I Have One Vote and It Will Go to Jeanne Ives

Tonight Jeanne Ives will join the Irish for Ives crowd at Reilly's Daughter Pub, in Oak Lawn.  Today, I will vote for Jeanne Ives.

I have one vote for Governor in this Illinois Primary Election and it requires that I take a Republican Ballot to cast this vote.   I am early voting today here in the 19th Ward at Mount Greenwood Park    3721 W 111th St, when it opens around 9AM.  First day is always delayed, but our judges and poll watchers do a terrific job.  Alderman Matt O'Shea will be on hand to make sure everything rolls-out smoothly. They usually do, here in a neighborhood Ward that takes voting very seriously.

This is the most important vote that I need to cast in years.  I normally take a Democratic Primary ballot, but not this time. This is a game changing vote.

Illinois is choking to death.

My neighbors, of whom the majority hold public service pensions,  agonize as they watch the IOUs passed to them from Big Jim Thompson to Bruce Rauner, turn into Confederate Money, or Illinois high-speed rail bonds. 

Squeezy the Python is doing very well. 

Hard working people worry about Jeanne Ives and believe the bilge given out by the media and the Rauner Campaign that she wants to take away their IOUs from Republican  and Democrat grifters and oligarchs.

Illinois Public Pensions are the ultimate Ponzi Pyramid.  If you worked for Illinois and have gotten out with your 85%, all is good.

The millions more of you - not so much.

Pensions were looted to make a very few people rich.

Public school teachers,cops, firemen and later AFSCME workers were treated to the following:

•Shorting pension payments to buy immediate budgetary relief. The nonpartisan Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, the fiscal research arm of the General Assembly, concluded in 2013 that the largest cause of the unfunded pension liabilities was inadequate contributions from the state. Underpayments between 1985 and 2012 totaled $41.2 billion, the agency calculated.
•Enhancing pension benefits. Former GOP Gov. James Thompson agreed in 1989 to establish a compounding, 3 percent cost-of-living increase for retirees. Another round of benefit enhancements followed in the late 1990s. In May, the state Supreme Court ruled that those changes can't ever be revoked for tens of thousands of current and retired government workers.
•Clearing a bloated state payroll by letting workers retire early. A 2002 plan created under Republican Ryan and pushed by Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan cost the pension systems at least four times more than originally billed and won't be paid off until after 2045, when early-century budgetary ills will be the stuff of history books. David McKinney in Crain's Chicago Business ( emphases my own) 

That is Bi-Partisan Suicide, neighbors.  The oligarchs found their solution - Soak the Rich, code for increase income and property taxes via a heavy progressive tax, or plank # 2 from the Communist Manifesto*.

I believe that Jeanne Ives intends to reform pensions.  She has a plan. None of the other's have anything, except legalize weed and increase Illinois progressive taxes, while feeding  empty pensions and killing off what remains of the middle class in this state for good.

Jeanne Ives is the only candidate who stands against the American Holocaust - abortion. America will never be great again, until this horror of slaughtering a babies is euphemized as health care ends.  Jeanne Ives stands against abortion and the Planned Parenthood abortion industry.

I you are fine with abortion, you are OK with anything.

Jeanne Ives does not pander for votes and understands that the word illegal
 means something.

I might be the only DNA in my vast family of hard-working skilled trades people to cast this vote, but I believe it will topple Bruce Rauner's place-holding tenure as governor.

Come the general election, Jeanne Ives can count on my solitary vote again.

If you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything.

Illinois has had a very long and perilous fall.


*Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, in the Communist Manifesto, advocated a heavy progressive tax as a means of despoiling the “bourgeoisie” and softening middleclass society up for the dictatorshp of the proletariat.

Meatball Soup to Make Way for Friday's Fish Fry

I love Lent.  Fish on Fridays and weekdays dedicated to carnivoric catering at home. One of my favorite recipes for Lenten days-avant Friday is meatball soup.

I use Progresso Italian breadcrumbs and 1 pound of ground beef 90% lean and 1 pound of ground pork from Jack & Pat's Old Fashioned Butcher Shop in Chicago Ridge.  These guys are wizards with meats.

First I make the meatballs

1-pound ground beef 90% lean
1-pound of ground pork
2- large eggs
4-large cloves of garlic smashed and chopped
1 -cup of Progresso Italian Breadcrumbs
1-pinch of kosher sea salt
1-Vigorous round of black pepper mill twisting, choking and turning like it was the neck of an elected official on your front porch
1-pinch of red pepper flakes
1-pinch of Frigo Four Cheeses flakes
A handful of fresh basil chopped up fine.

In a clean bowl and with clean hands mix all of the above

Make meatballs the size of a Titleist Pro V1 about two dozen - place a dozen on each of two cookie sheets that have been cover with wax paper.  Freeze one for later.  Refrigerate the other cover with more waxed paper overnight.

In a two quart pot*add the following:

Make or purchase four cups of Beef Broth
Rough chop a large red, or white onion
Add one cup of fresh lime juice
1/2 cup of brown sugar
Three crushed and chopped garlic cloves
One cup of Lillies' Hot Smoky Barbecue Sauce
One 12 oz. can of chopped tomatoes
Chopped fresh basil

Bring to a gentle boil and add 12 meatballs.

Reduce heat to low and cook until meatballs are done. Usually on the stove top about twenty-five minutes.  I prefer to leave it on a very simmer for more than a bit longer.

Add a couple of handfuls of baby spinach a bit before serving and  cook until wilted.

Serves 4 people or four nice meals with three meatballs each and garnish with Frigo Four Cheeses flakes.

It is mighty fine.  Serve with real crusty Italian bread.

*You may also use a Hamilton Beach slow cooker set on low four hours. Do not set on high, unless you intend to keep a close eye on the soup. Here (above) is what it looks like getting underway.

Ask the Parents of Dead Children Who Gateway'd on Pot, Before You Ask Illinois to Vote on Legal Dope

"I think it well advised for us as members of the Illinois General Assembly, before we possibly take a vote on this issue, to find out what our voters think. As I said, it's been done in virtually every other state that has considered this questions."

-- Sponsoring Sen. Bill Cunningham, D-Chicago,

 People who are addicted to marijuana are three times more likely to be addicted to heroin.
The legalization of marijuana increases availability of the drug and acceptability of its use. This is bad for public health and safety not only because marijuana use increases the risk of heroin use. Robert L. Du Pont in New York Times 2016

I think it well-advised to tally the number of drug related deaths in our neighborhood and maybe ask the grieving parents about marijuana's role in the death of a child

The butchers bill covering the last three years reveals that Illinois drug deaths are mostly white males, between the ages of 25-44.

The lies being told to convince voters to go along with wealthy, silk-suited marijuana advocates are as follows:

• Marijuana Is Not A Harmful Drug; In Fact, It Is Much Safer Than Alcohol And Tobacco. Nonsense it is as dangerous as booze and smokes
• .Weed Has Medical Value. Not really. 
• It Can Help The Government Generate Additional Revenue Like the Lottery and Casino Gaming?
• Legalization Would Help The Government Save Costs. How?
• Prohibition Is Racist. What isn't?
• Legalization Would Produce More Jobs. Where and for whom?
• People Will Take This Drug, No Matter What.   Fewer will.

Like everything that politicians toss at us, recreational marijuana legalization will make a great deal of money for a very few people like the Pritzkers of the Marijuana Policy Project:

MPP and MPP Foundation Board of Directors Joby Pritzker- In the Hat (Chair)
Frayda Levy (Vice Chair)Rene Ruiz (Treasurer)Troy DaytonJohn GilmoreJeff ZuckerJeff Moe

There is also the Coalition for Safer Illinois touting its two legislative champions Heather Steans and Kelly Cassidy.  You can not see its staff or board of directors., but Coalition for a Safer Illinois was formed from Marijuana Policy Project.

These plutocrats and hangers-on will make many more millions.

Many more Illinois parents will bury children who had easier access to weed.

Commander Paul Bauer Legislation Cynical Political Misappropriation of Man's Life

I don't recall reading the late Commander Paul Bauer's words on the banning of guns.  He was very outspoken about the criminals caught for felonies and released back into the public by cynical political judges and elected officials intent on fattening up votes. 

Commander Paul Bauer was respected by the women and men in blue who shared the dangers and ugliness of Chicago's streets, during his career.

Commander Paul Bauer was not killed in a mass school shooting, but killed doing his job, while off-duty.

No cop is off-duty.

A thug with a handgun bought out of state and with an extended magazine clip

I have never owned a gun in my life, nor do I ever intend to apply for, or purchase any firearm.   I live among many people to do and there has never been an incident where a gun was misfired, or directed at another person.

More than a very few times, bullets missed me by inches. They were all used by thugs (BDs, GDs, Stones, Four Corner Hustlers, or Vice Lords) in close proximity to Leo High School between 1996 and 2016. My guardian angle must come with Kevlar.

I have helped bury a dozen students and witnessed as many more wounded by rounds fired from Tech 9s and Glocks, none of whome 'were in the Game.'

Guns are tools and thugs use them to kill people.

Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, who once commanded the Gresham District 6 near Leo High School, was sent to Springfield to label anti-gun laws in Commander Paul Bauer's name.

The new legislation is a response to the Parkland public school killings, close on the heels of Commander Bauer's funeral here in my neighborhood.

Paul Bauer was a cop's cop.  He spoke out against the root problems of street violence: abuse of existing sentencing laws -

Commander Paul Bauer says there is a “high bar to prosecution” in Cook County, requiring Chicago police to get approval from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office before a suspect can be charged.
“Sometimes they want to come out and...talk to the victim,” said Bauer at the annual meeting of River North Residents Association. “If you think about it, we’re sometimes victimizing this person twice. You just got your phone snatched from you. You got knocked down. Now you’re going to be in the station. You got to stay here for another couple hours until the State’s Attorney gets out here.”
[...] According to Bauer, 75 percent of the crime in the 18th district is theft-related, whether it’s theft from a building or theft from a person, including a suspect who, while riding a bicycle, recently swiped mobile phones from people in River North.
“We caught that guy,” recalled Bauer. “and we figured he did about 30 [robberies] over the course of a couple months. We were only able to charge him with one felony theft [because] victim identification was a little hazy.”
[...] “Even when we catch somebody,” says Bauer, “there’s still a long way to go to get them off the street.”
In August, Chief Judge Timothy Evans replaced all the judges who presided over bond hearings in Cook County and directed new judges to set bail in amounts more affordable to defendants. This is at odds with Chicago police, who would prefer to see higher bail amounts for career criminals.
“That guy, Willie, he’s a case in point. He needs a high bond. We got him for a number of burglaries. He’s on parole for burglary. He needs to sit. We got to get him off the street. It’s just like if you have kids, if there’s no consequences to your action, those actions are going to repeat.”
And when they do go to jail, they need to stay there longer.
“The Sheriff of Cook County, for whatever reason, is very proud of the fact he has reduced the population of the county jail. Maybe I’m jaded, I don’t think that’s anything to be proud of.”  In Second City Cop

The thug who killed Commander Bauer was not armed with a straw-man AR-15, which Rep. Burke's canned legislation targets.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel talked about the bill after speaking to a room of police recruits, part of a package of legislation that would require gun dealers to be licensed, raise the penalties for illegal use of body armor, ban high capacity magazines for military-style weapons and ban bump stocks.
“We need gun legislation, like a waiting period, like a ban on assault on assault weapons, like what we're talking about on gun dealership that backs up the goals and the public safety goals we have as a city,” Mayor Emanuel said.

Rahm Emanuel did the canning and the sending.

Were he not an oily sneak with a power jones, Emanuel might have helped craft a Paul Bauer Law that would keep thugs out of our community.

Maybe, another family will not need to mourn a father and husband.  Maybe, fewer people will be gun down on streets at any time of the or driving the Dan Ryan and Eisenhower expressways.

Instead, Rahm Emanuel, Mike Madigan, Bruce Rauner and their stooges used Paul Bauer's sacrifice, as an unwasted opportunity.

Planned Parenthood Loves Illinois

Planned Parenthood is all about abortions, just as Anheuser-Busch is all about beer, and J.J. Reymolds is all about cigarettes.

R. Reynolds makes cookies (Nabisco) and Hawaiian Punch, selling coffin nails to Americans and the Third World is what keeps Winstons, Newports, Camels, Salems and Lucky Strikes in the game.

Sure Bud makes non-alcoholic O'Doul's, but every other aspect of the corporate culture is buzz iducing - a responsible buzz of course.

Planned Parenthood like the tobacco industry respended to soft-hearts and delicate sensibilities by euphemizing abortion into Women's Health, Reproductive Rights, Stem-Cell Research.

The bottom -line is crushing fully conceived human being chock full of individuality.

Planned Parenthood's Boss-Hag, Cecile Richards polka'd all over the world of credibility when Dr. Kermit Gosnell revealed the nature of Planned Parenthood in a Philadelphia courthouse.  America was sickened to hear the 'elegant' Gosnell joke about the little skulls he crushed with great industry.

Richards and the Democratic Party and their GOP playmates pushed the notion that Planned Parenthood is all about cancer screening for women.

The problem being Planned Parenthood is too busy harvesting the body parts of human beings for sale to pharmaceutical companies to screen Julia for uterine cancer.

Illinois is Planned Parenthood's harvest belt.   Recently, a covert operation by Democratic candidate for the Cook County Board, Personal PAC Illinois and all of the usual suspects built an abortion mill in Flossmoor, a south suburb of Chicago.

They were outed by a citizen"

. . . village officials said that Planned Parenthood “described the facility as a full-service women’s health center.” This is inaccurate given the limited services it offers per its own website.
It is a common misperception that communities need Planned Parenthood to provide poor women access to health services. Within 15 miles of Flossmoor, there are four federally qualified health care centers that provide the same services as Planned Parenthood Flossmoor, with the exception of abortion and LGBT services, plus truly more comprehensive health care for women. Among them are Aunt Martha’s Women’s Health Center in Chicago Heights, Community Health Center in Hazel Crest and Community Health Care in South Holland. I encourage readers to review both sites and draw their own conclusions.
An aspect of the meeting not mentioned in the article was how Donna Miller, Chairwoman of the Board for Planned Parenthood Illinois and candidate for Cook County Commissioner, claimed that she had no knowledge of how Planned Parenthood operated in purchasing the property in Flossmoor through the front company Healthcare Partners LLC, in order to hide its identity until just before it opened.
This begs the question of whether Mrs. Miller is qualified to represent our community as Cook County commissioner. For, if as chairwoman of the board of Planned Parenthood Illinois, Mrs. Miller didn’t know her own organization’s expansion strategy within her own south suburban community, then she has neglected her fiduciary responsibility as a member of the board. So, Mrs. Miller was either not forthright with her answer at the meeting, or she is not living up to her fiduciary responsibility. Both scenarios are troubling.
Although our community is divided on Planned Parenthood’s presence in Flossmoor, hopefully we can agree that it is time to establish true solidarity with women in difficult circumstances by offering them the love, support and truth that will encourage life-affirming choices.
Kris Cortes
Flossmoor

Planned Parenthood loves Illinois because it gets what they pay for - willing culprits in the murder of children, or as the media calls them elected officials.

Illinois has the greatest soil in the Midwest.  It is too bad that people running this State want to fertilize it with the blood of the innocents.

Illinois is stuck on stupid at so many levels - bad schools, lousy roads, decaying bridges beat-up rail systems and economy that is toxic to investment.

Illinois will never be un-stupid, until abortion is defined as taking the life of living organism with unique DNA - a human being.  It not a choice, or a reproductive right; it is a murder.

America will never be great again, until it protects life from womb to tomb. 

My Lunch with Jeanne Ives

Yesterday, I took the Rock Island Metra from 103rd to La Salle Street station for an 11:30 luncheon of the Finance Committtee of Ives for Illinois.  I was flattered to be invited, because I do not have two-nickels to rub together.

I helped Chicago Renaissance Man Mike Houlihan form  the Irish for Ives which will host a fundraiser at Reilly's Daughter on Monday, March 5th between 5-7PM.  That will be a great event, where traditional Democrats like me can ask Jeanne Ives about their public service pensions, Bosco Rauner's lie, that Representative Ives shovels Mike Madigan's snow covered sidewalks over on Kedvale & 64th and how she plans to get Illinois back on its feet.I passed out some fliers to my fellow passengers who either accepted them, or politely declined.  Most took them.  One woman chatted me up and said that she will probably go to the event.

Jeanne Ives has nowhere near the money to respond to Governor "Bosco" Rauner's calumnies.  This same place-holding creep, tried to hijack the funeral of Commander Paul Bauer and equated drinking chocolate milk to solving race relations.   As such many 19th Ward residents are buying the ads from Governor Bosco, like they were words coming from a burning bush:

                      She's a Madigan crony!
                      She is hateful, bigoted and wants my pension

All without any examples given other than repetitions of Eric Zorn, or Sun Times talking points.

The worst comes from a shirt-tail cousin of mine with a swell County job, who will be working to re-elect Toni Preckwinkle shortly.

If you see the "Irish for Ives" posters up on the South Side, let the businesses know you won't support them. I saw one on 111th in Mt Greenwood today and they immediately agreed to take it down. There's supposed to be a fundraiser for her at Reilly's Daughter Oak Lawn. Let them know too.

He attached a smear piece from Daily Kos 2013 about Ives the Union Buster though the same Union Buster has been supported by IUEO 150.  Jeanne Ives must be scaring the hell out of people who want to keep things going the way they are.  They know if Ives knocks Rauner out in the primary, JB Pritzker will not have the planned can of tomatoes in the 15 round bout in November.  Nor, do they want Jeanne Ives to face Chris Kennedy, let alone Progressive Boy Toy Biss.   So union leaders who were all-in for Rahm want Rauner to lay down in November for them all.

The rank and file union membership are stuck with the property taxes, the water bills, the lousy schools and are told who not to vote for.

Union voters must declare in a primary polling place and people have big ears, adapted to the slightest volume thanks to street cash and Rauner has plenty.  I takes a very special kind integrity to take an unsanctioned ballot in Chicago.

Tearing down posters and threatening business boycotts?   These same union loyalists shop at WalMart and regularly cross picket lines to snag an Italian beef.   Hey, it's a free country. . .still.

I arrived at the Union League Club and was asked to man the greeter's table for a few minutes, which I did and introduced myself while I handed out name tags.

A gentleman by the name of Mike Schultz was carrying a huge briefcase and asked me, " I suppose Ives is a Democrat, this being Illinois.  I am coming from Wisconsin and satyed here over night."

I explained that Jeanne Ives was running against Gov. Bruce Rauner in the March Primary as a Republican and he asked me about her.  I explained that Ives is the only Pro-Life candidate for the office of Governor by either Party,  was a comon sense fiscal conservative who wants to halt the run-away pension crisis while easing the pain of the victims of former Governor Jim Edgar's IOU briberies, a West Point grad and Army officer, mother of five children two of whom serve in the armed forses and honest,tough and good humored, happy person.

Jeanne Ives came up the stairs and we met for the first time, " Pat Hickey, it's nice to see a Facebook person in person."

I introduced the Guv to Mr. Schultz.

Mr. Schultz is a dreamer, of German, Irish and Japanese blood, who grew up in Bridgeport.  His grandmother lived two doors down from the real Mayor - Richard J. Daley.   Schultz went on to explain that he was selling a product that he helped developed - a pain relieving lotion made from hemp oil.  He is searching States for the expansion of his business and is skipping Illinois as toxic to innovation and industry.

Mike Schultz gave me a bottle of the lotion for my retired carpenter brother who is crippled up with artheritis in his knees, hands, shoulders and ankle.  He is no fan of Trump, Rauner, or Ives.  I am a huge fan of Jeanne Ives.

Mr. Schultz bid farewell and said, " I am very impressed with you, Mrs. Ives.  Best of luck!"

We were called into lunch/

I knew Dan Proft and was astonished to see him  with whiskers.  I was introduced to Jeanne's husband Rich, who is an engineer and a West Point man.  He had been with Kenny Construction, when the great flood washed through the Loop.  Rich is like  . . .every guy I know in this neighborhood, funny, embarassed to be there, serious about his wife and his family.   Rich Ives would be at ease at Kens, Barney Callaghan's or Hinky Dinks.  Alas,Mr. Ives gave up beer and smokes for Lent.

There at my table sat Mike Houlihan with two gentleman donors, as well as Dan Patlak, the only Republican in Cook County government, and Representative Tom Morrison.  We later joined by Mr. Spencer from Christ the King Parish.  Jim Tobin and John Powers sat with the Ives' and Chair of Finance Committee Mr. Vince Kolber, an elegant Polish gent from Seneca, NY who adopted Illinois as his home state, built a mechanical service corporation RESIDCO, funds The Little Sisters of the Poor and The Big Shoulders Fund.   Real robber-baron type.

We began with the Pledge of Allegiance and Mr. Kobler explained his notion of fund-raising which matched that of the great Bob Foster of Leo High School - make everyone an investor.

Most people believe that fundraising is whale-hunting. Everyone seems to believe the notion of nailing down a million dollar give, as the pinnacle of success. No.  Leo High School defied the know-it-alls for decades, including my own two, but counting on committed people.  Leo's Alumni are like 17th Century Jesuit Black Robes - they drag in new converts and turn those converts into missionaries.

Jeanne Ives has the support of this Democrat because she is honest, happy and heroic.  One older gentleman in  Mount Greenwood told me " She's gonna win!  The little girl has alot of hard bark on her." That, she do.

Vince Kobler is accepting checks for Ives for Illinois and he wrote another huge one yesterday. Vince Kobler had writtne big checks for Governor Bruce "Bosco" Rauner, until he proved himself to be the fraud that he happens to be.  Jeanne Ives was handed a check in the amount of $ 300,000.

Mike Houlihan and I felt the change in our pockets.

Jeanne Ives thanked Mr. Kobler, who himself had run for Congress in the 5th District in 2016, for leading her 'rag-tag band of insurgents'  who depend upon people power to get her message out.

Ives noted that all Rauner has is money, lots and lots and lots and lots of money.   Fund-raising is the art of friend making.

Jeanne Ives praised Mike Houlihan and me for our work on the upcoming Reilly's Daughter event.  In a room full of well-to-do women and men, it was uncommonly nice of Jeanne to recognize two broke boys.

Like I said, fund-raising is friend making and Jeanne Ives was on way to Peoria.  She had just comeback from Decatur, Belleville, and Watseka, Illinois, where union members learned the truth about Ives for Illinois from Jeanne Ives herself.

I wish my shirt-tail cousin and a few of louder partisans were as fair-minded.


I met Jeanne Ives and I don't have two-nickels together.


Wonder if Rauner, or JB Pritzker would give me two hoots in hell?


It's your vote.

Hey leave up the signs.  Don't go to the event.  Even better, don't vote.

Sacrifice Babies to Baal and Stop Mass Shootings

 Babies fed to Baal Will End Gun Violence!

Hoodie Rebecca 🍀
✔
@dorothyofisrael
Woman puts baby up for adoption, he grows up to be a violent young man who will spend the rest of his life in prison for a mass murder. Tell me more about how abortions are wrong. #Florida #ParklandSchoolShooting
3:10 PM - Feb 15, 2018
941
6,070 people are talking about this

Hoodie Rebecca is no whack job and she has plenty like-minded comrades in the American media.

Hoodie Rebbeca is an MTV veteran reporter and she does not really want anyone to explain how abortions are evil, anymore than a Holocaust denier wants anyone to lay out the facts about the greatest mass serial killing of undesirable people ( Jews, Slavs, dissidents, LGBTQ, Gypsies, people with all manner of mental, physical or psychological challenges) in history.


Hoodie Rebecca, like many women in my zip code ( 60643/55) who chose to identify themselves with hyphenated Celtic cognomens like Bridget Murphy-Douleur dans le cul, is Pro Choice and perfectly willing to toss unborn babies into the mouth of Baal, to stop gun violence and as long as the wrong people stay away from the Beverly Art Center and in Mount Greewood.

You see Gun Control and Abortion are on the same page.

People who want Chicago Cops to be replaced by a gun-grabbing Gestapo also want abortion on demand.

Hoodie Rebecca makes perfect sense to the fine ladies with hyphenated names in my neighborhood.

You are free to believe Hoodie Rebecca, as much as you are free believe that the Holocaust was just a big nothing burger, to parse the evolved.  Me, I gotta go along with Old Hosea in the Old Testament

“I will punish her ( the nation) for the festival days
when she burned incense to the Baal idols;
she adorned herself with earrings and jewelry,
and went after her lovers,
but she forgot me!” says the Lord. Hosea  (2:2-13)

Sun Times Also Endorses Governor "I'm Not in Charge!" Jeanne Ives Must be Surging!

As we say, had Ives not entered the race, we might have had a tough time endorsing Rauner. With a handful of exceptions, we believe he has been a failure as governor, and he has only himself to blame. He promised what he could not deliver. Sun Times Endorsement of Bruce Rauner

"This is a pivotal, once-in-a-generation election where you can change the trajectory of this state. But trust me, it’s either, we’re going all in for a taxpayer revolution, or you’re going to see the slow going-out-of-business sale here in the state of Illinois.” Jeanne Ives in  Bureau County News

Don't that make your blue eyes brown, Bruce?

Both Chicago papers endorsed the Cook County oligarchy's place-holder Governor Bruce Rauner.

Jeanne Ives, according to the Sun Times editorial board geniuses, is not 'compassionate' and her supporters are bully voters. Identity politics is stuck on stupid and the news media will not move the information dial to the facts.

Cadre demographics keeps the ink wet, but does not do much to level the playing field for people who work for a living, or all races, creeds and inclinations.

Both Chicago dailies follow the 2016 Presidential playbook of editorial broad brushing and fear-mongering that helped sweep Donald J. Trump into the White House.



It is very clear that Jeanne Ives scares the bejabbers out of the comfortable Cook County oligarchs who continue to chase the middle class and the well-to-do out of Illinois.

With both Chicago rags endorsing Bruce Rauner, Jeanne Ives should have no problem silencing low-information outlets with plain speaking and turning Jeanne Ives converts into missionaries.

I applaud both the Tribune and the Sun Times for their help in ridding Illinois of One -Term Rauner on March 20th and poising Jeanne Ives against JB Pritzker in November.

"Comments Off" - Sum Total of Illinois Media Integrity re Pritzker Firing of Mark Konkol

When Dave McKinney of the Chicago Sun Timjes resigned, because then Sun Times owner's ties to then candidate Bruce Rauner and long-running he-said-she-said embroglio, the media locked shields like Vikings. 

That was then.

McKinney resigned following what he called “disturbing developments” after reporting a story critical of Rauner. In his resignation letter, he says the firewall protecting independent journalism was breached. Meanwhile, the Sun-Times abruptly brought back editorial endorsements, supporting its onetime owner Bruce Rauner without having interviewed either Rauner or Gov. Pat Quinn. 

Mark Konkol was cashiered by the same News Group currently owned by SEIU and run by Edwin Eisnedrath, after ten days and cover art that hair-lipped JB Pritzker and all of the beneficiaries of his . . .largesse.

This is now.

No media outrage.   No Emile Zola for Konkol's Dreyfuss.

• No, Neil Steinberg opaque ouvere.

• No Mark Brown nosing.

• No Eric Zorn squeak.

• No Carol Marin press conference.

Only Rober Feder bothered to report on the disgraceful treatment of a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter at the hand of in-the-tank management of Illinois' mercury spined  ink slingers.  You will no hissy-fitting columnist, objecting to the termination of Mark Konkol. 

Here is the best example of the mind-set of our in-the-tank Illinois media - Capitol Fax Blog. 

News aggregator and Progressive Democrat activist Rich Miller's Capitol Fax Blog lays out the corpse with yellow-bellied snark but dis-invites the mourners:

Konkol out at Chicago Reader after “tumultuous ten days”Saturday, Feb 17, 2018* The Chicago Reader has been suffering serious turmoil since its new executive editor Mark Konkol took over. Konkol fired the paper’s editor by phone just after the editor got off a plane returning from his honeymoon, killed the transportation writer’s respected column, nixed a couple of columns by longtime Reader columnist Ben Joravsky and lost another columnist after publishing a racist front page cartoon featuring JB Pritzker sitting on a black lawn jockey ornament. Word from inside was that the paper itself could be in peril.
Sun-Times Media owns the Reader and here’s its CEO Edwin Eisendrath…
I am announcing today the departure of Mark Konkol from the Reader. Mark came to the publication bringing great hope for a new direction and a new life to a storied brand. Sometimes things don’t work out as planned. A tumultuous ten days culminated in the publication of a Reader cover that we believe was not in line with either our vision for the Reader or that storied history. We wish Mark well.
While controversy is sometimes seen as part and parcel of the alternative weekly world, we believe it’s necessary in this instance to apologize to anyone who was offended by this week’s cover. The published cover in my view distracted from the publication as a whole.
The reporters at the Reader work hard to be great journalists. They can and will take on the toughest stories — including issues of race, injustice and people struggling to be heard.
We will put in place interim leadership and plan for the future.
* From the Reader’s own Twitter feed…
Ding dong the witch is dead! https://t.co/Npx1zAehpR— Chicago Reader (@Chicago_Reader) February 18, 2018
Ouch.
- Posted by Rich Miller   Comments Off        (emphasis my own) 

Comments Off!  Ouch. 

Illinois is fixed, to quote the brilliant Dan Proft.  Illinois is a rigged game.  The news media plays for one side - the side that is screwing voters; Bruce Rauner plays for that side. 

Mark Konkol paid the price for speaking out turn.   There are no and there will be no media types coming to Mark Konkol's defense.

His voice was silenced, because fair is, after all, fair. 

This is Illinois - a Banana Republic run by oligarchs. 

Take a GOP ballot and vote for Jeanne Ives. Unfix this sad State. 

re is not followed by a colon.  Re is lation for matter.  

Chicago Reader: As 'In-The-Tank' as 87 Unleaded, But More Gas

Guess who beefed about the cover art on last week's (it was editor Mark Konkol's, as well) Chicago Reader?

Could it be. . . .might it not portend . . .is it possible . . . is it plausible that JB Pritzker, the Progressive Democrat cash cow, was miffed, irked, vexed, put-out, or a tad nettled by the two-dimensional treatment of the audio-taped chat he had with imprisoned Illinois Governor, a one-time Cook County SJW ?

Mark Konkol is now free of an oppressive regime.  One of the best beat reporters and fair-minded pens in journalism was trampled by pygmies.

Sun Times News Group CEO and former Chicago Alderman and one-time candidate for mayor, Edwin Eisendrath, immediately cashiered Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and short-time editor of the Chicago Reader, Mark Konkol and issued these weasel words -

A tumultuous ten days culminated in the publication of a Reader cover that we believe was not in line with either our vision for the Reader or that storied history. We wish Mark well.
"While controversy is sometimes seen as part and parcel of the alternative-weekly world, we believe it's necessary in this instance to apologize to anyone who was offended by this week's cover. The published cover in my view distracted from the publication as a whole.

In his view. In Edwin Eisendrath's view. . . . after calls from JB and the Progressive beneficiaries of his large ass, I mean Largesse.

Edwin Eisendrath tolerates insults to  Mount Greenwood, because the "Upside Down" hood is 'part and parcel of the alternative weekly world."

Last month this same cage-liner published an insult to every person living in the Mount Greenwood (18,357 people and 6,416 households in Mount Greenwood), but Edwin Eisnedrath was  less than outraged by the shoddy journalism and tepid moralilty to be found in the prose of still-employed Josh Malooley. So bad is it that Wikipedia won't even list it as a reference to the neighborhood.

Josh Malooley has a pay check and Mark Konkol must file with Illinois Department of Employment Services for the swell $749.00 bi-weekly dole ( limited to 26 weeks).

Well Chicago readers know that the alternative weekly bilge in the Chicago Readers is bought and paid for by SNG ( SEIU) and JB Pritzker.  The Reader bows deeply to its over-lords.

Mark Konkol is a free man!

The Reader is bought and paid for propaganda like the Sun Times and the Chicago Tribune.

Edwin, from this member of the reading community and the 18,000 + people your rag vilifies, Mount Greenwood,  a neighborhood with deep roots in the Ubs In Horto!



Stay just the way you are!