Do It Rahm's Way

Rahm wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post Sunday about how the Chicago way is the best way to fix what ails America.  You can read it here if you're into pain and stupidity.

The people over at Breitbart to a great takedown of his nonsense though (we're going to quote the entire section from Breitbart.com):

• Yet there are a few features of Emanuel's tenure in Chicago that the nation would be wise not to emulate.
  

  Murder. One is a massive violent crime wave, resulting in more than 400 murders by October 1. The city has already passed last year's total of 435 murders, and the murder rate is rising in Chicago despite drops in other major American cities and in spite of the nation's most restrictive gun control laws outside of Washington, DC.
  Taxes. Another is the enormous tax burden Chicago imposes on its residents. The city has the highest sales tax in the nation, at 9.5%. That is partly why in his own budget for 2013, Emanuel refused to raise taxes--and, in fact, cut certain taxes. Instead, he proposed raising revenues from other sources, and cutting spending in several areas to balance the city's budget. (Curiously, Emanuel does not offer that same advice to President Obama.)
  Debt. One way in which the nation already reflects Chicago's policies is massive, unfunded liabilities. Chicago faces unfunded pension liabilities of at least $26.8 billion--far higher, according to some estimates--and will need to cut spending dramatically or raise taxes to astronomically-high levels in the near future. Emanuel has not yet done much to reform Chicago's entitlements; Obama merely campaigned on demagoguing his rival's plans.
  Unemployment.Emanuel cites job growth in Chicago. But Chicago's unemployment rate, at 8.4%, is still higher than the national average. And while the city was once a hub of entrepreneurship, the top four employers today are all government agencies, in order: the federal government, the public school system, the City of Chicago, and Cook County. Chicago has essentially become a government with an economy, rather than the other way around. That is a model that President Obama and his Democrats have already been following for the nation.
  Emigration. As for comprehensive immigration reform, a large influx of immigrants could not prevent Chicago from suffering a population decline over the past decade. People are voting with their feet, and those with the means to do so are leaving Chicago--and leaving the debt-laden, Democrat-owned state of Illinois as well.
  Corruption. Finally, as Emanuel well knows, there is one "Chicago way" for which the city has become famous--or infamous--and which he himself implemented at the highest levels of the Obama administration. That is the practice of paying back political favors with lucrative government business. The evidence suggests that Emanuel was involved in pushing the failed Solyndra deal, for example, in which hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars were shoveled to a failing solar-cell company with ties to Obama donors as part of a "green jobs" agenda. Chicago today remains the city of big favors, of pay-to-play politics and crony capitalism.

Living under the Chicago Way as run by Rahm Emanuel, sucks.

Aldercreature Reads SCC

From the comment section:

• James Cappleman said...I was at the scene of the fire at 11:50am because I heard the sirens a half block from my home. I asked a police officer if anyone was hurt, and was told no. A resident at the scene confirmed this. I did a quick text because I had to quickly leave for an event where I was serving as a volunteer. From there, I left town for a Thanksgiving dinner with family..... with no contact with the press to learn later that a police officer had to go to the hospital.
  
  Any police officer who has interacted with me has come away knowing that I have the utmost respect for them and their line of work.

It appears to be a legit profile and may actually be the aldercreature we lambasted the other day for praising firefighters for doing their jobs while a police officer who went to the hospital went unrecognized.  In light of the aldercreature's comment, we will withdraw the slur we wrote in disgust.

However, we will note that he still hasn't wished the injured officer any sort of "get well" message despite the officer being injured while serving Cappleman's constituency.  Respect is nice.  A "thank you" would be nicer.  And advocate for Rahm to stop screwing with First Responders would be nicest of all, but we won't hold our breath on that count.

Rahm's Budget

Well thank goodness it wasn't unanimous.  You'd hate to see anyone thinking these spineless assholes were a rubber stamp or something:

• It wasn’t the shut-out he pitched during his rookie season, but Mayor Rahm Emanuel got the win Thursday on the most important City Council vote of the year.
  
  By a vote of 46-to-3 with Ald. Sandi Jackson (7th) missing, aldermen approved Emanuel’s no-new taxes, “calm-before-the-storm” 2013 budget.
  
  The vote on the $6.54 billion budget clears the decks for the main event: a painful solution to the city’s pension crisis that will require both new revenues and concessions from city employees.

The battle has just begun and Rahm is going to play "scorched earth" with us.

Oh, and it sure was nice of Sandi Jackson to represent her constituents so very ably from somewhere else.  As someone pointed out, another Jackson collecting a check for a no-show job.

Once Again, the Connected...

...get richer:

• As vice president of the Chicago Public Library’s board of directors, Cherryl T. Thomas helps decide when new libraries are needed and where they are built.
  
  And as president of Ardmore Associates LLC, the company she founded after leaving a City Hall post in the late 1990s, Thomas is paid to help oversee construction of those new library buildings, records show.
  
  So Thomas helps oversee Chicago’s library system while her company is making money off the construction of libraries.

Amazing.  But don't worry - Rahm is having the Board of Ethics take a look at this.  The same Board of Ethics that Rahm recently replaced with his hand-picked people.

DV Urban Realty - Again

Remember those assholes?  The "V" in DV is for Vanecko you may recall.  In the news again:

• A venture led by Chicago investor Allison Davis faces foreclosure on the site of a former Dominick's supermarket in Lakeview after seizing the property from its prior owner last year.
  
  Wanxiang America Real Estate LLC, an Elgin-based real estate firm backed by Chinese capital, sued last month to collect $8.3 million from an affiliate of DV Urban Realty Partners, a fund led by the politically connected developer. The fund failed to pay off a loan from Wanxiang that it took out after repossessing the property at 3012-3036 N. Broadway in March 2011, according to the complaint,
  
  The suit represents another setback for Mr. Davis and the firm that manages the fund, which was fired earlier this year by five city pension plans, citing the fund's poor performance. The fund and pension plans sued each other in February, with a Delaware judge ruling in August that the plans had the right to fire Mr. Davis' firm.

As a real estate venture firm, they seem to be a complete failure, existing only to funnel money to politically connected individuals before disappearing behind a blizzard of paper and defaulted loans.

Less Aldercreatures = Less Waste

Almost a year ago, Northside posted this comment comparing the number of aldercreatures to those of other cities. If Rahm was truly interested in saving some real money, instead of nickel and dime-ing everyone to death, this would deserve some serious consideration:

====================

WHY TWENTY-FIVE CHICAGO WARDS? TRY SEVENTEEN.

The U.S. Census Bureau is the source of the final 2010 decennial population data for the nation's eight most populous cities. The respective number of city council members is in parentheses.

1. New York City...8,175,133 (51)

2. Los Angeles......3,792,621 (15)

3. CHICAGO...........[see below]

4. Houston..........2,099,451 (11)

5. Philadelphia.....1,526,006 (17)

6. Phoenix..........1,445,632 (9)

7. San Antonio......1,327,407 (10)

8. San Diego........1,307,402 (8)

___________________________________

TOTAL (7 CITIES)...19,673,652 (121)

3. CHICAGO..........2,695,598 (50)

Excluding Chicago, the aggregate of the seven most populous cities in the nation have an average of less than 17 city council numbers per capita.

While New York City has a population over three times larger than Chicago, they have only 51 city council members, a mean of one per every 160,297 residents. Chicago has a mean of one alderman per only 53,912 residents.

WHY?

=================

Think of the savings, not to mention the reduction in graft, crooked contracting and having to divide the corruption pie so many different ways.

What's This Crap?

Aldercreatures, among the most crooked of being, are extorting promises from people NOT to run for political office?

• Inspector General Joe Ferguson has a strained relationship with Mayor Rahm Emanuel, but the two men will apparently not be facing off against each other in the 2015 mayoral election.
  
  Under questioning Thursday at City Council budget hearings, Ferguson promised not to run for any public office that includes the city of Chicago for at least two years after stepping down as inspector general.
  
  Ferguson’s four-year term is due to expire in November 2013. That means if he serves out his term, he would not be eligible to run for mayor in February 2015.
  

Wasn't it just a few years ago a certain Illinois senator was vowing NOT to run for the presidency? How did that one work out we wonder?

And Fran Spielman says this means "he would not be eligible"? For a statement extorted under duress at a city council meeting? A city council that has declared itself above investigation by the Inspector General while nearly 30 of its members have gone to prison in the past 25 years.

We're pretty sure someone else has a say in the entire process - voters. If they want to hold Ferguson to a "promise" made under duress to a crooked legislative body, that's the voters' lookout. Besides, they voted in a convicted tax-cheat, more than enough thieves and quite a few Outfit-connected underlings. An Inspector General might actually be a step up.

Who Got What Spot Now?

What the heck is all this about?

• Chicago's Department of Streets and Sanitation will keep additional workers to fight rats and get more tree trimmers under Mayor Rahm Emanuel's 2013 budget.
  
  The agency, with main responsibilities of clearing snow off the streets and collecting garbage from the alleys, is also getting a new commissioner, former deputy Police Supt. Charles Williams, the mayor’s office announced Saturday.

Charlie Williams?  Long time readers of the blog will remember Williams spent most of his career fucking over coppers at IAD.  If we remember correctly, he also told people after one scandal that if he could have sent an involved supervisor (who lived at one end of the city) farther from home than he did (to the other end of the city), he would have, even though the supervisor never faced charges - Charlie just wanted to fuck someone over.

This complete ineptness during his Police Department days translates into being able to run Streets and Sanitation how exactly?  We can't see anything in his background that would justify his getting a police pension of some $100,000-plus in addition to a S&S Commissioner six-figure salary.

And if that isn't enough, you have this, too:

• Williams will replace Thomas Byrne, a Mayor Richard Daley appointee who has been asking out of the high pressure position at Streets and Sanitation since shortly after Emanuel took office.
  
  “I'm just tired,” Byrne said. “I'm 64 years old, and winters are tough.”
  
  Byrne will help Williams transition in, take some time off and then take over as head of security at the Chicago Park District.

Wow.  One city job to another to another.  How do the pension funds support these multiple dippers?  It's amazing that it works out like this for the chosen few.

Rahm's All Ethical Now

Thank goodness for ethical people:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday dumped Chicago’s entire Board of Ethics to prepare for the new role envisioned by his Ethics Reform Task Force: as powerful judge and jury punishing violators of the city’s ethics ordinance.
  
  
  “I wanted to start with a new energy and a new commitment by a totally new board — all of ’em with the type of professionalism and commitment to raising the ethical standards, conduct and oversight in city government,” Emanuel said.
  
  
  “With these reforms ... residents have a clear view of what they pay for, and elected officials have a clear view of who they work for,” he said.
  
  
  The mayoral house-cleaning would replace all seven members of a Board of Ethics famous for never having taken action against a Chicago alderman during an era when dozens went to jail on federal corruption charges.

Funny, we don't recall him being so "ethical" when he was pulling in his $11-million-plus payday doing little to no work for a connected power company scheduling meetings and such.  But people can change, right?

Business in Chicago

Nice to see things haven't changed:

• Ten years ago, Chicago’s most powerful alderman, Edward M. Burke, and the rest of the City Council signed off on a deal that promised $16 million in taxpayer subsidies to the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. to help it build a new corporate campus on Goose Island rather than move to the suburbs.
  
  Three years later, Burke’s law firm, retained by Wrigley, persuaded Cook County officials to lower the property assessments for two buildings the chewing gum giant had bought down the street from the new campus.
  
  Burke’s legal work helped Wrigley cut its property taxes by more than $412,000 between 2006 and 2008, records show.
  
  For that, the company says, it paid the alderman about $90,000 in legal fees.

And the topper?

• Wrigley has never finished the project, though.  

Hey Rahm, how about you go after these missing millions?

Read Rahm's Lips - You're Screwed

Don't for a second believe a word out of this guy's mouth:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel says he’s decided to hold the line on taxes, fines and fees in his 2013 budget and count on rebounding revenues, continued cost-cutting and dunning deadbeats to erase a revised $298 million shortfall.
  
  “Through the reforms and cuts and efficiencies, we’ll be able to have a budget that’s balanced without any taxes, fines or fees that we control. The only tax that will be dealt with is the employee head tax—and that will be eliminated,” Emanuel said.

Evidently, Rahm has found a magical source of revenue that doesn't necessitate sticking his hands in taxpayers' pockets.  We're going to call this new source "cutting the crap out of everything."  We're going to bet on no police hiring, closing firehouses, shuttering schools, gutting Streets & San and an entire shitload of cameras coming on-line in short order.

We don't see aldercreatures being cut, aldercreature expense accounts being depleted, or aldercreature staff being laid off.  Imagine that.

Can We Fire Some Aldercreatures?

Saw this article a few days ago.  It raised some interesting suggestions among the group:

• Four months after Chicago’s failure to repair a crumbling downtown viaduct — despite a task order generated by a call to 311 — cost taxpayers $450,000, Mayor Rahm Emanuel is implementing a tracking system to make certain it won’t happen again.
  
  The technology upgrade will make the process of calling 311 — to get a pothole filled, a tree trimmed or a broken streetlight replaced — like using FedEx to send a package, under the plan reported by the Chicago Sun-Times last spring.
  
  The “service tracker” feature will allow people who call 311 for 14 of the most requested city services to track their service requests from the time they are submitted and receive an email when the issue is resolved. 

Since so much of the aldercreatures' job has been automated, including the "follow-up" calls that take up most of everyone's time, knocking out 25 aldercreatures seems like the next logical step. But does Rahm have the balls to pull the trigger on such an obvious move?

Hide and Go Seek

Anyone else notice that whenever Rahm is out of town, McHushChild seems to be grounded from speaking to any media types concerning anything that might have to be "walked back" and explained by the mayor at some later press conference? Rahm certainly keeps his people on a tight leash lately.

Rahm Lies, Media Sucks it Up

Rahm has to handle a few softball questions, then gets this at the end of his interview on Meet the Press:

• GREGORY: Mayor, before you go, I want to ask you about a huge crisis in your own city, and that is of course the murder rate, it’s up 31 percent from a year ago. Forty shootings just last weekend, nine left dead. A couple of people shot, even near the President’s home on the south side. What are you doing to address this?

  MR. EMANUEL: First, we put more police on the street. Getting kids, guns and drugs off the street. Our crime rate is down 10 percent. And our, in fact, our shootings have declined from what was basically we lost the early part of the first quarter of the year, and we brought them dramatically down. We have a-- a gang issue on parts of the city. Overall, overall crime down 10 percent. And we’re making efforts actually to reduce the gang conflicts because it’s gang-on-gang issues. It does not affect the whole city. But anywhere it happens we’re going to be dealing with it.

  GREGORY: Is this not a crisis in your estimation? Is it something that’s being overblown or is this something that you have a hard time containing at the moment?

  MR. EMANUEL: No, we’re containing it and the-- and the question I have is not whether people say a crisis or challenge, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure every child when they’re going to school can think about their studies not their safety regardless of where they live. And that’s my first priority.

  GREGORY: Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago, thank you as always. We will see you down in Charlotte this week.

Let's just point out the lies:

1. More police on the street? Bullshit - there are less than ever. Taking 500 cops out of their street units and putting them "back on the streets" isn't "more police." But the media treats this like gospel. The retirements haven't abated either;
   
2. Crime rate is down 10%? Do we really have to go through this again? Murder, shootings, bank robberies and auto theft are all up. Not to mention the lowest number of officers on the street during the past two decades. The only thing that would remotely bring the crime rate down is a massive influx of people to Chicago - maybe that's the reasoning? Sanctuary City and all?
3. Containing it? We aren't containing it and the "boxes" aren't working. We're lucky we aren't digging trenches, closing roads and raising the bridges to keep it where it's at. "Containing it" is about as humorous as "treading water."

But Rahm puts it out there and the liberal, compliant, bought-and-paid for media stooges eat it up like so much crap that they do. Do you like how he managed to fit in "the children" in the last line? Thank goodness Rahm (call me Helen) Lovejoy is thinking of the children - like that excuses everything else he does.

Priorities

With Hurricane Issac set to wreak havoc across parts of the Gulf, the nattering idiots on the left insisted the Republicans cancel parts of their convention (or the entire thing) for....well, no one ever did nail down why. Maybe it was for the children or something.

Now you have Rahm running off to the DNC while all sorts of disasters take place across Chicago:

• Despite the threat of Chicago’s first teachers strike in 25 years, Mayor Rahm Emanuel still plans to attend the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte and deliver an impassioned defense of his former boss, President Barack Obama.

That's not even mentioning the lack of a police contract, no fire contract, a murder rate that's still 30% above last year and over 150 shootings ahead of last year.

But 9.5's focus has always been the national stage - Chicago is a stop over, a distraction. And as Rahm so aptly demonstrates day after day, a body count doesn't really bother him, whether it's minority youth or Unions. He couldn't care less if he tried.

Worth 1,000 Words

What does this picture say?

It shows McTool in the background while his boss speaks.

Now what does the picture say when it's posted with this headline and paragraph?

• Cops treading water? Emanuel says no
  
  Mayor Rahm Emanuel tried Monday to skin back ­— ­or at least clarify — Police Supt. Garry McCarthy’s claim that Chicago Police are “treading water” in the fight against violence after another weekend bloodbath on Chicago streets.
  
  “I talked to Garry about that. That’s not [what he meant]. What he was talking about is a particular area at a particular point. Overall . . . crime is down 9-to-10 percent.

The picture has a tiny little caption saying it was taken back in July, but Fran Spielman does her dirty work for Rahm well. Our initial take just based on the article is that Rahm is removing McJersey's testicles and waving them around for everyone to see. Add the picture and the public castration takes on even more significance.

And in case anyone missed it, Rahm is now directly involved in deciding police policy:

• After another violent weekend with a concentration of shootings in a single South Side neighborhood, Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Monday said he wants to bring a police crackdown to Greater Grand Crossing.
  
  Nine people were killed and 32 wounded last weekend in Chicago. A third of the homicides and roughly 40 percent of the shootings were in that one neighborhood.
  
  "We now have to deal with what's happening in Grand Crossing over the weekend," Emanuel said at an unrelated news conference.
  
  Emanuel wants a crackdown that involves saturating roughly 16-square-block areas with police, eliminating corner drug markets and having officers stay there to maintain the peace. The mayor has credited the approach with reducing homicides in two of the city's most dangerous areas.

So why even conduct a "nationwide" search for a superintendent, spend months touting his crime fighting skills, publicly and pointedly demonstrate full support for his gutting the specialized units to fulfill your lie about "1,000 more cops on the street" and then turn around and end up personally directing the police to "saturate" a few square miles of an out-of-control populace with what's left of a gutted department? If Rahm is taking the wheel, McLastDays is probably being eased out of the loop.

Why even have a superintendent at all?

We See Cameras...EVERYWHERE

But this has nothing to do with revenue:

• The map the city of Chicago is sending out with its “request for proposals” shows just how extensive coverage by cameras designed to catch speeders around parks and schools could be — if the city ever exercises all its options.

  Not to worry, city officials say: Aldermen mandated that cameras go up in only 50 to 300 locations for now.

  “By ordinance, we are limited to placing these cameras in only 20 percent of the 1,500 possible Children’s Safety Zones — that’s only 300 camera [sites] citywide,” said Pete Scales, spokesman for the city’s Department of Transportation. “We expect to only have about 50 of those up and running next year.”

Really? Have you seen the map?

Holy crap! If you believe this isn't solely about the revenue, we have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale.

Burke Scared?

Is the heat finally catching up with Aldercreature Burke?

• Inspector General Joe Ferguson has already gone toe-to-toe with former Mayor Richard M. Daley and Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Now, he’s taking on the City Council’s most powerful alderman.

  Ferguson went public Thursday with a jurisdictional dispute that’s been simmering in private for weeks: the decision of Finance Committee Chairman Edward M. Burke (14th) to deny Ferguson access to databases related to the city’s $100 million-a-year workers’ compensation program for civilian employees.

  Burke’s staff is refusing to release that information on the grounds that: so-called “duty disability” is governed by state law, not city ordinance; that Ferguson’s investigative powers are limited to misconduct; and that the Finance Committee staffers who administer the worker’s comp program fall under the jurisdiction of the City Council’s own inspector general.

Once someone starts nitpicking over jurisdiction and who is allowed to see what, we're pretty sure they've gotten a hold of something good. Maybe that one thread that's the start of unraveling a whole bunch of good stuff.

Hey Feds? You're already looking at Ed's brother. Can you spare a couple investigators to look at what Ferguson is uncovering? We assume you have overreaching investigative authority over everything.

Hey, do you thing these investigations are originating at Rahm's behest to break Burke and remove the last check to unlimited mayoral power? It's no secret that Rahm and Burke had a rough go of it and Burke's brother is already under investigation for state scholarship abuses. If only there was a Rahm/Washington/federal authority connection that would tie it all together.

CeaseFire Political Contributions

Follow the money and look what you find:

• SCC, please make this one of your posts... ...since the mainstream media NOW COMPETES with you on breaking stories.
  
  A comment appears a few days back mentioned the campaign contributions of CeaseFire founder-- Gary Slutkin
  
  Follow the money, it's a cycle.
  
  Look at the names
  
  Slutkin gets Fed & State money, and sends campaign contributions in return.
  
  Source
  http://www.beachwoodreporter.com/politics/gary_slutkins_campaign_contrib.php

Madigan, Claypool, Rush, Obama. Multiple contributions over multiple years to the same cast of characters. And this is the person Rahm just gave a million dollars to? Curiouser and curiouser.

Alder-Asshole Said What?

It's amazing these idiots can bathe and breathe on their own:

• The Chicago City Council overwhelmingly voted today to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana possession.
  
  Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposal passed 44-3, allowing Chicago police to issue pot-possession tickets starting Aug. 4. The move makes Chicago among a growing wave of states and several of the largest U.S. cities to adopt reduced penalties.
  
  The ordinance gives Chicago police the discretion to issue citations between $250 to $500 for someone with 15 grams or less of pot.
  
  
• Several of aldermen spoke about how the black and Hispanic communities are disproportionately affected by the city’s current policy to arrest people who possess small amounts of marijuana.
  
  “If you had been white and privileged, marijuana has already been decriminalized,” said Ald. Howard Brookins, 21st,who spoke in favor of the measure. “The only people arrested for these crimes have been black and brown individuals. . .This is a way to potentially level the playing field.”

Level the playing field for what? Fixing the damage done by years of pandering politicos, free ghetto giveaways, lack of parental responsibility, no pride of ownership and a complete inability to provide even the most basic standard of living for themselves and their spawn?

Oh, you just mean the over-prevalence of dope smoking slum dwellers with an entitlement attitude while contributing nothing to a functioning society. That kind of "level playing field?"

Brookings is about the biggest racist out there as evidenced by his claim.