Amazon in Chicago – how can they seriously consider any other HQ site?

I have a biased opinion – I think very highly of my home city of Chicago, and think that if the people who run Amazon.com seriously want the best possible location for the new second headquarters they want to build, it’s only a natural they will come here.

Could the 'smile' be on Chicago faces in future?

As in, if they don’t have the sense to realize how wonderful Chicago is, then who needs them anyway?!?

BUT I REALIZE there are a variety of perspectives, and the Seattle-based people who run Amazon.com likely are going to have a variety of communities offering up all the goodies they can envision to try to attract the facility.

Seriously, Chicago officials are eager to have the plant, because it would be a nationally-renowned business that would bring significant attraction to the city’s public image. In addition to the actual jobs that would be created by the need for such a facility to have employees based there.

Not that any of this means a thing to the person who, because they live in the middle of nowhere, finds it easiest to shop for goods through Amazon.com. They’ll buy their products regardless of where the plant they’re dealing with is located.

Now I don’t know what the chances are that Chicago will wind up getting the facility, even though so-called experts can rattle off a list of a half-dozen potential sites – and activist-types can come up with other locations they think are being overlooked.

INCLUDING THOSE PEOPLE who seriously say that Chicago ought to work with people in Gary, Ind., to make the latter a site for an Amazon.com facility. Gary certainly could use a jolt, since there are times when it seems like the only kind of business that Northwest Indiana city can attract are used-car lots.

Some dream of turning Old Post Office building into Amazon.com HQ

I’m sure there are those who will rattle off a “laundry list” of flaws about Chicago and the state political people that they think will scare off the Seattle boys into considering their own preferred site.

I’m also aware of that analysis the New York Times concocted that cited our political flaws and concluded that Denver, Colo., is the logical place for Amazon.com to locate.

I found it a little intriguing to learn that Gov. Bruce Rauner on Monday admitted he’s working with Missouri officials who’d like to see St. Louis become the actual site of the new facility.

Could 21st Century take include Amazon.com logo?

BECAUSE THERE ARE parts of Illinois that lie right across the Mississippi River from downtown St. Louis. The decrepit city of East St. Louis, Ill., is literally in the shadow of the Gateway Arch – that city’s great landmark and supposedly the entry-way to the western United States.

Meaning that if Amazon.com were to locate there, it would be possible for some Illinois residents to gain jobs. Even though I’m sure that Missouri officials would love to concoct some sort of deal that would treat the river as an impenetrable barrier to prevent any of the economic benefits from flowing eastward.

But I’m also sure if Rauner comes out too strong in favor of a Chicago site (or even hinting at cooperation with Hoosier officials to get a Gary site), those people of rural Illinois who always rant and rage about Chicago taking everything would complain. Maybe even turn on the governor at a time when he’s trying to build up a strong “urban vs. rural” dichotomy to get himself re-elected.

So Rauner has to offer up some way of bringing downstate Illinois into the debate. Even if it’s probably a long-shot, and it would be more likely that Chicago would get serious consideration – that is, unless Amazon.com ultimately decides there’s nothing about the Midwestern U.S. that appeals to them.

WHICH WOULD BE a mistake.

Amazon.com retail in Chicago wouldn't be a new concept for the city

The reality is that Chicago has the potential for significant economic benefit due to its location. Major airports, along with highways and railroad lines that all treat Chicago as the national hub. It’s about as close to a central location as one gets.

And anybody who claims we’re too political in Chicago or Illinois ought to realize the ridiculousness of their argument if they’re also amongst those who are talking up the District of Columbia as a potential site.

Besides, just as there was a time in the 20^th Century when people shopped mail-order through the Sears catalog, it enhanced the city’s image that Sears, Roebuck & Co. was located here. Maybe Amazon.com in Chicago is the perfect 21^st Century continuation of that character.

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EXTRA: Help! We need another holiday to further delay Tax Day

Let’s hear it for Emancipation Day – meant to pay tribute to Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Within the District of Columbia with its significant African-American population, that’s a full-fledged holiday with workers getting the day off. And because of the quirks of federal holidays, those D.C.-based workers for the U.S. government have Friday off.

WHICH ALSO IS Tax Day – the deadline for filing our income tax returns for 2015.

So the end result is that the whole country gets a three-day extension, until Monday, to file those returns and pay what is owed (or seek an extension until mid-October, if necessary).

Unless you happen to live in Massachusetts, where it is Patriot’s Day on Monday (celebrating the beginning of what is now known as the American Revolution).

Those people get until Tuesday.

I’LL BE THE first to admit that as I write this, I haven’t even started calculating my return. As a freelance writer, nobody is withholding taxes on my behalf. So I have to figure out this weekend how much I owe, then determine where I get the money from to pay up my share of supporting the federal and Illinois state governments.

In the latter case, it will be my share of the funds that cannot legally be spent until Illinois officials get off their high horses and come up with a budget proposal for the fiscal year that is nearly over – along with the year that will begin in another couple of months.

But all of this has me wondering whether we should try to concoct yet another holiday – one that could push off the Tax Day deadline for a few more days. I’m sure some people could use all the time they are given to adequately prepare a return.

Although I suspect such a holiday, regardless of what we’d call it, would amount to little more than Procrastinators Day – for all those people who honestly believe you should never put off until tomorrow what can easily be done the day after that!

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Jackson’s “lesser” prison sentence upstages Springpatch political spats

It’s probably a good thing that the Democrats didn’t bother with a political rally at the Illinois State Fair on Wednesday – I doubt political observers would have cared much about what was said.

JACKSON: "I was wrong"

For the attention was on the District of Columbia where former Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., finally had to stand before a federal judge and have sentence imposed upon him for the misuse of campaign funds to purchase all kinds of tacky memorabilia for himself.

FOR THE RECORD, Jackson got a 2 ½-year prison term, while wife Sandi (the former 7^th Ward alderman) got 1 year. There’s nothing that the Springfield-based Democrats could have said on Wednesday that would have mattered by comparison.

As it was, the Democrats had their annual breakfast of county party chairmen – and all it turned into was a Bill Daley vs. Pat Quinn hissy fit. We’ve had them before, and will have many more in the future between now and the March primary elections.

None of that will catch the public attention in the way of the Jacksons having to appear in court – including the moment when Jesse, Jr., became tearful and said the words, “I was wrong.”

Great drama. Except that I doubt the people who have been most eager to see Jackson go down to defeat will be satisfied.

BECAUSE THE FACT is that federal prosecutors had recommended the four-year prison term for the former Congressman. The ideologues who were anticipating Wednesday for many months now were hopeful that the federal judge in this case (also named Jackson, although not related in any way) would ignore the recommendation and go harder.

Instead, the judge went lighter, and went along with the Jacksons' desire to stagger their prison terms. He must report to prison by Nov. 1, while she must report within 30 days of Jackson completing his sentence.

With the concept of time off for good behavior, Jesse, Jr., will do slightly more than two years in federal custody. Admittedly, he will have another three years of supervised release – which means he’ll still have federal law enforcement-types scrutinizing his every action.

It’s more than the 18-month sentence that Jackson’s attorneys asked for, but it is not going to be perceived as enough for the ideologues – for whom they had fantasies of something along the lines of that 14-year sentence received by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

WHICH IS WHY I expect the rhetoric is being spewed about in certain quarters about how lenient this particular sentence is – even though I personally view it as being more in line with common sense.

As Jackson’s attorneys put it on Wednesday, the congressman’s actions, “are not a Ponzi scheme.”

Besides, I’m sure the ideologues (whose real objection to the couple is their relation to the Rev. Jesse Jackson – whom they dream of incarcerating someday) will revel in the fact that Sandi Jackson got a prison term, rather than her preference for supervision and some sort of community service.

In fact, the judge did her sentence in a way that she qualifies for no early release – she’s going to do one full year in a federal facility.

NOT THAT WE know yet where either Jackson will be detained. The Bureau of Prisons decides that, and we don’t know yet if they will be willing to go along with Jesse, Jr.’s, preference for a facility sort of close to the District of Columbia.

So perhaps the Jackson critics will get their kicks from seeing the couple denied their preferences? That strikes me as being pretty petty. Then again, much of electoral politics and government is about trying to accomplish something despite the pettiness of the people who we elected!

BLACKBURN: Over, before he began?

Although definitely more intriguing than the Springfield-based activity. Unless you were anxiously awaiting the decision by Will County Auditor Duffy Blackburn NOT to run, after all, for the Democratic nomination for Illinois comptroller.

So now it seems clearer that departing Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon will be the Democrat who gets her butt kicked by incumbent Illinois Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka come November 2014.

  -30-

Jacksons have gone D.C. Or so it seems

It seems we can now count the Jacksons (not the musical family, but the political one) among the ranks of people who have given up their Chicago-area ties for someplace else.

JESSE, JR.: A pre-charges version

For Jesse, Jr. and Sandi seem to be thinking of themselves as residents of the District of Columbia when they contemplate their fates. Both are up for sentencing on Wednesday for their involvement in what federal prosecutors say was misuse of campaign funds.

THE FORMER MEMBER of Congress from the Far South Side and surrounding suburbs used campaign funds for personal purchases without reporting it as income, and the former 7^th Ward alderman signed the income tax returns that didn’t acknowledge the extra income.

Attorneys for Jesse, Jr., on Monday made their preferences known for where they’d like the former Congressman to serve his prison sentence. He’d like to be sent to either a federal prison camp in Montgomery, Ala., or to the minimum-security portion of the federal correctional complex at Butner, N.C.

Jackson indicates those facilities are his preference because of their proximity to the District of Columbia – which the Jacksons seem to think of as their home now, rather than the South Side.

The latter facility is about 700 miles from Washington, but that make it one of the closest to the nation’s capital city. Attorneys wrote that putting him there would make it easier for him to maintain contact with his wife and children while incarcerated.

AS FOR NORTH Carolina, Jackson is thinking back to his days in college – when he attended North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University. He thinks he still has ties to North Carolina, and thinks it would help rehabilitation if he were in a familiar region of the country.

It also would make him a fellow inmate along with Jon Burge, the former Chicago police commander who supposedly let the officers under his command abuse the rights of the people in their custody. Although he’s doing his prison time for a perjury conviction in a civil lawsuit where he denied the abuse occurred.

SANDI: Doing the D.C. service route?

In short, that facility in Butner could wind up becoming a new focal point for Chicago political observers – who’s to say who else will wind up there?

Although this case is most likely to wind up in an eastern (or southern) facility because it is of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. If it were in the federal courts of Chicago, we’d be looking at the likelihood of Jackson getting himself an Oxford Education (ie., serving his time in the minimum-security facility in Oxford, Wis.).

BUT JESSE, JR., is not the only person thinking of himself as a D.C. resident, rather than a Sout’ Sider. Sandi Jackson put in her own request. She’s looking at the possibility of a year in prison, although probation is an option.

Sandi’s attorneys filed a similar request, asking for probation and pointing out that the Martha’s Table charitable organization in Washington is willing to accept her as a volunteer IF she gets a sentence that includes community service as part of the punishment.

We won’t get the sight of Sandi Jackson serving slop to the homeless in the South Shore neighborhood, or anywhere else in the city. Perhaps it will be better for us if the actual penalty phase of this whole sordid ordeal takes place somewhere else. At the very least, the people who get worked up over this case for purely partisan political reasons won't be able to revel in the Jacksons' misery quite as much.

Not that the courts are obligated to follow along with any of these requests. If anything, I wonder if the real humiliation for them would be if they had to do their punishments on Chicago-area turf. Where it would be easier for them to be seen by the locals.

GOING AWAY TO D.C. might make it easier for them to blend into the masses and be overlooked? Who’s to say!

Maybe it means we’ve lost the Jacksons as a part of our local scene for a second time.

Just like how Jackie, Jermaine, Marlon and Tito (along with little brother Michael) long ago left their Gary, Ind., origins for something bigger and better musically.

 

It's too bad that the political version of a Jackson family won't get as much glory from this D.C. shift.

 

  -30-

Who says Mayo Clinic has a clue? Prosecutors want Jackson health issue

All through the whole Jesse Jackson, Jr. saga, there have been those (usually with an ideological or racial leaning – if not both) who have insisted that all the talk of the now-former Congressman needing medical treatment was some sort of scam.

JACKSON: Will his health be on trial?

The fact that he got admitted to the Mayo Clinic and underwent treatment? Not swayed. They probably want to believe that the Rochester, Minn.-based clinic is somehow on the take; perhaps a part of a criminal conspiracy that perhaps they should be prosecuted for as well.

A WHOLE LOT of nonsense talk is what it really comes down to. The people who have wanted Jackson out of office for years, if not just over a decade, want him out for ideological reasons.

They’ll take whatever grounds they can get to find a reason to depose him.

And those people, I’m sure, are going to be loving the rhetoric that we’re going to get from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where on Friday a federal judge scheduled July 1 as the date that Jackson will face sentencing.

Because the prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office who are seeking to get a prison term for both Jackson and his wife, Sandi (the former alderman) are making it seem as though they want to use Jackson’s bipolar disorder diagnosis against him.

THOSE PROSECUTORS SAY they want their own medical experts to examine Jackson, on the off-chance that defense attorneys try to bring the issue up as a factor in sentencing.

As much as people complain that defense attorneys are willing to exploit a medical condition for the benefit of their clients/defendants, it is just a true that prosecutors can easily come up with their own “expert testimony” to refute any point that someone tries to make on their own behalf.

Yes, it bothers me that prosecutors are going to be feeding off the sentiments of those people who are so eager to dump Jackson from power that they’ll believe anything.

SANDI: What she gets for signing tax form

It ensures that this particular aspect of the case will linger for far longer than it deserves to.

PERSONALLY, I DON’T comprehend much of the animosity – particularly since those who were opposed to the Jacksons ultimately got what they wanted. They’re both out of political office and in situations where neither is ever likely to be capable of holding a political position of authority again.

The critics are getting what it was they wanted (and putting the rest of us through that whole ordeal of watching that special election cycle that bordered at times on the absurd). It’s as though now they’re getting greedy and demanding ultimate punishment.

Perhaps they think it has to be something more than the roughly 14 years of real time that former Gov. Rod Blagojevich is now serving at a federal corrections facility in Colorado?

I noticed one anonymous (of course) Internet commenter who claims that anything less than five years in prison for each Jackson is unjust. Even though the maximum sentence Jesse, Jr. could get is five years, while sentencing guidelines say the maximum for Sandi is two years.

THE JACKSONS (AS in the political family, not the musical one) are out of office and headed for prison. They’re going to suffer. Like I stated earlier, the ideologues are getting what they want!

But let’s not overdo things. Retribution for retribution’s sake makes all of us in society look sorry – even those who don’t support it but do little to nothing to stop it.

Which is why I’m hoping the federal judge in this case (also named “Jackson,” but not related) has enough sense to not let this issue get all out of hand during the sentencing.

The last thing that a criminal sentencing needs to devolve into is a medical diagnosis!

  -30-

EXTRA: Jr. relegated to office couch?

When I learned Wednesday that Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., was putting his house in the District of Columbia up for sale, the first thought that came to mind was that of the representative for Chicago's Far South Side and surrounding suburbs joining that “fraternity” of congressmen who literally live in their Capitol Hill offices so they can save themselves money.

JACKSON: Needs a new place to live



Could we someday get the sight of Junior in a t-shirt and shorts, lounging on the couch at 1 a.m., watching something trashy on television because he’s having trouble getting to sleep?

HOW ABOUT JUNIOR opening his office door in the morning to pick up his paper, encountering the janitors who keep the Capitol building clean?

It is one of the quirks of life for the members of Congress that some of them choose not to get themselves a house or apartment to live in during the time they must spend in Washington, D.C. They literally live in the offices.

Some do it because Washington is an expensive urban area, while others are trying to score political points by being snotty about the idea of actually LIVING in the District of Columbia.

Jackson had long ago moved beyond that, getting himself a house (that he’s now asking $2.5 million for) in the district to go along with his Chicago residence.

DURBIN: Will Jackson follow his lead?



OFFICIALLY, HE LIVES in the district during the week and returns home to Chicago on weekends and other congressional breaks – although the cynics claim that the D.C. house is HIS and the Chicago house is the residence of spouse Sandi Jackson – who uses that address to justify her political post as alderman of the 7^th ward.

But I also noted that the reports on Wednesday indicated that the couple’s children use the D.C. address to justify their enrollment in private schools in Washington.

That address is to become history, because Jackson aides say the congressman needs the money to help cover the medical bills he’s incurring from his treatment for a bipolar condition.

BLAGOJEVICH: Had a 'home' for sale



It also has me wondering what the living conditions will be for Jackson in coming years (since he probably can remain in his congressional post for as long as he likes – even though circumstances make it likely he’ll never be able to get elected to any other government office).

WILL HE LITERALLY become like that breed of representatives and senators who sleep on the office couch – unless they feel like splurging and buying themselves an air mattress so they can sleep on the floor in semi-comfort?

He wouldn't be the only Illinoisan go go that route.

Or is he going to become more like Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who in political circles became famed for the “frat house-like” atmosphere of the home he and several other senators rented so they would not be homeless in the District of Columbia?

It’s too bad Jackson couldn’t have made the decision to sell and cut his living expenses a bit sooner. Let’s not forget that the Blagojevich family had a condominium for sale REAL CHEAP from Milorod’s days as a member of the House of Representatives.

  -30-

Living in D.C., or back in Midwest?

I have never been one to get worked up over the whole issue of residency for our members of Congress.

JACKSON: South Shore, or Foggy Bottom?



After all, we expect these officials to represent our interests in Washington, D.C., which means they need to spend significant amounts of time on Capitol Hill.

WHICH MEANS THEY’RE not going to be on hand for every Podunk political event “back home.” Unlike state legislators who need to spend about two or three months in Springfield while living their lives in their home districts, our members of Congress need to have some sort of D.C.-area residence.

It’s called being practical.

Then again, no one ever accused political people of being practical – particularly when their only goal is to take someone down on Election Day.

Which is why we have heard some rhetoric this election cycle devoted to the concept that some incumbent local official really isn’t local – they’ve “gone Beltway.”

WHICH MEANS THEY live within (or near) that Interstate highway that circles the nation’s capital city. They’ve forgotten about us. They’re really not one of us. So they shouldn’t represent “us” any longer.

Although it can be argued that the legislators who don’t spend enough time in D.C. have so little influence that maybe their constituents gain nothing from their presence.

Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., has been hit with some of that talk. His opponent in the Democratic primary, former Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson, has said that Jackson does not really live in the South Shore neighborhood any longer.

LUGAR: Not 'Hoosier' enough?



He lives within the District of Columbia, and it is only his wife, Sandi, who lives in Chicago. Or so Halvorson has hinted (Jackson aides deny this).

WHICH MAY BE a subtle way of reminding us of alleged marital difficulties the couple has had, without actually coming out and spewing sorry stories of infidelity.

But it remains the fact that the Chicago residence is still the legal one for Jackson (and where he lives whenever he has time to spend in Chicago proper) and the primary one for his wife – which is good because she serves as an alderman in the City Council.

The real “controversy” would be if there was a D.C.-residing alderman in the Chicago City Council. Sandi Jackson as the go-between of city and federal government. The daughter-in-law of the Rev. Jesse Jackson being the one who passed messages between President Barack Obama and Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Then again, that image would be nothing more than ludicrous. Although it wouldn’t necessarily be the most ludicrous one created during this campaign cycle.

BECAUSE I THINK that might involve the allegations now being made against Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.

The long-serving senator from the neighboring Hoosier State is going to have to cope with a complaint filed this week by which his political opponents contend that his presence on the ballot in Indiana amounts to voter fraud.

He doesn’t live there.

They claim he sold his Indianapolis home decades ago, and is now a full-time resident of the D.C. suburbs that spill over into Virginia.

WHICH MAY BE true. After all these decades and his time spent working his way through the Senate ranks, his real “home” may well be on Capitol Hill – although it seems he’s not one of those legislators who’s so low-budget that he chooses to live in his government office.

Rather than following the lead of Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who is notorious in political circles for sharing a D.C. apartment with some of his colleagues that has all the ambiance of a “frat house.”

But we’re talking Tea Party-types here, who are more interested in pushing ideology than anything else. The fact that Indiana gains from having “one of its own” embedded in the D.C. establishment doesn’t seem to matter much, because they’re merely interested in ramming their own agenda down everybody else’s throats.

That is why the Tea Party types want Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels to take actions that would boot Lugar from the ballot in that state’s May 8 primary elections.

THE PROBLEM THEY face is that Indiana law, backed up by the state Attorney General's office, is fairly explicit. Members of Congress can vote in Indiana even if they have given up their home after being elected initially. Which makes this Tea Party-type activity nothing more than a whiny statement.

Then again, Tea Party-type activists have made it clear all along they want Lugar gone (officially, they prefer Indiana state Treasurer Richard Mourdock). He’s not enough of an ideologue for them – even though in the past year Lugar has gone out of his way to reinvent himself from a practical politician to an ideologue, and has taken back his one-time strong support of measures such as the immigration reform-related DREAM Act.

Maybe those Tea Party-types realize that Lugar is too much for them to defeat on Election Day. So they want to dump him by other means prior to the elections.

Which strikes me more as the actions of sore losers, rather than those of anyone interested in participating in true democracy.

  -30-

Is life along the Chicago River really that much nicer than existence along the shores of the Potomac & Anacostia?

It seems that William Daley will leave Washington to return home to Chicago about a year earlier than originally expected.

DALEY: Coming  home

Daley has been the chief of staff to President Barack Obama ever since Rahm Emanuel gave up the job so he could actively campaign for Chicago mayor. But on Monday, it was made public that Daley will leave the post immediately – being replaced by budget Director Jack Lew (who has extensive experience in dealing with the Capitol Hill crowd).

WHICH ISN’T A surprise, in that Daley had always made it known that he did not want the post on a long-term basis. Although many of us were under the impression that Daley would complete Obama’s first term – and that Obama would be starting a second term (if he succeeds in the Nov. 6 general election) with yet another chief of staff.

Instead, Obama now gets his third chief of staff in his first presidential term. And the ideologues are going to claim that something is seriously screwy in Obama-land. Which kind of misses the point!

Because what I find intriguing about this maneuver is that Daley seems so eager to leave the post that likely will be the lede of his eventual obituary, as in, “One-time White House chief of staff William Daley died Monday from … “

Some of the reports coming from Washington on Monday indicate a restructuring of the White House staff last autumn that supposedly shifted some authority away from him, which would make this seem to be the actions of a political failure trying to cut his losses.

OTHERS INDICATE THE partisan hostility of Washington during the past year, where the Republican officials who are desperate to dump Obama are willing to do anything to avoid giving him anything that could be seen as an accomplishment.

It’s the old “Council Wars” mentality of an opposition willing to let government go to pieces, on the theory that the opposition will get blamed and they can try to “fix” things later.

It’s happening in Washington these days, and I’m convinced if the Republicans manage to get a majority in the Senate (while keeping their control of the House of Representatives) the level of intensity will get ratcheted up several notches.

Perhaps it really is the desire to avoid such partisan nonsense talk that is making the former mayor’s brother want to leave the District of Columbia to return to Illinois.

OR AT LEAST the far northeastern corner on the shores of Lake Michigan AND the Chicago River.

Then again, I’d hate to think that someone as experienced as the Daley with a background in city, state and federal government would be incapable of handling a political brawl. This is the man who helped run the legal fight that tried to get Al Gore's 2000 presidential hopes an Electoral College lead to go along with his popular vote margin of victory.

Particularly one that he should have seen coming when he took the post just over a year ago. Daley couldn’t have been naïve enough to think that a spirit of bipartisan cooperation was going to suddenly emerge between the president and Congress just because he arrived on the scene.

Could he?

ACTUALLY, I’M EXPECTING many of the Chicago-oriented members of the Obama Administration will soon be following Daley home. Part of it will be people who figure they got their White House experience and the “line of the resume” that it brings, and they can now move on with their lives.

I do believe that if there is a second “four-year term” for Barack Obama, it will be staffed by a lot of Washington-oriented operatives who will take a more traditional approach to federal government. Whether that is a good, or bad, thing is something that we can debate for years to come.

But it means that Daley will soon be back among us, pursuing his business interests and likely figuring a way to come out ahead of the pack. Nobody should be worrying about him, or the Daley family’s political influence (they still have brother John as a Cook County commissioner).

Maybe it really just comes back to how wonderful a place our city can be to live. Because personally, I’d rather be around the point where the Chicago River splits into north and south branches than where the Potomac River meets the Anacostia – no matter how much pleasure one might derive from doing “the peoples’ business.”

  -30-

Snow in Midwest in February. Oh My!

I’m not sure what to think of the possible 10 inches of snow that could start falling on the Chicago area some time later Monday.

Is it some sort of cosmic justice for those of us who snickered at the District of Columbia area residents who had such a bad time of things last week coping with a severe snowstorm? Or is this “the almighty’s” way of letting us know he’s bored with the story of Scott Lee Cohen (seriously, we’re now eagerly taking the word of an alleged prostitute as to who is qualified to be a public official?) and wants us to move on to something else?

WHATEVER THE SITUATION is, there’s a chance that we’re going to get the heaviest snowfall (thus far) of the 2009-10 winter season in Chicago. The couple of times it has snowed to date, the amounts weren’t all that bad and it was more the drop in temperatures that caused problems for many people.

Now, we have the potential for problems with people who just can’t get a grasp on the concept of slowing down their driving below the posted speed limit so that their cars don’t go spiraling out of control and crashing into something (or someone) else.

Of course, these kind of people will think it is someone else’s fault for being in the way of their car that was spiraling out of control.

My serious point is that the next couple of days will be interesting. They will be challenging. But they also are something that should fully be expected by those of us born and raised in the Midwestern United States.

IT’S WINTER. IT snows here. It gets cold. This is the real world, not that wimpy weather you left behind in Arizona or Georgia (although watching The Weather Channel on television in recent weeks, I have been surprised by the amount of snow that has fallen in parts of Dixie – not exactly what is expected). In fact, the one group of locals I will sympathize with are those who rely on public transportation and are trying to learn new routes to get to places, because the Chicago Transit Authority budget cuts imposed Sunday caused their old routes to be slashed.

As much as I don’t care for the slop caused by winter snowfall (the cold I can cope with, you just put on another layer of clothing), what really is going to tick me off is going to be the shock and awe expressed on various news reports from people who are going to want to react as though the fact that we get a few inches of accumulated snowfall in a few hours timespan is somehow historic in nature.

It happens every year.

We expect it. It is the reason why we look down on other parts of the country that let snowfall throw them so far out of whack.

SERIOUSLY, WATCHING THAT Weather Channel video of car after car after car sliding on the ice and careening into each other while the anchors/meteorologists act amazed is laughable. Hearing that government officials in other cities behave in ways that make you think a natural disaster has struck them makes me respect our borderline corrupt political people all the more.

At least they can cope with snow.

In fact, about the most sensible thing I heard out of the snowfall that hit Washington, D.C. last week was the reaction coming from the White House and adopted-Chicagoan Barack Obama. Two feet of snow accumulated in the nation’s capital, which caused first daughters Sasha and Malia to consider pulling out the sleds so they could go riding around the White House grounds.

Perhaps the reality of our situation is that we need some snowfall right about now. Too many of us, including probably many people who didn’t even bother to vote in last week’s primary elections, are now getting all bent out of shape.

THE AFOREMENTIONED COHEN (who was the Democratic Party’s nominee for lieutenant governor until he said Sunday he would give it up) is getting most of the attention, but many of the races ended up with absolutely nonsensical results. Illlinois has become a place where someone who can get roughly one out of five votes can actually win an election, because there were so many candidates seeking office and the reality is that NO ONE truly captured the public spirit.

Maybe we need a snowfall heavy enough that there is a school day, or perhaps someone has to take a day off of work because making the daily commute on Tuesday or Wednesday will be next to impossible.

In short, this snowfall could literally turn out to be what gives us all a breath of fresh air – along with slushy snowfall.

If some people take great joy in the concept of a “White Christmas,” perhaps what we need these days is a white Valentine’s Day (it’s Sunday) to help us relax. Clear our heads by shoveling our own sidewalks. Then perhaps we can stop reacting in such irrational ways.

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Barack Obama is going to learn that not everybody in D.C. will love him

Perhaps it is a good thing that President Barack Obama received a few political blows this week.

There needs to be a reality check for those people who see the rise of Obama from a lowly state legislator from the South Side to Leader of the Free World as some sort of moral crusade.

THERE ARE GOING to be people who are going to view Obama and his followers as “the opposition.” For whatever reason, they are going to resist the goals of an urbane chief executive (I guess they just don’t realize how fortunate we are to have a Chicagoan in charge). And Obama types are going to have to show they can engage in the world of partisan politics just as much as the lowliest hack.

There are those people who are viewing the House of Representatives’ action this week on the Obama-desired stimulus package as an Obama defeat. Some are going so far as to boast that Obama is a “loser” on what is his first significant measure as president, and what will be one of the most significant acts he takes during his four-year term in office.

The reason they are quick to label House approval as a defeat is because it went purely on a partisan political vote.

Two hundred forty-four members of Congress (all Democrats) voted for the measure, with 188 congressmen (all Republicans) opposed to the idea.

THAT VOTE CAME despite Obama’s attempts to persuade at least a few Republican legislators to support his desire for an $825 billion package that is meant to give the U.S. economy a big enough jolt that business can resume more or less as usual.

Was Obama naïve in thinking that he could get members of the GOP faithful to support something that their ideologue colleagues would lambast as tax hikes and more big government run amok?

Probably.

Personally, my favorite snitty little quip came from Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif., who noted the 627 pages of the bill outlining the stimulus package, saying that it amounted to an average of “$1.18 billion for every single page in the bill.”

BUT WHILE I think it likely will take a drastic measure such as what Obama is proposing to shake the U.S. economy out of its current troubles, it doesn’t surprise me to learn that many people in this country will disagree.

The fact is that while former President George W. Bush left office with approval ratings ranging around 26 percent, the conservative ideals that he espoused when he came into office remain popular with a sizable amount of the U.S. population.

There also is the fact that there were people who were ABO (Anybody But Obama) during the 2008 campaign season who haven’t swung over to the Obama camp. They will be willing to give those lawmakers who voted against a stimulus package their moral support.

In fact, I still wonder how long it will be before some opportunistic political person tries to feed off the mood of these people and become an outspoken voice of Congressional opposition to the Obama program?

NOT JUST THE stimulus package (which Democrats are going to have to use their authority to pass on their own), but everything.

Obama may talk about change and hope, but there are enough people who are willing to use the old ways of partisan political hardball to try to achieve their goals – or to prevent the opposition from doing much of anything until a future election comes along when they can try to ram their agenda into law.

It wasn’t just Republicans in the House who were willing to dump on Obama.

Let’s not forget that the president had been urging that Congress approve a four-month extension in the deadline in which television stations convert themselves to a digital signal, which will make older televisions without special converter boxes obsolete.

OBAMA WANTED THE extension, saying too many people were confused about what was going on and were not ready for a change on Feb. 17 (less than three weeks away). The Senate went along with the request, but the House refused.

So much for the concept of “Saint Obama” who can get his political “allies” to do whatever he wants.

Of course, it wasn’t just on Capitol Hill that people were willing this week to express their opposition to Obama. It didn’t even have to be an issue of historic significance to cause political snit fits.

Take the so-called “crisis” of Obama speaking out against the District of Columbia schools, which closed at the first sight of ice on streets in the capital city. People from the district were upset that Obama implied they were wimps compared to people from Chicago.

“WE’RE GOING TO have to apply some flinty Chicago toughness to this town,” Obama said, when learning his daughters had classes cancelled due to winter weather.

School officials in the capital city were upset that anyone from outside the area questioned their judgment about when to close schools, implying that perhaps it is Chicago – where classes haven’t been cancelled for winter weather in a decade – that is odd.

An official with the private Sidwell Friends school (where Obama’s daughters attend) made a wisecrack to the Washington Post, the punchline of which is that Obama doesn’t really understand winter weather because he went to school in Hawaii.

Personally, I agree with Obama. The District of Columbia could use some “Chicago toughness.” So could much of the rest of the country, particularly those southern goofs who come to the real world (where it snows) and insist on thinking they can drive in icy January like they’re on the Indianapolis 500 racetrack

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Obama-mania has some political people who were never (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123326749912530585.html?mod=googlenews_wsj) infected.

I never realized (heavy sarcasm intended) that Chicago roads didn’t get icy during the winter (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/01/28/ST2009012803514.html). I guess I just imagined all those motorists who in recent weeks I saw skid on our local streets.

Who will get the blame when some person who refuses to ditch their decades-old television set (“it still works,” they say) no longer picks up a viewable (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/29/BUTP15I0IH.DTL) signal?

Chicago officials are going to have to fight for the right to keep their firearms ban

Social conservatives from rural communities like to say they are trying to protect their approach to life from outsiders, particularly urban types who they think show disdain for their beliefs.

Yet it often turns out to be just the opposite, as evidenced by the reaction of the activists who get worked up over firearms ownership issues. When the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the handgun ban that exists in the District of Columbia, the activists' first reaction was to say they were now going to go after the gun ordinances that exist in Chicago.

THE NATIONAL RIFLE Association says it considers the gun ordinances in Chicago and San Francisco to be just as onerous as what existed in the national capital. They are hoping that federal judges appointed by decades of Republican presidents will strike down the gun bans that exist in our city and others of likeminded views.

Insofar as Chicago is concerned, the City Council’s knee-jerk reaction to the assassination attempt on then-President Ronald Reagan was to ban the sale or ownership of handguns within city limits.

Basically, anybody who lives in the city of Chicago who has acquired a firearm since 1982 is in violation of the law. City residents who go to gun dealers in the inner suburbs to purchase firearms commit a crime when they bring the weapons home – similar to how Illinois residents can legally purchase fireworks in neighboring Indiana but cannot legally have or use them in their homes.

I can remember my days as a police reporter for the now-defunct City News Bureau when a police sergeant explained that an outright ban made it easier for police to control gun-related crime by eliminating various categories by which some firearms would be legal under some circumstances, but not others.

IT ELIMINATED LOOPHOLES by which people might try to claim their weapon is legal, while their neighbors’ is not.

As police explained it to me back then (and which they have a legitimate point), no one in an urban environment seriously is going hunting for sport. People who seriously see something “athletic” about firearms and competitive shooting are going to want more space than can be found in an urban environment.

The argument that legitimate sportsmen are having their rights impinged upon was absurd. Police in general, and the cops of Chicago in particular, are never going to be mistaken for some liberal-minded organization.

To me, the fact that legitimate law enforcement personnel are in support of these extreme firearms bans is the evidence that it is the people who oppose bans who are the radical fringe of our society – and not the norm, as the NRA would have us think.

I’M SORT OF willing to concede that in a rural community near open areas, the hunting aspect of firearms creates a different situation. While a part of me subscribes to the old joke that hunting will be a sport the day that deer are armed with an AK-47 and can shoot back at the hunters, I’m willing to admit that those rural communities might have some reason for having differing laws than the urban areas.

That is the case.

These are city-only ordinances that ban firearms sales, although select suburban towns in the Chicago area (most notably, Morton Grove, Ill.) have gone so far as to impose their own bans on firearm ownership within their boundaries.

That’s why the fact that the NRA and its allies are eager to shoot down Chicago’s gun ordinances strikes me as perverse. It’s almost like they want to impose a small-town, rural mentality that is completely inappropriate to the third-largest populated city in this country.

THEY DEFINITELY WANT to play politics with the issue of firearm ownership, hoping to score a few more rural votes by bashing around what they want to perceive as the “big bad wolf” of Chicago.

Why else would Republican presidential hopeful John McCain have bothered to bring up the issue on Thursday, praising the Supreme Court’s ruling and reminding people that his likely opponent, Barack Obama, hails from Chicago.

It’s probably just a matter of time before GOP aides remind us of ties between Obama and the Rev. Michael Pfleger, who has devoted years of his life as a priest to trying to fight the spread of firearms in his Gresham neighborhood parish and surrounding inner-city neighborhoods.

For his part, Mayor Richard M. Daley is bracing himself for a fight with the NRA, as he wants the courts to ultimately maintain the city’s gun sale ban. He is skeptical, as are many law enforcement personnel, that it is realistic to expect people to be able to protect themselves by allowing them to carry handguns on their person.

“DOES THIS LEAD to everyone having a gun in our society? If they think that’s the answer, then they’re greatly mistaken,” Daley told reporters. “Why don’t we do away with the court system and go back to the Old West? You have a gun and I have a gun and we’ll settle in the streets.”

Specifically of the Supreme Court’s action, Daley said, “They’re changing the rules. Why should we as a city not be able to protect ourselves from those who want guns in our society?”
Basically, Chicago is going to become a new legal battlefield for people who want to have the courts impose rules that somehow maintain a rural sensibility to this country – even though this country has long ceased to be urban-oriented (the typical American these days lives in a suburb of a major city).

THAT IS WHY towns like Kennesaw, Ga. – the town that reacted to Morton Grove’s gun ownership ban by imposing its own law requiring all households to own at least one firearm – are just ridiculous.

Kennesaw officials like to spew statistics claiming their crime rate has declined. When one considers how small the population is in that Southern town, it doesn’t take much of a drop to create a large percentage decline in crime.

It also would mean that differing circumstances exist there than in Chicago. Trying to move Chicago more in the direction of Kennesaw is just misguided.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: The right-leaning Supreme Court’s elimination of the District of Columbia’s gun ordinances (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/06/23/ST2008062300649.html?hpid=topnews) are giving activists motivation to go after Chicago’s bans on handguns within city limits.

Chicago and San Francisco are getting ready to fight in court to keep their gun sales (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/washington/27React.html?_r=1&oref=slogin) restrictions in place.

Supporters of the handgun sales bans in Chicago want to believe that the now-invalid Washington, D.C. law (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/26/usa3) was so much stricter than what exists anywhere else that there will not be a large-scale legal effect by Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling.

The far right has been demonizing Rev. Michael Pfleger since before his comments about Hillary R. Clinton’s presidential campaign (http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whitlock/2008/06/26/abcs-robin-roberts-ignores-radicalism-maverick-priest-pfleger), as he has long taken an active role in trying to fight the spread of firearms in the city from suburban gun dealers.