Sun Times Editorial Board Tries to Influence Chicago Fraternal Order of Police Run-Off Election

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has referred to city workers as neighborhood “anchors,” saying they are critical to the vibrancy of the city. Former Mayor Richard M. Daley, speaking more practically, used to warn the city could lose a large share of its middle class if the residency requirement were lifted. . . . For everybody else, as cops like to say, rules are rules. Sun Times

The only proper reply to such smarmy hypocrisy is " bite me."  Usually I am much more verbally adept, glib, and such but Sun Times has wowed me with this one.  Quoting from our Globalist Red China and Russian trade partner and University of Chicago don, Mayor Mumbles, takes the brie.

Today's screed is less about fairness than usual; it is about influencing the Fraternal Order of Police election run-off.

No paper has done more to drive a wedge between Chicago citizens and the Chicago Police officers who risk life, limb and personal reputation every time they answer roll call than the Chicago Sun Times.

From Mark Brown's "bring it on" editorializing a front page photo implying that a police officer was egging on already active West Side  rioters in 2008, to the Watchdogs' media lynching of a cop for the past month, to Andy Grimm's 'investigation' of a property owner who wears a badge, to this morning's Editorial Board's Harrumph of their 'phony baloney jobs,'  the Sun Times is the defender of the Chicago oligarchy.

Forrest Claypool could roll a crippled blind girl selling Girl Scout cookies at State and Madison and Tom Frisbie would mew, "Ever the Reformist, Claypool put an end to this Thin Mint hustler's hawking."  If a cop helped three little girls in Englewood, he would be violating their right to privacy.

The FOP is at a cross-roads.  The current leadership seems to do more to aid the comfortable and afflict the general membership, than it does to call out the hypocrisies and blatant corruption of City and County leadership.

The Sun Times has always nuzzled the rumps at City Hall more than it has sunk the fangs of a Tim Novak into the keisters of Rahm or Dame Preckwinkle.

I don't have a vote. I am not a cop.  I honor their work and am appalled by their treatment in the Chicago Media, so wrapped up with the people who created Chicago's Thug Comfort Zone ( Marxist lawyers, race baiting pastors and the University centered and funded Wrongful America Industry.

A vitalized FOP would be burr under the saddle of the comfortable oligarchs making millions off of the shrinking Chicago middle class and that could mean tougher access to weasels for Fran Spielman and Michael Sneed, doncha know?

This must stop.  Stop buying these rags.  Read The Second City Cop. 

Father Tony Brankin Answered Mark Brown's Column in the Sun Times today - Two Weeks ago.

Some time ago, the Illinois Coalition of  Immigrant and Refugee Rights ( ICIR) found it had lost its funding from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD)after ICIR decided to stand in solidarity with those demanding the redefinition of marriage, via homosexual marriage legislation.

As a result ICIR could no longer fund Albany Park Neighborhood Council's Bike 'N Roses program that helps poor kid fix bikes with the dollars funded by the Catholics. See how this works?

Mark Brown, who feels deeply and writes nicely, took umbrage with the Archbishop of Chicago's Catholics, Francis Cardinal George, OMI, decision not to allow CCHD to continue to toss huge money to ICIR,which peeled off some Catholic Jacksons and tossed them to the poor kids of Albany Park, after ICIR tossed the Cardinal's defense of marriage and teachings from the Catholic catechism under foot once the check was dry.

Mark Brown wrote a heart-tugger about the likely lads of Albany Park and the cruelty of the Cardinal and followed that up with very dissembling interview with Chicago's Shepherd. That's is what a Progressive advocate must do! I guess.

Mark Brown's column was about the domino effect defunding the ICIR for its solidarity with homesexuala marriage was followed in short order by a cadre of Democratic Party lightweights with spray tans condeming the Cardinal and shortly thereafter one heaveyweight and former gubernatorial candiate the same.   Getting a funding cut is never pleasant, but its part-and-parcel of the action packed world of fund-raising.

I too get my shorts in knot every time a 501(c)3, corporate charity arm, or rich guys writes a decline to a proposal for a grant to help poor Black, Latino and Canaryville Irish kids in Auburn Gresham, because we are Catholic in mission and operation. One might call such refusals to help poor kids get a high school education . . .Progressive. Shucks, the very first decline to one of my inquiries came from Barack Obama himself, when he headed the Woods Fund.  Progressives don't do certain faith based initiatives, not unlike, Catholic grant making entities who will not fund fund groups seeking to undo it.  I research and reach out to 501(c)3's, corporations and rich guys unburdened by Progressive symbiotic doctrines.

Today Mark Brown lays out the red carpet welcoming Progressive money to philanthropy.

A group of progressive charitable foundations — active in both the immigration reform and marriage equality movements — will step up Wednesday to announce creation of an emergency fund to replace the $300,000 stripped from member organizations of the Illinois Coalition of Immigrant and Refugee Rights.
I’m glad to see that somebody has got these folks’ back.

Can I get a Harrumph?  Bike chains and seat adjustments will once again signal the dreams of Albany Park's impoverished lads.

Two weeks ago the pastor of St. Odilo's Catholic Church in Berwyn, Father Tony Brankin, preemptively answered the Mark Brown Huzzahs in a published homily. St. Odilo's is comprised largely of Latino ( Mexican), blue collar ethnics and a few Black families.  Father Tony Brankin is a musician, sculptor, scholar and a Catholic priest.
Read this, folks.

Ramblings - Fr. Brankin 
CHD and the Cardinal
Not too long ago the Cardinal asked us to help defend him against the assaults of so-called
Catholic politicians of Chicago—taking place these days in the papers and media.
It seems that some politicians—including Bill Daley—(the one that wants to be governor)—
are protesting the fact that the Cardinal denied charitable funding to a community organization
that advertises itself as working for immigrants. This is grant money that comes from the
Catholic Campaign for Human Development. You remember, this is the collection in October
where the cardinal asks for donations from the Catholic people of Chicago.
Well the problem is that this particular organization has decided to promote homosexual
marriage among the immigrants—all the while it takes Catholic money. Of course we cannot
be involved in any way with something like this.
The Cardinal has made it very clear that it is not right that the money that Catholic people
give to the Church for the purpose of alleviating the suffering of the poor—would be used by
the recipients of that grant to fight against the Catholic Church’s moral teachings. It is in fact
dishonest. And that is the Cardinal’s word—dishonest.
Of course the politicians are crying great crocodile tears: “How terrible of the Cardinal—that
he would deny the poor people this help—this money!”
Well all I can ask is: how dare these conniving Catholic politicians demand your charity—as
if it were theirs—as if it were owed to them. If they want their pet organizations to survive—
then I have no doubt that they could reach into their own pockets and pull out the money they
need. It is chump change for someone like Bill Daley who has been fooling around with the
Clintons and the Obamas for twenty years now.
Besides, it is not poor people who receive any of the money from this grant anyway. Not a
cent would have been given to the poor woman sitting on one side of the desk with three
children in her arms—and her husband being threatened with deportation. Not one cent. That
money goes to the organizer who is writing down all the information and asking her to hold a
sign at the next protest rally.
The money from many of these grants is not going for the poor but for community organizations so that the organization can pay its bills.
In other words, the money we collect for the Campaign for Human Development does not
find its way to the homeless guy who doesn’t have a mat to sleep on—it isn’t given to the
struggling father without papers who is just trying to feed his family—it gets funneled to the
community organization. And then, of course, you have to ask: How did the politicians get involved in all this? Why
have they decided that now is the time to shame the Cardinal and the Church with their
falsehoods? You would have thought they didn’t have a horse in this race.
But there they are—in all the newspapers—all upset with the cardinal—and their shorts in a
knot—because their buddies—the professional poverty crowd—the ones with whom they go to
rallies and fund raisers and cocktail parties—you know—the cocktail parties they never invite
you or me to—they’re upset because their buddies are getting cut off. And what better way to
gain cheap plaudits than to slam the Cardinal for opposing homosexual marriage?
It seems that they are all in on it—the politicians and precinct captains and the community
organizers and the professional poverty hustlers and the media. And here is the likely scenario.
The Cardinal cuts off some free-will funding to a group that now promotes homosexual
marriage. The community organizers panic! They are on the phone to city hall in a New York
minute: “What’s going on? He cut us off! You better do something!”
The next thing you know there is a full page ad in the Tribune—paid for I am sure by the
Democratic Party—a smarmy, lying letter that excoriates the Cardinal for not helping the
poor—a letter that perverts Church teaching about life and love and marriage—a letter that
demands more money for their friends. And they write these greedy lies all in the name of
helping poor immigrants.
What a crew! This is what goes on in this city—and they want you to think it is all on the up
and up! Well it’s not on the up and up. And probably never has been.
But I will say that I hope we rethink our involvement with the Catholic Campaign for Human
Development—because when we don't give our money to the poor, but to those who say they
are helping the poor, we are really vulnerable to these kinds of problems. There will be
no end to such cynical and greedy manipulations and dishonesty. We cannot keep funding
people who just do not believe what we believe about life and love. It is that simple.
And then we can start distributing assistance to people directly and to those who actually need it—just like we used to when the poor were genuinely helped and they had the Gospel
preached to them in the bargain. And Son of a gun! It worked! 

Fred Eychner, a rich guy who owns the Illinois and good part of National LGBTQ agenda is helping fund the Albany Park bike fixers.  That's great; no kidding.

Fred Eychnaer owns a significant piece of both US Senators, most US Reps.the current governor and most of legislature. Fred does Not own a piece of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church in Chicago amassed pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters from immigrants and refugees in its churches over the last two hundred and still managed to develop social services being now erased by Progressive lordship over the Democratic and Republican elected officials of Illinois.

I hope that Fred Eychaner's wallet can make up the difference in peoples lives that the Catholic Church continues to do on its dime.

Cardinal George is No Sun Times Columnist!

 

Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago*, past President of the American Conference of Catholic Bishops, internationally honored author and theologian, Oblate of Mary Missionary priest is no newspaper columnist and he certainly is no Progressive member of the Cook County Democratic Party, nor is he any way near a GOP tasseled loafer suburban fence sitter, like Senator Marque Kirque and gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner.

How can a scholar of sacred theology expect to reason with a Mark Brown**, an Eric Zorn, a Carol Marin, a Neil Steinberg, or a Proco Joe Moreno and maintain any semblance of moral high-ground? Recently these folks have opined upon the Secular Redemption of Milliken Don James St. James who merely slaughtered his entire family in 1960's served his time in the nut house, deemed clean, was released, advanced degreed, changed his name and lived anonymously among the folks as respected member of the academic community, not unlike Dr. Josef Mengele or other South Americans of post-Holocaust redemption. Columnist love this American Progressive Gatsby narrative. But that is Columnist Theology.

Today, Mark Brown, one of the very few columnists who actually offers a semblance of a fair shake, recounts his 'cordial' exchange with Cardinal George concerning this summer's hoo-ha over Proco Joe and company's outrage in letter form protesting Catholic Campaign for Human Development's (CCHD) decision to no longer fund the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights( ICIRR).

Mark Brown wrote a searing column that burned the fibers of manly hearts that already agree with him on matters relating to same-sex marriage and scorched the muscles of that vital organ in the womanly breasts of maids and dowagers who equate bike repair with non-Euclidean sex and Civil Rights.

Cardinal George found fault with Mr. Brown's column; hence the 'cordial' dialogue.

George expressed his opinion that the funding cutoff “wouldn’t have been an issue if we weren’t in a campaign for governor.”
That confused me a little, because I certainly would have raised the issue whether there was an election next year or not. The cardinal reiterated that his understanding is that some people want to use gay marriage as an issue in the governor’s race.
I suggested it was his decision to halt funding from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development to the immigrant groups that made this an issue. He rejected that assertion, arguing that the leaders of the Illinois Coalition of Immigrant and Refugee Rights in effect cut off funding to their own member groups with the decision in May to endorse gay marriage.

You see, Cardinal; George is not only an episcopal and evangelical leader of the Catholic Church in Chicago, but he also happens to be a Chicagoan and someone who can and does read print.

To avoid any confusion, there is a race for governor.  The signer of the hostile and historically damaging Illinois Civil Union Bill, Governor Pat Quinn, lost the May bid to make Same -Sex Marriage the Lincoln Log Cabin for his Reelection, chinking every crack with Progressively pious platitudes.  Quinn is even more unpopular than his enemies who are growing up out of the ground from the dragon's teeth sown by the very forces that own Quinn's political soul - ( SEIU, Planned Parenthood, Dr. Quentin Young, Abner Mikva, the ACLU and Fred Eychaner). We now have Bruce Rauner, a billionaire buccaneer hopping out of Rahm Emanuel's vest pocket as a GOP standard bearer and Bill Daley who gave Rahm his first job.  We have Kwame Raul as a wedge candidate to gobble up Quinn's African American base, if there ever had been such, and a cavalcade gimpy-wimpy GOP dependables.

Now, that is something to confuse one, Mr. Brown.

The Catholic Church has been sanctioned for fire bombing by the DNC, because of its implacable defense of the unborn and traditional marriage.

Cardinal George knows the political landscape and it is hostile.  What passes for an evolved culture in this country finds the Gay Ann Landers, Dan Savage,  to be a sober and thoughtful Catholic voice and it finds the certitude of ethical and moral principles just too mean for a queen. Mark Brown offers his last word on the matter ex-cathedra, or swivel seat, or easy chair in a much less than cordial manner.  Mark Brown wants that to be his column's take away?

The cardinal acknowledged his own characterization of the pope’s comments on gays may have been “jarring,” as I put it, but he said he was frustrated by journalists missing the pope’s point.
“In our culture, ‘Who am I to judge’ means nobody has the right to distinguish right from wrong,” which wasn’t what the pope meant, the cardinal said.
“He was saying that a person who has given up their sinful ways, you don’t judge them. You accept them,” George said. “. . .He started out saying: gay sex is wrong.”
I told the cardinal I never believed for a moment that the pope was changing church policy toward gays, only setting a different tone that was missing from his own approach.
The cardinal expressed frustration that, in the current political climate, Catholics can’t express their opposition to same-sex marriage without being regarded as bigots.
“”When that becomes the criterion for accepting gay and lesbian people, then we’re in the bind we’re in now, which is a real bind,” he said.

No - that is not what a Sun Times reader must take away from the 'coridal' exchange of the columnist and mere Cardinal.  It is this.

"Nobody really expects the Catholic Church to change, only to adapt."

Millions of European Jews were told that very thing. Now, that was some lesson in social evolution . . . very scientific.

* Francis Cardinal George, OMI Education
Bachelor in Theology, University Ottawa
Master in Theology, University Ottawa, 1971
MA in Philosophy, Catholic University America, 1965
PhD in Philosophy, Tulane University, 1970
STD, Pontifical Urban University, Rome, 1989
Career
Ordained priest Oblates of Mary Immaculate, 1963, provincial central region, 1973—1974, vicar general, 1974—1986; coordinator Circle of Fellows Cambridge Center for Study of Faith & Culture, Massachusetts, 1987—1990; ordained bishop, 1990; bishop Diocese of Yakima, Washington, 1990—1996; archbishop Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, 1996—1997, Archdiocese of Chicago, 1997—; elevated to cardinal, 1998; cardinal-priest S. Bartolomeo all'Isola, 1998—
Career Related
Vice president US Conference Catholic Bishops, 2004—; chancellor Catholic Church Extension University St. Mary of Lake, 1997; member Congregation Divine Worship, Discipline of Sacraments, Congregation for Oriental Churches, 2001—, Congregation Institutes, Consecrated Life, Societies Apostolic Life, Pontifical Commission for Cultural Heritage of Church, 1999—, Pontifical Council Cor Unum, 1998, Congregation Evangelization of Peoples, Pontifical Council for Culture, 2004—, Catholic Commission on Intellectual & Cultural Affairs
Creative Works
Author (pastoral letter): Becoming an Evangelizing People, 1997, Dwell in My Love, 2001
Memberships
Mem.: Am. Catholic Philosophical Association, Am. Society Missiologists
Religion
Roman Catholic
Address
Office: Archdiocese of Chgo Pastoral Ctr PO Box 1979 Chicago IL 60690-1979

** Mark Brown

Brown grew up in central Illinois, graduated from Northern Illinois University in 1977 and then attended the Public Affairs Reporting program at University of Illinois-Springfield, then known as Sangamon State, where he was a Sun-Times intern. Brown worked four years at the Quad-City Times in Davenport, Iowa, before joining the Sun-Times full-time in 1982.
At the Sun-Times, Brown worked mainly as a general assignment reporter specializing politics and government, which led him into investigative reporting. In September 2000, Brown began writing his column, which currently appears Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday. One of his strengths is that he has experience covering not only Chicago City Hall, but also Cook County government and the Illinois Statehouse.
Brown, a third-string high school basketball player, grew up obsessed with St. Louis Cardinals baseball, Chicago Bears football and Bradley basketball. Only Bradley has moved down on his radar, replaced by the Bulls.

Illinois Same Sex Marriage is More Important Than Poor Kids In Albany Park and Everything Else

In his column this morning Mark Brown concludes,

 " One day soon, the Illinois Legislature is going to make it legal for gay and lesbian couples to get married in Illinois — despite the Catholic Church’s opposition.
But there will still be poor kids in Albany Park who need help fixing their bikes.": markbrown@suntimes.com Twitter: @MarkBrownCST

You see the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) cut its grants to the lllinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) because the ICIRR's board of directors was touched by Same Sex Marriage Illinois, a  much broader coalition of money, influence, ink and iconoclasts, to fully support same sex marriage in its fight for immigrant and refugee rights. The Chicago Tribune published a letter that excoriated Francis Cardinal George and CCHD for what it  regards as a heartless neglect of the poor. The letter’s signers were Chicago Aldermen Proco Joe Moreno, Danny Solis, Patrick O’Connor, and James Cappelman; Cook County Commissioners John Fritchey and Larry Suffredin; and Chicago City Clerk Susana Mendoza - huge Catholics, Huge.  Like the Castro Brothers (Cuba, not Ohio) the signers are all about the Church, poor and really helping folks - Salvation Army and such.

The poor kids in Albany Park got $20,000 in grant money from CCHD.  $ 20,000 would help five poor kids from Englewood get a Leo High School Education.  Twenty thousand bucks is about half a payroll for Leo High Schooll employees every two weeks.  Nothing to sneeze at, $20,000, but the board of Directors of Illinois Coalition for  Immigrant and Refugees Rights (ICIRR) listened to Rick Garcia, Rep. Greg Harris, Personal PAC's and Governor Pat Quinn's Boss Terry Cosgrove appeal to evolved reason.  The Same Sex Marriage Heart trumps all other vessels.

Going from the heart of that meaty criticism, Mark Brown yanks on the heart strings with case-specific philippic aimed at Cardinal George, CCHD and unevolved Catholics in Illinois and it's a good one, worthy of two-hour WTTW special  narrated by the Ann Landers of homosexual journalism -Dan Savage. Here's the Sun Times' pilot



I wonder if Same Sex Marriage Illinois will fund those industrious kid in Albany Park? Maybe a grant from Henry Van Ameringen, Fred Eychaner, Personal PAC Illinois, or Northern trust Bank will ensure that poor kids in Albany Park kept them wheels rolling.

My bet is not.  Why would they apply money meant to secure the doctrine that Marriage is just a semantics exercise toward a non-systemic enterprise operated for the purpose of helping a few urchins?  That is what the Catholic Church is for, after all.

I remember my Mom telling me, Be careful of what you ask for.  No kidding.

Shortly after Same-Sex Marriage Illinois won the Civil Unions battle,  Catholic Charities ended almost two hundred years of care for Illinois orphans and support of childless married couples ( a guy and a gal).   Same Sex Marriage Illinois, a broad coalition of money, influence, ink and iconoclasts, makes the Vatican Bank seem like parish savings and loan during the Depression.  It is powerful and has purchased the legislature ( is that too cynical? Nah.) the Governor, the Illinois Supreme Court, The AG, the Media and people who equate conscience with watching Will and Grace/Glee/Bill Maher and of  course WTTW.

Francis Cardinal George Archbishop of Chicago has been treated with shamefully great disrespect by Same Sex Marriage Illinois, but maintains his dignity and good humor while defending the Church.

It is intellectually and morally dishonest to use the witness of the Church’s concern for the poor as an excuse to attack the Church’s teaching on the nature of marriage.  Four weeks ago, Pope Francis wrote: “…marriage should be a stable union of man and woman…this union is born of their love, as a sign and presence of God’s own love, and of the acknowledgement and acceptance of the goodness of sexual differentiation, whereby spouses can become one flesh and are enabled to give birth to a new life.” In other words, when it comes to marriage and family life, men and women are not interchangeable. The whole civilized world knows that.
Those who signed the open letter in the Tribune proclaimed their adherence to the Catholic faith even as they cynically called upon others to reject the Church’s bishops. The Church is no one’s private club; she is the Body of Christ, who tells us he is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Because the signers of the letters are Catholic, they know that in a few years, like each of us, they will stand before this same Christ to give an account of their stewardship. Jesus is merciful, but he is not stupid; he knows the difference between right and wrong. Manipulating both immigrants and the Church for political advantage is wrong.

The big picture in the matter of Same Sex Marriage Illinois was artfully captured in this paragraph by Tina Korbe in 2011 concerning the Illinois Legislature's Civil Union codicil requiring all Illinois adoption services recognize the sanctity of homosexual couples:

The decision of the Illinois legislature to initiate the requirement in the first place — knowing it would hamstring Catholic Charities, which provides essential services — demonstrates an appalling willingness to allow an adult agenda — the mainstream acceptance of gay behavior — to supersede children’s interests. The spokesman for the state’s child welfare agency has said he thinks the child welfare system Catholic Charities helped to build is strong enough to withstand CC’s departure. But it’s hard to believe the shuttering of so many CC affiliates won’t make the burden of finding a home for children in need even greater.( emphasis my own)

I don't recall Mark Brown or other columnists bewailing the plight of the many hundreds of those young bairns.

" One day soon, the Illinois Legislature is going to make it legal for gay and lesbian couples to get married in Illinois — despite the Catholic Church’s opposition.
But there will still be poor kids in Albany Park who need help fixing their bikes.":

Yep. The Illinois  Same Sex Marriage Coaltion could care less.

Metra Board - If the Tribune Editorial Board Demands Your Resignation, It Is a Great Sign to Stay Put

Alex Clifford was plucked from sunny California and plunked down here in the Land of Lincoln where the weather and the politics shifts with the prevailing winds.

The Chicago Tribune Editorial Board would tell Newton that apples grow up from the rich and fertile soil, where toothsome maids gather up the fruity orbs with their delicate alabaster fingers and swaddle them in winsome aprons. Like the BGA, the Chicago Editorial Boards, are where clueless go to strangle common sense and abort the obvious.

The Metra Board, like other Illinois institutions fraught with problems that became editorial grist (CPS FAIL/Cop Bashing/ U of I Pay to Play & etc.) looked to a coast for a Champ.  We got a Ruth Love and Jody Weiss and a Michael Hogan - ubi sunt?  California Alex is yet with us. What passes for Illinois Intellectual Titans never stop to ask, " Will avocadi grow in Peotone; peanuts in Prospects Heights, or cranberries in Hegewisch?

Yesterday, Alex Clifford unleashed his Shakman Avocadonado on the Tribune Editorial and our Blue Ribbon Illinois Obtuse.

To say that California Al unloaded incontrovertible opinion is to do him damning praise.  His opinion was monumental.  The breaking of this wind no doubt sailed away the lithe, but singularly unpleasant husk that is Andy Shaw of the BGA clear in a popcorn field in Iroquois County, shook the mighty jowls of Thundering Dick Simpson.

The Tribune Editorial Board, captained by that former Wildcat disc jockey, Bruce Dold, went all Dutton Peabody in response to the Californian's allegations and  imprecations of Shakman Sinning!

We've seen little to suggest ( apples growing out of the ground again!)  they were unhappy with Clifford's job performance but plenty of evidence that they were aware of the behind-the-scenes acrimony involving O'Halloran and Huggins. One board member gave Clifford a heads-up that there weren't enough votes to renew his contract, then joined in the vote to send him packing.
Four of them have since written letters of recommendation to help him find a new job.
What good are any of them? They're supposed to be keeping the trains running, not taking care of politicians and their pals. But they're patronage employees themselves, handpicked by pols. They do what they're told in return for the paychecks they're clearly not earning. Getting rid of them is a nightmare; we learned that after the last scandal, which seems like yesterday. It takes eight board members to oust one, and it's not even clear whether the pols who appoint them can replace them mid-term. All of this is leading, once again, to talk about a legislative overhaul of the entire four-headed transit system.
Board members, save us all a lot of grief. Resign. Chicago Tribune Editorial

Well they have certainly gotten to bottom of things . . .as always.  Mark Brown of the Sun Times and Phil Kadner of the Southtown Star (Liberals unencumbered by limited I.Q.s) ovver thoughtful insights on the Metra testimony of California Al: each linked above.

California Al could not blossom and grow in Illini loam.  Andy Shaw of BGA, Mickey Shakman of Shakman Enterprises, and the Tribune Editorial board saw a mountain in this molehill, an opportunity bash somebody  and apples growing up betwixt them beans and corn.

Hoooooooooooeeeeeeeey!

As Concerned as Ald. Cappleman, I provided a Tasty and Wholesome 'Disincentive' for the Kids Last Night!

"I was concerned that the Mobile Food truck was providing a disincentive to those in need to receive sustained help," Cappleman said.

Man, Chicago Sun Times columnist Mark Brown has boated a 'Keeper' - rather a Cappleman - that could fry up a 'disincentive' for the remaining season of Lent.
 
Mark Brown also skeeted the pigeons released from the  Progressive "Ain't He Great" Rookie Alderman of the 46th Ward's NIMBY Feathered Boa.

Feed not the pigeons; Feed not the Poor - Chicago Values as deep-fried as those of the other nit-wit Rahm toe-dipper Proco Joe Moreno.

If any one believes that either one of these jamokes initiated a move on fried chicken breasts, wild squab, or the Red Kettle homophobes of Salvation Army without the say-so the 5th Floor Baryshnikov, let me tell you about my romantic exploits with Dean Martin Dancers.

After a long weekend ofCappleman tears and shifting of narrative, Mark Brown has boated the fowl-foe and chow wagon obstructionist.The Cappleman Couple in Happier Times

The beauty of the wiggling apologia from this wall-eyed payroller is the Progressive nuance with deconstruction -Providing a meal to the Hungry is now 'providing disincentive.'

You see, my beef with Progressives is, was and shall ever be, not with their opinions, policies and power proclamations, but their inability to allow any point of view but their own upon pain of being declared racist, stupid, uneducated, fat, homophobic, sexist, ultramontane, lazy, low-self esteem happy, or members of the Insane Deuces. I want every one to be happy, loved, fed, successful and tolerated, with the requirement of swallowing dissembling nonsense ( AKA horseshit, bullshit, parsed verbiage, memes) as if it were  deep-fried pate de fois gras .

I discussed the Cappleman Crusade on pigeons and poor people with two of my children last evening.  They were appalled by the Progressive pronouncements of this once obscure rookie time-server.

"What a creep," they chorused with varying degrees of outraged antipathy.  However, when I suggested that there just might . . . might mind you . . .be more than a bid of Gay agenda power play behind this particular assault up the Salvation Army, much as there was great Hoo and Ha directed against Cardinal George when he twisted Rahm's ears over Chicago Values, they said , "Fine, Dad . . .good one.  how about dinner?"

Unbeknown'st to me at the time, as I had not yet read of Alderman James Cappleman's descant on feeding the homeless via a Salvation Army wagon, I provided the following disincentives for my bairns!

I baked potatoes.  Purchased a tub of County Fair vinaigrette cole slaw and made garlic bread that turns an old man's hair to its original luster.

Our neighborhood's  most valuable Irish Import, head-butcher Mike Benson (left), who hails from County Adair, Ireland. 


Oven Back Baby Back Ribs - Pre-heated oven 300 degrees/Extra Large Roasting pan with rack

2 racks baby back ribs marinated over night in Apple Cider Vinegar with whole pepper corns, cloves, cinnamon sticks and bay leaves: take out of marinade -Carefully remove the membrane for the back of the ribs :  Dump the marinade - use it again with something else and you'll get sick as hell.

6 tablespoons Hickey Rib Rub spice blend -  from the jar in the cabinet that Conor uses on frozen pizzas and gets his ass-chewed when there is not enough of the stuff when I want to use. . .there.  Okay, here's the stuff that I'm talking about - which I stole from Charlie Olson of Lindenhurst Illinois and he uses when he slow smokes ribs and he has another one for fish. I added basil, so its mine now.

8 tablespoons paprika

3 tablespoons cayenne

5 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper

6 tablespoons garlic powder

3 tablespoons onion powder

6 tablespoons salt

2 1/2 tablespoons dried oregano

2 1/2 tablespoons dried thyme & 1 1/2 tablespoons dried basil

 Rub the hell out the ribs and do not -repeat do not listen to your brother in-law and add brown sugar/cane sugar/Domino's sugar to the dry rub.  Trust me.
Place the Pigcicles meat side up on the rack in the roasting pan cook the hell out of them covered for two hours. Remove, the pan using oven mitts.

Now, slather the meat side up with Argia B's Mumbo Sauce - The Sauce That's Boos - with a clean mopping utensil or culinary brush.  Return to oven for twenty minutes and repeat. Remove from oven and flib the slats, slather the backsides and return to oven for ten minutes.  Remove and flip the slats re-slather and return of ten more minutes. Patience.  2hrs at 300 + post slather 20min. + 20min + 10 + 10.
Remove and set aside.

Serve with Baked Spuds prepared earlier, garlic bread ditto and cole slaw as well.

Back the hell out of the way!  The kids is disincentivizing up a storm.

Pent Up in Utica - Illinois GOP Can Not Even do the Dutch Act

 
How'd that work out for you tasseled-loafer geniuses? Ask your leader Christine Radogno!

"I'm not sure what we need now is an in-your-face, confrontational, white, downstate male. I love our downstate guys. I have a great relationship with them, and I'm not playing a gender card," she told the Chicago Sun-Times.
"What I'm saying, as a practical matter, is that we need to change our image. Fairly or not, we're perceived -- and these aren't my words, I've read it reported this way -- as being the party of angry white men, and that's not true by the way. The fact of the matter is perception is reality, and we need to deal with it," she said.
Caprio took issue with Radogno's implication that the party needs to rebrand itself so it again can carry appeal with moderate suburban women like herself. (emphasis my own) -Sun Times

Indeed. Opt for the daffy, dizzy. ditsy woman we all know and love!  You know like a GOP Dawn Clark Netsch, or cloth coated Sheila Simon.  Wait, didn't angry white man Bill Foster just pull the chair out from Judy Biggert's padded rump?  She, after all, is identical Dawn and Sheila.

Hey, thanks for playing, Christine!  Write some more swell Marin-esque diatribes against the Catholic Church in your spare time. Now, back to Illinois GOP attempts at ritual suicide, which will fail as comically as all of its past efforts at anything and everything.

The Illinois GOP mocks itself - refer to its Leader Christine Radogno's pleas above.

Leading the laughs, and well he deserves to, is Illinois Speaker of House Mike Madigan.   He plays Illinois like a fiddle.

The Illinois GOP is not unlike the Roman Patrician Party confronted by the wildly talented, focused and brilliant Gaius Julius Caesar - read Illinois Speaker of the House Mike Madigan.  Like Caesar Mike Madigan is a skilled, thoughtful and inventive statesman.   He has expanded the scope and power of the Illinois Democratic Party  over the last thirty years like no other man in public life.  He defeated the tasseled loafer patrician likes of Pate Phillips and Lee Daniels for control of the Illinois House and Senate with skill and finality.  Madigan cares not a whit what is said of or about himself in these his focused political tasks.  Madigan will suffer fools gladly, but brook no opposition from those who lick his salt.

Shiny objects, like civil unions, gay marriage, death to the death penalty,allegations of  police torture or misconduct, a woman's need to kill an unborn child, or BGA witch hunts on sleeping civil servants become stars in the political firmament for slack-jawed and oh,so smart, while the Speaker's will be done and quickly. The franchised voter occupies her time with star gazing. Mike Madigan is disciplined and closed mouthed. From 1983 to present with a brief DuPage County GOP Commonwealth, Mike Madigan has worked to keep Illinois solvent and joyful.

Without Mike Madigan and Gary Hannig, Governor Blagojevich would have bankrupted Illinois in 2007 with idiotic  gross receipts tax.

The very same forces that cry foul of Madigan curry his good will and have become his pawns.  I wish I had a nickel for every thousand of dollars spent by Democratic and Agenda PACs, individuals and the Illinois GOP to make personal war on the Speaker Madigan over the last thirty years.  I could retire from my helot's l;abors with the splendor of a Forrest Claypool, or a Toni Preckwinkle, this very day.

Speaker Madigan is Caesar.  Old Man Daley may have been a Marius and Richie Daley a lesser Sulla, but Mike Madigan, as far as political power is concerned is Caesar.   The Illinois GOP never has had a Cato - and intellectual, moral and ethical force of nature. Instead. the Party that always blows off it's own toes grabs someone and anyone.

Mark Brown's thoughtful post election analysis argued that the Illinois GOP would go the way of the Whigs -

Instead, Madigan emerges from this election as strong as ever, which I’d imagine came as less of a surprise to him, as his dominance is not of an accidental nature.Nowhere, though, were the Republican failures more glaring than in the Senate, where Democrats picked up a net gain of five seats.
Folks, this is a legislative chamber that not so very long ago was commanded by James “Pate” Philip, a Chicago-hating Republican from DuPage County.
Now, for at least the next two years and quite possibly for the next decade, Senate Republicans will be about as relevant as their counterparts on the Cook County Board, in other words not very.
And that Republican bastion of DuPage County?
It elected its first Democratic state senator Tuesday, to go along with two Democratic state representatives. And for the second straight time, Obama carried DuPage, too, although not by quite as much as four years ago. The very clear picture is that this is no longer Pate Philip’s DuPage County.

Whigs?  Naw.  The Whigs were not too interested in abolition as I recall and old Honest Abe cut a deal with Lyman Trumbull to defeat Democrat James J. Shields and wait to form a Republican Party that stood for something.  The 18th Century poet Joseph Addison wrote a tragedy, CATO, set immediately after Caesar's defeat of the Patrician Republicans in the African city of Utica, where Cato, the moral core of the Republican forces, plans and executes his suicide rather than submit to a phony and practical submission to the victor.  This play was performed at the command of General George Washington for the Continental Army at Valley Forge in order to steel its resolve against the Crown.  I would wager not one member of the Illinois GOP has ever heard of this tragedy.

The Illinois GOP, unlike the Patrician Cato, when faced with a Caesar -Madigan can not even do the Dutch Act properly, while 'pent up in Utica.'  Instead it made a place for ninnies like Judy Biggert and Christine Radogno who argue that the party should adopt identically popular positions on all social issues in order to get funding from Personal PAC and Fred Eychaner. Stand for nothing!

The only GOP candidates that I have ever heard make any sense were Ron Gidwitz and Dan Proft. Naturally, the Illinois GOP ran away from Gidwitz and Proft quicker than it does against Mike Madigan and any political win.

Illinois is awash in problems.  Do not blame Speaker Madigan. He is 50% against Illinois Governors only  the oily Jim Edgar(GOP) and the daffy Dem Pat Quinn are currently out of the hoosegow.  He is the only professional in the game.  Blame the lightweights that you allow to become search lights. If Christine Radogno is your idea of a game leader, understand your part in this daffy game.

Who knows not this! but what can Cato do Against a world, a base degenerate world, That courts the yoke, and bows the neck to Caesar? Pent up in Utica he vainly forms A poor epitome of Roman greatness, And, cover'd with Numidian guards, directs A feeble army, and an empty senate; Remnants of mighty battles fought in vain.

We might be going bankrupt, but it looks like Gay Marriage is on the way!

Obama is No "Ward Hack." Ward Hacks Actually Do Something

 

Every Girl Crazy 'Bout a Sharp-dressed Man! -ZZ Top

The story of Barack Obama is that of a politician who figured out he didn’t have to wait his turn, who didn’t have to pay his dues, who could take on the Machine boys and beat them at their own game — with the help of a shrewd campaign strategist and image-maker to sell him on television. -Mark Brown

President Obama looks fabulous.  I have never met a Ward Hack festooned in hand-tailored Hickey-Freeman suits.

Mark Brown wrote a very thoughtful critique of the Hannity Meme Mummers today.  The Hannity Meme Mummers are generally GOP or conservative Dems who tag President Obama as a Chicago Ward Hack.

Fox's Hannity reminds all and sundry that he, Sean Hannity, discovered Bill Ayers and Rev. Uncle Crazy Jerry Wright in 2007. Uh, Huh. Obama is about as much as a Alinsky Radical, as he is a die-hard Sox Fan.
More so, Barack H(onolulu). Obama is more of a Sox Fan and Alinsky Radical than he is a Ward Hack.

Mark Brown writes:

Here we go again with this business about Barack Obama bringing “Chicago ward politics” to the White House. . . .But I still can’t sit back while others pretend that Barack Obama is just another ward hack who miraculously rose above his station — or that he’s “Daley’s boy.”

When this emerged as a campaign theme four years ago, here’s what I wrote:
“We have lots of prominent politicians in Illinois who were ‘born of the corrupt Chicago political machine,’ as the new John McCain campaign commercial so ominously puts it.
“Some have the DNA to prove it. Others worked their way up through the patronage ranks.
“Barack Obama isn’t one of them.”
I stand by that.
I stand by that — not having forgotten that Obama’s first two White House chiefs of staff were Rahm Emanuel (who, yes, first got elected to Congress with some help from Don Tomczak’s troops, but hardly owed the election to them) and Bill Daley, brother to former Chicago Mayor Rich Daley (who dismantled the traditional ward political apparatus because it only got in his way.) In the most important election of Obama’s life, the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, the mayor was on the sidelines.
Nor have I forgotten Obama’s strange real estate deal with the now-convicted Tony Rezko, his first big campaign donor. I’m still troubled by their friendship, and still waiting for the day we hear the whole story.

Me Too, Brother Brown.  I do not know President Obama, nor would he recognize me if I tossed through the windshield of the Presidential limo.  However, I have met with, spoken to and engageed our President on more than a few occasions.

• When he turned down requests for support of Leo High School in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood, as Director of the Woods Fund, answering to Wild Bill Ayers.
• When he ran against most unsuccessfully against Congressman Bobby Rush
• When he attended the Falling Leaves Festival in Morgan Park
• When as an Illinois State Senator, he presented trophies along with IL Rep. Kevin McCarthy at the Leo Boxing Night at the Saber Room in Hickory Hills and asked me "where's the gate?" in order to enter the ring
• When I cooked Winston's Irish sausage and bacon before the South Side Irish Parade

They were brief encounters, as are most political cheek-to-jowl gabs, to be sure and I came away from each one warmly underwhelmed.  I did not see any there, there.  Unlike Ward Hack and Policy Wonk Paul Vallas who campaigned up a storm actually liked the people he asked to vote for him, Barack Obama is like the guy who says, " Hey! Enough me talking;; how much do you really, really, really admire me?"

Paul Vallas was lost to Illinois by the very same 'geniuses" who invented Tod Stroger, Toni Preckwinkle, Mike Quigley, Forrest Claypool and of course the old Turkish psy hereself, Jan Schakowsky.

Put it this way, when Barack Obama was pushed to the purple ( US Senate & Presidential Candidate), I was not surprised, but certainly not enthralled.  He did not seem to have the gifts of being a Ward Hack.  Ward Hacks, and I know legions of them, are singularly thoughtful. generous, energetic and most of all loyal to a fault.

Barack Obama impressed me only as one of the chosen Progressives that some of the powerful guys decided to create: Jan Schakowsky, Deb Mell, Deb Shore, Mike Quigley, Forrest Claypool, Rahm Emanuel, Toni Preckwinkle and God forgive me Gov. Pat Quinn.

These folks could not pack a phone booth ( nearly extinct at the time of this posting), let alone a hall full of beefy, enthusiastic, hard-working skilled tradesmen and their wives and kids. Nope, Ward Hacks are trotted out to boost their nimble vaults over the political gradus.  They are the Sows Ears Made of out Silk Purses.

The Silk Purses are the hijacked 501 (c) 3s: Woods Fund, MacArthur Foundation, Annenburg Challenge, Joyce Foundation, whose boards are thick with former radicals and leftist academics.  Too often these silk purses are orchestrated by Abner Mikva.  Political Chiefs like old Tom Hynes, or Mike Madigan, or Richie Daley took short-cuts to opportunity by snuggling up to these silk purses in exchange for legislative policy give-aways and mutually beneficial real estate ventures. Abner might say to Tom Hynes, " This Mike Quigley kid is really a go-getter and he hates every one in the 60643-55 zipcode's collective guts.  He's really great; Tom let's do him a solid.  How's about we get Rich to get the 19th Ward crew to help Quigley and then he can make nice and really bump Helen Schiller into the cheap seats and then we can get SEIU, La Salle Bank, Personal PAC, Fred Eychaner, the Pritzker girls and even some honest money to dump some dough into any number of races?"  Deal? Deal.

That's how Progressives boarded, looted and scuttled the Good Ship Chicago Machine.

Ward Hacks have helped elect every useless, mean-spirited and back-stabbing Progressive in the Illinois pantheon.  They did so because they were asked by people whop helped them.  I love Hacks and have complete contempt for Progressives.  Progressives are not just a one way street, they are fully cul-de-sac'd. Do a Progressive a solid and wait for the blade in the kidneys - you never wait very long.

Nope President Obama is No Ward Hack - he has not the makings.  He is a Progressive.

A Real Reporter, Natasha Korecki, Talks to Tony Rezko - America's Man in the Iron Mask

The Chicago Sun Times is blessed with great reporters.  It's editorial board seems stuck on the "daffy" button and with the exceptions of Steve Huntley and Mark Brown Sun Times columnists seem to have all of the gravitas and substance of an MTV documentary.

Chicago and the nation would never know about Allison Davis, President Obama's former boss and bullet-proof slum property owner who is 'this-close' to Valerie Jarrett, Sneedless to say without Tim Novak and  Chris Fusco - two pit-bullishly independent investigative reporters.  They also unearthed most of the dodgier aspects of Koschman Saga, as well as the career of Daley scion snouts in the public troughs.  Mark Konkol and his Southtown Star colleague Steve Metsch are solid voices for real people in Chicago's neighborhoods.

Natasha Korecki has always impressed me as a singularly and refreshingly honest and tough reporter.  Ms. Korecki's accounts of the Blag trial were essential documents.  One of the shadowy victims of retiring Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's Star Chamber is Tony Rezko.  The man was everywhere and with anyone who could both move and shake.

( looks just like the Old Petrillo!)

Rezko's role in President Obama's ascent to the national teleprompter remains a '" Mere distraction! "Nothing to see here, Folks!  Move it along!  Who cares about a 15' property bargain?  Really. Pay np attention to man in the iron mask!" Tony went away , when the crowd in Grant Park were shedding tears of pure joy that Our Post Racial and Post Political Politician snagged the Post in the West Wing.

Tony Rezko  is the Obama Justice Department's Utility Insider - trotted out when need and then sent to the showers.  Rezko padded wallets and campaign accounts and sits in a concrete and re-bar cubicle on the Federal dimes. Fellow Obama Distraction Bill Ayers bombed Federal buildings and has an Illinois Pension.Make sense?  We might not get to the root and marrow of the Obama Myth until long after the Mormon straps his mutt on the roof of Marine One for a chopper ride.

However, Natasha Korecki scooped and interview with America's Man in the Iron Mask - Tony Rezko -

In a wide-ranging telephone interview from prison with the Chicago Sun-Times on Wednesday, Rezko refused to talk about his former friend who went on to be elected president. 

Natasha Korecki immediately tells the reader that Rezko will not chat, utter, rat-out, or insinuate anything about his Chicago Real Estate disciple and political bundler.  Blago?  You bet. Why not.

Rezko was convicted of Blago Bog-trotting.  Candidate Obama and President Obama never got moist undies due to Mr. Rezko and Natasha Korecki perfumes her narrative and interview with the bog itself.

His ( Tony Rezko's) trial took place in the Spring of 2008, in the midst of a heated presidential primary between Hillary Clinton and Obama. In one debate, Clinton chastised Obama for having ties to Rezko, who had poured money into the campaign fund of Obama earlier in his career.
Rezko was behind bars when authorities arrested Blagojevich in December of 2008 and charged him with attempting to sell Obama’s vacant U.S. Senate seat, citing recorded conversations.
“I think it was very unsmart of him to have conversations when he did about Obama’s replacement,” Rezko said. “But he is not the evil person who is been portrayed over the last few years. I think he did good things for the state of Illinois.”
“I blame nobody but myself, no. I have no ill feeling toward him [Blagojevich]. Or anybody else. Even Stuart Levine. He did what he had to do.” Rezko was referring to the key witness who testified against him.

With whom do Tony have 'issues' and the odd 'ill-feeling?'  Thanks to a real reporter, Natasha Korecki, this mythopoeic regime occupying the White House may have more such inquiry from citizens.  Forward!

 Thanks Ms. Korecki!

http://www.suntimes.com/12873845-761/tony-rezko-says-blagojevich-knew-about-pay-to-play-for-state-posts.html

Eder Cruz Leo 2011 - The Highbeam Cutting Through the Pfleger Pfog

Eder Cruz flanked by Aurora Latifi and Margarita Silva of Leo High School


On April 21st, I posted the announcement of Eder Cruz Leo 2011 selection as one of 31 Illinois recipients of the Bill and Melinda Gates Millennium Scholarship. The Gates Millennium Scholarship follows the recipient for his or her post-secondary education: college, post-graduate ( Law, Medicine etc.)

Eder Cruz transferred to Leo High School from Cristo Rey in his sophomore year. For two years Eder was the only non-African American student here at Leo High School.

Tomorrow's Mark Brown column is a look at this remarkable young man. Mr. Brown does a splendid job in telling about the school that helped a tough, earnest and thoughtful young man. Albanian born math teacher, Mrs. Aurora Latifi, Spanish teacher Ms. Margarita Silva and Guidance Counsellor Ms. Kaitlyn Kurta are three special ladies who were particularly important to Eder in his quest for success. Leo High School is generally known as a Catholic school with a particularly high testosterone level, but it is the young women who are making real impact on our guys.

Since mid-March, Leo High School's true story has been fogged by the media concerning an Archdiocesan personnel matter between the Cardinal and Father Pfleger of St. Sabina's Parish. The story went viral and national and Leo was tagged as struggling, troubled and in Father Pfleger's words "literally failing." The fact of the matter the taggers of those terms have no skin in the game at Leo High School - not Michael Pfleger, not Jay Levine and not Phil Kadner. Not one of the foggy narrative taggers, took the time to phone, much less visit the Leo Leadership: President for Institutional Advancement Dan McGrath and Principal Phil Mesina. No one the taggers talked to Leo Alumni President John Gardner, or Leo Advisory Board President Bob Sheehy. No tagger gave a call to Leo Men with much monetary and spiritual skin in the game like Frank Considine '39, Bill Koloseike '45, Andy McKenna '47, Dick Landis '47, Don Flynn '56, Bob Foster '57, Terry Sherman '64, or Joe Powers '70.

Mark Brown visited Leo. Mark Brown helped cut through the Pfleger Pfog narrative.

Eder Cruz leaves a great deal of skin in the corridors of Leo High School. Eder Cruz is a game changer.

Click my post title for Mark Brown's great Pfog Cutter.

By the way, Yale University is dropping by Leo High School at 9AM to talk to another Leo Man - a game changer of the Class of 2012.

Rahm is Mayor Daley's Guy? Well, Hush My Beak!

After a sobering weekend of Chico endorsements by real labor and a daffy TV ad, it appears that Rahm's Campaign of a Full Press Court nodded news-sleuth in the direction of the place where everyone else in Chicago arrived months ago.

"I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson," said he. "When your round is a short one you walk, and when it is a long one you use a hansom. As I perceive that your boots, although used, are by no means dirty, I cannot doubt that you are at present busy enough to justify the hansom."
"Excellent!" I cried.
"Elementary," said he. "It is one of those instances where the reasoner can produce an effect which seems remarkable to his neighbour, because the latter has missed the one little point which is the basis of the deduction. The same may be said, my dear fellow, for the effect of some of these little sketches of yours, which is entirely meretricious, depending as it does upon your retaining in your own hands some factors in the problem which are never imparted to the reader.
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1893)

This morning I was treated to a singular news flash from Mark Brown, the guy who gave Scott Lee Cohen ( The Pawn Star Guv Guy) a long pass. This morning Mark Brown wrote that Rahm Emanuel is Mayor Daley's 'guy.' for mayor of Chicago.

While Daley has indeed publicly refrained from making an endorsement, it has been universally recognized in political circles that the mayor would prefer Rahm Emanuel to be the next mayor of Chicago. In the almost magical way these matters are communicated, Daley’s people got the message early and lined up accordingly, not to suggest they necessarily needed coaxing.

Astounding! How ever did he arrive at this conclusion? Why he asked someone with the full operation of his cranial think box - Gery Chico told him. Be astounded, dear reader!

Chico first acknowledged Daley’s support for Emanuel — albeit obliquely — over the weekend at a candidates forum sponsored by the 49th Ward political organization of Ald. Joe Moore. No reporters were there, but word got around.

“Gery said: You can’t change the status quo if you’re the guy who the status quo is lined up behind,” confirmed his press secretary, Brooke Anderson. “He said the status quo isn’t working, that he’s running for mayor to take Chicago in a new direction and that he has a record of challenging the status quo to get big results.”

Chico was asked about this Tuesday, leading to his further remarks about Daley backing Emanuel. I said that’s what’s been told to me to be the case. If it’s not, then the mayor can say it’s not,” Chico said.

“

Now, Mark Brown is even with the most notorious retired glue-sniffers and bust-outs in every Ward of Chicago - they picked up on the trail of the Napoleon of Chicago and his machinations as early as September, 2010 - and many long before. I was moved to write this sober assessment on September 25, 2010. for you here - on the hoary pages of With Both Hands, dear reader. Thus!

Michael Sneed got a scoop of WHUP Ass for her Friday Column - the word that Terry Peterson will be Rahm Emanuel's Campaign Manager. Terry Petersen ran Mayor Daley's recent wildly successful stomping of candidates. I imagine that it knocked Tom Dart back on his pins a bit, but Dart is a smart tough guy, from tough stock and training.

Tom Dart worked under the only person that I can think of who did not make any money in public service - former Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan. Michael Sheahan was one of the very first recipients of the Axelrod/Emanuel school of Policy assault. They barely ruffled his whiskers, but since Sheahan retired they have honed their craft on Republicans, recalcitrant Blue Dog Democrats, House Speaker Mike Madigan and Ohio Plumbers.

The signing of Terry Peterson is a coup. Mayor Daley is sitting this one out? I think not.

Tom Dart had a great mentor in Mike Sheahan. He'll stand the blows, but they will shower down like rains of this past summer. Michael Sheahan stuck his neck out and helped Mayor Daley get elected as Cook County States Attorney and as Mayor.

Mayor Daley has hosted the National Democratic Convention, made Chicago look like Paris and act like Somalia, placed his close aides in positions of national power ( David Wilhelm, Bill Daley, David Pouffe, Rahm Emanuel, Valerie Jarret, Desiree Rogers, Arne Duncan and most importantly David Axelrod), brokered the ascent of President Barack Obama, and has retired.

Retired but obviously not out of game. Mayor Daley represents the triumph of Policy over Politics. I believe that Richard M. Daley eschewed Ward level politics for Policy in order to distance himself and his works from the people of Chicago.

I can not remember the last time Mayor Richard M. Daley set foot in the 19th Ward - one of the last powerful Wards along with the 47th, 11th, 13th, and the decimated 10th. These were the Politics Wards that gave Richard M. Daley the 5th floor.

All other Wards are mere geographic delineations of racial and ethnic boundaries, or centers of tourism. They are Policy Wards.

Policy Wards require State and Federal tax-dollars. They operate by dint of media propaganda and rallies of angry folks. Policy uses anger. Politics uses obligation.

Obligation is much more difficult, rather inconvenient.

For all of the mythology about the power of these Politics Wards ( 11th, 19th, 13th, 47th and the decimated 10th), they are little more than minor baronies of public service, until an election requires foot soldiers.

These Wards made Rahm Emanuel a United States Congressman, Mike Quigley a Commissioner and managed to keep County Government moving despite the daffy meanderings of Todd Stroger.

Like Mayor Daley, Rahm Emanuel does not to set foot in a Ward. He will operate out of treasury and via NPR, WTTW,Columnists, Chicago Magazine, Oprah, the BGA already stocked with Andy Shaw,SEIU National and Illinois, UNITE, home and away and our transient Agenda voters.

Unlike Mayor Daley, Rahm Emanuel will need Post-Shakman door bell ringers, shoulder punchers and back slappers, palm card hustlers and therefore is no doubt worming into the ears of Committeemen and disaffected, frightened non-Shakman City Workers. Mayor Daley retained Politics and political operatives for elections.
Terry Petersen is the key and, to my way of thinking, Daley's endorsement of Rahm Emanuel for a continuation of Government via Policy. CAPS trumps Cops, Wrought Iron and planters over snowplows and garbage trucks, Pritzker Pavillions over safe streets.Tourists love the look of Chicago, until they leave a Bucktown bar at 2 A.M. and then it is the cops fault.

Mayor Daley's guy is Rahm. Circles are 360 Degrees. Ice is cold. Western Avenue runs North and South. Tapioca also means broke.

Elementary . . .school kids knew this, Sherlock Brown.

Mark Brown Trolling for Quigley Mayoral Bid? Mutt and Jeff Ride!

Mark Brown and Mike Quigley! David Axelrod and Mayor Daley?

Mark Brown helped Mike Quigley smear a County Board Candidate back a few years ago and the young woman's Dad, a working man, would still wish to parse a few sentences with Mark Brown. Hey politics ain't bean bag.

Mike Quigley has always used Mark Brown. Politicians with no real body support from regular voters tend to play out their games in the press or on WTTW. Public servants who can count on their neighbors and later their constituents do not need a hack or a celebrated mouthpiece. Mike Quigley needs the press.

This Mutt and Jess Team of Brown and Quigley makes sense - Quigley's name is never used in the same gerund let alone sentence with the noun Mayor, unless it appears in a Mark Brown column. You hear Terry Peterson, Tom Dart, Congressman Jackson and his talented and whip smart wife Sandy Jackson from voters, but never Little Big Man Mike Quigley. He is a "slot open" elected official - a person like Jan Schakowsky or Mike Quigley get 'slot opened' into public office - and usually into a spot where they can do little harm or hindrance to the commonweal.

To day Mark Brown, does the "Hey, Hey, Hey Mike Quigley!!!!! Everybody!" . . .

Every Chicago congressman would like to be mayor in the moments they aren't imagining themselves as senator or president. Heck, nearly half of them already have run for mayor, if you count Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.'s aborted candidacy of four years ago.

So when Quigley ended up on the phone with me Tuesday on an unrelated matter, I had to put the question to him in light of Emanuel's odd public declaration of interest in succeeding Richard M. Daley: Should we add his name to the long list of aspirants interested in becoming mayor if Daley calls it quits next year?

"This is all b.s. The mayor is running again," Quigley answered adamantly, not using the abbreviation.

Is that on the record?

"That's on the record."

Truth be told, I'm not sure Quigley has any more insight into Daley's plans than anybody else in Chicago politics, perhaps less considering the somewhat strained history of their relationship.

Still, as long as he's willing to attach his name to his words on a day when so many others are speaking from behind an opaque screen, it seems worth reporting.

Quigley said he based his opinion not on inside information so much as his personal dealings with Daley since being elected last year to fill Emanuel's seat in Congress.

. . . in the sad and daffy hope that a couple of dopes might think it is for real.

More Hand Wringing BS From Mark Brown - Murders Happen Because Thugs Feel Comfortable Doing So.

There were 458 homicides in Chicago last year, and that was a good year -- the fifth-lowest murder toll in the city's recent history. By the time Police Supt. Jody Weis met with reporters Friday to talk about his plans for keeping things under control this weekend, this year's homicide toll had grown to 97, up from 81 on the same date last year.

Pfleger asks if we're waiting for a child of our own to die to get involved. It's a reasonable question.

No. we are not waiting for our kids to get killed and that is a consistently stupid question from two fatuous phonies - in my humble, close-knit, ethnic opinion.

Race Baiting, Lotto Lawsuits, Weepy Headlines and absolutely no consequences for killing savages add up to Chicago's spike in homicides.

Gang- related shooting? Nope. Savagery.

Guns Kill People? Nope. Savages kill people.

Mark Brown goes straight to the lowered Kiddie net once again - Father Michael Pfleger. Mark Brown helped Father Pfleger 'change the narrative' from his unorthodox views on abortion and ordination of women to 'the pastor who really cares.' Father Pfleger boldly proclaims anything, gets huge notice, finds himself in trouble and does the 'I'm sorry change the narrative.' Fair enough, but do not use a perfume dousing on public image to parse down urban savagery. Mark Brown gets what he wants and so does Father Pfleger. We get a heaping table of sanctimonious horse shit.

Rather, Mark Brown might have asked Area 2 Homicide Detectives - but Mark Brown has burned that bridge with his smug 'Bring It On!' posing two summers ago. Yeah Mark Brown and the Chicago Sun Times helped west side thugs keep a riot going for more than a few days - with edited photos of cops under siege and Mark Brown's idiotic and inflammatory captions. Blood sells ink. Mark Brown is like an arsonist who runs to the fire house, panting , 'Hey, there's fire! Help the children!'

Chicago's black neighborhoods on the west and south sides are Thug Comfort Zones.

I work in the Gresham neighborhood, Father Pfleger's neighborhood, every day.
I have gone to too many funerals. Chicago Police Officer Eric Lee and his brother were murdered by thugs only too happy to 'ride the 9 down' on a human being -'it's all good! You gotta understand!'

The Chicago Police and the Cook County States Attorney have been marginalized by Mark Brown, Father Pfleger, G. Flint Taylor, the editorial boards of the Chicago Sun Times, The Chicago Tribune, the leftist millionaires of the MacArthur Center for Justice, Northwestern University Bluhm Center for Justice, Jon Burge Industries, The Peoples Law Office, Jon Loevy Industries, every room temperature I.Q. with a microphone and camera crew and of course the well armed savages of Chicago.

Marches, Candle light Prayers, Cease Fire Parolees pressuring Pat Quinn, Urban Translators and the clients of G. Flint Taylor still in the joint will not end the murders.

Until Mark Brown scans the archives of the last few years and has a come-to-Jesus moment - he won't - and gutless politicians grow a pair and turn on lice like G. Flint Taylor and the Marxist 501 (c) 3 industries, savages will continue to light up our lives.

This is not gang-related, drug-related, or gun-related violence this is the Thug Comfort Zone built and funded and fueled by our media, Lawsuit Lotto Lawyers, gutless or complicit politicians and saps who lap up Mark Brown's hand-wringing bullshit.

Gee, too edgy? Well, I am feeling rather savagely sarcastic at the moment. I have not ridden the 9 down on anyone.

While Greasing Up the Pole for Sheila Simon's Jump Up Over the Vote - Mark Brown Needs to Sneer.

Why people detest the media - columnists tend to sneer at readers. Mark Brown is a champ . . .spell it as you will.

Today, The Chicago Sun Times reminds everyone that Sheila Simon is a Medal of Honor recipient; Nobel Prize Candidate; Publisher's Clearing House Laureate; Needs No Skis 'Cause She Walks on Water; and was Born in a Cross-fire Hurricane!

We knew that already.

Governor Pat Quinn chose Sheila Simon to be on his ticket as Guv-Lite for all those reasons and more.

Carol Marin, Neil Steinberg, Sneedless to Say and Mark Brown waved palms as Sheila Simon rides into Jerusalem with palms waving and palms up.

Mark Brown could not praise a Progressive Scion of Illinois without a snotty crack at the MANY, MANY Chicago Helots who voted for Art Turner - I did.

Turner fared best in the white wards where people vote for whom they're told -- 11, 13, 14 and 19 -- and in the more independent areas where people like me voted for him because he had the newspaper endorsements.

We were told for whom to vote? Really? Mark Brown tosses out something to see what sticks - regularly. I forget for whom I was told to vote. Who was it Gave me my voting orders? Was it Precinct Captain Elmer Shagnasty? Was it our genial and with-it host the First Nighter? Was it the perenial favorite Speaker Mike Madigan? No, he don't speak until he has something to say. Or, was it the Aryan Nation, as Neil Steinberg suggests?

Nope, I voted for Art Turner, because he is a good guy. He's a black guy, by the way, Art Turner is like the black folks in my neighborhood who go to Mass with us at St. Cajetan, Sacred Heart, St. Barnabas, Christ the King Catholic Churches and borrow my green lawn spreader.

Mark Brown votes because of a newspaper endorsement - or so he says.

People hold newspaper columnists almost as high in their estimations as the elected officials who violate their trust.

Elected Officials -Sheila Simon has won no election, as she is a panjandrum - a career appointee - get voted out of office and some go to jail.

Mark Brown and other newspaper columnists sneer at readers. When we all stop paying for newspapers, columnists might get an attitude adjustment. Naw, stupid is forever.

Carol Marin Offers More Words to Tell Us That Words Can't Stop Murdering Thugs from Murdering! She's An Icon!

Chicago's most visible fatuous phony - Icon Carol Marin - wants all of us to know that " Words alone can't stop gun violence."

Yesterday, I watched Chicago Police deal with a shooting that was reported only by Fox WFLD News - Sun Times - nothing and Tribune nothing.

Across from Leo High School on 79th Street two people were shot by fleeing perpetrators. One guy took some heavy ordinance in the face and the other took one in the leg.

This took place at about 1:20 P.M. on a sunny Friday afternoon. Sixth District Police officers responded instantly and with exacting professionalism - as they always do.

Faculty and staff put our young men on the buses for home and directed them to their parents' cars and the entire school population departed for home. Teachers and staff shepherded our young men - no Kevlar.

Faculty and staff stood out on 79th Street only a few feet from where the blood was spilled.

There had been a fight at a gas station on Halsted earlier that morning and the fly-by shootings were in retaliation for someone getting 'disrespected' in that Old School dust-up. Naturally, thugs go for the artillery, because there will be little or no consequences and possibly even a police beef lawsuit jackpot for lighting up a front porch full of folks.

Thug scum are portrayed always in the Media as misunderstood Denzel Washingtons abused by beefy racist cops.

If a hard-hitting investigative journalist wanted to actually do something, the suburban dwelling hypocrite might want to investigate exactly who actually owns heavy ordinance in Chicago's Food Deserts. Nah. It is always better to pound out a full week of polls, reports, up-dates, columns and stories about a white goofball with racist garage art and so much safer, edgy and nuanced. Once we all agree that close-knit ethnic Catholics (who live in PC targeted neighborhoods like Bridgeport, Beverly, Edison Park & etc.) are the only reason that racism exists - gun violence will end and we can all have Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream and listen to NPR.

Chicago is a Thug Comfort Zone. This Comfort Zone was created by lawsuit lawyers like G. Flint Taylor and Jon Loevy, Marxist Academics and University Centers for Manure Spreading and hypocritical editorialists and columnists like Mary Mitchell, Mark Brown and Chicago's ( NBC/WTTW/Sun Times)Iconic Carol Marin.

Murders are committed for the same reason that a dog licks his privates with gusto - because one can. One can kill with impunity and immunity. Systemic racism and police brutality are the Get-Out-of-Jail Wealthy cards published in columns and editorials.

Give me the words to explain this.

Words strong enough to capture the horror of Chicago's daily diet of senseless shootings.

Words powerful enough to build a durable outrage so we are collectively moved to action.

The most recent shootings come on top of the tragedy that happened Wednesday on the South Side. It was sunny and mild, and 7-year-old Desaree Sanders and her sisters were doing what children are supposed to do when spring is in the air.

Word, Carol! Cash those checks!

Brown Journalism - Run, Duck, Dodge! Mark Brown and Carol Marin and More!

Thank you Anne Leary - Backyard Conservative

The Lemmings are following Mark Brown right off the lowest heights of Chicago journalism - Ring Lardner, Ben Hecht, Theodore Dreiser, Charles MacArthur, Nick Von Hoffman, Ray Coffey they ain't.

Anne Leary posted the MSNBC Flannelmouth Meathead Chris Matthews piece linked above (click my post title for shameless mess) where Lynn Sweet, a good reporter gets staked out in the sand needing to provide instant cover for Mark Brown's "Dude" ineptitude. That, by the way, was local neighborhood Yamhead CBS Mike Flannery's Noel Coward imitation when he finally got around to interviewing Scott Lee Cohen. Bon Mot!Oh, rather, Old Boy! I mean, Dude!

Mark Brown was handed Scot Lee's head on a silver platter by Scott Lee himself in the Cohenpawn shop located near where Self Promoting Icon Carol Marin spent her youth - -roughly 47th & Ashland.

Carol Marin, a practiced shameless scribe who can mock Lura Lynn Ryan's appearance during the trials of George Ryan ( Mark Brown kicked Governor Ryan only when he was down and out by the way)and avoid original thought and finger an elderly couple as an IRA hit team on the say so of an ambitious FBI feeder, is parsing Brown in the Sunday Chicago Sun Times and shifting blame on Mike Madigan, Pat Quinn and the Democratic Party.

There is no exoneration for us in the media -- with the exception of my Sun-Times colleague Mark Brown -- for absolutely blowing this story. But also no pass for the leadership of the Democratic Party. Was Quinn warned about Cohen before the primary? Did the all-knowing party chairman, Mike Madigan, really not know?

Clued in or clueless, they look awful.

No Carol, like you Mark Brown is a pompous jerk. Pompous jerks tend to sneer at people and make the very most of their difficulties - that is the reason why people detest the Media - not the reporters, Carol, the smarmy, over paid smiling hypocrites who create the news and refuse to report it.

Brown Journalism needs to take a quick and lively walk off what is left of Illinois high ground - moral or metaphorical.

Scott Lee and History - Get Down with Mark Brown!

Of all the studies by which men acquire citizenship of the intellectual commonwealth, no single one is so indispensable as the study of the past Of Histoy -Lord Bertrand Russell

The problem for Cohen was that he made his announcement to me, and I wasn't taking him very seriously.That's why I told Cohen at the time that nobody even knew who he was, let alone cared enough to want to read about his dirty laundry, and I didn't see the need to go into it. . . . How was I to know way back then that the Democratic voters of Illinois would be so dumb as to elect him, brainwashed by millions of dollars in advertising about his job fairs?

Voters can't say they weren't warned Mark Brown


Ah, the Public's Progressive Watchdog! Let's see. We are in Weimer Republic* of Germany and Herr Mark Brown interviews an earnest, enthusiastic rhetorically gifted young war veteran paper-hanger:

Schiklegruber - I have had some brushes with the law and I want to get out in front of them. You see, Herr Brown, I have plan for getting our people back to work. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs! My commercials will have the public shouting and screaming for more! Commercials, Herr Brown! Now, I must have these scrapes with the civil authorities out in front!

Mark Brown - You are an Underdog.

Schiklegruber - Ja! My Papers, Herr Brown -

Mark Brown - Okay, lets have a look see Hmmmmmm.

1909 Adolf living in Hostel for Homeless in Vienna.
1910 In the Spring, fails to report for examination prior to military service.
1911 Death of Adolf aunt, Johanna Pölzl. Fails to report again for military, he is forced to renounce his orphan's pension
1912 Fails to report for the third time for military training.
1913 24th. May, Adolf leaves for Munich. In August he is posted as a military deserted.
1914 Rejected for military service in Salzburg.
1923 The abortive Hitler-Putsch.
1924 Bavarian authorities contemplate deporting him to Austria.
1925 30th April, Adolf deprived, at his own request, of Austrian citizenship

. . .I wouldn't worry about it.

Ladies and Gentleman, the Chicago News Media! Let's Give It Up for Mark Brown! Everybody!

So, so, wie ich dich liebe,
So, so liebe auch mich.
Die, die zärtlichsten Triebe
Fühl ich allein nur für dich.
Ja, ja, ja, ja,
Fühl ich allein nur für dich.

Once more!

Ja, ja, ja, ja,
Dass uns die Liebe vereint.

*

Before World War I Germany was a prosperous country, with a gold-backed currency, expanding industry, and world leadership in optics, chemicals, and machinery. The German Mark, the British shilling, the French franc, and the Italian lira all had about equal value, and all were exchanged four or five to the dollar. That was in 1914. In 1923, at the most fevered moment of the German hyperinflation, the exchange rate between the dollar and the Mark was one trillion Marks to one dollar, and a wheelbarrow full of money would not even buy a newspaper. Most Germans were taken by surprise by the financial tornado.

"My father was a lawyer," says Walter Levy, an internationally known German-born oil consultant in New York, "and he had taken out an insurance policy in 1903, and every month he had made the payments faithfully. It was a 20-year policy, and when it came due, he cashed it in and bought a single loaf of bread." The Berlin publisher Leopold Ullstein wrote that an American visitor tipped their cook one dollar. The family convened, and it was decided that a trust fund should be set up in a Berlin bank with the cook as beneficiary, the bank to administer and invest the dollar.

In retrospect, you can trace the steps to hyperinflation, but some of the reasons remain cloudy. Germany abandoned the gold backing of its currency in 1914. The war was expected to be short, so it was financed by government borrowing, not by savings and taxation. In Germany prices doubled between 1914 and 1919.

After four disastrous years Germany had lost the war. Under the Treaty of Versailles it was forced to make a reparations payment in gold-backed Marks, and it was due to lose part of the production of the Ruhr and of the province of Upper Silesia. The Weimar Republic was politically fragile.

But the bourgeois habits were very strong. Ordinary citizens worked at their jobs, sent their children to school and worried about their grades, maneuvered for promotions and rejoiced when they got them, and generally expected things to get better. But the prices that had doubled from 1914 to 1919 doubled again during just five months in 1922. Milk went from 7 Marks per liter to 16; beer from 5.6 to 18. There were complaints about the high cost of living. Professors and civil servants complained of getting squeezed. Factory workers pressed for wage increases. An underground economy developed, aided by a desire to beat the tax collector.

On June 24, 1922, right-wing fanatics assassinated Walter Rathenau, the moderate, able foreign minister. Rathenau was a charismatic figure, and the idea that a popular, wealthy, and glamorous government minister could be shot in a law-abiding society shattered the faith of the Germans, who wanted to believe that things were going to be all right. Rathenau's state funeral was a national trauma. The nervous citizens of the Ruhr were already getting their money out of the currency and into real goods -- diamonds, works of art, safe real estate. Now ordinary Germans began to get out of Marks and into real goods.

Pianos, wrote the British historian Adam Fergusson, were bought even by unmusical families. Sellers held back because the Mark was worth less every day. As prices went up, the amounts of currency demanded were greater, and the German Central Bank responded to the demands. Yet the ruling authorities did not see anything wrong. A leading financial newspaper said that the amounts of money in circulation were not excessively high. Dr. Rudolf Havenstein, the president of the Reichsbank (equivalent to the Federal Reserve) told an economics professor that he needed a new suit but wasn't going to buy one until prices came down.

Why did the German government not act to halt the inflation? It was a shaky, fragile government, especially after the assassination. The vengeful French sent their army into the Ruhr to enforce their demands for reparations, and the Germans were powerless to resist. More than inflation, the Germans feared unemployment. In 1919 Communists had tried to take over, and severe unemployment might give the Communists another chance. The great German industrial combines -- Krupp, Thyssen, Farben, Stinnes -- condoned the inflation and survived it well. A cheaper Mark, they reasoned, would make German goods cheap and easy to export, and they needed the export earnings to buy raw materials abroad. Inflation kept everyone working.

So the printing presses ran, and once they began to run, they were hard to stop. The price increases began to be dizzying. Menus in cafes could not be revised quickly enough. A student at Freiburg University ordered a cup of coffee at a cafe. The price on the menu was 5,000 Marks. He had two cups. When the bill came, it was for 14,000 Marks. "If you want to save money," he was told, "and you want two cups of coffee, you should order them both at the same time."

The presses of the Reichsbank could not keep up though they ran through the night. Individual cities and states began to issue their own money. Dr. Havenstein, the president of the Reichsbank, did not get his new suit. A factory worker described payday, which was every day at 11:00 a.m.: "At 11:00 in the morning a siren sounded, and everybody gathered in the factory forecourt, where a five-ton lorry was drawn up loaded brimful with paper money. The chief cashier and his assistants climbed up on top. They read out names and just threw out bundles of notes. As soon as you had caught one you made a dash for the nearest shop and bought just anything that was going." Teachers, paid at 10:00 a.m., brought their money to the playground, where relatives took the bundles and hurried off with them. Banks closed at 11:00 a.m.; the harried clerks went on strike.

The flight from currency that had begun with the buying of diamonds, gold, country houses, and antiques now extended to minor and almost useless items -- bric-a-brac, soap, hairpins. The law-abiding country crumbled into petty thievery. Copper pipes and brass armatures weren't safe. Gasoline was siphoned from cars. People bought things they didn't need and used them to barter -- a pair of shoes for a shirt, some crockery for coffee. Berlin had a "witches' Sabbath" atmosphere. Prostitutes of both sexes roamed the streets. Cocaine was the fashionable drug. In the cabarets the newly rich and their foreign friends could dance and spend money. Other reports noted that not all the young people had a bad time. Their parents had taught them to work and save, and that was clearly wrong, so they could spend money, enjoy themselves, and flout the old.

The publisher Leopold Ullstein wrote: "People just didn't understand what was happening. All the economic theory they had been taught didn't provide for the phenomenon. There was a feeling of utter dependence on anonymous powers -- almost as a primitive people believed in magic -- that somebody must be in the know, and that this small group of 'somebodies' must be a conspiracy."

When the 1,000-billion Mark note came out, few bothered to collect the change when they spent it. By November 1923, with one dollar equal to one trillion Marks, the breakdown was complete. The currency had lost meaning.

What happened immediately afterward is as fascinating as the Great Inflation itself. The tornado of the Mark inflation was succeeded by the "miracle of the Rentenmark." A new president took over the Reichsbank, Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht, who came by his first two names because of his father's admiration for an editor of the New York Tribune. The Rentenmark was not Schacht's idea, but he executed it, and as the Reichsbank president, he got the credit for it. For decades afterward he was able to maintain a reputation for financial wizardry. He became the architect of the financial prosperity brought by the Nazi party.

Obviously, though the currency was worthless, Germany was still a rich country -- with mines, farms, factories, forests. The backing for the Rentenmark was mortgages on the land and bonds on the factories, but that backing was a fiction; the factories and land couldn't be turned into cash or used abroad. Nine zeros were struck from the currency; that is, one Rentenmark was equal to one billion old Marks. The Germans wanted desperately to believe in the Rentenmark, and so they did. "I remember," said one Frau Barten of East Prussia, "the feeling of having just one Rentenmark to spend. I bought a small tin bread bin. Just to buy something that had a price tag for one Mark was so exciting."

All money is a matter of belief. Credit derives from Latin, credere, "to believe." Belief was there, the factories functioned, the farmers delivered their produce. The Central Bank kept the belief alive when it would not let even the government borrow further.

But although the country functioned again, the savings were never restored, nor were the values of hard work and decency that had accompanied the savings. There was a different temper in the country, a temper that Hitler would later exploit with diabolical talent. Thomas Mann wrote: "The market woman who without batting an eyelash demanded 100 million for an egg lost the capacity for surprise. And nothing that has happened since has been insane or cruel enough to surprise her."

With the currency went many of the lifetime plans of average citizens. It was the custom for the bride to bring some money to a marriage; many marriages were called off. Widows dependent on insurance found themselves destitute. People who had worked a lifetime found that their pensions would not buy one cup of coffee.

Pearl Buck, the American writer who became famous for her novels of China, was in Germany in 1923. She wrote later: "The cities were still there, the houses not yet bombed and in ruins, but the victims were millions of people. They had lost their fortunes, their savings; they were dazed and inflation-shocked and did not understand how it had happened to them and who the foe was who had defeated them. Yet they had lost their self-assurance, their feeling that they themselves could be the masters of their own lives if only they worked hard enough; and lost, too, were the old values of morals, of ethics, of decency."

The fledgling Nazi party, whose attempted coup had failed in 1923, won 32 seats legally in the next election. The right-wing Nationalist party won 106 seats, having promised 100 percent compensation to the victims of inflation and vengeance on the conspirators who had brought it.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitext/ess_germanhyperinflation.html