Author: John Kass

If Hillary Clinton fails to fulfill her destiny and retake the White House, she’ll have to go on that lonely political walk of shame. And then historians may point their bony fingers at young Taylor Gipple. For it was Mr. Gipple, Iowa millennial and passionate supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders, who gave us the single […]

It’s a good thing America is concentrating on the truly big news stories: Like #OscarsSoWhite from #HollywoodSoLiberal. And the head-smacking drama of the National Concussion League. But before our presidential candidates do any more harm to what a few of us still consider the republic, what of the Iowa caucuses just days away? Republican intellectuals […]

The NFL playoffs will be on TV in millions of American homes this weekend, and the games begin. Mom and dad in their jerseys, kids in their team gear, snacks on the coffee table, beer in the fridge, everybody reaching for something, the eyes of the family eager for impact, a truly American scene. Advertisers […]

Question: Why would Hillary Clinton send husband Bill out on the presidential campaign trail to help her with the women’s vote? Answer: Because Bill Cosby was busy? Right about now some of you are sighing in disgust, or giving me a rude hand gesture (sorry, I really can’t see it), while others are asking the […]

After breakfast you’re about to put the kids on the bus when you hear about a note that threatens terrorism at your children’s school. There isn’t much time to ponder, just like there wasn’t much time for reflection early Tuesday when the threats to school systems in New York City and Los Angeles came in. […]

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel — the Democrat who suppressed a police video of a white cop killing a black teenager in order keep black votes and win re-election — has a favorite saying. “Chicago is the most American of American cities,” Emanuel has said, repeatedly. “It’s not just any city. If you want to come […]

Would Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel have been re-elected if voters had seen the video of Laquan McDonald’s execution? No. Rahm would have lost the election. Why? Because he would have lost Chicago’s black vote. Without the black vote, Rahm Emanuel would not be the 9.5-fingered boss of Bartertown. Black political figures would have been uneasy […]

I liked Spike Lee’s new movie “Chi-Raq,” the story about the gang wars and all the lives lost in the war zone that is Chicago. The politicians and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel won’t like it. But that’s OK. After it was over, I thought there was one more thing Lee could do for Chicago. He […]

If you stand out on Michigan Avenue in the evening — on that Magnificent Mile we also call Boul Mich — you’ll hear many languages spoken on our most international of streets: Italian and German, Russian and Turkish, Chinese, Arabic and many other tongues, including that most beautiful of all: French. But the other night, […]

There is a video that could tear Chicago apart. It will go viral if released, and the world will see something ugly and frightening on the Southwest Side. It comes from a police dashboard camera. City Hall worries that political hell may be on the way. Activists are primed. The politics of race and police […]

I feel a deep regret in missing even one game of the World Series to watch the Republican presidential candidates’ debate. It’s painful, like being ambushed by Tolkien’s dwarfs and pummeled in the nether regions, and now it really, really hurts. Because the last thing I needed in all the world was to see a […]

Americans rushing out to buy Halloween candy for trick-or-treaters should know about the new Federal Halloween Candy Law: Any person who, on Halloween, knowingly gives out candy corn or Bit-O-Honey or Mary Janes — which resemble fossilized space alien baby turds wrapped in orange or black waxed paper — shall be thrown into a rat […]

Someday, the mysterious Individual A in the Dennis Hastert $3.5 million hush-money case may come forward and tell stories about Hastert, the former Republican House Speaker. I figure he’ll show up on some network TV morning show, wedged in between recipes and celebrity news. And then we’ll learn why the former speaker felt the need […]

With the Cubs in the playoffs as the plucky darlings of the nation, behold the mayor of Chicago. Is Rahm Emanuel just about the luckiest big-city mayor in the world, or what? It’s all Cubs all the time, and the perfect look-over-there moment for a mayor with some serious issues. His Chicago cops, he says, […]

He asked them their religion. If they said they were Christian, he killed them right there in that classroom in Oregon. And since the news trickled out, slowly, about what was done and how, some of us have been asking ourselves: Would I deny my faith to stay alive? Would I answer? “He said, ‘Good, […]

Hillary Clinton and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel have so much in common, in politics, in truthiness, and now in their questionable use of private email. They both know politics and muscle the Chicago Way. They worked together in those Bill Clinton presidential years, Hillary as the first lady who wouldn’t bake cookies; Rahm as the […]

Donald Trump wanted to kick him off the debate stage. Fox News ignored him. CNN limited his time, then called him a loser. Having been resoundingly Trumped, Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, wants a “positive conservative” to emerge in the Republican race for president. But just who is this positive conservative Walker dreams of? […]

If you’re somewhat cruel and evil, it’s easy to pull the wings off nervous and vulnerable Chicago Cubs fans. They have a great young team and a top manager and are fighting to make the playoffs. But Cubs fans, being Cubs fans, are anxious they’ll blow it once again, as they have through all the […]

The killing of Fox Lake, Illinois, police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz had nothing to do with our hashtag politics about which lives matter. Gliniewicz, whose body was found in a marshy area near Fox Lake, was just a cop who’d been doing his job. And he was killed for it, left stripped of his gear. […]

Why are so many journalists — particularly liberal journalists — mocking the true believers of Donald Trump? Because it’s just so darn easy, that’s why. It’s much safer to ridicule Trump supporters than dare question Planned Parenthood’s gruesome and tax-subsidized baby organ harvests. It’s much easier to do a Trump-said-something-crazy story than question Hillary Clinton […]

You don’t have to watch those videos of Planned Parenthood officials released by an anti-abortion group. No one will force you. And you’d be right to look with suspicion at anyone who tells you that you must watch them. So I’m not telling you to watch. But I am asking you to ask yourself two […]

When we think of evil, we think of something violent or demonic, something filled with hatred and wretchedly hungry to devour the good. But what if evil eats a salad at lunch and is polite, speaking rationally with nice table manners? I’ve just seen a video where evil casually spears lettuce on a fork and […]

What is the best lie that Hillary Clinton has ever told? Can you pick just one? She’s the inevitable Democratic presidential candidate even though 60 percent of Americans consider her a liar. So her pants suits are always on fire, and only a Hillary Meat Puppet would say otherwise. Yet rather than criticize her — […]

I’ve found a way to stop the deadly national epidemic of blithering idiots who text while driving. Oh, it might be a tad controversial, since a few Americans will invariably get squashed like pulpy bugs. But can you make an omelet without breaking an egg? The answer came to me as an obnoxious little bike […]

What do we talk about when we talk about race in America? We begin as if we’re talking about all of us, together, as if we’re earnest, as if we care about solutions. But it ends up being about what it’s always been about: Ourselves. We talk of what we want and how we want […]

You didn’t have to be in Chicago with the Blackhawks winning the Stanley Cup to understand the power of public memory. Sharing memories like this one with the people we love bolts us to the ground. It fixes us in a time and a place and we cling to it, that moment of joy that’s […]

Did Denny Hastert really fall from grace with that indictment that brought him to federal court on Tuesday? As I waited for him to perform his perp-walk, that rite of shaming that white-collar criminals endure, and later when waiting for his barely audible whispers before the judge, I considered this so-called fall from grace. That’s […]

Did Denny Hastert, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, really think he could get away with it? He must have. He kept paying and paying, until the FBI came knocking, asking about all that cash he was withdrawing from his bank accounts. And you know the rest. Whether you consider it hush money […]

I’ve found the perfect place for Sen. Rand Paul to campaign for the presidency of the United States. It’s right here, the city by the lake: Chicago. Paul, the libertarian-leaning Kentucky Republican, is running his presidential campaign against what he calls “The Washington Machine.” Paul was scheduled to appear in Chicago on Wednesday to juxtapose […]