The Ties That Bind

And if anyone had any doubt that George Ryan was anything but a small part of the Illinois criminal Combine that runs Illinois, this should dispel all doubts:

• The Illinois Supreme Court today ruled that imprisoned ex-Gov. George Ryan should not get get any of his state pension because of his federal conviction on political corruption charges.

  The 6-1 decision means Ryan, who turns 76 next week, won't be able to start collecting about $5,900 a month, or around $71,000 a year.

  [...] Justice Anne Burke, wife of Chicago Ald. Ed Burke, was the lone dissenting justice who favored Ryan getting some of his pension back. She wrote that the court majority ignored precedent and "incorrectly construes the forfeiture provision" in state pension law.

The Machine has gone through many permutations over the years since Anton Cermak first founded it as a way to break the Irish stranglehold over Chicago politics. Under Shortshanks, it managed its greatest victory by removing republicans as a serious threat statewide (Daley the elder had managed to keep them out of the city and county only.)

But every-so-often, you see these obvious signs of attempting to take care of the cogs and wheels that kept the Machine chugging along for so many decades. This time it couldn't come through, a decent people everywhere should smile and help push for more such victories.