Illinois Politcal Pundits Custis and Thurl Keep It Simple . . .

Hat Tip to Max Weismann.


Custis:"Limut Awl politishuns to twew turms:
Wan in Off-uss. . . "

Thurl: ". . . N'Wan in prisun:Illenoy awlreddy duz this, 'N ut seemz tah bee workin' fur thum. . . . Dawg!"

Custis: " That's no Dawg. That's My Hawg."

Thurl: " I uz talking to the Hawg."

George Ryan Should Come Home!

George Ryan has served time in Federal Prisons -in Oxford, Wisconsin and Terra Haute, Indiana -because people wanted him to be guilty and Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was specifically tasked with putting George Ryan in Federal Prison.

It seems to me that that was his job description and mission statement - later nuanced into 'giving the citizens what they were told to want.'

The Media tried Ryan and Judge Pallmayer seemed to follow their script.

I like and admire George Ryan as a man and I love his wife Lura Lynn.

I never voted for George Ryan, as I tend to vote Democrat.

George Ryan served his time - much more than too many much more larcenous villains and sneaks. His Party was defeated by the wildly corrupt Blagojevich who made Illinois the National Poster Child of political corruption. George Ryan, as pointed out in his trial, never took a nickel. He was convicted of being an 'old time politician.'

Dollar for tax-wasted dollar give me that old time corruption, because the Reform Version represented by Blago and his troops is a Tsunami compared to a fart in a bathtub.

Governor Jim Thompson, for whom I never cast a vote, is a good friend to the Ryans and he is hammering at George Ryan's cell door, until a right-minded person swings it open. Godd for you Big Jim!

"Frankly, I think, there's nothing gained by requiring him to stay in jail," said Thompson. "He's been there for almost two years now. He's been punished. He's lost his office. He's lost all his means of support. He's not a completely well man. ... A merciful president would let him come home."

"President Obama knows Governor Ryan, worked with Governor Ryan when the president was in the General Assembly, and my hope is that this fall if we file a petition to ask the president to commute the sentence to time served, that we could get a favorable answer," said Thompson.

1998 - Illinois Governor
George Ryan (R) 51%
Glenn Poshard (D) 47.5%
Lawrence Redmond (Reform) 1.5%
1994 - Illinois Secretary of State
George Ryan (R) 61.5%
Patrick Quinn (D) 38.5%
1990 - Illinois Secretary of State
George Ryan (R) 53.5%
Jerry Cosentino (D) 46.5%

Governor George Ryan - The Man I Know is a Very Good Man.

I first met George Ryan, in 1975 when I was a baby teacher/coach at Bishop McNamara in Kankakee - a Chicago 18th Ward Democrat in Republican Land. In Fact Mimi Shapiro asked me to run for City Clerk as a Democrat - I figured what the hell -good way to learn the town. George’s brother Tom was the Mayor. The GOP slated Gene Glenzinski for City Clerk and the Dad of one my wrestlers and a better man never pulled on socks.

The Race was a blast and we had frequent ‘debates’ and run-ins with the Machine. George Ryan was a lovely guy. One day while walking to work, up Brookmont from my apartment in White City near Washington Park. I saw guys replacing Democratic signs that had been knocked down. I asked one of the guys ‘What gives?’ He said, ‘ George said to get them back up. You guys are gonna get waxed anyway.’ Laughed my butt off.

The Democratic slate was slaughtered, in fact I got the most votes -novelty votes for the kid, I imagine.

George Ryan was present wherever anyone from Kankakee, especially his political opponents, were in a jam or suffering. I saw George Ryan at St. Mary's Hospital visiting dying relatives of people who hated him politically. George Ryan had time for everyone. He was the reason why the Kankakee GOP was so successful and it was because he genuinely cared for people. The only person nicer than George Ryan is his bride Lura Lynn. That woman was everywhere!

I never once voted for George Ryan. Oh Hell, I'm a Party Democrat . . . I was anyway. I backed candidates who wouldn't give a penny to starving blind man . . .they would enact Programs for Hungry Blind and Indigent . . .once elected.

I have met George Ryan at many wakes and weddings, in Kankakee and Joliet. He is a very nice man. I’d buy the man a steak any day, at Ken’s in my neighborhood, or Krapil’s, or Franconello’s or some such homey place reminiscent of Kings Court and Town and Country in Kankakee, if he’d allow me. George Ryan did not seem to match Gibson’s or Tavern on Rush or the other news-ghoul & hustler eateries. These other fore mentioned places are where George Ryan’s people eat.

The type of people who go to Ken’s and other neighborhood dining spots are the people George Ryan connected to - not political allies, hangers-on or opportunists, but people like Ryan himself. I witnessed quite a few of George Ryan’s many acts of kindness to people who could never do any political boon for anyone - let alone George Ryan - too numerous to catalog. He treated Joe Blow from the docks at Tenney Sales on 5th Ave. in Kankakee like he was a Sam Zell with an ink wet contribution check.

Conversely, I have followed the words of many familiar voices in print that have universally called for a mighty punishment on George Ryan - most of the people writing those words seem like people that I can do without. John Kass and Tom Roeser are the only two valid voices of anti-Ryan sentiment in my opinion - there are others to be sure, mostly regular folks and I respect their feelings.

However, there are many more, mostly media creatures. who are stone hypocrites -DuPage GOP ‘almost weres and fatuous Polka Partners like Judy Topinka who could not get snug enough in George’s back pockets when he was flush with clout and now stomp on his crippled limbs.

It seemed to me that Ryan’s Judge and Federal Prosecutors were going to get George Ryan come Hell, Highwater, or the lady with the blindfold. and they did - the voices in print ( paper and electronic) - sock-puppets or anonymous back-shooters for the most part - howl in genuine agony that George Ryan has the same rights as other citizens. ‘The quicker he is in jail the happier I’ll be’ read one such post, or ‘Ryan can rot in Hell’. Must be a lovely people . . . to avoid.

John MCain:John Kass Chicago's Best Voice in Journalism

I've had beefs with John Kass. Heavens.

'Hickey thinks ill of my positions, I sha'nt sleep!'

How a political hors d'ourve, like Angelo Torres, or a main course like George Ryan gets gutted by John Kass's prosaic saw-knife has bumped my ire at times. I believe that friends in need - people who have displayed genuine kindness or concern in personal matters - must and should have my public support. Judy Topinka, nice enough woman, lost me when she ditched Ryan when he became political plutonium along with too many others.
That should not be done.

My greatest level of affection for Harry Truman is rooted in his attendence at Kansas City Political Machine Boss Tom Prendergast's funeral. Harry did not give a good God Damn about the consequences. That is also why I gravitate to John McCain.

John Kass has a job to do and that is to report, comment upon and pound home to readers violations of the public trust. Kass does that well.

Today, John Kass gives a brilliant insight to the McCain Victories in the Super Tuesday Primaries - Here in Illinois, McCain dominated. Illinois people gravitate to people who are good people. John Kass has penchant for knoting some good people into a political construct he calls 'The Combine.' I am too simple for that. I see people as I meet them and encounter their actions for other people. Kass is brilliant and I tend to be a dope. He's smarting me up some though. He may smarten up some really sophisticated people who think and live in doctrinaire cocoons. He might smarten them up enough to devlop a point of view that meets and encounters actions performed by a Man like John McCain for all Americans.


Here's a morsel of some great prose by Kass from today's John McCain piece:

Conservatives can't move forward until they figure out where they stand. And that battle, to define conservatism, is where all this anti-McCain vitriol erupts from.

Conservatives limp along, a disorganized movement, in part because they supported President Bush, who was not a conservative, yet was made one by the party mouthpieces. And, yes, I drank the Kool-Aid too.

Eat some more!
Click my post title for Kass on McCain

Le dreyfus et nous coupables de Your'e le savent! (You're Guilty, Dreyfus, and We Know It!)

He's confusing a clear conscience with a lack of conscience

Please Click my post title for the contemporary certainty of Mark Brown!

January 5, 1895
BY MARQUE BRUN Temps du Soleil Chroniqueur et Arbruti

Mon Dieu! That was amazing. What a horse's behind. I just watched Alfred Dreyfus say he's going to report to prison today with a clear conscience. He says he's innocent, and he still intends to prove it.

He didn't apologize. He didn't so much as admit he made any mistakes. His defiance couldn't have been more complete if he flipped us the bird.

I hadn't intended to write about Dreyfus going to prison today. I thought everything had been said.

'Still fighting for justice'? Idiotie!But I can't let him get away with that little speech when I know many of you sat there in the Cafe Parnassus while sputtering just like me, but without the platform to express yourselves.

Dreyfus should have just kept his mouth shut if he didn't have the sense or decency to acknowledge the error of his ways.

He should have waved at the cameras and climbed into his car and drove to Cozy Île du Diable - Devil's Island, Guiana, and waved once more from inside the carriage when he got up there.

Then, in 1906 -- when the now 47-year-old former Army Staff Officer will get out of prison, if he lasts that long -- he could have waved twice more on the way home. Fine by me.

Dreyfus should have saved the baloney about "still fighting for justice" for the people who drank the absinthe and think he's a martyr because he's a Jew Officer.

Alfred Dreyfus is no martyr, whether you agree with his handling of Army AntiSemitism or not.

He did everything France's Army said -- and more
Alfred Dreyfus presided over a office in Army Ordinance where German General Staff Officers routinely obtained information with bribes, tens of thousands of dollars of which made their way into his campaign coffers -- a nasty little problem that he tried to cover up. People got killed ( The Prussians killed thousands of us in the Franco Prussian War!! )as a result of those ballistics charts out there on the road.

While Dreyfus was in Ordnance , he gave his Jew Friends an inside track on most of the big leases and contracts let by the Grande Armee. In return, they showered "gifts" on him and his family.

Perhaps he continues to confuse a clear conscience with a lack of conscience.

How exactly does Dreyfus propose to prove his innocence at this point? Is he going to find the one-armed man? Sacre Bleu! - I must be having another vision!!!!!

(Note to younger readers: There will be this television show called "The Fugitive" that they made into a movie with Harrison Ford in which this doctor is convicted of killing his wife and . . . oh, never mind.)

Alfred Dreyfus is not innocent. He's not even "not guilty," a distinction he may or may not appreciate.

Earth to Alfred. You're guilty.

You did everything the Republique accused you of doing -- and more -- and the people of France know it.

The prosecutors proved it to a judge and jury. They also proved it to the appellate court, which found the evidence overwhelming.

Dreyfus's innocence isn't really a matter of serious discussion at this stage, only whether he received a fair trial given some of the goofiness during jury deliberations.

At most, he never had a chance for anything more than a new trial, where all the evidence from the first trial would have still been in full force and effect, and where a new jury would have convicted him just as quickly as he could be brought to trial.

'10-year ordeal' for us, too
While waiting to go to COZY Devil's Island, Dreyfus has undoubtedly run into a lot of people who have expressed kind words to him either back in Mulhassen, Alsace or on his Paris restaurant circuit. People are like that. They don't want to be outwardly mean -- like newspaper columnists.

Dreyfus may be suffering under some delusion that people are on his side.

Mon Dieu! He spoke again Tuesday of his "10-year ordeal" under "unrelenting pressure."

It's been an ordeal for us, too, Alfred, wondering whether you'd ever be brought to justice with one of the best legal teams in the country pulling out all the stops on your behalf and cleverly postponing what one of the appellate court judges called your "day of reckoning."

Well, the day of reckoning is today, and whatever sympathy that might have been directed your way because of your age and your family situation, you kissed that goodbye with your defiant speech. You need a pornographer like ZOLA to help you now!~

Consider this our return kiss in your direction. Vive La France!

.........................................................back to old cynical Hickey:

( I am certain of nothing - but you just might be able click on this link to learn more about Capt. Alfred Dreyfus and how a whole country , not just a State knew that he was guilty)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Dreyfus