A Drama In Two Acts
Rahm Emanuel Evades Property Tax Burden
Posted by: jbonham76
Thursday, November 6, 2008 at 11:08AM CSTLike most former/current Chicago residents, I was pretty astonished that Obama was starting his “change” administration with the quintessential face of Chicago Boss politics, one Rahm Emanual [sic]. It seemed something akin to inviting Al Capone to run the Treasury Department. Well, thanks to my old blogging home Illinois Review, we learn that high-taxing-Rahmy does not believe in paying high taxes himself:
According to the Cook County Assessor’s website, the Chicago home of four-term Democrat Congressman and likely new White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, doesn’t exist. While the address of 4228 North Hermitage is listed as Emanuel’s residence on the Illinois State Board of Elections’ website, there seems to be no public record of Emanuel ever paying property taxes on this home…
Why wouldn’t 4228 North Hermitage property owners Rahm Emanuel and wife Amy Rule not pay property taxes?
One reason may be because Emanuel and Rule declared their 4228 North Hermitage home as the office location for their non-profit foundation appropriately called the “Rahm Emanuel and Amy Rule Charitable Foundation”. As a non-profit headquarters, they may consider their home as exempt from paying taxes.
I guess the change we can believe to see is “what is good for thee is not for me.”
Assessor’s response to Illinois Review
Thursday, Nov 6, 20081) The tax bill IS listed where the Emanuel home is located. They are on two lots.
2) By “for tax purposes,” I mean that this is the location associated with the PIN. But it’s the same property.
3) Yes, it was inaccurate to say that. Because it is the same house. It was listed in our records — and the Treasurer’s records — under a different address. Had you contacted either office to check this out, we could have told you that.
4) It would be highly misleading and irresponsible for you to say that, because we don’t assess property by address – we do it by PIN. And we do it because addresses change and get combined all the time, when owners divide and combine lots. Apparently, with this property, a previous owner had taken three lots and turned them into two.
Let me make one further point: Before posting this “story,” neither you nor anybody from the Illinois Review made an effort to contact the Assessor’s office to verify it. As a former newspaper reporter, I find this shocking.
Even after learning, when I emailed you at 10:46 this morning, that there were factual problems with the story, you kept it on your web site. Moreover, you deleted my effort to correct the story from the “comments” section. I’d be keenly interested in hearing your justification for this conduct.
– posted by Rich Miller
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FIN
Minutes later, the assessor was never heard from again. Witnesses report that although no direct verification could be made, files may have been either removed or sorted differently.
Is an assessor anything like a comptroller?
I believe this is what we call “Oh snap!”
Just because Emanuel has paid property taxes on this house does not prove that he has never evaded paying property taxes on other properties that he may have, or that he won’t do so at some point in the future.
Which only strengthens the gist of my initial post.
What Red State doesn’t mention is how Rahm Emmanuel had to put together his old band and play a show to make money to save his old property, then get chased by cops, country musicians, and Illinois Nazis all the way to the Cook County Assessor’s office.
I have a tape of Rahm Emanuel pressuring the assessor to lie on his behalf. I am in negotiations with No Quarter for its publication. Watch this space.
jbonham76 said,
November 7, 2008 at 3:07
I can’t decide if this would be funnier as a parody or the real thing.
Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.
That pretty much sums up the next 8 years insofar as right wing blogs and fact checking.
Emanuel is a valid target because as the son of a Zionist militant he’s betraying Israel by working with a closet Muslim.
Well, that’s my guess. Anyone else?
The next 8 years? They’ve been doing that for the previous 8….
There’s going to come back and say: Emmanuel knew that the IR was running with a fake story just to discredit them. And that the Assessor is on the take. Who is this mysterious “Rich Miller, County Assessor?” and why does he care so much about our phoney-baloney story? Suspicious.
Thursday said,
November 7, 2008 at 3:12
Emanuel is a valid target because as the son of a manual laborer, he does no manual labor.
I can see the next four years are going to be utter hell for left/liberal bloggers. We win, we lose. We lose, we lose.
God, that was so good. I need a cigarette.
Wow. that’s just so beautiful. It makes me want to cry.
I think this sums up my reaction
Rahm Emanuel’s house is friends with William Ayers.
Oh, and Pere Ubu, if you’re still around, thanks for the compliment downthread. Would’ve gotten to the thanks sooner, but I’ve been laid up all day on pain meds, and haven’t been following threads until now.
Speaking of No Quarter, where’s my damn videotapes? There wasn’t a single good attack video released after the Palin witchhunter blessing.
Agt. Flowbee pledges to soldier on, but any guesses about how long “Korir” at “African Press International” will bother to update his site? They haven’t stopped yet, and their current top post is kind of awesome:
I didn’t truncate the list — that’s it. Jimmy Russell and Grace Dowd. Weren’t they in, like, Vertigo?
agum, and people are still believing that fool! Textbook example of confirmation bias.
Re: Sporkey
Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.
Jimmy spelled his last name and his residence wrong.
Just because Emmanuel paid the taxes that we saw doesn’t mean there weren’t taxes that we didn’t see that he didn’t pay.
It really is a pity it didn’t turn out to be a scam. It would have been a perfect headstone on the American cultural right: outwitted first by teenagers, then by Southerners, and finally by mail fraud.
I think the only way you could improve on it either which way is finding out that this whole time Barney has been the one actually giving out the orders and Bush just follows along, wagging his ass in servile joy the whole time.
Yes, but you have to give him points for trying, Jay B.
Jay B. said,
Jimmy spelled his last name and his residence wrong.
naw, he just really hates NYC.
I think the only way you could improve on it either which way is finding out that this whole time Barney has been the one actually giving out the orders and Bush just follows along, wagging his ass in servile joy the whole time.
Sorry, Barney’s busy.
Just for fun, quoting Olbermann minutes ago.
Talking about the ICE leak of Obama’s aunt’s immigration status, and the subsequent resignation of julie myers:
“Democracy saved, because it’s enemies were too STUPID to know they were STUPID!”
mikey
“Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.”
That was actually for the second link
Amusingly, comments at Illinois Review are disabled for their Emanuel posts, and no others.
Oh, and Pere Ubu, if you’re still around, thanks for the compliment downthread.
No problem; you said what i’ve been thinking the last couple days, and you said it better than I could have. It’s just a shame it’s ‘way too long to fit on a T-shirt.
I bow to your superior Tiger-style snark-fu!
I’ll have to admit, I was depressed upon hearing that Barack Obama was elected President. I am at once depressed in dissapointed in the American people, for electing an America-hating socialist to the White House.
However, there was one thing that happened during this election that gave me satisfaction and joy. Well, actually three things. The fact that, gay marriage was banned in California, Florida, and Arizona gave me almost as much satisfaction, as I would have had if McCain were elected President.
This proves one very important thing. It proves that, despite the fact the majority of Americans were naive and ignorant enough to be fooled by Obama’s empty rehtoric, most Americans still believe in the traditional values that have made America and Western Civilization strong. And for that I have joy.
Sometimes, I have a hard time deciding whether or not someone is joking.
“African Press International”
Are they the national press agency from the nation of Africa that Sarah Palin thinks exists? Do they publish in the African language?
african press has the tape
That’s the reason why we decided, many centuries ago in a dingy bar somewhere in Gaul, to just beat the fucker with the mouth into the ground, stomp his testicles and take his shit.
It’s just better that way…
mikey
Hey Rugged, have you paid up on your $300 bet with Ed Marshall yet?
Rich Miller is now officially a leper. Or leprechaun. Or something.
It really is a pity it didn’t turn out to be a scam. It would have been a perfect headstone on the American cultural right: outwitted first by teenagers, then by Southerners, and finally by mail fraud.
But didn’t they collect money via Paypal for “travel expenses”?
Obama’s postal inspectors need to investigate API. Just to humiliate the mouth-breathers when it’s revealed that they were scammed. If they slow-walk the investigation, ‘Korir’ can squirrel the money away somewhere in the Caymans so the wingnuts never get their money back.
Both the Democrats and the Republicans need to reach beyond their core supporters to win an election; however, it’s worth noting that the two parties have taken completely opposite approaches to dealing with moderates that have produced what may appear to be non-intuitive results.
George Bush spent 8 years pursuing a “new tone,” he moved the party to the center domestically, and the GOP’s policies when they were in charge could best be described as “big government Republicanism.” They spent money at a fantastic clip, handed out goodies like the Medicare Prescription Drug Program, pushed pork, ignored the base to promote amnesty and the bailout, and ran a moderate presidential candidate.
The Democrats, on the other hand, have put hard core left-wingers in charge of every important post in their party and ran the most liberal man in the Senate — and they were the ones who pulled in the “moderates” during the campaign.
How can that be?
It’s because the GOP absolutely cannot build a successful political party around “moderates.”
Why is that the case?
1) What constitutes a “moderate” changes from person to person. That’s how people like Joe Lieberman and Chuck Hagel, neither of whom would agree on just about anything, can both be considered “moderates” in their parties.
Put another way: a socially conservative, anti-abortion voter who believes in big government policies could be fairly called a moderate. On the other hand, a socially liberal, pro-abortion voter who doesn’t want any new government programs could also be fairly called a moderate.
So, since what constitutes being a “moderate” changes from person to person, it’s not possible to build a party around appealing to “moderates.”
2) Because moderates tend to be much less ideological, less knowledgeable about politics, and less informed than liberals and conservatives, it’s entirely possible that even if our candidate’s views are closer to their views, they won’t be capable of figuring it out (That’s exactly how it worked with McCain and Obama, for example).
3) Additionally, because of the factors mentioned above, moderates tend to be extremely fickle voters. This time around, even rightward leaning moderates like Colin Powell, Christopher Buckley, & Ann Althouse defected over to the Obama campaign rather than vote for the most moderate GOP candidate since Richard Nixon. That’s why trying to build a coalition around moderates is like trying to build a castle on sand.
4) Moderates may not know a lot about politics, but they do at least know that they can’t trust the press. So, how do they decide whom to vote for? I would suggest to you that many of them largely base their decisions on anecdotal evidence.
What do I mean by that? Let’s take the current election. What did a moderate voter hear from his liberal friends about Obama? “He’s the greatest hope for America! He’s wonderful! He’ll solve all our problems!” Now, what did that same moderate hear from his conservative friends about McCain? “He’d probably be a lousy President, but he’d still be better than Obama.”
In other words, if conservatives aren’t enthusiastic about their nominee, moderates are going to take cues from that and cast their votes accordingly. That’s one of the reasons why it’s so counter-productive to antagonize conservatives in an effort to draw in moderates.
5) It’s conservatives, not moderates, who contribute the money, work on GOP campaigns, and are generally going to vote Republican, if they vote at all.
Although it’s fine to reach out to moderates, if you go too far and alienate the conservative base, it will hurt your fundraising, leave you without enough campaign volunteers, and may depress turnout amongst your most loyal supporters.
6) Since the mainstream media acts as little more than an arm of the Democratic Party, the Republicans are completely reliant on the new media to get their message out.
So, where are the big name “moderates” in the new media? The new media is loaded with big name conservatives and even a few powerful Libertarians, but there are almost no “moderates” to promote the Republican Party.
That means if the Party is centered around moderates instead of conservatives, then the most powerful friends the GOP has in the media probably aren’t going to do much to push them, defend them, or work very hard on their behalf.
7) Last but not least, it’s worth noting that there is no “moderate” political party in the United States. When the American people go to the ballot box, we have a center-right nation choosing between the Republican Party and radical, left-wing socialists. A competent, conservative Republican Party will not only be more representative of its core supporters, it will win at the ballot box when it goes head to head with liberals. Look back to Reagan and the 1994 Revolution to see that principle in action. Now, look to 2006 and 2008 to see how an incompetent, “moderate” Republican Party does at the ballot box.
The other thing is, whenever someone posts a blog comment that’s more than three paragraphs, I just scroll past it.
Hmmm, looks like RiM has discovered the wonders of the copypasta.
The only center he mover the “party” to was the center of Hell.
I tried to read the rest, but:
1.)} there were a lot of points,
2.)} they were stupid,
3.)} blah, blah, blah,
4.)} You luserz rock,
4.)} Pay up the damn money, byatch.
THAT IS ALL.
Rugged in Montana said,
November 7, 2008 at 4:34
The fact is, that was a lot of wasted time typing something no one will read.
__________________________________________________________
” jbonham76 said,
November 7, 2008 at 3:07
Just because Emanuel has paid property taxes on this house does not
prove that he has never evaded paying property taxes on other properties
that he may have, or that he won’t do so at some point in the future.”
___________________________________________________________
You can apply this ridiculous logic to anybody including yourself.
> You can apply this ridiculous logic to anybody including yourself.
That obviously went over you head.
That obviously went over you head.
This was, of course, the aim of his original comment.
I owe money to somebodies? I don’t make all that much as a dental floss farmer, can’t I just apologize or sumthin? I’ve got a tiny little pony to support, after all.
When do we get to say things like “Elections have consequences” and “We won, you lost, get over it”?
I have taken some satisfaction in editing the Greasemonkey script so that it replaces any emissions from RiM with an announcement about welching on a wager. The simple pleasures in life are often the best.
This is the Capitol Fax Blog you really want. Starting about halfway down, Rich Miller recounts the whole story. Note that he is not the moron who can’t understand property taxes — that’s the jackhole at Illinois Review who, as Miller points out, responds to the Cook County Assessor with a bunch of questions that show he doesn’t understand a damn thing the assessor has told him. (And that leads to the second act above.)
I have taken some satisfaction in editing the Greasemonkey script so that it replaces any emissions from RiM with an announcement about welching on a wager.
Ooh! Post some screengrabs!
When do we get to say things like “Elections have consequences” and “We won, you lost, get over it”?
Oh dear, were we supposed to wait?
“Oh dear, were we supposed to wait?”
Yeah, I already made T-shirts.
Has RUGGED gone back to Rugged? I’ve kill-filed the second, so keep the caps, please sir.
When do we get to say things like “Elections have consequences” and “We won, you lost, get over it”?
Anytime, m’friend, anytime. I find it much more personally satisfying to say “Suck on THIS loozers! HAHAHAHHAHAA”
It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.
Eat Shit and Die, Cobagz!
Don’t forget that one. I’ll be sending it to Fred Hiatt and company, soon.
PS: I said it to a commenter at II*D*, but I’ll say it here: read The Thumpin’, it’s a great book and is pretty revelatory for being as generally positive as it is. Goes a long way towards showing how the Dean strategy first came into being and how Emanuel carried it out.
I don’t like the man – he’s pretty self-aggrandizing and his tendency to favor burly military types at the expense at all else is particularly absurd – but he’s probably done more than any other one person to get not just Obama but the entire Democratic slate elected.
Rugged in Montana , stop ducking the issue . Did you pay up 300 Dollars ? You put your money where your mouth was and lost big time . You were saying that McCain will win both Va and Pa . You were offered a most generous bet putting down 600 Dollars to your 300 that let alone both Gramps will win neither . You accepted and lost . Now just pay up .
Az: every man is allowed to change the rules of a challenge when confronted with the facts. When you are as rich as me, you can afford to have your word mean jack shit.
Eat Shit and Die, Cobagz!
I’m still partial to Gavin’s “Eat it, Bushco Chumpwagons”.
Have we gotten our apology from The Truth yet?
Yeah, I believe I knew you would welch, but if you paid up your $300 bones you would at least restore my faith in Wingnut values.
I just walked in. I apologize for being a chickenshit on your website for these many months. I admit I was lying constantly and just trying to provoke and derail your conversations with my unfunny missives. I would say I was making you “froth at the mouth” when you were just barely annoyed by my bad-faith arguments. Once again, I apologize for being such a lowlife pissant. Have you heard Rahmanual doesn’t pay property taxes?
Wrong liberals, actually it was my leftwing imposter who agreed to the wager. I am not a gambling man, I never would have agreed to any such thing. At first I had no idea what y’all were talking about, then I clicked on the link to the other thread and found out that my leftwing parody troll imposter agreed to some stupid bet. Sorry libs, I don’t gamble.
Please tell me this wretched goat fellator isn’t taking the name of the great John Bonham in vain.
I can see you right now, trying to decide if $300 is worth trolling at sadlyno, that really shouldn’t be why you pay up. My family raised me better anyway.
Can we still go to IP’s? I guess it’s possible, but not really probable.
My mom told me that I forgot to mention how sorry I am for all the veiled racist comments I said and defended for the last six weeks. She says I wasn’t raised that way and to close the gosh darned garage door cause the heat doesn’t grow on trees and I wasn’t raised in a barn. So… I’m a total douche-siphon and should be hit by a bucket of dix. And I’m ready for some Cheetos and Mountain Dew now!!!!
If you are got laid off or something just say so. Yeesh.
Rugged In Montana told me he was totally going to welsh on this bet if he lost. We laughed and laughed.
A few threads ago I said Obama was Jimmy Carter.
When I can top that one, I’ll be back.
goober has such a himbo-crush on Rugged.
Jimmy Carter is a paragon of nobility compared to Ronald “Beirut Pansy” Reagan.
Conservatism is not dead, not by a long shot. You liberals are in for a real surprise, and a real thrashing as well. Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, leader of the 1994 Contract with America, is now strongly considering a run for the Chairmanship of the Republican National Committee. Enough of lukewarm, spineless Rinos like Ken Melmhen and Mel Martinez, we now have a very articulate, passionate, conservative intellectual running for the Republican Pary’s highest Office. He will do the job no other Republican leaders in recent times have had the guts to do, adopt a no-compromise postion towards leftwing Democrats, and boot the rinos out of all leadership postions in the Republican Party. All I have to say to all of this is, Amen.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/262052
Rugged was posting actively in that thread when the bet was made but he didn’t see that an impostor had accepted the bet on his behalf !
Wingnut values for you . Always wrong as hell , welchers and bare-faced liars .
Holy shit. Either this is a parade of spooves, or you really broke it.
Yeah, I re-read that, and there is no way that’s what happened.
Just say you’ll pay up.
If you are really broke or something, conservative RIM just say you’ll pay me, I’ll give you an email address and if you have to give me $5 a week or something I’ll swear you paid me off in full. If you are a real man, and you pay your debts I have no interest in mocking you over it. If you are some idiot carved better out of a banana, espousing “personal responsibility” and the like I think you need to look in the mirror.
Yeah, I re-read that, and there is no way that’s what happened.
I believe that what happened is you got trolled.
By which one?
RIM is the conservative movement writ small. We don’t need government, goddamn regulations in the financial market. We’re geniuses and could never possibly fuck ourselves by making crappy bets.
Oh shit. Black People, CRA of 1977, whatever, we need a shitload of money and it’s not our fault.
Is this really Ann Althouse or Donald Rumsfeld?
Rugged — don’t forget you can claim your zircon-encrusted tweezers as a business expense.
Zircon glints in the moonlight, a real advantage when floss farming.
And now they explain it all:
http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2008/11/wholly-innaccur.html
FIRST, when we looked up the wrong address for Rahm’s house and said it doesn’t appear on the tax rolls, we were right, because it was the wrong address.
SECOND, when we said that Rahm lists his correct address at the Board of Elections and not the wrong address we keep looking at, we were right that his correct address is not our wrong address.
THIRD, we were right that there’s no record of Rahm paying his taxes for an address that his house isn’t at, because he paid his taxes for the address his house actually is at.
FOURTH, we baselessly speculated that Rahm’s charitable foundation might be the reason he didn’t pay taxes at his house, which was correct because we didn’t state it as a fact, only as baseless innuendo, and other than the facts that he did pay his taxes, and the charitable foundation didn’t affect them, and we had the wrong address for his house anyway, it’s all the fault of the Liberals who keep catching us making shit up.
All caps RIM: Did you accept my bet? I don’t give a shit, and I never accepted the other one to pay up anyway. I’m just curious.
expected, ouch.
No way Ed Marshall . It was , as he calls himself , the “original” RiM . He was posting like mad then and he never once said that it wasn’t him . After the results he was asked about it several times and he always ignored it and never asked what the hell the bet was about . He fabricated his excuse only after he could no longer maintain the facade of not seeing it .
RiM = LOSER + WELCHER + LIAR
[…] own miscomprehension of the Assessor’s Office data. These bloggers — Progress Illinois, Sadly No!, Archpundit (here, here, here, here, here and here), and others — were left with no choice […]
..no, look. You can’t know what you don’t know about Emanuel Rahm. And that we don’t know what we don’t know, means that there’s something we don’t know – which means what we don’t know is a serious problem. Investigations! Right now!
Geez, you look away from S,N! for a few hours and you miss out on the sweet hilariousness of teh Drama in Two Acts.
You’d think that being called out with
that you’d be shamed enough to apologize to your readers, to Rahm Emanuel, and to Cook County Assessors Office. At the very least, some sort of “sorry” to at least one of the three. Holy Hey-Zeus, even after finding out that they were wrong and that Rahm shelled out $12K in property taxes, they then went on to ask
Well, I’m not the one obsessed with property tax rates on North Hermitage, but I just found out about someone who is:
Nice going dickwad, you pre-butted your own “sinister question”. You know, this type of reasoning reminds me of Mickey Kaus. I guess it would only be responsible to speculate as to IR Editor (I’m guessing Fran Eaton) and her perverse desires to sexually violate goats. Afterall,
I believe the term is “spnaked”.
Well, it’s gone down the memory hole now.
“But, alas, these facts, clarifications, and questions don’t faze the liberal hit-men who prefer to ignore the truth and spin the story to be about those who question rather than those who rule.”
Since you only started questioning anyone in the federal government a mere sixty and a half hours ago, it is a bit early to start whinging about the failure of everyone to acknowledge your greatness.
Still on RedStateMobile.com, as of this moment.
This reminds me of the old dude that smacked down that other dude about the war thing.
Good times, good times…
Something tells me this guy has been out of the reportin’ business for quite a while.
Is the yearly property tax liability of a home valued at $695,000 in 1998 really only $13,022.60?
well, jesus I would hope so. I mean, I know I’m a socialistislamofacist, but fuck.
You have to give credit, that response is a thing of beauty.
RedState, taking the stupid to previously unknown realms by one idiot at a time. Stay the Course.
Here’s to hoping RedState uses this guy’s brilliant logic in their current Operation Leper stratergeric action. Put every wingnut’s name on their enemies list because at “some point in the future” they might say something not flattering about the diva Sarah. Do the surge, jbonham76!
I swear, Onion writers should apprentice with these guys.
Now they’re the victims –
“This post removed due to Cook County Government Intimidation”
Of course.
Alfonso Bedoya, goddamn you! I have a pulled muscle in my back. Quit making me laugh so hard!
Is the yearly property tax liability of a home valued at $695,000 in 1998 really only $13,022.60?
well, jesus I would hope so. I mean, I know I’m a socialistislamofacist, but fuck.
That works out to a rate of 1.9%, which is on the low side but reasonable. I pay about 2.6% on my condo. But then (as I understand it) half of Emanuel’s land is undeveloped, which would tend to lower the overall rate.
If a comment is more than one sentence long and the first sentence doesn’t make me laugh then I move to the next comment.
Anybody who wants to can read the original of Rimjob’s cut-and-paste here anyway. I notice there’s nobody rushing to look. It’s as boring there as it is here, and the ads aren’t as good.