President Obama announcing his support for gay marriage.

Barack Obama has stolen the spotlight yet again, and he did it with the joyful help of the Republican party.

The Luddite evangelical fringe of the GOP which has so often torpedoed any hopes of truly Republican (which are inherently Libertarian) social sensibilities made it quite simple for Barack Obama to put out an incredibly milquetoast endorsement of gay marriage rights and have it be a major news story. While everyone should have been reading about how record numbers of rich Americans are giving up their U.S. citizenships to escape our insane tax system, instead a sentence uttered on Good Morning America became the center of a week-long news-grabbing media circus.

The president’s statement did nothing to further the cause of gay rights at all. He even went so far as to assure the American people he believes gay marriage, a civil rights issue, is something for states to decide. This is a far cry from the president we have seen over the last three years, a man who believes that the federal government should have their hands in everything from light bulbs to farm labor. C’mon, people. It isn’t like federal involvement in throwing out intolerant state-based marriage laws is a foreign concept, either. Loving v. Virginia proves that.

I personally doubt the president was ever against gay marriage, but his finely-honed politician’s spinelessness allowed him to stow the belief when it was politically expedient. Now, however, when he has absolutely nothing else to campaign on, and popular sentiment on the matter of gay marriage has finally shifted in favor of not capriciously stripping gay Americans of the rights straight people enjoy, it is time to bring out the social agenda. And, when it comes to this topic, the DNC easily rules the day.

So the door was wide open, and Obama would have been a fool not to step right through it – because he knows the Republicans won’t, despite top party advisers suggesting it is about time to kick the irrational fear of homosexuals to the curb. In the end, this is going to be the sort of thing that spells the death of the Republican party.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. All it would take to steal Obama’s wind is for Republicans to embrace the same love of freedom they have for firearms, religion and speech and logically extend it to other civil rights. After all, the GOP has done it before.

Sadly the Republican party seems to lack that epic social transformative power it once had. All it touts now in the social arena is intolerance born of fanatical religious belief. When we should be putting forward another Nelson Rockefeller instead we have a slugfest between zealots like Rick Santorum and stuffy chief executives like Mitt Romney. We will lose this election not because the country loves Barack Obama, but because the Republican alternative is so (unnecessarily) socially backward that four more years of mounting debt and terrifying expansion of federal power seems like the wiser path to independents. Now I know how the Democrats must have felt in 2004.

So when Barack Obama goes out and says he is for gay marriage, it has farther reaching implications that you may think. These are the kinds of things that can win you elections.

I can hear my readers groaning right now. Theo, even the liberal media thinks this is an empty gesture! Well, you’re right… but some half-empty rhetoric about human rights is talking of expanding freedom and, at the heart of it, such talk is far more appealing to people than jibber about a government-driven (be it Democrat or Republican) economic recovery. All of the great initiatives, the powerful movements and well-remembered sentiments that make up the storied history of this great nation never seem to mention the monetary bottom line. They instead revolve around the primary understanding that we cherish freedom above all else.

Presidents, and politicians in general, do not do well with touting their ability to make money. They do well with touting their ability to either A) make you safer and happier or B) give you more freedom (sometimes you even get both!). While running an efficient, effective and properly-limited government is a prerequisite for obtaining these objectives, the financial aspect is only the means for obtaining this goal.

Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan – perhaps the most beloved and popular Republican presidents – were not CEOs or venture capitalists. They did not get up on the stump and talk about how much money they made for their investors. What these giants among men did was far greater than that. They helped guarantee the freedom and safety of Americans, both from oppressive government and the tyranny of others. They were passionate and well-spoken on the subject and this charisma, while it is not of the shallow Rock star Kennedy variety so often peddled by the DNC, is what won them elections.

In order to beat Barack Obama this time around we need a little of that old magic, and it can come from finally telling those evangelical bigots to stop imposing their social agenda on America. If the GOP can strip away the Democrats’ superiority in this one, last arena, then we can finally get around to returning more freedom, and financial stability, to the American people.

Share on Facebook

Those of you who are steady readers of American News Post would be familiar with Theodore Roe, one of my literary contributors here at ANP. Those who are extremely knowledgeable on the history of the Chicago Outfit might recall another Theodore Roe, the 30s and 40s era African-American policy boss from the South Side. This Theodore (better known as “Teddy”) Roe was an Outfit murder victim who was permanently silenced on August 4, 1952. In a sense, I feel as if I am offering the late murder victim the opportunity of having a voice by helping the Roe of American News Post to be heard. ANP’s Theo Roe is a good journalist who attacks corruption (especially Chicago area corruption) in both the church and state. As you continue to read this article, you will discover why I feel strongly about Teddy Roe.

Teddy Roe

Teddy Roe’s story is a fascinating one, and I suggest that if you are not familiar with it, you learn a thing or two about him before proceeding with this article.

There was an Outfit member who was a very close friend to Outfit Chief Sam Giancana, by the name of Leonard “Fats” Caifano, a.k.a. Lenny. Many people, including Giancana, believed Teddy Roe murdered Lenny. Giancana was, to put it mildly, over-the-moon livid because of the death of his friend. Needless to say, Giancana was more interested than ever in eliminating Roe.

It has long been a mystery who exactly knocked down Teddy Roe. Numerous names of Outfit members have surfaced as likely suspects in his murder. Jack Cerone, Willie Messino, Joe Gagliano, Joe Ferriola and James “Turk” Torello have all been mentioned at one time or another. Heck, Willie Messino told me himself that law-enforcement hung him out of a fourth story window by his ankles trying to force a confession out of him for the murder of Roe.

While many of these gangsters have reputations that seem to justify their presence on this list, as far as I know none of them are responsible for Roe’s death. I would like to point out some information on the surface that should not be discounted. Joe Ferriola and James Torelo were in their early twenties when Roe was murdered. At that time, the twenty-something-year-olds simply did not have the right experience that Giancana would rely on for such an important matter so close to his heart, such as the Caifano/Roe situation. Jack Cerone and his men (Gagliano and Messino) were never truly viable options that Giancana would consider for something as serious as seeking retribution against Lenny’s purported killer, because Giancana hated Cerone (and anyone attached to him) more than words could explain.

When Giancana was in need of taking retribution for a matter near and dear to his heart, he would only call on a few select individuals, one of them being Sam “Teets” Battaglia. Like Giancana, Battaglia had his small list of “go to” people for vital matters. Back in those days, one of those men was my father, Mondo.

In the article that I previously authored on my late father, I was extremely vague about the duties he performed for the Chicago Outfit during his early days. I will now expand on that topic to an extent in this article.

If you read my article about my father, Mr. Armando “Mondo” Fosco Sr., you might remember that, when I detailed his history in the Chicago Outfit, I specifically indicated the 1940s and 50s as being his early years with that criminal enterprise. He then worked for Outfit Boss Sam “Teets” Battaglia. In addition, during his early years with the Chicago Outfit, my father was deeply involved in a major construction company that was (according to official federal documents) heavily connected to powerful Cook County politicos intertwined with the dynamic Kelly-Nash Machine.

When my father started working for Sam “Teets” Battaglia in the 1940s, he served as an Outfit muscleman. Mostly he worked directly with now late Chicago gangster Joe “Shine” Amabile (my namesake), who was then one of Battaglia’s top enforcers. Despite the fact that my father and Amabile were never charged with murder, both men were allegedly violent killers, according to some sources.

Please note that I refer to both men as ‘alleged’ killers, unlike in previous articles when I flat out called Outfit Boss John DiFronzo a killer, because Amabile and my father are deceased and therefore unable to defend themselves.

So why have I brought these two men up? According to well-informed sources, on the late evening of August 4, 1952, at the behest of Crime lords Giancana and Battaglia, my father and Joe “Shine” Amabile rolled up to the 5200 block of South Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, where one of them shot and murdered Teddy Roe. I will take it to my grave who the shooter was. Neither the Amabile Family nor my family will ever be able to accuse me of blaming their loved one for pulling the trigger, firing the bullets which permanently deprived Teddy Roe of the human right to life.

I do understand that some people might find it difficult to believe the assertion that Mondo was muscle for one of the Outfit’s major bosses before he began his career as a Teamsters Official. Evidence like FBI records and/or criminal indictments and cases are what primarily serve as proof of an individual’s involvement with a criminal enterprise like the Outfit.

Most Mob musclemen did not have someone like Romie Nappi looking out for them, though.

Romie Nappi, who eventually replaced Murray “The Hump” Humphreys as the political corruption mastermind for the Chicago Outfit in the mid 1960s, was my father’s brother-in-law and very dear friend. By tapping his vast and powerful connections (including the late Chicago First Ward Ruler Pat Marcy), Romie took the initiative to clean up my father’s federal record so he would be seen as a squeaky clean union man (my father’s lifelong practice of keeping a low profile certainly helped). Because of Romie, my father was rescued from the deadly side of the Outfit many years ago. It was Romie’s expressed goal to ensure that my father would not be like the gangsters who are now serving life sentences in the Family Secrets case.

While I would hope I have given the readers at ANP enough quality information to take my assertions at face value, I am a stickler for using official documentation to support my stories. I will share one page of late Outfit higher-up Ross Prio’s FBI record, which goes back nearly 60-years. Apparently, the FBI failed to redact a particular piece of information relating to my late father when the agency was ordered to destroy my father’s FBI records in the 1970s. Please look at said document here.

My father’s vast alliance with the late Ross Prio will come to center stage in some of my future work.

In the days prior to my father’s passing in early 1987, he arranged for the now late Chicago area Roman Catholic Priest Father Lawrence Cozzi to visit with him privately. During their time together, Father Cozzi absolved my father of all his sins.

I make no excuse for Outfit hit men. I do not try to rationalize their crimes by blaming such heinous behavior on bad economic times or any other petty motivations. Murder is and always has been pure evil no matter what the circumstances entail. Only God has the right to take a human life.

Policy King Teddy Roe will never be silenced as long as men like our Theodore Roe continue to have a voice through avenues like American News Post, addressing the very corruption that was a part of taking his life.

At this time, I would offer my condolences to every person who lost a loved one at the hands of the Chicago Outfit. Let us keep these people in our prayers. I came close to being such a victim (which I still could become some day). I have a good idea of the pain involved in being victimized by such a deadly and otherwise deplorable criminal enterprise. Thank you.

Postscript
A member of my father’s family, specifically on the Nappi side, married into Lenny Caifano’s family many years ago.

Share on Facebook

The Rahmfather’s put the hit out on our right to assembly this time, with the help of his buddies in the 51st Ward. Under the direction of no less than the capo di tutti capi himself, the G8 summit was moved from Chicago to Camp David. President Obama laughed off the notion that the last minute change of venue had anything to do with security, quipping that in Chicago “we know how to deal with crowds.”

Yes, Chicago is famous for “dealing” with crowds.

But I do agree with the President on this one. Chicago’s draconian laws and regulations do give it the power to effectively crush public protests, a reality that Obama and Rahmbo probably do not want the rest of the world to examine too closely. It would make it even more blatantly obvious that the tolerance and freedom these leaders agitate for overseas mean nothing to them when they are confronted with unpopular speech in their own backyards. By sequestering away the G8, the brunt of Chicago’s Nazi-esque political control tactics will escape the notice of the world media yet again.

Of course there still is the NATO summit, but that might as well be taking place at Camp David as well, as far as protesters are concerned. A labyrinth of rules and regulations, both local and federal, will make it nearly impossible for anti-war and anti-poverty protesters to be heard by the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The United States is responsible for over one fifth of NATO’s budget, yet regular people will not be given a chance to express their displeasure over this organization’s actions.

Chicago’s warped justice system recently jumped into the fray, helping Emperor Rahmulus by dismissing a lawsuit over denial of a permit for a protest march. According to Judge Prosser, this gross abridgment of our civil rights is all in the name of public safety. I congratulate His Honor on trotting out that timeless fallback tool for oppression, such a meaningless and arbitrary standard that it may be applied at any time and in any situation to do our democracy harm.

It wouldn’t be a party unless the Feds were in on the action too! The Secret Service is doing everything it can to make sure world leaders partying on our dime will not have to be bothered with pesky things like the public’s opinions. While they are still being vague about the perimeter boundaries, it is clear that protesters will be blocks away from McCormick Place.

If the protesters are sneaky, though, they can probably find out the exact boundries of the cordon early by enlisting some of the higher end talent trolling The Viagra Triangle to do a little in-room reconissiance. Luckily the new Secret Service regulations still allow for hookers entering hotel rooms, if they are American. The only problem here could be that these sex workers might be a bit out of an average Secret Service agent’s pay grade.

And speaking of money, this event is costing Chicago millions, literally. Officials say that the estimated 40 to 65 million dollar price tag for the event will be completely funded by the federal government and corporate sponsors. However, so far those two sources have only come up with roughly 55 million, leaving a rather substantial potential gap in funding, even if the city’s upper estimate is accurate (and frankly I doubt it is). Chicago’s inability to successfully predict and control spending is legendary, as illustrated quite plainly by the city’s gargantuan 7.3 billion dollar debt load.

No one seems to be complaining about Chicago’s waste of resources in hosting NATO, though. Chicago can’t even borrow money to pay for infrastructure repairs made necessary by King Daley II’s incompetence, and it is shutting down half its health clinics because there is no money for funding them, yet there is cash to throw a party for NATO? Shouldn’t someone be stepping in and pointing out the foolishness here?

Seems like the answer is no. Logic has a hard time breaking in on a giant, civil-rights-suppressing ego stroke for Da President and Da Mayor. I wonder if NATO will one day return the favor and send in peacekeeping troops when Chicago’s pension system collapses…

Share on Facebook

Joseph Giacchino

For those of you unfamiliar with Dr. Joseph Giacchino, please click here to read up on him. For others who are not familiar with Mr. Magnafichi, you may click here to learn more about him.

Magnafichi, who suffers from a serious prescription drug addiction, wound up being introduced to the stuff via his former relationship with the daughter of Chicago millionaire Richard Parrillo. His daughter has allegedly been battling drug addiction for most of her life.

Sometime in or around the year 2007, Dr. Giacchino dispensed large volumes of narcotic painkillers to Magnafichi, even though he allegedly knew how bad Magnafichi’s drug addiction was (Joe Norris could sympathize). After Giacchino lost his ability to legally dispense narcotics from the infamous Melrose Park Clinic, he resorted to issuing Magnafichi prescriptions for narcotics. According to a source, this pile of prescriptions was so massive that only now, years after Dr. Million Pills (I just love that name, Mr. Kass) was stripped of his medical license, has Magnafichi run out of narcotic pain pills.

Joseph Fosco (left) and Michael Magnafichi (right)

Over the years, I tried making it my policy to avoid contact with Mr. Magnafichi when he would use the prescription drugs that Dr. Giacchino dispensed and/or prescribed him. Sadly this endless battle has taken its toll on Michael, and periodically he would slide back into destructive habits. Anyone who has ever dealt with addiction knows this is a common occurrence. I have great sympathy for Mr. Magnafichi’s struggle and am proud to report that Michael continues his brave fight against the powerful force of prescription drug addiction.

Of course this problem may never have gotten this bad if Michael had not been in the care of a careless physician who was more interested in money and allegedly accommodating gangsters than the health of his patients.

Mr. Magnafichi, if you are reading this, please contact attorney Tim McArdle (his number is listed in the Chicago phonebook). Mr. McArdle is the only lawyer, thus far, to get justice on behalf of victims of disgraced and revoked Dr. Joseph Giacchino.

Mr. Richard Parrillo, please consider the advice that I gave Michael for your daughter. From what I understand, Giacchino allegedly fed your daughter high amounts of narcotic painkillers as well. In addition, I want to express my deepest sorrow for the obvious (in my opinion) drug addiction that plagues your son Beau. Unfortunately, a couple of weeks ago a reporter friend of mine, my livery driver and I had a firsthand experience at seeing Beau in action – it was a very sad sight (I’ll put it this way, Beau and Nick Rada have a couple of things in common – you may search Rada on ANP or Google if you are curious).

To all my readers who have loved ones who are addicted to drugs, please offer them the number to Forterus Healthcare, which is a national organization, (800) 314-8174. Thank you.

Share on Facebook

Kim Jong-Un

Kim Jong-Un

As we can see from North Korea’s utter dominance of the known world (and possibly parts of Jupiter and the moon), appointing your youngest son who has absolutely no experience in politics to run a country is quite possibly the smartest thing anyone has done, ever. It is no shock that his divinely-born father, Kim Jong-il, who is author of 1,500 books (and six operas) and shot 38 under par on his first golf outing, appointed Kim Jong-un to take his place as Supreme Leader.

Oh wait, pardon me. I was reading the news feed from the Korean Central News Agency of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. I was drawn in by a link to an article about the excellent dietary benefits of consuming pine needles and I haven’t been able to stop reading since!

Surrounded by the economic powerhouses of China, Russia, Japan and South Korea is the black hole known to the world as North Korea. Kim Jong-un, the current king of a country so green that Al Gore must be crying himself to sleep at night in his massive new mansion, was greeted enthusiastically by the Obama administration as a possible agent of change in the tense relationship between the tin-pot Asian dictatorship and the United States. Envoys of American goodwill reached out to the starving, poverty-stricken nation, promising food aid and integration into the global community in exchange for, yanno, stopping ludicrous attempts to build missiles and nuclear bombs North Korea can’t afford (or, evidently, build correctly) in the first place.

This entirely reasonable set of conditions were, of course, agreed to… and then promptly ignored.

On March 12th, North Korea fired an Unha-3 (Korean for “Wondrous Fireball that Honors Our Great and Fearless Leader”) multistage rocket that was supposed to put the Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 (Korean for “Yes We Know Our Space Program Does Not Exist, But Let’s Pretend It Does Or It Is Off To The Concentration Camp”) earth observation satellite into orbit. Of course the whole world knew this was a thinly-veiled attempt to test an intercontinental ballistic missile. The typical threats were leveled, but what are such petty things as declarations made by mere mortals attempting to limit the power of a divinely-ordained leader?!

Kim Jong-un’s brave and righteous defiance of the hegemony of imperialistic nabobs at the U.N. lasted 90 magnificent seconds. This was how long his rocket, built with the best cutting-edge technology a country with a third-world power grid and practically no manufacturing facilities or engineering acumen can muster, flew before exploding.

Maybe Kim Jong-un himself did some work on the rocket, as he does have that highly-prized physics degree from Kim Il Sung University, an absolute juggernaut in the field of natural sciences. I, however, find it more likely that the Supreme Leader (who is a major gaming fan) was probably just playing too much Homefront last month and decided it was finally time to execute the invasion plans so lovingly crafted by his predecessors.

So congratulations, Kim Jong-un, on flushing the food for your staving countrymen down the toilet to launch a crappy rocket. I’m guessing 90 seconds of pure joy is probably a new record for you, but next time you might want to think of everyone else, too. Being a selfish leader is a surefire way to lead an unsatisfactory political career.

Honorable Mentions

Newt is so far in debt he had to sell his dentures to buy ad time in Utah.

Newt Gingrich

While I respect the sheer maniacal determination it takes to bankrupt oneself entirely out of spite, even I feel a bit bad for Newt Gingrich. In a political race where even the delusional and mentally-challenged have conceded defeat, The Newt keeps on chugging along – despite being about 5 million in the hole. Even his 500 dollar check written to cover the entry fee on Utah’s primary ballot bounced.

Newt, it is time to realize that you’re even more irrelevant than Mitt Romney, which, in its own way, is kind of a victory. You’re more mediocre than the most mediocre presidential candidate since John Kerry. Science will need to study you in-depth now, so maybe you can get some of that sweet medical testing reimbursement pie.

He's gonna make you a speeding ticket you can't refuse...

Rahm Emanuel

Bend over a little farther, Chicago. Uncle Rahm needs more of your money.

The Rahmfather wants to install roughly 500 more traffic cameras. These cameras, which are being placed ostensibly to protect children, will be within one-eighth of a mile of many of the city’s roughly 1,600 schools and parks. This means over half the city will now be under surveillance.

The city of Chicago, which has some of the highest taxes in the nation, already makes over 68 million dollars a year from traffic cameras, but that isn’t enough. There’s always more pork to be had, and even though Rahm is Jewish you can be sure that he has no trouble filling his plate with this particular type of political swine.

Share on Facebook

Illinois

The Teachers’ Retirement System is broke and it is largely the fault of the state government, at least according to TRS Executive Director Dick Ingram. According to new numbers making the rounds throughout Illinois, the Teachers’ Retirement System may be insolvent as soon as 2030 because the state legislature has repeatedly delayed or flat out refused to supply promised funding. The TRS currently has 81 billion dollars in long-term liability, with the long-term unfunded liability of 44 billion dollars.

But to hear the governor and state legislature talk about it, you might think this funding nightmare is not the fault of anyone. House Speaker Michael Madigan, who has been in the state legislature since 1971 and has been Speaker for over 25 years, certainly is not to blame. “We’ve got huge budget problems in this state. Why? Well, there was overspending in the past and many people engaged in the overspending. It wasn’t just one or two people,” the Speaker recently opined at a rare press conference.

So the state has obligated itself to unions and is required by law to put money into the pension system, but that is unimportant. Decades of Democrat cronyism has resulted in promises the government could not keep, but that is unimportant too. What’s important now is that the state does not want to pay out of the substantial revenue streams they already have – they want us to pay more instead.

Speaker Madigan thinks that the state should be allowed to ignore the repercussions of Springfield’s Machine-style business practices and instead pass the gargantuan debt of unfunded teacher pensions back to the school districts and teachers. At a recent forum run by the Chicago Tribune, Governor Quinn was quick to impugn anyone besides the Democrats for Illinois’ pension fiasco, despite the fact that the party has controlled all the branches of state government since 2002. The governor was particularly keen on shifting the blame for shortfalls to the schools themselves, saying “they should have a stake in the retirement of their own employees.” Governor Quinn seems to be forgetting that teachers and school districts already contribute to the pension program. The teachers, who pay in a little over 9%, have met their obligation for decades.

Of course moving the unfunded liability back to school districts and teachers is just another cop out. Districts will need to pass referendums to up taxes, not only to meet new obligations but also to make up for the state’s dereliction of duty all these years. That doesn’t matter to Madigan and Quinn, though. As long as they can find a way to keep taking our taxes and not spend them on the programs they promise to fund, you can be sure they will be glad to pass the blame to anywhere but Springfield. In the end, however, we are the ones stuck with the bill.

This article was originally published in the Kendall Weekly Times

Share on Facebook

For those of you unfamiliar with John Joseph Rainone, allow me to explain.

John Joseph Rainone

John Joseph Rainone, born March 26th, 1975, is a career criminal, with wire fraud and illegal narcotics as his alleged forte. However, despite Rainone’s shortcomings, he is the stepson of a wealthy businessperson named William Daddono III. Rainone’s stepfather (because of his father’s generosity) is heir to and/or partner in Century Trade Show Services. Daddono and Rainone spent their first celebration together as family at a Super Bowl party in 2004, two weeks to the day after Rainone’s mentally-challenged mother married Daddono who has similar intellectual capabilities. John Joseph Rainone would later be convicted for stabbing multiple individuals in cold blood at that Super Bowl party.

Last year the United States Government on a large wire fraud case indicted John Joseph Rainone. The government alleged that Rainone and cohorts used various personal credit and or charge accounts belonging to unsuspecting citizens to purchase expensive luxury items. I believe that Rainone’s mother, Laurie F. Gentile Rainone Daddono, and his sister, Nicole M. Rainone Calabria, aided and abetted Rainone in his supposed fraud by allegedly shopping for him with said fraudulent credit and or charge account information.

In February of 2012, Rainone asked the United States Court in Illinois’ Northern District for permission to leave the jurisdiction for a March trip to Florida. The Court granted permission. However, Rainone failed to inform the court that on his return date, March 27, 2012, he planned to be arrested in DuPage County, Illinois, with his 78-year old paternal grandfather, John Rainone, on a major narcotics case involving over 5,000 grams of cannabis.

John Rainone

Both Rainones were briefly held on $250,000 bond each, which required 10% for release. According to public records, Geraldine Ponziani of Lombard, Illinois, managed to quickly raise the required $25,000.00 to bond out the elder Rainone and Nicole M. Rainone Calabria of Melrose Park, Illinois, apparently had an equal amount of money available to post bail for her jailbird brother the younger Rainone. Maybe those crumbs from the Daddono pie are a little bigger than I thought.

On behalf of American News Post and her crime-fighting readers, I ask the U.S. Attorneys Office here in Chicago the following question:

After a review of John Joseph Rainone’s federal case in Chicago, today I noticed that your office has not made an effort to ask the court to revoke and/or increase Rainone’s bond for being arrested on serious felony charges last month. With all due respect, are you planning to ask the court to address his bond in the near future and if not, would that mean Rainone is transforming into a good person by helping your office in some obsequious way?

Readers, John Joseph Rainone is a menace to society and be advised that no one is safe while he is on the streets. Let us pray that the U.S. Attorneys Office acts quickly. I suppose it makes sense why the Daddono and Rainone clans became one.

Share on Facebook

President Barack Obama

Barack Obama

“Ultimately, I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”

It would be shocking to hear someone who was studying for the U.S. Constitution test propose that the Supreme court, the head of the judicial branch, should have less power in oversight over the other branches of government because it is composed of members that receive their positions through methods other than direct election.

To hear this sentiment expressed by a Harvard Law graduate and former University of Chicago professor of constitution law simply beggars the imagination.

But it happened just the other day. Our president (who also does not get directly elected), a man with an impressive legal education, decided that because he might not get his way, he should start attacking the Supreme Court… again.

I stress the word “might” here. The ruling is months away. He is saying these things on the chance that the Supreme Court will strike down his beloved individual mandate, a statue so blatantly unconstitutional it barely deserves to have made it to the Supreme Court, and possibly the entire Affordable Care Act along with it.

In particular I like his insistence that the Supreme Court would be taking an unprecedented step in striking down a law they deemed unconstitutional. Between 1789 and 2002 the Supreme Court has overturned 158 Acts of Congress. This is one of the most important, though possibly not the most popular, functions of the Supreme Court and is fundamental for maintaining the balance between the branches of government.

The simple fact that the majority of Congress votes for a law and the president signs it does not make it Constitutional. If that was true then the Communications Decency Act, a piece of garbage legislation from 1996 passed by a much larger margin (by a Republican-controlled Congress) than the Affordable Car Act and signed into law by President Bill Clinton, would still be around.

But it isn’t. The Supreme Court saw what an egregious overreach of power this Act was and threw it out.

A Constitutional scholar like our president should know better, and I am willing to bet he does, however it does not change the fact that he’s used to getting his way. These sorts of problems don’t happen back home in good ‘ol Chicago, where you can become mayor despite not living in the city or strip people of First Amendment rights for no reason at all. You just gotta grease the right palms, call in a few favors (making sure no one gets you on tape) and get it done.

Thankfully the rest of the country doesn’t work that way. If Washington ran like Chicago, our rights would have been shredded decades ago.

Honorable Mentions

Joe Biden doing his best Ted Knight impression... or was Ted Knight doing a Joe Biden impression? Chicken and the egg...

Joe Biden

Smilin’ Joe slipped off his leash this weekend, or his handlers finally gave up trying to keep the veep from making himself sound totally insane, and he talked to the media. The administration caught a break, though. He was only on Face The Nation on CBS.

As if sensing he was in friendly territory, Joe let loose with a torrent of absurdities of such a profound nature that if they had been uttered by Romney or Gingrich would have elicited a solid month of non-stop media criticism. Bob Schieffer sat there smiling as Biden lied through his teeth.

He started with Obama’s accidently recorded conversation with Dimitry Mededev, where our president implored the puppet of Putin to pass a message on to his master that there can be no dealing on missile shields until the election cycle is over. Biden lied and said that Obama was telling Mededev that he did not have time to address this issue in the near future. What Obama said was that he would have more flexibility in dealing with the Russian government once he no longer needed the public approval necessary to win an election.

Joe evidently believes that GM is now the largest company in the world and is hiring hundreds of thousands of new workers; neither assertion is remotely true. He also asserted that Romney would have allowed GM to go bankrupt. Biden must have forgotten that GM DID go bankrupt.

Biden then declared that millions were already benefitting from The Affordable Care Act and that the GOP has offered no alternative plan to renovate health care – again, both bald-faced lies.

I won’t even get into the continuing farce that is the Obama administration’s oil polices, though Smilin’ Joe did not have such reservations.

I remember quite clearly the criticism of Sarah Palin during the 2008 election cycle that she was woefully uninformed about a slew of important issues, and I agree with that assessment. Her lack of knowledge of basic facts about this country and how it works is an excellent reason to not put her a heartbeat away from the presidency. But then how on earth did someone as fundamentally dim-witted as Joe Biden manage to slither his way into the number two spot in the executive branch?

Joe only gets the Honorable Mention this week because it would be difficult to envision a major public speech wherein he does not make an ass of himself.

Jay Carney, just before he took his ball and went home.

Jay Carney

It seems impossible that White House spokesman Jay Carney has forgotten that we do not live in a Communist country, but you wouldn’t know it from the insanity he was spewing a few days ago about economics. The Obama administration’s mouthpiece either went off script or accidently picked up some of Anita Dunn’s leftover speech notes when he had the temerity to utter the ludicrous sentence “So the correlation between greater production (of oil) and the price is simply not there…”

The monumental stupidity necessary to believe that is so mind-boggling that it almost certainly had to be a farce… but it wasn’t. Carney was serious. Supply evidently no longer has (and possibly NEVER had) an effect on price in a free market. Someone go and dig up Adam Smith and let him know the Soviet Union got it right!

Share on Facebook

Dr. Joseph Giacchino

American News Post is proud to announce that we helped an additional victim, who received a settlement just days after the lawsuit that Giacchino settled with Joe Norris. In this case, the relative of a deceased victim got justice by receiving an out-of-court settlement a couple of weeks ago in a medical malpractice case related to a wrongful death matter. The settlement amount was not disclosed.

For those unfamiliar with Dr. Joseph Giacchino, please read about him here.

The family of the deceased asked to have their identity protected. In light of their tragic circumstances, American News Post will not be printing any names in this article.

Below you will find a portion of the thank-you letter that I received:

Dear Joe,
I am very happy for the man who settled for the 300 k… I had been told by the DEA repeatedly I couldn’t say anything or I would interrupt their investigation and was afraid to tell anyone because I would be interfering with a federal investigation…
…my case was never for the money, it was for justice of my lil brother’s death…my nephew is being given… a settlement… for wrongful death…for the death of his father, my brother…
Giacchino… lost his license and other people’s lives have been saved. I’m going to try to write a book regarding my story dedicated to my brother…
Joe, there are other deaths related to Dr. Giacchino, please post something to let any of the victims that died of accidental overdoses that had children, they can sue for wrongful death as long as they can find the prescriptions, I know one lady that died that DEA told me about had 3 kids. These kids don’t know that they can sue…
I am very grateful that I am at least alive but really want the public to know what happened, my brother went to him for help for nightmares, he just wanted to sleep at night and get his life together, we had a pretty hard childhood and he was such a great father to lil Richie…
I think you are such a great person for exposing him and wish I would have seen your information before we ever went to him… Thanks for all the information and exposing him, I give you a lot of credit for your courage…
Keep up the great work Joe, hope you can help me…I want people to know the animal that he is…
I… liked… your post on the poor guy who went to prison and how you met with him and called Tim Mcardle (by the way, Tim worked so hard to help us, excellent atty, not sure if you’re aware but I divorced an atty and admire the ones who really fight for their clients) I personally think you’re a pretty nice person, that you do look out for the public…
I don’t understand how… Giacchino… can sit in his office, word on the streets is that he is still in business, I get confused to why he hasn’t been audited, insurance fraud, mostly….how he has never been charged for manslaughter. I know you’re on top of all of this, please let the patients know that it was illegal for him to have them sign papers that if they die, he wasn’t responsible. For the many that I believe have died… again… the surviving children are protected regarding the Statute of Limitations and can sue… I would like to thank you for never revealing any of my family’s names as I shared with you when I first wrote to you.
Thank you for that… have a great day Joe, again thanks for everything.

Sincerely
(Name withheld)

Thankful one, I would like to address your concern about Dr. Joseph Giacchino’s present status. According to what I can tell, Giacchino works as a receptionist in his former clinic, which appears to be operated by Dr. Paul Madison.

By the way, I have letters on my desk stacked to the ceiling about the alleged misconduct of Madison.

My guess is that Madison is (allegedly) sharing his doctor’s fees with Giacchino under the table in some convoluted way. In addition, Giacchino’s ex-wife, Dr. Diane Dado, once told me that she was still in love with him and would do anything for him, which leads me to believe that she would help him financially. I recall that she initially cosigned the mortgage on his River Forest estate. More importantly, Giacchino’s sister, Dr. Rose Codini, is extremely wealthy and probably would not bat an eye if her brother asked for financial assistance. I am fairly confident that she has already helped him, though that is only speculation.

In a lot of ways Giacchino reminds me of the psychopath Charles Manson, and not just because of his obsession with John Wayne Gacy’s Artwork or his alleged role in causing the deaths of various patients. He reminds me of Manson because of his ability to persuade his nice ex-wife Diane and wonderful sister Rose to help him whenever his ass is nailed to the wall, despite the fact that he is truly an evil person (note I did not put ‘allegedly’ in front of evil).

However, to all those who worry about Dr. Giacchino, I would admonish you to be patient. Giacchino’s days are numbered. Justice can be slow, but it will eventually take him down completely. Remember, Rome was not built in a day.

Readers, please continue to report information to American News Post regarding the infamous and de-licensed Dr. Joseph L. Giacchino, MD. Thank you.

Share on Facebook

Chilling. Sounds like something out of a Cold War drama set in Soviet Russia.

But it isn’t. This is Chicago.

American citizens Dan Ponce and Donte Williams being arrested for practicing First Amendment rights.

While you might think I mean the Chicago of 1968 (a town firmly under the jackboot heel of King Daley I, a gruesome thug that deserved imprisonment for his crimes against the citizenry of Chicago, but instead had a civic center named after him), you would be wrong. Chicago’s dreadful treatment of civil liberties continues on, and it is safe to say that in the beginning of 2012 it is alive and well.

Several days ago a police officer arrested NBC reporter Dan Ponce and photographer Donte Williams for not leaving a median strip across the street from a hospital. The men were only briefly held and no charges were ultimately levied against them

So, in short the CPD did this in a gross violation of the right to free speech. One officer, who was recorded by the news crew, was angry that his entirely illegal assault on free speech was not shown the proper amount of respect. Check it out.

This officer should be immediately fired for his gross dereliction of duty in protecting the rights of Chicagoans. Instead, I am quite sure he will be secretly praised at the station house for putting those pesky reporters in their place.

Of course, things could have been much worse for Dan Ponce and Donte Williams. By just recording that officer while he was in public, those reporters could have been charged with a Class 1 felony.

I’m not kidding.

Chicago falls under the purview of the Illinois Eavesdropping Act, a fascist statute which makes it illegal to record a police officer enforcing laws in the field. There have been several high profile cases in recent history dealing with the law, including local artist Chris Drew, who could have spent up to fifteen years in jail for recording his own arrest. At the beginning of this month a Cook County judge ruled the law being used to persecute Chris Drew and others is unconstitutional, but prosecutors will certainly appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court.

Given the political climate in the state, I would not be shocked if the Illinois Supreme Court overturned the lower court’s ruling. In the state legislature, a recent attempt to amend the law to allow the recording of police was defeated.

This undoubtedly pleased Mayor Emanuel, whose sentiments concerning the First Amendment, very much in line with the CPD officer from above, are pretty well known.

While some say he is only joking in that news footage, I beg to differ. His maniacal obsession with presenting just one side of an argument is famous, and it made him a much-desired operative in the ranks of the DNC. His Chicago-style politicking made him darling in the Obama administration. Now this callow bully, who helped shove the incredibly unconstitutional Health Care Mandate down the throats of America, managed to become the mayor of (despite not living in) Chicago, where his Machiavellian methods are not only expected, but applauded by the masochistic apparatchiks of Chicago’s machine.

Don’t believe me? A few months ago, before Obama took away the G8 summit, Rahm managed to push through a few nice little ordinances which go a long way to destroying a Chicagoan’s right to free speech and protest. Above and beyond these new police powers Emanuel has reserved for himself, he also lords over the country’s largest and most comprehensive (at least, according to former Secretary for Homeland Security Michael Chertoff) private security camera network. Sounds like the Red Squad all over again, except this time the watchers never fall asleep, never go off duty.

With the deck so stacked against us, what can we do?

Spread the word. Get it out there, on the internet, on TV, in streets. Forward this article (or any of the dozens like it) to people you know in Chicago – or write your own editorial on the subject. I would like to say that preservation of our free speech rights is a bygone conclusion, but there is ample proof that, at least in Chicago, this may not be the case.

Keep the information flowing and people talking, while it is still feasible to do so, and while something can be done to wrest ourselves back from this precipice.

Share on Facebook