Posted on 04/18/2005 9:26:58 AM PDT by jaydubya2
After 16 years in office, the scandals keep piling up for Mayor Daley.
But the mushrooming corruption merits barely a mention in this week's edition of Time magazine, which names "Richard the Second" the nation's best big-city mayor.
"Chicago's imperial Richard Daley . . . is widely viewed as the nation's top urban executive," Time reports.
The magazine credits Daley for promoting "splashy growth," hiring "skilled managers," expanding green space, reforming public schools, relocating CHA residents, luring Boeing to Chicago and overseeing big projects like Soldier Field and Millennium Park.
But there's scant mention of scandals: "Allegations of financial corruption have caught up some of his political allies, although Daley has personally avoided implication."
Daley's Hired Truck Program paid politically connected and mobbed-up trucking companies $40 million a year for little or no work. The Water Department, called a "racketeering enterprise" by the feds, allegedly took in $500,000 in bribes. And contracts that were supposed to go to minority, female and disadvantaged contractors have enriched "rich white guys who are friends of the mayor," said Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd).
In the last 70 years, there has been more corruption under Daley "than any other mayor other than his father," said Dick Simpson, a University of Illinois at Chicago political scientist and former alderman.
UberReichsMarshall Daley is an arrogant, narcissistic mega-crook.
UberReichsMarshall Daley is an arrogant, narcissistic mega-crook.
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A matter of history..I would put him somewhere between Al Capone and John Gotti. But the lawless left just loves him, apparently.
"reforming public schools"
BS! The Chicago public schools are still cesspits of corruption and poor education. Why is the Chicago area one place where the Catholic school system is still thriving? Because the public schools, city and suburb, are still crappy!
Of course if JJ junior runs against the current m ob chief, you will have a blending of the two with Al ruken nation (sp).
Well he is the best big city thief (Oh wait a minute they said "Chief")
Suburban Chicago School Districts are consistently some of the best in the Nation. Yes, the inner-city schools and some suburban districts are terrible, but many (especially in the Northern and Western suburbs) are incredibly good.
One more note: Daley has nothing to do with the suburbs or their schools. He doesn't get credit for them, so your point about the city schools is a valid criticism.
Only Time mag would glorify a crook. Daley may be the smartest mayor taking bribes and hiding them but he is hardly the best mayor in the country that is well known world wide as harboring crooks in the big city political parties.. If he is, may God help us all.
He's a RAT right? Why wouln't Time Mag absolutely adore him despite his corrupt administration.
We're all so very proud. Taking one of those Cadilac Escalades that were donated by GM for the Detroit Police Department and letting his family drive it finally paid off dividends.
Time also says Mayor Martin O'Malley of Baltimore Md. is one of the countrys top Mayors. With a homocide rate around three hundred on average a year ,with fifty seven thousand dollars missing in the education dept. Rampant
street crime , and on and on , I can see how Mayor Daley would fit the TIMES mold .
Proving once again that "TIME" magazine is as clueless as ever.
Go to Druge for a second and check out the smug little hatchet job they did to Ann Coulter on their cover.
Disgusting.
Also at the bottom of the list is our own John "The brothers and the sisters are in charge" Street of Philadelphia. How he has managed thus far to escape indictment on the widespread pay-for-play scandal is beyond me.
You forgot the two bagger BARF alert.
I take it they fall outside Hizhonor's jurisdiction?
You are besmerching the good name of homicidal sociopaths by comparing them with a liberal tyrant.
Except insofar as he and his henchmen, including Governor Blag, influence what the state does to the schools.
Those same henchmen have kept Illinois citizens from having a concealed carry law, and kept the state gun laws fairly draconian, including the requirement to get permission from the state government to exercise what the state constitution calls "the right of the individual citizen to keep and bear arms" which it declares "shall not be infringed." (FOID required to buy or to possess firearms or ammunition. You must be 21 or have permission from parents or guardians, even though at 18 you can join the Army or National Guard and get to bear fully automatic machine guns.) In Chicago itself, it is unlawful to keep any firearm unless it has been registered with the Chicago Police at Daley Center. Handguns registrations stopped in 1982, so you can't possess one unless it was registered before then. So-called assault firearms may not be registered, so you can't have them either.
But you know, that's probably why time thinks Daley is such hot stuff. It fits right in with their self proclaimed anti arms rights agenda.
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