OK. I'll explain Axelrod in three words/sentences. Mafia don. Slumlord. Chicago insider with ties to Ayers. (he gave an interview in which he gave specific details about where Ayers and Obama lived, how they knew each other, and their children/schools. he's not unaware of details of which he could have been silent. kinda foolish if you ask me). 'spoils' Cabinet - there you go.
here's an excerpt:
Former Mayor Daley aide Sunil Garg has described the situation:
When I first heard this "audacious" rhetoric for change during Obama's Senatorial run in 2004, it deeply resonated with me (and not just because I'm another skinny kid with a funny name). After all, if ever there were a State in need of change, it would be Illinois. Currently, our three largest governments -- the State, the City of Chicago and Cook County -- are under federal investigation and among recent highlights are former Governor George Ryan going to prison, one of Mayor Richard Daley's top advisors' conviction for fraud (along with a host of others), and the indictments of current Governor Rod Blagojevich's top fundraisers, Tony Rezko and Chris Kelly. Yet, rather than translating his bold rhetoric of reform into action here within his home and challenging this corrosive culture, Obama has repeatedly acted in ways that reinforce it.
Let's take each Illinois government currently under federal investigation, starting with the Illinois state government and Obama's nearly two-decade relationship with the man who has come to epitomize pay-to-play politics in Illinois, the now-indicted Rezko. As recently as 2005, Obama partnered with Rezko to purchase his million-dollar home, although it was widely reported that Rezko was the target of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation. Under the deal with Rezko, Obama paid $300,000 less than the asking price for his home, while Rezko's wife paid full price for the vacant lot next door, only to turn around and sell Obama part of that lot a few months later. While Obama dismissed the deal as a "boneheaded mistake", this is an odd explanation for someone trumpeting judgment over experience. Even giving Obama the benefit of the doubt on the land deal, he is unable to explain how as a champion of the poor, he remained ignorant for years to the fact that Rezko was one of the largest slumlords in Chicago, including within Obama's own district, and although the law firm for which he was an attorney had helped Rezko secure more than $43 million in government funding for his apartment buildings. Given this questionable history with Rezko, one would hope (there's that word again) that Obama might support the legislation banning pay-to-play politics in Illinois. Such legislation overwhelming passed in the Illinois House, but Obama's self-described "political godfather", Emil Jones, inexplicably refuses to bring the legislation to vote in the Illinois Senate ... and Obama has remained silent.
Next, there is the Cook County government, a $3 billion operation that most taxpayers don't think about but which provides necessary and critical services to the indigent, particularly health care. In 2006, the Cook County Board President, John Stroger, faced near-daily chronicling of the incompetence, scandal, and patronage under his administration. These revelations included not only the typical employment of family members and friends, but more disturbingly what one Chicago newspaper referred to as a "catalogue of horrors" at a County hospital and what another uncovered at the Juvenile Detention Center where staff encouraged fights among the youth in "the gladiator room". Although normally untouchable, challenging Stroger was a formidable reform candidate, Forrest Claypool, who had been endorsed by every major paper in Chicago. This 'machine versus reform' race provided Obama with a seemingly tailored opportunity to demonstrate his new brand of politics and yet, although Claypool was a senior advisor to him during his Senate race, Obama chose not antagonize the machine and remained silent throughout the campaign, even after Stroger suffered a debilitating stroke a week before the election. Following Stroger's victory (52% to 48%), local committeemen selected Stroger's son, Todd, to replace him on the general election ballot, and despite general voter outrage over this cynical act of nepotism, Obama immediately embraced Todd Stroger, calling him a "a good progressive Democrat" who will "lead us into a new era of Cook County government." To no one's surprise, since winning the general election, Todd Stroger has hired a plethora of family members and friends, while slashing essential positions and services, including nurses and law enforcement officials, and proposing massive tax increases. When asked about the situation at the County under Todd Stroger, Obama said he was not following it, something he apparently has the luxury to ignore.
Just how corrupt is Chicago? Former Alderman Dick Simpson who's now a professor at University of Illinois-Chicago has some interesting numbers on Chicago and Illinois:
Since 1973, the U.S. attorney has indicted 30 aldermen and convicted 27 (one died before trial and two stand trial this spring). The Public Corruption and Accountability Project at UIC calculates that there have been more than 1,000 local and state governmental officials convicted since the 1970s. The "corruption tax," or cost of government corruption for Cook County residents, is now more than $300 million a year, greater than the local government tax increases this year. We can't really afford more local "Hired Truck" schemes, patronage hiring, or the state pension and driver license scandals of recent years.
Things are so throughly corrupt in Chicago that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald had to call for more help.As The Chicago Sun-Times reported:
From an exhaustive Hired Truck investigation to a probe into patronage hiring at City Hall, there's so much corruption to investigate in the Chicago area, the FBI is adding manpower.
FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert Grant told the Sun-Times he has reorganized the bureau to add a third public corruption squad by Sept. 6, giving Chicago the largest public corruption unit in the country.
Even New York and Los Angeles only have two squads, said Washington-based FBI spokesman Steve Kodak. It is the second time in two years the FBI in Chicago has expanded its public corruption force.
"Sometimes you create a new squad and tell agents to go out and find the work," Grant said. "Right now, we've got enough work that will keep everybody busy."
#2 The bank is dead. Do you think the rich wanted to pay the taxes they had coming? No. They are declaring bankruptcy.
#3 Auto industry - tariffs, etc - whatever will cause the us economy to go under.
All i'm saying is look - there are some very interesting though 150+ years apart similarities between Andrew Jackson and incoming
President-elect Obama. We had 'King' Jackson who pretty much did as he liked and for the most part ignored his cabinet - and had a 'kitchen' cabinet. Why is Obama choosing his cabinet so fast. He doesn't care who the heck gets in there. But, they must be loyal to him.