For the Non-Chicagoans.....

[jmichna]

For the non-Chicagoans/non-Cook County folks, I thought it would be enlightening to post a number of columns by John Kass, touching on local politics. Chicago and Cook County politics, the (Democrat) Machine, dirty Illinois Republicans, the mayor Daley the Younger, the governor Blagojevich, prosecuting attorneys, up-and-coming pols (guess who?)... this is just a small taste:


'Fast Eddie' finally gets nailed
John Kass
May 10, 2007

I always figured Fast Eddie Vrdolyak to take up space in the trunk of a Cadillac in Rosemont or Cicero before he'd ever take up space in a federal corruption case, but today I'm wrong about him, again.

He was always too slick to get caught, with his network of spies, always one step ahead, the South Chicago neighborhood kid with a chip on his shoulder who became de facto mayor of Chicago for a time under Jane Byrne, and ended up playing tough guy with the real tough guys in Cicero.

"Always assume everything you say is taped," the former 10th Ward alderman once told me, in one of his charming moments. "Never say anything over the telephone."

I guess Eddie forgot his own advice.

And now that he's charged as a player in the federal investigation called "Operation Board Games"—the Justice Department's attack on the bi-partisan Illinois Combine that runs things here—every Combine player will shake, wondering if he'll spill, eventually, and take them all down with him.

If there is one person who knows where bones are buried in this town—outside of Mayor Richard Daley and his boys—it's Vrdolyak.

I don't know if he'll ever cooperate, but he's old now, a grandfather, and he knows what happens to those who don't. One of his friends from the old days, imprisoned Chicago Police Deputy Supt. William Hanhardt—who ran an Outfit sanctioned jewelry heist crew—is going crazy in federal prison, and is desperately seeking a new trial.

And when it comes to insider deals and leverage and muscle, Vrdolyak knows everything about everything, or almost.

He's reportedly been caught on tape talking to government informant and flipper Stuart Levine, a Republican, on a real estate deal involving Vrdolyak's old City Council enemy turned friend, former liberal Democratic Ald. William Singer (43rd).

Singer is important here too. He bitterly complained, to me and at a CTA meeting, about another real estate deal gone bad (for him), in which he offered to pay $6 million more than another guy for prime CTA property on Clark Street.

The other guy, the one who got the property while Singer screamed in the background, is Michael Marchese, the developer and confidant of Mayor Richard M. Daley. If I were the FBI, I'd talk to Singer about whether he talked to other aldermen about the Marchese deal. (Singer has not been charged with any wrongdoing.)

Another player in "Operation Board Games" is William Cellini, the Republican boss of Springfield, not indicted or charged, but identified by the Tribune as being "Individual A" in court documents of the case.

Cellini and Marchese have connections and have done deals together and have not been accused formally of any wrongdoing, but with Vrdolyak going down, you wonder if their armpits are more moist than usual.

So where does this end? Who knows? Vrdolyak is only the beginning of things. And will Vrdolyak trick fate and skip past this, the way he's skipped past over dozens of other scandals, including the phony auto scrap contract I investigated him on years ago?

I don't think so. Not this time.

Young Chicagoans probably don't remember Vrdolyak. He's not usually featured in RedEye, and his taste in music goes more toward Sarah Vaughn and Frank Sinatra than 50 Cent or Fall Out Boy.

And others who do remember him, recall his antics in Chicago's so-called "Council Wars" period, in which he led the rebellion of white-ethnic aldermen against the late Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor.

That painted him as a corrupt racist, painted in particularly broad strokes by those who didn't know him. What infuriated Vrdolyak was that Washington's side was equally corrupt, with busloads of pro-Washington aldermen and Clarence McClain, the mayoral adviser and former pimp, eventually going to prison.

The one thing Washington and Vrdolyak had in common, besides being South Siders, was they knew to leave the Outfit alone, like all mayors and all aldermen, who understand the base of the Combine triangle. The hired truck boys with Outfit connections who made fortunes under the Daleys made fortunes under Washington, too.

Both of them were quite theatrical. But they were realists in this regard.

"He's not a racist, he's a bully," Washington was quoted as saying of Vrdolyak in a book written by the late mayor's former press secretary, Alton Miller. "He'll use race, hell, he'll use anything. He'll use his own grandmother to get what he wants. But that doesn't make him a bad guy in my book. Amoral, yes, racist, uh-uh."

Amoral? That suggests an absolute understanding of morality. With Vrdolayk, charming and cunning and dangerous as a wolf in a cage, there were no absolutes. It was all relative, the important thing being the neighborhood, his clan, his tribe and ultimately himself.

I never thought they'd get him. They don't call him Fast Eddie for nothing.

jskass@tribune.com
Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune

[jmichna]

When Daley says shhh, library is quiet on Obama
John Kass
August 21, 2008

Conservative writer Stanley Kurtz—researching an article for the National Review about connections between Barack Obama and former Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers—made a big mistake.

The poor man took a wrong turn on the Chicago Way. Now he's lost.

Kurtz's research was to be done in a special library run by the University of Illinois at Chicago. The library has 132 boxes full of documents pertaining to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a foundation vested heavily in school reform.

Kurtz believes the documents may show Obama and Ayers were close—far closer than Obama has acknowledged—over oodles of foundation gifts on education projects the two worked on together.

First the librarians told Kurtz yes, come look. But by the time Kurtz landed in Chicago, the librarians changed their minds. The donor of the documents hadn't cleared his research. Perhaps they'll let him look at the documents on Nov. 5.

The relationship between the ambitious Obama and the unrepentant Ayers is a subject that excites Republicans, who haven't really thwacked that pinata as hard as they might. It really irritates Obama and his political champion, Chicago's sovereign lord, Mayor Richard M. Daley.

"This is a public entity," Kurtz told us Wednesday. "I don't understand how confidentiality of the donor would be an issue."

You don't understand, Mr. Kurtz? Allow me to explain. The secret is hidden in the name of the library:

The Richard J. Daley Library.

Eureka!

The Richard J. Daley Library doesn't want nobody nobody sent. And Richard J.'s son, Shortshanks, is now the mayor.

Obama, wearing the reformer's mantle, has generously offered to extend that reform to Washington, even to Kenya, but not Chicago, because he knows Shortshanks would be miffed.

Ayers, a former left-wing radical accused of inciting riots during the anti-war protests in the 1960s, is now also under Shortshanks' protection. After Ayers finally resurfaced in 1980, he got a job the Chicago Way, as a professor at UIC.

The Tribune's City Hall reporter, Dan Mihalopoulos, asked Daley on Wednesday if the Richard J. Daley Library should release the documents. Shortshanks didn't like that one. He kept insisting he would be "very frank," a phrase that makes the needles on a polygraph start jumping.

" Bill Ayers—I've said this—his father was a great friend of my father," the mayor said. "I'll be very frank. Vietnam divided families, divided people. It was a terrible time of our country. People didn't know one another. Since then, I'll be very frank, [Ayers] has been in the forefront of a lot of education issues and helping us in public schools and things like that."

The mayor expressed his frustrations with outside agitators like Kurtz.

"People keep trying to align himself with Barack Obama," Daley said. "It's really unfortunate. They're friends. So what? People do make mistakes in the past. You move on. This is a new century, a new time. He reflects back and he's been making a strong contribution to our community."

Mr. Kurtz finally got his answer. It should grace the cover of the National Review, with a cartoon of Shortshanks, dressed like a jolly Tudor monarch, holding a tiny Obama in his right paw, a tiny Ayers in his left:

They're friends. So what?

Welcome to Chicago, Mr. Kurtz.

The Republican National Committee lost no time in demanding that Obama personally defy Shortshanks and call for the documents to be released from their dungeon.

"The American people have a right to know more about Barack Obama's relationship with unrepentant terrorist William Ayers," said RNC spokesman Danny Diaz in a statement. "Will Barack Obama step forward and call on the university to immediately release all the records?"

No chance, Danny.

"It leads me to have tremendous fear for the documents," Kurtz said. "What if they are going through them right now and deciding which names to take out? I'm completely alarmed. I think public scrutiny is the only way to save the documents."

He should be worried. Though national pundits get thrills running up their legs when Obama speaks, it's when Daley says "I'll be very frank" that you've got to worry.

Kurtz fears "they'll manage to take this all the way past the election."

You think?

Even before Shortshanks, when Chicago had a true reform mayor, his freedom of information officer was Clarence McClain, a former pimp with a bad wig who ended up in federal prison for taking bribes. Now that the Daleys run things, forget about it.

It's obvious that Mr. Kurtz and the National Review didn't have the special Chicago Democratic machine library card:

The mayor's smiling face on one side. And your voting record on the other.

******

Family ties are what bind Illinois into its sad state
John Kass
August 20, 2008

Once Democratic machine warlord state Sen. Emil Jones (D-Com Ed/Obama) announced his retirement and expressed his desire to install his son into his old job, Chicagoans had typical reactions.

If you said them out loud, your mom would stick a bar of soap in your mouth. So let's use polite euphemisms instead:

Outrageous! Who do they think they are? Nepotism!

At least Jones didn't go out like a wimp on Tuesday in discussing it with the Tribune's savvy Springfield correspondent, Ray Long.

"I recall John F. Kennedy, president of the United States, when he became president, he recommended his brother. Right?" Jones said in his great, gravelly voice.

"And his brother [Ted] was elected. Mayor Richard M. Daley begot Richard J. Daley. Dan Hynes—my former senator, Tom Hynes. Mike Madigan— Lisa Madigan. . . . So that's nothing new for one who has been working with you over the years, been involved, walked precincts for candidates. So that's nothing new," Jones said.

Jones got the order of some

begots mixed up, but his meaning was clear. He was talking about a lot of pink white guys. Media outlets often skip over the Kennedy-Daley-Madigan thing when we're wagging our angry fingers against African-Americans like Jones. It happened a few years ago, when the Chicago media's hapless punching bag, Cook County Board President Todd Stroger—also known as Urkel—was plugged in after his machine Democrat father suffered a stroke.

Yes, it is arrogant of Democratic bosses to nourish their children on the taxpayer dime. But public outrage about Emil Jones ignores one simple fact.

African-Americans don't control Illinois politics. Guys who march at the head of the St. Patrick's Day Parade control the politics of this state. They didn't create the system either. A Bohemian mayor named Anton Cermak created it, with the help of the Chicago Outfit, who had him killed, though they later honored him by naming Cermak Road after him, so they could pass between their Chicago and Cicero headquarters on 22nd Street and laugh and laugh, thinking fondly of Pushcart Tony as they drove.

Haven't you noticed how House Speaker Michael Madigan has been hamstringing Gov. Rod "The Unreformer" Blagojevich, with daughter, Lisa Madigan, the state attorney general, waiting for her dad to make her governor?

Mayoral brother Billy Daley—euphemistically billed by MSNBC as an "economic adviser" to Barack Obama's ambition—is testing the gubernatorial waters.

That would give us a Gov. Billy Daley, a Mayor Richard Daley and a Cook County Commissioner John Daley as de facto boss of the Cook County Board. Do we blame Jones for such arrogance? And, do you think that Todd Stroger—with Big Tony Fratto's brother Joe as his chief of staff—would dare turn heretic and defy the Great Daley Spirit?

The last time Bill Daley flirted with a run for governor, he essentially froze fundraising for the fellow who should have been elected, Paul Vallas.

Madigan may have hypnotized former Illinois Atty. Gen. Roland Burris to run for governor, and Burris took the African-American vote in the Democratic Party primary away from Vallas. There are no accidents in Chicago politics.

Vallas lost. Blagojevich was elected as a reformer. And Lisa Madigan rode into the state attorney general's job, to breathe heavily on the back of Rod's neck. It's their family business, and they treat it that way.

You and me, we're just renting.

The Daleys; the Madigans; the installation of former Cook County Assessor Tommy Hynes' son as Illinois comptroller; Ald. Edward Burke making wife, Anne, an Illinois Supreme Court justice; the 19th Ward's Tommy Dart as Cook County sheriff. Or all the various legislators putting their kids in office. All of it by design.

A much more complete list is at the Tribune's politics blog, Clout Street, at Clout Street. If any were missed, please forgive. It's like trying to count the flies on a chunk of liver sausage in the alley.

The political families are the haves. They keep telling us we don't need a constitutional convention in Illinois, to stop this sort of thing. Surely they have their reasons—like power and greed.

I've used this theme in the past, particularly about Stroger, fumbling, stumbling, suffering self-inflicted media wounds, his ridiculous haplessness reinforcing the political subtext the mayor of Chicago thrives upon:

That without Daley to protect us, we would get a Stroger, and the sky would fall.

That's a political lie. Chicago thrives in spite of its politicians, not because of them, but it is a convenient falsehood, artfully dropped into the news to help maintain the status quo.

And Emil Jones? The wily boss hog Democrat, gorging on patronage and the fruits of politics, should have a new political job soon, once his protégé, President Obama, finds one for him.

How about ambassador of reform?

[jmichna]

Rezko's letter should put Obama, governor on alert
John Kass
June 13, 2008

The last thing Sen. Barack Obama and Gov. Rod Blagojevich needed was that letter written by convicted Illinois influence peddler Tony Rezko promising he'd never rat out his pals.

The imprisoned political fixer insisted that federal prosecutors are squeezing him, according to an exclusive Tribune report written by federal courts reporter Jeff Coen for Thursday's paper.

"They are pressuring me to tell them the 'wrong' things that I supposedly know about Governor Blagojevich and Senator Obama," the fundraiser (and Obama's personal real estate fairy) wrote in a letter to U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve.

"I have never been a party to any wrongdoing that involved the Governor or the Senator," Rezko argued. "I will never fabricate lies about anyone else for selfish purposes. I will take whatever comes my way, but I will never hurt innocent people."

Amen, Tony. But those who say nothing don't brag. They shut up.

Yet those who promise to say nothing, and promise it loudly, often have much to say later, in a calm and rational voice, meekly from the witness box.

I've seen a few lately, a convicted Outfit hit man who killed at least a dozen people and testified against Chicago mob bosses, and, in an unrelated case, a convicted political apparatchik of the GOP who talked like Joe Pesci in the movies until he broke, blubbered and helped put former Gov. George Ryan in prison.

They all want the same thing—to make sure their loved ones are well cared for on the outside. It could be that Rezko, who mentioned his sons in the letter, cares more about them and his wife, Rita, than he does about his political buddies. Hence, the implied threat to the senator and the governor. That could be a problem for both Obama and Blagojevich, but mostly, I think, for Blagojevich, if Rezko—convicted of more than a dozen corruption counts—begins to squeak.

Democrat Obama—whose campaign reiterated he's never done wrong with Rezko—is on the verge of assuming the presidency, about to defeat a Republican Party that has forgotten what it believes. Republicans were blinded and seduced by crooked GOP lobbyists like Jack Abramoff and overspent on Illinois Republican boss-hog-style deals. There was a national conservative silence when phrases such as "big government conservatism" were bandied about without ridicule. So the road was paved for Obama.

Obama's supporters don't know exactly what Obama believes in, but they seem not to care. He's on the way up and out of the wetlands of Chicago politics, reborn unto his national and mythic reform narrative, discovered by joyous national media and embraced, much as the iconic child was discovered and embraced when found in the reed basket floating on the River Potomac.

Obama doesn't need to remind the national media that he walked the Chicago Way, that his feet actually touched the soiled political ground. Rezko's recent conviction and the letter are such reminders. But Blagojevich is the member of Rezko's posse who is federally vulnerable. An unofficial Patty Watch has sprung up among reporters speculating that Blagojevich's wife, Patty, may be the first in the family with federal issues, as the FBI is investigating her own real estate dealings with Rezko and others.

Note: In Thursday's column, I mentioned just a few of the aldermen who voted on Richard Shortshanks' Great Grant Park Land Grab. In case you missed it, here's the complete list:

The 16 brave aldermen who voted to keep Grant Park forever free and clear were: Ald. Manuel Flores (1st), Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd), Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th), Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th), Ald. Sandi Jackson (7th), Ald. Sharon Denise Dixon (24th), Ald. Ed Smith (28th), Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd), Ald. Rey Colon (35th), Ald. Thomas Allen (38th), Ald. Brian Doherty (41st), Ald. Brendan "Braveheart" Reilly (42nd), Ald. Vi Daley (43rd), Ald. Thomas Tunney (44th), Ald. Eugene Schulter (47th) and Ald. Joseph Moore (49th).

The 33 knaves who voted to despoil the lakefront park on the king's command were: Ald. Robert Fioretti (2nd), Ald. Freddrenna Lyle (6th), Ald. Michelle Harris (8th), Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), Ald. John Pope (10th), Ald. James Balcer (11th), Ald. George Cardenas (12th), Ald. Frank Olivo (13th), Ald. Ed Burke (14th), Ald. Toni Foulkes (15th), Ald. JoAnn Thompson (16th), Ald. Latasha Thomas (17th), Ald. Lona Lane (18th), Ald. Virginia Rugai (19th), Ald. Willie Cochran (20th), Ald. Howard Brookins (21st), Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd), Ald. Michael Zalewski (23rd), Ald. Daniel Solis (25th), Ald. Billy Ocasio (26th), Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. (27th), Ald. Isaac Carothers (29th), Ald. Ariel Reboyras (30th), Ald. Ray Suarez (31st), Ald. Richard Mell (33rd), Ald. William Banks (36th), Ald. Emma Mitts (37th), Ald. Margaret Laurino (39th), Ald. Patrick O'Connor (40th), Ald. Patrick Levar (45th), Ald. Helen Shiller (46th), Ald. Mary Ann Smith (48th) and Ald. Bernard Stone (50th).

Remember them.

jskass@tribune.com
Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune

[jmichna]

FBI didn't need billboard to see this insider cabal
John Kass
August 15, 2008

The FBI has taken an interest in the adventures of Chicago's new dynamic duo, state Sen. Jimmy DeLeo (D-How You Doin?) and his sidekick, convicted stool pigeon Mark "Jimmy's Weakest Link" Richmond.

In our last installment, Richmond and DeLeo were in the office of Deerfield Mayor Steven Harris, pitching the idea that they wanted to get involved in the lucrative billboard business along the expressway. Harris is a member of the Illinois Toll Highway Authority Board.

You've seen such billboards. The boring ones involve insurance. Others cause accidents, like the billboards featuring a blond with pouty lips and high heels that the kid in the car behind you stares at, instead of watching your brake lights.

"They sure understood the billboard business," Harris told me for a May 15 column. "And they wanted to help me in any way."

Since I told you about this meeting, the FBI wants to know even more about the influential state senator and Richmond, and whether they sought to muscle their way into Deerfield, and elsewhere. This is just one investigation I hear is swirling around DeLeo and the 36th Ward political organization.

Harris declined their help. He was somewhat taken aback to see DeLeo and Richmond coming on strong. He told his Board of Trustees.

DeLeo's friend Richmond was convicted in 1993 of federal tax conspiracy in a scheme involving Outfit front man and corrupt former Cook County Undersheriff James "The Bohemian" Dvorak, who is also in the billboard business. Richmond testified that he used cash from mob boss Rocco Infelice to gamble with Dvorak at casinos in the Caribbean, Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

"As a result of your May 15 column, yes, Mayor Harris was contacted by the FBI," Deerfield village attorney Peter Coblentz told me. "They wanted to ask him about the meeting. What he was told by the FBI is that they view Harris and the village as the victim in this, which we think is fundamentally inaccurate. The village is not the victim."

An FBI spokesman declined to confirm any investigation. No crime is alleged here. Neither man could be reached for comment. It's no crime for a politician to support a friend, whether for billboards in Deerfield, or, say, a power company outside Joliet.

A politician can do so even if that friend is a convicted stool pigeon, like Richmond, or like another part of the Richmond-DeLeo connection, C.A.R. Leasing manager Marc Zaransky. And, Zaransky has provided oodles of luxury cars to Illinois politicians, including DeLeo. Zaransky was convicted along with Richmond in the 1993 case and also testified against Dvorak.

All this is, right now, is a look into the behind-the-scenes connections that make Illinois politics so much fun. That, and the fact that the ever-cautious DeLeo is now having his judgment questioned—in political and earthier circles—for dealing with two stool pigeons.

Back to the Deerfield billboard deal. Coblentz said Richmond and DeLeo had nothing to do with a subsequent Deerfield billboard contract. That contract was awarded to another group, including Outdoor Business Ventures Inc.

Joel Gross, president of Outdoor Business Ventures, is also a partner of Richmond's. They run Axiz Group in Lincolnwood—a marketing firm that sells promotional items to politicians, including DeLeo. Axiz is located across the street from Zaransky's car leasing company. We asked Coblentz if he knew of the Richmond-Gross connection:

"I was not aware of that," the Deerfield attorney said.

Even Secretary of State Jesse White does business with Richmond, whom he considers a friend. Back in May, I asked White's office whether White gambled in an Aruba casino with Richmond. White's staff said yes, once.

Recently, we asked White directly. White said Richmond provides low-cost uniforms and athletic gear to his famed Jesse White tumblers group.

"Just a friend," White said. "He's a businessman. And through his business, we've been able to get a good price. We used to pay $18 for a pair of gymnastic shoes. Now we're paying $10."

Asked how many times he's gambled with Richmond in Aruba, White said:

"One or two, but it's always been with a group. Never just Mr. Richmond and myself."

Was state Sen. DeLeo with you?

"I think he was already there," White said.

Do politicians have good luck in that Aruba casino? Just asking.

Months ago, I asked the Village of Deerfield for a transcript and recording of their Sept. 17, 2007, executive session—the one in which a concerned Harris explained to his trustees that he'd just had a Jimmy visit.

Deerfield officials haven't decided yet whether to give me the information about DeLeo and his weakest link. Once they decide, maybe in a month or three, they'll tell me. Until then, I'll wait and wonder.

Would the FBI have to wait?

jskass@tribune.com
Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune

[jmichna]

Governor is no John Wayne and GOP can't shoot straight
John Kass
August 13, 2008

This week, Gov. Rod "The Unreformer" Blagojevich revealed himself to be something of a madman, perhaps even a dangerous madman.

Our governor said he now sees himself as the iconic Hollywood Western hero John Wayne, facing down the bad guys on Main Street at high noon.

"See, John Wayne was always on the side of good versus evil," he chattered like a frightened magpie to reporters at a City Club luncheon the other day. "In the eternal struggle, he was the good guy against the bad guy. He'd ride into town, and he'd be on the side of truth and justice and fair play. He was a great American hero."

Good versus evil? The eternal struggle? Truth, justice and fair play?

Maybe pay to play, but not fair play. Governor, this is the state where our license plate slogan should read—"Illinois: Will the Defendant Please Rise?"

And John Wayne was John Wayne. John Wayne was no whackadoodle.

Blagojevich is probably unhinged by all the federal investigations swirling around him and his wife, Patti, and what his fellow Democrats are doing to him.

Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan keeps scheming to use Rod's hair product with Rod's scalp still clinging to it, to pave the road to the governor's mansion for daughter Lisa. And the real governor, state Sen. Jimmy DeLeo (D-How You Doin?) is too preoccupied with fine luxury cars and hanging with two friends who are convicted federal stool pigeons.

So Rod was alone with his thoughts. The trouble was, he shared them. One of those present Monday, Tribune reporter John Chase, digitally recorded Blagojevich's rantings.

"I want to thank you for knowing I am a John Wayne fan," Blagojevich said to Sun-Times Editor Michael Cooke, for publishing a front-page photo-shopped image of Blago's head on John Wayne's body.

"How did you know that I love John Wayne?" babbled Blagojevich, like some deranged character in a Russian novel, a minor bureaucrat rising in the corner of a darkened inn to offer a confession to a crowd of drunks.

"I don't know if any of you saw it but they had a front page, and they had me as John Wayne," said the governor.

It's unsettling when a political leader happily wears the trappings of the clown and dances down the street banging a tambourine, skipping lightly in curly-toed shoes, bells jingling, to amuse the mob.

"Evidently, some people thought they were insulting me," Blagojevich said. "I took it as a compliment. Now, maybe I just have a propensity to always see the glass as half full. But why wouldn't you want to be compared to John Wayne?"

As if on cue, City Club president Jay Doherty, a friend of mine and all too infrequent luncheon companion, showed the John Wayne/Blago image to the governor.

"And I don't care how they try to pitch that, I'm taking it as a compliment," prattled the governor. "And, in addition to that, my wife saw that picture and she just loved it and she asked me to ask him for exactly that. So I want to thank you for anticipating."

Naturally, most people will blame the Democrats. And naturally, most people will be wrong. Lets put blame where it belongs:

On the Republicans.

The Illinois Republican Party is so lacking in brains and backbone that it can't offer an alternative to what the Democrats are doing to the state and its taxpayers.

They ran Tugboat Annie for governor in 2006. And a few months ago, the Illinois Republicans began what they called a "reform tour" of Illinois. Trouble was, while they were touring, big-shot Illinois Republicans kept getting mentioned in the Tony Rezko pay-to-play trial called Operation Board Games, about Democratic and Republican insiders using their connections with Blago's Democratic administration to leech onto state pension fund investments for huge profit and fees.

The Republicans have not yet divorced themselves from the players. For some reason, the Democrats can be crooked and still get elected, but Republicans who stray lose their base. That conservative GOP base is lost in the wilderness, and those who aren't lost are jumping off their bridge to nowhere.

In a recent FOX News interview between Republican cheerleader Sean Hannity and former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, Hannity asked Hastert about the Chicago Democratic machine. Hastert—who didn't mention he'd been lobbying for Blagojevich's humongous inflated budget plan—defended the machine.

"Now, it's changed a little bit. You know, what has been coming and plagued the current government [of] Gov. Rod Blagojevich are the same people who have enabled and helped Barack Obama in this city. So it's not necessarily the machine, but it's the ancillary people out there feeding the machine."

Ancillary people like the Illinois Republican establishment, defending and nurturing the machine for decades, with Madigan and the Daleys playing along, while Gov. Whackadoodle plays cowboy.

jskass@tribune.com
Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune

[jmichna]

Federal court puts to rest fairy-tale ideals of Chicago
John Kass
August 7, 2008

The Chicago-as-Camelot myth took another hit in federal court Wednesday, where political Chicago and Outfit Chicago shared some space in the same building.

As if that was a coincidence.

"Most aldermen, most politicians, are hos," proudly announced former Ald. Arenda Troutman (20th) on federal tape a while ago, thinking no one was listening, as the FBI closed in on her.

When this became public, her colleagues became angry (as if Troutman's declaration of political hoedom was groundbreaking news), and Troutman became defensive, loudly accusing the feds of dirtying her name.

On Wednesday, she wasn't so loud. But her dress sure was, a long one with purple and orange and red and yellow and blue floating on it. She stood meekly before the judge like some timid 6-foot-3-inch kaleidoscope with platform shoes.

"The only question I have left is: Are you guilty?" asked U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo after getting the rest out of her.

"Yes," Troutman said in a whisper, admitting to extortion and tax fraud in a scheme where she took developers' cash to smooth things out with the city's zoning department, the Chicago Way.

In those days, she was on federal tape asking the eternal question:

"What do I get out of it?" Troutman's voice said.

She had been hanging out with reputed Black Disciples street gang leader Donnell "Scandalous" Jehan. Mr. Scandalous has turned himself in, but not before running and hiding for four years, leaving only a damp towel behind him when the FBI knocked on the door.

Just think. If only he married her, she could have been Alderman Scandalous. But instead, she's Alderman 27—that's the number of Chicago aldermen who've been convicted on corruption charges since 1972. Some cities have an eternal flame. We have eternal shame.

In that time, we've also had three governors go away for various kinky behavior, and perhaps a fourth is getting ripe enough for picking. The federal score card reads this way:

Aldermen 27, Governors 3, Chicago Mayors 0.

Troutman faces up to 56 months in prison for her two guilty counts. Her lawyer insists she'll have nothing to say to federal prosecutors homing in on zoning scams in Chicago. The Tribune has chronicled the abuses of zoning in its series "Neighborhoods for Sale."

If she maintains her silence, she'll also say nothing about her friend Mr. Scandalous, who is said by the feds to have operated a $300,000-per-day drug business on the South Side.

How does that happen? A Chicago politician with a reputed gangster? And it takes the feds—not the local cops—to bust an operation going on for years?

A few minutes later, in an unrelated case, in another courtroom in the building, there were two guys sitting against the wall. They also wore a loud color. Orange.

One was old, with white scruffy hair and beard, making faces, shaking his head, hands, arms flapping, like Uncle Junior on "The Sopranos" who didn't know anything and couldn't remember.

That's Samuel Volpendesto, 84, a World War II hero who received the Bronze Star, and has—according to federal prosecutors—been valorous in his service to the Chicago Outfit, from allegedly running strip clubs and prostitution in Cicero to allegedly supervising the beating of a federal witness. He lives in Oak Brook, on food stamps.

His co-defendant is Mark Polchan, 41, of Justice, the owner of a pawn shop in Cicero called Goldberg Jewelers. He's a reputed treasurer of the supremely violent Outlaws motorcycle gang, which has worked with the Chicago Outfit for more than 20 years.

Polchan kept glancing over my shoulder, to where his wife, a schoolteacher, was sitting. She seemed like a nice person.

According to the feds, the Outfit's Cicero crew contacted Polchan about blowing up C&S Coin Operated Amusements in Berwyn. Polchan allegedly reached out to Volpendesto, who is said to be an expert in sending loud messages, pyrotechnically.

Prosecutors mentioned cops being involved and helping the operation. Volpendesto made faces, frowns. Polchan just kept looking at his wife.

"There has been information about the Outfit using certain members of the Outlaw motorcycle gang and, of course, other groups to provide muscle," Jim Wagner, president of the Chicago Crime Commission and former FBI special agent, told us in an interview Wednesday. "The Outfit has been allied with a lot of gangs. The Outlaws, the Black Gangsters, they've used a number of different groups."

Polchan and Volpendesto want out on bail. The feds want them kept in the federal lockup so they won't run, and so their blood won't run all over somewhere, or so they won't disappear completely, as did mobster Tony Zizzo before the Family Secrets trial.

Mr. Scandalous, the twitchy Volpendesto, the serious Polchan, the meek Troutman. They're characters, sure. But you won't find them in Camelot.

jskass@tribune.com
Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune

[jmichna]

Corruption is no fairy tale, but Daley sees it otherwise
John Kass
May 23, 2008

The guys who don't believe in fairy tales sat against the wall in their federal orange jumpsuits Thursday. They're the freshly charged inspectors and contractors in the federal government's undercover sting called "Operation Crooked Code."

"Basically, here we go again," said U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald, noting that political corruption continues in Chicago.

Particularly at City Hall, which, like a fish, rots from the head down.

Thursday's indictees slouched and stared and whispered with their criminal defense lawyers. They looked away from their families, and though cameras aren't allowed in court, I can tell you what they did not look like.

They don't look like people who would ever think of Chicago as Camelot and magical swords handed up to reformers from the Lady of Lake Michigan. They're not national political pundits, to believe in fairy tales.

They work out of City Hall. They don't clap their hands for Tinkerbell to save the Lost Boys.

Those charged Thursday are not the big guys, they're not politicians from Grand and Harlem, like the Banks family, the first family of Chicago zoning. And they're not top developers like mayoral favorite Tommy DiPiazza, a tough guy who reaches into Rush Street and has connections to Rayjo—Raymond John Tominello, the top Chicago Outfit bookie from the mayor's Bridgeport.

In political terms, they're medium fries. They're who the feds must step on to get higher up the food pyramid. And don't think Fitzgerald and investigators from the FBI and the other federal agencies, including the U.S. Postal Service, aren't trying to climb on up.

The guys in the orange jumpsuits know that too. And they know that the first one of them to jump on the federal witness bus gets the best seat. As they sat there against the wall, they refused to glance at each other, even talk, though they were inches away from folks with whom they'd allegedly split money. That ostentatious refusal to make eye contact with each other told me something: Though they hadn't flipped, they were most likely wondering which one of them would flip.

As the odds clicked loudly in their heads, one fellow, the allegedly corrupt architect chewing his fingertips, sat next to the 36th Ward's guy from the Banks family's Department of Zoning, who looked away. I just imagine the calls being made out to the 36th Ward, for example, and guys on the other end talking in euphemism, coyly, with plenty of hard vowels.

Though they were definitely sad and tired from being rousted by federal agents early Thursday at their homes, it wasn't difficult to picture them in happier times.

I imagine them in their street clothes on some Saturday morning, in pressed jeans and loafers and knit shirts, flashy watches, smelling of too much Paco Rabanne. The whole crew sauntering in to some diner, at Grandma Sally's or Dapper's or the Blue Angel, a couple of them taking that last lung full of smoke in the parking lot, before crushing the butt outside the door.

They talk about horses, cars, they use pens to write numbers down on paper napkins. These are guys who wanted to make moves, guys who see the mayor's friends and family getting rich on deal after deal, and figuring, probably rightly, why not make a score?

Over at City Hall, Mayor Daley was blabbing on and on, as he usually does in corruption cases, not taking any responsibility for anything, since he's only the mayor. He ignored the fact that city Inspector General David Hoffman had to go to the feds with his investigation because Daley made it clear he wanted Hoffman isolated and politically finished, since Hoffman had initiated the last Department of Buildings investigation a year ago.

He was told that Hoffman had said Operation Crooked Code was an example of systemic corruption at City Hall.

"Well, I don't know about that. I can't answer that," Daley said. "But again, it was through the inspector general and the Building Department working together to uncover this."

If I hadn't known Daley put himself on war footing with Hoffman—whose only political crime was to oppose corruption at City Hall—I might have believed him. Nice story, but the reality is that Daley tried to shrink Hoffman's budget to the size of a chickpea.

"I don't know if it's systemic," Daley said of corruption, "but you can't indict everybody about that. It's not everybody. You know that."

What will you do to change anything?

"Well again, what you are trying to do is you do everything," Daley said. "You are trying to put GPSs on people. You are trying to go after the developers, the contractors, whoever wants to bribe the system. Yeah, it takes two to tango. It takes two people, both the public employee or the private sector. They are both going to get caught. It's as simple as that, but it's really regrettable."

"It's appalling," Daley said. "How can this take place?"

The guys in the jumpsuits don't believe in fairy tales, mayor. And neither do the taxpayers.

jskass@tribune.com
Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune

[jmichna]

Mitch Mars a monument to true 'public service'
John Kass
June 29, 2008

Powerful politicians often refer to themselves as "public servants," even as they warn young people against cynicism.

They stand proudly and brag loudly of their life's passion for the public good, even while filling the pockets of friends and family with public money.

A few even have a chorus of silky voices to sing their praises so we don't notice how closely they're attached to the belly of the beast.

But there are true public servants, still. They don't get the benefit of the silky chorus, because silk costs money, and if public servants are doing their job properly, they're not using your government's purse to make somebody's somebody rich.

I'm thinking of a true public servant, the late Assistant U.S. Atty. Mitchell Mars. He led the prosecution of the historic Family Secrets trial last year as he was dying of cancer. Young Americans seeking a role model for public service might consider using Mars as a compass so they don't get lost.

Though ill, Mars prosecuted the bosses of Chicago's organized crime—the Chicago Outfit underworld that reaches through politics into our lives on a daily basis.

"Few people tooted their own horn less," U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald said at a memorial service for Mars in the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse last week.

The event was held in the large ceremonial courtroom on the 25th floor, the same courtroom in which Mars faced down and convicted the Outfit bosses: the brutal Frank Calabrese Sr., Joey "The Clown" Lombardo and Jimmy "Shamrock" Marcello; the quiet enforcer Paulie "the Indian" Schiro; and corrupt Chicago cop Anthony "Twan" Passafiume Doyle.

It was Doyle, the police messenger boy for the Outfit's Chinatown crew, who perhaps gave Mars his greatest praise on a government tape, a recording taken when members of the Outfit were panicking about the growing case against them.

"I said, I'll bet you it's that [expletive] Mitch Mars, that's what I think," Doyle said.

It wasn't the first or the last time the Outfit used a sleeper cop—or even a chief of detectives—to carry messages.

"That was the Outfit's view of Mitch Mars, and there is no finer compliment," said First Assistant U.S. Atty. Gary Shapiro.

As the muscled-up Twan—who according to testimony is the servant of reputed Outfit street boss Frank "Toots" Caruso—made that remark just a few years ago, consider what was happening.

The federal investigation had sprung an internal leak that would lead to charges against a deputy federal marshal and would almost compromise the case. Chicago machine politicians were shrieking that the FBI should spend less time on corruption and more on chasing two-bit gun cases. A few critics ridiculed the idea that there even was an Outfit.

But Mitch Mars and his team didn't give in.

"He was a public servant of the highest order," said Mars' closest friend, Thomas Moriarty, a special investigator in the U.S. attorney's office. Mars and Moriarty were born on the South Side and were raised Sox fans.

When he said the phrase "public servant," Moriarty felt the need to qualify the statement, acknowledging that roiling political corruption has smeared the phrase.

"That Mitch Mars," Moriarty said. "He was a patriot's patriot. . . . Chicago, a world-class city, had a malignant tumor: organized crime. Nothing bothered Mitch Mars more. . . . It became Mitch's quest to destroy this tumor, and he did."

FBI Special Agent Mike Maseth, who worked the Family Secrets case, noted that Mars was a Chick Evans scholar at Marquette, and that his love of golf helped provide the full scholarship that shaped Mars' life.

"If you watched the U.S. Open tournament, you would have noticed that there was something not right about Tiger [Woods]. That was what Mitch did last summer in this very courtroom.

"All of us knew there was something not quite right about Mitch, but he came here every day and worked on that case. On Aug. 30, he delivered one of the best closing arguments this courtroom, this building had ever seen," Maseth said.

I was privileged to be one of the lucky few to see Mars deliver that closing in the courtroom. A quote from the closing is now on a plaque in a third-floor conference room honoring Mars.

"Criminal cases are about accountability and justice, not only for the defendants, but also justice for our system, justice for our society, and justice for the victims," Mars told the jury. "Our system works. It is the greatest system in the world. But it only works when those who should be held accountable are held accountable."

The Mitchell A. Mars Foundation—created by his law-enforcement colleagues to establish an Evans scholarship in his name—is scheduled to hold a fundraiser on Sept. 22 at Cog Hill in Lemont.

Those of us who keep saying we need good public servants—not cynical politicians—should also be held accountable.

So save the date. Sept. 22. Cog Hill.

jskass@tribune.com
Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune

[jmichna]

A tortuous path to not blaming Daley
John Kass
July 20, 2006

If there's anything that qualifies as a white paper--one of those lengthy political policy reports--it's the 292-page tome released Wednesday by special prosecutors with Regular Democratic Organization roots.

They investigated the torture of suspected criminals by former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge in the 1980s. The victims were minorities, some confessed under torture and were later sentenced to death, prosecuted by a Cook County state's attorney who had big political ambitions.

And the conclusions?

Mayor Richard Daley was not to blame for not investigating, though he was Cook County state's attorney for much of the period. Back then, he campaigned for mayor as the law-and-order candidate. But don't blame him, said special prosecutors Edward Egan and Robert Boyle.

"We accept his explanation, but would not do it the same way he did," Boyle said.

That's nice. I mean, it's nice for the mayor. He's got pressures--federal pressure, budget pressure and political pressure. He just installed pliant Ald. Todd Stroger (8th) as the Democratic Party's candidate for Cook County Board president, without appearing to pull any strings for Todd, now referred to openly as Urkel.

Black votes are vitally important to white Democratic bosses like Daley, as important as water to a man alone in the desert, because without black votes, there's nothing. So in the white paper, blame was not applied to the mayor. The authors found others to blame, including former Chicago Police Supt. Richard Brzeczek.

"They spent four years and almost $7 million to say it's Brzeczek's fault," Brzeczek told me Wednesday. "Years ago, when they appointed Democratic sycophants to investigate this, I said they'd blame me, and they did. I'm not a Daley guy. This whole thing is about covering Daley's [posterior]."

Flynt Taylor is director of the People's Law Office, which fights wrongful convictions. He's no fan of Brzeczek's. But on this point, Taylor agrees.

"I'm not absolving Brzeczek," Taylor told me. "He was superintendent when Jon Burge was active. But he at least passed on the information about Burge to Daley, and Daley, as state's attorney, did nothing. This paper is nothing but a major effort to deflect blame from where it belongs. The man who should be blamed is Daley."

In February 1982, Andrew Wilson was arrested for the murder of two Chicago police officers. Wilson was convicted twice, the first conviction overturned because of torture allegations. The second conviction was upheld. He remains in prison for life, and the report said even his lawyers concede he murdered the officers.

Back in 1982, Wilson was taken to Area 2 detective headquarters on the South Side for interrogation under Burge. Dr. John Raba, director of Cermak Hospital, later examined Wilson, determined his patient had been tortured, and quickly complained to then-Supt. Brzeczek in a letter:

"I examined Mr. Andrew Wilson on Feb. 15 & 16, 1982. He had multiple bruises, swellings and abrasions on his face and head. His right eye was battered and had a superficial laceration. Andrew Wilson had several linear blisters on his right thigh, right cheek and anterior chest which were consistent with radiator burns. He stated he'd been cuffed to a radiator and pushed into it. He also stated that electrical shocks had been administered to his gums, lips and genitals. All these injuries occurred prior to his arrival at the Jail. There must be a thorough investigation of this alleged brutality."

Brzeczek forwarded that letter to then-Cook County State's Atty. Daley. And what did Daley do with it?

Not much.

He passed it along. Maybe. He really doesn't know what happened, according to the report. The mayor echoed a mantra he's used repeatedly, namely, that he can't remember.

"He assumes the letter directed to him by Brzeczek with the enclosed letter from Dr. Raba was directed to his First Assistant Richard Devine [now Cook County state's attorney] ... It was probably discussed with him and Devine. He has no current memory of how the letter was processed," the report said.

Boyle and Egan had a different conclusion when it came to Brzeczek, who was Daley's 1984 Republican opponent for state's attorney.

"He did not just do his job poorly," Boyle told reporters. "He just didn't do his job."

"If Supt. Brzeczek had done his duty to investigate the Andrew Wilson case, we would not be here today," Egan said.

I'm not saying Brzeczek is an angel. He was the boss cop when Burge was torturing folks. His chief of detectives, William Hanhardt, would later be revealed as an Outfit appendage.

But Daley was state's attorney, and Brzeczek sent him the letter. Daley should have done something. He didn't. Now, with the statute of limitations having run out, there won't be any troublesome prosecutions.

So a white paper was required, to put a political lid on things. And a white paper was delivered, along with some whitewash.

jskass@tribune.com
Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune

[jmichna]

Weis takes all those bowls and sticks a fork in each one
John Kass
July 16, 2008

The Don't (Mess) With My Rice Bowl Committee convened at Chicago's City Hall, with Chicago aldermen holding Police Supt. Jody Weis up before the media to thwack him and thwack him for daring to make promotions without consulting them.

"I don't agree with you," said Chicago's chief Weis-thwacker, Ald. Isaac Carothers (29th), chairman of the City Council's Police and Fire Committee, which I renamed the Rice Bowl Committee in honor of the truth of things.

During a break in the Weis-thwacking, we stood out in the back room, the council annex, scarfing down some bagels somebody brought over, and Carothers didn't get even one crumb on his nice blue suit.

So I put a microphone near him, and soon other reporters sidled up to hear how all this Weis-thwacking was not political.

"I don't know what's on the minds of my colleagues, if anyone has a political concern," Carothers said with great dignity. "Certainly, some of them might have had relationships with some commanders who were moved, who were doing good jobs. No, I don't see this being a political event."

Across the city, Mayor Richard Daley defended Weis, after breathless media reports that he'd taken him into his office for a private thwacking session, in response to shootings and other violence that erupted in crowds leaving the recent Taste of Chicago. Daley said he did not have any such private session, and he added that the media was after headlines again.

The mayor's correct. We go after news. And shootings at the Taste, while Daley's trying to convince the Olympicrats that Chicago can handle things, is news. But now it's not news, and now it's not political and everything's normal, almost.

There is an ancient Greek saying, and if it wasn't Greek it should have been, about not mucking up someone's rice, or better yet, hilopites bowl.

I have nothing against rice. But hilopites (pronounced hee-lo-pee-tes) are tasty tiny pasta squares served with butter and grated cheese by Greek moms from the beginning of time. In Chicago political terms, the bowl is almost sacred.

It is that from which important nourishment is drawn, and if someone mucks with it, the owners naturally become quite upset and lose weight. They become thin and depressed, and they can't afford nice things.

Chicago politics have historically been important in the selection of police commanders and top brass. Just a few years ago, even the Chicago mob had a big say in who worked where in the top echelons of the department.

William Hanhardt, the heroic chief of detectives, was once the guy to see in the department about promotions and transfers and so on, even though he wasn't technically the superintendent, and the Hanhardt culture shaped the detective division. When he was later convicted of running an Outfit-backed jewelry-heist ring, using top cops to glean information about his targets from police computers, the aldermen neglected something.

They neglected to hold a hearing to get to the bottom of things. They didn't ask any questions. Not one. Not even the mayor would condemn him, which is the Chicago Way.

Weis was lured from the FBI with a three-year contract and a mandate from Daley to clean up a department rocked by corruption and brutality scandals. He was told he should make all necessary changes.

The thing is, nobody thought he'd actually do it. And he did, within weeks, changing 21 of the 25 district commanders and all of the top brass, including beefing up the Internal Affairs Division. All this activity began mucking up rice/hilopites bowls all across the city. Hence, Tuesday's hearings.

As the aldermen thwacked Weis, a fellow who knows about crime and corruption was considering all this in his office a few blocks from City Hall.

Jim Wagner is president of the Chicago Crime Commission, one of the city's most historic and important institutions. He's a former FBI boss of the Organized Crime section, and he understands Weis' predicament.

"There have been many, many documented cases of, let's say, 'influence' on the part of politicians as to who got promoted and who got the management positions," Wagner said in an interview. "And, really, that's not the best way to run a department."

Back at City Hall, Weis conceded that police morale is low and crime is higher, and he acknowledged a problem. But he noted that morale didn't start dropping in February when he took over, but that it faded over time, as rank-and-file officers began feeling they weren't being backed up by their bosses.

That's true as well. The real police—the detectives and tactical officers and blue-shirts who take the risks and make arrests—have increasingly felt they were on a rug on a sl