The
state Legislature and Gov. Pat Quinn can’t get its act together and agree on a
new law that would permit a Chicago casino? Cut out the middle-man (a.k.a., the
state) and have the council approve that desired lakefront palace of gambling
that could take in the losings of its patrons.
WITH
THE CITY taking a significant share of the gross receipts as its cut!
Of
course, that can’t happen. The precedent is all there that the state is the
lead government entity on that issue.
Which,
on a side note, is one of the inaccuracies of the now-cancelled television
program “Boss” – where actor Kelsey Grammer’s “Mayor Kane” character
unilaterally came up with a casino idea to bail the city out of a financial
crisis caused by aldermen who were anxious to make Kane look weak and
ridiculous.
But
back to reality, which is always more bizarre than anything any of us could
dream up in our minds.
ANYBODY
WHO SERIOUSLY thinks the rhetoric we’re likely to get hit with on Monday (the
date that Emanuel says he will offer us some specifics about what he is
considering) is dreaming.
It
will be nothing but partisan rhetoric. We’re going to have to wait for the
Legislature to decide what will happen. This issue will have to play out at the
Statehouse – rather than at City Hall.
Or
even at the Thompson Center state government building, where in recent days it
has been suggested that all those basement fast-food joints and cheap stores on
the first floor be converted into a casino – with the state agency offices
remaining in place on the upper floors.
That
idea may be the only one more ridiculous than the idea that Chicago can concoct
its own firearms-related ordinance.
EMANUEL
WENT AROUND this week saying, “waiting is not my strong suit” as justification
for his attempt to force the issue to be addressed. Which makes me wonder in
what political world he has been living?
For
the whole concept of electoral politics is about “hurry up and wait.” I wonder
at times whether government or the military is more inefficient when it comes
to this inability to live by a clock.
Things
happen at their own political rate, which usually is dictated by the fear many
elected officials will have of doing something that is necessary – but not
necessarily popular.
Such
as Quinn, who is going to take his hits for pension funding reform if it doesn’t
happen (he’s inept) or even if it does (he’s hurting retirees).
ON
GUN CONTROL, the issue is even worse because everybody is convinced that the
momentum favors them. It’s not quite as bad as those German soldiers of the
Second World War with their “Gott Mit Uns” (translated as “God is with us”)
belt buckles.
But
there are those who are convinced that the federal appeals court ruling that
requires Illinois to reconsider its opposition to “concealed carry” means that
all firearms restrictions are on the way out.
They
will counter those who believe that incidents such as the two dozen-plus people
killed in a Newtown, Conn., public school and the Bakersfield, Calif., incident
on Thursday in which a student with a shotgun managed to wound a fellow student
create an environment in which people want more firearms restrictions.
This
is going to be a cultural clash at the political level, and I’m not about to
predict how it will turn out – other than to say that Emanuel’s going to find
himself having severe headaches if he thinks he can singlehandedly change the
political tide.
THE
MAN NEEDS to relax! I’d suggest following baseball, except that he being the
North Side-type creature that he is, he’d turn to the Chicago Cubs.
That’s
a more nerve-wracking experience than anyone should have to voluntarily endure.
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