JESSE AND SANDI JACKSON: JUST HOW CLAIRVOYANT WAS H.L. MENCKEN?

8/15/13

Jesse Jackson, Jr., affectionately, or otherwise, known as “Triple J” in these parts, and his co-schemer and wife Sandi Jackson, were sentenced yesterday for their crimes involving misuse of campaign funds and failure to mention to the IRS their use of such funds for such vital campaign necessities as moose heads, furs, Eddie Van Halen guitars, Michael Jackson memorabilia, and a $43,000 watch.   Yours truly contends that anyone who spends $43 grand on a watch deserves to go to jail on general principle, but I digress.

As regular readers know, I have been deeply intrigued by this story for a long time.  (See, inter alia

JUST HOW DID SANDI JACKSONEND UP UNDER THAT BUS?, 2/7/13

LET’S FINALLY TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT JESSE ANDSANDI JACKSON, 2/16/13

A SORT OF DEFENSE OFSANDI JACKSON, 2/21/13

and posts in a former blog to which they will direct you.)   So the sentencing of these two felonious finaglers merits some comment from yours truly.

First, the sentences seemed a little light:   a year for Sandi Jackson and two and a half years for Triple J, both far under the maxima under federal guidelines.   If the Chicago Sun-Times Natasha Korecki and Lynn Sweet, neither of whom could be considered hostile to the Jacksons, are to be believed, at least Triple J agrees that he got off easy.  According to Ms. Sweet and Ms. Korecki in today’s (8/15/13, page 4) Sun-Times…

Jackson, Jr., 48, who had been blowing his nose and sobbing during his remarks to the judge, appeared to break into a half-grin as the news of the sentence settled in.

And it got better for the Jackson.  Rather than both going immediately to jail (and why has it taken this long?), they will go in sequence, with Jesse going first and Sandi going after him.  And they got to decide the order of their incarcerations.   Who else gets such treatment?

Still, yours truly is kind of surprised that Sandi Jackson got any jail time at all.   It’s not that I don’t think she deserved it.  But so much of the Chicago media and political establishments had bought into the “poor, poor put-upon Sandi Jackson” line of baloney, along with the “these kids need their parents” pile of horse dump that I feared, and suspected, that Judge Amy Berman Jackson (no relation) had drunken the kool-aid.  Fortunately, she didn’t.

Second, Triple J’s still vague emotional/mental malady was taken for the line of cattle detritus that it appeared to be.  Prosecutor Matt Graves, referring to Mr. Jackson’s purported illness, stated

“It’s quite clear there’s no ‘there’ there.”

Some might reply that, of course, Mr. Graves would say that; after all, he was the prosecutor in the case.  But Judge Jackson also gave the mental health angle no credence, pointing out that there was nothing sudden about Mr. and Mrs. Jackson’s, er, lapses of judgment, as would be the case if their thievery sprung from Mr. Jackson’s mental condition.   This was, the Judge pointed out, a continuing pattern of pilferage, and stated that there was

“…only once conclusion, and that is that you (Triple J) knew better.”

Yours truly is no mental health professional, but neither are the vast majority of people commenting on Triple J’s medical maladies.   Further, none of the mental health professionals the Jacksons were able to produce were all that convincing.   Maybe those of us who are, to put it mildly, suspicious of Mr. Jackson’s claims of the psychiatric equivalent of “the devil made me do it” are wrong.  Maybe Mr. Jackson really is sick.   If that really is the case, one suspects that whatever it is that Mr. Jackson has will clear up quickly…very quickly.  In fact, one suspects that his afflictions vanished as soon as his sentence was pronounced.   But they may make a temporary comeback if (when, probably) Mr. and Mrs. Jackson prepare their appeal.

Third, we have been hearing much about “wasted talent” and “a promising career” of “a young man who had the ability to go all the way” being “thrown away,” and other such bullroar from those die-hard liberals in the local and national media who “just wanna believe,” and can’t be convinced otherwise.  

Yours truly never bought into this hype.  Triple J was at best a passable Congressperson, at worst a lazy, entitled son of privilege who was clearly in over his head.   Until recently, he had a very good Congressional attendance record, but one wonders what he did other than attend.  In his 17 years in Congress, he never managed to win a committee chairmanship, despite the sycophancy most of his fellow Congressman showed him due to his last name and the perception that it carries a lot of weight with black voters.  He did manage to win a seat on the Appropriations Committee, but his record of achievement in that all-important Committee, like his overall record in Congress, was slight, at best.   He made a lot of noise about what came to be seen as his pet project, a third Chicago airport in distant Peotone, but there is still no airport growing from the cornfields in that bucolic burg.  He also proposed that each school child in America be given an i-Pad, courtesy of you, the taxpayer.   Hmm…perhaps we should be grateful that JJJ was unable to get anything done.   Even his much lauded oratory was only so much fulmination, much art and little substance, jargon and catch-lines amounting to nothing but pap and pabulum for the already converted.

When Mr. Jackson first came to Congress in 1995, all we heard about was what a terrific, wonderful, super hero of a young man he was, truly outstanding, upstanding, and all around beatific in every conceivable way.  It seemed to yours truly that such talk was just another orgiastic manifestation of the “just gotta believe” phenomenon among starry-eyed liberals with not even a passing familiarity with life on the ground in Mr. Jackson’s 2^nd Congressional District.

We had heard nearly the same kinds of hosannas about Mel Reynolds, Mr. Jackson’s predecessor as Congressman in the 2^nd District, when Mr. Reynolds defeated Gus Savage in 1992 to assume the seat.   Mr. Reynolds was described in nearly the same beatific tones as Mr. Jackson.   Mr. Reynolds was a Rhodes Scholar and he was….,well, given Mr. Reynolds’ thin resume and an inability to talk in anything but empty platitudes or understand the core of any issue, no one could come up with anything other than his Rhodes Scholarship.   In fact, Mr. Reynolds’ only qualification for Congress, let alone the sainthood his true believers seemed to be recommending him for, was that he was not his race-baiting, anti-Semitic predecessor Gus Savage.  

Mr. Reynolds went on to develop, or maybe just further indulge from a position of power, proclivities toward teenage girls, especially Catholic school girls (“I think I just won the lottery,” Mr. Reynolds response when he was told by what turned out to be an informant that the informant could set him up with a girl who attended a Catholic high school, is perhaps Mr. Reynolds’ most famous utterance, but I digress.) and lie to law enforcement about it.   Consequently, he was provided lodging in a federal facility  and was replaced by the equally underqualified Mr. Jackson.  The same people who just three years before were telling us how terrific Mr. Reynolds was began telling us that we had been visited by an even more celestial personage in Mr. Jackson.  I never believed it because there was never any basis for it other than the “just gotta believe” attitude that affects those whose minds are so open their brains fall out.   But Mr. Jackson’s obsequiants may have had a point; Mr. Jackson had at least one more qualification than Mr. Reynolds:  not only was Mr. Jackson not Gus Savage; he also was not Mel Reynolds.  As H.L. Mencken, one of the truly great figures in American history said,

“An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will make a better soup.”

Fourth, there is much talk already about a Triple J comeback.   Don’t discount the possibility.  Young Mr. Jackson is not yet fifty and he’ll be out in about a year and a half.   He managed to win re-election by a landslide in 2012 despite his absence from both Congress and the campaign trail in the wake of suspicions regarding his dalliances with former Governor Rod Blagojevich about Barack Obama’s old senate seat and, of course, the onset of his mysterious maladies.  

Further, as H.L. Mencken also said in a widely misquoted observation…

“No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”

So we have not yet heard the last from Jesse Jackson, Jr. and his accomplice, Sandi Jackson.   As Mr. Mencken also said, perhaps gazing at the 2^nd District from far off Baltimore

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”

And, perhaps having a vision of the not yet born Jesse and Sandi Jackson, Mr. Mencken also observed

“Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.”

Mr. and Mrs. Jackson are living, breathing, walking, talking manifestations of the wisdom of Mr. Mencken.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 

COMMISSIONER BILL BEAVERS: HOG WITH THE BIG NUTS, REAL LIFE FRANK PANTANGELI, OR BOTH?

3/22/13

Former 7^th Ward Alderman and current County Commissioner Bill Beavers was convicted yesterday on several counts of tax fraud.   Loyal readers know that I have written on Mr. Beavers several times in the past (My latest discourse on Bill Beavers,  JESSE JACKSON, JR. RESIGNS:  DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU IN THE KEISTER ON THE WAY OUT, which was written for the now defunct Rant Political, was reproduced on my 2/7/13 post, JUST HOW DID SANDI JACKSON END UP UNDER THAT BUS?...and is reproduced at the end of this post for your reading enjoyment and convenience.) and that I have a degree of admiration, or at least respect, for the man.   As something of a Bill Beavers fan, and a long time commentator on Chicago politics, I would be remiss if I weren’t to write something in the wake of Mr. Beavers’ conviction.  So, in declining order of importance, are several things worth considering about Mr. Beavers and his conviction.

First, there is no excuse for corruption of any kind.   We tend to minimize, and sometimes revel in, corruption in Chicago and its environs, or at least we used to before it got so ridiculously expensive.   Our basking in our hair shirt reputation is one of the reasons that our city and state have been so corrupt for so long, as I explain in the early chapters of my first novel, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics.   So I am by no means exonerating the behavior of Mr. Beavers.

That having been said, I have long contended, and continue to contend, that an old-fashioned (I would say “old school” if I weren’t so averse to now hackneyed expressions.) pol on the take is far less dangerous than a high-minded professed reformer with a messianic complex.   Even a guy like Bill Beavers, who has, according to his conviction, made off with anywhere from $30,0000 to several hundred thousand dollars, depending on whom you believe, is small potatoes when compared to someone who is certain s/he is right and who has access to the billions upon billions government can conjure up to induce people to behave in accordance with its conception of the good of humanity.  Even the rare politician who has never taken a dime for himself can cost society far more dearly than the most corrupt pol when that ostensible Mr. Clean is determined he knows what is good for us.

Second, Mr. Beavers continues to insist that the federal case was brought because he refused to wear a wire on Cook County Commissioner John Daley.  As Mr. Beavers put it,

“They thought I was a punk.”

but

“I’m not a stool pigeon, never will be.”

Mr. Beavers argues that “even Ray Charles could see” that it was the desire to get Mr. Daley that led the feds to try to squeeze the hog, perhaps by its big nuts.   And he’s right.   There are very, very few people who believe that Mr. Beaver was NOT pursued as part of a bigger plan, probably against John Daley.   John Daley is the only person publicly denying this, and one wonders whether he is just whistling past the graveyard.

The feds found out that Mr. Beavers is not a “punk” or a “stool pigeon;” instead, he is a stand-up guy and is one bad hombre, as we used to say before something very crude was substituted for hombre in that expression.    Such a trait can be regarded as honorable or reprehensible, but there is a larger question here:  will the next guy the feds go after be so tough?   Will the next guy, perhaps after seeing the now 78 year old Mr. Beavers going away for an especially meaningful stretch, given his age, be willing to go away rather than give the feds something on their larger target(s), whomever those targets might be?

Third, part of the image I have of Mr. Beavers has been nearly completely destroyed.  It wasn’t the indictment or conviction that wreaked so much havoc on that image.  I, and most people, were not surprised that Mr. Beavers was not squeaky clean.  We knew he didn’t enter politics for the good of humanity or some such drivel; Mr. Beavers, as George Washington Plunkett once said, saw his opportunities and he took ‘em.   No, what hurts Mr. Beavers’ image in at least my eyes was that he blew whatever money he blew playing slots.  Slots?   I can’t imagine tough guy Bill Beavers, despite his advanced age, playing slots with the little old ladies who come to the casino on the bus.   I always thought he’d fit in better at the craps, roulette, or blackjack table.   Tough guys, big shooters, don’t play slots, do they?     

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 

PROMISED REPRODUCED POST:

COMMISSIONER BILL BEAVERS ON ALDERMAN SANDI JACKSON:  DIOGENES, PUT DOWN YOUR LANTERN

1/13/13

Chicagoans, and Illinoisans in general, are far too tolerant of corruption in our politicians.  We continually complain about our high and increasing taxes, our so-so level of services, the crime in our streets, and the enormous public pension and health care liabilities that will soon make our state financially uninhabitable.   But we continue to elect the same scalawags, rogues, or worse.

On the other hand…

It has long been my contention that a corrupt local pol looking to put some ill-gotten dough in his pocket is far less dangerous than a national pol, or even a local pol with a national reputation and ambitions, who comes to his job with a messianic complex and the unwavering certainty that s/he knows what is good for “the people,” despite his or her never having had a real job.   Further, at least our corrupt local pols provide plenty of entertainment value and provide us with much of the swagger that we feel is our inherent right as Chicagoans.   As we like to say when someone speaks of the latest manifestation of corruption,  “Hey, this ain’t Minneapolis.”  The problem of late, is that the price of this corruption has been exceeding its entertainment value, and the taxpayers are justifiably displaying some at least rhetorical opposition.  But I digress.

As loyal readers know, I’ve so far written novels about the politics of my hometown, The Chairman and its sequel, The Chairman’s Challenge.   While these books are widely read and enjoyed even by people who have no special affinity for politics, let alone Chicago politics, because of the searing insight they provide into the human condition and their often page turning plot lines, those who have some knowledge of the politics of this most American of cities enjoy trying to determine who the characters are in “real life.”   On more than one occasion, I have been asked if the fictional Alderman Isaiah Parker is indeed Cook County Commissioner and former 7^th Ward Alderman, Bill Beavers.  The answer, of course, is no; Isaiah Parker is a lot of people, as are all the characters in my book.  But it would be hard to make up a character more colorful, or more reflective of Chicago politics, than Bill Beavers.

I met Commissioner Beavers, a large, imposing man who refers to himself as “the hog with the big nuts,” maybe twenty years ago, when he was 7^th Ward alderman.   He was appearing before a small group of Chicago civic leaders to discuss, among other things, the gang crime problem at the time that, in the retrospective light of today’s problems in that area, seems akin to a jaywalking problem in the city.   Then Alderman Beavers, who was a Chicago police officer earlier in life, displayed an amazingly intricate degree of knowledge, down to the street corners over which various factions of gangs presided in and around his 7^th Ward, of the problem and had plenty of ideas on how to address it.   He was one of the most impressive of the many politicians yours truly has ever met.

On the other hand, Bill Beavers has never been very shy about turning public office, and political power, into cash.   Such a propensity has finally landed the Commissioner in serious trouble; he is currently under federal indictment for misuse of campaign funds and related tax evasion.   The 77 year old Mr. Beavers contends that he is guilty of only honest bookkeeping mistakes and that the feds brought the charges only to pressure him to wear a wire on fellow Cook County Commissioner, County Finance Committee Chairman, and 11^th Ward Democratic Committeeman John Daley.    When he refused to give them what they wanted, Beavers contends, the U.S. Attorney’s people indicted him.   Mr. Beaver’s most succinct comment on the indictment is that it’s “horses—t that I’m not worried about.”   He went on to call Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. Attorney whose office indicted him, a “rooster with no nuts.”

It is this degree of willingness to speak his mind where lesser men flee for cover that, in perhaps a strange way, endears Bill Beavers to people, including yours truly.   Such honesty and fearlessness has surfaced most recently in the wake of the resignation of 7^th Ward Alderman Sandi Jackson, who claims that her abandonment of her office arises out of concern for her ailing husband, former Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., who contracted his mysterious malady about the time the federal government started sniffing around his many apparent ethical lapses, including his role in trying to buy the Senate seat once held by President Obama.   (See my 11/11/12 post, JESSE JACKSON, JR. RESIGNS:  DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU IN THE KEISTER ON THE WAY OUT)   While not yet facing heat on those matters, he is under federal investigation for misuse of campaign funds.   One of the many areas of federal interest just happens to be the hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars paid to a firm controlled by, you guessed it, Sandi Jackson, for consulting services.  Another area is the thousands of dollars he spent on gifts for female “friends.”

So while in the wake of Alderman Jackson’s resignation, the Chicago media, which can’t seem to decide whether it swoons more energetically for Mayor Rahm Emanuel (See my 12/28/12 piece, RAHM EMANUEL:  MAYOR FOR LIFE…OR UNTIL HE BECOMES PRESIDENT) or Alderman Sandi Jackson, swallows whole such drivel from Alderman Jackson as

“I am unapologetically a wife and a mother and I cannot deny my commitment to those most important personal responsibilities,"

and such a reputed straight talking tough guy as Mayor Emanuel utters such fluff as

“As Sandi takes this time to focus on her family, we give her our deepest thanks and support for her service to our city and the residents of her ward.  Her leadership has been greatly appreciated in the Chicago City Council,”

Commissioner Beavers tells the truth about Sandi Jackson:

“She was a ghost alderman.   She was never here.   She always lived in Washington.  People come in my office to find out where she’s located.  I have pre-printed information with her office address and phone number.   They’re coming to me for aldermanic issues that I don’t handle because they can’t find her.”

“She wasn’t very effective because she was never there.  She never attended any meetings and, when she came to a meeting, she left right away.  I don’t feel sorry for her.  I’ve got my own problems.   I think she’s gonna be part of it and Jesse Jr. is cutting a deal to save her.”  (Emphasis mine)

Some will argue that Commissioner Beavers has an axe to grind, and he does.   He was 7^th Ward Alderman until he left to run for the County Board to watch over young Todd Stroger, who surely needed, but clearly refused, Mr. Beavers’ help.   When Bill Beavers left his aldermanic post, he installed his daughter, Darcel, in that office.   Darcel Beavers lost that job to Sandi Jackson in 2007 on the strength of the name of the family into which Sandi Jackson married.   So, yes, Mr. Beavers has reason to dislike Sandi Jackson, but can anyone deny the truth, or the honesty, of his contentions?  As Jackie Hudson, a lifelong resident of the 7^th Ward and a constituent of both Sandi Jackson and Bill Beavers, said of Mrs. Jackson’s resignation

“It’s a good thing.  She doesn’t do anything over here.  She was just riding her husband’s coattails.”

Another constituent, Dianna Mott, added

“I’m in total shock, and I’m looking for some answers.  I want to know the real motivation behind her leaving.  We understand what’s happening to you (Alderman Jackson) and your family, but where does that leave us?   What happens to the ward?”

While the local media mavens want to make us believe that poor, put-upon Sandi Jackson ought to be pitied for enduring so much and our supposedly tough guy Mayor utters inane praise of an absentee alderman for fear of alienating some imagined constituency concocted in his north side yuppie head, south side old school pol Bill Beavers tells it like it is…and doesn’t give a damn what people think about it.

Hog with big nuts indeed.   Bill Beavers is indeed the last of a breed and I, for one, will miss his like when he is gone.

A SORT OF DEFENSE OF SANDI JACKSON

2/21/13

When we seek insight into the case of former Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. and his wife, former absentee Alderman Sandi Jackson, it is sometimes best to eschew the opinions of the journalists, the pols, and even the bloggers and take a look at what the people in Mr. Jackson’s district, and Ms. Jackson’s ward, are saying.   To that end, consider the opinion, as recorded on page 3 of the 2/21/13 Chicago Sun-Times, of Linda Wetherspoon, who is 54 years old and has lived in the 2^nd District, and (I think) the 7^th Ward since she was twenty:

“He (Mr. Jackson) knew better.   But I feel terrible for Sandi.  She’s a woman.  She’s a mother.  I’m not excusing her.  But they usually don’t charge both husband and wife, because of the kids…So I don’t think it’s right the feds charged Sandi.   They really had it in for the Jacksons.”

Regular, or even casual, readers of this blog know that I don’t “feel terrible” for Sandi Jackson and have less than no sympathy for her.   See, inter alia, my most recent post on l’affaire Jackson, 2/16/13’s LET’S FINALLY TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT JESSE AND SANDI JACKSON.   Yet I think Ms. Wetherspoon has a point.   The U.S. Attorney generally doesn’t charge both husband and wife.   The most glaring example of this is the case of the Rod and Patti Blagojevich.   Perhaps the lawyers know better, but it seems to the average citizen, and to those of us who follow these things very closely, that Patti was up to her neck in Rod’s schemes.   Look at all the real estate deals in which those who curried Rod’s favor, most notably Tony Rezko, used Patti as a co-listing agent and paid her big commissions in exchange for very little.  In fact, there was testimony that agents who had such listings, and did almost all the work, were pressured to put Patti on as a listing agent, and thus split their commissions with her, when she did little or nothing on the deals.   It seems that Patti Blagojevich served as little more than a conduit for funneling money to her husband, the congressman and later the governor.  

Perhaps Mrs. Blagojevich did nothing illegal and the suspicious commissions from friends of the governor only appeared to be as hinky as they did.   Maybe there wasn’t enough evidence to charge Mrs. Blagojevich with crimes while there was plenty of evidence to charge Mrs. Jackson.   Or maybe Mrs. Blagojevich was a hardworking real estate agent who earned every dime she earned and never used her connections to get a listing, the last being as likely as yours truly’s managing the triumphant campaign of the Blagojevich/Jackson ticket when these two emerge from the hoosegow and run as a team for the nation’s highest offices. 

For whatever reason, though, Patti Blagojevich was not even charged with a crime.   Yes, she has young children, but so does Sandi Jackson.   So why the disparity of treatment?  I don’t blame people like Ms. Wetherspoon for being more than little suspicious of the government’s motives.

In all likelihood, Sandi Jackson will do no time and will get off with the legal equivalent of a slap on the wrist, largely due to the “she is a woman with young children” argument.   Still, being charged with a felony is a big deal.   One wonders…why Sandi Jackson and not Patti Blagojevich?

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 

LET’S FINALLY TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT JESSE AND SANDI JACKSON

2/16/13

Former 2^nd District Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. and his wife, former 7^th Ward absentee Alderman Sandi Jackson will plead guilty to federal charges, he of misusing $750,000 in campaign funds and she to “filing incorrect tax returns.”   Mrs. Jackson is also believed to be the “Co-conspirator 1” referred to by the feds in the criminal charges against her husband.  Mr. Jackson will probably do some time, maybe two or three years; Mrs. Jackson will in all likelihood walk with a slap on the wrist.   Monetary restitution will also have to be made; good luck with that.

I have written extensively on the travails of the Jacksons, most recently in my February 7 post JUST HOW DID SANDI JACKSON END UP UNDER THAT BUS?, which will in turn direct you to earlier commentaries on this disgraced couple.   The dual admissions of guilt have led to further observations on their defenestration:

--Buried in both the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times stories is the $473,000 in payments made by campaign funds for Jesse Jackson, Jr. (affectionately or otherwise known as “Triple J”) to “a consulting firm run by his wife,” as the Tribune put it.   Neither paper mentioned the name of the firm, Donatella & Associates, as I did in my February 7 post.   As I mentioned then, it seems to this admitted non-lawyer that it is those payments that hold the key to the case.  As far as I can tell, those payments are not a subject of the guilty plea; the charges against Triple J are for spending campaign funds on personal items not even remotely related to campaigning.

Is there more to come as the feds dig deeper into the Donatella payments?  I doubt it, and that’s a shame; it seems like that is where the real meat of this case is.   One wonders why the feds aren’t delving more deeply into Donatella, which leads to my next point.

--Why did it take so long for this case to develop?   Most people even remotely in touch with Chicago politics have known of, or had strong suspicions about, Jesse and Sandi’s financial finagling for years.  Triple J routinely raised hundred of thousands of dollars in campaign funds even though he could not possibly lose in his district; he won his last election while undergoing inpatient treatment for his mysterious malady, the intensity of which increased with the intensity of the feds’ probing, and without making a single campaign appearance.   He wasn’t spending the money on his own campaign and he wasn’t excessively generous in his support of his colleagues’ campaigns.

As the Tribune said

“Long before charges were filed, some raised questions about eh congressman’s use of campaign funds.”

This contention would be true if the Tribune has substituted “many” or “most” for “some,” but I digress.  

These machinations had been going on for years and, as the local papers said in today’s articles, they were “egregious,” “stunning,” and “staggering.”  So why did it take so long to throw the book at the Jacksons?

There has long been an unwritten rule around Chicago, and the country, that you don’t touch the Jacksons.  In fact, there are some who would argue that the Blagojevich investigation was stopped when it was stopped because it was getting too close to Triple J, though I don’t subscribe to that argument.   It seems that too many people, including

• naïve, just want to believe, liberals,
• the local, and especially the national press.
• local and national pols looking for votes who assume that to offend the Jacksons will cost them black votes, and, especially,
• corporate America, which finds it much easier to deal with Triple J, his wife, and his father than to actually get to understand the average black man in the street.  After all, the Jacksons, and especially Jesse Jackson, Sr., will come up to see them in Lake Forest; they don’t even have to go down into “those neighborhoods” to assuage their usually, but not always, misplaced sense of guilt.   Corporate America has too much invested in the Jacksons to throw it all away just because two of them are criminals.

It is this “don’t touch the Jacksons” rule that has kept the feds away from the Jacksons until Sandi and Triple J’s ineptness made doing so impossible.

--The list of things that Triple J spent the pilfered funds on would be comical if it weren’t so pathetic…

·        Mink reversible parka                          $1,500

·        Bruce Lee memorabilia                        $10,105

·        Michael Jackson memorabilia               $22,700

·        Wristwatch                                          $43,000

And that is only a partial list.  

Even if young Jackson had spent his own money on such items, it would show, in this writer’s opinion, a serious lack of character or at least an egregious lack of judgment.   Why in the world would anyone spent $43,000 on a watch even if he "had the money"?   What kind of fop would spend anything on a mink reversible parka?   Who needs either senseless bauble?   What kind of popinjay wants either senseless bauble?   How empty must one’s life be if one tries to fill its gaping void with such silliness?

--Triple J continues to insist that he is guilty of “mistakes,” “errors in judgment,” and “improper decisions.”  As I said in my 11/22/12 post on the now defunct Rant Political, JESSE JACKSON, JR. RESIGNS:  DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU IN THE KEISTER ON THE WAY OUT, to which the aforementioned link will lead you

Taking a left turn when one meant to take a right turn is a mistake.   Cheating on one’s wife with comely cocktail waitresses who moonlights as bikini models, using campaign funds for personal reasons, and dealing with corrupt governors for Senatorial seats are moral failings and ethical transgressions.  But our society seems to see no differences between mere mental oversights and horrendous violations of long established and well grounded moral codes.  Then we wonder why people commit so many of the latter.

Now that the Congressman is about to plead guilty, we can add to those moral failings and ethical transgressions admitted crimes.  But in Jesse Jackson’s world, and, sadly, in our modern world, these are only “mistakes” or, at worst “errors in judgment.”  O temporal, o mores!

--One would hope that the admission of guilt by Mr. and Mrs. Jackson would put an end to the campaign by the local and national media to portray Sandi Jackson as the poor, put upon spouse and Triple J as a character in a modern Greek tragedy, an Olympian who fell from the sky.   One would be foolish to harbor such a hope.

While yours truly don’t like to make predictions, it is not difficult to see a story line developing that poor, poor Sandi was guilty, really, only of signing as an innocent co-filer Triple J’s fictitious tax returns.   As for Triple J, the press just can’t get over the heat induced swooning this utter fraud seems to spark in their hearts.   For example, in the Chicago Sun-Times editorial in the wake of the guilty pleas, the paper, while pointing out Mr. Jackson’s obvious “misplaced sense of entitlement,” just had to tell us

He was smart and charismatic.  He worked hard.

Triple J was and is not smart.  Smart people don’t spend other people’s money on $43,000 watches and do little to cover their tracks.  Smart people don’t engage in corruption so naked that, even with the untouchability conferred on him by his father, prosecution of Congressman Jackson became inevitable.

Triple J didn’t work hard; he took his duties lightly and did only the minimum to get by, preferring to spend his time attending to such vital matters as buying Michael Jackson’s fedoras and Eddie Van Halen’s guitars and pursuing a quixotic, yet headline grabbing, quest for a “third Chicago airport” that no one seems to want, let alone need.  As I said in the aforementioned 11/22/12 post  JESSE JACKSON, JR. RESIGNS:  DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU IN THE KEISTER ON THE WAY OUT

Jesse Jackson, Jr. was a Congressman of little accomplishment.  In his seventeen years in Congress, he did little more than make an occasional decent speech, accept undeserved congratulations, and plot to gain his next political office.   This made him no different from most politicians, but young Mr. Jackson didn’t even manage to gain a committee chairmanship or a seat on the Appropriations committee for his otherwise pointless and unproductive efforts.   Perhaps this was because Mr. Jackson was so focused, or some might say obsessed, with the notion of a “third” Chicago airport in the far southern reaches of his district, the merits of which were very limited at best and a reflection of the corruption that pervades Chicago politics at worst.

As I said before, the unwritten rule that one doesn’t criticize the Jacksons continues to pervade coverage of this nonentity.

--According to the Sun-Times, when Jesse Jackson, Sr. was asked whether he was embarrassed or surprised by his son’s “lavish (Yours truly would say idiotic.) spending,”

He cut off the conversation, telling the Sun-Times “I can’t comment on any of that.  I could not and should not.  I don’t know enough about it.”

This sounds like the Reverend Jackson’s version of Ralph Cramden’s “Huminahuminahumina.”   One wonders why the elder Jackson has so little to say about the spending propensities of his son.   Could this be a case of the apple’s not falling far from the tree?

--Finally, while organized labor has been very generous to Triple J, contributing over $1 million to his admitted personal piggy bank, er, sorry, campaign funds, over the years, Congressman Jackson’s largest single contributor has been Exelon, the holding company for, among other things, Chicago’s local electric utility.  Exelon’s PAC and employees have contributed more than $85 thousand to young Mr. Jackson.

Exelon’s generosity reinforces my earlier point about corporate America’s large investment in the Jackson family as a convenient way to make it look like it “cares” about the average black consumer.  

Exelon’s munificence also tells a story as old as Chicago politics, and it is doubtless not unique to these parts.   The local utilities in this town have always been cozy with the political powers that be; after all, it is the politicians who ultimately decide what the utilities can charge their customers and thus the profits they can remit to their shareholders.   It has long been routine for the local utilities to make room on their payrolls for people who were “recommended” for jobs by various ward bosses; the utilities were mere extensions of the city, county, and state payrolls as patronage havens.   As an example, when I was in my teens, the Ward Secretary (after the Ward Committeeman, the most powerful political official in the Ward) in my home 19^th Ward was one Tom Ryan…who worked for what everyone called “the gas company,” perhaps due to its unfortunate name at the time “People’s Gas.”  (I have at least one great story about the 1975 19^th Ward aldermanic race to succeed Silent Tommy Fitz, Ryan’s boss; I’ll have to save it for later in the interests of time and relevance.)   Tom Ryan was far from alone.   The point is that the coziness of the utilities with the pols goes on to this day, but nowadays the pols are apparently more expensive than a few spots on the payroll for political hangers-on.

The truth about the Jacksons has long been known but rarely been spoken.   One wonders if even the guilty pleas of Triple J and his wife will finally permit the truth to come out anywhere but at Mighty Quinn on Politics and Money.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics. 

JUST HOW DID SANDI JACKSON END UP UNDER THAT BUS?

2/7/13

What was long known for a long time among close political observers is now official, or as official as such things can be:   federal investigators have opened a probe, separate but not distinct from that of her husband, of former 7th Ward absentee Alderman Sandi Jackson.  

The probe centers on financial transfers between the Congressional campaign fund of former U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. (affectionately known in these parts as Triple J) and the aldermanic campaign fund of former Alderman Jackson.  Investigators are also looking into undocumented credit card charges on one or both of the funds.   It is not at all difficult to guess that the well-grounded suspicion of the federal investigators is that both campaign funds were used as piggy-banks by the Jacksons, and not always, or even all that often, for political purposes.  It apparently wasn’t just Triple J’s buying expensive watches for his paramours and providing the transportation necessary to make his, er, romantic encounters possible; it also appeared to be Sandi Jackson’s using the campaign funds, which seemingly were fungible in the minds of the Jacksons, for whatever happened to strike her fancy.  Whether the Jacksons have actually done anything illegal is up to the feds to prove, but the whole situation certainly looks bad.

Regular readers know that yours truly has no special sympathy or affection for the Jacksons and finds laughable, or pathetic, Sandi Jackson’s pose, much abetted by the local and national media, as the put upon victim in this episode.   (See, inter alia, my 1/13/13 post on the now defunct Rant Political, COMMISSIONER BILL BEAVERS ON ALDERMAN SANDI JACKSON:  DIOGENES, PUT DOWN YOUR LANTERN, and my 11/22/12 post on the same cite, JESSE JACKSON, JR. RESIGNS:  DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU IN THE KEISTER ON THE WAY OUT, both reproduced below.)   But even an objective observers might question why this probe of the either sloppy or fraudulent bookkeeping of the Alderman’s campaign fund is even necessary.

No one denies that Alderman Jackson was paid $5,000 per month from Congressman Jackson’s campaign fund, through a “consulting” firm, Donatella & Associates, in which Alderman Jackson had a large ownership interest.  These payments, ostensibly for campaign consulting services, followed one of the oldest, most time worn, but somehow still in use and effective practices in the annals of Chicago politics:  Put one’s spouse on the payroll, one way or the other, of one’s campaign fund, thus allowing “campaign” contributions from those seeking a larger space at the pubic trough to flow, like water through a sieve, into one’s pockets though those of his or her spouse.

If the feds could prove that nothing was done in exchange for the payments made to Sandi Jackson’s Donatella & Associates by Congressman Jackson’s campaign funds, it would seem that they would have proven their case that the campaign funds were funneled to the Jacksons for personal use, or so it seems at least to this non-lawyer.  And it shouldn’t be hard to prove that nothing was done for the payment to Donatella; the payments were made each month, whether the Congressman, who held one of the safest seats in Congress, was campaigning or not.  Further, the payments continued during that period of time during which Mr. Jackson could not campaign because he was being treated, in-house, for a curious assortment of psychological and emotional maladies, which seemed to intensify with federal scrutiny of his actions.  

Transfers between the campaign funds of the Alderman and the Congressman and kinky credit card charges might add to the body of evidence against the Jacksons, but the most transparent abuse of “campaign contributions” seems to have involved the payments to Donatella & Associates.

One more thing…

According to a report by the Chicago Sun-Times Michael Sneed, whose column is a must for those who follow Chicago politics, Sandi Jackson is complaining, according to sources, that she “was thrown under the bus by her husband.”   Given Sandi Jackson’s apparent culpability in this ever expanding caper, unless Triple J is singing on his wife (a not implausible turn of events, given the former Congressman’s shortcomings of character, er, sorry, “mistakes”), she has only wound up under the bus because she dove under it with great vigor and enthusiasm.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on this subject.

PROMISED REPRODUCTIONS OF PAST ARTICLES:

COMMISSIONER BILL BEAVERS ON ALDERMAN SANDI JACKSON:  DIOGENES, PUT DOWN YOUR LANTERN

1/13/13

Chicagoans, and Illinoisans in general, are far too tolerant of corruption in our politicians.  We continually complain about our high and increasing taxes, our so-so level of services, the crime in our streets, and the enormous public pension and health care liabilities that will soon make our state financially uninhabitable.   But we continue to elect the same scalawags, rogues, or worse.

On the other hand…

It has long been my contention that a corrupt local pol looking to put some ill-gotten dough in his pocket is far less dangerous than a national pol, or even a local pol with a national reputation and ambitions, who comes to his job with a messianic complex and the unwavering certainty that s/he knows what is good for “the people,” despite his or her never having had a real job.   Further, at least our corrupt local pols provide plenty of entertainment value and provide us with much of the swagger that we feel is our inherent right as Chicagoans.   As we like to say when someone speaks of the latest manifestation of corruption,  “Hey, this ain’t Minneapolis.”  The problem of late, is that the price of this corruption has been exceeding its entertainment value, and the taxpayers are justifiably displaying some at least rhetorical opposition.  But I digress.

As loyal readers know, I’ve so far written novels about the politics of my hometown, The Chairman and its sequel, The Chairman’s Challenge.   While these books are widely read and enjoyed even by people who have no special affinity for politics, let alone Chicago politics, because of the searing insight they provide into the human condition and their often page turning plot lines, those who have some knowledge of the politics of this most American of cities enjoy trying to determine who the characters are in “real life.”   On more than one occasion, I have been asked if the fictional Alderman Isaiah Parker is indeed Cook County Commissioner and former 7^th Ward Alderman, Bill Beavers.  The answer, of course, is no; Isaiah Parker is a lot of people, as are all the characters in my book.  But it would be hard to make up a character more colorful, or more reflective of Chicago politics, than Bill Beavers.

I met Commissioner Beavers, a large, imposing man who refers to himself as “the hog with the big nuts,” maybe twenty years ago, when he was 7^th Ward alderman.   He was appearing before a small group of Chicago civic leaders to discuss, among other things, the gang crime problem at the time that, in the retrospective light of today’s problems in that area, seems akin to a jaywalking problem in the city.   Then Alderman Beavers, who was a Chicago police officer earlier in life, displayed an amazingly intricate degree of knowledge, down to the street corners over which various factions of gangs presided in and around his 7^th Ward, of the problem and had plenty of ideas on how to address it.   He was one of the most impressive of the many politicians yours truly has ever met.

On the other hand, Bill Beavers has never been very shy about turning public office, and political power, into cash.   Such a propensity has finally landed the Commissioner in serious trouble; he is currently under federal indictment for misuse of campaign funds and related tax evasion.   The 77 year old Mr. Beavers contends that he is guilty of only honest bookkeeping mistakes and that the feds brought the charges only to pressure him to wear a wire on fellow Cook County Commissioner, County Finance Committee Chairman, and 11^th Ward Democratic Committeeman John Daley.    When he refused to give them what they wanted, Beavers contends, the U.S. Attorney’s people indicted him.   Mr. Beaver’s most succinct comment on the indictment is that it’s “horses—t that I’m not worried about.”   He went on to call Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. Attorney whose office indicted him, a “rooster with no nuts.”

It is this degree of willingness to speak his mind where lesser men flee for cover that, in perhaps a strange way, endears Bill Beavers to people, including yours truly.   Such honesty and fearlessness has surfaced most recently in the wake of the resignation of 7^th Ward Alderman Sandi Jackson, who claims that her abandonment of her office arises out of concern for her ailing husband, former Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., who contracted his mysterious malady about the time the federal government started sniffing around his many apparent ethical lapses, including his role in trying to buy the Senate seat once held by President Obama.   (See my 11/11/12 post, JESSE JACKSON, JR. RESIGNS:  DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU IN THE KEISTER ON THE WAY OUT)   While not yet facing heat on those matters, he is under federal investigation for misuse of campaign funds.   One of the many areas of federal interest just happens to be the hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars paid to a firm controlled by, you guessed it, Sandi Jackson, for consulting services.  Another area is the thousands of dollars he spent on gifts for female “friends.”

So while in the wake of Alderman Jackson’s resignation, the Chicago media, which can’t seem to decide whether it swoons more energetically for Mayor Rahm Emanuel (See my 12/28/12 piece, RAHM EMANUEL:  MAYOR FOR LIFE…OR UNTIL HE BECOMES PRESIDENT) or Alderman Sandi Jackson, swallows whole such drivel from Alderman Jackson as

“I am unapologetically a wife and a mother and I cannot deny my commitment to those most important personal responsibilities,"

and such a reputed straight talking tough guy as Mayor Emanuel utters such fluff as

“As Sandi takes this time to focus on her family, we give her our deepest thanks and support for her service to our city and the residents of her ward.  Her leadership has been greatly appreciated in the Chicago City Council,”

Commissioner Beavers tells the truth about Sandi Jackson:

“She was a ghost alderman.   She was never here.   She always lived in Washington.  People come in my office to find out where she’s located.  I have pre-printed information with her office address and phone number.   They’re coming to me for aldermanic issues that I don’t handle because they can’t find her.”

“She wasn’t very effective because she was never there.  She never attended any meetings and, when she came to a meeting, she left right away.  I don’t feel sorry for her.  I’ve got my own problems.   I think she’s gonna be part of it and Jesse Jr. is cutting a deal to save her.”  (Emphasis mine)

Some will argue that Commissioner Beavers has an axe to grind, and he does.   He was 7^th Ward Alderman until he left to run for the County Board to watch over young Todd Stroger, who surely needed, but clearly refused, Mr. Beavers’ help.   When Bill Beavers left his aldermanic post, he installed his daughter, Darcel, in that office.   Darcel Beavers lost that job to Sandi Jackson in 2007 on the strength of the name of the family into which Sandi Jackson married.   So, yes, Mr. Beavers has reason to dislike Sandi Jackson, but can anyone deny the truth, or the honesty, of his contentions?  As Jackie Hudson, a lifelong resident of the 7^th Ward and a constituent of both Sandi Jackson and Bill Beavers, said of Mrs. Jackson’s resignation

“It’s a good thing.  She doesn’t do anything over here.  She was just riding her husband’s coattails.”

Another constituent, Dianna Mott, added

“I’m in total shock, and I’m looking for some answers.  I want to know the real motivation behind her leaving.  We understand what’s happening to you (Alderman Jackson) and your family, but where does that leave us?   What happens to the ward?”

While the local media mavens want to make us believe that poor, put-upon Sandi Jackson ought to be pitied for enduring so much and our supposedly tough guy Mayor utters inane praise of an absentee alderman for fear of alienating some imagined constituency concocted in his north side yuppie head, south side old school pol Bill Beavers tells it like it is…and doesn’t give a damn what people think about it.

Hog with big nuts indeed.   Bill Beavers is indeed the last of a breed and I, for one, will miss his like when he is gone.

JESSE JACKSON, JR. RESIGNS:  DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU IN THE KEISTER ON THE WAY OUT

11/22/12

Jesse Jackson, Jr., the now former Congressman with a big name, little accomplishment, and a parade of ethical lapses finally resigned from his sinecure in Washington before trouble with federal law enforcement would have forced him to give up his Congressional pension.  Despite his having left the government payroll, one suspects that the federal government will soon be once again picking up most of his living expenses; an indictment is in the offing and any deal looks likely to involve some time as a federal guest.

While last week I discussed Triple J’s landslide reelection despite being under a very dark and heavy federal cloud (See DUMB AND DUMBER:  REELECTING JESSE JACKSON, JR. AND FURTHER ENTRENCHING MIKE MADIGAN, 11/12/12), I have more thoughts in the wake of Mr. Jackson’s finally doing the inevitable.

--Mr. Jackson’s resignation letter to House Speaker John Boehner contained so many references to “mistakes” that one suspects Triple J’s typewriter had, or has developed, a key for that entire word.   Mr. Jackson’s referring to his moral failings and ethical transgressions as “mistakes” continues a troubling trend toward confusing not only terms but ramifications and motivations.   Taking a left turn when one meant to take a right turn is a mistake.   Cheating on one’s wife with comely cocktail waitresses who moonlight as bikini models, using campaign funds for personal reasons, and dealing with corrupt governors for Senatorial seats are moral failings and ethical transgressions.  But our society seems to see no differences between mere mental oversights and horrendous violations of long established and well grounded moral codes.  Then we wonder why people commit so many of the latter.

--Jesse Jackson, Jr. was a Congressman of little accomplishment.  In his seventeen years in Congress, he did little more than make an occasional decent speech, accept undeserved congratulations, and plot to gain his next political office.   This made him no different from most politicians, but young Mr. Jackson didn’t even manage to gain a committee chairmanship or a seat on the Appropriations committee for his otherwise pointless and unproductive efforts.   Perhaps this was because Mr. Jackson was so focused, or some might say obsessed, with the notion of a “third” Chicago airport in the far southern reaches of his district, the merits of which were very limited at best and a reflection of the corruption that pervades Chicago politics at worst.

At any rate, the people of Illinois’s 2^nd district will have a hard time replacing Mr. Jackson with a representative of less accomplishment.

--Two congressmen before Jesse Jackson, Jr., the voters of the 2^nd district were represented by one Gus Savage, a crude anti-Semite and racist (He didn’t like white people, even those he represented.) who got caught up in a sex scandal.   Mr. Savage was replaced by Mel Reynolds, a young guy who had a great academic resume that included degrees from the University of Illinois-Champaign and the U of I of the east, Harvard, along with a Rhodes Scholarship.   Beyond the academic resume, though, Mr. Reynolds was little more than a clean slate on which the people of the district, and well-meaning liberals who lived well beyond the district but who made a point, and sometimes a profession, of expressing concern and a misguided and grossly inflated sense of solidarity with those who had to deal with the vicissitudes of life in much of the 2^nd district on a daily basis, could pin whatever groundless hopes and aspirations they had for the man.   Mr. Reynolds ended up leaving Congress after being convicted of twelve counts of sexual assault, obstruction of justice, and solicitation of child pornography…and being recorded while extolling the sexual attractiveness of Catholic high school girls.

Then came Mr. Jackson, whose resume was even thinner than that of Mr. Reynolds but who had the overwhelming virtue of his father’s having been born before him.  Again, the same crowd of political hacks, downtown and north shore professional liberals, and political guns for hire looking for work were endless in their praise of this empty suit…in nearly the exact same words they used for Mr. Reynolds when he took over the seat from Mr. Savage.   And now Mr. Jackson has left office in the wake of a sex scandal, a scandal involving the purchase of public office from a corrupt governor, and federal law enforcement matters tangentially related to the first but not the second of the aforementioned.   One would think people would learn.

Let’s just hope that whoever replaces Mr. Jackson (grist for another mill; there are, of course, plenty of candidates, the most intriguing of which is Sam Adam, Jr., who lives in my old neighborhood, is a great and bombastic attorney (He was the guy who represented Rod Blagojevich the time he (almost) won, a nice guy, and the very definition of the word “character.”  Sam would liven up the House a bit.  But I digress.), s/he is a person of sufficient background and accomplishment that s/he will serve the district well and will serve as more than a Rorschach blot for the well meaning who love to express sympathy for Chicago’s south side from the comfort of their gated communities or doorman manned high rises miles and miles from the boundaries of the district.

--Now Illinois has two governors in jail and a Congressman headed there.   I would say we are a national laughingstock but we’ve been that for years.   Yet we keep electing these people and, more sadly, the people who pull their strings.  Again, see DUMB AND DUMBER:  REELECTING JESSE JACKSON, JR. AND FURTHER ENTRENCHING MIKE MADIGAN, 11/12/12.   And those of you who want to understand the appalling yet intriguing politics of my home town that produces such notables would do well to read both my books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics, and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, available at, among many other places, Amazon.com.  Nobody explains how we do things around here better or more entertainingly.