It seems Mick Jagger skims the papers

The Rolling Stones had their latest concert in Chicago – Friday at Soldier Field. And it seems they did a touch of homework, in terms of localling up his stage patter.

The modern-day tour

For none other than Mick Jagger, whose freakishly huge lips are the band’s logo, not only welcomed new Mayor Lori Lightfoot, he also said he was “sorry” that Ed Burke couldn’t be amongst those in attendance at the first of two Stones’ concerts to be held in Chicago as part of their U.S. tour of 2019.

NOW IN SAYING, “I’m sorry Ed Burke couldn’t make it tonight,” was Jagger truly expressing some sort of desire that he would have wanted the city’s veteran alderman on hand?

Was he praising, or dissing, the alderman?

Just what was his point in even mentioning Burke? Personally, I’m inclined to think that anybody who shelled out the kind of cash charged for Rolling Stones concert tickets probably didn’t do so to hear anything of a political nature being said.

Jagger could have waved his hand at the crowd and shouted “Hello, Chicago!!!!!!” and been just as locally relevant in his commentary as he was in mentioning Burke’s persona.

SO FOR THOSE people who are claiming that Mick Jagger is taking a jab at our Chicago politics? I don’t see it!

As they once were

More likely, he checked out the Internet briefly for local happenings, and saw the Burke name prominently mentioned. Nothing more.

Personally, I’m inclined to think that Jagger’s more substantial Chicago commentary was when he happened to mention Friday that he’s never actually had an Italian beef sandwich – even though he’s been to Chicago dozens of times during the 55 years that the Rolling Stones have been a culturally-significant rock ‘n’ roll band.

BURKE: A lame Jagger joke?

Mick Jagger apparently has never got no Satisfaction from a beef sandwich – either “wet” or “dry.” Although the real question of significance to put to him would be to ask what kind of pizza he’d most enjoy.

DEEP-DISH OR thin, and also thin slices or the party-cut into squares? Then again, giving the “wrong” answer to that question would probably ensure many life-long Rolling Stones fans suddenly coming to the realization that the Beatles were better all along.

WALKER: Blew bad Blagojevich joke

Although maybe he has some sense of Chicago tucked away Under his Thumb – I still get my kicks out of that time many years ago that the Stones made an appearance at Chicago’s now-defunct Double Door club, and that then-Gov. George Ryan made a point of stopping by to see them.

Of course, Ryan was not yet amongst the roster of indicted gubernatoriales. So perhaps he would have been welcomed into the Rolling Stones’ realm of existence.

But if Jagger did give our politicos much thought, it likely was fleeting. Not likely to be repeated when they have their second Chicago concert of this tour come Tuesday (the one where Lightfoot says she WILL try to attend).

ALTHOUGH AT LEAST Jagger didn’t make the same gaffe that aging comedian Jimmie Walker once made about a decade ago while performing at the clubs that used to exist in Merrillville.

LIGHTFOOT: Will she take wife to concert Tuesday?

For Walker thought he’d be able to localize his comic patter with jokes about then-recently indicted Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Only he butchered the pronunciation so badly, he elicited mere groans. Perhaps he should have checked out the Blah-GOYA-vich pronouncer that Rod himself used to offer up,

While Blagojevich himself (a.k.a., 40892-424) was always the big Elvis fanatic who probably doesn’t view the hit “Jailhouse Rock” quite the same way he used to.

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EXTRA: Whose side will people take with regards to Daley’s debate absence?

B. DALEY: Took union endorsement over debate

It will be interesting to see whether Bill Daley’s mayoral campaign takes a hit, or receives a boost, from the fact he blew off a televised debate Thursday night that would have given him some serious exposure in the upcoming election.

Daley, one of 14 candidates with dreams of becoming Chicago’s next mayor, let officials with WFLD-TV know Thursday afternoon that he wouldn’t be participating in the program that Channel 32 had planned for Thursday night.

MENDOZA: Daley a sissy?

DALEY INSISTS HE found out last-minute that local 130 of the Chicago Journeyman Plumbers and Technical Engineers union wanted to do an evening event by which they’d endorse his mayoral campaign.

Saying he saw it as a choice of being with political people or “normal people,” he chose to take the endorsement. By an old-school way of viewing things, I could see how this works – if he can successfully spin this as a chance to spend time with the kind of people who might actually vote for him.

But others think the fact that the Chicago Tribune published a story Thursday morning implying that he only passed a licensing test some four-plus decades ago to sell insurance because someone tampered with it.

BLAGOJEVICH: Pol of  testicular virility

It surely would have been an issue that he would have been questioned on during any debate. Was Daley merely hiding from some serious questions about an old issue?

MAYORAL OPPONENT Susana Mendoza thinks so. “There’s one bad story about him and he wilts like a little flower,” she said, adding that this may well be evidence he’s not fit to be mayor of the metropolis of Chicago. Is she calling him a political sissy?

She might as well have accused Daley of lacking the “testicular virility” that one-time Gov. Rod Blagojevich once claimed was his biggest strength as a government official.

R. DALEY: Man of the people?

Of course, that line is now recalled as one of Blagojevich’s most buffoonish moments as governor. Will this absence from the debate – which already was considered controversial because Daley was among the five candidates invited to participate while nine other candidates were excluded – really be seen as evidence that the Son of Hizzoner himself is too weak to hold office?

Or is it Daley deciding to hang out with the so-called “normal people” his way of trying to play politics the way his father would have – as it was “Old Man” Daley who once said, “No poll can equal the day-to-day visits of the men and women of the Democratic Party.”

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What did Rauner do right?

Come the noon hour, Bruce Rauner won’t be our governor any longer.

RAUNER: At 12:01 p.m., he's a political nobody

Those heavy old doors of the Illinois Statehouse, with their ornate door handles bearing the state seal will give Rauner the “swat” on his behind as he walks out for the last time, and there will be many people cheering their “huzzahs!”

YET AS RAUNER departs and new Gov. J.B. Pritzker takes the oath of office to serve for the next four years, I have to admit there are some things the old governor deserves praise for.

There was the Executive Mansion renovation in Springfield. The structure dating back to the days when Abraham Lincoln was a resident of the capital city was in need of serious renovation and repair – made worse by the fact that more recent governors such as Blagojevich and Quinn couldn’t be bothered with the project.

It was Rauner who led the effort that raised some $15 million necessary to ensure the structure continues to have a long life. While also ensuring that he had to spend much of his own term as governor living in a house on the Illinois State Fairgrounds.

Just envision the aromas he had to endure – particularly during the state fair when all the livestock shows were at their peaks. That was bound to be the source of many a gag from people who thought they were hilarious.

QUINN: Didn't fix the mansion

ACTUALLY, I KIND of comprehend why the project wasn’t a priority in the days of Pat Quinn as governor. It was during that time that state government spent the millions necessary to do a renovation of the Capitol building.

A project that became very costly and caused many people to whine that Quinn was wasting government funds that could have been put to better use. I don’t doubt that a lot of people would have been lambasting him even more if he had also taken on a governor’s mansion renovation – no matter how necessary.

So it was left to Rauner to take on the project, and he got the work done prior to the official Illinois bicentennial celebration that took place last year. Although it amused me to learn that then-candidate Pritzker actually made a private donation to the fund to help advance the project along.

BLAGOJEVICH: Pardon backlog a mess

The bottom line is that Rauner gets credit for ensuring the official mansion and so-called showplace of Illinois government didn’t become too decrepit. That truly would have become an embarrassment.

RAUNER ALSO MANAGED to take care of something else the had become an embarrassment for Illinois. He issued a statement Friday pointing out there is no backlog of convicted individuals asking for some form of gubernatorial clemency.

There are no cases held over from past years for someone else to take care of.

Why is this an issue?

Actually, it’s because when Rod Blagojevich was removed from office by impeachment, one of the problems was we learned that the governor was ignoring the many requests for pardons or commutations that he had the authority to grant – if he so chose.

THERE LITERALLY WERE thousands of individuals whose pleas were made to Blagojevich that he never bothered to address. He was more than willing to play games with those individuals because he didn’t want to be bothered.

PRITZKER: What will he be noted for?

Now it’s one thing if you have a governor who seriously does not want to grant a lot of pardons or commutations. But the way Rod just chose to ignore the issue was a disgrace. Which is why many people find it ironic that Blagojevich is seeking clemency from President Donald Trump to get his own prison term (scheduled to end in 2024) reduced to time served.

It would serve him right if Trump just let him linger the way Blagojevich did to many others. But Blagojevich’s fate apparently benefits Trump politically – in that he can P-O many political people who want to see Rod suffer as much as is possible.

Rauner actually managed to work his way through the backlog dating to the Blagojevich years; creating a situation where future governors will just have to clean up their own mess. Although I'm sure the masses amongst us Illinoisans will be more than willing to be outraged at the many issues where our former governor caused problems to develop -- if not escalate to conditions that will take us years to recover from.

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Will Blagojevich be one of President Trump’s holiday season clemencies?

The name “Rod Blagojevich” has been all over the place this weekend – what with the fact that Sunday was the 10^th anniversary of the day that FBI agents showed up at the governor’s Ravenswood Manor neighborhood home to arrest him.

40892-424: From days when he was gov

Thereby beginning the saga that resulted with the governor’s impeachment and removal from office, followed with his incarceration at a federal correctional center in Colorado – where he remains to this day.

THERE ARE THOSE who would prefer to forget that Rod ever existed, and would probably hope there is some way his incarceration can be extended beyond his prison term that currently has a 2024 scheduled release date.

But I couldn’t help but notice a Chicago Sun-Times story, quoting one-time Illinois first lady Patti saying she’s holding out hope that her husband will be free and back home with the family for this year’s Christmas holiday.

Which ties into that freakish statement made back by Trump earlier this year where he hinted that he’s inclined to grant some form of presidential clemency on Blagojevich’s behalf.

Remember how much of a stink that stirred up? It was seen as more evidence of how unfit Trump was to be president that he would think Blagojevich was worthy of any form of early release from prison.

ADMITTEDLY, WHEN TRUMP made the statement, he had just done a few other clemencies and pardons – and the feeling then was that Blagojevich could be released from prison any day now.

That part didn’t come true. Blagojevich remains in the suburbs of Denver incarcerated. No one has said or done anything to indicate that activity on Blagojevich’s part is imminent.

At least not publicly. Patti Blagojevich claims she’s heard some things privately. But those could be vague tidbits that her wishful thinking is exaggerating into word of his imminent release.

TRUMP: Is he preparing a pardon?

My gut feeling? Back then, it was that Trump was making outlandish statements related to Blagojevich because he sensed it would “tick off” the Chicago political establishment that dumped all over the former governor and was glad to see him pushed out of the way.

WHY SHOULD ANYTHING have changed?

It may well be that Trump is waiting for a moment when he needs to distract attention from himself and his own activities – something so bad that he needs everybody to “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain” and think about someone else, instead.

Someone such as Blagojevich, whose actions are going to forevermore be pondered by our political establishment as to just how venal they truly were.

Did he really try to solicit bribes in exchange for political appointments? Was it all just the realities of politicking – extended to a higher level? Or was it just the usual petty political poop; performed by a man who had managed to alienate those who should have been his political allies.

WHICH IS WHY they were more than willing to see him carted off to prison!

All of that is now a decade in our past, although some of us are determined to want to see eternal punishment. I’m not kidding when I say there will be those who will get all upset some six years from now when Blagojevich’s prison term expires. They’ll want to see it extended for whatever excuse possible. Some people are just overly bitter.

BLAGOJEVICH: Wants her husband for Christmas

Patti Blagojevich may well be the only person who cares personally about her husband’s fate. If she led a larger group capable of offering support to Trump to guide him through all the upcoming calamities he’s going to endure, he probably would rush to grant clemency.

But she’s only one. The idea of messing with the minds of Chicago by granting clemency may turn out to be not worth the hassle Trump would get from taking such actions.

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New governor to live in Springfield, while family remains in Chicago

Excuse me for thinking it a non-issue in terms of recent reports that Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker says he intends to live in the Illinois capital city while serving in office.

PRITZKER: Moving to Springfield

The state does, after all, provide an official residence for the governor – the Executive Mansion, located one block away from the Capitol building in Springfield.

IN FACT, THE state in recent years performed significant renovations on the governor’s mansion, with some people going so far as to point out rather sarcastically that soon-to-be former Gov. Bruce Rauner kicked in some of his own money for the project, just to improve a house for his successor.

As though that makes the current governor the ultimate sucker!

But Pritzker says he’ll move to Springfield, although he admits his wife and two sons will remain in Chicago – they’re still in school and he doesn’t want to disrupt their lives, he says. Besides, the mansion is actually a series of formal ballrooms, with a private quarters on the top floor. Basically, it’s an over-glorified apartment.

Which is a fact I’m sure will manage to offend many of the people whom Pritzker was probably hoping to pacify with his residential announcement. Because there are people who are going to think anything short of the entire Pritzker family loading up the moving van to haul their belongings to Springfield is nothing more than a snub of the Illinois capital.

A Lincoln Park resident while governor

IT IS ONE of the laughable issues I recall from my days as a Springfield-based correspondent – downstate people convinced that everything had to be based downstate, and who resented those state agencies that maintained significant Chicago presences.

These are the people who were bothered by former Govs. James Thompson living with his wife and kid in a Lincoln Park neighborhood mansion, Rod Blagojevich eventually trying to run the entire state from a private office he maintained in his Ravenswood Manor neighborhood home, and Pat Quinn only occasionally staying in the mansion when not at home in the Austin neighborhood.

He rarely left Ravenswood Manor

Of course, even Jim Edgar wound up having a home in the Springfield suburbs (the “log house,” a home done up in a log cabin motif), while also maintaining an apartment in downtown Chicago for those days when his work brought him to the city.

If anything, George Ryan may have been the recent governor who made the best effort to get around the state – living in a Chicago apartment, the mansion in Springfield and spending weekends at his family home in Kankakee.

A West Sider (Austin neighborhood)

MEANING HE’D MAKE a complete circle around Illinois every single week!

As for Pritzker, he’ll use the mansion as a job-related residence, although we probably should expect he’ll be making many back-and-forth trips between Chicago and Springfield.

Which will bother those who want to think Illinois centers around Springfield – even though I’d argue the realities of the modern world mean we probably should have governors who are mobile and traveling about the state. The idea that he’s supposed to sit behind a desk inside the Capitol and never leave Springfield would be evidence of a governor not doing his job.

RAUNER: Helped renovate the mansion

Just as it can be argued that having a governor like Blagojevich who would have preferred never to have left his house was evidence alone that the job was not being done properly back in his gubernatorial era.

WHAT AMAZES ME is that some people will be willing to make an issue of all this – either that the governor never spends time in Springfield, or else is there far too often and neglecting the rest of the state’s needs.

RYAN: Actually lived around Ill.

You’d think with all the issues, financial and social, that confront Illinois government these days, there’d be far more important things for people to concern them about.

But then again, some people will want to find something to gripe about – no matter what.

Just as they’ll want to move along to the other statewide constitutional officers, who are required by law to maintain a residence in Springfield – even though the state makes no provision for their own housing. Just think how they’d moan if the state budget also included provisions for, say, an Illinois attorney general mansion?

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Evidence of time’s passage; Gov. Ryan gets his dues, What about Blagojevich?

Some people are going to be determined to go to their deathbeds shrieking and screaming about how corrupt George Ryan was, how abhorrent his time as Illinois governor was, and how we can “never forget!” the wrongs he did upon us.

RYAN: To be included in Kankakee tribute

But time really has a way of making everything wither away with its passage.

I COULDN’T HELP but notice the officials in Kankakee who recently approved erection of a new memorial on the grounds of the county courthouse – it’s meant to pay tribute to the three local men who later went on to become governor of Illinois.

Those three will include Ryan – who managed to offend many conservative ideologues with his one-term performance as governor, but who committed acts while serving as Illinois secretary of state that eventually got him into legal trouble and resulted in him serving a six-year stint at the work camp that is part of the federal correctional center in Terre Haute, Ind.

The monument itself would actually be paid for by the Woman’s Club of Kankakee, but governmental approval was needed to put it on public property.

Some people locally are upset, but it seems a majority is more than willing to move on and accept the fact that Ryan served a term – and is one of the few local (from Kankakee) residents to ever be Illinois’ chief executive.

SMALL: When last time you heard his name?

AS FURTHER EVIDENCE that time passing manages to assuage everything and everyone, I haven’t heard anyone make mention of the fact that another person whose name will be on the monument – Len Small from 1921 to 1929 – also had legal issues during his time as governor.

Small actually went on trial for actions occurring when he was state treasurer (embezzlement, as in state funds were deposited into a phony bank account), but he was acquitted.

Although there were tales of how that acquittal came about solely because of jury tampering – as in several members of the Small jury later were given government jobs.

But that’s nearly a century ago. I’m sure all who could remember are long gone. And perhaps those still living are wondering if it’s their mind fizzling out.

SHAPIRO: Replaced a corrupt pol?

ALTHOUGH IF YOU want to get technical, the third person to be put on the Kankakee monument (Samuel Shapiro, from 1968-69) also could have a taint of scandal.

Not that Shapiro himself did anything suspect. But he was the man who finished out the gubernatorial term of Otto Kerner – who gave up his Executive Mansion post to become a federal judge. Which is what he was when federal prosecutors went after him on criminal charges.

Quite a colorful contribution of characters to Illinois’ story, even though if you listen to certain people, it is only the city of Chicago proper that contributes all of the taint to Illinois’ public reputation.

Yet now it will be reduced to a few lines of type etched into stone, one that most likely will merely give off the impression of three “local boys made good” that Kankakee residents of future years will look at for a second or two – before moving on to other pressing business of the future.

A THOUGHT THAT I’m sure will thoroughly offend those people determined to think of George Ryan as the guy who “set all the criminals free” when he took his acts that essentially abolished capital punishment in Illinois.

BLAGOJEVICH: Will his day EVER come?

Preferring to remember instead those secretary of state employees who essentially sold commercial driver’s licenses to the highest bidder; and tried justifying it on the grounds that Ryan put so much pressure on them to buy tickets to fundraising events that they needed the extra money.

Perhaps it all will be forgotten someday, except for certain people who make a point of memorizing the details of every bit of trivia they can burn into their brains.

Just one point to ponder – will this ultimately become the outcome for Rod Blagojevich? Or is his “f---ing golden” line significant enough to warrant him a sense of eternal political infamy?

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Is Trump’s word worth anything?

Just a thought that has been bopping about my brain quite a bit in recent days; what if President Donald J. Trump is just toying with the mindset of 40892-424?

TRUMP: What will he do with Rod?

That number, of course, being of federal Bureau of Prisons inmate Rod Blagojevich, whom Trump last week started up a public stink about by suggesting he’s inclined to consider clemency for the one-time Illinois governor.

FOR WHAT IT’S worth, Blagojevich this week formally filed the request to the president seeking some form of pardon from the 14-year prison term he’s now serving – and of which he has completed about half.

Now, it’s truly in the hands of Trump as to what will happen.

Trump may have spewed a lot of trash talk last week about how Blagojevich was merely guilty of saying stupid things and how he thinks the prison term is excessive – even though the legal system all the way up through the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled in ways to uphold the conviction and sentence.

But from the three-plus decades of time I have spent writing about government, politics and the legal system, one thing I have learned is that some people truly are evidence of the cliché “talk is cheap.”

AND IF YOU look at this objectively, Trump has already gained everything he would expect to get out of granting any form of clemency to Blagojevich.

If he were to decide to do nothing and leave Blagojevich in the Colorado-based prison where he has been held since 2011, I don’t think he’d suffer a thing.

If anything, he’d probably gain a bit in the public estimation of the people who are inclined to want Rod to rot in prison for the full 14 years of his sentence (they’re probably offended that his scheduled release in May 2014 means he gets one year, four months of time off for good behavior).

BLAGOJEVICH:Pondering his fate

As for the idea that Trump went back on his word, the majority of people already think Donald is an untrustworthy character (remember the 3 million more in 2016 who wanted “President Hillary R. Clinton?”). His reputation wouldn’t suffer in the least.

THE THOUGHT THAT Trump is merely trying to stir up trouble, particularly amongst those in the Chicago political establishment who would have a personal interest in the Blagojevich case’s eventual outcome, has been bopping about my brain ever since Trump opened his mouth on the issue.

It stepped up even further this week when White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporter-type people the president hasn’t made up his mind about what to do with Blagojevich – no matter what he said the week before.

“The president hasn’t made a final decision on that,” she said. “But as you know, the president doesn’t base his decisions off the criticism of others, but on what he thinks is the right decision to make, and that’s what he’ll base it on.”

So was last week just an effort to stir up rage and anger amongst Chicago Democrats – almost none of whom actually voted for him two years ago?

BECAUSE THE THING that consistently has had me wondering is, “What does Trump think he gains from granting any form of clemency (even a commutation of a prison sentence to ‘time served’) to Blagojevich.

The one trend that has cropped up in seeing the way Trump uses presidential pardon power is that he uses it to reward his allies. Granting a pardon to one-time Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio so he could avoid serving jail time allowed Trump to protect a person who shared his extremist attitudes on immigration – while also offending the people whom Trump has been trying to demonize since ‘Day One’ of his campaigning.

What high  court thought no longer really matters

Even though Blagojevich was far from anything resembling a social liberal on issues, to the ideologues inclined to like Trump, that makes not one bit of difference.

Although if Trump really wanted to perform some form of “justice,” he’d let the Blagojevich request for clemency sit idly by and do nothing with it. Just like Blagojevich was the guy who, as governor, rejected 93 percent of the just over 1,000 clemency requests he acted on – while doing nothing with another 2,800 requests from people whose last chance at relief was gubernatorial consideration.

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Are we in for five months’ worth of annoying broadcast campaign ads?

We’re five months away from Election Day for Illinois governor, yet the two major party candidates don’t think it’s the least bit too early to start tormenting us with their broadcast ads attacking each other.

BLAGOJEVICH: A gubernatorial issue?

Both Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic challenger J.B. Pritzker came out with attack ads this week – Pritzker wants to remind us of how inept Rauner has been in terms of the state being able to come up with a budget in a timely manner.

WHILE RAUNER WENT for the jugular – the tape recordings made by federal investigators of Pritzker talking with former Gov. Rod Blagojevich on the telephone that provided the Chicago Tribune with the details of the stories they wrote earlier this year to imply Pritzker was a bigot against black people will now be heard in brief advertising spots.

Specifically, we get to hear Blagojevich making tacky jokes about Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who back in 2008 was the outage of the right wing because the man who was pastor of then-Sen. Barack Obama’s church in Chicago was the one who included the line “God Damn America” in some of his sermons – actually a reference to some of the racial intolerance that has been tolerated within our society.

It seems Blagojevich joked about making Wright his choice to be U.S. Senator to succeed Obama when the latter was elected president. It was a tacky joke, kind of lame.

For the record, Pritzker thought the gag was funny. We hear him say it is “hilarious.”

RAUNER: Budget ineptitude?

IT DOESN’T REALLY tell us anything about J.B. It’s a trivial tidbit.

But I’m sure it has the potential to grab at the emotions of people moreso than the initial Pritzker spot – which tells the story of a construction worker who wound up losing his job because of the fact that the state went for so many years without being able to pass budgets.

Which meant that state government for several years was unable to go through its daily operations.

That didn’t happen this year, because for once Rauner put aside his ideological fantasies (most of which are meant to undermine labor unions that do work with state government) and signed off on a budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

PRITZKER: Racial hang-ups?

WHICH IS WHAT I’m sure Rauner wants us to remember. Forget about all those past years.

And remember a 10-year-old moment of stupidity whose only real point is to remind us that Pritzker for many years was a prominent financial supporter of Democratic candidates for government office.

We could make similar arguments against Rauner, who for many years prior to running for office himself was a prominent financial supporter of those political candidates who preferred to run under the symbol of the elephant, rather than the donkey.

The real point, of course, is that the campaigns now feel the need to start tormenting us with their rants and rhetoric. For the next five months, exactly (that’s how long we have from now to Election Day).

IT DOESN’T SURPRISE me that Rauner would bring up Blagojevich – who is back in the news again on account of President Donald Trump’s suggestions that he’s willing to grant some form of clemency to Rod that would let him out of prison some six years early.

TRUMP: Will he impact Ill. gov. race?

I would have thought he would have waited to see exactly what Trump chooses to do. Because it could wind up that the kind of people Rauner is hoping turn out to re-elect him as governor are the same ones who think highly of Trump – and won’t really like anyone suggesting that the man whom their guy (a.k.a., the Donald) is supporting is really just a political dirt bag.

But perhaps Rauner is just desperate enough to get in the first serious punch of the general election campaign cycle. Which he has managed to do.

One potential plus – it could force many of us to ignore television so as to avoid all the inanities. Admit it, turning off the TV set and finding something else to do is something that would benefit all of us.

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Dueling thoughts on Blagojevich; how will they differ on Ill. Governor?

Call it one of the perks for people who enjoy the read of newspapers that compete with each other – we in Chicago now have rival thoughts for what should become of our state’s former governor who is half-way through serving a 14-year prison term.

Blagojevich, from back in the days when being governor was fun. Photo provided by state of Illinois

The fate of Rod Blagojevich, whose case has worked its way through the appeal process all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, is now in the hands of President Donald Trump – who implied earlier this week he’d be inclined to consider some form of clemency.

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE – the newspaper that was so opposed to the concept of a “President Donald Trump” that they endorsed a Libertarian candidate for president – came out this week with an editorial stance saying (in essence) “Hell, No!”

They literally wrote in an editorial urging Trump to back off the issue, “We have…concluded that the sentence he earned not only is fair. It’s fair warning to other criminal pols in Illinois, the State of Corruption.”

Yet the Chicago Sun-Times, the newspaper that proclaims itself to be that of the workingman and was solidly behind Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful presidential bid of 2016, came out with an editorial stance headlined, “Trump schemes aside, Blagojevich deserves shorter sentence.”

The newspaper that at one time called itself, “The Bright One” says that having Trump commute the Blagojevich sentence to time already served would essentially mean the one-time governor would have lost the past six-and-a-half years of his life to federal incarceration.

WHICH IT SAYS is fair in that it would mean Rod would have done about the same amount of prison time as former Gov. George Ryan got for his criminal convictions dating back to actions he committed as an Illinois secretary of state.

Each newspaper has managed to take an opposing stance on the same issue, which I’m sure is part of their efforts to differentiate themselves from each other – and from other newspapers in existence.

It’s part of what gives a publication its sense of personality, and what will be lost if those people all eager to dump the printed-on-paper word for ramblings published on the Internet (including this very weblog) wind up seeing their vision prevailing in the not-so-distant future.

And yes, it will stir up resentment among many. Since I don’t doubt there are people so unsympathetic to Rod Blagojevich that they want him to suffer – and don’t particularly care that the sentence he is now serving (scheduled for release sometime during 2024) might be a tad too long.

ALL I KNOW is that if the two remaining metro daily papers in Chicago can get this worked up over Blagojevich’s future, I’m anxious to see how they wind up weighing in on the upcoming gubernatorial elections coming Nov. 6.

Back during the primary, the Tribune was the paper that found its way to endorse Gov. Bruce Rauner in the Republican Party primary over Jeanne Ives, while picking Christopher Kennedy’s failed bid for governor over that of ultimate winner J.B. Pritzker.

Their editorials made it rather clear they didn’t think much of the idea of a “Governor Pritzker” and that they were buying into much of the line of logic that Rauner presents that he needs ideological allies to do what he wants (particularly on issues related to organized labor) if Illinois is to improve.

While the Sun-Times backed Pritzker’s primary bid in ways that made it clear they don’t have a problem with him being governor – particularly if it means that Rauner winds up out on his keister come Inauguration Day in January 2019.

HOW VOCIFEROUS WILL the editorial rhetoric become?

Will we have to make the editorial pages a “must-read” in coming months? Will we have to snicker at those people who insist on saying they “don’t read” editorials, because it shows they don’t know what they’re missing?

Will the biggest loss to our city’s local news scene on that future date when there are no more dueling newspapers be that we have a lone editorial voice pompously trying to tell us what to think?

Because by reading the editorials these days, it’s quite clear there’s only one thought overwhelmingly held by all of us – nobody (and I mean nobody) wants Rod Blagojevich back in any form of electoral office!

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Trump already gave Arpaio clemency, Blagojevich shouldn’t be a shock

President Donald J. Trump is the man who felt compelled to grant a pardon to the Arizona sheriff who symbolically flipped the bird to federal prosecutors who were trying to make sure he didn’t violate the civil rights of the inmates in his jails, particularly those who were of Latin American ethnic origins.

BLAGOJEVICH: Does he have president's ear?

By comparison, granting some form of clemency to one-time Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is a no-brainer. Relatively speaking, that is.

FOR AN ARGUMENT can be made that the 14-year prison sentence that Blagojevich currently is serving at a federal facility in Colorado is far harsher than the prison terms other political people have received for their government corruption convictions.

I know many people are so offended at the memory of Blagojevich’s six years in charge of Illinois government that they don’t care if he’s getting punished overly harsh.

But if Trump were to follow through with his talk (which, admittedly, can be cheap) and grant Blagojevich some relief that allows him out of prison prior to the 2024 date upon which he’s currently scheduled for release, I don’t think we should be all that surprised.

For what it’s worth, Trump used that ever-present Twitter account of his on Thursday to say he plans to grant a full pardon to Dinesh D’Souza – an ideologue commentator who back in 2014 pleaded guilty to charges he violated federal campaign finance laws.

TRUMP: Does he like idea of ticking people off?

HE SUPPOSEDLY GOT people to donate money to a Republican challenging Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., by promising he’d reimburse them. Meaning he’d be able to exceed laws limiting the amount of money he’d be able to contribute.

Then, while riding on board Air Force One following a presidential appearance in Texas, Trump told reporter-types that he also was considering action to benefit Martha Stewart (who already has served her time in federal prison) and Blagojevich (who remains incarcerated).

According to the Associated Press, Trump told reporters on board the presidential plane that he thinks Blagojevich did dumb things while serving as Illinois governor, but added that “lots of politicians do.” And he believes a 14-year prison term is too long.

BLAGOJEVICH: Will she become a very happy woman?

For what it’s worth, Trump’s expression of sympathy for Blagojevich comes just days after the Wall Street Journal published a Blagojevich-written commentary that expressed the thought federal prosecutors were behaving in ways too harsh and trying to criminalize behavior that is part of the way government operates.

WITH HIMSELF AS “Case No. One” as evidence (“I’m in prison for practicing politics, Rod wrote) for his argument.

I know some argued Blagojevich was wasting his time with such a commentary – Trump doesn’t read! He’s certainly NOT going to be swayed by such an argument.

But the Blagojevich commentary did get more than its share of Twitter attention – which means Trump most likely is aware of it. And considering the two men have a tie (Blagojevich was on one of the Trump television programs back when Rod was still a free man trying to build a sympathetic image for himself), I’m sure he’s aware of the case.

I also don’t doubt that Trump is enough of a smart-aleck personality that he figures the kind of people who will be offended by him showing sympathy for Blagojevich are the ones who routinely deride him for everything else – and that he has nothing to lose!

SO WILL TRUMP make Patti Blagojevich the happiest woman on Earth by allowing her to have a husband back? Will Trump figure he has nothing to lose by ticking off his enemies?

ARPAIO: Trump's truly offensive pardon

Does Trump figure that pardoning D’Souza is his offense to New York Democrats, so that sympathy for Blagojevich is his idea of “equal time” that will tick off Chicago Dems?

Does the man just have a screw or two loose that he’s willing to take such an action for Blagojevich? Which would be ironic, because when Rod was Illinois governor, he was notorious for ignoring requests for clemency to the point where his successors (Pat Quinn and Bruce Rauner) had a serious backlog to address when they took office.

All I know is, like I already stated, the idea of giving one-time Phoenix-area Sheriff Joe Arpaio clemency to spare him prison time after he’d already been found guilty of criminal contempt of court for deliberately ignoring various orders restricting his harassment of people just because they’re Latino makes anything he does for Blagojevich petty politics by comparison.

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