By John Kass Over the Labor Day weekend, the people of Chicago will have two things on their minds: What to grill. And how not to get killed. Like that Sox fan driving home from a baseball game, getting caught between street gang crossfires on the expressway, with more than 150 expressway shootings already this year, more than double since …
By John Kass Joe Biden read what they gave him to read about his “extraordinary success” in Afghanistan. And once again he became that angry old man at the end of the bar at closing time. He used that special voice of his, the Commander McBragg voice, the one he uses to recount his fabulist heroic exploits, from vanquishing the …
John P. McCormick, the longtime award-winning editor of the Chicago Tribune’s editorial page, is one of the most elegant writers I know. For years he tried to guide Illinois and Chicago toward fiscal sanity. For that he made Rod Blagojevich’s enemies list. He is a valued friend and colleague, and it is my great honor to welcome him as the …
By John Kass Because the empty husk that is President Joe Biden wanted to make a speech on Sept. 11—the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks in America—and crown himself with glory as the hero who got us out of Afghanistan, this is what he did: He delayed and then rushed his disastrous and ill-conceived withdrawal from that medieval nation …
I’ve already told you that I’m a diner guy. I used to be a saloon guy, too. But now I’m a diner guy. Both are good places to hear stories. But I can drive home from a diner without anxiety. And the other day at my friend Jimmy Banakis’ place, Juicy-O’s in Downers Grove, the guys were sitting around, and …
by John Kass Watching President Joe Biden on Sunday struggle to spin away from his disastrous and inept withdrawal from Afghanistan—leaving thousands of Americans on the ground at the mercy of the Taliban—what worried me most isn’t what he said. What he says isn’t believable. He’s known to all in Washington, even to the Democratic Media Complex that protects him, …
We talked of urban violence, of overworked, undermanned, demoralized and exhausted police in Chicago, a city unmoored. And about calls in Philadelphia for the National Guard. I disagree with that. It’s understandable that a population frightened and besieged by violence would call for military occupation. But that allows local officials—and local residents–off the hook, with greater and more terrible costs …
By John Kass What is it about the sound of bagpipes at the funeral of a police officer killed in the line of duty? The pipes are a great and proud tradition in Chicago. The sound is martial, defiant, and strong. Sometimes the pipes stop abruptly. Sometimes they fade away, like a scream from lungs without air. Or is that …
By John Kass Afghanistan has long been the graveyard of empires. And now it’s the resting place of another American fantasy, propagated by the partisan corporate American media as a potent political myth: That President Joe Biden is competent. That fantasy shattered like the bodies and bones of those Afghans terrified of the Taliban, who desperately grabbed onto the …
By John Kass As you can plainly see at the top of this column about The Church of Baseball–and that magical “Field of Dreams” game in the Iowa cornfields between the Chicago White Sox and the Damn Yankees—everything leads off with a brilliant Scott Stantis cartoon. It depicts Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot cast out of heaven, or at least the …