Posted on 05/20/2012 8:53:42 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
The Ricketts family saddens me.
I am sorry I ever said the city of Chicago or the people of Wrigleyville should sacrifice to help the owners of the Cubs build a better and more valuable team and Wrigley Field.
I advocated that as recently as last week. I never wanted folks to open their wallets and simply give the Rickettses their cash, but I thought that the public could make some concessions and that the neighborhood could put aside its desires and be helpful in building a stadium that could improve the Cubs and, perhaps, bring new revenue to the city.
But that was before patriarch Joseph ‘‘Smokin’ Joe’’ Ricketts, the fat cat who made a billion dollars by starting TD Ameritrade, one of those financial ‘‘helpers’’ that creates nothing but knows intuitively how to skim other people’s money, was revealed as a nasty old bird who, according to the New York Times, was ready to bankroll an ugly, multimillion-dollar racial and religious Super PAC ad campaign against President Barack Obama.
Everybody named Ricketts has been scurrying for cover since the bombshell dropped, with the conservative Ricketts kids semi-distancing themselves from their father and his right-wing dirty dealings.
But the Rickettses don’t come one at a time; they march as a group, and they’re right of center by design. They bought the Cubs with the family trust, so, as the saying goes when the dowry gets passed along, Own it, kids!
Did it ever dawn on this foot-in-rich-mouth family that Mayor Rahm Emanuel was Obama’s chief of staff and that they need Emanuel’s help to float any of the bonds and tax schemes they want to refurbish their own park?
This isn’t about me liking Obama. In my opinion, he has screwed up aplenty in one term. Nor is it about me disliking Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for president and the Rickettses’ guy.
It’s about me being nauseated by hypocrisy and, yes, arrogant, conniving rich people.
Hey, if religion is now on the plate — Smokin’ Joe allegedly wanted to tar Obama with the nut-ball ravings of Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright — then shouldn’t Romney’s Mormon faith also be on the table? Do we need to bring up how recently it was that Mormons said black people carried the mark of Cain and could not rise to high levels in the church? Or how Mormon founder Joe Smith discovered those critical golden tablets near a cow pasture in upstate New York, tablets that just . . . disappeared?
Dirty, dirty pool is what this is. Is it how the Rickettses play? Is that what it means to be so rich that you buy a sports franchise the way the rest of us might buy a lawn mower?
How about the fact that Cubs co-owner Laura Ricketts is an out lesbian with a female partner and a child, that Obama has been called ‘‘The Gay President’’ for siding with gay issues and that conservatives haven’t been nearly as tolerant of homosexual demands?
Laura’s sexual preference was never an issue here in Chicago — until her father has made it one.
See, folks, these are the 1 percent — the one-thousandth of 1 percent, to be accurate. They don’t think like us. A billionaire can’t stomach any more taxes. His rich kids can’t stomach the concept of paying their way. They want taxpayers from a virtually bankrupt city, where employment, school and safety issues make every-day life difficult for normal people, to help their (last-place) entertainment business along. And they almost suckered us there.
The Rickettses own the Cubs. We don’t. Is that clear? If the Cubs’ value goes up, ours does not. Got it? I do.
Joe Ricketts, you are a fool. A rich fool, yes, but a fool.
And if Mayor Emanuel gives your family a dime, he’s worse than a fool.
† I WAS GOING to continue on with my Sunday Stew, but I’ve lost heart.
The problem is a philosophical one, not a sporting one.
How much money ought a person to have? To limit a citizen’s wealth flies in the face of everything that capitalism teaches us: Go out there, do something, make as much as you can.
But we all live in the same world, and those who can ignore the have-nots, saying that those on the lowest floor just didn’t try as hard as those on the top, must have seen that this isn’t true, that the deck often is stacked for and against folks the moment they’re born. Sometimes before. How would you like starting off your gestational period, for instance, with a mom addicted to smoking meth or one who is 15?
Democracy can’t make things equal. Total equality isn’t even something to wish for. It would be stultifying. But equal opportunity wouldn’t be.
I hear often from the very rich: ‘‘I pulled myself up by my bootstraps. Nobody helped me.’’
I wonder if they’ve ever heard of luck. And the charity of others.
I was just in Chicago last week for an event honoring Bill Veeck (my dad wrote VEECK AS IN WRECK) and I met this guy Rick Telander and spoke at length. He was a very nice guy. We did not speak politics. I never speak politics to sportswriters. My father taught me that, as he was the only Republican in the bunch!
Cost of proposed ads to associate Wright with Obama again: 120 million. Having every form of liberal media demonize private citizens AND associate Wright with Obama themselves? Priceless.
All this because someone was going to release totally factual information regarding Rev Wright and his being bribed to keep quiet in 2008?
Does anyone else find this as extraordinary and Twilight Zone like as I do?
The author says Obama has "screwed up aplenty". Total nonsense. Obama has done everything he meant to do. It just sucks for the rest of us who aren't Obama cronies.
These media people MUST pay lip service to the Currently-Approved Gay-Controlled Mainstream MEdia Groupthink, or they risk being banned, black-listed, and unemployed in the Obama Economy.
LIBERAL FASCISM MARCHES ON...
Imteresting - in many of his columns, Telander sounds like a total a—wipe.
>>I wonder if they’ve ever heard of luck.<<
The next liberal that says people with any degree of wealth is “lucky” gets a punch in the nose.
I am at the airport, starting on my all-day, twice a week, 12 hour odyessy to commute to my work which is in the middle of freaking nowhere. And then I get to put in 50+ hours a week and all day in the office on Fridays.
I wonder if this puke ever heard of “hard work.”
Getting paid to go to sports events and then writing it up, no matter how bad your work is (they have editors check you) — that is NOT hard work, THAT is freaking luck!
The day after the Broncos beat the Bears in overtime, Telander wrote a column bad-mouthing Tim Tebow and, by extension the rest of us Evangelical Christians. Three days later, he wrote another column bemoaning the cheating and dishonesty in professional sports.
Is this a GIRL writing this???? Sounds like an hysterical teen-age girl.
By left wing Newsweek magazine, you dumb liberal, not by conservatives.
I am so glad I didn’t know this before I met him. He was very nice because he was a big fan of my Father’s . He actually asked me to sign the new Veeck book for him. I was very touched.
The money he's "skimming" is given freely by customers who prefer TD Ameritrade because they skim much less than brokers used to "skim".
If you want to whine about skimming, let's talk about government.
was ready to bankroll an ugly, multimillion-dollar racial and religious Super PAC ad campaign against President Barack Obama.
Racial? Because the Rev is black? LOL!
Religious? Yeah, the black Rev is religious.
This isn’t about me liking Obama. In my opinion, he has screwed up aplenty in one term.
How about some details?
if religion is now on the plate — Smokin’ Joe allegedly wanted to tar Obama with the nut-ball ravings of Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright — then shouldn’t Romney’s Mormon faith also be on the table?
It won't be on the table? Cute.
Do we need to bring up how recently it was that Mormons said black people carried the mark of Cain and could not rise to high levels in the church?
Or how recently Muslims, like Obama's dad, killed thousands of American civilians.
A billionaire can’t stomach any more taxes. His rich kids can’t stomach the concept of paying their way.
They pay their way much more than you do.
How much money ought a person to have?
You have too much Rick, I'll be over soon to even up the score.
Total equality isn’t even something to wish for. It would be stultifying. But equal opportunity wouldn’t be.
What about government making opportunity unequal?
I didn't realize you were such a whiner Rick.
“Does anyone find this as extraordinary and as
Twilight-Zone-like as I do?”
You are not in the Twilight Zone. You are in the era of Herr Goebbles. (It’s amazing how Progressives like to call people who disagree with them “Nazis” while they employ the very same tactics they accuse others of using; absolutely fracking amazing.)
IMHO
Chicago PING
“It’s about me being nauseated by hypocrisy and, yes, arrogant, conniving rich people. “
In other words, it’s about you liking Obama.
Rickettses! We hates them, we do! Don’t we my precious.
How did your city get to be bankrupt, douchebag.
"I hear often from the very rich: ‘‘I pulled myself up by my bootstraps. Nobody helped me.’’ I wonder if they’ve ever heard of luck. And the charity of others."
Awww, nanny nanny boo boo...
Rick Telander comes from a wealthy family. Typical rich limousine liberal.
His name could be Palin and the treatment would remain the same.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.