Question for the 'Watchdogs' - How Soon Will the Feds Fell Forrest?

                                      December 8, 2017 - The Great Fellation of Forrest

“Issues over which you should leave go to corruption or profiteering. What you have here is a guy who wanted to get the best possible representation for the kids of Chicago and was overzealous in making that happen, . . .   Rahm, from my conversations with him, appreciates the progress the system has made in terms of dealing with its horrific financial problems and educationally on Forrest’s watch.” David Axelrod in The Maroon

I read the Maroon, the paper published by University of Chicago, home of Richie Daley, Dave Axelrod and the Hyde Park Mafia.

Let's the head of an organization shops six and settles on his college roomie to justify the Federally funded salary of lawyer with a huge conflict of interest and covers-up his tracks in a conspiracy to defraud the children he has sworn to serve is overzealous?

Yeah, Dave and that  Old Joe Stalin sure was vexed by them Ukrainians, some.

Comb Over Dave is really good at salting the soil with meaningless words - masterful.  Eight years of Obama and people still think he was better than . . .mildly adequate.

That's what a link to University of Chicago will do for your rhetoric. Dave is a wheel at U of C.

The University of Chicago is and has been tightly allied to City Hall and the County Board from the time that Richard M. Daley chiseled away at his Bridgeport foundation and built policies upon the sand dunes of the Midway.  His wife made him move out of the neighborhood and away from the people who put him in office, toss childhood friends under the buses and embrace effete political tyros cadre-ed and marshaled by Abner Mikva and funded with the many millions of dollars attached to 501(c)3 strings in the progressive web.

University of Chicago embraced every political grifter and every Marxist ambulance chaser hell-bent on power and social engineering.   Richard M. Daley - formerly Richie - wanted to please the bride and best his old man.  He was nice guy when he was Richie Daley.  Richard M. Daley?  Not so much.

Power and cover he got and did his minions - Rahm Emanuel, Forrest Claypool and David Axelrod the Three Amigos of the room temperature I.Q. generated wit of Michael Sneed.

The old Ward Democratic Party was chopped up with the Shakman axe, set fire with Harris, Pritzker, Woods, MacArthur and Polk kindling and bellowed with hot air from The Tribune, Sun Times, Chicago Reader, WTTW, WBEZ, WBBM, NBC and Disney's ABC for decades.

The new Progressive Democratic Oligarchy was unstoppable.

Claypool hopped from six figure salary, screw-ups, scandals and sophistry to bigger piles of pension wampum - unexamined, unchallenged and celebrated by our media Watchdogs, the BGA and all of us.

Axelrod leaped to the White House.

Rahm Emanuel oozed onto the 5th Floor.

The Litulone, Cuchulain and Kutoyis of Cook County, Illinois, America and our globalist world, Barack H. Obama magically appeared in the 1990's from a clot of blood dropped from a wounded buffalo and rose via the magic of 501(c)3 boodle, a compliant media and seedy world created in Hyde Park Laboratory Schools, Slum Real Estate Ventures and Policy Parties.

The Progressive Democratic Oligarchy hugged, petted and foisted the University of Chicago approved John Henry upon our consciences and Barack Obama went from sic and fetch at the Woods Fund for Billy Ayers, to adjunct instructor ( Constitutional Law Scholar) to State Senator, US Senator to 44th President of United States and the Nobel Prize!  Check Please!

The simple fact that this 'life-long Sox Fan' could not name one White Sox player (1900-present), much less, could not under stand that one gets into a boxing ring by climbing through the ropes, is and remains a talisman for people's consciences.

More significantly POTUS '44's administration covered the dealings of Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel with impunity immunity for eight happy years.

Now, the onomatopoeic bully is in the White House and the Justice Department is no longer the cattle prod of Eric Holder, or candy dish of Loretta Lynch.

Forrest Claypool might be the G-string in this striptease.

His resignation said more about the hot breath of Feds on the white collar criminals with Progressive pedigrees, than the purchase of airline tickets to Cuba, or Montenegro,  most non-extradition countries are 'emerging nations' and PBS approved - all but the Vatican, but too is changing.

The timing ( Friday News Cycle), the fellation (Rahm's CPS Love Fest) and media feather bedding ( Tribune and Sun Times editorials with some serious Trump thumping) lead me to believe that the Progressive Democratic Oligarchy of Chicago has pooped the bed, one too many times.

You can't make a desert with felling the forest and Forrest is about to make a sandbox of Chicago's preening plutocrats.

Dry times ahead.

Okay Watchdogs!  Sic 'em!

Payback Really is a Bitch! Cook County Purge of Teamsters, Guards and Anyone Toni Preckwinkle Don't Like.

Hyde Park 2006 Independence Day parade (left to right starting at center in light green): Preckwinkle as the Statue of Liberty, Illinois State Representative Barbara Flynn Currie as Uncle Sam, and Chicago City Council Alderman Leslie Hairston as Betsy Ross

I did a buddy of mine a solid. He asked me to help get Pat Quinn elected Governor for real in 2009 and Pat would do my buddy a solid.  I was dubious.  No Progressive ever does any one a solid.   I am old school; I supported and voted for Pat Quinn for Governor. I still need a shower on that one.

That sin of mine is the real reason why Chicago, Cook County and the State of Illinois are so screwed up.

We all do 'nice people,' a solid.

Jeremy Bentham, the great 19th Century economist argued for the greatest good for the greatest number of people.  Can't argue with that.

However, for a Progressive, the greatest number is # 1.  That truth was argued to young President Teddy Roosevelt by glaciologist John Muir and still holds true today.

I did a buddy a solid and did not vote my own conscience.  I detested Pat Quinn's politics going all of the way back to the days when he carried water for a crook and a Progressive - Governor Dan Walker.
Quinn opposed all regular Democrats, because he wanted to be viewed as a Reformer ( aka - unskilled policy bully).

The Late Illinois Senate Leader Phil Rock was a Democrat of the old school - anti-abortion, anti-Marxist and true to the values that created the greatest standard of living in world history. Phil Rock kept goofs like Quinn at arm's length.  That was long ago, when being middle class was a good thing.

Pat Quinn and Dan Walker and Abner Mikva and Dawn Clark Netsch and Bill Singer and Jesse Jackson and Michael Shakman and Larry Bloom and Toni Preckwinkle and the late Red guru Dr. Quentin Young were dead set against  this middle class hegemony.

Toni Preckwinkle was a Catholic high school ( Visitation), when Pat Quinn was honing his Hyde Park Mafia ( Abner Mikva) chops.  Preckwinkle had a reputation as a humorless, racist ( hates whitey) and not very well read history instructor and those qualities made her an ideal candidate for IVI-IPO Democrats.

It took Toni three swings  with the IVI bat to unseat Tim Evans for Alderman of the 4th Ward, but the rest is the typical Progressive history - suck up to Regular Democrats, gain their trust, knife them in the kidneys and repeat, repeat, repeat and repeat while keeping the media with you.

Sometimes, the Feds get in the way of Progressive Independent and Reform minded Democrats -Larry Bloom (neighboring 5th Ward Alderman), IVI-IPO operative Bob Creamer and Illinois Governors Dan Walker and Rod Blagojevich come to mind.

When Reformer Larry Bloom went to school in 1999, Mikva Challenged Federal Judge was wont to complain about Federal prosecutors for  "prosecutorial zeal does not, as I perceive it, justify overstatements of the nature I find in some respects in this case."  Convict Larry Bloom whined, "I was mugged--not by any petty thief or street tough, but by agents of my government, our government."

Translated - "Larry Stole and cheated on his taxes but criminy . . .he's a Goo-Goo!"

Thus far, Toni Preckwinkle has escaped the eyes of the Feds.  Therefore, Toni Preckwinkle does what she wants and to whom she wants. It is now the Teamsters, who work for Progressive rival Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart.

Tit for tat?

Or a case of unintended consequences?

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart’s office just got a letter from Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle listing 925 positions designated for layoffs — if a judge doesn’t allow a countywide sweet beverage tax to take effect by August.
• The kicker: Sneed is told 377 of those jobs, many of them held by Cook County Jail correctional officers, are held by members of the Chicago Teamsters Union.
So here’s the kick in the butt.
Recently, the Teamsters Union took out a full-page newspaper ad opposing the tax, which Preckwinkle vigorously backed.
“This sure looked like a shot across the bow,” a top Sneed source said.
“Or interesting timing that many of the designated layoffs were members of the Teamsters Union, which took out the ad opposing the tax,” the source said.

You see, Teamsters not only work as Correctional personnel, but also deliver Pop. Pop is a Progressive target, because fat kids love it and it rots teeth, creates obesity and goes great with salty snacks.

Teamsters deliver salty snacks.

Teamsters also deliver votes.

Let's get back to my sins.

I agreed to do a pal a solid.  I helped support Pat Quinn for Governor.  Running with daffy Pat filling the void left by reformer Rod Blagojevich, for trying to sell  a Senate seat to IVI-IPO Alumnus Barack Obama, was Toni Preckwinkle for President of Cook County Board to unseat Todd Stroger, created by Progressive patron Tom Hynes, to replace the late John Stroger, a Regular Democrat and gentleman to the backbone.

My pal was immediately stabbed in the back by Pat Quinn upon his election, because Quinn has the loyalty of a gnat.

Toni Preckwinkle rode Quinn's coat-tails, because of people like me.  I did a pal a solid and created the person taking jobs away from 925 families in Cook County.

That's Progressive.  Get people to do you a solid and then give it to them good and hard.

As Progressive Federal Judge Milton Shadur lamented when he was forced to sentence Reformer Larry Bloom, "It is true of law-enforcement agencies in addition to anyone else that if you lie down with dogs, you are likely to get up with fleas."

As the great Fats Waller once reasoned, " One never knows, Do One?"

Ain't that a Bitch, Judge?

The Problem of the Chicago Voter Outside of the Ensorcelled Circle

Imagine if a Mayor of Chicago, had at one time been a civil engineer and actually read Mary Wisniewski's fine piece of reporting in the editorially awful Chicago Tribune - all crap that Rahm approves.  Too bad a Mayor is not a civil engineer by trade . . . Oh, that's right . . .one (Ed Kelly) was but that was long before Ms.Wiszniewski wrote about crumbling bridges.

Instead, we live in a politics and policy driven Progressive, global, Banana Republic. This is a malicious make-believe palace, a fairy tale world where magical things can happen for an Oh, so very few, including an eight year stay in the White House for a very special lad, or where a little guy can sit on another little guy's lap and tell him that he too dreams of being Mayor.

It is a place where big dreams count as nothing and fortunes trump virtue.

It is a tight ensorcelled circle that welcomes only the approved - the businesses, the banks, the law firms, the real estate wizards, the University and 501(c)3 public policy tax vacuums and the very few people enchanted for windfalls.

Outside of the ensorcelled circle only those with an immediate connection to the source of gold some few benefit with multiple pensions, Shakman exempt appointments, or sinecures beyond  of the vision of  everyone else.

That leaves out millions of Chicagoans and many more Cook County residents.

Outside of the ensorcelled circle people make due, beef about water bills, tax increases, burgeoning crimes against person and property, horrific public schools and worse public servants.

Yet, these same put-upon people vote the ticket every election and every time.

Gun Violence and Police Misconduct keep every eye on flaccid media writers like Eric Zorn, Neil Steinberg, Stephen Chapman and Mary Schmich, or smarmy echo-chamber Orwellians on WBEZ, or WTTW.

Chicagoans nod, sigh and wait for the Cubbies. Sadly band wagon south siders feel a tingle in the thighs over the baby bear and forget 2005 as a time past. Same goes with political villainy.  Chicagoans are too nice by half.

They scratch their heads about

• Forrest Claypool's latest six figure job and pension package
• Suzanne Mendoza's leap from Herbie Pulgar to the Comptoller's chair
• Pat Quinn
• Proco Joe
• Toni Preckwinkle
• Mike Quigley
• Jan Schakowsky

And think nothing about putting an " I'm With Rahm" sign on the their lawns

Chicagoans will always do a neighbor a solid; even if the neighbor works against every fundmental core value you have, makes a ton of money and pension for following orders.

The only thing necessary for the perpetuation of evil in Cook County is for good people to do a solid for Frannie, Billy, Tommy, or any other knucklehead with a government gig.

It is one thing to break wind in the bath tub; it is another thing altogether to bite the bubbles.

John Kass Coins Brilliant Neologism - Supine Journalist and Oligarchy Sycophants are American Kemalists

Kemalism (Atatürkcülük) is the main structure of realistic ideas and principles about the state, ideologies, economics and the society’s fundamental institution that assure the Turkish Nation’s full independence, peace and welfare for the present and the future, the state’s being dependent on the nation’s solidarity Oxford Islamic Studies

One thought, one voice - that is the resistance.  From Michael Moore to Bruce Dold; from Nancy Pelosi to Rahm Emanuel; from Mika Brzezinski to Sheriff Tom Dart they are one in the spirit and one with the laws, policies and editorials that create more opportunities for Red Light Camera Companies, Uber Board Membership, Gentrification Aldermanic Generosities, and Nepotism leading to Dynastic Sinecures!

The Chicago Progressive Banana Republic was replicated nationally for eight years with the Obama White House.

From the Progressive Mikva Shakman Chicago of the 1980's there evolved the many faced Richie Daley's Ameritech Chicago, Boeing Chicago, LaSalle National Chicago, Fifth Third and Goldman Sachs Chicago and finally in full flowering fruition as Brand Obama Chicago, which it still remains with Rahm.

This oligarchic tendency is national and not limited to the City formerly known as Big Shoulders, but a coast and coast tendency blooming in New York and walking the red carpet in L.A.

The vast middle opened the door of the White House for the Obama moving van on November 8, 2016 and the howls have increased in volume from David Brooks to Eric Zorn, from Lynn Sweet to to Sally Kohn - TRUMP'S HITLER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, cupcakes, Hitler is still Hitler and Joe Stalin would be as welcome as the flowers in May on Morning Joe.

However, the only voice in print journalism un-impressed with, un-Hope-iumed and un-shackled by the Obama Chimera, John Kass offers a more compact nomenclature - American Kemalism, to describe the need, the plead, and greed that it corporatist statism covering American left culture like a Scherwin Williams ad.

In a brilliant rhetorical Granby taking the dominant voices of oligarchy to the mat, John Kass pins the supine media of the Obama Years:
But this business of finding a renewed sense of journalistic mission poses an awkward, unanswered question.

Just where was that sense of mission for the past eight years?
You know where it was. It was in polite hibernation, on its back, with President Barack Obama in the White House.
When he was elected, there were happy newsroom tears of real joy for America's first black liberal president. It wasn't contrived emotion. It was real, and there was much bonding over a sense of accomplishment.
But there is a cost to powerful emotional connections with a politician. Love of a president can blind, but so can hatred of a president. And in the land of the blind, things tend to get lost, like journalistic mission.

One might wonder.

But John Kass is a great neighbor and he not only clears up the matter of the skunks behind the dry wall, but shoos them out.

Now journalists are at the barricades once again, like those idealistic students of Paris in "Les Miserables," protecting us against the orange-haired barbarian they so very much despise.
And they also seek to protect America against his populist army, that forgotten working class that sent him to Washington and that frighten them so very much.
Trump despises his media critics, and in his raging narcissism, shrieks that what we call the establishment media is "the enemy of the American people," and this only encourages them to hunker down even deeper into their Left vs. Trump bunker.
Yes, the criers of Beltway news are on the political left. But that's like saying rain is wet. Where's the surprise in this?
Modern American liberal journalism might not believe religion has a place in the public square, but it has a deep abiding faith, in government to accomplish the good. And there is the danger.
Because if journalists were truly intent on speaking truth to power, they wouldn't be defending the unelected rulers of America:

One slight objection: Les Miz is so Bill Clinton.  These are Hamilton Partisans!

However, the guy from the Hood who can sling ink and say something, puts the cherry on this sundae with this neologism and a nod to Busty Brzezinski of Morning Joe:

 The unelected and unaccountable federal bureaucracy is true power. The federal governmental leviathan is the faceless vanguard of the status quo. It is the vast hiding place of our modern American Kemalists, who are at once the servants of empire, and its quiet rulers, and they will not relinquish power easily.
Trump was sent to Washington by the majority of the states and by his voters — those folks repeatedly mocked and ridiculed as deplorables by Beltway journalism — to break that status quo.
And the bureaucracy fights back, offering crippling news leaks and resistance against the White House — even classified intelligence leaks from the Deep State — in exchange for journalistic protection.
On the popular MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program, co-host Mika Brzezinski responded to whether Trump's attacks on the status quo were the fulfillment of campaign promises.
"Well, and I think that the dangerous, you know, edges here are that he is trying to undermine the media," Brzezinski said, "trying to make up his own facts. And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think. And that is the — that is our job."
Later, she tweeted out that her comments were purposely misinterpreted, but I listened to it again and again and it was quite clear to me.
Controlling what people think isn't a mere job. It's a mission.
And now it's been renewed.

Journalism is not dead.  It written by neighbors.

American Kemalists are outed. 

American Media - Our Own Oroville Dam: Thank You, Mrs. Conway!

The Conways




The American Media

News hucksters paved Donald Trump's path to the White House and wasted every brick trust in so doing.

People who wanted to see an end of to the global corporatist oligarchy built by Progressive Democrats during during the Clinton years and tuck-pointed by GOP mavericks and Skull and Bones opportunity trowel masters, hoped for Scott Walker or Rand Paul, or James Webb, or Ben Carson to emerge from the political hair-ball that was 2016 Election, but due to CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, Washington Post and  Internet-pockets of pimply Journolism at Salon, VOX and Daily Beast bet that Donald Trump would suck all of the air out of atmosphere and blow life into Hillary Clinton.

These people, me included. turned to Donald Trump as the only choice and hoped that he would be better than he seemed.

He was and sure seems to be - Michael Flynn notwithstanding.

I read that Morning Joe, as well as CNN has banned Kelly Anne Conway.  Good.  Kelly Anne Conway makes sense and confounds airheads like busty Mika and vapid Joe.

Mrs. Conway belongs to my crowd of people. People who shop main street, send the kids to Catholic school, speak plainly, understand the nuances of bullshitters and respond in kind, work for a living and care about the truth.  She does not 'only watch PBS, read the New York Times, or admire David Brooks.'  Mrs. Conway reads everything and also speaks with people who can not put a dime in her purse. I am getting to like Trump, because of Kelly Anne Conway.

My neighbors feel the same way.  I mean my neighbors who do not have Shakman exempt jobs with the City of Chicago, or the County,  Those folks say little, except " Can you BELIEVE Trump is President ?"  Why, yes.  Yes, I can and do. Most others say, " Trump's doing what he said he'd do.  This could work."

The media has become the Oroville Dam. That creaky California concrete weir poised to collapse at the next drop of rain.

For years Jerry Brown and other unicorn collectors have allowed the infrastructure to rot, while they pumped millions of dollars into human give-away programs and feel good unfunded mandates.

The dam is busting.

For decades the American journalism has worked the cult of personality and befogged debate with memes/

The dam is busting.


Kelly Anne Conway can not go on CNN, or Morning Joe.

Well, done, Mrs. Conway!

COPA Opens a New Shakman Industry: Chicago Values the Chatham House Rules

“I don’t understand how every good cop would not want a very harsh, strong police board,” Pfleger August 2016

The Fraternal Order of Police and its City Council allies opposed Emanuel’s plan to replace IPRA with COPA because they were afraid the new agency would be stacked against rank-and-file officers. But the extensive training in police organization, general orders and techniques could help ease those fears.Fran Spielman and Frank Main

I don't know a Cop who is afraid of anything - including the creeps that will crawl up his/her rump 'after weeks of COPA training on “vision and culture” of the new agency for all 140 of COPA’s full-time employees.

But, I interrupt Fran and Frank - 

Advocates have complained that the $8.4 million IPRA budget virtually guarantees that investigations of police wrongdoing will drag on for months or even years.
COPA’s budget will now be “closer to $17 million,” Fairley has said. The influx of resources is particularly important, considering the fact that COPA will inherit an expanded annual caseload tied to its broader powers to investigate false arrests, illegal searches, denials of counsel and other constitutional complaints. Sun Times

More money for Advocates!  One could build an empire being an advocate in Chicago.  One do! Michael Shakman!  Shakman
Advocates?  You mean Jamie Kalvan and Pastor Pfleger?  Why unnamed 'Advocates,' Dear Read?

You know.  Progressive Transparency means that everything is coming Sub Rosa! The Old Chatham House Rules,* doncha new?

To all of us helots that means, Move on.

Last week, I noted that my hometown is the only place in the Fifty States completely unaffected by President Elect 45's landslide. As well as voting in a fake judge - Cook County - Chicago presents more!

• Rahm Refuses to abide by Sanctuary City Laws
• Toni Preckwinkle Raises Taxes Again
• CPS Grifter-in-Chief Claypool offers kids Trump Trauma
• Cook Count Sheriff Tom Dart refuses to abide by Immigration Laws
• Chicago Media Refuses to Connect the Dots on Protestors and Source Funding
• Bishop Cupich adds a Red Hat to his Pallium after demanding that Marist deal with texting girls  and "take the necessary steps to deal with this situation swiftly." What would Pope Francis Do?
• CPD remains demoralized, understaffed and gripped by corrupt politics
• COPA will make sure Jamie Kalvan's Invisible Institute makes Progressive transparency the key to the treasure chest - just like Shakman Industries

Gee, why is everyone crying?  Nothing has changed.

The Shakman Decrees are idiotic but lucrative for Michael Shakman.

Police Officers will know operate under the yoke of Jamie Kalvan, Mike Pfleger, and the columnists still giving cover to half-truths and out and out lies.

Good morning, Chicago! Chatham House Rules Everywhere!  It is another Boondoggle of a Day!

*Chatham House Rules:"When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed. " Royal Institute of International Affairs

I am Voting Today - Deplorable, For What It's Worth

Yeah, that's right Hickey. With two Rs. H.I . . .Rockwell.


People get their shorts in a knot because I will not vote for Hillary R. Clinton, Jill Stein, or Gary Johnson. That leaves only Mr. Deplorable Himself, the Gettysburg Groper.

I do not care for whom you vote; you vote for thee - not me.

This is the terrible truth of a republican democracy - we must choose. Maybe, we will choose wrongly.

In my career as a voter ( 1972- Present)- here are my votes:
 1.( W) Richard M. Nixon: I worked for the 18th Ward Regular Democrat Organization to help elect McGovern Delegates.  In Miami, Jesse Jackson, Abner Mikva, Michael Shakman and Bill Singer challenged those delegates and the DNC tossed them - my first Progressive Rig-job. The Roe V. Wade easily put America on its death spiral.  I voted for Tricky Dick, who resigned and good old Gerald Ford pardoned the crumb - that nixed any vote for Jerry. I went to GOP dominated Kankakee, IL and began teaching in 1975.

2. (W)Jimmy Carter: Boy was that fun and then Mr. Peanut put on sweaters and gas went through the roof and Iran went crazy and rabbits attacked him and Brother Billy brewed beer and took bribes from the Libyans and I thought Ronald Reagan was scary and so . . .well, Ted Kennedy who drowned a girl popped up every election cycle like a legacy whack-a-mole and teased Gov. Moonbeam and Jimmy.

3.(L) Jimmy Carter got smeared and Ronald Reagan softened the hearts of blue collar Catholic voters, by fighting for the unborn, fighting the Reds, taking a bullet and behaving with dignity, but he was still a GOP, Protestant left-footer. Abscam, the Ruskie Afghanistan bleed out, Star Wars, Commie in Central America and Grenada, Lebanon and now , (l)Fritz Mondale

4. ( L) Fritz Mondale, sweet guy.  Road kill.  The Reagan Years - Pax Americana.

5. Then George Herbert Walker Bush emerged from the shadows of the Vice Presidency, CIA and Huge Oil and sounded like Aunt Nancy from Chebanse and we had TED Kennedy again, and finally   ( L) Mike Dukakis - Snoopy Drives an Abrams and the  Desert Storm of Poppi of Kennibunkport and then Bubba showed . . .upin 1988 at the DNC!   I had taken a job in Indiana and watched the world get goofier  beyond the pines and spring fed lake of La Lumiere School.

6. ( W.W.)William Jefferson Clinton and Albert Gore were the first two non-WWII veteran, baby-boomers to run for President and they seemed like great guys - one with a homely wife and one with a stunner. The guy with the pooch-Frau was the top of the ticket and word got around that he was quite a hound himself.  I remember pushing my son Conor in a stroller at the 1992 South Side Irish Parade and seeing Gore and Clinton work the crowd on Western Ave. two tall good looking guys in black topcoats. I voted Clinton over Dole in 1996

7.  Bubba had the chops and his two terms mired by repeated scandals about money and sex and finally the national humiliation of unveiling the truth about a President who could eat a pizza, enjoy a fellation from a young White Staffer and chat with a congressman about Bosnia all at once. Our moral soul fit like OJ's gloves.  I needed a shower. and ( L) John Kerry did not help with his I Had an Abortion  pinking up the Boston DNC, while he wind-sailed to the camera's - What and A$$hole!. GW Bush was gearing up for a royal coronation, because Kerry was as lame as he has been as Secretary of State and got hammered.  We went to War on Terror and I like the way GW Bush responded to the 9/11/2001 attack on America, until he took Poppi's phone call and allowed the Saudis to jet away scot-free and then sent our kids to Afghanistan and then Iraq.

8. (L) Al Gore 'invented the internet' and brought all of the excitement and energy of a glutton at Weight Watchers to a challenge to GW and my vote for the last Democratic Presidential Candidate of my career in the polling booth ended on the hanging chads.

9.( L) John McCain should have easily beaten Barack Obama in 2008: he had a great VP choice in Governor Palin, a great message, experience and the media behind him for the most part against a callow, not-very-bright, prickly, self-absorbed community organizer who was whiter than Clarence Thomas and pals with the very people who made me cast my virgin vote for Nixon.  The Mortgage Investment Bubble blew and the economy tanked.  McCain who had endured horrible dangers and excruciating torture at the hands of Communists, ran away from a capitalist bump in the road and all but stopped campaigning after September 2008. He allowed Sarah Palin and her entire family to become a target for ridicule and never stood up for her.  Obama handed him his ass.

10. Barack H. Obama with Valerie Jarrett handing him orders and orchestrating his every move is the most protected, petted and pitiful President in our nation's history.  Obama is the 501(c) 3 President and PAC powerful clothes-horse.  The GOP is a party of cowards, sycophants, martyrs and zealots interspersed with a few genuine men of integrity and ability. (L) Mitt Romney, the Walter Mondale of the GOP, was offered up in sacrifice to Obama, in order to save and even increase numbers in House and Senate.

Bringing me to Election 2016.  I really need a shower.  I would have voted Democrat for Jim Webb, Republican Scott Walker, or Independent Rand Paul.  Instead we have the current choices, a Shameless Abortion Happy Medusa and a Shameful Braggart and Groper.  The others are toys for the Never/Never crowd of moral fiber eaters.

I am voting when the early polls vote. I stand at 4-7.

W - Nixon, Carter, Clinton (2) = 4
L. Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Kerry, Gore, McCain. Romney =7

Here goes my ballot 2016!

Homework for Our Sun Times Watch Dogs - Connect the Dots Between Cop-Hating Policy and Jamie Kalven's Real Estate Ventures

“We'll go wherever the conversation takes us, but our point of departure will be an exchange about the stories our lives become in the world — the narratives we construct with our actions, the narratives others impose on us, strategies of narrative self-defense (including silence), and questions of narrative stewardship and responsibility.These issues, which are present for anyone who intervenes and acts in the world, are boldly dramatized by the lives of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.” Jamie Kalven

You just gotta say, 'Dude' when Jamie Kalven appears. You just gotta.



Here's some weekend fun!  I tried to make homework fun when I was an English teacher.  Well, unless I wasn't pissed off, or feeling sorry for myself because Catholic high school's paid such crumby salaries. . .sorry. . . .and I attempted to give the kids a chance to make some intellectual inquiries that were of some use to them. Make up a Canterbury Tale of your own that makes fun of your English teacher, or the guy working at Belscott's who never seems to bathe.  Go fishing on the mighty Kankakee River and do a Nick Adams Story like Old Ernie. Stuff like that.

I have one for the very best investigative journalists in Chicago - the Sun Times Watchdogs  a changing band of brother reporters.   The Watchdogs of the Sun Times, far too often confused by the editors with the always hapless Andy Shaw, presented the fruits of Jamie Kalven's labors - the long list of beefs against cops going back to 1967 - and never once mention Jamie Kalven.

Just wondering.  The CRs listed are the ones that came after Kalven's Citizens Police Data Project and the subsequent Justice Department inquiries, but shucks it's Jamie Kalven!

Now, how about some extra-credit!

Do a fun piece on Jamie Kalven, because this week he is all the rage!

I would like the Watchdogs to connect some dots for us - here is the clue - Real Estate!

Task: Find out how many real estate ventures Jamie Kalven had connected to Allison Davis and Altegeld Gardens and offer a commentary.  Was it interesting?  Was it lucrative> Does it have impact on Policing?  Bet it does.

Jamie Kalven is not only an activist but he is a well -insulated Progressive real estate player! He used to present himself as a real estate novelist a la Billy Joel, but has Google washed that past.

Yesterday DNAinfo informed all of us that Jamie Kalven - the hard-hitting Real Estate Novelist, Venture Marxist and founder of the Invisible Institute ( leading the way for a Shakman-like Empire in Cook County) - papered the City of Chicago with more than 40,000 copies of his findings

HYDE PARK — If you haven’t read Hyde Park journalist Jamie Kalven’s four-year-long reporting project on corruption in the Chicago Police Department, it’s about to become almost unavoidable.
Starting this weekend, Kalven will distribute to 400 locations across the city 40,000 free copies of his 20,000-word, four-part series on an alleged criminal gang of drug dealers operating within the police department for nearly 10 years with the knowledge of police leadership.
Kalven has become the leading voice on problems within Chicago’s police ranks. He has released documents showing officers subject to frequent complaints from the public go unpunished and was an early voice pointing out problems with the shooting of Laquan McDonald by officer Jason Van Dyke.

Not only that, but also - there is a Jamie Kalven Mythology roll-out Nationwide! It's sensational - in the real meaning of the word!

James Warren of Vanity Fair and formerly Chicago Tribune calls it a hit that only needs a great musical score!

Imagine “The Wire,” “Serpico,” “Prince of the City” and “The Shield” rolled into one. It's why Hollywood producers should read “The Code of Silence” and give Chicago freelance journalist Jamie Kalven a call. . . .It's also a tale both of how mainstream media often blows law enforcement coverage and how potentially important stories run smack into journalistic conventions and just get lost. . . .His expose is like the grittiest fictionalized drama: dirty cops, abject poverty in crime-ridden projects, people wearing wires, murders to silence informants, the good guys being demonized and put in real peril, and ultimately a department hierarchy looking the other way.

Set it to music, Chief Keef!

 Can you say Hamilton?  How about Kalven?  Too, close to that other Calvin - the Klein guy?  Maybe.  How about Jamie!  Jamie, Lad! Right out of Master of Ballintrae. Sen-SAYSHUNAL!

Every left leaning magazine, broadcast outlet, talk-hub, podcast, website, newspaper and cop hating rag in the nation, Huffington Post, Slate, Jet, Vanity Fair, Al Jazeera, and, of course, NPR, are picking up James Warren's Poynter Piece - Meet Jamie Kalven.

James Warren not only wrote the Vanity Fair fallation, but seems to be the media's go-to narrative, which can only mean legal and cultural policy to follow close on the act - root and branch.

Jamie Kalven is talking up a plenty his own bad self! Kalven lays out the coordination orchestrated over decades of Burge Bashing and honed sharply during the Richie Daley Final Days.  A tiny Polish bartender female was horribly beaten by drunken monster, taking the day off as a cop, and that was caught on camera.  Kalven lays out just how quickly two leading Lawsuit Lotto Lawyers welded up the off-duty heroics of Abbate to the Burge Mythology = Futterman and Bowman.

The joint motion created a situation in which the public interest was unrepresented. Two law professors who specialize in police abuse cases — Craig Futterman of the University of Chicago and Locke Bowman of Northwestern University — intervened on behalf of the public. They argued that if the city was allowed to “buy its way out of” the judgment, it would have no incentive to make the necessary reforms. Judge St. Eve ruled against the city, holding that the jury verdict regarding the code of silence “has a social value to the judicial system and public at large.”
In their effort to have the code of silence verdict set aside, city lawyers argued that the CPD had enacted significant reforms since the 2007 bar incident. And they emphasized that the department was now led by a new superintendent who would not permit such behavior to go unpunished.

Did it?  Seems to me things dragged not at all.

Kalven leaves out the looong Koschman Case championed by Carol Marin.  Why is that?

The Sun Times played code of silence with louder frequency than a Packey Webb Ford's jingle and the masterpiece of a Locke Bowman return to fray with the Batman of Burge Bashing and Jon Burge Mythology Author horry old G. Flint Taylor and together they fronted for the Carol Marin aggrieved and the completed welding job on Systemic Racist Code of Silence Culture of Corruption  that was G. Flint Taylor-made for a spot at Penny Pritzker Park.

I sure would like to see some real investigation by our Watchdogs.

I would like to be brought fully up to speed on Jamie Kalven and all of his works.

This is extra credit.  You are not being paid to do this.   Have fun!  I hope.

Career Grifter and CPS Boss Forrest Claypool's Trail of Slime Pointed Out by Juan Perez!

The Chicago Tribune's Juan Perez, Jr. is asking the questions about the Rula Lenska of Progressive Chicago Politics, that I have asked for years.  My heart is warmed.  Mr. Perez has a nice set of teeth. 

Forrest Claypool, the Rula Lenska* of Chicago politics,  has had one helluva run!  For decades this fading beauty has been treated to quality moisturizers, Dior Air-Flash foundation, blot & powder and just the right blush on those apple cheeks, by the stooge propagandists at WTTW, ABC 7, NBC5, and . . .oh, what the hell CBS2.

About the time Rula Lenska was bombarding the TV airwaves hawking  Alberto Culver products and stunning millions of Americans into raising the question " Just Who IS Rula Lensaka?"  Forrest Claypool was brushing the Saluki moss from the back of his grey worsted Brooks Brothers and insinuating his way into the corridors of power on La Salle and Clark between Washington and Randolph.  Soon, Chicagoans were saying, " Just Who IS Forrest Claypool?"

No one seemed to have the insight, or the gumption to say," He's a grifter and damn well-practiced one, Rubes."

Nope, we are too nice.  We swallow anything, because our news papers and electronic media is as much a part of the political anatomy of Chicago, as the 14th Ward Regular Democratic Liver, Bacon and Onions Boosters.

Forrest Claypool oozed into Chicago Power Politics with David Axelrod, Judson Miner,  and Rahm Emanuel.  They helped Abner Mikva and Michael Shakman remove the City That Works' political limbs, leaving a Progressive torso that requires much more monetary sustenance, than the once functioning apparatus had ever dreamed of stealing.

The old time political crooks never stole everything.   Progressives do.

Progressives are loyal only to power and those who bring more power to the table. Claypool is master of the game. He requires short memories and no interested inquiry on the part of people who should know better.  Do any Progressive a favor and a politician will soon find a six inch blade where his kidneys once functioned.  The political landscape is littered with corpses of once trusting and effective public servants.

Claypool gets appointments via his network.  If he runs for office, he generally gets his ass handed to him - County Board President and Cook County Assessor. He did manage to squeak by Ted Lechowicz  and grab a comfy seat on the county Board

He has been appointed

• to Cook County Board of Appeals
•  as Deputy State Treasurer
• Mayor Daley's Chief of Staff
• Head of Chicago Parks
• CEO CTA
• CEO CPS

Succeeding where?  Rula Lenska has more chops.

Now, with digital media some people begin to ask " Who Exactly IS Forrest Claypool?"  Even the always pliable Chicago Tribune has turned its blind but gimlet eye on Forrest Claypool and his modus operandi.

The inspector general for the Chicago Board of Education says his work has been obstructed and duplicated by a better-funded arm of CPS chief Forrest Claypool's office, according to a report that lays out a political scuffle between the legally mandated watchdog and the mayoral-appointed administration.

In his report, Nicholas Schuler accuses auditors for Chicago Public Schools of "significant interference" with his investigation into the alleged theft of tens of thousands of dollars worth of CTA fare cards by a district employee.

A "parallel investigation" of that case by CPS' Office of Internal Audit and Compliance last year "compromised a criminal investigation by prematurely alerting a main subject, and sowing fear and confusion in the minds of key witnesses," Schuler said in his report, which was sent to Claypool and the school board. 

Auditors also contacted Cook County prosecutors in an effort to inject their department into the inspector general's fare card investigation, Schuler's office said. He said "very troubling issues remain" with other investigations being undertaken by the auditor's office.

Gee, who'd a thunk?  Carol Marin? Jay Levine? Neil Steinberg?  Mark Brown? Jamie Kalvan?

No one worried too much when Rahm made Claypool the CTA Boss and got Rev. Pfleger to do a politcial hatchet job on the Presidentod Amalgamated Transit Workers Local 308, or about Bombardier contracts, or the Ventra Card Boondoggles. Why should WTTW worry about the fighting Progressive beaten by Joe Berrios, when he took over CPS, after Triple B sold the store to SUPES?

Forrest Claypool pads himself with dollars and silence afforded by trhe compliant media.  Now, that same padding is getting shredded. Lookee H'yar!

The district's internal audit team is led by Andrell Holloway, who previously worked with Claypool in a similar role at the CTA. The unit has received significant funding increases since Claypool took office.

CPS budgeted a little more than $958,000 for the audit department in 2015. This year, the budget for Holloway's office is roughly $4.4 million, not including up to $14 million worth of consulting contracts that he manages. 

This year's budget for Schuler's office is about $2 million, relatively unchanged from recent years. The office perennially asks the school board for more money and staff.
"I think there's a fundamental disagreement, at some level, about the importance of the IG's office," Schuler said in an interview. "I've been told that at the end of the day, nobody's going to stand in our way. We're free to do what we can. But I see that as something different than a wholehearted embrace of the inspector general's function and the idea that there's going to be independent and transparent investigations. CPS declined requests to interview Claypool and Holloway about Schuler's report." (emphasis my own)

Forrest managed to drag poor old Frank "The Mailroom Guy" Clark -former CEO of ComEd into the bed of Claypool's making

Frank Clark, the school board's president and a mediator in the dispute, said Holloway's unit needed more firepower after "not meeting even the minimal obligations of an internal audit department."
"Of course he would like more people," Clark said of Schuler's office. "That could be said for almost every office in central office. But it's unrealistic."
CTA and CPS, like Chicago Park District all seem to have the same players and same grift.  The IG's concern now is the connection between Claypool's CTA Boss-Time and his CPS Boss-Time.
Schuler's office concluded the CPS employee "participated in a criminal conspiracy" in which he would steal transit passes from his office, then distribute them to accomplices who sold them on the black market.
Schuler's investigators believed the employee, who has not been charged with a crime, took at least $72,700 worth of transit passes over about seven months.
The CPS employee was fired in November, according to Schuler's report, which said Holloway's audit department conducted an "improper separate and parallel investigation" into the theft.
Schuler's office said the audit team "disregarded repeated requests … to refrain from simultaneously and separately investigating the matter."
According to the report, Holloway and other members of his team instructed one person interviewed by the IG's office to contact the audit department about the investigation, and conducted separate interviews that Schuler said "prematurely alerted" the suspected employee.
"This investigation implicated a subject who had been hired from the CTA," said a summary of Schuler's investigation.
"Thus, so as to avoid the mere appearance of any impropriety or undue influence on any investigation into the theft of CTA transit passes purchased by CPS, Internal Audit clearly should have stepped aside and let the (IG's office) — the statutorily independent investigative body — undertake its own investigation," the report said.

The IG's investigation applies the Bounty to the slug trails going back to Claypool's Boss-time at CTA and his Boss-time for the children at CPS.

Schuler's office concluded the CPS employee "participated in a criminal conspiracy" in which he would steal transit passes from his office, then distribute them to accomplices who sold them on the black market.

Schuler's investigators believed the employee, who has not been charged with a crime, took at least $72,700 worth of transit passes over about seven months.
The CPS employee was fired in November, according to Schuler's report, which said Holloway's audit department conducted an "improper separate and parallel investigation" into the theft.

Schuler's office said the audit team "disregarded repeated requests … to refrain from simultaneously and separately investigating the matter."
According to the report, Holloway and other members of his team instructed one person interviewed by the IG's office to contact the audit department about the investigation, and conducted separate interviews that Schuler said "prematurely alerted" the suspected employee.

"This investigation implicated a subject who had been hired from the CTA," said a summary of Schuler's investigation.
"Thus, so as to avoid the mere appearance of any impropriety or undue influence on any investigation into the theft of CTA transit passes purchased by CPS, Internal Audit clearly should have stepped aside and let the (IG's office) — the statutorily independent investigative body — undertake its own investigation," the report said.

Back in Jaunary of 2016. Juan Perez wrote a brilliant study of Claypool's long and slimy trail of grift in public service.

The career grifter has the Winston Strawn attorney Ron Marmer and the mega donor Ron DeNard and all of the old gang in his wagon train.  Now, it's in a tight defensive circle.

Juan Perez is attacking the wagons!  Watch you back, Juan. Bruce Dold has long ridden in Claypool's wagons.

Just who is Forrest Claypool?  He's no Rula Lenska.  Better ask Juan Perez!  Tell it, Son!

Chicago Tribune Data Under-Mines CPD

You can't keep masses of folks in poverty, unemployment, incarceration and in communities looking like Third World Countries. The shooting, murder and disrespect of law enforcement is really not a surprise, they(the police) are the enforcer of America's injustice....but Dr. King also warned us that our fight must not be in the lowest form, using violence....WE must use our MORAL FORCE and dismantle an UNJUST AMERICA ......I understand the anger...but, VIOLENCE: whether by Police or CIVILIANS is NEVER AN ACCEPTABLE SOLUTION - Pastor Pfleger

“I don’t understand how every good cop would not want a very harsh, strong police board,” Pfleger said.

Pastor Pfleger was a member of Daley's first Independent Police Review Authority and he was a on Daley's search committee that hired Jody Weiss in 2007.  The following year, Pastor Pfleger sort of disappeared when a video of his sermon at Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ went . . . viral.

Chicago's Social Justice elite managed to soldier on without Pastor Pfelger for the next eighteen months or so as the fiery and controversial media star clashed with Cardinal George.  Police continued to be undermined, smeared and second guessed in the media that was all agush for Professor Dave Protess and the Wrongful Conviction kids, but that sort of went sour as well.

More and more, calls came for private police services and a national security force as President Obama's Hope and Change Justice Departmemt helped erode confidence in policing nationwides.

I wrote this in 2009 and it has come to pass.

When all of the Horse-manure created and manufactured by bad people and promoted in Chicago's Media Community is weighed and added up -
1. Systemic Racism Get Out of Jail Free Card
2. Police Brutality 24/7
3. Community Control of Everything - thus no Consequences for Anything Crime or Vice
4. Constant Vilification of Police Officers
5. Bleeding Revenue to Lawsuit Lefty Lawyer League ( G. Flint Taylor, Jon Loevy)
6. Advocacy Politics
7. Laughingstock CPD Command

Total Comes to a Privatized Corporate Police Force. 
Since Fahey and O'Brien were murdered by the Wilson Brothers, Leftist Academics, Lawyers, Journalists and Americans who swallow anything, have orchestrated a complete undermining of any and all confidence in Law Enforcement. When Daley pulled Tisa Morris, an African American attorney, off of the responsibility of tracking CR beefs and handed the list of police officers targeted by the Lawsuit Lawyers and created a rubber stamp Board that is comprised of Police Haters, he tipped his hand. 

In 2007, Daley caved to the leftists and tossed out a tough, fair, honest and unbribe-able prosecutor that he had placed in charge of the Office of Professional Standards.  This greased the way for Pastor Pfelger's brief tenure on the newly created IPRA 

Chicago was and is on the way to the elimination of the Chicago Police Department.  It seems to me that Hillary Clinton will complete President Obama's objective of creating a National Police Force, leaving municipalities to hire "rent-a-cop" Private Security Firms, not unlike the Divvy bikes eliminating city parking and Uber taxis, destroying the cab companies.

Today the Chicago Tribune's attempt to coat-tail the success of leftist Jamie Kalvan's Invisible Institute that is on its way to becoming for police and justice, what Shakman has been for politics and government.  Good for a select few and disastrous for everyone else.

FOIA has been a goldmine for the Left and an IRS audit for everyone else.  With Freedom( for the few) of Information the media is able to data for social scientists and come with an excuse to do whatever the agenda demands.

Last month the Chicago Tribune investigative data miners plumped up a series intended to smear pork farmers and help boost pork prices. Today, the Tribune did the very same to ensure the swift demise of urban policing in Chicago.

The tone and the rhetoric of 92 deaths, 2623 bullets:Tracking Every Police Shooting, by Jennifer Smith Richards , Angela Caputo and Jason Meisner, is as set as the conclusions drawn long before the data was mined.

Every five days, on average, a Chicago police officer fired a gun at someone.
In 435 shootings over a recent six-year span, officers killed 92 people and wounded 170 others.
While a few of those incidents captured widespread attention, they occurred with such brutal regularity — and with scant information provided by police — that most have escaped public scrutiny. . . .

The Tribune's analysis showed that Chicago police are the only witnesses listed in most of the shootings, with civilian witnesses identified in just 83 of the incidents.
Alexa Van Brunt, an attorney with Northwestern University's Roderick MacArthur Justice Center, said it's often challenging to prove misconduct or a cover-up when it comes to an officer's word against that of a civilian.
"We don't have video evidence often," Van Brunt said. "And if you have police officers lying on reports, that becomes the official record."

The Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times have helped create the daily blood bath that is Chicago - they have been a huge help.   In taking the side of the crusading Cadillac Commie and Buzz-cut Bolshevics of People Law Office and the Northwestern University's Bernardine Dorhn tutored journalism and legal think tanks and Centers For ( MacArthur/Blum/Wrongful) over law enforcement professionals, experienced non-partisan judges like Boyle and Egan and promoting the loud and consistent voices of  Advocacy Politics flim-flamers like Pfleger both papers succeeded in bring the City of Chicago to its daily blood bath.

The Better Government Association covers up the crimes of the powers that be and holds worker bees of the Justice System up for public lynchings. Commander Glenn Evans is one and now there are ten officers denied due process in the Laquan McDonald shooting - none of the ten pulled a trigger. The BGA has the gall to ask for people to think outside the box and throw more money at Ceasefire - the gang-bangers alumni association.

Today, the Chicago Tribune presents another data stew stirred by a pre-cast iron conclusion.

The end game is no more CPD.