Chicago Media Blackout on Jeanne Ives in Day Three: Facebook Trolls Seem to add to 19th Ward Neighborhood Rolls

Rauner is news how?  Jeanne Ives has a Revolution going on!

I have had objections to my assertion that Jeanne Ives' Campaign for Governor, or the Ives Revolution, that has hair-lipped plutocrats like JB Pritzker, Bruce Rauner and Fred Eychaner, not to mention the PACS that pretend to be labor unions ( SEIU, AFSCME, & CTU), causing a media black-out on the feisty Mom of Five and future Governor of Illinois.

Object away!  There is still no Jeanne Ives reportage in either Chicago daily rag.   There is an increase in troll traffic on neighborhood groups here in the 19th Ward and 3rd Congressional District.

In fact, my Facebook postings in neighborhood groups featured more voices hitherto unheard.
One guy with a thin FB resume seems to live in Ridgeland, Wisconsin, where he is leading a petition to alter Ridge Pioneer Days and put an end to greased pig and chicken tossing* contests.

I wondered if our lusty pioneer forebears conducted such surveys against beaver trapping and opposite sex bundling - probably.

Well it appears that Madison, WI activists are particpating in the Illinois Primary election as well as ending Pioneer Days. Thinks of the chickens!!!!  Think of the hogs!!!!!!!!!!!!

I do and they are delicious!

 I blocked the more strident and unqualified assertions by troll-like posters.

Make an intelligent objection to Jeanne Ives as a candidate - don't label a person you don't know, disagree with-  at least, until tapes surface of Jeanne Ives mocking Emil Jones with Blago on the blower, or she takes a nickel from Personal PAC.

Thoughtful and good people can disagree about politics, like these people from my neighborhood groups:
 Re: Ives Candidacy

• This woman does not represent who I am as a strong, taxpaying, hardworking wife, mother, and teacher.
•  Kiss those pensions goodbye, city workers.
• I've seen plenty of news coverage of Ives. Most of it was about her terrible ad.

Well, that was before I posted my prediction of a news black-out on Friday and since then one group has added 100 new members.  The administrator asked, 

" Quick question and I am not complaining... Did people get blocked in other neighborhood groups? I have added over 100 new members in the last couple weeks ...thanks... over 4100 members in the group."

Could be an active neighborhood group swell, or might it be interested out-of-staters like my chicken- tossing  opponent with a neighborhood listing in Ridgeland, WI.

Well, trolls get blocked and neighbors get to post their opinions.

Today, is Sunday and again neither Chicago daily offers any Ives Campaign news.

 Jeanne Ives is out on the downstate hustings!

On political TV shows, hard-working Chicago reporters follow all of the fictional candidates all over Chicago and Illinois, but our real life reporters go only where they are told to go by their masters.

Here is Jeanne Ives Schedule, newshounds!  Let's cover the whole story and not just snow jobs,  cover-ups and re-modeling work. 

 UPCOMING EVENTS FOR JEANNE AND RICH:
1. Carterville Speaking, Saturday, February 10, Noon – 2 pm: Jeanne will be speaking at the Williamson County Republican Women of Southern Illinois Lincoln Day Luncheon at John A. Logan College Conference Center, Carterville – Tickets: https://www.facebook.com/WCRWofSOILL/
2. Mt. Vernon Meet and Greet, Saturday, February 10, 4 – 6 pm: Meet Jeanne at Mt. Vernon Outland Airport, 100 Aviation Drive, Mt. Vernon
3. Centralia Speaking, Saturday, February 10, 5:30 – 8 pm: Jeanne will be speaking at the 4. Marion County Lincoln Day Dinner at the American Legion, Centralia. For tickets, contact Judy Shafer jshafer1974@gmail.com.
5. Decatur Meet and Greet, Monday, February 12, 8:30 – 9 am: Jeanne will be at Downtown Café, 217 Main Street, Decatur
6. Decatur Meet and Greet, Monday, February 12, 9:30 – 10:30 am: Join Jeanne as she tours Stripmasters Services, 2500 N. 22nd St., Decatur (north end of old Firestone plant)
7, Decatur Lunch, Monday, February 12, 11:30 am – 12:30 pm: Jeanne will be at various downtown Decatur restaurants
8. Decatur Meet and Greet, Monday, February 12, 5 – 7 pm: Jeanne will be at Decatur Club, 158 W. Prairie Ave., downtown Decatur

March 5th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IRISH FOR IVES, join us Monday March 5th from 5-7PM at Reilly's Daughter, 4010 West 111thStreet in Oak Lawn. Jeanne is the real deal! IRISH FOR IVES!

Bring the kids!

 * In Ridgeland, Wisconsin this February, an event called Pioneer Days will feature a "chicken toss" during which over 200 live chickens will be tossed, one by one, into a crowd of attendees. Each person (adult or child) who catches a chicken gets to keep the chicken.

The event is sponsored by Drunk'n Monkey Bar and Hotel. 

Prediction - Watch for Chicago Media News Blackout on Jeanne Ives for Governor

I was struck this early morning, by two things

1.  The general lack of snow accumulated, thus far, in the 'biggest storm of our times'
2. The complete absence of news, opinion, screeds and vaping in either daily rag for this hick -burg concerning anything related to Jeanne Ives, Candidate for Illinois Governor.

What do this portend?

One never knows, do one? - to quote the great Fats Waller.

One might opine that Jeanne Ives' ad, which blew every other campaign for governor into the cheap seats, gave the feisty Mom of Five from the School on the Hudson River more name recognition in Cook County, Illinois and the good old USA than a fat man calling up Blago, or a Governor hiding with abortionists. Every one is talking about Jeanne Ives and that must stop, according to the wallets of Illinois. 

Nota Bene!

• Both papers compete for the coveted 5-6 things You Need to Know About Snow scoop. List makers are almost as pathetic as bullet point artistes.
• The Sun Times tries to make a case for Progressive Boy Toy Dan Biss, now that we learn JB Pritzker insulted black politicians on tape while trolling for Blago's attention and Obama's Senate Seat
• The Tribune is busy buttressing Pritzker's sorry butt with a howler from the always ridiculous Eric Zorn
• Medill's Nativist turned Progressive image took another harpoon - this time for screwing women instead of police officers

No news about the news making, won't-back-down candidate for Illinois Governor!

Sneedless to say, the Big Money (SEIU/Eychaner/Personal PAC et al) called both editorial boards and said - " No News is Great News, as far as Jeanne Ives is concerned.

What is this?  A war on the only woman in the race?  Gender selectivity?  Come on gals, get them rolling pins and hair pins out!

I expect that both fish-wrappers will find no room for Jeanne Ives with the exception of the forthright and tough John Kass.  No one tells him what to write and he is keeping the Tribune afloat. 

Cancel your subscriptions, until we see all the news that's fit to print - you know, like Jeanne Ive's Policy Revolution

Jeanne Ives has the plutocrats running like scald-ed rats.  

Here's some great news!

IRISH FOR IVES, join us Monday March 5th from 5-7PM at Reilly's Daughter, 4010 West 111thStreet in Oak Lawn. Jeanne is the real deal! IRISH FOR IVES!

Bring the kids!

Forrest Claypool is Never Down, Much Less Out. Watchdog that Head-Scratcher.

“I have fully acknowledged my mistakes in judgment and apologized,” Claypool said. “But I did not regret the passion for justice that led to that mistake.”

Claypool mistakes lying as the defense of justice for poor kids and that is why he will always have a job and another six figure pension in Illinois.

You see Forrest was doing a solid for  CPS General Counsel Ronald L. Marmer at the CPS Board , a pal.
   
This pal would throw your salary and my salary away - combined.  Pals like Ron always need more gelt.  That is why they can and do waste tax dollars in the public trough, while kids at Harper High and Oglesby Elementary learn . . .nothing.

Illinois is a stupid State.

• We elected Pat Quinn, after he proved what a ninny he was when Blago went to the joint.
• We elected GOP Bruce Rauner to hold a place for Prog-Dem Michigan Avenue Fats -aka JB Pritzker
• We worry about Mike Madigan and vote handsomely for his daughter
• We think a wedding dress is proof of residency
• We loved Toni Preckwinkle until the Pop Tax
• We elected Durbin and Duckworth to the Senate
• We elected Marque Kirque to the Senate
• We believe the idiotic media.
• We think Paul Simon Polls are not rigged
• We tolerate Forrest Claypool and his all too numerous ilk

I hate to kick a man when he is down.  I don't.  Forrest Claypool, the poster child for Illinois Grift and Illinois Attention Deficit Disorder,  is anything but down.

Forrest Claypool will never be down, unlike some Streets and Sanitation truckman, who might nod off on break in the cab of a big blue city truck and catch the camera eye of Chuck Goudie's I-Team, or Andy Shaw's BGA snitch patrol.  That guy will never work again in Cook County and his kids will be pulled out of St. Joseph the Worker Grammar School, or the Lou Rawls Charter School, because the tuition nut is too high. Forrest Claypool has amassed a fistful of pensions as well as all of the change that fell between the cushions on the 5th Floor, Chicago Parks, County Board, CTA and CPS.

I might even suggest that a little something must have landed in the side pockets of Claypool's Joseph A. Banks slacks from Ventra and Bombardier, were I a mean-spirited scandal monger.

Shucks, I don't work for the media.

Any way.  The Chicago media is more than reluctantly kicking grease and mud on Forrest's nicely tailored duds about fibbing to the General Inspector.

He will survive. He will survive.  Claypool will survive because he is such an unctuous weasel, practiced grifter,  a preening soul-less Progressive and habitual sneak.  In short, he is the perfect model of the WTTW, WBEZ approved Reformer.

He is passionate about justice and will lie his lath-like ass off to get justice.

Forrest resigned as CPS CEO.

Give him a solid twenty minutes and he will be appointed to another monster salary on our dimes.

I never kick a man when he is down.

Never. 

Rahm Emanuel has "Earned" My Vote? BS, MBS & PhD!

There was a an old response to an outrageous assertion from a person who had college degrees after his name, that I no longer hear in Chicago.  It went  " Listen to him. He's an important guy. Look at the letters after his name BS, Master of BS, Piled High and Deep!"

We no longer live in Chicago.  We reside in Chicagoland.

Editorial Boards in Chicago are umbilical chords pumping life and vitality into the misery that is Illinois still-born government.  Editorial Boards in Chicago shined no light on Candidate Obama long association with Chicago Slum Warlords: Allsion Davis and Valerie Jarrett who trotted out bundler Tony Rezko - The Man in The Iron Mask. Nor did they point out the daffy irregularities of  Blago, Burris, Quinn & Company, Ralph Martire: The Architect of Pension Three Card Monte, Daley's Sell off of Assets.

Reporters did that. No paper has better reporter than Chicago Sun Times: Tim Novak, Dan Mihiapolous, Chris Fusco, the silenced Dave McKinney and Natasha Korecki. They are the Casandras of our  City.  Chicago went the way of the stockyards and became Chicagoland, which is gussied up with verbal arugula from Sundance Films and Sundance Bob Redford doing a solid for Ari Emanuel  We are asked to pretend that Rahm Emanuel is 'one of us.' Chicagoland is Hollywood-lite.

That is Okay with both Chicagoland Papers.

These twin Chicagoland editorial boards work to get Rahm a permanent place on the 5th Floor.

That is their right and privilege.  The pin-stripe crowd that comes into Chicagoland from Lake County and points tonier and exits at sunset command the skype-ready board rooms that look down on Chicagoland and giggle with pride and snide, knowing full well that Rahm Emanuel will direct more cash to their vaults.  They nod with conviction and solemn agreement when the Twin Chicagoland Medill Brat Pack inks its endorsement.

The twin pulp endorsements are as glued to the truth as a Brian Williams combat yarn and tell us that our lot is Resignation.  "Resignation is the lot of the helot with thirty year mortgage and $ 487 water every six months.  Resign yourselves to the inevitable, pay your bills and shut the duck up, or Rahms sake."

I am told by the editorial board of the Sun Times, the paper with fanged talent I listed above, that Rahm Emanuel 'Earned My Vote.'

Bullshit!

Was that too intemperate and un-WTTW?

How about Horseshit - you know the stuff Ed Burke so solemnly banned from the Gold Coast.

I earn my pay.  I earn the love of my children and respect and courtesy of my neighbors.

The very same editorial ink that tells me, in no uncertain terms, that I owe my vote to Dancing Priam, tells me also that, " The city’s four main pension systems are underfunded by a stunning $20 billion. Workers and retirees will have to pay in more and get back less. There is no other way. Homeowners, best we can tell, will have to pay higher taxes. Absolutely nobody will be happy."

Gee, you think?

I will bet that my Ward, the 19th, will go along with Rahm, because for too many of my neighbors personal obligations will demand it.  They will be a doing a solid for the guy who desperately believes that Rahm wil save his job on the Garbage trucks, or down at the Hall, or help his kid get a pipes trades job, in some way.

I know. I have been there and voted that.

Vote for whomever you believe to the best person, be it Rahm, Bob, Chuy, Willie, Doc or Jimmy the Two-Headed Boy.

You owe no one your vote.   You don't need a PhD to tell you that, but he will.

Illinois School Reform is Dead -says Gov. Pat " Everyday People" Quinn

"Squeezy Will Now Choke School Reform to Death! Pension Debt?  . . . Not So Much!"

"These plutocrats at the top of the power heap, they may have a lot of money, but they don’t have any understanding of everyday people and what they go through." - Gov.Pat Quinn and the Family Stone

After picking up tree branches from the Chicago parkway on my property ( hard to get my head around that bit of Burnham ownership) I coffee'd-up and fended off potassium deficiency with an Irish-owned Chiquita banana and took in my morning's quota of political empty calories from Illinois Governor Pat " Everyday People" Quinn.

The Sun Times offers a political blog with the darling politically incorrect title of Early and Often ( the old-timey Democrat encomium for people who wanted to keep their jobs) which places solid reporters like Dan Mihiapolous and Natasha Korecki in close proximity to oily, or waxy political pests and nudniks needed by no one but editorial boards and other grifters.

Ms. Korecki is as solid and professional a reporter as one could hope for and did yeoman like work covering the vast decoupage that was the waning months of Gov. Rod Blagojevich's oil spill.  Korecki is no one's Carol Marin.  She is tough, witty and gifted with a foresight few journalists possess, because Korecki thinks for herself.

Sadly, Ms. Korecki is burdened with this Chicago Sun Times Civics Sesame Street for Dummies task, along with her more serious workload.

Nevertheless, Natasha Korecki, an everyday person if there ever was one, punches the time clock and gives editorial Star Chamber social engineers a solid eight.

Today, this morning, following coffee and banana, I joined Ms. Korecki for a Quinn-acopia of flat rhetoric and opaque insights.  Quinn drones about Stu Levine with whom Blago and Quinn spent many a happy hour in finding new and better ways to erase the middle class via pension and retirement scams  and Ralph Martire pie-charted tax increases.  Quinn squeezies  onto Stu-ey Levine like a plush python offered to teach Illinois morons about our unfunded mandates and pension debts.  I could almost see poor Natasha Korecki nodding off like a teacher at faculty meeting, when she too decides enough is enough.

The only take away of any substance in her exchange with Gov. Platitude Quinn comes about when Natasha Korecki somehow snaps herself out of a nap with a question that puzzles the droning Governor.

Q: Paul Vallas supports charter schools. Since you picked him as a lieutenant governor, does that mean you’re open to charter expansion?
A: No, Paul Vallas believes in public education. So do I. We believe in funding public education. A very, very important issue this year, we’ll be talking about that soon. ... He’s committed to a fair, open budget to properly fund education.

"No, Paul Vallas believes in public education!" ( exclamation mark my own)

Now, hold there a momentito!  Paul Vallas is The Grand Daddy of AMERICAN Charter Schools - ChiTown, Philly, N'Orl'ns, Connect -I-Cut!  Moreso, Paul Vallas has ALWAYS been open to Vouchers!  Real School reform.

Paul Vallas is every day people!  I know Paul.  I love Paul! I respect Paul!  If Paul were the top of this ticket, I'd vote Democrat in november.

Catholic schools comprise the bulk of private schools in Illinois.  Therefore, Catholic schools is a local euphemism for private education ( Non-public - no tax-money), including Dutch Reformed, Lutheran, Jewish, Muslim, and non-Denominational schools, as well as the elite first tier schools like Chicago Latin and Chicago Lab Schools.

Paul Vallas is solid man.  Pat Quinn is a pest with persistence, like all Progressives.  Like all Progressives, Pat Quinn is incapable of original thought and spouts only Hyde Park/Evanston Vatican Doctrine and Dogma.

Pat Quinn is no friend of Catholic schools.  By extension he is no friend of every day people who send their kids to Catholic schools.  Pat Quinn spoke for Paul Vallas.

Pat Quinn is the only one speaking - like any Progressive.  Everyday People, everyday people, everyday people, mean exactly what Pat Quinn thinks them to be - drones like himself.

Great job, Natasha Korecki!

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.

Alvarez Agonistes: "60 Minutes" Had No Time for the Root of Its Interest in Anita Alvarez - David Protess

Under the spreading chestnut tree/I sold you and you sold me/.There lie they, and here lie we/ Under the spreading chestnut tree. Orwell's 1984

The Two-Minute Hate Drill was crafted by George Orwell in his novel 1984 - George was off by twenty-eight years.  These days the we get a heaping helping of the Two-Minute Hate Drill every day and no time off for Sunday. We have Hate Week cycles: We got Burge; we got Palin: We got Ryan; We got Blago; We got Charlie Sheen; We got Lindsays -Lohan and Graham; We got Joe Walsh: We got Chick Fil A; We got 1%-ers: We got Catholics and We always got Israel!  We have Vanecko and we now have the Random Judge!


My favorite Chicago reporter and one of the best in the business, Natasha Korecki reported this in today's Sun Times about the "60 Minutes" tune-up:

“We are appalled, absolutely, unequivocally appalled by the lack of information [in the ‘60 Minutes’ report],” Alvarez’s spokeswoman, Sally Daly, said. “They did not include information that is critical to this case. Anita spent an hour doing this interview. We were ensured that we were going to get a fair shake ... I didn’t expect that from ‘60 Minutes.’ She could have easily not done the interview. She stood up and explained the cases publicly.”
Daly said the piece failed to report key facts in the cases — the so-called Engelwood Four case and one in which a group of Dixmoor men’s cases were dismissed after they spent years in prison. That included some suspects pleading guilty and testifying against others before judges and juries.
“These cases were presented multiple times to judges and juries,” Daly said. “Our office did a very, very thorough, careful review of these cases. She found that there was not enough evidence.”

The object of the Two Minutes Hate Drill, or a Hate Cycle are determined by the needs of the agreed upon tautologists of the academic, legal, political  and journalistic interest complex: Progressive academic, clerics (UCC, Unitarian, atheist and secularists), elected officials, funding sources (Eychaner, Van Amerigen & etc.), and the cadres of lawyers and law professors in symbiotic solidarity with Medill fashioned editors and columnists. Their reach is national but most effective when pounded out locally.  E.G. David Protess' Innocence Project, rock-rooted on the campus of Evanston, Illinois' Northwestern University and buttresses by the MacArthur and Blum Centers for Law, has trained and sent forth the hundreds of journalists to CNN, Newsweek

Dave Protess no longer operates within the ivy of Northwestern, because Cook County States Attorney Anita Alvares out-ed Professor Dave as a phony and the university booted the Tweedy Fagin - The Chicago Tribune Company's Chicago magazine tried to parse Protess back into a good light: 

“That the university had seen fit to issue a one-sided, nasty, vituperative broadside against him in the form of that press release seemed to be a violation of trust, not only of the university’s relationship with David Protess as a faculty member but a breach of trust with us.”

Cubbage responds by saying that Protess forced the university’s hand. “Northwestern University generally does not discuss publicly actions regarding its faculty and staff,” he says in an e-mail. “However, statements in the media by Professor Protess and our desire to be as forthcoming as possible on an issue of great importance to the University, its faculty, our students, alumni and our community prompted us to make the statement.” . . .A few weeks later, an article by a Medill senior, Brian Rosenthal, appeared in The Daily Northwestern, questioning the reporting methods of Protess and his students. On the same day, a lengthy piece in the Chicago Tribune raised similar questions. Both articles cited two identical episodes (neither of them denied by Protess): that one of his students said she had misrepresented herself as a U.S. Census Bureau employee to learn the whereabouts of a potential source and that another had posed as a ComEd worker to help track down a witness.

Both incidents were contained in the Ferkenhoff report, according to sources. And Protess says Jenner & Block questioned him about both. When I asked Cubbage whether the report had been leaked, he responded, “The University has no knowledge as to whether the report was shared, other than it was not shared by the University’s Office of General Counsel or its outside counsel.” Rosenthal told me that he “had no direct contact with the so-called report.” The Tribune reporter, Matthew Walberg, declined to comment.

The stories could merely have been the result of increased scrutiny brought on by the controversy over Protess and the nature of the accusations against him. Whatever the case, the effect was palpable. Protess’s reputation, as well as his 30-year legacy, suffered a staggering blow. More than that, media attention had shifted away from outrage over Protess’s ouster and onto his and his students’ professional ethics.

Protess offered his defense: There’s a long tradition of reporters going undercover, including for a Pulitzer Prize–winning series in the Tribune in which the reporter William Gaines posed as a janitor to detail hospital abuses.

And several practitioners back him up. “As a longtime investigative reporter who also holds a doctorate and specializes in the history of investigative journalism, I can tell you this,” says the University of Maryland’s Feldstein: “Exposing wrongdoing is not easy. Powerful interests do everything they can to block such challenges to their authority. I can tell you that flirting with a source or paying a source’s cab fare is a routine practice among journalistic professionals, not even a misdemeanor compared to the literal felonies that Protess exposed.”

Others disagree with the practice of journalists misrepresenting themselves. “I don’t say I condone that, and it’s not what I do as a journalist,” says American University’s Lewis. “I always disclose who I am, and that’s how I conduct myself. [But] I also understand that this is a slightly gray area.” In the end, the point was moot. Protess was out. The damage was done—both to him and to the school. “It has a long-term effect that will take a long time for the institution to get over,” says Foster. “It’s one of those moments in the 90-year history of Medill, one of those chapters in the [university’s] history, that I think will remain heartbreaking.

”Not just heartbreaking, adds Leff. Ironic. “From the minute I heard about the Anita Alvarez subpoena, I felt that she set out to ruin David’s reputation and to derail the concept of the [Medill Innocence] Project. And I think she did a damn good job. And I think that, wittingly or unwittingly, the university played right into her hands.”

At the bottom of it all, the question still remains: Why would the university go to such great lengths to not simply reprimand Protess—or even push him out—but to publicly attack him, his work, and his integrity, to virtually excommunicate a man who had brought such renown to the school? (emphasis my own)

And that, boys and girls, was how Anita Alvarez was bumped to front of the line for Two Minute Hate and now in the Hate Cycle.

"60 Minutes" sent their hard hitting team to do a job on Cook County States Attorney Alvarez and they chatted up an Innocence Project talker from a its New York affiliate, Peter Neufield to dig up necrophilia in order to smear Alvarez, but not the hometown cabbie briber and Fagin Dave Protess.  Alvarez was set up and she is now a subject for the scorn of Zorn, the malice of Marin, and eggs of the editorial boards of both papers.

Alavarez was Bush-whacked. Given the editing, the snide and syrupy slurs of CBS 'Byron Pitts, Anita Alvarez did a commendable job with the 60 Minutes advocate. She held her ground and stated the case.

Ms. Alvarez fell afoul of the Medill/NorthwesternLaw/Lawsuit-Lotto Lawyer complex when she out-ed Chicago’s Fagin – David Protess – for the hypocrite-corner cutting phony that he is; causing Northwestern to deep-six him after years allowing The Wrongful Everything Gang to burnish the university’s reputation as Progressive Dreamworks and Hogwarts Illinois

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

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

Thundering Dick Simpson Demands More . . . of The Same Only More!

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is on the phone.

“Hi, Lisa. How are you?” asks Dick Simpson, head of the UIC Department of Political Science, as he sits in his book-lined office in the Behavioral Sciences Building. UICC - Street Cred of Thundering Dick Simpson

The Progressive way  to rid a home of raccoons, horse flies, tics, bed bugs, Norway rats and the odd timber wolf would be to tap a few reporters armed with studies from UICC, demand time on WTTW, make tour of the Dane Placko, Mike Flannery gas-and-nod shows, demand a tax-payer funded home inspector and a blue ribbon panel consisting of Dr. Quentin Young, Deb Mell, Deb Shore, Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon ( 5-String Banjo), Boss Terry Cosgrove, Forrest " Ho Gauge Rail" Claypool, NU(a)TO Andy Thayer, Ralph Martire, Dawn Clark Netsch, Slim Coleman and of course the ubiquitous Chris Kennedy to confab and vigorously  note that the home owner should 

• close doors
• fix screens
• toss food waste in plastic bags and place them in the black plastic gondolas provided by Waste Management or the Ward Office
• Be Sure to Re-cycle cardboard, plastics and metal and place them in the Blue Re-cycle bins
• Prepare to move once home ownership is lost, due to failure to meet the basic mortgage obligations
• Apply for Affordable Housing

Yep, Thundering Dick Simpson is setting the table for Progressive Knit-Hat, Gender Ambiguous, Childless and generally disagreeable candidates to flourish in our suburbs. How about small towns too?  Think Custer Park, Diamond, Eileen, Reddick and Papineau Illinois Machine Politics and Mossback Graft -" Clel, I'll vote for you, if'n I get two jars a stink bait." Done and done.

With the full push of Chicago's media, Thundering Dick is getting full cooperation to the very same thing to suburban government as the City of Chicago and the mythical homeowner above with his latest UICC paper written by a bunch of kids at Cement City University and under the supervision of Thundering Dick, his own bad self.

Thundering Dick earned his Progressive spurs from Abner Mikva and went on to a long and inconsequential career as an office-holder - Alderman - before becoming a 40 Watt academic at Stanley ( Terrorist Bill Ayers' career laundering Rabbi)Ikennberry's Circle. Thundering Dick's Green Grass and Greed: Corruption in the Suburbs is a wow-read for folks who do not read very much.  Thundering Dick leads with his jowls on this one -

The obvious and potentially most effective method for dealing with corrupt officeholders
would be to elect new public officials dedicated to ethical behavior and governmental reform. Such candidates, if elected, can help change the culture of corruption in these suburbs. Voters should support candidates committed to fighting corruption.

Thundering Dick-King Maker

Well, I'll be dipped and rolled!!!!!!!  Ain't that a wonderment!!!!!!! Vote for new folks!  Well, that must mean a whole new line of folks trotted out by old Thundering Dick, his own bad self!

The Study is a Cliff's Notes of old news stories and attendant graphs about incidents of corruption in the suburbs - some going back to the 1970's when Thundering Dick brought the Democratic Machine under Old Man Daley to its knees . . . with laughter. That was then and this is now.


Back then, when everyone and everything still worked,  folks like Thundering Dick were laughed out of the room; these days, we elect the likes of Blago, Burris, Joe Moore, Sheila Simon, Pat Quinn, Mike Quigley, Jan Schakowsky, Toni Preckwikle and other ninnies and grifters.

I am sure that Thundering Dick has a rapt audience for his summary.  Folks just don't take the time to read, connect dots to dimwits, and are much too kind and polite to tell Progressives to go pound sand.  Some folks, anyway.

http://www.uiaa.org/uic/news/uicalumni/0911a.html

http://www.uic.edu/depts/pols/ChicagoPolitics/SuburbanCorruption.pdf
http://www.uic.edu/depts/paff/clips/06-26-2012.pdf

Did Pat Fitzgerald Resign Because Holder Deep-Sixed Any Probe of Congressman Jackson?

 

With Fitzgerald stepping down, there is a good chance a political hack will be appointed to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Chicago. That appointee will be an order taker. He or she will do what they are told and keep quiet about it. Sort of like Eric Holder. Peter Bella Washington Times May 23, 2012

Jackson also allegedly directed a fundraiser, Raghuveer Nayak, to buy plane tickets for a woman described as Jackson's "social acquaintance." Jackson and his wife have called that a personal matter.
Days before Jackson announced the medical leave, Nayak was arrested and pleaded not guilty to unrelated medical fraud charges. At Blagojevich's 2010 corruption trial, prosecutors said another Blagojevich fundraiser was ready to testify that Jackson instructed Nayak to raise money for Blagojevich's campaign to help him secure the Senate seat. The same witness later testified he attended a meeting with Jackson and Nayak.
Jackson was not charged and has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. Huffington Post 7/11/2012

 Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D., Ill.) is undergoing inpatient treatment for “physical and emotional ailments” that are more serious than previously thought, his office said in a news release Thursday.The congressman’s office had said on June 25 that the 47-year-old son of civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson had begun a leave of absence on June 10, citing exhaustion and providing no timeline for his return. NY Daily News July 5, 2012

Eric Holder is the wildest General of the Justice Department ever.  There is law and then there are laws and then there are things to be ignored.  More important than enforcing Federal immigration law is bringing suit against states like Arizona, Mississippi, Florida and Texas over voting statutes. More important than looking into the armed Black Panther poll-watchers of 2008, was Holder's note that America is a Nation of Cowards.  The guy is on his own, because he has President Obama's back on all things, legal, political or cultural. Eric Holder will be here for the full tenure of President Obama's stay in the White House. Holder is the Crypt Master and the One-Man Star Chamber.

One Justice Department employee resigned only days before the announcement that Democrat bundler, Congressional panderer and accused medical care wallet-lifter Raghuveer Nayak* was about to wear a Federal jacket, none other than Patrick Fitzgerald.


No sooner had the Chicago Office of the Feds announced the Nayak indictments than head-scratchers nation-wide asked "Where's Jesse Junior?"  The question is loaded with buckshot - where on earth is the Congressman and where is the forthcoming Federal probe of scion of Rainbows for his part in the Blago/Rezko/ et al Federal purge?


This begs my humble question, ' Did Patrick Fitzgerald resign because Eric Holder deep-sixed any probe into Congressman Jackson's active and vigorous Federal mousetrap?


Given Eric Holder's penchant for clarity and transparency, as well as his snappy good-humor, it will blizzard on Luzon before anyone in the media will ask the same. 












Federal Indictment - completely laundered of political stains and any mention of Congressman Jackson

*Nayak’s facilities did not accept patients covered public health insurance programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, and instead accepted patients insured by private health insurers, such as BlueCross BlueShield, or patients who agreed to pay the entire fees themselves. Private insurers treated Nayak’s facilities as “out-of-network” when paying bills submitted for patient services.

Between 2000 and December 2010, Nayak allegedly defrauded patients by paying and arranging to pay bribes and kickbacks in the form of cash and other hidden payments to physicians who would refer their patients to Nayak’s facilities for medical treatment. Nayak paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to different physicians in exchange for patient referrals, the charges allege, adding that the physicians deceived their patients by not disclosing that they were being paid for making referrals to Nayak’s facilities.

http://www.fbi.gov/chicago/press-releases/2012/raghuveer-nayak-owner-of-area-surgery-centers-charged-with-fraud-and-tax-offenses-for-allegedly-paying-physicians-hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars-in-bribes-for-

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

CPD is the Silk!

Well, What do you know? There ! Right there in Green Is By God Waldo!

I went to hear the Chicago Jazz Caravan featuring vocalist Miss Terry Sullivan perform at 12 West Elm in heart of the Gold Coast yesterday. Miss Sullivan and a trio of jazz geniuses ( Tommy Muellner- piano, Jim Cox - bassist and Art Davis Trumpet and Flugelhorn) gave a brilliant afternoon of jazz and standards from the American Songbook to a score or more hearty souls from 3PM - 5: 30 PM.

This show went off despite fears that the NATO Summit might sweep the streets with mobs of protesters and Anarchist nut-jobs.. Not so.

I believe that I have mentioned that I live on the south side, Morgan Park. I eschewed the Dan Ryan for the trip north taking Western Ave.to Ogden and then a right turn on Chicago Avenue to State Street.  It was the  Cat's Nuts -  less than 45 minute and I hit every green light like I had been an Obama Bundle-er.

The Chicago Police and the good sense citizens of Chicago made this all possible.  CPD were present and visible.

On the Gold Coast itself the employed youth of America packed cafes, beer gardens and the streets with disposable income earned from their toils this past week.

At Viagra Triangle itself my contemporaries including former Mayor Richard M. Daley sunned themselves outside of Gibson's Steak House, while Nannies and Moms with strollers bought ice cream at the kiosk.

Unseen all day, for me anyway, were the storied throngs Andy Thayer's Street Party.  I parked, enjoyed great jazz, occupied  a bar stool next to Dominic, who was hacked from the Illinois Human Rights Commission by Blago.  We chatted about political bottom-feeders. It was the berries.

Further to the south my neighbors and hundreds of other members of the Chicago Police Department and Chicago Fire Department heroes tended to the protesting throngs.  While Miss Terry Sullivan sang "Day-in; Day Out" to the fiery tempo set by  Jim Cox's Bass and fingers, the time of the Andy Thayer Party Permit expired and Superintendent Garry McCarthy, who stood with his officers all day and all night, ordered the crowds to disperse, thanks for coming, don't forget the handy trash bins for Green America, head home, good night, take it on the heel and toe, it was swell!


Some guests need to be shown the door and instructed in the operation of its best use.

The Black Bloc Anarchist met the Blue Bloc Centurions.

With a minimum of bumps and scrapes the intemperate and the angry were encouraged to leave.

One Chicago Police Officer was stabbed and more than a few injured.

Chicago Police Department showed the world how to handle idiots, with temperance, restraint and the odd nudge.

I listened to full account on WBBM AM. as I drove home from a great afternoon of jazz.  I hit every green light going south, until 59th & Western Ave..  Is this  a great City or what?

God Bless the Officers, Firefighters, Traffic Control Pros, Streets and Sanitation Workers who kept Chicago and its visitors safe and cleaned up the tons of mess that Green Friendly Andy Thayer's Street Party left scattered.