Sweet! "You’ll have to work for ticket to Barack Obama Bash" - Noun, or Verb?

FOWARD!  TWO PICKETS To . . .

I was confused by Lynn Sweet's headline.  Not surprising. due to the subtle nuances of political language and all . I will be required to work for ticket -in order to - Obama bash?

The Chicago Tribune endorsed the President most comfortable with a woman's choice to murder her child in the womb, because the Bruce Dold's deep-thinkers want voters to "Think of the Children!" No kidding -

Tribune endorses Obama: Our children's America!

Super, Bruce.  Not to be out done, Chicago Sun Times Obama maven Lynn Sweet invites us all willing to work to Bash Obama!

Shucks, President Obama has done a pretty effective job of setting up an Obama Bashing nearly every day these past four years - 

However, To Bash ( v.transitive) is not the same as A Bash (n.).  To Bash means to strike violently, or rhetorically  to the criticize, diminish, or make small of a person. A Bash is a fete, party, or celebration where one might 'pitch a bitch!'

The DNC bash was moved in-doors because Team Obama Party Planners were concerned with the 70 degree weather in Charlotte , NC and certainly not a concern that tens of people would show up to celebrate Obama 2012 Foward. Likewise Bash enthusiasts determined that Grank Park just might be a wee bit nippy on November 6, 2012l therefore going Foward Indoor.

The cost to Bash Obama is signing up to work in Wisconsin.

The “Illinois Victory Volunteers” GOTV canvass in Wisconsin will take place Nov. 3, 4 and 5. Once completed, tickets will be handed out on a first-come, first-served system. Each shift will last between two and three hours.
The Obama team selected McCormick Place in part because they were worried about bad weather and wanted an indoor venue.
Obama’s field operation has used events as organizing tools since the first days of the 2008 campaign. More recently, the Obama campaign pegged a massive volunteer effort in North Carolina to tickets for what was to have been the Democratic National Convention finale at the Bank of America stadium in Charlotte. The outdoor stadium event was canceled because of bad weather and Obama and Vice President Joe Biden delivered their acceptance speeches inside at the Time Warner Cable arena. . . .Major donors are expected to get VIP treatment on election night, as they did in 2008. And for those who don’t want to canvass, a donation ($150 or even less to the Obama campaign) will get you entered in a lottery to get “right up front” with Obama in Chicago on election night. The campaign ran a similar program in 2008, promising a backstage pass and front row seats for Grant Park.The Obama drive to send Illinois troops to Wisconsin to help the president may have an unintended consequence before election day: It could drain a pool of motivated volunteers from the big Chicago area House races in the closing days of the campaign — when Tammy Duckworth, Bill Foster and Brad Schneider will also need GOTV help.

GOTV ain't cable - it means Go To Victory!  Obama bash bashing on my part?  Well, I just go where I'm invited - To Hell or to Victory!  As Fats Waller was wont to say  " One never knows, do one??

I got my ticket.

Big Shoulders City? For now.

Soon, Progressives will be Chicago's Sole Demographic - a real celebration of Diversity.

I had a wonderful dinner conversation with friends on Saturday night. Conversation can be a 'remember when' litany of my past sins, crimes and misdeamenors; that is generally an element of family gatherings.

Good conversation and great conversation is participation of insights and observations that each member at the heaping board brings like the covered dishes, salads and desserts. I made Caldo Verde and it was SENSATIONAL! The final application of finely chopped mint and cilantro pumped up the spicy sauage chunks, pureed spuds, and minced kale. This breeder can work a skillet and sauce pan.Not much on desserts, though - I eat them like a man going to the chair, but generally louse up a recipe. Go figure.

The post-prandial chat was sweet and spicy!

My friend Elias Crim, Chicago Director of Res Publica America, an upcoming multi-disciplinary think tank, pushed the chat out of the local political sphere with his recent studies of Detroit and other American cities.

Detroit is no longer in the top 20 American cities and neither are St. Louis, Buffalo, Kansas City and Cleveland. Elias refered to a study conducted on the 2007 census by Scott Summer for Wall Street Pit - Global Market Insight.

Here is an interesting tidbit:

In addition to Detroit, here are some other cities ( here's the payoff!)where residents can enjoy more open space, uncrowded streets, nice museums and symphonies, and beautiful old homes at rock bottom prices:

St. Louis: 857,000 to 319,000, Cleveland: 915,000 to 397,000, Buffalo: 580,000 to 261,000

I was born in 1955, so to me those three will always be big cities. But they have fewer people than Mesa.

These cities are not in the top 20:

Baltimore, Boston, Seattle, Washington DC, Nashville, Denver, Milwaukee, Portland, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Atlanta, Miami, Cleveland, Oakland, Minneapolis

And these aren’t even in the top 50:

New Orleans, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Buffalo

Prediction: Austin will be the fastest growing big city in America over the next 50 years.

(emphasis my own)

Austin? That's in Texas.

On Sunday, I read that Chicgo Board of Options Exchange is planning to move from Chicago's Loop. , , to Texas! Austin, n'cest pas?

CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago-based CBOE Holdings Inc., parent of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, is holding talks with officials of several states about a possible move of its headquarters.

With its action, the CBOE joins the CME Group Inc., the world’s largest futures exchange operator, in considering relocating its headquarters because of an increase in Illinois’ tax rate to 7 percent from 4.8 percent.

CBOE chairman Bill Brodsky told the Chicago Tribune the exchange does not want to leave, but the state’s tax structure as it relates to the exchange “is virtually punitive.”

CME Group has held discussions with at least five states about moving its headquarters and several hundred staff members. However, its main trading floor and other functions would remain in Chicago.

Both exchange operators are talking with Illinois officials.

Texas for the Chicago Board of Options Exchange? What about that HUGE real estate property dominated by Trading Companies? Texas?

That's that goat-roping, Aggie Guv Rick Perry's state, is it not; the one that is called business friendly? For real?

Perhaps, this announcement is merely the fabled motor oil soaked 2 X 4 that will be brought down hard on the bridge of the nose of Governor Pat "Ralph Martire Said More Taxes" Quinn, in order to get that worthy's attention.

Perhaps it is all part of the plan to provide more open space, fewer children. sweeter police, an abscence of minority folk and white ethnic worker bees, Catholics and breeders from the City of Big Shoulders.

I think it is more the later than the former.

Evidence? Well, instead of the Virgin Mary Blue Recycling truck crews at Karin's Dunkin' Donuts at 104th & Western ( a bell weather of City employees) there was a thick squad of Waste Management gents ordering Coffee An' - Waster Management is part of the smart sizing of Chicago's Middle Class. The big Rook taking out thousands of jobs will be the Grid System, replacing the Ward City Services ( Snow Removal, Tree-trimming, Waste-Hauling & etc.).

The Middle Class will have fewer minority and white ethnic breeders able to afford life in the City of Big Shoulders.

Cops and Firemen will be asked, by the Mayor's Vox Progressive Editorial Boards and WTTW nodders - Chicago Needs Fewer of you anyway, or Freedom to live outside, this our City? After all EVERYONE knows Chicago cops are brutal, corrupt, racist and mostly breeders; firemen are racist, corrupt, breeders. Keep enough to make Block 37, Lakeview, Boystown and Loop safe and banish these children of Eve to some Rube hinterland.

Tempting? You bet, if you are single, without children, homosexual, affluent, health doctinal, secular and Progressive. Chicago would be just ducky without all those mustachioed, low-brow, beer swilling, Marlboro men and their baby machines.Museums, Planned Parenthood outlets, a Child-and Smoke Free Millenium Park, Dog Walks, Flashy Entertainment Venues, Green Open Space, River Walks, Bicycling highways to replace the Jane Addams and Dan Ryan, and organic food everywhere will replace churches, schools, office buildings, and whole neighborhoods.

Chicago commericial real estate possibilities are smaller than Congressman Mike Quigley,

There are seventy empty storefronts on Western Ave. between 87th & 155th Streets. The Loop itself is a mirror of Western Ave. - ask any commercial real estate expert about space available. There's plenty. Commercial now mean away.

It will be a Progressive Paradise enjoyed by . . .Progressives!

Pack your bags, or get serious.

We seriously discussed the future of the American City. Maybe, the worker bees and neighborhood breeders will consider the changes a'coming.
Shakman!
Privatize!
Smart Size!
Grid!
Git!







http://wallstreetpit.com/79226-shrinking-american-cities

Progressive Chicago Victory Complete - Read on Huffington Post Chicago

The Chicago and Cook County Democratic Party gradually and finally handed the keys to the County and City over to the Progressives. Daley in fact did just that last year about this time, when Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel dreamed of becoming a Chicagoan and the Mayor. Mayor Daley exited, having destroyed politics for policy and exhausted the affection of Chicagoans in creating a Postcard out of what had been a City of Neighborhoods.

Chicago is never cutting edge. Chicago always apes other cities, whether it is London's checker-board Cop hat bands, Big Brother Blue Light Cameras, Cabs,Buses, or clean subways. Chicago bans smoking, neighborhood saloons,or trans-fatty acid because New York City did so and allows anarchists the freedom of the streets, media and bike paths in homage to Seattle. Daley is touring the Hoods that aped other cities.

Daley has left the 19th Ward and other blue-collar neighborhoods that helped get him elected ( Beverly, Morgan Park & Mount Greenwood out of his walking tours, because those neighborhoods, while loyal, are deemed unimportant -only voters, tax-payers, breeders and Catholics there. Mayor Daley is quite correct. Neighborhoods stopped being important years ago. Community -whatever the hell that means - trumped neighborhoods.

Chicago's Purty, unless you take the 79th street bus east or west, or try to get from Hegewisch to Navy Pier via public transportation, or sell your home in Garfield Ridge.

Identity Policy trumped politics ( the old quid pro quo that got things done . . . for now. The Dreams of Leon Despres, Abner Mikva, and Dick Simpson are realized. Chicago will turn the microphone off on the last of political professionals.

Rahm Emanuel will govern Chicago according to the needs, whims, and wants of the 2012 Presidential Re-Election Campaign. In fact the Rahm years will be a replay of the Obama Administration 2008-2012. All the players are here already. It will be like the Seinfeld Reunion. Chicago City services will be the collateral damage. Chicago's Serial Appointee, Forrest Claypool, the Rula Lenska of Chicago politics, will run the buses and trains; Joe Moore will be the City Council voice; former Mayor Clerk Dave Orr will direct policy to the media; Wards will be re-mapped into silence - especially the 19th Ward where turnout is always heavy.

Politics no longer exists. Policy reigns supreme and that settles it.

If Chicagoans want to know what is going to happen - skip reading the Tribune and the Sun Times. All you need to know is to be found on the Huffington Post Chicago links.

There you will find Toni Periwinkle's dagger in the kidneys of Sheriff Tom Dart; Dick Simpson's imitation of the Daniel Burhnam; Locke Bowman's Daily Burge Reminder that Racism is 24/7.

All of the non-blinking Progressive Superstars ( folks who used be laughed out of the room) are loudly reminding Chicagoans that THEY, not you - won! Get over it!

Julie Westerhoeff who partners with Mike Klonsky and Bill Ayers with the ironic and seemingly adversarial help of the Chicago Teachers Union to make sure that Public Schools get worse has been featured prominently of late.

Also, Christine Bork of the YWCA Metro will demand more abortions for black babies because she and Planned Parenthood understand the black experience better than black people.

If you are LGBTQ you can be sure that your voice will dominate those breeders who dare utter a sound. It will be a universal WTTW Panel shout down of breeders.

If you do not worry about where the money comes from, not to break a sweat! Taxes go to breeders, racists, mean people, tea-baggers, homophobes, and working stiffs.

Chicagoans will learn what is important - not solid police presence, not fire fighting, not teacher accountability, not personal accountability. Cultural Bread and Circuses, Race Baiting, Gay Supremacy at every level - Gay Friendly is Homophobic, Food Fascism, Green Propaganda even though the boilers have not worked in years, Rain Barrels over Water Filtration, Reversing Chicago River Flow, Sanctuary City Sanctification, Abortion, Police Brutality/Systemic Racism Lawsuits,and Hate Crime Up-Ticks.

This will be the Progressive Golden Age - four years anyway.

Progressives captured the Captive City! Billy Sunday could not shut it down. The Democratic Party, Media and the patient Lefties killed the Machine.

The City of the Big Shoulders has trimmed down to Metrosexually Sized Smartness.

Have fun. See you in four!

Rahmses Uno- Pharaoh Dealer of Old Chicago!

Now that Hose Knee has taken it on the Arthur Duffy - exite stage left -from his toils in the shadow of the pyramids; let's imagine a film ( yeah, I know, Movie) about the advent of Emanuel -not found in the reeds - but in New Trier - who danced his way into the power and the glory that is Chicago. Imagine all of the genius and money available to preserve that thought in an epic film to rival Avatar and The Hangover. Well, imagine no more Lucille!

I spoke with Chicago Independent film-maker Fay Accompli who is doing a bio-pic/documentary on the all but media-assured election of Rahm Emanuel. Fay Accompli has scads, literally scads, of money.

Fitting this coupling of real Chicago pipe is earnest and Progressive Cecil B. Demille-in-Drag, Fay Accompli's treatment will be wrapped in old timey splendor and CinemaScope and Technicolor with a cast of millions and funded by a grant from the Pritzker Foundation, Arianna Huffington Industries and the Chubb Group. Chicago icon Sugar Rautbord, author of the best smelling novel The Fifth Floor which she is promoting everywhere, is on the project.

Ms. Fay Accompli gushed, " The Chicago Tribune says it all, 'No other candidate combines Emanuel's candor about the threats facing Chicago with the will to take necessary steps -- some of them unpopular -- to tame those threats,' and no one threatens threats like a Pharaoh. Look at Mubarak! Rahm will threaten threats with threatening threats. I see Rahm as Pharaoh - like Yul Brynner. I wish I get him to do the picture, but I'll use Jeremy Piven. He's so Chicago. or John What's is Name? The one whose sister does the phone ads , you know." I do not.
Ms. Accompli fleshed out a scene that I will offer to you, Dear Reader

The scene is Pharaoh's palace on the 5th Floor surrounded by eunuchs from the Chicago Media and horny dowagers who all look like Sugar Rautbord

Rahmses I -
Jeremy Piven, or that John What's His Name as Rahm Emanuel

Ald. Ed Burke -
erst-while Moses the Law Giver played by Richard Deacom

Monied Dowager Sugar Rautbord -
played by none other than author, socialite, wit, shrinking violet Sugar.

Media Eunuch Bruce Dold - Bruce Dold will be played by Chi-panda whose bamboo stuffings are only match by the papier mache substance of Chicago Tribune's Editorial Board.

Rahmses Deuce -
played by scenery chewing Rep. Mike Quigley - short of nothing, but all of that virtue stuff.

Here with just two weeks before the polls close like a maiden's knees at the approach of a bounder, Fay Accompli's Ramses I - the screenplay.

Rahmses I - The Commandments: And You Thought Ten Was a Lot!

Scene: Fifth Floor of City Hall

Rahmses[to Sugar Rautbord] You will be my wife. You will come to me whenever I call you, and I will enjoy that very much. Whether you enjoy it or not is entirely your own affair... But I think you will.

[To Bruce Dold] You will be mine, like my dog, or my horse, or my falcon, except that I shall love you more - and trust you less.

[banishing Ed Burke to the desert] Here is your king's scepter, and here is your kingdom, with the scorpion, the cobra, and the lizard for subjects. Free them if you will. Leave the Hebrews to me.

[ to Mike Quigley] My son, I shall build your tomb upon their crushed bodies.
[to Ed Burke again]Come to me no more, Ed Burke, for the day you see my face again you will surely die! So let it be written, so let it be done...authenticate here, here and here - Move! For @#$%^'s sake! Get it #$%^ing Notarized and #$%^&ing take it to Dave Orr!

The score by Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra - if he's up to it.
My Preview Review: It'll be the Cat's Nuts!

Boss Quigley Endorses Rahm Emanuel for Mayor! Congressman Steps Up, Because He Has To . . .

The big name yesterday was Congressman Mike Quigley. Tribune Editorial genius Bruce Dold handled the debate between Mayoral Candidates with all of the gravitas of a one armed man at a greased pig wrestle off. The seven Illinois Supreme Court Justices ruled unanimously that Rahm Emanuel can and will run for Mayor of Chicago. Yet, it was the career coat holder, Mike Quigley, the Uriah Heep of Illinois and now national politics who took the signet ring and hot wax into his stubby fingers and endorsed Rahm Emanuel - the man who made The Terror of Tiny Town a U, S. Congressman.

U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, who replaced Rahm Emanuel in Congress, will endorse Emanuel for mayor Thursday.
In a telephone interview, Quigley said he is backing Emanuel because he believes he is the only candidate who would exhibit “enough grit to stand up to interests” and solve the city’s budget problems.

“You have to be tough enough to say no and make the budget fit reality,” Quigley told the Chicago News Cooperative. ” . . .“We walked through what I meant by reinventing government,” Quigley said. “When I told people that, everybody said to me, ‘Baloney, you guys talked about politics.’ Honest to God, we talked about tax-increment financing. Rahm doesn’t need any help with politics.”

Quigley disputed the notion that Emanuel’s close ties to Daley and other Chicago politicians make it unlikely that he would truly reform City Hall.

“Everybody is an insider,” he said. “I don’t even know what the hell that means. All of the big issues — public safety, education, everything — all fail if you don’t deal with the budget issue. He understands those things.”

Yep, tough enough to " make the budget fit reality." Mike knows from years of tailoring off-the-rack duds and adjusting chairs and drawers to 'fit reality.' Nothing is beyond his grasp.

More so, Wee Mike readily admits that the canard of "insider/reformer" is one tough package of Oreos to open, “Everybody is an insider,” he said. “I don’t even know what the hell that means."


Talk about a Huey Long-esque Slogan "Everybody is an Insider!" Come on in!

It takes a tall perch to look up to Mike Quigley.

Oh, yeah! Rahm will sail into the Fifth Floor Suite!

Chicago Media Bullies Illinois Supreme Court - Ignore the Law Give Us Rahm!

Hey Kids! Calling all the Soul Patched, and Knit-hat deep thinkers! Eric Zorn says, Let Rahm run and then change the Law! Sounds fair . . .fairly stupid. Like a little kid saying 'don't punish me for burning down the garage, sell the car.' Adorable. Get this,

I'm not a lawyer, but my answer would be a definite "yes." Democracy can be messy, sure. But it's weakened and insulted by any restriction that says voters, collectively, aren't wise enough to decide on Election Day who is and who isn't qualified for office.

Let Rahm run. Then repeal Arnold's Law.

I'm no iconic columnist, but my answer would never be a definite anything. That is why I am not an iconic columnist and tend to have the general good opinion of my neighbors. Like most of us we work very hard at doing our jobs and not being a horrifically festering pain-in-the ass.

With the exception of John Kass, Chicago Ink Icons are railing against the possible exit of Rahm Emanuel from the February ballot ( Rahm stays on the ballot for Monday's early voting).

The Tribune wants Rahm on.

Burt Odelson argued solidly and the Appellate Court ruled 2-1 against Rahm and the Tribune, ABC 7 & etc. started kicking dirt on the two judges.

Now, the bully ragging Media is on the seven Illinois Supreme Court Justices. I know one - Chief Justice Thomas Kilbride - and no amount of nonsense will sway his rock-solid integrity. The guy is the template for Justice. As to the others, let's see.*

Having just tossed the front-runner off the ballot in the biggest city election in decades, they then refused to certify the case as worthy of expedited Supreme Court review. Fortunately, the high court recognized the emergency. The appeal is now fast-tracked.

This decision will have ramifications far beyond Emanuel. It will be a precedent-setting ruling about ballot access for candidates who follow the rules. Will the Supreme Court thread a needle to keep a candidate off the ballot and please his political opponents? Or will it give Chicago voters their choice of qualified candidates?

The justices must be guided by the law, by the record and by their obligation to preserve the integrity of the electoral system — not for Emanuel but for every candidate, every voter and every election.

The Tribune has been cork-screwing into the loam under an editorial leadership that makes Perez Hilton seem like Clayton Kirkpatrick.

Let's remember this is a Democratic Republic and not a Mediarchy - Rule by the Ink Slinger. Laws and really Stupid Laws get enacted because of the Press - the nanny-state was spawned by the press. PR and the Media gave us Roe v. Wade and 500 million children born ( Kermit Gosnell in Philly) and unborn were slaughtered in the Cosmetic Holocaust. Arnold's Law in Illinois, to quote from Eric Zorn, came about when public fever was sparked in the press and politicians got calls.

Back off, icons and ink-slingers. Rahm stays on the ballot, or regroups for his next venture based on our Justices and their reading of the LAW.

*

Chief Justice Thomas Kilbride, D-Rock Island, 57, elected 2000. He spent 20 years in private practice in the Quad Cities handling environmental, labor and employment law before ascending to the state’s high court. He narrowly survived an effort by business groups and Republicans to knock him off the court in last year’s retention election.


Justice Charles Freeman, D-Chicago, 76, elected 1990. Freeman is the court’s first African-American justice. He worked as a prosecutor and an assistant attorney general before becoming a judge 34 years ago. He administered the oath of office to Mayor Harold Washington. Last month, on Freeman’s recommendation, the Supreme Court appointed the wife of Emanuel’s main attorney, Mike Kasper, to a vacancy on the Cook County Circuit Court. Freeman is a native of Richmond, Va.


Justice Bob Thomas, R-Wheaton, 58, elected 2000. Thomas was a kicker for the Chicago Bears. Mike Ditka and other Bears backed him when he ran for his seat on the high court. He earlier served as an appellate judge in DuPage County. Thomas is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and a native of Rochester, N.Y.


Justice Rita Garman, R-Danville, 57, was a downstate prosecutor, legal aid lawyer and an attorney in private practice before becoming a judge 34 years ago. An Aurora native, she got her law degree from the University of Iowa.


Justice Lloyd Karmeier, R-Nashville, Ill., 71, elected 2004. Karmeier served as state’s attorney of downstate Washington County and also spent years in private practice before being elected a judge in 1986. His 2004 Supreme Court victory over Gordon Maag broke all records for campaign spending: business groups supported Karmeier, while trial lawyers lined up behind Maag. Karmeier got his law degree from the University of Illinois.


Justice Anne Burke, D-Chicago, 66, elected 2008. Burke, wife of Ald. Edward Burke (14th), who supports Emanuel rival Gery Chico, served on the Illinois Court of Claims and was appointed special counsel to the governor on child welfare services before being elected to the appellate court. She is a graduate of Chicago-Kent College of Law. Before going into law, Burke helped found the Special Olympics. She also served as acting chair of a national lay commission set up by the Catholic church to investigate allegations of priest misconduct.


Mary Jane Theis, D-Chicago, 60, appointed last year. Theis is a former assistant public defender elected to the bench in 1988 and elevated to the appellate court in 1994. When Judge Thomas Fitzgerald announced his retirement last year, he suggested to his fellow justices they appoint Theis to replace him. Theis is a graduate of Northwestern University’s School of Law and the daughter of former Judge Kenneth Wendt.

Abdon M. Pallasch

Au Contraire, Monsieur Jean Kass - Carol Moseley Braun Benefits Best.

"The candidate who might benefit most is Gery Chico. If Rahm is kept off the ballot, Chico will likely become the establishment choice. The Daley boys will send somebody over to bring a coffeecake and make nice. And Chico will get his fundraising calls returned promptly.

"Our campaign was strong already," Chico told me. "And we're going to remain on the same plan that we were on yesterday, and it doesn't matter whether Rahm is on the ballot or not. Nobody in this race is more qualified than me to run the third-largest city in the country." John Kass -Chicago Tribune

Rahm won't give up easily. He wants to be mayor. And he can't run for president someday without winning this election first. So he'll have to cast himself as a casualty of the Chicago Way." John Kass - Chicago Tribune

As usual, John Kass hits one into the prognosticator's cheap seats and grips the pulse with the theme of political pay-back ( Karma is a Stitch -'Tis so!) on Rahm Emanuel, but I must part paths over who benefits most given the almost sure departure of Rahm's name from the February ballots.

Taking absolutely nothing away from the solid campaign and compelling narrative of Gery Chico - The Pride of Brighton Park and Kelly High Alumnus, I beg to differ.

Senator Carol Mosley Braun stands to gain the most from the Rahm-less ballots. I imagine, that Senator Braun's cell-phone voice mail is overloaded and possibly, just possibly, one voice mail may have come from 1600 Pennsylvannia Ave. -Wes Wing.

Burt Odelson's talents and tenacity as an electio lawyer were eclipsed by the endless parade of clipboard waving activists and tin-foil Hutträgers. Never underestimate Burt Odelson. As the result of Burt's talents and tenacity, two of the three Appeals Court judges ruled that Rahm Emanuel's residency plea failed the law and his name should not appear on the ballots for the February Primary. The result?
Hold the phone, Jasper!

Gery Chico and Carol Mosely Braun will slug it out, but Senator Braun, it seems to this laddie-buck, has the advantage.

1. Senator Braun is the designated Black Candidate . . .well, yeah

2. With the 11 Million Dollar Man all but gone, Capital will flow to Carol like honey-dew vine water: N.B. on Jan. 21, Chicago News Cooperative reported on Carol Mosely Brauns 'meagre' coffers -

Through Dec. 31, the biggest donors to Braun included Ariel Investments founder John Rogers ($100,000); Sportsman’s Inn owner Herbert Hedgeman ($35,000); Elzie Higginbottom, the CEO of East Lake Management and Development ($29,000); and Midway Airport concessionaire Timothy Rand ($25,000). . . .Her only major financial supporter among politicians was U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, whose campaign fund gave $25,000 to the Carol for Chicago committee.

Braun reported receiving total donations of little more than $450,000, far less than rivals Rahm Emanuel and Gery Chico, through the end of 2010. During its first three months, the former U.S. senator’s mayoral committee spent more than $280,000, finishing the year with only about $164,000 in cash on hand.

. . .

3. The Chicago Media will not accept any candidate even remotely associated to the Ancien Regime ( any person or organization that is a part of any lecture by Dick Simpson concerning Good Government.

Money, Marbles, or Chalk? CMB's Mayoral Campaign Capital quadrupled last night.

Carol Moseley Braun is going get favorable press from the media that once all but crowned Rahm Emanuel - I realize that the Illinois Supreme Court is the next hurdle to be sure, but I can almost feel energy sparked by the panic in the editorial board rooms - "We Love Carol . . .always did. Chico? Too Burke for me. Vallas? Carol Moseley Braun yeah that's the ticket."

Gery Chico and Carol Moseley Braun should each send a twenty pound Whitman Sampler to Burt Odelson.

A Hard Rahm's Not Gonna Fall

The estimable Arthur 'Moseley' Brown MSNBC political commentator's version of the Dylan classic

Oh, what did you see, my blue eyed son ?
And what did you see, my darling young one ?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin'
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin'
I saw a white ladder all covered with water
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

B. Dylan

Well, Rahm Emanuel proves that a tough guy is the guy who can take it and he is one tough guy.

The race to replace Mayor Daley entered a new phase on Friday. You might call it, “Gang up on Rahm.”

During a joint appearance before the Chicago Tribune editorial board that was more like the first mayoral debate, Carol Moseley Braun, Gery Chico and Miguel del Valle were like a tag-team attacking Rahm Emanuel.

They hit the former White House chief of staff on everything from his abrasive personality and his proposal to reduce city pension benefits for existing employees to his support for curtailing teachers’ right to strike to his role as a roadblock to immigration reform.

They hammered him on his stint as a member of home mortgage giant Freddie Mac, which critics blame in part for the foreclosure crisis. Braun even accused Emanuel of throwing women “under the bus” by excluding abortion coverage from President Obama’s health care reform act.

Given the opportunity to question her opponents directly, Braun jumped on Emanuel for some of the take-no-prisoners antics that earned him the nickname, “Rahmbo.”

“It’s been reported — in fact I’ve had a conversation at one point — with the congressman to whom you sent a dead fish. And you’re reported in the New York Post as telling your workers to, `Take the Tampons out and get to work,’ “ Braun said.

Senator/Ambassador/Pitch-Gal Carol, I am toxically shocked! Such language! Such a Trope! Dead fish and tampons?

The race for mayor is a dilly. Out here in the hustings, the helots watch and wait to vote.

Rahm Emanuel, it seems to me, will outlast everyone but Carol Moseley Braun coming up to the primary.

Will Joe Morris Be the Election Judge in the Rahn Residency Contretemps?

Out in the hustings and on the pavement for Leo High School, I run into clerics and clerks, gents and jerks, and guys-in-the-know, as well as makers of snow. I celebrate the diversity that is Chicago - 24/7.

This I know . . . a gentleman of unimpeachable honesty and absolutely no dog in Chicago's political brawls offered this " it seems that Joe Morris will be involved in the hearing on the challenge to Rahm Emanuel's legal residency status. Isn't that something." Could be.

Joseph A. Morris is a Partner in the law firm of Morris & De La Rosa, with offices in Chicago and London. He maintains an active practice conducting trials and appeals in the areas of constitutional, business, labor and international law. He is a member of the Bars of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Supreme Court of Illinois and several other courts. Mr. Morris served under President Reagan as Assistant Attorney General of the United States and Director of the Department of Justice Office of Liaison Services, in which capacity he was the Attorney General's top assistant in charge of International affairs and of liaison with state and local prosecutors and law enforcement agencies. He has served as an American delegate to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva and both a government and a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
A leader in B'nai B'rith and other Jewish and interfaith organizations, he served from 1995 through 2001 as the President of B'nai B'rith in the Midwest. He was founder and first Chairman of the B'nai B'rith International Center for Public Policy.

He serves pro bono publico as the President and General Counsel of The Lincoln Legal Foundation and is active in a number of other bar, civic and charitable organizations.

A frequent lecturer and debater, he has appeared on such national and local television and radio programs as ABC's "Good Morning, America", NBC's "Nightly News", WTTW "Chicago Tonight" abd "Extension 720 with Milt Rosenberg". He was former co-host of "Equal Time" on WBEZ Radio, the Chicago affiliate of National Public Radio.

Mr. Morris is an alumnus of the College and the Law School of The University of Chicago. He is married to Kathleen Morris and resides in Chicago.

A Note From R. Emmett Tyrrell to Chicago Voters

Public Nuisances
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.

With Rahm in the Windy City

Washington—On Sunday Rahm Emanuel declared his candidacy for mayor of Chicago. Instantaneously, he had problems with his campaign, not the least of which is that he is as much a resident of Chicago as I am. So on Monday I declared my candidacy for mayor of Chicago. Why not? I did it on the national television show of the estimable Sean Hannity, who immediately threw his support behind me. I was born in Chicago, come from a long line of Chicagoans, and like Rahm I am occasionally in town. The place is a gastronomic paradise, a cultural delight with great museums and a fine orchestra, plus opera—surprisingly Rahm and I have never crossed paths while in town. Supposedly, he attends rock concerts. He could attend the Chicago Symphony but he opts for Bruce Springsteen.
My candidacy already had the national endorsement of the New York Sun, which tapped me the day before I declared. I have a new book out, After the Hangover: The Conservatives’ Road to Recovery, to provide Chicagoans, and Americans generally, with a blueprint for getting out of our present political and economic fix. The blogs are alive with support (and occasional rudeness), and more newspaper support is rumored on the way. All Rahm has is a few big names and our mutually held residency problem. Rahm is still seeking newspaper support, and his “listening tour,” begun Monday, has gotten off to a rocky start. A lot of Chicagoans do not like him. He has a reputation for yelling at underlings and for profanity.
As for me, I am free of any hint of Chicago corruption, certainly no hint of a connection to ex-Governor Rod Blagojevich. Frankly, I could not pick him out of a police lineup—at least a police lineup of gaudily dressed gigolos. Rahm is recorded on the telephone with Blagojevich suggesting deals shortly after President Barack Obama’s election. All of this and any other questionable dealings will be rehashed over and again during the run-up to the February election. When it comes to political connections with the Chicago machine or for that matter almost any connection at all—my family lives in the suburbs—I am clean as a hound’s tooth.
More to the point, though Rahm owns a house in Chicago, he does not live in it and cannot live in it. He leased it out nearly two years ago to one Rob Halpin, and it appears that Rob is a patriot. He is not going to let some capricious politician run him out of his home just because the politician decided to leave the sinking ship of President Obama and enter the mayor’s race. He has responsibilities. Moreover, he renewed his lease just days before Mayor Richard M. Daley announced his retirement on September 7. That apparently inspired Rahm to run, and it does raise the question: why did Rahm not leave himself free to move back to Chicago when he took his ill-considered job as President Obama’s chief of staff? President Obama has maintained his home there and is freer to run for mayor than Rahm. Why, as recently as the first week in September, did Rahm not see this mayoral race as at least a possibility, or maybe some other Chicago electoral endeavor? As I say, he suddenly decided to jump ship.
It all smacks of opportunism, and Rahm’s usual proclivity for bullying people. He tried it on me, when as a prelude to siccing a grand jury on The American Spectator, his Clinton White House sent me not a dead fish but a copy of Bill Clinton’s book Between Hope and History, suitably inscribed but with no explanation. It was sent on February 26, 1998, and marked the beginning of a year-long investigation of the Spectator on felony charges meant to tarnish Ken Starr’s witness in the Whitewater matter. The proceedings were dismissed as a witch hunt, but it did last a year, and it was unpleasant. In fact it reeks of bully politics.
Now Rahm envisages his unpleasant bully politics for Chicago, but he is dealing with serious pols, Sheriff Tom Dart and state Senator James Meeks. Charges of “carpetbagger” are in the air and that word again, “bullying.” Still these guys can deal with bullies, especially Dart who is sheriff of all of Cook County. Moreover, experts on the electoral law have weighed in, and they see tremendous hurdles for Rahm to leap—and me too. I shall throw myself on the mercies of the court. Will Rahm trust the courts?
One of Chicago’s top lawyers, Burt Odelson, told the Chicago Sun-Times that “The guy does not meet the statutory requirements to run for mayor.” Odelson elaborated, “He hasn’t been back there for 18 months. Residency cases are usually hard cases to prove because the candidate gets an apartment or says he’s living in his mother’s basement. Here the facts are easy to prove. He doesn’t dispute he’s been in Washington for the past 18 months. This is not a hard case.”
Well, Rahm, how about joining my legal case and throwing yourself on the mercy of the court? You got one thing right in all of this. Now is a good time to leave the White House. It might be a good time for Barack, too. Can one run for mayor while being president of the United States? Check it out, Barack. We can all run.




R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator and an adjunct scholar at the Hudson Institute. His new book is After the Hangover: The Conservatives’ Road to Recovery.

Rahm to Announce Via Website- "The Guy Thinks He's Me!"

Preston Sturges would have a field day the Rahm Emanuel plan to announce his run for Mayor by way of satalite TV and web-cast.

The Guy kills ME He thinks he's Me!