Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

Brandon Johnson, the elected official who still collects big checks from the Chicago Teachers Union, will be a disaster as Chicago’s mayor

Posted: March 5, 2023 by John Ruberry in crime, elections, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

By John Ruberry

For all of you cynics who says there is no real choice in most elections, next month’s runoff race for Chicago mayoral election proves you wrong. 

The unpopular and incompetent incumbent, Lori Lightfoot, finished third in last week’s first round of voting, collecting an anemic 17 percent of the vote in a nine-candidate field. Former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas took first place with 33 percent of the vote and Cook County commissioner and Chicago Teachers Union organizer Brandon Johnson in second with 21 percent of the tally.

Chicago’s municipal elections are non-partisan, but the remaining candidates are Democrats.

Vallas has been largely successful in other education jobs, including posts in Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Bridgeport, Connecticut–but he has butted heads repeatedly with teachers’ unions, most notably the far-left Chicago Teachers Union, which has strongly backed Johnson’s candidacy. And that’s not all. Johnson, who earns over $100,000-a-year as a Cook County commissioner, also has collected nearly $400,000 as a legislative coordinator for the CTU over the past five years.

So not only is Johnson in the pocket of the Chicago Teachers Union, the CTU is in Johnson’s pocket. 

As of this writing, Johnson has not said if he will quit his CTU post and stop cashing that paycheck. 

According to the Illinois Policy Institute, over the first two months of 2023, Johnson’s campaign was the recipient of over $4 million in contributions. Over half of that came from the Chicago Teachers Union and its affiliated unions. Of the rest, most of that cash was contributed by other unions, while just five percent of his campaign funds came from other sources.

Watch out, taxpayers. 

Johnson favors, as does the CTU, an array of anti-business and anti-consumer taxes and fees, including the hated employee head tax that Mayor Rahm Emanuel eliminated in 2014, although Johnson only wants large companies to pay for a new head tax.

The 2020 riots devastated Chicago’s main shopping and tourism district, North Michigan Avenue. Johnson supports “new user fees for high-end commercial districts frequented by the wealthy, suburbanites, tourists and business travelers.” Such fees will finish off North Michigan Avenue and similar areas. I used to work in the hospitality industry, and Chicago’s hotel taxes, the highest in the nation, were frequently used by officials in other cities to lure conventions away–Johnson wants to hike those hotel taxes by 66 percent. The COVID-19 has devastated ridership on Metra, the Chicago metropolitan area’s public train system, Johnson wants to institute a suburban commuter tax for Metra riders.

Johnson also backs a real estate transfer tax on high-end homes, a financial transaction tax, and maybe, a 3.5 percent municipal income tax on wealthy Chicagoans. In regard to the city income tax, which the Chicago Teachers Union supports, he said that it was a mistake by another far-left group, presumably United Working Families, to wrongly says he backs it.

Fine, that very well may be true. But late last month, on his Fox Chicago Flannery Fired Up show, host Mike Flannery asked Johnson five times if he backs a city income tax. Johnson deflected–he refused to answer “Yes” or “No.”

Detroit, Baltimore, Cleveland, and St. Louis are among the failed cities with a municipal income tax.

Most Chicagoans believe that crime is the biggest issue in the city. Where does Johnson stand on crime and the police?

“I don’t look at it as a slogan,” Johnson said of the defund the police movement in 2020, “it’s an actual real political goal.”

Since then, Johnson has waffled, he says many 911 calls are over domestic disturbances. Quite true. But the day after Election Day, a Chicago Police officer, Andre Vasquez-Lasso, was murdered by an 18-year-old gang member. Vasquez-Lasso was responding to a domestic disturbance call.

Last week, when former Chicago Police superintendant Garry McCarthy was asked by Amy Jacobson on WIND’s Morning Answer about Johnson’s support for sending social workers to respond to such domestic altercation calls, he replied, “We’re gonna end up with some dead social workers.”

And if Chicago elects Brandon Johnson mayor next month–remember, Vallas only received only one-third of the vote last week—get ready for an emptying city. The Detroit-doom scenario for Chicago is not far-fetched.

I’ll end with an apocryphal story about an Illinois governor, Adlai Stevenson, who twice was the Democratic nominee for president.

“Every thinking person in America will be voting for you,” someone remarked to Stevenson. The governor replied, “I’m afraid that won’t do—I need a majority.”

Let’s not go Brandon.

John Ruberry regularly blogs five miles north of Chicago at Marathon Pundit.

“Roald the Rotten” Dahl an unlikely hero in battle against wokeism

Posted: February 26, 2023 by John Ruberry in business, culture, media, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

By John Ruberry

Deep down every wokester is weak. Just as most bullies are. You criticize a woke person and you are called a racist, a bigot, or some sort of “phobe” or another. They expect you to cower in shame afterwards.

And if you don’t?

Like the dystopia described in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, the editing of books deemed offensive has begun. The endgame in Bradbury’s storyline was the banning of all books. 

Last week the publisher of Roald Dahl, Puffin, announced it was editing some of his works–which include the classics Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and Matilda–to remove language they deem offensive. Augustus Gloop, the gluttonous German boy in the first book, will no longer be “fat,” he’ll be “enormous.” In Matilda, “mothers and fathers” become “parents.” The bald witches in The Witches will come with a disclaimer about baldness. 

Next came the backlash.

But let’s talk about the author first. 

Dahl, who died in 1990, had slight misanthropic and even more direct anti-Semitic sentiments. At the very least he was a beast of a person. Dahl’s marriage to Hollywood actress Patricia Neal–one of my late mother’s favorite performers by the way–was tumultuous. Neal suffered a stroke while pregnant, and as she recovered, she couldn’t remember the words of many things. Dahl, a serial adulterer throughout their marriage, refused to give his wife things she asked for, including food, until she used the correct word. 

Neal’s nickname for her husband was “Roald the Rotten.”

Dahl’s publisher for much of his career was Alfred A. Knopf.

After asking Knopf that a person who was “competent and ravishing” should send him dozens of Dixon Ticonderoga pencils, Dahl was sent different ones, after his first request was laughed off. Dahl made more demands and then threatened to send his writings to a different publisher.

But instead, Knopf released the popular author. Employees of the publishing house cheered when they heard the news of Dahl’s dismissal. They fought back against a bully and won.

Salman Rushdie, who lost his sight in one eye after a recent attack, was one of the prominent writers who came to Dahl’s defense. “Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship,” Rushdie Tweeted. “Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed.”

Even Queen Camilla voiced her support for him.

A few days later Puffin backed off. Oh, it will still publish the edited, make that censored, versions of Dahl’s books. But the original Dahl works will also be printed. Here’s my prediction: Woke Dahl, just like the New Coke debacle several decades ago, will go down as colossal failure. Vintage Dahl will win.

Heroes are hard to find in these complicated times. But the legacy of “Roald the Rotten” has been used to fight back against another bully, the woke movement, which deems itself morally correct and beyond reproach.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

The Best Move for Trump on DeSantis: the Pappy O’Daniel Gambit

Posted: February 23, 2023 by datechguy in election 2024, elections, elections, politics, primaries
Tags: , , , , ,

I’ve written both about Donald Trump’s attacks on Ron DeSantis as being a bad idea and I further wrote that if DeSantis wants to strike back all he needs to do is invoke Fauci.

So that still leaves the question: How does Donald Trump counter a popular governor like DeSantis with a strong record and a reputation for fighting the fights conservatives need fighting.

The answer can be found in Lyndon Johnson’s first senate campaign where his primary opponent was a fellow named Pappy O’Daniel.

Pappy O’Daniel was an entertainer who parleyed his radio show act into a a fortune selling flour into the governor’s chair in Texas. One of the things he constantly pushed was the idea of a pension

He’d sing, tout Hillbilly Flour, quote scripture, and declare he was fed up with “crooked politics” and “scheming professional politicians.” He promised to pay every Texan over 65 a $30-a-month pension. He didn’t say how he’d fund those pensions, preferring to sell the idea singing lyrics he’d written to the tune of “Let Me Call You Sweetheart”—“Thirty Bucks for Mama.”

Smart types scoffed. Politicians and reporters said Pappy’s crowds came for the circus. But battered Texans yearned for something new. In the Democratic primary, against 11 rivals, Pappy got 51 percent, taking the nomination in a state where Republicans didn’t count. 

When the sitting US Senator Morris Shepard died in office Pappy O’Daniel appointed the 87 year old son of Sam Houston to his seat pending a special election. Lyndon Johnson seeing this as an opening promptly announced his candidacy and Pappy wasn’t far behind.

Johnson as a sitting congressman had a problem. O’Daniel was an immensely popular governor with the voters and while he was happy to be in bed with the various lobbyists (expect for the liquor lobby O’Daniel’s one unshakable principled belief was that booze was a tool of the Devil) an attack on his as corrupt was useless not only because Johnson’s own associations were not all that clean but because of the people still listening to his radio show now done from the Capital wouldn’t buy that the person fighting so hard to get them a pension didn’t care.

So Johnson took a different path. He painted O’Daniel as the indispensable man of Texas the man who was needed in the statehouse to fight for you and your pension here while he (LBJ) could fight for you in the Senate.

It was a stroke of brilliance. O’Daniel has talked about his fight for Pensions in his re-election campaign just six months before and Johnson’s praise of him and his work in Texas made direct attacks on him almost impossible.

In the end it paid off, at least until on election night Johnson let down his guard and allowed his key districts to report which gave an opening for the folks in the Liquor lobby, who wanted Pappy, out of Texas who did this:

Suddenly “late” returns from counties in East Texas where Congressman Martin Dies, another candidate for the open Senate seat, had previously run strong with 46% of the vote with O’Daniel getting 34% and Johnson 11% and a 4th candidate Mann 9%. As Robert Caro put it on paged 738-739 of his 1st volume on Lyndon Johnson:

But Dies did not do as well as he had done earlier. He received only 82 of these “new” votes — not 46 percent but 32 percent, Johnson and Mann didn’t do as well either: Mann received 6 votes or 2 percent; Johnson did particularly badly; he received 3 of the new votes : 1 percent. O’Daniel, who had received 34 percent on the first returns, received 64 percent on these later returns.

This pattern was repeated in county after county in east Texas where O’Daniel’s “Magic Ballots” kept turning up. Johnson manged to get a few “corrected” returns from a few spots but as official returns had been sent in such things were few and far between. He contacted George Paar known as the Duke of Duval who was the power there and bluntly asked for more votes. Duval’s reported reply: “Lyndon I’ve Been to Federal Penitentiary and I’m not Going Back For You” was logical. Because the official numbers had not come from East Texas no matter how many votes he agreed to provide O’Daniel’s folks would simply create more in counties that had not yet reported. In the end his 5000 vote lead became a 1311 vote loss 175,590 to 174,279.

Sound familiar?

Bottom line until O’Daniel’s foes in big Booze stole the election for him Johnson’s plan worked.

If I was advising Donald Trump, I would use the same tactic as LBJ did.

I would point to what was done in Florida and point out that there are plenty of people on the left who want DeSantis out of there. Who want to stop his innovations from spreading to other states. I’d point to his reforms on voting, his strong attacks on the sexualization of children and his taking on woke education and say that America NEEDS DeSantis in Florida to keep it a shining example for the entire nation.

I would compare this to his own reforms on the federal level, and suggest that DeSantis moves are much like his own but on the state level, it’s a great opening for Trump to tout his own record which is without question the best overall record of any 21st century president, from Tax Cuts to prison reform and beyond.. This way he can point to his own initial endorsement of DeSantis in his first campaign and even to some degree take credit for those accomplishments made possible by his own support in his initial election win that was by a small margin. Suddenly DeSantis’ success becomes derivative of his own.

I’d even go one better. I’d point out that Disney would LOVE to get DeSantis out of there and have the chance to try to influence a different perhaps weaker governor who would appoint people of their choosing to boards and commissions to slowly undo all that has already been done. I’d suggest that DeSantis needs at least one more term to solidify these changes and to make sure that the woke legions, led by Disney can’t reverse what has already been done. He owes it to the people who sent him back to make sure the job is done.

It’s the type of argument that has the best chance of not only preventing a DeSantis 2024 campaign but would make attacks on him by DeSantis very difficult.

Anyways that would be my play and I submit and suggest to the Trump campaign that it’s the one most likely to put the nomination in his hands.

America has its secretary of silly walks, Pete Buttigieg

Posted: February 19, 2023 by John Ruberry in Blame Trump, culture, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

By John Ruberry

Yes, we have our secretary of silly walks, Pete Buttigieg. 

More on the walks in a bit.

Often described as “the smartest person in the room,” Mayor Pete to his friends, Pothole Pete to his growing list of detractors, the former McKinsey and Company consultant and mayor of South Bend, Indiana mayor has shown a great talent for cunningness in regard to his career advancement. 

He wasn’t an effective mayor and he’s been a disastrous secretary of transportation. In his 24 months at that job, he has faced three crises.

Buttigieg was AWOL during the supply chain crisis of 2021–he was on previously unannounced paternity leave–the holiday season flight disruptions of 2022, and now, there has been a recent increase in train derailments, including the one that led to a toxic mushroom cloud in East Palestine, Ohio. 

But it’s not his fault! It’s Donald Trump’s fault! Actually, Buttigieg is wrong, the Trump era rule change on trains had no effect on the East Palestine disaster.

But Buttigieg still has a job, and because he checks a sacrosanct “box” that is so important to the identitarians of the woke Democrat Party–Buttigieg is gay–he is still being discussed as a running mate for Biden in 2024. Like Chicago’s failed mayor, Lori Lightfoot, Kamala Harris is another “triple threat,” the vice president is Asian, Black, and a woman. Harris is the “first” of all three to serve as vice president, Michael O’Shea, writing for the Federalist, says that “Harris could only feasibly be replaced with another “first.'” 

And that “first” could mean Buttigieg, despite his flops.

I endured some Buttigiegs when I was toiling in the hospitality industry. They were smug, they always knew what to say and how to say it, and they looked good, but when it came to real work, they always had other things to do. 

At one hotel where I worked, we had a management company take over operations–and the Hotel Buttigiegs would nitpick us on nothingness—“Hey, can you have that neon beer sign moved to another window?”–but the real problems we faced would not be addressed. The hotel was falling apart and when one of my co-workers would bring that up obvious problem, the reply would be, “Well, the owners won’t invest their money into rehab.” Fine, I get it, but if these “experts,” these Buttigiegs, were so smart, they would either convince the owners to open their wallets, or they could find a way to make the hotel profitable. After all, they were the experts, as they would regularly remind us.

I remember one of those Hotel Buttigiegs dressing me down one day, literally, because my shirttail was out. Okay, that’s a legitimate criticism, but the reason I was disheveled is that there was a call for all able-bodied employees to help move chairs into a ballroom because a client’s meeting attracted far more attendees than expected. I answered the call–but Hotel Buttigieg didn’t. After all, he was “management.” Well, so was I, but I was not part of the elect, I was not a member of their management class, their little club of overpaid know-it-alls. But Hotel Buttigieg always had his shirt tucked in.

Before long, shirttail-critic stopped coming by–that was an improvement–and so did all of the other Hotel Buttigiegs. The challenges facing the hotel were largely intractable, partly because of these know-it-alls. They were AWOL, while their bosses were still collecting their management fees, because these Hotel Buttigiegs didn’t want their names muddied with our crappy hotel. They were presented with challenges–and they ran away. Because the Hotel Buttigiegs wanted to look good–ah, that tie is perfect with that suit–for their next undeserved promotion.

Pete Buttigieg as of this writing hasn’t visited East Palestine. But Donald Trump will be there on Wednesday. Trump, although he has no real power anymore, has never been afraid of a challenge. Unlike, well you know who.

Oh yeah, silly walks. 

I was in the audience at the Park West in Chicago in 1987 when Graham Chapman gave a fabulous lecture on his years with the Monty Python troupe. I hung on every word. There was a question-and-answer session, and Chapman, who died of cancer two years later, was asked about the silly walks sketch, one of the many legendary bits from the greatest comedy television show ever.

His reply went something like this, “Oh yes, back in Britain we had this member of parliament, who couldn’t do anything right, but the prime minister always found a cabinet position for him. So, when writing this sketch, we came up with the most ridiculous position we could imagine for him.” 

Watch as John Cleese kicks the sketch out of the park. 

America now has its secretary of silly walks, the incompetent Pete Buttigieg. Currently he’s in charge of the US Transportation Department, yet he might be a heartbeat away from the presidency in 2025.

But the residents of East Palestine aren’t laughing at all. Nor are they impressed. Even though Mayor Pete is so smart–he graduated from Harvard, you know–and he’s a former consultant from McKinsey–and oh yeah, did I mention how smart he is? And Buttigieg looks dashing in a suit too.

UPDATE February 22:

20 days after the toxic spill, and very likely only because he was shamed into it, Buttigieg will visit East Palestine tomorrow.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Older Entries
Newer Entries