By John Kass

February 16, 2025

Old Texas Rangers don’t have much in common with Chicago politicians convicted of federal corruption charges on their way to prison, or broken down old newspapermen, but my friend Tom Bevan called me to talk of Boss Madigan’s recent conviction on Bevan’s RealClear Politics podcast.

Unfortunately, I forgot to tell him about the ruthless Mexican bandit Pablo Flores.

We talked of Madigan, his meticulous attention to detail, and the corrupt nature of Illinois itself after decades of crooked Republican and Democrat rule. I call this bipartisan corruption by its own special name: the Combine. And the Chicago Way is the Washington Way. Each place is politically corrupt. And the economic wasteland of Illinois is corrupt to the core. Even the Illinois little league is corrupt. Consider that the national media darlings of the 2014 was an Illinois team, the Jackie Robinson West little league team. And Jackie Robinson was stripped of its world championship for cheating.

But now as I sit down to write about Boss Madigan and what his political life and criminal conviction are all about, I’m struck by many conflicting thoughts. He was the longest serving state house speaker in the country, and for at least 40 of those years he controlled all legislation and state judicial appointments. And I’m a bit sad. And eager. The death of the ruthless rustler and horse thief Pedro Flores in the great American novel “Lonesome Dove” comes to mind. It weighs heavy.

Here’s why: Upon learning of Flores’ death, his rival and Texas Ranger Woodrow Call seems confused, even lost. Call’s friend Gus notes that “you’ve run out of Indians and now you’ve run out of bandits. That’s the point. You need someone to outwit.” He’d lost his purpose.

I didn’t want to outwit Boss Madigan; I wanted him there, standing, strong, to fight against. And I don’t think I’m a Texas Ranger in a great novel. Or a Marvel Comic weirdo. But I loved the contest against the Chicago politicians. I thought of hardworking neighborhood people I grew up with, folks who’d been  taught to doff their caps the way their grandparents and parents doffed caps and bent the knee in Europe. It wasn’t even Madigan himself whom I opposed.

I opposed the Combine, the insular corruption of Illinois, the crooked lawyers, and especially the corrupt journalism of Springfield and Chicago that fawned over Boss Madigan and other political leaders over the decades, all those Combine jackals and hyenas laughing. It fed hopelessness and profound cynicism of the people.

These were the fetid nutrients of the bi-partisan Combine. The corrupt journos. The Tribune was the Combine’s flagship paper, but the Sun Times had them too. And a fat drunken blogger in Springfield who also took care of Combine needs. This was deeply offensive to me. Even more so because of their supposed “journalistic oaths” that they took and prattled on and on about. Once there were Republican and Democrat water boys and girls, but as the partisanship changed, so did they, carrying water for Soros Marxists and corporate pimps with the same pail. And they put their mouth on that pail and drank deep.

The oleaginous great lord of the Illinois Combine, the late Republican Gov. Big Jim Thompson escaped federal scrutiny and that is also unfair. But he was a former federal prosecutor whose corrupt influence on federal law enforcement culture can’t ever be overstated. He was a dealmaker who railed against taxes then raised them after elections, and his corrupt posse included convicted Big Bill Cellini, the boss of the road builders (how you dooin?) and the convicted Gov. George Ryan and many, many others.

Madigan was convicted on 10 of 27 corruption counts. He joins a long line of Illinois politicians who went away to college, including former Illinois governors Rod Blagojevich, Ryan, Dan Walker and Otto Kerner, and former Ald. Edward Burke (14th) and Fast Eddie Vrdolyak and others convicted of betraying the public trust.

At least Madigan wasn’t a hypocrite. Or a whiner to beg the feds for mercy. I thought of him as more like a granite stone you’d break your hands on. And after pounding on that stone, year after year, you look up and your hands are a mess and your life is almost over, your hands unusable. And what did you hope to accomplish?

The city of Chicago, and Illinois, so corrupt for so long now run by an obese billionaire clown right out of a Fellini movie, is falling in on itself. And the people? They kept voting race and playing the race card and now their public schools are so decrepit that  they won’t be able to compete in the new world of the future. Without good education, the ruling class have left them fit only for serfdom or sex workers, and prison. It’s as if all this was designed by Karl Marx himself. And cui bono? Who benefits? The Illinois political class, the Combine that protected the predatory teachers unions? The kids given substandard educations? Their parents who went along for the ride?

So what took Mike Madigan down? Himself. He hung out with that Springfield lobbyist Michael McClain. And McClain’s idiotic use of email, bragging like a jackass about “the most trusted of the trusted” brought Madigan low. And Madigan was also hit with testimony from the odious former Chicago Ald. Danny “the Rat” Solis, who bragged on federal tape that he desired Asian women for paid-for special massages. “Good,” the Rat said on federal tape. “I like Asian.”

Solis furthered the exploitation of vulnerable women. I wonder: Wasn’t there a mysterious “Federal Official B” who disappeared after Solis was indicted? Wonder what he knows? I think he was a Congressman. Will he publicly admit this?

They knew the feds would come for them eventually.

The worst insult came from Gov. Toilets, aka J.B. Pritzker, the fat billionaire who thinks you’re stupid enough to let him become president. Gov. Toilets, also known as Gov. Commodius Maximus, bought a Gold Coast mansion next his own and then pulled out the toilets in a scheme to make it “uninhabitable” and get a $300,000 tax break.

Because fat Democrats also know the Chicago Way.

Toilets Pritzker has no shame. He launched an attack on Madigan.

“When I ran for office, I made clear that I would be beholden to no one, and that I would serve the best interests of the people of Illinois,” said Gov Toilets when Madigan was federally indicted years ago on multiple counts, and Toilets thought it was safe for him to crow. “I have upheld that vow. For the past three years, my administration has made clear that such abuses will not be tolerated, and we’ve tightened our ethics laws. I will continue to work with the General Assembly to restore the public’s trust.”

Really, Fat Boy?

Have another bag of Oreos and sing to us of your virtue.

As the federal criminal racketeering conspiracy indictment of Michael J. Madigan came down, I was thinking of that audience of the apples, another thing I forgot to tell Bevan. Years ago, one of Madigan’s toadies hanging around the press room in Springfield, a walking cliche of a cigar chomper, suggested it would be “a good idea” for me to have lunch with Madigan, who for decades controlled the state as Speaker of the Illinois House and as chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party. He was boss of the 13th Ward.

So, I went to lunch in Boss Madigan’s office. There were two apples sliced neatly, arranged precisely on two linen napkins. He graciously offered me a napkin, but I quickly realized I wasn’t there to eat, but to witness. He spoke methodically about some house procedure, about the Southwest Side of Chicago where each of us were born.  There were pleasantries about the White Sox. It was all very polite.

But it was an audience, not a lunch. I was the petitioner. It was a theatrical demonstration of control. Of discipline. He kept his mouth closed as he chewed, his eyes widening, and in that quiet office, I could hear the disciplined crunching. One slice, then another. Silence and crunching. I realized I could have been sitting with the blue eyed omniscient oculist from the billboard in the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Great Gatsby.”

I thought of Pritzker, the state’s porcelain prince, scrambling to distance himself from Madigan now that Pritzker is the Democratic boss. He bought the state party with his inherited hotel billions. After the indictment, Pritzker made sure to make himself available to reporters, braying loudly about how much ethics mean to him, as if he was as pure as Caesar’s wife. And he didn’t mention his toilet caper once.

Yes, you’re allowed to smirk.

I’m sure Madigan smirked. I can see him smirking now.

Some time ago, back when Democrat Pat Quinn was governor of Illinois, I wrote about wind swept Madiganistan, that economic wasteland, once known as Illinois, is in absolute ruins” and other media, including the Madison St. Clair Record picked up my theme.

“The following statistics support Kass’s viewpoint. Madiganistan, once part of the “new world” lands coveted by European empires is a province in the country known as the United States. Once an economic powerhouse, the state is a pale shadow of its former self. Illinois is run by the provincial governor, or “Caliph,” Pat Quinn and Grand Vizier of the Legislature named Michael Madigan for which Madiganistan is named, are supported by a Chicago based super majority of the ‘Blue’ or Democratic Party. Current economic statistics tell the story of mismanagement.”

In those days I’d mention the New York state Democrat boss Sheldon Silver, who thought he was untouchable.

He wasn’t untouchable. Neither was Mike Madigan.

I respected the old guard political bosses. They were hard working, crafty, detail oriented, like Outfit bosses. And ruthless.

But I just wish Madigan had listened to his friends and got out early to enjoy his life. He didn’t. The others never did, either.

When friends talked to him about possibly retiring, he’d stare at them as if he were talking to a madman. “What would I do?” he asked.

He was Mike Madigan, speaker of the Illinois House, chairman of the Illinois Democrats. There was nothing else he wanted to do. Nothing else he was fit for, other than being a political king with his bony hands on the levers of power. Researching this, going through old notes about Madigan, and about the bandit Pedro Flores, I found a sculpture about sorrow done by Jacqueline Damon at the Swell Sculpture Festival.

You see it in the photograph below. I can feel the wind on the beach as it picks up the fabric of the Damon sculpture, like a canvas sail, like a sigh.

Mike Madigan didn’t listen. He became the job. And the job became Mike Madigan. The feds dug up Danny the Rat to add spice to their stew. And some naive journos are suggesting that now, finally, corrupt Illinois may have learned a lesson.

It hasn’t learned a thing. There is nothing else. Illinois will collapse in on itself. Chicago will fall in on itself.

Except now, at 82, after a lifetime in power, with his wife Shirley ill, Boss Madigan is going away. Or not. He’s done and the jackals and hyenas are still.

There is no joy in this, or exhilaration. The other crooks won’t change their ways. They haven’t learned anything. They don’t care to learn.

Striking the granite gives off a lonely sound, an echo, like the sound a gravestone makes when it is set firmly in the ground and you pound on it, alone.

(Copyright John Kass 2025)

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About the author: John Kass spent decades as a political writer and news columnist in Chicago working at a major metropolitan newspaper. He is co-host of The Chicago Way podcast. And he just loves his “No Chumbolone” hat, because johnkassnews.com is a “No Chumbolone” Zone where you can always get a cup of common sense.

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