Supposedly, the G-8 trainers have let the cat out of the bag:

• Second Watch is going to be the downtown force. First and Third watches will be covering the districts.

This has popped up in a few comment sections over the past few days.

Are they trying to provoke a mass wave of retirements?

Rumors floating in from some of our sources:

• Hey SCC, have you heard this one?
  
  Starting immediately, GEU (the Gang Enforcement Unit) will be limited to around 5,000 hours of overtime for the entire Unit for all of 2012.
  
  That means no chasing down leads, tips and clues. Everything will be filed and passed onto the next crew for follow up. That also means pulling the gang guys off the street to do paper for the file. All court will be when on duty or you don't go, meaning the afternoon crews will be working days for Court appearances.
  
  The Fugitive Unit is next, and supposedly, they are going to try to limit Detective overtime to 20 hours per member per pay period. Watch the clearance rate plummet to zero.
  

Sounds like a lot of Continuing Investigations and stalled charging. Those "volunteer units" like GEU and Fugitives are looking less and less desirable without the OT aspect. Anyone got the scoop on these?

Anita Alvarez continues to make the entire Koschman affair look like the biggest coverup since Watergate:

• Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez is fighting an effort by the family of David Koschman to make public transcripts of witness interviews related to Koschman’s homicide case.

  “The wholesale disclosure of the information that the petitioners request would disrupt the ongoing criminal investigation and further undermine an already dim prospect of any future criminal prosecution” of Richard J. Vanecko, a nephew of former Mayor Richard M. Daley, Alvarez said Tuesday in an 11-page filing.

What future criminal prosecution? Hasn't Anita and her people said there will be no prosecution? Everything they've said to this point implies there won't be any justice for David Koschman.

Oh wait, the civil suit. Right, we had forgotten about that. Anita has to continue to protect the Daley crime family from embarrassment and the criminal justice system.

As if by magic:

• Malcolm X College will get a new $251 million campus as part of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's push to turn the community college into a pipeline for the health care jobs he says will be a major growth area in Chicago.

Well, the pension funds must be safe if Rahm feels good enough to spend so much money. Congratulations Chicago!

Brought to you by Governor Pat "Soft On Crime" Quinn:

• A super-maximum security prison in Downstate Tamms that human-rights groups contend is inhumane and a women’s maximum-security prison in Dwight face closure under a proposed spending plan that Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration described as “the toughest budget we’ve faced.”

  The governor’s intended mothballing of those two facilities comes on top of his planned closures of two youth-detention centers and six secure halfway houses, the latter of which could result in the early release of as many as 1,000 inmates into the general public, the state government’s largest employee union predicted Tuesday.

That "crime is down" bullshit won't survive a month - just like last time Quinn released a few thousand inmates early. That spike left a trail of bodies across all of Cook County.

Joshua Bar Joseph of Carpenters Local 1 Nazareth confronted by Media Matters


The clown opera that is the national media trots out a video of a speech given by Rick Santorum in 2008 at Ave Maria University in Florida. Okay.

Ave Maria University is a Catholic University funded and founded by Tom Monahan, a devout Catholic millionaire who like many Catholics was troubled by schools of high education and universities traditionally identified as Roman Catholic morphing into University of Chicago.

I still can not get my head around Notre Dame's conferring an Honorary Degree upon Planned Parenthood's only President. Likewise Jesuit Georgetown's spineless removal of religious iconography in compliance with the most secular White House since Woodrow Wilson. It was not my call, to be sure, but I don't need to like it.

Tom Monahan's Ave Maria University is the real deal. In a few years, Ave Maria will give the PR and PC driven school in South Bend, Indiana a sound drubbing on the grid-iron.

Sen. Santorum was in the wilderness in 2008. He was out of the Senate, but in-demand as an intelligent voice of orthdox Christian principles. Sen. Santorum is now the front-runner for the GOP and Media target for duration.

Maureen Dowd is a clever but silly woman with a perch at the New York Times. Raised a Catholic, but evolved a Feminist Progressive. Maureen Dowd has pushed to front of the crowd of Pharisees taking shots at Santorum's very sound Satan analogies and historical consequences of secularism. In fact Santiorum sounds like GK Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc and CS Lewis much more than Dowd's Savanorola - Dominican Preacher in 15th Century Florence who condemned the Borgia and the Medici 1%-ers who controlled banking and the Papacy. Savanorola was torched by the media of his day -literally and figuratively.

Rick Santorum has been called a latter-day Savonarola.

That’s far too grand. He’s more like a small-town mullah.

“Satan has his sights on the United States of America,” the conservative presidential candidate warned in 2008. “Satan is attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that has so deeply rooted in the American tradition.”

Mo don't like the Satan bit. Shoot, Satan even a had a part in Jesus Christ Superstar, as well as those "big-nosed garlic eaters" that Rev, Jeremiah Wright hated, Mo.

Feminists and Progressives hold that belief in sin is a sign of the 'unevolved.'

To be evolved one must accept every manifestation of sexual procilivity as a'Oh, So Human and the Way One was Born.' Mo goes on -Santorum, who is considered “too Catholic” even by my über-Catholic brothers, clearly believes that America’s soul wounds include men and women having sex for reasons other than procreation, people involved in same-sex relationships, women using contraception or having prenatal testing, environmentalists who elevate “the Earth above man,” women working outside the home, “anachronistic” public schools, Mormonism (which he said is considered “a dangerous cult” by some Christians), and President Obama (whom he obliquely and oddly compared to Hitler and accused of having “some phony theology”).

Well, yeah. That might be what one might believe Maureen might one not? Jesus of Nazareth, not the Godspell Clown Jesus, said to the woman 'caught' in adultery - " I shall not condemn you, but, go and sin no more." BUT! For Dewey/Hegalian hair-splitting 'Yeah, But-ters' that is a tough conclusive clause.

The Pharisees were the Biblical Progressives, the puritans. They constantly harped at Jesus of Nazareth with Yeah But-ing. Pharisees believed in ORAL LAW - you, know, the crowd that holds with adjunct professor Obama that the Constitution is a LIVING document. No matter what is written or held as true, Pharisees (past and present) caper nimbly over any truth, just like the Father of Lies - Old Nick, Scratch, Satan.

Satan comes from the Jewish word meaning to turn away, or "to evolve."



http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/sadducees_pharisees_essenes.html

The Keystone XL pipeline project will ensure energy security, job creation and stimulate the economy. Keystone XL is a critical energy infrastructure project

JAY CARNEY -White House: But the president didn’t turn down the Keystone pipeline.

The pipeline must not have gotten the meme, there Jay.

Must have been something in the aquifer.

President Obama has been scripted since 2007 to have only a nodding acquittance with wage-earning, beer swilling, gun-toting, Bible-thumping, Lent Friday fish-eating, Abortion hating, stump-jumping, tax-paying Esses, Homies, Micks, Polacks, Moojis, Loogans, BoHunks, Dagos, Hebes, and Hillbillies.

These are folks who generally purchase beers like Keystone Light in the handy Hold My Stones Cool Pack, and top-off the tank of 1991 Ford Taurus hatchback at Thornton's, Safeway, Speedway, Food For Less and Singh's Gas and Go.

The bonus cold can crowd are most anxious to hear from President Obama why he deigned to eschew the bounty of Canada's natural gas and petro pipeline - Keystone.

Keystone should be the rally cry for Americans.

Religious liberty assaults from the Obama regime, notwithstanding, the cavalier cave-in to radical soul-patched Redfern Greens and tree-huggers; thus, making the pump prices equal to a pint of vanity beer at a chic Micro-Craft Beer salon is a huge assault on all Americans - except the 1% ers who fill Obama 2012 Campaign PACs and coffers.

If one were serious about regime change, and I most certainly happen to be thus inclined, Keystone would be the touchstone and the national beer summit.


Let Keystone return America to greatness! Hold My Stones for four more years . . .?Oh, I think not, President Obama!

http://www.transcanada.com/5747.html

The first woman to kiss Elvis on the big screen was Mother Prioress Dolores Hart







Skinny Sheahan asked, " Hickey, have you read the article about Dolores Hart? Read it."

Skinny suggests and this dude abides. Read it, Mr. Skinny. Thought about what I had read, too. Here it is.

What will I give up for Lent? Whatever it will be by the end of today, Ash Wednesday, will be as nothing compared to what Dolores Hart gave up decades ago.

Dolores Hart was a movie star who played in films with Anthony Quinn and Elvis. Dolores Hart is now Mother Prioress Dolores of Regina Laudis Abbey in in New England. She is a contemplative Roman Catholic nun.

Let's see, Hollywood, Stardom, Riches given up for a life of prayer,silence, contemplation and service.

Dolores Hart set the bar pretty high. I will no doubt give up something like oatmeal cookies from the Leo Cafeteria, third helpings of pierogi, or blaspheming every time I see that CTA photo of Forrest Claypool looking for the L in the wrong direction.

Mother Dolores, as she is now known, is the subject this year of an Oscar-nominated documentary short, "God Is the Bigger Elvis," which airs April 5 on HBO. The documentary chronicles her life as a nun after a Hollywood career that saw her costar with Elvis Presley ("Loving You" in 1957 and "King Creole" in 1958), Anthony Quinn ("Wild Is the Wind," 1957) and George Hamilton ("Where the Boys Are," 1960). Her favorite is "Lisa," from 1962, in which she played a Jewish refugee after World War II. Before the documentary, she last appeared on the big screen in 1963's "Come Fly With Me," a comedy about flight attendants looking for love.

Not only does "God Is the Bigger Elvis" explore Mother Dolores' life in Hollywood and at the monastery, but it also chronicles the day-to-day life of the nuns at the abbey, which is also a working farm. Like Mother Dolores, a lot of the nuns had previous occupations, including the law and science, before they changed vocations.

Imagine MSNBC's Chris Matthews -Trappist Monk. "HA!!!."

Better yet, Pat Hickey IVI-IPO Goo-goo. Now, that would be one Hell of a Cross to bear anywhere. . . . and I don't have a hair-shirt.


http://www.feelnumb.com/2010/11/04/elvis-presley-co-star-love-interest-dolores-hart-became-a-nun/

Won't somebody think of the horses?

• Horses in the Chicago Police Department’s Mounted Unit assigned to crowd control during the NATO and G-8 summits will be outfitted with “riot gear,” just like the officers riding them and those on the ground facing off against protesters.

  Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration is soliciting bids for “police horse riot gear and training aids” in preparation for the May 19-21 summits at McCormick Place expected to shine an international spotlight on Chicago.

• An officer assigned to the Mounted Unit, who asked to remain anonymous, noted that some of the 30 horses “may not be street-ready” in time for the NATO and G-8 summits.

  “If you look at our manpower, there’s enough of us where we could take a city street. If they split us up, we could possibly do two locations, but our effectiveness would be diminished. That’s the most they could get out of us: two locations. And these demonstrators could be everywhere,” the officer said.

We're sure it's one of those non-competitive bids, too.

We're waiting for the bid to come out for "Lances, Shields, Maces and Plate Armor." A good old fashioned cavalry charge might be exactly what is needed to clear the streets at some point.

Evidently, a whole bunch of friends of the convicted are going to pack the room:

• I am writing this to inform officers that tomorrow, 21 Feb 12, offender Howard Morgan who shot two police officers in 05 is being sentenced.
  
  An officer safety alert was issued for the four officers(victims)in this case today because apparently shitheads sent out flyers to pack rm 600 to protest the sentencing.
  
  If any officers in court at 26 can stop by rm 600 to show support it would be greatly appreciated. thanks in advance

Stop by to help make sure this asshole gets the max.

Chicago is Rahm Emanuel's foot-stool that he will use to step up to the White House. If we all just listen very carefully skippingover the no longer bubbly waters of Bubbly Creek you can almost hear Mayor Rahm chirping these words:

"I can not wait to get the #$%^ out of this Hick Burg. For #$%^'s sake he had to keep is #$%^ing mouth shut ever since Bert Odelson dragged his #$%^-ing a$$ in front of Sister Queen and Joe Morris.

Cops and their #$%^ing Coon Eyes, Firemen, 'Oh Bob Hoff! Bob Hoff!' Hey, #$%^ Bob Hoff! Skinny Sheahan's South Side Parade down in that vast-waste land of Mackeral Snappers, Where's Jewish Parade???? Whiny Mick #$%^s! Karen Lewis and News, Dope Smoking . . . . don't say it. Local School Councils, Mr. Corruption Dick Simposn our éminence chauve of do-nothing Goo-goos, Oh Yeah! Forrest "CTA Wheels" Claypool (. . .is there a #$%^ing job that clown #$%^ can do?), LaLaPalooza, Holy Name Cathderal, Andy Thayer Thounth like Theam Ethcaping!! #$%^ Me! Gay Pride Palestinianth, Water, Sugar, Cameras!!!!!!!!!!! #$%^, Me!!!!!!!!!! Come on G-8! Come on May! Come on NATO! Get me out of this #$%^ing Hick Burg!"

I feel his pain.

Why I am just Chickled Titless about the billion and change the twin riot venues will cost this city. Rahm is out of here in three. It will be easier if President Teleprompter Jarrett . . .I mean Obama, wins. Good luck with that. Rahm is going to the White House. It's a done deal. After the riots and lawsuits from anarchists, we get a billion dollar bill and Euro trash agree to say Chicago is No Longer the Al Capone City. Rahm runs for President. Everything is staked out.

Here is how I see Rahm pounding the stakes:

1. Toni Preckwinkle will be Mayor

2. Dart can stay at Sheriff

3. Quigley gets the County Board and Forrest Claypool's next appointment

4. Lisa Madigan or Tom Tunney can fight it out of Governor unless Quinn gets himself impeached

5. Sheila Simon stays as LT. Guv

6. Danny Hynes gets Treasury

7. Jan Schakowsky gets Kirk's Senate Seat

8. Joe Moore gets Durbin's - trhey are identical

9. Quinn, if he manages to stay out of jail, goes to the BGA with Andy Shaw, or Team Teaching at UICC with Progressive éminence chauve Thundering Dick Simpson

10. Obama builds his library in Hawaii

11. Chicago gets fully absorbed into Hyde Park and becomes a suburb of the University of Chicago. . . .FINALLY!

12. That #$%^ing squatter that Mr. Residency Bert Odelson dug up gets a long swim along the shores of Old Man Chicago from Bubbly Creek to McCook. Call Deb Shore and get the blue MWRD tug.

I could not be more . . .Chickled Titless!

Total Security Spending for the 2010 G8 & G20 Summits Department/Agency Spending

1.Royal Canadian Military Police $507,459,400

2.Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness $278,310,228

3.National Defence $77,570,000

4.Canadian Security Intelligence Service $3,137,483

5.Health $2,266,619

6.Canada Border Services Agency $1,180,070

7.Transport $1,240,581

8.Canadian Air Transport Security Authority $399,399

9. Public Health Agency of Canada $583,330

10. Industry $2,839,000

11. Contingency Reserve (Fiscal framework) $55,000,000

Total $929,986,110

And that's in Yankee Dollars!

http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/evaluations/factsheet/factsheet_costs.pdf

GOP Candidates -Lay off the President! He's has enough enemies.

President Bar-Frack(ing)* Obama. That's the ticket. He's no Fracking Hero to the Birkenstock Leftist Tree Huggers more worried about the one tree standing in Wyoming -"Dude we must save Big John from the Gas Man's Ax Man! Fracking will kill us all,"

The GOP knows how to lose an election. Democrats know how to win. The GOP needs to tap into the ideas and inclinations of Democrats disgusted with the people around President Obama - not President Obama, much less his wife and kids. President Obama fronts for some nasty and smart people who do not like religion, people who toil and pay taxes, people who really believe that America is the greatest nation on God's green earth, people who are appalled that we as a people consider the murder of children to be a civil right and health issue. You know what many, many many of those people happen to be Democrats.

The GOP, to this Democrat anyway, is the party that blows off its own toes with the regularity of Monsoons in Asia. The Elephant in the straw kelly still wears tasseled loafers and has acute memory loss - The Plutocratic Pachyderm forgot all of the lessons learned from Ronald Reagan - a Democrat most of his life.

Respect Real, Genuine Labor, people of all Faiths and people of little or know faith, and welcome them.

In 2008, I wrote an article for Chicago Daily Observer about a John McCain campaign event in Wisconsin. McCain was introduced by a dynamic young Congressman named Paul Ryan. During the Q & A, I had an opportunity to ask about School Choice. I prefaced my remark with "I'm a Chicago Democrat . . ." The boos flowed like it was Fat Tuesday.

Senator McCain did a head toss, followed by a smile of welcome that betokened an expectant hostility from me. I explained, should not have or had to do so, that I was a fan. Senator McCain quoted chapter and verse from his Campaign website's issues page. I was underwhelmed.

While the event was billed as an open forum, with no questions barred, the crowd Thursday was clearly in McCain's corner.

The only boos came when Pat Hickey stood up and identified himself as a Chicago resident and a Democrat. He quickly noted to applause: "There are a lot of us supporting Senator McCain."

Hickey, a teacher at a private school in Chicago, asked McCain about school choice, which McCain supports.

Other questions ranged from college affordability to the appointment of Supreme Court justices. All brought familiar responses.

One woman questioned McCain on the war and its cost to the economy.

"It's succeeding," McCain said of the war. "I can look you in the eye and tell you it's succeeding."

Thursday's visit included an evening fund-raiser in Milwaukee, one of several held this week by the campaign in the days before the close of a reporting period Saturday.

McCain has languished behind Obama and Clinton in fund raising, though the national party has more in the bank than Democrats.

Money does not win an election. Political smarts and, or if absolutely necessary, basic honesty win an election. Barack Obama is President because of political smarts - he stayed on message - each day and every day. Since taking the oath

The GOP is bait. They are bait for the media, because they think that they can win them over. Not a chance. You have about as much chance of being media darling (Democrat or GOP), if you embrace the virtues of my first paragraph, as the establishment of a Knights of Columbus Charter at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or University of Chicago.

The media revels in the mythology of Mencken. Every silly little Medill School of Journalism wants to play at being an atheist/agnostic sojourner for truth. Therefore, if it is religious it is bad - Jewish, Catholic, or Protestant Evangelical.

Therefore, Rick Santorum, or Paul Ryan or Congressman Dan Lipinski (D.Chicago) will always be treated like lepers. Bart Stupak was UP Michigan Mossback Rube until his Come to Barack Moment in 2009.

You will not get anywhere with social issues - avoid them; get in the White House.

Never apologise and never explain. Rick Santorum has created a Cuisinart of Spinning Vegetables over this past weekend, when every one else wants to know how much longer the turkey will be in the oven. Meat first! Spoon vitals to pour on!

Stick to this GOP wannabees - President Obama is a nice guy with sharply creased britches and a taste for waffles. He is surrounded by Marxist ( but don't say Marxist - why belabor the obvious) courtiers, viziers, sneaks and bootlickers who are the Obama Regime. Obama is like King Louis in the Three Musketeers. He knows not what he does. His centurions are doing the scourging and the crucifying in his name.

THEY - are killing the economy! Bar Fracking Greenies! The X-line Pipeline Kids! Check the PUMP! NO Budget! Eric Holder! Van Jones! Anna Dunn! Samantah Power! Planned Parenthood Stooge Sec. Kathleen Sebelius, Nambla's Kevin Jennings, President Obama's Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Safe and Drug FreeSchools at the U.S. Department of Education ... & etc.

The Regime not the Man!

As the great Chicago Democrat James "Skinny" Sheahan once told me, " You will never win the debate over abortion, because you are on the right side. Abortion is murder. Do not get trapped explaining your convictions with 'what if your daughter were raped? What if there was a bomb attached to the baby in the womb? The abortion issue will not be won on a Campaign trail. Stay away from it. Win the war one step at a time."

Santorum needs to fire some people and hire some Democrats who are not happy with the Obama Regime. Avoid Contraception! Let Cardinal Dolan bat that one into the cheap seats. Stay on the Regime, ignore the man.

Demand a budget! Demand a look into the Justice Department! Hammer away at Media Matters! It was handed to you guys use it! Stay away from stupid - short term subjects that matter only to Maddow, Matthews and MSNBC.

Back the Commander in Chief! You have the President's back on all foreign entanglements. Don't try to get cute; you're a goddam elephant, for Crissakes.

The economy is bad. That's it. The Bar Frack Obama Regime killed the oil and gas in Canada that is going to Red China and pumps will be $5 a gallon by Memorial Day. Say no more.


* and this from lefty goofballs ala HuffPo, Michael Moore and Crown Heights Al Sharpton:


Get this straight, humans: President Obama is a friend of the oil and gas industry. The recent denial of the permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline does not mean that Obama has changed his tune on unconventional natural gas. Obama himself has bought the industry hype that unconventional natural gas will liberate us from the “tyranny of oil.”

Ah, the poor man! Free him of this burden, November 12, 2012.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/president/29570334.html
http://www.cdobs.com/archive/our-columns/mccain-town-hall-greendale-wisconsin/

We guess we're winning, at least according to Frank Main:

• The intersection looks like countless others on the Northwest Side.

  Lots of trees, well-kept frame homes, a plant-filled traffic circle.

  But there’s also a street sign spray-painted with a blue pitchfork — the symbol of the Maniac Latin Disciples.

  It’s Barry and Spaulding. “B.S.” for short. The gang members who call it their turf, however, have a new name for the neighborhood surrounding B.S.

  “It’s like the Bermuda Triangle,” one high-ranking gang member told the Chicago Sun-Times. “As long as you fly around it, you’re OK. But the minute you drive in there, you get sucked in [by the police.]”

The article goes on to quote all sorts of anonymous and even "ranking gang members" who claim the heat is so bad on them that they can't even sell dope in the hood anymore. Boo-freaking-hoo.

Here's a truly odd quote though - we hear this far more among cops and the law abiding citizens than gang bangers. In fact, we can't ever remember this coming up among the criminal set:

• Maniac Latin Disciples members are now under gang orders to keep violence to a minimum because of the police crackdown, the ranking member said. Still, they’re continuing to arm themselves for self-defense, he said.

  “Everybody’s toting a gun,” he said. “I’d rather be judged by 12 than carried by six. You can’t disarm because you’re vulnerable.”

Go read it and venture an opinion here. The stats say crime is down, but the people talking to Frank claim everyone is running around armed to the teeth. Something doesn't ring true to our ears, but maybe we're just cynical.

You want to see how easy it is to manipulate statistics until the numbers start to scream? Look how they do it in Washington DC:

• For the past two months, D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier has touted the city’s astronomically high homicide closure rate — 94 percent for 2011 — and warned anyone contemplating murder in the District to think twice.

  “Your risk of being caught is pretty high if you commit a homicide in D.C.,” Lanier told The Washington Post in December.

Wow. They must have the best detectives in the whole world, right?

• But an examination of District homicides found that the department’s closure rate is a statistical mishmash that makes things seem much better than they are. The District had 108 homicides last year, police records show. A 94 percent closure rate would mean that detectives solved 102 of them. But only 62 were solved as of year’s end, for a true closure rate of 57 percent, according to records reviewed by The Post.

  D.C. police achieved the high closure rate last year by including about 40 cases from other years that were closed in 2011.

57% is still almost double Chicago's rate. But you can see exactly how data manipulation leads to a slightly skewed view of results and how the political structure can use the revised data to achieve a certain end.

Anyone want to bet what big city department is about to start torturing their own numbers to make sure a certain politician has a shot at a Senate seat, maybe even a presidential run?

Saturday is a throwaway newspaper day. Anything that shouldn't see the light of day goes in the Saturday rag. Here's what Sneed had in her column:

• Chicago’s murder rate, which had been sky rocketing off the charts early this year, has eased up dramatically.
  
  * Background: The first 23 days of 2012 saw a 74 percent increase in murders compared to the same time period last year (from 19 murders in 2011 to 33 this year).
  
  * Foreground: As of Friday, statistics show the murder rate is now only 9 percent greater than it was this time last year (from 44 murders in 2011 up to 48 in 2012).
  
  * The reason: Police spokesman [...], citing preliminary information, attributed the drop to a recent saturation of police resources in the 7th and 11th districts — which accounted for nearly one third of this year’s murders.

So all those resources poured into 007 and 011, two communities that have been at war with each other as well as the police for nearly 50 years now, and all we have to show for it is that the city murder rate is still rising.....but at least it's rising slower.

That's what passes for good news around here - it's only up 9%.

Poor management of inventory leads to this:

• Once meant for public trains and buses, the untouched heaters, rod ends and spools of copper wire have instead collected dust for years at the Chicago Transit Authority's main warehouse.
  
  But a cleanup is under way.
  
  As part of the initiative to cut costs and increase efficiency, the CTA plans to auction off about one-third of its total inventory of unused parts and supplies in late spring, officials said. It will also hire a qualified company to manage inventory, they said.

The qualified company being Vanecko Widget Counters Incorporated.

Poor management of a city leads to this:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel is mounting a challenge to 2010 U.S. Census estimates that Chicago lost about 200,000 residents.
  
  Big city mayors regularly contest the once-a-decade census results, which determine how much federal funding flows to different parts of the country. Chicago would gain about $1,200 annually for the next decade for each person added to the official population, according to Emanuel’s office.
  
  Emanuel’s predecessor, Mayor Richard Daley, launched an unsuccessful bid to get Chicago’s 2000 population numbers increased. In 1990, Daley and other mayors tried futilely to get Congress to give them additional time to fight the census results.

Money being spent that Chicago doesn't have, to get more money from Washington that Obama doesn't have either.

Cardinal George of Chicago Lives the Sacrifice of the Eucharist 24/7 - So will Cardinal Dolan of NY

When the doctrines and practices that support religious consciousness are dismissed—as they so often are in contemporary secularism—the moral convictions born of that consciousness are imperilled. This is the massively important point missed by those who so blithely say, “it doesn’t matter what you believe, as long as you’re a nice person.” Father Bob Barron


I'm a Catholic, a sinful, vain, lazy, shiftless, filthy-minded, one, but a Catholic nevertheless. The Church is stuck with me and I try as best I am able to stick with the Church. It is not easy; nor is it supposed to be.

I pretty much know when I have sinned, but there are always loving people around me to reinforce what jerk I have been; therefore, a trip to the penalty box and confession and also some tasks and words to make things right again. The elevation to Cardinal this past Sunday of New York's Archbishop Timothy Dolan is an especially happy event for this raggedy-man. Cardinal Dolan is a reflection of what an American Catholic should be - a very happy warrior of Christ.

Francis Cardinal George and his predecessor Joseph Cardinal Bernardin paved the way for young men like Timothy Dolan. Dolan, it seems to me, is a composite of Cardinals Bernardin and George. Bernardin was welcomed to Chicago with balloons and tears of joy and exited to tears of sorrow upon his death. Cardinal Bernardin had it made, compared to Cardinal George. Cardinal George walked into minefields laid by politicians, activists and their media purse-puppies one after another - Racism with Father Pfleger, Gay everything, Abortion patsy politicians like Quinn, Daley and Durbin. Cardinal George was confronted with more gotcha moments than any polticians by a very hostile secularist news media. Cathleen Falsani, religion writer of the Chicago Sun Times helped the radical priest activist pastor of St. Sabina's orchestrate a months long faux-Selma racist polarizing of south side parishs over Athletics, where there was none to be found. Fox WFLD anchor sneaks Mike Flannery and Dane Placko walked the Cardinal into the Gay Mafia's pre-packaged outrage over the route of the Gay Pride parade. Gay activists have staked out Holy Name Cathedral for years, as have the same members of Gay Liberation Network's Pro Palestinian cadre (Catholic School Girls Against the War) who tossed fake blood on worshipers on Easter Sunday. Cardinal George inhereited a chancery that had stood watch and protected priests from public scrutiny while they abused little boys and girls. Cardinal Bernardin had been falsely accused of abuse himself, but more of hero himself, by virtue of his gentleness and the kind opinion of the the Chicago media. During Cardinal Bernardin's tenure Catholic Schools closed, like neighborhood saloons under Richie Daley. Cardinal George stopped the bleeding.

That media tired of the Catholic Church as a the only bastion of certainty over abortion and move to Gay Marriage.

Cardinal George inherited not only the priest abuse scandal, but the network that allowed it. Cardinal George inherited a Media Spiritus Mundi that is hostile to the Catholic Church and all that it defends.

Cardinal Bernardin was a sweet and saintly fellow. Cardinal George is a very sweet guy in the tough role of teacher, pastor and public figure who gets nowhere near a break. Cardinal Bernadin had it made; Cardinal George found himself in an empty foxhole.

Not really. I have not always been happy with decisions the Cardinal makes; he didn't ask my opinion. Cardinal George acted for millions more than Pat Hickey -D+ Catholic.

Cardinal George will be remembered for being a happy warrior, during very unhappy time for his Church in Chicago. A lesser soul would have gone Postal on the media, his daffy priests, and his whiny flock.

Thanks to Cardinal George whose leadership with the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops confronted the abuse scandal, pushed Catholic Schools, fought the powerful Abortion Industry of Planned Parenthood, stood for the sanctity of marriage, and itegrity of the Church during a time of secularist persecution.


Cardinal Dolan can thank Cardinal George for falling on most of the barbed wire for him. The Cardinal Bernardin part he is handling easily and with aplomb; the Cardinal George part will really test his place in American History.

Personally, I think that Cardinal Tim Dolan will do us all proud. Almost as proud as Francis Cardinal George.


http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/02/new_yorks_archbishop_timothy_d.html