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  • Obama Transparency Scaled Back… as to Wine

    When British Prime Minister David Cameron visits President Barack Obama this week, one detail may stay bottled up: the labels on the wines the White House pours at the state dinner tomorrow night.

    For Obama’s first three state dinners, honoring the leaders of India, Mexico and China, the White House released the name, year and appellation of wines — all-American — paired with each course.

    Part of a tradition observed by previous presidents, including George W. Bush, that disclosure stopped after Obama’s dinner last year for Chinese President Hu Jintao. One of the wines served on Jan. 19, 2011, was a top-rated 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon from Washington state that originally sold for $115 a bottle and went for as much as $399 by the time of the dinner. The price the White House paid per bottle was not made public.

    At the next state dinner, on June 7, 2011, for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the menu made public by the White House didn’t include details on the wines.

    via Businessweek.

    It’s national sunshine day, or week, or something.  In order to celebrate the White House decided that it was releasing too much information, a/k/a not sending the right kind of message in these tough economic times, when it came to the wine list.

    Ridiculous.

  • JPMorgan Bests the Fed

    At 4:30 PM today, the Fed will announce stress test results.

    Whats interesting is that they were supposed to come out on Thursday at 4:30 PM.

    Why the change of schedule?

    Well, basically, JPMorgan came out with its announcement of dividends and buybacks around 3:00 PM.

    In that announcement they said they had passed the stress tests from the Fed, and that forced the Fed to move up their schedule.

    via Business Insider.

    This demonstrates the awesome power that JPMorgan has over the government.  It’s incredible.

    This is one of the “too big to fail” organizations that has only gotten bigger.

    It’s time to look into pulling this beast into pieces.

  • $3.6M Settlement in Alleged Police Misconduct Case

    A key City Council committee Monday signed off on a $3.6 million settlement in a lawsuit filed by a man who spent nearly 10 years in prison for an attack on a woman who later said she made a mistake when she identified him as her assailant.

    Robert Wilson had sought $9.9 million, a figure reflecting the nine years and nine months he spent behind bars on an attempted murder conviction before he was released in 2006, said Leslie Darling, an attorney for the city. Wilson, who alleged that his confession to the crime was coerced, was pardoned in 2008 by Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

    “I think he deserves $10 million,” said Ald. Proco “Joe” Moreno, 1st. “In this case, I think approving the $3.6 million is a cost-saving measure and quite prudent.”

    …

    If the deals are approved, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration will have settled nine cases involving alleged police misconduct for a total of $9.4 million since September. All the alleged misconduct — ranging from improper response to medical needs to railroading innocent defendants — occurred during the 22-year tenure of former Mayor Richard Daley.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    Of course the 800 pound gorilla in the room is Jon Burge.  The fallout from this corrupt cop’s actions have only begun to spill.  And lest we forget who was the Cook County State’s Attorney while Burge was running roughshod over the South Side?  Ya, none other than Da Mare himself, Richard Daley.

    Our children’s children will pay for the corruption of the Daley years.  And yet history will probably be kind to him.  It’s a very sad state of affairs.

  • Mayor’s Friend Brings You the Speed Cameras

    When Rahm Emanuel was a first-time candidate for Congress, Greg Goldner was behind him, quietly marshaling the patronage troops that helped get him elected. When Emanuel ran for mayor, Goldner was there again, doling out campaign cash to elect Emanuel-friendly aldermen to City Council.

    And when the rookie mayor was looking for community support for his school reform agenda, there was Goldner, working behind the scenes with the ministers who backed Emanuel’s plan.

    Now, it turns out the longtime allies share another interest — the installation of automated speed cameras in Chicago.

    As consultant to the firm that already supplies Chicago its red-light cameras, Goldner is the architect of a nationwide campaign to promote his client’s expansion prospects. That client, Redflex Traffic Systems Inc., is well-positioned to make tens of millions of dollars from Emanuel’s controversial plan to convert many of the red-light cameras into automated speed cameras.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    The rest of the article is the standard, ‘A has nothing to do with B.’

    Uh huh.  This is still Chicago after all.

  • John Boehner, Telling it Like it is.

    “People think I’ve got this job as a leader. They don’t realize that I have about 200 responsibilities and roles. I’ve gotta be the big brother, the father, I gotta be the disciplinarian, the dean of students, the principal, the spouse—you can’t believe all the roles that I have to play! But one of them is, you know, some problems you can nip early. I had three guys in here a few years ago, I said ‘Boys, you’re cruising down the wrong path.’ Two of them listened, one of them didn’t. He’s no longer here.”

    “We got 435 members. It’s just a slice of America, it really is. We got some of the smartest people in the country who serve here, and some of the dumbest. We got some of the best people you’d ever meet, and some of the raunchiest. We’ve got ’em all.”

    via WSJ.com.

    Sounds about right.

  • 8 Shot on South, West sides Overnight

    6:00 a.m. CDT, March 11, 2012

    At least eight people were shot Saturday night and Sunday morning on the South and West sides, according to police.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    Eight in one night.  It appears that all the criminals are willing to carry despite all the laws Rahm et. al. keep passing.  So what are the innocent to do?

    -=-=-

    One day I’m going to investigate how Anita Alvarez prosecutes these cases.  My guess is that we have all these guns laws and none are being applied.

  • Downstate and Chicago, Brothers in Arms?

    It’s an Op-Ed, but it’s also propaganda:

    Mayor Rahm Emanuel was in Peoria earlier this week talking about how Chicago and Downstate politicians need to stop fighting so much.

    “The politics of the past where we used to play Chicago versus downstate is over. It doesn’t serve the people of Illinois,” Emanuel said, adding, “It’s not working anymore.”

    Note to Rahm: It never worked.

    …

    One of the biggest issues in downstate politics is guns. …

    The basic caricature is that Downstate politicians love guns and want one in every citizen’s hands, while Chicago politicians are afraid of guns and want to ban them entirely. …

    Emanuel got along great with Downstate legislators last year. … But then a few weeks ago the mayor announced that he wanted a new law to register all the handguns in Illinois. The mayor scored some routine political points with his gun-hating Chicago constituents, but he infuriated Downstaters, and the resulting explosion was cataclysmic.

    Downstaters who had worked with Emanuel just days before began publicly ripping into him as if he were some sort of evil dictator bent on grabbing all their guns. Most are now using their opposition to Emanuel in their campaigns. Ironically enough, Emanuel helped boost Downstate legislators politically while simultaneously alienating them from his legislative agenda.

    On the other side of the equation, though, is the Downstate ignorance about how deeply so many Chicagoans hate guns. Many Chicagoans are as insulted and infuriated by Downstate demands that people be able to legally carry loaded handguns on the city’s streets as downstaters are that they’ll have to pay $20 to register every handgun they own.

    So, if the mayor really wants to work toward peace, he’ll first have to find a way to get past these gun issues. And if he can do that, he’s a better man than most.

    via Chicago Sun-Times.

    Kudos to Rich Miller for pointing out how Rahm is causing the divide he claims he wants to repair.  Oh, wait… Miller didn’t do that, I just did.

    The bigger issue with Miller’s piece is his create choice of language; he choose his word carefully.  By saying, “the Downstate ignorance about how deeply so many Chicagoans hate guns” he doesn’t have to claim that a majority of people (or voters) hate guns but he can create the inference as such.

    The truth is that so many Chicagoans really really really want the right to own (most of those want to be able to carry) a handgun.  Perhaps if Mr. Miller would get outside of the liberal cocktail party set he would realize that many residents feel terrorized in their own homes.  A black minister once told me, “Many in my congregation don’t want to police harassing the folks in their neighborhood.  But they also want to keep a .38 under the pillow.”

    Most logical open minded people know that when seconds count the police are just minutes away.  A firearm is used in defense far more often than in offense.  Mr. Miller and his anti-gun friends just can’t get their heads around the facts.  They really should read John Lott’s More Guns, Less Crime.

    Concealed Carry works.  Illinois is now the only state in the union without any sort of CCW.  I’m not a believer in the “if everyone jumped off a bridge logic” but it appears that our foot dragging is making us look foolish, childish.  States like Alaska and Vermont have no laws restricting carrying a concealed firearm at all.  Florida has a very open CCW policy (they even gave me a permit;) and yet Miami doesn’t have near the gun violence of Chicago.  Compare Dallas or Houston as well.

    The bottom line is that the Downstaters have it right and the political elites in Chicago have it wrong.

  • Bill To Regulate Men’s Reproductive Health

    Before getting a prescription for Viagra or other erectile dysfunction drugs, men would have to see a sex therapist, receive a cardiac stress test and get a notarized affidavit signed by a sexual partner affirming impotency, if state Sen. Nina Turner has her way.

    via Dayton Daily News.

    The thinking here is more than a little logically challenged but I must admit that I enjoy the thinking.

  • Bus Driver Injured with Caustic Liquid by Passenger

    A CTA bus driver was treated at an area hospital tonight after a woman threw a liquid believed to be rubbing alcohol in the man’s face when the two argued about an expired fare card, police said.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    One word yet on whether Rahm’s going to demand from Springfield a Rubbing Alcohol Registry.

  • DC Metro’s Pervert Problem

    [DC] Metro took several steps this week to address complaints that it wasn’t taking sexual harassment seriously enough.  …

    “I was disturbed to hear their reports about assault and intimidation while riding trains and buses, particularly those accounts which involved our employees making disrespectful comments,” Sarles wrote to his more than 11,000 employees in a newsletter on Friday.

    Several riders had testified at a D.C. Council hearing last month that Metro needed to take harassment more seriously, recounting stories of being groped on trains and accosted by masturbating men. They said other transit agencies had put up public service advertisements to address the issue.

    The complaints became more heated, though, when a Metro spokesman told WUSA9 that “one person’s harassment is another person’s flirting.”

    via Washington Examiner.

    Wouldn’t it just be a whole lot easier to just tell the Senators that they can’t ride the Metro anymore.