Chicago wins the U.S. Olympic bid as great showcase of democracy

mikea

mikea

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WASHINGTON -- Chicago today won the right to represent the United States in competition for the Olympic Summer Games of 2016.

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/olympics/341682,oly041507.article
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If Chicago really wins, "Northerly Island" aka, Meigs, will have permanent structures for the olympics to prevent it from being an airport again.

I can tell you that Chicago will make Atlanta's olympics SNAFUs look trivial. They've right now made it so there no form of transportation north to south that isn't blocked all summer. The streets, expressways, tollways, and 'L' all are being rehabbed.
 
f Chicago gets the final nod, preparations for the 2016 games will be the biggest public/private works project in the history of a town known for shady government contracts and brazen back-scratching. The “surprise” construction-cost overruns – a local specialty in recent years and a big problem for many Olympic host cities – promise to keep teams of reporters busy for years.

It’s the seeming inevitability of profiteering, sleaze and extra costs passed along to taxpayers that stops me from turning cartwheels at today's “victory” over Los Angeles.

http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2007/04/a_great_day_for.html
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I wonder how much U.S. and Illinois taxpayers will be soaked for to pay for this fiasco.
 
Based on what I've seen, I think Rio is pretty much a shoe-in, since there's never been an Olympics in South America. But we'll see.
 
I never knew USOC members were into drugs? That's pretty surprising considering athletes get bumped.

“It was a very tough decision,” Ueberroth said before opening the envelope. “If I had all the power — and sometimes people accuse me of that — I would take the map and merge the two cities, because I’ll tell you what: If you could take the mayors of these two communities and have them run our country, we would all be better off.’’
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:rolleyes:
 
I would SO leave Chicago to go to RIO for the Olympics! It IS 9 years away, but still, I agree, Chicago won't do a good job.
 
mikea said:
If Chicago really wins,
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The President of Mexico has announced that Mexico will not participate in the next Summer Olympics ..

He said that, "Anyone who can run, jump, or swim has already left the country."


HR
 
Lawreston said:
The President of Mexico has announced that Mexico will not participate in the next Summer Olympics ..

He said that, "Anyone who can run, jump, or swim has already left the country."


HR
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:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
 
mikea said:
I wonder how much U.S. and Illinois taxpayers will be soaked for to pay for this fiasco.
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Lots. With the unions there it's VERY expensive to do anything .. IF
you can get them to do it. I can't even imagine trying to put together
the Olympics there.
 
Atlanta had Bill Campbell (He's now in prison) muck up things with the fraudulent commercialization and more. Salt Lake had a bunch of bribery cases. I wonder how Chicago will stack up to the reputation the US is establishing?
 
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KennyFlys said:
Atlanta had Bill Campbell (He's now in prison) much up things with the fraudulent commercialization and more. Salt Lake had a bunch of bribery cases. I wonder how Chicago will stack up to the reputation the US is establishing?
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If Chicago gets the final nod, preparations for the 2016 games will be the biggest public/private works project in the history of a town known for shady government contracts and brazen back-scratching. The “surprise” construction-cost overruns – a local specialty in recent years and a big problem for many Olympic host cities – promise to keep teams of reporters busy for years.

It’s the seeming inevitability of profiteering, sleaze and extra costs passed along to taxpayers that stops me from turning cartwheels at today's “victory” over Los Angeles.

It will be a long time before we know whether today was a good day or a bad day for average Chicagoans.
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http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2007/04/a_great_day_for.html
 
Sigh. Freaking Chicago, did I read correctly that Daley just recently got reelected, too?
 
If the IOC selects Chicago, we'll know how well someone was paid off. If Chicago keeps electing a crook as Mayor, we'll know how well he paid off the citizen idiots.

Of course, he's no more crooked than Ray Nagin.
 
SkyHog said:
Sigh. Freaking Chicago, did I read correctly that Daley just recently got reelected, too?
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Yeah. But it wasn't an 80% landslide this time. Daley arranged to not have any viable competition. The biggest help was that the Dems took the U.S. House so Jesse Jackson, Jr. and Luis Gutierrez stayed on Washington. Believe it or don't Jesse Jr. might have pulled it off. His wife won an aldermanic seat.


There are a lot of Chicago voters that are angry and are not the ol' reliable machine sheeple anymore. As Chicago gets gentrified, those wise-a* libs aren't playing the game. Several alderman who were on the DALEY|ME signs got tossed.

I'm deciding whether I want to drive into Chicago tomorrow to vote against my machine alderman in the runoff. My guy is from Rosty's machine and may lose. http://www.suntimes.com/news/brown/341570,CST-NWS-brown15.article
 
Isn't that Obamaland? And now Hillary has a reason to get back to her Chicago roots.
 
Well, Chicago can always do what Denver/ State of Colorado did in '74. They turned the Olympics away, for lack of interest in paying a huge tax bill to fund the Games. They put it on the ballot, and voted it down. Of course, Denver will never be considered again for the Games...

Only since Peter Uberoth got Corporate America involved in the LA Games, have the Games been profitable. TV sponsorships, big name naming rights on various facilities, etc have assured the profitability of the event itself. But this does not contribute to the cost of improving the infrastructure of the host city prior to the Games.

I may not be from Chicago, but the history and recent track record of Mayor Daley and his cronies does not foster a great deal of confidence in being able to pull this off cleanly.
 
smigaldi said:
You no longer reside in Chicago. You are talking about committing a crime by illegally voting in area where you no longer reside. You are now a true Chicagoan.
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I have dual citizenship. I still have the apartment in Chicago. I haven't registered in the burbs yet.
 
mikea said:
I have dual citizenship. I still have the apartment in Chicago. I haven't registered in the burbs yet.
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To be legible to vote you actually have to be a resident for 30 days prior to the election.

Plain English Voter Law Illinois said:
What if I move, can I still vote?

It depends on when you move.



If you moved within 27 days of the election in the same precinct you can vote a full ballot by signing an affidavit.


If you moved more than 30 days before the election within the county or municipality under a board of election commissioners, and did not transfer your registration, you can vote on a ballot for federal offices only, after completing an address correction form.


If you moved within 30 days before the election outside of your precinct, but you still live in the State, and did not transfer your registration, you can vote a full ballot in your old polling place after completing an affidavit.


If you moved more than 30 days before the election out of your county or municipality under the board of election commissioners and did not transfer your registration, you cannot vote.
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smigaldi said:
To be legible to vote you actually have to be a resident for 30 days prior to the election.
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Being that there are reports that there have been unprecedented levels of absentee and early voting, I don't think they'll be targeting me.

BTW, I've gotten two calls at the new phone number from the non-machine alderman's campaign. They see that I vote in almost every election.

I think I will be there in the morning as my last middle finger to Duh Man.
 
I voted.

Duh gang of guys surrounding duh street corner to the polling place asked if I was voting. I gave them the 1000 yard stare. Dey migtha got duh hint dat dis was one vote dey wasn't gonna get.

Duh Machine guy is losing by 122 votes! He refused to concede. Prolly think he'll be able to steal enough votes to pull it off.

Most of the incumbent Daley candidates lost. I'm tellin' ya folks dat most of duh city is not happy wit' Ritchie.
http://www.voterinfonet.com/results/041707/SummaryElection041707RaceNum2.html#
 
Richard said:
Hey, it looks like I could vote 4 times, 5 if I'm dead.
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As one famous ward boss said, "Recount? With all of the votes that we stole?"

Only 4 of Daley's buddies won. Daley gave those 4 a lot of dough from his huge campaign chest.

There was a big push by labor to punish those who went with Daley and failed to override his veto of the anti-Wal-Mart "Big Box" ordinance. Labor defeated 6 candidates. That's a strange turn since Daley and labor were always thisclose.


One interesting guy who won was Joe Moore who was the best friend that Friends of Meigs had. He's FOM founder Steve Whitney's alderman. He wrote the box box ordinance so labor was behind him. ....But he also wrote the Foie Gras ban that made Chicago the butt of jokes all over the world. :vomit:
 
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mikea said:
I wonder how much U.S. and Illinois taxpayers will be soaked for to pay for this fiasco.
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They say there is a silver lining behind every cloud. Since Romney lost the election, he might be available to run the Olympics again. After all, he rescued Salt Lake City from corruption and grasped victory from the jaws of defeat.

Done right, sponsoring the Olympics can be great. Otherwise, they can be a long lasting nightmare.
 
JOhnH said:
They say there is a silver lining behind every cloud. Since Romney lost the election, he might be available to run the Olympics again. After all, he rescued Salt Lake City from corruption and grasped victory from the jaws of defeat.

Done right, sponsoring the Olympics can be great. Otherwise, they can be a long lasting nightmare.
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Rio was announced as the host city over 3 years ago :)
 
Uhhhh, I took a nap and missed that.
But I am still wondering why that old post showed up when I brought up "new posts".
 
Holy resurrected threads Batman! :yikes: I started reading this and realized it was from 2007!:mad2::mad2:
 
mikea said:
If Chicago really wins, "Northerly Island" aka, Meigs, will have permanent structures for the olympics to prevent it from being an airport again.

I can tell you that Chicago will make Atlanta's olympics SNAFUs look trivial. They've right now made it so there no form of transportation north to south that isn't blocked all summer. The streets, expressways, tollways, and 'L' all are being rehabbed.
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Well, I guess that's why they already started rehabbing what needed to be rehabbed and are trying to find funding for it through the "Olympics Econonomy" whatever the reality of that is. In order to have a successful bid, they are going to have to show they are on track to have the infrastructure in place to handle it. I'd like to see Boston get the Olympics.
 
JOhnH said:
They say there is a silver lining behind every cloud. Since Romney lost the election, he might be available to run the Olympics again. After all, he rescued Salt Lake City from corruption and grasped victory from the jaws of defeat.

Done right, sponsoring the Olympics can be great. Otherwise, they can be a long lasting nightmare.
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For the local and state governments, maybe; but, no matter how well its done, federal taxpayers will have to shell out at least $100M. Probably more like $200M.

And don't forget the impact to GA.
 
steingar said:
Only on POA would a Chicago Olympics be viewed as a bad thing.
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Especially this long after they already lost it.
But it wasn't the OLYMPICS that was being dissed. It was Chicago!
 
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