Payback Really is a Bitch! Cook County Purge of Teamsters, Guards and Anyone Toni Preckwinkle Don't Like.

Hyde Park 2006 Independence Day parade (left to right starting at center in light green): Preckwinkle as the Statue of Liberty, Illinois State Representative Barbara Flynn Currie as Uncle Sam, and Chicago City Council Alderman Leslie Hairston as Betsy Ross

I did a buddy of mine a solid. He asked me to help get Pat Quinn elected Governor for real in 2009 and Pat would do my buddy a solid.  I was dubious.  No Progressive ever does any one a solid.   I am old school; I supported and voted for Pat Quinn for Governor. I still need a shower on that one.

That sin of mine is the real reason why Chicago, Cook County and the State of Illinois are so screwed up.

We all do 'nice people,' a solid.

Jeremy Bentham, the great 19th Century economist argued for the greatest good for the greatest number of people.  Can't argue with that.

However, for a Progressive, the greatest number is # 1.  That truth was argued to young President Teddy Roosevelt by glaciologist John Muir and still holds true today.

I did a buddy a solid and did not vote my own conscience.  I detested Pat Quinn's politics going all of the way back to the days when he carried water for a crook and a Progressive - Governor Dan Walker.
Quinn opposed all regular Democrats, because he wanted to be viewed as a Reformer ( aka - unskilled policy bully).

The Late Illinois Senate Leader Phil Rock was a Democrat of the old school - anti-abortion, anti-Marxist and true to the values that created the greatest standard of living in world history. Phil Rock kept goofs like Quinn at arm's length.  That was long ago, when being middle class was a good thing.

Pat Quinn and Dan Walker and Abner Mikva and Dawn Clark Netsch and Bill Singer and Jesse Jackson and Michael Shakman and Larry Bloom and Toni Preckwinkle and the late Red guru Dr. Quentin Young were dead set against  this middle class hegemony.

Toni Preckwinkle was a Catholic high school ( Visitation), when Pat Quinn was honing his Hyde Park Mafia ( Abner Mikva) chops.  Preckwinkle had a reputation as a humorless, racist ( hates whitey) and not very well read history instructor and those qualities made her an ideal candidate for IVI-IPO Democrats.

It took Toni three swings  with the IVI bat to unseat Tim Evans for Alderman of the 4th Ward, but the rest is the typical Progressive history - suck up to Regular Democrats, gain their trust, knife them in the kidneys and repeat, repeat, repeat and repeat while keeping the media with you.

Sometimes, the Feds get in the way of Progressive Independent and Reform minded Democrats -Larry Bloom (neighboring 5th Ward Alderman), IVI-IPO operative Bob Creamer and Illinois Governors Dan Walker and Rod Blagojevich come to mind.

When Reformer Larry Bloom went to school in 1999, Mikva Challenged Federal Judge was wont to complain about Federal prosecutors for  "prosecutorial zeal does not, as I perceive it, justify overstatements of the nature I find in some respects in this case."  Convict Larry Bloom whined, "I was mugged--not by any petty thief or street tough, but by agents of my government, our government."

Translated - "Larry Stole and cheated on his taxes but criminy . . .he's a Goo-Goo!"

Thus far, Toni Preckwinkle has escaped the eyes of the Feds.  Therefore, Toni Preckwinkle does what she wants and to whom she wants. It is now the Teamsters, who work for Progressive rival Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart.

Tit for tat?

Or a case of unintended consequences?

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart’s office just got a letter from Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle listing 925 positions designated for layoffs — if a judge doesn’t allow a countywide sweet beverage tax to take effect by August.
• The kicker: Sneed is told 377 of those jobs, many of them held by Cook County Jail correctional officers, are held by members of the Chicago Teamsters Union.
So here’s the kick in the butt.
Recently, the Teamsters Union took out a full-page newspaper ad opposing the tax, which Preckwinkle vigorously backed.
“This sure looked like a shot across the bow,” a top Sneed source said.
“Or interesting timing that many of the designated layoffs were members of the Teamsters Union, which took out the ad opposing the tax,” the source said.

You see, Teamsters not only work as Correctional personnel, but also deliver Pop. Pop is a Progressive target, because fat kids love it and it rots teeth, creates obesity and goes great with salty snacks.

Teamsters deliver salty snacks.

Teamsters also deliver votes.

Let's get back to my sins.

I agreed to do a pal a solid.  I helped support Pat Quinn for Governor.  Running with daffy Pat filling the void left by reformer Rod Blagojevich, for trying to sell  a Senate seat to IVI-IPO Alumnus Barack Obama, was Toni Preckwinkle for President of Cook County Board to unseat Todd Stroger, created by Progressive patron Tom Hynes, to replace the late John Stroger, a Regular Democrat and gentleman to the backbone.

My pal was immediately stabbed in the back by Pat Quinn upon his election, because Quinn has the loyalty of a gnat.

Toni Preckwinkle rode Quinn's coat-tails, because of people like me.  I did a pal a solid and created the person taking jobs away from 925 families in Cook County.

That's Progressive.  Get people to do you a solid and then give it to them good and hard.

As Progressive Federal Judge Milton Shadur lamented when he was forced to sentence Reformer Larry Bloom, "It is true of law-enforcement agencies in addition to anyone else that if you lie down with dogs, you are likely to get up with fleas."

As the great Fats Waller once reasoned, " One never knows, Do One?"

Ain't that a Bitch, Judge?

Old Commies Live a Long Time - For Longevity, Go Red!

  Nah.  You'd have been fine Pete. Catholics, Jews, genuine labor leaders, working stiffs of every race and color  . . .not so lucky. 



Pete Seeger the privileged WASP New York kid who pretended to come from Appalachia died this week at age 94. Wasn't That a Time?

It is amazing that old Reds and vigorous fellow travellers, now called Progressives,  manage to cheat the Grim Reaper. Chicago has always been a labor town, but the Reds never succeeded in making Chicago their own, until the last forty years or so. Labor kicked out the Reds under John L. Lewis and subsequent labor leaders, until Democrats discovered that Reds help increase the voting rolls - hat tip to Jane Byrne.

Lookee H'yar!  With possible exceptions of the youthful demise of  Saul Alinsky (63 yrs,)and Roger Baldwin (70), Red and Pinkish Lefties tend to reap at least eight score years.

Famous Dead Reds and Past Pinks
Leon Despres (dec,) -99
Pete Seeger(dec,) - 94
Studs Terkel (dec.)- 95
Dawn Clark Netsch(dec.) -86
Frank Marshall Davis (dec.)-82
Clarence Darrow (dec.)- 80

Living the Over Throw of Capitalism
Dr. Quentin Young - 91 and still plotting

When the Reds say "Long Live . . .whatever!"  they really mean it.

Must be eating all those beets.

Governor Pat Quinn Uses Pope Francis to Grab Kids at Birth and Raise Minimum Wage?

“But when Herod was dead, behold an angel of the Lord appears in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, Arise and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead that sought the young child’s life” (Matthew 2:19-20).

Mary and Joe beat it to Egypt, because Planned Parenthood of Roman Occupied Judea allowed Herod to kill babies.  Things are pretty bad in Illinois, many Mary and Joe couples have already beat it to Wisconsin and Indiana. Our home grown Herod is the Guv, in Planned Parenthood/SEIU and IPI occupied Illinois.  I wish him a very long, happy, healthy and quiet life out of office.

Gov. Pat Quinn is a gifted ninny.  He is gifted by those who stick Holy Writ, or Papal Remarks under his schnozola and read the words to him.

Yesterday's State of the State stem-winder was completely Quinn-worthy.

Illinois is back!  Repeating exactly what Quinn mouthed last year.  Quinn has succeeded only in getting business to leave Illinois quicker than a pewful of folks stuck behind a wildly flatulent worshiper. Quinn has re-defined marriage as he commanded to do by Personal PAC.  Other than that?

• Illinois public schools continue to stink on ice.
• College grads can't find work in Illinois
• Nanny State laws pour forth every News Years Day
• Bridges crumble
• Potholes proliferate
• Grain prices drop
• The Coal industry shrinks
• The governor belittles the religious
• The continuing erasing of the Illinois Middle Class

Now, the political hack who fights heroically for the right of women to avoid the scared consequences of conception via abortion, takes Pope Francis I's comments completely out of context, in order to make sure that Mikey D's fry stuffers have boosted short-term spending power Moreso, Governor Goof wants to mandate child care the minute a child is born.  Imagine, the State of Illinois ( SEIU) raising and caring for every baby born from Lena Winslow to Cairo. 

The ever disappearing wages of tradesmen, cops, teachers, fire fighters, truckers, small business owners, sales people and practicing artists will be used to pay Keith Kelleher's SEIU care-givers and doctors who not somehow qualify for that great job at Pontiac, or Galesburg prisons. Pope Francis and Isaiah were invoked by Governor Cliffs Notes - no doubt at the suggestion of Illinois  Pete Seeger of Medicine - Old Doc Quentin Young, physician to CPUSA and gubernatorial guru.

Quinn, who is Catholic, quoted scripture and popular new Pope Francis in setting his priorities. But the speech only occasionally drew measured applause, though Democratic lawmakers clapped when he called for increasing the minimum wage. Republicans remained silent through most of the 40-minute speech, short compared to some of the governor’s earlier efforts.
Quinn first proposed hiking the state minimum wage during his address a year ago, but the effort didn’t gain much traction. He’s hoping for an election-year boost this time around as President Barack Obama and Democrats across the country also push the issue in the mid-term elections.

The Republicans are too gutless to speak the truth to this Botched Cesarean Caesar.  They act like old bags arguing over bingo markers at the Peotone Legion and are much  too busy to get elected. Every election.

Governor Pat Quinn is pandering to the have-nots and will nots of Illinois - pure and simple. That is all he's got and he will use Bible or the out-of-context Papal pronouncements to get the NPR nodders in the pews of upper-middle-class Unitarian Catholic Churches of suburban Illinois to join his Crusade.  Upon what brie doth this Caesar feed?  Planned Parenthood's and morsels from the Hyde Park mafia, that's what brie.

Pope Francis I said this the very week he was elevated to the Papacy - -“Defend the unborn against abortion even if they persecute you, calumniate you, set traps for you, take you to court or kill you."  

Parse that, Guv. 

Tio Con Brio: Uncle Briskly's Voter Guide to the Illinois Primary for Governor

 Quinn and his guru - the Old Red Man of Progressive Illinois -Dr. Quentin Young -made people believe he was friend of Veterans in 2004 by belaboring the obvious.

It seems that Pat Quinn's enablers did a black bag job of some kind on Billy Daley and Mr. Daley opted out of the race.  The Tribune editorial ninnies (Bruce Dold) argue that Pat Quinn's Populist Bare-Knuckle brio scared the bejabbers out of the 'banker, working for a bank.'  No, sweethearts, the Tribune is not engineering this election as it did for Il Sen. Barack Obama.  The Sun Times hired the BGA, or vice versa and it planned to dredge up Axelrodian Tales of woe for the Daley Campaign.  The BGA couldn't find a drunk pay-day unless a politician took Andy Shaw's team into a joint and handcuffed them to chap fully Kreuzened and Jaeger fueled.  The Quinn Camp did a job on Bill Daley, it seems to me, and he did the noble Roman.

That just proves that Bill Daley is no Progressive. Progressives don't do noble.

Progressives survive after back-stabbing their sponsors and all who help them.  Jane Addams would be just another patrician Sapphist, unless Alderman Johnny Powers hadn't appointed her 19th Ward garbage commissioner.  Old lusty Jane turned on her sponsor.  Chart the career of a Mike Quigley, a Forrest Claypool, or a Pat Quinn and read Progressive. Policy trumps everything, but the nest payoff.

Bill Daley will be fine.  His campaign is over and after Friday, the back-stabbers and creeps who tend to be Progressives will have had all the fun at Mr. Daley's expense that they deserve and by Monday will have 'reached out'  to Daley's people and make nice.  Progressives would be tightly packed in Hyde Park, the Lake Front and suburban Evanston  were not for cynical attempts by old time Machine Democrats to co-opt the co-opters back in the 1970's.  Prior to that age of bad hair, worse fashion and too-hip-to be square politics, fellow travelling Marxists May-poled around Leo DesPres, or teased SDS glue sniffers into the barber shops and Northwestern, or University of Chicago law schools.

While the Brothers Daley were growing up, labor leaders wore black suits and packed heat to scare off not only gangsters but Reds, Commies, Fellow-travellers, members of Comintern USA, and university professors considered with the same awe as the house cat.  Once politicians who knew better admitted the Progressives into the tent the pissing hosed universal.  Shakman was taken seriously and larceny went from a hung-over city worker snoozing on the job and grabbing a few extra nickels to Organization suicide.

Dedicated soft-balls like Pat Quinn sat at the feet abortion-intoxicated Reds like Dr. Quentin Young and curried favor with Abner Mikva.  In 1972, the bad guys took over the Party of Andy Jackson and turned it into the Party of Andy Shaw. They did so in Miami.  Creeps, Grifters and Reds became mainstream with the assistance of blow-dried ninnies like Dan Rather and MadMen Ad people.  The recently assassinated Bobby Kennedy became a mythical life-member of Planned Parenthood and JFK became Gandhi G. Once goofs and short-term memory folks understood that RFK was not a deeply devout daily Communicant foe of Planned Parenthood it was a short hop to accepting nitwits like Dawn Clark Netsch, Barbar Flynn Currie, Jan Schakowsky, Mike Quigley and Toni Preckwinkle as intellectual titans.

Bill Daley would have been a good governor in the same manner that Mike Madigan is a great Speaker of the House.  They are competent and serious men.  Instead, thanks to Progressive thought, we continue to find Pat Quinn, Toni Preckwinkle and Barack Obama holding office.

I'd vote for Jack Ketch before I'd again give anything to Pat Quinn other than well-earned derission.  He is a proven Progressive and nothing more - personally and professional disloyal, shamefully incompetent, petulant, mewlingly submissive to enemies of the American middle class. Other than that, he miht just be a very nice man. . .. when he's home.

Read the comments from the Democratic and Progressive hucksters on Capitol Fax Blog about Bill Daley's exit from the race and you get a good feel for what it means to be a Progressive.  Butt-munching sycophants early in the day and howling dogs of prey once the Pavlovian Progressive signal is blown by its site manager.

I'm a Democrat.  I believe in real labor - the skilled and industrial trades who created America's middle class.  I am an unflinching Catholic opposed to abortion and a stupidly legislated bill that redefines marriage.

In the coming primary, I am going to vote for Tio Hardiman, a product of Progressive Democrats, as opposed to hapless Pat Quinn, a Progressive tool.

CHICAGO (AP) -- The man who's now the lone Democrat challenging Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn in the 2014 primary says he's staying in the race.
Tio Hardiman is the only candidate left after former White House Chief of Staff William Daley announced Monday that he's dropping out of the primary.
Hardiman is the former head of a Chicago anti-violence group CeaseFire.
In a statement, he says Daley's decision to drop out shows just how bad Illinois' political situation has become.
He adds Illinois residents "deserve a governor that reflects them" and who is prepared to "endure and not weaken."
Daley is set to discuss his decision during a news conference Tuesday.

Bill Daley is out.  Bruce Rauner? Nah.  GOP toe-shooter Bill Bradley? Nah.  Let's see what's left . . .not much.

God help us, help ourselves.

The Ballerina and Bicyclist: Rahm Recycles Oberman's Empty Resume with Metra Appointment!

 “I’m not there as a person who rides Metra every day,’’ Oberman, 68, told the Chicago Sun-Times on Sunday. “I’m a bicylist.’’

A Metra rider asked me about Rahm Emanuel's appointment of Marty Oberman to the Metra Board.  I said that was an homage to Dr. Quentin Young and his disciple Abner Mikva.  The ballet of the bicycle!  The photo above pretty much tells it all.  That get up in any neigyhborhood but Lincoln Park would spark thousands of  calls to 911 from concerned parents. 

On Marty it works.

Bicycles were all the rage in Mao's Red China and Progressives want America to return to those thrilling days of yester-year.  The Reds how ever went all Adam Smith recently and are happily killing the biosphere with auto-emissions as well as babies.

In the very special world of the Cook County Progressive, Marty Oberman is the cherry on the bullshit sundae.  A self- stamped Reformer, Oberman is notable for riding bicycles and having occupied the aldermanic sinecure that is the 43rd Ward.  Abner Mikva is the Progressive Wizard of our bankrupt, stooge-stuffed, incompetent and ninnie/nannies of Illinois.

Name a dope in public life: 

• JanSchakowsky
• Pat Quinn
• Rep. Mike Quigley
• Toni Preckwinkle
• Rep. Danny Davis
• Dick Simpson
• the late Dawn Clark Netsch
• Barabar Flynn Currie
• Julie Hamos
• Deb Mell
• Deb Shore
• Forrest Claypool
• Valerie Jarrett
• Arne Duncan
• Desiree Rogers
• Joe Moore
• Shelia Simon

and you will find the stamp of the Mikva Challenge all over them.  Progressives (IPI/IVI) are the only protected species in Illinois public biology.  Short of public agreeing with Francis Cardinal George any and all crimes/misdemeanors/slapping the help/or acting ass by these loudly trumpeted blow-hards of "Good Government" gets immediate consignment to the Medill Memory Hole.

Marty Oberman is back!  He is going to be Rahm Emanuel's Metra Guy!  Like Forrest Claypool, who knows absolutely nothing about buses or train-cars, not linked to a boon-doggle with Bombardier, or Ventra Cards, Marty Oberman don't takle no trains - he bikes.

Biking is the street-cred for Reformers, who snap fingers at waitresses, leave no tip and manage to have Chicago's media purse puppies write glowing accounts of their purported brains and hearts. These memes go unchallenged even after a Toni Preckwinkle manages to collect cadavers for Cook County, or a Jan Schakowsky manages to tune-up a young Asian volunteer at an Alexi Giannoulias meet-and-greet, or a Forrest Claypool trolls for an appointment.  That is Reform.

Metra evidently needs to pay Marty Oberman in order to right itself and provide commuters with safe and timely public transportation.  Marty Oberman's CV reads like a Wikipedia entry purged of facts.

Lookee H'yar!

As first General Counsel for the Illinois Racing Board in the 1970s, Oberman investigated corrupt racing interests. From 1975 to 1987, he was known as a voice of independence in the City Council and opponent of Machine regulars during Council Wars.
Oberman also served as chairman of the Mayoral Commission on Labor and Management under Mayor Jane Byrne; as chairman of the Shoreline Protection Commission under Mayor Washington, and, more recently, as a member of Emanuel’s Midway Airport Advisory Council.

Rahm knows money and money comes from Progressives.  Now, politics and actual government in the bad old Machine Days required that people who actually knew anything about, anything could help make a difference - Mayor Ed Kelly was an civil engineer;  Mayor Richard J. Daley was a practiced accountant and budget master with decades of experience in Springfield.  The hair-shirts of Progressive Illinois had ties to fortunes and university faculties and the more radical law firms.  When money (political action committees/foundations/coalitions supported by real estate and banking) trumped competency Reform ( read Goo-goo) replace Machine.  Reform is the flatulent  by product of corned beef and cabbage Ward politics and government - it is loud and drifts with the prevailing winds, befouls the atmosphere and chokes the tax-payer.

Marty Oberman is only now breaking wind with his ten-speed.

Governor Pat Quinn Visits Dr. Quentin Young

Dr. Quentin Young: His patients have included Martin Luther King Jr., Mike Royko, Studs Terkel and members of the Chicago 7 conspiracy trial, but after 61 years in private practice, Dr. Quentin Young is hanging up his stethoscope. Phil Kadner Southtown Star


Last month, Governor Pat Quinn, a rock-ribbed Progressive Christian was suffering from pains in his knees, so he visited the doctor - the eminent Progressive founder of the Democratic Socialists of America.

'What seems to be the problem, Governor? Right Knee? Left Knee? Wee Knee?'

'The left, Doctor, always the Left. The Right is none too good. Wee knee? Didn't know there was one.'

'Of Course. . . .( examine probe, touch and conclude) . . .You're suffering from a disease that we medical experts call "kneeitis",' said the doctor. 'Take it easy for a month or so and above all don't climb any stairs. That puts a terrible strain on the knees'.

A month later the Governor returned and after a brief examination was found to have recovered completely.

'Can I climb the stairs now doctor?'

'Certainly', replied the doctor.

'Thank Heavens', said the Governor of Illinois, 'I was getting a bit browned off climbing up the drainpipe every time I wanted to go to the toilet'.

The radical internal medicine man and doctor to the evolved smiled and nodded. 'Nature always compensates, when universal government health care gets blocked by systemic racism and capitalism, Governor.'

The gob-smacked Guv had an epiphany brewing, 'twas clear, and the Socialist Sawbones probed on about how Nature sometimes compensates for a person's deficiences. For example', he told the brain-straining Governor, 'if a man is deaf, he may have keener sight, and if a man is blind, he may have a very keen sense of smell'.

'I think I see what you mean', said the Personal Pac acolyte budget busting penman and Christian, 'I've often noticed that if a man has one short leg, then the other one is always a little bit longer'.

'You've noticed that have you? Well, until our next chat, Governor!'

Illinois - you can and must make this stuff up!

*

Quentin Young told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, that while an Illinois State senator, Obama was a strong supporter of “single payer”

Barack Obama, in those early days—influenced, I hope, by me and others—categorically said single payer was the best way, and he would inaugurate it if he could get the support, meaning majorities in both houses, which he’s got, and the presidency, which he’s got. And he said that on more than one occasion…. ”

Physicians for a National Health Program

Who is Quentin Young and what is Physicians for a National Health Program? What influence do they actually have?

PNHP claims to be a national organization of 14,000 doctors advocating single-payer national health insurance.

In reality it was long a phonebox size operation run by Quentin Young and a handful of Marxist comrades.

Quentin Young is one of America’s most committed socialists, beginning with his time in the Young Communist League in late 1930s Chicago.

After WW2, into the mid 1970s, Young was closely associated with the Communist Party and was accused of belonging to the Bethune Club (a communist doctor’s club) by a US Congressional Committee investigating the riots at the 1968 Democratic Party convention in Chicago.

In the late 1970s Young was associated with the pro Marx/Gramsci, New American Movement and in 1982 helped found the also Marxist, Democratic Socialists of America-to which he still belongs.

In 1972, in the dying days of the Vietnam War Young led a small radical delegation to Communist North Vietnam.

In 1995 Young attended the famous meeting at the Hyde Park home of former Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn where Barack Obama was introduced as chosen successor to Illinois State Senator Alice Palmer.

Joel Kotkin Holds a Mirror to California and We See Illinois

Gov. Pat Quinn is one hobbled donkey.

CHICAGO -- Gov. Pat Quinn said Tuesday that he plans major spending cuts, including layoffs, as he tries to keep state government running within the tight budget sent to him by Illinois legislators.

Quinn would provide no details about the scope of the cuts. Asked if thousands of state employees could lose their jobs, he said, "We have to do what we have to do."

Forbes Magazine

Gov. Quinn's Labor Day must have been a sobering one, or maybe not. He's got a few years left and Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon has his back. Dr. Quentin Young, Planned Parenthood, SEIU, Sierra Club, Dawn Clark Netsch, Terry Cosgrove and every civil union, and of course TaxaPalozza's Ralphie Martire is always armed with pie charts to keep the Illinois peasantry quiet with platitudes and promises. Gov. Quinn stayed away from Labor Day marches and celebrations, because he had some really bad news - lay-offs are coming and it is THEIR fault.

THEIR (THE HAPPY ELECTORATE OF ILLINOIS REGULARS) consists of anyone and anything. Well, me for example. I voted for Pat Quinn. I was happy to help Pat Quinn, Catholic League guy with a compelling narrative of personal thrift and devotion to the working guy.

I knew better. Pat Quinn is hobbled by the powerful interests that got him elected. It was long dusty road to the Governor's Mansion. Pat Quinn mowed his own lawn, while George Ryan hired kids from Greenwood Street in Kankakee. Pat Quinn buried his 'personal opposition to abortion' in favor of his very public support of a Woman's right to choose to kill her unborn child. Pat Quinn saw the rise of public service unions as adding votes and not subtracting tax-dollars from Illinois' once robust middle class. Pat Quinn agreed Green every step of the way and drank gallons of Andy Stern's SEIU Purple Kool-Aid.

I remember when one of the parents of a couple of my students in Kankakee was vigorously organizing State, County and Municiple clerks into one of the one big unions, shortly after AO Smith, Roper and other industries left Kankakee County. He argued that getting clerks, secretaries, go-fers and others into a public sector union would build an army of voters.

Skilled trades and indutrial unions were all about cutting a trail to the middle class by dint of skills acquired and voctional advancement. SEIU changed all of that.
An unskilled worker was paid not by a standard collective bargaining agreement between a union and a private manager, but via legislation that is politically goaded. Vote this way and get support. That worker's dues were subtracted from his State, County, City, or State funded hospital, school district, or whatever paycheck.
Those dues went back to the one big union. The SEIU janitor remained a janitor and was doled out benefits after the right legislative session. The SEIU janitor is yet a janitor.

Pat Quinn the Governor is about to lay off that long serving janitor. Pat Quinn is the Governor looking for nickels in my basement couch. They're not there. I used them to buy Illinois ethanol gas at Kean.

Demographer and scholar Joel Kotkin has been the Jeremiah of economic disaster coming at the hands of the Progressive Philistines for years.

California's Progressive Template Governor Jerry Brown is Pat Quinn writ large.

Here's what he has going on:

In its modern origins California was paean to progress in the best sense of the word. In 1872, the second president of the University of California, Daniel Coit Gilman, said science was "the mother of California." Today, California may worship at the altar of science, but increasingly in the most regressive, hysterical, and reactionary way.

California's dominant ruling class—consisting of public-employee unions, green jihadis, and Democratic machine politicians—has no real use for science as Gilman saw it: as a way to create prosperity for its citizens. Instead, the prevailing credo of the state has been how to do everything possible to return to its pre-settlement condition, with little regard for what that means to the average Californian.

Nowhere was California's old technological ethos more pronounced than in agriculture, where great Californians such as William Mulholland, creator of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, and Pat Brown, who forged the state water project, created the greatest water-delivery system since the Roman Empire. Their effort brought water from the ice-bound Sierra Nevada mountains down to the state's dry but fertile valleys and to the great desert metropolis of Southern California. Now, largely at the behest of greens, California agriculture is being systematically cut down by regulation. In an attempt to protect a small fish called the Delta smelt, upward of 200,000 acres of prime farmland have been idled, according to the state's Department of Conservation. Even in the current "wet" cycle, California's agricultural industry, which exports roughly $14 billion annually, is slowly being decimated. Unemployment in some Central Valley towns tops 30 percent, and in cases even 40 percent. . . . Of course, the self-described "progressive" mafia that runs California will point to Silicon Valley and its impressive array of startups. But for the most part, firms like Google, Twitter, and Facebook employ only a small cadre of highly educated workers. Overall, during the past decade the state's high-tech employment fell by almost 4 percent, while Texas's science-based employment grew by a healthy 11 percent. The sad reality is that turning T-shirt-wearing kids like Mark Zuckerberg into multibillionaires doesn't do much to reduce unemployment, which even in San Jose—the largely blue-collar "capital" of Silicon Valley—now hovers around 10 percent.

Magazine cover stories and movies cannot obscure the fact that entrepreneurial growth—the state’s most critical economic asset—has now stalled. In fact, according to a study by Economic Modeling Specialists Inc., last year the Golden State ranked 50th among the states in creating new businesses.

California remains rich in promise, home to spectacular scenery; a great Pacific location; leading firms like Apple and Disney; and a still-impressive residue of talented, diverse, entrepreneurial, and ingenious people. But the state will never return until the success of the current crop of puerile billionaires can be extended to enrich the wider citizenry. Until the current regime is toppled, California's decline—in moral as well as economic terms—will continue, to the consternation of those of us who embraced it as our home for so many years.

Illinois is the reflection of California. Take a good look. I quit THEIR, here.



http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/09/06/general-il-illinois-budget_8661451.html