Toast and Crackers

IL uber-lobbyist, Don Udsten, the songbird, is singing again;

Wisconsin Energy

The Ryan trial, now entering its 13th week, has focused the spotlight on how a small network of well-connected lobbyists and their friends wielded huge power in Springfield.

He said he first became aware that Wisconsin Energy was looking for a lobbyist when he got a call from an old friend, Nicholas Hurtgen, who was an aide to Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson.

"We recognize that we are not the focus of the trial and we have cooperated fully with the prosecution," Wisconsin Energy spokesman Barry McNulty said.

Meanwhile, Hurtgen is charged in an alleged shakedown of a Naperville hospital in which an investment house whose Chicago office he headed was supposed to underwrite construction bonds