Sit-in By Cynical Slobs - Sorry; Save for CSPAN Saps.

I am a Democrat.  Still vote that way - largely. I love my Alderman,Matt O'Shea of the 19th Ward, because he is a genuine representative of the people he represents.  I will not vote for a Congressman, State Senator,or State Rep who takes coin from the Abortion Industry, Planned Parenthood, or Personal PAC Illinois - sorry.  I am not a gun owner, never was and never will own one - not because I believe that guns kill people.  Guns can be used to kill people.  People kill with any means they find handy.

I do know that Planned Parenthood kills more people than the NRA.

I have buried far too many young African Americans ( 9 by my count) in the last twenty years.  Not one happened to be gang-banger.  Twice that number have been wounded and one splendid young man will be in a wheelchair for life.

I have had several close calls as well.  The first time in 1998, a bullet whispered past my left ear and then two more, before I hit the pavement at 79th Street and Sangamon.  I called my Dad, who was a WWII veteran of Bougainville, Guam and Iwo Jima and described the very distinct sound of the rounds. " Did fill your Union Suit?" was his response.  No, I answered.  " You will the next time."

He was right.  I learned to fall with my broad manly rump facing the shooter, so as not to take one in the head.  Strange things one learns in one's middle age.

I was not a target; I was in the way.  The students I mentioned above were targets, but they were no fortunate. Eric Ersery was murdered in 1998 at 79th & Laflin, trying to protect a young girl. Eric's mother had paid the last installment of his tuition that April day.  Eric went to classes and then on to work at Burlington Coat Factory at 81st & Cicero.  When he got off the 79th Street bus, Eric walked over to talk to the girl he knew.  Gangbangers mistook the girl for relative ( CPD Area 2 Detectives later explained) who had run afoul of them and they emerged from the gangway 9's a popping.  Eric covered the girl and his bullet peppered body was found over the girl, who also died.

I don't hate guns.  I don't hate inanimate objects.  I hate the acts of people too stupid and too thuggish to consider the consequences of their wants.

I hate bullying. I hate violence,  I hate stupidity.  Most of the mugs in the photo attached above from my experience with them (Schakowsky, Quigley, Duckworth, Davis) as people who impressed me to be very stupid bullies.  Violent? Beats me.

I do not like meaningless gestures, nicely phrased appeals to our better angels; especially from people who care only their position, power and pleasure - preachers, pundits and politicians, for example.

Aside from Robin Kelly (whom I have never met) , the people of the Illinois Congressional Delegation are some of the most obnoxious, smarmy, dim-witted, opportunistic and puffed up bullies, it has been my sad experience to suffocate some of my time earth in their company.

To say that this group of self-serving snobs and simpering bootlickers is in any way shape or fashion sincere, beggars logic and sentiment.

Their rumps kissing the floor of the Nation's Capitol insult the victims of thuggery world wide.

Guns do not kill people and more than pencils fail exams.

People who pretend otherwise are sitting on the floors of Congress.

Tribune Editorial Board - Repeats the Obama Senate Gambit for Tammy Duckworth

In 2004,the Editorial Board and its Care Kid Columnists of the Chicago Tribune did more* to give Barack Obama Senator Peter Fitzgerald's seat than an army of 11th, 14th, 17th, 18th, 19th & 47th Ward City workers could do with millions of walking around dollars, Michael Shakman and all of his works consigned to the back of UPS 40' trailer bound for Nome and limitless air time on WTTW.

2004. . . Dave Axelrod, one-time kid reporter for the Chicago Tribune, went full smear with help of Northwestern disc Jockey-editor Bruce Dold had four years of practice in the editorial driver's seat.  Sealed divorce records of public people became the thermonuclear detterant to one's decision to remain in a race. Millionaire, Army vet, school teacher, philanthropist and venture capitalist ( yes, he built that life, Barry) was the road-block to Barack Obama. Tammy Duckworth Bruce Dold's editorial page and his rag-rangers went all over Blair Hull like a cheap suit, until he opened his own divorce records.

Danny Hynes ran second to Barack in the Democratic Primary because he did so with the very same enthusiasm and grit that I ran yesterday's Chicago Marathon.

Now, for the Republican Primary.  Jack Ryan, a school teacher, venture capitalist, and Chick Magnet, needed to be eliminated Bruce Dold, sent the Trib lawyers to California to have a compliant judge forcibly 'unseal' the divorce file - because the public needed to know the private life of a would be public man.

The Chicago Tribune made Barack Obama and aside from scrutiny by John Kass and Dennis Byrne and a very few others, this organ played Obama's waltz into the White House.

Today, its shameless folly is played out in its endoresemnt of Tammy Duckworth, the moveable feast for Dem-Progressives. who moves more than an old man's bowels.

2006 article: Illinois's 6th congressional district election, 2006In the 2006 election, Duckworth was the Democratic nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives seat for the 6th congressional district of Illinois which was vacated by long-time incumbent Henry Hyde. Duckworth lost to her opponent, Representative Peter Roskam, by 4,810 votes.^[8][34][35]2012Main article: United States House of Representatives elections in Illinois, 2012#District 8In July 2011, Duckworth launched her campaign to run in 2012 for the re-drawn 8th congressional district of Illinois.^[1] She defeated her opponent Raja Krishnamoorthi to win the Democratic nomination on March 20, 2012, and will face incumbent Republican incumbent Joe Walsh in the general election on November 6, 2012. Wikipedia

Once an election boundary  pre-drawn, Dawn Clark Netsch and Abner Mikva begin scouting real estate for Tammy Duckworth's entry into the lists.

Tammy Duckworth gave her blood and limbs in the service of America and for that deserves the honor and respect of all.

Since, her heroic recovery Tammy Duckworth has been a government appointee and frequent candidate.  No less a political reformer than Governor Rod Blagojevich appointed Duckworth to the post of Illinois Veterans Affairs Director, where she was duly criticized for using state time and vehicles to make political appearances for frequent election victim Dan Seals, another Progressive card-board cut-out.  Following some bad press, Tammy Duckworth got hereself a Federal appointment and new opportunities to run against Joe Walsh.

Tammy Duckworth's service deserves respect, but certainly not a place at the Progressive trough that is paid for by tax-payers. God bless her, but don't vote for her,

Bruce Dold's endorsement is a re-play of the Obama ascent to power and a term ending November 6th.  The editorial praises Tammy Duckworth because she is not Joe Walsh! Bruce even leads with his patented Axelroding of Tribune enemies -

Then there were the tax liens, the building foreclosure, the suspended drivers license, the court fight over child support …
It's too bad, because the Joe Walsh who showed up for our endorsement interview had a lot more to offer than the Joe Walsh whose antics are splashed all over YouTube. In a face-to-face meeting with Duckworth, he was direct, specific, and even charming.
Walsh pulled no punches about his views. He embraced the plan offered by Rep. Paul Ryan to restructure Medicare. He said he would not raise taxes, period. He said the long-term fix for Social Security is to "put younger Americans in charge of their retirement income." To achieve lower tax rates overall, he would support eliminating deductions for mortgage interest and charitable donations.
Duckworth, by contrast, was noncommittal on some key issues, and largely drew from the Democratic playbook. She said she was not ready to make major changes to either Medicare or Social Security. She would increase taxes for those earning more than $1 million a year. She'd be OK with ending the deduction for second homes and yachts.
Duckworth also said she'd cut oil, gas and agribusiness subsidies, and that better supervision of wasteful defense contracts could save $9 million a day. But Walsh is correct when he says those cuts wouldn't dent the deficit. "We have to reform entitlements, period."
Where he offered solutions, Duckworth too often offered only a promise to search for one.
That all might sound like it's leading up to an endorsement of Walsh but ... it's not.
Walsh has been a congressman made for cable television, but not for his constituents. He has fueled the political vitriol that has paralyzed Washington, that nearly shut down the federal government, that has failed to produce meaningful fiscal reform and economic recovery. We saw something in that endorsement interview — what a congressman Joe Walsh might have been.
Our endorsement in the 8th Congressional District goes to Duckworth.

Here is the tepid, shuck's she's a wounded vet endorsement -

When we supported Duckworth in a 2006 run for Congress, we said she wasn't politically polished. Unfortunately, she has since become a more-practiced politician. Practiced, that is, in not offering her opposition targets by getting too specific on solutions. We have, though, always admired her character and moxie. She risked her life for her country, and lost both legs when an Iraqi grenade struck her Blackhawk helicopter in 2004. So yes, she's a war hero, though she says that label belongs to the comrades who saved her life. She served as director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs for three years and assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for two. We believe she will draw on all that experience to represent the district well. We hope she will challenge her own party leaders. Duckworth has the capacity to inspire, Walsh tends to antagonize. Duckworth is endorsed.

The Chicago Tribune placed a young inexperienced egoist in the U.S. Senate in 2004 and sky-rocketed that man who America fully saw in contrast to a man of ability for the first time in Denver last week.  That performance  was a Obama's A -Game, folks.  Illinois can not afford another "aint'she great" light-weight in government - We are topped off!

Pat Quinn, Sheila Simon, Jan Schakowsky, Deb Mell, Deb Shore, Mike Quigley, Forrest Claypool, Toni Preckwinkle . . .how they working out for us?

*  But Obama wouldn't have been elected to the U.S. Senate, much less president, without a few more sex scandals yet. In the 2004 Illinois Democratic Senate primary, Obama badly trailed multimillionaire Blair Hull for months. He and Michelle agreed that if he lost that race, he was out of politics. Then divorce papers revealed that Hull's wife had accused him of physically assaulting her. (Hull said he didn't want to "relitigate" his divorce.) Obama was already moving in the polls, and he had to fend off other candidates, but after the scandal he surged into the lead and won the primary.At first the general election pitted Obama against GOP Senate nominee Jack Ryan, a popular banker expected by many to win handily. Until, that is, Ryan's wife, TV actress Jeri Ryan, said her husband pressured her to accompany him to sex clubs and have sex in front of strangers. Ryan withdrew from the race and Obama cruised to victory against fringe candidate Alan Keyes. Daily Beast 2009