Drive-Bys

My Magic Cheezburger and I have awesome predictive powers when I comes to Carol Mosley Braun's chances of landing her butt in the Mayor's chair here in the Windy City.

I'm giving her style points for her latest blooper:

At a debate on Sunday at Trinity United Church of Christ, Patricia Van Pelt-Watkins said Braun was returning to Chicago politics after having been “missing in action and lost somewhere” — and Braun responded by saying, “Patricia, the reason you didn’t know who I was for the last 20 years is because you were strung out on crack. I was not strung out on crack. I don’t have a record.”

Watkins, who has acknowledged using pot and coke as a teenager, says she’s been sober for 25 years and has demanded an apology.More comments from around the town on Braun's

“This says a lot about her character,” Watkins said.

Or lack thereof.

More comments from around the town on Mosely Braun and her big mouth:

• Approximately 20 percent of Chicago voters say they’re planning to vote for Braun. She’s still a huge long shot to upset Rahm Emanuel, but the fact that one of five of my fellow voting citizens believe she’s the best person for the job is more daunting than the Storm of the Century looming over us.
  
• The question, you said Jan. 14, is one of temperament. Thanks for displaying yours now, when voters see it implode.
  
• [T]here was nothing to be gained for Braun by responding with an attack on Van Pelt-Watkins, a minor candidate in all the polling so far. Braun's dwindling hopes depend on softening up and prying away Van Pelt-Watkins supporters, and are further eroded by antagonizing them.
  
• Is it too late to coin the terms "crackusation?"

P.S. -- I asked my Magic Cheezburger what were Mosley Braun's chances of beating out Emanuel and Chico in the mayoral race. Cheezburger sez, "SRY. I EATED IT." (I'll bet you the leaders of the black community that pushed so hard for her to be the "unity" candidate wish they had a Magic Cheezburger of their own and had consulted it a long time ago.)

Update: Ms. Mosley Braun offers up an apology to everyone but the one person she owes it to."

I want to apologize to her, to the congregations and members of Trinity United Church and of New Pilgrim Missionary Baptist church and all of the families and friends of those who are or who have been caught up in the tragedy of drug use. I meant no disrespect of the sanctuaries in which campaign tensions spilled over.

She gives the word "ungracious" a whole new face.
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One hundred and eighty degrees in the opposite direction of black women in Illinois politics is Toni Preckwinkle, on whom I am developing a tremendous girl crush:

“The proposed budget represents the first step of a restructuring of county finances for a long-term plan that will address the structural deficit and lay the groundwork for the rollback of the sales-tax increase,” Preckwinkle said. “We must break the habits that got us here. We must build a new foundation to stabilize our finances.”

You go, girl! (Can we clone her a couple of times and send one to Springfield and the other to the White House???)
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While this news is not good, it does not in the least take away from the fact that a toddler would not be dead if his mother hadn't left him alone to play in the hallway of a hotel while she fooled around with her boyfriend:

A switch used by a 2-year-old boy to open an elevator door before he fell down the shaft last week should have been locked up, Joliet’s chief building inspector said Monday.

David Mackley said the exposed switch in the Plaza Hotel elevator car was a code violation. He told a city council committee that the switch either should have been in a shielded case or the device should have required a key to operate.

This whole mess saddens and enrages me in equal parts.
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Cool Quotes of the Day:

• Roethlisberger is to role model what Snooki Polizzi is to classy.
  
• Sheriff’s Police are ruling out a phone malfunction for the disconnection.
  
• They’ve even narrowed down names for their twins. “They won’t be crazy names like Carburetor or something,” he says. “But they’re definitely unique.”
  
• What the hell is Whoopi wearing? It looks like a Snuggie.

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The last living WWI veteran, Frank Woodruff Buckles, turns 110 today. God bless him!
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In the middle of the biggest recession in a long time, Caterpillar's workers take this brilliant step:

Union members at Caterpillar Inc. facilities in Illinois and three other states have authorized the United Auto Workers to strike if necessary.

This is why it took my father-in-law 30 years to get fully vested in a 20 year pension/retirement benefit.
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I'm heading home. Wish me luck.

More later!
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Update: Strike that heading home thingie. I'm on the reception desk until 5:30 p.m. Yahoo.
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Anyone who thinks having the Muslim Brotherhood in charge in Egypt seriously needs to rearrange their thinking:

A leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt told the Arabic-language Iranian news network Al-Alam on Monday that he would like to see the Egyptian people prepare for war against Israel, according to the Hebrew-language business newspaper Calcalist.

There's your religion of peace for you.

And, by the way...

If Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak is toppled, Israel will lose one of its very few friends in a hostile neighborhood and President Barack Obama will bear a large share of the blame, Israeli pundits said on Monday.

This is unbelievably awful foreign policy on the part of the U.S.
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Drive-Bys

The gift that keeps on giving strikes again:

Braun surfaced Wednesday on the South Side at the scene of a shooting in the 6900 block of South Marshfield Avenue to say that if elected mayor, she won't tolerate violence and will push for more community involvement and economic development. When a reporter asked about the tax returns and how she is paying her bills, Braun asked what media outlet he was from and told him her business is fine.

"Some of you may work for the Tribune or the Sun-Times, and last time I looked, the Tribune was in bankruptcy," Braun said.

"There's a kid laying up dead," she said, as she got into a waiting car near where blood was still frozen on the street. "Come on guys, be responsible yourselves."

As of Wednesday evening, Chicago police said neither of the two teens shot had died in the incident.

My Magic Cheezburger and I note that in four paragraphs we find that Girlfriend is an opportunist ("DO NOT WANT"), that Girlfriend will continue to dodge questions about her taxes and bills ("MEBBEH"), that Girlfriend will and does resort to "I'm Rubber, You're Glue" tactics ("DIS BURGER IS BORKED"), that Girlfriend is willing to use classic bait and switch tactics ("WIN") and that Girlfriend once again fails to get her facts straight ("PLEH:(").

And what do her supporters in the African American community think of Girlfriend?

[A]black elected official backing Braun, who asked to remain anonymous, disagreed, noting that Chicago’s $1 billion-a-year structural deficit is the No. 1 issue facing the next mayor.

“You could say she’s the perfect person because we’re living over our head, too. But I don’t think that’s the way most people will look at it,” the official said.

“Carol clearly has the most distinguished record of the candidates we were looking at, but there was always an asterisk. It was, ‘Carol, who got in trouble going to Nigeria.’ Those were judgment questions hanging over her. The financial stuff just adds to that cloud.”

Ya think??? It's pretty bad when even her supporters are are starting to agree with the Magic Cheezburger, which tells Girlfriend that when it comes to the office of Mayor of Chicago, "U NO CAN HAS".

Marathon Pundit concurs.
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I have "woo-woo" moments every once in a while where, like Chaos Theory, karmic butterfly wings create an avalanche of strange. Viz:

During the usual course of Therapy Night just this past Tuesday, Mr. Bill blurted out something about "midget shrimpers", the explanation of reduced Walt, Zen Master Ken and I to tears of laughter. After I finally recovered my composure, I looked at ZMK and said, "Did that just give you visions of naughty Oompa Loompas?"

Of course, more hilarity ensued.

And of course, I thought about Zonker and his passion for midgets.

So who should post just two days later? Yes, indeedy -- the Z-Man himself.

But that's not the end of the coinky-dinks. Lookee here what V-man, who's been on radio silent for half of forever, posted today!

(And comment numero uno to that post? "I, for one, hope this isn't just a lick-and-a-promise." Bwaaaaaaaaaaahahahahaha!!!)

Okay.

I'll stop now.
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Ear Worm of the Day:



Heh!

Drive-Bys

My girl Carol continues to give Chicago voters no reason to vote for her:

Now that former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun has changed her mind and released her federal income tax returns Tuesday, we not only have a clearer understanding of why she wanted to put it off until after the mayoral election but also what may have motivated her to come out of political retirement in the first place.

Simply put, it looks like she needs a job, and these tax returns aren’t going to help her get one on the 5th Floor of City Hall.

Following in the footsteps of Bill Brady and Alexi Giannoulias, Braun neither paid nor owed any federal income taxes for either 2008 or 2009, her returns show.

Business losses wiped out what little income she reported during those years. Unlike either of those other two non-tax-paying candidates, though, there’s not much evidence to suggest Braun has any underlying wealth.

It doesn't indicate any underlying sense of good judgment, either. In fact,

Braun’s tax returns, coupled with the fact she lives in a house encumbered with about $2 million in mortgages (which she has on the market for $1.9 million), would suggest an individual facing serious financial distress.

What does my Magic Cheezburger have to say to Ms. Mosely Braun about these revelations?

"UR DOIN IT WRONG"

This leads me to two questions:

First, when is Jesse Jackson going to figure out she's not likely to be elected and withdraw his support?

According to the trusty Magic Cheezburger: "SOOOON"

Alas, poor Jesse! Once again deprived of the position of Chief Behind-the-Scenes String-Puller of Chicago. And he was just... so... damned... close this time, too.

Second, how much campaign cash has Girlfriend raised already and what does she intend doing with any funds left over if she loses or withdraws from the race? Well, as she's said in the past:

"With this fund-raising being as successful as it is, as God is my witness, I will not go hungry again." -- Moseley-Braun

Oh, Carol! You are the gift that keeps on giving!

(And Danny Davis must either feel like a first class idiot for giving it up for this twit, or like a first class sugar daddy who's managed to pay off her bills with the black community's campaign cash.)

Update: If the Chicago mayoral candidates were cats. Heh.
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This kick board...

... must be an official product of the...

Just saying...
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Doesn't everybody want a super suit?


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I've got to admire a guy who'll tell you the unvarnished truth, even when it's painful:

The faster foreclosures happen, the better it might be for the real estate market, a study from Old Dominion University suggests.

Two researchers used modeling and simulation to examine the lingering impact of foreclosures.

Really?

"The neighbor who is paying the mortgage finds out about their neighbor who isn't, and it creates something called the moral hazard problem," Seiler said. "The paying neighbor asks himself why he should continue paying his mortgage when his neighbor stopped paying a year ago and nothing bad has happened to him. It creates an incentive for people to do a bad behavior, one that's harmful to others in the market. This problem is quickly getting out of control and someone needs to step in."

Seiler likened it to taking off a Band-Aid. It hurts to pull it off quickly, but then it's over. Pulling it off slowly lengthens the pain.

This flies in the face of government programs to slow or stop the foreclosure process and keep people in their homes.

Ouch, indeed.
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Giggle of the Day or Ear Worm of the Day? -- You tell me:


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If you've got to go to the dentist (and I did), this view is a small compensation:

The Jay Pritzger Pavilion, the Bean and the McCormick Tribune Plaza and ice rink, the Lurie Garden and Lake Michigan, all in one shot. Sweet!
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Drive-Bys

Just how smart am I?

Given Braun's history of demonstrably bad judgment, and the fact that Jesse Jackson's filthy fingerprints are all over this turn of events, I'm confident she'll do or say something -- and probably a lot of things -- to get herself blown right out of the race.

And it took less than 24 hours for her to serve up this juicy gem:

Mayoral candidate Carol Moseley Braun today said she won't make her tax returns public before next month's election.

"Because I don't want to," Braun said when asked why she wouldn't be releasing them in the time before the Feb. 22 election.

Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahaha!!! Keep 'em coming, Carol! Show us how much you really don't want to win the primary, let alone the mayoral race.

(A tip of the cap to Marathon Pundit... and the predictive powers of my Magic Cheezburger.)
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In the interest of making it easy to shop for me for Christmas 2011, I really, really want one of these:


Yes, I throw like a girl. But with one of these, I'd throw like an awesome girl.
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This parody of "O Come O Come Emmanuel" gave me fits of the giggles. Behold just one verse of the whole beautiful thing:

We're numb, we're numb, Emanuel.
Does Carol Moseley Braun still ring a bell?
So Danny's name's the first that will appear
It's him and Gery Chico at the rear.
Your voice, your choice, Emanuel
Stop using words much worse than damn or hell

That's just fabulous!
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New Jersey is going after "unused" gift cards? What's next -- going after your savings accounts because you haven't "used" the money in them?
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