Women to become like knights in chess; leaping from square to square in search of safe space for abortions

There are those people with dreams that the Supreme Court of the United States is on the verge of striking down their 1973 ruling that made abortion of a pregnancy a legitimate medical procedure.

Queen the 'most powerful' chess piece, but women could become more like knight, hoping around the states looking for safe space when it comes to abortions

They fantasize that the overturning of the “Roe vs. Wade” court ruling will allow states to go back to the old days, so to speak, when a woman losing a child would be reason for a police investigation – to see if anyone did anything deliberate to cause the loss of a child.

WHICH ALSO MAKES these people the ones whose blood pressure shot sky-high Wednesday, when Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the Reproductive Health Act into law.

That’s the measure approved this spring by the General Assembly (the one that got Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and state Senate President John Cullerton excommunicated from the Catholic Church by the bishop for Springfield).

It is the one that says any attempt to take down a woman’s right to end a pregnancy by her own choice at the national level won’t change things in Illinois. Because our state will remain one where the issue is perceived as a gynecological one – rather than something involving morals.

Of course, that enhances the concept that our nation is destined to become a chessboard, of sorts.

OUR NATIONAL MAPS will start to have versions where abortion is regarded as a health issue – as opposed to one where the police are called for whenever a pregnancy ends unsuccessfully.

Abortion restrictions continue to evolve into national chessboard effect

Think I’m kidding?

Take our own Midwest. We could wind up one of the most split regions of our nation when it comes to abortion policy.

For Illinois is establishing itself as a state where a woman can go, if she needs/desires the procedure. While our bordering states are becoming places eager to establish themselves as one where we call the cops on any woman who doesn’t view the creation of a new life as her most significant function on this planet.

OVER IN INDIANA, the state has a law requiring a fetus to receive a proper funeral (either through burial or cremation), which would create more of a hassle for women viewing an abortion as a way of getting out of an inconvenient pregnancy. The Supreme Court recently upheld that.

Whereas over in Missouri, one of the controversies of late is the fact that officials are refusing to renew the permits allowing Planned Parenthood to operate a clinic in St. Louis that includes abortion amongst the services it performs.

That clinic happens to be the only one anywhere in Missouri where a woman can get an abortion. Meaning the clinic in nearby Granite City, Ill., is now likely to become jammed up with women crossing the state lines so they can no longer be pregnant.

Whose choice should it be … 

The Mississippi River could become a boundary women will have to cross. So too could State Line Road – the street that literally separates Chicago from Hammond, Ind. AND Illinois from Indiana. Since our Hoosier neighbors have made it clear they also view abortion as something that ought to be a police matter.

WITH THAT STATE’S attitudes receiving national prominence because many of its efforts to restrict abortion access came about back when Vice President Mike Pence was Indiana governor – and he makes it clear he’s not only not repentant, he’s one of those who’s hoping all the Southern states (Alabama, Mississippi, etc.) pushing their own anti-abortion measures ultimately result in giving the Supreme Court an excuse to take down “Roe vs. Wade.”

… with regards to that potential for a baby inside?

It’s going to be the chessboard effect – with some 30 of the 50 states enacting laws intended to make abortion, if not a criminal act, one that is next-to-impossible to obtain. Women in places like Illinois, New York or California (or other states dominated by a sizable urban area) will have it, while those in more rural places will be like the knight in a game of chess – leaping over state lines to wind up somewhere where political people are more tolerant.

Even though there is evidence that many women everywhere are supportive of the notion that abortion is a medical issue – a recent poll for NPR and PBS found 63 percent think a woman who is raped or suffers from incest (which are criminal acts) ought to be able to end a pregnancy, while 86 percent think saving a woman’s life or health is sufficient reason.

While only 24 percent think that a doctor performing such an act is a criminal – with 71 percent opposed. Just one more bit of evidence on how out-of-touch the ideologues are when they spew their rhetoric about the, “cruel dehumanization of unborn Illinoisans on a mass scale.”

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How much has politics changed? Madigan used to be anti-abortion ally

Michael Madigan, the head Democrat for Illinois (although not Chicago) and long-time Illinois House speaker, has formally been informed he can no longer accept Communion when he goes to church.

MADIGAN: Can no longer take communion

Strictly speaking, officials in charge of the Roman Catholic church in Springfield, Ill., have excommunicated him. Which must be tragic, of sorts to the one-time graduate of St. Adrian’s Elementary and St. Ignatius College prep schools in Chicago, along with the holiest of holy Catholic universities – Notre Dame.

THE ANNOUNCEMENT CAME down as a result of Bishop Thomas Paprocki, who is in charge of the Springfield, Ill., diocese. Paprocki is so peeved that the General Assembly debated (and approved) the Reproductive Health Act.

That’s the measure that ensures even if the anti-abortion ideologues manage to get the Supreme Court of the United States to act in ways meant to eliminate on a national scale the right of a woman to terminate a pregnancy, it will not impact Illinois.

The “Land of Lincoln” will remain a place where abortion will be regarded as a legitimate medical procedure.

Madigan said Thursday he had been contacted by Paprocki prior to the Legislature acting last month on the bill in question, and knew that Paprocki would be likely to act with grave disapproval. Yet he went ahead and used his political influence to allow the issue to come up – where it passed overwhelmingly.

PAPROCKI: Taking a stand on abortion

AS MADIGAN PUT it, “After much deliberation and reflection, I made the decision to allow debate and a vote on the legislation.”

Then, he made the statement that I’m sure the religious ideologues will claim confirms his place in Hell for all eternity.

“I believe it is more important to protect a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions, including women who become pregnant as a result of rape or incest,” said Mr. Speaker,

Yes, I write that knowing full well there are those who will screech and scream about “God’s law” being supreme above all else, and who are more than willing to overlook any suffering in this lifetime because, theoretically, the life eternal is special enough to overcome the miseries of this existence here.

CULLERTON: Also dragged into battle

SO MADIGAN, STATE Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, and for all I know, maybe all Catholic members of the General Assembly, are now excommunicated. To suffer eternal punishment for thinking a woman’s health and physical well-being is her own business.

Which is ironic because I remember back a couple of decades when anti-abortion activists considered Mike Madigan himself to be about as sympathetic to their cause as any politico could be.

His Catholic upbringing meant he wasn’t particularly sympathetic to that portion of Democrats who wanted the political party to be allied with women on this issue. I remember anti-abortion types saying Madigan was good for them because he’d allow their bills meant to restrict abortion in various ways to come up with debate. Some of them would even pass.

As opposed to playing political “boss” and cutting off any discussion on the issue.

OF COURSE, THE reason their larger stance never passed was because the majority was sympathetic on abortion, which ultimately drove Madigan into the abortion rights camp on the issue.

CUPICH: Shaking his head at donnybrook that has arisen?

And which now has him condemned by Paprocki. He won’t be able to take Communion – at least not as far as at any Catholic church in Springfield. Although Paprocki later told the Chicago Tribune he’ll restore Madigan if he makes an apologetic statement, then introduce a bill repealing what the Legislature just did.

As to whether Cardinal Blasé Cupich of the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago would feel compelled to get involved, that remains to be seen. Considering that Paprocki is the bishop who, a few years ago, stirred up a national stink when he held an exorcism at his church in response to the Illinois General Assembly making it legal for same-gender couples to legitimately marry, he may be reinforcing a reputation amongst Catholic as to everything that is wrong with their religious faith.

Cupich himself may want to steer clear of this affair. While Madigan himself joins the ranks of many Catholics who step aside during Mass to let others take Communion, while wondering if this is further evidence their church has lost touch with the daily realities of life.

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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?

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Dems hope ideologues shoot selves in 'right' foot with Alabama abortion law

There’s a lot of rhetoric flowing around about abortion these days – what with the state of Alabama having passed an overly restrictive law against terminating a pregnancy that many believe is intended to be the measure that the Supreme Court ultimately upholds as a way of striking down the Roe vs. Wade ruling of 1973 that found women have a right to abortion being legal.

Much of it is coming from Democratic partisan politicos who are quick to express their revulsion at people who think ending a pregnancy ought to be a criminal act. As the Washington Post is reporting, many Republicans are going out of their way to keep quiet.

ALMOST AS THOUGH they’re behaving like accused criminals who are exercising their Miranda rights “to remain silent” as “anything you say can be used as evidence in a court of law against you.”

That actually has some of the proponents of abortion remaining legal hoping that Alabama is the bit of evidence as to the immorality of the anti-abortion argument – along with the legal legitimacy of Roe vs. Wade!

Have the Republican ideologues overplayed their hand by showing how repulsive their intentions truly are? Will so many people wind up being turned off by what Alabama has done that it will drive many people into the “pro-choice” column?

Has Alabama done the progressives a favor by provoking the legal fight that will take down their pet cause – which is to go back to the days of viewing a woman as a criminal if she wants out of that unplanned pregnancy!

AND IS THIS going to make an even bigger priority out of abortion come the 2020 cycle – making the issue a key point for voters who may already want Donald Trump kicked out of the White House on his keister?

Right now, Trump benefits from the potential circumstances that Democratic voters may not be able to agree on a single candidate to challenge the president.

But if they really see that abortion could become such a mess, it could be the factor that forces many Democrats to shut up and vote for the nominee – even if their preferred candidate doesn’t win in the primary portion of the election.

As things stand, Ralph Reed, one-time head of the Christian Coalition, tells the Washington Post, that the possibility exists that anti-abortion stances will be turned on the campaign trail into support for what Alabama is trying to do – which could put abortion critics on the defensive.

OF COURSE, PUTTING those ideologues on the defensive may well be the just thing to do. Because all too often, the abortion critics want to claim a high-and-mighty moral tone to their stance – which is really nothing more than having people butt in to the actions of a woman whose pregnancy puts her in a predicament.

Personally, I know of one person (whom I’ve known for decades) who recently posted on Facebook that Alabama officials should be thanked, “for doing what is right instead of what the world tells you.”

To which I can only think that everybody has the right to be wrong. Although for all I know, she probably thinks the same of me (I don’t think the two of us have ever explicitly discussed the issue).

Perhaps it’s time we should. And I mean everybody -- and not just the usual ideologue nonsense about "baby killers."

THAT COULD BE the benefit of what Alabama has done with their measure – which basically is meant to take away the argument conservative politicos have long used to try to make themselves sound sensible. They say they favor abortion restriction exemptions for women who are impregnated by rape or incest.

While the ideologues are trying to undo such talk by claiming that a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy ought to end at the point when a fetal heartbeat can be detected.

Which comes so early in the process of human conception that many women aren’t even aware yet that they’re pregnant. Causing many to complain that old, white men in Alabama are trying to impose their own morals on us all about what a woman should be permitted to do with her body.

I’ve often wondered if my own thoughts about abortion are of less importance because, as a male, I’m never going to be in a situation to have one. But am I now going to be dragged into the argument to provide a sense of balance to the political debate – rather than letting the ideologues and their bullying-like behavior prevail.

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Ideologue inconsistences on issues like smoking, abortion – what else is new?

It seems we have inconsistencies on a pair of social issues now pending before Illinois state government. Yet that’s really nothing new – ideologues often don’t have a consistent train of thought in determining when they want to meddle with someone else’s life.

PRITZKER: Fear of J.B. scares ideologues. Good!

I refer to a bill now pending before Gov. J.B, Pritzker – the one approved last week by the General Assembly that says people ought to be 21 years old in order to legally buy tobacco products and other items for vaping. As in inhaling fumes from tobacco-less products.

THEN, THERE’S A pair of bills that will be pending before the state Legislature this spring – ones that would eliminate many of the restrictive measures that anti-abortion legislators have tried to impose throughout the years.

They’re going to screech “bloody murder!!!!” (literally, I kid you not) in claiming they’re somehow looking out for a life that has yet to be born, thereby justifying the taking into account of a mother’s sentiments about her own body into irrelevance.

But when it comes to efforts to reduce the legal availability of smoking-related products to young people, the ideologues amongst us are going to claim their opposition is meant to protect the rights of personal choice of young people.

It’s almost like they’re claiming the right of a 16-year-old girl to develop a smoking habit – claiming that it’s her own body she’s hurting. It’s her choice.

YET THEY’RE PREPARED to screech and scream the “murderer” and “baby killer” labels at a young girl who thinks she’s not ready for a baby, and is under the (as the ideologues would view it) the misguided belief that it’s her own body being impacted by the decision to terminate the pregnancy.

It was nearly a half-century ago that the Supreme Court of the United States issued the larger ruling that struck down measures criminalizing abortion. The strategy throughout the years is to accept the general concept, but have legislatures impose so many restrictions so as to make it next to impossible for some women to actually have access to abortion.

The two bills now pending (one in the Illinois House of Representatives and the other in the state Senate) would eliminate many of the restrictions they’ve tried to enact – even up to the final days of a pregnancy.

Their desire to meddle with the desires of a mother seem to be to the extreme they’d want to require the paramedics to be on the scene of an abortion to try to revive the fetus.

THEY TALK ABOUT denying unborn children “independent rights,” but it really comes across as meddling with the mother’s desires – even though hers is the existing life that ought to be the priority.

But then on a real public health issue such as smoking, we’re going to hear the nonsense rhetoric of how absurd it is to tell someone they have to be 21 in order to smoke.

Maybe we’ll even hear the argument made that people can enlist in the army and die for their country at age 18 – why not let them smoke?

As it was, the General Assembly passed a measure just last year calling for this same age increase – only to have then-Gov. Bruce Rauner wield the “veto” pen to the measure.

THE FACT THAT smoking is a foul habit that impacts everybody around you somehow doesn’t matter to the ideologues who want to view it solely as a personal choice. Whereas the baby forced into life because of the denial of a personal choice is something we all wind up having to cover the cost of caring for.

I find it amusing that the ideologues seem to fear Pritzker is going to push the abortion measure erasing generations of restrictions into law, while also giving his approval to a smoking age boost.

They’re going to get all hysterical with their rhetoric because government basically is going to prevent them from meddling into the lives of others – the young girl who really shouldn’t have a pregnancy now and the people who have to breathe in the fumes of the nitwit smokers amongst them.

But then again, hysteria and nonsense is oft the way of politics in Illinois!

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Abortion – an issue that won’t go away; even if high court tries to make it so

The commentary with regards to the legitimacy of abortion as a medical procedure has already started up. I’ve come across one train of thought that says President Donald J. Trump will choose a woman to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court of the United States so that when the high court eventually does away with abortion, it won’t be by an entirely-male group of justices.

I’ve found another commentary that says the Supreme Court won’t have the nerve to want to step into the political mess that would assuredly be created if the court really tries to undo the 1973 ruling of Roe v. Wade – the one that struck down the laws of those states that tried to regard abortion as a criminal act.

THERE ARE A wide range of opinions out there with regards to whether a woman has a right to end a pregnancy – and it’s pretty clear that somebody is going to turn out to be dead wrong in what they’re stating now.

Which also means someone, by the purest of dumb luck, is going to wind up being correct – and will probably go about the rest of their lives boasting of “supreme intelligence” just because they managed to “guess” correctly.

For what it’s worth, the Morning Consult group released a poll saying some 52 percent of us want the high court to maintain abortion as legitimate – with only 29 percent wishing for the repeal of Roe v. Wade.

Of course, it’s a partisan issue – among those who identify as Democrats, 73 percent want abortion to remain protected by law, while 54 percent of those who identify as Republican wish for abortion to go away.

AND IN THIS Age of Trump, we have leadership determined to piddle on the desires of anybody who happens to be either Democrat, or not sufficiently ideological enough to fit their definition of what a Republican ought to be.

Meaning there are a number of people who are going to get all bent out of shape with their prognostications about what will happen once Trump makes his nominee to the Supreme Court known publicly. Which he has hinted could come as soon as Monday.

Then again, Trump has been known to be unpredictable – which is probably the safest thing for anybody to predict about him. Who’s to say what will happen?

Personally, I think Trump will be inclined to pick someone whom he thinks will be a predictable choice to want to “undo” abortion – joining with a solid majority of other ideologically conservative justices to vote against it.

FITTING IN WITH what seems to be his general theory that he’s “the boss” and that the rest of government ought to just do what he tells them. If the majority of us don’t approve – well I doubt he cares!

Because all he has to do is look at the minority of voters who, in 2016, picked him to be president. He probably thinks they’re the only ones who matter – just as I suspect he sees the 29 percent who want Roe v. Wade undone matter more than the rest of us.

Which is why I’m not amongst those getting all worked up over Monday. We have a political structure right now that is rigged against much rational thought – one that is primarily focused with trying to appease the sentiments of the ideologues who want to impose their own ideas upon the bulk of us.

What I’m saying is that the “harm” already has been done. The thought that there’s much anything Trump will do now to suddenly make a difference is a bit of an overstatement.

IF ANYTHING, WE’RE going to have to rely on the unpredictability of justices when it comes to interpreting the law. There have been instances in the past when the ideologues amongst us thought the high court was on the verge of undoing abortion when a majority managed to figure out legal means by which it remained.

Will ideologues want to 'erase' old hedlines showing what court once did?

Those of us who have enough sense to see laws against abortion as meddling in a woman’s physical well-being will have to count on the prevailing of the rule of law.

But then again, in this overly-partisan age we’re now in, it might be asking a bit much to think the Supreme Court of the United States can truly rise above it all.

Meaning we may well have to wait for a future version of the Supreme Court to take it upon itself to undo the harmful actions being imposed upon us by this Age of Trump.

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Is it finally Danny Boy’s time to leave Congress, or will he gain another term?

Dan Lipinski has been a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 14 years, and by all rights ought to have all the political benefits of incumbency when it comes to getting re-elected.

Does Dan Lipinski wish he could be ...

Yet the realities of partisan politics may have changed enough that Lipinski is now at risk of losing the Congressional seat he inherited when his father, William, retired following a political career that saw him rise from the ranks of a South Side alderman to a member of Congress.

OR MAYBE HE isn’t going to lose. That is the big unanswered questions on the Chicago political scene this election cycle.

Every cycle, Lipinski has to answer allegations that he’s too conservative to be a Chicago-area congressman, and in fact has so many ideological leanings to the right that he has no business identifying himself as a Democrat.

Not that it has worked in the past. There are many people who  have tried challenging Dan Lipinski since he gave up a university teaching position in Tennessee in 2004 to return to the Chicago area and replace his father on Capitol Hill.

None of them put up a serious challenge. To the point where I understand why Lipinski, the younger, would go into this election cycle feeling confident that he could beat off yet another “misguided liberal-type” of political dreamer.

BUT THIS ELECTION cycle is turning out to be the one in which a liberal-type might actually win the primary election to be held Tuesday. Which, of course, would result in a Nov. 6 general election victory, since even the Republican Party is openly appalled at the thought that they’re likely to nominate Art Jones, a white supremacist, to run for them.

So will Marie Newman, a small businesswoman, manage to elevate herself to Congress by the benefit of running at the right time? Or will Lipinski manage to gain himself yet another two-year term representing Chicago’s Southwest Side neighborhoods and surrounding suburbs?

... same old-school Dem as his father, Bill?

Is Lipinski, a Democrat with a significant voting record in line with Republican partisan interests, truly out of line with his constituents?

That is a question I have been pondering for several months now.

BECAUSE THE DISTRICT is one that is pretty much the remnants of the old South Side of Chicago – one that was ‘white ethnic’ in composition and one that most definitely didn’t think of itself as sympathetic to the interests of African-Americans.

A part of me jokes that the people who support Lipinski in Congress are the children and grand-children of the same Chicago residents who, back in 1968, cheered for the Chicago police officers who beat up the ‘hippie freaks’ who protested in Grant Park during the Democratic National Convention and who were offended when the resulting investigation classified the incident as a “police riot.”

As though the rest of the world was out of whack with their sense of morals. Just as I’m sure Lipinski-backers feel about Newman and her supporters.

Personally, I’ve always understood Lipinski’s Democratic Party identity is tied to his support for issues related to organized labor and unions. I have no doubt that someone like Gov. Bruce Rauner, with all his ideological rhetoric on such issues that he tries to bill as “reform” probably thinks of Lipinski as being just as much a part of the “problem” as Michael Madigan.

TO THE POINT where I don’t expect the hard-core Republicans think much of him just because on abortion or many other social issues, he sympathizes with their political party’s platform. There are those who have no problem thinking of Dan Lipinski as a Democrat. They're the ones who are the target for a Twitter campaign trying to portray Newman as anti-Catholic -- so Vote for Dan!

NEWMAN: Will she bring Ill. 3rd into 21st Century?

Newman is trying to inspire the people whose political leanings are influenced primarily by those very social issues to rise up and vote for her. Dump Dan Lipinski, is their battle cry. Many Democratic-leaning national organizations are offering up support to her.

But will it work. Is the motivation amongst many progressive-minded voters to dump anyone perceived as not openly hostile to Donald Trump capable of providing enough voter support to enable Newman to beat Lipinski?

Or is there still enough of the old spirit of the Sout’ Side remaining to send Dan back to Capitol Hill? We’ll know better come Tuesday night.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: I happened to read through some of the old copy published at this weblog when I found this Feb. 3, 2008 commentary about Lipinski being challenged by Mark Pera (remember him, I don’t). It amazes me about how some realities of Chicago and its political scene haven’t changed one bit during the past decade.

Some people determined to be grouchy

You’d think those people who want to view a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy as some form of criminal act would be happy; the Illinois Department of Public Health came out with figures showing the number of women who aborted pregnancies in Illinois is at a low.

It also seems the number of women from Illinois who are feeling the need to have an abortion is at a low; with many of the women getting abortions in our state actually coming from surrounding states.

BUT MANY OF those who use the “pro-life” label even though the truth of it is that they’re opposed to abortion and could care less about the larger-scale issues of life are expressing their outrage.

They used the Chicago Tribune to express their disgust, as the Tribune reported on how the number of abortions done in Illinois is down by 3.7 percent in 2016, compared to 2010.

While there is a 41.5 percent increase in the number of women coming from other states to Illinois to terminate a pregnancy.

Part of it is the perception created by Gov. Bruce Rauner when he approved legislation ensuring that those relying on public health programs such as Medicaid for their healthcare can have the cost of their procedure covered.

THAT, OF COURSE, is one of the measures that has Jeanne Ives all riled up against him in this year’s primary election cycle. Although it may well be that after March 20, Ives and her rants will be history.

But the longer-lasting issue is that Illinois doesn’t have the many restrictive measures such as exist in surrounding states that make it complicated for a woman to terminate a pregnancy.

It’s part of the long-lasting strategy of the conservative ideologues who, if they can’t have the procedure made illegal, can make it a pain in the keister for a woman to actually obtain.

From the 72-hour time period before an abortion during which a woman must receive counseling (to advise her on the evils of what she’s contemplating doing) in Missouri, to the ultrasounds a woman must receive in Indiana (to try to make her feel guilty about the process) to the possible new law in Iowa that would outlaw abortion any time after a fetal heartbeat is detected, it’s all about gumming up the works.

THE 1973 ROE v. Wade ruling be damned; the consequences of a child being raised by a parent incapable of caring for it aren’t important. It all becomes about letting a woman know her place – and that is to procreate.

Of course, the notion that Illinois is a lot more sensible than the surrounding states of the Midwest is not new.

If Illinois’ sensibilities prevailed, there’s no way we’d have a “President Donald J. Trump.” It wouldn’t have mattered that there were parts of the state that took his ’16 campaign rhetoric/trash talk seriously.

But this is an issue that displays this variance in attitude all-too-clearly. Illinois has become the place where women have to turn to in order to receive a bit of medical care that other states want to play moralistic games with.

OF COURSE, I found it most interesting to read the Tribune account’s line of reasoning for the abortion decline in Illinois. Planned Parenthood officials say it is because women are getting better access to information about birth control – which means unwanted pregnancies aren’t occurring in the first place.

Although that, I’m sure, is a concept that offends the ideologues amongst us as well. Why would a woman want to avoid pregnancy if that is supposedly her primary purpose in life?

Illinois differs from neighboring states in many ways

Which is, in itself, a backward line of thought. Taking away from the freedom of choice about our lives that our society is supposedly based upon.

Then again, there are those who are just determined to complain. What would our society be without its malcontents who have a twisted sense of decency, and think we’re all supposed to live in a subservient position under them?

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Truly offended? Or just candidates in desperate need of attention?

Jeanne Ives, the Republican state senator from Wheaton who wants to run for governor as the candidate who will impose conservative ideologue thoughts upon all of Illinois, is managing to play off so many stereotypes in her latest campaign advertisement that is drawing far more attention than it deserves.

You know, the ad that features a transvestite, a black union member, a non-citizen who shouldn’t be in the U.S. anyway and a slutty liberal woman who keeps needing abortions to terminate her pregnancies – all of whom “thank” Bruce Rauner for his policies since becoming governor early in 2015.

IMPLYING THAT NONE of these kinds of people would be supportive of an Ives governorship, and do you really want to be among these freaks of nature come Election Day?

This ad is bound to offend, although I’m sure the Ives camp views it as one where the people offended most are the ones who never would have considered casting a ballot for her in the first place.

Which is why I have found it interesting to see a few political candidates of the Republican persuasion who felt compelled to issue a public statement lambasting Ives.

Specifically, GOP attorney general candidate Erika Harold and state treasurer hopeful Jim Dodge are the ones speaking out when most establishment Republican types are keeping their mouths shut!

HAROLD: Crown not enough to win?

AND WHO, QUITE frankly, are among the fringe candidates that show how weak the Illinois Republican Party has become in this century. Surely, none of these people would have been taken seriously by the GOP of 1994 – the year that Jim Edgar got re-elected overwhelmingly and every single Republican running for state office also won.

Honestly, the only reason either Harold or Dodge will still be alive politically beyond March 20 is because they’re running unopposed in the Republican primary.

Now, they’re issuing statements condemning the Ives campaign’s bigotry – largely because it would seem they don’t want to get their unopposed candidacies dragged down in the muck of racial, gender or immigration politics before they even get started in their campaigning for the actual election come Nov. 6.

 

DODGE: Needs to break ties to GOP far-right?

It’s noble, but I suspect they wish they could get away with saying nothing. But unlike other candidates who have enough of a track record politically, they have to speak out now.

FOR WHAT IT’S worth, Harold is the one-time Miss America (2003) who has run for congressional posts from central Illinois (she’s an Urbana native), but has never won in her own primary.

While Dodge is a long-time official within municipal government in suburban Orland Park – a government I once covered back in my early late-1980’s days as a reporter-type person.

He tried running for Illinois comptroller in 2010, but failed. Like Harold, he’s only succeeding in this year’s primary because he’s unopposed.

Honestly, it’s not like Orland Park government is a path to higher office. I still remember when then-Mayor Dan McLaughlin tried running for state treasurer in 1998, only to lose to Judy Baar Topinka. McLaughlin went back to being mayor until losing his bid for re-election last year to a seventh term.

MAYBE DODGE THINKS being a suburban Republican (instead of a Democrat like McLaughlin) makes a difference. Although it could mean he gets caught up in all the ideologue nonsense that’s likely to hurt Republican candidates in general outside of the most rural parts of Illinois. Which makes their comment on such a campaign ad all the more essential.

 

IVES: How long until she's nobody?

The people who probably will see the Ives spot, focus on that frizzy-haired dame in the Chicago Teachers Union t-shirt and be particularly offended. Or maybe they’ll be most bothered by the masked-dude without the valid visa.

Although some have pointed out that the guy who appears in the mask is so clearly a white guy – possibly an Irishman of sorts. Could it be that no Latino actor could be found who would appear in such a tacky campaign ad?

Which will make it all the better if the Ives campaign withers away after the March 20 primary and becomes a soon-to-be forgotten memory – in large part because of campaign ads such as this.

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Illinois Dems’ biggest plus may be that GOPers can’t play nice w/ each other

Republican sympathizers in Illinois wishing to retain the governor’s post in next year’s election cycle are counting in part on the notion of multiple candidates on the Democratic side taking shots at each other – knocking each other around and bloodying each other up to the point where none of them can win the ultimate election.

Can Ives' anti-abortion credentials ...

Yet it appears more and more those Republican operatives ought to look seriously at the damage they’re likely to do to themselves as they try to see whether Bruce Rauner is capable of retaining his governmental post.

RAUNER seems to have begun the active campaigning this week – just over a year away from the Nov. 6 general election (and in advance of the March 20 GOP primary).

His gimmick this week was to don the leather vest and climb aboard his motorcycle, making a ride from Chicago to Springfield and making stops along the way.

Rauner is a wealthy business executive with enough money that he practically IS the Republican Party these days – he’ll self-fund his own re-election campaign and those of sympathetic legislators to try to sway the General Assembly into a rubber stamp that gives him what he wants.

Instead of its current form of existence under Democratic legislative leaders who are more than eager to ensure that Rauner gets NOTHING. Although considering that many of the things Rauner wants are a series of changes meant to undermine the influence of organized labor within government, it shouldn’t be a surprise they’re hostile to him!

BUT NOW, BIKER Rauner is riding around, trying to make himself appear to be a few steps lower on the economic status ladder – almost as if he’s one of us, instead of looking down on us “little people.”

It will be intriguing to see how effective he can be, since Rauner has a challenger.

State Rep. Jeanne Ives, R-Wheaton, who during her stint in Springfield has shown herself to be an ideologue of the hardest core on social conservative stances on issues, said this week she’s doing the exploratory route to see if she can be a viable candidate for the Republican nomination.

... undermine Rauner's financial advantage?

She only has a few thousand dollars (coming from assorted right-wing issue groups) that would fall far short of the roughly $65 million that Rauner has available.

BUT SHE’S COUNTING on the ideological wars to lead her to victory – she’s amongst the Republicans who will forevermore be peeved that Rauner signed into law a measure that permits Medicaid funds to be used in Illinois by lower-income women wishing to terminate a pregnancy.

Making it difficult for people to actually obtain abortion services has always been a tactic of the anti-abortion movement (figuring they’ll reduce abortion to a theoretical right that isn’t easily obtained).

Rauner’s conduct during his time as governor has stirred up much resentment amongst the two-thirds of Illinoisans who live in the Chicago metro portion of the state. Any Republican campaign is going to focus on the remaining rural third of Illinois.

She’s also the one who has said people who support transgender rights are the equivalent of “dirty old men” in that they’re exposing children to something immoral. Ives is hoping that talking like an ideologue and openly bashing about Rauner can help her undermine his vast financial advantage and lead her to a primary victory.

PRITZKER: Will he be beneficiary of Ives' attacks?

 WHETHER SHE’D BE able to compete in a general election is questionable. She may come from the right-leaning town of Wheaton, but the DuPage County Republican organization isn’t what it once was – heck, Hillary Clinton won the 2016 general election in DuPage and all the other suburban counties (except for McHenry).

For as much as Republican operatives are counting on J.B. Pritzker, Christopher Kennedy and all the other Democratic gubernatorial dreamers to smack each other around, they may want to watch their own behavior in coming months.

For the Republican primary election cycle is going to be a test of whether Rauner’s overwhelming financial assets (and the advantages of incumbency) can be overcome by ideologues willing to bash people about for one of the few actions that Chicago-area voters may be willing to credit Rauner for.

In the end, 2018 will be the election cycle where we see which political party is capable of beating up on its own most intensely.

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Abortion vs. pop tax – which makes for a more unpopular political figure?

The 2018 election cycle will be intriguing to see which one of two high-ranking officials winds up becoming the most unpopular, and if they can manage to win re-election despite the levels of contempt felt towards them by the populace.

PRECKWINKLE: Pop tax provide gas for her demise?

I’m referring to Gov. Bruce Rauner and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle – both of whom I’m sure feel in their hearts they did the “right” thing, but are likely to face their share of crackpots determined to see to it that both of them lose their dreams of re-election.

NOW I’M SURE that in terms of raw numbers, Rauner has more enemies because he’s running for office across Illinois. For Preckwinkle, she doesn’t have to care about what people outside of Cook County think.

But she may have the more intense level of disgust being sent in her direction.

That’s how unpopular the pop tax has become amongst some people. The Capitol Fax newsletter reported Thursday how many people are refusing to sign the nominating petitions for the slate of preferred Democratic candidates running in Cook County because it contains Preckwinkle’s name.

Toni has the advantage of not (as of yet) having an opponent challenging her for the county board presidency. But people peeved because of the pop tax (that one cent per ounce on sweetened beverages) want to make it clear they aren’t fond of the tax that can boost the cost of a 2-liter bottle of pop by about 65 cents.

SOME PEOPLE ARE going so far as to write little messages on nominating petitions so as to express their desire that Preckwinkle go down to defeat.

Now the trick is to whether Preckwinkle can overcome the level of disgust against her between now and the March 20 primary or the Nov. 6 general elections. There is time. And like I stated before, she really doesn’t have a serious opponent yet. Until we know what the alternative is, any talk of a challenge is purely theoretical.

But we’ll have to see what happens Tuesday when the county board’s Finance committee reviews a measure to abolish the pop tax just months after it took place. And if the full county board follows through Wednesday to approve that measure.

RAUNER: Abortion critics and budget blasts?

There is pressure being put by the lobbyists for the soft drink industry on county board members to vote to erase the tax. But there aren’t really many politicos coming out and saying they’d be willing to dump the tax (only commissioner John Daley, D-Chicago, thus far). You’d think people would want to publicly state as soon as possible that they’re changing their vote!

COULD IT BE that the efforts to erase the tax ultimately will wither away, and that the pop tax will remain in place? And would-be voters will have to express themselves by either voting against Preckwinkle or (if she doesn’t ever develop a serious opponent) by merely not voting at all?

I’m sure Republican political operatives want to believe that Preckwinkle is going to be the ultimate drag on the ticket that will lead the GOP to electoral success come 2018. But the reality is that the real drag on the tickets in Illinois will be the Donald Trump persona.

Which is likely to motivate much of metro Chicago into turning out to vote for people they will perceive as being willing to stand up to the crackpot persona of our nation’s current president.

Not only that, but Rauner has his share of hostile would-be voters in Chicago because of the many actions he has taken during his two-plus years as governor that have created the perception of an Illinois government incapable of doing anything.

TRUMP: The ultimate in political unpopularity?

I’M SURE THE rural part of Illinois would be willing to come to Rauner’s defense (“Blame Madigan!!!,” they’ll retort) on the long delays in putting together a state budget or in approving education funding

But many of those people seem determined to turn on Rauner because of the abortion issue. The fact that he signed off on a measure undermining their long desire to restrict Medicaid funds from being used to help lower-income women terminate a pregnancy means he can’t be trusted – in their mindset.

And unlike Preckwinkle, Rauner has serious challengers on the Democratic Party side of the equation – although Republicans seem determined to believe that the Dems in the running are too ineffectual to mount a serious challenge.

Either way, it would seem that ’18 is going to be a campaign cycle filled with hostile rhetoric – with the only question being whether it will be the “Preckwinkle” or “Rauner” name that gets tarred and feathered the most.

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