WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Trump's gun thugs storm MI legislature. He calls them, "very good people."

Brittany Packnett, activist, educator

“The Michigan demonstrations "are what happens when people of racial privilege confuse oppression with inconvenience.” -- AP

David Axelrod & David Plouffe

“Biden in the Basement” is not a strong enough show to hold the audience. -- New York Times

Prof. Anita Hill

 “Joe Biden has denied Tara Reade’s sexual assault allegations, but that should not be the end of the inquiry. Given the significance of this moment, the allegations against both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump should be investigated, with results that are “made available to the public.” -- New York Times

Tony Utano, president of Transport Workers Union Local 100

“The MTA has to recognize this with more than just thanks and praise. They need to put that thanks and praise into my members’ paychecks. You can’t keep asking people to come to work and carry such a heavy burden for the same rate of pay. It’s just not right.” -- 98 transit workers dead from coronavirus

Rev. William J. Barber

In a country as wealthy as the United States, poverty is a political choice, and it is time for real solutions that provide lasting freedom from fear and want. -- CNN

Peter Lynn, head of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority

“There is a staggering overrepresentation of black people in homelessness, and that is not based on poverty,” he said. “That is based on structural and institutional racism.” -- New York Times

Will this finally be the end of the line for Rahm? One can only hope.

Rahm's pal David Axelrod hints that Rahm may not run. 

Despite the many millions in his campaign warchest, there are signs that Mayor 1% is vulnerable in the upcoming election and possibly won't even make it to a runoff. Some of his closest friends and advisors are even dropping hints that Rahm Emanuel may choose not to run again, depending on how bad things look over the coming months.

I doubt it.

Sun-Times political reporter Fran Spielman says this about Rahm's chances:

The political deck appears to be so stacked against Emanuel, some political observers wonder why he’s running and whether he will finish first, second or even third.

 He has imposed a nearly $2 billion avalanche of tax increases to solve a pension crisis his predecessor left behind.

He’s caught in a vice between police reform advocates demanding a say in a consent decree outlining federal court oversight of the Chicago Police Department and police officers who accuse him of “turning his back” on them at a time when he needs those officers to fight violent crime aggressively.

African-American voters who elected him in 2011, then re-elected him even after he closed a record 50 public schools, are unlikely to trust him again after his handling of the Laquan McDonald shooting video.

And the trial of Jason Van Dyke, the white Chicago Police officer accused of firing the 16 shots that killed the 17-year-old McDonald is likely to be held in the run-up to the mayoral election now just nine months away.

Victor Reyes, a former Daley political consultant, thinks Rahm will make it, but...

To go into the runoff with the wind at his back, Reyes said Emanuel needs more than 50 percent of the white vote, 40 percent of the Latino vote and 35 percent of the black vote. 

The more Latino votes he gets, the more black votes he can stand to lose. 

“It’s very tough. It’ll be his hardest election. His path is narrow. But I think he’ll get it,” Reyes said.

“His fundraising advantage is No. 1. Incumbency is No. 2. And no Latino in the race is No. 3 . . . They don’t have money. They don’t have name recognition. It’s a younger community. And there’s not a lot of unity.”

Then there's Rahm's political advisor, David Axelrod who drops this on us...

Although Emanuel is raising money at a frenzied pace and positioning himself to run for re-election, he has not yet formally declared his candidacy for a third-term.

“Until someone says that they’re running there’s always a chance they may not,” Axelrod said.

“I don’t think he’s under any pressure to decide that today, tomorrow or in the next few weeks as long as he does the things that preserve the option, such as raising the money. My counsel to him would be, there’s no rush on this. Take a gut check at the appropriate time and make sure this is what you want to do.”

I heard the same, off-the-record, from a Rahm confidant a few weeks ago.

For more Chicago mayor-race chatter, observation, and speculation, tune in Friday at 11 a.m. CDT, to Hitting Left with the Klonsky Brothers, streaming live at http://www.lumpenradio.com/ with in-studio guest, political mover and shaker, Amara Enyia.

Then, just when people were starting to forget about Rahm's disastrous school closings, out comes a new damaging report from the University of Chicago showing that CPS closing of 50 schools, mostly in the city's African-American community, led to academic setbacks for the affected students.

“Academic outcomes were neutral at best and negative in some instances,” according to the 88-page report.

As one observer tweeted:

The mayor with overwhelming City Council approval, closed 6 of 12 mental health clinics and 50 public schools, claiming they can’t afford them ($803 million combined cost). But they suddenly found $95 million for a new police academy. 

To top it all off, CPS Inspector General Nicholas Schuler, whose investigation led the FBI to Barbara Byrd-Bennett, yesterday came out with a new report showing that Rahm's hand-picked school board appointee Deborah Quazzo was complicit in BBB's illegal kickback schemes.

The Sun-Times reports that Rahm's former school chief accepted lavish meals at some of the city’s priciest restaurants from a CPS vendor whose investors included Quazzo. 

Quazzo violated the school system’s ethics code by talking up her companies’ products to CPS principals and introducing them to company representatives — which she at first denied to Schuler she’d done but acknowledged after being shown emails proving that.

We'll see how much this blows back on the mayor or gives impetus to the push for an elected school board. 

S-T columnist Laura Washington, predicts a long, hot summer for the mayor.

This summer will host sizzling court trials involving allegations of deadly police misconduct. There’s plenty of hot water there, and Emanuel is stuck in the deep end of the pool.

How will Emanuel handle the heat? Some political insiders speculate that if his poll numbers don’t turn up soon, he may call it quits, and decline to run for a third term.

I expect he will keep his cool and carry on. Alas, his controlled, bloodless style may be part of the problem.

Another indicator of summer problems for the mayor is the potential for a rise in gun violence. Last weekend saw at least eight Chicagoans killed and 30 wounded in street shootings.

It's still early but no Latino candidate in the race certainly helps Rahm's chances. Right now it looks to me like Lori Lightfoot has the best chance of pulling away from Rahm's other eight contenders. She has strong fund-raising capabilities, creds in the police reform scene, and a strong team behind her. 

Paul Vallas and Garry McCarthy, the great white hopes in the race, have already cut a deal between themselves for one to support the other if one of them is more likely to win, thereby keeping a black candidate out of the runoff. But there's always the possibility that between them, they could pull enough white votes from the northwest and southwest sides to move Rahm into third place in the primary. 

Lots of ifs there, I know.

One of the great misuses of the word 'Trust' ever.

Rahm flew Randi out to build union support for the Trust

"We've debated this long enough. I'm not in the position of analysis. I'm in the position of getting things done." -- Rahm to the City Council in 2012 

Back in 2012, Rahm Emanuel's proposed Infrastructure Trust got him him great press, especially with flack David Axelrod pumping it like it was the second coming of the Marshall Plan. The New York Times hailed it as the $7 billion plan that would "transform the city’s infrastructure from the skies above to the pipes underground".

This at a time when the mayor was closing half of the city's mental health clinics and school system was reportedly on the brink of collapse.

Rahm even flew in AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten to laud the Trust at Bill Clinton's Global Initiative Conference, even while the CTU was taking its strike authorization vote. Teachers were angry as hell after Rahm reneged on the 4% raise promised them the year before and the last thing on their minds was new grand privatization plan from the mayor.

I wrote at the time that this was one of the great misuses of the word trust ever.  I and others pointed out that rather than creating jobs or saving schools, the Trust would more likely line the pockets of a handful of Rahm's billionaire patrons and give the mayor an unregulated slush fund to use for his own political advantage. No city program had ever been rushed through the City Council without careful review since the great parking meter heist during the Daley administration. As it turns out, the Trust did nothing and all Rahm's big "investors" were all show and no go.

Why the question mark?

Fast forward to read today's headline: Rahm’s trust a bust? Fails to raise a dime but has cost taxpayers $5M

S-T Watchdog Tim Novack writes:

But the infrastructure trust has fallen short of the expectations the mayor laid out. It has yet to raise a dime in private financing for a single public works project, records show. At the same time, it has cost Chicago taxpayers more than $5.1 million to pay for its handful of employees, offices on Wacker Drive, consulting fees and other expenses.

A top city official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, wonders why the mayor hasn’t shut down the trust.

“There’s no excuse for the mayor to avoid closing down this thing that’s been a complete failure,” the official said. “They’ve done nothing that can’t be done by [the Department of Fleet and Facilities Management] or the Public Building Commission.”

The agency’s five-member staff is overseen by a seven-member board headed by Emanuel’s appointed city treasurer, Kurt Summers. The board includes Ald. Matt O’Shea (19th), four business leaders and Jorge Ramirez, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor, which is an investor in the Chicago Sun-Times. There’s also a four-member advisory board that includes Ald. Michael Scott Jr. (24th).

 If this all sounds to you a lot like the mayor's current scheme to entice Jeff Bezos into moving his Amazon's HQ2 here with the promise of 50,000 new jobs, you're on to something. You get it.

Why are Democrats smearing peaceful anti-Trump protests?

DeVos protest in D.C.

“Nothing about a firm commitment to free expression obliges us open our doors to (much less to provide platforms for) those who incite hatred and violence against refugees, immigrants, and minorities—that is, against our students, teachers, co-workers and neighbors.” -- Letter from coalition to IOP Director David Axelrod.

This morning's Sun-Times has columnist Mark Brown imploring Univ. of Chicago students to "Let Loathsome Lewandowski Speak", as if they had any official say in the matter.

A coalition of organizations, which includes groups such as UofC Resists and Graduate Students United, protesting former Trump campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski’s scheduled visit tomorrow, asked the school’s Institute of Politics, run by Democratic Party operative David Axelrod, to withdraw its invitation to Lewandowski and to “stop providing a platform to surrogates of the Trump administration” -- a reference in part to last month’s visit by Trump press secretary Sean Spicer. 

Axelrod claims he welcomes "peaceful protest" but refuses to "shut down" Lewandowski, implying that Trump's guy is just another campus walk-on and that violence-prone students are trying to deprive him of his free speech.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Lewandowski is a highly-paid provocateur who, along with the likes of racist creep Milo Yiannopoulos, are speaking everywhere, raking in big bucks in campus speaking fees and attracting massive militant protests whenever they appear. 

Anti-DeVos protests in Alaska

Citing recent incidents that included Neo-Nazi posters appearing on campus, the UC coalition criticized the university for not doing more in response. If the Lewandowski event proceeds as planned, the groups say they will protest to “express outrage at the normalization of racism, bigotry and violence.”

That's exactly what students everywhere ought to be doing. It's their most fundamental constitutional right and duty as citizens to speak out against racism and injustice. There's never been a more important time in history to exercise that right.

Along with Brown, it's powerhouse liberal Democrats like Axelrod,  AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten and former Obama schools chief Arne Duncan, who are directing their main blows leftward, as they did throughout the presidential campaign, and doing their best to discredit the so-far peaceful anti-Trump protests.

It's what they do. It's what they did in response to the youth movement around the Bernie Sanders campaign and the Black Lives Matter. It keeps them respectable in the eyes of their patrons.  It's also among the things that cost them the election -- by alienating lots of young activist voters -- and could do the same in 2018 and 2020.

Weingarten ran with a fake news story and condemned protesters opposed to Betsy DeVos' visit to a D.C. middle school. She falsely claimed that the demonstrators had "almost knocked down" DeVos as she tried to enter the school. But a CNN video debunked her claim.

Just heard a protester blocked & almost knocked Secy @BetsyDeVos down at Jefferson.We don't condone such acts.We want her to go to pub schls

— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) February 10, 2017

Duncan joined in the condemnation and praised DeVos for her photo-op visits to the very schools she claims she wants to privatize and Christianize.

Agree or disagree w @BetsyDeVos on any issue, but let's all agree she really needs to be in public schools. Please let her in.

— Arne Duncan (@arneduncan) February 10, 2017

No, it's not a matter of agreement or disagreement on "any issue". Trump and appointees from DeVos to Sessions, to Pudzer, along with Alt-right and white supremacist allies are perpetrating a racist, neo-fascist coup and total takeover of government. They should be resisted at every turn.

It's right to rebel against injustice.

The Trust was a bust. Now where's Bill and Randi?

Back in 2012, Rahm's proposed Infrastructure Trust got him him great press, especially with flack David Axelrod pumping it like it was the second coming of the Marshall Plan. The New York Times hailed it as the  $7 billion plan  that would "transform the city’s infrastructure from the skies above to the pipes underground". 

Rahm flew Randi in to tout the Trust.

Rahm even flew in AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten to laud the Trust at Bill Clinton's Global Initiative Conference. 

I quoted this from the Sun-Times report: 

Emanuel was seated onstage next to Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, whose largest member union, the Chicago Teachers Union, [was] taking a strike-authorization vote this week, frustrated with Emanuel’s administration, which killed a negotiated 4 percent raise for the teachers last year. 

Well, the last time I looked, the city's infrastructure was still crumbling and the underground pipes still rusting and leaking. The teachers never did get the 4% raise that was promised them. Rahm claimed the city couldn't afford it but could afford $2.7 million in city funds to help set up the Trust. What followed was the historic teachers strike that shook the city and Rahm's administration to its heels.

But the Trust goes down as only the latest in a series of mayoral financial flops that has led the city to the brink of collapse.

Now Crain's reports: 

Three years after creating a city infrastructure bank with a huge splash, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has decided to remake management of the finance unit, which by many accounts never has lived up to its potential… Out as executive director is Steven Beitler, who, according to a city statement, "has resigned to pursue other interests." 

This time around Axelrod is nowhere to be seen. Maybe he's too embarrassed. Neither is Clinton. I'm sure Hillary doesn't want the Clinton name attached to a busted trust on the road to 2016. And where's Randi?

Former CFO Lois Scott acknowledged on her way out the door that Trust has not lived up to expectations. Overhaul is an admission of that.

— Fran Spielman (@fspielman) July 27, 2015

Wanted: A mayor willing to stand up and make the tough decisions. Not Rahm the whiner.

It seems the Little Emperor has turned into the big whiner.

No sooner had Republican Sen. Kirk warned us, in racist code language, that if strongman Rahm wasn't re-elected, the city would turn into Destroit, than the mayor became wussified.

First he cries to S-T's Fran Spielman that Chicago's fiscal fiasco "isn't my fault". Waaah!

He blames the city's crashing bond rating and all the other city's financial problems on the Daley's. That's gratitude for you. This, after his predecessor was nice enough to hold his nose and endorse Rahm. Let that be a warning to all other potential endorsers. You know who you are. 

Chuy and Richie definitely ought to grab a cup of coffee. 

Parents ready to fight PARCC

Next the kinder, gentler Rahm claimed he had "no choice" but to cave in to Gov. Rauner's threats over the PARCC tests. This even after his own schools CEO warned that giving PARCC was, "absolutely not in the best interests of our students."

 “Once the federal government and the state were threatening to cut hundreds of millions and billions of dollars off, which would have dramatically increased the teacher student ratio, it was clear that that was . . .  a bridge too far,” the mayor said.

Yes, we've all seen that movie, Rahm. But seriously, did you or anyone else really believe that Rauner could get away with holding back $1.8 billion in Title I poverty funds from a school district with nearly 90% of students of color and living in poverty? Rahm could have, should have, stood up for the thousands of Chicago's students and parents who are ready to opt-out and go to the wall over PARCC. Why no testing waiver application to his boy Arne Duncan at the DOE? And as for the state, doesn't his pal Boss Madigan still control what goes on in Springfield? Isn't that why they still have the mayor in charge of the schools?  According to Spielman:

Emanuel cut off the questioning before he could be asked about parent-led student boycotts or about whether he had lobbied the state and federal government behind the scenes to delay the test or drop the threat of penalties.

What up with that, tough guy? Since when do you get bullied by a political neophyte, wine-tasting, suburbanite from Winnetka? Ooops, I forgot... Sorry.

Brother Fred

Funniest TV Rahm ad... Axelrod could have saved some money on this one. It has kinder/gentler Rahm telling us what we already know:

"I can rub people the wrong way..."

You know what comes next -- the old,  "My strengths are my weaknesses" bit that I think Axelrod stole that one from Pres. Bush. Whatever. That's followed by Rahm's "listening tour", an idea borrowed from CTU Pres. Karen Lewis.

Today Rahm Emanuel launches a listening tour. Nearly 4 years into his mayoralty.
— Laura Washington (@MediaDervish) February 28, 2015

Let's not make it 5.