My Kind of Town, Chicago Is

[Kathianne]

Looks like both Emanuel, Jesse Jackson Jr have some issues:

Interesting news here. Yesterday at Obama's press conference, noticeably absent were Emanuel and Axlerod. Of course, only the reporters could notice, as they are usually off camera. Thus, lots of questions about where they were, as they are always 'there.'

Emanuel was found and claimed he couldn't be more than one thing at a time and this time he was going to be 'father.' LOL! This guy can juggle tens of things at a time, which is how he got where he is:

Rahm ducks reporters' questions on Blago :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: 44: Barack Obama (http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/1326788,rahm-emanuel-blagojevich-obama-121108.article)


Obama Chief of Staff Emanuel ducks whether he was Blagojevich emissary
By Lynn Sweet on December 12, 2008 7:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
By FRAN SPIELMAN AND ABDON PALLASCH

Sun-Times Reporters
CHICAGO--President-elect Barack Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, refused to take questions from reporters this morning about whether he was the Obama "advisor" named in the criminal complaint against Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

The complaint states Blagojevich wanted a promise of a high-level appointment or some other reward for Blagojevich in exchange for Blagojevich naming Obama's friend Valerie Jarrett to replace him in the U.S. Senate.

Emanuel was uncharacteristically absent from Obama's news conference this morning. He was spotted two hours later in the lobby of Chicago's City Hall. He was there to listen to his two children performing in a concert with their school, Anshe Emet.

A Sun-Times reporter pressed him to comment about whether he was the emissary named in the criminal complaint.

"You're wasting your time," Emanuel said. "I'm not going to say a word to you. I'm going to do this with my children. Dont do that. I'm a father. I have two kids. I'm not going to do it."

Asked, "Can't you do both?" Emanuel replied, "I'm not as capable as you. I'm going to be a father. I'm allowed to be a father," and he pushed the reporter's digital recorder away....


The Tribune has an 'exclusive' on JJ jr, looks like he will be going down too:

Blagojevich fundraiser held by Jackson allies Saturday -- chicagotribune.com (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-blagojevich-jackson12dec12,0,6420556.story)



...Blagojevich fundraiser held by Jackson allies Saturday

By David Kidwell, John Chase and Dan Mihalopoulos

Tribune reporters

December 12, 2008


As Gov. Rod Blagojevich was trying to pick Illinois' next U.S. senator, businessmen with ties to both the governor and U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. discussed raising at least $1 million for Blagojevich's campaign as a way to encourage him to pick Jackson for the job, the Tribune has learned.

Blagojevich made an appearance at an Oct. 31 luncheon meeting at the India House restaurant in Schaumburg sponsored by Oak Brook businessman Raghuveer Nayak, a major Blagojevich supporter who also has fundraising and business ties to the Jackson family, according to several attendees and public records.

Two businessmen who attended the meeting and spoke to the Tribune on the condition of anonymity said that Nayak and Blagojevich aide Rajinder Bedi privately told many of the more than two dozen attendees the fundraising effort was aimed at supporting Jackson's bid for the Senate.

Among the attendees was a Blagojevich fundraiser already under scrutiny by federal investigators, Joliet pharmacist Harish Bhatt.

That meeting led to a Blagojevich fundraiser Saturday in Elmhurst, co-sponsored by Nayak and attended by Jesse Jackson Jr.'s brother, Jonathan, as well as Blagojevich, according to several people who were there. Nayak and Jonathan Jackson go back years and the two even went into business together years ago as part of a land purchase on the South Side.

Blagojevich and the congressman met to discuss the Senate seat on Monday, one day before federal prosecutors arrested Blagojevich and charged him with trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. As part of the charges, prosecutors alleged that Blagojevich was considering awarding the seat to a politician identified as "Senate Candidate 5" because emissaries for that candidate were promising to raise as much as $1.5 million for Blagojevich's campaign fund....

[Binky]

I hope Chicagoeans have their waders on as the shit is getting deeper.

[Kathianne]

I hope Chicagoeans have their waders on as the shit is getting deeper.

That seems to be what no one outside of Chicago gets, we're USED to this kind of stuff. If Obama wasn't the PE, this would just be another Illinois story. In 40 years, 4 governors have gone to prison. :coffee:

[Binky]

That seems to be what no one outside of Chicago gets, we're USED to this kind of stuff. If Obama wasn't the PE, this would just be another Illinois story. In 40 years, 4 governors have gone to prison. :coffee:


Which is a good reason why no one seems to get it. Only because of his election is any of Chicagos woes coming to light. If not for that, I'm sure no no one would even hear about it, for the most part. I, myself, had no idea about these governors. I have always known that it was very corrupted, but as to it's length and depth, I remained clueless.

It seems, Chicago is not my sort of town and needs a complete overhaul and brooms to sweep it clean. However, far too much corruption and not enough brooms is the problem.

[Kathianne]

Which is a good reason why no one seems to get it. Only because of his election is any of Chicagos woes coming to light. If not for that, I'm sure no no one would even hear about it, for the most part. I, myself, had no idea about these governors. I have always known that it was very corrupted, but as to it's length and depth, I remained clueless.

It seems, Chicago is not my sort of town and needs a complete overhaul and brooms to sweep it clean. However, far too much corruption and not enough brooms is the problem.

This is Chicago:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-kass-12-dec12,0,723256.column


chicagotribune.com

Man behind curtain is wizard of Rod, Rahm

John Kass

December 12, 2008


When it comes to being the guy behind the guy, there is no one more conspicuous than Rahm Emanuel.

As chief of staff for President-elect Barack Obama, he's usually at Obama's news conferences, standing off to the side, glowering like some fiercely loyal mini-me....

...He could have just asked Emanuel, but he wasn't there, and reporters kept wondering, "Where's Rahm? Where's Rahm?" What they should have been asking is, "Where's Jimmy?"

As in state Sen. James DeLeo (D-How You Doin?)

DeLeo is an extremely powerful politician. You know this because he's hardly ever quoted in newspaper stories.

Emanuel and DeLeo have a relationship. Emanuel is the congressman from the 5th Congressional District, where DeLeo is the Democratic state central committeeman. What hasn't been reported on much is that Emanuel has not yet resigned from the House. And if you want to play politics in Jimmy's sandbox, you need his OK.

DeLeo is also considered by some to be the real governor of Illinois. Blagojevich is the nutty guy who makes the speeches and gets the federal slap. They're so close that if Jimmy suddenly stopped walking, Rod would chip his teeth on the back of Jimmy's head.

It's reasonable to assume that if there's one fellow Rod would talk to about the Senate seat, it's Jimmy. And given their relationship, Jimmy could talk to Rahm. I'm not suggesting money was offered. There is nothing illegal about politicians horse-trading to fill seats. Only when such deals are monetized—as the governor is alleged to have done—is it illegal.

I'm just talking about putting political pieces on the board the Chicago Way. A vacant Senate seat and a soon-to-be vacant House seat in Illinois would be a package deal. Consider this mathematical equation: Jimmy/Rod + Jimmy/Rahm = Happy Rod, Jimmy and Rahm. Get it?

Before he became so powerful, Jimmy was a lowly traffic court bailiff making a measly $20,000 a year. Yet he was able to own shiny new Cadillacs, Jaguars and Mercedes, astounding federal agents, who in 1989 charged him with taking bribes to fix tickets in the Operation Greylord probe of judicial corruption.

Later, his former roommate told a federal grand jury that there was $35,000 in cash in their freezer, carefully wrapped in butcher paper so the bills wouldn't get freezer burn. But the roommate came to Jimmy's defense, saying the money was his, not Jimmy's, and that it came from the roommate's stolen-car business.

At Jimmy's trial, Outfit gambling boss Ken "Tokyo Joe" Eto emerged from the witness protection program to testify that he passed cash to Jimmy via handshakes. Eto had been hiding since Outfit hit men tried to kill him. They used cheap bullets, and three slugs failed to fully penetrate Eto's diamond-hard cranium....

[emmett]

Kathy... you better get out of there kid! You can bunk out at my place in Georgia (snicker snicker).

[Kathianne]

Kathy... you better get out of there kid! You can bunk out at my place in Georgia (snicker snicker).

;) Oh how do you think we could have all those long family diner arguments over politics? It's a hobby around these parts and never short on topics. I just was going to post this, seems like this is a good place:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122912965021703363.html


Even Chicago's Crooks Are Appalled by Blagojevich
Extorting Children's Hospital is a new political low.
By SCOTT SIMON

Chicago

Chicagoans and Illinoisans love political scandal the way that Milanese love opera.

We trade recollections, like baseball cards, about the secretary of state (Paul Powell) who stashed money in shoeboxes, and the Chicago mayor (Harold Washington) whose birthday was April 15 but never filed his income tax return.

Rod Blagojevich stands a chance to be the fourth Illinois governor in recent history, and the second in a row, to wind up in prison. This run suggests that Illinoisans are indifferent to political corruption, and it's hard to argue with such an impressive procession of felonious officials.

But all of Illinois' disgraced former governors were considered honest pols when they were elected. Otto Kerner had gone to Cambridge, won the Bronze Star, and was a respected judge. Dan Walker was a self-righteous reformer of such blatant rectitude that he managed to cast Illinois Congressman Paul Simon -- bow-tied Paul Simon, a man who wouldn't try to sneak a tenth apple into a Nine Items or Less checkout line -- as a stooge for the Chicago machine. George Ryan was considered a slightly frumpy small-town druggist who would keep a wary eye on Chicago sharpies. Mr. Blagojevich, for that matter, ran as a fresh face to chase out Ryan's stale old ways.

I leave it to biographers and psychiatrists to ponder if these governors of both parties were honest men who got corrupted in high office, or lifelong crooks who had simply been waiting for the opportunity....

Chicago alderman once complained to me about modern reform hiring laws -- the line was so good, I borrowed it, unembellished, for a novel -- "What's this world coming to when a guy can get a job for a stranger more easily than he can for his brother in law?"

But even those who live by this kind of code are appalled by the allegations against Mr. Blagojevich. Reaping reward for appointing someone to the senate is not unprecedented, or even unethical. I am confident that if Gov. Blagojevich had appointed Valerie Jarrett, Mr. Obama's reported favorite, to the seat, the people in his administration would consider that they owed the governor some sort of favor, and would have resurfaced a highway, or invited him to a White House dinner with Angelina Jolie. But unsubtly putting a senate seat up for personal auction, as if it were a piece of family jewelry, is arrogance that makes even hardened pols shudder.

Yet that's not even the item that angers me most. Among U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's bill of particulars is the charge that Gov. Blagojevich sought to rescind a state payment of $8 million to Children's Memorial Hospital if their CEO failed to organize a $50,000 contribution to the governor.

Many shameless politicians would send free turkeys to a children's hospital. The publicity is good, and it might help them sleep at night. But this governor was willing to stint on their care if a hospital official didn't oblige him with cash.

When I was in high school, a group of friends and I would pass out toys and candy to children in the hospital wards there. It was both the saddest and sweetest event of the season, and the thought that a public official would dare diminish the care of sick, innocent children over a campaign contribution doesn't just deserve an indictment. I think it reserves that politician a seat in Hell.

Mr. Simon is the host of NPR's Weekend Edition and author of the novel, "Windy City" (Random House, 2008).

[Kathianne]

Too funny photo of our rat governor:

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/blagojevich/1328287,121208blagorat.fullimage

Seems someone ripped down the sign, but the city is going to put it up again. :laugh2:

[Psychoblues]

Aw, come'on, Kat?!!?!??!?!?! Politics aside, Chicago is a GREAT place!!!!!!!!!! I've spent a good amount of time there and would return in an instant if my personal situation was more conducive to the move!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can I get you a Cosmos?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?

:beer::cheers2::beer:

Psychoblues