Bye Bye Bruce

Doug Ibendahl says bye bye to Bruce and puts a nice postscript on the pathetic Rauner years:

Our Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner is a bit of an odd duck.

By all accounts he was something of a ruthless bastard in his private sector days, typically eliminating jobs, not creating them. Unlike Donald Trump who built tangible things and created many thousands of good jobs out of nothing, Rauner’s fortune came mostly via financial maneuverings, some might say games. Basically reengineering and rearranging what others built.

Rauner’s bank accounts did very well — American workers and others who unwittingly found themselves under his investment umbrella, not so much.

For the record, I have no problem with ruthless bastards in business. I deal with ruthless bastards all the time as a lawyer, and I’ve got a University of Chicago MBA in finance. I get it.

Donald Trump might even proudly embrace the title of ruthless bastard in business.

But I also think our President would agree there are limits, or should be.

Four years ago when Rauner ran the first time I broke the story about how his investment firm acquired and then expanded a large chain of nursing homes, and then proceeded to bust them out, until there was nothing left to bust-out.

Families of the elderly residents who suffered or died typically never saw a penny from court ordered judgments for abuse which multiple juries had determined were caused at least in part by resource and staffing cut-backs. The nursing home chain’s milked-out carcass was eventually abandoned to the bankruptcy court which had to sort out the incredibly complex web of corporate entities designed to limit owner liability and hinder any victim recovery.

As a practical matter there was nothing left to award anyway, and by that time Rauner and his firm were long gone.

Four years ago I also broke a story about Rauner’s private equity firm’s past control of Deerfield, Illinois based Ovation Pharmaceuticals, Inc. By the way, it remains unclear to me what full-time journalists around here actually do these days, as a hobby writer like me shouldn’t be the one breaking such stories. Oh right, today they mostly hate on the President of the United States.

But I digress.

Read more: Republican News Watch

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