By Steve Rhodes
The truth about Judy Baar Topinka. Plus: Hate Worldwide and Rahm vs. the Leftovers.
Keywords: Cat Stevens, Spock’s Brain, Grayson Moorhead Securities, Marcel Pacatte, Rich Miller, Alan Keyes, Slayer, Hogan’s Heroes, Ronald Reagan, Joseph Stalin, Peggy Noonan, Torture Report, Barbara Tuchman, John Conroy, Jon Burge, Helstar, Rahm Emanuel, Bob Fioretti, Chuy Garcia, Meg Myers, Chicago.
SHOW NOTES
:00: Strawberry Rock Show.
:55: Cat Stevens at the Chicago Theatre on Tuesday night.
5:25: The K Is Not Silent.
* Welcome, Mike Knezovich!
* The Beachwood Radio Sports Hour #29: Bears Remorse.
Coach-killer Cutler kills Kromer. Plus: Professional Baseball Comes To Chicago! And: Blackhawks Bungle.
6:49: Don’t Feed The Comptrollers!
* Wikipedia: “A comptroller (pronounced controller) is a management level position responsible for supervising the quality of accounting and financial reporting of an organization.”
So comptroller is pronounced controller?
* The Controller in “Spock’s Brain.”
* Illinois Comptroller.
* Michael Madigan Blocking Merger Of Treasurer, Comptroller Offices.
* Judy Baar Topinka Dies Early Wednesday After Stroke.
* Actually, Eric Zorn suggests appointing Tom Cross comptroller.
* Tom Cross, former House Minority Leader, said he was running for state treasurer to “clean up the mess in Springfield.”
* Standing Tall for Illinois.
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* The framework for running the state offices of treasurer and comptroller.
* Jane Byrne sucked.
* It’s not like Topinka was an awesome public servant; what a kickass treasurer! And her comptrolling? Fuggedaboutit! Her legacy is Alan Keyes, a reluctant and awful run for governor, and her otherwise harmless popularity. In other words, she botched the actual, real and important work handed to her, but was really good at the non-essential.
* Mike’s wife, Beth Finke.
* I’m Going To Miss Judy Baar Topinka’s Handwritten Notes.
* Aunt Judy.
* Marcel Pacatte’s “controversial” Op-Ed about Topinka for Crain’s.
* Capitol Fax Blog’s Rich Miller calls the truths of Pacatte’s piece “bile.”
* Too many reporters cover the image, not the person.
37:36: Slayer at the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond last Saturday night.
39:04: Hate Worldwide.
* #TortureReport.
* The only detainee named by John Kass in his unapologetic column about American torture was actually a guy we froze to death – and one of many cases of mistaken identities. In other words, an innocent guy we killed. For no reason. Kass didn’t mention that part.
* Canadian Town To Be Honored For 9/11 Role.
* Hogan’s Heroes Fan Club: The Geneva Convention.
* What Reagan Signed.
* “One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.” – Joe Stalin
* “News numbers.”
* Peggy Noonan: “Someone has to be the good guys.”
* But don’t get me wrong.
* Barbara Tuchman, The March of Folly.
* Renewing the draft – Beachwood-style.
* Being The ‘Indispensable Nation’ Is Killing American Democracy.
* Unspeakable Acts: Torture In Chicago.
* From Justice for John Conroy:
“There are a lot of people out there screaming that Jon Burge is a monster, but I have not portrayed Jon Burge as a monster.” In a 2005 piece, for example, Conroy dug into Burge’s army record from the 1960s that described how the eighteen-year-old recruit went on to become a military policeman in Korea, “gathering five letters of appreciation from superiors that praised his loyalty, devotion to duty, outstanding performance, military bearing, appearance, attention to detail, tact, and extra effort.”
In 1968, Burge volunteered for Vietnam. He returned home in 1969 and soon joined the Chicago Police Department. In 1972, Conroy wrote, Burge prevented a twenty-two-year-old woman on the South Side from committing suicide by jamming his thumb into the firing mechanism an instant before she squeezed the trigger.
“I think if you were to look at the press coverage of Jon Burge and look who has written about the heroic things that he did on the job and in Vietnam, I’m pretty much solo,” Conroy adds. “If someone else did it too, they took it from my coverage.”
1:08:47: Helstar at Bobby McGee’s in Chicago Ridge last Saturday night.
1:09:56: Rahm vs. the Leftovers.
* Being tough.
* Next men up.
* The reality of Rahm won’t change, but people’s perception may. That’s what the money is for.
* Rahm: banking on his unlikability.
* Getting things done; in Chicago, the bar is pretty low.
* No separation of powers.
* “Illinois was problematic, because the House Speaker is the chair of the party and also personally owns the list. So for Illinois we had to do it through Durbin. We couldn’t use the state party. So really it was a 49-state strategy.”
* Michael Madigan only goes out one way: In a box.
1:41:17: Meg Myers at the Aragon last Saturday night.
STOPPAGE: 43:58.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on December 14, 2014