Pat Wheeler:Son, l asked you over here because the Sheriff’s a friend of mine. He’s got trouble. He can use a good man.
Colorado Ryan:To go against the Burdettes,Sheriff?
Sheriff Chance: That’s right.
Pat Wheeler: I told him you were one of the best.
Colorado Ryan: I’ll tell you what I’m a lot better at, Mr. Wheeler. That’s minding my own business. No offense, Sheriff.
Sheriff Chance:No offense.
Pat Wheeler: I never expected that.
Sheriff Chance:He showed good sense.
Rio Bravo 1959
There has been a lot of talk about a No Fly Zone in Ukraine enforced by NATO. The president of Ukraine lobbied congress for such a think and the Ukrainians have been doing their best to shame the west into this kind of direct confrontation with Russia.
Now the Ukrainians are in the process of being invaded and that being the case I have no problem with them doing all they can to get allies in the fight, in fact they would not be doing their job if they didn’t, but something occurred to me as the echoing gong of intervention has been going out.
Where are the calls for US Intervention in Chicago and Baltimore?
We have people being shot there on a regular basis and innocent bystanders being killed and wounded including children, yet we don’t have anyone talking about sending forces to control the violence there nor are there outcries for intervention in Chicago or people putting the Chicago or Baltimore city flags or seals on their twitter feed.
War is a messy thing. There is shooting, there is violence. And when civil authority breaks down you can see arson, you can see looting which begs the question.
Where are the calls for US intervention in San Francisco, or Portland or even New York City?
We’ve had wholesale arson, we’ve seen people take over streets and threaten others, we’ve seen looting and theft with impunity, yet the very suggestion that Americans should be sent to a part of America to protect Americans from these things in any of these cities is practically beyond the pale and it seems odd to me that so many Americans are all gung ho about getting involved in Ukraine but don’t seem to give a damn about what is going on here, not just ordinary crime which you might say is a local matter but crime and violence of a type that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago.
Am I saying that what Putin has done isn’t wrong, not at all. Putin should turn his armies around, head back to Russia and stay there.
But we’re not Poland, or Finland or the Baltic states, all of who have a history with Russia and have a legitimate worry about an aggressive Russia in their neighborhood and might decide it’s in their interest to get deeply involved . I submit and suggest it would show a lot of good sense to think long and hard before we go and get ourselves deeply involved in a war in eastern Europe that doesn’t involve a NATO ally that’s we’re committed to defend.
Boss Madigan graphic courtesy of the Illinois Policy Institute
By John Ruberry
Last week, yes know it’s a cliche, but hell froze over in Illinois when Boss Michael Madigan was indicted on 22 corruption counts. I was a common assumption that Madigan never used email–after all, the feds might be reading those messages.
But the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois, led by a Donald Trump appointee, John Lausch, got the job done
Coded language didn’t work. Madigan cronies, in secretly recorded conversations, would avoid Madigan’s name, referring to him as “our friend” or “a friend of ours.” Ironically, the mafia name for themselves is “La Cosa Nostra,” which roughly translates from Italian into “our thing” or “this thing of ours.”
I’ve written about Madigan many times at Da Tech Guy. In short, he’s the man who destroyed Illinois. When Madigan was first elected as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives, Illinois had 26 electoral votes. For the 2024 presidential election the Land of Lincoln will make do with just 19. Illinois has lost population every year since 2014 and over 100,000 people bailed on Madiganstan from July 2020 thru July 2021.
Corruption is rampant in Illinois. And Illinois faces a millstone with Madigan’s dirty fingerprints all over it, unfunded state pension obligations, among the worst among the fifty states. Madigan was more interested in rewarding his public-sector union pals than properly funding their pension plans.
In 1983, Madigan was elected by his fellow Democrats as state House speaker and served, with the exception of a two-year span in the 1990s when the Republicans won control of the lower chamber, until last year, when the hint of scandal finally caught up with him. In 1998 Madigan was elected chairman of the state Democratic Party. Madigan remains committeeman of Chicago’s 13th Ward, a post he’s held since 1969. That seems like an insignificant position, but in 2007 when another ethically challenged pol was elected of as chairman of the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization, “the Machine,” there was just one nomination–for Joseph Berrios. Madigan nominated him.
Since the 1970s, the Boss has been a partner in a small but lucrative Chicago law firm, Madigan and Getzendanner, which specializes in property tax appeals. Who sets property tax rates? Politicians of course, most of whom are Democrats in Blue Illinois.
There is the Machine–but then there is what the federal indictment of Madigan calls “the Madigan Enterprise.”
Defendant MICHAEL J. MADIGAN, defendant MICHAEL F. McCLAIN, the Office of the Speaker, the Thirteenth Ward Democratic Organization, Madigan & Getzendanner, and others known and unknown together constituted an enterprise as that term is defined in Title 18, United States Code, Section 1961(4), that is, a group of individuals and entities associated in fact (referred to herein as the “Madigan Enterprise” or the “enterprise”). The Madigan Enterprise was engaged in, and its activities affected, interstate commerce. The Madigan Enterprise constituted an ongoing organization whose members functioned as a continuing unit for the common purpose of achieving the objectives of the enterprise.
The purposes of the Madigan Enterprise included but were not limited to: (i) to exercise, to preserve, and to enhance MADIGAN’s political power and financial well-being; (ii) to financially reward MADIGAN’s political allies, political workers, and associates for their loyalty, association with, and work for MADIGAN; and (iii) to generate income for members and associates of the enterprise through illegal activities.
The illegal activities committed by members and associates of the Madigan Enterprise included, but were not limited to: (a) soliciting and receiving bribes and unlawful personal financial advantage from persons and parties having business with the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago, or otherwise subject to the authority and powers vested in MADIGAN and other public officials acting on MADIGAN’s behalf; (b) using MADIGAN’s powers as Speaker, including his ability to affect the progress of bills in the House of Representatives, as well as his control over the resources of the Office of the Speaker, including its staff, in order to cause third parties to financially reward MADIGAN, his political allies, political workers, and associates; (c) using threats, intimidation, and extortion to solicit benefits from private parties; and (d) using facilities of interstate commerce to coordinate, plan, and further the goals of the enterprise.
In short, Madigan, according to the feds, was running a racket. Madigan supporters, the indictment alleges, were given no-show or little-show jobs, and the graft goes beyond state and local government. Much of the indictment covers Madigan and his associates allegedly strong-arming Commonwealth Edison, the electric utility for Northern Illinois, in exchange for legislation favoring the company.
Madigan was typically unanimously or near-unanimously reelected House speaker and party chair. The rest of the Democratic Party was along for the ride. All the while they were calling Republicans evil, racist, and lots of other things.
More from that indictment.
MADIGAN utilized his position as Chairman of the Democratic Party of Illinois to influence and garner loyalty from legislators by providing or withholding staff and funding to legislators and their campaigns [bold print emphasis mine]. MADIGAN utilized his position as a partner in Madigan & Getzendanner to reap the benefits of private legal work unlawfully steered to his law firm. MADIGAN directed the activities of his close friend and associate, McCLAIN, who carried out illegal activity at MADIGAN’s direction.
McClain, by the way, is a former member of the state House and a longtime Madigan crony.
As for Madigan, politically he is a soulless person, other than maybe thinking of himself as an FDR/JFK New Deal/New Frontier Democrat. Madigan was all about the power and the money to keep that power, reminiscent, not of the political bosses of old, such as New York’s Willam M. Tweed or his idol, Chicago’s Richard J. Daley, but as a political version of V.M. Varga from Season 3 of Fargo. That villain was fabulously wealthy, but Varga wore the same cheap business suit every day–he slept every night in a tractor trailer. Yes, Madigan lives well, but his first love, perhaps his only one, is power.
For sixteen years of Boss Madigan’s reign of error and terror, Illinois’ attorney general was his daughter, Lisa.
And do you seriously believe that his fellow Illinois Democrats didn’t smell the stench? After all, Madigan, who was also a master gerrymanderer, was good to them. With Madigan in charge in the state House and their party, they almost always won. Only when the Commonwealth Edison scandal got too close to the Boss did the Dems in the state House dump him. Madigan resigned his party chair post shortly after his ouster from the speaker’s post.
Illinois Democrats knew Madigan was running a cronyism machine. They always did. And they didn’t care.
Madigan won’t be on the ballot in Illinois this fall. But the Little Madigans will be.
John Ruberry regularly blogs from the Chicago area at Marathon Pundit and is a Commonwealth Edison customer.
It’s time to start thinking what happens after Ukraine falls.
You might be forgiven for thinking that all the stories of plucky defenders of Ukraine indicate the war is going well. It’s not. While Ukraine didn’t fall quickly like Georgia or the Crimea peninsula, it is fairly obvious that the war is not going well for them.
The Russians are on the doorsteps of Kyiv. Yes, taking one’s capital isn’t nearly as important as it once was, but it is a big symbol and will give Russia the chance to setup a government body. It’ll be 100% illegitimate, but if Russia enforces it, it doesn’t matter.
They have nearly taken all of the southern land that borders the Black Sea. That’s really important for two reasons. First, that means you can’t resupply directly from the sea, which is the quickest way to bring heavy units like tanks and armor into your country. Second, it means that if anyone was to bring a carrier strike group into the Black Sea, they have to overfly Russian territory that is sure to be crawling with anti-air guns and missiles.
The Russians recently took a nuclear power plant responsible for a pretty large percentage of power in the region. Not only do they have the brainpower to run the plant, but now they can start cutting power to Ukraine.
And we’re only a little over a week in. Remember that it took 100 days to kick Iraq out of Kuwait, and around two months to take out Taliban leadership in Afghanistan. Russia isn’t on the timetable they want, but they aren’t nearly as bogged down as people want to believe.
So what happens when Russia wins? First, you better believe that China is taking notes about Taiwan. Every single sanction we throw at Russia is going to cause the Chinese to build defenses. Kicking out of SWIFT? China already has an alternative, called CIPS, that you can bet they will push as better than SWIFT over the summer. I’d expect China to crack down on its wealthy people with wealth outside of China, disguised as accusing them of “tax evasion.” Essentially, China will make China an island that can be (mostly) self sufficient in order to insulate itself from sanctions.
Europe? The good news is maybe the Europeans will finally get serious about their own militaries. Europe has been comfortable under a US military umbrella, but Ukraine is making them really uncomfortable about now. Remember when President Trump told Germany to pay its fair share of military costs for NATO? Remember when he told France that too? Wonder why Russia doesn’t take those two countries seriously, and what the consequences could be? Well, now you know.
Lastly, I’d put money on Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Kazakhstan pursuing nuclear weapons. Let’s be completely honest, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea could build them tomorrow if they wanted to. They possess the technology and brainpower to do it, and as they watch Ukraine, they are going to want their own assurance that China won’t decide to hurt them. Saudi Arabia would likely just purchase them, potentially from Israel or India, or even North Korea. They won’t wait for the US to not respond to an Iranian attack. Kazakhstan, which dismantled the nuclear weapons left in its territory by the Russians, is likely regretting that decision, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they buy weapons and secretly ship them into the country.
It’s not pleasant, but we should be thinking about what comes after Russia dissolves Ukraine. It might take them a month…but sadly, short of significant powers getting involved, its going to happen.
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. If you enjoyed this, please consider purchasing one of the authors books for you or a friend.
