DC or Chi-town, the Scent is the Same

While visiting loved ones in Maryland earlier this year I had a chance to visit DC for the first time. Even as a person who is totally cynical about political power, I was impressed. It has some beautiful places if you love history as much as I do. And it has a "feeling" about it.

I was even a bit impressed as the Presidential motorcade came roaring down Pennsylvania Avenue while my daughter and I happened to be standing on the median strip. Just think, I was within just a few yards of President Obama!

Well, maybe I wasn't exactly as giddy as I'm making it seem about being in proximity to a car that may have had the President inside. Maybe I just liked all the sirens and motorcycle cops. After all, I have personally met hundreds of greater men after sixty- one years in this realm, and none of them sent that tingle up my leg like pretend newsman Chris Matthews got when he met our hope and change leader.

Even though I admire many people, my theory is that all people will disappoint you if you get to know them well enough. That's why I try to stick to ideas instead of personalities when I write on this blog. The concept of freedom has never disappointed me.

One of the things I remember remarking to my daughter as we strolled along in the most powerful city on earth was that, "It's easy to see why people come here with good intentions and soon become convinced that they are special." The fatal conceit is an epidemic here.

As it turns out, if you want to see how DC works, or smells, you can save the airfare and stay in Chi-town because the "Chicago Way"* has arrived in the nation's capital as the Illinois community organizer took his roadshow east. In all fairness, the corruption has always been there, it just didn't go by that name before.

In Chicago, where the last Mayor (King Richard Daley II) has stopped "mayoring" so he can cash in on all the favors he is owed by past recipients of public largess, things have always been fixed. And the money flows both ways, particularly at election time. And at contract time, and at hiring time.

The last Mayor's son was recently caught making over $700,000 on a WI-FI contract/scam at the airport. And it's all legal, at least in the corruption capital of Illinois. It's also legal to threaten to take your business and leave when your legal bribe to the new Mayor Emmanuel and the recently elected Governor Quinn failed to get you the same tax "waivers" as other big companies got. That is what the CME Group is doing.

The CME Group made a "contribution" of $90,000 to the Governor's Campaign, which apparently was not enough to get them the same deal (so far) as Sears and Caterpillar got. They also gave a whopping $200,000 (the single largest payoff) to Mayor Rahm Emmanuel's campaign even though he was a virtual lock to win the election after being part of the Daley/Obama Chi-town deal-o-rama.

CME chairman Terry Duffy said "I thought it made a lot of sense." (to make the contribution/downpayment on future favors, he is in the futures business after all) According to the Chicago Tribune he said Rahm had "Chicago roots, knowledge of Washington and a desire to raise the city's international profile." That would whittle the potential donee list down to a few hundred thousand people I guess.

I can just imagine what the conversation in that meeting sounded like when he proposed (successfully) to spend 200 grand of the company's money citing those reasons. I guess I have been in enough of those exchange meetings over my forty-two year career in the markets to have that kind of imagination. Of course it's all legal, these people aren't stupid, only immoral.

I won't waste another second talking about the legendary corruption in Chicago because anyone with a working nose can smell the stench of rotting government here even if they are upwind of this political hellhole.

But the point of all this chatter is that these deals are also being made in DC by the "change" President. I'm certain no one is surprised and many of the dimwits who vote for these people in Illinois are sure to say that this kind of thing is OK, "because that's how things work."

Now a story has been published on the web by a group named iWatch News that lays out the huge numbers of "contributors" (now called "bundlers") who have profited from helping get things changed. Apparently all they wanted changed was who was getting the plunder, not the act of plunder itself.

In iWatch's article they point out that "as a candidate, Obama spoke passionately about diminishing the clout of moneyed interests. Kicking off his presidential run on Feb. 10, 2007, he blasted “the cynics, the lobbyists, the special interests,” who had “turned our government into a game only they can afford to play.” “We’re here today to take it back,” he said.

They go on to say "More than two years after Obama took office vowing to banish “special interests” from his administration, nearly 200 of his biggest donors have landed plum government jobs and advisory posts, won federal contracts worth millions of dollars for their business interests or attended numerous elite White House meetings and social events."


I think you should read the story for yourself, it could save you a trip to DC. But if you want to know how to get there, just stick your nose out the window and follow the stench east.

*"The Chicago Way" term was coined by Tribune writer John Kass

Dancing With the Stars, the Chicago Way



President Barak Obama doing the twist during his first campaign stop of the 2012 re-election bid. He was in Chicago competing in the dance contest while trying to woo the voters who didn't vote for him in 2008 but loved Chubby Checker. Meanwhile the newly elected Mayor Rahm Emmanuel waits his turn to compete in an effort to dethrone the current Chicago soft shoe champion, outgoing Mayor Richard Daley.



While admitting that Obama has a cultural advantage in the dance competition, Emmanuel accepts the President's invitation to be his partner the couples portion to see if they can out step the current champ; Mayor Daley and his partner Alderman Tunney.  (pictured below waiting in the wings for their turn)


"We're gonna twisty twisty twisty 'Til we turn the house down!"
Chubby Checker commenting on the President's budget battle with the House of Representatives.

A Clueless Metropolis is about to get Fairness

Having solved all the other problems of the city during his long tenure as king of Chicago, the retiring monarch Richard Daley II returned from a taxpayer sponsored vacation in China to unveil his latest "vision" for solving one last problem. This time it's one which doesn't exist. That terrible problem is that it takes too long on government transportation to travel from downtown Chicago to O'Hare airport.

And what vision the king has! From the control tower at one of the worlds busiest airports, it's the only thing which doesn't show up at all on the radar. But king Richie can see it as plain as day. Quite an accomplishment for a guy who couldn't see the corruption in his own cabinet even though it was sitting right next to him for decades.

So now that the city has all its finances in order, has sold all the assets it can, has a wonderful education system and a trouble free police department, Daley retires with only one unfulfilled dream, a seven minute commute to O'Hare on a Chinese high speed rail system. According to him, it's the answer to many problems besides the speed issue. The Chicago Tribune reported this morning that he told reporters last week that it would "rebuild our commercial market and our hospitality industry." (No word on what caused those markets and industries to need rebuilding.)

Most people know this thing will never get built, but changing the subject from actual problems to grand visions has become an art form for those who run Chicago and this nonsense is just one more example of how clueless newspapers and even more clueless citizens take the bait time after time and talk about this stuff instead of talking about what is actually happening. Seemingly, it never occurs to them that before building an un-needed high speed rail system, Daley might ponder why he needs citizens of Topeka or San Jose to pay $34.7 million (as reported in the paper this very day) to help maintain the current CTA buses via a federal grant. Or maybe he should try to imagine how he would have run the city all these years if the people who live there had to pay for what they needed instead of it being financed by a stream of federal money taken from people in cities who actually solve their own problems and live within their means.

One Chicago Tribune commentator who is a regular apologist for liberal politics opined in today's paper that "Chicago is going to miss Daley."  Essentially, he says we will pine for him after he is gone because he remembers how bad it was before Daley was king.

But look on the bright side, if you are a progressive in Chicago, you are about to get the fairness you crave  because the answer to all the problems Daley leaves behind apparently is..... Rahm Emmanuel. 

And if so, it will prove that in the end you get what you deserve in this town even if they don't in Topeka or San Jose.

Legislative Breathalyzer

Tests to make sure that people are not intoxicated while performing tasks that might be dangerous to others are common today. I would humbly suggest that one of the tasks to include in that scrutiny might be a test to address "Legislating under the Influence."

I mean, if our own illustrious Mayor Daley doesn't mind his underwear being  monitored, ("I get scrutined every day.") why should Sen. Max Baucus be offended merely by being required to puff into the monitor before taking to the floor of the Senate to change our health-care system? As someone once said, "Political intoxication leads to reality hangover."

Many of you have probably seen this unbelievable video of him "debating" in "the world's greatest deliberative body" as it burns its way around the internet but it would be presumptuous of me to assume that you shouldn't be given an opportunity to "scrutin" it, just in case you missed it so far.

So allow me to douse the fire with gasoline.