Why I subscribe to the NWH

Is it worth $0.35/day, day after day? You bet.

First, I get to read Beetle Bailey and Blondie and Dilbert and Crankshaft.

Then I get to read the AP story today, which I'd probably skip in the online edition, about Illinois Rep. Derrick Smith (D-10), who is in hot water for allegedly accepting a $7,000 bribe (while an FBI informant was wearing a recorder).

Rep. Derrick Smith

Smith's office is at 2532 W. Warren Blvd., Chicago. Know where that is? Smack dab right in the middle of the war zone.

What made me laugh? This paragraph in the AP story, as published in today's Northwest Herald.

"The last Illinois House member expelled was in 1905, when representatives voted, 121-13, to oust Frank D. Comerford. According to the allegation at the time, Comerford besmirched the good name of his colleagues by saying publicly that corruption among lawmakers was rampant."

So it looks to me like the former (and now late) Rep. Comerford was kicked out for telling the truth.

The charges against Smith are that he took a bribe for backing a $50,000 state grant application for a day care center that didn't even exist.

First a House panel (six Republicans, six Democrats) will have to decide whether Smith should be punished at all, reprimanded (oh, you bad person...), censured (oh, you Bad person...), or expelled. Then he can only be expelled by a 2/3 vote of the full House.

How much will this process cost us? $500,000?

Why are the Feds fooling around with a $7,000 bribe case but apparently uninterested in murder-for-hire solicitation that may have been recorded by an confidential informant?

What happened to Frank D. Comerford  (b. 1875 or 1879 - d. 1929)? Looks like he might have headed out east. There is Frank D. Comerford Dam on the Connecticut River and a Frank D. Comerford Airport in Walpole, N.H. Was this Illinois' loss? Maybe they should have kept him around and gotten rid of the corruption, instead.