded. What do you say when staring into the face of evil and stupidity?

      I always hoped that I would come face to face with him again — and what I would say. You had your chance and did a great job. I am very proud of you.

    • Leen says:

      In Ron Susskind’s book Former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neil stated that during those early cabinet meetings in 2001 that Wolfowitz and Cheney were the two who were all about Iraq Iraq Iraq. O’neil indicated that Rumsfeld was not all about it.

    • barbara says:

      Oh, wow. Just…wow! What an extraordinary opportunity for you! Did you and/or your son board the same bus? Wouldn’t you love to know what he said at the dinner table that night? No, probably not. But if he does come back to the bus stop again, my guess is that he’ll be ready to rumble, too. Can’t imagine an ego like that tolerating challenges. From anyone, anytime, anywhere. His eyes. I have looked into his eyes and seen his soul. Brrrrrrrrr. You, too?

  3. bmaz says:

    I am certain there may have been some sweetheart deal, but I wonder if the Daly transaction was really for a dollar. Transactions are often notes with the terms “for one dollar and other and further valuable consideration” when it is necessary to exhibit that there was some consideration, but no necessity to delineate how much. This is very common in real estate deals. No clue here, but I am not sure I would assume the deal was really for a dollar.

  4. emptywheel says:

    Glad you had your say, brendanx.

    I’m guessing he’ll be there again. At which point you can ask him whether knowingly overseeing torture–but not (he claims) ordering torture makes him sleep better at night.

  5. emptywheel says:

    Oh, I’m not suggesting the dollar was a quid pro quo or anything. All I’m saying that if you’ve got zero land costs, you’re throwing a lot into home-building to get into a foreclosure or two.

    That, plus Mayor Daley’s very good at using these “redevelopment” schemes in ways the benefit his friends–as the Christian charity deal with Patti Blago is a good example.

  6. brendanx says:

    I had that guess, too. Men like this often have a certain brazenness, if not courage.

    So, if you have any concise questions you’d like me to ask, the surprising kind that might make him wince (to my own credit, he did wince at least once, if only at my volume), let me know.

    • pajarito says:

      In a calm and measured voice:

      “Mr. Rumsfeld, Hitler had his Goebels, Pol Pot had his enablers, Pinochet had them too. All of history’s tyrants had enablers like you–little men with no respect for law. You all had your excuses. They sound so similar and hollow. It shames me to share this train platform with the likes of you. I told my son, here, that you condoned hideous torture and murder of humans for a failed ideology, at the request of powerful, corrupt people. I hope he learns how wrong that is…”

  7. brendanx says:

    I have a visceral feeling about Rumsfeld I don’t think others would have provoked, not just because he’s a main actor, but also because of his jeering brazenness, and that press conference act he would put on where he whined, puckered, squinted and shrank into wizened state like a fairy tale witch disguised as a feeble crone.

    • JohnB says:

      Brendanx, do you live in Santa fe? isn’t that where Rumsfeld “retired” too?
      Give him a good yelling at for me too, and stop by Pasquals as well.

  10. jdmckay says:

    The son of embattled Sen. Roland Burris is a federal tax deadbeat who landed a $75,000-a-year state job under former Gov. Rod Blagojevich five months ago, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

    Hilarious. Absolutely, fucking hilarious. Not unexpected, expected even. (does Burris have brothers and cousins? Maybe a welfare mom in need?)

    Thinking about how all this crap works, reminds of an email I got a couple days ago:

    How The Stimulus Works

    Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White
    House. One is from Chicago, another is from Tennessee, and the third
    is from Minnesota.

    All three go with a White House official to examine the fence. The
    Minnesota contractor takes out a tape measure and does some
    measuring, then works some figures with a pencil. “Well,” he says,
    “I figure the job will run about $900: $400 for materials, $400 for
    my crew and $100 profit for me.”

    The Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then
    says, “I can do this job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my
    crew and $100 profit for me.”

    The Chicago contractor doesn’t measure or figure, but leans over to
    the White House official and whispers, “$2,700.”
    The official, incredulous, says, “You didn’t even measure like the
    other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?”
    The Chicago contractor whispers back, “$1000 for me, $1000 for you,
    and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence.”
    “Done!” replies the government official.
    And that, my friends, is how the new stimulus plan will work.

  11. nextstopchicago says:

    Brendanx,

    Here’s a suggestion. Just calmly tell him of your overseas travel plans (even if you don’t have any), in the manner of a friend, and then get an abashed look on your face and say, “Oh, but that’s so rude of me to talk about my plans when you can’t travel overseas anymore. The risk of arrest is too high, isn’t it?”

    • Leen says:

      I know I have learned to lead with a question..open up the conversation “who were you taking orders from” “Were you in full support right away”? What do you think went really well (just to keep it open) in Iraq, what went really bad? Do you feel guilty that millions( Lancet) of Iraqi people and 4500 Americans are dead, tens of thousands are injured. What do you think about the 5 million Iraqi refugees?

      Do you think the people who created, cherry picked and disseminated false intelligence should be held accountable. Get him going

  12. nextstopchicago says:

    Goddammit!

    In 2000, Bronzeville was not a feckin’ slum!

    This is why the aim of this is all wrong. Daley is the crook behind the throne here. That damn tax delinquent property deeding shit bugs the feckin’ crap out of me.

    Sorry, I’ve lost my temper and now I sound like Brendanx confronting Rumsfeld, who surely deserved it. Anyway, somebody should get the entire tax delinquency list and start matching it up with names close to Daley. I thought they only went to churches. Even that was a scam, since typically, the church would use it not for some abused women’s shelter or homeless shelter, but for a spanty new home for the pastor. But Roland Burris II???

  13. nextstopchicago says:

    Mckay, that was actually how Iraq contracting and Katrina contracting worked. We have no idea whether it will be different with the stimulus, but it’s unfair to attach it to the the stimulus with a “probably” when there are 2 damn good examples where we already know they worked that way.

    Government isn’t the problem. Shitty government officials are the problem. We just got rid of Bush. Wait and see before you go pointing fingers before the fact.

  14. freepatriot says:

    since bmaz doesn’t seem to be around, looks like I’ll have to do it:

    I’M SHOCKED, SHOCKED, TO FIND THERE IS GAMBLING IN THE CASINO

    now, somebody is supposed to hand me money, right …

  15. prostratedragon says:

    I can’t dig up a remark I made a few weeks ago (on Oxdown I think), but suffice to say that though Chicago has it all, the dam on nepotism and similar ploys has really burst in the last few years. It’s as if a large number of people have decided that no one’s going to say anything, so … You will notice that nearly every name that’s come up in recent weeks has some relative also in city or state government.

    The would-be royal family. One inimical thing this kind of deployment does is give all the rest of us minders that can pop up anywhere all of a sudden.

  17. KayInMaine says:

    Brendanx, next time just yell, “War criminal! Hey everybody! A war criminal! A war criminal! Did I mention we have a war criminal in our presence! War criminal!”.

    That should do it.

    GREAT JOB!

  18. Twain says:

    This Burris thing is going to explode and the Dems are going to catch the fallout. He is obviously not exactly an honest man.

  26. ThingsComeUndone says:

    Ok just how is the neighborhood clean up going? Roland is not the type to build a home in a bad neighborhood without a gate or maybe a gated community?
    Doe he really live in this home or like Ann Coulter is that only where he says he lives maybe this home deal was really to flip the property?

  29. bonkers says:

    Hopefully some of my compatriots in Liberal circles have learned of a few things from the Brrris fiasco. It was possible to play hardball, just as hard as he and Thugojevich did and Repubs do, and Quinn would’ve already had someone in there that we’d be happy with, and before the Stimulus vote even. It all happened almost exactly as many predicted it would.

    • bmaz says:

      So, what, you are advocating that the Senate should have simply refused to seat him? Really? Based on what exactly? Mere suspicion that there “might be something else out there”? Do you seriously think that would have been a good precedent to set? You understand do you not that the mere talk of that in January was a good deal of what has boxed Reid in as to Al Franken? This is really the road you think we should have gone down and precedent for posterity that should have been set? Really?

      • ThingsComeUndone says:

        I think bonkers is saying that Spineless Senate Dems got rolled because they were weak. Blago and Roland act like they have a spine.
        Forget not seating Roland threaten him, his law firm his family with investigations if he does not play ball.
        Take away every federal contract he or his political contributors have a piece of or just delay payment on those contracts.

      • bonkers says:

        So, what, you are advocating that the Senate should have simply refused to seat him?

        They should’ve simply dragged their feet just a little bit more, since we knew what’s happening now is exactly what was going to happen. It was a disaster to let Burris get in there, as was plainly obvious at the time.

        How? Easy. They could’ve sent the question of seating Burris to the Senate Rules Committee, which is a reasonable request, and it likely could’ve been bottled up long enough for the Illinois legislature to get through their process, which then would’ve opened the door for Gov. Quinn to settle this. The public support would be there at this point also, and likely Sen. Jan Schakowsky, or someone else far preferable than Burris, would’ve been voting on the Stimulus. Instead, Burris this, and Burris that all over the BigMedia still, over two months later. The President’s seat no less. This is a massive screwup.

        Comparing to Franken? Huh? Franken’s in a contested election battle that’s in the courts. Burris was appointed by an under-investigation-laughingstock Gov who was recorded seemingly trying to solicit bribes for the seat, and was clearly about to be impeached. There was a political gamesmanship solution to the Burris problem that didn’t really have legal implications.

        Is it your suggestion then that by NOT trying to delay Burris’ seating, and thereby NOT setting this precedent you’re worried about, that no Repubs are going to try stuff like this in the future? I think these kind of games will happen no matter what the Dems did with the Burris seating problem.

        Most prominent Liberal blogs were loudly saying, “Seat Burris now!” and I wonder if Dem leadership felt they didn’t have the support to drag their feet in part because of this. Aren’t there some lessons to be learned from this for all involved, or do you think it was handled the only way it could’ve been handled? If you do, I completely disagree.

        One thing’s for sure, what’s happening now, and the fact that it’s still hanging around the Dems necks for this long, is much, much worse than any adverse thing that MAYBE would’ve happened had they blocked Burris in the first place.

  33. eCAHNomics says:

    OT
    New evidence shows Bruce Ivins may not have been the anthrax man, re KO. I’d have taken that bet.

  34. barbara says:

    Okay, I’m all sobered up. What is smart money saying about Burris the Elder’s likelihood of getting the boot? Timeline? And if that happens, then what? There’s a wonderful Illinois woman whose name I’m spacing. Aaagh. Know who I mean? Any chance for her? (Yeah, I know, not much information to go on.)

  37. Loo Hoo. says:

    bmaz, listening to Jane Mayer on Rachel. Do you suppose that Obama is holding things back on the theory that the Supremes may go against what’s right knowing that Ginsberg is ill?

  38. bmaz says:

    You have a fairly uneven understanding of what the situation was. First off, it most certainly was not “plainly obvious at the time”; there was no specific evidence to that fact, only sheer speculation. Secondly, there was no legitimate basis for “dragging of the feet”; again you are making facts up that did not exist at the time. There would have been no basis for the newly appointed Quinn to undo the appointment, once legally made, anyway; again, you are assuming common BS that has no basis in law. Thirdly, it is not me comparing the situation to Franken, that has been the direct positioning of both minority and majority Senators on the issue. Your thought that “political gamesmanship” should have been played to arbitrarily and capriciously deny a lawfully appointed Senator his seat is malicious, abhorrent and one of the most foul precedents imaginable. I don’t give a rat’s rear end about Roland Burris, but I do care about the Constitution, due process and not setting crappy precedent for time immemorial.

  39. bonkers says:

    Senators saying, “Wow, this is tricky, we need the Rules Committee to review this,” violates the Constitution and rule of law?

    All that was needed. Thugo is impeached. Quinn takes over while this extra time allows for all this Burris crap to come out as it now has, and with Burris having never been seated, it would’ve been much easier to have/make him step aside, which is happening now anyway, over two months later!

    What law is being violated here?

    This exact scenario was predicted and being pushed by many, especially those in IL, just not around here and many other big Liberal blogs. Also, more “sheer speculation” involved Thugo’s impending impeachment. Did you see the IL House and Seante votes? Basically everyone I talked to and reports I saw said this is what it would end up being, so it was totally predictable. Quinn himself was giving very strong cues to hold out just little bit more and he’ll take care it from there. He was naming exact timeframes which ended up happening.

    Now, since this potential solution (there are others) doesn’t seem to violate any laws or the Constitution, what “precedent” are you worried about setting? Um, much, much worse political “precedent” has been set over and over again in Washington for centuries, and much, much worse stuff will happen in the future no matter what anyone does now. This Burris solution wouldn’t even be considered T-ball, let alone hardball politics.

    This is the exact same argument I was having here while all this was unfolding, so I guess going back to my original comment about all this, you don’t think there was much to learn from the Burris fiasco and feel it had to play out this way. Again, hopefully others will learn something from it and have that knowledge inform their decisions in the future.

    Either way, we’ll continue to see “Burris Scandal Headache for Dems” headlines indefinitely.

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