Former Mayor Robert Pastrick gives back to East Chicago.

Nepotism has a price tag and former Lake County boss Mayor Robert Pastrick (East Chicago, IN) learned that even an old dog can be taught a new lesson: pay up, boy, pay up!

The 8-term mayor, successively re-elected through hook or crook, was foremost among a roster of political cronies - one councilman, Frank Kollinztas, absconded to Greece! - charged with defrauding taxpayers big time. How big? $108 MILLION dollars!

Daley didn't suffer this shit!

I want to go back to the good old days...

It took the Indiana Attorney General's office over a decade - and two successive mayors (East Chicagoians finally realized they could actually vote for somebody other than "Pastrick") - to nail the rats but his persistence (and patience) was rewarded with a legally historical judgement via the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute (RICO). The squeaky gear of this political machine was the 1999 sidewalks-for-votes scheme (Pastrick 'won' that election). 

Of the $331,000 awarded to the City upfront, Pastrick directly ponied up $147, 416. That had to have hurt his retirement nest egg.  

PS: Of the two mayors since Robert Pastrick left city hall one, the man who dethroned him, is now serving time in federal prison for, what else?, public corruption. East Chicago!

Life's hard lesson on fairness: It ain't

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Life ain't fair, baby. When you got it, you got it; and when you don't, you probably won't. Owwwwwch.

That's one of the take-aways from developmental psychology research conducted by Larisa Hussak and Andrei Cimpian. The bigger question their data leaves them to highlight, though, is why do we assume life is fair? Why do we cling so to this belief? Perhaps it owes to our ability to rationalize.

It almost seems to be human nature to explain away the inequalities we encounter as simply the way things are supposed to be. 

(to read the short article click on the above excerpt)

Going back to Gary, Indiana? Nope.

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That's not a tumble reed blowing through town. That's what folks in dem dar parts call blight. View one of America's premiere ghost towns!

From pulpit: I'm divorcing the missus for my young MISTER

This is just sick. American Episcopalian priest, Rev Juan Quevedo-Bosch (not sure if Bosch is the newly hyphenated name of his man) announced during church that he left his wife to marry a younger man. About the nuptials, he said happily, "God is good." Yep. There you have it: priests hide behind God for everything. Only now, secularists and liberals won't argue with this divine endorsement.

The article I read did not mention how many years the priest had been married to his wife (nor, odder still, did it share the younger man's name). I'm not a church-going man but I sure as hell wouldn't continue going to his if I was. Good Lord!
You can read the article for yourself:

Hola, I'se married to my young gay lover!

And Bob Marley only shot the sheriff

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Don't know what to make of this...but sounds delightful. Movie? Music? Art show? Maybe I'll check it out!

Rebel flag done gone with the wind

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South Carolina officially and formally furled the Confederate flag from the State House grounds today, Friday, July 10, 2015. Even a descendant of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Jenny Horne, was all for it. She called the flag "a symbol of hate". The catalyst for this unforeseen event was last month's cold-blooded white terrorist killing of black parishioners following a Bible Study. 

I also like to regard this - and doubtlessly future Confederate flag removals - as pay back for "Redemption," the (southern)Democrats' successful dismantle of Reconstruction policies & implementation of Jim Crow laws which effectively dictated racial bearings in American society for over a century following the Emancipation Proclamation.  

Mary Cheney wonders about drag queens

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Posited Mary Cheney, the lesbian offspring of former vice president and eternal evil asshole Dick Cheney, in reference to that disgusting TV spectacle RuPaul's Drag Race: 
Why is it socially acceptable...for men to put on dresses, makeup and high heels and act out every offensive stereotype of women...but it is not socially acceptable...for a white person to put on blackface and act out offensive stereotypes of African-Americans?

I see what she's driving at but, really Mary Cheney, you have to wonder why it's no longer acceptable to denigrate black people with blackface? Am surprised she even used "African-Americans". I think what's really gotten her panties in a punch, though, is that sissies can make fools of themselves and be applauded for it whereas no one gives a damn about watching bull dykes.  

MS Cheney (blond) with her equally mannish spouse.

Green candidate: "Israel is racist, apartheid state"

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Go 'head Tanya Williams from South West London! With political honesty and common sense like this I might resume voting -- for the Green Party. Read the rest of her remarks here.

"Illegal alien tribute to America"

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ILLEGAL ALIEN TRIBUTE TO AMERICA:
By Skrualla

We break the law in every way
Make working American citizens pay
Buy junk food with free food stamps
Take free stuff back to our camps

Don't have to be responsible
Your taxes keep our bellies full
Some say that we should look for jobs
Why should we, we’re welfare slobs

We cross border, now you must please
Our people sick with bad disease
Demand free cash with grubby hands
Because Obama says we can

When we are angered, we protest
For more welfare you must invest
Our familias wave our flag
You hear us gripe and moan and nag

(10 toughest border crossings in the world)

Our mijos you must educate
Even though they are ingrates
They get school meals, all for free
Must come home sick, well don’t call me

Don’t care if kids will pass or fail
They’ll join a gang, wind up in jail
They’re treated mucho good in there
Thanks to your Obummacare

We murder, steal, destroy your land
Get more free food stamps, YES WE CAN!
Breed like rabbits in a pen
Come back for more free stuff again

Yes we really like it here
Our EBT cards buy our beer
Have no need to look for work
Keep paying our way, American jerks!

Some education reform Mexico!

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A sign on a Mexican bus stop

How applicable is this propaganda after the bizarre incident involving the 42 43 college students who were ambushed with a surprise 'field trip'?

The billboard reads as follows:
With the participation of your communities you get back EDUCATIONAL/LEARNING SPACES. 
The Education Reform Program is on the move. www.sep.gob.mx

Mexico is full of this double-speak crap. 
The gov't publicizes all sorts of non-stop TV and radio commercials and announcements of purported modern achievements and patriotism. Anything, though, that can be verified by the 'eyeball test' like adequate standards of living, judicial due process and drinkable agua ain't among them.

Presidente Nieto 

makes Washington trip

Slater on skin whitener and call me in the morning

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While shopping at a southern California Walmart - or is it still Wal-Mart? - I came across this nifty item -- on the Ethnic shelf, no less. What makes this, both, funny - and slightly off-putting - is that it is from a bygone time. Or, at least, I thought it was a relic (outside of the Caribe where they still swear by this shit). Sure, I can see its practical uses in, say, Ferguson, Missouri; New York City, all of Florida and, yes, Los Angeles...and wherever black men are unaccountably killed by paramilitary "peace officers".  
Peace.

That dependable German quality

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Advertised on the side of my electric shaver:

I'd be pissed too. You?? (Israel Occupation)

(Jerusalem Post on how Jews feel)

Noam Chomsky (Murderous Israel)

Chris Dickerson - Bodybuilding Hall of Fame Induction 2014

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Here's amateur footage of legendary bodybuilder Chris Dickerson being inducted to the Hall of Fame earlier this month at the annual Independence Day Mr & Ms Muscle Beach. I specifically entered this year because of it and felt privileged to have met the man. Click here to read about how I fared in my first Venice Beach show (link opens in a new window).



@TWPTilden

Are there black people in Argentina?

Josephine Baker wondered so and got this fabulous reply: You and I. 

Stephen King

At least somebody is protecting their border

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According to the Examiner report below, the presidents of Mexico and Guatemala (beautiful countries, by the way, I've been to them both) recently confirmed a pact on July 7th to, essentially, aid further illegal immigration to the United States of America. Say whuh?!

(Examiner article)

When the natives vowed to take back their lands who would've thought it would come via a "humanitarian crisis"? 

The employability of higher education

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Sadly, I can relate.

Aristotle

We are what we repeatedly do. 
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

-- Aristotle