The men and women of Crook County, Illinois.

I love blogging. You have no idea how liberating it is to sit in front of the computer day or night and publish any damn thing you want. With pictures! When I first started the Howdygram I was positive only a handful of people would ever stop by to read this baloney, but eventually my visitor statistics proved me wrong. Now I’ve got regular readers all across the United States, every corner of the globe (Tasmania, Argentina, Germany, Great Britain, Canada, Pakistan and Malta), the Pentagon and even the Department of Justice.

Smooches to you all, whoever you are!

And now for tonight’s post about the Einsteins of Crook County, Illinois. I’ve written about this corrupt crew of Chicagoans before (see post), but it’s time for an update because former Crook County Board President Todd Stroger, who lost his bid for re-election last year by finishing dead last out of four candidates, is attempting to apply for unemployment benefits.

Pictured above: A) Todd Stroger; B) Deborah Dunning, Stroger’s cousin and the county’s former chief financial officer; C) Tony Cole, a busboy at Stroger’s favorite steak house; and D) Carla Oglesby, who was Stroger’s campaign publicist and deputy chief of staff.

Todd Stroger. The king of corruption and proponent of the Crook County Friends and Family Hiring Plan applied on February 7 for unemployment benefits for the $170,000 he was paid annually in his position as County Board President. This, of course, only represents Stroger’s BASE salary and does not include any additional funds acquired through graft, kickbacks and bribes. His request for unemployment has been denied because elected officials are ineligible.

Deborah Dunning. Crook County’s former chief financial officer was responsible for hiring Tony Cole, a busboy at Stroger’s favorite steak house, and offering him an administrative position on her staff that paid $60,000 per year. Dunning chose to ignore Cole’s substantial criminal background, which included arrests and convictions for assault, writing bad checks and a rape case that ended his basketball career at the University of Georgia. During Cole’s first few weeks on the county payroll he was arrested TWICE for domestic battery and violating an order of protection, for which Dunning bailed him out of jail, arranged for him to be paid for the days he was incarcerated and then approved a $3,000 salary increase. Cole and Dunning were both fired after the Chicago Sun-Times reported the story.

Carla Oglesby. Stroger’s former campaign manager and deputy chief of staff is currently out on bail and awaiting trial for wasting more than $180,000 of the county’s money on lucrative and thoroughly bogus contracts for her friends and business associates, including a contract to her own public relations agency for a phony “composting awareness program” and $25,000 to a pair of hip-hop artists for “census outreach.” All of this activity occurred during Oglesby’s first two months on the job. She was fired last spring. Her request for unemployment benefits was denied, too.

As far as I’m concerned, all of these Einsteins deserve adjoining cells at the penitentiary in Joliet. Thank you for reading this.