Illinois McDonough Contract - The Progressive Random Purg

 This is the common manner Progressive Democrats employ when saying thank you to a benefactor. - Pat Quinn gave James McDonough a random send off for his charity and support.

"The actions being taken against McDonough grew out of a random audit of McDonough last year in which officials examined a wide range of state engineering contracts the firm won between 2000 and 2009."

Some one in Governor Pat Quinn's Illinois Government decided to randomly examine McDonough Construction.

I wouldn't know James McDonough ,if he walked on me.

I have heard about the generous gifts showered on hospitals, universities, charities and especially St, Xavier University and St. Ignatius.

Mr. McDonough is one of the successful people that Directors of Development want to address as "Jim" after months of cultivation, golf, lunch and moist kisses to the McDonough rump and pry open the family wallet.

I do that, but I do not golf, tend to eat with gusto sans conversation until perspiring and then tend to pick my aging teeth and pucker-up only to secretaries, as they are the genuine engines of power in all matters of corporate citizenship.  The less time a Seven Figure and Change Prospect spends face-to-face with Patrick Francis, the more that person is  inclined to write a husky check for benefit of Leo High School.  Make the case, present the documentation and make yourself scarce are the three legs of Hickey's Development Tripod.

Common sense also dictates - never rub another man's rhubarb - Don't Poach Prospects Not Your Own.

James McDonough has never heard his executive secretary say, " A Pat Hickey from Leo High School keeps calling and sending drawings by him of happy students at Leo who would have bigger smiles, if you send lots of money. Do you want to talk with him?  Jim O'Connor* said he is harmless.  Okay, I'll tell him to . . . what is it he should do with himself?"

Mark Brown wrote a very balanced assessment of the ritual throat-cutting, in my estimation, of James McDonough in today's Sun Times. Mark Brown's commentary follows the fine investigative report by Chris Fusco and Tina Sfondeles that detailed to State of Illinois cast breadcrumbs leading to James McDonough. The Master-key word in this report is "random."

If allowed to stand, the cascading effect of the contract bans threatens the very existence of the firm, which is expected to go to court to challenge the state’s ruling.
Now, you may have noticed from time to time that newspapers will hype a story just a bit to get your attention.
Well, this is the flip side of that coin: a story so significant we can hardly put it in proper perspective in the space allotted.
McDonough and his company have been a major part of the fabric of this city and its politics for more than four decades since he left a post as Streets and Sanitation commissioner under Mayor Richard J. Daley to enter the engineering world in 1974. . . . In short, McDonough is a major player to be wiped off the board so suddenly, not that there won’t be any number of engineering firms vying to replace his company.Mark Brown Chicago Sun Times ( emphasis my own)

Mark Brown's nose smells blood in this random throat-cutting of McDonough.   I have seen this movie many times before - follow the bones to Dawn Clark Netsch. Mike Quigley, Forrest Claypool, Toni Preckwinkle. Jan Shakowsky, or Pat Quinn and you will be able to construct the dinosaurs tossed in the tar-pits.

Nothing is random - especially any full blown departmental  forensic audit of a random cash cow.


n.b.  -

John Carroll University Receives
$1 Million Gift from Chicago Couple

John Carroll University alumnus Jim McDonough and his wife, Jacque, have made a  $1 million gift to John Carroll University to be used for The President’s Opportunity Fund. 

The President’s Opportunity Fund was created in 2006 and is intended to enable JCU President Robert L. Niehoff, S.J., to strategically allocate resources to academic programs, service projects, and capital improvements.

Father Niehoff praised the Chicago, Illinois, couple for their support, stating, “We are very thankful for their generous investment in our future.  Jim and Jacque epitomize our mission of developing individuals of intellect and character who lead and serve in their own communities and around the world.”

“We are delighted to make this gift to the University because of its commitment to educational excellence in the Jesuit Catholic tradition,” remarked Mr. McDonough, a 1955 John Carroll graduate.  “John Carroll University was a formative experience in my own life, and Jacque and I are especially pleased that our daughter, Maureen, is a graduate of the University.”

Mr. and Mrs. McDonough are among John Carroll’s most loyal and generous benefactors and have long been enthusiastic supporters of the University. Mr. McDonough is president and chairman of McDonough Associates, Inc., a full-service engineering architectural consulting firm with a worldwide client base. In 1990, Mr. McDonough received the University’s Alumni Medal, the highest honor given by the JCU Alumni Association in recognition of an individual’s distinguished service to their profession, exemplary family and personal life, contributions to their community, and service to the University. 

I mentioned only Mr. McDonough's philanthropic gifts, because like any  person in Chicago with two nickels to rub together Clan McDonough is politically taxed by all and sundry.

Are there any random audits of Personal Pac associated gifters and captains of industry?  Cable News?  Print Media? Advocacy Industrialists?

Governor Pat Quinn does not exercise his sphincter without the say-so of Terry Cosgrove, e.g.  No random eructations for sensible Pat, let alone bill support and signage, or the random forensic audit of traditional political ally of the Old Guard.

From the slightly cracked steps of my front poarch, it looks like Old Time and Dependable funding-sources to Old Guard Democrats are being purged by the Personal PAC, Abortion, Gay Marriage Progressives funded by people who do not give to schools, hospitals and charities linked to a Saint's name. Fred Eychaner comes to mind.  I am sure that Pat Quinn and Dick Durbin have spilled more than a few fun-toddies and flat-breads heaped with caviar on Fred's carpets and couches.

Why?  Power needs to be demonstrated.  Nothing says power, like the very public execution of the powerful to signal the purges to come.  Play nice with a Progressive if you must, but expect to be kicked to death with a random act of kindness and show of Good Government.

Read and follow -Mark Brown and the Sun Times investigative team on this purge and the death by of thousand cuts awaiting Mr. McDonough.


* Jim O'Connor - St. Ignatius graduate, philanthropist founding member of The Big Shoulders Fund and gentleman to the backbone.  No doubt Jame McDonough is as good a man as Mr. O'Connor and I imagine the polar opposite of a Governor Pat Quinn.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/brown/13071894-452/theft-accusations-against-mcdonough-associates-a-huge-deal.html

http://www.suntimes.com/news/watchdogs/13040609-761/state-clout-firm-committed-theft-billed-idot-for-bonuses-outings.html

Rahm's Garbage Grid is Urban Euthanasia

The Garbage Grid is Rahm and his cadre of Progressive Policy appointee geniuses
(left over from Mayor Mumbles of course)pulling the plug on the bothersome, ailing, long in the tooth Chicago Middle Class. The Aldermen of the City Council will go along with this procedure especially those who will benefit by the death of Chicago's ethnic and minority neighborhoods.

Good riddance via Bad Rubbish . . .collection - The Garbage Grid.

Progressive ( affluent, childless, secular, health fascist, and degree'd) hate everyone else; especially, church going breeders and their horrible offspring.

The Urban Center is the end-game. A Progressive Playground for young, and those who think that they are youthful - you know, the Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dorn human train wrecks who continue to sport ear rings and '60s rigouts.

We, all the rest of us, are breathing their air and taking up too much of their time.

We gotta go. And go we shall!

The Garbage Grid is the hearty 'GTFOOH!!!! From the Twitters et alto the Helots. This from WBEZ - the Mouthpiece of Progressives -

Chicago aldermen are very protective of their trash pick-up powers. And so, a plan to take some of those powers away was greeted a bit coldly at a city council hearing on Monday evening.

Trash pickup is now done ward-by-ward, allowing individual aldermen control over the politically important service. That goes away under Rahm Emanuel's proposed budget, which his administration tried to sell to aldermen. A handful of them weren't buying it - at least not yet.

Progressives have climbed Garbage and swam Sewage into power here in Chicago and Cook County from the day that Alderman John 'Johnny D'Pow' Powers of the old 19th Ward appointed lesbian crank Jane Addams as a Garbage Commissioner. Like every Progressive from manly Jane to Deb Shore to Forrest Claypool, Progressives immediately turned on their benfactors and the Helots.

The tasty core of Chicago -universities, medical centers, museums, parks, restaurants, theatres, zoos, conservatories, gardens, clubs, galleries would be ever so much happier without the grumpy, lumpy and dumpy cops, firemen, tradesmen, worker bees and their wives and ugly children!

The Progressive will abort or euthanize any and every troublesome burden quicker than a Preckwinkle gobbles a pension! Euthanize the old boring middle class and abort their damn children who take up table space in fine dining establishments.

Rather than come to grips with urban problems, Progressives create open spaces and volumes of idiotic regulations. The Jim-dandy is the move to create the Urban Center. Carol Coletta is CEOs for Cities and she says, "Clearly, the next generation of Americans is looking for different kinds of lifestyles — walkable, art, culture, entertainment."

To that end, the middle class must exit, because all they care about are their homes, their lawns,their churches, their neighbors and their damn kids. They have some control over their Aldermen, because he/she will get an earful and then the door. Once you take services from the Alderman, why bother? Leave.

Trade thousands of Helots for a few hundred young, college educated, affluent singles, like Cleveland:

In Cleveland, which lost 17% of its population, downtown added 1,300 college-educated people ages 25 to 34, up 49%.

"It tells us we've been on the right track," says David Egner, president and CEO of Detroit's Hudson-Webber Foundation. Three anchor institutions —Wayne State University, Henry Ford Health System, Detroit Medical Center — recently launched "15 by 15," a campaign to bring 15,000 young, educated people to the downtown area by 2015.

Among the lures are cash incentives: a $25,000 forgivable loan to buy (need to stay at least five years) downtown or $3,500 on a two-year lease.

Garbage will be collected according to a grid. Talk to the Grid! Don't like it leave!

This is all about choice - like abortion and euthanasia - kill the middle class and let the Urban Center of a smaller, smarter Chicago please the Unpleasant - the Progressive.


http://www.wbez.org/story/no-more-trash-superpowers-chicago-aldermen-93430?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cprpolitics+%28WBEZ+-+Politics%29

Elite Class Warriors Hang a Strawman in Effigy

"Cheers: Coach Buries a Grudge " (1984)

Tom: Let's hang him in effigy.
Ernie 'Coach' Pantusso: To hell with that. Let's hang him right here in Boston.


I am neither the sharpest bulb in the box, nor the brightest knife in the drawer, but know not to dance a fine jig in a steaming and teeming cow pasture, in order to pick up an ice cold gallon of moo juice. I step lightly and nimbly on the concrete streets of my neighborhood and go directly to the dairy case of County Fair Foods.

Call me crazy, call me lazy but $ 2.24 for a gallon of Kemp's 2% is preferable to spending untold hours with a trowel or sharp stick de-defecating my boondockers.

Likewise, I enjoy a paycheck that will clear upon deposit at Beverly Bank.

When 516 City workers (laborers, bus drivers, Streets and Sanitation workers, clerks and crossing guards) stand a solid chance of layoff, I know that fewer families will be able to afford Catholic school tuition. The economic mess that is the American economy hurts the people who Ivy League Academics, MSNBC, Editorial Boards, Brahmin Appointees like Forrest Claypool, and the DNC play at helping.

The Elites build many strawmen - Chicago Progressives like Toni Preckwinkle and Forrest Claypool stay employed by attacking powerless workers in their budgets, Machine Bosses ( try and find one), Skilled Trades Leaders and middle class helots. the mantra is always It is not our Policies that Fail, You People Don't Pay Enough!

Kids and glue-sniffers love that.

The Occupy Everything Movement nonsense and the toddler Obama Administration are fast and furiously Hell bent on stringing up A Strawman. The Strawman is the mythical Rich. This strawman is a caricature like 19th Century cartoonist and anti-Catholic bigot Thomas Nast's cartoons of plutocrats.

The plutocrats in fact are creating the Strawman that people on the Left are burning in effigy. The real Plutocrats are the trust funded, insulated activists who have colluded with Bill Clinton, Goldman Sachs, Fannie & Freddie Mae, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Barney Frank and Chris Todd to force the myth of Real Estate Mortgages as a Civil Right.

Here in Illinois ten or more years ago, smart legislators saw a problem: if a man had no or almost invisible income per his Income Tax returns, how could he afford a mortgage? Former Illinois State Representative Kevin Joyce pointed that problem out. Zip codes that were home to the most impoverished Illinois residents were a signal. Rev. Jesse Jackson tossed the race card in reply. Remember?

People qualified for mortgages without any discernible proof of an ability to meet those mortgage payments. Soon, homes purchased on a promise went into foreclosure and property values took its continuing nose dive. That mortgage bubble built by the Elites burst in 2008.

Plutocrats never tend to be pipe fitters, carpenters, millwrights, machinists, cops or firemen.

Plutocrats are Kennedys, DuPonts, Rockefellers, Buffets, Gates' and Oprahs. They are unaffected by the collapse of the economy and they are just fine with Class Warfare.

The Class Warfare targets today are Capitalists, whoever they might be; billionaires with jets; 'sFat Cats and Dry Cleaners.

The Middle Class was shrunk, not because of Bush, or Pipe fitters, it has shrunk because too many of us are not only charging into, but rolling happily through the endless cow pasture, in the mistaken notion that by milking organically fed cows, one can get an ice cold gallon of pasteurized 2% Milk of Amnesia.

Click my post title for Joel Kotkin's lucid and far less cranky presentation of this very topic