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.

CTA Commissar Claypool Warns Pope Francis " You Come to My Town; You Better Have That Ventra!"

In this 2008 photo Presidential Guru David Axelrod, sporting a swell piece from Hair Club for Men, rode the Buenas Aires Subway on an Obama Green Energy study.   The Progressive Argentine government offered its passengers the opportunity to 'share the wealth' with its Ventra Cards. On this particular fact-finding junket, Chicago's-own Comb Over Dave asked the Stiff Collar in seat next to him -"What's in Your Wallet?"

That became the mantra of the Obama White House 2008-Present.

The Kirchner Government won the hearts and minds of the Obama Campaign with its no-nonsense approach to eliminating the middle class. Mr. & Mrs. Kirchner were pals of Bill Ayers' pal Hugo Chavez and immediately made was on Argentine farmers - it's a Progressive thing.



Things were not as snuggly between the then Archbishop of Buenas Aiires and Mr. & Mrs. Kirchner, because the Catholic priest was so unevolved and always on the wrong side history. In 2010, after her visit to Red China Mrs. Kirchner made Same Sex Marriage the Rage in Buenas Aires and abortion as easy to get as Gaucho britches. Likewise, Peoples Transportation is what it is!

Here in Chicago, the appointed CTA Boss Forrest Claypool stuffed the CTA Board with Progressive ninnies like Jon Bouman *and Party hacks like Jackie Grimshaw; therefore the CTA operates like a Moscow street-car. Hey, it works in Caracas!!!!

 Forrest Claypool is the bright boy who finagled the Bombardier -Canuck/Red China Trains that Don't Fit The Tracks Boondoggle! He is the Commissar who fought pee breaks for CTA workers!  Forrest Claypool is a job-hopping lightweight with a Kevlar Resume.

Now, Claypool, like President Obama and the South American Dictator Community Activists is help the struggling middle class and the poor by divesting them of money that they will only spend on themselves and their children anyway.

 Ventra has come under criticism for the embedded fees in the program for CTA riders who purchase single-ride “L” fares. Riders who purchase disposable single-ride tickets will be charged the standard $2.25 rail fare, a 25-cent transfer fee (regardless of whether or not the rider uses the transfer) and a 50-cent “limited use media fee.” Critics of the program accuse CTA of penalizing the poor with these fees, to which CTA President Forrest Claypool took umbrage. Claypool and supporters of Ventra insist the embedded fees are targeted for tourists and riders who don’t rely on CTA as their primary means of transportation.Claypool did his best to parse the fare increase after the meeting and insisted the Ventra system wouldn’t cost riders any extra, if they only bothered to use it.

“There is no $3 cash fare,’’ he said. “The $3 is if a person chooses a disposable, one-ride ticket. It has nothing to do with cash.’’

You get that?  There is no $3 cash fare! There's no $3 cash fare!  There's no Crying in baseball! It has nothing to do with cash, Stupid!  $3!  You put $3 in the single ticket for the $ 2.25 rail fare!

“There is no $3 cash fare,’’ he said. “The $3 is if a person chooses a disposable, one-ride ticket. It has nothing to do with cash.’’

So, anyway!  The Pope rides public transportation and I dare say he has wiped more puke, pee, peanuts and papers off the plastic seats of a train or a bus than Forrest Claypool, Jackie Grimshaw, or Jon Bouman.  Book that, G!

If Pope Francis I, who fell afoul of Friends of Obama in the Western Land Down Under ever visits Chicago to hang out with the working stiffs, the dying and those awful homeless people, His Holiness had better pack a Progressive Ventra Card!


*"John Bouman expressed reservations over the system because of the appearance social service agencies that buy single-ride passes from the agency would pay more on paper for the new Ventra passes." . . .can't have APPEARANCES!  That is what Fatima is for! Progressive believe in science, reason and the appearance of honesty, boy howdy!

Forrest "Cartoons" Claypool Asks Fat Cats To Go Halves on Train Robbery!

The CTA is receiving strong and enthusiastic feedback from the private sector about investing in two mega-projects along the Red and Purple lines that the transit agency could not afford to undertake on its own for many years, CTA President Forrest Claypool said Monday. Chicago Tribune, a subsidiary of Medill Enterprises and Northwestern University think tanks.

Hey, Chicago! Are as Shickled TitLess as the Chicago News Media and CTA Payroller Forrest Claypool about the greedy 1% -er Fat Cats of Goldman Sachs (Obama Approved) going snacks with us on the Purple/Red Lines?

Forrest Claypool, the government payroll hopping Goo-Goo and Boss Fighter, whose beak is always soaked in tax dollars, is that same daffy Forrest Claypool who bought defective wheels from Red China that went on bum Canadian made railway cars that were the wrong gauge for the rail tracks of the CTA!  He's the same Forrest Claypool who wanted to save nickels by timing the pee-breals of CTA employees.  He's a Progressive! And He's a howl!

CTA officials and financial adviser Goldman Sachs are studying potential public-private partnerships to construct the proposed Red Line extension to 130th Street, and to demolish and rebuild track, aging stations and crumbling viaduct structure on the North Side, from north of the Belmont station through Evanston, Claypool told a gathering of transportation experts at Northwestern University.

Yeah, this can't miss. SkyWay, Parking Meters, Red Light cameras . . .should be . . .just a dandy caper!  Goldman Sacks Chicago!