EXTRA: Gas prices on the rise. So are the level of complaints we’re hearing

Just a thought as far as people complaining about the price of gasoline going up these days on account of the increase in the state of Illinois’ motor fuel tax.

Remember when gas prices soared this high in Chicago?

Yes, it costs less in surrounding states, which could make for an advantage if one happens to be in a bordering region at the time they need to make a automotive fuel purchase.

SUCH AS MY own circumstance earlier this week when I happened to be in Gary, Ind., and encountered a Mobil gas station charging $2.69 per gallon of gas. Other stations I witnessed in the land of Hoosiers had gas prices ranging from $2.79 to $2.95.

Yet the moment I came back to the land of civilization, the cheapest gas prices I saw were around $3.19 – with motor fuel at name-brand stations costing potentially $3.30 per gallon. With the additional cost that gas usually incurs in Chicago proper, the cost goes up further.

With the gaspricewatch.com website indicating Thursday that gas prices in the city topped at $3.45 per gallon. Much higher than the national average of $2.81 per gallon.

So excuse me (think Steve Martin in the white suit with arrow through his head) if I’m not overly swayed by a story published in the State Journal-Register of Springfield (which the newspaper picked up from the Register-Star newspaper of Rockford) that says prices on the Illinois side of the Illinois-Wisconsin border are now out of control.

An outrage? Not necessarily

THE PAPERS INDICATE gas prices at $2.78 per gallon at stations in Illinois, compared to $2.61 per gallon just north of the state line in Wisconsin.

My point is there are more drastic price differentials than what this paper is trying to pursue as evidence of an outrage. Things are worse elsewhere.

And as far as my own situation, I don’t know I’m willing to make the trip to Gary every time I need to fuel an automobile. It was a circumstance that benefitted me that one day.

Now if it turns out that the gas tax revenue increase does NOT benefit all the road repairs and other projects that the state of Illinois alleges the money will go do, THEN we can rant and rage. Until then, those of us with complaints ought to quit showing that we’re more full of gas than our cars.

  -30-

Last-minute partisan acts so common

Wis. GOP trying to keep Walker spirit alive

I’ve been hearing many people complain about the politicians in Wisconsin, where the voters dumped Republican Gov. Scott Walker and a GOP-leaning attorney general.

All of which has the still-Republican-leaning General Assembly inclined to use its authority to impose limits on the kind of powers those two positions will have in the future.

Ill. GOP would do the same, if possible

IT’S AS THOUGH the one-time Party of Lincoln has truly been taken over by this Age of Trump we now live in – they want to make sure the Democrats who now hold those two Wisconsin state government positions can’t do anything to undermine the kind of things that Republicans imposed on the Badger State in recent years.

Sleazy? Authoritarian? Un-Democratic, if now outright un-American? All very definitely true. But also not the least bit surprising.

If anything, I’d be surprised if Republican partisans weren’t trying some sort of measures meant to penalize the kinds of people who (in their minds) had the unmitigated gall to vote against them.

For it could be said that Wisconsin voters, by dumping Walker, engaged in the same kind of sentiment we here in Illinois did by voting Bruce Rauner out of office. In many ways, Walker was exactly the kind of governor that Rauner wanted to be here in Illinois.

BUT WHILE WALKER gained national attention for the conservative measures he was able to enact into Wisconsin law during his eight years in office, Rauner’s national attention was for the way in which he was thwarted by the Democratic Party leanings of the Illinois Legislature.

I suspect Democrats in Illinois will go out of their way to erase any traces of the Rauner years. Similar to how Republicans are using the fact that they still control the Legislature in Wisconsin to force the continued existence of their way of doing things.

Wisconsin's progressive spirit merely history?

To hell with the will of the voters! It’s as though modern-day Republican partisans want us all to think they are the natural order of things, and that it was only the opposition's delusions that took away their authority to impose their will upon us all.

Yes, I believe the Republican actions are ignorant, overbearing and border on corrupt. But I’ve seen enough political people to know they’re not surprising.

THEY ACTUALLY REMIND me of the final days of 1996 – which is when the Republican domination of Illinois government that resulted from the November 1994 elections came to an end.

For the 1996 elections saw the return of Michael Madigan as Illinois House speaker. Which caused the soon-to-be no-longer Republican majority to engage in one final act of overbearance on their part before Madigan regained a say in the legislative process.

Remember back a couple of decades when state officials were determined to oppose then-Mayor Richard Daley’s desires to turn Meigs Field into a public garden of sorts? Which caused the Legislature to vote for a state takeover of the city-owned airport.

Which was little more than a “screw you” to Democrats and to city government officials (who are, by and large, the same thing). Which is why I always got a kick out of the eventual outcome of the Meigs debacle – with city officials sending in the bulldozers to demolish the airport (and carve giant “x’” into the runways to make them unusable) in the middle of the night.

IT MAKES ME wonder if Wisconsin officials will come up with some equally-diabolical means of getting back at their Republican counterparts for trying to limit the powers of future governors.

Meigs Field gone, despite last-ditch GOP efforts to try to preserve it

Which I don’t doubt in the least that Republican legislators would be more than willing to fully restore when the day comes that cheese heads re-elect a Republican to fill the post of the state’s chief executive.

This is all petty and ridiculous, and certainly not in the spirit of a government looking out for the best interests of its citizens.

But it is the reality we have devolved into in this 21^st Century – that of governments that think they can only operate if everything is rigged in their own ideological favor!

  -30-

Who’s to say which way our political structure will lean after Nov. election

A lot of it depends on who you desperately want to believe when it comes to the way our political structure will favor which interests in the foreseeable future.

High court maintains status-quo, for now

There are those people who desperately cling to the concept that the majority of us who despise the concept of “President Donald Trump” will gleefully dump anybody aligned with him.

YET OTHERS POINT out the fact that various polls show Trump’s unfavorable ratings only go so low – and that it seems the people who voted for him in 2016 remain pleased. In large part because they like the idea of the vast majority of us being offended by his political presence.

There’s even one political observer who is now saying that if Democrats can’t regain control of Congress (particularly the U.S. Senate) come November, they, “could lose Senate control indefinitely.”

A large part of the issue/problem (depending on how you want to view it) is that many states have their congressional district boundaries drawn up in ways meant to favor Republican political establishments.

And in the states where Democrats prevail (including our beloved own Illinois), they spew the talk about needing “reform,” which in their view amounts to dumping Dem (predominantly urban) interests to shift control over to Republican Party officials.

IT IS WITH that background in mind that the Supreme Court of the United States was called upon to rule in some serious cases – with some partisans desperately hoping the high court would cause the undoing of some of those Republican-leaning states.

Including our neighbor to the north in Wisconsin, where I remember it wasn’t all that long ago the state was viewed as some sort of liberal bastion but now has a Republican establishment entrenched to the point where no partisan would want to leave Illinois to go to “the Badger State” – even if they were University of Wisconsin alumni.

Yet in the end, the high court made a point of issuing rulings that did little, if anything, to change things in Wisconsin or Maryland.

TRUMP: System rigged in his favor

It’s almost as if the court, which theoretically has its own 5-4 conservative-leaning majority, did not want to make any radical changes. As if they’re content to let the status quo of politically partisan politics remain.

THE WISCONSIN CASE is particularly intriguing in that Democrat-aligned political interests tried suing the state, saying the entirety of the congressional districts were drawn in ways to ensure some places were so overwhelmingly Republican and that they’d be the majority – even though places like Milwaukee and Madison theoretically provide large bases for Democratic Party voters.

The high court wound up ruling it improper to challenge the state’s whole composition. Instead, we’d have to have individual lawsuits against each individual congressional district.

That’s a lot of legal activity and guaranteed to consume plenty of time. As if the high court wants to be sure there’s a serious delay before they’re confronted with having to make a significant ruling on the merits of letting political parties draw boundaries to favor their own interests.

There will continue to be cases before the courts, as it appears another case involving the situation in North Carolina is still pending. But unless we get some radical change, it is likely that the one thing Trump has going in his side’s favor is that a majority of the states are rigged in ways to favor those who believe in this Age of Trump we’re now in.

THE IDEA THAT a majority of us are appalled by a president who sees nothing wrong with the conditions that now result in seizing children from their parents as they try to enter this country may not be enough to dump him.

And on a more local perspective, keep in mind this issue will be considered key by some partisans in the Illinois elections this year. Because whoever manages to win the governor’s post will be the one who gets to preside over the reapportionment process when Illinois goes through it again in the early 2020s.

RAUNER: Wants to rig Ill. in his favor

I’m sure some Republican-types who might be appalled personally by much of Gov. Bruce Rauner’s behavior will force themselves to vote for him just so he’ll have a “veto” over any Democratic-leaning map the Dem-leaning General Assembly is likely to pass.

Of course, it will be a Dem-leaning one because of the fact that Chicago’s metropolitan area comprises about two-thirds of the state’s population – a fact that oft bothers those in the other third who can’t understand why the whole world can’t be filled with people just like themselves. Which is actually a too-common attitude among people who think that all politicians are crooked – except for theirs!

  -30-

Redistricting “reform” needs to break into desire of pols to let greed take over

It will be intriguing to see how the Supreme Court of the United States comes down when they ultimately rule on a case out of Wisconsin as to how fair that state’s process is when it comes to the crafting of political boundaries.

So colorful, these boundaries are powerful statements

For as we have seen in Illinois, we go through the once-a-decade spat between the political parties that ultimately ends with a lottery of sorts, a random drawing that determines which political party gets to craft boundaries that advance its own partisan interests while totally messing with the opposition.

I’M SURE THERE are many politically-oriented people who believe this is merely the way things are done – boundaries are political statements and it is absurd to think they can be made neutral. Because even that can become a political statement.

Although some say the situation in Wisconsin was so extreme (GOP Gov. Scott Walker wanted to neutralize the Dem-leaning, progressive tendencies of his state, otherwise his own ideologue tendencies to take on organized labor would have become gummed up in a bigger mess than the budgetary stalemate we now have in Illinois) that something now has to be done to alter it.

My own belief is that many of the states that are most heavily partisan in their political boundaries are Republican-leaning, and they are that way because the politicos know how to protect their partisan interests. So anybody who thinks that redistricting “reform” will mean taking down Mike Madigan as Illinois House speaker ought to take a closer look at a place like Texas.

Where in the Lone Star State the boundaries really are meant to ensure that a white settler-mentality prevails, rather than the people who’d be inclined to remember that Tejas was once a part of Mexico (and the New Spain colonies before that).

AS FOR ILLINOIS, I’m realistic enough to know Republicans really don’t have a legitimate argument about unjust behavior by Dems when it comes to political boundaries. Because I’m old enough to remember the era when Republicans had control of the process, and they behaved just as badly – if not worse.

Much of the reason Illinois leans so heavily Democratic is because it has such a dominant presence as Chicago, which is something that Republican partisans would go out of their way to downplay and neglect to advance their interests.

Which makes it possible for Madigan to make the claim he’s looking out for the interests of his home city in halting those who’d just as soon revert to a mentality that says Illinois is centered around Madison and St. Clair counties (the St. Louis area) rather than Cook and its collars.

Marble halls of high ct. to be mucked up by redistrict reality

For those who wonder how so many people can find it in themselves to back Madigan in political spats, that usually is why.

AS FOR ACTUAL cooperation, there was one instance during my lifetime when partisan leaders were able to craft together a compromise. That was the 1970s – and maybe it was the spillover of love and peace and flower children in the air.

But by the 1980s, Reaganism had clearly erased any thought of working together. We had to resort to the all-or-nothing lottery where Democrats won control of the process in the 1980s, Republicans in the 1990s (anybody remember the two-year time period of “Illinois House Minority Leader Michael Madigan, D-Chicago? I do!) and Dems again in the 2000s.

Technically, the 2010s that we’re now in were an era of compromise, but that’s only because the 2010 gubernatorial election gave us Pat Quinn who signed off on the maps crafted by Dems in the General Assembly.

Democrats can compromise with each other – and the GOPers got ignored. Which actually becomes a key issue for the 2018 election cycle.

A SECOND TERM for Gov. Bruce Rauner would make it impossible for Republicans to be ignored. But considering how budgetary matters are all bogged up, I’d hate to see how the level of partisan hatred will be so high that there’s no chance of the two of them reaching a deal.

It really is about greed – the concept that government officials can do something without having to consider compromise. Which really is antithetical to what our system of government is supposed to be about.

Of course, I’m not sure how the Supreme Court is capable of resolving this situation. They have their own partisan leanings, and if they really tried to undermine Illinois they might well find themselves harming their own interests in other states.

Because, invariably the biggest potential weakness of our political system is that we staff it with people who are politicians at heart. And when we try to staff it with non-political people, we get instances of ineptitude such as “President Donald J. Trump.”

  -30-

EXTRA: On to Pa.! Then Mich.?

Jill Stein seems to be determined to make a bigger splash post-election than she did on Election Day.

How did we shift from this ...

Stein was the Green Party’s nominee for president, and she did poorly enough that even Libertarian Gary Johnston came out looking more credible than her. But Stein is now the one taking on the effort to challenge voter tallies in hopes of finding more Electoral College support to keep Donald Trump out of the White House.

IT WAS STEIN’S group that challenged the election results in Wisconsin, and on Monday said it would do the same in 100 precincts in Pennsylvania – willing to bet she can prove that places like Erie, Reading and Scranton/Wilkes Barre didn’t band together to produce more votes than did Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

Considering that Trump supposedly took 49 percent of Pa. votes and Hillary Clinton took 48 percent, it wouldn’t take much of a shift. Although to have Stein, whose own campaign garnered a whopping (heavy sarcasm intended) 0.82 percent of the vote, in charge of the movement now still seems a stretch.

It would take a shift of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan in the Electoral College to impact the actual outcome of the presidential elections; which I still say is a big stretch to have to make in a matter of days.

I’m still not getting my hopes up on such an outcome.

BUT IT WOULD be a crowd-pleaser personally to learn that the Great Lakes states – my own home region – didn’t suddenly go stupid. Since the Trump types would have us believe that Illinois and Minnesota were the lone states that didn’t see the wisdom of the isolationist message they were pushing.

 

... to here in eight short years?

I’d like to think those Midwestern states around the Great Lakes know better, particularly since one of the factors that led to Barack Obama’s solid electoral victory in 2008 was that he managed to unite ALL the Great Lakes states.

Even Indiana – which usually is knee-jerk Republican and this year takes “pride” in being the first state officially called for the Trump camp! – managed to see the merits of “hope” and “change” back then.

Which the Trump camp seems to think was part of what made America not so great – in their estimation!

  -30-

Will recount appease anyone? Or do we have to wait for ‘President’ Simpson?

Our neighbors to the north seem to want to be the political guinea pig, so to speak, of the presidential election cycle. Officials in Wisconsin are talking of wanting to recount the roughly 2.9 million ballots cast in that state for U.S. president.
 

Should we count down the days to Simpson administration?

The theory is that enough flawed votes can be found to shift the Nov. 8 election results from the 48 percent for Donald Trump and 47 percent for Hillary Clinton so that Hillary winds up prevailing.

HILLARY CLINTON WOULD wind up getting the 10 Electoral College votes from Wisconsin that will be cast Dec. 19 in Madison.

If you want to believe the wild-eyed fantasies of political zealots, a shift in Wisconsin could also motivate people in Michigan and Pennsylvania to take a closer look at the votes cast in their states to see if all those people in rural parts of those states really were large enough to overcome the votes of places like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Detroit.

If you really could prove such a large scale of improper activity caused that many votes to be counted wrong, you’d be alleging a criminal conspiracy on an unheard of scale and one that literally would call for the incarceration of Donald J. Trump.

Which would be ironic considering he was the one who got his followers all whipped up into a frenzy at the thought of “locking up” Hillary Clinton.

YES, I’M BEING over-the-top here in my choice of language, because I think it highly unlikely that anyone could prove such a large-scale illegal act occurred. And also could do so in the short amount of time required to have any effect on an election.

STEIN: She wants to recount Wisconsin

If somebody comes along in mid-February with the “evidence” that says something criminal took place to tamper with the elections, it won’t mean a thing. Trump would already have been sworn in by then, and would actually have presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for anything.

He’d have to be impeached and removed from office, and I doubt the Republican ideologues would be willing to do a thing that would undermine their own political power. In today's political mentality, Richard M. Nixon himself would be safe.

For what it’s worth, the talk of a recount in Wisconsin is being led by Jill Stein. She was the Green Party presidential nominee, and for what it’s worth she only got 1 percent of the vote in that state. Heck, even Libertarian Gary Johnston (at 3 percent) cleaned her clock, so to speak!

CLINTON: Willing to play along w/ recount

ADVISERS TO HILLARY Clinton have said the former Democratic candidate for president will support talk of a recount, but doesn’t expect there to be any significant shift in voter tallies.

If anything, she says she wants the recount to assure the American public that nothing illegal actually took place – and the fact that she got some 2 million more votes than Trump but still lost is merely a quirk of our electoral system. Perhaps Trump should have kept his mouth shut during the election cycle and not the idea in anyone’s mind that elections could be “rigged!”

One which is meant to protect people from tyranny by the masses – it is meant to prevent any one group from becoming too powerful. Although it could be argued that it sure didn’t work back when it was black people who were the minority who were abused by the political masses.

The fact that it is working to protect the one-time majority from being overcome by a growing part of our society sucks. But it is the set of rules by which our system works.

I HAVE TO admit to being skeptical of a recount because this isn’t 2000. That election cycle by which George W. Bush lost the popular vote to Al Gore but won the Electoral College anyway was a close battle that literally came down to one state.

TRUMP: Shouldn't have said elections 'rigged'

It’s a shame that Florida got resolved by the Supreme Court of the United States cutting off any efforts to do a serious recount – it created the perception amongst many that the Bush presidency was less than legitimate. Although Trump's crazed behavior (particularly his claim that foreigners who had no business voting cost him the popular vote) threatens his own legitimacy.

Trump will be able to claim a legitimacy in that he garnered the support of the segment of society that flexed its muscle to ensure it can continue to bully those not like themselves. Or course, there is one thing for us to look forward to – and that it is that episode of “The Simpsons” from 2000 that jokingly told us a Donald Trump presidency was in our future.

Could it also mean there’s a “Lisa Simpson” out there somewhere waiting to succeed Trump and set everything straight again?

  -30-

Would Illinois governor, or right-wing Latin American dictator, be the prototype for a Trump presidency

Should we wind up having to endure the presidency of a Donald Trump as a result of the November elections, it’s not quite clear what his governing style would turn out to be.

What comes out of a Donald Trump piñata -- little pink slips saying "You're Fired"

He’d be Bruce Rauner times 50 (as in he’d have say over all the states, rather than just Illinois). Or like one of those third-rate dictator types that have imposed their will on too many Latin American nations (maybe that's why he's obsessed with Mexico) throughout the years.

IT SEEMS THAT Trump thinks that stupid persona he created for the television program “The Apprentice” is somehow legitimate – that he’d have the authority to bark out orders and scream and screech “You’re Fired” at everyone who displeased him.

Just like we in Illinois have a governor now who thinks he can behave as some sort of benevolent dictator whose instructions are to be followed explicitly by the peons who actually have the nerve to think their election by the people to represent them in Congress gives them any say in the process.

In Illinois, we have seen how ridiculous this very notion is. Nothing gets done here. We’re at a standstill. Do we really need a national version of this happening as well?

Would Trump use Congress like Rauner acts to Madigan?

This vision of Trump as a buffoonish president only got reinforced for me Tuesday when I read the Washington Post’s report (complete with “Bob Woodward” byline) that told us how His Trumpishness thinks he can force the government of Mexico to pick up the cost of building that barricade along the U.S./Mexico border.

THE ONE THAT will turn out to be just as unsuccessful in keeping the outside world at bay as that one-time Berlin Wall was in keeping the Soviet sector of the German capital free from the “evil influence” of capitalism!

It seems that Trump is eyeballing all that money earned by Mexican citizens or people of Mexican ethnic ancestry in this country, then wired back to their relatives in Mexico.

There is a significant number of Mexicans who actually rely upon that money, and it does provide a measurable boost to the Mexican economy. Trump thinks he can mess around with the ability of people to wire money to Mexico, which will then cause the government to give in and make a one-time payment of some $10 billion to build a wall along the 1,900 or so miles of desert that separate the two nations.

Of course, federal laws concerning those payments do provide certain provisions for the government to mess with them, but only under certain specific and unique circumstances where national security or health is impacted.

IT IS OF questionable legal grounds that we’re even close to fulfilling any of those conditions! Unless you’re of the midget mentality that wants to believe Mexico’s very existence on Planet Earth somehow represents a security threat.

But as Trump perceives things, he makes his threat on Day One, on Day Two, “Mexico would immediately protest,” but then would be forced to acquiesce because it would have no choice. After all, no one says “No” to Donald Trump.

What kind of uniform would Trump adopt?

Which is such a laughable notion, particularly since Mexico this week installed a new U.S. ambassador with experience to handle a political lightweight like Trump with his laughable hair-do. Or if a “President Trump” were to adopt a military persona like one-time Chile dictator Augusto Pinochet!

It makes me wonder how big a meltdown he would experience the first time the Congress tells Trump to “stuff it” on one of his goofy proposals. Does he really think he can tell Congress, “You’re Fired!” and impose his will on us unilaterally?

IF ANYTHING, I probably owe the Illinois governor an apology for bringing his name into the equation. Both are corporate types who think they can bark orders and think other officials are insolent for not meekly complying with them.

But I don’t think Rauner at his worst would concoct this nonsensical a scheme – which really seems more intended to reinforce his backing among the segment of the Wisconsin electorate with xenophobic and nativist sentiments. They did, after all, cast their votes on Tuesday.

And Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, was expected to win, even though he was publicly caught on video refusing to wear one of those cheese head hats – which may be the one thing he has done during this campaign that made any sense.

It would be more ridiculous than trying to put a sombrero on the head of Trump – the man who on Tuesday reminded us that Mexico, “has taken advantage” of the United States for years through “gangs, drug traffickers and cartels” responsible for “the extraordinary daily cost of this criminal activity.” Even though the demand for this criminal activity comes from the United States itself.

  -30-

Rival states take their pot-shots at Illinois, Land of Lincoln fights back!!!

It’s not at all odd to see the states of the Great Lakes region compete amongst each other to gain some sort of edge in the public eye – I’m old enough to remember those “Gov. Thompson (as in Tommy, not Jim) Welcomes You to Wisconsin” signs that used to greet people driving north on Interstate 94 out of Illinois.

We don't always play nice w/ each other

Or all those “Illinoyed” billboards that Indiana used as part of a state campaign to try to encourage businesses to relocate to the Hoosier state.

IT WORKED IN terms of drawing some small companies across the border – to parts where they’d still be close to Illinois and the Chicago metro area, which was the source of their real business.

But it never managed to draw anything huge away from Illinois – after all, no matter what the lower tax rates would be, you’d still be in Indiana. “You get what you pay for” is the rule that ought to apply here.

The point of this recollection is that it’s not new for the Midwestern states bound together by their proximity to Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes to see each other as rivals.

So perhaps it shouldn’t be odd to learn that the Whole Foods chain of high-scale supermarkets is making a move of its distribution center that provides goods to their Chicago-area stores.

THAT DISTRIBUTION CENTER had been located in Munster, Ind. – a municipality located right on the Illinois/Indiana border across from suburban Lansing.

EMANUEL: A late Valentine's Day gift?

It’s now moving to the Pullman neighborhood in Chicago proper – a site that offers one major asset that Munster could never have competed with. The Pullman neighborhood is right on the Bishop Ford Freeway, which leads into the Dan Ryan Expressway.

In fact, the site of the new center to open in 2018 will be right on the freeway. It will be easy for Whole Foods trucks to hop right onto the highway, then go anywhere in the Chicago metro area to make deliveries of goods to be sold in their supermarkets. As opposed to now, where those trucks have to fight their way through the traffic mess that often is the Borman Expressway (we really do need the Illiana to be built) before they can get into Chicago.

There may have been some sort of tax break that Munster could have offered through the fact that Indiana does hit its businesses with lesser rates. But they also can’t offer the amenities that a Chicago or Illinois can. You pay more, but you also get more.

Strengthening Midwest presence with Chicago

I’LL ADMIT IT probably was a bit cold for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to be seen snickering and to refer to the move as a “late Valentine’s Day (gift) to Indiana,” but it certainly wasn’t any more colder than the trash talk that the surrounding states usually spew – often by trying to portray Chicago as some sort of hellhole that draws everything down.

Which, to me, often sounds like the petty whining of places that realize they can never match Chicago’s many amenities.

Now I don’t mean this as an Indiana-bashing session. Heck, I do work for one of the daily newspapers in Northwest Indiana and often spend time in Gary itself. Which for the record is a place that has so much potential, but can’t seem to get itself together for so many reasons – many of which are beyond its control.

There are times when I think Lake County and the surrounding areas of Northwest Indiana ought to just de-annex from the land of Hoosiers and become a part of Illinois. Maybe our people could make Gary succeed – rather than the Indiana officials who, at times, seem obsessed with the idea of holding that city down.

Could we do better with it?

BUT IT’S NOT likely there will be any shift any time soon of the Illinois/Indiana border from its current location between Chicago and Hammond to some place east of Valparaiso.

But our state may have accomplished something greater for the public image. For it seems the advertising professional who created that “Illinoyed” campaign for Indiana state government now works for Illinois.

Crain’s Chicago Business reported the newly-created Illinois Business and Development Corp. hired Kelly Nicholl – who as it turns out never gave up her condominium in downtown Chicago, even while working out of Indianapolis.

Illinoyed no more?

Perhaps even she couldn’t bear the thought of being too close to the rest of Indiana, which will now be the target of Illinois’ attacks!

 

  -30-

EDITORS NOTE: For those of you who'd like to read the Hoosier perspective, WBEZ-FM's Northwest Indiana correspondent provides a comprehensive report.

Would Rauner gain politically from a strong Walker presence in Illinois?

Back in 2008, Barack Obama’s presidential aspirations gained an early boost from his caucus victory in Iowa, and part of the reason he won there was the fact that politically-aware Iowa voters knew of Obama because he was a senator from neighboring Illinois.

WALKER: Looking to Land of Lincoln?

Which makes me wonder if Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has hopes that his own presidential dreams in next year’s election cycle will gain some support from Republicans in neighboring Illinois.

WALKER IS IN the Chicago area on Thursday, making appearances at a pair of fundraisers. One of which will be at the Peninsula Hotel – giving it the potential to attract the extremely-wealthy amongst us who can afford to pay several thousands of dollars for tickets.

Those who can’t quite afford that (but will still pay a bit more than pocket change) can support Walker at Carlucci’s Restaurant in suburban Downers Grove – where the state Republican Party can still cough up GOP votes in significance.

But how much of a difference will it make?

Despite the partisan split that currently exists, the Democratic Party structures in Illinois are stronger than those of the one-time Party of Lincoln.

GOV. BRUCE RAUNER may be using his personal wealth to prop up the Republican Party because he wants stronger caucuses to vote in his favor on his pet issues (particularly all those anti-labor union measures he desires). Whether he’s willing to prop up a Walker campaign financially is a different matter.

Although you have to admit that Walker is probably the governor that Rauner wishes he could be! He could use a political ally, someone with some muscle to fight back against the “might” of Michael Madigan.

RAUNER: Needs a partisan ally

Walker gained his national reputation when he took on organized labor in his own state and managed to undermine the unions. Just like Rauner wishes he could be.

Now this isn’t support for Walker. I know plenty of Wisconsinites who are appalled at their inability to undermine his partisan fight. If I lived in the land north of Rockford, I’d probably be one of his opponents.

I’M SURE THEIR Illinois counterparts are among the ones quietly cheering on the Illinois House speaker as he thwarts the efforts of Rauner to impose his partisan agenda to benefit the financial bottom lines of his corporate-type allies.

DURKIN: Allied to Rauner and Walker

Which could make a Walker win in Illinois some sort of political blow to the people who are preventing him from being able to easily achieve his desires in our home state

How strong is the Walker campaign in Illinois? Probably about as much as any other campaign amongst the nearly dozen-and-a-half Republican presidential fantasizers! Except maybe former Texas Gov. Rick Perry – who already has stopped paying his campaign staff because he can’t afford to.

All those people who claim real estate developer Donald Trump is kicking butt are downplaying the fact that three-quarters of Republican partisans who have been polled want somebody (anybody) else to be their party’s presidential nominee.

THIS IS A political free-for-all. Who’s to say who will be at the head of the Republican pack come the March primary in Illinois?

Wis. vs. Ill. usually competitors, not allies

Walker, however, does have a state chairman in the form of James Durkin – the Illinois House minority leader and the theoretical GOP counterpart to Madigan. Walker may be the closest Illinois Republicans have to a “favorite son” in this election cycle.

Although whether that is enough to win is questionable. Walker’s anti-union stances have enough support amongst the hard-core GOP partisans that those voters may actually give the Wisconsin governor a few minutes of consideration.

Whether he could get the backing of the people who want an ideological stance on the social issues (abortion, gay marriage, etc.) is less certain. For the same reasons that Rauner isn’t “cleaning house” with ease in Illinois – sensible people see through the partisan rhetoric, just like they may with Walker as well.

  -30-

Gay marriage issue puts Illinois in a “stupid” zone – for the time being

A part of me wonders which predicament is more embarrassing; back when Illinois was holding out against the concept of gay couples being able to marry? Or the current one in which some people are able to marry and others not?

On marriage, three counties down -- 99 to go

That’s our current status. We’re a split state. It is the reason why there have been significant numbers of people from outside Cook County who have come to our wonderful home county to get a marriage license.

THIRTY-ONE SUCH COUPLES from the rest of Illinois (including from Champaign, Dewitt, Kendall, LaSalle and Winnebago counties) made the trip to Chicago to get a license – which means their actual wedding ceremonies will be held here.

Along with couples from Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan, along with Colorado, Kentucky, South Carolina and Texas.

We’re becoming a magnet for this kind of activity. It seems the situation of last year – where the mayor of Minneapolis could rub it in Chicago’s face that gay couples from here were venturing further north to his city to have their weddings – is over.

Now come June 1, this situation will end. Because that is when the new law permitting such marriages in Illinois will take effect. It’s only in place now in Cook County because somebody sued.

ON THE VERY legitimate grounds that the courts had already permitted some marriages for couples who were not expected to live long enough to see June 1. Why only permit it for gay couples with health issues? It does come across as discriminatory.

So now, gay couples can marry in Chicago, which is causing the rush of other people to come to us. If not for the fact that this will spread statewide this summer, we’d probably have some political people arguing that it ought to be illegal for people to travel to Chicago just to get a marriage license.

It was this very split that caused the Illinois attorney general’s office to try to provide some guidance on the issue – because in at least one county (Macon, which houses Decatur), a state’s attorney advised the clerk to do nothing to issue such licenses now. Better to wait until June 1 when the issue is forced upon them.

Which goes against the practices in Champaign County, where the county clerk is now willing to issue a marriage license to all, and McLean County, where the clerk will start doing so on March 24.

OF COURSE, THOSE counties’ focus is on university towns (University of Illinois and Illinois State University, respectively) with significant numbers of people from other places living there for a stint of their lives. They’d be the obvious candidates to follow the lead.

All of this split is due to the fact that the lawsuit that allowed Cook County to issue such licenses immediately was filed in federal court solely against Cook County. Which is why everyone else is eager to claim the ruling does not apply to them.

The attorney general on Tuesday issued a statement saying that county lines ought not to decide whether someone can get a marriage license without having to make a special trip.

But that they also need to consult with their respective state’s attorneys before deciding how to act in coming weeks.

IT ISN’T ALWAYS a matter of consistency. Take the whole matter concerning “concealed carry” of weapons. Some rural state’s attorneys were so eager to have the concept as quickly as possible that they made it clear they weren’t going to prosecute violations of firearms laws.

Just as I’m sure there are some county prosecutors who will wish to hold out as long as they can on the marriage license issue – somehow believing they will gain some bonus points in the minds of ideologues.

Which is why our “stupid” split will endure for another three months – and in the minds of some for a lot longer than that.

June 1 can’t come soon enough – and not just because I’m disgusted with the Arctic-like temperatures we have experienced this winter. The heart of the baseball season will be up and running by then!

  -30-

Air gun attack on mosque may be worse than Wisconsin’s Sikh temple attack

I’m sure that some people are going to read this commentary, then send me a rant claiming that the two incidents that have caught my attention have nothing in common.

One of the incidents is the one that captured national attention – a white supremacist man who walked into a Sikh temple fully armed, then began shooting at people. He managed to inflict casualties, before avoiding arrest by shooting himself to death.

BUT I AM actually more offended by an incident this weekend in the Chicago suburbs – Morton Grove to be precise.

For police there have arrested a 51-yar-old man who lives just a few blocks near an Islamic mosque. Facing charges of aggravated discharge of a firearm and criminal damage to property, the man will make his first court appearance on Monday.

In this particular instance, a security guard at the Muslim Education Center in Morton Grove said he heard something hit the outside wall of the building while services for Ramadan were taking place.

After going outside to check, he heard “bangs” that sounded like gunfire.

POLICE FOUND A high-powered air rifle in the possession of the man. They believe he was shooting at the building to express his opposition to having a mosque so close to his home.

Which makes me wonder if someone will try to claim he was merely expressing his beliefs (freedom of speech?), and that nobody was actually hurt.

But like I stated earlier, this incident actually bothers me more than the recent incident at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in the Milwaukee suburb of Oak Creek – even though six people were killed in that incident and many others suffered severe injuries from their wounds.

Police have said they believe the 40-year-old who committed that attack was a white supremacist who was expressing his beliefs against Islam.

THE FACT THAT he was in a Sikh temple rather than a mosque can be used by some of us to dismiss him as some sort of idiot who can’t tell the difference.

Yet I’m sure there are many others who don’t want to distinguish between Sikhs and Muslims, or who think that they’re both alike in that they’re not the religious faith that the particular crackpot wants to think of as the lone legitimate one.

What bothers me is that it was just a week after the Wisconsin incident that this incident in the northwest suburbs is committed. Somebody apparently didn’t learn any kind of lesson from what happened at the Sikh temple.

Or perhaps they think they’re going to “finish off” the job that one man tried to start last week.

FOR ALL I know, they’re probably offended at the news reports being disseminated this weekend about the first service at that particular Sikh temple – what with people trying to get on with their lives to the degree that some of those who organized a memorial service for the six dead people wanted to include a seventh empty coffin to remember the fact that Page also died in the temple.

It was a gesture of forgiveness, although more because these people don’t want to have these ideological crackpots dictating the tone of their lives forevermore.

That’s a very mature attitude for them to take.

Yet we probably do have some people who privately rant and rage about how too much attention is being paid to what happened in Wisconsin.

AND A FEW others who feel the need to take some sort of follow-up action.

Because that’s how I view what happened in Morton Grove. It’s evidence that some people are determined not to learn any kind of lesson from what happened in Wisconsin.

And that, ultimately, is the flaw in our society – not the existence of differing religious faiths in our ranks.

  -30-