Bruce Rauner Runs Squarely into the Embrace of His Old Pals - Cook County Oligarchs

A day after crafting a controversial statement citing Gov. Bruce Rauner’s position as a “white male,” the governor’s new communications staff has been ousted — with more exits on the way, according to multiple sources. Sun Times

Those multiple sources of the Illinois Deep Stater, tagged as GOP operatives. 

Who's gonna vote for a Billionaire?  You are.  JB or Bruce.  Pick one.  Not difference between either plutocrat.  Both have made piles  of spondulix in their happy careers around the Corporate/Government trough; both want the very same thing - to maintain Illinois as a place where the many are looted by the few. 

I have delightful chats with a lovely young lady of my acquaintance who holds that " Bruce Rauner is doing everything he can to stop the madness."

I offer my patented Pastor Pfleger Rejoinder (PPR) to the the gushes of the sheeple, "He's done so much for  his people" - Examples, please.

(crickets)

Bruce Rauner is a place holder.  He is holding the place for JB Pritzker.  Proof, you may ask of my wild accusation, ?  The news.

Just today, we have this nugget concerning Rauner's firing of communications staff with ties to the Illinois Policy Institute.

News of the exits spread throughout the political realm on Wednesday night. One senior Republican operative called the ousting a sign the governor has realized he made a “mistake.”
“The governor and First Lady have finally admitted they made a colossal mistake in hiring these right wing ideologues,” the operative said. “One can only hope for the sake of our state government they will make better choices in the future.”
The Rauner administration shakeup began on July 10 when Rauner unexpectedly fired his chief of staff, Richard Goldberg. Goldberg was swiftly replaced by Kristina Rasmussen, former president and CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute. That sparked the exits of at least 20 employees, many of whom left because they didn’t believe in the direction the governor was taking in hiring members of the conservative think tank.( emphases my own) 

And horseshit remains the staple diet of Illinois!!!!

From the get-go the Democrats and their think tanks have ginned up the ire of the media to do-in all Illinois Policy Institute hires by Governor Bruce.  The Dude abides.

Thay Gone!!!!!!!!!!  Bruce is back, Baby!!!!!!

Rauner was down in the polls of GOP voters and hired people from the only accurate critic of Looting Illinois - the Illinois Policy Institute.  The Paul Simon Institute is a poling organ of the Illinois Democrat Party and sets the table for every idiotic piece of legislation rammed through Springfield with the tag line - IT CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!

The cartoon accurately depicted the concerns of both house of the Illinois legislature which brought screams of racism from the race-addicted wolves of all colors.

Race is weapon of finance.  No one knows finance like Mayor Emanuel and responded to Bruce Rauner's spinelessness with audible heft, “The cartoon issued by the governor’s allies at the Illinois Policy Institute is unambiguously racist,” Emanuel said in a statement. “We can give no quarter to racism, and there can be no justification for leaders unwilling to stand up and call out racist acts. For a man so eager to speak his mind so often, the governor’s silence is deafening.”

Dance with me, Bruce!

The governor's silence is as meretricious as a Pfleger Presser!!!!  Bruce Plays.

Illinois remains screwed blue'd and tattooed.  JB will picking your bones clean at the behest of the Illinois Oligarchs and Bruce will clean up.

Telling the Teacher to Shut Up, If He Knows What's Good for Him.

Having a classroom full of willful, energetic and smart teenagers listen to your lesson with attention, wonder and, if possible affirmation,  is a joy beyond imagination.   Having done so for forty-two years, is a satisfying career that continues at a much slower pace.

I was taught to teach honestly - give the full story.  I did, I hope.

One of the secret pleasures of Facebook ( that is the extent of my social network: can't text and I use an "Old Guy" flip phone . . .for Phone Calls!1!).  Since my daughters encouraged me to open a page, I have reconnected with hundreds of kids ( now in their 40's, 50's, and 30's) who sat packed in historically uncomfortable desks and bought what I was selling - literature, philosophy, history, shared truth and the world contributions to leading a good life.  I taught Catch 22, A Separate Peace, Moby Dick, Heart of Darkness, Confederacy of Dunces, Paradise,Vanity Fair, Grapes of Wrath. USA Tilogy, It Can't Happen Here,  Canterbury Tales, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, Adventures of Augie March, Native Son, Invisible Man, the plays of Shakespeare ( especially the English War of Roses and the Roman Plays) Euripides, Aristophanes,Aeschylus, Sophocles, Raisin in the Sun, the philosophical works of St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Spinoza, Descartes, Rousseau. Voltaire, Berkley, Hume and Russell's History of Western Philosophy.  The historical texts of Xenophon, Thucydides, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny, Frederick Douglas, Booker T. Washington, Francis Parker, Henry Adams, Malcom X, Barbara Tuchman fleshed out the a study of man at his best and worst.

I introduced my students to a book The Peoples History of the United States in 1980 and explained that it was Red nonsense in clever packaging.

I taught Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here a dystopian America addicted to fascism.  Strangely some of the kids who loved that rather brittle and sloppy novel are now devotees of later day Buzz Windrip's who are telling everyone to get in line, get on the right side of history, shout with Move On. org, Organizing for Action, AntiFa fascists and the book burner historian Howard Zinn.

None of this stuff is new. It is merely 1930's American Stalinism in velcro pants. 

• If you are not with us; you are against us!  
• We have the ghost of Tom Joad and Pete Seeger walking before us!  
• We are the People. 
• The Boss needs you; you don't need the boss.
• Organize the workers to control the use of their labor power,
• Workers of the world, awaken! 
• Which Side are you On???!

A few of my brightest students, sadly swallowed Howard Zinn whole and subsist on his diet of class envy, race baiting and scab yanking American history.

A former student bemoans the fact that I voted for Trump.  Get in line.  Now, in order to goat my sensibilities, indicated that my vote is dog whistle for my intrinsic panophobia and hateful nature.  I'm a Nazi, a Klansman, Lynch Mob psychopath and a moral coward, this fine young gent opines.

Glad to have introduced you to the world of ideas.  They are your's to ignore.

I found his jibe unworthy of his intellect, but there you have it.  I am like the Jewish teacher of the SS man in the brilliant series The Holocaust.  "Thanks for your wisdom, but you are on the wrong side of history. Now, let me help you step up into that boxcar Herr Doktor."

I responded to his snarky reply, "You can remind when your crowd carts me off to the Reeducation Camp."

There is no getting away from it - the young man was a straight A student.

Erase history and then start erasing the people who know it.

Oh, it can happen here.  It is already happening.

Boy, That Trump ? Huh? The Cheerleaders Are in a Snit.

Heidi Stevens is in a snit. That Mr. Trump has really gone and done it.  Once again, the Orange Man has insulted the Banana Republic on Lake Michigan, its Mayor, its County Government, Ja'mal Green, Pastor Pfleger, Eric Zorn, Cardinal Cupich, Neil Steinberg, WTTW, the afflicted, the non-Heterosexual, the non-Caucasian, the un-legal Dreamers, the non-Biking Divvy mockers, Weiners Circle Hotdogs and Brendan Reilly.

Do not get the cheerleaders upset, Dude!

Trump had the audacity to Hope to say,      "What the hell is going on in Chicago?"

No, he didn't! He did. He went there. Now, he got this right back in his face!

Trump has asked the same question before, and he's not alone in wondering. I get the same question from friends and family who don't live here. (And a few who do.)

What's happening in Chicago is this:

• The Grant Park Music Festival just got underway, which marks another year of free, world-class music under a Frank Gehry-designed open air pavilion where friends share a bottle of wine, couples enjoy a picnic and kids twirl around on the grass, shoulder-to-shoulder, like we do things in the city.

• New artwork is popping up along our stunning lakefront bike trail. (Our mayor named 2017 the year of public art.)

• Chicago Public Schools just let out, so some of its almost 400,000 students are flooding our enviable parks and playgrounds*.

• The Cubs are losing again. Chicago Pride Fest is this weekend.

Now, take that, Mr. Orange-hair, size 38 and up pants wearing Mr. Guy!

Heidi Stevens grew up in Chicago's suburbs,  like Chicago's Mayor and most of Chicago's columnists and TV anchors, so she knows this city on-the-take like one of Nels Algren's poker pals - warts and all, she knows this city.  Sure, we have grade school kids gunned down at end of school parties, but we have tender-hearted and caring Chicago values folks who know that thousands of the people of color are being tortured at this very minute in Homan Square and are not terribly concerned that Ja'mal Green and Forrest Claypool feed off of Chicago's dying husk.

And we have a devastating level of gun violence, which is what Trump and others are really asking about. It's a scourge on our city.

• New artwork is popping up along our stunning lakefront bike trail. (Our mayor named 2017 the year of public art.)
• Chicago Public Schools just let out, so some of its almost 400,000 students are flooding our enviable parks and playgrounds.
• The Cubs are losing again. Chicago Pride Fest is this weekend.

And we have a devastating level of gun violence, which is what Trump and others are really asking about. It's a scourge on our city.

So what? Other cities are worse, says Heidi.

• Chicago isn't even close to the deadliest city in the United States. On a per-capita basis, according to The Trace, Chicago isn't even in the top 10. New Orleans, Cleveland, Atlanta, St. Louis, Oakland, Cincinnati, Miami, Philadelphia — they've all got us beat.

• That makes the deaths here no more palatable and no less urgent. But Chicago is America writ small.

• Our gun violence, our racial tensions, our education funding, our income disparity, our aging infrastructure, our efforts, however clumsy, to coexist with people who don't look like us, worship like us, speak like us, live like us — none of it is unique to Chicago.

• We're grappling with it all in 237 square miles. America's grappling with it in 3 million or so. Not in every city and town, but in plenty.
• It benefits no one to divide and polarize us. We're all Americans.

• If you want to know what the hell's going on here, swing by for a visit. On any given day, it's a beautiful, messy, breathtaking display of humanity's best and worst.

• Just like America.

 So, there.

Here's what's happening in Chicago, Mr. Tangerine Mean CNN Andy Cooper Pooper President:

• Rahm Closes Ohio Street Underpass and Ignores Questions ( Because of Hi-Jinks on the Beach)
• Rahm and Rauner Fail
• Pop Taxed
• Chicago Black Flight
• Tiger Woods Gets Land - In Your Face George Lucas-Hobson!
• Obama Library Will Close LSD

Speaking of the Arts!

•       Small Theaters Ban Theater Critics
•      Corey Feldman is Back!
•     Where to watch Ru Paul's Drag Race

So, we have that going for Chicago and the LGBTQ Community appropriated the letters  I.A, P & K ( and more!) *in celebration of Pride Week, which appropriated Pride and dropped the Gay, for some reason.

Chicago is a Banana Republic and Heidi Stevens, the Chicago Tribune, former President Barack Obama, the Resistance, Valerie Jarrett, Chicago City Council, Cook County Government and Hollywood are still upset because America is still not a Banana Republic. 

Here is the Butcher's Bill that helps pay for this secular, global urban Banana Republic: 

 June to Date

Shot & Killed: 55

Shot & Wounded: 223

Total Shot: 278

Total Homicides: 61

Week in Progress (6/18 – 6/24)

Shot & Killed: 10

Shot & Wounded: 47

Total Shot: 57

Total Homicides: 14

Year to Date

Shot & Killed: 292

Shot & Wounded: 1360

Total Shot: 1652

Total Homicides: 313

Tell Him, Heidi Stevens!

Take that President 1% Size 38" and Up pants, Iowa Rally Slap Chicago Guy!

*LGGBTQQIAAPPK? The categories of human sex and gender expression and identities they could represent is likely infinite. If that acronym looks a bit absurd, it speaks to the absurdity of thinking there are a few isolated “sexual minorities” while the rest of the human race is “normal” and fairly similar. The truth is the level of diversity in our sexual lives as human beings means we are all sexual minorities. As accepted and culturally understood identity categories continue to arise, this will become more and more apparent. Perhaps the “queer” community is, in fact, becoming more accurately described as the community of people who acknowledge the diversity of human sexual and gender expression and seek to be open to exploring that diversity within themselves and the culture at large.
Lyla Cicero has a doctorate in clinical psychology, and focuses on relationships, sexual minorities, and sex therapy. Lyla is a feminist, LGBTQIAPK-affirmative, sex-positive blogger at UnderCoverintheSuburbs.com, where she writes about expanding cultural notions of identity, especially those surrounding gender, sexual orientation, motherhood, and sexuality. Follow her on Twitter @UndrCvrNSuburbs.

Shakman Exempt Career Grifter Forrest Claypool Explains The Pad in The Sun Times

 Career Grifter and Shakman exempt Forrest Claypool CPS Boss and Ron Marmer, CPS’ top attorney are amused. So would we all, were we oligarchs and not helots.

To be "On the pad" means that someone, usually in law enforcement or other position of authority, regularly takes bribes.Detective Dolan was kicked off the force because he had been on the pad to local wiseguys for years.Urban Dictionary

Shakman Exempt - Anyone Micheal Shakman deems to be

• A-OK, on-the-level, a stand-up Progressive, really great person, who will feed all news outlets precious pieces of propaganda to ensure that no helots, their fat breeder wives, or horrible kids ever get a fair shake, much less a job dragging a shovel behind a big, blue City, operated Garbage truck and just keep their damn traps shut about how good Shakman Exempts have it . .  . well, not as good as Michael Shakman, but then again, Michael was blessed by the late Abner Mikva

• Necessary to maintaining "Our Village City," for US, By Us and only US in this urban Banana Republic

Forrest Claypool, more than any other public person in Chicago, is the perfect Progressive Shakman Statesman.

Since the fabled and idiotic 1983 Federal Decree, limited to Cook County, gelded the Cook County Democratic Committee and made a Committeeman as useless as a mint flavored suppository.

Claypool boarded the Cook County Ship of State,right after law school where he branded himself as "an attorney and served in several non-elected positions in state and county government, including deputy commissioner of the Cook County Board of Appeals and as Deputy State Treasurer " and yadda, yadda, yadda from meeting Dave Axelrod to Kopping a plea in the Chicago Sun Times this morning, and has been looting it to the scuttles ever since.

Today, Forrest fogs the facts with his love of children and heroic chinless jaw thrusting in the name of the people, as well as working his Huckleberry Hound-like-Carbondale Hillrod eyes in perplexed self-pity at being caught out.

In response to your editorial (CPS can’t afford to flunk ethics, transparency class — Aug. 12), as CEO of Chicago Public Schools, I take seriously the trust the public places in us and my responsibility to protect every dollar for our classrooms. ( scan for giggles, tittering, or rolled eyes and go thundering!)
That’s why my administration pursued (BUT never brought) a potential ( Yeah, I said Potential) civil rights lawsuit against the state of Illinois. With the district’s very survival at stake, and years of academic progress at risk because of a racially discriminatory funding system, retaining the finest legal counsel was paramount.
A last-minute settlement by Gov. Bruce Rauner and legislators altered the need for such a drastic measure. However, had the lawsuit been necessary, the skills of outside counsel could have been the difference between defeat and victory. That’s why, with the concurrence of CPS Board President Frank Clark ( AKA- The COMEd Mailroom Guy), I sought out Jenner & Block, perhaps the nation’s leading litigation firm with a proven track record in civil rights cases. CPS’ general counsel himself ( Ron Marmer, CPS’ top attorney).is one of the country’s preeminent litigators,( Ron Marmer, CPS’ top attorney.).having served as the American Bar Association’s litigation chair.
The Sun-Times’ character aspersions are beneath the well-considered views of this editorial page. Our general counsel ( Ron Marmer, CPS’ top attorney).earns a tiny fraction of his private-sector pay and the attorneys at Jenner & Block took this case at steeply discounted rates, because of their belief in the cause. Few attorneys (Ron Marmer, CPS’ top attorney). or firms of this stature and expertise would do so. . . ."

And so on with the firm belief that everyone in Cook County is a dope and  Forrest Claypool is not - he's a Shakman Exempt!

The Inspector General told the Sun Times these pearl onions of interest left out of Claypool's gimlet:

• Acting in closed session on July 27, the school board voted to pay as much as $250,000 to Jenner & Block, which spent months preparing a never-filed lawsuit against the state seeking increased funding.
• The Sun-Times reported Marmer left the law firm in 2013 but has continued to receive yearly payments of $200,000, which are to end in 2018.
• Under CPS’ code of ethics, school officials can’t have any “contract management authority” over any deal with a contractor “with whom the employee has a business relationship” — defined as any transaction worth at least $2,500 in a calendar year to the school system employee.
• According to Claypool, Marmer wasn’t involved in hiring Jenner & Block, which he said “was my decision” along with Frank Clark, the board president.
• A CPS spokeswoman declined to comment Monday. ( You Know It, Mabel!)
• The lawsuit Jenner & Block was preparing didn’t get filed because legislators and Gov. Bruce Rauner agreed on a stopgap budget deal on June 30 that’s to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funding to CPS.
• Marmer and Claypool once worked together at Jenner & Block. Claypool worked there in 1982 — his first job out of law school. Marmer was at the firm from 1978 to 1993 and 1997 until 2013.
• Marmer — who had a solo law practice after leaving Jenner & Block and started his $185,000-a-year job at CPS on Nov. 2, 2015 — has made $29,000 in campaign contributions to Claypool’s bids for elected office since 2003. That includes $10,000 toward Claypool’s unsuccessful run for Cook County assessor in 2010. Marmer also gave $5,000 to Rahm Emanuel’s first campaign for mayor in 2011. (And Forrest Got the CTA! Ventra and Bomdardier!!!)
• Jenner & Block began working for CPS on March 3, though the contract with the firm that Claypool’s administration released last month was dated June 20.
• Through June 30, the firm had billed the school system for more than $182,000.
• CPS had refused to release any of the firm’s invoices for more than two months after the Sun-Times filed a public records request seeking them in May.
• The Jenner & Block lawyer who signed the deal with CPS was Randall Mehrberg, who worked for the Chicago Park District in the 1990s when Claypool was parks chief under then-Mayor Richard M. Daley. State election board records show Mehrberg contributed a total of $30,500 to Claypool’s campaigns and $10,000 to Emanuel.

Let's all join hands and sing the joys we all share in our Chicago oligarchy and let's try to remember that Forrest Clypool, really, really  "takes seriously  the trust the public places in us and my responsibility to protect every dollar for our classrooms."

Stosh and Stella in Garfield Ridge can't call Cap Mizenshky, over by the Ward, to see, if, maybe, their son Marek, in the Marines after St. Rita, can get a job on the trucks, when he gets back from KAIA by the Kabul airport this September, because no that would be just Shakman wrong.  Ask Forrest Claypool.