By Steve Rhodes
1. “Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois thanked Mayor Richard Daley on the floor of the U.S. Senate for his years of service to Chicago,” AP reports.
Durbin then joked that if Daley had been a Republican with a similar record of scandal and corruption he would have led the charge to remove him from office long ago.
Or did I just imagine that?
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But I thought Daley was a Republican, sort of.
Yes, but not that kind of Republican. He’s more of a Republicrat. Or, really, a Daleycrat.
2. Rahm Emanuel’s new chief of staff is just the bestest!
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“Mintle did not return calls.”
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So she’s “not afraid to make difficult decisions” but she’s afraid to return a reporter’s phone calls?
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Curiously, this article doesn’t provide a single instance of a difficult decision Mintle wasn’t afraid to make.
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“[O]ne thing is certain: Mintle is prepared for the challenge of a lifetime running a city on the brink.”
A) City on the brink! News at 10!
B) After Mintle is chewed up and spit out, we’ll get to read stories about how she really wasn’t the right person for the post – as opposed to her replacement, who will be the bestest.
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“Mayor Daley spit out chiefs of staff almost as often as most people spit out gum.”
Um, how often is that? Because most people don’t spit out gum very often, do they? I’m not even sure most people chew gum, and those who do are just as likely, if not more, I’m willing to bet, to dispose of their gum properly. A better metaphor might have been “Mayor Daley spit out chiefs of staff almost as often as I ought to get a performance review” because it probably comes out to almost once a year.
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What Fran Spielman couldn’t be bothered with:
– Theresa Mintle’s LinkedIn profile.
* She contributed to both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in 2008 – within eight days of each other.
* She contributed $1,000 to Rahm’s mayoral campaign.
* She fits right in with Rahm’s call for sacrifice to all; from a 2009 Sun-Times article about executive raises from 2006 to 2008 at the CTA (even as she was reportedly praised for managing budget cuts and layoffs there):
Theresa E. Mintle , chief of staff* $109,725 $126,167 $154,544 41%
The asterisk indicates she changed jobs or was new to the CTA at some point in that period.
* She’s also once made a (small) donation to a charter school, which also makes her a perfect fit for Rahm.
* She and her husband sold a unit at 230 E. Delaware Place for $1.38 million in 2007 – doubling their investment. She had previously lived at 210 E. Pearson St. She appears to now live at 232 E. Walton Place.
No wonder she showed up in Panache Privee.
* Her husband, Mike Toolis, is an Ed Burke campaign supporter, and once gave money to Gery Chico.
* Toolis is the chairman and CEO of VOA Associates, a noted architectural firm involved in many city projects, the latest of which include the new Roosevelt University tower.
* It’s not just that she was previously chief of staff to Terry Peterson, but that she was chief of staff to this Terry Peterson.
3. Emanuel Hires Tom Hynes’ Son As Top Lobbyist.
“Matthew Hynes worked for the Emanuel campaign as a consultant, and will now direct the new mayor’s Office of Legislative Counsel and Government Affairs.”
4. Mayor Daley’s Optional $1.1 Million Retirement Fund.
So why does he need us to pay for his security detail?
Isn’t this just the sort of thing we should privatize?
5. This is a sad story but no one with a job in the news business – even if it’s in a TV sports department – should be known as “a fan first, a reporter second.”
6. Huh. I’m pretty sure my parents would say our ancestors would be proud of the way I’m willing to point out that this is bullshit and Rahm is the devil’s spawn. I wonder if his parents are proud of his past as a sleazy political operator, or of how he once made a living manipulating the media instead of devoting himself to truth, or of his willingness to serve wicked financial masters in order to get rich.
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I also wonder how his parents felt about his recent little joke.
7. Cop vs. Teacher.
8. Bulls Get Dream Match-Up.
9. CAN TV: Focus on Africa.
10. The Week in Chicago Rock. (In a word – Rammstein!)
11. The Week in WTF. And what a week in WTF it was.
12. TrackNotes will be posted shortly is up and it’s awesome.
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Valued above par.
Posted on May 13, 2011