By David Rutter
Of the 140 flip-the-bird pardons and commutations flung against the presidential barn wall by Trump, none was more amusing and deliciously grotesque than freeing Casey Urlacher from his chains and shackles.
At least Mighty Casey did not strike out and get sent away for five years as a customer recruiter and bagman for a sports gambling ring that raked in millions of dollars from local bettors.
He embodied the only aspect of public life more humiliating to retired Bears megastar Brian Urlacher than those massive highway commercials showing hair growing on Brian’s head. (Let’s all cheer: Hold that hairline; hold that hairline.)
Casey? He is the “Mayor of Mettawa,” which is just like being the “Mayor of Petticoat Junction,” and should not have been subject to criminal law by the Trump DOJ.
This was using a howitzer to blow up a raccoon.
Of the hideous humans pardoned by Trump in his last official insane performance, the pardon of Urlacher was comic relief.
After he bestowed a Presidential Medal of Freedom on one-time South African apartheid spokesman and professional bigot Gary Player, how could Trump’s mob lawyers accuse anyone of being douchey?
Player and Trump were mutual admirers, as racists tend to be.
Player even congratulated Le Grande L’Orange for restoring “disciplines” to American culture.
As for big brother Brian, he went to personally pitch his brother’s case to Trump last March, and appears to have left one of his jerseys and $6,000 in campaign donations. It’s so Chicago.
Now the trial will be unnecessary, but was it ever necessary?
This was prosecuting Uncle Joe “for A-Movin Kind of Slow . . . at the Junction.”
Did we run out of real criminals here? Chicago, the city of broad shoulders and rampant carjacking sprees, probably has a few more citizens justly jailed that would like redemption. Is there no sympathy for Denny Hastert? How about all the people who have owned the Cubs and the Tribune? Or the cops who slept at Bobby Rush’s office during last summer’s street pillaging? Talk about crimes against humanity.
While we’re at it, can someone please pardon Jim Oberweis for . . . well . . . being Jim Oberweis? He is the local congressional Candidate Who Just Won’t Take No For An Answer.
As for Urlacher, he was charged with an offshore gambling scheme at virtually the same moment Illinois made all gambling not only legal but almost mandatory. Online sports gambling is sacramental. Genuflect. Everyone on local sports talk radio does, as if they are point-spread altar boys.
The victims of Urlacher’s gambling business appear to have been people already addicted to gambling. Just like Steve Bannon’s pardon for duping Trump fans into donating to their own Build The Wall numbskullery. They were less victims than self-duped mopes with too much loose money.
Did anyone who donated to Trump’s plots not deserve to lose all their money?
As opposed to the roster of human bilge on the pardon list, his lawyer says Casey is a swell guy and community leader, all facts which he said Trump recognized after culling thousands of other petitions. A lawyer said this. Yes, Trump read hundreds of pleas and petitions, a supposition that seems about as likely as a QAnon conspiracy.
Trump had not read hundreds of anything except maybe Big Mac wrappers.
Casey was like your cousin’s pot dealer who gets sent to federal prison a day before cannabis becomes the official state crop and official flower.
Just bad reflexes. He’s the pedestrian who gets run over by a VW bus being pushed by two guys.
Trump could have pardoned 47.5 percent of prisoners in federal lockups (81,900) who were sent away for non-violent drug crimes. That certainly would have effed up Biden’s first month. If anything, we all could have used more of those drugs during the Trump reign.
Speaking of drugs, how many joints will it take to get the mental image of Trump stage-dancing to “YMCA” out of your head.
If anything, we’ll chalk up that federal prisoner release lapse to Trump’s lack of imagination.
He could have freed Vincent “Uncle Mick” Del Giudice, the mastermind who ran Casey’s crime ring. Any justice for Uncle Mick? Not a peep.
And no good news for Matthew “Sweaters” Knight of Mokena, another participant.
But, oh no, he had to free Urlacher, though we will not begrudge his freedom. Once you have bad reflexes, nothing gets easier.
Casey Urlacher is free, but he is forever the brother who insisted on buying a new Yugo.
David Rutter is the former publisher/editor of the Lake County News-Sun, and more importantly, the former author of the Beachwood’s late, great “The Week In WTF” column. His most recent piece for us was The $10 Million Wang. You can also check him out at his Theeditor50’s blog. He welcomes your comments.
Posted on January 23, 2021