Chicago 4th of July - Linda Rondstadt Living in the USA

Back in the U.S.A.

written by Chuck Berry
© Arc Music Corp (BMI)

Oh well oh well I feel so good today
We just touched ground on an international runway
Jet-propelled back home from overseas to the USA

New York, Los Angeles
Oh how I yearn for you
Detroit, Chicago, Chattanooga, Baton Rouge
God I long to be at my home back in old St Lou

Did I miss the skyscrapers
Did I miss the long freeway
From the coast of California
To the shores of the Delaware Bay
You can bet your life I did
Till I got back to the USA

Looking hard for a drive-in
Searching for a corner cafe
Where hamburgers sizzle on an open grill night and day
Yeah, and the jukebox jumping with records back in the USA

I'm so glad I'm living in the USA
Yes I'm so glad I'm living in the USA
Anything you want we got it right here in the USA

Ah we're so glad we're living in the USA
Yes we're so glad we're living in the USA
Anything you want we got it right here in the USA

Ah we're so glad
We're so glad
Ah we're so glad
We're so glad

Friday Night Noise -Chicago Symphony Orchestra -Under Georg Solti!

I worked ( well, mostly. . . sometimes . . .when they could find me) at Orchestra Hall from 1969-1974 - on and off.

Victor Aitay CSO Violinist and Solti Concertmaster and all around good guy used to say that Solti was nuts in rehearsals and calm in performance. Bud Herseth, Frank Miller, Don Peck, Gordon Peters, Don Koss, Mary Sauer, Dale Clevenger and my old buddy Phil Scharff were my favorite musicians with CSO.

That Magyar was a Beaut!

A "Rowdy Taste of Chicago!" Tribune Editorial-ese: Stabbings, Tasings, Wholesome Good Fun!

YeeeHaaaawwww! Tayste A'SheeKawGo! Pardners, strap on on your cleets and buckle your chin straps, We Goin' to The Tayste!

Rowdy night at the Taste: 3 stabbed, 1 Tased

n what onlookers described as a rowdy night as the Taste of Chicago let out, three teenagers were stabbed downtown in two separate incidents, police said this morning. In addition, police said they had to use a stun gun to subdue a man who got into fight with them.


The most serious injury was to a 15-year-old boy who was stabbed in the back in the 200 block of South State Street about 9:25 p.m., said police News Affairs Officer Ron Gaines.

The teen was walking with friends when they encountered a group of fighting males, Gaines said.

The teen felt pain in his back and realized he had been stabbed, he said. The injury was described as serious but non-life threatening.

The teen, who was described by police as a known gang member, was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, but large crowds leaving the Taste blocked the ambulance for a time. The boy was still hospitalized this morning.

About 15 minutes later, two boys, ages 14 and 15, who were leaving a McDonald's restaurant, also in the 200 block of South State, encountered what police described as a melee--perhaps the same one the other boy walked into--and tried to get away, said Police Officer Laura Kubiak.

Before they could, the 14-year-old was cut on his lower right arm and his 15-year-old companion received a two-inch laceration to his lower back.

The two boys ran to a Red Line station, where they hopped on an 'L' train and got off at the 79th Street station. Their parents took them to Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park, where they were treated and released, police said.

Some people attending the Taste reported other violence, which apparently brought out a large contingent of riot-clad police to the area.

Taja Jarrett, 20, was getting out of her retail job in the Loop at 8 p.m. when she said she first noticed large crowds in the area. She and Shanice Brown, 17, were planning to check out the Taste festivities when they saw a fight break out near one of the entrances.

The two walked west to Dearborn Street where they encountered another large brawl. They also saw an increased police presence, including officers on horses, ATVs, on foot and in cars. Dozens of helmeted on all-terrain vehicles ushered a large crowd west on Jackson Boulevard away from Grant Park.

In the Tasing incident, also nearby in the 300 block of South State, a 24-year-old South Side man was blocking traffic and refused officers' requests to move, said News Affairs Officer John Mirabelli. The man struggled with officers on the scene, and pushed one of them before being taken into custody. Marabelli said police Tasered the man when he continued to be unruly and began fighting with them.

The man was taken to Mercy Hospital where he was evaluated then turned over to police. He has been charged with resisting arrest and reckless conduct, both misdemeanors.

There was also a small fire at the food fest, with a transformer catching fire near the Art Institute of Chicago. The fire was quickly put out, said Chicago Fire Department spokesman Joe Roccasalva. However, it apparently caused some small power outages in the area.


--David Elsner, Serena Maria Daniels and Liam Ford

Rowdy? As in a Charlie Daniels Fiddle Fest?

Well Torture has a whole new meaning - it's a derivative of Perjury.

Victims are people who strangle two women and two toddlers soak them in gasoline and ignite the corpses; get convicted; have ambulance chasing Commies like Flint Taylor and Locke Bowman as mouthpieces; howl long enough and get sprung from your guilt -that's a Victim, cooked up in Flint's Kitchen.

Makes sense.

Charles Carroll - Catholic Founding Father & Signer of Declaration of Independence

Catholics helped make America. There were not a whole hell of a lot of Catholics in the thirteen original colonies, except for Maryland. One Catholic, Charles Carroll of Carrolton, was a patriot and stuck his Fish-on-Friday neck out as far as Sam Adams, John Adams, Ben Franklin and the lads of Virginia. In fact, Charles Carroll signed the Declaration of Independence.

These days Catholics are under constant assault from Academics, politicians including supposed Catholics, and the hacks of secular media and Hollywood. The Catholic Church is rock solid in its defense of Life, Marriage, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Being alive precludes what secularist call Liberty or Libertine-ism and any man or woman who takes Life Vows of Love knows that the Liberty to do whatever one feels like doing is not in the cards.

Yesterday, I posted a beautifully written essay by Emmy/Tony Award winning actor and jazz musician Michael Moriarty. Mr. Moriarty said this,

All is politics these days … and all will be used to further the political game.
However, considering the Catholic Church’s major hand in overturning the Polish Communist State, the “game” is decidedly beyond politics.
The increasingly deadly Game has been a not-so-Cold War for quite some time.
Unfortunately, it is now not only Catholics versus Communists.
It is the Catholic Church versus the entire Progressive New World Order.
Versus the European Union’s Socialism.
Versus Russia’s neo-Soviet allegiance with Red China.
It is basically the Catholic Church versus the World.
Not even America is an ally of either Israel or the Catholic Church.
America is no longer, as the President has repeatedly declared by word and deed, a Judeo-Christian Civilization.
It is clearly and merely a part of the Progressive New World Order.

Catholics in America are being tested. Too many are failing that test handsomely and going along to get along - University of Notre Dame parse to weasel acceptance of abortion from our President who is abortions best friend; politicians Senators Kerry, Durbin, Dodd and Congressmen Pelosi, Stupak and Kennedy all play ball in Planned Parenthood's yard. If Catholics abandon their beliefs - life begins at conception and marriage is a sacrament between a Man and a Woman for Life -they will be praised and petted. If not, Catholics are bludgeoned as pedophile co-conspirators and worse.

That does not seem to be Original Intent of the Founding Fathers. Let's celebrate one -Charles Carroll!

"Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time;
they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion,
whose morality is so sublime and pure
(and) which insures to the good eternal happiness,
are undermining the solid foundation of morals,
the best security for the duration of free governments." Maryland member of the Continental Congress, the only Roman Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence, US Senator for Maryland (1789-1792)

Now, that seems like Original Intent.


“To what purpose was the threat thrown out of enforcing the penal statutes [against Catholics]
by proclamation? Why am I told that my conduct is very inconsistent with the situation of one
who owes even the toleration he enjoys to the favor of government? If by instilling prejudices
into the Governor, and by every mean and wicked artifice, you can rouse the popular resentment
against certain religionists, and thus bring on a persecution of them, it will then be known
whether the toleration I enjoy be due to the favor of government or not….”

Mr. Carroll you nailed it and you never once heard MSNBC! Happy Fourth of July, America!

Born: September 19, 1737 in Annapolis, Anne Arundel County1
Father: Charles Carroll2
Mother: Elizabeth (Brooke) Carroll3
Education: attended Academy of Jesuits at Bohemia Manor, Cecil County, 1747; College of St. Omer, France, 1749-53; College of French Jesuits, Rheims, France, 1754; College of Louis-le-Grand, paris, France, 1755-57; studied law in Bourges, Paris, and London, 1757-644
Religious Affiliation: Catholic5
Marriage: June 5, 1768 to Mary (Molly) Darnall6
Children: Elizabeth, Mary, Louisa Rachel, Charles, Anne Brooke, Catherine, Elizabeth7
Private Occupations:
Planter; managed his estate "Doughoregan"
Subscriber, Potomac Company, ca. 1772
Partner, Baltimore Ironworks Company
Proprietor, Susquehanna Canal, 1783
Member, Board of Directors, Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company
Landlord; money lender8
Public Service:
Conventions, Anne Arundel County, 1774-76
Maryland Senate, Western Shore, 1777-1800; Maryland Senate President 1783
Committee of Correspondence, 1774
1st Council of Safety, Western Shore, 1775
Committee of Observations, Annapolis and Anne Arundel County, 1774-75
Delegate, Continental Congress, 1776, 1777-1778, 1780
Signer, Declaration of Independence, 1776
U.S. Senator, 1st, 2nd Congresses, 1789-92
Common Councilman, Annapolis, 1780-83, 1785 (resigned)9
Died: November 14, 1832 in Baltimore10
Buried: Doughoregan Manor, Anne Arundel (now Howard) County11

1774 – became a member of the Committee of Correspondence for Anne Arundel and
Annapolis (November)
1774 – elected to the 2nd Maryland Convention
1775 – served on the Maryland Committee of Correspondence and Council of Safety
(summer)
1776 – participated in a Continental Congress mission seeking Canada’s support for the
American cause (February)
1776 – chosen as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress (June)
1776 – signed the Declaration of Independence document (August)
1776 – appointed as a delegate to the convention to write Maryland’s first State Constitution
and Declaration of Rights
1776 – elected member of the first Maryland Senate
1777 – appointed delegate to Congress
1783 – elected President of the Maryland Senate
1789 – served as one of Maryland’s first two U.S. Senators

When his turn came to sign the document on that hot August day in Philadelphia in 1776, Charles Carroll stepped forward briskly, signed Charles Carroll, started back to his seat and then abruptly returned to the document and, picking up the quill pen again, added of Carrollton.

Like his fellow delegates to the Second Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia, signing his name to the document was an act of courage. Today, we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence as the beginning of our country as an independent nation. But, if the fortunes of war had gone the other way and George Washington and his ill equipped Continental Army had lost, this document would have been a death warrant for Charles Carroll and the other fifty-five delegates who joined him in signing.

God Bless Michael Moriarty! God Bless America!

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mmoriarty/2010/06/30/catholics-vs-communists/

ELIN NORDEGREN NEE WOODS - Fellas, Start Writing Them Essays -"Why I'd be a great Hubby and Step-Dad!"

A pal said: "Elin is desperate to protect the children from the womanising side of their father.

"Tiger's main fear is her telling her story after he's rebuilt his reputation, sending him back to the gutter."

Tiger and ELIN NORDEGREN are quits and ELIN NORDEGREN is getting $770 Million Buckeens Plus. Not only is this Swedish Meatball easy on the eyes, but she comes pre-loaded.

It would behoove you ardent swains and horny swines to gussy-up your prose and poesy and begin to lay siege on Fortess ELIN NORDEGREN.

As I am already fabulously wealthy in love, dating the delicate, dark haired diminutive jazz warbling nightingale Ms. Sullivan, I place no interest in ELIN NORDEGREN -amorous or financial -whatsoever. Nevertheless, I believe that ELIN NORDEGREN would do well to chart her future nuptial path well off the Trails worn by false tickling Celebrity.

Regular guys. Rock-ribbed patriotic Homeboys! Flinty Eyed Tradesmen and Soft-eyed Baby Saps! Wholesome Yeomen! That's the Man Meat for ELIN NORDEGREN!

That is what ELIN NORDEGREN and her abandoned bairns chiefly need - a real man -one who sweats when he eats and eats when he sweats.

Gents, write this essay -

Why I would make a Superior Husband and Lifemate for ELIN NORDEGREN ( 250 words, simple font, standard English, Active Voice only, must be Notarized)

Dear ELIN NORDEGREN,









Most Sincerely,



__________________________________ (Your Name)



I swear that every word presented above is true, sworn before me on this date.

____ in the Month of ____________ 2010

__________________________________ ( Notary Public)








_________________________________( Seal of Notary Public

Catholics v. Communists - Abortion is the Da Vinci Key: Brilliant Essay By Michael Moriarty

I guarantee you, if the Catholic Church condones abortion, we won’t hear any complaints about priests and child abuse in the mainstream press, not while the Obama’s public schools are handing out condoms to five year olds without parental consent. Michael Moriarty - Big Hollywood

Opposition to Abortion is the key to the riddle of Hegalian Progressive -Communist/Progressive World War on the Catholics. Emmy and Tony Award-winning Actor, musician and journalist Michael Moriarty presents a brilliant essay. Click my post title for the full text.

It is basically the Catholic Church versus the World.

Not even America is an ally of either Israel or the Catholic Church.

America is no longer, as the President has repeatedly declared by word and deed, a Judeo-Christian Civilization.

It is clearly and merely a part of the Progressive New World Order.

As I’ve said before, America gave up any substantive resistance to the very Marxist New World Order when her Supreme Court passed the Roe v Wade decision 37 years ago.

In Europe, however, the Catholic Church has refused to condone abortion or euthanasia.

America’s collapse to the first stage of Communism, which is Socialism, was insured when the Nixon/Kissinger Presidency not only collapsed before Vietnamese Communists in Paris but when its Supreme Court – bipartisan, mind you – instituted legalized abortion.

America not only gave up the territorial fight, it surrendered in the spiritual war as well.

Kristen McQueary Missed One "Huge" Issue in Choice to Replace Rep. Kevin Joyce

Kristen McQueary is one of the very few columnist in this City who actually checks her ego at the door and brings in arm-loads of facts in her reports.

Like Sun Times reporters Mark Konkol, Natasha Korecki, Lisa Donovan and the great investigative bull-dog Tim Novak, Kristen McQueary presents what actually happens.

Today's column on the candidates forum to replace the irreplaceable Representative Kevin Joyce (D) of 35th House District is very good and wonderfully insightful. The only people who publicly proclaim that they have the inside dope on 19th Ward politics are the good folks who continue to chase ice cream trucks decades after it seems no long mete. Understanding that, Kristen McQueary presents "the situation," which is tighter than a New Jersey Ginzo's belly.

. . . A second batch of hopefuls stood nervously at a podium Wednesday night at Green Hills Public Library in Palos Hills during the second round of public interviews to replace Joyce, who recently withdrew his candidacy for the 35th House District seat.

They spoke to a committee of mayors, labor leaders and Democratic Party activists, including Chicago Ald. Ginger Rugai (19th) and Palos Hills Mayor Jerry Bennett, who will offer advice on which candidate is best suited to serve in the House.

But ultimately the decision rests with 19th Ward Democratic committeeman Matt O'Shea, who carries the heaviest weighted vote by law. Wearing a suit and tie and sitting in the farthest seat to the back of the room, O'Shea took notes and watched.

The list of would-be candidates includes: Chicago residents Bill Cunningham, Michael Cullen, John Presta, Thomas Condon, David Ladd, Connie Mixon, Richard Moran, Sheila Pacholski, John O'Brien, Thomas Carroll, Edward Smith, Maureen Kelly, John Fitzpatrick, Patrick O'Donnell, Randy Ashley and Kevin Butler and suburban residents Kent Oliven, Jerry Mulvihill, Ed Guzdziol, James Gierach, Addison Woodward, Ann Contorno and Robert Maloney. They are lawyers, accountants, small-business owners, a single mother, teachers and a recent college graduate.

I'm putting my chips on Cunningham, although several other strong candidates will make O'Shea's decision difficult, including Cullen, who has ties to House Speaker Michael Madigan, and Kelly, a Saint Xavier University official with political prowess.

Cunningham took an indefinite unpaid leave of absence from Gov. Pat Quinn's office last week, a signal of his confidence, although he said he would likely return to Quinn's staff if unsuccessful in winning the House seat.

"I talked it over with (Quinn) and his staff and we thought there was too much potential for conflicts of interest," he said of taking an unpaid leave. "During the course of this process, I am taking public positions on issues, and I didn't want to cause confusion over whether I was taking a position of my own or the governor's."

Cunningham started the job as Quinn's chief spokesman only days before Joyce announced his departure. He had previously expressed an interest in the seat if Joyce left. For a decade before that, Cunningham worked under Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan and was chief of staff to Sheriff Tom Dart.

He would take a dramatic pay cut as state representative, a job he said he would approach as a full-time post. He could earn as much as $75,000 in the House compared to six figures under Quinn.

As a newspaper columnist who consistently advocates transparency in government, kudos to the interview process and especially to the folks who had the guts to put their name in. It's not easy to toss yourself into the gauntlet.

"For too long, Illinois has lacked the integrity to face its financial problems," Mixon told the committee. "The day of reckoning has come for the state of Illinois. Citizens are tired of the same politicians playing the same game. I plan to bring integrity to Springfield."

Cullen, who spent the last seven legislative sessions in Springfield through his work on the Illinois Commerce Commission, said he would not face a "learning curve. I'll be able to deliver right away for the 35th District."

Presta - a Beverly area political activist, author and former bookstore owner - called on the committee to choose someone who is not "an insider."

But let's face facts. This is politics, and it's an insider's game. O'Shea will pick a 19th Ward resident who will deliver for the district - someone who will be friendly to labor, considerate in protecting jobs and helpful in raising money. He wants someone trusted and loyal. A known commodity. That limits the pool considerably.

The questions posed to candidates Tuesday and Wednesday night were interesting but mostly for show. Candidates stood at the podium, gave three-minute presentations and took four standard, softball questions from committee members, including: "If you are not selected by this committee, will you support the Democratic nominee in November?"

Cunningham, 42, a lifelong Beverly resident, breezed through the questions which, frankly, seemed catered to allow him to showcase his experience working with local officials and the Legislature.

Will he get the nod and face Republican Barbara Bellar, an attorney and physician, this fall? Stay tuned.

One detail is missing - the Pro Life-Anti-Abortion stand of the candidate who will get Kevin Joyce's endorsement. That is a condition the candidate who plays the Dick Durbin-I-Am-Personally Opposed-to Abortion Horse manure. Only a genuine Anti-Abortion Pro Life Democrat will get Kevin Joyce's endorsement. That conviction on abortion is the meal ticket.

Whoever, expects to replace the multi-Legislator of of the Year Kevin Joyce had better have the courage of that good man's convictions.

Great job Kevin! Good work Kristen McQueary!

The Men of Leo High School Thank Chicago Police District 6

Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host -
by the Divine Power of God -
cast into hell, satan and all the evil spirits,
who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.

Amen and twice on a Good Day.

The other morning, one of the incoming freshmen taking the Leo High School Summer Immersion classes that prepares the students for Catholic education and Leo Traditions of courage and commitment was attacked by three thugs.

6Th District Commander Eddie Johnson, Officer Armstrong and Detectives Slaughter and Hills (Leo '99) of the 6th Police District (Gresham)were on the case and continue to serve and protect.

The the young guys braving gang-bangers and thugs and dressing like gentlemen in tribute to the Choice in School that they and their parents have made and the caring professionals of Chicago Police Department are sending a signal to the Thug Life - They will not be intimidated.

The young guys know that the heroes in the Blue and White SUVs and patrol cars are there for them, just like Leo Alumni who pump hundreds of thousands of dollars into their educations.

God Bless all who watch over our Young Lions! May St. Michael the Archangel Guide and Protect you! Thank you, Officers!

6th District - Gresham


Eddie Johnson, Commander

7808 South Halsted Street
Chicago, IL 60620
CAPS006District@chicagopolice.org
Phone: 312-745-3610
Fax: 312-745-3649
TTY: 312-745-3639

Sacred Cow Judge Dick Posner Says Pearl Harbor Was a Sneak Attack!

The most sensible legislative response to the financial collapse of September 2008 would have been to do nothing until the causes of the collapse were fully understood. Richard Posner is a U.S. Court of Appeals judge for the Seventh Circuit and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School

Larry David look-alike and Colleague Over-Turning Federal Sacred Cow, Dope Smoking Advocate, Abortion Loving* and Trust Multi-Millionaire Richard Posner** of the Federal 7th District Right Here says that spending more money than we take in is bad - two years after everyone else with a room temperature IQ said the same thing and were called Tea Baggers!

Judge, You go,Boy!

What else you got, Judge?

Posner Pointers:

1. Never spread Mayonnaise that has been left out unrefrigerated in the sun for three days on your lunch time banana . . . it's bad.

2. George Armstrong Custer should not have split his forces nor employed California Joe, prior to his attack on Little Big Horn.

3. I refuse to buy stock in a carburetor company.

4. A used condom is just that . . .walk away.

5. When the gas indicator says empty do not floor it.

6. Never eat anything larger than my head.

7. Do not rent anything with Paulie Shore.

8. It is no coincidence that blond hair evolved in Scandinavia and northern Europe, probably as an alternative means for women to advertise their youth, as their bodies were concealed under heavy clothing. I happen to be bald.

9. I should not have clouted my relative Mike to that job with the Secretary of State! Red China should not have allowed that You Tube video to go viral.

10. Partial Birth Abortion? Never felt a thing! But, it's gotta hurt like hell. . .it ain't me Babe!

Judge Posner, Folks! He'll be here all of his life! Genius.

*. . .if doctors were not threatened with prosecution, what of their patients? Had anyone suffered injury or been denied an otherwise legal abortion? Over the past year, the law on partial-birth abortion in Indiana had not been enjoined, so that state offered a laboratory of sorts. In the course of the year, there had been no shift away from D&E abortions; in fact, the number had increased. As Judge Easterbrook summed it up, quite tellingly, the "plaintiffs do not contend that in any of the states where a partial-birth abortion law is in effect, even one woman has been injured or denied an abortion because of the law."

For Judge Richard Posner, who wrote the dissent, the whole apparatus of argument his colleagues brought forth was specious. It was at least conceivable to him that the D&X procedure could be better for a particular woman, because it might reduce the amount of her bleeding or the dangers of infection from fetal parts left behind. To deny the choice in that case could be, for that woman, an "undue burden."

But Judge Posner's claim did not really rest on empirical tests, for the procedure was too rare to have been the object of a systematic study. For Judge Posner, the case turned on axioms. He began with the right of women to choose abortion, and anything that burdened or qualified that right was presumptively suspect, wrong, unconstitutional. In one of the curious sidelights of the dissenting opinion, Judge Posner expressed a deep concern for abortionists, who "are frequent subjects of picketing and other harassment and occasionally of physical assaults." But he had no such solicitude for the one whose assault is the object of the surgery: "From the standpoint of the fetus . . . it makes no difference whether, when the skull is crushed, the fetus is entirely within the uterus or ifs feet are outside the uterus."

The American Medical Association had testified that the D&X procedure was not strictly necessary for the health of the mother; still, there were opinions on either side. Judge Posner expressed a muted contempt for the experts with whom he disagreed, and he wondered what the courts would have made of a legislative finding of fact, in the South, in the 1950s, that blacks as a group were "slow learners."

http://smartgirlpolitics.ning.com/profiles/blogs/obama-and-elena-kagan-they
**Posner's political and moral views are hard to summarize. His parents were affiliated with the American Communist party, and in his youth and in the 1960s as law clerk to William J. Brennan he was generally counted as a liberal. However, in reaction to some of the perceived excesses of the late 1960s, Posner developed a strongly conservative bent. He encountered Chicago School economists Aaron Director and George Stigler while a professor at Stanford.[3] Posner summarized his views on law and economics in his 1973 book The Economic Analysis of Law.[3]

Today, although generally considered a figure of the right, Posner's pragmatism, his qualified moral relativism and moral skepticism,[8] and his affection for the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche set him apart from most American conservatives. Among his other influences are the American jurists Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and Learned Hand.

Antitrust
Along with Robert Bork, Posner helped shape the antitrust policy changes of the 1970s through his idea that 1960s antitrust laws were in fact making prices higher for the consumer rather than lower, while he viewed lower prices as the essential end goal of any antitrust policy.[3] Posner and Bork's theories on antitrust evolved into the prevailing view in academia and at the Justice Department of the George H.W. Bush Administration.[3]

Privacy
He famously opposed the right of privacy in 1981, arguing that the kinds of interests protected under privacy are not distinctive. He contended that privacy is protected in ways that are economically inefficient.

Abortion
He has written several opinions sympathetic to abortion rights, including a decision holding "partial-birth abortion" constitutionally protected in some circumstances.

Breach of contract
He has written favorably of efficient breach of contracts. Breach often leads to a worse result for society: if a seller breaches a contract to deliver building materials, the buyer's workers might go idle while the buyer looks for a replacement. The lost production is a cost to the company and its workers and, as such, is a social cost. An efficient breach would be a situation in which the benefits are higher than the costs, because the seller is better off for breaching even after paying damages to the buyer (for instance, if some third party had a much greater need for the building materials, and was willing to pay a price high enough to both out-price the original receiver and offset the realized costs of breach of contract).

Drugs
He has characterized the U.S.'s "War on Drugs" as "quixotic". In a 2003 CNBC interview, he discussed the difficulty of enforcing criminal marijuana laws and asserted that it is hard to justify the criminalization of marijuana compared to other substances.

Animal rights
Posner engaged in a debate on the ethics of using animals in research with the philosopher Peter Singer in 2001 at Slate magazine. He argues that animal rights conflicts with the moral relevance of humanity, and that empathy for pain and suffering of animals does not supersede advancing society.[9] He further argues that he trusts his moral intuition until it is shown to be wrong, and that his moral intuition says "it is wrong to give as much weight to a dog's pain as to an infant's pain." He leaves open the possibility that facts on animal and human cognition can and may change his intuition in the future; he further states that people whose opinions were changed by consideration of the ethics presented in Singer's book Animal Liberation failed to see the "radicalism of the ethical vision that powers [their] view on animals, an ethical vision that finds greater value in a healthy pig than in a profoundly retarded child, that commands inflicting a lesser pain on a human being to avert a greater pain to a dog, and that, provided only that a chimpanzee has 1 percent of the mental ability of a normal human being, would require the sacrifice of the human being to save 101 chimpanzees."[9]

Torture
When reviewing Alan Dershowitz's book, "Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat, Responding to the Challenge", Posner wrote in The New Republic, September 2002 that "If torture is the only means of obtaining the information necessary to prevent the detonation of a nuclear bomb in Times Square, torture should be used—and will be used—to obtain the information. ... no one, who doubts that this is the case, should be in a position of responsibility."[10][11]

Prisoners
In a dissent from an earlier ruling by his protege Frank Easterbrook, Posner wrote that Easterbrook's decision that female guards could watch male prisoners while in the shower or bathroom must stem from a belief that prisoners are "members of a different species, indeed as a type of vermin, devoid of human dignity and entitled to no respect.... I do not myself consider the 1.5 million inmates of American prisons and jails in that light."[3]

Newspapers
Posner supported the creation of a law barring hyperlinks or paraphrasing of copyrighted material as a means to prevent what he views as free riding on newspaper journalism.[12][13][14] His co-blogger Gary Becker simultaneously posted a contrasting opinion that while the Internet might hurt newspapers, it will not harm the vitality of the press, but rather embolden it.[15]

Federal Prosecutor Fitzy Tackles Only the Easy Ones

Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and his posse are going string out a litany of cases against retired and active Chicago Police officers in the wake of the Burge Bonanza! G. Flint Taylor is already thumbing the Benjamin's to come and the news Media is Burge Conviction Friendly . . .Now.

Burge is the only officer to be criminally charged in relation to torture, but federal prosecutors have hinted he won't be the last. Burge was charged with lying in a civil suit in 2003 when he denied ever witnessing or participating in torture. He wasn't charged with the torture itself because the statute of limitations has run out.

Other officers also have denied any role in torture and no other perjury of obstruction of justice charges have been announced, but U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has said the investigation into the decades-long cover-up is ongoing.

Fitzgerald said after Monday's verdict that "a message needs to go out that that conduct is unacceptable" and asked others who feel they have evidence of torture to come forward. He wouldn't comment on specific cases.

Jon Burge was a slam dunk. I kind of hoped that he'd be acquited but twelve citizens accepted the case presented by the Feds on perjury and Judge Lefkow's deft handling of this explosive case.

Judge Lefkow seemed to follow the script that has worked for G. Flint Taylor's cooing to Judges from Milton Shadur to Gettleman to Lefkow. Triple plays all the way.

Judges Egan and Boyle who conducted the exhaustive Cook County Special Prosecutor's report that wedged in the words 'might have' among the catalog of horrors would not parse the law. G. Flint Taylor howled bloody murder and Fitzy's ears pricked up.

Federal Prosecutor Fitzy who screwed the pooch in New York* and may have opened the door for the 9/11 attack came to Illinois armed with a warrant to get George Ryan - that was easy. George Ryan killed six children by driving a truck in Wisconsin and causing a piece of metal shoot into the Willis Van's gas tank . . .or something like that.

Really, Fitzy corraled the hogs at the trough and found that George Ryan had as many GOP enemies as Planned Parenthood has dead babies.

Fitzy and Pam Zekman are nailing cops who call tow trucks!

However, 90% of Cook County Jail's population are guests due to the signal propriety of foreign imports -drugs from Mexico, Africa, Afghanistan and Turkey made available via Gangster Disciple, Latin King, Vice Lord Industries with an assist from Gang Emeriti working for Ceasefire - Seems to me.

You see that's tough. Fitzy ain't going down that street, G!

Jon Burge slam dunk.

Blago, a piece of Stuckey's Log.

He'll remain free on bond until his Nov. 5 sentencing, and attorneys say he'll return to his home in Apollo Beach, Fla. until then. Burge has already posted that home as bond, and his older brother Jeffery on Tuesday put up his Chicago home as well. The Florida home has more than $200,000 in equity, while Jeffery Burge has more than $275,000 in equity in his home, attorneys said.

Prosecutors had tried to amend Burge's bond to include electronic monitoring and home confinement, with Assistant U.S. Attorney David Weisman arguing that Burge's "general respect for the rule of law ... was less respectful than it could have been."

U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow denied the government's request but accepted Jeffery Burge's home as additional bond.

Fitzy will do all the easy ones - twice. It works in a city where people are fed the fact that Andy Shaw is sharper than a spoon by the media -most folks don't buy that though. Most folks know that guns and drugs flow like honey-dew vine water through the streets of Chicago and that thugs may murder and terrorize with impunity, because Fitzy for Feds and the lesser lights concentrate on the easy cases, the popular ones, the ones where coalitions and mobilized activists can get face-time with Carol Marin and WTTW.

Fitzy, how about tackling a tough one? ONE! One that actually saves us a dollar and might keep a kid's blood where it is supposed to be and not flowing on the street.


*

Ali Mohamed. …. trained most of al Qaeda’s top leadership – including Bin Laden and Zawahiri – and most of al Qaeda’s top trainers. He gave some training to persons who would later carry out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing…. From 1994 until his arrest in 1998, he lived as an American citizen in California, applying for jobs as an FBI translator.11

Patrick Fitzgerald knew Ali Mohamed well. In 1994 he had named him as an unindicted co-conspirator in the New York landmarks case, yet allowed him to remain free. This was because, as Fitzgerald knew, Ali Mohamed was an FBI informant, from at least 1993 and maybe 1989.12 Thus, from 1994 “until his arrest in 1998 [by which time the 9/11 plot was well under way], Mohamed shuttled between California, Afghanistan, Kenya, Somalia and at least a dozen other countries.”13 Shortly after 9/11, Larry C. Johnson, a former State Department and CIA official, faulted the FBI publicly for using Mohamed as an informant, when it should have recognized that the man was a high-ranking terrorist plotting against the United States.14

As I say in our book, in 1993 Ali Mohamed had been detained by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Canada, when he inquired at an airport after an incoming al Qaeda terrorist who turned out to be carrying two forged Saudi passports. Mohamed immediately told the RCMP to make a phone call to the United States, and the call secured his release.15 We’ve since been told that it was Mohamed’s West coast FBI handler, John Zent, “who vouched for Ali and got him released.”16

This release enabled Ali to go on to Kenya, take pictures of the U.S. Embassy, and deliver them to bin Laden for the Embassy bombing plot.

In August 2006 there was a National Geographic Special on Ali Mohamed. We can take this as the new official fallback position on Ali Mohamed, because John Cloonan, the FBI agent who worked with Fitzgerald on Mohamed, helped narrate it. I didn’t see the show, but here’s what TV critics said about its contents:

Ali Mohamed manipulated the FBI, CIA and U.S. Army on behalf of Osama bin Laden. Mohamed trained terrorists how to hijack airliners, bomb buildings and assassinate rivals. [D]uring much of this time Mohamed was …, an operative for the CIA and FBI, and a member of the U.S. Army.17 …Mohamed turned up in FBI surveillance photos as early as 1989, training radical Muslims who would go on to assassinate Jewish militant Meir Kahane and detonate a truck bomb at the World Trade Center. He not only avoided arrest, but managed to become an FBI informant while writing most of the al Qaeda terrorist manual and helping plan attacks on American troops in Somalia and U.S. embassies in Africa.18

That Mohamed trained al Qaeda in hijacking planes and wrote most of the al Qaeda terrorist manual is confirmed in a new book by Lawrence Wright, who has seen US Government records.19 Let me say this again: one of al-Qaeda’s top trainers in terrorism and how to hijack airplanes was an operative for FBI, CIA, and the Army.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=3422

Avec!

WORKING FOR AL QAED AND THE FBI

What isn't known and will be revealed for the first time in Triple Cross was that Ali Mohamed had been acting as an FBI informant on the West Coast since 1992 - a year before the WTC bombing carried out by the same cell members he'd trained. More amazing, the revelation that in 1993 Ali had confessed to his hapless West Coast "control" agent John Zent that he was working for bin Laden and had helped set up al Qaeda training camps for jihadis in Khartoum. He'd also admitted that he'd provided al Qaeda members with anti-hijacking and intelligence training in Afghanistan.

If anyone in the bin Laden "office of origin" had been inclined to connect the dots, that single statement to a Special Agent in the San Francisco office should have set off alarm bells at 26 Federal Plaza - home of the FBI's NYO. But it didn't. Worse, when Mohamed was captured by alert Royal Canadian Mounted Police operatives in 1993 while attempting to smuggle al Qaeda terrorist into the U.S. from Vancouver, it was Special Agent Zent who vouched for Ali - effectively springing him from the custody of the Mounties.

After that, on the orders of Mohamed Atef, al Qaeda's military commander, Ali went to Nairobi where he took the pictures of the U.S. Embassy that bin Laden personally used to locate the suicide truck bomb that exploded five years later in August 1998. Along with simultaneous truck bombing in Tanzania 224 people died and 4,000 more were injured.


THE FBI COULD HAVE STOPPED THE EMBASSY BOMBINGS

Using evidence from the SDNY court cases, interviews with current and retired Special Agents and documents from the FBI's own files, I prove in Triple Cross that Patrick Fitzgerald and Squad I-49 in the NYO could have prevented those bombings - not just by getting the truth from FBI informant Ali Mohamed, but by connecting him to Wadih El-Hage, one of the Kenya cell leaders. How would the Feds have done that? Easily.

They'd had wiretaps on El-Hage's Kenyan home since 1996. In August 1997, a year before the bombings, Special Agent Dan Coleman (of I-49) had searched El-Hage's house where he'd found Ali Mohamed's U.S. address and phone number. In fact, Fitzgerald himself had a face to face meeting with Mohamed in Sacramento, California in October 1997.

At that meeting Mohamed boldly told Fitzie that he "loved" bin Laden and didn't need a fatwa to attack the U.S. This "stone-cold" killer who had moved bin Laden and his entire al Qaeda entourage from Afghanistan to Khartoum in 1991 and trained the Saudi Billionaire's personal bodyguards in 1994 - then told Fitzgerald and other I-49 FBI agents including Jack Cloonan that he had dozens of al Qaeda sleepers that he could make operational on a moment's notice and that he himself could disappear at any time.

Then, After Mohamed walked out on him, Fitzgerald turned to Cloonan and declared that Ali was "the most dangerous man" he'd ever met and insisted, "We cannot let this man out on the street." But he did and ten months later in August, 1998 the bombs went off in Africa - delivered by another cell that Ali had helped train. It took Fitzgerald another month before he arrested Mohamed on September 10th bringing his 14 year terror spree to an end.

The immediate threat to the American people from Ali may have ended, but not his threat to the FBI and the Justice Department. You see, Ali, aka "Amiriki" or "Ali the American," was a one-man 9/11 Commission capable of ratting out the Feds on how he had eaten their lunch for years - how the two bin Laden "offices of origin" in the NYO and the SDNY where Fitzgerald was head of Organized Crime and terrorism - had been outgunned by bin Laden and al-Zawahiri dating back to that Calverton, L.I. surveillance in 1989. Fearful of what he would say if put on the stand and subjected to cross examination by defense lawyers in the upcoming Embassy bombing, Fitzgerald made sure that Ali was hidden away under a John Doe warrant. Finally, by October, 2000 Fitzie had cut a deal allowing the master spy to cop a plea and escape the death penalty.

In the end, Fitzgerald made his bones as the Justice Department's top al Qaeda buster by convicting El Hage and several other relatively minor bomb cell members. in U.S. vs. bin Laden in 2001. But the real "mastermind" of the Embassy bombings skated. Mohamed was allowed to slip into the security of custodial witness protection where he remains today - the greatest enigma of the war on terror.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-lance/al-qaeda-and-the-mob-how-_b_34336.html

Elena Kagan's Softball - Partial Birth Abortions: Not a Smoking Gun, A Bloody Forceps! Thank You Jill Stanek!

Kagan Nomination Still Unborn!


Smiling and witty, Elena Kagan who honed her softball skills in abortion happy Hyde Park awaits more slow pitches from the Senate. Jill Stanek*, a nurse who shields babies from murder and sacrificed her pension and career in so doing has offered the smoking gun on Kagan's abortion of our language in order to allow the murder of the unborn.

Limp wristed Illinois Senator Dirthering Dick Durbin tossed a few grapefruits, as is his wont.

However, am Oak Lawn, Illinois nurse chased out of her career by the harpies of Planned Parenthood and gutless hospital administrators points out what every American needs to know about Elena Kagan - she'd crawl over a mountain of fetuses to be on the Supreme Court.

However, the discovery of Kagan's forceps in the abortion of The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
It has just come to light through the process of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's confirmation hearing that in 1996 ACOG let the Clinton White House, via then-associate counsel Elena Kagan, write its medical opinion of the partial-birth abortion procedure.

Documents released from the Clinton library show ACOG inexplicably (because no one from ACOG will now respond to press inquiries for an explanation) submitted its draft unhelpful opinion of partial-birth abortion for review to the White House in the face of a ban being proposed in Congress and then changed it to suit Clinton's pro-abortion agenda. The statement ACOG originally planned to release read:

However, a select panel convened by ACOG could identify no circumstances under which this procedure, as defined above, would be the only option to gave the life or preserve the health of the woman. Notwithstanding this conclusion, ACOG strongly believes that decisions about medical treatment must be made by the doctor, in consultation with the patient, based upon the woman's particular circumstances.
In other words, ACOG found no exceptional reason for the existence of partial-birth abortion. Legalized abortion could get along just fine without it. Nevertheless, in ACOG's curious opinion, it should remain legal.

A select panel convened by ACOG could identify no circumstances under which this procedure, as defined above, would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman. An intact D&X, however, may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman, and only the doctor, in consultation with the patient, based upon the woman's particular circumstances can make this decision.

Then Elena Kagan, the Christmas Chinese Buffet Sampler, got out her pen and placed it where it can do abortion and Planned Parenhood -the industy's PAC -the most good. Dim Sum? Oh, you mean Dick Durbin . . .no, he's way Dim!

The final version of ACOG's January 1997 statement read (bold highlight theirs – accentuating what Kagan accentuated):

A select panel convened by ACOG could identify no circumstances under which this procedure, as defined above, would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman. An intact D&X, however, may be the best or most appropriate procedure in a particular circumstance to save the life or preserve the health of a woman, and only the doctor, in consultation with the patient, based upon the woman's particular circumstances can make this decision.
ACOG used Kagan's language verbatim.

As former Justice Department lawyer Shannen Coffin pointed out in a National Review Online column yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court cited ACOG's opinion when striking Nebraska's partial-birth abortion ban in 2000, and U.S. District Court Judge Richard Kopf also cited it when he, as well as two other judges, enjoined the 2003 federal ban.

So it can be said Elena Kagan was largely responsible for keeping partial-birth abortion on the books 10 years beyond what it would have had the courts ruled based on uncorrupted medical opinion.

This is a scandal. For all its pomp, ACOG is unequivocally corrupt.

And Elena Kagan? She has demonstrated she doesn't let reason, facts, medicine or science stand in the way of her pro-abortion ideology.

And this fanatic is on track to be our next U.S. Supreme Court justice, unless bold Republican senators can lead the way in successfully challenging her.

Abortion and Euthanasia are crucial to Progressive moral tone. Without the death of children, the elderly, the incapacitated, the unwanted, smokers,or maybe some day the obese ( Progressives hate lard-asses too), Progressive science just can not seem to march on.

Great work Nurse Stanek!

*Jill Stanek fought to stop "live-birth abortion" after witnessing one as a registered nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Ill. In 2002, President Bush asked Jill to attend his signing of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. In January 2003, World Magazine named Jill one of the 30 most prominent pro-life leaders of the past 30 years. To learn more, visit Jill's blog, Pro-life Pulse.

On Gore and Blago, Chicago's Own Beauty and the Beast: Hannity FeaturesJohn Kass and Tamara Holder

Al Gore is dodging questions -


Now, I like John Kass and, were I not a dedicated lesbian, I'd say that he was one fine figure of a gent. Tamara Holder is a tough (she's positively beastly to Poor John in this feature) and whip-smart young liberal lawyer. Chicago was well-represented on Fox last night - watch for John's tune-up of Al "Sex Poodle" Gore!

The Burge Trial: Guilty of Perjury and Obstruction of Justice

Jon Burge was convicted of Perjury and Obstruction of Justice. This pound of flesh will be but an hors d'oeuvre in the banquet prepared and seasoned by G. Flint Taylor.

You can be sure that there is much more to come - millions in fees to G. Flint Taylor and other legal buzzards.

We are elated that finally 25 years after this evidence first came to light, there is some modicum of justice," said Flint Taylor, an attorney for torture victims, outside the courtroom. "But as all of us know, this is only one phase in a long struggle that shall continue."
He said the next phase is finding those who allegedly abused suspects and trying them in a court of law.

Taylor one one. Everyone else?

The jury did its civic duty.

Phil Kadner's Attempted Rolling Stone -ing of Madigan Falls Flatter Than Blythe Danner

In a local yokel spin on the Michael Hasting's punk'd tribute to General Stanley McCrystal, Southtown Star's Phil Kadner offers this chilling insight to the inner workings of the mind of Illinois Speaker Mike Madigan . . .or do he?

Speaker Mike Madigan is to Illinois politics as Jon Burge is to Ceasefire. I like to think of Speaker Madigan as Bricktop from the great British Comedy Snatch.

"Do you know what Nemesis Means? . . .A righteous infliction of retribution, manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by a 'orrible $%%^: me [Brick Top]."

Mr. Madigan is no where near as chatty as Bricktop, but he is as prophetic and entertaining.

Every goof who wants to run for office in Illinois seems to use Mike Madigan as a straw dog instead of targeting his/her opponent. Boss Madigan! Tyrant Madigan! Izzy Madigan? I don't know; what you say about him? News Flash -Mike Madigan is not running for Deputy Sidewalk Safety Commissioner of Highland Park, Brucey! You are and against the incumbent Cuthbert J. Mortgagethaller.

Illinois is in need of change. The best way to bring change to our state is to remove the longest serving leader Speaker of the House Mike Madigan.

Speaker Madigan has amassed so much power that even the media is afraid of him. He has a large majority in the General Assembly and yet he will not lead, without cover from the Republican members.

from the Daily Hearld.

Phil Kadner offered Speaker Madigan an opportunity to make a clean breast of things - tell his story . . . Fess up!

On May 12, I offered to turn my column space over to Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) to explain his views on this state's budget crisis to the people of Illinois. Madigan, the most powerful political figure in Illinois, responded to that offer last week and here, unedited and (as promised) without comment from me, is his statement.

To which Speaker Madigan offered what amounts to a Bad Santa response to a young chap's Christmas Inquiry -thus -

In discussing the causes of our fiscal difficulties in Illinois, it is critical to note that we are not alone - that in fact, a staggering 46 of 50 states have been forced into deficit budgets for the upcoming fiscal year. Is the state government in Illinois to blame for the national economic downturn? Of course not.

The blame flows more logically in the opposite direction. More than anything, Illinois is suffering the effects of a profoundly severe recession whose origins can be traced directly to the policies of the federal government since 1994's "Republican Revolution."

I am not the first to identify a number of national policy failures, prior to President Obama's election, that hamstrung our state and fostered the economic downturn: (1) tax breaks for the rich; (2) uncontrolled spending; (3) stampeding the country into the Iraq War - a war of choice projected to cost $3 trillion; (4) lack of Wall Street oversight; (5) tax and trade policies that rewarded job outsourcing; (6) giving free rein to predatory mortgage lenders and investment banks; and (7) cheap credit made possible by the Federal Reserve's low lending rates. These policies served the short-term interests of the wealthy but, over the long term, have created an epic economic disaster that has sent millions of Americans and nearly all state governments reeling.

These deficits have certainly affected states governed by Republicans, like California, Arizona, Nevada, and Florida, to name only a few. Last year, California's Republican governor approved an income tax increase to raise $5 billion. Virginia's GOP governor this year proposed increasing the state income tax one percent.

The new Republican governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, who rode into office last fall promising fiscal austerity and to get the state budget under control, elected to skip his state's public employee pension payment as a means to balance the books.

Across the country, Republican governors and legislatures have passed sales, business and "sin" tax increases, hiked fees on drivers, and eliminated tax credits and deductions.

Responding to Crisis

What options did Illinois state government have to respond?

Revenue enhancements: One possibility was to raise revenues. Many other states have done so. Over the last two years, 13 states raised the personal income tax; 17 raised sales taxes; 22 raised taxes on tobacco, alcohol or motor fuel; 17 increased business taxes; and 24 increased fees or other taxes.

But in the history of Illinois, every tax increase that ever passed was on a bipartisan basis. And for good reason. Additional revenues for education, the elderly, the poor, the sick, the unemployed, veterans - the people we are trying to help - do not just benefit those in Democratic districts. Universities, women's shelters, prisons and hospitals are not limited to one party's region. Historically, partisanship was checked at the door when the time came to make tough decisions on tax hikes.

But this time? House Republican Leader Tom Cross issued a directive to his members: Not a single Republican could vote for Governor Quinn's proposal in 2009 to raise the state income tax 1.5 percent, from 3 percent to 4.5 percent. I voted for it, as did 41 other House Democrats, but without GOP support the bill failed.

While I did not expect unanimous backing from the Republicans (some Democrats voted against it as well), I was disappointed they staked out a political campaign strategy to leave the clean-up to the Democrats. This, despite the fact that there were at least 12 House Republicans who were believed to support the measure. In this case, GOP political campaign considerations trumped pragmatic policy.

Spending cuts: In the last fiscal year, Democrats reduced spending by $2.5 billion, or approximately 10 percent of the overall discretionary budget. For the next fiscal year, we have cut another 5 percent from agency operations and given the governor extraordinary powers to cut still further. In addition, as we did last year, lawmakers will take 12 unpaid furlough days - essentially a salary cut - and receive reduced reimbursements for mileage and lodging when attending session. Democrats also blocked a previously scheduled 3 percent cost-of-living adjustment for lawmakers and other state officials.

Republicans, who voted against this budget, opposed these provisions. Worse yet, after hearing the GOP again trot out its claim that they could solve our fiscal problems solely through spending cuts, I called their bluff - and they blinked. I introduced legislation that would cut $4.5 billion from the budget, a figure chosen because it encompassed all the money needed to make the state pension payment. Not one Republican voted for cutting, just as they all voted against the means to meet our pension obligations. Then, I invited them to introduce amendments to my bill to cut whatever particular programs they wished - and not a single Republican identified a single cut!

Pension reform: We made significant changes to public employee pension systems that will save our state $300 million in the next year and as much as $100 billion in future costs.

In the face of stiff opposition from public employee unions, and with the support of the state's leading business organizations, the Illinois Manufacturers' Association and the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, we reined in excesses, reduced benefits, improved the system's long-term viability and, most urgently, eased budget pressures going forward.

Pension borrowing: By the narrowest of margins, the House passed legislation that would allow the state to make its statutorily mandated pension payment. Two Republicans crossed over to support this legislation - and paid a significant price for doing so. House GOP Leader Tom Cross, again pursuing a do-nothing strategy, issued a directive that no Republicans could vote for the measure. When two of their members did, Cross stripped each of them of their leadership positions - reminding all of his members that politics and political campaigns come first.

So much for bipartisanship in Cross's world. The Republicans' political strategy is simple: Do nothing to solve the problem; ignore the suffering it causes; hope the problem festers through the general election; and blame the Democrats. The state GOP is a lot like their national brethren.

The Road Ahead

I cannot predict the future. It is my hope that despite the mixed signs the recovery will take, unemployment will decline, and revenues will increase. We can only hope that some economists are wrong when they predict a "jobless recovery."

Regardless, we must continue to forgo new spending. We must be open to new cuts. We must make sure that Governor Quinn has the flexibility he needs to respond to the fiscal situation as it develops. We must support President Obama's call to Congress to provide additional emergency aid to the states.

And perhaps most importantly, we must be willing to put aside partisan games and do whatever is necessary to solve these problems. Rather than sitting on the sidelines and criticizing, Republicans must consider every option, from additional spending cuts to revenue enhancements to borrowing, as we try to repair the extraordinary damage to our nation caused by their party at the federal level.

A briefing paper containing additional background information and links to other resources regarding the national recession and states' fiscal crisis will be available Monday at the Illinois House Democrats' website, www.housedem.state.il.us

Oh Yeah, Mike Madigan, the only real adult in Springfield, chatty Mike, Mr. Glib, is going to explain anything to . . . to anybody? This is the real world! This is not the Chris Matthews Show.

Phil Kadner is so used to the parade of magpie goofs of the Progressive Democratic Third Coalition Route Army of Recovery blabbing to him about what Ralph Martire's deepest longings, desires and sprightly mewings for everyone's wallets that he thought a real, genuine, no kidding professional would weep out a few breast beaters for papers.

Mike Madigan is genuine professional who must deal with every crack-pot Progressive crowding effective people out of public life.

I wish Mike Madigan would feed a few of these losers to the hogs on a farm in Essex, Il. Now, then ,they'd be useful.



UPDATE - An Illinois Feminist with a very powerful opinion in all matters, pointed out the Caveman Quality and Hirsute Chutzpah of my simile in the title of this post, as well as the fact I am "just plainwrong and not man enough to admit it!"


Quiet Right - I am a cloven hoofed knave and dead wrong . . .Blythe Danner has a great set of knockers!






http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=389459&src=

Leo Alumnus Dr. Steve Reid Paid Tribute by Sun Times' Rick Tealander

One of the joys of my job as Director of Development for Leo High School is the parade of courageous and committed men who are the Leo Alumni. This parade marches through Chicago every day without the need fanfare or promotion as it is a quiet parade of service to Church, Community and Country.

Last fall, I posted a notice upon the passing of Dr. Steve Reid, M.D., who was an athlete and scholar at Leo High School and Northwestern University.

Dr. Reid was a pioneer in sports medicine.

Today, Chicago Sun Times sport columnist Rick Tealander offers a substantial study of Dr. Reid's work in sports medicine, through an interview with his son, also Dr. Reid.

''I helped Dad after school [Reid went to Evanston High School] and while I was in residency,'' he says. ''But my dad was the power pack in the thing. We both wrote, but he was the main force. He put an enormous amount of time into the study. And he didn't get paid at all. I'm not sure he ever got the credit he deserved.''

I can guarantee you he didn't. Reid Sr. died last fall at 94, and though his 20-year brain-trauma study eventually was nominated for a Nobel Prize in medicine, the former Northwestern All-America guard in the 1930s and Leo High School grad from the South Side was quiet, modest and in it for the love of the game and the improvements he might be able to bring. He had, after all, been a two-way player -- an offensive and defensive guard -- on the Wildcats' Rose Bowl-champion team in 1949. As a sophomore, he had broken his nose so badly that he became the first player in the Big Ten to wear a facemask.

''Ol' Doc Reid,'' as we called him, was the doctor for Northwestern's football team from 1951 to 1984, and I remember him as a kindly, curious, unassuming man who always had a pipe clenched between his teeth.

To measure and record the brain waves of a human being during a violent game isn't an easy thing to do, especially when it never has been done before. Reid Sr. asked for and received help from NASA in developing a contraption that involved a ground wire and four electrodes that recorded gravitational forces in three directions and that had to be glued to the player's head and hooked to a bulbous protrusion at the back of his helmet. It then sent out signals to the EEG receiver in the press box

Dr. Steve Reid '33, Dr. J.B. Hartney '38 who pioneered burn-treatments and blood analysis after the tragic Our Lady of Angels fire, and Dr. Joe Cari '31 who treated the Chicago Bears under Pap Bear Halas, Dr. Thom Driscoll '44, a pediatrician who brought thousands of south siders into this world and founded Palos Hospital,Dr. Robert Vanecko '53 one of Chicago's greatest thoracic surgeons, or the great head of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery at Loyola Med Center and Hines VA Hospital James Stankiewicz , MD '66 are just a very few of Leo Lions who shaped medicine.

Click my post title and read Rick Tealander' wonderful story of two remarkable medics - the Doctor Reids.

H/T to Dan Kelley - Wildcat Extraordinaire!

How a Wisconsin Girl Dreams

The Cow

The cow is of the bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other, milk.

Ogden Nash

No, You Be A Lone Eagle

I find it very hard to be fair-minded
About people who go around being air-minded.
I just can't see any fun
In soaring up up up into the sun
When the chances are still a fresh cool orchid to a paper geranium
That you'll unsoar down down down onto your (to you) invaluable
cranium.
I know the constant refrain
About how safer up in God's trafficless heaven than in an automobile
or a train
But ...
My God, have you ever taken a good look at a strut?
Then that one about how you're in Boston before you can say antidis-
establishmentarianism
So that preferring to take five hours by rail is a pernicious example of
antiquarianism.
At least when I get on the Boston train I have a good chance of landing
in the South Station
And not in that part of the daily press which is reserved for victims of
aviation.
Then, despite the assurance that aeroplanes are terribly comfortable I
notice that when you are railroading or automobiling
You don't have to take a paper bag along just in case of a funny feeling.
It seems to me that no kind of depravity
Brings such speedy retribution as ignoring the law of gravity.
Therefore nobody could possibly indict me for perjury
When I swear that I wish the Wright brothers had gone in for silver
fox farming or tree surgery.

Ogden Nash

H/T SuperDadSpeaks.com

The Difference Between a Soldier and Journalist? A Journalist Explains

We are not merely a different species to career soldiers, but also an inferior one. They have taken the oath to flag and country and have sworn to serve, under lawful arms, the cause of democracy. Journalists, on the other hand, have often sworn, usually, under the influence, because they're unable to find a taxi. Simply, journalists know they are a lesser breed, which is why the military so often inspires a Judas-like bipolar syndrome in them, one of both fawning and betrayal.

Kevin Myers Irish Independent Columnist
That is about right, sir!

For context -

General McChrystal was, and remains, a fine soldier and a true patriot. And yet today, his career lies in ruins. Why? Simple. He trusted a reporter.

Now -- apparently unlike some commentators on this matter -- I have read, very closely indeed, the 'Rolling Stone' article by Michael Hastings that brought about General McChrystal's downfall. It is a silly stew of out-of-context remarks and anonymous quotes. It is also glibly wrong, as in an early aside about the US not having any allies in Afghanistan, which is now the "exclusive property of the US".

No allies, eh? Exclusively US, you say? Interesting. What about the 303 British soldiers, three of them Irish, killed in action to date?

What about Private Sophia Bruun (22), the first Danish woman and the 33rd Danish soldier to be killed in the Afghan war? For Denmark's casualty rate is proportionally twice that of the US.

Hastings' story also included a lurid account of a drunken night with the general and his staff at Kitty O'Shea's in Paris. Such capers would be incomprehensible for Barack Obama, whose African blood cannot conceal the fact that, spiritually and culturally, he is just off the Mayflower. Moreover, no gentleman should ever squeal on what happens during down-time, though that is precisely what Hastings did. But what he didn't say was that whatever hour General McChrystal's men caroused to, they were certainly at their desks by 6am, whereas their journalist buddy probably still had another four hours' sleep ahead of him.

Hastings' story also referred to the general's first one-on-one meeting with Obama. It ran: "It was a 10-minute photo-op," said an adviser to McChrystal. "Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was. Here's the guy who's going to run this fucking war but he didn't seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed."

We've all seen President Pilgrim-Father speak. He does lucid, gravitas-filled rhetoric as easy as McDonald's does milkshakes. Alas, the latter also compare with the toughness of the presidential skin.

So those worthless, anonymous words, which were certainly not spoken by the general -- "but he didn't seem very engaged" -- probably fired a Semtex-tipped harpoon between the sixth and seventh ribs of the largely blameless McChrystal's career.

The insanity of bringing a great patriot down because of one really poor, badly researched article has since been compounded by the triumphalist lynch-mob caterwauling of the US East Coast "intelligentsia" (from which filth, angels and ministers of grace defend us).

Thus Maureen Dowd of the 'New York Times', who sneered with toxic inaccuracy: "Military guys are rarely as smart as they think they are and have never gotten over the fact that civilians run the military. Gen Stanley McChrystal and his hard-bitten, smart-aleck aides nuked the president, the vice-president and other top advisers as wimps, losers and clowns in a 'Rolling Stone' profile meant to polish the general's image."

THERE you have it, the essence of the bitter culture war within the US: the supercilious denigration of a patriot-soldier by a well-paid hack, hammering out tabloid prose that I never thought to see in the 'New York Times'. And Dowd is probably oblivious to the fact that those witless, scattershot musings effectively put her on the same side as schoolgirl-killers of the Taliban.

MSNBC Chris Matthews - Tea Party Violence at G-20 Summit - These Old White Women Hate Obama!

Boy was Chris "Milky" Matthews on this one, or what?
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Police said they have arrested more than 500 demonstrators, many of whom were hauled away in plastic handcuffs and taken to a temporary holding center constructed for the summit.
Thousands of police in riot gear formed cordons to prevent radical anti-globalization demonstrations from breaching the steel and concrete security fence surrounding the Group of 20 summit site.
Toronto Police Sgt. Tim Burrows said police made at least 50 arrests in a Sunday morning raid on a building on the campus of the University of Toronto, where they seized a cache of "street-type weaponry" such as bricks, sticks and rocks.
"We think we put a dent in their numbers with this and with the arrests that happened overnight," Burrows said.
The disorder and vandalism occurred just blocks from where U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders were meeting and staying.
"What we saw yesterday is a bunch of thugs that pretend to have a difference of opinion with policies and instead choose violence to express those so-called differences of opinion," Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief spokesman Dimitri Soudas said Sunday.
The streets of downtown Toronto were quiet at daylight, but protesters gathered Sunday morning at a park near the detention center — about 2.5 miles (four kilometers) east of where the leaders are meeting.
Police went into the crowd and made some arrests, adopting a more aggressive strategy than the previous day when they stood back as protesters torched four police cars and broke store windows.

These Tea Party folks are just a shudder, ain't they Milky?

The Burge Trial - The Jury Will Not End Burge Industries: Lawyers, Louts and Loudmouths

Very good people are appalled by the idea of torture. The idea of torture in Chicago by homicide detectives committed to systemtic racism has been carefully crafted and marketed over the last thirty years.

Academics, Activists and Advocacy Agendanistas have parlayed the idea of torture into a mythology that permeates what passes for Chicago's corporate news media.

Carol Marin and other iconic columnists have not tucked their snouts into the story of Area 2, but have relied completely on the work of John Conroy and the propaganda machine of G. Flint Taylor. Code of Silence, Black Box, House of Screams, Vietnam 101 Torture are part of the Burge Industries glossary developed by Sasha Abramsky, Bernardine Dohrn, G. Flint Taylor, Northwestern Law, and especially John Conroy, who can not seem to be given the contract by the corporate media that laps up his every nuanced participle. Why is he not the editor of some great metropolitan newspaper? They all redact his texts and themes.

Twelve citizens will decide for or against Jon Burge, who has been fabricated into the face of torture, by G. Flint Taylor, The MacArthur Center for Justice, Jon Loevy, Locke Bowman, Jean McLean Snyder, Berardine Dohrn, WTTW, WBEZ, NPR, and the lazy and compliant editorial boards.

I have followed this story as a citizen and as an educator who spends seven days a week in Area 2 - I live here and live with the fall-out that has evolved as the result of the erosion in faith for Law Enforcement at the hands of lawyers, louts and loudmouths. A rainforest of crime has rooted up in Chicago- not in Wicker Park, Bucktown, Lakeview, Highland Park, Winnteka, or Wilmette, but in Gresham, Englewood, Brainerd, Morgan Park, Beverly and Roseland.

I have witnessed the savagery of street thuggery and attended the funerals of too many sweet and hard working young black men slaughtered in the Thug Comfort Zone created by Burge Industries - Eric Ersery, Jason Riley, Steven Lyons,Eric and Steve Lee to name but a few. I have witnessed the police officers and detectives of Gresham District (6th) and Area 2.

I don't buy the systemic racist torture at all. Am I intellectually dishonest? I don't think so. I have followed this story very religiously since Officers Fahey and O'Brien were tortured and murdered. I know that I have found the endless chorus of charges and the endless failures to make the case for torture a compelling case for doubt. What happened? I do not know, but I do not buy for one second the charges howled by G. Flint Taylor and the murdering savages that he represents. I suspect that G. Flint Taylor and others in his cottage industry including Chicago's news media want the Burge Saga to continue.

The perjury case against Jon Burge,it seems to me, was merely another legal sop paid to G.Flint Taylor. The City of Chicago and Cook County tried tossing millions of dollars at this public pest. They would have done well to stand in court and demanded a battle royal against the charges. They did not.

The jury will decide one way or the other, but do not think for a minute that Burge Industries will be satisfied. If Jon Burge is convicted or acquitted, G. Flint Taylor and his disciples will howl for more, more, more court time and greater fees. Taylor is smelling an acquittal of Jon Burge and has already ginned up his next moves:

Whatever the outcome of the Jon Burge perjury and obstruction of justice trial, the legal battles that have swirled around him for more than 20 years, and that have cost the city millions of dollars, will drag on.

Not only legal battles, but political battles,” said Flint Taylor, who represents several men who accused Mr. Burge and others of torturing them while at Area 2 violent-crimes unit of the police department on the Far South Side in the 1970s and ’80s. “This is just one phase in the long struggle against police torture.”

Even Huffington Post has gone dark on the Burge Trial.

The only real, genuine and consistant voice calling out the media for this sense of fait accompli in the Burge Trial has been Steve Rhodes of Beachwood Reporter and we agree not a bit in this matter. Rhodes even seemed to shame the Chicago Reader, once the home of John Conroy into some sense of coverage. Rhodes is honest and sincere in his antipathy to Jon Burge, unlike the moral whack-a-mole opportunists Carol Marin, or Eric Zorn.

John Conroy will be kept busy and his story line will continue as Carol Marin and others play the Polyanna do-gooders.

More kids will be slaughtered. If it bleeds it leads.

The scent of easy money, like the taste for blood can not be sated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/us/27cncburge.html

Friday Night Noise -Linda Ronstadt Never Better! -Summit 1978