Chicago Daily Observer

When Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin was running for Cook County State’s Attorney, he told me that he opposed the tax increase package being rammed through by President Todd Stroger.

But once he lost the Democratic primary to Anita Alvarez, he changed his tune and became one of the most vocal proponents of supporting Stroger’s repressive 1 percent increase in the county wide sales tax.

This week, Republican County Commissioner Tony Peraica, who has been consistently speaking out against unnecessary tax increases and urging trimming waste and the county’s bloated budget, sought to push commissioners to repeal the punitive Stroger Sales Tax.

And who do you think stood up to lead the personal attacks against Peraica?

Like all grownups, even the least attentive, I enjoy watching the infantile games that liberals play. A current favorite is called “Race and Gender Don’t Matter” game. The rules are that candidates proclaim that their candidacy has nothing to do with the aforementioned immutable genetically inherited traits and then proceed to recite a laundry list of their supporters, neatly categorized by race, gender, ethnicity, and sexual preference.

The Super Bowl of the Race-Gender Olympics has been the ongoing back and forth between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, with color (no, not that kind of color!) commentators breathlessly predicting who will get the “female vote,” and who the “African-American” vote. That’s “vote,” singular. I guess that proves that don’t view their voters as members of groups. Instead, they view them as so incapable of individual thought that each racial, ethnic or gender category may as well be one voting entity.

Ordinarily ... Read More...

Larry Suffredin wants to be the next Cook County state’s attorney and says he’d fight corruption. But as a lobbyist, he’s been working for a man implicated in a mob bombing

Larry Suffredin—a self-styled reformer running for Cook County state’s attorney—lobbied for a landfill controlled by Fred Bruno Barbara, a businessman once charged with extortion and implicated in the mob bombing of a restaurant, the Sun-Times has learned.

There’s a mad, multi-candidate scramble for the Democratic nomination for Cook county state’s attorney, not only because the office is a giant plum but because its outcome has not always been determined by the Democratic machine.

Running as an independent Dem in 1980, a fellow named Richard M. Daley trounced the “slated” Alderman Ed Burke and went on to upset the two-term Republican incumbent Bernard Carey (yes, a Republican won the office in 1972 in an upset with strong racial ingredients).

Then, when Daley won the 1989 mayoral race he appointed an old-line black politician, Cecil Partee to fill his term. In the 1992 race for a full term, Partee was weakened by a race-based primary battle against a north side alderman and subsequently lost to Republican Jack O’Malley in yet another race-tinged election—the last time the GOP held a countywide office.

O’Malley was later upset by the machine ... Read More...