I’m thinking, oh, I dunno…. somebody who has extensive Middle Eastern ties who provided ten percent of the Blagojevich family household income last year and has the initials “Tony Rezko” might be given just a little input into this venture?
Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration wants to reopen an Illinois trade office in the Middle East, part of a new strategy to take advantage of business-friendly changes in the region.
Illinois had a trade office in Jerusalem for several years, but closed it last year. Now the administration plans to reopen an office, but perhaps not in Israel.
Even if the office remains there, it will pursue business aggressively with other countries, officials said, particularly oil-rich nations sending more investment money abroad.
“It’s hard to serve all of the Middle East from Israel, so we have been evaluating, should we try to have an office set up so that we can not only service Israel, but the rest of the Middle East?” said Jack Lavin, head of the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
Director Lavin, you may recall, once worked for Rezko.
I also don’t remember a big announcement about the closure of the Israeli office. Strange.
- Phocion - Thursday, Dec 15, 05 @ 5:24 am:
Jack, Jack, Jack…
What does it profit a man to gain the world, but lose his soul?
*sigh*
- Oy - Thursday, Dec 15, 05 @ 6:21 am:
So that’s what yhey say all those thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars worth of cell phone calls to Syria are all about. And I thought it was just Rezko’s hires at DCEO spending taxpayer money on personal calls to their families back home. How many of Rezko’s pals work there? What is the total dollar amount of phone calls just to Syria?
- WAY DOWNSTATE - Thursday, Dec 15, 05 @ 7:01 am:
I dunno but Blago’s style of governoring I would say the office needs to be in Iran where it is legal to threaten and boot kick people that disagree with those in power.
- Publius - Thursday, Dec 15, 05 @ 8:05 am:
Director Lavin, as you’ll recall, also worked for Pat Quinn — long before he worked for Rezko.
Enough of the guilt by association BS, please
- Pat Collins - Thursday, Dec 15, 05 @ 8:51 am:
Wow, Gun Ban is caving in to the Arab boycott! Isn’t that, well, illegal??
Unless he is going to open the office in Iraq, as a show of support.
- Gassius Powers - Thursday, Dec 15, 05 @ 9:46 am:
Kerplunk! An acorn fell on Chicken Little’s head.
THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING! said Chicken Little.
- Black Libertarian - Thursday, Dec 15, 05 @ 12:39 pm:
Why the hell do we need trade offices anywhere? Doesn’t thye governor believe that Illinois products can survive on their own in a competitive international free market?
Then again, the international market is far from free in many places, so I guess every state needs to wine, dine, and “give gifts” to corrupt government and trade association officials in these scum-governed countries in order to gain access to the market.
Holding out hope that there’ll one day be the true free market that benefits ALL people (a free market doesn’t just help the rich as a lot of people want to believe). In general, the US should get rid of all trade barriers and tariffs (except to maybe forced labor, military items, and sanctions against NK and Iran) and the US will clearly benefit as consumers, workers, and businesses have access to cheapest goods around the world. A President and Congress with an economical brain would just say that in 15 years, all non-national security trade barriers will come down. The 15 years will give people time to adjust to the new economy, and the Federal government can sponsor loans and grants to those whose jobs will be gone in 15 years.
- Anon-mouse - Thursday, Dec 15, 05 @ 2:21 pm:
Publius,
“Director” Lavin? What are you, his administrative assistant…or just another DCEO kid whose daddy gave Rod big bucks to get you a job? Lavin went over to the Dark Side - deal with it.
- Publius - Thursday, Dec 15, 05 @ 2:33 pm:
Anon-mouse,
Funny, you didn’t take a shot at Rich Miller when he referred to the aforementioned as “Director” Lavin in the lead post — I’m not sure why you think it’s some revelation that I used Miller’s chosen terminology in my reply.
Clearly, you’re not too swift.
You want to make specific allegation about someone? Fine, then make it and lets debate — but as I said the first time, enough of the ad hominem, guilt by association smears.
I’ve always thought Rich was above that type of thing — but you can be rest assured my expectations of you are not nearly so high.
- Tariq - Thursday, Dec 15, 05 @ 6:13 pm:
Look into Tony Resko and his oil Iraqi deals and his republican ties
- Papa Legba - Thursday, Dec 15, 05 @ 6:14 pm:
Hey Publius, Anon-mouse is speaking the truth. I know from first hand experience. I have known Lavin from way, way back. Back when he was John and not Jack. He has changed since his days in the Treasurer’s office. He seems to be a bit of a lap dog for the Gov and friend(s).
BTW. How did Lavin go from something like #9 (ie. not on) the DCEO director candidate list to getting the job? It has had me wondering for the past few years.
- Publius - Thursday, Dec 15, 05 @ 7:48 pm:
Papa,
I was intrigued by your post — so checked my old Illinois Blue Books.
I noticed that back in 1993-94 edition (pg 320) Lavin was listed as Pat Quinn’s Director of Economic Development as Jack Lavin. Not John, Jack.
Note that this was the same year Blagojevich was elected to his first ever political office.
I don’t know who else was on the list ahead of him, but I’m guessing there weren’t many other Democrats in the state with executive level government experience in economic development in line for the job.
I’m sure his other connections — with both Rezko and Lt. Gov Quinn — helped him tremendously. But to suggest he wasn’t qualified is just silly.
- Black Libertarian - Thursday, Dec 15, 05 @ 10:18 pm:
Hey, I’m advocating that in order to make free trade and the end of stupid tariffs politically palatable. While it may not be perfectly libertarian, I realize that we live in a political world, so if the loans and grants would be a one-time thing necessary to end tariffs and promote free trade, I’m not gonna let an unachievable perfect get in the way of an achievable good.
Personally, I think that that is the major reason why the Libertarian party hasn’t gotten anywhere and rarely gets over 2% of the vote, because they aren’t willing to make compromises to their idea of a perfect libertarian world in order to get elected or form political connections. For example, mosxt libertarians advocate total legalization of drugs for adults (which I personally do as well), but I think that if this a part of the Libertarians official platform, then they will never get elected because frankly most people don’t agree with this. However, if they took the more moderate position of making marijuana laws similar to alcohol laws while keeping other drugs illegal, they could make some progress in the right direction.
- Phlacpigger - Tuesday, Sep 19, 06 @ 2:10 am:
I offer that Lavin is nothing short of a political plunker.
Why else would he have blindly voted for the ‘92 tax reform bill?