It’s an urban/rural race to the top of the pay scale for minimum-wage workers

I was amused to learn that the City Council will likely be considering a measure that would boost the minimum wage for workers at Chicago-based companies.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed off on $15 by 2025; will we see demand for $15 by 2021?

The measure in question by 4^th Ward Alderman Sophia King wants to see the minimum wage – currently $13 an hour – rise up to $15 by the year 2021.

WHAT’S THE BIG deal? Illinois law already calls for increases in the minimum wage, with the General Assembly just this year passing a bill that boosts the minimum pay to that $15 hourly rate by the year 2025.

If the city does nothing, that $15 rate eventually will be achieved. It will apply to employees of Chicago-based companies just as much as those of companies based elsewhere in the state.

Yet King argues that the city needs to have a higher pay scale, so to speak, than other parts of Illinois, because the city has a higher cost of living than other parts of the state.

It’s important, King argues, that Chicago reach the $15 hourly rate for adults stuck working in menial jobs before everyone else in the state. Thereby making it a race to the top of the scale between those working in Chicago and those working elsewhere – which usually is more a matter of where one happens to live.

NOW I’LL ADMIT that in some aspects, urban life carries a higher price tag.

Although I also know of people who insist that suburban life is more expensive. Often these are the people who live their lives in parts of the city that those with more significant incomes can choose to avoid living in.

They say that a move to the suburbs would wind up being too costly.

More often than not, they’re likely to be the individuals who most likely are forced to eke out an existence on an income based on a minimum-wage job – often doing some sort of scut-work that those of us with opportunities can avoid having to do.

KING: Pushing for minimum wage raise for Chgo?

SO IS IT really the case that a Chicago worker needs a higher minimum-wage pay rate than someone elsewhere in Illinois? It doesn’t really matter how low a cost-of-living rate is in a community.

Truth be told, a minimum wage isn’t going to stretch that far. Even at a $15 hourly rate, one is not going to “live like a king” if they’re stuck laboring at a job that many people would associate with a teenager who’s never had a job before in their lives.

Who, by the way, would not be impacted by these increases in minimum-wage rates. Companies will still be able to pay those workers less -- $4.25 an hour, if under 20.

Which makes me wonder if an increase in the minimum wage rate (an issue that is popular amongst a certain type of person with activist mentality) will only result in more teenagers getting hired.

WE’LL GO BACK to walking into a fast-food franchise and seeing pimply-faced teens trying to earn spending money, rather than a middle-aged person whose job skills are such that they have few other options in life.

I do realize labor is labor. A job is a job – particularly since there have been points in my own work life that I did jobs whose only real purpose was to bring in a paycheck, no matter how minimal. There was nothing noble about the work – other than it brought in an honest income that enabled some bills to be paid.

Will minimum wage fight shift to City Hall?

But I wonder what happens come the mid-2020s when Illinois’ minimum wage rate reaches $15 – some four years after Chicago. Will city-based workers wind up demanding yet another raise in their rates?

Will we become too accustomed to city-based people in menial jobs having to be paid just a tad extra than those elsewhere doing identical work, leading to the urban-rural brawl of the future!

  -30-

Where, oh where, will casinos go?

It seems we’re destined to get several more gambling casinos erected in both Chicago and the nearby suburbs.

Will this become political battleground in war of casinos?

We’ll be able to take our pick of just where we want to go on the occasion we feel the need to throw some money away on the off-chance we can hit a big jackpot and become instantly wealthy.

BUT THERE’S ONE factor that has been popping up in my brain – the way in which the siting of a city-based casino will also impact the way the so-called south suburban casino will be located.

There are several municipalities scattered throughout southern Cook County, all of which are insistent that they’re the only local place to erect one of those tacky, flashy, gaudy structures that promise instant wealth (and downplay the chances you’ll walk out of there flat-broke, instead).

It seems there is one line of thought that a south suburban casino ought to be placed in a community fairly close to the Illinois/Indiana border. Almost as though its existence would stand in the way of people who otherwise would try to fulfill their gambling “jones” by venturing to those casinos in Indiana (Hammond, East Chicago and Gary, to be specific).

Why cross over State Line Road to the land of Hoosiers if you can gamble closer to home?

SO IF THE notion of a casino being located near the Lincoln Highway right by Interstate 394 (just barely in suburban Ford Heights) becomes reality, does that impact the idea of a city-based casino by making it more likely that such a facility would be located in the heart of downtown – to take advantage of the nearby presence of out-of-town tourists?

Or does the concept of putting a city-based gambling complex down around the 10^th Ward (as far southeast as one can go and still be in Chicago proper) become the big boost to the people who think a suburban casino ought to be at a site on Interstate 80 at Halsted Street?

I should make one confession. I have a step-mother who enjoys the environs of a casino (playing the slot machines is her big kick), and that latter location would put a casino about a five-minute drive away from her home.

It intrigues me the way these varying proposals for more gambling are going to impact each other – even though the political people tend to act as though the city-based and suburban-based casinos will exist in differing worlds.

ALMOST AS THOUGH they’re Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

Rather than the idea of an East Side neighborhood in Chicago casino being only about a 15-minute drive down the Bishop Ford Freeway to the would-be Ford Heights site.

Which may also suffer from the general reputation that suburb suffers in the public eye. I already can envision the notion that many people will have in thinking a Ford Heights site is too decrepit to want to go to.

Or it could also turn out to be like when Ford Motor Co. decided to build an auto plant in that area, and actually picked a site right on the municipality’s border. What was then East Chicago Heights, Ill., went so far as to rename their town to try to make Ford Motor think they were special.

ONLY TO HAVE the company choose to annex into Chicago Heights proper. Would a casino feel the need to claim they’re in another town (Sauk Village or Lynwood?) to escape the perceived stigma?

For all those people who already are calculating how much of a cut their municipality will receive in tax revenues from a proposed casino, we ought to consider that just because the Illinois General Assembly has given authority to allowing a few more casinos does not mean anybody’s ready to open for business anytime soon.

If anything, the real political infighting will now begin – with village vs. village being pitted against each other to argue the merits of who’s most worthy of having a casino with over-priced buffet where one can gorge themselves in between black jack hands operating within their boundaries.

Because let’s not forget – the operating premises of many casinos is that they want to keep customers inside at all times. They certainly don’t want them spending money at any surrounding businesses in the community – spending that would generate true economic development.

  -30-

We get a state budget; legislators get pay raises. Ideologues get a migraine

Bruce Rauner really is gone. We truly are in a new era of state government.

PRITZKER: Signed a budget a month early?

For Gov. J.B. Pritzker didn’t even wait a full week before giving approval to a budget for Illinois’ Fiscal Year 2020 – which begins July 1.

PRITZKER SIGNED OFF Wednesday on the spending plan that will allow Illinois government to operate fully. He didn’t hesitate. Although the fact that the budget plan approved by the General Assembly was compiled largely by political allies means he didn’t have reason to expect the legislators would slip something in that would embarrass him.

Which led to Illinois being able to have a budget in place when the fiscal year begins.

That shouldn’t be a big deal. It’s what has become sad about Illinois government that it is. We had that two-plus year period during the Rauner years when no budget was in place.

Which caused problems for the ability of state government to operate, and which is largely responsible for the billions of dollars of a backlog that Illinois faces because during the Rauner years, the governor’s office was more concerned with approving measures meant to undermine organized labor – rather than ensuring that government could provide the services that were expected of it.

THERE WAS ONE uncertainty about the budget approval.

For it seems that legal language was inserted into the budget bill that provides for legislators themselves to get pay raises – the first ones they’ve received since back during the Blagojevich era in 2008.

In theory, Pritzker could have used his amendatory veto powers to delete that language – thereby leaving the base of the budget intact while removing the pay hike.

SKILLICORN: More interested in ideology

But Pritzker doesn’t sense the need to mess with the General Assembly – so he’s permitting their pay hike to go into effect.

FOR WHAT IT’S worth, the Legislature pays a base salary of $67,836 per year, and that will increase by $1,600 this year. In short, just under $70,000, which I’m sure some people would argue means they’re grossly underpaid.

But it should be noted the only people who earn that lowly level are the freshmen legislators – and the ones who are so untrusted by leadership that they’re not entrusted to be in positions of authority such as committee chairmanships or ranking minority party members.

So they’re really not underpaid. But it could be argued that, not having had an increase of any sort for 11 years, it was time for the pay scale to be adjusted.

It didn’t stop those in the Republican minority from ranting and raging and DEMANDING that Pritzker use the amendatory veto to delete the pay hikes.

TAKE THE VIEWPOINT of state Rep. Allen Skillicorn, R-East Dundee, who said, “taxes are going up in Illinois to pay for the mismanagement of their money at the state level,” and added, “Legislators do not deserve a pay raise. Giving lawmakers a pay increase is a mistake that the governor can and should correct.”

He was amongst the legislators who either was delusional, or overly politically partisan, enough to say that Pritzker should use the amendatory veto. Even though Pritzker made it clear by Tuesday he fully intended to let the pay raises take effect when he signed off on a $40 billion state budget.

RAUNER: His era seems like centuries ago

With Pritzker saying it was “a highly negotiated budget” with both Democratic and Republican legislative support – implying it would be wrong for him to impose his will on the process.

Not that it should be surprising some people will want to complain. These are political people – after all. Perhaps being a partisan malcontent is just in their very nature. Although my guess is that their real objections is that their “side” didn’t do better back in the 2018 election cycle and their focus is more on 2020 than anything actually happening now.

  -30-

Last man standing? It’s Mr. Speaker!

The Illinois General Assembly completed its business for the 2019 spring session this weekend – one day after they were scheduled to do so on Friday. History will record that they managed to get a lot of things done – including some measures (a casino within Chicago) that in the past seemed next to impossible.

 

MADIGAN: Illinois making recovery?

So perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, felt the need to issue a congratulatory (of sorts) statement.

BUT READING THROUGH it, I couldn’t help but sense the real purpose was to remind people that Bruce Rauner is political history, while he remains in office. Rauner being the guy who spent four years in office perpetually blaming Madigan for Illinois’ inability to get anything done.

And even implying, at times, that Madigan ought to be the Chicago politico facing criminal indictment – rather than Edward M. Burke!

For as Madigan put it, 2019 will go down as the year of a balanced budget that boosts education funding, helps senior citizens and women and helps pay off $1 billion in old bills.

“While there remains more work to be done to put Illinois fully back on track, in these steps we see what Illinois can be when our leaders stand up for our middle-class families while still seeking common ground,” Madigan said. “When we use our time to build compromises, when we have a governor who encourages Illinois to think big again and when we all commit ourselves to working together to build a stronger Illinois.”

I’M SURE THE ideologues of the rural portions of Illinois will have their own retaliatory rants. But the sense is that we are better off for not having a government that was so anxious to play political games with organized labor that it was willing to disrupt its daily operations.

 

RAUNER: He gone!

Heck, even Illinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin of suburban Westchester called the budget deal “bipartisan” and praised the fact it did not include tax increases.

Which makes the Madigan proclamation of the session’s end seem all the more the equivalent of a political raspberry – aimed in the direction of Gov. Bruce himself.

  -30-

EXTRA: Cheech & Chong gag obsolete? At least in Illinois!

The Illinois House of Representatives completed the legislative portion of the process by which marijuana use in the Land of Lincoln loses its stigma -- sending off to Gov. J.B. Pritzker the bill that will make it no longer any kind of illegal act for people to light up a joint/doobie/whatever you choose to call it.

Which makes me wonder about the old Cheech & Chong comedy skits involving the Sgt. Stedenko character. The overbearing, and inept, cop was forever trying to bust the comedy team -- and as I recall in one of their films, turned out to be a drug user himself.

BUT HOW WILL future generations view such moments? Will they wonder just why a cop was getting all worked up over someone wanting to indulge themselves in having a smoke for pure pleasure?

For the intent of Illinois' new law, which Pritzker is expected to sign off on some time this summer, will allow for people to purchase their "pot" from officially licensed vendors -- whose sales will be taxed, Meaning Illinois will get its "cut" of the proceeds. Which the cynics say is an immoral, if not ought to be criminal, reason to legalize something.

I don't doubt some people are going to wan to forevermore maintain the stigma of marijuana use -- mainly because they're going to object to the kinds of people they want to believe actually use the substance,

Which is why the most important part of this legislation, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2020, if Pritzker actually signs it into law, are the measures allowing for people to have their criminal records cleared of any offenses for past usage.

THE MARIJUANA POLICY Project estimates that some 750,000 people in Illinois will be eligible to have their records cleared for any times in the past they were caught by police using. It should be clear that people have to show they didn't commit other illegal acts while using pot -- their convictions will remain in place.

It should be noted that this change in law, when it takes effect, will not legitimize your neighborhood drug dealer. If anything, they're going to remain under police scrutiny. They will be, after all, selling pot products that compete with the officially-licensed vendors the state will want people to purchase from.

It will be something along the lines of the "illegal lottery" rackets that compete with the Illinois State Lottery games and are the remnants of the old policy rackets that allowed people to place nickel bets on numbers in hopes of winning a prize. The police still crack down on those people -- because they want us to buy lottery tickets from gas stations and convenience stores instead.

Which means that the cops are still going to crack down on the scuzzy-looking guy who tries growing his own pot product for sale. "Sgt. Stedenko," however, will become a less onerous law enforcement image -- and something more akin to "Barney Fife."

  -30-

DeLUCA: Our brains on drugs

EDITOR'S NOTE: Just a bit of evidence as to how some people will always remain opposed to the idea of legitimizing marijuana use. Amongst the legislators who voted "no" are state Rep. Anthony DeLuca, D-Chicago Heights, who couldn't bring himself to side with the desires of his political party's governor. DeLuca brought to mind that old public service announcement, reenacting that moment by frying an egg in a pan within the House chambers, then telling us, "This is your brain on drugs."

Can government tell people they can’t pack pistols? Some would say ‘no!’

I can’t help but think the Illinois State Rifle Association is showing just how ridiculous and overbearing their interpretations of the right to bear arms truly are, what with the way they called “most onerous” a bill approved this week by the Illinois House of Representatives.

Victim of overbearing government? Some would say 'yes'

That bill is one requiring people seeking permits to legally own a firearm to submit their fingerprints – which would make it easy for police to check to see if there are any reasons this particular individual ought not have such weapons.

THE BILL WAS motivated by past incidents, including one in suburban Aurora, where a man with a criminal record that should have stopped him from owning firearms had managed to purchase them anyway.

The man who walked into his former employer and began shooting people (he was p-o’ed) slipped through the cracks of the process we already had in place to make sure people with relevant criminal records don’t obtain such weapons.

Which means these people shouldn’t have pistols or rifles or any other such firearm.

Yet it seems the people whose only interest in the U.S. Constitution is in the (some might say obsolete) Second Amendment are interested in protecting the “rights” of people whom those of us with sense would think it a ‘no-brainer’ that their rights to own firearms have been forfeited.

SERIOUSLY, IN THE Aurora incident (that left five people AND the gunman dead), the man had a felony aggravated assault conviction in Mississippi and had multiple arrests in Aurora and Oswego.

Technically, the law would have made his Mississippi conviction (for which he served a little over two years in prison) ineligible to purchase a firearm legally.

Yet he was issued a Firearm Owner Identification card in Illinois in 2014 in large part because the background check did not include a fingerprint check – which would have revealed the Mississippi conviction and made him ineligible.

That FOID card is what allowed the man to openly walk into gun shops and purchase the weapons (at least one of which he is said to have used the day he walked into his former employer and began shooting – upset that he had been fired from his job).

THE LEGISLATURE’S ACTION might appear common-sense to many, but to the people who want to view firearms as some inalienable, God-given, right, it is one that has them screeching and threatening to take legal action to find a judge somewhere whose willing to let his own ideological leanings interpret the law in such a way that the gun owner becomes the “victim.”

And yes, it would seem that it was rural and outer suburban-based legislators who provided the bulk of votes against the measure – which narrowly passed this week 62-52 (60 votes needed for approval).

There were other provisions of the bill, including one that says someone whose legal right to own firearms has been revoked must actually surrender them to police or document that they’ve turned them over to someone who can legally possess them.

Which would appear to be very sensible – except to those who think that gun owners ought to be able to slip through the cracks of bureaucracy in order to keep clutching their pistols in the grips of their fingers – until said moment that their grip becomes cold and dead!

IT STRIKES ME as hypocritical for some to think that these restrictions on firearm ownership are flawed. Particularly if they’re the types of people who think that a person’s felony conviction for a crime ought to forevermore prohibit them from being able to register to vote in elections.

Then again, there also are those types who want to think there’s no such thing as a unit of government that they’re obligated to respect.

It reminds me of one time I saw one of those daytime talk shows where a clergyman was the guest being interviewed – and he showed as evidence of his disdain for government his own special driver’s license. One not issued by his state’s motor vehicles bureau because he thinks no state has a right to tell him he can’t drive.

About the only consolation I take in any of this kind of thought is the notion that someday, these people will have to confront the lord almighty and have to justify their knuckleheaded line of logic. My faith says they won’t be able to do so.

  -30-

State Line Road becomes battle front in the abortion “war” some want to wage?

Venture to Chicago’s far southernmost tip, and you’ll reach that point where the streets of the Hegewisch neighborhood are named in letters until you reach the appropriately-named “State Line Road.”

This part of State Line Road (between Calumet City and Hammond) is now loaded with shops selling cheap cigarettes, generic pop brands and fireworks … 

That is where Hegewisch becomes Hammond – and Illinois becomes Indiana. And the way things are going, it could become a battle front in the ideological war that some seem determined to fight as to whether or not we ought to regard abortion of a pregnancy as a fully-legitimate medical procedure,

ILLINOIS SEEMS TO be a place determined to protect the availability of a woman’s right to have a choice on whether to end a pregnancy. While Indiana seems to have officials inclined to want to revert back to the old days when abortion would be regarded as a criminal act.

Off in Washington, D.C., the Supreme Court on Tuesday issued rulings with regard to actions that the Hoosier state tried to implement against abortion availability there.

The high court upheld an Indiana law that required the remains of an aborted fetus to be disposed of similar to the way a dead person. Perhaps reinforcing the belief in ideologue mindsets that the unborn is a full-fledged life – instead of an appendage whose life is dependent upon its mother.

Although the court wasn’t as supportive of an attempt to put into Indiana law a measure forbidding a woman to terminate a pregnancy because the yet-to-be born person was not of the race or gender preferred – or may be suffering from a disability once it is born,

IDEOLOGUES HAVE LONG said they view such restrictions as a way of preventing science from trying to create babies-to-order and have tried to use this as an excuse for limiting abortion, The high court made a point of saying its ruling this week “expresses no view on the merits.”

Although Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas issued his own dissenting opinion that tried comparing abortion practices to “modern-day eugenics.” But in a sign that the rest of the court doesn’t want to get involved in this issue, no one signed off in support of his stance.

In short, it seems that for every ideologue who is determined to do whatever they can to restrict a woman’s ability to decide her own fate with regards to giving birth, there are others who probably wish they could focus on other issues – rather than having abortion become the ultimate Scarlet letter “A” of the 21^st Century.

Will it someday be loaded with dueling abortion protesters?

Then, we have our own situation on our side of State Line Road, where the ideologues who favor the Indiana measures (or those of places like Alabama or Missouri that are trying to make abortion impossible to obtain) are trying to demonize Illinois.

I’VE LITERALLY LOST count of the number of commentaries I’ve read where people are trying to scare everybody into believing that Illinois – and most likely Chicago – will become THE place where women flee to in order to terminate unwanted pregnancies.

Largely because of the political situation, where in addition to marijuana legalization and sports gambling, the future of abortion access could be one of the key issues to be contemplated (or not) in this final week of the 2019 spring legislative session.

Back when the Supreme Court struck down all the various state laws restricting abortion, Illinois officials included a legal clause saying that if the “Roe vs. Wade” ruling that legitimized abortion ever was struck down, Illinois law would automatically revert to the old days – when a miscarriage could be considered reason for a police investigation to determine that the mother didn’t do anything to bring the end of pregnancy upon herself.

But the Illinois House of Representatives on Tuesday approved a bill that would strike down all those restrictions – so that if ideologues really do succeed in their effort to abort abortions, Illinois could remain as one of the few places that didn’t explicitly ban them. Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan said that "women's health will always be a fundamental right in Illinois." Just a thought to keep in mind the next time you hear ideologues demonize the Madigan persona.

IT’S A LOT of legalistic maneuvering to try to keep Illinois on the side of women who, for various reasons, may think it not in their best interests to have a baby. A concept that will offend the ideologues.

And could well make the Illinois/Indiana border – particularly the part between Chicago and Hammond, Ind. – a place where people will glare at each other and shake their fists in outrage while accusing each other of being immoral.

Will Illinois Legislature act to protect abortion rights, regardless of what other states choose to do?

Of course, what constitutes a more-immoral act (letting a baby die, or thinking you have a right to meddle in someone else’s decision about that act) is probably going to be one of those perennial ideological splits. We’ll never come to an agreement.

But just think, before you start ranting about Chicago’s potential support for immoral acts, keep in mind that less than a mile to the east of State Line Road is the Horseshoe Casino.

A WOMAN COULD end her pregnancy legitimately in Illinois, while gambling away her money in Indiana – with the state and local governments taking a cut of the proceeds.

Does that really make the gambling any more legitimate in the eyes of the overly-moral?

  -30-

Friday could be historic deadline for Lege – or then again, maybe not

Friday will be an intriguing day for those of us following the General Assembly, which ought to be all of us living across Illinois.

PRITZKER: Will he have anything to sign into law?

There’s a good chance that Illinois will move extremely close to enacting new laws doing away with the notion that people using marijuana ought to be regarded as criminals, degenerates and an all-around scourge on our society.

WE MAY ALSO get changes in the law meant to allow for people to legally gamble on sports events other than horse racing.

This on top of the notion of implementing a graduated income tax over the current flat-tax system – a move that would require an amendment to the Illinois Constitution to be enacted. Which the Illinois House of Representatives gave its approval to Monday afternoon.

It’s possible that the General Assembly will finish up the spring 2019 legislative session by approving a constitutional amendment that could be put up for a vote in 2020. In addition to the gambling and marijuana measures.

This spring – whose session comes to an end Friday – could turn out to be one of the most significant legislative sessions of all time.

OR MAYBE NOT!

Because there’s always the chance that our state Legislature could turn out to be cowardly, spineless and all-around gutless.

There’s the chance that legislators may decide that marijuana and gambling are just too big a step for them to want to take. They may well decide to wait for another time before taking on these issues.

This may be a big week in Springfield, … 

Think I’m kidding? Just realize how many decades the issue of building a new Chicago-area airport near Peotone has been contemplated by the Illinois Legislature.

THE BOTTOM LINE is that I honestly don’t know what to expect from our state’s Legislature this year, or any time for the next few years.

Theoretically, Gov. J.B. Pritzker has the potential to run roughshod over his political opposition. He has, in theory, Democratic majorities in both the Illinois House and state Senate so large that they would overrule the Republican caucuses that would be inclined to oppose him.

But it’s also possibly that our legislators have the backbone of the cowardly lion. They may not want to have history record that they legitimized marijuana or made it legal to place a bet on a ballgame (provided that the ballclubs get a share of the gambling proceeds).

Or if they do, they’d rather have the final vote turn out to have Republican support along with Democrats. So that neither side can take total blame for the issue for those people eager to impose their sets of morals on everybody else.

THEY MAY THINK that taking on all these issues could be too much to take on at one time. Or maybe they just don’t have enough ambition to want to do significant things – fearing that too much change will be held against them.

All these things that the Illinois General Assembly spent the spring contemplating? It makes me think our legislators have the ambition level of way too many people (and myself, sometimes, to be totally honest) that I knew in college.

We did enough to make sure we’d get passing grades, and wound up waiting until the last minute before going on a work binge to ensure all our papers were written for our course loads.

… but activity returns next wk. to Thompson Center

Which is why the General Assembly likely will work its way to a hectic pace at week’s end – and may well have a final day of legislative action that pushes dangerously close to a midnight deadline.

BUT WHO’S KIDDING whom?

It’s the equivalent of collegiate “cramming.” Whether anything of significance will change in Illinois? It could turn out that, years from now, we’ll wonder how we could ever have thought the Legislature would accomplish anything this spring!

  -30-

Trump talk of “punishing” U.S. w/ foreigners shows ideologues know little

President Donald Trump’s latest trash-talk of taking all the people trying to come to this country and deliberately sending them to the big cities – particularly those cities that have enacted “sanctuary city” policies that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials and policies – show just how little he and his ideologue backers comprehend reality.

Not just Noo Yawk feels this way

Trump’s rhetoric from late last week further indicated his nonsensical beliefs that these non-Anglo, non-U.S.-born people are the dregs of humanity.

SO HE’S GOING to punish those of us who refuse to go along with his xenophobic-motivated immigration policies by flooding us with foreigners. That’ll show us, he likely thinks!

The problem with such a line of reasoning is that many of those municipalities already are foreigner-friendly, and the existence of those ethnic enclaves within the cities is a significant part of their character.

If anything, they make the municipalities places where upper-scale people might themselves want to locate. Even if they don’t live in the same neighborhoods right next to each other, they give the upper-scale individuals the ability to say they live in varied communities.

Compared to some of those rural places that are so overwhelmingly white and un-ethnic that they appear to be unfriendly to anyone who didn’t actually grow up there – and also often take on such a character that many of their younger, more-motivated residents feel the need to go away to college and find someplace else to live their adult lives.

I DON’T DOUBT that the people living in the rural, white parts of the country would find Trump’s nonsense-talk all the more appealing because it would reinforce their thoughts that they’re the only people who ought to matter.

But if it really happened, it would also further enhance the notion that these rural communities would become further isolated from the masses who are the real tone of our society.

If Trump really were to try to enact his suggestion, he’d be doing so much long-term damage to the areas where the people who like the Age of Trump we’re now in. The harm would be so long-lasting and permanent.

Would plans actually hurt rural Illinois political interests?

Which is why even Trump’s allies are pointing out the flaws of his idea, and are hoping that this is all just another example of Trump Talk – rancid ramblings meant to do nothing more than get the idiotic ideologues all worked up into a rage on the president’s behalf.

PERSONALLY, I’D THINK the idea would be reprehensible to Illinois politicos of the Republican persuasion – because adding to the Chicago population would do little more than further enhance the urban leanings that already work to the detriment of rural Illinois.

As in the one that ensures Illinois’ congressional delegation is 13 Democrats and five Republicans. With the likelihood that the next reapportionment of Congressional districts after 2020 will cost Illinois a seat, you have to wonder if those rural, isolationist-minded people realize that seat likely will come from their portion of the state.

Then again, there’s no accounting for sense when it comes to politicos.

Take the measure now pending in the Illinois General Assembly, where state Rep. C.D. Davidsmeyer, R-Jacksonville, wants his colleagues to pass a resolution that urges Congress to break Chicago away from Illinois.

Trump and Davidsmeyer (below) … 

HE TOLD THE State Journal-Register newspaper of Springfield that rural people are losing their chances to make Illinois more like rural Missouri or Indiana because Chicago, by its very nature, is in competition with places like New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

I’ll agree that people have a right to live off in isolation, if that’s really all they want out of life, even though I can’t comprehend why they’d want to.

… both don't comprehend consequences

But I definitely don’t think those people have a right to dictate to tell the rest of us we have to live like them.

So if Trump thinks he’s punishing places like Chicago, I’d say we’ll take these newcomers – who would not only boost the city’s population count to our political advantage, it would also give us a slew of newcomers eager to work hard for better lives – unlike those who want to live in isolation and on the decline.

  -30-

Could Illinois impose a statewide ban on immigration detention centers?

I’m sure the ideologues amongst us were extremely satisfied when officials in downstate Dwight, Ill., voted to allow a detention center to be built within their boundaries.

Is detention center issue best settled at Statehouse, … 

The center is viewed as a place where people facing violations of federal immigration policy could be detained while officials work through the legal process of deporting those individuals out of the United States.

IT IS A facility that officials have proposed building in so many different communities throughout Illinois AND Indiana, only to run into constant opposition from local officials who don’t want any such thing being built within their communities.

Because no matter how much ideologues try to disguise such facilities as a humane place to hold people facing charges of immigration violations, the simple fact is that they are jail-like in nature.

There’s just no disguising it. We’re looking to lock up people, even though most of them haven’t done anything criminal in nature. And no, not even their immigration violation – which is more a civil offense rather than something for which they could face incarceration in a real prison facility surrounded by other criminals.

Anyway, it seems Dwight was a facility far enough from Chicago that the locals weren’t inclined to share the hostile feelings that many locals have about having a prison-like facility built within their boundaries.

IF ANYTHING, IT seems that Dwight was willing because the community has a history of containing prison facilities. Dwight was once the site of the prison for women within the Illinois Department of Corrections.

I’m sure some locals remember the idea of prisons as being a source of local jobs. Even though I always wondered about people who work in corrections facilities – it is, after all, work in prison. One literally has to go to jail every day. Possibly amongst the most depressing employment environment one could find.

… or something best left to the locals?

Which is why I find the Illinois House of Representatives’ latest actions intriguing – led by state Rep. Kelly Cassidy, D-Chicago, they’re pushing for a new law that would make it illegal for local governments to permit any private company from allowing any such detention facility from being built within their communities.

It would demonize at a statewide level the very concept that the ideologues want to view as economic development. All because they don’t want to see more prison like facilities being built anywhere in Illinois.

IT DEFINITELY PUTS Illinois further in the camp of those people who don’t want to see ideologues and their hostile views prevail.

Particularly since the thing about these detention facilities that is key to comprehending them is that the proponents of such places think that a key element is that they be owned and operated by private companies.

Meaning a lot of the usual regulations that govern prison operations just wouldn’t apply. Not only do they appease the ideologues on immigration ideals (deport all the foreigners!), they’re also anti-labor.

None of those pesky rules that might require detention to be done with certain ideals of humanity in mind. And that also up the overall cost of operating detention facilities.

IN SHORT, I’M sure the ideologues are now prepared to lambast the Illinois Legislature as being even further out-of-touch with their conservative ideals than they already do so.

CASSIDY: Pushing for statewide ban

Then again, these are the people who got all excited last week when a judge struck down an attempt by suburban Deerfield to ban high-powered assault weapons from being owned by anyone within their community.

Yet another effort to try to impose their views upon all of Illinois – no matter how out-of-line it is with the way the bulk of us view the issue.

Which makes this an issue likely to provoke a brawl across the state in coming months. Because although a majority of us in places like Joliet and Crete headed east to Gary, Ind., have made it clear how much we detest the concept, there are those who will continue to push it until we get a state law. And even then will likely fight it further.

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Republicans ought to stifle their trash talk about overly partisan political acts

“Illinois House Democrats had a chance to govern differently and compromise, … but they failed. Like the Senate Democrats, they chose to ram through this costly and short-sighted piece of legislation just so they could make good on a vacuous campaign slogan.” Also, “Governor Pritzker has one last chance to show he really meant it when he said he wanted to compromise and take bipartisan action on major issues facing the state.

“We hope he follows through, but we aren’t holding our breath.”

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Will Pritzker or Trump (below) … 

That was part of the official partisan rhetoric, issued in the name of Illinois GOP spokesman Aaron DeGroot, in the moments after the General Assembly completed the vote Thursday on a measure that will gradually raise the minimum wage for Illinois to $15 an hour.

Republicans were p-o’ed, even they were in no position to halt the measure, which was a significant part of the Democratic Party rhetoric of what they’d do if they won election. With the veto-proof majority, they can ram it through, and there’s nothing that Republican partisans can do but whine.

SO I CAN’T help but feel nothing but contempt for such rhetoric considering that the same people who are demanding there be bipartisanship and that Republicans be included in the process most likely are the biggest supporters of President Donald Trump’s “national emergency” declaration on Friday.

One can argue that Democrats acted as heavy-handed as did Trump, but there is one major difference.

Illinois voters picked a heavy slant to the General Assembly that approved the minimum-wage measure, and a governor will sign off on the measure some time likely next week.

… wind up the bigger political victor?

Whereas Congress made it damned well clear they weren’t going to do a thing that would support any of Trump’s nonsense-talk about the need to erect barricades along the U.S./Mexico border – which now has an $8 billion price tag attached to it.

THIS MEASURE MEANT to result in erection of a border barricade so as to keep the foreign elements out of our society is the ultimate example of strong-arm political tactics meant to ignore the will of a majority of the people – who’d rather see this whole idea wither away.

As for doing something “solely to make good on a vacuous campaign slogan,” I’d have to argue that everything Donald Trump has tried doing has been nothing more than trying to fulfill his lame slogans.

Particularly when it comes to anything related to federal immigration policy or Latin America. Trump is determined to be the president of xenophobes, with the rest of our society having to just shut up and tolerate their ignorant view of what our world should be like.

So excuse me for thinking that the president’s live statement about a “national emergency” was just a whole lot of hooey. One that it wouldn’t shock me to learn upset many morning television viewers because its broadcast pre-empted “Let’s Make a Deal.”

NOW I’M SURE some are going to jump all over my minimum wage boost and the thought that Republicans can only whine about it, by trying to claim the Democratic opposition to Trump’s immigration thoughts are equally lame.

Which issue gets people riled up more: border barricades … 

But seeing that not even Republicans in Congress really wanted to be bothered with this particular issue (largely because they took the political hit for using it to shut down government operations last month), it’s obvious the only person who perceives a “national emergency” is The Donald himself.

In fact, I get my amusement these days from the pundits who say that the only “national emergency” our nation faces is the Trump presidency itself.

It will be interesting to see how quickly and thoroughly the courts ultimately interfere with any such border barricade from being build. And for those who have a problem with that happening, keep in mind that the judicial branch of government’s very purpose is to interfere every time government officials get stupid and try to over-step their bounds.

OF COURSE, IT also will be interesting to see how the raising of minimum wages progresses from state to state.

… or minimal pay for the impoverished?

Illinois will be far ahead of many other states in terms pay the minimum pay its workers can get. Many are like Indiana, our neighbor, which clings to the $7.25 per hour rate that is the federal standard.

Indiana’s Legislature has contemplated raises to the $15 per hour standard, but has always thwarted then in blatantly-political fashion. But is the gradual increase to $15 in Illinois by 2025 going to result in the Hoosier State and other like-minded states being forced to follow suit?

With the courts eventually trampling all over Trump’s narrow vision of our society, will the ultimate outcome of this Age of Trump be a whole lot of failed initiatives that withered away in their own pile of ignorance?

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What constitutes a diverse population?

Newly-elected state Rep. Anne Stava-Murray doesn’t seem overly concerned about appeasing potential voters to ensure she gets re-elected. Why else would she go about publicly labelling her home city of Naperville as white supremacist?

STAVA-MURRAY: Serious study, or self-attention?

True enough, Stava-Murray earlier this year used that label to refer to her DuPage County municipality (the fourth-largest city in Illinois) while responding to a Facebook post where somebody had described Naperville government as “the biggest bullies.”

TO ME, THE white supremacist label carries such a strong overtone that I wonder if it is too strong a label to use; one that distorts the reality of the situation.

Then again, there’s no disputing that Naperville is NOT a community where there are great numbers of African-American individuals living. For what it’s worth, an American Community Survey completed in 2016 showed more than three-quarters of the Naperville population being white – with people of Asian or Latino ethnic origins also existing in greater numbers than the 4.7 percent of those who are black.

Stava-Murray points out that many of the local public schools have next to no black students, and absolutely no black teachers.

Which might seem to be dooming any effort to get re-elected to her post come the 2020 election cycle. Then again, Stava-Murray (who has just begun her first term in office this month after being elected back in November) has already hinted she’s going to challenge Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., come the next elections.

COULD IT BE that Stava-Murray has already realized her ’18 election as a Democrat to represent a DuPage County district that historically has been Republican was a pure fluke? And that making such comments is meant to try to give her more appeal to those parts of Chicago where non-white voters are predominant?

I could see where many of those voters might think some white lady from Naperville wouldn’t know anything about them. Is this an attempt by her to show that she’s not totally clueless?

It had better work out that way. Because if it doesn’t, I could see where making such comments becomes a political “kiss of death” to any future she thinks she might have.

What should we think of Naperville community character?

Because she’s not going to make friends amongst the people she’s supposed to be representing in Springfield by implying they’re a batch of bigots. Although to be honest, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that many of those living in Naperville are out there precisely because there aren’t a whole lot of black people amongst their neighbors.

THEN AGAIN, PERSPECTIVE on what constitutes “diversity” varies based on whom one is talking to.

I remember once covering a legislative hearing about redistricting and district boundaries where local officials from suburban Tinley Park described their hometown as a diverse community – largely because the white majorities also had significant numbers of people of Arab ethnic origins moving in, along with a growing number of Latinos.

The African-American legislators on that committee took offense to the “diverse” label being applied to the municipality, which had a black population of less than 2 percent.

They couldn’t comprehend use of the “diversity” label to a community where their numbers were so few. Still are actually, as the 2010 Census Bureau count showed Tinley with a 1.92 percent black population – and with the majority including American Indian, Asian, Pacific Islander and Latino, along with its white populace including significant tallies of people of Irish, German, Polish, Italian and Dutch ethnic origins.

THE POINT BEING that the “diverse” label being applied, or denied, to a community probably says more about the hang-ups of the person using the label – rather than the reality of the communities in question.

DURBIN: Stava-Murray likely opponent in 2020

For what it’s worth, I have a step-brother who lives out in that area, and a niece who attends high school within the Naperville district (which actually includes her home in neighboring Aurora).

While I’m not going to claim the area is most accepting to the presence of black people, it is far in character from the communities I have been in that truly do reflect a “white supremacist” attitude.

That goes even further in thinking that Stava-Murray’s use of the “white supremacist” label is most likely a campaign tactic; trying to build an image for the currently little-known legislator as she prepares for future runs for political office. Which also means we’re likely to hear similar trash talk during the next two years.

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