Another month to go before we get a clue as to what will be Burke’s fate

I have to admit to anxiously waiting for next week Friday, the date that was a legal deadline for federal prosecutors to, as the crude euphemism goes, poop or get off the pot, with regards to Edward M. Burke.

BURKE: Feds get 35 more days to investigate

We learned back in January that a criminal complaint was filed against the long-time (seriously, a half-century) alderman – claiming that his conduct in dealing with the operators of a Burger King franchise in the Gage Park neighborhood bordered on criminal.

REMEMBER, THOSE OPERATORS were told about the types of campaign contributions they ought to make to certain political people if they wanted Burke, in his aldermanic role, to sign off on the permits required for the renovations the operators desired to make.

Admittedly, it should be noted that these operators were not from Chicago. They came from Texas, and it seems they’re used to being able to push political people around. Rather than having political people tell them what needs to be done.

But anyway, they turned to federal prosecutors, who then proceeded with the criminal complaint – all the while having their investigation continue. Theoretically, May 3 was the deadline by which prosecutors had to be ready to hand down an indictment – or else see their case get tossed out.

But on Thursday, federal prosecutor asked for more time. The request they made seeks 35 more days, which would make the new deadline June 7.

WHICH MEANS WE’LL have to wait another month to figure out what could become of Burke. Will the feds come up with a more significant case against Burke – one that could be much more significant in terms of legal consequences for the alderman?

Will they have to maintain the same legal case they’ve put forth thus far – that Burke was shaking down the operators of the Burger King franchise in his home neighborhood?

Or is it possible that all of this legal mess could wind up withering away into a big nothingness.

Couldn't beat Burke, so Toni taken down

Almost as though Burke would become the political equivalent of one-time Chicago mob boss Tony Accardo – who upon his death in 1992 had it noted prominently that despite the decades of allegations of criminal activity he was involved in, he himself never spent a day in prison.

BUT BACK TO Eddie Burke – who in some ways is the intriguing part of the most recent election cycle in Chicago.

Despite the people who want to think that “Reform!!!” has come to Chicago in the form of Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot and those new aldermen who want to adopt the Democratic Socialist label to identify themselves, the reality that some things remain the same is evidenced by Burke.

Who managed to overcome an attempt by Latino political activists to dump Burke from his aldermanic seat. He managed to win re-election with relative ease – not having to endure a run-off election of any sort.

Seriously, 2019 was the election cycle in which people interested in change had to settle for costing the re-election of long-time good-government type Toni Preckwinkle. Meanwhile, Burke remains in his aldermanic post – albeit without the Finance chairmanship that gave him much of his political power.

WHICH MEANS THOSE people who want to see Eddie Burke dumped from office, but couldn’t beat him at the polling place, are now counting on federal investigators to come up with the goods that could create a politically-humiliating trial – along with the possibility of Burke being sent to prison while in his mid-to-late 70s.

But now, we’re going to have to wait another month or so to see what kind of goods the G-men have come up with on Burke – if anything at all.

Burke himself is playing the cocky role, in that his attorneys aren’t doing anything to resist the delay – which technically he’d have a right to do. What’s another month if it means the case comes to an end.

It almost makes me think that if they were to make an Ed Burke movie, actor Robert DiNiro would portray him – similar to that scene where he played Al Capone in the 1987 film “The Untouchables” telling the feds, “You got nothing, you punk!”

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Do we give a fig about royal wedding?

“If George comes to Chicago, I’ll crack him in the snoot” – William H. Thompson, former Mayor of Chicago

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I’m sure by now, many of you are sick and tired of hearing this line, spouted in the heat of the 1927 election cycle as Thompson ran an anti-British theme throughout his campaign for re-election that year.

Do 'we' really wanna 'read all about it?'

Because the “George” he refers to was then-King George V – as in the grandfather of current Queen Elizabeth II (who having been Queen since 1952 has the kind of lengthy term that American politicos can only fantasize about) and great-great-grandfather to Prince Henry (more commonly called Harry), who on Saturday will have the world’s eyes on him as he marries one-time Northwestern University student Meghan Markle.

THAT LINE FROM Thompson is being used by many people who try to come up with some sort of connection between the English royals and those of us native to the “Second City.”

It also gets used by those of us intending to show our disdain for anything happening in London on Saturday. Some of us feel the need to spew trash talk about how we fought a war against those people to break our ties to the English king.

George III, to be exact.

George V, with his 'snoot' intact

While others will want to get caught up in the pageantry of the spectacle and will think it sad that some people will be “haters” – although whenever I hear the word used like that, I’m reminded of the various delusional, and youthful, women who dated Hugh Hefner during his final years of life.

PERSONALLY, I CAN’T say I feel either way.

“Hate” would definitely be the wrong sentiment, because in order to hate something, you have to care about it. You have to have a legitimate sense of feeling that, in some ways, could border on “love.”

Yet I also have the same feelings of apathy whenever anything involving the English royal family comes up. It just all seems so trivial.

All bluster from 'Big Bill'

At least if we were talking about an American power-play wedding, such as a White House-staged event involving President Donald J. Trump’s younger daughter, Tiffany – we could complain about the gross misuse of tax dollars during the Trump years in D.C.

IF ANYTHING, IT bothers me to bring this up because we then have to recall the 1915-23 and again from 1927-31 mayoral reign of Thompson – the man whose tolerance of Al Capone is the reason why a hood was able to achieve such prominence in Chicago.

Remember that scene from Kevin Costner’s 1987 take on “The Untouchables” when Costner’s Eliot Ness is stopped from arresting Frank Nitti for bringing a pistol into a courthouse – because Nitti produced a note granting him permission to legally have the weapon?

A note signed by none other than “William Hale Thompson” himself. That scene wasn’t exactly fictional – although the follow-up scene where Ness throws Nitti off the roof of City Hall to his death inside an automobile (“He’s in the car” was Ness’ response when asked about Nitti’s whereabouts) was pure fantasy.

Do we really want to be recalling the sentiments of a man who makes the political people of our era seem so meek and mild? One who would make Rod Blagojevich seem like a choirboy by comparison and would probably upset the conservative ideologues because Thompson was a Republican – the last GOPer to date to hold the Chicago mayoral post.

NO WONDER WHY our local voters don’t think much of the one-time Party of Lincoln.

The queen w/ Chicago 'royalty'

But the other “local moments” in our history include the July 6, 1959 visit of Elizabeth, herself, to Chicago – spending 14 hours in our city and even having a meeting with Richard J. Daley himself.

Or that three-day visit Princess Diana made to Chicago in the summer of 1996 – with its profound moment being the formal ball at the Field Museum where some local “gent” managed to cut in and got himself a dance with Diana herself.

Although that, at least, left a memento, as the Drake Hotel suite where she stood is now known as the “Princess Diana Suite” (which TripAdvisor.com puts at $187 per night – if available).

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How close to a coup will we come with regards to the fate of Donald Trump?

One of my distant cousins felt compelled to express her disgust with President Donald J. Trump, taking to Facebook to let it be known she’s among the majority of our society wishing he could be removed from office.

TRUMP: How can we dump him from office?

Me, feeling the need to be a complete smart-aleck, responded by saying such talk amounted to a coup d’ tat and was un-American. Although I then added in full sincerity the part I really believe – that we’re stuck with the buffoon in the post of president and commander-in-chief of the U.S. armed forces and that we’re going to have to suffer a bit.

THAT IS OUR penalty for picking to be our president the rube who thinks all his money buys him sophistication and knowledge. We, the people, picked him, and now we’re going to pay for our moment of vacuousness.

Even though we had an election in which 54 percent of people who voted chose someone other than Trump, the rules under which our elections operate allowed Donald’s 46 percent support to be sufficient to give him an Electoral College majority.

And as various polls show, those who were among the 46 percent are largely satisfied – mainly because they enjoy the thought that Trump’s presence in the political post so offends the people they disagree with.

Considering that those same individuals are the ones who gave Republican interests their current control over Congress, there’s just no way that we get any serious effort toward impeachment.

THE PEOPLE WHO are in control would likely find themselves on the wrong end of the conservative right’s retribution if they were to do anything to harm Donald Trump. As for those who think their sense of shame would become too intense; well, that’s nonsense talk.

What's worse? Trump thinks this is still real? Or worth defending?

Many in government have no sense of shame. If they did, they probably wouldn’t have been able to bring themselves to run for office to begin with.

So for us in the real majority, we’re going to likely have to endure the nonsense of moments such as Trump’s public withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, where he said he did it to support people like those who live in Pittsburgh, rather than Paris or any other foreign place.

Of course, the mayor of Pittsburgh quickly came out and publicly criticized the president for undermining a measure that would go a long way toward making the Pennsylvania city a cleaner- and more-pleasant place to live.

GRIFFIN: Too absurd to take seriously

WHAT I SUSPECT Trump really means is that he did something to benefit those people of the rural parts of Pennsylvania who provided much of the voter support that caused such places as that state, along with Michigan and Ohio, to swing over to the Trump column last election night.

It’s not like Trump is the kind of guy who gets too wrapped up in comprehending the details of his actions – his real quarrel over the environmental agreement most likely is a bad meal he once had while at a French restaurant somewhere in Manhattan.

So what should we expect in the way in expressing opposition to this Age of Trump that we’re now in?

There are the protests such as the one scheduled for Saturday outside the Dirksen and Kluczynski federal complex in Chicago – along with various other cities across the nation. This particular event is going to focus on Trump and Russia and the notion that the president is in an unhealthy collusion with that nation.

WHICH WILL GIVE an outlet to express the frustrations of those of us ashamed to live in a nation with a sizable batch of knuckleheads who had no problem with the image of former President Barack Obama facing a lynch mob but now are grossly offended at the latest nonsensical ramblings and images of comedian Kathy Griffin.

For the key to comprehending Trump’s actions is to realize he’s not fully aware of the details of his trash-talk, which enables him to spew such nonsense. It often may be based on the stereotypes of the past – such as his Pittsburgh comment.

CAPONE: Does Trump think he's still real?

It makes me wonder if something similar is happening every time Trump engages in trash talk of Chicago and its crime rate. Perhaps he thinks Al Capone is still on the loose in the Second City and needs to be reigned in?

Which probably has Trump wondering why that damned G-man, Eliot Ness, isn’t responding to any of his phone calls to order up a federal raid or two on “Scarface’s” South Side operations! Or maybe he's so confused he thinks he's really calling actor Kevin Costner?!?

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Hastert or Van Dyke – whose treatment by the system do we detest the most?

It will be interesting to see how the courts ultimately resolve the criminal charges pending against one-time House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert.

HASTERT: He's humiliated

He faces charges alleging technical flaws in the way he handled his finances, and could get a few months in a federal correctional center. Although Hastert’s attorneys argued in a court filing this week they think he should get some form of probation.

WHY?

It’s just that Hastert has already suffered so much in the way of humiliation as a result of the criminal charges filed against him. Hasn’t he suffered enough?

“We respectfully request that he court consider the humiliation and isolation that Mr. Hastert and his family have already suffered when determining his sentence,” they wrote.

Why do I suspect that people across Illinois have their jaws dropping at the nerve of the man to ask for mercy?

THERE ALREADY ARE those people who are upset that Hastert’s criminal charges don’t relate directly to the offense that many suspect him of having committed – the sex allegations against a student (or a few) from back when he was a high school teacher and wrestling coach at Yorkville High School.

There have been enough complaints that prosecutors are focusing so intently on the financial violations that it is covering up what they want to believe is the serious criminal offense that was committed.

Of course, considering that the alleged offense would have taken place decades ago there are questions about whether it could be prosecuted (statute of limitations, you know).

VAN DYKE: He's broke

The financial violations (which involve making payments in excess of federal limits without reporting them to federal authorities) are much easier for calculator-types to comprehend.

ALTHOUGH IT PUTS Hastert in the same class as Alphonse Capone – the one-time mob boss whose prison time ultimately came from income tax evasion (and there are serious questions about whether the federal laws concerning income tax at the time were so loose that maybe Capone didn’t really do anything wrong).

But we’re being asked to show compassion for Hastert because he’s old and ill and he’s embarrassed his family enough.

I just don’t think many people will buy that.

CAPONE: Could Al have made same argument?

Take the circumstances surrounding Jason Van Dyke – the Chicago cop who faces multiple murder counts for the slaying of a black teenage boy back in 2014.

HOW MANY PEOPLE were outraged to learn that Van Dyke these days actually has a job!?! Admittedly, I’m sure the cop thinks it stinks that he’s been reduced to the level of a janitor.

But he’s working at the offices of the Fraternal Order of Police, the police union that wanted to ensure their member had something of an income while his criminal trial is pending.

I wonder what the outrage would be if Van Dyke were to make the same kind of argument that Hastert’s attorneys claimed in asking for a sense of compassion?

Probably about the same as it will be if, by chance, Van Dyke’s attorneys somehow find a way of getting a jury to acquit their client when he ultimately goes to trial in another two to three years.

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D.C. building for Eliot Ness?

Let me state up front that I’m not fond of naming buildings or streets for people. There’s always the stink over whether someone’s achievements are really worth it.

And what happens decades from now when a future generation decides they’d rather honor someone else with a structure whose sole purpose is to provide work space for public officials and civil service workers?

WOULD WE BE better off if we thought of the Daley Center as merely the county courthouse? Probably. Erect a statue to Richard J. somewhere if you want to pay tribute.

Which might be the best way to honor the memory of Eliot Ness, who about 90 years ago was one of the Prohibition agents based in Chicago who was supposed to enforce the laws against alcohol that were put in place in this nation back in the 1920s.

Instead, they spurred the creation of Italian gangs into an organized crime entity that exists to this day.

We’re talking about the days of Al Capone, who of course we like to joke never got caught selling liquor or engaging in any violent crimes to enforce his liquor empire. He got caught by not reporting all the money he made on his income tax returns.

WHICH MEANS THE Internal Revenue Service busted him, then gave him over to the Justice Department for prosecution. Not the “mighty” Prohibition agents – whose men have morphed throughout the decades into the modern-day Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms unit (with most of their emphasis placed on the latter part of the title).

So why is it that there are government officials who want to name the building that houses the ATF division in Washington, D.C., as the “Eliot Ness ATF Building.” The Chicago Sun-Times reported that both of our senators – Richard Durbin and Mark Kirk – are eagerly trying to attach their names to the effort so they can get credit for it!

The REAL reason we remember Eliot Ness

One could make the argument that you’d be honoring a federal agent who couldn’t catch Capone in the commission of crimes that were done pretty much in the open in 1920s-era Chicago.

Although anyone who has ever read the Oscar Fraley (a United Press reporter-of-old in Chicago) book “The Untouchables” gets the impression that Ness viewed his job more or less as harassing the Capone organization until other federal agents could build up the criminal case that resulted in that 11-year federal prison sentence.

Should we remember Dan Aykroyd's Ness portrayal?

OF COURSE, I realize Ness gets some serious publicity points because – after all – he was portrayed in a 1950’s-era television program AND in a 1980s film. Who else can claim to have had both Robert Stack and Kevin Costner portray him?

Even if those portrayals are so far from the actual man that they can be called complete fiction.

You’d be better off hanging photographs of Stack and Costner inside the building, instead of one of the actual man (whom nobody these days would recognize).

There’s another point to argue. If you really were going to honor the memory of Ness, why do it in D.C.? I suspect the agents in the capital city back when Ness was active thought of him, if at all, as someone too incompetent to bring a conviction.

PERHAPS THEY COULD name the Chicago ATF office, in a suite at 525 W. Van Buren St., for the man whose book would have you think of him as an incredibly honest man who couldn’t be corrupted.

Although I’m not interested in getting into a debate over the “real” Ness – who I know had his own struggles during life and was far from heroic in any sense.

More dangerous than the Outfit?

Personally, the part of the Ness story that most amuses me is that after Prohibition, he eventually got transferred out of Chicago, and wound up being one of the “revenuers” in the mountains of Kentucky busting illegal stills – claiming that those ‘hillbillies’ with shotguns were just as dangerous as any of Capone’s men.

Does this mean that every one whose family contains a “colorful character” engaging in the production of “moonshine” will now crawl out of the woodworks to oppose this move?

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Dan Aykroyd's portrayal of Eliot Ness in a Saturday Night Live sketch is less memorable than that of Desi Arnaz' portrayal of master criminal Frank Nitti -- whose plot to sell amphetamines to local teenagers is thwarted when wife "Lucy" brings him a "Tommy Gun" loaded with blanks!!!

How different are we, really?

I couldn’t help but remember a moment from some two decades ago – I was at the Statehouse in Springfield sitting in the sorry excuse of a cafeteria that existed then in the Capitol’s basement and having a conversation with a Republican legislative aide.

OBAMA: Snatched away our G-8



This particular aide was a Springfield native and was among those whose vision of Illinois included very little of Chicago, when our conversation shifted to the ongoing (even back then) debate over building a new airport for the Chicago area.

AS HE PUT it, Chicago and Illinois really were two differing states because the scale upon which many Chicago political people thought was just so much bigger than what many natives of the rural parts of the state would come up with.

“It would never occur to many of us to want to build a new airport,” that aide told me. “We’d just make do with what we had, and accept its limits.” Even if it meant that the number of flights would be negatively impacted – resulting in economic losses caused by less traffic passing through O’Hare International.

Only Chicago-oriented political people, he said, would be so eager to dream big thoughts that they’d want to make them reality – no matter how impractical they might well be. Even though the impracticality, when achieved, is what makes for greatness.

What brought this conversation to mind was the moment on Monday when we all were shocked – the G-8 that had so many people wetting their panties at the very thought of all the activists who would come to Chicago to play “60s protester” was no more.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA has decided to have those world leaders gather at the official presidential retreat out in the country – which has so many security measures in place and restrictions that there’s no way political protest will be a much of a factor.

We in Chicago will still get to host the NATO conference scheduled for May 20-21. But the perception is that Chicago’s reputation has taken a blow. We have shown we’re not really capable of handling the kind of events and happenings that occur in “world-class” cities.

CAPONE; His name lives on, in lame gags



Which means the kind of people who are happy these days are the ones who “think” like the rural pols – who never would have had it cross their minds to have such an event take place in their home communities.

That is how I think of many of those activists who a couple of years ago were all worked up over the thought of squashing the efforts to bring the 2016 Summer Olympic Games to Chicago.

ALTHOUGH I DON’T get as worked up as those people who complain that the Super Bowl can never be held at Soldier Field – since I’m skeptical that Chicagoans would care to see any football game that didn’t directly involve the Chicago Bears.

Which is to say that I think the loss of the G-8 summit is something that reflects negatively upon us. I think it is a loss. It would have been a chance to show off our city to the world.

It makes me wonder if the kind of people who don’t want such events in their communities are really just ashamed of where they come from?

Which is why it may well be fitting that the activists/rabble-rousers who were planning on making a scene in May during the G-8 say they’re still coming to Chicago.

THEY WON’T BE able to get anywhere near Camp David without risking arrest and a criminal conviction that would result in serious prison time. So they’re going to do their thing here.

Which means our police are still going to have to cope with the issue – only we don’t get the benefits that would have been derived from having the world leaders themselves in our community.

We won’t have the dateline “CHICAGO” being transmitted all about the globe on stories about the efforts being made to try to make our world a better place (even though, to be honest, the actual accomplishments likely would have been far less significant).

We even have Russia Premier Vladimir Putin taking pot shots (although his gags are so dated – Al Capone, really?!? – as to be ever-so-lame) at Chicago’s image.

THERE WON’T BE much of anything taking place in May to distract us from the mediocrity that will be taking place in the professional baseball ballparks on both the South and North sides.

EMANUEL: One Illinois? Really?

So what should we think?

I couldn’t help but notice how Mayor Rahm Emanuel was in Peoria on Wednesday, where he talked down the significance of the loss (which sounded like such political spin that I doubt it “played” in that central Illinois city) and emphasized the need for Chicago and rural areas within Illinois to think of ourselves as being united.

A nice, noble goal, I suppose. But if it means we’re going to start paring down our urban aspirations, then perhaps it is a step in the wrong direction.

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