Bruce Dold - Does The Chicago Tribune Want The World To Believe That Rahm's CPD is Not Diverse?

It must have pained Bruce Dold not to photo shop this photo by Chris Sweda with the officers gowned in Klan Robes, but that might have spoiled the narrative.

I wondered if the demographics in the Mayor's CPD HR might be misleading the public, as much as the narrative framed by editorial bosses of Chicago's big metropolitan newspapers that Chicago's disgraceful homicides are in every due to Chicago Police Officers wearing blue shirts.

The Department and the swell folks of the Police Accountability Review Board insist that Chicago Police Department is comprised of  more white personnel (6,832) than Black (4,010) and Hispanic (2,576) combined.   I was led to believe that numbers somehow matched the City's demographic.

What about Japanese, Chinese, Sikh, Indian, Montenegrin, Kiowa, Parthian and Pacific Islander Americans?


Anyway.  Bruce Dold, the Chicago Tribune Editor Boss-in-Chief signs off on the copy ( texts and Photos) that some Chicago readers swallow whole - others choke on the lard.

Bruce Dold is the Boss Editor and Rahm Emanuel is Jefe of Chicago: the Banana Republic - if you are unclear what exactly a banana republic is watch some old black and white movies from the 1930's -the 1950's, where tough and great hearted guys wearing white panama suits and hats.run guns to oppressed people in the tropics - Black and Hispanic, or both as in Hispaniola.

One disturbing image struck me early this 4th of July Weekend.  That is the one posted above that indicates via a two dimensional narrative art display that robust and hefty white ethnic Law Enforcement Officers armed with assault rifles are ready, willing and able to inflict 5.56x45 Ammo Social Injustice on minority populations.


I know there are almost as many proud Black men and woman on the job, as there are Murphys, Fassanos, Balauskases and Stankiewiczes, and I know that they are not on vacation given the " I am sick of this!" violence form African American Super and his Hispalnic Deputy.  Are they all working the phones?  No sir, Mr. Bruce.  They are on the street putting their lives in hazzard for their neighbors. To suggest otherwise, is racist.  That could keep you off the list at City Club and WTTW.

In fact, the entire photo spread seems to indicate the same narrative worthy of George Lucas's White Storm Troopers from Star Wars - lighter shades of pale, G!


In fact, only less than literal handful of African American, or Hispanic police officers are in any way visible.

Bruce Dold.  The picture tells the story, don't it?

You seem to be telling the world a huge fib, Bruce.  Rahm Emanuel would not promote a notion that the systemic racism, crafted by Peoples Law Office Commisar G. Flint Taylor and force fed to social justice engineers in packing the pumps at the Sun Times and Chicago Tribune, is still out there boosting death by gun violence.

Or, would he and you?

Race Hate is everyone else's problem in the compelling narratives that boost the elites of the Chicago Oligarchy.  The oligarchs must divide the diversity in order to hold power.

That is some compelling narrative, Bruce.

Thank You Friends of the Park for Saving our Lakefront and Outing Chicago's Bullies

The Friends of Park have saved Chicago's lakefront, for now.  This is Chicago, neighbors, and you can set your watch by the next public looting boondoggle.

I wonder how Rahm's profanity crusade is going.  Of course NBC Chicago forgives Rahm everything as does WTTW. I Imagine the Rahm swear jar is topped off and ready for a trip to the cash changer at any of Chicago's fine Fifth Third Banks.

That is a Progressive Thinking and Acting Bank

The Progressives ( former Liberals, Goo-goos and Hand-wringers) are in control of every branch of Government - yep, I include Governor Rauner who is merely buying time for his Corporatist Progressive Pals and Oligarchs.

From the White House to Hyde Park, the New Machine controls Chicago and Cook County. The New Machine is not about building legions of Democratic Party workers ready, willing and able to get out the vote as a way of saying 'Thank You" for a job on the trucks, a seat in a Patrol car, a place in an Emergency van, a pick and shovel filling pot holes and reconfiguring curbs.  No this new machine is a faceless blob of bank accounts, 501(c)3 foundations, blue-stocking law firms, real estate monte grifters, Commnity Activists and the News Media.  The poor get a taste of quick cash and lunch boxes and T-shirts, the Armani clad pink cheeks who write small checks not exceeding the the Federal Election Law limits reap huge returns and the middle class, once served so well by the Democrat Party of Cook County pay the bills and get contempt from both the poor and the oligarchs.

This week was a Wow!  The middle guys, who really are the little guys, won one here in Chicago.  The middle/little guys in the UK won the same.

The same ugly and unfair narratives heaped upon Brexit backers, were meted out to the Friends of the Park here in Chicago.

Friends of the Park were villified by every Friend of Rahm/I'm With Her/Hope and Change voice in Cook County.  These forces were marshalled on a huge scale that reminded me of Rahm Emanuel, Forrest Claypool and Pastor Pfleger's smear campaign against the President of Amalgamated Transit Workers Local 308 all through 2013-2014. This was the age of the CTA scandals regarding the Bombardier Rail Car boondoggles and the Ventra Card foul-ups.

Like President Robert Kelly, Friends of the Parks were treated to the attentions of the starving hounds in Rahm Emanuel's kennels.  Pastor Pfleger calls Friends of the Parks Gangsters - you know like the GDs. The Rev says, "Tell me the difference between Friends of the Parks and the Gangster Disciples?"

Well, the GDs shot at me, killed a good number of students that I love, shake down local business people, terrorize everyone, Vote Straight Party on Demand ( call on Elder Hal Baskin GD Emeritus) , launder drug money, sling drugs, possess firearms of every variety and caliber, sport snappy gray, blue and black attire on more formal occasions, can not seem to paly well with the Stones and say 7-4 Til the World Blow and Trust by the old six-pointed star . . .yep, just like Friends of the Park.

• Pastor Pfleger the political preacher who is probably With Her in 2016   
• Newton Minnow - The Man who Discovered Barack Obama and Called Television A Vast Waste Land predicted that Rahm would prevail in this dual to death and warned the helots who still read Chicago Editorials without wetting their britches that Friend sof the Park were 'small group setting an agenda' and the might be setting a 'dangerous precedent' - like keeping the public trust. Shucks, can't have that around this burg, Newton.
• The Sun Times Editorial Board always on the right side of fixed polls and fixed pols
• The Chicago Reader, the script for the hip, chimed in with the Friends of the Parking Lot Meme - the hip don't tailgate, unless it is for an ironic goof on the squares

The Chicago Tribune Editorial Board surprised me on this one.  They did not swallow the Rahm Bait and to this I attribute the sound voices of John Kass and Kristen McQueary.

The people who really do not like people in the neighborhoods are the people who really hate Friends of Parks.

Friends of Parks, like the Sons of Liberty long ago and forgotten in public education, could be the spark for  Cook County Revolution!  Friends of the Parks proved to be friends of Chicago's Neighborhoods. 

I am making a modest gift to Friends of the Park . today.  

Me and Leon at the Criminal Courts on 26th & California on Cold and Sunny Chicago Day

Jury Duty - Wednesday December 9th 2015.  No getting around it.  I was told my aunt's funeral yesterday was no excuse from this civic responsibility.  Later, I learned that my cousin's son had been told the very same thing by the non-robot who answered the phones.  Cousin Mike's boy was in the jurors assembly area with your humble correspondent.

Parking at the Leighton Branch of the Cook County Criminal Courts is a pre-ordained ticket bonanza for our revenue thirsty City and County.  Parking has all but disappeared in Chicago thanks to the Democrats of Cook County and City of Chicago over the last twenty years.  The big parking garage just east of the California Boulevard parkways is an expensive crap shoot and an absolute nightmare when court is dismissed.

Hours earlier, I did a few e-mail services at Leo High School and then headed down up Western Avenue to my strategically planned parking spot in the Heart of Italy neighborhood located just east of Cook County Jail and the Criminal Courts Leighton Branch on California.

I turned east of Western Ave. on Blue Island and turned at Oakley.  I know this neighborhood as it is one of my absolute favorite dining locales in this diminishing city.  There is island of hope for frustrated motorists seeking a parking spot here.  There are no Green Parking Boxes and there is always a limited number of spots.  Go and seek them out.

I parked, after scouting for any signs of City Ordinance Violations indicators and found it trouble free.

I walked east on 25th street, past the South Side Outlaws Club and several massive auto repair mega-plants and scores of kids heading to school from Lawndale Gardens.



I crossed California Boulevard and walked south to the courts.  It was 7:30 AM and my summons told me to report NO LATER than 9AM.

Outside of the newish Leighton Building  a young Black man in a Afro-Tricolor knit hat and shivering inside a very thin leather jacket was leaning on one of thick concrete blocks intended to stop terrorists from driving a car bomb into the facility grabbing a smoke.

I decided to grab one too.

" Jury duty,?' I asked with my customary south side Irish bonhomie.

" No, sir, a beef," answered the young gent whom Alderman Leslie Hairston and Mayor Rahm Emanuel would order racist and or race -traitor cops to brace if they got within twenty feet of him.

I have some street sense developed via empirical data stored over many years of not really giving a $hit about appearances.  Some of the creepiest people I have encountered sport HartMarx suits, or Lake Forest doyen get-ups. The absolute creepiest are Sixty-Somethings costumed in Retro-hippie Bolivarista get-ups and are usually academics, or CPAs from Evanston.

This young gent had the looks of a working man, a family man and, like me, a guy who screwed up.

"What's the charge? "

" DUI - I can't take this one.  I live in Merrillville with my wife and two kids.  I work construction and need my car.'

" Where'd you get tagged?"

" 79th Street just west of Halsted."

Right in the Pat Hickey conversational (monologue) wheelhouse.

" I work at Leo High School."

" I know it says so on your coat."

Unabashed, " What happened?"

The young man told that his wife had gone to Chicago with a couple of friends from high school and had, as many a young lady in my circle of life, taken one too many Mojitas.  The two kids were staying with an Aunt and my nicotine gulping fellow had stopped at the Alaska Pipeline for a  few jars with the lads.

Perfect storm.  He got call from his bride to come and get her at a pub on Vincennes not far from Leo High School - he had a couple of beers in him and drove from Schereville to the Skyway and eventually west on 79th Street.  He noticed a CPD patrol car behind him and the fact that he was not wearing a seat belt.  He pulled on the always, it seems, tangled safety harness and swerved a bit.  Blue Lights.

We walked into the Leighton Building and were told to leave until 8:30 AM. I asked the young man his name.  " Leon _____."

I took Leon for coffee - he declined breakfast on me.  We walked west on 26th Street, in what seemed 'forever,' along the walls of Cook County Jail and arrived in the warmth of Milagro!

We had a great jaw.  I learned that Leon's family had once been a political juice load of DNA, until Daley II turned his back on Leon's grandmother.  He had grown up in Englewood, attended Amos Alonzo Stagg elementary ( former site of Leo High School's legendary Shewbridge Field) and CVS High School.  As many a young man will do he got into a juvenile beef and was sent to the State of Illinois Boot Camp in Rantoul and learned a better path.  Since then he had no further scrapes with the law, worked in construction in Belize, the Bahamas and now in Northwest Indiana.

We walked back to Leighton and went inside, I asked if Judge Thomas Murphy was working here in the hope that maybe, Leon would get a nonpolitical black robe for his beef.  No luck, Murph is in Bridgeview Division.

We  queued up in the males only line.  Leon was told he had to lock-up his cellp-phone.  We were parting, " I send up a flock of Memorares at 9 AM."

" What's that?"

" The absolute best prayer, I know, Leon. God Be with!"

" You too.  Thanks,"

No, Leon. Thank you. I went to the third floor, was selected for Panel 6, saw my cousin Mike's kid and talked about Aunt Aurelia's wake at Sheehy's on 79th Street and said a good number of prayers for Leon.

Jury duty was a breeze.

Of Two Minds Illinois Thanks to California

 

Rahm Rauner; Rauner Rahm: "Take hold of this, Peniculus: I wish to dedicate the spoil that I've vowed.'"ENAECHMUS of Epidamnus.

Any Holiday leads necessarily to conversation over food and sports channel surfing.  Mother's Day was a cornucopia of Chicago losses.The Bulls lost to to Cavs after a magnificent bulling of the Chicago squad by King James of Cleveland in final 0.8 seconds, or was it 1.15 seconds and outside shot at the buzzer. Sox lost to Cincinnati 4-3 and Re-Branded Cubs lost to the Brew Crew for a Midwest Urban Rival Sweep of Rahm's Chicagoland Sports.

The chicken and steal kabobs came off the grill, the salad was mixed and dressed, the pilaf was worthy of Edith her own bad self and whole Fam-Damly scrambled for chairs. Dinner was served and table talk exploded into sound bytes, between bites.  It was a segue melange with political side-servings. Politics on the holidays.   Mother's Day was no exception.  When chat turns political, I generally get a preemptive roll of the eyes indicating, 'We know what you think already. Save it.'  Be silent, be happy and have another tasty Kabob.

I was all ears, because I have forum for my big flapping yap - right here.

What I sampled from the verbal candied pecans was this. My family detests Bruce Rauner (so do I); yet, backed Rahm Emanuel over Chuy Garcia.  I find this fascinatingly schizophrenic. Rahm Rauner is in the same as Bruce Emanuel.  They detest Rahm (as do I) but cast votes for his 'sophisticated economics.'  Chuy Garcia was not taken any where near seriously by anyone eating Mother's Day dinner where I was, but by me and Chuy lost thereby proving the case that one can detest Bruce Rauner, vote for Rahm and shrug and wait for Rauner to pee in our collective bowl of Wheaties.

One can not, or should not, detest one, unless one detest the other.

Illinois is a hick State and Chicago is a hick burg, where the working man will disappear in under a generation.  Rauner will get the universal blame, which will not bother him a jot. Rahm will allow his twin Menaechmus in Springfield bear the whips and scorn of political fortune and both will reap fortunes unimaginable for friends and themselves, increase the debt and unemployment rolls, watch trades unions close shop revel in a job very well done.

Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Rauner were born of a rib taken from California Jerry Brown decades ago.

Illinois is California with liposuction, chin tucks and Botox.

The Casandra of American Fortunes is Joel Kotkin.  I have been a fan for decades.  He warned of dager public sector unions had on Federal, State, County and Municipal budgets as far back as GHW Bush and Bubba.

Casandra was always right and never followed.

Our Priams continue the March of Folly.   Illinois aped California and will continue to do so.  Here is Joel Kotkin on how California is the blueprint for Blue Progressive States;

 How a writer looks at California can be increasingly predicted by the writer’s political orientation. For liberals, the nasty California that produced both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan has been supplanted by a cooler, greener and more socially progressive state. If you are on the Right, California is beloved for reasons of nostalgia; for the Left, California is where the future once again is being shaped. Those of us more in the middle are simply unsure of what to think.

In many ways, Brown presaged many of the current trends in progressive thinking. For one thing, Brown – like much of the Democratic elite – does not much identify with middle- and working-class concerns, notably old social democratic ideals of upward mobility. Instead of tackling poverty and stagnation by creating good middle-class jobs, Brown blames the state’s high poverty rate on our “incredible attractiveness,” not on some fundamental economic flaw. This viewpoint seems not to offend some of the very people who, in other cases, rail against rising inequality and poverty.

Brown’s almost single-minded focus on climate change also fits well with a Democratic Party whose ideology – and funding base – is increasingly dominated by this issue. He also, at least for now, can claim that he has tried to save the planet while improving the economy.

Jerry Brown is a hippie grown wealthy and old.  Many hippies grew old and wealthy. Jerry Brown is elder statesman of the Progressive oligarchy dependant upon bloated government, corrupt mortgage banking tied to social engineering programs, monster bloc voting via public sector unions and a non-existent Fourth Estate.  Hippies are aped by hipsters. Hispsters are educated, affluent Gen X and younger folks who flock to urban settings. Hipsters are the new Rubes.  They'll buy and swallow anything manages to get public limelight, whether it happens to be kale, kindergartens or caring without any genuine effort.  Hipsters flock to public outcry and Occupy, or Ferguson Up, or Moveon.organize all done with the latest Steve Jobs gizmo.

They are the voice of America, because everyone else has been told to 'just shut up and evolve.'

Fair enough. Illinois replaced a doughy, soft-ball as governor with flinty hard-ball plutocrat as governor. He is the bad twin.  Chicago reelected a flinty hard-ball plutocrat as its mayor.  They are the twin Menaechmi of this pathetic politic-economic farce called Illinois government.

More Kabobs!

"Chiraq" is Demeaning to Chicago - Call it "Worrisome"

No less an expert on the use of language than Senator Dick " I Heard Obama Say" Durbin has chimed in on Spike Lee's movie about violence and the failure of public schools in Chicago neighborhoods. Here's Dithering Dick, “I want to give Mr. Lee the opportunity to explain the nature of this movie,” he said. “I don’t know much more about it, other than the title. It is worrisome.”

It is worrisome because Rahm's most ardent black minister is white pastor Michael Pfleger and Pastor Pfleger hosted the Cusacks at St. Sabina Faith Community's Easter services, as well as Jeremy Piven who played Ari on HBO's family comedy Entourage and Ari was based upon Rahm Emanuel's Hollywood bundler brother Ari.

Worrisome.

It's kind of funny.  Only a few years ago, a freshman at Leo High School, Antonio Davis was murdered on the streets where he lived.  Leo High School absorbed the full expense of burying this nice kid: paid for the grave, the funeral home, the church the services and hosted the repast following the funeral for three hundred of Antonio's family members and neighbors.

The funeral services took place at 127th & Harlem on tropically hot and torrentially rainy day. Hundreds of mourners packed the un-air conditioned church and waited for the ceremonies to begin.  The funeral director had been contacted by the Office of the Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel to wait until the Mayor could pay his respects.  Twenty, forty, sixty minutes went by.   The services were stalled because were waiting for Rahm Emanuel. It was worrisome.

Worrisome, because little kids and the elderly were swooning from the sticky heat.  The Mayor arrived.  He brushed past the Leo High School President without word or greeting.  The Leo High School President had taken the burden from family of Antonio Davis upon himself - cost and logistics. A week's worth of burden.

Rahm Emanuel not so much as nodded.  I though that funny and worrisome.

Worrisome, this funny little man had only just begun his role as Mayor of Chicago.

Funny, because over the next three years Rahm Emanuel did what he does - raises money for himself and ignores everyone else, until the first run-off election in Chicago's history was forced upon him.

Rahm was just forced to undergo the first run-off election in Chicago's history, because Chicago is plagued with thug violence and bad public schools.  Rahm closed 50 bad public schools on the south and west sides of Chicago, where the sobriquet "Chiraq" was coined.  The closing of the bad public schools forced children to cross into neighborhoods where gang-turf is delineated by rounds spent from a 9mm.
Worrisome

Worrisome, because Pastor Pfleger endorsed not only Rahm, but a candidate for alderman of the 17th Ward who would serve Rahm Emanuel and all of his works and that candidate was beaten like a red-headed rented mule in the February General Election.

More Worrisome, was the fact that Rahm was forced into the only run-off election in Chicago's history and was required to contort, tap-dance, threaten, wheedle, poke, promise and punish black politicians, reverends, urban translators and community leaders for support.  He got it and beat his challenger by double figures.

A worrisome thing that.

Now, when all is well,  more worrisome mischief creeps into the ink of Chicago - Spike Lee is making a movie!

Worrisome is the theme of thug violence and bad public schools. More Worrisome is the title of the movie that reflects the opinion of the people on the west and South Sides that Chicago, in some neighborhoods, is a dangerous as Iraq, or Yeman, or Syria, or Egypt, or Kenya..

It's worrisome.  Just when the very people who orchestrated Chicago's misery had the opportunity to finally paw political kitty litter over the crap of their own making, along come Spike Lee, who might be the best American director since John Ford, pointing out the mess.  Worrisome.

They (Rahm,Durbin et al) do not want the movie to be Chiraq!  Dick Durbin who lies every second breath calls this worrisome,

Spike, I think we have a working title - "Worrisome!"

I think Dick Durbin would make a swell Pastor Pfleger.

Congratulations to the Pipe Trades! Rahm Owes Skilled Labor Big Time.

The first sign that Rahm Emanuel might hold Chicago for another four years went up on the Dan Ryan Expressway on east side near 79th Street.  Sometime in October, the huge sign praising Rahm for that he is went up at expense of the United Piipe Trades of Chicago;shortly, thereafter, the skilled trades unions sided with the plumbers and pipe fitters in a marshaling of labor forces that eclipsed the public salaried unions - The Chicago Teachers Union and SEIU.

Anyone of the two people in my legion of readers knows that I am a constant critic public sector unions and fierce defender of the skilled trades, but I found myself on the side of SEIU and CTU in this mayoral election - general and runoff.

It is a headscratcher. I am no fan of Rahm Emanuel - not now;not no how.  He is a what is wrong with the Democratic Party which since the 1972 Democratic Convention became a torts platform and grievance utility.

I believe in neighbors. Jesus "Chuy" Garcia is a neighbor.   Rahm Emanuel is Richard M. Daley with better syntax, better tailor and better barber.

Rahm Emanuel and all of his polls won.

The congratulations go, not to the $ 1,200 suits and $400 haircuts, but to the skilled trades locals of Chicago.  They put Rahm over.  Now, swell haircuts should be consigned to the back of the elevator going up to the 5th Floor of City Hall . . .for a couple of weeks anyway.

Rahm Emanuel Hates Everything About the American Middle Class,- Just Like Ernest Poole

Imagine devouring every last item at the All You Can Eat buffet at Chi Tung, skipping the tip to the waitresses because it is after all a buffet, and then walking out the door to find a lawyer who will sue that fine establishment into oblivion, because Chinese food disagrees with you.

That is pretty much the mind of Rahm Emmanuel with regard to middle class neighborhood dwellers, and he is not alone. Valerie Jarrett, President Obama, most newspaper columnists and nearly every editorial board member in Chicago ( save Kristen McQueary of Chicago Tribune), WTTW, WBEZ, WBBM, NBC, ABC, and CBS feel pretty much the same way.

In order to destroy the middle class, like every entree on a Chinese Buffet, every aspect of life important to it, as well as the monetary rewards curtailed via taxation, vocational disappearances and personal safety, must be vilified.  The MC must come to realize that they are appalling and believe it.  If you are for traditional marriage, you are a homophobic hater. If you support law enforcement, you are racist. If you are for lower taxes, you are racist and a classist. If you ask a young lady to mind her language in church, you patriarchal misogynist Bible thumper.  If you want better schools, you are just plain stupid out of your mind nasty.  If you want to raise your family with hope for a brighter tomorrow, you will vote, again, for Rahm Emanuel - 'Hey, he's not so bad.'

This is not new stuff  This detestation of the middle class goes back to the 19th and early 20th century Chicago Progressivism,  Did you know that the first Pulitzer prize winner was the son of a wealthy Chicago Robber Baron of 19th Century, Ernest Poole

Mr. Poole would belong to the Occupy Chicago, I Can't Breathe, Don't Shoot Me brand of Progressive spirit that helped launder SEIU's Trotskyite recent history, elect Pat Quinn & Rahm Emanuel and give us Red Light Cameras.

Progressives are well-heeled; Middle Class Breeders have two nickels to rub together. . .for the moment. Ernest Poole was a Progressive pioneer.

Two years out of Princeton, Ernest Poole covered the 1904 Chicago Stockyard Strike as a free-lance correspondent, lived in Packingtown, as the media called Canaryville then, among the striking meat-cutters, drovers and penmen who lived in Bridgeport and Canaryville. Ernest Poole reported all of his activities with the strikers, especially the Amalgamated Meat Cutters President Mike Donnelly, directly to the the approved Chicago social justice queens Dr. Cornelia De Bey and Jane Addams.

These two legendary shake-down artists were deep in the pockets the beef barons Philip Armour, Gustavus Swift, and Nelson Morris, to fund Hull House and other settlement operations, as well as put a lock on control of Chicago public schools and public health.

Ernest Poole, like so many earnest young people born to privilege, was a babbler, a transient dweller among the unwashed and the oppressed, visited poverty and remained among his kind of people.  People with money and juice, drag, connections.

I can not find any primary examples of Poole's work concerning the 1904 Stockyard Strike, but only his own words written decades later in his puff piece Giants gone; men who made Chicago (1943), which I read again yesterday. Poole writes about the Giants of Chicago, Men like his Dad,  Philip Armour, Gustavus Swift, Nelson Morris, Jane Addams and Dr. Cornelia De Bey with same cool-eyed perspective of the five year old girl's opinion of unicorns. The 1st winner of the Pulitzer is a testament to Progressive marrow.

What makes writers like Poole, Studs Terkel, Bill Ayers, President Obama and mouthpieces like Carol Marin, Bruce Dold and Neil Steinberg so enduring is their basic detestation and loathing for Middle Class lifestyle, manners & morals, avocations and thought.

The satisfied mind, the grand old flag, the happy home,the full belly and heaping board, the button-down Oxford cloth o fJC Penny clothing and the Savings and Loans of American Breeders ( Protestant, Catholic, Jew and Uncle Tom AME/Baptist) are the things that matter not to Progressive Zealots and people they shill into public office.

Rahm is a 100% American Progressive

Chicago: The World Class City - All Net and No Smelt

Romantics will delight in dining lakeside, with a view so close they can toss a coin into the ageless waters and wish for a love to match.
Economists will adore the prices. Shrimp, fish, oysters and other seafood are not only tasty but also a bargain for the pricey Near North Side.Both types of lovers quickly join the regulars at Rocky`s: anglers with their tackle boxes and police officers who dock department boats at the bait shop near Navy Pier.Among the more popular items are the large, french-fried shrimp ($4.50 a half order) and Rocky`s fish sandwich ($1.50), a treat for those familiar with fast-food versions. While both are prepared in a crunchy batter, the shrimp and fish themselves are moist and tender. -Manuel Galvan, Chicago Tribune 1987

Oh, My God! I'm so excited I could moisten my chinos!  Rahm Emanuel has bullied Jimmy Fallon NO Less into yet another vist to Chicago, A World Class City!

Jimmy Fallon came to Chicago when Skinny Sheahan invited Fallon to take the Polar Plunge for the Special Olympics and Rahm was given the full credit.

That's how it goes in Chicago. Anne McGlone Burke working for the Chicago Park District in 1968 runs the firrst Special Olympics in Soldier Field and the the Kennedy Clan takes credit.

That's how you get World Class, change historical facts, erase landmarks and stick to the narrative.

Chicago 2014 is a city with a silver bean, Pritsker Pavillions, Lois Wesiberg Dancing Dervish diversions, cows on parade, Marilyn Monroe softy-core-porn statuary and no where to grab a bag of fried smelts for under $12.   World Class baby.

Chicago was a town - My Kind of Town, Frank's Kind of Town a town that Billy Sunday could not shut down and one could park without taking out a second mortgage.

I guess I am just a grumpy old man who thinks that Toni Preckwinkle, Pat Quinn, Forrest Claypool and Rahm Emanuel could not carry  Wilson Frost's jockstrap. Shucks, I thought that thirty years ago.

When the Fire Department Gym and Rocky's Shrimp and Smelts were demolished to make room for Navy Pier parking, Chicago went from a Sears Roebuck catalog town to the edgy Abercrombie & Fitch world class city inhabited only by members of Smashing Pumpkins, BillyDec, Chief Keef and Richard Roeper and former Mayor Daley perched on a bench in the Viagra Triangle where he can smoke a stogie, as far as we know. -World Class, baby!

Me, I like smelts.  I like them pan fried, deep fried and when I'm Fully Kreuzened - live.  The absolute best was Rocky's.  Rocky's was the stuff of legend - as architecture and as cuisine.  The Italian family owned fried fish palace operated as a bait-shop, as well as eatery, "It`s named for Joe ``Rocky`` Panzo, who was born in Italy before the turn of the century and came to Chicago during the Roaring `20s. "

Rocky's was open from April Fools Day to Thanksgiving.

In 1981, I took my pal Mark Manning, who was in residency at Grant Hospital to Rocky's. Manning, now a semi-retired surgeon in Del Rio Texas, is a Southie from Boston and no stranger to fine fried fish, as in Kelly's on Revere Beach and the No Name over by 151/2 FishPier in Boston, waxed rhapsodic on Rocky's fare.  He had the clams, (" These OUR CrowHawgs, Hick, not clams!"), the shrimp ("These ain't shrimp they're midget prawns or something.") and then had his first ever smelts. Manning was hooked. . .or netted, by these fresh water sardines. Smelts were his caviar. "Hick, Pal-ey, lets stroll ovah to Rocky's" became his mantra throughout his stay here in Chicago, through his career as an Air Force Surgeon and to his recent call from Texas.  " Rocky's . . .I still get all weepy on that place."

Me too.

I miss alot of the great things that made this town - neighborhood saloons with one choice of draft beer and that great cork smell from the beer soaked and reuseable cork or wood pulp coasters; mom and pop stores, dime stores. butcher markets, pop in bottles, Ward bosses who not only tool a few envelopes, but the time to listen to complaints of anyone in their fiefdom and five very different newspapers who hired good writers.

I love Chicago.  I liked it better when it was a town.

Natasha Korecki Helps Illinois Voters Spot the Loonies - Early and Often

You can't keep goofs down and that is why these Room Temperature I.Q.s hold public office!

Love me some Commie Chanting!  Everybody!

Grassroots/Netroots
Basket full of Grapefruits
Readnot/Thinks less
Illinois is in a Mess!

Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho!
We don't have no where to Go! (repeat . . .Early and Often)

You can not say that Progressive International is not having an impact - Elizabeth Warren is taken seriously . . . no really.

Here in Illinois, Cook County and Chicago we have an endless parade of goofballs, grifters and GooGo Fascists ( 3Gs) holding public office and looting our bankrupt communities six ways to Sunday.

Rahm Emanuel, once a 3G darling, and now considered a tyranical plutocrat ( he is THAT and change) Hell bent on destroying the PACS that masquerade as labor.  These PACs are the monster-sized public sector "unions" of wage slave workers decked out in Purple and Red XXXL t-shirts who happen to earn wages via tax-payers.

Grassroots are photo-op mobs chanting folks transported to rallies by the busload to threaten spineless dummies in elected office to tax the middle class out of existence.

Netroots are the fundmentally lazy college educated slackers and hipsters who Tweet anonymous HashTag slogans and threats.

Then there are the rest of us.  Some of read and a few of us retain the ability to manage an original thought.  We many, we unhappy many, we band of patsies! We pay, we will pay, until we have nothing less than resignation and we too beg for XXL Purple and Red T-shirts and the concomitant wage-slavery of a husky $15 an hour.

The American middle class and its robust standard of living was created in large part because of American :Labor - Real Labor.  Real labor are the skilled and low skilled Industrial trades who fought, not Scott Walkers, but Fords, DuPonts and Rockefellers for right to fair wages.

Progressives too coin from guilty Fords, DuPonts and Rockefellers and put it to great use underming and now strangling the American Middle Class as it gasps for its last breath.

Thanks be to God and Natasha Korecki of the Chicago Sun Times the Illinois Band of Patsies a heads up on the Netroots and Grassroots carpetbaggers re-settled like Rahm Emanuel himself in Sweet Home Chicago to place a new generation of goofs, grifters and Goo-Go Fascists into public office.  This is the second such report from the writer who provided the most accurate and clear prose on the unmasking and ultimate pants-yanking of two Progressive frauds - Rod Blagoyevich and Congressman Jesse Jackson, Junior.

Natasha Korecki warned of Progressive International's shop-set-up in Illinois and the bridge to the Karen Lewis City Hall Expedition.

Now, Korecki links the Grassroots/Netroots Coalition of Leeches in its Chicago, Cook County and Illinois campaign -

Look out Chicago, a new political movement has arrived.
United Working Families, a partnership between labor groups, including the Chicago Teachers Union, and a coalition of a dozen community groups is expected to announce its formal launch on Monday, executive director Kristen Crowell tells Early & Often.
Crowell is the same woman who headed an effort to counter policies by Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker, raising $50 million along the way.
“This organization collectively will represent well over 100,000-plus members in a diverse range of communities in Chicago,” Crowell said of the Chicago group.
Crowell previously served as executive director of We Are Wisconsin, which grew out of protests in 2011 and eventually cultivated its battle into a full-blown recall election against Walker.

Remember the drum-circle jerks who camped out under the Madison Wisconsin Legislature rotunda and chanted Death to Walker and Tremble Ye Running Dogs?  Kristen Crowell managed that tasty street theatrical and rooted in the likes of Big Ed from MSNBC and Michigan Fats himself, Michael " 9Mansions" Moore.

Walker, if you will recall, was not Recalled and led his state out of fiscal water-boarding without killing off Organized Labor.

This time, however,  the Madison Class warriors and  Hipster Hobos will dress up like Chicago's Stan from Streets and San, Eddie the Electrician, Doreen the Dockworker  and Framin' Eamon the Irish Carpenter.  

You see, its all bout us, this time. Us, the Band of Patsies.

The Cadillac Commies are now the champions of the working mom and dad and all of their disgusting Catholic school attending spawn.

The natural Progressive contempt for We Band of Breeders is on hold until a thick cadre of creeps hold more elective offices than we can afford.

Still, it’s no coincidence. The Chicago group has been in discussions with the Working Family Party — a progressive group that successfully backed candidates for office in various states — about modeling some of their programs, including community outreach and candidate training. . . . Crowell said the group is developing its political strategy, including whether it will back a slate of aldermanic candidates.

“Certainly, it is our opinion that the current leadership is not doing enough to take care of our folks,” Crowell said. United Working Families will focus on “finding, recruiting and supporting candidates who are going to be with us.”

“It’s not about elected officials, it’s about members having a role and having a voice in Chicago.” 

I have a voice and I have very nice baritone.  I sing out when I am delighted and wail up a storm when creeps like Elizabeth Warren, Jan Schakowsky, Wee Mike Quigley, Dithering Dick Durbin and Governor Pat Quinn want to side with me and mine.  But that's just me.

Natasha Korecki told us to " Look Out, Chicago!"  Now, lets see if the Progressive 2 X 4 whacks the Band of Patsies between the eyes and continues to murder the American Middle Class.

I'm Hearing 'Gun Violence' is Bad . . .Everything Else is Just Dandy!

I heard the Chicago Police boss say that 17 deaths and 82 bullet mutilations is just unacceptable. He immediately shifted blame from shooters holding hand guns to his people with a John Deweyesque lab lesson, “We're square-rooting* nine ways from Sunday what is it that happened. Was it a fatigue factor? Did we give (too many) people (time) off? Because the fireworks were Friday and Saturday. That's where we had a lot of folks deployed during those time frames.” He admitted the numbers of bodies taking rounds was unacceptable,

I wonder, what exactly would be an acceptable rate of ballistic intrusions on carbon foot-prints over a few hours in Chicago?  A real headstratcher that one.

Mayor Chicagoland was equally huffed and puffed about the numbers, the optics and the growth of ballistic corporeal intrusions over Independence Day Weekend.These guys are almost mildy concerned enough to actually give voice to what everyone else in Chicago knows?

Not a chance.
In April when the temperatures spiked after the long Arctic Chicago winter, so do did bullet gusts and Rahm said,

"Every child deserves a childhood, regardless of where they live. But to do that, our city and community, the neighborhoods that make up this city, cannot live by a code of silence," Emanuel said at a news conference at an Edgewater school to announce more international baccalaureate programs. "They have to live by a moral code."

"Now I've read some of this, and I just want to say this, when some people go 'Well, it's the weather.' It's whether you have values," the mayor said. "Yes, weather's an impact. Where you put police is an impact. Whether you have summer jobs, after school programs, camps, summer reading programs. We have to do that and more."

And By Jingo, he did!  In fact he said so in the wake of 4th July fussilades, "While [Chicago is] providing record summer educational job opportunities and summer jobs, where is the federal [government] with assistance to expand that?"

Rahm knows that After School Programs do more to stop bullets* travelling between 770 -840 feet per second than decking out an entire neighborhood in T-shirts and marching behind Reverends at Gun Shops, or posting STOP GUN VIOLENCE signage hither and yon in ballistic afflicted neighborhoods.

Certainly, After School Programs do much, much more than having a well-led, well-manned and well-backed Police Department unencumbered by showers of pissy lawsuits and pissier media smears of cops doing their jobs bolstered by the pissiest of academic frauds with pie charts and mythopoeic yarns of systemic racism, brutality and working class contempt in bringing bad guys, cut-purses and sundry ne'er-do-wells to book for actual crimes.

After School Programs, especially when school is out for the summer, will end the bloodbath and bring Robert Redford's documentary crews back for another clear-eyed look at this Shooting Gallery on the Lake.

Boy, and all this time, silly me, I believed it was due to the fact that vicious, self-absorbed, bone-stupid and well armed thugs feel that they can get away with murder in Chicago, because Rahm, Daley, the Alderpersons, Toni Preckwinkle, Northwestern's Wrongful Industry, G. Flint Taylor, Locke Bowman,  Loevy & Loevy, both newspapers' editorial boards and icon columnists, WTTW, Pat Quinn, University of Chicago, CPS and too many grant-making philanthropies have made Chicago A Thug Comfort Zone. Thugs of all ethnic origins are surely welcome like this Evergreen Park native, sporting the fine old Irish/Viking name of Magnan.  Perhaps, when he came home from the Tattoo parlor sporting the Message at the center of what passes for his forehead might have indicated the road less travelled but certainly most bloody.

Science, my boy, science!

* Square Rooting -"Last year saw dramatic improvements after a particularly violent 2012 when Chicago topped 500 homicides for only the third time in a decade. But the momentum has appeared to slow so far this year. Through Sunday, homicides have dropped 5.6 percent, to 185, 11 fewer than the year earlier, police statistics show. But shooting incidents have risen to 953, up 5.3 percent from 905."

** Bullets in metric conversion -
Bullet Mass = 10.2 grams
Velocity = 230 meters per second
Energy = 282 Joules 

Labor Videte -The Attack on Bob Kelly ATU 308 Will Happen to All Skilled Trades

              

                         Labor Advovates Videte - Labor Leaders, be watchful.

Again, the Chicago Tribune lines up with the political power class and makes war on a genuine labor leader who has confronted the insular Claypool's CTA whenever Claypool attempted to afflict people who actually work for a living. The Tribune and the Sun Times Editorial Boards are protecting 'pay-to-play' grifters like Emanuel and Claypool, perhaps to maintain friendly access at the CTA and City Hall or perhaps to benefit from the venture capitalism rooted in Progressive deal making. The hypocrisy behind the 'death by a thousand cuts' ordered and organized by Claypool and his protected cronies and the willing participation in the public and personal attacks on Mr. Robert Kelly of ATU Local 308 is worthy of Saul Alinsky. If the skilled trades unions think that they will not also become targets of these pompous asses, they should give close attention to the stories.  All of skilled trades unions will get the same treatment, as that meted out to Robert Kelly.

The Chicago Tribune Editorial Board continues its punitive war on Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308's President Robert Kelly.  This is another exercise in the Saul Alinsky tactic perfected here in Chicago by David Axelrod known as the death by a thousand cuts. It is a Progressive thing.  It works.

Forrest Claypool, Rahm Emanuel's appointee to the CTA, is off limits to the bovine media who graze only with the approval of the Progressive Elites. The bovine media ( editorial boards, some columnists, activists lawyers, foundations controlled by Progressives, academics and their patrons) work in concert with a limited number of voices all rooted in the ideals, goals and tactics of the Hyde Park Mafia.  The Democratic Party, once called the Machine has not existed since Harold Washington won the 5th Floor. Forrest Claypool has flourished in these times.

Forrest Claypool, like every Progressive political animal I could name, is not a people person.  He is a some people person - people who can protect him, enrich him, do favors for him and advance him.  People who can not do for him need to stay put. stay quiet, or stay dead.

Robert Kelly is skilled tradesman who earned his advancement by dint of study and careful attention to the job at hand.  So competent is Mr. Kelly, that his fellow workers asked Kelly to represent them and lead them.   Kelly is life-long member of a skilled trades union and skilled tradesman.  Unlike other public sector unions, the skilled trades are led by one of their own - someone who went through the apprenticeship and certified each step up the pay scales with studies and practices paid for our of his own pocket.  The monster public sector unions, especially SEIU, are led by degree-waving social science majors from big universities.

The Progressive political class and the bovine media changed the meaning of Labor away from the skilled and industrial trades to the massive Political Action Corporations of SEIU, AFSCME which provide cash and T-shirted mobs to political aspirants.

The Skilled Trades ( Carpenters, Engineers, Plumbers, Pipe Fitters, Machinists & etc.) are open targets for smears, ridicule and death by a thousand cuts from the bovine media.  The Skilled Trades are and at the moment remain autonomous.  They control the qualifications for and admission to the apprenticeship programs they run.  Progressives have long wanted all apprenticeship programs controlled by the State of Illinois, where they would intensify the power of people in control -Rahm Emanuel, Toni Preckwinkle and Pat Quinn.

Robert Kelly became the target of bovine media only because he refused to sell-out the membership of Local 308.  Forrest Claypool only plays with people who do for Forrest Claypool.  Kelly will not scratch Claypool's  confortable belly.

The last straw was over Kelly's refusal to play ball with Claypool, Rahm and Pfleger over the ex-con CTA job hop.  Since December, Citizen Mike Pfleger issued a Fatwah on Kelly, led a protest that included Bobby Rush at the Local 308; the Sun Times accused Kelly of snitching a scholarship for his child, even though Kelly has been a life-long dues paying member of Local 308; Sneed smeared Kelly, BGA Andy Shaw, no stranger to pay-to-play himself and Crain's Chicago Business answered Claypools whine that Bob Kelly would not roll-over,

What is happening to Bob Kelly in media and in the flatulent out-cries at CTA and City Hall is a towering hypocrisy and gross injustice.

I hope the leaders of the skilled trades unions of greater Chicago and Illinois are noticing what is happening to one their own, because as sure as Forrest Claypool will resign his post at CTA and land another big salary and government appointment, Progressives are going to end skilled trade union autonomy.

You are next, Fitters, Carpenters, Plumbers, Machinists and Engineers.

Leo High School is Lourdes? No, but it will do: The Miles Turner Miracle

Miles Turner, Leo 2013 went to prom last night.

 

View more videos at: http://nbcchicago.com.

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Miles Turner's heroic battle against five bullets is nothing short of miraculous.  Miracles are scoffed at, just as they were in secularist France in the mid-18th Century when a peasant girl brought miraculous water to millions of physically afflicted people at Lourdes.

Cardinal George is in Lourdes.  Cardinal George is a very significant presence at Leo High School in the Gresham neighborhood.

It always seems that whenever Cardinal George is out of Chicago on the business of the three million Catholics of this city, the moral and political pygmies take the opportunity to insult, offend, or disrupt the work of the Archbishop of Chicago.  Once Francis Cardinal George boarded the plane for the sacred shrine in France, the Tribune's pencil-necked Progressive sucker-puncher Eric Zorn rolled out a series of insulting, flawed and cowardly screeds leveled at the Cardinal's objection to Mayor Rahm's punitive tax on church institutional water.   At the same time before the City Club of Chicago, Emanuel's City Council Floor Leader Alderman Pat O'Connor went all Vidkun Quisling on the Faith of His Fathers.

Mayor's floor leader blasts Catholic Church over water squabble
5/3/2013 7:30:00 PM
By FRAN SPIELMAN -Chicago Sun Times
Mayor Rahm Emanuel's City Council floor leader lashed out at the Catholic Church on Wednesday for rejecting the mayor's compromise offer on water fees for nonprofits even after, the alderman claimed, failing to clean its own house on the priest sex abuse scandal."They're clearly not owning up to the fact that there are people out there damaged by the church and they're talking about free water. Really?" said Ald. Pat O'Connor (40th).
Describing himself as "a Catholic, not a happy one these days," O'Connor said, "The church has so many internal problems, they ought to satisfy their own problems and they ought to address the things that are in the paper every day and stop talking about free water. Quit saying that they handled things right in the past or . . . or, even worse, saying mistakes were made in the past, but they're not correcting those mistakes."
Earlier this week, Cardinal Francis George jumped into the controversy caused by Emanuel's decision to cut off the free water spigot to struggling churches and nonprofits that provide a safety net of social services to needy Chicagoans.
The cardinal appeared at a news conference called by an "inter-faith coalition" of religious leaders to reject the mayor's offer to restore the free water perk to groups with assets under $1 million.
The cardinal called the lake a "gift from God" and said maybe "we should start charging the city for water" - not the other way around.

Water - a source of revenue for spendthrift city.  Water - a sign of the miraculous.

It all depends on which side of history, one takes the vantage point to see something.

Miles is afflicted with bullets from a gang-bangers gun; Cardinal George is afflicted not only with the intrusion of cancer, but a cultural and political class of  bigots who hide behind the same altar of science as secular inquistors who challenged the faith of the French peasant girl Bernadette's faith and blocked the miraculous waters of Lourdes . . .for a time, anyway.

 A Medical Bureau was established in 1882 to test the authenticity of the cures. The doctors include unbelievers as well as believers and any doctor is welcome to take part in the examination of the alleged cures. As many as 500 medical men of all faiths or no faith have taken advantage of the invitation each year. Many books and movies tell the story of Lourdes. Even Hollywood made a movie of this remarkable event in the 1940's entitled "The Song of Bernadette" which won six academy awards.

Today, Hollywood gives religion and the Catholic faith in particular very short shrift. Miracles are now called health policy by the secular Believe Nothings. Miles Turner stood again because his family believe.

Miles Turner was prayed for not only by his wonderful parents and family, but also the Cardinal and the extended Leo High School family.  Alumni called about Miles everyday and asked how they might help the family.  Most importantly, Miles was lifted out of his many recovery beds by skilled physicians, technicians, therapists, teachers and Dan McGrath, President of Leo High School and football coach and surrogate father of hundreds Mike Holmes.

Dan and Mike stood with Miles and his family nearly everyday from the time the young man was shot. I have never been more proud of human beings.

Dan and Mike joined the Turner family is moistening Miles' lips and throat with ice and later water.  Miles could not take liquids for months.  Christ's words from the cross, "I thirst!" were remembered. Miles was slaked with words of comfort and encouragement from the lips of Leo teachers Kristine Meany, Katy Hyland, Aurora Latifi and Bob Schablaske who tutored Miles when his strength returned.  Water and wisdom were not denied.

Cardinal George is in Lourdes, Miles went to prom and will graduate with his class.  The newspapers and TV stations that feature the Miles Turner miracle, will also mock the Cardinal and the very faith that is core of Leo High School.  It is good that those media outlets are awed by this story of personal
struggle, but is also sad that they will not consider the waters of miraculous faith that make the struggle worth the while.

The water tax is merely a punitive measure to force people of faith to go against their beliefs and become out-spoken critics, like Alderman Pat O'Connor, of the religion, the schools, the associations and institutions that made his 'personal struggle' a vacuum-packed biography and a lucrative life.

If Cardinal George had only been compelled to agree that abortion is health care and gay marriage religious liberty, churches could have all the water they could want -untaxed.

Had Miles Turner indicated with his suffering eyes the words "I Thirst" to Rahm Emanuel, or his City Council Floor Leader Pat O'Connor, his lips would have remained mighty dry.

As it is, Leo is not Lourdes, but it sure as hell will do.