Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

Illinois Democrats may finally eject Boss Madigan

Posted: December 6, 2020 by John Ruberry in crime, elections, News/opinion, politics
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By John Ruberry

I can’t track down the exact quote from Hunter S. Thompson about the end of Richard M. Nixon’s presidency, but the self-described gonzo journalist viewed it something along the lines of a football cheap-shot artist got felled by his own weapon, the dirty hit. Not that Thompson, a huge football fan like Nixon, favored dirty hits, but he delighted in his mental image of Nixon helplessly departing public life, like an NFL goon being wheeled off the playing field in a stretcher, never to return. 

We may be nearing that ignominious point with Boss Michael Madigan of Chicago. 

Good.

A refresher for those of you who are not from Illinois. For all but two years Madigan, 78, has been speaker of the Illinois state house since 1983, a national record for state legislative leadership. He’s been chairman of the state Democratic Party since 1998. Madigan has been a Chicago Democrat ward committeman since 1969. He’s been a member of the Illinois General Assembly since 1971. Hey, Madigan even managed, at great effort, to get his daughter, Lisa, elected Illinois attorney general in 2002. She was reelected three times.

Fox Chicago’s longtime political reporter, Mike Flannery, gained the scorn of other reporters when he half-jokingly asked Madigan, in one of his rare press conferences, if Illinois politicans should be limited to half a century in public office. The Boss abruptly ended the presser.

Madigan is America’s last political machine boss. And Madigan is, as I’ve noted before, the Pablo Picasso of gerrymanderers. Madigan’s maps aren’t pretty, but they achieve his goal, electing as many Democrats to Congress and the General Assembly who are beholden to the Boss as possible. Yep, beholden to Madigan–not the Democrat Party. Unloyal Democrats, in the manner of that classic Twilight Zone episode, find themselves drawn by Madigan into the empty political cornfield if they cross the Boss.

Federal investigators, led by US District Attorney John R. Lausch, have been chipping away at the Madigan machine for the last three years. I wrote about that here, here, and here. Last month the feds indicted lobbyist, former state representative, and close Madigan confidante Michael McClain on bribery and other charges. One of McClain’s biggest clients was Commonwealth Edison, the Exelon-owned electrical utility. It’s alleged that Madigan, who has not been charged and vows he is not involved in any criminal acttivity, used the utility, in exchange for legislation favorable to ComEd, to hand out jobs to members of his political organization. Also indicted for were some former top ComEd officers, including its onetime CEO. 

The cheap shot, in Madigan’s opinion, that leads to criminal charges, may still come, if someone rats the Boss of Illinois out. But Madigan, who reportedly doesn’t use a cell phone or email, will be a tough old tree to fell. Besides, he has a lot of money in his political warchest and his still has many friends, particularly among minority politicians, who of course enjoy being funnels for jobs for their cronies and constituents.

Still, according to multiple media reports there currently are enough votes in the state House to deny Madigan another term as speaker. The Blue Wave predicted by political prognostictors also was non-existant in Illinois, the weak state GOP managed to pick up a seat in the House. Worse for Democrats, the so-called Fair Tax Amendment, that would replace Illinois’ flat-rate income tax with graduated ones, was resoundingly defeated by voters. Corruption reports surrounding Madigan’s inner circle have been seen by political scribes as among the reasons the Fair Tax Amendment failed. Madigan has been a very poor steward of public monies–more on that in a bit. 

If Madigan loses the speakership he won’t be able to hold on to his party chairmanship for long. He needs both offices to remain on the balance bar. Madigan’s political idol, the first Richard Daley, who was mayor of Chicago and chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party. His yin needed the yang. Sadly, Madigan doesn’t have the public-finance chops of Boss Daley.

To use a football analogy again, the score in the game is 7-0 with Madigan trailing, but we’re early in the first quarter. Illinois has never, at least in my opinion, fully recovered from the Great Recession. The lockdowns of the state’s second-most powerful politician, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, have caused great damage to the Illinois ecomony. So have the two rounds of riots and looting in Chicago this year. Jobs are hard to come by here–and my guess is that Madigan still has some to hand out to the right friends. Don’t count him out.

Oh yeah, what about the money? Madigan has been at the table that drafted every Illinois budget since 1983, and probably earlier. And it was during that time that the fuse of Illinois’ public-pension bomb was lit. The phony Madigan budgets keep kicking the can down the round as Illinois’ severely underfunded public worker public pension plans continue to eat away at state prosperity. Illinois has had a backlog of billions in unpaid bills for more than a decade. The state hasn’t had a balanced budget–despite our constitution requiring one–since 2002. Coincidentally that was the last year there was a Republican majority in the state Senate. 

If only because of his fiscal malfeasance, Madigan needs to go. 

Speaking of going, many Illinoisans are doing just that. The Prairie State, as I’ve noted here at Da Tech Guy many times, has been losing residents since 2014.

Eject Madigan now.

John Ruberry, a Commonwealth Edison customer, reguarly blogs from the Chicago area at Marathon Pundit.

The Price the GOP will Pay For Allowing The Election to be Stolen

Posted: December 3, 2020 by datechguy in crime, elections, politics
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Bernard Woolley: What if the Prime Minister insists we help them?

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Then we follow the four-stage strategy.

Bernard Woolley: What’s that?

Sir Richard Wharton: Standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis.

Sir Richard Wharton: In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.

Sir Richard Wharton: In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there’s nothing we *can* do.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it’s too late now.

Yes Prime Minister A Victory for Democracy 1986

Yesterday I talked about the price that will be paid for allowing this election to be stolen and that Twitter is playing the prevent defense.

And lo and behold the news coming from PA:

“We are physically unable to consider any new legislation before the end of session. A simple resolution takes three legislative days for consideration and a concurrent resolution takes five legislative days to move through both chambers, which means we do not have the time needed to address any new resolutions in our current session,” which expires Monday as per the state constitution.

In other words the GOP leadership in PA dillyed and dallied until it was not able to stop the steal, this was made possible by keeping the public ignorant of these things, via Twitter’s Prevent defense.

All of these hearings we are seeing mean nothing if the GOP is just using it to let people vent without actually acting.

I don’t think they understand the cost of the Party’s decision but a fellow named Zimmerman does and I don’t think I can do better than the points Mr. Zimmerman has made. All his points are great but these are the ones that really ring out:

3. I fully believe that these state Republican leaders are lying when they say they are going to do a full review of the election process. As we have seen for decades, they are experts at failure theater. They make big noises about standing up to their opposition, but always fold like wet rags at the slightest pressure. They will do so again.

4. The result: The likelihood of a legitimate election occurring ever again in the United States is low, if not impossible. Assuming the Democrats did steal this election, the evidence suggests they were sloppy about doing it. Not only were the manipulations of the vote totals blatantly obvious, the Democrat’s unwavering opposition to any investigation suggests they knew their malfeasance would have been quickly uncovered.

They will not be so sloppy next time.

Mr Zimmerman predicts not only the abandonment of the GOP by conservatives who see no reason to fight for those who won’t stop this election from being stolen from them and let’s be clear it’s the people who this election is being stolen from as a letter writer to Don Surber explained.

“But I lay here awake now thinking about how Donald Trump did not lose the election nor have it stolen from him. The Presidency is not a prize to be won but an office to be elected to. It is not his. It is ours.

“The election was stolen from the 70 million plus voters who followed the ever changing rules, trying to do the right thing to the best of their ability.

“And the thieves did not just steal the office, in doing so they stole our present and future tax dollars. They stole the educations of every student in the education system from pre K through post grad.

“They stole our faith and trust in the government and in the system we trust to maintain the integrity of that massive government. They stole our hope for a safe and honest future.

“I hope they are caught and their wrongs are corrected.

“In my opinion, there is no punishment harsh enough for the people who seek to enslave us.

“They are not trying to steal the election from Donald Trump. They are trying to steal it from me.

Basically the GOP in PA, GA, AZ, WI & MI have become the foreign office, they will make loud protests and do nothing. As I said yesterday the left in general and the big tech folks in particular must be very pleased at the result.

I submit and suggest they will be less pleased at the violence that this will spawn nor will the GOP office holders whose feckless surrender will be the spark that lights the flame of what could be a 2nd civil war. None of these things are going to change unless there is an actual cost for this type of thing and frankly it seems to be the only price they understand is direct violent action.

I could be wrong about that and in fact hope I am, but the very fact that I’m becoming less and less upset at the prospect fills me with dread.

Was Calling Arizona Early the Signal that the Steal was on?

Posted: November 30, 2020 by datechguy in elections, News/opinion
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Sir Humphrey Appleby: Oh is that you Norman? ‘Walkies’.

Yes Prime Minister One of Us 1986

As a rule I don’t like posts with question marks in the title as it means people are guessing but something hit me in the middle of work that made a lot of sense.

A lot of people were shocked at the VERY early Fox call in fact I recall reading how at the time of the call the 8-1 betting odds favoring Trump suddenly plunged to 2-1 which got a lot of bookies thinking something was up.

That’s when I remembered the 1919 World Series.

In the first game of the 1919 World Series, Eddie Cicotte of the Chicago White Sox went to the mound and promptly hit the first batter he faced, Cincinnati’s Morrie Rath, square in the back.

Too much adrenaline, most in the crowd thought, or perhaps a case of butterflies.

But for others more decidedly and deviously in the know, the 35-year old’s first delivery was deadly accurate.

It was a signal that the World Series was on its way to being fixed.

Cicotte’s beanball was the public signal that the game was on and when I remembered it it struck me that if you were going to have that meeting I speculated about a while back where everyone agreed to get blood on their hands…

No each of them had to have blood on their hands so to speak. Each of them had to be sure that the other bosses necks would be on the line. Each of the had to be sure that they would be all in on the steal (and I suspect each of them had to be sure that the media and the tech giants would back them up, I would not be surprised if there was coordination with those folks during the pause in the count.) and I suspect only when they agreed to hang together rather than risk hanging repeatedly did the counts resume.

…then you need a public signal to get the ball rolling. Something out in the open that everyone could see to be sure nobody backed out and of course something for the foot soldiers who would have to get the ballots ready, fill them out and ferry them to the various places knew things were on.

I submit and suggest that the most logical way to send such a signal would be through the media and the best type of signal would be a move that would be considered inexplicable from a source that would not be expected.

Even better the call of Arizona also fed the narrative that would be necessary to sell the fraud, although to be fair, the media would have been more than happy to buy it for any reason.

Again I am just speculating and have absolutely no proof of this, but if I was the guy in charge of getting the word out on election night that the fix was in, that’s how I’d do it.

My idea for subscribers to save some newspapers and magazines and protect conservative voices

Posted: November 29, 2020 by John Ruberry in business, media, News/opinion, politics
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By John Ruberry

More than once President Donald Trump–and as most recently as this morning in a telephone interview with Maria Bartiromo–President Donald J. Trump has called with media “the enemy of the people.”

And for the most part he is correct. On the national side most writers are propagandists for the left. Things are slightly better on the local level, which the president noted in that discussion with Bartiromo. After all only local TV stations were pressing Joe Biden during the presidential campaign about whether he’d pack the court with liberal justices. This is a very serious issue as it would upend and transform one of the three branches of the federal government. Eventually Biden, like a typical liberal, punted the decision by announcing he’d form a committee to explore issues of injustices in the legal system. And the elite media once again practiced the sin of omission in their reporting.

Last year Warren Buffett–although excluding the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal–said of newspapers, “They’re going to disappear.” And this year Buffett disappeared from the newspaper business. 

Old line magazines such as New York, the Atlantic, and the New Yorker are dominated by left-wing journalists. You know, the smug-elitists who got their jobs by way of nepotism and their attendance at an elite university, which probably admitted them because of one of their parents also attended that college. Actually these publications might not have any conservative writers. The last one, the New Yorker, offers a newstand price of $8.99. In my opinion it’s not worth 99 cents. All are behind an internet paywall. All of these publications are intellectually irredeemable and likely doomed to insolvency. 

Let’s get back to newspapers. I cancelled my print subscription to the Chicago Tribune years ago and although I toyed with the idea of subscribing online,being the enterprising sort I learned that the only thing, outside of an occasional sports story, that I cared to read in the Tribune was John Kass’ column, which I discovered I could find on other newspapers sites or Real Clear Politics for free. 

Buffett is right. Newspapers are dead men walking. And magazines. Mostly. Oh, Chicago’s other major daily newspaper, which was purchased by a consortium a few years ago that included the Chicago Federal of Labor for $1, isn’t going to make it. You can bet on it. 

The Tribune, once a strong conservative voice in heavily Democratic Chicago, has been drifting lefward for years. Now it’s “woke.” Except for columnist John Kass. And the Trib is a shell of its former self. Like Warren Buffett–and here the similarities between us end–I’m a former newspaper delivery boy. I hated Thanksgiving Day editions because the papers were jammed with Christmas shopping ads–making the delivery of those bulky papers take three times as long. I have this year’s Thanksgiving Day Tribune lying right next to me. It’s thinner than the Saturday editions–a low readership and therefore a low-advertising day–that I used to deliver. 

Here’s my idea for saving and perhaps transforming daily newspapers and magazines out of the liberal echo chamber that they are now. For instance, the cost of a Tribune subscription, once the promos end, is $3.99 a month. For a dollar more you can have the print edition delivered to your door too. Now, and union rules may have to be changed for this to happen, but I propose for subscribers to have one-quarter of their subscription fee to go directly to the columnist of their choice. If there’s a sports writer or a movie reviewer who you really like, then of course choose that person. And of course I have all newspapers, magazines, and online-only publications in mind. 

My selection at the Tribune would of course be John Kass, a strong conservative voice who suffered a demotion of sorts by seeing his column moved from the coveted page 2 location to the innards of opinion section. The impetus for that move was a rebellion by his leftist co-workers about a column explaining how George Soros funded the campaigns of far-left prosecutors such as Kim Foxx in Cook County, Illinois. Those propagandists called Kass’ column anti-Semitic, even though Kass never mentioned the faith of Soros in that article. Soros is a secular Jew, not a religous one, by the way. Kass was attacked by his colleagues not because he was wrong about Soros–but because he was right.

Kass on a personal level is the antithesis of the media elites of you find elsewhere on the Tribune or at the New York Times and the Atlantic and their ilk. He attended–but did not graduate from–Columbia. That is Columbia College in Chicago, which my daughter once also attended, not the “other” Columbia in New York. The mainstream media of of course is always calling for more diversity within its ranks. But never for more intellectual diversity. Or class diversity. 

So my proposal has two obvious merits. It can save newspapers and it can up the conservative presence at the legacy media. Before it becomes the extinct media. 

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit and is available for hire by a legacy media publication.

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