Meet Ald. Brian Hopkins The Gentry Liberal of the Liberal Gentry

"It (softball fields) really ties up the park for hours a day all summer long," Hopkins said. "You don't even want to be on the running track because you'll be hit by a fly ball."

Gentry Liberalism - "Gentry liberalism combines four basic elements: faith in postindustrial “creative” financial capitalism, cultural liberalism, Gore-ite environmentalism and the backing of the nation’s arguably best-organized political force, public employee unions. Obama rose to power on the back of all these forces and, until now, has governed as their tribune."

To the doctrines of Gentry Liberalism I would add the concept of the smart city - that high-density living in the core, rather than suburban sprawl, is the optimal design for the modern urbanopolis.

Chicago was a city of villages, called neighborhoods occupied by African Americans, Lithuanians, Croatians, Serbs, Poles, Italians, Irish and Germans.  The city center, the Loop, was where you might go to work, take the bus, or L home to your neighborhood - West Lawn, Clearing, Englewood, or Hegewisch.

Real estate, banks, TIFs, University of Chicago social scientists, Northwestern journalists and Shakman exempted public grifters, as well operators of gyms, bike fascists and empty nesters bought into city center living.  The south Loop, west of the Loop and Goose Island became choice real estate, once Richie Daley was convinced to knock down the Jets.  HUD sprinkled FHA tenants out into Englewood, Gresham, Lawndale, Austin and the immediate suburbs to cut off white flight.

This Progressive, affluent and self-concerned coalition changed the Chicago landscape, language and lifestyle.  Neighborhoods became communities.  The Fort Dearborn Massacre became a battle and the verbal "shootings" were padded with the modifiers gang-related and police - to ensure media purity of language and litigation surety.  Fried boneless chicken breast is not a Chicago Value. Bike lanes replaced everything, Divvy stations took up parking spaces and fruit flavored IPAs replaced beer.

A few weeks ago two of the more idiotic members of City government put their dainty toes in the waters to see how a private army of real estate cops would fly.  One of these worthies is Alderman Brian Hopkins!  Along with Proco Joe Moreno, Hopkins shares the Wicker Park community, as hipster-doofi barons.  Proco Joe, at the prodding of Rahm Emanuel, made a national joke of himself ( always a good litmus test for a Progressive - see Jan Schakowsky and Mike Quigley) when he thundered against fried boneless chicken.

Well, Brian Hopkins is plunging into similar notoriety with his indictment of 16" Chicago, Clincher softball ( God, I hope it is that and not the dweeb-happy 'play with gloves' variety) being played in Chicago Parks.

Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) told the Chicago Park District board last week that he would prefer a "grassy meadow" over the ball fields at Lake Shore Park, 808 N. Lake Shore Drive, citing concerns from neighbors who say its adult softball league has outgrown the quaint park surrounded by luxury high-rises.

I would prefer a greasy cheeseburger smothered in grilled onions basket with cheesefries over a new bike lane any day, but that ain't about to happen.

Parks are for people not some hipster doofus with a sinecure. The mission of the Chicago Park District is to:

• Enhance the quality of life in Chicago by becoming the leading provider of recreation and leisure opportunities
• Provide safe, inviting and beautifully maintained parks and facilities
• Create a customer-focused and responsive park system that prioritizes the needs of children and families 

Looks like Brian fails the sniff test on all three infinitives; undaunted the Progressive crank is undeterred:

"It ( people playing a team sport) really ties up the park for hours a day all summer long," Hopkins said. "You don't even want to be on the running track because you'll be hit by a fly ball." HIKE THAT SKIRT!
The park has two diamonds that are primarily used by an adult coed league run by Chicago Sport & Social Club. Hopkins said the diamonds "are not really in an ideal place" for the league, which has some "pretty good players" who often hit the ball out of the park.
"One ball hit the side of a CTA bus not too long ago," he said. "It's an accident waiting to happen." ( emphases, sarcasm, sexist irony and parenthetical notes my own)

Think of the Buses, People!!!!!!!!!

Hopkins ends his appeal with that grand old Progressive chestnut -The Children, "If you want to use the field to teach your kid to kick a soccer ball, throw a Frisbee, lay a blanket down for a picnic, you can’t,"

Send your kid with other kids to the prairie like normal people. You picnic in a Chicago mini-park?  Vote this clown down.

These clowns really are too much, but not nearly as "too much" as the voting Chicagoan who goes along with our protected morons.

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

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

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

Shakman Exempt - Anyone Micheal Shakman deems to be

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Late Abner Mikva - The Architect of Chicago, Illinois and the Nation

"God bless that man. Abner Mikva is a national treasure, one that has lived long enough with a front row seat to history to cut through the bull and identify what is most important in these hours of decision." Daily Kos

Chicago mayors. “I was never a fan of Richard J. Daley, he was never a fan of mine, and I thought the city didn’t work well under him. It worked well in the Loop, but out in the neighborhoods the city was in pretty bad shape. I didn’t think Jane Byrne did much to improve the situation. I was very impressed with the job Richard M. Daley did spreading out the goodies of Chicago to the entire city. A lot of the groundwork for that was laid in the Harold Washington campaign. Richie kept up with that and I think Rahm Emanuel has done a good job in that respect. It’s very hard — being mayor of a big city like Chicago is one of the hardest jobs in the country.” in Andy Shaw's BGA Watchdogs

The intial quotation is from Daily Koss,  shorty after President Elect Barack H. Obama, announced the appointment of Hillary R. Clinton for Secretary of State and there was some mild concern wafting among the Media about foreign dollars stuffing the Clinton Foundation.  Abner Mikva, who along with Newton "Vast Waste Land" Minow discovered young Barack Obama among the reeds in the Washington Park Lagoon and casting pond, wrapped in swaddling clothes and dreaming of his Dad  and Lo, beheld the consummation of their long lives.

The second quote is from  Abner Mikva wedged into a column by Andy Shaw, a local news nit-wit and public laughing stock. head of the Better Government (BGA), local gate-keepers for the corporatist Democratic and GOP oligarchs of Illinois and public laughing stock.

The quote is not only historically wrong, but oozes with an irony worthy of most self-absorbed sould-patched and knit-capped Wicker Park activist hispster born of hearty Kennilworth hedge-fund stock and really committed to Occupy Anything, Black Lives Matter and any group thought meme-stock found in Reasonable People Unite.  They make Trump wanna holler, Dude!

Actually, I believe in my heart of hearts that Donald Trump wants Hillary Clinton in the White House more than Chuck Todd and the late Abner Mikva.

Abner Mikva was a mighty man and he built a political machine that made Richard J. Daley's Ward works seem like an NAACP bake sale in Kaskaskia, Illinois.

Black people flocked to Chicago (Second Migration) all through Richard J. Daley's terms as mayor and Black families began the great Black Flight out of Chicago with Richard M. Daley's advent.  That is because opportunities for employment, a home, an education and a path into the middle class was available, because policies Mikva's Hyde Park Mafia* converted Richie Daley to implement are designed to destroy the middle class.

Yes, siree Bob! The Mikva Challenge, the Shakman Empire, University of Chicago sanctioned City Hall, Lawsuit Lotteries, Garbage Grids, TIFFS, Single Narrative Media Voice ( WTTW,WGN, WBBM, ABC 7, NBC 5, Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun Times, Chicago Values, International Socialists Organization control of Chicago Teachers Union.

Abner Mikva birthed Toni Preckwinkle, Jan Schakowsky, Pat Quinn, Mike Quigley, Larry Suffredin, Proco Joe Moreno, Rahm Emanuel, the late Dawn Clark Netsch, Barabar Flynn Curry, Larry Bloom, Bill Singer, Rod Blagojevich, Bobby Rush, Danny Davis, Jesse Jackson, Jr., . . . name a daffy, mean-spirited, humorless, slow-witted, avaricious and capacity challenged elected official and you can bet the last pennies in your pension that Abner Mikva 'straightened them out' for the Hyde Park Mafia.


Yes, Abner Mikva made Chicago, Cook County and Illinois what they are today and wait until you see America in four more years,

* University of Chicago and Northwestern University schools of Business, Law, Social Sciences, IVI-IPO, CPUSA, ISO, 501(c)3 Foundation -MacArthur, Polk, Woods, & etc, People Law . . .Editorial Boards, Bill Ayers, Berardine Dorhn, Valerie Jarrett, Judson Miner. Allison Davis,  and so many more.

Rahm's Chicago is Richie Daley's Monument - No Havoc Here.

"Let's face it: we have a problem in Chicago. The name-calling and politics at City Hall are keeping us from tackling the real issues ... I may not be the best speaker in town, but I know how to run a government and how to bring people together."
Rahm Emanuel worked for the Daley campaign as a fundraiser,[42] David Axelrod as campaign strategist, William Daley as chief strategist, and Forrest Claypool as a campaign aide. Wikipedia on Richard M. Daley

"The more killing and homicides you have, the more havoc it prevents." Richard M. Daley(RMD)

To be fair, Rahm's Chicago began at that time in Richie Daley's Mayorship when the University of Chicago Hyde Park Mafia sunk its hooks in his tiny heart.  That was when kitchen cabinet Progressive types encouraged RMD to Move out of Bridgeport

• Ax people like Pat Huels, Terry Teele and Oscar De Angelo pronto
• Use Marilyn Katz PR and watch the Feds takeover  CHA* and send problems to neighborhoods
• Trust U of C and Northwestern to beat up on the solid but Progressively disdained people who got you elected ( Sheahan, Joyce and Degnan) via university trained Hegelian activists, lawyers and media types: G. Flint Taylor/Locke Bowman/Jeanne Snyder/Bernardin Dorhn et al 
• Snuggle up to the University of Chicago policy artistes
• Use hard-ball tactics against old school Ward bosses - embrace Shakman
• Close neighborhood taverns, where people talk politics ( RMD) closed scores of family saloons in Bridgeport, Canaryville, Back of the Yards, McKinley Park, Brighton Park and in the southwest Mick Wards. 
• Embrace Progressive platitudes and play act regular old schoolisms to fool the helots.
• Place Progressive icons in City Departments as Heads and hug  Shakman tighter
• Have Regular Democratic Organizations ( 10th, 14th, 19th Wards e.g.)  send field troops into Lakeview, Uptown, Rogers Park and Hyde Park to shoo out the votes for our Mike Quigleys, Joe Mooores and Toni Preckwinkles.
• Turn the keys of the City over to Ameritech, Nortyh Michigan Ave Business Association and Disney.
• Don't Worry about Torture or Burge, or whatever - Our judges like Judge Robert Gettleman got your back.

All of those moves put Valerie Jarrett in the White House and helped build Chicago's Thug Comfort Zone.

Today, Chicago is America's largest illegal gun range.  The guns used in Chicago's daily bloodbaths are not Commie AK-47s in the hands of Aryan Nation Pro-Lifeers; they are street steel.

We have no havoc and we have tons of homicides.  

Here is today's Butcher Bill 

Year to DateShot - Killed: 271
Shot - Wounded: 1490
Total Shot: 1761
Total Homicides: 302

No Havoc!  Enjoy The Pride Parade, Buy some great Disney Products on the Mag Mile and in City Kiosks Everywhere, but Engelwood, Taste of Chicago and Ride the Giant Ferris wheel!

Disney had one  horrific week with the slaughter of people in a nightclub, the stalker murder of a young singer and the corporate controlled death of a toddler at a Disney Resort.

We have the same corporately controlled environment here in Chicago  - hey, deaths happen, people.

Alligators go where they wants to go and urban thugs get chillin' with killin' G!

Today we "learn" that Disney was very aware of threats posed by alligators even when their nature habitat is 'controlled' by the suits who erased Walt Disney's Vision.



Here is a solid Disney employee shooing away Wally Gator (Chicago has one as well) from guests on Splash Mountain.

More interesting is the comment section from the Daily Mail article that broke this story. where gent from Birmingham, Michigan notes,

@#$$%%%^^, Birmingham MI, United States, about 5 hours ago
Safer here than walking on streets of Chicago

That is quite true, There has yet to be another alligator attack since the horror of last week, but Chicago killings and homices continue to keep Old Man Havoc away!

Disney and Daley and Rahm's Chicago Both Are No-Fly Zones: "“I think just the whole debate about the flight restriction–temporary flight restriction. How difficult that was, how hard it was to get as compared to Mickey and Minnie getting it.”

Hard, Richie, way hard.  Harder than arithmetic.

*Joseph Shuldiner, Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian Housing, will be HUD's point man in Chicago. The former head of New York City's housing authority, Mr. Shuldiner will oversee much of the transition from local to Federal control.
He will arrive in Chicago either Monday or Tuesday to brief Mayor Daley and to talk with residents and the staff of the authority. Mr. Daley is out of the city on a trip to England, paid for by American Airlines, and he could not be reached for comment.

Early Voting Bonus - How About a Forrest Claypool Dunk-Tank?

I usually vote on the stated Election Day, primary elections are a huge pain in the ass with all of the same names sneaking into GOP and DNC conventions.  I usually need to bone up on candidates and issues.

This primary is easy.  I am drawing Democratic ballot and will vote for two people.  The rest I will have some fun with - this primary is an insult to every voter in America; I shall return the compliment.

I usually vote on election day, but I could be induced to try early voting, if the City Election Commissioner would offer free back-to- school CPS left-overs, Wilco's Jeff Tweddy and Gang playing on a flat bed truck in the parking lot, or. better yet. a dunk tank featuring CPS/CTA/Cook County/ Chicago Parks/City Hall multi-pension jackpot career grifter, lightweight, dim-bulb and chinless wonder Forrest Claypool squeezed into a Chicago Logo speedo over big-ass barrel of chilled Lake Michigan Straight.

After chopping teachers and staff at CPS, this smarmy soulless Klepto-bureaucrat and WTTW regular could use a Polar Plunge*.

The temperature of his pasty pelt could then match that of the blood coursing through Temple Claypool.

Someone, maybe Commisioner Bill Kresse, or a Bill Kresse Imitator, wearing a huge Flava Flav style clock on a gold chain could collect each I Voted chit and shout enthusiastically as the alarm clock clangs, 'WHATBOYIE???? What????  WHAT TIME IS IT? Dunk Time!"

Each citizen emerging from a designated early voting polling place rewarded with an I VOTED sticker, or palm card could march up to the dunk tank and collect three yellow plastic coated 12" softball for a shot at the metal target/release trigger and plunk Claypool into the icy brine.

Kids and Veterans t'row free all day!

CPS teachers showing proper identification get two additional balls - a metaphor for the apparatii missing from most elected officials and every insider-career grifter.

March can be chilly.

But nothing is so cold as the endless placement and pension looting by Progressive Shakman Sanctioned creeps in government.

* Chicago's real hero James Sheahan raises millions fro special needs youngsters.

Sun Times Editorials Add Up, Only If You You Really Stink At Math

I took a sound beat down every day from Sisters Doralese and Gertrudis, ( Sisters of Mercy ,bye the by) through Sixth and Seventh Grades at Little Flower Grammar School in the mid-1960's, due to my profound inabilities where numbers are concerned.

Pay attention, or I'll give something to whimper about . . .' take the sum of any . . . .' and shave that mustache, Boyo!

In Eight Grade, I took B Honors, because the nun I had thought that I was someone else and graded accordingly.

I did learn to add, subtract, multiply and divide and fractions.

The Editorial Board of the Chicago Sun Times?  I would have been proud to have them sit around around me in those swell desks bolted to the hardwood of Little Flower.  I would have been spared a few cuts and thrashings, from the two Irish women, my Bogman Grandpa Hickey called 'Life's Unplucked Flowers,' when women were present, or 'hairy-faced old Galway Bitches,' between the two of us.

The Chicago Sun Times thumps its Saltine-like chest and thunders like Governor Le Petomane in Blazing Saddles, because the Workers Compensation Payouts are not like New York City's and that the Finance Committee is operating according to the rules of its charter.

The City paid out a whopping 115 million dollars 2011, but no where in the editorial is proof of illegality.

What the editorial amounts to is this - the City is bleeding dollars from the public schools, the CTA and special relationships like this between Friends of Richie Daley and Valerie Jarret in real estate swindles that add up actual theft.

In same edition is Watchdogs ( Tim Novak who investigated Obama/Rezko/Jarret/Allison Davis slum real estates in 2008, but magically vanished around election day), but appears again with Vanecko lad, in keeping with the  paper's Kochman bleatings.

The editorial deals with John Dewey Math (there might be theft Q.E.D. there is!) and Watchdogs in math that Archimedes could understand.

Now, Lookee H'yar!
Here’s how the Davises and Vanecko handled the pension money, according to documents obtained over the past nine years from the five pension funds.

• $9.9 million was lost on the purchase of the 344-unit building at 1212 S. Michigan Ave. Using pension money, Davis and Vanecko paid $65.2 million in September 2006 to buy it — and sold it about five years later for $65.5 million. The pension funds never got any money from the sale.

• $2.8 million was lost on two loans to the owners of the Chicago Defender’s former home, a boarded-up building at 2400 S. Michigan Ave. It’s unclear why DV Urban lent pension money to developers Brian O’Connell of LaGrange and his partner, Matthew A. O’Malley, a politically connected restaurateur who has been battling City Hall over a sweetheart deal to operate the Park Grill restaurant in Millennium Park. After a bank foreclosed on the Defender building, O’Connell and O’Malley sold the property in 2014. The pension funds didn’t get any money from the sale.

• $2.65 million helped DV Urban pay $11.7 million in 2007 for a commercial building at 217 N. Jefferson St. The building was sold last year for $14.5 million — one of the deals that helped the pension funds recover $6 million.

• $6.5 million was used by DV Urban toward $11.5 million it paid for a 162-unit apartment building at 7100 S. South Shore Dr. It was sold last year for $6.75 million, helping return some money to the pension funds.

• $3.5 million went toward $4.2 million DV Urban paid for the stores at 3508 S. State St., part of the CHA’s redevelopment of Stateway Gardens. The pension funds hope to sell the land this year.

• $16.9 million went to loans to developers of 3030 N. Broadway, where a Mariano’s store is being built, and to buy adjacent land at 3013-17 N. Waterloo. The property is expected to be sold this year.

• $4.2 million was invested with the firm Sydney Partners, which paid $10.5 million for a 15.6-acre industrial property at 3348 S. Pulaski. DV Urban leased part of the space to the city. But, beset by environmental problems including polluted soil, the property was sold for just $5.4 million in 2014, and the pension fund money was lost.

• $4.5 million was earmarked to buy the former headquarters of the National Association of Letter Carriers’ Chicago branch at 1411 S. Michigan, next door to the Chicago Firehouse restaurant owned by O’Malley. The deal ended up in court when DV Urban backed out of the deal, asking the letter carriers to return the money — which the union had used to build its new headquarters. The lawsuit was settled out of court, but the pension funds lost all of their money.

Now, I was taught round off decimals at .5 and adding these here figures comes to -

$30 M in losses from City Worker Contributions to Pension Funds - no how about that?  Might call for a old timey stem-winder of an editorial!

Instead, Michael Shakman beefed that he was not getting his cut from Ed Burke's Finance Committee and the harrumphing went viral.

$ 30M is a not, to be sure, a whopping 115 million dollars paid out to workers compensation claims according to the existing law and rules, but $30M in real loss to people who trusted politicians and had their savings picked clean by Progressively Approved Valerie Jarrett slumlords, just might be investigation worthy of city newspaper.  Nah.  Gentlemen, we goota protect our phoney baloney jobs!

Now, here is smelly part.  While cops and school teachers took an investment beating that would have warmed cold-hearts of the two above-mentioned Sisters of Mercy.

Valerie Jarret's slum-lord partner ( Valerie is somehow absent from Tim Novak's investigation) Allison Davis and one of the Vanecko boys made out like porch-climbers.

“The investment was effectively a total loss for DV Urban,” says Miller-May of the teachers pension fund.
DV Urban was paid $8 million in management fees between 2006 and 2012, when the pension funds got permission from a Delaware judge to fire the company.
A little over $1 million, for property-management fees, went to a company owned by Cullen Davis*, another Davis son, who oversaw some of the apartment buildings bought with pension money.
Another $1.7 million went to two companies, including Newport Capital Partners, to manage the DV Urban portfolio and sell off the assets in an effort to recover as much money as possible for the pension funds.
Beyond the money lost on the investments with DV Urban, the pension funds also had to pay $2.5 million for attorneys who fought the firm for two years in courtrooms from Chicago to Delaware over control of the real estate investments.

That's $13 million in money looted from City Workers and tucked in the wallets of slumlords added to $30m in losses comes to a very real $ 43 M beat down of City Workers, not a possible boondoggle.

Where is the editorial on this one?  Somethings don't add up.  Like editorial three-monte providing cover for Rahm, while doing absolutely nothing.

Alderman Ed Burke is playing according to the rules approved by the City of Chicago and he does seem worried a bit nor should he.  He knows this is not newspaper, but a daily political fog machine.

* Like the Ayers/Obama papers held hostage at Cement City, better late than never.
Whenever I am near a Progressive Do-Gooder, I throw both hands over the Left check of my ass to protect my wallet.
Whenever a Progressive Do-Gooder gets near poor people, they rake in millions, properties get boarded up, and people die.

Chicago's Ed Kelly: Kids Come First and Damn Policy to Hell!

“Oh, Mr. Mayor, I’m not really interested in politics, I want to run sports, coaching and that.” - Ed Kelly to Mayor Richard J. Daley

I was blessed to know the difference between what the Irish call Shite and the once popular protective wax application for shoes.   What actually takes place is truth.  What some people say intended policy happens to be is shite. When a man teaches little boys and girls about the physics involved in shooting a basketball through a hoop, or learning to keep one's protective 'left up' in a schoolyard scrap, or how to successfully fill out a job application for summer employment is Shinola - a no longer used commodity in public education, government and discourse.

Government was at one time merely a means of protecting an old lady from starving in a cold-water flat, an access to entry level jobs skills, a protector of public parks and sports programs and point of reference about one's personal character for soul less human resource bureaucrats.

Then came Shakman, the DNC, and the endless parade of talentless takers, jumping from government appointment to appointment to that multi-pension Promised Land.  Chicago today.

I have been blessed to know the difference, between a public servant and a power grabbing grifter.

There are a few public servants still walking around, but they have traded Addidas running shoes for  Shinola applicated Johnson and Murphys.

In our times, a  public servant can no longer be like Ed Kelly.

This summer Mr. Edmund L. Kelly turned 91 years old.

Edmund L. Kelly was born and raised on Chicago's north side in a neighborhood now known as "Cabrini Green."  From an early age, Ed excelled in sports spending most of his free time in neighborhood parks-a foreshadowing of his future when he would one day lead the Chicago Park District.
Ed graduated from St. Philip's High School in 1942.  While attending St. Philip's, his basketball talent earned him positions on the All-Catholic, All-City and All-Star Basketball teams.  Ed attended DePaul University and the University of Iowa, majoring in Physical Education.
In 1943, Ed enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps.  Serving as an aerial gunner with a divebomber squadron, he saw action in the South Pacific and served in China from 1945-1946.  During his Marine career, Ed was elected to the All-Service Basketball Team and won the welterweight boxing championship.  He later played professional basketball with the Oshkosh All Stars in the National Basketball Association. The Chicagoland Sports Hall of Fame

Ed Kelly ' ran the Parks' when I was a kid.  O'Halleran Park, Dawes Park, Foster Park, Hamilton Park Ogden Park, Sherman Park . . .you name a Chicago Park had a program staffed by college athletes, like Mount Carmel Hero of my youth  Bill Trapp . Ed Kelly staffed Chicago's Parks with solid people of great character who taught us to throw a spiral football, hit a three point shot, jab, hook and duck when necessary.  Ed Kelly protected kids, because he kept on eye on who would be teaching kids sport techniques, but more importantly character.

Ed Kelly did not use policy as a mandate - policy is for the pusillanimous.

Ed Kelly is a man.

Then came the idiotic and evil Shakman decision which took 'character' out of politics.

Name an elected politician who does not hide behind 'That smooth'd faced Gentleman, tickling' policy to paraphrase Shakepeare's greatest moral character The Bastard from King John. 

On November 14th, Edmund L. Kelly will be inducted into the Chicago Boxing Hall of Fame for his work with kids.

Ed Kelly could very well stand on the Shakspeare Stage at  Navy Pier and pronounce

Mad world! mad Mayors ! mad composition!
 . . .
With that same purpose-changer, that sly devil,
That broker, that still breaks the pate of faith,
That daily break-vow, he that wins of all,
Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids,
Who, having no external thing to lose
But the word 'maid,' cheats the poor maid of that,
That smooth-faced gentleman, tickling ( Policy for Commodity) ,
 POLICY , the bias of the world,
The world, who of itself is peised well,
Made to run even upon even ground,
Till this advantage, this vile-drawing bias,
This sway of motion, this  POLICY,
Makes it take head from all indifferency,
From all direction, purpose, course, intent:
And this same bias, this POLICY,
This bawd, this broker, this all-changing word,
 . . .
And why rail I on this POLICY?
But for because he hath not woo'd me yet:
Not that I have the power to clutch my hand,
When his fair angels would salute my palm;
But for my hand, as unattempted yet,
Like a poor beggar, raileth on the rich.
Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail
And say there is no sin but to be rich;
And being rich, my virtue then shall be
To say there is no vice but beggary.
Since kings break faith upon POLICY,
Gain, be my lord, for I will worship thee. ( changes and emphases my own with profound apologies to the Bard)

Rahm Emanuel's Sophisticated Snow Finances

Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to raise fines against businesses that don't shovel sidewalks as part of his 2016 budget.
The proposal, part of the annual city management ordinance, would hike the potential fine from $50 to $500. Emanuel also wants to increase fines for anyone piling snow in a fashion that blocks the public way — including bike lanes and racks, bus stops or building entrances — from a minimum of $25 and a maximum of $100 to a minimum of $50 and a maximum of $500.
Such penalties are rarely enforced, however. The city issued just 226 tickets for snow removal issues during the winter of 2014-15, according to the Department of Transportation. Ninety percent of those were issued to business owners or multiunit residential buildings.
Emanuel also introduced language to tie fees for heavy truck permits to the consumer price index, so they would increase or decrease each year depending on the rate of inflation. Currently, the cost for an overweight truck permit is $50 to $150 for a single trip or $500 to $2,250 monthly, according to city records.
The full City Council is set to vote on Emanuel's overall budget plan Oct. 28.( emphases my own) Chicago Tribune

Last Spring Chicago had an opportunity to bid Rahm Emanuel a hearty and genuine God Speed!  The Chicago media, Axelrod Productions, The Shakman Blessed  Exempted Executive Appointees City and County level and their families ans retainers  at command, ginned up a perfect storm of I AM WITH RAHM beat down on the opposition candidate for mayor, Jesus Chuy Garcia. 

So egregious were these Axelrodian memes and tropes that even the complacent and complicit Chicago Tribune seemed shamed enough to offer this non-apology.

The mayor and his allies have criticized Garcia for not offering enough specifics on how he'd lead the city. Despite that, the ad opens by claiming Garcia has "made $1.9 billion in spending promises," suggesting that amounts to "$1,900 in additional taxes for the average homeowner." The commercial then raises the question of how Garcia would pay for the alleged promises and ends with clips of Garcia saying his campaign was conducting research on city finances and would look at "creative sources of financing."
The ad closes by flashing the text, "Creative sources of financing? Uh-oh."

"Uh-oh" indeed.

I never once heard Garcia offer to increase taxes on City services, much less do away with them.

Nor, do I recall his, in Bruce Rauner's mewling sop to his wine-purchasing pal Rahm, offer of 'sophisticated financing' via our Parks, natural resources, or human caused terrorism against Bike Lanes.

Rahm Emanuel won, after telling each and every mope in Chicago that he was a changed man.

Yep, changed up a storm.

Chicago's Lake Michigan Lake water costs us much more to drink, wash, rinse and flush.  Our Parks were handed over to Marty Nesbitt, George Lucas and other corporatist bundlers of Rahm and Obama to come and snow that avoids the manual labor and sweat of eighty year old Mrs. Wanda Skutnik owner of Pierogi Queens' Eats of 1440 N. Greenview, Apt Z-Frank will cost old Wanda a lung.

Violations will be ZipCode Cited and fines will be politically analyzed for activist blow back.

For the last twenty years, my route to Leo High School has been the same - from Morgan Park to Gresham - via north on Western Ave. to 87th Street; east on 87th Street to Racine; north on Racine to 79th Street; east on 79th to Sangamon and a sharp right hand turn into the Leo Faculty and visitor parking lot,  after I unlock the gate, of course.

Racine from 87th Street to 79th Street is the home of no less than twenty eight (28) churches located in buildings that used to house businesses.  There is a smattering of businesses ( two bars: The Junction and Holloway's Hideaway) a dollar store, a liquor store, two car washes, an auto repair shop, an urban clothing store, a gas station, and the Paul Cuffee Elementary Academy) - all of the remaining buildings house churches and most only offer services on Sunday.

In winter, the sidewalks disappear under snow and ice until the Spring thaw.  Residents walk between the east and west curbs of Racine - at their peril and if the 17th Ward managed to plow Racine.  I am very careful not to hit people trying to get to the CTA bus turn-around on east side of Racine at 86th Street in the cold, windy dark of a Chicago morning.  Very often I will offer pedestrians a neighborly ride to 79th Street ( Hookers/Trannies and ne'er-do-wells of unaffiliated gang membership excluded) - working folks.

The reason why, the sidewalks remain uncleared of snow is due to the fact that the Pastors of the 28 store-front churches do not live in the 17th Ward.  Their parsonages are in Flossmoor, Orland Park, New Lennox, Matteson and the less-successful in Country Club Hills. If it snows on Monday, there is good chance that there are six layers of frosty precipitations layering the sidewalks and easements on Racine Avenue.  Snow removal? Not until the pastor, or his sons have an opportunity to check in on the church.

These Pastors will be considered business owners? Uh-Oh!  Churches comprise the bulk of this Racine Avenue Business community.

Well, Rahm is sophisticated enough to parse "businesses" with homeowners - "Chicago is ALL of Our Business!"  I can hear Coon-eyed Mayor hiss.  " Ticket 'em all!" He will and shortly.

You can make book on the fact that the 50 City Council Nodders and Windbags never gave a thought to Racine Avenue ( 87th-79th Streets inclusive), nor could care less.  Rahm wants the tax and the tax will happen, because Chicago was With Rahm.

I would venture to say that  the 28 pastors of the Racine Avenue churches ( 87th-79th Streets inclusive) will remain un-ticketed for Rahm's new Force Majeure  Taxation on Snow.

No, I fully expect that business owners and very shortly homeowners from what deemed to be middle class-ish Zip Codes will be ticketed and summoned to court.  TS, as Chicagoans are wont to say.

Justice has nothing to do with Progressive Global Sanctuary City like Chicago.

Walkin' Dan? Not a Fan.

“It’s a long, long way to go. His body’s tired, but not his soul. He’s a winner walkin’ home." -A Winner Walkin' Home: The Ballad of Dan Walker

My Dad always said, " The only people to smoke a corncob pipe were Dugout Doug MacArthur, Walkin' Dan Walker and Granny Clampett; two were creeps and one a pretend Hillbilly."

Image and Substance matter.  A man in work clothes should be doing tough manual labor, otherwise it is only make-believe dress-up time.

The late Dan Walker was the very model of modern preening politician of both political parties. Props and sound bytes and compelling narratives turned Walker into the Populist Progressive Democrat, now all the rage. Dan Walker set the table for  political grifters like Forrest Claypool, Mike Quigley, Jan Schakowsky, Rod Blagojevich, and GOP darlings like Bruce Rauner, Aaron Schock and Senator Marque Kirque. These types who " . . .shout and scream, I'll kill the king, I'll rail at all his servants" and drink deeply from the public trough. Colorful Populists  have never been my cup of strychnine.

Dan Walker belongs to the ages.

The ages had their advent when Dan Walker put on his costume instead of his daily wear.



Image and substance?  They only match up when deeds glue them together,

Dan Walker was a talented man, a WASP princeling, an Annapolis 'ring-knocker' and shameless opportunist who litigated against organized labor as counsel for Montgomery Ward, or smeared cops with broadest of social engineering brushes, or used First American Savings and Loan as his personal piggy bank with equal relish and entitlement.

Dan Walker donned blue denin, work-boots, clenched a foot-long corn cob pipe in his magnificently maintained teeth, grew his hair to Bobby Kennedy lengths, tied a Howdy Doody bandanna around his windpipe and gave the people of Illinois their first taste of  political bullshit - and they swallowed it ever since 1972.

1972 marked the end of the Democratic Party when it was high jacked by Abner Mikva, Patricia Harris, Bill Singer and America's foremost grifter adept - Jesse Jackson.  Cook County delegates elected by the people of Cook County were uncommitted to any candidate.  George McGovern and Patricia Harris encouraged the looting of delegates, which also set the table Michael Shakman's destruction of the Cook County Democratic Party and his reaping of millions of dollars through Shakman Decrees.Walker wrote the script for every grifter who wanted a place at the public trough with words like Reform, Machine, Boss and Change.  Richard J. Daley was a competent, hard-wrking, ruthless and loyal public servant and he never heard the iron bars close his day. Walker has and so have many other Populist Reformer Firebrand Change Agents.

Dan Walker's costumed jaunt of 1,197 miles trough Illinois resonated with Illini who read little, but pray " They are All Crooks!" like it was the Memorare.  Folks narrowly gave Walker his opportunities and have continued to swallow tons of bullshit, organic, whole, and very Green. One term and everything was changed by Magic Dan Walker.

I never acquired the taste.

Dan Walker belongs to the ages . . .and that ain't necessarily a good thing.

My Vote - This November 4, 2014 in Precinct 23 of the 19th Ward of Chicago, Cook County, Illinois

 

Poll Watcher - "Make sure you fill in the whole circle where you vote, Mr. Hickey."


       This will be the most contrarian vote of my citizenship in these USes of A.  I have voted in every election since I cast my first vote for Tricky Dick in 1972 - thanks so muckinfuch Michael Shakman, Jesse Jackson, Abner Mikva and Billy Singer.

I voted Democrat in every Presidential Election from Carter up to Obama '08.

We have evolved, we are told and my evolution as a voting citizen requires that I choose many fatuous blowhards over more complete blowhards, feebs and dummies.

                                   This is the La Brea Tar pits of Electoral Evolution!


How I will cast my ballot in th early voting follows - my votes are underscored.

                                              General Election Candidate List, November 4, 2014
                                                         Punch No. Party Status Candidate
United States Senator 
1 Democratic Richard J. Durbin Candidate
2 Republican James D. "Jim" Oberweis Candidate         
3 Libertarian Sharon Hansen Candidate

Illinois Governor

Governor & Lieutenant
Democratic Candidate
Pat Quinn &
Paul Vallas

Republican Candidate
Bruce Rauner & 
Evelyn Sanguinetti

 Libertarian Candidate
Chad Grimm &
Alexander Cummings


Attorney General 

Democratic Lisa Madigan Candidate
Republican Paul M. Schimpf Candidate
Libertarian Ben Koyl Candidate


"What is taking him so long?"

Secretary of State 
Democratic Jesse White Candidate
Republican Michael Webster Candidate
Libertarian Christopher Michel Candidate

Comptroller 
Democratic Sheila Simon Candidate
Republican Judy Baar Topinka Candidate
Libertarian Julie Fox Candidate

Treasurer 
Democratic Michael W. Frerichs Candidate
Republican Tom Cross Candidate
31 Libertarian

U.S. Representative, 3rd District 
Democratic Daniel William Lipinski Candidate
Republican Sharon M. Brannigan Candidate

State Senator, 18th District

Democratic Bill Cunningham Candidate
Republican Shaun Colin Murphy Candidate

State Representative, 35th District


Democratic Frances Ann Hurley Candidate
Republican Victor C. Horne Candidate

Unopposed Candidates to County Board -I'll do a write-in where needed; same to judges

Referenda

 General Election Referenda and Local Options

"Shall the minimum wage in Illinois for adults over the age of 18 be raised to $10 per
hour by January 1, 2015?"

Yes

 No

To the Voters of the State of Illinois:

"Shall any health insurance plan in Illinois that provides prescription drug coverage
be required to include prescription birth control as part of that coverage?"
Yes
 No

To the Voters of the State of Illinois:

"Should the Illinois Constitution be amended to require that each school district
receive additional revenue, based on their number of students, from an additional 3%
tax on income greater than one million dollars?"

Yes
 No

To the Voters of the State of Illinois:

"Shall the General Assembly of the State of Illinois appropriate additional funds to
provide necessary mental health services for the people of the State of Illinois?"

Yes
 No


                     To the Voters of Cook County:
Friday, September 05, 2014 Page 23 of 25

"Shall the Illinois General Assembly enact the Illinois Public Safety Act (Senate Bill
3659) which would require universal background checks for firearm transfers and
prohibit the sale and transfer of assault weapons, assault weapon attachments and
high capacity ammunition magazines?"

Yes

 No

To the Voters of Cook County:

"Should the Illinois General Assembly amend the Medical Cannabis Pilot Program
Act to give local municipalities a role in the siting of medical cannabis dispensing
organizations and cultivation centers in its neighborhoods?"

Yes
 No

To the Voters of the City of Chicago:

"Should the State of Illinois account for concentrations of at-risk students living in
poverty or who speak English as a second language when determining how state
resources for education are allocated?"

Yes
 No


There!  I am so happy I could spit.

Rauner, The Illinois GOP and Me

 

Rauner said if elected, he would partner with Michael Shakman to work out a settlement that includes a federal hiring monitor. His remarks came after Quinn on Friday released the names of more than 100 clouted state transportation employees who were part of what the state’s top ethics watchdog dubbed an improper hiring scheme. Quinn also said he would keep the 103 IDOT employees on the payroll.  Sun Times

Here on the south side, we have an odd custom.  Let's say, I am walking up to County Fair and my neighbor Mike Regan is driving by me on the way from that great grocery and without looking at me fires his arm out of the driver's side window and at the end of that limb is The FINGER!

Do I get upset and worrying that I might have offended Mike?  Not at all.

Or, let's say I am walking to Kean Gas at 111th & Talman and I hear familiar voice 'Hickey, You ugly old A$$hole!'  Do I recoil in horror at this attempt to define me. Not in the least.  It is a kinsmen voicing this ave.  Cousin Bub coming from Cardinal Fitness over by Maplewood.  We are odd ducks who salute one another with jocular offense and the towel snapping familiarity of friends who know every wart on our fannies.  This is a closed circle.

I am an UnEvolved Democrat*.  That means that I continue to think that life begins at conception, Communism is still a huge threat to the American worker, government should protect people and not enrich sycophants and reward the  demographic du jour and that Republicans are the political party that blows off its own toes.

Abortion was once only acceptable to people like Chuck Percy.  Communists were only electable in Hyde Park. Sycophants were only kept around by Ward bosses for laughs and never boosted to seats on the County Board, or made President of the Chicago Transit Authority every political job holder whether white, blue, or scoop collar beefed about every other race, creed and color's prestige in the Cook County hierarchy. The Irish Catholic is was and shall always be universally loathed and largely shrugged off.

Michael Shakman, a Hyde Park Democrat, changed utterly the Democratic Celtic Twilight of the Daleys et al. and continues to defraud Cook County and the State of Illinois of millions of dollars. Shakman begot every goof in government from Dick Simpson to Pat Quinn.  The Ward organizations no longer exist, but talentless grifters have amasssed numerous pensions for jobs not done from death of Old Man Daley up to the cuurent Carpetbagger on the Fifth Floor. When Cook County residents bolt rigid with shock at each despoiling of their way of life and stutter,'It Can't Get Any Worse'  a Martin Oberman, or a Forrest Claypool lands new Six Figure sinecure with all of perks.

Then there are the Republicans.  The once free-booting back-slappers of Du Page County who ruled
suburbia and downstate from Governors Len Small to Jim Edgar have devolved to a race of bloodless toadies who allow anyone (Eric Zorn, Carol Marin, Pat Quinn, or Sheila Simon for God's sake) to define them.

In his race to lose against the historically hapless Gov. Pat Quinn 2010, Rep. Pat Brady allowed Roe Conn and Richard Roeper to define him as a tax suspect as well as the monstrous master of Pat Quinn Boss Terry Cosgrove of Planned Parenthood to define him as a Lady Hater.

If you are going to succeed in Illinois as GOP office holder, one must be defined and like it.

Only Judy Baar Topinka is a bullet proof because she will dance the polka with any definer. 'Want babies dead? You got it.'

Billionaire Bruce Rauner is in the race to lose against the historically hapless Governor Pat Quinn and he is not only allowing himself to be defined, but he is going full Topinka.  Trying to belittle Pat Quinn is like trying to define the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. God handled both.

Then Bruce Rauner, the Cathcart festooned, beater driving plutocrat wine-guzzler, goes even goofier than Quinn by pledging more tax-dollars to the four-eyed bandit Michael Shakman

Why am I not a Republican?

I will not be defined by people who don't know me, don't like me, or don't get me.


* AKA Reagan Democrat, Close-Knit Ethnic Democrat, 19th Ward Democrat

Gov. Pat "Everyday People" Quinn - The Champion of Liberal Apartheid and My Trip to Women's Roller Derby

"The vast expanse of economic decline in the midst of unprecedented, but very narrow urban luxury has been characterized as “liberal apartheid. ” The well-heeled, largely white and Asian coastal denizens live in an economically inaccessible bubble insulated from the largely poor, working-class, heavily Latino communities in the eastern interior of the state. "- Joel Kotkin

My old Pappy used to say, " When some goof says he's a Reformer, put your hands on your wallet."   Dad knew what he was talking about in most cases with the only possible exception of the value and quality of Carnation Instant Powdered Milk.  That stuff would gag a maggot.

He walked picket lines up to and including the Chicago Printers strike and a few hotels hiring scabs and strike breakers. He had no use for the folding chair labor commandoes who went to strike site armed with only collers full snacks and beers, who sit on their asses and shout out at passersby threats and maledictions.

"If you are on a picket, get off your asses and walkI"  He never accepted the notion of an evolved working man.  Times change to be sure, but virtue should not.

We have evolved.  Me, not so much.  I admire the virtues that created the dying American Standard of Living.  I still try as best I can manage to give my employer a 'straight eight, or better,'  Corner cutting reforms to the work ethic are just excuses for laziness, or beating The Man . . .whoever she is.

Politicians define everything from virtues to doctrine.  Class envy is all the rage.  The defenders of the working man are not working persons themselves, but job hopping grifters with more political clout than any Machine Boss could envy. The idiotic and oily Shakman Drecreesdestroyed jobs in Cook County, because it took hiring preferences out of the hands of department heads and into the hands of Progressive commissars armed to the teeth with policy.

The result is the vanished craftsmanship of competent workers in the public sector work force in favor of massive placement of the unskilled, the unqualified and unconcerned in key positions over the skilled, the qualified and concerned.  That does not do much for worker morale.

When was the last time, you have heard about life-long railroad man, engineer, electrician or structual engineer heading up the CTA, or the RTA? (cricket chirps)

Instead, the great cops, the great teachers, the great mechanics put in their time and the papers for retirement ASAP.  They sell their bungalows in Edison Park, or Marquette Park, or Washington Park and beat it out of the State with the shreds left of their looted pensions.

SEIU steps in where the motivated and the qualified once roamed to fill the ranks of the old political get-out the vote armies.  Low-wages for life, with time out at election time for a boost to the minimum wage scam or a millionaire tax.

Fronting this 'right side of history, are politically persistent pests like Pat Quinn who has managed to evolve from the Sunday Gadfly Harangue and Harrumph with Pat to signing legislation redefining what marriage has meant for millenia on Lincoln's desk at Uof I Pavilion.  Everday People.

My Dad was everyday people, he was a great stationary engineer who showed to work up at Illinois Med Center during Great Blizzard of '67 and all through the West Side Riots of '68.  He did not need to be the boss, because he already knew what the boss needed to know about the physical plant operations.  So did his six brothers.

I went to the U of I Pavilion on Saturday and took in the Windy City Rollers - Chicago's great women's roller derby athletes.  What put that bug in my labyrinthine bonnet, was meeting the two of the WC Rollers at the downtown St. Patrick's Day Parade on March 15th.  They chatted with our Leo students, marching in the Big Shoulders Fund contingent.  They were smart, funny, lovely and athletic.  I recalled watching Women's Roller Derby on black and white TVs with coat hanger antennae broadcast from the same oddball UHF stations that feature Ben's Auto Sales Wrestling.  The gigantic Joan Weston of New England Bombers was the ferocious foe and fiend who would toss the tiny Filipina with raven tresses knotted in a ponytail deep into the cheap seats.  My brows can go as low as any man's.

Everyday people enjoy roller derby, as they do minor league baseball, because they can afford to take the kids.  Everyday people can not afford the Bulls, the White Sox, The Bears, or The Cubs, unless they take out a loan from Red China and go into debt like the Obama White House.

I went to the U of I Pavilion on Saturday March 22 and watched the skating Amazons get the two thousand or so fans up out of their chairs through every Jam.  Alisin Chains, Chokehold Chanel, Beth Amphetamine,  Sargentina and the tall goddess # 81 Ruth Anasia streaked, bumped and blocked up a storm.

I noticed that the crowd was demographically diverse (Breeders and non-Euclidian, Asians, Latinos, Crackers and African Americans), but obviously totally 99%ers.  No camel hair top coats, no furs, no Hickey-Freeman brogues, or Jimmy Chew go-to-Hell stiletto heels to be seen any where within my 20/20 field of vision.  I had on my neatly pressed Dad 'n Lads strides, my Marshall's oxford cloth buttoned down shirt and sweater from the sale hopper at Sears and shod in my Thom McCann old guy shoes.

No Pat Quinn anywhere!  Everyday people, every where to be seen and huckstered with Class envy encomiums and liberal apartheid sloganeering. " Rauner has nine mansions!  He Has Nine Mansions!" All Pat Quinn owns is the condition of the State of Illinois and a disgraceful place in history - Pat Quinn  knows not what do, but he will do it anyway.

Liberal apartheid is the result of good people having anything to do with a Progressive.  The Middle Class is screwed and will disappear altogether thanks to the Pat Quinn's of American.

Pat Quinn really believes in Progressive Doctrine.  He can not help it.  He serves the rich and anonymous Progressive overlords like Dr. Quentin Young, Abner Mikva and their money changers.  

Tribune Editorial Board Boosts the Progressive Fatwah Against Labor Issued by Imam Pfleger

Man, if you had the juice of the droopy-eyed mope and career grifter of the CTA - Forrest Claypool - you could wake up any morning with a dead Mormon family in bed with you, start the morning off with a big bowl of Jello shots swimming in Maker's Mark, drive to work like Danny Davis, do as little as Governor Quinn for a straight six hours and draw a pay check and change with no less than six zeros behind the arabic numeral of your choice.

However, you are not Forrest Claypool, Sheila Simon, Pat Quinn, Toni Preckwinkle, or Deb Mell;  you needs to work and be accountable.

Robert Kelly is the President of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308.  I have never met Bob Kelly.  I have read about the man in the newspapers and find him to be a genuine man of labor.  I have met Forrest Claypool and read about his. I can't say deeds, jobs in government going back to Mayor Harold Washington.  The guy, in my opinion, is a dope, but the luckiest dope in the world, to paraphrase Babs Streisand   Forrest Claypool is job-hopping grifter.

Bob Kelly has had a job with Chicago Transit Authority in nearly every capacity concering rail cars and has earned the trust of his co-workers who made Kelly their agent and finally union President. They elected Bob Kelly.   I can not remember the last time Forrest Claypool earned the votes of anyone for anything.  He is a career appointee. Wait!  Claypooly narrowly beat Ted Leschowisz for a County Board seat, but had his patrician rump handed to him by Todd Stoger in the county Board President race and most recently Joe Berrios for Cook County Assessor. Todd Stoger???

Well, Rahm got elected Mayor and appointed Forrest Claypool to the presidency of the Chicago Transit Authority, because that post is a Non-Shakman patronage haven.

In the spring of last year, following a series of bumps on the rails caused by Claypool, Rahm, Pfleger and Claypool announced a Progressive feel-good dodge that gave 65 ex-felons jobs cleaning CTA rail cars. That trio of grifters never bothered to chat with Local 308 about this Studs Terkel of an initiative.

When it came time to renew those hand-outs, it was discovered that Kelly and Local 308 wanted to pay these ex-cons a better salary than Clayppol's coffers could stand. Rahm tossed Claypool the Progressive Playbook.

• Problem - Kelly
• Solution - Destroy the man and his reputation!
• Enlist Sneed, Andy 'The Microphone" Shaw's BGA, the ususal sheep

So beginning in late November, Claypool had smooched the proper Progressive fannies and had Citizen Michael Phleger, Robby Rush, Danny Davis and the Later-Day Marats of both city editorial boards geared up to go Full Axelrod on White Boy Kelly!

Citizen Pfleger decided to issue a Fatwah on Robert Kelly in January*.

Today, Bruce Dold and the Tribne Editorial Board joined that Imam Pfeger's fatwah and used a stale Sun Times smear from December impyling that Robert Kelly fixed a scholarship and shook down companies doing business with Claypool's CTA.

This editorial  is a political hack-job done only to smear a genuine labor leader of a skilled trades local. Robert Kelly has stood up to Mayor Rahm and his hapless. job-hopping appointee CTA President Forrest Claypool. The charge against Robert Kelly crawled from under the stove in December hours after Claypool allies ( Bobby Rush and Michael Pfleger) protested at Local 308 over the placement of ex-felons in union jobs without the consultation of Local 308. The Sun Times did that story which Bruce Dold and Editorial Board uses today. Pfleger has issued a Fatwah on Robert Kelly, the media has taken the side Forrest Claypool whose tenure with CTA has been one screw-up after another -called out onl;y by Robert Kelly at each ( potty Breaks, Bombardier wheels, the Forset Park wreck of Old 98, Ventra & etc.). The Tribune editorial board loves Progressives and shugs when progress come to a screaming halt, when a proteceted species of Progressive Cook County pulls the brakes and not the throttle. This is character assasination worthy of Joseph Medill.

I f you really want to know why things are so screwed up, read the papers, watch the news and remember something, anything.


*

Father Michael Pfleger

January 2

Robert Kelly, President of ATU Local 308 did not get his New Year wish to fire 65 Ex-Offenders from their jobs at CTA. Thankfully CTA moved them to another Union 241 so that they could continue to Work! This Second Chance Apprentice Program for Ex-Offenders has helped hundreds of Brothers and Sisters get a second Chance and sent a message to thousands that a Second Chance is possible, but Robert Kelly in his Arrogance and Power Play threw them UNDER THE BUS on Dec 31st. TO ALL 308 UNION MEMBERS, YOU NEED TO THROW MR. KELLY UNDER THE BUS IN THE NEXT ELECTION!!!!!!!

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  Matthew Deal I think Father Pfleger is just mad that he has to stay a Virgin for life so he taking it out on Robert Kelly. Smh

  January 2 at 5:36pm · Like · 3
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  Don Mack WOOHH!!! That's Great 65 people still get to keep there Jobs