Beltway Shocker: Could Rahm Really Lose? Yes, Yes He Can. This is Sunday After Mass Turkeybowl Tackle Football; not It's Academic Quiz Bowl

K-Streets Kreature and Fave Mayor -Rahm "Gimme 9.5" Emanuel is proving that Polls, Pundits and Progressive Platitudes have had their day.

Alex Isenstadt, no really that's the kid's name who wrote the piece on Rahm, Alex Isenstadt says

A runoff that was expected to be a slam dunk for Rahm Emanuel is turning out to be uncomfortably — even dangerously — close, leading the Chicago mayor to ready a scorched-earth offensive to save his job.
Recent polling shows the race between Emanuel and his unknown and underfunded rival, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, has closed to within single digits. With local and national progressive groups lining up behind Garcia and promising to pour cash into the effort to deny Emanuel a second term, the mayor is suddenly scratching and clawing for his political existence.

Polling, Punditry and Progressive lollipops just in case Rahm does in fact lose can be unwrapped to sweet defeat like it was an in-the-tank victory all along.

Rahm is a Progressive's Progressive -a mean spirited, policy-over-people, power -grabbing plutocrat.

The fact that DeBlasi-oaffish cadres of former hippies and Fish fans opened offices in Chicago under the name of Chicago Forward has nothing to do with the crest of approval jetting Jesus 'Chuy" Garcia comfortably over Rahm's Corral Reef.  Chuy is ahead because Chicagoans are more concerned about their neighborhoods than fois gras on menus, bike paths, Divvy Bikes, Speed Camera Pick Pockets and Rahm's next national move,.  The only people making a Progressive case for Chuy are national web and print outlets and the three score TieDyed wearing Sixty Somethings trying to get medical majijuana licensing for their whole-grain outlet stores in Wicker Park.

Alex Isenstadt, . . . .wait a minute . . . .there . . . .sorry . . . Alex   Alex this is not Academic Quiz Bowl, this Chicago elecetion on April 7, 2015, It is No-$hit No Pads Tackle Football.  . . .more that later, sorry to interrrupt,   Alex Isenstadt went directly to the very sources that helped propel Rahm's Chicagoland in the first place to see just how Rahm might lose.

Emanuel’s progressive foes, sensing an opportunity, are rushing into the contest. A pair of liberal groups, Democracy for America and MoveOn.org, are partnering on field efforts, and a third, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, is raising money for the cash-starved Garcia. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, which has repeatedly clashed with Emanuel, said her group would also help out the challenger.

“He needs funding to make the case, and he needs boots on the ground to make the case,” she said.

Randi Weingarten?  Don't she live over-by the Jewels near Midway?

Alex, you are barking up the wrong tree in forest full of wrong trees, son! Rahm is what being Progressive is all about and only managed to get hiumself eleceted to office with help from Real political pros.  Progressives couldn't find a Chinaman on 22nd Street on a sunny day and if they did they'd ridicule his religion.  Progressives only win elections when Regular Ward Organizations do all the work.  That's the fact, Jack?

Alex, can you name Chuy Garcia's Campaign Manager?  Didn't think so. You think that this is some PBS Bill Moyers scripted conflict of mythical Progressives against Bosses.

Chicagoans are nice people - not stupid people. Progressives always forget that.  Ask the rank and file and the outgoing President of Amalgamated Transit Workers Local 308.

Chuy will be Mayor because Chicagoans are sick to death Rahm, Barack Obama, PBS, Editorial Boards, Dave Axelrod and having their wallets lifted at every turn the CTA makes.

This is a UW, son. Not Progressive v. Machine.

This Unconventional Guerrilla Warfare - Voters taking back their dignity and denying their past sins of commission ( voters for idiots like Durbin, Schakowsky, Quigley and Quinn in Illinois) and omission (saying 'What Difference Does it Make?")

This is not Birkenstock Warfare/Ben & Jerry Combat/MSNBC ALL In Tickle Fests - this Sunday After Mass No Pads Full Contact Catholic League Tackle Football Without Insurance.

Chuy!!!! . . . because Rahm Progressivisim is insipid.

Alex Isenstadt come on over sit on the porch with Joe, Doreen, Killer, Ignacio and Jan and me. Knock back a couple of domestics, fire up a Marlboro and we'll explain things to you and then order pizza from Vito and Nicks.

Thundering Dick Simpson's Latest Circular Non Sequitur

“An historic institution, which never went right, is really quite as much of a miracle as an institution that cannot go wrong.” 
― G.K. Chesterton

“The gang problem has always been serious in Chicago, in part, because the problem of police corruption has always been so serious,” John Hagedorn -lead research and corresponding author UIC: Crime, Corruption and Cover-ups in the Chicago Police Department

Thus, it follows!

The kid shot to death at the Simeon Game is a direct result of Police Omera!  Let Lawsuits Begin!


Dick Simpson is as vital to the world of science as he was to world of . . . City government?  Dick's latest thunder was clapped when two huge settlements were being 'discussed' by the Chicago City Council prior to universal approval. 

Political science is an oxymoron like Good Government, Clean Campaign, Honest Politician, Political Ethics, Honest Journalism, Distinguished Professor, Zero Deficit, Illinois Government.  Dick Simpson is a political scientist - Politics (from Greek politikos "of, for, or relating to citizens") is the art or science of influencing people's beliefs on a civic, or individual level, when there are more than 2 people involved./ Science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.

Got that?

One of the great American political historians was Carl Russel Fish of University of Wisconsin. who, in 1905 wrote an exacting study of political corruption developed from Washington through the advent late 19th Century Progressive Reform.

Unlike Thundering Dick et al's UIC Corruption for Dummies Series , Dr. Fish was a very serious scholar of the dueling systems -spoils v. merit - and the outcomes of each application.  Both worked and did not work.

Thundering Dick is a practiced Dewey/Hegelian short-cut artist: Begin with a conclusion (Cops Torture, Steal, Kill and Bully) and arrive there, with an opportunity to wrest power from the people who actually know something and turn things over to Dick's pals -The Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Poitical Repression*

Thundering Dick is the paper boy for the NAARPR whose stated goal matches exactly Thundering Dick's Police Corruption Conclusion -Identical Twins: Hypothesis/Conclusion!

Establish Civilian Control of Police

From its inception the NAARPR campaigned against police crimes, primarily against the poor and people of color. Model Legislation to establish a Civilian Police Control Board that holds police officers accountable for their actions has been drafted and circulated. At the same time we are cooperating with other groups that have drafted ordinances to achieve the same goal of police accountability to the citizens of the city of Chicago.

Thundering Dick tossed the petition onto the study and onto the frontporches of folks who still sunscribe to the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times!

Oh,  Thundering Dick, You LooLoo!

* Dick's focus group and source for candidates to any Chicago Police Board

National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression

Contents  [hide] 1 Communist Party "intermediate form" 2 Sponsors of the Founding Conference of the NAARPR, May 11-13, 1973 3 NAARPR & Jewish Cultural Center 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Daily World 4 6th National Conference May 29-31, 1981, Birmingham, Alabama 5 Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression "Salute to Outstanding Women of Struggle" Oct. 24, 1981 6 The Eddie Carthan Support Project in Los Angeles, November 6, 1982 7 Executive Committee 8 Angela Davis 40th Birthday and NAARPR Celebration, January 29, 1984, City College, New York City 9 Committees of Correspondence Connection 10 2008 awards 11 2009 awards 12 2010 awards 13 Personnel 14 External links 15 References

National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR) was founded in 1973 in Chicago, Illinois. Its (sic) grew out of the struggle to free Angela Davis from a "racist frame-up" on murder charges surrounding the aborted attempt by Jonathan Jackson to free his brother, George Jackson and the Soledad Brothers, from jail, in 1970.^[1]

It was led by Communist Party USA members and supporters including Davis herself, Charlene Mitchell, Anne Braden and Frank Chapman.

CTU, CORE, ISO and its Agent for Acronym Happy Socialist Change Jesse Sharkey

The historical crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of the revolutionary leadership." 

-Leon Trotsky, or Jesse Sharkey?

Karen Lewis was elected on the CORE  ( Caucus of Rank/File Educators) slate of the Chicago Teachers Union.  CORE is the Caucus backed by the ISO -International Socialist Organization. Karen Lewis is CTU President and Jesse Sharkey is the Vice President

ISO is International - says so right in the title. Jesse Sharkey is an ISO big shot, as well as second in command of CTU. Jesse Sharkey is a Marxist/Trotskyite, which is nice for him; I am a Catholic Democrat, which is nice for me.  Free country. . .for now.

Anyway, Jesse Sharkey is another below the radar power-player in Chicago.  He is the power behind Karen Lewis and some power that be.

Let's look back in our Chicago CPS history. Bear in mind that Education Reform will not happen until Vouchers - Real Choice - is mandated. Let's return to those thrilling days of yester-year - The Dawn of CORE.

Marilyn Stewart, " whose smile would light up a room" as the our media icons always told Chicago readers, was once head of CTU and headed the United Progressive Caucus (UPC)  Ms. Stewart was a standard issue Progressive mediocrity and grifter who had tossed every pack of race cards available ( WBEZ, WTTW, Carol Marin, Mary Mitchell & etc) at Deb Lynch, the last effective CTU President, in order to grab power. Ms. Stewart looted the CTU six ways to Sunday once in power only be ousted by Karen Lewis with the full public relations might of ISO's plant in the CTU Jesse Sharkey.

Jesse Sharkey is a Brooks Brothers Bolshevik and a leader of the ISO - and international oragnization of retro-Communist Trotskeyites.  Jesse Sharkey is not unlike lawsuit lotto lawyers, G. Flint Taylor, Locke Bowman and Jon Loevy - all have the imprimatur of the Illinois Progressive guru Abner Mikva and the lesser lights like Dick Simpson. They are Google scrubbed and patient revolutionaries.

Last April, when America turned its eyes on Wisconsin and even Illinois pulled its noggin out of its rump for a peek, SB7 came to be.

Lewis’s betrayal of the union ranks caused some embarrassment for the International Socialist Organization, since CTU vice president Joel (sic) Sharkey, elected on the CORE slate, is a long-time prominent ISOer. For several days, the ISO  kept mum about this dirty deal behind the backs of the membership. But on April 21, the ISO’s main writer on labor and the Democrats, Lee Sustar, posted an article on the Socialist Worker web site, “A crisis for teachers union reformers?” saying that Lewis had “shocked” CORE members by her stab in the back. Sustar said that Lewis “acted alone,” and complained that she “withheld that information from the CTU House of Delegates,” which she addressed by Skype on April 13. He claimed “other CTU elected officers and members” only learned of the deal after the meeting. What Sustar didn’t tell readers is that the ISO is up to its neck in the CTU bureaucracy, whose paid staff includes a number of ISOers, and that the ISO’s CTU vice president Sharkey learned of Lewis’s sellout on the night of April 12, as he admitted to a CORE meeting two weeks later (according to a May 21 leaflet by the League for the Revolutionary Party). So Sustar’s April 21 article was a cover-up for the ISO’s own betrayal.
On the day that article appeared, Marjorie Stamberg of Class Struggle Education Workers posted a commentary, “Big ‘Surprise’ – Chicago Teachers Union Reform Leader Sells Out,” on several New York education activist blogs. A week later (April 27), an ISO supporter responded by posting a defense of CORE and arguing, “No one should have to apologize for supporting these genuine reform movements – warts, growing pains and all.” “We should see union leadership as merely a tool, not an end-all be-all” he intoned, denying that the Sustar article was “somehow hiding” the ISO’s role in CORE. But there was no mention that Lewis’s No. 2 in the CTU leadership, Sharkey, is a prominent ISOer, or of Sharkey’s April 25 admission before many witnesses that he knew of Lewis’ betrayal almost immediately and said nothing of it to union delegates at a meeting the next day. The writer piously hoped that the CTU ranks would reject Lewis’s “unilateral agreement,” and on May 4 the CTU House of Delegates did reject SB7. Yet this was just covering CORE’s ass, since the CTU tops did nothing to mobilize against the bill which was ultimately signed into law by Democratic governor Pat Quinn, whom the CTU had endorsed (along with other Democrats) in the November 2010 elections. Maybe that political support for capitalist politicians is one of the “warts” the reformists want us to overlook.

You see Karen Lewis endorsed Illinois SB7 which required a 75% strike vote by the rank and file and has worn a big target on her back ever since.  Karen Lewis must prove that she is 'all that' and go strike happy, even though she is committing the political Dutch Act.

Here's why -

Class-struggle unionists are not opposed to using every legal means to thwart the attacks on the public schools, the students, the teachers and staff. But we underline that the courts are not neutral, they are part of the bourgeois state just as the police and legislature are, and they exist in order to enforce the interests of the exploiters against the exploited. We hold that to defend the workers’ interests it’s necessary to mobilize the ranks of labor at the head of all the oppressed independently of and against the courts, the cops and all the capitalist parties and politicians. Reformist leftists, in contrast, pretend that if enough pressure is brought to bear in the streets, or otherwise, the courts can be induced to come down on the side of “the people.” So what happened in this case? For starters, the CTU suit said nothing about the over 500 “provisional” teachers who were dumped, and did not challenge the CPS’s “right” to lay off the 749 tenured teachers, only the way it was done. In October, a sympathetic judge ruled against the CPS and ordered that these teachers be put on a recall list and given priority when hiring resumes. Lewis hailed the “stunning court victory” – yet almost 1,300 teachers were still out of a job. ISO -International Group

Karen Lewis is finished no matter what happens, or however long this strike will last.  Jesse Sharkey will see to that.

Jesse Sharkey, it seems to me, is the architect of the current CPS Strike.  While media follows Karen Lewis like goslings, Jesse Sharkey appears strategically.  He's the Veep.  Personally, I do not believe that Karen Lewis can make change, much less effect educational reform at any level.

CPS and CTU are gobs of stinky  cheese cut from the same John Dewey wheel and things are playing out according to plan - Jesse Sharkey's plan:

  

http://sync.democraticunderground.com/101756875
http://www.dailykos.com/news/Marilyn%20Stewart
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-oped-0910-byrne-20120911,0,6394835.column
 http://www.internationalist.org/index.html
http://www.wbez.org/episode-segments/ctu-candidate-deborah-lynch

On Monday The Children Will Be in School -Catholic Schools

No less a political genius* and storied-back benching alderman than Thundering Dick Simpson of U of I at Cement City offers this concerning the looming CPS/CTU Strike -


" (Karen) Lewis can claim victory if a short strike ends with a contract favorable to teachers, according to Dick Simpson, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. (Karen) Lewis could argue the teachers union flexed its muscles and the Emanuel administration caved.

"The problem isn't so much if the teachers strike," Simpson said. "The question is how long they strike and on what terms it's settled." ( Emphases and Parentheticals, my own) -Thundering Dick Simpson - author of They's CarUption In the Soberbs!

My God!  Why is this man not more of an influence universal? The insight!  The grasp of the obvious!  The cool Dewey-esque arrival at the conclusion inquired of! 

On what meat does this our Dick feed?

Any way.

Leo High School, Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Cajetan, St. Barnabas, Mother McAuley, St. Ben's, Gordon Tech, Marist, Brother Rice, St. Rene Groupil, St. Benedict the African . . .etc. and etc. will all be open for school on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Yadda, Yadda, Yadda until Columbus Day and then . . .till when summer comes.

Simeon and Morgan Park?  Could be, but then again maybe not.

You can count on Catholic Schools, Lutheran Schools, Dutch Christian Schools and the nopn-sectarian private schools, because the teachers and staff want to be there to practice their professions. If a teacher is unsatisfied with his or her contract, that teacher can say Adios!  More importantly, if a teacher is really unsatisfactory and should be selling Groupon futures and Green Energy ventures over the phone, the school can say, "Here's your hat; leave the keys; leave the stapler and the globe and best of luck in all of your future endeavors!"

School Monday!  Long strike, short strike, outcomes political and actual notwithstanding, Catholic Schools ( and our Protestant and non-Christian compeers) will educate your child, because God is our platform.

For those who think not, keep asking Thundering Dick Simpson what he really thinks. 

Stuff like what is the edge of bowling ball like?

* N.B. - If one were to seek a political insight from a practiced professional and genuine scholar in this Proco Joe Burg, one must consult Dr. Paul Green of Roosevelt University. To paraphrase the eminent restaurateur and lay-historian Jackie Schaller of Schaller's Pump - " Thundering Dick Simposn couldn't carry Paul Green's jockstrap. . .too heavy."

http://www.enotes.com/julius-caesar-text/act-i-scene-ii

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-teacher-strike-politics-20120909,0,6197296,full.story

Dude, The Obscure

I have been posting on the Internet, information highway, blogs, Al Gore's invention # 107, web magazines and newspapers, since the dawn of this our millennium.  I got me a computer. To date, I have published 2,065 blog posts here on With Both Hands.  These posts cover everything that I find interesting, disturbing, poignant, hum-bugging and amusing.  I am never bored. 

This follows a practice of morning daily prose-ing with pen and ink, pencil, lipstick and crayon on paper (typing, legal and notebook) going back to my college days. It's fun and at times it pays cash money.

Yesterday a pal in California who possess one of the finest Blog sites going - The Scratching Post - commented on one my Dick Simposn posts . KTCat posts insights and observations with a wicked wit, underscored by a feline soul. Take a gander at this cat's blog which I link below.

This week, two of my posts opened their claws on Thundering Dick Simpson ( former Chicago Alderman, Political Science Prof at UIC, and Progressive Tax-dollar jackal) over his recently media ballyhoo-ed Cliff's Notes of Corruption - Green Grass and Greed: Corruption in the Suburbs.  This latest work is intended to 

1. Fire up the usual dependable media gas-bags to howl about Corruption universal and squeal like a hog on gelding day about suburban political ne-er-do-wells
2. Get Pat Quinn to use more phantom Illinois tax-dollars to have Thundering Dick's associates compensated for panel-time in the endless work of rooting out Bosses, Bagmen and Blackguards in the 'Burbs -publicly execute the Girodins( Regular Dems and Tassled Loafer GOP-ers) - Dick's Committee for Public Safety from Suburb Corruption-COMITÉ de la Sécurité publique de la corruption en dehors de la ville
3. Get more Progressive branded goofballs, ninnies, grifters, nutbags and abortionists elected to public office

Thundering Dick Simpson used to be hilarious, but time and memory loss have made him dangerous.

My pal from the sinister coast ( facing true-north, west is left and right, or dextra is east) sent this note to me here in centralis ora - you know, over by the Lake: 

K T Cat said...
Your topics are obscure and your writing is splendid. I loved it!
7:12 AM 

The chap believes my offerings to be Obscure and Splendid.  I do not know about the splendid part, but I be obscure.

Obscurus in Latin means Dark.  The word now tends to mean ambiguous, mysterious, or not easily known.  Beginning with Edmund Spencer, who married the daughter of an Irish chieftain, the renaissance English poets valued the dark conceit, allegory - the darker the better.

Allegory is used to explain something metaphysical ( love, marriage, courtship, patriotism, or Faith) by using a bunch of physical objects - a heart becomes a hand grenade under the pen Abraham Cowley (1618-1687).  

Dude, Obscure I must remain.

The heart is dark.  The mind is clouded.  The voice, though certain, stutters attempts at truth.

Let me explain.

It all had to do with a train ride from Madrid to Seville, or was it Seville to Paris? I was trying to distance myself from this young girl,  Conchita. As my train was ready to depart I  found that a bruised and bandaged Conchita was pursuing me. From the train I  poured a bucket of water over her head. I  believed this might deter her, but she climbed aboard.

My  fellow compartment passengers witnessed this rude act. These included a mother and her young daughter, a judge who is coincidentally a friend of Thundering Dick Simpson, and a psychologist who coincidentally is a dwarf - looked a great deal like Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Lakeview). They inquired about my motivation for such an act and I then explained the history of my tumultuous relationship with Conchita.  

I'm a middle aged, widowed, white guy, who when sporting a beard bears a strinking resemblance to that great actor Fernando Rey - Frog One from the French Connection. Women find me attractive for some reason, in part due a my boyishly Celtic self-deprecating manner with the dark eyes of Tyrone Power if he had lived as long as me and because I keep my pockets full of spending loot and change my "vines" nine times a day.  Conchita was drawn to me like flies to a crowded Archer Avenue bus in August  - that and the fact chicks dig the obscure.

Conchita, claims to be 18 but looks older, vows to remain a virgin until marriage. She tantalized me with sexual promises but never allowed me to satisfy sexual desire, which I was plenty used to, let me tell you.   Conchita's antics caused us to break up and reunite repeatedly, each time frustrating and confusing this middle-aged widow guy.

Eventually, I  found Conchita dancing nude for tourists in a Seville nightclub. I was enraged. Later, however, I  forgave her and bought  her a house - a nice raised ranch like my own back in the States, but drier during rain storms, because there were no Goddam #$%^ing Tree Roots raping into the sewer ejection pipe going out to Rockwell Street thanks to the sonsobitchin' parkway trees. 

Soon after moving into the house, Conchita refused to let me in at the back door, tells me that she hates me, and that kissing and touching me make her sick. I get that alot. Then, to prove her independence,  she takes up with a hair-dresser who sings in the community male chorus and dances in summer productions of Pippin.

After this, Conchita attempted , insisting that the sex was fake and that her "lover" is in reality a homosexual friend. However, during her explanation, I decided to  beat feet and  then says "Now I´m sure you love me,", causing her bandaged and bruised state spoken of earlier.  

I jumped trains, while she slept and when once the train's lights were fading toward Paris, I remembered that I had not had anything to eat and went to one swell Tapas joint and me a big old plate-fulla Queso con anchoas, pulpo de gallegos,papas bravas ( love them spuds) and pinchos de encurtidos. Mighty tasty.

Them flamenco dancers got nothing on a big old plateful of Tapas.

.

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/that-obscure-object-of-desire/731

http://ktcatspost.blogspot.com/

Thundering Dick Simpson Demands More . . . of The Same Only More!

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is on the phone.

“Hi, Lisa. How are you?” asks Dick Simpson, head of the UIC Department of Political Science, as he sits in his book-lined office in the Behavioral Sciences Building. UICC - Street Cred of Thundering Dick Simpson

The Progressive way  to rid a home of raccoons, horse flies, tics, bed bugs, Norway rats and the odd timber wolf would be to tap a few reporters armed with studies from UICC, demand time on WTTW, make tour of the Dane Placko, Mike Flannery gas-and-nod shows, demand a tax-payer funded home inspector and a blue ribbon panel consisting of Dr. Quentin Young, Deb Mell, Deb Shore, Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon ( 5-String Banjo), Boss Terry Cosgrove, Forrest " Ho Gauge Rail" Claypool, NU(a)TO Andy Thayer, Ralph Martire, Dawn Clark Netsch, Slim Coleman and of course the ubiquitous Chris Kennedy to confab and vigorously  note that the home owner should 

• close doors
• fix screens
• toss food waste in plastic bags and place them in the black plastic gondolas provided by Waste Management or the Ward Office
• Be Sure to Re-cycle cardboard, plastics and metal and place them in the Blue Re-cycle bins
• Prepare to move once home ownership is lost, due to failure to meet the basic mortgage obligations
• Apply for Affordable Housing

Yep, Thundering Dick Simpson is setting the table for Progressive Knit-Hat, Gender Ambiguous, Childless and generally disagreeable candidates to flourish in our suburbs. How about small towns too?  Think Custer Park, Diamond, Eileen, Reddick and Papineau Illinois Machine Politics and Mossback Graft -" Clel, I'll vote for you, if'n I get two jars a stink bait." Done and done.

With the full push of Chicago's media, Thundering Dick is getting full cooperation to the very same thing to suburban government as the City of Chicago and the mythical homeowner above with his latest UICC paper written by a bunch of kids at Cement City University and under the supervision of Thundering Dick, his own bad self.

Thundering Dick earned his Progressive spurs from Abner Mikva and went on to a long and inconsequential career as an office-holder - Alderman - before becoming a 40 Watt academic at Stanley ( Terrorist Bill Ayers' career laundering Rabbi)Ikennberry's Circle. Thundering Dick's Green Grass and Greed: Corruption in the Suburbs is a wow-read for folks who do not read very much.  Thundering Dick leads with his jowls on this one -

The obvious and potentially most effective method for dealing with corrupt officeholders
would be to elect new public officials dedicated to ethical behavior and governmental reform. Such candidates, if elected, can help change the culture of corruption in these suburbs. Voters should support candidates committed to fighting corruption.

Thundering Dick-King Maker

Well, I'll be dipped and rolled!!!!!!!  Ain't that a wonderment!!!!!!! Vote for new folks!  Well, that must mean a whole new line of folks trotted out by old Thundering Dick, his own bad self!

The Study is a Cliff's Notes of old news stories and attendant graphs about incidents of corruption in the suburbs - some going back to the 1970's when Thundering Dick brought the Democratic Machine under Old Man Daley to its knees . . . with laughter. That was then and this is now.


Back then, when everyone and everything still worked,  folks like Thundering Dick were laughed out of the room; these days, we elect the likes of Blago, Burris, Joe Moore, Sheila Simon, Pat Quinn, Mike Quigley, Jan Schakowsky, Toni Preckwikle and other ninnies and grifters.

I am sure that Thundering Dick has a rapt audience for his summary.  Folks just don't take the time to read, connect dots to dimwits, and are much too kind and polite to tell Progressives to go pound sand.  Some folks, anyway.

http://www.uiaa.org/uic/news/uicalumni/0911a.html

http://www.uic.edu/depts/pols/ChicagoPolitics/SuburbanCorruption.pdf
http://www.uic.edu/depts/paff/clips/06-26-2012.pdf

News Man Tim Novak - The Only Eye-on Allison Davis

It’s been six years since five Chicago government pension plans hired DV Urban Realty — a start-up investment firm founded by then-Mayor Richard M. Daley’s nephew Robert G. Vanecko and President Barack Obama’s friend and former boss Allison S. Davis — to manage $68 million in retirement funds.

Those investments haven’t gone well for the pension funds that represent Chicago teachers, police officers, other city employees and transit workers. The funds have paid DV Urban a total of $7.2 million, including $4.7 million in fees to manage the small share of the pension funds’ money and another $2.5 million for a sister company to oversee the operations of three buildings bought with pension money.

Pension officials — including Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s two top financial advisers — are unhappy. By their estimation, the value of the funds’ real estate investments with DV Urban has fallen by 28 percent, or about $19 million.

(emphasis my own)

President Obama's pal and former boss ripping off the folks? Well, hush my beak!

That is news Goo-goos, Go-Alongs and their Media cheerleaders want hushed up.

I never hear Thundering Dick Simpson rail against real corruption around this burg. I never hear Abner Mikva beef about the cozy Progressive bed-bugs that have dominated the bad old Democratic Machine's mattress for decades.

Blago, Rezko, and Daley relatives get plenty of news ink, but only the great Tim Novak of the Chicago Sun Times keeps his choppers locked on the butts of IVI-IPO champion boondoggler Allison Davis.

God Bless Tim Novak! Now, if only an editorial board in this Crossroads of Crusading Crooks would grow a pair on tenth the size of the set Tim Novak is packing, we'd be informed.

It seems, Allison Davis is everywhere Federal, State and Local tax-dollars get dumped into a sanctioned cache of cash - HUD Money, Pension Funds, and Save the Children coffee cans. The Sun times Editorial Board did Old Allison a solid and did not post his photo along with Tim Novak's report. That Allison Davis up above with post shine -box President Obama.

Allison Davis is bullet-proof with Medill School Power Rangers and Bruce Dold's Chicago Tribune Editorial Morning Zoo Crew.
Davis Père ( his boy Cullen was briefly in the jackpot when a toddler was crushed by Cullen's rusty gate) might be bullet proof, but if turns around and down he will find Tim Novak's choppers locked on his rump.

DV Urban turned a small profit — about $500,000 — when it sold one of the most valuable properties, a 344-unit apartment building at 1212 S. Michigan Ave., for $65.5 million last Nov. 30, county records show.
DV Urban bought the building using $9.9 million in money from the pension funds, records show. The pension funds will get back about $9 million from the sale, according to DV Urban’s countersuit.

Davis, 72, and Vanecko, 47, both of Chicago, founded DV Urban in 2005. Vanecko has given sworn testimony in a legal deposition that his father, Dr. Robert M. Vanecko, introduced him to Davis, a well-known lawyer and developer.

Every Chicagoan knows the names of Patrick Daley and Mr. Vanecko, but I'll be a Sacajawea Gold coin that less than a tennis double in each word has heard of Allison Davis.

Davis ran a small Chicago law firm that hired Obama after his graduation from Harvard Law School. Davis eventually left the law firm and became a business partner with one of his clients, Tony Rezko, in a venture to build affordable housing with taxpayer money.
Davis became a central figure in the trials of Rezko, a top fund-raiser for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, and William F. Cellini, a longtime fund-raiser for Illinois Republicans, who were both convicted on corruption charges.According to testimony, once, during a meeting with Rezko and another Blagojevich fund-raiser, Christopher Kelly, Davis suggested they could raise money from Thomas Rosenberg, a Hollywood movie producer who also owned an investment firm that managed state pension money. Rosenberg tesified he was told he would lose his state deal unless he gave money to Blagojevich’s campaign. Cellini was convicted in the shakedown of Rosenberg. Davis was never charged with any crime.

Gee, Thundering Dick Simpson, one might get the idea that things aren't all on the square, on the up-and-up. Speak on it, Son! Testify!

Readers might also like this one from Tim Novak
http://www.suntimes.com/business/10416320-417/both-sides-file-lawsuits-in-flap-over-city-pension-fund-investments.html