Rahm Emanuel's Political Team Coordinated Parts of CNN Documentary Chicagoland

Just another example of how the mainstream media is simply an extension of the ruling class:

"If it seemed as though some scenes of CNN's documentary series Chicagoland were coordinated by Mayor Rahm Emanuel's City Hall and the show's producers, that's because they were," the Chicago Tribune reports.

"More than 700 emails reviewed by the Tribune reveal that the production team worked hand in hand with the mayor's advisers to develop storylines, arrange specific camera shots and review news releases officially announcing the show."

"Producers asked the mayor's office to help them set up key interactions in what the cable network has billed as a nonscripted eight-part series, including Emanuel's visits with the school principal who emerged as a star of the show, emails show."

Everything you see on TV these days is propaganda.

Everything.

How Rahm Emanuel Got Chicago's Crime Rate Down

To quote from The Sting, it's simple - he cheats:

It was a balmy afternoon last July when the call came in: Dead body found inside empty warehouse on the West Side.

Chicago police officers drove through an industrial stretch of the hardscrabble Austin neighborhood and pulled up to the 4600 block of West Arthington Street. The warehouse in question was an unremarkable-looking red-brick single-story building with a tall barbed-wire fence. Vacant for six years, it had been visited that day by its owner and a real-estate agent—the person who had called 911.

The place lacked electricity, so crime scene technicians set up generators and portable lights. The power flickered on to reveal a grisly sight. In a small office, on soggy carpeting covered in broken ceiling tiles, lay a naked, lifeless woman. She had long red-streaked black hair and purple glitter nail polish on her left toenails (her right ones were gone), but beyond that it was hard to discern much. Her face and body were bloated and badly decomposed, her hands ash colored. Maggots feasted on her flesh.

At the woman’s feet, detectives found a curled strand of telephone wire. Draped over her right hand was a different kind of wire: thin and brown. The same brown wire was wrapped around each armrest of a wooden chair next to her.

The following day, July 24, a pathologist in the Cook County medical examiner’s office noticed something else that had been obscured by rotting skin: a thin gag tied around the corpse’s mouth.
Thanks to some still-visible tattoos, detectives soon identified this unfortunate woman: Tiara Groves, a 20-year-old from Austin. She was last seen walking alone in the wee hours of Sunday, July 14, near a liquor store two miles from the warehouse. At least eight witnesses who saw her that night told police a similar story: She appeared drunk and was upset—one man said that she was crying so hard she couldn’t catch her breath—but refused offers of help. A man who talked to her outside the liquor store said that Groves warned him, excitedly and incoherently, that he should stay away from her or else somebody (she didn’t say who) would kill him too.

Toxicology tests showed she had heroin and alcohol in her system, but not enough to kill her. All signs pointed to foul play. According to the young woman’s mother, who had filed a missing-person report, the police had no doubt. “When this detective came to my house, he said, ‘We found your daughter. . . . Your daughter has been murdered,’ ” Alice Groves recalls. “He told me they’re going to get the one that did it.”

On October 28, a pathologist ruled the death of Tiara Groves a homicide by “unspecified means.” This rare ruling means yes, somebody had killed Groves, but the pathologist couldn’t pinpoint the exact cause of death.

Given the finding of homicide—and the corroborating evidence at the crime scene—the Chicago Police Department should have counted Groves’s death as a murder. And it did. Until December 18. On that day, the police report indicates, a lieutenant overseeing the Groves case reclassified the homicide investigation as a noncriminal death investigation. In his writeup, he cited the medical examiner’s “inability to determine a cause of death.”

That lieutenant was Denis Walsh—the same cop who had played a crucial role in the alleged cover-up in the 2004 killing of David Koschman, the 21-year-old who died after being punched by a nephew of former mayor Richard M. Daley. Walsh allegedly took the Koschman file home. For years, police officials said that it was lost. After the Sun-Times reported it missing, the file mysteriously reappeared.

But back to Tiara Groves. With the stroke of a computer key, she was airbrushed out of Chicago’s homicide statistics.

The change stunned officers. Current and former veteran detectives who reviewed the Groves case at Chicago’s request were just as incredulous. Says a retired high-level detective, “How can you be tied to a chair and gagged, with no clothes on, and that’s a [noncriminal] death investigation?” (He, like most of the nearly 40 police sources interviewed for this story, declined to be identified by name, citing fears of disciplinary action or other retribution.)

Was it just a coincidence, some wondered, that the reclassification occurred less than two weeks before the end of the year, when the city of Chicago’s final homicide numbers for 2013 would be tallied? “They essentially wiped away one of the murders in the city, which is crazy,” says a police insider. “But that’s the kind of shit that’s going on.”

 

For the case of Tiara Groves is not an isolated one. Chicago conducted a 12-month examination of the Chicago Police Department’s crime statistics going back several years, poring through public and internal police records and interviewing crime victims, criminologists, and police sources of various ranks. We identified 10 people, including Groves, who were beaten, burned, suffocated, or shot to death in 2013 and whose cases were reclassified as death investigations, downgraded to more minor crimes, or even closed as noncriminal incidents—all for illogical or, at best, unclear reasons.

This troubling practice goes far beyond murders, documents and interviews reveal. Chicago found dozens of other crimes, including serious felonies such as robberies, burglaries, and assaults, that were misclassified, downgraded to wrist-slap offenses, or made to vanish altogether. (We’ll examine those next month in part 2 of this special report.)

Many officers of different ranks and from different parts of the city recounted instances in which they were asked or pressured by their superiors to reclassify their incident reports or in which their reports were changed by some invisible hand. One detective refers to the “magic ink”: the power to make a case disappear. Says another: “The rank and file don’t agree with what’s going on. The powers that be are making the changes.”

Read the rest of the Chicago Magazine piece to see how Rahm and his crime lieutenants got their drop in crime stats and think about this the next time you hear Rahm Emanuel or one of his corporate cronies tout his "leadership" in Chicago.

Chicago Police Brass Reclassify Murder Victims To Bring City Murder Rate Down

From The Guardian:

Stung by a 16% spike in killings in 2012 that led Moody’s, the ratings agency, to downgrade the city’s debt due to its "unrelenting public safety demands", Emanuel promised a tough response. Amid spending cuts, the former White House chief of staff to Barack Obama has ploughed tens of millions more taxpayer dollars into policing. Sure enough, in January he proudly announced that 2013 had seen the city’s fewest homicides since 1965 and lowest crime rate since 1972.

Yet a startling 7,000-word investigation earlier this month by Chicago Magazine cast serious doubt over the crime-busting miracle of Emanuel and his superintendent, Garry McCarthy. It identified at least 18 apparent murders in 2013 that had either been quietly redefined as “non-criminal deaths” or shunted off the city’s books by other statistical sleights of hand.

Professor Eli Silverman of the City University of New York, an authority on the CompStat-style data systems used by police in Chicago, New York and other major cities, told the Guardian he had been contacted by several Chicago officers concerned about the determination among chiefs to drive down crime numbers at whatever cost.

“The pressure from the top is unrelenting,” he said one had told him. “The defenders of the system always say ‘You can’t hide a dead body’,” said Silverman. “But you can reclassify one.” City authorities deny any impropriety.

Classic criminal move by Emanuel - put the pressure on from top down, then have the people below put in the statistical fixes to make everything look better.

More later from Chicago Magazine.

De Blasio Uses Ed Deformer-Tied Consulting Group For Transition Team

That story that Dana Rubenstein broke at Capital NY about Mayor-Elect Bill de Blasio using a Bloomberg-funded consultant group suggested by Rahm Emanuel to run his transition team in secret just gets worse and worse:

Civic Consulting Alliance role in Chicago schl closings & charter expansion; now working w/de Blasio transition team http://t.co/jOzzb5IIWt
— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) December 17, 2013

Dunno if it's coincidence or not, but Eva Moskowitz has gotten a bit quiet lately about de Blasio.

One wonders if Civic Consulting Alliance helping to run things behind the scenes hasn't assuaged some of her concerns.

None of this is much of a surprise.

Bill de Blasio is a politician who made his bones in the Clinton administration.

This jive about de Blasio's election being the dawn of a new progressive era and de Blasio driving Cuomo and Obama to the left - it's pure fantasy.

No politician that came of age in the Clinton administration, is friends with Andrew Cuomo and Rahm Emanuel and happily (and secretly) uses Bloomberg-funded consulting groups to run their transition teams is going to be anything other than another destructive neo-liberal.

Bill De Blasio Meets With Rahm Emanuel To Talk "Transition And Urban Affairs"

Sure Bill de Blasio had a union rally yesterday - but he also met with one of the more virulently anti-union Dems around:

Bill de Blasio met with Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel this morning in New York City, according to sources familiar with the meeting.

Emanuel and de Blasio overlapped in the Clinton administration, where Emanuel served as a senior adviser to the president, while de Blasio served as a regional director for the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Emanuel went on to serve as a congressman, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and chief of staff to President Barack Obama, before leaving to run for mayor of his hometown in 2011.

A spokesman for Emanuel said that today's meeting ran for approximately an hour, and that the two men discussed "transition and urban affairs."

De Blasio ran Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign in 2000, and then ran for City Council and public advocate, before emerging from a crowded field to win the Democratic primary for mayor in September.

Chicago is the third-largest city in the United States, and shares many of the same challenges as New York City.

Emanuel made national news when he took a tough tack with the city's teachers' union last year, rescinding a promised raise and lengthening the city's school day, reforms that drew praise from Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

De Blasio hasn't said exactly how he'll deal with New York City's municipal unions, but has said that full retroactive raises for union employees aren't possible within the city's budget, and said he was "unburdened" when the local United Federation of Teachers opted to endorse a rival before the city's primary.

As I have said over and over, de Blasio was the least bad choice among a plethora of bad choices this election cycle.

I supported him because John Liu could not get elected and the alternatives to de Blasio - Quinn, Weiner and Thompson - all had larger downsides than de Blasio.

That doesn't mean I trust de Blasio and it doesn't mean I like him.

The meeting yesterday with Emanuel bears watching.

It's not a mistake that de Blasio met with Rahmbo to talk "transition and urban affairs."

He could have met with many a municipal politician to talk "transition and urban affairs."

He chose virulently anti-union, anti-teacher Rahm Emanuel.

Just something to think about before you go in and vote for the "progressive" candidate, Bill de Blasio.

Make Emanuel Pay For This Outrage (UPDATED)

That's the plan:

The board voted 6-0 to back Emanuel on closing 48 elementary schools and one high school program. The vote to close Von Humboldt Elementary was broken out, and passed 4-2. 

The board's solid support for the long, controversial slate of closings came as little surprise to his critics, chief among them the Chicago Teachers Union, which last week filed two federal lawsuits seeking to block the district from following through on its plan.

CTU President Karen Lewis said the union was still hoping courts would intervene to keep schools open but vowed to leverage voter anger over closings to block the re-election of Emanuel, who has said he was prepared to take a political hit for the closings.

"Well, he will," Lewis declared. "I'm glad he's prepared."

Emanuel held no public events Wednesday, but his office released a statement after the vote in which he acknowledged closings were "incredibly difficult" but added, "I firmly believe the most important thing we can do as a city is provide the next generation with a brighter future."

The way to make the future brighter is to beat Rahm Emanuel and send him back to his hedge fund.

That's after winning the civil suits filed to keep these schools opened.

That's the way to make the future brighter.

UPDATE: Emanuel is closing 49 schools to save money.

He's giving DePaul $100 million for a stadium.

The outrages don't stop.

Chicago 2013

From The Guardian:

More than 100 demonstrators taking part in mass civil disobedience were arrested in Chicago on Wednesday as several thousand people marched against the largest proposed round of school closings in recent memory.

Many carried placards proclaiming "Strong Schools, Strong Neighbourhoods" and "Protect Our Children" while chanting "Whose Schools, Our Schools" and calling for mayor Rahm Emmanuel's resignation.

"We're signalling that there is going to be a large and determined movement that will use the tactics of civil disobedience and direct action in order to keep these schools open," said Chicago Teachers Union vice-president Jesse Sharkey, who was arrested outside City Hall, one of 131 detained by police. "We see this event as kicking off an extended campaign this spring and we think it was a great success."

The city last week announced plans to close 54 schools affecting more than 30,000 students, primarily in low-income black and Latino areas. The proposals – which had already sparked huge, rowdy protests at hearings throughout the city prior to the announcement – mark Emmanuel's second major confrontation over education in less than six months following the teachers' strike in late August.

 "People have a right to the neighbourhoods in which they live," said CTU leader Karen Lewis at the rally. "Children have the right to a safe, nurturing, loving environment."

 CTU has laid down the gauntlet:

"In the same time these school closings have been taking place over the past decade, the city has opened about 100 charter schools in the very neighbourhoods where they're now closing schools through under-utilisation," said Sharkey. "Meanwhile supports of charter schools have been very open ideologically about making school competition part of the larger picture.

"We have not yet won the argument with the people of Chicago that this is a critical moment to be active. But this was a good start. Four or five thousand people and lots of different schools represented today. The argument can and will be won."

...

The CTU emerged with considerable public support after it blunted Emmanuel's attempts to tie teachers' pay to test scores last year. It has pledged to continue the campaign of non-violent disobedience. "People who work in the schools and rely on public schools will oppose the mass closings by any and all peaceful means," Sharkey has told union members. "[School closings] are not something we are prepared to accept without a fight ... We're going to take this fight as far as we have to, to defend our community schools."

Jesse Jackson was there.

Randi Weingarten was not.

She must have been paling around with her friend Bill Gates, finding new ways to use technology to evaluate teachers via test scores.

Thankfully Lewis, Sharkey, CTU and thousands of parents and concerned citizens from around Chicago did show up to fight this massive privatization of the city's school system.

It's going to be a long, hard fight. 

And as Sharkey said, they haven't gotten all the people in Chicago up in arms that this is critical moment to fight back.

But at the very least, they're trying to do just that.

Change ALEC Can Believe In

Devastating:

CHICAGO—School officials here said Thursday they plan to close 53 elementary schools and one high school, one of the largest mass school closings in the nation's history, as Mayor Rahm Emanuel seeks to fill a gaping budget hole.

Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the chief executive of Chicago Public Schools, said the closings would not be easy, but the city "must make tough choices," and by consolidating schools, "we can focus on safely getting every child into a better-performing school close to their home."

The move to close about 11% of the 472 elementary schools in the nation's third-largest school district this fall sparked anger from the teachers union, some elected aldermen, parents and neighborhood groups who vowed to fight the move. The Chicago Board of Education, appointed by Mr. Emanuel, a Democrat, must approve the final plan.

They're using "consolidation" as the excuse for privatization.

Tim Furman posted the following at Diane Ravtich's blog:

Diane, this is all terrible enough on its own, but I want to point out an interesting sidebar. As you know, the states now have established charter commissions as part of Race to the Top, and Illinois has one of these appointed commissions, which can overrule school districts’ charter decisions.

The Illinois commission only a couple days ago approved a new charter for Illinois, overriding the Chicago Public Schools board’s earlier decision not to approve this particular charter.

The charter has already applied for a zoning variance right down the street from one of the public schools on this closure list! There’s a community meeting tonight about the zoning.

In the midst of an historic attack on public education, the state steps in an adds another charter into the mix.

Just for icing on the cake, the charter is a Concept school— one of the Gulen school networks that you wrote about some time ago.

Wow - opening a Gulen charter in the same zone that they close a public school for being underutilized.

How's that for gall?

And let's all remember, while the playbook for these closures comes from Milton Friedman, Wall Street and ALEC, it's Democrats carrying out the neo-liberal program - Barack "Race to the Top" Obama at the federal level, Rahm Emanuel at the municipal level.

This is the end game for education reform - create crisis, close schools, fire unionized teachers, open charter schools, hire non-unionized at-will employees, privatize the entire system.

Rahm Wants To Be President

Yeah - that Rahm:

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel "is said by well-connected Democrats to be considering the idea of running for president if Hillary Clinton opts out of the 2016 race," Lloyd Grove reports.

"The 53-year-old Emanuel, who is busy raising money for his 2015 reelection campaign in the Windy City, has had discussions both over the phone and face to face in the past month with Democratic Party donors and fundraisers about a possible White House run, according to sources."

He's not very popular in Chicago, so it's hard to see how he runs for anything nationally.

Still, it would be interesting to see Andrew Cuomo and Rahm Emanuel running against each other in the primaries.

They're two very similar men.

They're both bullies.

They're both thin-skinned when people retaliate against them.

They're both beholden to the hedge fundies and Wall Street.

And they're both jerks with plenty of enemies.

Seems like a primary match made in Chris Matthews' heaven.

Rahm Turns Chicago Into Murder Capital Of Country - As Bad As A "Warzone"

The Guardian looks at a rash of violence over the July 4h holiday in the United States:

While Americans across the country celebrated Independence Day on Wednesday, several of the nation's largest cities reported disturbing incidents of violence, with dozens of people shot and many killed.

Chicago was among the worst, with five people killed and 21 wounded in separate shootings Wednesday. By Thursday morning two more people had lost their lives and eight more were injured.

In New York City, meanwhile, 17 people were shot in 13 separate incidents that left three people dead and a police officer wounded. Over the course of roughly four hours, eight people were shot in Brooklyn. The violence persisted into the wee hours of the morning, when NYPD officer Brian Groves was shot in the chest in a Lower East Side stairwell. The officer was saved by his bulletproof vest, and the gunman escaped.

"There are just bullets flying all over the place," said New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg at press conference, as he implored citizens to "stop this craziness."

Gee, I thought your stop-and-frisk polices were putting an end to violence as we know it, Mayor Mike?

Guess not. But Chicago has suffered by far the worst violence:

Indeed Chicago's shootings were an unfortunate reminder of the violence that has gripped the city as of late, where the murder rate has outpaced death tolls in active US war zones. While roughly 2,000 Americans have died since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, more than 5,000 people have been killed by gunfire in Chicago over the same period. As the nation's third largest city, Chicago's murders have spiked 35% since this time last year, with the number of homicides topping the number of US troops killed in Afghanistan in 2012.

The violence in Chicago on Wednesday followed a tragically similar day on Tuesday, that resulted in 16 people shot over a six-hour period, including a 14-year-old boy, a 15-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl who was gunned down while playing at an open fire hydrant.

Responding to the shooting of the young girl, Nakita Collins, a resident of her neighborhood, described the area to the Chicago Sun-Times: "It's become infested with drugs and gang activity."

"We pay taxes and they don't take care of us," she said. "They don't patrol … I just don't think they care."

Of course they don't care.

This is Rahm Emanuel's Chicago, Second City in Barack Obama's America.

Unless you're a banker, a hedge fund manager, or otherwise part of the 1%, they do not give a shit about you.

Not at all.

Rahm is of course blaming all this on the previous mayor.

But the reality is, that's just a scapegoat excuse.

The real reason is, no one in power cares to fix the inequity the country is facing that causes so many (more and more every day) to fall into despair and hopelessness.

That's what happens when you only listen to your hedge fund and bankster buddies and promote their "austerity policies" (i.e., tax breaks and bailouts for corporations and banskters, austerity measures for everybody else.)

Neo-liberals like Rahm just don't know (or seem to care) how bad things are out there for people.

Don't be surprised as the summer goes on if we don't see riots and other outbreaks of violence like the one's Britain saw last summer.

Perhaps that will get there attention.

Unfortunately I imagine they'll just use all of their "anti-terrorism toys" to deal with the problems instead of facing the real problem - the increasing feudalization of the nation.

Rahmbo Back On Ballot For Good

I guess the Supreme Court justices in Illinois got the envelopes with the cash in them:

Rahm Emanuel can run for mayor, the Illinois Supreme Court has ruled.

In a 7 to 0 decision, the court Thursday said an appellate court erred in taking Emanuel off the ballot earlier in the week.

The decision means Emanuel holds onto his position as the first name on the ballot in the Feb. 22 election. Emanuel has been leading in both the polls and fund-raising in the race that includes candidates Carol Moseley Braun, Gery Chico, and Miguel del Valle. Patricia Van Pelt Watkins and William “Dock” Walls are also on the ballot.

The Supreme Court’s decision overturns an appeals court ruling Monday that knocked Emanuel off the ballot.

Not a surprise - in a political system as rotten and corrupt as ours, rules are ONLY for little people, not for important connected corporatists like Rahm Emanuel.

Poor Rahm (Not Really!)

Nice analysis of the reaction to Rahm Emanuel's being thrown off the ballot in the Chicago mayor's race from Fred Klonsky:

It’s hard to find an average voter in Chicago who actually likes Emanuel. Even those who have told me they would have voted for him find him slimy and off-putting. But the millions of dollars given to him by the billionaire Chicago families of Crowns, Pritzkers and Zells created a sense of inevitability.

...

Aside from a few acolytes, there’s not too many Chicagoans feeling sorry for Rahm tonight.

Yeah, I sure don't feel sorry for him.

Frankly, I'd like to see his face tonight.

Bet the smirk has been wiped off.

We'll see if he and his corporate overlords can buy off the Illinois Supreme Court.

Fred says Greg Hinz at Crain's Chicago Business thinks it may not be so easy for Emanuel to get back on the ballot.

Hope that's so.

But the "pros" at Politico seem to think he'll be reinstated.

Call me cynical, but I suspect he will too

Rahmbo Declared Ineligible To Run For Mayor

Every once in a while I get home from work, turn on the computer and see some news that really puts a smile on my face.

Today was one of those days:

An Illinois Appellate Court today ruled that former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel isn't an eligible candidate for mayor of Chicago because he has not been a legal resident of the city for at least one year.

The surprise 2-to-1 decision reverses earlier rulings by a Cook County judge and the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners that had cleared the way for Emanuel's bid. It now casts doubt on whether Emanuel's name will be printed on city ballots, set to go to the printers in the next few days.

"I have no doubt that, in the end, that we will prevail in this effort," said Emanuel, who plans to appeal the decision to the Illinois Supreme Court. "My attorneys are going to ask for a stay [of the appeallate court's decision] there so I can get my name printed on the ballot as well."

The mayoral election is scheduled for Feb. 22.

The three-judge panel had distilled the debate over Emanuel's residency into two questions: whether Emanuel had "resided in the municipality" for at least one year as mandated by city code, and if not, whether he qualified for an exemption.

On the first issue, Judge Thomas Hoffman ruled that Emanuel did not fulfill residency requirements as intended by law.

"'Reside" generally means, among other things, 'to dwell permanently or continuously,' or to 'have a settled abode for a time,'" wrote Judge Thomas Hoffman for the majority. "We believe...that the phrase 'resided in' as used in the Municipal Code requires actual, not constructive, residence."

Municipal code provides an exemption to the residency requirement for an "elector or spouse" who has left the precinct or district on "business of the United States or of this state."

But Hoffman ruled that that provision only applied to voters, not candidates for public office. "We agree... that this exception applies to him," he wrote. "We disagree, however, with his position that the exception saves his candidacy. In our view, the exception...applies only to voter residency requirements, not to candidate residency requirements.

So Rahmbo - the hedge fund industry's favorite candidate - can vote for mayor, he just can't run for it.

We'll see how the higher court rules.

I'm sure Emanuel and his corporate overlords will be furiously working behind the scenes to ensure Rahmbo can run.

But at least for now, this smug bastard has had the smirk wiped off his face and the word "ineligible" stamped on his head.

Obama Continues Corporate Sell-Out

More change we can believe in, if by change you mean selling out to corporations:

SCHENECTADY, N.Y. — President Obama, sending another strong signal that he intends to make his White House more business-friendly, traveled to this industrial city on Friday to appoint a prominent corporate executive as his chief outside economic adviser, and to spotlight his efforts on job creation, in advance of next week’s State of the Union address.

Here in the birthplace of General Electric, where the company’s historic brick edifice and iconic neon-script logo loom over downtown, Mr. Obama turned to Jeffrey R. Immelt, the company’s chairman and chief executive, to run his outside panel of economic advisers. Mr. Immelt succeeds Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, who is stepping down.

The selection of Mr. Immelt, who was by Mr. Obama’s side during his trip to India last year and again this week during the visit of President Hu Jintao of China, is the latest in a string of pro-business steps the president has taken. He has installed William Daley, a former JPMorgan Chase executive, as his chief of staff; has scheduled a major speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce next month; and ordered federal agencies this week to review regulations with an eye toward eliminating some.

Labor, of course, will not be a part of any substantive policy discussions or have any real voice in administration policy. As First Read put it today:

"It's also worth noting that in announcing this new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, the president turned to a CEO. He's not making a labor leader as co-chair. Yes, labor leaders will be ON the council, but the Immelt appointment sends the message: business first."

Tell me exactly when that isn't the message?

Can't recall a time, even in this supposedly "Socialist" administration, when the message wasn't "Fuck Labor!" and "Hey, BoA, need a 115 billion?"

POSTSCRIPT: Immelt in at the White House, Comcast owns NBC, and Olbermann is fired from MSNBC.

November 2008 seems like a world away.

They're Coming For Your Pension

Rahmbo makes no bones about who the enemy is - unionized labor and government employees:

In contrast to his main rivals in the mayor’s race, Rahm Emanuel has told labor leaders that he favors reducing pension benefits for the city’s existing work force and not just for new hires.

Although Mr. Emanuel has not yet publicly detailed his plan to confront the city’s perennial budget deficits and the severely underfinanced employee pension funds, he told union officials in a private meeting on Dec. 15 that he thought it could be necessary to cut the pensions of all employees, said people who attended the meeting.

Mr. Emanuel made the comments while he was being interviewed by leaders of the Chicago Federation of Labor. That umbrella group for 300 unions has not yet endorsed any of the candidates who will be running in the Feb. 22 election to succeed Mayor Richard M. Daley, who is retiring.

“The sticking issue for all of us is the pension issue,” said a labor activist who attended the meeting with Mr. Emanuel. “I can’t tell my members we are going to support a guy who is going to cut your pensions.”

The labor leader and others who attended the meeting said they did not want to be identified for fear that Mr. Emanuel would retaliate if he were elected.

Mr. Emanuel plans to disclose his position on city finances in a speech sometime in February, said Ben LaBolt, his spokesman. Told of the union officials’ accounts of the endorsement session, Mr. LaBolt said, “Rahm told the truth about the financial conditions of the pension system and the crisis that it faces.”

Rahmbo told the truth all right - his hedge fund overlords don't want to pay more than the 15% capital gains tax they have on their income, his Wall Street CEO overlords don't want to pay the tax levels that their counterparts paid from the 50's through the 70's when this country was an economic powerhouse and many economic boats were lifted across economic classes - so middle and working class people must have their pensions reduced.

Here is a question I have. Is he going to try and reduce current retiree benefits too?

Because if he does, I can see a scenario where he and any other politician who engages in that kind of policy is going to need 24/7 protection and a bulletproof glass bubble around them.

We have already seen political violence with the shooting of that Arizona Congresswoman yesterday.

Just imagine what will happen when the politicians start slashing retiree pensions by 25%, capping Social Security COLA's and forcing retired people out into the streets in desperation because they can't make their mortgages or bills.

I'm not in any way suggesting that political violence should happen, but when you ruin the economic lives of people who have played by the rules, the way Rahmbo is proposing to do, you are playing with fire in a country that is already a tinderbox of discord, hostility and rage.

Zombieland

Read Norm's piece on the free-market zombies who continue to successfully hawk their failed ideology that business values and the free market will solve all ills in every area of American life when it seems that business values and the free market have CAUSED so many of the ills in American life.

And yet, politicians in BOTH parties continue to hawk this failed ideology - Rahm Emanuel and Little Andy Cuomo want to enshrine a Race to the Top lottery every year in education in their respective citiy and state, Barack Obama holds dear that free market ideology will improve public education and of course the billionaires boys club of Bloomberg/Broad/Gates promotes this stuff 24/7.

This is why I get livid when I see union leadership backing these corporate whores.

Labor is supporting its own demise.

Rahm Emanuel's quip about the UAW symbolizes how all the corporate whore Dems feel about labor.

So why support these people?

Obama Sells Out Workers On Korean Trade Agreement

Firedoglake covers the latest Obama broadside against the American worker pretty well:

This morning the White House announced that the following noble protectors of American workers endorsed the NAFTA-style Korea Free Trade agreement:

US Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue; President of the National Association of Manufacturers John Engler; Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit; JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon; Amway CEO and top Republican funder Dick DeVos; Big Bank lobby group Financial Services Roundtable President Steve Bartlett; and more. [Also, the MPAA]

That’s an impressive array of people who are dedicated to protecting the ultra-rich and not giving a damn about real working Americans or American jobs. How could the Obama White House top that?

Here’s the second round of endorsements from the White House for NAFTA-style Korea Free Trade; mind you the White House is actually bragging about these names:

* PhRMA
* Wal-Mart
* RIAA
* AT&T
* Mitch McConnell

It’s like a party for the Corporate Axis of Evil, and Obama’s throwing a kegger.

How's that for Change We Can Believe In?

The CEO's of Walmart, Citigroup, Amway, AT&T, JP Morgan Chase, big bank lobbyists, the chamber of commerce and Big Pharma backing an Obama trade agreement that will sell the American worker out and help enrich corporate coffers.

And let's remember, it has ALREADY been the most profitable quarter for American corporations EVER while the unemployment rate has gone up to 9.8% and long-term unemployment is even WORSE.

Heckuva job, Barack!

Still selling the American worker down the river even after corporate shill Rahm "F#$% The UAW!" Emanuel has left the building.

I guess we know what Obama really values.

Rahm Emanuel Is All Class

A hit piece on former Obama chief of staff and current Chicago mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel in today's Murdoch Post:

Rahm Emanuel is charging forward on the campaign trail for the Chicago mayoral seat and trying to shake off his hot-tempered reputation by putting his best foot forward as a likable candidate.

On Friday, he e-mailed prospective voters plans for a cleaner government, promising to "close the revolving door between city government and lobbying."

But while Emanuel goes on the trail shaking hands, with his hand sanitizer nearby, White House insiders tell us they are relieved their time with the famously foulmouthed former chief of staff is over -- and they're taking bets on how many days until "Rahmbo" blows up on a constituent.

"You better pull your [bleep]ing tampons out," was a typical phrase used by President Obama's sharp-tongued former top aide to question the masculinity of his male staffers, a source said.

A former aide to Emanuel said his vulgar lines and aggressiveness rubbed many the wrong way. "He's always been rough with staffers and particularly insensitive around females," the ex-aide told us.

I think the funniest part of this piece is not the details surrounding the vulgar Emanuel expressions (which I'm sure Rahmbo just thinks are colorful and not offensive) but the Emanuel campaign email that says Rahmbo will bring clean government to Chicago and end "the revolving door between city government and lobbying."

Rahm Emanuel ending the connection between government and lobbying would be like Ronald McDonald ending the connection between McDonald's food and obesity.

Just not going to happen, you know?

Challenge To Rahm's Residency Status Filed In Court

Now this would be change I can believe in:

A challenge filed Friday to invalidate Rahm Emanuel’s candidacy in the Chicago mayoral race, says Mr. Emanuel's campaign, is a political trick by forces looking to "hijack" the election in February.

Chicago area election lawyer Burt Odelson filed his challenge to the Chicago Board of Elections, saying that Emanuel does not meet a state law that requires all candidates to be residents of the municipality in which they seek office for at least one year. He filed on behalf of two Chicago residents; on Wednesday, five other challenges were filed separately. Tuesday is the last day objections can be filed to the election board.

Central to Mr. Odelson’s argument is that Emanuel was removed from voter rolls twice during his two-year tenure in Washington, when he served as White House chief of staff to President Obama. During that time, Emanuel rented out his home. His campaign says he maintained ties to the city by paying property taxes, maintaining a driver's license, and voting in the February primary.

The challenges are likely to complicate Emanuel's campaign, in that a cloud of uncertainty will loom over his candidacy and he will likely be forced to address the issue in public appearances.

Emanuel has been playing hardball in this campaign already, dropping a dime on Jesse Jackson Jr. and buying off a few other potential candidates.

He leads in a poll released this week by 27 points over his nearest opponent.

Boy, wouldn't justice be served if this corporate criminal was declared ineligible to run over residency status?

Rahm Announces Officially

Rahmbo tries to take Chicago by fooling all of the people all of the time:

CHICAGO — In a city known for its cutthroat politics, Rahm Emanuel's first public approach to winning the votes and, perhaps more importantly, the hearts of Chicago voters is as simple as it is disarming: be nice.

It's not a usual pose for a man who earned his reputation as a brash dealmaker during two tours as a White House adviser and three terms in Congress.

Emanuel — who was toiling as President Barack Obama's chief of staff six short weeks ago — officially announced his bid for mayor in a packed elementary school gym on Chicago's north side, showing his softer, emotional side in an event that sought to downsize one of Washington's biggest personalities for a local audience.

Emanuel, flanked by his wife and children on a small stage at John C. Cooley Elementary, choked up when discussing his childhood in nearby Albany Park — and his father Benjamin M. Emanuel, a Jerusalem-born pediatrician, known around Chicago as "Doc" Emanuel.

Oh, Rahmbo, what a sweet, heart-warming scene.

Too bad it's fake.

Given what happened earlier in the week, some people in Chicago seem to know that.

I hope a majority of people in Chicago know it.

Voting for Rahmbo to run Chicago would be like voting for Monsanto, G.E., JP Morgan Chase, and Microsoft to run Chicago.

Rahm never found a corporation he wouldn't put above humans.

I find this characterization of Rahm at Huffingtonpost to be on target:

“Rahm is a self absorbed jerk. His first allegiance is to himself. Then to Israel. Then to big money. Then to corporations. America, Democrats, Unions, Progressives and Chicagoans are at the bottom of his list, although you can bet he will cater to all until the election is over. If this jack wad is elected, Chicago is in serious trouble.”

I dunno about Israel, but I can attest from watching Rahm first as a congressman and then as Obama's chief of staff that he certainly does put himself, big money, and corporations way above America, Democrats, Unions, Progressives and Chicagoans.