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  • Derrick Smith Must Resign or Be Expelled — Dems Own It

    The Democratic party was silent prior to the election of State Rep Derrick Smith on the issue of his resigning or getting off the ticket for allegedly accepting a $7000 cash bribe from an undercover FBI agent posing as a daycare center owner in exchange for a $50000 grant.

    The silence of the Democrats is now over as they are calling for the resignation of Derrick Smith in unanimity, as if from a chorus, they are signing the same song, “Get out!”

    Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and Minority Leader Robert Cross found an issue they can agree as they named members to a committee to investigate the charges and to call on Smith to “Get out!”

    via Examiner.com.

    Silent?!  The Dems weren’t silent:

    The growing pressure on Democratic state Rep. Derrick Smith contrasts with the silence from party leaders who avoided such criticism in the days after the arrest, when it might have affected his primary race.

    Some, including U.S. Rep. Danny Davis and Ald. Walter Burnett, 27th, encouraged voters to support Smith to ensure the West Side seat stays in Democratic hands. But that changed the day after his easy victory over Tom Swiss, a former Cook County Republican Party official.

    Now Democratic leaders are moving to oust Smith and pick a replacement to run in the November general election.

    Davis said that while he asked voters to cast their ballots for Smith, it was about ensuring the seat stayed in Democrat control and was not a show of support for Smith. Davis said Smith should not appear on the November ballot given the ethical cloud he now faces.

    “I was glad to see Derrick win the election, but I think in reality one can say that Democrats won the election,” Davis said. “I don’t think they were necessarily voting for Derrick, but I think they were saying ‘Democrat, Democrat, Democrat.’”  …

    Quinn likewise refused to call for Smith’s resignation before the election, only to change his tune Wednesday while on a trade mission in Brussels.

    “The governor believes Rep. Smith should resign” because the charges represent a “cloud hanging over” him, said Quinn spokeswoman Brooke Anderson.

    House Speaker Michael Madigan poured more than $60,000 into the race before Smith’s arrest.  Madigan has declined to comment on the situation.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    The Illinois Machine, made up of both Democrats and Republicans, is working overtime here.   The Machine is controlled by Chicago Democrats — the GOP’ers in their mist are really just tolerated because they play along — and they own this.

    Jesse White, Danny Davis, Michael Madigan, Lisa Madigan, Pat Quinn… what have you done for the poor folks whom you represent?  Quinn’s new budget calls for cutting Medicaid spending by $2.7 billion next year.  Well who’s that going to hurt Governor?

    Last year this cabal doubled our income taxes.  This year they want to kill Medicaid.  How about stopping the corruption that costs our cities and state billions every year?

    The whole lot-of-’em need to be kicked out to the street and have their pensions cancelled.

  • Golf Ethics

    Here is a golf ethics question for you.

    What if you were playing in the club championship tournament finals and the match was halved at the end of 17 holes. You had the honor and hit your ball a modest two hundred fifty yards to the middle of the fairway, leaving a simple six iron to the pin. Your opponent then hits his ball, lofting it deep into the woods to the right of the fairway. Being the golfing gentleman that you are, you help your opponent look for his ball. Just before the permitted five minute search period ends, your opponent says: “Go ahead and hit your second shot and if I don’t find it in time, I’ll concede the match.”

    You hit your ball, landing it on the green, stopping about ten feet from the pin. About the time your ball comes to rest, you hear your opponent exclaim from deep in the woods: “I found it!”. The second sound you hear is a click, the sound of a club striking a ball and the ball comes sailing out of the woods and lands on the green, stopping no more than six inches from the hole.

    Now here is the ethical dilemma:

    Do you pull the cheating bastard’s ball out of your pocket and confront him with it or do you keep your mouth shut.

  • Naomi Davis: Issues in the African-American Community

    Local community organizer Naomi Davis put together a top-ten list of issues impacting the African-American community in her area of Chicago.  Not a bad list:

    1. NORFOLK & SOUTHERN/CREATE. Opportunity Of A Lifetime.  Multi-billion, multi-decade south side economic impact with America’s richest companies without a single negotiated community benefit/jobs plan.
    2. CRIMINALIZATION OF BLACKNESS.  Gulag Economy.  Jim Crow/John Burge/Howard Morgan, and millions of our young caught up in a culture of violence without guidance, in a system designed to profit from their downfall.
    3. FORECLOSURE FRAUD TSUNAMI.  Rape & Rescue.  Three generations of wealth stripped from our community on purpose, and now investor/gentry with federal subsidies are available to help rebuild…about us without us.
    4. 50% UNEMPLOYMENT.  City of Big Shoulders & U of C.  Some of our neighbors in public housing suffer with over 90% unemployment when worker-owned cooperatives like Evergreen in Ohio successfully partner the poor with universities and government in laundries, urban ag, solar enterprises…and more.
    5. SCHOOL CLOSING & TURNAROUNDS.  Mis-education Incorporated.  Follow the money and you’ll discover the real reason for ignoring parent and community protests, while some local politicians and preachers are purchased.
    6. NEIGHBOR-OWNED BUSINESSES.  We Are Colonized.  Our wealth is extracted rather than circulated in our communities by retailers we permit to take our money without reinvesting, also siphoning out scores of millions in LINK dollars.
    7. SUFFERING SENIORS.  Limited & Isolated.  Too many own homes they can’t afford to repair on fixed incomes, and live isolated from neighborhoods while their taxes fund TIF community developments that don’t help, but hurt.
    8. SMALLER GOVERNMENT.  The Rich Get Richer.  Privatizing government work creates a fat plutocracy with often questionable net savings to the public, and eliminates middle-class incomes which stabilize us.
    9. THE BLACK TAX.  Equal Enforcement & Traffic Justice.  Note the skin color of the 99% in traffic court and the amount of money extracted from our communities in traffic camera tickets and booted vehicle revenues.
    10. POLITICAL CORRUPTION.  Chicago Is #1.  In “Leading The Pack,” UIC Professor and former Alderman Dick Simpson document what we already knew: behind-closed-doors, under-the-table, business-as-usual politics here is destroying us.

    via Naomi Davis email.

    I wonder what race-neutral solutions she would propose?

  • Labor Unions and Politics

    On March 10 there was this story in the LA Times I meant to write about:

    Labor unions rethinking their role in politics
    As top union leaders gather in Florida on Tuesday to determine labor’s political strategy this year, the influential AFL-CIO appears poised to endorse President Obama’s reelection — despite some lingering dissatisfaction with his record.

    But the way in which unions back him and other Democrats this year is likely to take a very different form than in past campaigns.

    Concluding they need to be more independent of the Democratic Party, many unions are increasingly financing their own efforts instead of writing large checks to candidates and the party.

    via Los Angeles Times.

    I was simply thinking how labor unions don’t really help working people and how laughable it is that “they need to be more independent of the Democratic Party.”  They are dying and it is the Democratic Party who’s keep the life support machines plugged-in.

    Then, three days later, March 13:

    Leaders of the influential AFL-CIO  labor federation announced Tuesday it voted “proudly and enthusiastically” to endorse President Obama’s reelection effort.  …

    The vote, among the AFL-CIO’s 57 member executive council, was unanimous.

    Labor leaders had in the past been vocal about dissatisfaction with the Obama White House on a host of issues, from Obama’s compromise in extending the George W. Bush tax cuts to perceived shortcomings in the administration’s stimulus and healthcare reform packages.

    But AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said he had been heartened the administration’s renewed push on jobs and combating inequality, a pivot that occurred around Labor Day last year.

    via Los Angeles Times.

    How embarrassing it must be to have to endorse and carry water for a guy who really hasn’t helped you one bit.  On a unanimous vote the union agrees that the AFL-CIO and the Democratic party are in a symbiotic relationship; each would die without the other.

    These stories actually appear out of order.  The endorsement story should be first — describe how Obama has not done everything the unions have wanted and yet they have no where else to turn.  Then, as a result of their lack of options politically, the union(s) will seek other ways to engage in outreach and influence besides giving directly to candidates.  Well of course they will… they have no other choice.

  • Occupy Threatens & Sprays St. Louis

    Following a confrontation between Occupy protesters and local police last Thursday, vandals have hit the city with frightening pro-Occupy graffiti.

    Buildings, walls, and statues have all been defaced.  The city’s public safety director woke up to the words, “Blood on your hands,” sprayed on his front steps.

    Similarly, a hundred-year old statue now has the words “class war” scrawled across it, and a door that says “Park Police” now reads, “Only the blood of the rich will stop Occupy.”

    via TheBlaze.com.

    Photos at the link.

    This is of course not the first time the occupy folks have destroyed property or made threats.  The question I have is when will the Occupy loving media begin covering the violence and destruction?  And when will the talking heads on the left begin to denounce these actions?

  • Chicago State Missing $3.8M in Equipment

    Chicago State University has been unable to locate $3.8 million worth of equipment, including 950 computers that could contain confidential information, according to a state audit.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    Doh!

    The story reflects that most of the equipment was actually purchased, and pilfered, during the Daley administration.

    I hope that this was discovered as a result of Rahm and Gerry Chico looking into the misadventures of Elnora Daniel the former CSU president who belongs in jail.

  • Race and the Media

    The number one post (in terms of views) on this blog thus far has been the story about the boy from Kansas City, who happened to be white, and was walking along and set on fire by two other kids, who happen to be black.

    This story came up again in the comments on a story over at CNN about a reporter using the N* word on live TV.  Kudos to “Tom” who today at 5:08 CT posted:

    Why has CNN not reported about the Black on White hate crime in Kansas City?  Two black teenagers gasoline torching a white 13 year old and not  adrop of reporting.

    So that got me thinking and I did some Googling:

    boy kansas city gasoline fire
    11,800,000 results – News Only, 28 results

    kansas city gasoline fire hate crime
    380,000 results – News Only, 16 results

    florida neighborhood watch shoots black unarmed
    522,000 results – News Only, 3,700 results

    florida neighborhood watch shoots black unarmed hate crime
    68,800 results – News Only, 103 results

    Wow!!

    It appears the media has generally ignored the Kansas City story but the blogosphere wrote about it extensively.  It also appears that both the media and the blogosphere are careful, cautious, about labeling a story a hate crime.

    UPDATE:  Changed formatting of the search results to better fit on the page.

  • Fast-n-Furious Catches and Release Top Suspect

    I’m sorry this story is a few days old, I’ve been busy.

    As a courtesy the LA Times didn’t mention Eric Holder’s name in this article.

    Seven months after federal agents began the ill-fated Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation, they stumbled upon their main suspect in a remote Arizona outpost on the Mexican border, driving an old BMW with 74 rounds of ammunition and nine cellphones hidden inside.

    Detained for questioning that day in May 2010, Manuel Fabian Celis-Acosta described to agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives his close association with a top Mexican drug cartel member, according to documents obtained this weekend by the Times/Tribune Washington Bureau.

    The top Fast and Furious investigator, Special Agent Hope MacAllister, scribbled her phone number on a $10 bill after he pledged to cooperate and keep in touch with investigators.

    Then Celis-Acosta disappeared into Mexico. He never called.

    Had they arrested him red-handed trying to smuggle ammunition into Mexico, Fast and Furious might have ended quickly. Instead, the program dragged on for another eight months, spiraling out of control.

    via LA Times.

    Will the Obama administration hold ANYONE accountable for this?

  • Obama’s Selective Service Card Forged?

    Say it ain’t so Joe.

    “America’s toughest sheriff” says there is “tons” more potentially shocking information on Barack Obama in connection with his probe into the president’s eligibility, and he calls the media’s suppression of his findings of a likely forged presidential birth certificate and Selective Service Card “probably the biggest censorship blackout in the history of the United States.”

    via WND.

    The video tells the story better than I could:
    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHAM3hRI8_Y?rel=0]

  • IMF Chief: Oil Supply Matters

    Yesterday I wrote about the latest meme to come out of the White House: that the president cannot control oil prices.  This is of course ridiculous.  Should the president choose a path that would increase supply — even if not immediately — the price of oil would go down.

    Everyone knows that while the oil market (like all markets) can be manipulated, in the end when supply outpaces demand prices go down; and when supplies are tight relative to demand prices go up.

    More proof:

    IMF chief Christine Lagarde warned Tuesday that crude oil prices may spike by up to 30 percent if Iranian supplies were disrupted, causing “serious consequences” for the global economy.

    The standoff between Iran, the world’s second-largest supplier of oil, and the West over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program is seen as a flashpoint that could sharply increase world crude prices.

    “Clearly it would be a shock to economies if there was a major shortage of exports of oil out of Iran, it would certainly drive up prices for a period of time,” Lagarde told reporters in New Delhi, wrapping up a two-day visit.

    The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has calculated that an interruption in oil supplies from Iran could increase oil prices by 20 to 30 percent, said Lagarde, who arrived in India at the weekend from neighbouring China.

    via FRANCE 24.