The White House is Purple! SEIU Covers the Place

Andy Stern has wads of green stuffed here and there from the dues of low-pay, low-skill workers who remain SEIU members for the rest of their lives.

Back before the offices of Janitors Union Local 25 here in Chicago was raided by leadership of what is now SEIU, janitors had universal family health coverage and found a path to skilled trades. No Mas!

SEIU has organized all no skill and low skill workers -janitors, nursing home workers and such - and become a force. They are a political force - a Marxist class warfare, tax-the-middle-class-out-of-existence force that controls timid and often gutless politicians, the corporate media, and a huge chunk of the Democratic National Committee.

Dues go to politics.

Andy Stern left SEIU hours before Judge Zagel released the Blago Santiago Proffer which features the active work of Andy Stern's game of manipulation. He also left SEIU in a huge jackpot - their pensions are as rocky as Broadway Bank last Tuesday - it closed yesterday. Not Andy, not Anna Burger ( Andy lite), and not the SEIU leadership. You see they went to all the right schools, Miss Lonely, and you're gonna hafta get used to iiiiiiiiiittttt! Sorry, feeling Dylanesque.

SEIU Leadership pensions were funded at a math-boggling 107%! The rank and file members get Purple T-Shirts and wildly under-funded pensions that should be as good as the Broadway Bank!

That ain't nothing, Cupcakes! Andy Stern seed the Federal government with Purple Leftists and that is the real danger.

It is often said that in politics, personnel is policy. By that measure, SEIU carries considerable weight within the Obama administration. Patrick Gaspard, formerly the executive vice president of politics and legislation for the powerful Local 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, is now the political director at the White House.

Craig Becker, formerly SEIU's associate general counsel and adviser to the ACORN affiliate SEIU 800 in Chicago, is now on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Mr. Obama made a recess appointment of Mr. Becker after he failed to be confirmed by the Senate. This was a significant win for organized labor. Mr. Becker has hinted at having the NLRB enact card check without a vote in Congress.

SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger sits on the Obama administration's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Mr. Stern himself was appointed by Mr. Obama to its deficit commission. (Mr. Stern has said he will stay in that post after he steps down from SEIU.)

Mr. Stern's abrupt resignation has led many to question his motives and ponder his next steps. Whatever the answer, one thing is certain: He leaves SEIU - especially its pension funds - swimming in red ink. Sadly, it will be the union's rank-and-file members who will be paying for Mr. Stern's profligacy well into the future.

Click my post title for Andy's Handiwork.

Andy Stern should be hearing from the Feds about his role in the Blago Fire sale Madness. While you are talking to Andy, Fitzy . . . Oh, I'm sure you're on it,

Bale & Blago - Why are these Dark Nits Never Seen Together!

'Well, $%%^ You Hickey, you $%$^^&&%$er! Take your &$#@ opinions and $%%$ing allusions and %^$# yourselves you #$%66er!' Mother#$%$er you can't $%%&&ing write at #$%^ing all.

Sincerely,

Christian Bale & Rod Blagojevich

Thanks for dropping in Boys!
BTW-
Chris, we have Blago on Fitzy's Tapes - the folks can get your's on FOX by clicking my post title.

Tamara Holder on Patti Blagojevich - Diary of a Housewife Married to the Mad-Hatter

Chicago attorney Tamara Holder has an interesting take on Patti Blagojevich:

A good wife sticks by her man's side. Shoot, many women bounce after their husband's arrest! (In fact, I think she got pretty lucky by not being slapped with some handcuffs herself.) Not that I'm suggesting she's a criminal, but, she was in the home all those hours that Blags was doing "business" on the bugged family phone while sitting on the couch in his jogging suit.

Go ahead, call Blags a scumbag criminal. As you know, I disagree. Gov. Blagojevich is not a Gov. Spitzer nor is he a member of the Gambino crime family. He does not have offshore accounts and he does not have cash tied up in real estate. Follow the paper trail...um, it doesn't exist! Blago is a wannabe criminal at best.
Like her or not, Patti is taking one for the Blags team by doing this silly show. Blago's defense attorneys need to be paid and her kids need to go to school. And, Patti needs to create an image separate from that of Mrs. Rod Blagojevich because, no matter how much Rod wants to be compared to Ghandi, it ain't happenin'.

Click my poist title for more from Ms. Holder!

Rod is, was, and continues to be a goof. However, Patti Mell fell in love with him, went halves on children with Rod, and is stepping into jungle for him. More tragically, the poor girl must hang around the jungle with A-List Mopes like the Baldwin kid. Que Mujer!
God bless women!

SEIU's Andy Stern in The Shadows, of Blago's Smile? Watching the Silverfish Scatter

A “labor union official” close to the President (who may be SEIU President Andy Stern) is said to contradict public statements on the case by Obama directly.

Blago's subpoena for President Obama is like turning on a light and watching the silver fish scatter.

Hours before Judge Zagel releases the Santiago Proffer of the Federal Case against the antic former Guv, Andy Stern exited the National scene stage left.

The 'labor Official' should just about prove that Kingmaker Marxist Andy Stern might have exceeded his grasp.

I do not believe that there is any mess on the President's shoes, but those close to the President, like SEIU's Andy Stern, could create a wave of disgust unseen thus far among the President's cheerleaders in the corporate media.

Sun Times Gets it Right - After Playing the Lefty Fool for Years

Ray Coffey should be the Standard for News writers and those who would call themselves Journalists. Ray's departure from the Chicago Sun Times was the starting gun for that paper's 90 degree plunge in credibility and honor. There might yet be hope for the Sun Times.

The Sun Times offered a sober look at the value of newspapers in yesterday's commentary.

No army of bloggers, no TV or radio station, no nonprofit journalism collective, no foundation-supported task force of political and government reporters will ever do the job so well.

The first Sun-Times exclusive hit the front page on Sunday: "Blago hit up Burris for cash." The reporters were Natasha Korecki, who covers the federal courts for the Sun-Times, and Dave McKinney, our Springfield bureau chief.

The real significance of that story was not that the brother of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich had asked Sen. Roland Burris for a sizable campaign contribution shortly before Blagojevich appointed Burris to Barack Obama's former Senate seat. No surprise there. That would be Blago's style.

The real story was that Burris had stated earlier in a Jan. 5 affidavit that he had talked to no one in the Blagojevich camp, and he had testified three days later at Blagojevich's impeachment trial that he had talked to just one person. More troubling, he never said a word about talk of money.

The real story, that is to say, is that Burris looks like a liar.

We know. That was why we quit buying the rag that bore the name - Sun Times. There are great newspaper people who have been chained to the oars of the Sun Times Sinking Ship Review for the last few years: Tim Novak, Steve Huntley, Dave McKinney, Natasha Korecki, and Kate Grossman. God love them. Tim Novak was like the Man in the Iron Mask during the last days of the Presidential Campaign. Maybe now, he can be let off the leash.

While the Sun Times has played at being a Revolutionary Organ committed to The Great Patriotic Proletarian Progress Paradee by Cheryl Reed, readers in my neighborhood and others in Chicago have pocketed the two-bit pieces.

My neighborhood, where crime happens due to the Thug Comfort Zone* that Sun Times helped create, has been insulted and caste as some kind of Third Reich Sculpture. The dampness on our backs is not rain or sweat but the dewy offerings of lazy writers and pop-eyed Advocacy nuts drawing pay from the Sun Times.

I was happy to see that the CEO and the publisher have taken their Golden Parachutes out of town.

Newspapers are essential to free Republic. Perhaps, the Sun Times will become one once again - now that the Jacobin Hat and Cap and Bells have been hung up on the hook.

*http://hickeysite.blogspot.com/search?q=Thug+Comfort+Zone

Sun Times' Natasha Korecki Scoops National with Jesse Jackson, Jr. Saga

The Chicago Sun Times is blessed with very talented reporters ( Dan Mihalopoulos, Chris Fusco, Tim Novak, Art Golab and especially Natasha Korecki). 

The columnists? Not so hot; with two notable exceptions -  Mark Brown and Steve Huntley are very exacting with the facts and wholly independent.  The reporters are old school fro the most part.

No reporter in Chicago did a better job of covering the hair-ball that was the Blago yarn, than Natasha Korecki. That particularly epic fabrication had more twists than a Chubby Checker retrospective on WTTW, or single Carol Marin column. 

At the core of the Blago trichobezoar remains the campaign for and election to the Presidency of Illinois Senator Barack Obama with its cast of characters* Homer would be hard-set to catalog - Tim Novak somehow managed to do so.

This weekend, the young woman who reported the Blagojevich Trials with the keenest eyes to detail, Natasha Korecki equals the tenacious pitbull Novak with a close look at Jesse Jackson, Jr. - Illinois' Congressional Howard Hughes. 

The first of two reports centers on the Federal probe of the reclusive Jackson's ( odd saying that) Congressional cash piles of taxpayer-lifted spondulices (archaic and so am I)**

The snowballing troubles of Jesse Jackson Jr. took a new turn Friday with the revelation that federal investigators have launched a probe into “suspicious activity” in the South Shore congessman’s finances.
Focusing on a completely new area of scrutiny for the son of the famed civil rights leader, the investigation is not related to former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s attempted sale of a U.S. Senate seat, a scandal that has ensnared Jackson in the past, sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Rather, the probe — based in the Washington, D.C., FBI field office —is focusing on “suspicious activity” involving the congressman’s finances related to his House seat and the possibility of inappropriate expenditures, the sources said. . . .News of the probe — first disclosed by the Sun-Times — comes as questions increasingly swirl around Jackson’s absence from not only his official duties in Washington, but the campaign trail as the Nov. 6 election nears.

Citing exhaustion, Jackson, 47, stopped working, according to his staff, on June 10. His staff did not make that known until two weeks later.
He went to a clinic in Arizona then to the Mayo Clinic, which released a statement saying he was being treated for a bipolar disorder. Jackson is up for re-election Nov. 6 but has not campaigned since he won the Democratic primary in March.

The next places the hairball, not unlike Felonius  Guv doing a few semesters in Club Fed Colorado, into voter responsibility and same-old-same-old Cook County Context:

In Jackson’s South Side and south suburban 2nd Congressional District, even people who don’t like him think he will easily get re-elected.
“I don’t see how he can deal with all these problems and still deal with the district,” said South Shore resident Carlos Jones, 64. “But I believe he’s going to get re-elected and try to make amends.”
William Davenport, 29, said he knows Jackson “has definitely been in hot water with Blagojevich and has issues with his [mental] stability.” Now the new investigation “makes me wonder what’s going on with him.”
But, Davenport added, “The Jackson name carries a lot of weight around here.”
The newly disclosed federal probe is not related to the attempted sale of the U.S. Senate seat that figured in Blagojevich’s corruption conviction, but it’s focusing on “suspicious activity” involving the congressman’s finances related to his House seat and the possibility of inappropriate expenditures, sources said.
The probe was active in the weeks before Jackson took a leave from his U.S. House post on June 10.
“I don’t think this is going to affect his re-election in 2012,” said a Democratic strategist who didn’t want to be named. “I gotta believe that the day after his election, the gun goes off on his next federal primary.”
Jackson has been through the political wringer since 2008. He was initially under federal scrutiny tied to charges leveled against Blagojevich. In 2010, it was revealed that a donor to Jackson, Raghuveer Nayak, told federal authorities that Jackson asked him to approach Blagojevich with what the ex-governor believed to be a $1.5 million offer to be appointed to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama.

Sun Times reporters, especially the great ones like Novak and Korecki, scoop up the hairballs of political hypocrisy and present them to the careful reader and thoughtful voter.  They do great civic service and honor their craft.

The editorial boards of both Chicago papers never seem to read, much less understand the work of gifted writers like Korecki, Novak and Kass at the Tribune.  

The editorial boards send in the clowns and vigorously licking cats; they help elect the mopes and frauds and grifters as much as the "benighted" electorate. Psssst! Read the reporters and skip the editorial pages. Well done, again, Ms. Korecki!

*The following fact pattern was out in the open long before Obama severed his ties to Rezko (sometime in late 2006): In 1983, Rezko started raising a lot of money for Chicago politicians. In 1989, he and his partner Daniel Mahru started vacuuming up deals with the city to develop low-income housing, despite having virtually zero experience in the field. They proceeded to obtain over $100 million in city, state, and federal grants and bank loans to develop 30 run-down properties into affordable-housing projects, earning $6.9 million for themselves. By 2007, the city had sued them numerous times for failing to heat these properties; over half of the properties had fallen into foreclosure, and six of them were boarded up.

Obama helped put one of these deals together during his time as a junior associate at Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland. Other lawyers at Davis Miner helped Rezko acquire half of the properties that fell into disrepair. And many of these properties were located in the district Obama represented as an Illinois state senator. Nonetheless, Obama told the Chicago Sun-Times that he was unaware of Rezko’s growing reputation as a slumlord until he read Sun-Times reporter Tim Novak’s two-part series on the subject. So we are to believe (yet again) that Obama was the last person to know what one of his longtime friends was up to. (National Review June 5, 2008)

**

spon·du·licks

   [spon-doo-liks]  Show IPA

noun Older Slang .

money; cash.

Also, spon·du·lix.

Origin: 
1855–60, Americanism ;  origin uncertain

Paul Vallas - Meets The Opposition in Mark Brown and What Lies Beneath

I believe that Mark Brown, who is fed scoops of news by the Uriah Heep of Illinois Politics, Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley, pounced early on news that Paul Vallas would return to challenge Todd Stroger for President of the Cook County Board as a Republican, in order to put some root rot under Paul's path.

Click my post title for Mark Brown's column.

In his column today, Brown catalogues career Democrats who switched parties to advance their holds on the public imagination - Aurelia Puchinski, Ed Vrydolyak, Bernie Stone & etc. - as means of poisoning the well for Vallas. Mark Brown has had a long detestation of the 19th Ward and got embroiled in a dispute with a Mike Quigley challenger Miss Daly some years back*. Miss Daly's father as I recall had words for Mark Brown. It got ugly - for Mark Brown.

Ugly lasts and so Mark Brown seemed to go after Paul Vallas and his motives. 'Why GOP?' asks Mark Brown.

Well, gee Mark, the Chicago and Cook County Democrats did handsomely for Paul Vallas, prior to his exile in Philly, his attempt to get on the ballot against Blago in 2006, and his subsequent voyage to Louisiana. Paul Vallas is a Greek American and that means that his memory is sharper than any Irish grudge holder ( and that is longer than the odds on any Subway World Series). Paul Vallas remembers the people who were threatened by his work ethic, skills, honesty and energy. He knows who is slapping his back. Vallas understands what lies beneath a newspaper writer's questions and from whence those questions sprung up.

Paul Vallas gave Brown a terse and honest answer, 'Vallas also emphasized that this state's Democratic establishment, with the exception of the Sheahans, abandoned him in 2002 against Blagojevich, then blocked him from running for governor in 2006 because of his residency.' The Sheahans are great people - loyal, honest, energetic and did I mention that they are loyal? So is Paul Vallas.

Vallas will do well. He knows the ground - some of it is solid and some paths are sink holes.

*
Author: Mark Brown
Date: March 6, 2002 - ( Contemporary to the Blago Dreamscape Campaign for Goveronor!)
Publication: Chicago Sun-Times
Page: 2
Word Count: 1023
Excerpt:
Mary Ellen Daly is a 27-year-old manager of an Oak Street bridal shop who wants to unseat Cook County Commissioner Michael Quigley, the leading troublemaker on the County Board.

“I’m not very experienced, obviously,” she said last week when I asked about her background in politics, which by her own account is limited to handing out literature, hanging up campaign signs and stuffing envelopes for other candidates.

A Real Reporter, Natasha Korecki, Talks to Tony Rezko - America's Man in the Iron Mask

The Chicago Sun Times is blessed with great reporters.  It's editorial board seems stuck on the "daffy" button and with the exceptions of Steve Huntley and Mark Brown Sun Times columnists seem to have all of the gravitas and substance of an MTV documentary.

Chicago and the nation would never know about Allison Davis, President Obama's former boss and bullet-proof slum property owner who is 'this-close' to Valerie Jarrett, Sneedless to say without Tim Novak and  Chris Fusco - two pit-bullishly independent investigative reporters.  They also unearthed most of the dodgier aspects of Koschman Saga, as well as the career of Daley scion snouts in the public troughs.  Mark Konkol and his Southtown Star colleague Steve Metsch are solid voices for real people in Chicago's neighborhoods.

Natasha Korecki has always impressed me as a singularly and refreshingly honest and tough reporter.  Ms. Korecki's accounts of the Blag trial were essential documents.  One of the shadowy victims of retiring Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's Star Chamber is Tony Rezko.  The man was everywhere and with anyone who could both move and shake.

( looks just like the Old Petrillo!)

Rezko's role in President Obama's ascent to the national teleprompter remains a '" Mere distraction! "Nothing to see here, Folks!  Move it along!  Who cares about a 15' property bargain?  Really. Pay np attention to man in the iron mask!" Tony went away , when the crowd in Grant Park were shedding tears of pure joy that Our Post Racial and Post Political Politician snagged the Post in the West Wing.

Tony Rezko  is the Obama Justice Department's Utility Insider - trotted out when need and then sent to the showers.  Rezko padded wallets and campaign accounts and sits in a concrete and re-bar cubicle on the Federal dimes. Fellow Obama Distraction Bill Ayers bombed Federal buildings and has an Illinois Pension.Make sense?  We might not get to the root and marrow of the Obama Myth until long after the Mormon straps his mutt on the roof of Marine One for a chopper ride.

However, Natasha Korecki scooped and interview with America's Man in the Iron Mask - Tony Rezko -

In a wide-ranging telephone interview from prison with the Chicago Sun-Times on Wednesday, Rezko refused to talk about his former friend who went on to be elected president. 

Natasha Korecki immediately tells the reader that Rezko will not chat, utter, rat-out, or insinuate anything about his Chicago Real Estate disciple and political bundler.  Blago?  You bet. Why not.

Rezko was convicted of Blago Bog-trotting.  Candidate Obama and President Obama never got moist undies due to Mr. Rezko and Natasha Korecki perfumes her narrative and interview with the bog itself.

His ( Tony Rezko's) trial took place in the Spring of 2008, in the midst of a heated presidential primary between Hillary Clinton and Obama. In one debate, Clinton chastised Obama for having ties to Rezko, who had poured money into the campaign fund of Obama earlier in his career.
Rezko was behind bars when authorities arrested Blagojevich in December of 2008 and charged him with attempting to sell Obama’s vacant U.S. Senate seat, citing recorded conversations.
“I think it was very unsmart of him to have conversations when he did about Obama’s replacement,” Rezko said. “But he is not the evil person who is been portrayed over the last few years. I think he did good things for the state of Illinois.”
“I blame nobody but myself, no. I have no ill feeling toward him [Blagojevich]. Or anybody else. Even Stuart Levine. He did what he had to do.” Rezko was referring to the key witness who testified against him.

With whom do Tony have 'issues' and the odd 'ill-feeling?'  Thanks to a real reporter, Natasha Korecki, this mythopoeic regime occupying the White House may have more such inquiry from citizens.  Forward!

 Thanks Ms. Korecki!

http://www.suntimes.com/12873845-761/tony-rezko-says-blagojevich-knew-about-pay-to-play-for-state-posts.html

Will Mike Quigley Call for Blago to Resign?????????????

With growing chorus of elected voices harrumphing Blagojevich to 'Do the Right Thing!' . . . Illinois awaits that boomingly familiar voice that echoes Blago so nicely . . . in all ways - 'Mike Quigley Calls on Blaogjevich to Resign!!!! Resign I Tells Ya!'


CHICAGO (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama called on Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to resign on Wednesday after he was charged with trying to sell Obama's U.S. Senate seat and swap favors for money.

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said Blagojevich needed to step down because "under the current circumstances it is difficult for the governor to effectively do his job and serve the people of Illinois."

Moves boiled up within Obama's home state of Illinois to strip Blagojevich of the power to make the appointment he allegedly tried to barter, either by driving him from office through legal means or letting voters fill the Senate seat with a special election.

After being arrested at home before dawn on Tuesday and then released on his own recognizance without having to post bail, Blagojevich showed no sign of resigning.

Capitol Fax Brag - Change History -" No Fact, Just Brag"

Rich Miller has a clearing house of Illinois political news. He also pens prose musings for the Sun Times. Capitol Fax Blog then gins up approval of Miller's columns like Hedley LaMarr whoops up the boys for Governor LePetomain. "I didn't hear a Harrumph, from that guy! ( Harrumph, Harrumph, Harrumph!)

Today Rich Miller portays Civil War historian Shelby Foote with am Illinois factoid that perfectly matches the Media's demand that Rahm be ballot worthy - he is; they did. Even Miller's Civil War guy defeated the vile post-Bellum Appelate Court of Illinois. Here is where Gabby Miller snaps his galluses - them's suspenders, Son - too broadly, over-plays his hand and tosses out facts that are looser than a box of snuff:

A few years ago, former Chicago Schools CEO Paul Vallas wanted to run for office in Illinois but was told he couldn’t. Unlike Judge Smith and Rahm Emanuel, Vallas sold his Chicago house when he moved to Pennsylvania. He registered to vote in Philadelphia and then he voted there. He made his intent crystal clear with those actions, so he couldn’t run for office in Illinois.

Smith and Emanuel, on the other hand, had no intention of ever becoming citizens of another state, and they clearly proved it. Case closed.

If Rahm’s elected mayor, he ought to name a street after Judge Smith.

Well, Suh! Facts are Troub'lim' things - It was the summer of '05 -August 4 to be Preezact and Paul Vallas sold his house in Morgan Park to be sure - some time ter'other when Blago won and Paul went to Philly, but purchased a home in Palos Heights after having rented for five years - loooooooong before he took a charge at running for anything . . . but he was not allowed to do, by dint of "Chicago Circuit Court Judge Raymond Jagielski siding with the Illinois State Board of Elections and Cook County Clerk David Orr, granting their motion to dismiss Vallas' petition to be declared an Illinois resident."
. You see, H'yar, Sharon and the boys, live up this away and Paul commuted on weekends, but the ink-slingers did not see a Judge Smith parallel - No, Suh! You see that election in '06 was Blago Happy Days and Media Hugs! Yes, Suh! Time for my vittles and branch water! Elihu, bring on my spoon vittles and meat provenders! ( spits wad of Mail Pouch Plug)

Chicago Editorial Boards Will Attack Every Union But SEIU

Carol Marin will soak the Carpenters Union for months after some disappointed rat drops a dime on a BA he don't like. The Tribune will launch a huff and puff series about systemic racism in the skilled trades and the small number of black apprentices without mentioning the fact that black kids from public schools score horribly in math and plumbers need to know the difference between 1/8th" and 1/16th" and beef about testing standards, drug testing, valid drivers licences and requirements of that sort. They will make idiotic protestations about Slilled Trades hourly pay to heat up the idiots who bull-horn behind Andy Stern's Purple Gang without detatiling the many hours of study and personal expensees laid out by all tradesmen in order to "earn' their salaries. Teamsters, Hoisters, Riggers, Electricians, Operating Engineers, Pipe-fitters, Stage Hands and you name the trade are all fair journalistic game for the ersatz Menckens.

Not so SEIU. SEIU is not a union; it is a PAC -a very powerful PAC. It is and has been a Marxist lead PAC and one up to its eyeballs in corruption ( most recently the BLAGO pooch screwing by Fitzy the Fed - BLAGO will walk, BTW).



Wonderfully accurate cartoon by James Hudnall and Val Mayerik at Big Journalism

http://bigjournalism.com/

Blago's Borscht Capades Channels Mickey Katz - Oy Vey!

"Men who eat salami come on and Join the Yiddish army,/ Fight! Fight! Fight for Palestine!/
If you like your bread and gravy Come and join the Jewish navy/ Fight fight fight for Palestine./
Come on you sons of bitches Put on those Purple britches/ Fight Fight for Palestine." Mickey Katz*


"I will fight, I will fight, till I take my very last breath. I have done nothing wrong.” - R. Blagojevich 12/19/2008

I heard Governor Sunshine sing his battle cry and thought that he was channeling the great Yiddish Parodist Mickey Katz! My late pal and boyhood chum, Danny Levi sang this song at a Little Flower Picnic. Danny's family was Jewish in a neighborhood surrounded by Goyisher Cossocks from Ireland.

Danny Levi bought a saloon ( photo above) on 111th Street that was mainstay of Little Flower, St. Sabina, St. Killian, Visitation, St. Tommy More, St. Ethelreda and St. Margaret of Scotland children of the Diaspora - The Irish Temple! Danny's logo was a Star of David encompassing a Shamrock. Danny knew more Clancy Brother and traditional Irish ballads than Terry McEldowney and he also knew the great Yiddish works of Klezmer artists and Borscht Belt singers like Mickey Katz.

Mickey Katz knocked the schmaltz out of faux sentiment when he was with Spike Jones and his City Slickers.

Governor (extant) Rod Blagojevich is taking another great leap over the political shark and using faux sentiment that works so well for elected officials caught in the act of grabbing a baby's Laffy Taffy or knocking another man's wing-tips from under a John Stall:

In his first statement since he was arrested on federal charges of conspiracy and soliciting bribes, Mr. Blagojevich was alternately emotional and combative, his voice breaking as he told reporters that he would be vindicated, and asked Illinois residents to withhold their judgment.

“I intend to stay on the job and I will fight this thing every step of the way,” he said in an appearance at the James R. Thompson Center in downtown Chicago. “I will fight, I will fight, I will fight, till I take my very last breath. I have done nothing wrong.”

Blago lawyered up with the Illinois Criminal Law A Team; Fitzy must play Beat the Clock with an indictment; President Elect Obama ain't saying nothing; Rahmbo's loins are on the Weber; the Illinois Legislature is posturing; the Media is as genuinely curious about 'the Truth' as a sixteen year old boy is about Quantum Mechanics - Mickey Katz! America needs You!


CLICK my Post Title for Mickey Katz's rendition of Davy Crockett!


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/20/us/20illinois.html?bl&ex=1229922000&en=4151becfb65bac73&ei=5087%0A

*

Mickey Katz (June 15, 1909 Born: Cleveland, Ohio - April 30, 1985) was a U.S. Jewish comedian and musician who received his first moments of fame in the 1940s as a member of Spike Jones and His City Slickers where he was most famous for his "glugging" vocal sound effects on tunes like "Cocktails for Two" and others. He later went on to perform his own parodic musical review and record highly popular "ethnic" comedy albums on the Capitol label where he would perform English-Yiddish parody songs. He was also recognized as a master of what would later be called Klezmer style clarinet and had several hits during his long career. Though Katz sang primarily in broken Yiddish, he is often as recognized as one of the godfathers of American song parody which would later be advanced by the likes of Allan Sherman and, in the 1980s, Weird Al Yankovic.

Katz and his group can be seen in the movie Thoroughly Modern Millie accompanying Julie Andrews as she sings a Yiddish song at a Jewish wedding.

Katz is the father of Broadway legend Joel Grey and a grandfather of the actress Jennifer Grey. In the early 1980s he told the story of his life in a biography called Papa Play for Me.

A number of famous Jewish musicians, including those with their own bands have recorded with him including Manny Klein, Ziggy Elman and Si Zentner.

Jazz musician Don Byron recorded a tribute to Mickey Katz in 1993 entitled Don Byron Plays The Music of Mickey Katz.

The 2003 British movie Wondrous Oblivion featured Katz' "The Barber of Schlemiel" (a parody of The Barber of Seville in a scene where the Jewish main character played the record for his Jamaican neighbor. No soundtrack has been released for the film as yet.

Neil Steinberg says, "It does take a certain kind of monster to run for political office " Really? Meet Illinois Representative Kevin Joyce:Monster

It does take a certain kind of monster to run for political office, to kiss all those babies, raise all that money, and for what? A low-paying handhold in the rugby scrum of elected office.

Chicago Sun Times: Neil Steinberg

Really?

This is the new de Tocqueville? Political dilettante ink-slingers try to keep well-heeled urban hipsters from shopping for arugula at Whole Foods, because the CEO and Founder disagreed with President Obama's Government Health Initiative Blow Through.

They huff and puff about which kid got into the University of Illinois and ignore the idiot hack foisted on Chicago State University after that school was looted by its President for years. They huff and puff about Green Initiatives. They huff and puff about mean Police Officers. They huff and puff about damn near everything that means absolutely nothing to the proper running of government and making people aware of the greatness of our Republic. They are well-schooled ( educated might be a stretch) suburban and self-important. These Opinion Touters , the Marins, Browns, Zorns and Steinbergs, are direct opposites of most people in public service.

I know a guy from the north side who is responsible for a huge department in Cook County government and that department runs well. He is never mentioned in the news. He does not reach out to news people and news people have no idea who he is, because he is at work at 6:30 a.m. ( I get calls every now and then at Leo at that time, because I am at Leo by 6:00 a.m. most days) concerning Leo matters and County matters. He is efficient, demanding and professional. You do not 'get' anything from this guy without going through procedures that get goofier every time a mope on the Cook County Board gets jonesing for his name in the Sun Times or the Tribune.

Today , I glanced at Neil Steinberg's piece about Chris Kennedy's PT ( Political Tease) of the Illinois Pundits. The voters could give a fat rat's ass about Chris Kennedy's Camelot Dreams and the guy would be deader than a raccoon family crossing I-57 at Rush Hour, were he to run for State wide office. Back when, Paul Vallas was thinking about a run for Governor and meeting Blago in the Illinois Primary -WAIT-WAIT Chris Kennedy posed the idea that He should run as Governor and Vallas should be HIS Lieutenant Governor. Just a thought . . .an idea . . . a Trial Balloon which was laughed in the atmosphere and out of the room by much smarter people . . .after giving Kennedy the sober nods due a Kennedy. Pure Hickey hearsay! Pure.

Neil Steinberg wanted Chris Kennedy to run for Governor, or Senator, or Will County Coroner, because he is not like all those people in public service who stand for something and then stand in front of the voters and stand for election. Kennedy is no Steinberg Monster. Those are the people that put themselves on the line to make things better for other people and can expect a snotty crack from a Neil Steinberg.

Other Monsters I like - State Rep. Mary Flowers, Speaker Madigan, Sen. Dan Cronin, Rep. Patti Bellock, Rep. Jim Durkin, Rep. John Fritchey, Sen. Ed Maloney - Republicans and Democrats, Monsters all! Monsters in the same way that Neil Steinberg terms me and my neighbors as Nazis ( "It was a Joke" -giggles, Neil, giggles; rather a chuckle.)

Chris Kennedy is supine. Why climb the gradus, when the Levelers are controlling the Media. These Progressive Latitudinarian "Who's To Say-ers" and Huff Puffers, who could not name a precinct captain let alone a precinct worker and yet have self-absorption to rail against Politics as Usual. They are Cliffs Notes readers of literature and Life.

I live two blocks away from a very effective Neil Steinberg Monster - Illinois State Representative Kevin Joyce. He does not 'need' to kiss babies, because he has seven of his own. Joyce does legislation for people of the 35th District. He does legislation on Autism Education, Sex-Offenders and Career Criminals, Workplace Safety for the Tradesmen, Pro-Life Issues, and Care for the Elderly as Joyce Chairs the Committee on Aging.

Kevin Joyce attends every wake, baptism, funeral and benefit that his schedule allows as well as coaches football** for St. Xavier University. With seven children ranging in age from twelve to eighteen months, Kevin Joyce and his bride Krista would have more on their hands than any two young people could ask for, but Kevin Joyce is a Monster.

I saw the Monster last night dragging in the Little Tykes vehicles and he asked me how my kids were doing. ( Huff!) "Monstrous! ( Puff!)He should be about the State's business!"

Click my post title and see for yourselves!

*Monster–noun 1. a legendary animal combining features of animal and human form or having the forms of various animals in combination, as a centaur, griffin, or sphinx.
2. any creature so ugly or monstrous as to frighten people.
3. any animal or human grotesquely deviating from the normal shape, behavior, or character.
4. a person who excites horror by wickedness, cruelty, etc.
5. any animal or thing huge in size.
6. Biology. a. an animal or plant of abnormal form or structure, as from marked malformation or the absence of certain parts or organs.
b. a grossly anomalous fetus or infant, esp. one that is not viable.

7. anything unnatural or monstrous.

–adjective 8. huge; enormous; monstrous: a monster tree.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Origin:
1250–1300; ME monstre < L mōnstrum portent, unnatural event, monster, equiv. to mon(ēre) to warn + -strum n. suffix

Related forms:

monsterlike, adjective


Synonyms:
4. fiend, brute, demon, devil, miscreant.

**
From Neil's Chuckles:

Chris Kennedy's non-candidacy reminded me of a line from another of politics' tantalizing what-ifs, Minnesota senator Eugene McCarthy, who was running for president in 1968 when he said:

Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game and dumb enough to think it's important.

Yeah, that Gene McCarthy was some grid-iron great. Ignorance never stops a Progressive.




http://www.suntimes.com/news/steinberg/1722088,chris-kennedy-senate-not-running-081809.article

Claypool Wouldn't Know the Truth Unless It Came With a Government Paycheck

DNA Erica Demerest photo

Forrest Claypool - say it with me, please " Forrest Claypool."  There; isn't that like a Yoga moment, or cucumbers on the eyelids?

For most Chicago journalists, just saying " Forrest Claypool" is a tonic akin to a seventh grade fat boy getting a Saint Valentine's Day card from a tween stunner - the Hope, Oh the Hope!

You see over the last forty years, Chicago newspapers gave up integrity for access.  Columnists and Editorial Boards care more about the news morsels tossed by a Daley, a Blago,  an Obama, a Rahm, a Mike Quigley, or a Pat Quinn than it does about getting out the full story. Public television and radio, WTTW& WBEZ share the agendas of the elected Progressives who run this city, county and this state and the activists and PACs who help keep them in power, They feed at the same tax-funded trough.

I'm just a working stiff, with a mortgage and a new tax on something I own or don't own every sixty seconds in Cook County. To me, the name " Forrest Clayyyyyyyyyyyypoooooooooool " portends a looming grift - a government sanctioned pinch of my wallet.  Forrest Claypool to my waxless ears is akin to the names of great grifters, cads, bounders, cut-purses and ne'er-do-wells of common culture Reese Kilgore, Butch Cavendish, Velma Valento, Bill Sykes and of course Galworthy's hideous Soames Forsyte. .  Uriah Heep is Congressman Mike Quigley's sole property, though Forrest Claypool would give Wee Mike a run for his money.

Thanks to the capriciously snorting snouts of Chicago's iconic news hounds, Forrest Claypool does not get away with murder, only character assassination of better persons -Amalgamated Transit Union Local #308 Bob Kelly.  Why only yesterday, Forrest Claypool celebrated the continued employment of 65 felons turned CTA apprentices with this -"Despite Mr. Kelly's commitment to end the rail car servicer apprentice program and put his own union members out of work, we've been able to work with Local 241's leadership to find a place for these individuals, guaranteeing them the opportunity to work and put food on their families' tables for another year," CTA President Forrest Claypool said previously." And often.

Robert Kelly has been portrayed in our collective Chicago media as cross between Simon Legree and Sir Percival Glyde, from the moment that the doomsday clock on the Forrest Claypool, Rahm Emanuel, Michael Pfleger CTA School for Felons was announced last March. Though the ex-cons were placed in rail cleaning posts, no one bothered to let the union governing such labor in on the plans.  Kelly wanted the workers placed in the jobs at the Local 308 recommended salaries, but Rahm Pinchpenny Savior and Forrest Claypool chained the workers to Micky D salaries in the name of Saul Alinsky.

But Kelly has said he wanted the CTA to pay the rail workers more money. The 65 rail apprentices are dues-paying union members, but they’re paid a considerably lower wage than their union counterparts, and they don't get benefits.
“What do I say to people when I say you’re going to do the exact same work next to a guy making $25 an hour and benefits, and I'm not going to pay you benefits?" Kelly asked on "Chicago Tonight" recently.
"They're using these people to save money. Give them the right wages, health, pension, benefits. Let’s give these people a real second chance. Let’s do it. I will sign that deal tomorrow, turn these people over, and give them a real shot at life,” Kelly said.

The SPIN fed to the gaping maws of the Chicago news hounds avoids the facts, minutes, calendars and records of Forrest Claypool.  No one from WTTW to Chuck Goudie to Eric Zorn will bother with the facts missing from a good Claypool news feed.

Claypool is such a gutless, sniveller that he and Rahm hired Citizen Michael Pfleger to perform the character hit on Bob Kelly.  Michael Pfleger wrote a Jeremiad on the alleged nasty nature of Bob Kelly in the always complicit Chicago Tribune, followed by an idiotic smear piece about Kelly's daughter winning a scholarship in the Sun Times.  Pfleger led a December protest that included accomplished grifter and activist Rep. Bobby Rush and a score of Pfleger acolytes at the offices of ATU 308, during the Local's Christmas Party. Now, Michael Pfleger has issued a Fatwa on Kelly via one of his FaceBook pages.

Post by Father Michael Pfleger.

Claypool knows enough to duck a working man in an honest forum.  I have never met Bob Kelly, but I have had more than enough personal contact with Forrest Claypool for one lifetime - usually at political fund-raisers for good people in public life who must admit Claypool on the guest list or near their coat tails.  Usually those same people find themselves subject to scurrilous charges on TV or in a column, later to be dropped.

Claypool would not know the truth if it came with a government check.  He does not need to know it.  Forrest Claypool is fine. Rahm Emanuel is fine.  Michael Pfleger is fine.

Chicago?  Not so good.

Robert Kelly?  We shall see.

The Spleen of the Senseless: Why AOC Matters

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has taken Washington, D.C by storm.She successfully ran an insurgent, grass-roots Congressional campaign. She is exceptionally bright. She is incredibly media savvy. She is hugely charismatic, because she is telegenic and photogenic, but also because she consistently seems to be a sincere, authentic, and truly nice and caring human being. In an age of bullshit, she is “real.” And she has the courage of her convictions. She has thus quickly been embraced by the left, reviled by the right, and treated with enormous skepticism by the center. Jeffrey C. Isaac

 The left often agonizes over the choice between pragmatism versus utopianism. The “reformists” will argue that what’s important is making “real” change in the present, rejecting any larger vision as “pie-in-the-sky” irresponsibility, while the “revolutionaries” may reject all present compromise in favor of theorizing about a better future, for which the correct historical conditions are always, somehow, yet to arrive. It’s a dumb standoff; reformers need militants to scare the powerful into concessions, as the recent experience of the Fair Labor Association and USAS at Kuk Dong shows. Dissent

 "My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize." Rep. Hank Johnson D-GA upon hearing about adding military personnel on Guam

The Congress is chock-full of goofs, ninnies and grifters. Rep. Hank Johnson thought a troop build-up would capsize the island of Guam.  Congress always has been a home for cretins feebs and dummies. However, there was a time when the dim-bulbs were kept under a cone-of-silence and generally kept out of public view.

Today, Alexandra Occasio-Cortez has become a national acronym - AOC.

Like LSMFT, AOC reflects a spiritus mundi, a zeitgeist, and a political weltanschauung that makes the likes of Bernie Sanders, Hilary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren seem like Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Muriel Siebert and Mercy Otis Warren.

I began my morning with an article by a practiced ninnie and dim-bulb, Indiana University professor Jeffery C. Issacs that further boost AOC as our best hope to become the SPQR of the looming post revolutionary empire:

It is worth taking a moment to think hard about this.

To liberal friends who are pretty skeptical of if not hostile to AOC: what do you make of the fact that it is she who is being singled out for her fine performance? Many more “moderate” and more senior Democrats also had their five minutes yesterday, and yet this 29-year old “radical” would appear to have most intelligently used her time to advance the cause of the rule of law, a liberal value if every there was one, in this matter.

To left, DSA-member friends who love AOC (as I do) but disparage all of those liberals, like me, who continue to place so much emphasis on Trump’s real threats to the rule of law, constitutional due process, and liberal democracy: what do you make of the fact that AOC did not use her five minutes to talk about the Green New Deal (which she rightly talks about all the time!) or to comment on how the hearings are a waste of time and the real policy issues are being ignored (it was the lunatic Republicans who said this). She used her five minutes to ask painstakingly direct and factual questions of the witness, and thus to seriously address the issue at hand in the hearings: the issue of Trump’s unhinged and unaccountable Presidency, and the need to defend constitutional democracy by using constitutionally-prescribed Congressional authority to hold Trump to account.

AOC is much more serious, and politically responsible, and “mature,” and thus important, than most commentators, those who love her and those who don’t, appreciate. While too many, left, right, and center, are using her as a symbol to beat each other up, she is doing her job and being a role model of what Democratic politics can be.

Seriously?  Much thought there, Doc? AOC is much, much more serious?

How about these AOC nuggets? BTW -one quote is from a dead white man -guess which one and win a chance to chill backstage with AOC.

•  Capitalism has not always existed in the world and will not always exist in the world.
•  Congress is too old. They don't have a stake in the game.
•  Women like me aren't supposed to run for office.
•  I wake up every day, and I'm a Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx. Every single day.
• To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
•  I was born in a place where your ZIP code determines your destiny.

AOC is no TR.

One of the above earned the Medal of Honor, broke horses, worked in Law Enforcement in Wyoming and New Yok City, authored many books and served as Governor, the other Tweets, is a Socialist and managed to beat someone dumber, but without Democratic Socialists of America backing for Congress and will serve but one term before going on CNN, or MSNBC.

AOC will do some legislative damage to the Republic in mean time.

We have given the stage of public debate to be people who could not tell you whick White Sox player in its history was a an all-time favorite, evene though that elected offical and pensioned President of the United States wore a Chicago White Sox hat at every public dress-down affair. 

I taught English for 43 years and voted in every election since 1972.   I ran and lost for Kankakee City Clerk as a Democrat.  PFH is no AOC. 

However, I was never scripted, nor promoted by a professor of Revolution from Indiana University. 

Here in Illinois we have many, many, many AOCs 

• Jan Schakowsky
• Danny Davis
• Mike Quigley
• Heather Steans
• Kelly Cassidy
• Blago
• Toni Preckwinkle
• Pat Quinn
• Forrest Claypool
• Deb Mell
• Deb Shore
• Amy Madigan

All of these People who would starve to death outside of Progressive Democratic Party politics.

Giving the microphone, or the floor, or a public office to the senseless is dangerous, no matter how much delicious spleen they vent, Tweet or . . . God help us . . .legislate. 

Governor Quinn -Blago's Gone;Leave the Signs

The last thing the Governor of Illinois, Pat Quinn, needs to worry about is covering up the name of Rod Blagojevich - there ain't that much paint.

Governor Quinn, right the State. Get the Legislature on task to lower taxes and raise confidence in Illinois Government. Restore the State to the Land of Lincoln.

It will cost nearly half a million bucks to paint over the name of Blagojevich and that will be money wasted. No one should forget that an under-prepared egoist (megalomaniac?) was ushered into the chair, with a great deal of political help from many people, you now occupy.

Governor Quinn this is not the time for symbolism and rhetoric. You should be moving to rebuild Illinois, like scalded puppy. Leave the signs.

The controversial signs at Illinois tollway plazas announcing "Open Road Tolling—Rod R. Blagojevich, Governor" will soon be changed, a tollway spokeswoman said Thursday.

New signs, keeping the open-road-tolling message but covering Blagojevich's name, will be placed over the old ones, said Joelle McGinnis, spokeswoman for the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, before the Illinois Senate voted to remove the governor.

The new signs will have the toll plaza's name and number, McGinnis said. They will not feature the name of Gov. Patrick Quinn or any other politician.

The 32 blue Blagojevich signs were erected in 2004 at a cost of $480,000. McGinnis estimated it would cost $15,000 apiece to change them. Crews probably will replace the signs at night to minimize disruptions.

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!

Tête de Nœud Mlle. Desiree Rogers Goes to Ground

The breach in White House Security by the Bravo sponsored idiots and American Idols - The Salahis is turning the spotlight on Diva Nit-Wit and Serial Sinecure Hopper Desiree Rogers.

Desiree was rumped into seats here in Illinois the Land of Blago and Burris
thanks to her marriage to John Rogers of Ariel Capital Management and no PC Progressive Political Ploy plays without Mr. Rogers' nod.

Ex or No, Desiree has John Rogers' Imprimatur - from Illinois Lotto Ball Watcher, to People Gas Thug, to All State Insurance Whatever, to the Obama White House. Chicagoans have had a long look at this 40 Watt Progresive Eye Candy from the time that she blew up Mount Greenwood while guiding Peoples Gas and double billing consumers. Desiree Messalina'd all of the competant Peoples Gas Executives within her field of vision and scooped Peoples Gas Charity Giving into her pet projects and personal pedestals.

Now, Desiree has her tête in a wringer and will prove to be a major mal de tête

Voila! Desiree tête de nœud!

Of course Rogers was at the dinner as well, even pausing at one point to speak with reporters about which designer dress she was wearing (Comme Des Garcons).

But Hargraves wasn't at the gate, because she had resigned last June. She told Newsweek that when Rogers came in with the new administration, she changed her job, and revoked most of her responsibilities, essentially demoting her to a date entry clerk, prompting Hargraves to quit.

"I knew she [Hargraves] left but did not know they did not replace the job in the same way," a former White House official speaking on the condition of anonymity told ABC News, "That's really too bad - it really helps them to have this person because it is such a bear of a job but so important."

"It was Cathy who would input all the names, take all the responses, give them to the calligraphers who would address the invites, do the place cards," the former official said, "On game day she was a key link to Secret Service because she was posted at the East Portico with them because she was the most intimately knowledgeable of the list."

Hargraves said had she been there that night, the reality-tv hopefuls never would have made into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Desiree Rogers declined ABC News' request for an interview.

Klassic Kass! Zagelian Monotony and Big House Tamales!!!!

Every Chicagoan knows that when you go to Chris, Jimm and Gus's Big Baby Breakfast at the corner of Whipple and Wherever and you order eggs in any manifestation - Scrambled ( if a suburban tight ass), fried, omeletted, poached over hash, or boiled ( Irish female octogenarian), you get double or triple your order.

Thus, if you feel like two or three fried eggs, sunny side up, order ONE.

Greeks always give more.

John Kass hit one to the long fences today in covering the Fire-in-the-Kitchen at the Dickerson Center- the Blago Deadlock Mystery.

Here's your order, Honey! First you get some cold tomato juice with a dash of Tabasco and lemon -

After listening to all those the TV talking heads breathlessly speculating on the jury's recent cryptic note in the case of former Gov. Dead Meat, the big issue remains unanswered:

Is Rod Blagojevich going to be making those Big House Tamales crafted with ingredients from the federal prison commissary for the next 7 to 10 years, or isn't he?

Good start - now, look at the heaping and steaming platter!

Despite all the theories tossed about after the jury delivered the note Wednesday to U.S. District Judge James Zagel, here's the thing.

Nobody knows what it means. I don't. Rod Blagojevich doesn't. Certainly the lawyers don't.


"We don't know what it means," said Michael Ettinger, lawyer for Rod's brother and co-defendant Robert Blagojevich. "The judge doesn't know what it means. I assume they are hung on my client, but I don't know."

So nobody knows. And you don't, either, unless you're a juror, and if you are, then you better stop reading this right now or Judge Zagel will get medieval on you.

So after getting all high and mighty and criticizing my TV colleagues for speculating, it would be most unfair for me to engage in speculation.

Hash Browned Prose -Crispy!

In the annals of human history, there have been only two times that the impish grin has been wiped completely from the face of Rod Blagojevich.First, there was that time when the FBI called him about 6 a.m. to tell him they were coming through his bungalow door to arrest him. And he thought it was his good buddy, then state Sen. Jimmy DeLeo, D-How You Doin?, making a practical joke.

Jimmy? Is that you? Jimmy?

No, it was Rob Grant, the special agent in charge of the Chicago FBI office.

And the second time the grin was wiped off was Wednesday, when he got the call to get down to the courthouse immediately because the jury had something to say.

By the time he arrived, he had been able to force at least half the smile back on his face. Walking past reporters, he wisecracked, "Missed you guys."

But inside, without a jury to play to, the infuriating grin was gone. Instead, he patted his head a number of times, running his fingers over the back of his prodigious mane. But nervously, not like Mr. Cool

This is huge platter with good stuff that will stick to Chicago's ribs cascading over the edges! Good Lord, I'm sweating like a whore in Church, but I gotta keep going! This stuff is great! I'll walk it off later! I'm still working on this, but you can start working on the bill.

After the eggs and spoon vitals, Murial, dig into the meat on the Dead Meat Saga -

Zagel said he would ask the jury for clarification, and that he'd tell them it was possible for a jury to return a unanimous decision on some counts but not others.

Lawyers were told to return to court at 11 a.m. Thursday. That's going to fuel even more speculation by us gum flappers who don't know any more than do you.

Notwithstanding the "deliberated without rancor" line from the Perry Masons on the jury, Zagel had kind words for the panel.

He told the lawyers that the jurors were "exceptionally disciplined" and that he hadn't once heard them fighting in the jury room.

The remark about not hearing them fight was delivered in the well-known dry Zagelian monotone — which can be earnest or witheringly sarcastic, depending on his mood. And that fueled even more guesswork.

Does this mean they're getting along, so they're about to convict? Or is it that they're so angry with each other that they've stopped talking altogether, the way my wife gets when we're in the car and I've just said something really stupid?

How in God's name anyone would go to a milky, insipid, and stingy source for news-commentary or breakfast, other than a heroic Greek, is way beyond me.

Mickey D's addicted Chicagoans passed on a great Greek in 2002 and we settled on former Governor Dead Meat.

Great thought and soul breakfast John Kass.

We Americans Sure Love Our Prisons! I'll Say and Then Some

Hey!  Neil Steinberg says "Americans LOVE Prisons!"

You Bet, Johnny !!!!!God, I Love Prisons!!!  

 Our criminal justice system is crisscrossed with all sorts of get-tough laws inflicted by showboating politicians — we not only have more prisoners but our sentences are longer than anyplace else on earth. Mandatory minimum sentences, though long decried, still tie judges’ hands and ship drug offenders away for decades. Ludicrous “three-strikes” laws were intended to jail hardened criminals. But felons can and do receive 25-year-sentences — longer than Breivik got for murdering 77 people — for shoplifting a candy bar. California burglar Norman Williams got a life sentence for taking a jack from a tow truck. . .l .The chance of America changing its outlook here are small. We are a frightened country — with some 270 million guns in 40 percent of the U.S. households, mostly for “protection.” We want criminals to suffer, and aren’t willing to think about the cost of that mindset. That they do things differently in Norway — well then, Norwegians must be strange. The whole world is strange. Only we are normal. Only we do things the right way — the only way — they must be done. 

All of that, folks,in one huge pull and Neil has only two hands and uses both most vigorously! Ought to be blind at that pithy pace and potency.

Neil Steinberg is really pissed at us, again.

Undeterred, Chicago's Aloysius "Ears" McKenna ( at the wheel) and Terry "Fats' Bulfin appreciate the opportunity to engage in senseless and bloody gun-play, causing disturbances with misdemeanor reckless conduct and rowdy teenage flash-mobbing on the Magnificent Mile or in and around the Gold Coast, as well as working on home-made Ham radios and fixing up old Fords.

Yes, sir!  We Americans love our prisons!  Dick Durbin ordered up one for Illinois Melon Capital Thompson Ill and folks in deep downstate Love them some Tamms!

Neil notes that Race is the Place for Scab Picking - Why do Americans Love Them Some Prisons?

Race has to be a factor. More than 60 percent of American prisoners are black or Hispanic, double their presence in the population, and the criminal justice system operates differently for law-breakers who are white and have resources than those who are of color and don’t.

Like the legendary Cap Streeter,  Blago, Tony Rezko, Stuart Levine, Roger the Hog, George Raft, Paul Muni, Jimmy Cagney, Drew Peterson, Al Capone, Spike O'Donnell, Danny Edwards, Gov. Dan Walker, and of course. Ald. Larry Bloom, 

Then, there are our beloved sexual predators (6-60,blind crippled or crazy) Lotharios and Sapphos who number in the scores of thousands -incarcerated and paroled.

http://www.isp.state.il.us/docs/5-622.pdf

Prisons? Man I'm nuts for 'em! Fill 'em up some more!

We Love our prisons - a French word.  The Brits call it Gaol.  I call it Lovely! Still Neil has a point . . .no not the one on his shoulders . . .

In Frog prisouns  a gent in a snappy poilu get up brings flowers to babes doing time.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/steinberg/14738297-452/we-americans-sure-love-our-prisons.html