As President Obama discovered when he tried to deliver his Memorial Day speech near Chicago last weekend: “when it rains, it pours.”
The mile-deep gusher now polluting Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico is a metaphor for the Pandora’s Box of miseries that seem to be raining on the nation and the world: European financial instability; Third World nukes; South American narco-states; the re-emergence of piracy; America’s unprotected borders, our persistent 10% unemployment rate, exploding government debt; runaway entitlements and public pensions; aging infrastructure; a health care system headed for bureaucratic sclerosis; and on and on…
Standing between us and this onslaught is the leader of the free world himself, Barack H. Obama, who, it is becoming increasingly obvious, is in way over his head. If you were Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would you feel comfortable knowing this White House has got Israel’s back? If you were Governor Jan Brewer would you be confident in the President’s ability, even willingness, to halt the hordes of illegals pouring across the Arizona border? If you were Governor Bobby Jindal would you sleep easy knowing this Administration might eventually, some day, perhaps support your request to build protective sand barriers between the advancing oil slick and valuable Louisiana fishing and wildlife waters? Not on your life. You don’t have to be a governor or a foreign leader to feel nervous. A lot of people are starting to worry.
Joining those of us getting worried is Barack Obama. But he’s got a lot more on his mind than developing an effective American energy plan, or Israel getting blown off the map, or helping the private economy recover. Part of what keeps the President awake nights is the fact that jury selection has begun in the Rod “Blago” Blagojevich trial, and a federal judge just cleared the way for White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel to testify.
Don’t think for a moment that it was a coincidence that President Obama abandoned the BP oil-rig mess to take a family vacation to Chicago last weekend. He didn’t travel back to the Windy City because it is a fair-weather paradise in the springtime, or because he missed the old Hyde Park home and his next-door neighbor Anton “Tony” Rezko. Besides, Rezko hasn’t lived next door for quite a while. He’s in a witness protection program, with Federal bodyguards keeping him safe.
Even in Chicago, where wiring legal outcomes is a political art form, this trial has to be making a lot of people nervous; among them the President of the United States, along with the Mayor, the current Illinois Governor, several US Senators and some members of Congress. Blago has made it clear that he doesn’t plan to go to prison quietly. He wants to be put under oath and tell his side of the story. Without a doubt, his side of the story will boil down to exactly this: Blago only did what everyone else was doing. Handing out jobs and selling Senate seats is what Chicago politicians do all the time.
Given the current flap over the Administration’s offer of a job to Pennsylvania’s Joe Sestak in exchange for his staying out the Senate race, and stories of a similar job offer to a Colorado politician we can understand the concern. Scratch the recently passed Health Care Reform Bill and you’ll find dozens more cases of job offers in exchange for votes. As this trial drags on who knows how many cans of worms will get kicked over.
As it turned out, it was Obama’s “vacation” to Chicago that resulted in the rain-soaked Memorial Day speech. This in turn led to the news footage that provided the picture worth a thousand words. There he was on our television screens; President Obama, grimly clutching his umbrella after the temperature suddenly dropped 15 degrees and the skies opened up in a mid-west gully-washer. It was all he could do to read the teleprompter and make himself heard over the rolling thunder.
The audience, hundreds of loyal Democrats, stood dutifully shivering in the rain. Many of them had, perhaps, seen Obama speak before, in better times, when he was full of dreamy promises about lowering the sea level, healing the earth and fundamentally changing America. We can only assume it began to dawn on some in the crowd, the smarter ones, just what kind of President we are stuck with for most of the next three years.
When it rains, it pours.
This essay was originally published on
June 4th, 2010 in American Thinker
Showing posts with label Chicago Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chicago Politics. Show all posts
Friday, June 4, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Report: Adam Andrezejewski rally in Chicago
The Tea Party network got the word out that there would be a rally Friday, January 29th on Federal Plaza in Chicago in support of Republican Gubernatorial candidate Adam Andrezejewski.
Andrezejewski is gaining steam in the upcoming primary here in Illinois. He has a shot at taking the nomination away from a crowded field of mostly establishment-backed go-along Rinos. The issue in Illinois, besides a pestilence of corruption, is the State’s lousy financial situation. A “combine” of Dems and Repubs, has left the treasury looted and the state with an $14 billion budget hole. Unfunded pension liability for State workers is $89 billion and counting. Click here. Only California has a worse Moody's credit rating.
As is typical in January, downtown Chicago was no place for the lightly dressed. The wind-chill factor made for a single-digit, ear flaps-down temperature. No reason to wonder why The Machine scheduled the primary election for the first Tuesday in February.
The real draw for the rally was former President of Poland, and founder of Solidarity, Lech Walesa, who was in Illinois to announce his support for Andrezejewski – by the way, the pronunciation is simpler than it looks: Just say N-G-F and put a Ski on the end. N-G-F-Ski. Repeat it three times and you’ll sound like a real Chicagoan.
Here is a video link to the whole of Walesa’s remarks, and some of Andrezejewski’s, both of whom were brief – they were frozen, too. Click here.
I brought along my wife’s digital camera but didn’t use it. Instead, fingers numb, I shot a few 3-D views with my trusty Stereo Realist (which I mention in my “revisionist” Plumwood Road review of the movie Avatar, posted January 28th).
What was my impression of the rally? Honestly, just between us? Hmmm…I know a lot of Tea Party people who are very impressed with Andrezejewski, and it was easy to see why: He speaks well on the stump, he was sharp and crisp in front of the media, he is gaining experience, but clearly a work in progress. By next fall he could be fantastic. Most importantly, he has a simple, compelling campaign message: “Open the Books”. When I heard those three words, I knew he was in possession of the political equivalent of The Bomb. And, I could see it in his eyes; he’ll use it.
The first thing Governor Andrezejewski will do is circumvent the Democrat and old-boy Republicans and issue an executive order calling for a complete audit of the State of Illinois; where have all those billions of dollars gone? Let’s “Open the Books” and find out whose pockets are getting stuffed. A hint of where that question may lead was given by another speaker, John Bambeneck, who is involved professionally in investigating internet crime. “And, when you are talking about internet crime in Illinois,” Bambeneck said, “You are talking about Organized Crime.” Message received.
Did I see any problems with Andrezejewski? Yes, and a pretty big one: campaign organization. He is young and he needs an experienced hand guiding him and training a rebel band of organizers. And he needs somebody to take charge of the schedule.
The event was set to kick off at 2:30. Andrezejewski and Walesa arrived 40 minutes late. That left a lot of filling to do at the podium as well as 150 supporters standing in the cold. Luckily for the candidate, the people in the cold were dedicated activists. They are the kind of people who are ready to rock. The first of the “filler” speakers was a flag-carrying retired 20-year Marine. This man knew a crowd of volunteers could get little restless. With just a few words, he had us standing straight and focused. “Let me hear an Ooh-Rah!” And he heard one.
But Andrezejewski can’t let this happen again, not when he has a crowd of curious or undecided voters. Write that down, somebody, and get it to him.
Will I vote for Andrezejewski on Tuesday? Most likely. I had previously been leaning toward Dan Proft, another fire-ball conservative, but N-G-F-Ski’s “Open the Books” theme is brilliant. If he gets the nomination, there are going to be a lot of nervous politicians in Illinois.
Andrezejewski is gaining steam in the upcoming primary here in Illinois. He has a shot at taking the nomination away from a crowded field of mostly establishment-backed go-along Rinos. The issue in Illinois, besides a pestilence of corruption, is the State’s lousy financial situation. A “combine” of Dems and Repubs, has left the treasury looted and the state with an $14 billion budget hole. Unfunded pension liability for State workers is $89 billion and counting. Click here. Only California has a worse Moody's credit rating.
As is typical in January, downtown Chicago was no place for the lightly dressed. The wind-chill factor made for a single-digit, ear flaps-down temperature. No reason to wonder why The Machine scheduled the primary election for the first Tuesday in February.
The real draw for the rally was former President of Poland, and founder of Solidarity, Lech Walesa, who was in Illinois to announce his support for Andrezejewski – by the way, the pronunciation is simpler than it looks: Just say N-G-F and put a Ski on the end. N-G-F-Ski. Repeat it three times and you’ll sound like a real Chicagoan.
Here is a video link to the whole of Walesa’s remarks, and some of Andrezejewski’s, both of whom were brief – they were frozen, too. Click here.
I brought along my wife’s digital camera but didn’t use it. Instead, fingers numb, I shot a few 3-D views with my trusty Stereo Realist (which I mention in my “revisionist” Plumwood Road review of the movie Avatar, posted January 28th).
What was my impression of the rally? Honestly, just between us? Hmmm…I know a lot of Tea Party people who are very impressed with Andrezejewski, and it was easy to see why: He speaks well on the stump, he was sharp and crisp in front of the media, he is gaining experience, but clearly a work in progress. By next fall he could be fantastic. Most importantly, he has a simple, compelling campaign message: “Open the Books”. When I heard those three words, I knew he was in possession of the political equivalent of The Bomb. And, I could see it in his eyes; he’ll use it.
The first thing Governor Andrezejewski will do is circumvent the Democrat and old-boy Republicans and issue an executive order calling for a complete audit of the State of Illinois; where have all those billions of dollars gone? Let’s “Open the Books” and find out whose pockets are getting stuffed. A hint of where that question may lead was given by another speaker, John Bambeneck, who is involved professionally in investigating internet crime. “And, when you are talking about internet crime in Illinois,” Bambeneck said, “You are talking about Organized Crime.” Message received.
Did I see any problems with Andrezejewski? Yes, and a pretty big one: campaign organization. He is young and he needs an experienced hand guiding him and training a rebel band of organizers. And he needs somebody to take charge of the schedule.
The event was set to kick off at 2:30. Andrezejewski and Walesa arrived 40 minutes late. That left a lot of filling to do at the podium as well as 150 supporters standing in the cold. Luckily for the candidate, the people in the cold were dedicated activists. They are the kind of people who are ready to rock. The first of the “filler” speakers was a flag-carrying retired 20-year Marine. This man knew a crowd of volunteers could get little restless. With just a few words, he had us standing straight and focused. “Let me hear an Ooh-Rah!” And he heard one.
But Andrezejewski can’t let this happen again, not when he has a crowd of curious or undecided voters. Write that down, somebody, and get it to him.
Will I vote for Andrezejewski on Tuesday? Most likely. I had previously been leaning toward Dan Proft, another fire-ball conservative, but N-G-F-Ski’s “Open the Books” theme is brilliant. If he gets the nomination, there are going to be a lot of nervous politicians in Illinois.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
A Review of a Book I Haven't Read
Did you happen to notice last year, while plane loads of reporters were roaming over the tundra in Alaska trying to dig up a scandal they could connect to Sarah Palin, there didn’t seem to be any interest in sniffing around Barack Obama’s home town? Unless you're interested in moose hunting, seems like Chicago is where the action is.
Well, it looks like somebody has finally done some sniffing.
Michelle Malkin’s book, Culture of Corruption maps the murky waters of Chicago politics in which President Barack Obama swam during his formative years as local organizer and politician. Evidently, there exists a lot of curiosity among many in the reading public, because within days of its release Culture of Corruption became #1 on the non-fiction best seller lists.
I’d like to read the book myself. I work in a book store but have been so busy lately that I haven’t even had time to pick the thing up and flip through it to see if my favorite Chicago Stories made it into print. My wife and I have lived in the area for 21 years and from the day of our arrival we have been amazed at the political messes that the natives step around – and pay for – without even seeming to noticing.
"An apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”. From that standpoint alone it is easy to understand the book’s appeal to those who live in other parts of the country. We have a new president and a lot of people are curious about his Political Family Tree. A lot of people are watching the new administration's conduct in the current Health Care debate. Without reading the book, I can divulge the secret: his method of operating is Pure Chicago: avoid substance, pit constituencies against each other and take names.
On a lighter level, Chicago politics has a novel cachet in the rest of the country. People out there in Kansas or Texas or Georgia or where-ever voters feel is a safe distance from which to watch, wonder: “How do those people in Illinois put up with all of that?” It's like watching a three-ring circus complete with freak show, only in this circus it’s the monkeys who are throwing the peanuts at the people, and the people don’t seem to mind all that much.
Like I said, we’ve lived here for over twenty years and we still can’t figure it out. Every few weeks another miscellaneous official, from building code Safety Inspector all the way up to Governor – you name it – gets caught in some low intrigue or other. Not long ago we heard on the radio that "Fast Eddie" admitted to taking over a Million Dollars of public money. Admitted. He got off with a wrist-slap. No mention of whether he had to return the money.
Some of these shenanigans are laughable in their audacity. I hope Michelle Malkin included a couple of the goofier scams, just for laughs. A few weeks ago Alderman Issac “Ike” Carothers got popped for accepting $40, 000 worth of home remodeling in exchange for greasing through a $3 Million Dollar land deal. I know. I wondered the same thing: the developer gets 3 Mil and Ike gets a measly 40K? Never the less, that’s the case.
Other goings-on are less funny: In ’03 there was an early morning panic stampede in an illegal after hours joint, the E2 Nightclub, in which 21 people were trampled to death and another 50 were injured. The fact that the story disappeared from the news so fast – you’d have thought it was a fender-bender involving a yellow cab and a garbage truck – lends credence to the rumor that a big political family had a financial interest in the club. Twenty people dead and the story just went away? What about lawsuits? Was everything really cleared up quietly out of court?
A couple months later there was another disaster in which six County employees were killed in an arson fire that started in the Cook County Office Building evidence room. Another Keystone Cops investigation went nowhere. In 2006, US Senator Barack Obama endorsed the man in charge of the investigation, John Stroger for re-election as County Board President.
So here is what I suspect the net effect of Culture of Corruption will be: people will read the book from cover to cover. They will put the book on the coffee table, or pass it along to a friend, and they will sit back and reflect on The Chicago Way of doing things.
As it sinks in, they’ll begin to reflect on what the country can expect now that this same bunch has “gone national”. People from this soup, trained in these ethics are now filling Federal posts, tweaking the budget, fiddling with healthcare, and otherwise not looking out for the common good – just like they were back home in Chicago.
And, I have a point here…
Take for instance this story from last Friday’s Chicago Tribune(8/7/09), headlined “Daley Insider Corners Olympic Spots”. This may be illustrative of where we are headed.
The Tribune report is markedly "passive" in it's tone. So, allow me to put it into a nutshell for you:
Michael Scott is a member of Mayor Daley’s Chicago Olympic Committee, and he's a real operator. At the same time he's been working to bring the Olympics here he has been busy buying up land where the Games would be held should Chicago be named Host City. If that happens, Scott will be in a position to resell the land to the IOC.
$$$$$$$$
Before you say “that’s just smart business”, consider that the City of Chicago controls many of the lots and is selling them at distressed prices of $1.00 apiece. I know, that doesn't sound right to me either. Chicago, like most other cities, is in sad financial condition. Why does not the City of Chicago sell the lots to the IOC themselves and let the profits give taxpayers a break? Why take what could be valuable land and treat it as the real estate equivalent of the Cash For Clunkers program, letting someone with political connections pocket the money?
And there’s more. Michael Scott is also President of the Chicago Public School Board. The previous CPS President is now Secretary of Education in the Obama Administration, in case you were wondering.
Pop Quiz -- What do you think of when you think of Chicago Public Schools? Yeah. You bet you do: Bullets, drugs, gangs, and chaos, along with low achievement and high drop-out rate.
But, in Chicago there are, effectively, two school systems; the so-called Magnet School Program for the City's best-and-brightest and the regular public system for everyone else.
If you are hip to the way government tends to operate, the minute you learn that there are two systems set up for anything you know that one system is for “us" and the other for “them”. "Them" being people with political clout, people who need to be attended to. Got it? Now hold that thought.
Students are required to test into the better schools. However, true to Chicago form, a phone call and a little curried favor will improve admission chances. There seems to be plenty of opportunity to sneak politically connected kids into elite public schools. Yet, for every under achieving student who gets in on Dad's clout, there is another, truly deserving student, who is denied.
This kind of thing goes on all the time. In fact, right now, there is a similar scandal going on at the Illinois State University level.
The easy question would be to ask, Is this fair? Of course it is not fair.
But there is a more important question we need to consider: What will happen when these people, these oily politicians and malleable bureaucrats, control our health care? I suspect, although I haven't read it, that that is the question left by Culture of Corruption.
What’s going to happen when you have to apply to a governmental body to get a knee replacement or a valve job or an MRI? While everyone knows there are problems with our current delivery system, I have never heard of anyone offering to “tip” the nurse in order to get the sheets changed, or donate to Congressman X’s campaign in order to get moved to the front of the line for a hernia repair. But that is how things are done in Chicago. And we should be considering the likelihood that this is how things will be done once the health care system is taken over by politicians and bureaucrats.
Well, it looks like somebody has finally done some sniffing.
Michelle Malkin’s book, Culture of Corruption maps the murky waters of Chicago politics in which President Barack Obama swam during his formative years as local organizer and politician. Evidently, there exists a lot of curiosity among many in the reading public, because within days of its release Culture of Corruption became #1 on the non-fiction best seller lists.
I’d like to read the book myself. I work in a book store but have been so busy lately that I haven’t even had time to pick the thing up and flip through it to see if my favorite Chicago Stories made it into print. My wife and I have lived in the area for 21 years and from the day of our arrival we have been amazed at the political messes that the natives step around – and pay for – without even seeming to noticing.
"An apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”. From that standpoint alone it is easy to understand the book’s appeal to those who live in other parts of the country. We have a new president and a lot of people are curious about his Political Family Tree. A lot of people are watching the new administration's conduct in the current Health Care debate. Without reading the book, I can divulge the secret: his method of operating is Pure Chicago: avoid substance, pit constituencies against each other and take names.
On a lighter level, Chicago politics has a novel cachet in the rest of the country. People out there in Kansas or Texas or Georgia or where-ever voters feel is a safe distance from which to watch, wonder: “How do those people in Illinois put up with all of that?” It's like watching a three-ring circus complete with freak show, only in this circus it’s the monkeys who are throwing the peanuts at the people, and the people don’t seem to mind all that much.
Like I said, we’ve lived here for over twenty years and we still can’t figure it out. Every few weeks another miscellaneous official, from building code Safety Inspector all the way up to Governor – you name it – gets caught in some low intrigue or other. Not long ago we heard on the radio that "Fast Eddie" admitted to taking over a Million Dollars of public money. Admitted. He got off with a wrist-slap. No mention of whether he had to return the money.
Some of these shenanigans are laughable in their audacity. I hope Michelle Malkin included a couple of the goofier scams, just for laughs. A few weeks ago Alderman Issac “Ike” Carothers got popped for accepting $40, 000 worth of home remodeling in exchange for greasing through a $3 Million Dollar land deal. I know. I wondered the same thing: the developer gets 3 Mil and Ike gets a measly 40K? Never the less, that’s the case.
Other goings-on are less funny: In ’03 there was an early morning panic stampede in an illegal after hours joint, the E2 Nightclub, in which 21 people were trampled to death and another 50 were injured. The fact that the story disappeared from the news so fast – you’d have thought it was a fender-bender involving a yellow cab and a garbage truck – lends credence to the rumor that a big political family had a financial interest in the club. Twenty people dead and the story just went away? What about lawsuits? Was everything really cleared up quietly out of court?
A couple months later there was another disaster in which six County employees were killed in an arson fire that started in the Cook County Office Building evidence room. Another Keystone Cops investigation went nowhere. In 2006, US Senator Barack Obama endorsed the man in charge of the investigation, John Stroger for re-election as County Board President.
So here is what I suspect the net effect of Culture of Corruption will be: people will read the book from cover to cover. They will put the book on the coffee table, or pass it along to a friend, and they will sit back and reflect on The Chicago Way of doing things.
As it sinks in, they’ll begin to reflect on what the country can expect now that this same bunch has “gone national”. People from this soup, trained in these ethics are now filling Federal posts, tweaking the budget, fiddling with healthcare, and otherwise not looking out for the common good – just like they were back home in Chicago.
And, I have a point here…
Take for instance this story from last Friday’s Chicago Tribune(8/7/09), headlined “Daley Insider Corners Olympic Spots”. This may be illustrative of where we are headed.
The Tribune report is markedly "passive" in it's tone. So, allow me to put it into a nutshell for you:
Michael Scott is a member of Mayor Daley’s Chicago Olympic Committee, and he's a real operator. At the same time he's been working to bring the Olympics here he has been busy buying up land where the Games would be held should Chicago be named Host City. If that happens, Scott will be in a position to resell the land to the IOC.
$$$$$$$$
Before you say “that’s just smart business”, consider that the City of Chicago controls many of the lots and is selling them at distressed prices of $1.00 apiece. I know, that doesn't sound right to me either. Chicago, like most other cities, is in sad financial condition. Why does not the City of Chicago sell the lots to the IOC themselves and let the profits give taxpayers a break? Why take what could be valuable land and treat it as the real estate equivalent of the Cash For Clunkers program, letting someone with political connections pocket the money?
And there’s more. Michael Scott is also President of the Chicago Public School Board. The previous CPS President is now Secretary of Education in the Obama Administration, in case you were wondering.
Pop Quiz -- What do you think of when you think of Chicago Public Schools? Yeah. You bet you do: Bullets, drugs, gangs, and chaos, along with low achievement and high drop-out rate.
But, in Chicago there are, effectively, two school systems; the so-called Magnet School Program for the City's best-and-brightest and the regular public system for everyone else.
If you are hip to the way government tends to operate, the minute you learn that there are two systems set up for anything you know that one system is for “us" and the other for “them”. "Them" being people with political clout, people who need to be attended to. Got it? Now hold that thought.
Students are required to test into the better schools. However, true to Chicago form, a phone call and a little curried favor will improve admission chances. There seems to be plenty of opportunity to sneak politically connected kids into elite public schools. Yet, for every under achieving student who gets in on Dad's clout, there is another, truly deserving student, who is denied.
This kind of thing goes on all the time. In fact, right now, there is a similar scandal going on at the Illinois State University level.
The easy question would be to ask, Is this fair? Of course it is not fair.
But there is a more important question we need to consider: What will happen when these people, these oily politicians and malleable bureaucrats, control our health care? I suspect, although I haven't read it, that that is the question left by Culture of Corruption.
What’s going to happen when you have to apply to a governmental body to get a knee replacement or a valve job or an MRI? While everyone knows there are problems with our current delivery system, I have never heard of anyone offering to “tip” the nurse in order to get the sheets changed, or donate to Congressman X’s campaign in order to get moved to the front of the line for a hernia repair. But that is how things are done in Chicago. And we should be considering the likelihood that this is how things will be done once the health care system is taken over by politicians and bureaucrats.
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