Chicago - A message from the station manager

The [Tuesday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

Again: Yes, she did it. Judy Baar Topinka asked Gov. Pat Quinn to get her son a job at SIU.
First, see the item The Answer Is Yes in this edition of The [Thursday] Papers.
Now, to an item in Bernie Schoenburg’s Springfield State Journal-Register column on Sunday, oddly buried at the bottom.

“I did not do that,” she said. “I just asked if he would consider him.”

I did not do that, I just did that!

“I’d like to reverse the trend of people leaving Illinois.”

Starting with my son!
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Crystal Ball Headline: State Comptroller Announces Illinois Repatriation Program.
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“I’ve put it out there for anybody,” she said of her son’s resume. “In the private sector as well . . . You get jobs and you work by virtue of relationships; I mean, it’s not just putting a blind ad in the paper.”
Again: So you did it!
You are using your “relationships” to get your son a job in Illinois. That’s called . . . clouting! And you’re doing it in both the private and public sectors!

“I’m a mom,” Topinka said. “I would like to have my family close to me, and that’s all I’m doing.”

Great. Now, what about all the moms who don’t know the governor? Moms whose children have great resumes too?
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This is hard to disagree with:

Dave Mellett, campaign manager for Democratic Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon, who is running against Republican Topinka for comptroller, said: ‘What Judy Baar Topinka has admitted to is attempting to use patronage to obtain a job for her son, which is wrong and possibly illegal. In Judy Baar Topinka’s world, a resume is something you submit to the governor. For everyone else in Illinois, a resume is submitted to human resources.”

The Topinka campaign’s response:

Topinka spokesman Brad Hahn said that, with Simon down in the polls and with 11 weeks go to the election, “we expect her to get more desperate and pathetic with each passing day.”

Really? Here’s Hahn talking to his buddy Rich Miller when the news of the incident first broke:

“Topinka’s Brad Hahn just called back,” Miller added. “Here are three direct quotes . . .
* She talked about wanting to get her son back to Illinois.
* She was not asking for a job.
* She did not ask him for a job.
“I’ve known Brad forever. He’s always been straight with me, so it’s weird that he was so evasive before. All he had to do was tell the Sun-Times and myself what he said in our second conversation and it’s end of story.”

As I wrote then, I don’t see how in the world that’s end of story, but Miller also wrote once that “I’ve always loved me some JBT.”
(He turned her latest comments into a caption contest about Simon.)
The Sundance Mayor & His Butch Cassidy Alderman
Thick as thieves.
Where’s Mines?
“Chicago Police Department Officials declined to comment on the exact amount of military vehicles and gear the department has, but spokesman Martin Maloney said in a statement that the CPD uses certain military-style vehicles – including a Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicle, or MRAP – for specific purposes,” RedEye reports.

“An MRAP is only used in extreme circumstances, such as the standoff on Lake Shore Drive this spring,” he said, speaking of the nearly nine-hour incident in March on Lake Shore Drive between murder suspect Joseph Andrew Felton Jr. and a SWAT team.

Just in case he had laid in some mines?
Chicago Represents
“The New Black Panther Party is here [in Ferguson],” CBS News reports. “So is a group calling itself the Revolution Club of Chicago.”
All three members?
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The Cub Factor: Reality Bobbleheads
If the promotions matched the performances.
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BeachBook
* Somehow I Think This Is A Commentary On Some White People’s Reaction To Ferguson.
* Chicago Bear: When They Don’t Know Who You Are, All You Are Is Black.
* TIme Inc. Rates Writers On How ‘Beneficial’ They Are To Advertisers.
* From The Beachwood Vault: Parochial Potholes.
* Illinois Woman Accused Of Faking Cancer For Money Arrested On Way To Dr. Phil Show.
* Behind Closed Doors, Obama Crafts Executive Actions.
“When President Obama announced in June that he planned to bypass congressional gridlock and overhaul the nation’s immigration system on his own, he did so in a most public way: a speech in the White House Rose Garden.
“Since then, the process of drafting what will likely be the only significant immigration changes of his presidency – and his most consequential use of executive power – has been conducted almost entirely behind closed doors, where lobbyists and interest groups invited to the White House are making their case out of public view.”
* U.S. Farmers Are Up To Their Ears In Corn.
* From $1 To $675K For New L.A. Times Chief.
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TweetWood


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The Beachwood Tip Line: Retort.

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Posted on August 19, 2014