LAT: Scandals Swirl Around Chicago's Mayor Daley

[DeepModem Mom]

Scandals Swirl Around Daley
The Chicago mayor's name keeps surfacing in talk of trials and probes over city corruption.
By P.J. Huffstutter, Times Staff Writer
May 29, 2006

....all anyone here could talk about last week was Mayor Richard M. Daley.

They murmured about how his former patronage chief and three other city officials were on trial, accused of securing municipal jobs for people with ties to local political organizations. And they wondered whether the federal investigation might reach all the way to top.

On the surface, the case is simply the latest in a series of federal probes that have resulted in the convictions of dozens of former and current state and city workers.

But here in the 11th Ward — which has among the largest percentages of city workers and is the longtime home base of the Daley family political empire — the investigations cut particularly close.

"Everyone knows everyone, everyone knows the people involved, and everyone knows the Daley family," waitress Maureen Dunn said as she refilled coffee mugs. "The headlines are about our neighbors and friends…. People are worried."...

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-corruption29may29,0,5596269.story?coll=la-home-nation

[Tom Joad]

1. Who would have thought that even in the year 2006, Chicago would

still be ruled be a "Mayor Daley". It would seem as improbable as a Teamster union still ruled by a Hoffa.

Scene: Democratic Convention, 1968
Nominating speech for George McGovern for President, Sen. Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut infuriated Daley by saying, "with George McGovern as President of the United States, we wouldn't have Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago."