Way Better than Conaty's and "Fluffy" Robinson's Fox Interview w/Alvarez: Berkowitz w/Peraica on Cable and Streaming
Jeff Berkowitz: Could she [Anita Alvarez] have changed it?
Cmsr. Tony Peraica, Republican Nominee for State’s Attorney of Cook County: Of course, she could have. If she wanted to. But she [Alvarez] was part of the politically-privileged class there in the State’s Attorney’s office, and she looked the other way for twenty-two years, as all this criminal activity went on.
********************************************
Tonight's Chicago and Aurora editions of Public Affairs airs in their regular Monday night slots: Through-out the City of Chicago at 8:30 pm on Cable Ch. 21 and in the City of Aurora and surrounding areas at 7:30 pm on ACTV-10. Go here for a partial transcript of the show, more airing schedule details, show topics and information about our guest.
****************************************************
Posted on our Youtube page is tonight's Chicago and Aurora edition of "Public Affairs," featuring Cook County Cmsr. and Republican Nominee for State's Attorney Tony Peraica. You can Watch the show with Peraica here. ***************************************************
Yet another partial transcript of tonight's show is included directly, below.
******************************
Street crime in Chicago out of control?
Jeff Berkowitz: We’ve got to get to this, because the people don’t really care about any of [the other stuff]. What they care about is street crime. We hear in the papers, Chicago crime-
Tony Peraica, Republican Nominee for State’s Attorney of Cook County: Right.
Jeff Berkowitz: Would you say it’s out of control in Chicago now, street crime? Rapes, murders, going up rather than down? Is that happening in Chicago? That’s part of Cook County.
Tony Peraica: Chicago is known as the murder-capital of the United States. Chicago is known as the heroin capital of the United States.
Jeff Berkowitz: People are blaming the new Superintendent of Police, Weis.
Tony Peraica: I think that’s unfair.
Jeff Berkowitz: You don’t think he should get the blame?
Tony Peraica: I think that’s unfair. He’s been on the job for about six months now.
Jeff Berkowitz: So who gets the blame? The State’s Attorney’s office?
Peraica blames Mayor Daley for out of control Street Crime.
Tony Peraica: I think the mayor of the city gets the blame.
Jeff Berkowitz: The Mayor?
Cmsr. Tony Peraica: Because he’s been there for twenty-plus years, and has the responsibility not only to oversee the police department, but to oversee the Chicago Public Schools, to oversee the CTA, to oversee O’Hare, and everywhere you look-
Jeff Berkowitz: So what should the Mayor be doing?
Tony Peraica, Republican Nominee for State’s Attorney of Cook County and Cook County Cmsr: Everywhere you look, there’s been a string of failures and cost over-runs and I think that the residents need to hold the Mayor responsible.
Jeff Berkowitz: What should the Mayor be doing differently?
Tony Peraica: Well, the Mayor needs to manage and not be mired in the various political scandals and FBI investigations of his administration. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals just recently affirmed the Robert Sorich conviction which clearly found that they were engaging in massive political hiring, fifty eight hundred, five thousand eight hundred individuals were hired by Robert Sorich, who kept meticulous lists of all these people and who their sponsors were. We had the hiring scandal, we had the asphalt scandal, the wrought-iron scandal-
Jeff Berkowitz: Does that relate to the State’s Attorney’s race?
Tony Peraica: Of course it does.
Jeff Berkowitz: How so?
Peraica argues State’s Attorney looks the other way on Public Corruption.
Tony Peraica: The Office of State’s Attorney never investigated any of these criminal activities.
Jeff Berkowitz: They would say the [Assistant] U. S. Attorneys do this. They don’t want to get in their way. I think that’s what Anita Alvarez would say, wouldn’t she?
Tony Peraica: We have had during Mayor Daley’s tenure here, Jeff, an ongoing criminal conspiracy for decades that used taxpayer dollars to fund political campaigns for the Mayor and those that he supported.
Jeff Berkowitz: You’re saying that Dick Devine looked the other way?
Tony Peraica: Of course he did.
Jeff Berkowitz: You’re saying that?
Cmsr. Tony Peraica: Dick Devine was the Mayor’s chief of staff when he was State’s Attorney. Do you think that he was going to investigate his former boss? I think that’s implausible.
Peraica argues Alvarez is effectively “one of the boys.”
Jeff Berkowitz: Did Anita Alvarez look the other way?
Tony Peraica: Of course she did.
Jeff Berkowitz: Could she have done something?
Tony Peraica, Republican Nominee for State’s Attorney of Cook County and Cook County Cmsr: For twenty-two years.
Jeff Berkowitz: Could she have changed it?
Tony Peraica: Of course she could have. If she wanted to. But she [Alvarez] was part of the politically-privileged class there in the State’s Attorney’s office, and she looked the other way for twenty-two years, as all this criminal activity went on.
Does public corruption lead to street crime?
Jeff Berkowitz: Is that public corruption, if it was going on? Does it explain the rise in street crime currently? Does it explain the high murder rate?
Tony Peraica: Yes, it does.
Jeff Berkowitz: How does one interact with the other?
Cmsr. Tony Peraica: You’ve got a basic set of problems that involve the disintegration of the family in Cook County, the family unit, particularly in the minority areas. In the African-American community in particular, the family unit has been devastated because of the failing educational system that doesn’t provide any choice to parents-
Jeff Berkowitz: That’s another matter. That’s the Chicago Public Schools.
Tony Peraica: And the lack of economic opportunity. While the flowers on Michigan Avenue look wonderful, you have Inglewood, Austin, areas that are devastated economically and are rife with criminal activity.
Jeff Berkowitz: Again, you’re running for State’s Attorney of Cook County, do. So, how does that relate to the State’s Attorney’s office?
Cmsr. Tony Peraica: The State’s Attorney’s office, with seventeen hundred employees, and a hundred and forty million dollar budget, has the responsibility to investigate these criminal gangs and activities, drug dealers, and prosecute them. They also have the responsibility to investigate-
Jeff Berkowitz: To prosecute drug dealers. They prosecute drug users, don’t they?
Cmsr. Tony Peraica: They also have the responsibility to investigate political criminal activity that is financed through taxpayer dollars, causing this high level of tax burden to be placed on the residents of Cook County. The State’s Attorney’s office has never done that, and will not continue to do that at any time in the future unless we have a change, a fundamental change, in that office.
Does the State’s Attorney have the resources need to prosecute public corruption?
Jeff Berkowitz: Do they have the resources to do it? They would say they can’t do wiretaps the way the U. S. Attorneys can. They don’t have the resources. They don’t have the FBI. They say, you’re talking about-
Tony Peraica: Those are lame excuses, Jeff, because they don’t want to prosecute their political mentors, friends, and sponsors.
Jeff Berkowitz: So you could do it.
Tony Peraica: Absolutely.
Jeff Berkowitz: If you were there, you could have gone after Don Tomczak.
Cmsr. Tony Peraica: Absolutely.
Jeff Berkowitz: You could have gone after Sorich. You would have done that?
Cmsr. Tony Peraica: No question.
Jeff Berkowitz: Okay. You’re saying you have the resources?
Cmsr. Tony Peraica: Those who engage in criminal activity should be prosecuted regardless.
State’s Attorney going after drug users?
Jeff Berkowitz: What about street crime? Are they going after the drug users?
Tony Peraica: No, they’re not. The accident we just had yesterday [July 26] on the Eisenhower Expressway-- where kids were coming from Wheaton to buy heroin in the public projects, which are six blocks away from the Chicago Police Department Headquarters. Kids from Wheaton know where to buy heroin, and they come six blocks from the Chicago Police Department Headquarters, yet the police don’t know, the fourteen thousand officers can’t figure out where heroin is being dealt from. I find that incredible.
Jeff Berkowitz: But you say they’re self-abusers. I’ve heard you say that they’re putting too many resources into prosecuting self-abusers. They should get treatment for those people?
Tony Peraica: That’s right. We are not going after the core problem.
Jeff Berkowitz: What’s the core problem?
Cmsr. Tony Peraica: The pushers, who are selling drugs for profit. We go after the self-abusers and fill the 26th and California jail with self-abusers, people with small quantities [of illegal drugs].
Why doesn’t State’s Attorney go after drug pushers?
Jeff Berkowitz: Why don’t we go after the pushers? Why wouldn’t they go after the pushers?
Cmsr. Tony Peraica: That’s a very good question. Why don’t they?
Jeff Berkowitz: You tell me.
Tony Peraica: They’re not doing it. They’re not using their investigative powers and tools to go after the drug dealers, to go after those who engage in person-to-person crimes, who engage in breaking and entering-
Was going after R. Kelly a mistake?
Jeff Berkowitz: They went after R. Kelly. Everyone knows they went after R. Kelly. Was that a good idea?
Tony Peraica: The state’s attorneys went after R. Kelly for six years, and spent untold tens of millions of dollars, only to lose the case. That should have never been brought. The alleged witness, who was also a person against whom this act was committed, stated that it wasn’t her, that she didn’t participate in it. They should have done something else, other than waste taxpayer money-
Jeff Berkowitz: You would have gone after the pushers?Tony Peraica, Republican Nominee for State’s Attorney of Cook County and Cook County Cmsr.:
Absolutely, I would.
*************************************************
Thanks to "Public Affairs," intern Amy Allen for preparing a draft of the above partial transcript of tonight's Chicago and Aurora editions of "Public Affairs."
*************************************
Anita Alvarez, apparently following a City Hall-County Building Rose Garden strategy, continues to duck probling interviews or exchanges with her opponent for State's Attorney-- Tony Peraica. Alvarez has not responded to "Public Affairs," request for an interview, but she did appear yesterday on Fox Chicago Sunday, where the lobs from Robin Robinson to her were soft and fluffy.
****************************************
Jeff Berkowitz, Show Host/Producer of "Public Affairs," and Executive Legal Recruiter doing legal search can be reached at JBCG@aol.com. You may watch "Public Affairs," shows with Presidential Candidates Obama and McCain, tonight's edition of Public Affairs with Cook County Cmsr. and Republican State's Attorney Nominee Tony Peraica and shows with many other pols (including some archived as far back as 2005 at www.PublicAffairsTv.com
*************************************************************
Recently posted shows on the Public Affairs YouTube page include the "Public Affairs," show featuring Real Clear Politics' Tom Bevan , tonight's edition of Public Affairs with Cook County Cmsr. and Republican State's Attorney Nominee Tony Peraica and other recent shows featuring 13th CD Demoratic Nominee Scott Harper,State Rep. Candidate Tim Stratton (R-Glencoe, 58th Dist.), Sen. Kwame Raoul(D-Chicago), Senator John Cullerton (D-Chicago)- ; State Rep. candidate Joan Solms (R-Aurora), Comm. Forrest Claypool (D-Chicago) on the Obama Presidential campaign and shows with many other pols.
Now posted is the show we taped last week with 16th CD Democratic Nominee Robert Abboud, Barrington Hills Village President [Watch Abboud here], who is taking on 16 year, 16th CD Republican incumbent, Cong. Don Manzullo.
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Cmsr. Tony Peraica, Republican Nominee for State’s Attorney of Cook County: Of course, she could have. If she wanted to. But she [Alvarez] was part of the politically-privileged class there in the State’s Attorney’s office, and she looked the other way for twenty-two years, as all this criminal activity went on.
********************************************
Tonight's Chicago and Aurora editions of Public Affairs airs in their regular Monday night slots: Through-out the City of Chicago at 8:30 pm on Cable Ch. 21 and in the City of Aurora and surrounding areas at 7:30 pm on ACTV-10. Go here for a partial transcript of the show, more airing schedule details, show topics and information about our guest.
****************************************************
Posted on our Youtube page is tonight's Chicago and Aurora edition of "Public Affairs," featuring Cook County Cmsr. and Republican Nominee for State's Attorney Tony Peraica. You can Watch the show with Peraica here. ***************************************************
Yet another partial transcript of tonight's show is included directly, below.
******************************
Street crime in Chicago out of control?
Jeff Berkowitz: We’ve got to get to this, because the people don’t really care about any of [the other stuff]. What they care about is street crime. We hear in the papers, Chicago crime-
Tony Peraica, Republican Nominee for State’s Attorney of Cook County: Right.
Jeff Berkowitz: Would you say it’s out of control in Chicago now, street crime? Rapes, murders, going up rather than down? Is that happening in Chicago? That’s part of Cook County.
Tony Peraica: Chicago is known as the murder-capital of the United States. Chicago is known as the heroin capital of the United States.
Jeff Berkowitz: People are blaming the new Superintendent of Police, Weis.
Tony Peraica: I think that’s unfair.
Jeff Berkowitz: You don’t think he should get the blame?
Tony Peraica: I think that’s unfair. He’s been on the job for about six months now.
Jeff Berkowitz: So who gets the blame? The State’s Attorney’s office?
Peraica blames Mayor Daley for out of control Street Crime.
Tony Peraica: I think the mayor of the city gets the blame.
Jeff Berkowitz: The Mayor?
Cmsr. Tony Peraica: Because he’s been there for twenty-plus years, and has the responsibility not only to oversee the police department, but to oversee the Chicago Public Schools, to oversee the CTA, to oversee O’Hare, and everywhere you look-
Jeff Berkowitz: So what should the Mayor be doing?
Tony Peraica, Republican Nominee for State’s Attorney of Cook County and Cook County Cmsr: Everywhere you look, there’s been a string of failures and cost over-runs and I think that the residents need to hold the Mayor responsible.
Jeff Berkowitz: What should the Mayor be doing differently?
Tony Peraica: Well, the Mayor needs to manage and not be mired in the various political scandals and FBI investigations of his administration. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals just recently affirmed the Robert Sorich conviction which clearly found that they were engaging in massive political hiring, fifty eight hundred, five thousand eight hundred individuals were hired by Robert Sorich, who kept meticulous lists of all these people and who their sponsors were. We had the hiring scandal, we had the asphalt scandal, the wrought-iron scandal-
Jeff Berkowitz: Does that relate to the State’s Attorney’s race?
Tony Peraica: Of course it does.
Jeff Berkowitz: How so?
Peraica argues State’s Attorney looks the other way on Public Corruption.
Tony Peraica: The Office of State’s Attorney never investigated any of these criminal activities.
Jeff Berkowitz: They would say the [Assistant] U. S. Attorneys do this. They don’t want to get in their way. I think that’s what Anita Alvarez would say, wouldn’t she?
Tony Peraica: We have had during Mayor Daley’s tenure here, Jeff, an ongoing criminal conspiracy for decades that used taxpayer dollars to fund political campaigns for the Mayor and those that he supported.
Jeff Berkowitz: You’re saying that Dick Devine looked the other way?
Tony Peraica: Of course he did.
Jeff Berkowitz: You’re saying that?
Cmsr. Tony Peraica: Dick Devine was the Mayor’s chief of staff when he was State’s Attorney. Do you think that he was going to investigate his former boss? I think that’s implausible.
Peraica argues Alvarez is effectively “one of the boys.”
Jeff Berkowitz: Did Anita Alvarez look the other way?
Tony Peraica: Of course she did.
Jeff Berkowitz: Could she have done something?
Tony Peraica, Republican Nominee for State’s Attorney of Cook County and Cook County Cmsr: For twenty-two years.
Jeff Berkowitz: Could she have changed it?
Tony Peraica: Of course she could have. If she wanted to. But she [Alvarez] was part of the politically-privileged class there in the State’s Attorney’s office, and she looked the other way for twenty-two years, as all this criminal activity went on.
Does public corruption lead to street crime?
Jeff Berkowitz: Is that public corruption, if it was going on? Does it explain the rise in street crime currently? Does it explain the high murder rate?
Tony Peraica: Yes, it does.
Jeff Berkowitz: How does one interact with the other?
Cmsr. Tony Peraica: You’ve got a basic set of problems that involve the disintegration of the family in Cook County, the family unit, particularly in the minority areas. In the African-American community in particular, the family unit has been devastated because of the failing educational system that doesn’t provide any choice to parents-
Jeff Berkowitz: That’s another matter. That’s the Chicago Public Schools.
Tony Peraica: And the lack of economic opportunity. While the flowers on Michigan Avenue look wonderful, you have Inglewood, Austin, areas that are devastated economically and are rife with criminal activity.
Jeff Berkowitz: Again, you’re running for State’s Attorney of Cook County, do. So, how does that relate to the State’s Attorney’s office?
Cmsr. Tony Peraica: The State’s Attorney’s office, with seventeen hundred employees, and a hundred and forty million dollar budget, has the responsibility to investigate these criminal gangs and activities, drug dealers, and prosecute them. They also have the responsibility to investigate-
Jeff Berkowitz: To prosecute drug dealers. They prosecute drug users, don’t they?
Cmsr. Tony Peraica: They also have the responsibility to investigate political criminal activity that is financed through taxpayer dollars, causing this high level of tax burden to be placed on the residents of Cook County. The State’s Attorney’s office has never done that, and will not continue to do that at any time in the future unless we have a change, a fundamental change, in that office.
Does the State’s Attorney have the resources need to prosecute public corruption?
Jeff Berkowitz: Do they have the resources to do it? They would say they can’t do wiretaps the way the U. S. Attorneys can. They don’t have the resources. They don’t have the FBI. They say, you’re talking about-
Tony Peraica: Those are lame excuses, Jeff, because they don’t want to prosecute their political mentors, friends, and sponsors.
Jeff Berkowitz: So you could do it.
Tony Peraica: Absolutely.
Jeff Berkowitz: If you were there, you could have gone after Don Tomczak.
Cmsr. Tony Peraica: Absolutely.
Jeff Berkowitz: You could have gone after Sorich. You would have done that?
Cmsr. Tony Peraica: No question.
Jeff Berkowitz: Okay. You’re saying you have the resources?
Cmsr. Tony Peraica: Those who engage in criminal activity should be prosecuted regardless.
State’s Attorney going after drug users?
Jeff Berkowitz: What about street crime? Are they going after the drug users?
Tony Peraica: No, they’re not. The accident we just had yesterday [July 26] on the Eisenhower Expressway-- where kids were coming from Wheaton to buy heroin in the public projects, which are six blocks away from the Chicago Police Department Headquarters. Kids from Wheaton know where to buy heroin, and they come six blocks from the Chicago Police Department Headquarters, yet the police don’t know, the fourteen thousand officers can’t figure out where heroin is being dealt from. I find that incredible.
Jeff Berkowitz: But you say they’re self-abusers. I’ve heard you say that they’re putting too many resources into prosecuting self-abusers. They should get treatment for those people?
Tony Peraica: That’s right. We are not going after the core problem.
Jeff Berkowitz: What’s the core problem?
Cmsr. Tony Peraica: The pushers, who are selling drugs for profit. We go after the self-abusers and fill the 26th and California jail with self-abusers, people with small quantities [of illegal drugs].
Why doesn’t State’s Attorney go after drug pushers?
Jeff Berkowitz: Why don’t we go after the pushers? Why wouldn’t they go after the pushers?
Cmsr. Tony Peraica: That’s a very good question. Why don’t they?
Jeff Berkowitz: You tell me.
Tony Peraica: They’re not doing it. They’re not using their investigative powers and tools to go after the drug dealers, to go after those who engage in person-to-person crimes, who engage in breaking and entering-
Was going after R. Kelly a mistake?
Jeff Berkowitz: They went after R. Kelly. Everyone knows they went after R. Kelly. Was that a good idea?
Tony Peraica: The state’s attorneys went after R. Kelly for six years, and spent untold tens of millions of dollars, only to lose the case. That should have never been brought. The alleged witness, who was also a person against whom this act was committed, stated that it wasn’t her, that she didn’t participate in it. They should have done something else, other than waste taxpayer money-
Jeff Berkowitz: You would have gone after the pushers?Tony Peraica, Republican Nominee for State’s Attorney of Cook County and Cook County Cmsr.:
Absolutely, I would.
*************************************************
Thanks to "Public Affairs," intern Amy Allen for preparing a draft of the above partial transcript of tonight's Chicago and Aurora editions of "Public Affairs."
*************************************
Anita Alvarez, apparently following a City Hall-County Building Rose Garden strategy, continues to duck probling interviews or exchanges with her opponent for State's Attorney-- Tony Peraica. Alvarez has not responded to "Public Affairs," request for an interview, but she did appear yesterday on Fox Chicago Sunday, where the lobs from Robin Robinson to her were soft and fluffy.
****************************************
Jeff Berkowitz, Show Host/Producer of "Public Affairs," and Executive Legal Recruiter doing legal search can be reached at JBCG@aol.com. You may watch "Public Affairs," shows with Presidential Candidates Obama and McCain, tonight's edition of Public Affairs with Cook County Cmsr. and Republican State's Attorney Nominee Tony Peraica and shows with many other pols (including some archived as far back as 2005 at www.PublicAffairsTv.com
*************************************************************
Recently posted shows on the Public Affairs YouTube page include the "Public Affairs," show featuring Real Clear Politics' Tom Bevan , tonight's edition of Public Affairs with Cook County Cmsr. and Republican State's Attorney Nominee Tony Peraica and other recent shows featuring 13th CD Demoratic Nominee Scott Harper,State Rep. Candidate Tim Stratton (R-Glencoe, 58th Dist.), Sen. Kwame Raoul(D-Chicago), Senator John Cullerton (D-Chicago)- ; State Rep. candidate Joan Solms (R-Aurora), Comm. Forrest Claypool (D-Chicago) on the Obama Presidential campaign and shows with many other pols.
Now posted is the show we taped last week with 16th CD Democratic Nominee Robert Abboud, Barrington Hills Village President [Watch Abboud here], who is taking on 16 year, 16th CD Republican incumbent, Cong. Don Manzullo.
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