The Slickest Mayor In America

Politicians are dropping like flies these days. Whether it be an undocumented immigrant house worker, a mistress in Argentina, or a failure to pay taxes, there is no shortage of pitfalls for American politicians. One man though stands out, my beloved mayor of Chicago the honorable Richard M. Daley. Mr. Daley has the uncanny ability to survive each scandal by always having a “rouge” underlying take the fall and remained tight lipped. It truly is like something out of the movie The Godfather, but hey the streets get plowed and the street festivals are awesome in Chicago.

Here are a few highlights of my favorite Mayor Daley moments:

1. Hired Truck Program- a Federal investigation into City hiring practices at city hall involving, surprise one of Daley’s “rouges’, patronage chief Robert Sorich. Sorich basically rigged city hiring in favor of those with connections. Sorich was convicted on two counts of mail fraud (weak feds, weak!) The basis is truck drivers paid bribes to get the work and were well connected, I am sure Daley knew nothing. Daley said that "It is fair criticism to say I should have exercised greater oversight to ensure that every worker the city hired, regardless of who recommended them, was qualified and that proper procedures were always followed.
2. Bye Bye Meigs Field Hello Concert Venue! This is the best type of scandal, destroy something regular people don’t care about and build a concert venue you can profit from. Never mind Daley, had no right to destroy it! The demolition of the Meigs Field airport, which Daley ordered be carried out under cover of darkness and did not inform the Federal Aviation Administration (for which the city was fined $33,000), angered many, not least the owners of planes parked at the airport.
3. Streets and Sanitation Aide Convicted, Let’s Have a Fundraiser- Former Daley administration aide Al Sanchez was convicted of rigging city hiring practices to help enhance Mayor Richard Daley's control in Chicago's growing Latino communities. A couple weeks after his conviction a private fundraiser for Sanchez occurred. Sanchez's attorney said the event was to help Sanchez, not strictly to help pay for legal bills. Awesome!

Did You Fill Out Your Census? You Really Should, Especially If You Are of Hispanic or Latino Ancestry

By now I am sure you have all received your U.S. 2010 Census. After perusing it’s housing section you might ask yourself why does this matter?

(Think we have a prison problem in the US? I'm no expert, but I think the answer is yes, when it is a category on the Census form.)

Simply put, the constitutionally mandated Census every 10 years is meant to determine the country's population and serves as the basis for congressional districting and the distribution of federal dollars to the states and county and local governments. Census data form the basis for $400 billion in federal aid distributed annually.Got your attention didn’t I? That’s right all your tax dollars are rolled up and handed out largely based upon the results of the Census.

A bipartisan firm, Election Data Services, Inc. projects that eight states will gain at least one House seat, while eleven states will lose at least one seat in Congress. Their results are below:




States gaining House seats: Texas (+4), Arizona (+2), Florida (+1), Georgia (+1), Nevada (+1), Oregon (+1), South Carolina (+1), and Utah (+1).

States losing House seats: Ohio (-2), Illinois (-1), Iowa (-1), Louisiana (-1), Massachusetts (-1), Michigan (-1), Minnesota (-1), Missouri (-1), New Jersey (-1), New York (-1), and Pennsylvania (-1).

In reality this is going to be the most important Census in modern history. This is because this Census marks an opportunity for Latinos to gain greater influence within the US government, through congressional redistricting, as a result of the Census. This in turn creates the opportunity, if voters turn out and Latino candidates are on the ballot, for more Latinos to be voted into Congress.

Currently Latinos represent 51% of population growth in the United States since 2000. States projected to gain seats under this Census are largely Republican in nature and owe their growth to rising Latino populations in their states. Latinos are also settling in a wide range of geographic locations, vs. large cities, making their influence more widespread. Georgia and South Carolina, as well as Arizona and Texas, will owe their positions, in part, to the expanding Latino population.

The total population of Hispanic and Latino Americans comprised 46.9 million or 15.4% of the national total in 2008, according to the US Census Bureau. Yet Latinos are largely underrepresented in Congress. Given their makeup o of the population, you would expect approximately 65 House Seats and 15 Senate seats to belong to Hispanic and Latino candidates. However, currently there are 3 Latino Senators (out of 100) and 27 Representatives in the House (out of 435).

The total population of Hispanic and Latino Americans comprised 46.9 million or 15.4% of the national total in 2008, with the following racial distribution. So come on US Latinos, opportunity calls, it is time for you to take your rightful place at the table.

The 17th Amendment Ruined the Genius of the Constitution and Killed Federalism

When the Founding Fathers gathered in Philadelphia, two of their primary concerns were creating a government with checks and balances and one that respected state’s rights. For these reasons under the original scheme the Constitution provided for the election of the Senate by its respective State Legislature.

The theory behind this is that the House of Representatives was “The Peoples’ House”, while the Senate was to represent the interest of the State and hence be elected by the State Legislature. This then in turn required the people to put hard thought into the election of its State Legislatrues and Congressmen, who they were most familiar with anyways. How many of us can proclaim that these days, scary!

The Federalist #62 commented on this idea as follows:
“It is recommended by the double advantage of favoring a select appointment, and of giving to the State governments such an agency in the formation of the federal government as must secure the authority of the former, and may form a convenient link between the two systems.”

Federalist 62 highlighted the necessary linkage between the State Legislature and the Senate. A senator was thus a State Legislature’s representative in Congress. The entire system was known as the “Three Legged Stool”: the People, through the direct election of the House of Representatives; the States, through the selection of the Senatorial delegation; and the Federal government (itself a three-legged stool of the Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches).

The second concern was to provide a check and balance between Federal interests and State interests. States were conceptually sovereign states (duh “United” States) and were to retain their independent flavor and advocate these via their Senators. By having the state legislatures elect Senators, they thus provided a balance in Washington by limiting the influence of the Federal government’s scope and responsibility.

Since the States had an interest in keeping the Federal government out of the States' business, the States, through the Senate, formed a powerful check on attempts by the wealthy and powerful to quickly influence matters at the Federal level.

Through the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, occasionally states became deadlocked and delayed sending a senator to Washington. Thus an Amendment for direct election was hastily approved to thwart this problem. This in practice is not a successful solution, when you put into context the recent election of Al Franken. This short sightedness removed one of the legs from the stool and hampered the representation of State interests. Senators now elected by the people are likely to run on national issues alone and special interest which gain press coverage vs. the interest of their state, which it is their job to represent. Further this action has made irrelevant in the people’s mind the election of their state legislatures. Honestly, do you know who your state representative is? Funny how the people closest to you with power to affect your life, are the ones we are now least acquainted with.

Well we have created a house of barons, who use their wealth and the national news cycle to run for office based upon their views of very narrow national issues and special interests. All this for a decision made by the same generation who enacted and the repealed Prohibition. Therefore, I say we get out our wigs, powder them up and get our Founding Fathers on and repeal the 17th Amendment.

Sarah Palin's Safari Planet

According to Reuters former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is about to land her own Alaska travel program on either TLC or the Discovery channel. She will be banking supposedly $1.2 million an episode (Girl's banking Seinfeld cash!). I can't wait till clips of this one hit E's The Soup. Some things are just too easy to make fun of.

I do hope she highlights the view of Russia from her front yard and it would be sweet if she went hunting. Perhaps she could line up Steven Seagal as a special guest, from what I have seen on his show he is a great shot. Even better would be an appearance from Dick Cheney.

Now the key to any great show is selling advertisements. Who then is the target audience for this gem, that is so worthy of her $1.2 Million an episode asking price? WalMart's going to have to sell a lot of discount junk to make back this sort of investment? My bet is its a lot easier for Don Draper to sell a few Cadillacs and a fifth of Johnnie Walker during Mad Men.

Idiots of 2010

Hard to believe we are already a quarter of the ways through 2010 and amazingly so many Americans have already managed to exemplify their individual stupidity on such a grand scale! Here are my top 5 idiots thus far in 2010:

1. Jesse James- This guy not only "allegedly" cheats on the beautiful Sandra Bullock, but does so with a female white supremacist with tattoos on her forehead! Also way to pull an Eric Benét and have Sandra thank you for a being an awesome husband on national TV, then dropping the bomb!

2. Tiger Woods- hookers and strippers and floozies oh my! Dude why did you even get married? Iit's cool if you're a freak between the sheets, but it's not cool to cheat on a Swedish supermodel. This dude also pulls an Eric Benét and blames it on sex addiction. Only in America is "rehab" the PR cure for everything. Face it he was named "Tiger" for a reason. Elin, I have some nice single guy friends if you are interested!.

3. Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R, TX) aka "Baby Killer"- Now I could care less about his politics and don't care to open the creation can of worms. What I do take issue with is his spin job of "I said IT'S a baby killer". oooOOOoooo the addition of "it's" really made your child like outburst on CSPAN look so much more professional. Come on, that's a "no that's you" comeback if I've ever seen one. Loser!

4. Rep. Eric Massa (D, NY) - You know I am reading 1776 right now and am floored by the amazing men that founded this nation, then I look at who we have in Congress today and well we got this guy and Mr. Neugebauer, man we are screwed. Eric it's 2010, it's cool to be gay, you don't have to stay in the closet and resign for "health reasons". By the way next time you better shore up your story before you tangle with Larry King.

5. California Doctors and the DEA- How is it that celebrities can legally get prescribed more pills than Tony Montana has yayo in Scarface? I mean damn we lost Michael, Heath, Brittney, Corey Haim (I know I'm going out on a ledge here). Just a thought, I can't buy more than 2 boxes of Sudafed in a month because of certain meth heads, maybe the same should apply to OxyContin? Just a thought DEA!