Professional Left Podcast Episode 975: The "C" Word.

"I decided I would go to Chicago and try my luck as a writer after those eight months as a fireman" --  Carl Sandburg

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Meanwhile, In Local Fascism...

...the local chapter of the "Every Accusation is a Confession" party is reacting to the events of the past week just exactly as you would expect.

From Peoria news station 25, "Your Home Team", and WAND, "Central #Illinois' best source for #news and #weather." (see what they did there with the little hash-tags):

Illinois Freedom Caucus seeks Pritzker’s removal from office over ‘vile’ rhetoric

Yes, we have our very own, Illinois legislature "Freedom Caucus", because "fascist see, fascist do".

The Illinois Freedom Caucus has filed articles of impeachment against Gov. JB Pritzker over “vile comments” made against Republicans.

The eastern Illinois Republicans are furious with Pritzker’s response to the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.

Pritzker expressed sympathy for Kirk and his family while condemning political violence at an unrelated event Wednesday. However, the Democrat said President Donald Trump ignites this type of violence.

“We saw the shootings, the killings in Minnesota. We’ve seen other political violence occur in other states,” Pritzker said. “I would just say, it’s got to stop. I think there are people fomenting it in this country. I think the president’s rhetoric often foments it.”

That's what our governor, J.B. Pritzker said.  Simple.  Clear.  Factual.

But because they wear the Special Glasses -- 

-- this is what local MAGA nitwits heard:

Republicans have criticized Pritzker’s increased attacks on the GOP over recent years, including a speech where Pritzker said Republicans cannot know a moment of peace earlier this spring. Many are upset that Pritzker blamed their party’s leader for the rise in violence following Kirk’s death.

“For him to say these things for political gain is unacceptable,” said Rep. Adam Niemerg (R-Dieterich). “That’s what this is all about. This is about political gain for radical Democrats and pushing a woke narrative. They can’t amount to anything to get that done, including assassinating conservatives at college campuses.”

"Political gain"?  Check.

"Radical Democrats"? Check.

"Woke narrative"? Check

They really are just reprogrammable meatbags.  

Niemerg and Rep. Chris Miller (R-Hindsboro) told WAND News they know Democrats have no desire to impeach Pritzker. They argued that other Illinois Democrats are complicit in the governor’s actions.

“Just the rhetoric is nonstop about being Nazis and about being fascists,” Miller said. “That includes people like me. I’m a farmer from downstate Illinois. I’m about the farthest thing from a Nazi that you will ever see. It’s extremely inflammatory to me personally and also my family and all the things we stand for.”

What's exactly is the difference between someone who is a member of a fascist political party, who votes for fascist, votes with fascists, who helped nominate a fascist for president three times and got him elected twice ... and a fascist?  Sounds an awful lot like being just a little bit pregnant.

Also, Fun Fact:  Chris Miller, leader of the state-level Illinois Freedom Caucus is the husband of Mary "Nazi" Miller, who regularly disgraces herself and embarrasses the state as the representative from Illinois' 15th congressional district, which, at a rating of Batshit+20, is Illinois most conservative district.  

Here is more of what governor Pritzker actually said:

Pritzker said no one in this country should have to fear gun violence, whether they’re in class in high school or attending an event on a college campus. The Pritzker administration reiterated that the governor condemned the shooting that killed Charlie Kirk and believes political violence should never become the norm.

And here is the predictable Illinois Republican Freedom Caucus freakout:

“Just two nights ago, I called for the governor to resign frankly over his terrible comments blaming Trump and Jan. 6 for Charlie Kirk’s political assassination,” Niemerg said. “The governor has shown that he is not capable of leading. He has shown that he needs to be removed from office, and that needs to happen immediately.”

Because the only law these elected Jukes and Kallikaks believe applies to them is Murc's Law.

No, that's "Burke's Law".

This is Murc's Law.

“Murc’s Law” [was] named after a commenter at the blog Lawyers, Guns, and Money who noticed years ago the habitual assumption among the punditry that Republican misbehavior can only be caused by Democrats. Do Republicans reject climate science? Must be because Democrats failed to persuade them! Did Republicans pass unpopular tax cuts for the rich? Must be that Democrats didn’t do enough to guide them to better choices! Do Republicans keep voting for lunatics and fascists? It must be the fault of Democrats for being mean to them! Even D____ T____’s election was widely blamed on Democrats — who voted against him, to be clear — on the bizarre grounds that Barack Obama should have rolled over and just let Mitt Romney win in 2012.

So, has this ludicrous, stumblebum circus made any forward progress in the past few days?  Well, if you define "progress" in the broadest possible terms, and measure it in micrometers, I suppose it has.

From WGN, Chicago, today:

Pritzker’s rhetoric sparks impeachment calls from Illinois conservatives 

As you know, we here at the driftglass blog love a good rhetoric sparking that leads to calls for things.  Tell me more, World's Greatest Network!

Sadly it's mostly retreads of what we already know ... except this.  Using the opening three paragraphs to execute what we in the trade call the ol'  "A.P. Stylebook eyeroll".

Amidst a debate over how to quell political violence in America, Illinois elected leaders from both sides of the aisle are calling for a change in tone. 

Hey, both sides agree that tones should be changed.  Isn't that great!

In the aftermath of the fatal shooting of activist Charlie Kirk, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker has called for the country to come together to end political violence.

And the governor is leading the way.  Isn't that terrific! 

And then, the eyeroll, which I will highlight for your elucidation...

But the Illinois House Freedom Caucus, comprised of conservative state lawmakers, accuses the governor of inciting violence. The group brought articles of impeachment against Pritzker, citing various statements made by the Democratic Party, including remarks in New Hampshire back in April.

The article continues:

Illinois State Rep. Adam Niemerg (R-Dieterich) further explained the motivation behind the Illinois House Freedom Caucus.

“We’ve proceeded with Articles of Impeachment against Governor Pritzker for his own hateful rhetoric, as well as no safety and security here in the state of Illinois,” Niemerg said...

Republicans also criticized Pritzker for statements made during his February State of the State address.

“The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems. If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this: It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours, and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic,” Pritzker said...

Niemerg said Pritzker is attempting to do a bureaucratic shuffle.

“He’s trying to act like his hateful rhetoric has not been heard by the radical left,” Niemerg added.

Then, in the last paragraph, comes the little touch that makes it art.  The article covering what everyone knows is time-wasting garbage conjured into existence by the dregs at the bottom of the Illinois MAGA barrel is bookended by another A.P. Stylebook eyeroll, which I have highlighted for your edification:

The Articles of Impeachment are unlikely to move forward, as the Democratic supermajority in Springfield would need to agree to bring the bill to the floor. Also worth noting is that the GOP leadership did not introduce the measure.

Worth noting indeed.  

Mark this hot saga as "Developing!"

I Am The Liberal Media

Dear Savvy Pundits Who Learned Everything They Know About Chicago Politics From a Fast Glance at Wikipedia

Keep the name of my beloved former home out'cher goddamn mouths.

After a long disquisition about how different Washington D.C. is now than how she fondly remembers it five years ago...

[Note to self:  Remember to send Sara Longwell the complete works of George Pelecanos and David Simon.]

... we join Ms. Sara Longwell of The Bulwark and MSNBulwark sharing her deep political knowledge of Chicago with listeners.

Longwell: That's when you get change elections.  Now the one thing in this election in Chicago in particular...

Fairly sure the only thing Ms. Longwell knew about Chicago in particular before this was how much a whiskey sour will set you back at the O'Hare airport Jazz Bar.  

Longwell: ...in particular, it's clear they don't want HER.  But she had somebody running to her left.  And then there's, like, a Republican that won.

The last Republican mayor of the City of Chicago was "Big Bill" Thompson who served in that office from 1915 to 1923 and from 1927 to 1931, and was the loyal stooge of Al Capone, about whom I'm sure even Sara Longwell has heard.

At that time one could not get a whiskey sour at O'Hare Airport because, A) the Volstead Act would not be repealed by the 21st Amendment until 1933 and, B) O'Hare did not exist.  

At that time, that location was known as Orchard Place.  It later became a manufacturing site for Douglas C-54 Skymasters during World War II. And was not opened as a commercial airport until 1955, during the first term of Richard J. Daley, about whom I'm sure even Sara Longwell has heard.

Longwell: ...And then there's, like, a Republican that won.  And I guess my question is, is it possible Chicago elects a Republican mayor in this environment? 

No.  

For two reasons.  

First, Paul Vallas is not a fucking Republican.  He has run for many public offices in Illinois, and lost, as a Democrat, which is not exactly Curs'd Sekret Knowledge available only to the elect.  

Second, the GOP has been dead as Dillinger (look it up) in Chicago since forever.  The closest any Republican has come to the Fifth floor (look it up) was when when Harold Washington won the Democratic party's nomination  in 1983 and ethic white voters and 29 ethnic white Democratic alderman had a huge and openly racist freakout and fled in panic to a Republican cipher named Bernie Epton, whose campaign motto was "Epton: Before It's Too Late!"

In fact, The Professional Left did a whole, No Fair Remembering Stuff podcast about it here.   

Surprised the Bulwarkians didn't listen to it before opening their gobs.

Longwell: ...is it possible Chicago elects a Republican mayor in this environment? And I'm not positive that's the case.

Tim Miller:  Yeah, see if Brandon Johnson is the one you were talking about that was running to, I guess, her left.  And Vallas... is a... is not a Republican.  The guy won the most.  He's a Democrat, but I think...

Longwell: Oh he is?

Yes.  Yes he is.

Miller: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Longwell: I kept seeing people refer to him as a Conservative.  They must mean a Conservative Democrat.

Caution:  Deep political thinkers at work.

Miller: Yeah, this is the very online Libs, y'know, trying to smear him.  

Golly, recently-former Republican Tim Miller, why would you think accurately referring to Paul Vallas as a "Conservative Democrat" constitutes a "smear"?

Miller: No, um, he ran for governor as a Democrat, uh, he ran for lieutenant governor as a a Democrat.  So no, very, uh, very much a Democrat but, uh... look, I do think that the messaging about unions coming from him is maybe why he's sorta see this, oh if you...you wanna criticize the teacher's union or whatever then you're a Republican.  And so, uh, no, he...uh, ran as a Democrat back in 2002.  So it's been 20 years at lest he's been a Democrat...  

Then comes a life-preserver, as Miller swiftly if awkwardly pivots away from Mr. Longwell's embarrassing political ignorance, to a word salad of internet and tribal bubbles and such.

Miller: But look, I... I think that sometimes it's hard to tell, like in this... in this Surround-Sound information environment, like, what is real.  Like what is just... in my feeds.  Right?  Like, what is being blown out of proportion.  And I think that that breeds an idea a lot of times of people who are in one... their tribal bubble of being, like, no, this is bullshit. Right? Like, crime isn't really that bad.  

Miller then disappears into a cloud of words about Oakland, California, where he actually lives, to talk about politics there.  

And thus we leave "Republican" Paul Vallas and the Chicago election behind.

So how is it that a savvy political professional like Ms. Longwell knows nothing, and Tim Miller knows next to nothing, about the political and civil history of third largest city in the United States?  The home town of Barack Obama and practically the second home to Bill Clinton during his administration?  The engine that drives the entire midwest, including our big, blue state in a sea of red?  Y'know, the Land of Lincoln?  Where the first Republican president is buried?  Where we are currently being governed by the most popular Democratic governor in America?  

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd guess it's because Chicago isn't D.C. or NYC or L.A., and Illinois isn't California or Florida or New York.  And coastal elites like Miller and Longwell have no real interest in or understanding of those of us here in flyover country.

For relief from these recently-former Republicans projecting their talking points onto my former hometown, let us now turn to that other, weekly Bulwark podcast where...

...oh fuck my life.  

Never mind.  

Unless you're hungry to hear about how Paul Vallas represents the sort of Sensible Centrism to which all Democrats should aspire.  

Or how Brandon Johnson is a "perfect caricature" of crazy, out-of-touch Liberals.  

Or how this election will be a test for national Democrats to see if Sensible Moderates can wrest control of the party away from those crazy, out-of-touch Liberals.  

Or if it's been too long since you've heard a Conservative sneeringly resurrect the term "limousine Liberal".

If that's the content you're looking for...leave here immediately and never return.

'cause I don’t want nobody nobody sent. (Look it up)

I Am The Liberal Media

Before Barack There Was Harold

One of my prized political possessions.

On the occasion of his 100th birthday we pause to remember one of the greatest mayors that a great city ever had.  Hizzoner Harold Washington, who served a term and a half in the Big Chair on the fifth floor before tragically passing away on November 25, 1987, just as he was really hitting his stride.  

Barack and Harold (if you're from Chicago, such first name familiarity is legally permitted) share a lot of political DNA.  Both men were almost always the smartest guy in the room in any room they were in.  Both of them loved language and deployed it surgically and beautifully.  Both men were running against long odds to hold jobs that had never been held by an African American before.  Both men were incredibly charismatic, and when they radiated that joyful confidence in the future, you just wanted be on that team.  

But more instructive are the differences between them.  Barack began running for president at the age of 46 after spending about a minute in the U.S. senate, and a few years in the Illinois state house.  He was a Constitutional law professor who understood how government worked...on paper and in Springfield, Illinois.  He was a young man on a very fast track trying to get through a very narrow political window.  

Harold began running for mayor of Chicago at the age of 60, about the same age as Barack is now, and sporting about the same shade of dignified gray that now salts Barack's crown.  After spending his entire adult life in politics (from ward heeler to terms in both chambers of the Illinois statehouse to U.S. Representative) and working within the constraints of Chicago machine, Harold knew the system intimately and knew what it took to win.  He knew the assholes would come for him hard, and they surely did.  From me a few years back:

God bless Adam Doster over at Chicago Magazine (although you can stop sending me offers to "Win Dinner and West Side Story Tickets!" already) for disinterring what Mr. Doster aptly describes as "one of the great ledes in Chicago journalism history", penned, you will not be shocked to discover, by the late Mike Royko:

”So I told Uncle Chester: Don’t worry, Harold Washington doesn’t want to marry your sister”

Which, in one sentence, describes with machine-lathe precision exactly what was galloping 'round and 'round through the terrified minds of hundreds of thousands of Chicago's ethic white "Uncle Chesters".

Royko went on to explain just how much Harold's experience had differed from the ethnic white Chicagoans who loathed him on-sight, and just how extraordinary it was that Harold had not allowed their hate to drag him down to their level:

First, Washington was born in an era when they still lynched people in some parts of the United States. By “lynched,” I mean they took a black man out of his home, put a rope around his neck and murdered him by hanging. Then they went home to bed knowing they were untouchable because the sheriff helped pull the rope. Washington suffered through it. God knows how he did that. I think that most of us–white, privileged, the success road wide open to us–might have turned into haters. Washington didn’t turn into a hater. Instead, he developed a capacity for living with his tormenters and understanding that in the flow of history there are deep valleys and heady peaks...

It's a cliche, but the crucial difference between the men comes down to the fact that Harold understood and played politics "the Chicago way" -- 

-- and Barack either would not or could not.

Harold was battle-tested by years in the business, so when the "Vrdolyak 29" set themselves up as an openly racist opposition party dedicated to obstructing and sabotaging Harold's administration at any price...and then running against him as a dictator, he stepped right to them.  He knew who his enemies were and knew that trying sweet talk and back-slapping were a waste of time, so he pounded on them mercilessly in the press and from behind his podium at the city council.  

Barack, on the other hand, worshiped at the altar of Process and Compromise.  After all, it had always served him well in Springfield.  Even after it was painfully clear to the rest of us that the playbook Republican's were going to run against Obama administration was going to be virtually identical to the playbook that Vrdolyak and his gang ran against the Washington administration-- relentless racist sabotage followed by endless whining that nothing was getting done and that the Scary Black Man was acting like a tyrant  -- Barack kept playing into their hands.  He had never been battle-hardened like Harold had, and had never learned the political knife-fighting skills Harold had learned.  And so, over and over again he deployed his greatest weapon -- his intellect and his massive vocabulary -- in one doomed attempt after another to appeal to the Republican's better angels.  

It never worked, because it never does.

So crack open a Goose Island Bourbon County Stout or a Daisy Cutter Pale Ale or any of the hundreds fine local Chicago beers and hoist a cold one in honor of a better mayor than the Windy City deserved --

-- and who left us long before his important work was done.

Burn The Lifeboats

When Did Axelrod Get to Be Such a Fucking Snowflake?

David Axelrod, who cut his teeth on bare-knuckle Chicago politics.  And fuck you if you can't handle a mixed metaphor.

David Axelrod, who proudly oversaw the installation of his friend and confidante, Rahm "Fuck you!  I will fucking gut you!" Emmanuel, as president Barack Obama's first chief of staff.

David Axelrod, who now assiduously courts the good opinion of people like Mr. David Brooks --

Axelrod on Brooks: ‘true public thinker’ 

 -- and who pearl-clutches like the Woman from Tinley Park

No it’s not.

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) January 4, 2019

David Axelrod, who is no longer a man of Chicago.

Behold, a Tip Jar!

The Red Skull Comes To The Heart Of Blue Chicago

From the Chicago Tribune:

Sandy Hook denier Alex Jones' show to be beamed from Chicago's Trump Tower

Prominent conspiracy theorist and Sandy Hook denier Alex Jones will soon be broadcast on FM radio from downtown Chicago, according to a radio station owner who has won FCC approval to place a transmitter on the roof of Trump Tower.

WCKG station owner Matt Dubiel went on the Texan’s “Infowars” show on Monday to announce his plans to install an FM transmitter at Trump Tower in January.

“We’ve worked out an arrangement with the Trump Tower,” to lease space on the top of the tower, Dubiel told Jones, praising the Trump Organization for “having their act together.”
...

The Trump Organization did not respond to questions about any deal with Dubiel on Thursday, but public records show Dubiel received FCC approval in July to move his FM translator — a transmitter that allows him to simultaneously broadcast an AM show on FM — to the Trump Tower. Most Chicago FM broadcasters use the older Willis and Hancock towers, and Dubiel told Inc. on Thursday that he believes he has the first English language station to broadcast from Trump Tower.

He told Inc. he has aired Jones for “nearly a decade.” He currently broadcasts Jones in AM on 1530 and on higher-quality FM on 102.3, but the 5-mile range of his weak FM transmitter reaches a far smaller audience in suburban Elmhurst than it would from the center of downtown Chicago...

This is happening because the Right continues to do the thing the Left inexplicably refuses to do -- invest real money to grow and maintain a vast, integrated media machine to spread their poison everywhere.

And now they've come to Chicago:

Meanwhile, in a cornfield a few hours outside Chicago, smack in the middle of Trump country, two plucky Liberal podcasters have continued to stay on the air every week for the last seven years thanks to a rowdy group of small contributors from all over the world.

And as much as I find these odds bracing, there is no getting around the fact that we on the Left are currently (to quote Nick Fury) hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned when it comes to getting our words out into the world.

The good news is that this is a fixable problem.

The bad new is, the fix involves Liberals with deep pockets finally getting the hell off the sidelines.

And in a world where Tucker Carlson's new sidekick can get an internet billionaire to write him a $250M check to build a media empire, and Jill Stein can find enough credulous sarandons to kick in $3.7M for her "Hillary Is Worse Than Trump!" campaign and then another $5M for her recount scam, and Tom Steyer has enough loose, sofa-cushion cash laying around to lend Time Square a cheery holiday glow by burning enormous piles of it, then clearly a lack of money is not the problem.

So what is the problem?

Behold, a Tip Jar!

Today In Bear Baiting

Over the years I have been in most bars in Wrigleyville including this one (John Barleycorn) and I seen many strange things.

But to-date I have never seen a dick get decked by an unsanctioned bear.

Perfumed From an Unseen Censer

File under: "With friends like these."

Cross-reference under: "There is a Club..."

From, God help us, the "Wall Street Journal":

The Five Million Dollar Man
How government unions rip off the taxpayer.

The Chicago Tribune reports that an investigation it conducted with WGN-TV found "23 retired union officials from Chicago stand to collect about $56 million from two ailing city pension funds."

That's an average of $2.4 million each, and some will rake in even more. Dennis Gannon, a former president of the Chicago Federation of Labor, stands to collect some $5 million. In line for $4 million apiece are Liberato "Al" Naimoli, president of the Cement Workers Union Local 76, and James McNally, vice president of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150.

"Since the 1950s," the Trib explains, "city workers who take leaves of absence to work full time for unions have been able to remain in city pension funds if they choose. The time they spend at their union jobs counts toward their city pensions."

Union jobs, however, are far more lucrative than city jobs. Gannon's city salary was $56,000 a year; his union salary, $200,000. But he retired from his city job in 2004--at age 50, and 13 years after beginning a leave of absence. Between then and 2010, when he retired from the union, he collected both the $200,000 union salary and a $150,000 city pension.

How did the city end up paying him a pension nearly three times his salary? That's where things get interesting.
...

Thanks, Mr. Gannon!

For a minute there I was worried that the fuel tanks full of endlessly recycled "union thug", "Chicago-way corruption" and "Tony Rezko" nonsense that have powered the Right's relentlessly venomous rhetoric for the last couple of years were juuuust about down to fumes.

And just maybe that the brutal, hostage-taking anti-labor, anti-middle class, anti-American agenda the GOP rolled out over the last 12-months might actually be sufficient to, y’know, get enough people to stop voting to cut their own economic throats to turn back that dark tide.

But you, sir, have now managed to almost singlehandedly top those tanks right off.

And with jet fuel no less!

And now, thanks to you, for the next God-knows-how-many-months, the refutation to every reasonable Liberal argument about every issue from wage inequality to the GOP-created deficit to tax fairness is going to boil down to two words:

"Dennis. Gannon."

Oh, they're gonna to make you famous, pal.

Famous beyond your capacity to imagine, because this story has all the elements of a Frank Luntz/Karl Rove wet-dream: hog-trough-greedy Chicago union bosses and back-room Chicago political deals, all set against the backdrop of President's home town and campaign HQ, in a city that has been crying poormouth, slashes services and laying people off by the thousands.

Hey, did I mention this all happened in Chicago?

Where da brudder of da last Mare is da current White House Chief-of-Staff?
And dis Mare is da previous White House House Chief-of-Staff?

Extra-scrutiny? You're soaking in it!

From (Oh dear Lord) John Kass:

...
The mayor of Chicago in 1991 was Richard M. Daley. He'd rule for years. He not only had labor peace, he could send out union muscle to elect his candidates, from judges to governors and even then-U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who has since received a promotion. In his new job, no longer the union beneficiary but the antagonist, Emanuel realizes that all the money is gone.

But during those decades of labor peace, Daley was boss and his brothers prospered, becoming wealthy in banking, insurance and zoning law.

The speaker of the Illinois House was Michael Madigan. He's still speaker. He's been speaker for most, if not all, of your lifetime, as he's built up his own fortune reducing taxes for downtown real estate barons. He wants organized labor to help his daughter become governor someday.

The governor who signed the bill was Big Jim Thompson on his last day in office. A Republican, Thompson has always gotten along splendidly with Democrats. So who says there's no bipartisan Combine?
...

This story has more legs than an army of Rockettes, more angles than a tesseract, ergo it has more staying power than Ron Jeremy at the top of his game.

Shit, all that's really missing is a dead hooker and a vial of coke.

Or an inconveniently stained blue dress.

As a matter of background and strictly FYI, the people I know who work at the city are mostly of the non-clout-protected variety, and they are positively punch-drunk these days.

Like dogs that have been beaten with no rhyme or reason for years.

They are mostly still plugging away below decks, doing their job in windowless cubicles, trying to hang onto some ghost of the call to public service that originally put their feet on the path they now walk. But after years of continuous and arbitrary layoffs, reorganizations, mandatory, weeks-long unpaid furloughs, months of "Fuck you, I don't care if your kid is in daycare"-style implicitly mandatory unpaid overtime, they're just barely hanging in there.

And by all accounts, the Emanuel Administration has done little in the way of changing the day-to-day management style of the Hall beyond adopting the Daley Method ("You're One Microscopic Cog in His Catastrophic Plan"):

"...investing his own band of perky Janissaries – 12-year-old interns fresh from the Harris School and loyal only to Hizzonner -- with imperial authority and cycling them through the system every year or so, ...giving his department heads conflicting mandates and then pitting them against each other, ...picking aldermen like Bozo the Clown picking out a pair of floppy shoes and a bright, red nose… Da Mare’s entire Administration has been a brilliant study in preemptively obliterating anything that even vaguely resembles a power-base outside of the 5th floor of City Hall."

and cranking the asshole factor up to 11.

Most of the people I know who toil in the vineyards of public service work hard at their jobs -- jobs they believe in that serve causes larger than themselves.

Jobs that are made harder than they need to be every single fucking day by the relentless shrieks of contempt from every Fox News goon and Hate Radio gasbag in America.

Jobs that are made harder still under the burden of the knowledge that, however hard they work they may be kicked to the curb at any time for no particular reason at all, while members of the Clout Club still enjoy absolute protection from on high by the Prince of Darkness.

And now this. This...utterly indefensible shitwagon full of Union Goon Caricature confirmation, hand-delivered to the anti-union crew with a fucking bow around it, and which is running like a rash all over the Conservative blogs and media outlets.

And, frankly, deservedly so.

Expect to hear your name in tonight’s GOP debate, Mr. Gannon. And if not tonight then virtually every day thereafter.

They're going to picnic off you until next November, so enjoy your 30 pieces of silver, and your sweet new gig as a (God help you) hedge fund manager.

Because this one will cost the Good Guys dearly.

As for the rest of us, struggling every day just to slog one inch further through the ugly, reeking, chest-deep ordure of realpolitik towards a slightly better tomorrow, take this as one more timely and cautionary tale from Your Man in Chicago about how deeply political culture here remains in the thrall of clout and dirty money:

There is still a Club.

You are still not in it.

Lake Shore Drive Hail Storm

A short video of our encounter with the Angry Weather Gods on June 30, 2011 on Lake Shore Drive.

Some language is definitely not safe for work and obviously further angered the Angry Weather Gods.

Neither rain nor sleet nor snow nor dark of night shall stay the Professional Left from something something.

There is a Club, Episode 453

File under: "That's Desiree!" (™ Beachwood Reporter)

Today in Desiree News we find:

Desiree Rogers to help plan Emanuel’s inauguration
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter

Former White House social secretary Desiree Rogers, who was forced out after an infamous gate-crashing incident, will help plan Rahm Emanuel’s May 16 inauguration as Chicago’s new mayor.
...

For those who do not recall, here is Mayor-elect Rahm standing cheek-by-jowl with the end result of Desiree's previous failure to work the door and not the room:

From the Chicago Tribune:

State dinner crashers spur White House security probe
Couple had been trying to land spot on 'Real Housewives' TV show

By Jim Tankersley Tribune Newspapers

WASHINGTON - -- The Secret Service has launched a "comprehensive investigation" of its security measures after two aspiring reality-TV stars crashed President Barack Obama's state dinner at the White House this week.

Tareq and Michaele Salahi, who have been auditioning to appear on the Bravo reality show "Real Housewives of D.C.," managed to stroll into the dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and mingle with the power people of Washington even though they weren't on the invitation list.

An administration official said the gate-crashing incident was apparently a breakdown in Secret Service screening and not the work of the White House social office.

White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers, asked by The Associated Press on Thursday whether personnel from her office were at the checkpoint, said, "We were not."

The White House had requested an investigation, but the Secret Service had already begun one after discovering the incident.
...

In my world, spectacularly cratering something this splashy and sensitive under the scrutiny of world media would be an Extinction Level Event, with its date forever after known noted on your calendar as the Day Your Career Ended (hell, in my world you can wildly exceed every expectation until, one day, the organization needs some layoff chum, at which point you vanish from the world of light and must wear a scarlet "L" forever afterward so that everyone knows you are unclean ("Unemployed Need Not Apply").)

At best, if you blow it big you first have to pile up every stitch you were wearing so you can burn all your Loser Clothes, and then go and Lord Jim it in the wilderness for years and years until you save an alderman's kitten or something and are welcomed back, all rehabilitated and grateful.

At worse, you end up living in a tomb with your creepy ex-husband/director watching your old films and bitching about Talkies until the Bad Thing happens

and a savage God lets you back into the limelight one more time.

Either way, in the Real World of caprice, insiderism and casual corporate malice where tens of millions of American workers cling to what is left of their futures by their fingernails, fucking up this badly would never end well.

But semi-divine naiads like Desiree do not live in that world...

Desiree Rogers split on her future
April 30, 2010|By Melissa Harris | CHICAGO CONFIDENTIAL

Desiree Rogers might stay in Chicago. Or she might move to New York. Or she might do both.

"I'm still deciding if I'm going to be here or I'm going to be in New York," the former White House social secretary said during a Chicago Advertising Federation luncheon Thursday at the Palmer House Hilton.

Although Rogers, a Chicago fixture for years, has been spotted at several events here since resigning her White House post in February, she said she was moving out of Washington in early May and that her job prospects were "wide open." After her remarks, she told reporters that, ideally, she would like to split her time between New York and Chicago.

And so...

Desiree Rogers Hired By Johnson Publishing Co.

By Ruth Manuel-Logan on Jun 8th 2010 3:54PM

Desiree Rogers, the former White House social secretary who "left" to seek greener pastures after a major security faux paux occurred under her watch, was recently hired by Johnson Publishing Co., the owners of Jet and Ebony magazines, as a consultant.

Rogers, who is known for her love of haute couture and media exposure, will join the ranks of Ebony's newly hired editor-in-chief Amy Dubois Barnett.

No specific details have been released about the consulting duties, but a Johnson Publishing spokesperson stated that Rogers will help with corporate strategy.
...

Honestly, I don't care either way what Ms. Rogers makes of the rest of her charmed life. Seriously, she has never done me any harm, and well might be perfect for this job. My sole interest here -- as Matt Taibbi has done with the Wall Street bailouts and Goldman Sachs -- is pointing out to our ruling class how transparently ridiculous the "you too can succeed by working hard and playing by the rules" narrative is becoming for millions of American families who look up from the small, daily panic attacks of trying to make home and kids and groceries and medical bills and a future all fit under a threadbare and ever-shrinking paycheck only to find that the rules for the Rulers and the rules for Commoners no longer have the slightest thing in common.

If you are one of those people whose career arc can best be described as "Pushed rock up hill...Rock rolled back down...Pushed rock back op...Rock rolled back down...Asked why in the world we were pushing stupid rock at all...Laid off after company hired Rock Pushing Process Improvement Visioneer consultant at 15 times my salary..." and do not understand how this is possible, the good people at Muckety have a helpful visual aid that explains all:




Or to put it more simply...


Rule 1: There is a club
Rule 2: You are not in it.

Journalist Discovers "Cities"

Film at 11.

According to David Brooks, apparently cities are important.

Cities magnify people’s strengths, Glaeser argues, because ideas spread more easily in dense environments. If you want to compete in a global marketplace it really helps to be near a downtown. Companies that are near the geographic center of their industry are more productive. Year by year, workers in cities see their wages grow faster than workers outside of cities because their skills grow faster. Inventors disproportionately cite ideas from others who live physically close to them.

And Rahm Emanuel is a super-duper guy.

...
Emanuel was a colorful figure in Washington, but back home he’s off the leash.

He’s clearly a much happier person — glowing, bouncing, reminiscing and hugging. Gone are all the death-grip battles with Republicans and the Washington interest groups. Now startled people in sweatpants greet him when he shows up at their doorway, sometimes wrapping him in an embrace and sometimes bringing their kids out to pose for pictures. Nearly every single person he meets gets an ebullient high-five, though the cause for each celebration is not always clear.
...

As a strong advocate for cities, and an admirer of the raw-boned beauty of municipal government, I have little to quibble with in the flattering portions of Mr. Brooks' blurry, drive-by tourist's-eye-view of my city. In fact, it is a subject I myself have written about fairly regularly over the years (For example "Get Up, Stand Up..." from 2005) :

...
I love community meetings.

Doesn't matter what the topic is, the breakdown is always the same.

Experts with blueprints who tell you more than you’ll every want to know about whatever to subject might be.

Wanna know about berms, or beetles or the regs governing the signage, sidewalk-access and smoking restrictions at bistros? Go and ask.

Then there are the ramblers: the guys who do all 18 minutes of their own, personal Alice's Restaurant.

Then the business guys. Suited up and on the prowl for government sugar...and want to also be sure to tell the government to fuck off if anything that's being planned might bump up against their bottom line.

The ranters. Always amusing.

The fat guy with a sheaf of grubby paper who takes an hour to make it to the mike while the temperature seems to rise one degree every minute. Then he gets to the mike and rants about whatever the fuck happens to be romping through his mind at the moment.

Proving definitively that humans don't possess telepathic or telekinetic powers because if we did, Horton would have heard all us Whos’ mentally shouting, "Shut up. Shut Up. Please, Holy Mother of God, it's 170 degrees in here and why won't this asshole Shut The Fuck Up!"

Also his head didn't explode.

The Community Activists, for whom every forum is a Nail for their particular Hammer.

You always see it coming.

There's a few moments of frosting where they talk a little -- very little -- about the reason the meeting was called in the first place...then on to the Bitch List.

Don’t misunderstand, it’s often a valid Bitch List – or at least portions are – but every meeting is an occasion for telling whomever is gaveling the session that the neighborhoods are getting screwed. Whatever’s on the flyers – a dog park, a bond issue, bike trails or mosquito abatement – you’re going to hear 30 seconds of symbolic abatement chatter, and the rest is how they’re getting screwed in various ways by the allocation of government money, or gentrification, or The Man generally.

Then somebody rises to tell us that his cousin was arrested on totally trumped up charged. Didn't have anything else to say; just setting the record straight on that particular matter, in case we were interested.

Then there's the fragile, old woman that also take a long while to make it to the microphone, and then tells a story that breaks your heart. I remember one such woman who began her remarks at a large hearing with the Mayor present, "Your honor, your father and mine were both Sons of the City..."

Brought the fucking house down.

And for anybody who thinks that the Left is secular, Jebus-hatin’ monolith of queers and abortionists, you will hear more “Tell it!"’s at a community meeting and exactly as many “Amen”’s as you’re likely to hear in church on any given Sunday.

And I wouldn’t have any of it any other way.

It’s raw, pure, unstepped-on democracy, which is why I love it. It draws the committed and the “should be committed” both, and if you’re not used to them, committed people can make non-political, I-don’t-wanna-get-involved, day-to-day muggles feel very uncomfortable.

"Cause" people: They don't blink much, and you're either useful to them, an impediment, or furniture.
...

Government goes where the people push it, and absent the constant pressure (translation: bitching) any government will wander off into the weeds and start fucking with you and telling you what to do.

But your rights and freedoms don’t come from them; their freedom of motion comes from you. Its hard fucking work, and Big Money talks, but at the end of the day (sometimes a very long day) the government moves where we will it to move.

See the guy in the Rockwell painting of the “Freedom of Speech” above?

He’s nervous. Really nervous.

By his tan and his hands and his clothes, you can tell he’s a working man. Everyone around him is wearing a tie; his collar is open.

Those are his remarks there in his pocket, which he probably spent a long time writing out, tossing out, and then rewriting.

He probably told his family that tonight he’s gonna go down to the meetin’ and give those Big Guys what ‘fer.

His wife was probably very proud of her man; he can swing an ax or drive a dozer, but he’s never been too good with words. Maybe she helped him with his remarks; maybe he didn’t want his woman to see him struggling with something that he has trouble mastering.

His kids are bustin’ out loud proud of him. He’s been talking about what degenerate asswipes the politicians are for years (of course, he reserves the “degenerate asswipe” talk for the tool shed, or maybe the bar.) Now he’s really going to march down there and kick a little ass around.

Way to go Pop!

But now he’s there, in his laborer’s clothes, and all his neighbors are looking at him, and his wife and kids and the warm comfort of his home are across town.

He stands.

He grabs the pew in front of him for dear life; sinks his nails into the wood.

It’s something solid. Something real. He perhaps gains strength from hanging on to something hewn and boned and made straight and true by honest hands. This is something he understands in his skin.

This, and that come what may, he’s a goddamned American Citizen, and has every right in the world to be there, to stand, and to be heard.

When did we forget that?
...

Instead I would merely note two things.

First, however beloved and renowned Rahm Emanuel might have been in Mr. Brooks' D.C. social and political circles, back in Chicago he is still regarded as a carpet bagger. He has no natural constituency here, and when he went away to join the DLC Elite, he left behind no appreciable mark, or legacy, or footprints in the sands of Garfield Park Conservatory that he could in any way plausibly use to claim clear title to the status of a Favorite Son finally returning to the bosom of his home town.

He pulled no swords from stones here, and no Watery Tarts of Lake Michigan

threw him any Excaliburs.

Instead what Mr. Emanuel has going for him is an assload of money, direct, hard-wired connections to every million-watt insider/power-broker in the Democratic Party and, most importantly,

a tacit but unmissable nod from the Daley Machine. A formidable and very-probably unbeatable political armory to which he can now add Mr. Brooks' free, full-page political advertisement masquerading as a New York Times Op-Ed.

Second, what the Conservative Republican Mr. Brooks fails to mention, of course, is just exactly how Chicago -- the beating heart of the Democratic Party -- came to be the place he rhapsodizes about from the window of his car.

A subject to which I among many, many other have also devoted no small amount of attention over



the


years


but which the immortal Mike Royko wrote about better and longer than anyone ever, and which he etched in granite for the ages in "Boss" -- the undisputed all-time, powerhouse Bible of Chicago politics -- which should be subtitled "The Prince...With Laughs" and will no doubt be read 100 years now alongside Machiavelli's masterpiece.

Royko speaks:

(P. 77) Out of this vast amalgam of patronage, money, special interests, restrictive election laws and organizational disipline emerge a handful of candidates, and they are what it is supposed to be all about.

Most of them come up through the system, as Daley did, as doorbell ringers, working in the jobs their sponsors got for them, pushing the ward book, buying the tickets, doing the favors, holding the coats, opening the doors, putting in the fix, and inching their way up the organizational ladder, waiting for someone to die and the chance to go into the legislature, into the City Council, and maybe someday something bigger.
...

Only one other short exists, and it is part of the system of the Machine: nepotism. A Chicago Rip Van Winkle could awaken to the political news column and, reading the names, think that time had stood still.

Underneath the glossy skin of the New Daley Pinstripe Patronage Machine, the outline of the chassis of the Old Regime is still clearly visible and intact. Especially the nepotism. Hell, with Madigans and Strogers and Jacksons and Carotherses and Daleys and on and on still merrily begetting and entitling new generations of Madigans and Strogers and Jacksons and Carotherses and Daleys and on and on...and with Blagojeviches still able to betroth their way into power, privileged, impeachment and prison...Chicago/Illinois politics continues to resembles nothing so much as the dregs of inbred European royalty just before the collapse of their ossified Old World Order.

So how did Chicago manage to build such a pretty veneer full of the "updated housing stock" and "blunt conversation" Mr. Brooks notes so admiringly?

Part of the answer is years of budgetary boondogglery and shell gaming which, once the bid for the Olympics fell through (and with it, all the yummy-yummy infusions of cash and credit Da Mare had been counting on) all became focused on deferring the coming Fiscal Armageddon until after Richie Daley was safely out of town. Mr. Brooks conspicuously elides over this chapter of the story with one, quick sentence fragment ("...it suffers under one of the biggest debt loads in the country") because the "blunt" reality that Hizzoner managed his miracles the same way any junkie manages to have a long dope frolic without the money on-hand to pay for it -- by borrowing every nickle he could lay his hands on and hocking anything that wasn't nailed down (and quite a bit that was) -- interferes with Mr. Brooks' happy fairy tale.

Matt Taibbi describes the down-spiraling process here:

“America is quite literally for sale, at rock-bottom prices, and the buyers increasingly are the very people who scored big in the oil bubble. Thanks to Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and the other investment banks that artificially jacked up the price of gasoline over the course of the last decade, Americans delivered a lot of their excess cash into the coffers of sovereign wealth funds like the Qatar Investment Authority, the Libyan Investment Authority, Saudi Arabia’s SAMA Foreign Holdings, and the UAE’s Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

Here’s yet another diabolic cycle for ordinary Americans, engineered by the grifter class. ...

You know how you used to have a job, and a house, and a car, and a wife and a family, and there was food in the fridge — and now you’re six months into a drug habit and you’re carrying toasters and TVs out the front door every morning just to raise the cash to make it through that day? That’s where we are. While a lot of this book is about how American banks used bubble schemes to strip the last meat off the bones of America’s postwar golden years, the cruelest joke is that American banks now don’t even have the buying power needed to finish the job of stripping the country completely clean.

For that last stage we have to look overseas, to more cash-rich countries we now literally have to beg to take our national monuments off our hands at huge discounts, just so that our states don’t fall one by one in a domino rush of defaults and bankruptcies. In other words, we’re being colonized — of course it’s happening in a clever way, with very careful paperwork, so we have the option of pretending that it’s not actually happening, right up until the bitter end.”

A second part of the answer is that such simultaneous feats of municipal splendor and malfeasance are only possible because of the nature of the government Daley the First created and bequeathed to his son: a ruthlessly managed, one-party state ruled from the top by a single, corporate-friendly emperor.

Royko again explains:

(P. 96) "[Richard J. Daley] does not view the party and the city as being creatures apart. They are one: the Democratic party is the city, and Republicans and independents are simply misguided people who don't understand how things work. The party is the political voice of the city, and the city government is the machinery to activate their wishes.
...

"By remaining chairman, he would decide who ran for office, every office, permitting him to control the rise of any potential competition. It is no accident than in his fifteen years as chairman and mayor, not a single young political figure would rise through the party to a position of being his obvious successor. Good sturdy mediocrities would be the rule."

In other words, those glowing, glancing images of Chicago which Mr. Brooks extolled as he breezed through my city are the direct result of exactly the sort of autocratic, dynastic, one-party big-governmentism which Conservatives such as Mr. Brooks spend their professional careers decrying...

...but which they obviously deeply crave so long as they can march in its parades.

Funny old world.

Looks Like I Picked the Wrong Week

to quit Photoshop.

The sight of so many D.C. Beltwaylians...



Who don't know boo-boo about Chicago...



The "Combine" ...


Or the Daley Family...



Frantically pouring their watery concrete...



Into the molds of Beltway Conventional Wisdom...

...to explain the appointment of William Daley as President Obama's new Chief of Staff...

...is nothing short of hi-larious.



For the benefit of future historians, these two paragraph from Bill Daley's 2009 New York Times op-ed --

Keep the Big Tent big

By William M. Daley
Thursday, December 24, 2009

...
All that is required for the Democratic Party to recover its political footing is to acknowledge that the agenda of the party's most liberal supporters has not won the support of a majority of Americans -- and, based on that recognition, to steer a more moderate course on the key issues of the day, from health care to the economy to the environment to Afghanistan.
...

The party's moment of choosing is drawing close. While it may be too late to avoid some losses in 2010, it is not too late to avoid the kind of rout that redraws the political map. The leaders of the Democratic Party need to move back toward the center -- and in doing so, set the stage for the many years' worth of leadership necessary to produce the sort of pragmatic change the American people actually want.

-- are what sealed the deal.

That and his last name.

Lastly, if anyone want to take a wild stab at what the subject of David Brook's next column might be, some people say that, buried in the expected gush of Centrist, Daddy-figure-worshiping platitudes, the careful reader will find the phrase "Back when I was a cub reporter for the City News Bureau in Chicago..."

Others disagree.

The Mighty Tony Fitzpatrick

Is interviewed in the Sun-Times today.

I'll give you a little taste, 'cause you've been pretty good.

It's got a bit of foreign policy:

I just got back from Istanbul, which is 98 percent Muslim, and found people who basically want the same s--- we do: a dignified standard of living, a decent life for their family and to be left the f--- alone.

Some sober market truths:

The visual art world here in Chicago is run by pigmies, midgets and Chihuahuas. It's clannish. Access is denied. It's about rich people.

Local folk wisdom:

Ever hear of Chicago Alzheimer's? It's when you forget everything except the grudges.

And like that.

You should go read it.

Because like Riverview Amusement Park

or the distant echos of the 18-RPM stroke-victim/jingle-jingle version of "Smoke on the Water" that tells you the ice cream man is near, if you wait to make sure your tie is straight or your lipstick is geometrically perfect and don't run over there nownownow, it might be gone by the time you get around to it.

A Freak Party Campaign

for the next Mayor of the City of Chicago?

There are going to be 3,000 people in identical blue and slate-gray suits all trying to look ponderous and mayoral, so why not sprint an old-school, bootstrap, hell-for-leather insurgent campaign in the opposite direction?

You want a green city with a balanced budget?

Legalize marijuana, grow it on the roof of city hall

and fill the barren city coffers selling Big Shoulders Gold and Windy City Blue. For a city that thought nothing of illegally destroying an airport just because the its Mayor felt like it, this should not present much of a problem.

Turn abandoned public housing units into vertical pot farms.

Market Picasso-shaped bongs and Soldier Field bowls.

Sell Tribune rolling papers and "Wait 'til next year" brownies at Wrigley Field.

The list of upsides goes on for pages.

Chicago...

Herb Farmer for the World,
Pipe Maker, Stacker of Weed,
Player with Dank and the Nation's Chronic Handler;
Stormy, husky, mellow as hell,
City of the Spliff Holders:

Hell, I've already got

the flag.

By the way, if you are a City worker, contractor, agency employee or funder with a story to tell, please EMAIL ME at driftglass00 AT yahoo DOT com. Discretion assured!