‘Justice Kavanaugh’ inevitable, if Age of Trump’s partisan trends prevail

I have had trouble getting all that interested in the political brawl taking place concerning the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court justice – largely because there has been no evidence to indicate this will be anything other than a partisan scuffle. Albeit one of great intensity!

KAVANAUGH: Future high court justice?

With Republicans in Congress controlling the process for confirmation and President Donald Trump having nominated Kavanaugh as part of a plan to reinforce his own image as being in control of federal government, it seems like a futile gesture to expect anything to happen to stop Kavanaugh from getting the post.

SO FOR THOSE people who are desperately hoping all the tales we’ve been hearing about what a drunken oaf Kavanaugh was as a young man (and one whose behavior toward women is despicable), I’d say, “Get a clue!”

Even with some Republican partisans on Friday indicating they’d like to see the FBI do a cursory investigation (which is all you’d get with a one-week delay), I suspect all they want is the appearance that they contemplated objectors.

In the end, they’ll vote to confirm Kavanaugh because they like the idea of a Supreme Court stacked in their favor – one that would gladly strike down all the ideas (abortion, gay rights, etc.) they find so morally reprehensible.

And all of those people wishing for something to happen to halt Kavanaugh, they’ll gain stories to tell of the tacky and irresponsible behavior by Congress that rivals the recklessness by which Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the high court back in 1991 – despite the tales of his own sexually-harassing behavior.

ALL OF THESE thoughts popped into my head Thursday night when I heard someone who watched that day’s confirmation hearings claim it didn’t matter what the U.S. Senate did – Kavanaugh was damaged goods.

He’d never be able to serve as a credible justice on the high court. He might as well drop out to show some sense of dignity.

To which I retort “Hah!”

TRUMP: Wants Kavanaugh 'win' badly

I’m sure the thoughts going through the minds of all the Kavanaugh backers is that Thomas got confirmed despite the trash talk about himself, and he now has nearly three full decades of service as a Supreme Court justice.

THEY’LL THINK THIS is something Kavanaugh can overcome, and they’re likely to use the happenings of this week as further evidence of how “out of touch” non-ideologue people truly are. Athough I see it as evidence of how out-of-touch with reality ideologues are if they can find anything acceptable with such conduct.

This really is going to become a hardline partisan vote. Even if Republican legislators have concerns about Kavanaugh’s character, they’ll see the opportunity to strengthen their hand for partisan political control.

All that speculation about women being disrespected? They probably agree with Trump, who earlier this week said he’s inclined to believe Kavanaugh because he thinks women tend to exaggerate this kind of stuff.

My own concerns got reinforced when I learned of Joe Donnelly. He’s the senator from Indiana who, as a Democrat, managed to win a seat held long-time by Republicans.

WHICH HAS REPUBLICAN operatives convinced that defeating him is a priority. They want to “take back” what they think he stole from them (although anybody who is serious realizes the Republican who Donnelly defeated in 2012 lost because of his own political ineptitude and disrespect for the female persuasion).

DONNELLY: Sticking by his party, not his state

Yet even with Donnelly receiving intense pressure to “go with the flow” and support Kavanaugh, he is saying he’s a “no” vote. Perhaps he realizes that backing Brett won’t gain him any partisan support – while costing him self-respect.

When it finally occurs, this is going to be a purely partisan vote. Republicans will prevail – they have the greater numbers politically. Which means this will become yet another bit of evidence as to why this Age of Trump we now live in is a reprehensible one.

And anybody who seriously thinks the Kavanaugh confirmation vote can be deferred until after Election Day to be decided by a Democratic-leaning Congress? That’s pure political fantasy, no matter how much many of us would desire it!

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Will 100th Illinois Legislature behave more responsibly than its predecessor?

The 99^th version of the Illinois General Assembly finishes its business on Tuesday, and I suspect the few people who give things such thought will be thinking to themselves, “Good riddance!”
 

Has the state Senate ...

For these were the legislators who were chosen back in November 2014 along with Bruce Rauner to be governor. Meaning this version of the state Legislature is going to be the one remembered for its inability to work with a governor to do what some consider the primary purpose of state government – putting together the budget that allows government to operate.

OF COURSE, IT’S probably a stretch to place all the blame on the Legislature. For it can also be said that Rauner is the governor who has shown himself incapable of working with a General Assembly to put together that annual budget, without which government cannot operate!

 

... become the mature legislative chamber?

So as we move into a new version of the Illinois Legislature, the 100^th, to be exact, the real question is whether or not anything will be even remotely different than the past two years.

Or are we already preordained to go through four complete fiscal years of state government without anything in the way of a budget – which is important because many government functions cannot take place without a specific spending plan in place detailing how taxpayer monies are to be spent.

The money may be there, but we don’t allow it to be spent unless a budget is in place. It would be reckless to do otherwise.

WHICH IS WHY it was of some significance that the leaders of the state Senate let it be known Monday that they have something resembling a crude outline of a budget.

Will 'Mr. Speaker' care what Cullerton thinks

There’s no way they could get something rushed into approval by Tuesday night, so their plan is to sponsor a bill when the new Legislature takes over. They’re hinting at something that could be approved by Feb. 1 – at least on their end.

For that’s the trick. This is merely something for the state Senate to act upon. There’s no evidence that anything has any additional support.

This could wind up being nothing more than a stunt by which state senators try to create the illusion that they were ready to act, but that everybody else failed. As in we shouldn’t blame them!

IT COULD TURN out that Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, will not care much for what state Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, thinks. Then again, Rauner may wind up finding it presumptuous of Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno, R-Lemont, to try to tell him what to do.

Will governor care what anyone else thinks?

So do we have a budget deal? We’re going to see just how much either Madigan or Rauner really want to settle this deal. A part of me suspects that Rauner, in particular, would like this issue to be ongoing so he can try to use it as political rhetoric to attack his opponents.

Then again, there are plenty of people in Illinois who believe the reason we have a stalemate is Rauner. He got elected as governor in large part because he wanted to push an ideological agenda – one that particularly targets organized labor.

It probably would be a blow to his ego to have to act in a way that merely maintains government operations.

BUT THEN AGAIN, there also are those individuals to whom Rauner’s idea of “reform” is truly harmful. There are those who voted for the people they did back in 2014 because they wanted them to stand up to any of the new governor’s partisan rhetoric.

SCOTT: Illinois not alone in partisan hacks

Just as I’m sure on the federal level this year there are people now in Congress who are being counted upon to oppose anything that President-elect Donald J. Trump tries to enact once he becomes the chief executive – even though people such as Florida Gov. Rick Scott have acted in ways indicating they think that day has already come.

It’s going to be an ugliness existing at so many levels of government.

Somewhere, we’re going to have to have a level of maturity that we’re not likely to see from any of the chief executives of government. Whether it will wind up coming from the rank-and-file is the question that remains to be answered.

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Illinois likely will have to set common standard for all for minimum wage

The Cook County Board a couple of months ago voted to gradually increase the minimum wage for suburban-based companies to pay their employees, hoping in part it could jolt the Illinois General Assembly into taking action.

Yet it seems that all that has been created is a certain level of uncertaintly – that and a sense that Cook County could become a checkerboard, of sorts, of having to keep track which municipalities require their businesses to pay better than others.

FOR WHILE THE county board imposed a standard that will gradually increase the minimum wage in Cook County to $13 per hour by 2020 (similar to the already-enacted Chicago City Council measure that boosts the minimum wage from the current $8.50 by 2019), it would seem there are places that just don’t want to go along.

Earlier this month, city officials in Oak Forest (a southwestern suburb near Orland Park and all those shopping malls) passed a measure opting out of the county-enacted minimum wage requirement.

Local officials weren’t eager to spew all kinds of hostile rhetoric against paying workers a decent wage (although the argument can be made that some types of work aren’t worth as much as others). But their votes to opt-out spoke loud enough.

Although it contrasts with the actions of Calumet City, a suburb that borders up both against Chicago proper and the Illinois/Indiana state line (it also happens to be the community I lived in while growing up).

THERE, CITY OFFICIALS voted to create a referendum question for the April 4 municipal election ballot.

Voters in Calumet City will not only pick a mayor and aldermen (most likely returning long-time officeholder Michelle Markiewicz Qualkinbush as mayor even though state Rep. Thaddeus Jones, D-Calumet City, is contemplating challenging her), they will decide “yes” or “no” on whether the minimum wage ought to go up to $15.

Which, by the way, is the dollar figure that activists across the country are calling for in their own efforts to try to make jobs at Burger King or Wal-mart into something that a person could earn a living at – instead of just taking in some extra money.

The Chicago-based Centro de Trabajadores Unidos issued a statement Tuesday praising the south suburb for taking their action, and even including provisions that the minimum wage would apply to all workers – including those in the restaurant industry.

CONSIDERING THAT I had a mother who, for the bulk of her life worked jobs either as a waitress or cashier (the best job she ever had was her last, as a supermarket cashier because it provided her a health insurance package along with her minimum wage salary), I’m fully aware of how restaurants don’t have to pay their help much.

The argument is made that the waitresses get money in their pockets in the form of tips, which is the reason why I always make sure to leave a respectable gratuity for the people who serve me. And look down on those people who try to claim they’re making a profound statement by not tipping – even though all it really means is they’re cheap!

Now I don’t know how the residents of my former home city will vote on this referendum (or if they’ll be like many other municipality voters and decide this election cycle isn’t worth their time). But I wonder how many people would express some support for this issue – if given the chance to comment.

Because I’m also sure that Oak Forest-expressed attitude, which was largely influenced by the city’s chamber of commerce, is coming from businesses that will view a higher salary as merely a blow to their financial bottom line.

SINCE I’M AWARE of other municipalities that have also considered an opt-out – Elk Grove Village, Barrington, Prospect Heights, Arlington Heights, Barrington Hills, Palatine, Wheeling and Rosemont all either have, or are considering, taking similar actions.

Hence, the checkerboard – as in people who have to rely on such work for anything resembling an income will have to keep track of “good” towns to work in and “bad” ones. While I’m sure some small businesses will insist on locating in the latter to bolster themselves financially without having to invest more in their interests.

Which sounds more like a case for confusion across Cook County – accounting for almost half of Illinois’ population when Chicago proper is included. It really is an issue our state Legislature will have to address.

Except that we have the partisan conditions that prevent our state from even approving itself a proper operating budget and a governor claiming his delay is in the name of economic “reform” – I can already hear his objections to the idea of paying the hired help so much as a dime more in salary and this issue being added to the list of grievances the state has.

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It’s hard to say right now who do we hate the most – Trump or Hillary?!?

We’re halfway through the Democratic nominating convention for president and have completed the Republican version of the show, and it’s hard to say which of the two major candidates seeking the White House we have the most contempt for.

 

CLINTON: It's her week to impress U.S.

It’s true that the establishment Republicans made a show attempt at denying Donald Trump the GOP nomination and that Ted Cruz of Texas made a point of publicly snubbing the real estate developer/aspiring politico when he spoke.

YET IT’S NOT like Hillary is getting much more love in Philadelphia.

The people who had delusions early on that the nation would ever come together behind a Democratic socialist for U.S. president seem determined to show that they’re not giving an inch – even though their preferred candidate of Bernie Sanders himself has said they should support Hillary.

It caught my attention when several Sanders supporters took up the same chant that some Republican convention-goers used the week before whenever Hillary Clinton’s name was mentioned – “Lock Her Up!”

As in thinking she belongs in a criminal indictment and ought to be facing the prospect of federal prison time – even though investigators in all the issues that Republican partisans have brought up against her throughout the years have constantly cleared her of illegal activity.

I WENT INTO this election cycle feeling largely apathetic toward the concept of Hillary Clinton as U.S. president and came around to the idea because (A) somebody has to win and (B) all the other mopes on all political sides came across as worse!

I really believe that if we had a legitimate option of letting people vote “None of the Above,” that would be the winner. Of course, someone would still have to take over when Barack Obama’s term ends in January. We have to make our choice of “Who?”

This is going to truly be the election cycle in which the nominating conventions were less about the pep rally aspect and more about how the candidates themselves handled the idea of being confronted with the fact that a majority of America despises them.

Trump gave us the impression last week that he could care less. How will Hillary conduct herself this week?

MUCH IS BEING made of the leaked e-mail messages from Democratic Party operatives – the ones that show party regulars didn’t want anything to do with Sanders as a presidential candidate.

They were firmly behind Hillary Clinton and plotted out strategy to bolster her strengths – or, more accurately, emphasize Sanders’ weaknesses. We’re hearing yelling and screaming from the Bernie people about how unfair it was. Some even go so far as to imply the party’s actions are a criminal conspiracy in and of themselves.

Which is a load of nonsense. Political parties exist to coordinate elections, campaigns and candidates. It would be expected for them to favor a candidate who has been tied to the party for the past four decades – rather than someone who until this election always made a point of running for office as a political independent.

Why would they have considered siding with Bernie? It would make no sense! I'm actually amazed at how convoluted the resistance was toward him; compared to what it could have been!

IT SEEMS PEOPLE are upset that the Democratic Party political structure is not as weak and uncoordinated as the Republicans were. Because let’s be honest, if they could have got their act together there’s no way that Trump would be the GOP nominee now.

Of course, considering that the ideologues of our society have always wanted to spew the thought that the Republicans represent the establishment and that the Democrats were the threat to the natural order, perhaps it is just ironic that in this election cycle perceptions are reversed.

Either that, or we have an upcoming election in which the one-time schoolyard bullies are hoping to restore what they perceive to be a natural order for our society.

Which could make this the election about the serious split in Hillary perception – with many believing she’s some old lady whose time has passed while others are determined to view her as liberalism incarnate. That question will be the real issue to be resolved come Election Day.

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It took Hillary long enough to get here

That was my initial reaction to hearing the word earlier this week that the Associated Press (the same news-gathering organization that claims our city’s public transit elevated train system is the L and not the el) had proclaimed Hillary Clinton the presumptive winner of the Democratic presidential primary cycle.

 

CLINTON: The winner, it seems

Even though the people of California had not yet voted. Nor had those of New Jersey or the District of Columbia.

IN THEORY, THOSE places could have an impact on the purely committed number of delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Bernie Sanders was certainly counting on them to influence the uncommitted delegates to swing over to his side and make him the winner.

But it would seem that ain’t a gonna happen when the Dems gather for their convention in Philadelphia – which is destined to become a Hillary Clinton pep rally.

Even though it is likely a significantly large number of people siding with the Democrats will not feel all that peppy, on account of the fact that they have been lapping up the Bernie Sanders rhetoric.

For all I know, they may well remain angry at the fact their guy couldn’t beat up on Hillary, who admittedly is a politician who can compete with likely Republican nominee Donald Trump for the title of “most off-putting politico ever.”

NOW AS I have written before, I wound up casting an Illinois primary ballot for Hillary Clinton only reluctantly. It was the sense that Sanders was little more than cheap talk; an uncompromising sort who would not have the skills to carry out any of the things that he actually promised.

Not only because he can be an un-disagreeable cuss, but also because he’s the democratic socialist who has no other democratic socialists in Congress who would be aligned with him.

I could see where he’d have an actively hostile Republican opposition (be honest, there’s hardly anybody those people really like) and a Democratic caucus that would feel resentment.

It really would be a do-nothing four-year time period, if he were somehow to get elected.

BUT IT SEEMS that’s not going to happen. Because the reality is that Clinton is taking the primaries in the larger states with solid Democratic Party organizations, while Sanders wins Democrats in states where the organizations are weak and barely existent up against Republican-dominated political structures.

But more importantly, it really is ridiculous to think that the superdelegates – the political party regulars, the establishment themselves, are going to turn on the woman who was supposed to be the inevitable choice of the Democratic Party in this election cycle.

Especially not for a guy who went out of his way to avoid using the Democratic Party label while serving in the U.S. Senate from Vermont. When you think about it, it makes no sense.

It would be the wildest of fantasies to see all those superdelegates suddenly turn on Clinton to pick Bernie Sanders as the party’s presidential nominee.

IT MAKES ME wonder if Sanders supporters are the same kind of people who seriously expected an all-Chicago World Series this year (a thought now completely absurd considering that the White Sox are struggling to maintain a winning record; First Place is a fantasy).

If there is a larger theme to this year’s election cycle, it isn’t going to have anything to do with Bernie. It’s going to be to figure out why Hillary had so much trouble wrapping this process up.

Of course, the whole Hillary Clinton image is wrapped up in confusion. To many people, she’s that b-word who planted all kinds of crazy liberal ideas into then-President Bill Clinton’s head. She’s liberalism incarnate.

While the Sanders supporters want to believe she’s still that Goldwater Girl at heart who somehow snuck her way into the Democratic Party to commit acts of sabotage against progressive causes.

THAT IS, FOR those people who don’t just view her as a dried up hag from the 1960s whose time has passed. Except that it seems it hasn’t passed – it’s going to be her against Trump come the November general election.

And may the least despised pol amongst the two come out as the winner!

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