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Monday, February 29, 2016

Sun Times Editorials Add Up, Only If You You Really Stink At Math


I took a sound beat down every day from Sisters Doralese and Gertrudis, ( Sisters of Mercy ,bye the by) through Sixth and Seventh Grades at Little Flower Grammar School in the mid-1960's, due to my profound inabilities where numbers are concerned.

Pay attention, or I'll give something to whimper about . . .' take the sum of any . . . .' and shave that mustache, Boyo!

In Eight Grade, I took B Honors, because the nun I had thought that I was someone else and graded accordingly.

I did learn to add, subtract, multiply and divide and fractions.

The Editorial Board of the Chicago Sun Times?  I would have been proud to have them sit around around me in those swell desks bolted to the hardwood of Little Flower.  I would have been spared a few cuts and thrashings, from the two Irish women, my Bogman Grandpa Hickey called 'Life's Unplucked Flowers,' when women were present, or 'hairy-faced old Galway Bitches,' between the two of us.

The Chicago Sun Times thumps its Saltine-like chest and thunders like Governor Le Petomane in Blazing Saddles, because the Workers Compensation Payouts are not like New York City's and that the Finance Committee is operating according to the rules of its charter.

The City paid out a whopping 115 million dollars 2011, but no where in the editorial is proof of illegality.

What the editorial amounts to is this - the City is bleeding dollars from the public schools, the CTA and special relationships like this between Friends of Richie Daley and Valerie Jarret in real estate swindles that add up actual theft.

In same edition is Watchdogs ( Tim Novak who investigated Obama/Rezko/Jarret/Allison Davis slum real estates in 2008, but magically vanished around election day), but appears again with Vanecko lad, in keeping with the  paper's Kochman bleatings.

The editorial deals with John Dewey Math (there might be theft Q.E.D. there is!) and Watchdogs in math that Archimedes could understand.

Now, Lookee H'yar!
Here’s how the Davises and Vanecko handled the pension money, according to documents obtained over the past nine years from the five pension funds.

• $9.9 million was lost on the purchase of the 344-unit building at 1212 S. Michigan Ave. Using pension money, Davis and Vanecko paid $65.2 million in September 2006 to buy it — and sold it about five years later for $65.5 million. The pension funds never got any money from the sale.

• $2.8 million was lost on two loans to the owners of the Chicago Defender’s former home, a boarded-up building at 2400 S. Michigan Ave. It’s unclear why DV Urban lent pension money to developers Brian O’Connell of LaGrange and his partner, Matthew A. O’Malley, a politically connected restaurateur who has been battling City Hall over a sweetheart deal to operate the Park Grill restaurant in Millennium Park. After a bank foreclosed on the Defender building, O’Connell and O’Malley sold the property in 2014. The pension funds didn’t get any money from the sale.

• $2.65 million helped DV Urban pay $11.7 million in 2007 for a commercial building at 217 N. Jefferson St. The building was sold last year for $14.5 million — one of the deals that helped the pension funds recover $6 million.

• $6.5 million was used by DV Urban toward $11.5 million it paid for a 162-unit apartment building at 7100 S. South Shore Dr. It was sold last year for $6.75 million, helping return some money to the pension funds.

• $3.5 million went toward $4.2 million DV Urban paid for the stores at 3508 S. State St., part of the CHA’s redevelopment of Stateway Gardens. The pension funds hope to sell the land this year.

• $16.9 million went to loans to developers of 3030 N. Broadway, where a Mariano’s store is being built, and to buy adjacent land at 3013-17 N. Waterloo. The property is expected to be sold this year.

• $4.2 million was invested with the firm Sydney Partners, which paid $10.5 million for a 15.6-acre industrial property at 3348 S. Pulaski. DV Urban leased part of the space to the city. But, beset by environmental problems including polluted soil, the property was sold for just $5.4 million in 2014, and the pension fund money was lost.

• $4.5 million was earmarked to buy the former headquarters of the National Association of Letter Carriers’ Chicago branch at 1411 S. Michigan, next door to the Chicago Firehouse restaurant owned by O’Malley. The deal ended up in court when DV Urban backed out of the deal, asking the letter carriers to return the money — which the union had used to build its new headquarters. The lawsuit was settled out of court, but the pension funds lost all of their money.

Now, I was taught round off decimals at .5 and adding these here figures comes to -

$30 M in losses from City Worker Contributions to Pension Funds - no how about that?  Might call for a old timey stem-winder of an editorial!

Instead, Michael Shakman beefed that he was not getting his cut from Ed Burke's Finance Committee and the harrumphing went viral.

$ 30M is a not, to be sure, a whopping 115 million dollars paid out to workers compensation claims according to the existing law and rules, but $30M in real loss to people who trusted politicians and had their savings picked clean by Progressively Approved Valerie Jarrett slumlords, just might be investigation worthy of city newspaper.  Nah.  Gentlemen, we goota protect our phoney baloney jobs!

Now, here is smelly part.  While cops and school teachers took an investment beating that would have warmed cold-hearts of the two above-mentioned Sisters of Mercy.

Valerie Jarret's slum-lord partner ( Valerie is somehow absent from Tim Novak's investigation) Allison Davis and one of the Vanecko boys made out like porch-climbers.


“The investment was effectively a total loss for DV Urban,” says Miller-May of the teachers pension fund.
DV Urban was paid $8 million in management fees between 2006 and 2012, when the pension funds got permission from a Delaware judge to fire the company.
A little over $1 million, for property-management fees, went to a company owned by Cullen Davis*, another Davis son, who oversaw some of the apartment buildings bought with pension money.
Another $1.7 million went to two companies, including Newport Capital Partners, to manage the DV Urban portfolio and sell off the assets in an effort to recover as much money as possible for the pension funds.
Beyond the money lost on the investments with DV Urban, the pension funds also had to pay $2.5 million for attorneys who fought the firm for two years in courtrooms from Chicago to Delaware over control of the real estate investments.
That's $13 million in money looted from City Workers and tucked in the wallets of slumlords added to $30m in losses comes to a very real $ 43 M beat down of City Workers, not a possible boondoggle.

Where is the editorial on this one?  Somethings don't add up.  Like editorial three-monte providing cover for Rahm, while doing absolutely nothing.

Alderman Ed Burke is playing according to the rules approved by the City of Chicago and he does seem worried a bit nor should he.  He knows this is not newspaper, but a daily political fog machine.

* Like the Ayers/Obama papers held hostage at Cement City, better late than never.
Whenever I am near a Progressive Do-Gooder, I throw both hands over the Left check of my ass to protect my wallet.
Whenever a Progressive Do-Gooder gets near poor people, they rake in millions, properties get boarded up, and people die.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Berkeley Balcony Tragedy Will Show Political Dry-Rot At Its Core


The remnants of the Library Gardens apartment building balcony that collapsed. Inset: The six students who lost their lives in the tragic accident, top left to bottom right: Lorcan Miller, Eoghan Culligan, Nick Schuster, Ashley Donohoe, Eimear Walsh and Olivia Burke



Many things, for aught I know, may exist, whereof neither I nor any other man hath or can have any idea or notion whatsoever. Bishop George Berkely


Six Irish students on summer Visas died when a balcony collapsed and the New York Times saw fit to make a mockery of their deaths. The kids were accused of rowdy behavior and drunkenness and program for which they had applied was called into question.  The New York Times was worried about Berkeley - the college named for the 18th Century Irish Bishop and empiricist philosopher, but George Berkeley has not yet been accused of being 'loaded.'

The New York Times went far beyond the report of the deaths and Ireland demanded an apology and got one from Grey Lady that is similar to Rachel Dolezal's non-apology.

I think the New York Times took a very agitated and worrisome phone call from a political wheel just before print time.

You see political grifters, lawyers, activists and bundlers are deep in real estate.

Chicago readers might remember the death of a little black boy when a rusted gate of slum property fell on him. That property was managed by Cullen Davis, son of Allison Davis - the man who gave Barack Obama his shove into the White House.  Valerie Jarrett controls slum properties.

A tall, rusted steel gate that fell and crushed a 3-year-old boy to death at the Cabrini-Green public housing complex failed a building code inspection Monday, said Bill McCaffrey, spokesman for the Chicago Department of Buildings.
The gate at the Cabrini-Green rowhouses in the 900 block of North Cambridge Avenue fell on Curtis Cooper at about 5:30 p.m. Friday; he was pronounced dead less than an hour later in Children's Memorial Hospital. . . .
The CHA property has been managed for about two years by Urban Property Advisors. The firm is run by Cullen Davis, who is the son of influential city developer Allison Davis.
"If Chicago Housing Authority had been monitoring their properties, public housing wouldn't be in the shape it is in now," Steele said. "If they had been monitoring UPA, that gate wouldn't have fell."
UPA manages properties all over Chicago. The Davis family stands to make millions as part of CHA's Plan for Transformation, the city's ambitious effort to demolish high-rise public housing and replace it with mixed-income communities.
UPA Property Manager Ronald O'Neal and CHA spokesman Derek Hill declined to comment on Monday's failed building inspection.

Property is political capital and slum property is pure gold.  Note the rotted wooden support beams on the Berkley Building

I hope that Irish journalists crawl into the facts behind the rotten owners of the apartments and the amounts of cash they paid out to politicians -City, State and Federal -and bring the truth to light.

The wood rot begins on the pages of the newspapers providing cover for politicians.

At the end of day, I believe that a politician, political bundlers and the New York Times will have much to explain.

Friday, March 20, 2015

Sticky! It's Time for Another National Conversation About Race!





Sticky Johnson is doing time.  He was a neighbor of Leo High School, who always had smile that could light up a room!  "Hey, Coach! Hey, Leo Man! Big Win! Go Lions!. . . .got any change? I'm $.30 away from my 40!"  Sticky was known to the kids, the coaches and the leadership of our school. Seemed to be a harmless bust-out on threshhold of turning his life around. Sticky could not catch a break.  Sticky is doing hard time.

Sticky should not be left out of our latest national conversation about Race. Conversations about Race always seem to occur whenever President Obama has an especially bad week - like Bibi Netanyahu's Likud victory over the Obama K-Street Commandos ( Jerry Bird's One Voice) sent to Israel to gum up the elections. Enter Starbucks and Mrs. Star Wars!

Here's the Internal Memo from Starbucks' Disastrous Race-Relations Push

Should have sent Sticky Johnson!  In this latest wake of Israeli obstreperousness, the Starbucks CEO laid out Race Together . . .kind of like One Voice, except racing and not voicing.  This gave Chicago's doyen of drivel, Michael Sneed, a great opportunity to pucker up for local monied-powerhouse's keister - Mellody Hobson - Mrs. Star Wars Lucas Museum and Landfill. Mellody Hobson?  Is her given name pronouned in the Iberian fashion?  MAYOD?  Probably not.

Hey, Kids!  TRY and find a Starbucks in an impoverished black neighborhood! T'aint any! A Starbucks is Chatham Heights home to septuagenarian Civil Rights activists, retire CPD Commanders and Bankers B Starbucks Hyde Park Lite just east of Clarence Darrow's ashes and C BUCKS in tony Hyde Park Peoples Republic of Obama


Starbucks, Mellody Hobson, David Axelrodian Grassroots and a Likud Victory in Israel can mean only one thing - It's Time for another National Conversation About Race.

As the Director of Development for an overwhelmingly African American place of learning, I take a back seat to no one when it comes to smooching the rumps of already generous folks - most of them are old white guys.

However, I have not been able to guilt people who came by their riches through political pay-to-play and strategic investment of capital in former slum property to send as much as a nickel over to the school on Sangamon.  Much shame to me.  Most of my failure is rooted in an inability to match flim-flam with faith and guff with gelt.
Image result for mellody hobson with street person
You see I am no Desiree Rogers, Mellody Honson. Elzie Higgenbottom, much less Robert Redford, a Michael Moore, or a Cullen Davis. White, or Black, my soul recoils from a huge of pile of . . .bunkum.Not so the media, especially butt-munchers like Chicago Sun Times gossip maven Michael Sneed

The talk of the Twitterverse Wednesday began with a cup of Starbucks that brewed up a storm on social media.
And it was Chicago’s own Mellody Hobson — a financial whiz who is president of Ariel Investments and an African-American member of the Starbucks board of directors — who may have started the coffee brewing.
Well, ShhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeIIIIDDDDDDDDD, Sneed, It might have been Me!  I could have been Eddie Carroll of Carroll Roofing!  You know people say that Eddie came up with the idea of the spitlless harmonica.  The Harmonica Lewinsky! Really. Honor bright.

Race together?

Why, it just might have been Sticky Johnson, who is doing time for breaking into Leo's buses for the catalytic converters and pistol-whipped Mr. Haywood, our mechanic, when he came out and caught Sticky, a Section a Housing Alumnus  who was staying with friends in an apartment on Sangamon.  It just may have been Sticky who may have started the coffee brewing.

Sticky!  Speak on it,  Son!

Monday, February 20, 2012

News Man Tim Novak - The Only Eye-on Allison Davis




It’s been six years since five Chicago government pension plans hired DV Urban Realty — a start-up investment firm founded by then-Mayor Richard M. Daley’s nephew Robert G. Vanecko and President Barack Obama’s friend and former boss Allison S. Davis — to manage $68 million in retirement funds.

Those investments haven’t gone well for the pension funds that represent Chicago teachers, police officers, other city employees and transit workers. The funds have paid DV Urban a total of $7.2 million, including $4.7 million in fees to manage the small share of the pension funds’ money and another $2.5 million for a sister company to oversee the operations of three buildings bought with pension money.

Pension officials — including Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s two top financial advisers — are unhappy. By their estimation, the value of the funds’ real estate investments with DV Urban has fallen by 28 percent, or about $19 million.
(emphasis my own)

President Obama's pal and former boss ripping off the folks? Well, hush my beak!

That is news Goo-goos, Go-Alongs and their Media cheerleaders want hushed up.

I never hear Thundering Dick Simpson rail against real corruption around this burg. I never hear Abner Mikva beef about the cozy Progressive bed-bugs that have dominated the bad old Democratic Machine's mattress for decades.

Blago, Rezko, and Daley relatives get plenty of news ink, but only the great Tim Novak of the Chicago Sun Times keeps his choppers locked on the butts of IVI-IPO champion boondoggler Allison Davis.

God Bless Tim Novak! Now, if only an editorial board in this Crossroads of Crusading Crooks would grow a pair on tenth the size of the set Tim Novak is packing, we'd be informed.

It seems, Allison Davis is everywhere Federal, State and Local tax-dollars get dumped into a sanctioned cache of cash - HUD Money, Pension Funds, and Save the Children coffee cans. The Sun times Editorial Board did Old Allison a solid and did not post his photo along with Tim Novak's report. That Allison Davis up above with post shine -box President Obama.

Allison Davis is bullet-proof with Medill School Power Rangers and Bruce Dold's Chicago Tribune Editorial Morning Zoo Crew.
Davis Père ( his boy Cullen was briefly in the jackpot when a toddler was crushed by Cullen's rusty gate) might be bullet proof, but if turns around and down he will find Tim Novak's choppers locked on his rump.

DV Urban turned a small profit — about $500,000 — when it sold one of the most valuable properties, a 344-unit apartment building at 1212 S. Michigan Ave., for $65.5 million last Nov. 30, county records show.
DV Urban bought the building using $9.9 million in money from the pension funds, records show. The pension funds will get back about $9 million from the sale, according to DV Urban’s countersuit.

Davis, 72, and Vanecko, 47, both of Chicago, founded DV Urban in 2005. Vanecko has given sworn testimony in a legal deposition that his father, Dr. Robert M. Vanecko, introduced him to Davis, a well-known lawyer and developer.


Every Chicagoan knows the names of Patrick Daley and Mr. Vanecko, but I'll be a Sacajawea Gold coin that less than a tennis double in each word has heard of Allison Davis.

Davis ran a small Chicago law firm that hired Obama after his graduation from Harvard Law School. Davis eventually left the law firm and became a business partner with one of his clients, Tony Rezko, in a venture to build affordable housing with taxpayer money.
Davis became a central figure in the trials of Rezko, a top fund-raiser for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, and William F. Cellini, a longtime fund-raiser for Illinois Republicans, who were both convicted on corruption charges.According to testimony, once, during a meeting with Rezko and another Blagojevich fund-raiser, Christopher Kelly, Davis suggested they could raise money from Thomas Rosenberg, a Hollywood movie producer who also owned an investment firm that managed state pension money. Rosenberg tesified he was told he would lose his state deal unless he gave money to Blagojevich’s campaign. Cellini was convicted in the shakedown of Rosenberg. Davis was never charged with any crime.


Gee, Thundering Dick Simpson, one might get the idea that things aren't all on the square, on the up-and-up. Speak on it, Son! Testify!

Readers might also like this one from Tim Novak
http://www.suntimes.com/business/10416320-417/both-sides-file-lawsuits-in-flap-over-city-pension-fund-investments.html

Thursday, December 08, 2011

Gimlet Eye on “Chicago Way” - Joel Kotkin Excoriates The City that Shirks


Blago got 14 years. He got fourteen years, because he is a goof and was a very easy target for Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Fitzy does not harpoon Moby Dick; he nets smelt: Rezko, Blago and other ham sammich indictees.

The core of Chicago Style Corruption lies not with the guy asking his precinct captain to go to bat for his kid. Chicago Style Corruption* is not a cop telling you that, "You were travelling $35 over the posted speed limit." Chicago Style Corruption is not some mopey kid sleeping off a hang-over in the back of a Water Department Truct awakened by Dane Placko, Pam Zekman.

Chicago Style Corruption is Lab School. Shakman Decrees were the starting blocks. When political hiring was targeted as the strawman, elected officials danced around its bonfire. No longer would an elected official be required to attend wakes, go church repasts, attend Knights of Columbus Tootsie Roll Drives, chat up soft-ball Moms, or actually do something for other people. Shakman freed political powerhouses to shake of the pests with a stentorian, "I'll look into it."

Instead, Policy was crafted to deny, shirk, ignore and dismiss. "Jesus, Guido, can't help you. Shakman. What can I do? Don't forget to pull a straight ticket, Guid. Here's some tickets to my golf outing - there a Hundo each."

Nope. Policy was crafted at University of Chicago, Northwestern, or imported by a 1960's hippie crime expert. The BGA took care of the whistle-blowers. The Media took care of the rest -ignoring policy wrought real estate scams that funneled Housing dollars into the pockets of IVI lawyers turned moguls and their kids. Policy established boards and placed cranks, loudmouths and do-gooders over the street patrolmen.

Blago got fourteen years. George Ryan got six. Rezko got ten and change. Shakman got millions. Pat Quinn got to be Governor, Rahm Mayor and Dawn Clark Netsch a comfy seat on the Ethics panel. Illinois got screwed, blued and tatooed.

John Dewey, not Paddy Bauler, invented our Chicago Style Corruption. Eddie Burke, Eddie Vrdolyk and Mike Madigan are pikers compared to the Judson Miner/Allison Davis ( who can forget Sun Times investigator Tim Novak's incisive reports on Allison Davis and his son Cullen's real estate triumphs and the tragic death of a child?) crowd. Steve Preckwinkle? No relation to Toni's hubby Zeus? Outrageous, to ask such a question. Michael Shakman defending a hot property boon-doggle?Shack them jowls in indignation!!!

Chicago Style Corruption is a co-operative, a coalition of elected officials, academics, real estate players, agenda rangers ( SEIU, Planned Parenthood,LGBTQ,)lawyers and the media. I'll take nickel snitcher anytime. A thief will leave something - even fingerprints. No body steals like Progressive Reformer, because the editorial nodders bleach the crime scenes - unless, you are a Blago.

Chicago and its Daley dictatorship has been much celebrated in the media – particularly after Obama’s election in everything from the liberal New Yorker to Fast Company, which named Chicago “city of the year” in 2008. The following year, the Windy City was deemed the best city for men by Askmen.com, for offering what it claimed was “the perfect balance between cosmopolitan and comfortable, combining all of the culture, entertainment and sophistication of an internationally renowned destination with an affordable lifestyle and down-to-earth work hard/play hard character.”

Well, you can make that case, unless you happen to be searching for a job. Over the past decade, “the Chicago way” has proven more adept at getting good coverage than creating employment for its residents. In Forbes’ last cities rankings greater Chicago ranked 41st out of the 51 largest metropolitan areas. Between 2001 and 2011 it actually lost jobs. Since 2007 the region has lost more jobs than Detroit, and more than twice as many as New York. It has lost about as many jobs – 250,000 – as up and comer Houston has gained. In Forbes recent survey of high-tech performance, the Chicago region stood at a dismal 47th among the nation’s 51 largest metropolitan areas.


Blago is going to the join and the Goo-goo's are going to the bank for a very, very, very long time.

* E.G. - Read the great Anne Leary today on the Triumph of the Policy Pirates

http://backyardconservative.blogspot.com/2011/12/ayers-on-platter-dohrn-with-fork.html

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Sun Times TIF Tip - Location, Location, Location! Affordable Housing



Allison Davis* is an old timey radical and lawyer who makes millions of dollars from government funded real estate opportunities, by dint of his earnest GOO-Goo associations. Several years ago, a little boy was crushed to death by a rusted gate in a property that the hand-wringers made available to his son Cullen. That was an affordable housing moment. It has been pretty quiet on that rusted gate story of late - news embargo, the Progressive Memory Hole.

Allison Davis, of the Judson Miner connection to the halcyon days of good government when Clarence McClain shooed folks in to the Mayor Harold Washington's beefy presence and Forrest Claypool was knocking the cow pies off of his Timberlands and Slim Coleman was ducking Eddie Vrdolyak, has been larding his jeans with bucks in high-minded but essentially filthy real estate deals. Another Faulknerian sentence!

Progressives seem to steal with jolly impugnity and have a compliant news media ready to parse their coin scoopings followed by news embargoes. Editorial Boards are composed of people who believe that the Easter Bunny, Ralph Martire and Spending Dollars I Don't Have are Economic First Principles - Here is Your Sun Times Editorial Board not asking Candidate Obama anything back in 2007-2008.




Section 8 Housing is made available for poor folks in neighborhoods where tax-payers ( black, white, Latino) attempt to eke out a living and send their children to Catholic, Lutheran, Dutch or Charter Schools. Wrightwood, a black working class neighborhood, formerly known as St. Thomas More Parish, was until very recently indistinguishable from white Beverly, Mount Greenwood and Morgan Park in terms of quality of life - good schools and no crime. The empirical fact known to all, but the people who occupy editorial boards and who could care less about the realities facing the shrinking Middle Class, is that Section 8 Housing brings a spike in crime (violent and property).

There is also a Federal Agency dedicated to Housing America's poor - Housing and Urban Development - that makes foreclosures available and hosts sites that make affordable housing a warm and welcoming experience! Click my post title.

TIFs has been a political strawdog for Progressives. TIFs are meant to spur economic development in areas where the poor are underserved.

Save the hand-wringing.

Until Section 8 Housing is featured in areas where diversity is embraced and never realized - areas where people actually watch WTTW.


July 6, 2010

For years, just a fraction of Chicago's fat TIF funds has gone toward affordable housing -- despite widespread demand and need.

And when you drill deeper into that nebulous term "affordable," only a fraction of that fraction has been spent on housing for the city's poorest, according to an analysis of TIF spending from 1995 to 2007 by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.

An ordinance to help chip away at that imbalance will go before a City Council committee Wednesday for a possible vote.

It deserves the City Council's full support, though some adjustments are needed to make it more workable.

We heartily endorse the broad goals of this ordinance, which would dedicate 20 percent of annual TIF funds toward affordable housing, because it targets scarce public dollars where they are needed most. Less than 10 percent of TIF dollars now go to affordable housing, according to the coalition's analysis.

The ordinance also could help boost confidence in the city's maligned Tax Increment Financing program, one of Mayor Daley's main economic development tools. In the city's 159 TIF districts, the amount of property tax dollars that goes to schools, parks and other services is frozen. Then, as property values rise, the extra tax revenue collected is set aside in a separate account to finance other public and private ventures in the name of economic development.

TIFs frequently are criticized for siphoning money from schools and the like to subsidize questionable investments that get little oversight. With this ordinance, the public would at least know how a portion of TIF funds each year would be spent.

Still, some reporting requirements in the ordinance are too weak. Verifying family income for affordable housing eligibility -- crucial to the program's integrity -- shouldn't be left solely up to developers.

Under the proposed ordinance, 20 percent of TIF dollars would be dedicated to building or preserving affordable housing, including converting foreclosed properties into affordable housing. The annual requirement would be citywide, not 20 percent per TIF district.

For rental housing, half the apartments in each development would be for families earning 50 percent or less of the area median income, which is $38,000 a year for a family of four. Citywide, 40 percent of all affordable apartments would go for families earning even less, $23,000 a year.

While well intended, we fear requiring half the rental units to be affordable might discourage development. In the end, because of market forces, most of these projects will end up 100 percent affordable, rather than including a mix of incomes. This makes the projects more expensive, harder to finance and could produce projects that don't enhance property values in a TIF district, affordable housing developers tell us.

Targeting 30 percent of units for families making $38,000 makes more business sense. We'd also lower slightly the 40 percent target for the poorest families.

We strongly recommend changing the homeownership rules. Under the proposed ordinance, 50 percent of for-sale units in a development would be for families making less than $60,000 a year. Developers tell us few families in that income range can afford to buy and maintain a home. Plus, the restriction could make the entire development prohibitively expensive.

To improve the ordinance, we'd like to see the city commit not to overly concentrate affordable developments in challenged neighborhoods. Many TIF districts are no longer blighted and are in need of affordable housing to shelter families that would otherwise be priced out.

The ordinance, pushed by a coalition of housing advocates, community groups and labor, and backed by at least 19 aldermen, is on the right track. As swaths of the city have been devastated by foreclosure and other housing subsidies are stretched thin, Chicago needs a firm commitment to produce more affordable housing.

But it must be done carefully, so it enhances development rather than hampers it.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/2467316,CST-EDT-edit06.article
Save the hand-wringing, this sounds like prelude to a public screwing, by Allison Davis and other Cadillac Commies. Just saying.

*
Nota Bene! Sun Times Investigative Reporter - Tim Novak covered Allison Davis and Cullen Davis like quality wallpaper. In fact, this helot lamented the long absence of Tim Novak's powerful work over the last summer and fall. Here is a link to my references to Mr. Novak's great work ( amended 8:53 AM 6/17/2009). I apologize for this inadvertent slight of Chicago's most tenacious news pitbull.

Friday, September 04, 2009

Another 'Teachable Moment' Van Beck Beer Summit



Now here is a 'Teachable Moment' - Every time President Obama has stepped on the old John Dog, he has seen fit to make a collective guilt trip for all Americans.

Van Jones - a middleclass punk loudmouth like Billy Ayers is giving the Amateur Hour Obama White House the miseries. Czar Jones is not new. In fact, he mirrors the President in so many ways - handsome, well dressed, verbally gifted and insulated. President Obama is a middle class kid who eased into power through the board rooms of monied 501(c) 3 Boards - not precinct captain level Chicago politics. The Progressive route buys power and influence and never admits an error, sin or mistake

Personally, I'll take a few cuts from the flails of fortune for my own idiocies - gambling, getting gin-drunk, and acting the Corinthian with the Fast Smart Set. On me, whip away!

However, President Obama has made a career out of collective work - 501(c)3 Foundations headed up by the Barney Google of Leftist Terrorism - Billy Ayers and then using the funding from Woods Fund with State multipliers as a State Senator to offer 'systemic' changes, like tossing bucks to collectivist lawyers and real estate HUD swindlers ( Tony Rezko/Allsion Davis/Cullen Davis & etc.). It's all good.

You see Obama Power is Progressive Collective Power ( Lefty PACS/SEIU/ACLU?Planned Parenhood?MOVEon.org/Foundations & etc.)! Everyone is involved -whether they like it, suffer under it or profit by it. President Obama is no Chicago politician. He is the Progressive Collectivist.

He acts and you feel. Van Jones is a punk with whom Americans have become all too familiar with since meeting Barack Obama - an insulated, middle class, radical loudmouth with Foundation money. He is a handsome black Billy Ayers -kind of like Taye Diggs meets Gabby Hayes - they are very much the same. Punks they be - protected and insulated by fortune and the laws they wish to destroy. Czar Jones it seems just might only have hours left in his mastership of the Obama Green Suzerain.

Now, Labor Day Weeekend, might be just the time - again- that our Collectivist Progressive President calls another beer summit with Glenn Beck and Van Jones beer bonging for All of America's Collective Guilt.

Everything is just a distraction.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Oh, Carol, You're The Bottom of the Barrel; The Dirty Rotten Apple of My Eye!





Today, Carol Marin does the buzzard on Fran Spielman's labors.

Fran Spielman is going after Mayor Daley's nephew - the Vanecko kid. Fair enough. The kid went into business with Progressive Clout Meister Allison Davis - Judson Miner's partner and Obama's Law Boss. It seems that the Sun Times wants no light on Allison Davis, whose own little boy had a real estate venture that got a three year old child killed when Cullen Davis' Venture* included a rusty gate that crushed the toddler.

Yep, The Progressive Independent Voice of Chicago shed no light on Progressive Impunity Immunity Workhorses. You see, if and when Allison Davis starts chirping to Fitzy - bad stuff about the Progressive Machine gets out.

Nota Bene! Sun Times Investigative Reporter - Tim Novak covered Allison Davis and Cullen Davis like quality wallpaper. In fact, this helot lamented the long absence of Tim Novak's powerful work over the last summer and fall. Here is a link to my references to Mr. Novak's great work ( amended 8:53 AM 6/17/2009). I apologize for this inadvertent slight of Chicago's most tenacious news pitbull.

http://hickeysite.blogspot.com/search?q=Tim+Novak
So, the pile on continues on Regular Democrats and GOP politicians only - oh, and any and all members of their families - It's A Progressive Thing.

Well, Old Carol Marin, for whom I have little, or no regard as a journalist, but fully understand and appreciate her status as a manufactured icon, does the buzzard on the body of work performed by a real reporter - Fran Spielman.

Carol can't eat all the carrion on her own self and powers, so she pours on the Royko Remoulade - Mike Royoko is the be all and end all of Progressive Coverage. The Sauce is Boss!

Voila,

Decades before the White House columns, he was writing about another generation of Vaneckos and Daleys and a disease he called "payrolliaitis."

"It isn't anything that would show up through scientific testing," wrote Royko in 1965, "but Mayor Richard J. Daley is a carrier of a fast-spreading germ . . . called payrolliaitis. The symptoms are easy to spot. A person gets close to the mayor. Crunch -- the payrolliaitis bug nips him. He wanders off in the direction of a city, state or county agency, sits down at a desk, and his name breaks out on a payroll."

Royko was talking about the hiring of Robert Vanecko's grandfather, Dr. Michael Vanecko, whose son married the late mayor's daughter. Shortly before the wedding, that Vanecko went to work for the Chicago Board of Health. And later, his son, Dr. Robert Vanecko, was hired as the physician for the city's municipal pension fund. And now today we have the third generation, as his son, another Robert Vanecko, lands a $68 million deal with -- what else -- city pension funds. He severed all business ties with the deal only after the feds began subpoenaing records.

I dialed Fran on Tuesday at City Hall to ask if she had ever been to dinner with the mayor.

"No," was all she said.

That's good. There's work to do.
Yeah, but Carol Marin will do bugger all of it!

Yep, Carol decided, or her Editorial Chinaman decided, that going after the Family Davis is au contraire! However, "Everyone Hates the Daley Family! The Knit Hat-Soul-Patch & Shave-No-Legs Crowd will find it Fabulous to rip Daley's Family Even Though There is No Tangible Connection Whatsoever to the Story! Just Splash on the Royko!"

So, Carol Marin impugns one of the City's best, most skilled and respected Thoracic Surgeons Dr. Robert Vanecko of Northwestern Medical Center and his surgeon Father as political hacks! Bottom of the Barrel Carol!

Carol, there was a great old song by the Fabulous Farquahr** a folkish musician ( No Pete Seeger, He!) of note with a cult following who penned a lyric about an odious woman named Carol. It is almost eerie.

Carol, you're the bottom of the barrel/You're the Dirty Rotten Apple of my eye/
And when I see you/ I hold my nose and go PU/ And When I See You, Carol

You're Face, You're, Hair, and Your Complexion/ Sure Could Use a Resurrection! - Carol . . .& etc.


* The Family Davis Saga has everything that No Progressive Wants Talked about - Billy Ayers, Comb-Over Dave Axelrod, Rahmbo, Bernardine Dohrn, Judson Miner, all the 1960's Radicals insulated from Inquiry!

**http://johnnykmusic.blogspot.com/search/label/Fabulous%20Farquahr

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Ayers/Obama: Past is Prologue -Except When it Makes Obama Uncomfortable



The New York Times offers a flabby push-up, as opposed to rigorous work-out on Obama's long, close, dangerous and uncomfortable association with William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

Chicago's complex and cowardly web of convenience that weaves radicals, Private Foundations ( Woods Fund, Joyce Foundation, MacArthur and others), law firms ( Sidley & Austin,,Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland, Bluhm Center, Peoples Law Office) real estate opportunists ( Tony Rezko, Allison Davis, Cullen Davis), universities ( UICC, Northwestern, and University of Chicago), and the media ( WGN, Chicago Tribune, Medill School of Journalism) and gutless and cynical politicians ( Daley and Blagojevich) provides the cover for this long, close and dangerous association.

This corporate weave is the 'dumb-down comforter' that wraps Ayers and his odious wife in such warmth that they can stare down from their stoops at America with contempt and allow Billy the Bomber, who polka-ed all over Old Glory in the Tribune's glossy and chi-chi Chicago Magazine, to give AMERICA THE FINGER. Even a Huffington Post Obamabot Michael Shaw noticed that.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shaw/reading-the-pictures-emny_b_131855.html

Obama is rooted to William Ayers and his political ascendancy owes more to Ayers than it does to the urban myth - Obama as Chicago Machine Politician. Obama is no more a Democratic Machine Politician than Tony Rezko is a philanthropist, or the Chicago Sun Times is a newspaper.

For all the protestations from Obama's journalists - worldwide - there has never been a serious inquiry, much less valuable study of William Ayers and his dangerous influence upon Obama by any Mainstream Media -including the cut-and-paste work of Sean Hannity.

Professor Steve Diamond and National Review's Stanley Kurtz have conducted the only real examinations of Ayers and the many other radical mentors of Barack Obama.

The Annenberg Challenge which was funded by Ambassador Walter Annenberg, himself a publisher of sorts -TV Guide and such - and the off-spring of real Chicago Gangsters - Moe Anneberg and the nephew of Max Annenberg. The lazy media dismiss the Annenberg Challenge as a Republican cover -'not just Ayers but Republicans too.'

Nuance!

Ayers and Dohrn were helped to toss their crimes against Americans into the Orwellian Memory Hole, through political convenience. Dorhn has been helping radical lawyers bring suit against Illinois taxpayers through her studies of children being assaulted by a racist Justice system that promotes police torture of blacks, inadequate legal representation for minorities at Northwestern Law School. Dorhn can not practice law. However she can yield power and influence over our courts through radical agitation methods and heavy, heavy lawsuits - Sue the City, Sue the County, Sue the racist People of America. I wish she would have stuck to C-4 as she would have done much less damage to lives and property.

Ayers bombs minds at the University of Illinois at Chicago. They got these jobs and cover of academic propriety through Law Firms - notably Sidley and Austin, where Michele Obama worked.

Obama took the path to White House holding the hands of Ayers and Dorhn.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

McCain/Palin: Want more Obama/Rezko/Jones? Get Sun Times to take the chains off of Tim Novak!



Obama has two little girls at home dying for a puppy, when he has this kennel of news poodles at the Sun Times! Not Fair!

Speaking of not fair! Toss Carol a dog Yummy! Sneed!! Sit up!

The only pit bull on the Chicago Sun Times is Tim Novak. Click my post title for a litany of Novak stories dug up out of the dirt and the dust shovelled on the truth by Obama's shills, Daley's stooges, Medill's meatheads, Ayers acolytes, and Rezko's raiders.

When little Curtis Cooper was crushed by rusty iron gate on mismanaged former CHA property, Young Cullen Davis ( Son of Allison Davis Obama's Law Boss), all fat and sassy, came to the light of day only because of Tim Novak.

Tim Novak is the real deal. When Obama had the the editorial board of the Sun Times - Sit Up! Beg! Roll-Over!!! Fetch! for him, Tim Novak was doing a newsman's job.

Free Tim Novak! Get Some News!

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Obama/Rezko/Davis/Cullen Davis Gate: It Cost Taxpayers Millions of Dollars, Swings One Way,Falls Off and Killed Curtis Cooper






Neither the Chicago Tribune nor the Sun Times ( because Tim Novak is not on the story) made the connection to Barack 'One House'Obama to Tony Rezko and Allison Davis, a white guy termed 'Mayor Daley's link to the African American Community.'


Allison Davis is 'Mayor Daley's link to the African American Community.' No other links, associations, reachers-out, heads-up guys, liasons, or friends in the African American Community - Allison Davis. Allsion Davis is the go-to-guy whenever Mayor Daley needs a link to the African American Community.Not Senator Barck Obama.
Not Ike Carothers. Not Jackie Heard.Not Elzie Higginbottom.Not Dempsey Travis.

Nope Allison Davis. Allsion Davis who was Barack Obama's Law Boss. Back in April of 2007, Tim Novak was on the story and should continue to be on the story for STNG, but they want this tale to fade. Here is what Tim Novak, the only real newsman on the Sun Times, had to say about insulated Progressive lawyer Allison S. Davis.

When Barack Obama took a job at a small Chicago law firm in 1993, the first name on the door of the firm was Allison S. Davis.

Five years later, having left his Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland firm, Davis invested in Antoin "Tony'' Rezko's final government-subsidized, low-income housing project, state records show, in a deal handled by Davis' former law firm.

Davis and Rezko also went into business together, building upscale homes in the booming Kenwood neighborhood where Davis lives. The legal work on those deals was also done by Davis' former law firm, where Obama was working.

Davis, 67, and Rezko are still business partners "in a technical sense,'' Davis said in an interview, though he added, "There's nothing going on in the last couple years.''

He said he didn't recall how or when he met Rezko, a businessman and political fund-raiser under indictment on federal charges that include demanding kickbacks from companies seeking state pension investments under Gov. Blagojevich.

While Davis was running the law firm, he was also a board member of the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp., a not-for-profit company that hooked up with Rezko's Rezmar Corp. on tax-supported projects to rehabilitate apartments for low-income tenants. Davis' firm handled the legal work on those housing deals.

Davis has long been an influential member of the Woodlawn community just south of the University of Chicago. His father was the university's first African-American professor. Since 1991, Davis has been a member of the Chicago Plan Commission, appointed by Mayor Daley, a friend.

Four years ago, Blagojevich appointed Davis to the Illinois State Board of Investment, which controls state pension funds -- one of a series of appointments the governor made at Rezko's request.

Tim Novak


Novak says that Davis's Pa was African American? Guess I was mistaken! Must be true - Davis ain't a white guy then. Pictures never really tell the story. Surface value journalism is also misleading. Get Novak back on the case.

Yep, Tim Novak on a story is like Sterling on Silver. He is such a pitbull that he could dig up my dreams ( don't go there, Tim).

Instead, to make any sense of the non-investigation into the death of Curtis Cooper by our propaganda journalists we need to flip to the New York Post.

Here is a piece that considers the Davis/Rezko/Obama connection important.


In October 1998, Obama wrote city and state officials, urging them to give Rezko $14 million to build an apartment complex outside of Obama's state Senate district. The Chicago Sun-Times noted last year that Obama's request included 855,000 in "development fees" for Rezko and for another developer, Allison Davis, who happened to be Obama's old law-firm boss. Obama's spokesman said it was just a coincidence that the state senator wrote letters to obtain millions of dollars for his two longtime friends. ( emphasis my own -because . . .gee, isn't that kind of a red-flag?)

In fact, Obama was a dependable ally of subsidized developers in the Legislature, giving Rezko and others broader help as well. In "The Case Against Barack Obama," I identify and parse six housing bills with which Obama was closely involved. A few examples:

* In 2001, Obama cosponsored a bill allowing developers to sell state tax credits to others and pocket half of the proceeds.
* In 2002 and 2004, he was chief cosponsor of a bill to authorize a rent-subsidy fund giving "grants . . . directly to developers" of low-income housing. Seventy percent of the money was earmarked for the Chicago area.

* Obama cosponsored the Illinois Housing Initiative Act of 2003, which required the governor to develop a plan for more low-income housing and "provide[d] for funding for housing construction and rehabilitation and supportive services."

* In 2003, Obama voted for the Affordable Housing Planning and Appeal Act, which required Illinois municipalities to make 10 percent of their housing units "affordable" (by definition, this included subsidized housing). This forced 46 communities just outside of Chicago to create more than 7,000 new "affordable" units - a huge boost in demand for area developers. The bill also provided loopholes for developers to circumvent local ordinances and regulations.

After voting for this measure (it passed narrowly), Obama then cosponsored a new bill that moved up its implementation by more than a year.

These and the other Obama-backed bills helped make millionaires of Rezko and other slum developers at taxpayers' expense. The developers - including his former law boss and an adviser to his current campaign - reciprocated, together giving and raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for Obama's campaigns.

To sum up: Obama got them subsidies to build. He secured them a steady income of government rent subsidies. He arranged special tax credits and abatements for them. He backed measures that increased demand for their services, and helped them legally circumvent local laws.

Perhaps Obama acted with only the poor in mind. Yet some of his developer friends weren't so conscientious - especially Rezko.

Notably, Rezko's company claimed that it lacked the funds to heat one of its 11 buildings in Obama's state Senate district from December 1996 to February 1997. But Rezko still managed to write a $1,000 check to Obama's campaign fund on Jan. 14. That month, his tenants shivered as 19 inches of snow fell on northern Illinois.

With his early and large investments in Obama, Rezko helped the Democratic nominee get to where he is today. Obama, meanwhile, helped Rezko with his legislative work and his letter-writing. Given this close working relationship, the Obama-Rezko land deal is far less surprising.

David Freddoso, a political reporter for National Review, is the author of "The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate."


All this stuff is out there for us paper readers at Kean Gas Station each morning. The people who Medill snobs think are too stupid to matter. Well, listen up! We have jobs, families, lives, interests and activities that bring people together. We share thoughts and opinions. Millions of us! We read and we remember what we read. We also control the impulse to buy a paper - we just might glance at it without buying it while we have coffee and crullers. That's revenue denied to you dopes. Guerilla Theatre as the Hyde Park Mafia might opine.

And Obama worries about John McCain's Houses. McCain is a Tightwad! I have raised ranch and a thirty year mortgage and the number of homes in possession really upsets me!

Hell, the cheap bastard! If I shared Cindy McCain's money, with her say so of course, I'd have houses in Peotone, Martinton, Braidwood, Coal City, Custer Park and Papineau, Illinois as well as Sidona,AZ - but I guess that it is a dry heat there.

Obama can stand some heat - Dry, or Wet, Obama will not get any heat form the Cupcake Mules slinging ink for Chicago papers. Tim Novak is a pitbull and he can bring the heat!

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Tribune Updates the Cullen Davis ( Dad was Obama's Law Boss) Complicity in Boy's Death


The Tribune updated its story on the death this summer of Curtis Cooper and the complicity of the property managers United Property Advisors (UPA)that is raking in millions of dollars from the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA).

Yesterday's article deftly stepped around the 'alleged' crumb in the unhappy accident that caused Curtis Cooper's death - Cullen Davis.

Cullen Davis, like William Ayers, is the wee lad of a well-connected Lefty Dad, who has his own bundle of problems with the Feds.

Yesterday, I posted a rather piquant prose philippic that noted the obvious and glaring side-step around Cullen Davis and his well-juiced Dad.

The Tribune locked Mayor Daley into the tale, which makes sense, but seemed to give a complete pass to Allison Davis. Allison Davis, who is very white, was made to appear to be Mayor Daley's African American link to the community. Rather, Allison Davis, who is very white, was Barack Obama's Law boss.

Allison Davis is a member of the Progressive Apparatus of lefty lawyers, journalists, activists, and opportunists who get a pass from the Medill School of Journalism for peccadilloes, wallet-liftings, fund-miss appropriations and other Lefty high-jinks. Let's see if the Trib gets hot-under the bra on this story, though it may lead to the conviction of 'a licensed attorney and real estate broker bringing visionary and strategic leadership to Urban Property Advisors (UPA) plus a number of companies and ventures impacting change in urban environments:'Cullen Davis. Shucks, if the Tribune wants you to suffer - you suffer! Ask George Ryan. If a piece falling off a truck and killing six children can be made to prosecute and destroy the Governor of Illinois, how high the moon? Unless, of course the Medill Industry demands a pass for Progressives.

Today the Tribune added a bit more to the horrific tale of little Curtis Cooper's Death. They included Cullen Davis, who is very white but served as an aid to Rep. Danny K. Davis - no relation I presume - which is only fitting and should have been in the first paragraph of yesterday's feature.

Here is the thing. The Tribune had no problem linking this little boy's death to Mayor Daley - a very wholesome villain to MSM -but blanched at pointing out the very powerful connection between Allison Davis/Tony Rezko and Senator Obama. Why is that?
Tim Novak the only real newsman of the bumptious Chicago Sun Times has been a pitbull with his buckers sunk deeply in cheeks of the Progressive paragons - Obama/Rezko/Davis.

Credit where due - the Trib threw us a bone this morning:


UPA is run by Cullen Davis. His father, Allison, also has been an official with the firm, according to state records. Cullen Davis also declined to comment because of the pending lawsuit.

HUD inspectors reported that the conditions of the gates worsened over the last two years, records show. In 2006, the problem was judged to be of midlevel severity, with a rating of 2 on a scale of 1 to 3. The level was raised to 3 in two subsequent inspections, in April and December of last year.

Under HUD's inspection system, housing authorities are required to immediately fix problems regarded as pressing health and safety concerns, such as exposed wiring and blocked fire exits. Inspectors found many such violations on their last visit to the Cabrini-Green Rowhouses and gave the project a score of 30 points out of a possible total of 100—a "very bad score," Hanson said.

The condition of the gates, however, was not marked as life-threatening and thus did not require immediate repair. Hanson said HUD's computer software, in use for about 10 years, does not allow problems with gates or fences to be designated as life-threatening.

Even though it was not required to fix the gates immediately, the CHA should have made sure they were repaired, said Eleny Ladias, director of technical services for HUD in Chicago. "It's up to the housing authority. They're required to follow up with those type of repairs."

CHA officials said non-emergency items needing repair usually are "addressed by the property manager." They declined to comment on whether the broken gates were ever fixed.

UPA got the contract to manage the rowhouses where Curtis Cooper lived at the end of 2005, taking over from a resident-run management group. Residents have been critical of the firm's work, and some said the gates have long been in bad shape. "The gates were raggedy as hell," said Sherri Montgomery, a lifelong resident of the rowhouses.

After the accident, UPA posted signs warning children not to play on or near the gates. "It's too damn late," said Clayton Wade, Curtis Cooper's father. "The baby's dead."

lcohen@tribune.com

solkon@tribune.com

jgrotto@tribune.com


Like the Ayers/Obama papers held hostage at Cement City, better late than never.

Whenever I am near a Progressive Do-Gooder, I throw both hands over the Left check of my ass to protect my wallet.

Whenever a Progressive Do-Gooder gets near poor people, they rake in millions, properties get boarded up, and people die.

Friday, August 22, 2008

Gate Crushes Boy Chicago Tribune Hides Obama Connection but Links Daley



That's Cullen Davis Folks - he's doing just fine. The little boy killed by the gate on the properties that are making Cullen richer never met Cullen. Cullen Davis has long resume for a young man - loaded with all kinds of do-gooder stuff. Cullen Davis never got mentioned in the Tribune story about responsibility for the death of little Curtis Cooper.


Click my Post Title for series of real articles by a real newsman, Tim Novak of the Chicago Sun Times that link Rezko client Obama and Allison Davis - Obama's Law Boss.

The Tribune just flashed a story about CHA complicity in the Death of a little boy this summer, when a rusted wrought iron gate crushed him to death. Little Curtis Cooper died at a property manged by Cullen Davis, son of Allison Davis, a lefty lawyer with thick ties to Obama.

The Tribune is in the tank for Obama. I am in the tank for McCain, but this piece don't cost you nothing.

The Tribune white-washes Obama's sordid support for Rezko/Davis/Ayers/ . . . any more do-gooder crooks that you can name? and saves the kick in the two things that Jesse Jackson wanted to cut off of Obama for Mayor Daley - not a guy that I would like to ever hear the words 'Pat Hickey is a great friend of mine' (which I won't) -because he MAY be treated as the bad guy du jour by the Progressives. He is after all a Daley - not a great one like his brother John, who happens to be one of the most genuine and authentically nice people I have ever had the honor to meet.

Here's the Tribune at its Candy Assed Best:

Inspectors for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reported at least as long ago as 2006 that gates at the Cabrini-Green complex were damaged, falling or leaning. In their last report, in December 2007, they also said that "multiple" gates were "missing hardware" and that the defects were severe.

Six months later, 3-year-old Curtis Cooper died when one of the massive metal gates fell on him. A lawyer for the boy's family has alleged that the gate was dangling by one hinge because its two other hinges had rusted through.

After being alerted to the problem, it's not clear what steps—if any—the CHA took to get the politically connected firm managing the Cabrini-Green Rowhouses to fix the gates. Urban Property Advisors, or UPA, is run by the son of developer Allison Davis, one of Mayor Richard Daley's top allies in the African-American community.

In response to questions from the Tribune on Thursday, the CHA issued a news release Friday morning saying that the agency passed on the last report to UPA and that repairing the gates was not a priority because HUD inspectors did not designate the gates' condition as a life-threatening emergency.


Read the array of Tim Novak pieces for real story. Novak is the only real newsman at the tanking Sun Times

The Tribune just laid off forty plus people, but they put three reporters on this whitewash crap?

They do not even name the punk responsible - they let Daddy get the tune-up because Daddy is already singing an aria to the Feds. That's Cullen Davis Folks*! Cullen Davis!

Mr. & Mrs. Cooper, God Bless you in your grief and give guidance to your days without your little boy, Curtis.

Cullen Davis! Anything to add? Didn't think so. Tribune? How about a Harrumph?

Come off of it! You clowns calling the shots at the Trib have taken way too many pulls on whatever it is that you have in that Hookah.

*Cullen J. Davis, CEO, is a licensed attorney and real estate broker bringing visionary and strategic leadership to Urban Property Advisors (UPA) plus a number of companies and ventures impacting change in urban environments:
• CJD Investments, which identifies opportunities for acquisition of
undervalued properties in transitional neighborhoods.
• CJD Projects, which develops multifamily housing using complex
financial transactions, especially those involving a high degree of government interaction.
• CNS Projects, a company focused on the holistic development of
urban areas and currently has more than $35 million dollars in
value under development.
• Principal of Hallmark and Johnson Real Estate Management,
LLC, which manages condominiums and market-rate housing
across the Chicagoland area.
• Daveri Development Group, a partnership which develops
multifamily housing throughout the state of Illinois.

Mr. Davis is formerly an associate in the real estate department at the law firm of Winston & Strawn, where he represented developers, financial institutions, investment bankers and investor groups in connection with residential, industrial, office and retail properties. He also served as an aid for Congressman Danny K. Davis, a position which further grounded him in the intricacies of public and private partnership. Mr. Davis received a Juris Doctorate from Northwestern University’s School of Law and a Bachelor’s Degree from Grinnell College. He is a certified tax-credit compliance specialist, a member of the Illinois Bar Association, and holds a variety of other professional memberships and certifications.

Mr. Davis, a native of Chicago, lives in the North Kenwood-Oakland community with his wife and has been a pioneer in that community’s redevelopment.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

John McCain: Obama wrong on Colombia, FARC, Ayers, Dohrn, and American Interests in General





John McCain returned from Colombia and three Americans and a Colombian Presidential candidate held by Marxist FARC terrorists fro six years were freed by Columbia's military with American assistance.

Senator Obama is wrong on America's Free Trade Agreement with Colombia, which is fighting Venezuela's dictator Hugo Chavez for the liberty of South American democracies - Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Brazil are all in danger from Chavez's ambitions for a Marxist Continent.

William Ayers has been and continues to be an influence on Obama. Ayers has a long history with Chavez.

From American Thinker:

Obama may already be working with Hugo Chavez and the narco-war against Colombia. Colombian troops March 1 nailed narco-guerilla leader Raul Reyes just across the border in Ecuador. In response, Chavez threatened to invade Columbia. Information on a laptop computer found with Reyes' corpse detailed the FARC guerillas'relations with both Venezuela and Ecuador and included a February 28 letter from Reyes to the FARC Secretariat. The letter details extensive FARC relations with the governments of Colombia and Ecuador and includes this item:


"The gringos called for a meeting with the minister to ask him to tell us they are interested in talking about several topics. They claim they new president in their country will be Obama and that these people are interested in their fellow citizens. Obama will support neither Plan Colombia nor the signature of the Free Trade Agreement. In this regard, we replied we are interested in relations with the governments that are on equal grounds and that in the case of the United States, a public statement voicing their interest in talking to the FARC is needed, given their eternal war against us."


As Reyes predicted, on April 10 Democrats in Congress blocked enactment of a free trade treaty with Colombia -- in spite of the fact that Colombian exports are already allowed into the US without tariffs. Obama opposed the treaty, winning denunciation by Colombian president Uribe.



Obama is wrong - he is a Progressive Windsock. Obama is wrong on the Surge; he is wrong on Colombian Free Trade; Obama is dead wrong on Chavez and Senator Obama is wrong for the Office of President of the United States.

Barack Obama has had the wrong tutors ( Tony Rezko, Allison Davis, whose son Cullen is being sued for the wrongful death of three year old Curtis Cooper, Fr. Mike Pfleger, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and the dious couple of unrepentant terrorists Bernadine Dorhn and William Ayers) and he listened to them with rapt attention.

Pay attention to Senator Obama.

Pay attention to John McCain. In the days to come the man who roughed up a Sandinista jefe back in the 1980's* will prove to be more than right on Colombia - just as he has been on the Surge.


*
The two senators have made peace since the remarks. Cochran said McCain included him on a recent campaign visit to Meridian. He told the Sun Herald on Monday that McCain, whose ancestors lived in north Mississippi, is the best man for the job.

But Cochran said he observed McCain engage in a physical confrontation with a Sandinista while participating in a diplomatic mission led by Sen. Bob Dole and others in the fall of 1987. Cochran, McCain - who had won election to the Senate that year - and other members of a bipartisan committee of lawmakers called the Central American Negotiations Observer Group - met with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, head of the left-wing political party known as Sandinistas, about tensions in the region.

The atmosphere was tense, as the U.S. was pressing "pretty hard." Cochran noticed a disturbance at the meeting table in a room lined with armed personnel.

"McCain was down at the end of the table and we were talking to the head of the guerilla group here at this end of the table and I don't know what attracted my attention," Cochran said. "But I saw some kind of quick movement at the bottom of the table and I looked down there and John had reached over and grabbed this guy by the shirt collar and had snatched him up like he was throwing him up out of the chair to tell him what he thought about him or whatever. I don't know what he was telling him but I thought, good grief, everybody around here has got guns and we were there on a diplomatic mission. I don't know what had happened to provoke John but he obviously got mad at the guy and he just reached over there and snatched him."

No punches were thrown and the two sat back down, Cochran said. The man, who appeared ruffled after the confrontation with McCain, was an Ortega associate, but Cochran said he was unsure of his identity.

Flash-forward 21 years. Tuesday, McCain was traveling in Central America and he stopped in Colombia. In 2006 Ortega won his office back after losing a 1990 election.



http://www.bnd.com/news/politics/story/386304.html